occasional aesthete, the commonest sense of the word is unaesthetic. Of
its grosser abuse, patent in our chatter about "beautiful huntin'" and
"beautiful shootin'," I need not take account; it would be open to the
precious to reply that they never do so abuse it. Besides, here there is
no danger of confusion between the aesthetic and the non-aesthetic use;
but when we speak of a beautiful woman there is. When an ordinary man
speaks of a beautiful woman he certainly does not mean only that she
moves him aesthetically; but when an artist calls a withered old hag
beautiful he may sometimes mean what he means when he calls a battered
torso beautiful. The ordinary man, if he be also a man of taste, will
call the battered torso beautiful, but he will not call a withered hag
beautiful because, in the matter of women, it is not to the aesthetic
quality that the hag may possess, but to some other quality that he
assigns the epithet. Indeed, most of us never dream of going for
aesthetic emotions to human beings, from whom we ask something very
different. This "something," when we find it in a young woman, we are
apt to call "beauty." We live in a nice age. With the man-in-the-street
"beautiful" is more often than not synonymous with "desirable"; the word
does not necessarily connote any aesthetic reaction whatever, and I am
tempted to believe that in the minds of many the sexual flavour of the
word is stronger than the aesthetic. I have noticed a consistency in
those to whom the most beautiful thing in the world is a beautiful
woman, and the next most beautiful thing a picture of one. The confusion
between aesthetic and sensual beauty is not in their case so great as
might be supposed. Perhaps there is none; for perhaps they have never
had an aesthetic emotion to confuse with their other emotions. The art
that they call "beautiful" is generally closely related to the women. A
beautiful picture is a photograph of a pretty girl; beautiful music, the
music that provokes emotions similar to those provoked by young ladies
in musical farces; and beautiful poetry, the poetry that recalls the