logically, but with things as they appear to him. The work of the
impressionist painter or the imagist poet illustrates this conception. The
conventions of the stage are likewise a case in point. Stage settings,
conversations, actions, are all affected by the "_optique du theatre_"
they are composed in a certain "key" which seeks to give a harmonious
impression, but which conveys frankly semblance and not reality. The
craving for "real" effects upon the stage is anti-aesthetic, like those
gladiatorial shows where persons were actually killed. I once saw an
unskilful fencer, acting the part of Romeo, really wound Tybalt: the
effect was lifelike, beyond question, but it was shocking.

From this doctrine of aesthetic semblance or "appearance" many thinkers
have drawn the conclusion that the pleasures afforded by art must in their
very nature be disinterested and sharable. Disinterested, because they
consist so largely in delighted contemplation merely. Women on the stage,
said Coquelin, should afford to the spectator "a theatrical pleasure only,
and not the pleasure of a lover." Compare with this the sprightly egotism
of the lyric poet's

"If she be not so to me,
What care I how fair she be?"

A certain aloofness is often felt to characterize great art: it is
perceived in the austerity and reserve of the Psyche of Naples and the
Venus of Melos:

"And music pours on mortals
Its beautiful disdain."

The lower pleasures of the senses of taste and touch, it is often pointed