You see how the proposition demonstrates its own absurdity. Théophile Gautier was during his entire lifetime a fanatical preacher, a propagandist of sensuality and materialism, a glorified barber and tailor, a publicity man for the Association of Merchants of Tapestries, Furniture and Jewelry. When he writes a poem on the subject of a rose-colored dress, he asks you to believe that he is really interested in the rose-colored dress, but you may be sure that he is no such fool; he writes about the rose-colored dress as an act of social defiance. He says: There are imbeciles in the world who believe in religion, in moral sense, in virtue, self-restraint and idealism, subjects which bore me to extinction; in order to show my contempt for such imbeciles, I proceed to prove that the greatest poem in the world can be written on a rose-colored dress or on a roof, or on my watch, or on smoke, or on whatever unlikely subject crosses my mind; I consecrate myself to this task, I become a moral anti-moralist, a propagandist of no-propaganda. What are the products of nature bearing most resemblance to enamels and cameos? They are certain kinds of insects, beautiful, hard, shiny, brilliantly colored, repulsive, cruel, and poisonous. Such is the art of Théophile Gautier and his successors, who have made French literature a curse for a hundred years. This literature possesses prestige because of its perfection of form; therefore it is important to get clear in our minds the fact that the ability to fit words together in intricate patterns is a thing ranking very low in the scale of human faculties. The feats of the art-for-art-sakers are precisely as important as those of the man on the stage who balances three billiard-balls on the end of his nose. The piano-gymnast who leaped to world fame by his ability to wiggle his fingers more rapidly than any other living man has been definitely put out of date by the mechanical piano-player; and some day mankind will adopt a universal language, and forget all the enamels and cameos in the old useless tongues. Get it clear in your mind that external beauty is entirely compatible with deadly cruelty of intellect and spirit. A tiger is a marvelous product, from the esthetic point of view, and offers a superb theme to poets, as William Blake has shown us. “Tyger, tyger, burning bright”--but who wants this gold-striped glory in his garden? In exactly the same way, there is a mass of what is called literature, possessing the graces of form--music and glamor, elegance, passion, energy--and using all these virtues, precisely as the tiger uses his teeth and claws, to rend and destroy human life. Literary criticism which fails to take account of such vicious qualities in art works is just exactly as sensible and trustworthy as the merchant who would sell you a _cobra de capello_, with a gorgeous black and white striped hood, for a boudoir ornament and pet. CHAPTER LXIII THE CHILD OF HIS AGE