And now I think one can begin to see why literature (or if you think that too pretentious a word, say letterpress) fails to do justice to clowns. Other comic personages have their verbal jokes, which can be quoted in evidence, but the clown (certainly the clown of the Grock type) is a joke confined to appearance and action. His effects, too, are all of the simplest and broadest—the obvious things (obvious when he has invented them) which are the most difficult of all to translate into prose. You see, I have been driven to depend on general epithets like grotesque, bland, _macabre_, which fit the man too loosely (like ready-made clothes cut to fit innumerable men) to give you his exact measure. My only consolation is that I have failed with the best. Grock, with all his erudition, all his nicety of analysis, has failed to realize Pulcinella for me. And that is where clowns may enjoy a secret, malign pleasure; they proudly confront a universe which delights in them but cannot describe them. A critic may say to an acrobat, for instance:—“I cannot swing on your trapeze, but I can understand you, while you cannot understand me.” But Grock seems to understand everything (he could do no less, with that noble forehead), probably even critics, while they, poor souls, can only struggle helplessly with their inadequate adjectives, and give him up. But if he condescended to criticism, be sure he would not struggle helplessly. He would blandly thrust his feet through the seat of his chair, and then write his criticism with them. And (Grock is a Frenchman) it would be better than Sainte-Beuve. THE FUNCTION OF CRITICISM