The joy that is born of art is not always a simple or easily analyzed emotion. The pleasure we take in looking at the soft, white, dimpled Venus of the Capitol is something very different from that strange tugging at our heart-strings when we first see the sad and scornful beauty of the Venus of Milo, or the curious pity with which we watch the dejected Cupid of the Vatican hanging his lovely head. But with both the Venus of Milo and the Vatican Cupid, the sensation of pleasure they afford is greater than the sensation of pain, or pity, or regret. It triumphs wholly over our other emotions, and gains fullness from the conflict of our thoughts. We feel many things, but we feel pleasure most of all, and this is the final test; and the final victory of art. In the same manner, the mixed emotions with which we listen to music resolve themselves ultimately to pleasure in that music; and the mixed emotions with which we read poetry resolve themselves ultimately to pleasure in that poetry. If it were otherwise, we should know that the music and the poetry had failed in their crucial trial. If we did not feel more pleasure than pain in the tragedy of “Othello,” it would not be a great play. That we do feel more pleasure than pain, that our pleasure is subtly fed by our pain, proves it to be a masterpiece of art. There is still another point to urge. While art may instruct as well as please, it can nevertheless be true art without instructing, but not without pleasing. The former quality is accidental, the latter essential, to its being. “Enjoyment,” says Schiller, “may be only a subordinate object in life; it is the highest in art.” We cannot say that “The Eve of St. Agnes” teaches us, directly or indirectly, anything whatever. The trembling lovers, the withered Angela, the revelers, “The carved angels, ever eager-eyed,”