Loud fools always do do that sort of thing. Take
quite ignorant people before almost any beautiful work of art and they
will laugh at it as absurd. If one sits on a popular evening in that
long room at South Kensington which contains Raphael's cartoons, one
remarks that perhaps a third of those who stray through and look at all
those fine efforts, titter. If one searches in the magazines of a little
while ago, one finds in the angry and resentful reception of the
Pre-Raphaelites another instance of the absolutely indefensible nature
of many of the most beautiful propositions. And as a still more striking
and remarkable case, take the onslaught made by Ruskin upon the works of
Whistler. You will remember that a libel action ensued and that these
pictures were gravely reasoned about by barristers and surveyed by
jurymen to assess their merits...
In the end it is the indefensible truth that lasts; it lasts because it
works and serves. People come to it and remain and attract other
understanding and enquiring people.
Now when I say I make my beliefs and that I cannot prove them to you and
convince you of them, that does not mean that I make them wantonly and
regardless of fact, that I throw them off as a child scribbles on a
slate.
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