Page:A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Huebsch 1916).djvu/250

 —If that is rhythm—said Lynch—let me hear what you call beauty: and, please remember, though I did eat a cake of cowdung once, that I admire only beauty.—

Stephen raised his cap as if in greeting. Then, blushing slightly, he laid his hand on Lynch's thick tweed sleeve.

—We are right—he said—and the others are wrong. To speak of these things and to try to understand their nature and, having understood it, to try slowly and humbly and constantly to express, to press out again, from the gross earth or what it brings forth, from sound and shape and colour which are the prison gates of our soul, an image of the beauty we have come to understand—that is art.—

They had reached the canal bridge and, turning from their course, went on by the trees. A crude grey light, mirrored in the sluggish water and a smell of wet branches over their heads seemed to war against the course of Stephen's thought.

—But you have not answered my question—said Lynch—What is art? What is the beauty it expresses?—

—That was the first definition I gave you, you sleepy-headed wretch—said Stephen—when I began to try to think out the matter for myself. Do you remember the night? Cranly lost his temper and began to talk about Wicklow bacon.—

—I remember—said Lynch.—He told us about them flaming fat devils of pigs.—

—Art—said Stephen—is the human disposition of sensible or intelligible matter for an esthetic end. You remember the pigs and forget that. You are a distressing pair, you and Cranly.— [242]