Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 6.djvu/497

Rh Henrietta.—Favour us, Seyton, with your opinion.

Seyton.—I should propose a compromise. Why should our pictures be better than ourselves? Our nature seems to have two sides, which cannot exist separately. Light and darkness, good and evil, height and depth, virtue and vice, and a thousand other contradictions unequally distributed, appear to constitute the component parts of human nature; and why, therefore, should I blame an artist, who, whilst he paints an angel bright, brilliant, and beautiful, on the other hand paints a devil black, ugly, and hateful?

Amelia.—There could be no objection to such a course, if caricaturists did not introduce within their province subjects which belong to higher spheres.

Seyton.—So far, I think you perfectly right. But artists, whose province is the Beautiful alone, also appropriate what does not precisely belong to them.

Amelia.—I have no patience, however, with caricaturists who ridicule the portraits of eminent men. In spite of my better sense, I can never consider that great man Pitt as anything else than a snub-nosed broomstick; and Fox, who was in many respects an estimable character, anything better than a pig stuffed to its utmost capacity.

Henrietta.—Precisely my view. Caricatures of such a nature make an indelible impression, and I cannot deny that it often affords amusement to evoke their recollection and pervert them even into worse distortions.

Sinclair.—But, ladies, allow us to revert for a moment from this discussion to a consideration of our engravings.

Seyton.—I observe that a fancy for dogs is here delineated in no very flattering manner.

Amelia.—I have no objection, for I detest these animals.