Page:The nature and elements of poetry, Stedman, 1892.djvu/190

160 momentous progress in art and song would be recorded. As it is, we are intellectually aware of its nobility; but anon our sense of delight in it is blunted,—we have no zest in its repetition, being to the manner born. Zest is the sensation most '''Fashion. Cp. "Poets of America": pp. 273, 274.''' worth possessing. The eager student instinct is right in essaying discovery and revival, since only thus can zest be sustained, and, for the sake of this, occasional changes even to fashions of minor worth are not to be scouted. The element of strangeness itself conveys a peculiar effect of beauty. This, by the way, is the strength of the Grotesque, a subordinate form of art and at its best accessory.

You will observe that after most revolts the Renaissance. schools go back, in time, to certain ideals,—to those which become academic because the highest. They recover zest for these, having wearied of some passing fashion or revival. An occasional separation is not a bad thing, after all, in friendship, art, or marriage. Thus it was that the classic Renaissance of Italy reopened a world of beauty, and began a fresh creative period, in which new styles of painting, moulding, architecture arose, different from the antique, but inspired by it, and possible because the spirit of beauty itself was reborn.

We constantly have illustrations of the dependence of artistic zest upon the stimulus of novelty. Some of you possibly were brought up in our old