Page:Three Lectures on Aesthetic (1915).djvu/129

114 form, and all bearing upon the whole! how lightly the enormous firm-based building rises into the air, how broken it is, and yet how eternal! And so do I not well to be angry when the German art-scholar mistakes his own advantage, and disparages this work with the unintelligible term ‘Gothic’! . ..

“But you, dear youth, shall be my companion, you who stand there in emotion, unable to reconcile the contradictions which conflict in your soul; who now feel the irresistible power of the great totality, and now chide me for a dreamer, that I see beauty, where you see only strength and roughness.

“Do not let a misconception come between us; do not let the effeminate doctrine of the modern beauty-monger make you too tender to enjoy significant roughness, lest in the end your enfeebled feeling should be able to endure nothing but unmeaning smoothness. They try to make you believe that the fine arts arose from our supposed inclination to beautify