Page:Three Lectures on Aesthetic (1915).djvu/54

Rh

The simplest cases of aesthetic utterance, the easiest to apprehend and explain, are some which I should like to call, in a usage which I am aware is very lax, a priori embodiments of the aesthetic spirit. We spoke in the last lecture of the square and the cube, which carry their steadiness, and sturdiness, and equality in all directions, actually written on their faces. That’s all square, we say. We do not pledge ourselves to any one special meaning expressed in words. An aesthetic embodiment can be embodied in nothing but itself. But the constant application of expressions like those cited here and above suffice to show that these simple patterns are obvious or a priori embodiments of simple feelings. Along with them we may place simple rhythms, simple melodies, the pulsations of the dance, and the like. These are in fact simple patterns; and all of them have obvious analogies with each other. Hogarth described his enjoyment of the “stick and ribbon ornament” (the guilloche) as like that of watching a