144 LITEKAEY VALUES 



indirectly a criticism of life. He is moral without 

 having a moral. The moment a moral or an im- 

 moral intention obtrudes itself, that moment he be- 

 gins to fall from grace as an artist. He confesses his 

 inability to let nature speak for herself. He is in- 

 adequate to the logic of events, and gives us a logic 

 of his own. Shakespeare is our highest type of the 

 disinterested artist. Does he do aught but hold the 

 mirror up to nature ? Is his work overlaid with an 

 avowed moral intention ? Does he go behind the 

 returns, so to speak ? Does he tamper with the 

 logic of events, the fate of character ? What is the 

 moral of " Hamlet " ? Has any one yet found out ? 

 Yet the plays all fall within the scope of moral 

 ideas ; they treat moral ideas with energy and depth, 

 as Voltaire said of English poetry in general. 



We must discriminate between a conscious moral 

 purpose and an unconscious moral impulse. A work 

 of art arises primarily out of the emotions, and not out 

 of the intellect, and is sound and true to the extent to 

 which it repeats the method of nature. Euskin, 

 whom Mr. Gladden quotes, was of course right when 

 he said that the art of a nation is an exponent of its 

 ethical state. But the condition of first importance 

 with the artist is, not that he should have an ethi- 

 cal purpose, but that he should be ethically sound. 

 He may work with ethical ideas, but not directly 

 for them. The preacher speaks for them ; the poet 

 speaks out of them, — he plays with them, he takes 

 his will of them ; they follow, but do not leo^ ^im.. 

 Again, Euskin says, "He is the greatest artist who 



