III. GROTESQUE RENAISSANCE 161

refined and more highly educated than those who only play necessarily; their power of pleasure-seeking implies, in general, fortunate circumstances of life. It is evident also that their play will not be so hearty, so simple, or so joyful; and this deficiency of brightness will affect it in proportion to its unnecessary and unlawful continuance, until at last it becomes a restless and dissatisfied indulgence in excitement, or a painful delving after exhausted springs of pleasure.

The art through which this temper is expressed will, in all probability, be refined and sensual,-therefore, also assuredly feeble; and because, in the failure of the joyful energy of the mind, there will fail, also, its perceptions and its sympathies, it will be entirely deficient in expression of character and acuteness of thought, but will be peculiarly restless, manifesting its desire for excitement in idle changes of subject and purpose. Incapable of true imagination, it will seek to supply its place by exaggerations, incoherences, and monstrosities; and the form of the grotesque to which it gives rise will be an incongruous chain of hackneyed graces, idly thrown together,-prettinesses or sublimities, not of its own invention, associated in forms which will be absurd without being fantastic, and monstrous without being terrible. And because, in the continual pursuit of pleasure, men lose both cheerfulness and charity, there will be small hilarity, but much malice, in this grotesque; yet a weak malice, incapable of expressing its own bitterness, not having grasp enough of truth to become forcible, and exhausting itself in impotent or disgusting caricature.

§ 39. Of course, there are infinite ranks and kinds of this grotesque, according to the natural power of the minds which originate it, and to the degree in which they have lost themselves. Its highest condition¹ is that which first developed

¹ [Here the “Travellers’ Edition” begins again, from the point where it left off in § 22, above (“He will then have obtained a perfect idea of the style and feeling of the Grotesque Renaissance”), the following paragraph being inserted to connect:-

“We are again (1881) so fast sinking to the level of it ourselves that the English connoisseur will perhaps admire both. But he may be assured of the historical fact that it is a constant sign of national decrepitude. Its highest condition is...”]

XI. L

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