84 The Rice Institute Pamphlet
less than that the æsthetes should never open their mouths
in ecstasy about art, that they should silently degustate their
joys, and, at the most, that when they met their like they
should understand one another, as animals are said to do
(who knows, though, if it be true!) without speaking: their
countenance unconsciously bearing an expression of ravish-
ment, their arms outstretched in an attitude of wonder, or
their hands joined in a prayer of thanksgiving for the joy ex-
perienced, should suffice for everything. Historians, for their
part, might certainly speak: speak of codices, of corrections,
of chronical and of topical dates, of political facts, of bio-
graphical occurrences, of sources of works, of language, of
syntaxes, of metres, but never of art, which they serve, but
to whose countenance, as simple erudites, they cannot raise
their eyes, as the maid-servant does not raise them to look
upon her mistress, whose clothes she nevertheless brushes
and whose food she prepares : sic vos, non υobis. But go and
ask of men such abstentions, sacrifices, and heroisms, how-
ever extravagant in their ideas and fanatic in their extrava-
gances! In particular, go and ask those who, for one or an-
other reason, are occupied with art all their fives, not to talk
of or to judge art! But the mute æsthetistieians talk of,
judge, and argue about art, and the inconclusive histori-
cians do the same; and since in thus talking they are without
the guide of philosophy and of the concept of art, which
they despise and abhor, and yet have need of a concept,—
when good sense does not fortunately happen to suggest the
right one to them, without their being aware of it,—they
wander among all the various preconceptions, moralistic and
hedonistic, intellectualiste and contentistic, formalistic and
rhetorical, physiological and academical, which I have re-
corded, now relying upon this one, now upon that, now con-