The man of whom Delsarte speaks is not confined to such or
such a category of the species. He proposes that aesthetics should
interpret an all-comprehensive human nature, which is not made up alone
of baseness, egotism and duplicity. Though it be subject to perversion,
it has its luminous aspects, its radiant sides, and we should not too
long turn our eyes from them.
Artistically, evil or the Hideous (which is also evil) should never be
used except as a foil. There is no immorality in exhibiting the
prevailing vices of the epoch, but this is the physician's duty. The
evil lies in presenting these evils under such forms as may lead many to
enjoy or tolerate them, giving them the additional power of a charming
style and the specious arguments of fatality. This is precisely the case
of M. Zola. The glamor of his disturbing theory, which annihilates free
will, gives to his works a philosophical appearance. He conceals its
vacuity beneath forms of a highly-colored style, an amiable negligence
and a facility that is benumbing to thought. As he asserts nothing, no
one dreams of contradicting, and one finds himself entwined in a network
of repulsive depravity without a ray of healthful protection or
correction. In comparison with the blight of this disastrous system of
fatality, the coarseness of the writer's language, so loudly censured,
is relatively unimportant. The _simplisme_ of M. Zola is not absolute,
as but one of the three constituent modalities is omitted, that one
being morality.
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