ABSTRACT
It remains conceivable, that a work of art should have some one quality in virtue of which we recognize it as such, though there are very strong general reasons against the assumption. It is plain that a description of what happens when we feel aesthetic emotion (if ever we do) would fall into two halves. There would be a long psychological story about the organization of our impulses and instincts and of the special momentary setting of them due to our environment and our immediate past history on the one hand. On the other a physico-physiological account of the work of art as a stimulus, describing also its immediate sensory effects, and the impulses which these bring into play. The responsibility for the aesthetic emotion which results must be shared among all these factors. Even if we can detect some of the more important factors in the psychological conditions and group them as constant, as we seem to do when we talk of ‘sensitive persons’, we are still left with a very complicated set of conditions. O gentle sleep! Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee, That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down, And steep my senses in forgetfulness? Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee, And hushed with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber, Than in the perfumed chambers of the great, Under the canopies of costly state, And lulled with sounds of sweetest melody? O thou dull god! Why liest thou with the vile, In loathsome beds, and leav'st the kingly couch, A watch-case, or a common 'larum bell? Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains In cradle of the rude imperious surge, And in the visitation of the winds, Who take the ruffian billows by the top, Curling their monstrous heads and hanging them With deaf'ning clamours in the slippery clouds, That, with the hurly, death itself awakes? Can'st thou, O partial sleep! give thy repose To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude; And in the calmest and most stillest night, With all appliances and means to boot, Deny it to a king?
