“Yes, I think I do. I’m sure her view of the play is founded on reason which is a faculty perfectly incapable of judging works of art.”
“Indeed, what do you judge by, then?”
“Why, by impulse, by instinct. You don’t want to reason about beautiful things, or find out why they are beautiful. You want just to enjoy them, to lose yourself in their beauty.”
“A rather dangerous view, surely?”
“Why dangerous?” asked Hugh.
The upper lip again lengthened itself.
“Because it rather implies that you exempt beauty from other standards, such as those of morals and enlightenment. Of course, I am sure you can’t mean that. Shall we go?”
Hugh got up.
“Do I mean that?” he asked. “I’m not sure that I don’t.”
“My dear fellow, of course you can’t. I should like to discuss it with you, but we have received our marching orders, have we not? But, indeed, the point is rather fully discussed in the paper that Mrs. Owen insists on my reading.”