"And if the artist has a non-conforming devil in him? If he's the sort of genius who can't and won't conform? Strikes me the poor old Absolute's got to climb down."
"If he's a genius—he generally isn't—he'll know that he'll express himself best by conforming. He isn't lost by it, but enlarged. Look at Greek art. There," said Jewdwine, a rapt and visionary air passing over his usually apathetic face, "the individual, the artist, is always subdued to the universal, the absolute beauty."
"And in modern art, I take it, the universal absolute beauty is subdued to the individual. That seems only fair. What you've got to reckon with is the man himself."
"Who wants the man himself? We want the thing itself—the reality, the pure object of art. Do any of your new men understand that?"
"We want it—some of us."
"Do you understand it?"
"Not I. Do you understand it yourself? Would you know it if you met it in the street?"
"It never is in the street."
"How do you know? You can't say where it is or what it is. You can't say anything about it at all. But while you're all trying to find out, the most unlikely person suddenly gets up and produces it. And he can't tell you where he got it. Though, if you ask him, ten to one he'll tell you he's been sitting on it all the time."
"Well," said Jewdwine, "tell me when you've 'sat on' anything yourself."