“No; but it hurts them to dwell on it. That’s what modernism makes them do.”
“Life is nine-tenths unpleasant.”
“Then say so in a line. And in the rest of your story try to help people to endure those nine-tenths by forgetting them while they read about the other tenth.”
“I’m not going to mutilate truth,” retorted Annan.
“You do mutilate it. The school that influences you mutilates truth as was mutilated the body of Osiris! The school that stains you with its shadow is a school of mutilators. I’m not squeamish, Barry. I’m for plain writing. The truths leered at or slurred over or ignored by convention can be decently presented in proportion to their importance in any story.
“But satyrism in art, the satanism that worships ugliness, the perversion that twists, distorts, mutilates the human body, the human mind, nature, the only flawless masterpiece,—no, I’m not for these. I tell you that the entire modernist movement is but a celebration of The Black Mass. Crazy and sane, that is what the leaders in this school are doing. Their god is Anti-Christ; their ritual destruction. And I do not believe that Christ, all merciful, will ever say to the least guilty among these—‘Absolvo te.’”
There was a long silence. Finally Annan said: “On your side you are more savage than I on mine. I am no missionary——”
“I am. The human being who is not is negligible. I tell you that beauty is good and right. It is salvation. It is the goal. And I tell you that the use of evil is to throw beauty in brighter, more perfect relief. That is its only use in art.
“And it never should be the theme, nor bask in the spotlight, nor centre the composition. All its arrows point inward to that one divine and ultimate spot—the touch of highest value in Rembrandt’s canvasses—the supreme pinpoint of clarity and glory—Beauty—symmetrical, flawless, eternal.”