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170 COUNTERCHECK QUARRELSOME
score cheaply : So now we know what art is,
it is whatever you are pleased to honour with
"
your approval. But why should Mr. Bell
suppose that the forms that move him are
"
the only ones proper to move others ? says
Mr. Davies.
" Again, it is as foolish for Mr. Bell, or any
other individual, to say, as he does say, that
Frith's Paddington Station is not a work of art
as it would be for me to say that rhubarb tart
which I detest is not food. If I were the
only person in the world who ate anything,
then, I admit, I should be right in saying that
it was not food for it would not be, because
I should never eat it. And if Mr. Bell were
the only spectator of works of art on earth,
he would have a perfect right to say that
Paddington Station was not a work of art.
But as he is not the only person on earth
if he will forgive me for mentioning the fact
he has no right to say that it is not a work
of art."
If this were anything more respectable than
one of those pieces of grave but delicate
sarcasm for which I am told Mr. Davies is
doctrine in the
famous, it would be perilous
mouth of a
professional art critic. We have
no right to say that something is not a work
of art so long as other people say that it is.