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COUNTERCHECK QUARRELSOME 171
The poor fellow who has gone through with a
picture to the very end and has got it hung
will always, I suspect, consider it a work of
art ; and I hope that some of his friends will
have the humanity to back him up. Therefore
. . . well, we must be catholic. But
Mr. Randall Davies, who deals out, week
after week, column after column of aesthetic
judgments, may surely be invited by his
readers to disclose the criteria by which he
distinguishes between works of art and rubbish.
If a work of art be that which any one judges
to be a work of art, we may as well consult
the first policeman we meet instead of going
for an opinion to a paid expert.
If Mr. Davies had understood the very
simple language in which I stated my position,
he would have realized that when I say that
Paddington Station is not a work of art I mean
that Paddington Station does not provoke in
me an aesthetic emotion, and that I believe we
can have no reason for thinking a thing to be
a work of art except that we feel it to be one.
Paddington Station did not move me ;
there-
fore I had no reason for judging it a work of
art, but, of course, I may have looked at the
picture stupidly and remained insensitive to
the real significance
of its forms. If Mr.
Davies had understood the very simple language
in which I stated my position, he would