This is the case in all situations, truly, and, in a high sense,
tragic, such as the Tragedy of the ancients brings before our eyes.
Where blindly passionate forces are aroused, the collected Spirit is
present as the guardian of Beauty; but if the Spirit itself be carried
away, as by an irresistible might, what power shall watch over
and protect sacred beauty? Or, if even the soul participate in the
struggle, how shall it save itself from pain and from desecration?
Arbitrarily to restrain the power of pain, of feeling in revolt, would
be to sin against the very meaning and aim of Art, and would betray a
want of feeling and soul in the artist himself.
Already therein, that Beauty, based on grand and firmly established
forms, has become Character, Art has provided the means of displaying
without injury to symmetry the whole intensity of Feeling. For where
Beauty rests on mighty forms, as upon immovable pillars, even a slight
change in its relations, scarcely touching the form, causes us to
infer the great force that was necessary in order to provide it. Still
more does Grace sanctify pain. It is the essential nature of Grace
that it does not know itself; but not being wilfully acquired, it also
cannot be wilfully lost. When intolerable anguish, when even madness,
sent by avenging gods, takes away consciousness and reason, Grace
stands as a protecting demon by the suffering person, and prevents it
from manifesting anything unseemly, anything discordant to Humanity,
but sees to it that, if the person falls, it falls at least a pure and
unspotted victim.
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