I WONDER why some things are? For instance,
Art is allowed as much indecent license to-day
as in earlier times--but the privileges of Literature
in this respect have been sharply curtailed within the
past eighty or ninety years. Fielding and Smollett
could portray the beastliness of their day in the
beastliest language; we have plenty of foul subjects
to deal with in our day, but we are not allowed to
approach them very near, even with nice and
guarded forms of speech. But not so with Art.
The brush may still deal freely with any subject,
however revolting or indelicate. It makes a body
ooze sarcasm at every pore, to go about Rome and
Florence and see what this last generation has been
doing with the statues. These works, which had
stood in innocent nakedness for ages, are all fig-
leaved now. Yes, every one of them. Nobody
noticed their nakedness before, perhaps; nobody can
help noticing it now, the fig-leaf makes it so conspicu-
ous. But the comical thing about it all, is, that the
fig-leaf is confined to cold and pallid marble, which
would be still cold and unsuggestive without this
sham and ostentatious symbol of modesty, whereas
warm-blooded paintings which do really need it have
in no case been furnished with it.

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