They will be full of sound and fury, but they will signify nothing.

What they produce in us will be not interest but a kind of wondering weariness--weariness at the weary fate of men who could '_think so brainsickly of things_.' So in like manner will all the emphasis and elaboration in the literature of sensuality become a weariness without meaning, also.

Congreve's caustic wit will turn to spasmodic truism; and Theophile Gautier's excess of erotic ardour, into prolix and fantastic affectation.

All its sublimity, its brilliance, and a large part of its interest, depend in art on the existence of the moral sense, and would in its absence be absolutely unproducible.

The reason of this is plain.