man beings feel alike about anything, except perhaps for a few shifting seconds. Truth, well if there is such a thing as truth, we may at least say that it is beyond human power to recognize it.
But it is not impossible to approach Truth, to play around her, to almost catch her, to vision her, so to speak. No, that is not impossible. Natheless, the artist, the writer, the critic who most nearly approaches Truth is he who contradicts himself the oftenest and the loudest. One of the very best books James Huneker has written is a work purporting to come from the pen of a certain Old Fogy, in which that one opposes all of James's avowed opinions. It is probable, indeed, that we can get the clearest view of Huneker's ideas from this book.
Then truth is not an essential of art? I asked.
It has, of course, nothing whatever to do with art. No more has form. Life has so much form that art, which should never imitate life, should be utterly lacking in form. Criticism appears to be a case apart. Criticism is an attempt, at its worst at least, to define art and definition implies truth and error. But what the critics do not realize in their abortive efforts to capture her, is that Truth is elusive. She slips away if you try to pin her down. You must, as Matthew Arnold has said much better than I can, approach her from all sides. Even then she will elude you, for the reason I have elucidated, because she does not exist!
