Note 216 — Chapter X · THE ÆSTHETIC SENTIMENT.

I shall be pardoned for introducing the following passage from Théophile Gautier; it is, under its humorous form, so just from a psychological point of view: “Ideals torment even the coarsest natures. The savage, when he tattooes himself, or smears his body with red and blue, or sticks a fish-bone through his nose, is only obeying a confused sense of the beautiful. He is seeking for something beyond what exists; he is trying to perfect his type, guided by a dim notion of art. The taste for ornament distinguishes man from brute more clearly than any other peculiarity. No dog ever thought of putting rings into his ears; and the stupid Papuans, who eat clay and earthworms, make themselves earrings of shells and coloured berries.”