CHAPTER XIII
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Tolstoy, Leo, graf and Maude, Aylmer
“Oh yes, certainly! What poetry! Marvellous! Especially the birds!” “Yes, yes! I am quite vanquished!” exclaim these people, repeating in various tones what they have just heard from men whose opinion appears to them authoritative.
If some people do feel insulted by the absurdity and spuriousness of the whole thing, they are timidly silent, as sober men are timid and silent when surrounded by tipsy ones.
And thus, thanks to the masterly skill with which it counterfeits art while having nothing in common with it, a meaningless, coarse, spurious production finds acceptance all over the world, costs millions of roubles to produce, and assists more and more to pervert the taste of people of the upper classes and their conception of what is art.