There are, however, works of art in which sheer evil, without any
compensating development of character, is portrayed; where indeed the
struggle may even cause decay of character. In Zola's _The Dram
Shop_, for example, the story is the tale of the moral decline,
through unfortunate circumstances and vicious surroundings, of the
sweet, pliant Gervaise. Instead of developing a resistance to
circumstances which would have made them yield a value even in defeat,
she lets herself go and is spoiled beneath them. She has no friend to
help or guardian angel to save. We do not blame her, for, with her
soft nature, she could not do otherwise than crumble under the hard
press of fate; neither can we admire her, for she lacks the adamantine
stuff of which heroes are made. This is pathos, not tragedy. And just
as most of human life involves tragedy in so far as it develops a
strength to meet the dangers which threaten it, so likewise it involves
pathos, in so far as it seldom resists at every point, but gives way,
blighted without hope. Many a man or woman issues from life's conflicts
weaker, not stronger; broken, not defiant; petulant, not sweetened;
and at the hour of death there are few heroes. Yet there may be beauty
in the story of this human weakness and weariness. Whence comes it?
How can the representation of this sheer evil become a good? The
principle involved is a simple one. Announced first, as far as I know,
by Mendelssohn, it has recently been much more scientifically and
penetratingly analyzed by Lipps, although wrongly applied by him to
the tragic rather than the pathetic.
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