There is
nothing, however, which the critics--those men who have failed in
literature and art--will not venture to attack, and I thought it
advisable to tone down my expectations by taking a dose of carping
criticism. Unfortunately for me, however, when I had got fairly in
with a writer who assures me "the design is weak and feeble," the
"shadows are much too thin," this misleader left me in a worse
condition than ever, for succumbing at last to the sweet
overpowering charms of the structure as a whole, and apparently
ashamed of himself for ever having dared to say one word against
its perfections, he adds--just after he had bravely done the
"design" and the "shadows"--"but the Taj is like a lovely woman:
abuse her as you please, the moment you come into her presence you
submit to her fascinations." Pretty criticism this for one who
wishes the faults of this beauty clearly set forth! I put this
lover of the Taj aside at once and try another writer, who does
indeed give me a page of preventive, well suited to one in my
condition, but upon turning over the page he too falls sadly away,
for here is his last line:
"The rare genius of the calm building finds its way unchallenged
to the heart."
Well, then, gentlemen, if all this be so, what's the use of your
petty criticism? If this marvel, before whose spell all men, even
you yourselves, must bow, has a "rigidity of outline," an "air of
littleness and luxury," a "poverty of relief," and if "the inlaid
work has been vulgarly employed," and the patterns are "meagre in
the extreme," wasn't it the highest aim that its builder could
probably have had in view, to entrance the world and give to it a
thing of beauty which is indeed a joy forever? and doesn't the Taj
do this so far beyond all other human structures that no one
thinks of naming another in comparison? And should not this
incontrovertible fact teach you a lesson--just a little bit of
modesty? No, gentlemen; it isn't the Taj that must be changed,
either in its outline or shadows, to conform to your canons of
criticism, but your canons of art that must be changed to embrace
the Taj, or rather to set it apart, as a stroke of original
genius, and consequently above and beyond the domain of criticism;
for criticism, like science, works solidly only upon what is
absolutely known, formulating its fixed decrees upon the past.
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