, which so often prevents our realising the higher aesthetic
harmonies. In obedience to a perception of what is congruous on a
small scale we often do oddly incongruous things: spend money we ought
to save, give time and thought to trifles while neglecting to come to
conclusions about matters of importance; endure, or even cultivate,
persons with whom we have less than no sympathy; nay, sometimes, from
a keen sense of incongruity, tune down our thoughts and feelings to
the flatness of our surroundings. The phenomenon of what may thus
result from a certain aesthetic sensitiveness is discouraging, and I
confess that it used to discourage and humiliate me. But the
philosophy which the prophetess of Mautineia taught Socrates settles
the matter, and solves, satisfactorily what in my mind I always think
of as the question of the majolica inkstand.

Diotima, you will remember, did not allow her disciple to remain
engrossed in the contemplation of one kind of beauty, but particularly
insisted that he should use various fair forms as steps by which to
ascend to the knowledge of ever higher beauties. And this I should
translate into more practical language by saying that, in questions
like that of the majolica inkstand, we require not a lesser
sensitiveness to congruity, but a greater; that we must look not
merely at the smaller, but at the larger items of our life, asking
ourselves, "Is this harmonious? or is it, seen in some wider
connection, even like that clumsy glass inkstand in the oak panelled
and brocade hung room?" If we ask ourselves this, and endeavour to
answer it faithfully--with that truthfulness which is itself an item
of _consistency_--we may find that, strange as it may seem, the glass
inkstand, ugly as it is in itself, and out of harmony with the
furniture, is yet more congruous, and that we actually prefer it to
the one of majolica.

And it is in connection with this that I think that many persons who
are really aesthetic, and many more who imagine themselves to be so,
should foster a wholesome suspicion of the theory which makes it a
duty to accumulate certain kinds of possessions, to seek exclusively
certain kinds of impressions, on the score of putting beauty and
dignity into our lives.

Put beauty, dignity, harmony, serenity into our lives. It sounds very
fine. But _can_ we? I doubt it. We may put beautiful objects,
dignified manners, harmonious colours and shapes, but can we put
dignity, harmony, or be