the purpose were
we to acknowledge that it is largely the case with the rich, and that
for that reason the rich are apt to take more pleasure in ostentatious
display of their properties than in contemplation of such beauty as is
accessible to all men. Indeed, it is one of the ironies of the
barbarous condition we are pleased to call _civilisation_, that so
many rich men--thousands daily--are systematically toiling and moiling
till they are unable to enjoy any pleasure which requires vigour of
mind and attention, rendering themselves impotent, from sheer fatigue,
to enjoy the delights which life gives generously to all those who
fervently seek them. And what for? Largely for the sake of those
pleasures which can be had only for money, but which can be enjoyed
without using one's soul.

X.

[PARENTHETICAL]

"And these, you see," I said, "are bay-trees, the laurels they used
the leaves of to ..."

I was going to say "to crown poets," but I left my sentence in
mid-air, because of course he knew that as well as I.

"Precisely," he answered with intelligent interest--"I have noticed
that the leaves are sometimes put in sardine boxes."

Soon after this conversation I discovered the curious circumstance
that one of the greatest of peoples and perhaps the most favoured by
Apollo, calls Laurus Nobilis "Laurier-Sauce." The name is French; the
symbol, alas, of universal application.

This paragraph X. had been intended to deal with "Art as it is
understood by persons of fashion and eminent men of business."

XI.

Thus it is that real aesthetic keenness--and aesthetic keenness, as I
shall show you in my next chapter, means appreciating beauty, not
collecting beautiful properties--thus it is that all aesthetic keenness
implies a development of the qualities of patience, attention,
reverence, and of that vigour of soul which is not called forth, but
rather impaired, by the coarser enjoyments of the senses and of
vanity. So far, therefore, we have seen that the capacity for aesthetic
pleasure is allied to a certain nobility in the individual. I think I
can show that the preference for aesthetic pleasure tends also to a
happier relation between the individual and his fellows.

But the cultivation of our aesthetic pleasures does not merely
necessitate our improvement in certain very essential moral qualities.
It implies as much, in a way, as the cultivation of the intellect and
the sympathies, that we should live chiefl