tomises for busy humanity the significance of things regarded as
"means." A practical person goes into a room where there are chairs,
tables, sofas, a hearth-rug and a mantel-piece. Of each he takes note
intellectually, and if he wants to set himself down or set down a cup,
he will know all he needs to know for his purpose. The label tells him
just those facts that serve his practical ends; of the thing itself that
lurks behind the label nothing is said. Artists, _qua_ artists, are not
concerned with labels. They are concerned with things only as means to
a particular kind of emotion, which is the same as saying that they are
only concerned with things perceived as ends in themselves; for it is
only when things are _perceived_ as ends that they _become_ means to
this emotion. It is only when we cease to regard the objects in a
landscape as means to anything that we can feel the landscape
artistically. But when we do succeed in regarding the parts of a
landscape as ends in themselves--as pure forms, that is to say--the
landscape becomes _ipso facto_ a means to a peculiar, aesthetic state of
mind. Artists are concerned only with this peculiar emotional
significance of the physical universe: because they _perceive_ things as
"ends," things _become_ for them "means" to ecstasy.

The habit of recognising the label and overlooking the thing, of seeing
intellectually instead of seeing emotionally, accounts for the amazing
blindness, or rather visual shallowness, of most civilised adults. We do
not forget what has moved us, but what we have merely recognised leaves
no deep impression on the mind. A friend of mine, a man of taste,
desired to make some clearance in his gardens, encumbered as they were
with a multitude of trees; unfortunately most of his friends and all his
family objected on sentimental or aesthetic grounds, declaring that the
place would never be the same to them if the axe were laid to a single
trunk. My friend was in despair, until, one day, I suggested to him that
whenever his people were all away on visits or travels, as was pretty
often the case, he should have as many trees cut down as could be
completely and cleanly removed during their absence. Since then, several
hundreds have been carted from his small park and pleasure grounds, and
should the secret be betrayed to the family I am cheerfully confident
that not one of them would believe it. I could cite innumerable
instances of this insensibility to form