lory in his work;
drinking at the cup, not from choice, not from a consciousness that it
was beautiful, but because, forsooth, there was none other!

And time, with more state, brought more capacity for luxury, and it
became well that men should dwell in large houses, and rest upon
couches, and eat at tables; whereupon the artist, with his artificers,
built palaces, and filled them with furniture, beautiful in proportion
and lovely to look upon.

And the people lived in marvels of art--and ate and drank out of
masterpieces--for there was nothing else to eat and to drink out of,
and no bad building to live in; no article of daily life, of luxury,
or of necessity, that had not been handed down from the design of the
master, and made by his workmen.

And the people questioned not, _and had nothing to say in the matter_.

So Greece was in its splendour, and Art reigned supreme--by force of
fact, not by election--and there was no meddling from the outsider.
The mighty warrior would no more have ventured to offer a design for
the temple of Pallas Athene than would the sacred poet have proffered
a plan for constructing the catapult.

And the Amateur was unknown--and the Dilettante undreamed of!

And history wrote on, and conquest accompanied civilisation, and Art
spread, or rather its products were carried by the victors among the
vanquished from one country to another. And the customs of cultivation
covered the face of the earth, so that all peoples continued to use
what _the artist alone produced_.

And centuries passed in this using, and the world was flooded with all
that was beautiful, until there arose a new class, who discovered
the cheap, and foresaw fortune in the facture of the sham.

Then sprang into existence the tawdry, the common, the gewgaw.

The taste of the tradesman supplanted the science of the artist, and
what was born of the million went back to them, and charmed them, for
it was after their own heart; and the great and the small, the
statesman and the slave, took to themselves the abomination that was
tendered, and preferred it--and have lived with it ever since!

And the artist's occupation was gone, and the manufacturer and the
huckster took his place.

And now the heroes filled from the jugs and drank from the bowls--with
understanding--noting the glare of their new bravery, and taking pride
in its worth.

And the people--this time--had much to say in the matter--and all were
satisfied.