nd keeping his conceit down and his mind open to
conviction. The study of works of art with the handbooks of
connoisseurs belongs to the higher branches of aesthetic education, of
which I have naught to tell.

Besides reading, of course all opportunities of seeing good specimens
at home should be made the most of. These are far from so rare as ten
years ago. In Boston the Athenaeum, in New York the Metropolitan Art
Museum, and both in the latter city and Philadelphia the private
collections--which the kindness of their owners makes almost as
accessible as public ones--afford us examples of most contemporary
painters and of some of the older masters; while our schools of design
are provided with casts from the most celebrated antique statues, and
many of the best modern ones come to our shores. The Arundel Society
of London publishes chromo-lithographs of uncommon merit after the
finest and most curious paintings of the Old World. But the best
preparation of all is a knowledge of drawing: even if nothing is
acquired beyond the ability to copy a cast correctly or sketch a
landscape roughly but faithfully, it is a long step over the primary
difficulties of the path.

The very first of these difficulties is to know what we really like.
It is probably impossible to look at a famous work with eyes clear
from preconceived impressions: copies, engravings, photographs, have
familiarized us in some measure with the finest things in the world.
However imperfect an idea may be given by reproductions of great
pictures--great in size as well as merit--whether we have seen a
Marcantonio or a Raphael Morghen or only a _carte de visite_--a notion
of their chief features is acquired: we recognize them from the
farther end of the gallery, whither indeed we have generally come in
quest of them, and the results are very like those of a first sight of
Niagara. Everybody knows how that looks--the huge downpour of the
American Fall, the graceful rush of the slenderer stream formed by
Goat Island, the mighty curve and tremendous placidity of the
Horseshoe Fall, the clouds of spray, the lightly poised rainbow. But
all this does not give us the feeling of Niagara: one person is
overwhelmed, another enraptured, very many are disappointed. Besides,
we are bothered by notions of how we ought to feel at such a moment.
All these hinderances the majority of us will meet at the outset.
After seeing a few masterpieces, a superficial acquaintance with t