up to-day, they are outworn and replaced
to-morrow, like trees in the parks or officers in the government. A
community where art was native and flourishing would have an
uninterrupted supply of such ornaments, furnished by its citizens in
the same modest and cheerful spirit in which they furnish other
commodities. Every craft has its dignity, and the decorative and
monumental crafts certainly have their own; but such art is neither
singular nor pre-eminent, and a statesman or reformer who should raise
somewhat the level of thought or practice in the state would do an
infinitely greater service.

[Sidenote: Human uses give to works of art their highest expression and
charm.]

The joys of creating are not confined, moreover, to those who create
things without practical uses. The merely aesthetic, like rhyme and
fireworks, is not the only subject that can engage a playful fancy or be
planned with a premonition of beautiful effects. Architecture may be
useful, sculpture commemorative, poetry reflective, even, music, by its
expression, religious or martial. In a word, practical exigencies, in
calling forth the arts, give them moral functions which it is a pleasure
to see them fulfil. Works may not be aesthetic in their purpose, and yet
that fact may be a ground for their being doubly delightful in execution
and doubly beautiful in effect. A richer plexus of emotions is concerned
in producing or contemplating something humanly necessary than something
idly conceived. What is very rightly called a _sense_ for fitness is a
vital experience, involving aesthetic satisfactions and aesthetic shocks.
The more numerous the rational harmonies are which are present to the
mind, the more sensible movements will be going on there to give
immediate delight; for the perception or expectation of an ulterior good
is a present good also. Accordingly nothing can so well call forth or
sustain attention as what has a complex structure relating it to many
complex interests. A work woven out of precious threads has a deep
pertinence and glory; the artist who creates it does not need to
surrender his practical and moral sense in order to indulge his
imagination.

The truth is that mere sensation or mere emotion is an indignity to a
mature human being. When we eat, we demand a pleasant vista, flowers, or
conversation, and failing these we take refuge in a newspaper. The
monks, knowing that men should not feed silently like stalled oxen,
appoint