possessions according to
the various requirements of drinking largely and drinking delicately;
of pouring easily out, or of keeping for years the perfume in; of
storing in cellars, or bearing from fountains; of sacrificial
libation, of Pan-athenaic treasure of oil, and sepulchral treasure of
ashes,--and you have a resultant series of beautiful form and
decoration, from the rude amphora of red earth up to Cellini's vases
of gems and crystal, in which series, but especially in the more
simple conditions of it, are developed the most beautiful lines and
most perfect types of severe composition which have yet been attained
by art.

But again, that you may fill your cup with pure water, you must go to
the well or spring; you need a fence round the well; you need some
tube or trough, or other means of confining the stream at the spring.
For the conveyance of the current to any distance you must build
either enclosed or open aqueduct; and in the hot square of the city
where you set it free, you find it good for health and pleasantness to
let it leap into a fountain. On these several needs you have a school
of sculpture founded; in the decoration of the walls of wells in level
countries, and of the sources of springs in mountainous ones, and
chiefly of all, where the women of household or market meet at the
city fountain.

There is, however, a farther reason for the use of art here than in
any other material service, so far as we may, by art, express our
reverence or thankfulness. Whenever a nation is in its right mind, it
always has a deep sense of divinity in the gift of rain from heaven,
filling its heart with food and gladness;[195] and all the more when
that gift becomes gentle and perennial in the flowing of springs. It
literally is not possible that any fruitful power of the Muses should
be put forth upon a people which disdains their Helicon; still less is
it possible that any Christian nation should grow up "tanquam lignum
quod plantatum est secus decursus aquarum,"[196] which cannot recognize
the lesson meant in their being told of the places where Rebekah was
met;--where Rachel,--where Zipporah,--and she who was asked for water
under Mount Gerizim by a Stranger, weary, who had nothing to draw
with.[197]

And truly, when our mountain springs are set apart in vale or craggy
glen, or glade of wood green through the drought of summer, far from
cities, then, it is best let them stay in their own happy peace; but
if