gs exist not for their own sake, but as symbols of
supernal things. The Oriental artist avoids as far as possible trivial
and individual rhythms, seeking always the fundamental rhythm of the
larger, deeper life.

Now this quality so earnestly sought and so highly prized in Oriental
art, is the very thing which our art and our architecture most
conspicuously lack. To the eye sensitive to rhythm, our essays in
these fields appear awkward and unconvincing, lacking a certain
_inevitability_. We must restore to art that first great canon of
Chinese aesthetics, "_Rhythmic vitality,_ or the life movement of the
spirit through the rhythm of things." It cannot be interjected from
the outside, but must be inwardly realized by the "stilling" of the
mind above described.

Art cannot dispense with symbolism; as the letters on this page convey
thoughts to the mind, so do the things of this world, organized into
a language of symbols, speak to the soul through art. But in the
building of our towers of Babel, again mankind is stricken with a
confusion of tongues. Art has no _common language;_ its symbols are
no longer valid, or are no longer understood. This is a condition for
which materialism has no remedy, for the reason that materialism sees
always the pattern but never that which the pattern represents. We
must become _spiritually illumined_ before we can read nature truly,
and re-create, from such a reading, fresh and universal symbols for
art. This is a task beyond the power of our sad generation, enchained
by negative thinking, overshadowed by war, but we can at least glimpse
the nature of the reaction between the mystic consciousness and the
things of this world which will produce a new language of symbols. The
mystic consciousness looks upon nature as an arras embroidered over
with symbols of the things it conceals from view. We are ourselves
symbols, dwelling in a world of symbols--a world many times removed
from that ultimate reality to which all things bear figurative
witness; the commonest thing has yet some mystic meaning, and ugliness
and vulgarity exist only in the unillumined mind.

What mystic meaning, it may be asked, is contained in such things as
a brick, a house, a hat, a pair of shoes? A brick is the ultimate
atom of a building; a house is the larger body which man makes for his
uses, just as the Self has built its habitation of flesh and bones;
hat and shoes are felt and leather insulators with which we seek