as involve
the exclusion of others from the sort of life which we consider
aesthetically tolerable. We shall require such houses and such habits
as can be seen, and, what is inevitable in all aesthetical development,
as can also be _thought of_, in all their details. We shall require a
homogeneous impression of decorum and fitness from the lives of others
as well as from our own, from what we actually see and from what we
merely know: the imperious demand for beauty, for harmony will be
applied no longer to our mere material properties, but to that other
possession which is always with us and can never be taken from us, the
images and feelings within our soul. Now, that other human beings
should be drudging sordidly in order that we may be idle and showy
means a thought, a vision, an emotion which do not get on in our mind
in company with the sight of sunset and sea, the taste of mountain air
and woodland freshness, the faces and forms of Florentine saints and
Antique gods, the serene poignancy of great phrases of music. This is
by no means all. Developing in aesthetic sensitiveness we grow to think
of ourselves also, our own preferences, moods and attitudes, as more
or less beautiful or ugly; the inner life falling under the same
criticism as the outer one. We become aristocratic and epicurean about
our desires and habits; we grow squeamish and impatient towards
luxury, towards all kinds of monopoly and privilege on account of the
mean attitude, the graceless gesture they involve on our own part.

XI.

This feeling is increasing daily. Our deepest aesthetic emotions are,
we are beginning to recognise, connected with things which we do not,
cannot, possess in the vulgar sense. Nay, the deepest aesthetic
emotions depend, to an appreciable degree, on the very knowledge that
these things are either not such as money can purchase, or that they
are within the purchasing power of all. The sense of being shareable
by others, of being even shareable, so to speak, by other kinds of
utility, adds a very keen attraction to all beautiful things and
beautiful actions, and, of course, _vice versa_. And things which are
beautiful, but connected with luxury and exclusive possession, come to
affect one as, in a way, _lacking harmonics_, lacking those additional
vibrations of pleasure which enrich impressions of beauty by
impressions of utility and kindliness.

Thus, after enjoying the extraordinary lovely tints--oleander pink,
si