s such a fact, as we might intellectually possess that twice two
is four, or that Elizabeth was the daughter of Henry VIII., knowing
casually what we may casually also forget; we possess, in such a way
that forgetting becomes impossible, with our whole soul and our whole
being, re-living that fact with every breath that we draw, with every
movement we make, the first great lesson of art, that vitality means
harmony. Let us look at this fact, and at its practical applications,
apart from all aesthetic experience.

All life is harmony; and all improvement in ourselves is therefore,
however unconsciously, the perceiving, the realising, or the
establishing of harmonies, more minute or more universal. Yes, curious
and unpractical as it may seem, harmonies, or, under their humbler
separate names--arrangements, schemes, classifications, are the chief
means for getting the most out of all things, and particularly the
most out of ourselves.

For they mean, first of all, unity of means for the attaining of unity
of effect, that is to say, incalculable economy of material, of time,
and of effort; and secondly, unity of effect produced, that is to say,
economy even greater in our power of perceiving and feeling: nothing
to eliminate, nothing against whose interruptions we waste our energy,
our power of becoming more fit in the course of striving.

When there exists harmony one impression leads to, enhances another;
we, on the other hand, unconsciously recognise at once what is doing
to us, what we in return must do; the mood is indicated, fulfilled,
consummated; in plenitude we feel, we are; and in plenitude of feeling
and being, we, in our turn, _do_. Neither is such habit of harmony, of
scheme, of congruity, a mere device for sucking the full sweetness out
of life, although, heaven knows, that were important enough. As much
as such a habit husbands, and in a way multiplies, life's sweetness;
so likewise does it husband and multiply man's power. For there is no
quicker and more thorough mode of selecting among our feelings and
thoughts than submitting them to a standard of congruity; nothing more
efficacious than the question: "Is such or such a notion or proceeding
harmonious with what we have made the rest of our life, with what we
wish our life to be?" This is, in other words, the power of the
_ideal_, the force of _ideas_, of thought-out, recognised habits, as
distinguished from blind helter-skelter impulse. This is what wel