ust not, for instance, demand that
he shall remind them of what they have found pleasant in actual life.
They must not complain of him that he does not paint pretty women for
them, or compose bright cheerful tunes. They are not to him particular
persons to be tickled according to their particular tastes, but mankind
to whom he wishes to communicate the universal he has experienced.

So, if there is an actual audience listening for that universal and
clearing their minds of their own egotistical demands, then art will
flourish and the artist will be encouraged to communicate that universal
which he has experienced. But if particular audiences demand this or
that and are not happy until they get it, if they say to him--Tickle my
senses--Persuade me that all is for the best in the world as I like it;
that prosperous people like myself have a right to be prosperous; that I
am a fine fellow because I once fell in love; that all who disagree with
me are wicked and absurd--then you will have the kind of art you have
now, in the theatre, in the picture gallery, in the cinema, in the
novel; yes, and in your buildings, your cups and saucers, your pots and
pans even. For in the very arts of use you demand that the craftsman
shall provide you with what you demand, and as cheap as possible;
because you do not understand that he should express himself, you do not
understand also that his expression is worth having and that he ought to
be paid for it. In the very pattern on a tea-cup, if it is worth having
at all, there is the communication of that universal which the artist
has experienced. It is there to remind you of itself whenever you drink
tea, to bring the sacrament of the universal into everything as if it
were music accompanying and heightening all our common actions; but if
you want a fashionable tea-cup cheap, you will get that, and you will
not get anything expressed or communicated with it. You will be shut up
in yourself and your own particularity and ugliness. If we want art we
must know how we should think and feel and act so as to encourage the
artist to produce it.

But why should we want art at all? I hope I have answered that question
incidentally. It is so that we may have life more abundantly; for we can
have life more abundantly only when we are in communication with each
other, mind flowing into mind, the universal expressing itself in and
through all of us. We all more or less blindly desire this
communicatio