nsider these two matters separately; never
confuse yourself by interweaving one with the other. It is one question,
how to treat your fields so as to get a good harvest; another, whether
you wish to have a good harvest, or would rather like to keep up the
price of corn. It is one question, how to graft your trees so as to grow
most apples; and quite another, whether having such a heap of apples in
the storeroom will not make them all rot.

39. Now, therefore, that we are talking only about grafting and growing,
pray do not vex yourselves with thinking what you are to do with the
pippins. It may be desirable for us to have much art, or little--we will
examine that by-and-bye; but just now, let us keep to the simple
consideration how to get plenty of good art if we want it. Perhaps it
might be just as well that a man of moderate income should be able to
possess a good picture, as that any work of real merit should cost
500_l._ or 1,000_l._; at all events, it is certainly one of the branches
of political economy to ascertain how, if we like, we can get things in
quantities--plenty of corn, plenty of wine, plenty of gold, or plenty of
pictures.

It has just been said, that the first great secret is to produce work
that will last. Now, the conditions of work lasting are twofold: it must
not only be in materials that will last, but it must be itself of a
quality that will last--it must be good enough to bear the test of time.
If it is not good, we shall tire of it quickly, and throw it aside--we
shall have no pleasure in the accumulation of it. So that the first
question of a good art-economist respecting any work is, Will it lose
its flavour by keeping? It may be very amusing now, and look much like a
work of genius; but what will be its value a hundred years hence?

You cannot always ascertain this. You may get what you fancy to be work
of the best quality, and yet find to your astonishment that it won't
keep. But of one thing you may be sure, that art which is produced
hastily will also perish hastily; and that what is cheapest to you now,
is likely to be dearest in the end.

40. I am sorry to say, the great tendency of this age is to expend its
genius in perishable art of this kind, as if it were a triumph to burn
its thoughts away in bonfires. There is a vast quantity of intellect and
of labour consumed annually in our cheap illustrated publications; you
triumph in them; and you think it so grand a thing to get so