aking soul.

And so, for our greater nobility and happiness, we require, all of us,
to live to some extent in the Past, as to live to some extent in what
we significantly call _nature_. We require, as we require mountain air
or sea scents, hayfields or wintry fallows, sun, storm, or rain, each
individual according to individual subtle affinities, certain emotions,
ideals, persons, or works of art from out of the Past. For one it will
be Socrates; for another St. Francis; for every one something somewhat
different, or at all events something differently conceived and
differently felt: some portion of the universe in time, as of the
universe in space, which answers in closest and most intimate way to
the complexion and habits of that individual soul.

II

The satisfaction which it can bring to every individual soul: this is,
therefore, one of the uses of the Past to the Present, and surely not
one of the smallest. It is, I venture to insist, the special, the
essential use of all art and all poetry; any additional knowledge
of Nature's proceedings, any additional discipline of thought and
observation which may accrue in the study of art as an historic or
psychological phenomenon being, after all, valuable eventually for
the amount of such mere satisfaction of the spirit as that additional
knowledge or additional discipline can conduce towards. Scientific
results are important for the maintenance of life, doubtless; but the
sense of satisfaction, whether simple or complex, high or low, is
the sign that the processes we call life are being fulfilled and not
thwarted; so, since satisfaction is no such contemptible thing, why not
allow art to furnish it unmixed?

I am sure to be misunderstood. I do not in the least mean to imply that
art can best be appreciated with the least trouble. The mere fact that
the pleasure of a faculty is proportioned to its activity negatives that;
and the fact that the richness, fulness, and hence also the durability,
of all artistic pleasure answers to the amount of our attention: the
mine, the ore, will yield, other things equal, according as we dig, and
wash, and smelt, and separate to the last possibility of separation what
we want from what we do not want.

The historic or psychological study of art does thus undoubtedly increase
our familiarity, and hence our enjoyment. The mere scientific inquiry
into the difference between originals and copies, into the connection
between master and