uld rediscover the secret of impressing on a drapery or a piece of
furniture that stamp of human personality which makes certain antiques
priceless.

Let us pass at last to things simpler still; I mean the little details
of housekeeping which many young people of our day find so unpoetical.
Their contempt for material things, for the humble cares a house
demands, arises from a confusion very common but none the less
unfortunate, which comes from the belief that beauty and poetry are
within some things, while others lack them; that some occupations are
distinguished and agreeable, such as cultivating letters, playing the
harp; and that others are menial and disagreeable, like blacking shoes,
sweeping, and watching the pot boil. Childish error! Neither harp nor
broom has anything to do with it; all depends on the hand in which they
rest and the spirit that moves it. Poetry is not in things, it is in us.
It must be impressed on objects from without, as the sculptor impresses
his dream on the marble. If our life and our occupations remain too
often without charm, in spite of any outward distinction they may have,
it is because we have not known how to put anything into them. The
height of art is to make the inert live, and to tame the savage. I would
have our young girls apply themselves to the development of the truly
feminine art of giving a soul to things which have none. The triumph of
woman's charm is in that work. Only a woman knows how to put into a home
that indefinable something whose virtue has made the poet say, "The
housetop rejoices and is glad." They say there are no such things as
fairies, or that there are fairies no longer, but they know not what
they say. The original of the fairies sung by poets was found, and is
still, among those amiable mortals who knead bread with energy, mend
rents with cheerfulness, nurse the sick with smiles, put witchery into
a ribbon and genius into a stew.

* * * * *

It is indisputable that the culture of the fine arts has something
refining about it, and that our thoughts and acts are in the end
impregnated with that which strikes our eyes. But the exercise of the
arts and the contemplation of their products is a restricted privilege.
It is not given to everyone to possess, to comprehend or to create fine
things. Yet there is a kind of ministering beauty which may make its way
everywhere--the beauty which springs from the hands of our wives and
daugh