he desire of possession He is to adore all beautiful objects
with a Platonic fervour to which the idea of acquisition and
domestication is repugnant. Before going into this lofty argument, I
should perhaps explain the collection of my scornful friend. He would
have said: "I see that as I put X---- in his proper place, you look at my
pictures and smile. You have rightly divined that they are of some
rarity, of a sort, in fact, for which X---- and his kind would sell their
immortal souls. But I beg you to note that these pictures and bits of
sculpture have been bought not at all for their rarity, nor even for
their beauty as such, but simply because of their appropriateness as
decorations for this particular villa. They represent not my energy as a
collector, nor even my zeal as a connoisseur, but simply my normal
activity as a man of taste. In this villa it happens that Italian old
masters seem the proper material for decoration. In another house or in
another land you might find me employing, again solely for decorative
purposes, the prints of Japan, the landscapes of the modern
impressionists, the rugs of the East, or the blankets of the Arizona
desert. Free me, then, from the reproach implied in that covert leer at
my Early Sienese." Yes, we must, I think, exclude from the ranks of the
true zealots all who in any plausible fashion utilise the objects of art
they buy. Excess, the craving to possess what he apparently does not
need, is the mark of your true collector. Now these visionaries--at least
the true ones--honour each other according to the degree of "eye" that
each possesses. By "eye" the collector means a faculty of discerning a
fine object quickly and instinctively. And, in fact, the trained eye
becomes a magically fine instrument. It detects the fractions of a
millimetre by which a copy belies its original. In colours it
distinguishes nuances that a moderately trained vision will declare
non-existent. Nor is the trained collector bound by the evidence of the
eye alone. Of certain things he knows the taste or adhesiveness. His ear
grasps the true ring of certain potteries, porcelains, or qualities of
beaten metal. I know an expert on Japanese pottery who, when a sixth
sense tells him that two pots apparently identical come really from
different kilns, puts them behind his back and refers the matter from his
retina to his finger-tips. Thus alternately challenged and trusted, the
eye should become extraordinarily