m into our minds, the entire background of
the life out of which they took their rise. We are not only permitted
to refresh ourselves at the inexhaustible spring, but, as we drink,
the entire sweep of landscape, to the remotest mountains in whose
heart its sources are hidden, encompasses us like a vast living world.
It is, in other words, the totality of things which great art gives
us,--not things in isolation and detachment. Mr. La Farge will pardon
further quotation; he admirably states this great truth when he says
that "in a work of art, executed through the body, and appealing to
the mind through the senses, the entire make-up of its creator
addresses the entire constitution of the man for whom it is meant."
One may go further, and say of the greatest books that the whole race
speaks through them to the whole man who puts himself in a receptive
mood towards them. This totality of influences, conditions, and
history which goes to the making of books of this order receives
dramatic unity, artistic sequence, and integral order and coherence
from the personality of the writer. He gathers into himself the
spiritual results of the experience of his people or his age, and
through his genius for expression the vast general background of his
personal life, which, as in the case of Homer, for instance, has
entirely faded from view, rises once more in clear vision before us.
"In any museum," says Mr. La Farge, "we can see certain great
differences in things; which are so evident, so much on the surface,
as almost to be our first impressions. They are the marks of the
places where the works of art were born. Climate; intensity of heat
and light; the nature of the earth; whether there was much or little
water in proportion to land; plants, animals, surrounding beings, have
helped to make these differences, as well as manners, laws, religions,
and national ideals. If you recall the more general physical
impression of a gallery of Flemish paintings and of a gallery of
Italian masters, you will have carried off in yourself two distinct
impressions received during their lives by the men of these two races.
The fact that they used their eyes more or less is only a small factor
in this enormous aggregation of influences received by them and
transmitted to us."

From this point of view the inexhaustible significance of a great work
of art becomes clear, both as regards its definite revelation of
racial and individual truth, and as r