as, in the present state of our
schools, such an assertion is likely to be believed, the fact is that
this kind of expression is the _only one allowable in noble art_.

Sec. XX. I pray the reader to have patience with me for a few moments. I
do not mean that no art is noble but Byzantine mosaic; but no art is noble
which in any wise depends upon direct imitation for its effect upon the
mind. This was asserted in the opening chapters of "Modern Painters,"
but not upon the highest grounds; the results at which we have now
arrived in our investigation of early art, will enable me to place it on
a loftier and firmer foundation.

Sec. XXI. We have just seen that all great art is the work of the whole
living creature, body and soul, and chiefly of the soul. But it is not
only _the work_ of the whole creature, it likewise _addresses_ the whole
creature. That in which the perfect being speaks, must also have the
perfect being to listen. I am not to spend my utmost spirit, and give
all my strength and life to my work, while you, spectator or hearer,
will give me only the attention of half your soul. You must be all mine,
as I am all yours; it is the only condition on which we can meet each
other. All your faculties, all that is in you of greatest and best, must
be awake in you, or I have no reward. The painter is not to cast the
entire treasure of his human nature into his labor, merely to please a
part of the beholder: not merely to delight his senses, not merely to
amuse his fancy, not merely to beguile him into emotion, not merely to
lead him into thought, but to do _all_ this. Senses, fancy, feeling,
reason, the whole of the beholding spirit, must be stilled in attention
or stirred with delight; else the laboring spirit has not done its work
well. For observe, it is not merely its _right_ to be thus met, face to
face, heart to heart; but it is its _duty_ to evoke its answering of the
other soul; its trumpet call must be so clear, that though the challenge
may by dulness or indolence be unanswered, there shall be no error as to
the meaning of the appeal; there must be a summons in the work, which it
shall be our own fault if we do not obey. We require this of it, we
beseech this of it. Most men do not know what is in them, till they
receive this summons from their fellows: their hearts die within them,
sleep settles upon them, the lethargy of the world's miasmata; there is
nothing for which they are so thankful as for that c