the
luxury of the age, and the very advantages of education, confer on the
unwise and ignoble for the production of attractively and infectiously
_bad_ work? I do not think that this adverse influence, necessarily
affecting all conditions of so-called civilization, has been ever enough
considered. It is impossible to calculate the power of the false workman
in an advanced period of national life, nor the temptation to all
workmen, to _become_ false.

280. First, there is the irresistible appeal to vanity. There is hardly
any temptation of the kind (there cannot be) while the arts are in
progress. The best men must then always be ashamed of themselves; they
never can be satisfied with their work absolutely, but only as it is
progressive. Take, for instance, any archaic head intended to be
beautiful; say, the Attic Athena, or the early Arethusa of Syracuse. In
that, and in all archaic work of promise, there is much that is
inefficient, much that to us appears ridiculous--but nothing sensual,
nothing vain, nothing spurious or imitative. It is a child's work, a
childish nation's work, but not a fool's work. You find in children the
same tolerance of ugliness, the same eager and innocent delight in their
own work for the moment, however feeble; but next day it is thrown
aside, and something better is done. Now, in this careless play, a child
or a childish nation differs inherently from a foolish educated person,
or a nation advanced in pseudo-civilization. The educated person has
seen all kinds of beautiful things, of which he would fain do the
like--not to add to their number--but for his own vanity, that he also
may be called an artist. Here is at once a singular and fatal
difference. The childish nation sees nothing in its own past work to
satisfy itself. It is pleased at having done this, but wants something
better; it is struggling forward always to reach this better, this ideal
conception. It wants more beauty to look at, it wants more subject to
feel. It calls out to all its artists--stretching its hands to them as a
little child does--"Oh, if you would but tell me another story,"--"Oh,
if I might but have a doll with bluer eyes." That's the right temper to
work in, and to get work done for you in. But the vain, aged,
highly-educated nation is satiated with beautiful things--it has myriads
more than it can look at; it has fallen into a habit of inattention; it
passes weary and jaded through galleries which contain the