here of chapel-altar, or temple porch, left shattered or
silent by the power of some purer worship: no vestiges are here of
sacred hearth and sweet homestead, left lonely through vicissitudes of
fate, and heaven-sent sorrow. Nothing is here but the vain apparelings
of pride sunk into dishonor, and vain appanages of delight now no more
delightsome. The hill-waters, that once flowed and plashed in the
garden fountains, now trickle sadly through the weeds that encumber
their basins, with a sound as of tears: the creeping, insidious,
neglected flowers weave their burning nets about the white marble of the
balustrades, and rend them slowly, block from block, and stone from
stone: the thin, sweet-scented leaves tremble along the old masonry
joints as if with palsy at every breeze; and the dark lichens, golden
and gray, make the footfall silent in the path's center.

And day by day as I walked there, the same sentence seemed whispered by
every shaking leaf, and every dying echo, of garden and chamber. "Thus
end all the arts of life, only in death; and thus issue all the gifts of
man, only in his dishonor, when they are pursued or possessed in the
service of pleasure only."

21. This then is the great enigma of Art History,--you must not follow
Art without pleasure, nor must you follow it for the sake of pleasure.
And the solution of that enigma is simply this fact; that wherever Art
has been followed _only_ for the sake of luxury or delight, it has
contributed, and largely contributed, to bring about the destruction of
the nation practicing it: but wherever Art has been used _also_ to teach
any truth, or supposed truth--religious, moral, or natural--there it has
elevated the nation practicing it, and itself with the nation.

22. Thus the Art of Greece rose, and did service to the people, so long
as it was to them the earnest interpreter of a religion they believed
in: the Arts of northern sculpture and architecture rose, as
interpreters of Christian legend and doctrine: the Art of painting in
Italy, not only as religious, but also mainly as expressive of truths of
moral philosophy, and powerful in pure human portraiture. The only great
painters in our schools of painting in England have either been of
portrait--Reynolds and Gainsborough; of the philosophy of social
life--Hogarth; or of the facts of nature in landscape--Wilson and
Turner. In all these cases, if I had time, I could show you that the
success of the painter depe