nt. Taste is assuredly a frivolous,
apparently a dangerous gift; vicious persons and vicious nations have
it; we are a practical people, content to know what we like, wise in
not liking it too much, and when tired of it, wise in getting something
we like better. Painting is of course an agreeable ornamental Art,
maintaining a number of persons respectably, deserving therefore
encouragement, and getting it pecuniarily, to a hitherto unheard-of
extent. What would you have more?" This is, I believe, very nearly our
Art-creed. The fact being (very ascertainably by anyone who will take
the trouble to examine the matter), that there is a cultivated Art among
all great nations, inevitably necessary to them as the fulfillment of
one part of their human nature. None but savage nations are without Art,
and civilized nations who do their Art ill, do it because there is
something deeply wrong at their hearts. They paint badly as a paralyzed
man stammers, because his life is touched somewhere within; when the
deeper life is full in a people, they speak clearly and rightly; paint
clearly and rightly; think clearly and rightly. There is some reverse
effect, but very little. Good pictures do not teach a nation; they are
the signs of its having been taught. Good thoughts do not form a nation;
it must be formed before it can think them. Let it once decay at the
heart, and its good work and good thoughts will become subtle luxury and
aimless sophism; and it and they will perish together.

30. It is my purpose, therefore, in some subsequent papers, with such
help as I may anywise receive, to try if there may not be determined
some of the simplest laws which are indeed binding on Art practice and
judgment. Beginning with elementary principle, and proceeding upwards as
far as guiding laws are discernible, I hope to show, that if we do not
yet know them, there are at least such laws to be known, and that it is
of a deep and intimate importance to any people, especially to the
English at this time, that their children should be sincerely taught
whatever arts they learn, and in riper age become capable of a just
choice and wise pleasure in the accomplished works of the artist. But I
earnestly ask for help in this task. It is one which can only come to
good issue by the consent and aid of many thinkers; and I would, with
the permission of the Editor of this Journal, invite debate on the
subject of each paper, together with brief and clear stateme