namely,
the effect of this cheaply diffused Art on the public mind.

97. The first great principle we have to hold by in dealing with the
matter is, that the end of Art is NOT to _amuse_; and that all Art which
proposes amusement as its end, or which is sought for that end, must be
of an inferior, and is probably of a harmful, class.

The end of Art is as serious as that of all other beautiful things--of
the blue sky and the green grass, and the clouds and the dew. They are
either useless, or they are of much deeper function than giving
amusement. Whatever delight we take in them, be it less or more, is not
the delight we take in play, or receive from momentary surprise. It
might be a matter of some metaphysical difficulty to define the two
kinds of pleasure, but it is perfectly easy for any of us to feel that
there _is_ generic difference between the delight we have in seeing a
comedy and in watching a sunrise. Not but that there is a kind of Divina
Commedia,--a dramatic change and power,--in all beautiful things: the
joy of surprise and incident mingles in music, painting, architecture,
and natural beauty itself, in an ennobled and enduring manner, with the
perfectness of eternal hue and form. But whenever the desire of change
becomes principal; whenever we care only for new tunes, and new
pictures, and new scenes, all power of enjoying Nature or Art is so far
perished from us: and a child's love of toys has taken its place. The
continual advertisement of new music (as if novelty were its virtue)
signifies, in the inner fact of it, that no one now cares for music. The
continual desire for new exhibitions means that we do not care for
pictures; the continual demand for new books means that nobody cares to
read.

98. Not that it would necessarily, and at all times, mean this; for in a
living school of Art there will always be an exceeding thirst for, and
eager watching of freshly-developed thought. But it specially and
sternly means this, when the interest is merely in the novelty; and
great work in our possession is forgotten, while mean work, because
strange and of some personal interest, is annually made the subject of
eager observation and discussion. As long as (for one of many instances
of such neglect) two great pictures of Tintoret's lie rolled up in an
outhouse at Venice, all the exhibitions and schools in Europe mean
nothing but promotion of costly commerce. Through that, we might indeed
arrive at better t