for instance, if his idea be the same as that expressed in lines like these:

The clouds have broken in a dreary rain
And on the waste I stand alone with heaven.

Lady of Lyons: Bulwer.

Or, if his idea involve nothing that needs to be repre sented by human figures; if it be something that could be conveyed by his pointing to animate or inanimate objects, were they present in a certain location, then he leaves the human figures out of his picture, and reproduces merely these objects-darkness, rain, wind, a clinging vine, and dead leaves, for instance, if his idea be like that expressed in the following:

The day is dark and cold and dreary,
It rains and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall.

The Rainy Day: Longfellow.

Paintings and statues are thus external products that are embodiments of distinctively human methods of expres

sion.

All that has been said may be acknowledged, so far as the statements are applied to products of painting and sculpture. But how, it may be asked, can they be applied to those of architecture? The external character of its products is, of course, evident; but it has other characteristics, which cause many to doubt whether, in important regards, it does not differ too greatly from music, poetry, painting, and sculpture to admit of its being placed in the same class with them. Under all these latter arts, it is said, there are subjective modes of expression, like humming, speaking, and gesturing. Is

it so with architecture? Some seem to doubt this.

But

why? Architecture certainly represents the ideas of protection, support, and shelter, and these are ideas which it is by no means impossible or unusual to represent, as subjectively experienced, by gestures. But, it is said again, architecture is always developed from an external product, a dwelling. But is not the same true of the other arts? Artificial resonant sounds, spoken and written language, hieroglyphic drawings and carvings are conditions that antedate music, poetry, painting, or sculpture, no less than house-building antedates architecture. House-building, moreover, is no less truly a form of natural expression than are these others. As will be shown in Chapter VI., almost all the different architectural styles of which we know were developed primarily from a tendency to imitate, in a more enduring material, the appearances of structures erected by the primitive man in order to give expression to his nature, exactly as does the bird or the beaver when constructing his nest or his dam,

CHAPTER II.

BEAUTY.

Limitations in the Sights and Sounds, the Thoughts and Emotions, and the External Products with which Art Can Deal-The Sights and Sounds Must Have Interest, Charm, Beauty-Beauty as Attributed to Form as Form-To Form as an Expression of Thoughts or Emotions-To Both these Sources Combined-Examples-Complexity of Effect Characteristic of Beauty-In Sounds-In Lines and Colours-Besides Complexity, Harmony of Effect upon the Senses is Essential in Beauty; Produced through Like or Related Vibrations in Tones and ColoursThrough Like or Related Divisions of Time or Space in Rhythm and Proportion-Unity of Effect upon the Brain Necessary to BeautyMind Affected Irrespective of the Senses-Senses Affected from the Mind-side-Complexity Even in Form Recognised and Analysed by the Mind-Imagination Frames an Image as a Standard of Beauty— Mind is, therefore, Affected and Active when Beauty is RecognisedExemplified in Music-In Poetry-In Arts of Sight-What is Meant by Harmony of Effects upon the Mind in Music or Poetry-In Arts of Sight-Further Remarks on Complexity and Unity-Definition of Beauty-What it Leaves Unexplained-Applies to Natural as well as to Artistic Forms-To Arts of Sound as well as of Sight-Relation of this Definition to Other Definitions-Taste-Its Cultivation.

IN N the preceding chapter an endeavour was made to show that art of the highest or finest quality involves three things: first, a reproduction of the phenomena of nature, especially of its sights and sounds; second, an expression of the thoughts and emotions of the artist; and, third, an embodiment of both these other features in an external product like a symphony, a poem,

a painting, a statue, a building. The question now arises whether we should not make further limitations with reference to the sights or sounds of nature with which the highest arts have to deal, with reference to the phases of thought and emotion which they express, and with reference to that which characterises their products.

The question, as applied to sights or sounds, suggests at once that when a man, not for a useful but, in accordance with what was stated on page 6, for an æsthetic end, reproduces these, he must do so mainly because something about them has interested, attracted, and, as we say, charmed him. There is one word that we are accustomed to apply to any form, whether of sight or of sound, that attracts and charms us. It is the word beautiful. We may say, therefore, that the highest arts reproduce such outward effects of nature as are beautiful. For a sufficient reason then did the Abbé Du Bos in 1719, in his "Réflexions Critique sur la Poésie et la Peinture, first apply to these arts the term "Les Beaux-Arts." Afterwards, in 1793, painting, sculpture, and architecture together were taught in France in an "École des BeauxArts," and music was added to these when an “Académie des Beaux-Arts" was established. Poetry was left out; but it is always included in what, in our own country, as well as in France, is termed "Belles-Lettres." Today, everywhere, it seems to be conceded that arts of the highest class should reproduce mainly, at least, and some seem to think solely, such phenomena of nature as are beautiful. It becomes important, therefore, for us to ask here, What is beauty?

All men acknowledge it to be a characteristic of form, but they differ in the degree in which they consider it this. Some, for instance, attribute it to form considered

in itself alone; and there is some justification for their theory. As ordinarily used, the word beautiful frequently applies to that which exists in mere appearances aside from any thought or feeling expressed through them. One may say that, to men generally, fabrics of a single hue hanging in a shop-window, two or three of different hues thrown accidentally together, and certain figures, even rooms, on account sometimes of their colours, sometimes of their proportions, sometimes of both, are termed, and properly termed, beautiful. When so used, the word does not refer.necessarily to any human thought or feeling that men recognise as being suggested through the forms or by them.

At other times, however, the word seems to refer to such thoughts or feelings almost exclusively, and this gives rise to the theory that beauty is found in the expression of these. It, too, is a theory not without justification. Let one come upon a woman with a deformed figure and homely countenance, dressed in most inharmonious colours, and in a most illy proportioned room; yet, if she be engaged in the utterance of some noble sentiment, or in the performance of some sublime act of charity, or of self-sacrifice, the expression of the motive in her face and frame, together with her surroundings, may be so accordant with the demands of his soul as to transfigure the mere forms, and prepare him to believe and to say in the most emphatic way that he has seen what is beautiful.

At the same time, probably, most men will be willing to admit that in the case neither of the fabric nor of the woman does the beauty exhibited manifest all the elements capable of rendering it complete. They recognise that the beauty of form in colours or outlines could be