ESTIIET/C EMOTION. 413 



us; and any picture which has once gained wide repute, tliereby gains 

 popuhir esteem, gives much pleasure, and seems to serve a proper pur- 

 pose by virtue simply of being in tiie fashion, even though it have 

 little to commend it to the wise critic. The word fashion carries often 

 an implication of censure. Such censure is not intended in this case. 

 To wish to see what others have seen is natural and proper. The mis- 

 take would lie in assuming that this kind of pleasure from picture- 

 gazing is not present with all of us, and is not a proper element in 

 esthetic emotion. 



To see old friends again after a time of separation always gives us 

 pleasure. The emotions which go with the act of recognition are so 

 generally agreeable that we greet with considerable warmth of feeling 

 even those old acquaintances we have never much cared for if we meet 

 them after long separation or at a distance from the scenes where 

 we once knew them. This recognition-element among the factors of 

 pleasurable emotion lies at the bottom of much of our joy in the 

 familiar quotation, of our admiration for the classic in literature and 

 the familiar in art. A picture often spoken of, often alluded to in 

 print, seen occasionally, even in the simplest or crudest reproduction, 

 is at once recognized, and at once gives us the pleasure of recognition, 

 when seen again. This manner of picture-appreciation lies, of course, 

 close to the pleasures of memory, to the indulgence of habit, and to the 

 complacence of conservatism; just as the pleasures aroused by the pic- 

 ture which it is the fashion to admire lie close to the self-satisfaction 

 born of conformity to the prevailing moral code. These fashionably- 

 born and habit-bred emotions form a large part, a very large part, of 

 the delight we find in picture-gazing. Art galleries are full of people 

 who gain little from their visits there beyond these simple and familiar 

 emotions. Yet in the discussion of esthetics they are commonly almost 

 ignored. The origins of the feelings which are aroused by works of 

 art are assumed to be complex, peculiar and quite remote from every- 

 day life; whereas the most dominant of them lie close at hand, in con- 

 formity and habit. In the field of literature we see this truth very 

 clearly illustrated. The classics of one's native tongue are chiefly 

 enjoyed because they are familiar. Often, probably commonly, they 

 have a power to move us which is due to their content, or to our knowl- 

 edge of the peculiar circumstances under which they were produced, 

 or to their relation to a widespread creed, or to the personality of their 

 writers, or to the influence of their promoters or expositors, or to their 

 particular aptness of phrase, or to the peculiar sensitiveness of a few 

 of their many readers to the spell wrought by special arrangements of 

 words. But, once having become imbedded in the popular mind, once 

 having become the accustomed reading of a generation or two, they 

 hold their power very largely through the fact that they are easily 



