414 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



recognized, are habitual visitors, and arouse often the joy of recogni- 

 tion. The St. James version of the Bible is perhaps an example of the 

 best possible use of the English of its time. But of this we cannot be 

 sure. As a book it has long been popular — on other grounds than those 

 of style. Being popular it molded our forms of expression for genera- 

 tions. All our speech harks back to it. To read it is to catch in every 

 phrase a pleasing echo of the language of our own time, and this re- 

 gardless of the agreeable familiarity of thought and incident. We 

 recognize it, and delight in it. If circumstance had cast that version 

 into a different form we should, no doubt, admire it none the less; and 

 our language would be different from what it now is, perhaps better. 



Allied to both fashion and recognition as an element in esthetics is 

 curiosity; not the inquiring curiosity of the seeker, but the passing 

 curiosity which we take in uncommon things. The picture much 

 talked about — this is the one we wish to see. Having seen it the 

 emotional tension is relaxed, and we have an agreeable sense of satis- 

 faction. Near to this and perhaps part of it is the pleasure given by 

 the sight of a picture which is rare or ancient or high in price, or one 

 which was made with much labor or with unusual technical skill. The 

 patch-work quilt of a thousand pieces made by a woman of seventy- 

 five without the use of glasses, this gives great pleasure to its observers. 

 It is a curio. To most observers it is looked at with a pleasure of 

 like origin to that with which they gaze upon a painting by an old 

 master. I am not condemning this form of emotion. I am simply 

 setting it down where it belongs as forming a part in many cases of 

 the pleasure of picture-gazing, as a part of esthetic emotion. Much of 

 the furnishing of the homes of people of wealth and cultivation — being 

 rare, costly and representative of great labor and much technical skill 

 — gives to its owners a pleasure of like origin with that imparted by 

 the crazy quilt. 



Kinship in knowledge is a bond of friendship. The beginning of 

 sympathy is like-mindedness. We cannot care much for those we do 

 not know; we know those who know the things that are known by iis. 

 Meeting in a distant land one alien to us in every way, but familiar 

 with the same home scenes, a friend of friends of ours, we have for 

 him at once a touch of sympathy, and find pleasure in oiir me 'ing. 

 So, if we look upon a picture in company with others who are witii us 

 in our enjoyment — even when, as is most often the case, the enjoy- 

 ment is born of fashion, habit and curiosity — ^we have a sense of com- 

 panionship with them, a pleasurable feeling born of a common interest, 

 which we ascribe as to its origin to the picture itself. In fact, the 

 picture, as a work of art, is not the cause of our enjoyment at all. 

 A tigbt-rope walker or a sacred relic would serve as well; perhaps 

 better in many cases. We simply have widened and increased our 



