420 Life as a Fine Art. 



cation, enlightenment, and the gradual transformation of 

 unfavorable environments. But for man, however lowly, 

 however ignorant, however debased, it bears a gospel of in- 

 finite hope and cheer. 



Vice and crime shut put that infinite outlook, that nuance 

 of encouragement and invitation, which is the soul of the 

 art-feeling. To the poor, however, the perception of life as 

 a fine art is not impossible : it is even more possible to them, 

 perhaps, than 'to the very rich. These have their reward 

 Around them is no divine halo of unrealized possibilities. 

 For the poor, however, who is not also depraved, who has 

 something of hope, something of energy, there is an illimita- 

 ble outlook, a hope and promise of improvement, a trust in 

 progress. Bags and dirt, even, are not inconsistent with this 

 larger life ; only vice and crime, which are always the mis- 

 eries of choice in part, even when they are portions of the 

 individual's inheritance. The true artist sees something of 

 this hopeful, attractive, infinite side of poverty. He paints 

 the hovel rather than the palace ; the lusty bootblack or 

 newsboy on the city street, or the peasant in the field or at 

 the brookside the humble interior with its homelike aspect, 

 and its occupants happy in the joy of simply living rather 

 than the pomp of regal magnificence. Such pictures touch 

 the heart with quite other feelings than those of despair at 

 the hopelessness of poverty. They suggest the true comfort, 

 the progressive up-lift, the ideal satisfaction, the real mean- 

 ing of life, far more effectively than does the pictured pomp 

 of courts or the tinsel show of riches. These portray and 

 emphasize the circumstances as superior to the man ; the 

 former illustrate the power and habit of the human soul to 

 triumph over its conditions. Wealth, indeed, is not to be 

 despised or unconditionally condemned. On the contrary, 

 it is one of the factors of our modern civilization an essen- 

 tial condition of the world's spiritual and moral as well as 

 material progress. But what I desire to emphasize is the 

 fact that it is only a condition a potency for good if right- 

 ly used, of inestimable evil if misused. Its value lies wholly 

 in its use, and not at all in any inherent virtue of its own. 

 Eightly used and equitably distributed according to the 

 deserts of its producers, it is an indispensable factor in all 

 efforts f 01 the enlargement and betterment of life. 



p Hitherto I have treated of this artistic or evolutionary 

 view of life as an ideal as something to be striven for and 



