16 LITKEAEY VALUES 



IV 

 In OTir modern democratic communities the moral 

 sense is no doubt higher than it was in the earlier 

 ages, while the artistic or aesthetic sense is lower. 

 In the Athenian the artistic sense was far above the 

 moral ; in the Puritan the reverse was the case. 

 The Latin races seem to have a greater genius for 

 art than the Teutonic, while the latter excel in vir- 

 tue. In this country, good taste exists in streaks 

 and spots, or sporadically here and there. There 

 does not seem to be enough to go around, or the 

 supply is intermittent. One writer has it and an- 

 other has it not, or one has it to-day and not to-mor- 

 row ; one moment he writes with grace and simpli- 

 city, the next he falls into crudenesses or affectations. 

 There is not enough leaven to leaven the whole 

 lump. Some of our most eminent literary men, such 

 as Lowell and Dr. Holmes, are guilty of occasional 

 lapses from good taste, and probably in the work of 

 none of them do we see the thorough ripening and 

 mellowing of taste that mark the productions of 

 the older and more centralized European communi- 

 ties. One of our college presidents, writing upon a 

 serious ethical subject, allows himself such rhetoric as 

 this : " Experiment and inference are the hook and 

 line by which Science fishes the dry formulas out of 

 the fluid fact. Art, on the other hand, undertakes to 

 stock the stream with choice specimens of her own 

 breeding and selection." We can hardly say of such 

 metaphors what Sainte-Beuve said of Montaigne's, 

 namely, that they are of the kind that are never " de- 



