Art Out-of-Doors 



and fair in other business matters, seem to 

 think that they have a right to get something 

 for nothing, or more for a given price than 

 was promised them. This proves that as yet 

 we do not value art as we do other commod- 

 ities, or reahze that the work of a man's 

 brain has a definite marketable worth. If 

 we estimated art as it deserves — high 

 above any merely connriercial product— we 

 should, indeed, even feel wilhng to pay more 

 for what we get than was at first decided. 

 No artist, be he ever so conscientious, can 

 at the outset tell to a dollar what a large and 

 complicated piece of work will cost ; and if 

 we deprive him of the right to a reasonable 

 margin of excess, we may fatally injure his 

 work and thus commit a crime against him 

 and against the art he serves. 



Few clients to-day would welcome a law 

 bidding them stand ready to add one-fourth 

 to the prices named in their contracts ; a 

 very much smaller increase almost always 

 gives rise to angry protestations. On the 

 other hand, if our architects and landscape- 

 gardeners were asked to fix a legal margin 

 for increase of cost, they would probably be 



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