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 realize that the work of a man’s 
brain has a definite marketable worth. If 
we estimated art as it deserves — high 
above any merely commercial product — we 
should, indeed, even feel willing 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 
380 
