File:Essays and Belles Lettres (1906) (14784368105).jpg

Identifier: essbelleslet00rhys (find matches)
Title: Essays and Belles Lettres
Year: 1906 (1900s)
Authors: Rhys, Ernest 1859-1946 (editor)
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Publisher: New York: E P Dutton & Co
Contributing Library: Brigham Young University-Idaho, David O. McKay Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University-Idaho

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d yetthe aspect of it is changed for us daily. You see violets androses often, and are not tired of them. True! but you did notoften see two roses alike, or, if you did, you took care notto put them beside each other in the same nosegay, forfear your nosegay should be uninteresting ; and yet youthink you can put 150,000 square windows side by sidein the same streets, and still be interested by them. Why,if I were to say the same thing over and over again, forthe single hour you are going to let me talk to you, wouldyou listen to me ? and yet you let your architects do thesame thing over and over again for three centuries, andexpect to be interested by their architecture; with a fartherdisadvantage on the side of the builder, as compared withthe speaker, that my wasted wrords would cost you but 1 Including York Place, and Picardy Place, but not counting, anywindow which has mouldings. Architecture and Painting 57 little, but his wasted stones have cost you no small partof your incomes.
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Fig. 2. Well, but, you still think within yourselves, it is notright that architecture should be interesting. It is a verygrand thing, this architecture, but essentially unentertaining. 58 Architecture and Painting It is its duty to be dull, it is monotonous by law : it cannotbe correct and yet amusing. Believe me, it is not so. Ail things that are worth doingin art, are interesting and attractive when they are done.There is no law of right which consecrates dulness. Theproof of a things being right is, that it has power over theheart ; that it excites us, wins us, or helps us. I do not saythat it has influence over all, but it has over a large class,one kind of art being fit for one class, and another foranother; and there is no goodness in art which is inde-pendent of the power of pleasing. Yet, do not mistake me ;I do not mean that there is no such thing as neglect ofthe best art, or delight in the worst, just as many menneglect nature, and feed upon what is artificial and base;but

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