oneself with the petty and eclectic views which merely produce æsthetic excrescences, or to be frankly ignorant of what art means. Recognition of the relativity of art is constantly neglected by those who talk and write about it. For one school the audience does not exist; for another nothing but the audience. Obviously neither view is right. Art may be very naïve and still be art—still be the expression of a childish vision appealing to childish visions, making childish hearts beat. Thus: “Mary had a little lamb, Its wool was white as snow, And everywhere that Mary went The lamb was sure to go,” is art to the child of five, whose heart and fancy it affects. And: “Tiger, tiger, burning bright Through the forests of the night— What immortal hand and eye Framed thy fearful symmetry?” is art to the writer and the reader of these words. On the other hand, Tolstoi, in limiting art to such of it as might be understanded of simple folk, served his purpose of attacking the extravagant dandyisms of æstheticism, but fell lugubriously short of the wide truth. The essence of art is the power of communication between heart and heart. Yes! But since no one shall say to human nature: “Be of this or that pattern,” or to the waves of human understanding: “Thus far and no further,” so no man shall say these things to art. Anybody can draw a tree, but few can draw a tree that others can see is like a tree, and not one in a million can convey the essential spirit of Tree. The power of getting over the footlights to some audience or other is clearly necessary before a man can be called an artist by any but himself. But so soon as he has established genuine connection between his creation and the gratified perception of others, he is making art, though it may be, and usually is, very childish art. The point to grasp is this, and again this: Art is rooted in life for its inspiration, and dependent for its existence as art on affecting other human beings, sooner or later. The statue, the picture, or the book which, having been given a proper chance, has failed to move any but its creator, is certainly not art. It does not follow that the artist should consider his public, or try to please others than his own best self; but if, in pleasing his best self, he does not succeed in pleasing others, in the past, the present, or the future, he will certainly not have produced art. Not, of course, that the size of his public is proof of an artist’s merit. The public of all time is generally but a small public at any given moment. Tolstoi seems to have forgotten that, and to have neglected the significance attaching to the quality of a public. For, if the essence of art be its power of bridging between heart and heart (as he admitted), its value may well be greater if at first it only reaches and fertilizes the hearts of other artists rather than those of the