Let us quote further from the same: "The sets of porcelain for tea, coffee, or chocolate, may be had for fifteen to sixty guineas. There is one particular kind from which they will abate nothing of one hundred guineas the set; this is a double porcelain, not made at once, but a second layer added to the first form, resembling a honey-comb on the outside, which is of a pale-brown color, the _letts_ or cavities being all painted, as well as the bottoms of the insides of the cups and dishes. This, as all other sorts, may be had painted with landscapes and figures, birds, insects, fruits, flowers: the first being the dearer; the latter, the best executed, being almost equal to Nature in beauty and liveliness of the colors. The grounds of all these different sorts of porcelain are various, some being painted on white, others on pink; some in compartments, others without. The spaces between are sometimes of a white, yellow, or pea-green color; or the whole ground is white, with running flowers. This sort and the pea-green in compartments are the newest made and in the most elegant taste." Table-services at this time cost from one hundred to one thousand guineas each, according to the number of pieces and the elaborateness of the decoration. The figure-pieces, some fifteen inches high, were sold at from sixteen to twenty guineas; and the smaller figurines, five or six inches high, for as many pounds. These Dresden figures of this early period now sell for very high prices, and are much sought for, as are also the figure-pieces of the Höchst and Chelsea factories. But let us ask ourselves, "Why should we pay such great prices for work which, as _art_, has but a reflected value?" I am sure that no great sculptor will apply his best work to china, or to any material which is so liable to be spoiled in the baking, and to one which, after all, is not suited to what we term high or fine art. These figures are of value, of course, as illustrations of the possibilities, and also as historical illustrations, of the growth and development of the fictile art. No man will wish to have an Ariadne in china made by an excellent artist, if he can have the same work of the same artist in marble. We have the same feeling in regard to a fine painting: would any one wish to exchange the Dresden Madonna of Raphael on the canvas for a perfect copy in mosaic, or in the most exquisite Gobelin tapestry? None. And yet the mosaic or the tapestry has cost ten times more of human labor. The artificialities of life come to be supreme at times, and the human mind, in some stages of development, loses all sense of what is good or bad, in an exaggerated appreciation of what is difficult or uncommon; and, in many cases, a fashion or whim of the hour rides down a sound judgment. Among the more intellectual peoples this prevails.