Assuming that the Orientals are races who perceive or feel, rather than reason--while the reverse of this is true of Europeans and Americans--we find our art often losing its way, which that of the Orientals seldom does. The natural or instinctive soul, by its native sense, is guided in matters of color and decoration more truly than we who attempt to reason out these things. Now, applying this to the facts of fictile art, we find that the Chinese and Japanese never attempted figure-work in porcelain, except in some few cases of burlesques, or of animals and birds. Their work was applied to that which comes into the uses of life--for the table first and mostly; after that for vases, which became works of pure ornament, but yet behind which lay the motive of _use_. In all this, it seems to me, the Orientals were right, and the Saxons wrong. I believe, then, that the best and purest art will be found in porcelain when applied to the decoration of dinner and tea services, of vases, and of articles which do not attempt to rival sculpture or high art; and those may reach perfection, while the porcelain sculptures will not. I believe, too, that the best style of decoration for porcelain is not imitative, but suggestive--that is, an elaborate and careful _copy_ of a flower or a figure upon the clay is not so appropriate or so satisfactory as a free translation of the sentiment of the flower or the figure, which suggests it to the soul rather than tickles the eye. It is not appropriate, so it seems to me, that a delicate painting of a beautiful girl should be made on the dinner-plate upon which you are to put your squash or your pudding; such delicate penciling should be devoted to art pure and simple--to "fine art," as it is called. Such paintings on china cannot be put to use; they are too costly, and therefore they fail to be either useful art or fine art. Now, the tendency of European porcelain-decoration is always in this "fine-art" direction, and is always false; that of Oriental porcelain is always in the useful-art direction, and therefore true. The pure white porcelain of Meissen was not at first sold, but was reserved for the king's use, or for presents to distinguished personages. In later times it was sold, and is still; and the pieces so disposed of have a _scratch_ cut across the _mark_, to indicate that they were not painted in the factory. The works at Meissen grew in importance and in public favor up to the time of the Seven Years' War (1756 to 1763), when Frederick the Great overran Saxony, broke up the Meissen factory, and removed the workmen to Berlin, where he established the Prussian potteries, which afterward came to be of great consequence.