Ruskin did not, as Nordau confesses, advocate any neglect in the art of painting as such, but he warned artists not to waste their time on unworthy subjects. He is a philanthropist as well as a writer on art, and feels aggrieved when the artist neglects so good an opportunity of teaching as a well-executed painting offers, and yet more when he sees art abased in order to gratify sensuality or morbid cravings for the horrible. That Ruskin did not so absolutely disregard beautiful pictures which have no story to tell and no teaching to impart becomes incontestable when we remember his panegyrics of Turner. Victor Hugo in his _Notre Dame de Paris_ makes Claude Frollo say, when he has a book in his hand and the old cathedral before him, that the one will kill the other, meaning, of course, that books were predestined to supersede symbolism in buildings and other arts. Nordau takes for granted that this has already been done. He sees no good in works of art giving expression to ideas and emotions which could so much better be described and more clearly defined in books. But is there not a great inconsistency in first admitting that art keeps within its rational limit when it presents the beauties of nature to the public in such a manner as to make them more evident, which is equal to teaching that nature is beautiful, and then to say that art oversteps its limits when it teaches, or attempts to teach, anything else? If we survey all the means available to humanity for the conveyance of thoughts and emotions, they present a scale which begins by speech and ends with music. Though it must be acknowledged that speech only with difficulty lends itself to the expression of one or a considerable number of interdependent and intertangent complex ideas perfectly clear in a sound mind, it is however the best means we possess for lucid expression. Written prose has the same merit as speech, and may be used to express the driest mathematical facts, as well as the most poetical imaginings. Verse, we think it will be generally allowed, is better calculated to convey poetical ideas and expressions, as it admits of greater liberty, more stirring language, bolder metaphors, and because rhythm and rhyme, in virtue of their musical qualities, appeal to the imagination and stir the emotions.