When the student first perceives clearly that each of the fine arts differs very widely from all the others, he is very apt to assume too much importance for his own differentiation of those arts. He sees such striking differences that he ignores resemblances and similarities; or he is very ready to do so. It is evident to him that the piece of literature needs a subject of the nature of narrative, or description, or exhortation, or prayer, or jest, and that the dignity or meanness of the subject has much to do with the artistical result. Then it appears to him that music requires no subject of that character; that music goes to work in another way and addresses the spirit of man, not by relating or describing, not by appeals to morals or to memory. He hardly disputes Arnold's dictum that poetry is "a criticism of life;" referring only to the same author's explanation of criticism and to the further elucidation of the thought which is contained in the phrases "We turn to poetry to interpret life for us, to console us, to sustain us;" but he reflects that he would be a rash critic who should try to judge any piece of music in that way. This is clear to the mind of the student; but still he ponders over the graphic arts, over sculpture and painting, in all their forms, wondering why those arts seem to him half-way between literature and music, having less to do with preaching or portraiture than the one, and more, it seems, than the other. He finds that painters are more concerned with light and shade, and also more busy with composition and the leading lines and, again, more thoughtful of bringing whites prettily together, than they are of telling any story or influencing any person's conduct. And the sculptors are concerned with dignity of form, and care as little about whether they deal with piety or with passion as do the musical composers.