81. My endeavour, therefore, to-day will be to point out to you how in the best wisdom, that there may be happy advance, there must first be happy contentment; that, in one sense, we must always be entering its kingdom as a little child, and pleased yet for a time _not_ to put away childish things. And while I hitherto have endeavoured only to show how modesty and gentleness of disposition purified Art and Science, by permitting us to recognize the superiority of the work of others to our own--to-day, on the contrary, I wish to indicate for you the uses of infantine self-satisfaction; and to show you that it is by no error or excess in our nature, by no corruption or distortion of our being, that we are disposed to take delight in the little things that we can do ourselves, more than in the great things done by other people. So only that we recognize the littleness and the greatness, it is as much a part of true Temperance to be pleased with the little we know, and the little we can do, as with the little that we have. On the one side Indolence, on the other Covetousness, are as much to be blamed, with respect to our Arts, as our possessions; and every man is intended to find an exquisite personal happiness in his own small skill, just as he is intended to find happiness in his own small house or garden, while he respects, without coveting, the grandeur of larger domains. 82. Nay, more than this: by the wisdom of Nature, it has been appointed that more pleasure may be taken in small things than in great, and more in rude Art than in the finest. Were it otherwise, we might be disposed to complain of the narrow limits which have been set to the perfection of human skill. I pointed out to you, in a former lecture, that the excellence of sculpture had been confined in past time to the Athenian and Etrurian vales. The absolute excellence of painting has been reached only by the inhabitants of a single city in the whole world; and the faultless manner of religious architecture holds only for a period of fifty years out of six thousand. We are at present tormenting ourselves with the vain effort to teach men everywhere to rival Venice and Athens,--with the practical result of having lost the enjoyment of Art altogether;--instead of being content to amuse ourselves still with the painting and carving which were possible once, and would be pleasant always, in Paris, and London, at Strasbourg, and at York.