The intuitive sense will carry the _amateur_ a long way, but connoisseurship will depend upon knowledge. Those persons who are absolutely indifferent to the whys and wherefores of things, uninterested in any effort to discover the “story” of an object, bored by its history or unappreciative of its beauty, are hardly likely to become collectors, though accident and the chances of fortune may throw interesting things into their possession. Neither are they likely ever to become as Thackeray, who, in “Roundabout Papers,” said of a certain antique and curio shop: “I never can pass without delaying at the windows--indeed, if I were going to be hung, I would beg the cart to stop, and let me have one look more at the delightful _omnium gatherum_.” Now, it often happens that we find a collector-in-embryo--one who has a desire to start a collection, but fancies it an undertaking requiring very special qualifications--asking: “How could I hope to become a collector when I know so little about the subject I think I should be interested in? Then I fear good things cost too much, and that real bargains have long ago vanished from the mart.” To such a one the reply can truthfully be made that it is by no means difficult for the beginner to acquire definite and valuable knowledge on any subject in the collector’s field that may chance to interest him. The way one learns to collect (and that means the way one learns about the things worth collecting) is by collecting. Contact with the objects themselves is necessary to connoisseurship, just as it is one of its pleasures. The collector learns more about Oriental porcelains, old English china, Dresden figurines, French enamels, Russian brass, Italian laces, or Bohemian glass by having a few representative pieces of them at hand for study than he could learn, so far as helpful knowledge fitting him to judge is concerned, from volumes on the subject. While this contact with actual objects is necessary in developing a connoisseurship (one may have it visually in museums or have access to private collections; the shops, too, will teach one much), all the accessible writings on the subject should be consulted, as comparative study increases the interest and confirms or corrects one’s personal deductions and opinions.