be found one of the reasons for the length of a child's time, and for the
brevity of the time that succeeds. The child lets his moments pass by
and quickly become remote through a thousand little successive oblivions.
He has not yet the languid habit of recall.

"Thou art my warrior," said Volumnia. "I holp to frame thee."

Shall a man inherit his mother's trick of speaking, or her habit and
attitude, and not suffer something, against his will, from her bequest of
weakness, and something, against his heart, from her bequest of folly?
From the legacies of an unlessoned mind, a woman's heirs-male are not cut
off in the Common Law of the generations of mankind. Brutus knew that
the valour of Portia was settled upon his sons.




SYMMETRY AND INCIDENT


The art of Japan has none but an exterior part in the history of the art
of nations. Being in its own methods and attitude the art of accident,
it has, appropriately, an accidental value. It is of accidental value,
and not of integral necessity. The virtual discovery of Japanese art,
during the later years of the second French Empire, caused Europe to
relearn how expedient, how delicate, and how lovely Incident may look
when Symmetry has grown vulgar. The lesson was most welcome. Japan has
had her full influence. European art has learnt the value of position
and the tact of the unique. But Japan is unlessoned, and (in all her
characteristic art) content with her own conventions; she is local,