landscape becomes _ipso facto_ a means to a peculiar, aesthetic state of
mind. Artists are concerned only with this peculiar emotional
significance of the physical universe: because they _perceive_ things as
"ends," things _become_ for them "means" to ecstasy.

The habit of recognising the label and overlooking the thing, of seeing
intellectually instead of seeing emotionally, accounts for the amazing
blindness, or rather visual shallowness, of most civilised adults. We do
not forget what has moved us, but what we have merely recognised leaves
no deep impression on the mind. A friend of mine, a man of taste,
desired to make some clearance in his gardens, encumbered as they were
with a multitude of trees; unfortunately most of his friends and all his
family objected on sentimental or aesthetic grounds, declaring that the
place would never be the same to them if the axe were laid to a single
trunk. My friend was in despair, until, one day, I suggested to him that
whenever his people were all away on visits or travels, as was pretty
often the case, he should have as many trees cut down as could be
completely and cleanly removed during their absence. Since then, several
hundreds have been carted from his small park and pleasure grounds, and
should the secret be betrayed to the family I am cheerfully confident
that not one of them would believe it. I could cite innumerable
instances of this insensibility to form. How often have I been one of a
party in a room with which all were familiar, the decoration of which
had lately been changed, and I the only one to notice it. For practical
purposes the room remained unaltered; only its emotional significance
was new. Question your friend as to the disposition of the furniture in
his wife's drawing-room; ask him to sketch the street down which he
passes daily; ten to one he goes hopelessly astray. Only artists and
educated people of extraordinary sensibility and some savages and
children feel the significance of form so acutely that they know how