This is art indeed--art in the mind and soul, infinitely deeper, surely,
than the construction of crockery, jugs for the mantelpiece, dados, or
even of paintings. The lover of nature has the highest art in his soul.
So, I think, the bluff English farmer who takes such pride and delight in
his dogs and horses, is a much greater man of art than any Frenchman
preparing with cynical dexterity of hand some coloured presentment of
flashy beauty for the _salon_. The English girl who loves her horse--and
English girls _do_ love their horses most intensely--is infinitely more
artistic in that fact than the cleverest painter on enamel. They who love
nature are the real artists; the "artists" are copyists, St. John the
naturalist, when exploring the recesses of the Highlands, relates how he
frequently came in contact with men living in the rude Highland
way--forty years since, no education then--whom at first you would
suppose to be morose, unobservant, almost stupid. But when they found out
that their visitor would stay for hours gazing in admiration at their
glens and mountains, their demeanour changed. Then the truth appeared:
they were fonder than he was himself of the beauties of their hills and
lakes; they could see the art _there_, though perhaps they had never seen
a picture in their lives, certainly not any blue-and-white crockery.
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