Art for Life's Sake; An Application of the Principles of Art to the Ideals and Conduct of Individual and Collective Life (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1913 edition. Excerpt: ... chapter xxx culture recognizing the Kinship of the Practical and the Ideal, we are in train to form a just estimate of the need and value of Culture. For, while the word with what it implies is of honorable heritage, it has become discredited. It is not unusual to hear Culture sneered at, as an affectation of superiority or the crazy delusion of unpractical enthusiasts. One of the stock jokes of Europe is the American who scours over the continent at express speed, "getting culture." I myself remember meeting a Westerner in a hotel in Rome who told me he had arrived that morning and was leaving that night and in the interval had "done" the Eternal City. He explained that after finishing his business in Paris, he had found he had a few days to "speculate with" and determined to realize the dream of his life. In anticipation of the possibility, he had provided himself before leaving home with a list of the principal "features" and by paying double rates to a guide and cabman had succeeded in "taking them all in." In high satisfaction he showed me the list with each item duly ticked off. Now it is easy enough to smile at this or to deplore it as pathetic; but for my own part, I see something fine in this naive episode; yes, and finely characteristic of American enterprise and spirit. It is not such men as this that retard our Democracy, but those sleek overfed citizens who He back in their easy-chairs after the day's business and see in the smoke of their fat cigars dreams only of further money-making. The very hunger and thirst for further knowledge and new experience of sensations, which characterize the American nation as a whole, represent a great Spiritual Asset. So, before we join the sneerers at our national propensity for seeking...