Page:The nature and elements of poetry, Stedman, 1892.djvu/189

Rh thus art returns upon its circuit and the wisdom of the Preacher is reaffirmed. Still, every race has its culminating or concurrent ideal of beauty, Development of racial and national ideals. which is affected, again, by the conditions of life in the different regions of the race's establishment. Each nation, like a rose-tree, draws from the soil and air its strength, and wealth, and material sustenance; it puts forth branches, and leaves, and sturdy thorns, and battles with the elements and with the thicket that hems it in; finally, with all its hardier growth assured, it breaks into flower, it develops an ideal; its own and perfect rose of beauty marks the culmination, the intent, the absolute fulfilment, of its creative existence. Thus the ideals of Grecian art and song doubtless represent the South, and those of the Gothic or romantic the North, in Europe; and the two include the rarest of our Aryan types. In art, these have Ultimate standards. resulted in various academic standards the excellence of which cannot be discredited. Pater has rightly said that it is vulgar to ignore the "form" of the one, and vulgar to underrate the "substance" of the other. The charm of the Perfection of the antique. antique, for instance, is so celestial that, supposing we had been deprived of it hitherto and were suddenly to be introduced to it through discovery of a new continent, the children of art would go wild over its perfection. The very artists who now revolt from it would in that case break from other standards and lead a revolt in its favor, and a