THE MENTOR 1917.01.15, No. 123,
American Miniature Painters

Art and Life

We are close to realizing the greatest joys to be found in thisworkaday world when we accept art as a vital part and not a thingseparate and distinct from our daily lives. Then we come to know thetrue values of things—to "find tongues in trees, books in runningbrooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything."

"Art, if we so accept it," says William Morris, "will be with uswherever we go—in the ancient city full of traditions of past time,in the newly cleared farm in America or the colonies, where no man hasdwelt for traditions to gather round him; in the quiet countryside asin the busy town—no place shall be without it.

You will have it with you in your sorrow as in your joy, in yourworking hours as in your leisure. It will be no respecter of persons,but be shared by gentle and simple, learned and unlearned, and be asa language that all can understand. It will not hinder any work thatis necessary to the life of man at the best, but it will destroy alldegrading toil, all enervating luxury, all foppish frivolity.

It will be the deadly foe of ignorance, dishonesty, and tyranny, andwill foster good-will, fair dealing, and confidence between man andman. It will teach you to respect the highest intellect with a manlyreverence, but not to despise any man who does not pretend to be whathe is not."