or what is closer to the truth, when I look at

      that of which I may regard myself as the

        imaginary possessor, I fix upon that which would

      give me pleasure in my average moments: the satire upon curiosity,

          in which no more is discernible than the intensity of the

          mood;

    or quite the opposite—the old thing, the medi-

      æval decorated hat box, in which there

        are hounds with waists diminishing like the waist of the

        hour-glass

      and deer, both white and brown, and birds and seated people; it

      may be no more than a square

          of parquetry; the literal biography perhaps—in letters stand-

    ing well apart upon a parchment-like expanse;

      or that which is better without words, which means

        just as much or just as little as it is understood to

      mean by the observer—the grave of Adam, prefigured by himself; a

        bed of beans

        or artichokes in six varieties of blue; the snipe-legged hiero—

    glyphic in three parts; it may be anything. Too

      stern an intellectual emphasis, i-

        ronic or other—upon this quality or that, detracts

      from one’s enjoyment; it must not wish to disarm anything; nor may

          the approved tri-

          umph easily be honoured—that which is great because something

          else is small.

    It comes to this: of whatever sort it is, it

      must make known the fact that it has been displayed

        to acknowledge the spiritual forces which have made it;

      and it must admit that it is the work of X, if X produced it; of

          Y, if made by Y. It must be a voluntary gift with the name

          written on it.