Aesthetic culture is not the high-road to all the virtues, and, indeed, certain of the vices have been known to infest it. Neither, on the other hand, is there any special grace in ugliness. Art is only utterance. It must express something; and the vital question is, what does it express?

The scope of art is practically boundless; it does not begin and end with the painting of pictures and the modelling of statues; where there is room for workmanship there is room for it.

Nature seems to have neglected no opportunity for ornament. Think of the trees in winter, and the pattern of the twigs against the sky; how the naked branches spread out into the semblance of huge seaweeds in still water. To see them rimed with frost, or after a fresh fall of snow, is a new revelation of their beauty. In spring, when the branches begin to burgeon and to glow with colour, they look more than ever like seaweeds. And individual buds, when you get near enough to distinguish them, have always a character and beauty of their own.

The artist is justified by his art.