tions. It conserves the aroma of the past with which to scent the actualities of the present; and that charm of the French people, which friends and enemies alike have to acknowledge, the charm of the little town and big town alike, the liberal atmosphere and tolerance of general principles and little details by an essentially conservative people, is not the result of a chance. It is the result of the recognition of the needs of the body and the spirit together. At noon the Frenchman is not worn out by his day's work. He is not too stupid, too sleepy, too much wrapt up in routine ever to be able to think of other things. Moreover he takes naturally and in the ordinary course of events those things for which the Anglo-Saxon makes special and precise provision. In order to have some outside life beyond his daily vocations, he does not really need to go outside life. In his noontide pause he can stretch himself legitimately if he so desires, and stretching is necessary to us all, even to the black cat on the thirteenth-century windowledge.

High noon is not for younger nations, with their rushing activities, their overwhelming mountains of material facts. It is a growth through centuries of readjustment, through war and pestilence and religious ecstacy, through generations of pleasures and griefs and countless ledgers of little business transactions which make up the human relationship. It is the thread upon which they are strung, one of the age-long customs which have no beginning. And thus the restraint of it is habitual with the Frenchman and he does not chafe and fret and long to be doing something different. That part of life is taken for granted by him. He pays for it, too. The Human Comedy holds good today in Provincial France, in the heavy weight of habit and custom which this gayest of nations has taken upon itself; perhaps as a counterpoise, perhaps to balance up a quickness of thought beyond the possibilities. The small tyrannies which attend the intensely personal aspect of things are at their highest point. The man who sits in his café and holds forth is also giving his neighbour weapons against himself; the dependence upon the familiar, the reverence for the customary, makes of mistakes a crime, where in younger countries

they would be laudable experiments. Human activity is undoubtedly fettered and some human beings have too much power over other human beings. That is the result of all formalism, of all organizing of life toward a general custom with the consequent avoidance of the friction of individual desire.

It depends upon what you want; whether it be force and experiment without much direction, action just for the joy of action; physical as opposed to mental achievement. In the older countries the facts have been pretty well used up and life is rather a commentary on fact. France is a bible of facts, bound up and treasured and ready for the commentator. And moreover, each fact has so much more meaning in proportion to its own context of other facts. If you want to be free to produce facts, France and its ancient traditions and customs is a tyranny. If you want to be emancipated from facts, then the habitual round, the fixed points, the easy leisureliness of high noon which is not the affair of class or possession, make this emancipation possible. Perhaps you imprison the body to prevent it from interfering with the spirit. Perhaps you conserve a summary of human custom, lest too many human customs should make for friction and mere noise. Whatever it is, the tyrannies, the stationariness, the round of unchanging vocations, do give the Frenchman, all and sundry, a charm and liveliness and, withal, reserve, which are unequaled. He is one of the hors d'œuvres of life while other nations are the bread and butter. He knows how to do things, which is so very much more difficult than doing them. And so in his benighted country, high noon obtains, and the little shop is shut and he sits expansively in his café under the striped awnings with his blue siphon and his petit verre and at least the bottom button of his waistcoat undone, sunning himself in the thought that he is alive in that little fixed spot in the universe which he has spent centuries in reclaiming from the eternal loneliness. And the black cat suns itself.

MURIEL HARRIS.

WHAT IS ART?

BY MATAICHI MIYA

THE thing that looks Art to a person who thinks that it is Art, is Art. There are many ways of looking at it from different angles-those of the rich and the poor, the educated and the uneducated, the child and the grown-up. Art belongs to everybody who looks for it. There is not a human who does not admire Art. Art and you will be more friendly when you are at peace; when you have no trouble on your mind, no sickness in your family, nothing to worry over, then you can enjoy Art. Then Art will love you and you in turn will love Art.

There are a few who cannot forget Art even for a minute, but they are exceptional.

Art is very wide. Art is not only what you see with your eye, but it is within your mind also. There are many things beside art objects in art galleries. You may find Art almost anywhere, anytime, if you have the eye to see it. In your home good housekeeping is Art; so are harmonious decorations and the arrangement of flowers; so are cooking, eating, sleeping and dressing; so is talking; so are movements and manners-yes, so is love-there is Art in all. You may find a great sculptor in the barber shop, or in a tailor shop. A master hand-that is Art. No matter where we find it.

Think of some of the subjects which from olden days until now artists have painted as expressions of thought, as Degas has been moved to do after seeing the wonderful movements and the grace of dancers. Beautiful flowers, together with butterflies, as by the Sung master Li-Ti. A group of monkeys by Sosen. You may be reminded of Whistler by a bridge in the distance on a misty morning, or a peaceful sunset. You may recall a farmer returning in the dimness of evening, by Millet; or a bright sunset in an open field, by George Inness. Snow, the moon and rain, by Hiroshige. Rocky mountains and pine trees, by Shirkui.

An old beggar, by the illustrious Rembrandt. Lifelike Greek statues, spiritful Gothic figures of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and impressive Buddhistic images of T'ang and Six Dynasties.

There is no end of subjects or of artists, from the days of old until today, giving pleasure to those who admire, and to us all giving the chance to appreciate great artists better when we look at natural things. There are many things done beyond nature or model, which is work done by the power of imagination. For example, The Thinker, by Rodin. I do not believe anyone knows what that thinker is thinking. There was a man, I know, who knew all about it, but he is no more in this world.

Yet, there is a still greater quality in Art, in Buddhist art and in Christian art, whether of sculptor or of painter; the artists try to put impressive and worshipable spirits into the objects produced, to help the Buddhistic or the Christian or any other religion by Art; and in doing so, they have also helped Art.

There is no standard form, no original example exists, but ideal after ideal, copy after copy, work after work. Today you have complete forms, but those forms are not original, in Buddhism. Those forms were built by the great priests and artists under the T'ang Dynasty by the order of the Buddhistic power. No one ever saw Buddha or Kuan-yin or Jesus, for portraiture, but the artists built them from imagination of what they looked like— what they should have looked like according to history and tradition and worship. So Buddhist art, or religious art, is spiritual art. Take for example Kano Hogai's Fudo-myōwō, a painting formerly in the Fenellosa Collection, now in Japan-what wonderful power of Fudo, how different from others, what a mighty conception, what a great spirit Hogai had for Fudo!

Art knows no twins, has no two alike; one artist cannot paint two pictures exactly the same. One is better than the other. Therefore great Art is a very precious treasure. Do not confuse "valuable" with value, "rarity" with rare, archæology or antiquity with works of art. Price has nothing to do with the value of Art, which is not quantity but quality. The spirit of Art is in simplicity. Simplicity is higher Art than is implied in the words magnificent, gorgeous or wonderful. Simplicity has charm and

delicacy and everlasting thought. Artists paint for the love of Art; many of them sacrifice their lives for the love of Art, as you may recollect; collectors fight in competition and pay for the love of Art. Yet Art has no price. An object at a thousand dollars is cheap, yet a dollar may be too much. In his philosophy of art collecting someone said: "I have regretted my economy; I am happy in my extravagance." What tremendous value Art has!

Do not forget the love of nature that the artist puts into the art object. Great Art pleases you all the time if it is around you, and the art object will remind you of its model and will tell a pleasing story and will refresh your mind; but you must have an eye to see. There are many things which you cannot see, yet Art will draw a picture of them in your mind. Music, or song by human or insect or bird, will give us the inspiration of a picture. Listening to sound, one can dream a picture in his way, and another in another way—each of different sort.

There was a song about a crow. As those who live in the country no doubt know, the crow sings the first thing in the morning, which is very annoying to some people and awakens them. One lover said:

Kill all the crows in the world, for I want to sleep enough with my love. Another lover said:

I would like to sleep enough with my love together with all the crows in the world.

One looked for trouble and the other for peace to satisfy his love.

There is Art in literature, in prose and in poetry. The Japanese poet, Basho, produced a masterpiece: "Old pondfrog jump in-water sound." That means nothing if you are not familiar with it. But the translation of his thought into the picture: A little cottage near the old pond, where the palms grow in the garden of green moss-the stone lantern and the simple gate.

One rainy day in spring, Basho seated himself in front of his desk, looking through a round window toward the pond, and meditated. Suddenly, he heard a sound of splashing water, then he saw a frog swimming, and Basho jumped and in ecstasy he