But not only the mind of man kept changing:  the world itself and its civilization—­by war, by treaty, by science, by invention, by art itself—­kept changing, and is changing now.  Development, physical as well as social, has been constant, and the changes accompanying it have inspired, and are inspiring, artists with new ideas to which they are always trying to give expression.  The subjects of art have enormously multiplied.  Those introduced by sport of all kinds, by the development of the theatre, by the newly-found effects of light and colour, need only be mentioned as examples capable of suggesting beauties and harmonies unknown to and unsuspected by the ancients.  Hence, in addition to the classical art of the day, there is room for the “new art,” the secessionist, the futurist, the impressionist, even the cubist, or whatever the experimental movement may call itself.  And any day any of these movements may lead to the establishment of a new and admirable school of genuine art as beautiful as the classical, if in a different manner.  The world has no idea of the surprises in all directions yet in store for it.

The Emperor, too, is at one with all the world in assuming that art, to deserve the name, must possess the quality of beauty.  He speaks of “beauty and harmony,” but let it be taken that he understands beauty to include harmony.  Now, as has been suggested, to answer the question, what is beauty, satisfactorily, is no easy matter.  In immediate proximity to it lies the question, what is ugliness?  It might be argued that nothing in nature is ugly, and that the word was introduced to express what is merely an inability on the part of mankind to perceive the beauty which constitutes nature; and it certainly is possible that, were man endowed with the mind of God, instead of with only some infinitesimal and mysterious emanation of it, he would find all things in creation, all art included, beautiful.  The author of the Book of Genesis asserts that when God had finished making the world He looked upon His handiwork and saw that it was good.  There is one advantage in adopting this view, and no small one, that a belief in its truth must impel us to look for beauty and goodness in all things, whether in art or nature—­and even in the Secession.  Perhaps, however, we shall not be far from the truth in saying, as regards art, that all things in creation are beautiful, that there are degrees in beauty of which ugliness is the lowest, and that the truly inspired artist can make all things, ugliness included, beautiful.

The Emperor thinks the appreciation of beauty is one of our innate ideas, like the ability to distinguish between right and wrong, which we call conscience.  There is no agreement among thinkers on the point, and it may be that both beauty and conscience are relative, and simply the result of environment and education.  Certainly there is no standard of beauty, and more certainly still, not of feminine beauty.  The Mahommedan admires a woman who has the nose of the parrot, the teeth of the pomegranate seed, and the tread of the elephant.