To me these old jugs and mugs and bowls have a deep and human interest, for you can seem to see and know the men who drank from them in the olden days.
Now a tall Worcester vase, with all its elegance and gilding, though it may be valued at 5,000_l._, lacks that sympathy, and may please the eye but does not touch the heart.

For it has never shared in the jovial feast nor comforted the weary; the soul of man has never communicated to it some of its own subtle essence.

But this hollow bowl whispers back the genial songs that were shouted over it a hundred years ago.

On the ancient Grecian pottery, too, the hunter with his spear chases the boar or urges his hounds after the flying deer; the women are dancing, and you can almost hear the notes of the flute.

These things were part of their daily life; these are no imaginary pictures of imaginary and impossible scenes: they are simply scenes in which every one then took part.