From the introduction: The "Average Reader" and The Recipe for Popularity. Not only is art a factor in life; it is a factor in all lives. The division of the world into two classes, one of which has a monopoly of what is called "artistic feeling," is arbitrary and false. Everyone is an artist, more or less; that is to say, there is no person quite without that faculty of poetizing, which by seeing beauty creates beauty, and which, when it is sufficiently powerful and articulate, constitutes the musical composer, the architect, the imaginative writer, the sculptor and the painter. To the persistent ignoring of this obvious truth is due much misunderstanding and some bitterness. The fault lies originally with the minority, the more artistic, which has imposed an artificial distinction upon the majority, the less artistic. The majority, having accepted the distinction, naturally takes care to find in it a source of pride, and the result is two camps which vituperate and scorn each other: the minority despises the majority for being " inartistic," and the resentful majority accuses the minority of arrogance and affectation.