They are founded on visions, idealisms, hopes, and affections, and the regulation of the purse is, in its essence, regulation of the imagination and the heart." With the demands which originate in men's equal needs we are not concerned here.

It is impossible to modify them appreciably either by education or otherwise; but the desires or wishes which Ruskin so happily calls "romantic" vary in intensity and character to an almost indefinite degree, not only in different individuals, but also in the same individuals when submitted to different circumstances.

Those of them, indeed, which are most generally felt are often, to speak strictly, not so much desires as fancies; and while the image of their fulfilment may please or amuse the imagination, their non-fulfilment produces no sense of want.

So long as they are merely fancies, they raise no practical question.

They raise a practical question only when their insistence is such that their non-fulfilment produces an active sense of privation; and whether in the case of any given individual they reach or do not reach this pitch of intensity depends upon two things.