,transcribed from the #aiai ,longmans1 ,green and ,co4 edition by ,david ,price1 email ccx#jgdpglaf4org ,,hopes ,,fears ,,for ,,art4 ,,five ,,lectures ,,by ,,william ,,morris 99 99 99 99 99 ,,pocket ,,edition 99 99 99 99 99 ,,longmans1 ,,green1 ,,and ,,co4 #ci ,,paternoster ,,row1 ,,london ,,fourth ,,avenue #cj,,th ,,street1 ,,new ,,york ,,bombay1 ,,calcutta1 ,,and ,,madras #aiai 99 99 99 99 99 #ast ,edition1 ,ellis ,white1 #ahhb #bnd 11 do4 #ahhc #crd 11 do4 #ahhc #dth 11 ,longmans #ahif #eth 11 do4 #ahih #fth 11 do4 #aijc #gth 11 do4 #aiaa ,included in ,longmans' ,pocket ,library1 ,february #aiai ,,contents ,,page ,the ,lesser ,arts #a ,the ,art of the ,people #ch ,the ,beauty of ,life #ga ,making the ,best of ,it #aad ,the ,prospects of ,architecture in ,civilisation #afi ,,the ,,lesser ,,arts #a ,,hereafter ,i hope in another lecture to have the pleasure of laying before you an historical survey of the lesser1 or as they are called the ,decorative ,arts1 and ,i must confess it would have been pleasanter to me to have begun my talk with you by entering at once upon the subject of the history of this great industry2 but1 as ,i have something to say in a third lecture about various matters connected with the practice of ,decoration among ourselves in these days1 ,i feel that ,i should be in a false position before you1 and one that might lead to confusion1 or overmuch explanation1 if ,i did not let you know what ,i think on the nature and scope of these arts1 on their condition at the present time1 and their outlook in times to come4 ,in doing this it is like enough that ,i shall say things with which you will very much disagree2 ,i must ask you therefore from the outset to believe that whatever ,i may blame or whatever ,i may praise1 ,i neither1 when ,i think of what history has been1 am inclined to lament the past1 to despise the present1 or despair of the future2 that ,i believe all the change and stir about us is a sign of the world's life1 and that it will lead--by ways1 indeed1 of which we have no guess--to the bettering of all mankind4 ,now as to the scope and nature of these ,arts ,i have to say1 that though when ,i come more into the details of my subject ,i shall not meddle much with the great art of ,architecture1 and less still with the great arts commonly called ,sculpture and ,painting1 yet ,i cannot in my own mind quite sever them from those lesser so-called ,decorative ,arts1 which ,i have to speak about3 it is only in latter times1 and under the most intricate conditions of life1 that they have fallen apart from one another2 and ,i hold that1 when they are so parted1 it is ill for the ,arts altogether3 the lesser ones become trivial1 mechanical1 unintelligent1 incapable of resisting the changes pressed upon them by fashion or dishonesty2 while the greater1 however they may be practised for a while by men of great minds and wonder-working hands1 unhelped by the lesser1 unhelped by each other1 are sure to lose their dignity of popular arts1 and become nothing but dull adjuncts to unmeaning pomp1 or ingenious toys for a few rich and idle men4 ,however1 ,i have not undertaken to talk to you of ,architecture1 ,sculpture1 and ,painting1 in the narrower sense of those words1 since1 most unhappily as ,i think1 these master-arts1 these arts more specially of the intellect1 are at the present day divorced from decoration in its narrower sense4 ,our subject is that great body of art1 by means of which men have at all times more or less striven to beautify the familiar matters of everyday life3 a wide subject1 a great industry2 both a great part of the history of the world1 and a most helpful instrument to the study of that history4 ,a very great industry indeed1 comprising the crafts of house-building1 painting1 joinery and carpentry1 smiths' work1 pottery and glass-making1 weaving1 and many others3 a body of art most important to the public in general1 but still more so to us handicraftsmen2 since there is scarce anything that they use1 and that we fashion1 but it has always been thought to be unfinished till it has had some touch or other of decoration about it4 ,true it is that in many or most cases we have got so used to this ornament1 that we look upon it as if it had grown of itself1 and note it no more than the mosses on the dry sticks with which we light our fires4 ,so much the worse6 for there is the decoration1 or some pretence of it1 and it has1 or ought to have1 a use and a meaning4 ,for1 and this is at the root of the whole matter1 everything made by man's hands has a form1 which must be either beautiful or ugly2 beautiful if it is in accord with ,nature1 and helps her2 ugly if it is discordant with ,nature1 and thwarts her2 it cannot be indifferent3 we1 for our parts1 are busy or sluggish1 eager or unhappy1 and our eyes are apt to get dulled to this eventfulness of form in those things which we are always looking at4 ,now it is one of the chief uses of decoration1 the chief part of its alliance with nature1 that it has to sharpen our dulled senses in this matter3 for this end are those wonders of intricate patterns interwoven1 those strange forms invented1 which men have so long delighted in3 forms and intricacies that do not necessarily imitate nature1 but in which the hand of the craftsman is guided to work in the way that she does1 till the web1 the cup1 or the knife1 look as natural1 nay as lovely1 as the green field1 the river bank1 or the mountain flint4 ,to give people pleasure in the things they must perforce use1 that is one great office of decoration2 to give people pleasure in the things they must perforce make1 that is the other use of it4 ,does not our subject look important enough now8 ,i say that without these arts1 our rest would be vacant and uninteresting1 our labour mere endurance1 mere wearing away of body and mind4 ,as for that last use of these arts1 the giving us pleasure in our work1 ,i scarcely know how to speak strongly enough of it2 and yet if ,i did not know the value of repeating a truth again and again1 ,i should have to excuse myself to you for saying any more about this1 when ,i remember how a great man now living has spoken of it3 ,i mean my friend ,professor ,john ,ruskin3 if you read the chapter in the #bnd vol4 of his ,stones of ,venice entitled1 #8,on the ,nature of ,gothic1 and the ,office of the ,workman therein1' you will read at once the truest and the most eloquent words that can possibly be said on the subject4 ,what ,i have to say upon it can scarcely be more than an echo of his words1 yet ,i repeat there is some use in reiterating a truth1 lest it be forgotten2 so ,i will say this much further3 we all know what people have said about the curse of labour1 and what heavy and grievous nonsense are the more part of their words thereupon2 whereas indeed the real curses of craftsmen have been the curse of stupidity1 and the curse of injustice from within and from without3 no1 ,i cannot suppose there is anybody here who would think it either a good life1 or an amusing one1 to sit with one's hands before one doing nothing--to live like a gentleman1 as fools call it4 ,nevertheless there is dull work to be done1 and a weary business it is setting men about such work1 and seeing them through it1 and ,i would rather do the work twice over with my own hands than have such a job3 but now only let the arts which we are talking of beautify our labour1 and be widely spread1 intelligent1 well understood both by the maker and the user1 let them grow in one word popular1 and there will be pretty much an end of dull work and its wearing slavery2 and no man will any longer have an excuse for talking about the curse of labour1 no man will any longer have an excuse for evading the blessing of labour4 ,i believe there is nothing that will aid the world's progress so much as the attainment of this2 ,i protest there is nothing in the world that ,i desire so much as this1 wrapped up1 as ,i am sure it is1 with changes political and social1 that in one way or another we all desire4 ,now if the objection be made1 that these arts have been the handmaids of luxury1 of tyranny1 and of superstition1 ,i must needs say that it is true in a sense2 they have been so used1 as many other excellent things have been4 ,but it is also true that1 among some nations1 their most vigorous and freest times have been the very blossoming times of art3 while at the same time1 ,i must allow that these decorative arts have flourished among oppressed peoples1 who have seemed to have no hope of freedom3 yet ,i do not think that we shall be wrong in thinking that at such times1 among such peoples1 art1 at least1 was free2 when it has not been1 when it has really been gripped by superstition1 or by luxury1 it has straightway begun to sicken under that grip4 ,nor must you forget that when men say popes1 kings1 and emperors built such and such buildings1 it is a mere way of speaking4 ,you look in your history-books to see who built ,westminster ,abbey1 who built ,st4 ,sophia at ,constantinople1 and they tell you ,henry ,,iii41 ,justinian the ,emperor4 ,did they8 or1 rather1 men like you and me1 handicraftsmen1 who have left no names behind them1 nothing but their work8 ,now as these arts call people's attention and interest to the matters of everyday life in the present1 so also1 and that ,i think is no little matter1 they call our attention at every step to that history1 of which1 ,i said before1 they are so great a part2 for no nation1 no state of society1 however rude1 has been wholly without them3 nay1 there are peoples not a few1 of whom we know scarce anything1 save that they thought such and such forms beautiful4 ,so strong is the bond between history and decoration1 that in the practice of the latter we cannot1 if we would1 wholly shake off the influence of past times over what we do at present4 ,i do not think it is too much to say that no man1 however original he may be1 can sit down to-day and draw the ornament of a cloth1 or the form of an ordinary vessel or piece of furniture1 that will be other than a development or a degradation of forms used hundreds of years ago2 and these1 too1 very often1 forms that once had a serious meaning1 though they are now become little more than a habit of the hand2 forms that were once perhaps the mysterious symbols of worships and beliefs now little remembered or wholly forgotten4 ,those who have diligently followed the delightful study of these arts are able as if through windows to look upon the life of the past3--the very first beginnings of thought among nations whom we cannot even name2 the terrible empires of the ancient ,east2 the free vigour and glory of ,greece2 the heavy weight1 the firm grasp of ,rome2 the fall of her temporal ,empire which spread so wide about the world all that good and evil which men can never forget1 and never cease to feel2 the clashing of ,east and ,west1 ,south and ,north1 about her rich and fruitful daughter ,byzantium2 the rise1 the dissensions1 and the waning of ,islam2 the wanderings of ,scandinavia2 the ,crusades2 the foundation of the ,states of modern ,europe2 the struggles of free thought with ancient dying system--with all these events and their meaning is the history of popular art interwoven2 with all this1 ,i say1 the careful student of decoration as an historical industry must be familiar4 ,when ,i think of this1 and the usefulness of all this knowledge1 at a time when history has become so earnest a study amongst us as to have given us1 as it were1 a new sense3 at a time when we so long to know the reality of all that has happened1 and are to be put off no longer with the dull records of the battles and intrigues of kings and scoundrels1--,i say when ,i think of all this1 ,i hardly know how to say that this interweaving of the ,decorative ,arts with the history of the past is of less importance than their dealings with the life of the present3 for should not these memories also be a part of our daily life8 ,and now let me recapitulate a little before ,i go further1 before we begin to look into the condition of the arts at the present day4 ,these arts1 ,i have said1 are part of a great system invented for the expression of a man's delight in beauty3 all peoples and times have used them2 they have been the joy of free nations1 and the solace of oppressed nations2 religion has used and elevated them1 has abused and degraded them2 they are connected with all history1 and are clear teachers of it2 and1 best of all1 they are the sweeteners of human labour1 both to the handicraftsman1 whose life is spent in working in them1 and to people in general who are influenced by the sight of them at every turn of the day's work3 they make our toil happy1 our rest fruitful4 ,and now if all ,i have said seems to you but mere open-mouthed praise of these arts1 ,i must say that it is not for nothing that what ,i have hitherto put before you has taken that form4 ,it is because ,i must now ask you this question3 ,all these good things--will you have them8 will you cast them from you8 ,are you surprised at my question--you1 most of whom1 like myself1 are engaged in the actual practice of the arts that are1 or ought to be1 popular8 ,in explanation1 ,i must somewhat repeat what ,i have already said4 ,time was when the mystery and wonder of handicrafts were well acknowledged by the world1 when imagination and fancy mingled with all things made by man2 and in those days all handicraftsmen were artists1 as we should now call them4 ,but the thought of man became more intricate1 more difficult to express2 art grew a heavier thing to deal with1 and its labour was more divided among great men1 lesser men1 and little men2 till that art1 which was once scarce more than a rest of body and soul1 as the hand cast the shuttle or swung the hammer1 became to some men so serious labour1 that their working lives have been one long tragedy of hope and fear1 joy and trouble4 ,this was the growth of art3 like all growth1 it was good and fruitful for awhile2 like all fruitful growth1 it grew into decay2 like all decay of what was once fruitful1 it will grow into something new4 ,into decay2 for as the arts sundered into the greater and the lesser1 contempt on one side1 carelessness on the other arose1 both begotten of ignorance of that philosophy of the ,decorative ,arts1 a hint of which ,i have tried just now to put before you4 ,the artist came out from the handicraftsmen1 and left them without hope of elevation1 while he himself was left without the help of intelligent1 industrious sympathy4 ,both have suffered2 the artist no less than the workman4 ,it is with art as it fares with a company of soldiers before a redoubt1 when the captain runs forward full of hope and energy1 but looks not behind him to see if his men are following1 and they hang back1 not knowing why they are brought there to die4 ,the captain's life is spent for nothing1 and his men are sullen prisoners in the redoubt of ,unhappiness and ,brutality4 ,i must in plain words say of the ,decorative ,arts1 of all the arts1 that it is not so much that we are inferior in them to all who have gone before us1 but rather that they are in a state of anarchy and disorganisation1 which makes a sweeping change necessary and certain4 ,so that again ,i ask my question1 ,all that good fruit which the arts should bear1 will you have it8 will you cast it from you8 ,shall that sweeping change that must come1 be the change of loss or of gain8 ,we who believe in the continuous life of the world1 surely we are bound to hope that the change will bring us gain and not loss1 and to strive to bring that gain about4 ,yet how the world may answer my question1 who can say8 ,a man in his short life can see but a little way ahead1 and even in mine wonderful and unexpected things have come to pass4 ,i must needs say that therein lies my hope rather than in all ,i see going on round about us4 ,without disputing that if the imaginative arts perish1 some new thing1 at present unguessed of1 may be put forward to supply their loss in men's lives1 ,i cannot feel happy in that prospect1 nor can ,i believe that mankind will endure such a loss for ever3 but in the meantime the present state of the arts and their dealings with modern life and progress seem to me to point1 in appearance at least1 to this immediate future2 that the world1 which has for a long time busied itself about other matters than the arts1 and has carelessly let them sink lower and lower1 till many not uncultivated men1 ignorant of what they once were1 and hopeless of what they might yet be1 look upon them with mere contempt2 that the world1 ,i say1 thus busied and hurried1 will one day wipe the slate1 and be clean rid in her impatience of the whole matter with all its tangle and trouble4 ,and then--what then8 ,even now amid the squalor of ,london it is hard to imagine what it will be4 ,architecture1 ,sculpture1 ,painting1 with the crowd of lesser arts that belong to them1 these1 together with ,music and ,poetry1 will be dead and forgotten1 will no longer excite or amuse people in the least3 for1 once more1 we must not deceive ourselves2 the death of one art means the death of all2 the only difference in their fate will be that the luckiest will be eaten the last--the luckiest1 or the unluckiest3 in all that has to do with beauty the invention and ingenuity of man will have come to a dead stop2 and all the while ,nature will go on with her eternal recurrence of lovely changes--spring1 summer1 autumn1 and winter2 sunshine1 rain1 and snow2 storm and fair weather2 dawn1 noon1 and sunset2 day and night--ever bearing witness against man that he has deliberately chosen ugliness instead of beauty1 and to live where he is strongest amidst squalor or blank emptiness4 ,you see1 sirs1 we cannot quite imagine it2 any more1 perhaps1 than our forefathers of ancient ,london1 living in the pretty1 carefully whitened houses1 with the famous church and its huge spire rising above them1--than they1 passing about the fair gardens running down to the broad river1 could have imagined a whole county or more covered over with hideous hovels1 big1 middle-sized1 and little1 which should one day be called ,london4 ,sirs1 ,i say that this dead blank of the arts that ,i more than dread is difficult even now to imagine2 yet ,i fear that ,i must say that if it does not come about1 it will be owing to some turn of events which we cannot at present foresee3 but ,i hold that if it does happen1 it will only last for a time1 that it will be but a burning up of the gathered weeds1 so that the field may bear more abundantly4 ,i hold that men would wake up after a while1 and look round and find the dulness unbearable1 and begin once more inventing1 imitating1 and imagining1 as in earlier days4 ,that faith comforts me1 and ,i can say calmly if the blank space must happen1 it must1 and amidst its darkness the new seed must sprout4 ,so it has been before3 first comes birth1 and hope scarcely conscious of itself2 then the flower and fruit of mastery1 with hope more than conscious enough1 passing into insolence1 as decay follows ripeness2 and then--the new birth again4 ,meantime it is the plain duty of all who look seriously on the arts to do their best to save the world from what at the best will be a loss1 the result of ignorance and unwisdom2 to prevent1 in fact1 that most discouraging of all changes1 the supplying the place of an extinct brutality by a new one2 nay1 even if those who really care for the arts are so weak and few that they can do nothing else1 it may be their business to keep alive some tradition1 some memory of the past1 so that the new life when it comes may not waste itself more than enough in fashioning wholly new forms for its new spirit4 ,to what side then shall those turn for help1 who really understand the gain of a great art in the world1 and the loss of peace and good life that must follow from the lack of it8 ,i think that they must begin by acknowledging that the ancient art1 the art of unconscious intelligence1 as one should call it1 which began without a date1 at least so long ago as those strange and masterly scratchings on mammoth-bones and the like found but the other day in the drift--that this art of unconscious intelligence is all but dead2 that what little of it is left lingers among half-civilised nations1 and is growing coarser1 feebler1 less intelligent year by year2 nay1 it is mostly at the mercy of some commercial accident1 such as the arrival of a few shiploads of ,european dye-stuffs or a few dozen orders from ,european merchants3 this they must recognise1 and must hope to see in time its place filled by a new art of conscious intelligence1 the birth of wiser1 simpler1 freer ways of life than the world leads now1 than the world has ever led4 ,i said1 to see this in time2 ,i do not mean to say that our own eyes will look upon it3 it may be so far off1 as indeed it seems to some1 that many would scarcely think it worth while thinking of3 but there are some of us who cannot turn our faces to the wall1 or sit deedless because our hope seems somewhat dim2 and1 indeed1 ,i think that while the signs of the last decay of the old art with all the evils that must follow in its train are only too obvious about us1 so on the other hand there are not wanting signs of the new dawn beyond that possible night of the arts1 of which ,i have before spoken2 this sign chiefly1 that there are some few at least who are heartily discontented with things as they are1 and crave for something better1 or at least some promise of it--this best of signs3 for ,i suppose that if some half-dozen men at any time earnestly set their hearts on something coming about which is not discordant with nature1 it will come to pass one day or other2 because it is not by accident that an idea comes into the heads of a few2 rather they are pushed on1 and forced to speak or act by something stirring in the heart of the world which would otherwise be left without expression4 ,by what means then shall those work who long for reform in the arts1 and who shall they seek to kindle into eager desire for possession of beauty1 and better still1 for the development of the faculty that creates beauty8 ,people say to me often enough3 ,if you want to make your art succeed and flourish1 you must make it the fashion3 a phrase which ,i confess annoys me2 for they mean by it that ,i should spend one day over my work to two days in trying to convince rich1 and supposed influential people1 that they care very much for what they really do not care in the least1 so that it may happen according to the proverb3 ,bell-wether took the leap1 and we all went over4 ,well1 such advisers are right if they are content with the thing lasting but a little while2 say till you can make a little money--if you don't get pinched by the door shutting too quickly3 otherwise they are wrong3 the people they are thinking of have too many strings to their bow1 and can turn their backs too easily on a thing that fails1 for it to be safe work trusting to their whims3 it is not their fault1 they cannot help it1 but they have no chance of spending time enough over the arts to know anything practical of them1 and they must of necessity be in the hands of those who spend their time in pushing fashion this way and that for their own advantage4 ,sirs1 there is no help to be got out of these latter1 or those who let themselves be led by them3 the only real help for the decorative arts must come from those who work in them2 nor must they be led1 they must lead4 ,you whose hands make those things that should be works of art1 you must be all artists1 and good artists too1 before the public at large can take real interest in such things2 and when you have become so1 ,i promise you that you shall lead the fashion2 fashion shall follow your hands obediently enough4 ,that is the only way in which we can get a supply of intelligent popular art3 a few artists of the kind so-called now1 what can they do working in the teeth of difficulties thrown in their way by what is called ,commerce1 but which should be called greed of money8 working helplessly among the crowd of those who are ridiculously called manufacturers1 i4e4 handicraftsmen1 though the more part of them never did a stroke of hand-work in their lives1 and are nothing better than capitalists and salesmen4 ,what can these grains of sand do1 ,i say1 amidst the enormous mass of work turned out every year which professes in some way to be decorative art1 but the decoration of which no one heeds except the salesmen who have to do with it1 and are hard put to it to supply the cravings of the public for something new1 not for something pretty8 ,the remedy1 ,i repeat1 is plain if it can be applied2 the handicraftsman1 left behind by the artist when the arts sundered1 must come up with him1 must work side by side with him3 apart from the difference between a great master and a scholar1 apart from the differences of the natural bent of men's minds1 which would make one man an imitative1 and another an architectural or decorative artist1 there should be no difference between those employed on strictly ornamental work2 and the body of artists dealing with this should quicken with their art all makers of things into artists also1 in proportion to the necessities and uses of the things they would make4 ,i know what stupendous difficulties1 social and economical1 there are in the way of this2 yet ,i think that they seem to be greater than they are3 and of one thing ,i am sure1 that no real living decorative art is possible if this is impossible4 ,it is not impossible1 on the contrary it is certain to come about1 if you are at heart desirous to quicken the arts2 if the world will1 for the sake of beauty and decency1 sacrifice some of the things it is so busy over 7many of which ,i think are not very worthy of its trouble71 art will begin to grow again2 as for those difficulties above mentioned1 some of them ,i know will in any case melt away before the steady change of the relative conditions of men2 the rest1 reason and resolute attention to the laws of nature1 which are also the laws of art1 will dispose of little by little3 once more1 the way will not be far to seek1 if the will be with us4 ,yet1 granted the will1 and though the way lies ready to us1 we must not be discouraged if the journey seem barren enough at first1 nay1 not even if things seem to grow worse for a while3 for it is natural enough that the very evil which has forced on the beginning of reform should look uglier1 while on the one hand life and wisdom are building up the new1 and on the other folly and deadness are hugging the old to them4 ,in this1 as in all other matters1 lapse of time will be needed before things seem to straighten1 and the courage and patience that does not despise small things lying ready to be done2 and care and watchfulness1 lest we begin to build the wall ere the footings are well in2 and always through all things much humility that is not easily cast down by failure1 that seeks to be taught1 and is ready to learn4 ,for your teachers1 they must be ,nature and ,history3 as for the first1 that you must learn of it is so obvious that ,i need not dwell upon that now3 hereafter1 when ,i have to speak more of matters of detail1 ,i may have to speak of the manner in which you must learn of ,nature4 ,as to the second1 ,i do not think that any man but one of the highest genius1 could do anything in these days without much study of ancient art1 and even he would be much hindered if he lacked it4 ,if you think that this contradicts what ,i said about the death of that ancient art1 and the necessity ,i implied for an art that should be characteristic of the present day1 ,i can only say that1 in these times of plenteous knowledge and meagre performance1 if we do not study the ancient work directly and learn to understand it1 we shall find ourselves influenced by the feeble work all round us1 and shall be copying the better work through the copyists and without understanding it1 which will by no means bring about intelligent art4 ,let us therefore study it wisely1 be taught by it1 kindled by it2 all the while determining not to imitate or repeat it2 to have either no art at all1 or an art which we have made our own4 ,yet ,i am almost brought to a stand-still when bidding you to study nature and the history of art1 by remembering that this is ,london1 and what it is like3 how can ,i ask working-men passing up and down these hideous streets day by day to care about beauty8 ,if it were politics1 we must care about that2 or science1 you could wrap yourselves up in the study of facts1 no doubt1 without much caring what goes on about you--but beauty6 do you not see what terrible difficulties beset art1 owing to a long neglect of art--and neglect of reason1 too1 in this matter8 ,it is such a heavy question by what effort1 by what dead-lift1 you can thrust this difficulty from you1 that ,i must perforce set it aside for the present1 and must at least hope that the study of history and its monuments will help you somewhat herein4 ,if you can really fill your minds with memories of great works of art1 and great times of art1 you will1 ,i think1 be able to a certain extent to look through the aforesaid ugly surroundings1 and will be moved to discontent of what is careless and brutal now1 and will1 ,i hope1 at last be so much discontented with what is bad1 that you will determine to bear no longer that short-sighted1 reckless brutality of squalor that so disgraces our intricate civilisation4 ,well1 at any rate1 ,london is good for this1 that it is well off for museums1--which ,i heartily wish were to be got at seven days in the week instead of six1 or at least on the only day on which an ordinarily busy man1 one of the taxpayers who support them1 can as a rule see them quietly1--and certainly any of us who may have any natural turn for art must get more help from frequenting them than one can well say4 ,it is true1 however1 that people need some preliminary instruction before they can get all the good possible to be got from the prodigious treasures of art possessed by the country in that form3 there also one sees things in a piecemeal way3 nor can ,i deny that there is something melancholy about a museum1 such a tale of violence1 destruction1 and carelessness1 as its treasured scraps tell us4 ,but moreover you may sometimes have an opportunity of studying ancient art in a narrower but a more intimate1 a more kindly form1 the monuments of our own land4 ,sometimes only1 since we live in the middle of this world of brick and mortar1 and there is little else left us amidst it1 except the ghost of the great church at ,westminster1 ruined as its exterior is by the stupidity of the restoring architect1 and insulted as its glorious interior is by the pompous undertakers' lies1 by the vainglory and ignorance of the last two centuries and a half--little besides that and the matchless ,hall near it3 but when we can get beyond that smoky world1 there1 out in the country we may still see the works of our fathers yet alive amidst the very nature they were wrought into1 and of which they are so completely a part3 for there indeed if anywhere1 in the ,english country1 in the days when people cared about such things1 was there a full sympathy between the works of man1 and the land they were made for3--the land is a little land2 too much shut up within the narrow seas1 as it seems1 to have much space for swelling into hugeness3 there are no great wastes overwhelming in their dreariness1 no great solitudes of forests1 no terrible untrodden mountain-walls3 all is measured1 mingled1 varied1 gliding easily one thing into another3 little rivers1 little plains2 swelling1 speedily-changing uplands1 all beset with handsome orderly trees2 little hills1 little mountains1 netted over with the walls of sheep-walks3 all is little2 yet not foolish and blank1 but serious rather1 and abundant of meaning for such as choose to seek it3 it is neither prison nor palace1 but a decent home4 ,all which ,i neither praise nor blame1 but say that so it is3 some people praise this homeliness overmuch1 as if the land were the very axle-tree of the world2 so do not ,i1 nor any unblinded by pride in themselves and all that belongs to them3 others there are who scorn it and the tameness of it3 not ,i any the more3 though it would indeed be hard if there were nothing else in the world1 no wonders1 no terrors1 no unspeakable beauties3 yet when we think what a small part of the world's history1 past1 present1 and to come1 is this land we live in1 and how much smaller still in the history of the arts1 and yet how our forefathers clung to it1 and with what care and pains they adorned it1 this unromantic1 uneventful-looking land of ,england1 surely by this too our hearts may be touched1 and our hope quickened4 ,for as was the land1 such was the art of it while folk yet troubled themselves about such things2 it strove little to impress people either by pomp or ingenuity3 not unseldom it fell into commonplace1 rarely it rose into majesty2 yet was it never oppressive1 never a slave's nightmare nor an insolent boast3 and at its best it had an inventiveness1 an individuality that grander styles have never overpassed3 its best too1 and that was in its very heart1 was given as freely to the yeoman's house1 and the humble village church1 as to the lord's palace or the mighty cathedral3 never coarse1 though often rude enough1 sweet1 natural and unaffected1 an art of peasants rather than of merchant-princes or courtiers1 it must be a hard heart1 ,i think1 that does not love it3 whether a man has been born among it like ourselves1 or has come wonderingly on its simplicity from all the grandeur over-seas4 ,a peasant art1 ,i say1 and it clung fast to the life of the people1 and still lived among the cottagers and yeomen in many parts of the country while the big houses were being built #8,french and fine'3 still lived also in many a quaint pattern of loom and printing-block1 and embroiderer's needle1 while over-seas stupid pomp had extinguished all nature and freedom1 and art was become1 in ,france especially1 the mere expression of that successful and exultant rascality1 which in the flesh no long time afterwards went down into the pit for ever4 ,such was the ,english art1 whose history is in a sense at your doors1 grown scarce indeed1 and growing scarcer year by year1 not only through greedy destruction1 of which there is certainly less than there used to be1 but also through the attacks of another foe1 called nowadays #8restoration4' ,i must not make a long story about this1 but also ,i cannot quite pass it over1 since ,i have pressed on you the study of these ancient monuments4 ,thus the matter stands3 these old buildings have been altered and added to century after century1 often beautifully1 always historically2 their very value1 a great part of it1 lay in that3 they have suffered almost always from neglect also1 often from violence 7that latter a piece of history often far from uninteresting71 but ordinary obvious mending would almost always have kept them standing1 pieces of nature and of history4 ,but of late years a great uprising of ecclesiastical zeal1 coinciding with a great increase of study1 and consequently of knowledge of medival architecture1 has driven people into spending their money on these buildings1 not merely with the purpose of repairing them1 of keeping them safe1 clean1 and wind and water-tight1 but also of #8restoring' them to some ideal state of perfection2 sweeping away if possible all signs of what has befallen them at least since the ,reformation1 and often since dates much earlier3 this has sometimes been done with much disregard of art and entirely from ecclesiastical zeal1 but oftener it has been well meant enough as regards art3 yet you will not have listened to what ,i have said to-night if you do not see that from my point of view this restoration must be as impossible to bring about1 as the attempt at it is destructive to the buildings so dealt with3 ,i scarcely like to think what a great part of them have been made nearly useless to students of art and history3 unless you knew a great deal about architecture you perhaps would scarce understand what terrible damage has been done by that dangerous #8little knowledge' in this matter3 but at least it is easy to be understood1 that to deal recklessly with valuable 7and national7 monuments which1 when once gone1 can never be replaced by any splendour of modern art1 is doing a very sorry service to the ,state4 ,you will see by all that ,i have said on this study of ancient art that ,i mean by education herein something much wider than the teaching of a definite art in schools of design1 and that it must be something that we must do more or less for ourselves3 ,i mean by it a systematic concentration of our thoughts on the matter1 a studying of it in all ways1 careful and laborious practice of it1 and a determination to do nothing but what is known to be good in workmanship and design4 ,of course1 however1 both as an instrument of that study we have been speaking of1 as well as of the practice of the arts1 all handicraftsmen should be taught to draw very carefully2 as indeed all people should be taught drawing who are not physically incapable of learning it3 but the art of drawing so taught would not be the art of designing1 but only a means towards this end1 general capability in dealing with the arts4 ,for ,i wish specially to impress this upon you1 that designing cannot be taught at all in a school3 continued practice will help a man who is naturally a designer1 continual notice of nature and of art3 no doubt those who have some faculty for designing are still numerous1 and they want from a school certain technical teaching1 just as they want tools3 in these days also1 when the best school1 the school of successful practice going on around you1 is at such a low ebb1 they do undoubtedly want instruction in the history of the arts3 these two things schools of design can give3 but the royal road of a set of rules deduced from a sham science of design1 that is itself not a science but another set of rules1 will lead nowhere2--or1 let us rather say1 to beginning again4 ,as to the kind of drawing that should be taught to men engaged in ornamental work1 there is only one best way of teaching drawing1 and that is teaching the scholar to draw the human figure3 both because the lines of a man's body are much more subtle than anything else1 and because you can more surely be found out and set right if you go wrong4 ,i do think that such teaching as this1 given to all people who care for it1 would help the revival of the arts very much3 the habit of discriminating between right and wrong1 the sense of pleasure in drawing a good line1 would really1 ,i think1 be education in the due sense of the word for all such people as had the germs of invention in them2 yet as aforesaid1 in this age of the world it would be mere affectation to pretend to shut one's eyes to the art of past ages3 that also we must study4 ,if other circumstances1 social and economical1 do not stand in our way1 that is to say1 if the world is not too busy to allow us to have ,decorative ,arts at all1 these two are the direct means by which we shall get them2 that is1 general cultivation of the powers of the mind1 general cultivation of the powers of the eye and hand4 ,perhaps that seems to you very commonplace advice and a very roundabout road2 nevertheless 'tis a certain one1 if by any road you desire to come to the new art1 which is my subject to-night3 if you do not1 and if those germs of invention1 which1 as ,i said just now1 are no doubt still common enough among men1 are left neglected and undeveloped1 the laws of ,nature will assert themselves in this as in other matters1 and the faculty of design itself will gradually fade from the race of man4 ,sirs1 shall we approach nearer to perfection by casting away so large a part of that intelligence which makes us men8 ,and now before ,i make an end1 ,i want to call your attention to certain things1 that1 owing to our neglect of the arts for other business1 bar that good road to us and are such an hindrance1 that1 till they are dealt with1 it is hard even to make a beginning of our endeavour4 ,and if my talk should seem to grow too serious for our subject1 as indeed ,i think it cannot do1 ,i beg you to remember what ,i said earlier1 of how the arts all hang together4 ,now there is one art of which the old architect of ,edward the ,third's time was thinking--he who founded ,new ,college at ,oxford1 ,i mean--when he took this for his motto3 #8,manners maketh man3' he meant by manners the art of morals1 the art of living worthily1 and like a man4 ,i must needs claim this art also as dealing with my subject4 ,there is a great deal of sham work in the world1 hurtful to the buyer1 more hurtful to the seller1 if he only knew it1 most hurtful to the maker3 how good a foundation it would be towards getting good ,decorative ,art1 that is ornamental workmanship1 if we craftsmen were to resolve to turn out nothing but excellent workmanship in all things1 instead of having1 as we too often have now1 a very low average standard of work1 which we often fall below4 ,i do not blame either one class or another in this matter1 ,i blame all3 to set aside our own class of handicraftsmen1 of whose shortcomings you and ,i know so much that we need talk no more about it1 ,i know that the public in general are set on having things cheap1 being so ignorant that they do not know when they get them nasty also2 so ignorant that they neither know nor care whether they give a man his due3 ,i know that the manufacturers 7so called7 are so set on carrying out competition to its utmost1 competition of cheapness1 not of excellence1 that they meet the bargain-hunters half way1 and cheerfully furnish them with nasty wares at the cheap rate they are asked for1 by means of what can be called by no prettier name than fraud4 ,england has of late been too much busied with the counting-house and not enough with the workshop3 with the result that the counting-house at the present moment is rather barren of orders4 ,i say all classes are to blame in this matter1 but also ,i say that the remedy lies with the handicraftsmen1 who are not ignorant of these things like the public1 and who have no call to be greedy and isolated like the manufacturers or middlemen2 the duty and honour of educating the public lies with them1 and they have in them the seeds of order and organisation which make that duty the easier4 ,when will they see to this and help to make men of us all by insisting on this most weighty piece of manners2 so that we may adorn life with the pleasure of cheerfully buying goods at their due price2 with the pleasure of selling goods that we could be proud of both for fair price and fair workmanship3 with the pleasure of working soundly and without haste at making goods that we could be proud of8--much the greatest pleasure of the three is that last1 such a pleasure as1 ,i think1 the world has none like it4 ,you must not say that this piece of manners lies out of my subject3 it is essentially a part of it and most important3 for ,i am bidding you learn to be artists1 if art is not to come to an end amongst us3 and what is an artist but a workman who is determined that1 whatever else happens1 his work shall be excellent8 or1 to put it in another way3 the decoration of workmanship1 what is it but the expression of man's pleasure in successful labour8 ,but what pleasure can there be in bad work1 in unsuccessful labour2 why should we decorate that8 and how can we bear to be always unsuccessful in our labour8 ,as greed of unfair gain1 wanting to be paid for what we have not earned1 cumbers our path with this tangle of bad work1 of sham work1 so the heaped-up money which this greed has brought us 7for greed will have its way1 like all other strong passions71 this money1 ,i say1 gathered into heaps little and big1 with all the false distinction which so unhappily it yet commands amongst us1 has raised up against the arts a barrier of the love of luxury and show1 which is of all obvious hindrances the worst to overpass3 the highest and most cultivated classes are not free from the vulgarity of it1 the lower are not free from its pretence4 ,i beg you to remember both as a remedy against this1 and as explaining exactly what ,i mean1 that nothing can be a work of art which is not useful2 that is to say1 which does not minister to the body when well under command of the mind1 or which does not amuse1 soothe1 or elevate the mind in a healthy state4 ,what tons upon tons of unutterable rubbish pretending to be works of art in some degree would this maxim clear out of our ,london houses1 if it were understood and acted upon6 ,to my mind it is only here and there 7out of the kitchen7 that you can find in a well-to-do house things that are of any use at all3 as a rule all the decoration 7so called7 that has got there is there for the sake of show1 not because anybody likes it4 ,i repeat1 this stupidity goes through all classes of society3 the silk curtains in my ,lord's drawing-room are no more a matter of art to him than the powder in his footman's hair2 the kitchen in a country farmhouse is most commonly a pleasant and homelike place1 the parlour dreary and useless4 ,simplicity of life1 begetting simplicity of taste1 that is1 a love for sweet and lofty things1 is of all matters most necessary for the birth of the new and better art we crave for2 simplicity everywhere1 in the palace as well as in the cottage4 ,still more is this necessary1 cleanliness and decency everywhere1 in the cottage as well as in the palace3 the lack of that is a serious piece of manners for us to correct3 that lack and all the inequalities of life1 and the heaped-up thoughtlessness and disorder of so many centuries that cause it3 and as yet it is only a very few men who have begun to think about a remedy for it in its widest range3 even in its narrower aspect1 in the defacements of our big towns by all that commerce brings with it1 who heeds it8 who tries to control their squalor and hideousness8 there is nothing but thoughtlessness and recklessness in the matter3 the helplessness of people who don't live long enough to do a thing themselves1 and have not manliness and foresight enough to begin the work1 and pass it on to those that shall come after them4 ,is money to be gathered8 cut down the pleasant trees among the houses1 pull down ancient and venerable buildings for the money that a few square yards of ,london dirt will fetch2 blacken rivers1 hide the sun and poison the air with smoke and worse1 and it's nobody's business to see to it or mend it3 that is all that modern commerce1 the counting-house forgetful of the workshop1 will do for us herein4 ,and ,science--we have loved her well1 and followed her diligently1 what will she do8 ,i fear she is so much in the pay of the counting-house1 the counting-house and the drill-sergeant1 that she is too busy1 and will for the present do nothing4 ,yet there are matters which ,i should have thought easy for her2 say for example teaching ,manchester how to consume its own smoke1 or ,leeds how to get rid of its superfluous black dye without turning it into the river1 which would be as much worth her attention as the production of the heaviest of heavy black silks1 or the biggest of useless guns4 ,anyhow1 however it be done1 unless people care about carrying on their business without making the world hideous1 how can they care about ,art8 ,i know it will cost much both of time and money to better these things even a little2 but ,i do not see how these can be better spent than in making life cheerful and honourable for others and for ourselves2 and the gain of good life to the country at large that would result from men seriously setting about the bettering of the decency of our big towns would be priceless1 even if nothing specially good befell the arts in consequence3 ,i do not know that it would2 but ,i should begin to think matters hopeful if men turned their attention to such things1 and ,i repeat that1 unless they do so1 we can scarcely even begin with any hope our endeavours for the bettering of the arts4 ,unless something or other is done to give all men some pleasure for the eyes and rest for the mind in the aspect of their own and their neighbours' houses1 until the contrast is less disgraceful between the fields where beasts live and the streets where men live1 ,i suppose that the practice of the arts must be mainly kept in the hands of a few highly cultivated men1 who can go often to beautiful places1 whose education enables them1 in the contemplation of the past glories of the world1 to shut out from their view the everyday squalors that the most of men move in4 ,sirs1 ,i believe that art has such sympathy with cheerful freedom1 open-heartedness and reality1 so much she sickens under selfishness and luxury1 that she will not live thus isolated and exclusive4 ,i will go further than this and say that on such terms ,i do not wish her to live4 ,i protest that it would be a shame to an honest artist to enjoy what he had huddled up to himself of such art1 as it would be for a rich man to sit and eat dainty food amongst starving soldiers in a beleaguered fort4 ,i do not want art for a few1 any more than education for a few1 or freedom for a few4 ,no1 rather than art should live this poor thin life among a few exceptional men1 despising those beneath them for an ignorance for which they themselves are responsible1 for a brutality that they will not struggle with1--rather than this1 ,i would that the world should indeed sweep away all art for awhile1 as ,i said before ,i thought it possible she might do2 rather than the wheat should rot in the miser's granary1 ,i would that the earth had it1 that it might yet have a chance to quicken in the dark4 ,i have a sort of faith1 though1 that this clearing way of all art will not happen1 that men will get wiser1 as well as more learned2 that many of the intricacies of life1 on which we now pride ourselves more than enough1 partly because they are new1 partly because they have come with the gain of better things1 will be cast aside as having played their part1 and being useful no longer4 ,i hope that we shall have leisure from war1--war commercial1 as well as war of the bullet and the bayonet2 leisure from the knowledge that darkens counsel2 leisure above all from the greed of money1 and the craving for that overwhelming distinction that money now brings3 ,i believe that as we have even now partly achieved ,,liberty1 so we shall one day achieve ,,equality1 which1 and which only1 means ,,fraternity1 and so have leisure from poverty and all its griping1 sordid cares4 ,then having leisure from all these things1 amidst renewed simplicity of life we shall have leisure to think about our work1 that faithful daily companion1 which no man any longer will venture to call the ,curse of labour3 for surely then we shall be happy in it1 each in his place1 no man grudging at another2 no one bidden to be any man's servant1 every one scorning to be any man's master3 men will then assuredly be happy in their work1 and that happiness will assuredly bring forth decorative1 noble1 popular art4 ,that art will make our streets as beautiful as the woods1 as elevating as the mountain-sides3 it will be a pleasure and a rest1 and not a weight upon the spirits to come from the open country into a town2 every man's house will be fair and decent1 soothing to his mind and helpful to his work3 all the works of man that we live amongst and handle will be in harmony with nature1 will be reasonable and beautiful3 yet all will be simple and inspiriting1 not childish nor enervating2 for as nothing of beauty and splendour that man's mind and hand may compass shall be wanting from our public buildings1 so in no private dwelling will there be any signs of waste1 pomp1 or insolence1 and every man will have his share of the best4 ,it is a dream1 you may say1 of what has never been and never will be2 true1 it has never been1 and therefore1 since the world is alive and moving yet1 my hope is the greater that it one day will be3 true1 it is a dream2 but dreams have before now come about of things so good and necessary to us1 that we scarcely think of them more than of the daylight1 though once people had to live without them1 without even the hope of them4 ,anyhow1 dream as it is1 ,i pray you to pardon my setting it before you1 for it lies at the bottom of all my work in the ,decorative ,arts1 nor will it ever be out of my thoughts3 and ,i am here with you to-night to ask you to help me in realising this dream1 this hope4 ,,the ,,art ,,of ,,the ,,people #ch #8,and the men of labour spent their strength in daily struggling for bread to maintain the vital strength they labour with3 so living in a daily circulation of sorrow1 living but to work1 and working but to live1 as if daily bread were the only end of a wearisome life1 and a wearisome life the only occasion of daily bread4'--,,daniel ,,defoe4 ,i ,,know that a large proportion of those here present are either already practising the ,fine ,arts1 or are being specially educated to that end1 and ,i feel that ,i may be expected to address myself specially to these4 ,but since it is not to be doubted that we are all met together because of the interest we take in what concerns these arts1 ,i would rather address myself to you all as representing the public in general4 ,indeed1 those of you who are specially studying ,art could learn little of me that would be useful to yourselves only4 ,you are already learning under competent masters--most competent1 ,i am glad to know--by means of a system which should teach you all you need1 if you have been right in making the first step of devoting yourselves to ,art2 ,i mean if you are aiming at the right thing1 and in some way or another understand what ,art means1 which you may well do without being able to express it1 and if you are resolute to follow on the path which that inborn knowledge has shown to you2 if it is otherwise with you than this1 no system and no teachers will help you to produce real art of any kind1 be it never so humble4 ,those of you who are real artists know well enough all the special advice ,i can give you1 and in how few words it may be said--follow nature1 study antiquity1 make your own art1 and do not steal it1 grudge no expense of trouble1 patience1 or courage1 in the striving to accomplish the hard thing you have set yourselves to do4 ,you have had all that said to you twenty times1 ,i doubt not2 and twenty times twenty have said it to yourselves1 and now ,i have said it again to you1 and done neither you nor me good nor harm thereby4 ,so true it all is1 so well known1 and so hard to follow4 ,but to me1 and ,i hope to you1 ,art is a very serious thing1 and cannot by any means be dissociated from the weighty matters that occupy the thoughts of men2 and there are principles underlying the practice of it1 on which all serious-minded men1 may--nay1 must--have their own thoughts4 ,it is on some of these that ,i ask your leave to speak1 and to address myself1 not only to those who are consciously interested in the arts1 but to all those also who have considered what the progress of civilisation promises and threatens to those who shall come after us3 what there is to hope and fear for the future of the arts1 which were born with the birth of civilisation and will only die with its death--what on this side of things1 the present time of strife and doubt and change is preparing for the better time1 when the change shall have come1 the strife be lulled1 and the doubt cleared3 this is a question1 ,i say1 which is indeed weighty1 and may well interest all thinking men4 ,nay1 so universally important is it1 that ,i fear lest you should think ,i am taking too much upon myself to speak to you on so weighty a matter1 nor should ,i have dared to do so1 if ,i did not feel that ,i am to-night only the mouthpiece of better men than myself2 whose hopes and fears ,i share2 and that being so1 ,i am the more emboldened to speak out1 if ,i can1 my full mind on the subject1 because ,i am in a city where1 if anywhere1 men are not contented to live wholly for themselves and the present1 but have fully accepted the duty of keeping their eyes open to whatever new is stirring1 so that they may help and be helped by any truth that there may be in it4 ,nor can ,i forget1 that1 since you have done me the great honour of choosing me for the ,president of your ,society of ,arts for the past year1 and of asking me to speak to you to-night1 ,i should be doing less than my duty if ,i did not1 according to my lights1 speak out straightforwardly whatever seemed to me might be in a small degree useful to you4 ,indeed1 ,i think ,i am among friends1 who may forgive me if ,i speak rashly1 but scarcely if ,i speak falsely4 ,the aim of your ,society and ,school of ,arts is1 as ,i understand it1 to further those arts by education widely spread4 ,a very great object is that1 and well worthy of the reputation of this great city2 but since ,birmingham has also1 ,i rejoice to know1 a great reputation for not allowing things to go about shamming life when the brains are knocked out of them1 ,i think you should know and see clearly what it is you have undertaken to further by these institutions1 and whether you really care about it1 or only languidly acquiesce in it--whether1 in short1 you know it to the heart1 and are indeed part and parcel of it1 with your own will1 or against it2 or else have heard say that it is a good thing if any one care to meddle with it4 ,if you are surprised at my putting that question for your consideration1 ,i will tell you why ,i do so4 ,there are some of us who love ,art most1 and ,i may say most faithfully1 who see for certain that such love is rare nowadays4 ,we cannot help seeing1 that besides a vast number of people1 who 7poor souls67 are sordid and brutal of mind and habits1 and have had no chance or choice in the matter1 there are many high-minded1 thoughtful1 and cultivated men who inwardly think the arts to be a foolish accident of civilisation--nay1 worse perhaps1 a nuisance1 a disease1 a hindrance to human progress4 ,some of these1 doubtless1 are very busy about other sides of thought4 ,they are1 as ,i should put it1 so artistically engrossed by the study of science1 politics1 or what not1 that they have necessarily narrowed their minds by their hard and praiseworthy labours4 ,but since such men are few1 this does not account for a prevalent habit of thought that looks upon ,art as at best trifling4 ,what is wrong1 then1 with us or the arts1 since what was once accounted so glorious1 is now deemed paltry8 ,the question is no light one2 for1 to put the matter in its clearest light1 ,i will say that the leaders of modern thought do for the most part sincerely and single-mindedly hate and despise the arts2 and you know well that as the leaders are1 so must the people be2 and that means that we who are met together here for the furthering of ,art by wide-spread education are either deceiving ourselves and wasting our time1 since we shall one day be of the same opinion as the best men among us1 or else we represent a small minority that is right1 as minorities sometimes are1 while those upright men aforesaid1 and the great mass of civilised men1 have been blinded by untoward circumstances4 ,that we are of this mind--the minority that is right--is1 ,i hope1 the case4 ,i hope we know assuredly that the arts we have met together to further are necessary to the life of man1 if the progress of civilisation is not to be as causeless as the turning of a wheel that makes nothing4 ,how1 then1 shall we1 the minority1 carry out the duty which our position thrusts upon us1 of striving to grow into a majority8 ,if we could only explain to those thoughtful men1 and the millions of whom they are the flower1 what the thing is that we love1 which is to us as the bread we eat1 and the air we breathe1 but about which they know nothing and feel nothing1 save a vague instinct of repulsion1 then the seed of victory might be sown4 ,this is hard indeed to do2 yet if we ponder upon a chapter of ancient or medival history1 it seems to me some glimmer of a chance of doing so breaks in upon us4 ,take for example a century of the ,byzantine ,empire1 weary yourselves with reading the names of the pedants1 tyrants1 and tax-gatherers to whom the terrible chain which long-dead ,rome once forged1 still gave the power of cheating people into thinking that they were necessary lords of the world4 ,turn then to the lands they governed1 and read and forget a long string of the causeless murders of ,northern and ,saracen pirates and robbers4 ,that is pretty much the sum of what so-called history has left us of the tale of those days--the stupid languor and the evil deeds of kings and scoundrels4 ,must we turn away then1 and say that all was evil8 ,how then did men live from day to day8 ,how then did ,europe grow into intelligence and freedom8 ,it seems there were others than those of whom history 7so called7 has left us the names and the deeds4 ,these1 the raw material for the treasury and the slave-market1 we now call #8the people1' and we know that they were working all that while4 ,yes1 and that their work was not merely slaves' work1 the meal-trough before them and the whip behind them2 for though history 7so called7 has forgotten them1 yet their work has not been forgotten1 but has made another history--the history of ,art4 ,there is not an ancient city in the ,east or the ,west that does not bear some token of their grief1 and joy1 and hope4 ,from ,ispahan to ,northumberland1 there is no building built between the seventh and seventeenth centuries that does not show the influence of the labour of that oppressed and neglected herd of men4 ,no one of them1 indeed1 rose high above his fellows4 ,there was no ,plato1 or ,shakespeare1 or ,michael ,angelo amongst them4 ,yet scattered as it was among many men1 how strong their thought was1 how long it abided1 how far it travelled6 ,and so it was ever through all those days when ,art was so vigorous and progressive4 ,who can say how little we should know of many periods1 but for their art8 ,history 7so called7 has remembered the kings and warriors1 because they destroyed2 ,art has remembered the people1 because they created4 ,i think1 then1 that this knowledge we have of the life of past times gives us some token of the way we should take in meeting those honest and single-hearted men who above all things desire the world's progress1 but whose minds are1 as it were1 sick on this point of the arts4 ,surely you may say to them3 ,when all is gained that you 7and we7 so long for1 what shall we do then8 ,that great change which we are working for1 each in his own way1 will come like other changes1 as a thief in the night1 and will be with us before we know it2 but let us imagine that its consummation has come suddenly and dramatically1 acknowledged and hailed by all right-minded people2 and what shall we do then1 lest we begin once more to heap up fresh corruption for the woeful labour of ages once again8 ,i say1 as we turn away from the flagstaff where the new banner has been just run up2 as we depart1 our ears yet ringing with the blare of the heralds' trumpets that have proclaimed the new order of things1 what shall we turn to then1 what must we turn to then8 ,to what else1 save to our work1 our daily labour8 ,with what1 then1 shall we adorn it when we have become wholly free and reasonable8 ,it is necessary toil1 but shall it be toil only8 ,shall all we can do with it be to shorten the hours of that toil to the utmost1 that the hours of leisure may be long beyond what men used to hope for8 and what then shall we do with the leisure1 if we say that all toil is irksome8 ,shall we sleep it all away8--,yes1 and never wake up again1 ,i should hope1 in that case4 ,what shall we do then8 what shall our necessary hours of labour bring forth8 ,that will be a question for all men in that day when many wrongs are righted1 and when there will be no classes of degradation on whom the dirty work of the world can be shovelled2 and if men's minds are still sick and loathe the arts1 they will not be able to answer that question4 ,once men sat under grinding tyrannies1 amidst violence and fear so great1 that nowadays we wonder how they lived through twenty-four hours of it1 till we remember that then1 as now1 their daily labour was the main part of their lives1 and that that daily labour was sweetened by the daily creation of ,art2 and shall we who are delivered from the evils they bore1 live drearier days than they did8 ,shall men1 who have come forth from so many tyrannies1 bind themselves to yet another one1 and become the slaves of nature1 piling day upon day of hopeless1 useless toil8 ,must this go on worsening till it comes to this at last--that the world shall have come into its inheritance1 and with all foes conquered and nought to bind it1 shall choose to sit down and labour for ever amidst grim ugliness8 ,how1 then1 were all our hopes cheated1 what a gulf of despair should we tumble into then8 ,in truth1 it cannot be2 yet if that sickness of repulsion to the arts were to go on hopelessly1 nought else would be1 and the extinction of the love of beauty and imagination would prove to be the extinction of civilisation4 ,but that sickness the world will one day throw off1 yet will1 ,i believe1 pass through many pains in so doing1 some of which will look very like the death-throes of ,art1 and some1 perhaps1 will be grievous enough to the poor people of the world2 since hard necessity1 ,i doubt1 works many of the world's changes1 rather than the purblind striving to see1 which we call the foresight of man4 ,meanwhile1 remember that ,i asked just now1 what was amiss in ,art or in ourselves that this sickness was upon us4 ,nothing is wrong or can be with ,art in the abstract--that must always be good for mankind1 or we are all wrong together3 but with ,art1 as we of these latter days have known it1 there is much wrong2 nay1 what are we here for to-night if that is not so8 were not the schools of art founded all over the country some thirty years ago because we had found out that popular art was fading--or perhaps had faded out from amongst us8 ,as to the progress made since then in this country--and in this country only1 if at all--it is hard for me to speak without being either ungracious or insincere1 and yet speak ,i must4 ,i say1 then1 that an apparent external progress in some ways is obvious1 but ,i do not know how far that is hopeful1 for time must try it1 and prove whether it be a passing fashion or the first token of a real stir among the great mass of civilised men4 ,to speak quite frankly1 and as one friend to another1 ,i must needs say that even as ,i say those words they seem too good to be true4 ,and yet--who knows8--so wont are we to frame history for the future as well as for the past1 so often are our eyes blind both when we look backward and when we look forward1 because we have been gazing so intently at our own days1 our own lines4 ,may all be better than ,i think it6 ,at any rate let us count our gains1 and set them against less hopeful signs of the times4 ,in ,england1 then--and as far as ,i know1 in ,england only--painters of pictures have grown1 ,i believe1 more numerous1 and certainly more conscientious in their work1 and in some cases--and this more especially in ,england--have developed and expressed a sense of beauty which the world has not seen for the last three hundred years4 ,this is certainly a very great gain1 which is not easy to over-estimate1 both for those who make the pictures and those who use them4 ,furthermore1 in ,england1 and in ,england only1 there has been a great improvement in architecture and the arts that attend it--arts which it was the special province of the afore-mentioned schools to revive and foster4 ,this1 also1 is a considerable gain to the users of the works so made1 but ,i fear a gain less important to most of those concerned in making them4 ,against these gains we must1 ,i am very sorry to say1 set the fact not easy to be accounted for1 that the rest of the civilised world 7so called7 seems to have done little more than stand still in these matters2 and that among ourselves these improvements have concerned comparatively few people1 the mass of our population not being in the least touched by them2 so that the great bulk of our architecture--the art which most depends on the taste of the people at large--grows worse and worse every day4 ,i must speak also of another piece of discouragement before ,i go further4 ,i daresay many of you will remember how emphatically those who first had to do with the movement of which the foundation of our art-schools was a part1 called the attention of our pattern-designers to the beautiful works of the ,east4 ,this was surely most well judged of them1 for they bade us look at an art at once beautiful1 orderly1 living in our own day1 and above all1 popular4 ,now1 it is a grievous result of the sickness of civilisation that this art is fast disappearing before the advance of western conquest and commerce--fast1 and every day faster4 ,while we are met here in ,birmingham to further the spread of education in art1 ,englishmen in ,india are1 in their short-sightedness1 actively destroying the very sources of that education--jewellery1 metal-work1 pottery1 calico-printing1 brocade-weaving1 carpet-making--all the famous and historical arts of the great peninsula have been for long treated as matters of no importance1 to be thrust aside for the advantage of any paltry scrap of so-called commerce2 and matters are now speedily coming to an end there4 ,i daresay some of you saw the presents which the native ,princes gave to the ,prince of ,wales on the occasion of his progress through ,india4 ,i did myself1 ,i will not say with great disappointment1 for ,i guessed what they would be like1 but with great grief1 since there was scarce here and there a piece of goods among these costly gifts1 things given as great treasures1 which faintly upheld the ancient fame of the cradle of the industrial arts4 ,nay1 in some cases1 it would have been laughable1 if it had not been so sad1 to see the piteous simplicity with which the conquered race had copied the blank vulgarity of their lords4 ,and this deterioration we are now1 as ,i have said1 actively engaged in forwarding4 ,i have read a little book1 #ej a handbook to the ,indian ,court of last year's ,paris ,exhibition1 which takes the occasion of noting the state of manufactures in ,india one by one4 #8,art manufactures1' you would call them2 but1 indeed1 all manufactures are1 or were1 #8art manufactures' in ,india4 ,dr4 ,birdwood1 the author of this book1 is of great experience in ,indian life1 a man of science1 and a lover of the arts4 ,his story1 by no means a new one to me1 or others interested in the ,east and its labour1 is a sad one indeed4 ,the conquered races in their hopelessness are everywhere giving up the genuine practice of their own arts1 which we know ourselves1 as we have indeed loudly proclaimed1 are founded on the truest and most natural principles4 ,the often-praised perfection of these arts is the blossom of many ages of labour and change1 but the conquered races are casting it aside as a thing of no value1 so that they may conform themselves to the inferior art1 or rather the lack of art1 of their conquerors4 ,in some parts of the country the genuine arts are quite destroyed2 in many others nearly so2 in all they have more or less begun to sicken4 ,so much so is this the case1 that now for some time the ,government has been furthering this deterioration4 ,as for example1 no doubt with the best intentions1 and certainly in full sympathy with the general ,english public1 both at home and in ,india1 the ,government is now manufacturing cheap ,indian carpets in the ,indian gaols4 ,i do not say that it is a bad thing to turn out real work1 or works of art1 in gaols2 on the contrary1 ,i think it good if it be properly managed4 ,but in this case1 the ,government1 being1 as ,i said1 in full sympathy with the ,english public1 has determined that it will make its wares cheap1 whether it make them nasty or not4 ,cheap and nasty they are1 ,i assure you2 but1 though they are the worst of their kind1 they would not be made thus1 if everything did not tend the same way4 ,and it is the same everywhere and with all ,indian manufactures1 till it has come to this--that these poor people have all but lost the one distinction1 the one glory that conquest had left them4 ,their famous wares1 so praised by those who thirty years ago began to attempt the restoration of popular art amongst ourselves1 are no longer to be bought at reasonable prices in the common market1 but must be sought for and treasured as precious relics for the museums we have founded for our art education4 ,in short1 their art is dead1 and the commerce of modern civilisation has slain it4 ,what is going on in ,india is also going on1 more or less1 all over the ,east2 but ,i have spoken of ,india chiefly because ,i cannot help thinking that we ourselves are responsible for what is happening there4 ,chance-hap has made us the lords of many millions out there2 surely1 it behoves us to look to it1 lest we give to the people whom we have made helpless scorpions for fish and stones for bread4 ,but since neither on this side1 nor on any other1 can art be amended1 until the countries that lead civilisation are themselves in a healthy state about it1 let us return to the consideration of its condition among ourselves4 ,and again ,i say1 that obvious as is that surface improvement of the arts within the last few years1 ,i fear too much that there is something wrong about the root of the plant to exult over the bursting of its ,february buds4 ,i have just shown you for one thing that lovers of ,indian and ,eastern ,art1 including as they do the heads of our institutions for art education1 and ,i am sure many among what are called the governing classes1 are utterly powerless to stay its downward course4 ,the general tendency of civilisation is against them1 and is too strong for them4 ,again1 though many of us love architecture dearly1 and believe that it helps the healthiness both of body and soul to live among beautiful things1 we of the big towns are mostly compelled to live in houses which have become a byword of contempt for their ugliness and inconvenience4 ,the stream of civilisation is against us1 and we cannot battle against it4 ,once more those devoted men who have upheld the standard of truth and beauty amongst us1 and whose pictures1 painted amidst difficulties that none but a painter can know1 show qualities of mind unsurpassed in any age--these great men have but a narrow circle that can understand their works1 and are utterly unknown to the great mass of the people3 civilisation is so much against them1 that they cannot move the people4 ,therefore1 looking at all this1 ,i cannot think that all is well with the root of the tree we are cultivating4 ,indeed1 ,i believe that if other things were but to stand still in the world1 this improvement before mentioned would lead to a kind of art which1 in that impossible case1 would be in a way stable1 would perhaps stand still also4 ,this would be an art cultivated professedly by a few1 and for a few1 who would consider it necessary--a duty1 if they could admit duties--to despise the common herd1 to hold themselves aloof from all that the world has been struggling for from the first1 to guard carefully every approach to their palace of art4 ,it would be a pity to waste many words on the prospect of such a school of art as this1 which does in a way1 theoretically at least1 exist at present1 and has for its watchword a piece of slang that does not mean the harmless thing it seems to mean--art for art's sake4 ,its fore-doomed end must be1 that art at last will seem too delicate a thing for even the hands of the initiated to touch2 and the initiated must at last sit still and do nothing--to the grief of no one4 ,well1 certainly1 if ,i thought you were come here to further such an art as this ,i could not have stood up and called you friends2 though such a feeble folk as ,i have told you of one could scarce care to call foes4 ,yet1 as ,i say1 such men exist1 and ,i have troubled you with speaking of them1 because ,i know that those honest and intelligent people1 who are eager for human progress1 and yet lack part of the human senses1 and are anti-artistic1 suppose that such men are artists1 and that this is what art means1 and what it does for people1 and that such a narrow1 cowardly life is what we1 fellow-handicraftsmen1 aim at4 ,i see this taken for granted continually1 even by many who1 to say truth1 ought to know better1 and ,i long to put the slur from off us2 to make people understand that we1 least of all men1 wish to widen the gulf between the classes1 nay1 worse still1 to make new classes of elevation1 and new classes of degradation--new lords and new slaves2 that we1 least of all men1 want to cultivate the #8plant called man' in different ways--here stingily1 there wastefully3 ,i wish people to understand that the art we are striving for is a good thing which all can share1 which will elevate all2 in good sooth1 if all people do not soon share it there will soon be none to share2 if all are not elevated by it1 mankind will lose the elevation it has gained4 ,nor is such an art as we long for a vain dream2 such an art once was in times that were worse than these1 when there was less courage1 kindness1 and truth in the world than there is now2 such an art there will be hereafter1 when there will be more courage1 kindness1 and truth than there is now in the world4 ,let us look backward in history once more for a short while1 and then steadily forward till my words are done3 ,i began by saying that part of the common and necessary advice given to ,art students was to study antiquity2 and no doubt many of you1 like me1 have done so2 have wandered1 for instance1 through the galleries of the admirable museum of ,south ,kensington1 and1 like me1 have been filled with wonder and gratitude at the beauty which has been born from the brain of man4 ,now1 consider1 ,i pray you1 what these wonderful works are1 and how they were made2 and indeed1 it is neither in extravagance nor without due meaning that ,i use the word #8wonderful' in speaking of them4 ,well1 these things are just the common household goods of those past days1 and that is one reason why they are so few and so carefully treasured4 ,they were common things in their own day1 used without fear of breaking or spoiling--no rarities then--and yet we have called them #8wonderful4' ,and how were they made8 ,did a great artist draw the designs for them--a man of cultivation1 highly paid1 daintily fed1 carefully housed1 wrapped up in cotton wool1 in short1 when he was not at work8 ,by no means4 ,wonderful as these works are1 they were made by #8common fellows1' as the phrase goes1 in the common course of their daily labour4 ,such were the men we honour in honouring those works4 ,and their labour--do you think it was irksome to them8 ,those of you who are artists know very well that it was not2 that it could not be4 ,many a grin of pleasure1 ,i'll be bound--and you will not contradict me--went to the carrying through of those mazes of mysterious beauty1 to the invention of those strange beasts and birds and flowers that we ourselves have chuckled over at ,south ,kensington4 ,while they were at work1 at least1 these men were not unhappy1 and ,i suppose they worked most days1 and the most part of the day1 as we do4 ,or those treasures of architecture that we study so carefully nowadays--what are they8 how were they made8 ,there are great minsters among them1 indeed1 and palaces of kings and lords1 but not many2 and1 noble and awe-inspiring as these may be1 they differ only in size from the little grey church that still so often makes the commonplace ,english landscape beautiful1 and the little grey house that still1 in some parts of the country at least1 makes an ,english village a thing apart1 to be seen and pondered on by all who love romance and beauty4 ,these form the mass of our architectural treasures1 the houses that everyday people lived in1 the unregarded churches in which they worshipped4 ,and1 once more1 who was it that designed and ornamented them8 ,the great architect1 carefully kept for the purpose1 and guarded from the common troubles of common men8 ,by no means4 ,sometimes1 perhaps1 it was the monk1 the ploughman's brother2 oftenest his other brother1 the village carpenter1 smith1 mason1 what not--#8a common fellow1' whose common everyday labour fashioned works that are to-day the wonder and despair of many a hard-working #8cultivated' architect4 ,and did he loathe his work8 ,no1 it is impossible4 ,i have seen1 as we most of us have1 work done by such men in some out-of-the-way hamlet--where to-day even few strangers ever come1 and whose people seldom go five miles from their own doors2 in such places1 ,i say1 ,i have seen work so delicate1 so careful1 and so inventive1 that nothing in its way could go further4 ,and ,i will assert1 without fear of contradiction1 that no human ingenuity can produce work such as this without pleasure being a third party to the brain that conceived and the hand that fashioned it4 ,nor are such works rare4 ,the throne of the great ,plantagenet1 or the great ,valois1 was no more daintily carved than the seat of the village mass-john1 or the chest of the yeoman's good-wife4 ,so1 you see1 there was much going on to make life endurable in those times4 ,not every day1 you may be sure1 was a day of slaughter and tumult1 though the histories read almost as if it were so2 but every day the hammer chinked on the anvil1 and the chisel played about the oak beam1 and never without some beauty and invention being born of it1 and consequently some human happiness4 ,that last word brings me to the very kernel and heart of what ,i have come here to say to you1 and ,i pray you to think of it most seriously--not as to my words1 but as to a thought which is stirring in the world1 and will one day grow into something4 ,that thing which ,i understand by real art is the expression by man of his pleasure in labour4 ,i do not believe he can be happy in his labour without expressing that happiness2 and especially is this so when he is at work at anything in which he specially excels4 ,a most kind gift is this of nature1 since all men1 nay1 it seems all things too1 must labour2 so that not only does the dog take pleasure in hunting1 and the horse in running1 and the bird in flying1 but so natural does the idea seem to us1 that we imagine to ourselves that the earth and the very elements rejoice in doing their appointed work2 and the poets have told us of the spring meadows smiling1 of the exultation of the fire1 of the countless laughter of the sea4 ,nor until these latter days has man ever rejected this universal gift1 but always1 when he has not been too much perplexed1 too much bound by disease or beaten down by trouble1 has striven to make his work at least happy4 ,pain he has too often found in his pleasure1 and weariness in his rest1 to trust to these4 ,what matter if his happiness lie with what must be always with him--his work8 ,and1 once more1 shall we1 who have gained so much1 forego this gain1 the earliest1 most natural gain of mankind8 ,if we have to a great extent done so1 as ,i verily fear we have1 what strange fog-lights must have misled us2 or rather let me say1 how hard pressed we must have been in the battle with the evils we have overcome1 to have forgotten the greatest of all evils4 ,i cannot call it less than that4 ,if a man has work to do which he despises1 which does not satisfy his natural and rightful desire for pleasure1 the greater part of his life must pass unhappily and without self-respect4 ,consider1 ,i beg of you1 what that means1 and what ruin must come of it in the end4 ,if ,i could only persuade you of this1 that the chief duty of the civilised world to-day is to set about making labour happy for all1 to do its utmost to minimise the amount of unhappy labour--nay1 if ,i could only persuade some two or three of you here present--,i should have made a good night's work of it4 ,do not1 at any rate1 shelter yourselves from any misgiving you may have behind the fallacy that the art-lacking labour of to-day is happy work3 for the most of men it is not so4 ,it would take long1 perhaps1 to show you1 and make you fully understand that the would-be art which it produces is joyless4 ,but there is another token of its being most unhappy work1 which you cannot fail to understand at once--a grievous thing that token is--and ,i beg of you to believe that ,i feel the full shame of it1 as ,i stand here speaking of it2 but if we do not admit that we are sick1 how can we be healed8 ,this hapless token is1 that the work done by the civilised world is mostly dishonest work4 ,look now3 ,i admit that civilisation does make certain things well1 things which it knows1 consciously or unconsciously1 are necessary to its present unhealthy condition4 ,these things1 to speak shortly1 are chiefly machines for carrying on the competition in buying and selling1 called falsely commerce2 and machines for the violent destruction of life--that is to say1 materials for two kinds of war2 of which kinds the last is no doubt the worst1 not so much in itself perhaps1 but because on this point the conscience of the world is beginning to be somewhat pricked4 ,but1 on the other hand1 matters for the carrying on of a dignified daily life1 that life of mutual trust1 forbearance1 and help1 which is the only real life of thinking men--these things the civilised world makes ill1 and even increasingly worse and worse4 ,if ,i am wrong in saying this1 you know well ,i am only saying what is widely thought1 nay widely said too1 for that matter4 ,let me give an instance1 familiar enough1 of that wide-spread opinion4 ,there is a very clever book of pictures #fa now being sold at the railway bookstalls1 called #8,the ,british ,working ,man1 by one who does not believe in him1'--a title and a book which make me both angry and ashamed1 because the two express much injustice1 and not a little truth in their quaint1 and necessarily exaggerated way4 ,it is quite true1 and very sad to say1 that if any one nowadays wants a piece of ordinary work done by gardener1 carpenter1 mason1 dyer1 weaver1 smith1 what you will1 he will be a lucky rarity if he get it well done4 ,he will1 on the contrary1 meet on every side with evasion of plain duties1 and disregard of other men's rights2 yet ,i cannot see how the #8,british ,working ,man' is to be made to bear the whole burden of this blame1 or indeed the chief part of it4 ,i doubt if it be possible for a whole mass of men to do work to which they are driven1 and in which there is no hope and no pleasure1 without trying to shirk it--at any rate1 shirked it has always been under such circumstances4 ,on the other hand1 ,i know that there are some men so right-minded1 that they will1 in despite of irksomeness and hopelessness1 drive right through their work4 ,such men are the salt of the earth4 ,but must there not be something wrong with a state of society which drives these into that bitter heroism1 and the most part into shirking1 into the depths often of half-conscious self-contempt and degradation8 ,be sure that there is1 that the blindness and hurry of civilisation1 as it now is1 have to answer a heavy charge as to that enormous amount of pleasureless work--work that tries every muscle of the body and every atom of the brain1 and which is done without pleasure and without aim--work which everybody who has to do with tries to shuffle off in the speediest way that dread of starvation or ruin will allow him4 ,i am as sure of one thing as that ,i am living and breathing1 and it is this3 that the dishonesty in the daily arts of life1 complaints of which are in all men's mouths1 and which ,i can answer for it does exist1 is the natural and inevitable result of the world in the hurry of the war of the counting-house1 and the war of the battlefield1 having forgotten--of all men1 ,i say1 each for the other1 having forgotten1 that pleasure in our daily labour1 which nature cries out for as its due4 ,therefore1 ,i say again1 it is necessary to the further progress of civilisation that men should turn their thoughts to some means of limiting1 and in the end of doing away with1 degrading labour4 ,i do not think my words hitherto spoken have given you any occasion to think that ,i mean by this either hard or rough labour2 ,i do not pity men much for their hardships1 especially if they be accidental2 not necessarily attached to one class or one condition1 ,i mean4 ,nor do ,i think 7,i were crazy or dreaming else7 that the work of the world can be carried on without rough labour2 but ,i have seen enough of that to know that it need not be by any means degrading4 ,to plough the earth1 to cast the net1 to fold the flock--these1 and such as these1 which are rough occupations enough1 and which carry with them many hardships1 are good enough for the best of us1 certain conditions of leisure1 freedom1 and due wages being granted4 ,as to the bricklayer1 the mason1 and the like--these would be artists1 and doing not only necessary1 but beautiful1 and therefore happy work1 if art were anything like what it should be4 ,no1 it is not such labour as this which we need to do away with1 but the toil which makes the thousand and one things which nobody wants1 which are used merely as the counters for the competitive buying and selling1 falsely called commerce1 which ,i have spoken of before--,i know in my heart1 and not merely by my reason1 that this toil cries out to be done away with4 ,but1 besides that1 the labour which now makes things good and necessary in themselves1 merely as counters for the commercial war aforesaid1 needs regulating and reforming4 ,nor can this reform be brought about save by art2 and if we were only come to our right minds1 and could see the necessity for making labour sweet to all men1 as it is now to very few--the necessity1 ,i repeat2 lest discontent1 unrest1 and despair should at last swallow up all society--,if we1 then1 with our eyes cleared1 could but make some sacrifice of things which do us no good1 since we unjustly and uneasily possess them1 then indeed ,i believe we should sow the seeds of a happiness which the world has not yet known1 of a rest and content which would make it what ,i cannot help thinking it was meant to be3 and with that seed would be sown also the seed of real art1 the expression of man's happiness in his labour1--an art made by the people1 and for the people1 as a happiness to the maker and the user4 ,that is the only real art there is1 the only art which will be an instrument to the progress of the world1 and not a hindrance4 ,nor can ,i seriously doubt that in your hearts you know that it is so1 all of you1 at any rate1 who have in you an instinct for art4 ,i believe that you agree with me in this1 though you may differ from much else that ,i have said4 ,i think assuredly that this is the art whose welfare we have met together to further1 and the necessary instruction in which we have undertaken to spread as widely as may be4 ,thus ,i have told you something of what ,i think is to be hoped and feared for the future of art2 and if you ask me what ,i expect as a practical outcome of the admission of these opinions1 ,i must say at once that ,i know1 even if we were all of one mind1 and that what ,i think the right mind on this subject1 we should still have much work and many hindrances before us2 we should still have need of all the prudence1 foresight1 and industry of the best among us2 and1 even so1 our path would sometimes seem blind enough4 ,and1 to-day1 when the opinions which we think right1 and which one day will be generally thought so1 have to struggle sorely to make themselves noticed at all1 it is early days for us to try to see our exact and clearly mapped road4 ,i suppose you will think it too commonplace of me to say that the general education that makes men think1 will one day make them think rightly upon art4 ,commonplace as it is1 ,i really believe it1 and am indeed encouraged by it1 when ,i remember how obviously this age is one of transition from the old to the new1 and what a strange confusion1 from out of which we shall one day come1 our ignorance and half-ignorance is like to make of the exhausted rubbish of the old and the crude rubbish of the new1 both of which lie so ready to our hands4 ,but1 if ,i must say1 furthermore1 any words that seem like words of practical advice1 ,i think my task is hard1 and ,i fear ,i shall offend some of you whatever ,i say2 for this is indeed an affair of morality1 rather than of what people call art4 ,however1 ,i cannot forget that1 in my mind1 it is not possible to dissociate art from morality1 politics1 and religion4 ,truth in these great matters of principle is of one1 and it is only in formal treatises that it can be split up diversely4 ,i must also ask you to remember how ,i have already said1 that though my mouth alone speaks1 it speaks1 however feebly and disjointedly1 the thoughts of many men better than myself4 ,and further1 though when things are tending to the best1 we shall still1 as aforesaid1 need our best men to lead us quite right2 yet even now surely1 when it is far from that1 the least of us can do some yeoman's service to the cause1 and live and die not without honour4 ,so ,i will say that ,i believe there are two virtues much needed in modern life1 if it is ever to become sweet2 and ,i am quite sure that they are absolutely necessary in the sowing the seed of an art which is to be made by the people and for the people1 as a happiness to the maker and the user4 ,these virtues are honesty1 and simplicity of life4 ,to make my meaning clearer ,i will name the opposing vice of the second of these--luxury to wit4 ,also ,i mean by honesty1 the careful and eager giving his due to every man1 the determination not to gain by any man's loss1 which in my experience is not a common virtue4 ,but note how the practice of either of these virtues will make the other easier to us4 ,for if our wants are few1 we shall have but little chance of being driven by our wants into injustice2 and if we are fixed in the principle of giving every man his due1 how can our self-respect bear that we should give too much to ourselves8 ,and in art1 and in that preparation for it without which no art that is stable or worthy can be1 the raising1 namely1 of those classes which have heretofore been degraded1 the practice of these virtues would make a new world of it4 ,for if you are rich1 your simplicity of life will both go towards smoothing over the dreadful contrast between waste and want1 which is the great horror of civilised countries1 and will also give an example and standard of dignified life to those classes which you desire to raise1 who1 as it is indeed1 being like enough to rich people1 are given both to envy and to imitate the idleness and waste that the possession of much money produces4 ,nay1 and apart from the morality of the matter1 which ,i am forced to speak to you of2 let me tell you that though simplicity in art may be costly as well as uncostly1 at least it is not wasteful1 and nothing is more destructive to art than the want of it4 ,i have never been in any rich man's house which would not have looked the better for having a bonfire made outside of it of nine-tenths of all that it held4 ,indeed1 our sacrifice on the side of luxury will1 it seems to me1 be little or nothing3 for1 as far as ,i can make out1 what people usually mean by it1 is either a gathering of possessions which are sheer vexations to the owner1 or a chain of pompous circumstance1 which checks and annoys the rich man at every step4 ,yes1 luxury cannot exist without slavery of some kind or other1 and its abolition will be blessed1 like the abolition of other slaveries1 by the freeing both of the slaves and of their masters4 ,lastly1 if1 besides attaining to simplicity of life1 we attain also to the love of justice1 then will all things be ready for the new springtime of the arts4 ,for those of us that are employers of labour1 how can we bear to give any man less money than he can decently live on1 less leisure than his education and self-respect demand8 or those of us who are workmen1 how can we bear to fail in the contract we have undertaken1 or to make it necessary for a foreman to go up and down spying out our mean tricks and evasions8 or we the shopkeepers--can we endure to lie about our wares1 that we may shuffle off our losses on to some one else's shoulders8 or we the public--how can we bear to pay a price for a piece of goods which will help to trouble one man1 to ruin another1 and starve a third8 ,or1 still more1 ,i think1 how can we bear to use1 how can we enjoy something which has been a pain and a grief for the maker to make8 ,and now1 ,i think1 ,i have said what ,i came to say4 ,i confess that there is nothing new in it1 but you know the experience of the world is that a thing must be said over and over again before any great number of men can be got to listen to it4 ,let my words to-night1 therefore1 pass for one of the necessary times that the thought in them must be spoken out4 ,for the rest ,i believe that1 however seriously these words may be gainsayed1 ,i have been speaking to an audience in whom any words spoken from a sense of duty and in hearty goodwill1 as mine have been1 will quicken thought and sow some good seed4 ,at any rate1 it is good for a man who thinks seriously to face his fellows1 and speak out whatever really burns in him1 so that men may seem less strange to one another1 and misunderstanding1 the fruitful cause of aimless strife1 may be avoided4 ,but if to any of you ,i have seemed to speak hopelessly1 my words have been lacking in art2 and you must remember that hopelessness would have locked my mouth1 not opened it4 ,i am1 indeed1 hopeful1 but can ,i give a date to the accomplishment of my hope1 and say that it will happen in my life or yours8 ,but ,i will say at least1 ,courage6 for things wonderful1 unhoped-for1 glorious1 have happened even in this short while ,i have been alive4 ,yes1 surely these times are wonderful and fruitful of change1 which1 as it wears and gathers new life even in its wearing1 will one day bring better things for the toiling days of men1 who1 with freer hearts and clearer eyes1 will once more gain the sense of outward beauty1 and rejoice in it4 ,meanwhile1 if these hours be dark1 as1 indeed1 in many ways they are1 at least do not let us sit deedless1 like fools and fine gentlemen1 thinking the common toil not good enough for us1 and beaten by the muddle2 but rather let us work like good fellows trying by some dim candle-light to set our workshop ready against to-morrow's daylight--that to-morrow1 when the civilised world1 no longer greedy1 strifeful1 and destructive1 shall have a new art1 a glorious art1 made by the people and for the people1 as a happiness to the maker and the user4 ,,the ,,beauty ,,of ,,life #ga #8--propter vitam vivendi perdere causas4'--,juvenal4 ,i ,,stand before you this evening weighted with a disadvantage that ,i did not feel last year2--,i have little fresh to tell you2 ,i can somewhat enlarge on what ,i said then2 here and there ,i may make bold to give you a practical suggestion1 or ,i may put what ,i have to say in a way which will be clearer to some of you perhaps2 but my message is really the same as it was when ,i first had the pleasure of meeting you4 ,it is true that if all were going smoothly with art1 or at all events so smoothly that there were but a few malcontents in the world1 you might listen with some pleasure1 and perhaps advantage1 to the talk of an old hand in the craft concerning ways of work1 the snares that beset success1 and the shortest road to it1 to a tale of workshop receipts and the like3 that would be a pleasant talk surely between friends and fellow-workmen2 but it seems to me as if it were not for us as yet2 nay1 maybe we may live long and find no time fit for such restful talk as the cheerful histories of the hopes and fears of our workshops3 anyhow to-night ,i cannot do it1 but must once again call the faithful of art to a battle wider and more distracting than that kindly struggle with nature1 to which all true craftsmen are born2 which is both the building-up and the wearing-away of their lives4 ,as ,i look round on this assemblage1 and think of all that it represents1 ,i cannot choose but be moved to the soul by the troubles of the life of civilised man1 and the hope that thrusts itself through them2 ,i cannot refrain from giving you once again the message with which1 as it seems1 some chance-hap has charged me3 that message is1 in short1 to call on you to face the latest danger which civilisation is threatened with1 a danger of her own breeding3 that men in struggling towards the complete attainment of all the luxuries of life for the strongest portion of their race should deprive their whole race of all the beauty of life3 a danger that the strongest and wisest of mankind1 in striving to attain to a complete mastery over nature1 should destroy her simplest and widest-spread gifts1 and thereby enslave simple people to them1 and themselves to themselves1 and so at last drag the world into a second barbarism more ignoble1 and a thousandfold more hopeless1 than the first4 ,now of you who are listening to me1 there are some1 ,i feel sure1 who have received this message1 and taken it to heart1 and are day by day fighting the battle that it calls on you to fight3 to you ,i can say nothing but that if any word ,i speak discourage you1 ,i shall heartily wish ,i had never spoken at all3 but to be shown the enemy1 and the castle we have got to storm1 is not to be bidden to run from him2 nor am ,i telling you to sit down deedless in the desert because between you and the promised land lies many a trouble1 and death itself maybe3 the hope before you you know1 and nothing that ,i can say can take it away from you2 but friend may with advantage cry out to friend in the battle that a stroke is coming from this side or that3 take my hasty words in that sense1 ,i beg of you4 ,but ,i think there will be others of you in whom vague discontent is stirring3 who are oppressed by the life that surrounds you2 confused and troubled by that oppression1 and not knowing on which side to seek a remedy1 though you are fain to do so3 well1 we1 who have gone further into those troubles1 believe that we can help you3 true we cannot at once take your trouble from you2 nay1 we may at first rather add to it2 but we can tell you what we think of the way out of it2 and then amidst the many things you will have to do to set yourselves and others fairly on that way1 you will many days1 nay most days1 forget your trouble in thinking of the good that lies beyond it1 for which you are working4 ,but1 again1 there are others amongst you 7and to speak plainly1 ,i daresay they are the majority71 who are not by any means troubled by doubt of the road the world is going1 nor excited by any hope of its bettering that road3 to them the cause of civilisation is simple and even commonplace3 it wonder1 hope1 and fear no longer hang about it2 has become to us like the rising and setting of the sun2 it cannot err1 and we have no call to meddle with it1 either to complain of its course1 or to try to direct it4 ,there is a ground of reason and wisdom in that way of looking at the matter3 surely the world will go on its ways1 thrust forward by impulses which we cannot understand or sway3 but as it grows in strength for the journey1 its necessary food is the life and aspirations of all of us3 and we discontented strugglers with what at times seems the hurrying blindness of civilisation1 no less than those who see nothing but smooth1 unvarying progress in it1 are bred of civilisation also1 and shall be used up to further it in some way or other1 ,i doubt not3 and it may be of some service to those who think themselves the only loyal subjects of progress to hear of our existence1 since their not hearing of it would not make an end of it3 it may set them a-thinking not unprofitably to hear of burdens that they do not help to bear1 but which are nevertheless real and weighty enough to some of their fellow-men1 who are helping1 even as they are1 to form the civilisation that is to be4 ,the danger that the present course of civilisation will destroy the beauty of life--these are hard words1 and ,i wish ,i could mend them1 but ,i cannot1 while ,i speak what ,i believe to be the truth4 ,that the beauty of life is a thing of no moment1 ,i suppose few people would venture to assert1 and yet most civilised people act as if it were of none1 and in so doing are wronging both themselves and those that are to come after them2 for that beauty1 which is what is meant by art1 using the word in its widest sense1 is1 ,i contend1 no mere accident to human life1 which people can take or leave as they choose1 but a positive necessity of life1 if we are to live as nature meant us to2 that is1 unless we are content to be less than men4 ,now ,i ask you1 as ,i have been asking myself this long while1 what proportion of the population in civilised countries has any share at all in that necessity of life8 ,i say that the answer which must be made to that question justifies my fear that modern civilisation is on the road to trample out all the beauty of life1 and to make us less than men4 ,now if there should be any here who will say3 ,it was always so2 there always was a mass of rough ignorance that knew and cared nothing about art2 ,i answer first1 that if that be the case1 then it was always wrong1 and we1 as soon as we have become conscious of that wrong1 are bound to set it right if we can4 ,but moreover1 strange to say1 and in spite of all the suffering that the world has wantonly made for itself1 and has in all ages so persistently clung to1 as if it were a good and holy thing1 this wrong of the mass of men being regardless of art was not always so4 ,so much is now known of the periods of art that have left abundant examples of their work behind them1 that we can judge of the art of all periods by comparing these with the remains of times of which less has been left us2 and we cannot fail to come to the conclusion that down to very recent days everything that the hand of man touched was more or less beautiful3 so that in those days all people who made anything shared in art1 as well as all people who used the things so made3 that is1 all people shared in art4 ,but some people may say3 ,and was that to be wished for8 would not this universal spreading of art stop progress in other matters1 hinder the work of the world8 ,would it not make us unmanly8 or if not that1 would it not be intrusive1 and push out other things necessary also for men to study8 ,well1 ,i have claimed a necessary place for art1 a natural place1 and it would be in the very essence of it1 that it would apply its own rules of order and fitness to the general ways of life3 it seems to me1 therefore1 that people who are over-anxious of the outward expression of beauty becoming too great a force among the other forces of life1 would1 if they had had the making of the external world1 have been afraid of making an ear of wheat beautiful1 lest it should not have been good to eat4 ,but indeed there seems no chance of art becoming universal1 unless on the terms that it shall have little self-consciousness1 and for the most part be done with little effort2 so that the rough work of the world would be as little hindered by it1 as the work of external nature is by the beauty of all her forms and moods3 this was the case in the times that ,i have been speaking of3 of art which was made by conscious effort1 the result of the individual striving towards perfect expression of their thoughts by men very specially gifted1 there was perhaps no more than there is now1 except in very wonderful and short periods2 though ,i believe that even for such men the struggle to produce beauty was not so bitter as it now is4 ,but if there were not more great thinkers than there are now1 there was a countless multitude of happy workers whose work did express1 and could not choose but express1 some original thought1 and was consequently both interesting and beautiful3 now there is certainly no chance of the more individual art becoming common1 and either wearying us by its over-abundance1 or by noisy self-assertion preventing highly cultivated men taking their due part in the other work of the world2 it is too difficult to do3 it will be always but the blossom of all the half-conscious work below it1 the fulfilment of the shortcomings of less complete minds3 but it will waste much of its power1 and have much less influence on men's minds1 unless it be surrounded by abundance of that commoner work1 in which all men once shared1 and which1 ,i say1 will1 when art has really awakened1 be done so easily and constantly1 that it will stand in no man's way to hinder him from doing what he will1 good or evil4 ,and as1 on the one hand1 ,i believe that art made by the people and for the people as a joy both to the maker and the user would further progress in other matters rather than hinder it1 so also ,i firmly believe that that higher art produced only by great brains and miraculously gifted hands cannot exist without it3 ,i believe that the present state of things in which it does exist1 while popular art is1 let us say1 asleep or sick1 is a transitional state1 which must end at last either in utter defeat or utter victory for the arts4 ,for whereas all works of craftsmanship were once beautiful1 unwittingly or not1 they are now divided into two kinds1 works of art and non-works of art3 now nothing made by man's hand can be indifferent3 it must be either beautiful and elevating1 or ugly and degrading2 and those things that are without art are so aggressively2 they wound it by their existence1 and they are now so much in the majority that the works of art we are obliged to set ourselves to seek for1 whereas the other things are the ordinary companions of our everyday life2 so that if those who cultivate art intellectually were inclined never so much to wrap themselves in their special gifts and their high cultivation1 and so live happily1 apart from other men1 and despising them1 they could not do so3 they are as it were living in an enemy's country2 at every turn there is something lying in wait to offend and vex their nicer sense and educated eyes3 they must share in the general discomfort--and ,i am glad of it4 ,so the matter stands3 from the first dawn of history till quite modern times1 art1 which nature meant to solace all1 fulfilled its purpose2 all men shared in it2 that was what made life romantic1 as people call it1 in those days2 that and not robber-barons and inaccessible kings with their hierarchy of serving-nobles and other such rubbish3 but art grew and grew1 saw empires sicken and sickened with them2 grew hale again1 and haler1 and grew so great at last1 that she seemed in good truth to have conquered everything1 and laid the material world under foot4 ,then came a change at a period of the greatest life and hope in many ways that ,europe had known till then3 a time of so much and such varied hope that people call it the time of the ,new ,birth3 as far as the arts are concerned ,i deny it that title2 rather it seems to me that the great men who lived and glorified the practice of art in those days1 were the fruit of the old1 not the seed of the new order of things3 but a stirring and hopeful time it was1 and many things were newborn then which have since brought forth fruit enough3 and it is strange and perplexing that from those days forward the lapse of time1 which1 through plenteous confusion and failure1 has on the whole been steadily destroying privilege and exclusiveness in other matters1 has delivered up art to be the exclusive privilege of a few1 and has taken from the people their birthright2 while both wronged and wrongers have been wholly unconscious of what they were doing4 ,wholly unconscious--yes1 but we are no longer so3 there lies the sting of it1 and there also the hope4 ,when the brightness of the so-called ,renaissance faded1 and it faded very suddenly1 a deadly chill fell upon the arts3 that ,new-birth mostly meant looking back to past times1 wherein the men of those days thought they saw a perfection of art1 which to their minds was different in kind1 and not in degree only1 from the ruder suggestive art of their own fathers3 this perfection they were ambitious to imitate1 this alone seemed to be art to them1 the rest was childishness3 so wonderful was their energy1 their success so great1 that no doubt to commonplace minds among them1 though surely not to the great masters1 that perfection seemed to be gained3 and1 perfection being gained1 what are you to do8--you can go no further1 you must aim at standing still--which you cannot do4 ,art by no means stood still in those latter days of the ,renaissance1 but took the downward road with terrible swiftness1 and tumbled down at the bottom of the hill1 where as if bewitched it lay long in great content1 believing itself to be the art of ,michael ,angelo1 while it was the art of men whom nobody remembers but those who want to sell their pictures4 ,thus it fared with the more individual forms of art4 ,as to the art of the people2 in countries and places where the greater art had flourished most1 it went step by step on the downward path with that3 in more out-of-the-way places1 ,england for instance1 it still felt the influence of the life of its earlier and happy days1 and in a way lived on a while2 but its life was so feeble1 and1 so to say1 illogical1 that it could not resist any change in external circumstances1 still less could it give birth to anything new2 and before this century began1 its last flicker had died out4 ,still1 while it was living1 in whatever dotage1 it did imply something going on in those matters of daily use that we have been thinking of1 and doubtless satisfied some cravings for beauty3 and when it was dead1 for a long time people did not know it1 or what had taken its place1 crept so to say into its dead body--that pretence of art1 to wit1 which is done with machines1 though sometimes the machines are called men1 and doubtless are so out of working hours3 nevertheless long before it was quite dead it had fallen so low that the whole subject was usually treated with the utmost contempt by every one who had any pretence of being a sensible man1 and in short the whole civilised world had forgotten that there had ever been an art made by the people for the people as a joy for the maker and the user4 ,but now it seems to me that the very suddenness of the change ought to comfort us1 to make us look upon this break in the continuity of the golden chain as an accident only1 that itself cannot last3 for think how many thousand years it may be since that primeval man graved with a flint splinter on a bone the story of the mammoth he had seen1 or told us of the slow uplifting of the heavily-horned heads of the reindeer that he stalked3 think ,i say of the space of time from then till the dimming of the brightness of the ,italian ,renaissance6 whereas from that time till popular art died unnoticed and despised among ourselves is just but two hundred years4 ,strange too1 that very death is contemporaneous with new-birth of something at all events2 for out of all despair sprang a new time of hope lighted by the torch of the ,french ,revolution3 and things that have languished with the languishing of art1 rose afresh and surely heralded its new birth3 in good earnest poetry was born again1 and the ,english ,language1 which under the hands of sycophantic verse-makers had been reduced to a miserable jargon1 whose meaning1 if it have a meaning1 cannot be made out without translation1 flowed clear1 pure1 and simple1 along with the music of ,blake and ,coleridge3 take those names1 the earliest in date among ourselves1 as a type of the change that has happened in literature since the time of ,george ,,ii4 ,with that literature in which romance1 that is to say humanity1 was re-born1 there sprang up also a feeling for the romance of external nature1 which is surely strong in us now1 joined with a longing to know something real of the lives of those who have gone before us2 of these feelings united you will find the broadest expression in the pages of ,walter ,scott3 it is curious as showing how sometimes one art will lag behind another in a revival1 that the man who wrote the exquisite and wholly unfettered naturalism of the ,heart of ,midlothian1 for instance1 thought himself continually bound to seem to feel ashamed of1 and to excuse himself for1 his love of ,gothic ,architecture3 he felt that it was romantic1 and he knew that it gave him pleasure1 but somehow he had not found out that it was art1 having been taught in many ways that nothing could be art that was not done by a named man under academical rules4 ,i need not perhaps dwell much on what of change has been since3 you know well that one of the master-arts1 the art of painting1 has been revolutionised4 ,i have a genuine difficulty in speaking to you of men who are my own personal friends1 nay my masters3 still1 since ,i cannot quite say nothing of them ,i must say the plain truth1 which is this2 never in the whole history of art did any set of men come nearer to the feat of making something out of nothing than that little knot of painters who have raised ,english art from what it was1 when as a boy ,i used to go to the ,royal ,academy ,exhibition1 to what it is now4 ,it would be ungracious indeed for me who have been so much taught by him1 that ,i cannot help feeling continually as ,i speak that ,i am echoing his words1 to leave out the name of ,john ,ruskin from an account of what has happened since the tide1 as we hope1 began to turn in the direction of art4 ,true it is1 that his unequalled style of ,english and his wonderful eloquence would1 whatever its subject-matter1 have gained him some sort of a hearing in a time that has not lost its relish for literature2 but surely the influence that he has exercised over cultivated people must be the result of that style and that eloquence expressing what was already stirring in men's minds2 he could not have written what he has done unless people were in some sort ready for it2 any more than those painters could have begun their crusade against the dulness and incompetency that was the rule in their art thirty years ago unless they had some hope that they would one day move people to understand them4 ,well1 we find that the gains since the turning-point of the tide are these3 that there are some few artists who have1 as it were1 caught up the golden chain dropped two hundred years ago1 and that there are a few highly cultivated people who can understand them2 and that beyond these there is a vague feeling abroad among people of the same degree1 of discontent at the ignoble ugliness that surrounds them4 ,that seems to me to mark the advance that we have made since the last of popular art came to an end amongst us1 and ,i do not say1 considering where we then were1 that it is not a great advance1 for it comes to this1 that though the battle is still to win1 there are those who are ready for the battle4 ,indeed it would be a strange shame for this age if it were not so3 for as every age of the world has its own troubles to confuse it1 and its own follies to cumber it1 so has each its own work to do1 pointed out to it by unfailing signs of the times2 and it is unmanly and stupid for the children of any age to say3 ,we will not set our hands to the work2 we did not make the troubles1 we will not weary ourselves seeking a remedy for them3 so heaping up for their sons a heavier load than they can lift without such struggles as will wound and cripple them sorely4 ,not thus our fathers served us1 who1 working late and early1 left us at last that seething mass of people so terribly alive and energetic1 that we call modern ,europe2 not thus those served us1 who have made for us these present days1 so fruitful of change and wondering expectation4 ,the century that is now beginning to draw to an end1 if people were to take to nicknaming centuries1 would be called the ,century of ,commerce2 and ,i do not think ,i undervalue the work that it has done3 it has broken down many a prejudice and taught many a lesson that the world has been hitherto slow to learn3 it has made it possible for many a man to live free1 who would in other times have been a slave1 body or soul1 or both3 if it has not quite spread peace and justice through the world1 as at the end of its first half we fondly hoped it would1 it has at least stirred up in many fresh cravings for peace and justice3 its work has been good and plenteous1 but much of it was roughly done1 as needs was2 recklessness has commonly gone with its energy1 blindness too often with its haste3 so that perhaps it may be work enough for the next century to repair the blunders of that recklessness1 to clear away the rubbish which that hurried work has piled up2 nay even we in the second half of its last quarter may do something towards setting its house in order4 ,you1 of this great and famous town1 for instance1 which has had so much to do with the ,century of ,commerce1 your gains are obvious to all men1 but the price you have paid for them is obvious to many--surely to yourselves most of all3 ,i do not say that they are not worth the price2 ,i know that ,england and the world could very ill afford to exchange the ,birmingham of to-day for the ,birmingham of the year #agjj3 but surely if what you have gained be more than a mockery1 you cannot stop at those gains1 or even go on always piling up similar ones4 ,nothing can make me believe that the present condition of your ,black ,country yonder is an unchangeable necessity of your life and position3 such miseries as this were begun and carried on in pure thoughtlessness1 and a hundredth part of the energy that was spent in creating them would get rid of them3 ,i do think if we were not all of us too prone to acquiesce in the base byword #8after me the deluge1' it would soon be something more than an idle dream to hope that your pleasant midland hills and fields might begin to become pleasant again in some way or other1 even without depopulating them2 or that those once lovely valleys of ,yorkshire in the #8heavy woollen district1' with their sweeping hill-sides and noble rivers1 should not need the stroke of ruin to make them once more delightful abodes of men1 instead of the dog-holes that the ,century of ,commerce has made them4 ,well1 people will not take the trouble or spend the money necessary to beginning this sort of reforms1 because they do not feel the evils they live amongst1 because they have degraded themselves into something less than men2 they are unmanly because they have ceased to have their due share of art4 ,for again ,i say that therein rich people have defrauded themselves as well as the poor3 you will see a refined and highly educated man nowadays1 who has been to ,italy and ,egypt1 and where not1 who can talk learnedly enough 7and fantastically enough sometimes7 about art1 and who has at his fingers' ends abundant lore concerning the art and literature of past days1 sitting down without signs of discomfort in a house1 that with all its surroundings is just brutally vulgar and hideous3 all his education has not done more for him than that4 ,the truth is1 that in art1 and in other things besides1 the laboured education of a few will not raise even those few above the reach of the evils that beset the ignorance of the great mass of the population3 the brutality of which such a huge stock has been accumulated lower down1 will often show without much peeling through the selfish refinement of those who have let it accumulate4 ,the lack of art1 or rather the murder of art1 that curses our streets from the sordidness of the surroundings of the lower classes1 has its exact counterpart in the dulness and vulgarity of those of the middle classes1 and the double-distilled dulness1 and scarcely less vulgarity of those of the upper classes4 ,i say this is as it should be2 it is just and fair as far as it goes2 and moreover the rich with their leisure are the more like to move if they feel the pinch themselves4 ,but how shall they and we1 and all of us1 move8 ,what is the remedy8 ,what remedy can there be for the blunders of civilisation but further civilisation8 ,you do not by any accident think that we have gone as far in that direction as it is possible to go1 do you8--even in ,england1 ,i mean8 ,when some changes have come to pass1 that perhaps will be speedier than most people think1 doubtless education will both grow in quality and in quantity2 so that it may be1 that as the nineteenth century is to be called the ,century of ,commerce1 the twentieth may be called the ,century of ,education4 ,but that education does not end when people leave school is now a mere commonplace2 and how then can you really educate men who lead the life of machines1 who only think for the few hours during which they are not at work1 who in short spend almost their whole lives in doing work which is not proper for developing them body and mind in some worthy way8 ,you cannot educate1 you cannot civilise men1 unless you can give them a share in art4 ,yes1 and it is hard indeed as things go to give most men that share2 for they do not miss it1 or ask for it1 and it is impossible as things are that they should either miss or ask for it4 ,nevertheless everything has a beginning1 and many great things have had very small ones2 and since1 as ,i have said1 these ideas are already abroad in more than one form1 we must not be too much discouraged at the seemingly boundless weight we have to lift4 ,after all1 we are only bound to play our own parts1 and do our own share of the lifting1 and as in no case that share can be great1 so also in all cases it is called for1 it is necessary4 ,therefore let us work and faint not2 remembering that though it be natural1 and therefore excusable1 amidst doubtful times to feel doubts of success oppress us at whiles1 yet not to crush those doubts1 and work as if we had them not1 is simple cowardice1 which is unforgivable4 ,no man has any right to say that all has been done for nothing1 that all the faithful unwearying strife of those that have gone before us shall lead us nowhither2 that mankind will but go round and round in a circle for ever3 no man has a right to say that1 and then get up morning after morning to eat his victuals and sleep a-nights1 all the while making other people toil to keep his worthless life a-going4 ,be sure that some way or other will be found out of the tangle1 even when things seem most tangled1 and be no less sure that some use will then have come of our work1 if it has been faithful1 and therefore unsparingly careful and thoughtful4 ,so once more ,i say1 if in any matters civilisation has gone astray1 the remedy lies not in standing still1 but in more complete civilisation4 ,now whatever discussion there may be about that often used and often misused word1 ,i believe all who hear me will agree with me in believing from their hearts1 and not merely in saying in conventional phrase1 that the civilisation which does not carry the whole people with it1 is doomed to fall1 and give place to one which at least aims at doing so4 ,we talk of the civilisation of the ancient peoples1 of the classical times1 well1 civilised they were no doubt1 some of their folk at least3 an ,athenian citizen for instance led a simple1 dignified1 almost perfect life2 but there were drawbacks to happiness perhaps in the lives of his slaves3 and the civilisation of the ancients was founded on slavery4 ,indeed that ancient society did give a model to the world1 and showed us for ever what blessings are freedom of life and thought1 self-restraint and a generous education3 all those blessings the ancient free peoples set forth to the world--and kept them to themselves4 ,therefore no tyrant was too base1 no pretext too hollow1 for enslaving the grandsons of the men of ,salamis and ,thermopyl3 therefore did the descendants of those stern and self-restrained ,romans1 who were ready to give up everything1 and life as the least of things1 to the glory of their commonweal1 produce monsters of license and reckless folly4 ,therefore did a little knot of ,galilean peasants overthrow the ,roman ,empire4 ,ancient civilisation was chained to slavery and exclusiveness1 and it fell2 the barbarism that took its place has delivered us from slavery and grown into modern civilisation2 and that in its turn has before it the choice of never-ceasing growth1 or destruction by that which has in it the seeds of higher growth4 ,there is an ugly word for a dreadful fact1 which ,i must make bold to use--the residuum3 that word since the time ,i first saw it used1 has had a terrible significance to me1 and ,i have felt from my heart that if this residuum were a necessary part of modern civilisation1 as some people openly1 and many more tacitly1 assume that it is1 then this civilisation carries with it the poison that shall one day destroy it1 even as its elder sister did3 if civilisation is to go no further than this1 it had better not have gone so far3 if it does not aim at getting rid of this misery and giving some share in the happiness and dignity of life to all the people that it has created1 and which it spends such unwearying energy in creating1 it is simply an organised injustice1 a mere instrument for oppression1 so much the worse than that which has gone before it1 as its pretensions are higher1 its slavery subtler1 its mastery harder to overthrow1 because supported by such a dense mass of commonplace well-being and comfort4 ,surely this cannot be3 surely there is a distinct feeling abroad of this injustice3 so that if the residuum still clogs all the efforts of modern civilisation to rise above mere population-breeding and money-making1 the difficulty of dealing with it is the legacy1 first of the ages of violence and almost conscious brutal injustice1 and next of the ages of thoughtlessness1 of hurry and blindness2 surely all those who think at all of the future of the world are at work in one way or other in striving to rid it of this shame4 ,that to my mind is the meaning of what we call ,national ,education1 which we have begun1 and which is doubtless already bearing its fruits1 and will bear greater1 when all people are educated1 not according to the money which they or their parents possess1 but according to the capacity of their minds4 ,what effect that will have upon the future of the arts1 ,i cannot say1 but one would surely think a very great effect2 for it will enable people to see clearly many things which are now as completely hidden from them as if they were blind in body and idiotic in mind3 and this1 ,i say1 will act not only upon those who most directly feel the evils of ignorance1 but also upon those who feel them indirectly1--upon us1 the educated3 the great wave of rising intelligence1 rife with so many natural desires and aspirations1 will carry all classes along with it1 and force us all to see that many things which we have been used to look upon as necessary and eternal evils are merely the accidental and temporary growths of past stupidity1 and can be escaped from by due effort1 and the exercise of courage1 goodwill1 and forethought4 ,and among those evils1 ,i do1 and must always1 believe will fall that one which last year ,i told you that ,i accounted the greatest of all evils1 the heaviest of all slaveries2 that evil of the greater part of the population being engaged for by far the most part of their lives in work1 which at the best cannot interest them1 or develop their best faculties1 and at the worst 7and that is the commonest1 too7 is mere unmitigated slavish toil1 only to be wrung out of them by the sternest compulsion1 a toil which they shirk all they can--small blame to them4 ,and this toil degrades them into less than men3 and they will some day come to know it1 and cry out to be made men again1 and art only can do it1 and redeem them from this slavery2 and ,i say once more that this is her highest and most glorious end and aim2 and it is in her struggle to attain to it that she will most surely purify herself1 and quicken her own aspirations towards perfection4 ,but we--in the meantime we must not sit waiting for obvious signs of these later and glorious days to show themselves on earth1 and in the heavens1 but rather turn to the commonplace1 and maybe often dull work of fitting ourselves in detail to take part in them if we should live to see one of them2 or in doing our best to make the path smooth for their coming1 if we are to die before they are here4 ,what1 therefore1 can we do1 to guard traditions of time past that we may not one day have to begin anew from the beginning with none to teach us8 ,what are we to do1 that we may take heed to1 and spread the decencies of life1 so that at the least we may have a field where it will be possible for art to grow when men begin to long for it3 what finally can we do1 each of us1 to cherish some germ of art1 so that it may meet with others1 and spread and grow little by little into the thing that we need8 ,now ,i cannot pretend to think that the first of these duties is a matter of indifference to you1 after my experience of the enthusiastic meeting that ,i had the honour of addressing here last autumn on the subject of the 7so called7 restoration of ,st4 ,mark's at ,venice2 you thought1 and most justly thought1 it seems to me1 that the subject was of such moment to art in general1 that it was a simple and obvious thing for men who were anxious on the matter to address themselves to those who had the decision of it in their hands2 even though the former were called ,englishmen1 and the latter ,italians2 for you felt that the name of lovers of art would cover those differences3 if you had any misgivings1 you remembered that there was but one such building in the world1 and that it was worth while risking a breach of etiquette1 if any words of ours could do anything towards saving it2 well1 the ,italians were1 some of them1 very naturally1 though surely unreasonably1 irritated1 for a time1 and in some of their prints they bade us look at home2 that was no argument in favour of the wisdom of wantonly rebuilding ,st4 ,mark's faade3 but certainly those of us who have not yet looked at home in this matter had better do so speedily1 late and over late though it be3 for though we have no golden-pictured interiors like ,st4 ,mark's ,church at home1 we still have many buildings which are both works of ancient art and monuments of history3 and just think what is happening to them1 and note1 since we profess to recognise their value1 how helpless art is in the ,century of ,commerce6 ,in the first place1 many and many a beautiful and ancient building is being destroyed all over civilised ,europe as well as in ,england1 because it is supposed to interfere with the convenience of the citizens1 while a little forethought might save it without trenching on that convenience2 #if but even apart from that1 ,i say that if we are not prepared to put up with a little inconvenience in our lifetimes for the sake of preserving a monument of art which will elevate and educate1 not only ourselves1 but our sons1 and our sons' sons1 it is vain and idle of us to talk about art--or education either4 ,brutality must be bred of such brutality4 ,the same thing may be said about enlarging1 or otherwise altering for convenience' sake1 old buildings still in use for something like their original purposes3 in almost all such cases it is really nothing more than a question of a little money for a new site3 and then a new building can be built exactly fitted for the uses it is needed for1 with such art about it as our own days can furnish2 while the old monument is left to tell its tale of change and progress1 to hold out example and warning to us in the practice of the arts3 and thus the convenience of the public1 the progress of modern art1 and the cause of education1 are all furthered at once at the cost of a little money4 ,surely if it be worth while troubling ourselves about the works of art of to-day1 of which any amount almost can be done1 since we are yet alive1 it is worth while spending a little care1 forethought1 and money in preserving the art of bygone ages1 of which 7woe worth the while67 so little is left1 and of which we can never have any more1 whatever good-hap the world may attain to4 ,no man who consents to the destruction or the mutilation of an ancient building has any right to pretend that he cares about art2 or has any excuse to plead in defence of his crime against civilisation and progress1 save sheer brutal ignorance4 ,but before ,i leave this subject ,i must say a word or two about the curious invention of our own days called ,restoration1 a method of dealing with works of bygone days which1 though not so degrading in its spirit as downright destruction1 is nevertheless little better in its results on the condition of those works of art2 it is obvious that ,i have no time to argue the question out to-night1 so ,i will only make these assertions3 ,that ancient buildings1 being both works of art and monuments of history1 must obviously be treated with great care and delicacy3 that the imitative art of to-day is not1 and cannot be the same thing as ancient art1 and cannot replace it2 and that therefore if we superimpose this work on the old1 we destroy it both as art and as a record of history3 lastly1 that the natural weathering of the surface of a building is beautiful1 and its loss disastrous4 ,now the restorers hold the exact contrary of all this3 they think that any clever architect to-day can deal off-hand successfully with the ancient work2 that while all things else have changed about us since 7say7 the thirteenth century1 art has not changed1 and that our workmen can turn out work identical with that of the thirteenth century2 and1 lastly1 that the weather-beaten surface of an ancient building is worthless1 and to be got rid of wherever possible4 ,you see the question is difficult to argue1 because there seem to be no common grounds between the restorers and the anti-restorers3 ,i appeal therefore to the public1 and bid them note1 that though our opinions may be wrong1 the action we advise is not rash3 let the question be shelved awhile3 if1 as we are always pressing on people1 due care be taken of these monuments1 so that they shall not fall into disrepair1 they will be always there to #8restore' whenever people think proper and when we are proved wrong2 but if it should turn out that we are right1 how can the #8restored' buildings be restored8 ,i beg of you therefore to let the question be shelved1 till art has so advanced among us1 that we can deal authoritatively with it1 till there is no longer any doubt about the matter4 ,surely these monuments of our art and history1 which1 whatever the lawyers may say1 belong not to a coterie1 or to a rich man here and there1 but to the nation at large1 are worth this delay3 surely the last relics of the life of the #8famous men and our fathers that begat us' may justly claim of us the exercise of a little patience4 ,it will give us trouble no doubt1 all this care of our possessions3 but there is more trouble to come2 for ,i must now speak of something else1 of possessions which should be common to all of us1 of the green grass1 and the leaves1 and the waters1 of the very light and air of heaven1 which the ,century of ,commerce has been too busy to pay any heed to4 ,and first let me remind you that ,i am supposing every one here present professes to care about art4 ,well1 there are some rich men among us whom we oddly enough call manufacturers1 by which we mean capitalists who pay other men to organise manufacturers2 these gentlemen1 many of whom buy pictures and profess to care about art1 burn a deal of coal3 there is an ,act in existence which was passed to prevent them sometimes and in some places from pouring a dense cloud of smoke over the world1 and1 to my thinking1 a very lame and partial ,act it is3 but nothing hinders these lovers of art from being a law to themselves1 and making it a point of honour with them to minimise the smoke nuisance as far as their own works are concerned2 and if they don't do so1 when mere money1 and even a very little of that1 is what it will cost them1 ,i say that their love of art is a mere pretence3 how can you care about the image of a landscape when you show by your deeds that you don't care for the landscape itself8 or what right have you to shut yourself up with beautiful form and colour when you make it impossible for other people to have any share in these things8 ,well1 and as to the smoke ,act itself3 ,i don't know what heed you pay to it in ,birmingham1 #ajj but ,i have seen myself what heed is paid to it in other places2 ,bradford for instance3 though close by them at ,saltaire they have an example which ,i should have thought might have shamed them2 for the huge chimney there which serves the acres of weaving and spinning sheds of ,sir ,titus ,salt and his brothers is as guiltless of smoke as an ordinary kitchen chimney4 ,or ,manchester3 a gentleman of that city told me that the smoke ,act was a mere dead letter there3 well1 they buy pictures in ,manchester and profess to wish to further the arts3 but you see it must be idle pretence as far as their rich people are concerned3 they only want to talk about it1 and have themselves talked of4 ,i don't know what you are doing about this matter here2 but you must forgive my saying1 that unless you are beginning to think of some way of dealing with it1 you are not beginning yet to pave your way to success in the arts4 ,well1 ,i have spoken of a huge nuisance1 which is a type of the worst nuisances of what an ill-tempered man might be excused for calling the ,century of ,nuisances1 rather than the ,century of ,commerce4 ,i will now leave it to the consciences of the rich and influential among us1 and speak of a minor nuisance which it is in the power of every one of us to abate1 and which1 small as it is1 is so vexatious1 that if ,i can prevail on a score of you to take heed to it by what ,i am saying1 ,i shall think my evening's work a good one4 ,sandwich-papers ,i mean--of course you laugh3 but come now1 don't you1 civilised as you are in ,birmingham1 leave them all about the ,lickey hills and your public gardens and the like8 ,if you don't ,i really scarcely know with what words to praise you4 ,when we ,londoners go to enjoy ourselves at ,hampton ,court1 for instance1 we take special good care to let everybody know that we have had something to eat3 so that the park just outside the gates 7and a beautiful place it is7 looks as if it had been snowing dirty paper4 ,i really think you might promise me one and all who are here present to have done with this sluttish habit1 which is the type of many another in its way1 just as the smoke nuisance is4 ,i mean such things as scrawling one's name on monuments1 tearing down tree boughs1 and the like4 ,i suppose 'tis early days in the revival of the arts to express one's disgust at the daily increasing hideousness of the posters with which all our towns are daubed4 ,still we ought to be disgusted at such horrors1 and ,i think make up our minds never to buy any of the articles so advertised4 ,i can't believe they can be worth much if they need all that shouting to sell them4 ,again1 ,i must ask what do you do with the trees on a site that is going to be built over8 do you try to save them1 to adapt your houses at all to them8 do you understand what treasures they are in a town or a suburb8 or what a relief they will be to the hideous dog-holes which 7forgive me67 you are probably going to build in their places8 ,i ask this anxiously1 and with grief in my soul1 for in ,london and its suburbs we always #ajc begin by clearing a site till it is as bare as the pavement3 ,i really think that almost anybody would have been shocked1 if ,i could have shown him some of the trees that have been wantonly murdered in the suburb in which ,i live 7,hammersmith to wit71 amongst them some of those magnificent cedars1 for which we along the river used to be famous once4 ,but here again see how helpless those are who care about art or nature amidst the hurry of the ,century of ,commerce4 ,pray do not forget1 that any one who cuts down a tree wantonly or carelessly1 especially in a great town or its suburbs1 need make no pretence of caring about art4 ,what else can we do to help to educate ourselves and others in the path of art1 to be on the road to attaining an ,art made by the people and for the people as a joy to the maker and the user8 ,why1 having got to understand something of what art was1 having got to look upon its ancient monuments as friends that can tell us something of times bygone1 and whose faces we do not wish to alter1 even though they be worn by time and grief3 having got to spend money and trouble upon matters of decency1 great and little2 having made it clear that we really do care about nature even in the suburbs of a big town--having got so far1 we shall begin to think of the houses in which we live4 ,for ,i must tell you that unless you are resolved to have good and rational architecture1 it is1 once again1 useless your thinking about art at all4 ,i have spoken of the popular arts1 but they might all be summed up in that one word ,architecture2 they are all parts of that great whole1 and the art of house-building begins it all3 if we did not know how to dye or to weave2 if we had neither gold1 nor silver1 nor silk2 and no pigments to paint with1 but half-a-dozen ochres and umbers1 we might yet frame a worthy art that would lead to everything1 if we had but timber1 stone1 and lime1 and a few cutting tools to make these common things not only shelter us from wind and weather1 but also express the thoughts and aspirations that stir in us4 ,architecture would lead us to all the arts1 as it did with earlier men3 but if we despise it and take no note of how we are housed1 the other arts will have a hard time of it indeed4 ,now ,i do not think the greatest of optimists would deny that1 taking us one and all1 we are at present housed in a perfectly shameful way1 and since the greatest part of us have to live in houses already built for us1 it must be admitted that it is rather hard to know what to do1 beyond waiting till they tumble about our ears4 ,only we must not lay the fault upon the builders1 as some people seem inclined to do3 they are our very humble servants1 and will build what we ask for2 remember1 that rich men are not obliged to live in ugly houses1 and yet you see they do2 which the builders may be well excused for taking as a sign of what is wanted4 ,well1 the point is1 we must do what we can1 and make people understand what we want them to do for us1 by letting them see what we do for ourselves4 ,hitherto1 judging us by that standard1 the builders may well say1 that we want the pretence of a thing rather than the thing itself2 that we want a show of petty luxury if we are unrich1 a show of insulting stupidity if we are rich3 and they are quite clear that as a rule we want to get something that shall look as if it cost twice as much as it really did4 ,you cannot have ,architecture on those terms3 simplicity and solidity are the very first requisites of it3 just think if it is not so3 ,how we please ourselves with an old building by thinking of all the generations of men that have passed through it6 do we not remember how it has received their joy1 and borne their sorrow1 and not even their folly has left sourness upon it8 it still looks as kind to us as it did to them4 ,and the converse of this we ought to feel when we look at a newly-built house if it were as it should be3 we should feel a pleasure in thinking how he who had built it had left a piece of his soul behind him to greet the new-comers one after another long and long after he was gone3--but what sentiment can an ordinary modern house move in us1 or what thought--save a hope that we may speedily forget its base ugliness8 ,but if you ask me how we are to pay for this solidity and extra expense1 that seems to me a reasonable question2 for you must dismiss at once as a delusion the hope that has been sometimes cherished1 that you can have a building which is a work of art1 and is therefore above all things properly built1 at the same price as a building which only pretends to be this3 never forget when people talk about cheap art in general1 by the way1 that all art costs time1 trouble1 and thought1 and that money is only a counter to represent these things4 ,however1 ,i must try to answer the question ,i have supposed put1 how are we to pay for decent houses8 ,it seems to me that1 by a great piece of good luck1 the way to pay for them is by doing that which alone can produce popular art among us3 living a simple life1 ,i mean4 ,once more ,i say that the greatest foe to art is luxury1 art cannot live in its atmosphere4 ,when you hear of the luxuries of the ancients1 you must remember that they were not like our luxuries1 they were rather indulgence in pieces of extravagant folly than what we to-day call luxury2 which perhaps you would rather call comfort3 well ,i accept the word1 and say that a ,greek or ,roman of the luxurious time would stare astonished could he be brought back again1 and shown the comforts of a well-to-do middle-class house4 ,but some1 ,i know1 think that the attainment of these very comforts is what makes the difference between civilisation and uncivilisation1 that they are the essence of civilisation4 ,is it so indeed8 ,farewell my hope then6--,i had thought that civilisation meant the attainment of peace and order and freedom1 of goodwill between man and man1 of the love of truth and the hatred of injustice1 and by consequence the attainment of the good life which these things breed1 a life free from craven fear1 but full of incident3 that was what ,i thought it meant1 not more stuffed chairs and more cushions1 and more carpets and gas1 and more dainty meat and drink--and therewithal more and sharper differences between class and class4 ,if that be what it is1 ,i for my part wish ,i were well out of it1 and living in a tent in the ,persian desert1 or a turf hut on the ,iceland hill-side4 ,but however it be1 and ,i think my view is the true view1 ,i tell you that art abhors that side of civilisation1 she cannot breathe in the houses that lie under its stuffy slavery4 ,believe me1 if we want art to begin at home1 as it must1 we must clear our houses of troublesome superfluities that are for ever in our way3 conventional comforts that are no real comforts1 and do but make work for servants and doctors3 if you want a golden rule that will fit everybody1 this is it3 #8,have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful4' ,and if we apply that rule strictly1 we shall in the first place show the builders and such-like servants of the public what we really want1 we shall create a demand for real art1 as the phrase goes2 and in the second place1 we shall surely have more money to pay for decent houses4 ,perhaps it will not try your patience too much if ,i lay before you my idea of the fittings necessary to the sitting-room of a healthy person3 a room1 ,i mean1 in which he would not have to cook in much1 or sleep in generally1 or in which he would not have to do any very litter-making manual work4 ,first a book-case with a great many books in it3 next a table that will keep steady when you write or work at it3 then several chairs that you can move1 and a bench that you can sit or lie upon3 next a cupboard with drawers3 next1 unless either the book-case or the cupboard be very beautiful with painting or carving1 you will want pictures or engravings1 such as you can afford1 only not stop-gaps1 but real works of art on the wall2 or else the wall itself must be ornamented with some beautiful and restful pattern3 we shall also want a vase or two to put flowers in1 which latter you must have sometimes1 especially if you live in a town4 ,then there will be the fireplace of course1 which in our climate is bound to be the chief object in the room4 ,that is all we shall want1 especially if the floor be good2 if it be not1 as1 by the way1 in a modern house it is pretty certain not to be1 ,i admit that a small carpet which can be bundled out of the room in two minutes will be useful1 and we must also take care that it is beautiful1 or it will annoy us terribly4 ,now unless we are musical1 and need a piano 7in which case1 as far as beauty is concerned1 we are in a bad way71 that is quite all we want3 and we can add very little to these necessaries without troubling ourselves1 and hindering our work1 our thought1 and our rest4 ,if these things were done at the least cost for which they could be done well and solidly1 they ought not to cost much2 and they are so few1 that those that could afford to have them at all1 could afford to spend some trouble to get them fitting and beautiful3 and all those who care about art ought to take great trouble to do so1 and to take care that there be no sham art amongst them1 nothing that it has degraded a man to make or sell4 ,and ,i feel sure1 that if all who care about art were to take this pains1 it would make a great impression upon the public4 ,this simplicity you may make as costly as you please or can1 on the other hand3 you may hang your walls with tapestry instead of whitewash or paper2 or you may cover them with mosaic1 or have them frescoed by a great painter3 all this is not luxury1 if it be done for beauty's sake1 and not for show3 it does not break our golden rule3 ,have nothing in your houses which you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful4 ,all art starts from this simplicity2 and the higher the art rises1 the greater the simplicity4 ,i have been speaking of the fittings of a dwelling-house--a place in which we eat and drink1 and pass familiar hours2 but when you come to places which people want to make more specially beautiful because of the solemnity or dignity of their uses1 they will be simpler still1 and have little in them save the bare walls made as beautiful as may be4 ,st4 ,mark's at ,venice has very little furniture in it1 much less than most ,roman ,catholic churches3 its lovely and stately mother ,st4 ,sophia of ,constantinople had less still1 even when it was a ,christian church3 but we need not go either to ,venice or ,stamboul to take note of that3 go into one of our own mighty ,gothic naves 7do any of you remember the first time you did so87 and note how the huge free space satisfies and elevates you1 even now when window and wall are stripped of ornament3 then think of the meaning of simplicity1 and absence of encumbering gew-gaws4 ,now after all1 for us who are learning art1 it is not far to seek what is the surest way to further it2 that which most breeds art is art2 every piece of work that we do which is well done1 is so much help to the cause2 every piece of pretence and half-heartedness is so much hurt to it4 ,most of you who take to the practice of art can find out in no very long time whether you have any gifts for it or not3 if you have not1 throw the thing up1 or you will have a wretched time of it yourselves1 and will be damaging the cause by laborious pretence3 but if you have gifts of any kind1 you are happy indeed beyond most men2 for your pleasure is always with you1 nor can you be intemperate in the enjoyment of it1 and as you use it1 it does not lessen1 but grows3 if you are by chance weary of it at night1 you get up in the morning eager for it2 or if perhaps in the morning it seems folly to you for a while1 yet presently1 when your hand has been moving a little in its wonted way1 fresh hope has sprung up beneath it and you are happy again4 ,while others are getting through the day like plants thrust into the earth1 which cannot turn this way or that but as the wind blows them1 you know what you want1 and your will is on the alert to find it1 and you1 whatever happens1 whether it be joy or grief1 are at least alive4 ,now when ,i spoke to you last year1 after ,i had sat down ,i was half afraid that ,i had on some points said too much1 that ,i had spoken too bitterly in my eagerness2 that a rash word might have discouraged some of you2 ,i was very far from meaning that3 what ,i wanted to do1 what ,i want to do to-night is to put definitely before you a cause for which to strive4 ,that cause is the ,democracy of ,art1 the ennobling of daily and common work1 which will one day put hope and pleasure in the place of fear and pain1 as the forces which move men to labour and keep the world a-going4 ,if ,i have enlisted any one in that cause1 rash as my words may have been1 or feeble as they may have been1 they have done more good than harm2 nor do ,i believe that any words of mine can discourage any who have joined that cause or are ready to do so3 their way is too clear before them for that1 and every one of us can help the cause whether he be great or little4 ,i know indeed that men1 wearied by the pettiness of the details of the strife1 their patience tried by hope deferred1 will at whiles1 excusably enough1 turn back in their hearts to other days1 when if the issues were not clearer1 the means of trying them were simpler2 when1 so stirring were the times1 one might even have atoned for many a blunder and backsliding by visibly dying for the cause4 ,to have breasted the ,spanish pikes at ,leyden1 to have drawn sword with ,oliver3 that may well seem to us at times amidst the tangles of to-day a happy fate3 for a man to be able to say1 ,i have lived like a fool1 but now ,i will cast away fooling for an hour1 and die like a man--there is something in that certainly3 and yet 'tis clear that few men can be so lucky as to die for a cause1 without having first of all lived for it4 ,and as this is the most that can be asked from the greatest man that follows a cause1 so it is the least that can be taken from the smallest4 ,so to us who have a ,cause at heart1 our highest ambition and our simplest duty are one and the same thing3 for the most part we shall be too busy doing the work that lies ready to our hands1 to let impatience for visibly great progress vex us much2 but surely since we are servants of a ,cause1 hope must be ever with us1 and sometimes perhaps it will so quicken our vision that it will outrun the slow lapse of time1 and show us the victorious days when millions of those who now sit in darkness will be enlightened by an ,art made by the people and for the people1 a joy to the maker and the user4 ,,making ,,the ,,best ,,of ,,it #aad ,i ,,have to-night to talk to you about certain things which my experience in my own craft has led me to notice1 and which have bred in my mind something like a set of rules or maxims1 which guide my practice4 ,every one who has followed a craft for long has such rules in his mind1 and cannot help following them himself1 and insisting on them practically in dealing with his pupils or workmen if he is in any degree a master2 and when these rules1 or if you will1 impulses1 are filling the minds and guiding the hands of many craftsmen at one time1 they are busy forming a distinct school1 and the art they represent is sure to be at least alive1 however rude1 timid1 or lacking it may be2 and the more imperious these rules are1 the wider these impulses are spread1 the more vigorously alive will be the art they produce2 whereas in times when they are felt but lightly and rarely1 when one man's maxims seem absurd or trivial to his brother craftsman1 art is either sick or slumbering1 or so thinly scattered amongst the great mass of men as to influence the general life of the world little or nothing4 ,for though this kind of rules of a craft may seem to some arbitrary1 ,i think that it is because they are the result of such intricate combinations of circumstances1 that only a great philosopher1 if even he1 could express in words the sources of them1 and give us reasons for them all1 and we who are craftsmen must be content to prove them in practice1 believing that their roots are founded in human nature1 even as we know that their first-fruits are to be found in that most wonderful of all histories1 the history of the arts4 ,will you1 therefore1 look upon me as a craftsman who shares certain impulses with many others1 which impulses forbid him to question the rules they have forced on him8 so looking on me you may afford perhaps to be more indulgent to me if ,i seem to dogmatise over much4 ,yet ,i cannot claim to represent any one craft4 ,the division of labour1 which has played so great a part in furthering competitive commerce1 till it has become a machine with powers both reproductive and destructive1 which few dare to resist1 and none can control or foresee the result of1 has pressed specially hard on that part of the field of human culture in which ,i was born to labour4 ,that field of the arts1 whose harvest should be the chief part of human joy1 hope1 and consolation1 has been1 ,i say1 dealt hardly with by the division of labour1 once the servant1 and now the master of competitive commerce1 itself once the servant1 and now the master of civilisation2 nay1 so searching has been this tyranny1 that it has not passed by my own insignificant corner of labour1 but as it has thwarted me in many ways1 so chiefly perhaps in this1 that it has so stood in the way of my getting the help from others which my art forces me to crave1 that ,i have been compelled to learn many crafts1 and belike1 according to the proverb1 forbidden to master any1 so that ,i fear my lecture will seem to you both to run over too many things and not to go deep enough into any4 ,i cannot help it4 ,that above-mentioned tyranny has turned some of us from being1 as we should be1 contented craftsmen1 into being discontented agitators against it1 so that our minds are not at rest1 even when we have to talk over workshop receipts and maxims2 indeed ,i must confess that ,i should hold my peace on all matters connected with the arts1 if ,i had not a lurking hope to stir up both others and myself to discontent with and rebellion against things as they are1 clinging to the further hope that our discontent may be fruitful and our rebellion steadfast1 at least to the end of our own lives1 since we believe that we are rebels not against the laws of ,nature1 but the customs of folly4 ,nevertheless1 since even rebels desire to live1 and since even they must sometimes crave for rest and peace--nay1 since they must1 as it were1 make for themselves strongholds from whence to carry on the strife--we ought not to be accused of inconsistency1 if to-night we consider how to make the best of it4 ,by what forethought1 pains1 and patience1 can we make endurable those strange dwellings--the basest1 the ugliest1 and the most inconvenient that men have ever built for themselves1 and which our own haste1 necessity1 and stupidity1 compel almost all of us to live in8 ,that is our present question4 ,in dealing with this subject1 ,i shall perforce be chiefly speaking of those middle-class dwellings of which ,i know most2 but what ,i have to say will be as applicable to any other kind2 for there is no dignity or unity of plan about any modern house1 big or little4 ,it has neither centre nor individuality1 but is invariably a congeries of rooms tumbled together by chance hap4 ,so that the unit ,i have to speak of is a room rather than a house4 ,now there may be some here who have the good luck to dwell in those noble buildings which our forefathers built1 out of their very souls1 one may say2 such good luck ,i call about the greatest that can befall a man in these days4 ,but these happy people have little to do with our troubles of to-night1 save as sympathetic onlookers4 ,all we have to do with them is to remind them not to forget their duties to those places1 which they doubtless love well2 not to alter them or torment them to suit any passing whim or convenience1 but to deal with them as if their builders1 to whom they owe so much1 could still be wounded by the griefs and rejoice in the well-doing of their ancient homes4 ,surely if they do this1 they also will neither be forgotten nor unthanked in the time to come4 ,there may be others here who dwell in houses that can scarcely be called noble--nay1 as compared with the last-named kind1 may be almost called ignoble--but their builders still had some traditions left them of the times of art4 ,they are built solidly and conscientiously at least1 and if they have little or no beauty1 yet have a certain common-sense and convenience about them2 nor do they fail to represent the manners and feelings of their own time4 ,the earliest of these1 built about the reign of ,queen ,anne1 stretch out a hand toward the ,gothic times1 and are not without picturesqueness1 especially when their surroundings are beautiful4 ,the latest built in the latter days of the ,georges are certainly quite guiltless of picturesqueness1 but are1 as above said1 solid1 and not inconvenient4 ,all these houses1 both the so-called ,queen ,anne ones and the distinctively ,georgian1 are difficult enough to decorate1 especially for those who have any leaning toward romance1 because they have still some style left in them which one cannot ignore2 at the same time that it is impossible for any one living out of the time in which they were built to sympathise with a style whose characteristics are mere whims1 not founded on any principle4 ,still they are at the worst not aggressively ugly or base1 and it is possible to live in them without serious disturbance to our work or thoughts2 so that by the force of contrast they have become bright spots in the prevailing darkness of ugliness that has covered all modern life4 ,but we must not forget that that rebellion which we have met here1 ,i hope1 to further1 has begun1 and to-day shows visible tokens of its life2 for of late there have been houses rising up among us here and there which have certainly not been planned either by the common cut-and-dried designers for builders1 or by academical imitators of bygone styles4 ,though they may be called experimental1 no one can say that they are not born of thought and principle1 as well as of great capacity for design4 ,it is nowise our business to-night to criticise them4 ,i suspect their authors1 who have gone through so many difficulties 7not of their own breeding7 in producing them1 know their shortcomings much better than we can do1 and are less elated by their successes than we are4 ,at any rate1 they are gifts to our country which will always be respected1 whether the times better or worsen1 and ,i call upon you to thank their designers most heartily for their forethought1 labour1 and hope4 ,well1 ,i have spoken of three qualifications to that degradation of our dwellings which characterises this period of history only4 ,first1 there are the very few houses which have been left us from the times of art4 ,except that we may sometimes have the pleasure of seeing these1 we most of us have little enough to do with them4 ,secondly1 there are those houses of the times when1 though art was sick and all but dead1 men had not quite given it up as a bad job1 and at any rate had not learned systematic bad building2 and when1 moreover1 they had what they wanted1 and their lives were expressed by their architecture4 ,of these there are still left a good many all over the country1 but they are lessening fast before the irresistible force of competition1 and will soon be very rare indeed4 ,thirdly1 there are a few houses built and mostly inhabited by the ringleaders of the rebellion against sordid ugliness1 which we are met here to further to-night4 ,it is clear that as yet these are very few1--or you could never have thought it worth your while to come here to hear the simple words ,i have to say to you on this subject4 ,now1 these are the exceptions4 ,the rest is what really amounts to the dwellings of all our people1 which are built without any hope of beauty or care for it--without any thought that there can be any pleasure in the look of an ordinary dwelling-house1 and also 7in consequence of this neglect of manliness7 with scarce any heed to real convenience4 ,it will1 ,i hope1 one day be hard to believe that such houses were built for a people not lacking in honesty1 in independence of life1 in elevation of thought1 and consideration for others2 not a whit of all that do they express1 but rather hypocrisy1 flunkeyism1 and careless selfishness4 ,the fact is1 they are no longer part of our lives4 ,we have given it up as a bad job4 ,we are heedless if our houses express nothing of us but the very worst side of our character both national and personal4 ,this unmanly heedlessness1 so injurious to civilisation1 so unjust to those that are to follow us1 is the very thing we want to shake people out of4 ,we want to make them think about their homes1 to take the trouble to turn them into dwellings fit for people free in mind and body--much might come of that ,i think4 ,now1 to my mind1 the first step towards this end is1 to follow the fashion of our nation1 so often1 so very often1 called practical1 and leaving for a little an ideal scarce conceivable1 to try to get people to bethink them of what we can best do with those makeshifts which we cannot get rid of all at once4 ,i know that those lesser arts1 by which alone this can be done1 are looked upon by many wise and witty people as not worth the notice of a sensible man2 but1 since ,i am addressing a society of artists1 ,i believe ,i am speaking to people who have got beyond even that stage of wisdom and wit1 and that you think all the arts of importance4 ,yet1 indeed1 ,i should think ,i had but little claim on your attention if ,i deemed the question involved nothing save the gain of a little more content and a little more pleasure for those who already have abundance of content and pleasure2 let me say it1 that either ,i have erred in the aim of my whole life1 or that the welfare of these lesser arts involves the question of the content and self-respect of all craftsmen1 whether you call them artists or artisans4 ,so ,i say again1 my hope is that those who begin to consider carefully how to make the best of the chambers in which they eat and sleep and study1 and hold converse with their friends1 will breed in their minds a wholesome and fruitful discontent with the sordidness that even when they have done their best will surround their island of comfort1 and that as they try to appease this discontent they will find that there is no way out of it but by insisting that all men's work shall be fit for free men and not for machines3 my extravagant hope is that people will some day learn something of art1 and so long for more1 and will find1 as ,i have1 that there is no getting it save by the general acknowledgment of the right of every man to have fit work to do in a beautiful home4 ,therein lies all that is indestructible of the pleasure of life2 no man need ask for more than that1 no man should be granted less2 and if he falls short of it1 it is through waste and injustice that he is kept out of his birthright4 ,and now ,i will try what ,i can do in my hints on this making the best of it1 first asking your pardon for this1 that ,i shall have to give a great deal of negative advice1 and be always saying #8don't'--that1 as you know1 being much the lot of those who profess reform4 ,before we go inside our house1 nay1 before we look at its outside1 we may consider its garden1 chiefly with reference to town gardening2 which1 indeed1 ,i1 in common1 ,i suppose1 with most others who have tried it1 have found uphill work enough--all the more as in our part of the world few indeed have any mercy upon the one thing necessary for decent life in a town1 its trees2 till we have come to this1 that one trembles at the very sound of an axe as one sits at one's work at home4 ,however1 uphill work or not1 the town garden must not be neglected if we are to be in earnest in making the best of it4 ,now ,i am bound to say town gardeners generally do rather the reverse of that3 our suburban gardeners in ,london1 for instance1 oftenest wind about their little bit of gravel walk and grass plot in ridiculous imitation of an ugly big garden of the landscape-gardening style1 and then with a strange perversity fill up the spaces with the most formal plants they can get2 whereas the merest common sense should have taught them to lay out their morsel of ground in the simplest way1 to fence it as orderly as might be1 one part from the other 7if it be big enough for that7 and the whole from the road1 and then to fill up the flower-growing space with things that are free and interesting in their growth1 leaving nature to do the desired complexity1 which she will certainly not fail to do if we do not desert her for the florist1 who1 ,i must say1 has made it harder work than it should be to get the best of flowers4 ,it is scarcely a digression to note his way of dealing with flowers1 which1 moreover1 gives us an apt illustration of that change without thought of beauty1 change for the sake of change1 which has played such a great part in the degradation of art in all times4 ,so ,i ask you to note the way he has treated the rose1 for instance3 the rose has been grown double from ,i don't know when2 the double rose was a gain to the world1 a new beauty was given us by it1 and nothing taken away1 since the wild rose grows in every hedge4 ,yet even then one might be excused for thinking that the wild rose was scarce improved on1 for nothing can be more beautiful in general growth or in detail than a wayside bush of it1 nor can any scent be as sweet and pure as its scent4 ,nevertheless the garden rose had a new beauty of abundant form1 while its leaves had not lost the wonderfully delicate texture of the wild one4 ,the full colour it had gained1 from the blush rose to the damask1 was pure and true amidst all its added force1 and though its scent had certainly lost some of the sweetness of the eglantine1 it was fresh still1 as well as so abundantly rich4 ,well1 all that lasted till quite our own day1 when the florists fell upon the rose--men who could never have enough--they strove for size and got it1 a fine specimen of a florist's rose being about as big as a moderate ,savoy cabbage4 ,they tried for strong scent and got it--till a florist's rose has not unseldom a suspicion of the scent of the aforesaid cabbage--not at its best4 ,they tried for strong colour and got it1 strong and bad--like a conqueror4 ,but all this while they missed the very essence of the rose's being2 they thought there was nothing in it but redundance and luxury2 they exaggerated these into coarseness1 while they threw away the exquisite subtilty of form1 delicacy of texture1 and sweetness of colour1 which1 blent with the richness which the true garden rose shares with many other flowers1 yet makes it the queen of them all--the flower of flowers4 ,indeed1 the worst of this is that these sham roses are driving the real ones out of existence4 ,if we do not look to it our descendants will know nothing of the cabbage rose1 the loveliest in form of all1 or the blush rose with its dark green stems and unequalled colour1 or the yellow-centred rose of the ,east1 which carries the richness of scent to the very furthest point it can go without losing freshness3 they will know nothing of all these1 and ,i fear they will reproach the poets of past time for having done according to their wont1 and exaggerated grossly the beauties of the rose4 ,well1 as a ,londoner perhaps ,i have said too much of roses1 since we can scarcely grow them among suburban smoke1 but what ,i have said of them applies to other flowers1 of which ,i will say this much more4 ,be very shy of double flowers2 choose the old columbine where the clustering doves are unmistakable and distinct1 not the double one1 where they run into mere tatters4 ,choose 7if you can get it7 the old china-aster with the yellow centre1 that goes so well with the purple-brown stems and curiously coloured florets1 instead of the lumps that look like cut paper1 of which we are now so proud4 ,don't be swindled out of that wonder of beauty1 a single snowdrop2 there is no gain and plenty of loss in the double one4 ,more loss still in the double sunflower1 which is a coarse-coloured and dull plant1 whereas the single one1 though a late comer to our gardens1 is by no means to be despised1 since it will grow anywhere1 and is both interesting and beautiful1 with its sharply chiselled yellow florets relieved by the quaintly patterned sad-coloured centre clogged with honey and beset with bees and butterflies4 ,so much for over-artificiality in flowers4 ,a word or two about the misplacing of them4 ,don't have ferns in your garden4 ,the hart's tongue in the clefts of the rock1 the queer things that grow within reach of the spray of the waterfall2 these are right in their places4 ,still more the brake on the woodside1 whether in late autumn1 when its withered haulm helps out the well-remembered woodland scent1 or in spring1 when it is thrusting its volutes through last year's waste4 ,but all this is nothing to a garden1 and is not to be got out of it2 and if you try it you will take away from it all possible romance1 the romance of a garden4 ,the same thing may be said about many plants1 which are curiosities only1 which ,nature meant to be grotesque1 not beautiful1 and which are generally the growth of hot countries1 where things sprout over quick and rank4 ,take note that the strangest of these come from the jungle and the tropical waste1 from places where man is not at home1 but is an intruder1 an enemy4 ,go to a botanical garden and look at them1 and think of those strange places to your heart's content4 ,but don't set them to starve in your smoke-drenched scrap of ground amongst the bricks1 for they will be no ornament to it4 ,as to colour in gardens4 ,flowers in masses are mighty strong colour1 and if not used with a great deal of caution are very destructive to pleasure in gardening4 ,on the whole1 ,i think the best and safest plan is to mix up your flowers1 and rather eschew great masses of colour--in combination ,i mean4 ,but there are some flowers 7inventions of men1 i4e4 florists7 which are bad colour altogether1 and not to be used at all4 ,scarlet geraniums1 for instance1 or the yellow calceolaria1 which indeed are not uncommonly grown together profusely1 in order1 ,i suppose1 to show that even flowers can be thoroughly ugly4 ,another thing also much too commonly seen is an aberration of the human mind1 which otherwise ,i should have been ashamed to warn you of4 ,it is technically called carpet-gardening4 ,need ,i explain it further8 ,i had rather not1 for when ,i think of it even when ,i am quite alone ,i blush with shame at the thought4 ,i am afraid it is specially necessary in these days when making the best of it is a hard job1 and when the ordinary iron hurdles are so common and so destructive of any kind of beauty in a garden1 to say when you fence anything in a garden use a live hedge1 or stones set flatwise 7as they do in some parts of the ,cotswold country71 or timber1 or wattle1 or1 in short1 anything but iron4 #abh ,and now to sum up as to a garden4 ,large or small1 it should look both orderly and rich4 ,it should be well fenced from the outside world4 ,it should by no means imitate either the wilfulness or the wildness of ,nature1 but should look like a thing never to be seen except near a house4 ,it should1 in fact1 look like a part of the house4 ,it follows from this that no private pleasure-garden should be very big1 and a public garden should be divided and made to look like so many flower-closes in a meadow1 or a wood1 or amidst the pavement4 ,it will be a key to right thinking about gardens if you consider in what kind of places a garden is most desired4 ,in a very beautiful country1 especially if it be mountainous1 we can do without it well enough2 whereas in a flat and dull country we crave after it1 and there it is often the very making of the homestead4 ,while in great towns1 gardens1 both private and public1 are positive necessities if the citizens are to live reasonable and healthy lives in body and mind4 ,so much for the garden1 of which1 since ,i have said that it ought to be part of the house1 ,i hope ,i have not spoken too much4 ,now1 as to the outside of our makeshift house1 ,i fear it is too ugly to keep us long4 ,let what painting you have to do about it be as simple as possible1 and be chiefly white or whitish2 for when a building is ugly in form it will bear no decoration1 and to mark its parts by varying colour will be the way to bring out its ugliness4 ,so ,i don't advise you to paint your houses blood-red and chocolate with white facings1 as seems to be getting the fashion in some parts of ,london4 ,you should1 however1 always paint your sash-bars and window-frames white to break up the dreary space of window somewhat4 ,the only other thing ,i have to say1 is to warn you against using at all a hot brownish-red1 which some decorators are very fond of4 ,till some one invents a better name for it1 let us call it cockroach colour1 and have naught to do with it4 ,so we have got to the inside of our house1 and are in the room we are to live in1 call it by what name you will4 ,as to its proportions1 it will be great luck indeed in an ordinary modern house if they are tolerable2 but let us hope for the best4 ,if it is to be well proportioned1 one of its parts1 either its height1 length1 or breadth1 ought to exceed the others1 or be marked somehow4 ,if it be square or so nearly as to seem so1 it should not be high2 if it be long and narrow1 it might be high without any harm1 but yet would be more interesting low2 whereas if it be an obvious but moderate oblong on plan1 great height will be decidedly good4 ,as to the parts of a room that we have to think of1 they are wall1 ceiling1 floor1 windows and doors1 fireplace1 and movables4 ,of these the wall is of so much the most importance to a decorator1 and will lead us so far a-field that ,i will mostly clear off the other parts first1 as to the mere arrangement of them1 asking you meanwhile to understand that the greater part of what ,i shall be saying as to the design of the patterns for the wall1 ,i consider more or less applicable to patterns everywhere4 ,as to the windows then2 ,i fear we must grumble again4 ,in most decent houses1 or what are so called1 the windows are much too big1 and let in a flood of light in a haphazard and ill-considered way1 which the indwellers are forced to obscure again by shutters1 blinds1 curtains1 screens1 heavy upholsteries1 and such other nuisances4 ,the windows1 also1 are almost always brought too low down1 and often so low down as to have their sills on a level with our ankles1 sending thereby a raking light across the room that destroys all pleasantness of tone4 ,the windows1 moreover1 are either big rectangular holes in the wall1 or1 which is worse1 have ill-proportioned round or segmental heads1 while the common custom in #8good' houses is either to fill these openings with one huge sheet of plate-glass1 or to divide them across the middle with a thin bar4 ,if we insist on glazing them thus1 we may make up our minds that we have done the worst we can for our windows1 nor can a room look tolerable where it is so treated4 ,you may see how people feel this by their admiration of the tracery of a ,gothic window1 or the lattice-work of a ,cairo house4 ,our makeshift substitute for those beauties must be the filling of the window with moderate-sized panes of glass 7plate-glass if you will7 set in solid sash-bars2 we shall then at all events feel as if we were indoors on a cold day--as if we had a roof over our heads4 ,as to the floor3 a little time ago it was the universal custom for those who could afford it to cover it all up into its dustiest and crookedest corners with a carpet1 good1 bad1 or indifferent4 ,now ,i daresay you have heard from others1 whose subject is the health of houses rather than their art 7if indeed the two subjects can be considered apart1 as they cannot really be71 you have heard from teachers like ,dr4 ,richardson what a nasty and unwholesome custom this is1 so ,i will only say that it looks nasty and unwholesome4 ,happily1 however1 it is now a custom so much broken into that we may consider it doomed2 for in all houses that pretend to any taste of arrangement1 the carpet is now a rug1 large it may be1 but at any rate not looking immovable1 and not being a trap for dust in the corners4 ,still ,i would go further than this even and get rich people no longer to look upon a carpet as a necessity for a room at all1 at least in the summer4 ,this would have two advantages3 #ast1 ,it would compel us to have better floors 7and less drafty71 our present ones being one of the chief disgraces to modern building2 and #bndly1 since we should have less carpet to provide1 what we did have we could afford to have better4 ,we could have a few real works of art at the same price for which we now have hundreds of yards of makeshift machine-woven goods4 ,in any case it is a great comfort to see the actual floor2 and the said floor may be1 as you know1 made very ornamental by either wood mosaic1 or tile and marble mosaic2 the latter especially is such an easy art as far as mere technicality goes1 and so full of resources1 that ,i think it is a great pity it is not used more4 ,the contrast between its grey tones and the rich positive colour of ,eastern carpet-work is so beautiful1 that the two together make satisfactory decoration for a room with little addition4 ,when wood mosaic or parquet-work is used1 owing to the necessary simplicity of the forms1 ,i think it best not to vary the colour of the wood4 ,the variation caused by the diverse lie of the grain and so forth1 is enough4 ,most decorators will be willing1 ,i believe1 to accept it as an axiom1 that when a pattern is made of very simple geometrical forms1 strong contrast of colour is to be avoided4 ,so much for the floor4 ,as for its fellow1 the ceiling1 that is1 ,i must confess1 a sore point with me in my attempts at making the best of it4 ,the simplest and most natural way of decorating a ceiling is to show the underside of the joists and beams duly moulded1 and if you will1 painted in patterns4 ,how far this is from being possible in our modern makeshift houses1 ,i suppose ,i need not say4 ,then there is a natural and beautiful way of ornamenting a ceiling by working the plaster into delicate patterns1 such as you see in our ,elizabethan and ,jacobean houses2 which often enough1 richly designed and skilfully wrought as they are1 are by no means pedantically smooth in finish--nay1 may sometimes be called rough as to workmanship4 ,but1 unhappily there are few of the lesser arts that have fallen so low as the plasterer's4 ,the cast work one sees perpetually in pretentious rooms is a mere ghastly caricature of ornament1 which no one is expected to look at if he can help it4 ,it is simply meant to say1 #8,this house is built for a rich man4' ,the very material of it is all wrong1 as1 indeed1 mostly happens with an art that has fallen sick4 ,that richly designed1 freely wrought plastering of our old houses was done with a slowly drying tough plaster1 that encouraged the hand like modeller's clay1 and could not have been done at all with the brittle plaster used in ceilings nowadays1 whose excellence is supposed to consist in its smoothness only4 ,to be good1 according to our present false standard1 it must shine like a sheet of hot-pressed paper1 so that1 for the present1 and without the expenditure of abundant time and trouble1 this kind of ceiling decoration is not to be hoped for4 ,it may be suggested that we should paper our ceilings like our walls1 but ,i can't think that it will do4 ,theoretically1 a paper-hanging is so much distemper colour applied to a surface by being printed on paper instead of being painted on plaster by the hand2 but practically1 we never forget that it is paper1 and a room papered all over would be like a box to live in4 ,besides1 the covering a room all over with cheap recurring patterns in an uninteresting material1 is but a poor way out of our difficulty1 and one which we should soon tire of4 ,there remains1 then1 nothing but to paint our ceilings cautiously and with as much refinement as we can1 when we can afford it3 though even that simple matter is complicated by the hideousness of the aforesaid plaster ornaments and cornices1 which are so very bad that you must ignore them by leaving them unpainted1 though even this neglect1 while you paint the flat of the ceiling1 makes them in a way part of the decoration1 and so is apt to beat you out of every scheme of colour conceivable4 ,still1 ,i see nothing for it but cautious painting1 or leaving the blank white space alone1 to be forgotten if possible4 ,this painting1 of course1 assumes that you know better than to use gas in your rooms1 which will indeed soon reduce all your decorations to a pretty general average4 ,so now we come to the walls of our room1 the part which chiefly concerns us1 since no one will admit the possibility of leaving them quite alone4 ,and the first question is1 how shall we space them out horizontally8 ,if the room be small and not high1 or the wall be much broken by pictures and tall pieces of furniture1 ,i would not divide it horizontally4 ,one pattern of paper1 or whatever it may be1 or one tint may serve us1 unless we have in hand an elaborate and architectural scheme of decoration1 as in a makeshift house is not like to be the case2 but if it be a good-sized room1 and the wall be not much broken up1 some horizontal division is good1 even if the room be not very high4 ,how are we to divide it then8 ,i need scarcely say not into two equal parts2 no one out of the island of ,laputa could do that4 ,for the rest1 unless again we have a very elaborate scheme of decoration1 ,i think dividing it once1 making it into two spaces is enough4 ,now there are practically two ways of doing that3 you may either have a narrow frieze below the cornice1 and hang the wall thence to the floor1 or you may have a moderate dado1 say #d feet #f inches high1 and hang the wall from the cornice to the top of the dado4 ,either way is good according to circumstances2 the first with the tall hanging and the narrow frieze is fittest if your wall is to be covered with stuffs1 tapestry1 or panelling1 in which case making the frieze a piece of delicate painting is desirable in default of such plaster-work as ,i have spoken of above2 or even if the proportions of the room very much cry out for it1 you may1 in default of hand-painting1 use a strip of printed paper1 though this1 ,i must say1 is a makeshift of makeshifts4 ,the division into dado1 and wall hung from thence to the cornice1 is fittest for a wall which is to be covered with painted decoration1 or its makeshift1 paper-hangings4 ,as to these1 ,i would earnestly dissuade you from using more than one pattern in one room1 unless one of them be but a breaking of the surface with a pattern so insignificant as scarce to be noticeable4 ,i have seen a good deal of the practice of putting pattern over pattern in paper-hangings1 and it seems to me a very unsatisfactory one1 and ,i am1 in short1 convinced1 as ,i hinted just now1 that cheap recurring patterns in a material which has no play of light in it1 and no special beauty of its own1 should be employed rather sparingly1 or they destroy all refinement of decoration and blunt our enjoyment of whatever beauty may lie in the designs of such things4 ,before ,i leave this subject of the spacing out of the wall for decoration1 ,i should say that in dealing with a very high room it is best to put nothing that attracts the eye above a level of about eight feet from the floor--to let everything above that be mere air and space1 as it were4 ,i think you will find that this will tend to take off that look of dreariness that often besets tall rooms4 ,so much then for the spacing out of our wall4 ,we have now to consider what the covering of it is to be1 which subject1 before we have done with it1 will take us over a great deal of ground and lead us into the consideration of designing for flat spaces in general with work other than picture work4 ,to clear the way1 ,i have a word or two to say about the treatment of the wood-work in our room4 ,if ,i could ,i would have no wood-work in it that needed flat painting1 meaning by that word a mere paying it over with four coats of tinted lead-pigment ground in oils or varnish1 but unless one can have a noble wood1 such as oak1 ,i don't see what else is to be done4 ,i have never seen deal stained transparently with success1 and its natural colour is poor1 and will not enter into any scheme of decoration1 while polishing it makes it worse4 ,in short1 it is such a poor material that it must be hidden unless it be used on a big scale as mere timber4 ,even then1 in a church roof or what not1 colouring it with distemper will not hurt it1 and in a room ,i should certainly do this to the wood-work of roof and ceiling1 while ,i painted such wood-work as came within touch of hand4 ,as to the colour of this1 it should1 as a rule1 be of the same general tone as the walls1 but a shade or two darker in tint4 ,very dark wood-work makes a room dreary and disagreeable1 while unless the decoration be in a very bright key of colour1 it does not do to have the wood-work lighter than the walls4 ,for the rest1 if you are lucky enough to be able to use oak1 and plenty of it1 found your decoration on that1 leaving it just as it comes from the plane4 ,now1 as you are not bound to use anything for the decoration of your walls but simple tints1 ,i will here say a few words on the main colours1 before ,i go on to what is more properly decoration1 only in speaking of them one can scarce think only of such tints as are fit to colour a wall with1 of which1 to say truth1 there are not many4 ,though we may each have our special preferences among the main colours1 which we shall do quite right to indulge1 it is a sign of disease in an artist to have a prejudice against any particular colour1 though such prejudices are common and violent enough among people imperfectly educated in art1 or with naturally dull perceptions of it4 ,still1 colours have their ways in decoration1 so to say1 both positively in themselves1 and relatively to each man's way of using them4 ,so ,i may be excused for setting down some things ,i seem to have noticed about these ways4 ,yellow is not a colour that can be used in masses unless it be much broken or mingled with other colours1 and even then it wants some material to help it out1 which has great play of light and shade in it4 ,you know people are always calling yellow things golden1 even when they are not at all the colour of gold1 which1 even unalloyed1 is not a bright yellow4 ,that shows that delightful yellows are not very positive1 and that1 as aforesaid1 they need gleaming materials to help them4 ,the light bright yellows1 like jonquil and primrose1 are scarcely usable in art1 save in silk1 whose gleam takes colour from and adds light to the local tint1 just as sunlight does to the yellow blossoms which are so common in ,nature4 ,in dead materials1 such as distemper colour1 a positive yellow can only be used sparingly in combination with other tints4 ,red is also a difficult colour to use1 unless it be helped by some beauty of material1 for1 whether it tend toward yellow and be called scarlet1 or towards blue and be crimson1 there is but little pleasure in it1 unless it be deep and full4 ,if the scarlet pass a certain degree of impurity it falls into the hot brown-red1 very disagreeable in large masses4 ,if the crimson be much reduced it tends towards a cold colour called in these latter days magenta1 impossible for an artist to use either by itself or in combination4 ,the finest tint of red is a central one between crimson and scarlet1 and is a very powerful colour indeed1 but scarce to be got in a flat tint4 ,a crimson broken by greyish-brown1 and tending towards russet1 is also a very useful colour1 but1 like all the finest reds1 is rather a dyer's colour than a house-painter's2 the world being very rich in soluble reds1 which of course are not the most enduring of pigments1 though very fast as soluble colours4 ,pink1 though one of the most beautiful colours in combination1 is not easy to use as a flat tint even over moderate spaces2 the more orangy shades of it are the most useful1 a cold pink being a colour much to be avoided4 ,as to purple1 no one in his senses would think of using it bright in masses4 ,in combination it may be used somewhat bright1 if it be warm and tend towards red2 but the best and most characteristic shade of purple is nowise bright1 but tends towards russet4 ,egyptian porphyry1 especially when contrasted with orange1 as in the pavement of ,st4 ,mark's at ,venice1 will represent the colour for you4 ,at the ,british ,museum1 and one or two other famous libraries1 are still left specimens of this tint1 as ,byzantine art in its palmy days understood it4 ,these are books written with gold and silver on vellum stained purple1 probably with the now lost murex or fish-dye of the ancients1 the tint of which dye-stuff ,pliny describes minutely and accurately in his #8,natural ,history4' ,i need scarcely say that no ordinary flat tint could reproduce this most splendid of colours4 ,though green 7at all events in ,england7 is the colour widest used by ,nature1 yet there is not so much bright green used by her as many people seem to think2 the most of it being used for a week or two in spring1 when the leafage is small1 and blended with the greys and other negative colours of the twigs2 when #8leaves grow large and long1' as the ballad has it1 they also grow grey4 ,i believe it has been noted by ,mr4 ,ruskin1 and it certainly seems true1 that the pleasure we take in the young spring foliage comes largely from its tenderness of tone rather than its brightness of hue4 ,anyhow1 you may be sure that if we try to outdo ,nature's green tints on our walls we shall fail1 and make ourselves uncomfortable to boot4 ,we must1 in short1 be very careful of bright greens1 and seldom1 if ever1 use them at once bright and strong4 ,on the other hand1 do not fall into the trap of a dingy bilious-looking yellow-green1 a colour to which ,i have a special and personal hatred1 because 7if you will excuse my mentioning personal matters7 ,i have been supposed to have somewhat brought it into vogue4 ,i assure you ,i am not really responsible for it4 ,the truth is1 that to get a green that is at once pure and neither cold nor rank1 and not too bright to live with1 is of simple things as difficult as anything a decorator has to do2 but it can be done1--and without the help of special material2 and when done such a green is so useful1 and so restful to the eyes1 that in this matter also we are bound to follow ,nature and make large use of that work-a-day colour green4 ,but if green be called a work-a-day colour1 surely blue must be called the holiday one1 and those who long most for bright colours may please themselves most with it2 for if you duly guard against getting it cold if it tend towards red1 or rank if it tend towards green1 you need not be much afraid of its brightness4 ,now1 as red is above all a dyer's colour1 so blue is especially a pigment and an enamel colour2 the world is rich in insoluble blues1 many of which are practically indestructible4 ,i have said that there are not many tints fit to colour a wall with3 this is my list of them as far as ,i know2 a solid red1 not very deep1 but rather describable as a full pink1 and toned both with yellow and blue1 a very fine colour if you can hit it2 a light orangy pink1 to be used rather sparingly4 ,a pale golden tint1 i4e41 a yellowish-brown2 a very difficult colour to hit4 ,a colour between these two last2 call it pale copper colour4 ,all these three you must be careful over1 for if you get them muddy or dirty you are lost4 ,tints of green from pure and pale to deepish and grey3 always remembering that the purer the paler1 and the deeper the greyer4 ,tints of pure pale blue from a greenish one1 the colour of a starling's egg1 to a grey ultramarine colour1 hard to use because so full of colour1 but incomparable when right4 ,in these you must carefully avoid the point at which the green overcomes the blue and turns it rank1 or that at which the red overcomes the blue and produces those woeful hues of pale lavender and starch blue which have not seldom been favourites with decorators of elegant drawing-rooms and respectable dining-rooms4 ,you will understand that ,i am here speaking of distemper tinting1 and in that material these are all the tints ,i can think of2 if you use bolder1 deeper or stronger colours ,i think you will find yourself beaten out of monochrome in order to get your colour harmonious4 ,one last word as to distemper which is not monochrome1 and its makeshift1 paper-hanging4 ,i think it is always best not to force the colour1 but to be content with getting it either quite light or quite grey in these materials1 and in no case very dark1 trusting for richness to stuffs1 or to painting which allows of gilding being introduced4 ,i must finish these crude notes about general colour by reminding you that you must be moderate with your colour on the walls of an ordinary dwelling-room2 according to the material you are using1 you may go along the scale from light and bright to deep and rich1 but some soberness of tone is absolutely necessary if you would not weary people till they cry out against all decoration4 ,but ,i suppose this is a caution which only very young decorators are likely to need4 ,it is the right-hand defection2 the left-hand falling away is to get your colour dingy and muddy1 a worse fault than the other because less likely to be curable4 ,all right-minded craftsmen who work in colour will strive to make their work as bright as possible1 as full of colour as the nature of the work will allow it to be4 ,the meaning they may be bound to express1 the nature of its material1 or the use it may be put to may limit this fulness2 but in whatever key of colour they are working1 if they do not succeed in getting the colour pure and clear1 they have not learned their craft1 and if they do not see their fault when it is present in their work1 they are not likely to learn it4 ,now1 hitherto we have not got further into the matter of decoration than to talk of its arrangement4 ,before ,i speak of some general matters connected with our subject1 ,i must say a little on the design of the patterns which will form the chief part of your decoration4 ,the subject is a wide and difficult one1 and my time much too short to do it any justice1 but here and there1 perhaps1 a hint may crop up1 and ,i may put it in a way somewhat new4 ,on the whole1 in speaking of these patterns ,i shall be thinking of those that necessarily recur2 designs which have to be carried out by more or less mechanical appliances1 such as the printing block or the loom4 ,since we have been considering colour lately1 we had better take that side first1 though ,i know it will be difficult to separate the consideration of it from that of the other necessary qualifications of design4 ,the first step away from monochrome is breaking the ground by putting a pattern on it of the same colour1 but of a lighter or darker shade1 the first being the best and most natural way4 ,i need say but little on this as a matter of colour1 though many very important designs are so treated4 ,one thing ,i have noticed about these damasks1 as ,i should call them2 that of the three chief colours1 red is the one where the two shades must be the nearest to one another1 or you get the effect poor and weak2 while in blue you may have a great deal of difference without losing colour1 and green holds a middle place between the two4 ,next1 if you make these two shades different in tint as well as1 or instead of1 in depth1 you have fairly got out of monochrome1 and will find plenty of difficulties in getting your two tints to go well together4 ,the putting1 for instance1 of a light greenish blue on a deep reddish one1 turquoise on sapphire1 will try all your skill4 ,the ,persians practise this feat1 but not often without adding a third colour1 and so getting into the next stage4 ,in fact1 this plan of relieving the pattern by shifting its tint as well as its depth1 is chiefly of use in dealing with quite low-toned colours--golden browns or greys1 for instance4 ,in dealing with the more forcible ones1 you will find it in general necessary to add a third colour at least1 and so get into the next stage4 ,this is the relieving a pattern of more than one colour1 but all the colours light1 upon a dark ground4 ,this is above all useful in cases where your palette is somewhat limited2 say1 for instance1 in a figured cloth which has to be woven mechanically1 and where you have but three or four colours in a line1 including the ground4 ,you will not find this a difficult way of relieving your pattern1 if you only are not too ambitious of getting the diverse superimposed colours too forcible on the one hand1 so that they fly out from one another1 or on the other hand too delicate1 so that they run together into confusion4 ,the excellence of this sort of work lies in a clear but soft relief of the form1 in colours each beautiful in itself1 and harmonious one with the other on ground whose colour is also beautiful1 though unobtrusive4 ,hardness ruins the work1 confusion of form caused by timidity of colour annoys the eye1 and makes it restless1 and lack of colour is felt as destroying the raison d'tre of it4 ,so you see it taxes the designer heavily enough after all4 ,nevertheless ,i still call it the easiest way of complete pattern-designing4 ,i have spoken of it as the placing of a light pattern on dark ground4 ,i should mention that in the fully developed form of the design ,i am thinking of there is often an impression given1 of there being more than one plane in the pattern4 ,where the pattern is strictly on one plane1 we have not reached the full development of this manner of designing1 the full development of colour and form used together1 but form predominant4 ,we are not left without examples of this kind of design at its best4 ,the looms of ,corinth1 ,palermo1 and ,lucca1 in the twelfth1 thirteenth1 and fourteenth centuries1 turned out figured silk cloths1 which were so widely sought for1 that you may see specimens of their work figured on fifteenth-century screens in ,east ,anglian churches1 or the background of pictures by the ,van ,eycks1 while one of the most important collections of the actual goods is preserved in the treasury of the ,mary ,church at ,dantzig2 the ,south ,kensington ,museum has also a very fine collection of these1 which ,i can't help thinking are not quite as visible to the public as they should be4 ,they are1 however1 discoverable by the help of ,dr4 ,rock's excellent catalogue published by the department1 and ,i hope will1 as the ,museum gains space1 be more easy to see4 ,now to sum up3 ,this method of pattern-designing must be considered the ,western and civilised method2 that used by craftsmen who were always seeing pictures1 and whose minds were full of definite ideas of form4 ,colour was essential to their work1 and they loved it1 and understood it1 but always subordinated it to form4 ,there is next the method of relief by placing a dark figure on a light ground4 ,sometimes this method is but the converse of the last1 and is not so useful1 because it is capable of less variety and play of colour and tone4 ,sometimes it must be looked on as a transition from the last-mentioned method to the next of colour laid by colour4 ,thus used there is something incomplete about it4 ,one finds oneself longing for more colours than one's shuttles or blocks allow one4 ,there is a need felt for the speciality of the next method1 where the dividing line is used1 and it gradually gets drawn into that method4 ,which1 indeed1 is the last ,i have to speak to you of1 and in which colour is laid by colour4 ,in this method it is necessary that the diverse colours should be separated each by a line of another colour1 and that not merely to mark the form1 but to complete the colour itself2 which outlining1 while it serves the purpose of gradation1 which in more naturalistic work is got by shading1 makes the design quite flat1 and takes from it any idea of there being more than one plane in it4 ,this way of treating pattern design is so much more difficult than the others1 as to be almost an art by itself1 and to demand a study apart4 ,as the method of relief by laying light upon dark may be called the ,western way of treatment and the civilised1 so this is the ,eastern1 and1 to a certain extent1 the uncivilised4 ,but it has a wide range1 from works where the form is of little importance and only exists to make boundaries for colour1 to those in which the form is so studied1 so elaborate1 and so lovely1 that it is hardly true to say that the form is subordinate to the colour2 while1 on the other hand1 so much delight is taken in the colour1 it is so inventive and so unerringly harmonious1 that it is scarcely possible to think of the form without it--the two interpenetrate4 ,such things as these1 which1 as far as ,i know1 are only found in ,persian art at its best1 do carry the art of mere pattern-designing to its utmost perfection1 and it seems somewhat hard to call such an art uncivilised4 ,but1 you see1 its whole soul was given up to producing matters of subsidiary art1 as people call it2 its carpets were of more importance than its pictures2 nay1 properly speaking1 they were its pictures4 ,and it may be that such an art never has a future of change before it1 save the change of death1 which has now certainly come over that ,eastern art2 while the more impatient1 more aspiring1 less sensuous art which belongs to ,western civilisation may bear many a change and not die utterly2 nay1 may feed on its intellect alone for a season1 and enduring the martyrdom of a grim time of ugliness1 may live on1 rebuking at once the narrow-minded pedant of science1 and the luxurious tyrant of plutocracy1 till change bring back the spring again1 and it blossoms once more into pleasure4 ,may it be so4 ,meanwhile1 we may say for certain that colour for colour's sake only will never take real hold on the art of our civilisation1 not even in its subsidiary art4 ,imitation and affectation may deceive people into thinking that such an instinct is quickening amongst us1 but the deception will not last4 ,to have a meaning and to make others feel and understand it1 must ever be the aim and end of our ,western art4 ,before ,i leave this subject of the colouring of patterns1 ,i must warn you against the abuse of the dotting1 hatching1 and lining of backgrounds1 and other mechanical contrivances for breaking them2 such practices are too often the resource to which want of invention is driven1 and unless used with great caution they vulgarise a pattern completely4 ,compare1 for instance1 those ,sicilian and other silk cloths ,i have mentioned with the brocades 7common everywhere7 turned out from the looms of ,lyons1 ,venice1 and ,genoa1 at the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries4 ,the first perfectly simple in manufacture1 trusting wholly to beauty of design1 and the play of light on the naturally woven surface1 while the latter eke out their gaudy feebleness with spots and ribs and long floats1 and all kinds of meaningless tormenting of the web1 till there is nothing to be learned from them save a warning4 ,so much for the colour of pattern-designing4 ,now1 for a space1 let us consider some other things that are necessary to it1 and which ,i am driven to call its moral qualities1 and which are finally reducible to two--order and meaning4 ,without order your work cannot even exist2 without meaning1 it were better not to exist4 ,now order imposes on us certain limitations1 which partly spring from the nature of the art itself1 and partly from the materials in which we have to work2 and it is a sign of mere incompetence in either a school or an individual to refuse to accept such limitations1 or even not to accept them joyfully and turn them to special account1 much as if a poet should complain of having to write in measure and rhyme4 ,now1 in our craft the chief of the limitations that spring from the essence of the art is that the decorator's art cannot be imitative even to the limited extent that the picture-painter's art is4 ,this you have been told hundreds of times1 and in theory it is accepted everywhere1 so ,i need not say much about it--chiefly this1 that it does not excuse want of observation of nature1 or laziness of drawing1 as some people seem to think4 ,on the contrary1 unless you know plenty about the natural form that you are conventionalising1 you will not only find it impossible to give people a satisfactory impression of what is in your own mind about it1 but you will also be so hampered by your ignorance1 that you will not be able to make your conventionalised form ornamental4 ,it will not fill a space properly1 or look crisp and sharp1 or fulfil any purpose you may strive to put it to4 ,it follows from this that your convention must be your own1 and not borrowed from other times and peoples2 or1 at the least1 that you must make it your own by thoroughly understanding both the nature and the art you are dealing with4 ,if you do not heed this1 ,i do not know but what you may not as well turn to and draw laborious portraits of natural forms of flower and bird and beast1 and stick them on your walls anyhow4 ,it is true you will not get ornament so1 but you may learn something for your trouble2 whereas1 using an obviously true principle as a stalking-horse for laziness of purpose and lack of invention1 will but injure art all round1 and blind people to the truth of that very principle4 ,limitations also1 both as to imitation and exuberance1 are imposed on us by the office our pattern has to fulfil4 ,a small and often-recurring pattern of a subordinate kind will bear much less naturalism than one in a freer space and more important position1 and the more obvious the geometrical structure of a pattern is1 the less its parts should tend toward naturalism4 ,this has been well understood from the earliest days of art to the very latest times during which pattern-designing has clung to any wholesome tradition1 but is pretty generally unheeded at present4 ,as to the limitations that arise from the material we may be working in1 we must remember that all material offers certain difficulties to be overcome1 and certain facilities to be made the most of4 ,up to a certain point you must be the master of your material1 but you must never be so much the master as to turn it surly1 so to say4 ,you must not make it your slave1 or presently you will be a slave also4 ,you must master it so far as to make it express a meaning1 and to serve your aim at beauty4 ,you may go beyond that necessary point for your own pleasure and amusement1 and still be in the right way2 but if you go on after that merely to make people stare at your dexterity in dealing with a difficult thing1 you have forgotten art along with the rights of your material1 and you will make not a work of art1 but a mere toy2 you are no longer an artist1 but a juggler4 ,the history of the arts gives us abundant examples and warnings in this matter4 ,first clear steady principle1 then playing with the danger1 and lastly falling into the snare1 mark with the utmost distinctness the times of the health1 the decline1 and the last sickness of art4 ,allow me to give you one example in the noble art of mosaic4 ,the difficulty in it necessary to be overcome was the making of a pure and true flexible line1 not over thick1 with little bits of glass or marble nearly rectangular4 ,its glory lay in its durability1 the lovely colour to be got in it1 the play of light on its faceted and gleaming surface1 and the clearness mingled with softness1 with which forms were relieved on the lustrous gold which was so freely used in its best days4 ,moreover1 however bright were the colours used1 they were toned delightfully by the greyness which the innumerable joints between the tesser spread over the whole surface4 ,now the difficulty of the art was overcome in its earliest and best days1 and no care or pains were spared in making the most of its special qualities1 while for long and long no force was put upon the material to make it imitate the qualities of brush-painting1 either in power of colour1 in delicacy of gradation1 or intricacy of treating a subject2 and1 moreover1 easy as it would have been to minimise the jointing of the tesser1 no attempt was made at it4 ,but as time went on1 men began to tire of the solemn simplicity of the art1 and began to aim at making it keep pace with the growing complexity of picture painting1 and1 though still beautiful1 it lost colour without gaining form4 ,from that point 7say about #adfj71 it went on from bad to worse1 till at last men were set to work in it merely because it was an intractable material in which to imitate oil-painting1 and by this time it was fallen from being a master art1 the crowning beauty of the most solemn buildings1 to being a mere tax on the craftsmen's patience1 and a toy for people who no longer cared for art4 ,and just such a history may be told of every art that deals with special material4 ,under this head of order should be included something about the structure of patterns1 but time for dealing with such an intricate question obviously fails me2 so ,i will but note that1 whereas it has been said that a recurring pattern should be constructed on a geometrical basis1 it is clear that it cannot be constructed otherwise2 only the structure may be more or less masked1 and some designers take a great deal of pains to do so4 ,i cannot say that ,i think this always necessary4 ,it may be so when the pattern is on a very small scale1 and meant to attract but little attention4 ,but it is sometimes the reverse of desirable in large and important patterns1 and1 to my mind1 all noble patterns should at least look large4 ,some of the finest and pleasantest of these show their geometrical structure clearly enough2 and if the lines of them grow strongly and flow gracefully1 ,i think they are decidedly helped by their structure not being elaborately concealed4 ,at the same time in all patterns which are meant to fill the eye and satisfy the mind1 there should be a certain mystery4 ,we should not be able to read the whole thing at once1 nor desire to do so1 nor be impelled by that desire to go on tracing line after line to find out how the pattern is made1 and ,i think that the obvious presence of a geometrical order1 if it be1 as it should be1 beautiful1 tends towards this end1 and prevents our feeling restless over a pattern4 ,that every line in a pattern should have its due growth1 and be traceable to its beginning1 this1 which you have doubtless heard before1 is undoubtedly essential to the finest pattern work2 equally so is it that no stem should be so far from its parent stock as to look weak or wavering4 ,mutual support and unceasing progress distinguish real and natural order from its mockery1 pedantic tyranny4 ,every one who has practised the designing of patterns knows the necessity for covering the ground equably and richly4 ,this is really to a great extent the secret of obtaining the look of satisfying mystery aforesaid1 and it is the very test of capacity in a designer4 ,finally1 no amount of delicacy is too great in drawing the curves of a pattern1 no amount of care in getting the leading lines right from the first1 can be thrown away1 for beauty of detail cannot afterwards cure any shortcoming in this4 ,remember that a pattern is either right or wrong4 ,it cannot be forgiven for blundering1 as a picture may be which has otherwise great qualities in it4 ,it is with a pattern as with a fortress1 it is no stronger than its weakest point4 ,a failure for ever recurring torments the eye too much to allow the mind to take any pleasure in suggestion and intention4 ,as to the second moral quality of design1 meaning1 ,i include in that the invention and imagination which forms the soul of this art1 as of all others1 and which1 when submitted to the bonds of order1 has a body and a visible existence4 ,now you may well think that there is less to be said of this than the other quality2 for form may be taught1 but the spirit that breathes through it cannot be4 ,so ,i will content myself with saying this on these qualities1 that though a designer may put all manner of strangeness and surprise into his patterns1 he must not do so at the expense of beauty4 ,you will never find a case in this kind of work where ugliness and violence are not the result of barrenness1 and not of fertility of invention4 ,the fertile man1 he of resource1 has not to worry himself about invention4 ,he need but think of beauty and simplicity of expression2 his work will grow on and on1 one thing leading to another1 as it fares with a beautiful tree4 ,whereas the laborious paste-and-scissors man goes hunting up and down for oddities1 sticks one in here and another there1 and tries to connect them with commonplace2 and when it is all done1 the oddities are not more inventive than the commonplace1 nor the commonplace more graceful than the oddities4 ,no pattern should be without some sort of meaning4 ,true it is that that meaning may have come down to us traditionally1 and not be our own invention1 yet we must at heart understand it1 or we can neither receive it1 nor hand it down to our successors4 ,it is no longer tradition if it is servilely copied1 without change1 the token of life4 ,you may be sure that the softest and loveliest of patterns will weary the steadiest admirers of their school as soon as they see that there is no hope of growth in them4 ,for you know all art is compact of effort1 of failure and of hope1 and we cannot but think that somewhere perfection lies ahead1 as we look anxiously for the better thing that is to come from the good4 ,furthermore1 you must not only mean something in your patterns1 but must also be able to make others understand that meaning4 ,they say that the difference between a genius and a madman is that the genius can get one or two people to believe in him1 whereas the madman1 poor fellow1 has himself only for his audience4 ,now the only way in our craft of design for compelling people to understand you is to follow hard on ,nature2 for what else can you refer people to1 or what else is there which everybody can understand8--everybody that it is worth addressing yourself to1 which includes all people who can feel and think4 ,now let us end the talk about those qualities of invention and imagination with a word of memory and of thanks to the designers of time past4 ,surely he who runs may read them abundantly set forth in those lesser arts they practised4 ,surely it had been pity indeed1 if so much of this had been lost as would have been if it had been crushed out by the pride of intellect1 that will not stoop to look at beauty1 unless its own kings and great men have had a hand in it4 ,belike the thoughts of the men who wrought this kind of art could not have been expressed in grander ways or more definitely1 or1 at least1 would not have been2 therefore ,i believe ,i am not thinking only of my own pleasure1 but of the pleasure of many people1 when ,i praise the usefulness of the lives of these men1 whose names are long forgotten1 but whose works we still wonder at4 ,in their own way they meant to tell us how the flowers grew in the gardens of ,damascus1 or how the hunt was up on the plains of ,kirman1 or how the tulips shone among the grass in the ,mid-,persian valley1 and how their souls delighted in it all1 and what joy they had in life2 nor did they fail to make their meaning clear to some of us4 ,but1 indeed1 they and other matters have led us afar from our makeshift house1 and the room we have to decorate therein4 ,and there is still left the fireplace to consider4 ,now ,i think there is nothing about a house in which a contrast is greater between old and new than this piece of architecture4 ,the old1 either delightful in its comfortable simplicity1 or decorated with the noblest and most meaning art in the place2 the modern1 mean1 miserable1 uncomfortable1 and showy1 plastered about with wretched sham ornament1 trumpery of cast-iron1 and brass and polished steel1 and what not--offensive to look at1 and a nuisance to clean--and the whole thing huddled up with rubbish of ash-pan1 and fender1 and rug1 till surely the hearths which we have been bidden so often to defend 7whether there was a chance of their being attacked or not7 have now become a mere figure of speech the meaning of which in a short time it will be impossible for learned philologists to find out4 ,i do most seriously advise you to get rid of all this1 or as much of it as you can without absolute ruin to your prospects in life2 and even if you do not know how to decorate it1 at least have a hole in the wall of a convenient shape1 faced with such bricks or tiles as will at once bear fire and clean2 then some sort of iron basket in it1 and out from that a real hearth of cleanable brick or tile1 which will not make you blush when you look at it1 and as little in the way of guard and fender as you think will be safe2 that will do to begin with4 ,for the rest1 if you have wooden work about the fireplace1 which is often good to have1 don't mix up the wood and the tiles together2 let the wood-work look like part of the wall-covering1 and the tiles like part of the chimney4 ,as for movable furniture1 even if time did not fail us1 'tis a large subject--or a very small one--so ,i will but say1 don't have too much of it2 have none for mere finery's sake1 or to satisfy the claims of custom--these are flat truisms1 are they not8 ,but really it seems as if some people had never thought of them1 for 'tis almost the universal custom to stuff up some rooms so that you can scarcely move in them1 and to leave others deadly bare2 whereas all rooms ought to look as if they were lived in1 and to have1 so to say1 a friendly welcome ready for the incomer4 ,a dining-room ought not to look as if one went into it as one goes into a dentist's parlour--for an operation1 and came out of it when the operation was over--the tooth out1 or the dinner in4 ,a drawing-room ought to look as if some kind of work could be done in it less toilsome than being bored4 ,a library certainly ought to have books in it1 not boots only1 as in ,thackeray's country snob's house1 but so ought each and every room in the house more or less2 also1 though all rooms should look tidy1 and even very tidy1 they ought not to look too tidy4 ,furthermore1 no room of the richest man should look grand enough to make a simple man shrink in it1 or luxurious enough to make a thoughtful man feel ashamed in it2 it will not do so if ,art be at home there1 for she has no foes so deadly as insolence and waste4 ,indeed1 ,i fear that at present the decoration of rich men's houses is mostly wrought out at the bidding of grandeur and luxury1 and that art has been mostly cowed or shamed out of them2 nor when ,i come to think of it will ,i lament it overmuch4 ,art was not born in the palace2 rather she fell sick there1 and it will take more bracing air than that of rich men's houses to heal her again4 ,if she is ever to be strong enough to help mankind once more1 she must gather strength in simple places2 the refuge from wind and weather to which the goodman comes home from field or hill-side2 the well-tidied space into which the craftsman draws from the litter of loom1 and smithy1 and bench2 the scholar's island in the sea of books2 the artist's clearing in the canvas-grove2 it is from these places that ,art must come if she is ever again to be enthroned in that other kind of building1 which ,i think1 under some name or other1 whether you call it church or hall of reason1 or what not1 will always be needed2 the building in which people meet to forget their own transient personal and family troubles in aspirations for their fellows and the days to come1 and which to a certain extent make up to town-dwellers for their loss of field1 and river1 and mountain4 ,well1 it seems to me that these two kinds of buildings are all we have really to think of1 together with whatsoever outhouses1 workshops1 and the like may be necessary4 ,surely the rest may quietly drop to pieces for aught we care--unless it should be thought good in the interest of history to keep one standing in each big town to show posterity what strange1 ugly1 uncomfortable houses rich men dwelt in once upon a time4 ,meantime now1 when rich men won't have art1 and poor men can't1 there is1 nevertheless1 some unthinking craving for it1 some restless feeling in men's minds of something lacking somewhere1 which has made many benevolent people seek for the possibility of cheap art4 ,what do they mean by that8 ,one art for the rich and another for the poor8 ,no1 it won't do4 ,art is not so accommodating as the justice or religion of society1 and she won't have it4 ,what then8 there has been cheap art at some times certainly1 at the expense of the starvation of the craftsmen4 ,but people can't mean that2 and if they did1 would1 happily1 no longer have the same chance of getting it that they once had4 ,still they think art can be got round some way or other--jockeyed1 so to say4 ,i rather think in this fashion3 that a highly gifted and carefully educated man shall1 like ,mr4 ,pecksniff1 squint at a sheet of paper1 and that the results of that squint shall set a vast number of well-fed1 contented operatives 7they are ashamed to call them workmen7 turning crank handles for ten hours a-day1 bidding them keep what gifts and education they may have been born with for their--,i was going to say leisure hours1 but ,i don't know how to1 for if ,i were to work ten hours a-day at work ,i despised and hated1 ,i should spend my leisure ,i hope in political agitation1 but ,i fear--in drinking4 ,so let us say that the aforesaid operatives will have to keep their inborn gifts and education for their dreams4 ,well1 from this system are to come threefold blessings--food and clothing1 poorish lodgings and a little leisure to the operatives1 enormous riches to the capitalists that rent them1 together with moderate riches to the squinter on the paper2 and lastly1 very decidedly lastly1 abundance of cheap art for the operatives or crank turners to buy--in their dreams4 ,well1 there have been many other benevolent and economical schemes for keeping your cake after you have eaten it1 for skinning a flint1 and boiling a flea down for its tallow and glue1 and this one of cheap art may just go its way with the others4 ,yet to my mind real art is cheap1 even at the price that must be paid for it4 ,that price is1 in short1 the providing of a handicraftsman who shall put his own individual intelligence and enthusiasm into the goods he fashions4 ,so far from his labour being #8divided1' which is the technical phrase for his always doing one minute piece of work1 and never being allowed to think of any other2 so far from that1 he must know all about the ware he is making and its relation to similar wares2 he must have a natural aptitude for his work so strong1 that no education can force him away from his special bent4 ,he must be allowed to think of what he is doing1 and to vary his work as the circumstances of it vary1 and his own moods4 ,he must be for ever striving to make the piece he is at work at better than the last4 ,he must refuse at anybody's bidding to turn out1 ,i won't say a bad1 but even an indifferent piece of work1 whatever the public want1 or think they want4 ,he must have a voice1 and a voice worth listening to in the whole affair4 ,such a man ,i should call1 not an operative1 but a workman4 ,you may call him an artist if you will1 for ,i have been describing the qualities of artists as ,i know them2 but a capitalist will be apt to call him a #8troublesome fellow1' a radical of radicals1 and1 in fact1 he will be troublesome--mere grit and friction in the wheels of the money-grinding machine4 ,yes1 such a man will stop the machine perhaps2 but it is only through him that you can have art1 i4e4 civilisation unmaimed1 if you really want it2 so consider1 if you do want it1 and will pay the price and give the workman his due4 ,what is his due8 that is1 what can he take from you1 and be the man that you want8 ,money enough to keep him from fear of want or degradation for him and his2 leisure enough from bread-earning work 7even though it be pleasant to him7 to give him time to read and think1 and connect his own life with the life of the great world2 work enough of the kind aforesaid1 and praise of it1 and encouragement enough to make him feel good friends with his fellows2 and lastly 7not least1 for 'tis verily part of the bargain71 his own due share of art1 the chief part of which will be a dwelling that does not lack the beauty which ,nature would freely allow it1 if our own perversity did not turn ,nature out of doors4 ,that is the bargain to be struck1 such work and such wages2 and ,i believe that if the world wants the work and is willing to pay the wages1 the workmen will not long be wanting4 ,on the other hand1 if it be certain that the world--that is1 modern civilised society--will nevermore ask for such workmen1 then ,i am as sure as that ,i stand here breathing1 that art is dying3 that the spark still smouldering is not to be quickened into life1 but damped into death4 ,and indeed1 often1 in my fear of that1 ,i think1 #8,would that ,i could see what is to take the place of art6' ,for1 whether modern civilised society can make that bargain aforesaid1 who shall say8 ,i know well--who could fail to know it8--that the difficulties are great4 ,too apt has the world ever been1 #8for the sake of life to cast away the reasons for living1' and perhaps is more and more apt to it as the conditions of life get more intricate1 as the race to avoid ruin1 which seems always imminent and overwhelming1 gets swifter and more terrible4 ,yet how would it be if we were to lay aside fear and turn in the face of all that1 and stand by our claim to have1 one and all of us1 reasons for living4 ,mayhap the heavens would not fall on us if we did4 ,anyhow1 let us make up our minds which we want1 art1 or the absence of art1 and be prepared if we want art1 to give up many things1 and in many ways to change the conditions of life4 ,perhaps there are those who will understand me when ,i say that that necessary change may make life poorer for the rich1 rougher for the refined1 and1 it may be1 duller for the gifted--for a while2 that it may even take such forms that not the best or wisest of us shall always be able to know it for a friend1 but may at whiles fight against it as a foe4 ,yet1 when the day comes that gives us visible token of art rising like the sun from below--when it is no longer a justly despised whim of the rich1 or a lazy habit of the so-called educated1 but a thing that labour begins to crave as a necessity1 even as labour is a necessity for all men--in that day how shall all trouble be forgotten1 all folly forgiven--even our own6 ,little by little it must come1 ,i know4 ,patience and prudence must not be lacking to us1 but courage still less4 ,let us be a ,gideon's band4 #8,whosoever is fearful and afraid1 let him return1 and depart early from ,mount ,gilead4' ,and among that band let there be no delusions2 let the last encouraging lie have been told1 the last after-dinner humbug spoken1 for surely1 though the days seem dark1 we may remember that men longed for freedom while yet they were slaves2 that it was in times when swords were reddened every day that men began to think of peace and order1 and to strive to win them4 ,we who think1 and can enjoy the feast that ,nature has spread for us1 is it not both our right and our duty to rebel against that slavery of the waste of life's joys1 which people thoughtless and joyless1 by no fault of their own1 have wrapped the world in8 ,from our own selves we can tell that there is hope of victory in our rebellion1 since we have art enough in our lives1 not to content us1 but to make us long for more1 and that longing drives us into trying to spread art and the longing for art2 and as it is with us so it will be with those that we win over3 little by little1 we may well hope1 will do its work1 till at last a great many men will have enough of art to see how little they have1 and how much they might better their lives1 if every man had his due share of art--that is1 just so much as he could use if a fair chance were given him4 ,is that1 indeed1 too extravagant a hope8 ,have you not heard how it has gone with many a cause before now8 ,first few men heed it2 next most men contemn it2 lastly1 all men accept it--and the cause is won4 ,,the ,,prospects ,,of ,,architecture ,,in ,,civilisation #afi #8--the horrible doctrine that this universe is a ,cockney ,nightmare--which no creature ought for a moment to believe or listen to4'--,,thomas ,,carlyle4 ,,the word ,architecture has1 ,i suppose1 to most of you the meaning of the art of building nobly and ornamentally4 ,now ,i believe the practice of this art to be one of the most important things which man can turn his hand to1 and the consideration of it to be worth the attention of serious people1 not for an hour only1 but for a good part of their lives1 even though they may not have to do with it professionally4 ,but1 noble as that art is by itself1 and though it is specially the art of civilisation1 it neither ever has existed nor never can exist alive and progressive by itself1 but must cherish and be cherished by all the crafts whereby men make the things which they intend shall be beautiful1 and shall last somewhat beyond the passing day4 ,it is this union of the arts1 mutually helpful and harmoniously subordinated one to another1 which ,i have learned to think of as ,architecture1 and when ,i use the word to-night1 that is what ,i shall mean by it and nothing narrower4 ,a great subject truly1 for it embraces the consideration of the whole external surroundings of the life of man2 we cannot escape from it if we would so long as we are part of civilisation1 for it means the moulding and altering to human needs of the very face of the earth itself1 except in the outermost desert4 ,neither can we hand over our interests in it to a little band of learned men1 and bid them seek and discover1 and fashion1 that we may at last stand by and wonder at the work1 and learn a little of how 'twas all done3 'tis we ourselves1 each one of us1 who must keep watch and ward over the fairness of the earth1 and each with his own soul and hand do his due share therein1 lest we deliver to our sons a lesser treasure than our fathers left to us4 ,nor1 again1 is there time enough and to spare that we may leave this matter alone till our latter days or let our sons deal with it3 for so busy and eager is mankind1 that the desire of to-day makes us utterly forget the desire of yesterday and the gain it brought2 and whensoever in any object of pursuit we cease to long for perfection1 corruption sure and speedy leads from life to death and all is soon over and forgotten3 time enough there may be for many things3 for peopling the desert2 for breaking down the walls between nation and nation2 for learning the innermost secrets of the fashion of our souls and bodies1 the air we breathe1 and the earth we tread on3 time enough for subduing all the forces of nature to our material wants3 but no time to spare before we turn our eyes and our longing to the fairness of the earth2 lest the wave of human need sweep over it and make it not a hopeful desert as it once was1 but a hopeless prison2 lest man should find at last that he has toiled and striven1 and conquered1 and set all things on the earth under his feet1 that he might live thereon himself unhappy4 ,most true it is that when any spot of earth's surface has been marred by the haste or carelessness of civilisation1 it is heavy work to seek a remedy1 nay a work scarce conceivable2 for the desire to live on any terms which nature has implanted in us1 and the terrible swift multiplication of the race which is the result of it1 thrusts out of men's minds all thought of other hopes1 and bars the way before us as with a wall of iron3 no force but a force equal to that which marred can ever mend1 or give back those ruined places to hope and civilisation4 ,therefore ,i entreat you to turn your minds to thinking of what is to come of ,architecture1 that is to say1 the fairness of the earth amidst the habitations of men3 for the hope and the fear of it will follow us though we try to escape it2 it concerns us all1 and needs the help of all2 and what we do herein must be done at once1 since every day of our neglect adds to the heap of troubles a blind force is making for us2 till it may come to this if we do not look to it1 that we shall one day have to call1 not on peace and prosperity1 but on violence and ruin to rid us of them4 ,in making this appeal to you1 ,i will not suppose that ,i am speaking to any who refuse to admit that we who are part of civilisation are responsible to posterity for what may befall the fairness of the earth in our own days1 for what we have done1 in other words1 towards the progress of ,architecture2--if any such exists among cultivated people1 ,i need not trouble myself about them2 for they would not listen to me1 nor should ,i know what to say to them4 ,on the other hand1 there may be some here who have a knowledge of their responsibility in this matter1 but to whom the duty that it involves seems an easy one1 since they are fairly satisfied with the state of ,architecture as it now is3 ,i do not suppose that they fail to note the strange contrast which exists between the beauty that still clings to some habitations of men and the ugliness which is the rule in others1 but it seems to them natural and inevitable1 and therefore does not trouble them3 and they fulfil their duties to civilisation and the arts by sometimes going to see the beautiful places1 and gathering together a few matters to remind them of these for the adornment of the ugly dwellings in which their homes are enshrined3 for the rest they have no doubt that it is natural and not wrong that while all ancient towns1 ,i mean towns whose houses are largely ancient1 should be beautiful and romantic1 all modern ones should be ugly and commonplace3 it does not seem to them that this contrast is of any import to civilisation1 or that it expresses anything save that one town is ancient as to its buildings and the other modern4 ,if their thoughts carry them into looking any farther into the contrasts between ancient art and modern1 they are not dissatisfied with the result3 they may see things to reform here and there1 but they suppose1 or1 let me say1 take for granted1 that art is alive and healthy1 is on the right road1 and that following that road1 it will go on living for ever1 much as it is now4 ,it is not unfair to say that this languid complacency is the general attitude of cultivated people towards the arts3 of course if they were ever to think seriously of them1 they would be startled into discomfort by the thought that civilisation as it now is brings inevitable ugliness with it3 surely if they thought this1 they would begin to think that this was not natural and right2 they would see that this was not what civilisation aimed at in its struggling days3 but they do not think seriously of the arts because they have been hitherto defended by a law of nature which forbids men to see evils which they are not ready to redress4 ,hitherto3 but there are not wanting signs that that defence may fail them one day1 and it has become the duty of all true artists1 and all men who love life though it be troublous better than death though it be peaceful1 to strive to pierce that defence and sting the world1 cultivated and uncultivated1 into discontent and struggle4 ,therefore ,i will say that the contrast between past art and present1 the universal beauty of men's habitations as they were fashioned1 and the universal ugliness of them as they are fashioned1 is of the utmost import to civilisation1 and that it expresses much2 it expresses no less than a blind brutality which will destroy art at least1 whatever else it may leave alive3 art is not healthy1 it even scarcely lives2 it is on the wrong road1 and if it follow that road will speedily meet its death on it4 ,now perhaps you will say that by asserting that the general attitude of cultivated people towards the arts is a languid complacency with this unhealthy state of things1 ,i am admitting that cultivated people generally do not care about the arts1 and that therefore this threatened death of them will not frighten people much1 even if the threat be founded on truth3 so that those are but beating the air who strive to rouse people into discontent and struggle4 ,well1 ,i will run the risk of offending you by speaking plainly1 and saying1 that to me it seems over true that cultivated people in general do not care about the arts3 nevertheless ,i will answer any possible challenge as to the usefulness of trying to rouse them to thought about the matter1 by saying that they do not care about the arts because they do not know what they mean1 or what they lose in lacking them3 cultivated1 that is rich1 as they are1 they are also under that harrow of hard necessity which is driven onward so remorselessly by the competitive commerce of the latter days2 a system which is drawing near now ,i hope to its perfection1 and therefore to its death and change3 the many millions of civilisation1 as labour is now organised1 can scarce think seriously of anything but the means of earning their daily bread2 they do not know of art1 it does not touch their lives at all3 the few thousands of cultivated people whom ,fate1 not always as kind to them as she looks1 has placed above the material necessity for this hard struggle1 are nevertheless bound by it in spirit3 the reflex of the grinding trouble of those who toil to live that they may live to toil weighs upon them also1 and forbids them to look upon art as a matter of importance3 they know it but as a toy1 not as a serious help to life3 as they know it1 it can no more lift the burden from the conscience of the rich1 than it can from the weariness of the poor4 ,they do not know what art means3 as ,i have said1 they think that as labour is now organised art can go indefinitely as it is now organised1 practised by a few for a few1 adding a little interest1 a little refinement to the lives of those who have come to look upon intellectual interest and spiritual refinement as their birthright4 ,no1 no1 it can never be3 believe me1 if it were otherwise possible that it should be an enduring condition of humanity that there must be one class utterly refined and another utterly brutal1 art would bar the way and forbid the monstrosity to exist3--such refinement would have to do as well as it might without the aid of ,art3 it may be she will die1 but it cannot be that she will live the slave of the rich1 and the token of the enduring slavery of the poor4 ,if the life of the world is to be brutalised by her death1 the rich must share that brutalisation with the poor4 ,i know that there are people of good-will now1 as there have been in all ages1 who have conceived of art as going hand in hand with luxury1 nay1 as being much the same thing2 but it is an idea false from the root up1 and most hurtful to art1 as ,i could demonstrate to you by many examples if ,i had time1 lacking which ,i will only meet it with one1 which ,i hope will be enough4 ,we are here in the richest city of the richest country of the richest age of the world3 no luxury of time past can compare with our luxury2 and yet if you could clear your eyes from habitual blindness you would have to confess that there is no crime against art1 no ugliness1 no vulgarity which is not shared with perfect fairness and equality between the modern hovels of ,bethnal ,green and the modern palaces of the ,west ,end3 and then if you looked at the matter deeply and seriously you would not regret it1 but rejoice at it1 and as you went past some notable example of the aforesaid palaces you would exult indeed as you said1 #8,so that is all that luxury and money can do for refinement4' ,for the rest1 if of late there has been any change for the better in the prospects of the arts2 if there has been a struggle both to throw off the chains of dead and powerless tradition1 and to understand the thoughts and aspirations of those among whom those traditions were once alive powerful and beneficent2 if there has been abroad any spirit of resistance to the flood of sordid ugliness that modern civilisation has created to make modern civilisation miserable3 in a word1 if any of us have had the courage to be discontented that art seems dying1 and to hope for her new birth1 it is because others have been discontented and hopeful in other matters than the arts2 ,i believe most sincerely that the steady progress of those whom the stupidity of language forces me to call the lower classes in material1 political1 and social condition1 has been our real help in all that we have been able to do or to hope1 although both the helpers and the helped have been mostly unconscious of it4 ,it is indeed in this belief1 the belief in the beneficent progress of civilisation1 that ,i venture to face you and to entreat you to strive to enter into the real meaning of the arts1 which are surely the expression of reverence for nature1 and the crown of nature1 the life of man upon the earth4 ,with this intent in view ,i may1 ,i think1 hope to move you1 ,i do not say to agree to all ,i urge upon you1 yet at least to think the matter worth thinking about2 and if you once do that1 ,i believe ,i shall have won you4 ,maybe indeed that many things which ,i think beautiful you will deem of small account2 nay1 that even some things ,i think base and ugly will not vex your eyes or your minds3 but one thing ,i know you will none of you like to plead guilty to2 blindness to the natural beauty of the earth2 and of that beauty art is the only possible guardian4 ,no one of you can fail to know what neglect of art has done to this great treasure of mankind3 the earth which was beautiful before man lived on it1 which for many ages grew in beauty as men grew in numbers and power1 is now growing uglier day by day1 and there the swiftest where civilisation is the mightiest3 this is quite certain2 no one can deny it3 are you contented that it should be so8 ,surely there must be few of us to whom this degrading change has not been brought home personally4 ,i think you will most of you understand me but too well when ,i ask you to remember the pang of dismay that comes on us when we revisit some spot of country which has been specially sympathetic to us in times past2 which has refreshed us after toil1 or soothed us after trouble2 but where now as we turn the corner of the road or crown the hill's brow we can see first the inevitable blue slate roof1 and then the blotched mud-coloured stucco1 or ill-built wall of ill-made bricks of the new buildings2 then as we come nearer and see the arid and pretentious little gardens1 and cast-iron horrors of railings1 and miseries of squalid out-houses breaking through the sweet meadows and abundant hedge-rows of our old quiet hamlet1 do not our hearts sink within us1 and are we not troubled with a perplexity not altogether selfish1 when we think what a little bit of carelessness it takes to destroy a world of pleasure and delight1 which now whatever happens can never be recovered8 ,well may we feel the perplexity and sickness of heart1 which some day the whole world shall feel to find its hopes disappointed1 if we do not look to it2 for this is not what civilisation looked for3 a new house added to the old village1 where is the harm of that8 ,should it not have been a gain and not a loss2 a sign of growth and prosperity which should have rejoiced the eye of an old friend8 a new family come in health and hope to share the modest pleasures and labours of the place we loved2 that should have been no grief1 but a fresh pleasure to us4 ,yes1 and time was that it would have been so2 the new house indeed would have taken away a little piece of the flowery green sward1 a few yards of the teeming hedge-row2 but a new order1 a new beauty would have taken the place of the old3 the very flowers of the field would have but given place to flowers fashioned by man's hand and mind3 the hedge-row oak would have blossomed into fresh beauty in roof-tree and lintel and door-post3 and though the new house would have looked young and trim beside the older houses and the ancient church2 ancient even in those days2 yet it would have a piece of history for the time to come1 and its dear and dainty cream-white walls would have been a genuine link among the numberless links of that long chain1 whose beginnings we know not of1 but on whose mighty length even the many-pillared garth of ,pallas1 and the stately dome of the ,eternal ,wisdom1 are but single links1 wondrous and resplendent though they be4 ,such ,i say can a new house be1 such it has been3 for 'tis no ideal house ,i am thinking of3 no rare marvel of art1 of which but few can ever be vouchsafed to the best times and countries2 no palace either1 not even a manor-house1 but a yeoman's steading at grandest1 or even his shepherd's cottage3 there they stand at this day1 dozens of them yet1 in some parts of ,england3 such an one1 and of the smallest1 is before my eyes as ,i speak to you1 standing by the roadside on one of the western slopes of the ,cotswolds3 the tops of the great trees near it can see a long way off the mountains of the ,welsh border1 and between a great county of hill1 and waving woodland1 and meadow and plain where lies hidden many a famous battlefield of our stout forefathers3 there to the right a wavering patch of blue is the smoke of ,worcester town1 but ,evesham smoke1 though near1 is unseen1 so small it is3 then a long line of haze just traceable shows where the ,avon wends its way thence towards ,severn1 till ,bredon ,hill hides the sight both of it and ,tewkesbury smoke3 just below on either side the ,broadway lie the grey houses of the village street ending with a lovely house of the fourteenth century2 above the road winds serpentine up the steep hill-side1 whose crest looking westward sees the glorious map ,i have been telling of spread before it1 but eastward strains to look on ,oxfordshire1 and thence all waters run towards ,thames3 all about lie the sunny slopes1 lovely of outline1 flowery and sweetly grassed1 dotted with the best-grown and most graceful of trees3 'tis a beautiful countryside indeed1 not undignified1 not unromantic1 but most familiar4 ,and there stands the little house that was new once1 a labourer's cottage built of the ,cotswold limestone1 and grown now1 walls and roof1 a lovely warm grey1 though it was creamy white in its earliest day2 no line of it could ever have marred the ,cotswold beauty2 everything about it is solid and well wrought3 it is skilfully planned and well proportioned3 there is a little sharp and delicate carving about its arched doorway1 and every part of it is well cared for3 'tis in fact beautiful1 a work of art and a piece of nature--no less3 there is no man who could have done it better considering its use and its place4 ,who built it then8 ,no strange race of men1 but just the mason of ,broadway village3 even such a man as is now running up down yonder three or four cottages of the wretched type we know too well3 nor did he get an architect from ,london1 or even ,worcester1 to design it3 ,i believe 'tis but two hundred years old1 and at that time1 though beauty still lingered among the peasants' houses1 your learned architects were building houses for the high gentry that were ugly enough1 though solid and well built2 nor are its materials far-fetched2 from the neighbouring field came its walling stones2 and at the top of the hill they are quarrying now as good freestone as ever4 ,no1 there was no effort or wonder about it when it was built1 though its beauty makes it strange now4 ,and are you contented that we should lose all this2 this simple1 harmless beauty that was no hindrance or trouble to any man1 and that added to the natural beauty of the earth instead of marring it8 ,you cannot be contented with it2 all you can do is to try to forget it1 and to say that such things are the necessary and inevitable consequences of civilisation4 ,is it so indeed8 ,the loss of suchlike beauty is an undoubted evil3 but civilisation cannot mean at heart to produce evils for mankind3 such losses therefore must be accidents of civilisation1 produced by its carelessness1 not its malice2 and we1 if we be men and not machines1 must try to amend them3 or civilisation itself will be undone4 ,but1 now let us leave the sunny slopes of the ,cotswolds1 and their little grey houses1 lest we fall a-dreaming over past time1 and let us think about the suburbs of ,london1 neither dull nor unpleasant once1 where surely we ought to have some power to do something3 let me remind you how it fares with the beauty of the earth when some big house near our dwelling-place1 which has passed through many vicissitudes of rich merchant's dwelling1 school1 hospital1 or what not1 is at last to be turned into ready money1 and is sold to ,a1 who lets it to ,b1 who is going to build houses on it which he will sell to ,c1 who will let them to ,d1 and the other letters of the alphabet3 well1 the old house comes down2 that was to be looked for1 and perhaps you don't much mind it2 it was never a work of art1 was stupid and unimaginative enough1 though creditably built1 and without pretence2 but even while it is being pulled down1 you hear the axe falling on the trees of its generous garden1 which it was such a pleasure even to pass by1 and where man and nature together have worked so long and patiently for the blessing of the neighbours3 so you see the boys dragging about the streets great boughs of the flowering may-trees covered with blossom1 and you know what is going to happen4 ,next morning when you get up you look towards that great plane-tree which has been such a friend to you so long through sun and rain and wind1 which was a world in itself of incident and beauty3 but now there is a gap and no plane-tree2 next morning 'tis the turn of the great sweeping layers of darkness that the ancient cedars thrust out from them1 very treasures of loveliness and romance2 they are gone too3 you may have a faint hope left that the thick bank of lilac next your house may be spared1 since the newcomers may like lilac2 but 'tis gone in the afternoon1 and the next day when you look in with a sore heart1 you see that once fair great garden turned into a petty miserable clay-trampled yard1 and everything is ready for the latest development of ,victorian architecture--which in due time 7two months7 arises from the wreck4 ,do you like it8 ,you ,i mean1 who have not studied art and do not think you care about it8 ,look at the houses 7there are plenty to choose from76 ,i will not say1 are they beautiful1 for you say you don't care whether they are or not3 but just look at the wretched pennyworths of material1 of accommodation1 of ornament doled out to you6 if there were one touch of generosity1 of honest pride1 of wish to please about them1 ,i would forgive them in the lump4 ,but there is none--not one4 ,it is for this that you have sacrificed your cedars and planes and may-trees1 which ,i do believe you really liked--are you satisfied8 ,indeed you cannot be3 all you can do is to go to your business1 converse with your family1 eat1 drink1 and sleep1 and try to forget it1 but whenever you think of it1 you will admit that a loss without compensation has befallen you and your neighbours4 ,once more neglect of art has done it2 for though it is conceivable that the loss of your neighbouring open space might in any case have been a loss to you1 still the building of a new quarter of a town ought not to be an unmixed calamity to the neighbours3 nor would it have been once3 for first1 the builder doesn't now murder the trees 7at any rate not all of them7 for the trifling sum of money their corpses will bring him1 but because it will take him too much trouble to fit them into the planning of his houses3 so to begin with you would have saved the more part of your trees2 and ,i say your trees1 advisedly1 for they were at least as much your trees1 who loved them and would have saved them1 as they were the trees of the man who neglected and murdered them4 ,and next1 for any space you would have lost1 and for any unavoidable destruction of natural growth1 you would in the times of art have been compensated by orderly beauty1 by visible signs of the ingenuity of man and his delight both in the works of nature and the works of his own hands4 ,yes indeed1 if we had lived in ,venice in early days1 as islet after islet was built upon1 we should have grudged it but little1 ,i think1 though we had been merchants and rich men1 that the ,greek shafted work1 and the carving of the ,lombards was drawn nearer and nearer to us and blocked us out a little from the sight of the blue ,euganean hills or the ,northern mountains4 ,nay1 to come nearer home1 much as ,i know ,i should have loved the willowy meadows between the network of the streams of ,thames and ,cherwell2 yet ,i should not have been ill content as ,oxford crept northward from its early home of ,oseney1 and ,rewley1 and the ,castle1 as townsman's house1 and scholar's hall1 and the great ,college and the noble church hid year by year more and more of the grass and flowers of ,oxfordshire4 #ahf ,that was the natural course of things then2 men could do no otherwise when they built than give some gift of beauty to the world3 but all is turned inside out now1 and when men build they cannot but take away some gift of beauty1 which nature or their own forefathers have given to the world4 ,wonderful it is indeed1 and perplexing1 that the course of civilisation towards perfection should have brought this about3 so perplexing1 that to some it seems as if civilisation were eating her own children1 and the arts first of all4 ,i will not say that2 time is big with so many a change2 surely there must be some remedy1 and whether there be or no1 at least it is better to die seeking one1 than to leave it alone and do nothing4 ,i have said1 are you satisfied8 and assumed that you are not1 though to many you may seem to be at least helpless3 yet indeed it is something or even a great deal that ,i can reasonably assume that you are discontented3 fifty years ago1 thirty years ago1 nay perhaps twenty years ago1 it would have been useless to have asked such a question1 it could only have been answered in one way3 ,we are perfectly satisfied3 whereas now we may at least hope that discontent will grow till some remedy will be sought for4 ,and if sought for1 should it not1 in ,england at least1 be as good as found already1 and acted upon8 ,at first sight it seems so truly2 for ,i may say without fear of contradiction that we of the ,english middle classes are the most powerful body of men that the world has yet seen1 and that anything we have set our heart upon we will have3 and yet when we come to look the matter in the face1 we cannot fail to see that even for us with all our strength it will be a hard matter to bring about that birth of the new art3 for between us and that which is to be1 if art is not to perish utterly1 there is something alive and devouring2 something as it were a river of fire that will put all that tries to swim across to a hard proof indeed1 and scare from the plunge every soul that is not made fearless by desire of truth and insight of the happy days to come beyond4 ,that fire is the hurry of life bred by the gradual perfection of competitive commerce which we1 the ,english middle classes1 when we had won our political liberty1 set ourselves to further with an energy1 an eagerness1 a single-heartedness that has no parallel in history2 we would suffer none to bar the way to us1 we called on none to help us1 we thought of that one thing and forgot all else1 and so attained to our desire1 and fashioned a terrible thing indeed from the very hearts of the strongest of mankind4 ,indeed ,i don't suppose that the feeble discontent with our own creation that ,i have noted before can deal with such a force as this--not yet--not till it swells to very strong discontent3 nevertheless as we were blind to its destructive power1 and have not even yet learned all about that1 so we may well be blind to what it has of constructive force in it1 and that one day may give us a chance to deal with it again and turn it toward accomplishing our new and worthier desire3 in that day at least when we have at last learned what we want1 let us work no less strenuously and fearlessly1 ,i will not say to quench it1 but to force it to burn itself out1 as we once did to quicken and sustain it4 ,meantime if we could but get ourselves ready by casting off certain old prejudices and delusions in this matter of the arts1 we should the sooner reach the pitch of discontent which would drive us into action3 such a one ,i mean as the aforesaid idea that luxury fosters art1 and especially the ,architectural arts2 or its companion one1 that the arts flourish best in a rich country1 i4e4 a country where the contrast between rich and poor is greatest2 or this1 the worst because the most plausible1 the assertion of the hierarchy of intellect in the arts3 an old foe with a new face indeed3 born out of the times that gave the death-blow to the political and social hierarchies1 and waxing as they waned1 it proclaimed from a new side the divinity of the few and the subjugation of the many1 and cries out1 like they did1 that it is expedient1 not that one man should die for the people1 but that the people should die for one man4 ,now perhaps these three things1 though they have different forms1 are in fact but one thing2 tyranny to wit3 but however that may be1 they are to be met by one answer1 and there is no other3 if art which is now sick is to live and not die1 it must in the future be of the people for the people1 and by the people2 it must understand all and be understood by all3 equality must be the answer to tyranny3 if that be not attained1 art will die4 ,the past art of what has grown to be civilised ,europe from the time of the decline of the ancient classical peoples1 was the outcome of instinct working on an unbroken chain of tradition3 it was fed not by knowledge but by hope1 and though many a strange and wild illusion mingled with that hope1 yet was it human and fruitful ever3 many a man it solaced1 many a slave in body it freed in soul2 boundless pleasure it gave to those who wrought it and those who used it3 long and long it lived1 passing that torch of hope from hand to hand1 while it kept but little record of its best and noblest2 for least of all things could it abide to make for itself kings and tyrants3 every man's hand and soul it used1 the lowest as the highest1 and in its bosom at least were all men free3 it did its work1 not creating an art more perfect than itself1 but rather other things than art1 freedom of thought and speech1 and the longing for light and knowledge and the coming days that should slay it3 and so at last it died in the hour of its highest hope1 almost before the greatest men that came of it had passed away from the world4 ,it is dead now2 no longing will bring it back to us2 no echo of it is left among the peoples whom it once made happy4 ,of the art that is to come who may prophesy8 ,but this at least seems to follow from comparing that past with the confusion in which we are now struggling and the light which glimmers through it2 that that art will no longer be an art of instinct1 of ignorance which is hopeful to learn and strives to see2 since ignorance is now no longer hopeful4 ,in this and in many other ways it may differ from the past art1 but in one thing it must needs be like it2 it will not be an esoteric mystery shared by a little band of superior beings2 it will be no more hierarchical than the art of past time was1 but like it will be a gift of the people to the people1 a thing which everybody can understand1 and every one surround with love2 it will be a part of every life1 and a hindrance to none4 ,for this is the essence of art1 and the thing that is eternal to it1 whatever else may be passing and accidental4 ,here it is1 you see1 wherein the art of to-day is so far astray1 would that ,i could say wherein it has been astray2 it has been sick because of this packing and peeling with tyranny1 and now with what of life it has it must struggle back towards equality4 ,there is the hard business for us6 to get all simple people to care about art1 to get them to insist on making it part of their lives1 whatever becomes of systems of commerce and labour held perfect by some of us4 ,this is henceforward for a long time to come the real business of art3 and--yes ,i will say it since ,i think it--of civilisation too for that matter3 but how shall we set to work about it8 ,how shall we give people without traditions of art eyes with which to see the works we do to move them8 ,how shall we give them leisure from toil1 and truce with anxiety1 so that they may have time to brood over the longing for beauty which men are born with1 as 'tis said1 even in ,london streets8 ,and chiefly1 for this will breed the others swiftly and certainly1 how shall we give them hope and pleasure in their daily work8 ,how shall we give them this soul of art without which men are worse than savages8 ,if they would but drive us to it6 ,but what and where are the forces that shall drive them to drive us8 ,where is the lever and the standpoint8 ,hard questions indeed6 but unless we are prepared to seek an answer for them1 our art is a mere toy1 which may amuse us for a little1 but which will not sustain us at our need3 the cultivated classes1 as they are called1 will feel it slipping away from under them3 till some of them will but mock it as a worthless thing2 and some will stand by and look at it as a curious exercise of the intellect1 useless when done1 though amusing to watch a-doing4 ,how long will art live on those terms8 ,yet such were even now the state of art were it not for that hope which ,i am here to set forth to you1 the hope of an art that shall express the soul of the people4 ,therefore1 ,i say1 that in these days we men of civilisation have to choose if we will cast art aside or not2 if we choose to do so ,i have no more to say1 save that we may find something to take its place for the solace and joy of mankind1 but ,i scarce think we shall3 but if we refuse to cast art aside1 then must we seek an answer for those hard questions aforesaid1 of which this is the first4 ,how shall we set about giving people without traditions of art eyes with which to see works of art8 ,it will doubtless take many years of striving and success1 before we can think of answering that question fully3 and if we strive to do our duty herein1 long before it is answered fully there will be some kind of a popular art abiding among us3 but meantime1 and setting aside the answer which every artist must make to his own share of the question1 there is one duty obvious to us all2 it is that we should set ourselves1 each one of us1 to doing our best to guard the natural beauty of the earth3 we ought to look upon it as a crime1 an injury to our fellows1 only excusable because of ignorance1 to mar the natural beauty1 which is the property of all men2 and scarce less than a crime to look on and do nothing while others are marring it1 if we can no longer plead this ignorance4 ,now this duty1 as it is the most obvious to us1 and the first and readiest way of giving people back their eyes1 so happily it is the easiest to set about2 up to a certain point you will have all people of good will to the public good on your side3 nay1 small as the beginning is1 something has actually been begun in this direction1 and we may well say1 considering how hopeless things looked twenty years ago1 that it is marvellous in our eyes6 ,yet if we ever get out of the troubles that we are now wallowing in1 it will seem perhaps more marvellous still to those that come after us that the dwellers in the richest city in the world were at one time rather proud that the members of a small1 humble1 and rather obscure1 though ,i will say it1 a beneficent society1 should have felt it their duty to shut their eyes to the apparent hopelessness of attacking with their feeble means the stupendous evils they had become alive to1 so that they might be able to make some small beginnings towards awakening the general public to a due sense of those evils4 ,i say1 that though ,i ask your earnest support for such associations as the ,kyrle and the ,commons ,preservation ,societies1 and though ,i feel sure that they have begun at the right end1 since neither gods nor governments will help those who don't help themselves2 though we are bound to wait for nobody's help than our own in dealing with the devouring hideousness and squalor of our great towns1 and especially of ,london1 for which the whole country is responsible2 yet it would be idle not to acknowledge that the difficulties in our way are far too huge and wide-spreading to be grappled by private or semi-private efforts only4 ,all we can do in this way we must look on not as palliatives of an unendurable state of things1 but as tokens of what we desire2 which is in short the giving back to our country of the natural beauty of the earth1 which we are so ashamed of having taken away from it3 and our chief duty herein will be to quicken this shame and the pain that comes from it in the hearts of our fellows3 this ,i say is one of the chief duties of all those who have any right to the title of cultivated men3 and ,i believe that if we are faithful to it1 we may help to further a great impulse towards beauty among us1 which will be so irresistible that it will fashion for itself a national machinery which will sweep away all difficulties between us and a decent life1 though they may have increased a thousand-fold meantime1 as is only too like to be the case4 ,surely that light will arise1 though neither we nor our children's children see it1 though civilisation may have to go down into dark places enough meantime3 surely one day making will be thought more honourable1 more worthy the majesty of a great nation than destruction4 ,it is strange indeed1 it is woeful1 it is scarcely comprehensible1 if we come to think of it as men1 and not as machines1 that1 after all the progress of civilisation1 it should be so easy for a little official talk1 a few lines on a sheet of paper1 to set a terrible engine to work1 which without any trouble on our part will slay us ten thousand men1 and ruin who can say how many thousand of families2 and it lies light enough on the conscience of all of us2 while1 if it is a question of striking a blow at grievous and crushing evils which lie at our own doors1 evils which every thoughtful man feels and laments1 and for which we alone are responsible1 not only is there no national machinery for dealing with them1 though they grow ranker and ranker every year1 but any hint that such a thing may be possible is received with laughter or with terror1 or with severe and heavy blame4 ,the rights of property1 the necessities of morality1 the interests of religion--these are the sacramental words of cowardice that silence us6 ,sirs1 ,i have spoken of thoughtful men who feel these evils3 but think of all the millions of men whom our civilisation has bred1 who are not thoughtful1 and have had no chance of being so2 how can you fail then to acknowledge the duty of defending the fairness of the ,earth8 and what is the use of our cultivation if it is to cultivate us into cowards8 ,let us answer those feeble counsels of despair and say1 ,we also have a property which your tyranny of squalor cheats us of2 we also have a morality which its baseness crushes2 we also have a religion which its injustice makes a mock of4 ,well1 whatever lesser helps there may be to our endeavour of giving people back the eyes we have robbed them of1 we may pass them by at present1 for they are chiefly of use to people who are beginning to get their eyesight again2 to people who1 though they have no traditions of art1 can study those mighty impulses that once led nations and races3 it is to such that museums and art education are of service2 but it is clear they cannot get at the great mass of people1 who will at present stare at them in unintelligent wonder4 ,until our streets are decent and orderly1 and our town gardens break the bricks and mortar every here and there1 and are open to all people2 until our meadows even near our towns become fair and sweet1 and are unspoiled by patches of hideousness3 until we have clear sky above our heads and green grass beneath our feet2 until the great drama of the seasons can touch our workmen with other feelings than the misery of winter and the weariness of summer2 till all this happens our museums and art schools will be but amusements of the rich2 and they will soon cease to be of any use to them also1 unless they make up their minds that they will do their best to give us back the fairness of the ,earth4 ,in what ,i have been saying on this last point ,i have been thinking of our own special duties as cultivated people2 but in our endeavours towards this end1 as in all others1 cultivated people cannot stand alone2 nor can we do much to open people's eyes till they cry out to us to have them opened4 ,now ,i cannot doubt that the longing to attack and overcome the sordidness of the city life of to-day still dwells in the minds of workmen1 as well as in ours1 but it can scarcely be otherwise than vague and lacking guidance with men who have so little leisure1 and are so hemmed in with hideousness as they are4 ,so this brings us to our second question4 ,how shall people in general get leisure enough from toil1 and truce enough with anxiety to give scope to their inborn longing for beauty8 ,now the part of this question that is not involved in the next one1 ,how shall they get proper work to do8 is ,i think in a fair way to be answered4 ,the mighty change which the success of competitive commerce has wrought in the world1 whatever it may have destroyed1 has at least unwittingly made one thing1--from out of it has been born the increasing power of the working-class4 ,the determination which this power has bred in it to raise their class as a class will ,i doubt not make way and prosper with our goodwill1 or even in spite of it2 but it seems to me that both to the working-class and especially to ourselves it is important that it should have our abundant goodwill1 and also what help we may be able otherwise to give it1 by our determination to deal fairly with workmen1 even when that justice may seem to involve our own loss4 ,the time of unreasonable and blind outcry against the ,trades ,unions is1 ,i am happy to think1 gone by2 and has given place to the hope of a time when these great ,associations1 well organised1 well served1 and earnestly supported1 as ,i know them to be1 will find other work before them than the temporary support of their members and the adjustment of due wages for their crafts3 when that hope begins to be realised1 and they find they can make use of the help of us scattered units of the cultivated classes1 ,i feel sure that the claims of art1 as we and they will then understand the word1 will by no means be disregarded by them4 ,meantime with us who are called artists1 since most unhappily that word means at present another thing than artisan3 with us who either practise the arts with our own hands1 or who love them so wholly that we can enter into the inmost feelings of those who do1--with us it lies to deal with our last question1 to stir up others to think of answering this3 ,how shall we give people in general hope and pleasure in their daily work in such a way that in those days to come the word art shall be rightly understood8 ,of all that ,i have to say to you this seems to me the most important1 that our daily and necessary work1 which we could not escape if we would1 which we would not forego if we could1 should be human1 serious1 and pleasurable1 not machine-like1 trivial1 or grievous4 ,i call this not only the very foundation of ,architecture in all senses of the word1 but of happiness also in all conditions of life4 ,let me say before ,i go further1 that though ,i am nowise ashamed of repeating the words of men who have been before me in both senses1 of time and insight1 ,i mean1 ,i should be ashamed of letting you think that ,i forget their labours on which mine are founded4 ,i know that the pith of what ,i am saying on this subject was set forth years ago1 and for the first time by ,mr4 ,ruskin in that chapter of the ,stones of ,venice1 which is entitled1 #8,on the ,nature of ,gothic1' in words more clear and eloquent than any man else now living could use4 ,so important do they seem to me1 that to my mind they should have been posted up in every school of art throughout the country2 nay1 in every association of ,english-speaking people which professes in any way to further the culture of mankind4 ,but ,i am sorry to have to say it1 my excuse for doing little more now than repeating those words is that they have been less heeded than most things which ,mr4 ,ruskin has said3 ,i suppose because people have been afraid of them1 lest they should find the truth they express sticking so fast in their minds that it would either compel them to act on it or confess themselves slothful and cowardly4 ,nor can ,i pretend to wonder at that3 for if people were once to accept it as true1 that it is nothing but just and fair that every man's work should have some hope and pleasure always present in it1 they must try to bring the change about that would make it so3 and all history tells of no greater change in man's life than that would be4 ,nevertheless1 great as the change may be1 ,architecture has no prospects in civilisation unless the change be brought about3 and 'tis my business to-day1 ,i will not say to convince you of this1 but to send some of you away uneasy lest perhaps it may be true2 if ,i can manage that ,i shall have spoken to some purpose4 ,let us see however in what light cultivated people1 men not without serious thoughts about life1 look to this matter1 lest perchance we may seem to be beating the air only3 when ,i have given you an example of this way of thinking1 ,i will answer it to the best of my power in the hopes of making some of you uneasy1 discontented1 and revolutionary4 ,some few months ago ,i read in a paper the report of a speech made to the assembled work-people of a famous firm of manufacturers 7as they are called74 ,the speech was a very humane and thoughtful one1 spoken by one of the leaders of modern thought3 the firm to whose people it was addressed was and is famous not only for successful commerce1 but also for the consideration and goodwill with which it treats its work-people1 men and women4 ,no wonder1 therefore1 that the speech was pleasant reading2 for the tone of it was that of a man speaking to his friends who could well understand him and from whom he need hide nothing2 but towards the end of it ,i came across a sentence1 which set me a-thinking so hard1 that ,i forgot all that had gone before4 ,it was to this effect1 and ,i think nearly in these very words1 #8,since no man would work if it were not that he hoped by working to earn leisure3' and the context showed that this was assumed as a self-evident truth4 ,well1 for many years ,i have had my mind fixed on what ,i in my turn regarded as an axiom which may be worded thus3 ,no work which cannot be done without pleasure in the doing is worth doing2 so you may think ,i was much disturbed at a grave and learned man taking such a completely different view of it with such calmness of certainty4 ,what a little way1 ,i thought1 has all ,ruskin's fire and eloquence made in driving into people so great a truth1 a truth so fertile of consequences6 ,then ,i turned the intrusive sentence over again in my mind3 #8,no man would work unless he hoped by working to earn leisure3' and ,i saw that this was another way of putting it3 first1 all the work of the world is done against the grain3 second1 what a man does in his #8leisure' is not work4 ,a poor bribe the hope of such leisure to supplement the other inducement to toil1 which ,i take to be the fear of death by starvation3 a poor bribe2 for the most of men1 like those ,yorkshire weavers and spinners 7and the more part far worse than they71 work for such a very small share of leisure that1 one must needs say that if all their hope be in that1 they are pretty much beguiled of their hope6 ,so ,i thought1 and this next1 that if it were indeed true and beyond remedy1 that no man would work unless he hoped by working to earn leisure1 the hell of theologians was but little needed2 for a thickly populated civilised country1 where1 you know1 after all people must work at something1 would serve their turn well enough4 ,yet again ,i knew that this theory of the general and necessary hatefulness of work was indeed the common one1 and that all sorts of people held it1 who without being monsters of insensibility grew fat and jolly nevertheless4 ,so to explain this puzzle1 ,i fell to thinking of the one life of which ,i knew something--my own to wit--and out tumbled the bottom of the theory4 ,for ,i tried to think what would happen to me if ,i were forbidden my ordinary daily work2 and ,i knew that ,i should die of despair and weariness1 unless ,i could straightway take to something else which ,i could make my daily work3 and it was clear to me that ,i worked not in the least in the world for the sake of earning leisure by it1 but partly driven by the fear of starvation or disgrace1 and partly1 and even a very great deal1 because ,i love the work itself3 and as for my leisure3 well ,i had to confess that part of it ,i do indeed spend as a dog does--in contemplation1 let us say2 and like it well enough3 but part of it also ,i spend in work3 which work gives me just as much pleasure as my bread-earning work--neither more nor less2 and therefore could be no bribe or hope for my work-a-day hours4 ,then next ,i turned my thought to my friends3 mere artists1 and therefore1 you know1 lazy people by prescriptive right3 ,i found that the one thing they enjoyed was their work1 and that their only idea of happy leisure was other work1 just as valuable to the world as their work-a-day work3 they only differed from me in liking the dog-like leisure less and the man-like labour more than ,i do4 ,i got no further when ,i turned from mere artists1 to important men--public men3 ,i could see no signs of their working merely to earn leisure3 they all worked for the work and the deeds' sake4 ,do rich gentlemen sit up all night in the ,house of ,commons for the sake of earning leisure8 if so1 'tis a sad waste of labour4 ,or ,mr4 ,gladstone8 he doesn't seem to have succeeded in winning much leisure by tolerably strenuous work2 what he does get he might have got on much easier terms1 ,i am sure4 ,does it then come to this1 that there are men1 say a class of men1 whose daily work1 though maybe they cannot escape from doing it1 is chiefly pleasure to them2 and other classes of men whose daily work is wholly irksome to them1 and only endurable because they hope while they are about it to earn thereby a little leisure at the day's end8 ,if that were wholly true the contrast between the two kinds of lives would be greater than the contrast between the utmost delicacy of life and the utmost hardship could show1 or between the utmost calm and utmost trouble4 ,the difference would be literally immeasurable4 ,but ,i dare not1 if ,i would1 in so serious a matter overstate the evils ,i call on you to attack3 it is not wholly true that such immeasurable difference exists between the lives of divers classes of men1 or the world would scarce have got through to past the middle of this century3 misery1 grudging1 and tyranny would have destroyed us all4 ,the inequality even at the worst is not really so great as that3 any employment in which a thing can be done better or worse has some pleasure in it1 for all men more or less like doing what they can do well3 even mechanical labour is pleasant to some people 7to me amongst others7 if it be not too mechanical4 ,nevertheless though it be not wholly true that the daily work of some men is merely pleasant and of others merely grievous2 yet it is over true both that things are not very far short of this1 and also that if people do not open their eyes in time they will speedily worsen4 ,some work1 nay1 almost all the work done by artisans is too mechanical2 and those that work at it must either abstract their thoughts from it altogether1 in which case they are but machines while they are at work2 or else they must suffer such dreadful weariness in getting through it1 as one can scarcely bear to think of4 ,nature desires that we shall at least live1 but seldom1 ,i suppose1 allows this latter misery to happen2 and the workmen who do purely mechanical work do as a rule become mere machines as far as their work is concerned4 ,now as ,i am quite sure that no art1 not even the feeblest1 rudest1 or least intelligent1 can come of such work1 so also ,i am sure that such work makes the workman less than a man and degrades him grievously and unjustly1 and that nothing can compensate him or us for such degradation3 and ,i want you specially to note that this was instinctively felt in the very earliest days of what are called the industrial arts4 ,when a man turned the wheel1 or threw the shuttle1 or hammered the iron1 he was expected to make something more than a water-pot1 a cloth1 or a knife3 he was expected to make a work of art also3 he could scarcely altogether fail in this1 he might attain to making a work of the greatest beauty3 this was felt to be positively necessary to the peace of mind both of the maker and the user2 and this is it which ,i have called ,architecture3 the turning of necessary articles of daily use into works of art4 ,certainly1 when we come to think of it thus1 there does seem to be little less than that immeasurable contrast above mentioned between such work and mechanical work3 and most assuredly do ,i believe that the crafts which fashion our familiar wares need this enlightenment of happiness no less now than they did in the days of the early ,pharaohs3 but we have forgotten this necessity1 and in consequence have reduced handicraft to such degradation1 that a learned1 thoughtful1 and humane man can set forth as an axiom that no man will work except to earn leisure thereby4 ,but now let us forget any conventional ways of looking at the labour which produces the matters of our daily life1 which ways come partly from the wretched state of the arts in modern times1 and partly ,i suppose from that repulsion to handicraft which seems to have beset some minds in all ages3 let us forget this1 and try to think how it really fares with the divers ways of work in handicrafts4 ,i think one may divide the work with which ,architecture is conversant into three classes3 first there is the purely mechanical3 those who do this are machines only1 and the less they think of what they are doing the better for the purpose1 supposing they are properly drilled3 the purpose of this work1 to speak plainly1 is not the making of wares of any kind1 but what on the one hand is called employment1 on the other what is called money-making3 that is to say1 in other words1 the multiplication of the species of the mechanical workman1 and the increase of the riches of the man who sets him to work1 called in our modern jargon by a strange perversion of language1 a manufacturer3 #bjh ,let us call this kind of work ,mechanical ,toil4 ,the second kind is more or less mechanical as the case may be2 but it can always be done better or worse3 if it is to be well done1 it claims attention from the workman1 and he must leave on it signs of his individuality3 there will be more or less of art in it1 over which the workman has at least some control2 and he will work on it partly to earn his bread in not too toilsome or disgusting a way1 but in a way which makes even his work-hours pass pleasantly to him1 and partly to make wares1 which when made will be a distinct gain to the world2 things that will be praised and delighted in4 ,this work ,i would call ,intelligent ,work4 ,the third kind of work has but little if anything mechanical about it2 it is altogether individual2 that is to say1 that what any man does by means of it could never have been done by any other man4 ,properly speaking1 this work is all pleasure3 true1 there are pains and perplexities and weariness in it1 but they are like the troubles of a beautiful life2 the dark places that make the bright ones brighter3 they are the romance of the work and do but elevate the workman1 not depress him3 ,i would call this ,imaginative ,work4 ,now ,i can fancy that at first sight it may seem to you as if there were more difference between this last and ,intelligent ,work1 than between ,intelligent ,work and ,mechanical ,toil3 but 'tis not so4 ,the difference between these two is the difference between light and darkness1 between ,ormuzd and ,ahriman3 whereas the difference between ,intelligent work and what for want of a better word ,i am calling ,imaginative work1 is a matter of degree only2 and in times when art is abundant and noble there is no break in the chain from the humblest of the lower to the greatest of the higher class2 from the poor weaver's who chuckles as the bright colour comes round again1 to the great painter anxious and doubtful if he can give to the world the whole of his thought or only nine-tenths of it1 they are all artists--that is men2 while the mechanical workman1 who does not note the difference between bright and dull in his colours1 but only knows them by numbers1 is1 while he is at his work1 no man1 but a machine4 ,indeed when ,intelligent work coexists with ,imaginative1 there is no hard and fast line between them2 in the very best and happiest times of art1 there is scarce any ,intelligent work which is not ,imaginative also2 and there is but little of effort or doubt1 or sign of unexpressed desires even in the highest of the ,imaginative work3 the blessing of ,equality elevates the lesser1 and calms the greater1 art4 ,now further1 ,mechanical ,toil is bred of that hurry and thoughtfulness of civilisation of which1 as aforesaid1 the middle classes of this country have been such powerful furtherers3 on the face of it it is hostile to civilisation1 a curse that civilisation has made for itself and can no longer think of abolishing or controlling3 such it seems1 ,i say2 but since it bears with it change and tremendous change1 it may well be that there is something more than mere loss in it3 it will full surely destroy art as we know art1 unless art newborn destroy it3 yet belike at the worst it will destroy other things beside which are the poison of art1 and in the long run itself also1 and thus make way for the new art1 of whose form we know nothing4 ,intelligent work is the child of struggling1 hopeful1 progressive civilisation3 and its office is to add fresh interest to simple and uneventful lives1 to soothe discontent with innocent pleasure fertile of deeds gainful to mankind2 to bless the many toiling millions with hope daily recurring1 and which it will by no means disappoint4 ,imaginative work is the very blossom of civilisation triumphant and hopeful2 it would fain lead men to aspire towards perfection3 each hope that it fulfils gives birth to yet another hope3 it bears in its bosom the worth and the meaning of life and the counsel to strive to understand everything2 to fear nothing and to hate nothing3 in a word1 'tis the symbol and sacrament of the ,courage of the ,world4 ,now thus it stands to-day with these three kinds of work2 ,mechanical ,toil has swallowed ,intelligent ,work and all the lower part of ,imaginative ,work1 and the enormous mass of the very worst now confronts the slender but still bright array of the very best3 what is left of art is rallied to its citadel of the highest intellectual art1 and stands at bay there4 ,at first sight its hope of victory is slender indeed3 yet to us now living it seems as if man had not yet lost all that part of his soul which longs for beauty3 nay we cannot but hope that it is not yet dying4 ,if we are not deceived in that hope1 if the art of to-day has really come alive out of the slough of despond which we call the eighteenth century1 it will surely grow and gather strength and draw to it other forms of intellect and hope that now scarcely know it2 and then1 whatever changes it may go through1 it will at the last be victorious1 and bring abundant content to mankind4 ,on the other hand1 if1 as some think1 it be but the reflection and feeble ghost of that glorious autumn which ended the good days of the mighty art of the ,middle ,ages1 it will take but little killing3 ,mechanical ,toil will sweep over all the handiwork of man1 and art will be gone4 ,i myself am too busy a man to trouble myself much as to what may happen after that3 ,i can only say that if you do not like the thought of that dull blank1 even if you know or care little for art1 do not cast the thought of it aside1 but think of it again and again1 and cherish the trouble it breeds till such a future seems unendurable to you2 and then make up your minds that you will not bear it2 and even if you distrust the artists that now are1 set yourself to clear the way for the artists that are to come4 ,we shall not count you among our enemies then1 however hardly you deal with us4 ,i have spoken of one most important part of that task2 ,i have prayed you to set yourselves earnestly to protecting what is left1 and recovering what is lost of the ,natural ,fairness of the ,earth3 no less ,i pray you to do what you may to raise up some firm ground amid the great flood of mechanical toil1 to make an effort to win human and hopeful work for yourselves and your fellows4 ,but if our first task of guarding the beauty of the ,earth was hard1 this is far harder1 nor can ,i pretend to think that we can attack our enemy directly2 yet indirectly surely something may be done1 or at least the foundations laid for something4 ,for ,art breeds ,art1 and every worthy work done and delighted in by maker and user begets a longing for more3 and since art cannot be fashioned by mechanical toil1 the demand for real art will mean a demand for intelligent work1 which if persisted in will in time create its due supply--at least ,i hope so4 ,i believe that what ,i am now saying will be well understood by those who really care about art1 but to speak plainly ,i know that these are rarely to be found even among the cultivated classes3 it must be confessed that the middle classes of our civilisation have embraced luxury instead of art1 and that we are even so blindly base as to hug ourselves on it1 and to insult the memory of valiant people of past times and to mock at them because they were not encumbered with the nuisances that foolish habit has made us look on as necessaries4 ,be sure that we are not beginning to prepare for the art that is to be1 till we have swept all that out of our minds1 and are setting to work to rid ourselves of all the useless luxuries 7by some called comforts7 that make our stuffy art-stifling houses more truly savage than a ,zulu's kraal or an ,east ,greenlander's snow hut4 ,i feel sure that many a man is longing to set his hand to this if he only durst2 ,i believe that there are simple people who think that they are dull to art1 and who are really only perplexed and wearied by finery and rubbish3 if not from these1 'tis at least from the children of these that we may look for the beginnings of the building up of the art that is to be4 ,meanwhile1 ,i say1 till the beginning of new construction is obvious1 let us be at least destructive of the sham art3 it is full surely one of the curses of modern life1 that if people have not time and eyes to discern or money to buy the real object of their desire1 they must needs have its mechanical substitute4 ,on this lazy and cowardly habit feeds and grows and flourishes mechanical toil and all the slavery of mind and body it brings with it3 from this stupidity are born the itch of the public to over-reach the tradesmen they deal with1 the determination 7usually successful7 of the tradesmen to over-reach them1 and all the mockery and flouting that has been cast of late 7not without reason7 on the ,british tradesman and the ,british workman1--men just as honest as ourselves1 if we would not compel them to cheat us1 and reward them for doing it4 ,now if the public knew anything of art1 that is excellence in things made by man1 they would not abide the shams of it2 and if the real thing were not to be had1 they would learn to do without1 nor think their gentility injured by the forbearance4 ,simplicity of life1 even the barest1 is not a misery1 but the very foundation of refinement3 a sanded floor and whitewashed walls1 and the green trees1 and flowery meads1 and living waters outside2 or a grimy palace amid the smoke with a regiment of housemaids always working to smear the dirt together so that it may be unnoticed2 which1 think you1 is the most refined1 the most fit for a gentleman of those two dwellings8 ,so ,i say1 if you cannot learn to love real art1 at least learn to hate sham art and reject it4 ,it is not so much because the wretched thing is so ugly and silly and useless that ,i ask you to cast it from you2 it is much more because these are but the outward symbols of the poison that lies within them3 look through them and see all that has gone to their fashioning1 and you will see how vain labour1 and sorrow1 and disgrace have been their companions from the first1--and all this for trifles that no man really needs6 ,learn to do without2 there is virtue in those words2 a force that rightly used would choke both demand and supply of ,mechanical ,toil3 would make it stick to its last3 the making of machines4 ,and then from simplicity of life would rise up the longing for beauty1 which cannot yet be dead in men's souls1 and we know that nothing can satisfy that demand but ,intelligent work rising gradually into ,imaginative work2 which will turn all #8operatives' into workmen1 into artists1 into men4 ,now1 ,i have been trying to show you how the hurry of modern ,civilisation1 accompanied by the tyrannous ,organisation of labour which was a necessity to the full development of ,competitive ,commerce1 has taken from the people at large1 gentle and simple1 the eyes to discern and the hands to fashion that popular art which was once the chief solace and joy of the world3 ,i have asked you to think of that as no light matter1 but a grievous mishap3 ,i have prayed you to strive to remedy this evil3 first by guarding jealously what is left1 and by trying earnestly to win back what is lost of the ,fairness of the ,earth2 and next by rejecting luxury1 that you may embrace art1 if you can1 or if indeed you in your short lives cannot learn what art means1 that you may at least live a simple life fit for men4 ,and in all ,i have been saying1 what ,i have been really urging on you is this--,reverence for the life of ,man upon the ,earth3 let the past be past1 every whit of it that is not still living in us3 let the dead bury their dead1 but let us turn to the living1 and with boundless courage and what hope we may1 refuse to let the ,earth be joyless in the days to come4 ,what lies before us of hope or fear for this8 ,well1 let us remember that those past days whose art was so worthy1 did nevertheless forget much of what was due to the ,life of ,man upon the ,earth2 and so belike it was to revenge this neglect that art was delivered to our hands for maiming3 to us1 who were blinded by our eager chase of those things which our forefathers had neglected1 and by the chase of other things which seemed revealed to us on our hurried way1 not seldom1 it may be for our beguiling4 ,and of that to which we were blinded1 not all was unworthy3 nay the most of it was deep-rooted in men's souls1 and was a necessary part of their ,life upon the ,earth1 and claims our reverence still3 let us add this knowledge to our other knowledge3 and there will still be a future for the arts4 ,let us remember this1 and amid simplicity of life turn our eyes to real beauty that can be shared by all3 and then though the days worsen1 and no rag of the elder art be left for our teaching1 yet the new art may yet arise among us1 and even if it have the hands of a child together with the heart of a troubled man1 still it may bear on for us to better times the tokens of our reverence for the ,life of ,man upon the ,earth4 ,for we indeed freed from the bondage of foolish habit and dulling luxury might at last have eyes wherewith to see3 and should have to babble to one another many things of our joy in the life around us3 the faces of people in the streets bearing the tokens of mirth and sorrow and hope1 and all the tale of their lives3 the scraps of nature the busiest of us would come across2 birds and beasts and the little worlds they live in2 and even in the very town the sky above us and the drift of the clouds across it2 the wind's hand on the slim trees1 and its voice amid their branches1 and all the ever-recurring deeds of nature2 nor would the road or the river winding past our homes fail to tell us stories of the country-side1 and men's doings in field and fell4 ,and whiles we should fall to muse on the times when all the ways of nature were mere wonders to men1 yet so well beloved of them that they called them by men's names and gave them deeds of men to do2 and many a time there would come before us memories of the deed of past times1 and of the aspirations of those mighty peoples whose deaths have made our lives1 and their sorrows our joys4 ,how could we keep silence of all this8 and what voice could tell it but the voice of art3 and what audience for such a tale would content us but all men living on the ,earth8 ,this is what ,architecture hopes to be3 it will have this life1 or else death2 and it is for us now living between the past and the future to say whether it shall live or die4 ,,footnotes #a ,delivered before the ,trades' ,guild of ,learning1 ,december #d1 #ahgg4 #ch ,delivered before the ,birmingham ,society of ,arts and ,school of ,design1 ,february #ai1 #ahgi4 #ej ,now incorporated in the ,handbook of ,indian ,art1 by ,dr4 7now ,sir ,george7 ,birdwood1 published by the ,science and ,art ,department4 #fa ,these were originally published in ,fun4 #ga ,delivered before the ,birmingham ,society of ,arts and ,school of ,design1 ,february #ai1 #ahhj4 #if ,as ,i corrected these sheets for the press1 the case of two such pieces of destruction is forced upon me3 first1 the remains of the ,refectory of ,westminster ,abbey1 with the adjacent ,ashburnham ,house1 a beautiful work1 probably by ,inigo ,jones2 and second1 ,magdalen ,bridge at ,oxford4 ,certainly this seems to mock my hope of the influence of education on the ,beauty of ,life2 since the first scheme of destruction is eagerly pressed forward by the authorities of ,westminster ,school1 the second scarcely opposed by the resident members of the ,university of ,oxford4 #ajj ,since perhaps some people may read these words who are not of ,birmingham1 ,i ought to say that it was authoritatively explained at the meeting to which ,i addressed these words1 that in ,birmingham the law is strictly enforced4 #ajc ,not quite always3 in the little colony at ,bedford ,park1 ,chiswick1 as many trees have been left as possible1 to the boundless advantage of its quaint and pretty architecture4 #aad ,a ,paper read before tile ,trades' ,guild of ,learning and the ,birmingham ,society of ,artists4 #abh ,i know that well-designed hammered iron trellises and gates have been used happily enough1 though chiefly in rather grandiose gardens1 and so they might be again--one of these days--but ,i fear not yet awhile4 #afi ,delivered at the ,london ,institution1 ,march #aj1 #ahhj4 #ahf ,indeed it is a new world now1 when the new ,cowley dog-holes must needs slay ,magdalen ,bridge6--,nov4 #ahha4 #bjh ,or1 to put it plainer still1 the unlimited breeding of mechanical workmen as mechanical workmen1 not as men4