|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 13
Simplicity of life, begetting simplicity of taste, that is, a love
for sweet and lofty things, is of all matters most necessary for the
birth of the new and better art we crave for; simplicity everywhere,
in the palace as well as in the cottage.
Still more is this necessary, cleanliness and decency everywhere, in
the cottage as well as in the palace: the lack of that is a serious
piece of MANNERS for us to correct: that lack and all the
inequalities of life, and the heaped-up thoughtlessness and disorder
of so many centuries that cause it: and as yet it is only a very
few men who have begun to think about a remedy for it in its widest
range: even in its narrower aspect, in the defacements of our big
towns by all that commerce brings with it, who heeds it? who tries
to control their squalor and hideousness? there is nothing but
thoughtlessness and recklessness in the matter: the helplessness of
people who don't live long enough to do a thing themselves, and have
not manliness and foresight enough to begin the work, and pass it on
to those that shall come after them.
Is money to be gathered? cut down the pleasant trees among the
houses, pull down ancient and venerable buildings for the money that
a few square yards of London dirt will fetch; blacken rivers, hide
the sun and poison the air with smoke and worse, and it's nobody's
business to see to it or mend it: that is all that modern commerce,
the counting-house forgetful of the workshop, will do for us herein.
And Science--we have loved her well, and followed her diligently,
what will she do? I fear she is so much in the pay of the counting-
house, the counting-house and the drill-sergeant, that she is too
busy, and will for the present do nothing. Yet there are matters
which I should have thought easy for her; say for example teaching
Manchester how to consume its own smoke, or Leeds how to get rid of
its superfluous black dye without turning it into the river, which
would be as much worth her attention as the production of the
heaviest of heavy black silks, or the biggest of useless guns.
Anyhow, however it be done, unless people care about carrying on
their business without making the world hideous, how can they care
about Art? I know it will cost much both of time and money to
better these things even a little; but I do not see how these can be
better spent than in making life cheerful and honourable for others
and for ourselves; 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 priceless, even if nothing
specially good befell the arts in consequence: I do not know that
it would; but I should begin to think matters hopeful if men turned
their attention to such things, and I repeat that, unless they do
so, we can scarcely even begin with any hope our endeavours for the
bettering of the arts.
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' houses, until the contrast is less disgraceful between
the fields where beasts live and the streets where men live, I
suppose that the practice of the arts must be mainly kept in the
hands of a few highly cultivated men, who can go often to beautiful
places, whose education enables them, in the contemplation of the
past glories of the world, to shut out from their view the everyday
squalors that the most of men move in. Sirs, I believe that art has
such sympathy with cheerful freedom, open-heartedness and reality,
so much she sickens under selfishness and luxury, that she will not
live thus isolated and exclusive. I will go further than this and
say that on such terms I do not wish her to live. I protest that it
would be a shame to an honest artist to enjoy what he had huddled up
to himself of such art, as it would be for a rich man to sit and eat
dainty food amongst starving soldiers in a beleaguered fort.
I do not want art for a few, any more than education for a few, or
freedom for a few.
No, rather than art should live this poor thin life among a few
exceptional men, despising those beneath them for an ignorance for
which they themselves are responsible, for a brutality that they
will not struggle with,--rather than this, I would that the world
should indeed sweep away all art for awhile, as I said before I
thought it possible she might do; rather than the wheat should rot
in the miser's granary, I would that the earth had it, that it might
yet have a chance to quicken in the dark.
I have a sort of faith, though, that this clearing way of all art
will not happen, that men will get wiser, as well as more learned;
that many of the intricacies of life, on which we now pride
ourselves more than enough, partly because they are new, partly
because they have come with the gain of better things, will be cast
aside as having played their part, and being useful no longer. I
hope that we shall have leisure from war,--war commercial, as well
as war of the bullet and the bayonet; leisure from the knowledge
that darkens counsel; leisure above all from the greed of money, and
the craving for that overwhelming distinction that money now brings:
I believe that as we have even now partly achieved LIBERTY, so we
shall one day achieve EQUALITY, which, and which only, means
FRATERNITY, and so have leisure from poverty and all its griping,
sordid cares.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|