|
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 22
But, if I must say, furthermore, any words that seem like words of
practical advice, I think my task is hard, and I fear I shall offend
some of you whatever I say; for this is indeed an affair of
morality, rather than of what people call art.
However, I cannot forget that, in my mind, it is not possible to
dissociate art from morality, politics, and religion. Truth in
these great matters of principle is of one, and it is only in formal
treatises that it can be split up diversely. I must also ask you to
remember how I have already said, that though my mouth alone speaks,
it speaks, however feebly and disjointedly, the thoughts of many men
better than myself. And further, though when things are tending to
the best, we shall still, as aforesaid, need our best men to lead us
quite right; yet even now surely, when it is far from that, the
least of us can do some yeoman's service to the cause, and live and
die not without honour.
So I will say that I believe there are two virtues much needed in
modern life, if it is ever to become sweet; 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 PEOPLE, AS A HAPPINESS TO
THE MAKER AND THE USER. These virtues are honesty, and simplicity
of life. To make my meaning clearer I will name the opposing vice
of the second of these--luxury to wit. Also I mean by honesty, the
careful and eager giving his due to every man, the determination not
to gain by any man's loss, which in my experience is not a common
virtue.
But note how the practice of either of these virtues will make the
other easier to us. For if our wants are few, we shall have but
little chance of being driven by our wants into injustice; and if we
are fixed in the principle of giving every man his due, how can our
self-respect bear that we should give too much to ourselves?
And in art, and in that preparation for it without which no art that
is stable or worthy can be, the raising, namely, of those classes
which have heretofore been degraded, the practice of these virtues
would make a new world of it. For if you are rich, your simplicity
of life will both go towards smoothing over the dreadful contrast
between waste and want, which is the great horror of civilised
countries, and will also give an example and standard of dignified
life to those classes which you desire to raise, who, as it is
indeed, being like enough to rich people, are given both to envy and
to imitate the idleness and waste that the possession of much money
produces.
Nay, and apart from the morality of the matter, which I am forced to
speak to you of; let me tell you that though simplicity in art may
be costly as well as uncostly, at least it is not wasteful, and
nothing is more destructive to art than the want of it. 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 held. Indeed, our sacrifice on the side of luxury will, it
seems to me, be little or nothing: for, as far as I can make out,
what people usually mean by it, is either a gathering of possessions
which are sheer vexations to the owner, or a chain of pompous
circumstance, which checks and annoys the rich man at every step.
Yes, luxury cannot exist without slavery of some kind or other, and
its abolition will be blessed, like the abolition of other
slaveries, by the freeing both of the slaves and of their masters.
Lastly, if, besides attaining to simplicity of life, we attain also
to the love of justice, then will all things be ready for the new
springtime of the arts. For those of us that are employers of
labour, how can we bear to give any man less money than he can
decently live on, less leisure than his education and self-respect
demand? or those of us who are workmen, how can we bear to fail in
the contract we have undertaken, or to make it necessary for a
foreman to go up and down spying out our mean tricks and evasions?
or we the shopkeepers--can we endure to lie about our wares, that we
may shuffle off our losses on to some one else's shoulders? or we
the public--how can we bear to pay a price for a piece of goods
which will help to trouble one man, to ruin another, and starve a
third? Or, still more, I think, how can we bear to use, how can we
enjoy something which has been a pain and a grief for the maker to
make?
And now, I think, I have said what I came to say. I confess that
there is nothing new in it, 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 it. Let my words to-night,
therefore, pass for one of the necessary times that the thought in
them must be spoken out.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|