DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.41193#0038
Lecture II* ing. If I am a crazy dreamer, as may well be, yet
Art and the there are many members and supporters of such
Beauty of societies as the Kyrle and the Commons Pre'
the Earth* servation Societies, who have not time to dream,
and whose craziness, if that befel them, would
be speedily felt throughout the country*
I pray your pardon for having tried your patience
so long* Avery few words more, and I have done*
Those words are words of hope* Indeed, if I have
said anything that seemed to you hopeless, it has
been, I think, owing to that bitterness which will
sometimes overtake an impatient man when he
feels how little his own hands can do towards help'
ingthe causethathehas atheart* I knowthatcause
will conquer in the end, for it is an article of faith
with me, that the world cannot drop back into
savagery, & that art must be its fellow on the for'
ward march* I know well it is not for me to pre'
scribe the road which that progress must take* I
know that many things that seem to me tO'day
clinginghindrances,nay,poisonstothatprogress,
may be furtherers of it, medicines to it, though
they be fated to bring terrible things to pass before
the visible good comes of them. But that very faith
impels me to speak accordingto my knowledge,
feeble as it may be and rash as the words may
sound; for every man who has a cause at heart is
bound to act as if it depended on him alone, ho W'
ever well he may know his own unworthiness; &
thus is action brought to birth from mere opinion*
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Art and the there are many members and supporters of such
Beauty of societies as the Kyrle and the Commons Pre'
the Earth* servation Societies, who have not time to dream,
and whose craziness, if that befel them, would
be speedily felt throughout the country*
I pray your pardon for having tried your patience
so long* Avery few words more, and I have done*
Those words are words of hope* Indeed, if I have
said anything that seemed to you hopeless, it has
been, I think, owing to that bitterness which will
sometimes overtake an impatient man when he
feels how little his own hands can do towards help'
ingthe causethathehas atheart* I knowthatcause
will conquer in the end, for it is an article of faith
with me, that the world cannot drop back into
savagery, & that art must be its fellow on the for'
ward march* I know well it is not for me to pre'
scribe the road which that progress must take* I
know that many things that seem to me tO'day
clinginghindrances,nay,poisonstothatprogress,
may be furtherers of it, medicines to it, though
they be fated to bring terrible things to pass before
the visible good comes of them. But that very faith
impels me to speak accordingto my knowledge,
feeble as it may be and rash as the words may
sound; for every man who has a cause at heart is
bound to act as if it depended on him alone, ho W'
ever well he may know his own unworthiness; &
thus is action brought to birth from mere opinion*
30