What is going on in India is also going on, more or less, all over
the East; but I have spoken of India chiefly because I cannot help
thinking that we ourselves are responsible for what is happening
there. Chance-hap has made us the lords of many millions out there;
surely, it behoves us to look to it, lest we give to the people whom
we have made helpless scorpions for fish and stones for bread.

But since neither on this side, nor on any other, can art be
amended, until the countries that lead civilisation are themselves
in a healthy state about it, let us return to the consideration of
its condition among ourselves. And again I say, that obvious as is
that surface improvement of the arts within the last few years, I
fear too much that there is something wrong about the root of the
plant to exult over the bursting of its February buds.

I have just shown you for one thing that lovers of Indian and
Eastern Art, including as they do the heads of our institutions for
art education, and I am sure many among what are called the
governing classes, are utterly powerless to stay its downward
course. The general tendency of civilisation is against them, and
is too strong for them.

Again, though many of us love architecture dearly, and believe that
it helps the healthiness both of body and soul to live among
beautiful things, we of the big towns are mostly compelled to live
in houses which have become a byword of contempt for their ugliness
and inconvenience. The stream of civilisation is against us, and we
cannot battle against it.

Once more those devoted men who have upheld the standard of truth