Yet, as I say, such men exist, and I have troubled you with speaking
of them, because I know that those honest and intelligent people,
who are eager for human progress, and yet lack part of the human
senses, and are anti-artistic, suppose that such men are artists,
and that this is what art means, and what it does for people, and
that such a narrow, cowardly life is what we, fellow-handicraftsmen,
aim at. I see this taken for granted continually, even by many who,
to say truth, ought to know better, and I long to put the slur from
off us; to make people understand that we, least of all men, wish to
widen the gulf between the classes, nay, worse still, to make new
classes of elevation, and new classes of degradation--new lords and
new slaves; that we, least of all men, want to cultivate the 'plant
called man' in different ways--here stingily, there wastefully: I
wish people to understand that the art we are striving for is a good
thing which all can share, which will elevate all; in good sooth, if
all people do not soon share it there will soon be none to share; if
all are not elevated by it, mankind will lose the elevation it has
gained. Nor is such an art as we long for a vain dream; such an art
once was in times that were worse than these, when there was less
courage, kindness, and truth in the world than there is now; such an
art there will be hereafter, when there will be more courage,
kindness, and truth than there is now in the world.

Let us look backward in history once more for a short while, and
then steadily forward till my words are done: I began by saying
that part of the common and necessary advice given to Art students
was to study antiquity; and no doubt many of you, like me, have done
so; have wandered, for instance, through the galleries of the
admirable museum of South Kensington, and, like me, have been filled
with wonder and gratitude at the beauty which has been born from the