with upon the matter. I won't argue with your vulgar materialised
socialist, who would break up the frieze of the Parthenon for road
metal, or pull down Giotto's frescoes because they represent scenes
in the fabulous lives of saints and martyrs. You know what a work
of art is when you see it; and therefore you're worth arguing
with, which your vulgar Continental socialist really isn't. The
one cogent argument for him is the whiff of grape-shot.'

'I recognise,' said Ernest, 'that the works of art, of poetry, or
of music, which we possess are a grand inheritance from the past;
and I would do all I could to preserve them intact for those that
come after us.'

'I'm sure you would. No restoration or tinkering in you, I'm
certain. Well, then, would you give anything for a world which
hadn't got this aesthetic side to its corporate existence? Would
you give anything for a world which didn't care at all for painting,
sculpture, music, poetry? I wouldn't. I don't want such a world.
I won't countenance such a world. I'll do nothing to further or
advance such a world. It's utterly repugnant to me, and I banish
it, as Themistocles banished the Athenians.'

'But consider,' said Ernest, 'we live in a world where men and women
are actually starving. How can we reconcile to our consciences the
spending of one penny on one useless thing when others are dying
of sheer want, and cold, and nakedness? That's the great question
that's always oppressing my poor dissatisfied conscience.'

'So it does everybody's--except Herbert's: he explains it all on
biological grounds as the beautiful discriminative action of natural