Dark Ages were to him a time of special light and illumination. Life
then was simple. Men worked for the love of it, and if they wanted
things they made them. "Every trade exclusively followed means a
deformity," says Ruskin. Division of labor had not yet come, and men
were skilled in many ways. There was neither poverty nor riches, and
the idea of brotherhood was firmly fixed in the minds of men. The
feverish desire for place, pelf and power was not upon them. The
rise of the barons and an entailed aristocracy were yet to come.

Governments grant men immunity from danger on payment of a tax. Thus
men cease protecting themselves, and so in the course of time lose
the ability to protect themselves, because the faculty of courage
has atrophied through disuse. Brooding apprehension and crouching
fear are the properties of civilized men--men who are protected by
the State. The joy of reveling in life is not possible in cities.
Bolts and bars, locks and keys, soldiers and police, and a hundred
other symbols of distrust, suspicion and hate, are on every hand,
reminding us that man is the enemy of man, and must be protected
from his brothers. Protection and slavery are near of kin.

Before Raphael, art was not a profession--the man did things to the
glory of God. When he painted a picture of the Holy Family, his wife
served as his model, and he grouped his children in their proper
order, and made the picture to hang on a certain spot on the walls
of his village church. No payment was expected nor fee demanded--it
was a love-offering. It was not until ecclesiastics grew ambitious
and asked for more pictures that bargains were struck. Did ever a
painter of that far-off day marry a maid, and in time were they
blessed with a babe, then straightway the painter worked his joy up
into art by painting the Mother and Child, and presenting the