life. Well, the secret of life is in art.




HOUSE DECORATION




IN my last lecture I gave you something of the history of Art in
England. I sought to trace the influence of the French Revolution
upon its development. I said something of the song of Keats and
the school of the pre-Raphaelites. But I do not want to shelter
the movement, which I have called the English Renaissance, under
any palladium however noble, or any name however revered. The
roots of it have, indeed, to be sought for in things that have long
passed away, and not, as some suppose, in the fancy of a few young
men - although I am not altogether sure that there is anything much
better than the fancy of a few young men.

When I appeared before you on a previous occasion, I had seen
nothing of American art save the Doric columns and Corinthian
chimney-pots visible on your Broadway and Fifth Avenue. Since
then, I have been through your country to some fifty or sixty
different cities, I think. I find that what your people need is
not so much high imaginative art but that which hallows the vessels
of everyday use. I suppose that the poet will sing and the artist
will paint regardless whether the world praises or blames. He has
his own world and is independent of his fellow-men. But the