the young men to go out to such work as road-making for the sake of
a noble ideal of life, I could from them create an artistic
movement that might change, as it has changed, the face of England.
So I sought them out - leader they would call me - but there was no
leader: we were all searchers only and we were bound to each other
by noble friendship and by noble art. There was none of us idle:
poets most of us, so ambitious were we: painters some of us, or
workers in metal or modellers, determined that we would try and
create for ourselves beautiful work: for the handicraftsman
beautiful work, for those who love us poems and pictures, for those
who love us not epigrams and paradoxes and scorn.

Well, we have done something in England and we will do something
more. Now, I do not want you, believe me, to ask your brilliant
young men, your beautiful young girls, to go out and make a road on
a swamp for any village in America, but I think you might each of
you have some art to practise.


We must have, as Emerson said, a mechanical craft for our culture,
a basis for our higher accomplishments in the work of our hands -
the uselessness of most people's hands seems to me one of the most
unpractical things. 'No separation from labour can be without some
loss of power or truth to the seer,' says Emerson again. The
heroism which would make on us the impression of Epaminondas must
be that of a domestic conqueror. The hero of the future is he who
shall bravely and gracefully subdue this Gorgon of fashion and of
convention.

When you have chosen your own part, abide by it, and do not weakly