Art has only flourished in countries which produced in abundance either wine or corn; in countries, that is to say, where the greatest industries were those with which we most readily associate that note of joy which has become proverbial, the joy of the harvest. It is perhaps too much to dream that we shall ever again see England living upon its own corn; and the greatest forms of Art may, therefore, remain for ever beyond our reach. But until a nation does honour to the human hand as the most perfect and beautiful of all instruments under the sun, by giving it only honourable and useful tasks—until then I must rather wish you to be good valuers, keen—indignantly keen—to destroy the false values which you see about you, than that you should be either good draughtsmen or good artists.
You can do honest and good work as designers and illustrators and architects, as workers in wood and metal and stone; but you are hampered and bound by the conditions of your day, and you cannot by your best efforts make Art national till you have established joy in labour. No great school of Art can ever arise in our midst in such a form as to carry with it through all the world its national character, until the nation itself has found that voice (which to-day seems so conspicuously absent, even when we close our shops to make holiday); I mean the voice of joy.
