It is again, as a general rule, true that
the lower classes are ignorant of science, yet there are everywhere
scattered among the working men single cases of earnest devotion to
science. And it is painfully true that they do not seem to feel the
ugliness of their own streets and houses; yet no one who has been
among the holiday folks in the country on a Bank Holiday or a fine
Sunday in the summer can deny their profound appreciation of field and
forest, flowers and green leaves, sunshine and shade. It is, lastly,
perfectly true that their lives, compared with those of the more
cultivated classes, do seem horribly dull, monotonous, and poor. Yet
the dulness is more apparent than real: ugly houses and mean streets
do not necessarily imply mean and ugly lives. Their days may be
enlivened in a thousand ways which to the outsider are invisible.
Among these are some which directly or indirectly make for the
appreciation of Art.
It seems safe, however, to advance one proposition. There is a class
in and below which it is impossible that there can exist a feeling for
Art of ally kind, or, indeed, for religion, for virtue, for knowledge
of any kind, or for anything beyond the necessity of providing for the
next day's food and shelter.
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