The crop is growing up all about us,
and we hardly yet know what it is. I am going to speak of one out
of the many results of this upon one particular section of the
community, because I have become personally aware of it in certain
very definite ways. It is easy to generalise about tendencies, but
I am here speaking from actual evidence of an unmistakable kind.
The section of the community of which I speak is that which can be
roughly described as the middle class--homes, that is, which are
removed from the urgent, daily pressure of wage-earning; homes
where there is a certain security of outlook, of varying wealth,
with professional occupation in the background; homes in which
there is some leisure; and some possibility of stimulating, by
reading, by talk, by societies, an interest in ideas. It is not a
tough, intellectual interest, but it ends in a very definite desire
to idealise life a little, to harmonise it, to give colour to it,
to speculate about it, to lift it out of the region of immediate,
practical needs, to try experiments, to live on definite lines,
with a definite aim in sight--that aim being to enlarge, to adorn,
to enrich life.
I am perfectly sure that this instinct is greatly on the increase;
but the significant thing about it is this, that whereas formerly
religion supplied to a great extent the poetry and inspiration of
life for such households, there is now a desire for something as
well of a more definitely artistic kind; to put it simply, I
believe that more people are in search of beauty, in the largest
sense.
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