§ 21

There is also a picture gallery conducted under an analogous scheme. Italy has owed (in the past) everything great in its Art to Decentralisation. The variety, hence the interest, of the great schools of painting in Italy is due to the independent expression of emotion as the property of the race. In Italy, the art of Venice, of Rome, Florence, and Siena, to mention only many of the great schools of painting that flourished there, identified itself with the idiosyncracy of each community. Why should not the same apply to England? The man of Devonshire is as different in mental construction to the man of Yorkshire as the Florentine is from the Roman. Why then should not each express himself in the vernacular of his locality? Time will show that there is far more artistic talent in England than has been supposed. Give it a chance of having its say, and an admirable result is certain. Let us become something higher in the intellectual scale than a race of shopkeepers!

Town Councils, being here composed of a much more cultivated class than before, Commerce and Art are no longer antagonistic. On the contrary, they appear to be becoming indispensable to each other. The tradesmen no longer having matters all their own way, and being checked by the stronger minds encircling them, are taking their place, not as tyrannical class rulers, but as useful items in communal interests and progress. In my dream, I noticed that the walls of the public rooms in the Town Hall are not bare, or that the only so-called decoration on them has been restricted to whole-length portraits of weird Mayors, with an occasional bad picture of the reigning monarch. There is in progress a scheme of History pictures. The subjects for them are chosen by a committee of painters and literary men. So far as this scheme has developed, I saw the products of it; varied in merit they are, which goes without saying, but a certain sincerity of aim and approach seemed to distinguish them from the tiresome and commonplace; anyway, they express a good intention. There certainly is an absence of “academic prescription”; they are hopeful efforts. A variety is maintained, the reverse of monotonous, showing individuality of approach, which may in time lead to greater things.

A really intellectual life seems to be growing here, but not of hot-house breed only accessible to a few, but one which is slowly permeating the people, which I hold to be due to the commingling of all the classes produced by an increased desire to do more than fill pockets (too often by ill-gotten gold), but by a growing elevation of the plane of thought brought about by unity of purpose and rejection of class prejudice. Given that home life is ambitious of industry, municipal life is certain to follow suit. A great change must come from the bottom. It is no use to clear the surface of a pond of slime unless the base of it is clean and fresh. It is no use to cut the heads from weeds if the roots are left in the ground, or to achieve good fruit from a tree whose roots are unpruned. And surely the root of a great nation is represented by the industrious attitude taken by the people at large. That is the essential to a Democracy that is workable. A Democracy which is only one in name is an anomaly, and is quite certain to be ephemeral.