§ 42

If Rome thus suffered, why should it be impossible or even unlikely that a modern nation following the same road would not pay the penalty! The desire to get rich at all costs did not only endanger internal commerce and growth, but, affecting the whole soul of the nation, blinded to all other matters. Literary standards were lowered, Research was starved for want of funds; discoveries of the power and mightiness of the Past were known only to a comparatively few, rather held in contempt as Faddists, or, at the best, harmless lunatics who grasped at a shadow and lived in a Phantom world of their own making. Hence, compared with the great nations of antiquity, Britain was providing little or nothing by which future generations could gauge her creative intelligence or weigh it against her ephemeral conquests. There is no surer sign of the decadence of a nation than the cessation of Artistic activity. Politicians are but “will o’ the wisps” in comparison with creative Artists. They are but makeshifts, come to-day, gone to-morrow. What care we for the Politics of Bacon, or whether Shakespeare was a Liberal or Conservative? We know Milton was a Puritan; that does not matter, because he was a Poet.