§ 43

Where are the law givers of the Elizabethan period? Dead letters. That period is known and loved for the Poets it made, as well as for discoveries by travellers and men of science. It was a time of great craftsmanship also. It was a period of refined taste, when people were not aware of the Treasures they were making for the future to enjoy. The ambition to do that was quite outside the calculation of the recent Philistines. “It is good enough for me.” “It will last my time.” “It serves my purpose.” “I am a plain man!” Well, we all know that you are a plain man, and a selfish, stagnant man as well, and a person that leads to nothing, a brick wall at the end of the narrow footway on which you press your unprogressive feet; your only use is that you provide a subject for satire which Carlyle and Ruskin knew so well how to employ.