Art and Life

We are close to realizing the greatest joys to be found in this workaday world when we accept art as a vital part and not a thing separate and distinct from our daily lives. Then we come to know the true values of things—to "find tongues in trees, books in running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything."

"Art, if we so accept it," says William Morris, "will be with us wherever we go—in the ancient city full of traditions of past time, in the newly cleared farm in America or the colonies, where no man has dwelt for traditions to gather round him; in the quiet countryside as in the busy town—no place shall be without it.

You will have it with you in your sorrow as in your joy, in your working hours as in your leisure. It will be no respecter of persons, but be shared by gentle and simple, learned and unlearned, and be as a language that all can understand. It will not hinder any work that is necessary to the life of man at the best, but it will destroy all degrading toil, all enervating luxury, all foppish frivolity.

It will be the deadly foe of ignorance, dishonesty, and tyranny, and will foster good-will, fair dealing, and confidence between man and man. It will teach you to respect the highest intellect with a manly reverence, but not to despise any man who does not pretend to be what he is not."