Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/147

 of art or architecture, such as no other land can show"

"Despair! God forbid that I should despair. I think there is infinite hope, but I cannot disguise from myself that there are infinite dangers also. An uneducated peasantry has had its religion torn away from it, and has no other moral landmark set to cling to; old ways and old venerations are kicked aside and nothing substituted; public business means almost universally public pillage; the new text placed before the regenerated nation is, 'make money, honestly if you can—but make money!' haste, avarice, accumulation, cunning, neglect of all loveliness, desecration of all ancientness—these, the modern curses which accompany 'progress'—are set before a scarcely awakened people as the proper objects and idols of their efforts. We, who are chiefly to be moved by our affections and our imaginations, are only bidden to be henceforth inspired by a joyless prosperity and a loveless materialism. We, the heirs of the godhead of the Arts, are only counselled to emulate the mechanical inventions and the unscrupulous commerce of the American