Page:James Ramsay MacDonald - The Socialist Movement.pdf/89

 Rh had described and had mingled his descriptions with the sobbing protests of charity, he could do no more; Thackeray's gentlemen were dead or dying or had never been born; Wagner was a Childe Harold; Victor Hugo amiably and mournfully shook his head. But they stirred up enthusiasm and touched slumbering consciences into wakefulness. They prevented "the man with the muck rake" having it all his own way.

The world cannot exist without peace, leisure and beauty, and the whirring of wheels, the speeding of production, the depressing of vitality, the creation of ugly and slummy towns, the transcendence of cash, darkened and blighted the realms of the imagination, as the smoking chimneys darkened and blighted the landscapes. The arts fell to the lowest possible level. Domestic art in particular sank far down. The house itself and everything which it contained became a mere utilitarian shelter without a touch of beauty or idea. Things which used to express personality and give delight, were hustled out by machines, and craftsmanship decayed. Whatever exception can be taken to that statement is due to the fact that there were always coteries in revolt which though living in the period were not of it.

When literature is used as an index of the mind of the people, one searches in vain except on the very rarest of occasions for political demands or systematic criticism in the pages of novelists and poets. But one finds in these pages the spirit which is behind