Page:Speeches and addresses by the late Thomas E Ellis M P.pdf/56

 future of South Kensington, I think it is interesting at any rate, and perhaps right, that we should study and think over this dictum of Ruskin! for I must admit that, much as busy generations and the multitude of the Philistines in this country have laughed from time to time during the last fifty years at the teaching and the dicta of Ruskin, yet time constantly brings him its revenges, and dicta which, thirty or forty or fifty years ago and even to-day, are scoffed at by busy, prosperous, pushing men, have a curious knack of being recognised as permanent and solid truths by the more thoughtful men and women of our time.

I must admit that I do feel a certain sense of void as I think of the buildings, the farm-houses and cottages of Wales, their want of character, and very often also want of anything like attractiveness of form, and certainly their want of anything like personal individuality. I repeat, I feel a certain void when, as I sometimes have the pleasure of doing, I pass through Swiss or Tyrolese villages and glens, and observe how the Swiss