Page:The Life of William Morris.djvu/499

90 middle classes know neither man nor the world; they have no light, and can give none." So far the two men are in complete agreement; and though Morris might have expressed himself in phrases less lucidly temperate, there is even a curious and quite unpremeditated likeness in the language which they use. "Can the middle class regenerate themselves?" Morris asks, and answers the question essentially as Arnold answered it. "At first sight," are his words, "one would say that a body of people so powerful, who have built up the gigantic edifice of modern commerce, whose science, invention, and energy have subdued the forces of nature to serve their everyday purposes, and who guide the organization that keeps these natural powers in subjection in a way almost miraculous; at first sight one would say, surely such a mighty mass of wealthy men could do anything they please. And yet I doubt it. Why do not you—and I—set about doing this to-morrow? Because we cannot."

"For twenty years," Arnold went on in the Ipswich address, "I have been vainly urging this upon the middle classes themselves. Now I urge it upon you. Carry it forward yourselves, and insist on taking the middle class with you." But Morris could not stand aloof to give counsel; he must needs be in the thick of the conflict. A passage in a lecture delivered at the beginning of 1884 seems to express his attitude precisely in the way that he felt and meant it. "The cause of art," he there says, "is the cause of the people. We well-to-do people, those of us who love art, not as a toy, but as a thing necessary to the life of man, have for our best work the raising of the standard of life among the people. How can we of the middle classes, we the capitalists and our hangers-on,