the
courage to live.

Even if this be conceded, another suggestion may be made. It may be said
that antiquities and commonplace crowds are indeed good things, like
violets and geraniums; but they do not go together. A billycock is a
beautiful object (it may be eagerly urged), but it is not in the same
style of architecture as Ely Cathedral; it is a dome, a small rococo
dome in the Renaissance manner, and does not go with the pointed arches
that assault heaven like spears. A char-a-banc is lovely (it may be
said) if placed upon a pedestal and worshipped for its own sweet
sake; but it does not harmonize with the curve and outline of the old
three-decker on which Nelson died; its beauty is quite of another sort.
Therefore (we will suppose our sage to argue) antiquity and democracy
should be kept separate, as inconsistent things. Things may be
inconsistent in time and space which are by no means inconsistent in
essential value and idea. Thus the Catholic Church has water for the
new-born and oil for the dying: but she never mixes oil and water.

This explanation is plausible; but I do not find it adequate. The first
objection is that the same smell of bathos haunts the soul in the
case of all deliberate and elaborate visits to "beauty spots," even
by persons of the most elegant position or the most protected privacy.
Specially visiting the Coliseum by moonlight always struck me as being
as vulgar as visiting it by limelight. One millionaire standing on the
top of Mont Blanc, one millionaire standing in the desert by the Sphinx,
one millionaire standing in the middle of Stonehenge, is just as comic
as one millionaire is anywhere else; and that is saying a good deal. On
the other hand, if the billycock had come privately and naturally into
Ely Cathedral, no enthusiast for Gothic harmony would think of objecting
to the billycock--so long, of course, as it was not worn on the head.
But there is indeed a much deeper objection to this theory of the two
incompatible excellences of antiquity and popularity. For the truth
is that it has been almost entirely the antiquities that have normally
interested the populace; and it has been almost entirely the populace
who have systematically preserved the antiquities. The Oldest Inhabitant
has always been a clodhopper; I have never heard of his being a
gentleman. It is the peasants who preserve all traditions of the sites
of battles or the building of churches. It is they who remember, so