tom-tom to attract the female; and they
conclude that Beethoven's Choral Symphony is only a more elaborate
tom-tom beaten to attract a more sophisticated female. But again the
only answer is that it isn't; and that if all our ancestors were, not
Whistler's dreamers apart, but beaters of tom-toms to attract females,
then there was something in the sound of the tom-tom that made them
forget the female. The reality of art is to be found not in its origins
but in what it is trying to be; and what it is trying to be is always a
communication between mind and mind; what we aim at in art is a
fellowship not for purposes of use but for its own sake, the fellowship
we feel when we are all together singing a great tune.

But now, since we have a hundred foolish ideas about art, its nature and
value, it is of the greatest importance that we should attain to a right
idea of it, not only as a matter of theory to be discussed, but as a
religion to be practised. And, if we can grasp this right idea of it, we
shall not think of art as consisting merely of the fine arts, painting,
poetry, music, sculpture. We shall see that it is possible for men to be
artists, to exercise this great activity of communication, in the work
by which they earn their living, and that a happy society is one in
which all men do so exercise it. We are very far from that happiness
now, and that is why Ruskin and Morris became almost desperate rebels
against our present society. What they said about art and its nature is
still the best that has been said about it, far nearer to philosophic
truth than all that the professed philosophers have said, and of the
utmost moment to us now. For if we could believe them we should change
most of our values; we should see that the ordinary man, now being
deprived of all the joy of art in his work, is living a mutilated life;
we should place art among the rights of man. Whereas Rousseau said--All
men are born free and everywhere they are in chains--we should say--All
men are born artists and everywhere they are drudges. With our curious
English originality, which hits on so many momentous truths and then
makes no use of them, it is we who have found the greatest truth about
art, but neither we nor any other people is at present making much use
of it. Because we lack art, lack the power of communication, we lack
fellowship; and as Morris said--Fellowship is life and the lack of it is
death.

FOR REFERENCE

W. Morris, _Ho