starving and the oppressed?" And he
does not see that his passionate desire for justice is at root the
quest for beauty, for fullness and harmony of life. His stormy sky
shows no rainbow: yet it is there. And so is the stately music, the
transmutation of colour into sound. And if his eyes could be opened to
one and his ears to the other, there would be more power to his elbow.
For beauty is inspiration and courage--

"My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky...."

And there is more than that in it. The cultivation of a sense of
beauty, of harmony, makes reformers less harsh in their judgments,
broadens their sympathies and helps to save them from becoming mere
doctrinaires. If you have any love for the beautiful you simply cannot
be happy about most Utopias, though they be Justice itself in civic
form; and, when our "scientific" Fabian has demonstrated to you how to
organise the national life in all its parts into one vast smoothly
working State mechanism you will shudder, and then laugh. And then,
without any rudeness, you will say: "Hang mechanism and a minimum
wage! Live men and women want living crafts, liberty and a maximum
beauty!"

And really, I am coming to see that there are a great many
health-culture enthusiasts (not to mention food reformers) who see no
rainbow in the sky and hear no music in the wind; and even if they
did, ten to one they would see no connection between the two. I verily
believe there are some poor souls who have studied food questions so
closely that they cannot see the sun for proteid nor the sea for
salts. In all meekness, and knowing the frailty of the human mind (I
have written dozens of articles on diet!), I would prescribe for them
a course of artistic wall-paper advertisements, combined with the
letters of Robert Louis Stevenson. He, poor fellow, had to battle
against disease all his short life; but he managed to end one of his
letters something like this (I quote from memory): "_Sursum Corda_!
Heave ahead! Art and blue heaven! April and God's larks! A stately
music.... Enter God."

A somewhat ecstatic utterance. A trifle too exclamatory. Perhaps. You
and I don't end our letters like that. (Or do you?) More likely we say
something about the weather down here being miserably cold (or damp,
or dull, or changeable, or hot) and brave out the lie with "yours
truly." But O for one little spark from the fire that shone in the
soul of R.L.S. Better to die young with