You see the question is difficult to argue, because there seem to be
no common grounds between the restorers and the anti-restorers: I
appeal therefore to the public, and bid them note, that though our
opinions may be wrong, the action we advise is not rash: let the
question be shelved awhile: if, as we are always pressing on
people, due care be taken of these monuments, so that they shall not
fall into disrepair, they will be always there to 'restore' whenever
people think proper and when we are proved wrong; but if it should
turn out that we are right, how can the 'restored' buildings be
restored? I beg of you therefore to let the question be shelved,
till art has so advanced among us, that we can deal authoritatively
with it, till there is no longer any doubt about the matter.

Surely these monuments of our art and history, which, whatever the
lawyers may say, belong not to a coterie, or to a rich man here and
there, but to the nation at large, are worth this delay: surely the
last relics of the life of the 'famous men and our fathers that
begat us' may justly claim of us the exercise of a little patience.

It will give us trouble no doubt, all this care of our possessions:
but there is more trouble to come; for I must now speak of something
else, of possessions which should be common to all of us, of the
green grass, and the leaves, and the waters, of the very light and
air of heaven, which the Century of Commerce has been too busy to
pay any heed to. And first let me remind you that I am supposing
every one here present professes to care about art.

Well, there are some rich men among us whom we oddly enough call
manufacturers, by which we mean capitalists who pay other men to