art-criticisms. They do not want the simple life, nor the
esthetic life; on the contrary, they want very much to wallow in
all the costly vulgarities from which the elect souls among the
rich turn away with loathing. It is by surfeit and not by
abstinence that they will be cured of their hankering after
unwholesome sweets. What they do dislike and despise and are
ashamed of is poverty. To ask them to fight for the difference
between the Christmas number of the Illustrated London News and
the Kelmscott Chaucer is silly: they prefer the News. The
difference between a stockbroker's cheap and dirty starched white
shirt and collar and the comparatively costly and carefully dyed
blue shirt of William Morris is a difference so disgraceful to
Morris in their eyes that if they fought on the subject at all,
they would fight in defence of the starch. "Cease to be slaves,
in order that you may become cranks" is not a very inspiring call
to arms; nor is it really improved by substituting saints for
cranks. Both terms denote men of genius; and the common man does
not want to live the life of a man of genius: he would much
rather live the life of a pet collie if that were the only
alternative. But he does want more money. Whatever else he may be
vague about, he is clear about that. He may or may not prefer
Major Barbara to the Drury Lane pantomime; but he always prefers
five hundred pounds to five hundred shillings.

Now to deplore this preference as sordid, and teach children that
it is sinful to desire money, is to strain towards the extreme
possible limit of impudence in lying, and corruption in
hypocrisy. The universal regard for money is the one hopeful fact
in our civilization, the one sound spot in our social conscience.
Money is the most important thing in the world. It represents