The Winslow mail., 1914-11-07

| tive artist, come forward to replace
| these barbaric aspects of existence by
| a less ignoble adventure
| There is no natural life of man. He
is and always has been a sheath Of
| varied and even incompatible possibil.
tiles, a palimpSest of inherited dispo
Sl1ons. 1t was the habit of many
writer's in the early twentieth century
to speak of competition and the narrow
! private life of trade and saving and
suspicious isolation as though such
things were in some exceptional way
proper to the human constitution, and
| as though openneSS of mind and a pref
| erence for achievement over possession
were abnormal and rather unsubstan.
tial qualities. How wrong that was
the history of the decades immediately
| following the establishment of the
world republic witnesses. Once the
world was released from the hardening
| nSecurities of a needless struggle for
life that was collectively planless and
| individually absorbing. it became ap-
parent that there was in the vast mass
OF people long SmOthered passion to
make things. The world broke out
into making. and at first mainly into
aesthetic making. This phase of his
tory, which has been not inaptly term
ed the "efflorescence," is still to a
large extent with us. The majority
of our population consists of artists
and the bulk of activity in the world
lies no longer with necessities, but
with their elaboration. decoration and
refinement. There has been an evident
change in the quality of this making
during the recent years. 1t becomes
more purposeful than it was. losing
something of its first elegance and
prettiness and gaining in intensity, but
that is change rather of hue than of
nature. That comes with a deepening
philosophy and sounder education
For the first joyous exercises of fancy
we perceive now the delberation Of q
more constructive imagination There
is natural order in these things, and
art comes before science as the salts
| faction of more elemental needs must
| come before art, and as play and pleas
ure come in human lie before the
development of settled purpose
For thousands of years this gather,
ing impulse to creative work must
have struggled in man against the linn
| itations imposed upon him by his So
cial ineptitude. 1t was long smolder-
ing fire that famed out at last into all
| these things. The evidence Of pa
thetic. perpetually thwarted urgency to
make something is one of the most
touching aspects of the relics and rec
crds of our immediate ancestors There
exists still in the death area about the
| London bombs region of deserted
small homes that furnish the most il
| eliminating comment on the old state
| Of affairs. These homes are entirely
horrible, uniform, square, squat. hide
puSly proportOned uncOmfortab ble din
gy and in some respects quite filthy:
only people in complete despair Of any
| thing better could have lived in them
| but to each is attached ridiculous lit
| tie rectangle of land called the gar
! den," containing usually a prop foi
| drying clothes and loathsome box OF
| Otfal, the duStDin, full of eggshells. Gin
ders and such like refuse Now thai
one may 60 about this region in com
| parative securty-for the London radi
atiOnS have dWindled to incOnsiderabh
| prOportiOns-it is possible to trace III
nearly every one of these gardens somt
effort to make Here it is poor little
| plank summer house. here it is Il
| fountain" OF bricks and oyster shells
here a ''rockery," here ii ''workshop'
And in the houses everywhere there
are pitiful little decorations. clumS>
models. feeble drawings These effOi
are almost incredibly inept. like the
drawings of blindfolded men. They
are only one shade less narrowing to Il
| sympathetic observer than the scratch
| ings one finds upon the walls of thu
old prisons, but there they are. wit
| Messing to the poor buried instinct
| that struggled up toward the ligh
That god of joyous expression our poe
| fathers ignorantly sought our freedOr
| has declared to us
| In the Old days the common anlbtiO,
of every simple soul was to possess
little property, a patch of land.
| house uncontrolled by others, an iii
dependence" as the English used t;
put it. And what made this deSirt
for freedom and prosperity so stroni
was very evidently the dream Of set
expression, of doing something witt
it, Of playing with it, of making per
sonaI delightfulness, Il distinctivenesS
| Property was never more than Il mean,
to an end, nor avarice more than a
| perversion. Men owned in order to dc
| freely. Now that every one has his
| own apartments and his own privacy
secure. this disposition to own has
found its release in a new direction.
Men study and save and strive that
| they may leave behind them series
of panels in some public arcade. row
, Of carven figures along a terrace, a
| grove, a pavilion. Or they give them
1; e,&i