In a word, then, I do not care about this Exchange—­because you don’t; and because you know perfectly well I cannot make you.  Look at the essential conditions of the case, which you, as business men, know perfectly well, though perhaps you think I forget them.  You are going to spend L30,000, which to you, collectively, is nothing; the buying a new coat is, as to the cost of it, a much more important matter of consideration to me, than building a new Exchange is to you.  But you think you may as well have the right thing for your money.  You know there are a great many odd styles of architecture about; you don’t want to do anything ridiculous; you hear of me, among others, as a respectable architectural man-milliner; and you send for me, that I may tell you the leading fashion; and what is, in our shops, for the moment, the newest and sweetest thing in pinnacles.

Now, pardon me for telling you frankly, you cannot have good architecture merely by asking people’s advice on occasion.  All good architecture is the expression of national life and character, and it is produced by a prevalent and eager national taste, or desire for beauty.  And I want you to think a little of the deep significance of this word “taste”; for no statement of mine has been more earnestly or oftener controverted than that good taste is essentially a moral quality.  “No,” say many of my antagonists, “taste is one thing, morality is another.  Tell us what is pretty:  we shall be glad to know that; but we need no sermons—­even were you able to preach them, which may be doubted.”

Permit me, therefore, to fortify this old dogma of mine somewhat.  Taste is not only a part and an index of morality;—­it is the ONLY morality.  The first, and last, and closest trial question to any living creature is, “What do you like?” Tell me what you like, and I’ll tell you what you are.  Go out into the street, and ask the first man or woman you meet, what their “taste” is; and if they answer candidly, you know them, body and soul.  “You, my friend in the rags, with the unsteady gait, what do you like?” “A pipe and a quartern of gin.”  I know you.  “You, good woman, with the quick step and tidy bonnet, what do you like?” “A swept hearth, and a clean tea-table; and my husband opposite me, and a baby at my breast.”  Good, I know you also.  “You, little girl with the golden hair and the soft eyes, what do you like?” “My canary, and a run among the wood hyacinths.”  “You, little boy with the dirty hands, and the low forehead, what do you like?” “A shy at the sparrows, and a game at pitch farthing.”  Good; we know them all now.  What more need we ask?