Yet, as I say, such men exist, and I have troubled you with speaking of them, because I know that those honest and intelligent people, who are eager for human progress, and yet lack part of the human senses, and are anti-artistic, suppose that such men are artists, and that this is what art means, and what it does for people, and that such a narrow, cowardly life is what we, fellow-handicraftsmen, aim at.  I see this taken for granted continually, even by many who, to say truth, ought to know better, and I long to put the slur from off us; to make people understand that we, least of all men, wish to widen the gulf between the classes, nay, worse still, to make new classes of elevation, and new classes of degradation—­new lords and new slaves; that we, least of all men, want to cultivate the ’plant called man’ in different ways—­here stingily, there wastefully:  I wish people to understand that the art we are striving for is a good thing which all can share, which will elevate all; in good sooth, if all people do not soon share it there will soon be none to share; if all are not elevated by it, mankind will lose the elevation it has gained.  Nor is such an art as we long for a vain dream; such an art once was in times that were worse than these, when there was less courage, kindness, and truth in the world than there is now; such an art there will be hereafter, when there will be more courage, kindness, and truth than there is now in the world.

Let us look backward in history once more for a short while, and then steadily forward till my words are done:  I began by saying that part of the common and necessary advice given to Art students was to study antiquity; and no doubt many of you, like me, have done so; have wandered, for instance, through the galleries of the admirable museum of South Kensington, and, like me, have been filled with wonder and gratitude at the beauty which has been born from the brain of man.  Now, consider, I pray you, what these wonderful works are, and how they were made; and indeed, it is neither in extravagance nor without due meaning that I use the word ‘wonderful’ in speaking of them.  Well, these things are just the common household goods of those past days, and that is one reason why they are so few and so carefully treasured.  They were common things in their own day, used without fear of breaking or spoiling—­no rarities then—­and yet we have called them ‘wonderful.’

And how were they made?  Did a great artist draw the designs for them—­a man of cultivation, highly paid, daintily fed, carefully housed, wrapped up in cotton wool, in short, when he was not at work?  By no means.  Wonderful as these works are, they were made by ‘common fellows,’ as the phrase goes, in the common course of their daily labour.  Such were the men we honour in honouring those works.  And their labour—­do you think it was irksome to them?  Those of you who are artists know very well that it was not; that it could not be.