A Joy For Ever; (And Its Price in the Market) | Page 3

of
plausible absurdities; hard upon being convinced of the uselessness of
collecting that heavy yellow substance which we call gold, and led
generally to doubt all the most established maxims of political
economy.
3. Nor are matters much better in the Middle Ages. For the Greeks and
Romans contented themselves with mocking at rich people, and
constructing merry dialogues between Charon and Diogenes or
Menippus, in which the ferryman and the cynic rejoiced together as
they saw kings and rich men coming down to the shore of Acheron, in
lamenting and lamentable crowds, casting their crowns into the dark
waters, and searching, sometimes in vain, for the last coin out of all
their treasures that could ever be of use to them.
4. But these Pagan views of the matter were indulgent, compared with
those which were held in the Middle Ages, when wealth seems to have
been looked upon by the best men not only as contemptible, but as
criminal. The purse round the neck is, then, one of the principal signs
of condemnation in the pictured Inferno; and the Spirit of Poverty is
reverenced with subjection of heart, and faithfulness of affection, like
that of a loyal knight for his lady, or a loyal subject for his queen. And
truly, it requires some boldness to quit ourselves of these feelings, and
to confess their partiality or their error, which, nevertheless, we are
certainly bound to do. For wealth is simply one of the greatest powers
which can be entrusted to human hands: a power, not indeed to be
envied, because it seldom makes us happy; but still less to be abdicated
or despised; while, in these days, and in this country, it has become a
power all the more notable, in that the possessions of a rich man are not
represented, as they used to be, by wedges of gold or coffers of jewels,
but by masses of men variously employed, over whose bodies and
minds the wealth, according to its direction, exercises harmful or
helpful influence, and becomes, in that alternative, Mammon either of
Unrighteousness or of Righteousness.
5. Now, it seemed to me that since, in the name you have given to this
great gathering of British pictures, you recognize them as

Treasures--that is, I suppose, as part and parcel of the real wealth of the
country--you might not be uninterested in tracing certain commercial
questions connected with this particular form of wealth. Most persons
express themselves as surprised at its quantity; not having known
before to what an extent good art had been accumulated in England:
and it will, therefore, I should think, be held a worthy subject of
consideration, what are the political interests involved in such
accumulations, what kind of labour they represent, and how this labour
may in general be applied and economized, so as to produce the richest
results.
6. Now, you must have patience with me, if in approaching the
specialty of this subject, I dwell a little on certain points of general
political science already known or established: for though thus, as I
believe, established, some which I shall have occasion to rest
arguments on are not yet by any means universally accepted; and
therefore, though I will not lose time in any detailed defence of them, it
is necessary that I should distinctly tell you in what form I receive, and
wish to argue from them; and this the more, because there may perhaps
be a part of my audience who have not interested themselves in
political economy, as it bears on ordinary fields of labour, but may yet
wish to hear in what way its principles can be applied to Art. I shall,
therefore, take leave to trespass on your patience with a few elementary
statements in the outset, and with the expression of some general
principles, here and there, in the course of our particular inquiry.
7. To begin, then, with one of these necessary truisms: all economy,
whether of states, households, or individuals, may be defined to be the
art of managing labour. The world is so regulated by the laws of
Providence, that a man's labour, well applied, is always amply
sufficient to provide him during his life with all things needful to him,
and not only with those, but with many pleasant objects of luxury; and
yet farther, to procure him large intervals of healthful rest and
serviceable leisure. And a nation's labour, well applied, is, in like
manner, amply sufficient to provide its whole population with good
food and comfortable habitation; and not with those only, but with
good education besides, and objects of luxury, art treasures, such as

these you have around you now. But by those same laws of Nature and
Providence, if the labour of the nation or of the individual