The Greatest Foe To Art Is Luxury,

With The Arrogance Of Youth, I Determined To Do No Less Than To Transform The World With Beauty. If I Have Succeeded In Some Small Way, If Only In One Small Corner Of The World, Amongst The Men And Women I Love, Then I Shall Count Myself Blessed, And Blessed, And Blessed, And The Work Goes On.

Simplicity Of Life, Even The Barest, Is Not A Misery, But The Very Foundation Of Refinement; A Sanded Floor And Whitewashed Walls And The Green Trees, And Flowery Meads, And Living Waters Outside; Or A Grimy Palace Amid The Same With A Regiment Of Housemaids Always Working To Smear The Dirt Together So That It May Be Unnoticed; Which, Think You, Is The Most Refined, The Most Fit For A Gentleman Of Those Two Dwellings?

So I Say, If You Cannot Learn To Love Real Art; At Least Learn To Hate Sham Art And Reject It. It Is Not Because The Wretched Thing Is So Ugly And Silly And Useless That I Ask You To Cast It From You; It Is Much More Because These Are But The Outward Symbols Of The Poison That Lies Within Them; Look Through Them And See All That Has Gone To Their Fashioning, And You Will See How Vain Labour, And Sorrow, And Disgrace Have Been Their Companions From The First-and All This For Trifles That No Man Really Needs!

Architecture Would Lead Us To All The Arts, As It Did With Earlier Mean: But If We Despise It And Take No Note Of How We Are Housed, The Other Arts Will Have A Hard Time Of It Indeed.

So With This Earthly Paradise It Is, If Ye Will Read Aright, And Pardon Me, Who Strive To Build A Shadowy Isle Of Bliss Midmost The Beating Of The Steely Sea.