become so mechanical and dreary. When
home is without charm, and country without attaching bonds,
the existence of a nation is rudely shaken; dull discontent
leading to sullen discontent, may readily become active
animosity. There will not be men interested in the maintenance
of law and order, who feel that law and order bring them no
perceptible formal advantage. In the race for wealth, it has
been forgotten that wealth alone can offer neither dignity nor
permanent safety; no dignity, if the man of the population is
degraded by dull toil and disgraceful competition; no safety,
if large numbers drag on a discontented existence, while the
more active and intelligent leave our shores.

"Whether or not our material wealth is to be increased or
diminished, it is certain that a more general well-being and
contentment must be striven for. A happy nation will be a
wealthy nation, wealthy in the best sense, in the assurance
that its children can be depended upon in case of need, wealth
above the fortune of war, and safety above the reach of
fortune. The rush of interest in the direction of what are
understood as worldly advantages, has trampled out the sense
of pleasure in the beautiful, and the need of its presence as
an element essential to the satisfaction of daily life, which
must have been unconsciously felt in ages less absorbed in
acquiring wealth for itself alone. In olden times our art
congresses would have been as needless as congresses to
impress on the general mind the advantages of money-making
would be in these." (_Plain Handicraft_, 1892.)

In G.F. Watts, however, we have an instance of a man who, although he
sees and is attracted by abstract principles of ethics, does not
perceive the manner of their final application; he is not really
scientific. It might be thought that the painter of "Greed and Toil,"
"The Sempstress," "Mammon," "The Dweller of the Innermost," and "Love
Triumphant," would be able to indicate, in that sphere of social
activity called "practical politics," how these principles could find
their expression and realisation. It is interesting, however, to know,
and to have it authoritatively from his own pen, that Watts at least
could not discern either the time or the application of these ethical
principles to the affairs of the great world; for in 1901 there appeared