ke fanes of light by the
river's side or bridging them--all part and parcel of the ocean, the
land, and the air, obedient like them to the cadency of thought, as day
and night, the seasons and the years, beat out their sequences and bear
life onward into the future, or leave it, silent, in the irrecoverable
past.
Such a world, such a wealth of animate forces, such a vision, the
creation in part of the unknown force, God, in part of man, who is
ourselves, _such_ is the vision upon which, pending the arrival of
the shadow which is Death, we should fix the eyes of Art, permeating
all, embracing all, producing all, even as would do, were he us, the
supreme force, God.
As of the world of man's work, so of all the visions within the
vision--build with the instincts of fitness and beauty, build & await
the Shadow: to-day again, for a time, comes the light, again and yet
again. In the infinitude of sequences the soul rests, and whilst it
rests, resting, it disappears, even as in life, into sleep, into Death.
Build and await the Shadow.
Such as I dream it is the Vision of Life, such the Vision of man's
world within it, such the Vision of Art, such, or something like it,
the Vision of the Arts and Crafts Movement, its inception, its history,
and its aims.
'And here I will make an end. And if I have done well and as is fitting
the story, it is that which I have desired: but if slenderly and meanly
it is yet that which I could attain unto.'
It may be, indeed, that I have all the while been describing some other
movement, & not that of the Arts and Crafts at all; some movement that
has been taking place in my own mind, as I have had the possibilities
of man's being and doing brought home to my imagination 'in thoughts
from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men': for in
the Introduction to the Lectures on 'Art & Life,' to which reference
has been made in support of the Vision, it is stated that the Lectures
are not to be taken, nor is any of them to be taken, as the official
expression of the aims of the Society!
But be the official expression of the aims of the Society what it may
be, it is the VISION, _some_ VISION, which imports your good,--which I
urgently commend to your attention. WHERE THERE IS NO VISION THE PEOPLE
PERISH.
Printed at the Chiswick Press: Charles Whittingham & Co., Tooks Court,
Chancery Lane, London. And sold by the Hammersmith Publishing Society,
River House, Hammersmith.
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