y some miracle laid hands
on a man of aesthetic sensibility and made him your officer, he will
still have to answer for his purchases to a popularly elected
parliament. Things are bad enough at present: the people will not
tolerate a public monument that is a work of art, neither do their
obedient servants wish to impose such a thing on them; but when no one
can live as an artist without becoming a public servant, when all works
of art are public monuments, do you seriously expect to have any art at
all? When the appointment of artists becomes a piece of party patronage
does anyone doubt that a score of qualifications will stand an applicant
in better stead than that of being an artist? Imagine Mr. Lloyd George
nominating Mr. Roger Fry Government selector of State-paid artists.
Imagine--and here I am making no heavy demand on your powers--imagine
Mr. Fry appointing some obscure and shocking student of unconventional
talent. Imagine Mr. Lloyd George going down to Limehouse to defend the
appointment before thousands of voters, most of whom have a son, a
brother, a cousin, a friend, or a little dog who, they feel sure, is
much better equipped for the job.

If the great communistic society is bent on producing art--and the
society that does not produce live art is damned--there is one thing,
and one only, that it can do. Guarantee to every citizen, whether he
works or whether he loafs, a bare minimum of existence--say sixpence a
day and a bed in the common dosshouse. Let the artist be a beggar living
on public charity. Give to the industrious practical workers the sort of
things they like, big salaries, short hours, social consideration,
expensive pleasures. Let the artist have just enough to eat, and the
tools of his trade: ask nothing of him. Materially make the life of the
artist sufficiently miserable to be unattractive, and no one will take
to art save those in whom the divine daemon is absolute. For all let
there be a choice between a life of dignified, highly-paid, and not
over-exacting employment and the despicable life of a vagrant. There can
be little doubt about the choice of most, and none about that of a real
artist. Art and Religion are very much alike, and in the East, where
they understand these things, there has always been a notion that
religion should be an amateur affair. The pungis of India are beggars.
Let artists all over the world be beggars too. Art and Religion are not
professions: they are not occ