asking people's advice on occasion. All good
architecture is the expression of national life and character; and it is
produced by a prevalent and eager national taste, or desire for beauty.
And I want you to think a little of the deep significance of this word
'taste;' for no statement of mine has been more earnestly or oftener
controverted than that good taste is essentially a moral quality. 'No,'
say many of my antagonists, 'taste is one thing, morality is another.
Tell us what is pretty; we shall be glad to know that; but preach no
sermons to us.'

Permit me, therefore, to fortify this old dogma of mine somewhat. Taste
is not only a part and an index of morality--it is the ONLY morality.
The first, and last, and closest trial question to any living creature
is, 'What do you like?' Tell me what you like, and I'll tell you what
you are. Go out into the street, and ask the first man or woman you
meet, what their 'taste' is, and if they answer candidly, you know them,
body and soul. 'You, my friend in the rags, with the unsteady gait, what
do _you_ like?' 'A pipe and a quartern of gin.' I know you. 'You, good
woman, with the quick step and tidy bonnet, what do you like?' 'A swept
hearth and a clean tea-table, and my husband opposite me, and a baby at
my breast.' Good, I know you also. 'You, little girl with the golden
hair and the soft eyes, what do you like?' 'My canary, and a run among
the wood hyacinths.' 'You, little boy with the dirty hands and the low
forehead, what do you like?' 'A shy at the sparrows, and a game at
pitch-farthing.' Good; we know them all now. What more need we ask?

'Nay,' perhaps you answer: 'we need rather to ask what these people and
children do, than what they like. If they _do_ right, it is no matter
that they like what is wrong; and if they _do_ wrong, it is no matter
that they like what is right. Doing is the great thing; and it does not
matter that the man likes drinking, so that he does not drink; nor that
the little girl likes to be kind to her canary, if she will not learn
her lessons; nor that the little boy likes throwing stones at the
sparrows, if he goes to the Sunday school.' Indeed, for a short time,
and in a provisional sense, this is true. For if, resolutely, people do
what is right, in time they come to like doing it. But they only are in
a right moral state when they _have_ come to like doing it; and as long
as they don't like it, they are still in a vicious state. The man i