“If this strange condition of ours,” broke in Sinclair, “does, after all, lead to the reform of the governing classes from within, then, indeed, it was worth losing one’s shirt!” And the three men laughed heartily.
“Look round, my lord,” and Danford pointed to the National Gallery. “You have given the first impetus to true art.”
“No, no, Danford,” interrupted Lionel. “It was the public who gave me the hint.”
“Never mind, my lord, the thing is done, and you have awakened the consciousness of our English artists. Look down Parliament Street, where your mind’s eye saw, a minute ago, the pantomime of Government; you can see our ancient seat of Parliament transformed into the sanctuary of technical education. The old lobbies are swarming with efficient teachers. Public education, as it was to be found in our old haunts of Eton, Rugby, etc., etc., was the proper training for privileged classes; but the present education, which is not compulsory, is the training of the child and adult without social barriers; and the only religious dogma which he must live up to is this: that the welfare of all is the welfare of each.”
“And yet,” sadly remarked Sinclair, “science is still but empiric, as it has not yet revealed to us the mystery of the human heart; that remains a sealed letter. Some writer has named that mysterious recess of individuality, ‘the hidden garden’; but how ignorant we still are of its vegetation. Do we know what causes, in that hidden garden of the soul, a lovely rose to grow where the soil was barren; or a toadstool to sprout where the seed of a robust plant had been sown?”
“No, we know no more of each other’s inner souls than the early Britons knew of steam and electricity,” said Lionel. “As long as we have not reached complete consciousness we shall never triumph over the inconsistencies which place men on different platforms, and spur them on to fight unfair battles.”
“Ah, my lord, you have a receptive mind, and I knew, from the beginning, that the day would come when you would open your eyes to the gulf which separates man from man. Yesterday morning the Committee of Music Hall Artists introduced at our meeting a queer sort of man, who struck me as visionary in his ideas, and matter-of-fact in the carrying out of his plans.”