 coming over us, and the prophecies of some of the
reactionists of past times seemed as if they would come true, and a dull level
of utilitarian comfort be the end for awhile of our aspirations and success. The
loss of the competitive spur to exertion had not, indeed, done anything to
interfere with the necessary production of the community, but how if it should
make men dull by giving them too much time for thought or idle musing? But,
after all, this dull thunder-cloud only threatened us, and then passed over.
Probably, from what I have told you before, you will have a guess at the remedy
for such a disaster; remembering always that many of the things which used to be
produced - slave-wares for the poor and mere wealth-wasting wares for the rich -
ceased to be made. That remedy was, in short, the production of what used to be
called art, but which has no name amongst us now, because it has become a
necessary part of the labour of every man who produces.«
    Said I: »What! had men any time or opportunity for cultivating the fine arts
amidst the desperate struggle for life and freedom that you have told me of?«
    Said Hammond: »You must not suppose that the new form of art was founded
chiefly on the memory of the art of the past; although, strange to say, the
civil war was much less destructive of art than of other things, and though what
of art existed under the old forms, revived in a wonderful way during the latter
part of the struggle, especially as regards music and poetry. The art or
work-pleasure, as one ought to call it, of which I am now speaking, sprung up
almost spontaneously, it seems, from a kind of instinct amongst people, no
longer driven desperately to painful and terrible overwork, to do the best they
could with the work in hand - to make it excellent of its kind; and when that
had gone on for a little, a craving for beauty seemed to awaken in men's minds,
and they began rudely and awkwardly to ornament the wares which they made; and
when they had once set to work at that, it soon began to grow. All this was much
helped by the abolition of the squalor which our immediate ancestors put up with
so coolly; and by the leisurely, but not stupid, country-life which now grew (as
I told you before) to be common amongst us. Thus at last and by slow degrees we
got pleasure into our work;
