' Who knows?
Perhaps an Oxford professor of Celtic might have touched the flinty
heart of Lord Ashburnham.
At this moment, when the narrow Philistinism which has long had
things its own way in England, is showing its natural fruits, and we
are beginning to feel ashamed, and uneasy, and alarmed at it; now,
when we are becoming aware that we have sacrificed to Philistinism
culture, and insight, and dignity, and acceptance, and weight among
the nations, and hold on events that deeply concern us, and control
of the future, and yet that it cannot even give us the fool's
paradise it promised us, but is apt to break down, and to leave us
with Mr. Roebuck's and Mr. Lowe's laudations of our matchless
happiness, and the largest circulation in the world assured to the
Daily Telegraph, for our only comfort; at such a moment it needs some
moderation not to be attacking Philistinism by storm, but to mine it
through such gradual means as the slow approaches of culture, and the
introduction of chairs of Celtic. But the hard unintelligence, which
is just now our bane, cannot be conquered by storm; it must be
suppled and reduced by culture, by a growth in the variety, fulness,
and sweetness of our spiritual life; and this end can only be reached
by studying things that are outside of ourselves, and by studying
them disinterestedly.
Pages:
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167