For the sustaining of this glorious 13 “freedom,” otherwise spoken of as the “sanctity of contract,” government by party is a recognised and effective instrument. In this arrangement the members of Parliament are divided into two sides, much as lads about to play a game at football; the two sides do not differ much in their principles, though there is sometimes a violent faction squabble as to the amount of concession that it is safe to give to or withhold from the demands of the people: not seldom even this difference does not exist—the legislation proposed by both parties is almost identical, and some safe excuse for quarrel has to be sought for before the game can be played. Thus is carried out the crowning sham of modern politics under the absurd title of Representative Government, and the name of democracy is used to cloak an oligarchy more or less extended, while once more all decent people who may profess an interest in politics are expected to range themselves under one or other of the great political parties, now become almost less than mere names, the very shadows of shadows.
When all life, domestic, religious, moral 14 and political, is thus fallen into mere pretence, when all these branches of men’s energy have come to professing aims which, when they have any, are not their real aims, and on which they will not and cannot act, when they do not know what they really are and are blind to their real destiny, how can it be possible that Art, the expression of the life of society, can be otherwise than a sham also? Here and there indeed the irrepressible genius of an individual expresses itself by dint of toil and anxiety undreamed of in better days, and produces works of art that are beautiful and powerful, however damaged by the souring effects of a desperate struggle against monstrous surroundings, and by the restlessness that comes of the overexertion even of great powers. But otherwise the fine arts no longer exist for the people at large. How could they? The one reality of modern