The Splendid Wayfaring (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1912 edition. Excerpt: ... TO THE STUDENT, THE PROFESSOR, THE CRITIC, AND THE MAN IN THE STREET OW, your ordinary man, what time he can spare from the fantastic business that he has set up as his "calling" or "object in life," gives a certain serious consideration in his day to phases of his mind which he calls "religion" or "recreation" or "culture" or "sport" or "getting on," or the like. His "religion," 'tis true, he keeps at solemn arm's length, shrinks from being on too familiar a footing with it, treats with aloof and reverential respect lest it overstep decorum, be guilty of familiarity, and enter too intimately into his conduct--though he compel it upon his neighbour with dogged resolution. His "recreation" he takes more whole-heartedly--or as wholeheartedly sees to it that his neighbours shall not take it, which is only another, if greyer, form of recreation. But the most vital faculty that is granted to him, whereby he alone may increase the splendour of life, he thrusts aside among the lesser things, accounting it of less significance in his day than his sport--to say nothing of food and drink and money. Nay, the very word Art, which is the next most important in his short wayfaring to Life itself, he associates with a painting in a gilt frame by some long-dead artist, which he does not understand, but respects as a fetish because in some vague way he realises that large sums of money are needed to purchase it-- by people who understand the art of it perhaps as little as he. The Great, and the heirs to the once Great, living in a palatial atmosphere, are surrounded by masterpieces of painting of antique days--for which they care or do not care--and they that are new come to wealth, being at their wits' end, often as not, to know what to do with