Again, do we not prefer the books which deal with habits simpler than
our own? Do we not love the Odyssey partly because of Calypso weaving
in her cave, and Nausicaa washing the clothes with her maidens? Does
it not lend additional divinity that Christianity should have arisen
among peasants and handicraftsmen?
Nay more, do we not love certain objects largely because they are
useful; boats, nets, farm carts, ploughs; discovering therein a grace
which actually exists, but which might else have remained unsuspected?
And do we not feel a certain lack of significance and harmony of
fulness of æsthetic quality in our persons when we pass in our
idleness among people working in the fields, masons building, or
fishermen cleaning their boats and nets; whatever beauty such things
may have being enhanced by their being common and useful.
In this manner our æsthetic instinct strains vaguely after a double
change: not merely giving affluence and leisure to others, but giving
simplicity and utility to ourselves?