Mr. Clarkson, of the Education Office, was coming back from a Garden
Suburb, where the conversation had turned upon Eugenics. Photographs of
the most beautiful Greek statues had stood displayed along the
overmantel; Walter Pater's praise of the Parthenon frieze had been read;
and a discussion had arisen upon the comparative merits of masculine and
feminine beauty, during which Mr. Clarkson maintained a modest silence.
He did, however, support the contention of his hostess that the human
form was the most beautiful of created things, and he shared her regret
that it is so seldom seen in London to full advantage. He also agreed
with the general conclusion that, in the continuance of the race,
quality was the first thing to be considered, and that the chief aim of
civilisation should be to restore Hellenic beauty by selecting parentage
for the future generation.
Meditating over the course of the discussion, and regretting, as he
always did, that he had not played a distinguished part in it, Mr.
Clarkson became conscious of a certain dissatisfaction. "Should not one
question," he asked himself, "the possibility of creating beauty by
preconcerted design? Conscious and deliberate endeavours to manipulate
the course of Nature often frustrate their own purpose, and the action
of cultivated intelligence might conduce to a delicate peculiarity
rather than a beauty widely diffused. Such a sense for form as pervaded
Greece must spring, unconscious as a flower, from a passion for the
beautiful implanted in the heart of the populace themselves."
His motor-'bus was passing through a region unknown to him--one of those
regions where raw vegetables and meat, varied with crockery and old
books, exuberate into booths and stalls along the pavement, and salesmen
shout to the heedless passer-by prophetic warnings of opportunities
eternally lost. Contemplating the scene with a sensitive loathing
against which his better nature struggled in vain, Mr. Clarkson had his
gaze suddenly arrested by a flaunting placard which announced: