Why does the nation give A. B., for instance, and all
comers a large, comfortable, well-ventilated, warm room to sit in, with
chair, table, reading-desk, &c., all more commodious than what he may
have at home, without making him pay a sixpence for it directly from
year's end to year's end? The three or nine days' visit to Oropa is a
trifle in comparison with what we can all of us obtain in London if we
care about it enough to take a very small amount of trouble. True, one
cannot sleep in the reading-room of the British Museum--not all night, at
least--but by day one can make a home of it for years together except
during cleaning times, and then it is hard if one cannot get into the
National Gallery or South Kensington, and be warm, quiet, and entertained
without paying for it.
It will be said that it is for the national interest that people should
have access to treasuries of art or knowledge, and therefore it is worth
the nation's while to pay for placing the means of doing so at their
disposal; granted, but is not a good bed one of the great ends of
knowledge, whereto it must work, if it is to be accounted knowledge at
all? and it is not worth a nation's while that her children should now
and again have practical experience of a higher state of things than the
one they are accustomed to, and a few days' rest and change of scene and
air, even though she may from time to time have to pay something in order
to enable them to do so? There can be few books which do an averagely-
educated Englishman so much good, as the glimpse of comfort which he gets
by sleeping in a good bed in a well-appointed room does to an Italian
peasant; such a glimpse gives him an idea of higher potentialities in
connection with himself, and nerves him to exertions which he would not
otherwise make.
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