CHAPTER III 

 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD 



SOME men of unbalanced minds have lately proposed 

 deliberately and completely to obliterate all the 

 artistic work of past generations of man in order, as they 

 openly profess, that they themselves and their own pro- 

 ductions may obtain consideration. Even were they 

 able to make such a clearance, it may be doubted whether 

 the consideration given to their own performances would 

 be favourable. These obscure individuals have immodestly 

 dubbed themselves " futurists," and the name has been 

 at once adopted as a mystification and advertisement 

 by a variety of art-posers — probably unknown to the 

 originators of the word — who have ventured into one or 

 other of the fields of art without even the smallest gift, 

 either of conception or of expression, or even of imitation. 

 They receive undeserved attention from a section of the 

 public ready to dabble in every newly-made puddle. I 

 am led to refer to them because the abolition of the 

 supremely beautiful things slowly evolved by Nature in 

 the long course of ages, and the substitution for them of 

 man's fancy breeds and races and garden paths, is not 

 merely a parallel piece of folly, but is due to a mental 

 defect identical with that of the genuine " futurist," 

 namely, an intellectual incapacity which renders its 

 victim insensible to the charm of historical and evolu- 

 tional complexity. 



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