But it still remains relatively small, and the great majority of the lower middle and working classes are not only absolutely inartistic in their tastes, but, as far as colour is concerned, incapable of appreciating good colour to an extent which it is difficult for some of us who have always lived in the art world to realize. Let us beware of concluding because we hear much talk in drawing-rooms or country houses about what is, or is not, artistic in colour, and much positive assertion upon the subject, that there is any widespread revival of the capacity for appreciating fine colour. Any such complaisant belief will be rudely shattered if almost any twenty people be taken at random and their feeling for colour be put to practical tests, or if we leave the average British workman to carry out the simplest piece of colour decoration upon his own initiative. This applies to most other European countries with nearly equal force, and we shall understand the position better, and see more clearly what we have lost and what are a few of the possibilities we are drifting away from, if we compare this state of feeling about colour,
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