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BEFORE THE WAR 249
and some of the very rich allowed some of the
very clever to wheedle from them great sums
of money, knowing all the time that these
would be applied to such unsettling activities
as the education of thankless labourers or
anti-sweating propaganda. Even towards Art
rolled a few coppers ; indeed, the best painter
in England tells me that about this time he
was earning as much as two hundred a year.
It was thought odd but not shameful in Mr.
Thomas Beecham to spend some part of his
father's fortune on producing modern music
and the operas of Mozart. In fact, it was
coming to be a question whether there was
anything essentially ridiculous about a musi-
cian, a poet, or a Socialist. Punch was rarely
seen in the best houses. For a few dizzy years
it was wildly surmised that to found a civiliza-
tion might be as thrilling as to found a family,
and that one could be as romantic and snobbish
about Art as about bull-dogs or battleships.
To be open-minded became modish ; people
with interesting, subversive things to say were
encouraged to talk always provided they
talked with an air of not taking quite seriously
what they said. The poor were repressed as
firmly as ever, but the job was left to such
paid bullies as constables, magistrates, and
judges, whom the nicer patricians employed,
but took leave to despise.