At a certain point in the social scale this form of ornamental existence produced great misery, great hardships, great abasement. But it was not instituted and maintained for that reason. Those underlying conditions were a drawback, they were a misuse of human nature employed as a basis for that ornamental superstructure to build on. And out of that underlying misuse came the weakness and the eventual decay of that once flourishing school of ornament. But when that school of ornament was threatened by other schools, it was ready to fight to the death for its ornamental superfluities--for polygamy, for slavery, for power over others, which had come to mean for it all that made life worth living! Life was quite capable of being carried on without those things--was, and is, happily lived by other races to the accompaniment of another set of ornaments which those races think more enjoyable. But no race will consent to live without some sort of ornament of its own choosing; and when its choice of ornaments, or of social superfluities, over and above the needs of existence, is seriously threatened from without it declares that it is fighting not merely for liberty but for existence. Yet we know quite well that the people of invaded and conquered States continue in the main to exist--they continue even to wear ornaments; but these are apt to be imposed ornaments galling to the national pride. And so to-day, in the midst of a vast belligerency, we have committees and consultations going on, to see to it lest, at the end of the war, under German dominance, our women should have their future fashions imposed on them from Berlin instead of from Paris, a fearful doom for any lady of taste to contemplate. The example may seem frivolous, but it is a parable of the truth; we call our ornaments our liberties, and if we cannot ourselves die fighting for them, we make others die for us. Let us take up (for illustration of the same point) another stage of civilization--that of ancient Greece. In Greece the city was the centre of civilization, and its public buildings became the outward and visible sign of the people’s pride of life and of their sense of power. The fact that their private dwellings were very simple, and that they expended nearly the whole of their artistry upon public works (things to be shared and delighted in by all the citizens in common) had a profound influence upon their civilization. That new social ideal of civic pride found its way irresistibly into ornament. You could not have had civic pride in anything like the same degree without it.