"* By copious quotations Lanier then shows
that "many fine and beautiful souls appear after a while
to lose all sense of distinction between these terms, Beauty, Truth, Love,
Wisdom, Goodness, and the like," and concludes thus: "And if this be true,
cannot one say with authority to the young artist, -- whether working
in stone, in color, in tones, or in character-forms of the novel:
so far from dreading that your moral purpose will interfere
with your beautiful creation, go forward in the clear conviction
that unless you are suffused -- soul and body, one might say --
with that moral purpose which finds its largest expression in love
-- that is, the love of all things in their proper relation --
unless you are suffused with this love, do not dare to meddle with beauty;
unless you are suffused with beauty, do not meddle with love;
unless you are suffused with truth, do not dare to meddle with goodness; --
in a word, unless you are suffused with beauty, truth, wisdom, goodness,
AND love, abandon the hope that the ages will accept you as an artist."**
--
* `The English Novel', p.
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