But when you do hear of them I beg of you
not to regard any of them as symptoms of decay, even if their technique
is elaborate and over-wrought. The _early_ work of every modern painter
is over-elaborate and over-wrought, just as all the work of early
painters is over-elaborate and over-wrought. Do not greet the dawn as
though it were a lowering sunset. Listen, and, with William Blake, you
may hear the sons of God shouting for joy. If your mind is bent on
decay, read that neglected poet, Byron. He thought the romantic
movement, of which he became the accidental centre, a symptom of decay.
Read any period of history and its literature, and you will find the same
cry reiterated. When you have read an old book go out and buy a new one.
When you have sold your old masters, go out and buy new masters.
Aladdin's maid is one of the wronged characters of legend. . . . Of the
Pierian spring there are many fountains. Yet it is a spring which never
runs dry; though it flows with greater freedom at one season than at
another, with greater volume from one fountain than some other. In the
glens of Parnassus there are hidden flowers always blooming; though, to
the binoculars of the tourist, the mountain seems unusually barren. You
will find that youth does not vanish with the rose, that you need never
close the sweet-scented manuscript of love, science, art or literature.
In them youth returns like daffodils that come before the swallow dares,
and take the winds of March with beauty: or like the snapdragons which
Cardinal Newman saw blossoming on the wall at Oxford, and which became
for him the symbol of hope.
Pages:
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233