Everything that is great promotes civilisation as
soon as we are aware of it.'
But, as in your cities so in your literature, it is a permanent
canon and standard of taste, an increased sensibility to beauty (if
I may say so) that is lacking. All noble work is not national
merely, but universal. The political independence of a nation must
not be confused with any intellectual isolation. The spiritual
freedom, indeed, your own generous lives and liberal air will give
you. From us you will learn the classical restraint of form.
For all great art is delicate art, roughness having very little to
do with strength, and harshness very little to do with power. 'The
artist,' as Mr. Swinburne says, 'must be perfectly articulate.'
This limitation is for the artist perfect freedom: it is at once
the origin and the sign of his strength. So that all the supreme
masters of style - Dante, Sophocles, Shakespeare - are the supreme
masters of spiritual and intellectual vision also.
Love art for its own sake, and then all things that you need will
be added to you.
This devotion to beauty and to the creation of beautiful things is
the test of all great civilised nations.
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