Instinctively, as the vague yearnings and
prophecies of youth lift him in whom they quicken away from youth's
ordinary purposes and associations, his thought turns to that far city
where are gathered the achievements of those who were indeed the gods of
Hellas. To be there, and to demand from those eloquent lips the secret
of the golden age, is his dream and aim, and there shall be solved the
problem of his life.
But antique Art, waiting so patiently twenty centuries to afford aid to
the artist, waits also to sit in judgment upon his worth and acts. Woe
to him who cannot pass the ordeal of its power, and explain the enigma
of its speech!
Nothing can be more pitiful and sad than the condition of one who,
having been subjected to the influence of ancient Art, has not had the
ability to recognize or the earnestness of purpose essential to the
apprehension of the truths which it has for his soul instead of his
hands. But if, through truthfulness of aim, and a sense of the divine
nature of the errand to which he seems appointed, he reach the law
of Art, then henceforth its pursuit becomes the sign of life; if the
impulse bear him no farther than rules, then all he produces goes forth
as a proclamation of death.
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