Alas! they are as yet too busy and too
ignorant to formulate for us a definite reply! But from them must come
the sibylline response, for the true artist has no home upon earth save
the heart of humanity! The kingdom of the Beautiful belongs not
exclusively to the luxurious, nor to any aristocracy of the refined and
cultivated, but, like the blue depths of God's heaven arch, spans the
world, everywhere visible, and everywhere beneficent!
As they may not formulate for us a definite reply, let us place our ears
close to the throbbing heart of the masses, that we may hear what effect
the Beautiful, as manifested in art, has upon the electric pulses. And
now our despair passes forever, for men made in the image of God, when
not degraded by a corrupting materialism, nor lost in the bewildering
mazes of a luxurious sensualism, nor puffed up with the vain conceit of
the limited understanding, and thus holding themselves above all the
high enthusiasm and holy mysteries of art, always seem able to recognize
that which awakens in them noble thoughts or tender feelings; so that
when a poet sings to them of heroism, of liberty, of fraternity, of
justice, of love, of home, of God, if he can succeed in causing their
hearts to throb with generous emotions, they stop not to consult the
critics, they listen only to the voice of their own naive souls, and at
once and with one accord enthusiastically cry: 'Beautiful! beautiful!
how beautiful!' La Bruyere himself says: 'When a poem elevates your
mind, when it inspires you with noble and heroic feeling, it is
altogether useless to seek other rules by which to judge it; it is--it
must be good, and the work of a true artist.
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