The neglect of
the art of war, while it has somewhat weakened and deformed the
body,[117] has given us leisure and opportunity for studies to which,
before, time and space were equally wanting; lives which once were
early wasted on the battle-field are now passed usefully in the study;
nations which exhausted themselves in annual warfare now dispute with
each other the discovery of new planets; and the serene philosopher
dissects the plants, and analyzes the dust, of lands which were of old
only traversed by the knight in hasty march, or by the borderer in
heedless rapine.
The elements of progress and decline being thus strangely mingled in
the modern mind, we might beforehand anticipate that one of the
notable characters of our art would be its inconsistency; that efforts
would be made in every direction, and arrested by every conceivable
cause and manner of failure; that in all we did, it would become next
to impossible to distinguish accurately the grounds for praise or for
regret; that all previous canons of practice and methods of thought
would be gradually overthrown, and criticism continually defied by
successes which no one had expected, and sentiments which no one could
define.
Accordingly, while, in our inquiries into Greek and mediaeval art, I
was able to describe, in general terms, what all men did or felt, I
find now many characters in many men; some, it seems to me, founded on
the inferior and evanescent principles of modernism, on its
recklessness, impatience, or faithlessness; others founded on its
science, its new affection for nature, its love of openness and
liberty.
Pages:
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176