We know that these texts are ridiculous,
but many of us do not yet see that to write an obvious moral
all over a work of art, picture, statue, or poem, is not only ridiculous,
but timid and vulgar. We distrust a beauty we only half understand,
and rush in with our impertinent suggestions. How far we are
from "admitting the Universe"! The Universe, which flings down
its continents and seas, and leaves them without comment. Art is as much
a function of the Universe as an Equinoctial gale, or the Law of Gravitation;
and we insist upon considering it merely a little scroll-work,
of no great importance unless it be studded with nails from which
pretty and uplifting sentiments may be hung!
For the purely technical side I must state my immense debt to the French,
and perhaps above all to the, so-called, Parnassian School,
although some of the writers who have influenced me most do not belong to it.
High-minded and untiring workmen, they have spared no pains
to produce a poetry finer than that of any other country in our time.
Poetry so full of beauty and feeling, that the study of it is at once
an inspiration and a despair to the artist.
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