affair, my dear sir. After I read a certain book by Tolstoy, I realized
that art was as potent an agent for mischief as the knout. Music--music
is rooted in sex; it works miracles of evil--"

"Now, uncle, I won't hear a word against Chopin," said Mila, looking
toward Gerald for approval.

"Music, Mila, in the hands of evil men is an instrument dangerous to
religion, to civilization. What of Illowski and his crazy attack on
Paris and St. Petersburg? You remember, Shannon! Leave Wagner out of the
question--there is no fusion of the arts in his music drama--only bad
verse, foolish librettos, dealing with monsters and gods, and
indifferent scene-painting. Moreover, this new music is not understood
by the world. Even if the whole of mankind could be assembled on the
roof of the world and at a preconcerted signal made to howl the
Marseillaise, it would not be educated to the heights I imagine. Stage
plays--Shakespeare has no message for our days; Ibsen is an
anarchist--he believes in placing the torpedo under the social ark.
Painting--it is an affair for state galleries and the cabinets of
wealthy amateurs. Literature is a dead art--every one writes and reads
and no one understands. Religion! Ah! Yes, religion; the world will be a
blackened cinder or cometary gas before the love of God is stamped from
its heart. But religion and art must go hand in hand. Divorced, art has
fallen into the Slough of Despond; else has been transformed into an
acrid poison wherewith men's souls are destroyed as if by a virulent
absinthe. United with religion, art is purified. All art sprang from
religion. All great art, from a Greek statue to a Gothic cathedral, from
a Bach fugue to Michael Angelo, was religious. Therefore, if we are to
reach the hearts of the people, we must make art the handmaid of
religion." He stopped for breath. Gerald interposed:--