And Perfection began to glow before the eyes of the Western world like a
new star, whose light touched with glamour all things as they came forth
from Mystery, till to Mystery they were ready to return.

This--I thought is surely what the Western world has dimly been
rediscovering. There has crept into our minds once more the feeling that
the Universe is all of a piece, Equipoise supreme; and all things equally
wonderful, and mysterious, and valuable. We have begun, in fact, to have
a glimmering of the artist's creed, that nothing may we despise or
neglect--that everything is worth the doing well, the making fair--that
our God, Perfection, is implicit everywhere, and the revelation of Him
the business of our Art.

And as I jotted down these words I noticed that some real stars had crept
up into the sky, so gradually darkening above the pollard lime-trees;
cuckoos, who had been calling on the thorn-trees all the afternoon, were
silent; the swallows no longer flirted past, but a bat was already in
career over the holly hedge; and round me the buttercups were closing.
The whole form and feeling of the world had changed, so that I seemed to
have before me a new picture hanging.

Ah! I thought Art must indeed be priest of this new faith in Perfection,
whose motto is: "Harmony, Proportion, Balance." For by Art alone can
true harmony in human affairs be fostered, true Proportion revealed, and
true Equipoise preserved. Is not the training of an artist a training in
the due relation of one thing with another, and in the faculty of
expressing that relation clearly; and, even more, a training in the
faculty of disengaging from self the very essence of self--and passing
that essence into other selves by so delicate means that none shall see
how it is done, yet be insensibly unified? Is not the artist, of all