too practical to be pure and too patriotic to be moral; but the upshot
of it all is that a mediocrity is Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Our new artistic philosophers call for the same moral license,
for a freedom to wreck heaven and earth with their energy;
but the upshot of it all is that a mediocrity is Poet Laureate.
I do not say that there are no stronger men than these; but will
any one say that there are any men stronger than those men of old
who were dominated by their philosophy and steeped in their religion?
Whether bondage be better than freedom may be discussed.
But that their bondage came to more than our freedom it will be
difficult for any one to deny.

The theory of the unmorality of art has established itself firmly
in the strictly artistic classes. They are free to produce
anything they like. They are free to write a "Paradise Lost"
in which Satan shall conquer God. They are free to write a
"Divine Comedy" in which heaven shall be under the floor of hell.
And what have they done? Have they produced in their universality
anything grander or more beautiful than the things uttered by
the fierce Ghibbeline Catholic, by the rigid Puritan schoolmaster?
We know that they have produced only a few roundels.
Milton does not merely beat them at his piety, he beats them
at their own irreverence. In all their little books of verse you
will not find a finer defiance of God than Satan's. Nor will you
find the grandeur of paganism felt as that fiery Christian felt it
who described Faranata lifting his head as in disdain of hell.
And the reason is very obvious. Blasphemy is an artistic effect,
because blasphemy depends upon a philosophical conviction.
Blasphemy depends upon belief and is fading with it.
If any one doubts this, let him sit down seriously and try to think