has not given delight to its maker and does not give delight to its
user. The children, like the children of Plato's perfect city,
will grow up 'in a simple atmosphere of all fair things' - I quote
from the passage in the REPUBLIC - 'a simple atmosphere of all fair
things, where beauty, which is the spirit of art, will come on eye
and ear like a fresh breath of wind that brings health from a clear
upland, and insensibly and gradually draw the child's soul into
harmony with all knowledge and all wisdom, so that he will love
what is beautiful and good, and hate what is evil and ugly (for
they always go together) long before he knows the reason why; and
then when reason comes will kiss her on the cheek as a friend.'

That is what Plato thought decorative art could do for a nation,
feeling that the secret not of philosophy merely but of all
gracious existence might be externally hidden from any one whose
youth had been passed in uncomely and vulgar surroundings, and that
the beauty of form and colour even, as he says, in the meanest
vessels of the house, will find its way into the inmost places of
the soul and lead the boy naturally to look for that divine harmony
of spiritual life of which art was to him the material symbol and
warrant.

Prelude indeed to all knowledge and all wisdom will this love of
beautiful things be for us; yet there are times when wisdom becomes
a burden and knowledge is one with sorrow: for as every body has
its shadow so every soul has its scepticism. In such dread moments
of discord and despair where should we, of this torn and troubled
age, turn our steps if not to that secure house of beauty where
there is always a little forgetfulness, always a great joy; to that
CITTE DIVINA, as the old Italian heresy called it, the divine city