Savonarola and of the sin of Borgia, than all the brawling boors
and cooking women of Dutch art can teach us of the real spirit of
the history of Holland?

And so in our own day, also, the two most vital tendencies of the
nineteenth century - the democratic and pantheistic tendency and
the tendency to value life for the sake of art - found their most
complete and perfect utterance in the poetry of Shelley and Keats
who, to the blind eyes of their own time, seemed to be as wanderers
in the wilderness, preachers of vague or unreal things. And I
remember once, in talking to Mr. Burne-Jones about modern science,
his saying to me, 'the more materialistic science becomes, the more
angels shall I paint: their wings are my protest in favour of the
immortality of the soul.'

But these are the intellectual speculations that underlie art.
Where in the arts themselves are we to find that breadth of human
sympathy which is the condition of all noble work; where in the
arts are we to look for what Mazzini would call the social ideas as
opposed to the merely personal ideas? By virtue of what claim do I
demand for the artist the love and loyalty of the men and women of
the world? I think I can answer that.

Whatever spiritual message an artist brings to his aid is a matter
for his own soul. He may bring judgment like Michael Angelo or
peace like Angelico; he may come with mourning like the great
Athenian or with mirth like the singer of Sicily; nor is it for us
to do aught but accept his teaching, knowing that we cannot smite
the bitter lips of Leopardi into laughter or burden with our
discontent Goethe's serene calm. But for warrant of its truth such