For why should he not acknowledge the source of his
inspiration, that others may drink of the same spring with himself;
and perhaps drink deeper and a clearer draught?--For the water is
unebbing and exhaustless, and fills the more it is emptied: why then
should it be filtered through his tank _where_ he can teach men to
drink it at the fountain?
If, as every poet, every painter, every sculptor will acknowledge,
his best and most original ideas are derived from his own times: if
his great lessonings to piety, truth, charity, love, honor, honesty,
gallantry, generosity, courage, are derived from the same source; why
transfer them to distant periods, and make them _not things of
to-day?_ Why teach us to revere the saints of old, and not our own
family-worshippers? Why to admire the lance-armed knight, and not the
patience-armed hero of misfortune? Why to draw a sword we do not wear
to aid and oppressed damsel, and not a purse which we do wear to
rescue an erring one? Why to worship a martyred St. Agatha, and not a
sick woman attending the sick? Why teach us to honor an Aristides or
a Regulus, and not one who pays an equitable, though to him ruinous,
tax without a railing accusation? And why not teach us to help what
the laws cannot help?--Why teach us to hate a Nero or an Appius, and
not an underselling oppressor of workmen and betrayer of women and
children? Why to love a _Ladie in bower_, and not a wife's fireside?
Why paint or poetically depict the horrible race of Ogres and Giants,
and not show Giant Despair dressed in that modern habit he walks the
streets in? Why teach men what were great and good deeds in the old
time, neglecting to show them any good for themselves?--Till these
questions are answered absolutory to the artist, it were unwise to
propose the other question--Why a poet, painter or sculptor is not
honored and loved as formerly? "As formerly," says some avowed
sceptic in _old world transcendency_ and _golden age affairs_, "I
believe _formerly_ the artist was as much respected and cared for as
he is now.
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