Books Are A Refuge, A Sort Of

All Art Constantly Aspires Towards The Condition Of Music.

Books Are A Refuge, A Sort Of Cloistral Refuge, From The Vulgarities Of The Actual World.

And The Fifteenth Century Was An Impassioned Age, So Ardent And Serious In Its Pursuit Of Art That It Consecrated Everything With Which Art Had To Ad As A Religious Object.

For Us Necessity Is Not As Of Old An Image Without Us, With Whom We Can Do Warfare; It Is A Magic Web Woven Through And Through Us, Like That Magnetic System Of Which Modern Science Speaks, Penetrating Us With A Network Subtler Than Our Subtlest Nerves, Yet Bearing In It The Central Forces Of The World.

To Burn Always With This Hard, Gemlike Flame, To Maintain This Ecstasy, Is Success In Life . . . Not The Fruit Of Experience, But Experience Itself, Is The End . . . For Art Comes To You Professing Frankly To Give Nothing But The Highest Quality To Your Moments As They Pass, And Simply For Those Moments' Sake.