The Service Of Philosophy, Of Speculative Culture,

She Is Older Than The Rocks Among Which She Sits; Like The Vampire, She Has Been Dead Many Times, And Learned The Secrets Of The Grave; And Has Been A Diver In Deep Seas, And Keeps Their Fallen Day About Her; And Trafficked For Strange Webs With Eastern Merchants, And, As Leda, Was The Mother Of Helen Of Troy, And, As Saint Anne, The Mother Of Mary; And All This Has Been To Her But As The Sound Of Lyres And Flutes, And Lives Only In The Delicacy With Which It Has Molded The Changing Lineaments, And Tinged The Eyelids And The Hands.

A Counted Number Of Pulses Only Is Given To Us Of A Variegated, Dramatic Life. How May We See In Them All That Is To To Be Seen In Them By The Finest Senses?

Every Moment Some Form Grows Perfect In Hand Or Face; Some Tone On The Hills Or The Sea Is Choicer Than The Rest; Some Mood Of Passion Or Insight Or Intellectual Excitement Is Irresistibly Real And Attractive For Us - For That Moment Only.

No Account Of The Renaissance Can Be Complete Without Some Notice Of The Attempt Made By Certain Italian Scholars Of The Fifteenth Century To Reconcile Christianity With The Religion Of Ancient Greece.

We Need Some Imaginative Stimulus, Some Not Impossible Ideal Such As May Shape Vague Hope, And Transform It Into Effective Desire, To Carry Us Year After Year, Without Disgust, Through The Routine-work Which Is So Large A Part Of Life.