e for all things, withheld as well
as given. Hand sometimes succumbs to head, and head in its turn
succumbs to hand; the first is the lot of youth, the last of manhood.
The question is--which of the two we can best afford to do without.
Narrowed down to this, I think but very few men would be found who
would not sacrifice in the loss of hand in preference to its gain at
the loss of head.

_Kosmon._ But, Christian, in advocating a return to this
pre-Raffaelle art, are you not--you yourself--urging the committal
of "ruthless restorations" and "improvements," new and vile as any
that you have denounced? You tell the artist, that he should restore
the sacred edifice to its first purity--the same as it was bequeathed
by its pious and earnest builders. But can he do this and be himself
original? For myself, I would above all things urge him to study how
to _reproduce_, and not how to represent--to imitate no past
perfection, but to create for himself another, as beautiful, wise,
and true. I would say to him, "build not on old ground, profaned,
polluted, trod into slough by filthy animals; but break new
ground--virgin ground--ground that thought has never imagined or eye
seen, and dig into our hearts a foundation, deep and broad as our
humanity. Let it not be a temple formed of hands only, but built up
of _us_--us of the present--body of our body, soul of our soul."

_Christian._ When men wish to raise a piece of stone, or to move it
along, they seek for a fulcrum to use their lever from; and, this
obtained, they can place the stone wheresoever they please. And
world-perfections come into existence too slowly for men to reject
all the teaching and experience of their predecessors: the labour of
learning is trifling compared to the labour of finding out; the first
implies only days, the last, hundreds of years. The discovery of the
new world without the compass would have been sheer chance; but with
it, it became an absolute certainty. So, and in such manner, the
modern artist seeks to use early mediaeval art, as a fulcrum to raise
through, but only as a fulcrum; for he himself holds the lever,
whereby he shall both guide and fix the stones of his art temple; as
experience, which shall be to him a rudder directing the motion of
his ship, but in subordination to his control; and as a compass,
which shall regulate his journey, but which, so far from taking away
his liberty, shall even add to it, because through it his course is