ule--nothing attains full vitality. And
secretly fettered by that rule is Art, whose business is the creation of
vital things.

That aesthete, to be sure, was right, when he said: "It is Style that
makes one believe in a thing; nothing but Style." For, what is Style in
its true and broadest sense save fidelity to idea and mood, and perfect
balance in the clothing of them? And I thought: Can one believe in the
decadence of Art in an age which, however unconsciously as yet, is
beginning to worship that which Art worships--Perfection-Style?

The faults of our Arts to-day are the faults of zeal and of adventure,
the faults and crudities of pioneers, the errors and mishaps of the
explorer. They must pass through many fevers, and many times lose their
way; but at all events they shall not go dying in their beds, and be
buried at Kensal Green. And, here and there, amid the disasters and
wreckage of their voyages of discovery, they will find something new,
some fresh way of embellishing life, or of revealing the heart of things.
That characteristic of to-day's Art--the striving of each branch of Art
to burst its own boundaries--which to many spells destruction, is surely
of happy omen. The novel straining to become the play, the play the
novel, both trying to paint; music striving to become story; poetry
gasping to be music; painting panting to be philosophy; forms, canons,
rules, all melting in the pot; stagnation broken up! In all this havoc
there is much to shock and jar even the most eager and adventurous. We
cannot stand these new-fangled fellows! They have no form! They rush in
where angels fear to tread. They have lost all the good of the old, and
given us nothing in its place! And yet--only out of stir and change is
born new salvation. To deny that is to deny belief in man, to turn our
backs on courage! It is well, indeed, that some should live in closed
studies with the paintings and the books of yesterday--such devoted
students serve Art in their own way. But the fresh-air world will ever
want new forms. We shall not get them without faith enough to risk the
old! The good will live, the bad will die; and tomorrow only can tell us
which is which!

Yes--I thought--we naturally take a too impatient view of the Art of our
own time, since we can neither see the ends toward which it is almost
blindly groping, nor the few perfected creations that will be left
standing amidst the rubble of abortive effort.