sed, as you know, of
a very subtle flavour. The larger music, the more majestic lengths of
verse called epics, the exact in sculpture, the classic drama, the
most absolute kinds of wine, require a perfect harmony of circumstance
for their appreciation. Whatever is strong, poignant, and immediate in
its effect is not so difficult to suit; farce, horror, rage, or what
not, these a man can find in the arts, even when his mood may be heavy
or disturbed; just as (to take their parallel in wines) strong Beaune
will always rouse a man. But that which is cousin to the immortal
spirit, and which has, so to speak, no colour but mere light, _that_
needs for its recognition so serene an air of abstraction and of
content as makes its pleasure seem rare in this troubled life, and
causes us to recall it like a descent of the gods.

For who, having noise around him, can strike the table with pleasure
at reading the Misanthrope, or in mere thirst or in fatigue praise
Chinon wine? Who does not need for either of these perfect things
Recollection, a variety of according conditions, and a certain easy
Plenitude of the Mind?

So it is with the majesty of Plains, and with the haunting power of
their imperial roads.

All you that have had your souls touched at the innermost, and have
attempted to release yourselves in verse and have written trash--(and
who know it)--be comforted. You shall have satisfaction at last, and
you shall attain fame in some other fashion--perhaps in private
theatricals or perhaps in journalism. You will be granted a prevision
of complete success, and your hearts shall be filled--but you must not
expect to find this mood on the Emilian Way when it is raining.

All you that feel youth slipping past you and that are desolate at the
approach of age, be merry; it is not what it looks like from in front
and from outside. There is a glory in all completion, and all good
endings are but shining transitions. There will come a sharp moment of
revelation when you shall bless the effect of time. But this divine
moment--- it is not on the Emilian Way in the rain that you should
seek it.

All you that have loved passionately and have torn your hearts asunder
in disillusions, do not imagine that things broken cannot be mended by
the good angels. There is a kind of splice called 'the long splice'
which makes a cut rope seem what it was before; it is even stronger
than before, and can pass through a block. There will descend up