Ideal literature is the treasury of such
genius in the past; here, as I said in the beginning, the wisdom of the
soul is stored; and art, in all its forms, is immortal only in so far as
it has done its share in this same labour of illumination, persuasion,
and command, forecasting the spirit to be, companioning the spirit that
is, sustaining us all in the effort to make ideal order actual in
ourselves.
What, then, since I said that it is a question how to live as well as
how to express life,--what, then, is the ideal life? It is to make
one's life a poem, as Milton dreamed of the true poet; for as art works
through matter and takes on concrete and sensible shape with its mortal
conditions, so the soul dips in life, is in material action, and,
suffering a similar fate, sinks into limitations and externals of this
world and this flesh, through which it must live. In such a life, mortal
in all ways, to bring down to earth the vision that floats in the soul's
eyes, the ideal order as it is revealed to the poet's gaze,
incorporating it in deed and being, and to make it prevail, so far as
our lives have power, in the world of our life, is the task set for us.
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