Pictures would again work miracles. What is more, great
pictures would again be painted.
This illustration is valuable allegorically. Great pictures are very
like great souls, very like great and beautiful ideas. What is true
for pictures is true for men.
The men who feel in themselves the instinct for the new life must take
steps to make space for themselves and to make temples. Where they
find the beautiful, the real, they must take it to themselves and
protect it from enemies, they must at once begin to build walls of
defence. So great is their responsibility and so delicate their charge
that they must challenge no one, and invite no discussion and no
hostility. They must have and hold their own beautiful life as they
would a fair young bride.
Where they have visions they must build temples, as the Russian
mouzhiks build churches and put up crosses. Of course I do not mean
material temples, but temples not made by hands, temples of spirit,
temples of remembrance. Where they read in books sacred pages they
must make these pages sacred, sacred for them. Where they find men
noble they must have reference to the noble part of them and deny the
other. They have to win back the beautiful churches and cathedrals.
Often it is said nowadays, "Such and such a church is wonderful and
its service lifts one to heaven, but the clergyman and his sermon are
impossible.
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