" But though a clergyman can condition his congregation it
is much more true that the congregation can condition the clergyman.
It is written, "Where two or three are gathered together in My Name,
there am I in the midst of them." When they in the pews are those in
white robes, then He in the pulpit is the Christ Himself.
In literature we have to differentiate what is purely a commercial
product like the yellowback novel, what is educational like the
classic, and what is of the new. With the commercial we have of course
no traffic; the classic is a place for those still learning what has
already been said, a place for orientisation, for finding out where
one stands. In this category are the Shakespearean performances at the
theatre. In any case the classic is necessarily subordinate to the new
literature, the literature of pioneering and discovery, the literature
of ourselves. It is the school which prepares for the stepping forth
on the untrodden ways.
This fencing off, differentiation and allocation, these defences of
the beautiful and new, and of the temples enshrining them, shall
be like the walls round a new sanctuary. We shall thereby protect
ourselves from the encroaching commercial machine, its dwarfing
ethics, mean postulates, and accurst conventions, and we shall rear
within the walls all the beautiful that the outside world says does
not exist.
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