Practice Book, Leland Powers School · Chapter 21Extract from "the Ring and the Book."
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Our human speech is naught, Our human testimony false, our fame And human estimation words and wind. Why take the artistic way to prove so much? Because, it is the glory and good of Art, That Art remains the one way possible Of speaking truth, to mouths like mine, at least. How look a brother in the face and say "Thy right is wrong, eyes hast thou, yet art blind, Thine ears are stuffed and stopped, despite their length, And, oh, the foolishness thou countest faith!" Say this as silvery as tongue can troll-- The anger of the man may be endured, The shrug, the disappointed eyes of him Are not so bad to bear--but here's the plague, That all this trouble comes of telling truth, Which truth, by when it reaches him, looks false, Seems to be just the thing it would supplant, Nor recognizable by whom it left; While falsehood would have done the work of truth. But Art,--wherein man nowise speaks to men, Only to mankind,--Art may tell a truth Obliquely, do the thing shall breed the thought, Nor wrong the thought, missing the mediate word. So may you paint your picture, twice show truth, Beyond mere imagery on the wall,-- So, note by note, bring music from your mind, Deeper than ever the Adante dived,-- So write a book shall mean, beyond the facts, Suffice the eye, and save the soul besides.