What is to be done? How is one to introduce them to a larger, fuller life? How can one dare to do that without presumption, and also without fear of pomposity? How do it with affection, without lecturing them, without preaching to them? How be useful and friendly with simplicity? They have suffered, they have experience and obstinate views of their own. They do not believe that they have been dispossessed of anything. You have to listen very attentively to hear their soul groaning in the depths. I spoke to one of them about music. He replied with an indifference in which there was a touch of discouragement; “For my part, I don’t understand music. It can’t interest me.” We went on talking and I discovered that he was strangely sensitive to architectual matters, that he had a very subtle understanding and lacked nothing but enlightenment, knowledge, to have applied himself to it with passionate interest. It is usually that way. The field of moral activity is so large that it has in reserve for every soul a path of his own choice, accessible and full of allurement. I do not believe there is a single individual who cannot end by meeting, in the limitless realm of art, with a mode of expression that touches him, conforms quite accurately to his powers and tastes. V You see I have waited a long time before pronouncing the word. I must at last make up my mind to call art by its name. Listen and do not confuse modesty with timidity. The past century has produced important artists in every country in the world. That was a beautiful, fertile and truly generous century! And yet it witnessed the birth of a misunderstanding that grows more obdurate, that increases as it grows older. Should one ever allow a misunderstanding to grow old? The romantic writers and, following them, all the artists of their epoch, intoxicated with their own genius, honored art as a religion. It was natural enough since at that moment, as we know, mankind was beginning to detach itself from its divinities, and it is hard to live without God. I cannot bring myself to condemn that enthusiasm. I love art too well, and I shall always hold it as one of the distinguishing marks of man and one of the greatest things in this world. But the priests of this new God have acted like all priests: they have hurled anathemas and brought in a reign of intolerance. They have grown mad with pride, when there was reason and when there was no reason for it. They have cried out at all hours of the day, “Away, profane ones!” Many of them, who have had very noble souls, have discouraged, as if designedly, those whom their radiant face has fascinated. Others, instead of struggling, have held the epoch responsible for their ill-fortune. All of them, poets, painters, musicians, have let it be understood that they exercised a divine power and that the mass of men must only wonder and be silent, without themselves attempting anything of the sort.