Page:Clarence S. Darrow - Realism in Literature and Art (1899).djvu/14

 14 with infinitely more than human skill; that every portion is adapted for its work, and through the harmony of every part the highest good is reached; and that all is beautiful, for it makes the being best adapted to the earth. Those who denounce realistic art deny that knowledge is power and that wisdom only can make harmony, and they insist instead that there are some things vital to life and happiness that we should not know, but that if we must know these things we should at all events pretend that we do not. One day the world will learn that all things are, good or bad, according to the service they perform. One day it ought to learn that the power to create immortality, through infinite, succeeding links of human life, is the finest and most terrible that nature ever gave to man, and that to ignore this power or call it bad, or fail to realize the great responsibility of this tremendous fact, is to cry out against the power that gave us life and commit the greatest human sin, for it may be one that never dies.

The true artist does not find all beauty in the human face or form. He looks upon the sunset, painting all the clouds with rosy hue, and his highest wish is to create another scene like this. He never dreams that he could paint a sunset fairer than that which lights the fading