Page:Clarence S. Darrow - Realism in Literature and Art (1899).djvu/23

 Rh their lives and the moral of the picture sinks deep into their minds.

There are so-called scientists that make a theory and then gather facts to prove their theory true; the real scientist patiently and impartially gathers facts, and then forms a theory to explain and harmonize these facts. All life bears a moral, and the true artist must teach a lesson with his every fact. Some contend that the moral teacher must not tell the truth; the realist holds that there can be no moral teaching like the truth. The world has grown tired of preachers and sermons; to-day it asks for facts. It has grown tired of fairies and angels, and asks for flesh and blood. It looks on life as it exists, both its beauty and its horrors, its joys and its sorrows, it wishes to see it all; not the prince and the millionaire alone, but the laborer and the beggar, the master and the slave. We see the beautiful and the ugly, and with it know what the world is and what it ought to be; and the true picture, which the author saw and painted, stirs the heart to holier feelings and to grander thoughts.

It is from the realities of life that the highest idealists are born. The philosopher may reason with unerring logic, and show us where the world is wrong. The economist may tell us of the progress and the poverty that go hand in