Page:Studies in Letters and Life (Woodberry, 1890).djvu/133

Rh enriched the Northern minds by making them more sensitive to beauty, and by sharpening their perception of artistic refinements; it has left no other mark on civilization. The interest which the golden age excites in cultivated minds seldom loses its dilettante character; the really serious interest is in the Italy of Dante and Giotto, or in the genius of isolated men who stand apart, like Michel Angelo.

The Renaissance was a movement of civilization not less important than the Reformation or the Revolution, and to Italy, as its source, the debt of the world is great. But the Renaissance was not conveyed to Europe by the literature of its corruption; it was conveyed in far different ways.