Page:The Spirit of French Music.djvu/10

iv. that it expects, it would be little disposed to seek out the more ordinary products that she would offer. Our work, then, is something higher than useful, yet it has utility. It is the radiation of our letters and our arts which will open world-routes to our merchants and our ships.

To work then! Let us work with an ardour redoubled by grief and hope. The dead who have saved us require of us that we add to our duties and labours those which awaited them. Let us work, striving after that perfection for which the conditions of modern existence are, alas! none too favourable, but which remains nevertheless the strict law of our professional sincerity.