DOI chapter:
Chapter XI Influences, Going and Coming
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.65493#0295
AMERICAN SCULPTURE
231
“What hourly to avoid is known by
none.” What hourly to accept is our
modern question. Since a man’s foes
may be of his own household, what
if our own home-grown materialism
were after all the worst enemy of our
art? It will do little good to fly fever-
ish alien contacts if at the same time
things of the spirit are allowed to lan-
guish at our own ancestral firesides.
Sometimes the firesides themselves
seem less frequent, as ancestors di-
minish in the world’s esteem. True,
our tawdry and vehement self-adver-
tising has its magnificent dreams, and
our childlike faith in the dollar its
occasional glorious hour of justifica-
tion; we cannot help seeing that some
of our transatlantic co-workers in art
and letters come among us remember-
ing those things. And it is a healing
principle of civilization that we shall
borrow our light from one land, and
divide our loaf with another; even
GOING AND COMING
231
“What hourly to avoid is known by
none.” What hourly to accept is our
modern question. Since a man’s foes
may be of his own household, what
if our own home-grown materialism
were after all the worst enemy of our
art? It will do little good to fly fever-
ish alien contacts if at the same time
things of the spirit are allowed to lan-
guish at our own ancestral firesides.
Sometimes the firesides themselves
seem less frequent, as ancestors di-
minish in the world’s esteem. True,
our tawdry and vehement self-adver-
tising has its magnificent dreams, and
our childlike faith in the dollar its
occasional glorious hour of justifica-
tion; we cannot help seeing that some
of our transatlantic co-workers in art
and letters come among us remember-
ing those things. And it is a healing
principle of civilization that we shall
borrow our light from one land, and
divide our loaf with another; even
GOING AND COMING