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Twentieth-century art may start with nothing, but it flourishes by virtue of its belief in itself, in the possibility of
control over what seems essentially uncontrollable, in the coherence of the inchoate, and in its ability to create its own
values.
T. S. EliotIf you aren\'t in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?
T. S. Eliot

CI



O truant Muse what shall be thy amends

For thy neglect of truth in beauty dy\'d?

Both truth and beauty on my love depends;

So dost thou too, and therein dignified.

Make answer Muse: wilt thou not haply say,

\'Truth needs no colour, with his colour fix\'d;

Beauty no pencil, beauty\'s truth to lay;

But best is best, if never intermix\'d\'?

Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?

Excuse not silence so, for\'t lies in thee

To make him much outlive a gilded tomb

And to be prais\'d of ages yet to be.

  Then do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how

  To make him seem long hence as he shows now.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXL



Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press

My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain;

Lest sorrow lend me words, and words express

The manner of my pity-wanting pain.

If I might teach thee wit, better it were,

Though not to love, yet, love to tell me so;--

As testy sick men, when their deaths be near,

No news but health from their physicians know;--

For, if I should despair, I should grow mad,

And in my madness might speak ill of thee;

Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,

Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be.

  That I may not be so, nor thou belied,

  Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.

 	--William Shakespeare