The man into whose hands wealth is given has a great task set him. He
has a power denied to others. He can collect and preserve all that is
beautiful in art and nature--not for himself, but for those who
otherwise would never see anything but what is poor and squalid and
commonplace. True, he must also strive to alleviate the sufferings of
their bodies, so that their minds may be free to enjoy; but he must
not sacrifice the higher for the lower task--that would surely be the
work of what you call a Philistine. And his higher task is to feed
their souls with all that is lovely and stainless. Has not the Master
said, 'A man shall not live by bread alone'? Is it not true? And
again, I have read: 'What profiteth it a man if he gain the whole
world and lose his own soul?' And is not the man who sits, fed and
clothed, in a low, flat, level world of mud-huts in danger, of
forgetting that there were ever such wonders as the minarets of a
high, Heaven-aspiring temple? Will he not grow to think that there is
nothing more beautiful than a mud-hut, nothing more to be desired than
his daily bread? I have thought of all this, and I have preserved my
palace and everything that it contains. I have preserved it for my
people. It shall be for them a goal and encouragement, a voice
speaking to them day by day from the high towers: 'See what the hands
of thy fathers have created! Thou people in the low dwellings, arise
and do greater things still, for the great and beautiful is nearest
God'!"
He stopped abruptly, shaken by his own passionate enthusiasm.
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