I hold it to be entirely within the right of the artist to show by what machinations of the demon of circumstance the bad man may be raised up to honour and the good man brought down to shame, but I also hold it to be the first and highest duty of the artist to show that victory may be worse than defeat, success more to be feared than failure, and that it is better to lie with the just man on his dunghill than to sit with the evil one on his throne.
That is, in my view, what great art is for--to lift us above and beyond the transient fact, the mere semblance and form of things, and show the essence of truth which life so often hides. Without it I find no function for art except that of the photographer, however faithful, the reproducer and transcriber of just what the eye can see.
All the same, I recognise the plausibility of quite other views, and I know that the opinions both on art and life of the author of this book, so far as they have revealed themselves to me, are such as receive the warm support of some of the wisest and best minds of our time.
It does not surprise me to hear that the Academy of France has lately crowned "The Power of a Lie," for both its morality and its excelling power are of the kind which at the present moment appeal most strongly to the French mind. That they will also appeal to a certain side of the Anglo-Saxon mind I confidently believe; and I am no less sure that however a reader may revolt against certain aspects of the teaching of this fine book, he will find that it stirs and touches him and makes him think.
THE night was falling as Knut Norby drove homewards in his sledge from a meeting of the school committee. The ice on Lake Mjösen had not been safe for some little time, and he had promised his wife to go round by the high-road. But various annoyances in the course of the day had irritated the old man, and down by the craggy promontory he suddenly tightened the reins and turned off on to the ice. "It has borne others already to-day," he thought, "and there is no reason why it shouldn't bear me." The horse pricked up its ears, and stepped timidly over the rough ice; but Knut roused it with a smart touch of the whip, and the sledge bounded from hummock to hummock until it reached the smooth, shining surface of the lake.