“Papa, how pretty those icicles are,
That are seen so near,—­that are seen so far;
—­Those dropping waters that come from the rocks
And many a hole, like the haunt of a fox. 
That silvery stream that runs babbling along,
Making a murmuring, dancing song. 
Those trees that stand waving upon the rock’s side,
And men, that, like specters, among them glide. 
And waterfalls that are heard from far,
And come in sight when very near. 
And the water-wheel that turns slowly round,
Grinding the corn that—­requires to be ground,—­

(Political Economy of the future!)

——­And mountains at a distance seen,
And rivers winding through the plain,
And quarries with their craggy stones,
And the wind among them moans.”

So foretelling Stones of Venice, and this essay on Athena.

Enough now concerning myself.

113.  Of Turner’s life, and of its good and evil, both great, but the good immeasurably the greater, his work is in all things a perfect and transparent evidence.  His biography is simply, “He did this, nor will ever another do its like again.”  Yet read what I have said of him, as compared with the great Italians, in the passages taken from the “Cestus of Aglaia,” farther on, sec. 158, pp. 164, 165.

114.  This, then, is the nature of the connection between morals and art.  Now, secondly, I have asserted the foundation of both these, at least hitherto, in war.  The reason of this too manifest fact is, that, until now it has been impossible for any nation, except a warrior one, to fix its mind wholly on its men, instead of their possessions.  Every great soldier nation thinks, necessarily, first of multiplying its bodies and souls of men, in good temper and strict discipline.  As long as this is its political aim, it does not matter what it temporarily suffers, or loses, either in numbers or in wealth; its morality and its arts (if it have national art-gift) advance together; but so soon as it ceases to be a warrior nation, it thinks of its possessions instead of its men; and then the moral and poetic powers vanish together.

115.  It is thus, however, absolutely necessary to the virtue of war that it should be waged by personal strength, not by money or machinery.  A nation that fights with a mercenary force, or with torpedoes instead of its own arms, is dying.  Not but that there is more true courage in modern than even in ancient war; but this is, first, because all the remaining life of European nations is with a morbid intensity thrown into their soldiers; and, secondly, because their present heroism is the culmination of centuries of inbred and traditional valor, which Athena taught them by forcing them to govern the foam of the sea-wave and of the horse,—­not the steam of kettles.