In “The Gospel of Life,” Charles Wagner writes this sound wisdom:
Never is knowledge more touching or art more radiant than when
they illumine the brow of the obscure. I am quite familiar with
the fact that there are certain privileged ones of the earth
who believe that this kind of good is reserved for them, that
these are meats too delicate to be set before common folk.
Scandalized at seeing the people walking about in the Louvre
or in the halls of the Hotel de Ville, some one said to me one
day, “Do you think that it was for these people that Puvis de
Chavannes painted his ceilings?” “I don’t know as a matter of
fact,” I said, “whether it was for them that he painted them.
But I know another ceiling more beautiful than are these of
earth; that which at night the myriads of stars cover with
their constellations, that on which according to the magnificent
image of the poet:
“‘God paints the dawn, like a fresco, on the dark wall of night.’”
(Text.)
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