Addresses in America by John Galsworthy — Read

I do not know what your chief thought is now; for me the overmastering thought is that of Creation――Re-creation. You know when we look at a bit of moorland where the gorse and heather have been burned――swaled we call it in Devon――how we delight in the green, pushing up among the black shrivelled roots. I long to see the green pushing up, the creative impulse at work in its thousand ways all over the world again; each of us on both continents in his own line doing creative work; and not so much that wealth and comfort, as that health and beauty may be born again.

But, confronting as I do to-night, the Arts and Sciences, let me divide my words. You sciences have no need to listen. You have never had such a heyday as this; in engineering, in chemistry, in surgery, in every branch except perhaps ‘star-gazing,' you have been shooting ahead, earning fresh laurels, putting new discoveries at the service of bewildered Man. Science drags no lame foot, it dances along like the Pied Piper of Hamelin. I had better not pursue the simile. But the Arts, with faces muffled to the eyes, stand against the walls of life, and gaze a little enviously, a little mournfully at the passing rout. This is not their time for carnival; their lovers sleep, heavy with war and toil. It is to those poor wallflowers the Arts, that I would speak: Drop your veils, have the courage of your charms; you shall break many a heart yet, make many a lover happy.