[The Investment of Influence by Newell Dwight Hillis]@TWC D-Link bookThe Investment of Influence CHAPTER VII 4/32
Mind is the beginning of civilization, but the ends and fruitage thereof are of the heart. Christopher Wren's intellect wrought out the plan for St.Paul's Cathedral.
But all impotent to realize themselves, these plans, lying in the King's council chamber grew yellow with age and thick with dust. One day a great heart stood forth before the people of London, pointing them to an unseen God, "from whom cometh every good and perfect gift," and, plying men with the generosity of God, he asked gifts of gold and silver and houses and lands, that England might erect a temple worthy of him "whom the heaven of heavens could not contain." The mind of a great architect had created a plan and a "blue-print," but eager hearts inspiring earnest hands turned the plan into granite and hung in the air a dome of marble. Thus all the great achievements for civilization are the achievements of heart.
What we call the fine arts are only red-hot ingots of passion cooled off into visible shape.
All high music is emotion gushing forth at those faucets named musical notes.
As unseen vapors cool into those visible forms named snowflakes, so Gothic enthusiasms cooled off into cathedrals. Our art critics speak of the eight great paintings of history.
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