Tradition and Revolution

G.d'Annunzio

A noble race is not one that creates a God in its own image but one that creates also the song wherewith to do Him homage. Every rebirth of a noble race is a lyric force, every sentiment that is common to the whole race, a potential lyric; music, the language of ritual, has power, above all else, to exalt the achievement and the life of man. Does it not seem that great music has power to bring spiritual peace to the strained and anxious multitude? The reign of the human spirit is not yet. ‘When matter acting on matter shall be able to replace man’s physical strength, then will the spirit of man begin to see the dawn of liberty’: so said a man of Dalmatia of our own Adriatic, the blind seer of Sebenico.