The Story of Mankind was written and illustrated by Dutch-American journalist, professor, and author Hendrik Willem van Loon and published in 1921. In 1922, it was the first book to be awarded the Newbery Medal for its outstanding contribution to children's literature.
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Transcript
This is Part 32 of The Story of Mankind by Hendrik van Loon THE AGE OF SCIENCE But the world had undergone another change which was of greater importance than either the political or the industrial revolutions. After generations of oppression and persecution, The scientists had at last gained liberty of action, And he was now trying to discover the fundamental laws which govern the universe. The Egyptians, The Babylonians, The Chaldeans, The Greeks and the Romans had all contributed something to the first vague notions of science and scientific investigation. But the great migrations of the fourth century had destroyed the classical world of the Mediterranean and the Christian Church, Which was more interested in the life of the soul than in the life of the body, Had regarded science as a manifestation of that human arrogance which wanted to pry into divine affairs, Which belonged to the realm of Almighty God, And which, Therefore, Was closely related to the seven deadly sins. The Renaissance, To a certain but limited extent, Had broken through this wall of medieval prejudices. The Reformation, However, Which had overtaken the Renaissance in the early sixteenth century, Had been hostile to the ideals of the new civilization. And once more the men of science were threatened with severe punishment, Should they try to pass beyond the narrow limits of knowledge which had been laid down in holy writ. Our world is filled with the statues of great generals, Atop of prancing horses, Leading their cheering soldiers to glorious victory. Here and there a modest slab of marble announces that a man of science has found his final resting place. A thousand years from now we shall probably do these things differently, And the children of that happy generation shall know of the splendid courage and the almost inconceivable devotion to duty of the men who were the pioneers of that abstract knowledge, Which alone has made our modern world a practical possibility. Many of these scientific pioneers suffered poverty and contempt and humiliation. They lived in garrets and died in dungeons. They dared not print their names on the title pages of their books, And they dared not print their conclusions in the land of their birth, But smuggled the manuscripts to some secret printing shop in Amsterdam or Harlem. They were exposed to the bitter enmity of the Church, Both Protestant and Catholic, And were the subjects of endless sermons, Inciting the parishioners to violence against the heretics. Here and there they found an asylum, In Holland where the spirit of tolerance was strongest, The authorities, While regarding these scientific investigations with little favor, Yet refused to interfere with people's freedom of thought. It became a little asylum for intellectual liberty, Where French and English and German philosophers and mathematicians and physicians could go to enjoy a short spell of rest and get a breath of free air. In another chapter I have told you how Roger Bacon, The great genius of the thirteenth century, Was prevented for years from writing a single word, Lest he get into new troubles with the authorities of the Church. And five hundred years later, The contributors of the great philosophic encyclopedia were under the constant supervision of the French Grand Armory. Half a century afterwards, Darwin, Who dared to question the story of the creation of man as revealed in the Bible, Was denounced from every pulpit as an enemy of the human race. Even today, The persecution of those who venture into the unknown realm of science has not entirely come to an end. And while I am writing this, Mr. Bryan is addressing a vast multitude on the menace of Darwinism, Warning his hearers against the errors of the great English naturalist. All this, However, Is a mere detail. The work that has to be done invariably gets done, And the ultimate profit of the discoveries and the inventions goes to the mass of those same people who have always decried the man of vision as an unpractical idealist. The seventeenth century had still preferred to investigate the far-off heavens and to study the position of our planet in relation to the solar system. Even so, The Church had disapproved of this unseemly curiosity, And Copernicus, Who first of all had proved that the sun was the center of the universe, Did not publish his work until the day of his death. Galileo spent the greater part of his life under the supervision of the clerical authorities, But he continued to use his telescope and provided Isaac Newton with a mass of practical observations which greatly helped the English mathematician when he discovered the existence of that interesting habit of following objects which came to be known as the law of gravitation. That for the moment, At least, Exhausted the interest in the heavens and man began to study the earth. The invention of a workable microscope by Anthony van Leeuwenhoek during the last half of the seventeenth century gave man a chance to study the microscopic creatures who are responsible for so many of his ailments. It laid the foundations of the science of bacteriology, Which in the last forty years has delivered the world from a great number of diseases by discovering the tiny organisms which cause the complaint. It also allowed the geologists to make a more careful study of different rocks and of the fossils which they found deep below the surface of the earth. These investigations convinced them that the earth must be a great deal older than what was stated in the book of Genesis, And in the year 1830, Sir Charles Lyell published his Principles of Geology, Which denied the story of creation as related in the Bible and gave a far more wonderful description of slow growth and gradual development. At the same time, The Marquise de Laplace was working on a new theory of creation, Which made the earth a little blotch in the nebulous sea out of which the planetary system had been formed, And Bunsen and Kirchhoff by the knowledge of our organs and their habits afford a guesswork of the medieval quack. Within a single generation, More progress was made in every branch of science than in all the hundreds of thousands of years that had passed since man first looked at the stars and wondered why they were there. It must have been a very sad age for the people who had been educated under the old system, And we can understand their feelings of hatred for such men as Lamarck and Darwin, Who did not exactly tell them that they were descended from monkeys, But who suggested that the proud human race had evolved from a long series of ancestors who could trace the family tree back to the little jellyfishes, Who were the first inhabitants of our planet. The dignified world of the well-to-do middle class, Which dominated the nineteenth century, Was willing to make use of the gas or the electric light, Of all the many practical applications of the great scientific discoveries, But the mere investigator, The man of the scientific theory, Without whom no progress would be possible, Continued to be distrusted until very recently. Then at last his services were recognized. Today the rich people who in the past ages donated their wealth for the building of a cathedral, Construct vast laboratories, Where silent men do battle upon the hidden enemies of mankind, And often sacrifice their lives that coming generations may enjoy greater happiness and health. Indeed, It has come to pass that many of the ills of this world, Which our ancestors regarded as inevitable acts of God, Have been exposed as manifestations of our own ignorance and neglect. Every child nowadays knows that he can keep from getting typhoid fever by a little care in the choice of his drinking water, But it took years and years of hard work before the doctors could convince the people of this fact. Few of us now fear the dentist's chair. A study of the microbes that live in our mouth has made it possible to keep our teeth from decay. Just perchance a tooth be pulled, Then we take a sniff of gas, And go our way rejoicing. When the newspapers of the year 1846 brought the story of the painless operation which had been performed in America with the help of ether, The good people of Europe shook their heads. To them it seemed against the will of God that man should escape the pain which was the share of all mortals, And it took a long time before the practice of taking ether in chloroform for operations became general. But the battle of progress had been won. The breach in the old walls of prejudice was growing larger and larger. And as time went by, The ancient stones of ignorance came crumbling down. The eager crusaders of a new and happier social order rushed forward. Eventually they found themselves facing a new obstacle, Out of the ruins of a long-gone past. Another citadel of reaction had been erected. The millions of men had to give their lives before this last bulwark was destroyed. Art. A Chapter of Art. When a baby is perfectly healthy, And has had enough to eat and has slept all at once, Then it hums a little tune to show how happy it is. To grown-ups this humming means nothing. But it is his first contribution to art. As soon as he or she gets a little older and is able to sit up, The period of mud-pie making begins. These mud-pies do not interest the outside world. There are too many million babies, Making too many million mud-pies at the same time. But to the small infant they represent another expedition into the pleasant realm of art. The baby is now a sculptor. At the age of three or four, When the hands begin to obey the brain, The child becomes a painter. His fond mother gives him a box of colored chalks, And every loose bit of paper is rapidly covered with strange pot-hooks and scrawls, Which represent houses and horses, And terrible naval battles. Soon however, This happiness of just making things comes to an end. School begins, And the greater part of the day is filled up with work. The business of living, Or rather the business of making a living, Becomes the most important in the life of every boy and girl. There is little time left for art, Between learning the tables of multiplication, And the past participles of the irregular French verbs. And unless the desire to making certain things for the mere pleasure of creating them, Without any hope of a practical return, Be very strong, The child grows into manhood, And forgets that the first five years of his life were mainly devoted to art. Humans are not different from children. As soon as the caveman had escaped the threatening dangers of the long and shivering ice period, And had put his house in order, He began to make certain things which he thought beautiful, Although they were of no earthly use to him in his fight with the wild animals of the jungle. He covered the walls of his grotto with pictures of the elephants and the deer which he hunted, And out of a piece of stone he hacked the rough figures of those women he thought most attractive. As soon as the Egyptians and the Babylonians and the Persians and all the other people of the East had founded their little countries along the Nile and the Euphrates, They began to build magnificent palaces for their kings, Invented bright pieces of jewelry for their women, And planted gardens which sang happy songs of color with their many bright flowers. Their own ancestors, The wandering nomads from the distant Asiatic prairies, Enjoying a free and easy existence as fighters and hunters, Composed songs which celebrated the mighty deeds of their great leaders, And invented a form of poetry which has survived until our own day. A thousand years later, When they had established themselves on the Greek mainland, And had built their city-states, They expressed their joy and their sorrows in magnificent temples, In statues, In comedies and in tragedies, And in every conceivable form of art. The Romans, Like their Carthaginian rivals, Were too busy administering other people and making money to have much love for the useless and unprofitable adventures of the spirit. They conquered the world and built roads and bridges, But they borrowed their art wholesale from the Greeks. They invented certain practical forms of architecture, Which answered the demands of their day and age, But their statues and their histories, And their mosaics and their poems, Were mere Latin imitations of Greek originals. Without that vague and hard-to-define something which the world calls personality, There can be no art, And the Roman world distrusted that particular sort of personality. The empire needed efficient soldiers and tradesmen. The business of writing poetry or making pictures was left to foreigners. Then came the Dark Ages. The barbarian was the proverbial bull in the china shop of Western Europe. He had no use for what he did not understand. Speaking in terms of the year 1921, He liked the magazine covers of pretty ladies, But threw the Rembrandt etchings which he had inherited into the ash can. Soon he came to learn better. Then he tried to undo the damage which he had created a few years before, But the ash cans were gone, And so were the pictures. But by this time, His own art, Which he had brought with him from the East, Had developed into something very beautiful, And he made up for his past neglect and indifference by the so-called art of the Middle Ages, Which as far as Northern Europe is concerned, Was a product of the Germanic mind, And had borrowed but little from the Greeks and the Latins, And nothing at all from the older forms of art of Egypt and Syria, Not to speak of India and China, Which simply did not exist as far as the people of that time were concerned. Indeed, So little had the Northern races been influenced by their Southern neighbors, That their own architectural products were completely misunderstood by the people of Italy, And were treated by them with downright and unmitigated contempt. You have all heard the word Gothic. You probably associate it with the picture of a lovely old cathedral, Lifting its slender spires towards high heavens. But what does the word really mean? It means something uncouth and barbaric, Something which one might expect from an uncivilized Goth, A rough backwoods man who has no respect for the established rules of classical art, And who built his modern horrors to please his own low tastes, Without a decent regard for the examples of the Forum and the Acropolis. And yet, For several centuries, This form of Gothic architecture was the highest expression of the sincere feeling for art which inspired the whole Northern continent. From a previous chapter, You will remember how the people of the late Middle Ages lived. Unless they were peasants and dwelt in villages, They were citizens of a city and civitas, The old Latin name for a tribe, And indeed behind their high walls and their deep moats. These good burghers were true tribesmen who shared the common dangers and enjoyed the common safety and prosperity which they derived from their system of mutual protection. In the old Greek and Roman cities, The marketplace, Where the temples stood, Had been the center of civic life. During the Middle Ages, The church, The house of God, Became such a center. We modern Protestant people, Who go to our church only once a week, And then for a few hours only, Hardly know what a medieval church meant to the community. Then before you were a week old, You were taken to the church to be baptized. As a child, You visited the church to learn the holy stories of the scriptures. Later on you became a member of the congregation, And if you were rich enough, You built yourself a separate little chapel, Sacred to the memory of the patron saint of your own family. As for the sacred edifice, It was open at all hours of the day, And many of the night. In a certain sense, It resembled a modern club, Dedicated to all the inhabitants of the town. In the church, You very likely caught a first glimpse of the girl who was to become your bride at a great ceremony before the high altar. And finally, When the end of the journey had come, You were buried beneath the stones of this familiar building, That all your children and their grandchildren might pass over your grave until the Day of Judgment. Because the church was not only the house of God, But also the true center of all common The building had to be different from anything that had ever been constructed by the hands of man. The temples of the Egyptians and the Greeks and the Romans had been merely the shrine of a local divinity. As no sermons were preached before the images of Osiris or Zeus or Jupiter, It was not necessary that the interior offer space for a great multitude. All the religious processions of the old Mediterranean people took place in the open, But in the north, Where the weather was usually bad, Most functions were held under the roof of the church. During many centuries, The architects struggled with this problem of constructing a building that was large enough. The Roman tradition taught them how to build heavy stone walls with very small windows, Lest the walls lose their strength. On the top of this, They then placed a heavy stone roof. But in the twelfth century, After the beginning of the Crusades, When the architects had seen the pointed arcs of the Mohammed builders, The western builders discovered a new style which gave them their first glance to make the sort of building which those days of an intense religious life demanded. And then they developed this strange style upon which the Italians bestowed the contemptuous name of Gothic or Barbaric. They achieved their purpose by inventing a vaulted roof which was supported by ribs. But such a roof, If it became too heavy, Was apt to break the walls, Just as a man of three hundred pounds sitting down upon a child's chair will force it to collapse. To overcome this difficulty, Certain French architects then began to reinforce the walls with buttresses, Which were merely heavy masses of stone against which the walls could lean while they were supporting the roof. And to assure the further safety of the roof, They supported the ribs of the roof by so-called flying buttresses. This new method of construction allowed the introduction of enormous windows. In the twelfth century, Glass was still an expensive curiosity, And very few private buildings possessed glass windows. Even the castles of the nobles were without protection, And this accounts for the eternal drafts and explains why people of that day wore furs indoors as well as out. Fortunately, The art of making colored glass, With which the ancient people of the Mediterranean had been familiar, Had not been entirely lost. There was a revival of stained-glass making, And soon the windows of the Gothic churches told the stories of the holy book in little bits of brilliantly colored windowpane, Which were caught in a long framework of lead. Behold, Therefore, The new and glorious house of God, Filled with an eager multitude, Living its religion as no people have ever done either before or since. Nothing is considered too good or too costly or too wondrous for this house of God and home of man. The sculptors, Who since the destruction of the Roman Empire have been out of employment, Haltingly return to their noble art. Portals and pillars and buttresses and cornices are all covered with carving images of our Lord and the blessed saints. The embroiderers are too set to work to make tapestries for the walls. The jewelers offer their highest art that the shrine of the altar may be worthy of complete adoration. Even the painter does his best. Poor man, He is greatly handicapped by a lack of a suitable medium. And thereby hangs a story. The Romans of the early Christian period had covered the floors and the walls of their temples and houses with mosaics, Pictures made of colored bits of glass. But this art had been exceedingly difficult. It gave the painter no chance to express all he wanted to say. As all children know who have ever tried to make figures out of colored blocks of wood. The art of mosaic painting therefore died out during the late Middle Ages, Except in Russia, Where the Byzantine mosaic painters had found a refuge after the fall of Constantinople and continued to ornament the walls of the Orthodox churches until the day of the Bolsheviki, When there was an end to the building of churches. Of course, The medieval painter could mix his colors with water of the wet plaster, Which was put upon the walls of the churches. This method of painting upon fresh plaster, Which was generally called fresco, Or fresh painting, Was very popular for many centuries. Today it is as rare as the art of painting miniatures in manuscripts, And among the hundreds of artists of our modern cities, There is perhaps one who can handle this medium successfully. But during the Middle Ages, There was no other way and the artists were fresco workers, For lack of something better. This method, However, Had great, Great disadvantages. Very often the plaster came off the walls, After only a few years. Or dampness spoiled the pictures, Just as dampness will spoil the pattern of our wallpaper. People tried every imaginable expedient to get away from this plaster background. They tried to mix their colors with wine and vinegar, And with honey, And with a sticky white of egg. But none of these methods were satisfactory. For more than a thousand years these experiments continued. In painting pictures upon the parchment leaves of manuscripts, The medieval artists were very successful. But when it came to covering large spaces of wood or stone with paint which would stick, They did not succeed very well. At last, During the first half of the 15th century, The problem was solved in the Southern Netherlands by Jan and Hubert van Eyck. The famous Flemish builders mixed their paint with specially prepared oils, And this allowed them to use wood and canvas or stone or anything else as a background for their pictures. But by this time the religious order of the early Middle Ages was a thing of the past. The rich burghers of the cities were succeeding the bishops as patrons of the arts. And as an art invariably follows the full dinner pail, The artists now began to work for these worldly employers, And painted pictures for kings, For grand dukes, And for rich bankers. Within a very short time, The new method of painting with oils spread through Europe. And in every country there developed a school of special painting, Which show the characteristic tastes of the people for whom these portraits and landscapes were made. In Spain, For example, Velazquez painted court dwarfs, And the weavers of the royal tapestry factories, And all sorts of persons and subjects connected with the king and his court. But in Holland, Rembrandt and Franz Hals and Vermeer painted the barnyard of the merchant's house. And they painted his rather dowdy wife, And his healthy but bumptious children, And the ships which had brought him his wealth. In Italy, On the other hand, Where the pope remained the largest patron of the arts, Michelangelo and Correggio continued to paint madonnas and saints, While in England, Where the aristocracy was very rich and powerful, And in France, Where the kings had become uppermost in the state, The artists painted distinguished gentlemen who were members of the government, And very lovely ladies who were friends of his majesty. The great change in painting, Which came about with the neglect of the old church, And the rise of a new class in society, Was reflected in all other forms of art. The invention of painting had made it possible for authors to win fame and reputation by writing books for the multitudes. In this way arose the profession of the novelist and the illustrator. But the people who had money enough to buy the new books were not the sort who liked to sit at home of nights, Looking at the ceiling or just sitting. They wanted to be amused. The few minstrels of the Middle Ages were not sufficient to cover the demand for entertainment. For the first time since the early Greek city-states of two thousand years before, The professional playwright had a chance to ply his trade. The Middle Ages had known the theatre merely as part of certain church celebrations. The tragedies of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries had told the story of the suffering of our Lord. But during the sixteenth century the worldly theatre made its reappearance. It is true that, At first, The position of the professional playwright and actor was not a very high one. William Shakespeare was regarded as a sort of circus fellow who amused his neighbors with his tragedies and comedies. But when he died in the year 1616, He had begun to enjoy the respect of his neighbors and actors were no longer subjects of police supervision. William's contemporary, Lope de Vega, The incredible Spaniard who wrote no less than 1800 worldly and 400 religious plays, Was a person of rank who received the papal approval upon his work. A century later, Molière, The Frenchman, Was deemed worthy of the companionship of none less than King Louis XIV. Since then the theatre has enjoyed an ever-increasing affection on the part of the people. Today a theatre is part of every well-regulated city, And the silent drama of the movies has penetrated to the tiniest of our prairie hamlets. Another art, However, Was to become the most popular of all. That was music. Most of the old art forms demanded a great deal of technical skill. It takes years and years of practice before our clumsy hand is able to follow the commands of the brain and reproduce our vision upon canvas or in marble. It takes a lifetime to learn how to act or how to write a good novel, And it takes a great deal of training on the part of the public to appreciate the best in painting and writing and sculpture. But almost anyone, Not entirely tone-deaf, Can follow a tune, And almost everybody can get enjoyment out of some sort of music. The Middle Ages had heard a little music, But it had been entirely the music of the church. The holy chants were subject to very severe laws of rhythm and harmony, And soon these became monotonous. Besides, They could not well be sung in the streets or in the marketplace. The Renaissance changed this. Music once more came into its own as the best friend of man, Both in his happiness and in his sorrows. The Egyptians and the Babylonians of the ancient Jews had all been great lovers of music. They had even combined different instruments into regular orchestras. But the Greeks had frowned upon this barbaric foreign noise. They liked to hear a man recite the stately poetry of Homer and Pindar. They allowed him to accompany himself upon the lyre. That was as far as anyone could go without incurring the risk of popular disapproval. The Romans, On the other hand, Had loved orchestral music and their dinners and parties, And they had invented most of the instruments which we use today. The early church had despised this music, Which smacked too much of the wicked pagan world which had just been destroyed. A few songs rendered by the entire congregation were all the bishops of the third and fourth centuries would tolerate. As the congregation was apt to sing dreadfully out of key without the guidance of an instrument, The church had afterwards allowed the use of an organ, An invention of the second century of our era which consisted of a combination of the old pipes of pan and a pair of bellows. Then came the great migrations. The last of the Roman musicians were either killed or became tramp fiddlers going from city to city and playing in the street, And begging for pennies like the harpist on a modern ferryboat. But the revival of a more worldly civilization in the cities of the late Middle Ages had created a new demand for musicians. Instruments like the horn, Which had been used only as signal instruments for hunting and fighting, Were remodeled until they could reproduce sounds which were agreeable in the dance hall and in the banqueting room. A bow strung with horsehair was used to play the old-fashioned guitar, And before the end of the Middle Ages, The sixth-stringed instrument had grown into our modern four-stringed fiddle which Stradivarius and other Italian violin-makers of the eighteenth century brought to the height of perfection. And finally the modern piano was invented, The most widespread of all musical instruments, Which has followed man into the wilderness of the jungle and the ice fields of Greenland. The organ had been the first of all keyed instruments, But the performer always depended upon the cooperation of someone who worked the bellows, A job which nowadays is done by electricity. The musicians therefore looked for a handier and less circumstantial instrument to assist them in training the pupils of the many church choirs. During the great eleventh century, Guido, A Benedictine monk of the town of Arezzo, Gave us our modern system of pianos, Which you can buy at every toy shop. In the city of Vienna, The town where the strolling musicians of the Middle Ages had formed the first separate guild of musicians in the year 1288, The little monochord was developed into something which we can recognize as a direct ancestor of our modern Steinway. From Austria, The clavichord, As it was usually called in those days, Went to Italy. There it was perfected into the spinet, Which was so called after the inventor Giovanni Spinetti of Venice. At last, During the eighteenth century, Sometime between 1709 and 1720, Bartolomeo Cristofori made a clavier which allowed the performer to play both loudly and softly, Or, As it was said in Italian, Piano and forte. This instrument, With certain changes became our pianoforte, Or piano. Then for the first time the world possessed an easy and convenient instrument which could be mastered in a couple of years, And did not need the eternal tuning of harps and fiddles, And was much pleasanter to the ears than the medieval tubas, Clarinets, Trombones and oboes. Just as the phonograph has given millions of modern people their first love of music, So did the early pianoforte, Carry the knowledge of music into much wider circles. Music became part of the education of every well-bred man and woman. Princes and rich merchants maintained a private orchestra. The musicians ceased to be a wandering jongleur and became a highly valued member of the community. Music was added to the dramatic performances of the theatre, And out of this practice grew our modern opera. Originally only a few very rich princes could afford the expenses of an opera troupe, But as the taste of this fort of entertainment grew, Many cities built their own theatres, Where Italians and afterwards German operas were given to the unlimited joy of the whole community with the exception of a few sects of very strict Christians, Who still regarded music with deep suspicion as something which was too lovely to be entirely good for the soul. By the middle of the 18th century the musical life of Europe was in full swing. Then there came forward a man who was greater than all the others, A simple organist of the Thomas Church of Leipzig, By the name of Johann Sebastian Bach. In his compositions for every known instrument, From comic songs and popular dances to the most stately of sacred hymns and oratorios, He laid the foundation for all our modern music. When he died in the year 1750, He was succeeded by Mozart, Who created musical fabrics of sheer loveliness, Which reminds us of lace that has been woven out of harmony and rhythm. Then came Ludwig von Beethoven, The most tragic of men, Who gave us our modern orchestra, Yet heard none of his greatest compositions because he was deaf, As the result of a cold contracted during his years of poverty. Beethoven lived through the period of the great French Revolution, Full of hope for a new and glorious day. He had dedicated one of his symphonies to Napoleon, But he lived to regret the hour. When he died in the year 1827, Napoleon was gone, And the French Revolution was gone, But the steam engine had come and was filling the world with sound that had nothing in common with the dreams of the Third Symphony. Indeed, The new order of steam and iron and coal and large factories had little use for art, For painting and sculpture and poetry and music. The old protectors of the art, The church and the princes of the merchants of the Middle Ages, And the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries no longer existed. The leaders of the new industrial world were too busy and had too little education to bother about etchings and sonatas and bits of carved ivory. Not to speak of the men who created these things, And who were of no practical use to the community in which they lived. And the workmen in the factories listened to the drone of their engines, Until they too had lost all taste for the melody of the flute or fiddle of their peasant ancestry. The arts became the stepchildren of the new industrial era, And the life became entirely separated. Whatever paintings had been left were dying a slow death in the museums, And music became a monopoly of a few virtuosi, Who took the music away from the home and carried it to the concert hall. But steadily, Although slowly, The arts are coming back into their own. People begin to understand that Rembrandt and Beethoven and Rodin are the true prophets and leaders of their race, And that a world without art and happiness resembles a nursery without laughter.
4.7 (22)
Jane
December 8, 2024
This has been an excellent series. When are you going to come out with part 33 and how many more until the book is finished?
Paddy
October 31, 2024
Thank you so much it put me to sleep right away! Please do more!
