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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde: Goethe, 'not to be always looking for culture merely in what is
obviously moral. Everything that is great promotes civilisation as
soon as we are aware of it.'
But, as in your cities so in your literature, it is a permanent
canon and standard of taste, an increased sensibility to beauty (if
I may say so) that is lacking. All noble work is not national
merely, but universal. The political independence of a nation must
not be confused with any intellectual isolation. The spiritual
freedom, indeed, your own generous lives and liberal air will give
you. From us you will learn the classical restraint of form.
For all great art is delicate art, roughness having very little to
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