He stood up and looked out over the sea. “My God! he loves nothing else!” he added.
For the life of her Maud could not help questioning him further.
“Yes, that, of course. But here one is in this puzzling world, and how is one to begin? My conviction is——”
“Yes, I know,” broke in Tom; “I remember you telling me perfectly. You want to make the whole world yours. So do I; and here is my first step ready for me.”
“Yes, you are an artist. That is a serviceable tool.”
“A tool? It is the end in itself. If you use it rightly, all the rest is there. The mainspring of this civilization which we see here was beauty. They conquered the Persians for the beauty of the thing.”
“Oh, I’m not so sure about that! I think their hearths and homes had something to do with it.”
“Then why had no one else conquered the Persians? Every nation they had already subdued had its hearths and homes. The Greeks had no more hearths and homes than others, and the biceps of the Greek was no bigger than that of other men. Everything else was only the wire down which the electric current came—and the electric current which killed the Persian was the love of art.”
“Then why did they fall before Rome?”
“Because the current had grown weak. Their art degenerated, and they fell.”