The Rudolf Steiner Archive

7. The Nature of the Arts

[ 1 ] Before us lies a vast, snow-covered expanse; scattered throughout it are rivers and lakes, frozen over. An adjacent seashore is also largely frozen, with massive floating blocks of ice; here and there are low trees and shrubs, completely covered with masses of snow and icicles. It is evening. The sun has already set, leaving behind the golden glow of the evening sky.

[ 2 ] Two female figures stand within our region. And out of the evening glow, a messenger is born—a messenger from the higher worlds, so to speak, is sent forth; he stands before the two women and listens intently to what their mouths express about their innermost feelings and their most personal experiences.

[ 3 ] One of the women standing there presses her limbs close to her body; she huddles inward, and she says, “I’m freezing!” — The other woman lets her gaze wander over the snow-covered expanse, over the frozen waters, over the trees covered with icicles, and the words escape her lips, in complete oblivion of her own feelings, in complete oblivion of what she herself can sense through the external physical reality of the frosty landscape: “How beautiful the landscape all around is!” — One feels warmth flowing into her heart, for she forgets everything she might feel due to the physical frost and its effects. She is completely overwhelmed within by the immense beauty of this frosty landscape.

[ 4 ] And the sun sinks lower still, and the evening glow fades, and the two female figures drift off into a deep sleep. The one who had previously felt the frost so keenly in her very being sinks into a sleep that could almost be death itself; and the other sinks into a sleep in which one can see that the aftereffects of the emotion expressed in the words, “Oh, how beautiful!” still linger, warming her limbs and keeping her inwardly full of life even in her sleep. And this latter woman had heard from the young man, who had been born from the radiance of the evening glow, she had heard the words: “You are art!”—And she fell asleep. And she carried into her sleep all the impressions she had gained from the landscape described. And a kind of dream mingled with her sleep—a dream that was, after all, no dream, but in a certain sense reality: a reality of a very special kind, related to a dream only in form, yet a revelation of a reality that this woman’s soul could not easily have foreseen before. For what she experienced was not a dream; it merely resembled one. What she experienced was what can be described as astral imagination. And if one wishes to express what she experienced, one cannot put it into words other than through the images in which imaginative perception speaks. For the soul of this woman knew at that moment that one can speak intimately about what the young man had described to her as “You are art!” only by expressing the experiences of imaginative insight in words. And so, in this case, let the impressions of the imaginative insight of that woman’s soul be expressed in words.

[ 5 ] When her inner sense had awakened and she was first able to distinguish things, she perceived a strange form—a form that looked entirely different from the mental image one would normally have of a spiritual form based on mere physical perception. This form lacked almost anything that might still recall the physical-sensory world. The only way this spiritual form still recalled the physical-sensory world was that it displayed something like three interwoven circles; three circles standing perpendicular to one another, as if one circle were horizontal, another vertical, and the third oriented from right to left. And what flowed through these circles—what could be perceived—was not something reminiscent of a physical-sensory impression; rather, it was reminiscent of something purely spiritual, something that can only be compared to the sensations and feelings of the soul. But something emanated from this figure that could be described only as follows: what radiated forth was something like a deeply restrained, intimate grief—grief for something. And when this woman’s soul saw this, she resolved to ask: “What, then, is the reason for your grief?”

[ 6 ] Then this ethereal female figure said: “Oh, I have a certain reason for displaying this mood; for I come from a high spiritual lineage. Just as I appear to you, so do I appear to you as the human soul does. But you must ascend high into the realms of the hierarchies if you wish to discover my origin. I have descended this far from higher hierarchies of existence. But in return, the people who are on the other side of life—in the physical world, where we are not now—these people have snatched away the last of my offspring; they have snatched away the last one who descended from me, taken him for themselves, and chained him to a rock-like formation, after first making him as small as possible!”

[ 7 ] And then this woman’s soul found the courage to ask: “Who are you, really? I can now describe things only with the words I remember from my life on the physical plane. How can you help me understand your nature and the nature of your child, whom people have chained up?”

[ 8 ] “Over there, in the physical world, people describe me as a sense—a very small sense. They describe me through a sense they call the sense of balance, which has become small and encompasses three not-quite-complete circles forged into the ear. That is my last offspring. They have snatched him away into the other world and taken from him what he had here, so that he might be free in all directions. They have torn apart each of the circles and firmly anchored him to a foundation on every side. Here—as you see me here—I am not anchored; here I display perfect circles within myself in every direction. Here I am complete in every direction. Only then do you see my true form!”

[ 9 ] Then this woman found the courage to ask, “How can I help you?”

[ 10 ] Then the ghostly figure said: “The only way you can help me is by uniting your soul with mine, by transferring into me everything that people over there in life experience through their sense of balance. Then you will grow into me; then you will become as great as I am. Then you will free your sense of balance, and you will rise—spiritually liberated—above your bondage to the earth!”

[ 11 ] And the woman’s soul did this. She became one with the ethereal figure over there. And as she became one with it, she felt that she had to do something. And she put one foot in front of the other, transformed stillness into movement, transformed movement into a dance, and completed the dance in its form.

[ 12 ] “Now you have transformed me!”—so said the ethereal figure. “Now I have become what I can only become through you, if you behave as you just did. Now I have become a part of you; I have become such that people can only sense my presence in this way. Now I have become the art of dance. Because you chose to remain a soul and did not unite yourself with physical matter, you were able to set me free. And at the same time, by setting the steps, you led me up to the spiritual hierarchies to which I belong—to the spirits of movement—and you guided me to the spirits of form by bringing the dance to a close. You have led me to the spirits of form. But now you must not go any further; for if you were to take even one step further than you have done for me, everything you have done would be in vain. For the spirits of form are those who were tasked with bringing everything about in the course of earthly time. If you were to enter into what is the task of the spirits of form, you would undo everything you have just accomplished, for you would inevitably fall into the region that is called—by those who proclaim to you from the spiritual realms when describing the astral world—the “blaze of desire.” Your spiritual dance would transform into that which springs from wild desire—the very thing people engage in today when they perform their dance, which they know almost exclusively from me. But if you stick to what you have just done, then in the round dance and in its conclusion, you would create, in form, a replica of those mighty dances that were performed in the heavenly realm by the planets and suns in order to make the physical-sensory world possible in the first place!”

[ 13 ] The woman’s soul continued to live in this state. And another spiritual being approached her—once again, very, very different from the mental image people usually have of the form of spirits based on their physical and sensory perception. Something appeared before her that was actually like a figure confined to a plane, one that had no three dimensions. But there was something very peculiar about this figure. Although it was confined to the plane, the woman’s soul, in her imaginative state, could always see it from two sides, and this figure appeared in two entirely different ways—once from one side, once from the other.

[ 14 ] Once again, the woman's soul asked this figure, “Who are you?”

[ 15 ] And this figure said: “Oh, I come from higher realms. I have descended as far as the region you call the region of the Spirit, and which is called here the region of the Archangels. I have descended to this level. And to do so, I had to descend in order to come into contact with the physical-sensual realm of the Earth. But there, human beings have snatched away the last of my shoots, have taken it from me; and over there, they have imprisoned it within their own physical-sensory form, and there they call it one of their senses and designate it as the ‘sense of self-movement,’ as that which lives within them when they themselves move their limbs, the parts of their organism.”

[ 16 ] And the woman's soul asked, “What can I do for you?”

[ 17 ] Then this figure said again: “Unite your own being with mine, so that your being may be absorbed into mine!”

[ 18 ] The woman’s soul did so. And she became one with this spiritual form; she slipped completely into it. Once again, she grew; the soul of this woman became great and beautiful once more. And that spiritual form said to her: “Behold, since you have done this, you have earned the ability to sink into the souls of human beings on the physical plane—an ability that finds its expression in a part of what the young man called you; for through this you have become what is known as the art of mimicry, the art of mimetic expression.”

[ 19 ] And since she still retained the memory of her earthly form, the soul of this woman—having only just fallen asleep—was able to pour into that form everything that now existed within that form itself. And she became the model for the artist of mime.

[ 20 ] “But you may only go so far!” said the ghostly figure. “You may only pour into the form exactly what you are currently performing as a movement. The moment you were to pour your own desires into it, you would distort the form into a grimace, and that would be the end of your art’s destiny. That is what happened to the people over there—they put their wishes and desires into their facial expressions, so that their own selves are expressed within them. But you must let only selflessness come to expression; then you will be the model of the art of facial expression!”

[ 21 ] And the soul of that woman continued to live in this state. Then another spiritual form approached, one that essentially manifested itself only as a line and moved only in a straight line. And when the woman’s soul noticed that this spiritual form, which moved in a straight line, was also in sorrow, and when she asked, “What can I do for you?” this form replied, “Oh, I come from higher regions, from higher spheres. But I have descended through the realms of the hierarchies down to the realm that, in your Spiritual Science, is designated as the region of the spirits of personality—a realm of which human beings have only a faint reflection.” —For this being, too, had to admit that, through its contact with human beings, it had lost the last of its offshoots. And it went on to say: “ People on Earth call the last of my offshoots their vital sense, their sense of life—that through which they feel their own personality, which permeates them as the momentary mood, as the momentary sense of well-being, and which they feel within themselves as the strengthening and stabilizing force of their own form. But people have bound this sense within themselves.”

[ 22 ] “What can I do for you?” asked the woman’s soul. And once again, the spiritual being demanded: “You must merge into my very being! Leave behind everything that humans possess of their own individuality, merge into my own form, flow together with me, and become one with me!”

[ 23 ] And that is what this woman’s soul did. Then she realized that, even though that form extended only in a single line, she herself was filled with power in every direction; that she herself now filled that form which she had on Earth, which she remembered, and which now appeared to her again here only in a new radiance, in a new beauty. And then the spiritual figure said: “Through this act of yours, you have achieved something that makes you once again a particular instance within the vast realm of that which you were named after. At this very moment, you have become what people over there certainly have the potential to become: You have become the model for the plastic arts!” The soul of this woman has become the model for the plastic arts. And the archetype of the plastic arts was now able to instill within human souls the capacity to create on their own, through what she had absorbed. Through that spirit of personality, she was able to instill this into human souls; she was able to do so as a capacity. And in this way, she gave people on Earth the plastic imagination—the ability to create in the plastic image.

[ 24 ] “But you must not go a step further than you have gone! You must remain entirely within the form. For that which is within you may be led upward only as far as the spirits of the form and their realms. For if you go beyond that, you act as the realm that stirs up human desires; if you do not remain within the noble form, then nothing good can come to light in your domain. But if you remain within that noble framework of form, then you may pour into that form that which will only be possible in a distant future. And then, even though human beings are still far from having attained that form through which they can live out in purity what has today been entirely surrendered to other powers within them, you may show them what human beings will one day experience in a purified state on the future planet Venus, when their form will have become entirely different. Then you may point out, in contrast to the human form of today, how pure and chaste the human form will be in the future.”

[ 25 ] And from the ever-changing sea of forms in the realm of the imagination, something resembling the Venus de Milo emerged.

[ 26 ] “You may only go so far in shaping the form. The moment you go even slightly beyond the form—to the point where you destroy the strong personality that must hold the human form together—you stand at the boundary of what is still possible as beauty, as a work of art.”

[ 27 ] And once again, a figure emerged from the ever-shifting sea of waves that is the astral-imaginative world. One could see in it how, through what lay within, the outer form of the human being had been pushed to the very limit where the form would deny the connection to the personality, where the personality would be lost if one were to go even a little beyond that point. And from the images of the astral realm, the figure of Laocoön appeared.

[ 28 ] And this woman’s soul continued its journey through the world of the imagination. And now she came upon a figure of whom she was aware: “That figure does not exist over there on the physical plane; there is nothing corresponding to it on the physical plane—I am only getting to know it now. There are many things on the physical plane that vaguely resemble this figure, but nowhere does this figure exist in such a complete form as it does here.”—It was a wonderfully austere figure who, after being questioned by the woman’s soul, revealed that it came from vast regions, not merely from high regions; but that it must first work in the realm of the hierarchies known as the realm of the Spirits of Form. “The people over there,” this figure said to the woman’s soul, “have never been able to fully portray my likeness, to bring into being anything that fully corresponds to me. For my form, as it is here, does not exist on the physical plane. Therefore, they had to fragment me, and through this fragmentation I am only now able—when you fulfill what you are meant to fulfill, when you unite with me and become one with me—to bestow upon you such abilities that you can instill a capacity for imagination in the souls of human beings. But because it is torn apart within human beings, the whole can only appear here and there, torn into individual forms. Nothing about me can be called a human sense; yet for that very reason, human beings could not bind me. They could only tear me into individual pieces. They have also taken my last offspring from me; but they have torn it into individual pieces.”

[ 29 ] And once again—not shying away from the sacrifice of being torn apart for a moment—this woman’s soul united with this spiritual being. Then this spiritual being said to her: “Now that you have done this, you have once again become a part of that which has been called the whole. You have become the model of architecture, the model of the art of building. You can give people the model of architectural imagination if you pour into the human soul what you have just attained. But you will only be able to give them an architectural imagination that shows them, in detail, what enables them to erect buildings that appear as something spreading from the spiritual world from top to bottom, as depicted in the pyramid. You will enable people to provide only a kind of reflection of what I am if you guide them to use architecture to build a temple of the spirit—and not for any earthly purpose—and to ensure that this character is already evident in its outward appearance.”

[ 30 ] And it appeared—just as the pyramid had once emerged from this surging astral sea—so now did the Greek temple.

[ 31 ] And another form emerged from this surging astral sea—a form that did not strive downward to spread out, but rather strove upward, tapering toward the top: a third form into which the architectural imagination had to be torn. The Gothic cathedral appeared.

[ 32 ] There, this woman’s soul continued to live within the world of the imagination. And another figure approached her, even stranger than the previous one, and even more peculiar than that one. Completely strange and peculiar. Something radiated from her like warming love, and yet something else that could be quite frosty.

[ 33 ] “Who are you?” said the woman’s soul.

[ 34 ] “I have only one name over there, in its correct form, among those on the physical plane who tell people about the spiritual world. They are the only ones who know how to use my name correctly. For my name is Intuition! My name is Intuition, and I come from a vast realm. And as I made my way into the world from that vast realm, I descended from the realm of the Seraphim!”

[ 35 ] This figure of intuition was of a seraphic nature. And once again, the woman’s soul said, “What do you want me to do?”

[ 36 ] “You must unite with me! You must dare to unite with me! Then you can kindle in the souls of the people down there on Earth a capacity that is, in turn, a part of their imaginative activity, and through which you will become a particular aspect of that which the young man described as a whole just a moment ago.” And the woman’s soul resolved itself to this act. And through it she became something that, in essence, was quite distant and quite foreign even in its outward form to what constitutes the outward physical human form—something that only one who had looked deeply into the very soul of a human being could have judged. For only something of a spiritual nature could be compared to what the woman’s soul had now become—the soul that had previously always borne something ethereal within itself.

[ 37 ] “Because you have done this,” said the spiritual, seraphic figure bearing the name of Intuition, “you can now endow human beings with that ability known as artistic imagination. Through this, you have become the model for painting. Through this, you will be able to kindle a capacity within human beings. One of their senses—the eye, which possesses something within itself that is not touched by the thinking activity of their own human selfhood—that is, the synthesizing thought of the external world—you will be able to endow that sense with this capacity once you possess artistic imagination within yourself. And this sense will be able to recognize—shining through the surface—the spiritual essence in that which is otherwise lifeless and soulless. And everything that otherwise appears to people on the surface of things—in color and form—they will imbue with soul through your ability; they will treat it in such a way that the soul speaks through the form, and that through the color, it is not merely the outer, sensory color that speaks, but that through the color they conjure onto the surface, something speaks that is the inner essence of the color—just as everything that comes from me draws outward from the innermost core. You will be able to give people a capacity through which they will be able to carry into even lifeless nature—which otherwise appears only in soulless colors and forms—that which is soul movement, through the light of their own souls. You will give them this, through which they can transform movement into stillness, and through which they can hold fast to what is changeable in the outer physical world. You will teach them to hold onto the fleeting color touched by the rising sun’s ray, the colors found in inanimate nature! »

[ 38 ] And an image rose from the surging sea of the imaginative world—an image that represented landscape painting. And a second image emerged, depicting something else, and the ethereal figure explained it by saying: “What takes place and is experienced in human life—whether in a short or long period of time, in a minute or an hour or over centuries—and what is condensed into a brief moment—you will teach people to capture this through the ability you give them. “You will enable people—even when the past and the future intersect powerfully, even when these two currents of past and future meet—to maintain a balanced calm in the midst of their convergence.”

[ 39 ] And from the surging world of the imagination rose the image of Leonardo da Vinci’s *The Last Supper*.

[ 40 ] “But you will also face difficulties. And you will face the greatest difficulties when you allow your ability to be applied to that which already possesses movement and soul—to which they have already sent movement and soul from the physical plane. That is where you will be most likely to stumble. That will be the limit beyond which the images of the model that you are can no longer be called art, and that is where the danger lies.”

[ 41 ] And the portrait rose from the surging sea of the imaginative world.

[ 42 ] And the soul of this woman continued to live in the world of the imagination. Then another figure approached her—once again strange, unlike anything to be found over there in the physical world—once again something that might be called a heavenly being, incomparable to anything on the physical plane. And the woman’s soul asked, “Who are you?”—Then that figure said, “Oh, over there on Earth I have only one name that is properly used by those who bring the knowledge of the spiritual world to humanity; but they call me Inspiration. I come from a vast realm, but I first had to take my place in the region which, over there where people speak of the spiritual world, is called the region of the Cherubim.”

[ 43 ] A figure from the realm of the cherubim emerged from the world of the imagination. Once again, after the woman’s soul had asked, “What can I do for you? What should I do?” this cherubic figure replied, “You must transform yourself into me! You must become one with me!”

[ 44 ] And despite the danger involved, the woman’s soul merged with the essence of this cherubic form. And with that, she became even more unlike anything physical that exists on Earth. Whereas one could still say of her former form: “There is at least something on Earth that serves as an analogy for it”—one had to describe this cherubic form as something that possessed within itself an essence that was so entirely alien to everything on Earth that it could not be compared to anything at all. And the woman’s soul, too, became quite unlike anything earthly; it became such that one could see in her: now she herself has passed over into a spiritual realm, belongs to that spiritual realm which cannot be found in the sensory world, with her entire being.

[ 45 ] “Because you have done this, you can plant a faculty in the souls of human beings. And when this faculty blossoms in the souls of human beings throughout the world, it will live in those souls as musical imagination. And people will have nothing they can take from the outside—so alien have you become to the world with your ability—nothing they can take from the outside to imprint upon it what the soul itself feels under your inspiring influence. They must kindle this themselves in a new way through a sense they otherwise know in a completely different way: There they must give the meaning of the tone a new form; there they must find the musical tone within their own souls. There they must bring it forth as if from the heights of heaven, from their own souls! And when people create in this way, something will flow forth from their own souls that will be like a human reflection of all that can only flow and sprout imperfectly in outer nature. Like such a reflection, what trickles from the spring out there, what the wind brings about, what the thunder rolls—all this will flow forth from the souls of human beings; not a mere image of it, but something that stands opposite all these glories of nature—which flow as if from unknown spiritual depths—like a natural sister; that is what will spring forth from the souls of human beings. Through this, people will become capable of creating something that enriches the earth, something new on earth, something that would not have existed without your ability, something that is like a seed of the future on earth. And you will give them the ability to express what lives in their souls—what could never be expressed if people were limited to what they now possess: thought and concept. For all the feelings that would be scorched by concepts, that would freeze if they were dependent on concepts—for all the feelings for which concepts would be like a mortal enemy—you will give them the opportunity, on the wings of song and melody, to breathe forth the innermost essence of the soul into the sphere of the Earth, and to imprint upon this sphere of the Earth something that would otherwise not exist. All those complex, powerful feelings—all those feelings that live within the human soul as a mighty world unto themselves, which otherwise could never be experienced in the outer world in this form, which one could only experience by roaming through world history and the realms of the heavens with one’s soul— all these realms that cannot be experienced in the outer world—because there all the countercurrents would have to flow in, currents that would have to stretch across centuries and millennia if one wanted to know what people experience here and there—all of this they will be able to condense through your ability and pour into something they have conquered: their symphonic-musical works.”

[ 46 ] And the woman’s soul understood how to draw down from the spiritual heights of the world that which is called inspiration, and how this should be expressed through the normal human soul; she understood that it can only be expressed when it is cast into sound. What the spiritual researcher can describe—the woman’s soul now knew this—when he describes the world of inspiration itself, and how it should be presented on the physical plane using physical means of expression, not merely as a reflection but as something that steps directly before people: this could only be conveyed through a musical work of art. And the woman’s soul understood that the musical work of art could convey that mighty reality—how Uranus once kindled his own feeling in the fire of Gaia’s love—and that it could express what happened when Cronus sought to illuminate that which lived within him as a spiritual being through the light of Zeus! — Such profound experiences did the soul of that woman have through that contact with this cherubic being.

[ 47 ] The woman’s soul continued to immerse itself in what is called the imaginative world. And another figure approached her, one that was, in turn, quite distant from anything that exists on Earth. And when the woman’s soul asked, “Who are you?” the ethereal figure replied: “Only those who, over in the physical world, communicate spiritual events through Spiritual Science use my name correctly. For I am Imagination, and I come from a vast realm. But from this vast realm I have entered the region of the hierarchies known as the region of the Spirits of Will.”

[ 48 ] “What can I do for you?” the woman’s soul asked again.

[ 49 ] This form, too, demanded that the woman’s soul unite its own essence with this form of the spirits of the will. And once again, the woman’s soul became quite unlike the ordinary form of the soul; it became entirely a spiritual form.

[ 50 ] “Because you have done this, you are now able to breathe into the souls of human beings that capacity which people on Earth experience as poetic imagination. You have become the model of poetic imagination. And through you, people will be able to express in their language something they could never express if they confined themselves to the external world and sought only to reproduce things that exist in the external physical world. You will give people the opportunity, through your imagination, to express everything that touches their own will—and that could not be expressed in any other form, could not flow forth from the human soul through earthly means of expression. You will give people the ability to express this. On the wings of your rhythm, your meter, and through everything you will be able to give them, people will express something for which language alone would otherwise be far too crude an instrument. You will give them the opportunity to express that which otherwise could not be expressed!”

[ 51 ] And so, in the realm of poetry, that which had unfolded over the centuries, from generation to generation, and had inspired entire generations, came to the fore.

[ 52 ] “And you will also be able to distill that which could never be represented by an external physical event. Your messengers will be the skalds, the poets of all ages. They will distill into epic poetry what is condensed from the circles of humanity. And that which the will takes as form when passions clash—what people on Earth in the physical world could never fight out—you will conjure up before them with your own means on the stage, where you will show them how clashing passions bring about the death of one and the victory of the other. “You will give people the possibility of dramatic art!”

[ 53 ] And at that moment, that woman’s soul experienced an inner sensation—an inner sensation that could only be described with a term commonly used on Earth: awakening.

[ 54 ] What caused her to awaken? — She awoke because she saw, as in a mirror image, that which does not exist on earth. She herself had become one in essence with the imagination. What lives on earth as poetry is a mirror image of the imagination. The woman’s soul saw the mirror image of imagination in poetic art. This is what awakened her. Although this awakening had forced her to leave the dreamlike realm of spirits, she had at least entered something similar—albeit only as a lifeless mirror image—to the spiritually living essence of spiritual imagination. This is what had awakened her.

[ 55 ] And when she woke up, she realized that the night had passed. Once again, the snow-covered landscape surrounded her; once again, the beach with its floating icebergs and the icicles on the trees. But as she awoke, she noticed that the other woman lay beside her, as if frozen by the frost she had endured, not warmed from within by what she had taken with her—the impression, “Oh, how beautiful!”—of this snowy landscape. Now the soul of the woman who had experienced all of this during the night realized that the other woman, who was almost frozen because she could experience nothing in the spiritual world—that this is human science. And she took her under her wing so that she could share some of her warmth with her. She cherished and cared for her, and that woman was warmed by the impression of what the other woman’s soul had brought with her—by the impression of the nighttime experiences.

[ 56 ] Over in the east, the dawn was rising, spreading across the landscape. The sun was about to appear. The dawn grew redder and redder. And now that she was awake, the soul of that woman—who had had the nocturnal experience—could look and listen to what human beings on Earth say when they have intuitively experienced something of what can be experienced in the world of the imagination. And from the chorus of human beings, she heard what the best among them gave voice to as their intuitions about that which they themselves know nothing of through imagination, but which they allow to flow from the deepest recesses of their souls as a guidepost for all humanity; she heard the voice of a poet who had once sensed the grandeur of what is experienced by the human soul from within the world of the imagination. She now understood that she must become a savior for what was here a half-frozen science; she understood that she must warm it and permeate it with what she herself is—first and foremost with what she is as art—and that she must share with this half-frozen science what she brings with her as a memory of the nocturnal dream. And she realized how, in the blink of an eye, what is half-frozen can come back to life if what is communicated can be received by science as knowledge.

[ 57 ] Once again, she gazed toward the dawn. And the dawn became for her a symbol of that from which she herself had awakened, and a symbol of her own imaginings. And she understood what the poet had so wisely said out of his intuition. What she heard from a new spirit came to her from the whole earth:

Only through the dawn of beauty
do you enter the realm of knowledge!