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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=36984" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>God Needs Antonio</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Your soul was lifted by the wings today<br>Hearing the master of the violin:<br>You praised him, praised the great Sabastian too<br>Who made that fine Chaconne; but did you think<br>Of old Antonio Stradivari?--him<br>Who a good century and a half ago<br>Put his true work in that brown instrument<br>And by the nice adjustment of its frame<br>Gave it responsive life, continuous<br>With the master's finger-tips and perfected<br>Like them by delicate rectitude of use.<br>That plain white-aproned man, who stood at work<br>Patient and accurate full fourscore years,<br>Cherished his sight and touch by temperance,<br>And since keen sense is love of perfectness<br>Made perfect violins, the needed paths<br>For inspiration and high mastery.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">No simpler man than he; he never cried,<br>"why was I born to this monotonous task<br>Of making violins?" or flung them down<br>To suit with hurling act well-hurled curse<br>At labor on such perishable stuff.<br>Hence neighbors in Cremona held him dull,<br>Called him a slave, a mill-horse, a machine.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Naldo, a painter of eclectic school,<br>Knowing all tricks of style at thirty-one,<br>And weary of them, while Antonio<br>At sixty-nine wrought placidly his best,<br>Making the violin you heard today--<br>Naldo would tease him oft to tell his aims.<br>"Perhaps thou hast some pleasant vice to feed-<br>the love of louis d'ors in heaps of four,<br>Each violin a heap--I've naught to blame;<br>My vices waste such heaps. But then, why work<br>With painful nicety?"</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Antonio then:<br>"I like the gold--well, yes--but not for meals.<br>And as my stomach, so my eye and hand,<br>And inward sense that works along with both,<br>Have hunger that can never feed on coin.<br>Who draws a line and satisfies his soul,<br>Making it crooked where it should be straight?<br>Antonio Stradivari has an eye<br>That winces at false work and loves the true."<br>Then Naldo: "'Tis a petty kind of fame<br>At best, that comes of making violins;<br>And saves no masses, either. Thou wilt go<br>To purgatory none the less."</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But he:<br>"'Twere purgatory here to make them ill;<br>And for my fame--when any master holds<br>'Twixt chin and hand a violin of mine,<br>He will be glad that Stradivari lived,<br>Made violins, and made them of the best.<br>The masters only know whose work is good:<br>They will choose mine, and while God gives them skill<br>I give them instruments to play upon,<br>God choosing me to help him.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"What! Were God<br>at fault for violins, thou absent?"</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"Yes;<br>He were at fault for Stradivari's work."</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"Why, many hold Giuseppe's violins<br>As good as thine."</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"May be: they are different.<br>His quality declines: he spoils his hand<br>With over-drinking. But were his the best,<br>He could not work for two. My work is mine,<br>And, heresy or not, if my hand slacked<br>I should rob God--since his is fullest good -<br>Leaving a blank instead of violins.<br>I say, not God himself can make man's best<br>Without best men to help him.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Tis God gives skill,<br>But not without men's hands: he could not make<br>Antonio Stradivari's violins<br>Without Antonio. Get thee to thy easel."</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=George+Eliot">George Eliot</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=36984" data-title="God Needs Antonio de George Eliot" data-description="Your soul was lifted by the wings today/Hearing the master of the violin:/You praised him, praised the great Sabastian too/Who made that fine Chaconne; but did you think/Of old Antonio Stradivari?--him/Who a good century and a half ago/Put his tru..."></div>
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