In addition, art performs the task of preserving, even of slightly re-coloring ideas that have probably died out and faded; when it solves this task, it weaves a bond around different ages and makes their spirits return. It is true that it is only an illusory life, as if over graves, which is created in this way, or like the return of the beloved dead in a dream; but at least for a moment the old feeling is awakened once more and the heart beats to an otherwise forgotten beat. Now, because of this general benefit of art, one must forgive the artist himself if he does not stand in the front ranks of the Enlightenment and the progressive masculinization of mankind: he has remained a child or a youth all his life and has been held back in the position in which he was overtaken by his artistic instinct; but the feelings of the first stages of life are admittedly closer to those of earlier ages than to those of the present century. Involuntarily it becomes his task to incarnate humanity; this is his glory and his limitation.
Friedrich Nietzsche
The human, the all-too-human
Fourth main section. From the soul of artists and writers