The essential function of art is moral. Not aesthetic, not decorative, not pastime and recreation. But moral. The essential function of art is moral. But a passionate, implicit morality, not didactic. A morality which changes the blood, rather than the mind. Changes the blood first. The mind follows later, in the wake. Now Whitman was a great moralist. He was a great leader. He was a great changer of the blood in the veins of men.
— D.H. Lawrence