Art... does not take kindly to facts, is helpless to grapple with theories, and is killed outright by a sermon.

Repplier contrasts the aims of art with the aims of exposition or moral instruction. Facts and theories belong to journalism, scholarship, or philosophy—disciplines that argue, prove, and generalize. Art, by contrast, works through selection, pattern, and imaginative transformation; it persuades indirectly by making experience felt rather than by demonstrating conclusions. Her sharpest claim is that a “sermon” kills art: when a work’s primary purpose becomes edification, it tends to flatten complexity into a lesson, reducing characters and events to examples. The remark defends aesthetic autonomy and the value of ambiguity, suggesting that art’s power lies in evocation, not didactic certainty.