Reason and scientific investigation have no
patience with the things of faith and imagination. Our poets now have
to go back to the Past, to the standpoints of the old pagan bards.
Tennyson lives in the land of the Lotophagi, in the Arabian Nights of
the Bagdad of Caliph Haroun, and in the orchard lawns of King Arthur's
Avalon. So, too, Longfellow must inhale the golden legendary air of the
Past. The mere humanitarian bards, who try to make modern life trip to
the music of trochees, dactyles, and spondees, fail miserably.
Industrialism is not poetical. Our modern life expresses itself in
machines, in mathematical formulas, in statistics and with scientific
precision generally. Art and poetry are pursued in the spirit of past
ages, and concern themselves with the symbols, faiths, and ideal
creations of the Past.
It is true, however, that all past ages of the world are
contemporaneous in this age. For example, we have in this nineteenth
century the patriarchal age of the world still surviving in the desert
tents of the Arab,--while the mythic, anthropomorphic period is still
extant in Persia, China, and India, and even among the nations of the
West, in the rustic nooks and corners of the Roman Catholic countries
of Europe.
Pages:
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57