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So, scarce awake, Dismounting, did she leave that place, And totter some yards: with her face Turn'd upward to the sky she lay, Her head on a wet heap of hay, And fell asleep: and while she slept, And did not dream, the minutes crept Round to the twelve again; but she, Being waked at last, sigh'd quietly, And strangely childlike came, and said: "I will not." Straightway Godmar's head, As though it hung on strong wires, turn'd Most sharply round, and his face burn'd.

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With a start Up Godmar rose, thrust them apart; From Robert's throat he loosed the bands Of silk and mail; with empty hands Held out, she stood and gazed, and saw The long bright blade without a flaw 141 Glide out from Godmar's sheath, his hand In Robert's hair; she saw him bend Back Robert's head; she saw him send The thin steel down; the blow told well, Right backward the knight Robert fell, And moaned as dogs do, being half dead, Unwitting, as I deem: so then Godmar turn'd grinning to his men,

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THE FORMAL ESSAY: CARLYLE, RUSKIN,

ARNOLD, PATER

THE two outstanding features of the nineteenth century are the growth of democracy and the development of science. Both brought in their train a series of farreaching consequences which left distinct marks on the literature of the period.

The scientific point of view made it natural to explain all history as the result of an evolution, the result of an interplay of forces greater than individuals or their governments. The rise of the lower classes to economic and political power was the consequence of such an evolution, and the trust in the judgment of the majority was partly due to the belief that through the group mind, voiced at the polls and in popular opinion, natural laws found their expression. Such a view did not go unchallenged. It was the belief of Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) that civilization progressed through the work of its great men, and that it was the duty of the rest of mankind to follow these great leaders of whose accomplishments they enjoyed the benefits. Heroes and Hero-Worship is his presentation of this conviction.

The developments of science likewise changed in a large measure men's interests and ideais. The telegraph, the railway, and the steamboat greatly lessened the separation of town and country, the isolation of districts and nations, and made possible the tremendous expansion of commerce and industry. The acquiring of wealth became increasingly the chief ambition of many men, and civilization was in danger of becoming predominantly materialistic. Economic theory tended to build up its system of society on the basis of material wealth, ignoring the spiritual factors that enter into life. Against this one-sided view John Ruskin (1819-1900) protests in The Roots of Honor.

The tendency of democracy and of science is generally towards the practical. The preoccupation of the scientist with his own subject, and his habit of dealing with exact fact and demonstrable truth, sometimes leave undeveloped his power of appreciating and enjoying imaginative literature. Literature and Science by Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) is a vigorous defense of literature against those whose narrow views denied it its proper place in the life of educated men.

Pater's Postscript to the volume called Appreciations is less intimately related to the changes that were taking place in the world of affairs. Leading a retired life, and seeking his pleasure in the refined enjoyment of education and art, Walter Pater (1839-1894) wrote for a narrower circle than did the other men included in this group. The present essay, however, is a very suggestive discussion of an important topic in literary criticism, the distinction between the terms romantic and classic, and is an excellent illustration of critical analysis.

THOMAS CARLYLE (1795-1881)

HEROES AND HERO-WORSHIP

LECTURE III

THE HERO AS POET. DANTE; SHAKESPEARE

[Tuesday, 12th May, 1840.]

THE Hero as Divinity, the Hero as Prophet, are productions of old ages; not to be repeated in the new. They presuppose a certain rudeness of conception, which the progress of mere scientific knowledge puts an end to. There needs to be, as it were, a world vacant, or almost vacant of scientific forms, if men in their loving wonder are to fancy their fellow-man either a god or one speaking with the voice of a god. Divinity and Prophet are past. We are now to see our Hero in the less ambitious, but also less questionable, character of Poet; a character which does not pass. The Poet is a heroic figure belonging to all ages; whom all ages possess, when once he is produced, whom the newest age as the oldest may produce; and will produce, always when Nature pleases. Let Nature send a Hero-soul; in no age is it other than possible that he may be shaped into a Poet.

Hero, Prophet, Poet, many different names, in different times and places, do we give to Great Men; according to varieties we note in them, according to the sphere in which they have displayed themselves! We might give many more names, on this same principle. I will remark again, however, as a fact not unimportant to be understood, that the different sphere constitutes the grand origin of such distinction; that the Hero can be Poet, Prophet, King, Priest or what you will, according to the kind of world he finds himself born into. I con

fess, I have no notion of a truly great man that could not be all sorts of men. The Poet who could merely sit on a chair, and compose stanzas, would never make a stanza worth much. He could not sing the Heroic warrior, unless he himself were at least a Heroic warrior too. I fancy there is in him the Politician, the Thinker, Legislator, Philosopher;-in one or the other degree, he could have been, he is all these. So too I cannot understand how a Mirabeau, with that great glowing heart, with the fire that was in it, with the bursting tears that were in it, could not have written verses, tragedies, poems, and touched all hearts in that way, had his course of life and education led him thitherward. The grand fundamental character is that of Great Man; that the man be great. Napoleon has words in. him which are like Austerlitz Battles.1 Louis Fourteenth's Marshals are a kind of poetical men withal; the things Turenne says are full of sagacity and geniality, like sayings of Samuel Johnson. The great heart, the clear deep-seeing eye: there it lies; no man whatever, in what province soever, can prosper at all without these.) Petrarch and Boccaccio did diplomatic messages, it seems, quite well: one can easily believe it; they had done things a little harder than these! Burns, a gifted song-writer, might have made a still better Mirabeau. Shakespeare,-one knows not what he could not have made, in the supreme degree.

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3 1749-1791. Great orator and leader in the French Revolution.

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