ei, ora pro
nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae"--and we are
struck, disarmed, pierced to the marrow, smitten to the bone, shot
through, "Tutto tremente?" Because arguments and reasoning;
because morality and logic, are not of the nature of the "great style,"
while the cry--"save us from eternal death!"--addressed by the
passion and remorse and despair of our human heart to the
unhearing Universe, takes that great form as naturally as a man
breathes.

Why, of all the religious books in the world, have "the Psalms of
David," whether in Hebrew or Latin or English, touched men's souls
and melted and consoled them? They are not philosophical. They are
not logical. They are not argumentative. They are not moral. And
yet they break our hearts with their beauty and their appeal!

It is the same with certain well-known _words._ Is it understood, for
instance, why the word "Sword" is always poetical and in "the grand
style," while the word "Zeppelin" or "Submarine" or "Gatling gun"
or "Howitzer" can only be introduced by Free Versifiers, who let the
"grand style" go to the Devil? The word "Sword" like the word
"Plough," has gathered about it the human associations of
innumerable centuries, and it is impossible to utter it without feeling
something of their pressure and their strain. The very existence of
the "grand style" is a protest against any false views of "progress"
and "evolution." Man may alleviate his lot in a thousand directions;
he may build up one Utopia after another; but the grand style will
still remain; will remain as the ultimate expression of those aspects
of his life that _cannot change_--while he remains Man.

If there is any unity in these essays, it will be found in a blurred and
stammered attempt to indicate how far it may be possible, in spite of
the limitations of our ordinary nature, to live in the light of the
"grand style." I do not mean that we--the far-off worshippers of
these great ones--can live _as they thought and felt._ But I mean that
we can live in the atmosphere, the temper, the mood, the attitude
towards things, which "the grand style" they use evokes and sustains.

I want to make this clear. There are a certain number of solitary
spirits moving among us who have a way of troubling us by their
aloofness from our controversies, our disputes, our arguments, our
"great problems." We call them Epicures, Pagans, Heathen, Egoists,
Hedonists, and Virtuosos. And yet not one of t