rong
natural language of those who wrote under the inspiration of actual
emotion or events, and therefore they used it awkwardly and
ineffectively; or else in their consciousness of not knowing how
things really happened, they kept within sonorous generalities, which
are the resource of artistic impotence. In our own day we have
witnessed a sharp revolt against romantic verse, and a reversion
toward those forms of art which reflect the actual experience of men,
toward precision and accurate detail: Romance has been abandoned for
what is called Realism. But here we are threatened by a danger from
the opposite direction: for a clumsy Realist is apt to suppose that
his business is merely to describe facts without adding anything out
of his own imaginative faculty, that he may bring his characters on
the stage in their daily garb, in the dirty slovenliness with which
they go about dreaming or acting in their own petty sphere,[23] and so
he overcharges with technicalities or trivial particulars.
Nevertheless one may say that the poetry of action has found better
methods since it shook off the influence of fantastic romance, and is
distinctly improving: though its strength lies in short pieces
repeating some notable incident or dramatic situations bringing out
character, which is just where it began originally, and where indeed
it is likely to remain, for the epic poem, or heroic verse on the
grand scale, may be thought to have disappeared finally.

To conclude a very brief and inadequate dissertation, we may, I think,
lay it down as a principle of the art, that heroic poetry must be true
to circumstances and to character, must have the qualities of
simplicity and sincerity, combined with the magnetic power of stirring
the heart by showing how men and women can behave when really
confronted by danger, death, or irremediable misfortune. Its
background, in skilful hands, is the contrast of calm Nature looking
on at human strife and sorrow, at stern fortitude and energetic effort
in tragic situations. We are reading every day of such situations in
the South African War, where there has been no lack of brave men 'so
tried and yet so true,' who have found themselves back again suddenly
in the rough fighting world of their forefathers, and have felt and
acted like the men of old time. There is abundant proof that the
English folk can display as much heroism as ever men did; but we may
look in vain for the poet who knows how to com