so clear an understanding of that deep and seemingly
causeless dejection, which because it seems to be causeless seems also
to be well-nigh incurable, as Percy Bysshe Shelley has given in his
"Stanzas written near Naples." No critical expounder of the Stoical
philosophy can interpret the stoical temper which interposes a sullen
but dauntless pride to attacking sorrow as William Ernest Henley has
done:

"Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

"In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed."

Nor can any preacher put in so vital a contrast to this despairing
defiance with which pride challenges sorrow, the joyous victory which a
trusting love wins over it by submitting to it, as John Greenleaf
Whittier has done in "The Eternal Goodness":

"I know not what the future hath
Of marvel or surprise,
Assured alone that life and death
His mercy underlies.

"I know not where His islands lift
Their fronded palms in air:
I only know I cannot drift
Beyond His love and care."

No philosophical treatise can interpret bereavement as the great poets
have interpreted it. The mystery of sorrow, the bewilderment it causes,
the wonder whether there is any God or any good, the silence that is the
only answer to our call for help, the tumult of emotion, the strange
perplexity of mind, the dull despair, the inexplicable paralysis of
feeling, intermingling in one wholly inconsistent and incongruous
experience: where, in all the literature of Philosophy can we find such
an exposition and echo and interpretation of this experience as in that
great Hebrew epic--the Book of Job? And where in all the literature of
Philosophy can we find such interpreters of the two great comforters of
the soul, faith and hope, as one finds in the poets? They do not argue;
they simply sing. And, as a note struck upon one of a chime of bells
will set the neighboring bell vibrating, so the strong note of faith and
hope sounded by the poet, sets a like note vibrating in the mourner's
heart. The mystery is not solved, but the silence is broken. First we
listen to the poet, then we listen to the same song sung in our own
hearts,--the same, for it is God who has sung to him and who sings to
us.