ndant life at reading the _Chloe Ode_, with
its breath of the mountain air and its sense of the brooding forest
solitude, and its exquisite suggestion of timid and charming girlhood?

"Y_ou shun me, Chloe, wild and shy_
A_s some stray fawn that seeks its mother_
T_hrough trackless woods. If spring-winds sigh_,
I_t vainly strives its fears to smother_;--

"I_ts trembling knees assail each other_
W_hen lizards stir the bramble dry_;--
Y_ou shun me, Chloe, wild and shy_
A_s some stray fawn that seeks its mother_.

"A_nd yet no Libyan lion I_,--
N_o ravening thing to rend another_;
L_ay by your tears, your tremors by_,--
A_ husband's better than a brother_;
N_or shun me, Chloe, wild and shy_
A_s some stray fawn that seeks its mother_."

But there are those who demand of poetry a usefulness more easily
measurable than that of recreation. In their opinion, it is improvement
rather than pleasure which is the end of art, or at least improvement as
well as pleasure. In this, indeed, the poet himself is inclined to
agree: "He who mingles the useful with the pleasant by delighting and
likewise improving the reader, will get every vote."

Let us look for these more concrete results, and see how Horace the
person still lives in the character of men, as well as Horace the poet
in the character of literature.

To appreciate this better, we must return to the theme of Horace's
personal quality. We have already seen that in no other poet so fully as
in Horace is the reality of personal contact to be felt. The lyrics, as
well as the _Epistles_ and _Satires_, are almost without exception
addressed to actual persons. So successful is this attempt of the poet
to speak from the page that it needs but the slightest touch of
imagination to create the illusion that we ourselves are addressed. We
feel, as if at first hand, all the qualities that went to make up
Horace's character,--his good will, good faith, and good-nature, the
depth and constancy of his friendship, his glow of admiration for the
brave deed, the pure heart, and the steadfast purpose, his patient
endurance of ill, his delight in men and things, his affection for what
is simple and sincere, his charity for human weakness, his mildly
ironical mood, as of one who is aware that he himself is not undeserving
of the good-humored censure he passes on others, his clear vision of the
sources of happiness, his reposeful acquiescence, and