pure in point of style:
thoroughly fitted to give its readers the first elements of taste,
which must lie at the root of even the most complex aesthetics. I
know no higher specimens of poetic style, considering the subject,
and the belief of the time about them, than may be found in many of
our old ballads. How many poets are there in England now, who could
have written "The Twa Bairns," or "Sir Patrick Spens?" How many such
histories as old William of Malmesbury, in spite of all his foolish
monk miracles? As few now as there were then; and as for lying
legends--they had their superstitions, and we have ours; and the next
generation will stare at our strange doings as much as we stare at
our forefathers. For our forefathers they were; we owe them filial
reverence, thoughtful attention, and more--we must know them ere we
can know ourselves. The only key to the present is the _past_.

But I must go farther still, and after premising that the English
classics, so called, of the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries will
of course form the bulk of the lectures, I must plead for some
instruction in the works of recent and living authors. I cannot see
why we are to teach the young about the past and not about the
present. After all, they have to live now, and at no other time; in
this same nineteenth century lies their work: it may be unfortunate,
but we cannot help it. I do not see why we should wish to help it.
I know no century which the world has yet seen so well worth living
in. Let us thank God that we are here now, and joyfully try to
understand _where_ we are, and what our work is _here_. As for all
superstitions about "the good old times," and fancies that _they_
belonged to God, while this age belongs only to man, blind chance,
and the Evil One, let us cast them from us as the suggestions of an
evil lying spirit, as the natural parents of laziness, pedantry,
popery, and unbelief. And therefore let us not fear to tell our
children the meaning of this present day, and of all its different
voices. Let us not be content to say to them, as we have been doing:
"We will see you well instructed in the past, but you must make out
the present for yourselves." Why, if the past is worth explaining,
far more is the present--the pressing, noisy, complex present, where
our work-field lies, the most intricate of all states of society, and
of all schools of literature yet known, and therefore the very one
requiring most