, and is just that which has reproduced Phaeacia with
all its beauty. This is the poet's own art, which having set forth the
other arts, is next to set forth itself. Accordingly we are to see the
poet showing the poet in the following Book, which may, therefore, be
named the Book of the Bard. Thus we pass out of the industrial and
plastic arts of Phaeacia, into the supreme art, the poetic, as it
manifests itself in the Phaeacian singer.

_BOOK EIGHTH._

We observe a decided change in the present Book; it has a character of
its own quite distinct from the preceding Books. Yet it is on a line of
development with them, we note a further spiritual evolution which must
be looked into with some attention. In general, Phaeacia is now seen as
an art-world, in true correspondence with Hellas, of which it is a kind
of ideal prototype. In the two previous Books we saw portrayed chiefly
institutional life in Family and in State. But in this Book
institutional life, though present and active, is withdrawn into the
background, and becomes the setting for the picture, yet also is the
spirit which secretly calls forth the picture. A poetic art-world now
passes before us in entrancing outlines, a world filled with song,
dance, games, with all the poetry of existence.

Such an artistic development follows from what has gone before. Man,
having attained culture, civilization, and a certain freedom from the
necessity of working for his daily bread, begins to turn back and look
at his career; he observes the past and measures how far he has come.
The image of himself in his unfolding he beholds in art, specially in
the poetic art, whose essence must at last be just this institutional
life which has been described in Phaeacia. He attains it and then steps
back and portrays his attaining of it; having done the heroic deed, he
must see himself doing it forever, in the strains of the bard. Art is
thus the mirror of life and of institutions; it reflects the grand
conflict of the times and the people; it seizes upon the supreme
national event, and holds it up in living portraiture along with its
heroes.

Now the great event which lies back of Phaeacia at the present time, in
fact lies back of all Greece for all ages, perchance lies back of all
Europe, is the Trojan War. It was the first emphatic, triumphant
assertion of the Greek and indeed of the European world against the
Orient. The fight before Troy was not a mere local and tempor