assion and sentiment. Let us, for
instance, develop briefly this proposition that the ideal of classic art
is completeness[12] and the ideal of romantic art indefiniteness, or
suggestiveness.

A.W. Schlegel[13] had already made use of two of the arts of design, to
illustrate the distinction between classic and romantic, just as Dr.
Hedge uses plastic art and music. I refer to Schlegel's famous saying
that the genius of the antique drama was statuesque, and that of the
romantic drama picturesque. A Greek temple, statue, or poem has no
imperfection and offers no further promise, indicates nothing beyond what
it expresses. It fills the sense, it leaves nothing to the imagination.
It stands correct, symmetric, sharp in outline, in the clear light of
day. There is nothing more to be done to it; there is no concealment
about it. But in romantic art there is seldom this completeness. The
workman lingers, he would fain add another touch, his ideal eludes him.
Is a Gothic cathedral ever really finished? Is "Faust" finished? Is
"Hamlet" explained? The modern spirit is mystical; its architecture,
painting, poetry employ shadow to produce their highest effects: shadow
and color rather than contour. On the Greek heroic stage there were a
few figures, two or three at most, grouped like statuary and thrown out
in bold relief at the apex of the scene: in Greek architecture a few
clean, simple lines: in Greek poetry clear conceptions easily expressible
in language and mostly describable in sensuous images.

The modern theater is crowded with figures and colors, and the distance
recedes in the middle of the scene. This love of perspective is repeated
in cathedral aisles,[14] the love of color in cathedral windows, and
obscurity hovers in the shadows of the vault. In our poetry, in our
religion these twilight thoughts prevail. We seek no completeness here.
What is beyond, what is inexpressible attracts us. Hence the greater
spirituality of romantic literature, its deeper emotion, its more
passionate tenderness. But hence likewise its sentimentality, its
melancholy and, in particular, the morbid fascination which the thought
of death has had for the Gothic mind. The classic nations concentrated
their attention on life and light, and spent few thoughts upon darkness
and the tomb. Death was to them neither sacred nor beautiful. Their
decent rites of sepulture or cremation seem designed to hide its
deformities rather than