h heroic will,--the interpretation and
glorification, of history and of man's single conflict in himself ago
after age, asserting through all their range the supremacy of the ideal
order over its foes in the entire race-life of man.

Out of these changes of time, in response to the varying moods of men in
respect to the world they inhabit, arise those phases of art which are
described as classical and romantic, words of much confusion. It has
been attempted to distinguish the latter as having an element of
remoteness, of surprise, of curiosity; but to me, at least, classical
art has the same remoteness, the same surprise, and answers the same
curiosity as romantic art. If I were to endeavour to oppose them I
should say that classical art is clear, it is perfectly grasped in form,
it satisfies the intellect, it awakes an emotion absorbed by itself, it
definitely guides the will; romantic art is touched with mystery, it has
richness and intricacy of form not fully comprehended, it suggests more
than it satisfies, it stirs an unconfined and wandering emotion, it
invigorates an adventurous will; classicism is whole in itself and lives
in the central region, the white light, of that star of ideality which
is the light of our knowledge; romanticism borders on something
else,--the rosy corona round about our star, carrying on its dawning
power into those unknown infinities which embosom the spark of life. The
two have always existed in conjunction, the romantic element in ancient
literature being large. But owing to the disclosure of the world to us
in later times, to the deeper sense of its mysteries which are our
bounding horizons round about, and especially to the impulse given to
emotion by the opening of the doors of immortality by Christianity to
thought, revery, and dream, to hope and effort, the romantic element has
been more marked in modern art, has in fact characterized it, being fed
moreover by the ever increasing inwardness of human life, the greater
value and opportunity of personality in a free and high civilization,
and by the uncertainty, confusion, and complexity of such masses of
human experience as our observation now controls. The romantic temper is
inevitable in men whose lives are themselves thought of as, in form, but
fragments of the life to come, which shall find their completion an
eternal task. It is the natural ally of faith which it alone can render
with an infinite outlook; and it is the complemen