e a temerity not to be risked, it is still quite permissible to
speak of Wordsworth's poetry, not only with ignorance, but with
impertinence. On the Continent he is almost unknown.

I cannot think, then, that Wordsworth has, up to this time, at all
obtained his deserts. "Glory," said M. Renan the other day, "glory after
all is the thing which has the best chance of not being altogether
vanity." Wordsworth was a homely man, and himself would certainly never
have thought of talking of glory as that which, after all, has the best
chance of not being altogether vanity. Yet we may well allow that few
things are less vain than _real_ glory. Let us conceive of the whole
group of civilized nations as being, for intellectual and spiritual
purposes, one great confederation, bound to a joint action and working
towards a common result; a confederation whose members have a due
knowledge both of the past, out of which they all proceed, and of one
another. This was the ideal of Goethe, and it is an ideal which will
impose itself upon the thoughts of our modern societies more and more.
Then to be recognized by the verdict of such a confederation as a
master, or even as a seriously and eminently worthy workman, in one's
own line of intellectual or spiritual activity, is indeed glory; a glory
which it would be difficult to rate too highly. For what could be more
beneficent, more salutary? The world is forwarded by having its
attention fixed on the best things; and here is a tribunal, free from
all suspicion of national and provincial partiality, putting a stamp on
the best things, and recommending them for general honor and acceptance.
A nation, again, is furthered by recognition of its real gifts and
successes; it is encouraged to develop them further. And here is an
honest verdict, telling us which of our supposed successes are really,
in the judgment of the great impartial world, and not in our private
judgment only, successes, and which are not.

It is so easy to feel pride and satisfaction in one's own things, so
hard to make sure that one is right in feeling it! We have a great
empire. But so had Nebuchadnezzar. We extol the "unrivalled happiness"
of our national civilization. But then comes a candid friend,[349] and
remarks that our upper class is materialized, our middle class
vulgarized, and our lower class brutalized. We are proud of our
painting, our music. But we find that in the judgment of other people
our painting is ques