[PHELPS] THE POETRY OF TODAY 491 
materially and commercially minded if materialism and commercialism 
are defined and limited with sufficient care, and seen to be only part 
of a whole truth about life. Jacob’s ladder has two ends. He who 
is unaware of this interesting fact would properly think any climbing 
on it foolishness. But the angels are not foolish. If we listen to the 
preacher-puritan who tells us that our souls are dead or to the cynic 
who informs us that we never had a soul, there is only one end to our 
ladder and it will not be long before we also walk with the dull dead 
multitude who know no traffic with Heaven. All the while the age 
and its glories and its ‘‘many-splendouredness”’ will go on about us, 
vital, eager, palpitant, creative, spiritual. Only we, having eyes, 
see not, and, having ears, hear not, and, having hardened our hearts, 
neither do we understand. 
In a word or two the contention made in the above discussion is 
simply this: that the phenomenon of our age which we call its mater- 
ialism and commercialism is a good and salutary thing. All that we 
need is the eye and heart to see it and understand it so. We can never 
estimate properly the spiritual values of our time until we disabuse 
ourselves of wrong notions about our “‘materialism,’’ our so-called 
sordidness, our ‘‘commercialism’’. (Commercialism and materialism 
like all other things will remain a menace to many other values in life 
so long as the majority of us continue to regard them wrongly. When 
we understand them rightly and relate them properly they are our rich 
heritage. This is Christianity. It is only the man who says that the 
age is solely materialistic who has no other spiritual values to which to 
relate his interest in the material. It is only he who has “gained the 
whole world.” 
In order to come nearer to the ultimate subject of discussion it 
is well now to outline more carefully concerning materialism arfd our 
commercialistic age what has already been adumbrated. Viewed 
properly and relatively the so-called materialism of our industrial 
expansion is an expression of an aggressive vitality, a nervous, eager, 
fine spirit of accomplishment and optimism. There is no wisdom and 
much unnecessary despair in deploring the dearth of the artistic 
sense in a generation and in complaining about the cold stillness of 
imagination’s wings. The same spirit, differently manifested in degree 
and manner, gave us the Bible and Shakespeare and our modern 
skyscrapers and that sinuous, insatiable steel which we call our 
railroad lines. Passion and ecstasy and imagination is alive in this 
age. Let anyone but stride abroad in the wind and stress of the 
world’s materialistic weather and he will find it out. John Masefield 
and Wilfrid Gibson have found it out. They tell us about it with 
startling vividness. They aver that there is intensity and passion 
