CHAUCER. 249 



singularly obtuse sense of propriety in acknowledging 

 himself beaten. Among all races perhaps none has 

 shown so acute a sense of the side on which its bread 

 is buttered, and so great a repugnance for having fine 

 phrases take the place of the butyraceous principle. 

 They invented the words " humbug," " cant," " sham," 

 "gag,'' " soft-sodder," "flapdoddle," and other disen- 

 chanting formulas whereby the devil of falsehood and 

 unreality gets his effectual apage Satana ! 



An imperturbable perception of the real relations of 

 things is the Saxon's leading quality, — no sense what- 

 ever, or at best small, of the ideal in him. He has no 

 notion that two and two ever make five, which is the 

 problem the poet often has to solve. Understanding, 

 that is, equilibrium of mind, intellectual good digestion, 

 this, with unclogged biliary ducts, makes him mentally 

 and physically what we call a very fixed fact ; but you 

 shall not find a poet in a hundred thousand square mileB, 

 — in many prosperous centuries of such. But one 

 element of incalculable importance we have not men- 

 tioned. In this homely nature, the idea of God, and of 

 a simple and direct relation between the All-Father and 

 his children, is deeply rooted. There, above all, will he 

 have honesty and simplicity ; less than anything else 

 will he have the sacramental wafer, — that beautiful 

 emblem of our dependence on Him who giveth the daily 

 bread ; less than anything will he have this smeared 

 with that Barmecide butter of fair words. This is the 

 lovely and noble side of his character. Indignation at 

 this will make him forget crops and cattle ; and this, 

 after so many centuries, will give him at last a poet in 

 the monk of Eisleben, who shall cut deep on the memory 

 of mankind that brief creed of conscience, — " Here am 

 I . God help me : I cannot otherwise." This, it seems to 

 me, with dogged sense of justice, — both results of that 

 11* 



