138 INDOOR STUDIES 



done the best, " — that is, written the most perfect 

 poem from the classic standpoint ; " it is he who sug- 

 gests the most, — he, not all of whose meaning is at 

 first obvious, and who leaves you much to desire, to 

 explain, to study, much to complete in your turn." 



In the decay of the old faiths, and in the huge 

 aggrandizement of physical science, the refuge and 

 consolation of serious and truly religious minds is 

 more and more in literature, and in the free escapes 

 and outlooks which it supplies. The best modern 

 poetry and the best modern prose take down the 

 bars for us and admit us to new and large fields of 

 moral and intellectual conquest in a way the antique 

 authors could not and did not aim to do. New 

 wants, and therefore new standards, have arisen. 

 Purely literary poets like Shakespeare and Milton, 

 priceless as they are, are of less service to mankind 

 in an age like ours, when religion is shunned by the 

 religious soul, than the more exceptional poets and 

 writers, like Goethe and Carlyle, or Wordsworth 

 and Emerson, — the wise physicians and doctors who 

 also minister to our wants as moral and spiritual 

 beings. 



The type of men of which Emerson and Carlyle 

 are the most pronounced and influential examples in 

 our time, it must be owned, is comparatively a new 

 turn-up in literature, — men whose highest distinc- 

 tion is the depth and fervor of their moral convic- 

 tion, whose greatness of character is on a par with 

 their greatness of intellect ; a new style of man writ- 

 ing poems, essays, criticisms, histories, and filling 



