156 LITERARY VALUES 



will imply a great body of humanity — the masses, 

 the toilers — and will carry into emotional and ideal 

 fields the atmosphere of these. 



Behold the artistic motives furnished by feudal- 

 ism, by royalty, by lords and ladies, by the fears 

 and superstitions of the past, by mythology and 

 ecclesiasticism, by religious and political terrorism 

 in all their manifold forms. Ait and literature 

 have lived upon these things for ages. Can demo- 

 cracy, can the worth and picturesqueness of the peo- 

 ple, furnish no worthy themes and motives for the 

 poets ? Can science, can the present day, can the 

 religion of humanity, the conquest of nature's forces, 

 inspire no poetic enthusiasm and give rise to great 

 art rivaling that of the past ? As between the past 

 and the present, undoubtedly the difficulty is not 

 in the poverty of the material of to-day, but in the 

 inadequacy of the man. It requires a great spirit, 

 a powerful personality, to master and absorb the 

 diverse and complex elements of our time and imbue 

 them with poetic enthusiasm. 



The humanitarian enthusiasm as a motif in liter- 

 ature and art, — the inspiration begotten by the con- 

 templation of the wrongs, the sufferings, and the 

 hopes of the people, — undoubtedly came in with 

 democracy. It was quite unknown to the ancient 

 and to the feudal world. To all the more vital voices 

 of our time this enthusiasm gives the tone. How 

 pronounced it is in two of our latest and most 

 promising poets, Mr. Edwin Markham and Mr. Wil- 

 liam Vaughn Moody ! 



