LUCID LITEKATUKE 185 



have spiritual and religious values as well as poetic. 

 All tte great imaginative writers of our century have 

 felt, more or less, the stir and fever of the century, 

 and have been its priests and prophets. The lesser 

 poets have not felt these things. Had Poe been 

 greater or broader he would have felt them, so 

 would Longfellow. Neither went deep enough to 

 touch the formative currents of our social or reli- 

 gious or national life. In the past the great artist 

 has always been at ease in Zion ; in our day only 

 the lesser artists are at ease, unless we except Whit- 

 man, man of unshaken faith, who is absolutely 

 optimistic, and whose joy and serenity come from the 

 breadth of his vision and the depth and universality 

 of his sympathies. 



