The
two have always existed in conjunction, the romantic element in ancient
literature being large. But owing to the disclosure of the world to us
in later times, to the deeper sense of its mysteries which are our
bounding horizons round about, and especially to the impulse given to
emotion by the opening of the doors of immortality by Christianity to
thought, revery, and dream, to hope and effort, the romantic element has
been more marked in modern art, has in fact characterized it, being fed
moreover by the ever increasing inwardness of human life, the greater
value and opportunity of personality in a free and high civilization,
and by the uncertainty, confusion, and complexity of such masses of
human experience as our observation now controls. The romantic temper is
inevitable in men whose lives are themselves thought of as, in form, but
fragments of the life to come, which shall find their completion an
eternal task. It is the natural ally of faith which it alone can render
with an infinite outlook; and it is the complement of that mystery which
is required to supplement it, and which is an abiding presence in the
habit of the sensitive and serious mind.
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