Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe,
and their fellow-artists, are always
coming into the open court of pub-
lic opinion, and the estimate in
which they are held is valuable
chiefly as affording material for a
judgment of the generation which
forms it. An age which understands
and honours creative artists must
have a certain breadth of view and
energy of spirit; an age which fails
to recognise their significance fails to
recognise the range and splendour
of life, and has, therefore, a certain
inferiority.

We cannot get away from the
great books of the world, because
they preserve and interpret the life
of the world; they are inexhaustible,
because, being vitally conceived,
they need the commentary of that
wide experience which we call history

[[8]]

p007 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p008w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p009

v?