Perhaps we can nowhere find a better illustration of the true
relation of literature to life than in this example.
Let us consider the comparative value of literature to mankind. By
comparative value I mean its worth to men in comparison with other things
of acknowledged importance, such as the creation of industries, the
government of States, the manipulation of the politics of an age, the
achievements in war and discovery, and the lives of admirable men. It
needs a certain perspective to judge of this aright, for the near and the
immediate always assume importance. The work that an age has on hand,
whether it be discovery, conquest, the wars that determine boundaries or
are fought for policies, the industries that develop a country or affect
the character of a people, the wielding of power, the accumulation of
fortunes, the various activities of any given civilization or period,
assume such enormous proportions to those engaged in them that such a
modest thing as the literary product seems insignificant in comparison;
and hence it is that the man of action always holds in slight esteem the
man of thought, and especially the expresser of feeling and emotion, the
poet and the humorist. It is only when we look back over the ages, when
civilizations have passed or changed, over the rivalries of States, the
ambitions and enmities of men, the shining deeds and the base deeds that
make up history, that we are enabled to see what remains, what is
permanent.
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