THE ENSLAVER OF HIS COUNTRY 331 and renewal, no certain hope of immortal life, is to be the agent of a moral and spiritual enslavement worse by far than any enslavement that is merely physical or political, because it is enslavement of the soul to falsehood and wickedness, and sure in due time to bring physical and political enslavement in its train. Over the door of the house where Goethe was born was carved a lyre and a star. He loved to think it a prognostication of his greatness as a poet. But the star was A star that with the choral starry dance And Tennyson is not too severe when he intimates that this abuse of intellectual power and this self-exaltation above truth and duty are signs not of human, but of diabolic greatness. It is Goethe whom he calls A glorious Devil, large in heart and brain, WORDSWORTH THE POET OF NATURE MATTHEW ARNOLD has well said that Wordsworth is one of the chief glories of English poetry, and he adds that by nothing is England so glorious as by her poetry. When we think of what England has done for liberty and for religion, it may seem at first thought extravagant to call her greatest gift to the world the gift of poetry. But it is her poetry, in which England's liberty and religion are best expressed. Matthew Arnold himself suggests the point of view from which his words can be interpreted, when he says that "poetry is the most perfect speech of man, that in which he comes nearest to being able to utter the truth." I wish to compare with this a passage from John Stuart Mill. The philosopher and economist, in a time of great mental depression, sought relief in the reading of poetry. He read Byron, but he found his own ennui and discontent only reflected to him. He turned to Wordsworth. There he found medicine for his state of mind, because Wordsworth's poems furnished the culture of the emotions which he was in quest of. They awakened not only the love of rural beauty but a greatly increased interest in the common destiny of human beings. that I gradually, but com "The result was," said Mr. Mili, pletely, emerged from my habitual depression, and was never |