Was there not something in this religious one-sidedness to belittle the true dignity of the spirit?[36] Heaven lies about us in our infancy, and we find ourselves in a beautiful land of promise; we are placed therein to face the years; by experience, by training, by guidance along the lines of our own natures, we are prepared to understand something of the character of the way we shall have to tread alone. We should be made to face the future, but not to discount the present. We find ourselves defined by circumstances, but we need not remain slaves to them. To stigmatise a class in literature is to stigmatise a reader. Miss More and her contemporaries never questioned their social attitude--whether it was just or broad or transitory. Full of the pioneer work which they were doing, they did not recognise the right for the poor which was already the right for the rich. Juvenile literature was not for the heart of all youth, but for the benefaction of this one and of that. And while the educational idea broadened and was to advance with the scientific spirit on the one hand, on the other, it had narrowed and was destined for a long, monotonous struggle with the conscious Sunday-school tale. This character of story was flat and void, and, because removed from the reality of nature, it was robbed of the inherent spirit of truth. It identified religion with literary meekness. IV. THE POETS: WATTS; JANE AND ANN TAYLOR; WILLIAM BLAKE. _Everything depends on the reality of a poet’s classic character. If he is a dubious classic, let us sift him; if he is a false classic, let us explode him. But if he is a real classic, if his work belongs to the class of the very best (for this is the true and right meaning of the word_ classic, classical), _then the great thing for us is to feel and enjoy his work as deeply as ever we can, and to appreciate the wide difference between it and all work which has not the same high character. This is what is salutary, this is what is formative; this is the great benefit to be got from the study of poetry. Everything which interferes with it, which hinders it, is injurious._--_Matthew Arnold_, in “The Study of Poetry.” We have progressed sufficiently in our outline to begin showing the links that bind the past with the present. To dwell upon more writers of the generation just treated is simply to repeat the same essential characteristics of the type. These authors all used the medium of prose in their desire to give young people books suitable to their comprehension. But there were a few poets who braved the intricacies of verse, and who wrote some very simple and pleasing lyrics, which have survived the change in spirit, and form some of the most agreeable pages in our children’s anthologies. It will be recollected that Mrs. Barbauld feared poetry would not be understood, and so she wrote her volume of prose pieces which acted as a substitute.