to make, only second-class literature, for they are afraid of the Revolution, and it is all over our best of life; they are afraid of that life. But to enter the arena of greatness they must give it a voice. That is the vocation of the poet. VIII Yes, and the poet will be unlike you, gentlemen of the fastidious phrase. He will not be careless of form, but the passion that is in him will make simple words burn and live; never will he in the mode of the time go wide of the truth to make a picturesque phrase; his mind rapt on the thing will fix on the true word; his heart warm with the battle will fashion more beautiful forms than you, O detached and dainty artist; his soul full of music and adventure will scale those heights it is your fate to dream of but not your fortune to possess. Yet, you, too, might possess them would you but step with him into the press of adventurous legions, and make articulate the dream of men, and make splendid their triumph. He is the prophet of to-morrow, though you deny him to-day. He is not like to you, supercilious and aloof--he would have you for a passionate brother, would raise your spirit in ecstasy, flood your mind with thought, and touch your lips with fire. Because of his sensitiveness he knows every mood and every heart and gives a voice and a song to all. You might know him for a good comrade, where freedom is to win or to hold, over in the van or the breach; able to deal good blows and take them in the fine manner, a fine fighter; not with darkened brow crying, "an eye for an eye"--for who _could_ give him blow for blow or match his deed with a deed?--but one of open front and open hand who will count it happiness to have made for a victory he may not live to enjoy, as ready to die in its splendour as he had been to live through the darkness before the dawn; remembering with soldier tenderness the comrades of old battles, forgetting the malice of old enemies; a high example of the magnanimous spirit, happily not yet unknown on earth; with fine generosity and noble fire, full of that great love the common cry can never make other than humanising and beautiful, not without a gleam of humour more than half divine, he will pass, leaving to the foe that hated him heartily equally with the friend that loved him well, the wonder of his thought and the rapture of his melody. CHAPTER XII RELIGION I