suggestiveness: that quality or effect which we all feel to be present in
romantic and absent from classic work, but which we find it hard to
describe by any single term. It is open to any analyst of our critical
vocabulary to draw out the fullest meanings that he can, from such pairs
of related words as classic and romantic, fancy and imagination, wit and
humor, reason and understanding, passion and sentiment. Let us, for
instance, develop briefly this proposition that the ideal of classic art
is completeness[12] and the ideal of romantic art indefiniteness, or
suggestiveness.

A.W. Schlegel[13] had already made use of two of the arts of design, to
illustrate the distinction between classic and romantic, just as Dr.
Hedge uses plastic art and music. I refer to Schlegel's famous saying
that the genius of the antique drama was statuesque, and that of the
romantic drama picturesque. A Greek temple, statue, or poem has no
imperfection and offers no further promise, indicates nothing beyond what
it expresses. It fills the sense, it leaves nothing to the imagination.
It stands correct, symmetric, sharp in outline, in the clear light of
day. There is nothing more to be done to it; there is no concealment
about it. But in romantic art there is seldom this completeness. The
workman lingers, he would fain add another touch, his ideal eludes him.
Is a Gothic cathedral ever really finished? Is "Faust" finished? Is
"Hamlet" explained? The modern spirit is mystical; its architecture,
painting, poetry employ shadow to produce their highest effects: shadow
and color rather than contour. On the Greek heroic stage there were a
few figures, two or three at most, grouped like statuary and thrown out
in bold relief at the apex of the scene: in Greek architecture a few
clean, simple lines: in Greek poetry clear conceptions easily expressible
in language and mostly describable in sensuous images.