that nature is humanity as degraded by sense; and therefore the measure
of their truthfulness is for him also the measure of their debasement.

In poetry, the key-note so firmly struck by Wordsworth in his noble "Ode
to Duty" has been as firmly and more delicately caught up by other
singers; who, moreover, have seen more clearly than Wordsworth did, that
it is for faith, not for sight, that duty wears

"The Godhead's most benignant grace;"

for the path along which she leads is inevitably on earth steep, rugged,
and toilsome. Take almost any one of Tennyson's more serious poems, and
it will be found pervaded by the thought of life as to be fulfilled and
perfected only through moral endurance and struggle. "Ulysses" is no
restless aimless wanderer; he is driven forth from inaction and security
by that necessity which impels the higher life, once begun within, to
press on toward its perfecting this all-possible sorrow, peril, and fear.
"The Lotos-eaters" are no mere legendary myth: they shadow forth what the
lower instincts of our humanity are ever urging us all to seek--ease and
release from the ceaseless struggle against wrong, the ceaseless
straining on toward right. "In Memoriam" is the record of love "making
perfect through suffering:" struggling on through the valley of the
shadow of death toward the far-off, faith-seen light "behind the veil."
"The Vision of Sin" portrays to us humanity choosing enjoyment as its
only aim; and of necessity sinking into degradation so profound, that
even the large heart and clear eye of the poet can but breathe out in sad
bewilderment, "Is there any hope?"--can but dimly see, far off over the
darkness, "God make Himself an awful rose of dawn." In one of the most
profound of all His creations--"The Palace of Art"--we have presented to
us the soul surrounding itself with everything fair and glad, and in