author whom we love writes like a human being, we are not
sneering at him; we do not say it with a leer. It is in token of
admiration, rather. He makes us like our humankind. There is a
noble passion in what he says, a wholesome humor that echoes
genial comradeships; a certain reasonableness and moderation in
what is thought and said; an air of the open day, in which things
are seen whole and in their right colors, rather than of the
close study or the academic class-room. We do not want our poetry
from grammarians, nor our tales from philologists, nor our
history from theorists. Their human nature is subtly transmuted
into something less broad and catholic and of the general world.
Neither do we want our political economy from tradesmen nor our
statesmanship from mere politicians, but from those who see more
and care for more than these men see or care for.


II

Once--it is a thought which troubles us--once it was a simple
enough matter to be a human being, but now it is deeply
difficult; because life was once simple, but is now complex,
confused, multifarious. Haste, anxiety, preoccupation, the need
to specialize and make machines of ourselves, have transformed
the once simple world, and we are apprised that it will not be
without effort that we shall keep the broad human traits which
have so far made the earth habitable. We have seen our modern
life accumulate, hot and restless, in great cities--and we
cannot say that the change is not natural: we see in it, on the
contrary, the fulfillment of an inevitable law of change, which
is no doubt a law of growth, and not of decay. And yet we look