Perhaps the poet is saved from inconsistency by his touching confidence
that in other times and places human nature is less stupid and
unappreciative than it proves itself in his immediate audience. He
reasons that in times past the public has shown sufficient insight to
establish the reputation of the master poets, and that history will
repeat itself. Several writers have stated explicitly that their quarrel
with humanity is not to be carried beyond the present generation. Thus
Arnold objects to his time because it is aesthetically dead. [Footnote:
See _Persistency of Poetry._] But elsewhere he objects because it shows
signs of coming to life, [Footnote: See _Bacchanalia._] so it is hard to
determine how our grandfathers could have pleased him. Similarly
unreasonable discontent has been expressed by later poets with our own
time. [Footnote: See William Ernest Henley, _The Gods are Dead;_ Edmund
Gosse, _On Certain Critics;_ Samuel Waddington, _The Death of Song;_
John Payne, _Double Ballad of the Singers of the Time_(1906).] Only
occasionally a poet rebukes his brethren for this carping attitude. Mrs.
Browning protests, in _Aurora Leigh,_

'Tis ever thus
With times we live in,--evermore too great
To be apprehended near....
I do distrust the poet who discerns
No character or glory in his times,
And trundles back his soul five hundred years.
[Footnote: See Robert Browning, Letter to Elizabeth Barrett, March 12,
1845.]

And Kipling is a notorious defender of the present generation, but these
two stand almost alone. [Footnote: See also James Elroy Flecker, _Oak
and Olive;_ Max Ehrmann, _Give Me Today._]