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COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY F. S. CROFTS & CO., INC.

P825
1926

Cop. 3

MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

BY THE VAIL-BALLOU PRESS, INC., BINGHAMTON, N. Y.

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At the present time there is danger of the sacrifice of what I may call dispassionate men of letters and poets. For a long while they had the upper hand and all honour; we pleaded for Shakespeare, Milton, and Dante, even for Homer; there was no need to plead for Virgil, Horace, Boileau, Racine, Voltaire, Pope, and Tasso; they were looked up to and recognised by all. Now the former have gained a complete victory, and things are entirely changed: the greatest and most primitive minds rule and triumph; those who have less invention, but are still naïve and original in thought and expression, the Regniers and Lucretiuses, are replaced in their proper sphere, and the tendency is to subordinate the dispassionate, cultivated, polished poets, the classical authors of a former age, and, if we are not careful, to treat them a little too cavalierly; relatively speaking, a sort of disdain and contempt is very near overtaking them. It seems to me there is room to uphold all, and that none need be cast aside, that in rendering homage and reverence to the great human forces that like the powers of nature burst forth with some strangeness and roughness, we need not cease to honour the more restrained forces that, less explosive in expression, are clothed in elegance and gentleness.-Sainte-Beuve.

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