THE INNER LIFE.  A man’s life is more than his work; his dream is ever greater than his achievement; and literature reflects not so much man’s deed as the spirit which animates him; not the poor thing that he does, but rather the splendid thing that he ever hopes to do.  In no place is this more evident than in the age we are now studying.  Those early sea kings were a marvelous mixture of savagery and sentiment, of rough living and of deep feeling, of splendid courage and the deep melancholy of men who know their limitations and have faced the unanswered problem of death.  They were not simply fearless freebooters who harried every coast in their war galleys.  If that were all, they would have no more history or literature than the Barbary pirates, of whom the same thing could be said.  These strong fathers of ours were men of profound emotions.  In all their fighting the love of an untarnished glory was uppermost; and under the warrior’s savage exterior was hidden a great love of home and homely virtues, and a reverence for the one woman to whom he would presently return in triumph.  So when the wolf hunt was over, or the desperate fight was won, these mighty men would gather in the banquet hall, and lay their weapons aside where the open fire would flash upon them, and there listen to the songs of Scop and Gleeman,—­men who could put into adequate words the emotions and aspirations that all men feel but that only a few can ever express: 

    Music and song where the heroes sat—­
    The glee-wood rang, a song uprose
    When Hrothgar’s scop gave the hall good cheer.[24]

It is this great and hidden life of the Anglo-Saxons that finds expression in all their literature.  Briefly, it is summed up in five great principles,—­their love of personal freedom, their responsiveness to nature, their religion, their reverence for womanhood, and their struggle for glory as a ruling motive in every noble life.

In reading Anglo-Saxon poetry it is well to remember these five principles, for they are like the little springs at the head of a great river,—­clear, pure springs of poetry, and out of them the best of our literature has always flowed.  Thus when we read,

    Blast of the tempest—­it aids our oars;
    Rolling of thunder—­it hurts us not;
    Rush of the hurricane—­bending its neck
    To speed us whither our wills are bent,

we realize that these sea rovers had the spirit of kinship with the mighty life of nature; and kinship with nature invariably expresses itself in poetry.  Again, when we read,

    Now hath the man
    O’ercome his troubles.  No pleasure does he lack,
    Nor steeds, nor jewels, nor the joys of mead,
    Nor any treasure that the earth can give,
    O royal woman, if he have but thee,[25]