Yes, and the poet will be unlike you, gentlemen of the fastidious phrase.  He will not be careless of form, but the passion that is in him will make simple words burn and live; never will he in the mode of the time go wide of the truth to make a picturesque phrase; his mind rapt on the thing will fix on the true word; his heart warm with the battle will fashion more beautiful forms than you, O detached and dainty artist; his soul full of music and adventure will scale those heights it is your fate to dream of but not your fortune to possess.  Yet, you, too, might possess them would you but step with him into the press of adventurous legions, and make articulate the dream of men, and make splendid their triumph.  He is the prophet of to-morrow, though you deny him to-day.  He is not like to you, supercilious and aloof—­he would have you for a passionate brother, would raise your spirit in ecstasy, flood your mind with thought, and touch your lips with fire.  Because of his sensitiveness he knows every mood and every heart and gives a voice and a song to all.  You might know him for a good comrade, where freedom is to win or to hold, over in the van or the breach; able to deal good blows and take them in the fine manner, a fine fighter; not with darkened brow crying, “an eye for an eye”—­for who could give him blow for blow or match his deed with a deed?—­but one of open front and open hand who will count it happiness to have made for a victory he may not live to enjoy, as ready to die in its splendour as he had been to live through the darkness before the dawn; remembering with soldier tenderness the comrades of old battles, forgetting the malice of old enemies; a high example of the magnanimous spirit, happily not yet unknown on earth; with fine generosity and noble fire, full of that great love the common cry can never make other than humanising and beautiful, not without a gleam of humour more than half divine, he will pass, leaving to the foe that hated him heartily equally with the friend that loved him well, the wonder of his thought and the rapture of his melody.

CHAPTER XII

RELIGION

I

It ought to be laid down as a first principle that grave questions which have divided us in the past, and divide us still with much bitterness, should not be thrust aside and kept out of view in the hope of harmony.  Where the attitude is such, the hope is vain.  They should be approached with courage in the hope of creating mutual respect and an honourable solution for all.  Religion is such a question.  To the majority of men this touches their most intimate life.  Because of their jealous regard for that intimate part of themselves they are prepared for bitter hostilities with anyone who will assail it; and because of the unmeasured bitterness of assaults on all sides we have come to count it a virtue to bring together