A further distinguishing mark of the romantic spirit, mentioned by Dr. Hedge in common with many other critics, is the indefiniteness or incompleteness of its creations.  This is a consequence, of course, of its sense of mystery and aspiration.  Schopenbauer said that music was the characteristic modern art, because of its subjective, indefinite character.  Pursuing this line of thought, Dr. Hedge affirms that “romantic relates to classic somewhat as music relates to plastic art. . .  It [music] presents no finished ideal, but suggests ideals beyond the capacity of canvas or stone.  Plastic art acts on the intellect, music on the feelings; the one affects us by what it presents, the other by what it suggests.  This, it seems to me, is essentially the difference between classic and romantic poetry”; and he names Homer and Milton as examples of the former, and Scott and Shelley of the latter school.

Here then we have a third criterion proposed for determining the essential differentia of romantic art.  First it was mystery, then aspiration; now it is the appeal to the emotions by the method of suggestion.  And yet there is, perhaps, no inconsistency on the critic’s part in this continual shifting of his ground.  He is apparently presenting different facets of the same truth; he means one thing by this mystery, aspiration, indefiniteness, incompleteness, emotion suggestiveness:  that quality or effect which we all feel to be present in romantic and absent from classic work, but which we find it hard to describe by any single term.  It is open to any analyst of our critical vocabulary to draw out the fullest meanings that he can, from such pairs of related words as classic and romantic, fancy and imagination, wit and humor, reason and understanding, passion and sentiment.  Let us, for instance, develop briefly this proposition that the ideal of classic art is completeness[12] and the ideal of romantic art indefiniteness, or suggestiveness.

A.W.  Schlegel[13] had already made use of two of the arts of design, to illustrate the distinction between classic and romantic, just as Dr. Hedge uses plastic art and music.  I refer to Schlegel’s famous saying that the genius of the antique drama was statuesque, and that of the romantic drama picturesque.  A Greek temple, statue, or poem has no imperfection and offers no further promise, indicates nothing beyond what it expresses.  It fills the sense, it leaves nothing to the imagination.  It stands correct, symmetric, sharp in outline, in the clear light of day.  There is nothing more to be done to it; there is no concealment about it.  But in romantic art there is seldom this completeness.  The workman lingers, he would fain add another touch, his ideal eludes him.  Is a Gothic cathedral ever really finished?  Is “Faust” finished?  Is “Hamlet” explained?  The modern spirit is mystical; its architecture, painting, poetry employ shadow to produce their highest effects:  shadow and color rather than contour.  On the Greek heroic stage there were a few figures, two or three at most, grouped like statuary and thrown out in bold relief at the apex of the scene:  in Greek architecture a few clean, simple lines:  in Greek poetry clear conceptions easily expressible in language and mostly describable in sensuous images.