to other ample basins, perhaps in the course of time to reunite at some great meeting of waters in the New World.  To one afloat in the swirl of contradictory eddies, it may be difficult to judge of the whence and whither of the troubled current, but the ascent of the stream and the exploration of the sources of literature and the arts, of morals, politics, and religion, of commerce and mechanics, is on the whole no difficult adventure.

Finally, civilization is not only a matter of local habitation, but a matter of individual men.  The great city is both determined by, and determines, its environment; the great man is the product, and in turn the producer, of the culture of his nation.  The human race is gregarious and sequacious, rather than individual and adventurous.  Progress depends upon the initiative of spirited and gifted men, rather than upon the tardy movement of the mass, upon idea rather than force, upon spirit rather than matter.

I preface my essay with these reflections because there may be readers at first thought skeptical of even modest statements regarding Horace as a force in the history of our culture and a contributor to our life today.  It is only when the continuity of history and the essential simplicity and constancy of civilization are understood that the direct and vital connection between past and present is seen, and the mind is no longer startled and incredulous when the historian records that the Acropolis has had more to do with the career of architecture than any other group of buildings in the world, or that the most potent influence in the history of prose is the Latin of Cicero, or that poetic expression is more choice and many men appreciably saner and happier because of a Roman poet dead now one thousand nine hundred and thirty years.

HORACE AND HIS INFLUENCE

I. HORACE INTERPRETED

THE APPEAL OF HORACE

In estimating the effect of Horace upon his own and later times, we must take into account two aspects of his work.  These are, the forms in which he expressed himself, and the substance of which they are the garment.  We shall find him distinguished in both; but in the substance of his message we shall find him distinguished by a quality which sets him apart from other poets ancient and modern.

This distinctive quality lies neither in the originality nor in the novelty of the Horatian message, which, as a matter of fact, is surprisingly familiar, and perhaps even commonplace.  It lies rather in the appealing manner and mood of its communication.  It is a message living and vibrant.