waited long for a poet to sing their songs; but this is not strange, for literature itself is an expression of social thought and feeling, and partakes of the character of its makers and its readers. For many years the reading of books was the luxury of the few rather than the necessity of the many; but even then society as a whole was influenced by literature, and not merely a small section of it, though the lower classes were affected only indirectly through the upper classes. Through whatever medium that influence may formerly have passed it is certain that for at least a century and a half literature has had an appreciable effect upon social life and action.

It is desirable to emphasize, even at the risk of repetition, the important fact that literature, though it may present only the life of a past epoch, is a power in the development of society, because it appeals to the emotional as well as to the intellectual. A cold and vulgar rationalism affects to despise emotion as an incentive to action, and maintains that in a developed society reason is everywhere and always dominant. Whether that type of society would represent a progress forward or backward, we may leave to others to discuss. As a matter of fact, in the individual living in the society of today feeling is fundamental. Perhaps it is not true, as Bea

sentiment, but there is so much of truth in it that no one can afford to disregard it who is constructing a philosophy of life that is to be of any practical worth. It is not enough for people to know of an injustice which they have the power to rectify. They must feel it before they will leave their accustomed routine to demand, with an emphasis that means anything, that that injustice be done away. That the demand must be fortified by fact and approved by reason no one would deny; but emotion is the spark that sets reason on fire and makes it efficient in the destruction of evil. There must be noble ground for noble emotions;" but neither the

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noble ground" nor the "noble emotion" can be spared, if efficient action is to be secured. There are not a few who must be made to feel keenly before they will think deeply. To neglect either one of these two great factors in social progress would be to put a part for the whole.

Secondly, literature does much to bring the society of its own day to self-consciousness. Nearly all that has been said of the results of the study of the past by writers of literature applies with equal force to the study of the present. Poets and novelists observe carefully the social phenomena of their own day; separate the transient from the permanent; give beautiful and

show the tendencies of thought and action, the social significance of customs and institutions; reveal wrongs and abuses; voice the otherwise unspoken desires and aspirations of all classes from the highest to the socially submerged; and appeal to the emotions and intellects of those who ought to lead the way to social betterment. One of the primary requisites for the writer is an imagination which will enable him to place himself in the midst of situations which he has conceived, not merely as a cool and calculating observer, but as an active and sympathetic participant. He must have the ability to enter into the characters he portrays, the scenes he pictures, the conditions he describes. Thus to him even the past becomes present, because for the time being his world is the thought-world. In imagination he sees his visions and dreams his dreams. He thinks the thoughts of those who lived in a past time, feels what they felt, endures their wrongs, is inspired by their hopes and depressed by their woes. Such an one writes of the past with the vividness and sympathy and power of the present, because to him the past is the present, and he writes of what he feels and knows.

If it be said that this imaginative quality detracts from the value of literature for the student of society, we should remember that the writer must first study in most careful detail the period

of which he writes before he can safely venture to put pen to paper. He cannot neglect a single available source of information concerning the period in question without danger of injury to the artistic product. He must be the close and critical student before he can be the portrayer of life. M. Gevaert declares that creation in art is memory modified by personality. If the artist were not first a discoverer, he would have nothing to remember and vivify by the power of his personality. His merit is that he gives reality and life to that which before was vague, unreal, and dead. No one can understand the past who does not possess and use imagination.

But imagination is almost as essential to the understanding and representation of the present as of the past. To enter into the lives of others is a part of the task of the one who writes of his own day. He must thoroughly understand the external conditions as well as the thoughts, feelings, and desires of those for whom he attempts to speak. He can gain this result only by imagination. To look upon houses and fields and persons and classes no more gives an understanding of the inner lives of the people than the sight of the crust of Vesuvius tells of the terrific fires that are raging in its heart. To be sure, it is not a fool's task to observe carefully

of life. But only the "seer" can discern, and only the genuine artist can portray, the "thoughts which do often lie too deep for tears," and which are, after all, the determining factors in a social condition. Sight is not so rare as insight.

This sympathetic insight into the heart of an age, a people, a class, is an indispensable prerequisite to the one who would aid in the task of bringing an epoch to self-consciousness. No one can interpret anything of which he has not a sympathetic understanding. Even if this were possible, people would be very slow to accept an interpretation of their inner life that was offered by a cynic or an unsympathetic critic.

Interpretation, if it be truthful involves the revelation of certain facts and conditions which reflect discredit upon the people. The knowledge of these things is always unwelcome. The truthfulness of the revelation is usually at first emphatically denied, and the denial is frequently perfectly sincere. The people were ignorant of certain conditions which actually existed, and so were unconscious of any criminal negligence on their own part in permitting the continuance of evils which they might have investigated and exterminated. They were unaware that their own ways of thinking and feeling about certain social evils were the result of traditions and con