It cannot be said too often that literature is the product of the
continuous spiritual activity of the race; that it cannot be
arbitrarily divided into periods save for mere convenience of
arrangement; and that it is impossible to understand and value its
latest products unless one is able to find their place and discern
their value in the order of a spiritual development. To secure an
adequate impression of this highest expression of the human spirit one
must keep in view the work of the past quite as definitely as the work
of the present; in such a broad survey there is a constant deliverance
from the rashness of contemporary judgments, and from that narrowness
of feeling which limits one's vital contact with the life of the race
to the products of a single brief period.
In any attempt to indicate the fundamental significance of the art of
literature in the educational development of the individual and of
society there must also be a certain repetition of idea and of
illustration. This limitation, if it be a limitation, is inherent in
the very nature of the undertaking.
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