Part of the test of a great literatus shall be the absence
in him of the idea of the covert, the lurid, the maleficent, the
devil, the grim estimates inherited from the Puritans, hell, natural
depravity, and the like. The great literatus will be known, among the
rest, by his cheerful simplicity, his adherence to natural standards,
his limitless faith in God, his reverence, and by the absence in him
of doubt, ennui, burlesque, persiflage, or any strain'd and temporary
fashion.
Nor must I fail, again and yet again, to clinch, reiterate more
plainly still, (O that indeed such survey as we fancy, may show in
time this part completed also!) the lofty aim, surely the proudest and
the purest, in whose service the future literatus, of whatever field,
may gladly labor. As we have intimated, offsetting the material
civilization of our race, our nationality, its wealth, territories,
factories, population, products, trade, and military and naval
strength, and breathing breath of life into all these, and more, must
be its moral civilization--the formulation, expression, and aidancy
whereof, is the very highest height of literature. The climax of this
loftiest range of civilization, rising above all the gorgeous shows
and results of wealth, intellect, power, and art, as such--above even
theology and religious fervor--is to be its development, from the
eternal bases, and the fit expression, of absolute Conscience, moral
soundness, Justice. Even in religious fervor there is a touch of
animal heat.
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