In
our practical use of them, I mean; their infusion into all our doing and
being. As dry as a mummy, great Joseph would say.
Shall I be more explicit? Taking that great factor of life which men, with
countless lights, shades, narrownesses and breadths of meaning, call
Religion, and taking it in the largest sense we can give it; in like
manner taking Poetry in the largest sense possible; this cluster of tales
is one, because from each of its parts, with no argument but the souls and
fates they tell of, it illustrates the indivisible twinship of Poetry and
Religion; a oneness of office and of culmination, which, as they reach
their highest plane, merges them into identity. Is that any clearer? You
see I am no scientist or philosopher, and I do not stand at any dizzy
height, even in my regular business of banking and insurance, except now
and then when my colleagues of the clearing-house or board want something
drawn up--"Whereas, the inscrutable wisdom of Providence has taken from
among us"--something like that.
I tell the stories as I saw them occur. I tell them for your
entertainment; the truth they taught me you may do what you please with.
It was exemplified in some of these men and women by their failure to
incarnate it.
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