Would their effect be the same
if we were not acquainted with the text? But the New Testament existed
before the cartoons. There is one subject of which there is no cartoon:
Christ washing the feet of the disciples the night before His death.
But that chapter does not need a commentary. It is for want of some
such resting-place for the imagination that the Greek statues are
little else than specious forms. They are marble to the touch and to
the heart. They have not an informing principle within them. In their
faultless excellence they appear sufficient to themselves. By their
beauty they are raised above the frailties of passion or suffering.
By their beauty they are deified. But they are not objects of religious
faith to us, and their forms are a reproach to common humanity. They
seem to have no sympathy with us, and not to want our admiration.
Poetry in its matter and form is natural imagery or feeling, combined
with passion and fancy. In its mode of conveyance, it combines the
ordinary use of language with musical expression. There is a question
of long standing in what the essence of poetry consists, or what it
is that determines why one set of ideas should be expressed in prose,
another in verse.
Pages:
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358