It is a curious and prevalent opinion that literature, like all art, is a mere play of imagination, pleasing enough, like a new novel, but without any serious or practical importance. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Literature preserves the ideals of a people; and ideals–love, faith, duty, friendship, freedom, reverence–are the part of human life most worthy of preservation. The Greeks were a marvelous people; yet of all their mighty works we cherish only a few ideals,–ideals of beauty in perishable stone, and ideals of truth in imperishable prose and poetry.
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