Identifier: backgroundsoflit01mabi (find matches)
Title: Backgrounds of literature
Year: 1903 (1900s)
Authors: Mabie, Hamilton Wright, 1846-1916
Subjects: Literary landmarks Authors
Publisher: New York : Outlook Co.
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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tle strategist in art, play-ing a deep game with his readers, employinga highly elaborate technique to produce delicateeffects on a few elect minds; he always moves inthe open, masses his forces, and wins his way bymass and force. He deals with those fundamen-tal experiences which, being common to all men,are, by reason of their universality, the mostinclusive and profound happenings that befallhuman kind; and his manner has the breadthand simplicity which are harmonious with histhemes. The great movements which give colorand direction to human affairs are neither setin motion nor controlled by finesse, dexterity,subtle suggestion; they have their source in widestirrings of the conscience or of the imagination,and find leadership in capacious, virile minds.Scott was entirely lacking in subtlety, but sub-tlety is not depth; he was without finesse, butfinesse is not power. Depth he had and powerin abundance; he was deep not as the pools butas the ocean, and his power was not that of 256
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3* THE LAND OF SCOTT delicate mechanism, but of the large, elementalforces of nature. A man of such broad, sincere, sane genius asScott is always vitally related to his people andhis country; for genius is a spiritual rather thanan intellectual gift, and makes its richest con-tribution to thought through divination ratherthan by logical processes. As Homer divinedwhat lay in the heart of his race, as Dante felteven more deeply than he understood the Spiritof the Middle Age, as Shakespeare read thesecret records which life had written in the spiritof the race, so Scott, with less insight and dra-matic power, but with kindred breadth of sym-pathy, comprehended his country and peopleand made himself their foremost interpreter andhistorian. For Scotland lives in the books ofher great romancer as she lives in no work ofhistory. What has happened to her may beread elsewhere; what has happened in her mustbe sought in the Waverley Novels and the poemsfrom the same hand. Scott found practicall

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