egoism, and become one with man in general. This is an escape; but not such as has been previously spoken of, for it is not a retreat. There is no escape for us, except into the lives of others. In nature it is still our own face we see; and before the ideal creations of art we are still aware, for all our contemplation, of the ineffable yearning of the thwarted soul, of the tender melancholy, the sadness in all beauty, which is the measure of our separation therefrom, and is fundamental in the poetic temperament. This is that pain, which Plato speaks of—the pain of the growing of the wings of the spirit as they unfold. But in passing into the lives of other men, in sharing their joys, in taking on ourselves the burden of humanity, we escape from our self-prison, we leave individuality behind, we unite with man in common; so we die to ourselves in order to live in lives not ours. In literature, sympathy and that imagination by which we enter into and comprehend other lives are most trained and developed, made habitual, instinctive, and quick. It begins to appear, I trust, that ideal art is not only one with our nature intellectually, but in all ways; it is the path of the spirit in all things. Moreover, emotion is in itself simple; it does not need generalization, it is the same in all. It is rather a means of universalizing the refinements of the intellect, the substantive idealities of imagination, by enveloping them in an elementary, primitive feeling which they call forth. Poetry, therefore, especially deals, as Wordsworth pointed out, in the primary affections, the elementary passions of mankind; and, whatever be its intellectual contents of nature or human events, calls these emotions forth as the master-spirit of all our seeing. Emotion is more fundamental in us than knowledge; it is more powerful in its working; it underlies more deliberate and conscious life in the mind, and in most of us it rules, as it influences in all. It is natural, therefore, to find that its operation in art is of graver importance than that of the intellectual faculty so far as the broad power of art over men is concerned.

Another special point arises from the fact that some emotions are painful, and the question is raised how in literature painful emotions become a pleasure. Aristotle's doctrine in respect to certain of these emotions, tragic pity and terror, is well known, though variously interpreted. He regards such emotions as a discharge of energy, an exhaustion and a relief, in consequence of which their disturbing presence is less likely to recur in actual life; it is as if emotional energy accumulated, as vital force is stored up and requires to be loosed in bodily exercise; but this, except in the point that 

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