of mind.2

The mediæval religious artists were subjective, sentimental, lyrical. In a scene like the crucifixion, all the characters, whether apostles, Roman soldiers, or Jewish Pharisees, hang their heads like bulrushes.

But see how Rubens, that great dramatic painter, represents the scene. The Magdalen, wild with grief, with disheveled hair, has thrown herself at the foot of the cross, clasping and kissing the feet of Jesus. On the other faces are terror, dismay, doubt, unbelief, mockery, curiosity, triumph, despair,—according to each person's character and attitude toward the event. Meantime the Roman centurion, seated on his splendid horse, is deliberately and carefully striking his spear into the side of the sufferer. His face expresses only that he has a duty to perform and means to fulfill it perfectly.

As Rubens is greatly dramatic, his pupil and follower, Vandyke, is a great lyrical artist, whose noble aspiration and generous sentiment shows itself in all his work.

The school of Venice, with Titian and Tintoretto at its head, is grandly dramatic and objective. The school of Florence, with Guido and Domenichino at its head, eminently lyrical and subjective.

If we had time, we might show that the two masters of Greek philosophy, Plato and Aristotle, are, the one lyrical, and intensely subjective, platonizing the universe; and the other as evidently objective, immersed in the study of things; rejoicing in their variety, their individuality, their persistence of type.

The two masters of Greek history, Herodotus and Thucydides, stand opposed to each other in the same way. Herodotus is the story-teller, the dramatic raconteur, whose charming tales are as entertaining as the "Arabian Nights." Thucydides is the personal historian who puts himself into his story, and determines its meaning and moral according to his own theories and convictions.

We have another example in Livy and Tacitus.

The two great American orators most frequently mentioned together are Webster and Clay. Though you would smile if I were to call either of them a lyric or a dramatic speaker, yet the essential distinction we have been considering may be clearly seen in them. Clay's inspiration was personal, his influence, personal influence. His theme was nothing; his treatment of it everything. But Webster rose or fell with the magnitude and importance of the occasion and argument. When on the wrong side, he failed, for his intellect would not work well except in the service of reality and truth. But Clay was perhaps greatest when arguing against all facts and all reason. Then he summoned all his powers,—wit, illustration, analogy, syllogisms, appeals to feeling, prejudice, and passion; and so swept along his confused and blinded audience to his conclusions.

I think that subjective writers are loved more than dramatic. We admire the one and we love the other. We admire Shakespeare and love Milton; we admire Chaucer and love Spenser; we admire Dante and love Petrarch; we admire Goethe and love Schiller; and if Byron had not been so selfish a man, we should have loved him too. We admire Michael Angelo and love Raphael; we admire Rubens and love Vandyke; we admire Robert Browning and love Mrs. Browning. In short, we care more for the man who gives us himself than for the man who gives us the whole outside world.

I have been able to give you only a few hints of this curious distinction in art and literature. But if we carry it in our mind, we shall find it a key by which many doors may be unlocked. It will enable us to classify authors, and understand them better.

DUALISM IN NATIONAL LIFE

The science of comparative ethnology is one which has been greatly developed during the last twenty-five years. The persistence of race tendencies, as in the Semitic tribes, Jews and Arabs, or in the Teutonic and Celtic branches of the great Aryan stock, has been generally admitted. Though few would now say, with the ethnologist Knox, "Race is everything," none would wholly dispense with this factor, as Buckle did, in writing a history of civilization.

Racial varieties have existed from prehistoric times. Their origin is lost in the remote past. As far as history goes back, we find them the same that they are now. When and how the primitive stock differentiated itself into the great varieties which we call Aryan, Semitic, and Turanian, no one can tell. But there are well-established varieties of which we can trace the rise and development; I mean national varieties. The character of an Englishman or a Frenchman is as distinctly marked as that of a Greek or Roman. There is a general resemblance among all Englishmen; and the same kind of resemblance among all Frenchmen, Spaniards, Swedes, Poles. But this crystallization into national types of character has taken place in a comparatively short period. We look back to a time when there were no Englishmen in Great Britain; but only Danes, Saxons, Normans, and Celts; no Frenchmen in France; but Gauls, Franks, and Romans. Gradually a distinct quality emerges, and we have Frenchmen, Italians, Englishmen. The type, once arrived at, persists, and becomes more marked. It is marked by personal looks and manners, by a common temperament, a common style of thinking, feeling, acting; the same kind of morals and manners. This type was formed by the action and reaction of the divers races brought side by side—Normans and Saxons mutually influencing each other in England, and being influenced again by climate, conditions of life, forms of government, national customs. So, at last, we have the well-developed national character,—a mysterious but very certain element, from which no individual can wholly escape. All drink of that one spirit.

Thus far I have been stating what we all know. But now I would call your attention to a curious fact, which, so far as I am aware, has not before been noticed. It is this,—that when two nations, during their forming period, have been in relation to each other, there will be a peculiar character developed in each. That is to say, they will differ from each other according to certain well-defined lines, and these differences will repeat themselves again and again in history, in curious parallelisms, or dualisms.

To take the most familiar illustration of this: consider the national qualities of the French and English. The English and French, during several centuries, have been acting and reacting on each other, both in war and peace. Now, what are the typical characteristics of these two nations? Stated in a broad way they might be described something as follows:—

The English mind is more practical than ideal; its movement is slow but persistent; its progress is by gradual development; it excels in the industrial arts; it reverences power; it loves liberty more than equality, not objecting to an aristocracy. It tends to individualism. Its conquests have been due to the power of order, and adherence to law.

The French mind is more ideal than practical; versatile, rather than persistent; its movements rapid, its progress by crises and revolution, rather than by development; it excels in whatever is tasteful and artistic; it admires glory rather than power; loves equality more than liberty; objects to an aristocracy, but is ready to yield individual rights at the bidding of the community; renouncing individualism for the sake of communism; and its successes have been due to enthusiasm