Page:The nature and elements of poetry, Stedman, 1892.djvu/113

Rh have more to do, since we derive very closely from it. There is no literature at once so grand and so familiar to us. Its inherent, racial The Hebraic genius. genius was emotional and therefore lyrical (though I am not with those who deem all lyrical poetry subjective), and a genius of so fiery and prophetic a cast that its personal outbursts have a loftiness beyond those of any other literature. The Hebrew was, and the orthodox Israelite remains, a magnificent egoist. Himself, his past, and his future, are a passion. But—and this is what redeems his egoism—they are not his deepest passion; he has an intenser emotion concerning his own race, the chosen people, a more fervent devotion to Jehovah,—his own Jehovah, if not the God of a universe. Waiving the question whether the ancient Jew was a monotheist, we know that he trusted in the might of his own God as overwhelmingly superior to that of all rivals. His God, moreover, was a very human one. But the Judaic anthropomorphism was of the most transcendent type that ever hath entered into the heart of man.

I do not, then, class the Hebrew poetry, which, though lyrical, gives vent not so much to Its national exaltation. the self-consciousness of the psalmist or prophet or chieftain as to the pride and rapture of his people, with that which is personal and relative, any more than I would count the winged Pindar in his splendid national odes, or even his patriotic Grecian followers, as strictly subjective, however lyrical