Initiation into Literature

tings, regarded solely from the literary point of view, form one of the finest monuments of human thought. The sentiment of grandeur and even of infinity in _Genesis_; the profound and simple sensibility as in the History of Joseph, Tobit, and _Esther_; eloquence and exquisite religious sentiment as in the Book of Job and the _Psalms of David_; ecstatic lyricism, vehement and fiery, accompanied with incredible satiric force as in the _Prophets_; wisdom alike equal to that of the Stoics and of the serious Epicureans as in Ecclesiastes and the _Proverbs_; everywhere marvellous imagination, always concise at least, if not restrained; lyrical sensuality which recalls the most perturbed creations of erotic Greeks and Latins, whilst surpassing them in beauty as in the _Song of Songs_; and throughout there is this grandeur, this simple majesty, this easy and natural sublimity which in the same degree is to be found only occasionally in Homer and which appears to be the privilege o