h errors can ever be final. The deadly
error is that of those who have ceased to strive, and who have
complacently settled down in the acceptance of the lower life with its
gratifications and delights.

But such striving is, as Robert Browning tells us in _Rabbi ben Ezra_
and _The Statue and the Bust_, the critical and all-important point in
human character and destiny. It is this which distinguishes pagan from
idealist in the end. Faust's errors fall off from him like a discarded
robe; the essential man has never ceased to strive. He has gone indeed
to hell, but he has never made his bed there. He is saved by want of
satisfaction.

LECTURE IV

CELTIC REVIVALS OF PAGANISM

OMAR KAYYAM AND FIONA MACLEOD

It is extremely difficult to judge justly and without prejudice the
literature of one's own time. So many different elements are pouring
into it that it assumes a composite character, far beyond the power of
definition or even of epigram to describe as a whole. But, while this is
true, it is nevertheless possible to select from this vast amalgam
certain particular elements, and to examine them and judge them fairly.

The field in which we are now wandering may be properly included under
the head of ancient literature, although in another sense it is the most
modern of all. The two authors whom we shall consider in this lecture,
although they have come into our literature but recently, yet represent
very ancient thought. There is nothing whatsoever that is modern about
them. They describe bed-rock human passions and longings, sorrowings
and consolations. Each may be claimed as a revival of ancient paganism,
but only one of them is capable of translation into a useful idealism.

OMAR KAYYAM

In the twelfth century, at Khorassan in Persia Omar Kayyam the poet was
born. He lived and died at Naishapur, following the trade of a
tent-maker, acquiring knowledge of every available kind, but with
astronomy for his special study. His famous poem, the _Rubaiyat_, was
first seen by Fitzgerald in 1856 and published in 1868. So great was the
sensation produced in England by the innovating sage, that in 1895 the
Omar Kayyam Club was founded by Professor Clodd, and that club has since
come to be considered "the blue ribbon of literary associations."

In Omar's time Persian poetry was in the hands of the Sufis, or
religious teachers of Persia. He found them writing verses which
professed to be mystical and spiritual,