able maidens put
before him, the train sets out for the town, Ulysses following the
chariot among the bright-haired women. But before that Nausicaa, in the
candor of those early days, says to her attendants:

"I would that I might call
A man like him my husband, dwelling here
And here content to dwell."

Is there any woman in history more to be desired than this sweet,
pure-minded, honest-hearted girl, as she is depicted with a few swift
touches by the great poet?--the dutiful daughter in her father's house,
the joyous companion of girls, the beautiful woman whose modest bearing
commands the instant homage of man. Nothing is more enduring in
literature than this girl and the scene on the--Corfu sands.

The sketch, though distinct, is slight, little more than outlines; no
elaboration, no analysis; just an incident, as real as the blue sky of
Scheria and the waves on the yellow sand. All the elements of the picture
are simple, human, natural, standing in as unconfused relations as any
events in common life. I am not recalling it because it is a conspicuous
instance of the true realism that is touched with the ideality of genius,
which is the immortal element in literature, but as an illustration of
the other necessary quality in all productions of the human mind that
remain age after age, and that is simplicity. This is the stamp of all
enduring work; this is what appeals to the universal understanding from
generation to generation. All the masterpieces that endure and become a
part of our lives are characterized by it. The eye, like the mind, hates
confusion and overcrowding. All the elements in beauty, grandeur, pathos,
are simple--as simple as the lines in a Nile picture: the strong river,
the yellow desert, the palms, the pyramids; hardly more than a horizontal
line and a perpendicular line; only there is the sky, the atmosphere, the
color-those need genius.

We may test contemporary literature by its confortuity to the canon of
simplicity--that is, if it has not that, we may conclude that it lacks
one essential lasting quality. It may please;--it may be ingenious
--brilliant, even; it may be the fashion of the day, and a fashion that
will hold its power of pleasing for half a century, but it will be a
fashion. Mannerisms of course will not deceive us, nor extravagances,
eccentricities, affectations, nor the straining after effect by the use
of coined or far-fetched words and prodigality in adjec