it will be used by the classicists of the future as a pattern
to which new artists must conform.

It may be worth while to round out the conception of the term by
considering a few other definitions of _romantic_ which have been
proposed. Dr. F. H. Hedge, in an article in the _Atlantic Monthly_[9]
for March, 1886, inquired, "What do we mean by romantic?" Goethe, he
says, characterized the difference between classic and romantic "as
equivalent to [that between] healthy and morbid. Schiller proposed
'naive and sentimental.'[10] The greater part [of the German critics]
regarded it as identical with the difference between ancient and modern,
which was partly true, but explained nothing. None of the definitions
given could be accepted as quite satisfactory."[11]

Dr. Hedge himself finds the origin of romantic feeling in wonder and the
sense of mystery. "The essence of romance," he writes, "is mystery"; and
he enforces the point by noting the application of the word to scenery.
"The woody dell, the leafy glen, the forest path which leads, one knows
not whither, are romantic: the public highway is not." "The winding
secret brook . . . is romantic, as compared with the broad river."
"Moonlight is romantic, as contrasted with daylight." Dr. Hedge
attributes this fondness for the mysterious to "the influence of the
Christian religion, which deepened immensely the mystery of life,
suggesting something beyond and behind the world of sense."

This charm of wonder or mystery is perhaps only another name for that
"strangeness added to beauty" which Pater takes to be the distinguishing
feature of romantic art. Later in the same article, Dr. Hedge asserts
that "the essence of romanticism is aspiration." Much might be said in
defense of this position. It has often been pointed out, _e.g._, that a
Gothic cathedral expresses aspiration, and a Greek temple satisfied
completeness. Indeed if we agree that, in a general way, the classic is
equivalent to the antique, and the romantic to the medieval, it will be
strange if we do not discover many differences between the two that can
hardly be covered by any single phrase. Dr. Hedge himself enumerates
several qualities of romantic art which it would be difficult to bring
under his essential and defining category of wonder or aspiration. Thus
he announces that "the peculiarity of the classic style is reserve,
self-suppression of the writer"; while "the romantic is self-reflecting."