In a word, our whole civilization, our freedom, our progress, our homes, our religion, rest solidly upon

ides for their foundation. Nothing but an ideal ever endures upon earth. It is therefore impossible to
overestimate the practical importance of literature, which preserves these ideals from fathers to sons,
while me, cities, governments, civilizations, vanish from the face of the earth. It is only when we
remember this that we appreciate the action of the devout Christians, who picks up carefully preserves
every scrap of paper on which words are written, because the scrap may perchance contain the name of
christ, and the ideal is too enormously important to be neglected or lost.

In the pleasant art of living with one’s fellows, Addison is easily a master. it Is due to his perfect
expression of that art, of that new social life which, as we have noted, was characteristics of the age of
anne, that Addison occupies such large place in the history of literature. Of less power and originality
than swift, he nevertheless wields, and deserves to wield, a more lasting influence.