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Hope is that which is "at the bottom of the vase," as the ancients said, when "every other thing has gone out of it" by which, as it has been suggested, they probably meant the human heart. "While hope trembles in expectation, faith is quiet in possession. Hope leaps out towards what will be; faith holds on to what is. Hope idealizes; faith realizes. Faith sees; hope foresees."

Idealism in this sense, too, existed in life before it passed into literature. The youth idealizes the maiden he loves, his hero, and the ends of his life; and in age the old man idealizes his youth. Who does not remember some awakening moment when he first saw virtue and knew her for what she is?

In camp, the roughest man idealizes his far-off home, and every word of love uplifts him to a lover. But let your tenderness unfold its sunny side, and keep the shadows for His pity who knows the end from the beginning, and whom no foreboding can dishearten. Glory in your tribulation. Show your soldier that his unflinching courage, his undying fortitude, are your crown of rejoicing.

Any moderately well educated young lady will recognise them at once, and exclaim without hesitation, 'How truly English! or 'How sweetly Swiss! But no one can depict an Irish town with any hope of having it recognised unless he idealizes boldly, introducing a highly-intelligent pig, or a man in knee-breeches kissing a fancifully-attired colleen.

All art is in a certain sense abstraction; all art in a measure idealizes. It is abstraction in the sense that it presents the intrinsic and distinctive qualities of things, purged of accident. Art does not compete with nature; it is a statement of the spirit and intention of nature in the artist's own terms. The test of the work is not apparent and superficial likeness, but truth.

It is just this which the portrait of the Capitol lacks for the completion of Caligula. The man who could be so represented in art had nothing wholly vulgar in him. The brutality of Caracalla, the overblown sensuality of Nero, the effeminacy of Commodus or Heliogabalus are all absent here. This face idealizes the torture of a morbid soul.

It is remarkable that in his brief sketch of them, he idealizes the husbandmen 'who are lovers of honour and true husbandmen, as well as the warriors who are his sole concern in the Republic; and that though he speaks of the common pursuits of men and women, he says nothing of the community of wives and children.

One notices especially his delight in the great yellow squash-blossoms and the way in which he idealizes them. This, and the three years he spent in Europe after the expiration of his consulate, were the holidays of his life and the reward of all the rest.

How well I know, and how I hate and almost fear, those haphazard walks through unknown streets; and this was the reason why, as nothing would induce me to undertake a tour in Italy by myself, I made up my mind to accompany my friend Paul Pavilly. You know Paul, and how he idealizes women.

Ever since our return, however, until to-day, there has been a succession of genuine Indian-summer days, with gentle winds or none at all, and a misty atmosphere, which idealizes all nature, and a mild, beneficent sunshine, inviting one to lie down in a nook and forget all earthly care. To-day the sky is dark and lowering, and occasionally lets fall a few sullen tears.