As a result, there is left in our minds by the intelligent reading of Homer a clear impression of the spiritual, political, and social aptitudes and characteristics of the Greek people of his age,--an impression which no exact report of mere appearances could have conveyed; an impression which is due to the constant play of the poet's imagination upon the facts with which he is dealing.
This is true Idealism; but it is also true Realism.

It is not only the fact, but the truth.

The fact may be observed, but the truth must be discerned by insight,--it is not within the range of mere observation; and it is this insight, this discernment of realities in their relation to the whole order of things, which characterises true Idealism, and which makes all the greater writers Idealists in the fundamental if not in the technical sense.

Tolstoi has often been called a Realist by those who are eager to label everything and everybody succinctly; but Tolstoi is one of the representative Idealists of his time, and his "Master and Man" is one of the most touching and sincere bits of true Idealism which has been given the world for many a day.
There is nothing which needs such constant reinforcement as this faculty of seeing things in their totality; for we are largely at the mercy of the hour unless we invoke the aid of the imagination to set the appearances of the moment in their large relations.

To the man who sees things as they rush like a stream before him, there is no order, progression, or intelligent movement in human affairs; but to the student who brings to the study of current events wide and deep knowledge of the great historic movements, these apparently unrelated phenomena disclose the most intimate inter-relations and connections.
The most despairing pessimism would be born in the heart of the man who should be fated to see to-day apart from yesterday and to-morrow; a rational and inspiring hope may be born in the soul of the man who sees the day as part of the year and the year as part of the century.
The great writers are a refuge from the point of view of the moment, because they set the events of life in a fundamental order, and make us aware of the finer potentialities of our race.