The world knows of a vast stock of epic material scattered up and down the nations; sometimes its artistic value is as extraordinary as its archaeological interest, but not always.
Lascelles AbercrombieThe reason can only be this: heroic poetry depends on an heroic age, and an age is heroic because of what it is, not because of what it does.
Lascelles AbercrombieThe Border Ballads, for instance, and the Robin Hood Ballads, clearly suppose a state of society which is nothing but a very circumscribed and not very important heroic age.
Lascelles AbercrombieIt seems difficult, sometimes, to believe that there was a time when sentiments now become habitual, sentiments that imply not only the original imperative of conduct, but the original metaphysic of living, were by no means altogether habitual.
Lascelles Abercrombie