And with the deep
need of his nature to pour itself forth--to share its treasures with all
the world--he started out to proclaim his discoveries. Besides Darwin
and Spencer, he had made a study of Stuart Mill, whose noble sense of
fair-play had impressed him. He plunged with hot zeal into the writings
of Steinthal and Max Mueller, whose studies in comparative religion
changed to him the whole aspect of the universe. Taine's historical
criticism, with its disrespectful derivation of the hero from food,
climate, and race, lured him still farther away from his old Norse and
romantic landmarks, until there was no longer any hope of his ever
returning to them. But when from this promontory of advanced thought he
looked back upon his idyllic love-stories of peasant lads and lasses,
and his taciturn saga heroes, with their predatory self-assertion, he
saw that he had done with them forever; that they could never more
enlist his former interest. On the other hand, the problems of modern
contemporary life, of which he had now gained quite a new comprehension,
tempted him.
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