"I call the book of Job, apart from all theories about it, one of the
grandest books ever written with a pen. One feels, indeed, as if it were
not Hebrew--such a noble universality, different from noble patriotism
or sectarianism, reigns in it. A noble book! All men's book! It is our
first, oldest statement of the never-ending problem of man's destiny and
God's ways with him here on this earth, and all in such free, flowing
outlines, grand in its simplicity and its epic melody and repose of
reconcilement! There is the seeing eye, the mildly understanding heart.
So true every way; true eye-sight and vision for all things--material
things no less than spiritual; the horse--'thou hast clothed his neck
with thunder;' 'he laughs at the shaking of the spear!' Such living
likenesses were never since drawn. Sublime sorrow! Sublime
reconciliation! Oldest choral melody, as of the heart of mankind! So
soft and great, as the summer midnight, as the world with its seas and
stars! There is nothing written, I think, in the Bible or out of it, of
equal literary merit." (Dr. Cotton's Scrap-Book.)