We have visualized the person of Horace and made his acquaintance. We
have seen in his character and in the character of his times the sources
of his greatness as a poet. We have seen in him the interpreter of his
own times and the interpreter of the human heart in all times. We have
traced the course of his influence through the ages as both man and
poet. We have seen in him not only the interpreter of life, but a
dynamic power that makes for the love of men, for righteousness, and for
happier living. We have seen in him an example of the word made flesh.
"He has forged a link of union," writes Tyrrell, "between intellects so
diverse as those of Dante, Montaigne, Bossuet, La Fontaine, Voltaire,
Hooker, Chesterfield, Gibbon, Wordsworth, Thackeray."
To know Horace is to enter into a great communion of twenty
centuries,--the communion of taste, the communion of charity, the
communion of sane and kindly wisdom, the communion of the genuine, the
communion of righteousness, the communion of urbanity and of friendly
affection.
"Farewell, dear Horace; farewell, thou wise and kindly heathen; of
mortals the most human, the friend of my friends and of so many
generations of men."