Few people today give real and positive meaning to the word Romanticism, even though our country began with the romantic ideal of personal freedom. Our forefathers staked their very lives to pursue the romanticized dream of living their lives according to their beliefs, subject to no one else's. The weakness with Romanticism is that quite often when the ideal is achieved, the belief so strongly rooted in this Romanticism dies with that success or victory. Romanticism represents the beauty of a dreamer's wish for an ideal and beautiful world. Ironically, the expression and fulfillment of these ideas have quite often lead to conflict and war. The Holy Crusades, the French Revolution, our own revolution of 1776 as well as our Civil War are unfortunate examples of this. But, when their romantic ideals were tested under fire and blood, many found the cost of their beliefs to be far too high.
             Romanticism is faithfully situated neither in choice of subjects nor in exact truth, but in one's deepest feelings, emotions and ideas. When people look for it outside of themselves, they will only find romantic expressions and views of others, not their own. There are as many kinds of romance and beauty as there are ways of seeking happiness. This is clearly explained by the "philosophy of progress." As there have been as many ideas as there have been ways in which the people of the earth have understood ethics, love, and religion; so romanticism will not consist in a perfect performance, but in a generation comparable to the ethical disposition of the age. It is because some have located it in the perfection of technique, rather than within their own lifestyle, that we have had the embellishment of romanticism, without question the most intolerable of all forms. Thus it is necessary, first and foremost, to get to know those aspects of nature and those human situations that many artists of the past have disdained or have not known.
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