Preachers err, he told me, by trying “to talk people into belief; better they reveal the radiance of their own discovery.” How he did reveal a joy for learning and living! Matthew Arnold believed the highest criticism is “to know the best that is known and thought in the world, and by in its turn making this known, to create a current of true and fresh ideas.” This is what Campbell did. It was impossible to listen to him—truly to hear him—without realizing in one’s own consciousness a stirring of fresh life, the rising of one’s own imagination.
