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similarly in Poetry and all the Arts. The poet can do nothing of any worth without the facts presented to his notice in Nature and History, but all the facts in Nature and History will not make a poem until the creative mind of the poet takes them up and weaves them into magic tissues. 3. The prime characteristics of the Virtue which constitutes poetry.-The question seems to be: Does the author see his subject (great or small) with his whole soul? Has it really and truly aroused his emotions? Is he verily enamoured with it? Is he obviously sorrowful, or joyful and enthusiastic about it himself, and giving spontaneous utterance to his enthusiasm ? If so, he has probably produced a poem; and if you be an adequately endowed person, you will see with him, feel with him, rejoice with him in his vision and presentment of the subject, and participate in the glow of his enthusiasm. In a word, we fall into the poet's mood; we are one with him; in which case we may almost take it that his art is absolute. Such seem to be the characteristics of the Virtue which constitutes poetry.1

4. So of Art.-The same in respect of Art. Thus Ruskin : "Imitation can only be of something material; but truth has reference to the statements both of the qualities of material things, and of emotions, impressions, and thoughts. There is a moral as well as material truth, a truth of im

1 A recent critic happily says: Poetry must do at least four things at once-it must interest the mind; it must move the feelings; it must delight the ear; it must awaken and set thinking the imagination." Times Literary Supplement,' 19th May 1921, p. 321. And, in 'The Morning Post,' Mr E. B. Osborne recently wrote: "In proportion as it satisfies our spiritual needsi.e., according to its usefulness, we rate Poetry as great, greater, greatest of all." Mr Lascelles Abercrombie defines a Work of Art an emotional experience so recorded as to produce an emotional experience in others "-Ib., 3rd October 1924,-which exactly corresponds with my own definition.

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pression as well as of form, of thought as well as of matter; and the truth and the truth of impression and thought is a thousand times the more important of the two. Hence truth is a term of universal application, but imitation is limited to that narrow field of art which takes cognisance only of material things." 1 The sources of beauty are not presented by any very great work of art in a form of pure transcript. They invariably receive the reflection of the mind under whose influence they have passed, and are modified or coloured by its image." 2 In the same way the poet's mind is reflected in his poem. Mere topographical delineation of a landscape is not sufficient. "The aim of the great inventive landscape painter must be to give the far higher and deeper truth of mental vision rather than that of physical facts, and to reach a representation which, though it may be totally useless to engineers and geographers, . . . shall yet be capable of producing on the far-away beholder's mind precisely the impression which the reality would have produced." 3

5. The poet and his emotions must be taken to be part of Nature.-We will now endeavour to illustrate the doctrine in relationship to poetry. Take a night scene from 'Paradise Lost' :

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Now came still evening on, and twilight grey

Had in her sober livery all things clad;
Silence accompanied; for beast and bird,
They to their grassy couch, these to their nest,
Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale :
She all night long her amorous descant sung.
Silence was pleased. How glowed the firmament
With living sapphires: Hesperus that led
The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon,
Rising in clouded majesty, at length,
Apparent queen, unveiled her peerless light,
And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.'

1 'Modern Painters,' Vol. i. p. 24. 3 Ib., Vol. iv. pp. 23-24.

2 Ib., Vol. ii. p. 151.

4 'Paradise Lost,' Bk. iv.

In every line of it, I think, is discernible absolute sincerity in the poet, pure love of Nature, perfect poetic rapture all resulting in an exquisite nightpicture of the Heavens and the Earth. As far as I can see, there is in this picture no appearance of effort at all, no suggestion of simulated feeling. On the contrary, every line of it seems to have been inspired by true and deep emotion. What space, tone, serenity, beauty, sublimity in the picture!

6. Poetic interpretation.-Let it be noticed that the sights and sounds which the poet here records are not a mere succession of poor, soulless, mechanical incidents, but are rather a kind of living though inarticulate language, evoking the sweetest of feelings within the well-strung heart. In the gradual coming on of night, there is something more than a change from light to darkness: there is the rich suggestion of labour accomplished-of well-earned rest and repose. As the cattle lie down for the night, say, in rich pasture, breathing a long breath of satisfaction and beginning to ruminate, and as the voices of the birds become silent, we are witnesses not only of animal actions but of social moods and doings which arouse our human sympathies towards our humbler fellowcreatures. When, in the beginning of the night, a nightingale pours forth its music from a leafy grove, we do not merely think of a little feathered biped making a noise, but of a sweet bird warbling lullaby to Nature. In short, all Nature is full of moods; of voices communicative of such moods, and of appearances suggestive of them. Some of the birds give us vespers and morning hymns. In autumn the robin seems to warble dirges as it sits on the house-top, or on some bare branch of a tree. The sparrow gives us its cheery chirp; the rook, its complacent caw. The curlew sounds

a melancholy moorland note; the owl gives us a weird ghostly to-whoo. The vernal woods breathe hope and gladness: in summer they become suggestive of fulfilled ambitions; in autumn they are gorgeously eloquent of transitory glories; in winter they speak of desolation. The thunder expresses wrath; the tempest, fury. The ocean and the brook are full of moods. The rising Sun is divine strength; the rising moon is queenly majesty. Such is poetic interpretation.

7. Deep feeling must precede noble expression.Now, as already remarked, the poet is the man who by his works can produce the same kind of effect upon us as Nature produces by her presence and her voices. It is thus that he acquires the name of Poet or Maker. But before he can give utterance to such living words, it is quite evident that his own heart must be fully responsive to the rich language and influences of Nature. Deep feeling must precede noble expression. It takes the subjective self as well as the objective not-self to make up the inspired poem, or picture, or piece of any kind. Unless the poet's self has, in the first place, been thrilled with this language of Nature, all the products of his muse will be mere mouthingmere muscular pump-work; there will be no poetic afflatus at all in his poetical outbreathings. The heart thrilled as well as the object thrilling it is included under Nature. The poet surveying Nature, with all his perceptions and emotions in unison, must, I repeat, be taken and considered as part of Nature. Milton surveying, or, rather, contemplating Nature, is, for poetical purposes, complementary to Nature.

8. The Ideal, in its poetical sense, is Nature seen through Man.-Bearing in mind that Nature includes Man the poet, with all his emotions, we 1 See chap. iii. on 'The Sources of Poetry.'

are enabled, to some extent, to dispose of the difficulties attaching to the word "ideal"—a word frequently used in a very vague manner, and, at other times, as if it were something quite apart from the Natural. Such a conception of the ideal I take to be wholly false. Let it be always borne in mind that Nature includes Man-not merely the Darwinian or anthropoid Man, but the Divine Man, the poet, inclusive of all his ideals of perfect love and beauty with all the corresponding emotions to which they give rise. In a word, the ideal, in its poetical sense, is Nature seen through Man.

9. Truth to Nature includes pure Ideality. Thus, in its fullest sense, absolute truth to Nature will be found to include pure Ideality. The noblest poem will set forth Nature as she is seen and felt by the healthiest and most fully endowed mind. An ignorant peasant, indeed, may see the same kind of things as John Milton saw, and hear the same kind of sounds as he heard-darkness coming down, silence with it, bird and beast going to rest, moon rising, and so forth; but very different in degree the emotions produced by such sights and sounds on the poet and on the peasant respectively; at all events, how differently would they express their emotions! But, of course, we should be entitled to take Milton's account as the better rendering of Nature.

10. Analysis of the Miltonic night-scene.-Bearing these considerations in mind, let us now proceed to a more particular examination of the lines quoted above; analysing its perfections, let us see how they are made up.

Firstly, I should say that they evince absolute sincerity on the part of the poet-pure delight in the scene which he has in contemplation. His are no hired or artificial raptures. The paltry

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