Page:Genius, and other essays.djvu/49

GENIUS of dreams and idleness, were banished from Plato's Republic. Nor do I see that one class of these workmen is more modest than another; the modesty of each is found among true artists of whom Mr. Howells is an enviable type, and whose best work seems to them still incomplete. The verse-maker has an innocent and traditional reverence for his "ideal," but a little ideality just now will do no harm. Grace will be given us to endure it. In fact, the two kinds of poiëtœ can be of mutual service. The poet can wisely borrow the novelist's lamp of truth, and put more reason in his rhymes, while the novelist emulates the color and passion of the poet,—so that verse will be something more than word-music, and the novel gain in feeling, movement, Life. For life is not insured by a refined adjustment of materials, even though they display the exact joinery and fitness of the American coat which a New York lawyer, of mellow wit and learning, proffered as a model to his Bond Street tailor. "There," said he, "can you, Shears, make anything like that in London?" "Upon my word, Mr. M——, I think we should hardly care to, if we could." "But why not, man? Does it not fit perfectly, is it not cut and sewed perfectly, and are not all the lines graceful and trim? What does it want? in what can you excel it? what does it lack?" "Quite so," mused the tailor, without a trace of assent in his face; "it does seem to lack something, you know." "Well, what?" "I beg your pardon, sir; 'tis very neat work,—a world of pains to it,—but we might say it lacks—Life!" [35]