Page:Genius, and other essays.djvu/94

GENIUS AND OTHER ESSAYS road to the honors of the poet. It is necessary, in this period, that every cabinet picture or sketch should show the hand of the master, and be a gem of its kind. More is required to make good work distinctive. High technical finish is so well understood, that it is again asked of the poet, not only that he shall have the art of sweet-saying, but that he shall have something to say. Mrs. Browning sings of the great Pan, down among the river reeds, "making a poet out of a man"; but often I wish some power would make men out of plenty of the modern poets. A painter has to look through the Old World for his masterpieces, and to sit long at the feet of his elders for the secrets of color and form; but the versifier's greatest models are at hand in every village library, and the contagion which the press brings to our doors constantly leads hundreds to mistake inclination for power, or an imitative knowledge of the technique of poetry for a true inspiration. They catch the knack of making such verses as only genius could have invented fifty years ago, and which then might justly have won them laurels.

Thus no art is so easy as that of poetry; but in none is it so difficult to achieve a distinctive individuality. It is the lowest and highest of arts. In it, more than in any other, amateur work is to be discouraged, as most easily essayed, and as fostering dilettanteism and corrupt taste. There is little danger of sending away angels unawares. I was in the studio of a wise and famous painter, who has learned the secrets of the dawn, when a young aspirant came with [80]