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 46 in hearing than in speaking. Happy is the hearing man; unhappy the speaking man. As long as I hear the truth, I am bathed by a beautiful element, and am not conscious of any limits to my nature. The suggestions are thousandfold that I hear and see. The waters of the great deep have ingress and egress to the soul."

Of the poet, Emerson says that his "sign and credentials are that he announces that which no man foretold." "He is the true and only doctor; he knows and tells; he is the only teller of news, for he was present and privy to the appearance which he describes."

And yet, "poetry was all written before time was, and whenever we are so finely organized that we can penetrate into that region where the air is music, we hear those primal warblings, and attempt to write them down, but we lose ever and anon a word, or a verse, and substitute something of our own, and thus miswrite the poem. The men of more delicate ear write down these cadences more faithfully, and these transcripts, though imperfect, become the songs of the nations."

How imperfect sometimes these transcripts, and how disappointing, is expressed by Emerson, in his own experience: "With what joy I begin to read a poem, which I confide in as an inspiration! And now my chains are to be broken; I shall mount above these clouds and opaque airs in which I live—opaque, though they seem transparent—and from the heaven of truth I shall see and comprehend my relations. That will reconcile me to life, and