Page:Poems of Nature and Life.djvu/42

 34 INTRODUCTION

steps by which truth is attained than in summing up its results and supplying the moral, thus winning men to a state of mind favorable to its reception. Without pre- cisely reasoning, it expresses in an apothegm the conclu- sion of reasoning, and this character gives it singular facilities of condensing thought. Thus it convinces, even while it stands aloof from polemics. It paints and sug- gests, yet is dogmatic in nothing. Saying to none, " It is you ! " it forces each one all the rather to say to himself, " It is I ! " It thus escapes the difficulties of debate, where the truth is seldom reached because the passions stand in the way.

If poetry has any value, it seems to me to lie chiefly in this. I think it can never be fine, however musical, unless it can be turned at once into good prose ; and, if this be not true of it, it seems to me unworthy of the attention of men of sense. Yet, if it be true, what must be said of those English works which, forgetful that our language is the richest in the world for the purpose of forceful expres- sion, on account of its bold consonantal sounds, its vigorous spondees, its pointed monosyllables, borrow from languages which differ structurally, and vary their terminations in declension, measures which are ridiculous except in such languages, to express monstrous conceits and affectations .-* I do not know, however, whether our modern poets have so much corrupted the public taste as they have adapted themselves to it, such as it is. Most of them seem to me as innocent of bad intentions as they are of thinking.

I am pleased at the connection in which you refer to my "Poet: Fourth Treatment," and "Nuptials of Truth and Beauty," which you are pleased to refer to the attention of poets. I fear, however, that they would be in general apt to say of such idealisms, as some of the newspapers already

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