Page:The Daughters of England.djvu/103

92 even from these her green and flowery haunts, she is scared away by the steaming torrent, the reeking chimney, and the fiery locomotive; while on the wide ocean, where her ancient realm was undisputed, her silvery trace upon the bosom of the deep waters is now ploughed up by vulgar paddles; and all the voiceless mystery of "viewless winds," which in the old time held the minds of expectant thousands under their command, is now become a thing of no account—a by-word, or a jest.

I speak not with childish or ignorant repining of these things. We are told by political enconomists that it is good they should be so, and I presume not to dispute the fact. Yet, surely if it be the business of man to give up the strength of his body, the energy of his mind, and the repose of his soul, for his country's prosperity or—his own; it is for woman, who labours under no such pressing necessity, to make a stand against the encroachments of this popular tendency, I had almost said—this national disease.

What is poetry? is a question which has been asked a thousand times, and perhaps never clearly answered. I presume not to suppose my own definition more happy than others; but in a work already before the public, I have been at some pains to place this subject in a point of view at once clear and attractive. My idea of poetry as explained in this work, and it remains to be the same, is, that it is best understood by that chain of association which connects the intellects with the affections; so that whatever is so far removed from vulgarity, as to excite ideas of sublimity, beauty, or tenderness, may be said to be poetical; though the force of such ideas must depend upon the manner in which they are presented to the mind, as well as to the nature of the mind itself.