Page:The Dramas of Aeschylus (Swanwick).djvu/68

lviii throughout the length and breadth of the land bear witness to the importance which is now attached to artistic culture in England.

It must not be forgotten, however, that imagination constitutes the vital principle of art; that the practised eye and well-trained hand are powerless except as instruments to embody the conceptions of the creative mind. Hence the study of poetry acquires new significance, not only as throwing light upon the master-works of classical antiquity, the recognized models of ideal form, but also as enriching the imagination, while at the same time it opens both eye and soul to discern the familiar beauty of common life.

What Joubert has said of Plato may be applied with equal truth to poetry:—"Platon ne fait rien voir, mais il éclaire, il met de la lumière dans nos yeux, et place en nous une clarté, dont tous les objets deviennent ensuite illuminés. Comme l'air des montagnes sa lecture aiguise les organes, et donne le goût des bons aliments."

"Of imagination, fancy, taste, of the highest cultivation in all its forms, this great nation has abundance; of industry, skill, perseverance, mechanical contrivance, it has a yet larger stock, which overflows our narrow bounds and floods the world. The one great want is to bring these two groups of qualities harmoniously together." I believe that in poetry will