Page:The nature and elements of poetry, Stedman, 1892.djvu/157

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Heine felt, and avowed, that the actual song-motive is a heart-wound, without which "the true poet cannot sing sweetliest." His mocking note, The mocking note. which from its nature was not the sanest art, was quickly caught by younger poets, and repeated as if they, too, meant it, and for its air of experience and maturity. With real maturity they usually hastened to escape from it altogether.

I think that the impersonal element in art may be termed masculine, and that there is something The major and minor keys of lyric song. feminine in a controlling impulse to lay bare one's own heart and experience. This is as it should be: certainly a man's attributes are pride and strength,—strength to wrestle, upon occasion, without speech until the daybreak. The fire of the absolutely virile workman consumes its own smoke. But the artistic temperament is, after all, androgynous. The woman's intuition, sensitiveness, nervous refinement join with the reserved power and creative vigor of the man to form the poet. As those or these predominate, we have the major