Page:The nature and elements of poetry, Stedman, 1892.djvu/177

 V.

BEAUTY.

the moment, and somewhat out of the order of discussion, I will assume that no poem Poetry as an artistic expression of the beautiful. can have birth without that unconscious process of the soul which is recognized in our use of words like "intuition," "insight," "genius," "inspiration." Nor can it be brought to completeness without the exercise of conscious afterthought. True poetry, however, is reinforced by three dynamic elements. No work of art is worth considering unless it is more or less effective through beauty, feeling, and imagination; and in the consideration of art, truth and ethics are a part of beauty's fidelity to supreme ideals.

You will find it needful to examine the nature of that which is termed Beauty, before ackowledging [sic] that poetry can be no exception, but What, then, is Beauty? rather the chief illustration, when it is declared that an indispensable function of the arts is the expression of the beautiful.

With respect to the artists and critics who abjure that declaration,—as when, for instance, The denial of its indispensability. a critic said of an American draughtsman that he was too fine an artist to concern himself