Page:The nature and elements of poetry, Stedman, 1892.djvu/183

Rh laws, yet deriving a special charm and power from the touch or atmosphere of his personal genius. As each race has its specific mode of vision, so for each there are as many and different impressions and expressions as the race has artists; and the general or academic outlines of perfection being known, the distinctive value of a poem or painting does come from its maker's habit of vision and interpretation.

But why, in order to advance the banner of impressionism, Yet beauty is no less a force existent. or of neo-impressionism, or of realism, good as these may be, should we assume the task of denying beauty altogether? Beauty is confessedly not a substance; you cannot weigh it with scales or measure it with a yard-stick: but it lies in a vibratory expression of substances. It characterizes that substance which enforces upon intelligence—in our case, upon human intelligence—a perception of its fitness. In the mind of a creative poet, it is a quality of his imagined substance,—poetry dealing, as we have seen, with "the shews of things" and treating them as if real. To the pure idealist they are the only realities, as Emerson himself implied in his remark when called away from an abstract discussion in the library to inspect a farmer's load of wood: "Excuse me a moment, my friends. We have to attend to these matters just as if they were real."

To be sure, from the place where I stand, I cannot see the rays, the vibrations, which convey to