Page:The nature and elements of poetry, Stedman, 1892.djvu/19

Rh notable and suggestive that at such a time, though many think of poetry as the voice of the past, a few should still consider it a voice of the future also, and that there should be found what I may call practical idealists, to discover one need of our most liberal schools, and to do this much to relieve it.

I have thought it appropriate that an opening course upon this foundation should relate to the absolute nature of the art which future lecturers will consider more in detail with respect to its technical laws, varied forms, and historic illustrations. These pages, then, treat of the quality and attributes of poetry itself, of its source and efficacy, and of the enduring laws to which its true examples ever are conformed. An attempt to do this within brief limits, notwithstanding the extent of the subject, is not quite impracticable, since whether the "first principles" of any art, even of the philosophy of all arts and knowledge, can be tersely set forth, is not so much in question as is the skill of one who tries to epitomize them.

In the consideration of any subject, however ideal, an agreement as to what shall be denoted by its title may well be established at the outset. Therefore I have not evaded even that which it is so customary to deprecate,—a definition of the thing examined in this treatise. It must be observed that our