Page:The nature and elements of poetry, Stedman, 1892.djvu/252

222 upon himself as out of the fold, and is sure only that he must "gang his ain gait," however much he suffers for it in this world or some other.

Thus a dividing line has been drawn from time Arcadian non-conformity. immemorial betwixt the conventional and the natural worshippers, betwixt the stately kingdom of Philistia and the wilding vales and copses of that Arcadia which some geographers have named Bohemia. The mistake of the Arcadian is that he virtually accepts a standard not of his own establishment; he is impressed by a traditional conception of his Maker, regards it as fixed, will have none of it, and sheers off defiantly. If rich and his own master, he becomes a pagan virtuoso. If one of the struggling children of art and toil, then,—

This is the way in Arcadia, and it has its pains and charm,—as I well know, having journeyed many seasons in that happy-go-lucky land of sun and shower, and still holding a key to one of its entrance-gates. Its citizenship is not to be shaken off, even though one becomes naturalized elsewhere.

Now the artist not only has a right, but it is his The God of truth is no less the God of beauty, joy, and song. duty, to indulge an anthropomorphism of his own. In his conception the divine power must be the supreme poet, the matchless artist, not only the transcendency, but the