Page:The nature and elements of poetry, Stedman, 1892.djvu/36

6 sex, color, or (more 's the pity) of morals, brains, or birthright. The more honor, then, to the founders of this lectureship, whose recognition of poetry at its highest is not disturbed by its abuse, and whose munificence erects for it a stately seat among its peers.

Under the present auspices, our own approach can Design of this treatise. scarcely be too sympathetic, yet none the less free of illusion and alert with a sense of realities. We may well be satisfied to seek for the mere ground-plot of this foundation. I am privileged, indeed, if I can suggest a tentative design for the substructure upon which others are to build and decorate throughout the future of your school. Poetry is not a science, yet a scientific comprehension of any art is possible and essential. Unless we come to certain terms at the outset, if only to facilitate this course, we shall not get on at all.

the studio of an approved sculptor, a man Tot artes tantæ scientiæ. of genius, and, if you choose, poetic ideality. He is intent upon the model of a human figure, a statue to be costumed in garments that shall both conceal and express the human form. Plainly he has in his mind's eye the outside, the ultimate appearance, of his subject. He is not constructing a manikin, a curious bit of mechanism that imitates the interior—the bones, muscles, arteries, nerves—of the body. He is fashioning the man as he appears to us, giving his image the air, the