vain ones that flatter themselves they have discovered the royal road to
poetry. What they seem to require for poetry is the flash of thought
or fancy that starts the sympathetic thrill,--the little jots,--the
striking, often-quoted lines or "gems." The rest is merely introduced to
build up a piece; these are the "pure Nature," and all that.

And it is not to be denied that they are pure Nature; for they are true
to Nature, and are spontaneous, beautiful, exquisite, deserving to be
called gems, and even diamonds.

"The sweet South,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odor":--

thousands of such lines we keep in our memories' choicest cells; yet
they are but the exterior adornments of a great work of Art. They are
the delightful finishes and lesser beauties which the great work admits,
and, indeed, is never without, but which are not to be classed among its
essentials. Their beauty and fitness are not those of the grand columns
of the temple; they are the sculptures upon the frieze, the caryatides,
or the graceful interlacings of vines. They catch the fancy of those
whose field of vision is not large enough to take in the whole, and
upon whom all excellences that are not little are lost. Beautiful in
themselves, their own beauty is frequently all that is seen; the beauty
of their propriety, the grace and charm with which they come in, are
overlooked. Many people will have it that nothing is poetry or poetic
but these gems of poetry; and because the apparent spontaneousness of
them is what makes them so striking, these admirers are unwilling to see
that it is through an art that they are brought in so beautifully in
their spontaneousness and give such finish to larger effects. And