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Essays Æsthetical by George H. (George Henry) Calvert
page 49 of 181 (27%)
twilight or moonlight, standing vague and unvalued until a torch is
waved over it.

When we begin to speak of poetry, the higher qualities of the mind
come up for judgment. No genuine poet is without one or more of these,
and a great poet must have most of them. Thence the thought of the
poet is pitched on a high key, and even in poets of power the poetry
of a page is sometimes shown merely by the sustained tone of the
sentiment, giving out no jets of fire, having no passages salient with
golden embossings. Through sympathy and sense of beauty, the poet gets
nearer to the absolute nature of things; and thence, with little of
imagery, or coloring, or passion, through this holy influence
he becomes poetic, depicting by re-creating the object or feeling or
condition, and rising naturally into rhythmic lines and sentences, the
best substance asking for, and readily obtaining, the most suitable
form of words. Yet a poet of inward resources can seldom write a page
without there being heard a note or bar or passage of the finer
melody.

But men wanting this inward wealth, that is, wanting depth and breadth
of emotional capacity, have not, whatever their other gifts, the soil
needed for highly imaginative poetry. With broad emphasis this
æsthetic law is exemplified in the verse of Voltaire, especially in
his dramas, and in the verse of one who was deeper and higher than he
as thinker and critic, of Lessing. Skillful versifiers, by help of
fancy and a certain plastic aptitude and laborious culture, are
enabled to give to smooth verse a flavor of poetry and to achieve a
temporary reputation. But of such uninspired workmanship the gilding
after a while wears off, the externally imparted perfume surely
evaporates.
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