There is something in the air of late which has called forth the poets
and made them politicians. Formerly they were content to leave these
troubled waters undisturbed, but finding that others now are as
ignorant as themselves, they have come forth to give at least the
benefit of their sentiment to the party they espouse. In no department
can phrasemaking prosper where positive ideas have once been attained.
Metaphors are powerless in astronomy; epithets are useless as
alembics; images, be they never so beautiful, will fail to convince
the physiologist. Language may adorn, it cannot create science. But as
soon as we pass from the sciences to social science, (or politics,) we
find that here the absence of positive ideas gives the phrasemaker the
same power of convincing, as in the early days of physical science was
possessed by metaphysicians and poets. Here the phrasemaker is king;
as the one-eyed is king in the empire of the blind. Phrasemaker for
phrasemaker, we prefer the poet to the politician; Victor Hugo to Léon
Faucher; Lamartine to Odilon Barrot; Lamennais to Baroche.

Kossuth, Mazzini, Lamartine, the three heroes of 1848, were all,
though with enormous differences in their relative values and
positions, men belonging to the race of poets--men in whom the
_heart_ thought--men who were moved by great impulses and lofty
aspirations--men who were "carried away by their imagination"--men who
were "dreamers," but whose dreams were of the stuff of which our life
is made.

* * * * *

The fine immortal spirit of inspiration that is ever living in human
affairs, is unseen and incredible till its power becomes apparent