the tall elms, looked after the swallows in the cottage and rectory
eaves, played the affectionate spy on the private lives of chaffinch
and hedge-sparrow, was eaves-dropper to the solitary cuckoo; so here I
keep eye and ear open; take note of man, woman, and child; find many a
pregnant text imbedded in the commonplace of village life; and, out of
what I see and hear, weave in my own room my essays as solitary as the
spider weaves his web in the darkened corner. The essay, as a literary
form, resembles the lyric, in so far as it is moulded by some central
mood--whimsical, serious, or satirical. Give the mood, and the essay,
from the first sentence to the last, grows around it as the cocoon
grows around the silkworm. The essay-writer is a chartered libertine,
and a law unto himself. A quick ear and eye, an ability to discern the
infinite suggestiveness of common things, a brooding meditative spirit,
are all that the essayist requires to start business with. Jacques, in
"As You Like It," had the makings of a charming essayist. It is not
the essayist's duty to inform, to build pathways through metaphysical
morasses, to cancel abuses, any more than it is the duty of the poet to
do these things. Incidentally he may do something in that way, just as
the poet may, but it is not his duty, and should not be expected of
him. Skylarks are primarily created to sing, although a whole choir of
them may be baked in pies and brought to table; they were born to make
music, although they may incidentally stay the pangs of vulgar hunger.
The essayist is a kind of poet in prose, and if questioned harshly as
to his uses, he might be unable to render a better apology for his
existence than a flower might. The essay should be pure literature as
the poem is pure literature. The essayist wears a lance, but he cares
more for the sharpness of its point than for the pennon that flutters
on it, than for the banner of the captain under whom he serves. He
plays with death as Hamlet plays with Yorick's skull, and he reads the
morals--strangely stern, often, for such fragrant lodging--which are