know, from the above-quoted notes of Wordsworth's, to be founded upon
fact. "It is possible," he adds, "from something which Coleridge said
on another occasion, that before meeting a fable in which to embody his
ideas he had meditated a poem on delirium, confounding its own dream-
scenery with external things, and connected with the imagery of high
latitudes." Nothing, in fact, would be more natural than that
Coleridge, whose idea of the haunted seafarer was primarily suggested
by his friend's dream, and had no doubt been greatly elaborated in his
own imagination before being communicated to Wordsworth at all, should
have been unable, after a considerable lapse of time, to distinguish
between incidents of his own imagining and those suggested to him by
others. And, in any case, the "unnecessary scrupulosity," rightly
attributed to him by Wordsworth with respect to this very poem, is
quite incompatible with any intentional denial of obligations.

Such, then, was the singular and even prosaic origin of the _Ancient
Mariner_--a poem written to defray the expenses of a tour; surely
the most sublime of "pot-boilers" to be found in all literature. It is
difficult, from amid the astonishing combination of the elements of
power, to select that which is the most admirable; but, considering
both the character of the story and of its particular vehicle, perhaps
the greatest achievement of the poem is the simple realistic force of
its narrative. To achieve this was of course Coleridge's main object:
he had undertaken to "transfer from our inward nature a human interest
and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of
imaginations that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment which
constitutes poetic faith." But it is easier to undertake this than to
perform it, and much easier to perform it in prose than in verse--with
the assistance of the everyday and the commonplace than without it.
Balzac's _Peau de Chagrin_ is no doubt a great feat of the