and he does not afford a strong argument for the poet's distinctive
virtue, inasmuch as tradition does not represent him as numbering
remarkable saintliness among his numerous gifts.

There is a decided inconsistency, moreover, in claiming unusual strength
of will as one of the poet's attributes. The muscular morality resulting
from training one's will develops in proportion to one's ability to
overthrow one's own unruly impulses. It is almost universally maintained
by poets, on the contrary, that their gift depends upon their yielding
themselves utterly to every fugitive impulse and emotion. Little modern
verse vaunts the poet's stern self-control. George Meredith may cry,

I take the hap
Of all my deeds. The wind that fills my sails
Propels, but I am helmsman.
[Footnote: _Modern Love_.]

Henley may thank the gods for his unconquerable soul. On the whole,
however, a fatalistic temper is much easier to trace in modern poetry
than is this one.

Hardly more popular than the superman theory is another argument for the
poet's virtue that appears sporadically in verse. It has occurred to a
few poets that their virtue is accounted for by the high subject-matter
of their work, which exercises an unconscious influence upon their
lives. Thus in the eighteenth century Young finds it natural that in
Addison, the author of _Cato_,

Virtues by departed heroes taught
Raise in your soul a pure immortal flame,