But the poet utterly repudiates such a view of himself as this, for he
cannot draw his breath in the commercial world. [Footnote: Several poems
lately have voiced the poet's horror of materialism. See Josephine
Preston Peabody, _The Singing Man_; Richard Le Gallienne, _To R. W.
Emerson, Richard Watson Gilder_; Mary Robinson, _Art and Life_.] In vain
he assures his would-be friends that the intangibilities with which he
deals have a value of their own. Emerson says,

One harvest from thy field
Homeward brought the oxen strong;
A second crop thine acres yield
Which I gather in a song.
[Footnote: _Apology_]

But for this second crop the practical man says he can find absolutely
no market; hence overtures of friendliness between him and the poet end
with sneers and contempt on both sides. Doubtless the best way for the
poet to deal with the perennial complaints of the practical-minded, is
simply to state brazenly, as did Oscar Wilde, "All art is quite
useless." [Footnote: Preface to _Dorian Gray_.]

Is the poet justified, then, in stopping his ears to all censure, and
living unto himself? Not so; when the hub-bub of his sordid accusers
dies away, he is conscious of another summons, before a tribunal which
he cannot despise or ignore. For once more the poet's equivocal position
exposes him to attacks from all quarters. He stands midway between the
spiritual and the physical worlds, he reveals the ideal in the sensual.
Therefore, while the practical man complains that the poet does not
handle the solid objects of the physical world, but transmutes them to
airy nothings, the philosopher, on the contrary, condemns the poet