to us, as if to say, "Don't think I would stoop to defend myself, but
here are some things I might say for myself, if I wished."

Since the Platonic philosopher and the practical man stand for antipodal
conceptions of reality, it really seems too bad that Plato will not give
the poet credit for a little merit, in comparison with his arch-enemy.
But as a matter of fact, the spectator of eternity and the sense-blinded
man of the street form a grotesque fraternity, for the nonce, and the
philosopher assures the plain man that he is far more to his liking than
is the poet. Plato's reasoning is, of course, that the plain man at
least does not tamper with the objects of sense, through which the
philosopher may discern gleams of the spiritual world, whereas the poet
distorts them till their real significance is obscured. The poet
pretends that he is giving their real meaning, even as the philosopher,
but his interpretation is false. He is like a man who, by an ingenious
system of cross-lights and reflections, creates a wraithlike image of
himself in the mirror, and alleges that it is his soul, though it is
really only a misleading and worthless imitation of his body.

Will not Plato's accusation of the poet's inferiority to the practical
man be made clearest if we stay by Plato's own humble illustration of
the three beds? One, he says, is made by God, one by the carpenter, and
one by the poet. [Footnote: See the _Republic_ X, 596 B ff.] Now
the bed which a certain poet, James Thomson, B. V., made, is fairly well
known. It speaks, in "ponderous bass," to the other furniture in the
room:

"I know what is and what has been;
Not anything to me comes strange,
Who in so many years have seen