literary genius. He is a brilliant and salient exception to the common
run of poets, not merely in royalties, but in creative power.
Furthermore, shortly after this lecture was delivered, Alfred Noyes
and then John Masefield passed from city to city in America in a march
of triumph. Mr. Gibson and Mr. De La Mare received homage everywhere;
"Riley day" is now a legal holiday in Indiana; Rupert Brooke has been
canonized.

Mr. Watson is surely mistaken when he offers "his poetical
contemporaries in England" his "most sincere condolences on the hard
fate which condemned them to be born there at all in the latter part
of the nineteenth century." But he is not mistaken in wishing that
more people everywhere were appreciative of true poetry. I wish this
with all my heart, not so much for the poet's sake, as for that of the
people. But the chosen spirits are not rarer in our time than
formerly. The fault is in human nature. Material blessings are
instantly appreciated by every man, woman, and child, and by all the
animals. For one person who knows the joys of listening to music, or
looking at pictures, or reading poetry, there are a hundred thousand
who know only the joys of food, clothing, shelter. Spiritual delights
are not so immediately apparent as the gratification of physical
desires. Perhaps if they were, man's growth would stop. As Browning
says,

While were it so with the soul,--this gift of truth
Once grasped, were this our soul's gain safe, and sure
To prosper as the body's gain is wont,--
Why, man's probation would conclude, his earth
Crumble; for he both reasons and decides,
Weighs first, then chooses: will he give up fire