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perfect presentation of appropriate subject take the following :— 
Like one that on a lonesome road 
Doth walk in fear and dread, 
And having once turned round, walks on 
And turns no more his head ; 
Because he knows a frightful fiend 
Doth close behind him tread. 
It was not for this purpose, however, that I have referred to 
Coleridge. I wished, rather, to show how perfect was his con- 
ception of the limitations of art; and how he shrank from the 
deliberate delineation of that which was simply repulsive or 
horrible. If you wish to see this, get the first draft of The Ancient 
Mariner—that which made its appearance along with the famous 
Lyrical Ballads of Wordsworth, and then compare it with a later 
and revised edition of the same poem. Such comparison is always 
of service to the student of art. The poet’s changes may be 
vexatious, and are frequently wrong ; but none the less we shall 
find them—right or wrong—full of suggestive guidance. You 
will remember that wonderfully imaginative picture in the Third 
Part of The Ancient Mariner, where, without wind or tide, there 
comes forward that phantom ship on which Death, and Life-in- 
Death—vaguely awful pair—are casting dice. The woman, 
Death’s mate, Life-in-Death, is described :— 
Her lips were red, her looks were free, 
Her locks were yellow as gold; 
Her skin was as white as leprosy ; 
The Night-mare Life-in-Death was she, 
Who thicks men’s blood with cold. 
That is fearful enough ; it goes quite far enough ; but it is legiti- 
mate, and within the bounds of art. In the earlier edition, 
however—I use that of 1802—Death himself is also described in 
two stanzas, both of which are omitted in the later editions. And 
why? Because his fine artistic sense forbade the poet to retain 
that which in the fervour of conception he had allowed to pass. 
I quote the lines in order to show what it was that he considered 
inadmissible : 
His bones were black with many a crack, 
All black and bare, I ween ; 
Jet-black and bare, save where with rust 
Of mouldy damps and charnel crust, 
They were patched with purple and green. 
‘th aoe 
A gust of wind sterte up behind 
And whistled thro’ his bones ; 
Thro’ the hole of his eyes and the hole of his mouth 
Half whistles and half groans. 
_ These black and mouldy bones, and these holes of eye and mouth 
are simply horrible, and must therefore be omitted. It is a preg- 
ant instance of the clear judgment and the self-controlling 
reticence of true art. 
