CHAUCER. 207 



feels with the object instead of merely feeling it. His imagina 

 tion is for ever dramatising. Chaucer gives only the direct 

 impression made on the eye or ear. He was the first great poet 

 who really loved outward nature as the source of conscious plea 

 surable emotion. The Troubadour hailed the return of spring; 

 but with him it was a piece of empty ritualism. Chaucer took a 

 true delight in the new green of the leaves and the return of 

 singing birds a delight as simple as that of Robin Hood : 



In summer when the shaws be sheen, 



And leaves be large and long, 

 It is full merry in fair forest 



To hear the small birds song. 



He has never so much as heard of the burthen and the mystery 

 of all this unintelligible world. His flowers and trees and birds 

 have never bothered themselves with Spinoza. He himself 

 sings more like a bird than any other poet, because it never 

 occurred to him, as to Goethe, that he ought to do so. He 

 pours himself out in sincere joy and thankfulness. When we 

 compare Spenser s imitations of him with the original passages, 

 we feel that the delight of the later poet was more in the expres 

 sion than in the thing itself. Nature with him is only good to 

 be transfigured by art. We walk among Chaucer s sights and 

 sounds ; we listen to Spenser s musical reproduction of them. 

 In the same way, the pleasure which Chaucer takes in telling his 

 stories has in itself the effect of consummate skill, and makes us 

 follow all the windings of his fancy with sympathetic interest. 

 His best tales run on like one of our inland rivers, sometimes 

 hastening a little and turning upon themselves in eddies that 

 dimple without retarding the current ; sometimes loitering 

 smoothly, while here and there a quiet thought, a tender feel 

 ing, a pleasant image, a golden-hearted verse, opens quietly as a 

 water-lily, to float on the surface without breaking it into ripple. 

 The vulgar intellectual palate hankers after the titillation of 

 foaming phrase, and thinks nothing good for much that does not 

 go off with a pop like a champagne cork. The mellow suavity 

 of more precious vintages seems insipid: but the taste in propor 

 tion as it refines, learns to appreciate the indefinable flavour, too 

 subtile for analysis. A manner has prevailed of late in which 

 every other word seems to be underscored as in a school-girl s 

 letter. The poet seems intent on showing his sinew, as if the 

 power of the slim Apollo lay in the girth of his biceps. Force 

 for the mere sake of force ends like Milo, caught and held mock 

 ingly fast by the recoil of the log he undertook to rive. In the 

 race of fame, there are a score capable of brilliant spurts for one 



