H poet ot tbe ipoor 



measure the proportions of its masses and 

 its figures ; and it must have remoteness 

 for atmospheric illusions. The average 

 human imagination has but two healthy- 

 dreams : one religious, the other in some 

 form Arcadian. The passions of avarice, 

 greed, sensuality, and thirst for power 

 are but distortions of the simple, elemen- 

 tal desires. Wealth and its imagined 

 blessings stand for a phase of the old 

 Arcadian dream. To be rich is to have 

 all that one wants, whether this be money 

 and what it can buy, or but the boon of 

 existence in a bucolic paradise. 



So far as we know, Theocritus was the 

 first poet to sing the fascination of pastoral 

 life, and he was the last to sing it perfectly. 

 Reduced to a simple reason, the power of 

 his poetry — and it is wonderful — lies in the 

 universal sweep it makes over the human 

 heart just so as to blow the buds of pre- 

 monition into rich flowers. It seems to 

 be natural for us to long backward toward 

 infancy and careless ignorance of sin, as 

 well as forward toward the beatitudes of 

 the future life. The Arcadian singer calls 

 103 



