3B^ a MooManb Sprtna 



erature of the rarest sort, finished to the 

 minutest detail. How could a youth just 

 out of his teens command such wealth of 

 literary materials? 



The thrush yonder knows the secret of 

 style, which is generic and hereditary ; the 

 rose-purple flower of the cypripedium is 

 style : but this amazing diction could not 

 be born with the poet ; it is a bookish ac- 

 quirement ordinarily attained to by dint 

 of a lifetime's sacrifice. The poet and the 

 bird part company in song at this point of 

 extra-natural expression. Like the oscine 

 warbler, the poet is born with an organ of 

 melody ; unlike the bird, he is conscious of 

 a necessity for enriching the tone of his 

 instrument and varying its notes. Liter- 

 ature is conscious art, and poetry lacking 

 Hterature cannot live. Every thrush of a 

 given species sings the same song; every 

 true poet is the only individual of his 

 species. The one intense, Hfe-wreaking 

 struggle in the art of song is to avoid the 

 bird-organ limit of expression. Many a 

 poet has flung forth one almost perfect 

 creation, and then sung it over and over, 

 1 88 



