3B^ a MooMan^ Spring 



or stood evermore dumb, for fear of the 

 almost insurmountable wall that fate has 

 built across the way to ever-changing, yet 

 ever-characteristic, originality ; while for 

 eons the thrush has ground out his one 

 melodious stanza, happily unconscious of 

 a million repetitions. Nothwithstanding 

 all this, which demands serious thinking, I 

 cannot evade certain rays of humor flash- 

 ing straight out of the subject. 



After all, the poet's dilemma has its 

 absurdity, which might almost be placed 

 under the sign of an irrational number, as 

 mathematicians do it. Art often suspends 

 the imagination between the wine and the 

 roast, — entre la bouteille et le jamb on, — so 

 that it is impossible to be either original 

 or elegant, either sparkling or savory. 

 Genius shows its quality in extricating 

 itself from this predicament. It squares 

 the circle and invents perpetual motion, 

 raises a surd to rationality and glorifies 

 whatever it touches. But the poets who 

 have great talent without genius, it is they 

 who make us laugh while they do their 

 antics in the bath of words. What foamy 

 189 



