"Then why not witness, cahnly gazing,
If earth holds aught — speak truth — above her?
Above this tress, and this, I toueh
But cannot praise, I love so much I"'

This characteristic of the work of art brings with it
an important practical consequence, because, being
complete, it appeals to the whole man.
" Poetry," it has been well said, is " the idealized
and monumental utterance of the deepest feelings."
And poetic feelings, it must not be forgotten, are
deepest ; that is, they are the afterglow of the
fullest activity of a complete soul, and not shallow
titillations, or surface pleasures, such as the palate
knows. Led by poetry, the intellect so sees truth
^Song (Dramatic Lyrics).
INTRODUCTION 7

that it feels it, and the will is stirred to deeds of
heroism. What truth it is, matters little ; for there
is hardly any fact so mean, but that when intensified
by emotion, it grows poetic; as there is hardly any
man so unimaginative, but that when struck with
a great sorrow, or moved by a great passion, he is
endowed for a moment with the poet's speech. A
poetic fact, one may almost say, is any fact at its
best. Art, it is true, looks at its objefct through
a medium, but it always sees its inmost meaning.
In Lear, Othello, Hamlet, in Falstaff and Touch-
stone, there is a revelation of the inner truth of
human life beyond the power of moral science to
bestow. We do well to seek philosophy in the
poets, for though they teach only by hints and
parables, they nevertheless reflect the concrete truth
of life as it is half revealed and half concealed in
facts.
