--but it cannot wholly satisfy.

We must, and when

the storm of passion has ceased we shall, lift our eyes higher than to human sympathy.

It is by exciting sympathy with such passionate emotions, whether of grief, joy, or anger, that the poet is pathetic. If he merely excites that sympathy, and does not use the hold that he has obtained on our attention to point beyond these finite human passions to the mystery that they contain, then he only presents us with pathos; and all merely sensational pathetic pictures presented to us by the poet or painter are in themselves contemptible, and blunt our diviner perceptions. Among these I would class most of the modern plays that draw such multitudes to our theatres, a great many of our modern pictures, and, not to speak of poems, almost all the common novels of the day.

Now, the true poet will make use of all such past emotions and thoughts, clarified by time; just as the painter will use a thousand memories, clustering them into his picture, till we sometimes feel that such a combination of loveliness or grandeur was never seen by us in nature. Yet it is not unnatural. It is præternatural. It is an addition to nature. It is nevertheless true to its meaning, and our reason does not stumble at it. Goethe speaks of a picture by Rubens thus: "So perfect a picture has never been seen in nature; we are indebted for its composition to the painter's poetic mind."

E

Composition, combination, synthesis,-yes, this power of composition is the peculiar power of the poet; indeed "poetic" power means nothing more or less than the power of composition. It is in its nature the exact converse of analysis—of the method that science uses. Although there is no occasion to rave against this method of analysis, and its empirical followers, as Wordsworth does, exclaiming—

"O there is laughter at their work in heaven ;”

nor with him need we be indignant, even if a botanist should pluck a flower from his mother's grave to assure himself of its genus: yet, as I shall try to show later, this analytical tendency of the mind is eminently unpoetic.

For the future, to signify this poetic quality let us accept a word that is commonly used to express (though it does that poorly) the synthetic, combining power of the mind-Imagination.

“The lunatic, the lover, and the poet
Are of imagination all compact :

The poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;

And, as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen

Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing

A local habitation and a name."

"Such tricks," adds Shakespeare, "hath strong ima gination."

Let us here consider, in reference to art, of what

nature these "tricks" are, and how far allowable. We have seen before that they must not offend our higher reason, our sense of the meaning of things. What limits will our arbiter Reason allow to imagination?

The authors of that remarkable book, the "Unseen Universe," use (if I remember aright) a phrase that may possibly make my answer more intelligible. Speaking of the continuity of natural laws, of cause and effect, they allow that there is no objective certainty as to that continuity; that, in fact, miracles are possible. But they affirm that certainty does exist that by the discontinuance of such laws we shall not be "utterly put to confusion," so that all life should lose its meaning. In like manner, a poetic fiction, a breach of fact-truth, must not put us utterly to confusion. It must not be meaningless. an idea is revealed to us, reason does not stumble at the tricks that imagination may play in creating the artistic form.

If

Now, some writers will tell us that a peculiarity of imaginative poetry is that it is "arbitrary." This is false. Imagination is not arbitrary: it has laws of its own. Listen to what Goethe says. I cannot but transcribe the passage. It is from Eckermann's Gespräche mit Goethe." He and the great German

* Compare what Dante says (Par. 8. 100): "Not only are the natures of things pre-ordained in that mind which is perfect in itself, but they together with their conservation."

poet are discussing the above-mentioned picture by Rubens.

"How has Rubens produced this beautiful effect?" asked Goethe.

"By making these light figures stand out against a dark ground,” said I.

"But whence comes this dark ground?"

"It is the powerful shadow," said I, "thrown by a cluster of trees towards the figures. But what is this?" I continued with surprise; "why, the figures throw their shadows into the picture, while the grove of trees on the contrary cast theirs outwards, towards the spectator! We have therefore light from two different points, which is utterly contrary to nature.”

"That is just the point," replied Goethe, with a smile. "It is by this that Rubens proves his greatness, and shows that he is superior to nature, and treats her conformably with his lofty purposes. The double light is certainly a violent expedient, and, you say, contrary to nature. Well, if it is contrary to nature, I affirm that it is superior to nature: I say that it is a bold stroke of the master artist . . . ... by which he proclaims that art is not wholly subject to natural requirements, but has laws of its own."

I am aware with what scorn and ridicule any theory is nowadays treated which suggests the possibility of "improving nature:" nor do I acquiesce in Goethe's dictum, that the artist may be superior to nature. Further, it seems to me (though I do not

know the picture) that the device of introducing a double light into an ordinary landscape with the sole object of obtaining a dark background is a sign of littleness rather than of greatness.

At the same time, this denial of the subservience of art to natural laws, this declaration of its autonomy by one of the greatest of artists and deepest of thinkers, merits the notice of those whose one essential maxim is fidelity to nature.

I would rather choose and adapt Shakespeare's words to express what I conceive to be the truthnamely, that art " shares with great creating nature: that it "adds to nature." In other words, that in creative energy art is equipollent with (not superior to) nature, subjecting herself of free accord to natural laws when they serve her purpose, but ever preserving her independence; that true works of art are additions to the sum of phenomena; and these art creations are not necessarily conditioned by what we call natural laws, inasmuch as imagination has laws of its own to which it may subject its creations. Such works of art are true existencies—as true as any natural existence--by virtue of the idea that they represent.

Such a power as this possessed by art is veritably creative; and this is not only the case when the new existence is conditioned by other than natural laws but when it is subjected to these laws. Nay more, even when instead of producing a new existence the artist accepts the ordinary natural objects (visible,