no poet can make you feel more than he feels himself, though he cannot always make another feel as much; and that the worth of his art exists only just in so far as he can say what he feels; and then I thought of my old friend’s mind as I might think of a scarecrow among lonely fields, a thing absurd, ragged, and left alone, while real men went about their business.  I did not say it, but I thought it in my folly.  So I told my young friend that story; and I said: 

“I know that it does not really matter what one loves and is moved by as long as one loves something and is moved by its beauty.  But, still, I do not want that to happen to me; I do not want to be like a pebble on the beach, when the water draws past it to the land.  I want to feel and understand the new signals.  In the nursery,” I said, “we used to anger our governess when she read us a piece of poetry, by saying to her, ‘Who made it up?’ ’You should say, “Who wrote it?"’ she would say.  But I feel now inclined to ask, ’Who made it up?’ and I feel, too, like the sign-painter on his rounds, who saw a new sign hung up at an inn, and said in disgust, ’That looks as if some one had been doing it himself.’  Your poet seems to me only a very gifted and accomplished amateur.”

“Well,” he said rather petulantly, “it may be so, of course; but I don’t think that you can hope to advance, if you begin by being determined to disapprove.”

“No, not that,” I said.  “But one knows of many cases of inferior poets, who were taken up and trumpeted abroad by well-meaning admirers, whom one sees now to have had no significance, but to be so many blind alleys in the street of art; they led nowhere; one had just to retrace one’s steps, if one explored them.  Indeed,” I said, “I had rather miss a great poet than be misled by a little one.”

“Ah, no,” he said, “I don’t feel that.  I had rather be thrilled and carried away, even if I discovered afterwards that it was not really great.”

“If you will freely admit that this may not be great,” I said, “I am on your side.  I do not mind your saying, ’This touches me with interest and delight; but it is not to be reckoned among the lords of the garden.’  What I object to is your saying, ’This is great and eternal.’  I feel that I should be able to respond to the great poet, if he flashed out among us; but he must be great, and especially in a time when there really is a quantity of very beautiful verse.  I suspect that perhaps this time is one that will furnish a very beautiful anthology.  There are many people alive who have written perhaps half a dozen exquisite lyrics, when the spring and the soaring thought and the vision and the beautiful word all suddenly conspired together.  But there is no great, wide, large, tender heart at work.  No, I won’t even say that; but is there any great spirit who has all that and a supreme word-power as well?  I believe that there is more poetry, more love of beauty, more emotion in the world than ever; and a great many men and women are living their poetry who just can’t write it or sing it.”