That poets are treated as privileged persons by their admirers and the educated public can hardly be disputed.That they consider themselves so there is no doubt whatever.On the whole, I do not know so easy a way of shirking all the civic and social and domestic duties, as to settle it in one's mind that one is a poet.I have, therefore, taken great pains to advise other persons laboring under the impression that they were gifted beings, destined to soar in the atmosphere of song above the vulgar realities of earth, not to neglect any homely duty under the influence of that impression.The number of these persons is so great that if they were suffered to indulge their prejudice against every-day duties and labors, it would be a serious loss to the productive industry of the country.My skirts are clear (so far as other people are concerned) of countenancing that form of intellectual opium-eating in which rhyme takes the place of the narcotic.But what are you going to do when you find John Keats an apprentice to a surgeon or apothecary? Is n't it rather better to get another boy to sweep out the shop and shake out the powders and stir up the mixtures, and leave him undisturbed to write his Ode on a Grecian Urn or to a Nightingale? Oh yes, the critic I have referred to would say, if he is John Keats; but not if he is of a much lower grade, even though he be genuine, what there is of him.But the trouble is, the sensitive persons who belong to the lower grades of the poetical hierarchy do not--know their own poetical limitations, while they do feel a natural unfitness and disinclination for many pursuits which young persons of the average balance of faculties take to pleasantly enough.What is forgotten is this, that every real poet, even of the humblest grade, is an artist.
Now I venture to say that any painter or sculptor of real genius, though he may do nothing more than paint flowers and fruit, or carve cameos, is considered a privileged person.It is recognized perfectly that to get his best work he must be insured the freedom from disturbances which the creative power absolutely demands, more absolutely perhaps in these slighter artists than in the great masters.His nerves must be steady for him to finish a rose-leaf or the fold of a nymph's drapery in his best manner; and they will be unsteadied if he has to perform the honest drudgery which another can do for him quite as well.And it is just so with the poet, though he were only finishing an epigram; you must no more meddle roughly with him than you would shake a bottle of Chambertin and expect the "sunset glow" to redden your glass unclouded.On the other hand, it may be said that poetry is not an article of prime necessity, and potatoes are.There is a disposition in many persons just now to deny the poet his benefit of clergy, and to hold him no better than other people.Perhaps he is not, perhaps he is not so good, half the time; but he is a luxury, and if you want him you must pay for him, by not trying to make a drudge of him while he is all his lifetime struggling with the chills and heats of his artistic intermittent fever.
There may have been some lesser interruptions during the talk I have reported as if it was a set speech, but this was the drift of what Isaid and should have said if the other man, in the Review I referred to, had not seen fit to meddle with the subject, as some fellow always does, just about the time when I am going to say something about it.The old Master listened beautifully, except for cutting in once, as I told you he did.But now he had held in as long as it was in his nature to contain himself, and must have his say or go off in an apoplexy, or explode in some way.--I think you're right about the poets,--he said.--They are to common folks what repeaters are to ordinary watches.They carry music in their inside arrangements, but they want to be handled carefully or you put them out of order.And perhaps you must n't expect them to be quite as good timekeepers as the professional chronometer watches that make a specialty of being exact within a few seconds a month.They think too much of themselves.So does everybody that considers himself as having a right to fall back on what he calls his idiosyncrasy.Yet a man has such a right, and it is no easy thing to adjust the private claim to the fair public demand on him.Suppose you are subject to tic douloureux, for instance.Every now and then a tiger that nobody can see catches one side of your face between his jaws and holds on till he is tired and lets go.Some concession must be made to you on that score, as everybody can see.It is fair to give you a seat that is not in the draught, and your friends ought not to find fault with you if you do not care to join a party that is going on a sleigh-ride.
Now take a poet like Cowper.He had a mental neuralgia, a great deal worse in many respects than tic douloureux confined to the face.It was well that he was sheltered and relieved, by the cares of kind friends, especially those good women, from as many of the burdens of life as they could lift off from him.I am fair to the poets,--don't you agree that I am?
Why, yes,--I said,--you have stated the case fairly enough, a good deal as I should have put it myself.
