These visions of the poet are
very faint and delicate things; there is little of robust confidence
about them, while there are plenty of loud and insistent voices on
every side of him to tell him that he is shirking the work of the
world, and that he is not lifting a finger in the cause of humanity and
progress. There are some self-conscious artists who would say that the
cause of humanity and progress is not the concern of the artist at all;
but, on the other hand, you will find but few of the great artists of
the ages who have not been thrilled and haunted with the deep desire to
help others, to increase their peace and joy, to interpret the riddle
of the world, to give a motive for living a fuller life than the life
of the drudge and the raker of stones and dirt.
But this very absence of recognition and fame was what made the lives
of these two great poets so intensely beautiful; there is hardly a
great poet who has achieved fame who has not been in a degree spoilt by
the consciousness of worth and influence. Tennyson, Pope, Byron,
Wordsworth--how their lives were injured by vanity and self-conceit!
Even Scott was touched by the grossness of prosperity, though he purged
his fault in despair and tears. But such poets as did not guess their
own greatness, and remained humble and peaceable, how much sweeter and
gentler is their example, walking humbly in the company of the mighty,
and hardly seeming to guess that they are of the happy number.
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