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after fact and reason. Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Pentralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge-With a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration.

Plato would agree with this,-all but the last sentence. Only, in place of the phrase "negative capability," he would substitute "incapability," and reflect that the poet fails to see absolute beauty because he is not content to leave the sensual behind and press on to absolute reality.

It may be that Plato is right, yet one cannot help wishing that sometime a poet may arise of greater power of persuasion than any with whom we have dealt, who will prove to Plato what he appears ever longing to be convinced of, that absolute ideality is not a negation of the sensual, and that poetry, in revealing the union of sense and spirit, is the strongest proof of idealism that we possess. A poet may yet arise who will prove that he is right in refusing to acknowledge that this world is merely a surface upon which is reflected the ideals which constitute reality and which abide in a different realm. The assumption in that conception is that, if men have spiritual vision, they may apprehend ideals directly, altogether apart from sense. On the contrary, the impression given by the poet is that ideality constitutes the very essence of the so-called physical world, and that this essence is continually striving to express itself through refinement and remolding of the

outer crust of things. So, when the world of sense comes to express perfectly the ideal, it will not be a mere representation of reality. It will be reality. If he can prove this, we must acknowledge that, not the rationalistic philosopher, but the poet, grasps reality in toto.

However inconclusive his proof, the claims of the poet must fascinate one with their implications. The two aspects of human life, the physical and the ideal, focus in the poet, and the result is the harmony which is art. The fact is of profound philosophical significance, surely, for union of the apparent contradictions of the sensual and the spiritual can only mean that idealism is of the essence of the universe. What is the poetic metaphor but the revelation of an identical meaning in the physical and spiritual world? The sympathetic reader of poetry cannot but see the reflection of the spiritual in the sensual, and the sensual in the spiritual, even as does the poet, and one, as the other, must be by temperament an idealist.

INDEX

Addison, Joseph, 234
"A. E." (see George William
Russell)

Aeschylus, 23, 41, 288
Agathon, 116, 154, 155, 156
Akins, Zoë, 127
Alcaeus, 65

Aldrich, Anne Reeve, 101
Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 211
Alexander, Hartley Burr, 123
Alexander, William, 168
Allston, Washington, 286
Ambercrombe, Lascelles, 94
Anderson, Margaret Steele,
186

Angelo, Michael, 23, 38, 282
Arensberg, Walter Conrad,
343

Aristotle, 3, 4, 12, 13, 118, 119,

292, 295, 297
Arnold, Edwin, 84
Arnold, Matthew, 335, 337,
338; his discontent, 34; on
the poet's death, 81, in-
spiration 211, loneliness 52,
53, 93, morality 242, relig-
ion 269, usefulness 304, 314,
315, 324, youth 105, 106;
his sense of superiority, 29
Arnold, Thomas, 267
Asquith, Herbert, 288
Austin, Alfred, 133, 145, 211,
312

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Beattie, James, 58, 61, 90,
188, 242, 310

Beddoes, Thomas Lovell, 195
Beers, Henry A., 164
Benét, Stephen Vincent, 24,

211

Benét, William Rose, 31, 45,
196, 204, 266

Bennet, William, 62, 211
Binyon, Robert Lawrence,
205

Blake, William, later poets
on, 217, 265, 271; on in-
spiration, 170, 196, 199, 202;
on the poet as truthteller,
304; on the poet's religion,
271

Blunden, Edmund, 196
Boccaccio, 286

Boker, George Henry, 105
Borrow, George, 96
Bowles, William Lisle, 72, 80,

90, 92, 100, 195, 273, 304,
310, 314, 334

Branch, Anna Hempstead,
58, 164

Brawne, Fanny H., 4
Bridges, Robert, 41, 202
Brontë, Emily, 84, 93, 103,
272, 278

Brooke, Rupert, 67, 70, 71,
103, 109, 124, 126, 128, 136,
287
Browne, T. E., 63, 100
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett,
appearance, 74; Aurora
Leigh, 57, 61, 69; on Keats,
68; on the poet's age, 100;
content with his own
time 35, democracy 319,
eyes 70, 71, habitat 93, 95,

health 78, 79, humanitari-
anism 36, inferiority to his
creations
19,
inspiration
169, 174, 179, 186, 198, 209,
love 112, 118, 134, 139, 144,
148, 150, morals 218, pain
40, 195, personality 12, re-
ligion 279, resentment at
patronage 29, 37, 44, 63,
self-consciousness 14, self-
expression 204, sex 87, 88,
89, usefulness 301, 303, 304,
320, 321, 322; other poets
on, 84

Browning, Robert, 335, 336,
337; on fame, 33, 84; on
inspiration, 167, 175, 177,
180, 202; on the poet's
beauty 89, loneliness 53,
love 114, 116, 140, morals
216, 224, 226, 237, 248, 249,
250, persecutions 41, pride
24, religion 276, 278, self-
expression II, 112, sex 87,
superiority 30, 32, 33, 36,
usefulness 289, 303, 313,
318; on Shakespeare, 5, 6,
50; on Shelley, 44, 243, 349;
Sordello, 29, 57, 61, 74, 79,
83. 103, 202, 253, 315,
326; other poets on, 63,
66

Bryant, William Cullen, 47,

105, 119, 164, 207, 208
Buchanan, Robert, 63, 235
Bunker, John Joseph, 288
Burke, Edmund, 347
Burleigh, William Henry, 72,
77, 312
Burnet, Dana, IOI
Burns, Robert, his self-de-
preciation, 188; on the
poet's caste 61, habitat 90,
91, inspiration 164, 170, 196,
197, love of liberty 318,
morals 227, persecutions
40, poverty 98, 100, superi-
ority 28; other poets on, 43,
97, 218, 247, 275
Burton, Richard, 41, 167

Butler, Samuel, 97
Byron, Lord, 4, 10, 335, 336,
338; his body, 64, 65, 79;
escape from himself in
poetry, 6; friendship with
Shelley, 52; indifference to
fame, 28; later poets on,
23, 43, 133, 247; his morals,
211, 221, 225, 229, 237, 254,
255; his mother, 59; his re-
ligion, 273, 274; self-por-
traits in verse, 26, 32, 33,
44, 60, 90, 92, 96, 101, 121;
superiority, 295; on Tasso,
25, 42, 147

Camöens, 97

Campbell, Thomas, 62, 91,
108
Campion, Thomas, 346
Candole, Alec de, 211
Carlin, Francis, 63, 72, 96,
318

Carlyle, Thomas, 232, 323
Carman, Bliss, 305
Carpenter, Rhys, 318
Cary, Alice, 193, 210
Cary, Elisabeth Luther, 95
Cassells, S. J., 40
Cavalcanti, Guido, 233
Cawein, Madison, 92, 94, 211,
238, 300

Cellini, Benvenuto, 202
Cervantes, 97

Chapman, George, 185
Chatterton, Thomas, 23, 24,
41, 97

Chaucer, Geoffrey, 10, 46, 64,

74, 75, 97, III, 174
Cheney, Annie Elizabeth, 123,
175
Chénièr, André, 42

Chesterton, Gilbert Keith, 40,

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Coleridge, Samuel Taylor,
appearance, 69, 70; on
Blake, 218; on Chatterton,
42; friendship with
Wordsworth, 51; on the
poet's habitat 90, health 79,
love 120, morals 223, 237,
reflection in nature 9, re-
ligion 263, 268, youth 105,
usefulness 304, 318; later
poets on 165

Collins, William, 89, 97, 237
Colonna, Vittoria, 15
Colvin, Sidney, 5, 70, 153
Conkling, Grace Hazard, 288
Cornwall, Barry (see Proc-
ter, Bryan Waller)
Cowper, William, 27, 58, 90,
195, 277

Cox, Ethel Louise, 314
Crabbe, George, 37, 61, 196,
229, 312
Crashaw, Richard, 348
Cratylus, 255

Dana, Richard Henry, 49
Daniel, Samuel, 346
D'Annunzio, Gabriele, 286
Dante, 23, 42, 153, 161, 166,
187, 259, 282, 286; G. L.
Raymond on, 142, 233; Os-
car Wilde on, 82; Sara
King Wiley on, 142
Dargan, Olive, 89, 141
David, 288

Davidson, John, 24, 59, 63,

73, 95, 224, 263
Davies, William Henry, 96
Dermody, Thomas, 195
Descartes, 332

Dickinson, Emily, 205, 285
Dionysodorus, 7
Dobell, Sidney, 84

Dobson, Austin, 34, 95, 164,
206, 296

Dommett, Alfred, 96

Donne, John, 286

Dowden, Edward, 42,

107,

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Dowson, Ernest, 142, 172, 225
Drake, Joseph_Rodman, 49
Drinkwater, John, 51, 186,
305

Druce, C. J., 140

Dryden, John, 97, 346, 349
Dunbar, Paul Laurence, 40,

47
Dunroy, William_Reed, 35
Dunsany, Lord Edward, 78
Dyer, Sidney, 89

Ehrman, Max, 35, 204, 211
Elijah, 200

Eliot, Ebenezer, 217
Eliot, George, 314, 325
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, his
contempt for the public,
30, 33; his democracy, 46;
his humility, 18; on inspi-
ration, 164 165, 166, 175,
199, 200, 201, 202; on love
of fame, 34; on the poet's
divinity 24, love 150, mor-
als 251, poverty 101, soli-
tude 48, 94, 286, usefulness
206, 290, 300, 304, 314, 322,
323, 324
Euripedes, 41
Euthydemus, 7

Evans, Mrs. E. H., 17

Faimer, C. H., 17
Fairfield, S. L., 40
Field, Eugene, 25, 314
Flecker, James Elroy, 35, 94,
197, 307
Flint, F. S., 49

French, Daniel Chester, 14
Freneau, Philip Morin, 84,
127, 318

Fuller, Frances, 69
Fuller, Metta, 69

Gage, Mrs. Frances, 49
Garnett, Richard, 41, 287
Gibson, Wilfred Wilson, 67,
70, 101
Giddings, Franklin Henry,
164

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