vy he knows how to arouse it ... he can
make every word he speaks draw blood. Whatever stagnates in the flat
of custom or obedience or legislation he never stagnates. Obedience
does not master him, he masters it. High up out of reach he stands
turning a concentrated light ... he turns the pivot with his finger
... he baffles the swiftest runners as he stands and easily overtakes
and envelopes them. The time straying towards infidelity and
confections and persiflage he withholds by his steady faith ... he
spreads out his dishes ... he offers the sweet firmfibred meat that
grows men and women. His brain is the ultimate brain. He is no arguer
... he is judgment. He judges not as the judge judges but as the sun
falling around a helpless thing. As he sees the farthest he has the
most faith. His thoughts are the hymns of the praise of things. In
the talk on the soul and eternity and God off of his equal plane he
is silent. He sees eternity less like a play with a prologue and
denouement ... he sees eternity in men and women ... he does not see
men or women as dreams or dots. Faith is the antiseptic of the soul
... it pervades the common people and preserves them ... they
never give up believing and expecting and trusting. There is that
indescribable freshness and unconsciousness about an illiterate person
that humbles and mocks the power of the noblest expressive genius. The
poet sees for a certainty how one not a great artist may be just as
sacred and perfect as the greatest artist.... The power to destroy or
remould is freely used by him, but never the power of attack. What is
past is past. If he does not expose superior models and prove himself
by every step he takes he is not what is wanted. The presence of the
greatest poet conquers ... not parleying or struggling or any prepared
attempts. Now he has passed that way see after him! There is not left
any vestige of despair or misanthropy or cunning or exclusiveness
or the ignominy of a nativity or color or delusion of hell or the
necessity of hell ... and no man thenceforward shall be degraded for
ignorance or weakness or sin.

The greatest poet hardly knows pettiness or triviality. If he breathes
into anything that was before thought small it dilates with the
grandeur and life of the universe. He is a seer ... he is individual
... he is complete in himself ... the others are as good as he, only
he sees it and they do not. He is not one of the chorus ... he does
not stop