patriotism, love, and religion all rolled into one! If
that claim could be substantiated, no one in the world could be
excused for not putting everything else aside and pursuing poetry,
because it would seem to be both the cure for all the ills of life,
and the inspirer of all high-hearted effort. It would be indeed the
one thing needful!

But what I do not think Mr. Mackail makes quite clear is whether he
means by poetry the expression in verse of all these great ideas, or
whether he means a spirit much larger and mightier than what is
commonly called poetry; which indeed only appears in verse at a single
glowing point, as the electric spark leaps bright and hot between the
coils of dark and cold wire.

I think it is a little confusing that he does not state more
definitely what he means by poetry. Let us take another interesting
and suggestive definition. It was Coleridge who said, "The opposite of
poetry is not prose but science; the opposite of prose is not poetry
but verse." That seems to me an even more fertile statement. It means
that poetry is a certain sort of emotion, which may be gentle or
vehement, but can be found both in verse and prose; and that its
opposite is the unemotional classification of phenomena, the accurate
statement of material laws; and that poetry is by no means the
rhythmical and metrical expression of emotion, but emotion itself,
whether it be expressed or not.

I do not wholly demur to Mr. Mackail's statement, if it may be held to
mean that poetry is the expression of a sort of rapturous emotion,
evoked by beauty, whether that beauty is seen in the forms and colours
of earth, its gardens, fields, woods, hills, seas, its sky-spaces and
sunset glories; or in the beauty of human faces and movements; or in
noble endurance or generous action. For that is the one essential
quality of poetry, that the thing or thought, whatever it is, should
strike the mind as beautiful, and arouse in it that strange and
wistful longing which beautiful things arouse. It is hard to define
that longing, but it is essentially a desire, a claim to draw near to
something desirable, to possess it, to be thrilled by it, to continue
in it; the same emotion which made the apostle say at the sight of his
Lord transfigured in glory, "Master, it is good for us to be here!"

Indeed we know very well what beauty is, or rather we have all within
us a standard by which we can instinctively test the beauty of a sight
or a