se as that. Many and many a fine thought is lost to the
world, and all the value of many a deep emotion, because he who thinks
or feels cannot voice himself, any more than you or I can necessarily
take a brush and paint, like Turner, the unspeakable glories of a sunset
which our eyes and soul can nevertheless appreciate to the very full.
"What makes a poet?" says Goethe, and he replies, "A heart brimful of
some noble passion." No doubt the noble passion must be there _before_ a
man can be a poet, but equally beyond doubt the passion alone cannot
make him one. To say that a heart full of the ardour of religion, of
love, of hope, of sorrow or joy, can always express its ardour, is an
assertion against which thousands of poor inarticulate human beings
would rise in protest. It is simply contrary to experience. There is
many a man and woman besides Wordsworth to whom "the meanest flower that
blows can give thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears"; but,
unlike Wordsworth, no sooner do these less gifted men and women attempt
to express one such thought and impart it to others, than lo! the subtle
thought evades them and is gone. They can give it no embodiment in
language. Their attempt ends in words which they know to be obscure,
cold, trivial, hopelessly ineffectual.

* * * * *

How unevenly distributed is this power of expression! Let us begin as
low in the scale of verbal art as you choose. Let two observers chance
to see some previously unknown plant, with novel leaf and flower and
perfume. If they could paint the leaf and flower, well and good; but ask
each separately to communicate to you in words a mental picture of that
plant. Observe how, with equal education in the matter of language, the
one will describe you the forms and colours and fragrance in apt and
expressive terms and comparisons, which seem to paint it before your
eyes. The other plods and halts and fails, and leaves no clear
impression. If to the one the flower is just red and pointed, to the
other it is, perhaps, a tongue of flame. The one has but literal facts
to tell, the other is full of imagination and similitude.

Take a step higher. Have you seen and heard the lark, and studied his
movements and his song aloft in the sky of Europe? Can you express
simply what you then saw and heard, so that all who have witnessed the
same can see and feel it over again? How many words would you take, and
how vivid might your p