ght" to read poetry.
It is a mark of superiority to have a full supply of the most correct
judgments.

This doctrine is supposed to be beyond discussion, Leo Stein says. "I
do not think it is beyond discussion," he adds. "It is more nearly
beneath it.... To teach or formally to encourage the appreciation of art
does more harm than good.... It tries to make people see things that
they do not feel.... People are stuffed with appreciation in our art
galleries, instead of looking at pictures for the fun of it."

Those who take in art for the fun of it, and don't fake their
sensations, acquire an appetite that it is a great treat to satisfy. And
by and by, art becomes as necessary to them as breathing fresh air.

To the rest of us, art is only a luxury: a dessert, not a food.

* * * * *

Some poets have to struggle with a harsh world for leave to be poets,
like unlucky peaches trying to ripen north of Latitude 50. Coventry
Patmore by contrast was bred in a hot-house. He was the son of a man
named Peter G. Patmore, who, unlike most fathers, was willing to have a
poet in the family. In fact he was eager. He was also, unfortunately,
helpful, and did all he could to develop in his son "an ardor for
poetry." But ardor is born, not cooked. A watched pot never boils. Nor
did Patmore. He had many of the other good qualities that all poets
need, but the quality Peter G. planned to develop in the boy never
grew. Young Patmore studied the best Parnassian systems, he obeyed the
best rules, he practiced the right spiritual calisthenics, took his
dumb-bells out daily: but he merely proved that poetry is not the
automatic result of going through even the properest motions correctly.

Still he kept on, year by year, and the results were impressive. Many
respected them highly. Including their author.

He grew old in this remarkable harness. Perhaps he also grew tired. At
any rate, at sixty-three he "solemnly recorded" the fact that he had
finally finished "his task as a poet." He lived for about ten years
more, but the remainder was silence. "He had been a practicing poet for
forty-seven years," Edmund Gosse says. Odd way for Gosse to talk: as
though he were describing a dentist.

One of this worthy Mr. Patmore's most worthy ideas was that the actual
writing of verse was but a part of his job. Not even professional poets,
he felt, should make it their chief occupation. No; one ought to spend
months, ma