very
subtle ideas; but the mob does not express them subtly. In fact, it does
not express them at all, except on those occasions (now only too rare)
when it indulges in insurrection and massacre.

Now, this accounts for the otherwise unreasonable fact of the existence
of Poets. Poets are those who share these popular sentiments, but can so
express them that they prove themselves the strange and delicate things
that they really are. Poets draw out the shy refinement of the rabble.
Where the common man covers the queerest emotions by saying, "Rum
little kid," Victor Hugo will write "L'art d'etre grand-pere"; where the
stockbroker will only say abruptly, "Evenings closing in now," Mr.
Yeats will write "Into the twilight"; where the navvy can only mutter
something about pluck and being "precious game," Homer will show you the
hero in rags in his own hall defying the princes at their banquet. The
Poets carry the popular sentiments to a keener and more splendid pitch;
but let it always be remembered that it is the popular sentiments
that they are carrying. No man ever wrote any good poetry to show that
childhood was shocking, or that twilight was gay and farcical, or that a
man was contemptible because he had crossed his single sword with three.
The people who maintain this are the Professors, or Prigs.

The Poets are those who rise above the people by understanding them. Of
course, most of the Poets wrote in prose--Rabelais, for instance, and
Dickens. The Prigs rise above the people by refusing to understand them:
by saying that all their dim, strange preferences are prejudices and
superstitions. The Prigs make the people feel stupid; the Poets make the
people feel wiser than they could have imagined that they were. There
are many weird elements in this situation. The oddest of all perhaps is
the fate of the two factors in practical politics. The Poets who embrace
and admire the people are often pelted with stones and crucified. The
Prigs who despise the people are often loaded with lands and crowned. In
the House of Commons, for instance, there are quite a number of prigs,
but comparatively few poets. There are no People there at all.

By poets, as I have said, I do not mean people who write poetry, or
indeed people who write anything. I mean such people as, having culture
and imagination, use them to understand and share the feelings of their
fellows; as against those who use them to rise to what they call a
higher plane