r minds at the outset, and
should compel ourselves to revert constantly to the thought of it as we
proceed.

Yes; constantly in reading poetry, a sense for the best, the really
excellent, and of the strength and joy to be drawn from it, should be
present in our minds and should govern our estimate of what we read.
But this real estimate, the only true one, is liable to be superseded,
if we are not watchful, by two other kinds of estimate, the historic
estimate and the personal estimate, both of which are fallacious. A
poet or a poem may count to us historically, they may count to us on
grounds personal to ourselves, and they may count to us really. They
may count to us historically. The course of development of a nation's
language, thought, and poetry, is profoundly interesting; and by
regarding a poet's work as a stage in this course of development we may
easily bring ourselves to make it of more importance as poetry than in
itself it really is, we may come to use a language of quite exaggerated
praise in criticising it; in short, to over-rate it. So arises in our
poetic judgments the fallacy caused by the estimate which we may call
historic. Then, again, a poet or poem may count to us on grounds
personal to ourselves. Our personal affinities, likings and
circumstances, have great power to sway our estimate of this or that
poet's work, and to make us attach more importance to it as poetry than
in itself it really possesses, because to us it is, or has been, of
high importance. Here also we over-rate the object of our interest,
and apply to it a language of praise which is quite exaggerated. And
thus we get the source of a second fallacy in our poetic judgments--the
fallacy caused by an estimate which we may call personal.

Both fallacies are natural. It is evident how naturally the study of
the history and development of poetry may incline a man to pause over
reputations and works once conspicuous but now obscure, and to quarrel
with a careless public for skipping, in obedience to mere tradition and
habit, from one famous name or work in its national poetry to another,
ignorant of what it misses, and of the reason for keeping what it
keeps, and of the whole process of growth in its poetry. The French
have become diligent students of their own early poetry, which they
long neglected; the study makes many of them dissatisfied with their
so-called classical poetry, the court-tragedy of the seventeenth
century,