an frailties
are less visible, so that the divine light shining through her seems
less impeded, but it also fires him with a very human ambition to prove
his transcendent worth and thus "get even" with his unappreciative
beloved. [Footnote: See Joaquin Miller, _Ina_; G. L. Raymond,
_"Loving,"_ from _A Life in Song_; Alexander Smith, _A Life Drama_.

Richard Realf in _Advice Gratis_ satirically depicts the lady's
altruism in rejecting her lover:

It would strike fresh heat in your poet's verse
If you dropped some aloes into his wine,
They write supremely under a curse.]

There is danger, of course, that the disillusionment produced by the
revelation of low ideals which the lady makes in her refusal will
counterbalance these good effects. Still, though the poet is so
egotistical toward all the world beside, in his attitude toward his lady
the humility which Emerson expresses in _The Sphinx_ is not without
parallel in verse. Many singers follow him in his belief that the only
worthy love is that for a being so superior that a return of love is
impossible. [Footnote: See _The Sphinx_--

Have I a lover who is noble and free?
I would he were nobler than to love me.

See also Walt Whitman, _Sometimes with One I Love_, and Mrs. Browning,
"I never thought that anyone whom I could love would stoop to love
me--the two things seemed clearly incompatible." Letter to Robert
Browning, December 24, 1845.]

To poets who do not subscribe to Emerson's belief in one-sided
attachments, Alexander Smith's _A Life Drama_ is a treasury of
suggestions as to devices by which the poet's lady may be kept at
sufficient distance to be useful. With the aid of intercalations Smith
exhibits the poet removed from his lady by scornful rejection, by
parental restraint, by an unhappy marriage, by self-reproach, and by
death. All these devices have been popular in our poetry.

The lady's marriage is seldom felt to be an insuperable barrier to love,
though it is effective in removing her to a suitable distance for
idealization. The poet's worship is so supersensual as to be
inoffensive. To confine ourselves to poetic dramas treating historical
poets,--Beatrice,[Footnote: G. L. Raymond's and S. K. Wiley's dramas,
_Dante_, and _Dante and Beatrice_.] Laura, [Footnote: Cale Young Rice,
_A Night in Avignon_.] Vittoria Colonna, [Footnote: Longfellow, _Michael
Angelo_.] and Alison [Footnote: Peabody, _Marlowe_.] are all married to
one man while i