s of the absence of any such common
language, we all shouted at one another "in vacuo" and out of pure
darkness. It is from their refusal to recognize the necessity for
something at least relatively objective in what the individual
imagination works upon, that certain among modern artists, if not
among modern poets, bewilder and puzzle us. They have a right to make
endless experiments--every original mind has that--but they cannot let
go their hold on some sort of objective solidity without becoming
inarticulate, without giving vent to such unrelated and incoherent
cries as overtake one in the corridors of Bedlam. "Nature is the
mistress of the higher intelligencies," and though the individual
imagination is at liberty to treat Nature with a certain creative
contempt, it cannot afford to depart altogether from her, lest by
relinquishing the common language between men and men, it should
simply flap its wings in an enchanted circle, and utter sounds that
are not so much different from other sounds, as outside the region
where any sound carries an intelligible meaning.

The absurd idea that one gets wise by reading books is probably at the
bottom of the abominable pedantry that thrusts so many tiresome pieces
of antiquity down the throats of youth. There is no talisman for
getting wise--some of the wisest in the world never open a book, and
yet their native wit, so heavenly-free from "culture," would serve to
challenge Voltaire. Lovers of books, like other infatuated lovers,
best know the account they find in their exquisite obsessions. None of
the explanations they give seem to cover the field of their enjoyment.
The thing is a passion; a sort of delicate madness, and like other
passions, quite unintelligible to those who are outside. Persons who
read for the purpose of making a success of their added erudition, or
the better to adapt themselves--what a phrase!--to their "life's
work," are, to my thinking, like the wretches who throw flowers into
graves. What sacrilege, to trail the reluctances and coynesses, the
shynesses and sweet reserves of these "furtivi amores" at the heels of
a wretched ambition to be "cultivated" or learned, or to "get on" in
the world!

Like the kingdom of heaven and all other high and sacred things, the
choicest sorts of books only reveal the perfume of their rare essence
to those who love them for themselves in pure disinterestedness. Of
course they "mix in," these best-loved authors, with e