and was altogether faithful
to its rational function.

[Sidenote: Form alone, or substance alone, may be poetical.]

We may therefore with good reason distinguish prosaic form from prosaic
substance. A novel, a satire, a book of speculative philosophy, may have
a most prosaic exterior; every phrase may convey its idea economically;
but the substance may nevertheless be poetical, since these ideas may be
irrelevant to all ulterior events, and may express nothing but the
imaginative energy that called them forth. On the other hand, a poetic
vehicle in which there is much ornamental play of language and rhythm
may clothe a dry ideal skeleton. So those tremendous positivists, the
Hebrew prophets, had the most prosaic notions about the goods and evils
of life. So Lucretius praised, I will not say the atoms merely, but even
fecundity and wisdom. The motives, to take another example, which Racine
attributed to his personages, were prosaically conceived; a physiologist
could not be more exact in his calculations, for even love may be made
the mainspring in a clock-work of emotions. Yet that Racine was a born
poet appears in the music, nobility, and tenderness of his medium; he
clothed his intelligible characters in magical and tragic robes; the
aroma of sentiment rises like a sort of pungent incense between them and
us, and no dramatist has ever had so sure a mastery over transports and
tears.

[Sidenote: Poetry has its place in the medium.]

In the medium a poet is at home; in the world he tries to render, he is
a child and a stranger. Poetic notions are false notions; in so far as
their function is representative they are vitiated by containing
elements not present in things. Truth is a jewel which should not be
painted over; but it may be set to advantage and shown in a good light.
The poetic way of idealising reality is dull, bungling, and impure; a
better acquaintance with things renders such flatteries ridiculous. That
very effort of thought by which opaque masses of experience were first
detached from the flux and given a certain individuality, seeks to
continue to clarify them until they become as transparent as possible.
To resist this clarification, to love the chance incrustations that
encumber human ideas, is a piece of timid folly, and poetry in this
respect is nothing but childish confusion. Poetic apprehension is a
makeshift, in so far as its cognitive worth is concerned; it is exactly,
in this respect, what