Why should you not become such a man as they? You have the
talents--you have the love for nature, you seem to have the gentle and
patient spirit, which, indeed, will grow up more and more in you, if you
become a real student of science. Or, if you must be a poet, why not sing
of nature, and leave those to sing political squabbles, who have no eye for
the beauty of her repose? How few great poets have been politicians!"
I gently suggested Milton.
"Ay! he became a great poet only when he had deserted politics, because
they had deserted him. In blindness and poverty, in the utter failure of
all his national theories, he wrote the works which have made him immortal.
Was Shakespeare a politician? or any one of the great poets who have arisen
during the last thirty years? Have they not all seemed to consider it a
sacred duty to keep themselves, as far as they could, out of party strife?"
I quoted Southey, Shelley, and Burns, as instances to the contrary; but his
induction was completed already, to his own satisfaction.
"Poor dear Southey was a great verse-maker, rather than a great poet; and
I always consider that his party-prejudices and party-writing narrowed and
harshened a mind which ought to have been flowing forth freely and lovingly
towards all forms of life.
Pages:
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494