Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1878-10-24
BOB INGERsOLL ON POETS.
He Arms Himself with Burns as
a Weapon Against The Church.

He Arms Himself with Burns as
a Weapon Against the Church.
When Mr.. Bob IngersOll came upon
the platform at Chick erlng Hall last
evening, he struck his favorite atti-
tude, with the thumb Of one hand un-
der his waistcoat and the fOrefinger of
the other assailing the audience, and
observed: ~ find. ladies and gentle-
men, that we differ as much about pO-
etry as we do about religion" There
Was general smile OF satisfaction and
a great deal OF encouraging applause.
Then Mr.. Ingersoll asked it to be un-
derstoOd that whatever he said against
the poets whom he might srraign we'd
be said entirely from his own stand
point.
"There Is no poetry worthy of the
name of poetry" he exclaimed with
vigor, "that is not born OF the heart.
Give ME the poetry that Is natural; L
do not want tho Word-painting OF the
mind. l have read your classic wri-
tiers, full OF sublime thoughts, and have
found them unnatural. 1 have read
Dante. | have went down into his
hell and crawled In among his snakes,
but l didn't enjoy It," Solemnity and
are twins born of supersti-
ton. Bur'-he added parenthetically
~ will give Dante credit for one
thing-he was the first poet that ever
had the courage to paint a Pope in
hell, and that was no small thing to do
in his day. And there was Petrarch.
He wrote delightful things to girl
named Laura. And who do you sup
pose Laura was? Why. the wife of an
other man. All pretense; all pretense.
Not throb, not a thrill Of the honest
fervor of the human heart. There was
Milton. Magnificent writer! l read
Paradise Lost | read it-Once. l
dent intend tn read 1t again. He may
have been sublime, but he was not a
poet, because no man can be a poet
who does not write as he feels, as he
knows, and a5 he has experiences.
Sorrow is not SORROW, grief Is not grief,
when they are not felt. Milton put
epaulets on the shoulders of GUd, gave
US battle of the angels, and repre-
sented the devil rs an artillery officer.
That's pretty lively tor the imagina-
tion. But it isn't poetry. Where is
there in Milton a line OF deep, Of splen-
did love. He gave US the wOOings OF
Eve by Adam. Why, Adam might
have been member Of the British
Parliament, so far as Milton shows.
After reading that courtship read the
courtship in the Tempest and you
will see the difference"
Then Mr.. IngersUll branched out in
20 rh in
poetry in general. There was too much
terror and horror and misery in the
alleged poetry OF religion to suit him.
'Calvinism,' he said, is the world with
poetry left out and hell left in.' Then
returning to poetry as differing from
religion, he said: "a real poem Is not
imagined, it is lived; it blossoms out Of
the heart. Every body talks about Tom
sons Seasons What did ThOns, n
know about the seasons? He used to
lie in bed until 2 o'clock In the day
and then prate about the weather OUT
side. The classic writers were not poet;
they were literary merchants"
And finally, as repr' "nting his ideal
of pOetIy-that poetry which broke
away from the chain rf ''l.issicism-the
lecturer singled out Robsrt Burns, the
second poet Of the wOrld' "The first
man who brCke down the wall of the
classic models was Shakespeare, he
sad. "a poem dare not be lengthy
theme. A poem must be full Of broken
lights, darting in from unexpected
places. Take Your learned thinker,
your heavy orator; he hammers along
the dusty highway of his subject, III
ring himself and his auditors. Con-
trust him with the wanderer-pee who
breaks away froru the beaten path to
pluck flower here, 20 watch butter
fiy there, to listen to the music of
babbling brook. That's poetry-the
poetry Of DEPRESSION; that's the poetry
of Burns. Burns imbibed his poets
nature from his mother. There never
was a man of genius who didn't have
a wonderful mother! This with great
emphasis to loud applause. 1t doesn't
make much difference who MS father
was. Laughter and enthusiasm.
Burns did not believe in the Church.
He lived with the aristOcracy on one
side of him and the Church on the
other, and he hated both. No great
poet ever believed in religion! Ex-
citement in the audience. No great
poet ever can! No mau with great
and splendid heart ever cani Burns
had great and splendid heart. L hate
Presbyterianism. / hate Calvinism.
They teach the doctrine Of a cruel God.
If could turn that chair into hu-
man being, could l have the right to
had the right to TO 81 because l made
sible for its creation, love it and pro
tect it. And that is what Burns Oe-
lieved when he turned from religion
that preached heaven up there that
he didn't want, and hell down there
that he didn't deserve, to a religion
that found a heaven among created
things-Here and Now.
Mr.. IngersOll then read several OF
Burns poems in strain pretty much
as though they belonged to his lecture
for the corroboratiun of his own relig-
ious views, occasionally breaking away
from the dusty highways of his own
oratory into the babbling brooks of
rhetorical fancy, with ornamental and
exalted gestures.
Then in a great state of mind he
made general swoop upon the false
claims of the Imagination in painting
as we'll as poetry, and referred to pic
lures of angels as girls with nothing on
but feathers, at which there was some
hilarity. Bnt when in the course of
summing up Burns latter-day life he
said, He chose the tavern instead Of
the church, and l honor him for it,"
some one hissed and several people
went ont IN V. World.