The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1897-11-23
TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER %. 1897.
ESSENTIALS FOR APPRECIATING
POETRY

Let US briefly consider some Of the
ESSENTIALS for approaching poetry? Can
II be that every one who reads las any
true conception of the quality Of the
verse and IL able to distinguish be-
tween the genuine and the counterfeit,
between the excellent and the common
MACE. between great poetry and popu-
xar poetry? Does it really require any
ching like special culture and Unborn
1aste to correctly assay metrical com
position or poetic thoughts and form!
1t Is doubtless difficult to define what
taste satisfactorily. 1t may be said
mat 1t is something's gift an endow-
Dent Unborn, implanted by God, that
may be developed and made pure by
proper culture, by close study of the
great masters Of verse and inspiration,
hut is a principle or gift or endowment
that can never be implanted by any
art or effort. All the universities On
earth could no more endowa man with
true taste in poetry, a genuine love OF
the highest poetry, a real understand
fng of and relish for the most exquisite
technique and melodies Of verse with
out the Unborn quality we speak of,
than all the musical Conservatives
could make a great musical genius-a
Handel or Mendelssohn or Mozart-out
or a man who could not turn a tune
and is wholly destitute of the muslcal
gift. 1t would be as easy for cuitiva-
ton and study in colleges and univer-
aities to create such a splendid poetlcal
genius out the veriest boor who ever
stumbled over his letters as to create
a man of true poetic taste and sympa-
thies and insight out of a person to
whom the Muses. had contributed no
gift at his birth and for whom no lofty
hymnings and inspired meditations
were ever inteded.
u present g is so absorbed in
the material, in money getting, that it
has no taste or time for the highest
forms of thought, no apprehension Of
h highest poetry Of the ages, no relish
for what the inspired are singing as
the days pass. 1t is as the able, liter
airy london Spectator aftirms a time or
the "anti-poetical." There is no doubt
of this. There are of course among the
shundreds of millions Of earth here n
there men and women who love poetry
for itself, and who rea with intense
satisfaction the great productions or
the noblest inspired thinkers of the
mighty past. You will find ninety
4-S-~ 1xror rp;n from Unrcn fn
sprose where you will find one lingering
In pleasure and even fascination over
the pages of creative minds expressing
their high thoughts in the gracious ca
sdences of rythmical verse. The de-
.splsers of poetry in this strictly utili-
tartan age, are very numerous-their
name Is legion. 1t has been recently
amentiOned how Darwin, who has so
many followers in his man-monkey
theory, lost all taste or inclination for
uoetry. His mind became dead to
poetry as it did to certain other realms
OF art and imagination" He grovelled
I'm the dirt so much fgering and class
flying ame that his mind lost all that
was truly noble n inspiring. Sir
William Hershel about lost all relish
TOR poetry by his one study Of the
Fheavens. There are many who belong
&c the class mentioned by Sir Philip
sidney who are utterly Indifferent to
Emaginative production because they" are
Aof SO earth-creeping a mind that they
cannot rise to the sky Of poetry" The
spectator dwelling on this manifesto
7aion-this decay as to taste, says that
many Of these anti-poetical folk have,
@as Sir George Chesney, in one of his
Indian novels, admirably expressed it,
plenty Of good old stupid blood in their
veins" so that it is easy to account for
rxheir indifference or contempt for our
r4avorite form of literature, and to
plume ourselves on u own superiori-
3y. But the case is not so delightfully."-
simple as this. For other cavaliers are
AS decidedly clever, and the problem
we a to confront is, how is it that
80 many able men and women have
ranged themselves on the an~ti-poetical
zIde?" AS we said in effect above
AL men are no more born with a poetic
taste than for a genius for music or art.
Men are born with superior intellects,
but they are deficient in the magma
tive faculty. Hence works of the imag-
6nation fail to appeal to them, as they
zneither relish nor respond to poetic
sxhought nor poetic language. The
lnusic Of numbers, in their case, fall
nm inSeINsate ears, n the exquisite
craftsmanship of genius, with it's per-
1ectioh of form and music, is all lost
s1apon inartistic and unn. 'odious ma
lures. The Spectator says admirably,
R~enetratingly:
'Idealization is perhaps the highest
ExeTcise of the imaginative faculty, and
LIS source lies in a longing for perfec-
Inn and a quick sensibility to all man.
I~Eegtations of beauty, whether material
spiritual, and a sympathetic insight