The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1897-11-23
How it showed,
Answering his great idea"

How it showed,
Answering his great idea."
Men may live in a Strictly material
istic age where the eternal clamor is
for utility, and yet love deeply "melo-
dious thought" Others live in such
surroundings they are wholly indiffer-
ent to the song Of birds. the rare beau
ties and delights of nature, the enrap
turing power OF inspired thought cloth
ed in words of magic and in numbers
that flow in musical cadence that ar
rest and charm. If a man cannot ap-
preciate the ideal he will never be
a lover of poetry of the higher kind, if
Of any kind. The Spectator says
of the want of taste for poetry:
1.-THE failure may lie, not in the power
Of approaching poetic thought, but in
the capacity to enjoy poetic sound.
Their are many persons who are msen-
sible to the charms of the medium in
which the poet works, and have little
or no ear for poetic language, a gift
entirely distinct from that Of an a
for music and as variOusly withheld
anu DcSUOWeu. LUIS ILLS OIII lIOil q
physical or an Intellectual defect? Is
it with or ears or our minds that we
enjoy the language Of poetry? We be-
lieve it is with BOTH"
The thousand finest passages in
| poetry-those that charm forever like
Sweetest songs,"-are "caviarre to the
| general INC fall like lead upon the
| mind that has no awakening responses.
Repeat the noblest verse, the highest
imagingings of the greatest poetic
genius that ever sang for men, the
most majestic or pathetic or musical
or beautiful in all the world Of poetry,
and the unpoetical taste, the anti
poetical mind, will never recognize
that which is best and sweetest and
noblest and most enraVishing. On the
| other hand, take the man, with SYM
pathetic love, whose mind and ear are
trained in harmony, and how the organ
Of Millions mighty song will ring
through his soul, or the manifold
beauties, the teeming richness, the ma
jestic splendor, the lofty inspirations,
| the mighty harpings. the despOtic pow
err of thought, the Astounding charm
| of humor, the worldwide philosophy of
| Shakespeare, the worlds one wonder,
shall sweep through him and move him
with seven-fold harmonies," as moth
| ing else can move him outside of the
marvellous revelations INC inspira-
tons of Gods eternal Word. We make
one more extract from the Spectators
reflections:
"Given the power of id~ealization and
the mind of and ear for poetical Ian
| guage, it will be a continual joy. That
there are other minor causes for indif-
ference to poetry we quite admit, such
as the impatience felt by the intensely
practical, businesslike mind to get at
a writer's meaning at once, without
having to reach it through the images
| and parallels and circumlOcutiOn of the
poet, but we believe that we have in
| dictated the main ones. Where h ne
lScessary qualifications are all wanting,
| then, however gifted otherwise our
anti-poetical friends may be, we can
only say that though they are not sorry
| for themselves, we are extremely sorry
| for them"
The iliustrious S. T. Coleridge, a very
| great poet, who charmed Tennyson be-
yond most of the master singers, said
that poetry had been to me it's own
exceeding great reward; it has given
me the habit of wishing to discover the
| good and beautiful in all that meets and
| surrounds me-" And this is no wholly
unlike a fine sentiment Of the eminent
| German poet, Jean Paul Richter, who
| said with something Of poetic ardor,
| that there are so many tende and
holy emotions flying in our inward
world, which like angels, a never as
sumo the body Of an outward act; so
many rich and lovely flowers spring up
which bear no seed, that it is a happi-
| ness Poetry vas invented, which re-
ceives into it's limbus all those incor-
| poreal spirits, and the perfume Of all