The bird
of paradise is obliged constantly to fly against the wind, lest
its gay trappings, pressing close to its body, impede its free
movements.
He is the best sailor who can steer within the fewest points of
the wind, and extract a motive power out of the greatest
obstacles. Most begin to veer and tack as soon as the wind
changes from aft, and as within the tropics it does not blow from
all points of the compass, there are some harbors which they can
never reach.
The poet is no tender slip of fairy stock, who requires peculiar
institutions and edicts for his defence, but the toughest son of
earth and of Heaven, and by his greater strength and endurance
his fainting companions will recognize the God in him. It is the
worshippers of beauty, after all, who have done the real pioneer
work of the world.
The poet will prevail to be popular in spite of his faults, and
in spite of his beauties too. He will hit the nail on the head,
and we shall not know the shape of his hammer. He makes us free
of his hearth and heart, which is greater than to offer one the
freedom of a city.
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