essence of pure art consists in its describing what is as it is,
and this is very well for what can bear it, but there are many
inferior things which will not bear it, and which nevertheless ought
to be described in books. A certain kind of literature deals with
illusions, and this kind of literature has given a colouring to the
name romantic. A man of rare genius, and even of poetical genius, has
gone so far as to make these illusions the true subject of
poetry--almost the sole subject. 'Without,' says Father Newman, of one
of his characters, 'being himself a poet, he was in the season of
poetry, in the sweet spring-time, when the year is most beautiful
because it is new. Novelty was beauty to a heart so open and cheerful
as his; not only because it was novelty, and had its proper charm as
such, but because when we first see things, we see them in a gay
confusion, which is a principal element of the poetical. As time goes
on, and we number and sort and measure things,--as we gain views,--we
advance towards philosophy and truth, but we recede from poetry.

'When we ourselves were young, we once on a time walked on a hot
summer-day from Oxford to Newington--a dull road, as any one who has
gone it knows; yet it was new to us; and we protest to you, reader,
believe it or not, laugh or not, as you will, to us it seemed on that
occasion quite touchingly beautiful; and a soft melancholy came over
us, of which the shadows fall even now, when we look back upon that
dusty, weary journey. And why? because every object which met us was
unknown and full of mystery. A tree or two in the distance seemed the
beginning of a great wood, or park, stretching endlessly; a hill
implied a vale beyond, with that vale's history; the bye-lanes, with
their green hedges, wound on and vanished, yet were not lost to the
imagination. Such was our first journey; but when we had gone it
several times, the mind refused to act, the scene ceased to enchant,
stern reality alone remained; and we thought it one of the most
tiresome, odious roads we ever had occasion to traverse.'

That is to say, that the function of the poet is to introduce a 'gay
confusion', a rich medley which does not exist in the actual
world--which perhaps could not exist in any world--but which would
seem pretty if it did exist. Everyone who reads _Enoch Arden_ will
perceive that this notion of all poetry is exactly applicable to this
one poem. Whatever be made of Enoch's 'Ocean sp