ged without
weakening the meaning or throwing discord into the melody. To choose the
right word and to discard all others, this is the chief factor in good
writing. To learn good poetry by heart is to acquire help toward doing
this instinctively, automatically, as other habits are acquired. In the
affairs of life there is no form of good manners, no habit of usage more
valuable than the habit of good English. And to this end the masters of
English, from Chaucer to Tennyson, and in spite of perversities, we may
add Emerson, Browning, and Kipling, have written English verse. It is
not in verse alone that poetry is written. Sweetness and light and truth
can be crystallized into prose, and prose well worthy to be borne in
memory.

Take this from Emerson:

"The poet is the true landlord, sea lord, air lord! Wherever snow falls
or water flows or birds fly, wherever day and night meet in twilight,
wherever the blue heaven is hung by clouds or sown with stars, wherever
are forms with transparent boundaries, wherever are outlets into
celestial spaces, wherever is danger and awe and love--there's Beauty,
plenteous as rain shed for thee and though thou shouldst walk the world
over thou shalt not be able to find a condition inopportune or ignoble."

"I took a walk the other day," so Thoreau tells us, "on Spaulding's
farm. I saw the setting sun lighting up the opposite side of a stately
pine wood. Its golden rays straggled into the aisles of the wood as into
some noble hall. I was impressed as if some ancient and altogether
admirable family had settled there in that part of Concord, unknown to
me--to whom the sun was servant. I saw their path, their pleasuring
ground through the woods in Spaulding's cranberry meadow. The pines
furnished them with gables as they grew. Their house was not obvious to
vision, the trees grew through it. They have sons and daughters. They
are quite well. The farmer's cart path which leads directly through
their hall does not in the least put them out, as the muddy bottom of
the pool is sometimes seen through the reflected skies. They never heard
of Spaulding, and do not know that he is their neighbor, notwithstanding
I heard him whistle as he drove his team through their house. Nothing
can equal the serenity of their lives. Their coat of arms is simply a
lichen. It is painted on the pines and the oaks. They are of no
politics. There was no noise of labor. I did not perceive that they were
weaving or sp