en if only they would read my works!
I'm not sure even if I may say so, that Remenham himself wouldn't be
the better." Remenham, however, smilingly indicated that he had read
them. Whereat Coryat rather comically remarked, "Oh, well! Yes!
Perhaps then my poetry isn't quite good enough. But there's
Shakespeare, and Milton, and--I don't care who it is, so long as it has
the essential of all great poetry, and that is to make you feel the
worth of things. I don't mean by that the happiness, but just the
extraordinary value, of which all these unsolved questions about Good
and Evil are themselves part. No one, I am sure, ever laid down a
great tragedy--take the most terrible of all, take 'Lear'--without an
overwhelming sense of the value of life; life as it is, life at its
most pitiless and cruel, with all its iniquities, suffering,
perplexity; without feeling he would far rather have lived and had all
that than not have lived at all. But tragedy is an extreme case. In
every simpler and more common case the poet does the same thing for us.
He shows us that the lives he touches have worth, worth of pleasure, of
humour, of patience, of wisdom painfully acquired, of endurance, of
hope, even I will say of failure and despair. He doesn't blink
anything, he looks straight at it all, but he sees it in the true
perspective, under a white light, and seeing all the Evil says
nevertheless with God, 'Behold, it is very good.' You see," he added,
with his charming smile, turning to Audubon, "I agree with God, not
with you. And perhaps if you were to read poetry ... but, you know,
you must not only read it; you've got to feel it."

"Ah," said Audubon, "but that I'm afraid is the difficulty."

"I suppose it is. Well--I don't know that I can say any more."

And without further ado he dropped back into his seat.

SITTING next to Coryat was a man who had not for a long time been
present at our meetings. His name was Harington. He was a wealthy
man, the head of a very ancient family; and at one time had taken a
prominent part in politics. But, of late, he had resided mainly in
Italy devoting himself to study and to the collection of works of art.
I did not know what his opinions were, for it so happened that I had
never heard him speak or had any talk with him. I had no idea,
therefore, when I called upon him, what he would be likely to say, and
I waited with a good deal of curiosity as he stood a few moments
silent. It wa