"the mental tone and spirit of the times"; and
though it might very well reflect the life, it must not reflect "the
common thought of the day" upon pain of vulgarizing and annulling
itself. Poetry was static in its nature, and its business was the
interpretation of enduring beauty and eternal veracity. If it stooped in
submission to any such expectation as that expressed, and dedicated
itself to the crude vaticination of the transitory emotions and
opinions, it had better turn journalism at once. It had its law, and its
law was distinction of ideal and elevation of tendency, no matter what
material it dealt with. It might deal with the commonest, the cheapest
material, but always in such a way as to dignify and beautify the
material.

Concerning the first point, that modern poetry was wrong to indulge all
those inversions, those translocations, those ground and lofty
syntactical tumblings which have mainly constituted poetic license, the
ladies again relented, and allowed that there was much to say for what
our correspondent said. In fact, they agreed, or agreed as nearly as
nine ladies could, that it was perhaps time that poetry should, as it
certainly might, write itself straightforwardly, with the verb in its
true English place, and the adjective walking soberly before the noun;
shunning those silly elisions like _ne'er_ and _o'er_, and, above all,
avoiding the weak and loathly omission of the definite article. Of the
tinkle, by which they supposed the contrary-minded sister meant the
rhyme, they said they could very well remember when there was no such
thing in poetry; their native Greek had got on perfectly well without
it, and even those poets at second-hand, the Romans. They observed that
though Dante used it, Shakespeare did not, and Milton did not, in their
greatest works; and a good half of the time the first-rate moderns
managed very well with blank verse.

The Easy Chair did not like to dissent from these ladies, both because
they were really great authorities and because it is always best to
agree with ladies when you can. Besides, it would not have seemed quite
the thing when they were inclining to this favorable view of their
sister's contrary-mindedness, to take sides against her. In short, the
Easy Chair reserved its misgivings for some such very intimate occasion
as this, when it could impart them without wounding the susceptibilities
of others, or risking a painful snub for itself. But it appeared to