ithy is so close to the spirit of song that it has mixed in a million
poems, and every blacksmith is a harmonious blacksmith.

Even the village children feel that in some dim way the smith is
poetic, as the grocer and the cobbler are not poetic, when they feast
on the dancing sparks and deafening blows in the cavern of that
creative violence. The brute repose of Nature, the passionate cunning
of man, the strongest of earthly metals, the wierdest of earthly
elements, the unconquerable iron subdued by its only conqueror, the
wheel and the ploughshare, the sword and the steam-hammer, the arraying
of armies and the whole legend of arms, all these things are written,
briefly indeed, but quite legibly, on the visiting-card of Mr. Smith.
Yet our novelists call their hero "Aylmer Valence," which means
nothing, or "Vernon Raymond," which means nothing, when it is in their
power to give him this sacred name of Smith--this name made of iron and
flame. It would be very natural if a certain hauteur, a certain
carriage of the head, a certain curl of the lip, distinguished every
one whose name is Smith. Perhaps it does; I trust so. Whoever else are
parvenus, the Smiths are not parvenus. From the darkest dawn of history
this clan has gone forth to battle; its trophies are on every hand; its
name is everywhere; it is older than the nations, and its sign is the
Hammer of Thor. But as I also remarked, it is not quite the usual case.
It is common enough that common things should be poetical; it is not so
common that common names should be poetical. In most cases it is the
name that is the obstacle. A great many people talk as if this claim of
ours, that all things are poetical, were a mere literary ingenuity, a
play on words. Precisely the contrary is true. It is the idea that
some things are not poetical which is literary, which is a mere product
of words. The word "signal-box" is unpoetical. But the thing
signal-box is not unpoetical; it is a place where men, in an agony of
vigilance, light blood-red and sea-green fires to keep other men from
death. That is the plain, genuine description of what it is; the prose
only comes in with what it is called. The word "pillar-box" is
unpoetical. But the thing pillar-box is not unpoetical; it is the place
to which friends and lovers commit their messages, conscious that when
they have done so they are sacred, and not to be touched, not only by
others, but even (religious touch!) by themselves.