te similar to the human whole, and consequently to base it
in an absolute and necessary manner on itself. It is therefore necessary
that at the moment of inspiration every trace of a temporal need should
be banished, and that the object itself, however limited, should not
limit the flight of the poet. But it may be conceived that this is only
possible in so far as the poet brings to the object an absolute freedom,
an absolute fulness of faculties, and in so far as he is prepared by an
anterior exercise to embrace all things with all his humanity. Now he
cannot acquire this exercise except by the world in which he lives, and
of which he receives the impressions immediately. Thus simple genius is
in a state of dependence with regard to experience, while the sentimental
genius is forced from it. We know that the sentimental genius begins its
operation at the place where the other finishes its own: its virtue is to
complete by the elements which it derives from itself a defective object,
and to transport itself by its own strength from a limited state to one
of absolute freedom. Thus the simple poet needs a help from without,
while the sentimental poet feeds his genius from his own fund, and
purifies himself by himself. The former requires a picturesque nature, a
poetical world, a simple humanity which casts its eyes around; for he
ought to do his work without issuing from the sensuous sphere. If
external aid fails him, if he be surrounded by matter not speaking to
mind, one of two things will happen: either, if the general character of
the poet-race is what prevails in him, he issues from the particular
class to which he belongs as a poet, and becomes sentimental to be at any
rate poetic; or, if his particular character as simple poet has the upper
hand, he leaves his species and becomes a common nature, in order to
remain at any rate natural. The former of these two alternatives might
represent the case of the principal poets of the sentimental kind in
Roman antiquity and in modern times. Born at another period of the
world, transplanted under another sky, these poets who stir us now by
ideas, would have charmed us by individual truth and simple beauty. The
other alternative is the almost unavoidable quicksand for a poet who,
thrown into a vulgar world, cannot resolve to lose sight of nature.

I mean, to lose sight of actual nature; but the greatest care must be
given to distinguish actual nature from true nature, which is