We have here, at least a principle of division
between major and minor poetry.
Mr Hardy is a major poet; and we are impelled to seek further and ask
what it is that enables such a poet to perform this sovereign act of
apprehension and to recognise the quality of the all in the quality of
the one. We believe that the answer is simple. The great poet knows what
he is looking for. Once more we speak too precisely, and so falsely,
being compelled to use the language of the kingdom of logic to describe
what is being done in the kingdom of art. The poet, we say, knows the
quality for which he seeks; but this knowledge is rather a condition
than a possession of soul. It is a state of responsiveness rather than a
knowledge of that to which he will respond. But it is knowledge inasmuch
as the choice of that to which he will respond is determined by the
condition of his soul. On the purity of that condition depends his
greatness as a poet, and that purity in its turn depends upon his
denying no element of his profound experience.
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