Poetry, as has been said, differs in this respect from logic, that it
is not subject to the control of the active powers of the mind, and
that its birth and recurrence have no necessary connection with the
consciousness or will. It is presumptuous to determine that these are
the necessary conditions of all mental causation, when mental effects
are experienced unsusceptible of being referred to them. The frequent
recurrence of the poetical power, it is obvious to suppose, may produce
in the mind a habit of order and harmony correlative with its own
nature and with its effects upon other minds. But in the intervals of
inspiration, and they may be frequent without being durable, a poet
becomes a man, and is abandoned to the sudden reflux of the influences
under which others habitually live. But as he is more delicately
organized than other men, and sensible to pain and pleasure, both his
own and that of others, in a degree unknown to them, he will avoid the
one and pursue the other with an ardour proportioned to this difference.
And he renders himself obnoxious to calumny when he neglects to observe
the circumstances under which these objects of universal pursuit and
flight have disguised themselves in one another's garments.
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