And what shall be
said of such gorgeous shows as the scarlet poppies in the green corn,
the likest we have to those lilies of the field which spoke to the
Saviour himself of the care of God, and rejoiced His eyes with the glory
of their God-devised array? From such visions as these the imagination
reaps the best fruits of the earth, for the sake of which all the
science involved in its construction, is the inferior, yet willing and
beautiful support.
From what we have now advanced, will it not then appear that, on the
whole, the name given by our Norman ancestors is more fitting for the
man who moves in these regions than the name given by the Greeks? Is not
the _Poet_, the _Maker_, a less suitable name for him than the
_Trouvere_, the _Finder_? At least, must not the faculty that finds
precede the faculty that utters?
But is there nothing to be said of the function of the imagination from
the Greek side of the question? Does it possess no creative faculty? Has
it no originating power?
Certainly it would be a poor description of the Imagination which
omitted the one element especially present to the mind that invented the
word _Poet_.
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