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Sun-Sealed: Over One Hundred Poems Scientifically Classified Under the Ruling Planet at Time Each Poem Was Written
Excerpt from Sun-Sealed
I do not condescend to add a preface to my little book merely because the contrary is customary and modern, but because of the manifest prejudice on the part of a certain class of book-buyere who affect not to be able to appreciate poetry unless the author has a recognized place in literature.
If this ipse dixit class could but realize that poetry is a gift; that poets are born, not made; and that all Poetry is the direct result of Inspiration, and that the obscure poet is as liable to produce something of merit as well as the genius with a name, then indeed would a preface in my opinion be superfluous.
But realizing how prone is man to "ape the scholar," and to accept the "dictum of the critic" through the "scholarly utterances of the press" as final; beyond which there is no appeal, not even salt wherewith to savor the monotony of their erudition, permit me to state in prose, that sounds, like perfumes, have the privilege to waft us far from ourselves, across time and space beyond the reach of censure or of praise; and that to be able to appreciate harmony so elevating is worth an effort on the part of all who have no knowledge of the divine afflatus.
A German philosopher once said: "Mozart, who to us is a god, appeared as a savage to the Americans, who were unable to appreciate him." Would Phidias and Virgil have been more to our taste? I doubt it.
Prose is for all the world, poetry for almost all the world, but music is only for the few. Prose expresses ideas, poetry sentiments, music feelings, and these feelings are of a character so subtle that not every man is able to accept their sensitiveness. I think music is as inferior to poetry as poetry is superior to prose.
I do not condescend to add a preface to my little book merely because the contrary is customary and modern, but because of the manifest prejudice on the part of a certain class of book-buyere who affect not to be able to appreciate poetry unless the author has a recognized place in literature.
If this ipse dixit class could but realize that poetry is a gift; that poets are born, not made; and that all Poetry is the direct result of Inspiration, and that the obscure poet is as liable to produce something of merit as well as the genius with a name, then indeed would a preface in my opinion be superfluous.
But realizing how prone is man to "ape the scholar," and to accept the "dictum of the critic" through the "scholarly utterances of the press" as final; beyond which there is no appeal, not even salt wherewith to savor the monotony of their erudition, permit me to state in prose, that sounds, like perfumes, have the privilege to waft us far from ourselves, across time and space beyond the reach of censure or of praise; and that to be able to appreciate harmony so elevating is worth an effort on the part of all who have no knowledge of the divine afflatus.
A German philosopher once said: "Mozart, who to us is a god, appeared as a savage to the Americans, who were unable to appreciate him." Would Phidias and Virgil have been more to our taste? I doubt it.
Prose is for all the world, poetry for almost all the world, but music is only for the few. Prose expresses ideas, poetry sentiments, music feelings, and these feelings are of a character so subtle that not every man is able to accept their sensitiveness. I think music is as inferior to poetry as poetry is superior to prose.
208 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1893
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February 25, 2019“There's a limit to all things quickened with life, However wide be its range, And though fixed is the law of universe rife, It is fixed in limitless change.”
Sun-sealed mclntyre archive.org
Sun-sealed mclntyre archive.org
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