A Study of Poetry | Page 9

and we had all used the same words to express to each
other what we liked in it. There were big clouds rolling over hills, sky
clearing above, dots of trees and water and meadow-land below us, and
the ground fell away suddenly before us. Well, our three sketches were,
in the first place, different in shape; either from our physical
differences, or from a habit of drawing certain shapes of a picture,
which itself usually indicates--as you know, or ought to know--whether
we are looking far or near. Two were oblong, but of different
proportions; one was more nearly a square; the distance taken in to the
right and left was smaller in the latter case, and, on the contrary, the
height up and down--that is to say, the portion of land beneath and the
portion of sky above--was greater. In each picture the clouds were
treated with different precision and different attention. In one picture
the open sky above was the main intention of the picture. In two
pictures the upper sky was of no consequence--it was the clouds and
the mountains that were insisted upon. The drawing was the same, that
is to say, the general make of things; but each man had involuntarily
looked upon what was most interesting to him in the whole sight; and
though the whole sight was what he meant to represent, he had
unconsciously preferred a beauty or an interest of things different from
what his neighbour liked.
"The colour of each painting was different--the vivacity of colour and
tone, the distinctness of each part in relation to the whole; and each
picture would have been recognized anywhere as a specimen of work
by each one of us, characteristic of our names. And we spent on the
whole affair perhaps twenty minutes.
"I wish you to understand, again, that we each thought and felt as if we
had been photographing the matter before us. We had not the first
desire of expressing ourselves, and I think would have been very much
worried had we not felt that each one was true to nature. And we were
each one true to nature.... If you ever know how to paint somewhat well,
and pass beyond the position of the student who has not yet learned to
use his hands as an expression of the memories of his brain, you will
always give to nature, that is to say, what is outside of you, the
character of the lens through which you see it--which is yourself."

Such bits of testimony from painters help us to understand the brief
sayings of the critics, like Taine's well-known "Art is nature seen
through a temperament," G. L. Raymond's "Art is nature made human,"
and Croce's "Art is the expression of impressions." These painters and
critics agree, evidently, that the mind of the artist is an organism which
acts as a "transformer." It receives the reports of the senses, but alters
these reports in transmission and it is precisely in this alteration that the
most personal and essential function of the artist's brain is to be found.
Remembering this, let the student of poetry now recall the diagram
used in handbooks of psychology to illustrate the process of sensory
stimulus of a nerve-centre and the succeeding motor reaction. The
diagram is usually drawn after this fashion:
Sensory stimulus Nerve-centre Motor Reaction
_______________________________O_________________________
____ --------------------> -------------------->
The process is thus described by William James:
[Footnote:
Psychology, Briefer Course, American Science Series, p. 91. Henry
Holt.]
"The afferent nerves, when excited by some physical irritant, be this as
gross in its mode of operation as a chopping axe or as subtle as the
waves of light, convey the excitement to the nervous centres. The
commotion set up in the centres does not stop there, but discharges
through the efferent nerves, exciting movements which vary with the
animal and with the irritant applied."
The familiar laboratory experiment irritates with a drop of acid the hind
leg of a frog. Even if the frog's brain has been removed, leaving the
spinal cord alone to represent the nervous system, the stimulus of the
acid results in an instant movement of the leg. Sensory stimulus,
consequent excitement of the nerve centre and then motor reaction is
the law. Thus an alarmed cuttlefish secretes an inky fluid which colors
the sea-water and serves as his protection. Such illustrations may be
multiplied indefinitely.
[Footnote: See the extremely interesting

statement by Sara Teasdale, quoted in Miss Wilkinson's New Voices, p.
199. Macmillan, 1919.] It may seem fanciful to insist upon the analogy
between a frightened cuttlefish squirting ink into sea-water and an
agitated poet spreading ink upon paper, but in both cases, as I have said
elsewhere, "it is a question of an organism, a stimulus and a reaction.
The image of