Chamberss Edinburgh Journal, No. 443 | Page 4

does not flow from these circumstances, but exists
in spite of them. It has been said, indeed, that the light of knowledge is
unfavourable to poetry, by making the hues and lineaments of the
phantoms it calls up grow fainter and fainter, till they are wholly
dispelled. But this applies only to one class of images. The ghost of
Banquo, for instance, may pale away and vanish utterly before the light
of knowledge; but the air-drawn dagger of Macbeth is immortal like the
mind itself. Knowledge cannot throw its illumination upon eternity, or

dissipate the influences by which men feel they are surrounded. A
candle brought into a darkened room discloses the material forms of the
things in the midst of which we are standing, and which may have been
involved, to our imagination, in a poetical mystery. But the light itself,
as an unexplained wonder--its analogies with the flame of life--the
modifications it receives from the faint gleam of the sky through the
shadowed window--all are poetical materials, and of a higher character.
Where one series of materials ends, another begins; and so on in
infinite progression, till poetry seems to spurn the earth from beneath
her foot--
Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt, And in clear dream and
solemn vision Telling of things which no gross ear can hear; Till oft
converse with heavenly habitants Begins to cast a beam on the outer
shape-- The unpolluted temple of the mind, And turn it by degrees to
the soul's essence, Till all be made immortal.
Science with us, however, is a business instead of an ambition;
ingenuity a trade rather than a taste. We go on from discovery to
discovery, from invention to invention, with an insatiate but prosaic
spirit, which turns everything to a profitable and practical
account--imprisoning the very lightning, that it may carry our messages
over land and under sea! We do not stop to look, to listen, to feel, to
exalt with a moral elevation the objects of our study, and snatch a
spiritual enjoyment from imagination. All with us is material; and all
would be even mean, but for the essential grandeur of the things
themselves. And here comes the question: Is this material progress
incompatible with spiritual progress? Is the poetry of life less abundant
because the conveniences of life are more complete and admirable? Is
man less a spirit of the universe because he is a god over the elements?
We answer, No: the scientific and the prosaic spirit are both
independent elements in the genius of the age; or, if there is a necessary
connection, it is the converse of what is supposed--the restless mind in
which the fervour of poetry has died, plunging into science for the
occupation that is necessary to its happiness. Thus one age is merely
poetical, another merely scientific; although here, of course, we use, for
the sake of distinctness, the broadest terms, unmindful of the

modifications ranging between these extreme points. The age, however,
that has least poetry has most science, and vice versâ.
But man, unlike the other denizens of the earth, has power over his own
destiny. He is able to cultivate the poetical as if it were a plant; and if
once convinced of its important bearing upon his enjoyment of the
world, he will do so. The imagination may be educated as well as the
moral sense, and the result of the advancement of the one as well as the
other is an expansion of the mind, and an enlargement of the capacity
for happiness. The grand obstacle is precisely what we have now
endeavoured to aid in removing--the common mistake as to the nature
of the poetical, which it is customary to consider as something remote
from, or antagonistic to, the business of life. So far from this, it is
essentially connected with the moral feelings. It neutralises the
conventionalisms of society, and makes the whole world kin. It
enlarges the circle of our sympathies, till they comprehend, not only
our own kind, but every living thing, and not only animate beings, but
all created nature.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See Journal, No. 425. Article, 'Dibdin's Sailor-Songs.'
[2] Tennyson.

A DUEL IN 1830.
I had just arrived at Marseilles with the diligence, in which three young
men, apparently merchants or commercial travellers, were the
companions of my journey. They came from Paris, and were
enthusiastic about the events which had lately happened there, and in
which they boasted of having taken part. I was, for my part, quiet and
reserved; for I thought it much better, at a time of such political
excitement in the south of France, where party passions always rise so
high, to do nothing that would attract attention; and my three
fellow-travellers no doubt looked on