Now it seems more and more to me
that the modem American has these same
qualities. He, too, clings to the things
that are, and has great practical sagacity
in dealing with them. But he also has
the imagination necessary to combine these
things into new forms as real as the old.
At present, this goes mainly into affairs;
but so also, in the time just before Eliza-
beth, most of the imaginative energy went
in the direction of politics or of bucca-
neering. Poetry got little of it, though
some; was itself indeed for a long time
somewhat in disrepute. Men hankered
after it, but as for flesh-pots. At last,
however, it found its defender in the
greatest gentleman, and, as a great
authority declared, the ablest statesman of
Europe. When Sir Philip Sidney had
ventured to defend poetry on this high
ground, " But I still and utterly deny, that
there is sprung out of earth a more



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INTRODUCTION. 1 9

fruitful knowledge," then the fortunes
of poetry were made, and the powerful
energies of the Elizabethans were sure in
no long time to transform it, as they had
transformed the politick of England.
