But he never realized that every step he had taken had been predetermined by the supposed maniac and that once frightened off his balance, he had reacted according to plan. Mr. Poeta did not need to pursue him over the wall or even to go any further than the dining-room door; he counted on the all-or-none principle of reaction to danger finishing the job for him. So out at the window went Mr. Lector and every recourse offered for escape he accepted unquestioningly. Mr. Poeta knew well enough that Mr. Lector would eventually treasure that copy of Chaucer prepared for him, as a souvenir of his terrible experience, that he would have it rebound and adopt the poet as a “discovery” of his own. The reader in interpreting this parable, must not make too close a comparison of motives; the process is all that is intended to show. The poet, once emotion has suggested a scheme of work, goes over the ground with minute care and makes everything sure, so that when his poem is presented to the reader, the latter is thrown off his balance temporarily by the novelty of the ideas involved. He has no critical weapons at his command, so he must follow the course which the poet has mapped out for him. He is carried away in spite of himself and though the actual words do not in themselves express all the meaning which the poet manages to convey (Mr. Poeta, as has been said, did not pursue) yet the reader on recovering from the first excitement finds the implied conclusion laid for him to discover, and flattering himself that he has reached it independently, finally carries it off as his own. Even where a conclusion is definitely expressed in a poem the reader often deceives himself into saying, “I have often thought that before, but never so clearly,” when as a matter of fact he has just been unconsciously translating the poet’s experience into terms of his own, and finding the formulated conclusion sound, imagines that the thought is originally his. VIII THE CARPENTER’S SON Fables and analogies serve very well instead of the psychological jargon that would otherwise have to be used in a discussion of the poet’s mental clockwork, but they must be supported wherever possible by definite instances, chapter and verse. An example is therefore owed of how easily and completely the poet can deceive his readers once he has assumed control of their imagination, hypnotizing them into a receptive state by indirect sensuous suggestions and by subtle variations of verse-melody; which hypnotism, by the way, I regard as having a physical rather than a mental effect and being identical with the rhythmic hypnotism to which such animals as snakes, elephants or apes are easily subject.