The danger of this very necessary arrogance is that it is likely so to intrude the poet’s personal eccentricities into what he writes that the reader recognizes them and does not read the “I” as being the voice of universality.... It was the first night of a sentimental play in an Early English setting; the crisis long deferred was just coming, the heroine and hero were on the point of reconciliation and the long embrace, the audience had lumps in their throats. At that actual instant of suspense, a man in evening-dress leaped down on the stage from a box, kicked the ruffed and doubleted hero into the orchestra, and began to embrace the lady. A moment’s silence; then terrible confusion and rage. The stage manager burst into tears, attendants rushed forward to arrest the desperado. “But, ladies and gentlemen, I am the author!! I have an artist’s right to do what I like with my own play.” “Duck him! scratch his face! tar and feather him!” * * * * * Arrogance? Yes, but a self-contradictory arrogance that takes the form of believing that there is nobody beside themselves who could point out just where in a given poem they have written well, and where badly. They know that it contains all sorts of hidden lesser implications (besides the more important ones) which, they think, a few sensitive minds may feel, but none could analyze; they think that they have disguised this or that bit of putty (of which no poem is innocent) so that no living critic could detect it. They are arrogant because they claim to understand better than any rivals how impossible an art poetry is, and because they still have the courage to face it. They have most arrogance before writing their poem of the moment, most humility when they know that they have once more failed. LXI IN PROCESSION This piece was written a few weeks after the remainder of the book: I had no cold-blooded intention of summarizing the paradox of poetic arrogance contained in the last section, but so it happened, and I print it here. Donne (for example’s sake) Keats, Marlowe, Spenser, Blake, Shelley and Milton, Shakespeare and Chaucer, Skelton-- I love them as I know them, But who could dare outgo them At their several arts At their particular parts Of wisdom, power and knowledge? In the Poet’s College Are no degrees nor stations, Comparisons, rivals, Stern examinations, Class declarations, Senior survivals; No creeds, religions, nations Combatant together With mutual damnations. Or tell me whether Shelley’s hand could take The laurel wreath from Blake? Could Shakespeare make the less Chaucer’s goodliness?