But the advantages may be localised or general, minor as well as major. The artist stands at the parting of a multitude of ways. His advance may be and often is in a direction which if followed up would be generally disadvantageous although for the moment it leads to an increase of value. The metaphor is of course insufficient. We can improve it by substituting a manifold of many dimensions for the cross-roads. Which way is the mind to grow and which ways are compatible with which is the question. There are specialist and universal poets, and the specialist may be developing in a manner either consistent or inconsistent[66] with general development, a consideration of extreme importance in judging the value of his work. Its bearing upon the permanence of his work will be discussed later. At any moment, in any situation, a variety of attitudes is possible. Which is the best is decided not only by the impulses which gain organised satisfaction in the attitude but also by the effect of the attitude upon the rest of the organisation of the individual. We should have to consider the whole system and all the possibilities of all probable situations which might arise if we were to be sure that any one attitude is the best. Since we cannot do this, but can only note the most obvious objections to some, we have to be content if we can avoid those attitudes which are most evidently wasteful. For the normality of the poet is to be estimated in terms of waste. Most human attitudes are wasteful, some to a shocking degree. The mind which is, so far as can be seen, least wasteful, we take as a norm or standard, and, if possible, we develop in our degree similar experiences. The taking of the norm is for the most part done unconsciously by mere preference, by the shock of delight which follows the release of stifled impulse into organised freedom. Often the choice is mistaken, the advantage which leads to preference is too localised, involves losses in the end, losses round the next corner as it were. Little by little experience corrects such illusory preference, not through reflection—almost all critical choices are irreflective, spontaneous, as some say—but through unconscious reorganisation of impulses. We rarely change our tastes, we rather find them changed. We return to the poems which made us weep tears of delight when we were young and find them dusty rhetoric. With a tender hurt inside we wonder what has happened. Sometimes, of course, experience corrects nothing. There may be nothing which needs correcting, or too much. The localised advantage, the sweet aching thrill of the Boosey Ballad— I have a rose, a white, white rose, ’Twas given me long ago, When the winds had fallen to silence, And the stars were dim and low. It lies in an old book faded, Between the pages white, But the ages cannot dim the dream It brings to me to-night!