desire. That is to say, they could still feel
"poetically," though their wonderful chance
of making up new names for everything had
gone as soon as the gates were shut upon the
Paradise of childhood.

All readers of poetry agree that it originates
somehow in feeling, and that if it be true
poetry, it stimulates feeling in the hearer.
And all readers agree likewise that feeling is
transmitted from the maker of poetry to the
enjoyer of poetry by means of the imagina-
tion. But the moment we pass beyond these
accepted truisms, difficulties begin.

What is feeling, and exactly how is it
bound up with the imagination? The psy-
chology of feeling remains obscure, even after
the labors of generations of specialists; and
it is obvious that the general theories about
the nature of imagination have shifted greatly,
even within the memory of living men.
Nevertheless there are some facts, in this
constantly contested territory, which now
seem indisputable. One of them, and of pe-
culiar significance to students of poetry, is
this: in the stream of objects immediately

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