compelled to express their conceptions --
criticism believes that poetry, like each of
the sister arts, has its natural province, its
own field of the beautiful. We have tried in
this chapter to suggest the general direction
of that field, without looking too narrowly for
its precise boundaries. In W. H. Hudson's
Green Mansions the reader will remember
how a few sticks and stones, laid upon a hill-
top, were used as markers to indicate the
outlines of a continent. Criticism, likewise,
needs its poor sticks and stones of common-
place, if it is to point out any roadway. Our
own road leads first into the difficult territory
of the poet's imaginings, and then into the
more familiar world of the poet's words.

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