The Eternal Gulf Between Being And Idea

Most Thoughtful Americans Of Today Seem To Have Forgotten How Strongly Their Own And Immediate Predecessors, Emerson, Hawthorne And Whitman, Were Still Preoccupied With The Essence Behind Things.

There Are No Instances Known To Me Of Cultures Having Forsaken Truth Or Renounced The Understanding In Its Widest Sense.

You Can Deny, If You Like, Nearly All Abstractions: Justice, Beauty, Truth, Goodness, Mind, God. You Can Deny Seriousness, But Not Play.

If A Serious Statement Is Defined As One That May Be Made In Terms Of Waking Life, Poetry Will Never Rise To The Level Of Seriousness. It Lies Beyond Seriousness, On That More Primitive And Original Level Where The Child, The Animal, The Savage, And The Seer Belong, In The Region Of Dream, Enchantment, Ecstasy, Laughter. To Understand Poetry We Must Be Capable Of Donning The Child's Soul Like A Magic Cloak And Of Forsaking Man's Wisdom For The Child's.

Culture Requires In The First Place A Certain Balance Of Material And Spiritual Values.