Were our
little mother-island sunk beneath the sea, or, worse, were she conquered
by Scythian barbarians, yet Shakespeare would be an immortal England,
and would conquer countries, when the bones of her last sailor had kept
their ghastly watch for ages in unhallowed ooze beside the quenched
thunders of her navy.
Old Purchas in his "Pilgrims" tells of a sacred caste in India who, when
they go out into the street, cry out, "Poo! Poo!" to warn all the world
out of their way lest they should be defiled by something unclean. And
it is just so that the understanding in its pride of success thinks to
pooh-pooh all that it considers impractical and visionary. But whatever
of life there is in man, except what comes of beef and pudding, is in
the visionary and unpractical, and if it be not encouraged to find its
activity or its solace in the production or enjoyment of art and beauty,
if it be bewildered or thwarted by an outward profession of faith
covering up a practical unbelief in anything higher and holier than the
world of sense, it will find vent in such wretched holes and corners as
table-tippings and mediums who sell news from heaven at a quarter of a
dollar the item. Imagination cannot be banished out of the world. She
may be made a kitchen-drudge, a Cinderella, but there are powers that
watch over her. When her two proud sisters, the intellect and
understanding, think her crouching over her ashes, she startles and
charms by her splendid apparition, and Prince Soul will put up with no
other bride.
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