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1Author:  Neal Joseph C. (Joseph Clay) 1807-1847Add
 Title:  Charcoal sketches, or, Scenes in a metropolis  
 Published:  1997 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: It is said that poetry is on the decline, and that as man surrounds himself with artificial comforts, and devotes his energies to purposes of practical utility, the sphere of imagination becomes circumscribed, and the worship of the Muses is neglected. We are somewhat disposed to assent to this conclusion; the more from having remarked the fact that the true poetic temperament is not so frequently met with as it was a few years since, and that the outward marks of genius daily become more rare. Where the indications no longer exist, or where they gradually disappear, it is but fair to conclude that the thing itself is perishing. There are, it is true, many delightful versifiers at the present moment, but we fear that though they display partial evidences of inspiration upon paper, the scintillations are deceptive. Their conduct seldom exhibits sufficient proof that they are touched with the celestial fire, to justify the public in regarding them as the genuine article. Judging from the rules formerly considered absolute upon this point, it is altogether preposterous for your happy, well-behaved, well-dressed, smoothly-shaved gentleman, who pays his debts, and submits quietly to the laws framed for the government of the uninspired part of society, to arrogate to himself a place in the first rank of the sons of genius, whatever may be his merits with the gray goose quill. There is something defective about him. The divine afflatus has been denied, and though he may flap his wings, and soar as high as the house-tops, no one can think him capable of cleaving the clouds, and of playing hide and seek among the stars. Even if he were to do so, the spectator would either believe that his eyes deceived him, or that the successful flight was accidental, and owing rather to a temporary density of the atmosphere than to a strength of pinion.
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