"I was desirous to add my name to this illustrious fraternity. I read
all the poets of Persia and Arabia, and was able to repeat, by memory,
the volumes that are suspended in the mosque of Mecca. But I soon found,
that no man was ever great by imitation. My desire of excellence
impelled me to transfer my attention to nature and to life. Nature was
to be my subject, and men to be my auditors: I could never describe what
I had not seen; I could not hope to move those with delight or terrour,
whose interest and opinions I did not understand.
"Being now resolved to be a poet, I saw every thing with a new purpose;
my sphere of attention was suddenly magnified: no kind of knowledge was
to be overlooked. I ranged mountains and deserts for images and
resemblances, and pictured upon my mind every tree of the forest and
flower of the valley. I observed, with equal care, the crags of the rock
and the pinnacles of the palace. Sometimes I wandered along the mazes of
the rivulet, and sometimes watched the changes of the summer clouds. To
a poet, nothing can be useless. Whatever is beautiful, and whatever is
dreadful, must be familiar to his imagination: he must be conversant
with all that is awfully vast, or elegantly little. The plants of the
garden, the animals of the wood, the minerals of the earth, and meteors
of the sky, must all concur to store his mind with inexhaustible
variety; for every idea is useful for the enforcement or decoration of
moral or religious truth; and he, who knows most, will have most power
of diversifying his scenes, and of gratifying his reader with remote
allusions and unexpected instruction.
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