Beginnings and Ends
we catch the few glimpses of ourselves, just as we see something of our own earth in a ray of light from the sun. Art, of course, is natural but it is not nature. A poem is more than words, however skilfully combined: soil, air, moisture, and light are the least of a garden rose. Nature gives capability; art implies skill; science supplies knowledge; and the synthesis of nature and art implies a mysterious x. Consciousness is inherited; capability also is transmitted through generation; skill and knowledge must be acquired through the power of will; but x remains x.
The mystery of words lies in the faculty of speech; the secret of their origin is physiologic and psychic. That is to say, word-making is a mental process effected through physiological means not only, but a process inherent in physical function. Nevertheless, words are born of the mind as truly as children are born of the womb—with this difference: words never are separated from the mind, since they can not exist alone. The
6
