The two words practical and poetical may mean two subtly
different things in that old and subtle language, but they mean the same
in English and the same in the long run. It is ridiculous to suppose
that the man who can understand the inmost intricacies of a human being
who has never existed at all cannot make a guess at the conduct of man
who lives next door. It is idle to say that a man who has himself felt
the mad longing under the mad moon for a vagabond life cannot know why
his son runs away to sea. It is idle to say that a man who has himself
felt the hunger for any kind of exhilaration, from angel or devil,
cannot know why his butler takes to drink. It is idle to say that a man
who has been fascinated with the wild fastidiousness of destiny does not
know why stockbrokers gamble, to say that a man who has been knocked
into the middle of eternal life by a face in a crowd does not know why
the poor marry young; that a man who found his path to all things kindly
and pleasant blackened and barred suddenly by the body of a man does not
know what it is to desire murder. It is idle, in short, for a man who
has created men to say that he does not understand them. A man who is a
poet may, of course, easily make mistakes in these personal and
practical relations; such mistakes and similar ones have been made by
poets; such mistakes and greater ones have been made by soldiers and
statesmen and men of business. But in so far as a poet is in these
things less of a practical man he is also less of a poet.
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