Another amazingly-beautiful conversation in Middlemarch by "George Eliot" (Mary Evans), Chapter 22, as Will Ladislaw is chatting with protagonist Dorothea Brooke:

"... To be a poet is to have a soul so quick to discern that no shade of quality escapes it, and so quick to feel, that discernment is but a hand playing with finely ordered variety on the chords of emotion—a soul in which knowledge passes instantaneously into feeling, and feeling flashes back as a new organ of knowledge. One may have that condition by fits only."

"But you leave out the poems," said Dorothea. "I think they are wanted to complete the poet. I understand what you mean about knowledge passing into feeling, for that seems to be just what I experience. But I am sure I could never produce a poem."

"You are a poem—and that is to be the best part of a poet—what makes up the poet's consciousness in his best moods," said Will, showing such originality as we all share with the morning and the spring-time and other endless renewals.

"I am very glad to hear it," said Dorothea, laughing out her words in a bird-like modulation, and looking at Will with playful gratitude in her eyes. "What very kind things you say to me!"

(cf Remember Me (1999-05-21), My Religion (2000-11-06), Terrible Obstacles (2000-11-17), Painting versus Writing (2006-03-29), Hearing the Grass Grow (2020-02-08), ...) - ^z - 2020-02-10