XXXV Improvising New Conventions
There is a great dignity in poetry unaffectedly written in stern stiff traditional forms and we feel in spite of ourselves that we owe it the reverence due to ruined abbeys, prints of Fujiyama, or Chelsea pensioners with red coats, medals, and long white beards. But that is no reason for following tradition blindly; it should be possible for a master of words to improvise a new convention, whenever he wishes, that will give his readers just the same notion of centuried authority and smoothness without any feeling of contempt.