Paul Brunton Philosophic Foundation homepage > Notebooks of Paul Brunton

---

I am not alone in regarding the mystical deliverances of poets with special caution. Quite unconsciously, and because they are carried away by emotion, their sense of truth becomes impaired, their capacity for judgement imperilled. Moreover, poetry is concerned with personal feelings; prose can ascend higher and express the impersonal and the universal. Hence the poet is so often an egotist whereas it is easier for the prose writer, so far as his work goes, to be an altruist. Newman, although himself a Catholic, criticized Faber's writings in favour of Papal Infallibility as follows: "Judicious people think them crude and young, perhaps extravagant. He was a poet."

-- Notebooks Category 14: The Arts in Culture > Chapter 4 : Reflections On Specific Arts > # 57