But I am inclined to think that she is illustrating an allegory by a thought, rather than a thought by an allegory.

The idea of the god destroying the reed in making the instrument has, I imagine, given her occasion to declare that in the sublimation of the poet the man is lost for the ordinary purposes of man's life.

It has been thus instead of being the reverse; and I can hardly believe that she herself believes in the doctrine which her fancy has led her to illustrate.

A man that can be a poet is so much the more a man in becoming such, and is the more fitted for a man's best work.

Nothing is destroyed, and in preparing the instrument for the touch of the musician the gods do nothing for which they need weep.