The Disinterested Imaginative Core Of Mythology Is

Nobody Is Capable Of Of Free Speech Unless He Knows How To Use Language, And Such Knowledge Is Not A Gift: It Has To Learned And Worked At.

Poetry Is The Most Direct And Simple Means Of Expressing Oneself In Words: The Most Primitive Nations Have Poetry, But Only Quitewell Developed Civilizations Can Produce Good Prose. So Don't Think Of Poetry As A Perverse And Unnatural Way Of Distorting Ordinary Prose Statements: Prose Is A Much Less Natural Way Of Speaking Than Poetry Is. If You Listen To Small Children, And To The Amount Of Chanting And Singsong In Their Speech, You'll See What I Mean.

The Fable Says That The Tortoise Won In The End, Which Is Consoling, But The Hare Shows A Good Deal Of Speed And Few Signs Of Tiring.

The Entire Bible, Viewed As A "divine Comedy," Is Contained Within A U-shaped Story Of This Sort, One In Which Man, As Explained, Loses The Tree And Water Of Life At The Beginning Of Genesis And Gets Them Back At The End Of Revelation.

It Is Of The Essence Of Imaginative Culture That It Transcends The Limits Both Of The Naturally Possible And Of The Morally Acceptable.