fruit must be trimmed, and the soul must go through a baptism of fire.… Growth, progress is thus ever the casting off of an old self, and Scheiden thut weh. Detachment hurts. A new birth can take place only amid throes of agony. Hence the following lines of Pushkin on the poet:—
"…No sooner the heavenly word
His keen ear hath reached,
Then up trembles the singer's soul
Like an awakened eagle.
"The world's pastimes now weary him
And mortals' gossip now he shuns.
······
Wild and stern rushes he
Of tumult full and sound
To the shores of desert wave
Into the wildly whispering wood."
9. This is as yet only discernment that the bard must needs suffer; by-and-by comes also the fulfilment, the recognition of the wisdom of the sorrow, and with it its joyful acceptance in the poem of "The Prophet."
"And out he tore my sinful tongue
······
And ope he cut with sword my breast
And out he took my trembling heart
And a coal with gleaming blaze
