For the Universe has three children, born at one
time, which reappear under different names in every
system of thought, whether they be called cause,
operation, and effect; or, more poetically, Jove,
Pluto, Neptune; or, theologically, the Father, the
Spirit, and the Son; but which we will call here
the Knower, the Doer, and the Sayer. These stand
respectively for the love of truth, for the love
of good, and for the love of beauty. These three
are equal. Each is that which he is essentially,
so that he cannot be surmounted or analyzed, and
each of these three has the power of the others
latent in him, and his own, patent.

The poet is the sayer, the namer, and represents
beauty. He is a sovereign, and stands on the centre.
For the world is not painted or adorned, but is from
the beginning beautiful; and God has not made some
beautiful things, but Beauty is the creator of the
universe. Therefore the poet is not any permissive
potentate, but is emperor in his own right. Criticism
is infested with a cant of materialism, which assumes
that manual skill and activity is the first merit of
all men, and disparages such as say and do not,
overlooking the fact that some men, namely poets, are
natural sayers, sent into the world to the end of
expression, and confounds them with those whose province
is action but who quit it to imitate the sayers. But
Homer's words are as costly and admirable to Homer as