The other day we heard someone smilingly refer to poets as dreamers. Now, it is accurate to refer to poet as dreamers, but it is not discerning to infer, as this person did, that the dreams of poets have no practical value beyond the realm of literary diversion. The truth is that poets are just as practical as people who build bridges or look into microscopes ; and just as close to reality and truth. Where they differ from the logician and the scientist is in the temporal sense alone ; they are ahead of their time, whereas the logicians and scientists are abreast of their time. We must not be so superficial that we fail to discern the practicableness of dreams. Dreams are the sunrise streamers heralding a new day of scientific progress, another forward surge. Every forward step man takes in any field of life, is first taken along the dreamy paths of imagination. Robert Fulton did not discover his steamboat with full steam up, straining at a hawser at some Hudson River dock; first a dreamed the steamboat, he and other dreamers, and then scientific wisdom converted a picture in the mind into a reality of steel and wood. The automobile was not dug out of the ground like a nugget of gold ; first men dreamed the automobile and afterward, long afterward, the practical-minded engineers caught up with what had been created by winging fantasy. He who looks deeply with a seeing eye into the poetry of yesterday finds there all the cold scientific magic of today and much which we shall not enjoy until some tomorrow. If the poet does not dream so clearly that blueprints of this vision can immediately be drawn and the practical conversions immediately effected, he must not for that reason be smiled upon as merely the mental host for a sort of harmless madness. For the poet, like the engineer, is a specialist. His being, tuned to the life of tomorrow, cannot be turned simultaneously to the life of today. To the scientist he says, “Here, I give you a flash of the future.” The wise scientist thanks him, and takes that flash of the future and makes it over into a fibre of today. Questions Is a poet a practical man? In what sense? Are dreams useful to the world? Why?
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An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument — but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have traditionally been sub-classified as formal and informal. Formal essays are characterized by "serious purpose, dignity, logical organization, length," whereas the informal essay is characterized by "the personal element (self-revelation, individual tastes and experiences, confidential manner), humor, graceful style, rambling structure, unconventionality or novelty of theme," etc.[1]
Essays are commonly used as literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. Almost all modern essays are written in prose, but works in verse have been dubbed essays (e.g., Alexander Pope's An Essay on Criticism and An Essay on Man). While brevity usually defines an essay, voluminous works like John Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Thomas Malthus's An Essay on the Principle of Population are counterexamples.
In some countries (e.g., the United States and Canada), essays have become a major part of formal education. Secondary students are taught structured essay formats to improve their writing skills; admission essays are often used by universities in selecting applicants, and in the humanities and social sciences essays are often used as a way of assessing the performance of students during final exams.
The concept of an "essay" has been extended to other media beyond writing. A film essay is a movie that often incorporates documentary filmmaking styles and focuses more on the evolution of a theme or idea. A photographic essay covers a topic with a linked series of photographs that may have accompanying text or captions.
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What proveked the writer's writing this piece?