Of Cadmus will I sing—
But my harp will be in tune with
A theme that makes love ring.
—Anacreon.
We have progressed with our subject up to a certain point, proceeding at all times from the external to the internal; from that which is without to that which is within. As we have done this, the parts have been placed in our hands: the mechanism and the scenic picture. The individual who unites these two parts into a coherent whole, and who breathes the breath of a full and pulsating world into these united parts, is the poet. The means are in his hand, just as hammer and chisel; the picture stands before his soul.
The longing of every artist is to fashion and give shape to a heaven and an earth; he longs to compress the whole of bubbling life into his picture. But the marble block gapes at him and says: “Of sound in me there is not a note. I am immovable. Colors do not radiate from me. Fashion me into a living picture! Give me form and life!”
It is even so with the moving picture. It has its own world, a narrow, hard, unwieldy world that is not unlike the heartless chunk of marble. Locked up in this world of the moving picture are the fates and visions which dream of the amiable artist who will some day chance to take them unto himself, and give them the life they feel is theirs by every right.
The poet of the motion picture! From his soul come forth the pictures—those that have never been seen, that are never to be seen. The divine grace of completing a work of his own is not given to him; he is given the torture associated with excavating confused and heterogenous visions from the mountain of desire. This is his part. Though the better, he does not choose it; it is assigned to him by virtue of the things that have been given him, and have not been given to other men.
The dramatist, the poet of the legitimate stage, has a final form at his immediate disposal—the word. This word rings out from the stage in unamended and unadulterated form, and is caught up, with gratitude, by the sympathetic friends in the pit, stalls, and boxes. He is rewarded with thanks—even though the thanks he receives come merely from hearts momentarily exuberant.
Those who make their living from the creative activity of the motion picture poet are famous people. They live in the very atmosphere of renown. Their names are household words. Their pictures are displayed in the plateglass show-windows of the cities.