On returning to my inn, I could not but reflect on the singular gift of the poet; to be able thus to spread the magic of his mind over the very face of nature; to give to things and places a charm and character not their own, and to turn this “working-day world” into a perfect fairy land. He is indeed the true enchanter, whose spell operates, not upon the senses, but upon the imagination and the heart. . . . I had surveyed the landscape through the prism of poetry, which tinged every object with the hues of the rainbow.

Washington Irving, “Stratford-on-Avon”