Read the following passages and choose the correct answers for the questions given below:
The maxim that a poet is born and not made is only true in the sense that great poetical powers are there in the mind of the child and in this sense the same remark might be applied with no less truth to every species of human genius; philosophers, sculptors, painters, critics, orators, statesmen are all born and not made. But because poetical genius is rarer or at any rate wider and more lasting in its appeal than any other, the popular mind with its ready gift for seizing one aspect of truth out of many and crystallizing error into the form of a proverb, has exalted the poet into a splendid freak of nature exempt from the general law. If a man without the inborn oratorical fire may be trained into a good speaker or another without the master’s inspiration of form and colour without for himself a blameless technique, so to many a meagre talent become by diligence a machine for producing elegant verse. But poetic genius needs experience and self-discipline as much as any other and by its complexity more than most. This is eminently true of great poets with a varied gift.
Fill in the blank with suitable word:
It is …………… walking on ice.