industrial towns; Galsworthy's novels present the
problems that affect the upper class of Englishmen; Wells writes
scientific romances and sociological novels.

Some of the best poetry, full of the fascination of a dreamy far-off
world, has been written by the Celtic poets, Yeats, Russell, and Fiona
Macleod. Masefield and Gibson have produced much realistic verse about
the life of the common toiler. Noyes has written _Drake_, a romantic
epic, and a large amount of graceful lyrical verse, in some of which
there is much poetic beauty.

The most distinctive work of recent times has been in the field of the
drama. Pinero has improved its technique; Shaw has given it remarkable
conversational brilliancy; Barrie has brought to it fancy and humor
and sweetness; Galsworthy has used it to present social problems;
Phillips has tried to restore to it the Elizabethan poetic spirit. The
Celtic dramatists form a separate school. Lady Gregory, Yeats, and
Synge have all written plays based on Irish life, folklore, or
mythology. The plays of Synge, the greatest member of the group,
reveal the universal primitive emotions of human beings.

CONCLUSION

Three distinctive moral influences in English literature specially
impress us,--the call to strenuous manhood:--

"...this thing is God,
To be man with thy might,"

the increasing sympathy with all earth's children:--

"Ye blessed creatures, I have heard the call,
Ye to each other make,"

and the persistent expression of Anglo-Saxon faith. As we pause in our
study, we may hear in the twentieth-century song of Alfred Noyes, the
echo of the music from the loom of the Infinite Weaver:--

"Under the breath of laughter, deep in the tide of tears,
I hear the loom of the Weaver that weaves the Web of Years."[18]

REFERENCE FOR FURTHER STUDY

Kennedy's _English Literature_, 1880-1895 (Shaw, Wells, Fiona Macleod,
Yeats).

Kelman's _Mr. Chesterton's Point of View_ (in _Among Famous Books_).

Cooper's _Some English Story Tellers_.

Conrad's _A Personal Record_.

Phelps's _Essays on Modern Novelists_ (De Morgan).

Yeats's _Celtic Twilight_.

Figgis's _Studies and Appreciations_ (_Mr. W.B. Yeats's Poetry_. _The
Art of J.M. Synge_.)

More's _Drift of Romanticism_ (Fiona Macleod).

Borsa's _The English Stage of To-day_.

Jones's (Henry Arthur) _The Foundation of a National Drama: A
Collection of Essays, Lectures, and Speeches, Delivered and Written in
the