ality of a great
writer. Only let us recollect that this personality manifests itself
outwardly in two separate forms, in conduct, and in literary production,
and that each of these manifestations is to be judged independently of
the other. If one of them is wholly censurable, the other may still be
the outcome of the better mind; and even from the purely biographical
aspect, it is a plain injustice to insist on identifying a character
with its worse expression only.

* * * * *

Poetry, and not only poetry, but every other channel of emotional
expression and aesthetic culture, confessedly moves with the general
march of the human mind, and art is only the transformation into ideal
and imaginative shapes of a predominant system and philosophy of life.
Minor verse-writers may fairly be consigned, without disrespect, to the
region of the literature of taste; and criticism of their work takes the
shape of a discussion of stray graces, of new turns, of little
variations of shade and colour, of their conformity to the accepted
rules that constitute the technique of poetry. The loftier masters,
though their technical power and originality, their beauty of form,
strength of flight, music and variousness of rhythm, are all full of
interest and instruction, yet, besides these precious gifts, come to us
with the size and quality of great historic forces, for they represent
the hope and energies, the dreams and the consummation, of the human
intelligence in its most enormous movements. To appreciate one of these,
we need to survey it on every side. For these we need synthetic
criticism, which, after analysis has done its work, and disclosed to us
the peculiar qualities of form, conception, and treatment, shall collect
the products of this first process, construct for us the poet's mental
figure in its integrity and just coherence, and then finally, as the sum
of its work, shall trace the relations of the poet's ideas, either
direct or indirect, through the central currents of thought, to the
visible tendencies of an existing age.

The greatest poets reflect beside all else the broad-bosomed haven of a
perfect and positive faith, in which mankind has for some space found
shelter, unsuspicious of the new and distant wayfarings that are ever in
store. To this band of sacred bards few are called, while perhaps not
more than four high names would fill the list of the chosen: Dante, the
poet of Catholici