re, as a rule, without mysticism and constantly without that
ecstasy which makes Southwell, Crashaw, and the greatest of all the
mystical poets writing in English, Francis Thompson, so satisfactory.

Wordsworth may have been transcendental, as Emerson certainly was, but
in different ways they made their search for the Absolute, and the
search, especially in Wordsworth's case, was fervent. Neither had the
splendours, the ecstasies of that love that casteth out fear, the almost
fierce and violent fervour of desire, reflected from the Apocalypse of
Saint John and the poems of Saint Teresa and of Saint John of the Cross,
which we find in Francis Thompson. In this respect, all modern poets
pale before him. He sees life as a glory as Baudelaire saw it as a
corpse. After a reading of "The Hound of Heaven," with its glorious
colour, its glow, its flame, all other modern poets seem to me to be a
pale mauve by comparison to its flaming gold and crimson.

To many of my friends who love modern poets each in his degree, this
seems unreasonable and even incomprehensible; but to me it is very real;
and all literature which assumes to treat our lives as if Christianity
did not exist lacks that satisfactory quality which one finds in Dante,
in Calderon, in Sir Thomas More, and in Shakespeare. It is possible that
the prevalence of doubt in modern poetry is the cause of its lack of
gaiety. There is a modern belief that gaiety went out of fashion when
Pan died or disappeared into hidden haunts. This is not true. The Greeks
were gay at times and joyous at times, but if their philosophers
represent them, joyousness and gaiety were not essential points of their
lives.

The highest cultivation of its time could not save Athens from
despondency and destruction, and when the leaders in the city of Rome
came to believe so little in life that only the proletariat had
children, it was evident that their very tolerant system of adopting any
god that pleased them did not add to the joy of life. The poet, then,
who misunderstands the paganism of the Greeks, who does not desire to be
united to an absolute Perfection, who is sad by profession, cannot be,
according to my canons, a true poet. I speak, not as a critic, but as a
man who loves only the poetry that appeals to him.

CHAPTER III

CERTAIN NOVELISTS

My friendship with Thackeray and Dickens was an evolution rather than a
discovery. Once having read "Vanity Fair" or "Nicholas Nickleb