ing, being, in a way, the inverted torch of Hope, which burns the
hand it should guide; and for many things a little sadness, and for all
things a great love; and lastly, in the pinewood by the sea, once more
the quick and vital pulse of joyous youth leaping and laughing in every
line, the frank and fearless freedom of wave and wind waking into fire
life's burnt-out ashes and into song the silent lips of pain,--how
clearly one seems to see it all, the long colonnade of pines with sea and
sky peeping in here and there like a flitting of silver; the open place
in the green, deep heart of the wood with the little moss-grown altar to
the old Italian god in it; and the flowers all about, cyclamen in the
shadowy places, and the stars of the white narcissus lying like
snow-flakes over the grass, where the quick, bright-eyed lizard starts by
the stone, and the snake lies coiled lazily in the sun on the hot sand,
and overhead the gossamer floats from the branches like thin, tremulous
threads of gold,--the scene is so perfect for its motive, for surely
here, if anywhere, the real gladness of life might be revealed to one's
youth--the gladness that comes, not from the rejection, but from the
absorption, of all passion, and is like that serene calm that dwells in
the faces of the Greek statues, and which despair and sorrow cannot
touch, but intensify only.

In some such way as this we could gather up these strewn and scattered
petals of song into one perfect rose of life, and yet, perhaps, in so
doing, we might be missing the true quality of the poems; one's real life
is so often the life that one does not lead; and beautiful poems, like
threads of beautiful silks, may be woven into many patterns and to suit
many designs, all wonderful and all different: and romantic poetry, too,
is essentially the poetry of impressions, being like that latest school
of painting, the school of Whistler and Albert Moore, in its choice of
situation as opposed to subject; in its dealing with the exceptions
rather than with the types of life; in its brief intensity; in what one
might call its fiery-coloured momentariness, it being indeed the
momentary situations of life, the momentary aspects of nature, which
poetry and painting now seek to render for us. Sincerity and constancy
will the artist, indeed, have always; but sincerity in art is merely that
plastic perfection of execution without which a poem or a painting,
however noble its sentiment or hum