thoughts. Homer (he replied to an inquirer) and Epictetus (of mood
congenial with his own) were props of his mind, as were Sophocles,
"who saw life steadily and saw it whole," and Marcus Aurelius, whom he
called the purest of men. These like natures afforded him repose and
consolation. Greek epic and dramatic poetry and Greek philosophy
appealed profoundly to him. Of the Greek poets he wrote: "No other
poets have lived so much by the imaginative reason; no other poets
have made their works so well balanced; no other poets have so well
satisfied the thinking power; have so well satisfied the religious
sense." More than any other English poet he prized the qualities of
measure, proportion, and restraint; and to him lucidity, austerity,
and high seriousness, conspicuous elements of classic verse, were the
substance of true poetry. In explaining his own position as to his
art, he says: "In the sincere endeavor to learn and practise, amid the
bewildering confusion of our times, what is sound and true in poetic
art, I seem, to myself to find the only sure guidance, the only solid
footing, among the ancients. They, at any rate, knew what they wanted
in Art, and we do not. It is this uncertainty which is disheartening,
and not hostile criticism." And again: "The radical difference between
the poetic theory of the Greeks and our own is this: that with them,
the poetical character of the action in itself, and the conduct of it,
was the first consideration; with us, attention is fixed mainly on the
value of separate thoughts and images which occur in the treatment of
an action. They regard the whole; we regard the parts. We have poems
which seem to exist merely for the sake of single lines and passages,
and not for the sake of producing any total impression. We have
critics who seem to direct their attention merely to detached
expressions, to the language about the action, not the action itself.
I verily believe that the majority of them do not believe that there
is such a thing as a total impression to be derived from a poem at