often seems to be roused into speech, rather by the intensity of his
spiritual convictions than by the subtle incitements of poetic
sensibility. His convictions caught fire, and truth became beauty for
him; not beauty, truth, as with Keats or Shelley. He is swayed by ideas,
rather than by sublime moods. Beneath the endless variety of his poems,
there are permanent principles, or "colligating conceptions," as science
calls them; and although these are expressed by the way of emotion, they
are held by him with all the resources of his reason.

His work, though intuitive and perceptive as to form, "gaining God by
first leap" as all true art must do, leaves the impression, when
regarded as a whole, of an articulated system. It is a view of man's
life and destiny that can be maintained, not only during the impassioned
moods of poetry, but in the very presence of criticism and doubt. His
faith, like Pompilia's, is held fast "despite the plucking fiend." He
has given to us something more than intuitive glimpses into, the
mysteries of man's character. Throughout his life he held up the steady
light of an optimistic conception of the world, and by its means
injected new vigour into English ethical thought. In his case,
therefore, it is not an immaterial question, but one almost forced upon
us, whether we are to take his ethical doctrine and inspiring optimism
as valid truths, or to regard them merely as subjective opinions held by
a religious poet. Are they creations of a powerful imagination, and
nothing more? Do they give to the hopes and aspirations that rise so
irrepressibly in the heart of man anything better than an appearance of
validity, which will prove illusory the moment the cold light of
critical inquiry is turned upon them?

It is to this unity of his work that I would attribute, in the main, the
impressiveness of his deliverances on morality and religion. And this