purely artistic effect, cannot be described in terms of
intellectual criticism; it is too intangible for that. One can
perhaps convey it best in terms of the other arts, and by reference
to them; and, indeed, some of these poems are as iridescent and as
exquisite as a lovely fragment of Venetian glass; others as
delicate in perfect workmanship and as single in natural motive as
an etching by Whistler is, or one of those beautiful little Greek
figures which in the olive woods round Tanagra men can still find,
with the faint gilding and the fading crimson not yet fled from
hair and lips and raiment; and many of them seem like one of
Corot's twilights just passing into music; for not merely in
visible colour, but in sentiment also--which is the colour of
poetry--may there be a kind of tone.

But I think that the best likeness to the quality of this young
poet's work I ever saw was in the landscape by the Loire. We were
staying once, he and I, at Amboise, that little village with its
grey slate roofs and steep streets and gaunt, grim gateway, where
the quiet cottages nestle like white pigeons into the sombre clefts
of the great bastioned rock, and the stately Renaissance houses
stand silent and apart--very desolate now, but with some memory of
the old days still lingering about the delicately-twisted pillars,
and the carved doorways, with their grotesque animals, and laughing
masks, and quaint heraldic devices, all reminding one of a people
who could not think life real till they had made it fantastic. And
above the village, and beyond the bend of the river, we used to go
in the afternoon, and sketch from one of the big barges that bring
the wine in autumn and the wood in winter down to the sea, or lie
in the long grass and make plans pour la gloire, et pour ennuyer
les Philistins, or wander along the low, sedgy banks, "matching our