The Days On Which One Has Been

When One Has Praised Turgenev, However, For The Beauty Of His Character And The Beautiful Truth Of His Art, One Remembers That He, Too, Was Human And Therefore Less Than Perfect. His Chief Failing Was, Perhaps, That Of All The Great Artists, He Was The Most Lacking In Exuberance. That Is Why He Began To Be Scorned In A World Which Rated Exuberance Higher Than Beauty Or Love Or Pity.

W. B. Yeats Has Created, If Not A New World, A New Star. He Is Not A Reporter Of Life As It Is, To The Extent That Shakespeare Or Browning Is. One Is Not Quite Certain That His Kingdom Is Of The Green Earth. He Is Like A Man Who Has Seen The Earth Not Directly But In A Crystal.

It May Be That All Games Are Silly. But Then, So Are Humans.

On The Whole, However, The Critic Is Far Less Of A Professional Faultfinder Than Is Sometimes Imagined. He Is First Of All A Virtue-finder, A Singer Of Praise. He Is Not Concerned With Getting Rid Of Dross Except In So Far As It Hides The Gold. In Other Words, The Destructive Side Of Criticism Is Purely A Subsidiary Affair. None Of The Best Critics Have Been Men Of Destructive Minds. They Are Like Gardeners Whose Business Is More With The Flowers Than With The Weeds.

Mystery Lies Over The Sea. Every Ship Is Bound For Thule.