A world haunted in this fashion has its sinister side, allied with the
decaying corpses deep in the earth. When passion has gone into the world
beyond that which eye hath seen and ear heard, it takes, in presence of
the thought of death, a double form. It is in love with death and yet it
hates death. So we come back to that singular sentence of Robert Louis
Stevenson's, "The beauty and the terror of the world," which so
adequately describes the double fascination of nature for man. Her spell
is both sweet and terrible, and we would not have it otherwise The
menace in summer's beauty, the frightful contrast between the laughing
earth and the waiting death, are all felt in the prolonged and deep
sense of gloom that broods over much of Fiona's work, and in the
second-sight which very weirdly breaks through from time to time,
forcing our entrance into the land from which we shrink.
Mr. Yeats is not without the same sinister and moving undergloom,
although, on the whole, he is aware of kindlier powers and of a timid
affection between men and spirits. He actually addresses a remonstrance
to Scotsmen for having soured the disposition of their ghosts and
fairies, and his reconstructions of the ancient fairyland are certainly
full of lightsome and pleasing passages.
Pages:
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132