Wells
and Mr. Shaw. These appear to be outside of all such distinctions as
pagan and idealist; but their influence is strongly on the pagan side.
Mr. Chesterton appears, with his quest of human nature, and he finds it
not on earth but in heaven. He is the David of Christian faith, come to
fight against the heretic Goliaths of his day; and, so far as his style
and literary manner go, he continues the ancient role, smiting Goliath
with his own sword.
Francis Thompson's _Hound of Heaven_ is for many reasons a fitting close
and climax to these studies. He is as much akin to Shelley and Swinburne
as Mr. Chesterton is akin to Mr. Bernard Shaw. From them he has gathered
not a little of his style and diction. He is with them, too, in his
passionate love of beauty, without which no idealist can possibly be a
fair judge of paganism. "With many," he tells us in that _Essay on
Shelley_ which Mr. Wyndham pronounces the most important contribution to
English letters during the last twenty years--"with many the religion of
beauty must always be a passion and a power, and it is only evil when
divorced from the worship of the Primal Beauty.
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