His writings are few,
comprising three short books of poetry, his prose _Essay on Shelley_,
and a _Life of St. Ignatius_, which is full of interest and almost
overloaded with information, but which may be discounted from the list
of his permanent contributions to literature or to thought. Yet that
small output is enough to establish him among the supreme poets of our
land.
Apart from its poetic power and spiritual vision, his was an acute and
vivid mind. On things political and social he could express himself in
little casual flashes whose shrewd and trenchant incisiveness challenge
comparison with Mr. Chesterton's own asides. His acquaintance with
science seems to have been extensive, and at times he surprises us with
allusions and metaphors of an unusually technical kind, which he somehow
renders intelligible even to the non-scientific reader. These are doubly
illuminative, casting spiritual light on the material world, and
strengthening with material fact the tenuous thoughts of the spiritual.
The words which he used of Shelley are, in this respect, applicable to
himself. "To Shelley's ethereal vision the most rarefied mental or
spiritual music traced its beautiful corresponding forms on the sand of
outward things.
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