"
His style and choice of words are an achievement in themselves, as
distinctive as those of Thomas Carlyle. They, and the attitude of mind
with which they are congruous, have already set a fashion in our poetry,
and some of its results are excellent. In _Rose and Vine_, and in other
poems of Mrs. Rachel Annand Taylor, we have the same blend of power and
beauty, the same wildness in the use of words, and the same languor and
strangeness as if we had entered some foreign and wonderfully coloured
world. In _Ignatius_ the style and diction are quite simple, ordinary,
and straightforward, but that biography is decidedly the least effective
of his works. It would seem that here as elsewhere among really great
writings the style is the natural and necessary expression of the
individual mind and imagination. The _Life of Shelley_, which is
certainly one of the masterpieces of English prose, has found for its
expression a style quite unique and distinctive, in which there are
constant reminders of other stylists, yet no imitation of any. The
poetry is drugged, and as we read his poems through in the order of
their publication, we feel the power of the poppy more and more.
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