A special and peculiar position Morris holds among his peers—on that we are all agreed; but what is that position? We must not talk too familiarly about the Olympian gods; but is it that, without being the greatest where all are great, Morris is the one who on all occasions produces pure poetry and nothing else? Without affirming that it is so, we may at least ask the question. If other poets of our time show more intellectual strength than he, are they, perchance, given sometimes to adulterating their poetry with ratiocination and didactic preachments such as were better left to the proseman? Without affirming that it is so, we may at least ask the question. If other poets of our time can reach a finer frenzy than he and give it voice with a more melodious throat, are they, perchance, apt to forget that “eloquence is heard while poetry is overheard”? Without affirming that it is so, we may at least ask the question. If others, again, are more picturesque than he (though these it might be difficult to find), are they, perchance, a little too self-conscious in their word-pictures, and are they, perchance, apt to pass into those flowery but uncertain ways that were first discovered by Euphues? Without affirming that it is so, we may at least ask the question. But supposing that we really had to affirm all these things about the other Olympians, where then would be the position of him about whose work such questions could not even be asked? Where would then be the place of him who never passes into ratiocination or rhetoric, never passes into excessive word-painting or into euphuism, never speaks so loud as to be heard rather than overheard, but, on the contrary, gives us always clear and simple pictures, and always in musical language? Where would then be the place of him who is the very ideal, if not of the poet as _vates_, yet of the poet as “maker”—the poet who always looks out upon life through a poetic atmosphere which, if sometimes more attenuated than suits some readers, is as simple and as clear as the air of a May morning? A question which would be variously answered according to the various temperaments of those who answer—of those who define poetry to be “making,” or those who define it to be “prophesying,” or those who define it to be “singing.”