Our writer observes very acutely that prose is usually thought greatest when it is nearest poetry, and he properly dissents from this common opinion. Prose, we should say, can only be great as it differs from poetry, and the greatest prose is furthest away from poetry. And the difference, we are told, is the difference between love and justice. The cardinal virtue of poetry, he says, is love, while the cardinal virtue of prose is justice. May we not rather say that the difference is one of plane of consciousness, prose being at the highest level of the rational mind, and poetry at the highest level of the spiritual mind? Yes, but then, in all probability, _The Times_ would regard us as fanciful, for note, anything _exact_ about spiritual things is likely to be dismissed by the _Literary Supplement_ as fanciful and dangerous. Again, “prose is the achievement of civilisation”; in other words, it is the norm of social life. True, but let me add that it is the register of Culture, marking the degree to which Culture has affected its surrounding civilisation. Prose without poetry is impossible, and the greatest prose presupposes the culture of the greatest poetry, for the “justice” of prose is only the “love” of poetry _with seeing eyes_. Finally, we must agree with our essayist when he quotes with approval the excellent observation of Mr. Sturge Moore that “simplicity _may_ be a form of decadence.” Simplicity is a sign of decadence when it sacrifices profundity of thought to simplicity of expression—as in the classical case of Voltaire, who positively dared not think deeply lest he should be unable to write clearly, clarity of expression being more to him (and often to the French genius generally) than depth of thought. And writers like Mr. Clutton Brock are just as certainly symptoms of the decadence of simplicity in our own time and place. On the other hand, I still dream of a profound simplicity, the style of which is transparent over depths; and in this, if no English writer has ever been a master, Lao Tse is the world’s model, at least in fragments. We must learn to distinguish between a puerile and a virile simplicity, between innocence and virtue; and perhaps the first exercise in such judgment should be to put the _Literary Supplement_ in its proper place.