He of whom we speak achieved this art of subtle discrimination, a gift which is shared by dumb and learned connoisseurs; but above this rise a few, who can not only by a trained instinct recognise what is perfect, but who can express their methods and powers so that canons and standards can be formed. Then to but one or two in a generation is given a further gift: the creative, the poetical power to express in language of high and haunting beauty the deepest mysteries of art; who can not only praise in noble and inspiring terms the beautiful thing, the exquisite work, the flashing thought, but can disentangle the very essence of the secret, establish remote and subtle connections, and open, if only for one glorious instant, a door into the inner shrine, showing a vision of awful angels, bent on high service, interpreting the loud crying of mysterious voices, echoing the rising strain that fills the golden-roofed palace, and giving perhaps an awe-struck glimpse of the presence that sits enthroned there. But not always on these august heights does the haunted spirit dwell. There is a spell unknown to those who live the eager life of affairs, who dwell in crowded cities, or who carry the busy, scheming mind abroad with them into lonelier places; the spell that broods over the wooded valley with its hazel-hidden stream, where the bird sings among the thickets; the spell that lies behind the dark tree-trunks of the grove that bar the smouldering sunset with shafts of shade; that trembles in the green twilight when the stars begin to glimmer, and the winds are hushed. This too, and its appeal to the heart of man, the tinge that it lends to his dreams, the passionate desire to record, to represent, to give permanence of form, to the hurrying moment—all this needs to be interpreted as well. But here, to the true prophet of these mysteries, the thought that must be caught and touched and given shape, is not so much the mystery itself—for that is dark and not to be apprehended—but the thrill which such visions have communicated to the hearts of other pilgrims, who have fared eagerly and sadly through the world before us, and have passed into the darkness, just leaving, in written signs and pictured symbols, the traces of the passion, the desire, the yearning, that such things have brought them. Such a task as this—this piecing together of personality, this testing of recorded impressions, this imbuing of ancient, half-faded dreams with the sanguine vitality, the eager hope, of to-day, needs one who is not less a poet than a critic. The dreamer that comes thus must not be absorbed in his own fruitful visions, but must be able, by an energy of sympathy, a lucid purity of soul, to enter no less eagerly into the dim and far-reaching visions of other inspired spirits. INDEX A Ainslie, Mr. Douglas, 21, 136, 185. America, one of Olney Paters emigrate to, 1. _Amiel’s Journal_ (trans. Mrs. H. Ward), 199–200.