ESSAY-REVIEW 443 



It is startling to reflect that if this hypothesis be sound, the 

 present devastating war was precipitated by the single Master 

 Cell — say one-five-hundredth of an inch in diameter — in the 

 brainpan of a single German paranoic ! But this is only a detail ; 

 and many lines, both here and in previous works, show how 

 much the author's art is strengthened by various science — the 

 grain of fact and the fibre of observation ; for at every turn, in 

 the midst of an ideal theme, he touches the concrete. High 

 poetry like a mountain must be based upon wide tracts of 

 solidity. " Humanities " which are not built upon science are 

 nothing but clouds. 



Though it be the sweetest string in life's harp, Beauty yet 

 remains a mystery to us. All that science can tell us is that 

 it seems to belong to the class of instincts which apprise us of 

 the beneficial — given to us by evolution to help us in rapid choice. 

 Thus personal and rural beauty might signal fertility, or at least 

 some kind of merit — formosa fades muta commendatio ; pleasant 

 tastes and odours, wholesomeness ; musical harmonies, family 

 and progenitiveness. But we do not yet always see quite clearly 

 with this light. There is the beauty of barren landscapes, even 

 of the desert ; the sunset on the mountain or the cloud is not 

 particularly good for us ; some forms of beauty, as of the sea , 

 are indeed terrible ; while the sublimest, as of the dawn and the 

 stars, seem divine because they are absolutely above us. 



Roses are beauty, but I never see 



Those blood drops from the burning heart of June. . . . 



And why are they beautiful — what are they to us ? Then, shall 

 we say that the red kine deep in the meadows do not know 

 Beauty ; or the swallows ; aye, or even the tiger, or the worm 

 in the mould ? These cells in my blood are not only beautiful 

 in themselves, but, I expect, feel beauty of some kind ; and this 

 foul parasite when dissected becomes a cosmos of beauty : 



Here in the flesh, within the flesh, behind, 

 Swift in the blood and throbbing on the bone, 

 Beauty herself, the universal mind, 

 Eternal April wandering alone. 



There is also the opposite of beauty, the Shadow — set forth 

 as in Sonnets 10 or 38. 



Regarding the artistry — most of the forty-eight pieces are 

 sonnets consisting of three separate alternately-rhymed quat- 



