26 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



themselves in the hall of fame of imaginative prose. In one respect, 

 however, the modern product is, perhaps, not inferior, for it does keep 

 a shade more closely in touch with our human hopes and needs. From 

 the master's banquet one rises amidst the fumes of the strong wine of 

 almost demoniacal possession, such as Plato himself describes in his 

 doctrine of enthusiasm, stimulating, exhilarating, sweeping us to the 

 skies of fancy. At the disciple's feast is still strong wine; but it is the 

 wine of helpful, aspiring reason, glorifying and uphfting, preparing us 

 to face "without excitement or elation the duties of the new day." 



It would be easy to select the writers who have influenced Mr. Dickin- 

 son most, but it must suffice to recall that his reading represents the 

 curriculum of a Fellow of a Cambridge college with a cultured taste for 

 literature and philosophy. We must point out, however, that the Greek 

 classics have occupied the fundamental position in molding his style and 

 thought, and we regard it as a thrice happy accident that we were intro- 

 duced to him through his Greek View oj Lije,^ for it is the natural portal. 

 With modem literature he is only less famihar; and American readers 

 will even find manifest traces of Walt Whitman. In every case, however, 

 the traceable influence is entirely free from any suggestion of plagiarism, 

 and we have no mere collection of jewels, but a new and finished product. 

 Even the metrical quotations inspire the feeling that they should have 

 been written for exactly the place they occupy. Over all of his writing 

 is shed just enough of the poeticus color to make his style charming as 

 well as effective. Indeed, for those of us who see in English prose one 

 of the highest forms of art — all the more important because it can ulti- 

 mately be made to appeal to a practically unlimited constituency — ^Mr. 

 Dickinson at his best fulfils Sainte-Beuve's critical demand upon poetry — 

 il fait battre le cceur. 



• Reviewed by the present writer under the caption, "The Old Untroubled Pagan World," in The Dia 

 at March i6, igo6. 



