' That is the mystical utterance of a man
who was no mystic, but of one who found his full communion in the
beatific _dolce far niente_ of the Lake of Bienne. Jean-Jacques was set
apart from his generation, because, like Malvolio, he thought highly of
the soul and in nowise approved the conclusions of his fellows; and he
was fortunate to the last, in spite of what some are pleased to call his
madness (which was indeed only his flaming and uncomprehending
indignation at the persecution inevitably meted out by those who have
only a half truth to one who has the whole), because he enjoyed the
certainty that his high appraisement of the soul was justified.
[MARCH, 1918.
_The Poetry of Edward Thomas_
We believe that when we are old and we turn back to look among the ruins
with which our memory will be strewn for the evidence of life which
disaster could not kill, we shall find it in the poems of Edward
Thomas.[2] They will appear like the faint, indelible writing of a
palimpsest over which in our hours of exaltation and bitterness more
resonant, yet less enduring, words were inscribed; or they will be like
a phial discovered in the ashes of what was once a mighty city.
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