' Neither had he
in him an atom of the narrowness of the straiter sect.
Though space forbids, we will follow out his progress to the last. We do
not receive many such gifts as this book; the authentic voice of those
lost legions is seldom heard. We can afford, surely, to listen to it to
the end. In November, 1914, Sorley turns back to the Hardy of the poems.
After rejecting 'the actual "Satires of Circumstance"' as bad poetry,
and passing an incisive criticism on 'Men who March away,' he
continues:--
'I cannot help thinking that Hardy is the greatest artist of the
English character since Shakespeare; and much of _The Dynasts_
(except its historical fidelity) might be Shakespeare. But I value
his lyrics as presenting himself (the self he does not obtrude into
the comprehensiveness of his novels and _The Dynasts_) as truly, and
with faults as well as strength visible in it, as any character in
his novels. His lyrics have not the spontaneity of Shakespeare's or
Shelley's; they are rough-hewn and jagged: but I like them and they
stick.
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