Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/368

 352 CRITICAL STUDIES planned and carried out ; for though twenty-two years have elapsed since this volume was written, we believe no more such Improvisations have been published by him : — "Then Old Age and Experience, hand in hand, Lead him to Death ; and make him understand, After a search so painful and so long. That all his life he has been in the wrong." But in however deplorable a condition of serfdom to another and of self-illusion or self-delusion, a man of the vast acquirements, the severe scientific training, the luminous intellect, the magnificent genius, the noble moral and spiritual nature and experience of Garth Wilkinson, could not write a worthless volume ; planned he ever so subtly to stultify himself, it was certain to contain much characteristic truth and beauty. Passing over the pieces inspired, if inspired at all, by Blake's evil and malignant " Accuser," and stanzas wherein the stress of precipitance has driven him to catch at the most grotesque rhymes and phrases (though much less frequently than was to be expected) ; for it is not wholesome to dwell on the defects of a truly good and great man, save in so far as they may be noted for the benefit of others ; let us consider some of his most simple and spontaneous and quotable poems, I say quotable, because many worth citation are too long ; headlong haste running into difTuseness as it nearly always does, deep and concentrated writing being slow and painful. In quoting I adhere strictly to the rather peculiar punc- tuation of the original.