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 sphere with which it surrounds them is bleak and grey;" but the air is higher and purer, the ground firmer, the view clearer; we have a surer foothold on these cold hills of thought than in the moist fragrance of warmer air which steeps the meadows and marshes of sentiment and tradition.

Thin, thin the pleasant human noises grow, And faint the city gleams; Rare the lone pastoral huts; marvel not thou! The solemn peaks but to the stars are known, But to the stars, and the cold lunar beams; Alone the sun arises, and alone Spring the great streams,"

These noble verses of another poem clipped from Mr. Arnold's first book, and left hanging in fragments about one's memory—I here make my protest against its excision —may serve as types of the later, the more immediate and elaborate discourse of thought here embodied and attired in words of stately and simple harmony. It is no small or common comfort, after all the delicate and ingenious shuffling of other English poets about the edge of deep things, to come upon one who speaks with so large and clear and calm an utterance; who begins at the taproot and wellspring of the matter, leaving others to wade ankle-deep in still waters and weave river-flags or lake-lilies in lieu of stemming the stream. Nothing in verse or out of verse is more wearisome than the delivery of reluctant doubt, of half-hearted hope and half