Page:Men of Letters, Scott, 1916.djvu/230

204 —in the whole of The Everlasting Mercy you will not see a single phrase as approximate as these—and they are all taken from the opening passage. They are evidence of a vision relaxed. That power of prismatic focusing, upon which all his magic depends, seems to have deserted him drearily; and the loose, irresolute rhymes, the chatter-water, feet-defeat, life-is-this—mysteries, are all symptoms of the same numbness—the result of prostration before a hieratic symbol instead of an excited seizure of the profane, particular fact.

I am generalizing now myself, of course, for my space is almost done; but it isn't captious, hypercritical, to mark these laxities. It takes no cleverness to spot them—they are visible to everybody: the only danger is that they may be ascribed to the wrong cause. They might be put down to indifference—whereas it is just the reverse: it is deference, gravity: it is because Masefield has grown too particular that he has ceased to be particular. For this man's writing, to be powerful, must be metrical in the stricter sense: it must measure, enumerate, be exact; and it is possible that, in order to be numerical in that sense, it must avoid the noble numerousness of verse. It all depends on his ability to conquer this mesmerism, this awful sense of the sublimity of Art. Perhaps the true worshipper must always seem, and feel, profane: his eagerness filling him with a fire impatient of candles; perhaps we have all to put a bit of devil into our work before we can achieve the divine. But, at any rate, Masefield's key to infinity, I am certain, must always be strictly finite. He must cling to hard, determinate outlines if he is to rouse moods that outstrip calculation and emotions as insubstantial as desire. It is only with verses of an absolutely geometrical exactness that he can induce that condition of trance.