Page:The Poet's Chantry pg 172.jpg

172 Only we, the losers, would quarrel now and again with this perfect abstinence—would drink oftener, if that might be, from a spring of such diamond clearness, of such depth and healing. The fields of modern literature had been more flowery for such nourishment! In all truth, modern thought must needs bear both blossom and fruit because of its shy visits. For Alice Meynell has been very potent in her reserves. She has borne the pennant of the Ideal, with never a dip of the banner, over many a causeway, up many a battle-mented height. She has, by many and by One, been found faithful. Scarcely shall we find a more adequate praise for this English writer than her own praise of the Spanish Velasquez—that she has "kept the chastity of art when other masters were content with its honesty."

THE END