Sublime

his story expressed one of the unappeasable longings of the human imagination: the idea of a perfected society in which the world’s lost innocence will be restored and the Golden Age before the Fall will return.

he is a poet in this real sense, that he has realised the meaning of every function he has performed.

He is in the clean and well-lit prison of one idea: he is sharpened to one painful point.

spoke not of changing the world, but of listening to one’s inner life.

unknown landscapes. Again and again a man full of years is merely the corroboration of the dreams of his youth. The sense of fancy growing out of the sense of fact—which makes all healthy personalities and gives a touch of romance and glory to all of life—first appears as the unrestrained imaginings of youth.

He was the voice in England of this humane intoxication and expansion, this encouraging of anybody to be anything. His best books are a carnival of liberty,

continue the slow, perpetual rebuilding of that inner structure which, in his view, it was the main purpose of life to rebuild.