Robert Wilson Lynd Quotes

Keats, It Must Be Remembered, Was A Sensualist. His Poems ... Reveal Him As A Man Not Altogether Free From The Vulgarities Of Sensualism, As Well As One Who Was Able To Transmute It Into Perfect Literature.

It Is Doubtful If Even Experience Of Riches And Success Is As Intense Among Those Who Have Experienced Nothing Else As Among Those Who Have Also Experienced Poverty And Failure. There Is Little Romance In Wealth To Those Who Have Been Born Wealthy And Whose Families Have Been Wealthy For Generations.

There Are Travelers Who Fear To Own Delicate Hands More Than To Meet A Lion, And Soldiers Who Would Rather Lose A Limb Than Gain A Beautiful Nose By Artificial Methods.

The Last Spectacle Of Which Christian Men Are Likely To Grow Tired Is A Harbour. Centuries Hence There May Be Jumping-off Places For The Stars, And Our Children's Children's And So Forth Children May Regard A Ship As A Creeping Thing Scarcely More Adventurous Than A Worm. Meanwhile, Every Harbour Gives Us A Sense Of Being In Touch, If Not With The Ends Of The Universe, With The Ends Of The Earth.

The Lovers Of Beauty Must Unite In A League, And Carry Out Some Great Propagandist Work Through The Country. They Must Demand The Extermination Of The Bulldog And The Dismantling Of The Cheap Villa, Both Of Which Are Responsible For A Deal Of Our Contentment Amid Ugliness.

Swinburne Was An Absurd Character. He Was A Bird Of Showy Strut And Plumage. One Could Not But Admire His Glorious Feathers; But, As Soon As He Began To Moult ... One Saw How Very Little Body There Was Underneath.

This Is Woman's Great Benevolence, That She Will Become A Martyr For Beauty, So That The World May Have Pleasure.

W. B. Yeats Has Created, If Not A New World, A New Star. He Is Not A Reporter Of Life As It Is, To The Extent That Shakespeare Or Browning Is. One Is Not Quite Certain That His Kingdom Is Of The Green Earth. He Is Like A Man Who Has Seen The Earth Not Directly But In A Crystal.

With Wordsworth, Indeed, The Light Of Revelation Did Not Fall Upon Human Beings So Unbrokenly As Upon The Face Of The Earth. He Knew The Birds Of The Countryside Better Than The Old Men, And The Flowers Far Better Than The Children.

Jane Austen Has Often Been Praised As A Natural Historian. She Is A Naturalist Among Tame Animals. She Does Not Study Men (as Dostoevsky Does) In His Wild State Before He Has Been Domesticated. Her Men And Women Are Essentially Men And Women Of The Fireside.

It Is The Custom When Praising A Russian Writer To Do So At The Expense Of All Other Russian Writers.

On The Whole, However, The Critic Is Far Less Of A Professional Faultfinder Than Is Sometimes Imagined. He Is First Of All A Virtue-finder, A Singer Of Praise. He Is Not Concerned With Getting Rid Of Dross Except In So Far As It Hides The Gold. In Other Words, The Destructive Side Of Criticism Is Purely A Subsidiary Affair. None Of The Best Critics Have Been Men Of Destructive Minds. They Are Like Gardeners Whose Business Is More With The Flowers Than With The Weeds.