"I spend part of my day with Francis Thompson, who is a delightful companion, full of the best talk."
With the reading of _Religio Poetæ_ and the little book of St. Bernard translations, Francis discovers their author to be "deeply perceptive of the Scriptures' symbolic meanings, scouted by moderns; and his instant intuitional use of the symbolic imagery gives his work the quality of substantial poetry. In proportion to the height of their sanctity the Saints are inevitable poets. Sanctity is essential song." These essays moved Francis to the rare point of letter-writing:--
"THE MONASTERY, PANTASAPH, _June 15, '93_.
"DEAR SIR,--The esoteric essays--which I naturally turned to first--could only have come from the writer of _The Unknown Eros_. One alone I have gracelessness--not to dispute--but to wish to extend. It is that on the 'Precursor,' where I quite admit the interpretation, but am inclined to stickle for an interpretation which would cover and include your own. Against one reprehensible habit of yours, however, revealed in this book, I feel forced to utter a protest. In a fragment of a projected article, which has remained a fragment, I had written of 'poets born with an instinctive sense of veritable correspondences hidden from the multitude.' Then I went on thus: 'In this, too, lies real distinction and fancy. Leigh Hunt, interpreting Coleridge as shallowly as Charmian interpreted the Soothsayer, said that fancy detected outward analogies, but imagination inward ones. The truth is that inward resemblance may be as superficial as outward resemblance; and it is then the product of fancy, or fantasy. When the resemblance is more than a resemblance, when it is rooted in the hidden nature of things, its discernment is the product of imagination. This is the real distinction: fancy detects resemblances, imagination identities.' Now if you will return to your own _Religio Poetæ,_ you will see of what I accuse you. Masters have privileges, I admit, but I draw the line at looking over their pupils' shoulders various odd leagues away.
"To be serious; your little book stands by a stream of current literature like Cleopatra's Needle by the dirt-eating Thames.
"I fear, alas! it will not receive the mysterious hieroglyph of the British Artisan. I remain, yours sincerely,