ABSTRACT
I fear Mat’s last book has made no impression on the public mind. I’m not much in the way of hearing but I’ve seen no one, except a few Oxford Rugbeans who have even read it. It does not much astonish me, for though I think there’s great power in it, one regrets to see so much power thrown away upon so false and uninteresting (too) a view of life. Since you have gone from England, it’s well you’ve gone to a hearty fresh young people, rather than into the ‘blank dejection of European Capitols’. Anything that so takes the life from out things must be false. It’s this I like about your things that though in theory you maintain the contrary, yet in fact the ‘great human heart’ will out and you can’t hinder it: Stick to this. Mat, as I told him, disowns man’s natural feelings, and they will disown his poetry. If there’s nothing else in the world but blank dejection, it’s not worth while setting them to music.
