ABSTRACT
The creative gift of Mr. Morris, his distinctive power of imagination, cannot be defined or appreciated by any such test ofcritical comparison as is applicable to the work of any other man. He is himself alone, and so absolutely that his work can no more be likened to any medieval than to any contemporary kinsman's. In his love ofa story for a story's sake he is akin to Chaucer and the French precursors ofChaucer: but if he has not much of Chaucer's realistic humour and artistic power of condensation and composition, he has a gift of invention as far beyond Chaucer's as the scope ofa story like The TVell at the World's End is beyond the range ofsuch briefromances as 'AmisandAmile' or'Aucassin and Nicolette.' Readers and lovers (the terms should here be synonymons] of his former tales or poems in prose will expect to find in this masterpiece-s-for a perfect and unique masterpiece it is-something that will remind themlessof'Child Christopher' than ofThe WoodBeyondthe lVorld: the mere likeness in the titles would suggest so much: and this I think they will not fail to find: but I anI yet more certain that the quality of this work is even finer and stronger than that of either. The interest, for those who bring with them to the reading of a work of imagination any auxiliary or sympathetic imagination of their own, is deeper and more vivid as well as more various: but the crowning test and triumph of the author's genius will be recognised in the all but unique power of touching with natural pathos the alien element of magical or supernatural fiction. Coleridge could do this: who else till now has done it? And when we venture to bring in the unapproachable name of Coleridge, we are venturing to cite the example of the most imaginative, the most essentially poetic, among all poets of all nations and all time.
