Page:Tower of Ivory.djvu/12

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viii
Foreword

reliance upon positivist science to the exclusion of the visioned aesthetic gospel proclaimed by Helen. There are, of course, other ideas in the volume, such as the subtle qualitative definition in "An Eternity," the curious problem of remembered inspiration in "Echo," and the different reactions in the war poems; but on the whole his title, "Tower of Ivory," adequately represents his predominating idealistic conception, that against all the assaults of arid rationalism and crass materialism, against all the riddles of endless speculation and brutal experience, there is an impregnable tower of refuge into which man may enter, in the spirit, and find there the true values and eternal verities which alone can make him victorious over the world. So much for the content of his work: his command of the beauty of poetic form may be left to speak for itself.

Lawrence Mason.

September 12, 1917.
New Haven, Conn.