The news of Lionel Johnson's early and tragic death brought to friends a keen sense of personal loss and to the literary world a consciousness that his place would be difficult to fill, yet could not, save with serious detriment, be left empty. He had stood for something definite and something high. As poet, he had clothed conceptions of delicate and poignant loveliness in the robe of an almost classic austerity. As critic, he had shown himself a master of sure judgment and wide sympathies; possessing, in his own words, "preferences but no prejudices"—if one except that fundamental prejudice against the vulgar, the perverse or the insincere in art. All things pure and noble, and not a few forgotten or despised, found shelter in Lionel Johnson's heart: and then, that heart ceased beating. Even now it is difficult to think dispassionately of the young poet, with his childlike face and his words of memorable wisdom, of reticent yet compelling pathos. Still more difficult is it to reach any satisfying analysis of the mingled defeat and victory which made up his life's brief conflict. His aloofness, to the very end, was majestic as well as melancholy.
Strangely enough, it is in the vivid yet unconscious self-portraiture of his final poem, the lines to Walter Pater, that the truest comment upon his own life and work is found:
Secrets of grace to tell
Graciously . . . .
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