GERARD HOPKINS
Sut,—As one who is writing a critical study of Father Hopkins's verse, I have read Mr. Turner's article in your last number with great interest. " Minor " is the last word I should think of using: there is little poetry in our language that, learnt by heart and repeatedly passed through the knower's mind, would wear better, or even wear as well. The know- ledge of it, which, for I was so " out of it " as one living in India, came to me very late in life, has made my life not an Indian Summer but a new Spring. Because of the almost unparalleled loveliness of Nature in many lines, and because of the evidences of, to use a phrase of Mr. C. S. Lewis, " sanctification—the restoring of the soul to her lost paradisal nature by holiness," or Hopkins's passionate endeavour there-
towards.—Yours, &c., J. A. CHAPMAN. The Wynd, Gayle. Hawes, Yorkshire.
Previous page
