d very direct critical sense, which can and should, when
honorably exercised, show up delicately, the sense of proportion.

It is as much a part of the artist's equipment to find fault as it is
to praise, for he wants by nature the true value with which he may
relate himself to the sense of beauty. It seems, perhaps only to me,
that in Brooke's poems there is but a vigorous indication to poetic
expression, whereas doubtless the man himself was being excessively
poetic, hour and moment together, and spent much energy of mind and
body poetizing sensation. For me, there is a journalistic quality of
phrasing and only very rarely the unusual image. As for the "Letters",
they are loose and jotty in form, without distinction either in
observation or in form, without real felicity or uniqueness. Art is
nothing if it is not the object, or the idea, or experience seen in
review, with clarity. In Brooke, I feel the superabundance of joy in
the attractiveness of the world, but I do not feel the language of him
commensurate or distinguished in the qualities of poetic or literary
art. There seems to me to be too much of the blown lock and the
wistful glance, too much of the attitudinized poet, lacking, I may
even say, in true refinement, often.

A too comfortable poet, and poetry of too much verve without incision,
too much "gesturing", which is an easy thing for many talented people,
and there is also missing for me the real grip of amazement. You will
not find anything in the letters that could not have been done by the
cub reporter, save possibly in the more charming of the letters with
reference to swimming in the South Seas. Here you feel Brooke at home
instantly, and the picturing is natural and easy. But other than this,
you will find no phrasing to compare with passages of James's preface,
such, for instance, as the "sky-clamour of more dollars", surely a
vastly more incisive phrase regarding the frenzies of New York, than
all that Brooke essays to tell of it. Brooke is distinctly "not there"
too often in these so irregular letters of his. Letters are notably
rare in these times anyhow, and so it is with the letters of Brooke.
We look for distinction, and it is not to be found, they have but
little of the intimacy with their subjects that one expects.

As to his poetry, it seems to be a poetry rapidly approaching state
approval, there is in it the flavour of the budding laureate, it seems
to me to be poetry already "in orde