Note 402 — Chapter III · (continued 4)

It is strange that Hegel should have ventured such a generalization in the face of his old friend Holderlein's poetry. In England some fine poems have been written such as Lady Margaret Sackville's hymn to Dionysus and Swinburne's to Proserpine. But for a good essay in support of the main contention I know none equal to Russell Lowell's Essay on Swinburne's "Atalanta." I think that both our author and the critic who supports him somewhat fail to recognize the permanent reality, whether symbolical or directly spiritual, that an increasing number of men find in these Hellenic personalities, as illustrated in the poetry of Meredith, to take the finest flavour of the type.