Page:Men of Letters, Scott, 1916.djvu/204

178 THE REAL STANLEY HOUGHTON this that made him revel in writing parlour plays, made him write melodrama, made him use thunder in the opening scene of Hindle Wakes-, and when set free to move candidly about the stage of the world, it is this that would have lifted his representations into truth. "He observed life from the comic- writer's point of view, which is not the poet's. For his art, not the beauty of life, but the absurdities and hypocrisies of daily existence, were the targets of his aim." It is with these words that Mr. Brighouse concludes his loyal and affectionate editorial essay. Probably they perfectly define the work Houghton had already done. They would have had to be exactly reversed to fit the work that was to follow. "Not the absurdities and hypocrisies of daily existence," but the beauty of life was now to be the aim of his art. He observed life no longer from the comic- writer's point of view, but from the poet's. It is strange to remember that it was the very eagerness of the impulse that carried him on his new quest that helped to end it so soon. It would almost seem that he pushed open the wonderful door just too far, and so vanished for ever from our sight. Manchester Guardian, 1914.