“Mr. Coutts’ muse would to us be austere were he not somewhat too vague, too nebulous, for austerity. A mastership of whatever form of verse he essays, a lofty purpose, withal a rooted fealty to poetic sorrow, must be conceded to Mr. Coutts.”
| + + | Critic. 47: 192. Ag. ‘05. 170w. |
“This attitude of intellectual challenge is characteristic of the entire volume, and it is such touches of ‘sæva indignatio’ that give the author’s work its most distinctive quality.” Wm. M. Payne.
| + | Dial. 39: 273. N. 1, ‘05. 300w. |
“It is impossible to read Mr. Coutts without admiration. But he lacks, through nearly all this volume, the human sweetness that is the preservative of poetry.”
| + — | Lond. Times. 4: 168. My. 26, ‘05. 400w. |
“Mr. Coutts is always thoughtful and always sensitive to the imaginative import of his ideas.”
| + | Nation. 80: 293. Ap. 13, ‘05. 280w. |
“He has extreme simplicity and chastity of style, what Stevenson has called ‘the piety of speech,’ a perfect taste, and an instinct for rendering in delicate poetry, evasive moods and fancies. There is also a gravity and austerity. The slightly forced reflectiveness seems to us to be a blemish in much of his work.”
| + — | Spec. 94: 114. Ja. 28, ‘05. 310w. |