‘With Uriel: a hymn in praise of Divine Immanence,’ said The Times on July 28th, 1933, ‘Mr. W. Force Stead takes his place among the foremost of to-day’s poets. Uriel may be called a philosophical poem, but it springs radiantly lyrical from an immediacy of experience. There is abundant testimony both to faith and to poetry in this lovely work.’

On August 17th, 1933, Mr. Stead was received into the Catholic Church. The week before he had resigned his post as Chaplain and Fellow of Worcester College. For three years he had been the only American to hold a Fellowship in Oxford; he had begun his career in the American Consular Service, after a course in the University of Virginia at Charlotteville—a course which is still remembered there. Though he has never fully given up his American citizenship or lost his love for the United States, it could hardly be said that Mr. Stead is typical of his republic: he is, it is true, devoted to the United States, but his loyalties are centred in the traditions of the Southern aristocracy from which he sprang: he is a fervent Tory and monarchist; and he has found most of his inspiration in Europe, and especially in the English countryside.