Critics such as Malcolm Cowley and Delmore Schwartz describe mixed emotions about the religiosity of the poem . Cowley emphasised the mystical nature of the poem and how its themes were closer to Buddhism than Anglicanism while mentioning his appreciation of many of the passages . Schwartz also mentioned the Buddhist images and his admiration for many of the lines in Little Gidding . F. B. Pinion believed that the fourth section of the poem costs " Eliot more trouble and vexation than any passage of the same length he ever wrote , and is his greatest achievement in the Four Quartets . " E. M. Forster did not like Eliot 's emphasis on pain and responded to the poem : " Of course there 's pain on and off through each individual 's life ... You can 't shirk it and so on . But why should it be endorsed by the schoolmaster and sanctified by the priest until the fire and the rose are one when so much of it is caused by disease and bullies ? It is here that Eliot becomes unsatisfactory as a seer . " Writing in 2003 , Roger Scruton wrote that in " Little Gidding " Eliot achieved " that for which he envies Dante — namely , a poetry of belief , in which belief and words are one , and in which the thought cannot be prized free from the controlled and beautiful language " .