But when he merely hurls at the priest the assertion that flesh is
grass and life is sorrow, he really lays himself open to the restrained
answer, "So I have ventured, on various occasions, to remark." When he
went forth, as it were, as the champion of pagan change and pleasure, he
heard uplifted the grand choruses of his own _Atalanta_, in his rear,
refusing hope.
The splendid diction that blazes through the whole of that drama, that
still dances exquisitely in the more lyrical _Poems and Ballads_, makes
some marvellous appearances in _Songs Before Sunrise_, and then mainly
falters and fades away, is, of course, the chief thing about Swinburne.
The style is the man; and some will add that it does not, thus
unsupported, amount to much of a man. But the style itself suffers some
injustice from those who would speak thus. The views expressed are often
quite foolish and often quite insincere; but the style itself is a
manlier and more natural thing than is commonly made out. It is not in
the least languorous or luxurious or merely musical and sensuous, as one
would gather from both the eulogies and the satires, from the conscious
and the unconscious imitations.
Pages:
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158