But it is still pessimism, a thing unfit for a
white man; a thing like opium, that may often be a poison and sometimes
a medicine, but never a food for us, who are driven by an inner command
not only to think but to live, not only to live but to grow, and not
only to grow but to build.
And, indeed, we see the insufficiency of such sad extremes even in the
next name among the major poets; we see the Swinburnian parody of
mediaevalism, the inverted Catholicism of the decadents, struggling to
get back somehow on its feet. The aesthetic school had, not quite
unjustly, the name of mere dilettanti. But it is fair to say that in the
next of them, a workman and a tradesman, we already feel something of
that return to real issues leading up to the real revolts that broke up
Victorianism at last. In the mere art of words, indeed, William Morris
carried much further than Swinburne or Rossetti the mere imitation of
stiff mediaeval ornament. The other mediaevalists had their modern
moments; which were (if they had only known it) much more mediaeval than
their mediaeval moments. Swinburne could write--
"We shall see Buonaparte the bastard
Kick heels with his throat in a rope.
Pages:
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167