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Show 'CALLED POET SPOILED CHILD Bayard Taylor's Opinions of Swinburne Swin-burne Makes Some Rather Interesting In-teresting Reading. , In all important respocts except one I found him to bo very much what I anticipated, writes Laura Stedman In tho North American .ifoviow, quoting Bayard Taylor's Imprejssfon of Swinburne. Swin-burne. Tho oxcoptlon Is Instead of bo-Ing bo-Ing a promaturoly hlaso young man of tho world, ho Is rnthor a willful, perverse, per-verse, unreasonable, spoiled child. His nature Is BtlU that of tho young -Shcl-loy, nnd my great fear Is that lt will novor bo otherwise. Ho ncods tho Itilluctico of a nnturo strongor than his In everything but tho Itnaglnallvo faculty such a nature as Byron'a was to Sliclloy. . . .Ho has a weak moral sense, but his offenses of-fenses nrlso from n colossal unbalanced unbal-anced affectation. This, or something llko it. Is n disorganizing element In his nature which quite obscures tho organizing that Is artistic sonso. What I ndmlro in him yet ndmlro with a feeling of pain Is tho mad, unrestrained un-restrained preponderance of tho Imagination. Imagi-nation. It is a godllko quality, but ho sometimes uses it llko a devil. He greatly Interests ray Intellect but docs not touch mo magnetically. Ho could havo no power over mo, but on tho contrary I felt that I 'should bo ablo to Influenco him In a short tlmo. I had a letter from him tho other day which shows that ho feels an Intellectual relationship between us. Now, this Is not a question of rolatlvo poetic powor, but of a certain dlvorslty of qualities, and I don't mean to bo egotistic In saying that I might perform somewhat of tho samo servlco for him as Byron for Sliclloy. I feel that (it it Is not already too lato) I could help him to somo degrco of polso, of system, of law; in short, art. In this senso ho moves ray deepest sympathy, for I soo now tho mattor that might bo molded Into a splendid poet relapsing Into formless conditions. condi-tions. It is sad, it is tragic, and If this fancy of mlno bo foolish, thero tt Is, nevertheless. Without this senso of giving nsslstanco n week nlono with Swinhurno would bo Intolerable to mo or any other human being. |