Less than manly we must call his
extraordinary recklessness of appreciation; it is, as it were, ideally
feminine; it is possible, however, that no woman has yet been capable of
so entire an emotional impulse and impetus; more than manly it might have
been but for the lack of a responsible intellect in that impulse; had it
possessed such an intellectual sanction, Swinburne's admiration of Victor
Hugo, Mazzini, Dickens, Baudelaire, and Theophile Gautier might have
added one to the great generosities of the world.
We are inclined to complain of such an objection to Swinburne's poetry as
was prevalent at his earlier appearance and may be found in criticisms of
the time, before the later fashion of praise set in--the obvious
objection that it was as indigent in thought as affluent in words; for,
though a truth, it is an inadequate truth. It might be affirmed of many
a verse-writer of not unusual talent and insignificance, whose affluence
of words was inselective and merely abundant, and whose poverty of
thought was something less than a national disaster. Swinburne's failure
of intellect was, in the fullest and most serious sense, a national
disaster, and his instinct for words was a national surprise. It is in
their beauty that Swinburne's art finds its absolution from the
obligations of meaning, according to the vulgar judgement; and we can
hardly wonder.
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