The Mirror That Strindberg Held Up To

Swinburne Was An Absurd Character. He Was A Bird Of Showy Strut And Plumage. One Could Not But Admire His Glorious Feathers; But, As Soon As He Began To Moult ... One Saw How Very Little Body There Was Underneath.

Keats, It Must Be Remembered, Was A Sensualist. His Poems ... Reveal Him As A Man Not Altogether Free From The Vulgarities Of Sensualism, As Well As One Who Was Able To Transmute It Into Perfect Literature.

When One Has Praised Turgenev, However, For The Beauty Of His Character And The Beautiful Truth Of His Art, One Remembers That He, Too, Was Human And Therefore Less Than Perfect. His Chief Failing Was, Perhaps, That Of All The Great Artists, He Was The Most Lacking In Exuberance. That Is Why He Began To Be Scorned In A World Which Rated Exuberance Higher Than Beauty Or Love Or Pity.

There Are Two Sorts Of Curiosity - The Momentary And The Permanent. The Momentary Is Concerned With The Odd Appearance On The Surface Of Things. The Permanent Is Attracted By The Amazing And Consecutive Life That Flows On Beneath The Surface Of Things.

Dostoevsky's Visible World Was A World Of Sensationalism. He May In The Last Analysis Be A Great Mystic Or A Great Psychologist; But He Almost Always Reveals His Genius On A Stage Crowded With People Who Behave Like The Men And Women One Reads About In The Police News.