SWINBURNE, THE MAN.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 568, 24 July 1909, Page 9

SWINBURNE, THE MAN.

: iln tho coiirso- of. 'somo extremely; interest-. • ■ oik •••'•* personal iJßeoollectiojis ot. Swinburne, r . by. Air. - Jidmiwd G<>sso "i'orinigiltly Review," a question which has :■ ; oi6>©n: - be^ii-'raised' Mr. Gosbq'says nw.sp iiAure-it; ,'trlc't th^'close : aM,/iympainetic:.attention; ot-- ;■ -t'lie medic.al ■ specialist, is. touohpd on—that is ttf 'say, -'the-physical conditions., -wJijch acr wmpany and aiteet what we call genius. "i" 'l'ho more closely ,we study, ..- with extremely'''Sender resources .of evidence,--tlie lives of. great /men of imagination and action 'since the beginning of^the.^yorld,-the , more clearly we ought to recognise that a_-reauc-'tion of all the types .to ,one : stolid umforniity. ot whfit is called ' health' would haye the : : BijEect' of: (depriving .humanity of precisely, those individuals- who have,added most to tijo beauty and-variety of -human, existence.. 6osso describes as more, v#£ a hypertrophied intelligence than ,a man,... - and ho gives the - following vivid picture of "" '" He was short, with shoulders that sloped : inoro.-.than 'a' woman's, from .which rose a. long '"and" * slender. neck, surmounted, by an. .' enormous head. The cranium was out of all proportion .'to _t!io''rest-of the structure.: His spine was rigid, and though he often bowed - trio heaviness.iof; 'his-'-head, lasso vpapavera collo, he seemed never to bend his back..; . He did not know' fatigue; his agility and brightness were almost' mechanical. -. ,1 never heard'him .complain of ; a headache or of a toothache. He required very little sleep, . and '< occasionally; when ■ I havo ■ parted fi'oni him' in the evening, after saying Goodnight," he has simply, sat-jback- iu the; deep : sofa ih-his . sitting-room,: his. little feet close together, 1 his arms against his side,'. folded in his: frock-coat liko a .grasshopper in its wing-oovers, and fallen asleep,'apparently for tho night, beforo I could blow out the cani dies and steal forth from the 'door. I am : speaking, of course, of early days; it,was ': thus' about : 1875 . that I closely . observed him."

- Everyone has :< heard of . Swinburne as ■ a lwimmer, : and he has, as is hero pointed out, written more 'than., once' of' tho (joy of 'the. ixercise.' Mr. Gosse has been assured .by earlier - companions that the poet made remarkably' little' way by swimming, and that his-feats were -mainly ;of floating, "his little body tossing on the breakeivlike a cork."';, !1 .was' tho cause of the .accident ; which go nearly cost him his' life, when ho 'Was bathing at Etretat in 1870. He was caught by tho raco of tho tide under . the Porte d'Amont,'because of, tho. weakness of his stroke.--, He was. pursued, 'floating -like a medusa .with 'shining-; hair- outstretched, and was caught a long way out to sea, behind the PetiteiPorte, by a yachtsman who, oddly enough, • happencd to be 'Guy''do - : Maupassant. I may record that, in describing this . incident to mo , not long after it happened, Swinburne said that lie reflected; with 1 satisfaction,- when,'he made,'up his mind that he must bo drowned, that he had just , finally revised " the proofs of ' Songs before Sunrise,' and',that he .was only ,; a little older man" than (I think he said, not: so old as) Shelley when ,he was drowned. Ho further recorded , that "in; tho ..state,' of tho tido the fishing boat/ which saved, him could not return fe ; -somo time,,and that, the sailors wrapped him in a sail and perched him on tho deck, whore, to their amazement, ho re-. citcd the poems of Victor 'Hugo in y, a very loud voice; ' until they ; got, back to Etretat. Those incidents are, I think, not mentioned by Guy de Maupassant in his very picturesque account of the occurrence."

A letter written 'in 1878 - describes Swinburne in a morbid mood:—

•"■He began a long talc, plaintive and rather vague, about his loneliness, . the sad-.-ness of his. Jife,: the 'suffering he experiences •frbm the slanders of .others.- .He,' said that George Eliot was hounding on her myrmidons his destruction. I-made out. that this - referred to soiho attack in a newspaper, which ie supposes, very groundlessly 1 .expect, to be. inspired by George ' Eliot. Swinburne jairi that a'little while ago he found .his intellectual energy sucfcumbing under a morbid; distress vat. Jhis "isolation, and that., lie had. been obliged steadily to review before his,conscience his imaginative life in order to prevent himself frorir sinking into despair, fyiis is only a ir.cod, to' be sure ; but if there bo any .people. who think so .ill of him, I only' wish ..they, could - see him; as we see him at these recuperative intervals. .Whatever he may be elsewhere, in our/household not a kinder,- simpler, or more affectionate creature could be desired /as a visitor. The only fault • woffind?.with' Kim' is. that his little mournful ways and his fragility draw painfully... upon our. sympathy."- •••'• • Mr. Gosse'finallv has much to say of Swinburne's conversation, rapid, voluble, rora-

sured, ornate, picturesque, and yet homely; and .he. quotes, a number .ofvery charming: specimens. Olio will suffice:— :. " To' some who remarked that'.it was disagreeable t-o bo controverted,' Swinburne replied' gravely,No! not at.all. 1 It gives_ a zest to tho expression of sympathy to raiso somo points of aniicablo, disagreement. This was-not'the only .case: in ".which-'I was Struck by .a .certain -unconscious -resemblance between his repartees and those of Dr. Johnson.