"The Most Innocent of Men"
|? would have justified Francis Thompson’s tragic existence if he had never written anything but "The Hound of Heaven," which Coventry Patmore called "One of the very great odes the language can boast." But the story of Francis Thompson’s life, as told by Francis Meynell (in "New. Judgment,". heard from 4YA) makes one worider how a man could write any poetry at all under such appallingly degrading conditions. Persecuted at school, failing in his aspirations for the priesthood, he was ‘sent to study medicine, but sold his textbooks to buy drugs. His father, whose point of view was, after all, a very human one, said at last, "It is intolerable!" Francis Thompson replied, "No, that is unjust; it is I who am intolerable!" But in spite of ill-health and utter wretchedness, of doss-houses, of stony charity, of nights on the Embankment, of steady downward progress, this strange and proud soul found it in him to write the poetry of faith in God, and to find Christ walking on the water, "not of Gennasareth, but Thames."
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19450615.2.22.8
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 312, 15 June 1945, Page 13
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179"The Most Innocent of Men" New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 312, 15 June 1945, Page 13
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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