The _Daily Mail_ knew what it was
about. Do not imagine that I am trying to be sardonic about the English
race and its organs. Not at all. The English race is all right, though
ageing now. The English race has committed no crime in demanding from its
poets something that Swinburne could not give. I am merely trying to make
clear the exceeding strangeness of the apparition of a poet like Swinburne
in a place like England.
Last year I was walking down Putney Hill, and I saw Swinburne for the
first and last time. I could see nothing but his face and head. I did not
notice those ridiculously short trousers that Putney people invariably
mention when mentioning Swinburne. Never have I seen a man's life more
clearly written in his eyes and mouth and forehead. The face of a man who
had lived with fine, austere, passionate thoughts of his own! By the
heavens, it was a noble sight. I have not seen a nobler. Now, I knew by
hearsay every crease in his trousers, but nobody had told me that his face
was a vision that would never fade from my memory. And nobody, I found
afterwards by inquiry, had "noticed anything particular" about his face. I
don't mind, either for Swinburne or for Putney. I reflect that if Putney
ignored Swinburne, he ignored Putney.
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