writing round her, perfectly conscious all the time 
of the shame of it all, and filled with an eternal 
inner laughter.  We have heard what a woman 
he married in the end. 
Our poet is one of the most annoying in the 
world.  His fiftieth day is an outrage on mankind 
in its sudden and hideous close.  He himself feels 
it, and writes the two following sonnets to discuss 
(and so to modify) the hateful impression.  But 
through pig-headedness, or in very despair, he 
leaves the detestable fact standing, the very instant 
after the lovers part, as ugly and mean a summary 
of the whole affair as it is possible to imagine. 
Of the bad taste of the whole poem nobody can 
have any doubt, with its ruthless analysis of every-
thing, its frank and brutal physiology, its mean 
and sordid outlook—all these contrasting with 
glimpses all too rare of exquisite synthesis, delicacy 
of feeling almost extreme, and a large and noble 
view of the universe.  He seems to love to play off 
one against the other, and the result is a perpetual 
jarring : stimulus of thought, perhaps allowable, 
 
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