NOTES
197
of ’68 took place, and it was there too that he
was apprehended after the murders which he
describes so faithfully in ‘‘ Abysmos.’” He had
just finished this poem with a shriek of triumph,
and had read it through to the appalled
Mathilde ‘‘avec des yeux de flamme et de
gestes incohérentes,’’ when, foaming at the
mouth, and ‘‘hurlant de blasphemes_ indi-
cibles,”’ he fell upon her with extraordinary
violence of passion; the door opened, officers
appeared, the arrest was effected. He was com-
mitted to an asylum, for there could be no longer
any doubt of his complete insanity; for three
weeks he had been raving with absinthe and
satyriasis. He survived his confinement no
long time ; the burning of the asylum with its in-
mates was one of the most terrible events of the
war of 1870. So died one of the must talented
Englishmen of his century, a man who for wide
knowledge of men and things was truly to be
envied, yet one who sold his birthright for a
mess of beastlier pottage than ever Esau
guzzled, who sold soul and body to Satan for
sheer love of sin, whose mere lust of perversion
is so intense that it seems to absorb every other
emotion and interest. Never since God woke
light from chaos has such a tragedy been un-
rolled before men, step after step toward the
lake of Fire !
At his house all his writings were seized, and,
it is believed, destroyed. The single most
fortunate exception is that of a superbly
jewelled writing-case, now in the possession of
the present editor, in which were found the
MSS. which are here published. Mathilde,
who knew how he treasured its contents, pre-
served it by saying to the officer, ‘‘ But, sir,
that is mine.” On opening this it was found
to contain, besides these MSS., his literary
will, All MSS. were to be published thirty
years after his death, not before. He would
gain no spurious popularity as a reflection of
the age he lived in. ‘‘ Tennyson,” he says,
** will die before sixty years are gone by: if 1
am to be beloved of men, it shall be because
my work is for all times and all men, because
it is greater than all the gods of chance and
change, because it has the heart of the human
race beating in every line.”* This is a patch
of magenta to mauve, undoubtedly; but—!
The present collection of verses will hardly be
popular; if the lost works turn up, of course it
may be that there may be found ‘‘ shelter for
songs that recede.”’ Still, even here, one is, on
the whole, more attracted than repelled; the
author has enormous power, and he never
scruples to use it, to drive us half mad with
horror, or, as in his earlier most exquisite
works, to move us to the noblest thoughts and
deeds. ‘True, his debt to contemporary writers
is a little obvious here and there; but these
are small blemishes on a series of poems whose
originality is always striking, and often dread-
ful, in its broader features.
We cannot leave George Bishop without a
word of inquiry as to what became of the
heroic figure of Mathilde Doriac. It is a bitter
task to have to write in cold blood the dread-
ful truth about her death. She had the mis-
fortune to contract, in the last few days of her
life with him, the same terrible disease which
he describes in the last poem of his coilection.
‘This shock, coming so soon after, and, as it
were, aS an unholy perpetual reminder of the
madness and sequestration of her lover, no
less than of his infidelity, unhinged her mind,
and she shot herself on July 5, 1869. Her
last letter to Madame J S is one of
the tenderest and most pathetic ever written.
She seems to have been really loved by George,
in his wild, infidel fashion: ‘‘ All Night ” and
‘‘Victory,’’ among others, are obviously in-
spired by her beauty; and her devotion to
him, the abasement of soul, the prostitution of
body, she underwent for and with him, is one
of the noblest stories life has known. She
seems to have dived with him, yet ever trying
to raise his soul from the quagmire; if God is
just at all, she shall stand more near to His
right hand than the vaunted virgins who would
soil no hem of vesture to save their brother
from the worm that dieth not!
The Works of George Archibald Bishop will
speak for themselves; it would be both im-
pertinent and superfluous in me to point out
in detail their many and varied excellences, or
their obvious faults. The razson a’étre, though,
of their publication, is worthy of especial notice.
I refer to their psychological sequence, which
agrees with their chronological order. His life-
history, as well as his literary remains, gives
us an idea of the progression of diabolism as
it really is; not as it is painted. Note also,
(t) the increase of selfishness in pleasure, (2)
the diminution of his sensibility to physical
charms. Pure and sane is his early work;
then he is carried into the outer current of the
great vortex of Sin, and whirls lazily through
the sleepy waters of mere sensualism ; the pace
quickens, he grows fierce in the mysteries of
Sapphism and the cult of Venus Aversa with
women; later of the same forms of vice with
men, all mingled with wild talk of religious
dogma and a general exaltation of Priapism
at the expense, in particular, of Christianity,
in which religion, however, he is undoubtedly
a believer till the last (the pious will quote
James ii. 19, and the infidel will observe that
he died in an asylum); then the full. swing
of the tide catches him, the mysteries of death
become more and more an obsession, and he
is flung headlong into Sadism, Necrophilia,