THE POET SHELLEY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIV, Issue 150, 21 December 1907, Page 13

THE POET SHELLEY.

Ho lived with ardour among ideas, as* pirations, ond passions (writes -Arthur Symons, in the -Atlantic, concerning Shelley), in which there was something 'at once irresponsible and abstract. He, followed every impulse, without choice or restraint, with the abandonment of a leaf in the wind. "0, lift we as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!" was- his prayer 'to th« west wind and to every influence. l Circumstances meant So little to hinilhat""he was unconscious of the cruelty of'cSa'«g« to sentiment; and" thus of the estept of' his cruelty to women. He aimed'ai; moral perfection, but was really of a perfect aesthetic selfishness. He was full of pity and generosity, and desired tHa I liberation and' uplifting of humanity} but humanity "was less real to him than. Lis own witch 'of Atlas. He only touched human action and passion closely in a single one of his works ; and he said of the Cenci : "I don't think much, of it. My object wa& to see how I could succeed in describing passions I havo naver felt."