The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-07-19
A POet-JOurnaIist.

New York Evening Post
The death of W. Z. Henley will inevitably
recall the controversy which two years
ago ragged between the irascible poet and
the tribe of Louis worshipers." Posi-
bly, IL was unfair to interpret Henley's dis
gust at the Stevensonians as disloyalty to
his friend Lewis" in any event, the de-
sire TO shock tender sentiment and the
eagerness to knock the nonsense out of
a cult were wholly characteristic of tho
poet journalist who is gone. Mr.. Henley
though valued for what call Individual
quality, was perhaps the most typical man
of letters of the generation now passing
out of middle age. Other poets and essay
lists have followed rather tamely the tradi-
ton of Tennyson and Arnold; Henley was
of the times and of the tribe of Mr..
Rhodes and Mr.. Chamberlain. and he was
unquestionably the precursor of Kipling
and the inspirer of a whole school of Lon
don realists. And it is no futile analogy
which sees in him the quality of two states
men whose journalistic velleities have often
been the subject Of remarkIthe Kaiser
Wilhelm and President Roosevelt.
From beginning TO end of career that
embraced poetry, art criticism, essay writ
ing, the drama. and maIltifarious editorial
activities. Mr.. Henley was always an
apostle of the unconventional and the ex-
cessive. AS biographer. he pitched with
particular zest upon lives like those of
Byron and Burns in order to display their
irregularities in the most drastic colors
He snorted over the placid tenderness of the
British public for bad art OF the sweetly sort,
quite as he later boxed the mob's long ears
for hardening TO fuisome and unintelligent
praise of his dearest friend. He gladly
searched the underground literature OF cut
purses for pungent idiorns. Into the most
routine task of editorship he put some
thing of joy or hatred. You would have
said that the man was bundle of pref
udices, and you could hardly imagine a
writer less literary. Yet in all this he spoke
| the very voice of an age of restless haste
which regards cold reasoning with some
thing of scorn. He was an infpressionist
| of the militant kind. and very appropriately
| his last considerable work was a dithyramb
| 10 the motor CARA Song of Speed.
| Recklessness carried to a fine art was his
method and. though he would have re-
| scented the word. his philosophy. 1t is Mr..
4 kiplings, and the average gentleman
| riders. One feels the manner in such lines
as:
have not WINGED nor cried aloud,
Under the bludgeonsngs of chance
| My head Is bloody but unbowed."
BY one OF those ironies which are fire.
/ quently remarked In literature. the apostle
/ OF the robustious school was a lifelong in
| valid. When In the future the poet OF 1.-The
| Song OF the Sword" is mentioned, everybody
| will think of "A white hospital ward and 'R
| l.. S." passing like an angel towards
| Henleys cot The dispersion of his genius In
| journalism has greatly initiated against the
/ permanency of his work. The anthologies
| will pass down only handful of his poems;
/ but he will hardly be entirely forgotten;
| for he illustrated In singular perfection the
/ qualities and defects OF our tinc-our desire
/ for sincere personal expression, and our i'm
| patience OF the slow methods by which In
| ali ages truth has been attained.