The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-04-05

History teaches us that immortality is one of the eccentricities of genius. From Shakespeare down we have most ap- palling record of the follies and shameful conduct which characterized the lives of most of our great and immortal poets. i'm cluding those lesser lights. our greater writers of inspired prose.
 The grosser elements of the souter man'' in them was like garb of mock sry that concealed the divine alterage of pn inspired soul And Shelley, that blas- phemous demigod of impassioned song, was one of the great mad-caps of them LII, The story of his life. as 1t has been handed down to us, is most shameful, pa- bhetic and pitifuily dramatic in all its kaleidoscopic changes. from an early ma bured manhood until the date of his death, bhe nature of which. by and by. as if an Indignant providence had wiiled 1t so. was pitiful ending to his stormy career. He was drowned in the Bay of Spezzia in he year of our Lord. 1882.
 Shelley assumed the role of a Lovelace If Lothario at an early period. his first berious amourette taking place in the 17th year of his age, between a first cousin md himself. His affections soon drifted elsewhere. Most of his early poetical productions received their source of in-
 
 beautiful girl, as far as youth and color ng go. whom he married in his 18th year, Jhe being two years his junior. In this )elicitous state, of newly married life, his hther and that of the girl having exempt "a him from all financial responsibilities. Queen Nab was written and given to )he world. Apparently the youthful poet vas now on the highroad to success and Christian life. And such fowery trib- ntes to his young wife as the following Sekmed to add strength to the vain hope: "Beneath whose looks did my reviving
 soul,
 Riper in truth and virtuous daring grow. Whose eyes have I gazed fondly on,
 And loved mankind the more?
 Harriett on thine. thou vert my purer
 Thou vert the inspiration of my sons."
 But that wild, restless and weakly sen- hfnental nature of his soon lured him aown other paths. As Shakespeare would gay, his legs could not keep up with his desires. And as Thorrau would say. whiie marching to the. beat of, a jnobler impulse he would find himself listening to he blood-stirring throb of 8 more distant drum, that of some romantic dream or some deeper and unintelligibie longing <AoPooAc hard to resist. And once his imagination let loose, and all things seen through a poetic halo. he was not able to distin~ guish right from wrong. for there are so many ways in which man sin, and lometimes with such delicacy sof inven- jon and poetically that it is afifiost sub lime. If one must wholly condemn him. bne must cast aside what the world Is pleased to call aesthetic tastes" and Stick tenaciously to the bioused theories pf the 'tee-toler."
 It is true that Shelley was trash and foolish man." but not like his contem- porary. Lord Byron, he was not made of khat fibre of the licentios. And to my knowledge he was never spoken of as a Hssipated man. There was nothing lac lvious and carnal in this human enig ma makeup. But if there was such an clement in the man it was but the minor pf a miner passion. He sinned outward ly, but not in heart. Shelley was an ar- dent worshiper at the shrine of woman, but he was too much of a poet and too much lover of the beautiful to bow be- lore any falsely glittering altar of Paphos. Like the now Tamented Poe, harsh critics. those ravenous carrion crows and Sir Benjamin Backbite vituperators.