Deseret evening news. [volume] (Great Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1867-1920, 1909-05-15
Especial correspondence.)
ONDON. May 1o.-Willinm Wat

- oNDoN, May 1o.-Willinm Wat
II son. who, since Swinburne,s
death, is perhaps the best Nv
'.-- ing poet left to England. has
lust written a remarkable letter COM
corning the mysterious disappearance.
ana undoubted suicide. of his brother
poet, John Davidson, who has passed.
"almost unremarked,'' as Watson says.
.'to his strange and lonely death, as
real a singer, when he sang his best,
as the great and famous veteran who
has Just died amid a tempest OF
praise"
1t is a fiery attack that Watson
makes on British indifference to It's
poets, and considering Poe's fate per-
maps we Americans may apply some
of 1t to ourselves. At any rate, it
makes Give" reading. "This episode
in the literary history of England
-" continues Mr.. Watson. ''is one
more addition to the long list %
tragedies which we may consider as
beginning with the death OF Spencer
for lack of bread, (if Ben Johnson's
words are to be trusted. and which
alphabetically did not end with the.
death of Chatterton in his miserable
had accepted his contributions and
paid for them at the rate OF eight
pence for a poem aild one shilling
for an article. For let there be no
mistake about it. j ohm Davidson. died
because he could not make a living,
WHOSE FAULT WAS TT?
"Let me say ut once-and I trust
no one will be 50 base as to suppose
that say 1t from any ungenerous
motive--tlat I attach little impor-.
lance to his later work as a poet.
The thought in 1t was often crude,
the voice in it was often strained and
hoarse. But whose fault was this? 1t
was the fault primarily of the So
called public and the critics who are
perpetually demanding from n poet
an output Chat I believe is the
beautiful word that is commonly en-
ployed) such as no artist can pro-
duce without doing murderous Vio-
lence to his powers and his artistic
conscience.
Let it. then. be freely acknowledged
that Davidson had exhausted him
self long before his last volume saw
the light. None the less. this was Il
man who, Notwithstanding all thu
crudity of his later thinking, all the
resentment against society and fate
which made much of his utterance
so turbd, was yet creature with
something OF the divine fire in him
something of the internal fire as we'll
which also we need in poet
'1'he Davidson tragedy. it must
in candor be admitted. is one
Of "a class which we Eng
ashland also our Scottish neigh.
bors, when one comes to think Of
Burns-have attained 10 a somewhat
unenviable eminence. When, IL ever,
are these tragedies to cease? II IS to be
feared that we shall never be quite
without poets: and if the popular
apathy regarding them goes on incrcas-
ing-if the intellectual life of the ma
ton becomes more and more swamped
by moneymaking. athletics. and the
devotion of grown men to boys games
the Poets Tragedy IS likely to happen
witt Increased frequency. One aocs
not wish ones country to become a. by
word for that sort OF thing. Marrow
ing ones outlook for the moment TO lit
erature alone. it would appear that he-
ton Ia the only form of it wllichra
ta.ins any power OF effective appeal TO
tiie popular Intelligence. Furpose