"for help to climb Beyond the highest peaks of time."
Now I should like, if I could do so, to explain clearly the effect of this satyr-songster upon my mind,—for I believe there are many women to whom his works have been deadlier than the deadliest poison, and far more soul-corrupting than any book of Zola's or the most pernicious of modern French writers. At first I read the poems quickly, with a certain pleasure in the mere swing and jangle of rhythm, and without paying much attention to the subject-matter of the verse,— but presently, as though a lurid blaze of lightning had stripped a fair tree of its adorning leaves, my senses suddenly perceived the cruelty and fiendish sensuality concealed under the ornate language and persuasive rhymes,—and for a moment I paused in my reading, and
