Page:Studies of a Biographer 3.djvu/49

Mr. Gosse, in the Life which has just appeared, professes his belief that Donne contains the quintessence of poetry; but even Dr. Jessopp—an enthusiastic admirer of the prose honestly confesses that the poems are not to his taste. I may, therefore, take courage to confess that I too find them rather indigestible. They contain, I do not doubt, the true inspiration; but I rarely get to the end, even of the shortest, without being repelled by some strange discord in form or in substance which sets my teeth on edge. 'Donne is full,' says Lowell, 'of salient verses that would take the rudest March winds of criticism with their beauty, of thoughts that first tease us like charades, and then delight us with the felicity of their solution.' I fully accept Donne's poetical merits upon the authority of men blessed with a greater poetical sensibility than I can claim, and perhaps less out of harmony with his whole spirit. A charm, however, which one only recognises when it has been pointed out to one, is a charm of which one had better not speak. I will only say, in fact, that I am attracted as much as repelled. The man himself excites my curiosity. What was the character and the mind that could utter itself in so unique a fashion? Nothing less