believe.*  The man is at once the most truthful 
writer and the most consummate liar of all time.  
He selects truth or falsehood without the slightest 
moral sense or idea of advantage; he asks 
himself “ Which is humorous ?” and acts accordingly.  
He chose his love deliberately, I am quite sure, 
with reference to his art alone.  But if our Editor’s 
conjecture as to the real cause of his death is 
right, the fire he played with burnt him at last, 
and he died of the love he had invoked in play.  
It is the old-story of the magician strangled by the 
devil. 
As to what became of Alice we have no idea, if, 
indeed, she be after all a real person.  In my 
judgment our poet was perfectly capable of deify-
ing an old woman of fifty with a false front and 
 
*The results of a lengthy correspondence with some 
who knew our author, go far to confirm this theory.  Yet I 
believe (for it is so like his peculiar sense of humour) that 
there is enough genuine detail somewhere in the poem to 
enable the wronged husband to discover his wife’s 
infidelity, as he says in the 40th day.  Our opinion of such 
humour is, of course, damning.—ED.