Alice: An Adultery

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.