16 
PREFACE 
 
here and there ;  but these are small blemishes on a 
series of poems whose originality is always striking, 
and often dreadful, in its broader features. 
We cannot leave George Bishop without a word 
of enquiry as to what became of the heroic figure 
of Mathilde Doriac.  It is a bitter task to have to 
write in cold blood the dreadful truth about her death. 
She had the misfortune to contract, in the last few 
days of her life with him, the same terrible disease 
which he describes in the last poem of this collection. 
This shock, coming so soon after, and, as it were, 
as an unholy perpetual reminder of the madness 
and sequestration of her lover, no less than of his 
infidelity, unhinged her mind, and she shot herself on 
July 5th, 1869.  Her last letter to Madame J . . . S . . . 
is one of the tenderest and most pathetic ever written. 
She seems to have been really loved by George, in 
his wild, infidel fashion :  “ All Night ” and “ Victory ”, 
among others, are obviously inspired by her beauty ; 
and her devotion to him, the abasement of soul, the 
prostitution of body, she underwent for and with him, 
is one of the noblest stories life has known.  She 
seems to have dived with him, yet ever trying to 
raise his soul from the quagmire ;  if God is just at