The World’s Tragedy

XXII PREFACE. There can be no peace between Socrates and Athens, between Jesus and Jerusalem. We must then first throw moral bombs, and this book is mine ! It is a curious position. All my sympathy is with my own class — birth, education, wealth, courage, pride. These are my heritage. But all my own people are busy pretending to live the dirty, stinking, lousy, poor ; Corio- lanus “ licking the breech of a leprous hangman.” (Not Crowley, this time : Catullus). So that on mature consideration I drop the Revd. C. Verey of “ Clouds without Water ” — it is only one more satire. The invention was not cowardice but art. My sympathies are entirely with the alleged author of the Quatorzains ; in a world of Winnington-Ingrams it is about the best that any one can do. At the same time, I have a foible : I should like to pro- duce ideal poetry ; poetry free from the false conditions of modern crapulence. “ Clouds without Water ” and this World’s Tragedy are mostly nonsense to a Nina Olivier or a Dorothy Lamb, those avatars of Pagan art. But to a Dilke, lamed by a kick from the British ass ; or to a Burton, swimming in the Sea of Glue — they must seem miracles of virility and truth. Natural love and love of Nature are poetry everywhere ; and (idleness !) I hope one day to be able to leave the English hypocrites to their own beastliness, and live in my own world. Until I am wanted ; in the hour of battle. One thing I must ask ; let this book be assiduously