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essentially self-restrained by military needs. Unhappily his later pupils have 
given to his philosophy of war a new development. The theory of military 
necessity has been in German action flung to the winds. Hordes of innumerable 
criminals who translate their theoretical instructions of terrorism, of 
“ frightfulness ’’ into the daily and nightly practice of plunder, incendiarism, 
devastation, rape, torture—and, finally, murder by steel, bullet, shell, or poison, 
of men, women and children—these are the warriors of modern Germany. 
It is with compartive relief that one turns from pictures or dreams of 
battle and murder and death in countless forms to the minor, though un- 
questionably real, tragedy of the career of as true a poet as the great nineteenth 
century has produced. It was with unerring significance that the Greeks, the 
unrivalled masters of the world in all art, in all those glories of literature to 
which their matchless language lends itself, should not merely have named 
Apollo as the tutelary god of poetry and music, but should have specially 
identified him with divine sovereignty over lyric verse through the instrument 
of his own choice. And it was pre-eminently a lyrical poet, one in the line of 
legitimate succession to the holders of imperishable names, to singers of near 
and far off times and of many nations, from Swinburne, Victor Hugo, Keats 
and Shelley and Coleridge, back to Pindar, Sappho, Isaiah, that formed the 
subject of Mrs. Thomas’s nobly conceived and brilliantly compiled lecture. The 
poignant drama of Francis Thompson’s career, its battling with poverty, with 
ill-health, with the frenzy for harmful drugs, its constant imminence of brain 
storm, of mental darkness, its menace of spiritual torpor, of despair, of inevit- 
able collapse—these agonizing struggles with the grimmer demons of fate were 
set forth with enthralling power. Then came the hour of auroral serenity and 
freshness and sunshine, the change from overwhelming gloom to victorious 
exultation, the rescue from ruin under the auspices of such great-hearted 
friends as Mr. and Mrs. Meynell, the bursting asunder of the bonds of self- 
indulgence, the resurrection to the claims of justice to himself, of the duty cf 
his genius to the world, the pouring forth in triumphant sequence of such 
lyrical wonders as recalled the palmy times of Coleridge and Shelley and Keats. 
The graphic energy brought to the description of these contrasting phases in a 
painful, radiant life was upborne by a wealth of illustrative detail, an aptitude 
for criticism, equally searching and sympathetic, in all ways worthy of the 
moving, splendid theme. Mrs. Thomas, in the course of the lecture, favoured 
the assembly with a number of quotations which gave a true measure of her 
author’s powers. Among these was the magnificent ‘‘ Hound of Heaven,” with 
its weird and amazing suggestions of a speed not of this world, and with its 
never failing exemplification of the poet’s creative resourcefulness, of his kingly 
sway over the light and colour and music of words. No less enthralling were 
certain extracts from Thompson’s essay on “ Shelley,”’ a work recognized from 
the first as at once a miracle of prose and a stately estimate of the greatest 
lyric poet of England. The recital of these gems of melody, one following 
another in its due place, might have well revived memories of Swinburne’s 
quotation from another poet, an image of the heavens in a roseate, lustrous 
dawn resounding with the song of the lark, each of whose notes—“ Rings like a 
golden jewel down a golden stair.” 
J. M. G. 
ASTRONOMICAL SECTION. 
The Section has suffered during the year a very great loss by the death of 
Dr. W. M. Dobie, who for many years held the office of Chairman. His 
personal merits and his valuable work in astronomy and other departments of 
science are dealt with elsewhere in this Report. 
With the consent of the General Committee the Section now includes in its 
province the subject of Meteorology. This extension of its domain should 
afford the Section a rich source of subjects for lectures in the future. 
The Section has provided three Meetings during the year, the first being 
described as a General Meeting. The lecturer was Miss Mary Proctor, 
daughter of the late R. A. Proctor, the well-known astronomer and writer. 
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