*Through the Looking Glass or A Rebours*

And after words, in radiant garments dressed
With sound of flutes and laughing of glad lips,
A pomp of all the passions passed along
All the night through; till the white phantom ships
Of dawn sailed in. Whereat I said this song,
Of all sweet passions Shame is the loveliest.
(Lord Alfred Douglas “In Praise of Shame”)
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plea for help
Can someone let me know any information of Alfred Waterhouse Somerset Taylor? All I found is: "Alfred Waterhouse Somerset Taylor (born circa 1862) was well educated and was said to have run through a fortune of £45,000. His house in Westminster was used as a meeting-place for male homosexuals. Wilde first met Taylor in 1892. He refused to turn Queen's Evidence against Wilde, and so shared the same fate. After his release he lived in Canada and the U.S.A."
I’d like to have his photo.
Can someone tell me the name of the author of this book and its title? A couple of years back I found this text on the Net but I did not save the name of its author and have forgotten it, and the website doesn’t exist any longer:
"… In New York in the early fifties, Jimmy would push the boundaries of his sexuality in ways he never had before. With one young man who was a dancer, Jimmy had a wild, passionate sex life that was defined by a total lack of restraint. Jimmy's friend, beautiful, blue-eyed, blond-haired, had, of course, the slender yet delicately muscular body of a dancer…”
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The Voice, By Henri de Regnier
(Translation by Eli Siegel)
I do not wish anyone to be near my sadness--
Not even your dear step and your loved face,
Nor your indolent hand which caresses with a finger
The lazy ribbon and the closed book.
Leave me. Let my door today remain closed;
Do not open my window to the fresh wind of morning;
My heart today is miserable and sullen
And everything seems to me somber and everything seems vain.
My sadness comes from something further than myself;
It is strange to me and is not of me;
And every man, whether he sings or he laughs or he loves,
In his time hears that which speaks low to him,
And something then stirs and awakens,
Is perturbed, spreads and laments in him,
Because of this dull voice which says in his ear
That the flower of life in its fruit is ashes.
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Nickolas Grace Appreciation Society:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=11033743462
If you have any spare time, please feel free to have a look at it. It would be wonderful to have you join and I would be so appreciative. But if not, I quite understand, and thank you for taking the time to read this.
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Sonnet CXXI
'Tis better to be vile than vile esteem'd,
When not to be receives reproach of being,
And the just pleasure lost which is so deem'd
Not by our feeling but by others' seeing:
For why should others false adulterate eyes
Give salutation to my sportive blood?
Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,
Which in their wills count bad what I think good?
No, I am that I am, and they that level
At my abuses reckon up their own:
I may be straight, though they themselves be bevel;
By their rank thoughts my deeds must not be shown;
Unless this general evil they maintain,
All men are bad, and in their badness reign.
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SeasideMan
Pro
I believe this is a picture of Wilde with Alfred Taylor:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Wildeanddouglas.jpg
Cheers, Tom.