Closer to Dylan Thomas than Matthew Arnold in his creative violence and insistence on the sound of poetry, the author was no staid, conventional Victorian. On entering the Jesuit order the age of twenty-four, he burnt all his poetry and 'resolved to write no more, as not belonging to my profession, ...

Closer to Dylan Thomas than Matthew Arnold in his creative violence and insistence on the sound of poetry, the author was no staid, conventional Victorian. On entering the Jesuit order the age of twenty-four, he burnt all his poetry and 'resolved to write no more, as not belonging to my profession, unless by the wishes of my superiors'.