William Ernest Henley — a remark

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“He is the master and the victim of a monstrous cleverness which is neither to hold nor to bind, and will not permit him to do things as an honest, simple person of genius would.”

Showing how brilliance can become a constraint rather than a freedom · Essay, George Meredith

About William Ernest Henley

William Ernest Henley

23 August 1849–11 July 1903

William Ernest Henley was born on 23 August 1849 in Gloucester, England, and died on 11 July 1903 at Woking, Surrey. He occupies an unusual place in English literary history: widely remembered by the public for a single short poem, “Invictus,” yet far more consequential in his own age as a poet, editor, critic…

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