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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Certain Hour, by James Branch Cabell
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Certain Hour
+
+Author: James Branch Cabell
+
+Release Date: April 29, 2008 [EBook #288]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CERTAIN HOUR ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE CERTAIN HOUR
+
+(_Dizain des Poëtes_)
+
+
+
+By
+
+JAMES BRANCH CABELL
+
+
+
+
+
+
+    "Criticism, whatever may be its
+    pretensions, never does more than to
+    define the impression which is made upon
+    it at a certain moment by a work wherein
+    the writer himself noted the impression
+    of the world which he received at a
+    certain hour."
+
+
+
+NEW YORK
+
+ROBERT M. McBRIDE & COMPANY
+
+1916
+
+
+
+
+
+  Copyright, 1916, by Robert M. McBride & Co.
+  Copyright, 1915, by McBride, Nast & Co.
+  Copyright, 1914, by the Sewanee Review Quarterly
+  Copyright, 1913, by John Adams Thayer Corporation
+  Copyright, 1912, by Argonaut Publishing Company
+  Copyright, 1911, by Red Book Corporation
+  Copyright, 1909, by Harper and Brothers
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+ROBERT GAMBLE CABELL II
+
+
+
+
+  In Dedication of The Certain Hour
+
+    Sad hours and glad hours, and all hours, pass over;
+  One thing unshaken stays:
+  Life, that hath Death for spouse, hath Chance for lover;
+  Whereby decays
+
+    Each thing save one thing:--mid this strife diurnal
+  Of hourly change begot,
+  Love that is God-born, bides as God eternal,
+  And changes not;--
+
+    Nor means a tinseled dream pursuing lovers
+  Find altered by-and-bye,
+  When, with possession, time anon discovers
+  Trapped dreams must die,--
+
+    For he that visions God, of mankind gathers
+  One manlike trait alone,
+  And reverently imputes to Him a father's
+  Love for his son.
+
+
+
+
+                        CONTENTS
+
+  "_Ballad of the Double-Soul_"
+  AUCTORIAL INDUCTION
+  BELHS CAVALIERS
+  BALTHAZAR'S DAUGHTER
+  JUDITH'S CREED
+  CONCERNING CORINNA
+  OLIVIA'S POTTAGE
+  A BROWN WOMAN
+  PRO HONORIA
+  THE IRRESISTIBLE OGLE
+  A PRINCESS OF GRUB STREET
+  THE LADY OF ALL OUR DREAMS
+  "_Ballad of Plagiary_"
+
+
+
+
+_BALLAD OF THE DOUBLE-SOUL_
+
+
+"_Les Dieux, qui trop aiment ses faceties cruelles_"--PAUL VERVILLE.
+
+
+  In the beginning the Gods made man, and fashioned the sky and the sea,
+  And the earth's fair face for man's dwelling-place, and
+    this was the Gods' decree:--
+
+  "Lo, We have given to man five wits: he discerneth folly and sin;
+  He is swift to deride all the world outside, and blind
+    to the world within:
+
+  "So that man may make sport and amuse Us, in battling
+    for phrases or pelf,
+  Now that each may know what forebodeth woe to his
+    neighbor, and not to himself."
+
+  Yet some have the Gods forgotten,--or is it that subtler mirth
+  The Gods extort of a certain sort of folk that cumber the earth?
+
+  _For this is the song of the double-soul, distortedly two in one,--_
+  _Of the wearied eyes that still behold the fruit ere the seed be sown,_
+  _And derive affright for the nearing night from the light_
+    _of the noontide sun._
+
+  For one that with hope in the morning set forth, and knew never a fear,
+  They have linked with another whom omens bother; and
+    he whispers in one's ear.
+
+  And one is fain to be climbing where only angels have trod,
+  But is fettered and tied to another's side who fears that
+    it might look odd.
+
+  And one would worship a woman whom all perfections dower,
+  But the other smiles at transparent wiles; and he quotes
+    from Schopenhauer.
+
+  Thus two by two we wrangle and blunder about the earth,
+  And that body we share we may not spare; but the Gods
+    have need of mirth.
+
+  _So this is the song of the double-soul, distortedly two in one.--_
+  _Of the wearied eyes that still behold the fruit ere the seed be sown,_
+  _And derive affright for the nearing night from the light_
+    _of the noontide sun._
+
+
+
+
+AUCTORIAL INDUCTION
+
+"_These questions, so long as they remain with the Muses, may very well
+be unaccompanied with severity, for where there is no other end of
+contemplation and inquiry but that of pastime alone, the understanding
+is not oppressed; but after the Muses have given over their riddles to
+Sphinx,--that is, to practise, which urges and impels to action, choice
+and determination,--then it is that they become torturing, severe and
+trying._"
+
+
+  From the dawn of the day to the dusk he toiled,
+  Shaping fanciful playthings, with tireless hands,--
+  Useless trumpery toys; and, with vaulting heart,
+  Gave them unto all peoples, who mocked at him,
+  Trampled on them, and soiled them, and went their way.
+
+  Then he toiled from the morn to the dusk again,
+  Gave his gimcracks to peoples who mocked at him,
+  Trampled on them, deriding, and went their way.
+
+  Thus he labors, and loudly they jeer at him;--
+  That is, when they remember he still exists.
+
+  _Who_, you ask, _is this fellow_?--What matter names?
+  He is only a scribbler who is content.
+
+  FELIX KENNASTON.--The Toy-Maker.
+
+
+
+
+AUCTORIAL INDUCTION
+
+
+WHICH (AFTER SOME BRIEF DISCOURSE OF FIRES AND FRYING-PANS) ELUCIDATES
+THE INEXPEDIENCY OF PUBLISHING THIS BOOK, AS WELL AS THE NECESSITY OF
+WRITING IT:  AND THENCE PASSES TO A MODEST DEFENSE OF MORE VITAL THEMES.
+
+The desire to write perfectly of beautiful happenings is, as the saying
+runs, old as the hills--and as immortal.  Questionless, there was many
+a serviceable brick wasted in Nineveh because finicky persons must
+needs be deleting here and there a phrase in favor of its cuneatic
+synonym; and it is not improbable that when the outworn sun expires in
+clinkers its final ray will gild such zealots tinkering with their
+"style." Some few there must be in every age and every land of whom
+life claims nothing very insistently save that they write perfectly of
+beautiful happenings.
+
+Yet, that the work of a man of letters is almost always a congenial
+product of his day and environment, is a contention as lacking in
+novelty as it is in the need of any upholding here.  Nor is the
+rationality of that axiom far to seek; for a man of genuine literary
+genius, since he possesses a temperament whose susceptibilities are of
+wider area than those of any other, is inevitably of all people the one
+most variously affected by his surroundings.  And it is he, in
+consequence, who of all people most faithfully and compactly exhibits
+the impress of his times and his times' tendencies, not merely in his
+writings--where it conceivably might be just predetermined
+affectation--but in his personality.
+
+Such being the assumption upon which this volume is builded, it appears
+only equitable for the architect frankly to indicate his cornerstone.
+Hereinafter you have an attempt to depict a special temperament--one in
+essence "literary"--as very variously molded by diverse eras and as
+responding in proportion with its ability to the demands of a certain
+hour.
+
+In proportion with its ability, be it repeated, since its ability is
+singularly hampered.  For, apart from any ticklish temporal
+considerations, be it remembered, life is always claiming of this
+temperament's possessor that he write perfectly of beautiful happenings.
+
+To disregard this vital longing, and flatly to stifle the innate
+striving toward artistic creation, is to become (as with Wycherley and
+Sheridan) a man who waives, however laughingly, his sole apology for
+existence.  The proceeding is paltry enough, in all conscience; and
+yet, upon the other side, there is much positive danger in giving to
+the instinct a loose rein.  For in that event the familiar
+circumstances of sedate and wholesome living cannot but seem, like
+paintings viewed too near, to lose in gusto and winsomeness.  Desire,
+perhaps a craving hunger, awakens for the impossible.  No emotion,
+whatever be its sincerity, is endured without a side-glance toward its
+capabilities for being written about.  The world, in short, inclines to
+appear an ill-lit mine, wherein one quarries gingerly amidst an abiding
+loneliness (as with Pope and Ufford and Sire Raimbaut)--and wherein one
+very often is allured into unsavory alleys (as with Herrick and
+Alessandro de Medici)--in search of that raw material which loving
+labor will transshape into comeliness.
+
+Such, if it be allowed to shift the metaphor, are the treacherous
+by-paths of that admirably policed highway whereon the well-groomed and
+well-bitted Pegasi of Vanderhoffen and Charteris (in his later manner)
+trot stolidly and safely toward oblivion.  And the result of wandering
+afield is of necessity a tragedy, in that the deviator's life, if not
+as an artist's quite certainly as a human being's, must in the outcome
+be adjudged a failure.
+
+Hereinafter, then, you have an attempt to depict a special
+temperament--one in essence "literary"--as very variously molded by
+diverse eras and as responding in proportion with its ability to the
+demands of a certain hour.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+And this much said, it is permissible to hope, at least, that here and
+there some reader may be found not wholly blind to this book's goal,
+whatever be his opinion as to this book's success in reaching it.  Yet
+many honest souls there be among us average-novel-readers in whose eyes
+this volume must rest content to figure as a collection of short
+stories having naught in common beyond the feature that each deals with
+the _affaires du coeur_ of a poet.
+
+Such must always be the book's interpretation by mental indolence.  The
+fact is incontestable; and this fact in itself may be taken as
+sufficient to establish the inexpediency of publishing _The Certain
+Hour_.  For that "people will not buy a volume of short stories" is
+notorious to all publishers.  To offset the axiom there are no doubt
+incongruous phenomena--ranging from the continued popularity of the
+Bible to the present general esteem of Mr. Kipling, and embracing the
+rather unaccountable vogue of "O. Henry";--but, none the less, the
+superstition has its force.
+
+Here intervenes the multifariousness of man, pointed out somewhere by
+Mr. Gilbert Chesterton, which enables the individual to be at once a
+vegetarian, a golfer, a vestryman, a blond, a mammal, a Democrat, and
+an immortal spirit.  As a rational person, one may debonairly consider
+_The Certain Hour_ possesses as large license to look like a volume of
+short stories as, say, a backgammon-board has to its customary guise of
+a two-volume history; but as an average-novel-reader, one must vote
+otherwise.  As an average-novel-reader, one must condemn the very book
+which, as a seasoned scribbler, one was moved to write through long
+consideration of the drama already suggested--that immemorial drama of
+the desire to write perfectly of beautiful happenings, and the obscure
+martyrdom to which this desire solicits its possessor.
+
+Now, clearly, the struggle of a special temperament with a fixed force
+does not forthwith begin another story when the locale of combat
+shifts.  The case is, rather, as when--with certainly an intervening
+change of apparel--Pompey fights Caesar at both Dyrrachium and
+Pharsalus, or as when General Grant successively encounters General Lee
+at the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor and Appomattox.  The
+combatants remain unchanged, the question at issue is the same, the
+tragedy has continuity.  And even so, from the time of Sire Raimbaut to
+that of John Charteris has a special temperament heart-hungrily
+confronted an ageless problem: at what cost now, in this fleet hour of
+my vigor, may one write perfectly of beautiful happenings?
+
+
+Thus logic urges, with pathetic futility, inasmuch as we
+average-novel-readers are profoundly indifferent to both logic and good
+writing.  And always the fact remains that to the mentally indolent
+this book may well seem a volume of disconnected short stories.  All of
+us being more or less mentally indolent, this possibility constitutes a
+dire fault.
+
+Three other damning objections will readily obtrude themselves:  _The
+Certain Hour_ deals with past epochs--beginning before the introduction
+of dinner-forks, and ending at that remote quaint period when people
+used to waltz and two-step--dead eras in which we average-novel-readers
+are not interested; _The Certain Hour_ assumes an appreciable amount of
+culture and information on its purchaser's part, which we
+average-novel-readers either lack or, else, are unaccustomed to employ
+in connection with reading for pastime; and--in our eyes the crowning
+misdemeanor--_The Certain Hour_ is not "vital."
+
+Having thus candidly confessed these faults committed as the writer of
+this book, it is still possible in human multifariousness to consider
+their enormity, not merely in this book, but in fictional
+reading-matter at large, as viewed by an average-novel-reader--by a
+representative of that potent class whose preferences dictate the
+nature and main trend of modern American literature.  And to do this,
+it may be, throws no unsalutary sidelight upon the still-existent
+problem: at what cost, now, may one attempt to write perfectly of
+beautiful happenings?
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+Indisputably the most striking defect of this modern American
+literature is the fact that the production of anything at all
+resembling literature is scarcely anywhere apparent.  Innumerable
+printing-presses, instead, are turning out a vast quantity of
+reading-matter, the candidly recognized purpose of which is to kill
+time, and which--it has been asserted, though perhaps too
+sweepingly--ought not to be vended over book-counters, but rather in
+drugstores along with the other narcotics.
+
+It is begging the question to protest that the class of people who a
+generation ago read nothing now at least read novels, and to regard
+this as a change for the better.  By similar logic it would be more
+wholesome to breakfast off laudanum than to omit the meal entirely.
+The nineteenth century, in fact, by making education popular, has
+produced in America the curious spectacle of a reading-public with
+essentially nonliterary tastes.  Formerly, better books were published,
+because they were intended for persons who turned to reading through a
+natural bent of mind; whereas the modern American novel of commerce is
+addressed to us average people who read, when we read at all, in
+violation of every innate instinct.
+
+Such grounds as yet exist for hopefulness on the part of those who
+cordially care for _belles lettres_ are to be found elsewhere than in
+the crowded market-places of fiction, where genuine intelligence
+panders on all sides to ignorance and indolence.  The phrase may seem
+to have no very civil ring; but reflection will assure the fair-minded
+that two indispensable requisites nowadays of a pecuniarily successful
+novel are, really, that it make no demand upon the reader's
+imagination, and that it rigorously refrain from assuming its reader to
+possess any particular information on any subject whatever.  The author
+who writes over the head of the public is the most dangerous enemy of
+his publisher--and the most insidious as well, because so many
+publishers are in private life interested in literary matters, and
+would readily permit this personal foible to influence the exercise of
+their vocation were it possible to do so upon the preferable side of
+bankruptcy.
+
+But publishers, among innumerable other conditions, must weigh the fact
+that no novel which does not deal with modern times is ever really
+popular among the serious-minded.  It is difficult to imagine a tale
+whose action developed under the rule of the Caesars or the
+Merovingians being treated as more than a literary _hors d'oeuvre_.  We
+purchasers of "vital" novels know nothing about the period, beyond a
+hazy association of it with the restrictions of the schoolroom; our
+sluggish imaginations instinctively rebel against the exertion of
+forming any notion of such a period; and all the human nature that
+exists even in serious-minded persons is stirred up to resentment
+against the book's author for presuming to know more than a potential
+patron.  The book, in fine, simply irritates the serious-minded person;
+and she--for it is only women who willingly brave the terrors of
+department-stores, where most of our new books are bought
+nowadays--quite naturally puts it aside in favor of some keen and
+daring study of American life that is warranted to grip the reader.
+So, modernity of scene is everywhere necessitated as an essential
+qualification for a book's discussion at the literary evenings of the
+local woman's club; and modernity of scene, of course, is almost always
+fatal to the permanent worth of fictitious narrative.
+
+It may seem banal here to recall the truism that first-class art never
+reproduces its surroundings; but such banality is often justified by
+our human proneness to shuffle over the fact that many truisms are
+true.  And this one is pre-eminently indisputable: that what mankind
+has generally agreed to accept as first-class art in any of the varied
+forms of fictitious narrative has never been a truthful reproduction of
+the artist's era.  Indeed, in the higher walks of fiction art has never
+reproduced anything, but has always dealt with the facts and laws of
+life as so much crude material which must be transmuted into
+comeliness.  When Shakespeare pronounced his celebrated dictum about
+art's holding the mirror up to nature, he was no doubt alluding to the
+circumstance that a mirror reverses everything which it reflects.
+
+Nourishment for much wildish speculation, in fact, can be got by
+considering what the world's literature would be, had its authors
+restricted themselves, as do we Americans so sedulously--and
+unavoidably--to writing of contemporaneous happenings.  In
+fiction-making no author of the first class since Homer's infancy has
+ever in his happier efforts concerned himself at all with the great
+"problems" of his particular day; and among geniuses of the second rank
+you will find such ephemeralities adroitly utilized only when they are
+distorted into enduring parodies of their actual selves by the broad
+humor of a Dickens or the colossal fantasy of a Balzac.  In such cases
+as the latter two writers, however, we have an otherwise competent
+artist handicapped by a personality so marked that, whatever he may
+nominally write about, the result is, above all else, an exposure of
+the writer's idiosyncrasies.  Then, too, the laws of any locale wherein
+Mr. Pickwick achieves a competence in business, or of a society wherein
+Vautrin becomes chief of police, are upon the face of it extra-mundane.
+It suffices that, as a general rule, in fiction-making the true artist
+finds an ample, if restricted, field wherein the proper functions of
+the preacher, or the ventriloquist, or the photographer, or of the
+public prosecutor, are exercised with equal lack of grace.
+
+Besides, in dealing with contemporary life a novelist is goaded into
+too many pusillanimous concessions to plausibility.  He no longer moves
+with the gait of omnipotence.  It was very different in the palmy days
+when Dumas was free to play at ducks and drakes with history, and
+Victor Hugo to reconstruct the whole system of English government, and
+Scott to compel the sun to set in the east, whenever such minor changes
+caused to flow more smoothly the progress of the tale these giants had
+in hand.  These freedoms are not tolerated in American noveldom, and
+only a few futile "high-brows" sigh in vain for Thackeray's "happy
+harmless Fableland, where these things are."  The majority of us are
+deep in "vital" novels.  Nor is the reason far to seek.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+One hears a great deal nowadays concerning "vital" books.  Their
+authors have been widely praised on very various grounds.  Oddly
+enough, however, the writers of these books have rarely been commended
+for the really praiseworthy charity evinced therein toward that large
+long-suffering class loosely describable as the average-novel-reader.
+
+Yet, in connection with this fact, it is worthy of more than passing
+note that no great while ago the _New York Times'_ carefully selected
+committee, in picking out the hundred best books published during a
+particular year, declared as to novels--"a 'best' book, in our opinion,
+is one that raises an important question, or recurs to a vital theme
+and pronounces upon it what in some sense is a last word."  Now this
+definition is not likely ever to receive more praise than it deserves.
+Cavilers may, of course, complain that actually to write the last word
+on any subject is a feat reserved for the Recording Angel's unique
+performance on judgment Day.  Even setting that objection aside, it is
+undeniable that no work of fiction published of late in America
+corresponds quite so accurately to the terms of this definition as do
+the multiplication tables.  Yet the multiplication tables are not
+without their claims to applause as examples of straightforward
+narrative.  It is, also, at least permissible to consider that therein
+the numeral five, say, where it figures as protagonist, unfolds under
+the stress of its varying adventures as opulent a development of real
+human nature as does, through similar ups-and-downs, the Reverend John
+Hodder in _The Inside of the Cup_.  It is equally allowable to find the
+less simple evolution of the digit seven more sympathetic, upon the
+whole, than those of Undine Spragg in _The Custom of the Country_.
+But, even so, this definition of what may now, authoritatively, be
+ranked as a "best novel" is an honest and noteworthy severance from
+misleading literary associations such as have too long befogged our
+notions about reading-matter.  It points with emphasis toward the
+altruistic obligations of tale-tellers to be "vital."
+
+For we average-novel-readers--we average people, in a word--are now, as
+always, rather pathetically hungry for "vital" themes, such themes as
+appeal directly to our everyday observation and prejudices.  Did the
+decision rest with us all novelists would be put under bond to confine
+themselves forevermore to themes like these.
+
+As touches the appeal to everyday observation, it is an old story, at
+least coeval with Mr. Crummles' not uncelebrated pumps and tubs, if not
+with the grapes of Zeuxis, how unfailingly in art we delight to
+recognize the familiar.  A novel whose scene of action is explicit will
+always interest the people of that locality, whatever the book's other
+pretensions to consideration.  Given simultaneously a photograph of
+Murillo's rendering of _The Virgin Crowned Queen of Heaven_ and a
+photograph of a governor's installation in our State capital, there is
+no one of us but will quite naturally look at the latter first, in
+order to see if in it some familiar countenance be recognizable.  And
+thus, upon a larger scale, the twentieth century is, pre-eminently,
+interested in the twentieth century.
+
+It is all very well to describe our average-novel-readers' dislike of
+Romanticism as "the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a
+glass." It is even within the scope of human dunderheadedness again to
+point out here that the supreme artists in literature have precisely
+this in common, and this alone, that in their masterworks they have
+avoided the "vital" themes of their day with such circumspection as
+lesser folk reserve for the smallpox.  The answer, of course, in either
+case, is that the "vital" novel, the novel which peculiarly appeals to
+us average-novel-readers, has nothing to do with literature.  There is
+between these two no more intelligent connection than links the paint
+Mr. Sargent puts on canvas and the paint Mr. Dockstader puts on his
+face.
+
+Literature is made up of the re-readable books, the books which it is
+possible--for the people so constituted as to care for that sort of
+thing--to read again and yet again with pleasure.  Therefore, in
+literature a book's subject is of astonishingly minor importance, and
+its style nearly everything: whereas in books intended to be read for
+pastime, and forthwith to be consigned at random to the wastebasket or
+to the inmates of some charitable institute, the theme is of paramount
+importance, and ought to be a serious one.  The modern novelist owes it
+to his public to select a "vital" theme which in itself will fix the
+reader's attention by reason of its familiarity in the reader's
+everyday life.
+
+Thus, a lady with whose more candid opinions the writer of this is more
+frequently favored nowadays than of old, formerly confessed to having
+only one set rule when it came to investment in new
+reading-matter--always to buy the Williamsons' last book.  Her reason
+was the perfectly sensible one that the Williamsons' plots used
+invariably to pivot upon motor-trips, and she is an ardent
+automobilist.  Since, as of late, the Williamsons have seen fit to
+exercise their typewriter upon other topics, they have as a matter of
+course lost her patronage.
+
+This principle of selection, when you come to appraise it sanely, is
+the sole intelligent method of dealing with reading-matter.  It seems
+here expedient again to state the peculiar problem that we
+average-novel-readers have of necessity set the modern
+novelist--namely, that his books must in the main appeal to people who
+read for pastime, to people who read books only under protest and only
+when they have no other employment for that particular half-hour.
+
+Now, reading for pastime is immensely simplified when the book's theme
+is some familiar matter of the reader's workaday life, because at
+outset the reader is spared considerable mental effort.  The motorist
+above referred to, and indeed any average-novel-reader, can without
+exertion conceive of the Williamsons' people in their automobiles.
+Contrariwise, were these fictitious characters embarked in palankeens
+or droshkies or jinrikishas, more or less intellectual exercise would
+be necessitated on the reader's part to form a notion of the
+conveyance.  And we average-novel-readers do not open a book with the
+intention of making a mental effort.  The author has no right to expect
+of us an act so unhabitual, we very poignantly feel.  Our prejudices he
+is freely chartered to stir up--if, lucky rogue, he can!--but he ought
+with deliberation to recognize that it is precisely in order to avoid
+mental effort that we purchase, or borrow, his book, and afterward
+discuss it.
+
+Hence arises our heartfelt gratitude toward such novels as deal with
+"vital" themes, with the questions we average-novel-readers confront or
+make talk about in those happier hours of our existence wherein we are
+not reduced to reading.  Thus, a tale, for example, dealing either with
+"feminism" or "white slavery" as the handiest makeshift of
+spinsterdom--or with the divorce habit and plutocratic iniquity in
+general, or with the probable benefits of converting clergymen to
+Christianity, or with how much more than she knows a desirable mother
+will tell her children--finds the book's tentative explorer, just now,
+amply equipped with prejudices, whether acquired by second thought or
+second hand, concerning the book's topic.  As endurability goes,
+reading the book rises forthwith almost to the level of an
+afternoon-call where there is gossip about the neighbors and Germany's
+future.  We average-novel-readers may not, in either case, agree with
+the opinions advanced; but at least our prejudices are aroused, and we
+are interested.
+
+And these "vital" themes awake our prejudices at the cost of a
+minimum--if not always, as when Miss Corelli guides us, with a
+positively negligible--tasking of our mental faculties.  For such
+exemption we average-novel-readers cannot  but be properly grateful.
+Nay, more than this: provided the novelist contrive to rouse our
+prejudices, it matters with us not at all whether afterward they be
+soothed or harrowed.  To implicate our prejudices somehow, to raise in
+us a partizanship in the tale's progress, is our sole request.  Whether
+this consummation be brought about through an arraignment of some
+social condition which we personally either advocate or reprehend--the
+attitude weighs little--or whether this interest be purchased with
+placidly driveling preachments of generally "uplifting"
+tendencies--vaguely titillating that vague intention which exists in us
+all of becoming immaculate as soon as it is perfectly convenient--the
+personal prejudices of us average-novel-readers are not lightly lulled
+again to sleep.
+
+In fact, the jealousy of any human prejudice against hinted
+encroachment may safely be depended upon to spur us through an
+astonishing number of pages--for all that it has of late been
+complained among us, with some show of extenuation, that our original
+intent in beginning certain of the recent "vital" novels was to kill
+time, rather than eternity.  And so, we average-novel-readers plod on
+jealously to the end, whether we advance (to cite examples already
+somewhat of yesterday) under the leadership of Mr. Upton Sinclair
+aspersing the integrity of modern sausages and millionaires, or of Mr.
+Hall Caine saying about Roman Catholics what ordinary people would
+hesitate to impute to their relatives by marriage--or whether we be
+more suavely allured onward by Mrs. Florence Barclay, or Mr. Sydnor
+Harrison, with ingenuous indorsements of the New Testament and the
+inherent womanliness of women.
+
+The "vital" theme, then, let it be repeated, has two inestimable
+advantages which should commend it to all novelists: first, it spares
+us average-novel-readers any preliminary orientation, and thereby
+mitigates the mental exertion of reading; and secondly, it appeals to
+our prejudices, which we naturally prefer to exercise, and are
+accustomed to exercise, rather than our mental or idealistic faculties.
+The novelist who conscientiously bears these two facts in mind is
+reasonably sure of his reward, not merely in pecuniary form, but in
+those higher fields wherein he harvests his chosen public's honest
+gratitude and affection.
+
+For we average-novel-readers are quite frequently reduced by
+circumstances to self-entrustment to the resources of the novelist, as
+to those of the dentist.  Our latter-day conditions, as we cannot but
+recognize, necessitate the employment of both artists upon occasion.
+And with both, we average-novel-readers, we average people, are most
+grateful when they make the process of resorting to them as easy and
+unirritating as may be possible.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+So much for the plea of us average-novel-readers; and our plea, we
+think, is rational.  We are "in the market" for a specified article;
+and human ingenuity, co-operating with human nature, will inevitably
+insure the manufacture of that article as long as any general demand
+for it endures.
+
+Meanwhile, it is small cause for grief that the purchaser of American
+novels prefers Central Park to any "wood near Athens," and is more at
+home in the Tenderloin than in Camelot.  People whose tastes happen to
+be literary are entirely too prone to too much long-faced prattle about
+literature, which, when all is said, is never a controlling factor in
+anybody's life.  The automobile and the telephone, the accomplishments
+of Mr. Edison and Mr. Burbank, and it would be permissible to add of
+Mr. Rockefeller, influence nowadays, in one fashion or another, every
+moment of every living American's existence; whereas had America
+produced, instead, a second Milton or a Dante, it would at most have
+caused a few of us to spend a few spare evenings rather differently.
+
+Besides, we know--even we average-novel-readers--that America is in
+fact producing her enduring literature day by day, although, as rarely
+fails to be the case, those who are contemporaneous with the makers of
+this literature cannot with any certainty point them out.  To voice a
+hoary truism, time alone is the test of "vitality."  In our present
+flood of books, as in any other flood, it is the froth and scum which
+shows most prominently.  And the possession of "vitality," here as
+elsewhere, postulates that its possessor must ultimately perish.
+
+Nay, by the time these printed pages are first read as printed pages,
+allusion to those modern authors whom these pages cite--the pre-eminent
+literary personages of that hour wherein these pages were written--will
+inevitably have come to savor somewhat of antiquity: so that sundry
+references herein to the "vital" books now most in vogue will rouse
+much that vague shrugging recollection as wakens, say, at a mention of
+_Dorothy Vernon_ or _Three Weeks_ or _Beverly of Graustark_.  And while
+at first glance it might seem expedient--in revising the last
+proof-sheets of these pages--somewhat to "freshen them up" by
+substituting, for the books herein referred to, the "vital" and more
+widely talked-of novels of the summer of 1916, the task would be but
+wasted labor; since even these fascinating chronicles, one comprehends
+forlornly, must needs be equally obsolete by the time these
+proof-sheets have been made into a volume.  With malice aforethought,
+therefore, the books and authors named herein stay those which all of
+three years back our reviewers and advertising pages, with perfect
+gravity, acclaimed as of enduring importance.  For the quaintness of
+that opinion, nowadays, may profitably round the moral that there is
+really nothing whereto one may fittingly compare a successful
+contribution to "vital" reading-matter, as touches evanescence.
+
+And this is as it should be.  _Tout passe.--L'art robust seul a
+l'éternité_, precisely as Gautier points out, with bracing
+common-sense; and it is excellent thus to comprehend that to-day, as
+always, only through exercise of the auctorial virtues of distinction
+and clarity, of beauty and symmetry, of tenderness and truth and
+urbanity, may a man in reason attempt to insure his books against
+oblivion's voracity.
+
+Yet the desire to write perfectly of beautiful happenings is, as the
+saying runs, old as the hills--and as immortal.  Questionless, there
+was many a serviceable brick wasted in Nineveh because finicky persons
+must needs be deleting here and there a phrase in favor of its cuneatic
+synonym; and it is not improbable that when the outworn sun expires in
+clinkers its final ray will gild such zealots tinkering with their
+"style."  This, then, is the conclusion of the whole matter.  Some few
+there must be in every age and every land of whom life claims nothing
+very insistently save that they write perfectly of beautiful
+happenings.  And even we average-novel-readers know it is such folk who
+are to-day making in America that portion of our literature which may
+hope for permanency.
+
+Dumbarton Grange
+  1914-1916
+
+
+
+
+BELHS CAVALIERS
+
+
+"_For this RAIMBAUT DE VAQUIERAS lived at a time when prolonged habits
+of extra-mundane contemplation, combined with the decay of real
+knowledge, were apt to volatilize the thoughts and aspirations of the
+best and wisest into dreamy unrealities, and to lend a false air of
+mysticism to love. . . .  It is as if the intellect and the will had
+become used to moving paralytically among visions, dreams, and mystic
+terrors, weighed down with torpor._"
+
+
+  Fair friend, since that hour I took leave of thee
+  I have not slept nor stirred from off my knee,
+  But prayed alway to God, S. Mary's Son,
+  To give me back my true companion;
+      And soon it will be Dawn.
+
+  Fair friend, at parting, thy behest to me
+  Was that all sloth I should eschew and flee,
+  And keep good Watch until the Night was done:
+  Now must my Song and Service pass for none?
+      For soon it will be Dawn.
+
+  RAIMBAUT DE VAQUIERAS.--_Aubade, from F. York Powell's version_.
+
+
+
+
+BELHS CAVALIERS
+
+
+You may read elsewhere of the long feud that was between Guillaume de
+Baux, afterward Prince of Orange, and his kinsman Raimbaut de
+Vaquieras.  They were not reconciled until their youth was dead.  Then,
+when Messire Raimbaut returned from battling against the Turks and the
+Bulgarians, in the 1,210th year from man's salvation, the Archbishop of
+Rheims made peace between the two cousins; and, attended by Makrisi, a
+converted Saracen who had followed the knight's fortunes for well nigh
+a quarter of a century, the Sire de Vaquieras rode homeward.
+
+Many slain men were scattered along the highway when he came again into
+Venaissin, in April, after an absence of thirty years.  The crows whom
+his passing disturbed were too sluggish for long flights and many of
+them did not heed him at all.  Guillaume de Baux was now undisputed
+master of these parts, although, as this host of mute, hacked and
+partially devoured witnesses attested, the contest had been dubious for
+a while: but now Lovain of the Great-Tooth, Prince Guillaume's last
+competitor, was captured; the forces of Lovain were scattered; and of
+Lovain's lieutenants only Mahi de Vernoil was unsubdued.
+
+Prince Guillaume laughed a little when he told his kinsman of the
+posture of affairs, as more loudly did Guillaume's gross son, Sire
+Philibert.  But Madona Biatritz did not laugh.  She was the widow of
+Guillaume's dead brother--Prince Conrat, whom Guillaume succeeded--and
+it was in her honor that Raimbaut had made those songs which won him
+eminence as a practitioner of the Gay Science.
+
+Biatritz said, "It is a long while since we two met."
+
+He that had been her lover all his life said, "Yes."
+
+She was no longer the most beautiful of women, no longer his be-hymned
+Belhs Cavaliers--you may read elsewhere how he came to call her that in
+all his canzons--but only a fine and gracious stranger.  It was
+uniformly gray, that soft and plentiful hair, where once such gold had
+flamed as dizzied him to think of even now; there was no crimson in
+these thinner lips; and candor would have found her eyes less wonderful
+than those Raimbaut had dreamed of very often among an alien and
+hostile people.  But he lamented nothing, and to him she was as ever
+Heaven's most splendid miracle.
+
+"Yes," said this old Raimbaut,--"and even to-day we have not reclaimed
+the Sepulcher as yet.  Oh, I doubt if we shall ever win it, now that
+your brother and my most dear lord is dead."  Both thought a while of
+Boniface de Montferrat, their playmate once, who yesterday was King of
+Thessalonica and now was so much Macedonian dust.
+
+She said:  "This week the Prince sent envoys to my nephew. . . .  And
+so you have come home again----"  Color had surged into her time-worn
+face, and as she thought of things done long ago this woman's eyes were
+like the eyes of his young Biatritz.  She said: "You never married?"
+
+He answered:  "No, I have left love alone.  For Love prefers to take
+rather than to give; against a single happy hour he balances a hundred
+miseries, and he appraises one pleasure to be worth a thousand pangs.
+Pardieu, let this immortal usurer contrive as may seem well to him, for
+I desire no more of his bounty or of his penalties."
+
+"No, we wish earnestly for nothing, either good or bad," said Dona
+Biatritz--"we who have done with loving."
+
+They sat in silence, musing over ancient happenings, and not looking at
+each other, until the Prince came with his guests, who seemed to laugh
+too heartily.
+
+Guillaume's frail arm was about his kinsman, and Guillaume chuckled
+over jests and by-words that had been between the cousins as children.
+Raimbaut found them no food for laughter now.  Guillaume told all of
+Raimbaut's oath of fealty, and of how these two were friends and their
+unnatural feud was forgotten.  "For we grow old,--eh, maker of songs?"
+he said; "and it is time we made our peace with Heaven, since we are
+not long for this world."
+
+"Yes," said the knight; "oh yes, we both grow old."  He thought of
+another April evening, so long ago, when this Guillaume de Baux had
+stabbed him in a hedged field near Calais, and had left him under a
+hawthorn bush for dead; and Raimbaut wondered that there was no anger
+in his heart.  "We are friends now," he said.  Biatritz, whom these two
+had loved, and whose vanished beauty had been the spur of their long
+enmity, sat close to them, and hardly seemed to listen.
+
+Thus the evening passed and every one was merry, because the Prince had
+overcome Lovain of the Great-Tooth, and was to punish the upstart on
+the morrow.  But Raimbaut de Vaquieras, a spent fellow, a derelict,
+barren of aim now that the Holy Wars were over, sat in this unfamiliar
+place--where when he was young he had laughed as a cock crows!--and
+thought how at the last he had crept home to die as a dependent on his
+cousin's bounty.
+
+Thus the evening passed, and at its end Makrisi followed the troubadour
+to his regranted fief of Vaquieras.  This was a chill and brilliant
+night, swayed by a frozen moon so powerful that no stars showed in the
+unclouded heavens, and everywhere the bogs were curdled with thin ice.
+An obdurate wind swept like a knife-blade across a world which even in
+its spring seemed very old.
+
+"This night is bleak and evil," Makrisi said.  He rode a coffin's
+length behind his master.  "It is like Prince Guillaume, I think.  What
+man will sorrow when dawn comes?"
+
+Raimbaut de Vaquieras replied:  "Always dawn comes at last, Makrisi."
+
+"It comes the more quickly, messire, when it is prompted."
+
+The troubadour only smiled at words which seemed so meaningless.  He
+did not smile when later in the night Makrisi brought Mahi de Vernoil,
+disguised as a mendicant friar.  This outlaw pleaded with Sire Raimbaut
+to head the tatters of Lovain's army, and showed Raimbaut how easy it
+would be to wrest Venaissin from Prince Guillaume.  "We cannot save
+Lovain," de Vemoil said, "for Guillaume has him fast.  But Venaissin is
+very proud of you, my tres beau sire.  Ho, maker of world-famous songs!
+stout champion of the faith! my men and I will now make you Prince of
+Orange in place of the fiend who rules us.  You may then at your
+convenience wed Madona Biatritz, that most amiable lady whom you have
+loved so long.  And by the Cross! you may do this before the week is
+out."
+
+The old knight answered:  "It is true that I have always served Madona
+Biatritz, who is of matchless worth.  I might not, therefore, presume
+to call myself any longer her servant were my honor stained in any
+particular.  Oh no, Messire de Vernoil, an oath is an oath.  I have
+this day sworn fealty to Guillaume de Baux."
+
+Then after other talk Raimbaut dismissed the fierce-eyed little man.
+The freebooter growled curses as he went.  On a sudden he whistled,
+like a person considering, and he began to chuckle.
+
+Raimbaut said, more lately:  "Zoraida left no wholesome legacy in you,
+Makrisi."  This Zoraida was a woman the knight had known in
+Constantinople--a comely outlander who had killed herself because of
+Sire Raimbaut's highflown avoidance of all womankind except the
+mistress of his youth.
+
+"Nay, save only in loving you too well, messire, was Zoraida a wise
+woman, notably. . . .  But this is outworn talk, the prattle of Cain's
+babyhood.  As matters were, you did not love Zoraida.  So Zoraida died.
+Such is the custom in my country."
+
+"You trouble me, Makrisi.  Your eyes are like blown coals. . . .  Yet
+you have served me long and faithfully.  You know that mine was ever
+the vocation of dealing honorably in battle among emperors, and of
+spreading broadcast the rumor of my valor, and of achieving good by my
+sword's labors.  I have lived by warfare.  Long, long ago, since I
+derived no benefit from love, I cried farewell to it."
+
+"Ay," said Makrisi.  "Love makes a demi-god of all--just for an hour.
+Such hours as follow we devote to the concoction of sleeping-draughts."
+He laughed, and very harshly.
+
+And Raimbaut did not sleep that night because this life of ours seemed
+such a piece of tangle-work as he had not the skill to unravel.  So he
+devoted the wakeful hours to composition of a planh, lamenting vanished
+youth and that Biatritz whom the years had stolen.
+
+Then on the ensuing morning, after some talk about the new campaign,
+Prince Guillaume de Baux leaned back in his high chair and said,
+abruptly:
+
+"In perfect candor, you puzzle your liege-lord.  For you loathe me and
+you still worship my sister-in-law, an unattainable princess.  In these
+two particulars you display such wisdom as would inevitably prompt you
+to make an end of me.  Yet, what the devil! you, the time-battered
+vagabond, decline happiness and a kingdom to boot because of
+yesterday's mummery in the cathedral! because of a mere promise given!
+Yes, I have my spies in every rat-hole.  I am aware that my barons hate
+me, and hate Philibert almost as bitterly,--and that, in fine, a
+majority of my barons would prefer to see you Prince in my unstable
+place, on account of your praiseworthy molestations of heathenry.  Oh,
+yes, I understand my barons perfectly.  I flatter myself I understand
+everybody in Venaissin save you."
+
+Raimbaut answered: "You and I are not alike."
+
+"No, praise each and every Saint!" said the Prince of Orange, heartily.
+"And yet, I am not sure----"  He rose, for his sight had failed him so
+that he could not distinctly see you except when he spoke with head
+thrown back, as though he looked at you over a wall.  "For instance, do
+you understand that I hold Biatritz here as a prisoner, because her
+dower-lands are necessary to me, and that I intend to marry her as soon
+as Pope Innocent grants me a dispensation?"
+
+"All Venaissin knows that.  Yes, you have always gained everything
+which you desired in this world, Guillaume.  Yet it was at a price, I
+think."
+
+"I am no haggler. . . . But you have never comprehended me, not even in
+the old days when we loved each other.  For instance, do you
+understand--slave of a spoken word!--what it must mean to me to know
+that at this hour to-morrow there will be alive in Venaissin no person
+whom I hate?"
+
+Messire de Vaquieras reflected.  His was never a rapid mind.  "Why, no,
+I do not know anything about hatred," he said, at last.  "I think I
+never hated any person."
+
+Guillaume de Baux gave a half-frantic gesture.  "Now, Heaven send you
+troubadours a clearer understanding of what sort of world we live
+in----!"  He broke off short and growled, "And yet--sometimes I envy
+you, Raimbaut!"
+
+They rode then into the Square of St. Michel to witness the death of
+Lovain.  Guillaume took with him his two new mistresses and all his
+by-blows, each magnificently clothed, as if they rode to a festival.
+Afterward, before the doors of Lovain's burning house, a rope was
+fastened under Lovain's armpits, and he was gently lowered into a pot
+of boiling oil.  His feet cooked first, and then the flesh of his legs,
+and so on upward, while Lovain screamed.  Guillaume in a loose robe of
+green powdered with innumerable silver crescents, sat watching, under a
+canopy woven very long ago in Tarshish, and cunningly embroidered with
+the figures of peacocks and apes and men with eagles' heads.  His hands
+caressed each other meditatively.
+
+
+It was on the afternoon of this day, the last of April, that Sire
+Raimbaut came upon Madona Biatritz about a strange employment in the
+Ladies' Court.  There was then a well in the midst of this enclosure,
+with a granite ledge around it carven with lilies; and upon this she
+leaned, looking down into the water.  In her lap was a rope of pearls,
+which one by one she unthreaded and dropped into the well.
+
+Clear and warm the weather was.  Without, forests were quickening,
+branch by branch, as though a green flame smoldered from one bough to
+another.  Violets peeped about the roots of trees, and all the world
+was young again.  But here was only stone beneath their feet; and about
+them showed the high walls and the lead-sheathed towers and the
+parapets and the sunk windows of Guillaume's chateau.  There was no
+color anywhere save gray; and Raimbaut and Biatritz were aging people
+now.  It seemed to him that they were the wraiths of those persons who
+had loved each other at Montferrat; and that the walls about them and
+the leaden devils who grinned from every waterspout and all those dark
+and narrow windows were only part of some magic picture, such as a
+sorceress may momentarily summon out of smoke-wreaths, as he had seen
+Zoraida do very long ago.
+
+This woman might have been a wraith in verity, for she was clothed
+throughout in white, save for the ponderous gold girdle about her
+middle.  A white gorget framed the face which was so pinched and shrewd
+and strange; and she peered into the well, smiling craftily.
+
+"I was thinking death was like this well," said Biatritz, without any
+cessation of her singular employment--"so dark that we may see nothing
+clearly save one faint gleam which shows us, or which seems to show us,
+where rest is.  Yes, yes, this is that chaplet which you won in the
+tournament at Montferrat when we were young.  Pearls are the symbol of
+tears, we read.  But we had no time for reading then, no time for
+anything except to be quite happy. . . .  You saw this morning's work.
+Raimbaut, were Satan to go mad he would be such a fiend as this
+Guillaume de Baux who is our master!"
+
+"Ay, the man is as cruel as my old opponent, Mourzoufle," Sire Raimbaut
+answered, with a patient shrug.  "It is a great mystery why such
+persons should win all which they desire of this world.  We can but
+recognize that it is for some sufficient reason."  Then he talked with
+her concerning the aforementioned infamous emperor of the East, against
+whom the old knight had fought, and of Enrico Dandolo and of King
+Boniface, dead brother to Madona Biatritz, and of much remote,
+outlandish adventuring oversea.  Of Zoraida he did not speak.  And
+Biatritz, in turn, told him of that one child which she had borne her
+husband, Prince Conrat--a son who died in infancy; and she spoke of
+this dead baby, who living would have been their monarch, with a sweet
+quietude that wrung the old knight's heart.
+
+Thus these spent people sat and talked for a long while, the talk
+veering anywhither just as chance directed.  Blurred gusts of song and
+laughter would come to them at times from the hall where Guillaume de
+Baux drank with his courtiers, and these would break the tranquil flow
+of speech.  Then, unvexedly, the gentle voice of the speaker, were it
+his or hers, would resume.
+
+She said: "They laugh.  We are not merry."
+
+"No," he replied; "I am not often merry.  There was a time when love
+and its service kept me in continuous joy, as waters invest a fish.  I
+woke from a high dream. . . .  And then, but for the fear of seeming
+cowardly, I would have extinguished my life as men blow out a candle.
+Vanity preserved me, sheer vanity!"  He shrugged, spreading his hard
+lean hands.  "Belhs Cavaliers, I grudged my enemies the pleasure of
+seeing me forgetful of valor and noble enterprises.  And so, since
+then, I have served Heaven, in default of you."
+
+"I would not have it otherwise," she said, half as in wonder; "I would
+not have you be quite sane like other men.  And I believe," she
+added--still with her wise smile--"you have derived a deal of comfort,
+off and on, from being heart-broken."
+
+He replied gravely:  "A man may always, if he will but take the pains,
+be tolerably content and rise in worth, and yet dispense with love.  He
+has only to guard himself against baseness, and concentrate his powers
+on doing right.  Thus, therefore, when fortune failed me, I persisted
+in acting to the best of my ability.  Though I had lost my lands and my
+loved lady, I must hold fast to my own worth.  Without a lady and
+without acreage, it was yet in my power to live a cleanly and honorable
+life; and I did not wish to make two evils out of one."
+
+"Assuredly, I would not have you be quite sane like other men," she
+repeated.  "It would seem that you have somehow blundered through long
+years, preserving always the ignorance of a child, and the blindness of
+a child.  I cannot understand how this is possible; nor can I keep from
+smiling at your high-flown notions; and yet,--I envy you, Raimbaut."
+
+
+Thus the afternoon passed, and the rule of Prince Guillaume was made
+secure.  His supper was worthily appointed, for Guillaume loved color
+and music and beauty of every kind, and was on this, the day of his
+triumph, in a prodigal humor.  Many lackeys in scarlet brought in the
+first course, to the sound of exultant drums and pipes, with a blast of
+trumpets and a waving of banners, so that all hearts were uplifted, and
+Guillaume jested with harsh laughter.
+
+But Raimbaut de Vaquieras was not mirthful, for he was remembering a
+boy whom he had known of very long ago.  He was swayed by an odd fancy,
+as the men sat over their wine, and jongleurs sang and performed tricks
+for their diversion, that this boy, so frank and excellent, as yet
+existed somewhere; and that the Raimbaut who moved these shriveled
+hands before him, on the table there, was only a sad dream of what had
+never been.  It troubled him, too, to see how grossly these soldiers
+ate, for, as a person of refinement, an associate of monarchs, Sire
+Raimbaut when the dishes were passed picked up his meats between the
+index- and the middle-finger of his left hand, and esteemed it infamous
+manners to dip any other fingers into the gravy.
+
+Guillaume had left the Warriors' Hall.  Philibert was drunk, and half
+the men-at-arms were snoring among the rushes, when at the height of
+their festivity Makrisi came.  He plucked his master by the sleeve.
+
+A swarthy, bearded Angevin was singing.  His song was one of old Sire
+Raimbaut's famous canzons in honor of Belhs Cavaliers.  The knave was
+singing blithely:
+
+  _Pus mos Belhs Cavaliers grazitz_
+  _E joys m'es lunhatz e faiditz,_
+  _Don no m' venra jamais conortz;_
+  _Fer qu'ees mayer l'ira e plus fortz--_
+
+
+The Saracen had said nothing.  He showed a jeweled dagger, and the
+knight arose and followed him out of that uproarious hall.  Raimbaut
+was bitterly perturbed, though he did not know for what reason, as
+Makrisi led him through dark corridors to the dull-gleaming arras of
+Prince Guillaume's apartments.  In this corridor was an iron lamp swung
+from the ceiling, and now, as this lamp swayed slightly and burned low,
+the tiny flame leaped clear of the wick and was extinguished, and
+darkness rose about them.
+
+Raimbaut said: "What do you want of me?  Whose blood is on that knife?"
+
+"Have you forgotten it is Walburga's Eve?" Makrisi said.  Raimbaut did
+not regret he could not see his servant's countenance.  "Time was we
+named it otherwise and praised another woman than a Saxon wench, but
+let the new name stand.  It is Walburga's Eve, that little, little hour
+of evil! and all over the world surges the full tide of hell's desire,
+and mischief is a-making now, apace, apace, apace.  People moan in
+their sleep, and many pillows are pricked by needles that have sewed a
+shroud.  Cry _Eman hetan_ now, messire! for there are those to-night
+who find the big cathedrals of your red-roofed Christian towns no more
+imposing than so many pimples on a butler's chin, because they ride so
+high, so very high, in this brave moonlight.  Full-tide, full-tide!"
+Makrisi said, and his voice jangled like a bell as he drew aside the
+curtain so that the old knight saw into the room beyond.
+
+It was a place of many lights, which, when thus suddenly disclosed,
+blinded him at first.  Then Raimbaut perceived Guillaume lying a-sprawl
+across an oaken chest.  The Prince had fallen backward and lay in this
+posture, glaring at the intruders with horrible eyes which did not move
+and would not ever move again.  His breast was crimson, for some one
+had stabbed him.  A woman stood above the corpse and lighted yet
+another candle while Raimbaut de Vaquieras waited motionless.  A hand
+meant only to bestow caresses brushed a lock of hair from this woman's
+eyes while he waited.  The movements of this hand were not uncertain,
+but only quivered somewhat, as a taut wire shivers in the wind, while
+Raimbaut de Vaquieras waited motionless.
+
+"I must have lights, I must have a host of candles to assure me past
+any questioning that he is dead.  The man is of deep cunning.  I think
+he is not dead even now."  Lightly Biatritz touched the Prince's
+breast.  "Strange, that this wicked heart should be so tranquil when
+there is murder here to make it glad!  Nay, very certainly this
+Guillaume de Baux will rise and laugh in his old fashion before he
+speaks, and then I shall be afraid.  But I am not afraid as yet.  I am
+afraid of nothing save the dark, for one cannot be merry in the dark."
+
+Raimbaut said:  "This is Belhs Cavaliers whom I have loved my whole
+life through.  Therefore I do not doubt.  Pardieu, I do not even doubt,
+who know she is of matchless worth."
+
+"Wherein have I done wrong, Raimbaut?"  She came to him with fluttering
+hands.  "Why, but look you, the man had laid an ambuscade in the marsh
+and he meant to kill you there to-night as you rode for Vaquieras.  He
+told me of it, told me how it was for that end alone he lured you into
+Venaissin----"  Again she brushed the hair back from her forehead.
+"Raimbaut, I spoke of God and knightly honor, and the man laughed.  No,
+I think it was a fiend who sat so long beside the window yonder, whence
+one may see the marsh.  There were no candles in the room.  The
+moonlight was upon his evil face, and I could think of nothing, of
+nothing that has been since Adam's time, except our youth, Raimbaut.
+And he smiled fixedly, like a white image, because my misery amused
+him.  Only, when I tried to go to you to warn you, he leaped up
+stiffly, making a mewing noise.  He caught me by the throat so that I
+could not scream.  Then while we struggled in the moonlight your
+Makrisi came and stabbed him----"
+
+"Nay, I but fetched this knife, messire."  Makrisi seemed to love that
+bloodied knife.
+
+Biatritz proudly said: "The man lies, Raimbaut."
+
+"What need to tell me that, Belhs Cavaliers?"
+
+And the Saracen shrugged.  "It is very true I lie," he said.  "As among
+friends, I may confess I killed the Prince.  But for the rest, take
+notice both of you, I mean to lie intrepidly."
+
+Raimbaut remembered how his mother had given each of two lads an apple,
+and he had clamored for Guillaume's, as children do, and Guillaume had
+changed with him.  It was a trivial happening to remember after fifty
+years; but Guillaume was dead, and this hacked flesh was Raimbaut's
+flesh in part, and the thought of Raimbaut would never trouble
+Guillaume de Baux any more.  In addition there was a fire of juniper
+wood and frankincense upon the hearth, and the room smelt too cloyingly
+of be-drugging sweetness.  Then on the walls were tapestries which
+depicted Merlin's Dream, so that everywhere recoiling women smiled with
+bold eyes; and here their wantonness seemed out of place.
+
+"Listen," Makrisi was saying; "listen, for the hour strikes.  At last,
+at last!" he cried, with a shrill whine of malice.
+
+Raimbaut said, dully:  "Oh, I do not understand----"
+
+"And yet Zoraida loved you once! loved you as people love where I was
+born!"  The Saracen's voice had altered.  His speech was like the
+rustle of papers.  "You did not love Zoraida.  And so it came about
+that upon Walburga's Eve, at midnight, Zoraida hanged herself beside
+your doorway.  Thus we love where I was born. . . .  And I, I cut the
+rope--with my left hand.  I had my other arm about that frozen thing
+which yesterday had been Zoraida, you understand, so that it might not
+fall.  And in the act a tear dropped from that dead woman's cheek and
+wetted my forehead.  Ice is not so cold as was that tear. . . .  Ho,
+that tear did not fall upon my forehead but on my heart, because I
+loved that dancing-girl, Zoraida, as you do this princess here.  I
+think you will understand," Makrisi said, calmly as one who states a
+maxim.
+
+The Sire de Vaquieras replied, in the same tone: "I understand.  You
+have contrived my death?"
+
+"Ey, messire, would that be adequate?  I could have managed that any
+hour within the last score of years.  Oh no! for I have studied you
+carefully.  Oh no!  instead, I have contrived this plight.  For the
+Prince of Orange is manifestly murdered.  Who killed him?--why, Madona
+Biatritz, and none other, for I will swear to it.  I, I will swear to
+it, who saw it done.  Afterward both you and I must be questioned upon
+the rack, as possibly concerned in the affair, and whether innocent or
+guilty we must die very horribly.  Such is the gentle custom of your
+Christian country when a prince is murdered.  That is not the point of
+the jest, however.  For first Sire Philibert will put this woman to the
+Question by Water, until she confesses her confederates, until she
+confesses that every baron whom Philibert distrusts was one of them.
+Oh yes, assuredly they will thrust a hollow cane into the mouth of your
+Biatritz, and they will pour water a little by a little through this
+cane, until she confesses what they desire.  Ha, Philibert will see to
+this confession!  And through this woman's torment he will rid himself
+of every dangerous foe he has in Venaissin.  You must stand by and wait
+your turn.  You must stand by, in fetters, and see this done--you, you,
+my master!--you, who love this woman as I loved that dead Zoraida who
+was not fair enough to please you!"
+
+Raimbaut, trapped, impotent, cried out: "This is not possible----"  And
+for all that, he knew the Saracen to be foretelling the inevitable.
+
+Makrisi went on, quietly:  "After the Question men will parade her,
+naked to the middle, through all Orange, until they reach the
+Marketplace, where will be four horses.  One of these horses they will
+harness to each arm and leg of your Biatritz.  Then they will beat
+these horses.  These will be strong horses.  They will each run in a
+different direction."
+
+This infamy also was certain.  Raimbaut foresaw what he must do.  He
+clutched the dagger which Makrisi fondled.  "Belhs Cavaliers, this
+fellow speaks the truth.  Look now, the moon is old--is it not strange
+to know it will outlive us?"
+
+And Biatritz came close to Sire Raimbaut and said: "I understand.  If I
+leave this room alive it will purchase a hideous suffering for my poor
+body, it will bring about the ruin of many brave and innocent
+chevaliers.  I know.  I would perforce confess all that the masked men
+bade me.  I know, for in Prince Conrat's time I have seen persons who
+had been put to the Question----"  She shuddered; and she re-began,
+without any agitation:  "Give me the knife, Raimbaut."
+
+"Pardieu! but I may not obey you for this once," he answered, "since we
+are informed by those in holy orders that all such as lay violent hands
+upon themselves must suffer eternally."  Then, kneeling, he cried, in
+an extremity of adoration:  "Oh, I have served you all my life.  You
+may not now deny me this last service.  And while I talk they dig your
+grave!  O blind men, making the new grave, take heed lest that grave be
+too narrow, for already my heart is breaking in my body.  I have drunk
+too deep of sorrow.  And yet I may not fail you, now that honor and
+mercy and my love for you demand I kill you before I also die--in such
+a fashion as this fellow speaks of."
+
+She did not dispute this.  How could she when it was an axiom in all
+Courts of Love that Heaven held dominion in a lover's heart only as an
+underling of the man's mistress?
+
+And so she said, with a fond smile:  "It is your demonstrable
+privilege.  I would not grant it, dear, were my weak hands as clean as
+yours.  Oh, but it is long you have loved me, and it is faithfully you
+have served Heaven, and my heart too is breaking in my body now that
+your service ends!"
+
+And he demanded, wearily:  "When we were boy and girl together what had
+we said if any one had told us this would be the end?"
+
+"We would have laughed.  It is a long while since those children
+laughed at Montferrat. . . . Not yet, not yet!" she said.  "Ah, pity
+me, tried champion, for even now I am almost afraid to die."
+
+She leaned against the window yonder, shuddering, staring into the
+night.  Dawn had purged the east of stars.  Day was at hand, the day
+whose noon she might not hope to witness.  She noted this incuriously.
+Then Biatritz came to him, very strangely proud, and yet all tenderness.
+
+"See, now, Raimbaut! because I have loved you as I have loved nothing
+else in life, I will not be unworthy of your love.  Strike and have
+done."
+
+Raimbaut de Vaquieras raised an already bloodied dagger.  As emotion
+goes, he was bankrupt.  He had no longer any dread of hell, because he
+thought that, a little later, nothing its shrewdest overseer could plan
+would have the power to vex him.  She, waiting, smiled.  Makrisi,
+seated, stretched his legs, put fingertips together with the air of an
+attendant amateur.  This was better than he had hoped.  In such a
+posture they heard a bustle of armored men, and when all turned, saw
+how a sword protruded through the arras.
+
+"Come out, Guillaume!" people were shouting.  "Unkennel, dog!  Out,
+out, and die!"  To such a heralding Mahi de Vernoil came into the room
+with mincing steps such as the man affected in an hour of peril.  He
+first saw what a grisly burden the chest sustained.  "Now, by the
+Face!" he cried, "if he that cheated me of quieting this filth should
+prove to be of gentle birth I will demand of him a duel to the death!"
+The curtains were ripped from their hangings as he spoke, and behind
+him the candlelight was reflected by the armor of many followers.
+
+Then de Vernoil perceived Raimbaut de Vaquieras, and the spruce little
+man bowed ceremoniously.  All were still.  Composedly, like a
+lieutenant before his captain, Mahi narrated how these hunted remnants
+of Lovain's army had, as a last cast, that night invaded the chateau,
+and had found, thanks to the festival, its men-at-arms in uniform and
+inefficient drunkenness.  "My tres beau sire," Messire de Vernoil
+ended, "will you or nill you, Venaissin is yours this morning.  My
+knaves have slain Philibert and his bewildered fellow-tipplers with
+less effort than is needed to drown as many kittens."
+
+And his followers cried, as upon a signal: "Hail, Prince of Orange!"
+
+It was so like the wonder-working of a dream--this sudden and heroic
+uproar--that old Raimbaut de Vaquieras stood reeling, near to intimacy
+with fear for the first time.  He waited thus, with both hands pressed
+before his eyes.  He waited thus for a long while, because he was not
+used to find chance dealing kindlily with him.  Later he saw that
+Makrisi had vanished in the tumult, and that many people awaited his
+speaking.
+
+The lord of Venaissin began: "You have done me a great service, Messire
+de Vemoil.  As recompense, I give you what I may.  I freely yield you
+all my right in Venaissin.  Oh no, kingcraft is not for me.  I daily
+see and hear of battles won, cities beleaguered, high towers
+overthrown, and ancient citadels and new walls leveled with the dust.
+I have conversed with many kings, the directors of these events, and
+they were not happy people.  Yes, yes, I have witnessed divers
+happenings, for I am old. . . .  I have found nothing which can serve
+me in place of honor."
+
+He turned to Dona Biatritz.  It was as if they were alone.  "Belhs
+Cavaliers," he said, "I had sworn fealty to this Guillaume.  He
+violated his obligations; but that did not free me of mine.  An oath is
+an oath.  I was, and am to-day, sworn to support his cause, and to
+profit in any fashion by its overthrow would be an abominable action.
+Nay, more, were any of his adherents alive it would be my manifest duty
+to join them against our preserver, Messire de Vernoil.  This necessity
+is very happily spared me.  I cannot, though, in honor hold any fief
+under the supplanter of my liege-lord.  I must, therefore, relinquish
+Vaquieras and take eternal leave of Venaissin.  I will not lose the
+right to call myself your servant!" he cried out--"and that which is
+noblest in the world must be served fittingly.  And so, Belhs
+Cavaliers, let us touch palms and bid farewell, and never in this life
+speak face to face of trivial happenings which we two alone remember.
+For naked of lands and gear I came to you--a prince's daughter--very
+long ago, and as nakedly I now depart, so that I may retain the right
+to say, 'All my life long I served my love of her according to my
+abilities, wholeheartedly and with clean hands.'"
+
+"Yes, yes! you must depart from Venaissin," said Dona Biatritz.  A
+capable woman, she had no sympathy with his exquisite points of honor,
+and yet loved him all the more because of what seemed to her his
+surpassing folly.  She smiled, somewhat as mothers do in humoring an
+unreasonable boy.  "We will go to my nephew's court at Montferrat," she
+said.  "He will willingly provide for his old aunt and her husband.
+And you may still make verses--at Montferrat, where we lived verses,
+once, Raimbaut."
+
+Now they gazed full upon each other.  Thus they stayed, transfigured,
+neither seeming old.  Each had forgotten that unhappiness existed
+anywhere in the whole world.  The armored, blood-stained men about them
+were of no more importance than were those wantons in the tapestry.
+Without, dawn throbbed in heaven.  Without, innumerable birds were
+raising that glad, piercing, hurried morning-song which very anciently
+caused Adam's primal waking, to behold his mate.
+
+
+
+
+BALTHAZAR'S DAUGHTER
+
+
+"_A curious preference for the artificial should be mentioned as
+characteristic of ALESSANDRO DE MEDICI'S poetry.  For his century was
+anything but artless; the great commonplaces that form the main stock
+of human thought were no longer in their first flush, and he addressed
+a people no longer childish. . . .  Unquestionably his fancies were
+fantastic, anti-natural, bordering on hallucination, and they betray a
+desire for impossible novelty; but it is allowable to prefer them to
+the sickly simplicity of those so-called poems that embroider with old
+faded wools upon the canvas of worn-out truisms, trite, trivial and
+idiotically sentimental patterns._"
+
+
+  Let me have dames and damsels richly clad
+    To feed and tend my mirth,
+  Singing by day and night to make me glad;
+
+  Let me have fruitful gardens of great girth
+    Fill'd with the strife of birds,
+  With water-springs, and beasts that house i' the earth.
+
+  Let me seem Solomon for lore of words,
+  Samson for strength, for beauty Absalom.
+
+    Knights as my serfs be given;
+  And as I will, let music go and come;
+  Till, when I will, I will to enter Heaven.
+
+  ALESSANDRO DE MEDICI.--_Madrigal, from D. G. Rossetti's version_.
+
+
+
+
+BALTHAZAR'S DAUGHTER
+
+Graciosa was Balthazar's youngest child, a white, slim girl with violet
+eyes and strange pale hair which had the color and glitter of stardust.
+"Some day at court," her father often thought complacently, "she, too,
+will make a good match."  He was a necessitous lord, a smiling, supple
+man who had already marketed two daughters to his advantage.  But
+Graciosa's time was not yet mature in the year of grace 1533, for the
+girl was not quite sixteen.  So Graciosa remained in Balthazar's big
+cheerless house and was tutored in all needful accomplishments.  She
+was proficient in the making of preserves and unguents, could play the
+harpsichord and the virginals acceptably, could embroider an altarcloth
+to admiration, and, in spite of a trivial lameness in walking, could
+dance a coranto or a saraband against any woman between two seas.
+
+Now to the north of Balthazar's home stood a tall forest, overhanging
+both the highway and the river whose windings the highway followed.
+Graciosa was very often to be encountered upon the outskirts of these
+woods.  She loved the forest, whose tranquillity bred dreams, but was
+already a woman in so far that she found it more interesting to watch
+the highway.  Sometimes it would be deserted save for small purple
+butterflies which fluttered about as if in continuous indecision, and
+rarely ascended more than a foot above the ground.  But people passed
+at intervals--as now a page, who was a notably fine fellow, clothed in
+ash-colored gray, with slashed, puffed sleeves, and having a heron's
+feather in his cap; or a Franciscan with his gown tucked up so that you
+saw how the veins on his naked feet stood out like the carvings on a
+vase; or a farmer leading a calf; or a gentleman in a mantle of
+squirrel's fur riding beside a wonderful proud lady, whose tiny hat was
+embroidered with pearls.  It was all very interesting to watch, it was
+like turning over the leaves of a book written in an unknown tongue and
+guessing what the pictures meant, because these people were intent upon
+their private avocations, in which you had no part, and you would never
+see them any more.
+
+Then destiny took a hand in the affair and Guido came.  He reined his
+gray horse at the sight of her sitting by the wayside and deferentially
+inquired how far it might be to the nearest inn.  Graciosa told him.
+He thanked her and rode on.  That was all, but the appraising glance of
+this sedate and handsome burgher obscurely troubled the girl afterward.
+
+Next day he came again.  He was a jewel-merchant, he told her, and he
+thought it within the stretch of possibility that my lord Balthazar's
+daughter might wish to purchase some of his wares.  She viewed them
+with admiration, chaffered thriftily, and finally bought a topaz, dug
+from Mount Zabarca, Guido assured her, which rendered its wearer immune
+to terrors of any kind.
+
+Very often afterward these two met on the outskirts of the forest as
+Guido rode between the coast and the hill-country about his vocation.
+Sometimes he laughingly offered her a bargain, on other days he paused
+to exhibit a notable gem which he had procured for this or that wealthy
+amateur.  Count Eglamore, the young Duke's favorite yonder at court,
+bought most of them, it seemed.  "The nobles complain against this
+upstart Eglamore very bitterly," said Guido, "but we merchants have no
+quarrel with him.  He buys too lavishly."
+
+"I trust I shall not see Count Eglamore when I go to court," said
+Graciosa, meditatively; "and, indeed, by that time, my father assures
+me, some honest gentleman will have contrived to cut the throat of this
+abominable Eglamore."  Her father's people, it should be premised, had
+been at bitter feud with the favorite ever since he detected and
+punished the conspiracy of the Marquis of Cibo, their kinsman.  Then
+Graciosa continued:  "Nevertheless, I shall see many beautiful sights
+when I am taken to court. . . .  And the Duke, too, you tell me, is an
+amateur of gems."
+
+"Eh, madonna, I wish that you could see his jewels," cried Guido,
+growing fervent; and he lovingly catalogued a host of lapidary marvels.
+
+"I hope that I shall see these wonderful jewels when I go to court,"
+said Graciosa wistfully.
+
+"Duke Alessandro," he returned, his dark eyes strangely mirthful, "is,
+as I take it, a catholic lover of beauty in all its forms.  So he will
+show you his gems, very assuredly, and, worse still, he will make
+verses in your honor.  For it is a preposterous feature of Duke
+Alessandro's character that he is always making songs."
+
+"Oh, and such strange songs as they are, too, Guido.  Who does not know
+them?"
+
+"I am not the best possible judge of his verses' merit," Guido
+estimated, drily.  "But I shall never understand how any singer at all
+came to be locked in such a prison.  I fancy that at times the paradox
+puzzles even Duke Alessandro."
+
+"And is he as handsome as people report?"
+
+Then Guido laughed a little.  "Tastes differ, of course.  But I think
+your father will assure you, madonna, that no duke possessing such a
+zealous tax-collector as Count Eglamore was ever in his lifetime
+considered of repulsive person."
+
+"And is he young?"
+
+"Why, as to that, he is about of an age with me, and in consequence old
+enough to be far more sensible than either of us is ever likely to be,"
+said Guido; and began to talk of other matters.
+
+But presently Graciosa was questioning him again as to the court,
+whither she was to go next year and enslave a marquis, or, at worst, an
+opulent baron.  Her thoughts turned toward the court's predominating
+figure.  "Tell me of Eglamore, Guido."
+
+"Madonna, some say that Eglamore was a brewer's son.  Others--and your
+father's kinsmen in particular--insist that he was begot by a devil in
+person, just as Merlin was, and Plato the philosopher, and puissant
+Alexander.  Nobody knows anything about his origin." Guido was sitting
+upon the ground, his open pack between his knees.  Between the thumb
+and forefinger of each hand he held caressingly a string of pearls
+which he inspected as he talked.  "Nobody," he idly said, "nobody is
+very eager to discuss Count Eglamore's origin now that Eglamore has
+become indispensable to Duke Alessandro.  Yes, it is thanks to Eglamore
+that the Duke has ample leisure and needful privacy for the pursuit of
+recreations which are reputed to be curious."
+
+"I do not understand you, Guido."  Graciosa was all wonder.
+
+"It is perhaps as well," the merchant said, a trifle sadly.  Then Guido
+shrugged.  "To be brief, madonna, business annoys the Duke.  He finds
+in this Eglamore an industrious person who affixes seals, draughts
+proclamations, makes treaties, musters armies, devises pageants, and
+collects revenues, upon the whole, quite as efficiently as Alessandro
+would be capable of doing these things.  So Alessandro makes verses and
+amuses himself as his inclinations prompt, and Alessandro's people are
+none the worse off on account of it."
+
+"Heigho, I foresee that I shall never fall in love with the Duke,"
+Graciosa declared.  "It is unbefitting and it is a little cowardly for
+a prince to shirk the duties of his station.  Now, if I were Duke I
+would grant my father a pension, and have Eglamore hanged, and purchase
+a new gown of silvery green, in which I would be ravishingly beautiful,
+and afterward-- Why, what would you do if you were Duke, Messer Guido?"
+
+"What would I do if I were Duke?" he echoed.  "What would I do if I
+were a great lord instead of a tradesman?  I think you know the answer,
+madonna."
+
+"Oh, you would make me your duchess, of course.  That is quite
+understood," said Graciosa, with the lightest of laughs.  "But I was
+speaking seriously, Guido."
+
+Guido at that considered her intently for a half-minute.  His
+countenance was of portentous gravity, but in his eyes she seemed to
+detect a lurking impishness.
+
+"And it is not a serious matter that a peddler of crystals should have
+dared to love a nobleman's daughter?  You are perfectly right.  That I
+worship you is an affair which does not concern any person save myself
+in any way whatsoever, although I think that knowledge of the fact
+would put your father to the trouble of sharpening his dagger. . . .
+Indeed, I am not certain that I worship you, for in order to adore
+wholeheartedly, the idolater must believe his idol to be perfect.  Now,
+your nails are of an ugly shape, like that of little fans; your mouth
+is too large; and I have long ago perceived that you are a trifle lame
+in spite of your constant care to conceal the fact.  I do not admire
+these faults, for faults they are undoubtedly.  Then, too, I know you
+are vain and self-seeking, and look forward contentedly to the time
+when your father will transfer his ownership of such physical
+attractions as heaven gave you to that nobleman who offers the highest
+price for them.  It is true you have no choice in the matter, but you
+will participate in a monstrous bargain, and I would prefer to have you
+exhibit distaste for it."  And with that he returned composedly to
+inspection of his pearls.
+
+"And to what end, Guido?"  It was the first time Graciosa had
+completely waived the reticence of a superior caste.  You saw that the
+child's parted lips were tremulous, and you divined her childish fits
+of dreading that glittering, inevitable court-life shared with an
+unimaginable husband.
+
+But Guido only grumbled whimsically.  "I am afraid that men do not
+always love according to the strict laws of logic.  I desire your
+happiness above all things; yet to see you so abysmally untroubled by
+anything that troubles me is another matter."
+
+"But I am not untroubled, Guido----" she began swiftly.  Graciosa broke
+off in speech, shrugged, flashed a smile at him.  "For I cannot fathom
+you, Ser Guido, and that troubles me.  Yes, I am very fond of you, and
+yet I do not trust you.  You tell me you love me greatly.  It pleases
+me to have you say this.  You perceive I am very candid this morning,
+Messer Guido.  Yes, it pleases me, and I know that for the sake of
+seeing me you daily endanger your life, for if my father heard of our
+meetings he would have you killed.  You would not incur such
+hare-brained risks unless you cared very greatly; and yet, somehow, I
+do not believe it is altogether for me you care."
+
+Then Guido was in train to protest an all-mastering and entirely candid
+devotion, but he was interrupted.
+
+"Most women have these awkward intuitions," spoke a melodious voice,
+and turning, Graciosa met the eyes of the intruder.  This magnificent
+young man had a proud and bloodless face which contrasted sharply with
+his painted lips and cheeks.  In the contour of his protruding mouth
+showed plainly his negroid ancestry.  His scanty beard, as well as his
+frizzled hair, was the color of dead grass.  He was sumptuously clothed
+in white satin worked with silver, and around his cap was a gold chain
+hung with diamonds.  Now he handed his fringed riding-gloves to Guido
+to hold.
+
+"Yes, madonna, I suspect that Eglamore here cares greatly for the fact
+that you are Lord Balthazar's daughter, and cousin to the late Marquis
+of Cibo.  For Cibo has many kinsmen at court who still resent the
+circumstance that the matching of his wits against Eglamore's earned
+for Cibo a deplorably public demise.  So they conspire against Eglamore
+with vexatious industry, as an upstart, as a nobody thrust over people
+of proven descent, and Eglamore goes about in hourly apprehension of a
+knife-thrust.  If he could make a match with you, though, your
+father--thrifty man!--would be easily appeased.  Your cousins, those
+proud, grumbling Castel-Franchi, Strossi and Valori, would not prove
+over-obdurate toward a kinsman who, whatever his past indiscretions,
+has so many pensions and offices at his disposal.  Yes, honor would
+permit a truce, and Eglamore could bind them to his interests within
+ten days, and be rid of the necessity of sleeping in chain armor. . . .
+Have I not unraveled the scheme correctly, Eglamore?"
+
+"Your highness was never lacking in penetration," replied the other in
+a dull voice.  He stood motionless, holding the gloves, his shoulders a
+little bowed as if under some physical load.  His eyes were fixed upon
+the ground.  He divined the change in Graciosa's face and did not care
+to see it.
+
+"And so you are Count Eglamore," said Graciosa in a sort of whisper.
+"That is very strange.  I had thought you were my friend, Guido.  But I
+forget.  I must not call you Guido any longer."  She gave a little
+shiver here.  He stayed motionless and did not look at her.  "I have
+often wondered what manner of man you were.  So it was you--whose hand
+I touched just now--you who poisoned Duke Cosmo, you who had the good
+cardinal assassinated, you who betrayed the brave lord of Faenza!  Oh,
+yes, they openly accuse you of every imaginable crime--this patient
+Eglamore, this reptile who has crept into his power through filthy
+passages.  It is very strange you should be capable of so much
+wickedness, for to me you seem only a sullen lackey."
+
+He winced and raised his eyes at this.  His face remained
+expressionless.  He knew these accusations at least to be demonstrable
+lies, for as it happened he had never found his advancement to hinge
+upon the commission of the crimes named.  But even so, the past was a
+cemetery he did not care to have revivified.
+
+"And it was you who detected the Marquis of Cibo's conspiracy.
+Tebaldeo was my cousin, Count Eglamore, and I loved him.  We were
+reared together.  We used to play here in these woods, and I remember
+how Tebaldeo once fetched me a wren's nest from that maple yonder.  I
+stood just here.  I was weeping because I was afraid he would fall.  If
+he had fallen and been killed, it would have been the luckier for him,"
+Graciosa sighed.  "They say that he conspired.  I do not know.  I only
+know that by your orders, Count Eglamore, my playmate Tebaldeo was
+fastened upon a Saint Andrew's cross and his arms and legs were each
+broken in two places with an iron bar.  Then your servants took
+Tebaldeo, still living, and laid him upon a carriage-wheel which was
+hung upon a pivot.  The upper edge of this wheel was cut with very fine
+teeth like those of a saw, so that his agony might be complete.
+Tebaldeo's poor mangled legs were folded beneath his body so that his
+heels touched the back of his head, they tell me.  In such a posture he
+died very slowly while the wheel turned very slowly there in the sunlit
+market-place, and flies buzzed greedily about him, and the shopkeepers
+took holiday in order to watch Tebaldeo die--the same Tebaldeo who once
+fetched me a wren's nest from yonder maple."
+
+Eglamore spoke now.  "I gave orders for the Marquis of Cibo's
+execution.  I did not devise the manner of his death.  The punishment
+for Cibo's crime was long ago fixed by our laws.  Cibo plotted to kill
+the Duke.  Cibo confessed as much."
+
+But the girl waved this aside.  "And then you plan this masquerade.
+You plan to make me care for you so greatly that even when I know you
+to be Count Eglamore I must still care for you.  You plan to marry me,
+so as to placate Tebaldeo's kinsmen, so as to bind them to your
+interests.  It was a fine bold stroke of policy, I know, to use me as a
+stepping-stone to safety--but was it fair to me?"  Her voice rose now a
+little.  She seemed to plead with him.  "Look you, Count Eglamore, I
+was a child only yesterday.  I have never loved any man.  But you have
+loved many women, I know, and long experience has taught you many ways
+of moving a woman's heart.  Oh, was it fair, was it worth while, to
+match your skill against my ignorance?  Think how unhappy I would be if
+even now I loved you, and how I would loathe myself. . . .  But I am
+getting angry over nothing.  Nothing has happened except that I have
+dreamed in idle moments of a brave and comely lover who held his head
+so high that all other women envied me, and now I have awakened."
+
+Meanwhile, it was with tears in his eyes that the young man in white
+had listened to her quiet talk, for you could nowhere have found a
+nature more readily sensitive than his to all the beauty and wonder
+which life, as if it were haphazardly, produces every day.  He pitied
+this betrayed child quite ineffably, because in her sorrow she was so
+pretty.
+
+So he spoke consolingly.  "Fie, Donna Graciosa, you must not be too
+harsh with Eglamore.  It is his nature to scheme, and he weaves his
+plots as inevitably as the spider does her web.  Believe me, it is
+wiser to forget the rascal--as I do--until there is need of him; and I
+think you will have no more need to consider Eglamore's trickeries, for
+you are very beautiful, Graciosa."
+
+He had drawn closer to the girl, and he brought a cloying odor of
+frangipani, bergamot and vervain.  His nostrils quivered, his face had
+taken on an odd pinched look, for all that he smiled as over some
+occult jest.  Graciosa was a little frightened by his bearing, which
+was both furtive and predatory.
+
+"Oh, do not be offended, for I have some rights to say what I desire in
+these parts.  For, _Dei gratia_, I am the overlord of these parts,
+Graciosa--a neglected prince who wondered over the frequent absences of
+his chief counselor and secretly set spies upon him.  Eglamore here
+will attest as much.  Or if you cannot believe poor Eglamore any
+longer, I shall have other witnesses within the half-hour.  Oh, yes,
+they are to meet me here at noon--some twenty crop-haired stalwart
+cut-throats.  They will come riding upon beautiful broad-chested horses
+covered with red velvet trappings that are hung with little silver
+bells which jingle delightfully.  They will come very soon, and then we
+will ride back to court."
+
+Duke Alessandro touched his big painted mouth with his forefinger as if
+in fantastic mimicry of a man imparting a confidence.
+
+"I think that I shall take you with me, Graciosa, for you are very
+beautiful.  You are as slim as a lily and more white, and your eyes are
+two purple mirrors in each of which I see a tiny image of Duke
+Alessandro.  The woman I loved yesterday was a big splendid wench with
+cheeks like apples.  It is not desirable that women should be so large.
+All women should be little creatures that fear you.  They should have
+thin, plaintive voices, and in shrinking from you be as slight to the
+touch as a cobweb.  It is not possible to love a woman ardently unless
+you comprehend how easy it would be to murder her."
+
+"God, God!" said Count Eglamore, very softly, for he was familiar with
+the look which had now come into Duke Alessandro's face.  Indeed, all
+persons about court were quick to notice this odd pinched look, like
+that of a traveler nipped at by frosts, and people at court became
+obsequious within the instant in dealing with the fortunate woman who
+had aroused this look, Count Eglamore remembered.
+
+And the girl did not speak at all, but stood motionless, staring in
+bewildered, pitiable, childlike fashion, and the color had ebbed from
+her countenance.
+
+Alessandro was frankly pleased.  "You fear me, do you not, Graciosa?
+See, now, when I touch your hand it is soft and cold as a serpent's
+skin, and you shudder.  I am very tired of women who love me, of all
+women with bold, hungry eyes.  To you my touch will always be a
+martyrdom, you will always loathe me, and therefore I shall not weary
+of you for a long while.  Come, Graciosa.  Your father shall have all
+the wealth and state that even his greedy imaginings can devise, so
+long as you can contrive to loathe me.  We will find you a suitable
+husband.  You shall have flattery and titles, gold and fine glass, soft
+stuffs and superb palaces such as are your beauty's due henceforward."
+
+He glanced at the peddler's pack, and shrugged.  "So Eglamore has been
+wooing you with jewels!  You must see mine, dear Graciosa.  It is not
+merely an affair of possessing, as some emperors do, all the four kinds
+of sapphires, the twelve kinds of emeralds, the three kinds of rubies,
+and many extraordinary pearls, diamonds, cymophanes, beryls, green
+peridots, tyanos, sandrastra, and fiery cinnamon-stones"--he enumerated
+them with the tender voice of their lover--"for the value of these may
+at least be estimated.  Oh, no, I have in my possession gems which have
+not their fellows in any other collection, gems which have not even a
+name and the value of which is incalculable--strange jewels that were
+shot from inaccessible mountain peaks by means of slings, jewels
+engendered by the thunder, jewels taken from the heart of the Arabian
+deer, jewels cut from the brain of a toad and the eyes of serpents, and
+even jewels that are authentically known to have fallen from the moon.
+We will select the rarest, and have a pair of slippers encrusted with
+them, in which you shall dance for me."
+
+"Highness," cried Eglamore, with anger and terror at odds in his
+breast, "Highness, I love this girl!"
+
+"Ah, then you cannot ever be her husband," Duke Alessandro returned.
+"You would have suited otherwise.  No, no, we must seek out some other
+person of discretion.  It will all be very amusing, for I think that
+she is now quite innocent, as pure as the high angels are.  See,
+Eglamore, she cannot speak, she stays still as a lark that has been
+taken in a snare.  It will be very marvelous to make her as I
+am. . . ." He meditated, as, obscurely aware of opposition, his
+shoulders twitched fretfully, and momentarily his eyes lightened like
+the glare of a cannon through its smoke.  "You made a beast of me, some
+long-faced people say.  Beware lest the beast turn and rend you."
+
+Count Eglamore plucked aimlessly at his chin.  Then he laughed as a dog
+yelps.  He dropped the gloves which he had held till this,
+deliberately, as if the act were a rite.  His shoulders straightened
+and purpose seemed to flow into the man.  "No," he said quietly, "I
+will not have it.  It was not altogether I who made a brain-sick beast
+of you, my prince; but even so, I have never been too nice to profit by
+your vices.  I have taken my thrifty toll of abomination, I have stood
+by contentedly, not urging you on, yet never trying to stay you, as you
+waded deeper and ever deeper into the filth of your debaucheries,
+because meanwhile you left me so much power.  Yes, in some part it is
+my own handiwork which is my ruin.  I accept it.  Nevertheless, you
+shall not harm this child."
+
+"I venture to remind you, Eglamore, that I am still the master of this
+duchy."  Alessandro was languidly amused, and had begun to regard his
+adversary with real curiosity.
+
+"Oh, yes, but that is nothing to me.  At court you are the master.  At
+court I have seen mothers raise the veil from their daughters' faces,
+with smiles that were more loathsome than the grimaces of a fiend,
+because you happened to be passing.  But here in these woods, your
+highness, I see only the woman I love and the man who has insulted her."
+
+"This is very admirable fooling," the Duke considered.  "So all the
+world is changed and Pandarus is transformed into Hector?  These are
+sonorous words, Eglamore, but with what deeds do you propose to back
+them?"
+
+"By killing you, your highness."
+
+"So!" said the Duke.  "The farce ascends in interest." He drew with a
+flourish, with actual animation, for sottish, debauched and
+power-crazed as this man was, he came of a race to whom danger was a
+cordial.  "Very luckily a sword forms part of your disguise, so let us
+amuse ourselves.  It is always diverting to kill, and if by any chance
+you kill me I shall at least be rid of the intolerable knowledge that
+to-morrow will be just like to-day."  The Duke descended blithely into
+the level road and placed himself on guard.
+
+Then both men silently went about the business in hand.  Both were
+oddly calm, almost as if preoccupied by some more important matter to
+be settled later.  The two swords clashed, gleamed rigidly for an
+instant, and then their rapid interplay, so far as vision went, melted
+into a flickering snarl of silver, for the sun was high and each man's
+shadow was huddled under him.  Then Eglamore thrust savagely and in the
+act trod the edge of a puddle, and fell ignominiously prostrate.  His
+sword was wrenched ten feet from him, for the Duke had parried
+skilfully.  Eglamore lay thus at Alessandro's mercy.
+
+"Well, well!" the Duke cried petulantly, "and am I to be kept waiting
+forever?  You were a thought quicker in obeying my caprices yesterday.
+Get up, you muddy lout, and let us kill each other with some pretension
+of adroitness."
+
+Eglamore rose, and, sobbing, caught up his sword and rushed toward the
+Duke in an agony of shame and rage.  His attack now was that of a
+frenzied animal, quite careless of defense and desirous only of murder.
+Twice the Duke wounded him, but it was Alessandro who drew backward,
+composedly hindering the brutal onslaught he was powerless to check.
+Then Eglamore ran him through the chest and gave vent to a strangled,
+growling cry as Alessandro fell.  Eglamore wrenched his sword free and
+grasped it by the blade so that he might stab the Duke again and again.
+He meant to hack the abominable flesh, to slash and mutilate that
+haughty mask of infamy, but Graciosa clutched his weapon by the hilt.
+
+The girl panted, and her breath came thick.  "He gave you your life."
+
+Eglamore looked up.  She leaned now upon his shoulder, her face
+brushing his as he knelt over the unconscious Duke; and Eglamore found
+that at her dear touch all passion had gone out of him.
+
+"Madonna," he said equably, "the Duke is not yet dead.  It is
+impossible to let him live.  You may think he voiced only a caprice
+just now.  I think so too, but I know the man, and I know that all this
+madman's whims are ruthless and irresistible.  Living, Duke
+Alessandro's appetites are merely whetted by opposition, so much so
+that he finds no pleasures sufficiently piquant unless they have God's
+interdiction as a sauce.  Living, he will make of you his plaything,
+and a little later his broken, soiled and castby plaything.  It is
+therefore necessary that I kill Duke Alessandro."
+
+She parted from him, and he too rose to his feet.
+
+"And afterward," she said quietly, "and afterward you must die just as
+Tebaldeo died."
+
+"That is the law, madonna.  But whether Alessandro enters hell to-day
+or later, I am a lost man."
+
+"Oh, that is very true," she said.  "A moment since you were Count
+Eglamore, whom every person feared.  Now there is not a beggar in the
+kingdom who would change lots with you, for you are a friendless and
+hunted man in peril of dreadful death.  But even so, you are not
+penniless, Count Eglamore, for these jewels here which formed part of
+your masquerade are of great value, and there is a world outside.  The
+frontier is not two miles distant.  You have only to escape into the
+hill-country beyond the forest, and you need not kill Duke Alessandro
+after all.  I would have you go hence with hands as clean as possible."
+
+"Perhaps I might escape."  He found it quaint to note how calm she was
+and how tranquilly his own thoughts ran.  "But first the Duke must die,
+because I dare not leave you to his mercy."
+
+"How does that matter?" she returned.  "You know very well that my
+father intends to market me as best suits his interests.  Here I am so
+much merchandise.  The Duke is as free as any other man to cry a
+bargain." He would have spoken in protest, but Graciosa interrupted
+wearily:  "Oh, yes, it is to this end only that we daughters of Duke
+Alessandro's vassals are nurtured, just as you told me--eh, how long
+ago!--that such physical attractions as heaven accords us may be
+marketed.  And I do not see how a wedding can in any way ennoble the
+transaction by causing it to profane a holy sacrament.  Ah, no,
+Balthazar's daughter was near attaining all that she had been taught to
+desire, for a purchaser came and he bid lavishly.  You know very well
+that my father would have been delighted.  But you must need upset the
+bargain.  'No, I will not have it!' Count Eglamore must cry.  It cost
+you very highly to speak those words.  I think it would have puzzled my
+father to hear those words at which so many fertile lands, stout
+castles, well-timbered woodlands, herds of cattle, gilded coaches,
+liveries and curious tapestries, fine clothing and spiced foods, all
+vanished like a puff of smoke.  Ah, yes, my father would have thought
+you mad."
+
+"I had no choice," he said, and waved a little gesture of impotence.
+He spoke as with difficulty, almost wearily.  "I love you.  It is a
+theme on which I do not embroider.  So long as I had thought to use you
+as an instrument I could woo fluently enough.  To-day I saw that you
+were frightened and helpless--oh, quite helpless.  And something
+changed in me.  I knew for the first time that I loved you and that I
+was not clean as you are clean.  What it was of passion and horror, of
+despair and adoration and yearning, which struggled in my being then I
+cannot tell you.  It spurred me to such action as I took,--but it has
+robbed me of sugared eloquence, it has left me chary of speech.  It is
+necessary that I climb very high because of my love for you, and upon
+the heights there is silence."
+
+And Graciosa meditated.  "Here I am so much merchandise.  Heigho, since
+I cannot help it, since bought and sold I must be, one day or another,
+at least I will go at a noble price.  Yet I do not think I am quite
+worth the value of these castles and lands and other things which you
+gave up because of me, so that it will be necessary to make up the
+difference, dear, by loving you very much."
+
+And at that he touched her chin, gently and masterfully, for Graciosa
+would have averted her face, and it seemed to Eglamore that he could
+never have his fill of gazing on the radiant, shamed tenderness of
+Graciosa's face.  "Oh, my girl!" he whispered.  "Oh, my wonderful,
+worshiped, merry girl, whom God has fashioned with such loving care!
+you who had only scorn to give me when I was a kingdom's master! and
+would you go with me now that I am friendless and homeless?"
+
+"But I shall always have a friend," she answered--"a friend who showed
+me what Balthazar's daughter was and what love is.  And I am vain
+enough to believe I shall not ever be very far from home so long as I
+am near to my friend's heart."
+
+A mortal man could not but take her in his arms.
+
+"Farewell, Duke Alessandro!" then said Eglamore; "farewell, poor clay
+so plastic the least touch remodels you!  I had a part in shaping you
+so bestial; our age, too, had a part--our bright and cruel day, wherein
+you were set too high.  Yet for me it would perhaps have proved as easy
+to have made a learned recluse of you, Alessandro, or a bloodless
+saint, if to do that had been as patently profitable.  For you and all
+your kind are so much putty in the hands of circumspect fellows such as
+I.  But I stood by and let our poisoned age conform that putty into the
+shape of a crazed beast, because it took that form as readily as any
+other, and in taking it, best served my selfish ends.  Now I must pay
+for that sorry shaping, just as, I think, you too must pay some day.
+And so, I cry farewell with loathing, but with compassion also!"
+
+Then these two turned toward the hills, leaving Duke Alessandro where
+he lay in the road, a very lamentable figure in much bloodied finery.
+They turned toward the hills, and entered a forest whose ordering was
+time's contemporary, and where there was no grandeur save that of the
+trees.
+
+But upon the summit of the nearest hill they paused and looked over a
+restless welter of foliage that glittered in the sun, far down into the
+highway.  It bustled like an unroofed ant-hill, for the road was alive
+with men who seemed from this distance very small.  Duke Alessandro's
+attendants had found him and were clustered in a hubbub about their
+reviving master.  Dwarfish Lorenzino de Medici was the most solicitous
+among them.
+
+Beyond was the broad river, seen as a ribbon of silver now, and on its
+remoter bank the leaded roofs of a strong fortress glistened like a
+child's new toy.  Tilled fields showed here and there, no larger in
+appearance than so many outspread handkerchiefs.  Far down in the east
+a small black smudge upon the pearl-colored and vaporous horizon was
+all they could discern of a walled city filled with factories for the
+working of hemp and furs and alum and silk and bitumen.
+
+"It is a very rich and lovely land," said Eglamore--"this kingdom which
+a half-hour since lay in the hollow of my hand."  He viewed it for a
+while, and not without pensiveness.  Then he took Graciosa's hand and
+looked into her face, and he laughed joyously.
+
+
+
+
+JUDITH'S CREED
+
+
+"_It does not appear that the age thought his works worthy of
+posterity, nor that this great poet himself levied any ideal tribute on
+future times, or had any further prospect than of present popularity
+and present profit.  So careless was he, indeed, of fame, that, when he
+retired to ease and plenty, while he was yet little declined into the
+vale of years, and before he could be disgusted with fatigue or
+disabled by infirmity, he desired only that in this rural quiet he who
+had so long mazed his imagination by following phantoms might at last
+be cured of his delirious ecstasies, and as a hermit might estimate the
+transactions of the world._"
+
+
+
+
+  Now my charms are all o'erthrown,
+  And what strength I have's my own,
+  Which is most faint.
+
+                    Now I want
+  Spirits to enforce, art to enchant;
+  And my ending is despair,
+  Unless I be relieved by prayer,
+  Which pierces so, that it assaults
+  Mercy itself, and frees all faults.
+
+  As you from crimes would pardon'd be,
+  Let your indulgence set me free.
+
+  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.--_Epilogue to The Tempest_.
+
+
+
+He was hoping, while his fingers drummed in unison with the beat of his
+verse, that this last play at least would rouse enthusiasm in the pit.
+The welcome given its immediate predecessors had undeniably been tepid.
+A memorandum at his elbow of the receipts at the Globe for the last
+quarter showed this with disastrous bluntness; and, after all, in 1609
+a shareholder in a theater, when writing dramas for production there,
+was ordinarily subject to more claims than those of his ideals.
+
+He sat in a neglected garden whose growth was in reversion to primal
+habits.  The season was September, the sky a uniform and temperate
+blue.  A peachtree, laden past its strength with fruitage, made about
+him with its boughs a sort of tent.  The grass around his writing-table
+was largely hidden by long, crinkled peach leaves--some brown and
+others gray as yet--and was dotted with a host of brightly-colored
+peaches.  Fidgeting bees and flies were excavating the decayed spots in
+this wasting fruit, from which emanated a vinous odor.  The bees hummed
+drowsily, their industry facilitating idleness in others.  It was
+curious--he meditated, his thoughts straying from "an uninhabited
+island"--how these insects alternated in color between brown velvet and
+silver, as they blundered about a flickering tessellation of amber and
+dark green . . . in search of rottenness. . . .
+
+He frowned.  Here was an arid forenoon as imagination went.  A seasoned
+plagiarist by this, he opened a book which lay upon the table among
+several others and duly found the chapter entitled _Of the Cannibals_.
+
+"So, so!" he said aloud.  "'It is a nation,' would I answer Plato,
+'that has no kind of traffic, no knowledge of letters----'"  And with
+that he sat about reshaping Montaigne's conceptions of Utopia into
+verse.  He wrote--while his left hand held the book flat--as orderly as
+any county-clerk might do in the recordance of a deed of sale.
+
+Midcourse in larceny, he looked up from writing.  He saw a tall, dark
+lady who was regarding him half-sorrowfully and half as in the grasp of
+some occult amusement.  He said nothing.  He released the telltale
+book.  His eyebrows lifted, banteringly.  He rose.
+
+He found it characteristic of her that she went silently to the table
+and compared the printed page with what he had just written.  "So
+nowadays you have turned pickpocket?  My poet, you have altered."
+
+He said:  "Why, yes.  When you broke off our friendship, I paid you the
+expensive compliment of falling very ill.  They thought that I would
+die.  They tell me even to-day I did not die.  I almost question it."
+He shrugged.  "And to-day I must continue to write plays, because I
+never learned any other trade.  And so, at need, I pilfer."  The topic
+did not seem much to concern him.
+
+"Eh, and such plays!" the woman cried.  "My poet, there was a time when
+you created men and women as glibly as Heaven does.  Now you make
+sugar-candy dolls."
+
+"The last comedies were not all I could have wished," he assented.  "In
+fact, I got only some L30 clear profit."
+
+"There speaks the little tradesman I most hated of all persons living!"
+the woman sighed.  Now, as in impatience, she thrust back her
+traveling-hood and stood bare-headed.
+
+Then she stayed silent,--tall, extraordinarily pallid, and with dark,
+steady eyes.  Their gaze by ordinary troubled you, as seeming to hint
+some knowledge to your belittlement.  The playmaker remembered that.
+Now he, a reputable householder, was wondering what would be the upshot
+of this intrusion.  His visitor, as he was perfectly aware, had little
+patience with such moments of life as could not be made dramatic. . . .
+He was recollecting many trifles, now his mind ran upon old
+times. . . .  No, no, reflection assured him, to call her beautiful
+would be, and must always have been, an exaggeration; but to deny the
+exotic and somewhat sinister charm of her, even to-day, would be an
+absurdity.
+
+She said, abruptly:  "I do not think I ever loved you as women love
+men.  You were too anxious to associate with fine folk, too eager to
+secure a patron--yes, and to get your profit of him--and you were
+always ill-at-ease among us.  Our youth is so long past, and we two are
+so altered that we, I think, may speak of its happenings now without
+any bitterness.  I hated those sordid, petty traits.  I raged at your
+incessant pretensions to gentility because I knew you to be so much
+more than a gentleman.  Oh, it infuriated me--how long ago it was!--to
+see you cringing to the Court blockheads, and running their errands,
+and smirkingly pocketing their money, and wheedling them into helping
+the new play to success.  You complained I treated you like a lackey;
+it was not unnatural when of your own freewill you played the lackey so
+assiduously."
+
+He laughed.  He had anatomized himself too frequently and with too much
+dispassion to overlook whatever tang of snobbishness might be in him;
+and, moreover, the charge thus tendered became in reality the speaker's
+apology, and hurt nobody's self-esteem.
+
+"Faith, I do not say you are altogether in the wrong," he assented.
+"They could be very useful to me--Pembroke, and Southampton, and those
+others--and so I endeavored to render my intimacy acceptable.  It was
+my business as a poet to make my play as near perfect as I could; and
+this attended to, common-sense demanded of the theater-manager that he
+derive as much money as was possible from its representation.  What
+would you have?  The man of letters, like the carpenter or the
+blacksmith, must live by the vending of his productions, not by the
+eating of them." The woman waved this aside.
+
+She paced the grass in meditation, the peach leaves brushing her proud
+head--caressingly, it seemed to him.  Later she came nearer in a
+brand-new mood.  She smiled now, and her voice was musical and thrilled
+with wonder.  "But what a poet Heaven had locked inside this little
+parasite!  It used to puzzle me."  She laughed, and ever so lightly.
+"Eh, and did you never understand why by preference I talked with you
+at evening from my balcony?  It was because I could forget you then
+entirely.  There was only a voice in the dark.  There was a sorcerer at
+whose bidding words trooped like a conclave of emperors, and now sang
+like a bevy of linnets.  And wit and fancy and high aspirations and my
+love--because I knew then that your love for me was splendid and
+divine--these also were my sorcerer's potent allies.  I understood then
+how glad and awed were those fabulous Greekish queens when a god wooed
+them.  Yes, then I understood.  How long ago it seems!"
+
+"Yes, yes," he sighed.  "In that full-blooded season was Guenevere a
+lass, I think, and Charlemagne was not yet in breeches."
+
+"And when there was a new play enacted I was glad.  For it was our play
+that you and I had polished the last line of yesterday, and all these
+people wept and laughed because of what we had done.  And I was
+proud----"  The lady shrugged impatiently.  "Proud, did I say? and
+glad?  That attests how woefully I fall short of you, my poet.  You
+would have found some magic phrase to make that ancient glory
+articulate, I know.  Yet,--did I ever love you?  I do not know that.  I
+only know I sometimes fear you robbed me of the power of loving any
+other man."
+
+He raised one hand in deprecation.  "I must remind you," he cried,
+whimsically, "that a burnt child dreads even to talk of fire."
+
+Her response was a friendly nod.  She came yet nearer.  "What," she
+demanded, and her smile was elfish, "what if I had lied to you?  What
+if I were hideously tired of my husband, that bluff, stolid captain?
+What if I wanted you to plead with me as in the old time?"
+
+He said:  "Until now you were only a woman.  Oh, and now, my dear, you
+are again that resistless gipsy who so merrily beguiled me to the very
+heart of loss.  You are Love.  You are Youth.  You are Comprehension.
+You are all that I have had, and lost, and vainly hunger for.  Here in
+this abominable village, there is no one who understands--not even
+those who are more dear to me than you are.  I know.  I only spoil good
+paper which might otherwise be profitably used to wrap herrings in,
+they think.  They give me ink and a pen just as they would give toys to
+a child who squalled for them too obstinately.  And Poesy is a thrifty
+oracle with no words to waste upon the deaf, however loudly her
+interpreter cry out to her.  Oh, I have hungered for you, my proud,
+dark lady!" the playmaker said.
+
+Afterward they stood quite silent.  She was not unmoved by his outcry;
+and for this very reason was obscurely vexed by the reflection that it
+would be the essay of a braver man to remedy, rather than to lament,
+his circumstances.  And then the moment's rapture failed him.
+
+"I am a sorry fool," he said; and lightly he ran on:  "You are a
+skilful witch.  Yet you have raised the ghost of an old madness to no
+purpose.  You seek a master-poet?  You will find none here.  Perhaps I
+was one once.  But most of us are poets of one sort or another when we
+love.  Do you not understand?  To-day I do not love you any more than I
+do Hecuba.  Is it not strange that I should tell you this and not be
+moved at all?  Is it not laughable that we should stand here at the
+last, two feet apart as things physical go, and be as profoundly
+severed as if an ocean tumbled between us?"
+
+He fell to walking to and fro, his hands behind his back.  She waited,
+used as she was to his unstable temperament, a trifle puzzled.
+Presently he spoke:
+
+"There was a time when a master-poet was needed.  He was
+found--nay,--rather made.  Fate hastily caught up a man not very
+different from the run of men--one with a taste for stringing phrases
+and with a comedy or so to his discredit.  Fate merely bid him love a
+headstrong child newly released from the nursery."
+
+"We know her well enough," she said.  "The girl was faithless, and
+tyrannous, and proud, and coquettish, and unworthy, and false, and
+inconstant.  She was black as hell and dark as night in both her person
+and her living.  You were not niggardly of vituperation."
+
+And he grimaced.  "Faith," he replied, "but sonnets are a more natural
+form of expression than affidavits, and they are made effective by
+compliance with different rules.  I find no flagrant fault with you
+to-day.  You were a child of seventeen, the darling of a noble house,
+and an actor--yes, and not even a pre-eminent actor--a gross, poor
+posturing vagabond, just twice your age, presumed to love you.  What
+child would not amuse herself with such engaging toys?  Vivacity and
+prettiness and cruelty are the ordinary attributes of kittenhood.  So
+you amused yourself.  And I submitted with clear eyes, because I could
+not help it.  Yes, I who am by nature not disposed to underestimate my
+personal importance--I submitted, because your mockery was more
+desirable than the adoration of any other woman.  And all this helped
+to make a master-poet of me.  Eh, why not, when such monstrous passions
+spoke through me--as if some implacable god elected to play godlike
+music on a mountebank's lute?  And I made admirable plays.  Why not,
+when there was no tragedy more poignant than mine?--and where in any
+comedy was any figure one-half so ludicrous as mine?  Ah, yes, Fate
+gained her ends, as always."
+
+He was a paunchy, inconsiderable little man.  By ordinary his elongated
+features and high, bald forehead loaned him an aspect of serene and
+axiom-based wisdom, much as we see him in his portraits; but now his
+countenance was flushed and mobile.  Odd passions played about it, as
+when on a sullen night in August summer lightnings flicker and merge.
+
+His voice had found another cadence.  "But Fate was not entirely
+ruthless.  Fate bade the child become a woman, and so grow tired of all
+her childhood's playthings.  This was after a long while, as we
+estimate happenings. . . .  I suffered then.  Yes, I went down to the
+doors of death, as people say, in my long illness.  But that crude,
+corporal fever had a providential thievishness; and not content with
+stripping me of health and strength,--not satisfied with pilfering
+inventiveness and any strong hunger to create--why, that insatiable
+fever even robbed me of my insanity.  I lived.  I was only a broken
+instrument flung by because the god had wearied of playing.  I would
+give forth no more heart-wringing music, for the musician had departed.
+And I still lived--I, the stout little tradesman whom you loathed.
+Yes, that tradesman scrambled through these evils, somehow, and came
+out still able to word adequately all such imaginings as could be
+devised by his natural abilities.  But he transmitted no more
+heart-wringing music."
+
+She said, "You lie!"
+
+He said, "I thank Heaven daily that I do not."  He spoke the truth.
+She knew it, and her heart was all rebellion.
+
+Indefatigable birds sang through the following hush.  A wholesome and
+temperate breeze caressed these silent people.  Bees that would die
+to-morrow hummed about them tirelessly.
+
+Then the poet said:  "I loved you; and you did not love me.  It is the
+most commonplace of tragedies, the heart of every man alive has been
+wounded in this identical fashion.  A master-poet is only that wounded
+man--among so many other bleeding folk--who perversely augments his
+agony, and utilizes his wound as an inkwell.  Presently time scars over
+the cut for him, as time does for all the others.  He does not suffer
+any longer.  No, and such relief is a clear gain; but none the less, he
+must henceforward write with ordinary ink such as the lawyers use."
+
+"I should have been the man," the woman cried.  "Had I been sure of
+fame, could I have known those raptures when you used to gabble
+immortal phrases like a stammering infant, I would have paid the price
+without all this whimpering."
+
+"Faith, and I think you would have," he assented.  "There is the
+difference.  At bottom I am a creature of the most moderate
+aspirations, as you always complained; and for my part, Fate must in
+reason demand her applause of posterity rather than of me.  For I
+regret the unlived life that I was meant for--the comfortable level
+life of little happenings which all my schoolfellows have passed
+through in a stolid drove.  I was equipped to live that life with
+relish, and that life only; and it was denied me.  It was demolished in
+order that a book or two be made out of its wreckage."
+
+She said, with half-shut eyes:  "There is a woman at the root of all
+this."  And how he laughed!
+
+"Did I not say you were a witch?  Why, most assuredly there is."
+
+He motioned with his left hand.  Some hundred yards away a young man,
+who was carrying two logs toward New Place, had paused to rest.  A girl
+was with him.  Now laughingly she was pretending to assist the porter
+in lifting his burden.  It was a quaintly pretty vignette, as framed by
+the peach leaves, because those two young people were so merry and so
+candidly in love.  A symbolist might have wrung pathos out of the
+girl's desire to aid, as set against her fond inadequacy; and the
+attendant playwright made note of it.
+
+"Well, well!" he said:  "Young Quiney is a so-so choice, since women
+must necessarily condescend to intermarrying with men.  But he is far
+from worthy of her.  Tell me, now, was there ever a rarer piece of
+beauty?"
+
+"The wench is not ill-favored," was the dark lady's unenthusiastic
+answer.  "So!--but who is she?"
+
+He replied:  "She is my daughter.  Yonder you see my latter muse for
+whose dear sake I spin romances.  I do not mean that she takes any
+lively interest in them.  That is not to be expected, since she cannot
+read or write.  Ask her about the poet we were discussing, and I very
+much fear Judith will bluntly inform you she cannot tell a B from a
+bull's foot.  But one must have a muse of some sort or another; and so
+I write about the world now as Judith sees it.  My Judith finds this
+world an eminently pleasant place.  It is full of laughter and
+kindliness--for could Herod be unkind to her?--and it is largely
+populated by ardent young fellows who are intended chiefly to be
+twisted about your fingers; and it is illuminated by sunlight whose
+real purpose is to show how pretty your hair is.  And if affairs go
+badly for a while, and you have done nothing very wrong--why, of
+course, Heaven will soon straighten matters satisfactorily.  For
+nothing that happens to us can possibly be anything except a benefit,
+because God orders all happenings, and God loves us.  There you have
+Judith's creed; and upon my word, I believe there is a great deal to be
+said for it."
+
+"And this is you," she cried--"you who wrote of Troilus and Timon!"
+
+"I lived all that," he replied--"I lived it, and so for a long while I
+believed in the existence of wickedness.  To-day I have lost many
+illusions, madam, and that ranks among them.  I never knew a wicked
+person.  I question if anybody ever did.  Undoubtedly short-sighted
+people exist who have floundered into ill-doing; but it proves always
+to have been on account of either cowardice or folly, and never because
+of malevolence; and, in consequence, their sorry pickle should demand
+commiseration far more loudly than our blame.  In short, I find
+humanity to be both a weaker and a better-meaning race than I had
+suspected.  And so, I make what you call 'sugar-candy dolls,' because I
+very potently believe that all of us are sweet at heart.  Oh no! men
+lack an innate aptitude for sinning; and at worst, we frenziedly
+attempt our misdemeanors just as a sheep retaliates on its pursuers.
+This much, at least, has Judith taught me."
+
+The woman murmured:  "Eh, you are luckier than I.  I had a son.  He was
+borne of my anguish, he was fed and tended by me, and he was dependent
+on me in all things."  She said, with a half-sob, "My poet, he was so
+little and so helpless!  Now he is dead."
+
+"My dear, my dear!" he cried, and he took both her hands.  "I also had
+a son.  He would have been a man by this."
+
+They stood thus for a while.  And then he smiled.
+
+"I ask your pardon.  I had forgotten that you hate to touch my hands.
+I know--they are too moist and flabby.  I always knew that you thought
+that.  Well!  Hamnet died.  I grieved.  That is a trivial thing to say.
+But you also have seen your own flesh lying in a coffin so small that
+even my soft hands could lift it.  So you will comprehend.  To-day I
+find that the roughest winds abate with time.  Hatred and self-seeking
+and mischance and, above all, the frailties innate in us--these buffet
+us for a while, and we are puzzled, and we demand of God, as Job did,
+why is this permitted?  And then as the hair dwindles, the wit grows."
+
+"Oh, yes, with age we take a slackening hold upon events; we let all
+happenings go by more lightly; and we even concede the universe not to
+be under any actual bond to be intelligible.  Yes, that is true.  But
+is it gain, my poet? for I had thought it to be loss."
+
+"With age we gain the priceless certainty that sorrow and injustice are
+ephemeral.  Solvitur ambulando, my dear.  I have attested this merely
+by living long enough.  I, like any other man of my years, have in my
+day known more or less every grief which the world breeds; and each
+maddened me in turn, as each was duly salved by time; so that to-day
+their ravages vex me no more than do the bee-stings I got when I was an
+urchin.  To-day I grant the world to be composed of muck and sunshine
+intermingled; but, upon the whole, I find the sunshine more pleasant to
+look at, and--greedily, because my time for sightseeing is not very
+long--I stare at it.  And I hold Judith's creed to be the best of all
+imaginable creeds--that if we do nothing very wrong, all human
+imbroglios, in some irrational and quite incomprehensible fashion, will
+be straightened to our satisfaction.  Meanwhile, you also voice a tonic
+truth--this universe of ours, and, reverently speaking, the Maker of
+this universe as well, is under no actual bond to be intelligible in
+dealing with us."  He laughed at this season and fell into a lighter
+tone.  "Do I preach like a little conventicle-attending tradesman?
+Faith, you must remember that when I talk gravely Judith listens as if
+it were an oracle discoursing.  For Judith loves me as the wisest and
+the best of men.  I protest her adoration frightens me.  What if she
+were to find me out?"
+
+"I loved what was divine in you," the woman answered.
+
+"Oddly enough, that is the perfect truth!  And when what was divine in
+me had burned a sufficiency of incense to your vanity, your vanity's
+owner drove off in a fine coach and left me to die in a garret.  Then
+Judith came.  Then Judith nursed and tended and caressed me--and Judith
+only in all the world!--as once you did that boy you spoke of.  Ah,
+madam, and does not sorrow sometimes lie awake o' nights in the low
+cradle of that child? and sometimes walk with you by day and clasp your
+hand--much as his tiny hand did once, so trustingly, so like the
+clutching of a vine--and beg you never to be friends with anything save
+sorrow?  And do you wholeheartedly love those other women's boys--who
+did not die?  Yes, I remember.  Judith, too, remembered.  I was her
+father, for all that I had forsaken my family to dance Jack-pudding
+attendance on a fine Court lady.  So Judith came.  And Judith, who sees
+in play-writing just a very uncertain way of making money--Judith, who
+cannot tell a B from a bull's foot,--why, Judith, madam, did not ask,
+but gave, what was divine."
+
+"You are unfair," she cried.  "Oh, you are cruel, you juggle words,
+make knives of them. . . .  You" and she spoke as with difficulty--"you
+have no right to know just how I loved my boy!  You should be either
+man or woman!"
+
+He said pensively:  "Yes, I am cruel.  But you had mirth and beauty
+once, and I had only love and a vocabulary.  Who then more flagrantly
+abused the gifts God gave?  And why should I not be cruel to you, who
+made a master-poet of me for your recreation?  Lord, what a deal of
+ruined life it takes to make a little art!  Yes, yes, I know.  Under
+old oaks lovers will mouth my verses, and the acorns are not yet shaped
+from which those oaks will spring.  My adoration and your perfidy, all
+that I have suffered, all that I have failed in even, has gone toward
+the building of an enduring monument.  All these will be immortal,
+because youth is immortal, and youth delights in demanding explanations
+of infinity.  And only to this end I have suffered and have catalogued
+the ravings of a perverse disease which has robbed my life of all the
+normal privileges of life as flame shrivels hair from the arm--that
+young fools such as I was once might be pleased to murder my rhetoric,
+and scribblers parody me in their fictions, and schoolboys guess at the
+date of my death!"  This he said with more than ordinary animation; and
+then he shook his head.  "There is a leaven," he said--"there is a
+leaven even in your smuggest and most inconsiderable tradesman."
+
+She answered, with a wistful smile:  "I, too, regret my poet.  And just
+now you are more like him----"
+
+"Faith, but he was really a poet--or, at least, at times----?"
+
+"Not marble, nor the gilded monuments of princes shall outlive this
+powerful rhyme----'"
+
+"Dear, dear!" he said, in petulant vexation; "how horribly emotion
+botches verse.  That clash of sibilants is both harsh and
+ungrammatical.  _Shall_ should be changed to _will_."  And at that the
+woman sighed, because, in common with all persons who never essayed
+creative verbal composition, she was quite certain perdurable writing
+must spring from a surcharged heart, rather than from a rearrangement
+of phrases.  And so,
+
+"Very unfeignedly I regret my poet," she said, "my poet, who was
+unhappy and unreasonable, because I was not always wise or kind, or
+even just.  And I did not know until to-day how much I loved my
+poet. . . .  Yes, I know now I loved him.  I must go now.  I would I
+had not come."
+
+Then, standing face to face, he cried, "Eh, madam, and what if I also
+have lied to you--in part?  Our work is done; what more is there to
+say?"
+
+"Nothing," she answered--"nothing.  Not even for you, who are a
+master-smith of words to-day and nothing more."
+
+"I?" he replied.  "Do you so little emulate a higher example that even
+for a moment you consider me?"
+
+She did not answer.
+
+
+When she had gone, the playmaker sat for a long while in meditation;
+and then smilingly he took up his pen.  He was bound for "an
+uninhabited island" where all disasters ended in a happy climax.
+
+"So, so!" he was declaiming, later on: "_We, too, are kin To dreams and
+visions; and our little life Is gilded by such faint and cloud-wrapped
+suns_--Only, that needs a homelier touch.  Rather, let us say, _We are
+such stuff As dreams are made on_--Oh, good, good!--Now to pad out the
+line. . . .  In any event, the Bermudas are a seasonable topic.  Now
+here, instead of _thickly-templed India_, suppose we write _the
+still-vexed Bermoothes_--Good, good!  It fits in well enough. . . ."
+
+And so in clerkly fashion he sat about the accomplishment of his stint
+of labor in time for dinner.  A competent workman is not disastrously
+upset by interruption; and, indeed, he found the notion of surprising
+Judith with an unlooked-for trinket or so to be at first a very
+efficacious spur to composition.
+
+And presently the strong joy of creating kindled in him, and phrase
+flowed abreast with thought, and the playmaker wrote fluently and
+surely to an accompaniment of contented ejaculations.  He regretted
+nothing, he would not now have laid aside his pen to take up a scepter.
+For surely--he would have said--to live untroubled, and weave beautiful
+and winsome dreams is the most desirable of human fates.  But he did
+not consciously think of this, because he was midcourse in the evoking
+of a mimic tempest which, having purged its victims of unkindliness and
+error, aimed (in the end) only to sink into an amiable calm.
+
+
+
+
+CONCERNING CORINNA
+
+
+"_Dr. Herrick told me that, in common with all the Enlightened or
+Illuminated Brothers, of which prying sect the age breeds so many, he
+trusted the great lines of Nature, not in the whole, but in part, as
+they believed Nature was in certain senses not true, and a betrayer,
+and that she was not wholly the benevolent power to endow, as accorded
+with the prevailing deceived notion of the vulgar.  But he wished not
+to discuss more particularly than thus, as he had drawn up to himself a
+certain frontier of reticence; and so fell to petting a great black
+pig, of which he made an unseemly companion, and to talking idly._"
+
+
+  A Gyges ring they bear about them still,
+  To be, and not, seen when and where they will;
+
+  They tread on clouds, and though they sometimes fall,
+  They fall like dew, and make no noise at all:
+
+  So silently they one to th' other come
+  As colors steal into the pear or plum;
+
+  And air-like, leave no pression to be seen
+  Where'er they met, or parting place has been.
+
+  ROBERT HERRICK.--_My Lovers how They Come and Part_.
+
+
+
+
+CONCERNING CORINNA
+
+
+The matter hinges entirely upon whether or not Robert Herrick was
+insane.  Sir Thomas Browne always preferred to think that he was;
+whereas Philip Borsdale perversely considered the answer to be
+optional.  Perversely, Sir Thomas protested, because he said that to
+believe in Herrick's sanity was not conducive to your own.
+
+This much is certain: the old clergyman, a man of few friends and no
+intimates, enjoyed in Devon, thanks to his time-hallowed reputation for
+singularity, a certain immunity.  In and about Dean Prior, for
+instance, it was conceded in 1674 that it was unusual for a divine of
+the Church of England to make a black pig--and a pig of peculiarly
+diabolical ugliness, at that--his ordinary associate; but Dean Prior
+had come long ago to accept the grisly brute as a concomitant of Dr.
+Herrick's presence almost as inevitable as his shadow. It was no crime
+to be fond of dumb animals, not even of one so inordinately
+unprepossessing; and you allowed for eccentricities, in any event, in
+dealing with a poet.
+
+For Totnes, Buckfastleigh, Dean Prior--all that part of Devon, in
+fact--complacently basked in the reflected glory of Robert Herrick.
+People came from a long distance, now that the Parliamentary Wars were
+over, in order just to see the writer of the _Hesperides_ and the
+_Noble Numbers_.  And such enthusiasts found in Robert Herrick a
+hideous dreamy man, who, without ever perpetrating any actual
+discourtesy, always managed to dismiss them, somehow, with a sense of
+having been rebuffed.
+
+Sir Thomas Browne, that ardent amateur of the curious, came into Devon,
+however, without the risk of incurring any such fate, inasmuch as the
+knight traveled westward simply to discuss with Master Philip Borsdale
+the recent doings of Cardinal Alioneri.  Now, Philip Borsdale, as Sir
+Thomas knew, had been employed by Herrick in various transactions here
+irrelevant.  In consequence, Sir Thomas Browne was not greatly
+surprised when, on his arrival at Buckfastleigh, Borsdale's
+body-servant told him that Master Borsdale had left instructions for
+Sir Thomas to follow him to Dean Prior.  Browne complied, because his
+business with Borsdale was of importance.
+
+Philip Borsdale was lounging in Dr. Herrick's chair, intent upon a
+lengthy manuscript, alone and to all appearances quite at home.  The
+state of the room Sir Thomas found extraordinary; but he had graver
+matters to discuss; and he explained the results of his mission without
+extraneous comment.
+
+"Yes, you have managed it to admiration," said Philip Borsdale, when
+the knight had made an end.  Borsdale leaned back and laughed,
+purringly, for the outcome of this affair of the Cardinal and the Wax
+Image meant much to him from a pecuniary standpoint.  "Yet it is odd a
+prince of any church which has done so much toward the discomfiture of
+sorcery should have entertained such ideas.  It is also odd to note the
+series of coincidences which appears to have attended this Alioneri's
+practises."
+
+"I noticed that," said Sir Thomas.  After a while he said:  "You think,
+then, that they must have been coincidences?"
+
+"MUST is a word which intelligent people do not outwear by too constant
+usage."
+
+And "Oh----?" said the knight, and said that alone, because he was
+familiar with the sparkle now in Borsdale's eyes, and knew it heralded
+an adventure for an amateur of the curious.
+
+"I am not committing myself, mark you, Sir Thomas, to any statement
+whatever, beyond the observation that these coincidences were
+noticeable.  I add, with superficial irrelevance, that Dr. Herrick
+disappeared last night."
+
+"I am not surprised," said Sir Thomas, drily.  "No possible antics
+would astonish me on the part of that unvenerable madman.  When I was
+last in Totnes, he broke down in the midst of a sermon, and flung the
+manuscript of it at his congregation, and cursed them roundly for not
+paying closer attention.  Such was never my ideal of absolute decorum
+in the pulpit.  Moreover, it is unusual for a minister of the Church of
+England to be accompanied everywhere by a pig with whom he discusses
+the affairs of the parish precisely as if the pig were a human being."
+
+"The pig--he whimsically called the pig Corinna, sir, in honor of that
+imaginary mistress to whom he addressed so many verses--why, the pig
+also has disappeared.  Oh, but of course that at least is simply a
+coincidence. . . .  I grant you it was an uncanny beast.  And I grant
+you that Dr. Herrick was a dubious ornament to his calling.  Of that I
+am doubly certain to-day," said Borsdale, and he waved his hand
+comprehensively, "in view of the state in which--you see--he left this
+room.  Yes, he was quietly writing here at eleven o'clock last night
+when old Prudence Baldwin, his housekeeper, last saw him.  Afterward
+Dr. Herrick appears to have diverted himself by taking away the mats
+and chalking geometrical designs upon the floor, as well as by burning
+some sort of incense in this brasier."
+
+"But such avocations, Philip, are not necessarily indicative of sanity.
+No, it is not, upon the whole, an inevitable manner for an elderly
+parson to while away an evening."
+
+"Oh, but that was only a part, sir.  He also left the clothes he was
+wearing--in a rather peculiarly constructed heap, as you can see.
+Among them, by the way, I found this flattened and corroded bullet.
+That puzzled me.  I think I understand it now."  Thus Borsdale, as he
+composedly smoked his churchwarden.  "In short, the whole affair is as
+mysterious----"
+
+Here Sir Thomas raised his hand.  "Spare me the simile.  I detect a
+vista of curious perils such as infinitely outshines verbal brilliancy.
+You need my aid in some insane attempt."  He considered.  He said: "So!
+you have been retained?"
+
+"I have been asked to help him.  Of course I did not know of what he
+meant to try.  In short, Dr. Herrick left this manuscript, as well as
+certain instructions for me.  The last are--well! unusual."
+
+"Ah, yes!  You hearten me.  I have long had my suspicions as to this
+Herrick, though. . . .  And what are we to do?"
+
+"I really cannot inform you, sir.  I doubt if I could explain in any
+workaday English even what we will attempt to do," said Philip
+Borsdale.  "I do say this: You believe the business which we have
+settled, involving as it does the lives of thousands of men and women,
+to be of importance.  I swear to you that, as set against what we will
+essay, all we have done is trivial.  As pitted against the business we
+will attempt to-night, our previous achievements are suggestive of the
+evolutions of two sand-fleas beside the ocean.  The prize at which this
+adventure aims is so stupendous that I cannot name it."
+
+"Oh, but you must, Philip.  I am no more afraid of the local
+constabulary than I am of the local notions as to what respectability
+entails.  I may confess, however, that I am afraid of wagering against
+unknown odds."
+
+Borsdale reflected.  Then he said, with deliberation:  "Dr. Herrick's
+was, when you come to think of it, an unusual life.  He is--or perhaps
+I ought to say he was--upward of eighty-three.  He has lived here for
+over a half-century, and during that time he has never attempted to
+make either a friend or an enemy.  He was--indifferent, let us say.
+Talking to Dr. Herrick was, somehow, like talking to a man in a
+fog. . . .  Meanwhile, he wrote his verses to imaginary women--to
+Corinna and Julia, to Myrha, Electra and Perilla--those lovely, shadow
+women who never, in so far as we know, had any real existence----"
+
+Sir Thomas smiled.  "Of course.  They are mere figments of the poet,
+pegs to hang rhymes on.  And yet--let us go on.  I know that Herrick
+never willingly so much as spoke with a woman."
+
+"Not in so far as we know, I said."  And Borsdale paused.  "Then, too,
+he wrote such dainty, merry poems about the fairies.  Yes, it was all
+of fifty years ago that Dr. Herrick first appeared in print with his
+_Description of the King and Queen of the Fairies_.  The thought seems
+always to have haunted him."
+
+The knight's face changed, a little by a little.  "I have long been an
+amateur of the curious," he said, strangely quiet.  "I do not think
+that anything you may say will surprise me inordinately."
+
+"He had found in every country in the world traditions of a race who
+were human--yet more than human.  That is the most exact fashion in
+which I can express his beginnings.  On every side he found the notion
+of a race who can impinge on mortal life and partake of it--but always
+without exercising the last reach of their endowments.  Oh, the
+tradition exists everywhere, whether you call these occasional
+interlopers fauns, fairies, gnomes, ondines, incubi, or demons.  They
+could, according to these fables, temporarily restrict themselves into
+our life, just as a swimmer may elect to use only one arm--or, a more
+fitting comparison, become apparent to our human senses in the fashion
+of a cube which can obtrude only one of its six surfaces into a plane.
+You follow me, of course, sir?--to the triangles and circles and
+hexagons this cube would seem to be an ordinary square.  Conceiving
+such a race to exist, we might talk with them, might jostle them in the
+streets, might even intermarry with them, sir--and always see in them
+only human beings, and solely because of our senses' limitations."
+
+"I comprehend.  These are exactly the speculations that would appeal to
+an unbalanced mind--is that not your thought, Philip?"
+
+"Why, there is nothing particularly insane, Sir Thomas, in desiring to
+explore in fields beyond those which our senses make perceptible.  It
+is very certain these fields exist; and the question of their extent I
+take to be both interesting and important."
+
+Then Sir Thomas said:  "Like any other rational man, I have
+occasionally thought of this endeavor at which you hint.  We exist--you
+and I and all the others--in what we glibly call the universe.  All
+that we know of it is through what we entitle our five senses, which,
+when provoked to action, will cause a chemical change in a few ounces
+of spongy matter packed in our skulls.  There are no grounds for
+believing that this particular method of communication is adequate, or
+even that the agents which produce it are veracious.  Meanwhile, we are
+in touch with what exists through our five senses only.  It may be that
+they lie to us.  There is, at least, no reason for assuming them to be
+infallible."
+
+"But reflection plows a deeper furrow, Sir Thomas.  Even in the
+exercise of any one of these five senses it is certain that we are
+excelled by what we vaingloriously call the lower forms of life.  A dog
+has powers of scent we cannot reach to, birds hear the crawling of a
+worm, insects distinguish those rays in the spectrum which lie beyond
+violet and red, and are invisible to us; and snails and fish and
+ants--perhaps all other living creatures, indeed--have senses which man
+does not share at all, and has no name for.  Granted that we human
+beings alone possess the power of reasoning, the fact remains that we
+invariably start with false premises, and always pass our judgments
+when biased at the best by incomplete reports of everything in the
+universe, and very possibly by reports which lie flat-footedly."
+
+You saw that Browne was troubled.  Now he rose.  "Nothing will come of
+this.  I do not touch upon the desirability of conquering those fields
+at which we dare only to hint.  No, I am not afraid.  I dare assist you
+in doing anything Dr. Herrick asks, because I know that nothing will
+come of such endeavors.  Much is permitted us--'but of the fruit of the
+tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, to us who are
+no more than human, Ye shall not eat of it.'"
+
+"Yet Dr. Herrick, as many other men have done, thought otherwise.  I,
+too, will venture a quotation.  'Didst thou never see a lark in a cage?
+Such is the soul in the body: this world is like her little turf of
+grass, and the heavens o'er our heads, like her looking-glass, only
+gives us a miserable knowledge of the small compass of our prison.'
+Many years ago that lamentation was familiar.  What wonder, then, that
+Dr. Herrick should have dared to repeat it yesterday?  And what wonder
+if he tried to free the prisoner?"
+
+"Such freedom is forbidden," Sir Thomas stubbornly replied.  "I have
+long known that Herrick was formerly in correspondence with John
+Heydon, and Robert Flood, and others of the Illuminated, as they call
+themselves.  There are many of this sect in England, as we all know;
+and we hear much silly chatter of Elixirs and Philosopher's Stones in
+connection with them.  But I happen to know somewhat of their real aims
+and tenets.  I do not care to know any more than I do.  If it be true
+that all of which man is conscious is just a portion of a curtain, and
+that the actual universe in nothing resembles our notion of it, I am
+willing to believe this curtain was placed there for some righteous and
+wise reason.  They tell me the curtain may be lifted.  Whether this be
+true or no, I must for my own sanity's sake insist it can never be
+lifted."
+
+"But what if it were not forbidden?  For Dr. Herrick asserts he has
+already demonstrated that."
+
+Sir Thomas interrupted, with odd quickness.  "True, we must bear it in
+mind the man never married--Did he, by any chance, possess a crystal of
+Venice glass three inches square?"
+
+And Borsdale gaped.  "I found it with his manuscript.  But he said
+nothing of it. . . .  How could you guess?"
+
+Sir Thomas reflectively scraped the edge of the glass with his
+finger-nail.  "You would be none the happier for knowing, Philip.  Yes,
+that is a blood-stain here.  I see.  And Herrick, so far as we know,
+had never in his life loved any woman.  He is the only poet in history
+who never demonstrably loved any woman.  I think you had better read me
+his manuscript, Philip."
+
+This Philip Borsdale did.
+
+
+Then Sir Thomas said, as quiet epilogue:  "This, if it be true, would
+explain much as to that lovely land of eternal spring and daffodils and
+friendly girls, of which his verses make us free.  It would even
+explain Corinna and Herrick's rapt living without any human ties.  For
+all poets since the time of AEschylus, who could not write until he was
+too drunken to walk, have been most readily seduced by whatever
+stimulus most tended to heighten their imaginings; so that for the sake
+of a song's perfection they have freely resorted to divers artificial
+inspirations, and very often without evincing any undue
+squeamishness. . . .  I spoke of AEschylus.  I am sorry, Philip, that
+you are not familiar with ancient Greek life.  There is so much I could
+tell you of, in that event, of the quaint cult of Kore, or Pherephatta,
+and of the swine of Eubouleus, and of certain ambiguous maidens, whom
+those old Grecians fabled--oh, very ignorantly fabled, my lad, of
+course--to rule in a more quietly lit and more tranquil world than we
+blunder about.  I think I could explain much which now seems
+mysterious--yes, and the daffodils, also, that Herrick wrote of so
+constantly.  But it is better not to talk of these sinister delusions
+of heathenry."  Sir Thomas shrugged.  "For my reward would be to have
+you think me mad.  I prefer to iterate the verdict of all logical
+people, and formally to register my opinion that Robert Herrick was
+indisputably a lunatic."
+
+Borsdale did not seem perturbed.  "I think the record of his
+experiments is true, in any event.  You will concede that their results
+were startling?  And what if his deductions be the truth? what if our
+limited senses have reported to us so very little of the universe, and
+even that little untruthfully?"  He laughed and drummed impatiently
+upon the table.  "At least, he tells us that the boy returned.  I
+fervently believe that in this matter Dr. Herrick was capable of any
+crime except falsehood.  Oh, no I depend on it, he also will return."
+
+"You imagine Herrick will break down the door between this world and
+that other inconceivable world which all of us have dreamed of!  To me,
+my lad, it seems as if this Herrick aimed dangerously near to
+repetition of the Primal Sin, for all that he handles it like a problem
+in mechanical mathematics.  The poet writes as if he were instructing a
+dame's school as to the advisability of becoming omnipotent."
+
+"Well, well! I am not defending Dr. Herrick in anything save his desire
+to know the truth.  In this respect at least, he has proven himself to
+be both admirable and fearless.  And at worst, he only strives to do
+what Jacob did at Peniel," said Philip Borsdale, lightly.  "The
+patriarch, as I recall, was blessed for acting as he did.  The legend
+is not irrelevant, I think."
+
+They passed into the adjoining room.
+
+
+Thus the two men came into a high-ceiled apartment, cylindrical in
+shape, with plastered walls painted green everywhere save for the
+quaint embellishment of a large oval, wherein a woman, having an
+eagle's beak, grasped in one hand a serpent and in the other a knife.
+Sir Thomas Browne seemed to recognize this curious design, and gave an
+ominous nod.
+
+Borsdale said:  "You see Dr. Herrick had prepared everything.  And much
+of what we are about to do is merely symbolical, of course.  Most
+people undervalue symbols.  They do not seem to understand that there
+could never have been any conceivable need of inventing a periphrasis
+for what did not exist."
+
+Sir Thomas Browne regarded Borsdale for a while intently.  Then the
+knight gave his habitual shrugging gesture.  "You are braver than I,
+Philip, because you are more ignorant than I.  I have been too long an
+amateur of the curious.  Sometimes in over-credulous moments I have
+almost believed that in sober verity there are reasoning beings who are
+not human--beings that for their own dark purposes seek union with us.
+Indeed, I went into Pomerania once to talk with John Dietrick of
+Ramdin.  He told me one of those relations whose truth we dread, a tale
+which I did not dare, I tell you candidly, even to discuss in my
+_Vulgar Errors_.  Then there is Helgi Thorison's history, and that of
+Leonard of Basle also.  Oh, there are more recorded stories of this
+nature than you dream of, Philip.  We have only the choice between
+believing that all these men were madmen, and believing that ordinary
+human life is led by a drugged animal who drowses through a purblind
+existence among merciful veils.  And these female creatures--these
+Corinnas, Perillas, Myrhas, and Electras--can it be possible that they
+are always striving, for their own strange ends, to rouse the sleeping
+animal and break the kindly veils?--and are they permitted to use such
+amiable enticements as Herrick describes?  Oh, no, all this is just a
+madman's dream, dear lad, and we must not dare to consider it
+seriously, lest we become no more sane than he."
+
+"But you will aid me?" Borsdale said.
+
+"Yes, I will aid you, Philip, for in Herrick's case I take it that the
+mischief is consummated already; and we, I think, risk nothing worse
+than death.  But you will need another knife a little later--a knife
+that will be clean."
+
+"I had forgotten."  Borsdale withdrew, and presently returned with a
+bone-handled knife.  And then he made a light.  "Are you quite ready,
+sir?"
+
+Sir Thomas Browne, that aging amateur of the curious, could not resist
+a laugh.
+
+And then they sat about proceedings of which, for obvious reasons, the
+details are best left unrecorded.  It was not an unconscionable while
+before they seemed to be aware of unusual phenomena.  But as Sir Thomas
+always pointed out, in subsequent discussions, these were quite
+possibly the fruitage of excited imagination.
+
+"Now, Philip!--now, give me the knife!" cried Sir Thomas Browne.  He
+knew for the first time, despite many previous mischancy happenings,
+what real terror was.
+
+The room was thick with blinding smoke by this, so that Borsdale could
+see nothing save his co-partner in this adventure.  Both men were
+shaken by what had occurred before.  Borsdale incuriously perceived
+that old Sir Thomas rose, tense as a cat about to pounce, and that he
+caught the unstained knife from Borsdale's hand, and flung it like a
+javelin into the vapor which encompassed them.  This gesture stirred
+the smoke so that Borsdale could see the knife quiver and fall, and
+note the tiny triangle of unbared plaster it had cut in the painted
+woman's breast.  Within the same instant he had perceived a naked man
+who staggered.
+
+"_Iz adu kronyeshnago_----!"  The intruder's thin, shrill wail was that
+of a frightened child.  The man strode forward, choked, seemed to grope
+his way.  His face was not good to look at.  Horror gripped and tore at
+every member of the cadaverous old body, as a high wind tugs at a flag.
+The two witnesses of Herrick's agony did not stir during the instant
+wherein the frenzied man stooped, moving stiffly like an ill-made toy,
+and took up the knife.
+
+"Oh, yes, I knew what he was about to do," said Sir Thomas Browne
+afterward, in his quiet fashion.  "I did not try to stop him.  If
+Herrick had been my dearest friend, I would not have interfered.  I had
+seen his face, you comprehend.  Yes, it was kinder to let him die.  It
+was curious, though, as he stood there hacking his chest, how at each
+stab he deliberately twisted the knife.  I suppose the pain distracted
+his mind from what he was remembering.  I should have forewarned
+Borsdale of this possible outcome at the very first, I suppose.  But,
+then, which one of us is always wise?"
+
+
+So this adventure came to nothing.  For its significance, if any,
+hinged upon Robert Herrick's sanity, which was at best a disputable
+quantity.  Grant him insane, and the whole business, as Sir Thomas was
+at large pains to point out, dwindles at once into the irresponsible
+vagaries of a madman.
+
+"And all the while, for what we know, he had been hiding somewhere in
+the house.  We never searched it.  Oh, yes, there is no doubt he was
+insane," said Sir Thomas, comfortably.
+
+"Faith! what he moaned was gibberish, of course----"
+
+"Oddly enough, his words were intelligible.  They meant in Russian 'Out
+of the lowest hell.'"
+
+"But, why, in God's name, Russian?"
+
+"I am sure I do not know," Sir Thomas replied; and he did not appear at
+all to regret his ignorance.
+
+But Borsdale meditated, disappointedly.  "Oh, yes, the outcome is
+ambiguous, Sir Thomas, in every way.  I think we may safely take it as
+a warning, in any event, that this world of ours, whatever its
+deficiencies, was meant to be inhabited by men and women only."
+
+
+"Now I," was Sir Thomas's verdict, "prefer to take it as a warning that
+insane people ought to be restrained."
+
+"Ah, well, insanity is only one of the many forms of being abnormal.
+Yes, I think it proves that all abnormal people ought to be restrained.
+Perhaps it proves that they are very potently restrained," said Philip
+Borsdale, perversely.
+
+Perversely, Sir Thomas always steadfastly protested, because he said
+that to believe in Herrick's sanity was not conducive to your own.
+
+So Sir Thomas shrugged, and went toward the open window.  Without the
+road was a dazzling gray under the noon sun, for the sky was cloudless.
+The ordered trees were rustling pleasantly, very brave in their
+autumnal liveries.  Under a maple across the way some seven laborers
+were joking lazily as they ate their dinner.  A wagon lumbered by, the
+driver whistling.  In front of the house a woman had stopped to
+rearrange the pink cap of the baby she was carrying.  The child had
+just reached up fat and uncertain little arms to kiss her.  Nothing
+that Browne saw was out of ordinary, kindly human life.
+
+"Well, after all," said Sir Thomas, upon a sudden, "for one, I think it
+is an endurable world, just as it stands."
+
+And Borsdale looked up from a letter he had been reading.  It was from
+a woman who has no concern with this tale, and its contents were of no
+importance to any one save Borsdale.
+
+"Now, do you know," said Philip Borsdale, "I am beginning to think you
+the most sensible man of my acquaintance!  Oh, yes, beyond doubt it is
+an endurable sun-nurtured world--just as it stands.  It makes it doubly
+odd that Dr. Herrick should have chosen always to
+
+  'Write of groves, and twilights, and to sing
+  The court of Mab, and of the Fairy King,
+  And write of Hell.'"
+
+
+Sir Thomas touched his arm, protestingly.  "Ah, but you have forgotten
+what follows, Philip--
+
+  'I sing, and ever shall,
+  Of Heaven,--and hope to have it after all.'"
+
+
+"Well! I cry Amen," said Borsdale.  "But I wish I could forget the old
+man's face."
+
+"Oh, and I also," Sir Thomas said.  "And I cry Amen with far more
+heartiness, my lad, because I, too, once dreamed of--of Corinna, shall
+we say?"
+
+
+
+
+OLIVIA'S POTTAGE
+
+
+"_Mr. Wycherley was naturally modest until King Charles' court, that
+late disgrace to our times, corrupted him.  He then gave himself up to
+all sorts of extravagances and to the wildest frolics that a wanton wit
+could devise. . . .  Never was so much ill-nature in a pen as in his,
+joined with so much good nature as was in himself, even to excess; for
+he was bountiful, even to run himself into difficulties, and charitable
+even to a fault.  It was not that he was free from the failings of
+humanity, but he had the tenderness of it, too, which made everybody
+excuse whom everybody loved; and even the asperity of his verses seems
+to have been forgiven._"
+
+
+
+
+  I the Plain Dealer am to act to-day.
+
+        *     *     *     *     *     *
+
+  Now, you shrewd judges, who the boxes sway,
+  Leading the ladies' hearts and sense astray,
+  And for their sakes, see all and hear no play;
+  Correct your cravats, foretops, lock behind:
+  The dress and breeding of the play ne'er mind;
+  For the coarse dauber of the coming scenes
+  To follow life and nature only means,
+  Displays you as you are, makes his fine woman
+  A mercenary jilt and true to no man,
+  Shows men of wit and pleasure of the age
+  Are as dull rogues as ever cumber'd stage.
+
+  WILLIAM WYCHERLEY.--_Prologue to The Plain Dealer_.
+
+
+
+
+OLIVIA'S POTTAGE
+
+
+It was in the May of 1680 that Mr. William Wycherley went into the
+country to marry the famed heiress, Mistress Araminta Vining, as he had
+previously settled with her father, and found her to his vast relief a
+very personable girl.  She had in consequence a host of admirers,
+pre-eminent among whom was young Robert Minifie of Milanor.  Mr.
+Wycherley, a noted stickler for etiquette, decorously made bold to
+question Mr. Minifie's taste in a dispute concerning waistcoats.  A
+duel was decorously arranged and these two met upon the narrow beach of
+Teviot Bay.
+
+Theirs was a spirited encounter, lasting for ten energetic minutes.
+Then Wycherley pinked Mr. Minifie in the shoulder, just as the
+dramatist, a favorite pupil of Gerard's, had planned to do; and the
+four gentlemen parted with every imaginable courtesy, since the wounded
+man and the two seconds were to return by boat to Mr. Minifie's house
+at Milanor.
+
+More lately Wycherley walked in the direction of Ouseley Manor,
+whistling _Love's a Toy_.  Honor was satisfied, and, happily, as he
+reflected, at no expense of life.  He was a kindly hearted fop, and
+more than once had killed his man with perfectly sincere regret.  But
+in putting on his coat--it was the black camlet coat with silver
+buttons--he had overlooked his sleevelinks; and he did not recognize,
+for twenty-four eventful hours, the full importance of his carelessness.
+
+
+In the heart of Figgis Wood, the incomparable Countess of Drogheda,
+aunt to Mr. Wycherley's betrothed, and a noted leader of fashion, had
+presently paused at sight of him--laughing a little--and with one tiny
+hand had made as though to thrust back the staghound which accompanied
+her.  "Your humble servant, Mr. Swashbuckler," she said; and then: "But
+oh! you have not hurt the lad?" she demanded, with a tincture of
+anxiety.
+
+"Nay, after a short but brilliant engagement," Wycherley returned, "Mr.
+Minifie was very harmlessly perforated; and in consequence I look to be
+married on Thursday, after all."
+
+"Let me die but Cupid never meets with anything save inhospitality in
+this gross world!" cried Lady Drogheda.  "For the boy is heels over
+head in love with Araminta,--oh, a second Almanzor!  And my niece does
+not precisely hate him either, let me tell you, William, for all your
+month's assault of essences and perfumed gloves and apricot paste and
+other small artillery of courtship.  La, my dear, was it only a month
+ago we settled your future over a couple of Naples biscuit and a bottle
+of Rhenish?" She walked beside him now, and the progress of these
+exquisites was leisurely.  There were many trees at hand so huge as to
+necessitate a considerable detour.
+
+"Egad, it is a month and three days over," Wycherley retorted, "since
+you suggested your respected brother-in-law was ready to pay my debts
+in full, upon condition I retaliated by making your adorable niece
+Mistress Wycherley.  Well, I stand to-day indebted to him for an
+advance of L1500 and am no more afraid of bailiffs.  We have performed
+a very creditable stroke of business; and the day after to-morrow you
+will have fairly earned your L500 for arranging the marriage.  Faith,
+and in earnest of this, I already begin to view you through appropriate
+lenses as undoubtedly the most desirable aunt in the universe."
+
+Nor was there any unconscionable stretching of the phrase.  Through the
+quiet forest, untouched as yet by any fidgeting culture, and much as it
+was when John Lackland wooed Hawisa under, its venerable oaks, old even
+then, the little widow moved like a light flame.  She was clothed
+throughout in scarlet, after her high-hearted style of dress, and
+carried a tall staff of ebony; and the gold head of it was farther from
+the dead leaves than was her mischievous countenance.  The big
+staghound lounged beside her.  She pleased the eye, at least, did this
+heartless, merry and selfish Olivia, whom Wycherley had so ruthlessly
+depicted in his _Plain Dealer_.  To the last detail Wycherley found
+her, as he phrased it, "_mignonne et piquante_," and he told her so.
+
+Lady Drogheda observed, "Fiddle-de-dee!"  Lady Drogheda continued:
+"Yes, I am a fool, of course, but then I still remember Bessington, and
+the boy that went mad there----"
+
+"Because of a surfeit of those dreams 'such as the poets know when they
+are young.'  Sweet chuck, beat not the bones of the buried; when he
+breathed he was a likely lad," Mr. Wycherley declared, with signal
+gravity.
+
+"Oh, la, la!" she flouted him.  "Well, in any event you were the first
+gentleman in England to wear a neckcloth of Flanders lace."
+
+"And you were the first person of quality to eat cheesecakes in Spring
+Garden," he not half so mirthfully retorted.  "So we have not entirely
+failed in life, it may be, after all."
+
+She made of him a quite irrelevant demand:  "D'ye fancy Esau was
+contented, William?"
+
+"I fancy he was fond of pottage, madam; and that, as I remember, he got
+his pottage.  Come, now, a tangible bowl of pottage, piping hot, is not
+to be despised in such a hazardous world as ours is."
+
+She was silent for a lengthy while.  "Lord, Lord, how musty all that
+brave, sweet nonsense seems!" she said, and almost sighed.  "Eh, well!
+_le vin est tiré, et il faut le boire_."
+
+"My adorable aunt!  Let us put it a thought less dumpishly; and render
+thanks because our pottage smokes upon the table, and we are blessed
+with excellent appetites."
+
+"So that in a month we will be back again in the playhouses and Hyde
+Park and Mulberry Garden, or nodding to each other in the New
+Exchange,--you with your debts paid, and I with my L500----?"  She
+paused to pat the staghound's head.  "Lord Remon came this afternoon,"
+said Lady Drogheda, and with averted eyes.
+
+"I do not approve of Remon," he announced.  "Nay, madam, even a Siren
+ought to spare her kin and show some mercy toward the more
+stagnant-blooded fish."
+
+And Lady Drogheda shrugged.  "He is very wealthy, and I am lamentably
+poor.  One must not seek noon at fourteen o'clock or clamor for better
+bread than was ever made from wheat."
+
+Mr. Wycherley laughed, after a pregnant silence.
+
+"By heavens, madam, you are in the right!  So I shall walk no more in
+Figgis Wood, for its old magic breeds too many day-dreams.  Besides, we
+have been serious for half-an-hour.  Now, then, let us discuss
+theology, dear aunt, or millinery, or metaphysics, or the King's new
+statue at Windsor, or, if you will, the last Spring Garden scandal.  Or
+let us count the leaves upon this tree; and afterward I will enumerate
+my reasons for believing yonder crescent moon to be the paring of the
+Angel Gabriel's left thumb-nail."
+
+She was a woman of eloquent silences when there was any need of them;
+and thus the fop and the coquette traversed the remainder of that
+solemn wood without any further speech.  Modish people would have
+esteemed them unwontedly glum.
+
+
+Wycherley discovered in a while the absence of his sleeve-links, and
+was properly vexed by the loss of these not unhandsome trinkets, the
+gifts of Lady Castlemaine in the old days when Mr. Wycherley was the
+King's successful rival for her favors.  But Wycherley knew the tide
+filled Teviot Bay and wondering fishes were at liberty to muzzle the
+toys, by this, and merely shrugged at his mishap, midcourse in toilet.
+
+Mr. Wycherley, upon mature deliberation, wore the green suit with
+yellow ribbons, since there was a ball that night in honor of his
+nearing marriage, and a confluence of gentry to attend it.  Miss Vining
+and he walked through a minuet to some applause; the two were heartily
+acclaimed a striking couple, and congratulations beat about their ears
+as thick as sugar-plums in a carnival.  And at nine you might have
+found the handsome dramatist alone upon the East Terrace of Ouseley,
+pacing to and fro in the moonlight, and complacently reflecting upon
+his quite indisputable and, past doubt, unmerited good fortune.
+
+There was never any night in June which nature planned the more
+adroitly.  Soft and warm and windless, lit by a vainglorious moon and
+every star that ever shone, the beauty of this world caressed and
+heartened its beholder like a gallant music.  Our universe, Mr.
+Wycherley conceded willingly, was excellent and kindly, and the Arbiter
+of it too generous; for here was he, the wastrel, like the third prince
+at the end of a fairy-tale, the master of a handsome wife, and a fine
+house and fortune.  Somewhere, he knew, young Minifie, with his arm in
+a sling, was pleading with Mistress Araminta for the last time; and
+this reflection did not greatly trouble Mr. Wycherley, since
+incommunicably it tickled his vanity.  He was chuckling when he came to
+the open window.
+
+Within a woman was singing, to the tinkling accompaniment of a spinet,
+for the delectation of Lord Remon.  She was not uncomely, and the hard,
+lean, stingy countenance of the attendant nobleman was almost genial.
+Wycherley understood with a great rending shock, as though the thought
+were novel, that Olivia, Lady Drogheda, designed to marry this man, who
+grinned within finger's reach--or, rather, to ally herself with Remon's
+inordinate wealth,--and without any heralding a brutal rage and hatred
+of all created things possessed the involuntary eavesdropper.
+
+She looked up into Remon's face and, laughing with such bright and
+elfin mirth as never any other woman showed, thought Wycherley, she
+broke into another song.  She would have spared Mr. Wycherley that had
+she but known him to be within earshot. . . .  Oh, it was only Lady
+Drogheda who sang, he knew,--the seasoned gamester and coquette, the
+veteran of London and of Cheltenham,--but the woman had no right to
+charm this haggler with a voice that was not hers.  For it was the
+voice of another Olivia, who was not a fine and urban lady, and who
+lived nowhere any longer; it was the voice of a soft-handed, tender,
+jeering girl, whom he alone remembered; and a sick, illimitable rage
+grilled in each vein of him as liltingly she sang, for Remon, the old
+and foolish song which Wycherley had made in her praise very long ago,
+and of which he might not ever forget the most trivial word.
+
+Men, even beaux, are strangely constituted; and so it needed only
+this--the sudden stark brute jealousy of one male animal for another.
+That was the clumsy hand which now unlocked the dyke; and like a flood,
+tall and resistless, came the recollection of their far-off past and of
+its least dear trifle, of all the aspirations and absurdities and
+splendors of their common youth, and found him in its path, a painted
+fellow, a spendthrift king of the mode, a most notable authority upon
+the set of a peruke, a penniless, spent connoisseur of stockings,
+essences and cosmetics.
+
+
+He got but little rest this night.
+
+There were too many plaintive memories which tediously plucked him
+back, with feeble and innumerable hands, as often as he trod upon the
+threshold of sleep.  Then too, there were so many dreams, half-waking,
+and not only of Olivia Chichele, naive and frank in divers rural
+circumstances, but rather of Olivia, Lady Drogheda, that perfect piece
+of artifice; of how exquisite she was! how swift and volatile in every
+movement! how airily indomitable, and how mendacious to the tips of her
+polished finger-nails!  and how she always seemed to flit about this
+world as joyously, alertly, and as colorfully as some ornate and tiny
+bird of the tropics!
+
+But presently parochial birds were wrangling underneath the dramatist's
+window, while he tossed and assured himself that he was sleepier than
+any saint who ever snored in Ephesus; and presently one hand of
+Moncrieff was drawing the bed-curtains, while the other carefully
+balanced a mug of shaving-water.
+
+
+Wycherley did not see her all that morning, for Lady Drogheda was
+fatigued, or so a lackey informed him, and as yet kept her chamber.
+His Araminta he found deplorably sullen.  So the dramatist devoted the
+better part of this day to a refitting of his wedding-suit, just come
+from London; for Moncrieff, an invaluable man, had adjudged the pockets
+to be placed too high; and, be the punishment deserved or no, Mr.
+Wycherley had never heard that any victim of law appeared the more
+admirable upon his scaffold for being slovenly in his attire.
+
+Thus it was as late as five in the afternoon that, wearing the
+peach-colored suit trimmed with scarlet ribbon, and a new French
+beaver, the exquisite came upon Lady Drogheda walking in the gardens
+with only an appropriate peacock for company.  She was so beautiful and
+brilliant and so little--so like a famous gem too suddenly disclosed,
+and therefore oddly disparate in all these qualities, that his decorous
+pleasant voice might quite permissibly have shaken a trifle (as indeed
+it did), when Mr. Wycherley implored Lady Drogheda to walk with him to
+Teviot Bay, on the off-chance of recovering his sleeve-links.
+
+And there they did find one of the trinkets, but the tide had swept
+away the other, or else the sand had buried it.  So they rested there
+upon the rocks, after an unavailing search, and talked of many trifles,
+amid surroundings oddly incongruous.
+
+For this Teviot Bay is a primeval place, a deep-cut, narrow notch in
+the tip of Carnrick, and is walled by cliffs so high and so precipitous
+that they exclude a view of anything except the ocean.  The bay opens
+due west; and its white barriers were now developing a violet tinge,
+for this was on a sullen afternoon, and the sea was ruffled by spiteful
+gusts.  Wycherley could find no color anywhere save in this glowing,
+tiny and exquisite woman; and everywhere was a gigantic peace, vexed
+only when high overhead a sea-fowl jeered at these modish persons, as
+he flapped toward an impregnable nest.
+
+"And by this hour to-morrow," thought Mr. Wycherley, "I shall be
+chained to that good, strapping, wholesome Juno of a girl!"
+
+So he fell presently into a silence, staring at the vacant west, which
+was like a huge and sickly pearl, not thinking of anything at all, but
+longing poignantly for something which was very beautiful and strange
+and quite unattainable, with precisely that anguish he had sometimes
+known in awaking from a dream of which he could remember nothing save
+its piercing loveliness.
+
+"And thus ends the last day of our bachelorhood!" said Lady Drogheda,
+upon a sudden.  "You have played long enough--La, William, you have led
+the fashion for ten years, you have written four merry comedies, and
+you have laughed as much as any man alive, but you have pulled down all
+that nature raised in you, I think.  Was it worth while?"
+
+"Faith, but nature's monuments are no longer the last cry in
+architecture," he replied; "and I believe that _The Plain Dealer_ and
+_The Country Wife_ will hold their own."
+
+"And you wrote them when you were just a boy!  Ah, yes, you might have
+been our English Moliere, my dear.  And, instead, you have elected to
+become an authority upon cravats and waistcoats."
+
+"Eh, madam"--he smiled--"there was a time when I too was foolishly
+intent to divert the leisure hours of posterity.  But reflection
+assured me that posterity had, thus far, done very little to place me
+under that or any other obligation.  Ah, no!  Youth, health and--though
+I say it--a modicum of intelligence are loaned to most of us for a
+while, and for a terribly brief while.  They are but loans, and Time is
+waiting greedily to snatch them from us.  For the perturbed usurer
+knows that he is lending us, perforce, three priceless possessions, and
+that till our lease runs out we are free to dispose of them as we
+elect.  Now, had I jealously devoted my allotment of these treasures
+toward securing for my impressions of the universe a place in yet
+unprinted libraries, I would have made an investment from which I could
+not possibly have derived any pleasure, and which would have been to
+other people of rather dubious benefit.  In consequence, I chose a
+wiser and devouter course."
+
+This statement Lady Drogheda afforded the commentary of a grimace.
+
+"Why, look you," Wycherley philosophized, "have you never thought what
+a vast deal of loving and painstaking labor must have gone to make the
+world we inhabit so beautiful and so complete?  For it was not enough
+to evolve and set a glaring sun in heaven, to marshal the big stars
+about the summer sky, but even in the least frequented meadow every
+butterfly must have his pinions jeweled, very carefully, and every
+lovely blade of grass be fashioned separately.  The hand that yesterday
+arranged the Himalayas found time to glaze the wings of a midge!  Now,
+most of us could design a striking Flood, or even a Last judgment,
+since the canvas is so big and the colors used so virulent; but to
+paint a snuff-box perfectly you must love the labor for its own sake,
+and pursue it without even an underthought of the performance's
+ultimate appraisement.  People do not often consider the simple fact
+that it is enough to bait, and quite superfluous to veneer, a  trap;
+indeed, those generally acclaimed the best of persons insist this world
+is but an antechamber, full of gins and pitfalls, which must be
+scurried through with shut eyes.  And the more fools they, as all we
+poets know! for to enjoy a sunset, or a glass of wine, or even to
+admire the charms of a handsome woman, is to render the Artificer of
+all at least the tribute of appreciation."
+
+But she said, in a sharp voice:  "William, William----!"  And he saw
+that there was no beach now in Teviot Bay except the dwindling crescent
+at its farthest indentation on which they sat.
+
+Yet his watch, on consultation, recorded only five o'clock; and
+presently Mr. Wycherley laughed, not very loudly.  The two had risen,
+and her face was a tiny snowdrift where every touch of rouge and
+grease-pencils showed crudely.
+
+"Look now," said Wycherley, "upon what trifles our lives hinge!  Last
+night I heard you singing, and the song brought back so many things
+done long ago, and made me so unhappy that--ridiculous conclusion!--I
+forgot to wind my watch.  Well! the tide is buffeting at either side of
+Carnrick; within the hour this place will be submerged; and, in a
+phrase, we are as dead as Hannibal or Hector."
+
+She said, very quiet:  "Could you not gain the mainland if you stripped
+and swam for it?"
+
+"Why, possibly," the beau conceded.  "Meanwhile you would have drowned.
+Faith, we had as well make the best of it."
+
+Little Lady Drogheda touched his sleeve, and her hand (as the man
+noted) did not shake at all, nor did her delicious piping voice shake
+either.  "You cannot save me.  I know it.  I am not frightened.  I bid
+you save yourself."
+
+"Permit me to assist you to that ledge of rock," Mr. Wycherley
+answered, "which is a trifle higher than the beach; and I pray you,
+Olivia, do not mar the dignity of these last passages by talking
+nonsense."
+
+For he had spied a ledge, not inaccessible, some four feet higher than
+the sands, and it offered them at least a respite.  And within the
+moment they had secured this niggardly concession, intent to die, as
+Wycherley observed, like hurt mice upon a pantry-shelf.  The business
+smacked of disproportion, he considered, although too well-bred to say
+as much; for here was a big ruthless league betwixt earth and sea, and
+with no loftier end than to crush a fop and a coquette, whose speedier
+extinction had been dear at the expense of a shilling's worth of
+arsenic!
+
+Then the sun came out, to peep at these trapped, comely people, and
+doubtless to get appropriate mirth at the spectacle.  He hung low
+against the misty sky, a clearly-rounded orb that did not dazzle, but
+merely shone with the cold glitter of new snow upon a fair December
+day; and for the rest, the rocks, and watery heavens, and all these
+treacherous and lapping waves, were very like a crude draught of the
+world, dashed off conceivably upon the day before creation.
+
+These arbiters of social London did not speak at all; and the bleak
+waters crowded toward them as in a fretful dispute of precedence.
+
+Then the woman said:  "Last night Lord Remon asked me to marry him, and
+I declined the honor.  For this place is too like Bessington--and, I
+think, the past month has changed everything----"
+
+"I thought you had forgotten Bessington," he said, "long, long ago."
+
+"I did not ever quite forget--Oh, the garish years," she wailed, "since
+then!  And how I hated you, William--and yet liked you, too,--because
+you were never the boy that I remembered, and people would not let you
+be!  And how I hated them--the huzzies!  For I had to see you almost
+every day, and it was never you I saw--Ah, William, come back for just
+a little, little while, and be an honest boy for just the moment that
+we are dying, and not an elegant fine gentleman!"
+
+"Nay, my dear," the dramatist composedly answered, "an hour of naked
+candor is at hand.  Life is a masquerade where Death, it would appear,
+is master of the ceremonies.  Now he sounds his whistle; and we who
+went about the world so long as harlequins must unmask, and for all
+time put aside our abhorrence of the disheveled.  For in sober verity,
+this is Death who comes, Olivia,--though I had thought that at his
+advent one would be afraid."
+
+Yet apprehension of this gross and unavoidable adventure, so soon to be
+endured, thrilled him, and none too lightly.  It seemed unfair that
+death should draw near thus sensibly, with never a twinge or ache to
+herald its arrival.  Why, there were fifty years of life in this fine,
+nimble body but for any contretemps like that of the deplorable
+present!  Thus his meditations stumbled.
+
+"Oh, William," Lady Drogheda bewailed, "it is all so big--the incurious
+west, and the sea, and these rocks that were old in Noah's youth,--and
+we are so little----!"
+
+"Yes," he returned, and took her hand, because their feet were wetted
+now; "the trap and its small prey are not commensurate.  The stage is
+set for a Homeric death-scene, and we two profane an over-ambitious
+background.  For who are we that Heaven should have rived the world
+before time was, to trap us, and should make of the old sea a
+fowling-net?"  Their eyes encountered, and he said, with a strange gush
+of manliness:  "Yet Heaven is kind.  I am bound even in honor now to
+marry Mistress Araminta; and you would marry Remon in the end,
+Olivia,--ah, yes! for we are merely moths, my dear, and luxury is a
+disastrously brilliant lamp.  But here are only you and I and the
+master of all ceremony.  And yet--I would we were a little worthier,
+Olivia!"
+
+"You have written four merry comedies and you were the first gentleman
+in England to wear a neckcloth of Flanders lace," she answered, and her
+smile was sadder than weeping.
+
+"And you were the first person of quality to eat cheese-cakes in Spring
+Garden.  There you have our epitaphs, if we in truth have earned an
+epitaph who have not ever lived."
+
+"No, we have only laughed--Laugh now, for the last time, and hearten
+me, my handsome William!  And yet could I but come to God," the woman
+said, with a new voice, "and make it clear to Him just how it all fell
+out, and beg for one more chance!  How heartily I would pray then!"
+
+"And I would cry Amen to all that prayer must of necessity contain," he
+answered.  "Oh!" said Wycherley, "just for applause and bodily comfort
+and the envy of innumerable other fools we two have bartered a great
+heritage!  I think our corner of the world will lament us for as much
+as a week; but I fear lest Heaven may not condescend to set apart the
+needful time wherein to frame a suitable chastisement for such poor
+imbeciles.  Olivia, I have loved you all my life, and I have been
+faithful neither to you nor to myself!  I love you so that I am not
+afraid even now, since you are here, and so entirely that I have
+forgotten how to plead my cause convincingly.  And I have had practice,
+let me tell you. . . . !"  Then he shook his head and smiled.  "But
+candor is not _à la mode_.  See, now, to what outmoded and bucolic
+frenzies nature brings even us at last."
+
+She answered only, as she motioned seaward, "Look!"
+
+
+And what Mr. Wycherley saw was a substantial boat rowed by four of Mr.
+Minifie's attendants; and in the bow of the vessel sat that wounded
+gentleman himself, regarding Wycherley and Lady Drogheda with some
+disfavor; and beside the younger man was Mistress Araminta Vining.
+
+It was a perturbed Minifie who broke the silence.  "This is very
+awkward," he said, "because Araminta and I are eloping.  We mean to be
+married this same night at Milanor.  And deuce take it, Mr. Wycherley!
+I can't leave you there to drown, any more than in the circumstances I
+can ask you to make one of the party."
+
+"Mr.  Wycherley," said his companion, with far more asperity, "the
+vanity and obduracy of a cruel father have forced me to the adoption of
+this desperate measure.  Toward yourself I entertain no ill-feeling,
+nor indeed any sentiment at all except the most profound contempt.  My
+aunt will, of course, accompany us; for yourself, you will do as you
+please; but in any event I solemnly protest that I spurn your odious
+pretensions, release myself hereby from an enforced and hideous
+obligation, and in a phrase would not marry you in order to be Queen of
+England."
+
+"Miss Vining, I had hitherto admired you," the beau replied, with
+fervor, "but now esteem is changed to adoration."
+
+Then he turned to his Olivia.  "Madam, you will pardon the awkward but
+unavoidable publicity of my proceeding.  I am a ruined man.  I owe your
+brother-in-law some L1500, and, oddly enough, I mean to pay him.  I
+must sell Jephcot and Skene Minor, but while life lasts I shall keep
+Bessington and all its memories.  Meanwhile there is a clergyman
+waiting at Milanor.  So marry me to-night, Olivia; and we will go back
+to Bessington to-morrow."
+
+"To Bessington----!" she said.  It was as though she spoke of something
+very sacred.  Then very musically Lady Drogheda laughed, and to the eye
+she was all flippancy.  "La, William, I can't bury myself in the
+country until the end of time," she said, "and make interminable
+custards," she added, "and superintend the poultry," she said, "and for
+recreation play short whist with the vicar."
+
+And it seemed to Mr. Wycherley that he had gone divinely mad.  "Don't
+lie to me, Olivia.  You are thinking there are yet a host of heiresses
+who would be glad to be a famous beau's wife at however dear a cost.
+But don't lie to me.  Don't even try to seem the airy and bedizened
+woman I have known so long.  All that is over now.  Death tapped us on
+the shoulder, and, if only for a moment, the masks were dropped.  And
+life is changed now, oh, everything is changed!  Then, come, my dear!
+let us be wise and very honest.  Let us concede it is still possible
+for me to find another heiress, and for you to marry Remon; let us
+grant it the only outcome of our common-sense! and for all that, laugh,
+and fling away the pottage, and be more wise than reason."
+
+She irresolutely said:  "I cannot.  Matters are altered now.  It would
+be madness----"
+
+"It would undoubtedly be madness," Mr. Wycherley assented.  "But then I
+am so tired of being rational!  Oh, Olivia," this former arbiter of
+taste absurdly babbled, "if I lose you now it is forever! and there is
+no health in me save when I am with you.  Then alone I wish to do
+praiseworthy things, to be all which the boy we know of should have
+grown to. . . .  See how profoundly shameless I am become when, with
+such an audience, I take refuge in the pitiful base argument of my own
+weakness!  But, my dear, I want you so that nothing else in the world
+means anything to me.  I want you! and all my life I have wanted you."
+
+"Boy, boy----!" she answered, and her fine hands had come to Wycherley,
+as white birds flutter homeward.  But even then she had to deliberate
+the matter--since the habits of many years are not put aside like
+outworn gloves,--and for innumerable centuries, it seemed to him, her
+foot tapped on that wetted ledge.
+
+Presently her lashes lifted.  "I suppose it would be lacking in
+reverence to keep a clergyman waiting longer than was absolutely
+necessary?" she hazarded.
+
+
+
+
+A BROWN WOMAN
+
+
+"_A critical age called for symmetry, and exquisite finish had to be
+studied as much as nobility of thought. . . .  POPE aimed to take first
+place as a writer of polished verse.  Any knowledge he gained of the
+world, or any suggestion that came to him from his intercourse with
+society, was utilized to accomplish his main purpose.  To put his
+thoughts into choice language was not enough.  Each idea had to be put
+in its neatest and most epigrammatic form._"
+
+
+
+
+  Why did I write? what sin to me unknown
+  Dipt me in ink, my parents', or my own?
+  As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame,
+  I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came.
+  The muse but served to ease some friend, not wife,
+  To help me through this long disease, my life.
+
+        *     *     *     *     *     *
+
+  Who shames a scribbler? break one cobweb through,
+  He spins the slight, self-pleasing thread anew;
+  Destroy his fib or sophistry in vain,
+  The creature's at his foolish work again,
+  Throned in the centre of his thin designs,
+  Proud of a vast extent of flimsy lines!
+
+  ALEXANDER POPE.--_Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot_.
+
+
+
+
+A BROWN WOMAN
+
+"But I must be hurrying home now," the girl said, "for it is high time
+I were back in the hayfields."
+
+"Fair shepherdess," he implored, "for heaven's sake, let us not cut
+short the _pastorelle_ thus abruptly."
+
+"And what manner of beast may that be, pray?"
+
+"'Tis a conventional form of verse, my dear, which we at present
+strikingly illustrate.  The plan of a _pastorelle_ is simplicity's
+self: a gentleman, which I may fairly claim to be, in some fair rural
+scene--such as this--comes suddenly upon a rustic maiden of surpassing
+beauty.  He naturally falls in love with her, and they say all manner
+of fine things to each other."
+
+She considered him for a while before speaking.  It thrilled him to see
+the odd tenderness that was in her face.  "You always think of saying
+and writing fine things, do you not, sir?"
+
+"My dear," he answered, gravely, "I believe that I was undoubtedly
+guilty of such folly until you came.  I wish I could make you
+understand how your coming has changed everything."
+
+"You can tell me some other time," the girl gaily declared, and was
+about to leave him.
+
+His hand detained her very gently.  "Faith, but I fear not, for already
+my old hallucinations seem to me incredible.  Why, yesterday I thought
+it the most desirable of human lots to be a great poet"--the gentleman
+laughed in self-mockery.  "I positively did.  I labored every day
+toward becoming one.  I lived among books, esteemed that I was doing
+something of genuine importance as I gravely tinkered with alliteration
+and metaphor and antithesis and judicious paraphrases of the ancients.
+I put up with life solely because it afforded material for
+versification; and, in reality, believed the destruction of Troy was
+providentially ordained lest Homer lack subject matter for an epic.
+And as for loving, I thought people fell in love in order to exchange
+witty rhymes."
+
+His hand detained her, very gently. . . .  Indeed, it seemed to him he
+could never tire of noting her excellencies.  Perhaps it was that
+splendid light poise of her head he chiefly loved; he thought so at
+least, just now.  Or was it the wonder of her walk, which made all
+other women he had ever known appear to mince and hobble, like rusty
+toys?  Something there was assuredly about this slim brown girl which
+recalled an untamed and harmless woodland creature; and it was that, he
+knew, which most poignantly moved him, even though he could not name
+it.  Perhaps it was her bright kind eyes, which seemed to mirror the
+tranquillity of forests. . . .
+
+"You gentry are always talking of love," she marveled.
+
+"Oh," he said, with acerbity, "oh, I don't doubt that any number of
+beef-gorging squires and leering, long-legged Oxford dandies----"  He
+broke off here, and laughed contemptuously.  "Well, you are beautiful,
+and they have eyes as keen as mine.  And I do not blame you, my dear,
+for believing my designs to be no more commendable than theirs--no, not
+at all."
+
+But his mood was spoiled, and his tetchy vanity hurt, by the thought of
+stout well-set fellows having wooed this girl; and he permitted her to
+go without protest.
+
+Yet he sat alone for a while upon the fallen tree-trunk, humming a
+contented little tune.  Never in his life had he been happier.  He did
+not venture to suppose that any creature so adorable could love such a
+sickly hunchback, such a gargoyle of a man, as he was; but that Sarah
+was fond of him, he knew.  There would be no trouble in arranging with
+her father for their marriage, most certainly; and he meant to attend
+to that matter this very morning, and within ten minutes.  So Mr.
+Alexander Pope was meanwhile arranging in his mind a suitable wording
+for his declaration of marital aspirations.
+
+Thus John Gay found him presently and roused him from phrase-spinning.
+"And what shall we do this morning, Alexander?"  Gay was always
+demanding, like a spoiled child, to be amused.
+
+Pope told him what his own plans were, speaking quite simply, but with
+his countenance radiant.  Gay took off his hat and wiped his forehead,
+for the day was warm.  He did not say anything at all.
+
+"Well----?" Mr. Pope asked, after a pause.
+
+Mr. Gay was dubious.  "I had never thought that you would marry," he
+said.  "And--why, hang it, Alexander! to grow enamored of a milkmaid is
+well enough for the hero of a poem, but in a poet it hints at
+injudicious composition."
+
+Mr. Pope gesticulated with thin hands and seemed upon the verge of
+eloquence.  Then he spoke unanswerably.  "But I love her," he said.
+
+John Gay's reply was a subdued whistle.  He, in common with the other
+guests of Lord Harcourt, at Nuneham Courtney, had wondered what would
+be the outcome of Mr. Alexander Pope's intimacy with Sarah Drew.  A
+month earlier the poet had sprained his ankle upon Amshot Heath, and
+this young woman had found him lying there, entirely helpless, as she
+returned from her evening milking.  Being hale of person, she had
+managed to get the little hunchback to her home unaided.  And since
+then Pope had often been seen with her.
+
+This much was common knowledge.  That Mr. Pope proposed to marry the
+heroine of his misadventure afforded a fair mark for raillery, no
+doubt, but Gay, in common with the run of educated England in 1718, did
+not aspire to be facetious at Pope's expense.  The luxury was too
+costly.  Offend the dwarf in any fashion, and were you the proudest
+duke at Court or the most inconsiderable rhymester in Petticoat Lane,
+it made no difference; there was no crime too heinous for "the great
+Mr. Pope's" next verses to charge you with, and, worst of all, there
+was no misdoing so out of character that his adroit malignancy could
+not make it seem plausible.
+
+Now, after another pause, Pope said, "I must be going now.  Will you
+not wish me luck?"
+
+"Why, Alexander--why, hang it!" was Mr. Gay's observation, "I believe
+that you are human after all, and not just a book in breeches."
+
+
+He thereby voiced a commentary patently uncalled-for, as Mr. Pope
+afterward reflected.  Mr. Pope was then treading toward the home of old
+Frederick Drew.  It was a gray morning in late July.
+
+"I love her," Pope had said.  The fact was undeniable; yet an
+expression of it necessarily halts.  Pope knew, as every man must do
+who dares conserve his energies to annotate the drama of life rather
+than play a part in it, the nature of that loneliness which this
+conservation breeds.  Such persons may hope to win a posthumous esteem
+in the library, but it is at the bleak cost of making life a wistful
+transaction with foreigners.  In such enforced aloofness Sarah Drew had
+come to him--strong, beautiful, young, good and vital, all that he was
+not--and had serenely befriended "the great Mr. Pope," whom she viewed
+as a queer decrepit little gentleman of whom within a week she was
+unfeignedly fond.
+
+"I love her," Pope had said.  Eh, yes, no doubt; and what, he fiercely
+demanded of himself, was he--a crippled scribbler, a bungling artisan
+of phrases--that he should dare to love this splendid and deep-bosomed
+goddess?  Something of youth awoke, possessing him--something of that
+high ardor which, as he cloudily remembered now, had once controlled a
+boy who dreamed in Windsor Forest and with the lightest of hearts
+planned to achieve the impossible.  For what is more difficult of
+attainment than to achieve the perfected phrase, so worded that to
+alter a syllable of its wording would be little short of sacrilege?
+
+"What whimwhams!" decreed the great Mr. Pope, aloud.  "Verse-making is
+at best only the affair of idle men who write in their closets and of
+idle men who read there.  And as for him who polishes phrases, whatever
+be his fate in poetry, it is ten to one but he must give up all the
+reasonable aims of life for it."
+
+No, he would have no more of loneliness.  Henceforward Alexander Pope
+would be human--like the others.  To write perfectly was much; but it
+was not everything.  Living was capable of furnishing even more than
+the raw material of a couplet.  It might, for instance, yield content.
+
+For instance, if you loved, and married, and begot, and died, with the
+seriousness of a person who believes he is performing an action of real
+importance, and conceded that the perfection of any art, whether it be
+that of verse-making or of rope-dancing, is at best a by-product of
+life's conduct; at worst, you probably would not be lonely.  No; you
+would be at one with all other fat-witted people, and there was no
+greater blessing conceivable.
+
+Pope muttered, and produced his notebook, and wrote tentatively.
+
+Wrote Mr. Pope:
+
+  The bliss of man (could pride that blessing find)
+  Is not to act or think beyond mankind;
+  No powers of body or of soul to share
+  But what his nature and his state can bear.
+
+
+"His state!" yes, undeniably, two sibilants collided here.  "His
+wit?"--no, that would be flat-footed awkwardness in the management of
+your vowel-sounds; the lengthened "a" was almost requisite. . . .  Pope
+was fretting over the imbroglio when he absent-mindedly glanced up to
+perceive that his Sarah, not irrevocably offended, was being embraced
+by a certain John Hughes--who was a stalwart, florid personable
+individual, no doubt, but, after all, only an unlettered farmer.
+
+The dwarf gave a hard, wringing motion of his hands.  The diamond-Lord
+Bolingbroke's gift--which ornamented Pope's left hand cut into the
+flesh of his little finger, so cruel was the gesture; and this little
+finger was bleeding as Pope tripped forward, smiling.  A gentleman does
+not incommode the public by obtruding the ugliness of a personal wound.
+
+"Do I intrude?" he queried.  "Ah, well!  I also have dwelt in Arcadia."
+It was bitter to comprehend that he had never done so.
+
+The lovers were visibly annoyed; yet, if an interruption of their
+pleasant commerce was decreed to be, it could not possibly have sprung,
+as they soon found, from a more sympathetic source.
+
+These were not subtle persons.  Pope had the truth from them within ten
+minutes.  They loved each other; but John Hughes was penniless, and old
+Frederick Drew was, in consequence, obdurate.
+
+"And, besides, he thinks you mean to marry her!" said John Hughes.
+
+"My dear man, he pardonably forgets that the utmost reach of my designs
+in common reason would be to have her as my kept mistress for a month
+or two," drawled Mr. Pope.  "As concerns yourself, my good fellow, the
+case is somewhat different.  Why, it is a veritable romance--an affair
+of Daphne and Corydon--although, to be unpardonably candid, the plot of
+your romance, my young Arcadians, is not the most original conceivable.
+I think that the denouement need not baffle our imaginations."
+
+The dwarf went toward Sarah Drew.  The chary sunlight had found the
+gold in her hair, and its glint was brightly visible to him.  "My
+dear--" he said.  His thin long fingers touched her capable hand.  It
+was a sort of caress--half-timid.  "My dear, I owe my life to you.  My
+body is at most a flimsy abortion such as a night's exposure would have
+made more tranquil than it is just now.  Yes, it was you who found a
+caricature of the sort of man that Mr. Hughes here is, disabled,
+helpless, and--for reasons which doubtless seemed to you
+sufficient--contrived that this unsightly parody continue in existence.
+I am not lovable, my dear.  I am only a hunchback, as you can see.  My
+aspirations and my sickly imaginings merit only the derision of a
+candid clean-souled being such as you are."  His finger-tips touched
+the back of her hand again.  "I think there was never a maker of
+enduring verse who did not at one period or another long to exchange an
+assured immortality for a sturdier pair of shoulders.  I think--I think
+that I am prone to speak at random," Pope said, with his half-drowsy
+smile.  "Yet, none the less, an honest man, as our kinsmen in Adam
+average, is bound to pay his equitable debts."
+
+She said, "I do not understand."
+
+"I have perpetrated certain jingles," Pope returned.  "I had not
+comprehended until to-day they are the only children I shall leave
+behind me.  Eh, and what would you make of them, my dear, could
+ingenuity contrive a torture dire enough to force you into reading
+them! . . .  Misguided people have paid me for contriving these
+jingles.  So that I have money enough to buy you from your father just
+as I would purchase one of his heifers.  Yes, at the very least I have
+money, and I have earned it.  I will send your big-thewed adorer--I
+believe that Hughes is the name?--L500 of it this afternoon.  That sum,
+I gather, will be sufficient to remove your father's objection to your
+marriage with Mr. Hughes."
+
+Pope could not but admire himself tremendously.  Moreover, in such
+matters no woman is blind.  Tears came into Sarah's huge brown eyes.
+This tenderhearted girl was not thinking of John Hughes now.  Pope
+noted the fact with the pettiest exultation.  "Oh, you--you are good."
+Sarah Drew spoke as with difficulty.
+
+"No adjective, my dear, was ever applied with less discrimination.  It
+is merely that you have rendered no inconsiderable service to
+posterity, and merit a reward."
+
+"Oh, and indeed, indeed, I was always fond of you----"  The girl sobbed
+this.
+
+She would have added more, no doubt, since compassion is garrulous, had
+not Pope's scratched hand dismissed a display of emotion as not
+entirely in consonance with the rules of the game.
+
+"My dear, therein you have signally honored me.  There remains only to
+offer you my appreciation of your benevolence toward a sickly monster,
+and to entreat for my late intrusion--however unintentional--that
+forgiveness which you would not deny, I think, to any other impertinent
+insect."
+
+"Oh, but we have no words to thank you, sir----!" Thus Hughes began.
+
+"Then don't attempt it, my good fellow.  For phrase-spinning, as I can
+assure you, is the most profitless of all pursuits."  Whereupon Pope
+bowed low, wheeled, walked away.  Yes, he was wounded past sufferance;
+it seemed to him he must die of it.  Life was a farce, and Destiny an
+overseer who hiccoughed mandates.  Well, all that even Destiny could
+find to gloat over, he reflected, was the tranquil figure of a smallish
+gentleman switching at the grass-blades with his cane as he sauntered
+under darkening skies.
+
+For a storm was coming on, and the first big drops of it were
+splattering the terrace when Mr. Pope entered Lord Harcourt's mansion.
+
+
+Pope went straight to his own rooms.  As he came in there was a vivid
+flash of lightning, followed instantaneously by a crashing, splitting
+noise, like that of universes ripped asunder.  He did not honor the
+high uproar with attention.  This dwarf was not afraid of anything
+except the commission of an error in taste.
+
+Then, too, there were letters for him, laid ready on the writing-table.
+Nothing of much importance he found there.--Here, though, was a rather
+diverting letter from Eustace Budgell, that poor fool, abjectly
+thanking Mr. Pope for his advice concerning how best to answer the
+atrocious calumnies on Budgell then appearing in _The Grub-Street
+Journal_,--and reposing, drolly enough, next the proof-sheets of an
+anonymous letter Pope had prepared for the forthcoming issue of that
+publication, wherein he sprightlily told how Budgell had poisoned Dr.
+Tindal, after forging his will.  For even if Budgell had not in point
+of fact been guilty of these particular peccadilloes, he had quite
+certainly committed the crime of speaking lightly of Mr. Pope, as "a
+little envious animal," some seven years ago; and it was for this grave
+indiscretion that Pope was dexterously goading the man into insanity,
+and eventually drove him to suicide. . . .
+
+The storm made the room dark and reading difficult.  Still, this was an
+even more amusing letter, from the all-powerful Duchess of Marlborough.
+In as civil terms as her sick rage could muster, the frightened woman
+offered Mr. Pope L1,000 to suppress his verbal portrait of her, in the
+character of Atossa, from his _Moral Essays_; and Pope straightway
+decided to accept the bribe, and afterward to print his verses
+unchanged.  For the hag, as he reflected, very greatly needed to be
+taught that in this world there was at least one person who did not
+quail before her tantrums.  There would be, moreover, even an
+elementary justice in thus robbing her who had robbed England at large.
+And, besides, her name was Sarah. . . .
+
+Pope lighted four candles and set them before the long French mirror.
+He stood appraising his many curious deformities while the storm raged.
+He stood sidelong, peering over his left shoulder, in order to see the
+outline of his crooked back.  Nowhere in England, he reflected, was
+there a person more pitiable and more repellent outwardly.
+
+"And, oh, it would be droll," Pope said, aloud, "if our exteriors were
+ever altogether parodies.  But time keeps a diary in our faces, and
+writes a monstrously plain hand.  Now, if you take the first letter of
+Mr. Alexander Pope's Christian name, and the first and last letters of
+his surname, you have A. P. E.," Pope quoted, genially.  "I begin to
+think that Dennis was right.  What conceivable woman would not prefer a
+well-set man of five-and-twenty to such a withered abortion?  And what
+does it matter, after all, that a hunchback has dared to desire a
+shapely brown-haired woman?"
+
+Pope came more near to the mirror.  "Make answer, you who have dared to
+imagine that a goddess was ever drawn to descend into womanhood except
+by kisses, brawn and a clean heart."
+
+Another peal of thunder bellowed.  The storm was growing furious.  "Yet
+I have had a marvelous dream.  Now I awaken.  I must go on in the old
+round.  As long as my wits preserve their agility I must be able to
+amuse, to flatter and, at need, to intimidate the patrons of that ape
+in the mirror, so that they will not dare refuse me the market-value of
+my antics.  And Sarah Drew has declined an alliance such as this in
+favor of a fresh-colored complexion and a pair of straight shoulders!"
+
+Pope thought a while.  "And a clean heart!  She bargained royally,
+giving love for nothing less than love.  The man is rustic, illiterate;
+he never heard of Aristotle, he would be at a loss to distinguish
+between a trochee and a Titian, and if you mentioned Boileau to him
+would probably imagine you were talking of cookery.  But he loves her.
+He would forfeit eternity to save her a toothache.  And, chief of all,
+she can make this robust baby happy, and she alone can make him happy.
+And so, she gives, gives royally--she gives, God bless her!"
+
+Rain, sullen rain, was battering the window.  "And you--you hunchback
+in the mirror, you maker of neat rhymes--pray, what had you to offer?
+A coach-and-six, of course, and pin-money and furbelows and in the end
+a mausoleum with unimpeachable Latin on it!  And--_paté sur paté_--an
+unswerving devotion which she would share on almost equal terms with
+the Collected Works of Alexander Pope.  And so she chose--chose brawn
+and a clean heart."
+
+The dwarf turned, staggered, fell upon his bed.  "God, make a man of
+me, make me a good brave man.  I loved her--oh, such as I am, You know
+that I loved her!  You know that I desire her happiness above all
+things.  Ah, no, for You know that I do not at bottom.  I want to hurt,
+to wound all living creatures, because they know how to be happy, and I
+do not know how.  Ah, God, and why did You decree that I should never
+be an obtuse and comely animal such as this John Hughes is?  I am so
+tired of being 'the great Mr. Pope,' and I want only the common joys of
+life."
+
+The hunchback wept.  It would be too curious to anatomize the writhings
+of his proud little spirit.
+
+
+Now some one tapped upon the door.  It was John Gay.  He was bidden to
+enter, and, complying, found Mr. Pope yawning over the latest of
+Tonson's publications.
+
+Gay's face was singularly portentous.  "My friend," Gay blurted out, "I
+bring news which will horrify you.  Believe me, I would never have
+mustered the pluck to bring it did I not love you.  I cannot let you
+hear it first in public and unprepared, as, otherwise, you would have
+to do."
+
+"Do I not know you have the kindest heart in all the world?  Why, so
+outrageous are your amiable defects that they would be the public
+derision of your enemies if you had any," Pope returned.
+
+The other poet evinced an awkward comminglement of consternation and
+pity.  "It appears that when this storm arose--why, Mistress Drew was
+with a young man of the neighborhood--a John Hewet----"  Gay was
+speaking with unaccustomed rapidity.
+
+"Hughes, I think," Pope interrupted, equably.
+
+"Perhaps--I am not sure.  They sought shelter under a haycock.  You
+will remember that first crash of thunder, as if the heavens were in
+demolishment?  My friend, the reapers who had been laboring in the
+fields--who had been driven to such protection as the trees or hedges
+afforded----"
+
+"Get on!" a shrill voice cried; "for God's love, man, get on!"  Mr.
+Pope had risen.  This pallid shaken wisp was not in appearance the
+great Mr. Pope whose ingenuity had enabled Homeric warriors to excel in
+the genteel.
+
+"They first saw a little smoke. . . .  They found this Hughes with one
+arm about the neck of Mistress Drew, and the other held over her face,
+as if to screen her from the lightning.  They were both"--and here Gay
+hesitated.  "They were both dead," he amended.
+
+Pope turned abruptly.  Nakedness is of necessity uncouth, he held,
+whether it be the body or the soul that is unveiled.  Mr. Pope went
+toward a window which he opened, and he stood thus looking out for a
+brief while.
+
+"So she is dead," he said.  "It is very strange.  So many rare
+felicities of curve and color, so much of purity and kindliness and
+valor and mirth, extinguished as one snuffs a candle!  Well!  I am
+sorry she is dead, for the child had a talent for living and got such
+joy out of it. . . .  Hers was a lovely happy life, but it was sterile.
+Already nothing remains of her but dead flesh which must be huddled out
+of sight.  I shall not perish thus entirely, I believe.  Men will
+remember me.  Truly a mighty foundation for pride! when the utmost I
+can hope for is but to be read in one island, and to be thrown aside at
+the end of one age.  Indeed, I am not even sure of that much.  I print,
+and print, and print.  And when I collect my verses into books, I am
+altogether uncertain whether to took upon myself as a man building a
+monument, or burying the dead.  It sometimes seems to me that each
+publication is but a solemn funeral of many wasted years.  For I have
+given all to the verse-making.  Granted that the sacrifice avails to
+rescue my name from oblivion, what will it profit me when I am dead and
+care no more for men's opinions than Sarah Drew cares now for what I
+say of her?  But then she never cared.  She loved John Hughes.  And she
+was right."
+
+He made an end of speaking, still peering out of the window with
+considerate narrowed eyes.
+
+The storm was over.  In the beech-tree opposite a wren was raising
+optimistic outcry.  The sun had won his way through a black-bellied
+shred of cloud; upon the terrace below, a dripping Venus and a Perseus
+were glistening as with white fire.  Past these, drenched gardens, the
+natural wildness of which was judiciously restrained with walks, ponds,
+grottoes, statuary and other rural elegancies, displayed the
+intermingled brilliancies of diamonds and emeralds, and glittered as
+with pearls and rubies where tempest-battered roses were reviving in
+assertiveness.
+
+"I think the storm is over," Mr. Pope remarked.  "It is strange how
+violent are these convulsions of nature. . . .  But nature is a
+treacherous blowsy jade, who respects nobody.  A gentleman can but
+shrug under her onslaughts, and henceforward civilly avoid them.  It is
+a consolation to reflect that they pass quickly."
+
+He turned as in defiance.  "Yes, yes!  It hurts.  But I envy them.
+Yes, even I, that ugly spiteful hornet of a man! 'the great Mr. Pope,'
+who will be dining with the proudest people in England within the hour
+and gloating over their deference!  For they presume to make a little
+free with God occasionally, John, but never with me.  And _I_ envy
+these dead young fools. . . .  You see, they loved each other, John.  I
+left them, not an hour ago, the happiest of living creatures.  I looked
+back once.  I pretended to have dropped my handkerchief.  I imagine
+they were talking of their wedding-clothes, for this broad-shouldered
+Hughes was matching poppies and field-flowers to her complexion.  It
+was a scene out of Theocritus.  I think Heaven was so well pleased by
+the tableau that Heaven hastily resumed possession of its enactors in
+order to prevent any after-happenings from belittling that perfect
+instant."
+
+"Egad, and matrimony might easily have proved an anti-climax," Gay
+considered.
+
+"Yes; oh, it is only Love that is blind, and not the lover necessarily.
+I know.  I suppose I always knew at the bottom of my heart.  This
+hamadryad was destined in the outcome to dwindle into a village
+housewife, she would have taken a lively interest in the number of eggs
+the hens were laying, she would even have assured her children,
+precisely in the way her father spoke of John Hughes, that young people
+ordinarily have foolish fancies which their rational elders agree to
+disregard.  But as it is, no Eastern queen--not Semele herself--left
+earth more nobly--"
+
+Pope broke off short.  He produced his notebook, which he never went
+without, and wrote frowningly, with many erasures.  "H'm, yes," he
+said; and he read aloud:
+
+  "When Eastern lovers feed the funeral fire,
+  On the same pile the faithful fair expire;
+  Here pitying heaven that virtue mutual found,
+  And blasted both that it might neither wound.
+  Hearts so sincere the Almighty saw well pleased,
+  Sent His own lightning and the victims seized."
+
+
+Then Pope made a grimace.  "No; the analogy is trim enough, but the
+lines lack fervor.  It is deplorable how much easier it is to express
+any emotion other than that of which one is actually conscious."  Pope
+had torn the paper half-through before he reflected that it would help
+to fill a printed page.  He put it in his pocket.  "But, come now, I am
+writing to Lady Mary this afternoon.  You know how she loves oddities.
+Between us--with prose as the medium, of course, since verse should,
+after all, confine itself to the commemoration of heroes and royal
+persons--I believe we might make of this occurrence a neat and moving
+_pastorelle_--I should say, pastoral, of course, but my wits are
+wool-gathering."
+
+Mr. Gay had the kindest heart in the universe.  Yet he, also, had
+dreamed of the perfected phrase, so worded that to alter a syllable of
+its wording would be little short of sacrilege.  Eyes kindling, he took
+up a pen.  "Yes, yes, I understand.  Egad, it is an admirable subject.
+But, then, I don't believe I ever saw these lovers----?"
+
+"John was a well-set man of about five-and-twenty," replied Mr. Pope;
+"and Sarah was a brown woman of eighteen years, three months and
+fourteen days."
+
+Then these two dipped their pens and set about a moving composition,
+which has to-day its proper rating among Mr. Pope's Complete Works.
+
+
+
+
+PRO HONORIA
+
+
+"_But that sense of negation, of theoretic insecurity, which was in the
+air, conspiring with what was of like tendency in himself, made of Lord
+UFFORD a central type of disillusion. . . .  He had been amiable
+because the general betise of humanity did not in his opinion greatly
+matter, after all; and in reading these 'SATIRES' it is well-nigh
+painful to witness the blind and naked forces of nature and
+circumstance surprising him in the uncontrollable movements of his own
+so carefully guarded heart._"
+
+
+
+  Why is a handsome wife adored
+  By every coxcomb but her lord?
+
+  From yonder puppet-man inquire
+  Who wisely hides his wood and wire;
+  Shows Sheba's queen completely dress'd
+  And Solomon in royal vest;
+
+  But view them litter'd on the floor,
+  Or strung on pegs behind the door,
+  Punch is exactly of a piece
+  With Lorrain's duke, and prince of Greece.
+
+  HORACE CALVERLEY.--_Petition to the Duke of Ormskirk_.
+
+
+
+
+PRO HONORIA
+
+In the early winter of 1761 the Earl of Bute, then Secretary of State,
+gave vent to an outburst of unaccustomed profanity.  Mr. Robert
+Calverley, who represented England at the Court of St. Petersburg, had
+resigned his office without prelude or any word of explanation.  This
+infuriated Bute, since his pet scheme was to make peace with Russia and
+thereby end the Continental War.  Now all was to do again; the minister
+raged, shrugged, furnished a new emissary with credentials, and marked
+Calverley's name for punishment.
+
+As much, indeed, was written to Calverley by Lord Ufford, the poet,
+diarist, musician and virtuoso:
+
+
+Our Scottish Mortimer, it appears, is unwilling to have the map of
+Europe altered because Mr. Robert Calverley has taken a whim to go into
+Italy.  He is angrier than I have ever known him to be.  He swears that
+with a pen's flourish you have imperiled the well-being of England, and
+raves in the same breath of the preferment he had designed for you.
+Beware of him.  For my own part, I shrug and acquiesce, because I am
+familiar with your pranks.  I merely venture to counsel that you do not
+crown the Pelion of abuse, which our statesmen are heaping upon you,
+with the Ossa of physical as well as political suicide.  Hasten on your
+Italian jaunt, for Umfraville, who is now with me at Carberry Hill, has
+publicly declared that if you dare re-appear in England he will have
+you horsewhipped by his footmen.  In consequence, I would most
+earnestly advise----
+
+
+Mr. Calverley read no further, but came straightway into England.  He
+had not been in England since his elopement, three years before that
+spring, with the Marquis of Umfraville's betrothed, Lord Radnor's
+daughter, whom Calverley had married at Calais.  Mr. Calverley and his
+wife were presently at Carberry Hill, Lord Ufford's home, where,
+arriving about moon-rise, they found a ball in progress.
+
+Their advent caused a momentary check to merriment.  The fiddlers
+ceased, because Lord Ufford had signaled them.  The fine guests paused
+in their stately dance.  Lord Ufford, in a richly figured suit, came
+hastily to Lady Honoria Calverley, his high heels tapping audibly upon
+the floor, and with gallantry lifted her hand toward his lips.  Her
+husband he embraced, and the two men kissed each other, as was the
+custom of the age.  Chatter and laughter rose on every side as pert and
+merry as the noises of a brook in springtime.
+
+"I fear that as Lord Umfraville's host," young Calverley at once began,
+"you cannot with decorum convey to the ignoramus my opinion as to his
+ability to conjugate the verb _to dare_."
+
+"Why, but no! you naturally demand a duel," the poet-earl returned.
+"It is very like you.  I lament your decision, but I will attempt to
+arrange the meeting for to-morrow morning."
+
+Lord Ufford smiled and nodded to the musicians.  He finished the dance
+to admiration, as this lean dandified young man did
+everything--"assiduous to win each fool's applause," as his own verses
+scornfully phrase it.  Then Ufford went about his errand of death and
+conversed for a long while with Umfraville.
+
+Afterward Lord Ufford beckoned to Calverley, who shrugged and returned
+Mr. Erwyn's snuff-box, which Calverley had been admiring.  He followed
+the earl into a side-room opening upon the Venetian Chamber wherein the
+fete was.  Ufford closed the door.  You saw that he had put away the
+exterior of mirth that hospitality demanded of him, and perturbation
+showed in the lean countenance which was by ordinary so proud and so
+amiably peevish.
+
+"Robin, you have performed many mad actions in your life!" he said;
+"but this return into the three kingdoms out-Herods all!  Did I not
+warn you against Umfraville!"
+
+"Why, certainly you did," returned Mr. Calverley.  "You informed
+me--which was your duty as a friend--of this curmudgeon's boast that he
+would have me horsewhipped if I dared venture into England.  You will
+readily conceive that any gentleman of self-respect cannot permit such
+farcical utterances to be delivered without appending a gladiatorial
+epilogue.  Well! what are the conditions of this duel?"
+
+"Oh, fool that I have been!" cried Ufford, who was enabled now by
+virtue of their seclusion to manifest his emotion.  "I, who have known
+you all your life----!"
+
+He paced the room.  Pleading music tinged the silence almost insensibly.
+
+"Heh, Fate has an imperial taste in humor!" the poet said.  "Robin, we
+have been more than brothers.  And it is I, I, of all persons living,
+who have drawn you into this imbroglio!"
+
+"My danger is not very apparent as yet," said Calverley, "if Umfraville
+controls his sword no better than his tongue."
+
+My lord of Ufford went on:  "There is no question of a duel.  It is as
+well to spare you what Lord Umfraville replied to my challenge.  Let it
+suffice that we do not get sugar from the snake.  Besides, the man has
+his grievance.  Robin, have you forgot that necklace you and Pevensey
+took from Umfraville some three years ago--before you went into Russia?"
+
+Calverley laughed.  The question recalled an old hot-headed time when,
+exalted to a frolicsome zone by the discovery of Lady Honoria Pomfret's
+love for him, he planned the famous jest which he and the mad Earl of
+Pevensey perpetrated upon Umfraville.  This masquerade won quick
+applause.  Persons of ton guffawed like ploughboys over the
+discomfiture of an old hunks thus divertingly stripped of his bride,
+all his betrothal gifts, and of the very clothes he wore.  An anonymous
+scribbler had detected in the occurrence a denouement suited to the
+stage and had constructed a comedy around it, which, when produced by
+the Duke's company, had won acclaim from hilarious auditors.
+
+So Calverley laughed heartily.  "Gad, what a jest that was!  This
+Umfraville comes to marry Honoria.  And highwaymen attack his coach!  I
+would give L50 to have witnessed this usurer's arrival at Denton Honor
+in his underclothes! and to have seen his monkey-like grimaces when he
+learned that Honoria and I were already across the Channel!"
+
+"You robbed him, though----"
+
+"Indeed, for beginners at peculation we did not do so badly.  We robbed
+him and his valet of everything in the coach, including their breeches.
+You do not mean that Pevensey has detained the poor man's wedding
+trousers?  If so, it is unfortunate, because this loud-mouthed miser
+has need of them in order that he may be handsomely interred."
+
+"Lord Umfraville's wedding-suit was stuffed with straw, hung on a pole
+and paraded through London by Pevensey, March, Selwyn and some dozen
+other madcaps, while six musicians marched before them.  The clothes
+were thus conveyed to Umfraville's house.  I think none of us would
+have relished a joke like that were he the butt of it."
+
+Now the poet's lean countenance was turned upon young Calverley, and as
+always, Ufford evoked that nobility in Calverley which follies veiled
+but had not ever killed.
+
+"Egad," said Robert Calverley; "I grant you that all this was
+infamously done.  I never authorized it.  I shall kill Pevensey.
+Indeed, I will do more," he added, with a flourish.  "For I will
+apologize to Umfraville, and this very night."
+
+But Ufford was not disposed to levity.  "Let us come to the point," he
+sadly said.  "Pevensey returned everything except the necklace which
+Umfraville had intended to be his bridal gift.  Pevensey conceded the
+jest, in fine; and denied all knowledge of any necklace."
+
+It was an age of accommodating morality.  Calverley sketched a whistle,
+and showed no other trace of astonishment.
+
+"I see.  The fool confided in the spendthrift.  My dear, I understand.
+In nature Pevensey gave the gems to some nymph of Sadler's Wells or
+Covent Garden.  For I was out of England.  And so he capped his knavery
+with insolence.  It is an additional reason why Pevensey should not
+live to scratch a gray head.  It is, however, an affront to me that
+Umfraville should have believed him.  I doubt if I may overlook that,
+Horace?"
+
+"I question if he did believe.  But, then, what help had he?  This
+Pevensey is an earl.  His person as a peer of England is inviolable.
+No statute touches him directly, because he may not be confined except
+by the King's personal order.  And it is tolerably notorious that
+Pevensey is in Lord Bute's pay, and that our Scottish Mortimer, to do
+him justice, does not permit his spies to be injured."
+
+Now Mr. Calverley took snuff.  The music without was now more audible,
+and it had shifted to a merrier tune.
+
+"I think I comprehend.  Pevensey and I--whatever were our motives--have
+committed a robbery.  Pevensey, as the law runs, is safe.  I, too, was
+safe as long as I kept out of England.  As matters stand, Lord
+Umfraville intends to press a charge of theft against me.  And I am in
+disgrace with Bute, who is quite content to beat offenders with a
+crooked stick.  This confluence of two-penny accidents is annoying."
+
+"It is worse than you know," my lord of Ufford returned.  He opened the
+door which led to the Venetian Chamber.  A surge of music, of laughter,
+and of many lights invaded the room wherein they stood.  "D'ye see
+those persons, just past Umfraville, so inadequately disguised as
+gentlemen?  They are from Bow Street.  Lord Umfraville intends to
+apprehend you here to-night."
+
+"He has an eye for the picturesque," drawled Calverley.  "My tragedy,
+to do him justice, could not be staged more strikingly.  Those
+additional alcoves have improved the room beyond belief.  I must
+apologize for not having rendered my compliments a trifle earlier."
+
+Internally he outstormed Termagaunt.  It was infamous enough, in all
+conscience, to be arrested, but to have half the world of fashion as
+witnessess of ones discomfiture was perfectly intolerable.  He
+recognized the excellent chance he had of being the most prominent
+figure upon some scaffold before long, but that contingency did not
+greatly trouble Calverley, as set against the certainty of being made
+ridiculous within the next five minutes.
+
+In consequence, he frowned and rearranged the fall of his shirt-frill a
+whit the more becomingly.
+
+"Yes, for hate sharpens every faculty," the earl went on.  "Even
+Umfraville understands that you do not fear death.  So he means to have
+you tried like any common thief while all your quondam friends sit and
+snigger.  And you will be convicted----"
+
+"Why, necessarily, since I am not as Pevensey.  Of course, I must
+confess I took the necklace."
+
+"And Pevensey must stick to the tale that he knows nothing of any
+necklace.  Dear Robin, this means Newgate.  Accident deals very hardly
+with us, Robin, for this means Tyburn Hill."
+
+"Yes; I suppose it means my death," young Calverley assented.  "Well! I
+have feasted with the world and found its viands excellent.  The
+banquet ended, I must not grumble with my host because I find his
+choice of cordials not altogether to my liking."  Thus speaking, he was
+aware of nothing save that the fiddlers were now about an air to which
+he had often danced with his dear wife.
+
+"I have a trick yet left to save our honor,----" Lord Ufford turned to
+a table where wine and glasses were set ready.  "I propose a toast.
+Let us drink--for the last time--to the honor of the Calverleys."
+
+"It is an invitation I may not decorously refuse.  And yet--it may be
+that I do not understand you?"
+
+My lord of Ufford poured wine into two glasses.  These glasses were
+from among the curios he collected so industriously--tall, fragile
+things, of seventeenth century make, very intricately cut with roses
+and thistles, and in the bottom of each glass a three-penny piece was
+embedded.  Lord Ufford took a tiny vial from his pocket and emptied its
+contents into the glass which stood the nearer to Mr. Calverley.
+
+"This is Florence water.  We dabblers in science are experimenting with
+it at Gresham College.  A taste of it means death--a painless, quick
+and honorable death.  You will have died of a heart seizure.  Come,
+Robin, let us drink to the honor of the Calverleys."
+
+The poet-earl paused for a little while.  Now he was like some seer of
+supernal things.
+
+"For look you," said Lord Ufford, "we come of honorable blood.  We two
+are gentlemen.  We have our code, and we may not infringe upon it.  Our
+code does not invariably square with reason, and I doubt if Scripture
+would afford a dependable foundation.  So be it!  We have our code and
+we may not infringe upon it.  There have been many Calverleys who did
+not fear their God, but there was never any one of them who did not
+fear dishonor.  I am the head of no less proud a house.  As such, I
+counsel you to drink and die within the moment.  It is not possible a
+Calverley survive dishonor.  Oh, God!" the poet cried, and his voice
+broke; "and what is honor to this clamor within me!  Robin, I love you
+better than I do this talk of honor!  For, Robin, I have loved you
+long! so long that what we do to-night will always make life hideous to
+me!"
+
+Calverley was not unmoved, but he replied in the tone of daily
+intercourse.  "It is undoubtedly absurd to perish here, like some
+unreasonable adversary of the Borgias.  Your device is rather
+outrageously horrific, Horace, like a bit out of your own romance--yes,
+egad, it is pre-eminently worthy of the author of _The Vassal of
+Spalatro_.  Still I can understand that it is preferable to having fat
+and greasy fellows squander a shilling for the privilege of perching
+upon a box while I am being hanged.  And I think I shall accept your
+toast--
+
+"You will be avenged," Ufford said, simply.
+
+"My dear, as if I ever questioned that!  Of course, you will kill
+Pevensey first and Umfraville afterward.  Only I want to live.  For I
+was meant to play a joyous role wholeheartedly in the big comedy of
+life.  So many people find the world a dreary residence," Mr. Calverley
+sighed, "that it is really a pity some one of these long-faced
+stolidities cannot die now instead of me.  For I have found life
+wonderful throughout."
+
+The brows of Ufford knit.  "Would you consent to live as a transported
+felon?  I have much money.  I need not tell you the last penny is at
+your disposal.  It might be possible to bribe.  Indeed, Lord Bute is
+all-powerful to-day and he would perhaps procure a pardon for you at my
+entreaty.  He is so kind as to admire my scribblings. . .  Or you might
+live among your fellow-convicts somewhere over sea for a while longer.
+I had not thought that such would be your choice----"  Here Ufford
+shrugged, restrained by courtesy.  "Besides, Lord Bute is greatly
+angered with you, because you have endangered his Russian alliance.
+However, if you wish it, I will try----"
+
+"Oh, for that matter, I do not much fear Lord Bute, because I bring him
+the most welcome news he has had in many a day.  I may tell you since
+it will be public to-morrow.  The Tzaritza Elizabeth, our implacable
+enemy, died very suddenly three weeks ago.  Peter of Holstein-Gottrop
+reigns to-day in Russia, and I have made terms with him.  I came to
+tell Lord Bute the Cossack troops have been recalled from Prussia.  The
+war is at an end."  Young Calverley meditated and gave his customary
+boyish smile.  "Yes, I discharged my Russian mission after all--even
+after I had formally relinquished it--because I was so opportunely
+aided by the accident of the Tzaritza's death.  And Bute cares only for
+results.  So I would explain to him that I resigned my mission simply
+because in Russia my wife could not have lived out another year----"
+
+The earl exclaimed, "Then Honoria is ill!" Mr. Calverley did not
+attend, but stood looking out into the Venetian Chamber.
+
+"See, Horace, she is dancing with Anchester while I wait here so near
+to death.  She dances well.  But Honoria does everything adorably.  I
+cannot tell you--oh, not even you!--how happy these three years have
+been with her.  Eh, well! the gods are jealous of such happiness.  You
+will remember how her mother died?  It appears that Honoria is
+threatened with a slow consumption, and a death such as her mother's
+was.  She does not know.  There was no need to frighten her.  For
+although the rigors of another Russian winter, as all physicians tell
+me, would inevitably prove fatal to her, there is no reason why my
+dearest dear should not continue to laugh just as she always does--for
+a long, bright and happy while in some warm climate such as Italy's.
+In nature I resigned my appointment.  I did not consider England, or my
+own trivial future, or anything of that sort.  I considered only
+Honoria."
+
+He gazed for many moments upon the woman whom he loved.  His speech
+took on an odd simplicity.
+
+"Oh, yes, I think that in the end Bute would procure a pardon for me.
+But not even Bute can override the laws of England.  I would have to be
+tried first, and have ballads made concerning me, and be condemned, and
+so on.  That would detain Honoria in England, because she is
+sufficiently misguided to love me.  I could never persuade her to leave
+me with my life in peril.  She could not possibly survive an English
+winter."  Here Calverley evinced unbridled mirth.  "The irony of events
+is magnificent.  There is probably no question of hanging or even of
+transportation.  It is merely certain that if I venture from this room
+I bring about Honoria's death as incontestably as if I strangled her
+with these two hands.  So I choose my own death in preference.  It will
+grieve Honoria----"  His voice was not completely steady.  "But she is
+young.  She will forget me, for she forgets easily, and she will be
+happy.  I look to you to see--even before you have killed
+Pevensey--that Honoria goes into Italy.  For she admires and loves you,
+almost as much as I do, Horace, and she will readily be guided by
+you----"
+
+He cried my lord of Ufford's given name some two or three times, for
+young Calverley had turned, and he had seen Ufford's face.
+
+The earl moistened his lips.  "You are a fool," he said, with a thin
+voice.  "Why do you trouble me by being better than I?  Or do you only
+posture for my benefit?  Do you deal honestly with me, Robert
+Calverley?--then swear it----"  He laughed here, very horribly.  "Ah,
+no, when did you ever lie!  You do not lie--not you!"
+
+He waited for a while.  "But I am otherwise.  I dare to lie when the
+occasion promises.  I have desired Honoria since the first moment
+wherein I saw her.  I may tell you now.  I think that you do not
+remember.  We gathered cherries.  I ate two of them which had just lain
+upon her knee----"
+
+His hands had clenched each other, and his lips were drawn back so that
+you saw his exquisite teeth, which were ground together.  He stood thus
+for a little, silent.
+
+Then Ufford began again:  "I planned all this.  I plotted this with
+Umfraville.  I wrote you such a letter as would inevitably draw you to
+your death.  I wished your death.  For Honoria would then be freed of
+you.  I would condole with her.  She is readily comforted, impatient of
+sorrow, incapable of it, I dare say.  She would have married me. . . .
+Why must I tell you this?  Oh, I am Fate's buffoon!  For I have won, I
+have won! and there is that in me which will not accept the stake I
+cheated for."
+
+"And you," said Calverley--"this thing is you!"
+
+"A helpless reptile now," said Ufford.  "I have not the power to check
+Lord Umfraville in his vengeance.  You must be publicly disgraced, and
+must, I think, be hanged even now when it will not benefit me at all.
+It may be I shall weep for that some day!  Or else Honoria must die,
+because an archangel could not persuade her to desert you in your
+peril.  For she loves you--loves you to the full extent of her merry
+and shallow nature.  Oh, I know that, as you will never know it.  I
+shall have killed Honoria!  I shall not weep when Honoria dies.
+Harkee, Robin! they are dancing yonder.  It is odd to think that I
+shall never dance again."
+
+"Horace--!" the younger man said, like a person of two minds.  He
+seemed to choke.  He gave a frantic gesture.  "Oh, I have loved you.  I
+have loved nothing as I have loved you."
+
+"And yet you chatter of your passion for Honoria!" Lord Ufford
+returned, with a snarl.  "I ask what proof is there of this?--Why, that
+you have surrendered your well-being in this world through love of her.
+But I gave what is vital.  I was an honorable gentleman without any act
+in all my life for which I had need to blush.  I loved you as I loved
+no other being in the universe."  He spread his hands, which now
+twitched horribly.  "You will never understand.  It does not matter.  I
+desired Honoria.  To-day through my desire of her, I am that monstrous
+thing which you alone know me to be.  I think I gave up much.  _Pro
+honoria!_" he chuckled.  "The Latin halts, but, none the less, the jest
+is excellent."
+
+"You have given more than I would dare to give," said Calverley.  He
+shuddered.
+
+"And to no end!" cried Ufford.  "Ah, fate, the devil and that code I
+mocked are all in league to cheat me!"
+
+Said Calverley:  "The man whom I loved most is dead.  Oh, had the world
+been searched between the sunrise and the sunsetting there had not been
+found his equal.  And now, poor fool, I know that there was never any
+man like this!"
+
+"Nay, there was such a man," the poet said, "in an old time which I
+almost forget.  To-day he is quite dead.  There is only a poor wretch
+who has been faithless in all things, who has not even served the devil
+faithfully."
+
+"Why, then, you lackey with a lackey's soul, attend to what I say.  Can
+you make any terms with Umfraville?"
+
+"I can do nothing," Ufford replied.  "You have robbed him--as me--of
+what he most desired.  You have made him the laughing-stock of England.
+He does not pardon any more than I would pardon."
+
+"And as God lives and reigns, I do not greatly blame him," said young
+Calverley.  "This man at least was wronged.  Concerning you I do not
+speak, because of a false dream I had once very long ago.  Yet
+Umfraville was treated infamously.  I dare concede what I could not
+permit another man to say and live, now that I drink a toast which I
+must drink alone.  For I drink to the honor of the Calverleys.  I have
+not ever lied to any person in this world, and so I may not drink with
+you."
+
+"Oh, but you drink because you know your death to be the one event
+which can insure her happiness," cried Ufford.  "We are not much
+unlike.  And I dare say it is only an imaginary Honoria we love, after
+all.  Yet, look, my fellow-Ixion! for to the eye at least is she not
+perfect?"
+
+The two men gazed for a long while.  Amid that coterie of exquisites,
+wherein allusion  to whatever might be ugly in the world was tacitly
+allowed to be unmentionable, Lady Honoria glitteringly went about the
+moment's mirthful business with lovely ardor.  You saw now unmistakably
+that "Light Queen of Elfdom, dead Titania's heir" of whom Ufford writes
+in the fourth Satire.  Honoria's prettiness, rouged, frail, and
+modishly enhanced, allured the eye from all less elfin brilliancies;
+and as she laughed among so many other relishers of life her charms
+became the more instant, just as a painting quickens in every tint when
+set in an appropriate frame.
+
+"There is no other way," her husband said.  He drank and toasted what
+was dearest in the world, smiling to think how death came to him in
+that wine's familiar taste.  "I drink to the most lovely of created
+ladies!  and to her happiness!"
+
+He snapped the stem of the glass and tossed it joyously aside.
+
+"Assuredly, there is no other way," said Ufford.  "And armored by that
+knowledge, even I may drink as honorable people do.  Pro honoria!" Then
+this man also broke his emptied glass.
+
+"How long have I to live?" said Calverley, and took snuff.
+
+"Why, thirty years, I think, unless you duel too immoderately," replied
+Lord Ufford,--"since while you looked at Honoria I changed our glasses.
+No! no! a thing done has an end.  Besides, it is not unworthy of me.
+So go boldly to the Earl of Bute and tell him all.  You are my cousin
+and my successor.  Yes, very soon you, too, will be a peer of England
+and as safe from molestation as is Lord Pevensey.  I am the first to
+tender my congratulations.  Now I make certain that they are not
+premature."
+
+The poet laughed at this moment as a man may laugh in hell.  He reeled.
+His lean face momentarily contorted, and afterward the poet died.
+
+"I am Lord Ufford," said Calverley aloud.  "The person of a peer is
+inviolable----"  He presently looked downward from rapt gazing at his
+wife.
+
+Fresh from this horrible half-hour, he faced a future so alluring as by
+its beauty to intimidate him.  Youth, love, long years of happiness,
+and (by this capricious turn) now even opulence, were the ingredients
+of a captivating vista.  And yet he needs must pause a while to think
+of the dear comrade he had lost--of that loved boy, his pattern in the
+time of their common youthfulness which gleamed in memory as bright and
+misty as a legend, and of the perfect chevalier who had been like a
+touchstone to Robert Calverley a bare half-hour ago.  He knelt, touched
+lightly the fallen jaw, and lightly kissed the cheek of this poor
+wreckage; and was aware that the caress was given with more tenderness
+than Robert Calverley had shown in the same act a bare half-hour ago.
+
+Meanwhile the music of a country dance urged the new Earl of Ufford to
+come and frolic where every one was laughing; and to partake with gusto
+of the benefits which chance had provided; and to be forthwith as merry
+as was decorous in a peer of England.
+
+
+
+
+THE IRRESISTIBLE OGLE
+
+
+"_But after SHERIDAN had risen to a commanding position in the gay life
+of London, he rather disliked to be known as a playwright or a poet,
+and preferred to be regarded as a statesman and a man of fashion who
+'set the pace' in all pastimes of the opulent and idle.  Yet, whatever
+he really thought of his own writings, and whether or not he did them,
+as Stevenson used to say, 'just for fun,' the fact remains that he was
+easily the most distinguished and brilliant dramatist of an age which
+produced in SHERIDAN'S solemn vagaries one of its most characteristic
+products._"
+
+
+
+  Look on this form,--where humor, quaint and sly,
+  Dimples the cheek, and points the beaming eye;
+  Where gay invention seems to boast its wiles
+  In amorous hint, and half-triumphant smiles.
+
+  Look on her well--does she seem form'd to teach?
+  Should you expect to hear this lady preach?
+  Is gray experience suited to her youth?
+  Do solemn sentiments become that mouth?
+
+  Bid her be grave, those lips should rebel prove
+  To every theme that slanders mirth or love.
+
+  RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN.--_Second Prologue to The Rivals_.
+
+
+
+
+THE IRRESISTIBLE OGLE
+
+The devotion of Mr. Sheridan to the Dean of Winchester's daughter, Miss
+Esther Jane Ogle--or "the irresistible Ogle," as she was toasted at the
+Kit-cat--was now a circumstance to be assumed in the polite world of
+London.  As a result, when the parliamentarian followed her into
+Scotland, in the spring of 1795, people only shrugged.
+
+"Because it proves that misery loves company," was Mr. Fox's
+observation at Wattier's, hard upon two in the morning.  "Poor Sherry,
+as an inconsolable widower, must naturally have some one to share his
+grief.  He perfectly comprehends that no one will lament the death of
+his wife more fervently than her successor."
+
+
+In London Mr. Fox thus worded his interpretation of the matter; and
+spoke, oddly enough, at the very moment that in Edinburgh Mr. Sheridan
+returned to his lodgings in Abercromby Place, deep in the reminiscences
+of a fortunate evening at cards.  In consequence, Mr. Sheridan entered
+the room so quietly that the young man who was employed in turning over
+the contents of the top bureau-drawer was taken unprepared.
+
+But in the marauder's nature, as far as resolution went, was little
+lacking.  "Silence!" he ordered, and with the mandate a pistol was
+leveled upon the representative for the borough of Stafford.  "One cry
+for help, and you perish like a dog.  I warn you that I am a desperate
+man."
+
+"Now, even at a hazard of discourtesy, I must make bold to question
+your statement," said Mr. Sheridan, "although, indeed, it is not so
+much the recklessness as the masculinity which I dare call into
+dispute."
+
+He continued, in his best parliamentary manner, a happy blending of
+reproach, omniscience and pardon.  "Only two months ago," said Mr.
+Sheridan, "I was so fortunate as to encounter a lady who, alike through
+the attractions of her person and the sprightliness of her
+conversation, convinced me I was on the road to fall in love after the
+high fashion of a popular romance.  I accordingly make her a
+declaration.  I am rejected.  I besiege her with the customary
+artillery of sonnets, bouquets, serenades, bonbons, theater-tickets and
+threats of suicide.  In fine, I contract the habit of proposing to Miss
+Ogle on every Wednesday; and so strong is my infatuation that I follow
+her as far into the north as Edinburgh in order to secure my eleventh
+rejection at half-past ten last evening."
+
+"I fail to understand," remarked the burglar, "how all this prolix
+account of your amours can possibly concern me."
+
+"You are at least somewhat involved in the deplorable climax," Mr.
+Sheridan returned.  "For behold! at two in the morning I discover the
+object of my adoration and the daughter of an estimable prelate, most
+calumniously clad and busily employed in rumpling my supply of cravats.
+If ever any lover was thrust into a more ambiguous position, madam,
+historians have touched on his dilemma with marked reticence."
+
+He saw--and he admired--the flush which mounted to his visitor's brow.
+And then, "I must concede that appearances are against me, Mr.
+Sheridan," the beautiful intruder said.  "And I hasten to protest that
+my presence in your apartments at this hour is prompted by no unworthy
+motive.  I merely came to steal the famous diamond which you brought
+from London--the Honor of Eiran."
+
+"Incomparable Esther Jane," ran Mr. Sheridan's answer, "that stone is
+now part of a brooch which was this afternoon returned to my cousin's,
+the Earl of Eiran's, hunting-lodge near Melrose.  He intends the gem
+which you are vainly seeking among my haberdashery to be the adornment
+of his promised bride in the ensuing June.  I confess to no
+overwhelming admiration as concerns this raucous if meritorious young
+person; and will even concede that the thought of her becoming my
+kinswoman rouses in me an inevitable distaste, no less attributable to
+the discord of her features than to the source of her eligibility to
+disfigure the peerage--that being her father's lucrative transactions
+in Pork, which I find indigestible in any form."
+
+"A truce to paltering!" Miss Ogle cried.  "That jewel was stolen from
+the temple at Moorshedabad, by the Earl of Eiran's grandfather, during
+the confusion necessarily attendant on the glorious battle of Plassy."
+She laid down the pistol, and resumed in milder tones:  "From an
+age-long existence as the left eye of Ganesh it was thus converted into
+the loot of an invader.  To restore this diamond to its lawful,
+although no doubt polygamous and inefficiently-attired proprietors is
+at this date impossible.  But, oh! what claim have you to its
+possession?"
+
+"Why, none whatever," said the parliamentarian; "and to contend as much
+would be the apex of unreason.  For this diamond belongs, of course, to
+my cousin the Earl of Eiran----"
+
+"As a thief's legacy!"  She spoke with signs of irritation.
+
+"Eh, eh, you go too fast!  Eiran, to do him justice, is not a graduate
+in peculation.  At worst, he is only the sort of fool one's cousins
+ordinarily are."
+
+The trousered lady walked to and fro for a while, with the impatience
+of a caged lioness.  "I perceive I must go more deeply into matters,"
+Miss Ogle remarked, and, with that habitual gesture which he fondly
+recognized, brushed back a straying lock of hair.  "In any event," she
+continued, "you cannot with reason deny that the world's wealth is
+inequitably distributed?"
+
+"Madam," Mr. Sheridan returned, "as a member of Parliament, I have
+necessarily made it a rule never to understand political economy.  It
+is as apt as not to prove you are selling your vote to the wrong side
+of the House, and that hurts one's conscience."
+
+"Ah, that is because you are a man.  Men are not practical.  None of
+you has ever dared to insist on his opinion about anything until he had
+secured the cowardly corroboration of a fact or so to endorse him.  It
+is a pity.  Yet, since through no fault of yours your sex is invariably
+misled by its hallucinations as to the importance of being rational, I
+will refrain from logic and statistics.  In a word, I simply inform you
+that I am a member of the League of Philanthropic Larcenists."
+
+"I had not previously heard of this organization," said Mr. Sheridan,
+and not without suspecting his response to be a masterpiece in the
+inadequate.
+
+"Our object is the benefit of society at large," Miss Ogle explained;
+"and our obstacles so far have been, in chief, the fetish of
+proprietary rights and the ubiquity of the police."
+
+And with that she seated herself and told him of the league's inception
+by a handful of reflective persons, admirers of Rousseau and converts
+to his tenets, who were resolved to better the circumstances of the
+indigent.  With amiable ardor Miss Ogle explained how from the petit
+larcenies of charity-balls and personally solicited subscriptions the
+league had mounted to an ampler field of depredation; and through what
+means it now took toll from every form of wealth unrighteously
+acquired.  Divertingly she described her personal experiences in the
+separation of usurers, thieves, financiers, hereditary noblemen,
+popular authors, and other social parasites, from the ill-got profits
+of their disreputable vocations.  And her account of how, on the
+preceding Tuesday, she, single-handed, had robbed Sir Alexander
+McRae--who then enjoyed a fortune and an enviable reputation for
+philanthropy, thanks to the combination of glucose, vitriol and other
+chemicals which he prepared under the humorous pretext of manufacturing
+beer--wrung high encomiums from Mr. Sheridan.
+
+"The proceeds of these endeavors," Miss Ogle added, "are
+conscientiously devoted to ameliorating the condition of meritorious
+paupers.  I would be happy to submit to you our annual report.  Then
+you may judge for yourself how many families we have snatched from the
+depths of poverty and habitual intoxication to the comparative comfort
+of a vine-embowered cottage."
+
+Mr. Sheridan replied:  "I have not ever known of any case where
+adoration needed an affidavit for foundation.  Oh, no, incomparable
+Esther Jane!  I am not in a position to be solaced by the reports of a
+corresponding secretary.  I gave my heart long since; to-night I fling
+my confidence into the bargain; and am resolved to serve wholeheartedly
+the cause to which you are devoted.  In consequence, I venture to
+propose my name for membership in the enterprise you advocate and
+indescribably adorn."
+
+Miss Ogle was all one blush, such was the fervor of his utterance.
+"But first you must win your spurs, Mr. Sheridan.  I confess you are
+not abhorrent to me," she hurried on, "for you are the most
+fascinatingly hideous man I have ever seen; and it was always the
+apprehension that you might look on burglary as an unmaidenly avocation
+which has compelled me to discourage your addresses.  Now all is plain;
+and should you happen to distinguish yourself in robbery of the
+criminally opulent, you will have, I believe, no reason to complain of
+a twelfth refusal.  I cannot modestly say more."
+
+He laughed.  "It is a bargain.  We will agree that I bereave some
+person of either stolen or unearned property, say, to the value of
+L10,000----" And with his usual carefulness in such matters, Mr.
+Sheridan entered the wager in his notebook.
+
+She yielded him her hand in token of assent.  And he, depend upon it,
+kissed that velvet trifle fondly.
+
+"And now," said Mr. Sheridan, "to-morrow we will visit Bemerside and
+obtain possession of that crystal which is in train to render me the
+happiest of men.  The task will be an easy one, as Eiran is now in
+England, and his servants for the most part are my familiars."
+
+"I agree to your proposal," she answered.  "But this diamond is my
+allotted quarry; and any assistance you may render me in procuring it
+will not, of course, affect in any way our bargain.  On this
+point"--she spoke with a break of laughter--"I am as headstrong as an
+allegory on the banks of the Nile."
+
+"To quote an author to his face," lamented Mr. Sheridan, "is bribery as
+gross as it is efficacious.  I must unwillingly consent to your
+exorbitant demands, for you are, as always, the irresistible Ogle."
+
+Miss Ogle bowed her gratitude; and, declining Mr. Sheridan's escort,
+for fear of arousing gossip by being seen upon the street with him at
+this late hour, preferred to avoid any appearance of indecorum by
+climbing down the kitchen roof.
+
+
+When she had gone, Mr. Sheridan very gallantly attempted a set of
+verses.  But the Muse was not to be wooed to-night, and stayed
+obstinately coy.
+
+Mr. Sheridan reflected, rather forlornly, that he wrote nothing
+nowadays.  There was, of course, his great comedy, _Affectation_, his
+masterpiece which he meant to finish at one time or another; yet, at
+the bottom of his heart, he knew that he would never finish it.  But,
+then, deuce take posterity! for to have written the best comedy, the
+best farce, and the best burlesque as well, that England had ever
+known, was a very prodigal wiping-out of every obligation toward
+posterity.  Boys thought a deal about posterity, as he remembered; but
+a sensible man would bear in mind that all this world's delicacies--its
+merry diversions, its venison and old wines, its handsomely-bound books
+and fiery-hearted jewels and sumptuous clothings, all its lovely things
+that can be touched and handled, and more especially its ear-tickling
+applause--were to be won, if ever, from one's contemporaries.  And
+people were generous toward social, rather than literary, talents for
+the sensible reason that they derived more pleasure from an agreeable
+companion at dinner than from having a rainy afternoon rendered
+endurable by some book or another.  So the parliamentarian sensibly
+went to bed.
+
+
+Miss Ogle during this Scottish trip was accompanied by her father, the
+venerable Dean of Winchester.  The Dean, although in all things worthy
+of implicit confidence, was not next day informed of the intended
+expedition, in deference to public opinion, which, as Miss Ogle pointed
+out, regards a clergyman's participation in a technical felony with
+disapproval.
+
+Miss Ogle, therefore, radiant in a becoming gown of pink lute-string,
+left Edinburgh the following morning under cover of a subterfuge, and
+with Mr. Sheridan as her only escort.  He was at pains to adorn this
+role with so many happy touches of courtesy and amiability that their
+confinement in the postchaise appeared to both of incredible brevity.
+
+When they had reached Melrose another chaise was ordered to convey them
+to Bemerside; and pending its forthcoming Mr. Sheridan and Miss Ogle
+strolled among the famous ruins of Melrose Abbey.  The parliamentarian
+had caused his hair to be exuberantly curled that morning, and figured
+to advantage in a plum-colored coat and a saffron waistcoat sprigged
+with forget-me-nots.  He chatted entertainingly concerning the Second
+Pointed style of architecture; translated many of the epitaphs; and was
+abundant in interesting information as to Robert Bruce, and Michael
+Scott, and the rencounter of Chevy Chase.
+
+"Oh, but observe," said Mr. Sheridan, more lately, "our only covering
+is the dome of heaven.  Yet in their time these aisles were populous,
+and here a score of generations have besought what earth does not
+afford--now where the banners of crusaders waved the ivy flutters, and
+there is no incense in this consecrated house except the breath of the
+wild rose."
+
+"The moral is an old one," she returned.  "Mummy is become merchandise,
+Mizraim cures wounds, and Pharaoh is sold for balsams."
+
+"You are a reader, madam?" he observed, with some surprise; and he
+continued:  "Indeed, my thoughts were on another trail.  I was
+considering that the demolishers of this place--those English armies,
+those followers of John Knox--were actuated by the highest and most
+laudable of motives.  As a result we find the house of Heaven converted
+into a dustheap."
+
+
+"I believe you attempt an apologue," she said, indignantly.  "Upon my
+word, I think you would insinuate that philanthropy, when forced to
+manifest itself through embezzlement, is a less womanly employment than
+the darning of stockings!"
+
+"Whom the cap fits----" he answered, with a bow.  "Indeed, incomparable
+Esther Jane, I had said nothing whatever touching hosiery; and it was
+equally remote from my intentions to set up as a milliner."
+
+
+They lunched at Bemerside, where Mr. Sheridan was cordially received by
+the steward, and a well-chosen repast was placed at their disposal.
+
+"Fergus," Mr. Sheridan observed, as they chatted over their dessert
+concerning famous gems--in which direction talk had been adroitly
+steered"--Fergus, since we are on the topic, I would like to show Miss
+Ogle the Honor of Eiran."
+
+The Honor of Eiran was accordingly produced from a blue velvet case,
+and was properly admired.  Then, when the steward had been dismissed to
+fetch a rare liqueur, Mr. Sheridan laughed, and tossed and caught the
+jewel, as though he handled a cricket-ball.  It was the size of a
+pigeon's egg, and was set among eight gems of lesser magnitude; and in
+transit through the sunlight the trinket flashed and glittered with
+diabolical beauty.  The parliamentarian placed three bits of sugar in
+the velvet case and handed the gem to his companion.
+
+"The bulk is much the same," he observed; "and whether the carbon be
+crystallized or no, is the responsibility of stratigraphic geology.
+Fergus, perhaps, must go to jail.  That is unfortunate.  But true
+philanthropy works toward the benefit of the greatest number possible;
+and this resplendent pebble will purchase you innumerable pounds of tea
+and a warehouseful of blankets."
+
+"But, Mr. Sheridan," Miss Ogle cried, in horror, "to take this brooch
+would not be honest!"
+
+"Oh, as to that----!" he shrugged.
+
+"----because Lord Eiran purchased all these lesser diamonds, and very
+possibly paid for them."
+
+Then Mr. Sheridan reflected, stood abashed, and said:  "Incomparable
+Esther Jane, I confess I am only a man.  You are entirely right.  To
+purloin any of these little diamonds would be an abominable action,
+whereas to make off with the only valuable one is simply a stroke of
+retribution.  I will, therefore, attempt to prise it out with a
+nutpick."
+
+Three constables came suddenly into the room.  "We hae been tauld this
+missy is a suspectit thieving body," their leader cried.  "Esther Jane
+Ogle, ye maun gae with us i' the law's name.  Ou ay, lass, ye ken weel
+eneugh wha robbit auld Sir Aleexander McRae, sae dinna ye say naething
+tae your ain preejudice, lest ye hae tae account for it a'."
+
+Mr. Sheridan rose to the occasion.  "My exceedingly good friend, Angus
+Howden!  I am unwilling to concede that yeomen can excel in gentlemanly
+accomplishments, but it is only charity to suppose all three of you as
+drunk as any duke that ever honored me with his acquaintance."  This he
+drawled, and appeared magisterially to await an explanation.
+
+"Hout, Mr. Sheridan," commenced the leading representative of justice,
+"let that flee stick i' the wa'--e dinna mean tae tell me, Sir, that ye
+are acquaintit wi' this--ou ay, tae pleasure ye, I micht e'en say wi'
+this----"
+
+"This lady, probably?" Mr. Sheridan hazarded.
+
+"'Tis an unco thing," the constable declared, "but that wad be the word
+was amaist at my tongue's tip."
+
+"Why, undoubtedly," Mr. Sheridan assented.  "I rejoice that, being of
+French extraction, and unconversant with your somewhat cryptic patois,
+the lady in question is the less likely to have been sickened by your
+extravagances in the way of misapprehension.  I candidly confess such
+imbecility annoys me.  What!" he cried out, "what if I marry! is
+matrimony to be ranked with arson?  And what if my cousin, Eiran,
+affords me a hiding-place wherein to sneak through our honeymoon after
+the cowardly fashion of all modern married couples!  Am I in
+consequence compelled to submit to the invasions of an intoxicated
+constabulary?" His rage was terrific.
+
+"_Voilà la seule devise.  Ils me connaissent, ils ont confidence dans
+moi.  Si, taisez-vous!  Si non, vous serez arretée et mise dans la
+prison, comme une caractère suspicieuse!_"  Mr. Sheridan exhorted Miss
+Ogle to this intent with more of earnestness than linguistic
+perfection; and he rejoiced to see that instantly she caught at her one
+chance of plausibly accounting for her presence at Bemerside, and of
+effecting a rescue from this horrid situation.
+
+"But I also spik the English," she sprightlily announced.  "I am
+appleed myself at to learn its by heart.  Certainly you look for a
+needle in a hay bundle, my gentlemans.  I am no stealer of the grand
+road, but the wife of Mistaire Sheridan, and her presence will say to
+you the remains."
+
+"You see!" cried Mr. Sheridan, in modest triumph.  "In short, I am a
+bridegroom unwarrantably interrupted in his first _tête-à-tête_, I am
+responsible for this lady and all her past and its appurtenances; and,
+in a phrase, for everything except the course of conduct I will
+undoubtedly pursue should you be visible at the conclusion of the next
+five minutes."
+
+His emphasis was such that the police withdrew with a concomitant of
+apologies.
+
+
+"And now I claim my bond," said Mr. Sheridan, when they were once again
+free from intrusion.  "For we two are in Scotland, where the common
+declaration of a man and woman that they are married constitutes a
+marriage."
+
+"Oh----!" she exclaimed, and stood encrimsoned.
+
+"Indeed, I must confess that the day's work has been a trick
+throughout.  The diamond was pawned years ago.  This trinket here is a
+copy in paste and worth perhaps some seven shillings sixpence.  And
+those fellows were not constables, but just my cousin Eiran and two
+footmen in disguise.  Nay, madam, you will learn with experience that
+to display unfailing candor is not without exception the price of
+happiness."
+
+"But this, I think, evades our bargain, Mr. Sheridan.  For you were
+committed to pilfer property to the value of L10,000----"
+
+"And to fulfil the obligation I have stolen your hand in marriage.
+What, madam! do you indeed pretend that any person outside of Bedlam
+would value you at less?  Believe me, your perfections are of far more
+worth.  All persons recognize that save yourself, incomparable Esther
+Jane; and yet, so patent is the proof of my contention, I dare to leave
+the verdict to your sense of justice."
+
+Miss Ogle did not speak.  Her lashes fell as, with some ceremony, he
+led her to the long French mirror which was in the breakfast room.
+"See now!" said Mr. Sheridan.  "You, who endanger life and fame in
+order to provide a mendicant with gruel, tracts and blankets!  You, who
+deny a sop to the one hunger which is vital!  Oh, madam, I am tempted
+glibly to compare your eyes to sapphires, and your hair to thin-spun
+gold, and the color of your flesh to the arbutus-flower--for that, as
+you can see, would be within the truth, and it would please most women,
+and afterward they would not be so obdurate.  But you are not like
+other women," Mr. Sheridan observed, with admirable dexterity.  "And I
+aspire to you, the irresistible Ogle! you, who so great-heartedly
+befriend the beggar! you, who with such industry contrive alleviation
+for the discomforts of poverty.  Eh, eh! what will you grant to any
+beggar such as I?  Will you deny a sop to the one hunger which is
+vital?"  He spoke with unaccustomed vigor, even in a sort of terror,
+because he knew that he was speaking with sincerity.
+
+"To the one hunger which is vital!" he repeated.  "Ah, where lies the
+secret which makes one face the dearest in the world, and entrusts to
+one little hand a life's happiness as a plaything?  All Aristotle's
+learning could not unriddle the mystery, and Samson's thews were
+impotent to break that spell.  Love vanquishes all. . . .  You would
+remind me of some previous skirmishings with Venus's unconquerable
+brat?  Nay, madam, to the contrary, the fact that I have loved many
+other women is my strongest plea for toleration.  Were there nothing
+else, it is indisputable we perform all actions better for having
+rehearsed them.  No, we do not of necessity perform them the more
+thoughtlessly as well; for, indeed, I find that with experience a man
+becomes increasingly difficult to please in affairs of the heart.  The
+woman one loves then is granted that pre-eminence not merely by virtue
+of having outshone any particular one of her predecessors; oh, no!
+instead, her qualities have been compared with all the charms of all
+her fair forerunners, and they have endured that stringent testing.
+The winning of an often-bartered heart is in reality the only conquest
+which entitles a woman to complacency, for she has received a real
+compliment; whereas to be selected as the target of a lad's first
+declaration is a tribute of no more value than a man's opinion upon
+vintages who has never tasted wine."
+
+He took a turn about the breakfast room, then came near to her.  "I
+love you.  Were there any way to parade the circumstance and bedeck it
+with pleasing adornments of filed phrases, tropes and far-fetched
+similes, I would not grudge you a deal of verbal pageantry.  But three
+words say all.  I love you.  There is no act in my past life but
+appears trivial and strange to me, and to the man who performed it I
+seem no more akin than to Mark Antony or Nebuchadnezzar.  I love you.
+The skies are bluer since you came, the beauty of this world we live in
+oppresses me with a fearful joy, and in my heart there is always the
+thought of you and such yearning as I may not word.  For I love you."
+
+"You--but you have frightened me."  Miss Ogle did not seem so terrified
+as to make any effort to recede from him; and yet he saw that she was
+frightened in sober earnest.  Her face showed pale, and soft, and glad,
+and awed, and desirable above all things; and it remained so near him
+as to engender riotous aspirations.
+
+"I love you," he said again.  You would never have suspected this man
+could speak, upon occasion, fluently.  "I think--I think that Heaven
+was prodigal when Heaven made you.  To think of you is as if I listened
+to an exalted music; and to be with you is to understand that all
+imaginable sorrows are just the figments of a dream which I had very
+long ago."
+
+She laid one hand on each of his shoulders, facing him.  "Do not let me
+be too much afraid!  I have not ever been afraid before.  Oh,
+everything is in a mist of gold, and I am afraid of you, and of the big
+universe which I was born into, and I am helpless, and I would have
+nothing changed!  Only, I cannot believe I am worth L10,000, and I do
+so want to be persuaded I am.  It is a great pity," she sighed, "that
+you who convicted Warren Hastings of stealing such enormous wealth
+cannot be quite as eloquent to-day as you were in the Oudh speech, and
+convince me his arraigner has been equally rapacious!"
+
+"I mean to prove as much--with time," said Mr. Sheridan.  His breathing
+was yet perfunctory.
+
+Miss Ogle murmured, "And how long would you require?"
+
+"Why, I intend, with your permission, to devote the remainder of my
+existence to the task.  Eh, I concede that space too brief for any
+adequate discussion of the topic; but I will try to be concise and very
+practical----"
+
+She laughed.  They were content.  "Try, then----" Miss Ogle said.
+
+She was able to get no farther in the sentence, for reasons which to
+particularize would be indiscreet.
+
+
+
+
+A PRINCESS OF GRUB STREET
+
+
+"_Though--or, rather, because--VANDERHOFFEN was a child of the French
+Revolution, and inherited his social, political and religious--or,
+rather, anti-religious--views from the French writers of the eighteenth
+century, England was not ready for him and the unshackled individualism
+for which he at first contended.  Recognizing this fact, he turned to
+an order of writing begotten of the deepest popular needs and addressed
+to the best intelligence of the great middle classes of the community._"
+
+
+  Now emperors bide their times' rebuff
+  I would not be a king--enough
+      Of woe it is to love;
+  The paths of power are steep and rough,
+      And tempests reign above.
+
+  I would not climb the imperial throne;
+  'Tis built on ice which fortune's sun
+      Thaws in the height of noon.
+  Then farewell, kings, that squeak 'Ha' done!'
+      To time's full-throated tune.
+
+  PAUL VANDERHOFFEN.--_Emma and Caroline_.
+
+
+
+
+A PRINCESS OF GRUB STREET
+
+
+It is questionable if the announcement of the death of their Crown
+Prince, Hilary, upon the verge of his accession to the throne, aroused
+more than genteel regret among the inhabitants of Saxe-Kesselberg.  It
+is indisputable that in diplomatic circles news of this horrible
+occurrence was indirectly conceded in 1803 to smack of a direct
+intervention of Providence.  For to consider all the havoc dead Prince
+Fribble--such had been his sobriquet--would have created, _Dei gratia_,
+through his pilotage of an important grand-duchy (with an area of no
+less than eighty-nine square miles) was less discomfortable now
+prediction was an academic matter.
+
+And so the editors of divers papers were the victims of a decorous
+anguish, court-mourning was decreed, and that wreckage which passed for
+the mutilated body of Prince Hilary was buried with every appropriate
+honor.  Within the week most people had forgotten him, for everybody
+was discussing the execution of the Duc d'Enghein.  And the aged
+unvenerable Grand-Duke of Saxe-Kesselberg died too in the same March;
+and afterward his other grandson, Prince Augustus, reigned in the merry
+old debauchee's stead.
+
+Prince Hilary was vastly pleased.  His scheme for evading the tedious
+responsibilities of sovereignty had been executed without a hitch; he
+was officially dead; and, on the whole, standing bareheaded between a
+miller and laundress, he had found his funeral ceremonies to be
+unimpeachably conducted.  He assumed the name of Paul Vanderhoffen,
+selected at random from the novel he was reading when his postchaise
+conveyed him past the frontier of Saxe-Kesselberg.  Freed, penniless,
+and thoroughly content, he set about amusing himself--having a world to
+frisk in--and incidentally about the furnishing of his new friend Paul
+Vanderhoffen with life's necessaries.
+
+
+It was a little more than two years later that the good-natured Earl of
+Brudenel suggested to Lady John Claridge that she could nowhere find a
+more eligible tutor for her son than young Vanderhoffen.
+
+"Hasn't a shilling, ma'am, but one of the most popular men in London.
+His poetry book was subscribed for by the Prince Regent and half the
+notables of the kingdom.  Capital company at a dinner-table--stutters,
+begad, like a What-you-may-call-'em, and keeps everybody in a roar--and
+when he's had his whack of claret, he sings his own songs to the piano,
+you know, and all that sort of thing, and has quite put Tommy Moore's
+nose out of joint.  Nobody knows much about him, but that don't matter
+with these literary chaps, does it now?  Goes everywhere, ma'am--quite
+a favorite at Carlton House--a highly agreeable, well-informed man, I
+can assure you--and probably hasn't a shilling to pay the cabman.
+Deuced odd, ain't it?  But Lord Lansdowne is trying to get him a
+place--spoke to me about a tutorship, ma'am, in fact, just to keep
+Vanderhoffen going, until some registrarship or other falls vacant.
+Now, I ain't clever and that sort of thing, but I quite agree with
+Lansdowne that we practical men ought to look out for these clever
+fellows--see that they don't starve in a garret, like poor
+What's-his-name, don't you know?"
+
+Lady Claridge sweetly agreed with her future son-in-law.  So it befell
+that shortly after this conversation Paul Vanderhoffen came to
+Leamington Manor, and through an entire summer goaded young Percival
+Claridge, then on the point of entering Cambridge, but pedagogically
+branded as "deficient in mathematics," through many elaborate
+combinations of x and y and cosines and hyperbolas.
+
+Lady John Claridge, mother to the pupil, approved of the new tutor.
+True, he talked much and wildishly; but literary men had a name for
+eccentricity, and, besides, Lady Claridge always dealt with the
+opinions of other people as matters of illimitable unimportance.  This
+baronet's lady, in short, was in these days vouchsafing to the universe
+at large a fine and new benevolence, now that her daughter was safely
+engaged to Lord Brudenel, who, whatever his other virtues, was
+certainly a peer of England and very rich.  It seems irrelevant, and
+yet for the tale's sake is noteworthy, that any room which harbored
+Lady John Claridge was through this fact converted into an absolute
+monarchy.
+
+And so, by the favor of Lady Claridge and destiny, the tutor stayed at
+Leamington Manor all summer.
+
+There was nothing in either the appearance or demeanor of the fiancee
+of Lord Brudenel's title and superabundant wealth which any honest
+gentleman could, hand upon his heart, describe as blatantly repulsive.
+
+It may not be denied the tutor noted this.  In fine, he fell in love
+with Mildred Claridge after a thorough-going fashion such as Prince
+Fribble would have found amusing.  Prince Fribble would have smiled,
+shrugged, drawled, "Eh, after all, the girl is handsome and deplorably
+cold-blooded!"  Paul Vanderhoffen said, "I am not fit to live in the
+same world with her," and wrote many verses in the prevailing Oriental
+style rich in allusions to roses, and bulbuls, and gazelles, and peris,
+and minarets--which he sold rather profitably.
+
+Meanwhile, far oversea, the reigning Duke of Saxe-Kesselberg had been
+unwise enough to quarrel with his Chancellor, Georges Desmarets, an
+invaluable man whose only faults were dishonesty and a too intimate
+acquaintance with the circumstances of Prince Hilary's demise.  As
+fruit of this indiscretion, an inconsiderable tutor at Leamington
+Manor--whom Lady John Claridge regarded as a sort of upper servant was
+talking with a visitor.
+
+
+The tutor, it appeared, preferred to talk with the former Chancellor of
+Saxe-Kesselberg in the middle of an open field.  The time was
+afternoon, the season September, and the west was vaingloriously
+justifying the younger man's analogy of a gigantic Spanish omelette.
+Meanwhile, the younger man declaimed in a high-pitched pleasant voice,
+wherein there was, as always, the elusive suggestion of a stutter.
+
+"I repeat to you," the tutor observed, "that no consideration will ever
+make a grand-duke of me excepting over my dead body.  Why don't you
+recommend some not quite obsolete vocation, such as making papyrus, or
+writing an interesting novel, or teaching people how to dance a
+saraband?  For after all, what is a monarch nowadays--oh, even a
+monarch of the first class?" he argued, with what came near being a
+squeak of indignation.  "The poor man is a rather pitiable and
+perfectly useless relic of barbarism, now that 1789 has opened our
+eyes; and his main business in life is to ride in open carriages and
+bow to an applauding public who are applauding at so much per head.  He
+must expect to be aspersed with calumny, and once in a while with
+bullets.  He may at the utmost aspire to introduce an innovation in
+evening dress,--the Prince Regent, for instance, has invented a really
+very creditable shoe-buckle.  Tradition obligates him to devote his
+unofficial hours to sheer depravity----"
+
+Paul Vanderhoffen paused to meditate.
+
+"Why, there you are! another obstacle!  I have in an inquiring spirit
+and without prejudice sampled all the Seven Deadly Sins, and the common
+increment was an inability to enjoy my breakfast.  A grand-duke I take
+it, if he have any sense of the responsibilities of his position, will
+piously remember the adage about the voice of the people and hasten to
+be steeped in vice--and thus conform to every popular notion concerning
+a grand-duke.  Why, common intelligence demands that a grand-duke
+should brazenly misbehave himself upon the more conspicuous high-places
+of Chemosh! and personally, I have no talents such as would qualify me
+for a life of cynical and brutal immorality.  I lack the necessary
+aptitude, I would not ever afford any spicy gossip concerning the Duke
+of Saxe-Kesselberg, and the editors of the society papers would
+unanimously conspire to dethrone me----"
+
+Thus he argued, with his high-pitched pleasant voice, wherein there
+was, as always, the elusive suggestion of a stutter.  And here the
+other interrupted.
+
+"There is no need of names, your highness." Georges Desmarets was
+diminutive, black-haired and corpulent.  He was of dapper appearance,
+point-device in everything, and he reminded you of a perky robin.
+
+The tutor flung out an "Ouf! I must recall to you that, thank heaven, I
+am not anybody's highness any longer.  I am Paul Vanderhoffen."
+
+"He says that he is not Prince Fribble!"--the little man addressed the
+zenith--"as if any other person ever succeeded in talking a half-hour
+without being betrayed into at least one sensible remark.  Oh, how do
+you manage without fail to be so consistently and stupendously idiotic?"
+
+"It is, like all other desirable traits, either innate or else just
+unattainable," the other answered.  "I am so hopelessly light-minded
+that I cannot refrain from being rational even in matters which concern
+me personally--and this, of course, no normal being ever thinks of
+doing.  I really cannot help it."
+
+The Frenchman groaned whole-heartedly.
+
+"But we were speaking--well, of foreign countries.  Now, Paul
+Vanderhoffen has read that in one of these countries there was once a
+prince who very narrowly escaped figuring as a self-conscious
+absurdity, as an anachronism, as a life-long prisoner of etiquette.
+However, with the assistance of his cousin--who, incidentally, was also
+his heir--the prince most opportunely died.  Oh, pedant that you are!
+in any event he was interred.  And so, the prince was gathered to his
+fathers, and his cousin Augustus reigned in his stead.  Until a certain
+politician who had been privy to this pious fraud----"  The tutor
+shrugged.  "How can I word it without seeming hypercritical?"
+
+Georges Desmarets stretched out appealing hands.  "But, I protest, it
+was the narrow-mindedness of that pernicious prig, your cousin--who
+firmly believes himself to be an improved and augmented edition of the
+Four Evangelists----"
+
+"Well, in any event, the proverb was attested that birds of a feather
+make strange bedfellows.  There was a dispute concerning some petit
+larceny--some slight discrepancy, we will imagine, since all this is
+pure romance, in the politician's accounts----"
+
+"Now you belie me----" said the black-haired man, and warmly.
+
+"Oh, Desmarets, you are as vain as ever!  Let us say, then, of grand
+larceny.  In any event, the politician was dismissed.  And what, my
+dears, do you suppose this bold and bad and unprincipled Machiavelli
+went and did?  Why, he made straight for the father of the princess the
+usurping duke was going to marry, and surprised everybody by showing
+that, at a pinch, even this Guy Fawkes--who was stuffed with all manner
+of guile and wickedness where youthful patriotism would ordinarily
+incline to straw--was capable of telling the truth.  And so the father
+broke off the match.  And the enamored, if usurping, duke wept bitterly
+and tore his hair to such an extent he totally destroyed his best
+toupet.  And privily the Guy Fawkes came into the presence of the
+exiled duke and prated of a restoration to ancestral dignities.  And he
+was spurned by a certain highly intelligent person who considered it
+both tedious and ridiculous to play at being emperor of a backyard.
+And then--I really don't recall what happened.  But there was a general
+and unqualified deuce to pay with no pitch at a really satisfying
+temperature."
+
+The stouter man said quietly:  "It is a thrilling tale which you
+narrate.  Only, I do recall what happened then.  The usurping duke was
+very much in earnest, desirous of retaining his little kingdom, and
+particularly desirous of the woman whom he loved.  In consequence, he
+had Monsieur the Runaway obliterated while the latter was talking
+nonsense----"
+
+The tutor's brows had mounted.
+
+"I scorn to think it even of anybody who is controlled in every action
+by a sense of duty," Georges Desmarets explained, "that Duke Augustus
+would cause you to be murdered in your sleep."
+
+"A hit!"  The younger man unsmilingly gesticulated like one who has
+been touched in sword-play.  "Behold now, as the populace in their
+blunt way would phrase it, I am squelched."
+
+"And so the usurping duke was married and lived happily ever
+afterward." Georges Desmarets continued: "I repeat to you there is only
+the choice between declaring yourself and being--we will say, removed.
+Your cousin is deeply in love with the Princess Sophia, and thanks to
+me, has now no chance of marrying her until his title has been secured
+by your--removal.  Do not deceive yourself.  High interests are
+involved.  You are the grain of sand between big wheels.  I iterate
+that the footpad who attacked you last night was merely a prologue.  I
+happen to know your cousin has entrusted the affair to Heinrich
+Obendorf, his foster-brother, who, as you will remember, is not
+particularly squeamish."
+
+Paul Vanderhoffen thought a while.  "Desmarets," he said at last, "it
+is no use.  I scorn your pribbles and your prabbles.  I bargained with
+Augustus.  I traded a duchy for my personal liberty.  Frankly, I would
+be sorry to connect a sharer of my blood with the assault of yesterday.
+To be unpardonably candid, I have not ever found that your assertion of
+an event quite proved it had gone through the formality of occurring.
+And so I shall hold to my bargain."
+
+"The night brings counsel," Desmarets returned.  "It hardly needs a
+night, I think, to demonstrate that all I say is true."
+
+And so they parted.
+
+
+Having thus dismissed such trifles as statecraft and the well-being of
+empires, Paul Vanderhoffen turned toward consideration of the one
+really serious subject in the universe, which was of course the bright,
+miraculous and incredible perfection of Mildred Claridge.
+
+"I wonder what you think of me?  I wonder if you ever think of me?" The
+thought careered like a caged squirrel, now that he walked through
+autumn woods toward her home.
+
+"I wish that you were not so sensible.  I wish your mother were not
+even more so.  The woman reeks with common-sense, and knows that to be
+common is to be unanswerable.  I wish that a dispute with her were not
+upon a par with remonstrance against an earthquake."
+
+He lighted a fresh cheroot.  "And so you are to marry the Brudenel
+title and bank account, with this particular Heleigh thrown in as a
+dividend.  And why not? the estate is considerable; the man who
+encumbers it is sincere in his adoration of you; and, chief of all,
+Lady John Claridge has decreed it.  And your decision in any matter has
+always lain between the claws of that steel-armored crocodile who, by
+some miracle, is your mother.  Oh, what a universe! were I of hasty
+temperament I would cry out, TUT AND GO TO!"
+
+This was the moment which the man hid in the thicket selected as most
+fit for intervention through the assistance of a dueling pistol.  Paul
+Vanderhoffen reeled, his face bewilderment.  His hands clutched toward
+the sky, as if in anguish he grasped at some invisible support, and he
+coughed once or twice.  It was rather horrible.  Then Vanderhoffen
+shivered as though he were very cold, and tottered and collapsed in the
+parched roadway.
+
+A slinking man whose lips were gray and could not refrain from
+twitching came toward the limp heap.  "So----!" said the man.  One of
+his hands went to the tutor's breast, and in his left hand dangled a
+second dueling pistol.  He had thrown away the other after firing it.
+
+"And so----!" observed Paul Vanderhoffen.  Afterward there was a
+momentary tussle.  Now Paul Vanderhoffen stood erect and flourished the
+loaded pistol.  "If you go on this way," he said, with some severity,
+"you will presently be neither loved nor respected.  There was a time,
+though, when you were an excellent shot, Herr Heinrich Obendorf."
+
+"I had my orders, highness," said the other stolidly.
+
+"Oh yes, of course," Paul Vanderhoffen answered.  "You had your
+orders--from Augustus!"  He seemed to think of something very far away.
+He smiled, with quizzically narrowed eyes such as you may yet see in
+Raeburn's portrait of the man.  "I was remembering, oddly enough, that
+elm just back of the Canova Pavilion--as it was twenty years ago.  I
+managed to scramble up it, but Augustus could not follow me because he
+had such short fat little legs.  He was so proud of what I had done
+that he insisted on telling everybody--and afterward we had oranges for
+luncheon, I remember, and sucked them through bits of sugar.  It is not
+fair that you must always remember and always love that boy who played
+with you when you were little--after he has grown up to be another
+person.  Eh no!  youth passes, but all its memories of unimportant
+things remain with you and are less kind than any self-respecting viper
+would be.  Decidedly, it is not fair, and some earnest-minded person
+ought to write to his morning paper about it. . . .  I think that is
+the reason I am being a sentimental fool," Paul Vanderhoffen explained.
+
+Then his teeth clicked.  "Get on, my man," he said.  "Do not remain too
+near to me, because there was a time when I loved your employer quite
+as much as you do.  This fact is urging me to dangerous ends.  Yes, it
+is prompting me, even while I talk with you, to give you a lesson in
+marksmanship, my inconveniently faithful Heinrich."
+
+He shrugged.  He lighted a cheroot with hands whose tremblings, he
+devoutly hoped, were not apparent, for Prince Fribble had been ashamed
+to manifest a sincere emotion of any sort, and Paul Vanderhoffen shared
+as yet this foible.
+
+"Oh Brutus!  Ravaillac!  Damiens!" he drawled.  "O general compendium
+of misguided aspirations! do be a duck and get along with you.  And I
+would run as hard as I could, if I were you, for it is war now, and you
+and I are not on the same side."
+
+
+Paul Vanderhoffen paused a hundred yards or so from this to shake his
+head.  "Come, come! I have lost so much that I cannot afford to throw
+my good temper into the bargain.  To endure with a grave face this
+perfectly unreasonable universe wherein destiny has locked me is
+undoubtedly meritorious; but to bustle about it like a caged canary,
+and not ever to falter in your hilarity, is heroic.  Let us, by all
+means, not consider the obdurate if gilded barriers, but rather the
+lettuce and the cuttle-bone.  I have my choice between becoming a
+corpse or a convict--a convict? ah, undoubtedly a convict, sentenced to
+serve out a life-term in a cess-pool of castby superstitions."
+
+He smiled now over Paul Vanderhoffen's rage.  "Since the situation is
+tragic, let us approach it in an appropriate spirit of frivolity.  My
+circumstances bully me.  And I succumb to irrationality, as rational
+persons invariably end by doing.  But, oh, dear me! oh, Osiris,
+Termagaunt, and Zeus! to think there are at least a dozen other
+ne'er-do-wells alive who would prefer to make a mess of living as a
+grand-duke rather than as a scribbler in Grub Street!  Well, well! the
+jest is not of my contriving, and the one concession a sane man will
+never yield the universe is that of considering it seriously."
+
+And he strode on, resolved to be Prince Fribble to the last.
+
+"Frivolity," he said, "is the smoked glass through which a civilized
+person views the only world he has to live in.  For, otherwise, he
+could not presume to look upon such coruscations of insanity and remain
+unblinded."
+
+This heartened him, as a rounded phrase will do the best of us.  But
+by-and-bye,
+
+"Frivolity," he groaned, "is really the cheap mask incompetence claps
+on when haled before a mirror."
+
+
+And at Leamington Manor he found her strolling upon the lawn.  It was
+an ordered, lovely scene, steeped now in the tranquillity of evening.
+Above, the stars were losing diffidence.  Below, and within arms'
+reach, Mildred Claridge was treading the same planet on which he
+fidgeted and stuttered.
+
+Something in his heart snapped like a fiddle-string, and he was
+entirely aware of this circumstance.  As to her eyes, teeth, coloring,
+complexion, brows, height and hair, it is needless to expatiate.  The
+most painstaking inventory of these chattels would necessarily be
+misleading, because the impression which they conveyed to him was that
+of a bewildering, but not distasteful, transfiguration of the universe,
+apt as a fanfare at the entrance of a queen.
+
+But he would be Prince Fribble to the last.  And so, "Wait just a
+moment, please," he said, "I want to harrow up your soul and freeze
+your blood."
+
+Wherewith he suavely told her everything about Paul Vanderhoffen's
+origin and the alternatives now offered him, and she listened without
+comment.
+
+"Ai! ai!" young Vanderhoffen perorated; "the situation is complete.  I
+have not the least desire to be Grand-Duke of Saxe-Kesselberg.  It is
+too abominably tedious.  But, if I do not join in with Desmarets, who
+has the guy-ropes of a restoration well in hand, I must inevitably
+be--removed, as the knave phrases it.  For as long as I live, I will be
+an insuperable barrier between Augustus and his Sophia.  Otototoi!" he
+wailed, with a fine tone of tragedy, "the one impossible achievement in
+my life has always been to convince anybody that it was mine to dispose
+of as I elected!"
+
+"Oh, man proposes----" she began, cryptically.  Then he deliberated,
+and sulkily submitted:  "But I may not even propose to abdicate.
+Augustus has put himself upon sworn record as an eye-witness of my
+hideous death.  And in consequence I might keep on abdicating from now
+to the crack of doom, and the only course left open to him would be to
+treat me as an impostor."
+
+She replied, with emphasis, "I think your cousin is a beast!"
+
+"Ah, but the madman is in love," he pleaded.  "You should not judge
+poor masculinity in such a state by any ordinary standards.  Oh really,
+you don't know the Princess Sophia.  She is, in sober truth, the nicest
+person who was ever born a princess.  Why, she had actually made a mock
+of even that handicap, for ordinarily it is as disastrous to feminine
+appearance as writing books.  And, oh, Lord! they will be marrying her
+to me, if Desmarets and I win out."  Thus he forlornly ended.
+
+"The designing minx!" Miss Claridge said, distinctly.
+
+"Now, gracious lady, do be just a cooing pigeon and grant that when men
+are in love they are not any more encumbered by abstract notions about
+honor than if they had been womanly from birth.  Come, let's be lyrical
+and open-minded," he urged; and he added, "No, either you are in love
+or else you are not in love.  And nothing else will matter either way.
+You see, if men and women had been primarily designed to be rational
+creatures, there would be no explanation for their being permitted to
+continue in existence," he lucidly explained.  "And to have grasped
+this fact is the pith of all wisdom."
+
+"Oh, I am very wise."  A glint of laughter shone in her eyes.  "I would
+claim to be another Pythoness if only it did not sound so snaky and
+wriggling.  So, from my trident--or was it a Triton they used to stand
+on?--I announce that you and your Augustus are worrying yourselves
+gray-headed over an idiotically simple problem.  Now, I disposed of it
+offhand when I said, 'Man proposes.'"
+
+He seemed to be aware of some one who from a considerable distance was
+inquiring her reasons for this statement.
+
+"Because in Saxe-Kesselberg, as in all other German states, when a
+prince of the reigning house marries outside of the mediatized nobility
+he thereby forfeits his right of succession.  It has been done any
+number of times.  Why, don't you see, Mr. Vanderhoffen?  Conceding you
+ever do such a thing, your cousin Augustus would become at once the
+legal heir.  So you must marry.  It is the only way, I think, to save
+you from regal incarceration and at the same time to reassure the
+Prince of Lueminster--that creature's father--that you have not, and
+never can have, any claim which would hold good in law.  Then Duke
+Augustus could peaceably espouse his Sophia and go on reigning---- And,
+by the way, I have seen her picture often, and if that is what you call
+beauty----" Miss Claridge did not speak this last at least with any air
+of pointing out the self-evident.
+
+And, "I believe," he replied, "that all this is actually happening.  I
+might have known fate meant to glut her taste for irony."
+
+"But don't you see?  You have only to marry anybody outside of the
+higher nobility--and just as a makeshift----"  She had drawn closer in
+the urgency of her desire to help him.  An infinite despair and mirth
+as well was kindled by her nearness.  And the man was insane and dimly
+knew as much.
+
+And so, "I see," he answered.  "But, as it happens, I cannot marry any
+woman, because I love a particular woman.  At least, I suppose she
+isn't anything but just a woman.  That statement," he announced, "is a
+formal tribute paid by what I call my intellect to what the vulgar call
+the probabilities.  The rest of me has no patience whatever with such
+idiotic blasphemy."
+
+She said, "I think I understand."  And this surprised him, coming as it
+did from her whom he had always supposed to be the fiancee of Lord
+Brudenel's title and bank-account.
+
+"And, well!"--he waved his hands--"either as tutor or as grand-duke,
+this woman is unattainable, because she has been far too carefully
+reared"--and here he frenziedly thought of that terrible matron whom,
+as you know, he had irreverently likened to a crocodile--"either to
+marry a pauper or to be contented with a left-handed alliance.  And I
+love her.  And so"--he shrugged--"there is positively nothing left to
+do save sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the deaths of
+kings."
+
+She said, "Oh, and you mean it!  You are speaking the plain truth!"  A
+change had come into her lovely face which would have made him think it
+even lovelier had not that contingency been beyond conception.
+
+And Mildred Claridge said, "It is not fair for dreamers such as you to
+let a woman know just how he loves her.  That is not wooing.  It is
+bullying."
+
+His lips were making a variety of irrational noises.  And he was near
+to her.  Also he realized that he had never known how close akin were
+fear and joy, so close the two could mingle thus, and be quite
+undistinguishable.  And then repentance smote him.
+
+"I am contemptible!" he groaned.  "I had no right to trouble you with
+my insanities.  Indeed I had not ever meant to let you guess how mad I
+was.  But always I have evaded my responsibilities.  So I remain Prince
+Fribble to the last."
+
+"Oh, but I knew, I have always known."  She held her eyes away from
+him.  "And I wrote to Lord Brudenel only yesterday releasing him from
+his engagement."
+
+And now without uncertainty or haste Paul Vanderhoffen touched her
+cheek and raised her face, so that he saw it plainly in the rising
+twilight, and all its wealth of tenderness newborn.  And what he saw
+there frightened him.
+
+For the girl loved him!  He felt himself to be, as most men do, a
+swindler when he comprehended this preposterous fact; and, in addition,
+he thought of divers happenings, such as shipwrecks, holocausts and
+earthquakes, which might conceivably have appalled him, and understood
+that he would never in his life face any sense of terror as huge as was
+this present sweet and illimitable awe.
+
+And then he said, "You know that what I hunger for is impossible.
+There are so many little things, like common-sense, to be considered.
+For this is just a matter which concerns you and Paul Vanderhoffen--a
+literary hack, a stuttering squeak-voiced ne'er-do-well, with an
+acquired knack for scribbling verses that are feeble-minded enough for
+Annuals and Keepsake Books, and so fetch him an occasional guinea.
+For, my dear, the verses I write of my own accord are not sufficiently
+genteel to be vended in Paternoster Row; they smack too dangerously of
+human intelligence.  So I am compelled, perforce, to scribble such
+jingles as I am ashamed to read, because I must write
+_something_. . . ." Paul Vanderhoffen shrugged, and continued, in tones
+more animated: "There will be no talk of any grand-duke.  Instead,
+there will be columns of denunciation and tittle-tattle in every
+newspaper--quite as if you, a baronet's daughter, had run away with a
+footman.  And you will very often think wistfully of Lord Brudenel's
+fine house when your only title is--well, Princess of Grub Street, and
+your realm is a garret.  And for a while even to-morrow's breakfast
+will be a problematical affair.  It is true Lord Lansdowne has promised
+me a registrarship in the Admiralty Court, and I do not think he will
+fail me.  But that will give us barely enough to live on--with strict
+economy, which is a virtue that neither of us knows anything about.  I
+beg you to remember that--you who have been used to every luxury!  you
+who really were devised that you might stand beside an emperor and set
+tasks for him.  In fine, you know----"
+
+And Mildred Claridge said, "I know that, quite as I observed, man
+proposes--when he has been sufficiently prodded by some one who,
+because she is an idiot--And that is why I am not blushing--very
+much----"
+
+"Your coloring is not--repellent."  His high-pitched pleasant voice, in
+spite of him, shook now with more than its habitual suggestion of a
+stutter.  "What have you done to me, my dear?" he said.  "Why can't I
+jest at this . . . as I have always done at everything----?"
+
+"Boy, boy!" she said; "laughter is excellent.  And wisdom too is
+excellent.  Only I think that you have laughed too much, and I have
+been too shrewd--But now I know that it is better to be a princess in
+Grub Street than to figure at Ranelagh as a good-hearted fool's latest
+purchase.  For Lord Brudenel is really very good-natured," she argued,
+"and I did like him, and mother was so set upon it--and he was
+rich--and I honestly thought----"
+
+"And now?" he said.
+
+"And now I know," she answered happily.
+
+They looked at each other for a little while.  Then he took her hand,
+prepared in turn for self-denial.
+
+"The _Household Review_ wants me to 'do' a series on famous English
+bishops," he reported, humbly.  "I had meant to refuse, because it
+would all have to be dull High-Church twaddle.  And the _English
+Gentleman_ wants some rather outrageous lying done in defense of the
+Corn Laws.  You would not despise me too much--would you, Mildred?--if
+I undertook it now.  I really have no choice.  And there is plenty of
+hackwork of that sort available to keep us going until more solvent
+days, when I shall have opportunity to write something quite worthy of
+you."
+
+"For the present, dear, it would be much more sensible, I think, to
+'do' the bishops and the Corn Laws.  You see, that kind of thing pays
+very well, and is read by the best people; whereas poetry, of course--
+But you can always come back to the verse-making, you know----"
+
+"If you ever let me," he said, with a flash of prescience.  "And I
+don't believe you mean to let me.  You are your mother's daughter,
+after all!  Nefarious woman, you are planning, already, to make a
+responsible member of society out of me! and you will do it,
+ruthlessly!  Such is to be Prince Fribble's actual burial--in his own
+private carriage, with a receipted tax-bill in his pocket!"
+
+"What nonsense you poets talk!" the girl observed.  But to him,
+forebodingly, that familiar statement seemed to lack present
+application.
+
+
+
+
+THE LADY OF ALL OUR DREAMS
+
+
+"_In JOHN CHARTERIS appeared a man with an inborn sense of the supreme
+interest and the overwhelming emotional and spiritual relevancy of
+human life as it is actually and obscurely lived; a man with
+unmistakable creative impulses and potentialities; a man who, had he
+lived in a more mature and less self-deluding community--a community
+that did not so rigorously confine its interest in facts to business,
+and limit its demands upon art to the supplying of illusions--might
+humbly and patiently have schooled his gifts to the service of his
+vision. . . .  As it was, he accepted defeat and compromised
+half-heartedly with commercialism._"
+
+
+
+  And men unborn will read of Heloise,
+      And Ruth, and Rosamond, and Semele,
+      When none remembers your name's melody
+  Or rhymes your name, enregistered with these.
+
+  And will my name wake moods as amorous
+      As that of Abelard or Launcelot
+  Arouses? be recalled when Pyramus
+      And Tristram are unrhymed of and forgot?--
+  Time's laughter answers, who accords to us
+      More gracious fields, wherein we harvest--what?
+
+  JOHN CHARTERIS. _Torrismond's Envoi, in Ashtaroth's Lackey_.
+
+
+
+
+THE LADY OF ALL OUR DREAMS
+
+
+"Our distinguished alumnus," after being duly presented as such, had
+with vivacity delivered much the usual sort of Commencement Address.
+Yet John Charteris was in reality a trifle fagged.
+
+The afternoon train had been vexatiously late.  The little novelist had
+found it tedious to interchange inanities with the committee awaiting
+him at the Pullman steps.  Nor had it amused him to huddle into
+evening-dress, and hasten through a perfunctory supper in order to
+reassure his audience at half-past eight precisely as to the
+unmitigated delight of which he was now conscious.
+
+Nevertheless, he alluded with enthusiasm to the arena of life, to the
+dependence of America's destiny upon the younger generation, to the
+enviable part King's College had without exception played in history,
+and he depicted to Fairhaven the many glories of Fairhaven--past,
+present and approaching--in superlatives that would hardly have seemed
+inadequate if applied to Paradise.  His oration, in short, was of a
+piece with the amiable bombast that the college students and Fairhaven
+at large were accustomed to applaud at every Finals--the sort of
+linguistic debauch that John Charteris himself remembered to have
+applauded as an undergraduate more years ago than he cared to
+acknowledge.
+
+Pauline Romeyne had sat beside him then--yonder, upon the fourth bench
+from the front, where now another boy with painstakingly plastered hair
+was clapping hands.  There was a girl on the right of this boy, too.
+There naturally would be.  Mr. Charteris as he sat down was wondering
+if Pauline was within reach of his voice?  and if she were, what was
+her surname nowadays?
+
+Then presently the exercises were concluded, and the released auditors
+arose with an outwelling noise of multitudinous chatter, of shuffling
+feet, of rustling programs.  Many of Mr. Charteris' audience, though,
+were contending against the general human outflow and pushing toward
+the platform, for Fairhaven was proud of John Charteris now that his
+colorful tales had risen, from the semi-oblivion of being cherished
+merely by people who cared seriously for beautiful things, to the
+distinction of being purchasable in railway stations; so that, in
+consequence, Fairhaven wished both to congratulate him and to renew
+acquaintanceship.
+
+He, standing there, alert and quizzical, found it odd to note how
+unfamiliar beaming faces climbed out of the hurly-burly of retreating
+backs, to say, "Don't you remember me?  I'm so-and-so."  These were the
+people whom he had lived among once, and some of these had once been
+people whom he loved.  Now there was hardly any one whom at a glance he
+would have recognized.
+
+Nobody guessed as much.  He was adjudged to be delightful, cordial,
+"and not a bit stuck-up, not spoiled at all, you know."  To appear this
+was the talisman with which he banteringly encountered the universe.
+
+But John Charteris, as has been said, was in reality a trifle fagged.
+When everybody had removed to the Gymnasium, where the dancing was to
+be, and he had been delightful there, too, for a whole half-hour, he
+grasped with avidity at his first chance to slip away, and did so under
+cover of a riotous two-step.
+
+He went out upon the Campus.
+
+He found this lawn untenanted, unless you chose to count the marble
+figure of Lord Penniston, made aerial and fantastic by the moonlight,
+standing as it it were on guard over the College.  Mr. Charteris chose
+to count him.  Whimsically, Mr. Charteris reflected that this battered
+nobleman's was the one familiar face he had exhumed in all Fairhaven.
+And what a deal of mirth and folly, too, the old fellow must have
+witnessed during his two hundred and odd years of sentry-duty!  On
+warm, clear nights like this, in particular, when by ordinary there
+were only couples on the Campus, each couple discreetly remote from any
+of the others.  Then Penniston would be aware of most portentous pauses
+(which a delectable and lazy conference of leaves made eloquent)
+because of many unfinished sentences.  "Oh, YOU know what I mean,
+dear!" one would say as a last resort.  And she-why, bless her heart!
+of course, she always did. . . .  Heigho, youth's was a pleasant
+lunacy. . . .
+
+Thus Charteris reflected, growing drowsy.  She said, "You spoke very
+well to-night.  Is it too late for congratulations?"
+
+Turning, Mr. Charteris remarked, "As you are perfectly aware, all that
+I vented was just a deal of skimble-scamble stuff, a verbal syllabub of
+balderdash.  No, upon reflection, I think I should rather describe it
+as a conglomeration of piffle, patriotism and pyrotechnics.  Well,
+Madam Do-as-you-would-be-done-by, what would you have?  You must give
+people what they want."
+
+It was characteristic that he faced Pauline Romeyne--or was it still
+Romeyne? he wondered--precisely as if it had been fifteen minutes,
+rather than as many years, since they had last spoken together.
+
+"Must one?" she asked.  "Oh, yes, I know you have always thought that,
+but I do not quite see the necessity of it."
+
+She sat upon the bench beside Lord Penniston's square marble pedestal.
+"And all the while you spoke I was thinking of those Saturday nights
+when your name was up for an oration or a debate before the Eclectics,
+and you would stay away and pay the fine rather than brave an audience."
+
+"The tooth of Time," he reminded her, "has since then written wrinkles
+on my azure brow.  The years slip away fugacious, and Time that brings
+forth her children only to devour them grins most hellishly, for Time
+changes all things and cultivates even in herself an appreciation of
+irony,--and, therefore, why shouldn't I have changed a trifle?  You
+wouldn't have me put on exhibition as a _lusus naturae_?"
+
+"Oh, but I wish you had not altered so entirely!" Pauline sighed.
+
+"At least, you haven't," he declared.  "Of course, I would be compelled
+to say so, anyhow.  But in this happy instance courtesy and veracity
+come skipping arm-in-arm from my elated lips."  And, indeed, it seemed
+to him that Pauline was marvelously little altered.  "I wonder now," he
+said, and cocked his head, "I wonder now whose wife I am talking to?"
+
+"No, Jack, I never married," she said quietly.
+
+"It is selfish of me," he said, in the same tone, "but I am glad of
+that."
+
+And so they sat a while, each thinking.
+
+"I wonder," said Pauline, with that small plaintive voice which
+Charteris so poignantly remembered, "whether it is always like this?
+Oh, do the Overlords of Life and Death ALWAYS provide some obstacle to
+prevent what all of us have known in youth was possible from ever
+coming true?"
+
+And again there was a pause which a delectable and lazy conference of
+leaves made eloquent.
+
+"I suppose it is because they know that if it ever did come true, we
+would be gods like them."  The ordinary associates of John Charteris,
+most certainly, would not have suspected him to be the speaker.  "So
+they contrive the obstacle, or else they send false dreams--out of the
+gates of horn--and make the path smooth, very smooth, so that two
+dreamers may not be hindered on their way to the divorce-courts."
+
+"Yes, they are jealous gods! oh, and ironical gods also!  They grant
+the Dream, and chuckle while they grant it, I think, because they know
+that later they will be bringing their playthings face to face--each
+married, fat, inclined to optimism, very careful of decorum, and
+perfectly indifferent to each other.  And then they get their
+fore-planned mirth, these Overlords of Life and Death.  'We gave you,'
+they chuckle, 'the loveliest and greatest thing infinity contains.  And
+you bartered it because of a clerkship or a lying maxim or perhaps a
+finger-ring.'  I suppose that they must laugh a great deal."
+
+"Eh, what?  But then you never married?"  For masculinity in argument
+starts with the word it has found distasteful.
+
+"Why, no."
+
+"Nor I."  And his tone implied that the two facts conjoined proved much.
+
+"Miss Willoughby----?" she inquired.
+
+Now, how in heaven's name, could a cloistered Fairhaven have surmised
+his intention of proposing on the first convenient opportunity to
+handsome, well-to-do Anne Willoughby?  He shrugged his wonder off.
+"Oh, people will talk, you know.  Let any man once find a woman has a
+tongue in her head, and the stage-direction is always 'Enter Rumor,
+painted full of tongues.'"
+
+Pauline did not appear to have remarked his protest.  "Yes,--in the end
+you will marry her.  And her money will help, just as you have
+contrived to make everything else help, toward making John Charteris
+comfortable.  She is not very clever, but she will always worship you,
+and so you two will not prove uncongenial.  That is your real tragedy,
+if I could make you comprehend."
+
+"So I am going to develop into a pig," he said, with relish,--"a
+lovable, contented, unambitious porcine, who is alike indifferent to
+the Tariff, the importance of Equal Suffrage and the market-price of
+hams, for all that he really cares about is to have his sty as
+comfortable as may be possible.  That is exactly what I am going to
+develop into,--now, isn't it?"  And John Charteris, sitting, as was his
+habitual fashion, with one foot tucked under him, laughed cheerily.
+Oh, just to be alive (he thought) was ample cause for rejoicing! and
+how deliciously her eyes, alert with slumbering fires, were peering
+through the moon-made shadows of her brows!
+
+"Well----! something of the sort." Pauline was smiling, but
+restrainedly, and much as a woman does in condoning the naughtiness of
+her child.  "And, oh, if only----"
+
+"Why, precisely.  'If only!' quotha.  Why, there you word the key-note,
+you touch the cornerstone, you ruthlessly illuminate the mainspring, of
+an intractable unfeeling universe.  For instance, if only
+
+  You were the Empress of Ayre and Skye,
+      And I were Ahkond of Kong,
+  We could dine every day on apple-pie,
+  And peddle potatoes, and sleep in a sty,
+  And people would say when we came to die,
+  'They _never_ did anything wrong.'
+
+But, as it is, our epitaphs will probably be nothing of the sort.  So
+that there lurks, you see, much virtue in this 'if only.'"
+
+Impervious to nonsense, she asked, "And have I not earned the right to
+lament that you are changed?"
+
+"I haven't robbed more than six churches up to date," he grumbled.
+"What would you have?"
+
+The answer came, downright, and, as he knew, entirely truthful:  "I
+would have had you do all that you might have done."
+
+But he must needs refine.  "Why, no--you would have made me do it,
+wrung out the last drop.  You would have bullied me and shamed me into
+being all that I might have been.  I see that now."  He spoke as if in
+wonder, with quickening speech.  "Pauline, I haven't been entirely not
+worth while.  Oh, yes, I know!  I know I haven't written five-act
+tragedies which would be immortal, as you probably expected me to do.
+My books are not quite the books I was to write when you and I were
+young.  But I have made at worst some neat, precise and joyous little
+tales which prevaricate tenderly about the universe and veil the
+pettiness of human nature with screens of verbal jewelwork.  It is not
+the actual world they tell about, but a vastly superior place where the
+Dream is realized and everything which in youth we knew was possible
+comes true.  It is a world we have all glimpsed, just once, and have
+not ever entered, and have not ever forgotten.  So people like my
+little tales. . . .  Do they induce delusions?  Oh, well, you must give
+people what they want, and literature is a vast bazaar where customers
+come to purchase everything except mirrors."
+
+She said soberly, "You need not make a jest of it.  It is not
+ridiculous that you write of beautiful and joyous things because there
+was a time when living was really all one wonderful adventure, and you
+remember it."
+
+"But, oh, my dear, my dear! such glum discussions are so sadly
+out-of-place on such a night as this," he lamented.  "For it is a night
+of pearl-like radiancies and velvet shadows and delicate odors and big
+friendly stars that promise not to gossip, whatever happens.  It is a
+night that hungers, and all its undistinguishable little sounds are
+voicing the night's hunger for masks and mandolins, for rope-ladders
+and balconies and serenades.  It is a night . . . a night wherein I
+gratefully remember so many beautiful sad things that never
+happened . . . to John Charteris, yet surely happened once upon a time
+to me . . ."
+
+"I think that I know what it is to remember--better than you do, Jack.
+But what do you remember?"
+
+"In faith, my dear, the most Bedlamitish occurrences!  It is a night
+that breeds deplorable insanities, I warn you.  For I seem to remember
+how I sat somewhere, under a peach-tree, in clear autumn weather, and
+was content; but the importance had all gone out of things; and even
+you did not seem very important, hardly worth lying to, as I spoke
+lightly of my wasted love for you, half in hatred, and--yes, still half
+in adoration.  For you were there, of course.  And I remember how I
+came to you, in a sinister and brightly lighted place, where a
+horrible, staring frail old man lay dead at your feet; and you had
+murdered him; and heaven did not care, and we were old, and all our
+lives seemed just to end in futile tangle-work.  And, again, I remember
+how we stood alone, with visible death crawling lazily toward us, as a
+big sullen sea rose higher and higher; and we little tinseled creatures
+waited, helpless, trapped and yearning. . . .  There is a boat in that
+picture; I suppose it was deeply laden with pirates coming to slit our
+throats from ear to ear.  I have forgotten that part, but I remember
+the tiny spot of courtplaster just above your painted lips. . . .  Such
+are the jumbled pictures.  They are bred of brain-fag, no doubt; yet,
+whatever be their lineage," said Charteris, happily, "they render glum
+discussion and platitudinous moralizing quite out of the question.  So,
+let's pretend, Pauline, that we are not a bit more worldly-wise than
+those youngsters who are frisking yonder in the Gymnasium--for, upon my
+word, I dispute if we have ever done anything to suggest that we are.
+Don't let's be cowed a moment longer by those bits of paper with
+figures on them which our too-credulous fellow-idiots consider to be
+the only almanacs.  Let's have back yesterday, let's tweak the nose of
+Time intrepidly." Then Charteris caroled:
+
+  "For Yesterday! for Yesterday!
+  I cry a reward for a Yesterday
+  Now lost or stolen or gone astray,
+  With all the laughter of Yesterday!"
+
+
+"And how slight a loss was laughter," she murmured--still with the
+vague and gentle eyes of a day-dreamer--"as set against all that we
+never earned in youth, and so will never earn."
+
+He inadequately answered "Bosh!" and later, "Do you remember----?" he
+began.
+
+Yes, she remembered that, it developed.  And "Do you remember----?" she
+in turn was asking later.  It was to seem to him in retrospection that
+neither for the next half-hour began a sentence without this formula.
+It was as if they sought to use it as a master-word wherewith to
+reanimate the happinesses and sorrows of their common past, and as if
+they found the charm was potent to awaken the thin, powerless ghosts of
+emotions that were once despotic.  For it was as if frail shadows and
+half-caught echoes were all they could evoke, it seemed to Charteris;
+and yet these shadows trooped with a wild grace, and the echoes
+thrilled him with the sweet and piercing surprise of a bird's call at
+midnight or of a bugle heard in prison.
+
+Then twelve o'clock was heralded by the College bell, and Pauline arose
+as though this equable deep-throated interruption of the music's levity
+had been a signal.  John Charteris saw her clearly now; and she was
+beautiful.
+
+"I must go.  You will not ever quite forget me, Jack.  Such is my sorry
+comfort."  It seemed to Charteris that she smiled as in mockery, and
+yet it was a very tender sort of derision.  "Yes, you have made your
+books.  You have done what you most desired to do.  You have got all
+from life that you have asked of life.  Oh, yes, you have got much from
+life.  One prize, though, Jack, you missed."
+
+He, too, had risen, quiet and perfectly sure of himself.  "I haven't
+missed it.  For you love me."
+
+This widened her eyes.  "Did I not always love you, Jack?  Yes, even
+when you went away forever, and there were no letters, and the days
+were long.  Yes, even knowing you, I loved you, John Charteris."
+
+"Oh, I was wrong, all wrong," he cried; "and yet there is something to
+be said upon the other side, as always. . . ."  Now Charteris was still
+for a while.  The little man's chin was uplifted so that it was toward
+the stars he looked rather than at Pauline Romeyne, and when he spoke
+he seemed to meditate aloud.  "I was born, I think, with the desire to
+make beautiful books--brave books that would preserve the glories of
+the Dream untarnished, and would re-create them for battered people,
+and re-awaken joy and magnanimity."  Here he laughed, a little
+ruefully.  "No, I do not think I can explain this obsession to any one
+who has never suffered from it.  But I have never in my life permitted
+anything to stand in the way of my fulfilling this desire to serve the
+Dream by re-creating it for others with picked words, and that has cost
+me something.  Yes, the Dream is an exacting master.  My books, such as
+they are, have been made what they are at the dear price of never
+permitting myself to care seriously for anything else.  I might not
+dare to dissipate my energies by taking any part in the drama I was
+attempting to re-write, because I must so jealously conserve all the
+force that was in me for the perfection of my lovelier version.  That
+may not be the best way of making books, but it is the only one that
+was possible for me.  I had so little natural talent, you see," said
+Charteris, wistfully, "and I was anxious to do so much with it.  So I
+had always to be careful.  It has been rather lonely, my dear.  Now,
+looking back, it seems to me that the part I have played in all other
+people's lives has been the role of a tourist who enters a cafe
+chantant, a fortress, or a cathedral, with much the same forlorn sense
+of detachment, and observes what there is to see that may be worth
+remembering, and takes a note or two, perhaps, and then leaves the
+place forever.  Yes, that is how I served the Dream and that is how I
+got my books.  They are very beautiful books, I think, but they cost me
+fifteen years of human living and human intimacy, and they are hardly
+worth so much."
+
+He turned to her, and his voice changed.  "Oh, I was wrong, all wrong,
+and chance is kindlier than I deserve.  For I have wandered after
+unprofitable gods, like a man blundering through a day of mist and fog,
+and I win home now in its golden sunset.  I have laughed very much, my
+dear, but I was never happy until to-night.  The Dream, as I now know,
+is not best served by making parodies of it, and it does not greatly
+matter after all whether a book be an epic or a directory.  What really
+matters is that there is so much faith and love and kindliness which we
+can share with and provoke in others, and that by cleanly, simple,
+generous living we approach perfection in the highest and most lovely
+of all arts. . . .  But you, I think, have always comprehended this.
+My dear, if I were worthy to kneel and kiss the dust you tread in I
+would do it.  As it happens, I am not worthy.  Pauline, there was a
+time when you and I were young together, when we aspired, when life
+passed as if it were to the measures of a noble music--a
+heart-wringing, an obdurate, an intolerable music, it might be, but
+always a lofty music.  One strutted, no doubt--it was because one knew
+oneself to be indomitable.  Eh, it is true I have won all I asked of
+life, very horribly true.  All that I asked, poor fool! oh, I am weary
+of loneliness, and I know now that all the phantoms I have raised are
+only colorless shadows which belie the Dream, and they are hateful to
+me.  I want just to recapture that old time we know of, and we two
+alone.  I want to know the Dream again, Pauline,--the Dream which I had
+lost, had half forgotten, and have so pitifully parodied.  I want to
+know the Dream again, Pauline, and you alone can help me."
+
+"Oh, if I could! if even I could now, my dear!" Pauline Romeyne left
+him upon a sudden, crying this.  And  "So!" said Mr. Charteris.
+
+He had been deeply shaken and very much in earnest; but he was never
+the man to give for any lengthy while too slack a rein to emotion; and
+so he now sat down upon the bench and lighted a cigarette and smiled.
+Yet he fully recognized himself to be the most enviable of men and an
+inhabitant of the most glorious world imaginable--a world wherein he
+very assuredly meant to marry Pauline Romeyne say, in the ensuing
+September.  Yes, that would fit in well enough, although, of course, he
+would have to cancel the engagement to lecture in Milwaukee. . . .  How
+lucky, too, it was that he had never actually committed himself with
+Anne Willoughby! for while money was an excellent thing to have, how
+infinitely less desirable it was to live perked up in golden sorrow
+than to feed flocks upon the Grampian Hills, where Freedom from the
+mountain height cried, "I go on forever, a prince can make a belted
+knight, and let who will be clever. . . ."
+
+
+"--and besides, you'll catch your death of cold," lamented Rudolph
+Musgrave, who was now shaking Mr. Charteris' shoulder.
+
+"Eh, what?  Oh, yes, I daresay I was napping," the other mumbled.  He
+stood and stretched himself luxuriously.  "Well, anyhow, don't be such
+an unmitigated grandmother.  You see, I have a bit of rather important
+business to attend to.  Which way is Miss Romeyne?"
+
+"Pauline Romeyne? why, but she married old General Ashmeade, you know.
+She was the gray-haired woman in purple who carried out her squalling
+brat when Taylor was introducing you, if you remember.  She told me,
+while the General was getting the horses around, how sorry she was to
+miss your address, but they live three miles out, and Mrs. Ashmeade is
+simply a slave to the children. . . .  Why, what in the world have you
+been dreaming about?"
+
+"Eh, what?  Oh, yes, I daresay I was only napping," Mr. Charteris
+observed.  He was aware that within they were still playing a riotous
+two-step.
+
+
+
+
+_BALLAD OF PLAGIARY_
+
+  "_Frères et matres, vous qui cultivez_"--PAUL VERVILLE.
+
+
+  Hey, my masters, lords and brothers, ye that till the fields of rhyme,
+  Are ye deaf ye will not hearken to the clamor of your time?
+
+  Still ye blot and change and polish--vary, heighten and transpose--
+  Old sonorous metres marching grandly to their tranquil close.
+
+  Ye have toiled and ye have fretted; ye attain perfected speech:
+  Ye have nothing new to utter and but platitudes to preach.
+
+  And your rhymes are all of loving, as within the old days when
+  Love was lord of the ascendant in the horoscopes of men.
+
+  Still ye make of love the utmost end and scope of all your art;
+  And, more blind than he you write of, note not what a modest part
+
+  Loving now may claim in living, when we have scant time to spare,
+  Who are plundering the sea-depths, taking tribute of the air,--
+
+  Whilst the sun makes pictures for us; since to-day, for good or ill,
+  Earth and sky and sea are harnessed, and the lightnings work our will.
+
+  Hey, my masters, all these love-songs by dust-hidden mouths were sung
+  That ye mimic and re-echo with an artful-artless tongue,--
+
+  Sung by poets close to nature, free to touch her garments' hem
+  Whom to-day ye know not truly; for ye only copy them.
+
+  Them ye copy--copy always, with your backs turned to the sun,
+  Caring not what man is doing, noting that which man has done.
+
+  _We are talking over telephones, as Shakespeare could not talk;_
+  _We are riding out in motor-cars where Homer had to walk;_
+
+  _And pictures Dante labored on of mediaeval Hell_
+  _The nearest cinematograph paints quicker, and as well._
+
+  But ye copy, copy always;--and ye marvel when ye find
+  This new beauty, that new meaning,--while a model stands behind,
+
+  Waiting, young and fair as ever, till some singer turn and trace
+  Something of the deathless wonder of life lived in any place.
+
+  Hey, my masters, turn from piddling to the turmoil and the strife!
+  Cease from sonneting, my brothers; let us fashion songs from life.
+
+  _Thus I wrote ere Percie passed me. . . .  Then did I epitomize_
+  _All life's beauty in one poem, and make haste to eulogize_
+  _Quite the fairest thing life boasts of, for I wrote of Percie's eyes._
+
+
+
+
+EXPLICIT DECAS POETARUM
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Certain Hour, by James Branch Cabell
+
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Certain Hour, by James Branch Cabell
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Certain Hour
+
+Author: James Branch Cabell
+
+Release Date: April 29, 2008 [EBook #288]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CERTAIN HOUR ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H1 ALIGN="center">
+THE CERTAIN HOUR
+</H1>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+(<I>Dizain des Poëtes</I>)
+</H3>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+By
+</H3>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+JAMES BRANCH CABELL
+</H2>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+    "Criticism, whatever may be its<BR>
+    pretensions, never does more than to<BR>
+    define the impression which is made upon<BR>
+    it at a certain moment by a work wherein<BR>
+    the writer himself noted the impression<BR>
+    of the world which he received at a<BR>
+    certain hour."<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+NEW YORK
+<BR>
+ROBERT M. McBRIDE & COMPANY
+<BR>
+1916
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H5 ALIGN="center">
+  Copyright, 1916, by Robert M. McBride & Co.<BR>
+  Copyright, 1915, by McBride, Nast & Co.<BR>
+  Copyright, 1914, by the Sewanee Review Quarterly<BR>
+  Copyright, 1913, by John Adams Thayer Corporation<BR>
+  Copyright, 1912, by Argonaut Publishing Company<BR>
+  Copyright, 1911, by Red Book Corporation<BR>
+  Copyright, 1909, by Harper and Brothers<BR>
+</H5>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+TO
+<BR>
+ROBERT GAMBLE CABELL II
+</H3>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+In Dedication of The Certain Hour<BR>
+</H3>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Sad hours and glad hours, and all hours, pass over;<BR>
+  One thing unshaken stays:<BR>
+  Life, that hath Death for spouse, hath Chance for lover;<BR>
+  Whereby decays<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Each thing save one thing:&mdash;mid this strife diurnal<BR>
+  Of hourly change begot,<BR>
+  Love that is God-born, bides as God eternal,<BR>
+  And changes not;&mdash;<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Nor means a tinseled dream pursuing lovers<BR>
+  Find altered by-and-bye,<BR>
+  When, with possession, time anon discovers<BR>
+  Trapped dreams must die,&mdash;<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;For he that visions God, of mankind gathers<BR>
+  One manlike trait alone,<BR>
+  And reverently imputes to Him a father's<BR>
+  Love for his son.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+                        CONTENTS<BR>
+</H2>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+<A HREF="#chap01">"<I>Ballad of the Double-Soul</I>"</A><BR>
+<A HREF="#chap02">AUCTORIAL INDUCTION</A><BR>
+<A HREF="#chap03">BELHS CAVALIERS</A><BR>
+<A HREF="#chap04">BALTHAZAR'S DAUGHTER</A><BR>
+<A HREF="#chap05">JUDITH'S CREED</A><BR>
+<A HREF="#chap06">CONCERNING CORINNA</A><BR>
+<A HREF="#chap07">OLIVIA'S POTTAGE</A><BR>
+<A HREF="#chap08">A BROWN WOMAN</A><BR>
+<A HREF="#chap09">PRO HONORIA</A><BR>
+<A HREF="#chap10">THE IRRESISTIBLE OGLE</A><BR>
+<A HREF="#chap11">A PRINCESS OF GRUB STREET</A><BR>
+<A HREF="#chap12">THE LADY OF ALL OUR DREAMS</A><BR>
+<A HREF="#chap13">"<I>Ballad of Plagiary</I>"</A><BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap01"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+<I>BALLAD OF THE DOUBLE-SOUL</I>
+</H3>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+"<I>Les Dieux, qui trop aiment ses faceties cruelles</I>"&mdash;PAUL VERVILLE.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  In the beginning the Gods made man, and fashioned the sky and the sea,<BR>
+  And the earth's fair face for man's dwelling-place, and<BR>
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;this was the Gods' decree:&mdash;<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  "Lo, We have given to man five wits: he discerneth folly and sin;<BR>
+  He is swift to deride all the world outside, and blind<BR>
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;to the world within:<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  "So that man may make sport and amuse Us, in battling<BR>
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;for phrases or pelf,<BR>
+  Now that each may know what forebodeth woe to his<BR>
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;neighbor, and not to himself."<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  Yet some have the Gods forgotten,&mdash;or is it that subtler mirth<BR>
+  The Gods extort of a certain sort of folk that cumber the earth?<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  <I>For this is the song of the double-soul, distortedly two in one,&mdash;</I><BR>
+  <I>Of the wearied eyes that still behold the fruit ere the seed be sown,</I><BR>
+  <I>And derive affright for the nearing night from the light</I><BR>
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<I>of the noontide sun.</I><BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  For one that with hope in the morning set forth, and knew never a fear,<BR>
+  They have linked with another whom omens bother; and<BR>
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;he whispers in one's ear.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  And one is fain to be climbing where only angels have trod,<BR>
+  But is fettered and tied to another's side who fears that<BR>
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;it might look odd.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  And one would worship a woman whom all perfections dower,<BR>
+  But the other smiles at transparent wiles; and he quotes<BR>
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;from Schopenhauer.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  Thus two by two we wrangle and blunder about the earth,<BR>
+  And that body we share we may not spare; but the Gods<BR>
+    have need of mirth.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  <I>So this is the song of the double-soul, distortedly two in one.&mdash;</I><BR>
+  <I>Of the wearied eyes that still behold the fruit ere the seed be sown,</I><BR>
+  <I>And derive affright for the nearing night from the light</I><BR>
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<I>of the noontide sun.</I><BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap02"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+AUCTORIAL INDUCTION
+</H3>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+"<I>These questions, so long as they remain
+with the Muses, may very well be unaccompanied
+with severity, for where there is no other end
+of contemplation and inquiry but that of
+pastime alone, the understanding is not
+oppressed; but after the Muses have given over
+their riddles to Sphinx,&mdash;that is, to practise,
+which urges and impels to action, choice and
+determination,&mdash;then it is that they become
+torturing, severe and trying.</I>"
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  From the dawn of the day to the dusk he toiled,<BR>
+  Shaping fanciful playthings, with tireless hands,&mdash;<BR>
+  Useless trumpery toys; and, with vaulting heart,<BR>
+  Gave them unto all peoples, who mocked at him,<BR>
+  Trampled on them, and soiled them, and went their way.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  Then he toiled from the morn to the dusk again,<BR>
+  Gave his gimcracks to peoples who mocked at him,<BR>
+  Trampled on them, deriding, and went their way.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  Thus he labors, and loudly they jeer at him;&mdash;<BR>
+  That is, when they remember he still exists.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  <I>Who</I>, you ask, <I>is this fellow</I>?&mdash;What matter names?<BR>
+  He is only a scribbler who is content.<BR>
+<BR>
+  FELIX KENNASTON.&mdash;The Toy-Maker.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+AUCTORIAL INDUCTION
+</H3>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+WHICH (AFTER SOME BRIEF DISCOURSE OF FIRES AND
+FRYING-PANS) ELUCIDATES THE INEXPEDIENCY OF
+PUBLISHING THIS BOOK, AS WELL AS THE NECESSITY
+OF WRITING IT:  AND THENCE PASSES TO A MODEST
+DEFENSE OF MORE VITAL THEMES.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The desire to write perfectly of beautiful happenings
+is, as the saying runs, old as the hills&mdash;and as
+immortal.  Questionless, there was many a serviceable
+brick wasted in Nineveh because finicky persons must
+needs be deleting here and there a phrase in favor of
+its cuneatic synonym; and it is not improbable that
+when the outworn sun expires in clinkers its final ray
+will gild such zealots tinkering with their "style."
+Some few there must be in every age and every land of
+whom life claims nothing very insistently save that
+they write perfectly of beautiful happenings.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Yet, that the work of a man of letters is almost
+always a congenial product of his day and environment,
+is a contention as lacking in novelty as it is in
+the need of any upholding here.  Nor is the rationality
+of that axiom far to seek; for a man of genuine
+literary genius, since he possesses a temperament whose
+susceptibilities are of wider area than those of any
+other, is inevitably of all people the one most
+variously affected by his surroundings.  And it is he,
+in consequence, who of all people most faithfully and
+compactly exhibits the impress of his times and his
+times' tendencies, not merely in his writings&mdash;where it
+conceivably might be just predetermined affectation&mdash;but
+in his personality.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Such being the assumption upon which this volume is
+builded, it appears only equitable for the architect
+frankly to indicate his cornerstone.  Hereinafter you
+have an attempt to depict a special temperament&mdash;one in
+essence "literary"&mdash;as very variously molded by diverse
+eras and as responding in proportion with its ability
+to the demands of a certain hour.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In proportion with its ability, be it repeated,
+since its ability is singularly hampered.  For, apart
+from any ticklish temporal considerations, be it
+remembered, life is always claiming of this
+temperament's possessor that he write perfectly of
+beautiful happenings.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+To disregard this vital longing, and flatly to
+stifle the innate striving toward artistic creation, is
+to become (as with Wycherley and Sheridan) a man who
+waives, however laughingly, his sole apology for
+existence.  The proceeding is paltry enough, in all
+conscience; and yet, upon the other side, there is
+much positive danger in giving to the instinct a
+loose rein.  For in that event the familiar
+circumstances of sedate and wholesome living cannot but
+seem, like paintings viewed too near, to lose in gusto
+and winsomeness.  Desire, perhaps a craving hunger,
+awakens for the impossible.  No emotion, whatever be
+its sincerity, is endured without a side-glance toward
+its capabilities for being written about.  The world,
+in short, inclines to appear an ill-lit mine, wherein
+one quarries gingerly amidst an abiding loneliness (as
+with Pope and Ufford and Sire Raimbaut)&mdash;and wherein
+one very often is allured into unsavory alleys (as with
+Herrick and Alessandro de Medici)&mdash;in search of that
+raw material which loving labor will transshape into
+comeliness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Such, if it be allowed to shift the metaphor, are
+the treacherous by-paths of that admirably policed
+highway whereon the well-groomed and well-bitted Pegasi
+of Vanderhoffen and Charteris (in his later manner)
+trot stolidly and safely toward oblivion.  And the
+result of wandering afield is of necessity a tragedy,
+in that the deviator's life, if not as an artist's
+quite certainly as a human being's, must in the outcome
+be adjudged a failure.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Hereinafter, then, you have an attempt to depict a
+special temperament&mdash;one in essence "literary"&mdash;as very
+variously molded by diverse eras and as responding in
+proportion with its ability to the demands of a certain
+hour.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+II
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+And this much said, it is permissible to hope, at
+least, that here and there some reader may be found not
+wholly blind to this book's goal, whatever be his
+opinion as to this book's success in reaching it.  Yet
+many honest souls there be among us average-novel-readers
+in whose eyes this volume must rest content to
+figure as a collection of short stories having naught
+in common beyond the feature that each deals with the
+<I>affaires du coeur</I> of a poet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Such must always be the book's interpretation by
+mental indolence.  The fact is incontestable; and this
+fact in itself may be taken as sufficient to establish
+the inexpediency of publishing <I>The Certain Hour</I>.  For
+that "people will not buy a volume of short stories" is
+notorious to all publishers.  To offset the axiom there
+are no doubt incongruous phenomena&mdash;ranging from the
+continued popularity of the Bible to the present
+general esteem of Mr. Kipling, and embracing the rather
+unaccountable vogue of "O. Henry";&mdash;but, none the
+less, the superstition has its force.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Here intervenes the multifariousness of man,
+pointed out somewhere by Mr. Gilbert Chesterton,
+which enables the individual to be at once a
+vegetarian, a golfer, a vestryman, a blond, a mammal, a
+Democrat, and an immortal spirit.  As a rational
+person, one may debonairly consider <I>The Certain Hour</I>
+possesses as large license to look like a volume of
+short stories as, say, a backgammon-board has to its
+customary guise of a two-volume history; but as an
+average-novel-reader, one must vote otherwise.  As an
+average-novel-reader, one must condemn the very book
+which, as a seasoned scribbler, one was moved to write
+through long consideration of the drama already
+suggested&mdash;that immemorial drama of the desire to write
+perfectly of beautiful happenings, and the obscure
+martyrdom to which this desire solicits its possessor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now, clearly, the struggle of a special temperament
+with a fixed force does not forthwith begin another
+story when the locale of combat shifts.  The case is,
+rather, as when&mdash;with certainly an intervening change
+of apparel&mdash;Pompey fights Caesar at both Dyrrachium and
+Pharsalus, or as when General Grant successively
+encounters General Lee at the Wilderness,
+Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor and Appomattox.  The
+combatants remain unchanged, the question at issue is
+the same, the tragedy has continuity.  And even so,
+from the time of Sire Raimbaut to that of John
+Charteris has a special temperament heart-hungrily
+confronted an ageless problem: at what cost now, in
+this fleet hour of my vigor, may one write perfectly of
+beautiful happenings?
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Thus logic urges, with pathetic futility, inasmuch
+as we average-novel-readers are profoundly indifferent
+to both logic and good writing.  And always the fact
+remains that to the mentally indolent this book may
+well seem a volume of disconnected short stories.  All
+of us being more or less mentally indolent, this
+possibility constitutes a dire fault.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Three other damning objections will readily obtrude
+themselves:  <I>The Certain Hour</I> deals with past
+epochs&mdash;beginning before the introduction of
+dinner-forks, and ending at that remote quaint period when
+people used to waltz and two-step&mdash;dead eras in which
+we average-novel-readers are not interested; <I>The
+Certain Hour</I> assumes an appreciable amount of culture
+and information on its purchaser's part, which we
+average-novel-readers either lack or, else, are
+unaccustomed to employ in connection with reading for
+pastime; and&mdash;in our eyes the crowning misdemeanor&mdash;<I>The
+Certain Hour</I> is not "vital."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Having thus candidly confessed these faults
+committed as the writer of this book, it is still
+possible in human multifariousness to consider their
+enormity, not merely in this book, but in fictional
+reading-matter at large, as viewed by an
+average-novel-reader&mdash;by a representative of that potent class whose
+preferences dictate the nature and main trend of modern
+American literature.  And to do this, it may be, throws
+no unsalutary sidelight upon the still-existent
+problem: at what cost, now, may one attempt to write
+perfectly of beautiful happenings?
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+III
+</H3>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Indisputably the most striking defect of this
+modern American literature is the fact that the
+production of anything at all resembling literature is
+scarcely anywhere apparent.  Innumerable printing-presses,
+instead, are turning out a vast quantity of
+reading-matter, the candidly recognized purpose of
+which is to kill time, and which&mdash;it has been asserted,
+though perhaps too sweepingly&mdash;ought not to be vended
+over book-counters, but rather in drugstores along with
+the other narcotics.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It is begging the question to protest that the
+class of people who a generation ago read nothing now
+at least read novels, and to regard this as a change
+for the better.  By similar logic it would be more
+wholesome to breakfast off laudanum than to omit the
+meal entirely.  The nineteenth century, in fact, by
+making education popular, has produced in America the
+curious spectacle of a reading-public with essentially
+nonliterary tastes.  Formerly, better books were
+published, because they were intended for persons who
+turned to reading through a natural bent of mind;
+whereas the modern American novel of commerce is
+addressed to us average people who read, when we read
+at all, in violation of every innate instinct.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Such grounds as yet exist for hopefulness on the
+part of those who cordially care for <I>belles lettres</I>
+are to be found elsewhere than in the crowded market-places
+of fiction, where genuine intelligence panders
+on all sides to ignorance and indolence.  The phrase
+may seem to have no very civil ring; but reflection
+will assure the fair-minded that two indispensable
+requisites nowadays of a pecuniarily successful novel
+are, really, that it make no demand upon the reader's
+imagination, and that it rigorously refrain from
+assuming its reader to possess any particular
+information on any subject whatever.  The author who
+writes over the head of the public is the most
+dangerous enemy of his publisher&mdash;and the most
+insidious as well, because so many publishers are in
+private life interested in literary matters, and would
+readily permit this personal foible to influence the
+exercise of their vocation were it possible to do so
+upon the preferable side of bankruptcy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But publishers, among innumerable other conditions,
+must weigh the fact that no novel which does not deal
+with modern times is ever really popular among the
+serious-minded.  It is difficult to imagine a tale
+whose action developed under the rule of the Caesars or
+the Merovingians being treated as more than a literary
+<I>hors d'oeuvre</I>.  We purchasers of "vital" novels know
+nothing about the period, beyond a hazy association
+of it with the restrictions of the schoolroom; our
+sluggish imaginations instinctively rebel against the
+exertion of forming any notion of such a period; and
+all the human nature that exists even in serious-minded
+persons is stirred up to resentment against the book's
+author for presuming to know more than a potential
+patron.  The book, in fine, simply irritates the
+serious-minded person; and she&mdash;for it is only women
+who willingly brave the terrors of department-stores,
+where most of our new books are bought nowadays&mdash;quite
+naturally puts it aside in favor of some keen and
+daring study of American life that is warranted to grip
+the reader.  So, modernity of scene is everywhere
+necessitated as an essential qualification for a book's
+discussion at the literary evenings of the local
+woman's club; and modernity of scene, of course, is
+almost always fatal to the permanent worth of
+fictitious narrative.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It may seem banal here to recall the truism that
+first-class art never reproduces its surroundings; but
+such banality is often justified by our human proneness
+to shuffle over the fact that many truisms are true.
+And this one is pre-eminently indisputable: that what
+mankind has generally agreed to accept as first-class
+art in any of the varied forms of fictitious narrative
+has never been a truthful reproduction of the artist's
+era.  Indeed, in the higher walks of fiction art has
+never reproduced anything, but has always dealt with
+the facts and laws of life as so much crude material
+which must be transmuted into comeliness.  When
+Shakespeare pronounced his celebrated dictum about
+art's holding the mirror up to nature, he was no doubt
+alluding to the circumstance that a mirror reverses
+everything which it reflects.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nourishment for much wildish speculation, in fact,
+can be got by considering what the world's literature
+would be, had its authors restricted themselves, as do
+we Americans so sedulously&mdash;and unavoidably&mdash;to writing
+of contemporaneous happenings.  In fiction-making no
+author of the first class since Homer's infancy has
+ever in his happier efforts concerned himself at all
+with the great "problems" of his particular day; and
+among geniuses of the second rank you will find such
+ephemeralities adroitly utilized only when they are
+distorted into enduring parodies of their actual selves
+by the broad humor of a Dickens or the colossal fantasy
+of a Balzac.  In such cases as the latter two writers,
+however, we have an otherwise competent artist
+handicapped by a personality so marked that, whatever
+he may nominally write about, the result is, above all
+else, an exposure of the writer's idiosyncrasies.
+Then, too, the laws of any locale wherein Mr.
+Pickwick achieves a competence in business, or of a
+society wherein Vautrin becomes chief of police, are
+upon the face of it extra-mundane.  It suffices that,
+as a general rule, in fiction-making the true artist
+finds an ample, if restricted, field wherein the proper
+functions of the preacher, or the ventriloquist, or the
+photographer, or of the public prosecutor, are
+exercised with equal lack of grace.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Besides, in dealing with contemporary life a
+novelist is goaded into too many pusillanimous
+concessions to plausibility.  He no longer moves with
+the gait of omnipotence.  It was very different in the
+palmy days when Dumas was free to play at ducks and
+drakes with history, and Victor Hugo to reconstruct the
+whole system of English government, and Scott to compel
+the sun to set in the east, whenever such minor changes
+caused to flow more smoothly the progress of the tale
+these giants had in hand.  These freedoms are not
+tolerated in American noveldom, and only a few futile
+"high-brows" sigh in vain for Thackeray's "happy
+harmless Fableland, where these things are."  The
+majority of us are deep in "vital" novels.  Nor is the
+reason far to seek.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+IV
+</H3>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+One hears a great deal nowadays concerning "vital"
+books.  Their authors have been widely praised on very
+various grounds.  Oddly enough, however, the writers of
+these books have rarely been commended for the really
+praiseworthy charity evinced therein toward that large
+long-suffering class loosely describable as the
+average-novel-reader.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Yet, in connection with this fact, it is worthy of
+more than passing note that no great while ago the <I>New
+York Times'</I> carefully selected committee, in picking
+out the hundred best books published during a
+particular year, declared as to novels&mdash;"a 'best' book,
+in our opinion, is one that raises an important
+question, or recurs to a vital theme and pronounces
+upon it what in some sense is a last word."  Now this
+definition is not likely ever to receive more praise
+than it deserves.  Cavilers may, of course, complain
+that actually to write the last word on any subject is
+a feat reserved for the Recording Angel's unique
+performance on judgment Day.  Even setting that
+objection aside, it is undeniable that no work of
+fiction published of late in America corresponds
+quite so accurately to the terms of this definition as
+do the multiplication tables.  Yet the multiplication
+tables are not without their claims to applause as
+examples of straightforward narrative.  It is, also, at
+least permissible to consider that therein the numeral
+five, say, where it figures as protagonist, unfolds
+under the stress of its varying adventures as opulent a
+development of real human nature as does, through
+similar ups-and-downs, the Reverend John Hodder in <I>The
+Inside of the Cup</I>.  It is equally allowable to find
+the less simple evolution of the digit seven more
+sympathetic, upon the whole, than those of Undine
+Spragg in <I>The Custom of the Country</I>.  But, even so,
+this definition of what may now, authoritatively, be
+ranked as a "best novel" is an honest and noteworthy
+severance from misleading literary associations such as
+have too long befogged our notions about reading-matter.
+It points with emphasis toward the altruistic
+obligations of tale-tellers to be "vital."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For we average-novel-readers&mdash;we average people, in
+a word&mdash;are now, as always, rather pathetically hungry
+for "vital" themes, such themes as appeal directly to
+our everyday observation and prejudices.  Did the
+decision rest with us all novelists would be put under
+bond to confine themselves forevermore to themes like
+these.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As touches the appeal to everyday observation, it
+is an old story, at least coeval with Mr. Crummles' not
+uncelebrated pumps and tubs, if not with the grapes
+of Zeuxis, how unfailingly in art we delight to
+recognize the familiar.  A novel whose scene of action
+is explicit will always interest the people of that
+locality, whatever the book's other pretensions to
+consideration.  Given simultaneously a photograph of
+Murillo's rendering of <I>The Virgin Crowned Queen of
+Heaven</I> and a photograph of a governor's installation
+in our State capital, there is no one of us but will
+quite naturally look at the latter first, in order to
+see if in it some familiar countenance be recognizable.
+And thus, upon a larger scale, the twentieth century
+is, pre-eminently, interested in the twentieth century.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It is all very well to describe our average-novel-readers'
+dislike of Romanticism as "the rage of Caliban
+not seeing his own face in a glass."  It is even within
+the scope of human dunderheadedness again to point out
+here that the supreme artists in literature have
+precisely this in common, and this alone, that in their
+masterworks they have avoided the "vital" themes of
+their day with such circumspection as lesser folk
+reserve for the smallpox.  The answer, of course, in
+either case, is that the "vital" novel, the novel which
+peculiarly appeals to us average-novel-readers, has
+nothing to do with literature.  There is between these
+two no more intelligent connection than links the paint
+Mr. Sargent puts on canvas and the paint Mr. Dockstader
+puts on his face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Literature is made up of the re-readable books, the
+books which it is possible&mdash;for the people so
+constituted as to care for that sort of thing&mdash;to read
+again and yet again with pleasure.  Therefore, in
+literature a book's subject is of astonishingly minor
+importance, and its style nearly everything: whereas in
+books intended to be read for pastime, and forthwith to
+be consigned at random to the wastebasket or to the
+inmates of some charitable institute, the theme is of
+paramount importance, and ought to be a serious one.
+The modern novelist owes it to his public to select a
+"vital" theme which in itself will fix the reader's
+attention by reason of its familiarity in the reader's
+everyday life.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thus, a lady with whose more candid opinions the
+writer of this is more frequently favored nowadays than
+of old, formerly confessed to having only one set rule
+when it came to investment in new reading-matter&mdash;always
+to buy the Williamsons' last book.  Her reason
+was the perfectly sensible one that the Williamsons'
+plots used invariably to pivot upon motor-trips, and
+she is an ardent automobilist.  Since, as of late, the
+Williamsons have seen fit to exercise their typewriter
+upon other topics, they have as a matter of course lost
+her patronage.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This principle of selection, when you come to
+appraise it sanely, is the sole intelligent method of
+dealing with reading-matter.  It seems here expedient
+again to state the peculiar problem that we
+average-novel-readers have of necessity set the modern
+novelist&mdash;namely, that his books must in the main
+appeal to people who read for pastime, to people who
+read books only under protest and only when they
+have no other employment for that particular half-hour.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now, reading for pastime is immensely simplified
+when the book's theme is some familiar matter of the
+reader's workaday life, because at outset the reader is
+spared considerable mental effort.  The motorist above
+referred to, and indeed any average-novel-reader, can
+without exertion conceive of the Williamsons' people in
+their automobiles.  Contrariwise, were these fictitious
+characters embarked in palankeens or droshkies or
+jinrikishas, more or less intellectual exercise would
+be necessitated on the reader's part to form a notion
+of the conveyance.  And we average-novel-readers do not
+open a book with the intention of making a mental
+effort.  The author has no right to expect of us an act
+so unhabitual, we very poignantly feel.  Our prejudices
+he is freely chartered to stir up&mdash;if, lucky rogue, he
+can!&mdash;but he ought with deliberation to recognize that
+it is precisely in order to avoid mental effort that we
+purchase, or borrow, his book, and afterward discuss it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Hence arises our heartfelt gratitude toward such
+novels as deal with "vital" themes, with the questions
+we average-novel-readers confront or make talk about in
+those happier hours of our existence wherein we are not
+reduced to reading.  Thus, a tale, for example, dealing
+either with "feminism" or "white slavery" as the
+handiest makeshift of spinsterdom&mdash;or with the divorce
+habit and plutocratic iniquity in general, or with the
+probable benefits of converting clergymen to
+Christianity, or with how much more than she knows a
+desirable mother will tell her children&mdash;finds the
+book's tentative explorer, just now, amply equipped
+with prejudices, whether acquired by second thought or
+second hand, concerning the book's topic.  As
+endurability goes, reading the book rises forthwith
+almost to the level of an afternoon-call where there is
+gossip about the neighbors and Germany's future.  We
+average-novel-readers may not, in either case, agree
+with the opinions advanced; but at least our prejudices
+are aroused, and we are interested.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And these "vital" themes awake our prejudices at
+the cost of a minimum&mdash;if not always, as when Miss
+Corelli guides us, with a positively negligible&mdash;
+tasking of our mental faculties.  For such exemption we
+average-novel-readers cannot  but be properly grateful.
+Nay, more than this: provided the novelist contrive to
+rouse our prejudices, it matters with us not at all
+whether afterward they be soothed or harrowed.  To
+implicate our prejudices somehow, to raise in us a
+partizanship in the tale's progress, is our sole
+request.  Whether this consummation be brought about
+through an arraignment of some social condition which
+we personally either advocate or reprehend&mdash;the
+attitude weighs little&mdash;or whether this interest be
+purchased with placidly driveling preachments of
+generally "uplifting" tendencies&mdash;vaguely titillating
+that vague intention which exists in us all of becoming
+immaculate as soon as it is perfectly convenient&mdash;the
+personal prejudices of us average-novel-readers are
+not lightly lulled again to sleep.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In fact, the jealousy of any human prejudice
+against hinted encroachment may safely be depended upon
+to spur us through an astonishing number of pages&mdash;for
+all that it has of late been complained among us, with
+some show of extenuation, that our original intent in
+beginning certain of the recent "vital" novels was to
+kill time, rather than eternity.  And so, we
+average-novel-readers plod on jealously to the end, whether we
+advance (to cite examples already somewhat of
+yesterday) under the leadership of Mr. Upton Sinclair
+aspersing the integrity of modern sausages and
+millionaires, or of Mr. Hall Caine saying about Roman
+Catholics what ordinary people would hesitate to impute
+to their relatives by marriage&mdash;or whether we be more
+suavely allured onward by Mrs. Florence Barclay, or
+Mr. Sydnor Harrison, with ingenuous indorsements of the New
+Testament and the inherent womanliness of women.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The "vital" theme, then, let it be repeated, has
+two inestimable advantages which should commend it to
+all novelists: first, it spares us average-novel-readers
+any preliminary orientation, and thereby
+mitigates the mental exertion of reading; and secondly,
+it appeals to our prejudices, which we naturally prefer
+to exercise, and are accustomed to exercise, rather
+than our mental or idealistic faculties.  The novelist
+who conscientiously bears these two facts in mind is
+reasonably sure of his reward, not merely in pecuniary
+form, but in those higher fields wherein he
+harvests his chosen public's honest gratitude and
+affection.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For we average-novel-readers are quite frequently
+reduced by circumstances to self-entrustment to the
+resources of the novelist, as to those of the dentist.
+Our latter-day conditions, as we cannot but recognize,
+necessitate the employment of both artists upon
+occasion.  And with both, we average-novel-readers, we
+average people, are most grateful when they make the
+process of resorting to them as easy and unirritating
+as may be possible.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+V
+</H3>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+So much for the plea of us average-novel-readers;
+and our plea, we think, is rational.  We are "in the
+market" for a specified article; and human ingenuity,
+co-operating with human nature, will inevitably insure
+the manufacture of that article as long as any general
+demand for it endures.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Meanwhile, it is small cause for grief that the
+purchaser of American novels prefers Central Park to
+any "wood near Athens," and is more at home in the
+Tenderloin than in Camelot.  People whose tastes happen
+to be literary are entirely too prone to too much
+long-faced prattle about literature, which, when all is
+said, is never a controlling factor in anybody's life.
+The automobile and the telephone, the accomplishments
+of Mr. Edison and Mr. Burbank, and it would be
+permissible to add of Mr. Rockefeller, influence
+nowadays, in one fashion or another, every moment of
+every living American's existence; whereas had America
+produced, instead, a second Milton or a Dante, it would
+at most have caused a few of us to spend a few spare
+evenings rather differently.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Besides, we know&mdash;even we average-novel-readers&mdash;that
+America is in fact producing her enduring
+literature day by day, although, as rarely fails to be
+the case, those who are contemporaneous with the makers
+of this literature cannot with any certainty point them
+out.  To voice a hoary truism, time alone is the test
+of "vitality."  In our present flood of books, as in
+any other flood, it is the froth and scum which shows
+most prominently.  And the possession of "vitality,"
+here as elsewhere, postulates that its possessor must
+ultimately perish.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nay, by the time these printed pages are first read
+as printed pages, allusion to those modern authors whom
+these pages cite&mdash;the pre-eminent literary personages
+of that hour wherein these pages were written&mdash;will
+inevitably have come to savor somewhat of antiquity: so
+that sundry references herein to the "vital" books now
+most in vogue will rouse much that vague shrugging
+recollection as wakens, say, at a mention of <I>Dorothy
+Vernon</I> or <I>Three Weeks</I> or <I>Beverly of Graustark</I>.
+And while at first glance it might seem expedient&mdash;in
+revising the last proof-sheets of these pages&mdash;somewhat
+to "freshen them up" by substituting, for the books
+herein referred to, the "vital" and more widely
+talked-of novels of the summer of 1916, the task would be but
+wasted labor; since even these fascinating chronicles,
+one comprehends forlornly, must needs be equally
+obsolete by the time these proof-sheets have been made
+into a volume.  With malice aforethought, therefore,
+the books and authors named herein stay those which all
+of three years back our reviewers and advertising
+pages, with perfect gravity, acclaimed as of
+enduring importance.  For the quaintness of that
+opinion, nowadays, may profitably round the moral that
+there is really nothing whereto one may fittingly
+compare a successful contribution to "vital"
+reading-matter, as touches evanescence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And this is as it should be.  <I>Tout passe.&mdash;L'art
+robust seul a l'éternité</I>, precisely as Gautier points
+out, with bracing common-sense; and it is excellent
+thus to comprehend that to-day, as always, only through
+exercise of the auctorial virtues of distinction and
+clarity, of beauty and symmetry, of tenderness and
+truth and urbanity, may a man in reason attempt to
+insure his books against oblivion's voracity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Yet the desire to write perfectly of beautiful
+happenings is, as the saying runs, old as the
+hills&mdash;and as immortal.  Questionless, there was many a
+serviceable brick wasted in Nineveh because finicky
+persons must needs be deleting here and there a phrase
+in favor of its cuneatic synonym; and it is not
+improbable that when the outworn sun expires in
+clinkers its final ray will gild such zealots tinkering
+with their "style."  This, then, is the conclusion of
+the whole matter.  Some few there must be in every age
+and every land of whom life claims nothing very
+insistently save that they write perfectly of beautiful
+happenings.  And even we average-novel-readers know it
+is such folk who are to-day making in America that
+portion of our literature which may hope for
+permanency.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+Dumbarton Grange<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;1914-1916<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap03"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+BELHS CAVALIERS
+</H3>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+"<I>For this RAIMBAUT DE VAQUIERAS lived at a time
+when prolonged habits of extra-mundane contemplation,
+combined with the decay of real knowledge, were apt to
+volatilize the thoughts and aspirations of the best and
+wisest into dreamy unrealities, and to lend a false air
+of mysticism to love.&#8230;  It is as if the
+intellect and the will had become used to moving
+paralytically among visions, dreams, and mystic
+terrors, weighed down with torpor.</I>"
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  Fair friend, since that hour I took leave of thee<BR>
+  I have not slept nor stirred from off my knee,<BR>
+  But prayed alway to God, S. Mary's Son,<BR>
+  To give me back my true companion;<BR>
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And soon it will be Dawn.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  Fair friend, at parting, thy behest to me<BR>
+  Was that all sloth I should eschew and flee,<BR>
+  And keep good Watch until the Night was done:<BR>
+  Now must my Song and Service pass for none?<BR>
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;For soon it will be Dawn.<BR>
+<BR>
+  RAIMBAUT DE VAQUIERAS.&mdash;<I>Aubade, from F. York Powell's version</I>.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+BELHS CAVALIERS
+</H3>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+You may read elsewhere of the long feud that was
+between Guillaume de Baux, afterward Prince of Orange,
+and his kinsman Raimbaut de Vaquieras.  They were not
+reconciled until their youth was dead.  Then, when
+Messire Raimbaut returned from battling against the
+Turks and the Bulgarians, in the 1,210th year from
+man's salvation, the Archbishop of Rheims made peace
+between the two cousins; and, attended by Makrisi, a
+converted Saracen who had followed the knight's
+fortunes for well nigh a quarter of a century, the Sire
+de Vaquieras rode homeward.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Many slain men were scattered along the highway
+when he came again into Venaissin, in April, after an
+absence of thirty years.  The crows whom his passing
+disturbed were too sluggish for long flights and many
+of them did not heed him at all.  Guillaume de Baux was
+now undisputed master of these parts, although, as this
+host of mute, hacked and partially devoured witnesses
+attested, the contest had been dubious for a while: but
+now Lovain of the Great-Tooth, Prince Guillaume's
+last competitor, was captured; the forces of Lovain
+were scattered; and of Lovain's lieutenants only Mahi
+de Vernoil was unsubdued.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Prince Guillaume laughed a little when he told his
+kinsman of the posture of affairs, as more loudly did
+Guillaume's gross son, Sire Philibert.  But Madona
+Biatritz did not laugh.  She was the widow of
+Guillaume's dead brother&mdash;Prince Conrat, whom Guillaume
+succeeded&mdash;and it was in her honor that Raimbaut had
+made those songs which won him eminence as a
+practitioner of the Gay Science.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Biatritz said, "It is a long while since we two met."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He that had been her lover all his life said, "Yes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She was no longer the most beautiful of women, no
+longer his be-hymned Belhs Cavaliers&mdash;you may read
+elsewhere how he came to call her that in all his
+canzons&mdash;but only a fine and gracious stranger.  It was
+uniformly gray, that soft and plentiful hair, where
+once such gold had flamed as dizzied him to think of
+even now; there was no crimson in these thinner lips;
+and candor would have found her eyes less wonderful
+than those Raimbaut had dreamed of very often among an
+alien and hostile people.  But he lamented nothing, and
+to him she was as ever Heaven's most splendid miracle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," said this old Raimbaut,&mdash;"and even to-day we
+have not reclaimed the Sepulcher as yet.  Oh, I doubt
+if we shall ever win it, now that your brother and my
+most dear lord is dead."  Both thought a while of
+Boniface de Montferrat, their playmate once, who
+yesterday was King of Thessalonica and now was so much
+Macedonian dust.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She said:  "This week the Prince sent envoys to my
+nephew.&#8230;  And so you have come home again&mdash;&mdash;"  Color
+had surged into her time-worn face, and as she
+thought of things done long ago this woman's eyes were
+like the eyes of his young Biatritz.  She said: "You
+never married?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He answered:  "No, I have left love alone.  For
+Love prefers to take rather than to give; against a
+single happy hour he balances a hundred miseries, and
+he appraises one pleasure to be worth a thousand pangs.
+Pardieu, let this immortal usurer contrive as may seem
+well to him, for I desire no more of his bounty or of
+his penalties."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, we wish earnestly for nothing, either good or
+bad," said Dona Biatritz&mdash;"we who have done with loving."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They sat in silence, musing over ancient
+happenings, and not looking at each other, until the
+Prince came with his guests, who seemed to laugh too
+heartily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Guillaume's frail arm was about his kinsman, and
+Guillaume chuckled over jests and by-words that had
+been between the cousins as children.  Raimbaut found
+them no food for laughter now.  Guillaume told all of
+Raimbaut's oath of fealty, and of how these two were
+friends and their unnatural feud was forgotten.  "For
+we grow old,&mdash;eh, maker of songs?" he said; "and it
+is time we made our peace with Heaven, since we are not
+long for this world."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," said the knight; "oh yes, we both grow old."  He
+thought of another April evening, so long ago, when
+this Guillaume de Baux had stabbed him in a hedged
+field near Calais, and had left him under a hawthorn
+bush for dead; and Raimbaut wondered that there was no
+anger in his heart.  "We are friends now," he said.
+Biatritz, whom these two had loved, and whose vanished
+beauty had been the spur of their long enmity, sat
+close to them, and hardly seemed to listen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thus the evening passed and every one was merry,
+because the Prince had overcome Lovain of the
+Great-Tooth, and was to punish the upstart on the morrow.
+But Raimbaut de Vaquieras, a spent fellow, a derelict,
+barren of aim now that the Holy Wars were over, sat in
+this unfamiliar place&mdash;where when he was young he had
+laughed as a cock crows!&mdash;and thought how at the last
+he had crept home to die as a dependent on his cousin's
+bounty.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thus the evening passed, and at its end Makrisi
+followed the troubadour to his regranted fief of
+Vaquieras.  This was a chill and brilliant night,
+swayed by a frozen moon so powerful that no stars
+showed in the unclouded heavens, and everywhere the
+bogs were curdled with thin ice.  An obdurate wind
+swept like a knife-blade across a world which even in
+its spring seemed very old.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"This night is bleak and evil," Makrisi said.
+He rode a coffin's length behind his master.  "It
+is like Prince Guillaume, I think.  What man will
+sorrow when dawn comes?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Raimbaut de Vaquieras replied:  "Always dawn comes
+at last, Makrisi."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It comes the more quickly, messire, when it is
+prompted."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The troubadour only smiled at words which seemed so
+meaningless.  He did not smile when later in the night
+Makrisi brought Mahi de Vernoil, disguised as a
+mendicant friar.  This outlaw pleaded with Sire
+Raimbaut to head the tatters of Lovain's army, and
+showed Raimbaut how easy it would be to wrest Venaissin
+from Prince Guillaume.  "We cannot save Lovain," de
+Vemoil said, "for Guillaume has him fast.  But
+Venaissin is very proud of you, my tres beau sire.  Ho,
+maker of world-famous songs! stout champion of the
+faith! my men and I will now make you Prince of Orange
+in place of the fiend who rules us.  You may then at
+your convenience wed Madona Biatritz, that most amiable
+lady whom you have loved so long.  And by the Cross! you
+may do this before the week is out."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The old knight answered:  "It is true that I have
+always served Madona Biatritz, who is of matchless
+worth.  I might not, therefore, presume to call myself
+any longer her servant were my honor stained in any
+particular.  Oh no, Messire de Vernoil, an oath is an
+oath.  I have this day sworn fealty to Guillaume de Baux."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then after other talk Raimbaut dismissed the
+fierce-eyed little man.  The freebooter growled curses
+as he went.  On a sudden he whistled, like a person
+considering, and he began to chuckle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Raimbaut said, more lately:  "Zoraida left no
+wholesome legacy in you, Makrisi."  This Zoraida was a
+woman the knight had known in Constantinople&mdash;a comely
+outlander who had killed herself because of Sire
+Raimbaut's highflown avoidance of all womankind except
+the mistress of his youth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nay, save only in loving you too well, messire,
+was Zoraida a wise woman, notably.&#8230;  But this is
+outworn talk, the prattle of Cain's babyhood.  As
+matters were, you did not love Zoraida.  So Zoraida
+died.  Such is the custom in my country."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You trouble me, Makrisi.  Your eyes are like blown
+coals.&#8230;  Yet you have served me long and
+faithfully.  You know that mine was ever the vocation
+of dealing honorably in battle among emperors, and of
+spreading broadcast the rumor of my valor, and of
+achieving good by my sword's labors.  I have lived by
+warfare.  Long, long ago, since I derived no benefit
+from love, I cried farewell to it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ay," said Makrisi.  "Love makes a demi-god of
+all&mdash;just for an hour.  Such hours as follow we devote
+to the concoction of sleeping-draughts."  He laughed,
+and very harshly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And Raimbaut did not sleep that night because this
+life of ours seemed such a piece of tangle-work as he
+had not the skill to unravel.  So he devoted the
+wakeful hours to composition of a planh, lamenting
+vanished youth and that Biatritz whom the years had stolen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then on the ensuing morning, after some talk about
+the new campaign, Prince Guillaume de Baux leaned back
+in his high chair and said, abruptly:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"In perfect candor, you puzzle your liege-lord.
+For you loathe me and you still worship my sister-in-law,
+an unattainable princess.  In these two
+particulars you display such wisdom as would inevitably
+prompt you to make an end of me.  Yet, what the devil! you,
+the time-battered vagabond,  decline happiness and
+a kingdom to boot because of yesterday's mummery in the
+cathedral! because of a mere promise given!  Yes, I
+have my spies in every rat-hole.  I am aware that my
+barons hate me, and hate Philibert almost as
+bitterly,&mdash;and that, in fine, a majority of my barons
+would prefer to see you Prince in my unstable place, on
+account of your praiseworthy molestations of heathenry.
+Oh, yes, I understand my barons perfectly.  I flatter
+myself I understand everybody in Venaissin save you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Raimbaut answered: "You and I are not alike."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, praise each and every Saint!" said the Prince
+of Orange, heartily.  "And yet, I am not sure&mdash;&mdash;"  He
+rose, for his sight had failed him so that he could not
+distinctly see you except when he spoke with head
+thrown back, as though he looked at you over a wall.
+"For instance, do you understand that I hold Biatritz
+here as a prisoner, because her dower-lands are
+necessary to me, and that I intend to marry her as soon
+as Pope Innocent grants me a dispensation?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"All Venaissin knows that.  Yes, you have always
+gained everything which you desired in this world,
+Guillaume.  Yet it was at a price, I think."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am no haggler.&#8230; But you have never
+comprehended me, not even in the old days when we loved
+each other.  For instance, do you understand&mdash;slave of
+a spoken word!&mdash;what it must mean to me to know that at
+this hour to-morrow there will be alive in Venaissin no
+person whom I hate?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Messire de Vaquieras reflected.  His was never a
+rapid mind.  "Why, no, I do not know anything about
+hatred," he said, at last.  "I think I never hated any
+person."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Guillaume de Baux gave a half-frantic gesture.
+"Now, Heaven send you troubadours a clearer
+understanding of what sort of world we live in&mdash;&mdash;!"  He
+broke off short and growled, "And yet&mdash;sometimes I
+envy you, Raimbaut!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They rode then into the Square of St. Michel to
+witness the death of Lovain.  Guillaume took with him
+his two new mistresses and all his by-blows, each
+magnificently clothed, as if they rode to a festival.
+Afterward, before the doors of Lovain's burning house,
+a rope was fastened under Lovain's armpits, and he was
+gently lowered into a pot of boiling oil.  His feet
+cooked first, and then the flesh of his legs, and so on
+upward, while Lovain screamed.  Guillaume in a loose
+robe of green powdered with innumerable silver
+crescents, sat watching, under a canopy woven very long
+ago in Tarshish, and cunningly embroidered with the
+figures of peacocks and apes and men with eagles'
+heads.  His hands caressed each other meditatively.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+It was on the afternoon of this day, the last of
+April, that Sire Raimbaut came upon Madona Biatritz
+about a strange employment in the Ladies' Court.  There
+was then a well in the midst of this enclosure, with a
+granite ledge around it carven with lilies; and upon
+this she leaned, looking down into the water.  In her
+lap was a rope of pearls, which one by one she
+unthreaded and dropped into the well.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Clear and warm the weather was.  Without, forests
+were quickening, branch by branch, as though a green
+flame smoldered from one bough to another.  Violets
+peeped about the roots of trees, and all the world was
+young again.  But here was only stone beneath their
+feet; and about them showed the high walls and the
+lead-sheathed towers and the parapets and the sunk
+windows of Guillaume's chateau.  There was no color
+anywhere save gray; and Raimbaut and Biatritz were
+aging people now.  It seemed to him that they were the
+wraiths of those persons who had loved each other at
+Montferrat; and that the walls about them and the
+leaden devils who grinned from every waterspout and all
+those dark and narrow windows were only part of some
+magic picture, such as a sorceress may momentarily
+summon out of smoke-wreaths, as he had seen Zoraida do
+very long ago.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This woman might have been a wraith in verity, for
+she was clothed throughout in white, save for the
+ponderous gold girdle about her middle.  A white gorget
+framed the face which was so pinched and shrewd and
+strange; and she peered into the well, smiling
+craftily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I was thinking death was like this well," said
+Biatritz, without any cessation of her singular
+employment&mdash;"so dark that we may see nothing clearly
+save one faint gleam which shows us, or which seems to
+show us, where rest is.  Yes, yes, this is that chaplet
+which you won in the tournament at Montferrat when we
+were young.  Pearls are the symbol of tears, we read.
+But we had no time for reading then, no time for
+anything except to be quite happy.&#8230;  You saw this
+morning's work.  Raimbaut, were Satan to go mad he
+would be such a fiend as this Guillaume de Baux who is
+our master!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ay, the man is as cruel as my old opponent,
+Mourzoufle," Sire Raimbaut answered, with a patient
+shrug.  "It is a great mystery why such persons should
+win all which they desire of this world.  We can but
+recognize that it is for some sufficient reason."  Then
+he talked with her concerning the aforementioned
+infamous emperor of the East, against whom the old
+knight had fought, and of Enrico Dandolo and of King
+Boniface, dead brother to Madona Biatritz, and of much
+remote, outlandish adventuring oversea.  Of Zoraida
+he did not speak.  And Biatritz, in turn, told him of
+that one child which she had borne her husband, Prince
+Conrat&mdash;a son who died in infancy; and she spoke of
+this dead baby, who living would have been their
+monarch, with a sweet quietude that wrung the old
+knight's heart.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thus these spent people sat and talked for a long
+while, the talk veering anywhither just as chance
+directed.  Blurred gusts of song and laughter would
+come to them at times from the hall where Guillaume de
+Baux drank with his courtiers, and these would break
+the tranquil flow of speech.  Then, unvexedly, the
+gentle voice of the speaker, were it his or hers, would
+resume.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She said: "They laugh.  We are not merry."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," he replied; "I am not often merry.  There was
+a time when love and its service kept me in continuous
+joy, as waters invest a fish.  I woke from a high
+dream.&#8230;  And then, but for the fear of seeming
+cowardly, I would have extinguished my life as men blow
+out a candle.  Vanity preserved me, sheer vanity!"  He
+shrugged, spreading his hard lean hands.  "Belhs
+Cavaliers, I grudged my enemies the pleasure of seeing
+me forgetful of valor and noble enterprises.  And so,
+since then, I have served Heaven, in default of you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I would not have it otherwise," she said, half as
+in wonder; "I would not have you be quite sane like
+other men.  And I believe," she added&mdash;still with
+her wise smile&mdash;"you have derived a deal of
+comfort, off and on, from being heart-broken."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He replied gravely:  "A man may always, if he will
+but take the pains, be tolerably content and rise in
+worth, and yet dispense with love.  He has only to
+guard himself against baseness, and concentrate his
+powers on doing right.  Thus, therefore, when fortune
+failed me, I persisted in acting to the best of my
+ability.  Though I had lost my lands and my loved lady,
+I must hold fast to my own worth.  Without a lady and
+without acreage, it was yet in my power to live a
+cleanly and honorable life; and I did not wish to make
+two evils out of one."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Assuredly, I would not have you be quite sane like
+other men," she repeated.  "It would seem that you have
+somehow blundered through long years, preserving always
+the ignorance of a child, and the blindness of a child.
+I cannot understand how this is possible; nor can I
+keep from smiling at your high-flown notions; and
+yet,&mdash;I envy you, Raimbaut."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Thus the afternoon passed, and the rule of Prince
+Guillaume was made secure.  His supper was worthily
+appointed, for Guillaume loved color and music and
+beauty of every kind, and was on this, the day of his
+triumph, in a prodigal humor.  Many lackeys in scarlet
+brought in the first course, to the sound of exultant
+drums and pipes, with a blast of trumpets and a waving
+of banners, so that all hearts were uplifted, and
+Guillaume jested with harsh laughter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Raimbaut de Vaquieras was not mirthful, for he
+was remembering a boy whom he had known of very long
+ago.  He was swayed by an odd fancy, as the men sat
+over their wine, and jongleurs sang and performed
+tricks for their diversion, that this boy, so frank and
+excellent, as yet existed somewhere; and that the
+Raimbaut who moved these shriveled hands before him, on
+the table there, was only a sad dream of what had never
+been.  It troubled him, too, to see how grossly these
+soldiers ate, for, as a person of refinement, an
+associate of monarchs, Sire Raimbaut when the dishes
+were passed picked up his meats between the index- and
+the middle-finger of his left hand, and esteemed it
+infamous manners to dip any other fingers into the gravy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Guillaume had left the Warriors' Hall.  Philibert
+was drunk, and half the men-at-arms were snoring among
+the rushes, when at the height of their festivity
+Makrisi came.  He plucked his master by the sleeve.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A swarthy, bearded Angevin was singing.  His song
+was one of old Sire Raimbaut's famous canzons in honor
+of Belhs Cavaliers.  The knave was singing blithely:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  <I>Pus mos Belhs Cavaliers grazitz</I><BR>
+  <I>E joys m'es lunhatz e faiditz,</I><BR>
+  <I>Don no m' venra jamais conortz;</I><BR>
+  <I>Fer qu'ees mayer l'ira e plus fortz&mdash;</I><BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+The Saracen had said nothing.  He showed a jeweled
+dagger, and the knight arose and followed him out
+of that uproarious hall.  Raimbaut was bitterly
+perturbed, though he did not know for what reason, as
+Makrisi led him through dark corridors to the
+dull-gleaming arras of Prince Guillaume's apartments.  In
+this corridor was an iron lamp swung from the ceiling,
+and now, as this lamp swayed slightly and burned low,
+the tiny flame leaped clear of the wick and was
+extinguished, and darkness rose about them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Raimbaut said: "What do you want of me?  Whose
+blood is on that knife?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Have you forgotten it is Walburga's Eve?" Makrisi
+said.  Raimbaut did not regret he could not see his
+servant's countenance.  "Time was we named it otherwise
+and praised another woman than a Saxon wench, but let
+the new name stand.  It is Walburga's Eve, that little,
+little hour of evil! and all over the world surges the
+full tide of hell's desire, and mischief is a-making
+now, apace, apace, apace.  People moan in their sleep,
+and many pillows are pricked by needles that have sewed
+a shroud.  Cry <I>Eman hetan</I> now, messire! for there are
+those to-night who find the big cathedrals of your
+red-roofed Christian towns no more imposing than so many
+pimples on a butler's chin, because they ride so high,
+so very high, in this brave moonlight.  Full-tide,
+full-tide!" Makrisi said, and his voice jangled like a
+bell as he drew aside the curtain so that the old
+knight saw into the room beyond.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was a place of many lights, which, when thus
+suddenly disclosed, blinded him at first.  Then
+Raimbaut perceived Guillaume lying a-sprawl across
+an oaken chest.  The Prince had fallen backward and
+lay in this posture, glaring at the intruders with
+horrible eyes which did not move and would not ever
+move again.  His breast was crimson, for some one had
+stabbed him.  A woman stood above the corpse and
+lighted yet another candle while Raimbaut de Vaquieras
+waited motionless.  A hand meant only to bestow
+caresses brushed a lock of hair from this woman's eyes
+while he waited.  The movements of this hand were not
+uncertain, but only quivered somewhat, as a taut wire
+shivers in the wind, while Raimbaut de Vaquieras waited
+motionless.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I must have lights, I must have a host of candles
+to assure me past any questioning that he is dead.  The
+man is of deep cunning.  I think he is not dead even
+now."  Lightly Biatritz touched the Prince's breast.
+"Strange, that this wicked heart should be so tranquil
+when there is murder here to make it glad!  Nay, very
+certainly this Guillaume de Baux will rise and laugh in
+his old fashion before he speaks, and then I shall be
+afraid.  But I am not afraid as yet.  I am afraid of
+nothing save the dark, for one cannot be merry in the dark."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Raimbaut said:  "This is Belhs Cavaliers whom I
+have loved my whole life through.  Therefore I do not
+doubt.  Pardieu, I do not even doubt, who know she is
+of matchless worth."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Wherein have I done wrong, Raimbaut?"  She came to
+him with fluttering hands.  "Why, but look you, the man
+had laid an ambuscade in the marsh and he meant to
+kill you there to-night as you rode for Vaquieras.  He
+told me of it, told me how it was for that end alone he
+lured you into Venaissin&mdash;&mdash;"  Again she brushed the
+hair back from her forehead.  "Raimbaut, I spoke of God
+and knightly honor, and the man laughed.  No, I think
+it was a fiend who sat so long beside the window
+yonder, whence one may see the marsh.  There were no
+candles in the room.  The moonlight was upon his evil
+face, and I could think of nothing, of nothing that has
+been since Adam's time, except our youth, Raimbaut.
+And he smiled fixedly, like a white image, because my
+misery amused him.  Only, when I tried to go to you to
+warn you, he leaped up stiffly, making a mewing noise.
+He caught me by the throat so that I could not scream.
+Then while we struggled in the moonlight your Makrisi
+came and stabbed him&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nay, I but fetched this knife, messire."  Makrisi
+seemed to love that bloodied knife.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Biatritz proudly said: "The man lies, Raimbaut."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What need to tell me that, Belhs Cavaliers?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And the Saracen shrugged.  "It is very true I lie,"
+he said.  "As among friends, I may confess I killed the
+Prince.  But for the rest, take notice both of you, I
+mean to lie intrepidly."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Raimbaut remembered how his mother had given each
+of two lads an apple, and he had clamored for
+Guillaume's, as children do, and Guillaume had changed
+with him.  It was a trivial happening to remember after
+fifty years; but Guillaume was dead, and this
+hacked flesh was Raimbaut's flesh in part, and the
+thought of Raimbaut would never trouble Guillaume de
+Baux any more.  In addition there was a fire of juniper
+wood and frankincense upon the hearth, and the room
+smelt too cloyingly of be-drugging sweetness.  Then on
+the walls were tapestries which depicted Merlin's
+Dream, so that everywhere recoiling women smiled with
+bold eyes; and here their wantonness seemed out of
+place.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Listen," Makrisi was saying; "listen, for the hour
+strikes.  At last, at last!" he cried, with a shrill
+whine of malice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Raimbaut said, dully:  "Oh, I do not understand&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And yet Zoraida loved you once! loved you as
+people love where I was born!"  The Saracen's voice had
+altered.  His speech was like the rustle of papers.
+"You did not love Zoraida.  And so it came about that
+upon Walburga's Eve, at midnight, Zoraida hanged
+herself beside your doorway.  Thus we love where I was
+born.&#8230;  And I, I cut the rope&mdash;with my left hand.
+I had my other arm about that frozen thing which
+yesterday had been Zoraida, you understand, so that it
+might not fall.  And in the act a tear dropped from
+that dead woman's cheek and wetted my forehead.  Ice is
+not so cold as was that tear.&#8230;  Ho, that tear did
+not fall upon my forehead but on my heart, because I
+loved that dancing-girl, Zoraida, as you do this
+princess here.  I think you will understand,"
+Makrisi said, calmly as one who states a maxim.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Sire de Vaquieras replied, in the same tone:
+"I understand.  You have contrived my death?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ey, messire, would that be adequate?  I could have
+managed that any hour within the last score of years.
+Oh no! for I have studied you carefully.  Oh no!
+instead, I have contrived this plight.  For the Prince
+of Orange is manifestly murdered.  Who killed him?&mdash;why,
+Madona Biatritz, and none other, for I will swear
+to it.  I, I will swear to it, who saw it done.
+Afterward both you and I must be questioned upon the
+rack, as possibly concerned in the affair, and whether
+innocent or guilty we must die very horribly.  Such is
+the gentle custom of your Christian country when a
+prince is murdered.  That is not the point of the jest,
+however.  For first Sire Philibert will put this woman
+to the Question by Water, until she confesses her
+confederates, until she confesses that every baron whom
+Philibert distrusts was one of them.  Oh yes, assuredly
+they will thrust a hollow cane into the mouth of your
+Biatritz, and they will pour water a little by a little
+through this cane, until she confesses what they
+desire.  Ha, Philibert will see to this confession!
+And through this woman's torment he will rid himself of
+every dangerous foe he has in Venaissin.  You must
+stand by and wait your turn.  You must stand by, in
+fetters, and see this done&mdash;you, you, my master!&mdash;you,
+who love this woman as I loved that dead Zoraida who
+was not fair enough to please you!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Raimbaut, trapped, impotent, cried out: "This is
+not possible&mdash;&mdash;"  And for all that, he knew the
+Saracen to be foretelling the inevitable.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Makrisi went on, quietly:  "After the Question men
+will parade her, naked to the middle, through all
+Orange, until they reach the Marketplace, where will be
+four horses.  One of these horses they will harness to
+each arm and leg of your Biatritz.  Then they will beat
+these horses.  These will be strong horses.  They will
+each run in a different direction."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This infamy also was certain.  Raimbaut foresaw
+what he must do.  He clutched the dagger which Makrisi
+fondled.  "Belhs Cavaliers, this fellow speaks the
+truth.  Look now, the moon is old&mdash;is it not strange to
+know it will outlive us?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And Biatritz came close to Sire Raimbaut and said:
+"I understand.  If I leave this room alive it will
+purchase a hideous suffering for my poor body, it will
+bring about the ruin of many brave and innocent
+chevaliers.  I know.  I would perforce confess all that
+the masked men bade me.  I know, for in Prince Conrat's
+time I have seen persons who had been put to the
+Question&mdash;&mdash;"  She shuddered; and she re-began, without
+any agitation:  "Give me the knife, Raimbaut."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Pardieu! but I may not obey you for this once," he
+answered, "since we are informed by those in holy
+orders that all such as lay violent hands upon
+themselves must suffer eternally."  Then, kneeling, he
+cried, in an extremity of adoration:  "Oh, I have
+served you all my life.  You may not now deny me
+this last service.  And while I talk they dig your
+grave!  O blind men, making the new grave, take heed
+lest that grave be too narrow, for already my heart is
+breaking in my body.  I have drunk too deep of sorrow.
+And yet I may not fail you, now that honor and mercy
+and my love for you demand I kill you before I also
+die&mdash;in such a fashion as this fellow speaks of."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She did not dispute this.  How could she when it
+was an axiom in all Courts of Love that Heaven held
+dominion in a lover's heart only as an underling of the
+man's mistress?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And so she said, with a fond smile:  "It is your
+demonstrable privilege.  I would not grant it, dear,
+were my weak hands as clean as yours.  Oh, but it is
+long you have loved me, and it is faithfully you have
+served Heaven, and my heart too is breaking in my body
+now that your service ends!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And he demanded, wearily:  "When we were boy and
+girl together what had we said if any one had told us
+this would be the end?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We would have laughed.  It is a long while since
+those children laughed at Montferrat.&#8230; Not yet,
+not yet!" she said.  "Ah, pity me, tried champion, for
+even now I am almost afraid to die."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She leaned against the window yonder, shuddering,
+staring into the night.  Dawn had purged the east of
+stars.  Day was at hand, the day whose noon she might
+not hope to witness.  She noted this incuriously.
+Then Biatritz came to him, very strangely proud,
+and yet all tenderness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"See, now, Raimbaut! because I have loved you as I
+have loved nothing else in life, I will not be unworthy
+of your love.  Strike and have done."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Raimbaut de Vaquieras raised an already bloodied
+dagger.  As emotion goes, he was bankrupt.  He had no
+longer any dread of hell, because he thought that, a
+little later, nothing its shrewdest overseer could plan
+would have the power to vex him.  She, waiting, smiled.
+Makrisi, seated, stretched his legs, put fingertips
+together with the air of an attendant amateur.  This
+was better than he had hoped.  In such a posture they
+heard a bustle of armored men, and when all turned, saw
+how a sword protruded through the arras.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Come out, Guillaume!" people were shouting.
+"Unkennel, dog!  Out, out, and die!"  To such a
+heralding Mahi de Vernoil came into the room with
+mincing steps such as the man affected in an hour of
+peril.  He first saw what a grisly burden the chest
+sustained.  "Now, by the Face!" he cried, "if he that
+cheated me of quieting this filth should prove to be of
+gentle birth I will demand of him a duel to the
+death!"  The curtains were ripped from their hangings as he
+spoke, and behind him the candlelight was reflected by
+the armor of many followers.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then de Vernoil perceived Raimbaut de Vaquieras,
+and the spruce little man bowed ceremoniously.  All
+were still.  Composedly, like a lieutenant before his
+captain, Mahi narrated how these hunted remnants of
+Lovain's army had, as a last cast, that night invaded
+the chateau, and had found, thanks to the festival, its
+men-at-arms in uniform and inefficient drunkenness.
+"My tres beau sire," Messire de Vernoil ended, "will
+you or nill you, Venaissin is yours this morning.  My
+knaves have slain Philibert and his bewildered
+fellow-tipplers with less effort than is needed to drown as
+many kittens."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And his followers cried, as upon a signal: "Hail,
+Prince of Orange!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was so like the wonder-working of a dream&mdash;this
+sudden and heroic uproar&mdash;that old Raimbaut de
+Vaquieras stood reeling, near to intimacy with fear for
+the first time.  He waited thus, with both hands
+pressed before his eyes.  He waited thus for a long
+while, because he was not used to find chance dealing
+kindlily with him.  Later he saw that Makrisi had
+vanished in the tumult, and that many people awaited
+his speaking.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The lord of Venaissin began: "You have done me a
+great service, Messire de Vemoil.  As recompense, I
+give you what I may.  I freely yield you all my right
+in Venaissin.  Oh no, kingcraft is not for me.  I daily
+see and hear of battles won, cities beleaguered, high
+towers overthrown, and ancient citadels and new walls
+leveled with the dust.  I have conversed with many
+kings, the directors of these events, and they were not
+happy people.  Yes, yes, I have witnessed divers
+happenings, for I am old.&#8230;  I have found nothing
+which can serve me in place of honor."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He turned to Dona Biatritz.  It was as if they
+were alone.  "Belhs Cavaliers," he said, "I had
+sworn fealty to this Guillaume.  He violated his
+obligations; but that did not free me of mine.  An oath
+is an oath.  I was, and am to-day, sworn to support his
+cause, and to profit in any fashion by its overthrow
+would be an abominable action.  Nay, more, were any of
+his adherents alive it would be my manifest duty to
+join them against our preserver, Messire de Vernoil.
+This necessity is very happily spared me.  I cannot,
+though, in honor hold any fief under the supplanter of
+my liege-lord.  I must, therefore, relinquish Vaquieras
+and take eternal leave of Venaissin.  I will not lose
+the right to call myself your servant!" he cried
+out&mdash;"and that which is noblest in the world must be served
+fittingly.  And so, Belhs Cavaliers, let us touch palms
+and bid farewell, and never in this life speak face to
+face of trivial happenings which we two alone remember.
+For naked of lands and gear I came to you&mdash;a prince's
+daughter&mdash;very long ago, and as nakedly I now depart,
+so that I may retain the right to say, 'All my life
+long I served my love of her according to my abilities,
+wholeheartedly and with clean hands.'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, yes! you must depart from Venaissin," said
+Dona Biatritz.  A capable woman, she had no sympathy
+with his exquisite points of honor, and yet loved him
+all the more because of what seemed to her his
+surpassing folly.  She smiled, somewhat as mothers do
+in humoring an unreasonable boy.  "We will go to my
+nephew's court at Montferrat," she said.  "He will
+willingly provide for his old aunt and her husband.
+And you may still make verses&mdash;at Montferrat, where we
+lived verses, once, Raimbaut."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now they gazed full upon each other.  Thus they
+stayed, transfigured, neither seeming old.  Each had
+forgotten that unhappiness existed anywhere in the
+whole world.  The armored, blood-stained men about them
+were of no more importance than were those wantons in
+the tapestry.  Without, dawn throbbed in heaven.
+Without, innumerable birds were raising that glad,
+piercing, hurried morning-song which very anciently
+caused Adam's primal waking, to behold his mate.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap04"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+BALTHAZAR'S DAUGHTER
+</H3>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+"<I>A curious preference for the artificial should be
+mentioned as characteristic of ALESSANDRO DE MEDICI'S
+poetry.  For his century was anything but artless; the
+great commonplaces that form the main stock of human
+thought were no longer in their first flush, and he
+addressed a people no longer childish.&#8230;
+Unquestionably his fancies were fantastic,
+anti-natural, bordering on hallucination, and they betray a
+desire for impossible novelty; but it is allowable to
+prefer them to the sickly simplicity of those so-called
+poems that embroider with old faded wools upon the
+canvas of worn-out truisms, trite, trivial and
+idiotically sentimental patterns.</I>"
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  Let me have dames and damsels richly clad<BR>
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;To feed and tend my mirth,<BR>
+  Singing by day and night to make me glad;<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  Let me have fruitful gardens of great girth<BR>
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Fill'd with the strife of birds,<BR>
+  With water-springs, and beasts that house i' the earth.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  Let me seem Solomon for lore of words,<BR>
+  Samson for strength, for beauty Absalom.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Knights as my serfs be given;<BR>
+  And as I will, let music go and come;<BR>
+  Till, when I will, I will to enter Heaven.<BR>
+<BR>
+  ALESSANDRO DE MEDICI.&mdash;<I>Madrigal, from D. G. Rossetti's version</I>.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+BALTHAZAR'S DAUGHTER
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Graciosa was Balthazar's youngest child, a white, slim
+girl with violet eyes and strange pale hair which had
+the color and glitter of stardust.  "Some day at
+court," her father often thought complacently, "she,
+too, will make a good match."  He was a necessitous
+lord, a smiling, supple man who had already marketed
+two daughters to his advantage.  But Graciosa's time
+was not yet mature in the year of grace 1533, for the
+girl was not quite sixteen.  So Graciosa remained in
+Balthazar's big cheerless house and was tutored in all
+needful accomplishments.  She was proficient in the
+making of preserves and unguents, could play the
+harpsichord and the virginals acceptably, could
+embroider an altarcloth to admiration, and, in spite of
+a trivial lameness in walking, could dance a coranto or
+a saraband against any woman between two seas.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now to the north of Balthazar's home stood a tall
+forest, overhanging both the highway and the river
+whose windings the highway followed.  Graciosa was very
+often to be encountered upon the outskirts of these
+woods.  She loved the forest, whose tranquillity
+bred dreams, but was already a woman in so far that she
+found it more interesting to watch the highway.
+Sometimes it would be deserted save for small purple
+butterflies which fluttered about as if in continuous
+indecision, and rarely ascended more than a foot above
+the ground.  But people passed at intervals&mdash;as now a
+page, who was a notably fine fellow, clothed in
+ash-colored gray, with slashed, puffed sleeves, and having
+a heron's feather in his cap; or a Franciscan with his
+gown tucked up so that you saw how the veins on his
+naked feet stood out like the carvings on a vase; or a
+farmer leading a calf; or a gentleman in a mantle of
+squirrel's fur riding beside a wonderful proud lady,
+whose tiny hat was embroidered with pearls.  It was all
+very interesting to watch, it was like turning over the
+leaves of a book written in an unknown tongue and
+guessing what the pictures meant, because these people
+were intent upon their private avocations, in which you
+had no part, and you would never see them any more.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then destiny took a hand in the affair and Guido
+came.  He reined his gray horse at the sight of her
+sitting by the wayside and deferentially inquired how
+far it might be to the nearest inn.  Graciosa told him.
+He thanked her and rode on.  That was all, but the
+appraising glance of this sedate and handsome burgher
+obscurely troubled the girl afterward.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Next day he came again.  He was a jewel-merchant,
+he told her, and he thought it within the stretch of
+possibility that my lord Balthazar's daughter might
+wish to purchase some of his wares.  She viewed them
+with admiration, chaffered thriftily, and finally
+bought a topaz, dug from Mount Zabarca, Guido assured
+her, which rendered its wearer immune to terrors of any
+kind.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Very often afterward these two met on the outskirts
+of the forest as Guido rode between the coast and the
+hill-country about his vocation.  Sometimes he
+laughingly offered her a bargain, on other days he
+paused to exhibit a notable gem which he had procured
+for this or that wealthy amateur.  Count Eglamore, the
+young Duke's favorite yonder at court, bought most of
+them, it seemed.  "The nobles complain against this
+upstart Eglamore very bitterly," said Guido, "but we
+merchants have no quarrel with him.  He buys too
+lavishly."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I trust I shall not see Count Eglamore when I go
+to court," said Graciosa, meditatively; "and, indeed,
+by that time, my father assures me, some honest
+gentleman will have contrived to cut the throat of this
+abominable Eglamore."  Her father's people, it should
+be premised, had been at bitter feud with the favorite
+ever since he detected and punished the conspiracy of
+the Marquis of Cibo, their kinsman.  Then Graciosa
+continued:  "Nevertheless, I shall see many beautiful
+sights when I am taken to court.&#8230;  And the Duke,
+too, you tell me, is an amateur of gems."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Eh, madonna, I wish that you could see his
+jewels," cried Guido, growing fervent; and he lovingly
+catalogued a host of lapidary marvels.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I hope that I shall see these wonderful jewels
+when I go to court," said Graciosa wistfully.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Duke Alessandro," he returned, his dark eyes
+strangely mirthful, "is, as I take it, a catholic lover
+of beauty in all its forms.  So he will show you his
+gems, very assuredly, and, worse still, he will make
+verses in your honor.  For it is a preposterous feature
+of Duke Alessandro's character that he is always making
+songs."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, and such strange songs as they are, too,
+Guido.  Who does not know them?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am not the best possible judge of his verses'
+merit," Guido estimated, drily.  "But I shall never
+understand how any singer at all came to be locked in
+such a prison.  I fancy that at times the paradox
+puzzles even Duke Alessandro."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And is he as handsome as people report?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Guido laughed a little.  "Tastes differ, of
+course.  But I think your father will assure you,
+madonna, that no duke possessing such a zealous
+tax-collector as Count Eglamore was ever in his lifetime
+considered of repulsive person."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And is he young?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, as to that, he is about of an age with me,
+and in consequence old enough to be far more sensible
+than either of us is ever likely to be," said Guido;
+and began to talk of other matters.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But presently Graciosa was questioning him again as
+to the court, whither she was to go next year and
+enslave a marquis, or, at worst, an opulent baron.
+Her thoughts turned toward the court's
+predominating figure.  "Tell me of Eglamore, Guido."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Madonna, some say that Eglamore was a brewer's
+son.  Others&mdash;and your father's kinsmen in particular&mdash;insist
+that he was begot by a devil in person, just as
+Merlin was, and Plato the philosopher, and puissant
+Alexander.  Nobody knows anything about his origin."
+Guido was sitting upon the ground, his open pack
+between his knees.  Between the thumb and forefinger of
+each hand he held caressingly a string of pearls which
+he inspected as he talked.  "Nobody," he idly said,
+"nobody is very eager to discuss Count Eglamore's
+origin now that Eglamore has become indispensable to
+Duke Alessandro.  Yes, it is thanks to Eglamore that
+the Duke has ample leisure and needful privacy for the
+pursuit of recreations which are reputed to be
+curious."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I do not understand you, Guido."  Graciosa was all
+wonder.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is perhaps as well," the merchant said, a
+trifle sadly.  Then Guido shrugged.  "To be brief,
+madonna, business annoys the Duke.  He finds in this
+Eglamore an industrious person who affixes seals,
+draughts proclamations, makes treaties, musters armies,
+devises pageants, and collects revenues, upon the
+whole, quite as efficiently as Alessandro would be
+capable of doing these things.  So Alessandro makes
+verses and amuses himself as his inclinations prompt,
+and Alessandro's people are none the worse off on
+account of it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Heigho, I foresee that I shall never fall in love
+with the Duke," Graciosa declared.  "It is
+unbefitting and it is a little cowardly for a prince to
+shirk the duties of his station.  Now, if I were Duke I
+would grant my father a pension, and have Eglamore
+hanged, and purchase a new gown of silvery green, in
+which I would be ravishingly beautiful, and afterward&mdash;
+Why, what would you do if you were Duke, Messer Guido?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What would I do if I were Duke?" he echoed.  "What
+would I do if I were a great lord instead of a
+tradesman?  I think you know the answer, madonna."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, you would make me your duchess, of course.
+That is quite understood," said Graciosa, with the
+lightest of laughs.  "But I was speaking seriously,
+Guido."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Guido at that considered her intently for a
+half-minute.  His countenance was of portentous gravity, but
+in his eyes she seemed to detect a lurking impishness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And it is not a serious matter that a peddler of
+crystals should have dared to love a nobleman's
+daughter?  You are perfectly right.  That I worship you
+is an affair which does not concern any person save
+myself in any way whatsoever, although I think that
+knowledge of the fact would put your father to the
+trouble of sharpening his dagger.&#8230;  Indeed, I am
+not certain that I worship you, for in order to adore
+wholeheartedly, the idolater must believe his idol to
+be perfect.  Now, your nails are of an ugly shape, like
+that of little fans; your mouth is too large; and I
+have long ago perceived that you are a trifle lame
+in spite of your constant care to conceal the fact.
+I do not admire these faults, for faults they are
+undoubtedly.  Then, too, I know you are vain and
+self-seeking, and look forward contentedly to the time when
+your father will transfer his ownership of such
+physical attractions as heaven gave you to that
+nobleman who offers the highest price for them.  It is
+true you have no choice in the matter, but you will
+participate in a monstrous bargain, and I would prefer
+to have you exhibit distaste for it."  And with that he
+returned composedly to inspection of his pearls.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And to what end, Guido?"  It was the first time
+Graciosa had completely waived the reticence of a
+superior caste.  You saw that the child's parted lips
+were tremulous, and you divined her childish fits of
+dreading that glittering, inevitable court-life shared
+with an unimaginable husband.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Guido only grumbled whimsically.  "I am afraid
+that men do not always love according to the strict
+laws of logic.  I desire your happiness above all
+things; yet to see you so abysmally untroubled by
+anything that troubles me is another matter."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But I am not untroubled, Guido&mdash;&mdash;" she began
+swiftly.  Graciosa broke off in speech, shrugged,
+flashed a smile at him.  "For I cannot fathom you, Ser
+Guido, and that troubles me.  Yes, I am very fond of
+you, and yet I do not trust you.  You tell me you love
+me greatly.  It pleases me to have you say this.  You
+perceive I am very candid this morning, Messer Guido.
+Yes, it pleases me, and I know that for the sake of
+seeing me you daily endanger your life, for if my
+father heard of our meetings he would have you killed.
+You would not incur such hare-brained risks unless you
+cared very greatly; and yet, somehow, I do not believe
+it is altogether for me you care."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Guido was in train to protest an all-mastering
+and entirely candid devotion, but he was interrupted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Most women have these awkward intuitions," spoke a
+melodious voice, and turning, Graciosa met the eyes of
+the intruder.  This magnificent young man had a proud
+and bloodless face which contrasted sharply with his
+painted lips and cheeks.  In the contour of his
+protruding mouth showed plainly his negroid ancestry.
+His scanty beard, as well as his frizzled hair, was the
+color of dead grass.  He was sumptuously clothed in
+white satin worked with silver, and around his cap was
+a gold chain hung with diamonds.  Now he handed his
+fringed riding-gloves to Guido to hold.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, madonna, I suspect that Eglamore here cares
+greatly for the fact that you are Lord Balthazar's
+daughter, and cousin to the late Marquis of Cibo.  For
+Cibo has many kinsmen at court who still resent the
+circumstance that the matching of his wits against
+Eglamore's earned for Cibo a deplorably public demise.
+So they conspire against Eglamore with vexatious
+industry, as an upstart, as a nobody thrust over people
+of proven descent, and Eglamore goes about in hourly
+apprehension of a knife-thrust.  If he could make a
+match with you, though, your father&mdash;thrifty man!&mdash;would
+be easily appeased.  Your cousins, those proud,
+grumbling Castel-Franchi, Strossi and Valori, would not
+prove over-obdurate toward a kinsman who, whatever his
+past indiscretions, has so many pensions and offices at
+his disposal.  Yes, honor would permit a truce, and
+Eglamore could bind them to his interests within ten
+days, and be rid of the necessity of sleeping in chain
+armor.&#8230;  Have I not unraveled the scheme
+correctly, Eglamore?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Your highness was never lacking in penetration,"
+replied the other in a dull voice.  He stood
+motionless, holding the gloves, his shoulders a little
+bowed as if under some physical load.  His eyes were
+fixed upon the ground.  He divined the change in
+Graciosa's face and did not care to see it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And so you are Count Eglamore," said Graciosa in a
+sort of whisper.  "That is very strange.  I had thought
+you were my friend, Guido.  But I forget.  I must not
+call you Guido any longer."  She gave a little shiver
+here.  He stayed motionless and did not look at her.
+"I have often wondered what manner of man you were.  So
+it was you&mdash;whose hand I touched just now&mdash;you who
+poisoned Duke Cosmo, you who had the good cardinal
+assassinated, you who betrayed the brave lord of
+Faenza!  Oh, yes, they openly accuse you of every
+imaginable crime&mdash;this patient Eglamore, this reptile
+who has crept into his power through filthy passages.
+It is very strange you should be capable of so much
+wickedness, for to me you seem only a sullen
+lackey."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He winced and raised his eyes at this.  His face
+remained expressionless.  He knew these accusations at
+least to be demonstrable lies, for as it happened he
+had never found his advancement to hinge upon the
+commission of the crimes named.  But even so, the past
+was a cemetery he did not care to have revivified.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And it was you who detected the Marquis of Cibo's
+conspiracy.  Tebaldeo was my cousin, Count Eglamore,
+and I loved him.  We were reared together.  We used to
+play here in these woods, and I remember how Tebaldeo
+once fetched me a wren's nest from that maple yonder.
+I stood just here.  I was weeping because I was afraid
+he would fall.  If he had fallen and been killed, it
+would have been the luckier for him," Graciosa sighed.
+"They say that he conspired.  I do not know.  I only
+know that by your orders, Count Eglamore, my playmate
+Tebaldeo was fastened upon a Saint Andrew's cross and
+his arms and legs were each broken in two places with
+an iron bar.  Then your servants took Tebaldeo, still
+living, and laid him upon a carriage-wheel which was
+hung upon a pivot.  The upper edge of this wheel was
+cut with very fine teeth like those of a saw, so that
+his agony might be complete.  Tebaldeo's poor mangled
+legs were folded beneath his body so that his heels
+touched the back of his head, they tell me.  In such a
+posture he died very slowly while the wheel turned very
+slowly there in the sunlit market-place, and flies
+buzzed greedily about him, and the shopkeepers took
+holiday in order to watch Tebaldeo die&mdash;the same
+Tebaldeo who once fetched me a wren's nest from
+yonder maple."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Eglamore spoke now.  "I gave orders for the Marquis
+of Cibo's execution.  I did not devise the manner of
+his death.  The punishment for Cibo's crime was long
+ago fixed by our laws.  Cibo plotted to kill the Duke.
+Cibo confessed as much."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But the girl waved this aside.  "And then you plan
+this masquerade.  You plan to make me care for you so
+greatly that even when I know you to be Count Eglamore
+I must still care for you.  You plan to marry me, so as
+to placate Tebaldeo's kinsmen, so as to bind them to
+your interests.  It was a fine bold stroke of policy, I
+know, to use me as a stepping-stone to safety&mdash;but was
+it fair to me?"  Her voice rose now a little.  She
+seemed to plead with him.  "Look you, Count Eglamore, I
+was a child only yesterday.  I have never loved any
+man.  But you have loved many women, I know, and long
+experience has taught you many ways of moving a woman's
+heart.  Oh, was it fair, was it worth while, to match
+your skill against my ignorance?  Think how unhappy I
+would be if even now I loved you, and how I would
+loathe myself.&#8230;  But I am getting angry over
+nothing.  Nothing has happened except that I have
+dreamed in idle moments of a brave and comely lover who
+held his head so high that all other women envied me,
+and now I have awakened."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Meanwhile, it was with tears in his eyes that the
+young man in white had listened to her quiet talk, for
+you could nowhere have found a nature more readily
+sensitive than his to all the beauty and wonder which
+life, as if it were haphazardly, produces every day.
+He pitied this betrayed child quite ineffably, because
+in her sorrow she was so pretty.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So he spoke consolingly.  "Fie, Donna Graciosa, you
+must not be too harsh with Eglamore.  It is his nature
+to scheme, and he weaves his plots as inevitably as the
+spider does her web.  Believe me, it is wiser to forget
+the rascal&mdash;as I do&mdash;until there is need of him; and I
+think you will have no more need to consider Eglamore's
+trickeries, for you are very beautiful, Graciosa."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He had drawn closer to the girl, and he brought a
+cloying odor of frangipani, bergamot and vervain.  His
+nostrils quivered, his face had taken on an odd pinched
+look, for all that he smiled as over some occult jest.
+Graciosa was a little frightened by his bearing, which
+was both furtive and predatory.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, do not be offended, for I have some rights to
+say what I desire in these parts.  For, <I>Dei gratia</I>, I
+am the overlord of these parts, Graciosa&mdash;a neglected
+prince who wondered over the frequent absences of his
+chief counselor and secretly set spies upon him.
+Eglamore here will attest as much.  Or if you cannot
+believe poor Eglamore any longer, I shall have other
+witnesses within the half-hour.  Oh, yes, they are to
+meet me here at noon&mdash;some twenty crop-haired stalwart
+cut-throats.  They will come riding upon beautiful
+broad-chested horses covered with red velvet trappings
+that are hung with little silver bells which jingle
+delightfully.  They will come very soon, and then we
+will ride back to court."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Duke Alessandro touched his big painted mouth with
+his forefinger as if in fantastic mimicry of a man
+imparting a confidence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think that I shall take you with me, Graciosa,
+for you are very beautiful.  You are as slim as a lily
+and more white, and your eyes are two purple mirrors in
+each of which I see a tiny image of Duke Alessandro.
+The woman I loved yesterday was a big splendid wench
+with cheeks like apples.  It is not desirable that
+women should be so large.  All women should be little
+creatures that fear you.  They should have thin,
+plaintive voices, and in shrinking from you be as
+slight to the touch as a cobweb.  It is not possible to
+love a woman ardently unless you comprehend how easy it
+would be to murder her."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"God, God!" said Count Eglamore, very softly, for
+he was familiar with the look which had now come into
+Duke Alessandro's face.  Indeed, all persons about
+court were quick to notice this odd pinched look, like
+that of a traveler nipped at by frosts, and people at
+court became obsequious within the instant in dealing
+with the fortunate woman who had aroused this look,
+Count Eglamore remembered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And the girl did not speak at all, but stood
+motionless, staring in bewildered, pitiable, childlike
+fashion, and the color had ebbed from her countenance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Alessandro was frankly pleased.  "You fear me, do
+you not, Graciosa?  See, now, when I touch your
+hand it is soft and cold as a serpent's skin, and you
+shudder.  I am very tired of women who love me, of all
+women with bold, hungry eyes.  To you my touch will
+always be a martyrdom, you will always loathe me, and
+therefore I shall not weary of you for a long while.
+Come, Graciosa.  Your father shall have all the wealth
+and state that even his greedy imaginings can devise,
+so long as you can contrive to loathe me.  We will find
+you a suitable husband.  You shall have flattery and
+titles, gold and fine glass, soft stuffs and superb
+palaces such as are your beauty's due henceforward."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He glanced at the peddler's pack, and shrugged.
+"So Eglamore has been wooing you with jewels!  You must
+see mine, dear Graciosa.  It is not merely an affair of
+possessing, as some emperors do, all the four kinds of
+sapphires, the twelve kinds of emeralds, the three
+kinds of rubies, and many extraordinary pearls,
+diamonds, cymophanes, beryls, green peridots, tyanos,
+sandrastra, and fiery cinnamon-stones"&mdash;he enumerated
+them with the tender voice of their lover&mdash;"for the
+value of these may at least be estimated.  Oh, no, I
+have in my possession gems which have not their fellows
+in any other collection, gems which have not even a
+name and the value of which is incalculable&mdash;strange
+jewels that were shot from inaccessible mountain peaks
+by means of slings, jewels engendered by the thunder,
+jewels taken from the heart of the Arabian deer, jewels
+cut from the brain of a toad and the eyes of serpents,
+and even jewels that are authentically known to
+have fallen from the moon.  We will select the rarest,
+and have a pair of slippers encrusted with them, in
+which you shall dance for me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Highness," cried Eglamore, with anger and terror
+at odds in his breast, "Highness, I love this girl!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ah, then you cannot ever be her husband," Duke
+Alessandro returned.  "You would have suited otherwise.
+No, no, we must seek out some other person of
+discretion.  It will all be very amusing, for I think
+that she is now quite innocent, as pure as the high
+angels are.  See, Eglamore, she cannot speak, she stays
+still as a lark that has been taken in a snare.  It
+will be very marvelous to make her as I am.&#8230;"  He
+meditated, as, obscurely aware of opposition, his
+shoulders twitched fretfully, and momentarily his eyes
+lightened like the glare of a cannon through its smoke.
+"You made a beast of me, some long-faced people say.
+Beware lest the beast turn and rend you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Count Eglamore plucked aimlessly at his chin.  Then
+he laughed as a dog yelps.  He dropped the gloves which
+he had held till this, deliberately, as if the act were
+a rite.  His shoulders straightened and purpose seemed
+to flow into the man.  "No," he said quietly, "I will
+not have it.  It was not altogether I who made a
+brain-sick beast of you, my prince; but even so, I have never
+been too nice to profit by your vices.  I have taken my
+thrifty toll of abomination, I have stood by
+contentedly, not urging you on, yet never trying to
+stay you, as you waded deeper and ever deeper into the
+filth of your debaucheries, because meanwhile you
+left me so much power.  Yes, in some part it is my own
+handiwork which is my ruin.  I accept it.
+Nevertheless, you shall not harm this child."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I venture to remind you, Eglamore, that I am still
+the master of this duchy."  Alessandro was languidly
+amused, and had begun to regard his adversary with real
+curiosity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, yes, but that is nothing to me.  At court you
+are the master.  At court I have seen mothers raise the
+veil from their daughters' faces, with smiles that were
+more loathsome than the grimaces of a fiend, because
+you happened to be passing.  But here in these woods,
+your highness, I see only the woman I love and the man
+who has insulted her."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"This is very admirable fooling," the Duke
+considered.  "So all the world is changed and Pandarus
+is transformed into Hector?  These are sonorous words,
+Eglamore, but with what deeds do you propose to back
+them?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"By killing you, your highness."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"So!" said the Duke.  "The farce ascends in
+interest." He drew with a flourish, with actual
+animation, for sottish, debauched and power-crazed as
+this man was, he came of a race to whom danger was a
+cordial.  "Very luckily a sword forms part of your
+disguise, so let us amuse ourselves.  It is always
+diverting to kill, and if by any chance you kill me I
+shall at least be rid of the intolerable knowledge that
+to-morrow will be just like to-day."  The Duke
+descended blithely into the level road and placed
+himself on guard.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then both men silently went about the business in
+hand.  Both were oddly calm, almost as if preoccupied
+by some more important matter to be settled later.  The
+two swords clashed, gleamed rigidly for an instant, and
+then their rapid interplay, so far as vision went,
+melted into a flickering snarl of silver, for the sun
+was high and each man's shadow was huddled under him.
+Then Eglamore thrust savagely and in the act trod the
+edge of a puddle, and fell ignominiously prostrate.
+His sword was wrenched ten feet from him, for the Duke
+had parried skilfully.  Eglamore lay thus at
+Alessandro's mercy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, well!" the Duke cried petulantly, "and am I
+to be kept waiting forever?  You were a thought quicker
+in obeying my caprices yesterday.  Get up, you muddy
+lout, and let us kill each other with some pretension
+of adroitness."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Eglamore rose, and, sobbing, caught up his sword
+and rushed toward the Duke in an agony of shame and
+rage.  His attack now was that of a frenzied animal,
+quite careless of defense and desirous only of murder.
+Twice the Duke wounded him, but it was Alessandro who
+drew backward, composedly hindering the brutal
+onslaught he was powerless to check.  Then Eglamore ran
+him through the chest and gave vent to a strangled,
+growling cry as Alessandro fell.  Eglamore wrenched his
+sword free and grasped it by the blade so that he might
+stab the Duke again and again.  He meant to hack
+the abominable flesh, to slash and mutilate that
+haughty mask of infamy, but Graciosa clutched his
+weapon by the hilt.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The girl panted, and her breath came thick.  "He
+gave you your life."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Eglamore looked up.  She leaned now upon his
+shoulder, her face brushing his as he knelt over the
+unconscious Duke; and Eglamore found that at her dear
+touch all passion had gone out of him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Madonna," he said equably, "the Duke is not yet
+dead.  It is impossible to let him live.  You may think
+he voiced only a caprice just now.  I think so too, but
+I know the man, and I know that all this madman's whims
+are ruthless and irresistible.  Living, Duke
+Alessandro's appetites are merely whetted by
+opposition, so much so that he finds no pleasures
+sufficiently piquant unless they have God's
+interdiction as a sauce.  Living, he will make of you
+his plaything, and a little later his broken, soiled
+and castby plaything.  It is therefore necessary that I
+kill Duke Alessandro."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She parted from him, and he too rose to his feet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And afterward," she said quietly, "and afterward
+you must die just as Tebaldeo died."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That is the law, madonna.  But whether Alessandro
+enters hell to-day or later, I am a lost man."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, that is very true," she said.  "A moment since
+you were Count Eglamore, whom every person feared.  Now
+there is not a beggar in the kingdom who would change
+lots with you, for you are a friendless and hunted man
+in peril of dreadful death.  But even so, you are
+not penniless, Count Eglamore, for these jewels here
+which formed part of your masquerade are of great
+value, and there is a world outside.  The frontier is
+not two miles distant.  You have only to escape into
+the hill-country beyond the forest, and you need not
+kill Duke Alessandro after all.  I would have you go
+hence with hands as clean as possible."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Perhaps I might escape."  He found it quaint to
+note how calm she was and how tranquilly his own
+thoughts ran.  "But first the Duke must die, because I
+dare not leave you to his mercy."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How does that matter?" she returned.  "You know
+very well that my father intends to market me as best
+suits his interests.  Here I am so much merchandise.
+The Duke is as free as any other man to cry a bargain."
+He would have spoken in protest, but Graciosa
+interrupted wearily:  "Oh, yes, it is to this end only
+that we daughters of Duke Alessandro's vassals are
+nurtured, just as you told me&mdash;eh, how long ago!&mdash;that
+such physical attractions as heaven accords us may be
+marketed.  And I do not see how a wedding can in any
+way ennoble the transaction by causing it to profane a
+holy sacrament.  Ah, no, Balthazar's daughter was near
+attaining all that she had been taught to desire, for a
+purchaser came and he bid lavishly.  You know very well
+that my father would have been delighted.  But you must
+need upset the bargain.  'No, I will not have it!'
+Count Eglamore must cry.  It cost you very highly to
+speak those words.  I think it would have puzzled my
+father to hear those words at which so many fertile
+lands, stout castles, well-timbered woodlands, herds of
+cattle, gilded coaches, liveries and curious
+tapestries, fine clothing and spiced foods, all
+vanished like a puff of smoke.  Ah, yes, my father
+would have thought you mad."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I had no choice," he said, and waved a little
+gesture of impotence.  He spoke as with difficulty, almost
+wearily.  "I love you.  It is a theme on which I do not
+embroider.  So long as I had thought to use you as an
+instrument I could woo fluently enough.  To-day I saw
+that you were frightened and helpless&mdash;oh, quite
+helpless.  And something changed in me.  I knew for the
+first time that I loved you and that I was not clean as
+you are clean.  What it was of passion and horror, of
+despair and adoration and yearning, which struggled in
+my being then I cannot tell you.  It spurred me to such
+action as I took,&mdash;but it has robbed me of sugared
+eloquence, it has left me chary of speech.  It is
+necessary that I climb very high because of my love for
+you, and upon the heights there is silence."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And Graciosa meditated.  "Here I am so much
+merchandise.  Heigho, since I cannot help it, since
+bought and sold I must be, one day or another, at least
+I will go at a noble price.  Yet I do not think I am
+quite worth the value of these castles and lands and
+other things which you gave up because of me, so that
+it will be necessary to make up the difference, dear,
+by loving you very much."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And at that he touched her chin, gently and
+masterfully, for Graciosa would have averted her face,
+and it seemed to Eglamore that he could never have
+his fill of gazing on the radiant, shamed tenderness of
+Graciosa's face.  "Oh, my girl!" he whispered.  "Oh, my
+wonderful, worshiped, merry girl, whom God has
+fashioned with such loving care! you who had only scorn
+to give me when I was a kingdom's master! and would you
+go with me now that I am friendless and homeless?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But I shall always have a friend," she answered&mdash;"a
+friend who showed me what Balthazar's daughter was
+and what love is.  And I am vain enough to believe I
+shall not ever be very far from home so long as I am
+near to my friend's heart."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A mortal man could not but take her in his arms.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Farewell, Duke Alessandro!" then said Eglamore;
+"farewell, poor clay so plastic the least touch
+remodels you!  I had a part in shaping you so bestial;
+our age, too, had a part&mdash;our bright and cruel day,
+wherein you were set too high.  Yet for me it would
+perhaps have proved as easy to have made a learned
+recluse of you, Alessandro, or a bloodless saint, if to
+do that had been as patently profitable.  For you and
+all your kind are so much putty in the hands of
+circumspect fellows such as I.  But I stood by and let
+our poisoned age conform that putty into the shape of a
+crazed beast, because it took that form as readily as
+any other, and in taking it, best served my selfish
+ends.  Now I must pay for that sorry shaping, just as,
+I think, you too must pay some day.  And so, I cry
+farewell with loathing, but with compassion also!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then these two turned toward the hills, leaving
+Duke Alessandro where he lay in the road, a very
+lamentable figure in much bloodied finery.  They turned
+toward the hills, and entered a forest whose ordering
+was time's contemporary, and where there was no
+grandeur save that of the trees.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But upon the summit of the nearest hill they paused
+and looked over a restless welter of foliage that
+glittered in the sun, far down into the highway.  It
+bustled like an unroofed ant-hill, for the road was
+alive with men who seemed from this distance very
+small.  Duke Alessandro's attendants had found him and
+were clustered in a hubbub about their reviving master.
+Dwarfish Lorenzino de Medici was the most solicitous
+among them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Beyond was the broad river, seen as a ribbon of
+silver now, and on its remoter bank the leaded roofs of
+a strong fortress glistened like a child's new toy.
+Tilled fields showed here and there, no larger in
+appearance than so many outspread handkerchiefs.  Far
+down in the east a small black smudge upon the
+pearl-colored and vaporous horizon was all they could discern
+of a walled city filled with factories for the working
+of hemp and furs and alum and silk and bitumen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is a very rich and lovely land," said
+Eglamore&mdash;"this kingdom which a half-hour since lay in
+the hollow of my hand."  He viewed it for a while, and
+not without pensiveness.  Then he took Graciosa's hand
+and looked into her face, and he laughed joyously.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap05"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+JUDITH'S CREED
+</H3>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+"<I>It does not appear that the age thought his works
+worthy of posterity, nor that this great poet himself
+levied any ideal tribute on future times, or had any
+further prospect than of present popularity and present
+profit.  So careless was he, indeed, of fame, that,
+when he retired to ease and plenty, while he was yet
+little declined into the vale of years, and before he
+could be disgusted with fatigue or disabled by
+infirmity, he desired only that in this rural quiet he
+who had so long mazed his imagination by following
+phantoms might at last be cured of his delirious
+ecstasies, and as a hermit might estimate the
+transactions of the world.</I>"
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  Now my charms are all o'erthrown,<BR>
+  And what strength I have's my own,<BR>
+  Which is most faint.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Now I want<BR>
+  Spirits to enforce, art to enchant;<BR>
+  And my ending is despair,<BR>
+  Unless I be relieved by prayer,<BR>
+  Which pierces so, that it assaults<BR>
+  Mercy itself, and frees all faults.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  As you from crimes would pardon'd be,<BR>
+  Let your indulgence set me free.<BR>
+<BR>
+  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.&mdash;<I>Epilogue to The Tempest</I>.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<P>
+He was hoping, while his fingers drummed in unison with
+the beat of his verse, that this last play at least
+would rouse enthusiasm in the pit.  The welcome given
+its immediate predecessors had undeniably been tepid.
+A memorandum at his elbow of the receipts at the Globe
+for the last quarter showed this with disastrous
+bluntness; and, after all, in 1609 a shareholder in a
+theater, when writing dramas for production there, was
+ordinarily subject to more claims than those of his
+ideals.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He sat in a neglected garden whose growth was in
+reversion to primal habits.  The season was September,
+the sky a uniform and temperate blue.  A peachtree,
+laden past its strength with fruitage, made about him
+with its boughs a sort of tent.  The grass around his
+writing-table was largely hidden by long, crinkled
+peach leaves&mdash;some brown and others gray as yet&mdash;and
+was dotted with a host of brightly-colored peaches.
+Fidgeting bees and flies were excavating the decayed
+spots in this wasting fruit, from which emanated a
+vinous odor.  The bees hummed drowsily, their
+industry facilitating idleness in others.  It was
+curious&mdash;he meditated, his thoughts straying from "an
+uninhabited island"&mdash;how these insects alternated in
+color between brown velvet and silver, as they
+blundered about a flickering tessellation of amber and
+dark green&#8230; in search of rottenness.&#8230;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He frowned.  Here was an arid forenoon as imagination
+went.  A seasoned plagiarist by this, he opened
+a book which lay upon the table among several others
+and duly found the chapter entitled <I>Of the Cannibals</I>.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"So, so!" he said aloud.  "'It is a nation,' would
+I answer Plato, 'that has no kind of traffic, no
+knowledge of letters&mdash;&mdash;'"  And with that he sat about
+reshaping Montaigne's conceptions of Utopia into verse.
+He wrote&mdash;while his left hand held the book flat&mdash;as
+orderly as any county-clerk might do in the recordance
+of a deed of sale.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Midcourse in larceny, he looked up from writing.
+He saw a tall, dark lady who was regarding him
+half-sorrowfully and half as in the grasp of some occult
+amusement.  He said nothing.  He released the telltale
+book.  His eyebrows lifted, banteringly.  He rose.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He found it characteristic of her that she went
+silently to the table and compared the printed page
+with what he had just written.  "So nowadays you have
+turned pickpocket?  My poet, you have altered."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He said:  "Why, yes.  When you broke off our
+friendship, I paid you the expensive compliment of
+falling very ill.  They thought that I would die.
+They tell me even to-day I did not die.  I almost
+question it."  He shrugged.  "And to-day I must
+continue to write plays, because I never learned any
+other trade.  And so, at need, I pilfer."  The topic
+did not seem much to concern him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Eh, and such plays!" the woman cried.  "My poet,
+there was a time when you created men and women as
+glibly as Heaven does.  Now you make sugar-candy
+dolls."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The last comedies were not all I could have
+wished," he assented.  "In fact, I got only some L30
+clear profit."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There speaks the little tradesman I most hated of
+all persons living!" the woman sighed.  Now, as in
+impatience, she thrust back her traveling-hood and
+stood bare-headed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then she stayed silent,&mdash;tall, extraordinarily
+pallid, and with dark, steady eyes.  Their gaze by
+ordinary troubled you, as seeming to hint some
+knowledge to your belittlement.  The playmaker
+remembered that.  Now he, a reputable householder, was
+wondering what would be the upshot of this intrusion.
+His visitor, as he was perfectly aware, had little
+patience with such moments of life as could not be made
+dramatic.&#8230;  He was recollecting many trifles, now
+his mind ran upon old times.&#8230;  No, no, reflection
+assured him, to call her beautiful would be, and must
+always have been, an exaggeration; but to deny the
+exotic and somewhat sinister charm of her, even to-day,
+would be an absurdity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She said, abruptly:  "I do not think I ever loved
+you as women love men.  You were too anxious to
+associate with fine folk, too eager to secure a
+patron&mdash;yes, and to get your profit of him&mdash;and you
+were always ill-at-ease among us.  Our youth is so long
+past, and we two are so altered that we, I think, may
+speak of its happenings now without any bitterness.  I
+hated those sordid, petty traits.  I raged at your
+incessant pretensions to gentility because I knew you
+to be so much more than a gentleman.  Oh, it infuriated
+me&mdash;how long ago it was!&mdash;to see you cringing to the
+Court blockheads, and running their errands, and
+smirkingly pocketing their money, and wheedling them
+into helping the new play to success.  You complained I
+treated you like a lackey; it was not unnatural when of
+your own freewill you played the lackey so
+assiduously."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He laughed.  He had anatomized himself too frequently
+and with too much dispassion to overlook
+whatever tang of snobbishness might be in him; and,
+moreover, the charge thus tendered became in reality
+the speaker's apology, and hurt nobody's self-esteem.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Faith, I do not say you are altogether in the
+wrong," he assented.  "They could be very useful to
+me&mdash;Pembroke, and Southampton, and those others&mdash;and so
+I endeavored to render my intimacy acceptable.  It was
+my business as a poet to make my play as near perfect
+as I could; and this attended to, common-sense demanded
+of the theater-manager that he derive as much money as
+was possible from its representation.  What would
+you have?  The man of letters, like the carpenter or
+the blacksmith, must live by the vending of his
+productions, not by the eating of them."
+The woman waved this aside.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She paced the grass in meditation, the peach leaves
+brushing her proud head&mdash;caressingly, it seemed to him.
+Later she came nearer in a brand-new mood.  She smiled
+now, and her voice was musical and thrilled with
+wonder.  "But what a poet Heaven had locked inside this
+little parasite!  It used to puzzle me."  She laughed,
+and ever so lightly.  "Eh, and did you never understand
+why by preference I talked with you at evening from my
+balcony?  It was because I could forget you then
+entirely.  There was only a voice in the dark.  There
+was a sorcerer at whose bidding words trooped like a
+conclave of emperors, and now sang like a bevy of
+linnets.  And wit and fancy and high aspirations and my
+love&mdash;because I knew then that your love for me was
+splendid and divine&mdash;these also were my sorcerer's
+potent allies.  I understood then how glad and awed
+were those fabulous Greekish queens when a god wooed
+them.  Yes, then I understood.  How long ago it seems!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, yes," he sighed.  "In that full-blooded
+season was Guenevere a lass, I think, and Charlemagne
+was not yet in breeches."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And when there was a new play enacted I was glad.
+For it was our play that you and I had polished the
+last line of yesterday, and all these people wept
+and laughed because of what we had done.  And I was
+proud&mdash;&mdash;"  The lady shrugged impatiently.  "Proud, did
+I say? and glad?  That attests how woefully I fall
+short of you, my poet.  You would have found some magic
+phrase to make that ancient glory articulate, I know.
+Yet,&mdash;did I ever love you?  I do not know that.  I only
+know I sometimes fear you robbed me of the power of
+loving any other man."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He raised one hand in deprecation.  "I must remind
+you," he cried, whimsically, "that a burnt child dreads
+even to talk of fire."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Her response was a friendly nod.  She came yet
+nearer.  "What," she demanded, and her smile was
+elfish, "what if I had lied to you?  What if I were
+hideously tired of my husband, that bluff, stolid
+captain?   What if I wanted you to plead with me as in
+the old time?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He said:  "Until now you were only a woman.  Oh,
+and now, my dear, you are again that resistless gipsy
+who so merrily beguiled me to the very heart of loss.
+You are Love.  You are Youth.  You are Comprehension.
+You are all that I have had, and lost, and vainly
+hunger for.  Here in this abominable village, there is
+no one who understands&mdash;not even those who are more
+dear to me than you are.  I know.  I only spoil good
+paper which might otherwise be profitably used to wrap
+herrings in, they think.  They give me ink and a pen
+just as they would give toys to a child who squalled
+for them too obstinately.  And Poesy is a thrifty
+oracle with no words to waste upon the deaf,
+however loudly her interpreter cry out to her.  Oh, I
+have hungered for you, my proud, dark lady!" the
+playmaker said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Afterward they stood quite silent.  She was not
+unmoved by his outcry; and for this very reason was
+obscurely vexed by the reflection that it would be the
+essay of a braver man to remedy, rather than to lament,
+his circumstances.  And then the moment's rapture
+failed him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am a sorry fool," he said; and lightly he ran
+on:  "You are a skilful witch.  Yet you have raised the
+ghost of an old madness to no purpose.  You seek a
+master-poet?  You will find none here.  Perhaps I was
+one once.  But most of us are poets of one sort or
+another when we love.  Do you not understand?  To-day I
+do not love you any more than I do Hecuba.  Is it not
+strange that I should tell you this and not be moved at
+all?  Is it not laughable that we should stand here at
+the last, two feet apart as things physical go, and be
+as profoundly severed as if an ocean tumbled between
+us?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He fell to walking to and fro, his hands behind his
+back.  She waited, used as she was to his unstable
+temperament, a trifle puzzled.  Presently he spoke:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There was a time when a master-poet was needed.
+He was found&mdash;nay,&mdash;rather made.  Fate hastily caught
+up a man not very different from the run of men&mdash;one
+with a taste for stringing phrases and with a comedy or
+so to his discredit.  Fate merely bid him love a
+headstrong child newly released from the nursery."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We know her well enough," she said.  "The girl was
+faithless, and tyrannous, and proud, and coquettish,
+and unworthy, and false, and inconstant.  She was black
+as hell and dark as night in both her person and her
+living.  You were not niggardly of vituperation."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And he grimaced.  "Faith," he replied, "but sonnets
+are a more natural form of expression than affidavits,
+and they are made effective by compliance with
+different rules.  I find no flagrant fault with you to-day.
+You were a child of seventeen, the darling of a noble
+house, and an actor&mdash;yes, and not even a pre-eminent
+actor&mdash;a gross, poor posturing vagabond, just twice
+your age, presumed to love you.  What child would not
+amuse herself with such engaging toys?  Vivacity and
+prettiness and cruelty are the ordinary attributes of
+kittenhood.  So you amused yourself.  And I submitted
+with clear eyes, because I could not help it.  Yes, I
+who am by nature not disposed to underestimate my
+personal importance&mdash;I submitted, because your mockery
+was more desirable than the adoration of any other
+woman.  And all this helped to make a master-poet of
+me.  Eh, why not, when such monstrous passions spoke
+through me&mdash;as if some implacable god elected to play
+godlike music on a mountebank's lute?  And I made
+admirable plays.  Why not, when there was no tragedy
+more poignant than mine?&mdash;and where in any comedy was
+any figure one-half so ludicrous as mine?  Ah, yes,
+Fate gained her ends, as always."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He was a paunchy, inconsiderable little man.  By
+ordinary his elongated features and high, bald forehead
+loaned him an aspect of serene and axiom-based wisdom,
+much as we see him in his portraits; but now his
+countenance was flushed and mobile.  Odd passions
+played about it, as when on a sullen night in August
+summer lightnings flicker and merge.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His voice had found another cadence.  "But Fate was
+not entirely ruthless.  Fate bade the child become a
+woman, and so grow tired of all her childhood's
+playthings.  This was after a long while, as we
+estimate happenings.&#8230;  I suffered then.  Yes, I went
+down to the doors of death, as people say, in my long
+illness.  But that crude, corporal fever had a
+providential thievishness; and not content with stripping
+me of health and strength,&mdash;not satisfied with pilfering
+inventiveness and any strong hunger to create&mdash;why,
+that insatiable fever even robbed me of my insanity.  I
+lived.  I was only a broken instrument flung by because
+the god had wearied of playing.  I would give forth no
+more heart-wringing music, for the musician had
+departed.  And I still lived&mdash;I, the stout little
+tradesman whom you loathed.  Yes, that tradesman
+scrambled through these evils, somehow, and came out
+still able to word adequately all such imaginings as
+could be devised by his natural abilities.  But he
+transmitted no more heart-wringing music."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She said, "You lie!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He said, "I thank Heaven daily that I do not."  He
+spoke the truth.  She knew it, and her heart was all
+rebellion.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Indefatigable birds sang through the following
+hush.  A wholesome and temperate breeze caressed these
+silent people.  Bees that would die to-morrow hummed
+about them tirelessly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then the poet said:  "I loved you; and you did not
+love me.  It is the most commonplace of tragedies, the
+heart of every man alive has been wounded in this
+identical fashion.  A master-poet is only that wounded
+man&mdash;among so many other bleeding folk&mdash;who perversely
+augments his agony, and utilizes his wound as an
+inkwell.  Presently time scars over the cut for him, as
+time does for all the others.  He does not suffer any
+longer.  No, and such relief is a clear gain; but none
+the less, he must henceforward write with ordinary ink
+such as the lawyers use."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I should have been the man," the woman cried.
+"Had I been sure of fame, could I have known those
+raptures when you used to gabble immortal phrases like
+a stammering infant, I would have paid the price
+without all this whimpering."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Faith, and I think you would have," he assented.
+"There is the difference.  At bottom I am a creature of
+the most moderate aspirations, as you always complained;
+and for my part, Fate must in reason demand
+her applause of posterity rather than of me.  For I
+regret the unlived life that I was meant for&mdash;the
+comfortable level life of little happenings which
+all my schoolfellows have passed through in a
+stolid drove.  I was equipped to live that life with
+relish, and that life only; and it was denied me.  It
+was demolished in order that a book or two be made out
+of its wreckage."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She said, with half-shut eyes:  "There is a woman
+at the root of all this."  And how he laughed!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Did I not say you were a witch?  Why, most
+assuredly there is."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He motioned with his left hand.  Some hundred yards
+away a young man, who was carrying two logs toward New
+Place, had paused to rest.  A girl was with him.  Now
+laughingly she was pretending to assist the porter in
+lifting his burden.  It was a quaintly pretty vignette,
+as framed by the peach leaves, because those two young
+people were so merry and so candidly in love.  A
+symbolist might have wrung pathos out of the girl's
+desire to aid, as set against her fond inadequacy; and
+the attendant playwright made note of it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, well!" he said:  "Young Quiney is a so-so
+choice, since women must necessarily condescend to
+intermarrying with men.  But he is far from worthy of
+her.  Tell me, now, was there ever a rarer piece of
+beauty?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The wench is not ill-favored," was the dark lady's
+unenthusiastic answer.  "So!&mdash;but who is she?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He replied:  "She is my daughter.  Yonder you see
+my latter muse for whose dear sake I spin romances.  I
+do not mean that she takes any lively interest in
+them.  That is not to be expected, since she cannot
+read or write.  Ask her about the poet we were
+discussing, and I very much fear Judith will bluntly
+inform you she cannot tell a B from a bull's foot.  But
+one must have a muse of some sort or another; and so I
+write about the world now as Judith sees it.  My Judith
+finds this world an eminently pleasant place.  It is
+full of laughter and kindliness&mdash;for could Herod be
+unkind to her?&mdash;and it is largely populated by ardent
+young fellows who are intended chiefly to be twisted
+about your fingers; and it is illuminated by sunlight
+whose real purpose is to show how pretty your hair is.
+And if affairs go badly for a while, and you have done
+nothing very wrong&mdash;why, of course, Heaven will soon
+straighten matters satisfactorily.  For nothing that
+happens to us can possibly be anything except a
+benefit, because God orders all happenings, and God
+loves us.  There you have Judith's creed; and upon my
+word, I believe there is a great deal to be said for
+it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And this is you," she cried&mdash;"you who wrote of
+Troilus and Timon!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I lived all that," he replied&mdash;"I lived it, and so
+for a long while I believed in the existence of wickedness.
+To-day I have lost many illusions, madam, and
+that ranks among them.  I never knew a wicked person.
+I question if anybody ever did.  Undoubtedly
+short-sighted people exist who have floundered into
+ill-doing; but it proves always to have been on account of
+either cowardice or folly, and never because of
+malevolence; and, in consequence, their sorry pickle
+should demand commiseration far more loudly than our
+blame.  In short, I find humanity to be both a weaker
+and a better-meaning race than I had suspected.  And
+so, I make what you call 'sugar-candy dolls,' because I
+very potently believe that all of us are sweet at
+heart.  Oh no! men lack an innate aptitude for sinning;
+and at worst, we frenziedly attempt our misdemeanors
+just as a sheep retaliates on its pursuers.  This much,
+at least, has Judith taught me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The woman murmured:  "Eh, you are luckier than I.
+I had a son.  He was borne of my anguish, he was fed
+and tended by me, and he was dependent on me in all
+things."  She said, with a half-sob, "My poet, he was
+so little and so helpless!  Now he is dead."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My dear, my dear!" he cried, and he took both her
+hands.  "I also had a son.  He would have been a man by
+this."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They stood thus for a while.  And then he smiled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I ask your pardon.  I had forgotten that you hate
+to touch my hands.  I know&mdash;they are too moist and
+flabby.  I always knew that you thought that.  Well!
+Hamnet died.  I grieved.  That is a trivial thing to
+say.  But you also have seen your own flesh lying in a
+coffin so small that even my soft hands could lift it.
+So you will comprehend.  To-day I find that the
+roughest winds abate with time.  Hatred and
+self-seeking and mischance and, above all, the frailties
+innate in us&mdash;these buffet us for a while, and we are
+puzzled, and we demand of God, as Job did, why is
+this permitted?  And then as the hair dwindles, the
+wit grows."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, yes, with age we take a slackening hold upon
+events; we let all happenings go by more lightly; and
+we even concede the universe not to be under any actual
+bond to be intelligible.  Yes, that is true.  But is it
+gain, my poet? for I had thought it to be loss."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"With age we gain the priceless certainty that
+sorrow and injustice are ephemeral.  Solvitur ambulando,
+my dear.  I have attested this merely by living long
+enough.  I, like any other man of my years, have in my
+day known more or less every grief which the world
+breeds; and each maddened me in turn, as each was duly
+salved by time; so that to-day their ravages vex me no
+more than do the bee-stings I got when I was an urchin.
+To-day I grant the world to be composed of muck and
+sunshine intermingled; but, upon the whole, I find the
+sunshine more pleasant to look at, and&mdash;greedily,
+because my time for sightseeing is not very long&mdash;I
+stare at it.  And I hold Judith's creed to be the best
+of all imaginable creeds&mdash;that if we do nothing very
+wrong, all human imbroglios, in some irrational and
+quite incomprehensible fashion, will be straightened to
+our satisfaction.  Meanwhile, you also voice a tonic
+truth&mdash;this universe of ours, and, reverently speaking,
+the Maker of this universe as well, is under no actual
+bond to be intelligible in dealing with us."  He
+laughed at this season and fell into a lighter tone.
+"Do I preach like a little conventicle-attending
+tradesman?  Faith, you must remember that when I
+talk gravely Judith listens as if it were an oracle
+discoursing.  For Judith loves me as the wisest and the
+best of men.  I protest her adoration frightens me.
+What if she were to find me out?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I loved what was divine in you," the woman
+answered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oddly enough, that is the perfect truth!  And when
+what was divine in me had burned a sufficiency of
+incense to your vanity, your vanity's owner drove off
+in a fine coach and left me to die in a garret.  Then
+Judith came.  Then Judith nursed and tended and
+caressed me&mdash;and Judith only in all the world!&mdash;as once
+you did that boy you spoke of.  Ah, madam, and does not
+sorrow sometimes lie awake o' nights in the low cradle
+of that child? and sometimes walk with you by day and
+clasp your hand&mdash;much as his tiny hand did once, so
+trustingly, so like the clutching of a vine&mdash;and beg
+you never to be friends with anything save sorrow?  And
+do you wholeheartedly love those other women's boys&mdash;
+who did not die?  Yes, I remember.  Judith, too,
+remembered.  I was her father, for all that I had
+forsaken my family to dance Jack-pudding attendance on
+a fine Court lady.  So Judith came.  And Judith, who
+sees in play-writing just a very uncertain way of
+making money&mdash;Judith, who cannot tell a B from a bull's
+foot,&mdash;why, Judith, madam, did not ask, but gave, what
+was divine."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You are unfair," she cried.  "Oh, you are cruel,
+you juggle words, make knives of them.&#8230;  You" and
+she spoke as with difficulty&mdash;"you have no right
+to know just how I loved my boy!  You should be
+either man or woman!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He said pensively:  "Yes, I am cruel.  But you had
+mirth and beauty once, and I had only love and a
+vocabulary.  Who then more flagrantly abused the gifts
+God gave?  And why should I not be cruel to you, who
+made a master-poet of me for your recreation?  Lord,
+what a deal of ruined life it takes to make a little
+art!  Yes, yes, I know.  Under old oaks lovers will
+mouth my verses, and the acorns are not yet shaped from
+which those oaks will spring.  My adoration and your
+perfidy, all that I have suffered, all that I have
+failed in even, has gone toward the building of an
+enduring monument.  All these will be immortal, because
+youth is immortal, and youth delights in demanding
+explanations of infinity.  And only to this end I have
+suffered and have catalogued the ravings of a perverse
+disease which has robbed my life of all the normal
+privileges of life as flame shrivels hair from the
+arm&mdash;that young fools such as I was once might be
+pleased to murder my rhetoric, and scribblers parody me
+in their fictions, and schoolboys guess at the date of
+my death!"  This he said with more than ordinary
+animation; and then he shook his head.  "There is a
+leaven," he said&mdash;"there is a leaven even in your
+smuggest and most inconsiderable tradesman."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She answered, with a wistful smile:  "I, too,
+regret my poet.  And just now you are more like
+him&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Faith, but he was really a poet&mdash;or, at least, at
+times&mdash;&mdash;?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not marble, nor the gilded monuments of princes
+shall outlive this powerful rhyme&mdash;&mdash;'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Dear, dear!" he said, in petulant vexation; "how
+horribly emotion botches verse.  That clash of
+sibilants is both harsh and ungrammatical.  <I>Shall</I> should be
+changed to <I>will</I>."  And at that the woman sighed,
+because, in common with all persons who never essayed
+creative verbal composition, she was quite certain
+perdurable writing must spring from a surcharged heart,
+rather than from a rearrangement of phrases.  And so,
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Very unfeignedly I regret my poet," she said, "my
+poet, who was unhappy and unreasonable, because I was
+not always wise or kind, or even just.  And I did not
+know until to-day how much I loved my poet.&#8230;  Yes,
+I know now I loved him.  I must go now.  I would I had
+not come."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then, standing face to face, he cried, "Eh, madam,
+and what if I also have lied to you&mdash;in part?  Our work
+is done; what more is there to say?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nothing," she answered&mdash;"nothing.  Not even for
+you, who are a master-smith of words to-day and nothing
+more."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I?" he replied.  "Do you so little emulate a
+higher example that even for a moment you consider me?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She did not answer.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+When she had gone, the playmaker sat for a long
+while in meditation; and then smilingly he took up
+his pen.  He was bound for "an uninhabited island"
+where all disasters ended in a happy climax.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"So, so!" he was declaiming, later on: "<I>We, too,
+are kin To dreams and visions; and our little life Is
+gilded by such faint and cloud-wrapped suns</I>&mdash;Only,
+that needs a homelier touch.  Rather, let us say, <I>We
+are such stuff As dreams are made on</I>&mdash;Oh, good,
+good!&mdash;Now to pad out the line.&#8230;  In any event,
+the Bermudas are a seasonable topic.  Now here, instead
+of <I>thickly-templed India</I>, suppose we write <I>the
+still-vexed Bermoothes</I>&mdash;Good, good!  It fits in well
+enough.&#8230;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And so in clerkly fashion he sat about the
+accomplishment of his stint of labor in time for
+dinner.  A competent workman is not disastrously upset
+by interruption; and, indeed, he found the notion of
+surprising Judith with an unlooked-for trinket or so to
+be at first a very efficacious spur to composition.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And presently the strong joy of creating kindled in
+him, and phrase flowed abreast with thought, and the
+playmaker wrote fluently and surely to an accompaniment
+of contented ejaculations.  He regretted nothing, he
+would not now have laid aside his pen to take up a
+scepter.  For surely&mdash;he would have said&mdash;to live
+untroubled, and weave beautiful and winsome dreams is
+the most desirable of human fates.  But he did not
+consciously think of this, because he was midcourse in
+the evoking of a mimic tempest which, having purged its
+victims of unkindliness and error, aimed (in the end)
+only to sink into an amiable calm.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap06"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CONCERNING CORINNA
+</H3>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+"<I>Dr. Herrick told me that, in common with all the
+Enlightened or Illuminated Brothers, of which prying
+sect the age breeds so many, he trusted the great lines
+of Nature, not in the whole, but in part, as they
+believed Nature was in certain senses not true, and a
+betrayer, and that she was not wholly the benevolent
+power to endow, as accorded with the prevailing
+deceived notion of the vulgar.  But he wished not to
+discuss more particularly than thus, as he had drawn up
+to himself a certain frontier of reticence; and so fell
+to petting a great black pig, of which he made an
+unseemly companion, and to talking idly.</I>"
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  A Gyges ring they bear about them still,<BR>
+  To be, and not, seen when and where they will;<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  They tread on clouds, and though they sometimes fall,<BR>
+  They fall like dew, and make no noise at all:<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  So silently they one to th' other come<BR>
+  As colors steal into the pear or plum;<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  And air-like, leave no pression to be seen<BR>
+  Where'er they met, or parting place has been.<BR>
+<BR>
+  ROBERT HERRICK.&mdash;<I>My Lovers how They Come and Part</I>.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CONCERNING CORINNA
+</H3>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+The matter hinges entirely upon whether or not Robert
+Herrick was insane.  Sir Thomas Browne always preferred
+to think that he was; whereas Philip Borsdale
+perversely considered the answer to be optional.
+Perversely, Sir Thomas protested, because he said that
+to believe in Herrick's sanity was not conducive to
+your own.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This much is certain: the old clergyman, a man of
+few friends and no intimates, enjoyed in Devon, thanks
+to his time-hallowed reputation for singularity, a
+certain immunity.  In and about Dean Prior, for
+instance, it was conceded in 1674 that it was unusual
+for a divine of the Church of England to make a black
+pig&mdash;and a pig of peculiarly diabolical ugliness, at
+that&mdash;his ordinary associate; but Dean Prior had come
+long ago to accept the grisly brute as a concomitant of
+Dr. Herrick's presence almost as inevitable as his
+shadow. It was no crime to be fond of dumb animals, not
+even of one so inordinately unprepossessing; and you
+allowed for eccentricities, in any event, in dealing
+with a poet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For Totnes, Buckfastleigh, Dean Prior&mdash;all that
+part of Devon, in fact&mdash;complacently basked in the
+reflected glory of Robert Herrick.  People came from a
+long distance, now that the Parliamentary Wars were
+over, in order just to see the writer of the
+<I>Hesperides</I> and the <I>Noble Numbers</I>.  And such
+enthusiasts found in Robert Herrick a hideous dreamy
+man, who, without ever perpetrating any actual
+discourtesy, always managed to dismiss them, somehow,
+with a sense of having been rebuffed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sir Thomas Browne, that ardent amateur of the
+curious, came into Devon, however, without the risk of
+incurring any such fate, inasmuch as the knight
+traveled westward simply to discuss with Master Philip
+Borsdale the recent doings of Cardinal Alioneri.  Now,
+Philip Borsdale, as Sir Thomas knew, had been employed
+by Herrick in various transactions here irrelevant.  In
+consequence, Sir Thomas Browne was not greatly
+surprised when, on his arrival at Buckfastleigh,
+Borsdale's body-servant told him that Master Borsdale
+had left instructions for Sir Thomas to follow him to
+Dean Prior.  Browne complied, because his business with
+Borsdale was of importance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Philip Borsdale was lounging in Dr. Herrick's
+chair, intent upon a lengthy manuscript, alone and to
+all appearances quite at home.  The state of the room
+Sir Thomas found extraordinary; but he had graver
+matters to discuss; and he explained the results of his
+mission without extraneous comment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, you have managed it to admiration," said
+Philip Borsdale, when the knight had made an end.
+Borsdale leaned back and laughed, purringly, for the
+outcome of this affair of the Cardinal and the Wax
+Image meant much to him from a pecuniary standpoint.
+"Yet it is odd a prince of any church which has done so
+much toward the discomfiture of sorcery should have
+entertained such ideas.  It is also odd to note the
+series of coincidences which appears to have attended
+this Alioneri's practises."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I noticed that," said Sir Thomas.  After a while
+he said:  "You think, then, that they must have been
+coincidences?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"MUST is a word which intelligent people do not
+outwear by too constant usage."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And "Oh&mdash;&mdash;?" said the knight, and said that alone,
+because he was familiar with the sparkle now in
+Borsdale's eyes, and knew it heralded an adventure for
+an amateur of the curious.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am not committing myself, mark you, Sir Thomas,
+to any statement whatever, beyond the observation that
+these coincidences were noticeable.  I add, with
+superficial irrelevance, that Dr. Herrick disappeared
+last night."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am not surprised," said Sir Thomas, drily.  "No
+possible antics would astonish me on the part of that
+unvenerable madman.  When I was last in Totnes, he
+broke down in the midst of a sermon, and flung the
+manuscript of it at his congregation, and cursed them
+roundly for not paying closer attention.  Such was
+never my ideal of absolute decorum in the pulpit.
+Moreover, it is unusual for a minister of the Church of
+England to be accompanied everywhere by a pig with whom
+he discusses the affairs of the parish precisely as if
+the pig were a human being."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The pig&mdash;he whimsically called the pig Corinna,
+sir, in honor of that imaginary mistress to whom he
+addressed so many verses&mdash;why, the pig also has
+disappeared.  Oh, but of course that at least is simply a
+coincidence.&#8230;  I grant you it was an uncanny
+beast.  And I grant you that Dr. Herrick was a dubious
+ornament to his calling.  Of that I am doubly certain
+to-day," said Borsdale, and he waved his hand
+comprehensively, "in view of the state in which&mdash;you
+see&mdash;he left this room.  Yes, he was quietly writing
+here at eleven o'clock last night when old Prudence
+Baldwin, his housekeeper, last saw him.  Afterward
+Dr. Herrick appears to have diverted himself by taking away
+the mats and chalking geometrical designs upon the
+floor, as well as by burning some sort of incense in
+this brasier."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But such avocations, Philip, are not necessarily
+indicative of sanity.  No, it is not, upon the whole,
+an inevitable manner for an elderly parson to while
+away an evening."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, but that was only a part, sir.  He also left
+the clothes he was wearing&mdash;in a rather peculiarly
+constructed heap, as you can see.  Among them, by the
+way, I found this flattened and corroded bullet.  That
+puzzled me.  I think I understand it now."  Thus
+Borsdale, as he composedly smoked his churchwarden.
+"In short, the whole affair is as mysterious&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Here Sir Thomas raised his hand.  "Spare me the
+simile.  I detect a vista of curious perils such as
+infinitely outshines verbal brilliancy.  You need my
+aid in some insane attempt."  He considered.  He said:
+"So! you have been retained?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have been asked to help him.  Of course I did
+not know of what he meant to try.  In short, Dr.
+Herrick left this manuscript, as well as certain
+instructions for me.  The last are&mdash;well! unusual."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ah, yes!  You hearten me.  I have long had my
+suspicions as to this Herrick, though.&#8230;  And what
+are we to do?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I really cannot inform you, sir.  I doubt if I
+could explain in any workaday English even what we will
+attempt to do," said Philip Borsdale.  "I do say this:
+You believe the business which we have settled, involving
+as it does the lives of thousands of men and women,
+to be of importance.  I swear to you that, as set
+against what we will essay, all we have done is
+trivial.  As pitted against the business we will
+attempt to-night, our previous achievements are
+suggestive of the evolutions of two sand-fleas beside
+the ocean.  The prize at which this adventure aims is
+so stupendous that I cannot name it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, but you must, Philip.  I am no more afraid of
+the local constabulary than I am of the local notions
+as to what respectability entails.  I may confess,
+however, that I am afraid of wagering against
+unknown odds."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Borsdale reflected.  Then he said, with
+deliberation:  "Dr. Herrick's was, when you come to
+think of it, an unusual life.  He is&mdash;or perhaps I
+ought to say he was&mdash;upward of eighty-three.  He has
+lived here for over a half-century, and during that
+time he has never attempted to make either a friend or
+an enemy.  He was&mdash;indifferent, let us say.  Talking to
+Dr. Herrick was, somehow, like talking to a man in a
+fog.&#8230;  Meanwhile, he wrote his verses to imaginary
+women&mdash;to Corinna and Julia, to Myrha, Electra and
+Perilla&mdash;those lovely, shadow women who never, in so
+far as we know, had any real existence&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sir Thomas smiled.  "Of course.  They are mere
+figments of the poet, pegs to hang rhymes on.  And
+yet&mdash;let us go on.  I know that Herrick never willingly
+so much as spoke with a woman."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not in so far as we know, I said."  And Borsdale
+paused.  "Then, too, he wrote such dainty, merry poems
+about the fairies.  Yes, it was all of fifty years ago
+that Dr. Herrick first appeared in print with his
+<I>Description of the King and Queen of the Fairies</I>.
+The thought seems always to have haunted him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The knight's face changed, a little by a little.
+"I have long been an amateur of the curious," he said,
+strangely quiet.  "I do not think that anything you may
+say will surprise me inordinately."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He had found in every country in the world traditions
+of a race who were human&mdash;yet more than human.
+That is the most exact fashion in which I can
+express his beginnings.  On every side he found the
+notion of a race who can impinge on mortal life and
+partake of it&mdash;but always without exercising the last
+reach of their endowments.  Oh, the tradition exists
+everywhere, whether you call these occasional interlopers
+fauns, fairies, gnomes, ondines, incubi, or
+demons.  They could, according to these fables,
+temporarily restrict themselves into our life, just as a
+swimmer may elect to use only one arm&mdash;or, a more
+fitting comparison, become apparent to our human senses
+in the fashion of a cube which can obtrude only one of
+its six surfaces into a plane.  You follow me, of
+course, sir?&mdash;to the triangles and circles and hexagons
+this cube would seem to be an ordinary square.
+Conceiving such a race to exist, we might talk with
+them, might jostle them in the streets, might even
+intermarry with them, sir&mdash;and always see in them only
+human beings, and solely because of our senses'
+limitations."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I comprehend.  These are exactly the speculations
+that would appeal to an unbalanced mind&mdash;is that not
+your thought, Philip?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, there is nothing particularly insane, Sir
+Thomas, in desiring to explore in fields beyond those
+which our senses make perceptible.  It is very certain
+these fields exist; and the question of their extent I
+take to be both interesting and important."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Sir Thomas said:  "Like any other rational
+man, I have occasionally thought of this endeavor
+at which you hint.  We exist&mdash;you and I and all
+the others&mdash;in what we glibly call the universe.  All
+that we know of it is through what we entitle our five
+senses, which, when provoked to action, will cause a
+chemical change in a few ounces of spongy matter packed
+in our skulls.  There are no grounds for believing that
+this particular method of communication is adequate, or
+even that the agents which produce it are veracious.
+Meanwhile, we are in touch with what exists through our
+five senses only.  It may be that they lie to us.
+There is, at least, no reason for assuming them to be
+infallible."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But reflection plows a deeper furrow, Sir Thomas.
+Even in the exercise of any one of these five senses it
+is certain that we are excelled by what we vaingloriously
+call the lower forms of life.  A dog has powers
+of scent we cannot reach to, birds hear the crawling of
+a worm, insects distinguish those rays in the spectrum
+which lie beyond violet and red, and are invisible to
+us; and snails and fish and ants&mdash;perhaps all other
+living creatures, indeed&mdash;have senses which man does
+not share at all, and has no name for.  Granted that we
+human beings alone possess the power of reasoning, the
+fact remains that we invariably start with false
+premises, and always pass our judgments when biased at
+the best by incomplete reports of everything in the
+universe, and very possibly by reports which lie
+flat-footedly."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+You saw that Browne was troubled.  Now he rose.
+"Nothing will come of this.  I do not touch upon
+the desirability of conquering those fields at
+which we dare only to hint.  No, I am not afraid.  I
+dare assist you in doing anything Dr. Herrick asks,
+because I know that nothing will come of such
+endeavors.  Much is permitted us&mdash;'but of the fruit of
+the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath
+said, to us who are no more than human, Ye shall not
+eat of it.'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yet Dr. Herrick, as many other men have done,
+thought otherwise.  I, too, will venture a quotation.
+'Didst thou never see a lark in a cage?  Such is the
+soul in the body: this world is like her little turf of
+grass, and the heavens o'er our heads, like her
+looking-glass, only gives us a miserable knowledge of
+the small compass of our prison.'  Many years ago that
+lamentation was familiar.  What wonder, then, that Dr.
+Herrick should have dared to repeat it yesterday?  And
+what wonder if he tried to free the prisoner?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Such freedom is forbidden," Sir Thomas stubbornly
+replied.  "I have long known that Herrick was formerly
+in correspondence with John Heydon, and Robert Flood,
+and others of the Illuminated, as they call themselves.
+There are many of this sect in England, as we all know;
+and we hear much silly chatter of Elixirs and
+Philosopher's Stones in connection with them.  But I
+happen to know somewhat of their real aims and tenets.
+I do not care to know any more than I do.  If it be
+true that all of which man is conscious is just a
+portion of a curtain, and that the actual universe in
+nothing resembles our notion of it, I am willing
+to believe this curtain was placed there for some
+righteous and wise reason.  They tell me the curtain
+may be lifted.  Whether this be true or no, I must for
+my own sanity's sake insist it can never be lifted."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But what if it were not forbidden?  For Dr. Herrick
+asserts he has already demonstrated that."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sir Thomas interrupted, with odd quickness.  "True,
+we must bear it in mind the man never married&mdash;Did he,
+by any chance, possess a crystal of Venice glass three
+inches square?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And Borsdale gaped.  "I found it with his manuscript.
+But he said nothing of it.&#8230;  How could
+you guess?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sir Thomas reflectively scraped the edge of the
+glass with his finger-nail.  "You would be none the
+happier for knowing, Philip.  Yes, that is a blood-stain
+here.  I see.  And Herrick, so far as we know,
+had never in his life loved any woman.  He is the only
+poet in history who never demonstrably loved any woman.
+I think you had better read me his manuscript, Philip."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This Philip Borsdale did.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Then Sir Thomas said, as quiet epilogue:  "This, if
+it be true, would explain much as to that lovely land
+of eternal spring and daffodils and friendly girls, of
+which his verses make us free.  It would even explain
+Corinna and Herrick's rapt living without any human
+ties.  For all poets since the time of AEschylus,
+who could not write until he was too drunken to walk,
+have been most readily seduced by whatever stimulus
+most tended to heighten their imaginings; so that for
+the sake of a song's perfection they have freely
+resorted to divers artificial inspirations, and very
+often without evincing any undue squeamishness.&#8230;
+I spoke of AEschylus.  I am sorry, Philip, that you are
+not familiar with ancient Greek life.  There is so much
+I could tell you of, in that event, of the quaint cult
+of Kore, or Pherephatta, and of the swine of Eubouleus,
+and of certain ambiguous maidens, whom those old
+Grecians fabled&mdash;oh, very ignorantly fabled, my lad, of
+course&mdash;to rule in a more quietly lit and more tranquil
+world than we blunder about.  I think I could explain
+much which now seems mysterious&mdash;yes, and the
+daffodils, also, that Herrick wrote of so constantly.
+But it is better not to talk of these sinister
+delusions of heathenry."  Sir Thomas shrugged.  "For my
+reward would be to have you think me mad.  I prefer to
+iterate the verdict of all logical people, and formally
+to register my opinion that Robert Herrick was
+indisputably a lunatic."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Borsdale did not seem perturbed.  "I think the
+record of his experiments is true, in any event.  You will
+concede that their results were startling?  And what if
+his deductions be the truth? what if our limited senses
+have reported to us so very little of the universe, and
+even that little untruthfully?"  He laughed and drummed
+impatiently upon the table.  "At least, he tells us
+that the boy returned.  I fervently believe that
+in this matter Dr. Herrick was capable of any crime
+except falsehood.  Oh, no I depend on it, he also will
+return."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You imagine Herrick will break down the door
+between this world and that other inconceivable world
+which all of us have dreamed of!  To me, my lad, it
+seems as if this Herrick aimed dangerously near to
+repetition of the Primal Sin, for all that he handles
+it like a problem in mechanical mathematics.  The poet
+writes as if he were instructing a dame's school as to
+the advisability of becoming omnipotent."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, well! I am not defending Dr. Herrick in
+anything save his desire to know the truth.  In this
+respect at least, he has proven himself to be both
+admirable and fearless.  And at worst, he only strives
+to do what Jacob did at Peniel," said Philip Borsdale,
+lightly.  "The patriarch, as I recall, was blessed for
+acting as he did.  The legend is not irrelevant, I
+think."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They passed into the adjoining room.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Thus the two men came into a high-ceiled apartment,
+cylindrical in shape, with plastered walls painted
+green everywhere save for the quaint embellishment of a
+large oval, wherein a woman, having an eagle's beak,
+grasped in one hand a serpent and in the other a knife.
+Sir Thomas Browne seemed to recognize this curious
+design, and gave an ominous nod.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Borsdale said:  "You see Dr. Herrick had prepared
+everything.  And much of what we are about to do is
+merely symbolical, of course.  Most people
+undervalue symbols.  They do not seem to understand
+that there could never have been any conceivable need
+of inventing a periphrasis for what did not exist."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sir Thomas Browne regarded Borsdale for a while
+intently.  Then the knight gave his habitual shrugging
+gesture.  "You are braver than I, Philip, because you
+are more ignorant than I.  I have been too long an
+amateur of the curious.  Sometimes in over-credulous
+moments I have almost believed that in sober verity
+there are reasoning beings who are not human&mdash;beings
+that for their own dark purposes seek union with us.
+Indeed, I went into Pomerania once to talk with John
+Dietrick of Ramdin.  He told me one of those relations
+whose truth we dread, a tale which I did not dare, I
+tell you candidly, even to discuss in my <I>Vulgar
+Errors</I>.  Then there is Helgi Thorison's history, and
+that of Leonard of Basle also.  Oh, there are more
+recorded stories of this nature than you dream of,
+Philip.  We have only the choice between believing that
+all these men were madmen, and believing that ordinary
+human life is led by a drugged animal who drowses
+through a purblind existence among merciful veils.  And
+these female creatures&mdash;these Corinnas, Perillas,
+Myrhas, and Electras&mdash;can it be possible that they are
+always striving, for their own strange ends, to rouse
+the sleeping animal and break the kindly veils?&mdash;and
+are they permitted to use such amiable enticements as
+Herrick describes?  Oh, no, all this is just a madman's
+dream, dear lad, and we must not dare to consider
+it seriously, lest we become no more sane than he."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But you will aid me?" Borsdale said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, I will aid you, Philip, for in Herrick's case
+I take it that the mischief is consummated already; and
+we, I think, risk nothing worse than death.  But you
+will need another knife a little later&mdash;a knife that
+will be clean."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I had forgotten."  Borsdale withdrew, and presently
+returned with a bone-handled knife.  And then he
+made a light.  "Are you quite ready, sir?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sir Thomas Browne, that aging amateur of the
+curious, could not resist a laugh.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And then they sat about proceedings of which, for
+obvious reasons, the details are best left unrecorded.
+It was not an unconscionable while before they seemed
+to be aware of unusual phenomena.  But as Sir Thomas
+always pointed out, in subsequent discussions, these
+were quite possibly the fruitage of excited imagination.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now, Philip!&mdash;now, give me the knife!" cried Sir
+Thomas Browne.  He knew for the first time, despite
+many previous mischancy happenings, what real terror
+was.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The room was thick with blinding smoke by this, so
+that Borsdale could see nothing save his co-partner in
+this adventure.  Both men were shaken by what had
+occurred before.  Borsdale incuriously perceived that
+old Sir Thomas rose, tense as a cat about to pounce,
+and that he caught the unstained knife from Borsdale's
+hand, and flung it like a javelin into the
+vapor which encompassed them.  This gesture stirred the
+smoke so that Borsdale could see the knife quiver and
+fall, and note the tiny triangle of unbared plaster it
+had cut in the painted woman's breast.  Within the same
+instant he had perceived a naked man who staggered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>Iz adu kronyeshnago</I>&mdash;&mdash;!"  The intruder's thin,
+shrill wail was that of a frightened child.  The man
+strode forward, choked, seemed to grope his way.  His
+face was not good to look at.  Horror gripped and tore
+at every member of the cadaverous old body, as a high
+wind tugs at a flag.  The two witnesses of Herrick's
+agony did not stir during the instant wherein the
+frenzied man stooped, moving stiffly like an ill-made
+toy, and took up the knife.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, yes, I knew what he was about to do," said Sir
+Thomas Browne afterward, in his quiet fashion.  "I did
+not try to stop him.  If Herrick had been my dearest
+friend, I would not have interfered.  I had seen his
+face, you comprehend.  Yes, it was kinder to let him
+die.  It was curious, though, as he stood there hacking
+his chest, how at each stab he deliberately twisted the
+knife.  I suppose the pain distracted his mind from
+what he was remembering.  I should have forewarned
+Borsdale of this possible outcome at the very first, I
+suppose.  But, then, which one of us is always wise?"
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+So this adventure came to nothing.  For its
+significance, if any, hinged upon Robert Herrick's
+sanity, which was at best a disputable quantity.
+Grant him insane, and the whole business, as Sir Thomas
+was at large pains to point out, dwindles at once into
+the irresponsible vagaries of a madman.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And all the while, for what we know, he had been
+hiding somewhere in the house.  We never searched it.
+Oh, yes, there is no doubt he was insane," said Sir
+Thomas, comfortably.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Faith! what he moaned was gibberish, of course&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oddly enough, his words were intelligible.  They
+meant in Russian 'Out of the lowest hell.'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But, why, in God's name, Russian?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am sure I do not know," Sir Thomas replied; and
+he did not appear at all to regret his ignorance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Borsdale meditated, disappointedly.  "Oh, yes,
+the outcome is ambiguous, Sir Thomas, in every way.  I
+think we may safely take it as a warning, in any event,
+that this world of ours, whatever its deficiencies, was
+meant to be inhabited by men and women only."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"Now I," was Sir Thomas's verdict, "prefer to take
+it as a warning that insane people ought to be
+restrained."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ah, well, insanity is only one of the many forms
+of being abnormal.  Yes, I think it proves that all
+abnormal people ought to be restrained.  Perhaps it
+proves that they are very potently restrained," said
+Philip Borsdale, perversely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Perversely, Sir Thomas always steadfastly
+protested, because he said that to believe in
+Herrick's sanity was not conducive to your own.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So Sir Thomas shrugged, and went toward the open
+window.  Without the road was a dazzling gray under the
+noon sun, for the sky was cloudless.  The ordered trees
+were rustling pleasantly, very brave in their autumnal
+liveries.  Under a maple across the way some seven
+laborers were joking lazily as they ate their dinner.
+A wagon lumbered by, the driver whistling.  In front of
+the house a woman had stopped to rearrange the pink cap
+of the baby she was carrying.  The child had just
+reached up fat and uncertain little arms to kiss her.
+Nothing that Browne saw was out of ordinary, kindly
+human life.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, after all," said Sir Thomas, upon a sudden,
+"for one, I think it is an endurable world, just as it
+stands."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And Borsdale looked up from a letter he had been
+reading.  It was from a woman who has no concern with
+this tale, and its contents were of no importance to
+any one save Borsdale.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now, do you know," said Philip Borsdale, "I am
+beginning to think you the most sensible man of my
+acquaintance!  Oh, yes, beyond doubt it is an endurable
+sun-nurtured world&mdash;just as it stands.  It makes it
+doubly odd that Dr. Herrick should have chosen always
+to
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  'Write of groves, and twilights, and to sing<BR>
+  The court of Mab, and of the Fairy King,<BR>
+  And write of Hell.'"<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Sir Thomas touched his arm, protestingly.  "Ah, but
+you have forgotten what follows, Philip&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  'I sing, and ever shall,<BR>
+  Of Heaven,&mdash;and hope to have it after all.'"<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"Well! I cry Amen," said Borsdale.  "But I wish I
+could forget the old man's face."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, and I also," Sir Thomas said.  "And I cry Amen
+with far more heartiness, my lad, because I, too, once
+dreamed of&mdash;of Corinna, shall we say?"
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap07"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+OLIVIA'S POTTAGE
+</H3>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+"<I>Mr. Wycherley was naturally modest until King
+Charles' court, that late disgrace to our times,
+corrupted him.  He then gave himself up to all sorts of
+extravagances and to the wildest frolics that a wanton
+wit could devise.&#8230;  Never was so much ill-nature
+in a pen as in his, joined with so much good nature as
+was in himself, even to excess; for he was bountiful,
+even to run himself into difficulties, and charitable
+even to a fault.  It was not that he was free from the
+failings of humanity, but he had the tenderness of it,
+too, which made everybody excuse whom everybody loved;
+and even the asperity of his verses seems to have been
+forgiven.</I>"
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  I the Plain Dealer am to act to-day.<BR>
+<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em; letter-spacing: 2em">*****</SPAN><BR>
+<BR>
+  Now, you shrewd judges, who the boxes sway,<BR>
+  Leading the ladies' hearts and sense astray,<BR>
+  And for their sakes, see all and hear no play;<BR>
+  Correct your cravats, foretops, lock behind:<BR>
+  The dress and breeding of the play ne'er mind;<BR>
+  For the coarse dauber of the coming scenes<BR>
+  To follow life and nature only means,<BR>
+  Displays you as you are, makes his fine woman<BR>
+  A mercenary jilt and true to no man,<BR>
+  Shows men of wit and pleasure of the age<BR>
+  Are as dull rogues as ever cumber'd stage.<BR>
+<BR>
+  WILLIAM WYCHERLEY.&mdash;<I>Prologue to The Plain Dealer</I>.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+OLIVIA'S POTTAGE
+</H3>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+It was in the May of 1680 that Mr. William Wycherley
+went into the country to marry the famed heiress,
+Mistress Araminta Vining, as he had previously settled
+with her father, and found her to his vast relief a
+very personable girl.  She had in consequence a host of
+admirers, pre-eminent among whom was young Robert
+Minifie of Milanor.  Mr. Wycherley, a noted stickler
+for etiquette, decorously made bold to question Mr.
+Minifie's taste in a dispute concerning waistcoats.  A
+duel was decorously arranged and these two met upon the
+narrow beach of Teviot Bay.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Theirs was a spirited encounter, lasting for ten
+energetic minutes.  Then Wycherley pinked Mr. Minifie
+in the shoulder, just as the dramatist, a favorite
+pupil of Gerard's, had planned to do; and the four
+gentlemen parted with every imaginable courtesy, since
+the wounded man and the two seconds were to return by
+boat to Mr. Minifie's house at Milanor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+More lately Wycherley walked in the direction of
+Ouseley Manor, whistling <I>Love's a Toy</I>.  Honor
+was satisfied, and, happily, as he reflected, at
+no expense of life.  He was a kindly hearted fop, and
+more than once had killed his man with perfectly
+sincere regret.  But in putting on his coat&mdash;it was the
+black camlet coat with silver buttons&mdash;he had
+overlooked his sleevelinks; and he did not recognize,
+for twenty-four eventful hours, the full importance of
+his carelessness.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+In the heart of Figgis Wood, the incomparable
+Countess of Drogheda, aunt to Mr. Wycherley's
+betrothed, and a noted leader of fashion, had presently
+paused at sight of him&mdash;laughing a little&mdash;and with one
+tiny hand had made as though to thrust back the
+staghound which accompanied her.  "Your humble servant,
+Mr. Swashbuckler," she said; and then:  "But oh! you
+have not hurt the lad?" she demanded, with a tincture
+of anxiety.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nay, after a short but brilliant engagement,"
+Wycherley returned, "Mr. Minifie was very harmlessly
+perforated; and in consequence I look to be married on
+Thursday, after all."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let me die but Cupid never meets with anything
+save inhospitality in this gross world!" cried Lady
+Drogheda.  "For the boy is heels over head in love with
+Araminta,&mdash;oh, a second Almanzor!  And my niece does
+not precisely hate him either, let me tell you,
+William, for all your month's assault of essences and
+perfumed gloves and apricot paste and other small
+artillery of courtship.  La, my dear, was it only a
+month ago we settled your future over a couple of
+Naples biscuit and a bottle of Rhenish?"  She walked
+beside him now, and the progress of these exquisites
+was leisurely.  There were many trees at hand so huge
+as to necessitate a considerable detour.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Egad, it is a month and three days over," Wycherley
+retorted, "since you suggested your respected
+brother-in-law was ready to pay my debts in full, upon
+condition I retaliated by making your adorable niece
+Mistress Wycherley.  Well, I stand to-day indebted to
+him for an advance of L1500 and am no more afraid of
+bailiffs.  We have performed a very creditable stroke
+of business; and the day after to-morrow you will have
+fairly earned your L500 for arranging the marriage.
+Faith, and in earnest of this, I already begin to view
+you through appropriate lenses as undoubtedly the most
+desirable aunt in the universe."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nor was there any unconscionable stretching of the
+phrase.  Through the quiet forest, untouched as yet by
+any fidgeting culture, and much as it was when John
+Lackland wooed Hawisa under, its venerable oaks, old
+even then, the little widow moved like a light flame.
+She was clothed throughout in scarlet, after her
+high-hearted style of dress, and carried a tall staff of
+ebony; and the gold head of it was farther from the
+dead leaves than was her mischievous countenance.  The
+big staghound lounged beside her.  She pleased the eye,
+at least, did this heartless, merry and selfish Olivia,
+whom Wycherley had so ruthlessly depicted in his <I>Plain
+Dealer</I>.  To the last detail Wycherley found her,
+as he phrased it, "<I>mignonne et piquante</I>," and he told
+her so.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Lady Drogheda observed, "Fiddle-de-dee!"  Lady
+Drogheda continued:  "Yes, I am a fool, of course, but
+then I still remember Bessington, and the boy that went
+mad there&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Because of a surfeit of those dreams 'such as the
+poets know when they are young.'  Sweet chuck, beat not
+the bones of the buried; when he breathed he was a
+likely lad," Mr. Wycherley declared, with signal
+gravity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, la, la!" she flouted him.  "Well, in any event
+you were the first gentleman in England to wear a
+neckcloth of Flanders lace."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And you were the first person of quality to eat
+cheesecakes in Spring Garden," he not half so
+mirthfully retorted.  "So we have not entirely failed in
+life, it may be, after all."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She made of him a quite irrelevant demand:  "D'ye
+fancy Esau was contented, William?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I fancy he was fond of pottage, madam; and that,
+as I remember, he got his pottage.  Come, now, a
+tangible bowl of pottage, piping hot, is not to be
+despised in such a hazardous world as ours is."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She was silent for a lengthy while.  "Lord, Lord,
+how musty all that brave, sweet nonsense seems!" she
+said, and almost sighed.  "Eh, well! <I>le vin est tiré,
+et il faut le boire</I>."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My adorable aunt!  Let us put it a thought less
+dumpishly; and render thanks because our pottage
+smokes upon the table, and we are blessed with
+excellent appetites."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"So that in a month we will be back again in the
+playhouses and Hyde Park and Mulberry Garden, or
+nodding to each other in the New Exchange,&mdash;you with
+your debts paid, and I with my L500&mdash;&mdash;?"  She paused
+to pat the staghound's head.  "Lord Remon came this
+afternoon," said Lady Drogheda, and with averted eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I do not approve of Remon," he announced.  "Nay,
+madam, even a Siren ought to spare her kin and show
+some mercy toward the more stagnant-blooded fish."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And Lady Drogheda shrugged.  "He is very wealthy,
+and I am lamentably poor.  One must not seek noon at
+fourteen o'clock or clamor for better bread than was
+ever made from wheat."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Wycherley laughed, after a pregnant silence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"By heavens, madam, you are in the right!  So I
+shall walk no more in Figgis Wood, for its old magic
+breeds too many day-dreams.  Besides, we have been
+serious for half-an-hour.  Now, then, let us discuss
+theology, dear aunt, or millinery, or metaphysics, or
+the King's new statue at Windsor, or, if you will, the
+last Spring Garden scandal.  Or let us count the leaves
+upon this tree; and afterward I will enumerate my
+reasons for believing yonder crescent moon to be the
+paring of the Angel Gabriel's left thumb-nail."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She was a woman of eloquent silences when there was
+any need of them; and thus the fop and the
+coquette traversed the remainder of that solemn wood
+without any further speech.  Modish people would have
+esteemed them unwontedly glum.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Wycherley discovered in a while the absence of his
+sleeve-links, and was properly vexed by the loss of
+these not unhandsome trinkets, the gifts of Lady
+Castlemaine in the old days when Mr. Wycherley was the
+King's successful rival for her favors.  But Wycherley
+knew the tide filled Teviot Bay and wondering fishes
+were at liberty to muzzle the toys, by this, and merely
+shrugged at his mishap, midcourse in toilet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Wycherley, upon mature deliberation, wore the
+green suit with yellow ribbons, since there was a ball
+that night in honor of his nearing marriage, and a
+confluence of gentry to attend it.  Miss Vining and he
+walked through a minuet to some applause; the two were
+heartily acclaimed a striking couple, and
+congratulations beat about their ears as thick as
+sugar-plums in a carnival.  And at nine you might have found
+the handsome dramatist alone upon the East Terrace of
+Ouseley, pacing to and fro in the moonlight, and
+complacently reflecting upon his quite indisputable
+and, past doubt, unmerited good fortune.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was never any night in June which nature
+planned the more adroitly.  Soft and warm and windless,
+lit by a vainglorious moon and every star that ever
+shone, the beauty of this world caressed and heartened
+its beholder like a gallant music.  Our universe,
+Mr. Wycherley conceded willingly, was excellent and
+kindly, and the Arbiter of it too generous; for here
+was he, the wastrel, like the third prince at the end
+of a fairy-tale, the master of a handsome wife, and a
+fine house and fortune.  Somewhere, he knew, young
+Minifie, with his arm in a sling, was pleading with
+Mistress Araminta for the last time; and this
+reflection did not greatly trouble Mr. Wycherley, since
+incommunicably it tickled his vanity.  He was chuckling
+when he came to the open window.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Within a woman was singing, to the tinkling
+accompaniment of a spinet, for the delectation of Lord
+Remon.  She was not uncomely, and the hard, lean,
+stingy countenance of the attendant nobleman was almost
+genial.  Wycherley understood with a great rending
+shock, as though the thought were novel, that Olivia,
+Lady Drogheda, designed to marry this man, who grinned
+within finger's reach&mdash;or, rather, to ally herself with
+Remon's inordinate wealth,&mdash;and without any heralding a
+brutal rage and hatred of all created things possessed
+the involuntary eavesdropper.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She looked up into Remon's face and, laughing with
+such bright and elfin mirth as never any other woman
+showed, thought Wycherley, she broke into another song.
+She would have spared Mr. Wycherley that had she but
+known him to be within earshot.&#8230;  Oh, it was only
+Lady Drogheda who sang, he knew,&mdash;the seasoned gamester
+and coquette, the veteran of London and of
+Cheltenham,&mdash;but the woman had no right to charm this
+haggler with a voice that was not hers.  For it
+was the voice of another Olivia, who was not a fine and
+urban lady, and who lived nowhere any longer; it was
+the voice of a soft-handed, tender, jeering girl, whom
+he alone remembered; and a sick, illimitable rage
+grilled in each vein of him as liltingly she sang, for
+Remon, the old and foolish song which Wycherley had
+made in her praise very long ago, and of which he might
+not ever forget the most trivial word.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Men, even beaux, are strangely constituted; and so
+it needed only this&mdash;the sudden stark brute jealousy of
+one male animal for another.  That was the clumsy hand
+which now unlocked the dyke; and like a flood, tall and
+resistless, came the recollection of their far-off past
+and of its least dear trifle, of all the aspirations
+and absurdities and splendors of their common youth,
+and found him in its path, a painted fellow, a
+spendthrift king of the mode, a most notable authority
+upon the set of a peruke, a penniless, spent
+connoisseur of stockings, essences and cosmetics.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+He got but little rest this night.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There were too many plaintive memories which
+tediously plucked him back, with feeble and innumerable
+hands, as often as he trod upon the threshold of sleep.
+Then too, there were so many dreams, half-waking, and
+not only of Olivia Chichele, naive and frank in divers
+rural circumstances, but rather of Olivia, Lady
+Drogheda, that perfect piece of artifice; of how
+exquisite she was! how swift and volatile in every
+movement! how airily indomitable, and how mendacious to
+the tips of her polished finger-nails! and how she
+always seemed to flit about this world as joyously,
+alertly, and as colorfully as some ornate and tiny bird
+of the tropics!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But presently parochial birds were wrangling
+underneath the dramatist's window, while he tossed and
+assured himself that he was sleepier than any saint who
+ever snored in Ephesus; and presently one hand of
+Moncrieff was drawing the bed-curtains, while the other
+carefully balanced a mug of shaving-water.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Wycherley did not see her all that morning, for
+Lady Drogheda was fatigued, or so a lackey informed
+him, and as yet kept her chamber.  His Araminta he
+found deplorably sullen.  So the dramatist devoted the
+better part of this day to a refitting of his wedding-suit,
+just come from London; for Moncrieff, an
+invaluable man, had adjudged the pockets to be placed
+too high; and, be the punishment deserved or no, Mr.
+Wycherley had never heard that any victim of law
+appeared the more admirable upon his scaffold for being
+slovenly in his attire.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thus it was as late as five in the afternoon that,
+wearing the peach-colored suit trimmed with scarlet
+ribbon, and a new French beaver, the exquisite came
+upon Lady Drogheda walking in the gardens with only an
+appropriate peacock for company.  She was so beautiful
+and brilliant and so little&mdash;so like a famous gem too
+suddenly disclosed, and therefore oddly disparate
+in all these qualities, that his decorous pleasant
+voice might quite permissibly have shaken a trifle (as
+indeed it did), when Mr. Wycherley implored Lady
+Drogheda to walk with him to Teviot Bay, on the
+off-chance of recovering his sleeve-links.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And there they did find one of the trinkets, but
+the tide had swept away the other, or else the sand had
+buried it.  So they rested there upon the rocks, after
+an unavailing search, and talked of many trifles, amid
+surroundings oddly incongruous.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For this Teviot Bay is a primeval place, a deep-cut,
+narrow notch in the tip of Carnrick, and is walled
+by cliffs so high and so precipitous that they exclude
+a view of anything except the ocean.  The bay opens due
+west; and its white barriers were now developing a
+violet tinge, for this was on a sullen afternoon, and
+the sea was ruffled by spiteful gusts.  Wycherley could
+find no color anywhere save in this glowing, tiny and
+exquisite woman; and everywhere was a gigantic peace,
+vexed only when high overhead a sea-fowl jeered at
+these modish persons, as he flapped toward an
+impregnable nest.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And by this hour to-morrow," thought Mr.
+Wycherley, "I shall be chained to that good, strapping,
+wholesome Juno of a girl!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So he fell presently into a silence, staring at the
+vacant west, which was like a huge and sickly pearl,
+not thinking of anything at all, but longing poignantly
+for something which was very beautiful and strange and
+quite unattainable, with precisely that anguish he
+had sometimes known in awaking from a dream of which he
+could remember nothing save its piercing loveliness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And thus ends the last day of our bachelorhood!"
+said Lady Drogheda, upon a sudden.  "You have played
+long enough&mdash;La, William, you have led the fashion for
+ten years, you have written four merry comedies, and
+you have laughed as much as any man alive, but you have
+pulled down all that nature raised in you, I think.
+Was it worth while?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Faith, but nature's monuments are no longer the
+last cry in architecture," he replied; "and I believe
+that <I>The Plain Dealer</I> and <I>The Country Wife</I> will
+hold their own."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And you wrote them when you were just a boy!  Ah,
+yes, you might have been our English Moliere, my dear.
+And, instead, you have elected to become an authority
+upon cravats and waistcoats."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Eh, madam"&mdash;he smiled&mdash;"there was a time when I
+too was foolishly intent to divert the leisure hours of
+posterity.  But reflection assured me that posterity
+had, thus far, done very little to place me under that
+or any other obligation.  Ah, no!  Youth, health
+and&mdash;though I say it&mdash;a modicum of intelligence are loaned
+to most of us for a while, and for a terribly brief
+while.  They are but loans, and Time is waiting
+greedily to snatch them from us.  For the perturbed
+usurer knows that he is lending us, perforce, three
+priceless possessions, and that till our lease runs out
+we are free to dispose of them as we elect.  Now,
+had I jealously devoted my allotment of these treasures
+toward securing for my impressions of the universe a
+place in yet unprinted libraries, I would have made an
+investment from which I could not possibly have derived
+any pleasure, and which would have been to other people
+of rather dubious benefit.  In consequence, I chose a
+wiser and devouter course."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This statement Lady Drogheda afforded the
+commentary of a grimace.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, look you," Wycherley philosophized, "have you
+never thought what a vast deal of loving and
+painstaking labor must have gone to make the world we
+inhabit so beautiful and so complete?  For it was not
+enough to evolve and set a glaring sun in heaven, to
+marshal the big stars about the summer sky, but even in
+the least frequented meadow every butterfly must have
+his pinions jeweled, very carefully, and every lovely
+blade of grass be fashioned separately.  The hand that
+yesterday arranged the Himalayas found time to glaze
+the wings of a midge!  Now, most of us could design a
+striking Flood, or even a Last judgment, since the
+canvas is so big and the colors used so virulent; but
+to paint a snuff-box perfectly you must love the labor
+for its own sake, and pursue it without even an
+underthought of the performance's ultimate
+appraisement.  People do not often consider the simple
+fact that it is enough to bait, and quite superfluous
+to veneer, a  trap; indeed, those generally acclaimed
+the best of persons insist this world is but an
+antechamber, full of gins and pitfalls, which must
+be scurried through with shut eyes.  And the more fools
+they, as all we poets know! for to enjoy a sunset, or a
+glass of wine, or even to admire the charms of a
+handsome woman, is to render the Artificer of all at
+least the tribute of appreciation."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But she said, in a sharp voice:  "William,
+William&mdash;&mdash;!"  And he saw that there was no beach now in
+Teviot Bay except the dwindling crescent at its
+farthest indentation on which they sat.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Yet his watch, on consultation, recorded only five
+o'clock; and presently Mr. Wycherley laughed, not very
+loudly.  The two had risen, and her face was a tiny
+snowdrift where every touch of rouge and grease-pencils
+showed crudely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Look now," said Wycherley, "upon what trifles our
+lives hinge!  Last night I heard you singing, and the
+song brought back so many things done long ago, and
+made me so unhappy that&mdash;ridiculous conclusion!&mdash;I
+forgot to wind my watch.  Well! the tide is buffeting
+at either side of Carnrick; within the hour this place
+will be submerged; and, in a phrase, we are as dead as
+Hannibal or Hector."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She said, very quiet:  "Could you not gain the
+mainland if you stripped and swam for it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, possibly," the beau conceded.  "Meanwhile you
+would have drowned.  Faith, we had as well make the
+best of it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Little Lady Drogheda touched his sleeve, and her
+hand (as the man noted) did not shake at all, nor did
+her delicious piping voice shake either.  "You
+cannot save me.  I know it.  I am not frightened.  I
+bid you save yourself."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Permit me to assist you to that ledge of rock,"
+Mr. Wycherley answered, "which is a trifle higher than
+the beach; and I pray you, Olivia, do not mar the
+dignity of these last passages by talking nonsense."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For he had spied a ledge, not inaccessible, some
+four feet higher than the sands, and it offered them at
+least a respite.  And within the moment they had
+secured this niggardly concession, intent to die, as
+Wycherley observed, like hurt mice upon a pantry-shelf.
+The business smacked of disproportion, he considered,
+although too well-bred to say as much; for here was a
+big ruthless league betwixt earth and sea, and with no
+loftier end than to crush a fop and a coquette, whose
+speedier extinction had been dear at the expense of a
+shilling's worth of arsenic!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then the sun came out, to peep at these trapped,
+comely people, and doubtless to get appropriate mirth
+at the spectacle.  He hung low against the misty sky, a
+clearly-rounded orb that did not dazzle, but merely
+shone with the cold glitter of new snow upon a fair
+December day; and for the rest, the rocks, and watery
+heavens, and all these treacherous and lapping waves,
+were very like a crude draught of the world, dashed off
+conceivably upon the day before creation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+These arbiters of social London did not speak at
+all; and the bleak waters crowded toward them as in a
+fretful dispute of precedence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then the woman said:  "Last night Lord Remon
+asked me to marry him, and I declined the honor.  For
+this place is too like Bessington&mdash;and, I think, the
+past month has changed everything&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I thought you had forgotten Bessington," he said,
+"long, long ago."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I did not ever quite forget&mdash;Oh, the garish
+years," she wailed, "since then!  And how I hated you,
+William&mdash;and yet liked you, too,&mdash;because you were
+never the boy that I remembered, and people would not
+let you be!  And how I hated them&mdash;the huzzies!  For I
+had to see you almost every day, and it was never you I
+saw&mdash;Ah, William, come back for just a little, little
+while, and be an honest boy for just the moment that we
+are dying, and not an elegant fine gentleman!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nay, my dear," the dramatist composedly answered,
+"an hour of naked candor is at hand.  Life is a
+masquerade where Death, it would appear, is master of
+the ceremonies.  Now he sounds his whistle; and we who
+went about the world so long as harlequins must unmask,
+and for all time put aside our abhorrence of the
+disheveled.  For in sober verity, this is Death who
+comes, Olivia,&mdash;though I had thought that at his advent
+one would be afraid."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Yet apprehension of this gross and unavoidable
+adventure, so soon to be endured, thrilled him, and
+none too lightly.  It seemed unfair that death should
+draw near thus sensibly, with never a twinge or ache to
+herald its arrival.  Why, there were fifty years of
+life in this fine, nimble body but for any contretemps
+like that of the deplorable present!  Thus his
+meditations stumbled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, William," Lady Drogheda bewailed, "it is all
+so big&mdash;the incurious west, and the sea, and these
+rocks that were old in Noah's youth,&mdash;and we are so
+little&mdash;&mdash;!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," he returned, and took her hand, because
+their feet were wetted now; "the trap and its small
+prey are not commensurate.  The stage is set for a
+Homeric death-scene, and we two profane an
+over-ambitious background.  For who are we that Heaven
+should have rived the world before time was, to trap
+us, and should make of the old sea a fowling-net?"  Their
+eyes encountered, and he said, with a strange
+gush of manliness:  "Yet Heaven is kind.  I am bound
+even in honor now to marry Mistress Araminta; and you
+would marry Remon in the end, Olivia,&mdash;ah, yes! for we
+are merely moths, my dear, and luxury is a disastrously
+brilliant lamp.  But here are only you and I and the
+master of all ceremony.  And yet&mdash;I would we were a
+little worthier, Olivia!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You have written four merry comedies and you were
+the first gentleman in England to wear a neckcloth of
+Flanders lace," she answered, and her smile was sadder
+than weeping.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And you were the first person of quality to eat
+cheese-cakes in Spring Garden.  There you have our
+epitaphs, if we in truth have earned an epitaph who
+have not ever lived."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, we have only laughed&mdash;Laugh now, for the
+last time, and hearten me, my handsome William!  And
+yet could I but come to God," the woman said, with a
+new voice, "and make it clear to Him just how it all
+fell out, and beg for one more chance!  How heartily I
+would pray then!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And I would cry Amen to all that prayer must of
+necessity contain," he answered.  "Oh!" said Wycherley,
+"just for applause and bodily comfort and the envy of
+innumerable other fools we two have bartered a great
+heritage!  I think our corner of the world will lament
+us for as much as a week; but I fear lest Heaven may
+not condescend to set apart the needful time wherein to
+frame a suitable chastisement for such poor imbeciles.
+Olivia, I have loved you all my life, and I have been
+faithful neither to you nor to myself!  I love you so
+that I am not afraid even now, since you are here, and
+so entirely that I have forgotten how to plead my cause
+convincingly.  And I have had practice, let me tell
+you.&#8230; !"  Then he shook his head and smiled.  "But
+candor is not <I>à la mode</I>.  See, now, to what outmoded
+and bucolic frenzies nature brings even us at last."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She answered only, as she motioned seaward, "Look!"
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+And what Mr. Wycherley saw was a substantial boat
+rowed by four of Mr. Minifie's attendants; and in the
+bow of the vessel sat that wounded gentleman himself,
+regarding Wycherley and Lady Drogheda with some
+disfavor; and beside the younger man was Mistress
+Araminta Vining.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was a perturbed Minifie who broke the silence.
+"This is very awkward," he said, "because Araminta and
+I are eloping.  We mean to be married this same night
+at Milanor.  And deuce take it, Mr. Wycherley!  I can't
+leave you there to drown, any more than in the
+circumstances I can ask you to make one of the party."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mr.  Wycherley," said his companion, with far more
+asperity, "the vanity and obduracy of a cruel father
+have forced me to the adoption of this desperate
+measure.  Toward yourself I entertain no ill-feeling,
+nor indeed any sentiment at all except the most
+profound contempt.  My aunt will, of course, accompany
+us; for yourself, you will do as you please; but in any
+event I solemnly protest that I spurn your odious
+pretensions, release myself hereby from an enforced and
+hideous obligation, and in a phrase would not marry you
+in order to be Queen of England."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Miss Vining, I had hitherto admired you," the beau
+replied, with fervor, "but now esteem is changed to
+adoration."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then he turned to his Olivia.  "Madam, you will
+pardon the awkward but unavoidable publicity of my
+proceeding.  I am a ruined man.  I owe your brother-in-law
+some L1500, and, oddly enough, I mean to pay him.
+I must sell Jephcot and Skene Minor, but while life
+lasts I shall keep Bessington and all its
+memories.  Meanwhile there is a clergyman waiting
+at Milanor.  So marry me to-night, Olivia; and we will
+go back to Bessington to-morrow."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"To Bessington&mdash;&mdash;!" she said.  It was as though
+she spoke of something very sacred.  Then very
+musically Lady Drogheda laughed, and to the eye she was
+all flippancy.  "La, William, I can't bury myself in
+the country until the end of time," she said, "and make
+interminable custards," she added, "and superintend the
+poultry," she said, "and for recreation play short
+whist with the vicar."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And it seemed to Mr. Wycherley that he had gone
+divinely mad.  "Don't lie to me, Olivia.  You are
+thinking there are yet a host of heiresses who would be
+glad to be a famous beau's wife at however dear a cost.
+But don't lie to me.  Don't even try to seem the airy
+and bedizened woman I have known so long.  All that is
+over now.  Death tapped us on the shoulder, and, if
+only for a moment, the masks were dropped.  And life is
+changed now, oh, everything is changed!  Then, come, my
+dear! let us be wise and very honest.  Let us concede
+it is still possible for me to find another heiress,
+and for you to marry Remon; let us grant it the only
+outcome of our common-sense! and for all that, laugh,
+and fling away the pottage, and be more wise than
+reason."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She irresolutely said:  "I cannot.  Matters are
+altered now.  It would be madness&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It would undoubtedly be madness," Mr. Wycherley
+assented.  "But then I am so tired of being rational!
+Oh, Olivia," this former arbiter of taste
+absurdly babbled, "if I lose you now it is forever! and
+there is no health in me save when I am with you.  Then
+alone I wish to do praiseworthy things, to be all which
+the boy we know of should have grown to.&#8230;  See how
+profoundly shameless I am become when, with such an
+audience, I take refuge in the pitiful base argument of
+my own weakness!  But, my dear, I want you so that
+nothing else in the world means anything to me.  I want
+you! and all my life I have wanted you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Boy, boy&mdash;&mdash;!" she answered, and her fine hands
+had come to Wycherley, as white birds flutter homeward.
+But even then she had to deliberate the matter&mdash;since
+the habits of many years are not put aside like outworn
+gloves,&mdash;and for innumerable centuries, it seemed to
+him, her foot tapped on that wetted ledge.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Presently her lashes lifted.  "I suppose it would
+be lacking in reverence to keep a clergyman waiting
+longer than was absolutely necessary?" she
+hazarded.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap08"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+A BROWN WOMAN
+</H3>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+"<I>A critical age called for symmetry, and exquisite
+finish had to be studied as much as nobility of
+thought.&#8230;  POPE aimed to take first place as a
+writer of polished verse.  Any knowledge he gained of
+the world, or any suggestion that came to him from his
+intercourse with society, was utilized to accomplish
+his main purpose.  To put his thoughts into choice
+language was not enough.  Each idea had to be put in
+its neatest and most epigrammatic form.</I>"
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  Why did I write? what sin to me unknown<BR>
+  Dipt me in ink, my parents', or my own?<BR>
+  As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame,<BR>
+  I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came.<BR>
+  The muse but served to ease some friend, not wife,<BR>
+  To help me through this long disease, my life.<BR>
+<BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em; letter-spacing: 2em">******</SPAN><BR>
+<BR>
+  Who shames a scribbler? break one cobweb through,<BR>
+  He spins the slight, self-pleasing thread anew;<BR>
+  Destroy his fib or sophistry in vain,<BR>
+  The creature's at his foolish work again,<BR>
+  Throned in the centre of his thin designs,<BR>
+  Proud of a vast extent of flimsy lines!<BR>
+<BR>
+  ALEXANDER POPE.&mdash;<I>Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot</I>.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+A BROWN WOMAN
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+"But I must be hurrying home now," the girl said, "for
+it is high time I were back in the hayfields."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Fair shepherdess," he implored, "for heaven's
+sake, let us not cut short the <I>pastorelle</I> thus
+abruptly."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And what manner of beast may that be, pray?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Tis a conventional form of verse, my dear, which
+we at present strikingly illustrate.  The plan of a
+<I>pastorelle</I> is simplicity's self: a gentleman, which I
+may fairly claim to be, in some fair rural scene&mdash;such
+as this&mdash;comes suddenly upon a rustic maiden of
+surpassing beauty.  He naturally falls in love with her,
+and they say all manner of fine things to each other."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She considered him for a while before speaking.  It
+thrilled him to see the odd tenderness that was in her
+face.  "You always think of saying and writing fine
+things, do you not, sir?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My dear," he answered, gravely, "I believe that I
+was undoubtedly guilty of such folly until you came.  I
+wish I could make you understand how your coming has
+changed everything."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You can tell me some other time," the girl gaily
+declared, and was about to leave him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His hand detained her very gently.  "Faith, but I
+fear not, for already my old hallucinations seem to me
+incredible.  Why, yesterday I thought it the most
+desirable of human lots to be a great poet"&mdash;the
+gentleman laughed in self-mockery.  "I positively did.  I
+labored every day toward becoming one.  I lived among
+books, esteemed that I was doing something of genuine
+importance as I gravely tinkered with alliteration and
+metaphor and antithesis and judicious paraphrases of
+the ancients.  I put up with life solely because it
+afforded material for versification; and, in reality,
+believed the destruction of Troy was providentially
+ordained lest Homer lack subject matter for an epic.
+And as for loving, I thought people fell in love in
+order to exchange witty rhymes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His hand detained her, very gently.&#8230;  Indeed,
+it seemed to him he could never tire of noting her
+excellencies.  Perhaps it was that splendid light poise
+of her head he chiefly loved; he thought so at least,
+just now.  Or was it the wonder of her walk, which made
+all other women he had ever known appear to mince and
+hobble, like rusty toys?  Something there was assuredly
+about this slim brown girl which recalled an untamed
+and harmless woodland creature; and it was that, he
+knew, which most poignantly moved him, even though he
+could not name it.  Perhaps it was her bright kind
+eyes, which seemed to mirror the tranquillity of
+forests.&#8230;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You gentry are always talking of love," she marveled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh," he said, with acerbity, "oh, I don't doubt
+that any number of beef-gorging squires and leering,
+long-legged Oxford dandies&mdash;&mdash;"  He broke off here, and
+laughed contemptuously.  "Well, you are beautiful, and
+they have eyes as keen as mine.  And I do not blame
+you, my dear, for believing my designs to be no more
+commendable than theirs&mdash;no, not at all."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But his mood was spoiled, and his tetchy vanity
+hurt, by the thought of stout well-set fellows having
+wooed this girl; and he permitted her to go without
+protest.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Yet he sat alone for a while upon the fallen tree-trunk,
+humming a contented little tune.  Never in his
+life had he been happier.  He did not venture to
+suppose that any creature so adorable could love such a
+sickly hunchback, such a gargoyle of a man, as he was;
+but that Sarah was fond of him, he knew.  There would
+be no trouble in arranging with her father for their
+marriage, most certainly; and he meant to attend to
+that matter this very morning, and within ten minutes.
+So Mr. Alexander Pope was meanwhile arranging in his
+mind a suitable wording for his declaration of marital
+aspirations.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thus John Gay found him presently and roused him
+from phrase-spinning.  "And what shall we do this
+morning, Alexander?"  Gay was always demanding, like a
+spoiled child, to be amused.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Pope told him what his own plans were,
+speaking quite simply, but with his countenance
+radiant.  Gay took off his hat and wiped his forehead,
+for the day was warm.  He did not say anything at all.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well&mdash;&mdash;?" Mr. Pope asked, after a pause.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Gay was dubious.  "I had never thought that you
+would marry," he said.  "And&mdash;why, hang it, Alexander! to
+grow enamored of a milkmaid is well enough for the
+hero of a poem, but in a poet it hints at injudicious
+composition."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Pope gesticulated with thin hands and seemed
+upon the verge of eloquence.  Then he spoke
+unanswerably.  "But I love her," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+John Gay's reply was a subdued whistle.  He, in
+common with the other guests of Lord Harcourt, at
+Nuneham Courtney, had wondered what would be the
+outcome of Mr. Alexander Pope's intimacy with Sarah
+Drew.  A month earlier the poet had sprained his ankle
+upon Amshot Heath, and this young woman had found him
+lying there, entirely helpless, as she returned from
+her evening milking.  Being hale of person, she had
+managed to get the little hunchback to her home
+unaided.  And since then Pope had often been seen with
+her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This much was common knowledge.  That Mr. Pope
+proposed to marry the heroine of his misadventure
+afforded a fair mark for raillery, no doubt, but Gay,
+in common with the run of educated England in 1718, did
+not aspire to be facetious at Pope's expense.  The
+luxury was too costly.  Offend the dwarf in any
+fashion, and were you the proudest duke at Court
+or the most inconsiderable rhymester in Petticoat Lane,
+it made no difference; there was no crime too heinous
+for "the great Mr. Pope's" next verses to charge you
+with, and, worst of all, there was no misdoing so out
+of character that his adroit malignancy could not make
+it seem plausible.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now, after another pause, Pope said, "I must be
+going now.  Will you not wish me luck?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, Alexander&mdash;why, hang it!" was Mr. Gay's
+observation, "I believe that you are human after all,
+and not just a book in breeches."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+He thereby voiced a commentary patently uncalled-for,
+as Mr. Pope afterward reflected.  Mr. Pope was
+then treading toward the home of old Frederick Drew.
+It was a gray morning in late July.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I love her," Pope had said.  The fact was
+undeniable; yet an expression of it necessarily halts.
+Pope knew, as every man must do who dares conserve his
+energies to annotate the drama of life rather than play
+a part in it, the nature of that loneliness which this
+conservation breeds.  Such persons may hope to win a
+posthumous esteem in the library, but it is at the
+bleak cost of making life a wistful transaction with
+foreigners.  In such enforced aloofness Sarah Drew had
+come to him&mdash;strong, beautiful, young, good and vital,
+all that he was not&mdash;and had serenely befriended "the
+great Mr. Pope," whom she viewed as a queer decrepit
+little gentleman of whom within a week she was
+unfeignedly fond.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I love her," Pope had said.  Eh, yes, no doubt;
+and what, he fiercely demanded of himself, was he&mdash;a
+crippled scribbler, a bungling artisan of phrases&mdash;that
+he should dare to love this splendid and deep-bosomed
+goddess?  Something of youth awoke, possessing
+him&mdash;something of that high ardor which, as he cloudily
+remembered now, had once controlled a boy who dreamed
+in Windsor Forest and with the lightest of hearts
+planned to achieve the impossible.  For what is more
+difficult of attainment than to achieve the perfected
+phrase, so worded that to alter a syllable of its
+wording would be little short of sacrilege?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What whimwhams!" decreed the great Mr. Pope,
+aloud.  "Verse-making is at best only the affair of
+idle men who write in their closets and of idle men who
+read there.  And as for him who polishes phrases,
+whatever be his fate in poetry, it is ten to one but he
+must give up all the reasonable aims of life for it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+No, he would have no more of loneliness.  Henceforward
+Alexander Pope would be human&mdash;like the others.
+To write perfectly was much; but it was not everything.
+Living was capable of furnishing even more than the raw
+material of a couplet.  It might, for instance, yield
+content.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For instance, if you loved, and married, and begot,
+and died, with the seriousness of a person who believes
+he is performing an action of real importance, and
+conceded that the perfection of any art, whether it be
+that of verse-making or of rope-dancing, is at best a
+by-product of life's conduct; at worst, you
+probably would not be lonely.  No; you would be at
+one with all other fat-witted people, and there was no
+greater blessing conceivable.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Pope muttered, and produced his notebook, and wrote
+tentatively.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Wrote Mr. Pope:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  The bliss of man (could pride that blessing find)<BR>
+  Is not to act or think beyond mankind;<BR>
+  No powers of body or of soul to share<BR>
+  But what his nature and his state can bear.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"His state!" yes, undeniably, two sibilants
+collided here.  "His wit?"&mdash;no, that would be
+flat-footed awkwardness in the management of your
+vowel-sounds; the lengthened "a" was almost requisite.&#8230;
+Pope was fretting over the imbroglio when he
+absent-mindedly glanced up to perceive that his Sarah, not
+irrevocably offended, was being embraced by a certain
+John Hughes&mdash;who was a stalwart, florid personable
+individual, no doubt, but, after all, only an
+unlettered farmer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The dwarf gave a hard, wringing motion of his
+hands.  The diamond-Lord Bolingbroke's gift&mdash;which
+ornamented Pope's left hand cut into the flesh of his
+little finger, so cruel was the gesture; and this
+little finger was bleeding as Pope tripped forward,
+smiling.  A gentleman does not incommode the public by
+obtruding the ugliness of a personal wound.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do I intrude?" he queried.  "Ah, well!  I
+also have dwelt in Arcadia."  It was bitter to
+comprehend that he had never done so.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The lovers were visibly annoyed; yet, if an
+interruption of their pleasant commerce was decreed to
+be, it could not possibly have sprung, as they soon
+found, from a more sympathetic source.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+These were not subtle persons.  Pope had the truth
+from them within ten minutes.  They loved each other;
+but John Hughes was penniless, and old Frederick Drew
+was, in consequence, obdurate.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And, besides, he thinks you mean to marry her!"
+said John Hughes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My dear man, he pardonably forgets that the utmost
+reach of my designs in common reason would be to have
+her as my kept mistress for a month or two," drawled
+Mr. Pope.  "As concerns yourself, my good fellow, the
+case is somewhat different.  Why, it is a veritable
+romance&mdash;an affair of Daphne and Corydon&mdash;although, to
+be unpardonably candid, the plot of your romance, my
+young Arcadians, is not the most original conceivable.
+I think that the denouement need not baffle our
+imaginations."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The dwarf went toward Sarah Drew.  The chary
+sunlight had found the gold in her hair, and its glint
+was brightly visible to him.  "My dear&mdash;" he said.  His
+thin long fingers touched her capable hand.  It was a
+sort of caress&mdash;half-timid.  "My dear, I owe my life to
+you.  My body is at most a flimsy abortion such as a
+night's exposure would have made more tranquil than it
+is just now.  Yes, it was you who found a
+caricature of the sort of man that Mr. Hughes here is,
+disabled, helpless, and&mdash;for reasons which doubtless
+seemed to you sufficient&mdash;contrived that this unsightly
+parody continue in existence.  I am not lovable, my
+dear.  I am only a hunchback, as you can see.  My
+aspirations and my sickly imaginings merit only the
+derision of a candid clean-souled being such as you
+are."  His finger-tips touched the back of her hand
+again.  "I think there was never a maker of enduring
+verse who did not at one period or another long to
+exchange an assured immortality for a sturdier pair of
+shoulders.  I think&mdash;I think that I am prone to speak
+at random," Pope said, with his half-drowsy smile.
+"Yet, none the less, an honest man, as our kinsmen in
+Adam average, is bound to pay his equitable debts."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She said, "I do not understand."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have perpetrated certain jingles," Pope
+returned.  "I had not comprehended until to-day they
+are the only children I shall leave behind me.  Eh, and
+what would you make of them, my dear, could ingenuity
+contrive a torture dire enough to force you into
+reading them!&#8230;  Misguided people have paid me for
+contriving these jingles.  So that I have money enough
+to buy you from your father just as I would purchase
+one of his heifers.  Yes, at the very least I have
+money, and I have earned it.  I will send your
+big-thewed adorer&mdash;I believe that Hughes is the name?&mdash;L500
+of it this afternoon.  That sum, I gather, will be
+sufficient to remove your father's objection to your
+marriage with Mr. Hughes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Pope could not but admire himself tremendously.
+Moreover, in such matters no woman is blind.  Tears
+came into Sarah's huge brown eyes.  This tenderhearted
+girl was not thinking of John Hughes now.  Pope noted
+the fact with the pettiest exultation.  "Oh, you&mdash;you
+are good."  Sarah Drew spoke as with difficulty.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No adjective, my dear, was ever applied with less
+discrimination.  It is merely that you have rendered no
+inconsiderable service to posterity, and merit a
+reward."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, and indeed, indeed, I was always fond of
+you&mdash;&mdash;"  The girl sobbed this.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She would have added more, no doubt, since
+compassion is garrulous, had not Pope's scratched hand
+dismissed a display of emotion as not entirely in
+consonance with the rules of the game.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My dear, therein you have signally honored me.
+There remains only to offer you my appreciation of your
+benevolence toward a sickly monster, and to entreat for
+my late intrusion&mdash;however unintentional&mdash;that
+forgiveness which you would not deny, I think, to any
+other impertinent insect."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, but we have no words to thank you, sir&mdash;&mdash;!"
+Thus Hughes began.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then don't attempt it, my good fellow.  For
+phrase-spinning, as I can assure you, is the most
+profitless of all pursuits."  Whereupon Pope bowed
+low, wheeled, walked away.  Yes, he was wounded past
+sufferance; it seemed to him he must die of it.  Life
+was a farce, and Destiny an overseer who hiccoughed
+mandates.  Well, all that even Destiny could find to
+gloat over, he reflected, was the tranquil figure of a
+smallish gentleman switching at the grass-blades with
+his cane as he sauntered under darkening skies.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For a storm was coming on, and the first big drops
+of it were splattering the terrace when Mr. Pope
+entered Lord Harcourt's mansion.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Pope went straight to his own rooms.  As he came in
+there was a vivid flash of lightning, followed
+instantaneously by a crashing, splitting noise, like
+that of universes ripped asunder.  He did not honor the
+high uproar with attention.  This dwarf was not afraid
+of anything except the commission of an error in taste.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then, too, there were letters for him, laid ready
+on the writing-table.  Nothing of much importance he
+found there.&mdash;Here, though, was a rather diverting
+letter from Eustace Budgell, that poor fool, abjectly
+thanking Mr. Pope for his advice concerning how best to
+answer the atrocious calumnies on Budgell then
+appearing in <I>The Grub-Street Journal</I>,&mdash;and reposing,
+drolly enough, next the proof-sheets of an anonymous
+letter Pope had prepared for the forthcoming issue of
+that publication, wherein he sprightlily told how
+Budgell had poisoned Dr. Tindal, after forging his
+will.  For even if Budgell had not in point of
+fact been guilty of these particular peccadilloes, he
+had quite certainly committed the crime of speaking
+lightly of Mr. Pope, as "a little envious animal," some
+seven years ago; and it was for this grave indiscretion
+that Pope was dexterously goading the man into
+insanity, and eventually drove him to suicide.&#8230;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The storm made the room dark and reading difficult.
+Still, this was an even more amusing letter, from the
+all-powerful Duchess of Marlborough.  In as civil terms
+as her sick rage could muster, the frightened woman
+offered Mr. Pope L1,000 to suppress his verbal portrait
+of her, in the character of Atossa, from his <I>Moral
+Essays</I>; and Pope straightway decided to accept the
+bribe, and afterward to print his verses unchanged.
+For the hag, as he reflected, very greatly needed to be
+taught that in this world there was at least one person
+who did not quail before her tantrums.  There would be,
+moreover, even an elementary justice in thus robbing
+her who had robbed England at large.  And, besides, her
+name was Sarah.&#8230;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Pope lighted four candles and set them before the
+long French mirror.  He stood appraising his many
+curious deformities while the storm raged.  He stood
+sidelong, peering over his left shoulder, in order to
+see the outline of his crooked back.  Nowhere in
+England, he reflected, was there a person more pitiable
+and more repellent outwardly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And, oh, it would be droll," Pope said, aloud, "if
+our exteriors were ever altogether parodies.  But
+time keeps a diary in our faces, and writes a
+monstrously plain hand.  Now, if you take the first
+letter of Mr. Alexander Pope's Christian name, and the
+first and last letters of his surname, you have
+A. P. E.," Pope quoted, genially.  "I begin to think that
+Dennis was right.  What conceivable woman would not
+prefer a well-set man of five-and-twenty to such a
+withered abortion?  And what does it matter, after all,
+that a hunchback has dared to desire a shapely
+brown-haired woman?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Pope came more near to the mirror.  "Make answer,
+you who have dared to imagine that a goddess was ever
+drawn to descend into womanhood except by kisses, brawn
+and a clean heart."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Another peal of thunder bellowed.  The storm was
+growing furious.  "Yet I have had a marvelous dream.
+Now I awaken.  I must go on in the old round.  As long
+as my wits preserve their agility I must be able to
+amuse, to flatter and, at need, to intimidate the
+patrons of that ape in the mirror, so that they will
+not dare refuse me the market-value of my antics.  And
+Sarah Drew has declined an alliance such as this in
+favor of a fresh-colored complexion and a pair of
+straight shoulders!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Pope thought a while.  "And a clean heart!  She
+bargained royally, giving love for nothing less than
+love.  The man is rustic, illiterate; he never heard of
+Aristotle, he would be at a loss to distinguish between
+a trochee and a Titian, and if you mentioned Boileau to
+him would probably imagine you were talking of
+cookery.  But he loves her.  He would forfeit eternity
+to save her a toothache.  And, chief of all, she can
+make this robust baby happy, and she alone can make him
+happy.  And so, she gives, gives royally&mdash;she gives,
+God bless her!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Rain, sullen rain, was battering the window.  "And
+you&mdash;you hunchback in the mirror, you maker of neat
+rhymes&mdash;pray, what had you to offer?  A coach-and-six,
+of course, and pin-money and furbelows and in the end a
+mausoleum with unimpeachable Latin on it!  And&mdash;<I>paté
+sur paté</I>&mdash;an unswerving devotion which she would share
+on almost equal terms with the Collected Works of
+Alexander Pope.  And so she chose&mdash;chose brawn and a
+clean heart."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The dwarf turned, staggered, fell upon his bed.
+"God, make a man of me, make me a good brave man.  I
+loved her&mdash;oh, such as I am, You know that I loved her!
+You know that I desire her happiness above all things.
+Ah, no, for You know that I do not at bottom.  I want
+to hurt, to wound all living creatures, because they
+know how to be happy, and I do not know how.  Ah, God,
+and why did You decree that I should never be an obtuse
+and comely animal such as this John Hughes is?  I am so
+tired of being 'the great Mr. Pope,' and I want only
+the common joys of life."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The hunchback wept.  It would be too curious to
+anatomize the writhings of his proud little spirit.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Now some one tapped upon the door.  It was
+John Gay.  He was bidden to enter, and, complying,
+found Mr. Pope yawning over the latest of Tonson's
+publications.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gay's face was singularly portentous.  "My friend,"
+Gay blurted out, "I bring news which will horrify you.
+Believe me, I would never have mustered the pluck to
+bring it did I not love you.  I cannot let you hear it
+first in public and unprepared, as, otherwise, you
+would have to do."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do I not know you have the kindest heart in all
+the world?  Why, so outrageous are your amiable defects
+that they would be the public derision of your enemies
+if you had any," Pope returned.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The other poet evinced an awkward comminglement of
+consternation and pity.  "It appears that when this
+storm arose&mdash;why, Mistress Drew was with a young man of
+the neighborhood&mdash;a John Hewet&mdash;&mdash;"  Gay was speaking
+with unaccustomed rapidity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hughes, I think," Pope interrupted, equably.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Perhaps&mdash;I am not sure.  They sought shelter under
+a haycock.  You will remember that first crash of
+thunder, as if the heavens were in demolishment?  My
+friend, the reapers who had been laboring in the
+fields&mdash;who had been driven to such protection as the
+trees or hedges afforded&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Get on!" a shrill voice cried; "for God's love,
+man, get on!"  Mr. Pope had risen.  This pallid shaken
+wisp was not in appearance the great Mr. Pope
+whose ingenuity had enabled Homeric warriors to
+excel in the genteel.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They first saw a little smoke.&#8230;  They found
+this Hughes with one arm about the neck of Mistress
+Drew, and the other held over her face, as if to screen
+her from the lightning.  They were both"&mdash;and here Gay
+hesitated.  "They were both dead," he amended.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Pope turned abruptly.  Nakedness is of necessity
+uncouth, he held, whether it be the body or the soul
+that is unveiled.  Mr. Pope went toward a window which
+he opened, and he stood thus looking out for a brief
+while.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"So she is dead," he said.  "It is very strange.
+So many rare felicities of curve and color, so much of
+purity and kindliness and valor and mirth, extinguished
+as one snuffs a candle!  Well!  I am sorry she is dead,
+for the child had a talent for living and got such joy
+out of it.&#8230;  Hers was a lovely happy life, but it
+was sterile.  Already nothing remains of her but dead
+flesh which must be huddled out of sight.  I shall not
+perish thus entirely, I believe.  Men will remember me.
+Truly a mighty foundation for pride! when the utmost I
+can hope for is but to be read in one island, and to be
+thrown aside at the end of one age.  Indeed, I am not
+even sure of that much.  I print, and print, and print.
+And when I collect my verses into books, I am
+altogether uncertain whether to took upon myself as a
+man building a monument, or burying the dead.  It
+sometimes seems to me that each publication is but a
+solemn funeral of many wasted years.  For I have
+given all to the verse-making.  Granted that the
+sacrifice avails to rescue my name from oblivion, what
+will it profit me when I am dead and care no more for
+men's opinions than Sarah Drew cares now for what I say
+of her?  But then she never cared.  She loved John
+Hughes.  And she was right."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He made an end of speaking, still peering out of
+the window with considerate narrowed eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The storm was over.  In the beech-tree opposite a
+wren was raising optimistic outcry.  The sun had won
+his way through a black-bellied shred of cloud; upon
+the terrace below, a dripping Venus and a Perseus were
+glistening as with white fire.  Past these, drenched
+gardens, the natural wildness of which was judiciously
+restrained with walks, ponds, grottoes, statuary and
+other rural elegancies, displayed the intermingled
+brilliancies of diamonds and emeralds, and glittered as
+with pearls and rubies where tempest-battered roses
+were reviving in assertiveness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think the storm is over," Mr. Pope remarked.
+"It is strange how violent are these convulsions of
+nature.&#8230;  But nature is a treacherous blowsy jade,
+who respects nobody.  A gentleman can but shrug under
+her onslaughts, and henceforward civilly avoid them.
+It is a consolation to reflect that they pass quickly."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He turned as in defiance.  "Yes, yes!  It hurts.
+But I envy them.  Yes, even I, that ugly spiteful
+hornet of a man! 'the great Mr. Pope,' who will be
+dining with the proudest people in England within
+the hour and gloating over their deference!  For they
+presume to make a little free with God occasionally,
+John, but never with me.  And <I>I</I> envy these dead young
+fools.&#8230;  You see, they loved each other, John.  I
+left them, not an hour ago, the happiest of living
+creatures.  I looked back once.  I pretended to have
+dropped my handkerchief.  I imagine they were talking
+of their wedding-clothes, for this broad-shouldered
+Hughes was matching poppies and field-flowers to her
+complexion.  It was a scene out of Theocritus.  I think
+Heaven was so well pleased by the tableau that Heaven
+hastily resumed possession of its enactors in order to
+prevent any after-happenings from belittling that
+perfect instant."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Egad, and matrimony might easily have proved an
+anti-climax," Gay considered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes; oh, it is only Love that is blind, and not
+the lover necessarily.  I know.  I suppose I always
+knew at the bottom of my heart.  This hamadryad was
+destined in the outcome to dwindle into a village
+housewife, she would have taken a lively interest in
+the number of eggs the hens were laying, she would even
+have assured her children, precisely in the way her
+father spoke of John Hughes, that young people
+ordinarily have foolish fancies which their rational
+elders agree to disregard.  But as it is, no Eastern
+queen&mdash;not Semele herself&mdash;left earth more nobly&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Pope broke off short.  He produced his notebook,
+which he never went without, and wrote frowningly,
+with many erasures.  "H'm, yes," he said; and he read
+aloud:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  "When Eastern lovers feed the funeral fire,<BR>
+  On the same pile the faithful fair expire;<BR>
+  Here pitying heaven that virtue mutual found,<BR>
+  And blasted both that it might neither wound.<BR>
+  Hearts so sincere the Almighty saw well pleased,<BR>
+  Sent His own lightning and the victims seized."<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Then Pope made a grimace.  "No; the analogy is trim
+enough, but the lines lack fervor.  It is deplorable
+how much easier it is to express any emotion other than
+that of which one is actually conscious."  Pope had
+torn the paper half-through before he reflected that it
+would help to fill a printed page.  He put it in his
+pocket.  "But, come now, I am writing to Lady Mary this
+afternoon.  You know how she loves oddities.  Between
+us&mdash;with prose as the medium, of course, since verse
+should, after all, confine itself to the commemoration
+of heroes and royal persons&mdash;I believe we might make of
+this occurrence a neat and moving <I>pastorelle</I>&mdash;I
+should say, pastoral, of course, but my wits are wool-gathering."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Gay had the kindest heart in the universe.  Yet
+he, also, had dreamed of the perfected phrase, so
+worded that to alter a syllable of its wording would be
+little short of sacrilege.  Eyes kindling, he took up a
+pen.  "Yes, yes, I understand.  Egad, it is an
+admirable subject.  But, then, I don't believe I ever
+saw these lovers&mdash;&mdash;?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"John was a well-set man of about five-and-twenty,"
+replied Mr. Pope; "and Sarah was a brown woman of
+eighteen years, three months and fourteen days."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then these two dipped their pens and set about a
+moving composition, which has to-day its proper rating
+among Mr. Pope's Complete Works.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap09"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+PRO HONORIA
+</H3>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+"<I>But that sense of negation, of theoretic
+insecurity, which was in the air, conspiring with what
+was of like tendency in himself, made of Lord UFFORD
+a central type of disillusion.&#8230;  He had been
+amiable because the general betise of humanity did not
+in his opinion greatly matter, after all; and in
+reading these 'SATIRES' it is well-nigh painful to
+witness the blind and naked forces of nature and
+circumstance surprising him in the uncontrollable
+movements of his own so carefully guarded heart.</I>"
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  Why is a handsome wife adored<BR>
+  By every coxcomb but her lord?<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  From yonder puppet-man inquire<BR>
+  Who wisely hides his wood and wire;<BR>
+  Shows Sheba's queen completely dress'd<BR>
+  And Solomon in royal vest;<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  But view them litter'd on the floor,<BR>
+  Or strung on pegs behind the door,<BR>
+  Punch is exactly of a piece<BR>
+  With Lorrain's duke, and prince of Greece.<BR>
+<BR>
+  HORACE CALVERLEY.&mdash;<I>Petition to the Duke of Ormskirk</I>.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+PRO HONORIA
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+In the early winter of 1761 the Earl of Bute, then
+Secretary of State, gave vent to an outburst of
+unaccustomed profanity.  Mr. Robert Calverley, who
+represented England at the Court of St. Petersburg, had
+resigned his office without prelude or any word of
+explanation.  This infuriated Bute, since his pet
+scheme was to make peace with Russia and thereby end
+the Continental War.  Now all was to do again; the
+minister raged, shrugged, furnished a new emissary with
+credentials, and marked Calverley's name for
+punishment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As much, indeed, was written to Calverley by Lord
+Ufford, the poet, diarist, musician and virtuoso:
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Our Scottish Mortimer, it appears, is unwilling to
+have the map of Europe altered because Mr. Robert
+Calverley has taken a whim to go into Italy.  He is
+angrier than I have ever known him to be.  He swears
+that with a pen's flourish you have imperiled the
+well-being of England, and raves in the same breath of the
+preferment he had designed for you.  Beware of him.
+For my own part, I shrug and acquiesce, because I
+am familiar with your pranks.  I merely venture to
+counsel that you do not crown the Pelion of abuse,
+which our statesmen are heaping upon you, with the Ossa
+of physical as well as political suicide.  Hasten on
+your Italian jaunt, for Umfraville, who is now with me
+at Carberry Hill, has publicly declared that if you
+dare re-appear in England he will have you horsewhipped
+by his footmen.  In consequence, I would most earnestly
+advise&mdash;&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Calverley read no further, but came straightway
+into England.  He had not been in England since his
+elopement, three years before that spring, with the
+Marquis of Umfraville's betrothed, Lord Radnor's
+daughter, whom Calverley had married at Calais.
+Mr. Calverley and his wife were presently at Carberry Hill,
+Lord Ufford's home, where, arriving about moon-rise,
+they found a ball in progress.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Their advent caused a momentary check to merriment.
+The fiddlers ceased, because Lord Ufford had signaled
+them.  The fine guests paused in their stately dance.
+Lord Ufford, in a richly figured suit, came hastily to
+Lady Honoria Calverley, his high heels tapping audibly
+upon the floor, and with gallantry lifted her hand
+toward his lips.  Her husband he embraced, and the two
+men kissed each other, as was the custom of the age.
+Chatter and laughter rose on every side as pert and
+merry as the noises of a brook in springtime.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I fear that as Lord Umfraville's host," young
+Calverley at once began, "you cannot with decorum
+convey to the ignoramus my opinion as to his ability to
+conjugate the verb <I>to dare</I>."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, but no! you naturally demand a duel," the
+poet-earl returned.  "It is very like you.  I lament
+your decision, but I will attempt to arrange the
+meeting for to-morrow morning."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Lord Ufford smiled and nodded to the musicians.  He
+finished the dance to admiration, as this lean
+dandified young man did everything&mdash;"assiduous to win each
+fool's applause," as his own verses scornfully phrase
+it.  Then Ufford went about his errand of death and
+conversed for a long while with Umfraville.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Afterward Lord Ufford beckoned to Calverley, who
+shrugged and returned Mr. Erwyn's snuff-box, which
+Calverley had been admiring.  He followed the earl into
+a side-room opening upon the Venetian Chamber wherein
+the fete was.  Ufford closed the door.  You saw that he
+had put away the exterior of mirth that hospitality
+demanded of him, and perturbation showed in the lean
+countenance which was by ordinary so proud and so
+amiably peevish.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Robin, you have performed many mad actions in your
+life!" he said; "but this return into the three
+kingdoms out-Herods all!  Did I not warn you against
+Umfraville!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, certainly you did," returned Mr. Calverley.
+"You informed me&mdash;which was your duty as a friend&mdash;of
+this curmudgeon's boast that he would have me
+horsewhipped if I dared venture into England.  You
+will readily conceive that any gentleman of
+self-respect cannot permit such farcical utterances to be
+delivered without appending a gladiatorial epilogue.
+Well! what are the conditions of this duel?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, fool that I have been!" cried Ufford, who was
+enabled now by virtue of their seclusion to manifest
+his emotion.  "I, who have known you all your
+life&mdash;&mdash;!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He paced the room.  Pleading music tinged the
+silence almost insensibly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Heh, Fate has an imperial taste in humor!" the
+poet said.  "Robin, we have been more than brothers.
+And it is I, I, of all persons living, who have drawn
+you into this imbroglio!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My danger is not very apparent as yet," said
+Calverley, "if Umfraville controls his sword no better
+than his tongue."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+My lord of Ufford went on:  "There is no question
+of a duel.  It is as well to spare you what Lord
+Umfraville replied to my challenge.  Let it suffice that
+we do not get sugar from the snake.  Besides, the man
+has his grievance.  Robin, have you forgot that
+necklace you and Pevensey took from Umfraville some three
+years ago&mdash;before you went into Russia?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Calverley laughed.  The question recalled an old
+hot-headed time when, exalted to a frolicsome zone by
+the discovery of Lady Honoria Pomfret's love for him,
+he planned the famous jest which he and the mad Earl of
+Pevensey perpetrated upon Umfraville.  This masquerade
+won quick applause.  Persons of ton guffawed
+like ploughboys over the discomfiture of an old hunks
+thus divertingly stripped of his bride, all his
+betrothal gifts, and of the very clothes he wore.  An
+anonymous scribbler had detected in the occurrence a
+denouement suited to the stage and had constructed a
+comedy around it, which, when produced by the Duke's
+company, had won acclaim from hilarious auditors.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So Calverley laughed heartily.  "Gad, what a jest
+that was!  This Umfraville comes to marry Honoria.  And
+highwaymen attack his coach!  I would give L50 to have
+witnessed this usurer's arrival at Denton Honor in his
+underclothes! and to have seen his monkey-like grimaces
+when he learned that Honoria and I were already across
+the Channel!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You robbed him, though&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Indeed, for beginners at peculation we did not do
+so badly.  We robbed him and his valet of everything in
+the coach, including their breeches.  You do not mean
+that Pevensey has detained the poor man's wedding
+trousers?  If so, it is unfortunate, because this
+loud-mouthed miser has need of them in order that he may be
+handsomely interred."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lord Umfraville's wedding-suit was stuffed with
+straw, hung on a pole and paraded through London by
+Pevensey, March, Selwyn and some dozen other madcaps,
+while six musicians marched before them.  The clothes
+were thus conveyed to Umfraville's house.  I think none
+of us would have relished a joke like that were he the
+butt of it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now the poet's lean countenance was turned upon
+young Calverley, and as always, Ufford evoked that
+nobility in Calverley which follies veiled but had not
+ever killed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Egad," said Robert Calverley; "I grant you that
+all this was infamously done.  I never authorized it.
+I shall kill Pevensey.  Indeed, I will do more," he
+added, with a flourish.  "For I will apologize to
+Umfraville, and this very night."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Ufford was not disposed to levity.  "Let us
+come to the point," he sadly said.  "Pevensey returned
+everything except the necklace which Umfraville had
+intended to be his bridal gift.  Pevensey conceded the
+jest, in fine; and denied all knowledge of any
+necklace."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was an age of accommodating morality.  Calverley
+sketched a whistle, and showed no other trace of
+astonishment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I see.  The fool confided in the spendthrift.  My
+dear, I understand.  In nature Pevensey gave the gems
+to some nymph of Sadler's Wells or Covent Garden.  For
+I was out of England.  And so he capped his knavery
+with insolence.  It is an additional reason why
+Pevensey should not live to scratch a gray head.  It
+is, however, an affront to me that Umfraville should
+have believed him.  I doubt if I may overlook that,
+Horace?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I question if he did believe.  But, then, what
+help had he?  This Pevensey is an earl.  His person as
+a peer of England is inviolable.  No statute touches
+him directly, because he may not be confined
+except by the King's personal order.  And it is
+tolerably notorious that Pevensey is in Lord Bute's
+pay, and that our Scottish Mortimer, to do him justice,
+does not permit his spies to be injured."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now Mr. Calverley took snuff.  The music without
+was now more audible, and it had shifted to a merrier
+tune.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think I comprehend.  Pevensey and I&mdash;whatever
+were our motives&mdash;have committed a robbery.  Pevensey,
+as the law runs, is safe.  I, too, was safe as long as
+I kept out of England.  As matters stand, Lord
+Umfraville intends to press a charge of theft against
+me.  And I am in disgrace with Bute, who is quite
+content to beat offenders with a crooked stick.  This
+confluence of two-penny accidents is annoying."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is worse than you know," my lord of Ufford
+returned.  He opened the door which led to the Venetian
+Chamber.  A surge of music, of laughter, and of many
+lights invaded the room wherein they stood.  "D'ye see
+those persons, just past Umfraville, so inadequately
+disguised as gentlemen?  They are from Bow Street.
+Lord Umfraville intends to apprehend you here to-night."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He has an eye for the picturesque," drawled
+Calverley.  "My tragedy, to do him justice, could not be
+staged more strikingly.  Those additional alcoves have
+improved the room beyond belief.  I must apologize for
+not having rendered my compliments a trifle
+earlier."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Internally he outstormed Termagaunt.  It was
+infamous enough, in all conscience, to be arrested, but
+to have half the world of fashion as witnessess of ones
+discomfiture was perfectly intolerable.  He recognized
+the excellent chance he had of being the most prominent
+figure upon some scaffold before long, but that
+contingency did not greatly trouble Calverley, as set
+against the certainty of being made ridiculous within
+the next five minutes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In consequence, he frowned and rearranged the fall
+of his shirt-frill a whit the more becomingly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, for hate sharpens every faculty," the earl
+went on.  "Even Umfraville understands that you do not
+fear death.  So he means to have you tried like any
+common thief while all your quondam friends sit and
+snigger.  And you will be convicted&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, necessarily, since I am not as Pevensey.  Of
+course, I must confess I took the necklace."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And Pevensey must stick to the tale that he knows
+nothing of any necklace.  Dear Robin, this means
+Newgate.  Accident deals very hardly with us, Robin,
+for this means Tyburn Hill."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes; I suppose it means my death," young Calverley
+assented.  "Well! I have feasted with the world and
+found its viands excellent.  The banquet ended, I must
+not grumble with my host because I find his choice of
+cordials not altogether to my liking."  Thus speaking,
+he was aware of nothing save that the fiddlers were now
+about an air to which he had often danced with his dear
+wife.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have a trick yet left to save our honor,&mdash;&mdash;"
+Lord Ufford turned to a table where wine and glasses
+were set ready.  "I propose a toast.  Let us drink&mdash;for
+the last time&mdash;to the honor of the Calverleys."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is an invitation I may not decorously refuse.
+And yet&mdash;it may be that I do not understand you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+My lord of Ufford poured wine into two glasses.
+These glasses were from among the curios he collected
+so industriously&mdash;tall, fragile things, of seventeenth
+century make, very intricately cut with roses and
+thistles, and in the bottom of each glass a three-penny
+piece was embedded.  Lord Ufford took a tiny vial from
+his pocket and emptied its contents into the glass
+which stood the nearer to Mr. Calverley.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"This is Florence water.  We dabblers in science
+are experimenting with it at Gresham College.  A taste
+of it means death&mdash;a painless, quick and honorable
+death.  You will have died of a heart seizure.  Come,
+Robin, let us drink to the honor of the Calverleys."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The poet-earl paused for a little while.  Now he
+was like some seer of supernal things.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"For look you," said Lord Ufford, "we come of
+honorable blood.  We two are gentlemen.  We have our
+code, and we may not infringe upon it.  Our code does
+not invariably square with reason, and I doubt if
+Scripture would afford a dependable foundation.  So be
+it!  We have our code and we may not infringe upon it.
+There have been many Calverleys who did not fear their
+God, but there was never any one of them who did
+not fear dishonor.  I am the head of no less proud a
+house.  As such, I counsel you to drink and die within
+the moment.  It is not possible a Calverley survive
+dishonor.  Oh, God!" the poet cried, and his voice
+broke; "and what is honor to this clamor within me!
+Robin, I love you better than I do this talk of honor!
+For, Robin, I have loved you long! so long that what we
+do to-night will always make life hideous to me!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Calverley was not unmoved, but he replied in the
+tone of daily intercourse.  "It is undoubtedly absurd
+to perish here, like some unreasonable adversary of the
+Borgias.  Your device is rather outrageously horrific,
+Horace, like a bit out of your own romance&mdash;yes, egad,
+it is pre-eminently worthy of the author of <I>The Vassal
+of Spalatro</I>.  Still I can understand that it is
+preferable to having fat and greasy fellows squander a
+shilling for the privilege of perching upon a box while
+I am being hanged.  And I think I shall accept your
+toast&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You will be avenged," Ufford said, simply.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My dear, as if I ever questioned that!  Of course,
+you will kill Pevensey first and Umfraville afterward.
+Only I want to live.  For I was meant to play a joyous
+role wholeheartedly in the big comedy of life.  So many
+people find the world a dreary residence," Mr.
+Calverley sighed, "that it is really a pity some one of
+these long-faced stolidities cannot die now instead of
+me.  For I have found life wonderful throughout."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The brows of Ufford knit.  "Would you consent
+to live as a transported felon?  I have much money.  I
+need not tell you the last penny is at your disposal.
+It might be possible to bribe.  Indeed, Lord Bute is
+all-powerful to-day and he would perhaps procure a
+pardon for you at my entreaty.  He is so kind as to
+admire my scribblings&#8230  Or you might live among
+your fellow-convicts somewhere over sea for a while
+longer.  I had not thought that such would be your
+choice&mdash;&mdash;"  Here Ufford shrugged, restrained by
+courtesy.  "Besides, Lord Bute is greatly angered with
+you, because you have endangered his Russian alliance.
+However, if you wish it, I will try&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, for that matter, I do not much fear Lord Bute,
+because I bring him the most welcome news he has had in
+many a day.  I may tell you since it will be public
+to-morrow.  The Tzaritza Elizabeth, our implacable enemy,
+died very suddenly three weeks ago.  Peter of
+Holstein-Gottrop reigns to-day in Russia, and I have made terms
+with him.  I came to tell Lord Bute the Cossack troops
+have been recalled from Prussia.  The war is at an
+end."  Young Calverley meditated and gave his customary
+boyish smile.  "Yes, I discharged my Russian mission
+after all&mdash;even after I had formally relinquished it&mdash;because
+I was so opportunely aided by the accident of
+the Tzaritza's death.  And Bute cares only for results.
+So I would explain to him that I resigned my mission
+simply because in Russia my wife could not have lived
+out another year&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The earl exclaimed, "Then Honoria is ill!"
+Mr. Calverley did not attend, but stood looking
+out into the Venetian Chamber.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"See, Horace, she is dancing with Anchester while I
+wait here so near to death.  She dances well.  But
+Honoria does everything adorably.  I cannot tell
+you&mdash;oh, not even you!&mdash;how happy these three years have
+been with her.  Eh, well! the gods are jealous of such
+happiness.  You will remember how her mother died?  It
+appears that Honoria is threatened with a slow
+consumption, and a death such as her mother's was.  She
+does not know.  There was no need to frighten her.  For
+although the rigors of another Russian winter, as all
+physicians tell me, would inevitably prove fatal to
+her, there is no reason why my dearest dear should not
+continue to laugh just as she always does&mdash;for a long,
+bright and happy while in some warm climate such as
+Italy's.  In nature I resigned my appointment.  I did
+not consider England, or my own trivial future, or
+anything of that sort.  I considered only Honoria."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He gazed for many moments upon the woman whom he
+loved.  His speech took on an odd simplicity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, yes, I think that in the end Bute would
+procure a pardon for me.  But not even Bute can override
+the laws of England.  I would have to be tried first,
+and have ballads made concerning me, and be condemned,
+and so on.  That would detain Honoria in England,
+because she is sufficiently misguided to love me.  I
+could never persuade her to leave me with my life
+in peril.  She could not possibly survive an English
+winter."  Here Calverley evinced unbridled mirth.  "The
+irony of events is magnificent.  There is probably no
+question of hanging or even of transportation.  It is
+merely certain that if I venture from this room I bring
+about Honoria's death as incontestably as if I
+strangled her with these two hands.  So I choose my own
+death in preference.  It will grieve Honoria&mdash;&mdash;"  His
+voice was not completely steady.  "But she is young.
+She will forget me, for she forgets easily, and she
+will be happy.  I look to you to see&mdash;even before you
+have killed Pevensey&mdash;that Honoria goes into Italy.
+For she admires and loves you, almost as much as I do,
+Horace, and she will readily be guided by you&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He cried my lord of Ufford's given name some two or
+three times, for young Calverley had turned, and he had
+seen Ufford's face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The earl moistened his lips.  "You are a fool," he
+said, with a thin voice.  "Why do you trouble me by
+being better than I?  Or do you only posture for my
+benefit?  Do you deal honestly with me, Robert
+Calverley?&mdash;then swear it&mdash;&mdash;"  He laughed here, very
+horribly.  "Ah, no, when did you ever lie!  You do not
+lie&mdash;not you!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He waited for a while.  "But I am otherwise.  I
+dare to lie when the occasion promises.  I have desired
+Honoria since the first moment wherein I saw her.  I
+may tell you now.  I think that you do not remember.
+We gathered cherries.  I ate two of them
+which had just lain upon her knee&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His hands had clenched each other, and his lips
+were drawn back so that you saw his exquisite teeth,
+which were ground together.  He stood thus for a
+little, silent.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Ufford began again:  "I planned all this.  I
+plotted this with Umfraville.  I wrote you such a
+letter as would inevitably draw you to your death.  I
+wished your death.  For Honoria would then be freed of
+you.  I would condole with her.  She is readily
+comforted, impatient of sorrow, incapable of it, I dare
+say.  She would have married me.&#8230;  Why must I tell
+you this?  Oh, I am Fate's buffoon!  For I have won, I
+have won! and there is that in me which will not accept
+the stake I cheated for."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And you," said Calverley&mdash;"this thing is you!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A helpless reptile now," said Ufford.  "I have not
+the power to check Lord Umfraville in his vengeance.
+You must be publicly disgraced, and must, I think, be
+hanged even now when it will not benefit me at all.  It
+may be I shall weep for that some day!  Or else Honoria
+must die, because an archangel could not persuade her
+to desert you in your peril.  For she loves you&mdash;loves
+you to the full extent of her merry and shallow nature.
+Oh, I know that, as you will never know it.  I shall
+have killed Honoria!  I shall not weep when Honoria
+dies.  Harkee, Robin! they are dancing yonder.  It is
+odd to think that I shall never dance again."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Horace&mdash;!" the younger man said, like a person of
+two minds.  He seemed to choke.  He gave a frantic
+gesture.  "Oh, I have loved you.  I have loved nothing
+as I have loved you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And yet you chatter of your passion for Honoria!"
+Lord Ufford returned, with a snarl.  "I ask what proof
+is there of this?&mdash;Why, that you have surrendered your
+well-being in this world through love of her.  But I
+gave what is vital.  I was an honorable gentleman
+without any act in all my life for which I had need to
+blush.  I loved you as I loved no other being in the
+universe."  He spread his hands, which now twitched
+horribly.  "You will never understand.  It does not
+matter.  I desired Honoria.  To-day through my desire
+of her, I am that monstrous thing which you alone know
+me to be.  I think I gave up much.  <I>Pro honoria!</I>" he
+chuckled.  "The Latin halts, but, none the less, the
+jest is excellent."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You have given more than I would dare to give,"
+said Calverley.  He shuddered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And to no end!" cried Ufford.  "Ah, fate, the
+devil and that code I mocked are all in league to cheat
+me!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Said Calverley:  "The man whom I loved most is
+dead.  Oh, had the world been searched between the
+sunrise and the sunsetting there had not been found his
+equal.  And now, poor fool, I know that there was never
+any man like this!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nay, there was such a man," the poet said, "in an
+old time which I almost forget.  To-day he is
+quite dead.  There is only a poor wretch who has been
+faithless in all things, who has not even served the
+devil faithfully."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, then, you lackey with a lackey's soul, attend
+to what I say.  Can you make any terms with
+Umfraville?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I can do nothing," Ufford replied.  "You have
+robbed him&mdash;as me&mdash;of what he most desired.  You have
+made him the laughing-stock of England.  He does not
+pardon any more than I would pardon."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And as God lives and reigns, I do not greatly
+blame him," said young Calverley.  "This man at least
+was wronged.  Concerning you I do not speak, because of
+a false dream I had once very long ago.  Yet Umfraville
+was treated infamously.  I dare concede what I could
+not permit another man to say and live, now that I
+drink a toast which I must drink alone.  For I drink to
+the honor of the Calverleys.  I have not ever lied to
+any person in this world, and so I may not drink with
+you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, but you drink because you know your death to
+be the one event which can insure her happiness," cried
+Ufford.  "We are not much unlike.  And I dare say it is
+only an imaginary Honoria we love, after all.  Yet,
+look, my fellow-Ixion! for to the eye at least is she
+not perfect?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The two men gazed for a long while.  Amid that
+coterie of exquisites, wherein allusion  to whatever
+might be ugly in the world was tacitly allowed to be
+unmentionable, Lady Honoria glitteringly went
+about the moment's mirthful business with lovely
+ardor.  You saw now unmistakably that "Light Queen of
+Elfdom, dead Titania's heir" of whom Ufford writes in
+the fourth Satire.  Honoria's prettiness, rouged,
+frail, and modishly enhanced, allured the eye from all
+less elfin brilliancies; and as she laughed among so
+many other relishers of life her charms became the more
+instant, just as a painting quickens in every tint when
+set in an appropriate frame.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There is no other way," her husband said.  He
+drank and toasted what was dearest in the world,
+smiling to think how death came to him in that wine's
+familiar taste.  "I drink to the most lovely of created
+ladies! and to her happiness!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He snapped the stem of the glass and tossed it
+joyously aside.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Assuredly, there is no other way," said Ufford.
+"And armored by that knowledge, even I may drink as
+honorable people do.  Pro honoria!"  Then this man
+also broke his emptied glass.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How long have I to live?" said Calverley, and took
+snuff.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, thirty years, I think, unless you duel too
+immoderately," replied Lord Ufford,&mdash;"since while you
+looked at Honoria I changed our glasses.  No! no! a
+thing done has an end.  Besides, it is not unworthy of
+me.  So go boldly to the Earl of Bute and tell him all.
+You are my cousin and my successor.  Yes, very soon
+you, too, will be a peer of England and as safe from
+molestation as is Lord Pevensey.  I am the first
+to tender my congratulations.  Now I make certain that
+they are not premature."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The poet laughed at this moment as a man may laugh
+in hell.  He reeled.  His lean face momentarily
+contorted, and afterward the poet died.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am Lord Ufford," said Calverley aloud.  "The
+person of a peer is inviolable&mdash;&mdash;"  He presently
+looked downward from rapt gazing at his wife.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fresh from this horrible half-hour, he faced a
+future so alluring as by its beauty to intimidate him.
+Youth, love, long years of happiness, and (by this
+capricious turn) now even opulence, were the
+ingredients of a captivating vista.  And yet he needs
+must pause a while to think of the dear comrade he had
+lost&mdash;of that loved boy, his pattern in the time of
+their common youthfulness which gleamed in memory as
+bright and misty as a legend, and of the perfect
+chevalier who had been like a touchstone to Robert
+Calverley a bare half-hour ago.  He knelt, touched lightly
+the fallen jaw, and lightly kissed the cheek of this
+poor wreckage; and was aware that the caress was given
+with more tenderness than Robert Calverley had shown in
+the same act a bare half-hour ago.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Meanwhile the music of a country dance urged the
+new Earl of Ufford to come and frolic where every one
+was laughing; and to partake with gusto of the benefits
+which chance had provided; and to be forthwith as merry
+as was decorous in a peer of England.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap10"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+THE IRRESISTIBLE OGLE
+</H3>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+"<I>But after SHERIDAN had risen to a commanding
+position in the gay life of London, he rather disliked
+to be known as a playwright or a poet, and preferred to
+be regarded as a statesman and a man of fashion who
+'set the pace' in all pastimes of the opulent and idle.
+Yet, whatever he really thought of his own writings,
+and whether or not he did them, as Stevenson used to
+say, 'just for fun,' the fact remains that he was
+easily the most distinguished and brilliant dramatist
+of an age which produced in SHERIDAN'S solemn
+vagaries one of its most characteristic products.</I>"
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  Look on this form,&mdash;where humor, quaint and sly,<BR>
+  Dimples the cheek, and points the beaming eye;<BR>
+  Where gay invention seems to boast its wiles<BR>
+  In amorous hint, and half-triumphant smiles.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  Look on her well&mdash;does she seem form'd to teach?<BR>
+  Should you expect to hear this lady preach?<BR>
+  Is gray experience suited to her youth?<BR>
+  Do solemn sentiments become that mouth?<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  Bid her be grave, those lips should rebel prove<BR>
+  To every theme that slanders mirth or love.<BR>
+<BR>
+  RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN.&mdash;<I>Second Prologue to The Rivals</I>.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+THE IRRESISTIBLE OGLE
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The devotion of Mr. Sheridan to the Dean of
+Winchester's daughter, Miss Esther Jane Ogle&mdash;or "the
+irresistible Ogle," as she was toasted at the Kit-cat&mdash;was
+now a circumstance to be assumed in the polite
+world of London.  As a result, when the parliamentarian
+followed her into Scotland, in the spring of 1795,
+people only shrugged.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Because it proves that misery loves company," was
+Mr. Fox's observation at Wattier's, hard upon two in
+the morning.  "Poor Sherry, as an inconsolable widower,
+must naturally have some one to share his grief.  He
+perfectly comprehends that no one will lament the death
+of his wife more fervently than her successor."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+In London Mr. Fox thus worded his interpretation of
+the matter; and spoke, oddly enough, at the very moment
+that in Edinburgh Mr. Sheridan returned to his lodgings
+in Abercromby Place, deep in the reminiscences of a
+fortunate evening at cards.  In consequence,
+Mr. Sheridan entered the room so quietly that the young man
+who was employed in turning over the contents of
+the top bureau-drawer was taken unprepared.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But in the marauder's nature, as far as resolution
+went, was little lacking.  "Silence!" he ordered, and
+with the mandate a pistol was leveled upon the
+representative for the borough of Stafford.  "One cry for
+help, and you perish like a dog.  I warn you that I am
+a desperate man."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now, even at a hazard of discourtesy, I must make
+bold to question your statement," said Mr. Sheridan,
+"although, indeed, it is not so much the recklessness
+as the masculinity which I dare call into dispute."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He continued, in his best parliamentary manner, a
+happy blending of reproach, omniscience and pardon.
+"Only two months ago," said Mr. Sheridan, "I was so
+fortunate as to encounter a lady who, alike through the
+attractions of her person and the sprightliness of her
+conversation, convinced me I was on the road to fall in
+love after the high fashion of a popular romance.  I
+accordingly make her a declaration.  I am rejected.  I
+besiege her with the customary artillery of sonnets,
+bouquets, serenades, bonbons, theater-tickets and
+threats of suicide.  In fine, I contract the habit of
+proposing to Miss Ogle on every Wednesday; and so
+strong is my infatuation that I follow her as far into
+the north as Edinburgh in order to secure my eleventh
+rejection at half-past ten last evening."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I fail to understand," remarked the burglar, "how
+all this prolix account of your amours can possibly
+concern me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You are at least somewhat involved in the
+deplorable climax," Mr. Sheridan returned.  "For behold! at
+two in the morning I discover the object of my
+adoration and the daughter of an estimable prelate,
+most calumniously clad and busily employed in rumpling
+my supply of cravats.  If ever any lover was thrust
+into a more ambiguous position, madam, historians have
+touched on his dilemma with marked reticence."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He saw&mdash;and he admired&mdash;the flush which mounted to
+his visitor's brow.  And then, "I must concede that
+appearances are against me, Mr. Sheridan," the
+beautiful intruder said.  "And I hasten to protest that my
+presence in your apartments at this hour is prompted by
+no unworthy motive.  I merely came to steal the famous
+diamond which you brought from London&mdash;the Honor of
+Eiran."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Incomparable Esther Jane," ran Mr. Sheridan's
+answer, "that stone is now part of a brooch which was
+this afternoon returned to my cousin's, the Earl of
+Eiran's, hunting-lodge near Melrose.  He intends the
+gem which you are vainly seeking among my haberdashery
+to be the adornment of his promised bride in the
+ensuing June.  I confess to no overwhelming admiration
+as concerns this raucous if meritorious young person;
+and will even concede that the thought of her becoming
+my kinswoman rouses in me an inevitable distaste, no
+less attributable to the discord of her features than
+to the source of her eligibility to disfigure the
+peerage&mdash;that being her father's lucrative
+transactions in Pork, which I find indigestible in any
+form."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A truce to paltering!" Miss Ogle cried.  "That
+jewel was stolen from the temple at Moorshedabad, by
+the Earl of Eiran's grandfather, during the confusion
+necessarily attendant on the glorious battle of
+Plassy."  She laid down the pistol, and resumed in
+milder tones:  "From an age-long existence as the left
+eye of Ganesh it was thus converted into the loot of an
+invader.  To restore this diamond to its lawful,
+although no doubt polygamous and inefficiently-attired
+proprietors is at this date impossible.  But, oh! what
+claim have you to its possession?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, none whatever," said the parliamentarian;
+"and to contend as much would be the apex of unreason.
+For this diamond belongs, of course, to my cousin the
+Earl of Eiran&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"As a thief's legacy!"  She spoke with signs of
+irritation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Eh, eh, you go too fast!  Eiran, to do him
+justice, is not a graduate in peculation.  At worst, he
+is only the sort of fool one's cousins ordinarily are."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The trousered lady walked to and fro for a while,
+with the impatience of a caged lioness.  "I perceive I
+must go more deeply into matters," Miss Ogle remarked,
+and, with that habitual gesture which he fondly
+recognized, brushed back a straying lock of hair.  "In
+any event," she continued, "you cannot with reason deny
+that the world's wealth is inequitably
+distributed?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Madam," Mr. Sheridan returned, "as a member of
+Parliament, I have necessarily made it a rule never to
+understand political economy.  It is as apt as not to
+prove you are selling your vote to the wrong side of
+the House, and that hurts one's conscience."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ah, that is because you are a man.  Men are not
+practical.  None of you has ever dared to insist on his
+opinion about anything until he had secured the
+cowardly corroboration of a fact or so to endorse him.
+It is a pity.  Yet, since through no fault of yours
+your sex is invariably misled by its hallucinations as
+to the importance of being rational, I will refrain
+from logic and statistics.  In a word, I simply inform
+you that I am a member of the League of Philanthropic
+Larcenists."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I had not previously heard of this organization,"
+said Mr. Sheridan, and not without suspecting his
+response to be a masterpiece in the inadequate.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Our object is the benefit of society at large,"
+Miss Ogle explained; "and our obstacles so far have
+been, in chief, the fetish of proprietary rights and
+the ubiquity of the police."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And with that she seated herself and told him of
+the league's inception by a handful of reflective
+persons, admirers of Rousseau and converts to his
+tenets, who were resolved to better the circumstances
+of the indigent.  With amiable ardor Miss Ogle
+explained how from the petit larcenies of charity-balls
+and personally solicited subscriptions the league had
+mounted to an ampler field of depredation; and through
+what means it now took toll from every form of
+wealth unrighteously acquired.  Divertingly she
+described her personal experiences in the separation of
+usurers, thieves, financiers, hereditary noblemen,
+popular authors, and other social parasites, from the
+ill-got profits of their disreputable vocations.  And
+her account of how, on the preceding Tuesday, she,
+single-handed, had robbed Sir Alexander McRae&mdash;who then
+enjoyed a fortune and an enviable reputation for
+philanthropy, thanks to the combination of glucose,
+vitriol and other chemicals which he prepared under the
+humorous pretext of manufacturing beer&mdash;wrung high
+encomiums from Mr. Sheridan.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The proceeds of these endeavors," Miss Ogle added,
+"are conscientiously devoted to ameliorating the
+condition of meritorious paupers.  I would be happy to
+submit to you our annual report.  Then you may judge
+for yourself how many families we have snatched from
+the depths of poverty and habitual intoxication to the
+comparative comfort of a vine-embowered cottage."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Sheridan replied:  "I have not ever known of
+any case where adoration needed an affidavit for
+foundation.  Oh, no, incomparable Esther Jane!  I am
+not in a position to be solaced by the reports of a
+corresponding secretary.  I gave my heart long since;
+to-night I fling my confidence into the bargain; and am
+resolved to serve wholeheartedly the cause to which you
+are devoted.  In consequence, I venture to propose
+my name for membership in the enterprise you advocate
+and indescribably adorn."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Ogle was all one blush, such was the fervor of
+his utterance.  "But first you must win your spurs,
+Mr. Sheridan.  I confess you are not abhorrent to me," she
+hurried on, "for you are the most fascinatingly hideous
+man I have ever seen; and it was always the
+apprehension that you might look on burglary as an
+unmaidenly avocation which has compelled me to
+discourage your addresses.  Now all is plain; and
+should you happen to distinguish yourself in robbery of
+the criminally opulent, you will have, I believe, no
+reason to complain of a twelfth refusal.  I cannot
+modestly say more."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He laughed.  "It is a bargain.  We will agree that
+I bereave some person of either stolen or unearned
+property, say, to the value of L10,000&mdash;&mdash;"  And with
+his usual carefulness in such matters, Mr. Sheridan
+entered the wager in his notebook.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She yielded him her hand in token of assent.  And
+he, depend upon it, kissed that velvet trifle fondly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And now," said Mr. Sheridan, "to-morrow we will
+visit Bemerside and obtain possession of that crystal
+which is in train to render me the happiest of men.
+The task will be an easy one, as Eiran is now in
+England, and his servants for the most part are my
+familiars."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I agree to your proposal," she answered.  "But
+this diamond is my allotted quarry; and any assistance
+you may render me in procuring it will not, of
+course, affect in any way our bargain.  On this
+point"&mdash;she spoke with a break of laughter&mdash;"I am as
+headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"To quote an author to his face," lamented Mr.
+Sheridan, "is bribery as gross as it is efficacious.  I
+must unwillingly consent to your exorbitant demands,
+for you are, as always, the irresistible Ogle."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Ogle bowed her gratitude; and, declining Mr.
+Sheridan's escort, for fear of arousing gossip by being
+seen upon the street with him at this late hour,
+preferred to avoid any appearance of indecorum by climbing
+down the kitchen roof.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+When she had gone, Mr. Sheridan very gallantly
+attempted a set of verses.  But the Muse was not to be
+wooed to-night, and stayed obstinately coy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Sheridan reflected, rather forlornly, that he
+wrote nothing nowadays.  There was, of course, his
+great comedy, <I>Affectation</I>, his masterpiece which he
+meant to finish at one time or another; yet, at the
+bottom of his heart, he knew that he would never finish
+it.  But, then, deuce take posterity! for to have
+written the best comedy, the best farce, and the best
+burlesque as well, that England had ever known, was a
+very prodigal wiping-out of every obligation toward
+posterity.  Boys thought a deal about posterity, as he
+remembered; but a sensible man would bear in mind that
+all this world's delicacies&mdash;its merry diversions, its
+venison and old wines, its handsomely-bound books and
+fiery-hearted jewels and sumptuous clothings, all
+its lovely things that can be touched and handled, and
+more especially its ear-tickling applause&mdash;were to be
+won, if ever, from one's contemporaries.  And people
+were generous toward social, rather than literary,
+talents for the sensible reason that they derived more
+pleasure from an agreeable companion at dinner than
+from having a rainy afternoon rendered endurable by
+some book or another.
+So the parliamentarian sensibly went to bed.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Miss Ogle during this Scottish trip was accompanied
+by her father, the venerable Dean of Winchester.
+The Dean, although in all things worthy of implicit
+confidence, was not next day informed of the intended
+expedition, in deference to public opinion, which, as
+Miss Ogle pointed out, regards a clergyman's
+participation in a technical felony with disapproval.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Ogle, therefore, radiant in a becoming gown of
+pink lute-string, left Edinburgh the following morning
+under cover of a subterfuge, and with Mr. Sheridan as
+her only escort.  He was at pains to adorn this role
+with so many happy touches of courtesy and amiability
+that their confinement in the postchaise appeared to
+both of incredible brevity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When they had reached Melrose another chaise was
+ordered to convey them to Bemerside; and pending its
+forthcoming Mr. Sheridan and Miss Ogle strolled among
+the famous ruins of Melrose Abbey.  The parliamentarian
+had caused his hair to be exuberantly curled that
+morning, and figured to advantage in a plum-colored
+coat and a saffron waistcoat sprigged with forget-me-nots.
+He chatted entertainingly concerning the Second
+Pointed style of architecture; translated many of the
+epitaphs; and was abundant in interesting information
+as to Robert Bruce, and Michael Scott, and the
+rencounter of Chevy Chase.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, but observe," said Mr. Sheridan, more lately,
+"our only covering is the dome of heaven.  Yet in their
+time these aisles were populous, and here a score of
+generations have besought what earth does not afford&mdash;now
+where the banners of crusaders waved the ivy
+flutters, and there is no incense in this consecrated
+house except the breath of the wild rose."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The moral is an old one," she returned.  "Mummy is
+become merchandise, Mizraim cures wounds, and Pharaoh
+is sold for balsams."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You are a reader, madam?" he observed, with some
+surprise; and he continued:  "Indeed, my thoughts were
+on another trail.  I was considering that the
+demolishers of this place&mdash;those English armies, those
+followers of John Knox&mdash;were actuated by the highest
+and most laudable of motives.  As a result we find the
+house of Heaven converted into a dustheap."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"I believe you attempt an apologue," she said,
+indignantly.  "Upon my word, I think you would
+insinuate that philanthropy, when forced to manifest
+itself through embezzlement, is a less womanly
+employment than the darning of stockings!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Whom the cap fits&mdash;&mdash;" he answered, with a bow.
+"Indeed, incomparable Esther Jane, I had said nothing
+whatever touching hosiery; and it was equally remote
+from my intentions to set up as a milliner."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+They lunched at Bemerside, where Mr. Sheridan was
+cordially received by the steward, and a well-chosen
+repast was placed at their disposal.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Fergus," Mr. Sheridan observed, as they chatted
+over their dessert concerning famous gems&mdash;in which
+direction talk had been adroitly steered"&mdash;Fergus,
+since we are on the topic, I would like to show Miss
+Ogle the Honor of Eiran."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Honor of Eiran was accordingly produced from a
+blue velvet case, and was properly admired.  Then, when
+the steward had been dismissed to fetch a rare liqueur,
+Mr. Sheridan laughed, and tossed and caught the jewel,
+as though he handled a cricket-ball.  It was the size
+of a pigeon's egg, and was set among eight gems of
+lesser magnitude; and in transit through the sunlight
+the trinket flashed and glittered with diabolical
+beauty.  The parliamentarian placed three bits of sugar
+in the velvet case and handed the gem to his companion.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The bulk is much the same," he observed; "and
+whether the carbon be crystallized or no, is the
+responsibility of stratigraphic geology.  Fergus,
+perhaps, must go to jail.  That is unfortunate.  But true
+philanthropy works toward the benefit of the greatest
+number possible; and this resplendent pebble will
+purchase you innumerable pounds of tea and a
+warehouseful of blankets."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But, Mr. Sheridan," Miss Ogle cried, in horror,
+"to take this brooch would not be honest!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, as to that&mdash;&mdash;!" he shrugged.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"&mdash;&mdash;because Lord Eiran purchased all these lesser
+diamonds, and very possibly paid for them."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Mr. Sheridan reflected, stood abashed, and
+said:  "Incomparable Esther Jane, I confess I am only a
+man.  You are entirely right.  To purloin any of these
+little diamonds would be an abominable action, whereas
+to make off with the only valuable one is simply a
+stroke of retribution.  I will, therefore, attempt to
+prise it out with a nutpick."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Three constables came suddenly into the room.  "We
+hae been tauld this missy is a suspectit thieving
+body," their leader cried.  "Esther Jane Ogle, ye maun
+gae with us i' the law's name.  Ou ay, lass, ye ken
+weel eneugh wha robbit auld Sir Aleexander McRae, sae
+dinna ye say naething tae your ain preejudice, lest ye
+hae tae account for it a'."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Sheridan rose to the occasion.  "My exceedingly
+good friend, Angus Howden!  I am unwilling to concede
+that yeomen can excel in gentlemanly accomplishments,
+but it is only charity to suppose all three of you as
+drunk as any duke that ever honored me with his
+acquaintance."  This he drawled, and appeared
+magisterially to await an explanation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hout, Mr. Sheridan," commenced the leading
+representative of justice, "let that flee stick i' the
+wa'&mdash;e dinna mean tae tell me, Sir, that ye are
+acquaintit wi' this&mdash;ou ay, tae pleasure ye, I micht
+e'en say wi' this&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"This lady, probably?" Mr. Sheridan hazarded.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Tis an unco thing," the constable declared, "but
+that wad be the word was amaist at my tongue's tip."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, undoubtedly," Mr. Sheridan assented.  "I
+rejoice that, being of French extraction, and
+unconversant with your somewhat cryptic patois, the lady in
+question is the less likely to have been sickened by
+your extravagances in the way of misapprehension.  I
+candidly confess such imbecility annoys me.  What!" he
+cried out, "what if I marry! is matrimony to be ranked
+with arson?  And what if my cousin, Eiran, affords me a
+hiding-place wherein to sneak through our honeymoon
+after the cowardly fashion of all modern married
+couples!  Am I in consequence compelled to submit to
+the invasions of an intoxicated constabulary?"  His
+rage was terrific.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>Voilà la seule devise.  Ils me connaissent, ils
+ont confidence dans moi.  Si, taisez-vous!  Si non,
+vous serez arretée et mise dans la prison, comme une
+caractère suspicieuse!</I>"  Mr. Sheridan exhorted Miss
+Ogle to this intent with more of earnestness than
+linguistic perfection; and he rejoiced to see that
+instantly she caught at her one chance of plausibly
+accounting for her presence at Bemerside, and of
+effecting a rescue from this horrid situation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But I also spik the English," she sprightlily
+announced.  "I am appleed myself at to learn its
+by heart.  Certainly you look for a needle in a
+hay bundle, my gentlemans.  I am no stealer of the
+grand road, but the wife of Mistaire Sheridan, and her
+presence will say to you the remains."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You see!" cried Mr. Sheridan, in modest triumph.
+"In short, I am a bridegroom unwarrantably interrupted
+in his first <I>tête-à-tête</I>, I am responsible for this
+lady and all her past and its appurtenances; and, in a
+phrase, for everything except the course of conduct I
+will undoubtedly pursue should you be visible at the
+conclusion of the next five minutes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His emphasis was such that the police withdrew with
+a concomitant of apologies.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"And now I claim my bond," said Mr. Sheridan, when
+they were once again free from intrusion.  "For we two
+are in Scotland, where the common declaration of a man
+and woman that they are married constitutes a
+marriage."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh&mdash;&mdash;!" she exclaimed, and stood encrimsoned.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Indeed, I must confess that the day's work has
+been a trick throughout.  The diamond was pawned years
+ago.  This trinket here is a copy in paste and worth
+perhaps some seven shillings sixpence.  And those
+fellows were not constables, but just my cousin Eiran
+and two footmen in disguise.  Nay, madam, you will
+learn with experience that to display unfailing candor
+is not without exception the price of happiness."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But this, I think, evades our bargain, Mr.
+Sheridan.  For you were committed to pilfer property to
+the value of L10,000&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And to fulfil the obligation I have stolen your
+hand in marriage.  What, madam! do you indeed pretend
+that any person outside of Bedlam would value you at
+less?  Believe me, your perfections are of far more
+worth.  All persons recognize that save yourself,
+incomparable Esther Jane; and yet, so patent is the
+proof of my contention, I dare to leave the verdict to
+your sense of justice."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Ogle did not speak.  Her lashes fell as, with
+some ceremony, he led her to the long French mirror
+which was in the breakfast room.  "See now!" said
+Mr. Sheridan.  "You, who endanger life and fame in order to
+provide a mendicant with gruel, tracts and blankets!
+You, who deny a sop to the one hunger which is vital!
+Oh, madam, I am tempted glibly to compare your eyes to
+sapphires, and your hair to thin-spun gold, and the
+color of your flesh to the arbutus-flower&mdash;for that, as
+you can see, would be within the truth, and it would
+please most women, and afterward they would not be so
+obdurate.  But you are not like other women,"
+Mr. Sheridan observed, with admirable dexterity.  "And I
+aspire to you, the irresistible Ogle! you, who so
+great-heartedly befriend the beggar! you, who with such
+industry contrive alleviation for the discomforts of
+poverty.  Eh, eh! what will you grant to any beggar
+such as I?  Will you deny a sop to the one hunger which
+is vital?"  He spoke with unaccustomed vigor, even
+in a sort of terror, because he knew that he was
+speaking with sincerity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"To the one hunger which is vital!" he repeated.
+"Ah, where lies the secret which makes one face the
+dearest in the world, and entrusts to one little hand a
+life's happiness as a plaything?  All Aristotle's
+learning could not unriddle the mystery, and Samson's
+thews were impotent to break that spell.  Love
+vanquishes all.&#8230;  You would remind me of some
+previous skirmishings with Venus's unconquerable brat?
+Nay, madam, to the contrary, the fact that I have loved
+many other women is my strongest plea for toleration.
+Were there nothing else, it is indisputable we perform
+all actions better for having rehearsed them.  No, we
+do not of necessity perform them the more thoughtlessly
+as well; for, indeed, I find that with experience a man
+becomes increasingly difficult to please in affairs of
+the heart.  The woman one loves then is granted that
+pre-eminence not merely by virtue of having outshone
+any particular one of her predecessors; oh, no!
+instead, her qualities have been compared with all the
+charms of all her fair forerunners, and they have
+endured that stringent testing.  The winning of an
+often-bartered heart is in reality the only conquest
+which entitles a woman to complacency, for she has
+received a real compliment; whereas to be selected as
+the target of a lad's first declaration is a tribute of
+no more value than a man's opinion upon vintages who
+has never tasted wine."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He took a turn about the breakfast room, then came
+near to her.  "I love you.  Were there any way to
+parade the circumstance and bedeck it with pleasing
+adornments of filed phrases, tropes and far-fetched
+similes, I would not grudge you a deal of verbal
+pageantry.  But three words say all.  I love you.
+There is no act in my past life but appears trivial and
+strange to me, and to the man who performed it I seem
+no more akin than to Mark Antony or Nebuchadnezzar.  I
+love you.  The skies are bluer since you came, the
+beauty of this world we live in oppresses me with a
+fearful joy, and in my heart there is always the
+thought of you and such yearning as I may not word.
+For I love you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You&mdash;but you have frightened me."  Miss Ogle did
+not seem so terrified as to make any effort to recede
+from him; and yet he saw that she was frightened in
+sober earnest.  Her face showed pale, and soft, and
+glad, and awed, and desirable above all things; and it
+remained so near him as to engender riotous
+aspirations.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I love you," he said again.  You would never have
+suspected this man could speak, upon occasion,
+fluently.  "I think&mdash;I think that Heaven was prodigal when
+Heaven made you.  To think of you is as if I listened
+to an exalted music; and to be with you is to
+understand that all imaginable sorrows are just the
+figments of a dream which I had very long ago."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She laid one hand on each of his shoulders, facing
+him.  "Do not let me be too much afraid!  I have
+not ever been afraid before.  Oh, everything is in a
+mist of gold, and I am afraid of you, and of the big
+universe which I was born into, and I am helpless, and
+I would have nothing changed!  Only, I cannot believe I
+am worth L10,000, and I do so want to be persuaded I
+am.  It is a great pity," she sighed, "that you who
+convicted Warren Hastings of stealing such enormous
+wealth cannot be quite as eloquent to-day as you were
+in the Oudh speech, and convince me his arraigner has
+been equally rapacious!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I mean to prove as much&mdash;with time," said
+Mr. Sheridan.  His breathing was yet perfunctory.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Ogle murmured, "And how long would you require?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, I intend, with your permission, to devote the
+remainder of my existence to the task.  Eh, I concede
+that space too brief for any adequate discussion of the
+topic; but I will try to be concise and very practical&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She laughed.  They were content.  "Try, then&mdash;&mdash;"
+Miss Ogle said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She was able to get no farther in the sentence, for
+reasons which to particularize would be indiscreet.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap11"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+A PRINCESS OF GRUB STREET
+</H3>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+"<I>Though&mdash;or, rather, because&mdash;VANDERHOFFEN was a
+child of the French Revolution, and inherited his
+social, political and religious&mdash;or, rather,
+anti-religious&mdash;views from the French writers of the
+eighteenth century, England was not ready for him and
+the unshackled individualism for which he at first
+contended.  Recognizing this fact, he turned to an
+order of writing begotten of the deepest popular needs
+and addressed to the best intelligence of the great
+middle classes of the community.</I>"
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  Now emperors bide their times' rebuff<BR>
+  I would not be a king&mdash;enough<BR>
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Of woe it is to love;<BR>
+  The paths of power are steep and rough,<BR>
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And tempests reign above.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  I would not climb the imperial throne;<BR>
+  'Tis built on ice which fortune's sun<BR>
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Thaws in the height of noon.<BR>
+  Then farewell, kings, that squeak 'Ha' done!'<BR>
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;To time's full-throated tune.<BR>
+<BR>
+  PAUL VANDERHOFFEN.&mdash;<I>Emma and Caroline</I>.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+A PRINCESS OF GRUB STREET
+</H3>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+It is questionable if the announcement of the death of
+their Crown Prince, Hilary, upon the verge of his
+accession to the throne, aroused more than genteel
+regret among the inhabitants of Saxe-Kesselberg.  It is
+indisputable that in diplomatic circles news of this
+horrible occurrence was indirectly conceded in 1803 to
+smack of a direct intervention of Providence.  For to
+consider all the havoc dead Prince Fribble&mdash;such had
+been his sobriquet&mdash;would have created, <I>Dei gratia</I>,
+through his pilotage of an important grand-duchy (with
+an area of no less than eighty-nine square miles) was
+less discomfortable now prediction was an academic
+matter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And so the editors of divers papers were the
+victims of a decorous anguish, court-mourning was
+decreed, and that wreckage which passed for the
+mutilated body of Prince Hilary was buried with every
+appropriate honor.  Within the week most people had
+forgotten him, for everybody was discussing the
+execution of the Duc d'Enghein.  And the aged
+unvenerable Grand-Duke of Saxe-Kesselberg died too in
+the same March; and afterward his other grandson,
+Prince Augustus, reigned in the merry old debauchee's
+stead.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Prince Hilary was vastly pleased.  His scheme for
+evading the tedious responsibilities of sovereignty had
+been executed without a hitch; he was officially dead;
+and, on the whole, standing bareheaded between a miller
+and laundress, he had found his funeral ceremonies to
+be unimpeachably conducted.  He assumed the name of
+Paul Vanderhoffen, selected at random from the novel he
+was reading when his postchaise conveyed him past the
+frontier of Saxe-Kesselberg.  Freed, penniless, and
+thoroughly content, he set about amusing himself&mdash;having
+a world to frisk in&mdash;and incidentally about the
+furnishing of his new friend Paul Vanderhoffen with
+life's necessaries.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+It was a little more than two years later that the
+good-natured Earl of Brudenel suggested to Lady John
+Claridge that she could nowhere find a more eligible
+tutor for her son than young Vanderhoffen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hasn't a shilling, ma'am, but one of the most
+popular men in London.  His poetry book was subscribed
+for by the Prince Regent and half the notables of the
+kingdom.  Capital company at a dinner-table&mdash;stutters,
+begad, like a What-you-may-call-'em, and keeps
+everybody in a roar&mdash;and when he's had his whack of
+claret, he sings his own songs to the piano, you know,
+and all that sort of thing, and has quite put Tommy
+Moore's nose out of joint.  Nobody knows much about
+him, but that don't matter with these literary
+chaps, does it now?  Goes everywhere, ma'am&mdash;quite a
+favorite at Carlton House&mdash;a highly agreeable,
+well-informed man, I can assure you&mdash;and probably hasn't a
+shilling to pay the cabman.  Deuced odd, ain't it?  But
+Lord Lansdowne is trying to get him a place&mdash;spoke to
+me about a tutorship, ma'am, in fact, just to keep
+Vanderhoffen going, until some registrarship or other
+falls vacant.  Now, I ain't clever and that sort of
+thing, but I quite agree with Lansdowne that we
+practical men ought to look out for these clever
+fellows&mdash;see that they don't starve in a garret, like
+poor What's-his-name, don't you know?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Lady Claridge sweetly agreed with her future son-in-law.
+So it befell that shortly after this conversation
+Paul Vanderhoffen came to Leamington Manor, and
+through an entire summer goaded young Percival
+Claridge, then on the point of entering Cambridge, but
+pedagogically branded as "deficient in mathematics,"
+through many elaborate combinations of x and y and
+cosines and hyperbolas.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Lady John Claridge, mother to the pupil, approved
+of the new tutor.  True, he talked much and wildishly;
+but literary men had a name for eccentricity, and,
+besides, Lady Claridge always dealt with the opinions
+of other people as matters of illimitable unimportance.
+This baronet's lady, in short, was in these days
+vouchsafing to the universe at large a fine and new
+benevolence, now that her daughter was safely engaged
+to Lord Brudenel, who, whatever his other virtues, was
+certainly a peer of England and very rich.  It
+seems irrelevant, and yet for the tale's sake is
+noteworthy, that any room which harbored Lady John
+Claridge was through this fact converted into an
+absolute monarchy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And so, by the favor of Lady Claridge and destiny,
+the tutor stayed at Leamington Manor all summer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was nothing in either the appearance or
+demeanor of the fiancee of Lord Brudenel's title and
+superabundant wealth which any honest gentleman could,
+hand upon his heart, describe as blatantly repulsive.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It may not be denied the tutor noted this.  In
+fine, he fell in love with Mildred Claridge after a
+thorough-going fashion such as Prince Fribble would
+have found amusing.  Prince Fribble would have smiled,
+shrugged, drawled, "Eh, after all, the girl is handsome
+and deplorably cold-blooded!"  Paul Vanderhoffen said,
+"I am not fit to live in the same world with her," and
+wrote many verses in the prevailing Oriental style rich
+in allusions to roses, and bulbuls, and gazelles, and
+peris, and minarets&mdash;which he sold rather profitably.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Meanwhile, far oversea, the reigning Duke of
+Saxe-Kesselberg had been unwise enough to quarrel with his
+Chancellor, Georges Desmarets, an invaluable man whose
+only faults were dishonesty and a too intimate
+acquaintance with the circumstances of Prince Hilary's
+demise.  As fruit of this indiscretion, an
+inconsiderable tutor at Leamington Manor&mdash;whom Lady
+John Claridge regarded as a sort of upper servant was
+talking with a visitor.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+The tutor, it appeared, preferred to talk with the
+former Chancellor of Saxe-Kesselberg in the middle of
+an open field.  The time was afternoon, the season
+September, and the west was vaingloriously justifying
+the younger man's analogy of a gigantic Spanish
+omelette.  Meanwhile, the younger man declaimed in a
+high-pitched pleasant voice, wherein there was, as
+always, the elusive suggestion of a stutter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I repeat to you," the tutor observed, "that no
+consideration will ever make a grand-duke of me
+excepting over my dead body.  Why don't you recommend
+some not quite obsolete vocation, such as making
+papyrus, or writing an interesting novel, or teaching
+people how to dance a saraband?  For after all, what is
+a monarch nowadays&mdash;oh, even a monarch of the first
+class?" he argued, with what came near being a squeak
+of indignation.  "The poor man is a rather pitiable and
+perfectly useless relic of barbarism, now that 1789 has
+opened our eyes; and his main business in life is to
+ride in open carriages and bow to an applauding public
+who are applauding at so much per head.  He must expect
+to be aspersed with calumny, and once in a while with
+bullets.  He may at the utmost aspire to introduce an
+innovation in evening dress,&mdash;the Prince Regent, for
+instance, has invented a really very creditable
+shoe-buckle.  Tradition obligates him to devote his
+unofficial hours to sheer depravity&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Paul Vanderhoffen paused to meditate.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, there you are! another obstacle!  I have in
+an inquiring spirit and without prejudice sampled all
+the Seven Deadly Sins, and the common increment was an
+inability to enjoy my breakfast.  A grand-duke I take
+it, if he have any sense of the responsibilities of his
+position, will piously remember the adage about the
+voice of the people and hasten to be steeped in
+vice&mdash;and thus conform to every popular notion concerning a
+grand-duke.  Why, common intelligence demands that a
+grand-duke should brazenly misbehave himself upon the
+more conspicuous high-places of Chemosh! and
+personally, I have no talents such as would qualify me
+for a life of cynical and brutal immorality.  I lack
+the necessary aptitude, I would not ever afford any
+spicy gossip concerning the Duke of Saxe-Kesselberg,
+and the editors of the society papers would unanimously
+conspire to dethrone me&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thus he argued, with his high-pitched pleasant
+voice, wherein there was, as always, the elusive
+suggestion of a stutter.  And here the other interrupted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There is no need of names, your highness." Georges
+Desmarets was diminutive, black-haired and corpulent.
+He was of dapper appearance, point-device in
+everything, and he reminded you of a perky robin.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The tutor flung out an "Ouf! I must recall to
+you that, thank heaven, I am not anybody's
+highness any longer.  I am Paul Vanderhoffen."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He says that he is not Prince Fribble!"&mdash;the
+little man addressed the zenith&mdash;"as if any other
+person ever succeeded in talking a half-hour without
+being betrayed into at least one sensible remark.  Oh,
+how do you manage without fail to be so consistently
+and stupendously idiotic?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is, like all other desirable traits, either
+innate or else just unattainable," the other answered.
+"I am so hopelessly light-minded that I cannot refrain
+from being rational even in matters which concern me
+personally&mdash;and this, of course, no normal being ever
+thinks of doing.  I really cannot help it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Frenchman groaned whole-heartedly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But we were speaking&mdash;well, of foreign countries.
+Now, Paul Vanderhoffen has read that in one of these
+countries there was once a prince who very narrowly
+escaped figuring as a self-conscious absurdity, as an
+anachronism, as a life-long prisoner of etiquette.
+However, with the assistance of his cousin&mdash;who,
+incidentally, was also his heir&mdash;the prince most
+opportunely died.  Oh, pedant that you are! in any event
+he was interred.  And so, the prince was gathered to
+his fathers, and his cousin Augustus reigned in his
+stead.  Until a certain politician who had been privy
+to this pious fraud&mdash;&mdash;"  The tutor shrugged.  "How can
+I word it without seeming hypercritical?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Georges Desmarets stretched out appealing hands.
+"But, I protest, it was the narrow-mindedness of
+that pernicious prig, your cousin&mdash;who firmly
+believes himself to be an improved and augmented
+edition of the Four Evangelists&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, in any event, the proverb was attested that
+birds of a feather make strange bedfellows.  There was
+a dispute concerning some petit larceny&mdash;some slight
+discrepancy, we will imagine, since all this is pure
+romance, in the politician's accounts&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now you belie me&mdash;&mdash;" said the black-haired man,
+and warmly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, Desmarets, you are as vain as ever!  Let us
+say, then, of grand larceny.  In any event, the
+politician was dismissed.  And what, my dears, do you
+suppose this bold and bad and unprincipled Machiavelli
+went and did?  Why, he made straight for the father of
+the princess the usurping duke was going to marry, and
+surprised everybody by showing that, at a pinch, even
+this Guy Fawkes&mdash;who was stuffed with all manner of
+guile and wickedness where youthful patriotism would
+ordinarily incline to straw&mdash;was capable of telling the
+truth.  And so the father broke off the match.  And the
+enamored, if usurping, duke wept bitterly and tore his
+hair to such an extent he totally destroyed his best
+toupet.  And privily the Guy Fawkes came into the
+presence of the exiled duke and prated of a restoration
+to ancestral dignities.  And he was spurned by a
+certain highly intelligent person who considered it
+both tedious and ridiculous to play at being emperor of
+a backyard.  And then&mdash;I really don't recall what
+happened.  But there was a general and unqualified
+deuce to pay with no pitch at a really satisfying
+temperature."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The stouter man said quietly:  "It is a thrilling
+tale which you narrate.  Only, I do recall what
+happened then.  The usurping duke was very much in
+earnest, desirous of retaining his little kingdom, and
+particularly desirous of the woman whom he loved.  In
+consequence, he had Monsieur the Runaway obliterated
+while the latter was talking nonsense&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The tutor's brows had mounted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I scorn to think it even of anybody who is
+controlled in every action by a sense of duty," Georges
+Desmarets explained, "that Duke Augustus would cause
+you to be murdered in your sleep."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A hit!"  The younger man unsmilingly gesticulated
+like one who has been touched in sword-play.  "Behold
+now, as the populace in their blunt way would phrase
+it, I am squelched."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And so the usurping duke was married and lived
+happily ever afterward."  Georges Desmarets continued:
+"I repeat to you there is only the choice between
+declaring yourself and being&mdash;we will say, removed.
+Your cousin is deeply in love with the Princess Sophia,
+and thanks to me, has now no chance of marrying her
+until his title has been secured by your&mdash;removal.  Do
+not deceive yourself.  High interests are involved.
+You are the grain of sand between big wheels.  I
+iterate that the footpad who attacked you last night
+was merely a prologue.  I happen to know your cousin
+has entrusted the affair to Heinrich Obendorf, his
+foster-brother, who, as you will remember, is not
+particularly squeamish."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Paul Vanderhoffen thought a while.  "Desmarets," he
+said at last, "it is no use.  I scorn your pribbles and
+your prabbles.  I bargained with Augustus.  I traded a
+duchy for my personal liberty.  Frankly, I would be
+sorry to connect a sharer of my blood with the assault
+of yesterday.  To be unpardonably candid, I have not
+ever found that your assertion of an event quite proved
+it had gone through the formality of occurring.  And so
+I shall hold to my bargain."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The night brings counsel," Desmarets returned.
+"It hardly needs a night, I think, to demonstrate that
+all I say is true."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And so they parted.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Having thus dismissed such trifles as statecraft
+and the well-being of empires, Paul Vanderhoffen turned
+toward consideration of the one really serious subject
+in the universe, which was of course the bright,
+miraculous and incredible perfection of Mildred Claridge.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I wonder what you think of me?  I wonder if you
+ever think of me?"  The thought careered like a caged
+squirrel, now that he walked through autumn woods
+toward her home.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I wish that you were not so sensible.  I wish your
+mother were not even more so.  The woman reeks with
+common-sense, and knows that to be common is to be
+unanswerable.  I wish that a dispute with her were
+not upon a par with remonstrance against an
+earthquake."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He lighted a fresh cheroot.  "And so you are to
+marry the Brudenel title and bank account, with this
+particular Heleigh thrown in as a dividend.  And why
+not? the estate is considerable; the man who encumbers
+it is sincere in his adoration of you; and, chief of
+all, Lady John Claridge has decreed it.  And your
+decision in any matter has always lain between the
+claws of that steel-armored crocodile who, by some
+miracle, is your mother.  Oh, what a universe! were I
+of hasty temperament I would cry out, TUT AND GO TO!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This was the moment which the man hid in the
+thicket selected as most fit for intervention through
+the assistance of a dueling pistol.  Paul Vanderhoffen
+reeled, his face bewilderment.  His hands clutched
+toward the sky, as if in anguish he grasped at some
+invisible support, and he coughed once or twice.  It
+was rather horrible.  Then Vanderhoffen shivered as
+though he were very cold, and tottered and collapsed in
+the parched roadway.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A slinking man whose lips were gray and could not
+refrain from twitching came toward the limp heap.
+"So&mdash;&mdash;!" said the man.  One of his hands went to the
+tutor's breast, and in his left hand dangled a second
+dueling pistol.  He had thrown away the other after
+firing it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And so&mdash;&mdash;!" observed Paul Vanderhoffen.
+Afterward there was a momentary tussle.  Now Paul
+Vanderhoffen stood erect and flourished the loaded
+pistol.  "If you go on this way," he said, with some
+severity, "you will presently be neither loved nor
+respected.  There was a time, though, when you were an
+excellent shot, Herr Heinrich Obendorf."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I had my orders, highness," said the other stolidly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh yes, of course," Paul Vanderhoffen answered.
+"You had your orders&mdash;from Augustus!"  He seemed to
+think of something very far away.  He smiled, with
+quizzically narrowed eyes such as you may yet see in
+Raeburn's portrait of the man.  "I was remembering,
+oddly enough, that elm just back of the Canova
+Pavilion&mdash;as it was twenty years ago.  I managed to
+scramble up it, but Augustus could not follow me
+because he had such short fat little legs.  He was so
+proud of what I had done that he insisted on telling
+everybody&mdash;and afterward we had oranges for luncheon, I
+remember, and sucked them through bits of sugar.  It is
+not fair that you must always remember and always love
+that boy who played with you when you were little&mdash;after
+he has grown up to be another person.  Eh no!
+youth passes, but all its memories of unimportant
+things remain with you and are less kind than any
+self-respecting viper would be.  Decidedly, it is not fair,
+and some earnest-minded person ought to write to his
+morning paper about it.&#8230;  I think that is the
+reason I am being a sentimental fool," Paul
+Vanderhoffen explained.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then his teeth clicked.  "Get on, my man," he said.
+"Do not remain too near to me, because there was a
+time when I loved your employer quite as much as you
+do.  This fact is urging me to dangerous ends.  Yes, it
+is prompting me, even while I talk with you, to give
+you a lesson in marksmanship, my inconveniently
+faithful Heinrich."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He shrugged.  He lighted a cheroot with hands whose
+tremblings, he devoutly hoped, were not apparent, for
+Prince Fribble had been ashamed to manifest a sincere
+emotion of any sort, and Paul Vanderhoffen shared as
+yet this foible.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh Brutus!  Ravaillac!  Damiens!" he drawled.  "O
+general compendium of misguided aspirations! do be a
+duck and get along with you.  And I would run as hard
+as I could, if I were you, for it is war now, and you
+and I are not on the same side."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Paul Vanderhoffen paused a hundred yards or so from
+this to shake his head.  "Come, come! I have lost so
+much that I cannot afford to throw my good temper into
+the bargain.  To endure with a grave face this
+perfectly unreasonable universe wherein destiny has
+locked me is undoubtedly meritorious; but to bustle
+about it like a caged canary, and not ever to falter in
+your hilarity, is heroic.  Let us, by all means, not
+consider the obdurate if gilded barriers, but rather
+the lettuce and the cuttle-bone.  I have my choice
+between becoming a corpse or a convict&mdash;a convict? ah,
+undoubtedly a convict, sentenced to serve out a
+life-term in a cess-pool of castby superstitions."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He smiled now over Paul Vanderhoffen's rage.
+"Since the situation is tragic, let us approach it in
+an appropriate spirit of frivolity.  My circumstances
+bully me.  And I succumb to irrationality, as rational
+persons invariably end by doing.  But, oh, dear me! oh,
+Osiris, Termagaunt, and Zeus! to think there are at
+least a dozen other ne'er-do-wells alive who would
+prefer to make a mess of living as a grand-duke rather
+than as a scribbler in Grub Street!  Well, well! the
+jest is not of my contriving, and the one concession a
+sane man will never yield the universe is that of
+considering it seriously."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And he strode on, resolved to be Prince Fribble to
+the last.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Frivolity," he said, "is the smoked glass through
+which a civilized person views the only world he has to
+live in.  For, otherwise, he could not presume to look
+upon such coruscations of insanity and remain
+unblinded."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This heartened him, as a rounded phrase will do the
+best of us.  But by-and-bye,
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Frivolity," he groaned, "is really the cheap mask
+incompetence claps on when haled before a mirror."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+And at Leamington Manor he found her strolling upon
+the lawn.  It was an ordered, lovely scene, steeped now
+in the tranquillity of evening.  Above, the stars were
+losing diffidence.  Below, and within arms' reach,
+Mildred Claridge was treading the same planet on which
+he fidgeted and stuttered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Something in his heart snapped like a fiddle-string,
+and he was entirely aware of this circumstance.
+As to her eyes, teeth, coloring, complexion, brows,
+height and hair, it is needless to expatiate.  The most
+painstaking inventory of these chattels would
+necessarily be misleading, because the impression which
+they conveyed to him was that of a bewildering, but not
+distasteful, transfiguration of the universe, apt as a
+fanfare at the entrance of a queen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But he would be Prince Fribble to the last.  And
+so, "Wait just a moment, please," he said, "I want to
+harrow up your soul and freeze your blood."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Wherewith he suavely told her everything about Paul
+Vanderhoffen's origin and the alternatives now offered
+him, and she listened without comment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ai! ai!" young Vanderhoffen perorated; "the
+situation is complete.  I have not the least desire to
+be Grand-Duke of Saxe-Kesselberg.  It is too abominably
+tedious.  But, if I do not join in with Desmarets, who
+has the guy-ropes of a restoration well in hand, I must
+inevitably be&mdash;removed, as the knave phrases it.  For
+as long as I live, I will be an insuperable barrier
+between Augustus and his Sophia.  Otototoi!" he wailed,
+with a fine tone of tragedy, "the one impossible
+achievement in my life has always been to convince
+anybody that it was mine to dispose of as I elected!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, man proposes&mdash;&mdash;" she began, cryptically.
+Then he deliberated, and sulkily submitted:  "But I may
+not even propose to abdicate.  Augustus has put
+himself upon sworn record as an eye-witness of my
+hideous death.  And in consequence I might keep on
+abdicating from now to the crack of doom, and the only
+course left open to him would be to treat me as an
+impostor."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She replied, with emphasis, "I think your cousin is
+a beast!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ah, but the madman is in love," he pleaded.  "You
+should not judge poor masculinity in such a state by
+any ordinary standards.  Oh really, you don't know the
+Princess Sophia.  She is, in sober truth, the nicest
+person who was ever born a princess.  Why, she had
+actually made a mock of even that handicap, for
+ordinarily it is as disastrous to feminine appearance
+as writing books.  And, oh, Lord! they will be marrying
+her to me, if Desmarets and I win out."  Thus he
+forlornly ended.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The designing minx!" Miss Claridge said, distinctly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now, gracious lady, do be just a cooing pigeon and
+grant that when men are in love they are not any more
+encumbered by abstract notions about honor than if they
+had been womanly from birth.  Come, let's be lyrical
+and open-minded," he urged; and he added, "No, either
+you are in love or else you are not in love.  And
+nothing else will matter either way.  You see, if men
+and women had been primarily designed to be rational
+creatures, there would be no explanation for their
+being permitted to continue in existence," he
+lucidly explained.  "And to have grasped this fact is
+the pith of all wisdom."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, I am very wise."  A glint of laughter shone in
+her eyes.  "I would claim to be another Pythoness if
+only it did not sound so snaky and wriggling.  So, from
+my trident&mdash;or was it a Triton they used to stand
+on?&mdash;I announce that you and your Augustus are worrying
+yourselves gray-headed over an idiotically simple
+problem.  Now, I disposed of it offhand when I said,
+'Man proposes.'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He seemed to be aware of some one who from a
+considerable distance was inquiring her reasons for
+this statement.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Because in Saxe-Kesselberg, as in all other German
+states, when a prince of the reigning house marries
+outside of the mediatized nobility he thereby forfeits
+his right of succession.  It has been done any number
+of times.  Why, don't you see, Mr. Vanderhoffen?
+Conceding you ever do such a thing, your cousin
+Augustus would become at once the legal heir.  So you
+must marry.  It is the only way, I think, to save you
+from regal incarceration and at the same time to
+reassure the Prince of Lueminster&mdash;that creature's
+father&mdash;that you have not, and never can have, any
+claim which would hold good in law.  Then Duke Augustus
+could peaceably espouse his Sophia and go on reigning&mdash;&mdash;  And,
+by the way, I have seen her picture often, and if
+that is what you call beauty&mdash;&mdash;"  Miss Claridge did
+not speak this last at least with any air of pointing
+out the self-evident.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And, "I believe," he replied, "that all this is
+actually happening.  I might have known fate meant to
+glut her taste for irony."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But don't you see?  You have only to marry anybody
+outside of the higher nobility&mdash;and just as a
+makeshift&mdash;&mdash;"  She had drawn closer in the urgency of
+her desire to help him.  An infinite despair and mirth
+as well was kindled by her nearness.  And the man was
+insane and dimly knew as much.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And so, "I see," he answered.  "But, as it happens,
+I cannot marry any woman, because I love a particular
+woman.  At least, I suppose she isn't anything but just
+a woman.  That statement," he announced, "is a formal
+tribute paid by what I call my intellect to what the
+vulgar call the probabilities.  The rest of me has no
+patience whatever with such idiotic blasphemy."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She said, "I think I understand."  And this
+surprised him, coming as it did from her whom he had
+always supposed to be the fiancee of Lord Brudenel's
+title and bank-account.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And, well!"&mdash;he waved his hands&mdash;"either as tutor
+or as grand-duke, this woman is unattainable, because
+she has been far too carefully reared"&mdash;and here he
+frenziedly thought of that terrible matron whom, as you
+know, he had irreverently likened to a crocodile&mdash;"either
+to marry a pauper or to be contented with a
+left-handed alliance.  And I love her.  And so"&mdash;he
+shrugged&mdash;"there is positively nothing left to do save
+sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the deaths
+of kings."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She said, "Oh, and you mean it!  You are speaking
+the plain truth!"  A change had come into her lovely
+face which would have made him think it even lovelier
+had not that contingency been beyond conception.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And Mildred Claridge said, "It is not fair for
+dreamers such as you to let a woman know just how he
+loves her.  That is not wooing.  It is bullying."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His lips were making a variety of irrational
+noises.  And he was near to her.  Also he realized that
+he had never known how close akin were fear and joy, so
+close the two could mingle thus, and be quite
+undistinguishable.  And then repentance smote him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am contemptible!" he groaned.  "I had no right
+to trouble you with my insanities.  Indeed I had not
+ever meant to let you guess how mad I was.  But always
+I have evaded my responsibilities.  So I remain Prince
+Fribble to the last."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, but I knew, I have always known."  She held
+her eyes away from him.  "And I wrote to Lord Brudenel
+only yesterday releasing him from his engagement."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And now without uncertainty or haste Paul
+Vanderhoffen touched her cheek and raised her face, so
+that he saw it plainly in the rising twilight, and all
+its wealth of tenderness newborn.  And what he saw
+there frightened him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For the girl loved him!  He felt himself to be, as
+most men do, a swindler when he comprehended this
+preposterous fact; and, in addition, he thought of
+divers happenings, such as shipwrecks, holocausts
+and earthquakes, which might conceivably have
+appalled him, and understood that he would never in his
+life face any sense of terror as huge as was this
+present sweet and illimitable awe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And then he said, "You know that what I hunger for
+is impossible.  There are so many little things, like
+common-sense, to be considered.  For this is just a
+matter which concerns you and Paul Vanderhoffen&mdash;a
+literary hack, a stuttering squeak-voiced ne'er-do-well,
+with an acquired knack for scribbling verses that
+are feeble-minded enough for Annuals and Keepsake
+Books, and so fetch him an occasional guinea.  For, my
+dear, the verses I write of my own accord are not
+sufficiently genteel to be vended in Paternoster Row;
+they smack too dangerously of human intelligence.  So I
+am compelled, perforce, to scribble such jingles as I
+am ashamed to read, because I must write
+<I>something</I>.&#8230;"  Paul Vanderhoffen shrugged, and
+continued, in tones more animated:  "There will be no
+talk of any grand-duke.  Instead, there will be columns
+of denunciation and tittle-tattle in every newspaper&mdash;quite
+as if you, a baronet's daughter, had run away
+with a footman.  And you will very often think
+wistfully of Lord Brudenel's fine house when your only
+title is&mdash;well, Princess of Grub Street, and your realm
+is a garret.  And for a while even to-morrow's
+breakfast will be a problematical affair.  It is true Lord
+Lansdowne has promised me a registrarship in the
+Admiralty Court, and I do not think he will fail me.
+But that will give us barely enough to live on&mdash;with
+strict economy, which is a virtue that
+neither of us knows anything about.  I beg you to
+remember that&mdash;you who have been used to every luxury!
+you who really were devised that you might stand beside
+an emperor and set tasks for him.  In fine, you
+know&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And Mildred Claridge said, "I know that, quite as I
+observed, man proposes&mdash;when he has been sufficiently
+prodded by some one who, because she is an idiot&mdash;And
+that is why I am not blushing&mdash;very much&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Your coloring is not&mdash;repellent."  His high-pitched
+pleasant voice, in spite of him, shook now with
+more than its habitual suggestion of a stutter.  "What
+have you done to me, my dear?" he said.  "Why can't I
+jest at this&#8230; as I have always done at everything&mdash;&mdash;?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Boy, boy!" she said; "laughter is excellent.  And
+wisdom too is excellent.  Only I think that you have
+laughed too much, and I have been too shrewd&mdash;But now I
+know that it is better to be a princess in Grub Street
+than to figure at Ranelagh as a good-hearted fool's
+latest purchase.  For Lord Brudenel is really very
+good-natured," she argued, "and I did like him, and
+mother was so set upon it&mdash;and he was rich&mdash;and I
+honestly thought&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And now?" he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And now I know," she answered happily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They looked at each other for a little while.  Then
+he took her hand, prepared in turn for self-denial.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The <I>Household Review</I> wants me to 'do' a series
+on famous English bishops," he reported, humbly.  "I
+had meant to refuse, because it would all have to be
+dull High-Church twaddle.  And the <I>English Gentleman</I>
+wants some rather outrageous lying done in defense of
+the Corn Laws.  You would not despise me too much&mdash;would
+you, Mildred?&mdash;if I undertook it now.  I really
+have no choice.  And there is plenty of hackwork of
+that sort available to keep us going until more solvent
+days, when I shall have opportunity to write something
+quite worthy of you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"For the present, dear, it would be much more
+sensible, I think, to 'do' the bishops and the Corn
+Laws.  You see, that kind of thing pays very well, and
+is read by the best people; whereas poetry, of
+course&mdash;  But you can always come back to the verse-making, you
+know&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If you ever let me," he said, with a flash of
+prescience.  "And I don't believe you mean to let me.
+You are your mother's daughter, after all!  Nefarious
+woman, you are planning, already, to make a responsible
+member of society out of me! and you will do it,
+ruthlessly!  Such is to be Prince Fribble's actual
+burial&mdash;in his own private carriage, with a receipted
+tax-bill in his pocket!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What nonsense you poets talk!" the girl observed.
+But to him, forebodingly, that familiar statement
+seemed to lack present application.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap12"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+THE LADY OF ALL OUR DREAMS
+</H3>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="intro">
+"<I>In JOHN CHARTERIS appeared a man with an inborn
+sense of the supreme interest and the overwhelming
+emotional and spiritual relevancy of human life as it
+is actually and obscurely lived; a man with
+unmistakable creative impulses and potentialities; a
+man who, had he lived in a more mature and less
+self-deluding community&mdash;a community that did not so
+rigorously confine its interest in facts to business,
+and limit its demands upon art to the supplying of
+illusions&mdash;might humbly and patiently have schooled his
+gifts to the service of his vision.&#8230;  As it was,
+he accepted defeat and compromised half-heartedly with
+commercialism.</I>"
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  And men unborn will read of Heloise,<BR>
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And Ruth, and Rosamond, and Semele,<BR>
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;When none remembers your name's melody<BR>
+  Or rhymes your name, enregistered with these.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  And will my name wake moods as amorous<BR>
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;As that of Abelard or Launcelot<BR>
+  Arouses? be recalled when Pyramus<BR>
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And Tristram are unrhymed of and forgot?&mdash;<BR>
+  Time's laughter answers, who accords to us<BR>
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;More gracious fields, wherein we harvest&mdash;what?<BR>
+<BR>
+  JOHN CHARTERIS. <I>Torrismond's Envoi, in Ashtaroth's Lackey</I>.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+THE LADY OF ALL OUR DREAMS
+</H3>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"Our distinguished alumnus," after being duly presented
+as such, had with vivacity delivered much the usual
+sort of Commencement Address.  Yet John Charteris was
+in reality a trifle fagged.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The afternoon train had been vexatiously late.  The
+little novelist had found it tedious to interchange
+inanities with the committee awaiting him at the
+Pullman steps.  Nor had it amused him to huddle into
+evening-dress, and hasten through a perfunctory supper
+in order to reassure his audience at half-past eight
+precisely as to the unmitigated delight of which he was
+now conscious.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nevertheless, he alluded with enthusiasm to the
+arena of life, to the dependence of America's destiny
+upon the younger generation, to the enviable part
+King's College had without exception played in history,
+and he depicted to Fairhaven the many glories of
+Fairhaven&mdash;past, present and approaching&mdash;in
+superlatives that would hardly have seemed inadequate
+if applied to Paradise.  His oration, in short,
+was of a piece with the amiable bombast that the
+college students and Fairhaven at large were accustomed to
+applaud at every Finals&mdash;the sort of linguistic debauch
+that John Charteris himself remembered to have
+applauded as an undergraduate more years ago than he
+cared to acknowledge.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Pauline Romeyne had sat beside him then&mdash;yonder,
+upon the fourth bench from the front, where now another
+boy with painstakingly plastered hair was clapping
+hands.  There was a girl on the right of this boy, too.
+There naturally would be.  Mr. Charteris as he sat down
+was wondering if Pauline was within reach of his voice?
+and if she were, what was her surname nowadays?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then presently the exercises were concluded, and
+the released auditors arose with an outwelling noise of
+multitudinous chatter, of shuffling feet, of rustling
+programs.  Many of Mr. Charteris' audience, though,
+were contending against the general human outflow and
+pushing toward the platform, for Fairhaven was proud of
+John Charteris now that his colorful tales had risen,
+from the semi-oblivion of being cherished merely by
+people who cared seriously for beautiful things, to the
+distinction of being purchasable in railway stations;
+so that, in consequence, Fairhaven wished both to
+congratulate him and to renew acquaintanceship.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He, standing there, alert and quizzical, found it
+odd to note how unfamiliar beaming faces climbed out of
+the hurly-burly of retreating backs, to say,
+"Don't you remember me?  I'm so-and-so."  These
+were the people whom he had lived among once, and some
+of these had once been people whom he loved.  Now there
+was hardly any one whom at a glance he would have
+recognized.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nobody guessed as much.  He was adjudged to be
+delightful, cordial, "and not a bit stuck-up, not
+spoiled at all, you know."  To appear this was the
+talisman with which he banteringly encountered the
+universe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But John Charteris, as has been said, was in
+reality a trifle fagged.  When everybody had removed to
+the Gymnasium, where the dancing was to be, and he had
+been delightful there, too, for a whole half-hour, he
+grasped with avidity at his first chance to slip away,
+and did so under cover of a riotous two-step.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He went out upon the Campus.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He found this lawn untenanted, unless you chose to
+count the marble figure of Lord Penniston, made aerial
+and fantastic by the moonlight, standing as it it were
+on guard over the College.  Mr. Charteris chose to
+count him.  Whimsically, Mr. Charteris reflected that
+this battered nobleman's was the one familiar face he
+had exhumed in all Fairhaven.  And what a deal of mirth
+and folly, too, the old fellow must have witnessed
+during his two hundred and odd years of sentry-duty!
+On warm, clear nights like this, in particular, when by
+ordinary there were only couples on the Campus, each
+couple discreetly remote from any of the others.
+Then Penniston would be aware of most portentous pauses
+(which a delectable and lazy conference of leaves made
+eloquent) because of many unfinished sentences.  "Oh,
+YOU know what I mean, dear!" one would say as a last
+resort.  And she-why, bless her heart! of course, she
+always did.&#8230;  Heigho, youth's was a pleasant
+lunacy.&#8230;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thus Charteris reflected, growing drowsy.  She
+said, "You spoke very well to-night.  Is it too late
+for congratulations?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Turning, Mr. Charteris remarked, "As you are
+perfectly aware, all that I vented was just a deal of
+skimble-scamble stuff, a verbal syllabub of balderdash.
+No, upon reflection, I think I should rather describe
+it as a conglomeration of piffle, patriotism and
+pyrotechnics.  Well, Madam Do-as-you-would-be-done-by,
+what would you have?  You must give people what they
+want."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was characteristic that he faced Pauline
+Romeyne&mdash;or was it still Romeyne? he wondered&mdash;precisely
+as if it had been fifteen minutes, rather
+than as many years, since they had last spoken
+together.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Must one?" she asked.  "Oh, yes, I know you have
+always thought that, but I do not quite see the
+necessity of it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She sat upon the bench beside Lord Penniston's
+square marble pedestal.  "And all the while you spoke I
+was thinking of those Saturday nights when your name
+was up for an oration or a debate before the
+Eclectics, and you would stay away and pay the fine
+rather than brave an audience."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The tooth of Time," he reminded her, "has since
+then written wrinkles on my azure brow.  The years slip
+away fugacious, and Time that brings forth her children
+only to devour them grins most hellishly, for Time
+changes all things and cultivates even in herself an
+appreciation of irony,&mdash;and, therefore, why shouldn't I
+have changed a trifle?  You wouldn't have me put on
+exhibition as a <I>lusus naturae</I>?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, but I wish you had not altered so entirely!"
+Pauline sighed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"At least, you haven't," he declared.  "Of course,
+I would be compelled to say so, anyhow.  But in this
+happy instance courtesy and veracity come skipping
+arm-in-arm from my elated lips."  And, indeed, it seemed to
+him that Pauline was marvelously little altered.  "I
+wonder now," he said, and cocked his head, "I wonder
+now whose wife I am talking to?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, Jack, I never married," she said quietly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is selfish of me," he said, in the same tone,
+"but I am glad of that."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And so they sat a while, each thinking.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I wonder," said Pauline, with that small plaintive
+voice which Charteris so poignantly remembered,
+"whether it is always like this?  Oh, do the Overlords
+of Life and Death ALWAYS provide some obstacle to
+prevent what all of us have known in youth was possible
+from ever coming true?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And again there was a pause which a delectable and
+lazy conference of leaves made eloquent.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I suppose it is because they know that if it ever
+did come true, we would be gods like them."  The
+ordinary associates of John Charteris, most certainly,
+would not have suspected him to be the speaker.  "So
+they contrive the obstacle, or else they send false
+dreams&mdash;out of the gates of horn&mdash;and make the path
+smooth, very smooth, so that two dreamers may not be
+hindered on their way to the divorce-courts."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, they are jealous gods! oh, and ironical gods
+also!  They grant the Dream, and chuckle while they
+grant it, I think, because they know that later they
+will be bringing their playthings face to face&mdash;each
+married, fat, inclined to optimism, very careful of
+decorum, and perfectly indifferent to each other.  And
+then they get their fore-planned mirth, these Overlords
+of Life and Death.  'We gave you,' they chuckle, 'the
+loveliest and greatest thing infinity contains.  And
+you bartered it because of a clerkship or a lying maxim
+or perhaps a finger-ring.'  I suppose that they must
+laugh a great deal."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Eh, what?  But then you never married?"  For
+masculinity in argument starts with the word it has
+found distasteful.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, no."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nor I."  And his tone implied that the two facts
+conjoined proved much.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Miss Willoughby&mdash;&mdash;?" she inquired.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now, how in heaven's name, could a cloistered
+Fairhaven have surmised his intention of proposing on
+the first convenient opportunity to handsome,
+well-to-do Anne Willoughby?  He shrugged his wonder off.  "Oh,
+people will talk, you know.  Let any man once find a
+woman has a tongue in her head, and the stage-direction
+is always 'Enter Rumor, painted full of tongues.'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Pauline did not appear to have remarked his protest.
+"Yes,&mdash;in the end you will marry her.  And her
+money will help, just as you have contrived to make
+everything else help, toward making John Charteris
+comfortable.  She is not very clever, but she will
+always worship you, and so you two will not prove
+uncongenial.  That is your real tragedy, if I could
+make you comprehend."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"So I am going to develop into a pig," he said,
+with relish,&mdash;"a lovable, contented, unambitious porcine,
+who is alike indifferent to the Tariff, the importance
+of Equal Suffrage and the market-price of
+hams, for all that he really cares about is to have his
+sty as comfortable as may be possible.  That is exactly
+what I am going to develop into,&mdash;now, isn't it?"  And
+John Charteris, sitting, as was his habitual fashion,
+with one foot tucked under him, laughed cheerily.  Oh,
+just to be alive (he thought) was ample cause for
+rejoicing! and how deliciously her eyes, alert with
+slumbering fires, were peering through the moon-made
+shadows of her brows!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well&mdash;&mdash;! something of the sort." Pauline was
+smiling, but restrainedly, and much as a woman
+does in condoning the naughtiness of her child.
+"And, oh, if only&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, precisely.  'If only!' quotha.  Why, there
+you word the key-note, you touch the cornerstone, you
+ruthlessly illuminate the mainspring, of an intractable
+unfeeling universe.  For instance, if only
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  You were the Empress of Ayre and Skye,<BR>
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And I were Ahkond of Kong,<BR>
+  We could dine every day on apple-pie,<BR>
+  And peddle potatoes, and sleep in a sty,<BR>
+  And people would say when we came to die,<BR>
+  'They <I>never</I> did anything wrong.'<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+But, as it is, our epitaphs will probably be nothing of
+the sort.  So that there lurks, you see, much virtue in
+this 'if only.'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Impervious to nonsense, she asked, "And have I not
+earned the right to lament that you are changed?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I haven't robbed more than six churches up to
+date," he grumbled.  "What would you have?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The answer came, downright, and, as he knew,
+entirely truthful:  "I would have had you do all that
+you might have done."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But he must needs refine.  "Why, no&mdash;you would have
+made me do it, wrung out the last drop.  You would have
+bullied me and shamed me into being all that I might
+have been.  I see that now."  He spoke as if in wonder,
+with quickening speech.  "Pauline, I haven't been
+entirely not worth while.  Oh, yes, I know!  I
+know I haven't written five-act tragedies which would
+be immortal, as you probably expected me to do.  My
+books are not quite the books I was to write when you
+and I were young.  But I have made at worst some neat,
+precise and joyous little tales which prevaricate
+tenderly about the universe and veil the pettiness of
+human nature with screens of verbal jewelwork.  It is
+not the actual world they tell about, but a vastly
+superior place where the Dream is realized and
+everything which in youth we knew was possible comes
+true.  It is a world we have all glimpsed, just once,
+and have not ever entered, and have not ever forgotten.
+So people like my little tales.&#8230;  Do they induce
+delusions?  Oh, well, you must give people what they
+want, and literature is a vast bazaar where customers
+come to purchase everything except mirrors."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She said soberly, "You need not make a jest of it.
+It is not ridiculous that you write of beautiful and
+joyous things because there was a time when living was
+really all one wonderful adventure, and you remember it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But, oh, my dear, my dear! such glum discussions
+are so sadly out-of-place on such a night as this," he
+lamented.  "For it is a night of pearl-like radiancies
+and velvet shadows and delicate odors and big friendly
+stars that promise not to gossip, whatever happens.  It
+is a night that hungers, and all its undistinguishable
+little sounds are voicing the night's hunger for masks
+and mandolins, for rope-ladders and balconies and
+serenades.  It is a night&#8230; a night wherein I
+gratefully remember so many beautiful sad things that
+never happened&#8230; to John Charteris, yet surely
+happened once upon a time to me&#8230;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think that I know what it is to remember&mdash;better
+than you do, Jack.  But what do you remember?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"In faith, my dear, the most Bedlamitish occurrences!
+It is a night that breeds deplorable
+insanities, I warn you.  For I seem to remember how I
+sat somewhere, under a peach-tree, in clear autumn
+weather, and was content; but the importance had all
+gone out of things; and even you did not seem very
+important, hardly worth lying to, as I spoke lightly of
+my wasted love for you, half in hatred, and&mdash;yes, still
+half in adoration.  For you were there, of course.  And
+I remember how I came to you, in a sinister and
+brightly lighted place, where a horrible, staring frail
+old man lay dead at your feet; and you had murdered
+him; and heaven did not care, and we were old, and all
+our lives seemed just to end in futile tangle-work.
+And, again, I remember how we stood alone, with visible
+death crawling lazily toward us, as a big sullen sea
+rose higher and higher; and we little tinseled
+creatures waited, helpless, trapped and
+yearning.&#8230;  There is a boat in that picture; I
+suppose it was deeply laden with pirates coming to slit
+our throats from ear to ear.  I have forgotten that
+part, but I remember the tiny spot of courtplaster just
+above your painted lips.&#8230;  Such are the jumbled
+pictures.  They are bred of brain-fag, no doubt; yet,
+whatever be their lineage," said Charteris,
+happily, "they render glum discussion and platitudinous
+moralizing quite out of the question.  So, let's
+pretend, Pauline, that we are not a bit more worldly-wise
+than those youngsters who are frisking yonder in
+the Gymnasium&mdash;for, upon my word, I dispute if we have
+ever done anything to suggest that we are.  Don't let's
+be cowed a moment longer by those bits of paper with
+figures on them which our too-credulous fellow-idiots
+consider to be the only almanacs.  Let's have back
+yesterday, let's tweak the nose of Time intrepidly."
+Then Charteris caroled:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  "For Yesterday! for Yesterday!<BR>
+  I cry a reward for a Yesterday<BR>
+  Now lost or stolen or gone astray,<BR>
+  With all the laughter of Yesterday!"<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"And how slight a loss was laughter," she
+murmured&mdash;still with the vague and gentle eyes of a
+day-dreamer&mdash;"as set against all that we never earned in
+youth, and so will never earn."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He inadequately answered "Bosh!" and later, "Do
+you remember&mdash;&mdash;?" he began.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Yes, she remembered that, it developed.  And "Do
+you remember&mdash;&mdash;?" she in turn was asking later.  It
+was to seem to him in retrospection that neither for
+the next half-hour began a sentence without this
+formula.  It was as if they sought to use it as a
+master-word wherewith to reanimate the happinesses and sorrows
+of their common past, and as if they found the
+charm was potent to awaken the thin, powerless ghosts
+of emotions that were once despotic.  For it was as if
+frail shadows and half-caught echoes were all they
+could evoke, it seemed to Charteris; and yet these
+shadows trooped with a wild grace, and the echoes
+thrilled him with the sweet and piercing surprise of a
+bird's call at midnight or of a bugle heard in prison.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then twelve o'clock was heralded by the College
+bell, and Pauline arose as though this equable
+deep-throated interruption of the music's levity had been a
+signal.  John Charteris saw her clearly now; and she
+was beautiful.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I must go.  You will not ever quite forget me,
+Jack.  Such is my sorry comfort."  It seemed to
+Charteris that she smiled as in mockery, and yet it was a
+very tender sort of derision.  "Yes, you have made your
+books.  You have done what you most desired to do.  You
+have got all from life that you have asked of life.
+Oh, yes, you have got much from life.  One prize,
+though, Jack, you missed."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He, too, had risen, quiet and perfectly sure of
+himself.  "I haven't missed it.  For you love me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This widened her eyes.  "Did I not always love you,
+Jack?  Yes, even when you went away forever, and there
+were no letters, and the days were long.  Yes, even
+knowing you, I loved you, John Charteris."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, I was wrong, all wrong," he cried; "and yet
+there is something to be said upon the other side, as
+always.&#8230;"  Now Charteris was still for a
+while.  The little man's chin was uplifted so that
+it was toward the stars he looked rather than at
+Pauline Romeyne, and when he spoke he seemed to
+meditate aloud.  "I was born, I think, with the desire
+to make beautiful books&mdash;brave books that would
+preserve the glories of the Dream untarnished, and
+would re-create them for battered people, and re-awaken
+joy and magnanimity."  Here he laughed, a little
+ruefully.  "No, I do not think I can explain this
+obsession to any one who has never suffered from it.
+But I have never in my life permitted anything to stand
+in the way of my fulfilling this desire to serve the
+Dream by re-creating it for others with picked words,
+and that has cost me something.  Yes, the Dream is an
+exacting master.  My books, such as they are, have been
+made what they are at the dear price of never
+permitting myself to care seriously for anything else.
+I might not dare to dissipate my energies by taking any
+part in the drama I was attempting to re-write, because
+I must so jealously conserve all the force that was in
+me for the perfection of my lovelier version.  That may
+not be the best way of making books, but it is the only
+one that was possible for me.  I had so little natural
+talent, you see," said Charteris, wistfully, "and I was
+anxious to do so much with it.  So I had always to be
+careful.  It has been rather lonely, my dear.  Now,
+looking back, it seems to me that the part I have
+played in all other people's lives has been the role of
+a tourist who enters a cafe chantant, a fortress, or a
+cathedral, with much the same forlorn sense of
+detachment, and observes what there is to see that may
+be worth remembering, and takes a note or two, perhaps,
+and then leaves the place forever.  Yes, that is how I
+served the Dream and that is how I got my books.  They
+are very beautiful books, I think, but they cost me
+fifteen years of human living and human intimacy, and
+they are hardly worth so much."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He turned to her, and his voice changed.  "Oh, I
+was wrong, all wrong, and chance is kindlier than I
+deserve.  For I have wandered after unprofitable gods,
+like a man blundering through a day of mist and fog,
+and I win home now in its golden sunset.  I have
+laughed very much, my dear, but I was never happy until
+to-night.  The Dream, as I now know, is not best served
+by making parodies of it, and it does not greatly
+matter after all whether a book be an epic or a
+directory.  What really matters is that there is so
+much faith and love and kindliness which we can share
+with and provoke in others, and that by cleanly,
+simple, generous living we approach perfection in the
+highest and most lovely of all arts.&#8230;  But you, I
+think, have always comprehended this.  My dear, if I
+were worthy to kneel and kiss the dust you tread in I
+would do it.  As it happens, I am not worthy.  Pauline,
+there was a time when you and I were young together,
+when we aspired, when life passed as if it were to the
+measures of a noble music&mdash;a heart-wringing, an
+obdurate, an intolerable music, it might be, but always
+a lofty music.  One strutted, no doubt&mdash;it was because
+one knew oneself to be indomitable.  Eh, it is
+true I have won all I asked of life, very horribly
+true.  All that I asked, poor fool! oh, I am weary of
+loneliness, and I know now that all the phantoms I have
+raised are only colorless shadows which belie the
+Dream, and they are hateful to me.  I want just to
+recapture that old time we know of, and we two alone.
+I want to know the Dream again, Pauline,&mdash;the Dream
+which I had lost, had half forgotten, and have so
+pitifully parodied.  I want to know the Dream again,
+Pauline, and you alone can help me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, if I could! if even I could now, my dear!"
+Pauline Romeyne left him upon a sudden, crying this.
+And  "So!" said Mr. Charteris.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He had been deeply shaken and very much in earnest;
+but he was never the man to give for any lengthy while
+too slack a rein to emotion; and so he now sat down
+upon the bench and lighted a cigarette and smiled.  Yet
+he fully recognized himself to be the most enviable of
+men and an inhabitant of the most glorious world
+imaginable&mdash;a world wherein he very assuredly meant to
+marry Pauline Romeyne say, in the ensuing September.
+Yes, that would fit in well enough, although, of
+course, he would have to cancel the engagement to
+lecture in Milwaukee.&#8230;  How lucky, too, it was
+that he had never actually committed himself with Anne
+Willoughby! for while money was an excellent thing to
+have, how infinitely less desirable it was to live
+perked up in golden sorrow than to feed flocks upon the
+Grampian Hills, where Freedom from the mountain height
+cried, "I go on forever, a prince can make a
+belted knight, and let who will be clever.&#8230;"
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"&mdash;and besides, you'll catch your death of cold,"
+lamented Rudolph Musgrave, who was now shaking
+Mr. Charteris' shoulder.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Eh, what?  Oh, yes, I daresay I was napping," the
+other mumbled.  He stood and stretched himself
+luxuriously.  "Well, anyhow, don't be such an
+unmitigated grandmother.  You see, I have a bit of rather
+important business to attend to.  Which way is Miss
+Romeyne?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Pauline Romeyne? why, but she married old General
+Ashmeade, you know.  She was the gray-haired woman in
+purple who carried out her squalling brat when Taylor
+was introducing you, if you remember.  She told me,
+while the General was getting the horses around, how
+sorry she was to miss your address, but they live three
+miles out, and Mrs. Ashmeade is simply a slave to the
+children.&#8230;  Why, what in the world have you been
+dreaming about?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Eh, what?  Oh, yes, I daresay I was only napping,"
+Mr. Charteris observed.  He was aware that within they
+were still playing a riotous two-step.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap13"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+<I>BALLAD OF PLAGIARY</I>
+</H3>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+  "<I>Frères et matres, vous qui cultivez</I>"&mdash;PAUL VERVILLE.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  Hey, my masters, lords and brothers, ye that till the fields of rhyme,<BR>
+  Are ye deaf ye will not hearken to the clamor of your time?<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  Still ye blot and change and polish&mdash;vary, heighten and transpose&mdash;<BR>
+  Old sonorous metres marching grandly to their tranquil close.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  Ye have toiled and ye have fretted; ye attain perfected speech:<BR>
+  Ye have nothing new to utter and but platitudes to preach.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  And your rhymes are all of loving, as within the old days when<BR>
+  Love was lord of the ascendant in the horoscopes of men.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  Still ye make of love the utmost end and scope of all your art;<BR>
+  And, more blind than he you write of, note not what a modest part<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  Loving now may claim in living, when we have scant time to spare,<BR>
+  Who are plundering the sea-depths, taking tribute of the air,&mdash;<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  Whilst the sun makes pictures for us; since to-day, for good or ill,<BR>
+  Earth and sky and sea are harnessed, and the lightnings work our will.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  Hey, my masters, all these love-songs by dust-hidden mouths were sung<BR>
+  That ye mimic and re-echo with an artful-artless tongue,&mdash;<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  Sung by poets close to nature, free to touch her garments' hem<BR>
+  Whom to-day ye know not truly; for ye only copy them.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  Them ye copy&mdash;copy always, with your backs turned to the sun,<BR>
+  Caring not what man is doing, noting that which man has done.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  <I>We are talking over telephones, as Shakespeare could not talk;</I><BR>
+  <I>We are riding out in motor-cars where Homer had to walk;</I><BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  <I>And pictures Dante labored on of mediaeval Hell</I><BR>
+  <I>The nearest cinematograph paints quicker, and as well.</I><BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  But ye copy, copy always;&mdash;and ye marvel when ye find<BR>
+  This new beauty, that new meaning,&mdash;while a model stands behind,<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  Waiting, young and fair as ever, till some singer turn and trace<BR>
+  Something of the deathless wonder of life lived in any place.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  Hey, my masters, turn from piddling to the turmoil and the strife!<BR>
+  Cease from sonneting, my brothers; let us fashion songs from life.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+  <I>Thus I wrote ere Percie passed me.&#8230;  Then did I epitomize</I><BR>
+  <I>All life's beauty in one poem, and make haste to eulogize</I><BR>
+  <I>Quite the fairest thing life boasts of, for I wrote of Percie's eyes.</I><BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="finis">
+EXPLICIT DECAS POETARUM
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR><BR>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Certain Hour, by James Branch Cabell
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Certain Hour, by James Branch Cabell
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Certain Hour
+
+Author: James Branch Cabell
+
+Release Date: April 29, 2008 [EBook #288]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CERTAIN HOUR ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE CERTAIN HOUR
+
+(_Dizain des Poetes_)
+
+
+
+By
+
+JAMES BRANCH CABELL
+
+
+
+
+
+
+    "Criticism, whatever may be its
+    pretensions, never does more than to
+    define the impression which is made upon
+    it at a certain moment by a work wherein
+    the writer himself noted the impression
+    of the world which he received at a
+    certain hour."
+
+
+
+NEW YORK
+
+ROBERT M. McBRIDE & COMPANY
+
+1916
+
+
+
+
+
+  Copyright, 1916, by Robert M. McBride & Co.
+  Copyright, 1915, by McBride, Nast & Co.
+  Copyright, 1914, by the Sewanee Review Quarterly
+  Copyright, 1913, by John Adams Thayer Corporation
+  Copyright, 1912, by Argonaut Publishing Company
+  Copyright, 1911, by Red Book Corporation
+  Copyright, 1909, by Harper and Brothers
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+ROBERT GAMBLE CABELL II
+
+
+
+
+  In Dedication of The Certain Hour
+
+    Sad hours and glad hours, and all hours, pass over;
+  One thing unshaken stays:
+  Life, that hath Death for spouse, hath Chance for lover;
+  Whereby decays
+
+    Each thing save one thing:--mid this strife diurnal
+  Of hourly change begot,
+  Love that is God-born, bides as God eternal,
+  And changes not;--
+
+    Nor means a tinseled dream pursuing lovers
+  Find altered by-and-bye,
+  When, with possession, time anon discovers
+  Trapped dreams must die,--
+
+    For he that visions God, of mankind gathers
+  One manlike trait alone,
+  And reverently imputes to Him a father's
+  Love for his son.
+
+
+
+
+                        CONTENTS
+
+  "_Ballad of the Double-Soul_"
+  AUCTORIAL INDUCTION
+  BELHS CAVALIERS
+  BALTHAZAR'S DAUGHTER
+  JUDITH'S CREED
+  CONCERNING CORINNA
+  OLIVIA'S POTTAGE
+  A BROWN WOMAN
+  PRO HONORIA
+  THE IRRESISTIBLE OGLE
+  A PRINCESS OF GRUB STREET
+  THE LADY OF ALL OUR DREAMS
+  "_Ballad of Plagiary_"
+
+
+
+
+_BALLAD OF THE DOUBLE-SOUL_
+
+
+"_Les Dieux, qui trop aiment ses faceties cruelles_"--PAUL VERVILLE.
+
+
+  In the beginning the Gods made man, and fashioned the sky and the sea,
+  And the earth's fair face for man's dwelling-place, and
+    this was the Gods' decree:--
+
+  "Lo, We have given to man five wits: he discerneth folly and sin;
+  He is swift to deride all the world outside, and blind
+    to the world within:
+
+  "So that man may make sport and amuse Us, in battling
+    for phrases or pelf,
+  Now that each may know what forebodeth woe to his
+    neighbor, and not to himself."
+
+  Yet some have the Gods forgotten,--or is it that subtler mirth
+  The Gods extort of a certain sort of folk that cumber the earth?
+
+  _For this is the song of the double-soul, distortedly two in one,--_
+  _Of the wearied eyes that still behold the fruit ere the seed be sown,_
+  _And derive affright for the nearing night from the light_
+    _of the noontide sun._
+
+  For one that with hope in the morning set forth, and knew never a fear,
+  They have linked with another whom omens bother; and
+    he whispers in one's ear.
+
+  And one is fain to be climbing where only angels have trod,
+  But is fettered and tied to another's side who fears that
+    it might look odd.
+
+  And one would worship a woman whom all perfections dower,
+  But the other smiles at transparent wiles; and he quotes
+    from Schopenhauer.
+
+  Thus two by two we wrangle and blunder about the earth,
+  And that body we share we may not spare; but the Gods
+    have need of mirth.
+
+  _So this is the song of the double-soul, distortedly two in one.--_
+  _Of the wearied eyes that still behold the fruit ere the seed be sown,_
+  _And derive affright for the nearing night from the light_
+    _of the noontide sun._
+
+
+
+
+AUCTORIAL INDUCTION
+
+"_These questions, so long as they remain with the Muses, may very well
+be unaccompanied with severity, for where there is no other end of
+contemplation and inquiry but that of pastime alone, the understanding
+is not oppressed; but after the Muses have given over their riddles to
+Sphinx,--that is, to practise, which urges and impels to action, choice
+and determination,--then it is that they become torturing, severe and
+trying._"
+
+
+  From the dawn of the day to the dusk he toiled,
+  Shaping fanciful playthings, with tireless hands,--
+  Useless trumpery toys; and, with vaulting heart,
+  Gave them unto all peoples, who mocked at him,
+  Trampled on them, and soiled them, and went their way.
+
+  Then he toiled from the morn to the dusk again,
+  Gave his gimcracks to peoples who mocked at him,
+  Trampled on them, deriding, and went their way.
+
+  Thus he labors, and loudly they jeer at him;--
+  That is, when they remember he still exists.
+
+  _Who_, you ask, _is this fellow_?--What matter names?
+  He is only a scribbler who is content.
+
+  FELIX KENNASTON.--The Toy-Maker.
+
+
+
+
+AUCTORIAL INDUCTION
+
+
+WHICH (AFTER SOME BRIEF DISCOURSE OF FIRES AND FRYING-PANS) ELUCIDATES
+THE INEXPEDIENCY OF PUBLISHING THIS BOOK, AS WELL AS THE NECESSITY OF
+WRITING IT:  AND THENCE PASSES TO A MODEST DEFENSE OF MORE VITAL THEMES.
+
+The desire to write perfectly of beautiful happenings is, as the saying
+runs, old as the hills--and as immortal.  Questionless, there was many
+a serviceable brick wasted in Nineveh because finicky persons must
+needs be deleting here and there a phrase in favor of its cuneatic
+synonym; and it is not improbable that when the outworn sun expires in
+clinkers its final ray will gild such zealots tinkering with their
+"style." Some few there must be in every age and every land of whom
+life claims nothing very insistently save that they write perfectly of
+beautiful happenings.
+
+Yet, that the work of a man of letters is almost always a congenial
+product of his day and environment, is a contention as lacking in
+novelty as it is in the need of any upholding here.  Nor is the
+rationality of that axiom far to seek; for a man of genuine literary
+genius, since he possesses a temperament whose susceptibilities are of
+wider area than those of any other, is inevitably of all people the one
+most variously affected by his surroundings.  And it is he, in
+consequence, who of all people most faithfully and compactly exhibits
+the impress of his times and his times' tendencies, not merely in his
+writings--where it conceivably might be just predetermined
+affectation--but in his personality.
+
+Such being the assumption upon which this volume is builded, it appears
+only equitable for the architect frankly to indicate his cornerstone.
+Hereinafter you have an attempt to depict a special temperament--one in
+essence "literary"--as very variously molded by diverse eras and as
+responding in proportion with its ability to the demands of a certain
+hour.
+
+In proportion with its ability, be it repeated, since its ability is
+singularly hampered.  For, apart from any ticklish temporal
+considerations, be it remembered, life is always claiming of this
+temperament's possessor that he write perfectly of beautiful happenings.
+
+To disregard this vital longing, and flatly to stifle the innate
+striving toward artistic creation, is to become (as with Wycherley and
+Sheridan) a man who waives, however laughingly, his sole apology for
+existence.  The proceeding is paltry enough, in all conscience; and
+yet, upon the other side, there is much positive danger in giving to
+the instinct a loose rein.  For in that event the familiar
+circumstances of sedate and wholesome living cannot but seem, like
+paintings viewed too near, to lose in gusto and winsomeness.  Desire,
+perhaps a craving hunger, awakens for the impossible.  No emotion,
+whatever be its sincerity, is endured without a side-glance toward its
+capabilities for being written about.  The world, in short, inclines to
+appear an ill-lit mine, wherein one quarries gingerly amidst an abiding
+loneliness (as with Pope and Ufford and Sire Raimbaut)--and wherein one
+very often is allured into unsavory alleys (as with Herrick and
+Alessandro de Medici)--in search of that raw material which loving
+labor will transshape into comeliness.
+
+Such, if it be allowed to shift the metaphor, are the treacherous
+by-paths of that admirably policed highway whereon the well-groomed and
+well-bitted Pegasi of Vanderhoffen and Charteris (in his later manner)
+trot stolidly and safely toward oblivion.  And the result of wandering
+afield is of necessity a tragedy, in that the deviator's life, if not
+as an artist's quite certainly as a human being's, must in the outcome
+be adjudged a failure.
+
+Hereinafter, then, you have an attempt to depict a special
+temperament--one in essence "literary"--as very variously molded by
+diverse eras and as responding in proportion with its ability to the
+demands of a certain hour.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+And this much said, it is permissible to hope, at least, that here and
+there some reader may be found not wholly blind to this book's goal,
+whatever be his opinion as to this book's success in reaching it.  Yet
+many honest souls there be among us average-novel-readers in whose eyes
+this volume must rest content to figure as a collection of short
+stories having naught in common beyond the feature that each deals with
+the _affaires du coeur_ of a poet.
+
+Such must always be the book's interpretation by mental indolence.  The
+fact is incontestable; and this fact in itself may be taken as
+sufficient to establish the inexpediency of publishing _The Certain
+Hour_.  For that "people will not buy a volume of short stories" is
+notorious to all publishers.  To offset the axiom there are no doubt
+incongruous phenomena--ranging from the continued popularity of the
+Bible to the present general esteem of Mr. Kipling, and embracing the
+rather unaccountable vogue of "O. Henry";--but, none the less, the
+superstition has its force.
+
+Here intervenes the multifariousness of man, pointed out somewhere by
+Mr. Gilbert Chesterton, which enables the individual to be at once a
+vegetarian, a golfer, a vestryman, a blond, a mammal, a Democrat, and
+an immortal spirit.  As a rational person, one may debonairly consider
+_The Certain Hour_ possesses as large license to look like a volume of
+short stories as, say, a backgammon-board has to its customary guise of
+a two-volume history; but as an average-novel-reader, one must vote
+otherwise.  As an average-novel-reader, one must condemn the very book
+which, as a seasoned scribbler, one was moved to write through long
+consideration of the drama already suggested--that immemorial drama of
+the desire to write perfectly of beautiful happenings, and the obscure
+martyrdom to which this desire solicits its possessor.
+
+Now, clearly, the struggle of a special temperament with a fixed force
+does not forthwith begin another story when the locale of combat
+shifts.  The case is, rather, as when--with certainly an intervening
+change of apparel--Pompey fights Caesar at both Dyrrachium and
+Pharsalus, or as when General Grant successively encounters General Lee
+at the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor and Appomattox.  The
+combatants remain unchanged, the question at issue is the same, the
+tragedy has continuity.  And even so, from the time of Sire Raimbaut to
+that of John Charteris has a special temperament heart-hungrily
+confronted an ageless problem: at what cost now, in this fleet hour of
+my vigor, may one write perfectly of beautiful happenings?
+
+
+Thus logic urges, with pathetic futility, inasmuch as we
+average-novel-readers are profoundly indifferent to both logic and good
+writing.  And always the fact remains that to the mentally indolent
+this book may well seem a volume of disconnected short stories.  All of
+us being more or less mentally indolent, this possibility constitutes a
+dire fault.
+
+Three other damning objections will readily obtrude themselves:  _The
+Certain Hour_ deals with past epochs--beginning before the introduction
+of dinner-forks, and ending at that remote quaint period when people
+used to waltz and two-step--dead eras in which we average-novel-readers
+are not interested; _The Certain Hour_ assumes an appreciable amount of
+culture and information on its purchaser's part, which we
+average-novel-readers either lack or, else, are unaccustomed to employ
+in connection with reading for pastime; and--in our eyes the crowning
+misdemeanor--_The Certain Hour_ is not "vital."
+
+Having thus candidly confessed these faults committed as the writer of
+this book, it is still possible in human multifariousness to consider
+their enormity, not merely in this book, but in fictional
+reading-matter at large, as viewed by an average-novel-reader--by a
+representative of that potent class whose preferences dictate the
+nature and main trend of modern American literature.  And to do this,
+it may be, throws no unsalutary sidelight upon the still-existent
+problem: at what cost, now, may one attempt to write perfectly of
+beautiful happenings?
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+Indisputably the most striking defect of this modern American
+literature is the fact that the production of anything at all
+resembling literature is scarcely anywhere apparent.  Innumerable
+printing-presses, instead, are turning out a vast quantity of
+reading-matter, the candidly recognized purpose of which is to kill
+time, and which--it has been asserted, though perhaps too
+sweepingly--ought not to be vended over book-counters, but rather in
+drugstores along with the other narcotics.
+
+It is begging the question to protest that the class of people who a
+generation ago read nothing now at least read novels, and to regard
+this as a change for the better.  By similar logic it would be more
+wholesome to breakfast off laudanum than to omit the meal entirely.
+The nineteenth century, in fact, by making education popular, has
+produced in America the curious spectacle of a reading-public with
+essentially nonliterary tastes.  Formerly, better books were published,
+because they were intended for persons who turned to reading through a
+natural bent of mind; whereas the modern American novel of commerce is
+addressed to us average people who read, when we read at all, in
+violation of every innate instinct.
+
+Such grounds as yet exist for hopefulness on the part of those who
+cordially care for _belles lettres_ are to be found elsewhere than in
+the crowded market-places of fiction, where genuine intelligence
+panders on all sides to ignorance and indolence.  The phrase may seem
+to have no very civil ring; but reflection will assure the fair-minded
+that two indispensable requisites nowadays of a pecuniarily successful
+novel are, really, that it make no demand upon the reader's
+imagination, and that it rigorously refrain from assuming its reader to
+possess any particular information on any subject whatever.  The author
+who writes over the head of the public is the most dangerous enemy of
+his publisher--and the most insidious as well, because so many
+publishers are in private life interested in literary matters, and
+would readily permit this personal foible to influence the exercise of
+their vocation were it possible to do so upon the preferable side of
+bankruptcy.
+
+But publishers, among innumerable other conditions, must weigh the fact
+that no novel which does not deal with modern times is ever really
+popular among the serious-minded.  It is difficult to imagine a tale
+whose action developed under the rule of the Caesars or the
+Merovingians being treated as more than a literary _hors d'oeuvre_.  We
+purchasers of "vital" novels know nothing about the period, beyond a
+hazy association of it with the restrictions of the schoolroom; our
+sluggish imaginations instinctively rebel against the exertion of
+forming any notion of such a period; and all the human nature that
+exists even in serious-minded persons is stirred up to resentment
+against the book's author for presuming to know more than a potential
+patron.  The book, in fine, simply irritates the serious-minded person;
+and she--for it is only women who willingly brave the terrors of
+department-stores, where most of our new books are bought
+nowadays--quite naturally puts it aside in favor of some keen and
+daring study of American life that is warranted to grip the reader.
+So, modernity of scene is everywhere necessitated as an essential
+qualification for a book's discussion at the literary evenings of the
+local woman's club; and modernity of scene, of course, is almost always
+fatal to the permanent worth of fictitious narrative.
+
+It may seem banal here to recall the truism that first-class art never
+reproduces its surroundings; but such banality is often justified by
+our human proneness to shuffle over the fact that many truisms are
+true.  And this one is pre-eminently indisputable: that what mankind
+has generally agreed to accept as first-class art in any of the varied
+forms of fictitious narrative has never been a truthful reproduction of
+the artist's era.  Indeed, in the higher walks of fiction art has never
+reproduced anything, but has always dealt with the facts and laws of
+life as so much crude material which must be transmuted into
+comeliness.  When Shakespeare pronounced his celebrated dictum about
+art's holding the mirror up to nature, he was no doubt alluding to the
+circumstance that a mirror reverses everything which it reflects.
+
+Nourishment for much wildish speculation, in fact, can be got by
+considering what the world's literature would be, had its authors
+restricted themselves, as do we Americans so sedulously--and
+unavoidably--to writing of contemporaneous happenings.  In
+fiction-making no author of the first class since Homer's infancy has
+ever in his happier efforts concerned himself at all with the great
+"problems" of his particular day; and among geniuses of the second rank
+you will find such ephemeralities adroitly utilized only when they are
+distorted into enduring parodies of their actual selves by the broad
+humor of a Dickens or the colossal fantasy of a Balzac.  In such cases
+as the latter two writers, however, we have an otherwise competent
+artist handicapped by a personality so marked that, whatever he may
+nominally write about, the result is, above all else, an exposure of
+the writer's idiosyncrasies.  Then, too, the laws of any locale wherein
+Mr. Pickwick achieves a competence in business, or of a society wherein
+Vautrin becomes chief of police, are upon the face of it extra-mundane.
+It suffices that, as a general rule, in fiction-making the true artist
+finds an ample, if restricted, field wherein the proper functions of
+the preacher, or the ventriloquist, or the photographer, or of the
+public prosecutor, are exercised with equal lack of grace.
+
+Besides, in dealing with contemporary life a novelist is goaded into
+too many pusillanimous concessions to plausibility.  He no longer moves
+with the gait of omnipotence.  It was very different in the palmy days
+when Dumas was free to play at ducks and drakes with history, and
+Victor Hugo to reconstruct the whole system of English government, and
+Scott to compel the sun to set in the east, whenever such minor changes
+caused to flow more smoothly the progress of the tale these giants had
+in hand.  These freedoms are not tolerated in American noveldom, and
+only a few futile "high-brows" sigh in vain for Thackeray's "happy
+harmless Fableland, where these things are."  The majority of us are
+deep in "vital" novels.  Nor is the reason far to seek.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+One hears a great deal nowadays concerning "vital" books.  Their
+authors have been widely praised on very various grounds.  Oddly
+enough, however, the writers of these books have rarely been commended
+for the really praiseworthy charity evinced therein toward that large
+long-suffering class loosely describable as the average-novel-reader.
+
+Yet, in connection with this fact, it is worthy of more than passing
+note that no great while ago the _New York Times'_ carefully selected
+committee, in picking out the hundred best books published during a
+particular year, declared as to novels--"a 'best' book, in our opinion,
+is one that raises an important question, or recurs to a vital theme
+and pronounces upon it what in some sense is a last word."  Now this
+definition is not likely ever to receive more praise than it deserves.
+Cavilers may, of course, complain that actually to write the last word
+on any subject is a feat reserved for the Recording Angel's unique
+performance on judgment Day.  Even setting that objection aside, it is
+undeniable that no work of fiction published of late in America
+corresponds quite so accurately to the terms of this definition as do
+the multiplication tables.  Yet the multiplication tables are not
+without their claims to applause as examples of straightforward
+narrative.  It is, also, at least permissible to consider that therein
+the numeral five, say, where it figures as protagonist, unfolds under
+the stress of its varying adventures as opulent a development of real
+human nature as does, through similar ups-and-downs, the Reverend John
+Hodder in _The Inside of the Cup_.  It is equally allowable to find the
+less simple evolution of the digit seven more sympathetic, upon the
+whole, than those of Undine Spragg in _The Custom of the Country_.
+But, even so, this definition of what may now, authoritatively, be
+ranked as a "best novel" is an honest and noteworthy severance from
+misleading literary associations such as have too long befogged our
+notions about reading-matter.  It points with emphasis toward the
+altruistic obligations of tale-tellers to be "vital."
+
+For we average-novel-readers--we average people, in a word--are now, as
+always, rather pathetically hungry for "vital" themes, such themes as
+appeal directly to our everyday observation and prejudices.  Did the
+decision rest with us all novelists would be put under bond to confine
+themselves forevermore to themes like these.
+
+As touches the appeal to everyday observation, it is an old story, at
+least coeval with Mr. Crummles' not uncelebrated pumps and tubs, if not
+with the grapes of Zeuxis, how unfailingly in art we delight to
+recognize the familiar.  A novel whose scene of action is explicit will
+always interest the people of that locality, whatever the book's other
+pretensions to consideration.  Given simultaneously a photograph of
+Murillo's rendering of _The Virgin Crowned Queen of Heaven_ and a
+photograph of a governor's installation in our State capital, there is
+no one of us but will quite naturally look at the latter first, in
+order to see if in it some familiar countenance be recognizable.  And
+thus, upon a larger scale, the twentieth century is, pre-eminently,
+interested in the twentieth century.
+
+It is all very well to describe our average-novel-readers' dislike of
+Romanticism as "the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a
+glass." It is even within the scope of human dunderheadedness again to
+point out here that the supreme artists in literature have precisely
+this in common, and this alone, that in their masterworks they have
+avoided the "vital" themes of their day with such circumspection as
+lesser folk reserve for the smallpox.  The answer, of course, in either
+case, is that the "vital" novel, the novel which peculiarly appeals to
+us average-novel-readers, has nothing to do with literature.  There is
+between these two no more intelligent connection than links the paint
+Mr. Sargent puts on canvas and the paint Mr. Dockstader puts on his
+face.
+
+Literature is made up of the re-readable books, the books which it is
+possible--for the people so constituted as to care for that sort of
+thing--to read again and yet again with pleasure.  Therefore, in
+literature a book's subject is of astonishingly minor importance, and
+its style nearly everything: whereas in books intended to be read for
+pastime, and forthwith to be consigned at random to the wastebasket or
+to the inmates of some charitable institute, the theme is of paramount
+importance, and ought to be a serious one.  The modern novelist owes it
+to his public to select a "vital" theme which in itself will fix the
+reader's attention by reason of its familiarity in the reader's
+everyday life.
+
+Thus, a lady with whose more candid opinions the writer of this is more
+frequently favored nowadays than of old, formerly confessed to having
+only one set rule when it came to investment in new
+reading-matter--always to buy the Williamsons' last book.  Her reason
+was the perfectly sensible one that the Williamsons' plots used
+invariably to pivot upon motor-trips, and she is an ardent
+automobilist.  Since, as of late, the Williamsons have seen fit to
+exercise their typewriter upon other topics, they have as a matter of
+course lost her patronage.
+
+This principle of selection, when you come to appraise it sanely, is
+the sole intelligent method of dealing with reading-matter.  It seems
+here expedient again to state the peculiar problem that we
+average-novel-readers have of necessity set the modern
+novelist--namely, that his books must in the main appeal to people who
+read for pastime, to people who read books only under protest and only
+when they have no other employment for that particular half-hour.
+
+Now, reading for pastime is immensely simplified when the book's theme
+is some familiar matter of the reader's workaday life, because at
+outset the reader is spared considerable mental effort.  The motorist
+above referred to, and indeed any average-novel-reader, can without
+exertion conceive of the Williamsons' people in their automobiles.
+Contrariwise, were these fictitious characters embarked in palankeens
+or droshkies or jinrikishas, more or less intellectual exercise would
+be necessitated on the reader's part to form a notion of the
+conveyance.  And we average-novel-readers do not open a book with the
+intention of making a mental effort.  The author has no right to expect
+of us an act so unhabitual, we very poignantly feel.  Our prejudices he
+is freely chartered to stir up--if, lucky rogue, he can!--but he ought
+with deliberation to recognize that it is precisely in order to avoid
+mental effort that we purchase, or borrow, his book, and afterward
+discuss it.
+
+Hence arises our heartfelt gratitude toward such novels as deal with
+"vital" themes, with the questions we average-novel-readers confront or
+make talk about in those happier hours of our existence wherein we are
+not reduced to reading.  Thus, a tale, for example, dealing either with
+"feminism" or "white slavery" as the handiest makeshift of
+spinsterdom--or with the divorce habit and plutocratic iniquity in
+general, or with the probable benefits of converting clergymen to
+Christianity, or with how much more than she knows a desirable mother
+will tell her children--finds the book's tentative explorer, just now,
+amply equipped with prejudices, whether acquired by second thought or
+second hand, concerning the book's topic.  As endurability goes,
+reading the book rises forthwith almost to the level of an
+afternoon-call where there is gossip about the neighbors and Germany's
+future.  We average-novel-readers may not, in either case, agree with
+the opinions advanced; but at least our prejudices are aroused, and we
+are interested.
+
+And these "vital" themes awake our prejudices at the cost of a
+minimum--if not always, as when Miss Corelli guides us, with a
+positively negligible--tasking of our mental faculties.  For such
+exemption we average-novel-readers cannot  but be properly grateful.
+Nay, more than this: provided the novelist contrive to rouse our
+prejudices, it matters with us not at all whether afterward they be
+soothed or harrowed.  To implicate our prejudices somehow, to raise in
+us a partizanship in the tale's progress, is our sole request.  Whether
+this consummation be brought about through an arraignment of some
+social condition which we personally either advocate or reprehend--the
+attitude weighs little--or whether this interest be purchased with
+placidly driveling preachments of generally "uplifting"
+tendencies--vaguely titillating that vague intention which exists in us
+all of becoming immaculate as soon as it is perfectly convenient--the
+personal prejudices of us average-novel-readers are not lightly lulled
+again to sleep.
+
+In fact, the jealousy of any human prejudice against hinted
+encroachment may safely be depended upon to spur us through an
+astonishing number of pages--for all that it has of late been
+complained among us, with some show of extenuation, that our original
+intent in beginning certain of the recent "vital" novels was to kill
+time, rather than eternity.  And so, we average-novel-readers plod on
+jealously to the end, whether we advance (to cite examples already
+somewhat of yesterday) under the leadership of Mr. Upton Sinclair
+aspersing the integrity of modern sausages and millionaires, or of Mr.
+Hall Caine saying about Roman Catholics what ordinary people would
+hesitate to impute to their relatives by marriage--or whether we be
+more suavely allured onward by Mrs. Florence Barclay, or Mr. Sydnor
+Harrison, with ingenuous indorsements of the New Testament and the
+inherent womanliness of women.
+
+The "vital" theme, then, let it be repeated, has two inestimable
+advantages which should commend it to all novelists: first, it spares
+us average-novel-readers any preliminary orientation, and thereby
+mitigates the mental exertion of reading; and secondly, it appeals to
+our prejudices, which we naturally prefer to exercise, and are
+accustomed to exercise, rather than our mental or idealistic faculties.
+The novelist who conscientiously bears these two facts in mind is
+reasonably sure of his reward, not merely in pecuniary form, but in
+those higher fields wherein he harvests his chosen public's honest
+gratitude and affection.
+
+For we average-novel-readers are quite frequently reduced by
+circumstances to self-entrustment to the resources of the novelist, as
+to those of the dentist.  Our latter-day conditions, as we cannot but
+recognize, necessitate the employment of both artists upon occasion.
+And with both, we average-novel-readers, we average people, are most
+grateful when they make the process of resorting to them as easy and
+unirritating as may be possible.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+So much for the plea of us average-novel-readers; and our plea, we
+think, is rational.  We are "in the market" for a specified article;
+and human ingenuity, co-operating with human nature, will inevitably
+insure the manufacture of that article as long as any general demand
+for it endures.
+
+Meanwhile, it is small cause for grief that the purchaser of American
+novels prefers Central Park to any "wood near Athens," and is more at
+home in the Tenderloin than in Camelot.  People whose tastes happen to
+be literary are entirely too prone to too much long-faced prattle about
+literature, which, when all is said, is never a controlling factor in
+anybody's life.  The automobile and the telephone, the accomplishments
+of Mr. Edison and Mr. Burbank, and it would be permissible to add of
+Mr. Rockefeller, influence nowadays, in one fashion or another, every
+moment of every living American's existence; whereas had America
+produced, instead, a second Milton or a Dante, it would at most have
+caused a few of us to spend a few spare evenings rather differently.
+
+Besides, we know--even we average-novel-readers--that America is in
+fact producing her enduring literature day by day, although, as rarely
+fails to be the case, those who are contemporaneous with the makers of
+this literature cannot with any certainty point them out.  To voice a
+hoary truism, time alone is the test of "vitality."  In our present
+flood of books, as in any other flood, it is the froth and scum which
+shows most prominently.  And the possession of "vitality," here as
+elsewhere, postulates that its possessor must ultimately perish.
+
+Nay, by the time these printed pages are first read as printed pages,
+allusion to those modern authors whom these pages cite--the pre-eminent
+literary personages of that hour wherein these pages were written--will
+inevitably have come to savor somewhat of antiquity: so that sundry
+references herein to the "vital" books now most in vogue will rouse
+much that vague shrugging recollection as wakens, say, at a mention of
+_Dorothy Vernon_ or _Three Weeks_ or _Beverly of Graustark_.  And while
+at first glance it might seem expedient--in revising the last
+proof-sheets of these pages--somewhat to "freshen them up" by
+substituting, for the books herein referred to, the "vital" and more
+widely talked-of novels of the summer of 1916, the task would be but
+wasted labor; since even these fascinating chronicles, one comprehends
+forlornly, must needs be equally obsolete by the time these
+proof-sheets have been made into a volume.  With malice aforethought,
+therefore, the books and authors named herein stay those which all of
+three years back our reviewers and advertising pages, with perfect
+gravity, acclaimed as of enduring importance.  For the quaintness of
+that opinion, nowadays, may profitably round the moral that there is
+really nothing whereto one may fittingly compare a successful
+contribution to "vital" reading-matter, as touches evanescence.
+
+And this is as it should be.  _Tout passe.--L'art robust seul a
+l'eternite_, precisely as Gautier points out, with bracing
+common-sense; and it is excellent thus to comprehend that to-day, as
+always, only through exercise of the auctorial virtues of distinction
+and clarity, of beauty and symmetry, of tenderness and truth and
+urbanity, may a man in reason attempt to insure his books against
+oblivion's voracity.
+
+Yet the desire to write perfectly of beautiful happenings is, as the
+saying runs, old as the hills--and as immortal.  Questionless, there
+was many a serviceable brick wasted in Nineveh because finicky persons
+must needs be deleting here and there a phrase in favor of its cuneatic
+synonym; and it is not improbable that when the outworn sun expires in
+clinkers its final ray will gild such zealots tinkering with their
+"style."  This, then, is the conclusion of the whole matter.  Some few
+there must be in every age and every land of whom life claims nothing
+very insistently save that they write perfectly of beautiful
+happenings.  And even we average-novel-readers know it is such folk who
+are to-day making in America that portion of our literature which may
+hope for permanency.
+
+Dumbarton Grange
+  1914-1916
+
+
+
+
+BELHS CAVALIERS
+
+
+"_For this RAIMBAUT DE VAQUIERAS lived at a time when prolonged habits
+of extra-mundane contemplation, combined with the decay of real
+knowledge, were apt to volatilize the thoughts and aspirations of the
+best and wisest into dreamy unrealities, and to lend a false air of
+mysticism to love. . . .  It is as if the intellect and the will had
+become used to moving paralytically among visions, dreams, and mystic
+terrors, weighed down with torpor._"
+
+
+  Fair friend, since that hour I took leave of thee
+  I have not slept nor stirred from off my knee,
+  But prayed alway to God, S. Mary's Son,
+  To give me back my true companion;
+      And soon it will be Dawn.
+
+  Fair friend, at parting, thy behest to me
+  Was that all sloth I should eschew and flee,
+  And keep good Watch until the Night was done:
+  Now must my Song and Service pass for none?
+      For soon it will be Dawn.
+
+  RAIMBAUT DE VAQUIERAS.--_Aubade, from F. York Powell's version_.
+
+
+
+
+BELHS CAVALIERS
+
+
+You may read elsewhere of the long feud that was between Guillaume de
+Baux, afterward Prince of Orange, and his kinsman Raimbaut de
+Vaquieras.  They were not reconciled until their youth was dead.  Then,
+when Messire Raimbaut returned from battling against the Turks and the
+Bulgarians, in the 1,210th year from man's salvation, the Archbishop of
+Rheims made peace between the two cousins; and, attended by Makrisi, a
+converted Saracen who had followed the knight's fortunes for well nigh
+a quarter of a century, the Sire de Vaquieras rode homeward.
+
+Many slain men were scattered along the highway when he came again into
+Venaissin, in April, after an absence of thirty years.  The crows whom
+his passing disturbed were too sluggish for long flights and many of
+them did not heed him at all.  Guillaume de Baux was now undisputed
+master of these parts, although, as this host of mute, hacked and
+partially devoured witnesses attested, the contest had been dubious for
+a while: but now Lovain of the Great-Tooth, Prince Guillaume's last
+competitor, was captured; the forces of Lovain were scattered; and of
+Lovain's lieutenants only Mahi de Vernoil was unsubdued.
+
+Prince Guillaume laughed a little when he told his kinsman of the
+posture of affairs, as more loudly did Guillaume's gross son, Sire
+Philibert.  But Madona Biatritz did not laugh.  She was the widow of
+Guillaume's dead brother--Prince Conrat, whom Guillaume succeeded--and
+it was in her honor that Raimbaut had made those songs which won him
+eminence as a practitioner of the Gay Science.
+
+Biatritz said, "It is a long while since we two met."
+
+He that had been her lover all his life said, "Yes."
+
+She was no longer the most beautiful of women, no longer his be-hymned
+Belhs Cavaliers--you may read elsewhere how he came to call her that in
+all his canzons--but only a fine and gracious stranger.  It was
+uniformly gray, that soft and plentiful hair, where once such gold had
+flamed as dizzied him to think of even now; there was no crimson in
+these thinner lips; and candor would have found her eyes less wonderful
+than those Raimbaut had dreamed of very often among an alien and
+hostile people.  But he lamented nothing, and to him she was as ever
+Heaven's most splendid miracle.
+
+"Yes," said this old Raimbaut,--"and even to-day we have not reclaimed
+the Sepulcher as yet.  Oh, I doubt if we shall ever win it, now that
+your brother and my most dear lord is dead."  Both thought a while of
+Boniface de Montferrat, their playmate once, who yesterday was King of
+Thessalonica and now was so much Macedonian dust.
+
+She said:  "This week the Prince sent envoys to my nephew. . . .  And
+so you have come home again----"  Color had surged into her time-worn
+face, and as she thought of things done long ago this woman's eyes were
+like the eyes of his young Biatritz.  She said: "You never married?"
+
+He answered:  "No, I have left love alone.  For Love prefers to take
+rather than to give; against a single happy hour he balances a hundred
+miseries, and he appraises one pleasure to be worth a thousand pangs.
+Pardieu, let this immortal usurer contrive as may seem well to him, for
+I desire no more of his bounty or of his penalties."
+
+"No, we wish earnestly for nothing, either good or bad," said Dona
+Biatritz--"we who have done with loving."
+
+They sat in silence, musing over ancient happenings, and not looking at
+each other, until the Prince came with his guests, who seemed to laugh
+too heartily.
+
+Guillaume's frail arm was about his kinsman, and Guillaume chuckled
+over jests and by-words that had been between the cousins as children.
+Raimbaut found them no food for laughter now.  Guillaume told all of
+Raimbaut's oath of fealty, and of how these two were friends and their
+unnatural feud was forgotten.  "For we grow old,--eh, maker of songs?"
+he said; "and it is time we made our peace with Heaven, since we are
+not long for this world."
+
+"Yes," said the knight; "oh yes, we both grow old."  He thought of
+another April evening, so long ago, when this Guillaume de Baux had
+stabbed him in a hedged field near Calais, and had left him under a
+hawthorn bush for dead; and Raimbaut wondered that there was no anger
+in his heart.  "We are friends now," he said.  Biatritz, whom these two
+had loved, and whose vanished beauty had been the spur of their long
+enmity, sat close to them, and hardly seemed to listen.
+
+Thus the evening passed and every one was merry, because the Prince had
+overcome Lovain of the Great-Tooth, and was to punish the upstart on
+the morrow.  But Raimbaut de Vaquieras, a spent fellow, a derelict,
+barren of aim now that the Holy Wars were over, sat in this unfamiliar
+place--where when he was young he had laughed as a cock crows!--and
+thought how at the last he had crept home to die as a dependent on his
+cousin's bounty.
+
+Thus the evening passed, and at its end Makrisi followed the troubadour
+to his regranted fief of Vaquieras.  This was a chill and brilliant
+night, swayed by a frozen moon so powerful that no stars showed in the
+unclouded heavens, and everywhere the bogs were curdled with thin ice.
+An obdurate wind swept like a knife-blade across a world which even in
+its spring seemed very old.
+
+"This night is bleak and evil," Makrisi said.  He rode a coffin's
+length behind his master.  "It is like Prince Guillaume, I think.  What
+man will sorrow when dawn comes?"
+
+Raimbaut de Vaquieras replied:  "Always dawn comes at last, Makrisi."
+
+"It comes the more quickly, messire, when it is prompted."
+
+The troubadour only smiled at words which seemed so meaningless.  He
+did not smile when later in the night Makrisi brought Mahi de Vernoil,
+disguised as a mendicant friar.  This outlaw pleaded with Sire Raimbaut
+to head the tatters of Lovain's army, and showed Raimbaut how easy it
+would be to wrest Venaissin from Prince Guillaume.  "We cannot save
+Lovain," de Vemoil said, "for Guillaume has him fast.  But Venaissin is
+very proud of you, my tres beau sire.  Ho, maker of world-famous songs!
+stout champion of the faith! my men and I will now make you Prince of
+Orange in place of the fiend who rules us.  You may then at your
+convenience wed Madona Biatritz, that most amiable lady whom you have
+loved so long.  And by the Cross! you may do this before the week is
+out."
+
+The old knight answered:  "It is true that I have always served Madona
+Biatritz, who is of matchless worth.  I might not, therefore, presume
+to call myself any longer her servant were my honor stained in any
+particular.  Oh no, Messire de Vernoil, an oath is an oath.  I have
+this day sworn fealty to Guillaume de Baux."
+
+Then after other talk Raimbaut dismissed the fierce-eyed little man.
+The freebooter growled curses as he went.  On a sudden he whistled,
+like a person considering, and he began to chuckle.
+
+Raimbaut said, more lately:  "Zoraida left no wholesome legacy in you,
+Makrisi."  This Zoraida was a woman the knight had known in
+Constantinople--a comely outlander who had killed herself because of
+Sire Raimbaut's highflown avoidance of all womankind except the
+mistress of his youth.
+
+"Nay, save only in loving you too well, messire, was Zoraida a wise
+woman, notably. . . .  But this is outworn talk, the prattle of Cain's
+babyhood.  As matters were, you did not love Zoraida.  So Zoraida died.
+Such is the custom in my country."
+
+"You trouble me, Makrisi.  Your eyes are like blown coals. . . .  Yet
+you have served me long and faithfully.  You know that mine was ever
+the vocation of dealing honorably in battle among emperors, and of
+spreading broadcast the rumor of my valor, and of achieving good by my
+sword's labors.  I have lived by warfare.  Long, long ago, since I
+derived no benefit from love, I cried farewell to it."
+
+"Ay," said Makrisi.  "Love makes a demi-god of all--just for an hour.
+Such hours as follow we devote to the concoction of sleeping-draughts."
+He laughed, and very harshly.
+
+And Raimbaut did not sleep that night because this life of ours seemed
+such a piece of tangle-work as he had not the skill to unravel.  So he
+devoted the wakeful hours to composition of a planh, lamenting vanished
+youth and that Biatritz whom the years had stolen.
+
+Then on the ensuing morning, after some talk about the new campaign,
+Prince Guillaume de Baux leaned back in his high chair and said,
+abruptly:
+
+"In perfect candor, you puzzle your liege-lord.  For you loathe me and
+you still worship my sister-in-law, an unattainable princess.  In these
+two particulars you display such wisdom as would inevitably prompt you
+to make an end of me.  Yet, what the devil! you, the time-battered
+vagabond, decline happiness and a kingdom to boot because of
+yesterday's mummery in the cathedral! because of a mere promise given!
+Yes, I have my spies in every rat-hole.  I am aware that my barons hate
+me, and hate Philibert almost as bitterly,--and that, in fine, a
+majority of my barons would prefer to see you Prince in my unstable
+place, on account of your praiseworthy molestations of heathenry.  Oh,
+yes, I understand my barons perfectly.  I flatter myself I understand
+everybody in Venaissin save you."
+
+Raimbaut answered: "You and I are not alike."
+
+"No, praise each and every Saint!" said the Prince of Orange, heartily.
+"And yet, I am not sure----"  He rose, for his sight had failed him so
+that he could not distinctly see you except when he spoke with head
+thrown back, as though he looked at you over a wall.  "For instance, do
+you understand that I hold Biatritz here as a prisoner, because her
+dower-lands are necessary to me, and that I intend to marry her as soon
+as Pope Innocent grants me a dispensation?"
+
+"All Venaissin knows that.  Yes, you have always gained everything
+which you desired in this world, Guillaume.  Yet it was at a price, I
+think."
+
+"I am no haggler. . . . But you have never comprehended me, not even in
+the old days when we loved each other.  For instance, do you
+understand--slave of a spoken word!--what it must mean to me to know
+that at this hour to-morrow there will be alive in Venaissin no person
+whom I hate?"
+
+Messire de Vaquieras reflected.  His was never a rapid mind.  "Why, no,
+I do not know anything about hatred," he said, at last.  "I think I
+never hated any person."
+
+Guillaume de Baux gave a half-frantic gesture.  "Now, Heaven send you
+troubadours a clearer understanding of what sort of world we live
+in----!"  He broke off short and growled, "And yet--sometimes I envy
+you, Raimbaut!"
+
+They rode then into the Square of St. Michel to witness the death of
+Lovain.  Guillaume took with him his two new mistresses and all his
+by-blows, each magnificently clothed, as if they rode to a festival.
+Afterward, before the doors of Lovain's burning house, a rope was
+fastened under Lovain's armpits, and he was gently lowered into a pot
+of boiling oil.  His feet cooked first, and then the flesh of his legs,
+and so on upward, while Lovain screamed.  Guillaume in a loose robe of
+green powdered with innumerable silver crescents, sat watching, under a
+canopy woven very long ago in Tarshish, and cunningly embroidered with
+the figures of peacocks and apes and men with eagles' heads.  His hands
+caressed each other meditatively.
+
+
+It was on the afternoon of this day, the last of April, that Sire
+Raimbaut came upon Madona Biatritz about a strange employment in the
+Ladies' Court.  There was then a well in the midst of this enclosure,
+with a granite ledge around it carven with lilies; and upon this she
+leaned, looking down into the water.  In her lap was a rope of pearls,
+which one by one she unthreaded and dropped into the well.
+
+Clear and warm the weather was.  Without, forests were quickening,
+branch by branch, as though a green flame smoldered from one bough to
+another.  Violets peeped about the roots of trees, and all the world
+was young again.  But here was only stone beneath their feet; and about
+them showed the high walls and the lead-sheathed towers and the
+parapets and the sunk windows of Guillaume's chateau.  There was no
+color anywhere save gray; and Raimbaut and Biatritz were aging people
+now.  It seemed to him that they were the wraiths of those persons who
+had loved each other at Montferrat; and that the walls about them and
+the leaden devils who grinned from every waterspout and all those dark
+and narrow windows were only part of some magic picture, such as a
+sorceress may momentarily summon out of smoke-wreaths, as he had seen
+Zoraida do very long ago.
+
+This woman might have been a wraith in verity, for she was clothed
+throughout in white, save for the ponderous gold girdle about her
+middle.  A white gorget framed the face which was so pinched and shrewd
+and strange; and she peered into the well, smiling craftily.
+
+"I was thinking death was like this well," said Biatritz, without any
+cessation of her singular employment--"so dark that we may see nothing
+clearly save one faint gleam which shows us, or which seems to show us,
+where rest is.  Yes, yes, this is that chaplet which you won in the
+tournament at Montferrat when we were young.  Pearls are the symbol of
+tears, we read.  But we had no time for reading then, no time for
+anything except to be quite happy. . . .  You saw this morning's work.
+Raimbaut, were Satan to go mad he would be such a fiend as this
+Guillaume de Baux who is our master!"
+
+"Ay, the man is as cruel as my old opponent, Mourzoufle," Sire Raimbaut
+answered, with a patient shrug.  "It is a great mystery why such
+persons should win all which they desire of this world.  We can but
+recognize that it is for some sufficient reason."  Then he talked with
+her concerning the aforementioned infamous emperor of the East, against
+whom the old knight had fought, and of Enrico Dandolo and of King
+Boniface, dead brother to Madona Biatritz, and of much remote,
+outlandish adventuring oversea.  Of Zoraida he did not speak.  And
+Biatritz, in turn, told him of that one child which she had borne her
+husband, Prince Conrat--a son who died in infancy; and she spoke of
+this dead baby, who living would have been their monarch, with a sweet
+quietude that wrung the old knight's heart.
+
+Thus these spent people sat and talked for a long while, the talk
+veering anywhither just as chance directed.  Blurred gusts of song and
+laughter would come to them at times from the hall where Guillaume de
+Baux drank with his courtiers, and these would break the tranquil flow
+of speech.  Then, unvexedly, the gentle voice of the speaker, were it
+his or hers, would resume.
+
+She said: "They laugh.  We are not merry."
+
+"No," he replied; "I am not often merry.  There was a time when love
+and its service kept me in continuous joy, as waters invest a fish.  I
+woke from a high dream. . . .  And then, but for the fear of seeming
+cowardly, I would have extinguished my life as men blow out a candle.
+Vanity preserved me, sheer vanity!"  He shrugged, spreading his hard
+lean hands.  "Belhs Cavaliers, I grudged my enemies the pleasure of
+seeing me forgetful of valor and noble enterprises.  And so, since
+then, I have served Heaven, in default of you."
+
+"I would not have it otherwise," she said, half as in wonder; "I would
+not have you be quite sane like other men.  And I believe," she
+added--still with her wise smile--"you have derived a deal of comfort,
+off and on, from being heart-broken."
+
+He replied gravely:  "A man may always, if he will but take the pains,
+be tolerably content and rise in worth, and yet dispense with love.  He
+has only to guard himself against baseness, and concentrate his powers
+on doing right.  Thus, therefore, when fortune failed me, I persisted
+in acting to the best of my ability.  Though I had lost my lands and my
+loved lady, I must hold fast to my own worth.  Without a lady and
+without acreage, it was yet in my power to live a cleanly and honorable
+life; and I did not wish to make two evils out of one."
+
+"Assuredly, I would not have you be quite sane like other men," she
+repeated.  "It would seem that you have somehow blundered through long
+years, preserving always the ignorance of a child, and the blindness of
+a child.  I cannot understand how this is possible; nor can I keep from
+smiling at your high-flown notions; and yet,--I envy you, Raimbaut."
+
+
+Thus the afternoon passed, and the rule of Prince Guillaume was made
+secure.  His supper was worthily appointed, for Guillaume loved color
+and music and beauty of every kind, and was on this, the day of his
+triumph, in a prodigal humor.  Many lackeys in scarlet brought in the
+first course, to the sound of exultant drums and pipes, with a blast of
+trumpets and a waving of banners, so that all hearts were uplifted, and
+Guillaume jested with harsh laughter.
+
+But Raimbaut de Vaquieras was not mirthful, for he was remembering a
+boy whom he had known of very long ago.  He was swayed by an odd fancy,
+as the men sat over their wine, and jongleurs sang and performed tricks
+for their diversion, that this boy, so frank and excellent, as yet
+existed somewhere; and that the Raimbaut who moved these shriveled
+hands before him, on the table there, was only a sad dream of what had
+never been.  It troubled him, too, to see how grossly these soldiers
+ate, for, as a person of refinement, an associate of monarchs, Sire
+Raimbaut when the dishes were passed picked up his meats between the
+index- and the middle-finger of his left hand, and esteemed it infamous
+manners to dip any other fingers into the gravy.
+
+Guillaume had left the Warriors' Hall.  Philibert was drunk, and half
+the men-at-arms were snoring among the rushes, when at the height of
+their festivity Makrisi came.  He plucked his master by the sleeve.
+
+A swarthy, bearded Angevin was singing.  His song was one of old Sire
+Raimbaut's famous canzons in honor of Belhs Cavaliers.  The knave was
+singing blithely:
+
+  _Pus mos Belhs Cavaliers grazitz_
+  _E joys m'es lunhatz e faiditz,_
+  _Don no m' venra jamais conortz;_
+  _Fer qu'ees mayer l'ira e plus fortz--_
+
+
+The Saracen had said nothing.  He showed a jeweled dagger, and the
+knight arose and followed him out of that uproarious hall.  Raimbaut
+was bitterly perturbed, though he did not know for what reason, as
+Makrisi led him through dark corridors to the dull-gleaming arras of
+Prince Guillaume's apartments.  In this corridor was an iron lamp swung
+from the ceiling, and now, as this lamp swayed slightly and burned low,
+the tiny flame leaped clear of the wick and was extinguished, and
+darkness rose about them.
+
+Raimbaut said: "What do you want of me?  Whose blood is on that knife?"
+
+"Have you forgotten it is Walburga's Eve?" Makrisi said.  Raimbaut did
+not regret he could not see his servant's countenance.  "Time was we
+named it otherwise and praised another woman than a Saxon wench, but
+let the new name stand.  It is Walburga's Eve, that little, little hour
+of evil! and all over the world surges the full tide of hell's desire,
+and mischief is a-making now, apace, apace, apace.  People moan in
+their sleep, and many pillows are pricked by needles that have sewed a
+shroud.  Cry _Eman hetan_ now, messire! for there are those to-night
+who find the big cathedrals of your red-roofed Christian towns no more
+imposing than so many pimples on a butler's chin, because they ride so
+high, so very high, in this brave moonlight.  Full-tide, full-tide!"
+Makrisi said, and his voice jangled like a bell as he drew aside the
+curtain so that the old knight saw into the room beyond.
+
+It was a place of many lights, which, when thus suddenly disclosed,
+blinded him at first.  Then Raimbaut perceived Guillaume lying a-sprawl
+across an oaken chest.  The Prince had fallen backward and lay in this
+posture, glaring at the intruders with horrible eyes which did not move
+and would not ever move again.  His breast was crimson, for some one
+had stabbed him.  A woman stood above the corpse and lighted yet
+another candle while Raimbaut de Vaquieras waited motionless.  A hand
+meant only to bestow caresses brushed a lock of hair from this woman's
+eyes while he waited.  The movements of this hand were not uncertain,
+but only quivered somewhat, as a taut wire shivers in the wind, while
+Raimbaut de Vaquieras waited motionless.
+
+"I must have lights, I must have a host of candles to assure me past
+any questioning that he is dead.  The man is of deep cunning.  I think
+he is not dead even now."  Lightly Biatritz touched the Prince's
+breast.  "Strange, that this wicked heart should be so tranquil when
+there is murder here to make it glad!  Nay, very certainly this
+Guillaume de Baux will rise and laugh in his old fashion before he
+speaks, and then I shall be afraid.  But I am not afraid as yet.  I am
+afraid of nothing save the dark, for one cannot be merry in the dark."
+
+Raimbaut said:  "This is Belhs Cavaliers whom I have loved my whole
+life through.  Therefore I do not doubt.  Pardieu, I do not even doubt,
+who know she is of matchless worth."
+
+"Wherein have I done wrong, Raimbaut?"  She came to him with fluttering
+hands.  "Why, but look you, the man had laid an ambuscade in the marsh
+and he meant to kill you there to-night as you rode for Vaquieras.  He
+told me of it, told me how it was for that end alone he lured you into
+Venaissin----"  Again she brushed the hair back from her forehead.
+"Raimbaut, I spoke of God and knightly honor, and the man laughed.  No,
+I think it was a fiend who sat so long beside the window yonder, whence
+one may see the marsh.  There were no candles in the room.  The
+moonlight was upon his evil face, and I could think of nothing, of
+nothing that has been since Adam's time, except our youth, Raimbaut.
+And he smiled fixedly, like a white image, because my misery amused
+him.  Only, when I tried to go to you to warn you, he leaped up
+stiffly, making a mewing noise.  He caught me by the throat so that I
+could not scream.  Then while we struggled in the moonlight your
+Makrisi came and stabbed him----"
+
+"Nay, I but fetched this knife, messire."  Makrisi seemed to love that
+bloodied knife.
+
+Biatritz proudly said: "The man lies, Raimbaut."
+
+"What need to tell me that, Belhs Cavaliers?"
+
+And the Saracen shrugged.  "It is very true I lie," he said.  "As among
+friends, I may confess I killed the Prince.  But for the rest, take
+notice both of you, I mean to lie intrepidly."
+
+Raimbaut remembered how his mother had given each of two lads an apple,
+and he had clamored for Guillaume's, as children do, and Guillaume had
+changed with him.  It was a trivial happening to remember after fifty
+years; but Guillaume was dead, and this hacked flesh was Raimbaut's
+flesh in part, and the thought of Raimbaut would never trouble
+Guillaume de Baux any more.  In addition there was a fire of juniper
+wood and frankincense upon the hearth, and the room smelt too cloyingly
+of be-drugging sweetness.  Then on the walls were tapestries which
+depicted Merlin's Dream, so that everywhere recoiling women smiled with
+bold eyes; and here their wantonness seemed out of place.
+
+"Listen," Makrisi was saying; "listen, for the hour strikes.  At last,
+at last!" he cried, with a shrill whine of malice.
+
+Raimbaut said, dully:  "Oh, I do not understand----"
+
+"And yet Zoraida loved you once! loved you as people love where I was
+born!"  The Saracen's voice had altered.  His speech was like the
+rustle of papers.  "You did not love Zoraida.  And so it came about
+that upon Walburga's Eve, at midnight, Zoraida hanged herself beside
+your doorway.  Thus we love where I was born. . . .  And I, I cut the
+rope--with my left hand.  I had my other arm about that frozen thing
+which yesterday had been Zoraida, you understand, so that it might not
+fall.  And in the act a tear dropped from that dead woman's cheek and
+wetted my forehead.  Ice is not so cold as was that tear. . . .  Ho,
+that tear did not fall upon my forehead but on my heart, because I
+loved that dancing-girl, Zoraida, as you do this princess here.  I
+think you will understand," Makrisi said, calmly as one who states a
+maxim.
+
+The Sire de Vaquieras replied, in the same tone: "I understand.  You
+have contrived my death?"
+
+"Ey, messire, would that be adequate?  I could have managed that any
+hour within the last score of years.  Oh no! for I have studied you
+carefully.  Oh no!  instead, I have contrived this plight.  For the
+Prince of Orange is manifestly murdered.  Who killed him?--why, Madona
+Biatritz, and none other, for I will swear to it.  I, I will swear to
+it, who saw it done.  Afterward both you and I must be questioned upon
+the rack, as possibly concerned in the affair, and whether innocent or
+guilty we must die very horribly.  Such is the gentle custom of your
+Christian country when a prince is murdered.  That is not the point of
+the jest, however.  For first Sire Philibert will put this woman to the
+Question by Water, until she confesses her confederates, until she
+confesses that every baron whom Philibert distrusts was one of them.
+Oh yes, assuredly they will thrust a hollow cane into the mouth of your
+Biatritz, and they will pour water a little by a little through this
+cane, until she confesses what they desire.  Ha, Philibert will see to
+this confession!  And through this woman's torment he will rid himself
+of every dangerous foe he has in Venaissin.  You must stand by and wait
+your turn.  You must stand by, in fetters, and see this done--you, you,
+my master!--you, who love this woman as I loved that dead Zoraida who
+was not fair enough to please you!"
+
+Raimbaut, trapped, impotent, cried out: "This is not possible----"  And
+for all that, he knew the Saracen to be foretelling the inevitable.
+
+Makrisi went on, quietly:  "After the Question men will parade her,
+naked to the middle, through all Orange, until they reach the
+Marketplace, where will be four horses.  One of these horses they will
+harness to each arm and leg of your Biatritz.  Then they will beat
+these horses.  These will be strong horses.  They will each run in a
+different direction."
+
+This infamy also was certain.  Raimbaut foresaw what he must do.  He
+clutched the dagger which Makrisi fondled.  "Belhs Cavaliers, this
+fellow speaks the truth.  Look now, the moon is old--is it not strange
+to know it will outlive us?"
+
+And Biatritz came close to Sire Raimbaut and said: "I understand.  If I
+leave this room alive it will purchase a hideous suffering for my poor
+body, it will bring about the ruin of many brave and innocent
+chevaliers.  I know.  I would perforce confess all that the masked men
+bade me.  I know, for in Prince Conrat's time I have seen persons who
+had been put to the Question----"  She shuddered; and she re-began,
+without any agitation:  "Give me the knife, Raimbaut."
+
+"Pardieu! but I may not obey you for this once," he answered, "since we
+are informed by those in holy orders that all such as lay violent hands
+upon themselves must suffer eternally."  Then, kneeling, he cried, in
+an extremity of adoration:  "Oh, I have served you all my life.  You
+may not now deny me this last service.  And while I talk they dig your
+grave!  O blind men, making the new grave, take heed lest that grave be
+too narrow, for already my heart is breaking in my body.  I have drunk
+too deep of sorrow.  And yet I may not fail you, now that honor and
+mercy and my love for you demand I kill you before I also die--in such
+a fashion as this fellow speaks of."
+
+She did not dispute this.  How could she when it was an axiom in all
+Courts of Love that Heaven held dominion in a lover's heart only as an
+underling of the man's mistress?
+
+And so she said, with a fond smile:  "It is your demonstrable
+privilege.  I would not grant it, dear, were my weak hands as clean as
+yours.  Oh, but it is long you have loved me, and it is faithfully you
+have served Heaven, and my heart too is breaking in my body now that
+your service ends!"
+
+And he demanded, wearily:  "When we were boy and girl together what had
+we said if any one had told us this would be the end?"
+
+"We would have laughed.  It is a long while since those children
+laughed at Montferrat. . . . Not yet, not yet!" she said.  "Ah, pity
+me, tried champion, for even now I am almost afraid to die."
+
+She leaned against the window yonder, shuddering, staring into the
+night.  Dawn had purged the east of stars.  Day was at hand, the day
+whose noon she might not hope to witness.  She noted this incuriously.
+Then Biatritz came to him, very strangely proud, and yet all tenderness.
+
+"See, now, Raimbaut! because I have loved you as I have loved nothing
+else in life, I will not be unworthy of your love.  Strike and have
+done."
+
+Raimbaut de Vaquieras raised an already bloodied dagger.  As emotion
+goes, he was bankrupt.  He had no longer any dread of hell, because he
+thought that, a little later, nothing its shrewdest overseer could plan
+would have the power to vex him.  She, waiting, smiled.  Makrisi,
+seated, stretched his legs, put fingertips together with the air of an
+attendant amateur.  This was better than he had hoped.  In such a
+posture they heard a bustle of armored men, and when all turned, saw
+how a sword protruded through the arras.
+
+"Come out, Guillaume!" people were shouting.  "Unkennel, dog!  Out,
+out, and die!"  To such a heralding Mahi de Vernoil came into the room
+with mincing steps such as the man affected in an hour of peril.  He
+first saw what a grisly burden the chest sustained.  "Now, by the
+Face!" he cried, "if he that cheated me of quieting this filth should
+prove to be of gentle birth I will demand of him a duel to the death!"
+The curtains were ripped from their hangings as he spoke, and behind
+him the candlelight was reflected by the armor of many followers.
+
+Then de Vernoil perceived Raimbaut de Vaquieras, and the spruce little
+man bowed ceremoniously.  All were still.  Composedly, like a
+lieutenant before his captain, Mahi narrated how these hunted remnants
+of Lovain's army had, as a last cast, that night invaded the chateau,
+and had found, thanks to the festival, its men-at-arms in uniform and
+inefficient drunkenness.  "My tres beau sire," Messire de Vernoil
+ended, "will you or nill you, Venaissin is yours this morning.  My
+knaves have slain Philibert and his bewildered fellow-tipplers with
+less effort than is needed to drown as many kittens."
+
+And his followers cried, as upon a signal: "Hail, Prince of Orange!"
+
+It was so like the wonder-working of a dream--this sudden and heroic
+uproar--that old Raimbaut de Vaquieras stood reeling, near to intimacy
+with fear for the first time.  He waited thus, with both hands pressed
+before his eyes.  He waited thus for a long while, because he was not
+used to find chance dealing kindlily with him.  Later he saw that
+Makrisi had vanished in the tumult, and that many people awaited his
+speaking.
+
+The lord of Venaissin began: "You have done me a great service, Messire
+de Vemoil.  As recompense, I give you what I may.  I freely yield you
+all my right in Venaissin.  Oh no, kingcraft is not for me.  I daily
+see and hear of battles won, cities beleaguered, high towers
+overthrown, and ancient citadels and new walls leveled with the dust.
+I have conversed with many kings, the directors of these events, and
+they were not happy people.  Yes, yes, I have witnessed divers
+happenings, for I am old. . . .  I have found nothing which can serve
+me in place of honor."
+
+He turned to Dona Biatritz.  It was as if they were alone.  "Belhs
+Cavaliers," he said, "I had sworn fealty to this Guillaume.  He
+violated his obligations; but that did not free me of mine.  An oath is
+an oath.  I was, and am to-day, sworn to support his cause, and to
+profit in any fashion by its overthrow would be an abominable action.
+Nay, more, were any of his adherents alive it would be my manifest duty
+to join them against our preserver, Messire de Vernoil.  This necessity
+is very happily spared me.  I cannot, though, in honor hold any fief
+under the supplanter of my liege-lord.  I must, therefore, relinquish
+Vaquieras and take eternal leave of Venaissin.  I will not lose the
+right to call myself your servant!" he cried out--"and that which is
+noblest in the world must be served fittingly.  And so, Belhs
+Cavaliers, let us touch palms and bid farewell, and never in this life
+speak face to face of trivial happenings which we two alone remember.
+For naked of lands and gear I came to you--a prince's daughter--very
+long ago, and as nakedly I now depart, so that I may retain the right
+to say, 'All my life long I served my love of her according to my
+abilities, wholeheartedly and with clean hands.'"
+
+"Yes, yes! you must depart from Venaissin," said Dona Biatritz.  A
+capable woman, she had no sympathy with his exquisite points of honor,
+and yet loved him all the more because of what seemed to her his
+surpassing folly.  She smiled, somewhat as mothers do in humoring an
+unreasonable boy.  "We will go to my nephew's court at Montferrat," she
+said.  "He will willingly provide for his old aunt and her husband.
+And you may still make verses--at Montferrat, where we lived verses,
+once, Raimbaut."
+
+Now they gazed full upon each other.  Thus they stayed, transfigured,
+neither seeming old.  Each had forgotten that unhappiness existed
+anywhere in the whole world.  The armored, blood-stained men about them
+were of no more importance than were those wantons in the tapestry.
+Without, dawn throbbed in heaven.  Without, innumerable birds were
+raising that glad, piercing, hurried morning-song which very anciently
+caused Adam's primal waking, to behold his mate.
+
+
+
+
+BALTHAZAR'S DAUGHTER
+
+
+"_A curious preference for the artificial should be mentioned as
+characteristic of ALESSANDRO DE MEDICI'S poetry.  For his century was
+anything but artless; the great commonplaces that form the main stock
+of human thought were no longer in their first flush, and he addressed
+a people no longer childish. . . .  Unquestionably his fancies were
+fantastic, anti-natural, bordering on hallucination, and they betray a
+desire for impossible novelty; but it is allowable to prefer them to
+the sickly simplicity of those so-called poems that embroider with old
+faded wools upon the canvas of worn-out truisms, trite, trivial and
+idiotically sentimental patterns._"
+
+
+  Let me have dames and damsels richly clad
+    To feed and tend my mirth,
+  Singing by day and night to make me glad;
+
+  Let me have fruitful gardens of great girth
+    Fill'd with the strife of birds,
+  With water-springs, and beasts that house i' the earth.
+
+  Let me seem Solomon for lore of words,
+  Samson for strength, for beauty Absalom.
+
+    Knights as my serfs be given;
+  And as I will, let music go and come;
+  Till, when I will, I will to enter Heaven.
+
+  ALESSANDRO DE MEDICI.--_Madrigal, from D. G. Rossetti's version_.
+
+
+
+
+BALTHAZAR'S DAUGHTER
+
+Graciosa was Balthazar's youngest child, a white, slim girl with violet
+eyes and strange pale hair which had the color and glitter of stardust.
+"Some day at court," her father often thought complacently, "she, too,
+will make a good match."  He was a necessitous lord, a smiling, supple
+man who had already marketed two daughters to his advantage.  But
+Graciosa's time was not yet mature in the year of grace 1533, for the
+girl was not quite sixteen.  So Graciosa remained in Balthazar's big
+cheerless house and was tutored in all needful accomplishments.  She
+was proficient in the making of preserves and unguents, could play the
+harpsichord and the virginals acceptably, could embroider an altarcloth
+to admiration, and, in spite of a trivial lameness in walking, could
+dance a coranto or a saraband against any woman between two seas.
+
+Now to the north of Balthazar's home stood a tall forest, overhanging
+both the highway and the river whose windings the highway followed.
+Graciosa was very often to be encountered upon the outskirts of these
+woods.  She loved the forest, whose tranquillity bred dreams, but was
+already a woman in so far that she found it more interesting to watch
+the highway.  Sometimes it would be deserted save for small purple
+butterflies which fluttered about as if in continuous indecision, and
+rarely ascended more than a foot above the ground.  But people passed
+at intervals--as now a page, who was a notably fine fellow, clothed in
+ash-colored gray, with slashed, puffed sleeves, and having a heron's
+feather in his cap; or a Franciscan with his gown tucked up so that you
+saw how the veins on his naked feet stood out like the carvings on a
+vase; or a farmer leading a calf; or a gentleman in a mantle of
+squirrel's fur riding beside a wonderful proud lady, whose tiny hat was
+embroidered with pearls.  It was all very interesting to watch, it was
+like turning over the leaves of a book written in an unknown tongue and
+guessing what the pictures meant, because these people were intent upon
+their private avocations, in which you had no part, and you would never
+see them any more.
+
+Then destiny took a hand in the affair and Guido came.  He reined his
+gray horse at the sight of her sitting by the wayside and deferentially
+inquired how far it might be to the nearest inn.  Graciosa told him.
+He thanked her and rode on.  That was all, but the appraising glance of
+this sedate and handsome burgher obscurely troubled the girl afterward.
+
+Next day he came again.  He was a jewel-merchant, he told her, and he
+thought it within the stretch of possibility that my lord Balthazar's
+daughter might wish to purchase some of his wares.  She viewed them
+with admiration, chaffered thriftily, and finally bought a topaz, dug
+from Mount Zabarca, Guido assured her, which rendered its wearer immune
+to terrors of any kind.
+
+Very often afterward these two met on the outskirts of the forest as
+Guido rode between the coast and the hill-country about his vocation.
+Sometimes he laughingly offered her a bargain, on other days he paused
+to exhibit a notable gem which he had procured for this or that wealthy
+amateur.  Count Eglamore, the young Duke's favorite yonder at court,
+bought most of them, it seemed.  "The nobles complain against this
+upstart Eglamore very bitterly," said Guido, "but we merchants have no
+quarrel with him.  He buys too lavishly."
+
+"I trust I shall not see Count Eglamore when I go to court," said
+Graciosa, meditatively; "and, indeed, by that time, my father assures
+me, some honest gentleman will have contrived to cut the throat of this
+abominable Eglamore."  Her father's people, it should be premised, had
+been at bitter feud with the favorite ever since he detected and
+punished the conspiracy of the Marquis of Cibo, their kinsman.  Then
+Graciosa continued:  "Nevertheless, I shall see many beautiful sights
+when I am taken to court. . . .  And the Duke, too, you tell me, is an
+amateur of gems."
+
+"Eh, madonna, I wish that you could see his jewels," cried Guido,
+growing fervent; and he lovingly catalogued a host of lapidary marvels.
+
+"I hope that I shall see these wonderful jewels when I go to court,"
+said Graciosa wistfully.
+
+"Duke Alessandro," he returned, his dark eyes strangely mirthful, "is,
+as I take it, a catholic lover of beauty in all its forms.  So he will
+show you his gems, very assuredly, and, worse still, he will make
+verses in your honor.  For it is a preposterous feature of Duke
+Alessandro's character that he is always making songs."
+
+"Oh, and such strange songs as they are, too, Guido.  Who does not know
+them?"
+
+"I am not the best possible judge of his verses' merit," Guido
+estimated, drily.  "But I shall never understand how any singer at all
+came to be locked in such a prison.  I fancy that at times the paradox
+puzzles even Duke Alessandro."
+
+"And is he as handsome as people report?"
+
+Then Guido laughed a little.  "Tastes differ, of course.  But I think
+your father will assure you, madonna, that no duke possessing such a
+zealous tax-collector as Count Eglamore was ever in his lifetime
+considered of repulsive person."
+
+"And is he young?"
+
+"Why, as to that, he is about of an age with me, and in consequence old
+enough to be far more sensible than either of us is ever likely to be,"
+said Guido; and began to talk of other matters.
+
+But presently Graciosa was questioning him again as to the court,
+whither she was to go next year and enslave a marquis, or, at worst, an
+opulent baron.  Her thoughts turned toward the court's predominating
+figure.  "Tell me of Eglamore, Guido."
+
+"Madonna, some say that Eglamore was a brewer's son.  Others--and your
+father's kinsmen in particular--insist that he was begot by a devil in
+person, just as Merlin was, and Plato the philosopher, and puissant
+Alexander.  Nobody knows anything about his origin." Guido was sitting
+upon the ground, his open pack between his knees.  Between the thumb
+and forefinger of each hand he held caressingly a string of pearls
+which he inspected as he talked.  "Nobody," he idly said, "nobody is
+very eager to discuss Count Eglamore's origin now that Eglamore has
+become indispensable to Duke Alessandro.  Yes, it is thanks to Eglamore
+that the Duke has ample leisure and needful privacy for the pursuit of
+recreations which are reputed to be curious."
+
+"I do not understand you, Guido."  Graciosa was all wonder.
+
+"It is perhaps as well," the merchant said, a trifle sadly.  Then Guido
+shrugged.  "To be brief, madonna, business annoys the Duke.  He finds
+in this Eglamore an industrious person who affixes seals, draughts
+proclamations, makes treaties, musters armies, devises pageants, and
+collects revenues, upon the whole, quite as efficiently as Alessandro
+would be capable of doing these things.  So Alessandro makes verses and
+amuses himself as his inclinations prompt, and Alessandro's people are
+none the worse off on account of it."
+
+"Heigho, I foresee that I shall never fall in love with the Duke,"
+Graciosa declared.  "It is unbefitting and it is a little cowardly for
+a prince to shirk the duties of his station.  Now, if I were Duke I
+would grant my father a pension, and have Eglamore hanged, and purchase
+a new gown of silvery green, in which I would be ravishingly beautiful,
+and afterward-- Why, what would you do if you were Duke, Messer Guido?"
+
+"What would I do if I were Duke?" he echoed.  "What would I do if I
+were a great lord instead of a tradesman?  I think you know the answer,
+madonna."
+
+"Oh, you would make me your duchess, of course.  That is quite
+understood," said Graciosa, with the lightest of laughs.  "But I was
+speaking seriously, Guido."
+
+Guido at that considered her intently for a half-minute.  His
+countenance was of portentous gravity, but in his eyes she seemed to
+detect a lurking impishness.
+
+"And it is not a serious matter that a peddler of crystals should have
+dared to love a nobleman's daughter?  You are perfectly right.  That I
+worship you is an affair which does not concern any person save myself
+in any way whatsoever, although I think that knowledge of the fact
+would put your father to the trouble of sharpening his dagger. . . .
+Indeed, I am not certain that I worship you, for in order to adore
+wholeheartedly, the idolater must believe his idol to be perfect.  Now,
+your nails are of an ugly shape, like that of little fans; your mouth
+is too large; and I have long ago perceived that you are a trifle lame
+in spite of your constant care to conceal the fact.  I do not admire
+these faults, for faults they are undoubtedly.  Then, too, I know you
+are vain and self-seeking, and look forward contentedly to the time
+when your father will transfer his ownership of such physical
+attractions as heaven gave you to that nobleman who offers the highest
+price for them.  It is true you have no choice in the matter, but you
+will participate in a monstrous bargain, and I would prefer to have you
+exhibit distaste for it."  And with that he returned composedly to
+inspection of his pearls.
+
+"And to what end, Guido?"  It was the first time Graciosa had
+completely waived the reticence of a superior caste.  You saw that the
+child's parted lips were tremulous, and you divined her childish fits
+of dreading that glittering, inevitable court-life shared with an
+unimaginable husband.
+
+But Guido only grumbled whimsically.  "I am afraid that men do not
+always love according to the strict laws of logic.  I desire your
+happiness above all things; yet to see you so abysmally untroubled by
+anything that troubles me is another matter."
+
+"But I am not untroubled, Guido----" she began swiftly.  Graciosa broke
+off in speech, shrugged, flashed a smile at him.  "For I cannot fathom
+you, Ser Guido, and that troubles me.  Yes, I am very fond of you, and
+yet I do not trust you.  You tell me you love me greatly.  It pleases
+me to have you say this.  You perceive I am very candid this morning,
+Messer Guido.  Yes, it pleases me, and I know that for the sake of
+seeing me you daily endanger your life, for if my father heard of our
+meetings he would have you killed.  You would not incur such
+hare-brained risks unless you cared very greatly; and yet, somehow, I
+do not believe it is altogether for me you care."
+
+Then Guido was in train to protest an all-mastering and entirely candid
+devotion, but he was interrupted.
+
+"Most women have these awkward intuitions," spoke a melodious voice,
+and turning, Graciosa met the eyes of the intruder.  This magnificent
+young man had a proud and bloodless face which contrasted sharply with
+his painted lips and cheeks.  In the contour of his protruding mouth
+showed plainly his negroid ancestry.  His scanty beard, as well as his
+frizzled hair, was the color of dead grass.  He was sumptuously clothed
+in white satin worked with silver, and around his cap was a gold chain
+hung with diamonds.  Now he handed his fringed riding-gloves to Guido
+to hold.
+
+"Yes, madonna, I suspect that Eglamore here cares greatly for the fact
+that you are Lord Balthazar's daughter, and cousin to the late Marquis
+of Cibo.  For Cibo has many kinsmen at court who still resent the
+circumstance that the matching of his wits against Eglamore's earned
+for Cibo a deplorably public demise.  So they conspire against Eglamore
+with vexatious industry, as an upstart, as a nobody thrust over people
+of proven descent, and Eglamore goes about in hourly apprehension of a
+knife-thrust.  If he could make a match with you, though, your
+father--thrifty man!--would be easily appeased.  Your cousins, those
+proud, grumbling Castel-Franchi, Strossi and Valori, would not prove
+over-obdurate toward a kinsman who, whatever his past indiscretions,
+has so many pensions and offices at his disposal.  Yes, honor would
+permit a truce, and Eglamore could bind them to his interests within
+ten days, and be rid of the necessity of sleeping in chain armor. . . .
+Have I not unraveled the scheme correctly, Eglamore?"
+
+"Your highness was never lacking in penetration," replied the other in
+a dull voice.  He stood motionless, holding the gloves, his shoulders a
+little bowed as if under some physical load.  His eyes were fixed upon
+the ground.  He divined the change in Graciosa's face and did not care
+to see it.
+
+"And so you are Count Eglamore," said Graciosa in a sort of whisper.
+"That is very strange.  I had thought you were my friend, Guido.  But I
+forget.  I must not call you Guido any longer."  She gave a little
+shiver here.  He stayed motionless and did not look at her.  "I have
+often wondered what manner of man you were.  So it was you--whose hand
+I touched just now--you who poisoned Duke Cosmo, you who had the good
+cardinal assassinated, you who betrayed the brave lord of Faenza!  Oh,
+yes, they openly accuse you of every imaginable crime--this patient
+Eglamore, this reptile who has crept into his power through filthy
+passages.  It is very strange you should be capable of so much
+wickedness, for to me you seem only a sullen lackey."
+
+He winced and raised his eyes at this.  His face remained
+expressionless.  He knew these accusations at least to be demonstrable
+lies, for as it happened he had never found his advancement to hinge
+upon the commission of the crimes named.  But even so, the past was a
+cemetery he did not care to have revivified.
+
+"And it was you who detected the Marquis of Cibo's conspiracy.
+Tebaldeo was my cousin, Count Eglamore, and I loved him.  We were
+reared together.  We used to play here in these woods, and I remember
+how Tebaldeo once fetched me a wren's nest from that maple yonder.  I
+stood just here.  I was weeping because I was afraid he would fall.  If
+he had fallen and been killed, it would have been the luckier for him,"
+Graciosa sighed.  "They say that he conspired.  I do not know.  I only
+know that by your orders, Count Eglamore, my playmate Tebaldeo was
+fastened upon a Saint Andrew's cross and his arms and legs were each
+broken in two places with an iron bar.  Then your servants took
+Tebaldeo, still living, and laid him upon a carriage-wheel which was
+hung upon a pivot.  The upper edge of this wheel was cut with very fine
+teeth like those of a saw, so that his agony might be complete.
+Tebaldeo's poor mangled legs were folded beneath his body so that his
+heels touched the back of his head, they tell me.  In such a posture he
+died very slowly while the wheel turned very slowly there in the sunlit
+market-place, and flies buzzed greedily about him, and the shopkeepers
+took holiday in order to watch Tebaldeo die--the same Tebaldeo who once
+fetched me a wren's nest from yonder maple."
+
+Eglamore spoke now.  "I gave orders for the Marquis of Cibo's
+execution.  I did not devise the manner of his death.  The punishment
+for Cibo's crime was long ago fixed by our laws.  Cibo plotted to kill
+the Duke.  Cibo confessed as much."
+
+But the girl waved this aside.  "And then you plan this masquerade.
+You plan to make me care for you so greatly that even when I know you
+to be Count Eglamore I must still care for you.  You plan to marry me,
+so as to placate Tebaldeo's kinsmen, so as to bind them to your
+interests.  It was a fine bold stroke of policy, I know, to use me as a
+stepping-stone to safety--but was it fair to me?"  Her voice rose now a
+little.  She seemed to plead with him.  "Look you, Count Eglamore, I
+was a child only yesterday.  I have never loved any man.  But you have
+loved many women, I know, and long experience has taught you many ways
+of moving a woman's heart.  Oh, was it fair, was it worth while, to
+match your skill against my ignorance?  Think how unhappy I would be if
+even now I loved you, and how I would loathe myself. . . .  But I am
+getting angry over nothing.  Nothing has happened except that I have
+dreamed in idle moments of a brave and comely lover who held his head
+so high that all other women envied me, and now I have awakened."
+
+Meanwhile, it was with tears in his eyes that the young man in white
+had listened to her quiet talk, for you could nowhere have found a
+nature more readily sensitive than his to all the beauty and wonder
+which life, as if it were haphazardly, produces every day.  He pitied
+this betrayed child quite ineffably, because in her sorrow she was so
+pretty.
+
+So he spoke consolingly.  "Fie, Donna Graciosa, you must not be too
+harsh with Eglamore.  It is his nature to scheme, and he weaves his
+plots as inevitably as the spider does her web.  Believe me, it is
+wiser to forget the rascal--as I do--until there is need of him; and I
+think you will have no more need to consider Eglamore's trickeries, for
+you are very beautiful, Graciosa."
+
+He had drawn closer to the girl, and he brought a cloying odor of
+frangipani, bergamot and vervain.  His nostrils quivered, his face had
+taken on an odd pinched look, for all that he smiled as over some
+occult jest.  Graciosa was a little frightened by his bearing, which
+was both furtive and predatory.
+
+"Oh, do not be offended, for I have some rights to say what I desire in
+these parts.  For, _Dei gratia_, I am the overlord of these parts,
+Graciosa--a neglected prince who wondered over the frequent absences of
+his chief counselor and secretly set spies upon him.  Eglamore here
+will attest as much.  Or if you cannot believe poor Eglamore any
+longer, I shall have other witnesses within the half-hour.  Oh, yes,
+they are to meet me here at noon--some twenty crop-haired stalwart
+cut-throats.  They will come riding upon beautiful broad-chested horses
+covered with red velvet trappings that are hung with little silver
+bells which jingle delightfully.  They will come very soon, and then we
+will ride back to court."
+
+Duke Alessandro touched his big painted mouth with his forefinger as if
+in fantastic mimicry of a man imparting a confidence.
+
+"I think that I shall take you with me, Graciosa, for you are very
+beautiful.  You are as slim as a lily and more white, and your eyes are
+two purple mirrors in each of which I see a tiny image of Duke
+Alessandro.  The woman I loved yesterday was a big splendid wench with
+cheeks like apples.  It is not desirable that women should be so large.
+All women should be little creatures that fear you.  They should have
+thin, plaintive voices, and in shrinking from you be as slight to the
+touch as a cobweb.  It is not possible to love a woman ardently unless
+you comprehend how easy it would be to murder her."
+
+"God, God!" said Count Eglamore, very softly, for he was familiar with
+the look which had now come into Duke Alessandro's face.  Indeed, all
+persons about court were quick to notice this odd pinched look, like
+that of a traveler nipped at by frosts, and people at court became
+obsequious within the instant in dealing with the fortunate woman who
+had aroused this look, Count Eglamore remembered.
+
+And the girl did not speak at all, but stood motionless, staring in
+bewildered, pitiable, childlike fashion, and the color had ebbed from
+her countenance.
+
+Alessandro was frankly pleased.  "You fear me, do you not, Graciosa?
+See, now, when I touch your hand it is soft and cold as a serpent's
+skin, and you shudder.  I am very tired of women who love me, of all
+women with bold, hungry eyes.  To you my touch will always be a
+martyrdom, you will always loathe me, and therefore I shall not weary
+of you for a long while.  Come, Graciosa.  Your father shall have all
+the wealth and state that even his greedy imaginings can devise, so
+long as you can contrive to loathe me.  We will find you a suitable
+husband.  You shall have flattery and titles, gold and fine glass, soft
+stuffs and superb palaces such as are your beauty's due henceforward."
+
+He glanced at the peddler's pack, and shrugged.  "So Eglamore has been
+wooing you with jewels!  You must see mine, dear Graciosa.  It is not
+merely an affair of possessing, as some emperors do, all the four kinds
+of sapphires, the twelve kinds of emeralds, the three kinds of rubies,
+and many extraordinary pearls, diamonds, cymophanes, beryls, green
+peridots, tyanos, sandrastra, and fiery cinnamon-stones"--he enumerated
+them with the tender voice of their lover--"for the value of these may
+at least be estimated.  Oh, no, I have in my possession gems which have
+not their fellows in any other collection, gems which have not even a
+name and the value of which is incalculable--strange jewels that were
+shot from inaccessible mountain peaks by means of slings, jewels
+engendered by the thunder, jewels taken from the heart of the Arabian
+deer, jewels cut from the brain of a toad and the eyes of serpents, and
+even jewels that are authentically known to have fallen from the moon.
+We will select the rarest, and have a pair of slippers encrusted with
+them, in which you shall dance for me."
+
+"Highness," cried Eglamore, with anger and terror at odds in his
+breast, "Highness, I love this girl!"
+
+"Ah, then you cannot ever be her husband," Duke Alessandro returned.
+"You would have suited otherwise.  No, no, we must seek out some other
+person of discretion.  It will all be very amusing, for I think that
+she is now quite innocent, as pure as the high angels are.  See,
+Eglamore, she cannot speak, she stays still as a lark that has been
+taken in a snare.  It will be very marvelous to make her as I
+am. . . ." He meditated, as, obscurely aware of opposition, his
+shoulders twitched fretfully, and momentarily his eyes lightened like
+the glare of a cannon through its smoke.  "You made a beast of me, some
+long-faced people say.  Beware lest the beast turn and rend you."
+
+Count Eglamore plucked aimlessly at his chin.  Then he laughed as a dog
+yelps.  He dropped the gloves which he had held till this,
+deliberately, as if the act were a rite.  His shoulders straightened
+and purpose seemed to flow into the man.  "No," he said quietly, "I
+will not have it.  It was not altogether I who made a brain-sick beast
+of you, my prince; but even so, I have never been too nice to profit by
+your vices.  I have taken my thrifty toll of abomination, I have stood
+by contentedly, not urging you on, yet never trying to stay you, as you
+waded deeper and ever deeper into the filth of your debaucheries,
+because meanwhile you left me so much power.  Yes, in some part it is
+my own handiwork which is my ruin.  I accept it.  Nevertheless, you
+shall not harm this child."
+
+"I venture to remind you, Eglamore, that I am still the master of this
+duchy."  Alessandro was languidly amused, and had begun to regard his
+adversary with real curiosity.
+
+"Oh, yes, but that is nothing to me.  At court you are the master.  At
+court I have seen mothers raise the veil from their daughters' faces,
+with smiles that were more loathsome than the grimaces of a fiend,
+because you happened to be passing.  But here in these woods, your
+highness, I see only the woman I love and the man who has insulted her."
+
+"This is very admirable fooling," the Duke considered.  "So all the
+world is changed and Pandarus is transformed into Hector?  These are
+sonorous words, Eglamore, but with what deeds do you propose to back
+them?"
+
+"By killing you, your highness."
+
+"So!" said the Duke.  "The farce ascends in interest." He drew with a
+flourish, with actual animation, for sottish, debauched and
+power-crazed as this man was, he came of a race to whom danger was a
+cordial.  "Very luckily a sword forms part of your disguise, so let us
+amuse ourselves.  It is always diverting to kill, and if by any chance
+you kill me I shall at least be rid of the intolerable knowledge that
+to-morrow will be just like to-day."  The Duke descended blithely into
+the level road and placed himself on guard.
+
+Then both men silently went about the business in hand.  Both were
+oddly calm, almost as if preoccupied by some more important matter to
+be settled later.  The two swords clashed, gleamed rigidly for an
+instant, and then their rapid interplay, so far as vision went, melted
+into a flickering snarl of silver, for the sun was high and each man's
+shadow was huddled under him.  Then Eglamore thrust savagely and in the
+act trod the edge of a puddle, and fell ignominiously prostrate.  His
+sword was wrenched ten feet from him, for the Duke had parried
+skilfully.  Eglamore lay thus at Alessandro's mercy.
+
+"Well, well!" the Duke cried petulantly, "and am I to be kept waiting
+forever?  You were a thought quicker in obeying my caprices yesterday.
+Get up, you muddy lout, and let us kill each other with some pretension
+of adroitness."
+
+Eglamore rose, and, sobbing, caught up his sword and rushed toward the
+Duke in an agony of shame and rage.  His attack now was that of a
+frenzied animal, quite careless of defense and desirous only of murder.
+Twice the Duke wounded him, but it was Alessandro who drew backward,
+composedly hindering the brutal onslaught he was powerless to check.
+Then Eglamore ran him through the chest and gave vent to a strangled,
+growling cry as Alessandro fell.  Eglamore wrenched his sword free and
+grasped it by the blade so that he might stab the Duke again and again.
+He meant to hack the abominable flesh, to slash and mutilate that
+haughty mask of infamy, but Graciosa clutched his weapon by the hilt.
+
+The girl panted, and her breath came thick.  "He gave you your life."
+
+Eglamore looked up.  She leaned now upon his shoulder, her face
+brushing his as he knelt over the unconscious Duke; and Eglamore found
+that at her dear touch all passion had gone out of him.
+
+"Madonna," he said equably, "the Duke is not yet dead.  It is
+impossible to let him live.  You may think he voiced only a caprice
+just now.  I think so too, but I know the man, and I know that all this
+madman's whims are ruthless and irresistible.  Living, Duke
+Alessandro's appetites are merely whetted by opposition, so much so
+that he finds no pleasures sufficiently piquant unless they have God's
+interdiction as a sauce.  Living, he will make of you his plaything,
+and a little later his broken, soiled and castby plaything.  It is
+therefore necessary that I kill Duke Alessandro."
+
+She parted from him, and he too rose to his feet.
+
+"And afterward," she said quietly, "and afterward you must die just as
+Tebaldeo died."
+
+"That is the law, madonna.  But whether Alessandro enters hell to-day
+or later, I am a lost man."
+
+"Oh, that is very true," she said.  "A moment since you were Count
+Eglamore, whom every person feared.  Now there is not a beggar in the
+kingdom who would change lots with you, for you are a friendless and
+hunted man in peril of dreadful death.  But even so, you are not
+penniless, Count Eglamore, for these jewels here which formed part of
+your masquerade are of great value, and there is a world outside.  The
+frontier is not two miles distant.  You have only to escape into the
+hill-country beyond the forest, and you need not kill Duke Alessandro
+after all.  I would have you go hence with hands as clean as possible."
+
+"Perhaps I might escape."  He found it quaint to note how calm she was
+and how tranquilly his own thoughts ran.  "But first the Duke must die,
+because I dare not leave you to his mercy."
+
+"How does that matter?" she returned.  "You know very well that my
+father intends to market me as best suits his interests.  Here I am so
+much merchandise.  The Duke is as free as any other man to cry a
+bargain." He would have spoken in protest, but Graciosa interrupted
+wearily:  "Oh, yes, it is to this end only that we daughters of Duke
+Alessandro's vassals are nurtured, just as you told me--eh, how long
+ago!--that such physical attractions as heaven accords us may be
+marketed.  And I do not see how a wedding can in any way ennoble the
+transaction by causing it to profane a holy sacrament.  Ah, no,
+Balthazar's daughter was near attaining all that she had been taught to
+desire, for a purchaser came and he bid lavishly.  You know very well
+that my father would have been delighted.  But you must need upset the
+bargain.  'No, I will not have it!' Count Eglamore must cry.  It cost
+you very highly to speak those words.  I think it would have puzzled my
+father to hear those words at which so many fertile lands, stout
+castles, well-timbered woodlands, herds of cattle, gilded coaches,
+liveries and curious tapestries, fine clothing and spiced foods, all
+vanished like a puff of smoke.  Ah, yes, my father would have thought
+you mad."
+
+"I had no choice," he said, and waved a little gesture of impotence.
+He spoke as with difficulty, almost wearily.  "I love you.  It is a
+theme on which I do not embroider.  So long as I had thought to use you
+as an instrument I could woo fluently enough.  To-day I saw that you
+were frightened and helpless--oh, quite helpless.  And something
+changed in me.  I knew for the first time that I loved you and that I
+was not clean as you are clean.  What it was of passion and horror, of
+despair and adoration and yearning, which struggled in my being then I
+cannot tell you.  It spurred me to such action as I took,--but it has
+robbed me of sugared eloquence, it has left me chary of speech.  It is
+necessary that I climb very high because of my love for you, and upon
+the heights there is silence."
+
+And Graciosa meditated.  "Here I am so much merchandise.  Heigho, since
+I cannot help it, since bought and sold I must be, one day or another,
+at least I will go at a noble price.  Yet I do not think I am quite
+worth the value of these castles and lands and other things which you
+gave up because of me, so that it will be necessary to make up the
+difference, dear, by loving you very much."
+
+And at that he touched her chin, gently and masterfully, for Graciosa
+would have averted her face, and it seemed to Eglamore that he could
+never have his fill of gazing on the radiant, shamed tenderness of
+Graciosa's face.  "Oh, my girl!" he whispered.  "Oh, my wonderful,
+worshiped, merry girl, whom God has fashioned with such loving care!
+you who had only scorn to give me when I was a kingdom's master! and
+would you go with me now that I am friendless and homeless?"
+
+"But I shall always have a friend," she answered--"a friend who showed
+me what Balthazar's daughter was and what love is.  And I am vain
+enough to believe I shall not ever be very far from home so long as I
+am near to my friend's heart."
+
+A mortal man could not but take her in his arms.
+
+"Farewell, Duke Alessandro!" then said Eglamore; "farewell, poor clay
+so plastic the least touch remodels you!  I had a part in shaping you
+so bestial; our age, too, had a part--our bright and cruel day, wherein
+you were set too high.  Yet for me it would perhaps have proved as easy
+to have made a learned recluse of you, Alessandro, or a bloodless
+saint, if to do that had been as patently profitable.  For you and all
+your kind are so much putty in the hands of circumspect fellows such as
+I.  But I stood by and let our poisoned age conform that putty into the
+shape of a crazed beast, because it took that form as readily as any
+other, and in taking it, best served my selfish ends.  Now I must pay
+for that sorry shaping, just as, I think, you too must pay some day.
+And so, I cry farewell with loathing, but with compassion also!"
+
+Then these two turned toward the hills, leaving Duke Alessandro where
+he lay in the road, a very lamentable figure in much bloodied finery.
+They turned toward the hills, and entered a forest whose ordering was
+time's contemporary, and where there was no grandeur save that of the
+trees.
+
+But upon the summit of the nearest hill they paused and looked over a
+restless welter of foliage that glittered in the sun, far down into the
+highway.  It bustled like an unroofed ant-hill, for the road was alive
+with men who seemed from this distance very small.  Duke Alessandro's
+attendants had found him and were clustered in a hubbub about their
+reviving master.  Dwarfish Lorenzino de Medici was the most solicitous
+among them.
+
+Beyond was the broad river, seen as a ribbon of silver now, and on its
+remoter bank the leaded roofs of a strong fortress glistened like a
+child's new toy.  Tilled fields showed here and there, no larger in
+appearance than so many outspread handkerchiefs.  Far down in the east
+a small black smudge upon the pearl-colored and vaporous horizon was
+all they could discern of a walled city filled with factories for the
+working of hemp and furs and alum and silk and bitumen.
+
+"It is a very rich and lovely land," said Eglamore--"this kingdom which
+a half-hour since lay in the hollow of my hand."  He viewed it for a
+while, and not without pensiveness.  Then he took Graciosa's hand and
+looked into her face, and he laughed joyously.
+
+
+
+
+JUDITH'S CREED
+
+
+"_It does not appear that the age thought his works worthy of
+posterity, nor that this great poet himself levied any ideal tribute on
+future times, or had any further prospect than of present popularity
+and present profit.  So careless was he, indeed, of fame, that, when he
+retired to ease and plenty, while he was yet little declined into the
+vale of years, and before he could be disgusted with fatigue or
+disabled by infirmity, he desired only that in this rural quiet he who
+had so long mazed his imagination by following phantoms might at last
+be cured of his delirious ecstasies, and as a hermit might estimate the
+transactions of the world._"
+
+
+
+
+  Now my charms are all o'erthrown,
+  And what strength I have's my own,
+  Which is most faint.
+
+                    Now I want
+  Spirits to enforce, art to enchant;
+  And my ending is despair,
+  Unless I be relieved by prayer,
+  Which pierces so, that it assaults
+  Mercy itself, and frees all faults.
+
+  As you from crimes would pardon'd be,
+  Let your indulgence set me free.
+
+  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.--_Epilogue to The Tempest_.
+
+
+
+He was hoping, while his fingers drummed in unison with the beat of his
+verse, that this last play at least would rouse enthusiasm in the pit.
+The welcome given its immediate predecessors had undeniably been tepid.
+A memorandum at his elbow of the receipts at the Globe for the last
+quarter showed this with disastrous bluntness; and, after all, in 1609
+a shareholder in a theater, when writing dramas for production there,
+was ordinarily subject to more claims than those of his ideals.
+
+He sat in a neglected garden whose growth was in reversion to primal
+habits.  The season was September, the sky a uniform and temperate
+blue.  A peachtree, laden past its strength with fruitage, made about
+him with its boughs a sort of tent.  The grass around his writing-table
+was largely hidden by long, crinkled peach leaves--some brown and
+others gray as yet--and was dotted with a host of brightly-colored
+peaches.  Fidgeting bees and flies were excavating the decayed spots in
+this wasting fruit, from which emanated a vinous odor.  The bees hummed
+drowsily, their industry facilitating idleness in others.  It was
+curious--he meditated, his thoughts straying from "an uninhabited
+island"--how these insects alternated in color between brown velvet and
+silver, as they blundered about a flickering tessellation of amber and
+dark green . . . in search of rottenness. . . .
+
+He frowned.  Here was an arid forenoon as imagination went.  A seasoned
+plagiarist by this, he opened a book which lay upon the table among
+several others and duly found the chapter entitled _Of the Cannibals_.
+
+"So, so!" he said aloud.  "'It is a nation,' would I answer Plato,
+'that has no kind of traffic, no knowledge of letters----'"  And with
+that he sat about reshaping Montaigne's conceptions of Utopia into
+verse.  He wrote--while his left hand held the book flat--as orderly as
+any county-clerk might do in the recordance of a deed of sale.
+
+Midcourse in larceny, he looked up from writing.  He saw a tall, dark
+lady who was regarding him half-sorrowfully and half as in the grasp of
+some occult amusement.  He said nothing.  He released the telltale
+book.  His eyebrows lifted, banteringly.  He rose.
+
+He found it characteristic of her that she went silently to the table
+and compared the printed page with what he had just written.  "So
+nowadays you have turned pickpocket?  My poet, you have altered."
+
+He said:  "Why, yes.  When you broke off our friendship, I paid you the
+expensive compliment of falling very ill.  They thought that I would
+die.  They tell me even to-day I did not die.  I almost question it."
+He shrugged.  "And to-day I must continue to write plays, because I
+never learned any other trade.  And so, at need, I pilfer."  The topic
+did not seem much to concern him.
+
+"Eh, and such plays!" the woman cried.  "My poet, there was a time when
+you created men and women as glibly as Heaven does.  Now you make
+sugar-candy dolls."
+
+"The last comedies were not all I could have wished," he assented.  "In
+fact, I got only some L30 clear profit."
+
+"There speaks the little tradesman I most hated of all persons living!"
+the woman sighed.  Now, as in impatience, she thrust back her
+traveling-hood and stood bare-headed.
+
+Then she stayed silent,--tall, extraordinarily pallid, and with dark,
+steady eyes.  Their gaze by ordinary troubled you, as seeming to hint
+some knowledge to your belittlement.  The playmaker remembered that.
+Now he, a reputable householder, was wondering what would be the upshot
+of this intrusion.  His visitor, as he was perfectly aware, had little
+patience with such moments of life as could not be made dramatic. . . .
+He was recollecting many trifles, now his mind ran upon old
+times. . . .  No, no, reflection assured him, to call her beautiful
+would be, and must always have been, an exaggeration; but to deny the
+exotic and somewhat sinister charm of her, even to-day, would be an
+absurdity.
+
+She said, abruptly:  "I do not think I ever loved you as women love
+men.  You were too anxious to associate with fine folk, too eager to
+secure a patron--yes, and to get your profit of him--and you were
+always ill-at-ease among us.  Our youth is so long past, and we two are
+so altered that we, I think, may speak of its happenings now without
+any bitterness.  I hated those sordid, petty traits.  I raged at your
+incessant pretensions to gentility because I knew you to be so much
+more than a gentleman.  Oh, it infuriated me--how long ago it was!--to
+see you cringing to the Court blockheads, and running their errands,
+and smirkingly pocketing their money, and wheedling them into helping
+the new play to success.  You complained I treated you like a lackey;
+it was not unnatural when of your own freewill you played the lackey so
+assiduously."
+
+He laughed.  He had anatomized himself too frequently and with too much
+dispassion to overlook whatever tang of snobbishness might be in him;
+and, moreover, the charge thus tendered became in reality the speaker's
+apology, and hurt nobody's self-esteem.
+
+"Faith, I do not say you are altogether in the wrong," he assented.
+"They could be very useful to me--Pembroke, and Southampton, and those
+others--and so I endeavored to render my intimacy acceptable.  It was
+my business as a poet to make my play as near perfect as I could; and
+this attended to, common-sense demanded of the theater-manager that he
+derive as much money as was possible from its representation.  What
+would you have?  The man of letters, like the carpenter or the
+blacksmith, must live by the vending of his productions, not by the
+eating of them." The woman waved this aside.
+
+She paced the grass in meditation, the peach leaves brushing her proud
+head--caressingly, it seemed to him.  Later she came nearer in a
+brand-new mood.  She smiled now, and her voice was musical and thrilled
+with wonder.  "But what a poet Heaven had locked inside this little
+parasite!  It used to puzzle me."  She laughed, and ever so lightly.
+"Eh, and did you never understand why by preference I talked with you
+at evening from my balcony?  It was because I could forget you then
+entirely.  There was only a voice in the dark.  There was a sorcerer at
+whose bidding words trooped like a conclave of emperors, and now sang
+like a bevy of linnets.  And wit and fancy and high aspirations and my
+love--because I knew then that your love for me was splendid and
+divine--these also were my sorcerer's potent allies.  I understood then
+how glad and awed were those fabulous Greekish queens when a god wooed
+them.  Yes, then I understood.  How long ago it seems!"
+
+"Yes, yes," he sighed.  "In that full-blooded season was Guenevere a
+lass, I think, and Charlemagne was not yet in breeches."
+
+"And when there was a new play enacted I was glad.  For it was our play
+that you and I had polished the last line of yesterday, and all these
+people wept and laughed because of what we had done.  And I was
+proud----"  The lady shrugged impatiently.  "Proud, did I say? and
+glad?  That attests how woefully I fall short of you, my poet.  You
+would have found some magic phrase to make that ancient glory
+articulate, I know.  Yet,--did I ever love you?  I do not know that.  I
+only know I sometimes fear you robbed me of the power of loving any
+other man."
+
+He raised one hand in deprecation.  "I must remind you," he cried,
+whimsically, "that a burnt child dreads even to talk of fire."
+
+Her response was a friendly nod.  She came yet nearer.  "What," she
+demanded, and her smile was elfish, "what if I had lied to you?  What
+if I were hideously tired of my husband, that bluff, stolid captain?
+What if I wanted you to plead with me as in the old time?"
+
+He said:  "Until now you were only a woman.  Oh, and now, my dear, you
+are again that resistless gipsy who so merrily beguiled me to the very
+heart of loss.  You are Love.  You are Youth.  You are Comprehension.
+You are all that I have had, and lost, and vainly hunger for.  Here in
+this abominable village, there is no one who understands--not even
+those who are more dear to me than you are.  I know.  I only spoil good
+paper which might otherwise be profitably used to wrap herrings in,
+they think.  They give me ink and a pen just as they would give toys to
+a child who squalled for them too obstinately.  And Poesy is a thrifty
+oracle with no words to waste upon the deaf, however loudly her
+interpreter cry out to her.  Oh, I have hungered for you, my proud,
+dark lady!" the playmaker said.
+
+Afterward they stood quite silent.  She was not unmoved by his outcry;
+and for this very reason was obscurely vexed by the reflection that it
+would be the essay of a braver man to remedy, rather than to lament,
+his circumstances.  And then the moment's rapture failed him.
+
+"I am a sorry fool," he said; and lightly he ran on:  "You are a
+skilful witch.  Yet you have raised the ghost of an old madness to no
+purpose.  You seek a master-poet?  You will find none here.  Perhaps I
+was one once.  But most of us are poets of one sort or another when we
+love.  Do you not understand?  To-day I do not love you any more than I
+do Hecuba.  Is it not strange that I should tell you this and not be
+moved at all?  Is it not laughable that we should stand here at the
+last, two feet apart as things physical go, and be as profoundly
+severed as if an ocean tumbled between us?"
+
+He fell to walking to and fro, his hands behind his back.  She waited,
+used as she was to his unstable temperament, a trifle puzzled.
+Presently he spoke:
+
+"There was a time when a master-poet was needed.  He was
+found--nay,--rather made.  Fate hastily caught up a man not very
+different from the run of men--one with a taste for stringing phrases
+and with a comedy or so to his discredit.  Fate merely bid him love a
+headstrong child newly released from the nursery."
+
+"We know her well enough," she said.  "The girl was faithless, and
+tyrannous, and proud, and coquettish, and unworthy, and false, and
+inconstant.  She was black as hell and dark as night in both her person
+and her living.  You were not niggardly of vituperation."
+
+And he grimaced.  "Faith," he replied, "but sonnets are a more natural
+form of expression than affidavits, and they are made effective by
+compliance with different rules.  I find no flagrant fault with you
+to-day.  You were a child of seventeen, the darling of a noble house,
+and an actor--yes, and not even a pre-eminent actor--a gross, poor
+posturing vagabond, just twice your age, presumed to love you.  What
+child would not amuse herself with such engaging toys?  Vivacity and
+prettiness and cruelty are the ordinary attributes of kittenhood.  So
+you amused yourself.  And I submitted with clear eyes, because I could
+not help it.  Yes, I who am by nature not disposed to underestimate my
+personal importance--I submitted, because your mockery was more
+desirable than the adoration of any other woman.  And all this helped
+to make a master-poet of me.  Eh, why not, when such monstrous passions
+spoke through me--as if some implacable god elected to play godlike
+music on a mountebank's lute?  And I made admirable plays.  Why not,
+when there was no tragedy more poignant than mine?--and where in any
+comedy was any figure one-half so ludicrous as mine?  Ah, yes, Fate
+gained her ends, as always."
+
+He was a paunchy, inconsiderable little man.  By ordinary his elongated
+features and high, bald forehead loaned him an aspect of serene and
+axiom-based wisdom, much as we see him in his portraits; but now his
+countenance was flushed and mobile.  Odd passions played about it, as
+when on a sullen night in August summer lightnings flicker and merge.
+
+His voice had found another cadence.  "But Fate was not entirely
+ruthless.  Fate bade the child become a woman, and so grow tired of all
+her childhood's playthings.  This was after a long while, as we
+estimate happenings. . . .  I suffered then.  Yes, I went down to the
+doors of death, as people say, in my long illness.  But that crude,
+corporal fever had a providential thievishness; and not content with
+stripping me of health and strength,--not satisfied with pilfering
+inventiveness and any strong hunger to create--why, that insatiable
+fever even robbed me of my insanity.  I lived.  I was only a broken
+instrument flung by because the god had wearied of playing.  I would
+give forth no more heart-wringing music, for the musician had departed.
+And I still lived--I, the stout little tradesman whom you loathed.
+Yes, that tradesman scrambled through these evils, somehow, and came
+out still able to word adequately all such imaginings as could be
+devised by his natural abilities.  But he transmitted no more
+heart-wringing music."
+
+She said, "You lie!"
+
+He said, "I thank Heaven daily that I do not."  He spoke the truth.
+She knew it, and her heart was all rebellion.
+
+Indefatigable birds sang through the following hush.  A wholesome and
+temperate breeze caressed these silent people.  Bees that would die
+to-morrow hummed about them tirelessly.
+
+Then the poet said:  "I loved you; and you did not love me.  It is the
+most commonplace of tragedies, the heart of every man alive has been
+wounded in this identical fashion.  A master-poet is only that wounded
+man--among so many other bleeding folk--who perversely augments his
+agony, and utilizes his wound as an inkwell.  Presently time scars over
+the cut for him, as time does for all the others.  He does not suffer
+any longer.  No, and such relief is a clear gain; but none the less, he
+must henceforward write with ordinary ink such as the lawyers use."
+
+"I should have been the man," the woman cried.  "Had I been sure of
+fame, could I have known those raptures when you used to gabble
+immortal phrases like a stammering infant, I would have paid the price
+without all this whimpering."
+
+"Faith, and I think you would have," he assented.  "There is the
+difference.  At bottom I am a creature of the most moderate
+aspirations, as you always complained; and for my part, Fate must in
+reason demand her applause of posterity rather than of me.  For I
+regret the unlived life that I was meant for--the comfortable level
+life of little happenings which all my schoolfellows have passed
+through in a stolid drove.  I was equipped to live that life with
+relish, and that life only; and it was denied me.  It was demolished in
+order that a book or two be made out of its wreckage."
+
+She said, with half-shut eyes:  "There is a woman at the root of all
+this."  And how he laughed!
+
+"Did I not say you were a witch?  Why, most assuredly there is."
+
+He motioned with his left hand.  Some hundred yards away a young man,
+who was carrying two logs toward New Place, had paused to rest.  A girl
+was with him.  Now laughingly she was pretending to assist the porter
+in lifting his burden.  It was a quaintly pretty vignette, as framed by
+the peach leaves, because those two young people were so merry and so
+candidly in love.  A symbolist might have wrung pathos out of the
+girl's desire to aid, as set against her fond inadequacy; and the
+attendant playwright made note of it.
+
+"Well, well!" he said:  "Young Quiney is a so-so choice, since women
+must necessarily condescend to intermarrying with men.  But he is far
+from worthy of her.  Tell me, now, was there ever a rarer piece of
+beauty?"
+
+"The wench is not ill-favored," was the dark lady's unenthusiastic
+answer.  "So!--but who is she?"
+
+He replied:  "She is my daughter.  Yonder you see my latter muse for
+whose dear sake I spin romances.  I do not mean that she takes any
+lively interest in them.  That is not to be expected, since she cannot
+read or write.  Ask her about the poet we were discussing, and I very
+much fear Judith will bluntly inform you she cannot tell a B from a
+bull's foot.  But one must have a muse of some sort or another; and so
+I write about the world now as Judith sees it.  My Judith finds this
+world an eminently pleasant place.  It is full of laughter and
+kindliness--for could Herod be unkind to her?--and it is largely
+populated by ardent young fellows who are intended chiefly to be
+twisted about your fingers; and it is illuminated by sunlight whose
+real purpose is to show how pretty your hair is.  And if affairs go
+badly for a while, and you have done nothing very wrong--why, of
+course, Heaven will soon straighten matters satisfactorily.  For
+nothing that happens to us can possibly be anything except a benefit,
+because God orders all happenings, and God loves us.  There you have
+Judith's creed; and upon my word, I believe there is a great deal to be
+said for it."
+
+"And this is you," she cried--"you who wrote of Troilus and Timon!"
+
+"I lived all that," he replied--"I lived it, and so for a long while I
+believed in the existence of wickedness.  To-day I have lost many
+illusions, madam, and that ranks among them.  I never knew a wicked
+person.  I question if anybody ever did.  Undoubtedly short-sighted
+people exist who have floundered into ill-doing; but it proves always
+to have been on account of either cowardice or folly, and never because
+of malevolence; and, in consequence, their sorry pickle should demand
+commiseration far more loudly than our blame.  In short, I find
+humanity to be both a weaker and a better-meaning race than I had
+suspected.  And so, I make what you call 'sugar-candy dolls,' because I
+very potently believe that all of us are sweet at heart.  Oh no! men
+lack an innate aptitude for sinning; and at worst, we frenziedly
+attempt our misdemeanors just as a sheep retaliates on its pursuers.
+This much, at least, has Judith taught me."
+
+The woman murmured:  "Eh, you are luckier than I.  I had a son.  He was
+borne of my anguish, he was fed and tended by me, and he was dependent
+on me in all things."  She said, with a half-sob, "My poet, he was so
+little and so helpless!  Now he is dead."
+
+"My dear, my dear!" he cried, and he took both her hands.  "I also had
+a son.  He would have been a man by this."
+
+They stood thus for a while.  And then he smiled.
+
+"I ask your pardon.  I had forgotten that you hate to touch my hands.
+I know--they are too moist and flabby.  I always knew that you thought
+that.  Well!  Hamnet died.  I grieved.  That is a trivial thing to say.
+But you also have seen your own flesh lying in a coffin so small that
+even my soft hands could lift it.  So you will comprehend.  To-day I
+find that the roughest winds abate with time.  Hatred and self-seeking
+and mischance and, above all, the frailties innate in us--these buffet
+us for a while, and we are puzzled, and we demand of God, as Job did,
+why is this permitted?  And then as the hair dwindles, the wit grows."
+
+"Oh, yes, with age we take a slackening hold upon events; we let all
+happenings go by more lightly; and we even concede the universe not to
+be under any actual bond to be intelligible.  Yes, that is true.  But
+is it gain, my poet? for I had thought it to be loss."
+
+"With age we gain the priceless certainty that sorrow and injustice are
+ephemeral.  Solvitur ambulando, my dear.  I have attested this merely
+by living long enough.  I, like any other man of my years, have in my
+day known more or less every grief which the world breeds; and each
+maddened me in turn, as each was duly salved by time; so that to-day
+their ravages vex me no more than do the bee-stings I got when I was an
+urchin.  To-day I grant the world to be composed of muck and sunshine
+intermingled; but, upon the whole, I find the sunshine more pleasant to
+look at, and--greedily, because my time for sightseeing is not very
+long--I stare at it.  And I hold Judith's creed to be the best of all
+imaginable creeds--that if we do nothing very wrong, all human
+imbroglios, in some irrational and quite incomprehensible fashion, will
+be straightened to our satisfaction.  Meanwhile, you also voice a tonic
+truth--this universe of ours, and, reverently speaking, the Maker of
+this universe as well, is under no actual bond to be intelligible in
+dealing with us."  He laughed at this season and fell into a lighter
+tone.  "Do I preach like a little conventicle-attending tradesman?
+Faith, you must remember that when I talk gravely Judith listens as if
+it were an oracle discoursing.  For Judith loves me as the wisest and
+the best of men.  I protest her adoration frightens me.  What if she
+were to find me out?"
+
+"I loved what was divine in you," the woman answered.
+
+"Oddly enough, that is the perfect truth!  And when what was divine in
+me had burned a sufficiency of incense to your vanity, your vanity's
+owner drove off in a fine coach and left me to die in a garret.  Then
+Judith came.  Then Judith nursed and tended and caressed me--and Judith
+only in all the world!--as once you did that boy you spoke of.  Ah,
+madam, and does not sorrow sometimes lie awake o' nights in the low
+cradle of that child? and sometimes walk with you by day and clasp your
+hand--much as his tiny hand did once, so trustingly, so like the
+clutching of a vine--and beg you never to be friends with anything save
+sorrow?  And do you wholeheartedly love those other women's boys--who
+did not die?  Yes, I remember.  Judith, too, remembered.  I was her
+father, for all that I had forsaken my family to dance Jack-pudding
+attendance on a fine Court lady.  So Judith came.  And Judith, who sees
+in play-writing just a very uncertain way of making money--Judith, who
+cannot tell a B from a bull's foot,--why, Judith, madam, did not ask,
+but gave, what was divine."
+
+"You are unfair," she cried.  "Oh, you are cruel, you juggle words,
+make knives of them. . . .  You" and she spoke as with difficulty--"you
+have no right to know just how I loved my boy!  You should be either
+man or woman!"
+
+He said pensively:  "Yes, I am cruel.  But you had mirth and beauty
+once, and I had only love and a vocabulary.  Who then more flagrantly
+abused the gifts God gave?  And why should I not be cruel to you, who
+made a master-poet of me for your recreation?  Lord, what a deal of
+ruined life it takes to make a little art!  Yes, yes, I know.  Under
+old oaks lovers will mouth my verses, and the acorns are not yet shaped
+from which those oaks will spring.  My adoration and your perfidy, all
+that I have suffered, all that I have failed in even, has gone toward
+the building of an enduring monument.  All these will be immortal,
+because youth is immortal, and youth delights in demanding explanations
+of infinity.  And only to this end I have suffered and have catalogued
+the ravings of a perverse disease which has robbed my life of all the
+normal privileges of life as flame shrivels hair from the arm--that
+young fools such as I was once might be pleased to murder my rhetoric,
+and scribblers parody me in their fictions, and schoolboys guess at the
+date of my death!"  This he said with more than ordinary animation; and
+then he shook his head.  "There is a leaven," he said--"there is a
+leaven even in your smuggest and most inconsiderable tradesman."
+
+She answered, with a wistful smile:  "I, too, regret my poet.  And just
+now you are more like him----"
+
+"Faith, but he was really a poet--or, at least, at times----?"
+
+"Not marble, nor the gilded monuments of princes shall outlive this
+powerful rhyme----'"
+
+"Dear, dear!" he said, in petulant vexation; "how horribly emotion
+botches verse.  That clash of sibilants is both harsh and
+ungrammatical.  _Shall_ should be changed to _will_."  And at that the
+woman sighed, because, in common with all persons who never essayed
+creative verbal composition, she was quite certain perdurable writing
+must spring from a surcharged heart, rather than from a rearrangement
+of phrases.  And so,
+
+"Very unfeignedly I regret my poet," she said, "my poet, who was
+unhappy and unreasonable, because I was not always wise or kind, or
+even just.  And I did not know until to-day how much I loved my
+poet. . . .  Yes, I know now I loved him.  I must go now.  I would I
+had not come."
+
+Then, standing face to face, he cried, "Eh, madam, and what if I also
+have lied to you--in part?  Our work is done; what more is there to
+say?"
+
+"Nothing," she answered--"nothing.  Not even for you, who are a
+master-smith of words to-day and nothing more."
+
+"I?" he replied.  "Do you so little emulate a higher example that even
+for a moment you consider me?"
+
+She did not answer.
+
+
+When she had gone, the playmaker sat for a long while in meditation;
+and then smilingly he took up his pen.  He was bound for "an
+uninhabited island" where all disasters ended in a happy climax.
+
+"So, so!" he was declaiming, later on: "_We, too, are kin To dreams and
+visions; and our little life Is gilded by such faint and cloud-wrapped
+suns_--Only, that needs a homelier touch.  Rather, let us say, _We are
+such stuff As dreams are made on_--Oh, good, good!--Now to pad out the
+line. . . .  In any event, the Bermudas are a seasonable topic.  Now
+here, instead of _thickly-templed India_, suppose we write _the
+still-vexed Bermoothes_--Good, good!  It fits in well enough. . . ."
+
+And so in clerkly fashion he sat about the accomplishment of his stint
+of labor in time for dinner.  A competent workman is not disastrously
+upset by interruption; and, indeed, he found the notion of surprising
+Judith with an unlooked-for trinket or so to be at first a very
+efficacious spur to composition.
+
+And presently the strong joy of creating kindled in him, and phrase
+flowed abreast with thought, and the playmaker wrote fluently and
+surely to an accompaniment of contented ejaculations.  He regretted
+nothing, he would not now have laid aside his pen to take up a scepter.
+For surely--he would have said--to live untroubled, and weave beautiful
+and winsome dreams is the most desirable of human fates.  But he did
+not consciously think of this, because he was midcourse in the evoking
+of a mimic tempest which, having purged its victims of unkindliness and
+error, aimed (in the end) only to sink into an amiable calm.
+
+
+
+
+CONCERNING CORINNA
+
+
+"_Dr. Herrick told me that, in common with all the Enlightened or
+Illuminated Brothers, of which prying sect the age breeds so many, he
+trusted the great lines of Nature, not in the whole, but in part, as
+they believed Nature was in certain senses not true, and a betrayer,
+and that she was not wholly the benevolent power to endow, as accorded
+with the prevailing deceived notion of the vulgar.  But he wished not
+to discuss more particularly than thus, as he had drawn up to himself a
+certain frontier of reticence; and so fell to petting a great black
+pig, of which he made an unseemly companion, and to talking idly._"
+
+
+  A Gyges ring they bear about them still,
+  To be, and not, seen when and where they will;
+
+  They tread on clouds, and though they sometimes fall,
+  They fall like dew, and make no noise at all:
+
+  So silently they one to th' other come
+  As colors steal into the pear or plum;
+
+  And air-like, leave no pression to be seen
+  Where'er they met, or parting place has been.
+
+  ROBERT HERRICK.--_My Lovers how They Come and Part_.
+
+
+
+
+CONCERNING CORINNA
+
+
+The matter hinges entirely upon whether or not Robert Herrick was
+insane.  Sir Thomas Browne always preferred to think that he was;
+whereas Philip Borsdale perversely considered the answer to be
+optional.  Perversely, Sir Thomas protested, because he said that to
+believe in Herrick's sanity was not conducive to your own.
+
+This much is certain: the old clergyman, a man of few friends and no
+intimates, enjoyed in Devon, thanks to his time-hallowed reputation for
+singularity, a certain immunity.  In and about Dean Prior, for
+instance, it was conceded in 1674 that it was unusual for a divine of
+the Church of England to make a black pig--and a pig of peculiarly
+diabolical ugliness, at that--his ordinary associate; but Dean Prior
+had come long ago to accept the grisly brute as a concomitant of Dr.
+Herrick's presence almost as inevitable as his shadow. It was no crime
+to be fond of dumb animals, not even of one so inordinately
+unprepossessing; and you allowed for eccentricities, in any event, in
+dealing with a poet.
+
+For Totnes, Buckfastleigh, Dean Prior--all that part of Devon, in
+fact--complacently basked in the reflected glory of Robert Herrick.
+People came from a long distance, now that the Parliamentary Wars were
+over, in order just to see the writer of the _Hesperides_ and the
+_Noble Numbers_.  And such enthusiasts found in Robert Herrick a
+hideous dreamy man, who, without ever perpetrating any actual
+discourtesy, always managed to dismiss them, somehow, with a sense of
+having been rebuffed.
+
+Sir Thomas Browne, that ardent amateur of the curious, came into Devon,
+however, without the risk of incurring any such fate, inasmuch as the
+knight traveled westward simply to discuss with Master Philip Borsdale
+the recent doings of Cardinal Alioneri.  Now, Philip Borsdale, as Sir
+Thomas knew, had been employed by Herrick in various transactions here
+irrelevant.  In consequence, Sir Thomas Browne was not greatly
+surprised when, on his arrival at Buckfastleigh, Borsdale's
+body-servant told him that Master Borsdale had left instructions for
+Sir Thomas to follow him to Dean Prior.  Browne complied, because his
+business with Borsdale was of importance.
+
+Philip Borsdale was lounging in Dr. Herrick's chair, intent upon a
+lengthy manuscript, alone and to all appearances quite at home.  The
+state of the room Sir Thomas found extraordinary; but he had graver
+matters to discuss; and he explained the results of his mission without
+extraneous comment.
+
+"Yes, you have managed it to admiration," said Philip Borsdale, when
+the knight had made an end.  Borsdale leaned back and laughed,
+purringly, for the outcome of this affair of the Cardinal and the Wax
+Image meant much to him from a pecuniary standpoint.  "Yet it is odd a
+prince of any church which has done so much toward the discomfiture of
+sorcery should have entertained such ideas.  It is also odd to note the
+series of coincidences which appears to have attended this Alioneri's
+practises."
+
+"I noticed that," said Sir Thomas.  After a while he said:  "You think,
+then, that they must have been coincidences?"
+
+"MUST is a word which intelligent people do not outwear by too constant
+usage."
+
+And "Oh----?" said the knight, and said that alone, because he was
+familiar with the sparkle now in Borsdale's eyes, and knew it heralded
+an adventure for an amateur of the curious.
+
+"I am not committing myself, mark you, Sir Thomas, to any statement
+whatever, beyond the observation that these coincidences were
+noticeable.  I add, with superficial irrelevance, that Dr. Herrick
+disappeared last night."
+
+"I am not surprised," said Sir Thomas, drily.  "No possible antics
+would astonish me on the part of that unvenerable madman.  When I was
+last in Totnes, he broke down in the midst of a sermon, and flung the
+manuscript of it at his congregation, and cursed them roundly for not
+paying closer attention.  Such was never my ideal of absolute decorum
+in the pulpit.  Moreover, it is unusual for a minister of the Church of
+England to be accompanied everywhere by a pig with whom he discusses
+the affairs of the parish precisely as if the pig were a human being."
+
+"The pig--he whimsically called the pig Corinna, sir, in honor of that
+imaginary mistress to whom he addressed so many verses--why, the pig
+also has disappeared.  Oh, but of course that at least is simply a
+coincidence. . . .  I grant you it was an uncanny beast.  And I grant
+you that Dr. Herrick was a dubious ornament to his calling.  Of that I
+am doubly certain to-day," said Borsdale, and he waved his hand
+comprehensively, "in view of the state in which--you see--he left this
+room.  Yes, he was quietly writing here at eleven o'clock last night
+when old Prudence Baldwin, his housekeeper, last saw him.  Afterward
+Dr. Herrick appears to have diverted himself by taking away the mats
+and chalking geometrical designs upon the floor, as well as by burning
+some sort of incense in this brasier."
+
+"But such avocations, Philip, are not necessarily indicative of sanity.
+No, it is not, upon the whole, an inevitable manner for an elderly
+parson to while away an evening."
+
+"Oh, but that was only a part, sir.  He also left the clothes he was
+wearing--in a rather peculiarly constructed heap, as you can see.
+Among them, by the way, I found this flattened and corroded bullet.
+That puzzled me.  I think I understand it now."  Thus Borsdale, as he
+composedly smoked his churchwarden.  "In short, the whole affair is as
+mysterious----"
+
+Here Sir Thomas raised his hand.  "Spare me the simile.  I detect a
+vista of curious perils such as infinitely outshines verbal brilliancy.
+You need my aid in some insane attempt."  He considered.  He said: "So!
+you have been retained?"
+
+"I have been asked to help him.  Of course I did not know of what he
+meant to try.  In short, Dr. Herrick left this manuscript, as well as
+certain instructions for me.  The last are--well! unusual."
+
+"Ah, yes!  You hearten me.  I have long had my suspicions as to this
+Herrick, though. . . .  And what are we to do?"
+
+"I really cannot inform you, sir.  I doubt if I could explain in any
+workaday English even what we will attempt to do," said Philip
+Borsdale.  "I do say this: You believe the business which we have
+settled, involving as it does the lives of thousands of men and women,
+to be of importance.  I swear to you that, as set against what we will
+essay, all we have done is trivial.  As pitted against the business we
+will attempt to-night, our previous achievements are suggestive of the
+evolutions of two sand-fleas beside the ocean.  The prize at which this
+adventure aims is so stupendous that I cannot name it."
+
+"Oh, but you must, Philip.  I am no more afraid of the local
+constabulary than I am of the local notions as to what respectability
+entails.  I may confess, however, that I am afraid of wagering against
+unknown odds."
+
+Borsdale reflected.  Then he said, with deliberation:  "Dr. Herrick's
+was, when you come to think of it, an unusual life.  He is--or perhaps
+I ought to say he was--upward of eighty-three.  He has lived here for
+over a half-century, and during that time he has never attempted to
+make either a friend or an enemy.  He was--indifferent, let us say.
+Talking to Dr. Herrick was, somehow, like talking to a man in a
+fog. . . .  Meanwhile, he wrote his verses to imaginary women--to
+Corinna and Julia, to Myrha, Electra and Perilla--those lovely, shadow
+women who never, in so far as we know, had any real existence----"
+
+Sir Thomas smiled.  "Of course.  They are mere figments of the poet,
+pegs to hang rhymes on.  And yet--let us go on.  I know that Herrick
+never willingly so much as spoke with a woman."
+
+"Not in so far as we know, I said."  And Borsdale paused.  "Then, too,
+he wrote such dainty, merry poems about the fairies.  Yes, it was all
+of fifty years ago that Dr. Herrick first appeared in print with his
+_Description of the King and Queen of the Fairies_.  The thought seems
+always to have haunted him."
+
+The knight's face changed, a little by a little.  "I have long been an
+amateur of the curious," he said, strangely quiet.  "I do not think
+that anything you may say will surprise me inordinately."
+
+"He had found in every country in the world traditions of a race who
+were human--yet more than human.  That is the most exact fashion in
+which I can express his beginnings.  On every side he found the notion
+of a race who can impinge on mortal life and partake of it--but always
+without exercising the last reach of their endowments.  Oh, the
+tradition exists everywhere, whether you call these occasional
+interlopers fauns, fairies, gnomes, ondines, incubi, or demons.  They
+could, according to these fables, temporarily restrict themselves into
+our life, just as a swimmer may elect to use only one arm--or, a more
+fitting comparison, become apparent to our human senses in the fashion
+of a cube which can obtrude only one of its six surfaces into a plane.
+You follow me, of course, sir?--to the triangles and circles and
+hexagons this cube would seem to be an ordinary square.  Conceiving
+such a race to exist, we might talk with them, might jostle them in the
+streets, might even intermarry with them, sir--and always see in them
+only human beings, and solely because of our senses' limitations."
+
+"I comprehend.  These are exactly the speculations that would appeal to
+an unbalanced mind--is that not your thought, Philip?"
+
+"Why, there is nothing particularly insane, Sir Thomas, in desiring to
+explore in fields beyond those which our senses make perceptible.  It
+is very certain these fields exist; and the question of their extent I
+take to be both interesting and important."
+
+Then Sir Thomas said:  "Like any other rational man, I have
+occasionally thought of this endeavor at which you hint.  We exist--you
+and I and all the others--in what we glibly call the universe.  All
+that we know of it is through what we entitle our five senses, which,
+when provoked to action, will cause a chemical change in a few ounces
+of spongy matter packed in our skulls.  There are no grounds for
+believing that this particular method of communication is adequate, or
+even that the agents which produce it are veracious.  Meanwhile, we are
+in touch with what exists through our five senses only.  It may be that
+they lie to us.  There is, at least, no reason for assuming them to be
+infallible."
+
+"But reflection plows a deeper furrow, Sir Thomas.  Even in the
+exercise of any one of these five senses it is certain that we are
+excelled by what we vaingloriously call the lower forms of life.  A dog
+has powers of scent we cannot reach to, birds hear the crawling of a
+worm, insects distinguish those rays in the spectrum which lie beyond
+violet and red, and are invisible to us; and snails and fish and
+ants--perhaps all other living creatures, indeed--have senses which man
+does not share at all, and has no name for.  Granted that we human
+beings alone possess the power of reasoning, the fact remains that we
+invariably start with false premises, and always pass our judgments
+when biased at the best by incomplete reports of everything in the
+universe, and very possibly by reports which lie flat-footedly."
+
+You saw that Browne was troubled.  Now he rose.  "Nothing will come of
+this.  I do not touch upon the desirability of conquering those fields
+at which we dare only to hint.  No, I am not afraid.  I dare assist you
+in doing anything Dr. Herrick asks, because I know that nothing will
+come of such endeavors.  Much is permitted us--'but of the fruit of the
+tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, to us who are
+no more than human, Ye shall not eat of it.'"
+
+"Yet Dr. Herrick, as many other men have done, thought otherwise.  I,
+too, will venture a quotation.  'Didst thou never see a lark in a cage?
+Such is the soul in the body: this world is like her little turf of
+grass, and the heavens o'er our heads, like her looking-glass, only
+gives us a miserable knowledge of the small compass of our prison.'
+Many years ago that lamentation was familiar.  What wonder, then, that
+Dr. Herrick should have dared to repeat it yesterday?  And what wonder
+if he tried to free the prisoner?"
+
+"Such freedom is forbidden," Sir Thomas stubbornly replied.  "I have
+long known that Herrick was formerly in correspondence with John
+Heydon, and Robert Flood, and others of the Illuminated, as they call
+themselves.  There are many of this sect in England, as we all know;
+and we hear much silly chatter of Elixirs and Philosopher's Stones in
+connection with them.  But I happen to know somewhat of their real aims
+and tenets.  I do not care to know any more than I do.  If it be true
+that all of which man is conscious is just a portion of a curtain, and
+that the actual universe in nothing resembles our notion of it, I am
+willing to believe this curtain was placed there for some righteous and
+wise reason.  They tell me the curtain may be lifted.  Whether this be
+true or no, I must for my own sanity's sake insist it can never be
+lifted."
+
+"But what if it were not forbidden?  For Dr. Herrick asserts he has
+already demonstrated that."
+
+Sir Thomas interrupted, with odd quickness.  "True, we must bear it in
+mind the man never married--Did he, by any chance, possess a crystal of
+Venice glass three inches square?"
+
+And Borsdale gaped.  "I found it with his manuscript.  But he said
+nothing of it. . . .  How could you guess?"
+
+Sir Thomas reflectively scraped the edge of the glass with his
+finger-nail.  "You would be none the happier for knowing, Philip.  Yes,
+that is a blood-stain here.  I see.  And Herrick, so far as we know,
+had never in his life loved any woman.  He is the only poet in history
+who never demonstrably loved any woman.  I think you had better read me
+his manuscript, Philip."
+
+This Philip Borsdale did.
+
+
+Then Sir Thomas said, as quiet epilogue:  "This, if it be true, would
+explain much as to that lovely land of eternal spring and daffodils and
+friendly girls, of which his verses make us free.  It would even
+explain Corinna and Herrick's rapt living without any human ties.  For
+all poets since the time of AEschylus, who could not write until he was
+too drunken to walk, have been most readily seduced by whatever
+stimulus most tended to heighten their imaginings; so that for the sake
+of a song's perfection they have freely resorted to divers artificial
+inspirations, and very often without evincing any undue
+squeamishness. . . .  I spoke of AEschylus.  I am sorry, Philip, that
+you are not familiar with ancient Greek life.  There is so much I could
+tell you of, in that event, of the quaint cult of Kore, or Pherephatta,
+and of the swine of Eubouleus, and of certain ambiguous maidens, whom
+those old Grecians fabled--oh, very ignorantly fabled, my lad, of
+course--to rule in a more quietly lit and more tranquil world than we
+blunder about.  I think I could explain much which now seems
+mysterious--yes, and the daffodils, also, that Herrick wrote of so
+constantly.  But it is better not to talk of these sinister delusions
+of heathenry."  Sir Thomas shrugged.  "For my reward would be to have
+you think me mad.  I prefer to iterate the verdict of all logical
+people, and formally to register my opinion that Robert Herrick was
+indisputably a lunatic."
+
+Borsdale did not seem perturbed.  "I think the record of his
+experiments is true, in any event.  You will concede that their results
+were startling?  And what if his deductions be the truth? what if our
+limited senses have reported to us so very little of the universe, and
+even that little untruthfully?"  He laughed and drummed impatiently
+upon the table.  "At least, he tells us that the boy returned.  I
+fervently believe that in this matter Dr. Herrick was capable of any
+crime except falsehood.  Oh, no I depend on it, he also will return."
+
+"You imagine Herrick will break down the door between this world and
+that other inconceivable world which all of us have dreamed of!  To me,
+my lad, it seems as if this Herrick aimed dangerously near to
+repetition of the Primal Sin, for all that he handles it like a problem
+in mechanical mathematics.  The poet writes as if he were instructing a
+dame's school as to the advisability of becoming omnipotent."
+
+"Well, well! I am not defending Dr. Herrick in anything save his desire
+to know the truth.  In this respect at least, he has proven himself to
+be both admirable and fearless.  And at worst, he only strives to do
+what Jacob did at Peniel," said Philip Borsdale, lightly.  "The
+patriarch, as I recall, was blessed for acting as he did.  The legend
+is not irrelevant, I think."
+
+They passed into the adjoining room.
+
+
+Thus the two men came into a high-ceiled apartment, cylindrical in
+shape, with plastered walls painted green everywhere save for the
+quaint embellishment of a large oval, wherein a woman, having an
+eagle's beak, grasped in one hand a serpent and in the other a knife.
+Sir Thomas Browne seemed to recognize this curious design, and gave an
+ominous nod.
+
+Borsdale said:  "You see Dr. Herrick had prepared everything.  And much
+of what we are about to do is merely symbolical, of course.  Most
+people undervalue symbols.  They do not seem to understand that there
+could never have been any conceivable need of inventing a periphrasis
+for what did not exist."
+
+Sir Thomas Browne regarded Borsdale for a while intently.  Then the
+knight gave his habitual shrugging gesture.  "You are braver than I,
+Philip, because you are more ignorant than I.  I have been too long an
+amateur of the curious.  Sometimes in over-credulous moments I have
+almost believed that in sober verity there are reasoning beings who are
+not human--beings that for their own dark purposes seek union with us.
+Indeed, I went into Pomerania once to talk with John Dietrick of
+Ramdin.  He told me one of those relations whose truth we dread, a tale
+which I did not dare, I tell you candidly, even to discuss in my
+_Vulgar Errors_.  Then there is Helgi Thorison's history, and that of
+Leonard of Basle also.  Oh, there are more recorded stories of this
+nature than you dream of, Philip.  We have only the choice between
+believing that all these men were madmen, and believing that ordinary
+human life is led by a drugged animal who drowses through a purblind
+existence among merciful veils.  And these female creatures--these
+Corinnas, Perillas, Myrhas, and Electras--can it be possible that they
+are always striving, for their own strange ends, to rouse the sleeping
+animal and break the kindly veils?--and are they permitted to use such
+amiable enticements as Herrick describes?  Oh, no, all this is just a
+madman's dream, dear lad, and we must not dare to consider it
+seriously, lest we become no more sane than he."
+
+"But you will aid me?" Borsdale said.
+
+"Yes, I will aid you, Philip, for in Herrick's case I take it that the
+mischief is consummated already; and we, I think, risk nothing worse
+than death.  But you will need another knife a little later--a knife
+that will be clean."
+
+"I had forgotten."  Borsdale withdrew, and presently returned with a
+bone-handled knife.  And then he made a light.  "Are you quite ready,
+sir?"
+
+Sir Thomas Browne, that aging amateur of the curious, could not resist
+a laugh.
+
+And then they sat about proceedings of which, for obvious reasons, the
+details are best left unrecorded.  It was not an unconscionable while
+before they seemed to be aware of unusual phenomena.  But as Sir Thomas
+always pointed out, in subsequent discussions, these were quite
+possibly the fruitage of excited imagination.
+
+"Now, Philip!--now, give me the knife!" cried Sir Thomas Browne.  He
+knew for the first time, despite many previous mischancy happenings,
+what real terror was.
+
+The room was thick with blinding smoke by this, so that Borsdale could
+see nothing save his co-partner in this adventure.  Both men were
+shaken by what had occurred before.  Borsdale incuriously perceived
+that old Sir Thomas rose, tense as a cat about to pounce, and that he
+caught the unstained knife from Borsdale's hand, and flung it like a
+javelin into the vapor which encompassed them.  This gesture stirred
+the smoke so that Borsdale could see the knife quiver and fall, and
+note the tiny triangle of unbared plaster it had cut in the painted
+woman's breast.  Within the same instant he had perceived a naked man
+who staggered.
+
+"_Iz adu kronyeshnago_----!"  The intruder's thin, shrill wail was that
+of a frightened child.  The man strode forward, choked, seemed to grope
+his way.  His face was not good to look at.  Horror gripped and tore at
+every member of the cadaverous old body, as a high wind tugs at a flag.
+The two witnesses of Herrick's agony did not stir during the instant
+wherein the frenzied man stooped, moving stiffly like an ill-made toy,
+and took up the knife.
+
+"Oh, yes, I knew what he was about to do," said Sir Thomas Browne
+afterward, in his quiet fashion.  "I did not try to stop him.  If
+Herrick had been my dearest friend, I would not have interfered.  I had
+seen his face, you comprehend.  Yes, it was kinder to let him die.  It
+was curious, though, as he stood there hacking his chest, how at each
+stab he deliberately twisted the knife.  I suppose the pain distracted
+his mind from what he was remembering.  I should have forewarned
+Borsdale of this possible outcome at the very first, I suppose.  But,
+then, which one of us is always wise?"
+
+
+So this adventure came to nothing.  For its significance, if any,
+hinged upon Robert Herrick's sanity, which was at best a disputable
+quantity.  Grant him insane, and the whole business, as Sir Thomas was
+at large pains to point out, dwindles at once into the irresponsible
+vagaries of a madman.
+
+"And all the while, for what we know, he had been hiding somewhere in
+the house.  We never searched it.  Oh, yes, there is no doubt he was
+insane," said Sir Thomas, comfortably.
+
+"Faith! what he moaned was gibberish, of course----"
+
+"Oddly enough, his words were intelligible.  They meant in Russian 'Out
+of the lowest hell.'"
+
+"But, why, in God's name, Russian?"
+
+"I am sure I do not know," Sir Thomas replied; and he did not appear at
+all to regret his ignorance.
+
+But Borsdale meditated, disappointedly.  "Oh, yes, the outcome is
+ambiguous, Sir Thomas, in every way.  I think we may safely take it as
+a warning, in any event, that this world of ours, whatever its
+deficiencies, was meant to be inhabited by men and women only."
+
+
+"Now I," was Sir Thomas's verdict, "prefer to take it as a warning that
+insane people ought to be restrained."
+
+"Ah, well, insanity is only one of the many forms of being abnormal.
+Yes, I think it proves that all abnormal people ought to be restrained.
+Perhaps it proves that they are very potently restrained," said Philip
+Borsdale, perversely.
+
+Perversely, Sir Thomas always steadfastly protested, because he said
+that to believe in Herrick's sanity was not conducive to your own.
+
+So Sir Thomas shrugged, and went toward the open window.  Without the
+road was a dazzling gray under the noon sun, for the sky was cloudless.
+The ordered trees were rustling pleasantly, very brave in their
+autumnal liveries.  Under a maple across the way some seven laborers
+were joking lazily as they ate their dinner.  A wagon lumbered by, the
+driver whistling.  In front of the house a woman had stopped to
+rearrange the pink cap of the baby she was carrying.  The child had
+just reached up fat and uncertain little arms to kiss her.  Nothing
+that Browne saw was out of ordinary, kindly human life.
+
+"Well, after all," said Sir Thomas, upon a sudden, "for one, I think it
+is an endurable world, just as it stands."
+
+And Borsdale looked up from a letter he had been reading.  It was from
+a woman who has no concern with this tale, and its contents were of no
+importance to any one save Borsdale.
+
+"Now, do you know," said Philip Borsdale, "I am beginning to think you
+the most sensible man of my acquaintance!  Oh, yes, beyond doubt it is
+an endurable sun-nurtured world--just as it stands.  It makes it doubly
+odd that Dr. Herrick should have chosen always to
+
+  'Write of groves, and twilights, and to sing
+  The court of Mab, and of the Fairy King,
+  And write of Hell.'"
+
+
+Sir Thomas touched his arm, protestingly.  "Ah, but you have forgotten
+what follows, Philip--
+
+  'I sing, and ever shall,
+  Of Heaven,--and hope to have it after all.'"
+
+
+"Well! I cry Amen," said Borsdale.  "But I wish I could forget the old
+man's face."
+
+"Oh, and I also," Sir Thomas said.  "And I cry Amen with far more
+heartiness, my lad, because I, too, once dreamed of--of Corinna, shall
+we say?"
+
+
+
+
+OLIVIA'S POTTAGE
+
+
+"_Mr. Wycherley was naturally modest until King Charles' court, that
+late disgrace to our times, corrupted him.  He then gave himself up to
+all sorts of extravagances and to the wildest frolics that a wanton wit
+could devise. . . .  Never was so much ill-nature in a pen as in his,
+joined with so much good nature as was in himself, even to excess; for
+he was bountiful, even to run himself into difficulties, and charitable
+even to a fault.  It was not that he was free from the failings of
+humanity, but he had the tenderness of it, too, which made everybody
+excuse whom everybody loved; and even the asperity of his verses seems
+to have been forgiven._"
+
+
+
+
+  I the Plain Dealer am to act to-day.
+
+        *     *     *     *     *     *
+
+  Now, you shrewd judges, who the boxes sway,
+  Leading the ladies' hearts and sense astray,
+  And for their sakes, see all and hear no play;
+  Correct your cravats, foretops, lock behind:
+  The dress and breeding of the play ne'er mind;
+  For the coarse dauber of the coming scenes
+  To follow life and nature only means,
+  Displays you as you are, makes his fine woman
+  A mercenary jilt and true to no man,
+  Shows men of wit and pleasure of the age
+  Are as dull rogues as ever cumber'd stage.
+
+  WILLIAM WYCHERLEY.--_Prologue to The Plain Dealer_.
+
+
+
+
+OLIVIA'S POTTAGE
+
+
+It was in the May of 1680 that Mr. William Wycherley went into the
+country to marry the famed heiress, Mistress Araminta Vining, as he had
+previously settled with her father, and found her to his vast relief a
+very personable girl.  She had in consequence a host of admirers,
+pre-eminent among whom was young Robert Minifie of Milanor.  Mr.
+Wycherley, a noted stickler for etiquette, decorously made bold to
+question Mr. Minifie's taste in a dispute concerning waistcoats.  A
+duel was decorously arranged and these two met upon the narrow beach of
+Teviot Bay.
+
+Theirs was a spirited encounter, lasting for ten energetic minutes.
+Then Wycherley pinked Mr. Minifie in the shoulder, just as the
+dramatist, a favorite pupil of Gerard's, had planned to do; and the
+four gentlemen parted with every imaginable courtesy, since the wounded
+man and the two seconds were to return by boat to Mr. Minifie's house
+at Milanor.
+
+More lately Wycherley walked in the direction of Ouseley Manor,
+whistling _Love's a Toy_.  Honor was satisfied, and, happily, as he
+reflected, at no expense of life.  He was a kindly hearted fop, and
+more than once had killed his man with perfectly sincere regret.  But
+in putting on his coat--it was the black camlet coat with silver
+buttons--he had overlooked his sleevelinks; and he did not recognize,
+for twenty-four eventful hours, the full importance of his carelessness.
+
+
+In the heart of Figgis Wood, the incomparable Countess of Drogheda,
+aunt to Mr. Wycherley's betrothed, and a noted leader of fashion, had
+presently paused at sight of him--laughing a little--and with one tiny
+hand had made as though to thrust back the staghound which accompanied
+her.  "Your humble servant, Mr. Swashbuckler," she said; and then: "But
+oh! you have not hurt the lad?" she demanded, with a tincture of
+anxiety.
+
+"Nay, after a short but brilliant engagement," Wycherley returned, "Mr.
+Minifie was very harmlessly perforated; and in consequence I look to be
+married on Thursday, after all."
+
+"Let me die but Cupid never meets with anything save inhospitality in
+this gross world!" cried Lady Drogheda.  "For the boy is heels over
+head in love with Araminta,--oh, a second Almanzor!  And my niece does
+not precisely hate him either, let me tell you, William, for all your
+month's assault of essences and perfumed gloves and apricot paste and
+other small artillery of courtship.  La, my dear, was it only a month
+ago we settled your future over a couple of Naples biscuit and a bottle
+of Rhenish?" She walked beside him now, and the progress of these
+exquisites was leisurely.  There were many trees at hand so huge as to
+necessitate a considerable detour.
+
+"Egad, it is a month and three days over," Wycherley retorted, "since
+you suggested your respected brother-in-law was ready to pay my debts
+in full, upon condition I retaliated by making your adorable niece
+Mistress Wycherley.  Well, I stand to-day indebted to him for an
+advance of L1500 and am no more afraid of bailiffs.  We have performed
+a very creditable stroke of business; and the day after to-morrow you
+will have fairly earned your L500 for arranging the marriage.  Faith,
+and in earnest of this, I already begin to view you through appropriate
+lenses as undoubtedly the most desirable aunt in the universe."
+
+Nor was there any unconscionable stretching of the phrase.  Through the
+quiet forest, untouched as yet by any fidgeting culture, and much as it
+was when John Lackland wooed Hawisa under, its venerable oaks, old even
+then, the little widow moved like a light flame.  She was clothed
+throughout in scarlet, after her high-hearted style of dress, and
+carried a tall staff of ebony; and the gold head of it was farther from
+the dead leaves than was her mischievous countenance.  The big
+staghound lounged beside her.  She pleased the eye, at least, did this
+heartless, merry and selfish Olivia, whom Wycherley had so ruthlessly
+depicted in his _Plain Dealer_.  To the last detail Wycherley found
+her, as he phrased it, "_mignonne et piquante_," and he told her so.
+
+Lady Drogheda observed, "Fiddle-de-dee!"  Lady Drogheda continued:
+"Yes, I am a fool, of course, but then I still remember Bessington, and
+the boy that went mad there----"
+
+"Because of a surfeit of those dreams 'such as the poets know when they
+are young.'  Sweet chuck, beat not the bones of the buried; when he
+breathed he was a likely lad," Mr. Wycherley declared, with signal
+gravity.
+
+"Oh, la, la!" she flouted him.  "Well, in any event you were the first
+gentleman in England to wear a neckcloth of Flanders lace."
+
+"And you were the first person of quality to eat cheesecakes in Spring
+Garden," he not half so mirthfully retorted.  "So we have not entirely
+failed in life, it may be, after all."
+
+She made of him a quite irrelevant demand:  "D'ye fancy Esau was
+contented, William?"
+
+"I fancy he was fond of pottage, madam; and that, as I remember, he got
+his pottage.  Come, now, a tangible bowl of pottage, piping hot, is not
+to be despised in such a hazardous world as ours is."
+
+She was silent for a lengthy while.  "Lord, Lord, how musty all that
+brave, sweet nonsense seems!" she said, and almost sighed.  "Eh, well!
+_le vin est tire, et il faut le boire_."
+
+"My adorable aunt!  Let us put it a thought less dumpishly; and render
+thanks because our pottage smokes upon the table, and we are blessed
+with excellent appetites."
+
+"So that in a month we will be back again in the playhouses and Hyde
+Park and Mulberry Garden, or nodding to each other in the New
+Exchange,--you with your debts paid, and I with my L500----?"  She
+paused to pat the staghound's head.  "Lord Remon came this afternoon,"
+said Lady Drogheda, and with averted eyes.
+
+"I do not approve of Remon," he announced.  "Nay, madam, even a Siren
+ought to spare her kin and show some mercy toward the more
+stagnant-blooded fish."
+
+And Lady Drogheda shrugged.  "He is very wealthy, and I am lamentably
+poor.  One must not seek noon at fourteen o'clock or clamor for better
+bread than was ever made from wheat."
+
+Mr. Wycherley laughed, after a pregnant silence.
+
+"By heavens, madam, you are in the right!  So I shall walk no more in
+Figgis Wood, for its old magic breeds too many day-dreams.  Besides, we
+have been serious for half-an-hour.  Now, then, let us discuss
+theology, dear aunt, or millinery, or metaphysics, or the King's new
+statue at Windsor, or, if you will, the last Spring Garden scandal.  Or
+let us count the leaves upon this tree; and afterward I will enumerate
+my reasons for believing yonder crescent moon to be the paring of the
+Angel Gabriel's left thumb-nail."
+
+She was a woman of eloquent silences when there was any need of them;
+and thus the fop and the coquette traversed the remainder of that
+solemn wood without any further speech.  Modish people would have
+esteemed them unwontedly glum.
+
+
+Wycherley discovered in a while the absence of his sleeve-links, and
+was properly vexed by the loss of these not unhandsome trinkets, the
+gifts of Lady Castlemaine in the old days when Mr. Wycherley was the
+King's successful rival for her favors.  But Wycherley knew the tide
+filled Teviot Bay and wondering fishes were at liberty to muzzle the
+toys, by this, and merely shrugged at his mishap, midcourse in toilet.
+
+Mr. Wycherley, upon mature deliberation, wore the green suit with
+yellow ribbons, since there was a ball that night in honor of his
+nearing marriage, and a confluence of gentry to attend it.  Miss Vining
+and he walked through a minuet to some applause; the two were heartily
+acclaimed a striking couple, and congratulations beat about their ears
+as thick as sugar-plums in a carnival.  And at nine you might have
+found the handsome dramatist alone upon the East Terrace of Ouseley,
+pacing to and fro in the moonlight, and complacently reflecting upon
+his quite indisputable and, past doubt, unmerited good fortune.
+
+There was never any night in June which nature planned the more
+adroitly.  Soft and warm and windless, lit by a vainglorious moon and
+every star that ever shone, the beauty of this world caressed and
+heartened its beholder like a gallant music.  Our universe, Mr.
+Wycherley conceded willingly, was excellent and kindly, and the Arbiter
+of it too generous; for here was he, the wastrel, like the third prince
+at the end of a fairy-tale, the master of a handsome wife, and a fine
+house and fortune.  Somewhere, he knew, young Minifie, with his arm in
+a sling, was pleading with Mistress Araminta for the last time; and
+this reflection did not greatly trouble Mr. Wycherley, since
+incommunicably it tickled his vanity.  He was chuckling when he came to
+the open window.
+
+Within a woman was singing, to the tinkling accompaniment of a spinet,
+for the delectation of Lord Remon.  She was not uncomely, and the hard,
+lean, stingy countenance of the attendant nobleman was almost genial.
+Wycherley understood with a great rending shock, as though the thought
+were novel, that Olivia, Lady Drogheda, designed to marry this man, who
+grinned within finger's reach--or, rather, to ally herself with Remon's
+inordinate wealth,--and without any heralding a brutal rage and hatred
+of all created things possessed the involuntary eavesdropper.
+
+She looked up into Remon's face and, laughing with such bright and
+elfin mirth as never any other woman showed, thought Wycherley, she
+broke into another song.  She would have spared Mr. Wycherley that had
+she but known him to be within earshot. . . .  Oh, it was only Lady
+Drogheda who sang, he knew,--the seasoned gamester and coquette, the
+veteran of London and of Cheltenham,--but the woman had no right to
+charm this haggler with a voice that was not hers.  For it was the
+voice of another Olivia, who was not a fine and urban lady, and who
+lived nowhere any longer; it was the voice of a soft-handed, tender,
+jeering girl, whom he alone remembered; and a sick, illimitable rage
+grilled in each vein of him as liltingly she sang, for Remon, the old
+and foolish song which Wycherley had made in her praise very long ago,
+and of which he might not ever forget the most trivial word.
+
+Men, even beaux, are strangely constituted; and so it needed only
+this--the sudden stark brute jealousy of one male animal for another.
+That was the clumsy hand which now unlocked the dyke; and like a flood,
+tall and resistless, came the recollection of their far-off past and of
+its least dear trifle, of all the aspirations and absurdities and
+splendors of their common youth, and found him in its path, a painted
+fellow, a spendthrift king of the mode, a most notable authority upon
+the set of a peruke, a penniless, spent connoisseur of stockings,
+essences and cosmetics.
+
+
+He got but little rest this night.
+
+There were too many plaintive memories which tediously plucked him
+back, with feeble and innumerable hands, as often as he trod upon the
+threshold of sleep.  Then too, there were so many dreams, half-waking,
+and not only of Olivia Chichele, naive and frank in divers rural
+circumstances, but rather of Olivia, Lady Drogheda, that perfect piece
+of artifice; of how exquisite she was! how swift and volatile in every
+movement! how airily indomitable, and how mendacious to the tips of her
+polished finger-nails!  and how she always seemed to flit about this
+world as joyously, alertly, and as colorfully as some ornate and tiny
+bird of the tropics!
+
+But presently parochial birds were wrangling underneath the dramatist's
+window, while he tossed and assured himself that he was sleepier than
+any saint who ever snored in Ephesus; and presently one hand of
+Moncrieff was drawing the bed-curtains, while the other carefully
+balanced a mug of shaving-water.
+
+
+Wycherley did not see her all that morning, for Lady Drogheda was
+fatigued, or so a lackey informed him, and as yet kept her chamber.
+His Araminta he found deplorably sullen.  So the dramatist devoted the
+better part of this day to a refitting of his wedding-suit, just come
+from London; for Moncrieff, an invaluable man, had adjudged the pockets
+to be placed too high; and, be the punishment deserved or no, Mr.
+Wycherley had never heard that any victim of law appeared the more
+admirable upon his scaffold for being slovenly in his attire.
+
+Thus it was as late as five in the afternoon that, wearing the
+peach-colored suit trimmed with scarlet ribbon, and a new French
+beaver, the exquisite came upon Lady Drogheda walking in the gardens
+with only an appropriate peacock for company.  She was so beautiful and
+brilliant and so little--so like a famous gem too suddenly disclosed,
+and therefore oddly disparate in all these qualities, that his decorous
+pleasant voice might quite permissibly have shaken a trifle (as indeed
+it did), when Mr. Wycherley implored Lady Drogheda to walk with him to
+Teviot Bay, on the off-chance of recovering his sleeve-links.
+
+And there they did find one of the trinkets, but the tide had swept
+away the other, or else the sand had buried it.  So they rested there
+upon the rocks, after an unavailing search, and talked of many trifles,
+amid surroundings oddly incongruous.
+
+For this Teviot Bay is a primeval place, a deep-cut, narrow notch in
+the tip of Carnrick, and is walled by cliffs so high and so precipitous
+that they exclude a view of anything except the ocean.  The bay opens
+due west; and its white barriers were now developing a violet tinge,
+for this was on a sullen afternoon, and the sea was ruffled by spiteful
+gusts.  Wycherley could find no color anywhere save in this glowing,
+tiny and exquisite woman; and everywhere was a gigantic peace, vexed
+only when high overhead a sea-fowl jeered at these modish persons, as
+he flapped toward an impregnable nest.
+
+"And by this hour to-morrow," thought Mr. Wycherley, "I shall be
+chained to that good, strapping, wholesome Juno of a girl!"
+
+So he fell presently into a silence, staring at the vacant west, which
+was like a huge and sickly pearl, not thinking of anything at all, but
+longing poignantly for something which was very beautiful and strange
+and quite unattainable, with precisely that anguish he had sometimes
+known in awaking from a dream of which he could remember nothing save
+its piercing loveliness.
+
+"And thus ends the last day of our bachelorhood!" said Lady Drogheda,
+upon a sudden.  "You have played long enough--La, William, you have led
+the fashion for ten years, you have written four merry comedies, and
+you have laughed as much as any man alive, but you have pulled down all
+that nature raised in you, I think.  Was it worth while?"
+
+"Faith, but nature's monuments are no longer the last cry in
+architecture," he replied; "and I believe that _The Plain Dealer_ and
+_The Country Wife_ will hold their own."
+
+"And you wrote them when you were just a boy!  Ah, yes, you might have
+been our English Moliere, my dear.  And, instead, you have elected to
+become an authority upon cravats and waistcoats."
+
+"Eh, madam"--he smiled--"there was a time when I too was foolishly
+intent to divert the leisure hours of posterity.  But reflection
+assured me that posterity had, thus far, done very little to place me
+under that or any other obligation.  Ah, no!  Youth, health and--though
+I say it--a modicum of intelligence are loaned to most of us for a
+while, and for a terribly brief while.  They are but loans, and Time is
+waiting greedily to snatch them from us.  For the perturbed usurer
+knows that he is lending us, perforce, three priceless possessions, and
+that till our lease runs out we are free to dispose of them as we
+elect.  Now, had I jealously devoted my allotment of these treasures
+toward securing for my impressions of the universe a place in yet
+unprinted libraries, I would have made an investment from which I could
+not possibly have derived any pleasure, and which would have been to
+other people of rather dubious benefit.  In consequence, I chose a
+wiser and devouter course."
+
+This statement Lady Drogheda afforded the commentary of a grimace.
+
+"Why, look you," Wycherley philosophized, "have you never thought what
+a vast deal of loving and painstaking labor must have gone to make the
+world we inhabit so beautiful and so complete?  For it was not enough
+to evolve and set a glaring sun in heaven, to marshal the big stars
+about the summer sky, but even in the least frequented meadow every
+butterfly must have his pinions jeweled, very carefully, and every
+lovely blade of grass be fashioned separately.  The hand that yesterday
+arranged the Himalayas found time to glaze the wings of a midge!  Now,
+most of us could design a striking Flood, or even a Last judgment,
+since the canvas is so big and the colors used so virulent; but to
+paint a snuff-box perfectly you must love the labor for its own sake,
+and pursue it without even an underthought of the performance's
+ultimate appraisement.  People do not often consider the simple fact
+that it is enough to bait, and quite superfluous to veneer, a  trap;
+indeed, those generally acclaimed the best of persons insist this world
+is but an antechamber, full of gins and pitfalls, which must be
+scurried through with shut eyes.  And the more fools they, as all we
+poets know! for to enjoy a sunset, or a glass of wine, or even to
+admire the charms of a handsome woman, is to render the Artificer of
+all at least the tribute of appreciation."
+
+But she said, in a sharp voice:  "William, William----!"  And he saw
+that there was no beach now in Teviot Bay except the dwindling crescent
+at its farthest indentation on which they sat.
+
+Yet his watch, on consultation, recorded only five o'clock; and
+presently Mr. Wycherley laughed, not very loudly.  The two had risen,
+and her face was a tiny snowdrift where every touch of rouge and
+grease-pencils showed crudely.
+
+"Look now," said Wycherley, "upon what trifles our lives hinge!  Last
+night I heard you singing, and the song brought back so many things
+done long ago, and made me so unhappy that--ridiculous conclusion!--I
+forgot to wind my watch.  Well! the tide is buffeting at either side of
+Carnrick; within the hour this place will be submerged; and, in a
+phrase, we are as dead as Hannibal or Hector."
+
+She said, very quiet:  "Could you not gain the mainland if you stripped
+and swam for it?"
+
+"Why, possibly," the beau conceded.  "Meanwhile you would have drowned.
+Faith, we had as well make the best of it."
+
+Little Lady Drogheda touched his sleeve, and her hand (as the man
+noted) did not shake at all, nor did her delicious piping voice shake
+either.  "You cannot save me.  I know it.  I am not frightened.  I bid
+you save yourself."
+
+"Permit me to assist you to that ledge of rock," Mr. Wycherley
+answered, "which is a trifle higher than the beach; and I pray you,
+Olivia, do not mar the dignity of these last passages by talking
+nonsense."
+
+For he had spied a ledge, not inaccessible, some four feet higher than
+the sands, and it offered them at least a respite.  And within the
+moment they had secured this niggardly concession, intent to die, as
+Wycherley observed, like hurt mice upon a pantry-shelf.  The business
+smacked of disproportion, he considered, although too well-bred to say
+as much; for here was a big ruthless league betwixt earth and sea, and
+with no loftier end than to crush a fop and a coquette, whose speedier
+extinction had been dear at the expense of a shilling's worth of
+arsenic!
+
+Then the sun came out, to peep at these trapped, comely people, and
+doubtless to get appropriate mirth at the spectacle.  He hung low
+against the misty sky, a clearly-rounded orb that did not dazzle, but
+merely shone with the cold glitter of new snow upon a fair December
+day; and for the rest, the rocks, and watery heavens, and all these
+treacherous and lapping waves, were very like a crude draught of the
+world, dashed off conceivably upon the day before creation.
+
+These arbiters of social London did not speak at all; and the bleak
+waters crowded toward them as in a fretful dispute of precedence.
+
+Then the woman said:  "Last night Lord Remon asked me to marry him, and
+I declined the honor.  For this place is too like Bessington--and, I
+think, the past month has changed everything----"
+
+"I thought you had forgotten Bessington," he said, "long, long ago."
+
+"I did not ever quite forget--Oh, the garish years," she wailed, "since
+then!  And how I hated you, William--and yet liked you, too,--because
+you were never the boy that I remembered, and people would not let you
+be!  And how I hated them--the huzzies!  For I had to see you almost
+every day, and it was never you I saw--Ah, William, come back for just
+a little, little while, and be an honest boy for just the moment that
+we are dying, and not an elegant fine gentleman!"
+
+"Nay, my dear," the dramatist composedly answered, "an hour of naked
+candor is at hand.  Life is a masquerade where Death, it would appear,
+is master of the ceremonies.  Now he sounds his whistle; and we who
+went about the world so long as harlequins must unmask, and for all
+time put aside our abhorrence of the disheveled.  For in sober verity,
+this is Death who comes, Olivia,--though I had thought that at his
+advent one would be afraid."
+
+Yet apprehension of this gross and unavoidable adventure, so soon to be
+endured, thrilled him, and none too lightly.  It seemed unfair that
+death should draw near thus sensibly, with never a twinge or ache to
+herald its arrival.  Why, there were fifty years of life in this fine,
+nimble body but for any contretemps like that of the deplorable
+present!  Thus his meditations stumbled.
+
+"Oh, William," Lady Drogheda bewailed, "it is all so big--the incurious
+west, and the sea, and these rocks that were old in Noah's youth,--and
+we are so little----!"
+
+"Yes," he returned, and took her hand, because their feet were wetted
+now; "the trap and its small prey are not commensurate.  The stage is
+set for a Homeric death-scene, and we two profane an over-ambitious
+background.  For who are we that Heaven should have rived the world
+before time was, to trap us, and should make of the old sea a
+fowling-net?"  Their eyes encountered, and he said, with a strange gush
+of manliness:  "Yet Heaven is kind.  I am bound even in honor now to
+marry Mistress Araminta; and you would marry Remon in the end,
+Olivia,--ah, yes! for we are merely moths, my dear, and luxury is a
+disastrously brilliant lamp.  But here are only you and I and the
+master of all ceremony.  And yet--I would we were a little worthier,
+Olivia!"
+
+"You have written four merry comedies and you were the first gentleman
+in England to wear a neckcloth of Flanders lace," she answered, and her
+smile was sadder than weeping.
+
+"And you were the first person of quality to eat cheese-cakes in Spring
+Garden.  There you have our epitaphs, if we in truth have earned an
+epitaph who have not ever lived."
+
+"No, we have only laughed--Laugh now, for the last time, and hearten
+me, my handsome William!  And yet could I but come to God," the woman
+said, with a new voice, "and make it clear to Him just how it all fell
+out, and beg for one more chance!  How heartily I would pray then!"
+
+"And I would cry Amen to all that prayer must of necessity contain," he
+answered.  "Oh!" said Wycherley, "just for applause and bodily comfort
+and the envy of innumerable other fools we two have bartered a great
+heritage!  I think our corner of the world will lament us for as much
+as a week; but I fear lest Heaven may not condescend to set apart the
+needful time wherein to frame a suitable chastisement for such poor
+imbeciles.  Olivia, I have loved you all my life, and I have been
+faithful neither to you nor to myself!  I love you so that I am not
+afraid even now, since you are here, and so entirely that I have
+forgotten how to plead my cause convincingly.  And I have had practice,
+let me tell you. . . . !"  Then he shook his head and smiled.  "But
+candor is not _a la mode_.  See, now, to what outmoded and bucolic
+frenzies nature brings even us at last."
+
+She answered only, as she motioned seaward, "Look!"
+
+
+And what Mr. Wycherley saw was a substantial boat rowed by four of Mr.
+Minifie's attendants; and in the bow of the vessel sat that wounded
+gentleman himself, regarding Wycherley and Lady Drogheda with some
+disfavor; and beside the younger man was Mistress Araminta Vining.
+
+It was a perturbed Minifie who broke the silence.  "This is very
+awkward," he said, "because Araminta and I are eloping.  We mean to be
+married this same night at Milanor.  And deuce take it, Mr. Wycherley!
+I can't leave you there to drown, any more than in the circumstances I
+can ask you to make one of the party."
+
+"Mr.  Wycherley," said his companion, with far more asperity, "the
+vanity and obduracy of a cruel father have forced me to the adoption of
+this desperate measure.  Toward yourself I entertain no ill-feeling,
+nor indeed any sentiment at all except the most profound contempt.  My
+aunt will, of course, accompany us; for yourself, you will do as you
+please; but in any event I solemnly protest that I spurn your odious
+pretensions, release myself hereby from an enforced and hideous
+obligation, and in a phrase would not marry you in order to be Queen of
+England."
+
+"Miss Vining, I had hitherto admired you," the beau replied, with
+fervor, "but now esteem is changed to adoration."
+
+Then he turned to his Olivia.  "Madam, you will pardon the awkward but
+unavoidable publicity of my proceeding.  I am a ruined man.  I owe your
+brother-in-law some L1500, and, oddly enough, I mean to pay him.  I
+must sell Jephcot and Skene Minor, but while life lasts I shall keep
+Bessington and all its memories.  Meanwhile there is a clergyman
+waiting at Milanor.  So marry me to-night, Olivia; and we will go back
+to Bessington to-morrow."
+
+"To Bessington----!" she said.  It was as though she spoke of something
+very sacred.  Then very musically Lady Drogheda laughed, and to the eye
+she was all flippancy.  "La, William, I can't bury myself in the
+country until the end of time," she said, "and make interminable
+custards," she added, "and superintend the poultry," she said, "and for
+recreation play short whist with the vicar."
+
+And it seemed to Mr. Wycherley that he had gone divinely mad.  "Don't
+lie to me, Olivia.  You are thinking there are yet a host of heiresses
+who would be glad to be a famous beau's wife at however dear a cost.
+But don't lie to me.  Don't even try to seem the airy and bedizened
+woman I have known so long.  All that is over now.  Death tapped us on
+the shoulder, and, if only for a moment, the masks were dropped.  And
+life is changed now, oh, everything is changed!  Then, come, my dear!
+let us be wise and very honest.  Let us concede it is still possible
+for me to find another heiress, and for you to marry Remon; let us
+grant it the only outcome of our common-sense! and for all that, laugh,
+and fling away the pottage, and be more wise than reason."
+
+She irresolutely said:  "I cannot.  Matters are altered now.  It would
+be madness----"
+
+"It would undoubtedly be madness," Mr. Wycherley assented.  "But then I
+am so tired of being rational!  Oh, Olivia," this former arbiter of
+taste absurdly babbled, "if I lose you now it is forever! and there is
+no health in me save when I am with you.  Then alone I wish to do
+praiseworthy things, to be all which the boy we know of should have
+grown to. . . .  See how profoundly shameless I am become when, with
+such an audience, I take refuge in the pitiful base argument of my own
+weakness!  But, my dear, I want you so that nothing else in the world
+means anything to me.  I want you! and all my life I have wanted you."
+
+"Boy, boy----!" she answered, and her fine hands had come to Wycherley,
+as white birds flutter homeward.  But even then she had to deliberate
+the matter--since the habits of many years are not put aside like
+outworn gloves,--and for innumerable centuries, it seemed to him, her
+foot tapped on that wetted ledge.
+
+Presently her lashes lifted.  "I suppose it would be lacking in
+reverence to keep a clergyman waiting longer than was absolutely
+necessary?" she hazarded.
+
+
+
+
+A BROWN WOMAN
+
+
+"_A critical age called for symmetry, and exquisite finish had to be
+studied as much as nobility of thought. . . .  POPE aimed to take first
+place as a writer of polished verse.  Any knowledge he gained of the
+world, or any suggestion that came to him from his intercourse with
+society, was utilized to accomplish his main purpose.  To put his
+thoughts into choice language was not enough.  Each idea had to be put
+in its neatest and most epigrammatic form._"
+
+
+
+
+  Why did I write? what sin to me unknown
+  Dipt me in ink, my parents', or my own?
+  As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame,
+  I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came.
+  The muse but served to ease some friend, not wife,
+  To help me through this long disease, my life.
+
+        *     *     *     *     *     *
+
+  Who shames a scribbler? break one cobweb through,
+  He spins the slight, self-pleasing thread anew;
+  Destroy his fib or sophistry in vain,
+  The creature's at his foolish work again,
+  Throned in the centre of his thin designs,
+  Proud of a vast extent of flimsy lines!
+
+  ALEXANDER POPE.--_Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot_.
+
+
+
+
+A BROWN WOMAN
+
+"But I must be hurrying home now," the girl said, "for it is high time
+I were back in the hayfields."
+
+"Fair shepherdess," he implored, "for heaven's sake, let us not cut
+short the _pastorelle_ thus abruptly."
+
+"And what manner of beast may that be, pray?"
+
+"'Tis a conventional form of verse, my dear, which we at present
+strikingly illustrate.  The plan of a _pastorelle_ is simplicity's
+self: a gentleman, which I may fairly claim to be, in some fair rural
+scene--such as this--comes suddenly upon a rustic maiden of surpassing
+beauty.  He naturally falls in love with her, and they say all manner
+of fine things to each other."
+
+She considered him for a while before speaking.  It thrilled him to see
+the odd tenderness that was in her face.  "You always think of saying
+and writing fine things, do you not, sir?"
+
+"My dear," he answered, gravely, "I believe that I was undoubtedly
+guilty of such folly until you came.  I wish I could make you
+understand how your coming has changed everything."
+
+"You can tell me some other time," the girl gaily declared, and was
+about to leave him.
+
+His hand detained her very gently.  "Faith, but I fear not, for already
+my old hallucinations seem to me incredible.  Why, yesterday I thought
+it the most desirable of human lots to be a great poet"--the gentleman
+laughed in self-mockery.  "I positively did.  I labored every day
+toward becoming one.  I lived among books, esteemed that I was doing
+something of genuine importance as I gravely tinkered with alliteration
+and metaphor and antithesis and judicious paraphrases of the ancients.
+I put up with life solely because it afforded material for
+versification; and, in reality, believed the destruction of Troy was
+providentially ordained lest Homer lack subject matter for an epic.
+And as for loving, I thought people fell in love in order to exchange
+witty rhymes."
+
+His hand detained her, very gently. . . .  Indeed, it seemed to him he
+could never tire of noting her excellencies.  Perhaps it was that
+splendid light poise of her head he chiefly loved; he thought so at
+least, just now.  Or was it the wonder of her walk, which made all
+other women he had ever known appear to mince and hobble, like rusty
+toys?  Something there was assuredly about this slim brown girl which
+recalled an untamed and harmless woodland creature; and it was that, he
+knew, which most poignantly moved him, even though he could not name
+it.  Perhaps it was her bright kind eyes, which seemed to mirror the
+tranquillity of forests. . . .
+
+"You gentry are always talking of love," she marveled.
+
+"Oh," he said, with acerbity, "oh, I don't doubt that any number of
+beef-gorging squires and leering, long-legged Oxford dandies----"  He
+broke off here, and laughed contemptuously.  "Well, you are beautiful,
+and they have eyes as keen as mine.  And I do not blame you, my dear,
+for believing my designs to be no more commendable than theirs--no, not
+at all."
+
+But his mood was spoiled, and his tetchy vanity hurt, by the thought of
+stout well-set fellows having wooed this girl; and he permitted her to
+go without protest.
+
+Yet he sat alone for a while upon the fallen tree-trunk, humming a
+contented little tune.  Never in his life had he been happier.  He did
+not venture to suppose that any creature so adorable could love such a
+sickly hunchback, such a gargoyle of a man, as he was; but that Sarah
+was fond of him, he knew.  There would be no trouble in arranging with
+her father for their marriage, most certainly; and he meant to attend
+to that matter this very morning, and within ten minutes.  So Mr.
+Alexander Pope was meanwhile arranging in his mind a suitable wording
+for his declaration of marital aspirations.
+
+Thus John Gay found him presently and roused him from phrase-spinning.
+"And what shall we do this morning, Alexander?"  Gay was always
+demanding, like a spoiled child, to be amused.
+
+Pope told him what his own plans were, speaking quite simply, but with
+his countenance radiant.  Gay took off his hat and wiped his forehead,
+for the day was warm.  He did not say anything at all.
+
+"Well----?" Mr. Pope asked, after a pause.
+
+Mr. Gay was dubious.  "I had never thought that you would marry," he
+said.  "And--why, hang it, Alexander! to grow enamored of a milkmaid is
+well enough for the hero of a poem, but in a poet it hints at
+injudicious composition."
+
+Mr. Pope gesticulated with thin hands and seemed upon the verge of
+eloquence.  Then he spoke unanswerably.  "But I love her," he said.
+
+John Gay's reply was a subdued whistle.  He, in common with the other
+guests of Lord Harcourt, at Nuneham Courtney, had wondered what would
+be the outcome of Mr. Alexander Pope's intimacy with Sarah Drew.  A
+month earlier the poet had sprained his ankle upon Amshot Heath, and
+this young woman had found him lying there, entirely helpless, as she
+returned from her evening milking.  Being hale of person, she had
+managed to get the little hunchback to her home unaided.  And since
+then Pope had often been seen with her.
+
+This much was common knowledge.  That Mr. Pope proposed to marry the
+heroine of his misadventure afforded a fair mark for raillery, no
+doubt, but Gay, in common with the run of educated England in 1718, did
+not aspire to be facetious at Pope's expense.  The luxury was too
+costly.  Offend the dwarf in any fashion, and were you the proudest
+duke at Court or the most inconsiderable rhymester in Petticoat Lane,
+it made no difference; there was no crime too heinous for "the great
+Mr. Pope's" next verses to charge you with, and, worst of all, there
+was no misdoing so out of character that his adroit malignancy could
+not make it seem plausible.
+
+Now, after another pause, Pope said, "I must be going now.  Will you
+not wish me luck?"
+
+"Why, Alexander--why, hang it!" was Mr. Gay's observation, "I believe
+that you are human after all, and not just a book in breeches."
+
+
+He thereby voiced a commentary patently uncalled-for, as Mr. Pope
+afterward reflected.  Mr. Pope was then treading toward the home of old
+Frederick Drew.  It was a gray morning in late July.
+
+"I love her," Pope had said.  The fact was undeniable; yet an
+expression of it necessarily halts.  Pope knew, as every man must do
+who dares conserve his energies to annotate the drama of life rather
+than play a part in it, the nature of that loneliness which this
+conservation breeds.  Such persons may hope to win a posthumous esteem
+in the library, but it is at the bleak cost of making life a wistful
+transaction with foreigners.  In such enforced aloofness Sarah Drew had
+come to him--strong, beautiful, young, good and vital, all that he was
+not--and had serenely befriended "the great Mr. Pope," whom she viewed
+as a queer decrepit little gentleman of whom within a week she was
+unfeignedly fond.
+
+"I love her," Pope had said.  Eh, yes, no doubt; and what, he fiercely
+demanded of himself, was he--a crippled scribbler, a bungling artisan
+of phrases--that he should dare to love this splendid and deep-bosomed
+goddess?  Something of youth awoke, possessing him--something of that
+high ardor which, as he cloudily remembered now, had once controlled a
+boy who dreamed in Windsor Forest and with the lightest of hearts
+planned to achieve the impossible.  For what is more difficult of
+attainment than to achieve the perfected phrase, so worded that to
+alter a syllable of its wording would be little short of sacrilege?
+
+"What whimwhams!" decreed the great Mr. Pope, aloud.  "Verse-making is
+at best only the affair of idle men who write in their closets and of
+idle men who read there.  And as for him who polishes phrases, whatever
+be his fate in poetry, it is ten to one but he must give up all the
+reasonable aims of life for it."
+
+No, he would have no more of loneliness.  Henceforward Alexander Pope
+would be human--like the others.  To write perfectly was much; but it
+was not everything.  Living was capable of furnishing even more than
+the raw material of a couplet.  It might, for instance, yield content.
+
+For instance, if you loved, and married, and begot, and died, with the
+seriousness of a person who believes he is performing an action of real
+importance, and conceded that the perfection of any art, whether it be
+that of verse-making or of rope-dancing, is at best a by-product of
+life's conduct; at worst, you probably would not be lonely.  No; you
+would be at one with all other fat-witted people, and there was no
+greater blessing conceivable.
+
+Pope muttered, and produced his notebook, and wrote tentatively.
+
+Wrote Mr. Pope:
+
+  The bliss of man (could pride that blessing find)
+  Is not to act or think beyond mankind;
+  No powers of body or of soul to share
+  But what his nature and his state can bear.
+
+
+"His state!" yes, undeniably, two sibilants collided here.  "His
+wit?"--no, that would be flat-footed awkwardness in the management of
+your vowel-sounds; the lengthened "a" was almost requisite. . . .  Pope
+was fretting over the imbroglio when he absent-mindedly glanced up to
+perceive that his Sarah, not irrevocably offended, was being embraced
+by a certain John Hughes--who was a stalwart, florid personable
+individual, no doubt, but, after all, only an unlettered farmer.
+
+The dwarf gave a hard, wringing motion of his hands.  The diamond-Lord
+Bolingbroke's gift--which ornamented Pope's left hand cut into the
+flesh of his little finger, so cruel was the gesture; and this little
+finger was bleeding as Pope tripped forward, smiling.  A gentleman does
+not incommode the public by obtruding the ugliness of a personal wound.
+
+"Do I intrude?" he queried.  "Ah, well!  I also have dwelt in Arcadia."
+It was bitter to comprehend that he had never done so.
+
+The lovers were visibly annoyed; yet, if an interruption of their
+pleasant commerce was decreed to be, it could not possibly have sprung,
+as they soon found, from a more sympathetic source.
+
+These were not subtle persons.  Pope had the truth from them within ten
+minutes.  They loved each other; but John Hughes was penniless, and old
+Frederick Drew was, in consequence, obdurate.
+
+"And, besides, he thinks you mean to marry her!" said John Hughes.
+
+"My dear man, he pardonably forgets that the utmost reach of my designs
+in common reason would be to have her as my kept mistress for a month
+or two," drawled Mr. Pope.  "As concerns yourself, my good fellow, the
+case is somewhat different.  Why, it is a veritable romance--an affair
+of Daphne and Corydon--although, to be unpardonably candid, the plot of
+your romance, my young Arcadians, is not the most original conceivable.
+I think that the denouement need not baffle our imaginations."
+
+The dwarf went toward Sarah Drew.  The chary sunlight had found the
+gold in her hair, and its glint was brightly visible to him.  "My
+dear--" he said.  His thin long fingers touched her capable hand.  It
+was a sort of caress--half-timid.  "My dear, I owe my life to you.  My
+body is at most a flimsy abortion such as a night's exposure would have
+made more tranquil than it is just now.  Yes, it was you who found a
+caricature of the sort of man that Mr. Hughes here is, disabled,
+helpless, and--for reasons which doubtless seemed to you
+sufficient--contrived that this unsightly parody continue in existence.
+I am not lovable, my dear.  I am only a hunchback, as you can see.  My
+aspirations and my sickly imaginings merit only the derision of a
+candid clean-souled being such as you are."  His finger-tips touched
+the back of her hand again.  "I think there was never a maker of
+enduring verse who did not at one period or another long to exchange an
+assured immortality for a sturdier pair of shoulders.  I think--I think
+that I am prone to speak at random," Pope said, with his half-drowsy
+smile.  "Yet, none the less, an honest man, as our kinsmen in Adam
+average, is bound to pay his equitable debts."
+
+She said, "I do not understand."
+
+"I have perpetrated certain jingles," Pope returned.  "I had not
+comprehended until to-day they are the only children I shall leave
+behind me.  Eh, and what would you make of them, my dear, could
+ingenuity contrive a torture dire enough to force you into reading
+them! . . .  Misguided people have paid me for contriving these
+jingles.  So that I have money enough to buy you from your father just
+as I would purchase one of his heifers.  Yes, at the very least I have
+money, and I have earned it.  I will send your big-thewed adorer--I
+believe that Hughes is the name?--L500 of it this afternoon.  That sum,
+I gather, will be sufficient to remove your father's objection to your
+marriage with Mr. Hughes."
+
+Pope could not but admire himself tremendously.  Moreover, in such
+matters no woman is blind.  Tears came into Sarah's huge brown eyes.
+This tenderhearted girl was not thinking of John Hughes now.  Pope
+noted the fact with the pettiest exultation.  "Oh, you--you are good."
+Sarah Drew spoke as with difficulty.
+
+"No adjective, my dear, was ever applied with less discrimination.  It
+is merely that you have rendered no inconsiderable service to
+posterity, and merit a reward."
+
+"Oh, and indeed, indeed, I was always fond of you----"  The girl sobbed
+this.
+
+She would have added more, no doubt, since compassion is garrulous, had
+not Pope's scratched hand dismissed a display of emotion as not
+entirely in consonance with the rules of the game.
+
+"My dear, therein you have signally honored me.  There remains only to
+offer you my appreciation of your benevolence toward a sickly monster,
+and to entreat for my late intrusion--however unintentional--that
+forgiveness which you would not deny, I think, to any other impertinent
+insect."
+
+"Oh, but we have no words to thank you, sir----!" Thus Hughes began.
+
+"Then don't attempt it, my good fellow.  For phrase-spinning, as I can
+assure you, is the most profitless of all pursuits."  Whereupon Pope
+bowed low, wheeled, walked away.  Yes, he was wounded past sufferance;
+it seemed to him he must die of it.  Life was a farce, and Destiny an
+overseer who hiccoughed mandates.  Well, all that even Destiny could
+find to gloat over, he reflected, was the tranquil figure of a smallish
+gentleman switching at the grass-blades with his cane as he sauntered
+under darkening skies.
+
+For a storm was coming on, and the first big drops of it were
+splattering the terrace when Mr. Pope entered Lord Harcourt's mansion.
+
+
+Pope went straight to his own rooms.  As he came in there was a vivid
+flash of lightning, followed instantaneously by a crashing, splitting
+noise, like that of universes ripped asunder.  He did not honor the
+high uproar with attention.  This dwarf was not afraid of anything
+except the commission of an error in taste.
+
+Then, too, there were letters for him, laid ready on the writing-table.
+Nothing of much importance he found there.--Here, though, was a rather
+diverting letter from Eustace Budgell, that poor fool, abjectly
+thanking Mr. Pope for his advice concerning how best to answer the
+atrocious calumnies on Budgell then appearing in _The Grub-Street
+Journal_,--and reposing, drolly enough, next the proof-sheets of an
+anonymous letter Pope had prepared for the forthcoming issue of that
+publication, wherein he sprightlily told how Budgell had poisoned Dr.
+Tindal, after forging his will.  For even if Budgell had not in point
+of fact been guilty of these particular peccadilloes, he had quite
+certainly committed the crime of speaking lightly of Mr. Pope, as "a
+little envious animal," some seven years ago; and it was for this grave
+indiscretion that Pope was dexterously goading the man into insanity,
+and eventually drove him to suicide. . . .
+
+The storm made the room dark and reading difficult.  Still, this was an
+even more amusing letter, from the all-powerful Duchess of Marlborough.
+In as civil terms as her sick rage could muster, the frightened woman
+offered Mr. Pope L1,000 to suppress his verbal portrait of her, in the
+character of Atossa, from his _Moral Essays_; and Pope straightway
+decided to accept the bribe, and afterward to print his verses
+unchanged.  For the hag, as he reflected, very greatly needed to be
+taught that in this world there was at least one person who did not
+quail before her tantrums.  There would be, moreover, even an
+elementary justice in thus robbing her who had robbed England at large.
+And, besides, her name was Sarah. . . .
+
+Pope lighted four candles and set them before the long French mirror.
+He stood appraising his many curious deformities while the storm raged.
+He stood sidelong, peering over his left shoulder, in order to see the
+outline of his crooked back.  Nowhere in England, he reflected, was
+there a person more pitiable and more repellent outwardly.
+
+"And, oh, it would be droll," Pope said, aloud, "if our exteriors were
+ever altogether parodies.  But time keeps a diary in our faces, and
+writes a monstrously plain hand.  Now, if you take the first letter of
+Mr. Alexander Pope's Christian name, and the first and last letters of
+his surname, you have A. P. E.," Pope quoted, genially.  "I begin to
+think that Dennis was right.  What conceivable woman would not prefer a
+well-set man of five-and-twenty to such a withered abortion?  And what
+does it matter, after all, that a hunchback has dared to desire a
+shapely brown-haired woman?"
+
+Pope came more near to the mirror.  "Make answer, you who have dared to
+imagine that a goddess was ever drawn to descend into womanhood except
+by kisses, brawn and a clean heart."
+
+Another peal of thunder bellowed.  The storm was growing furious.  "Yet
+I have had a marvelous dream.  Now I awaken.  I must go on in the old
+round.  As long as my wits preserve their agility I must be able to
+amuse, to flatter and, at need, to intimidate the patrons of that ape
+in the mirror, so that they will not dare refuse me the market-value of
+my antics.  And Sarah Drew has declined an alliance such as this in
+favor of a fresh-colored complexion and a pair of straight shoulders!"
+
+Pope thought a while.  "And a clean heart!  She bargained royally,
+giving love for nothing less than love.  The man is rustic, illiterate;
+he never heard of Aristotle, he would be at a loss to distinguish
+between a trochee and a Titian, and if you mentioned Boileau to him
+would probably imagine you were talking of cookery.  But he loves her.
+He would forfeit eternity to save her a toothache.  And, chief of all,
+she can make this robust baby happy, and she alone can make him happy.
+And so, she gives, gives royally--she gives, God bless her!"
+
+Rain, sullen rain, was battering the window.  "And you--you hunchback
+in the mirror, you maker of neat rhymes--pray, what had you to offer?
+A coach-and-six, of course, and pin-money and furbelows and in the end
+a mausoleum with unimpeachable Latin on it!  And--_pate sur pate_--an
+unswerving devotion which she would share on almost equal terms with
+the Collected Works of Alexander Pope.  And so she chose--chose brawn
+and a clean heart."
+
+The dwarf turned, staggered, fell upon his bed.  "God, make a man of
+me, make me a good brave man.  I loved her--oh, such as I am, You know
+that I loved her!  You know that I desire her happiness above all
+things.  Ah, no, for You know that I do not at bottom.  I want to hurt,
+to wound all living creatures, because they know how to be happy, and I
+do not know how.  Ah, God, and why did You decree that I should never
+be an obtuse and comely animal such as this John Hughes is?  I am so
+tired of being 'the great Mr. Pope,' and I want only the common joys of
+life."
+
+The hunchback wept.  It would be too curious to anatomize the writhings
+of his proud little spirit.
+
+
+Now some one tapped upon the door.  It was John Gay.  He was bidden to
+enter, and, complying, found Mr. Pope yawning over the latest of
+Tonson's publications.
+
+Gay's face was singularly portentous.  "My friend," Gay blurted out, "I
+bring news which will horrify you.  Believe me, I would never have
+mustered the pluck to bring it did I not love you.  I cannot let you
+hear it first in public and unprepared, as, otherwise, you would have
+to do."
+
+"Do I not know you have the kindest heart in all the world?  Why, so
+outrageous are your amiable defects that they would be the public
+derision of your enemies if you had any," Pope returned.
+
+The other poet evinced an awkward comminglement of consternation and
+pity.  "It appears that when this storm arose--why, Mistress Drew was
+with a young man of the neighborhood--a John Hewet----"  Gay was
+speaking with unaccustomed rapidity.
+
+"Hughes, I think," Pope interrupted, equably.
+
+"Perhaps--I am not sure.  They sought shelter under a haycock.  You
+will remember that first crash of thunder, as if the heavens were in
+demolishment?  My friend, the reapers who had been laboring in the
+fields--who had been driven to such protection as the trees or hedges
+afforded----"
+
+"Get on!" a shrill voice cried; "for God's love, man, get on!"  Mr.
+Pope had risen.  This pallid shaken wisp was not in appearance the
+great Mr. Pope whose ingenuity had enabled Homeric warriors to excel in
+the genteel.
+
+"They first saw a little smoke. . . .  They found this Hughes with one
+arm about the neck of Mistress Drew, and the other held over her face,
+as if to screen her from the lightning.  They were both"--and here Gay
+hesitated.  "They were both dead," he amended.
+
+Pope turned abruptly.  Nakedness is of necessity uncouth, he held,
+whether it be the body or the soul that is unveiled.  Mr. Pope went
+toward a window which he opened, and he stood thus looking out for a
+brief while.
+
+"So she is dead," he said.  "It is very strange.  So many rare
+felicities of curve and color, so much of purity and kindliness and
+valor and mirth, extinguished as one snuffs a candle!  Well!  I am
+sorry she is dead, for the child had a talent for living and got such
+joy out of it. . . .  Hers was a lovely happy life, but it was sterile.
+Already nothing remains of her but dead flesh which must be huddled out
+of sight.  I shall not perish thus entirely, I believe.  Men will
+remember me.  Truly a mighty foundation for pride! when the utmost I
+can hope for is but to be read in one island, and to be thrown aside at
+the end of one age.  Indeed, I am not even sure of that much.  I print,
+and print, and print.  And when I collect my verses into books, I am
+altogether uncertain whether to took upon myself as a man building a
+monument, or burying the dead.  It sometimes seems to me that each
+publication is but a solemn funeral of many wasted years.  For I have
+given all to the verse-making.  Granted that the sacrifice avails to
+rescue my name from oblivion, what will it profit me when I am dead and
+care no more for men's opinions than Sarah Drew cares now for what I
+say of her?  But then she never cared.  She loved John Hughes.  And she
+was right."
+
+He made an end of speaking, still peering out of the window with
+considerate narrowed eyes.
+
+The storm was over.  In the beech-tree opposite a wren was raising
+optimistic outcry.  The sun had won his way through a black-bellied
+shred of cloud; upon the terrace below, a dripping Venus and a Perseus
+were glistening as with white fire.  Past these, drenched gardens, the
+natural wildness of which was judiciously restrained with walks, ponds,
+grottoes, statuary and other rural elegancies, displayed the
+intermingled brilliancies of diamonds and emeralds, and glittered as
+with pearls and rubies where tempest-battered roses were reviving in
+assertiveness.
+
+"I think the storm is over," Mr. Pope remarked.  "It is strange how
+violent are these convulsions of nature. . . .  But nature is a
+treacherous blowsy jade, who respects nobody.  A gentleman can but
+shrug under her onslaughts, and henceforward civilly avoid them.  It is
+a consolation to reflect that they pass quickly."
+
+He turned as in defiance.  "Yes, yes!  It hurts.  But I envy them.
+Yes, even I, that ugly spiteful hornet of a man! 'the great Mr. Pope,'
+who will be dining with the proudest people in England within the hour
+and gloating over their deference!  For they presume to make a little
+free with God occasionally, John, but never with me.  And _I_ envy
+these dead young fools. . . .  You see, they loved each other, John.  I
+left them, not an hour ago, the happiest of living creatures.  I looked
+back once.  I pretended to have dropped my handkerchief.  I imagine
+they were talking of their wedding-clothes, for this broad-shouldered
+Hughes was matching poppies and field-flowers to her complexion.  It
+was a scene out of Theocritus.  I think Heaven was so well pleased by
+the tableau that Heaven hastily resumed possession of its enactors in
+order to prevent any after-happenings from belittling that perfect
+instant."
+
+"Egad, and matrimony might easily have proved an anti-climax," Gay
+considered.
+
+"Yes; oh, it is only Love that is blind, and not the lover necessarily.
+I know.  I suppose I always knew at the bottom of my heart.  This
+hamadryad was destined in the outcome to dwindle into a village
+housewife, she would have taken a lively interest in the number of eggs
+the hens were laying, she would even have assured her children,
+precisely in the way her father spoke of John Hughes, that young people
+ordinarily have foolish fancies which their rational elders agree to
+disregard.  But as it is, no Eastern queen--not Semele herself--left
+earth more nobly--"
+
+Pope broke off short.  He produced his notebook, which he never went
+without, and wrote frowningly, with many erasures.  "H'm, yes," he
+said; and he read aloud:
+
+  "When Eastern lovers feed the funeral fire,
+  On the same pile the faithful fair expire;
+  Here pitying heaven that virtue mutual found,
+  And blasted both that it might neither wound.
+  Hearts so sincere the Almighty saw well pleased,
+  Sent His own lightning and the victims seized."
+
+
+Then Pope made a grimace.  "No; the analogy is trim enough, but the
+lines lack fervor.  It is deplorable how much easier it is to express
+any emotion other than that of which one is actually conscious."  Pope
+had torn the paper half-through before he reflected that it would help
+to fill a printed page.  He put it in his pocket.  "But, come now, I am
+writing to Lady Mary this afternoon.  You know how she loves oddities.
+Between us--with prose as the medium, of course, since verse should,
+after all, confine itself to the commemoration of heroes and royal
+persons--I believe we might make of this occurrence a neat and moving
+_pastorelle_--I should say, pastoral, of course, but my wits are
+wool-gathering."
+
+Mr. Gay had the kindest heart in the universe.  Yet he, also, had
+dreamed of the perfected phrase, so worded that to alter a syllable of
+its wording would be little short of sacrilege.  Eyes kindling, he took
+up a pen.  "Yes, yes, I understand.  Egad, it is an admirable subject.
+But, then, I don't believe I ever saw these lovers----?"
+
+"John was a well-set man of about five-and-twenty," replied Mr. Pope;
+"and Sarah was a brown woman of eighteen years, three months and
+fourteen days."
+
+Then these two dipped their pens and set about a moving composition,
+which has to-day its proper rating among Mr. Pope's Complete Works.
+
+
+
+
+PRO HONORIA
+
+
+"_But that sense of negation, of theoretic insecurity, which was in the
+air, conspiring with what was of like tendency in himself, made of Lord
+UFFORD a central type of disillusion. . . .  He had been amiable
+because the general betise of humanity did not in his opinion greatly
+matter, after all; and in reading these 'SATIRES' it is well-nigh
+painful to witness the blind and naked forces of nature and
+circumstance surprising him in the uncontrollable movements of his own
+so carefully guarded heart._"
+
+
+
+  Why is a handsome wife adored
+  By every coxcomb but her lord?
+
+  From yonder puppet-man inquire
+  Who wisely hides his wood and wire;
+  Shows Sheba's queen completely dress'd
+  And Solomon in royal vest;
+
+  But view them litter'd on the floor,
+  Or strung on pegs behind the door,
+  Punch is exactly of a piece
+  With Lorrain's duke, and prince of Greece.
+
+  HORACE CALVERLEY.--_Petition to the Duke of Ormskirk_.
+
+
+
+
+PRO HONORIA
+
+In the early winter of 1761 the Earl of Bute, then Secretary of State,
+gave vent to an outburst of unaccustomed profanity.  Mr. Robert
+Calverley, who represented England at the Court of St. Petersburg, had
+resigned his office without prelude or any word of explanation.  This
+infuriated Bute, since his pet scheme was to make peace with Russia and
+thereby end the Continental War.  Now all was to do again; the minister
+raged, shrugged, furnished a new emissary with credentials, and marked
+Calverley's name for punishment.
+
+As much, indeed, was written to Calverley by Lord Ufford, the poet,
+diarist, musician and virtuoso:
+
+
+Our Scottish Mortimer, it appears, is unwilling to have the map of
+Europe altered because Mr. Robert Calverley has taken a whim to go into
+Italy.  He is angrier than I have ever known him to be.  He swears that
+with a pen's flourish you have imperiled the well-being of England, and
+raves in the same breath of the preferment he had designed for you.
+Beware of him.  For my own part, I shrug and acquiesce, because I am
+familiar with your pranks.  I merely venture to counsel that you do not
+crown the Pelion of abuse, which our statesmen are heaping upon you,
+with the Ossa of physical as well as political suicide.  Hasten on your
+Italian jaunt, for Umfraville, who is now with me at Carberry Hill, has
+publicly declared that if you dare re-appear in England he will have
+you horsewhipped by his footmen.  In consequence, I would most
+earnestly advise----
+
+
+Mr. Calverley read no further, but came straightway into England.  He
+had not been in England since his elopement, three years before that
+spring, with the Marquis of Umfraville's betrothed, Lord Radnor's
+daughter, whom Calverley had married at Calais.  Mr. Calverley and his
+wife were presently at Carberry Hill, Lord Ufford's home, where,
+arriving about moon-rise, they found a ball in progress.
+
+Their advent caused a momentary check to merriment.  The fiddlers
+ceased, because Lord Ufford had signaled them.  The fine guests paused
+in their stately dance.  Lord Ufford, in a richly figured suit, came
+hastily to Lady Honoria Calverley, his high heels tapping audibly upon
+the floor, and with gallantry lifted her hand toward his lips.  Her
+husband he embraced, and the two men kissed each other, as was the
+custom of the age.  Chatter and laughter rose on every side as pert and
+merry as the noises of a brook in springtime.
+
+"I fear that as Lord Umfraville's host," young Calverley at once began,
+"you cannot with decorum convey to the ignoramus my opinion as to his
+ability to conjugate the verb _to dare_."
+
+"Why, but no! you naturally demand a duel," the poet-earl returned.
+"It is very like you.  I lament your decision, but I will attempt to
+arrange the meeting for to-morrow morning."
+
+Lord Ufford smiled and nodded to the musicians.  He finished the dance
+to admiration, as this lean dandified young man did
+everything--"assiduous to win each fool's applause," as his own verses
+scornfully phrase it.  Then Ufford went about his errand of death and
+conversed for a long while with Umfraville.
+
+Afterward Lord Ufford beckoned to Calverley, who shrugged and returned
+Mr. Erwyn's snuff-box, which Calverley had been admiring.  He followed
+the earl into a side-room opening upon the Venetian Chamber wherein the
+fete was.  Ufford closed the door.  You saw that he had put away the
+exterior of mirth that hospitality demanded of him, and perturbation
+showed in the lean countenance which was by ordinary so proud and so
+amiably peevish.
+
+"Robin, you have performed many mad actions in your life!" he said;
+"but this return into the three kingdoms out-Herods all!  Did I not
+warn you against Umfraville!"
+
+"Why, certainly you did," returned Mr. Calverley.  "You informed
+me--which was your duty as a friend--of this curmudgeon's boast that he
+would have me horsewhipped if I dared venture into England.  You will
+readily conceive that any gentleman of self-respect cannot permit such
+farcical utterances to be delivered without appending a gladiatorial
+epilogue.  Well! what are the conditions of this duel?"
+
+"Oh, fool that I have been!" cried Ufford, who was enabled now by
+virtue of their seclusion to manifest his emotion.  "I, who have known
+you all your life----!"
+
+He paced the room.  Pleading music tinged the silence almost insensibly.
+
+"Heh, Fate has an imperial taste in humor!" the poet said.  "Robin, we
+have been more than brothers.  And it is I, I, of all persons living,
+who have drawn you into this imbroglio!"
+
+"My danger is not very apparent as yet," said Calverley, "if Umfraville
+controls his sword no better than his tongue."
+
+My lord of Ufford went on:  "There is no question of a duel.  It is as
+well to spare you what Lord Umfraville replied to my challenge.  Let it
+suffice that we do not get sugar from the snake.  Besides, the man has
+his grievance.  Robin, have you forgot that necklace you and Pevensey
+took from Umfraville some three years ago--before you went into Russia?"
+
+Calverley laughed.  The question recalled an old hot-headed time when,
+exalted to a frolicsome zone by the discovery of Lady Honoria Pomfret's
+love for him, he planned the famous jest which he and the mad Earl of
+Pevensey perpetrated upon Umfraville.  This masquerade won quick
+applause.  Persons of ton guffawed like ploughboys over the
+discomfiture of an old hunks thus divertingly stripped of his bride,
+all his betrothal gifts, and of the very clothes he wore.  An anonymous
+scribbler had detected in the occurrence a denouement suited to the
+stage and had constructed a comedy around it, which, when produced by
+the Duke's company, had won acclaim from hilarious auditors.
+
+So Calverley laughed heartily.  "Gad, what a jest that was!  This
+Umfraville comes to marry Honoria.  And highwaymen attack his coach!  I
+would give L50 to have witnessed this usurer's arrival at Denton Honor
+in his underclothes! and to have seen his monkey-like grimaces when he
+learned that Honoria and I were already across the Channel!"
+
+"You robbed him, though----"
+
+"Indeed, for beginners at peculation we did not do so badly.  We robbed
+him and his valet of everything in the coach, including their breeches.
+You do not mean that Pevensey has detained the poor man's wedding
+trousers?  If so, it is unfortunate, because this loud-mouthed miser
+has need of them in order that he may be handsomely interred."
+
+"Lord Umfraville's wedding-suit was stuffed with straw, hung on a pole
+and paraded through London by Pevensey, March, Selwyn and some dozen
+other madcaps, while six musicians marched before them.  The clothes
+were thus conveyed to Umfraville's house.  I think none of us would
+have relished a joke like that were he the butt of it."
+
+Now the poet's lean countenance was turned upon young Calverley, and as
+always, Ufford evoked that nobility in Calverley which follies veiled
+but had not ever killed.
+
+"Egad," said Robert Calverley; "I grant you that all this was
+infamously done.  I never authorized it.  I shall kill Pevensey.
+Indeed, I will do more," he added, with a flourish.  "For I will
+apologize to Umfraville, and this very night."
+
+But Ufford was not disposed to levity.  "Let us come to the point," he
+sadly said.  "Pevensey returned everything except the necklace which
+Umfraville had intended to be his bridal gift.  Pevensey conceded the
+jest, in fine; and denied all knowledge of any necklace."
+
+It was an age of accommodating morality.  Calverley sketched a whistle,
+and showed no other trace of astonishment.
+
+"I see.  The fool confided in the spendthrift.  My dear, I understand.
+In nature Pevensey gave the gems to some nymph of Sadler's Wells or
+Covent Garden.  For I was out of England.  And so he capped his knavery
+with insolence.  It is an additional reason why Pevensey should not
+live to scratch a gray head.  It is, however, an affront to me that
+Umfraville should have believed him.  I doubt if I may overlook that,
+Horace?"
+
+"I question if he did believe.  But, then, what help had he?  This
+Pevensey is an earl.  His person as a peer of England is inviolable.
+No statute touches him directly, because he may not be confined except
+by the King's personal order.  And it is tolerably notorious that
+Pevensey is in Lord Bute's pay, and that our Scottish Mortimer, to do
+him justice, does not permit his spies to be injured."
+
+Now Mr. Calverley took snuff.  The music without was now more audible,
+and it had shifted to a merrier tune.
+
+"I think I comprehend.  Pevensey and I--whatever were our motives--have
+committed a robbery.  Pevensey, as the law runs, is safe.  I, too, was
+safe as long as I kept out of England.  As matters stand, Lord
+Umfraville intends to press a charge of theft against me.  And I am in
+disgrace with Bute, who is quite content to beat offenders with a
+crooked stick.  This confluence of two-penny accidents is annoying."
+
+"It is worse than you know," my lord of Ufford returned.  He opened the
+door which led to the Venetian Chamber.  A surge of music, of laughter,
+and of many lights invaded the room wherein they stood.  "D'ye see
+those persons, just past Umfraville, so inadequately disguised as
+gentlemen?  They are from Bow Street.  Lord Umfraville intends to
+apprehend you here to-night."
+
+"He has an eye for the picturesque," drawled Calverley.  "My tragedy,
+to do him justice, could not be staged more strikingly.  Those
+additional alcoves have improved the room beyond belief.  I must
+apologize for not having rendered my compliments a trifle earlier."
+
+Internally he outstormed Termagaunt.  It was infamous enough, in all
+conscience, to be arrested, but to have half the world of fashion as
+witnessess of ones discomfiture was perfectly intolerable.  He
+recognized the excellent chance he had of being the most prominent
+figure upon some scaffold before long, but that contingency did not
+greatly trouble Calverley, as set against the certainty of being made
+ridiculous within the next five minutes.
+
+In consequence, he frowned and rearranged the fall of his shirt-frill a
+whit the more becomingly.
+
+"Yes, for hate sharpens every faculty," the earl went on.  "Even
+Umfraville understands that you do not fear death.  So he means to have
+you tried like any common thief while all your quondam friends sit and
+snigger.  And you will be convicted----"
+
+"Why, necessarily, since I am not as Pevensey.  Of course, I must
+confess I took the necklace."
+
+"And Pevensey must stick to the tale that he knows nothing of any
+necklace.  Dear Robin, this means Newgate.  Accident deals very hardly
+with us, Robin, for this means Tyburn Hill."
+
+"Yes; I suppose it means my death," young Calverley assented.  "Well! I
+have feasted with the world and found its viands excellent.  The
+banquet ended, I must not grumble with my host because I find his
+choice of cordials not altogether to my liking."  Thus speaking, he was
+aware of nothing save that the fiddlers were now about an air to which
+he had often danced with his dear wife.
+
+"I have a trick yet left to save our honor,----" Lord Ufford turned to
+a table where wine and glasses were set ready.  "I propose a toast.
+Let us drink--for the last time--to the honor of the Calverleys."
+
+"It is an invitation I may not decorously refuse.  And yet--it may be
+that I do not understand you?"
+
+My lord of Ufford poured wine into two glasses.  These glasses were
+from among the curios he collected so industriously--tall, fragile
+things, of seventeenth century make, very intricately cut with roses
+and thistles, and in the bottom of each glass a three-penny piece was
+embedded.  Lord Ufford took a tiny vial from his pocket and emptied its
+contents into the glass which stood the nearer to Mr. Calverley.
+
+"This is Florence water.  We dabblers in science are experimenting with
+it at Gresham College.  A taste of it means death--a painless, quick
+and honorable death.  You will have died of a heart seizure.  Come,
+Robin, let us drink to the honor of the Calverleys."
+
+The poet-earl paused for a little while.  Now he was like some seer of
+supernal things.
+
+"For look you," said Lord Ufford, "we come of honorable blood.  We two
+are gentlemen.  We have our code, and we may not infringe upon it.  Our
+code does not invariably square with reason, and I doubt if Scripture
+would afford a dependable foundation.  So be it!  We have our code and
+we may not infringe upon it.  There have been many Calverleys who did
+not fear their God, but there was never any one of them who did not
+fear dishonor.  I am the head of no less proud a house.  As such, I
+counsel you to drink and die within the moment.  It is not possible a
+Calverley survive dishonor.  Oh, God!" the poet cried, and his voice
+broke; "and what is honor to this clamor within me!  Robin, I love you
+better than I do this talk of honor!  For, Robin, I have loved you
+long! so long that what we do to-night will always make life hideous to
+me!"
+
+Calverley was not unmoved, but he replied in the tone of daily
+intercourse.  "It is undoubtedly absurd to perish here, like some
+unreasonable adversary of the Borgias.  Your device is rather
+outrageously horrific, Horace, like a bit out of your own romance--yes,
+egad, it is pre-eminently worthy of the author of _The Vassal of
+Spalatro_.  Still I can understand that it is preferable to having fat
+and greasy fellows squander a shilling for the privilege of perching
+upon a box while I am being hanged.  And I think I shall accept your
+toast--
+
+"You will be avenged," Ufford said, simply.
+
+"My dear, as if I ever questioned that!  Of course, you will kill
+Pevensey first and Umfraville afterward.  Only I want to live.  For I
+was meant to play a joyous role wholeheartedly in the big comedy of
+life.  So many people find the world a dreary residence," Mr. Calverley
+sighed, "that it is really a pity some one of these long-faced
+stolidities cannot die now instead of me.  For I have found life
+wonderful throughout."
+
+The brows of Ufford knit.  "Would you consent to live as a transported
+felon?  I have much money.  I need not tell you the last penny is at
+your disposal.  It might be possible to bribe.  Indeed, Lord Bute is
+all-powerful to-day and he would perhaps procure a pardon for you at my
+entreaty.  He is so kind as to admire my scribblings. . .  Or you might
+live among your fellow-convicts somewhere over sea for a while longer.
+I had not thought that such would be your choice----"  Here Ufford
+shrugged, restrained by courtesy.  "Besides, Lord Bute is greatly
+angered with you, because you have endangered his Russian alliance.
+However, if you wish it, I will try----"
+
+"Oh, for that matter, I do not much fear Lord Bute, because I bring him
+the most welcome news he has had in many a day.  I may tell you since
+it will be public to-morrow.  The Tzaritza Elizabeth, our implacable
+enemy, died very suddenly three weeks ago.  Peter of Holstein-Gottrop
+reigns to-day in Russia, and I have made terms with him.  I came to
+tell Lord Bute the Cossack troops have been recalled from Prussia.  The
+war is at an end."  Young Calverley meditated and gave his customary
+boyish smile.  "Yes, I discharged my Russian mission after all--even
+after I had formally relinquished it--because I was so opportunely
+aided by the accident of the Tzaritza's death.  And Bute cares only for
+results.  So I would explain to him that I resigned my mission simply
+because in Russia my wife could not have lived out another year----"
+
+The earl exclaimed, "Then Honoria is ill!" Mr. Calverley did not
+attend, but stood looking out into the Venetian Chamber.
+
+"See, Horace, she is dancing with Anchester while I wait here so near
+to death.  She dances well.  But Honoria does everything adorably.  I
+cannot tell you--oh, not even you!--how happy these three years have
+been with her.  Eh, well! the gods are jealous of such happiness.  You
+will remember how her mother died?  It appears that Honoria is
+threatened with a slow consumption, and a death such as her mother's
+was.  She does not know.  There was no need to frighten her.  For
+although the rigors of another Russian winter, as all physicians tell
+me, would inevitably prove fatal to her, there is no reason why my
+dearest dear should not continue to laugh just as she always does--for
+a long, bright and happy while in some warm climate such as Italy's.
+In nature I resigned my appointment.  I did not consider England, or my
+own trivial future, or anything of that sort.  I considered only
+Honoria."
+
+He gazed for many moments upon the woman whom he loved.  His speech
+took on an odd simplicity.
+
+"Oh, yes, I think that in the end Bute would procure a pardon for me.
+But not even Bute can override the laws of England.  I would have to be
+tried first, and have ballads made concerning me, and be condemned, and
+so on.  That would detain Honoria in England, because she is
+sufficiently misguided to love me.  I could never persuade her to leave
+me with my life in peril.  She could not possibly survive an English
+winter."  Here Calverley evinced unbridled mirth.  "The irony of events
+is magnificent.  There is probably no question of hanging or even of
+transportation.  It is merely certain that if I venture from this room
+I bring about Honoria's death as incontestably as if I strangled her
+with these two hands.  So I choose my own death in preference.  It will
+grieve Honoria----"  His voice was not completely steady.  "But she is
+young.  She will forget me, for she forgets easily, and she will be
+happy.  I look to you to see--even before you have killed
+Pevensey--that Honoria goes into Italy.  For she admires and loves you,
+almost as much as I do, Horace, and she will readily be guided by
+you----"
+
+He cried my lord of Ufford's given name some two or three times, for
+young Calverley had turned, and he had seen Ufford's face.
+
+The earl moistened his lips.  "You are a fool," he said, with a thin
+voice.  "Why do you trouble me by being better than I?  Or do you only
+posture for my benefit?  Do you deal honestly with me, Robert
+Calverley?--then swear it----"  He laughed here, very horribly.  "Ah,
+no, when did you ever lie!  You do not lie--not you!"
+
+He waited for a while.  "But I am otherwise.  I dare to lie when the
+occasion promises.  I have desired Honoria since the first moment
+wherein I saw her.  I may tell you now.  I think that you do not
+remember.  We gathered cherries.  I ate two of them which had just lain
+upon her knee----"
+
+His hands had clenched each other, and his lips were drawn back so that
+you saw his exquisite teeth, which were ground together.  He stood thus
+for a little, silent.
+
+Then Ufford began again:  "I planned all this.  I plotted this with
+Umfraville.  I wrote you such a letter as would inevitably draw you to
+your death.  I wished your death.  For Honoria would then be freed of
+you.  I would condole with her.  She is readily comforted, impatient of
+sorrow, incapable of it, I dare say.  She would have married me. . . .
+Why must I tell you this?  Oh, I am Fate's buffoon!  For I have won, I
+have won! and there is that in me which will not accept the stake I
+cheated for."
+
+"And you," said Calverley--"this thing is you!"
+
+"A helpless reptile now," said Ufford.  "I have not the power to check
+Lord Umfraville in his vengeance.  You must be publicly disgraced, and
+must, I think, be hanged even now when it will not benefit me at all.
+It may be I shall weep for that some day!  Or else Honoria must die,
+because an archangel could not persuade her to desert you in your
+peril.  For she loves you--loves you to the full extent of her merry
+and shallow nature.  Oh, I know that, as you will never know it.  I
+shall have killed Honoria!  I shall not weep when Honoria dies.
+Harkee, Robin! they are dancing yonder.  It is odd to think that I
+shall never dance again."
+
+"Horace--!" the younger man said, like a person of two minds.  He
+seemed to choke.  He gave a frantic gesture.  "Oh, I have loved you.  I
+have loved nothing as I have loved you."
+
+"And yet you chatter of your passion for Honoria!" Lord Ufford
+returned, with a snarl.  "I ask what proof is there of this?--Why, that
+you have surrendered your well-being in this world through love of her.
+But I gave what is vital.  I was an honorable gentleman without any act
+in all my life for which I had need to blush.  I loved you as I loved
+no other being in the universe."  He spread his hands, which now
+twitched horribly.  "You will never understand.  It does not matter.  I
+desired Honoria.  To-day through my desire of her, I am that monstrous
+thing which you alone know me to be.  I think I gave up much.  _Pro
+honoria!_" he chuckled.  "The Latin halts, but, none the less, the jest
+is excellent."
+
+"You have given more than I would dare to give," said Calverley.  He
+shuddered.
+
+"And to no end!" cried Ufford.  "Ah, fate, the devil and that code I
+mocked are all in league to cheat me!"
+
+Said Calverley:  "The man whom I loved most is dead.  Oh, had the world
+been searched between the sunrise and the sunsetting there had not been
+found his equal.  And now, poor fool, I know that there was never any
+man like this!"
+
+"Nay, there was such a man," the poet said, "in an old time which I
+almost forget.  To-day he is quite dead.  There is only a poor wretch
+who has been faithless in all things, who has not even served the devil
+faithfully."
+
+"Why, then, you lackey with a lackey's soul, attend to what I say.  Can
+you make any terms with Umfraville?"
+
+"I can do nothing," Ufford replied.  "You have robbed him--as me--of
+what he most desired.  You have made him the laughing-stock of England.
+He does not pardon any more than I would pardon."
+
+"And as God lives and reigns, I do not greatly blame him," said young
+Calverley.  "This man at least was wronged.  Concerning you I do not
+speak, because of a false dream I had once very long ago.  Yet
+Umfraville was treated infamously.  I dare concede what I could not
+permit another man to say and live, now that I drink a toast which I
+must drink alone.  For I drink to the honor of the Calverleys.  I have
+not ever lied to any person in this world, and so I may not drink with
+you."
+
+"Oh, but you drink because you know your death to be the one event
+which can insure her happiness," cried Ufford.  "We are not much
+unlike.  And I dare say it is only an imaginary Honoria we love, after
+all.  Yet, look, my fellow-Ixion! for to the eye at least is she not
+perfect?"
+
+The two men gazed for a long while.  Amid that coterie of exquisites,
+wherein allusion  to whatever might be ugly in the world was tacitly
+allowed to be unmentionable, Lady Honoria glitteringly went about the
+moment's mirthful business with lovely ardor.  You saw now unmistakably
+that "Light Queen of Elfdom, dead Titania's heir" of whom Ufford writes
+in the fourth Satire.  Honoria's prettiness, rouged, frail, and
+modishly enhanced, allured the eye from all less elfin brilliancies;
+and as she laughed among so many other relishers of life her charms
+became the more instant, just as a painting quickens in every tint when
+set in an appropriate frame.
+
+"There is no other way," her husband said.  He drank and toasted what
+was dearest in the world, smiling to think how death came to him in
+that wine's familiar taste.  "I drink to the most lovely of created
+ladies!  and to her happiness!"
+
+He snapped the stem of the glass and tossed it joyously aside.
+
+"Assuredly, there is no other way," said Ufford.  "And armored by that
+knowledge, even I may drink as honorable people do.  Pro honoria!" Then
+this man also broke his emptied glass.
+
+"How long have I to live?" said Calverley, and took snuff.
+
+"Why, thirty years, I think, unless you duel too immoderately," replied
+Lord Ufford,--"since while you looked at Honoria I changed our glasses.
+No! no! a thing done has an end.  Besides, it is not unworthy of me.
+So go boldly to the Earl of Bute and tell him all.  You are my cousin
+and my successor.  Yes, very soon you, too, will be a peer of England
+and as safe from molestation as is Lord Pevensey.  I am the first to
+tender my congratulations.  Now I make certain that they are not
+premature."
+
+The poet laughed at this moment as a man may laugh in hell.  He reeled.
+His lean face momentarily contorted, and afterward the poet died.
+
+"I am Lord Ufford," said Calverley aloud.  "The person of a peer is
+inviolable----"  He presently looked downward from rapt gazing at his
+wife.
+
+Fresh from this horrible half-hour, he faced a future so alluring as by
+its beauty to intimidate him.  Youth, love, long years of happiness,
+and (by this capricious turn) now even opulence, were the ingredients
+of a captivating vista.  And yet he needs must pause a while to think
+of the dear comrade he had lost--of that loved boy, his pattern in the
+time of their common youthfulness which gleamed in memory as bright and
+misty as a legend, and of the perfect chevalier who had been like a
+touchstone to Robert Calverley a bare half-hour ago.  He knelt, touched
+lightly the fallen jaw, and lightly kissed the cheek of this poor
+wreckage; and was aware that the caress was given with more tenderness
+than Robert Calverley had shown in the same act a bare half-hour ago.
+
+Meanwhile the music of a country dance urged the new Earl of Ufford to
+come and frolic where every one was laughing; and to partake with gusto
+of the benefits which chance had provided; and to be forthwith as merry
+as was decorous in a peer of England.
+
+
+
+
+THE IRRESISTIBLE OGLE
+
+
+"_But after SHERIDAN had risen to a commanding position in the gay life
+of London, he rather disliked to be known as a playwright or a poet,
+and preferred to be regarded as a statesman and a man of fashion who
+'set the pace' in all pastimes of the opulent and idle.  Yet, whatever
+he really thought of his own writings, and whether or not he did them,
+as Stevenson used to say, 'just for fun,' the fact remains that he was
+easily the most distinguished and brilliant dramatist of an age which
+produced in SHERIDAN'S solemn vagaries one of its most characteristic
+products._"
+
+
+
+  Look on this form,--where humor, quaint and sly,
+  Dimples the cheek, and points the beaming eye;
+  Where gay invention seems to boast its wiles
+  In amorous hint, and half-triumphant smiles.
+
+  Look on her well--does she seem form'd to teach?
+  Should you expect to hear this lady preach?
+  Is gray experience suited to her youth?
+  Do solemn sentiments become that mouth?
+
+  Bid her be grave, those lips should rebel prove
+  To every theme that slanders mirth or love.
+
+  RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN.--_Second Prologue to The Rivals_.
+
+
+
+
+THE IRRESISTIBLE OGLE
+
+The devotion of Mr. Sheridan to the Dean of Winchester's daughter, Miss
+Esther Jane Ogle--or "the irresistible Ogle," as she was toasted at the
+Kit-cat--was now a circumstance to be assumed in the polite world of
+London.  As a result, when the parliamentarian followed her into
+Scotland, in the spring of 1795, people only shrugged.
+
+"Because it proves that misery loves company," was Mr. Fox's
+observation at Wattier's, hard upon two in the morning.  "Poor Sherry,
+as an inconsolable widower, must naturally have some one to share his
+grief.  He perfectly comprehends that no one will lament the death of
+his wife more fervently than her successor."
+
+
+In London Mr. Fox thus worded his interpretation of the matter; and
+spoke, oddly enough, at the very moment that in Edinburgh Mr. Sheridan
+returned to his lodgings in Abercromby Place, deep in the reminiscences
+of a fortunate evening at cards.  In consequence, Mr. Sheridan entered
+the room so quietly that the young man who was employed in turning over
+the contents of the top bureau-drawer was taken unprepared.
+
+But in the marauder's nature, as far as resolution went, was little
+lacking.  "Silence!" he ordered, and with the mandate a pistol was
+leveled upon the representative for the borough of Stafford.  "One cry
+for help, and you perish like a dog.  I warn you that I am a desperate
+man."
+
+"Now, even at a hazard of discourtesy, I must make bold to question
+your statement," said Mr. Sheridan, "although, indeed, it is not so
+much the recklessness as the masculinity which I dare call into
+dispute."
+
+He continued, in his best parliamentary manner, a happy blending of
+reproach, omniscience and pardon.  "Only two months ago," said Mr.
+Sheridan, "I was so fortunate as to encounter a lady who, alike through
+the attractions of her person and the sprightliness of her
+conversation, convinced me I was on the road to fall in love after the
+high fashion of a popular romance.  I accordingly make her a
+declaration.  I am rejected.  I besiege her with the customary
+artillery of sonnets, bouquets, serenades, bonbons, theater-tickets and
+threats of suicide.  In fine, I contract the habit of proposing to Miss
+Ogle on every Wednesday; and so strong is my infatuation that I follow
+her as far into the north as Edinburgh in order to secure my eleventh
+rejection at half-past ten last evening."
+
+"I fail to understand," remarked the burglar, "how all this prolix
+account of your amours can possibly concern me."
+
+"You are at least somewhat involved in the deplorable climax," Mr.
+Sheridan returned.  "For behold! at two in the morning I discover the
+object of my adoration and the daughter of an estimable prelate, most
+calumniously clad and busily employed in rumpling my supply of cravats.
+If ever any lover was thrust into a more ambiguous position, madam,
+historians have touched on his dilemma with marked reticence."
+
+He saw--and he admired--the flush which mounted to his visitor's brow.
+And then, "I must concede that appearances are against me, Mr.
+Sheridan," the beautiful intruder said.  "And I hasten to protest that
+my presence in your apartments at this hour is prompted by no unworthy
+motive.  I merely came to steal the famous diamond which you brought
+from London--the Honor of Eiran."
+
+"Incomparable Esther Jane," ran Mr. Sheridan's answer, "that stone is
+now part of a brooch which was this afternoon returned to my cousin's,
+the Earl of Eiran's, hunting-lodge near Melrose.  He intends the gem
+which you are vainly seeking among my haberdashery to be the adornment
+of his promised bride in the ensuing June.  I confess to no
+overwhelming admiration as concerns this raucous if meritorious young
+person; and will even concede that the thought of her becoming my
+kinswoman rouses in me an inevitable distaste, no less attributable to
+the discord of her features than to the source of her eligibility to
+disfigure the peerage--that being her father's lucrative transactions
+in Pork, which I find indigestible in any form."
+
+"A truce to paltering!" Miss Ogle cried.  "That jewel was stolen from
+the temple at Moorshedabad, by the Earl of Eiran's grandfather, during
+the confusion necessarily attendant on the glorious battle of Plassy."
+She laid down the pistol, and resumed in milder tones:  "From an
+age-long existence as the left eye of Ganesh it was thus converted into
+the loot of an invader.  To restore this diamond to its lawful,
+although no doubt polygamous and inefficiently-attired proprietors is
+at this date impossible.  But, oh! what claim have you to its
+possession?"
+
+"Why, none whatever," said the parliamentarian; "and to contend as much
+would be the apex of unreason.  For this diamond belongs, of course, to
+my cousin the Earl of Eiran----"
+
+"As a thief's legacy!"  She spoke with signs of irritation.
+
+"Eh, eh, you go too fast!  Eiran, to do him justice, is not a graduate
+in peculation.  At worst, he is only the sort of fool one's cousins
+ordinarily are."
+
+The trousered lady walked to and fro for a while, with the impatience
+of a caged lioness.  "I perceive I must go more deeply into matters,"
+Miss Ogle remarked, and, with that habitual gesture which he fondly
+recognized, brushed back a straying lock of hair.  "In any event," she
+continued, "you cannot with reason deny that the world's wealth is
+inequitably distributed?"
+
+"Madam," Mr. Sheridan returned, "as a member of Parliament, I have
+necessarily made it a rule never to understand political economy.  It
+is as apt as not to prove you are selling your vote to the wrong side
+of the House, and that hurts one's conscience."
+
+"Ah, that is because you are a man.  Men are not practical.  None of
+you has ever dared to insist on his opinion about anything until he had
+secured the cowardly corroboration of a fact or so to endorse him.  It
+is a pity.  Yet, since through no fault of yours your sex is invariably
+misled by its hallucinations as to the importance of being rational, I
+will refrain from logic and statistics.  In a word, I simply inform you
+that I am a member of the League of Philanthropic Larcenists."
+
+"I had not previously heard of this organization," said Mr. Sheridan,
+and not without suspecting his response to be a masterpiece in the
+inadequate.
+
+"Our object is the benefit of society at large," Miss Ogle explained;
+"and our obstacles so far have been, in chief, the fetish of
+proprietary rights and the ubiquity of the police."
+
+And with that she seated herself and told him of the league's inception
+by a handful of reflective persons, admirers of Rousseau and converts
+to his tenets, who were resolved to better the circumstances of the
+indigent.  With amiable ardor Miss Ogle explained how from the petit
+larcenies of charity-balls and personally solicited subscriptions the
+league had mounted to an ampler field of depredation; and through what
+means it now took toll from every form of wealth unrighteously
+acquired.  Divertingly she described her personal experiences in the
+separation of usurers, thieves, financiers, hereditary noblemen,
+popular authors, and other social parasites, from the ill-got profits
+of their disreputable vocations.  And her account of how, on the
+preceding Tuesday, she, single-handed, had robbed Sir Alexander
+McRae--who then enjoyed a fortune and an enviable reputation for
+philanthropy, thanks to the combination of glucose, vitriol and other
+chemicals which he prepared under the humorous pretext of manufacturing
+beer--wrung high encomiums from Mr. Sheridan.
+
+"The proceeds of these endeavors," Miss Ogle added, "are
+conscientiously devoted to ameliorating the condition of meritorious
+paupers.  I would be happy to submit to you our annual report.  Then
+you may judge for yourself how many families we have snatched from the
+depths of poverty and habitual intoxication to the comparative comfort
+of a vine-embowered cottage."
+
+Mr. Sheridan replied:  "I have not ever known of any case where
+adoration needed an affidavit for foundation.  Oh, no, incomparable
+Esther Jane!  I am not in a position to be solaced by the reports of a
+corresponding secretary.  I gave my heart long since; to-night I fling
+my confidence into the bargain; and am resolved to serve wholeheartedly
+the cause to which you are devoted.  In consequence, I venture to
+propose my name for membership in the enterprise you advocate and
+indescribably adorn."
+
+Miss Ogle was all one blush, such was the fervor of his utterance.
+"But first you must win your spurs, Mr. Sheridan.  I confess you are
+not abhorrent to me," she hurried on, "for you are the most
+fascinatingly hideous man I have ever seen; and it was always the
+apprehension that you might look on burglary as an unmaidenly avocation
+which has compelled me to discourage your addresses.  Now all is plain;
+and should you happen to distinguish yourself in robbery of the
+criminally opulent, you will have, I believe, no reason to complain of
+a twelfth refusal.  I cannot modestly say more."
+
+He laughed.  "It is a bargain.  We will agree that I bereave some
+person of either stolen or unearned property, say, to the value of
+L10,000----" And with his usual carefulness in such matters, Mr.
+Sheridan entered the wager in his notebook.
+
+She yielded him her hand in token of assent.  And he, depend upon it,
+kissed that velvet trifle fondly.
+
+"And now," said Mr. Sheridan, "to-morrow we will visit Bemerside and
+obtain possession of that crystal which is in train to render me the
+happiest of men.  The task will be an easy one, as Eiran is now in
+England, and his servants for the most part are my familiars."
+
+"I agree to your proposal," she answered.  "But this diamond is my
+allotted quarry; and any assistance you may render me in procuring it
+will not, of course, affect in any way our bargain.  On this
+point"--she spoke with a break of laughter--"I am as headstrong as an
+allegory on the banks of the Nile."
+
+"To quote an author to his face," lamented Mr. Sheridan, "is bribery as
+gross as it is efficacious.  I must unwillingly consent to your
+exorbitant demands, for you are, as always, the irresistible Ogle."
+
+Miss Ogle bowed her gratitude; and, declining Mr. Sheridan's escort,
+for fear of arousing gossip by being seen upon the street with him at
+this late hour, preferred to avoid any appearance of indecorum by
+climbing down the kitchen roof.
+
+
+When she had gone, Mr. Sheridan very gallantly attempted a set of
+verses.  But the Muse was not to be wooed to-night, and stayed
+obstinately coy.
+
+Mr. Sheridan reflected, rather forlornly, that he wrote nothing
+nowadays.  There was, of course, his great comedy, _Affectation_, his
+masterpiece which he meant to finish at one time or another; yet, at
+the bottom of his heart, he knew that he would never finish it.  But,
+then, deuce take posterity! for to have written the best comedy, the
+best farce, and the best burlesque as well, that England had ever
+known, was a very prodigal wiping-out of every obligation toward
+posterity.  Boys thought a deal about posterity, as he remembered; but
+a sensible man would bear in mind that all this world's delicacies--its
+merry diversions, its venison and old wines, its handsomely-bound books
+and fiery-hearted jewels and sumptuous clothings, all its lovely things
+that can be touched and handled, and more especially its ear-tickling
+applause--were to be won, if ever, from one's contemporaries.  And
+people were generous toward social, rather than literary, talents for
+the sensible reason that they derived more pleasure from an agreeable
+companion at dinner than from having a rainy afternoon rendered
+endurable by some book or another.  So the parliamentarian sensibly
+went to bed.
+
+
+Miss Ogle during this Scottish trip was accompanied by her father, the
+venerable Dean of Winchester.  The Dean, although in all things worthy
+of implicit confidence, was not next day informed of the intended
+expedition, in deference to public opinion, which, as Miss Ogle pointed
+out, regards a clergyman's participation in a technical felony with
+disapproval.
+
+Miss Ogle, therefore, radiant in a becoming gown of pink lute-string,
+left Edinburgh the following morning under cover of a subterfuge, and
+with Mr. Sheridan as her only escort.  He was at pains to adorn this
+role with so many happy touches of courtesy and amiability that their
+confinement in the postchaise appeared to both of incredible brevity.
+
+When they had reached Melrose another chaise was ordered to convey them
+to Bemerside; and pending its forthcoming Mr. Sheridan and Miss Ogle
+strolled among the famous ruins of Melrose Abbey.  The parliamentarian
+had caused his hair to be exuberantly curled that morning, and figured
+to advantage in a plum-colored coat and a saffron waistcoat sprigged
+with forget-me-nots.  He chatted entertainingly concerning the Second
+Pointed style of architecture; translated many of the epitaphs; and was
+abundant in interesting information as to Robert Bruce, and Michael
+Scott, and the rencounter of Chevy Chase.
+
+"Oh, but observe," said Mr. Sheridan, more lately, "our only covering
+is the dome of heaven.  Yet in their time these aisles were populous,
+and here a score of generations have besought what earth does not
+afford--now where the banners of crusaders waved the ivy flutters, and
+there is no incense in this consecrated house except the breath of the
+wild rose."
+
+"The moral is an old one," she returned.  "Mummy is become merchandise,
+Mizraim cures wounds, and Pharaoh is sold for balsams."
+
+"You are a reader, madam?" he observed, with some surprise; and he
+continued:  "Indeed, my thoughts were on another trail.  I was
+considering that the demolishers of this place--those English armies,
+those followers of John Knox--were actuated by the highest and most
+laudable of motives.  As a result we find the house of Heaven converted
+into a dustheap."
+
+
+"I believe you attempt an apologue," she said, indignantly.  "Upon my
+word, I think you would insinuate that philanthropy, when forced to
+manifest itself through embezzlement, is a less womanly employment than
+the darning of stockings!"
+
+"Whom the cap fits----" he answered, with a bow.  "Indeed, incomparable
+Esther Jane, I had said nothing whatever touching hosiery; and it was
+equally remote from my intentions to set up as a milliner."
+
+
+They lunched at Bemerside, where Mr. Sheridan was cordially received by
+the steward, and a well-chosen repast was placed at their disposal.
+
+"Fergus," Mr. Sheridan observed, as they chatted over their dessert
+concerning famous gems--in which direction talk had been adroitly
+steered"--Fergus, since we are on the topic, I would like to show Miss
+Ogle the Honor of Eiran."
+
+The Honor of Eiran was accordingly produced from a blue velvet case,
+and was properly admired.  Then, when the steward had been dismissed to
+fetch a rare liqueur, Mr. Sheridan laughed, and tossed and caught the
+jewel, as though he handled a cricket-ball.  It was the size of a
+pigeon's egg, and was set among eight gems of lesser magnitude; and in
+transit through the sunlight the trinket flashed and glittered with
+diabolical beauty.  The parliamentarian placed three bits of sugar in
+the velvet case and handed the gem to his companion.
+
+"The bulk is much the same," he observed; "and whether the carbon be
+crystallized or no, is the responsibility of stratigraphic geology.
+Fergus, perhaps, must go to jail.  That is unfortunate.  But true
+philanthropy works toward the benefit of the greatest number possible;
+and this resplendent pebble will purchase you innumerable pounds of tea
+and a warehouseful of blankets."
+
+"But, Mr. Sheridan," Miss Ogle cried, in horror, "to take this brooch
+would not be honest!"
+
+"Oh, as to that----!" he shrugged.
+
+"----because Lord Eiran purchased all these lesser diamonds, and very
+possibly paid for them."
+
+Then Mr. Sheridan reflected, stood abashed, and said:  "Incomparable
+Esther Jane, I confess I am only a man.  You are entirely right.  To
+purloin any of these little diamonds would be an abominable action,
+whereas to make off with the only valuable one is simply a stroke of
+retribution.  I will, therefore, attempt to prise it out with a
+nutpick."
+
+Three constables came suddenly into the room.  "We hae been tauld this
+missy is a suspectit thieving body," their leader cried.  "Esther Jane
+Ogle, ye maun gae with us i' the law's name.  Ou ay, lass, ye ken weel
+eneugh wha robbit auld Sir Aleexander McRae, sae dinna ye say naething
+tae your ain preejudice, lest ye hae tae account for it a'."
+
+Mr. Sheridan rose to the occasion.  "My exceedingly good friend, Angus
+Howden!  I am unwilling to concede that yeomen can excel in gentlemanly
+accomplishments, but it is only charity to suppose all three of you as
+drunk as any duke that ever honored me with his acquaintance."  This he
+drawled, and appeared magisterially to await an explanation.
+
+"Hout, Mr. Sheridan," commenced the leading representative of justice,
+"let that flee stick i' the wa'--e dinna mean tae tell me, Sir, that ye
+are acquaintit wi' this--ou ay, tae pleasure ye, I micht e'en say wi'
+this----"
+
+"This lady, probably?" Mr. Sheridan hazarded.
+
+"'Tis an unco thing," the constable declared, "but that wad be the word
+was amaist at my tongue's tip."
+
+"Why, undoubtedly," Mr. Sheridan assented.  "I rejoice that, being of
+French extraction, and unconversant with your somewhat cryptic patois,
+the lady in question is the less likely to have been sickened by your
+extravagances in the way of misapprehension.  I candidly confess such
+imbecility annoys me.  What!" he cried out, "what if I marry! is
+matrimony to be ranked with arson?  And what if my cousin, Eiran,
+affords me a hiding-place wherein to sneak through our honeymoon after
+the cowardly fashion of all modern married couples!  Am I in
+consequence compelled to submit to the invasions of an intoxicated
+constabulary?" His rage was terrific.
+
+"_Voila la seule devise.  Ils me connaissent, ils ont confidence dans
+moi.  Si, taisez-vous!  Si non, vous serez arretee et mise dans la
+prison, comme une caractere suspicieuse!_"  Mr. Sheridan exhorted Miss
+Ogle to this intent with more of earnestness than linguistic
+perfection; and he rejoiced to see that instantly she caught at her one
+chance of plausibly accounting for her presence at Bemerside, and of
+effecting a rescue from this horrid situation.
+
+"But I also spik the English," she sprightlily announced.  "I am
+appleed myself at to learn its by heart.  Certainly you look for a
+needle in a hay bundle, my gentlemans.  I am no stealer of the grand
+road, but the wife of Mistaire Sheridan, and her presence will say to
+you the remains."
+
+"You see!" cried Mr. Sheridan, in modest triumph.  "In short, I am a
+bridegroom unwarrantably interrupted in his first _tete-a-tete_, I am
+responsible for this lady and all her past and its appurtenances; and,
+in a phrase, for everything except the course of conduct I will
+undoubtedly pursue should you be visible at the conclusion of the next
+five minutes."
+
+His emphasis was such that the police withdrew with a concomitant of
+apologies.
+
+
+"And now I claim my bond," said Mr. Sheridan, when they were once again
+free from intrusion.  "For we two are in Scotland, where the common
+declaration of a man and woman that they are married constitutes a
+marriage."
+
+"Oh----!" she exclaimed, and stood encrimsoned.
+
+"Indeed, I must confess that the day's work has been a trick
+throughout.  The diamond was pawned years ago.  This trinket here is a
+copy in paste and worth perhaps some seven shillings sixpence.  And
+those fellows were not constables, but just my cousin Eiran and two
+footmen in disguise.  Nay, madam, you will learn with experience that
+to display unfailing candor is not without exception the price of
+happiness."
+
+"But this, I think, evades our bargain, Mr. Sheridan.  For you were
+committed to pilfer property to the value of L10,000----"
+
+"And to fulfil the obligation I have stolen your hand in marriage.
+What, madam! do you indeed pretend that any person outside of Bedlam
+would value you at less?  Believe me, your perfections are of far more
+worth.  All persons recognize that save yourself, incomparable Esther
+Jane; and yet, so patent is the proof of my contention, I dare to leave
+the verdict to your sense of justice."
+
+Miss Ogle did not speak.  Her lashes fell as, with some ceremony, he
+led her to the long French mirror which was in the breakfast room.
+"See now!" said Mr. Sheridan.  "You, who endanger life and fame in
+order to provide a mendicant with gruel, tracts and blankets!  You, who
+deny a sop to the one hunger which is vital!  Oh, madam, I am tempted
+glibly to compare your eyes to sapphires, and your hair to thin-spun
+gold, and the color of your flesh to the arbutus-flower--for that, as
+you can see, would be within the truth, and it would please most women,
+and afterward they would not be so obdurate.  But you are not like
+other women," Mr. Sheridan observed, with admirable dexterity.  "And I
+aspire to you, the irresistible Ogle! you, who so great-heartedly
+befriend the beggar! you, who with such industry contrive alleviation
+for the discomforts of poverty.  Eh, eh! what will you grant to any
+beggar such as I?  Will you deny a sop to the one hunger which is
+vital?"  He spoke with unaccustomed vigor, even in a sort of terror,
+because he knew that he was speaking with sincerity.
+
+"To the one hunger which is vital!" he repeated.  "Ah, where lies the
+secret which makes one face the dearest in the world, and entrusts to
+one little hand a life's happiness as a plaything?  All Aristotle's
+learning could not unriddle the mystery, and Samson's thews were
+impotent to break that spell.  Love vanquishes all. . . .  You would
+remind me of some previous skirmishings with Venus's unconquerable
+brat?  Nay, madam, to the contrary, the fact that I have loved many
+other women is my strongest plea for toleration.  Were there nothing
+else, it is indisputable we perform all actions better for having
+rehearsed them.  No, we do not of necessity perform them the more
+thoughtlessly as well; for, indeed, I find that with experience a man
+becomes increasingly difficult to please in affairs of the heart.  The
+woman one loves then is granted that pre-eminence not merely by virtue
+of having outshone any particular one of her predecessors; oh, no!
+instead, her qualities have been compared with all the charms of all
+her fair forerunners, and they have endured that stringent testing.
+The winning of an often-bartered heart is in reality the only conquest
+which entitles a woman to complacency, for she has received a real
+compliment; whereas to be selected as the target of a lad's first
+declaration is a tribute of no more value than a man's opinion upon
+vintages who has never tasted wine."
+
+He took a turn about the breakfast room, then came near to her.  "I
+love you.  Were there any way to parade the circumstance and bedeck it
+with pleasing adornments of filed phrases, tropes and far-fetched
+similes, I would not grudge you a deal of verbal pageantry.  But three
+words say all.  I love you.  There is no act in my past life but
+appears trivial and strange to me, and to the man who performed it I
+seem no more akin than to Mark Antony or Nebuchadnezzar.  I love you.
+The skies are bluer since you came, the beauty of this world we live in
+oppresses me with a fearful joy, and in my heart there is always the
+thought of you and such yearning as I may not word.  For I love you."
+
+"You--but you have frightened me."  Miss Ogle did not seem so terrified
+as to make any effort to recede from him; and yet he saw that she was
+frightened in sober earnest.  Her face showed pale, and soft, and glad,
+and awed, and desirable above all things; and it remained so near him
+as to engender riotous aspirations.
+
+"I love you," he said again.  You would never have suspected this man
+could speak, upon occasion, fluently.  "I think--I think that Heaven
+was prodigal when Heaven made you.  To think of you is as if I listened
+to an exalted music; and to be with you is to understand that all
+imaginable sorrows are just the figments of a dream which I had very
+long ago."
+
+She laid one hand on each of his shoulders, facing him.  "Do not let me
+be too much afraid!  I have not ever been afraid before.  Oh,
+everything is in a mist of gold, and I am afraid of you, and of the big
+universe which I was born into, and I am helpless, and I would have
+nothing changed!  Only, I cannot believe I am worth L10,000, and I do
+so want to be persuaded I am.  It is a great pity," she sighed, "that
+you who convicted Warren Hastings of stealing such enormous wealth
+cannot be quite as eloquent to-day as you were in the Oudh speech, and
+convince me his arraigner has been equally rapacious!"
+
+"I mean to prove as much--with time," said Mr. Sheridan.  His breathing
+was yet perfunctory.
+
+Miss Ogle murmured, "And how long would you require?"
+
+"Why, I intend, with your permission, to devote the remainder of my
+existence to the task.  Eh, I concede that space too brief for any
+adequate discussion of the topic; but I will try to be concise and very
+practical----"
+
+She laughed.  They were content.  "Try, then----" Miss Ogle said.
+
+She was able to get no farther in the sentence, for reasons which to
+particularize would be indiscreet.
+
+
+
+
+A PRINCESS OF GRUB STREET
+
+
+"_Though--or, rather, because--VANDERHOFFEN was a child of the French
+Revolution, and inherited his social, political and religious--or,
+rather, anti-religious--views from the French writers of the eighteenth
+century, England was not ready for him and the unshackled individualism
+for which he at first contended.  Recognizing this fact, he turned to
+an order of writing begotten of the deepest popular needs and addressed
+to the best intelligence of the great middle classes of the community._"
+
+
+  Now emperors bide their times' rebuff
+  I would not be a king--enough
+      Of woe it is to love;
+  The paths of power are steep and rough,
+      And tempests reign above.
+
+  I would not climb the imperial throne;
+  'Tis built on ice which fortune's sun
+      Thaws in the height of noon.
+  Then farewell, kings, that squeak 'Ha' done!'
+      To time's full-throated tune.
+
+  PAUL VANDERHOFFEN.--_Emma and Caroline_.
+
+
+
+
+A PRINCESS OF GRUB STREET
+
+
+It is questionable if the announcement of the death of their Crown
+Prince, Hilary, upon the verge of his accession to the throne, aroused
+more than genteel regret among the inhabitants of Saxe-Kesselberg.  It
+is indisputable that in diplomatic circles news of this horrible
+occurrence was indirectly conceded in 1803 to smack of a direct
+intervention of Providence.  For to consider all the havoc dead Prince
+Fribble--such had been his sobriquet--would have created, _Dei gratia_,
+through his pilotage of an important grand-duchy (with an area of no
+less than eighty-nine square miles) was less discomfortable now
+prediction was an academic matter.
+
+And so the editors of divers papers were the victims of a decorous
+anguish, court-mourning was decreed, and that wreckage which passed for
+the mutilated body of Prince Hilary was buried with every appropriate
+honor.  Within the week most people had forgotten him, for everybody
+was discussing the execution of the Duc d'Enghein.  And the aged
+unvenerable Grand-Duke of Saxe-Kesselberg died too in the same March;
+and afterward his other grandson, Prince Augustus, reigned in the merry
+old debauchee's stead.
+
+Prince Hilary was vastly pleased.  His scheme for evading the tedious
+responsibilities of sovereignty had been executed without a hitch; he
+was officially dead; and, on the whole, standing bareheaded between a
+miller and laundress, he had found his funeral ceremonies to be
+unimpeachably conducted.  He assumed the name of Paul Vanderhoffen,
+selected at random from the novel he was reading when his postchaise
+conveyed him past the frontier of Saxe-Kesselberg.  Freed, penniless,
+and thoroughly content, he set about amusing himself--having a world to
+frisk in--and incidentally about the furnishing of his new friend Paul
+Vanderhoffen with life's necessaries.
+
+
+It was a little more than two years later that the good-natured Earl of
+Brudenel suggested to Lady John Claridge that she could nowhere find a
+more eligible tutor for her son than young Vanderhoffen.
+
+"Hasn't a shilling, ma'am, but one of the most popular men in London.
+His poetry book was subscribed for by the Prince Regent and half the
+notables of the kingdom.  Capital company at a dinner-table--stutters,
+begad, like a What-you-may-call-'em, and keeps everybody in a roar--and
+when he's had his whack of claret, he sings his own songs to the piano,
+you know, and all that sort of thing, and has quite put Tommy Moore's
+nose out of joint.  Nobody knows much about him, but that don't matter
+with these literary chaps, does it now?  Goes everywhere, ma'am--quite
+a favorite at Carlton House--a highly agreeable, well-informed man, I
+can assure you--and probably hasn't a shilling to pay the cabman.
+Deuced odd, ain't it?  But Lord Lansdowne is trying to get him a
+place--spoke to me about a tutorship, ma'am, in fact, just to keep
+Vanderhoffen going, until some registrarship or other falls vacant.
+Now, I ain't clever and that sort of thing, but I quite agree with
+Lansdowne that we practical men ought to look out for these clever
+fellows--see that they don't starve in a garret, like poor
+What's-his-name, don't you know?"
+
+Lady Claridge sweetly agreed with her future son-in-law.  So it befell
+that shortly after this conversation Paul Vanderhoffen came to
+Leamington Manor, and through an entire summer goaded young Percival
+Claridge, then on the point of entering Cambridge, but pedagogically
+branded as "deficient in mathematics," through many elaborate
+combinations of x and y and cosines and hyperbolas.
+
+Lady John Claridge, mother to the pupil, approved of the new tutor.
+True, he talked much and wildishly; but literary men had a name for
+eccentricity, and, besides, Lady Claridge always dealt with the
+opinions of other people as matters of illimitable unimportance.  This
+baronet's lady, in short, was in these days vouchsafing to the universe
+at large a fine and new benevolence, now that her daughter was safely
+engaged to Lord Brudenel, who, whatever his other virtues, was
+certainly a peer of England and very rich.  It seems irrelevant, and
+yet for the tale's sake is noteworthy, that any room which harbored
+Lady John Claridge was through this fact converted into an absolute
+monarchy.
+
+And so, by the favor of Lady Claridge and destiny, the tutor stayed at
+Leamington Manor all summer.
+
+There was nothing in either the appearance or demeanor of the fiancee
+of Lord Brudenel's title and superabundant wealth which any honest
+gentleman could, hand upon his heart, describe as blatantly repulsive.
+
+It may not be denied the tutor noted this.  In fine, he fell in love
+with Mildred Claridge after a thorough-going fashion such as Prince
+Fribble would have found amusing.  Prince Fribble would have smiled,
+shrugged, drawled, "Eh, after all, the girl is handsome and deplorably
+cold-blooded!"  Paul Vanderhoffen said, "I am not fit to live in the
+same world with her," and wrote many verses in the prevailing Oriental
+style rich in allusions to roses, and bulbuls, and gazelles, and peris,
+and minarets--which he sold rather profitably.
+
+Meanwhile, far oversea, the reigning Duke of Saxe-Kesselberg had been
+unwise enough to quarrel with his Chancellor, Georges Desmarets, an
+invaluable man whose only faults were dishonesty and a too intimate
+acquaintance with the circumstances of Prince Hilary's demise.  As
+fruit of this indiscretion, an inconsiderable tutor at Leamington
+Manor--whom Lady John Claridge regarded as a sort of upper servant was
+talking with a visitor.
+
+
+The tutor, it appeared, preferred to talk with the former Chancellor of
+Saxe-Kesselberg in the middle of an open field.  The time was
+afternoon, the season September, and the west was vaingloriously
+justifying the younger man's analogy of a gigantic Spanish omelette.
+Meanwhile, the younger man declaimed in a high-pitched pleasant voice,
+wherein there was, as always, the elusive suggestion of a stutter.
+
+"I repeat to you," the tutor observed, "that no consideration will ever
+make a grand-duke of me excepting over my dead body.  Why don't you
+recommend some not quite obsolete vocation, such as making papyrus, or
+writing an interesting novel, or teaching people how to dance a
+saraband?  For after all, what is a monarch nowadays--oh, even a
+monarch of the first class?" he argued, with what came near being a
+squeak of indignation.  "The poor man is a rather pitiable and
+perfectly useless relic of barbarism, now that 1789 has opened our
+eyes; and his main business in life is to ride in open carriages and
+bow to an applauding public who are applauding at so much per head.  He
+must expect to be aspersed with calumny, and once in a while with
+bullets.  He may at the utmost aspire to introduce an innovation in
+evening dress,--the Prince Regent, for instance, has invented a really
+very creditable shoe-buckle.  Tradition obligates him to devote his
+unofficial hours to sheer depravity----"
+
+Paul Vanderhoffen paused to meditate.
+
+"Why, there you are! another obstacle!  I have in an inquiring spirit
+and without prejudice sampled all the Seven Deadly Sins, and the common
+increment was an inability to enjoy my breakfast.  A grand-duke I take
+it, if he have any sense of the responsibilities of his position, will
+piously remember the adage about the voice of the people and hasten to
+be steeped in vice--and thus conform to every popular notion concerning
+a grand-duke.  Why, common intelligence demands that a grand-duke
+should brazenly misbehave himself upon the more conspicuous high-places
+of Chemosh! and personally, I have no talents such as would qualify me
+for a life of cynical and brutal immorality.  I lack the necessary
+aptitude, I would not ever afford any spicy gossip concerning the Duke
+of Saxe-Kesselberg, and the editors of the society papers would
+unanimously conspire to dethrone me----"
+
+Thus he argued, with his high-pitched pleasant voice, wherein there
+was, as always, the elusive suggestion of a stutter.  And here the
+other interrupted.
+
+"There is no need of names, your highness." Georges Desmarets was
+diminutive, black-haired and corpulent.  He was of dapper appearance,
+point-device in everything, and he reminded you of a perky robin.
+
+The tutor flung out an "Ouf! I must recall to you that, thank heaven, I
+am not anybody's highness any longer.  I am Paul Vanderhoffen."
+
+"He says that he is not Prince Fribble!"--the little man addressed the
+zenith--"as if any other person ever succeeded in talking a half-hour
+without being betrayed into at least one sensible remark.  Oh, how do
+you manage without fail to be so consistently and stupendously idiotic?"
+
+"It is, like all other desirable traits, either innate or else just
+unattainable," the other answered.  "I am so hopelessly light-minded
+that I cannot refrain from being rational even in matters which concern
+me personally--and this, of course, no normal being ever thinks of
+doing.  I really cannot help it."
+
+The Frenchman groaned whole-heartedly.
+
+"But we were speaking--well, of foreign countries.  Now, Paul
+Vanderhoffen has read that in one of these countries there was once a
+prince who very narrowly escaped figuring as a self-conscious
+absurdity, as an anachronism, as a life-long prisoner of etiquette.
+However, with the assistance of his cousin--who, incidentally, was also
+his heir--the prince most opportunely died.  Oh, pedant that you are!
+in any event he was interred.  And so, the prince was gathered to his
+fathers, and his cousin Augustus reigned in his stead.  Until a certain
+politician who had been privy to this pious fraud----"  The tutor
+shrugged.  "How can I word it without seeming hypercritical?"
+
+Georges Desmarets stretched out appealing hands.  "But, I protest, it
+was the narrow-mindedness of that pernicious prig, your cousin--who
+firmly believes himself to be an improved and augmented edition of the
+Four Evangelists----"
+
+"Well, in any event, the proverb was attested that birds of a feather
+make strange bedfellows.  There was a dispute concerning some petit
+larceny--some slight discrepancy, we will imagine, since all this is
+pure romance, in the politician's accounts----"
+
+"Now you belie me----" said the black-haired man, and warmly.
+
+"Oh, Desmarets, you are as vain as ever!  Let us say, then, of grand
+larceny.  In any event, the politician was dismissed.  And what, my
+dears, do you suppose this bold and bad and unprincipled Machiavelli
+went and did?  Why, he made straight for the father of the princess the
+usurping duke was going to marry, and surprised everybody by showing
+that, at a pinch, even this Guy Fawkes--who was stuffed with all manner
+of guile and wickedness where youthful patriotism would ordinarily
+incline to straw--was capable of telling the truth.  And so the father
+broke off the match.  And the enamored, if usurping, duke wept bitterly
+and tore his hair to such an extent he totally destroyed his best
+toupet.  And privily the Guy Fawkes came into the presence of the
+exiled duke and prated of a restoration to ancestral dignities.  And he
+was spurned by a certain highly intelligent person who considered it
+both tedious and ridiculous to play at being emperor of a backyard.
+And then--I really don't recall what happened.  But there was a general
+and unqualified deuce to pay with no pitch at a really satisfying
+temperature."
+
+The stouter man said quietly:  "It is a thrilling tale which you
+narrate.  Only, I do recall what happened then.  The usurping duke was
+very much in earnest, desirous of retaining his little kingdom, and
+particularly desirous of the woman whom he loved.  In consequence, he
+had Monsieur the Runaway obliterated while the latter was talking
+nonsense----"
+
+The tutor's brows had mounted.
+
+"I scorn to think it even of anybody who is controlled in every action
+by a sense of duty," Georges Desmarets explained, "that Duke Augustus
+would cause you to be murdered in your sleep."
+
+"A hit!"  The younger man unsmilingly gesticulated like one who has
+been touched in sword-play.  "Behold now, as the populace in their
+blunt way would phrase it, I am squelched."
+
+"And so the usurping duke was married and lived happily ever
+afterward." Georges Desmarets continued: "I repeat to you there is only
+the choice between declaring yourself and being--we will say, removed.
+Your cousin is deeply in love with the Princess Sophia, and thanks to
+me, has now no chance of marrying her until his title has been secured
+by your--removal.  Do not deceive yourself.  High interests are
+involved.  You are the grain of sand between big wheels.  I iterate
+that the footpad who attacked you last night was merely a prologue.  I
+happen to know your cousin has entrusted the affair to Heinrich
+Obendorf, his foster-brother, who, as you will remember, is not
+particularly squeamish."
+
+Paul Vanderhoffen thought a while.  "Desmarets," he said at last, "it
+is no use.  I scorn your pribbles and your prabbles.  I bargained with
+Augustus.  I traded a duchy for my personal liberty.  Frankly, I would
+be sorry to connect a sharer of my blood with the assault of yesterday.
+To be unpardonably candid, I have not ever found that your assertion of
+an event quite proved it had gone through the formality of occurring.
+And so I shall hold to my bargain."
+
+"The night brings counsel," Desmarets returned.  "It hardly needs a
+night, I think, to demonstrate that all I say is true."
+
+And so they parted.
+
+
+Having thus dismissed such trifles as statecraft and the well-being of
+empires, Paul Vanderhoffen turned toward consideration of the one
+really serious subject in the universe, which was of course the bright,
+miraculous and incredible perfection of Mildred Claridge.
+
+"I wonder what you think of me?  I wonder if you ever think of me?" The
+thought careered like a caged squirrel, now that he walked through
+autumn woods toward her home.
+
+"I wish that you were not so sensible.  I wish your mother were not
+even more so.  The woman reeks with common-sense, and knows that to be
+common is to be unanswerable.  I wish that a dispute with her were not
+upon a par with remonstrance against an earthquake."
+
+He lighted a fresh cheroot.  "And so you are to marry the Brudenel
+title and bank account, with this particular Heleigh thrown in as a
+dividend.  And why not? the estate is considerable; the man who
+encumbers it is sincere in his adoration of you; and, chief of all,
+Lady John Claridge has decreed it.  And your decision in any matter has
+always lain between the claws of that steel-armored crocodile who, by
+some miracle, is your mother.  Oh, what a universe! were I of hasty
+temperament I would cry out, TUT AND GO TO!"
+
+This was the moment which the man hid in the thicket selected as most
+fit for intervention through the assistance of a dueling pistol.  Paul
+Vanderhoffen reeled, his face bewilderment.  His hands clutched toward
+the sky, as if in anguish he grasped at some invisible support, and he
+coughed once or twice.  It was rather horrible.  Then Vanderhoffen
+shivered as though he were very cold, and tottered and collapsed in the
+parched roadway.
+
+A slinking man whose lips were gray and could not refrain from
+twitching came toward the limp heap.  "So----!" said the man.  One of
+his hands went to the tutor's breast, and in his left hand dangled a
+second dueling pistol.  He had thrown away the other after firing it.
+
+"And so----!" observed Paul Vanderhoffen.  Afterward there was a
+momentary tussle.  Now Paul Vanderhoffen stood erect and flourished the
+loaded pistol.  "If you go on this way," he said, with some severity,
+"you will presently be neither loved nor respected.  There was a time,
+though, when you were an excellent shot, Herr Heinrich Obendorf."
+
+"I had my orders, highness," said the other stolidly.
+
+"Oh yes, of course," Paul Vanderhoffen answered.  "You had your
+orders--from Augustus!"  He seemed to think of something very far away.
+He smiled, with quizzically narrowed eyes such as you may yet see in
+Raeburn's portrait of the man.  "I was remembering, oddly enough, that
+elm just back of the Canova Pavilion--as it was twenty years ago.  I
+managed to scramble up it, but Augustus could not follow me because he
+had such short fat little legs.  He was so proud of what I had done
+that he insisted on telling everybody--and afterward we had oranges for
+luncheon, I remember, and sucked them through bits of sugar.  It is not
+fair that you must always remember and always love that boy who played
+with you when you were little--after he has grown up to be another
+person.  Eh no!  youth passes, but all its memories of unimportant
+things remain with you and are less kind than any self-respecting viper
+would be.  Decidedly, it is not fair, and some earnest-minded person
+ought to write to his morning paper about it. . . .  I think that is
+the reason I am being a sentimental fool," Paul Vanderhoffen explained.
+
+Then his teeth clicked.  "Get on, my man," he said.  "Do not remain too
+near to me, because there was a time when I loved your employer quite
+as much as you do.  This fact is urging me to dangerous ends.  Yes, it
+is prompting me, even while I talk with you, to give you a lesson in
+marksmanship, my inconveniently faithful Heinrich."
+
+He shrugged.  He lighted a cheroot with hands whose tremblings, he
+devoutly hoped, were not apparent, for Prince Fribble had been ashamed
+to manifest a sincere emotion of any sort, and Paul Vanderhoffen shared
+as yet this foible.
+
+"Oh Brutus!  Ravaillac!  Damiens!" he drawled.  "O general compendium
+of misguided aspirations! do be a duck and get along with you.  And I
+would run as hard as I could, if I were you, for it is war now, and you
+and I are not on the same side."
+
+
+Paul Vanderhoffen paused a hundred yards or so from this to shake his
+head.  "Come, come! I have lost so much that I cannot afford to throw
+my good temper into the bargain.  To endure with a grave face this
+perfectly unreasonable universe wherein destiny has locked me is
+undoubtedly meritorious; but to bustle about it like a caged canary,
+and not ever to falter in your hilarity, is heroic.  Let us, by all
+means, not consider the obdurate if gilded barriers, but rather the
+lettuce and the cuttle-bone.  I have my choice between becoming a
+corpse or a convict--a convict? ah, undoubtedly a convict, sentenced to
+serve out a life-term in a cess-pool of castby superstitions."
+
+He smiled now over Paul Vanderhoffen's rage.  "Since the situation is
+tragic, let us approach it in an appropriate spirit of frivolity.  My
+circumstances bully me.  And I succumb to irrationality, as rational
+persons invariably end by doing.  But, oh, dear me! oh, Osiris,
+Termagaunt, and Zeus! to think there are at least a dozen other
+ne'er-do-wells alive who would prefer to make a mess of living as a
+grand-duke rather than as a scribbler in Grub Street!  Well, well! the
+jest is not of my contriving, and the one concession a sane man will
+never yield the universe is that of considering it seriously."
+
+And he strode on, resolved to be Prince Fribble to the last.
+
+"Frivolity," he said, "is the smoked glass through which a civilized
+person views the only world he has to live in.  For, otherwise, he
+could not presume to look upon such coruscations of insanity and remain
+unblinded."
+
+This heartened him, as a rounded phrase will do the best of us.  But
+by-and-bye,
+
+"Frivolity," he groaned, "is really the cheap mask incompetence claps
+on when haled before a mirror."
+
+
+And at Leamington Manor he found her strolling upon the lawn.  It was
+an ordered, lovely scene, steeped now in the tranquillity of evening.
+Above, the stars were losing diffidence.  Below, and within arms'
+reach, Mildred Claridge was treading the same planet on which he
+fidgeted and stuttered.
+
+Something in his heart snapped like a fiddle-string, and he was
+entirely aware of this circumstance.  As to her eyes, teeth, coloring,
+complexion, brows, height and hair, it is needless to expatiate.  The
+most painstaking inventory of these chattels would necessarily be
+misleading, because the impression which they conveyed to him was that
+of a bewildering, but not distasteful, transfiguration of the universe,
+apt as a fanfare at the entrance of a queen.
+
+But he would be Prince Fribble to the last.  And so, "Wait just a
+moment, please," he said, "I want to harrow up your soul and freeze
+your blood."
+
+Wherewith he suavely told her everything about Paul Vanderhoffen's
+origin and the alternatives now offered him, and she listened without
+comment.
+
+"Ai! ai!" young Vanderhoffen perorated; "the situation is complete.  I
+have not the least desire to be Grand-Duke of Saxe-Kesselberg.  It is
+too abominably tedious.  But, if I do not join in with Desmarets, who
+has the guy-ropes of a restoration well in hand, I must inevitably
+be--removed, as the knave phrases it.  For as long as I live, I will be
+an insuperable barrier between Augustus and his Sophia.  Otototoi!" he
+wailed, with a fine tone of tragedy, "the one impossible achievement in
+my life has always been to convince anybody that it was mine to dispose
+of as I elected!"
+
+"Oh, man proposes----" she began, cryptically.  Then he deliberated,
+and sulkily submitted:  "But I may not even propose to abdicate.
+Augustus has put himself upon sworn record as an eye-witness of my
+hideous death.  And in consequence I might keep on abdicating from now
+to the crack of doom, and the only course left open to him would be to
+treat me as an impostor."
+
+She replied, with emphasis, "I think your cousin is a beast!"
+
+"Ah, but the madman is in love," he pleaded.  "You should not judge
+poor masculinity in such a state by any ordinary standards.  Oh really,
+you don't know the Princess Sophia.  She is, in sober truth, the nicest
+person who was ever born a princess.  Why, she had actually made a mock
+of even that handicap, for ordinarily it is as disastrous to feminine
+appearance as writing books.  And, oh, Lord! they will be marrying her
+to me, if Desmarets and I win out."  Thus he forlornly ended.
+
+"The designing minx!" Miss Claridge said, distinctly.
+
+"Now, gracious lady, do be just a cooing pigeon and grant that when men
+are in love they are not any more encumbered by abstract notions about
+honor than if they had been womanly from birth.  Come, let's be lyrical
+and open-minded," he urged; and he added, "No, either you are in love
+or else you are not in love.  And nothing else will matter either way.
+You see, if men and women had been primarily designed to be rational
+creatures, there would be no explanation for their being permitted to
+continue in existence," he lucidly explained.  "And to have grasped
+this fact is the pith of all wisdom."
+
+"Oh, I am very wise."  A glint of laughter shone in her eyes.  "I would
+claim to be another Pythoness if only it did not sound so snaky and
+wriggling.  So, from my trident--or was it a Triton they used to stand
+on?--I announce that you and your Augustus are worrying yourselves
+gray-headed over an idiotically simple problem.  Now, I disposed of it
+offhand when I said, 'Man proposes.'"
+
+He seemed to be aware of some one who from a considerable distance was
+inquiring her reasons for this statement.
+
+"Because in Saxe-Kesselberg, as in all other German states, when a
+prince of the reigning house marries outside of the mediatized nobility
+he thereby forfeits his right of succession.  It has been done any
+number of times.  Why, don't you see, Mr. Vanderhoffen?  Conceding you
+ever do such a thing, your cousin Augustus would become at once the
+legal heir.  So you must marry.  It is the only way, I think, to save
+you from regal incarceration and at the same time to reassure the
+Prince of Lueminster--that creature's father--that you have not, and
+never can have, any claim which would hold good in law.  Then Duke
+Augustus could peaceably espouse his Sophia and go on reigning---- And,
+by the way, I have seen her picture often, and if that is what you call
+beauty----" Miss Claridge did not speak this last at least with any air
+of pointing out the self-evident.
+
+And, "I believe," he replied, "that all this is actually happening.  I
+might have known fate meant to glut her taste for irony."
+
+"But don't you see?  You have only to marry anybody outside of the
+higher nobility--and just as a makeshift----"  She had drawn closer in
+the urgency of her desire to help him.  An infinite despair and mirth
+as well was kindled by her nearness.  And the man was insane and dimly
+knew as much.
+
+And so, "I see," he answered.  "But, as it happens, I cannot marry any
+woman, because I love a particular woman.  At least, I suppose she
+isn't anything but just a woman.  That statement," he announced, "is a
+formal tribute paid by what I call my intellect to what the vulgar call
+the probabilities.  The rest of me has no patience whatever with such
+idiotic blasphemy."
+
+She said, "I think I understand."  And this surprised him, coming as it
+did from her whom he had always supposed to be the fiancee of Lord
+Brudenel's title and bank-account.
+
+"And, well!"--he waved his hands--"either as tutor or as grand-duke,
+this woman is unattainable, because she has been far too carefully
+reared"--and here he frenziedly thought of that terrible matron whom,
+as you know, he had irreverently likened to a crocodile--"either to
+marry a pauper or to be contented with a left-handed alliance.  And I
+love her.  And so"--he shrugged--"there is positively nothing left to
+do save sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the deaths of
+kings."
+
+She said, "Oh, and you mean it!  You are speaking the plain truth!"  A
+change had come into her lovely face which would have made him think it
+even lovelier had not that contingency been beyond conception.
+
+And Mildred Claridge said, "It is not fair for dreamers such as you to
+let a woman know just how he loves her.  That is not wooing.  It is
+bullying."
+
+His lips were making a variety of irrational noises.  And he was near
+to her.  Also he realized that he had never known how close akin were
+fear and joy, so close the two could mingle thus, and be quite
+undistinguishable.  And then repentance smote him.
+
+"I am contemptible!" he groaned.  "I had no right to trouble you with
+my insanities.  Indeed I had not ever meant to let you guess how mad I
+was.  But always I have evaded my responsibilities.  So I remain Prince
+Fribble to the last."
+
+"Oh, but I knew, I have always known."  She held her eyes away from
+him.  "And I wrote to Lord Brudenel only yesterday releasing him from
+his engagement."
+
+And now without uncertainty or haste Paul Vanderhoffen touched her
+cheek and raised her face, so that he saw it plainly in the rising
+twilight, and all its wealth of tenderness newborn.  And what he saw
+there frightened him.
+
+For the girl loved him!  He felt himself to be, as most men do, a
+swindler when he comprehended this preposterous fact; and, in addition,
+he thought of divers happenings, such as shipwrecks, holocausts and
+earthquakes, which might conceivably have appalled him, and understood
+that he would never in his life face any sense of terror as huge as was
+this present sweet and illimitable awe.
+
+And then he said, "You know that what I hunger for is impossible.
+There are so many little things, like common-sense, to be considered.
+For this is just a matter which concerns you and Paul Vanderhoffen--a
+literary hack, a stuttering squeak-voiced ne'er-do-well, with an
+acquired knack for scribbling verses that are feeble-minded enough for
+Annuals and Keepsake Books, and so fetch him an occasional guinea.
+For, my dear, the verses I write of my own accord are not sufficiently
+genteel to be vended in Paternoster Row; they smack too dangerously of
+human intelligence.  So I am compelled, perforce, to scribble such
+jingles as I am ashamed to read, because I must write
+_something_. . . ." Paul Vanderhoffen shrugged, and continued, in tones
+more animated: "There will be no talk of any grand-duke.  Instead,
+there will be columns of denunciation and tittle-tattle in every
+newspaper--quite as if you, a baronet's daughter, had run away with a
+footman.  And you will very often think wistfully of Lord Brudenel's
+fine house when your only title is--well, Princess of Grub Street, and
+your realm is a garret.  And for a while even to-morrow's breakfast
+will be a problematical affair.  It is true Lord Lansdowne has promised
+me a registrarship in the Admiralty Court, and I do not think he will
+fail me.  But that will give us barely enough to live on--with strict
+economy, which is a virtue that neither of us knows anything about.  I
+beg you to remember that--you who have been used to every luxury!  you
+who really were devised that you might stand beside an emperor and set
+tasks for him.  In fine, you know----"
+
+And Mildred Claridge said, "I know that, quite as I observed, man
+proposes--when he has been sufficiently prodded by some one who,
+because she is an idiot--And that is why I am not blushing--very
+much----"
+
+"Your coloring is not--repellent."  His high-pitched pleasant voice, in
+spite of him, shook now with more than its habitual suggestion of a
+stutter.  "What have you done to me, my dear?" he said.  "Why can't I
+jest at this . . . as I have always done at everything----?"
+
+"Boy, boy!" she said; "laughter is excellent.  And wisdom too is
+excellent.  Only I think that you have laughed too much, and I have
+been too shrewd--But now I know that it is better to be a princess in
+Grub Street than to figure at Ranelagh as a good-hearted fool's latest
+purchase.  For Lord Brudenel is really very good-natured," she argued,
+"and I did like him, and mother was so set upon it--and he was
+rich--and I honestly thought----"
+
+"And now?" he said.
+
+"And now I know," she answered happily.
+
+They looked at each other for a little while.  Then he took her hand,
+prepared in turn for self-denial.
+
+"The _Household Review_ wants me to 'do' a series on famous English
+bishops," he reported, humbly.  "I had meant to refuse, because it
+would all have to be dull High-Church twaddle.  And the _English
+Gentleman_ wants some rather outrageous lying done in defense of the
+Corn Laws.  You would not despise me too much--would you, Mildred?--if
+I undertook it now.  I really have no choice.  And there is plenty of
+hackwork of that sort available to keep us going until more solvent
+days, when I shall have opportunity to write something quite worthy of
+you."
+
+"For the present, dear, it would be much more sensible, I think, to
+'do' the bishops and the Corn Laws.  You see, that kind of thing pays
+very well, and is read by the best people; whereas poetry, of course--
+But you can always come back to the verse-making, you know----"
+
+"If you ever let me," he said, with a flash of prescience.  "And I
+don't believe you mean to let me.  You are your mother's daughter,
+after all!  Nefarious woman, you are planning, already, to make a
+responsible member of society out of me! and you will do it,
+ruthlessly!  Such is to be Prince Fribble's actual burial--in his own
+private carriage, with a receipted tax-bill in his pocket!"
+
+"What nonsense you poets talk!" the girl observed.  But to him,
+forebodingly, that familiar statement seemed to lack present
+application.
+
+
+
+
+THE LADY OF ALL OUR DREAMS
+
+
+"_In JOHN CHARTERIS appeared a man with an inborn sense of the supreme
+interest and the overwhelming emotional and spiritual relevancy of
+human life as it is actually and obscurely lived; a man with
+unmistakable creative impulses and potentialities; a man who, had he
+lived in a more mature and less self-deluding community--a community
+that did not so rigorously confine its interest in facts to business,
+and limit its demands upon art to the supplying of illusions--might
+humbly and patiently have schooled his gifts to the service of his
+vision. . . .  As it was, he accepted defeat and compromised
+half-heartedly with commercialism._"
+
+
+
+  And men unborn will read of Heloise,
+      And Ruth, and Rosamond, and Semele,
+      When none remembers your name's melody
+  Or rhymes your name, enregistered with these.
+
+  And will my name wake moods as amorous
+      As that of Abelard or Launcelot
+  Arouses? be recalled when Pyramus
+      And Tristram are unrhymed of and forgot?--
+  Time's laughter answers, who accords to us
+      More gracious fields, wherein we harvest--what?
+
+  JOHN CHARTERIS. _Torrismond's Envoi, in Ashtaroth's Lackey_.
+
+
+
+
+THE LADY OF ALL OUR DREAMS
+
+
+"Our distinguished alumnus," after being duly presented as such, had
+with vivacity delivered much the usual sort of Commencement Address.
+Yet John Charteris was in reality a trifle fagged.
+
+The afternoon train had been vexatiously late.  The little novelist had
+found it tedious to interchange inanities with the committee awaiting
+him at the Pullman steps.  Nor had it amused him to huddle into
+evening-dress, and hasten through a perfunctory supper in order to
+reassure his audience at half-past eight precisely as to the
+unmitigated delight of which he was now conscious.
+
+Nevertheless, he alluded with enthusiasm to the arena of life, to the
+dependence of America's destiny upon the younger generation, to the
+enviable part King's College had without exception played in history,
+and he depicted to Fairhaven the many glories of Fairhaven--past,
+present and approaching--in superlatives that would hardly have seemed
+inadequate if applied to Paradise.  His oration, in short, was of a
+piece with the amiable bombast that the college students and Fairhaven
+at large were accustomed to applaud at every Finals--the sort of
+linguistic debauch that John Charteris himself remembered to have
+applauded as an undergraduate more years ago than he cared to
+acknowledge.
+
+Pauline Romeyne had sat beside him then--yonder, upon the fourth bench
+from the front, where now another boy with painstakingly plastered hair
+was clapping hands.  There was a girl on the right of this boy, too.
+There naturally would be.  Mr. Charteris as he sat down was wondering
+if Pauline was within reach of his voice?  and if she were, what was
+her surname nowadays?
+
+Then presently the exercises were concluded, and the released auditors
+arose with an outwelling noise of multitudinous chatter, of shuffling
+feet, of rustling programs.  Many of Mr. Charteris' audience, though,
+were contending against the general human outflow and pushing toward
+the platform, for Fairhaven was proud of John Charteris now that his
+colorful tales had risen, from the semi-oblivion of being cherished
+merely by people who cared seriously for beautiful things, to the
+distinction of being purchasable in railway stations; so that, in
+consequence, Fairhaven wished both to congratulate him and to renew
+acquaintanceship.
+
+He, standing there, alert and quizzical, found it odd to note how
+unfamiliar beaming faces climbed out of the hurly-burly of retreating
+backs, to say, "Don't you remember me?  I'm so-and-so."  These were the
+people whom he had lived among once, and some of these had once been
+people whom he loved.  Now there was hardly any one whom at a glance he
+would have recognized.
+
+Nobody guessed as much.  He was adjudged to be delightful, cordial,
+"and not a bit stuck-up, not spoiled at all, you know."  To appear this
+was the talisman with which he banteringly encountered the universe.
+
+But John Charteris, as has been said, was in reality a trifle fagged.
+When everybody had removed to the Gymnasium, where the dancing was to
+be, and he had been delightful there, too, for a whole half-hour, he
+grasped with avidity at his first chance to slip away, and did so under
+cover of a riotous two-step.
+
+He went out upon the Campus.
+
+He found this lawn untenanted, unless you chose to count the marble
+figure of Lord Penniston, made aerial and fantastic by the moonlight,
+standing as it it were on guard over the College.  Mr. Charteris chose
+to count him.  Whimsically, Mr. Charteris reflected that this battered
+nobleman's was the one familiar face he had exhumed in all Fairhaven.
+And what a deal of mirth and folly, too, the old fellow must have
+witnessed during his two hundred and odd years of sentry-duty!  On
+warm, clear nights like this, in particular, when by ordinary there
+were only couples on the Campus, each couple discreetly remote from any
+of the others.  Then Penniston would be aware of most portentous pauses
+(which a delectable and lazy conference of leaves made eloquent)
+because of many unfinished sentences.  "Oh, YOU know what I mean,
+dear!" one would say as a last resort.  And she-why, bless her heart!
+of course, she always did. . . .  Heigho, youth's was a pleasant
+lunacy. . . .
+
+Thus Charteris reflected, growing drowsy.  She said, "You spoke very
+well to-night.  Is it too late for congratulations?"
+
+Turning, Mr. Charteris remarked, "As you are perfectly aware, all that
+I vented was just a deal of skimble-scamble stuff, a verbal syllabub of
+balderdash.  No, upon reflection, I think I should rather describe it
+as a conglomeration of piffle, patriotism and pyrotechnics.  Well,
+Madam Do-as-you-would-be-done-by, what would you have?  You must give
+people what they want."
+
+It was characteristic that he faced Pauline Romeyne--or was it still
+Romeyne? he wondered--precisely as if it had been fifteen minutes,
+rather than as many years, since they had last spoken together.
+
+"Must one?" she asked.  "Oh, yes, I know you have always thought that,
+but I do not quite see the necessity of it."
+
+She sat upon the bench beside Lord Penniston's square marble pedestal.
+"And all the while you spoke I was thinking of those Saturday nights
+when your name was up for an oration or a debate before the Eclectics,
+and you would stay away and pay the fine rather than brave an audience."
+
+"The tooth of Time," he reminded her, "has since then written wrinkles
+on my azure brow.  The years slip away fugacious, and Time that brings
+forth her children only to devour them grins most hellishly, for Time
+changes all things and cultivates even in herself an appreciation of
+irony,--and, therefore, why shouldn't I have changed a trifle?  You
+wouldn't have me put on exhibition as a _lusus naturae_?"
+
+"Oh, but I wish you had not altered so entirely!" Pauline sighed.
+
+"At least, you haven't," he declared.  "Of course, I would be compelled
+to say so, anyhow.  But in this happy instance courtesy and veracity
+come skipping arm-in-arm from my elated lips."  And, indeed, it seemed
+to him that Pauline was marvelously little altered.  "I wonder now," he
+said, and cocked his head, "I wonder now whose wife I am talking to?"
+
+"No, Jack, I never married," she said quietly.
+
+"It is selfish of me," he said, in the same tone, "but I am glad of
+that."
+
+And so they sat a while, each thinking.
+
+"I wonder," said Pauline, with that small plaintive voice which
+Charteris so poignantly remembered, "whether it is always like this?
+Oh, do the Overlords of Life and Death ALWAYS provide some obstacle to
+prevent what all of us have known in youth was possible from ever
+coming true?"
+
+And again there was a pause which a delectable and lazy conference of
+leaves made eloquent.
+
+"I suppose it is because they know that if it ever did come true, we
+would be gods like them."  The ordinary associates of John Charteris,
+most certainly, would not have suspected him to be the speaker.  "So
+they contrive the obstacle, or else they send false dreams--out of the
+gates of horn--and make the path smooth, very smooth, so that two
+dreamers may not be hindered on their way to the divorce-courts."
+
+"Yes, they are jealous gods! oh, and ironical gods also!  They grant
+the Dream, and chuckle while they grant it, I think, because they know
+that later they will be bringing their playthings face to face--each
+married, fat, inclined to optimism, very careful of decorum, and
+perfectly indifferent to each other.  And then they get their
+fore-planned mirth, these Overlords of Life and Death.  'We gave you,'
+they chuckle, 'the loveliest and greatest thing infinity contains.  And
+you bartered it because of a clerkship or a lying maxim or perhaps a
+finger-ring.'  I suppose that they must laugh a great deal."
+
+"Eh, what?  But then you never married?"  For masculinity in argument
+starts with the word it has found distasteful.
+
+"Why, no."
+
+"Nor I."  And his tone implied that the two facts conjoined proved much.
+
+"Miss Willoughby----?" she inquired.
+
+Now, how in heaven's name, could a cloistered Fairhaven have surmised
+his intention of proposing on the first convenient opportunity to
+handsome, well-to-do Anne Willoughby?  He shrugged his wonder off.
+"Oh, people will talk, you know.  Let any man once find a woman has a
+tongue in her head, and the stage-direction is always 'Enter Rumor,
+painted full of tongues.'"
+
+Pauline did not appear to have remarked his protest.  "Yes,--in the end
+you will marry her.  And her money will help, just as you have
+contrived to make everything else help, toward making John Charteris
+comfortable.  She is not very clever, but she will always worship you,
+and so you two will not prove uncongenial.  That is your real tragedy,
+if I could make you comprehend."
+
+"So I am going to develop into a pig," he said, with relish,--"a
+lovable, contented, unambitious porcine, who is alike indifferent to
+the Tariff, the importance of Equal Suffrage and the market-price of
+hams, for all that he really cares about is to have his sty as
+comfortable as may be possible.  That is exactly what I am going to
+develop into,--now, isn't it?"  And John Charteris, sitting, as was his
+habitual fashion, with one foot tucked under him, laughed cheerily.
+Oh, just to be alive (he thought) was ample cause for rejoicing! and
+how deliciously her eyes, alert with slumbering fires, were peering
+through the moon-made shadows of her brows!
+
+"Well----! something of the sort." Pauline was smiling, but
+restrainedly, and much as a woman does in condoning the naughtiness of
+her child.  "And, oh, if only----"
+
+"Why, precisely.  'If only!' quotha.  Why, there you word the key-note,
+you touch the cornerstone, you ruthlessly illuminate the mainspring, of
+an intractable unfeeling universe.  For instance, if only
+
+  You were the Empress of Ayre and Skye,
+      And I were Ahkond of Kong,
+  We could dine every day on apple-pie,
+  And peddle potatoes, and sleep in a sty,
+  And people would say when we came to die,
+  'They _never_ did anything wrong.'
+
+But, as it is, our epitaphs will probably be nothing of the sort.  So
+that there lurks, you see, much virtue in this 'if only.'"
+
+Impervious to nonsense, she asked, "And have I not earned the right to
+lament that you are changed?"
+
+"I haven't robbed more than six churches up to date," he grumbled.
+"What would you have?"
+
+The answer came, downright, and, as he knew, entirely truthful:  "I
+would have had you do all that you might have done."
+
+But he must needs refine.  "Why, no--you would have made me do it,
+wrung out the last drop.  You would have bullied me and shamed me into
+being all that I might have been.  I see that now."  He spoke as if in
+wonder, with quickening speech.  "Pauline, I haven't been entirely not
+worth while.  Oh, yes, I know!  I know I haven't written five-act
+tragedies which would be immortal, as you probably expected me to do.
+My books are not quite the books I was to write when you and I were
+young.  But I have made at worst some neat, precise and joyous little
+tales which prevaricate tenderly about the universe and veil the
+pettiness of human nature with screens of verbal jewelwork.  It is not
+the actual world they tell about, but a vastly superior place where the
+Dream is realized and everything which in youth we knew was possible
+comes true.  It is a world we have all glimpsed, just once, and have
+not ever entered, and have not ever forgotten.  So people like my
+little tales. . . .  Do they induce delusions?  Oh, well, you must give
+people what they want, and literature is a vast bazaar where customers
+come to purchase everything except mirrors."
+
+She said soberly, "You need not make a jest of it.  It is not
+ridiculous that you write of beautiful and joyous things because there
+was a time when living was really all one wonderful adventure, and you
+remember it."
+
+"But, oh, my dear, my dear! such glum discussions are so sadly
+out-of-place on such a night as this," he lamented.  "For it is a night
+of pearl-like radiancies and velvet shadows and delicate odors and big
+friendly stars that promise not to gossip, whatever happens.  It is a
+night that hungers, and all its undistinguishable little sounds are
+voicing the night's hunger for masks and mandolins, for rope-ladders
+and balconies and serenades.  It is a night . . . a night wherein I
+gratefully remember so many beautiful sad things that never
+happened . . . to John Charteris, yet surely happened once upon a time
+to me . . ."
+
+"I think that I know what it is to remember--better than you do, Jack.
+But what do you remember?"
+
+"In faith, my dear, the most Bedlamitish occurrences!  It is a night
+that breeds deplorable insanities, I warn you.  For I seem to remember
+how I sat somewhere, under a peach-tree, in clear autumn weather, and
+was content; but the importance had all gone out of things; and even
+you did not seem very important, hardly worth lying to, as I spoke
+lightly of my wasted love for you, half in hatred, and--yes, still half
+in adoration.  For you were there, of course.  And I remember how I
+came to you, in a sinister and brightly lighted place, where a
+horrible, staring frail old man lay dead at your feet; and you had
+murdered him; and heaven did not care, and we were old, and all our
+lives seemed just to end in futile tangle-work.  And, again, I remember
+how we stood alone, with visible death crawling lazily toward us, as a
+big sullen sea rose higher and higher; and we little tinseled creatures
+waited, helpless, trapped and yearning. . . .  There is a boat in that
+picture; I suppose it was deeply laden with pirates coming to slit our
+throats from ear to ear.  I have forgotten that part, but I remember
+the tiny spot of courtplaster just above your painted lips. . . .  Such
+are the jumbled pictures.  They are bred of brain-fag, no doubt; yet,
+whatever be their lineage," said Charteris, happily, "they render glum
+discussion and platitudinous moralizing quite out of the question.  So,
+let's pretend, Pauline, that we are not a bit more worldly-wise than
+those youngsters who are frisking yonder in the Gymnasium--for, upon my
+word, I dispute if we have ever done anything to suggest that we are.
+Don't let's be cowed a moment longer by those bits of paper with
+figures on them which our too-credulous fellow-idiots consider to be
+the only almanacs.  Let's have back yesterday, let's tweak the nose of
+Time intrepidly." Then Charteris caroled:
+
+  "For Yesterday! for Yesterday!
+  I cry a reward for a Yesterday
+  Now lost or stolen or gone astray,
+  With all the laughter of Yesterday!"
+
+
+"And how slight a loss was laughter," she murmured--still with the
+vague and gentle eyes of a day-dreamer--"as set against all that we
+never earned in youth, and so will never earn."
+
+He inadequately answered "Bosh!" and later, "Do you remember----?" he
+began.
+
+Yes, she remembered that, it developed.  And "Do you remember----?" she
+in turn was asking later.  It was to seem to him in retrospection that
+neither for the next half-hour began a sentence without this formula.
+It was as if they sought to use it as a master-word wherewith to
+reanimate the happinesses and sorrows of their common past, and as if
+they found the charm was potent to awaken the thin, powerless ghosts of
+emotions that were once despotic.  For it was as if frail shadows and
+half-caught echoes were all they could evoke, it seemed to Charteris;
+and yet these shadows trooped with a wild grace, and the echoes
+thrilled him with the sweet and piercing surprise of a bird's call at
+midnight or of a bugle heard in prison.
+
+Then twelve o'clock was heralded by the College bell, and Pauline arose
+as though this equable deep-throated interruption of the music's levity
+had been a signal.  John Charteris saw her clearly now; and she was
+beautiful.
+
+"I must go.  You will not ever quite forget me, Jack.  Such is my sorry
+comfort."  It seemed to Charteris that she smiled as in mockery, and
+yet it was a very tender sort of derision.  "Yes, you have made your
+books.  You have done what you most desired to do.  You have got all
+from life that you have asked of life.  Oh, yes, you have got much from
+life.  One prize, though, Jack, you missed."
+
+He, too, had risen, quiet and perfectly sure of himself.  "I haven't
+missed it.  For you love me."
+
+This widened her eyes.  "Did I not always love you, Jack?  Yes, even
+when you went away forever, and there were no letters, and the days
+were long.  Yes, even knowing you, I loved you, John Charteris."
+
+"Oh, I was wrong, all wrong," he cried; "and yet there is something to
+be said upon the other side, as always. . . ."  Now Charteris was still
+for a while.  The little man's chin was uplifted so that it was toward
+the stars he looked rather than at Pauline Romeyne, and when he spoke
+he seemed to meditate aloud.  "I was born, I think, with the desire to
+make beautiful books--brave books that would preserve the glories of
+the Dream untarnished, and would re-create them for battered people,
+and re-awaken joy and magnanimity."  Here he laughed, a little
+ruefully.  "No, I do not think I can explain this obsession to any one
+who has never suffered from it.  But I have never in my life permitted
+anything to stand in the way of my fulfilling this desire to serve the
+Dream by re-creating it for others with picked words, and that has cost
+me something.  Yes, the Dream is an exacting master.  My books, such as
+they are, have been made what they are at the dear price of never
+permitting myself to care seriously for anything else.  I might not
+dare to dissipate my energies by taking any part in the drama I was
+attempting to re-write, because I must so jealously conserve all the
+force that was in me for the perfection of my lovelier version.  That
+may not be the best way of making books, but it is the only one that
+was possible for me.  I had so little natural talent, you see," said
+Charteris, wistfully, "and I was anxious to do so much with it.  So I
+had always to be careful.  It has been rather lonely, my dear.  Now,
+looking back, it seems to me that the part I have played in all other
+people's lives has been the role of a tourist who enters a cafe
+chantant, a fortress, or a cathedral, with much the same forlorn sense
+of detachment, and observes what there is to see that may be worth
+remembering, and takes a note or two, perhaps, and then leaves the
+place forever.  Yes, that is how I served the Dream and that is how I
+got my books.  They are very beautiful books, I think, but they cost me
+fifteen years of human living and human intimacy, and they are hardly
+worth so much."
+
+He turned to her, and his voice changed.  "Oh, I was wrong, all wrong,
+and chance is kindlier than I deserve.  For I have wandered after
+unprofitable gods, like a man blundering through a day of mist and fog,
+and I win home now in its golden sunset.  I have laughed very much, my
+dear, but I was never happy until to-night.  The Dream, as I now know,
+is not best served by making parodies of it, and it does not greatly
+matter after all whether a book be an epic or a directory.  What really
+matters is that there is so much faith and love and kindliness which we
+can share with and provoke in others, and that by cleanly, simple,
+generous living we approach perfection in the highest and most lovely
+of all arts. . . .  But you, I think, have always comprehended this.
+My dear, if I were worthy to kneel and kiss the dust you tread in I
+would do it.  As it happens, I am not worthy.  Pauline, there was a
+time when you and I were young together, when we aspired, when life
+passed as if it were to the measures of a noble music--a
+heart-wringing, an obdurate, an intolerable music, it might be, but
+always a lofty music.  One strutted, no doubt--it was because one knew
+oneself to be indomitable.  Eh, it is true I have won all I asked of
+life, very horribly true.  All that I asked, poor fool! oh, I am weary
+of loneliness, and I know now that all the phantoms I have raised are
+only colorless shadows which belie the Dream, and they are hateful to
+me.  I want just to recapture that old time we know of, and we two
+alone.  I want to know the Dream again, Pauline,--the Dream which I had
+lost, had half forgotten, and have so pitifully parodied.  I want to
+know the Dream again, Pauline, and you alone can help me."
+
+"Oh, if I could! if even I could now, my dear!" Pauline Romeyne left
+him upon a sudden, crying this.  And  "So!" said Mr. Charteris.
+
+He had been deeply shaken and very much in earnest; but he was never
+the man to give for any lengthy while too slack a rein to emotion; and
+so he now sat down upon the bench and lighted a cigarette and smiled.
+Yet he fully recognized himself to be the most enviable of men and an
+inhabitant of the most glorious world imaginable--a world wherein he
+very assuredly meant to marry Pauline Romeyne say, in the ensuing
+September.  Yes, that would fit in well enough, although, of course, he
+would have to cancel the engagement to lecture in Milwaukee. . . .  How
+lucky, too, it was that he had never actually committed himself with
+Anne Willoughby! for while money was an excellent thing to have, how
+infinitely less desirable it was to live perked up in golden sorrow
+than to feed flocks upon the Grampian Hills, where Freedom from the
+mountain height cried, "I go on forever, a prince can make a belted
+knight, and let who will be clever. . . ."
+
+
+"--and besides, you'll catch your death of cold," lamented Rudolph
+Musgrave, who was now shaking Mr. Charteris' shoulder.
+
+"Eh, what?  Oh, yes, I daresay I was napping," the other mumbled.  He
+stood and stretched himself luxuriously.  "Well, anyhow, don't be such
+an unmitigated grandmother.  You see, I have a bit of rather important
+business to attend to.  Which way is Miss Romeyne?"
+
+"Pauline Romeyne? why, but she married old General Ashmeade, you know.
+She was the gray-haired woman in purple who carried out her squalling
+brat when Taylor was introducing you, if you remember.  She told me,
+while the General was getting the horses around, how sorry she was to
+miss your address, but they live three miles out, and Mrs. Ashmeade is
+simply a slave to the children. . . .  Why, what in the world have you
+been dreaming about?"
+
+"Eh, what?  Oh, yes, I daresay I was only napping," Mr. Charteris
+observed.  He was aware that within they were still playing a riotous
+two-step.
+
+
+
+
+_BALLAD OF PLAGIARY_
+
+  "_Freres et matres, vous qui cultivez_"--PAUL VERVILLE.
+
+
+  Hey, my masters, lords and brothers, ye that till the fields of rhyme,
+  Are ye deaf ye will not hearken to the clamor of your time?
+
+  Still ye blot and change and polish--vary, heighten and transpose--
+  Old sonorous metres marching grandly to their tranquil close.
+
+  Ye have toiled and ye have fretted; ye attain perfected speech:
+  Ye have nothing new to utter and but platitudes to preach.
+
+  And your rhymes are all of loving, as within the old days when
+  Love was lord of the ascendant in the horoscopes of men.
+
+  Still ye make of love the utmost end and scope of all your art;
+  And, more blind than he you write of, note not what a modest part
+
+  Loving now may claim in living, when we have scant time to spare,
+  Who are plundering the sea-depths, taking tribute of the air,--
+
+  Whilst the sun makes pictures for us; since to-day, for good or ill,
+  Earth and sky and sea are harnessed, and the lightnings work our will.
+
+  Hey, my masters, all these love-songs by dust-hidden mouths were sung
+  That ye mimic and re-echo with an artful-artless tongue,--
+
+  Sung by poets close to nature, free to touch her garments' hem
+  Whom to-day ye know not truly; for ye only copy them.
+
+  Them ye copy--copy always, with your backs turned to the sun,
+  Caring not what man is doing, noting that which man has done.
+
+  _We are talking over telephones, as Shakespeare could not talk;_
+  _We are riding out in motor-cars where Homer had to walk;_
+
+  _And pictures Dante labored on of mediaeval Hell_
+  _The nearest cinematograph paints quicker, and as well._
+
+  But ye copy, copy always;--and ye marvel when ye find
+  This new beauty, that new meaning,--while a model stands behind,
+
+  Waiting, young and fair as ever, till some singer turn and trace
+  Something of the deathless wonder of life lived in any place.
+
+  Hey, my masters, turn from piddling to the turmoil and the strife!
+  Cease from sonneting, my brothers; let us fashion songs from life.
+
+  _Thus I wrote ere Percie passed me. . . .  Then did I epitomize_
+  _All life's beauty in one poem, and make haste to eulogize_
+  _Quite the fairest thing life boasts of, for I wrote of Percie's eyes._
+
+
+
+
+EXPLICIT DECAS POETARUM
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Certain Hour, by James Branch Cabell
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+Project Gutenberg Etext of The Certain Hour, James Branch Cabell
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+The Certain Hour
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+         
+
+                               THE
+                          CERTAIN HOUR
+
+                      (Dizain des Poetes)
+
+
+                               By
+                       JAMES BRANCH CABELL
+
+
+
+
+
+        "Criticism, whatever may be its
+        pretensions, never does more than to
+        define the impression which is made upon
+        it at a certain moment by a work wherein
+        the writer himself noted the impression
+        of the world which he received at a
+        certain hour."
+
+
+                            NEW YORK
+                   ROBERT M. McBRIDE & COMPANY
+                              1916
+
+
+
+
+            Copyright, 1916. by Robert M. McBride &
+            Copyright, 1915, by McBride, Nast & Co.
+       Copyright, 1914, by the Sewanee Review Quarterly
+       Copyright, 1913, by John Adams Thayer Corporation
+        Copyright, 1912, by Argonaut Publishing Company
+           Copyright, 1911, by Red Book Corporation
+            Copyright, 1909, by Harper and Brothers
+                               
+                               
+                               
+                              TO
+                               
+                    ROBERT GAMBLE CABELL II
+                               
+              In Dedication of The Certain Hour
+
+    Sad hours and glad hours, and all hours, pass over;
+One thing unshaken stays:
+Life, that hath Death for spouse, hath Chance for
+lover;
+Whereby decays
+
+    Each thing save one thing:--mid this strife diurnal
+Of hourly change begot,
+Love that is God-born, bides as God eternal,
+And changes not;--
+
+    Nor means a tinseled dream pursuing lovers
+Find altered by-and-bye,
+When, with possession, time anon discovers
+Trapped dreams must die,--
+
+    For he that visions God, of mankind gathers
+One manlike trait alone,
+And reverently imputes to Him a father's
+Love for his son.
+
+
+
+                            CONTENTS
+
+"Ballad of the Double-Soul"
+AUCTORIAL INDUCTION
+BELHS CAVALIERS
+BALTHAZAR'S DAUGHTER
+JUDITH'S CREED
+CONCERNING CORINNA
+OLIVIA'S POTTAGE
+A BROWN WOMAN
+PRO HONORIA
+THE IRRESISTIBLE OGLE
+A PRINCESS OF GRUB STREET
+THE LADY OF ALL OUR DREAMS
+"Ballad of Plagiary"
+
+
+
+                    BALLAD OF THE DOUBLE-SOUL
+
+
+     "Les Dieux, qui trop aiment ses faceties cruelles"
+                                        PAUL VERVILLE.
+
+In the beginning the Gods made man, and fashioned the
+    sky and the sea,
+And the earth's fair face for man's dwelling-place, and
+     this was the Gods' decree:--
+
+"Lo, We have given to man five wits: he  discerneth 
+folly
+    and sin;
+He is swift to deride all the world outside, and blind
+to  the world within:
+
+"So that man may make sport and amuse Us, in battling
+    for phrases or pelf,
+Now that each may know what forebodeth woe to his
+neighbor,   and not to himself."
+
+Yet some have the Gods forgotten,--or is it that
+subtler
+    mirth
+The Gods extort of a certain sort of folk that cumber
+    the earth?
+
+For this is the song of the double-soul, distortedly
+two in  one,--
+
+
+Of the wearied eyes that still behold the fruit ere
+the seed
+    be sown,
+And derive affright for the nearing night from the
+light
+    of the noontide sun.
+
+For one that with hope in the morning set forth, and
+    knew never a fear,
+They have linked with another whom omens bother; and
+    he whispers in one's ear.
+
+And one is fain to be climbing where only angels have
+    trod,
+But is fettered and tied to another's side who fears
+that
+    it might look odd.
+
+And one would worship a woman whom all perfections
+    dower,
+But the other smiles at transparent wiles; and he
+quotes
+    from Schopenhauer.
+
+Thus two by two we wrangle and blunder about the
+    earth,
+And that body we share we may not spare; but the Gods
+    have need of mirth.
+
+So this is the song of the double-soul, distortedly
+two
+    in one.--
+Of the wearied eyes that still behold the fruit ere
+the seed
+    be sown,
+And derive affright for the nearing night from the
+light
+    of the noontide sun.
+
+
+
+
+                       AUCTORIAL INDUCTION
+
+
+       "These questions, so long as they remain
+    with the Muses, may very well be unaccompanied
+    with severity, for where there is no other end
+    of contemplation and inquiry but that of
+    pastime alone, the understanding is not
+    oppressed; but after the Muses have given over
+    their riddles to Sphinx,--that is, to practise,
+    which urges and impels to action, choice and
+    determination,--then it is that they become
+    torturing, severe and trying."
+
+
+
+From the dawn of the day to the dusk he toiled,
+Shaping fanciful playthings, with tireless hands,--
+Useless trumpery toys; and, with vaulting heart,
+Gave them unto all peoples, who mocked at him,
+Trampled on them, and soiled them, and went their way.
+
+
+Then he toiled from the morn to the dusk again,
+Gave his gimcracks to peoples who mocked at him,
+Trampled on them, deriding, and went their way.
+
+
+
+Thus he labors, and loudly they jeer at him;--
+That is, when they remember he still exists.
+
+
+WHO, you ask, IS THIS FELLOW?--What matter names?
+He is only a scribbler who is content.
+
+                FELIX KENNASTON.   The Toy-Maker .
+
+
+
+                       AUCTORIAL INDUCTION
+
+
+
+    WHICH (AFTER SOME BRIEF DISCOURSE OF FIRES AND
+    FRYING-PANS) ELUCIDATES THE INEXPEDIENCY OF
+    PUBLISHING THIS BOOK, AS WELL AS THE NECESSITY
+    OF WRITING IT:  AND THENCE PASSES TO A MODEST
+    DEFENSE OF MORE VITAL THEMES.
+
+The desire to write perfectly of beautiful happenings
+is, as the saying runs, old as the hills--and as
+immortal.  Questionless, there was many a serviceable
+brick wasted in Nineveh because finicky persons must
+needs be deleting here and there a phrase in favor of
+its cuneatic synonym; and it is not improbable that
+when the outworn sun expires in clinkers its final ray
+will gild such zealots tinkering with their "style." 
+Some few there must be in every age and every land of
+whom life claims nothing very insistently save that
+they write perfectly of beautiful happenings.
+    Yet, that the work of a man of letters is almost
+always a congenial product of his day and environment,
+is a contention as lacking in novelty as it is in 
+the need of any upholding here.  Nor is the rationality
+of that axiom far to seek; for a man of genuine
+literary genius, since he possesses a temperament whose
+susceptibilities are of wider area than those of any
+other, is inevitably of all people the one most
+variously affected by his surroundings.  And it is he,
+in consequence, who of all people most faithfully and
+compactly exhibits the impress of his times and his
+times' tendencies, not merely in his writings--where it
+conceivably might be just predetermined affectation--
+but in his personality.
+    Such being the assumption upon which this volume is
+builded, it appears only equitable for the architect
+frankly to indicate his cornerstone.  Hereinafter you
+have an attempt to depict a special temperament--one in
+essence "literary"--as very variously molded by diverse
+eras and as responding in proportion with its ability
+to the demands of a certain hour.
+    In proportion with its ability, be it repeated,
+since its ability is singularly hampered.  For, apart
+from any ticklish temporal considerations, be it
+remembered, life is always claiming of this
+temperament's possessor that he write perfectly of
+beautiful happenings.
+    To disregard this vital longing, and flatly to
+stifle the innate striving toward artistic creation, is
+to become (as with Wycherley and Sheridan) a man who
+waives, however laughingly, his sole apology for
+existence.  The proceeding is paltry enough, in all
+conscience; and yet, upon the other side, there is
+much positive danger in giving to the instinct a
+loose rein.  For in that event the familiar
+circumstances of sedate and wholesome living cannot but
+seem, like paintings viewed too near, to lose in gusto
+and winsomeness.  Desire, perhaps a craving hunger,
+awakens for the impossible.  No emotion, whatever be
+its sincerity, is endured without a side-glance toward
+its capabilities for being written about.  The world,
+in short, inclines to appear an ill-lit mine, wherein
+one quarries gingerly amidst an abiding loneliness (as
+with Pope and Ufford and Sire Raimbaut)--and wherein
+one very often is allured into unsavory alleys (as with
+Herrick and Alessandro de Medici)--in search of that
+raw material which loving labor will transshape into
+comeliness.
+    Such, if it be allowed to shift the metaphor, are
+the treacherous by-paths of that admirably policed
+highway whereon the well-groomed and well-bitted Pegasi
+of Vanderhoffen and Charteris (in his later manner)
+trot stolidly and safely toward oblivion.  And the
+result of wandering afield is of necessity a tragedy,
+in that the deviator's life, if not as an artist's
+quite certainly as a human being's, must in the outcome
+be adjudged a failure.
+    Hereinafter, then, you have an attempt to depict a
+special temperament--one in essence "literary"--as very
+variously molded by diverse eras and as responding in
+proportion with its ability to the demands of a certain
+hour.
+
+
+                               II
+
+     And this much said, it is permissible to hope, at
+least, that here and there some reader may be found not
+wholly blind to this book's goal, whatever be his
+opinion as to this book's success in reaching it.  Yet
+many honest souls there be among us average-novel-
+readers in whose eyes this volume must rest content to
+figure as a collection of short stories having naught
+in common beyond the feature that each deals with the
+affaires du coeur of a poet.
+    Such must always be the book's interpretation by
+mental indolence.  The fact is incontestable; and this
+fact in itself may be taken as sufficient to establish
+the inexpediency of publishing The Certain Hour.  For
+that "people will not buy a volume of short stories" is
+notorious to all publishers.  To offset the axiom there
+are no doubt incongruous phenomena--ranging from the
+continued popularity of the Bible to the present
+general esteem of Mr. Kipling, and embracing the rather
+unaccountable vogue of "O.  Henry";--but, none the
+less, the superstition has its force.
+    Here intervenes the multifariousness of man,
+pointed out somewhere by Mr. Gilbert Chesterton,
+which enables the individual to be at once a
+vegetarian, a golfer, a vestryman, a blond, a mammal, a
+Democrat, and an immortal spirit.  As a rational
+person, one may debonairly consider The Certain Hour
+possesses as large license to look like a volume of
+short stories as, say, a backgammon-board has to its
+customary guise of a two-volume history; but as an
+average-novel-reader, one must vote otherwise.  As an
+average-novel-reader, one must condemn the very book
+which, as a seasoned scribbler, one was moved to write
+through long consideration of the drama already
+suggested--that immemorial drama of the desire to write
+perfectly of beautiful happenings, and the obscure
+martyrdom to which this desire solicits its possessor.
+    Now, clearly, the struggle of a special temperament
+with a fixed force does not forthwith begin another
+story when the locale of combat shifts.  The case is,
+rather, as when--with certainly an intervening change
+of apparel--Pompey fights Caesar at both Dyrrachium and
+Pharsalus, or as when General Grant successively
+encounters General Lee at the Wilderness,
+Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor and Appomattox.  The
+combatants remain unchanged, the question at issue is
+the same, the tragedy has continuity.  And even so,
+from the time of Sire Raimbaut to that of John
+Charteris has a special temperament heart-hungrily
+confronted an ageless problem: at what cost now, in
+this fleet hour of my vigor, may one write perfectly of
+beautiful happenings?
+
+    Thus logic urges, with pathetic futility, inasmuch
+as we average-novel-readers are profoundly indifferent
+to both logic and good writing.  And always the fact
+remains that to the mentally indolent this book may
+well seem a volume of disconnected short stories.  All
+of us being more or less mentally indolent, this
+possibility constitutes a dire fault.
+    Three other damning objections will readily obtrude
+themselves:  The Certain Hour deals with past
+epochs--beginning before the introduction of dinner-
+forks, and ending at that remote quaint period when
+people used to waltz and two-step--dead eras in which
+we average-novel-readers are not interested; The
+Certain Hour assumes an appreciable amount of culture
+and information on its purchaser's part, which we
+average-novel-readers either lack or, else, are
+unaccustomed to employ in connection with reading for
+pastime; and--in our eyes the crowning misdemeanor--
+The Certain Hour is not "vital."
+    Having thus candidly confessed these faults
+committed as the writer of this book, it is still
+possible in human multifariousness to consider their
+enormity, not merely in this book, but in fictional
+reading-matter at large, as viewed by an average-novel-
+reader--by a representative of that potent class whose
+preferences dictate the nature and main trend of modern
+American literature.  And to do this, it may be, throws
+no unsalutary sidelight upon the still-existent
+problem: at what cost, now, may one attempt to write
+perfectly of beautiful happenings? 
+
+
+                               III
+
+    Indisputably the most striking defect of this
+modern American literature is the fact that the
+production of anything at all resembling literature is
+scarcely anywhere apparent.  Innumerable printing-
+presses, instead, are turning out a vast quantity of
+reading-matter, the candidly recognized purpose of
+which is to kill time, and which--it has been asserted,
+though perhaps too sweepingly--ought not to be vended
+over book-counters, but rather in drugstores along with
+the other narcotics.
+    It is begging the question to protest that the
+class of people who a generation ago read nothing now
+at least read novels, and to regard this as a change
+for the better.  By similar logic it would be more
+wholesome to breakfast off laudanum than to omit the
+meal entirely.  The nineteenth century, in fact, by
+making education popular, has produced in America the
+curious spectacle of a reading-public with essentially
+nonliterary tastes.  Formerly, better books were
+published, because they were intended for persons who
+turned to reading through a natural bent of mind;
+whereas the modern American novel of commerce is
+addressed to us average people who read, when we read
+at all, in violation of every innate instinct.
+    Such grounds as yet exist for hopefulness on the
+part of those who cordially care for belles lettres
+are to be found elsewhere than in the crowded market-
+places of fiction, where genuine intelligence panders
+on all sides to ignorance and indolence.  The phrase
+may seem to have no very civil ring; but reflection
+will assure the fair-minded that two indispensable
+requisites nowadays of a pecuniarily successful novel
+are, really, that it make no demand upon the reader's
+imagination, and that it rigorously refrain from
+assuming its reader to possess any particular
+information on any subject whatever.  The author who
+writes over the head of the public is the most
+dangerous enemy of his publisher--and the most
+insidious as well, because so many publishers are in
+private life interested in literary matters, and would
+readily permit this personal foible to influence the
+exercise of their vocation were it possible to do so
+upon the preferable side of bankruptcy.
+    But publishers, among innumerable other conditions,
+must weigh the fact that no novel which does not deal
+with modern times is ever really popular among the
+serious-minded.  It is difficult to imagine a tale
+whose action developed under the rule of the Caesars or
+the Merovingians being treated as more than a literary
+hors d'oeuvre.  We purchasers of "vital" novels know
+nothing about the period, beyond a hazy association
+of it with the restrictions of the schoolroom; our
+sluggish imaginations instinctively rebel against the
+exertion of forming any notion of such a period; and
+all the human nature that exists even in serious-minded
+persons is stirred up to resentment against the book's
+author for presuming to know more than a potential
+patron.  The book, in fine, simply irritates the
+serious-minded person; and she--for it is only women
+who willingly brave the terrors of department-stores,
+where most of our new books are bought nowadays--quite
+naturally puts it aside in favor of some keen and
+daring study of American life that is warranted to grip
+the reader.  So, modernity of scene is everywhere
+necessitated as an essential qualification for a book's
+discussion at the literary evenings of the local
+woman's club; and modernity of scene, of course, is
+almost always fatal to the permanent worth of
+fictitious narrative.
+    It may seem banal here to recall the truism that
+first-class art never reproduces its surroundings; but
+such banality is often justified by our human proneness
+to shuffle over the fact that many truisms are true. 
+And this one is pre-eminently indisputable: that what
+mankind has generally agreed to accept as first-class
+art in any of the varied forms of fictitious narrative
+has never been a truthful reproduction of the artist's
+era.  Indeed, in the higher walks of fiction art has
+never reproduced anything, but has always dealt with
+the facts and laws of life as so much crude material
+which must be transmuted into comeliness.  When
+Shakespeare pronounced his celebrated dictum about
+art's holding the mirror up to nature, he was no doubt
+alluding to the circumstance that a mirror reverses
+everything which it reflects.
+    Nourishment for much wildish speculation, in fact,
+can be got by considering what the world's literature
+would be, had its authors restricted themselves, as do
+we Americans so sedulously--and unavoidably--to writing
+of contemporaneous happenings.  In fiction-making no
+author of the first class since Homer's infancy has
+ever in his happier efforts concerned himself at all
+with the great "problems" of his particular day; and
+among geniuses of the second rank you will find such
+ephemeralities adroitly utilized only when they are
+distorted into enduring parodies of their actual selves
+by the broad humor of a Dickens or the colossal fantasy
+of a Balzac.  In such cases as the latter two writers,
+however, we have an otherwise competent artist
+handicapped by a personality so marked that, whatever
+he may nominally write about, the result is, above all
+else, an exposure of the writer's idiosyncrasies. 
+Then, too, the laws of any locale wherein Mr.
+Pickwick achieves a competence in business, or of a
+society wherein Vautrin becomes chief of police, are
+upon the face of it extra-mundane.  It suffices that,
+as a general rule, in fiction-making the true artist
+finds an ample, if restricted, field wherein the proper
+functions of the preacher, or the ventriloquist, or the
+photographer, or of the public prosecutor, are
+exercised with equal lack of grace.
+    Besides, in dealing with contemporary life a
+novelist is goaded into too many pusillanimous
+concessions to plausibility.  He no longer moves with
+the gait of omnipotence.  It was very different in the
+palmy days when Dumas was free to play at ducks and
+drakes with history, and Victor Hugo to reconstruct the
+whole system of English government, and Scott to compel
+the sun to set in the east, whenever such minor changes
+caused to flow more smoothly the progress of the tale
+these giants had in hand.  These freedoms are not
+tolerated in American noveldom, and only a few futile
+"high-brows" sigh in vain for Thackeray's "happy
+harmless Fableland, where these things are."  The
+majority of us are deep in "vital" novels.  Nor is the
+reason far to seek.
+
+
+                               IV
+
+    One hears a great deal nowadays concerning "vital"
+books.  Their authors have been widely praised on very
+various grounds.  Oddly enough, however, the writers of
+these books have rarely been commended for the really
+praiseworthy charity evinced therein toward that large
+long-suffering class loosely describable as the
+average-novel-reader.
+    Yet, in connection with this fact, it is worthy of
+more than passing note that no great while ago the New
+York Times' carefully selected committee, in picking
+out the hundred best books published during a
+particular year, declared as to novels--"a `best' book,
+in our opinion, is one that raises an important
+question, or recurs to a vital theme and pronounces
+upon it what in some sense is a last word."  Now this
+definition is not likely ever to receive more praise
+than it deserves.  Cavilers may, of course, complain
+that actually to write the last word on any subject is
+a feat reserved for the Recording Angel's unique
+performance on judgment Day.  Even setting that
+objection aside, it is undeniable that no work of
+fiction published of late in America corresponds
+quite so accurately to the terms of this definition as
+do the multiplication tables.  Yet the multiplication
+tables are not without their claims to applause as
+examples of straightforward narrative.  It is, also, at
+least permissible to consider that therein the numeral
+five, say, where it figures as protagonist, unfolds
+under the stress of its varying adventures as opulent a
+development of real human nature as does, through
+similar ups-and-downs, the Reverend John Hodder in The
+Inside of the Cup.  It is equally allowable to find
+the less simple evolution of the digit seven more
+sympathetic, upon the whole, than those of Undine
+Spragg in The Custom of the Country.  But, even so,
+this definition of what may now, authoritatively, be
+ranked as a "best novel" is an honest and noteworthy
+severance from misleading literary associations such as
+have too long befogged our notions about reading-
+matter.  It points with emphasis toward the altruistic
+obligations of tale-tellers to be "vital."
+    For we average-novel-readers--we average people, in
+a word--are now, as always, rather pathetically hungry
+for "vital" themes, such themes as appeal directly to
+our everyday observation and prejudices.  Did the
+decision rest with us all novelists would be put under
+bond to confine themselves forevermore to themes like
+these.
+    As touches the appeal to everyday observation, it
+is an old story, at least coeval with Mr. Crummles' not
+uncelebrated pumps and tubs, if not with the grapes
+of Zeuxis, how unfailingly in art we delight to
+recognize the familiar.  A novel whose scene of action
+is explicit will always interest the people of that
+locality, whatever the book's other pretensions to
+consideration.  Given simultaneously a photograph of
+Murillo's rendering of The Virgin Crowned Queen of
+Heaven and a photograph of a governor's installation
+in our State capital, there is no one of us but will
+quite naturally look at the latter first, in order to
+see if in it some familiar countenance be recognizable. 
+And thus, upon a larger scale, the twentieth century
+is, pre-eminently, interested in the twentieth century.
+    It is all very well to describe our average-novel-
+readers' dislike of Romanticism as "the rage of Caliban
+not seeing his own face in a glass."  It is even within
+the scope of human dunderheadedness again to point out
+here that the supreme artists in literature have
+precisely this in common, and this alone, that in their
+masterworks they have avoided the "vital" themes of
+their day with such circumspection as lesser folk
+reserve for the smallpox.  The answer, of course, in
+either case, is that the "vital" novel, the novel which
+peculiarly appeals to us average-novel-readers, has
+nothing to do with literature.  There is between these
+two no more intelligent connection than links the paint
+Mr. Sargent puts on canvas and the paint Mr. Dockstader
+puts on his face.
+    Literature is made up of the re-readable books, the
+books which it is possible--for the people so
+constituted as to care for that sort of thing--to read
+again and yet again with pleasure.  Therefore, in
+literature a book's subject is of astonishingly minor
+importance, and its style nearly everything: whereas in
+books intended to be read for pastime, and forthwith to
+be consigned at random to the wastebasket or to the
+inmates of some charitable institute, the theme is of
+paramount importance, and ought to be a serious one. 
+The modern novelist owes it to his public to select a
+"vital" theme which in itself will fix the reader's
+attention by reason of its familiarity in the reader's
+everyday life.
+    Thus, a lady with whose more candid opinions the
+writer of this is more frequently favored nowadays than
+of old, formerly confessed to having only one set rule
+when it came to investment in new reading-matter--
+always to buy the Williamsons' last book.  Her reason
+was the perfectly sensible one that the Williamsons'
+plots used invariably to pivot upon motor-trips, and
+she is an ardent automobilist.  Since, as of late, the
+Williamsons have seen fit to exercise their typewriter
+upon other topics, they have as a matter of course lost
+her patronage.
+    This principle of selection, when you come to
+appraise it sanely, is the sole intelligent method of
+dealing with reading-matter.  It seems here expedient
+again to state the peculiar problem that we average--
+novel-readers have of necessity set the modern
+novelist--namely, that his books must in the main
+appeal to people who read for pastime, to people who
+read books only under protest and only when they
+have no other employment for that particular half-hour.
+    Now, reading for pastime is immensely simplified
+when the book's theme is some familiar matter of the
+reader's workaday life, because at outset the reader is
+spared considerable mental effort.  The motorist above
+referred to, and indeed any average-novel-reader, can
+without exertion conceive of the Williamsons' people in
+their automobiles.  Contrariwise, were these fictitious
+characters embarked in palankeens or droshkies or
+jinrikishas, more or less intellectual exercise would
+be necessitated on the reader's part to form a notion
+of the conveyance.  And we average-novel-readers do not
+open a book with the intention of making a mental
+effort.  The author has no right to expect of us an act
+so unhabitual, we very poignantly feel.  Our prejudices
+he is freely chartered to stir up--if, lucky rogue, he
+can!--but he ought with deliberation to recognize that
+it is precisely in order to avoid mental effort that we
+purchase, or borrow, his book, and afterward discuss
+it.
+    Hence arises our heartfelt gratitude toward such
+novels as deal with "vital" themes, with the questions
+we average-novel-readers confront or make talk about in
+those happier hours of our existence wherein we are not
+reduced to reading.  Thus, a tale, for example, dealing
+either with "feminism" or "white slavery" as the
+handiest makeshift of spinsterdom--or with the divorce
+habit and plutocratic iniquity in general, or with the
+probable benefits of converting clergymen to
+Christianity, or with how much more than she knows a
+desirable mother will tell her children--finds the
+book's tentative explorer, just now, amply equipped
+with prejudices, whether acquired by second thought or
+second hand, concerning the book's topic.  As
+endurability goes, reading the book rises forthwith
+almost to the level of an afternoon-call where there is
+gossip about the neighbors and Germany's future.  We
+average-novel-readers may not, in either case, agree
+with the opinions advanced; but at least our prejudices
+are aroused, and we are interested.
+    And these "vital" themes awake our prejudices at
+the cost of a minimum--if not always, as when Miss
+Corelli guides us, with a positively negligible--
+tasking of our mental faculties.  For such exemption we
+average-novel-readers cannot  but be properly grateful. 
+Nay, more than this: provided the novelist contrive to
+rouse our prejudices, it matters with us not at all
+whether afterward they be soothed or harrowed.  To
+implicate our prejudices somehow, to raise in us a
+partizanship in the tale's progress, is our sole
+request.  Whether this consummation be brought about
+through an arraignment of some social condition which
+we personally either advocate or reprehend--the
+attitude weighs little--or whether this interest be
+purchased with placidly driveling preachments of
+generally "uplifting" tendencies--vaguely titillating
+that vague intention which exists in us all of becoming
+immaculate as soon as it is perfectly convenient--the
+personal prejudices of us average-novel-readers are
+not lightly lulled again to sleep.
+    In fact, the jealousy of any human prejudice
+against hinted encroachment may safely be depended upon
+to spur us through an astonishing number of pages--for
+all that it has of late been complained among us, with
+some show of extenuation, that our original intent in
+beginning certain of the recent "vital" novels was to
+kill time, rather than eternity.  And so, we average--
+novel-readers plod on jealously to the end, whether we
+advance (to cite examples already somewhat of
+yesterday) under the leadership of Mr. Upton Sinclair
+aspersing the integrity of modern sausages and
+millionaires, or of Mr. Hall Caine saying about Roman
+Catholics what ordinary people would hesitate to impute
+to their relatives by marriage--or whether we be more
+suavely allured onward by Mrs. Florence Barclay, or Mr.
+Sydnor Harrison, with ingenuous indorsements of the New
+Testament and the inherent womanliness of women.
+    The "vital" theme, then, let it be repeated, has
+two inestimable advantages which should commend it to
+all novelists: first, it spares us average-novel-
+readers any preliminary orientation, and thereby
+mitigates the mental exertion of reading; and secondly,
+it appeals to our prejudices, which we naturally prefer
+to exercise, and are accustomed to exercise, rather
+than our mental or idealistic faculties.  The novelist
+who conscientiously bears these two facts in mind is
+reasonably sure of his reward, not merely in pecuniary
+form, but in those higher fields wherein he
+harvests his chosen public's honest gratitude and
+affection.
+    For we average-novel-readers are quite frequently
+reduced by circumstances to self-entrustment to the
+resources of the novelist, as to those of the dentist. 
+Our latter-day conditions, as we cannot but recognize,
+necessitate the employment of both artists upon
+occasion.  And with both, we average-novel-readers, we
+average people, are most grateful when they make the
+process of resorting to them as easy and unirritating
+as may be possible.
+
+
+
+                                V
+
+
+    So much for the plea of us average-novel-readers;
+and our plea, we think, is rational.  We are "in the
+market" for a specified article; and human ingenuity,
+co-operating with human nature, will inevitably insure
+the manufacture of that article as long as any general
+demand for it endures.
+    Meanwhile, it is small cause for grief that the
+purchaser of American novels prefers Central Park to
+any "wood near Athens," and is more at home in the
+Tenderloin than in Camelot.  People whose tastes happen
+to be literary are entirely too prone to too much long-
+faced prattle about literature, which, when all is
+said, is never a controlling factor in anybody's life. 
+The automobile and the telephone, the accomplishments
+of Mr. Edison and Mr. Burbank, and it would be
+permissible to add of Mr. Rockefeller, influence
+nowadays, in one fashion or another, every moment of
+every living American's existence; whereas had America
+produced, instead, a second Milton or a Dante, it would
+at most have caused a few of us to spend a few spare
+evenings rather differently.
+    Besides, we know--even we average-novel-readers--
+that America is in fact producing her enduring
+literature day by day, although, as rarely fails to be
+the case, those who are contemporaneous with the makers
+of this literature cannot with any certainty point them
+out.  To voice a hoary truism, time alone is the test
+of "vitality."  In our present flood of books, as in
+any other flood, it is the froth and scum which shows
+most prominently.  And the possession of "vitality,"
+here as elsewhere, postulates that its possessor must
+ultimately perish.
+    Nay, by the time these printed pages are first read
+as printed pages, allusion to those modern authors whom
+these pages cite--the pre-eminent literary personages
+of that hour wherein these pages were written--will
+inevitably have come to savor somewhat of antiquity: so
+that sundry references herein to the "vital" books now
+most in vogue will rouse much that vague shrugging
+recollection as wakens, say, at a mention of Dorothy
+Vernon or Three Weeks or Beverly of Graustark. 
+And while at first glance it might seem expedient--in
+revising the last proof-sheets of these pages--somewhat
+to "freshen them up" by substituting, for the books
+herein referred to, the "vital" and more widely talked-
+of novels of the summer of 1916, the task would be but
+wasted labor; since even these fascinating chronicles,
+one comprehends forlornly, must needs be equally
+obsolete by the time these proof-sheets have been made
+into a volume.  With malice aforethought, therefore,
+the books and authors named herein stay those which all
+of three years back our reviewers and advertising
+pages, with perfect gravity, acclaimed as of
+enduring importance.  For the quaintness of that
+opinion, nowadays, may profitably round the moral that
+there is really nothing whereto one may fittingly
+compare a successful contribution to "vital" reading-
+matter, as touches evanescence.
+    And this is as it should be.  Tout passe.--L'art
+robust seul a l'eternite, precisely as Gautier points
+out, with bracing common-sense; and it is excellent
+thus to comprehend that to-day, as always, only through
+exercise of the auctorial virtues of distinction and
+clarity, of beauty and symmetry, of tenderness and
+truth and urbanity, may a man in reason attempt to
+insure his books against oblivion's voracity.
+    Yet the desire to write perfectly of beautiful
+happenings is, as the saying runs, old as the hills--
+and as immortal.  Questionless, there was many a
+serviceable brick wasted in Nineveh because finicky
+persons must needs be deleting here and there a phrase
+in favor of its cuneatic synonym; and it is not
+improbable that when the outworn sun expires in
+clinkers its final ray will gild such zealots tinkering
+with their "style."  This, then, is the conclusion of
+the whole matter.  Some few there must be in every age
+and every land of whom life claims nothing very
+insistently save that they write perfectly of beautiful
+happenings.  And even we average-novel-readers know it
+is such folk who are to-day making in America that
+portion of our literature which may hope for
+permanency.
+
+    Dumbarton Grange
+    1914-1916
+
+
+
+
+                        BELHS  CAVALIERS
+
+
+    "For this RAIMBAUT DE VAQUIERAS lived at a time
+when prolonged habits of extra-mundane contemplation,
+combined with the decay of real knowledge, were apt to
+volatilize the thoughts and aspirations of the best and
+wisest into dreamy unrealities, and to lend a false air
+of mysticism to love. . . .  It is as if the
+intellect and the will had become used to moving
+paralytically among visions, dreams, and mystic
+terrors, weighed down with torpor."
+
+
+
+Fair friend, since that hour I took leave of thee
+I have not slept nor stirred from off my knee,
+But prayed alway to God, S. Mary's Son,
+To give me back my true companion;
+        And soon it will be Dawn.
+
+Fair friend, at parting, thy behest to me
+Was that all sloth I should eschew and flee,
+And keep good Watch until the Night was done:
+Now must my Song and Service pass for none?
+        For soon it will be Dawn.
+
+RAIMBAUT DE VAQUIERAS.  Aubade,
+from F. York Powells version.
+
+
+BELHS CAVALIERS
+
+
+You may read elsewhere of the long feud that was
+between Guillaume de Baux, afterward Prince of Orange,
+and his kinsman Raimbaut de Vaquieras.  They were not
+reconciled until their youth was dead.  Then, when
+Messire Raimbaut returned from battling against the
+Turks and the Bulgarians, in the 1,210th year from
+man's salvation, the Archbishop of Rheims made peace
+between the two cousins; and, attended by Makrisi, a
+converted Saracen who had followed the knight's
+fortunes for well nigh a quarter of a century, the Sire
+de Vaquieras rode homeward.
+    Many slain men were scattered along the highway
+when he came again into Venaissin, in April, after an
+absence of thirty years.  The crows whom his passing
+disturbed were too sluggish for long flights and many
+of them did not heed him at all.  Guillaume de Baux was
+now undisputed master of these parts, although, as this
+host of mute, hacked and partially devoured witnesses
+attested, the contest had been dubious for a while: but
+now Lovain of the Great-Tooth, Prince Guillaume's
+last competitor, was captured; the forces of Lovain
+were scattered; and of Lovain's lieutenants only Mahi
+de Vernoil was unsubdued.
+    Prince Guillaume laughed a little when he told his
+kinsman of the posture of affairs, as more loudly did
+Guillaume's gross son, Sire Philibert.  But Madona
+Biatritz did not laugh.  She was the widow of
+Guillaume's dead brother--Prince Conrat, whom Guillaume
+succeeded--and it was in her honor that Raimbaut had
+made those songs which won him eminence as a
+practitioner of the Gay Science.
+    Biatritz said, "It is a long while since we two
+met."
+    He that had been her lover all his life said,
+"Yes."
+    She was no longer the most beautiful of women, no
+longer his be-hymned Belhs Cavaliers--you may read
+elsewhere how he came to call her that in all his
+canzons--but only a fine and gracious stranger.  It was
+uniformly gray, that soft and plentiful hair, where
+once such gold had flamed as dizzied him to think of
+even now; there was no crimson in these thinner lips;
+and candor would have found her eyes less wonderful
+than those Raimbaut had dreamed of very often among an
+alien and hostile people.  But he lamented nothing, and
+to him she was as ever Heaven's most splendid miracle.
+    "Yes," said this old Raimbaut,--"and even to-day we
+have not reclaimed the Sepulcher as yet.  Oh, I doubt
+if we shall ever win it, now that your brother and my
+most dear lord is dead."  Both thought a while of
+Boniface de Montferrat, their playmate once, who
+yesterday was King of Thessalonica and now was so much
+Macedonian dust.
+    She said:  "This week the Prince sent envoys to my
+nephew. . . .  And so you have come home again----" 
+Color had surged into her time-worn face, and as she
+thought of things done long ago this woman's eyes were
+like the eyes of his young Biatritz.  She said:  "You
+never married?"
+    He answered:  "No, I have left love alone.  For
+Love prefers to take rather than to give; against a
+single happy hour he balances a hundred miseries, and
+he appraises one pleasure to be worth a thousand pangs. 
+Pardieu, let this immortal usurer contrive as may seem
+well to him, for I desire no more of his bounty or of
+his penalties."
+    "No, we wish earnestly for nothing, either good or
+bad," said Dona Biatritz--"we who have done with
+loving."
+    They sat in silence, musing over ancient
+happenings, and not looking at each other, until the
+Prince came with his guests, who seemed to laugh too
+heartily.
+    Guillaume's frail arm was about his kinsman, and
+Guillaume chuckled over jests and by-words that had
+been between the cousins as children.  Raimbaut found
+them no food for laughter now.  Guillaume told all of
+Raimbaut's oath of fealty, and of how these two were
+friends and their unnatural feud was forgotten.  "For
+we grow old,--eh, maker of songs?" he said; "and it
+is time we made our peace with Heaven, since we are not
+long for this world."
+    "Yes," said the knight; "oh yes, we both grow old." 
+He thought of another April evening, so long ago, when
+this Guillaume de Baux had stabbed him in a hedged
+field near Calais, and had left him under a hawthorn
+bush for dead; and Raimbaut wondered that there was no
+anger in his heart.  "We are friends now," he said. 
+Biatritz, whom these two had loved, and whose vanished
+beauty had been the spur of their long enmity, sat
+close to them, and hardly seemed to listen.
+    Thus the evening passed and every one was merry,
+because the Prince had overcome Lovain of the Great-
+Tooth, and was to punish the upstart on the morrow. 
+But Raimbaut de Vaquieras, a spent fellow, a derelict,
+barren of aim now that the Holy Wars were over, sat in
+this unfamiliar place--where when he was young he had
+laughed as a cock crows!--and thought how at the last
+he had crept home to die as a dependent on his cousin's
+bounty.
+    Thus the evening passed, and at its end Makrisi
+followed the troubadour to his regranted fief of
+Vaquieras.  This was a chill and brilliant night,
+swayed by a frozen moon so powerful that no stars
+showed in the unclouded heavens, and everywhere the
+bogs were curdled with thin ice.  An obdurate wind
+swept like a knife-blade across a world which even in
+its spring seemed very old.
+    "This night is bleak and evil," Makrisi said. 
+He rode a coffin's length behind his master.  "It
+is like Prince Guillaume, I think.  What man will
+sorrow when dawn comes?"
+    Raimbaut de Vaquieras replied:  "Always dawn comes
+at last, Makrisi."
+    "It comes the more quickly, messire, when it is
+prompted."
+    The troubadour only smiled at words which seemed so
+meaningless.  He did not smile when later in the night
+Makrisi brought Mahi de Vernoil, disguised as a
+mendicant friar.  This outlaw pleaded with Sire
+Raimbaut to head the tatters of Lovain's army, and
+showed Raimbaut how easy it would be to wrest Venaissin
+from Prince Guillaume.  "We cannot save Lovain," de
+Vemoil said, "for Guillaume has him fast.  But
+Venaissin is very proud of you, my tres beau sire.  Ho,
+maker of world-famous songs! stout champion of the
+faith! my men and I will now make you Prince of Orange
+in place of the fiend who rules us.  You may then at
+your convenience wed Madona Biatritz, that most amiable
+lady whom you have loved so long.  And by the Cross!
+you may do this before the week is out."
+    The old knight answered:  "It is true that I have
+always served Madona Biatritz, who is of matchless
+worth.  I might not, therefore, presume to call myself
+any longer her servant were my honor stained in any
+particular.  Oh no, Messire de Vernoil, an oath is an
+oath.  I have this day sworn fealty to Guillaume de
+Baux."
+    Then after other talk Raimbaut dismissed the
+fierce-eyed little man.  The freebooter growled curses
+as he went.  On a sudden he whistled, like a person
+considering, and he began to chuckle.
+    Raimbaut said, more lately:  "Zoraida left no
+wholesome legacy in you, Makrisi."  This Zoraida was a
+woman the knight had known in Constantinople--a comely
+outlander who had killed herself because of Sire
+Raimbaut's highflown avoidance of all womankind except
+the mistress of his youth.
+    "Nay, save only in loving you too well, messire,
+was Zoraida a wise woman, notably. . . .  But this is
+outworn talk, the prattle of Cain's babyhood.  As
+matters were, you did not love Zoraida.  So Zoraida
+died.  Such is the custom in my country."
+    "You trouble me, Makrisi.  Your eyes are like blown
+coals. . . .  Yet you have served me long and
+faithfully.  You know that mine was ever the vocation
+of dealing honorably in battle among emperors, and of
+spreading broadcast the rumor of my valor, and of
+achieving good by my sword's labors.  I have lived by
+warfare.  Long, long ago, since I derived no benefit
+from love, I cried farewell to it."
+    "Ay," said Makrisi.  "Love makes a demi-god of
+all--just for an hour.  Such hours as follow we devote
+to the concoction of sleeping-draughts."  He laughed,
+and very harshly.
+    And Raimbaut did not sleep that night because this
+life of ours seemed such a piece of tangle-work as he
+had not the skill to unravel.  So he devoted the
+wakeful hours to composition of a planh, lamenting
+vanished youth and that Biatritz whom the years had
+stolen.
+    Then on the ensuing morning, after some talk about
+the new campaign, Prince Guillaume de Baux leaned back
+in his high chair and said, abruptly:
+    "In perfect candor, you puzzle your liege-lord. 
+For you loathe me and you still worship my sister-in-
+law, an unattainable princess.  In these two
+particulars you display such wisdom as would inevitably
+prompt you to make an end of me.  Yet, what the devil!
+you, the time-battered vagabond,  decline happiness and
+a kingdom to boot because of yesterday's mummery in the
+cathedral! because of a mere promise given!  Yes, I
+have my spies in every rat-hole.  I am aware that my
+barons hate me, and hate Philibert almost as
+bitterly,--and that, in fine, a majority of my barons
+would prefer to see you Prince in my unstable place, on
+account of your praiseworthy molestations of heathenry. 
+Oh, yes, I understand my barons perfectly.  I flatter
+myself I understand everybody in Venaissin save you."
+    Raimbaut answered:  "You and I are not alike."
+    "No, praise each and every Saint!" said the Prince
+of Orange, heartily.  "And yet, I am not sure----"  He
+rose, for his sight had failed him so that he could not
+distinctly see you except when he spoke with head
+thrown back, as though he looked at you over a wall. 
+"For instance, do you understand that I hold Biatritz
+here as a prisoner, because her dower-lands are neces-
+sary to me, and that I intend to marry her as soon
+as Pope Innocent grants me a dispensation?"
+    "All Venaissin knows that.  Yes, you have always
+gained everything which you desired in this world,
+Guillaume.  Yet it was at a price, I think."
+    "I am no haggler. . . . But you have never
+comprehended me, not even in the old days when we loved
+each other.  For instance, do you understand--slave of
+a spoken word!--what it must mean to me to know that at
+this hour to-morrow there will be alive in Venaissin no
+person whom I hate?"
+    Messire de Vaquieras reflected.  His was never a
+rapid mind.  "Why, no, I do not know anything about
+hatred," he said, at last.  "I think I never hated any
+person."
+    Guillaume de Baux gave a half-frantic gesture. 
+"Now, Heaven send you troubadours a clearer
+understanding of what sort of world we live in----!" 
+He broke off short and growled, "And yet--sometimes I
+envy you, Raimbaut!"
+    They rode then into the Square of St. Michel to
+witness the death of Lovain.  Guillaume took with him
+his two new mistresses and all his by-blows, each
+magnificently clothed, as if they rode to a festival. 
+Afterward, before the doors of Lovain's burning house,
+a rope was fastened under Lovain's armpits, and he was
+gently lowered into a pot of boiling oil.  His feet
+cooked first, and then the flesh of his legs, and so on
+upward, while Lovain screamed.  Guillaume in a loose
+robe of green powdered with innumerable silver
+crescents, sat watching, under a canopy woven very long
+ago in Tarshish, and cunningly embroidered with the
+figures of peacocks and apes and men with eagles'
+heads.  His hands caressed each other meditatively.
+
+    It was on the afternoon of this day, the last of
+April, that Sire Raimbaut came upon Madona Biatritz
+about a strange employment in the Ladies' Court.  There
+was then a well in the midst of this enclosure, with a
+granite ledge around it carven with lilies; and upon
+this she leaned, looking down into the water.  In her
+lap was a rope of pearls, which one by one she
+unthreaded and dropped into the well.
+    Clear and warm the weather was.  Without, forests
+were quickening, branch by branch, as though a green
+flame smoldered from one bough to another.  Violets
+peeped about the roots of trees, and all the world was
+young again.  But here was only stone beneath their
+feet; and about them showed the high walls and the
+lead-sheathed towers and the parapets and the sunk
+windows of Guillaume's chateau.  There was no color
+anywhere save gray; and Raimbaut and Biatritz were
+aging people now.  It seemed to him that they were the
+wraiths of those persons who had loved each other at
+Montferrat; and that the walls about them and the
+leaden devils who grinned from every waterspout and all
+those dark and narrow windows were only part of some
+magic picture, such as a sorceress may momentarily
+summon out of smoke-wreaths, as he had seen Zoraida do
+very long ago.
+    This woman might have been a wraith in verity, for
+she was clothed throughout in white, save for the
+ponderous gold girdle about her middle.  A white gorget
+framed the face which was so pinched and shrewd and
+strange; and she peered into the well, smiling
+craftily.
+    "I was thinking death was like this well," said
+Biatritz, without any cessation of her singular
+employment--"so dark that we may see nothing clearly
+save one faint gleam which shows us, or which seems to
+show us, where rest is.  Yes, yes, this is that chaplet
+which you won in the tournament at Montferrat when we
+were young.  Pearls are the symbol of tears, we read. 
+But we had no time for reading then, no time for
+anything except to be quite happy. . . .  You saw this
+morning's work.  Raimbaut, were Satan to go mad he
+would be such a fiend as this Guillaume de Baux who is
+our master!"
+    "Ay, the man is as cruel as my old opponent,
+Mourzoufle," Sire Raimbaut answered, with a patient
+shrug.  "It is a great mystery why such persons should
+win all which they desire of this world.  We can but
+recognize that it is for some sufficient reason."  Then
+he talked with her concerning the aforementioned
+infamous emperor of the East, against whom the old
+knight had fought, and of Enrico Dandolo and of King
+Boniface, dead brother to Madona Biatritz, and of much
+remote, outlandish adventuring oversea.  Of Zoraida
+he did not speak.  And Biatritz, in turn, told him of
+that one child which she had borne her husband, Prince
+Conrat--a son who died in infancy; and she spoke of
+this dead baby, who living would have been their
+monarch, with a sweet quietude that wrung the old
+knight's heart.
+    Thus these spent people sat and talked for a long
+while, the talk veering anywhither just as chance
+directed.  Blurred gusts of song and laughter would
+come to them at times from the hall where Guillaume de
+Baux drank with his courtiers, and these would break
+the tranquil flow of speech.  Then, unvexedly, the
+gentle voice of the speaker, were it his or hers, would
+resume.
+    She said:  "They laugh.  We are not merry."
+    "No," he replied; "I am not often merry.  There was
+a time when love and its service kept me in continuous
+joy, as waters invest a fish.  I woke from a high
+dream. . . .  And then, but for the fear of seeming
+cowardly, I would have extinguished my life as men blow
+out a candle.  Vanity preserved me, sheer vanity!"  He
+shrugged, spreading his hard lean hands.  "Belhs
+Cavaliers, I grudged my enemies the pleasure of seeing
+me forgetful of valor and noble enterprises.  And so,
+since then, I have served Heaven, in default of you."
+    "I would not have it otherwise," she said, half as
+in wonder; "I would not have you be quite sane like
+other men.  And I believe," she added--still with
+her wise smile--"you have derived a deal of
+comfort, off and on, from being heart-broken."
+    He replied gravely:  "A man may always, if he will
+but take the pains, be tolerably content and rise in
+worth, and yet dispense with love.  He has only to
+guard himself against baseness, and concentrate his
+powers on doing right.  Thus, therefore, when fortune
+failed me, I persisted in acting to the best of my
+ability.  Though I had lost my lands and my loved lady,
+I must hold fast to my own worth.  Without a lady and
+without acreage, it was yet in my power to live a
+cleanly and honorable life; and I did not wish to make
+two evils out of one."
+    "Assuredly, I would not have you be quite sane like
+other men," she repeated.  "It would seem that you have
+somehow blundered through long years, preserving always
+the ignorance of a child, and the blindness of a child. 
+I cannot understand how this is possible; nor can I
+keep from smiling at your high-flown notions; and
+yet,--I envy you, Raimbaut."
+
+    Thus the afternoon passed, and the rule of Prince
+Guillaume was made secure.  His supper was worthily
+appointed, for Guillaume loved color and music and
+beauty of every kind, and was on this, the day of his
+triumph, in a prodigal humor.  Many lackeys in scarlet
+brought in the first course, to the sound of exultant
+drums and pipes, with a blast of trumpets and a waving
+of banners, so that all hearts were uplifted, and
+Guillaume jested with harsh laughter.
+    But Raimbaut de Vaquieras was not mirthful, for he
+was remembering a boy whom he had known of very long
+ago.  He was swayed by an odd fancy, as the men sat
+over their wine, and jongleurs sang and performed
+tricks for their diversion, that this boy, so frank and
+excellent, as yet existed somewhere; and that the
+Raimbaut who moved these shriveled hands before him, on
+the table there, was only a sad dream of what had never
+been.  It troubled him, too, to see how grossly these
+soldiers ate, for, as a person of refinement, an
+associate of monarchs, Sire Raimbaut when the dishes
+were passed picked up his meats between the index- and
+the middle-finger of his left hand, and esteemed it
+infamous manners to dip any other fingers into the
+gravy.
+    Guillaume had left the Warriors' Hall.  Philibert
+was drunk, and half the men-at-arms were snoring among
+the rushes, when at the height of their festivity
+Makrisi came.  He plucked his master by the sleeve.
+    A swarthy, bearded Angevin was singing.  His song
+was one of old Sire Raimbaut's famous canzons in honor
+of Belhs Cavaliers.  The knave was singing blithely:
+
+        Pus mos Belhs Cavaliers grazitz
+        E joys m'es lunhatz e faiditz,
+        Don no m' venra jamais conortz;
+        Fer qu'ees mayer l'ira e plus fortz--
+
+    The Saracen had said nothing.  He showed a jeweled
+dagger, and the knight arose and followed him out
+of that uproarious hall.  Raimbaut was bitterly
+perturbed, though he did not know for what reason, as
+Makrisi led him through dark corridors to the dull-
+gleaming arras of Prince Guillaume's apartments.  In
+this corridor was an iron lamp swung from the ceiling,
+and now, as this lamp swayed slightly and burned low,
+the tiny flame leaped clear of the wick and was
+extinguished, and darkness rose about them.
+    Raimbaut said:  "What do you want of me?  Whose
+blood is on that knife?"
+    "Have you forgotten it is Walburga's Eve?" Makrisi
+said.  Raimbaut did not regret he could not see his
+servant's countenance.  "Time was we named it otherwise
+and praised another woman than a Saxon wench, but let
+the new name stand.  It is Walburga's Eve, that little,
+little hour of evil! and all over the world surges the
+full tide of hell's desire, and mischief is a-making
+now, apace, apace, apace.  People moan in their sleep,
+and many pillows are pricked by needles that have sewed
+a shroud.  Cry Eman hetan now, messire! for there are
+those to-night who find the big cathedrals of your red-
+roofed Christian towns no more imposing than so many
+pimples on a butler's chin, because they ride so high,
+so very high, in this brave moonlight.  Full-tide,
+full-tide!" Makrisi said, and his voice jangled like a
+bell as he drew aside the curtain so that the old
+knight saw into the room beyond.
+    It was a place of many lights, which, when thus
+suddenly disclosed, blinded him at first.  Then
+Raimbaut perceived Guillaume lying a-sprawl across
+an oaken chest.  The Prince had fallen backward and
+lay in this posture, glaring at the intruders with
+horrible eyes which did not move and would not ever
+move again.  His breast was crimson, for some one had
+stabbed him.  A woman stood above the corpse and
+lighted yet another candle while Raimbaut de Vaquieras
+waited motionless.  A hand meant only to bestow
+caresses brushed a lock of hair from this woman's eyes
+while he waited.  The movements of this hand were not
+uncertain, but only quivered somewhat, as a taut wire
+shivers in the wind, while Raimbaut de Vaquieras waited
+motionless.
+    "I must have lights, I must have a host of candles
+to assure me past any questioning that he is dead.  The
+man is of deep cunning.  I think he is not dead even
+now."  Lightly Biatritz touched the Prince's breast. 
+"Strange, that this wicked heart should be so tranquil
+when there is murder here to make it glad!  Nay, very
+certainly this Guillaume de Baux will rise and laugh in
+his old fashion before he speaks, and then I shall be
+afraid.  But I am not afraid as yet.  I am afraid of
+nothing save the dark, for one cannot be merry in the
+dark."
+    Raimbaut said:  "This is Belhs Cavaliers whom I
+have loved my whole life through.  Therefore I do not
+doubt.  Pardieu, I do not even doubt, who know she is
+of matchless worth."
+    "Wherein have I done wrong, Raimbaut?"  She came to
+him with fluttering hands.  "Why, but look you, the man
+had laid an ambuscade in the marsh and he meant to
+kill you there to-night as you rode for Vaquieras.  He
+told me of it, told me how it was for that end alone he
+lured you into Venaissin----"  Again she brushed the
+hair back from her forehead.  "Raimbaut, I spoke of God
+and knightly honor, and the man laughed.  No, I think
+it was a fiend who sat so long beside the window
+yonder, whence one may see the marsh.  There were no
+candles in the room.  The moonlight was upon his evil
+face, and I could think of nothing, of nothing that has
+been since Adam's time, except our youth, Raimbaut. 
+And he smiled fixedly, like a white image, because my
+misery amused him.  Only, when I tried to go to you to
+warn you, he leaped up stiffly, making a mewing noise. 
+He caught me by the throat so that I could not scream. 
+Then while we struggled in the moonlight your Makrisi
+came and stabbed him----"
+    "Nay, I but fetched this knife, messire." Makrisi
+seemed to love that bloodied knife.
+    Biatritz proudly said:  "The man lies, Raimbaut."
+    "What need to tell me that, Belhs Cavaliers?"
+    And the Saracen shrugged.  "It is very true I lie,"
+he said.  "As among friends, I may confess I killed the
+Prince.  But for the rest, take notice both of you, I
+mean to lie intrepidly."
+    Raimbaut remembered how his mother had given each
+of two lads an apple, and he had clamored for
+Guillaume's, as children do, and Guillaume had changed
+with him.  It was a trivial happening to remember after
+fifty years; but Guillaume was dead, and this
+hacked flesh was Raimbaut's flesh in part, and the
+thought of Raimbaut would never trouble Guillaume de
+Baux any more.  In addition there was a fire of juniper
+wood and frankincense upon the hearth, and the room
+smelt too cloyingly of be-drugging sweetness.  Then on
+the walls were tapestries which depicted Merlin's
+Dream, so that everywhere recoiling women smiled with
+bold eyes; and here their wantonness seemed out of
+place.
+    "Listen," Makrisi was saying; "listen, for the hour
+strikes.  At last, at last!" he cried, with a shrill
+whine of malice.
+    Raimbaut said, dully:  "Oh, I do not
+understand----"
+    "And yet Zoraida loved you once! loved you as
+people love where I was born!"  The Saracen's voice had
+altered.  His speech was like the rustle of papers. 
+"You did not love Zoraida.  And so it came about that
+upon Walburga's Eve, at midnight, Zoraida hanged
+herself beside your doorway.  Thus we love where I was
+born. . . .  And I, I cut the rope--with my left hand. 
+I had my other arm about that frozen thing which
+yesterday had been Zoraida, you understand, so that it
+might not fall.  And in the act a tear dropped from
+that dead woman's cheek and wetted my forehead.  Ice is
+not so cold as was that tear. . . .  Ho, that tear did
+not fall upon my forehead but on my heart, because I
+loved that dancing-girl, Zoraida, as you do this
+princess here.  I think you will understand,"
+Makrisi said, calmly as one who states a maxim.
+    The Sire de Vaquieras replied, in the same tone: 
+"I understand.  You have contrived my death?"
+    "Ey, messire, would that be adequate?  I could have
+managed that any hour within the last score of years. 
+Oh no! for I have studied you carefully.  Oh no!
+instead, I have contrived this plight.  For the Prince
+of Orange is manifestly murdered.  Who killed him?--
+why, Madona Biatritz, and none other, for I will swear
+to it.  I, I will swear to it, who saw it done. 
+Afterward both you and I must be questioned upon the
+rack, as possibly concerned in the affair, and whether
+innocent or guilty we must die very horribly.  Such is
+the gentle custom of your Christian country when a
+prince is murdered.  That is not the point of the jest,
+however.  For first Sire Philibert will put this woman
+to the Question by Water, until she confesses her
+confederates, until she confesses that every baron whom
+Philibert distrusts was one of them.  Oh yes, assuredly
+they will thrust a hollow cane into the mouth of your
+Biatritz, and they will pour water a little by a little
+through this cane, until she confesses what they
+desire.  Ha, Philibert will see to this confession! 
+And through this woman's torment he will rid himself of
+every dangerous foe he has in Venaissin.  You must
+stand by and wait your turn.  You must stand by, in
+fetters, and see this done--you, you, my master!--you,
+who love this woman as I loved that dead Zoraida who
+was not fair enough to please you!"
+    Raimbaut, trapped, impotent, cried out:  "This is
+not possible----"  And for all that, he knew the
+Saracen to be foretelling the inevitable.
+    Makrisi went on, quietly:  "After the Question men
+will parade her, naked to the middle, through all
+Orange, until they reach the Marketplace, where will be
+four horses.  One of these horses they will harness to
+each arm and leg of your Biatritz.  Then they will beat
+these horses.  These will be strong horses.  They will
+each run in a different direction."
+    This infamy also was certain.  Raimbaut foresaw
+what he must do.  He clutched the dagger which Makrisi
+fondled.  "Belhs Cavaliers, this fellow speaks the
+truth.  Look now, the moon is old--is it not strange to
+know it will outlive us?"
+    And Biatritz came close to Sire Raimbaut and said: 
+"I understand.  If I leave this room alive it will
+purchase a hideous suffering for my poor body, it will
+bring about the ruin of many brave and innocent
+chevaliers.  I know.  I would perforce confess all that
+the masked men bade me.  I know, for in Prince Conrat's
+time I have seen persons who had been put to the
+Question----"  She shuddered; and she re-began, without
+any agitation:  "Give me the knife, Raimbaut."
+    "Pardieu! but I may not obey you for this once," he
+answered, "since we are informed by those in holy
+orders that all such as lay violent hands upon
+themselves must suffer eternally."  Then, kneeling, he
+cried, in an extremity of adoration:  "Oh, I have
+served you all my life.  You may not now deny me
+this last service.  And while I talk they dig your
+grave!  O blind men, making the new grave, take heed
+lest that grave be too narrow, for already my heart is
+breaking in my body.  I have drunk too deep of sorrow. 
+And yet I may not fail you, now that honor and mercy
+and my love for you demand I kill you before I also
+die--in such a fashion as this fellow speaks of."
+    She did not dispute this.  How could she when it
+was an axiom in all Courts of Love that Heaven held
+dominion in a lover's heart only as an underling of the
+man's mistress?
+    And so she said, with a fond smile:  "It is your
+demonstrable privilege.  I would not grant it, dear,
+were my weak hands as clean as yours.  Oh, but it is
+long you have loved me, and it is faithfully you have
+served Heaven, and my heart too is breaking in my body
+now that your service ends!"
+    And he demanded, wearily:  "When we were boy and
+girl together what had we said if any one had told us
+this would be the end?"
+    "We would have laughed.  It is a long while since
+those children laughed at Montferrat. . . . Not yet,
+not yet!" she said.  "Ah, pity me, tried champion, for
+even now I am almost afraid to die."
+    She leaned against the window yonder, shuddering,
+staring into the night.  Dawn had purged the east of
+stars.  Day was at hand, the day whose noon she might
+not hope to witness.  She noted this incuriously. 
+Then Biatritz came to him, very strangely proud,
+and yet all tenderness.
+    "See, now, Raimbaut! because I have loved you as I
+have loved nothing else in life, I will not be unworthy
+of your love.  Strike and have done."
+    Raimbaut de Vaquieras raised an already bloodied
+dagger.  As emotion goes, he was bankrupt.  He had no
+longer any dread of hell, because he thought that, a
+little later, nothing its shrewdest overseer could plan
+would have the power to vex him.  She, waiting, smiled. 
+Makrisi, seated, stretched his legs, put fingertips
+together with the air of an attendant amateur.  This
+was better than he had hoped.  In such a posture they
+heard a bustle of armored men, and when all turned, saw
+how a sword protruded through the arras.
+    "Come out, Guillaume!" people were shouting. 
+"Unkennel, dog!  Out, out, and die!"  To such a
+heralding Mahi de Vernoil came into the room with
+mincing steps such as the man affected in an hour of
+peril.  He first saw what a grisly burden the chest
+sustained.  "Now, by the Face!" he cried, "if he that
+cheated me of quieting this filth should prove to be of
+gentle birth I will demand of him a duel to the death!" 
+The curtains were ripped from their hangings as he
+spoke, and behind him the candlelight was reflected by
+the armor of many followers.
+    Then de Vernoil perceived Raimbaut de Vaquieras,
+and the spruce little man bowed ceremoniously.  All
+were still.  Composedly, like a lieutenant before his
+captain, Mahi narrated how these hunted remnants of
+Lovain's army had, as a last cast, that night invaded
+the chateau, and had found, thanks to the festival, its
+men-at-arms in uniform and inefficient drunkenness. 
+"My tres beau sire," Messire de Vernoil ended, "will
+you or nill you, Venaissin is yours this morning.  My
+knaves have slain Philibert and his bewildered fellow-
+tipplers with less effort than is needed to drown as
+many kittens."
+    And his followers cried, as upon a signal:  "Hail,
+Prince of Orange!"
+    It was so like the wonder-working of a dream--this
+sudden and heroic uproar--that old Raimbaut de
+Vaquieras stood reeling, near to intimacy with fear for
+the first time.  He waited thus, with both hands
+pressed before his eyes.  He waited thus for a long
+while, because he was not used to find chance dealing
+kindlily with him.  Later he saw that Makrisi had
+vanished in the tumult, and that many people awaited
+his speaking.
+    The lord of Venaissin began:  "You have done me a
+great service, Messire de Vemoil.  As recompense, I
+give you what I may.  I freely yield you all my right
+in Venaissin.  Oh no, kingcraft is not for me.  I daily
+see and hear of battles won, cities beleaguered, high
+towers overthrown, and ancient citadels and new walls
+leveled with the dust.  I have conversed with many
+kings, the directors of these events, and they were not
+happy people.  Yes, yes, I have witnessed divers
+happenings, for I am old. . . .  I have found nothing
+which can serve me in place of honor."
+    He turned to Dona Biatritz.  It was as if they
+were alone.  "Belhs Cavaliers," he said, "I had
+sworn fealty to this Guillaume.  He violated his
+obligations; but that did not free me of mine.  An oath
+is an oath.  I was, and am to-day, sworn to support his
+cause, and to profit in any fashion by its overthrow
+would be an abominable action.  Nay, more, were any of
+his adherents alive it would be my manifest duty to
+join them against our preserver, Messire de Vernoil. 
+This necessity is very happily spared me.  I cannot,
+though, in honor hold any fief under the supplanter of
+my liege-lord.  I must, therefore, relinquish Vaquieras
+and take eternal leave of Venaissin.  I will not lose
+the right to call myself your servant!" he cried out--
+"and that which is noblest in the world must be served
+fittingly.  And so, Belhs Cavaliers, let us touch palms
+and bid farewell, and never in this life speak face to
+face of trivial happenings which we two alone remember. 
+For naked of lands and gear I came to you--a prince's
+daughter--very long ago, and as nakedly I now depart,
+so that I may retain the right to say, `All my life
+long I served my love of her according to my abilities,
+wholeheartedly and with clean hands.'"
+    "Yes, yes! you must depart from Venaissin," said
+Dona Biatritz.  A capable woman, she had no sympathy
+with his exquisite points of honor, and yet loved him
+all the more because of what seemed to her his
+surpassing folly.  She smiled, somewhat as mothers do
+in humoring an unreasonable boy.  "We will go to my
+nephew's court at Montferrat," she said.  "He will
+willingly provide for his old aunt and her husband. 
+And you may still make verses--at Montferrat, where we
+lived verses, once, Raimbaut."
+    Now they gazed full upon each other.  Thus they
+stayed, transfigured, neither seeming old.  Each had
+forgotten that unhappiness existed anywhere in the
+whole world.  The armored, blood-stained men about them
+were of no more importance than were those wantons in
+the tapestry.  Without, dawn throbbed in heaven. 
+Without, innumerable birds were raising that glad,
+piercing, hurried morning-song which very anciently
+caused Adam's primal waking, to behold his mate.
+
+
+
+
+                      BALTHAZAR'S DAUGHTER
+
+
+    "A curious preference for the artificial should be
+mentioned as characteristic of ALESSANDRO DE MEDICI'S
+poetry.  For his century was anything but artless; the
+great commonplaces that form the main stock of human
+thought were no longer in their first flush, and he
+addressed a people no longer childish. . . . 
+Unquestionably his fancies were fantastic, anti-
+natural, bordering on hallucination, and they betray a
+desire for impossible novelty; but it is allowable to
+prefer them to the sickly simplicity of those so-called
+poems that embroider with old faded wools upon the
+canvas of worn-out truisms, trite, trivial and
+idiotically sentimental patterns."
+
+
+
+Let me have dames and damsels richly clad
+        To feed and tend my mirth,
+Singing by day and night to make me glad;
+
+Let me have fruitful gardens of great girth
+          Fill'd with the strife of birds,
+With water-springs, and beasts that house i' the earth.
+
+Let me seem Solomon for lore of words,
+Samson for strength, for beauty Absalom.
+
+        Knights as my serfs be given;
+And as I will, let music go and come;
+Till, when I will, I will to enter Heaven.
+
+ALESSANDRO DE MEDICI.  Madrigal,
+from D. G. Rossetti's version.
+
+
+                      BALTHAZAR'S DAUGHTER
+
+Graciosa was Balthazar's youngest child, a white, slim
+girl with violet eyes and strange pale hair which had
+the color and glitter of stardust.  "Some day at
+court," her father often thought complacently, "she,
+too, will make a good match."  He was a necessitous
+lord, a smiling, supple man who had already marketed
+two daughters to his advantage.  But Graciosa's time
+was not yet mature in the year of grace 1533, for the
+girl was not quite sixteen.  So Graciosa remained in
+Balthazar's big cheerless house and was tutored in all
+needful accomplishments.  She was proficient in the
+making of preserves and unguents, could play the
+harpsichord and the virginals acceptably, could
+embroider an altarcloth to admiration, and, in spite of
+a trivial lameness in walking, could dance a coranto or
+a saraband against any woman between two seas.
+    Now to the north of Balthazar's home stood a tall
+forest, overhanging both the highway and the river
+whose windings the highway followed.  Graciosa was very
+often to be encountered upon the outskirts of these
+woods.  She loved the forest, whose tranquillity
+bred dreams, but was already a woman in so far that she
+found it more interesting to watch the highway. 
+Sometimes it would be deserted save for small purple
+butterflies which fluttered about as if in continuous
+indecision, and rarely ascended more than a foot above
+the ground.  But people passed at intervals--as now a
+page, who was a notably fine fellow, clothed in ash-
+colored gray, with slashed, puffed sleeves, and having
+a heron's feather in his cap; or a Franciscan with his
+gown tucked up so that you saw how the veins on his
+naked feet stood out like the carvings on a vase; or a
+farmer leading a calf; or a gentleman in a mantle of
+squirrel's fur riding beside a wonderful proud lady,
+whose tiny hat was embroidered with pearls.  It was all
+very interesting to watch, it was like turning over the
+leaves of a book written in an unknown tongue and
+guessing what the pictures meant, because these people
+were intent upon their private avocations, in which you
+had no part, and you would never see them any more.
+    Then destiny took a hand in the affair and Guido
+came.  He reined his gray horse at the sight of her
+sitting by the wayside and deferentially inquired how
+far it might be to the nearest inn.  Graciosa told him. 
+He thanked her and rode on.  That was all, but the
+appraising glance of this sedate and handsome burgher
+obscurely troubled the girl afterward.
+    Next day he came again.  He was a jewel-merchant,
+he told her, and he thought it within the stretch of
+possibility that my lord Balthazar's daughter might
+wish to purchase some of his wares.  She viewed them
+with admiration, chaffered thriftily, and finally
+bought a topaz, dug from Mount Zabarca, Guido assured
+her, which rendered its wearer immune to terrors of any
+kind.
+    Very often afterward these two met on the outskirts
+of the forest as Guido rode between the coast and the
+hill-country about his vocation.  Sometimes he
+laughingly offered her a bargain, on other days he
+paused to exhibit a notable gem which he had procured
+for this or that wealthy amateur.  Count Eglamore, the
+young Duke's favorite yonder at court, bought most of
+them, it seemed.  "The nobles complain against this
+upstart Eglamore very bitterly," said Guido, "but we
+merchants have no quarrel with him.  He buys too
+lavishly."
+    "I trust I shall not see Count Eglamore when I go
+to court," said Graciosa, meditatively; "and, indeed,
+by that time, my father assures me, some honest
+gentleman will have contrived to cut the throat of this
+abominable Eglamore."  Her father's people, it should
+be premised, had been at bitter feud with the favorite
+ever since he detected and punished the conspiracy of
+the Marquis of Cibo, their kinsman.  Then Graciosa
+continued:  "Nevertheless, I shall see many beautiful
+sights when I am taken to court. . . .  And the Duke,
+too, you tell me, is an amateur of gems."
+    "Eh, madonna, I wish that you could see his
+jewels," cried Guido, growing fervent; and he lovingly
+catalogued a host of lapidary marvels.
+    "I hope that I shall see these wonderful jewels
+when I go to court," said Graciosa wistfully.
+    "Duke Alessandro," he returned, his dark eyes
+strangely mirthful, "is, as I take it, a catholic lover
+of beauty in all its forms.  So he will show you his
+gems, very assuredly, and, worse still, he will make
+verses in your honor.  For it is a preposterous feature
+of Duke Alessandro's character that he is always making
+songs."
+    "Oh, and such strange songs as they are, too,
+Guido.  Who does not know them?"
+    "I am not the best possible judge of his verses'
+merit," Guido estimated, drily.  "But I shall never
+understand how any singer at all came to be locked in
+such a prison.  I fancy that at times the paradox
+puzzles even Duke Alessandro."
+    "And is he as handsome as people report?"
+    Then Guido laughed a little.  "Tastes differ, of
+course.  But I think your father will assure you,
+madonna, that no duke possessing such a zealous tax-
+collector as Count Eglamore was ever in his lifetime
+considered of repulsive person."
+    "And is he young?"
+    "Why, as to that, he is about of an age with me,
+and in consequence old enough to be far more sensible
+than either of us is ever likely to be," said Guido;
+and began to talk of other matters.
+    But presently Graciosa was questioning him again as
+to the court, whither she was to go next year and
+enslave a marquis, or, at worst, an opulent baron. 
+Her thoughts turned toward the court's
+predominating figure.  "Tell me of Eglamore, Guido."
+    "Madonna, some say that Eglamore was a brewer's
+son.  Others--and your father's kinsmen in particular--
+insist that he was begot by a devil in person, just as
+Merlin was, and Plato the philosopher, and puissant
+Alexander.  Nobody knows anything about his origin." 
+Guido was sitting upon the ground, his open pack
+between his knees.  Between the thumb and forefinger of
+each hand he held caressingly a string of pearls which
+he inspected as he talked.  "Nobody," he idly said,
+"nobody is very eager to discuss Count Eglamore's
+origin now that Eglamore has become indispensable to
+Duke Alessandro.  Yes, it is thanks to Eglamore that
+the Duke has ample leisure and needful privacy for the
+pursuit of recreations which are reputed to be
+curious."
+    "I do not understand you, Guido."  Graciosa was all
+wonder.
+    "It is perhaps as well," the merchant said, a
+trifle sadly.  Then Guido shrugged.  "To be brief,
+madonna, business annoys the Duke.  He finds in this
+Eglamore an industrious person who affixes seals,
+draughts proclamations, makes treaties, musters armies,
+devises pageants, and collects revenues, upon the
+whole, quite as efficiently as Alessandro would be
+capable of doing these things.  So Alessandro makes
+verses and amuses himself as his inclinations prompt,
+and Alessandro's people are none the worse off on
+account of it."
+    "Heigho, I foresee that I shall never fall in love
+with the Duke," Graciosa declared.  "It is
+unbefitting and it is a little cowardly for a prince to
+shirk the duties of his station.  Now, if I were Duke I
+would grant my father a pension, and have Eglamore
+hanged, and purchase a new gown of silvery green, in
+which I would be ravishingly beautiful, and afterward--
+Why, what would you do if you were Duke, Messer Guido?"
+    "What would I do if I were Duke?" he echoed.  "What
+would I do if I were a great lord instead of a
+tradesman?  I think you know the answer, madonna."
+    "Oh, you would make me your duchess, of course. 
+That is quite understood," said Graciosa, with the
+lightest of laughs.  "But I was speaking seriously,
+Guido."
+    Guido at that considered her intently for a half-
+minute.  His countenance was of portentous gravity, but
+in his eyes she seemed to detect a lurking impishness.
+    "And it is not a serious matter that a peddler of
+crystals should have dared to love a nobleman's
+daughter?  You are perfectly right.  That I worship you
+is an affair which does not concern any person save
+myself in any way whatsoever, although I think that
+knowledge of the fact would put your father to the
+trouble of sharpening his dagger. . . .  Indeed, I am
+not certain that I worship you, for in order to adore
+wholeheartedly, the idolater must believe his idol to
+be perfect.  Now, your nails are of an ugly shape, like
+that of little fans; your mouth is too large; and I
+have long ago perceived that you are a trifle lame
+in spite of your constant care to conceal the fact. 
+I do not admire these faults, for faults they are
+undoubtedly.  Then, too, I know you are vain and self-
+seeking, and look forward contentedly to the time when
+your father will transfer his ownership of such
+physical attractions as heaven gave you to that
+nobleman who offers the highest price for them.  It is
+true you have no choice in the matter, but you will
+participate in a monstrous bargain, and I would prefer
+to have you exhibit distaste for it."  And with that he
+returned composedly to inspection of his pearls.
+    "And to what end, Guido?"  It was the first time
+Graciosa had completely waived the reticence of a
+superior caste.  You saw that the child's parted lips
+were tremulous, and you divined her childish fits of
+dreading that glittering, inevitable court-life shared
+with an unimaginable husband.
+    But Guido only grumbled whimsically.  "I am afraid
+that men do not always love according to the strict
+laws of logic.  I desire your happiness above all
+things; yet to see you so abysmally untroubled by
+anything that troubles me is another matter."
+    "But I am not untroubled, Guido----she began
+swiftly.  Graciosa broke off in speech, shrugged,
+flashed a smile at him.  "For I cannot fathom you, Ser
+Guido, and that troubles me.  Yes, I am very fond of
+you, and yet I do not trust you.  You tell me you love
+me greatly.  It pleases me to have you say this.  You
+perceive I am very candid this morning, Messer Guido. 
+Yes, it pleases me, and I know that for the sake of
+seeing me you daily endanger your life, for if my
+father heard of our meetings he would have you killed. 
+You would not incur such hare-brained risks unless you
+cared very greatly; and yet, somehow, I do not believe
+it is altogether for me you care."
+    Then Guido was in train to protest an all-mastering
+and entirely candid devotion, but he was interrupted.
+    "Most women have these awkward intuitions," spoke a
+melodious voice, and turning, Graciosa met the eyes of
+the intruder.  This magnificent young man had a proud
+and bloodless face which contrasted sharply with his
+painted lips and cheeks.  In the contour of his
+protruding mouth showed plainly his negroid ancestry. 
+His scanty beard, as well as his frizzled hair, was the
+color of dead grass.  He was sumptuously clothed in
+white satin worked with silver, and around his cap was
+a gold chain hung with diamonds.  Now he handed his
+fringed riding-gloves to Guido to hold.
+    "Yes, madonna, I suspect that Eglamore here cares
+greatly for the fact that you are Lord Balthazar's
+daughter, and cousin to the late Marquis of Cibo.  For
+Cibo has many kinsmen at court who still resent the
+circumstance that the matching of his wits against
+Eglamore's earned for Cibo a deplorably public demise. 
+So they conspire against Eglamore with vexatious
+industry, as an upstart, as a nobody thrust over people
+of proven descent, and Eglamore goes about in hourly
+apprehension of a knife-thrust.  If he could make a
+match with you, though, your father--thrifty man!--
+would be easily appeased.  Your cousins, those proud,
+grumbling Castel-Franchi, Strossi and Valori, would not
+prove over-obdurate toward a kinsman who, whatever his
+past indiscretions, has so many pensions and offices at
+his disposal.  Yes, honor would permit a truce, and
+Eglamore could bind them to his interests within ten
+days, and be rid of the necessity of sleeping in chain
+armor. . . .  Have I not unraveled the scheme
+correctly, Eglamore?"
+    "Your highness was never lacking in penetration,"
+replied the other in a dull voice.  He stood
+motionless, holding the gloves, his shoulders a little
+bowed as if under some physical load.  His eyes were
+fixed upon the ground.  He divined the change in
+Graciosa's face and did not care to see it.
+    "And so you are Count Eglamore," said Graciosa in a
+sort of whisper.  "That is very strange.  I had thought
+you were my friend, Guido.  But I forget.  I must not
+call you Guido any longer."  She gave a little shiver
+here.  He stayed motionless and did not look at her. 
+"I have often wondered what manner of man you were.  So
+it was you--whose hand I touched just now--you who
+poisoned Duke Cosmo, you who had the good cardinal
+assassinated, you who betrayed the brave lord of
+Faenza!  Oh, yes, they openly accuse you of every
+imaginable crime--this patient Eglamore, this reptile
+who has crept into his power through filthy passages. 
+It is very strange you should be capable of so much
+wickedness, for to me you seem only a sullen
+lackey."
+    He winced and raised his eyes at this.  His face
+remained expressionless.  He knew these accusations at
+least to be demonstrable lies, for as it happened he
+had never found his advancement to hinge upon the
+commission of the crimes named.  But even so, the past
+was a cemetery he did not care to have revivified.
+    "And it was you who detected the Marquis of Cibo's
+conspiracy.  Tebaldeo was my cousin, Count Eglamore,
+and I loved him.  We were reared together.  We used to
+play here in these woods, and I remember how Tebaldeo
+once fetched me a wren's nest from that maple yonder. 
+I stood just here.  I was weeping because I was afraid
+he would fall.  If he had fallen and been killed, it
+would have been the luckier for him," Graciosa sighed. 
+"They say that he conspired.  I do not know.  I only
+know that by your orders, Count Eglamore, my playmate
+Tebaldeo was fastened upon a Saint Andrew's cross and
+his arms and legs were each broken in two places with
+an iron bar.  Then your servants took Tebaldeo, still
+living, and laid him upon a carriage-wheel which was
+hung upon a pivot.  The upper edge of this wheel was
+cut with very fine teeth like those of a saw, so that
+his agony might be complete.  Tebaldeo's poor mangled
+legs were folded beneath his body so that his heels
+touched the back of his head, they tell me.  In such a
+posture he died very slowly while the wheel turned very
+slowly there in the sunlit market-place, and flies
+buzzed greedily about him, and the shopkeepers took
+holiday in order to watch Tebaldeo die--the same
+Tebaldeo who once fetched me a wren's nest from
+yonder maple."
+    Eglamore spoke now.  "I gave orders for the Marquis
+of Cibo's execution.  I did not devise the manner of
+his death.  The punishment for Cibo's crime was long
+ago fixed by our laws.  Cibo plotted to kill the Duke. 
+Cibo confessed as much."
+    But the girl waved this aside.  "And then you plan
+this masquerade.  You plan to make me care for you so
+greatly that even when I know you to be Count Eglamore
+I must still care for you.  You plan to marry me, so as
+to placate Tebaldeo's kinsmen, so as to bind them to
+your interests.  It was a fine bold stroke of policy, I
+know, to use me as a stepping-stone to safety--but was
+it fair to me?"  Her voice rose now a little.  She
+seemed to plead with him.  "Look you, Count Eglamore, I
+was a child only yesterday.  I have never loved any
+man.  But you have loved many women, I know, and long
+experience has taught you many ways of moving a woman's
+heart.  Oh, was it fair, was it worth while, to match
+your skill against my ignorance?  Think how unhappy I
+would be if even now I loved you, and how I would
+loathe myself. . . .  But I am getting angry over
+nothing.  Nothing has happened except that I have
+dreamed in idle moments of a brave and comely lover who
+held his head so high that all other women envied me,
+and now I have awakened."
+    Meanwhile, it was with tears in his eyes that the
+young man in white had listened to her quiet talk, for
+you could nowhere have found a nature more readily
+sensitive than his to all the beauty and wonder which
+life, as if it were haphazardly, produces every day. 
+He pitied this betrayed child quite ineffably, because
+in her sorrow she was so pretty.
+    So he spoke consolingly.  "Fie, Donna Graciosa, you
+must not be too harsh with Eglamore.  It is his nature
+to scheme, and he weaves his plots as inevitably as the
+spider does her web.  Believe me, it is wiser to forget
+the rascal--as I do--until there is need of him; and I
+think you will have no more need to consider Eglamore's
+trickeries, for you are very beautiful, Graciosa."
+    He had drawn closer to the girl, and he brought a
+cloying odor of frangipani, bergamot and vervain.  His
+nostrils quivered, his face had taken on an odd pinched
+look, for all that he smiled as over some occult jest. 
+Graciosa was a little frightened by his bearing, which
+was both furtive and predatory.
+    "Oh, do not be offended, for I have some rights to
+say what I desire in these parts.  For, Dei gratia, I
+am the overlord of these parts, Graciosa--a neglected
+prince who wondered over the frequent absences of his
+chief counselor and secretly set spies upon him. 
+Eglamore here will attest as much.  Or if you cannot
+believe poor Eglamore any longer, I shall have other
+witnesses within the half-hour.  Oh, yes, they are to
+meet me here at noon--some twenty crop-haired stalwart
+cut-throats.  They will come riding upon beautiful
+broad-chested horses covered with red velvet trappings
+that are hung with little silver bells which jingle
+delightfully.  They will come very soon, and then we
+will ride back to court."
+    Duke Alessandro touched his big painted mouth with
+his forefinger as if in fantastic mimicry of a man
+imparting a confidence.
+    "I think that I shall take you with me, Graciosa,
+for you are very beautiful.  You are as slim as a lily
+and more white, and your eyes are two purple mirrors in
+each of which I see a tiny image of Duke Alessandro. 
+The woman I loved yesterday was a big splendid wench
+with cheeks like apples.  It is not desirable that
+women should be so large.  All women should be little
+creatures that fear you.  They should have thin,
+plaintive voices, and in shrinking from you be as
+slight to the touch as a cobweb.  It is not possible to
+love a woman ardently unless you comprehend how easy it
+would be to murder her."
+    "God, God!" said Count Eglamore, very softly, for
+he was familiar with the look which had now come into
+Duke Alessandro's face.  Indeed, all persons about
+court were quick to notice this odd pinched look, like
+that of a traveler nipped at by frosts, and people at
+court became obsequious within the instant in dealing
+with the fortunate woman who had aroused this look,
+Count Eglamore remembered.
+    And the girl did not speak at all, but stood
+motionless, staring in bewildered, pitiable, childlike
+fashion, and the color had ebbed from her countenance.
+    Alessandro was frankly pleased.  "You fear me, do
+you not, Graciosa?  See, now, when I touch your
+hand it is soft and cold as a serpent's skin, and you
+shudder.  I am very tired of women who love me, of all
+women with bold, hungry eyes.  To you my touch will
+always be a martyrdom, you will always loathe me, and
+therefore I shall not weary of you for a long while. 
+Come, Graciosa.  Your father shall have all the wealth
+and state that even his greedy imaginings can devise,
+so long as you can contrive to loathe me.  We will find
+you a suitable husband.  You shall have flattery and
+titles, gold and fine glass, soft stuffs and superb
+palaces such as are your beauty's due henceforward."
+    He glanced at the peddler's pack, and shrugged. 
+"So Eglamore has been wooing you with jewels!  You must
+see mine, dear Graciosa.  It is not merely an affair of
+possessing, as some emperors do, all the four kinds of
+sapphires, the twelve kinds of emeralds, the three
+kinds of rubies, and many extraordinary pearls,
+diamonds, cymophanes, beryls, green peridots, tyanos,
+sandrastra, and fiery cinnamon-stones"--he enumerated
+them with the tender voice of their lover--"for the
+value of these may at least be estimated.  Oh, no, I
+have in my possession gems which have not their fellows
+in any other collection, gems which have not even a
+name and the value of which is incalculable--strange
+jewels that were shot from inaccessible mountain peaks
+by means of slings, jewels engendered by the thunder,
+jewels taken from the heart of the Arabian deer, jewels
+cut from the brain of a toad and the eyes of serpents,
+and even jewels that are authentically known to
+have fallen from the moon.  We will select the rarest,
+and have a pair of slippers encrusted with them, in
+which you shall dance for me."
+    "Highness," cried Eglamore, with anger and terror
+at odds in his breast, "Highness, I love this girl!"
+    "Ah, then you cannot ever be her husband," Duke
+Alessandro returned.  "You would have suited otherwise. 
+No, no, we must seek out some other person of
+discretion.  It will all be very amusing, for I think
+that she is now quite innocent, as pure as the high
+angels are.  See, Eglamore, she cannot speak, she stays
+still as a lark that has been taken in a snare.  It
+will be very marvelous to make her as I am. . . ."  He
+meditated, as, obscurely aware of opposition, his
+shoulders twitched fretfully, and momentarily his eyes
+lightened like the glare of a cannon through its smoke. 
+"You made a beast of me, some long-faced people say. 
+Beware lest the beast turn and rend you."
+    Count Eglamore plucked aimlessly at his chin.  Then
+he laughed as a dog yelps.  He dropped the gloves which
+he had held till this, deliberately, as if the act were
+a rite.  His shoulders straightened and purpose seemed
+to flow into the man.  "No," he said quietly, "I will
+not have it.  It was not altogether I who made a brain-
+sick beast of you, my prince; but even so, I have never
+been too nice to profit by your vices.  I have taken my
+thrifty toll of abomination, I have stood by
+contentedly, not urging you on, yet never trying to
+stay you, as you waded deeper and ever deeper into the
+filth of your debaucheries, because meanwhile you
+left me so much power.  Yes, in some part it is my own
+handiwork which is my ruin.  I accept it. 
+Nevertheless, you shall not harm this child."
+    "I venture to remind you, Eglamore, that I am still
+the master of this duchy."  Alessandro was languidly
+amused, and had begun to regard his adversary with real
+curiosity.
+    "Oh, yes, but that is nothing to me.  At court you
+are the master.  At court I have seen mothers raise the
+veil from their daughters' faces, with smiles that were
+more loathsome than the grimaces of a fiend, because
+you happened to be passing.  But here in these woods,
+your highness, I see only the woman I love and the man
+who has insulted her."
+    "This is very admirable fooling," the Duke
+considered.  "So all the world is changed and Pandarus
+is transformed into Hector?  These are sonorous words,
+Eglamore, but with what deeds do you propose to back
+them?"
+    "By killing you, your highness."
+    "So!" said the Duke.  "The farce ascends in
+interest." He drew with a flourish, with actual
+animation, for sottish, debauched and power-crazed as
+this man was, he came of a race to whom danger was a
+cordial.  "Very luckily a sword forms part of your
+disguise, so let us amuse ourselves.  It is always
+diverting to kill, and if by any chance you kill me I
+shall at least be rid of the intolerable knowledge that
+to-morrow will be just like to-day."  The Duke
+descended blithely into the level road and placed
+himself on guard.
+    Then both men silently went about the business in
+hand.  Both were oddly calm, almost as if preoccupied
+by some more important matter to be settled later.  The
+two swords clashed, gleamed rigidly for an instant, and
+then their rapid interplay, so far as vision went,
+melted into a flickering snarl of silver, for the sun
+was high and each man's shadow was huddled under him. 
+Then Eglamore thrust savagely and in the act trod the
+edge of a puddle, and fell ignominiously prostrate. 
+His sword was wrenched ten feet from him, for the Duke
+had parried skilfully.  Eglamore lay thus at
+Alessandro's mercy.
+    "Well, well!" the Duke cried petulantly, "and am I
+to be kept waiting forever?  You were a thought quicker
+in obeying my caprices yesterday.  Get up, you muddy
+lout, and let us kill each other with some pretension
+of adroitness."
+    Eglamore rose, and, sobbing, caught up his sword
+and rushed toward the Duke in an agony of shame and
+rage.  His attack now was that of a frenzied animal,
+quite careless of defense and desirous only of murder. 
+Twice the Duke wounded him, but it was Alessandro who
+drew backward, composedly hindering the brutal
+onslaught he was powerless to check.  Then Eglamore ran
+him through the chest and gave vent to a strangled,
+growling cry as Alessandro fell.  Eglamore wrenched his
+sword free and grasped it by the blade so that he might
+stab the Duke again and again.  He meant to hack
+the abominable flesh, to slash and mutilate that
+haughty mask of infamy, but Graciosa clutched his
+weapon by the hilt.
+    The girl panted, and her breath came thick.  "He
+gave you your life."
+    Eglamore looked up.  She leaned now upon his
+shoulder, her face brushing his as he knelt over the
+unconscious Duke; and Eglamore found that at her dear
+touch all passion had gone out of him.
+    "Madonna," he said equably, "the Duke is not yet
+dead.  It is impossible to let him live.  You may think
+he voiced only a caprice just now.  I think so too, but
+I know the man, and I know that all this madman's whims
+are ruthless and irresistible.  Living, Duke
+Alessandro's appetites are merely whetted by
+opposition, so much so that he finds no pleasures
+sufficiently piquant unless they have God's
+interdiction as a sauce.  Living, he will make of you
+his plaything, and a little later his broken, soiled
+and castby plaything.  It is therefore necessary that I
+kill Duke Alessandro."
+    She parted from him, and he too rose to his feet.
+    "And afterward," she said quietly, "and afterward
+you must die just as Tebaldeo died."
+    "That is the law, madonna.  But whether Alessandro
+enters hell to-day or later, I am a lost man."
+    "Oh, that is very true," she said.  "A moment since
+you were Count Eglamore, whom every person feared.  Now
+there is not a beggar in the kingdom who would change
+lots with you, for you are a friendless and hunted man
+in peril of dreadful death.  But even so, you are
+not penniless, Count Eglamore, for these jewels here
+which formed part of your masquerade are of great
+value, and there is a world outside.  The frontier is
+not two miles distant.  You have only to escape into
+the hill-country beyond the forest, and you need not
+kill Duke Alessandro after all.  I would have you go
+hence with hands as clean as possible."
+    "Perhaps I might escape."  He found it quaint to
+note how calm she was and how tranquilly his own
+thoughts ran.  "But first the Duke must die, because I
+dare not leave you to his mercy."
+    "How does that matter?" she returned.  "You know
+very well that my father intends to market me as best
+suits his interests.  Here I am so much merchandise. 
+The Duke is as free as any other man to cry a bargain." 
+He would have spoken in protest, but Graciosa
+interrupted wearily:  "Oh, yes, it is to this end only
+that we daughters of Duke Alessandro's vassals are
+nurtured, just as you told me--eh, how long ago!--that
+such physical attractions as heaven accords us may be
+marketed.  And I do not see how a wedding can in any
+way ennoble the transaction by causing it to profane a
+holy sacrament.  Ah, no, Balthazar's daughter was near
+attaining all that she had been taught to desire, for a
+purchaser came and he bid lavishly.  You know very well
+that my father would have been delighted.  But you must
+need upset the bargain.  `No, I will not have it!' 
+Count Eglamore must cry.  It cost you very highly to
+speak those words.  I think it would have puzzled my
+father to hear those words at which so many fertile
+lands, stout castles, well-timbered woodlands, herds of
+cattle, gilded coaches, liveries and curious
+tapestries, fine clothing and spiced foods, all
+vanished like a puff of smoke.  Ah, yes, my father
+would have thought you mad."
+    "I had no choice," he said, and waved a little ges-
+ture of impotence.  He spoke as with difficulty, almost
+wearily.  "I love you.  It is a theme on which I do not
+embroider.  So long as I had thought to use you as an
+instrument I could woo fluently enough.  To-day I saw
+that you were frightened and helpless--oh, quite
+helpless.  And something changed in me.  I knew for the
+first time that I loved you and that I was not clean as
+you are clean.  What it was of passion and horror, of
+despair and adoration and yearning, which struggled in
+my being then I cannot tell you.  It spurred me to such
+action as I took,--but it has robbed me of sugared
+eloquence, it has left me chary of speech.  It is
+necessary that I climb very high because of my love for
+you, and upon the heights there is silence."
+    And Graciosa meditated.  "Here I am so much
+merchandise.  Heigho, since I cannot help it, since
+bought and sold I must be, one day or another, at least
+I will go at a noble price.  Yet I do not think I am
+quite worth the value of these castles and lands and
+other things which you gave up because of me, so that
+it will be necessary to make up the difference, dear,
+by loving you very much."
+    And at that he touched her chin, gently and 
+masterfully, for Graciosa would have averted her face,
+and it seemed to Eglamore that he could never have
+his fill of gazing on the radiant, shamed tenderness of
+Graciosa's face.  "Oh, my girl!" he whispered.  "Oh, my
+wonderful, worshiped, merry girl, whom God has
+fashioned with such loving care! you who had only scorn
+to give me when I was a kingdom's master! and would you
+go with me now that I am friendless and homeless?"
+    "But I shall always have a friend," she answered"--
+a friend who showed me what Balthazar's daughter was
+and what love is.  And I am vain enough to believe I
+shall not ever be very far from home so long as I am
+near to my friend's heart."
+    A mortal man could not but take her in his arms.
+    "Farewell, Duke Alessandro!" then said Eglamore;
+"farewell, poor clay so plastic the least touch
+remodels you!  I had a part in shaping you so bestial;
+our age, too, had a part--our bright and cruel day,
+wherein you were set too high.  Yet for me it would
+perhaps have proved as easy to have made a learned
+recluse of you, Alessandro, or a bloodless saint, if to
+do that had been as patently profitable.  For you and
+all your kind are so much putty in the hands of
+circumspect fellows such as I.  But I stood by and let
+our poisoned age conform that putty into the shape of a
+crazed beast, because it took that form as readily as
+any other, and in taking it, best served my selfish
+ends.  Now I must pay for that sorry shaping, just as,
+I think, you too must pay some day.  And so, I cry
+farewell with loathing, but with compassion also!"
+    Then these two turned toward the hills, leaving
+Duke Alessandro where he lay in the road, a very
+lamentable figure in much bloodied finery.  They turned
+toward the hills, and entered a forest whose ordering
+was time's contemporary, and where there was no
+grandeur save that of the trees.
+    But upon the summit of the nearest hill they paused
+and looked over a restless welter of foliage that
+glittered in the sun, far down into the highway.  It
+bustled like an unroofed ant-hill, for the road was
+alive with men who seemed from this distance very
+small.  Duke Alessandro's attendants had found him and
+were clustered in a hubbub about their reviving master. 
+Dwarfish Lorenzino de Medici was the most solicitous
+among them.
+    Beyond was the broad river, seen as a ribbon of
+silver now, and on its remoter bank the leaded roofs of
+a strong fortress glistened like a child's new toy. 
+Tilled fields showed here and there, no larger in
+appearance than so many outspread handkerchiefs.  Far
+down in the east a small black smudge upon the pearl-
+colored and vaporous horizon was all they could discern
+of a walled city filled with factories for the working
+of hemp and furs and alum and silk and bitumen.
+    "It is a very rich and lovely land," said
+Eglamore--"this kingdom which a half-hour since lay in
+the hollow of my hand."  He viewed it for a while, and
+not without pensiveness.  Then he took Graciosa's hand
+and looked into her face, and he laughed joyously.
+
+
+
+                         JUDITH'S  CREED
+
+
+    "It does not appear that the age thought his works
+worthy of posterity, nor that this great poet himself
+levied any ideal tribute on future times, or had any
+further prospect than of present popularity and present
+profit.  So careless was he, indeed, of fame, that,
+when he retired to ease and plenty, while he was yet
+little declined into the vale of years, and before he
+could be disgusted with fatigue or disabled by
+infirmity, he desired only that in this rural quiet he
+who had so long mazed his imagination by following
+phantoms might at last be cured of his delirious
+ecstasies, and as a hermit might estimate the 
+transactions of the world."
+
+
+
+    Now my charms are all o'erthrown,
+    And what strength I have's my own,
+    Which is most faint.
+
+                        Now I want
+    Spirits to enforce, art to enchant;
+    And my ending is despair,
+    Unless I be relieved by prayer,
+    Which pierces so, that it assaults
+    Mercy itself, and frees all faults.
+
+    As you from crimes would pardon'd be,
+    Let your indulgence set me free.
+
+        WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.  Epilogue
+            to The Tempest.
+
+
+
+He was hoping, while his fingers drummed in unison with
+the beat of his verse, that this last play at least
+would rouse enthusiasm in the pit.  The welcome given
+its immediate predecessors had undeniably been tepid. 
+A memorandum at his elbow of the receipts at the Globe
+for the last quarter showed this with disastrous
+bluntness; and, after all, in 1609 a shareholder in a
+theater, when writing dramas for production there, was
+ordinarily subject to more claims than those of his
+ideals.
+    He sat in a neglected garden whose growth was in
+reversion to primal habits.  The season was September,
+the sky a uniform and temperate blue.  A peachtree,
+laden past its strength with fruitage, made about him
+with its boughs a sort of tent.  The grass around his
+writing-table was largely hidden by long, crinkled
+peach leaves--some brown and others gray as yet--and
+was dotted with a host of brightly-colored peaches. 
+Fidgeting bees and flies were excavating the decayed
+spots in this wasting fruit, from which emanated a
+vinous odor.  The bees hummed drowsily, their indus-
+try facilitating idleness in others.  It was
+curious--he meditated, his thoughts straying from "an
+uninhabited island"--how these insects alternated in
+color between brown velvet and silver, as they
+blundered about a flickering tessellation of amber and
+dark green . . . in search of rottenness. . . .
+    He frowned.  Here was an arid forenoon as imagi-
+nation went.  A seasoned plagiarist by this, he opened
+a book which lay upon the table among several others
+and duly found the chapter entitled Of the Cannibals.
+    "So, so!" he said aloud.  "`It is a nation,' would
+I answer Plato, `that has no kind of traffic, no
+knowledge of letters----'"  And with that he sat about
+reshaping Montaigne's conceptions of Utopia into verse. 
+He wrote--while his left hand held the book flat--as
+orderly as any county-clerk might do in the recordance
+of a deed of sale.
+    Midcourse in larceny, he looked up from writing. 
+He saw a tall, dark lady who was regarding him half -
+sorrowfully and half as in the grasp of some occult
+amusement.  He said nothing.  He released the telltale
+book.  His eyebrows lifted, banteringly.  He rose.
+    He found it characteristic of her that she went
+silently to the table and compared the printed page
+with what he had just written.  "So nowadays you have
+turned pickpocket?  My poet, you have altered."
+    He said:  "Why, yes.  When you broke off our
+friendship, I paid you the expensive compliment of
+falling very ill.  They thought that I would die. 
+They tell me even to-day I did not die.  I almost
+question it."  He shrugged.  "And to-day I must
+continue to write plays, because I never learned any
+other trade.  And so, at need, I pilfer."  The topic
+did not seem much to concern him.
+    "Eh, and such plays!" the woman cried.  "My poet,
+there was a time when you created men and women as
+glibly as Heaven does.  Now you make sugar-candy
+dolls."
+    "The last comedies were not all I could have
+wished," he assented.  "In fact, I got only some L30
+clear profit."
+    "There speaks the little tradesman I most hated of
+all persons living!" the woman sighed.  Now, as in
+impatience, she thrust back her traveling-hood and
+stood bare-headed.
+    Then she stayed silent,--tall, extraordinarily
+pallid, and with dark, steady eyes.  Their gaze by
+ordinary troubled you, as seeming to hint some
+knowledge to your belittlement.  The playmaker
+remembered that.  Now he, a reputable householder, was
+wondering what would be the upshot of this intrusion. 
+His visitor, as he was perfectly aware, had little
+patience with such moments of life as could not be made
+dramatic. . . .  He was recollecting many trifles, now
+his mind ran upon old times. . . .  No, no, reflection
+assured him, to call her beautiful would be, and must
+always have been, an exaggeration; but to deny the
+exotic and somewhat sinister charm of her, even to-day,
+would be an absurdity.
+    She said, abruptly:  "I do not think I ever loved
+you as women love men.  You were too anxious to
+associate with fine folk, too eager to secure a
+patron--yes, and to get your profit of him--and you
+were always ill-at-ease among us.  Our youth is so long
+past, and we two are so altered that we, I think, may
+speak of its happenings now without any bitterness.  I
+hated those sordid, petty traits.  I raged at your
+incessant pretensions to gentility because I knew you
+to be so much more than a gentleman.  Oh, it infuriated
+me--how long ago it was!--to see you cringing to the
+Court blockheads, and running their errands, and
+smirkingly pocketing their money, and wheedling them
+into helping the new play to success.  You complained I
+treated you like a lackey; it was not unnatural when of
+your own freewill you played the lackey so
+assiduously."
+    He laughed.  He had anatomized himself too frequently 
+and with too much dispassion to overlook
+whatever tang of snobbishness might be in him; and,
+moreover, the charge thus tendered became in reality
+the speaker's apology, and hurt nobody's self-esteem.
+    "Faith, I do not say you are altogether in the
+wrong," he assented.  "They could be very useful to
+me--Pembroke, and Southampton, and those others--and so
+I endeavored to render my intimacy acceptable.  It was
+my business as a poet to make my play as near perfect
+as I could; and this attended to, common-sense demanded
+of the theater-manager that he derive as much money as
+was possible from its representation.  What would
+you have?  The man of letters, like the carpenter or
+the blacksmith, must live by the vending of his
+productions, not by the eating of them." 
+The woman waved this aside.
+    She paced the grass in meditation, the peach leaves
+brushing her proud head--caressingly, it seemed to him. 
+Later she came nearer in a brand-new mood.  She smiled
+now, and her voice was musical and thrilled with
+wonder.  "But what a poet Heaven had locked inside this
+little parasite!  It used to puzzle me."  She laughed,
+and ever so lightly.  "Eh, and did you never understand
+why by preference I talked with you at evening from my
+balcony?  It was because I could forget you then
+entirely.  There was only a voice in the dark.  There
+was a sorcerer at whose bidding words trooped like a
+conclave of emperors, and now sang like a bevy of
+linnets.  And wit and fancy and high aspirations and my
+love--because I knew then that your love for me was
+splendid and divine--these also were my sorcerer's
+potent allies.  I understood then how glad and awed
+were those fabulous Greekish queens when a god wooed
+them.  Yes, then I understood.  How long ago it seems!"
+    "Yes, yes," he sighed.  "In that full-blooded
+season was Guenevere a lass, I think, and Charlemagne
+was not yet in breeches."
+    "And when there was a new play enacted I was glad. 
+For it was our play that you and I had polished the
+last line of yesterday, and all these people wept
+and laughed because of what we had done.  And I was
+proud----"  The lady shrugged impatiently.  "Proud, did
+I say? and glad?  That attests how woefully I fall
+short of you, my poet.  You would have found some magic
+phrase to make that ancient glory articulate, I know. 
+Yet,--did I ever love you?  I do not know that.  I only
+know I sometimes fear you robbed me of the power of
+loving any other man."
+    He raised one hand in deprecation.  "I must remind
+you," he cried, whimsically, "that a burnt child dreads
+even to talk of fire."
+    Her response was a friendly nod.  She came yet
+nearer.  "What," she demanded, and her smile was
+elfish, "what if I had lied to you?  What if I were
+hideously tired of my husband, that bluff, stolid 
+captain?   What if I wanted you to plead with me as in 
+the old time?"
+    He said:  "Until now you were only a woman.  Oh,
+and now, my dear, you are again that resistless gipsy
+who so merrily beguiled me to the very heart of loss. 
+You are Love.  You are Youth.  You are Comprehension. 
+You are all that I have had, and lost, and vainly
+hunger for.  Here in this abominable village, there is
+no one who understands--not even those who are more
+dear to me than you are.  I know.  I only spoil good
+paper which might otherwise be profitably used to wrap
+herrings in, they think.  They give me ink and a pen
+just as they would give toys to a child who squalled
+for them too obstinately.  And Poesy is a thrifty
+oracle with no words to waste upon the deaf,
+however loudly her interpreter cry out to her.  Oh, I
+have hungered for you, my proud, dark lady!" the
+playmaker said.
+    Afterward they stood quite silent.  She was not
+unmoved by his outcry; and for this very reason was
+obscurely vexed by the reflection that it would be the
+essay of a braver man to remedy, rather than to lament,
+his circumstances.  And then the moment's rapture
+failed him.
+    "I am a sorry fool," he said; and lightly he ran
+on:  "You are a skilful witch.  Yet you have raised the
+ghost of an old madness to no purpose.  You seek a
+master-poet?  You will find none here.  Perhaps I was
+one once.  But most of us are poets of one sort or
+another when we love.  Do you not understand?  To-day I
+do not love you any more than I do Hecuba.  Is it not
+strange that I should tell you this and not be moved at
+all?  Is it not laughable that we should stand here at
+the last, two feet apart as things physical go, and be
+as profoundly severed as if an ocean tumbled between
+us?"
+    He fell to walking to and fro, his hands behind his
+back.  She waited, used as she was to his unstable
+temperament, a trifle puzzled.  Presently he spoke:
+    "There was a time when a master-poet was needed. 
+He was found--nay,--rather made.  Fate hastily caught
+up a man not very different from the run of men--one
+with a taste for stringing phrases and with a comedy or
+so to his discredit.  Fate merely bid him love a
+headstrong child newly released from the nursery."
+    "We know her well enough," she said.  "The girl was
+faithless, and tyrannous, and proud, and coquettish,
+and unworthy, and false, and inconstant.  She was black
+as hell and dark as night in both her person and her
+living.  You were not niggardly of vituperation."
+    And he grimaced.  "Faith," he replied, "but sonnets
+are a more natural form of expression than affidavits,
+and they are made effective by compliance with differ-
+
+ent rules.  I find no flagrant fault with you to-day. 
+You were a child of seventeen, the darling of a noble
+house, and an actor--yes, and not even a pre-eminent
+actor--a gross, poor posturing vagabond, just twice
+your age, presumed to love you.  What child would not
+amuse herself with such engaging toys?  Vivacity and
+prettiness and cruelty are the ordinary attributes of
+kittenhood.  So you amused yourself.  And I submitted
+with clear eyes, because I could not help it.  Yes, I
+who am by nature not disposed to underestimate my
+personal importance--I submitted, because your mockery
+was more desirable than the adoration of any other
+woman.  And all this helped to make a master-poet of
+me.  Eh, why not, when such monstrous passions spoke
+through me--as if some implacable god elected to play
+godlike music on a mountebank's lute?  And I made
+admirable plays.  Why not, when there was no tragedy
+more poignant than mine?--and where in any comedy was
+any figure one-half so ludicrous as mine?  Ah, yes,
+Fate gained her ends, as always."
+    He was a paunchy, inconsiderable little man.  By
+ordinary his elongated features and high, bald forehead
+loaned him an aspect of serene and axiom-based wisdom,
+much as we see him in his portraits; but now his
+countenance was flushed and mobile.  Odd passions
+played about it, as when on a sullen night in August
+summer lightnings flicker and merge.
+    His voice had found another cadence.  "But Fate was
+not entirely ruthless.  Fate bade the child become a
+woman, and so grow tired of all her childhood's
+playthings.  This was after a long while, as we esti-
+
+mate happenings. . . .  I suffered then.  Yes, I went
+down to the doors of death, as people say, in my long
+illness.  But that crude, corporal fever had a 
+providential thievishness; and not content with stripping 
+me of health and strength,--not satisfied with pilfering
+inventiveness and any strong hunger to create--why,
+that insatiable fever even robbed me of my insanity.  I
+lived.  I was only a broken instrument flung by because
+the god had wearied of playing.  I would give forth no
+more heart-wringing music, for the musician had
+departed.  And I still lived--I, the stout little
+tradesman whom you loathed.  Yes, that tradesman
+scrambled through these evils, somehow, and came out
+still able to word adequately all such imaginings as
+could be devised by his natural abilities.  But he
+transmitted no more heart-wringing music."
+    She said, "You lie!"
+    He said, "I thank Heaven daily that I do not."  He
+spoke the truth.  She knew it, and her heart was all
+rebellion.
+    Indefatigable birds sang through the following
+hush.  A wholesome and temperate breeze caressed these
+silent people.  Bees that would die to-morrow hummed
+about them tirelessly.
+    Then the poet said:  "I loved you; and you did not
+love me.  It is the most commonplace of tragedies, the
+heart of every man alive has been wounded in this
+identical fashion.  A master-poet is only that wounded
+man--among so many other bleeding folk--who perversely
+augments his agony, and utilizes his wound as an
+inkwell.  Presently time scars over the cut for him, as
+time does for all the others.  He does not suffer any
+longer.  No, and such relief is a clear gain; but none
+the less, he must henceforward write with ordinary ink
+such as the lawyers use."
+    "I should have been the man," the woman cried. 
+"Had I been sure of fame, could I have known those
+raptures when you used to gabble immortal phrases like
+a stammering infant, I would have paid the price
+without all this whimpering."
+    "Faith, and I think you would have," he assented. 
+"There is the difference.  At bottom I am a creature of
+the most moderate aspirations, as you always complained; 
+and for my part, Fate must in reason demand
+her applause of posterity rather than of me.  For I
+regret the unlived life that I was meant for--the
+comfortable level life of little happenings which
+all my schoolfellows have passed through in a
+stolid drove.  I was equipped to live that life with
+relish, and that life only; and it was denied me.  It
+was demolished in order that a book or two be made out
+of its wreckage."
+    She said, with half-shut eyes:  "There is a woman
+at the root of all this."  And how he laughed!
+    "Did I not say you were a witch?  Why, most
+assuredly there is."
+    He motioned with his left hand.  Some hundred yards
+away a young man, who was carrying two logs toward New
+Place, had paused to rest.  A girl was with him.  Now
+laughingly she was pretending to assist the porter in
+lifting his burden.  It was a quaintly pretty vignette,
+as framed by the peach leaves, because those two young
+people were so merry and so candidly in love.  A
+symbolist might have wrung pathos out of the girl's
+desire to aid, as set against her fond inadequacy; and
+the attendant playwright made note of it.
+    "Well, well!" he said:  "Young Quiney is a so-so
+choice, since women must necessarily condescend to
+intermarrying with men.  But he is far from worthy of
+her.  Tell me, now, was there ever a rarer piece of
+beauty?"
+    "The wench is not ill-favored," was the dark lady's
+unenthusiastic answer.  "So!--but who is she?"
+    He replied:  "She is my daughter.  Yonder you see
+my latter muse for whose dear sake I spin romances.  I
+do not mean that she takes any lively interest in
+them.  That is not to be expected, since she cannot
+read or write.  Ask her about the poet we were
+discussing, and I very much fear Judith will bluntly
+inform you she cannot tell a B from a bull's foot.  But
+one must have a muse of some sort or another; and so I
+write about the world now as Judith sees it.  My Judith
+finds this world an eminently pleasant place.  It is
+full of laughter and kindliness--for could Herod be
+unkind to her?--and it is largely populated by ardent
+young fellows who are intended chiefly to be twisted
+about your fingers; and it is illuminated by sunlight
+whose real purpose is to show how pretty your hair is. 
+And if affairs go badly for a while, and you have done
+nothing very wrong--why, of course, Heaven will soon
+straighten matters satisfactorily.  For nothing that
+happens to us can possibly be anything except a
+benefit, because God orders all happenings, and God
+loves us.  There you have Judith's creed; and upon my
+word, I believe there is a great deal to be said for
+it."
+    "And this is you," she cried--"you who wrote of
+Troilus and Timon!"
+    "I lived all that," he replied--"I lived it, and so
+for a long while I believed in the existence of wicked-
+ness.  To-day I have lost many illusions, madam, and
+that ranks among them.  I never knew a wicked person. 
+I question if anybody ever did.  Undoubtedly short-
+sighted people exist who have floundered into ill-
+doing; but it proves always to have been on account of
+either cowardice or folly, and never because of
+malevolence; and, in consequence, their sorry pickle
+should demand commiseration far more loudly than our
+blame.  In short, I find humanity to be both a weaker
+and a better-meaning race than I had suspected.  And
+so, I make what you call `sugar-candy dolls,' because I
+very potently believe that all of us are sweet at
+heart.  Oh no! men lack an innate aptitude for sinning;
+and at worst, we frenziedly attempt our misdemeanors
+just as a sheep retaliates on its pursuers.  This much,
+at least, has Judith taught me."
+    The woman murmured:  "Eh, you are luckier than I. 
+I had a son.  He was borne of my anguish, he was fed
+and tended by me, and he was dependent on me in all
+things."  She said, with a half-sob, "My poet, he was
+so little and so helpless!  Now he is dead."
+    "My dear, my dear!" he cried, and he took both her
+hands.  "I also had a son.  He would have been a man by
+this."
+    They stood thus for a while.  And then he smiled.
+    "I ask your pardon.  I had forgotten that you hate
+to touch my hands.  I know--they are too moist and
+flabby.  I always knew that you thought that.  Well! 
+Hamnet died.  I grieved.  That is a trivial thing to
+say.  But you also have seen your own flesh lying in a
+coffin so small that even my soft hands could lift it. 
+So you will comprehend.  To-day I find that the
+roughest winds abate with time.  Hatred and self-
+seeking and mischance and, above all, the frailties
+innate in us--these buffet us for a while, and we are
+puzzled, and we demand of God, as Job did, why is
+this permitted?  And then as the hair dwindles, the
+wit grows."
+    "Oh, yes, with age we take a slackening hold upon
+events; we let all happenings go by more lightly; and
+we even concede the universe not to be under any actual
+bond to be intelligible.  Yes, that is true.  But is it
+gain, my poet? for I had thought it to be loss."
+    "With age we gain the priceless certainty that 
+sorrow and injustice are ephemeral.  Solvitur ambulando,
+my dear.  I have attested this merely by living long
+enough.  I, like any other man of my years, have in my
+day known more or less every grief which the world
+breeds; and each maddened me in turn, as each was duly
+salved by time; so that to-day their ravages vex me no
+more than do the bee-stings I got when I was an urchin. 
+To-day I grant the world to be composed of muck and
+sunshine intermingled; but, upon the whole, I find the
+sunshine more pleasant to look at, and--greedily,
+because my time for sightseeing is not very long--I
+stare at it.  And I hold Judith's creed to be the best
+of all imaginable creeds--that if we do nothing very
+wrong, all human imbroglios, in some irrational and
+quite incomprehensible fashion, will be straightened to
+our satisfaction.  Meanwhile, you also voice a tonic
+truth--this universe of ours, and, reverently speaking,
+the Maker of this universe as well, is under no actual
+bond to be intelligible in dealing with us."  He
+laughed at this season and fell into a lighter tone. 
+"Do I preach like a little conventicle-attending
+tradesman?  Faith, you must remember that when I
+talk gravely Judith listens as if it were an oracle
+discoursing.  For Judith loves me as the wisest and the
+best of men.  I protest her adoration frightens me. 
+What if she were to find me out?"
+    "I loved what was divine in you," the woman
+answered.
+    "Oddly enough, that is the perfect truth!  And when
+what was divine in me had burned a sufficiency of
+incense to your vanity, your vanity's owner drove off
+in a fine coach and left me to die in a garret.  Then
+Judith came.  Then Judith nursed and tended and
+caressed me--and Judith only in all the world!--as once
+you did that boy you spoke of.  Ah, madam, and does not
+sorrow sometimes lie awake o' nights in the low cradle
+of that child? and sometimes walk with you by day and
+clasp your hand--much as his tiny hand did once, so
+trustingly, so like the clutching of a vine--and beg
+you never to be friends with anything save sorrow?  And
+do you wholeheartedly love those other women's boys--
+who did not die?  Yes, I remember.  Judith, too,
+remembered.  I was her father, for all that I had
+forsaken my family to dance Jack-pudding attendance on
+a fine Court lady.  So Judith came.  And Judith, who
+sees in play-writing just a very uncertain way of
+making money--Judith, who cannot tell a B from a bull's
+foot,--why, Judith, madam, did not ask, but gave, what
+was divine."
+    "You are unfair," she cried.  "Oh, you are cruel,
+you juggle words, make knives of them. . . .  You"and
+she spoke as with difficulty--"you have no right
+to know just how I loved my boy!  You should be
+either man or woman!"
+    He said pensively:  "Yes, I am cruel.  But you had
+mirth and beauty once, and I had only love and a
+vocabulary.  Who then more flagrantly abused the gifts
+God gave?  And why should I not be cruel to you, who
+made a master-poet of me for your recreation?  Lord,
+what a deal of ruined life it takes to make a little
+art!  Yes, yes, I know.  Under old oaks lovers will
+mouth my verses, and the acorns are not yet shaped from
+which those oaks will spring.  My adoration and your
+perfidy, all that I have suffered, all that I have
+failed in even, has gone toward the building of an
+enduring monument.  All these will be immortal, because
+youth is immortal, and youth delights in demanding
+explanations of infinity.  And only to this end I have
+suffered and have catalogued the ravings of a perverse
+disease which has robbed my life of all the normal
+privileges of life as flame shrivels hair from the
+arm--that young fools such as I was once might be
+pleased to murder my rhetoric, and scribblers parody me
+in their fictions, and schoolboys guess at the date of
+my death!"  This he said with more than ordinary
+animation; and then he shook his head.  "There is a
+leaven," he said--"there is a leaven even in your
+smuggest and most inconsiderable tradesman."
+    She answered, with a wistful smile:  "I, too,
+regret my poet.  And just now you are more like
+him----"
+    "Faith, but he was really a poet--or, at least, at
+times----?"
+    "Not marble, nor the gilded monuments of princes
+shall outlive this powerful rhyme----'"
+    "Dear, dear!" he said, in petulant vexation; "how
+horribly emotion botches verse.  That clash of sibi-
+lants is both harsh and ungrammatical.  Shall should be
+changed to will."  And at that the woman sighed,
+because, in common with all persons who never essayed
+creative verbal composition, she was quite certain
+perdurable writing must spring from a surcharged heart,
+rather than from a rearrangement of phrases.  And so,
+    "Very unfeignedly I regret my poet," she said, "my
+poet, who was unhappy and unreasonable, because I was
+not always wise or kind, or even just.  And I did not
+know until to-day how much I loved my poet. . . .  Yes,
+I know now I loved him.  I must go now.  I would I had
+not come."
+    Then, standing face to face, he cried, "Eh, madam,
+and what if I also have lied to you--in part?  Our work
+is done; what more is there to say?"
+    "Nothing," she answered--"nothing.  Not even for
+you, who are a master-smith of words to-day and nothing
+more."
+    "I?" he replied.  "Do you so little emulate a
+higher example that even for a moment you consider me?"
+    She did not answer.
+
+    When she had gone, the playmaker sat for a long
+while in meditation; and then smilingly he took up
+his pen.  He was bound for "an uninhabited island"
+where all disasters ended in a happy climax.
+    "So, so!" he was declaiming, later on:  "We, too,
+are kin To dreams and visions; and our little life Is
+gilded by such faint and cloud-wrapped suns--Only,
+that needs a homelier touch.  Rather, let us say, We
+are such stuff As dreams are made on--Oh, good,
+good!--Now to pad out the line. . . .  In any event,
+the Bermudas are a seasonable topic.  Now here, instead
+of thickly-templed India, suppose we write the
+still-vexed Bermoothes--Good, good!  It fits in well
+enough. . . ."
+    And so in clerkly fashion he sat about the
+accomplishment of his stint of labor in time for
+dinner.  A competent workman is not disastrously upset
+by interruption; and, indeed, he found the notion of
+surprising Judith with an unlooked-for trinket or so to
+be at first a very efficacious spur to composition.
+    And presently the strong joy of creating kindled in
+him, and phrase flowed abreast with thought, and the
+playmaker wrote fluently and surely to an accompaniment
+of contented ejaculations.  He regretted nothing, he
+would not now have laid aside his pen to take up a
+scepter.  For surely--he would have said--to live
+untroubled, and weave beautiful and winsome dreams is
+the most desirable of human fates.  But he did not
+consciously think of this, because he was midcourse in
+the evoking of a mimic tempest which, having purged its
+victims of unkindliness and error, aimed (in the end)
+only to sink into an amiable calm.
+
+
+
+                       CONCERNING CORINNA
+
+    "DR. HERRICK told me that, in common with all the
+Enlightened or Illuminated Brothers, of which prying
+sect the age breeds so many, he trusted the great lines
+of Nature, not in the whole, but in part, as they
+believed Nature was in certain senses not true, and a
+betrayer, and that she was not wholly the benevolent
+power to endow, as accorded with the prevailing
+deceived notion of the vulgar.  But he wished not to
+discuss more particularly than thus, as he had drawn up
+to himself a certain frontier of reticence; and so fell
+to petting a great black pig, of which he made an
+unseemly companion, and to talking idly."
+
+
+
+A Gyges ring they bear about them still,
+To be, and not, seen when and where they will;
+
+They tread on clouds, and though they sometimes fall,
+They fall like dew, and make no noise at all:
+
+So silently they one to th' other come
+As colors steal into the pear or plum;
+
+And air-like, leave no pression to be seen
+Where'er they met, or parting place has been.
+
+                ROBERT HERRICK.  My Lovers how
+                    They Come and Part.
+
+
+
+                       CONCERNING CORINNA
+
+
+The matter hinges entirely upon whether or not Robert
+Herrick was insane.  Sir Thomas Browne always preferred
+to think that he was; whereas Philip Borsdale
+perversely considered the answer to be optional. 
+Perversely, Sir Thomas protested, because he said that
+to believe in Herrick's sanity was not conducive to
+your own.
+    This much is certain: the old clergyman, a man of
+few friends and no intimates, enjoyed in Devon, thanks
+to his time-hallowed reputation for singularity, a 
+certain immunity.  In and about Dean Prior, for 
+instance, it was conceded in 1674 that it was unusual 
+for a divine of the Church of England to make a black 
+pig--- and a pig of peculiarly diabolical ugliness, at 
+that-- his ordinary associate; but Dean Prior had come 
+long ago to accept the grisly brute as a concomitant of 
+Dr. Herrick's presence almost as inevitable as his 
+shadow. It was no crime to be fond of dumb animals, not 
+even of one so inordinately unprepossessing; and you 
+allowed for eccentricities, in any event, in dealing 
+with a poet.
+    For Totnes, Buckfastleigh, Dean Prior--all that
+part of Devon, in fact--complacently basked in the
+reflected glory of Robert Herrick.  People came from a
+long distance, now that the Parliamentary Wars were
+over, in order just to see the writer of the
+Hesperides and the Noble Numbers.  And such
+enthusiasts found in Robert Herrick a hideous dreamy
+man, who, without ever perpetrating any actual
+discourtesy, always managed to dismiss them, somehow,
+with a sense of having been rebuffed.
+    Sir Thomas Browne, that ardent amateur of the
+curious, came into Devon, however, without the risk of
+incurring any such fate, inasmuch as the knight
+traveled westward simply to discuss with Master Philip
+Borsdale the recent doings of Cardinal Alioneri.  Now,
+Philip Borsdale, as Sir Thomas knew, had been employed
+by Herrick in various transactions here irrelevant.  In
+consequence, Sir Thomas Browne was not greatly
+surprised when, on his arrival at Buckfastleigh,
+Borsdale's body-servant told him that Master Borsdale
+had left instructions for Sir Thomas to follow him to
+Dean Prior.  Browne complied, because his business with
+Borsdale was of importance.
+    Philip Borsdale was lounging in Dr. Herrick's
+chair, intent upon a lengthy manuscript, alone and to
+all appearances quite at home.  The state of the room
+Sir Thomas found extraordinary; but he had graver
+matters to discuss; and he explained the results of his
+mission without extraneous comment.
+    "Yes, you have managed it to admiration," said
+Philip Borsdale, when the knight had made an end. 
+Borsdale leaned back and laughed, purringly, for the
+outcome of this affair of the Cardinal and the Wax
+Image meant much to him from a pecuniary standpoint. 
+"Yet it is odd a prince of any church which has done so
+much toward the discomfiture of sorcery should have
+entertained such ideas.  It is also odd to note the
+series of coincidences which appears to have attended
+this Alioneri's practises."
+    "I noticed that," said Sir Thomas.  After a while
+he said:  "You think, then, that they must have been
+coincidences?"
+    "MUST is a word which intelligent people do not
+outwear by too constant usage."
+    And "Oh----?" said the knight, and said that alone,
+because he was familiar with the sparkle now in
+Borsdale's eyes, and knew it heralded an adventure for
+an amateur of the curious.
+    "I am not committing myself, mark you, Sir Thomas,
+to any statement whatever, beyond the observation that
+these coincidences were noticeable.  I add, with
+superficial irrelevance, that Dr. Herrick disappeared
+last night."
+    "I am not surprised," said Sir Thomas, drily.  "No
+possible antics would astonish me on the part of that
+unvenerable madman.  When I was last in Totnes, he
+broke down in the midst of a sermon, and flung the
+manuscript of it at his congregation, and cursed them
+roundly for not paying closer attention.  Such was
+never my ideal of absolute decorum in the pulpit. 
+Moreover, it is unusual for a minister of the Church of
+England to be accompanied everywhere by a pig with whom
+he discusses the affairs of the parish precisely as if
+the pig were a human being."
+    "The pig--he whimsically called the pig Corinna,
+sir, in honor of that imaginary mistress to whom he
+addressed so many verses--why, the pig also has dis-
+
+appeared.  Oh, but of course that at least is simply a
+coincidence. . . .  I grant you it was an uncanny
+beast.  And I grant you that Dr. Herrick was a dubious
+ornament to his calling.  Of that I am doubly certain
+to-day," said Borsdale, and he waved his hand
+comprehensively, "in view of the state in which--you
+see--he left this room.  Yes, he was quietly writing
+here at eleven o'clock last night when old Prudence
+Baldwin, his housekeeper, last saw him.  Afterward Dr.
+Herrick appears to have diverted himself by taking away
+the mats and chalking geometrical designs upon the
+floor, as well as by burning some sort of incense in
+this brasier."
+    "But such avocations, Philip, are not necessarily
+indicative of sanity.  No, it is not, upon the whole,
+an inevitable manner for an elderly parson to while
+away an evening."
+    "Oh, but that was only a part, sir.  He also left
+the clothes he was wearing--in a rather peculiarly
+constructed heap, as you can see.  Among them, by the
+way, I found this flattened and corroded bullet.  That
+puzzled me.  I think I understand it now."  Thus
+Borsdale, as he composedly smoked his churchwarden. 
+"In short, the whole affair is as mysterious----"
+    Here Sir Thomas raised his hand.  "Spare me the
+simile.  I detect a vista of curious perils such as 
+infinitely outshines verbal brilliancy.  You need my 
+aid in some insane attempt."  He considered.  He said: 
+"So! you have been retained?"
+    "I have been asked to help him.  Of course I did
+not know of what he meant to try.  In short, Dr.
+Herrick left this manuscript, as well as certain
+instructions for me.  The last are--well! unusual."
+    "Ah, yes!  You hearten me.  I have long had my
+suspicions as to this Herrick, though. . . .  And what
+are we to do?"
+    "I really cannot inform you, sir.  I doubt if I
+could explain in any workaday English even what we will
+attempt to do," said Philip Borsdale.  "I do say this: 
+You believe the business which we have settled, involv-
+ing as it does the lives of thousands of men and women,
+to be of importance.  I swear to you that, as set
+against what we will essay, all we have done is
+trivial.  As pitted against the business we will
+attempt to-night, our previous achievements are
+suggestive of the evolutions of two sand-fleas beside
+the ocean.  The prize at which this adventure aims is
+so stupendous that I cannot name it."
+    "Oh, but you must, Philip.  I am no more afraid of
+the local constabulary than I am of the local notions
+as to what respectability entails.  I may confess,
+however, that I am afraid of wagering against
+unknown odds."
+    Borsdale reflected.  Then he said, with
+deliberation:  "Dr. Herrick's was, when you come to
+think of it, an unusual life.  He is--or perhaps I
+ought to say he was--upward of eighty-three.  He has
+lived here for over a half-century, and during that
+time he has never attempted to make either a friend or
+an enemy.  He was--indifferent, let us say.  Talking to
+Dr. Herrick was, somehow, like talking to a man in a
+fog. . . .  Meanwhile, he wrote his verses to imaginary
+women--to Corinna and Julia, to Myrha, Electra and
+Perilla--those lovely, shadow women who never, in so
+far as we know, had any real existence----"
+    Sir Thomas smiled.  "Of course.  They are mere
+figments of the poet, pegs to hang rhymes on.  And
+yet--let us go on.  I know that Herrick never willingly
+so much as spoke with a woman."
+    "Not in so far as we know, I said."  And Borsdale
+paused.  "Then, too, he wrote such dainty, merry poems
+about the fairies.  Yes, it was all of fifty years ago
+that Dr. Herrick first appeared in print with his
+Description of the King and Queen of the Fairies. 
+The thought seems always to have haunted him."
+    The knight's face changed, a little by a little. 
+"I have long been an amateur of the curious," he said,
+strangely quiet.  "I do not think that anything you may
+say will surprise me inordinately."
+    "He had found in every country in the world tra-
+ditions of a race who were human--yet more than human.
+That is the most exact fashion in which I can
+express his beginnings.  On every side he found the
+notion of a race who can impinge on mortal life and
+partake of it--but always without exercising the last
+reach of their endowments.  Oh, the tradition exists
+everywhere, whether you call these occasional inter-
+lopers fauns, fairies, gnomes, ondines, incubi, or
+demons.  They could, according to these fables, tem-
+porarily restrict themselves into our life, just as a
+swimmer may elect to use only one arm--or, a more
+fitting comparison, become apparent to our human senses
+in the fashion of a cube which can obtrude only one of
+its six surfaces into a plane.  You follow me, of
+course, sir?--to the triangles and circles and hexagons
+this cube would seem to be an ordinary square. 
+Conceiving such a race to exist, we might talk with
+them, might jostle them in the streets, might even
+intermarry with them, sir--and always see in them only
+human beings, and solely because of our senses'
+limitations."
+    "I comprehend.  These are exactly the speculations
+that would appeal to an unbalanced mind--is that not
+your thought, Philip?"
+    "Why, there is nothing particularly insane, Sir
+Thomas, in desiring to explore in fields beyond those
+which our senses make perceptible.  It is very certain
+these fields exist; and the question of their extent I
+take to be both interesting and important."
+    Then Sir Thomas said:  "Like any other rational
+man, I have occasionally thought of this endeavor
+at which you hint.  We exist--you and I and all
+the others--in what we glibly call the universe.  All
+that we know of it is through what we entitle our five
+senses, which, when provoked to action, will cause a
+chemical change in a few ounces of spongy matter packed
+in our skulls.  There are no grounds for believing that
+this particular method of communication is adequate, or
+even that the agents which produce it are veracious. 
+Meanwhile, we are in touch with what exists through our
+five senses only.  It may be that they lie to us. 
+There is, at least, no reason for assuming them to be
+infallible."
+    "But reflection plows a deeper furrow, Sir Thomas. 
+Even in the exercise of any one of these five senses it
+is certain that we are excelled by what we vainglo-
+riously call the lower forms of life.  A dog has powers
+of scent we cannot reach to, birds hear the crawling of
+a worm, insects distinguish those rays in the spectrum
+which lie beyond violet and red, and are invisible to
+us; and snails and fish and ants--perhaps all other
+living creatures, indeed--have senses which man does
+not share at all, and has no name for.  Granted that we
+human beings alone possess the power of reasoning, the
+fact remains that we invariably start with false
+premises, and always pass our judgments when biased at
+the best by incomplete reports of everything in the
+universe, and very possibly by reports which lie flat-
+footedly."
+    You saw that Browne was troubled.  Now he rose. 
+"Nothing will come of this.  I do not touch upon
+the desirability of conquering those fields at
+which we dare only to hint.  No, I am not afraid.  I
+dare assist you in doing anything Dr. Herrick asks,
+because I know that nothing will come of such
+endeavors.  Much is permitted us--`but of the fruit of
+the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath
+said, to us who are no more than human, Ye shall not
+eat of it.'"
+    "Yet Dr. Herrick, as many other men have done,
+thought otherwise.  I, too, will venture a quotation. 
+`Didst thou never see a lark in a cage?  Such is the
+soul in the body: this world is like her little turf of
+grass, and the heavens o'er our heads, like her
+looking-glass, only gives us a miserable knowledge of
+the small compass of our prison.'  Many years ago that
+lamentation was familiar.  What wonder, then, that Dr.
+Herrick should have dared to repeat it yesterday?  And
+what wonder if he tried to free the prisoner?"
+    "Such freedom is forbidden," Sir Thomas stubbornly
+replied.  "I have long known that Herrick was formerly
+in correspondence with John Heydon, and Robert Flood,
+and others of the Illuminated, as they call themselves. 
+There are many of this sect in England, as we all know;
+and we hear much silly chatter of Elixirs and
+Philosopher's Stones in connection with them.  But I
+happen to know somewhat of their real aims and tenets. 
+I do not care to know any more than I do.  If it be
+true that all of which man is conscious is just a
+portion of a curtain, and that the actual universe in
+nothing resembles our notion of it, I am willing
+to believe this curtain was placed there for some
+righteous and wise reason.  They tell me the curtain
+may be lifted.  Whether this be true or no, I must for
+my own sanity's sake insist it can never be lifted."
+    "But what if it were not forbidden?  For Dr. Her-
+rick asserts he has already demonstrated that."
+    Sir Thomas interrupted, with odd quickness.  "True,
+we must bear it in mind the man never married--Did he,
+by any chance, possess a crystal of Venice glass three
+inches square?"
+    And Borsdale gaped.  "I found it with his manu-
+script.  But he said nothing of it. . . .  How could
+you guess?"
+    Sir Thomas reflectively scraped the edge of the
+glass with his finger-nail.  "You would be none the
+happier for knowing, Philip.  Yes, that is a blood-
+stain here.  I see.  And Herrick, so far as we know,
+had never in his life loved any woman.  He is the only
+poet in history who never demonstrably loved any woman. 
+I think you had better read me his manuscript, Philip."
+    This Philip Borsdale did.
+
+    Then Sir Thomas said, as quiet epilogue:  "This, if
+it be true, would explain much as to that lovely land
+of eternal spring and daffodils and friendly girls, of
+which his verses make us free.  It would even explain
+Corinna and Herrick's rapt living without any human
+ties.  For all poets since the time of AEschylus,
+who could not write until he was too drunken to walk,
+have been most readily seduced by whatever stimulus
+most tended to heighten their imaginings; so that for
+the sake of a song's perfection they have freely re-
+
+sorted to divers artificial inspirations, and very
+often without evincing any undue squeamishness. . . . 
+I spoke of AEschylus.  I am sorry, Philip, that you are
+not familiar with ancient Greek life.  There is so much
+I could tell you of, in that event, of the quaint cult
+of Kore, or Pherephatta, and of the swine of Eubouleus,
+and of certain ambiguous maidens, whom those old
+Grecians fabled--oh, very ignorantly fabled, my lad, of
+course--to rule in a more quietly lit and more tranquil
+world than we blunder about.  I think I could explain
+much which now seems mysterious--yes, and the
+daffodils, also, that Herrick wrote of so constantly. 
+But it is better not to talk of these sinister
+delusions of heathenry."  Sir Thomas shrugged.  "For my
+reward would be to have you think me mad.  I prefer to
+iterate the verdict of all logical people, and formally
+to register my opinion that Robert Herrick was
+indisputably a lunatic."
+    Borsdale did not seem perturbed.  "I think the rec-
+ord of his experiments is true, in any event.  You will
+concede that their results were startling?  And what if
+his deductions be the truth? what if our limited senses
+have reported to us so very little of the universe, and
+even that little untruthfully?"  He laughed and drummed
+impatiently upon the table.  "At least, he tells us
+that the boy returned.  I fervently believe that
+in this matter Dr. Herrick was capable of any crime
+except falsehood.  Oh, no I depend on it, he also will
+return."
+    "You imagine Herrick will break down the door
+between this world and that other inconceivable world
+which all of us have dreamed of!  To me, my lad, it
+seems as if this Herrick aimed dangerously near to
+repetition of the Primal Sin, for all that he handles
+it like a problem in mechanical mathematics.  The poet
+writes as if he were instructing a dame's school as to
+the advisability of becoming omnipotent."
+    "Well, well! I am not defending Dr. Herrick in
+anything save his desire to know the truth.  In this
+respect at least, he has proven himself to be both
+admirable and fearless.  And at worst, he only strives
+to do what Jacob did at Peniel," said Philip Borsdale,
+lightly.  "The patriarch, as I recall, was blessed for
+acting as he did.  The legend is not irrelevant, I
+think."
+    They passed into the adjoining room.
+
+    Thus the two men came into a high-ceiled apartment,
+cylindrical in shape, with plastered walls painted
+green everywhere save for the quaint embellishment of a
+large oval, wherein a woman, having an eagle's beak,
+grasped in one hand a serpent and in the other a knife. 
+Sir Thomas Browne seemed to recognize this curious
+design, and gave an ominous nod.
+    Borsdale said:  "You see Dr. Herrick had prepared
+everything.  And much of what we are about to do is
+merely symbolical, of course.  Most people
+undervalue symbols.  They do not seem to understand
+that there could never have been any conceivable need
+of inventing a periphrasis for what did not exist."
+    Sir Thomas Browne regarded Borsdale for a while
+intently.  Then the knight gave his habitual shrugging
+gesture.  "You are braver than I, Philip, because you
+are more ignorant than I.  I have been too long an
+amateur of the curious.  Sometimes in over-credulous
+moments I have almost believed that in sober verity
+there are reasoning beings who are not human--beings
+that for their own dark purposes seek union with us. 
+Indeed, I went into Pomerania once to talk with John
+Dietrick of Ramdin.  He told me one of those relations
+whose truth we dread, a tale which I did not dare, I
+tell you candidly, even to discuss in my Vulgar
+Errors.  Then there is Helgi Thorison's history, and
+that of Leonard of Basle also.  Oh, there are more
+recorded stories of this nature than you dream of,
+Philip.  We have only the choice between believing that
+all these men were madmen, and believing that ordinary
+human life is led by a drugged animal who drowses
+through a purblind existence among merciful veils.  And
+these female creatures--these Corinnas, Perillas,
+Myrhas, and Electras--can it be possible that they are
+always striving, for their own strange ends, to rouse
+the sleeping animal and break the kindly veils?--and
+are they permitted to use such amiable enticements as
+Herrick describes?  Oh, no, all this is just a madman's
+dream, dear lad, and we must not dare to consider
+it seriously, lest we become no more sane than he."
+    "But you will aid me?" Borsdale said.
+    "Yes, I will aid you, Philip, for in Herrick's case
+I take it that the mischief is consummated already; and
+we, I think, risk nothing worse than death.  But you
+will need another knife a little later--a knife that
+will be clean."
+    "I had forgotten."  Borsdale withdrew, and pres-
+ently returned with a bone-handled knife.  And then he
+made a light.  "Are you quite ready, sir?"
+    Sir Thomas Browne, that aging amateur of the
+curious, could not resist a laugh.
+    And then they sat about proceedings of which, for
+obvious reasons, the details are best left unrecorded. 
+It was not an unconscionable while before they seemed
+to be aware of unusual phenomena.  But as Sir Thomas
+always pointed out, in subsequent discussions, these
+were quite possibly the fruitage of excited imag-
+ination.
+    "Now, Philip!--now, give me the knife!" cried Sir
+Thomas Browne.  He knew for the first time, despite
+many previous mischancy happenings, what real terror
+was.
+    The room was thick with blinding smoke by this, so
+that Borsdale could see nothing save his co-partner in
+this adventure.  Both men were shaken by what had
+occurred before.  Borsdale incuriously perceived that
+old Sir Thomas rose, tense as a cat about to pounce,
+and that he caught the unstained knife from Borsdale's 
+hand, and flung it like a javelin into the
+vapor which encompassed them.  This gesture stirred the
+smoke so that Borsdale could see the knife quiver and
+fall, and note the tiny triangle of unbared plaster it
+had cut in the painted woman's breast.  Within the same
+instant he had perceived a naked man who staggered.
+    "Iz adu kronyeshnago----!"  The intruder's thin,
+shrill wail was that of a frightened child.  The man
+strode forward, choked, seemed to grope his way.  His
+face was not good to look at.  Horror gripped and tore
+at every member of the cadaverous old body, as a high
+wind tugs at a flag.  The two witnesses of Herrick's
+agony did not stir during the instant wherein the
+frenzied man stooped, moving stiffly like an ill-made
+toy, and took up the knife.
+    "Oh, yes, I knew what he was about to do," said Sir
+Thomas Browne afterward, in his quiet fashion.  "I did
+not try to stop him.  If Herrick had been my dearest
+friend, I would not have interfered.  I had seen his
+face, you comprehend.  Yes, it was kinder to let him
+die.  It was curious, though, as he stood there hacking
+his chest, how at each stab he deliberately twisted the
+knife.  I suppose the pain distracted his mind from
+what he was remembering.  I should have forewarned
+Borsdale of this possible outcome at the very first, I
+suppose.  But, then, which one of us is always wise?"
+
+    So this adventure came to nothing.  For its
+significance, if any, hinged upon Robert Herrick's
+sanity, which was at best a disputable quantity. 
+Grant him insane, and the whole business, as Sir Thomas
+was at large pains to point out, dwindles at once into
+the irresponsible vagaries of a madman.
+    "And all the while, for what we know, he had been
+hiding somewhere in the house.  We never searched it. 
+Oh, yes, there is no doubt he was insane," said Sir
+Thomas, comfortably.
+    "Faith! what he moaned was gibberish, of
+course----"
+    "Oddly enough, his words were intelligible.  They
+meant in Russian `Out of the lowest hell.'"
+    "But, why, in God's name, Russian?"
+    "I am sure I do not know," Sir Thomas replied; and
+he did not appear at all to regret his ignorance.
+    But Borsdale meditated, disappointedly.  "Oh, yes,
+the outcome is ambiguous, Sir Thomas, in every way.  I
+think we may safely take it as a warning, in any event,
+that this world of ours, whatever its deficiencies, was
+meant to be inhabited by men and women only."
+
+    "Now I," was Sir Thomas's verdict, "prefer to take
+it as a warning that insane people ought to be re-
+strained."
+    "Ah, well, insanity is only one of the many forms
+of being abnormal.  Yes, I think it proves that all
+abnormal people ought to be restrained.  Perhaps it
+proves that they are very potently restrained," said
+Philip Borsdale, perversely.
+    Perversely, Sir Thomas always steadfastly
+protested, because he said that to believe in
+Herrick's sanity was not conducive to your own.
+    So Sir Thomas shrugged, and went toward the open
+window.  Without the road was a dazzling gray under the
+noon sun, for the sky was cloudless.  The ordered trees
+were rustling pleasantly, very brave in their autumnal
+liveries.  Under a maple across the way some seven
+laborers were joking lazily as they ate their dinner. 
+A wagon lumbered by, the driver whistling.  In front of
+the house a woman had stopped to rearrange the pink cap
+of the baby she was carrying.  The child had just
+reached up fat and uncertain little arms to kiss her. 
+Nothing that Browne saw was out of ordinary, kindly
+human life.
+    "Well, after all," said Sir Thomas, upon a sudden,
+"for one, I think it is an endurable world, just as it
+stands."
+    And Borsdale looked up from a letter he had been
+reading.  It was from a woman who has no concern with
+this tale, and its contents were of no importance to
+any one save Borsdale.
+    "Now, do you know," said Philip Borsdale, "I am
+beginning to think you the most sensible man of my
+acquaintance!  Oh, yes, beyond doubt it is an endurable
+sun-nurtured world--just as it stands.  It makes it
+doubly odd that Dr. Herrick should have chosen always
+to
+
+        `Write of groves, and twilights, and to sing
+         The court of Mab, and of the Fairy King,
+         And write of Hell.'"
+
+    Sir Thomas touched his arm, protestingly.  "Ah, but
+you have forgotten what follows, Philip--
+
+        `I sing, and ever shall,
+         Of Heaven,--and hope to have it after all.'"
+
+    "Well! I cry Amen," said Borsdale.  "But I wish I
+could forget the old man's face."
+    "Oh, and I also," Sir Thomas said.  "And I cry Amen
+with far more heartiness, my lad, because I, too, once
+dreamed of--of Corinna, shall we say?"
+
+
+
+                        OLIVIA'S  POTTAGE
+
+
+    Mr. Wycherley was naturally modest until King
+Charles' court, that late disgrace to our times,
+corrupted him.  He then gave himself up to all sorts of
+extravagances and to the wildest frolics that a wanton
+wit could devise. . . .  Never was so much ill-nature
+in a pen as in his, joined with so much good nature as
+was in himself, even to excess; for he was bountiful,
+even to run himself into difficulties, and charitable
+even to a fault.  It was not that he was free from the
+failings of humanity, but he had the tenderness of it,
+too, which made everybody excuse whom everybody loved;
+and even the asperity of his verses seems to have been
+forgiven."
+
+
+
+        I the Plain Dealer am to act to-day.
+            *     *     *     *     *     *
+
+        Now, you shrewd judges, who the boxes sway,
+        Leading the ladies' hearts and sense astray,
+        And for their sakes, see all and hear no play;
+        Correct your cravats, foretops, lock behind:
+        The dress and breeding of the play ne'er mind;
+        For the coarse dauber of the coming scenes
+        To follow life and nature only means,
+        Displays you as you are, makes his fine woman
+        A mercenary jilt and true to no man,
+        Shows men of wit and pleasure of the age
+        Are as dull rogues as ever cumber'd stage.
+
+                WILLIAM WYCHERLEY.  Prologue
+                    to The Plain Dealer.
+
+
+
+                        OLIVIA'S POTTAGE
+
+
+It was in the May of 1680 that Mr. William Wycherley
+went into the country to marry the famed heiress,
+Mistress Araminta Vining, as he had previously settled
+with her father, and found her to his vast relief a
+very personable girl.  She had in consequence a host of
+admirers, pre-eminent among whom was young Robert
+Minifie of Milanor.  Mr. Wycherley, a noted stickler
+for etiquette, decorously made bold to question Mr.
+Minifie's taste in a dispute concerning waistcoats.  A
+duel was decorously arranged and these two met upon the
+narrow beach of Teviot Bay.
+    Theirs was a spirited encounter, lasting for ten
+energetic minutes.  Then Wycherley pinked Mr. Minifie
+in the shoulder, just as the dramatist, a favorite
+pupil of Gerard's, had planned to do; and the four
+gentlemen parted with every imaginable courtesy, since
+the wounded man and the two seconds were to return by
+boat to Mr. Minifie's house at Milanor.
+    More lately Wycherley walked in the direction of
+Ouseley Manor, whistling Love's a Toy.  Honor
+was satisfied, and, happily, as he reflected, at
+no expense of life.  He was a kindly hearted fop, and
+more than once had killed his man with perfectly
+sincere regret.  But in putting on his coat--it was the
+black camlet coat with silver buttons--he had
+overlooked his sleevelinks; and he did not recognize,
+for twenty-four eventful hours, the full importance of
+his carelessness.
+
+    In the heart of Figgis Wood, the incomparable
+Countess of Drogheda, aunt to Mr. Wycherley's be-
+
+trothed, and a noted leader of fashion, had presently
+paused at sight of him--laughing a little--and with one
+tiny hand had made as though to thrust back the
+staghound which accompanied her.  "Your humble servant,
+Mr. Swashbuckler," she said; and then:  "But oh! you
+have not hurt the lad?" she demanded, with a tincture
+of anxiety.
+    "Nay, after a short but brilliant engagement,"
+Wycherley returned, "Mr. Minifie was very harmlessly
+perforated; and in consequence I look to be married on
+Thursday, after all."
+    "Let me die but Cupid never meets with anything
+save inhospitality in this gross world!" cried Lady
+Drogheda.  "For the boy is heels over head in love with
+Araminta,--oh, a second Almanzor!  And my niece does
+not precisely hate him either, let me tell you,
+William, for all your month's assault of essences and
+perfumed gloves and apricot paste and other small
+artillery of courtship.  La, my dear, was it only a
+month ago we settled your future over a couple of
+Naples biscuit and a bottle of Rhenish?"  She walked
+beside him now, and the progress of these exquisites
+was leisurely.  There were many trees at hand so huge
+as to necessitate a considerable detour.
+    "Egad, it is a month and three days over," Wycher-
+
+ley retorted, "since you suggested your respected
+brother-in-law was ready to pay my debts in full, upon
+condition I retaliated by making your adorable niece
+Mistress Wycherley.  Well, I stand to-day indebted to
+him for an advance of L1500 and am no more afraid of
+bailiffs.  We have performed a very creditable stroke
+of business; and the day after to-morrow you will have
+fairly earned your L500 for arranging the marriage. 
+Faith, and in earnest of this, I already begin to view
+you through appropriate lenses as undoubtedly the most
+desirable aunt in the universe."
+    Nor was there any unconscionable stretching of the
+phrase.  Through the quiet forest, untouched as yet by
+any fidgeting culture, and much as it was when John
+Lackland wooed Hawisa under, its venerable oaks, old
+even then, the little widow moved like a light flame. 
+She was clothed throughout in scarlet, after her high-
+hearted style of dress, and carried a tall staff of
+ebony; and the gold head of it was farther from the
+dead leaves than was her mischievous countenance.  The
+big staghound lounged beside her.  She pleased the eye,
+at least, did this heartless, merry and selfish Olivia,
+whom Wycherley had so ruthlessly depicted in his Plain
+Dealer.  To the last detail Wycherley found her,
+as he phrased it, "mignonne et piquante," and he told
+her so.
+    Lady Drogheda observed, "Fiddle-de-dee!"  Lady
+Drogheda continued:  "Yes, I am a fool, of course, but
+then I still remember Bessington, and the boy that went
+mad there----"
+    "Because of a surfeit of those dreams `such as the
+poets know when they are young.'  Sweet chuck, beat not
+the bones of the buried; when he breathed he was a
+likely lad," Mr. Wycherley declared, with signal
+gravity.
+    "Oh, la, la!" she flouted him.  "Well, in any event
+you were the first gentleman in England to wear a
+neckcloth of Flanders lace."
+    "And you were the first person of quality to eat
+cheesecakes in Spring Garden," he not half so mirth-
+fully retorted.  "So we have not entirely failed in
+life, it may be, after all."
+    She made of him a quite irrelevant demand:  "D'ye
+fancy Esau was contented, William?"
+    "I fancy he was fond of pottage, madam; and that,
+as I remember, he got his pottage.  Come, now, a
+tangible bowl of pottage, piping hot, is not to be
+despised in such a hazardous world as ours is."
+    She was silent for a lengthy while.  "Lord, Lord,
+how musty all that brave, sweet nonsense seems!" she
+said, and almost sighed.  "Eh, well! le vin est tire,
+et il faut le boire."
+    "My adorable aunt!  Let us put it a thought less
+dumpishly; and render thanks because our pottage
+smokes upon the table, and we are blessed with ex-
+cellent appetites."
+    "So that in a month we will be back again in the
+playhouses and Hyde Park and Mulberry Garden, or
+nodding to each other in the New Exchange,--you with
+your debts paid, and I with my L500----?"  She paused
+to pat the staghound's head.  "Lord Remon came this
+afternoon," said Lady Drogheda, and with averted eyes.
+    "I do not approve of Remon," he announced.  "Nay,
+madam, even a Siren ought to spare her kin and show
+some mercy toward the more stagnant-blooded fish."
+    And Lady Drogheda shrugged.  "He is very wealthy,
+and I am lamentably poor.  One must not seek noon at
+fourteen o'clock or clamor for better bread than was
+ever made from wheat."
+    Mr. Wycherley laughed, after a pregnant silence.
+    "By heavens, madam, you are in the right!  So I
+shall walk no more in Figgis Wood, for its old magic
+breeds too many day-dreams.  Besides, we have been
+serious for half-an-hour.  Now, then, let us discuss
+theology, dear aunt, or millinery, or metaphysics, or
+the King's new statue at Windsor, or, if you will, the
+last Spring Garden scandal.  Or let us count the leaves
+upon this tree; and afterward I will enumerate my
+reasons for believing yonder crescent moon to be the
+paring of the Angel Gabriel's left thumb-nail."
+    She was a woman of eloquent silences when there was
+any need of them; and thus the fop and the
+coquette traversed the remainder of that solemn wood
+without any further speech.  Modish people would have
+esteemed them unwontedly glum.
+
+    Wycherley discovered in a while the absence of his
+sleeve-links, and was properly vexed by the loss of
+these not unhandsome trinkets, the gifts of Lady
+Castlemaine in the old days when Mr. Wycherley was the
+King's successful rival for her favors.  But Wycherley
+knew the tide filled Teviot Bay and wondering fishes
+were at liberty to muzzle the toys, by this, and merely
+shrugged at his mishap, midcourse in toilet.
+    Mr. Wycherley, upon mature deliberation, wore the
+green suit with yellow ribbons, since there was a ball
+that night in honor of his nearing marriage, and a
+confluence of gentry to attend it.  Miss Vining and he
+walked through a minuet to some applause; the two were
+heartily acclaimed a striking couple, and con-
+gratulations beat about their ears as thick as sugar-
+plums in a carnival.  And at nine you might have found
+the handsome dramatist alone upon the East Terrace of
+Ouseley, pacing to and fro in the moonlight, and
+complacently reflecting upon his quite indisputable
+and, past doubt, unmerited good fortune.
+    There was never any night in June which nature
+planned the more adroitly.  Soft and warm and windless,
+lit by a vainglorious moon and every star that ever
+shone, the beauty of this world caressed and heartened
+its beholder like a gallant music.  Our universe,
+Mr. Wycherley conceded willingly, was excellent and
+kindly, and the Arbiter of it too generous; for here
+was he, the wastrel, like the third prince at the end
+of a fairy-tale, the master of a handsome wife, and a
+fine house and fortune.  Somewhere, he knew, young
+Minifie, with his arm in a sling, was pleading with
+Mistress Araminta for the last time; and this
+reflection did not greatly trouble Mr. Wycherley, since
+incommunicably it tickled his vanity.  He was chuckling
+when he came to the open window.
+    Within a woman was singing, to the tinkling
+accompaniment of a spinet, for the delectation of Lord
+Remon.  She was not uncomely, and the hard, lean,
+stingy countenance of the attendant nobleman was almost
+genial.  Wycherley understood with a great rending
+shock, as though the thought were novel, that Olivia,
+Lady Drogheda, designed to marry this man, who grinned
+within finger's reach--or, rather, to ally herself with
+Remon's inordinate wealth,--and without any heralding a
+brutal rage and hatred of all created things possessed
+the involuntary eavesdropper.
+    She looked up into Remon's face and, laughing with
+such bright and elfin mirth as never any other woman
+showed, thought Wycherley, she broke into another song. 
+She would have spared Mr. Wycherley that had she but
+known him to be within earshot. . . .  Oh, it was only
+Lady Drogheda who sang, he knew,--the seasoned gamester
+and coquette, the veteran of London and of
+Cheltenham,--but the woman had no right to charm this
+haggler with a voice that was not hers.  For it
+was the voice of another Olivia, who was not a fine and
+urban lady, and who lived nowhere any longer; it was
+the voice of a soft-handed, tender, jeering girl, whom
+he alone remembered; and a sick, illimitable rage
+grilled in each vein of him as liltingly she sang, for
+Remon, the old and foolish song which Wycherley had
+made in her praise very long ago, and of which he might
+not ever forget the most trivial word.
+    Men, even beaux, are strangely constituted; and so
+it needed only this--the sudden stark brute jealousy of
+one male animal for another.  That was the clumsy hand
+which now unlocked the dyke; and like a flood, tall and
+resistless, came the recollection of their far-off past
+and of its least dear trifle, of all the aspirations
+and absurdities and splendors of their common youth,
+and found him in its path, a painted fellow, a
+spendthrift king of the mode, a most notable authority
+upon the set of a peruke, a penniless, spent
+connoisseur of stockings, essences and cosmetics.
+
+    He got but little rest this night.
+    There were too many plaintive memories which
+tediously plucked him back, with feeble and innumerable
+hands, as often as he trod upon the threshold of sleep. 
+Then too, there were so many dreams, half-waking, and
+not only of Olivia Chichele, naive and frank in divers
+rural circumstances, but rather of Olivia, Lady
+Drogheda, that perfect piece of artifice; of how
+exquisite she was! how swift and volatile in every
+movement! how airily indomitable, and how mendacious to
+the tips of her polished finger-nails! and how she
+always seemed to flit about this world as joyously,
+alertly, and as colorfully as some ornate and tiny bird
+of the tropics!
+    But presently parochial birds were wrangling under-
+
+neath the dramatist's window, while he tossed and as-
+
+sured himself that he was sleepier than any saint who
+ever snored in Ephesus; and presently one hand of
+Moncrieff was drawing the bed-curtains, while the other
+carefully balanced a mug of shaving-water.
+
+    Wycherley did not see her all that morning, for
+Lady Drogheda was fatigued, or so a lackey informed
+him, and as yet kept her chamber.  His Araminta he
+found deplorably sullen.  So the dramatist devoted the
+better part of this day to a refitting of his wedding-
+suit, just come from London; for Moncrieff, an
+invaluable man, had adjudged the pockets to be placed
+too high; and, be the punishment deserved or no, Mr.
+Wycherley had never heard that any victim of law
+appeared the more admirable upon his scaffold for being
+slovenly in his attire.
+    Thus it was as late as five in the afternoon that,
+wearing the peach-colored suit trimmed with scarlet
+ribbon, and a new French beaver, the exquisite came
+upon Lady Drogheda walking in the gardens with only an
+appropriate peacock for company.  She was so beautiful
+and brilliant and so little--so like a famous gem too
+suddenly disclosed, and therefore oddly disparate
+in all these qualities, that his decorous pleasant
+voice might quite permissibly have shaken a trifle (as
+indeed it did), when Mr. Wycherley implored Lady
+Drogheda to walk with him to Teviot Bay, on the off-
+chance of recovering his sleeve-links.
+    And there they did find one of the trinkets, but
+the tide had swept away the other, or else the sand had
+buried it.  So they rested there upon the rocks, after
+an unavailing search, and talked of many trifles, amid
+surroundings oddly incongruous.
+    For this Teviot Bay is a primeval place, a deep-
+cut, narrow notch in the tip of Carnrick, and is walled
+by cliffs so high and so precipitous that they exclude
+a view of anything except the ocean.  The bay opens due
+west; and its white barriers were now developing a
+violet tinge, for this was on a sullen afternoon, and
+the sea was ruffled by spiteful gusts.  Wycherley could
+find no color anywhere save in this glowing, tiny and
+exquisite woman; and everywhere was a gigantic peace,
+vexed only when high overhead a sea-fowl jeered at
+these modish persons, as he flapped toward an
+impregnable nest.
+    "And by this hour to-morrow," thought Mr.
+Wycherley, "I shall be chained to that good, strapping,
+wholesome Juno of a girl!"
+    So he fell presently into a silence, staring at the
+vacant west, which was like a huge and sickly pearl,
+not thinking of anything at all, but longing poignantly
+for something which was very beautiful and strange and
+quite unattainable, with precisely that anguish he
+had sometimes known in awaking from a dream of which he
+could remember nothing save its piercing loveliness.
+    "And thus ends the last day of our bachelorhood!"
+said Lady Drogheda, upon a sudden.  "You have played
+long enough--La, William, you have led the fashion for
+ten years, you have written four merry comedies, and
+you have laughed as much as any man alive, but you have
+pulled down all that nature raised in you, I think. 
+Was it worth while?"
+    "Faith, but nature's monuments are no longer the
+last cry in architecture," he replied; "and I believe
+that The Plain Dealer and The Country Wife will
+hold their own."
+    "And you wrote them when you were just a boy!  Ah,
+yes, you might have been our English Moliere, my dear. 
+And, instead, you have elected to become an authority
+upon cravats and waistcoats."
+    "Eh, madam"--he smiled--"there was a time when I
+too was foolishly intent to divert the leisure hours of
+posterity.  But reflection assured me that posterity
+had, thus far, done very little to place me under that
+or any other obligation.  Ah, no!  Youth, health and--
+though I say it--a modicum of intelligence are loaned
+to most of us for a while, and for a terribly brief
+while.  They are but loans, and Time is waiting
+greedily to snatch them from us.  For the perturbed
+usurer knows that he is lending us, perforce, three
+priceless possessions, and that till our lease runs out
+we are free to dispose of them as we elect.  Now,
+had I jealously devoted my allotment of these treasures
+toward securing for my impressions of the universe a
+place in yet unprinted libraries, I would have made an
+investment from which I could not possibly have derived
+any pleasure, and which would have been to other people
+of rather dubious benefit.  In consequence, I chose a
+wiser and devouter course."
+    This statement Lady Drogheda afforded the com-
+mentary of a grimace.
+    "Why, look you," Wycherley philosophized, "have you
+never thought what a vast deal of loving and
+painstaking labor must have gone to make the world we
+inhabit so beautiful and so complete?  For it was not
+enough to evolve and set a glaring sun in heaven, to
+marshal the big stars about the summer sky, but even in
+the least frequented meadow every butterfly must have
+his pinions jeweled, very carefully, and every lovely
+blade of grass be fashioned separately.  The hand that
+yesterday arranged the Himalayas found time to glaze
+the wings of a midge!  Now, most of us could design a
+striking Flood, or even a Last judgment, since the
+canvas is so big and the colors used so virulent; but
+to paint a snuff-box perfectly you must love the labor
+for its own sake, and pursue it without even an
+underthought of the performance's ultimate
+appraisement.  People do not often consider the simple
+fact that it is enough to bait, and quite superfluous
+to veneer, a  trap; indeed, those generally acclaimed
+the best of persons insist this world is but an
+antechamber, full of gins and pitfalls, which must
+be scurried through with shut eyes.  And the more fools
+they, as all we poets know! for to enjoy a sunset, or a
+glass of wine, or even to admire the charms of a
+handsome woman, is to render the Artificer of all at
+least the tribute of appreciation."
+    But she said, in a sharp voice:  "William, Wil-
+liam----!"  And he saw that there was no beach now in
+Teviot Bay except the dwindling crescent at its
+farthest indentation on which they sat.
+    Yet his watch, on consultation, recorded only five
+o'clock; and presently Mr. Wycherley laughed, not very
+loudly.  The two had risen, and her face was a tiny
+snowdrift where every touch of rouge and grease-pencils
+showed crudely.
+    "Look now," said Wycherley, "upon what trifles our
+lives hinge!  Last night I heard you singing, and the
+song brought back so many things done long ago, and
+made me so unhappy that--ridiculous conclusion!--I
+forgot to wind my watch.  Well! the tide is buffeting
+at either side of Carnrick; within the hour this place
+will be submerged; and, in a phrase, we are as dead as
+Hannibal or Hector."
+    She said, very quiet:  "Could you not gain the
+mainland if you stripped and swam for it?"
+    "Why, possibly," the beau conceded.  "Meanwhile you
+would have drowned.  Faith, we had as well make the
+best of it."
+    Little Lady Drogheda touched his sleeve, and her
+hand (as the man noted) did not shake at all, nor did
+her delicious piping voice shake either.  "You
+cannot save me.  I know it.  I am not frightened.  I
+bid you save yourself."
+    "Permit me to assist you to that ledge of rock,"
+Mr. Wycherley answered, "which is a trifle higher than
+the beach; and I pray you, Olivia, do not mar the
+dignity of these last passages by talking nonsense."
+    For he had spied a ledge, not inaccessible, some
+four feet higher than the sands, and it offered them at
+least a respite.  And within the moment they had
+secured this niggardly concession, intent to die, as
+Wycherley observed, like hurt mice upon a pantry-shelf. 
+The business smacked of disproportion, he considered,
+although too well-bred to say as much; for here was a
+big ruthless league betwixt earth and sea, and with no
+loftier end than to crush a fop and a coquette, whose
+speedier extinction had been dear at the expense of a
+shilling's worth of arsenic!
+    Then the sun came out, to peep at these trapped,
+comely people, and doubtless to get appropriate mirth
+at the spectacle.  He hung low against the misty sky, a
+clearly-rounded orb that did not dazzle, but merely
+shone with the cold glitter of new snow upon a fair
+December day; and for the rest, the rocks, and watery
+heavens, and all these treacherous and lapping waves,
+were very like a crude draught of the world, dashed off
+conceivably upon the day before creation.
+    These arbiters of social London did not speak at
+all; and the bleak waters crowded toward them as in a
+fretful dispute of precedence.
+    Then the woman said:  "Last night Lord Remon
+asked me to marry him, and I declined the honor.  For
+this place is too like Bessington--and, I think, the
+past month has changed everything----"
+    "I thought you had forgotten Bessington," he said,
+"long, long ago."
+    "I did not ever quite forget--Oh, the garish
+years," she wailed, "since then!  And how I hated you,
+William--and yet liked you, too,--because you were
+never the boy that I remembered, and people would not
+let you be!  And how I hated them--the huzzies!  For I
+had to see you almost every day, and it was never you I
+saw--Ah, William, come back for just a little, little
+while, and be an honest boy for just the moment that we
+are dying, and not an elegant fine gentleman!"
+    "Nay, my dear," the dramatist composedly answered,
+"an hour of naked candor is at hand.  Life is a
+masquerade where Death, it would appear, is master of
+the ceremonies.  Now he sounds his whistle; and we who
+went about the world so long as harlequins must unmask,
+and for all time put aside our abhorrence of the
+disheveled.  For in sober verity, this is Death who
+comes, Olivia,--though I had thought that at his advent
+one would be afraid."
+    Yet apprehension of this gross and unavoidable
+adventure, so soon to be endured, thrilled him, and
+none too lightly.  It seemed unfair that death should
+draw near thus sensibly, with never a twinge or ache to
+herald its arrival.  Why, there were fifty years of
+life in this fine, nimble body but for any contretemps 
+like that of the deplorable present!  Thus his 
+meditations stumbled.
+    "Oh, William," Lady Drogheda bewailed, "it is all
+so big--the incurious west, and the sea, and these
+rocks that were old in Noah's youth,--and we are so
+little----!"
+    "Yes," he returned, and took her hand, because
+their feet were wetted now; "the trap and its small
+prey are not commensurate.  The stage is set for a
+Homeric death-scene, and we two profane an over-
+ambitious background.  For who are we that Heaven
+should have rived the world before time was, to trap
+us, and should make of the old sea a fowling-net?" 
+Their eyes encountered, and he said, with a strange
+gush of manliness:  "Yet Heaven is kind.  I am bound
+even in honor now to marry Mistress Araminta; and you
+would marry Remon in the end, Olivia,--ah, yes! for we
+are merely moths, my dear, and luxury is a disastrously
+brilliant lamp.  But here are only you and I and the
+master of all ceremony.  And yet--I would we were a
+little worthier, Olivia!"
+    "You have written four merry comedies and you were
+the first gentleman in England to wear a neckcloth of
+Flanders lace," she answered, and her smile was sadder
+than weeping.
+    "And you were the first person of quality to eat
+cheese-cakes in Spring Garden.  There you have our
+epitaphs, if we in truth have earned an epitaph who
+have not ever lived."
+    "No, we have only laughed--Laugh now, for the
+last time, and hearten me, my handsome William!  And
+yet could I but come to God," the woman said, with a
+new voice, "and make it clear to Him just how it all
+fell out, and beg for one more chance!  How heartily I
+would pray then!"
+    "And I would cry Amen to all that prayer must of
+necessity contain," he answered.  "Oh!" said Wycherley,
+"just for applause and bodily comfort and the envy of
+innumerable other fools we two have bartered a great
+heritage!  I think our corner of the world will lament
+us for as much as a week; but I fear lest Heaven may
+not condescend to set apart the needful time wherein to
+frame a suitable chastisement for such poor imbeciles. 
+Olivia, I have loved you all my life, and I have been
+faithful neither to you nor to myself!  I love you so
+that I am not afraid even now, since you are here, and
+so entirely that I have forgotten how to plead my cause
+convincingly.  And I have had practice, let me tell
+you. . . . !"  Then he shook his head and smiled.  "But
+candor is not a la mode.  See, now, to what outmoded
+and bucolic frenzies nature brings even us at last."
+    She answered only, as she motioned seaward, "Look!"
+
+    And what Mr. Wycherley saw was a substantial boat
+rowed by four of Mr. Minifie's attendants; and in the
+bow of the vessel sat that wounded gentleman himself,
+regarding Wycherley and Lady Drogheda with some
+disfavor; and beside the younger man was Mistress
+Araminta Vining.
+    It was a perturbed Minifie who broke the silence. 
+"This is very awkward," he said, "because Araminta and
+I are eloping.  We mean to be married this same night
+at Milanor.  And deuce take it, Mr. Wycherley!  I can't
+leave you there to drown, any more than in the
+circumstances I can ask you to make one of the party."
+    "Mr.  Wycherley," said his companion, with far more
+asperity, "the vanity and obduracy of a cruel father
+have forced me to the adoption of this desperate
+measure.  Toward yourself I entertain no ill-feeling,
+nor indeed any sentiment at all except the most
+profound contempt.  My aunt will, of course, accompany
+us; for yourself, you will do as you please; but in any
+event I solemnly protest that I spurn your odious
+pretensions, release myself hereby from an enforced and
+hideous obligation, and in a phrase would not marry you
+in order to be Queen of England."
+    "Miss Vining, I had hitherto admired you," the beau
+replied, with fervor, "but now esteem is changed to
+adoration."
+    Then he turned to his Olivia.  "Madam, you will
+pardon the awkward but unavoidable publicity of my
+proceeding.  I am a ruined man.  I owe your brother-in-
+law some L1500, and, oddly enough, I mean to pay him. 
+I must sell Jephcot and Skene Minor, but while life
+lasts I shall keep Bessington and all its
+memories.  Meanwhile there is a clergyman waiting
+at Milanor.  So marry me to-night, Olivia; and we will
+go back to Bessington to-morrow."
+    "To Bessington----!" she said.  It was as though
+she spoke of something very sacred.  Then very mu-
+sically Lady Drogheda laughed, and to the eye she was
+all flippancy.  "La, William, I can't bury myself in
+the country until the end of time," she said, "and make
+interminable custards," she added, "and superintend the
+poultry," she said, "and for recreation play short
+whist with the vicar."
+    And it seemed to Mr. Wycherley that he had gone
+divinely mad.  "Don't lie to me, Olivia.  You are
+thinking there are yet a host of heiresses who would be
+glad to be a famous beau's wife at however dear a cost. 
+But don't lie to me.  Don't even try to seem the airy
+and bedizened woman I have known so long.  All that is
+over now.  Death tapped us on the shoulder, and, if
+only for a moment, the masks were dropped.  And life is
+changed now, oh, everything is changed!  Then, come, my
+dear! let us be wise and very honest.  Let us concede
+it is still possible for me to find another heiress,
+and for you to marry Remon; let us grant it the only
+outcome of our common-sense! and for all that, laugh,
+and fling away the pottage, and be more wise than
+reason."
+    She irresolutely said:  "I cannot.  Matters are al-
+tered now.  It would be madness----"
+    "It would undoubtedly be madness," Mr. Wycherley
+assented.  "But then I am so tired of being rational!  
+Oh, Olivia," this former arbiter of taste
+absurdly babbled, "if I lose you now it is forever! and
+there is no health in me save when I am with you.  Then
+alone I wish to do praiseworthy things, to be all which
+the boy we know of should have grown to. . . .  See how
+profoundly shameless I am become when, with such an
+audience, I take refuge in the pitiful base argument of
+my own weakness!  But, my dear, I want you so that
+nothing else in the world means anything to me.  I want
+you! and all my life I have wanted you."
+    "Boy, boy----!" she answered, and her fine hands
+had come to Wycherley, as white birds flutter homeward. 
+But even then she had to deliberate the matter--since
+the habits of many years are not put aside like outworn
+gloves,--and for innumerable centuries, it seemed to
+him, her foot tapped on that wetted ledge.
+    Presently her lashes lifted.  "I suppose it would
+be lacking in reverence to keep a clergyman waiting
+longer than was absolutely necessary?" she
+hazarded.
+
+
+
+                         A  BROWN  WOMAN
+
+    "A critical age called for symmetry, and exquisite
+finish had to be studied as much as nobility of
+thought. . . .  POPE aimed to take first place as a
+writer of polished verse.  Any knowledge he gained of
+the world, or any suggestion that came to him from his
+intercourse with society, was utilized to accomplish
+his main purpose.  To put his thoughts into choice
+language was not enough.  Each idea had to be put in
+its neatest and most epigrammatic form."
+
+
+
+        Why did I write? what sin to me unknown
+        Dipt me in ink, my parents', or my own?
+        As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame,
+        I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came.
+        The muse but served to ease some friend, not
+wife,
+        To help me through this long disease, my life.
+    *     *     *     *     *     *
+
+        Who shames a scribbler? break one cobweb
+through,
+        He spins the slight, self-pleasing thread anew;
+        Destroy his fib or sophistry in vain,
+        The creature's at his foolish work again,
+        Throned in the centre of his thin designs,
+        Proud of a vast extent of flimsy lines!
+
+                    ALEXANDER POPE.  Epistle
+                        to Dr. Arbuthnot.
+
+
+                          A BROWN WOMAN
+
+But I must be hurrying home now," the girl said, "for
+it is high time I were back in the hayfields."
+    "Fair shepherdess," he implored, "for heaven's
+sake, let us not cut short the pastorelle thus
+abruptly."
+    "And what manner of beast may that be, pray?"
+    "'Tis a conventional form of verse, my dear, which
+we at present strikingly illustrate.  The plan of a
+pastorelle is simplicity's self: a gentleman, which I
+may fairly claim to be, in some fair rural scene--such
+as this--comes suddenly upon a rustic maiden of sur-
+passing beauty.  He naturally falls in love with her,
+and they say all manner of fine things to each other."
+    She considered him for a while before speaking.  It
+thrilled him to see the odd tenderness that was in her
+face.  "You always think of saying and writing fine
+things, do you not, sir?"
+    "My dear," he answered, gravely, "I believe that I
+was undoubtedly guilty of such folly until you came.  I
+wish I could make you understand how your coming has
+changed everything."
+    "You can tell me some other time," the girl gaily
+declared, and was about to leave him.
+    His hand detained her very gently.  "Faith, but I
+fear not, for already my old hallucinations seem to me
+incredible.  Why, yesterday I thought it the most
+desirable of human lots to be a great poet"--the gen-
+tleman laughed in self-mockery.  "I positively did.  I
+labored every day toward becoming one.  I lived among
+books, esteemed that I was doing something of genuine
+importance as I gravely tinkered with alliteration and
+metaphor and antithesis and judicious paraphrases of
+the ancients.  I put up with life solely because it
+afforded material for versification; and, in reality,
+believed the destruction of Troy was providentially
+ordained lest Homer lack subject matter for an epic. 
+And as for loving, I thought people fell in love in
+order to exchange witty rhymes."
+    His hand detained her, very gently. . . .  Indeed,
+it seemed to him he could never tire of noting her
+excellencies.  Perhaps it was that splendid light poise
+of her head he chiefly loved; he thought so at least,
+just now.  Or was it the wonder of her walk, which made
+all other women he had ever known appear to mince and
+hobble, like rusty toys?  Something there was assuredly
+about this slim brown girl which recalled an untamed
+and harmless woodland creature; and it was that, he
+knew, which most poignantly moved him, even though he
+could not name it.  Perhaps it was her bright kind
+eyes, which seemed to mirror the tranquillity of
+forests. . . .
+    "You gentry are always talking of love," she mar-
+veled.
+    "Oh," he said, with acerbity, "oh, I don't doubt
+that any number of beef-gorging squires and leering,
+long-legged Oxford dandies----"  He broke off here, and
+laughed contemptuously.  "Well, you are beautiful, and
+they have eyes as keen as mine.  And I do not blame
+you, my dear, for believing my designs to be no more
+commendable than theirs--no, not at all."
+    But his mood was spoiled, and his tetchy vanity
+hurt, by the thought of stout well-set fellows having
+wooed this girl; and he permitted her to go without
+protest.
+    Yet he sat alone for a while upon the fallen tree--
+
+trunk, humming a contented little tune.  Never in his
+life had he been happier.  He did not venture to
+suppose that any creature so adorable could love such a
+sickly hunchback, such a gargoyle of a man, as he was;
+but that Sarah was fond of him, he knew.  There would
+be no trouble in arranging with her father for their
+marriage, most certainly; and he meant to attend to
+that matter this very morning, and within ten minutes. 
+So Mr. Alexander Pope was meanwhile arranging in his
+mind a suitable wording for his declaration of marital
+aspirations.
+    Thus John Gay found him presently and roused him
+from phrase-spinning.  "And what shall we do this
+morning, Alexander?"  Gay was always demanding, like a
+spoiled child, to be amused.
+    Pope told him what his own plans were,
+speaking quite simply, but with his countenance
+radiant.  Gay took off his hat and wiped his forehead,
+for the day was warm.  He did not say anything at all.
+    "Well----?" Mr. Pope asked, after a pause.
+    Mr. Gay was dubious.  "I had never thought that you
+would marry," he said.  "And--why, hang it, Alexander!
+to grow enamored of a milkmaid is well enough for the
+hero of a poem, but in a poet it hints at injudicious
+composition."
+    Mr. Pope gesticulated with thin hands and seemed
+upon the verge of eloquence.  Then he spoke unan-
+swerably.  "But I love her," he said.
+    John Gay's reply was a subdued whistle.  He, in
+common with the other guests of Lord Harcourt, at
+Nuneham Courtney, had wondered what would be the
+outcome of Mr. Alexander Pope's intimacy with Sarah
+Drew.  A month earlier the poet had sprained his ankle
+upon Amshot Heath, and this young woman had found him
+lying there, entirely helpless, as she returned from
+her evening milking.  Being hale of person, she had
+managed to get the little hunchback to her home
+unaided.  And since then Pope had often been seen with
+her.
+    This much was common knowledge.  That Mr. Pope
+proposed to marry the heroine of his misadventure
+afforded a fair mark for raillery, no doubt, but Gay,
+in common with the run of educated England in 1718, did
+not aspire to be facetious at Pope's expense.  The
+luxury was too costly.  Offend the dwarf in any
+fashion, and were you the proudest duke at Court
+or the most inconsiderable rhymester in Petticoat Lane,
+it made no difference; there was no crime too heinous
+for "the great Mr. Pope's" next verses to charge you
+with, and, worst of all, there was no misdoing so out
+of character that his adroit malignancy could not make
+it seem plausible.
+    Now, after another pause, Pope said, "I must be
+going now.  Will you not wish me luck?"
+    "Why, Alexander--why, hang it!" was Mr. Gay's
+observation, "I believe that you are human after all,
+and not just a book in breeches."
+
+    He thereby voiced a commentary patently uncalled-
+for, as Mr. Pope afterward reflected.  Mr. Pope was
+then treading toward the home of old Frederick Drew. 
+It was a gray morning in late July.
+    "I love her," Pope had said.  The fact was unde-
+
+niable; yet an expression of it necessarily halts. 
+Pope knew, as every man must do who dares conserve his
+energies to annotate the drama of life rather than play
+a part in it, the nature of that loneliness which this
+conservation breeds.  Such persons may hope to win a
+posthumous esteem in the library, but it is at the
+bleak cost of making life a wistful transaction with
+foreigners.  In such enforced aloofness Sarah Drew had
+come to him--strong, beautiful, young, good and vital,
+all that he was not--and had serenely befriended "the
+great Mr. Pope," whom she viewed as a queer decrepit
+little gentleman of whom within a week she was
+unfeignedly fond.
+    "I love her," Pope had said.  Eh, yes, no doubt;
+and what, he fiercely demanded of himself, was he--a
+crippled scribbler, a bungling artisan of phrases--that
+he should dare to love this splendid and deep-bosomed
+goddess?  Something of youth awoke, possessing him--
+something of that high ardor which, as he cloudily
+remembered now, had once controlled a boy who dreamed
+in Windsor Forest and with the lightest of hearts
+planned to achieve the impossible.  For what is more
+difficult of attainment than to achieve the perfected
+phrase, so worded that to alter a syllable of its
+wording would be little short of sacrilege?
+    "What whimwhams!" decreed the great Mr. Pope,
+aloud.  "Verse-making is at best only the affair of
+idle men who write in their closets and of idle men who
+read there.  And as for him who polishes phrases,
+whatever be his fate in poetry, it is ten to one but he
+must give up all the reasonable aims of life for it."
+    No, he would have no more of loneliness.  Hence-
+forward Alexander Pope would be human--like the others. 
+To write perfectly was much; but it was not everything. 
+Living was capable of furnishing even more than the raw
+material of a couplet.  It might, for instance, yield
+content.
+    For instance, if you loved, and married, and begot,
+and died, with the seriousness of a person who believes
+he is performing an action of real importance, and
+conceded that the perfection of any art, whether it be
+that of verse-making or of rope-dancing, is at best a
+by-product of life's conduct; at worst, you
+probably would not be lonely.  No; you would be at
+one with all other fat-witted people, and there was no
+greater blessing conceivable.
+    Pope muttered, and produced his notebook, and wrote
+tentatively.
+    Wrote Mr. Pope:
+
+        The bliss of man (could pride that blessing
+find)
+        Is not to act or think beyond mankind;
+        No powers of body or of soul to share
+        But what his nature and his state can bear.
+
+    "His state!" yes, undeniably, two sibilants
+collided here.  "His wit?"--no, that would be flat-
+footed awkwardness in the management of your vowel-
+sounds; the lengthened "a" was almost requisite. . . . 
+Pope was fretting over the imbroglio when he absent-
+mindedly glanced up to perceive that his Sarah, not
+irrevocably offended, was being embraced by a certain
+John Hughes--who was a stalwart, florid personable
+individual, no doubt, but, after all, only an
+unlettered farmer.
+    The dwarf gave a hard, wringing motion of his
+hands.  The diamond-Lord Bolingbroke's gift--which
+ornamented Pope's left hand cut into the flesh of his
+little finger, so cruel was the gesture; and this
+little finger was bleeding as Pope tripped forward,
+smiling.  A gentleman does not incommode the public by
+obtruding the ugliness of a personal wound.
+    "Do I intrude?" he queried.  "Ah, well!  I
+also have dwelt in Arcadia."  It was bitter to
+comprehend that he had never done so.
+    The lovers were visibly annoyed; yet, if an
+interruption of their pleasant commerce was decreed to
+be, it could not possibly have sprung, as they soon
+found, from a more sympathetic source.
+    These were not subtle persons.  Pope had the truth
+from them within ten minutes.  They loved each other;
+but John Hughes was penniless, and old Frederick Drew
+was, in consequence, obdurate.
+    "And, besides, he thinks you mean to marry her!"
+said John Hughes.
+    "My dear man, he pardonably forgets that the utmost
+reach of my designs in common reason would be to have
+her as my kept mistress for a month or two," drawled
+Mr. Pope.  "As concerns yourself, my good fellow, the
+case is somewhat different.  Why, it is a veritable
+romance--an affair of Daphne and Corydon--although, to
+be unpardonably candid, the plot of your romance, my
+young Arcadians, is not the most original conceivable. 
+I think that the denouement need not baffle our
+imaginations."
+    The dwarf went toward Sarah Drew.  The chary
+sunlight had found the gold in her hair, and its glint
+was brightly visible to him.  "My dear--" he said.  His
+thin long fingers touched her capable hand.  It was a
+sort of caress--half-timid.  "My dear, I owe my life to
+you.  My body is at most a flimsy abortion such as a
+night's exposure would have made more tranquil than it
+is just now.  Yes, it was you who found a
+caricature of the sort of man that Mr. Hughes here is,
+disabled, helpless, and--for reasons which doubtless
+seemed to you sufficient--contrived that this unsightly
+parody continue in existence.  I am not lovable, my
+dear.  I am only a hunchback, as you can see.  My
+aspirations and my sickly imaginings merit only the
+derision of a candid clean-souled being such as you
+are."  His finger-tips touched the back of her hand
+again.  "I think there was never a maker of enduring
+verse who did not at one period or another long to
+exchange an assured immortality for a sturdier pair of
+shoulders.  I think--I think that I am prone to speak
+at random," Pope said, with his half-drowsy smile. 
+"Yet, none the less, an honest man, as our kinsmen in
+Adam average, is bound to pay his equitable debts."
+    She said, "I do not understand."
+    "I have perpetrated certain jingles," Pope
+returned.  "I had not comprehended until to-day they
+are the only children I shall leave behind me.  Eh, and
+what would you make of them, my dear, could ingenuity
+contrive a torture dire enough to force you into read-
+ing them! . . .  Misguided people have paid me for
+contriving these jingles.  So that I have money enough
+to buy you from your father just as I would purchase
+one of his heifers.  Yes, at the very least I have
+money, and I have earned it.  I will send your big-
+thewed adorer--I believe that Hughes is the name?--L500
+of it this afternoon.  That sum, I gather, will be
+sufficient to remove your father's objection to your
+marriage with Mr. Hughes."
+    Pope could not but admire himself tremendously. 
+Moreover, in such matters no woman is blind.  Tears
+came into Sarah's huge brown eyes.  This tenderhearted
+girl was not thinking of John Hughes now.  Pope noted
+the fact with the pettiest exultation.  "Oh, you--you
+are good."  Sarah Drew spoke as with difficulty.
+    "No adjective, my dear, was ever applied with less
+discrimination.  It is merely that you have rendered no
+inconsiderable service to posterity, and merit a
+reward."
+    "Oh, and indeed, indeed, I was always fond of
+you----"  The girl sobbed this.
+    She would have added more, no doubt, since com-
+
+passion is garrulous, had not Pope's scratched hand
+dismissed a display of emotion as not entirely in con-
+sonance with the rules of the game.
+    "My dear, therein you have signally honored me. 
+There remains only to offer you my appreciation of your
+benevolence toward a sickly monster, and to entreat for
+my late intrusion--however unintentional--that
+forgiveness which you would not deny, I think, to any
+other impertinent insect."
+    "Oh, but we have no words to thank you, sir----!" 
+Thus Hughes began.
+    "Then don't attempt it, my good fellow.  For
+phrase-spinning, as I can assure you, is the most
+profitless of all pursuits." Whereupon Pope bowed
+low, wheeled, walked away.  Yes, he was wounded past
+sufferance; it seemed to him he must die of it.  Life
+was a farce, and Destiny an overseer who hiccoughed
+mandates.  Well, all that even Destiny could find to
+gloat over, he reflected, was the tranquil figure of a
+smallish gentleman switching at the grass-blades with
+his cane as he sauntered under darkening skies.
+    For a storm was coming on, and the first big drops
+of it were splattering the terrace when Mr. Pope en-
+tered Lord Harcourt's mansion.
+
+    Pope went straight to his own rooms.  As he came in
+there was a vivid flash of lightning, followed
+instantaneously by a crashing, splitting noise, like
+that of universes ripped asunder.  He did not honor the
+high uproar with attention.  This dwarf was not afraid
+of anything except the commission of an error in taste.
+    Then, too, there were letters for him, laid ready
+on the writing-table.  Nothing of much importance he
+found there.--Here, though, was a rather diverting
+letter from Eustace Budgell, that poor fool, abjectly
+thanking Mr. Pope for his advice concerning how best to
+answer the atrocious calumnies on Budgell then
+appearing in The Grub-Street Journal,--and reposing,
+drolly enough, next the proof-sheets of an anonymous
+letter Pope had prepared for the forthcoming issue of
+that publication, wherein he sprightlily told how
+Budgell had poisoned Dr. Tindal, after forging his
+will.  For even if Budgell had not in point of
+fact been guilty of these particular peccadilloes, he
+had quite certainly committed the crime of speaking
+lightly of Mr. Pope, as "a little envious animal," some
+seven years ago; and it was for this grave indiscretion
+that Pope was dexterously goading the man into
+insanity, and eventually drove him to suicide. . . .
+    The storm made the room dark and reading difficult. 
+Still, this was an even more amusing letter, from the
+all-powerful Duchess of Marlborough.  In as civil terms
+as her sick rage could muster, the frightened woman
+offered Mr. Pope L1,000 to suppress his verbal portrait
+of her, in the character of Atossa, from his Moral
+Essays; and Pope straightway decided to accept the
+bribe, and afterward to print his verses unchanged. 
+For the hag, as he reflected, very greatly needed to be
+taught that in this world there was at least one person
+who did not quail before her tantrums.  There would be,
+moreover, even an elementary justice in thus robbing
+her who had robbed England at large.  And, besides, her
+name was Sarah. . . .
+    Pope lighted four candles and set them before the
+long French mirror.  He stood appraising his many
+curious deformities while the storm raged.  He stood
+sidelong, peering over his left shoulder, in order to
+see the outline of his crooked back.  Nowhere in
+England, he reflected, was there a person more pitiable
+and more repellent outwardly.
+    "And, oh, it would be droll," Pope said, aloud, "if
+our exteriors were ever altogether parodies.  But
+time keeps a diary in our faces, and writes a
+monstrously plain hand.  Now, if you take the first
+letter of Mr. Alexander Pope's Christian name, and the
+first and last letters of his surname, you have A. P.
+E.," Pope quoted, genially.  "I begin to think that
+Dennis was right.  What conceivable woman would not
+prefer a well-set man of five-and-twenty to such a
+withered abortion?  And what does it matter, after all,
+that a hunchback has dared to desire a shapely brown-
+haired woman?"
+    Pope came more near to the mirror.  "Make answer,
+you who have dared to imagine that a goddess was ever
+drawn to descend into womanhood except by kisses, brawn
+and a clean heart."
+    Another peal of thunder bellowed.  The storm was
+growing furious.  "Yet I have had a marvelous dream. 
+Now I awaken.  I must go on in the old round.  As long
+as my wits preserve their agility I must be able to
+amuse, to flatter and, at need, to intimidate the
+patrons of that ape in the mirror, so that they will
+not dare refuse me the market-value of my antics.  And
+Sarah Drew has declined an alliance such as this in
+favor of a fresh-colored complexion and a pair of
+straight shoulders!"
+    Pope thought a while.  "And a clean heart!  She
+bargained royally, giving love for nothing less than
+love.  The man is rustic, illiterate; he never heard of
+Aristotle, he would be at a loss to distinguish between
+a trochee and a Titian, and if you mentioned Boileau to
+him would probably imagine you were talking of
+cookery.  But he loves her.  He would forfeit eternity
+to save her a toothache.  And, chief of all, she can
+make this robust baby happy, and she alone can make him
+happy.  And so, she gives, gives royally--she gives,
+God bless her!"
+    Rain, sullen rain, was battering the window.  "And
+you--you hunchback in the mirror, you maker of neat
+rhymes--pray, what had you to offer?  A coach-and-six,
+of course, and pin-money and furbelows and in the end a
+mausoleum with unimpeachable Latin on it!  And--pate
+sur pate--an unswerving devotion which she would share
+on almost equal terms with the Collected Works of
+Alexander Pope.  And so she chose--chose brawn and a
+clean heart."
+    The dwarf turned, staggered, fell upon his bed. 
+"God, make a man of me, make me a good brave man.  I
+loved her--oh, such as I am, You know that I loved her! 
+You know that I desire her happiness above all things. 
+Ah, no, for You know that I do not at bottom.  I want
+to hurt, to wound all living creatures, because they
+know how to be happy, and I do not know how.  Ah, God,
+and why did You decree that I should never be an obtuse
+and comely animal such as this John Hughes is?  I am so
+tired of being `the great Mr. Pope,' and I want only
+the common joys of life."
+    The hunchback wept.  It would be too curious to
+anatomize the writhings of his proud little spirit.
+
+    Now some one tapped upon the door.  It was
+John Gay.  He was bidden to enter, and, complying,
+found Mr. Pope yawning over the latest of Tonson's
+publications.
+    Gay's face was singularly portentous.  "My friend,"
+Gay blurted out, "I bring news which will horrify you. 
+Believe me, I would never have mustered the pluck to
+bring it did I not love you.  I cannot let you hear it
+first in public and unprepared, as, otherwise, you
+would have to do."
+    "Do I not know you have the kindest heart in all
+the world?  Why, so outrageous are your amiable defects
+that they would be the public derision of your enemies
+if you had any," Pope returned.
+    The other poet evinced an awkward comminglement of
+consternation and pity.  "It appears that when this
+storm arose--why, Mistress Drew was with a young man of
+the neighborhood--a John Hewet------"  Gay was speaking
+with unaccustomed rapidity.
+    "Hughes, I think," Pope interrupted, equably.
+    "Perhaps--I am not sure.  They sought shelter under
+a haycock.  You will remember that first crash of
+thunder, as if the heavens were in demolishment?  My
+friend, the reapers who had been laboring in the
+fields--who had been driven to such protection as the
+trees or hedges afforded----"
+    "Get on!" a shrill voice cried; "for God's love,
+man, get on!"  Mr. Pope had risen.  This pallid shaken
+wisp was not in appearance the great Mr. Pope
+whose ingenuity had enabled Homeric warriors to
+excel in the genteel.
+    "They first saw a little smoke. . . .  They found
+this Hughes with one arm about the neck of Mistress
+Drew, and the other held over her face, as if to screen
+her from the lightning.  They were both"--and here Gay
+hesitated.  "They were both dead," he amended.
+    Pope turned abruptly.  Nakedness is of necessity
+uncouth, he held, whether it be the body or the soul
+that is unveiled.  Mr. Pope went toward a window which
+he opened, and he stood thus looking out for a brief
+while.
+    "So she is dead," he said.  "It is very strange. 
+So many rare felicities of curve and color, so much of
+purity and kindliness and valor and mirth, extinguished
+as one snuffs a candle!  Well!  I am sorry she is dead,
+for the child had a talent for living and got such joy
+out of it. . . .  Hers was a lovely happy life, but it
+was sterile.  Already nothing remains of her but dead
+flesh which must be huddled out of sight.  I shall not
+perish thus entirely, I believe.  Men will remember me. 
+Truly a mighty foundation for pride! when the utmost I
+can hope for is but to be read in one island, and to be
+thrown aside at the end of one age.  Indeed, I am not
+even sure of that much.  I print, and print, and print. 
+And when I collect my verses into books, I am
+altogether uncertain whether to took upon myself as a
+man building a monument, or burying the dead.  It
+sometimes seems to me that each publication is but a
+solemn funeral of many wasted years.  For I have
+given all to the verse-making.  Granted that the
+sacrifice avails to rescue my name from oblivion, what
+will it profit me when I am dead and care no more for
+men's opinions than Sarah Drew cares now for what I say
+of her?  But then she never cared.  She loved John
+Hughes.  And she was right."
+    He made an end of speaking, still peering out of
+the window with considerate narrowed eyes.
+    The storm was over.  In the beech-tree opposite a
+wren was raising optimistic outcry.  The sun had won
+his way through a black-bellied shred of cloud; upon
+the terrace below, a dripping Venus and a Perseus were
+glistening as with white fire.  Past these, drenched
+gardens, the natural wildness of which was judiciously
+restrained with walks, ponds, grottoes, statuary and
+other rural elegancies, displayed the intermingled
+brilliancies of diamonds and emeralds, and glittered as
+with pearls and rubies where tempest-battered roses
+were reviving in assertiveness.
+    "I think the storm is over," Mr. Pope remarked. 
+"It is strange how violent are these convulsions of
+nature. . . .  But nature is a treacherous blowsy jade,
+who respects nobody.  A gentleman can but shrug under
+her onslaughts, and henceforward civilly avoid them. 
+It is a consolation to reflect that they pass quickly."
+    He turned as in defiance.  "Yes, yes!  It hurts. 
+But I envy them.  Yes, even I, that ugly spiteful
+hornet of a man! `the great Mr. Pope,' who will be
+dining with the proudest people in England within
+the hour and gloating over their deference!  For they
+presume to make a little free with God occasionally,
+John, but never with me.  And _I_ envy these dead young
+fools. . . .  You see, they loved each other, John.  I
+left them, not an hour ago, the happiest of living
+creatures.  I looked back once.  I pretended to have
+dropped my handkerchief.  I imagine they were talking
+of their wedding-clothes, for this broad-shouldered
+Hughes was matching poppies and field-flowers to her
+complexion.  It was a scene out of Theocritus.  I think
+Heaven was so well pleased by the tableau that Heaven
+hastily resumed possession of its enactors in order to
+prevent any after-happenings from belittling that
+perfect instant."
+    "Egad, and matrimony might easily have proved an
+anti-climax," Gay considered.
+    "Yes; oh, it is only Love that is blind, and not
+the lover necessarily.  I know.  I suppose I always
+knew at the bottom of my heart.  This hamadryad was
+destined in the outcome to dwindle into a village
+housewife, she would have taken a lively interest in
+the number of eggs the hens were laying, she would even
+have assured her children, precisely in the way her
+father spoke of John Hughes, that young people
+ordinarily have foolish fancies which their rational
+elders agree to disregard.  But as it is, no Eastern
+queen--not Semele herself--left earth more nobly--"
+    Pope broke off short.  He produced his notebook,
+which he never went without, and wrote frowningly,
+with many erasures.  "H'm, yes," he said; and he read
+aloud:
+
+        "When Eastern lovers feed the funeral fire,
+         On the same pile the faithful fair expire;
+         Here pitying heaven that virtue mutual found,
+         And blasted both that it might neither wound.
+         Hearts so sincere the Almighty saw well
+pleased,
+         Sent His own lightning and the victims
+seized."
+
+    Then Pope made a grimace.  "No; the analogy is trim
+enough, but the lines lack fervor.  It is deplorable
+how much easier it is to express any emotion other than
+that of which one is actually conscious."  Pope had
+torn the paper half-through before he reflected that it
+would help to fill a printed page.  He put it in his
+pocket.  "But, come now, I am writing to Lady Mary this
+afternoon.  You know how she loves oddities.  Between
+us--with prose as the medium, of course, since verse
+should, after all, confine itself to the commemoration
+of heroes and royal persons--I believe we might make of
+this occurrence a neat and moving pastorelle--I
+should say, pastoral, of course, but my wits are wool-
+gathering."
+    Mr. Gay had the kindest heart in the universe.  Yet
+he, also, had dreamed of the perfected phrase, so
+worded that to alter a syllable of its wording would be
+little short of sacrilege.  Eyes kindling, he took up a
+pen.  "Yes, yes, I understand.  Egad, it is an
+admirable subject.  But, then, I don't believe I ever
+saw these lovers----?"
+    "John was a well-set man of about five-and-twenty,"
+replied Mr. Pope; "and Sarah was a brown woman of
+eighteen years, three months and fourteen days."
+    Then these two dipped their pens and set about a
+moving composition, which has to-day its proper rating
+among Mr. Pope's Complete Works.
+
+
+
+                           PRO HONORIA
+
+
+    "But that sense of negation, of theoretic
+insecurity, which was in the air, conspiring with what
+was of like tendency in himself, made of Lord UFFORD
+a central type of disillusion. . . .  He had been
+amiable because the general betise of humanity did not
+in his opinion greatly matter, after all; and in
+reading these `SATIRES' it is well-nigh painful to
+witness the blind and naked forces of nature and
+circumstance surprising him in the uncontrollable
+movements of his own so carefully guarded heart."
+
+
+
+        Why is a handsome wife adored
+        By every coxcomb but her lord?
+
+        From yonder puppet-man inquire
+        Who wisely hides his wood and wire;
+        Shows Sheba's queen completely dress'd
+        And Solomon in royal vest;
+
+        But view them litter'd on the floor,
+        Or strung on pegs behind the door,
+        Punch is exactly of a piece
+        With Lorrain's duke, and prince of Greece.
+
+                    HORACE CALVERLEY.  Petition
+                        to the Duke of Ormskirk.
+
+
+
+                           PRO HONORIA
+
+In the early winter of 1761 the Earl of Bute, then
+Secretary of State, gave vent to an outburst of
+unaccustomed profanity.  Mr. Robert Calverley, who
+represented England at the Court of St. Petersburg, had
+resigned his office without prelude or any word of
+explanation.  This infuriated Bute, since his pet
+scheme was to make peace with Russia and thereby end
+the Continental War.  Now all was to do again; the
+minister raged, shrugged, furnished a new emissary with
+credentials, and marked Calverley's name for
+punishment.
+    As much, indeed, was written to Calverley by Lord
+Ufford, the poet, diarist, musician and virtuoso:
+
+    Our Scottish Mortimer, it appears, is unwilling to
+have the map of Europe altered because Mr. Robert
+Calverley has taken a whim to go into Italy.  He is
+angrier than I have ever known him to be.  He swears
+that with a pen's flourish you have imperiled the well-
+being of England, and raves in the same breath of the
+preferment he had designed for you.  Beware of him. 
+For my own part, I shrug and acquiesce, because I
+am familiar with your pranks.  I merely venture to
+counsel that you do not crown the Pelion of abuse,
+which our statesmen are heaping upon you, with the Ossa
+of physical as well as political suicide.  Hasten on
+your Italian jaunt, for Umfraville, who is now with me
+at Carberry Hill, has publicly declared that if you
+dare re-appear in England he will have you horsewhipped
+by his footmen.  In consequence, I would most earnestly
+advise----
+
+    Mr. Calverley read no further, but came straightway
+into England.  He had not been in England since his
+elopement, three years before that spring, with the
+Marquis of Umfraville's betrothed, Lord Radnor's
+daughter, whom Calverley had married at Calais.  Mr.
+Calverley and his wife were presently at Carberry Hill,
+Lord Ufford's home, where, arriving about moon-rise,
+they found a ball in progress.
+    Their advent caused a momentary check to merriment. 
+The fiddlers ceased, because Lord Ufford had signaled
+them.  The fine guests paused in their stately dance. 
+Lord Ufford, in a richly figured suit, came hastily to
+Lady Honoria Calverley, his high heels tapping audibly
+upon the floor, and with gallantry lifted her hand
+toward his lips.  Her husband he embraced, and the two
+men kissed each other, as was the custom of the age. 
+Chatter and laughter rose on every side as pert and
+merry as the noises of a brook in springtime.
+    "I fear that as Lord Umfraville's host," young
+Calverley at once began, "you cannot with decorum
+convey to the ignoramus my opinion as to his ability to
+conjugate the verb TO DARE."
+    "Why, but no! you naturally demand a duel," the
+poet-earl returned.  "It is very like you.  I lament
+your decision, but I will attempt to arrange the
+meeting for to-morrow morning."
+    Lord Ufford smiled and nodded to the musicians.  He
+finished the dance to admiration, as this lean dan-
+dified young man did everything--"assiduous to win each
+fool's applause," as his own verses scornfully phrase
+it.  Then Ufford went about his errand of death and
+conversed for a long while with Umfraville.
+    Afterward Lord Ufford beckoned to Calverley, who
+shrugged and returned Mr. Erwyn's snuff-box, which
+Calverley had been admiring.  He followed the earl into
+a side-room opening upon the Venetian Chamber wherein
+the fete was.  Ufford closed the door.  You saw that he
+had put away the exterior of mirth that hospitality
+demanded of him, and perturbation showed in the lean
+countenance which was by ordinary so proud and so
+amiably peevish.
+    "Robin, you have performed many mad actions in your
+life!" he said; "but this return into the three
+kingdoms out-Herods all!  Did I not warn you against
+Umfraville!"
+    "Why, certainly you did," returned Mr. Calverley. 
+"You informed me--which was your duty as a friend--of
+this curmudgeon's boast that he would have me
+horsewhipped if I dared venture into England.  You
+will readily conceive that any gentleman of self-
+respect cannot permit such farcical utterances to be
+delivered without appending a gladiatorial epilogue. 
+Well! what are the conditions of this duel?"
+    "Oh, fool that I have been!" cried Ufford, who was
+enabled now by virtue of their seclusion to manifest
+his emotion.  "I, who have known you all your
+life----!"
+    He paced the room.  Pleading music tinged the
+silence almost insensibly.
+    "Heh, Fate has an imperial taste in humor!" the
+poet said.  "Robin, we have been more than brothers. 
+And it is I, I, of all persons living, who have drawn
+you into this imbroglio!"
+    "My danger is not very apparent as yet," said Cal-
+verley, "if Umfraville controls his sword no better
+than his tongue."
+    My lord of Ufford went on:  "There is no question
+of a duel.  It is as well to spare you what Lord Um-
+fraville replied to my challenge.  Let it suffice that
+we do not get sugar from the snake.  Besides, the man
+has his grievance.  Robin, have you forgot that neck-
+lace you and Pevensey took from Umfraville some three
+years ago--before you went into Russia?"
+    Calverley laughed.  The question recalled an old
+hot-headed time when, exalted to a frolicsome zone by
+the discovery of Lady Honoria Pomfret's love for him,
+he planned the famous jest which he and the mad Earl of
+Pevensey perpetrated upon Umfraville.  This masquerade
+won quick applause.  Persons of ton guffawed
+like ploughboys over the discomfiture of an old hunks
+thus divertingly stripped of his bride, all his
+betrothal gifts, and of the very clothes he wore.  An
+anonymous scribbler had detected in the occurrence a
+denouement suited to the stage and had constructed a
+comedy around it, which, when produced by the Duke's
+company, had won acclaim from hilarious auditors.
+    So Calverley laughed heartily.  "Gad, what a jest
+that was!  This Umfraville comes to marry Honoria.  And
+highwaymen attack his coach!  I would give L50 to have
+witnessed this usurer's arrival at Denton Honor in his
+underclothes! and to have seen his monkey-like grimaces
+when he learned that Honoria and I were already across
+the Channel!"
+    "You robbed him, though----"
+    "Indeed, for beginners at peculation we did not do
+so badly.  We robbed him and his valet of everything in
+the coach, including their breeches.  You do not mean
+that Pevensey has detained the poor man's wedding
+trousers?  If so, it is unfortunate, because this loud-
+mouthed miser has need of them in order that he may be
+handsomely interred."
+    "Lord Umfraville's wedding-suit was stuffed with
+straw, hung on a pole and paraded through London by
+Pevensey, March, Selwyn and some dozen other madcaps,
+while six musicians marched before them.  The clothes
+were thus conveyed to Umfraville's house.  I think none
+of us would have relished a joke like that were he the
+butt of it."
+    Now the poet's lean countenance was turned upon
+young Calverley, and as always, Ufford evoked that
+nobility in Calverley which follies veiled but had not
+ever killed.
+    "Egad," said Robert Calverley; "I grant you that
+all this was infamously done.  I never authorized it. 
+I shall kill Pevensey.  Indeed, I will do more," he
+added, with a flourish.  "For I will apologize to
+Umfraville, and this very night."
+    But Ufford was not disposed to levity.  "Let us
+come to the point," he sadly said.  "Pevensey returned
+everything except the necklace which Umfraville had
+intended to be his bridal gift.  Pevensey conceded the
+jest, in fine; and denied all knowledge of any
+necklace."
+    It was an age of accommodating morality.  Calverley
+sketched a whistle, and showed no other trace of
+astonishment.
+    "I see.  The fool confided in the spendthrift.  My
+dear, I understand.  In nature Pevensey gave the gems
+to some nymph of Sadler's Wells or Covent Garden.  For
+I was out of England.  And so he capped his knavery
+with insolence.  It is an additional reason why
+Pevensey should not live to scratch a gray head.  It
+is, however, an affront to me that Umfraville should
+have believed him.  I doubt if I may overlook that,
+Horace?"
+    "I question if he did believe.  But, then, what
+help had he?  This Pevensey is an earl.  His person as
+a peer of England is inviolable.  No statute touches
+him directly, because he may not be confined
+except by the King's personal order.  And it is
+tolerably notorious that Pevensey is in Lord Bute's
+pay, and that our Scottish Mortimer, to do him justice,
+does not permit his spies to be injured."
+    Now Mr. Calverley took snuff.  The music without
+was now more audible, and it had shifted to a merrier
+tune.
+    "I think I comprehend.  Pevensey and I--whatever
+were our motives--have committed a robbery.  Pevensey,
+as the law runs, is safe.  I, too, was safe as long as
+I kept out of England.  As matters stand, Lord
+Umfraville intends to press a charge of theft against
+me.  And I am in disgrace with Bute, who is quite
+content to beat offenders with a crooked stick.  This
+confluence of two-penny accidents is annoying."
+    "It is worse than you know," my lord of Ufford
+returned.  He opened the door which led to the Venetian
+Chamber.  A surge of music, of laughter, and of many
+lights invaded the room wherein they stood.  "D'ye see
+those persons, just past Umfraville, so inadequately
+disguised as gentlemen?  They are from Bow Street. 
+Lord Umfraville intends to apprehend you here to-
+night."
+    "He has an eye for the picturesque," drawled Cal-
+verley.  "My tragedy, to do him justice, could not be
+staged more strikingly.  Those additional alcoves have
+improved the room beyond belief.  I must apologize for
+not having rendered my compliments a trifle
+earlier."
+    Internally he outstormed Termagaunt.  It was in-
+famous enough, in all conscience, to be arrested, but
+to have half the world of fashion as witnessess of ones
+discomfiture was perfectly intolerable.  He recognized
+the excellent chance he had of being the most prominent
+figure upon some scaffold before long, but that
+contingency did not greatly trouble Calverley, as set
+against the certainty of being made ridiculous within
+the next five minutes.
+    In consequence, he frowned and rearranged the fall
+of his shirt-frill a whit the more becomingly.
+    "Yes, for hate sharpens every faculty," the earl
+went on.  "Even Umfraville understands that you do not
+fear death.  So he means to have you tried like any
+common thief while all your quondam friends sit and
+snigger.  And you will be convicted----"
+    "Why, necessarily, since I am not as Pevensey.  Of
+course, I must confess I took the necklace."
+    "And Pevensey must stick to the tale that he knows
+nothing of any necklace.  Dear Robin, this means
+Newgate.  Accident deals very hardly with us, Robin,
+for this means Tyburn Hill."
+    "Yes; I suppose it means my death," young Calverley
+assented.  "Well! I have feasted with the world and
+found its viands excellent.  The banquet ended, I must
+not grumble with my host because I find his choice of
+cordials not altogether to my liking."  Thus speaking,
+he was aware of nothing save that the fiddlers were now
+about an air to which he had often danced with his dear
+wife.
+    "I have a trick yet left to save our honor,----" 
+Lord Ufford turned to a table where wine and glasses
+were set ready.  "I propose a toast.  Let us drink--for
+the last time--to the honor of the Calverleys."
+    "It is an invitation I may not decorously refuse. 
+And yet--it may be that I do not understand you?"
+    My lord of Ufford poured wine into two glasses. 
+These glasses were from among the curios he collected
+so industriously--tall, fragile things, of seventeenth
+century make, very intricately cut with roses and
+thistles, and in the bottom of each glass a three-penny
+piece was embedded.  Lord Ufford took a tiny vial from
+his pocket and emptied its contents into the glass
+which stood the nearer to Mr. Calverley.
+    "This is Florence water.  We dabblers in science
+are experimenting with it at Gresham College.  A taste
+of it means death--a painless, quick and honorable
+death.  You will have died of a heart seizure.  Come,
+Robin, let us drink to the honor of the Calverleys."
+    The poet-earl paused for a little while.  Now he
+was like some seer of supernal things.
+    "For look you," said Lord Ufford, "we come of
+honorable blood.  We two are gentlemen.  We have our
+code, and we may not infringe upon it.  Our code does
+not invariably square with reason, and I doubt if
+Scripture would afford a dependable foundation.  So be
+it!  We have our code and we may not infringe upon it. 
+There have been many Calverleys who did not fear their
+God, but there was never any one of them who did
+not fear dishonor.  I am the head of no less proud a
+house.  As such, I counsel you to drink and die within
+the moment.  It is not possible a Calverley survive
+dishonor.  Oh, God!" the poet cried, and his voice
+broke; "and what is honor to this clamor within me! 
+Robin, I love you better than I do this talk of honor! 
+For, Robin, I have loved you long! so long that what we
+do to-night will always make life hideous to me!"
+    Calverley was not unmoved, but he replied in the
+tone of daily intercourse.  "It is undoubtedly absurd
+to perish here, like some unreasonable adversary of the
+Borgias.  Your device is rather outrageously horrific,
+Horace, like a bit out of your own romance--yes, egad,
+it is pre-eminently worthy of the author of The Vassal
+of Spalatro.  Still I can understand that it is
+preferable to having fat and greasy fellows squander a
+shilling for the privilege of perching upon a box while
+I am being hanged.  And I think I shall accept your
+toast--
+    "You will be avenged," Ufford said, simply.
+    "My dear, as if I ever questioned that!  Of course,
+you will kill Pevensey first and Umfraville afterward. 
+Only I want to live.  For I was meant to play a joyous
+role wholeheartedly in the big comedy of life.  So many
+people find the world a dreary residence," Mr.
+Calverley sighed, "that it is really a pity some one of
+these long-faced stolidities cannot die now instead of
+me.  For I have found life wonderful throughout."
+    The brows of Ufford knit.  "Would you consent
+to live as a transported felon?  I have much money.  I
+need not tell you the last penny is at your disposal. 
+It might be possible to bribe.  Indeed, Lord Bute is
+all-powerful to-day and he would perhaps procure a
+pardon for you at my entreaty.  He is so kind as to
+admire my scribblings. . .  Or you might live among
+your fellow-convicts somewhere over sea for a while
+longer.  I had not thought that such would be your
+choice----"  Here Ufford shrugged, restrained by
+courtesy.  "Besides, Lord Bute is greatly angered with
+you, because you have endangered his Russian alliance. 
+However, if you wish it, I will try----"
+    "Oh, for that matter, I do not much fear Lord Bute,
+because I bring him the most welcome news he has had in
+many a day.  I may tell you since it will be public to-
+morrow.  The Tzaritza Elizabeth, our implacable enemy,
+died very suddenly three weeks ago.  Peter of Holstein-
+Gottrop reigns to-day in Russia, and I have made terms
+with him.  I came to tell Lord Bute the Cossack troops
+have been recalled from Prussia.  The war is at an
+end."  Young Calverley meditated and gave his customary
+boyish smile.  "Yes, I discharged my Russian mission
+after all--even after I had formally relinquished it--
+because I was so opportunely aided by the accident of
+the Tzaritza's death.  And Bute cares only for results. 
+So I would explain to him that I resigned my mission
+simply because in Russia my wife could not have lived
+out another year----"
+    The earl exclaimed, "Then Honoria is ill!" 
+Mr. Calverley did not attend, but stood looking
+out into the Venetian Chamber.
+    "See, Horace, she is dancing with Anchester while I
+wait here so near to death.  She dances well.  But
+Honoria does everything adorably.  I cannot tell you--
+oh, not even you!--how happy these three years have
+been with her.  Eh, well! the gods are jealous of such
+happiness.  You will remember how her mother died?  It
+appears that Honoria is threatened with a slow
+consumption, and a death such as her mother's was.  She
+does not know.  There was no need to frighten her.  For
+although the rigors of another Russian winter, as all
+physicians tell me, would inevitably prove fatal to
+her, there is no reason why my dearest dear should not
+continue to laugh just as she always does--for a long,
+bright and happy while in some warm climate such as
+Italy's.  In nature I resigned my appointment.  I did
+not consider England, or my own trivial future, or
+anything of that sort.  I considered only Honoria."
+    He gazed for many moments upon the woman whom he
+loved.  His speech took on an odd simplicity.
+    "Oh, yes, I think that in the end Bute would pro-
+
+cure a pardon for me.  But not even Bute can override
+the laws of England.  I would have to be tried first,
+and have ballads made concerning me, and be condemned,
+and so on.  That would detain Honoria in England,
+because she is sufficiently misguided to love me.  I
+could never persuade her to leave me with my life
+in peril.  She could not possibly survive an English
+winter."  Here Calverley evinced unbridled mirth.  "The
+irony of events is magnificent.  There is probably no
+question of hanging or even of transportation.  It is
+merely certain that if I venture from this room I bring
+about Honoria's death as incontestably as if I
+strangled her with these two hands.  So I choose my own
+death in preference.  It will grieve Honoria----"  His
+voice was not completely steady.  "But she is young. 
+She will forget me, for she forgets easily, and she
+will be happy.  I look to you to see--even before you
+have killed Pevensey--that Honoria goes into Italy. 
+For she admires and loves you, almost as much as I do,
+Horace, and she will readily be guided by you----"
+    He cried my lord of Ufford's given name some two or
+three times, for young Calverley had turned, and he had
+seen Ufford's face.
+    The earl moistened his lips.  "You are a fool," he
+said, with a thin voice.  "Why do you trouble me by
+being better than I?  Or do you only posture for my
+benefit?  Do you deal honestly with me, Robert Cal-
+
+verley?--then swear it----"  He laughed here, very
+horribly.  "Ah, no, when did you ever lie!  You do not
+lie--not you!"
+    He waited for a while.  "But I am otherwise.  I
+dare to lie when the occasion promises.  I have desired
+Honoria since the first moment wherein I saw her.  I
+may tell you now.  I think that you do not remember.  
+We gathered cherries.  I ate two of them
+which had just lain upon her knee----"
+    His hands had clenched each other, and his lips
+were drawn back so that you saw his exquisite teeth,
+which were ground together.  He stood thus for a
+little, silent.
+    Then Ufford began again:  "I planned all this.  I
+plotted this with Umfraville.  I wrote you such a let-
+
+ter as would inevitably draw you to your death.  I
+wished your death.  For Honoria would then be freed of
+you.  I would condole with her.  She is readily
+comforted, impatient of sorrow, incapable of it, I dare
+say.  She would have married me. . . .  Why must I tell
+you this?  Oh, I am Fate's buffoon!  For I have won, I
+have won! and there is that in me which will not accept
+the stake I cheated for."
+    "And you," said Calverley--"this thing is you!"
+    "A helpless reptile now," said Ufford.  "I have not
+the power to check Lord Umfraville in his vengeance. 
+You must be publicly disgraced, and must, I think, be
+hanged even now when it will not benefit me at all.  It
+may be I shall weep for that some day!  Or else Honoria
+must die, because an archangel could not persuade her
+to desert you in your peril.  For she loves you--loves
+you to the full extent of her merry and shallow nature. 
+Oh, I know that, as you will never know it.  I shall
+have killed Honoria!  I shall not weep when Honoria
+dies.  Harkee, Robin! they are dancing yonder.  It is
+odd to think that I shall never dance again."
+    "Horace--!" the younger man said, like a person of
+two minds.  He seemed to choke.  He gave a frantic
+gesture.  "Oh, I have loved you.  I have loved nothing
+as I have loved you."
+    "And yet you chatter of your passion for Honoria!"
+Lord Ufford returned, with a snarl.  "I ask what proof
+is there of this?--Why, that you have surrendered your
+well-being in this world through love of her.  But I
+gave what is vital.  I was an honorable gentleman
+without any act in all my life for which I had need to
+blush.  I loved you as I loved no other being in the
+universe."  He spread his hands, which now twitched
+horribly.  "You will never understand.  It does not
+matter.  I desired Honoria.  To-day through my desire
+of her, I am that monstrous thing which you alone know
+me to be.  I think I gave up much.  Pro honoria!" he
+chuckled.  "The Latin halts, but, none the less, the
+jest is excellent."
+    "You have given more than I would dare to give,"
+said Calverley.  He shuddered.
+    "And to no end!" cried Ufford.  "Ah, fate, the
+devil and that code I mocked are all in league to cheat
+me!"
+    Said Calverley:  "The man whom I loved most is
+dead.  Oh, had the world been searched between the
+sunrise and the sunsetting there had not been found his
+equal.  And now, poor fool, I know that there was never
+any man like this!"
+    "Nay, there was such a man," the poet said, "in an
+old time which I almost forget.  To-day he is
+quite dead.  There is only a poor wretch who has been
+faithless in all things, who has not even served the
+devil faithfully."
+    "Why, then, you lackey with a lackey's soul, attend
+to what I say.  Can you make any terms with
+Umfraville?"
+    "I can do nothing," Ufford replied.  "You have
+robbed him--as me--of what he most desired.  You have
+made him the laughing-stock of England.  He does not
+pardon any more than I would pardon."
+    "And as God lives and reigns, I do not greatly
+blame him," said young Calverley.  "This man at least
+was wronged.  Concerning you I do not speak, because of
+a false dream I had once very long ago.  Yet Umfraville
+was treated infamously.  I dare concede what I could
+not permit another man to say and live, now that I
+drink a toast which I must drink alone.  For I drink to
+the honor of the Calverleys.  I have not ever lied to
+any person in this world, and so I may not drink with
+you."
+    "Oh, but you drink because you know your death to
+be the one event which can insure her happiness," cried
+Ufford.  "We are not much unlike.  And I dare say it is
+only an imaginary Honoria we love, after all.  Yet,
+look, my fellow-Ixion! for to the eye at least is she
+not perfect?"
+    The two men gazed for a long while.  Amid that
+coterie of exquisites, wherein allusion  to whatever
+might he ugly in the world was tacitly allowed to be
+unmentionable, Lady Honoria glitteringly went
+about the moment's mirthful business with lovely
+ardor.  You saw now unmistakably that "Light Queen of
+Elfdom, dead Titania's heir" of whom Ufford writes in
+the fourth Satire.  Honoria's prettiness, rouged,
+frail, and modishly enhanced, allured the eye from all
+less elfin brilliancies; and as she laughed among so
+many other relishers of life her charms became the more
+instant, just as a painting quickens in every tint when
+set in an appropriate frame.
+    "There is no other way," her husband said.  He
+drank and toasted what was dearest in the world,
+smiling to think how death came to him in that wine's
+familiar taste.  "I drink to the most lovely of created
+ladies! and to her happiness!"
+    He snapped the stem of the glass and tossed it joy-
+ously aside.
+    "Assuredly, there is no other way," said Ufford. 
+"And armored by that knowledge, even I may drink as
+honorable people do.  Pro honoria!"  Then this man
+also broke his emptied glass.
+    "How long have I to live?" said Calverley, and took
+snuff.
+    "Why, thirty years, I think, unless you duel too
+immoderately," replied Lord Ufford,--"since while you
+looked at Honoria I changed our glasses.  No! no! a
+thing done has an end.  Besides, it is not unworthy of
+me.  So go boldly to the Earl of Bute and tell him all. 
+You are my cousin and my successor.  Yes, very soon
+you, too, will be a peer of England and as safe from
+molestation as is Lord Pevensey.  I am the first
+to tender my congratulations.  Now I make certain that
+they are not premature."
+    The poet laughed at this moment as a man may laugh
+in hell.  He reeled.  His lean face momentarily
+contorted, and afterward the poet died.
+    "I am Lord Ufford," said Calverley aloud.  "The
+person of a peer is inviolable----"  He presently
+looked downward from rapt gazing at his wife.
+    Fresh from this horrible half-hour, he faced a fu-
+ture so alluring as by its beauty to intimidate him. 
+Youth, love, long years of happiness, and (by this
+capricious turn) now even opulence, were the in-
+gredients of a captivating vista.  And yet he needs
+must pause a while to think of the dear comrade he had
+lost--of that loved boy, his pattern in the time of
+their common youthfulness which gleamed in memory as
+bright and misty as a legend, and of the perfect
+chevalier who had been like a touchstone to Robert Cal-
+verley a bare half-hour ago.  He knelt, touched lightly
+the fallen jaw, and lightly kissed the cheek of this
+poor wreckage; and was aware that the caress was given
+with more tenderness than Robert Calverley had shown in
+the same act a bare half-hour ago.
+    Meanwhile the music of a country dance urged the
+new Earl of Ufford to come and frolic where every one
+was laughing; and to partake with gusto of the benefits
+which chance had provided; and to be forthwith as merry
+as was decorous in a peer of England.
+
+
+
+
+                      THE IRRESISTIBLE OGLE
+
+
+    "But after SHERIDAN had risen to a commanding
+position in the gay life of London, he rather disliked
+to be known as a playwright or a poet, and preferred to
+be regarded as a statesman and a man of fashion who
+`set the pace' in all pastimes of the opulent and idle. 
+Yet, whatever he really thought of his own writings,
+and whether or not he did them, as Stevenson used to
+say, `just for fun,' the fact remains that he was
+easily the most distinguished and brilliant dramatist
+of an age which produced in SHERIDAN'S solemn
+vagaries one of its most characteristic products."
+
+
+
+
+        Look on this form,--where humor, quaint and
+sly,
+        Dimples the cheek, and points the beaming eye;
+        Where gay invention seems to boast its wiles
+        In amorous hint, and half-triumphant smiles.
+
+        Look on her well--does she seem form'd to
+teach?
+        Should you expect to hear this lady preach?
+        Is gray experience suited to her youth?
+        Do solemn sentiments become that mouth?
+
+        Bid her be grave, those lips should rebel prove
+        To every theme that slanders mirth or love.
+
+                RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. Second
+                      Prologue to The Rivals.
+
+
+
+                      THE IRRESISTIBLE OGLE
+
+The devotion of Mr. Sheridan to the Dean of
+Winchester's daughter, Miss Esther Jane Ogle--or "the
+irresistible Ogle," as she was toasted at the Kit-cat--
+was now a circumstance to be assumed in the polite
+world of London.  As a result, when the parliamentarian
+followed her into Scotland, in the spring of 1795,
+people only shrugged.
+    "Because it proves that misery loves company," was
+Mr. Fox's observation at Wattier's, hard upon two in
+the morning.  "Poor Sherry, as an inconsolable widower,
+must naturally have some one to share his grief.  He
+perfectly comprehends that no one will lament the death
+of his wife more fervently than her successor."
+
+    In London Mr. Fox thus worded his interpretation of
+the matter; and spoke, oddly enough, at the very moment
+that in Edinburgh Mr. Sheridan returned to his lodgings
+in Abercromby Place, deep in the reminiscences of a
+fortunate evening at cards.  In consequence, Mr.
+Sheridan entered the room so quietly that the young man
+who was employed in turning over the contents of
+the top bureau-drawer was taken unprepared.
+    But in the marauder's nature, as far as resolution
+went, was little lacking.  "Silence!" he ordered, and
+with the mandate a pistol was leveled upon the rep-
+
+resentative for the borough of Stafford.  "One cry for
+help, and you perish like a dog.  I warn you that I am
+a desperate man."
+    "Now, even at a hazard of discourtesy, I must make
+bold to question your statement," said Mr. Sheridan,
+"although, indeed, it is not so much the recklessness
+as the masculinity which I dare call into dispute."
+    He continued, in his best parliamentary manner, a
+happy blending of reproach, omniscience and pardon. 
+"Only two months ago," said Mr. Sheridan, "I was so
+fortunate as to encounter a lady who, alike through the
+attractions of her person and the sprightliness of her
+conversation, convinced me I was on the road to fall in
+love after the high fashion of a popular romance.  I
+accordingly make her a declaration.  I am rejected.  I
+besiege her with the customary artillery of sonnets,
+bouquets, serenades, bonbons, theater-tickets and
+threats of suicide.  In fine, I contract the habit of
+proposing to Miss Ogle on every Wednesday; and so
+strong is my infatuation that I follow her as far into
+the north as Edinburgh in order to secure my eleventh
+rejection at half-past ten last evening."
+    "I fail to understand," remarked the burglar, "how
+all this prolix account of your amours can possibly
+concern me."
+    "You are at least somewhat involved in the deplor-
+able climax," Mr. Sheridan returned.  "For behold! at
+two in the morning I discover the object of my
+adoration and the daughter of an estimable prelate,
+most calumniously clad and busily employed in rumpling
+my supply of cravats.  If ever any lover was thrust
+into a more ambiguous position, madam, historians have
+touched on his dilemma with marked reticence."
+    He saw--and he admired--the flush which mounted to
+his visitor's brow.  And then, "I must concede that
+appearances are against me, Mr, Sheridan," the beau-
+tiful intruder said.  "And I hasten to protest that my
+presence in your apartments at this hour is prompted by
+no unworthy motive.  I merely came to steal the famous
+diamond which you brought from London--the Honor of
+Eiran."
+    "Incomparable Esther Jane," ran Mr. Sheridan's
+answer, "that stone is now part of a brooch which was
+this afternoon returned to my cousin's, the Earl of
+Eiran's, hunting-lodge near Melrose.  He intends the
+gem which you are vainly seeking among my haberdashery
+to be the adornment of his promised bride in the
+ensuing June.  I confess to no overwhelming admiration
+as concerns this raucous if meritorious young person;
+and will even concede that the thought of her becoming
+my kinswoman rouses in me an inevitable distaste, no
+less attributable to the discord of her features than
+to the source of her eligibility to disfigure the
+peerage--that being her father's lucrative
+transactions in Pork, which I find indigestible in any
+form."
+    "A truce to paltering!" Miss Ogle cried.  "That
+jewel was stolen from the temple at Moorshedabad, by
+the Earl of Eiran's grandfather, during the confusion
+necessarily attendant on the glorious battle of
+Plassy."  She laid down the pistol, and resumed in
+milder tones:  "From an age-long existence as the left
+eye of Ganesh it was thus converted into the loot of an
+invader.  To restore this diamond to its lawful,
+although no doubt polygamous and inefficiently-attired
+proprietors is at this date impossible.  But, oh! what
+claim have you to its possession?"
+    "Why, none whatever," said the parliamentarian;
+"and to contend as much would be the apex of unreason. 
+For this diamond belongs, of course, to my cousin the
+Earl of Eiran----"
+    "As a thief's legacy!"  She spoke with signs of
+irritation.
+    "Eh, eh, you go too fast!  Eiran, to do him
+justice, is not a graduate in peculation.  At worst, he
+is only the sort of fool one's cousins ordinarily are."
+    The trousered lady walked to and fro for a while,
+with the impatience of a caged lioness.  "I perceive I
+must go more deeply into matters," Miss Ogle remarked,
+and, with that habitual gesture which he fondly
+recognized, brushed back a straying lock of hair.  "In
+any event," she continued, "you cannot with reason deny
+that the world's wealth is inequitably
+distributed?"
+    "Madam," Mr. Sheridan returned, "as a member of
+Parliament, I have necessarily made it a rule never to
+understand political economy.  It is as apt as not to
+prove you are selling your vote to the wrong side of
+the House, and that hurts one's conscience."
+    "Ah, that is because you are a man.  Men are not
+practical.  None of you has ever dared to insist on his
+opinion about anything until he had secured the
+cowardly corroboration of a fact or so to endorse him. 
+It is a pity.  Yet, since through no fault of yours
+your sex is invariably misled by its hallucinations as
+to the importance of being rational, I will refrain
+from logic and statistics.  In a word, I simply inform
+you that I am a member of the League of Philanthropic
+Larcenists."
+    "I had not previously heard of this organization,"
+said Mr. Sheridan, and not without suspecting his
+response to be a masterpiece in the inadequate.
+    "Our object is the benefit of society at large,"
+Miss Ogle explained; "and our obstacles so far have
+been, in chief, the fetish of proprietary rights and
+the ubiquity of the police."
+    And with that she seated herself and told him of
+the league's inception by a handful of reflective
+persons, admirers of Rousseau and converts to his
+tenets, who were resolved to better the circumstances
+of the indigent.  With amiable ardor Miss Ogle
+explained how from the petit larcenies of charity-balls
+and personally solicited subscriptions the league had
+mounted to an ampler field of depredation; and through
+what means it now took toll from every form of
+wealth unrighteously acquired.  Divertingly she
+described her personal experiences in the separation of
+usurers, thieves, financiers, hereditary noblemen,
+popular authors, and other social parasites, from the
+ill-got profits of their disreputable vocations.  And
+her account of how, on the preceding Tuesday, she,
+single-handed, had robbed Sir Alexander McRae--who then
+enjoyed a fortune and an enviable reputation for
+philanthropy, thanks to the combination of glucose,
+vitriol and other chemicals which he prepared under the
+humorous pretext of manufacturing beer--wrung high
+encomiums from Mr. Sheridan.
+    "The proceeds of these endeavors," Miss Ogle added,
+"are conscientiously devoted to ameliorating the
+condition of meritorious paupers.  I would be happy to
+submit to you our annual report.  Then you may judge
+for yourself how many families we have snatched from
+the depths of poverty and habitual intoxication to the
+comparative comfort of a vine-embowered cottage."
+    Mr. Sheridan replied:  "I have not ever known of
+any case where adoration needed an affidavit for
+foundation.  Oh, no, incomparable Esther Jane!  I am
+not in a position to be solaced by the reports of a
+corresponding secretary.  I gave my heart long since;
+to-night I fling my confidence into the bargain; and am
+resolved to serve wholeheartedly the cause to which you
+are devoted.  In consequence, I venture to propose
+my name for membership in the enterprise you advocate
+and indescribably adorn."
+    Miss Ogle was all one blush, such was the fervor of
+his utterance.  "But first you must win your spurs, Mr.
+Sheridan.  I confess you are not abhorrent to me," she
+hurried on, "for you are the most fascinatingly hideous
+man I have ever seen; and it was always the
+apprehension that you might look on burglary as an
+unmaidenly avocation which has compelled me to
+discourage your addresses.  Now all is plain; and
+should you happen to distinguish yourself in robbery of
+the criminally opulent, you will have, I believe, no
+reason to complain of a twelfth refusal.  I cannot
+modestly say more."
+    He laughed.  "It is a bargain.  We will agree that
+I bereave some person of either stolen or unearned
+property, say, to the value of L10,000----"  And with
+his usual carefulness in such matters, Mr. Sheridan
+entered the wager in his notebook.
+    She yielded him her hand in token of assent.  And
+he, depend upon it, kissed that velvet trifle fondly.
+    "And now," said Mr. Sheridan, "to-morrow we will
+visit Bemerside and obtain possession of that crystal
+which is in train to render me the happiest of men. 
+The task will be an easy one, as Eiran is now in
+England, and his servants for the most part are my
+familiars."
+    "I agree to your proposal," she answered.  "But
+this diamond is my allotted quarry; and any assistance
+you may render me in procuring it will not, of
+course, affect in any way our bargain.  On this
+point"--she spoke with a break of laughter--"I am as
+headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile."
+    "To quote an author to his face," lamented Mr.
+Sheridan, "is bribery as gross as it is efficacious.  I
+must unwillingly consent to your exorbitant demands,
+for you are, as always, the irresistible Ogle."
+    Miss Ogle bowed her gratitude; and, declining Mr.
+Sheridan's escort, for fear of arousing gossip by being
+seen upon the street with him at this late hour, pre-
+ferred to avoid any appearance of indecorum by climbing
+down the kitchen roof.
+
+    When she had gone, Mr. Sheridan very gallantly
+attempted a set of verses.  But the Muse was not to be
+wooed to-night, and stayed obstinately coy.
+    Mr. Sheridan reflected, rather forlornly, that he
+wrote nothing nowadays.  There was, of course, his
+great comedy, Affectation, his masterpiece which he
+meant to finish at one time or another; yet, at the
+bottom of his heart, he knew that he would never finish
+it.  But, then, deuce take posterity! for to have
+written the best comedy, the best farce, and the best
+burlesque as well, that England had ever known, was a
+very prodigal wiping-out of every obligation toward
+posterity.  Boys thought a deal about posterity, as he
+remembered; but a sensible man would bear in mind that
+all this world's delicacies--its merry diversions, its
+venison and old wines, its handsomely-bound books and
+fiery-hearted jewels and sumptuous clothings, all
+its lovely things that can be touched and handled, and
+more especially its ear-tickling applause--were to be
+won, if ever, from one's contemporaries.  And people
+were generous toward social, rather than literary,
+talents for the sensible reason that they derived more
+pleasure from an agreeable companion at dinner than
+from having a rainy afternoon rendered endurable by
+some book or another.
+So the parliamentarian sensibly went to bed.
+
+    Miss, Ogle during this Scottish trip was accom-
+panied by her father, the venerable Dean of Winchester. 
+The Dean, although in all things worthy of implicit
+confidence, was not next day informed of the intended
+expedition, in deference to public opinion, which, as
+Miss Ogle pointed out, regards a clergyman's
+participation in a technical felony with disapproval.
+    Miss Ogle, therefore, radiant in a becoming gown of
+pink lute-string, left Edinburgh the following morning
+under cover of a subterfuge, and with Mr. Sheridan as
+her only escort.  He was at pains to adorn this role
+with so many happy touches of courtesy and amiability
+that their confinement in the postchaise appeared to
+both of incredible brevity.
+    When they had reached Melrose another chaise was
+ordered to convey them to Bemerside; and pending its
+forthcoming Mr. Sheridan and Miss Ogle strolled among
+the famous ruins of Melrose Abbey.  The parliamentarian
+had caused his hair to be exuberantly curled that
+morning, and figured to advantage in a plum-colored
+coat and a saffron waistcoat sprigged with forget-me-
+nots.  He chatted entertainingly concerning the Second
+Pointed style of architecture; translated many of the
+epitaphs; and was abundant in interesting information
+as to Robert Bruce, and Michael Scott, and the
+rencounter of Chevy Chase.
+    "Oh, but observe," said Mr. Sheridan, more lately,
+"our only covering is the dome of heaven.  Yet in their
+time these aisles were populous, and here a score of
+generations have besought what earth does not afford--
+now where the banners of crusaders waved the ivy
+flutters, and there is no incense in this consecrated
+house except the breath of the wild rose."
+    "The moral is an old one," she returned.  "Mummy is
+become merchandise, Mizraim cures wounds, and Pharaoh
+is sold for balsams."
+    "You are a reader, madam?" he observed, with some
+surprise; and he continued:  "Indeed, my thoughts were
+on another trail.  I was considering that the
+demolishers of this place--those English armies, those
+followers of John Knox--were actuated by the highest
+and most laudable of motives.  As a result we find the
+house of Heaven converted into a dustheap."
+
+    "I believe you attempt an apologue," she said,
+indignantly.  "Upon my word, I think you would in-
+sinuate that philanthropy, when forced to manifest
+itself through embezzlement, is a less womanly em-
+ployment than the darning of stockings!"
+    "Whom the cap fits----" he answered, with a bow. 
+"Indeed, incomparable Esther Jane, I had said nothing
+whatever touching hosiery; and it was equally remote
+from my intentions to set up as a milliner."
+
+    They lunched at Bemerside, where Mr. Sheridan was
+cordially received by the steward, and a well-chosen
+repast was placed at their disposal.
+    "Fergus," Mr. Sheridan observed, as they chatted
+over their dessert concerning famous gems--in which
+direction talk had been adroitly steered"--Fergus,
+since we are on the topic, I would like to show Miss
+Ogle the Honor of Eiran."
+    The Honor of Eiran was accordingly produced from a
+blue velvet case, and was properly admired.  Then, when
+the steward had been dismissed to fetch a rare liqueur,
+Mr. Sheridan laughed, and tossed and caught the jewel,
+as though he handled a cricket-ball.  It was the size
+of a pigeon's egg, and was set among eight gems of
+lesser magnitude; and in transit through the sunlight
+the trinket flashed and glittered with diabolical
+beauty.  The parliamentarian placed three bits of sugar
+in the velvet case and handed the gem to his companion.
+    "The bulk is much the same," he observed; "and
+whether the carbon be crystallized or no, is the re-
+sponsibility of stratigraphic geology.  Fergus, per-
+haps, must go to jail.  That is unfortunate.  But true
+philanthropy works toward the benefit of the greatest
+number possible; and this resplendent pebble will 
+purchase you innumerable pounds of tea and a 
+warehouseful of blankets."
+    "But, Mr. Sheridan," Miss Ogle cried, in horror,
+"to take this brooch would not be honest!"
+    "Oh, as to that----!" he shrugged.
+    "----because Lord Eiran purchased all these lesser
+diamonds, and very possibly paid for them."
+    Then Mr. Sheridan reflected, stood abashed, and
+said:  "Incomparable Esther Jane, I confess I am only a
+man.  You are entirely right.  To purloin any of these
+little diamonds would be an abominable action, whereas
+to make off with the only valuable one is simply a
+stroke of retribution.  I will, therefore, attempt to
+prise it out with a nutpick."
+    Three constables came suddenly into the room.  "We
+hae been tauld this missy is a suspectit thieving
+body," their leader cried.  "Esther Jane Ogle, ye maun
+gae with us i' the law's name.  Ou ay, lass, ye ken
+weel eneugh wha robbit auld Sir Aleexander McRae, sae
+dinna ye say naething tae your ain preejudice, lest ye
+hae tae account for it a'."
+    Mr. Sheridan rose to the occasion.  "My exceedingly
+good friend, Angus Howden!  I am unwilling to concede
+that yeomen can excel in gentlemanly accomplishments,
+but it is only charity to suppose all three of you as
+drunk as any duke that ever honored me with his
+acquaintance."  This he drawled, and appeared
+magisterially to await an explanation.
+    "Hout, Mr. Sheridan," commenced the leading
+representative of justice, "let that flee stick i' the
+wa'-- ye dinna mean tae tell me, Sir, that ye are
+acquaintit wi' this--ou ay, tae pleasure ye, I micht
+e'en say wi' this----"
+    "This lady, probably?" Mr. Sheridan hazarded.
+    "'Tis an unco thing," the constable declared, "but
+that wad be the word was amaist at my tongue's tip."
+    "Why, undoubtedly," Mr. Sheridan assented.  "I
+rejoice that, being of French extraction, and uncon-
+versant with your somewhat cryptic patois, the lady in
+question is the less likely to have been sickened by
+your extravagances in the way of misapprehension.  I
+candidly confess such imbecility annoys me.  What!" he
+cried out, "what if I marry! is matrimony to be ranked
+with arson?  And what if my cousin, Eiran, affords me a
+hiding-place wherein to sneak through our honeymoon
+after the cowardly fashion of all modern married
+couples!  Am I in consequence compelled to submit to
+the invasions of an intoxicated constabulary?"  His
+rage was terrific.
+    "Voila la seule devise.  Ils me connaissent, ils
+ont confidence dans moi.  Si, taisez-vous!  Si non,
+vous serez arretee et mise dans la prison, comme une
+caractere suspicieuse!"  Mr. Sheridan exhorted Miss
+Ogle to this intent with more of earnestness than
+linguistic perfection; and he rejoiced to see that in-
+stantly she caught at her one chance of plausibly ac-
+counting for her presence at Bemerside, and of effect-
+ing a rescue from this horrid situation.
+    "But I also spik the English," she sprightlily
+announced.  "I am appleed myself at to learn its
+by heart.  Certainly you look for a needle in a
+hay bundle, my gentlemans.  I am no stealer of the
+grand road, but the wife of Mistaire Sheridan, and her
+presence will say to you the remains."
+    "You see!" cried Mr. Sheridan, in modest triumph. 
+"In short, I am a bridegroom unwarrantably interrupted
+in his first tete-a-tete, I am responsible for this
+lady and all her past and its appurtenances; and, in a
+phrase, for everything except the course of conduct I
+will undoubtedly pursue should you be visible at the
+conclusion of the next five minutes."
+    His emphasis was such that the police withdrew with
+a concomitant of apologies.
+
+    "And now I claim my bond," said Mr. Sheridan, when
+they were once again free from intrusion.  "For we two
+are in Scotland, where the common declaration of a man
+and woman that they are married constitutes a
+marriage."
+    "Oh----!" she exclaimed, and stood encrimsoned.
+    "Indeed, I must confess that the day's work has
+been a trick throughout.  The diamond was pawned years
+ago.  This trinket here is a copy in paste and worth
+perhaps some seven shillings sixpence.  And those
+fellows were not constables, but just my cousin Eiran
+and two footmen in disguise.  Nay, madam, you will
+learn with experience that to display unfailing candor
+is not without exception the price of happiness."
+    "But this, I think, evades our bargain, Mr.
+Sheridan.  For you were committed to pilfer property to
+the value of L10,000----"
+    "And to fulfil the obligation I have stolen your
+hand in marriage.  What, madam! do you indeed pretend
+that any person outside of Bedlam would value you at
+less?  Believe me, your perfections are of far more
+worth.  All persons recognize that save yourself,
+incomparable Esther Jane; and yet, so patent is the
+proof of my contention, I dare to leave the verdict to
+your sense of justice."
+    Miss Ogle did not speak.  Her lashes fell as, with
+some ceremony, he led her to the long French mirror
+which was in the breakfast room.  "See now!" said Mr.
+Sheridan.  "You, who endanger life and fame in order to
+provide a mendicant with gruel, tracts and blankets! 
+You, who deny a sop to the one hunger which is vital! 
+Oh, madam, I am tempted glibly to compare your eyes to
+sapphires, and your hair to thin-spun gold, and the
+color of your flesh to the arbutus-flower--for that, as
+you can see, would be within the truth, and it would
+please most women, and afterward they would not be so
+obdurate.  But you are not like other women," Mr.
+Sheridan observed, with admirable dexterity.  "And I
+aspire to you, the irresistible Ogle! you, who so
+great-heartedly befriend the beggar! you, who with such
+industry contrive alleviation for the discomforts of
+poverty.  Eh, eh! what will you grant to any beggar
+such as I?  Will you deny a sop to the one hunger which
+is vital?"  He spoke with unaccustomed vigor, even
+in a sort of terror, because he knew that he was
+speaking with sincerity.
+    "To the one hunger which is vital!" he repeated. 
+"Ah, where lies the secret which makes one face the
+dearest in the world, and entrusts to one little hand a
+life's happiness as a plaything?  All Aristotle's
+learning could not unriddle the mystery, and Samson's
+thews were impotent to break that spell.  Love 
+vanquishes all. . . .  You would remind me of some
+previous skirmishings with Venus's unconquerable brat? 
+Nay, madam, to the contrary, the fact that I have loved
+many other women is my strongest plea for toleration. 
+Were there nothing else, it is indisputable we perform
+all actions better for having rehearsed them.  No, we
+do not of necessity perform them the more thoughtlessly
+as well; for, indeed, I find that with experience a man
+becomes increasingly difficult to please in affairs of
+the heart.  The woman one loves then is granted that
+pre-eminence not merely by virtue of having outshone
+any particular one of her predecessors; oh, no!
+instead, her qualities have been compared with all the
+charms of all her fair forerunners, and they have
+endured that stringent testing.  The winning of an
+often-bartered heart is in reality the only conquest
+which entitles a woman to complacency, for she has
+received a real compliment; whereas to be selected as
+the target of a lad's first declaration is a tribute of
+no more value than a man's opinion upon vintages who
+has never tasted wine."
+    He took a turn about the breakfast room, then came
+near to her.  "I love you.  Were there any way to
+parade the circumstance and bedeck it with pleasing
+adornments of filed phrases, tropes and far-fetched
+similes, I would not grudge you a deal of verbal
+pageantry.  But three words say all.  I love you. 
+There is no act in my past life but appears trivial and
+strange to me, and to the man who performed it I seem
+no more akin than to Mark Antony or Nebuchadnezzar.  I
+love you.  The skies are bluer since you came, the
+beauty of this world we live in oppresses me with a
+fearful joy, and in my heart there is always the
+thought of you and such yearning as I may not word. 
+For I love you."
+    "You--but you have frightened me."  Miss Ogle did
+not seem so terrified as to make any effort to recede
+from him; and yet he saw that she was frightened in
+sober earnest.  Her face showed pale, and soft, and
+glad, and awed, and desirable above all things; and it
+remained so near him as to engender riotous
+aspirations.
+    "I love you," he said again.  You would never have
+suspected this man could speak, upon occasion, flu-
+ently.  "I think--I think that Heaven was prodigal when
+Heaven made you.  To think of you is as if I listened
+to an exalted music; and to be with you is to
+understand that all imaginable sorrows are just the
+figments of a dream which I had very long ago."
+    She laid one hand on each of his shoulders, facing
+him.  "Do not let me be too much afraid!  I have
+not ever been afraid before.  Oh, everything is in a
+mist of gold, and I am afraid of you, and of the big
+universe which I was born into, and I am helpless, and
+I would have nothing changed!  Only, I cannot believe I
+am worth L10,000, and I do so want to be persuaded I
+am.  It is a great pity," she sighed, "that you who
+convicted Warren Hastings of stealing such enormous
+wealth cannot be quite as eloquent to-day as you were
+in the Oudh speech, and convince me his arraigner has
+been equally rapacious!"
+    "I mean to prove as much--with time," said Mr.
+Sheridan.  His breathing was yet perfunctory.
+    Miss Ogle murmured, "And how long would you
+require?"
+    "Why, I intend, with your permission, to devote the
+remainder of my existence to the task.  Eh, I concede
+that space too brief for any adequate discussion of the
+topic; but I will try to be concise and very prac-
+tical----"
+    She laughed.  They were content.  "Try, then----"
+Miss Ogle said.
+    She was able to get no farther in the sentence, for
+reasons which to particularize would be indiscreet.
+
+
+
+                    A PRINCESS OF GRUB STREET
+
+
+    "Though--or, rather, because--VANDERHOFFEN was a
+child of the French Revolution, and inherited his
+social, political and religious--or, rather, anti-
+religious--views from the French writers of the
+eighteenth century, England was not ready for him and
+the unshackled individualism for which he at first
+contended.  Recognizing this fact, he turned to an
+order of writing begotten of the deepest popular needs
+and addressed to the best intelligence of the great
+middle classes of the community."
+
+
+
+
+        Now emperors bide their times' rebuff
+        I would not be a king--enough
+            Of woe it is to love;
+        The paths of power are steep and rough,
+            And tempests reign above.
+
+        I would not climb the imperial throne;
+        'Tis built on ice which fortune's sun
+            Thaws in the height of noon.
+        Then farewell, kings, that squeak `Ha' done!'
+            To time's full-throated tune.
+
+                    PAUL VANDERHOFFEN.  Emma
+                        and Caroline.
+
+
+
+                    A PRINCESS OF GRUB STREET
+
+
+It is questionable if the announcement of the death of
+their Crown Prince, Hilary, upon the verge of his
+accession to the throne, aroused more than genteel
+regret among the inhabitants of Saxe-Kesselberg.  It is
+indisputable that in diplomatic circles news of this
+horrible occurrence was indirectly conceded in 1803 to
+smack of a direct intervention of Providence.  For to
+consider all the havoc dead Prince Fribble--such had
+been his sobriquet--would have created, Dei gratia,
+through his pilotage of an important grand-duchy (with
+an area of no less than eighty-nine square miles) was
+less discomfortable now prediction was an academic
+matter.
+    And so the editors of divers papers were the
+victims of a decorous anguish, court-mourning was
+decreed, and that wreckage which passed for the
+mutilated body of Prince Hilary was buried with every
+appropriate honor.  Within the week most people had
+forgotten him, for everybody was discussing the
+execution of the Duc d'Enghein.  And the aged
+unvenerable Grand-Duke of Saxe-Kesselberg died too in
+the same March; and afterward his other grandson,
+Prince Augustus, reigned in the merry old debauchee's
+stead.
+    Prince Hilary was vastly pleased.  His scheme for
+evading the tedious responsibilities of sovereignty had
+been executed without a hitch; he was officially dead;
+and, on the whole, standing bareheaded between a miller
+and laundress, he had found his funeral ceremonies to
+be unimpeachably conducted.  He assumed the name of
+Paul Vanderhoffen, selected at random from the novel he
+was reading when his postchaise conveyed him past the
+frontier of Saxe-Kesselberg.  Freed, penniless, and
+thoroughly content, he set about amusing himself--
+having a world to frisk in--and incidentally about the
+furnishing of his new friend Paul Vanderhoffen with
+life's necessaries.
+
+    It was a little more than two years later that the
+good-natured Earl of Brudenel suggested to Lady John
+Claridge that she could nowhere find a more eligible
+tutor for her son than young Vanderhoffen.
+    "Hasn't a shilling, ma'am, but one of the most
+popular men in London.  His poetry book was subscribed
+for by the Prince Regent and half the notables of the
+kingdom.  Capital company at a dinner-table--stutters,
+begad, like a What-you-may-call-'em, and keeps
+everybody in a roar--and when he's had his whack of
+claret, he sings his own songs to the piano, you know,
+and all that sort of thing, and has quite put Tommy
+Moore's nose out of joint.  Nobody knows much about
+him, but that don't matter with these literary
+chaps, does it now?  Goes everywhere, ma'am--quite a
+favorite at Carlton House--a highly agreeable, well-
+informed man, I can assure you--and probably hasn't a
+shilling to pay the cabman.  Deuced odd, ain't it?  But
+Lord Lansdowne is trying to get him a place--spoke to
+me about a tutorship, ma'am, in fact, just to keep
+Vanderhoffen going, until some registrarship or other
+falls vacant.  Now, I ain't clever and that sort of
+thing, but I quite agree with Lansdowne that we
+practical men ought to look out for these clever
+fellows--see that they don't starve in a garret, like
+poor What's-his-name, don't you know?"
+    Lady Claridge sweetly agreed with her future son--
+
+in-law.  So it befell that shortly after this conversa-
+
+tion Paul Vanderhoffen came to Leamington Manor, and
+through an entire summer goaded young Percival
+Claridge, then on the point of entering Cambridge, but
+pedagogically branded as "deficient in mathematics,"
+through many elaborate combinations of x and y and
+cosines and hyperbolas.
+    Lady John Claridge, mother to the pupil, approved
+of the new tutor.  True, he talked much and wildishly;
+but literary men had a name for eccentricity, and,
+besides, Lady Claridge always dealt with the opinions
+of other people as matters of illimitable unimportance. 
+This baronet's lady, in short, was in these days
+vouchsafing to the universe at large a fine and new
+benevolence, now that her daughter was safely engaged
+to Lord Brudenel, who, whatever his other virtues, was
+certainly a peer of England and very rich.  It
+seems irrelevant, and yet for the tale's sake is
+noteworthy, that any room which harbored Lady John
+Claridge was through this fact converted into an
+absolute monarchy.
+    And so, by the favor of Lady Claridge and destiny,
+the tutor stayed at Leamington Manor all summer.
+    There was nothing in either the appearance or
+demeanor of the fiancee of Lord Brudenel's title and
+superabundant wealth which any honest gentleman could,
+hand upon his heart, describe as blatantly repulsive.
+    It may not be denied the tutor noted this.  In
+fine, he fell in love with Mildred Claridge after a
+thorough-going fashion such as Prince Fribble would
+have found amusing.  Prince Fribble would have smiled,
+shrugged, drawled, "Eh, after all, the girl is handsome
+and deplorably cold-blooded!"  Paul Vanderhoffen said,
+"I am not fit to live in the same world with her," and
+wrote many verses in the prevailing Oriental style rich
+in allusions to roses, and bulbuls, and gazelles, and
+peris, and minarets--which he sold rather profitably.
+    Meanwhile, far oversea, the reigning Duke of Saxe-
+Kesselberg had been unwise enough to quarrel with his
+Chancellor, Georges Desmarets, an invaluable man whose
+only faults were dishonesty and a too intimate
+acquaintance with the circumstances of Prince Hilary's
+demise.  As fruit of this indiscretion, an in-
+considerable tutor at Leamington Manor--whom Lady
+John Claridge regarded as a sort of upper servant-was
+talking with a visitor.
+
+    The tutor, it appeared, preferred to talk with the
+former Chancellor of Saxe-Kesselberg in the middle of
+an open field.  The time was afternoon, the season
+September, and the west was vaingloriously justifying
+the younger man's analogy of a gigantic Spanish
+omelette.  Meanwhile, the younger man declaimed in a
+high-pitched pleasant voice, wherein there was, as al-
+ways, the elusive suggestion of a stutter.
+    "I repeat to you," the tutor observed, "that no
+consideration will ever make a grand-duke of me ex-
+cepting over my dead body.  Why don't you recommend
+some not quite obsolete vocation, such as making
+papyrus, or writing an interesting novel, or teaching
+people how to dance a saraband?  For after all, what is
+a monarch nowadays--oh, even a monarch of the first
+class?" he argued, with what came near being a squeak
+of indignation.  "The poor man is a rather pitiable and
+perfectly useless relic of barbarism, now that 1789 has
+opened our eyes; and his main business in life is to
+ride in open carriages and bow to an applauding public
+who are applauding at so much per head.  He must expect
+to be aspersed with calumny, and once in a while with
+bullets.  He may at the utmost aspire to introduce an
+innovation in evening dress,--the Prince Regent, for
+instance, has invented a really very creditable shoe-
+buckle.  Tradition obligates him to devote his
+unofficial hours to sheer depravity----"
+    Paul Vanderhoffen paused to meditate.
+    "Why, there you are! another obstacle!  I have in
+an inquiring spirit and without prejudice sampled all
+the Seven Deadly Sins, and the common increment was an
+inability to enjoy my breakfast.  A grand-duke I take
+it, if he have any sense of the responsibilities of his
+position, will piously remember the adage about the
+voice of the people and hasten to be steeped in vice--
+and thus conform to every popular notion concerning a
+grand-duke.  Why, common intelligence demands that a
+grand-duke should brazenly misbehave himself upon the
+more conspicuous high-places of Chemosh! and
+personally, I have no talents such as would qualify me
+for a life of cynical and brutal immorality.  I lack
+the necessary aptitude, I would not ever afford any
+spicy gossip concerning the Duke of Saxe-Kesselberg,
+and the editors of the society papers would unanimously
+conspire to dethrone me----"
+    Thus he argued, with his high-pitched pleasant
+voice, wherein there was, as always, the elusive sug-
+gestion of a stutter.  And here the other interrupted.
+    "There is no need of names, your highness." Georges
+Desmarets was diminutive, black-haired and corpulent. 
+He was of dapper appearance, point-device in
+everything, and he reminded you of a perky robin.
+    The tutor flung out an "Ouf! I must recall to
+you that, thank heaven, I am not anybody's
+highness any longer.  I am Paul Vanderhoffen."
+    "He says that he is not Prince Fribble!"--the
+little man addressed the zenith--"as if any other
+person ever succeeded in talking a half-hour without
+being betrayed into at least one sensible remark.  Oh,
+how do you manage without fail to be so consistently
+and stupendously idiotic?"
+    "It is, like all other desirable traits, either
+innate or else just unattainable," the other answered. 
+"I am so hopelessly light-minded that I cannot refrain
+from being rational even in matters which concern me
+personally--and this, of course, no normal being ever
+thinks of doing.  I really cannot help it."
+    The Frenchman groaned whole-heartedly.
+    "But we were speaking--well, of foreign countries. 
+Now, Paul Vanderhoffen has read that in one of these
+countries there was once a prince who very narrowly
+escaped figuring as a self-conscious absurdity, as an
+anachronism, as a life-long prisoner of etiquette. 
+However, with the assistance of his cousin--who,
+incidentally, was also his heir--the prince most op-
+
+portunely died.  Oh, pedant that you are! in any event
+he was interred.  And so, the prince was gathered to
+his fathers, and his cousin Augustus reigned in his
+stead.  Until a certain politician who had been privy
+to this pious fraud----"  The tutor shrugged.  "How can
+I word it without seeming hypercritical?"
+    Georges Desmarets stretched out appealing hands. 
+"But, I protest, it was the narrow-mindedness of
+that pernicious prig, your cousin--who firmly
+believes himself to be an improved and augmented
+edition of the Four Evangelists----"
+    "Well, in any event, the proverb was attested that
+birds of a feather make strange bedfellows.  There was
+a dispute concerning some petit larceny--some slight
+discrepancy, we will imagine, since all this is pure
+romance, in the politician's accounts----"
+    "Now you belie me----" said the black-haired man,
+and warmly.
+    "Oh, Desmarets, you are as vain as ever!  Let us
+say, then, of grand larceny.  In any event, the poli-
+tician was dismissed.  And what, my dears, do you
+suppose this bold and bad and unprincipled Machiavelli
+went and did?  Why, he made straight for the father of
+the princess the usurping duke was going to marry, and
+surprised everybody by showing that, at a pinch, even
+this Guy Fawkes--who was stuffed with all manner of
+guile and wickedness where youthful patriotism would
+ordinarily incline to straw--was capable of telling the
+truth.  And so the father broke off the match.  And the
+enamored, if usurping, duke wept bitterly and tore his
+hair to such an extent he totally destroyed his best
+toupet.    And privily the Guy Fawkes came into the
+presence of the exiled duke and prated of a restoration
+to ancestral dignities.  And he was spurned by a
+certain highly intelligent person who considered it
+both tedious and ridiculous to play at being emperor of
+a backyard.  And then--I really don't recall what
+happened.  But there was a general and unqualified
+deuce to pay with no pitch at a really satisfying
+temperature."
+    The stouter man said quietly:  "It is a thrilling
+tale which you narrate.  Only, I do recall what hap-
+pened then.  The usurping duke was very much in
+earnest, desirous of retaining his little kingdom, and
+particularly desirous of the woman whom he loved.  In
+consequence, he had Monsieur the Runaway obliterated
+while the latter was talking nonsense----"
+    The tutor's brows had mounted.
+    "I scorn to think it even of anybody who is con-
+trolled in every action by a sense of duty," Georges
+Desmarets explained, "that Duke Augustus would cause
+you to be murdered in your sleep."
+    "A hit!"  The younger man unsmilingly gesticulated
+like one who has been touched in sword-play.  "Behold
+now, as the populace in their blunt way would phrase
+it, I am squelched."
+    "And so the usurping duke was married and lived
+happily ever afterward."  Georges Desmarets continued: 
+"I repeat to you there is only the choice between
+declaring yourself and being--we will say, removed. 
+Your cousin is deeply in love with the Princess Sophia,
+and thanks to me, has now no chance of marrying her
+until his title has been secured by your--removal.  Do
+not deceive yourself.  High interests are involved. 
+You are the grain of sand between big wheels.  I
+iterate that the footpad who attacked you last night
+was merely a prologue.  I happen to know your cousin
+has entrusted the affair to Heinrich Obendorf, his
+foster-brother, who, as you will remember, is not
+particularly squeamish."
+    Paul Vanderhoffen thought a while.  "Desmarets," he
+said at last, "it is no use.  I scorn your pribbles and
+your prabbles.  I bargained with Augustus.  I traded a
+duchy for my personal liberty.  Frankly, I would be
+sorry to connect a sharer of my blood with the assault
+of yesterday.  To be unpardonably candid, I have not
+ever found that your assertion of an event quite proved
+it had gone through the formality of occurring.  And so
+I shall hold to my bargain."
+    "The night brings counsel," Desmarets returned. 
+"It hardly needs a night, I think, to demonstrate that
+all I say is true."
+    And so they parted.
+
+    Having thus dismissed such trifles as statecraft
+and the well-being of empires, Paul Vanderhoffen turned
+toward consideration of the one really serious subject
+in the universe, which was of course the bright, mir-
+
+aculous and incredible perfection of Mildred Claridge.
+    "I wonder what you think of me?  I wonder if you
+ever think of me?"  The thought careered like a caged
+squirrel, now that he walked through autumn woods
+toward her home.
+    "I wish that you were not so sensible.  I wish your
+mother were not even more so.  The woman reeks with
+common-sense, and knows that to be common is to be
+unanswerable.  I wish that a dispute with her were
+not upon a par with remonstrance against an
+earthquake."
+    He lighted a fresh cheroot.  "And so you are to
+marry the Brudenel title and bank account, with this
+particular Heleigh thrown in as a dividend.  And why
+not? the estate is considerable; the man who encumbers
+it is sincere in his adoration of you; and, chief of
+all, Lady John Claridge has decreed it.  And your
+decision in any matter has always lain between the
+claws of that steel-armored crocodile who, by some
+miracle, is your mother.  Oh, what a universe! were I
+of hasty temperament I would cry out, TUT AND GO TO!"
+    This was the moment which the man hid in the
+thicket selected as most fit for intervention through
+the assistance of a dueling pistol.  Paul Vanderhoffen
+reeled, his face bewilderment.  His hands clutched
+toward the sky, as if in anguish he grasped at some
+invisible support, and he coughed once or twice.  It
+was rather horrible.  Then Vanderhoffen shivered as
+though he were very cold, and tottered and collapsed in
+the parched roadway.
+    A slinking man whose lips were gray and could not
+refrain from twitching came toward the limp heap. 
+"So----!" said the man.  One of his hands went to the
+tutor's breast, and in his left hand dangled a second
+dueling pistol.  He had thrown away the other after
+firing it.
+    "And so----!" observed Paul Vanderhoffen.  Aft-
+
+erward there was a momentary tussle.  Now Paul
+Vanderhoffen stood erect and flourished the loaded
+pistol.  "If you go on this way," he said, with some
+severity, "you will presently be neither loved nor
+respected.  There was a time, though, when you were an
+excellent shot, Herr Heinrich Obendorf."
+    "I had my orders, highness," said the other
+stolidly.
+    "Oh yes, of course," Paul Vanderhoffen answered. 
+"You had your orders--from Augustus!"  He seemed to
+think of something very far away.  He smiled, with
+quizzically narrowed eyes such as you may yet see in
+Raeburn's portrait of the man.  "I was remembering,
+oddly enough, that elm just back of the Canova Pa-
+
+vilion--as it was twenty years ago.  I managed to
+scramble up it, but Augustus could not follow me
+because he had such short fat little legs.  He was so
+proud of what I had done that he insisted on telling
+everybody--and afterward we had oranges for luncheon, I
+remember, and sucked them through bits of sugar.  It is
+not fair that you must always remember and always love
+that boy who played with you when you were little--
+after he has grown up to be another person.  Eh no!
+youth passes, but all its memories of unimportant
+things remain with you and are less kind than any self-
+respecting viper would be.  Decidedly, it is not fair,
+and some earnest-minded person ought to write to his
+morning paper about it. . . .  I think that is the
+reason I am being a sentimental fool," Paul
+Vanderhoffen explained.
+    Then his teeth clicked.  "Get on, my man," he said. 
+"Do not remain too near to me, because there was a
+time when I loved your employer quite as much as you
+do.  This fact is urging me to dangerous ends.  Yes, it
+is prompting me, even while I talk with you, to give
+you a lesson in marksmanship, my inconveniently
+faithful Heinrich."
+    He shrugged.  He lighted a cheroot with hands whose
+tremblings, he devoutly hoped, were not apparent, for
+Prince Fribble had been ashamed to manifest a sincere
+emotion of any sort, and Paul Vanderhoffen shared as
+yet this foible.
+    "Oh Brutus!  Ravaillac!  Damiens!" he drawled.  "O
+general compendium of misguided aspirations! do be a
+duck and get along with you.  And I would run as hard
+as I could, if I were you, for it is war now, and you
+and I are not on the same side."
+
+    Paul Vanderhoffen paused a hundred yards or so from
+this to shake his head.  "Come, come! I have lost so
+much that I cannot afford to throw my good temper into
+the bargain.  To endure with a grave face this
+perfectly unreasonable universe wherein destiny has
+locked me is undoubtedly meritorious; but to bustle
+about it like a caged canary, and not ever to falter in
+your hilarity, is heroic.  Let us, by all means, not
+consider the obdurate if gilded barriers, but rather
+the lettuce and the cuttle-bone.  I have my choice
+between becoming a corpse or a convict--a convict? ah,
+undoubtedly a convict, sentenced to serve out a life-
+term in a cess-pool of castby superstitions."
+    He smiled now over Paul Vanderhoffen's rage. 
+"Since the situation is tragic, let us approach it in
+an appropriate spirit of frivolity.  My circumstances
+bully me.  And I succumb to irrationality, as rational
+persons invariably end by doing.  But, oh, dear me! oh,
+Osiris, Termagaunt, and Zeus! to think there are at
+least a dozen other ne'er-do-wells alive who would
+prefer to make a mess of living as a grand-duke rather
+than as a scribbler in Grub Street!  Well, well! the
+jest is not of my contriving, and the one concession a
+sane man will never yield the universe is that of
+considering it seriously."
+    And he strode on, resolved to be Prince Fribble to
+the last.
+    "Frivolity," he said, "is the smoked glass through
+which a civilized person views the only world he has to
+live in.  For, otherwise, he could not presume to look
+upon such coruscations of insanity and remain
+unblinded."
+    This heartened him, as a rounded phrase will do the
+best of us.  But by-and-bye,
+    "Frivolity," he groaned, "is really the cheap mask
+incompetence claps on when haled before a mirror."
+
+    And at Leamington Manor he found her strolling upon
+the lawn.  It was an ordered, lovely scene, steeped now
+in the tranquillity of evening.  Above, the stars were
+losing diffidence.  Below, and within arms' reach,
+Mildred Claridge was treading the same planet on which
+he fidgeted and stuttered.
+    Something in his heart snapped like a fiddle-
+string, and he was entirely aware of this circumstance. 
+As to her eyes, teeth, coloring, complexion, brows,
+height and hair, it is needless to expatiate.  The most
+painstaking inventory of these chattels would
+necessarily be misleading, because the impression which
+they conveyed to him was that of a bewildering, but not
+distasteful, transfiguration of the universe, apt as a
+fanfare at the entrance of a queen.
+    But he would be Prince Fribble to the last.  And
+so, "Wait just a moment, please," he said, "I want to
+harrow up your soul and freeze your blood."
+    Wherewith he suavely told her everything about Paul
+Vanderhoffen's origin and the alternatives now offered
+him, and she listened without comment.
+    "Ai! ai!" young Vanderhoffen perorated; "the
+situation is complete.  I have not the least desire to
+be Grand-Duke of Saxe-Kesselberg.  It is too abominably
+tedious.  But, if I do not join in with Desmarets, who
+has the guy-ropes of a restoration well in hand, I must
+inevitably be--removed, as the knave phrases it.  For
+as long as I live, I will be an insuperable barrier
+between Augustus and his Sophia.  Otototoi!" he wailed,
+with a fine tone of tragedy, "the one impossible
+achievement in my life has always been to convince
+anybody that it was mine to dispose of as I elected!"
+    "Oh, man proposes----" she began, cryptically. 
+Then he deliberated, and sulkily submitted:  "But I may
+not even propose to abdicate.  Augustus has put
+himself upon sworn record as an eye-witness of my
+hideous death.  And in consequence I might keep on
+abdicating from now to the crack of doom, and the only
+course left open to him would be to treat me as an
+impostor."
+    She replied, with emphasis, "I think your cousin is
+a beast!"
+    "Ah, but the madman is in love," he pleaded.  "You
+should not judge poor masculinity in such a state by
+any ordinary standards.  Oh really, you don't know the
+Princess Sophia.  She is, in sober truth, the nicest
+person who was ever born a princess.  Why, she had
+actually made a mock of even that handicap, for
+ordinarily it is as disastrous to feminine appearance
+as writing books.  And, oh, Lord! they will be marrying
+her to me, if Desmarets and I win out." Thus he
+forlornly ended.
+    "The designing minx!" Miss Claridge said, dis-
+tinctly.
+    "Now, gracious lady, do be just a cooing pigeon and
+grant that when men are in love they are not any more
+encumbered by abstract notions about honor than if they
+had been womanly from birth.  Come, let's be lyrical
+and open-minded," he urged; and he added, "No, either
+you are in love or else you are not in love.  And
+nothing else will matter either way.  You see, if men
+and women had been primarily designed to be rational
+creatures, there would be no explanation for their
+being permitted to continue in existence," he
+lucidly explained.  "And to have grasped this fact is
+the pith of all wisdom."
+    "Oh, I am very wise."  A glint of laughter shone in
+her eyes.  "I would claim to be another Pythoness if
+only it did not sound so snaky and wriggling.  So, from
+my trident--or was it a Triton they used to stand on?--
+I announce that you and your Augustus are worrying
+yourselves gray-headed over an idiotically simple
+problem.  Now, I disposed of it offhand when I said,
+`Man proposes.'"
+    He seemed to be aware of some one who from a
+considerable distance was inquiring her reasons for
+this statement.
+    "Because in Saxe-Kesselberg, as in all other German
+states, when a prince of the reigning house marries
+outside of the mediatized nobility he thereby forfeits
+his right of succession.  It has been done any number
+of times.  Why, don't you see, Mr. Vanderhoffen? 
+Conceding you ever do such a thing, your cousin
+Augustus would become at once the legal heir.  So you
+must marry.  It is the only way, I think, to save you
+from regal incarceration and at the same time to
+reassure the Prince of Lueminster--that creature's
+father--that you have not, and never can have, any
+claim which would hold good in law.  Then Duke Augustus
+could peaceably espouse his Sophia and go on reigning--
+And, by the way, I have seen her picture often, and if
+that is what you call beauty----"  Miss Claridge did
+not speak this last at least with any air of pointing
+out the self-evident.
+    And, "I believe," he replied, "that all this is 
+actually happening.  I might have known fate meant to
+glut her taste for irony."
+    "But don't you see?  You have only to marry anybody
+outside of the higher nobility--and just as a
+makeshift----"  She had drawn closer in the urgency of
+her desire to help him.  An infinite despair and mirth
+as well was kindled by her nearness.  And the man was
+insane and dimly knew as much.
+    And so, "I see," he answered.  "But, as it happens,
+I cannot marry any woman, because I love a particular
+woman.  At least, I suppose she isn't anything but just
+a woman.  That statement," he announced, "is a formal
+tribute paid by what I call my intellect to what the
+vulgar call the probabilities.  The rest of me has no
+patience whatever with such idiotic blasphemy."
+    She said, "I think I understand."  And this 
+surprised him, coming as it did from her whom he had
+always supposed to be the fiancee of Lord Brudenel's
+title and bank-account.
+    "And, well!"--he waved his hands--"either as tutor
+or as grand-duke, this woman is unattainable, because
+she has been far too carefully reared"--and here he
+frenziedly thought of that terrible matron whom, as you
+know, he had irreverently likened to a crocodile--
+"either to marry a pauper or to be contented with a
+left-handed alliance.  And I love her.  And so"--he
+shrugged--"there is positively nothing left to do save
+sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the deaths
+of kings."
+    She said, "Oh, and you mean it!  You are speaking
+the plain truth!"  A change had come into her lovely
+face which would have made him think it even lovelier
+had not that contingency been beyond conception.
+    And Mildred Claridge said, "It is not fair for
+dreamers such as you to let a woman know just how he
+loves her.  That is not wooing.  It is bullying."
+    His lips were making a variety of irrational
+noises.  And he was near to her.  Also he realized that
+he had never known how close akin were fear and joy, so
+close the two could mingle thus, and be quite un-
+distinguishable.  And then repentance smote him.
+    "I am contemptible!" he groaned.  "I had no right
+to trouble you with my insanities.  Indeed I had not
+ever meant to let you guess how mad I was.  But always
+I have evaded my responsibilities.  So I remain Prince
+Fribble to the last."
+    "Oh, but I knew, I have always known."  She held
+her eyes away from him.  "And I wrote to Lord Brudenel
+only yesterday releasing him from his engagement."
+    And now without uncertainty or haste Paul Van-
+derhoffen touched her cheek and raised her face, so
+that he saw it plainly in the rising twilight, and all
+its wealth of tenderness newborn.  And what he saw
+there frightened him.
+    For the girl loved him!  He felt himself to be, as
+most men do, a swindler when he comprehended this
+preposterous fact; and, in addition, he thought of
+divers happenings, such as shipwrecks, holocausts
+and earthquakes, which might conceivably have
+appalled him, and understood that he would never in his
+life face any sense of terror as huge as was this
+present sweet and illimitable awe.
+    And then he said, "You know that what I hunger for
+is impossible.  There are so many little things, like
+common-sense, to be considered.  For this is just a
+matter which concerns you and Paul Vanderhoffen--a
+literary hack, a stuttering squeak-voiced ne'er-do--
+well, with an acquired knack for scribbling verses that
+are feeble-minded enough for Annuals and Keepsake
+Books, and so fetch him an occasional guinea.  For, my
+dear, the verses I write of my own accord are not
+sufficiently genteel to be vended in Paternoster Row;
+they smack too dangerously of human intelligence.  So I
+am compelled, perforce, to scribble such jingles as I
+am ashamed to read, because I must write
+SOMETHING. . . ."  Paul Vanderhoffen shrugged, and
+continued, in tones more animated:  "There will be no
+talk of any grand-duke.  Instead, there will be columns
+of denunciation and tittle-tattle in every newspaper--
+quite as if you, a baronet's daughter, had run away
+with a footman.  And you will very often think
+wistfully of Lord Brudenel's fine house when your only
+title is--well, Princess of Grub Street, and your realm
+is a garret.  And for a while even to-morrow's break-
+fast will be a problematical affair.  It is true Lord
+Lansdowne has promised me a registrarship in the
+Admiralty Court, and I do not think he will fail me. 
+But that will give us barely enough to live on--
+with strict economy, which is a virtue that
+neither of us knows anything about.  I beg you to
+remember that--you who have been used to every luxury!
+you who really were devised that you might stand beside
+an emperor and set tasks for him.  In fine, you
+know----"
+    And Mildred Claridge said, "I know that, quite as I
+observed, man proposes--when he has been sufficiently
+prodded by some one who, because she is an idiot--And
+that is why I am not blushing--very much----"
+    "Your coloring is not--repellent."  His high-
+pitched pleasant voice, in spite of him, shook now with
+more than its habitual suggestion of a stutter.  "What
+have you done to me, my dear?" he said.  "Why can't I
+jest at this . . . as I have always done at every-
+thing----?"
+    "Boy, boy!" she said; "laughter is excellent.  And
+wisdom too is excellent.  Only I think that you have
+laughed too much, and I have been too shrewd--But now I
+know that it is better to be a princess in Grub Street
+than to figure at Ranelagh as a good-hearted fool's
+latest purchase.  For Lord Brudenel is really very
+good-natured," she argued, "and I did like him, and
+mother was so set upon it--and he was rich--and I
+honestly thought----"
+    "And now?" he said.
+    "And now I know," she answered happily.
+    They looked at each other for a little while.  Then
+he took her hand, prepared in turn for self-
+denial.
+    "The Household Review wants me to `do' a series
+on famous English bishops," he reported, humbly.  "I
+had meant to refuse, because it would all have to be
+dull High-Church twaddle.  And the English Gentleman 
+wants some rather outrageous lying done in defense of
+the Corn Laws.  You would not despise me too much--
+would you, Mildred?--if I undertook it now.  I really
+have no choice.  And there is plenty of hackwork of
+that sort available to keep us going until more solvent
+days, when I shall have opportunity to write something
+quite worthy of you."
+    "For the present, dear, it would be much more
+sensible, I think, to `do' the bishops and the Corn
+Laws.  You see, that kind of thing pays very well, and
+is read by the best people; whereas poetry, of course--
+But you can always come back to the verse-making, you
+know----"
+    "If you ever let me," he said, with a flash of
+prescience.  "And I don't believe you mean to let me. 
+You are your mother's daughter, after all!  Nefarious
+woman, you are planning, already, to make a responsible
+member of society out of me! and you will do it,
+ruthlessly!  Such is to be Prince Fribble's actual
+burial--in his own private carriage, with a receipted
+tax-bill in his pocket!"
+    "What nonsense you poets talk!" the girl observed. 
+But to him, forebodingly, that familiar statement
+seemed to lack present application.
+
+
+
+                   THE LADY OF ALL OUR DREAMS
+
+
+    "In JOHN CHARTERIS appeared a man with an inborn
+sense of the supreme interest and the overwhelming
+emotional and spiritual relevancy of human life as it
+is actually and obscurely lived; a man with
+unmistakable creative impulses and potentialities; a
+man who, had he lived in a more mature and less self-
+deluding community--a community that did not so
+rigorously confine its interest in facts to business,
+and limit its demands upon art to the supplying of
+illusions--might humbly and patiently have schooled his
+gifts to the service of his vision. . . .  As it was,
+he accepted defeat and compromised half-heartedly with
+commercialism."
+
+
+
+        And men unborn will read of Heloise,
+            And Ruth, and Rosamond, and Semele,
+            When none remembers your name's melody
+        Or rhymes your name, enregistered with these.
+
+        And will my name wake moods as amorous
+            As that of Abelard or Launcelot
+        Arouses? be recalled when Pyramus
+            And Tristram are unrhymed of and forgot?--
+        Time's laughter answers, who accords to us
+            More gracious fields, wherein we harvest--
+what?
+
+                        JOHN CHARTERIS. Torrismond's
+                           Envoi, in Ashtaroths
+Lackey.
+
+
+
+                   THE LADY OF ALL OUR DREAMS
+
+
+"Our distinguished alumnus," after being duly presented
+as such, had with vivacity delivered much the usual
+sort of Commencement Address.  Yet John Charteris was
+in reality a trifle fagged.
+    The afternoon train had been vexatiously late.  The
+little novelist had found it tedious to interchange
+inanities with the committee awaiting him at the Pull-
+man steps.  Nor had it amused him to huddle into
+evening-dress, and hasten through a perfunctory supper
+in order to reassure his audience at half-past eight
+precisely as to the unmitigated delight of which he was
+now conscious.
+    Nevertheless, he alluded with enthusiasm to the
+arena of life, to the dependence of America's destiny
+upon the younger generation, to the enviable part
+King's College had without exception played in history,
+and he depicted to Fairhaven the many glories of
+Fairhaven--past, present and approaching--in
+superlatives that would hardly have seemed inadequate
+if applied to Paradise.  His oration, in short,
+was of a piece with the amiable bombast that the col-
+lege students and Fairhaven at large were accustomed to
+applaud at every Finals--the sort of linguistic debauch
+that John Charteris himself remembered to have
+applauded as an undergraduate more years ago than he
+cared to acknowledge.
+    Pauline Romeyne had sat beside him then--yonder,
+upon the fourth bench from the front, where now another
+boy with painstakingly plastered hair was clapping
+hands.  There was a girl on the right of this boy, too. 
+There naturally would be.  Mr. Charteris as he sat down
+was wondering if Pauline was within reach of his voice?
+and if she were, what was her surname nowadays?
+    Then presently the exercises were concluded, and
+the released auditors arose with an outwelling noise of
+multitudinous chatter, of shuffling feet, of rustling
+programs.  Many of Mr. Charteris' audience, though,
+were contending against the general human outflow and
+pushing toward the platform, for Fairhaven was proud of
+John Charteris now that his colorful tales had risen,
+from the semi-oblivion of being cherished merely by
+people who cared seriously for beautiful things, to the
+distinction of being purchasable in railway stations;
+so that, in consequence, Fairhaven wished both to
+congratulate him and to renew acquaintanceship.
+    He, standing there, alert and quizzical, found it
+odd to note how unfamiliar beaming faces climbed out of
+the hurly-burly of retreating backs, to say,
+"Don't you remember me?  I'm so-and-so."  These
+were the people whom he had lived among once, and some
+of these had once been people whom he loved.  Now there
+was hardly any one whom at a glance he would have
+recognized.
+    Nobody guessed as much.  He was adjudged to be
+delightful, cordial, "and not a bit stuck-up, not
+spoiled at all, you know."  To appear this was the
+talisman with which he banteringly encountered the
+universe.
+    But John Charteris, as has been said, was in
+reality a trifle fagged.  When everybody had removed to
+the Gymnasium, where the dancing was to be, and he had
+been delightful there, too, for a whole half-hour, he
+grasped with avidity at his first chance to slip away,
+and did so under cover of a riotous two-step.
+    He went out upon the Campus.
+    He found this lawn untenanted, unless you chose to
+count the marble figure of Lord Penniston, made aerial
+and fantastic by the moonlight, standing as it it were
+on guard over the College.  Mr. Charteris chose to
+count him.  Whimsically, Mr. Charteris reflected that
+this battered nobleman's was the one familiar face he
+had exhumed in all Fairhaven.  And what a deal of mirth
+and folly, too, the old fellow must have witnessed
+during his two hundred and odd years of sentry-duty! 
+On warm, clear nights like this, in particular, when by
+ordinary there were only couples on the Campus, each
+couple discreetly remote from any of the others. 
+Then Penniston would be aware of most portentous pauses
+(which a delectable and lazy conference of leaves made
+eloquent) because of many unfinished sentences.  "Oh,
+YOU know what I mean, dear!" one would say as a last
+resort.  And she-why, bless her heart! of course, she
+always did. . . .  Heigho, youth's was a pleasant
+lunacy. . . .
+    Thus Charteris reflected, growing drowsy.  She
+said, "You spoke very well to-night.  Is it too late
+for congratulations?"
+    Turning, Mr. Charteris remarked, "As you are per-
+fectly aware, all that I vented was just a deal of
+skimble-scamble stuff, a verbal syllabub of balderdash. 
+No, upon reflection, I think I should rather describe
+it as a conglomeration of piffle, patriotism and
+pyrotechnics.  Well, Madam Do-as-you-would-be-done-by,
+what would you have?  You must give people what they
+want."
+    It was characteristic that he faced Pauline
+Romeyne--or was it still Romeyne? he wondered--
+precisely as if it had been fifteen minutes, rather
+than as many years, since they had last spoken
+together.
+    "Must one?" she asked.  "Oh, yes, I know you have
+always thought that, but I do not quite see the neces-
+sity of it."
+    She sat upon the bench beside Lord Penniston's
+square marble pedestal.  "And all the while you spoke I
+was thinking of those Saturday nights when your name
+was up for an oration or a debate before the
+Eclectics, and you would stay away and pay the fine
+rather than brave an audience."
+    "The tooth of Time," he reminded her, "has since
+then written wrinkles on my azure brow.  The years slip
+away fugacious, and Time that brings forth her children
+only to devour them grins most hellishly, for Time
+changes all things and cultivates even in herself an
+appreciation of irony,--and, therefore, why shouldn't I
+have changed a trifle?  You wouldn't have me put on
+exhibition as a lusus naturae?"
+    "Oh, but I wish you had not altered so entirely!"
+Pauline sighed.
+    "At least, you haven't," he declared.  "Of course,
+I would be compelled to say so, anyhow.  But in this
+happy instance courtesy and veracity come skipping arm-
+in-arm from my elated lips."  And, indeed, it seemed to
+him that Pauline was marvelously little altered.  "I
+wonder now," he said, and cocked his head, "I wonder
+now whose wife I am talking to?"
+    "No, Jack, I never married," she said quietly.
+    "It is selfish of me," he said, in the same tone,
+"but I am glad of that."
+    And so they sat a while, each thinking.
+    "I wonder," said Pauline, with that small plaintive
+voice which Charteris so poignantly remembered,
+"whether it is always like this?  Oh, do the Overlords
+of Life and Death ALWAYS provide some obstacle to
+prevent what all of us have known in youth was possible
+from ever coming true?"
+    And again there was a pause which a delectable and
+lazy conference of leaves made eloquent.
+    "I suppose it is because they know that if it ever
+did come true, we would be gods like them."  The
+ordinary associates of John Charteris, most certainly,
+would not have suspected him to be the speaker.  "So
+they contrive the obstacle, or else they send false
+dreams--out of the gates of horn--and make the path
+smooth, very smooth, so that two dreamers may not be
+hindered on their way to the divorce-courts."
+    "Yes, they are jealous gods! oh, and ironical gods
+also!  They grant the Dream, and chuckle while they
+grant it, I think, because they know that later they
+will be bringing their playthings face to face--each
+married, fat, inclined to optimism, very careful of
+decorum, and perfectly indifferent to each other.  And
+then they get their fore-planned mirth, these Overlords
+of Life and Death.  `We gave you,' they chuckle, `the
+loveliest and greatest thing infinity contains.  And
+you bartered it because of a clerkship or a lying maxim
+or perhaps a finger-ring.'  I suppose that they must
+laugh a great deal."
+    "Eh, what?  But then you never married?"  For
+masculinity in argument starts with the word it has
+found distasteful.
+    "Why, no."
+    "Nor I."  And his tone implied that the two facts
+conjoined proved much.
+    "Miss Willoughby----?" she inquired.
+    Now, how in heaven's name, could a cloistered Fair-
+haven have surmised his intention of proposing on
+the first convenient opportunity to handsome, well-to-
+do Anne Willoughby?  He shrugged his wonder off.  "Oh,
+people will talk, you know.  Let any man once find a
+woman has a tongue in her head, and the stage-direction
+is always `Enter Rumor, painted full of tongues.'"
+    Pauline did not appear to have remarked his protest.  
+"Yes,--in the end you will marry her.  And her
+money will help, just as you have contrived to make
+everything else help, toward making John Charteris
+comfortable.  She is not very clever, but she will
+always worship you, and so you two will not prove
+uncongenial.  That is your real tragedy, if I could
+make you comprehend."
+    "So I am going to develop into a pig," he said,
+with relish,--"a lovable, contented, unambitious porcine, 
+who is alike indifferent to the Tariff, the importance 
+of Equal Suffrage and the market-price of
+hams, for all that he really cares about is to have his
+sty as comfortable as may be possible.  That is exactly
+what I am going to develop into,--now, isn't it?"  And
+John Charteris, sitting, as was his habitual fashion,
+with one foot tucked under him, laughed cheerily.  Oh,
+just to be alive (he thought) was ample cause for
+rejoicing! and how deliciously her eyes, alert with
+slumbering fires, were peering through the moon-made
+shadows of her brows!
+    "Well----! something of the sort." Pauline was
+smiling, but restrainedly, and much as a woman
+does in condoning the naughtiness of her child. 
+"And, oh, if only----"
+    "Why, precisely.  `If only!' quotha.  Why, there
+you word the key-note, you touch the cornerstone, you
+ruthlessly illuminate the mainspring, of an intractable
+unfeeling universe.  For instance, if only
+
+    You were the Empress of Ayre and Skye,
+        And I were Ahkond of Kong,
+    We could dine every day on apple-pie,
+    And peddle potatoes, and sleep in a sty,
+    And people would say when we came to die,
+    `They NEVER did anything wrong.'
+
+But, as it is, our epitaphs will probably be nothing of
+the sort.  So that there lurks, you see, much virtue in
+this `if only.'"
+    Impervious to nonsense, she asked, "And have I not
+earned the right to lament that you are changed?"
+    "I haven't robbed more than six churches up to
+date," he grumbled.  "What would you have?"
+    The answer came, downright, and, as he knew,
+entirely truthful:  "I would have had you do all that
+you might have done."
+    But he must needs refine.  "Why, no--you would have
+made me do it, wrung out the last drop.  You would have
+bullied me and shamed me into being all that I might
+have been.  I see that now."  He spoke as if in wonder,
+with quickening speech.  "Pauline, I haven't been
+entirely not worth while.  Oh, yes, I know!  I
+know I haven't written five-act tragedies which would
+be immortal, as you probably expected me to do.  My
+books are not quite the books I was to write when you
+and I were young.  But I have made at worst some neat,
+precise and joyous little tales which prevaricate
+tenderly about the universe and veil the pettiness of
+human nature with screens of verbal jewelwork.  It is
+not the actual world they tell about, but a vastly
+superior place where the Dream is realized and
+everything which in youth we knew was possible comes
+true.  It is a world we have all glimpsed, just once,
+and have not ever entered, and have not ever forgotten. 
+So people like my little tales. . . .  Do they induce
+delusions?  Oh, well, you must give people what they
+want, and literature is a vast bazaar where customers
+come to purchase everything except mirrors."
+    She said soberly, "You need not make a jest of it. 
+It is not ridiculous that you write of beautiful and
+joyous things because there was a time when living was
+really all one wonderful adventure, and you remember
+it."
+    "But, oh, my dear, my dear! such glum discussions
+are so sadly out-of-place on such a night as this," he
+lamented.  "For it is a night of pearl-like radiancies
+and velvet shadows and delicate odors and big friendly
+stars that promise not to gossip, whatever happens.  It
+is a night that hungers, and all its undistinguishable
+little sounds are voicing the night's hunger for masks
+and mandolins, for rope-ladders and balconies and
+serenades.  It is a night . . . a night wherein I
+gratefully remember so many beautiful sad things that
+never happened . . . to John Charteris, yet surely
+happened once upon a time to me . . ."
+    "I think that I know what it is to remember--better
+than you do, Jack.  But what do you remember?"
+    "In faith, my dear, the most Bedlamitish occur-
+
+rences!  It is a night that breeds deplorable
+insanities, I warn you.  For I seem to remember how I
+sat somewhere, under a peach-tree, in clear autumn
+weather, and was content; but the importance had all
+gone out of things; and even you did not seem very
+important, hardly worth lying to, as I spoke lightly of
+my wasted love for you, half in hatred, and--yes, still
+half in adoration.  For you were there, of course.  And
+I remember how I came to you, in a sinister and
+brightly lighted place, where a horrible, staring frail
+old man lay dead at your feet; and you had murdered
+him; and heaven did not care, and we were old, and all
+our lives seemed just to end in futile tangle-work. 
+And, again, I remember how we stood alone, with visible
+death crawling lazily toward us, as a big sullen sea
+rose higher and higher; and we little tinseled
+creatures waited, helpless, trapped and
+yearning. . . .  There is a boat in that picture; I
+suppose it was deeply laden with pirates coming to slit
+our throats from ear to ear.  I have forgotten that
+part, but I remember the tiny spot of courtplaster just
+above your painted lips. . . .  Such are the jumbled
+pictures.  They are bred of brain-fag, no doubt; yet,
+whatever be their lineage," said Charteris,
+happily, "they render glum discussion and platitudinous
+moralizing quite out of the question.  So, let's
+pretend, Pauline, that we are not a bit more worldly-
+wise than those youngsters who are frisking yonder in
+the Gymnasium--for, upon my word, I dispute if we have
+ever done anything to suggest that we are.  Don't let's
+be cowed a moment longer by those bits of paper with
+figures on them which our too-credulous fellow-idiots
+consider to be the only almanacs.  Let's have back
+yesterday, let's tweak the nose of Time intrepidly." 
+Then Charteris caroled:
+
+            "For Yesterday! for Yesterday!
+             I cry a reward for a Yesterday
+             Now lost or stolen or gone astray,
+             With all the laughter of Yesterday!"
+
+    "And how slight a loss was laughter," she mur-
+
+mured--still with the vague and gentle eyes of a day--
+
+dreamer--"as set against all that we never earned in
+youth, and so will never earn."
+    He inadequately answered "Bosh!" and later, "Do
+you remember----?" he began.
+    "Yes, she remembered that, it developed.  And "Do
+you remember----?" she in turn was asking later.  It
+was to seem to him in retrospection that neither for
+the next half-hour began a sentence without this for-
+
+mula.  It was as if they sought to use it as a master-
+word wherewith to reanimate the happinesses and sorrows
+of their common past, and as if they found the
+charm was potent to awaken the thin, powerless ghosts
+of emotions that were once despotic.  For it was as if
+frail shadows and half-caught echoes were all they
+could evoke, it seemed to Charteris; and yet these
+shadows trooped with a wild grace, and the echoes
+thrilled him with the sweet and piercing surprise of a
+bird's call at midnight or of a bugle heard in prison.
+    Then twelve o'clock was heralded by the College
+bell, and Pauline arose as though this equable deep-
+throated interruption of the music's levity had been a
+signal.  John Charteris saw her clearly now; and she
+was beautiful.
+    "I must go.  You will not ever quite forget me,
+Jack.  Such is my sorry comfort."  It seemed to Char-
+teris that she smiled as in mockery, and yet it was a
+very tender sort of derision.  "Yes, you have made your
+books.  You have done what you most desired to do.  You
+have got all from life that you have asked of life. 
+Oh, yes, you have got much from life.  One prize,
+though, Jack, you missed."
+    He, too, had risen, quiet and perfectly sure of
+himself.  "I haven't missed it.  For you love me."
+    This widened her eyes.  "Did I not always love you,
+Jack?  Yes, even when you went away forever, and there
+were no letters, and the days were long.  Yes, even
+knowing you, I loved you, John Charteris."
+    "Oh, I was wrong, all wrong," he cried; "and yet
+there is something to be said upon the other side, as
+always. . . ."  Now Charteris was still for a
+while.  The little man's chin was uplifted so that
+it was toward the stars he looked rather than at
+Pauline Romeyne, and when he spoke he seemed to
+meditate aloud.  "I was born, I think, with the desire
+to make beautiful books--brave books that would
+preserve the glories of the Dream untarnished, and
+would re-create them for battered people, and re-awaken
+joy and magnanimity."  Here he laughed, a little
+ruefully.  "No, I do not think I can explain this
+obsession to any one who has never suffered from it. 
+But I have never in my life permitted anything to stand
+in the way of my fulfilling this desire to serve the
+Dream by re-creating it for others with picked words,
+and that has cost me something.  Yes, the Dream is an
+exacting master.  My books, such as they are, have been
+made what they are at the dear price of never
+permitting myself to care seriously for anything else. 
+I might not dare to dissipate my energies by taking any
+part in the drama I was attempting to re-write, because
+I must so jealously conserve all the force that was in
+me for the perfection of my lovelier version.  That may
+not be the best way of making books, but it is the only
+one that was possible for me.  I had so little natural
+talent, you see," said Charteris, wistfully, "and I was
+anxious to do so much with it.  So I had always to be
+careful.  It has been rather lonely, my dear.  Now,
+looking back, it seems to me that the part I have
+played in all other people's lives has been the role of
+a tourist who enters a cafe chantant, a fortress, or a
+cathedral, with much the same forlorn sense of
+detachment, and observes what there is to see that may
+be worth remembering, and takes a note or two, perhaps,
+and then leaves the place forever.  Yes, that is how I
+served the Dream and that is how I got my books.  They
+are very beautiful books, I think, but they cost me
+fifteen years of human living and human intimacy, and
+they are hardly worth so much."
+    He turned to her, and his voice changed.  "Oh, I
+was wrong, all wrong, and chance is kindlier than I
+deserve.  For I have wandered after unprofitable gods,
+like a man blundering through a day of mist and fog,
+and I win home now in its golden sunset.  I have
+laughed very much, my dear, but I was never happy until
+to-night.  The Dream, as I now know, is not best served
+by making parodies of it, and it does not greatly
+matter after all whether a book be an epic or a
+directory.  What really matters is that there is so
+much faith and love and kindliness which we can share
+with and provoke in others, and that by cleanly,
+simple, generous living we approach perfection in the
+highest and most lovely of all arts. . . .  But you, I
+think, have always comprehended this.  My dear, if I
+were worthy to kneel and kiss the dust you tread in I
+would do it.  As it happens, I am not worthy.  Pauline,
+there was a time when you and I were young together,
+when we aspired, when life passed as if it were to the
+measures of a noble music--a heart-wringing, an
+obdurate, an intolerable music, it might be, but always
+a lofty music.  One strutted, no doubt--it was because
+one knew oneself to be indomitable.  Eh, it is
+true I have won all I asked of life, very horribly
+true.  All that I asked, poor fool! oh, I am weary of
+loneliness, and I know now that all the phantoms I have
+raised are only colorless shadows which belie the
+Dream, and they are hateful to me.  I want just to
+recapture that old time we know of, and we two alone. 
+I want to know the Dream again, Pauline,--the Dream
+which I had lost, had half forgotten, and have so
+pitifully parodied.  I want to know the Dream again,
+Pauline, and you alone can help me."
+    "Oh, if I could! if even I could now, my dear!" 
+Pauline Romeyne left him upon a sudden, crying this. 
+And  "So!" said Mr. Charteris.
+    He had been deeply shaken and very much in earnest;
+but he was never the man to give for any lengthy while
+too slack a rein to emotion; and so he now sat down
+upon the bench and lighted a cigarette and smiled.  Yet
+he fully recognized himself to be the most enviable of
+men and an inhabitant of the most glorious world
+imaginable--a world wherein he very assuredly meant to
+marry Pauline Romeyne say, in the ensuing September. 
+Yes, that would fit in well enough, although, of
+course, he would have to cancel the engagement to
+lecture in Milwaukee. . . .  How lucky, too, it was
+that he had never actually committed himself with Anne
+Willoughby! for while money was an excellent thing to
+have, how infinitely less desirable it was to live
+perked up in golden sorrow than to feed flocks upon the
+Grampian Hills, where Freedom from the mountain height
+cried, "I go on forever, a prince can make a
+belted knight, and let who will be clever. . . ."
+
+    "--and besides, you'll catch your death of cold,"
+lamented Rudolph Musgrave, who was now shaking Mr.
+Charteris' shoulder.
+    "Eh, what?  Oh, yes, I daresay I was napping," the
+other mumbled.  He stood and stretched himself
+luxuriously.  "Well, anyhow, don't be such an un-
+mitigated grandmother.  You see, I have a bit of rather
+important business to attend to.  Which way is Miss
+Romeyne?"
+    "Pauline Romeyne? why, but she married old General
+Ashmeade, you know.  She was the gray-haired woman in
+purple who carried out her squalling brat when Taylor
+was introducing you, if you remember.  She told me,
+while the General was getting the horses around, how
+sorry she was to miss your address, but they live three
+miles out, and Mrs. Ashmeade is simply a slave to the
+children. . . .  Why, what in the world have you been
+dreaming about?"
+    "Eh, what?  Oh, yes, I daresay I was only napping,"
+Mr. Charteris observed.  He was aware that within they
+were still playing a riotous two-step.
+
+
+
+                       BALLAD OF PLAGIARY
+
+             "Freres et matres, vous qui cultivez"
+
+                            PAUL VERVILLE.
+
+
+
+Hey, my masters, lords and brothers, ye that till the fields of
+rhyme,
+Are ye deaf ye will not hearken to the clamor of your time?
+
+Still ye blot and change and polish--vary, heighten and
+transpose--
+Old sonorous metres marching grandly to their tranquil close.
+
+Ye have toiled and ye have fretted; ye attain perfected speech:
+Ye have nothing new to utter and but platitudes to preach.
+
+And your rhymes are all of loving, as within the old days when
+Love was lord of the ascendant in the horoscopes of men.
+
+Still ye make of love the utmost end and scope of all your art;
+And, more blind than he you write of, note not what a modest part
+
+Loving now may claim in living, when we have scant time to spare,
+Who are plundering the sea-depths, taking tribute of the air,--
+
+Whilst the sun makes pictures for us; since to-day, for good or
+ill,
+Earth and sky and sea are harnessed, and the lightnings work our
+will.
+
+Hey, my masters, all these love-songs by dust-hidden mouths were
+sung
+That ye mimic and re-echo with an artful-artless tongue,--
+
+Sung by poets close to nature, free to touch her garments' hem
+Whom to-day ye know not truly; for ye only copy them.
+
+Them ye copy--copy always, with your backs turned to the sun,
+Caring not what man is doing, noting that which man has done.
+
+We are talking over telephones, as Shakespeare could not talk;
+We are riding out in motor-cars where Homer had to walk;
+And pictures Dante labored on of mediaeval Hell
+The nearest cinematograph paints quicker, and as well.
+
+But ye copy, copy always;--and ye marvel when ye find
+This new beauty, that new meaning,--while a model stands behind,
+
+Waiting, young and fair as ever, till some singer turn and trace
+Something of the deathless wonder of life lived in any place.
+
+Hey, my masters, turn from piddling to the turmoil and the
+strife!
+Cease from sonneting, my brothers; let us fashion songs from
+life.
+
+Thus I wrote ere Percie passed me. . . .  Then did I epitomize
+All life's beauty in one poem, and make haste to eulogize
+Quite the fairest thing life boasts of, for I wrote of Percie's
+eyes.
+
+
+
+
+            EXPLICIT DECAS POETARUM
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Etext of The Certain Hour, by Cabell
+
+
+
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author	Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>	2025-10-15 05:14:42 -0700
committer	Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>	2025-10-15 05:14:42 -0700
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