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diff --git a/288-h/288-h.htm b/288-h/288-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..21783df --- /dev/null +++ b/288-h/288-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,10025 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<HTML> +<HEAD> + +<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> + +<TITLE> +The Certain Hour +</TITLE> + +<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> +BODY { color: Black; + background: White; + margin-right: 5%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: medium; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + text-align: justify } + +P {text-indent: 4% } + +P.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +P.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: small } + +P.letter {font-size: small ; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.salutation {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.closing {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.footnote {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.transnote {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.index {font-size: small ; + text-indent: -5% ; + margin-left: 5% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.intro {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.dedication {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 15%; + text-align: justify } + +P.published {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 15% } + +P.quote {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 4% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.report {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 4% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.report2 {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 4% ; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.finis { text-align: center ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + + +</STYLE> + +</HEAD> + +<BODY> + + +<pre> + +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"> + 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"> + Each thing save one thing:—mid this strife diurnal<BR> + Of hourly change begot,<BR> + Love that is God-born, bides as God eternal,<BR> + And changes not;—<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + 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,—<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + 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>"—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> + this was the Gods' decree:—<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> + to the world within:<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "So that man may make sport and amuse Us, in battling<BR> + for phrases or pelf,<BR> + Now that each may know what forebodeth woe to his<BR> + neighbor, and not to himself."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Yet some have the Gods forgotten,—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,—</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> + <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> + 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> + 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> + 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.—</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> + <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,—that is, to practise, +which urges and impels to action, choice and +determination,—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,—<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;—<BR> + That is, when they remember he still exists.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + <I>Who</I>, you ask, <I>is this fellow</I>?—What matter names?<BR> + He is only a scribbler who is content.<BR> +<BR> + FELIX KENNASTON.—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—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—where it +conceivably might be just predetermined affectation—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—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. +</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)—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. +</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—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. +</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—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. +</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—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—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? +</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—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; <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—in our eyes the crowning misdemeanor—<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—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—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. +</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—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—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. +</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—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. +</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—"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—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. +</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—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. +</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—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—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—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. +</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—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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</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—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. +</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—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. +</P> + +<P> +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 <I>Dorothy +Vernon</I> or <I>Three Weeks</I> or <I>Beverly of Graustark</I>. +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. +</P> + +<P> +And this is as it should be. <I>Tout passe.—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—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> + 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.… 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> + 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> + For soon it will be Dawn.<BR> +<BR> + RAIMBAUT DE VAQUIERAS.—<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—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. +</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—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. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +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?" +</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—"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,—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—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. +</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—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.… 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.… 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—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,—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——" 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.… 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?" +</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——!" He +broke off short and growled, "And yet—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—"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!" +</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—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.… 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—still with +her wise smile—"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,—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—</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——" 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——" +</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——" +</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.… 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. +</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?—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!" +</P> + +<P> +Raimbaut, trapped, impotent, cried out: "This is +not possible——" 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—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——" 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—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.… 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—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. +</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.… 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—"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.'" +</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—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.… +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> + 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> + 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"> + 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.—<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—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.… 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—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." +</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— +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.… 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——" 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—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?" +</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—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." +</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—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—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." +</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—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." +</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—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." +</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"—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." +</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.…" 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—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." +</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—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." +</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—"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—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—"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"> + 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.—<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—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.… +</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——'" 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. +</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,—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. +</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—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." +</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—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. +</P> + +<P> +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!" +</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——" 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." +</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—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—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." +</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—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." +</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.… 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." +</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—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." +</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—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!—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—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." +</P> + +<P> +"And this is you," she cried—"you who wrote of +Troilus and Timon!" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</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—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." +</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—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?" +</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—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." +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</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—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." +</P> + +<P> +She answered, with a wistful smile: "I, too, +regret my poet. And just now you are more like +him——" +</P> + +<P> +"Faith, but he was really a poet—or, at least, at +times——?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not marble, nor the gilded monuments of princes +shall outlive this powerful rhyme——'" +</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.… 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—in part? Our work +is done; what more is there to say?" +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing," she answered—"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>—Only, +that needs a homelier touch. Rather, let us say, <I>We +are such stuff As dreams are made on</I>—Oh, good, +good!—Now to pad out the line.… 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>—Good, good! It fits in well +enough.…" +</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—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. +</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.—<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—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. +</P> + +<P> +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 +<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——?" 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—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." +</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—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——" +</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—well! unusual." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, yes! You hearten me. I have long had my +suspicions as to this Herrick, though.… 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—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——" +</P> + +<P> +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." +</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—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." +</P> + +<P> +"I comprehend. These are exactly the speculations +that would appeal to an unbalanced mind—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—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." +</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—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." +</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—'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—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.… 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.… +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." +</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—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—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." +</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—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!—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>——!" 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——" +</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—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— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + 'I sing, and ever shall,<BR> + Of Heaven,—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—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.… 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.—<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—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. +</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—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. +</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,—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——" +</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,—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. +</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—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. +</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.… 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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</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—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—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"—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." +</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——!" 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—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." +</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—and, I think, the +past month has changed everything——" +</P> + +<P> +"I thought you had forgotten Bessington," he said, +"long, long ago." +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</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,—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—the incurious west, and the sea, and these +rocks that were old in Noah's youth,—and we are so +little——!" +</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,—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!" +</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—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.… !" 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——!" 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——" +</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.… 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——!" 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. +</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.… 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.—<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—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." +</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"—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.… 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.… +</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——" 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." +</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——?" Mr. Pope asked, after a pause. +</P> + +<P> +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." +</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—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—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. +</P> + +<P> +"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? +</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—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?"—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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</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—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." +</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—" 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." +</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!… 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." +</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—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——" 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—however unintentional—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——!" +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.—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>,—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.… +</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.… +</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—she gives, +God bless her!" +</P> + +<P> +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—<I>paté +sur paté</I>—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." +</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—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—why, Mistress Drew was with a young man of +the neighborhood—a John Hewet——" Gay was speaking +with unaccustomed rapidity. +</P> + +<P> +"Hughes, I think," Pope interrupted, equably. +</P> + +<P> +"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——" +</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.… 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. +</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.… 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.… 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.… 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—not Semele herself—left earth more nobly—" +</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—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 <I>pastorelle</I>—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——?" +</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.… 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.—<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—— +</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—"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—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?" +</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——!" +</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—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——" +</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—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." +</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——" +</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,——" +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." +</P> + +<P> +"It is an invitation I may not decorously refuse. +And yet—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—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—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—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— +</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… 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——" +</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—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——" +</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—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." +</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——" 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——" +</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?—then swear it——" He laughed here, very +horribly. "Ah, no, when did you ever lie! You do not +lie—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——" +</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.… 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—"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—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—!" 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?—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—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." +</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,—"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——" 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—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,—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—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.—<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—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. +</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—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." +</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—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——" +</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—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. +</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——" 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"—she spoke with a break of laughter—"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—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. +</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—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—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." +</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——" 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—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." +</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——!" he shrugged. +</P> + +<P> +"——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'—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——" +</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——!" 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——" +</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—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.… 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—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—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—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——" +</P> + +<P> +She laughed. They were content. "Try, then——" +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—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.</I>" +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Now emperors bide their times' rebuff<BR> + I would not be a king—enough<BR> + Of woe it is to love;<BR> + The paths of power are steep and rough,<BR> + 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> + Thaws in the height of noon.<BR> + Then farewell, kings, that squeak 'Ha' done!'<BR> + To time's full-throated tune.<BR> +<BR> + PAUL VANDERHOFFEN.—<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—such had +been his sobriquet—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—having +a world to frisk in—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—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?" +</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—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—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—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——" +</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—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——" +</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!"—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?" +</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—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—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?" +</P> + +<P> +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——" +</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—some slight +discrepancy, we will imagine, since all this is pure +romance, in the politician's accounts——" +</P> + +<P> +"Now you belie me——" 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—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." +</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——" +</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—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." +</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——!" 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——!" 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—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. +</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—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—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——" 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—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.'" +</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—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. +</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—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. +</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!"—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." +</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—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>.…" 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——" +</P> + +<P> +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——" +</P> + +<P> +"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——?" +</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—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——" +</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—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." +</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— But you can always come back to the verse-making, you +know——" +</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—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—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.</I>" +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + And men unborn will read of Heloise,<BR> + And Ruth, and Rosamond, and Semele,<BR> + 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> + As that of Abelard or Launcelot<BR> + Arouses? be recalled when Pyramus<BR> + And Tristram are unrhymed of and forgot?—<BR> + Time's laughter answers, who accords to us<BR> + More gracious fields, wherein we harvest—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—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. +</P> + +<P> +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? +</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.… Heigho, youth's was a pleasant +lunacy.… +</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—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. +</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,—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—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." +</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—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——?" 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,—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,—"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! +</P> + +<P> +"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——" +</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> + 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—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." +</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… 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…" +</P> + +<P> +"I think that I know what it is to remember—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—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: +</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—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." +</P> + +<P> +He inadequately answered "Bosh!" and later, "Do +you remember——?" he began. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</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.…" 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." +</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.… 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." +</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—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.…" +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"—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.… 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>"—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—vary, heighten and transpose—<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,—<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,—<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—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;—and ye marvel when ye find<BR> + This new beauty, that new meaning,—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.… 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 + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CERTAIN HOUR *** + +***** This file should be named 288-h.htm or 288-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/8/288/ + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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