diff options
Diffstat (limited to '288.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 288.txt | 6655 |
1 files changed, 6655 insertions, 0 deletions
@@ -0,0 +1,6655 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Certain Hour, by James Branch Cabell + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Certain Hour + +Author: James Branch Cabell + +Release Date: April 29, 2008 [EBook #288] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CERTAIN HOUR *** + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +THE CERTAIN HOUR + +(_Dizain des Poetes_) + + + +By + +JAMES BRANCH CABELL + + + + + + + "Criticism, whatever may be its + pretensions, never does more than to + define the impression which is made upon + it at a certain moment by a work wherein + the writer himself noted the impression + of the world which he received at a + certain hour." + + + +NEW YORK + +ROBERT M. McBRIDE & COMPANY + +1916 + + + + + + Copyright, 1916, by Robert M. McBride & Co. + Copyright, 1915, by McBride, Nast & Co. + Copyright, 1914, by the Sewanee Review Quarterly + Copyright, 1913, by John Adams Thayer Corporation + Copyright, 1912, by Argonaut Publishing Company + Copyright, 1911, by Red Book Corporation + Copyright, 1909, by Harper and Brothers + + + + +TO + +ROBERT GAMBLE CABELL II + + + + + In Dedication of The Certain Hour + + Sad hours and glad hours, and all hours, pass over; + One thing unshaken stays: + Life, that hath Death for spouse, hath Chance for lover; + Whereby decays + + Each thing save one thing:--mid this strife diurnal + Of hourly change begot, + Love that is God-born, bides as God eternal, + And changes not;-- + + Nor means a tinseled dream pursuing lovers + Find altered by-and-bye, + When, with possession, time anon discovers + Trapped dreams must die,-- + + For he that visions God, of mankind gathers + One manlike trait alone, + And reverently imputes to Him a father's + Love for his son. + + + + + CONTENTS + + "_Ballad of the Double-Soul_" + AUCTORIAL INDUCTION + BELHS CAVALIERS + BALTHAZAR'S DAUGHTER + JUDITH'S CREED + CONCERNING CORINNA + OLIVIA'S POTTAGE + A BROWN WOMAN + PRO HONORIA + THE IRRESISTIBLE OGLE + A PRINCESS OF GRUB STREET + THE LADY OF ALL OUR DREAMS + "_Ballad of Plagiary_" + + + + +_BALLAD OF THE DOUBLE-SOUL_ + + +"_Les Dieux, qui trop aiment ses faceties cruelles_"--PAUL VERVILLE. + + + In the beginning the Gods made man, and fashioned the sky and the sea, + And the earth's fair face for man's dwelling-place, and + this was the Gods' decree:-- + + "Lo, We have given to man five wits: he discerneth folly and sin; + He is swift to deride all the world outside, and blind + to the world within: + + "So that man may make sport and amuse Us, in battling + for phrases or pelf, + Now that each may know what forebodeth woe to his + neighbor, and not to himself." + + Yet some have the Gods forgotten,--or is it that subtler mirth + The Gods extort of a certain sort of folk that cumber the earth? + + _For this is the song of the double-soul, distortedly two in one,--_ + _Of the wearied eyes that still behold the fruit ere the seed be sown,_ + _And derive affright for the nearing night from the light_ + _of the noontide sun._ + + For one that with hope in the morning set forth, and knew never a fear, + They have linked with another whom omens bother; and + he whispers in one's ear. + + And one is fain to be climbing where only angels have trod, + But is fettered and tied to another's side who fears that + it might look odd. + + And one would worship a woman whom all perfections dower, + But the other smiles at transparent wiles; and he quotes + from Schopenhauer. + + Thus two by two we wrangle and blunder about the earth, + And that body we share we may not spare; but the Gods + have need of mirth. + + _So this is the song of the double-soul, distortedly two in one.--_ + _Of the wearied eyes that still behold the fruit ere the seed be sown,_ + _And derive affright for the nearing night from the light_ + _of the noontide sun._ + + + + +AUCTORIAL INDUCTION + +"_These questions, so long as they remain with the Muses, may very well +be unaccompanied with severity, for where there is no other end of +contemplation and inquiry but that of pastime alone, the understanding +is not oppressed; but after the Muses have given over their riddles to +Sphinx,--that is, to practise, which urges and impels to action, choice +and determination,--then it is that they become torturing, severe and +trying._" + + + From the dawn of the day to the dusk he toiled, + Shaping fanciful playthings, with tireless hands,-- + Useless trumpery toys; and, with vaulting heart, + Gave them unto all peoples, who mocked at him, + Trampled on them, and soiled them, and went their way. + + Then he toiled from the morn to the dusk again, + Gave his gimcracks to peoples who mocked at him, + Trampled on them, deriding, and went their way. + + Thus he labors, and loudly they jeer at him;-- + That is, when they remember he still exists. + + _Who_, you ask, _is this fellow_?--What matter names? + He is only a scribbler who is content. + + FELIX KENNASTON.--The Toy-Maker. + + + + +AUCTORIAL INDUCTION + + +WHICH (AFTER SOME BRIEF DISCOURSE OF FIRES AND FRYING-PANS) ELUCIDATES +THE INEXPEDIENCY OF PUBLISHING THIS BOOK, AS WELL AS THE NECESSITY OF +WRITING IT: AND THENCE PASSES TO A MODEST DEFENSE OF MORE VITAL THEMES. + +The desire to write perfectly of beautiful happenings is, as the saying +runs, old as the hills--and as immortal. Questionless, there was many +a serviceable brick wasted in Nineveh because finicky persons must +needs be deleting here and there a phrase in favor of its cuneatic +synonym; and it is not improbable that when the outworn sun expires in +clinkers its final ray will gild such zealots tinkering with their +"style." Some few there must be in every age and every land of whom +life claims nothing very insistently save that they write perfectly of +beautiful happenings. + +Yet, that the work of a man of letters is almost always a congenial +product of his day and environment, is a contention as lacking in +novelty as it is in the need of any upholding here. Nor is the +rationality of that axiom far to seek; for a man of genuine literary +genius, since he possesses a temperament whose susceptibilities are of +wider area than those of any other, is inevitably of all people the one +most variously affected by his surroundings. And it is he, in +consequence, who of all people most faithfully and compactly exhibits +the impress of his times and his times' tendencies, not merely in his +writings--where it conceivably might be just predetermined +affectation--but in his personality. + +Such being the assumption upon which this volume is builded, it appears +only equitable for the architect frankly to indicate his cornerstone. +Hereinafter you have an attempt to depict a special temperament--one in +essence "literary"--as very variously molded by diverse eras and as +responding in proportion with its ability to the demands of a certain +hour. + +In proportion with its ability, be it repeated, since its ability is +singularly hampered. For, apart from any ticklish temporal +considerations, be it remembered, life is always claiming of this +temperament's possessor that he write perfectly of beautiful happenings. + +To disregard this vital longing, and flatly to stifle the innate +striving toward artistic creation, is to become (as with Wycherley and +Sheridan) a man who waives, however laughingly, his sole apology for +existence. The proceeding is paltry enough, in all conscience; and +yet, upon the other side, there is much positive danger in giving to +the instinct a loose rein. For in that event the familiar +circumstances of sedate and wholesome living cannot but seem, like +paintings viewed too near, to lose in gusto and winsomeness. Desire, +perhaps a craving hunger, awakens for the impossible. No emotion, +whatever be its sincerity, is endured without a side-glance toward its +capabilities for being written about. The world, in short, inclines to +appear an ill-lit mine, wherein one quarries gingerly amidst an abiding +loneliness (as with Pope and Ufford and Sire Raimbaut)--and wherein one +very often is allured into unsavory alleys (as with Herrick and +Alessandro de Medici)--in search of that raw material which loving +labor will transshape into comeliness. + +Such, if it be allowed to shift the metaphor, are the treacherous +by-paths of that admirably policed highway whereon the well-groomed and +well-bitted Pegasi of Vanderhoffen and Charteris (in his later manner) +trot stolidly and safely toward oblivion. And the result of wandering +afield is of necessity a tragedy, in that the deviator's life, if not +as an artist's quite certainly as a human being's, must in the outcome +be adjudged a failure. + +Hereinafter, then, you have an attempt to depict a special +temperament--one in essence "literary"--as very variously molded by +diverse eras and as responding in proportion with its ability to the +demands of a certain hour. + + + + +II + +And this much said, it is permissible to hope, at least, that here and +there some reader may be found not wholly blind to this book's goal, +whatever be his opinion as to this book's success in reaching it. Yet +many honest souls there be among us average-novel-readers in whose eyes +this volume must rest content to figure as a collection of short +stories having naught in common beyond the feature that each deals with +the _affaires du coeur_ of a poet. + +Such must always be the book's interpretation by mental indolence. The +fact is incontestable; and this fact in itself may be taken as +sufficient to establish the inexpediency of publishing _The Certain +Hour_. For that "people will not buy a volume of short stories" is +notorious to all publishers. To offset the axiom there are no doubt +incongruous phenomena--ranging from the continued popularity of the +Bible to the present general esteem of Mr. Kipling, and embracing the +rather unaccountable vogue of "O. Henry";--but, none the less, the +superstition has its force. + +Here intervenes the multifariousness of man, pointed out somewhere by +Mr. Gilbert Chesterton, which enables the individual to be at once a +vegetarian, a golfer, a vestryman, a blond, a mammal, a Democrat, and +an immortal spirit. As a rational person, one may debonairly consider +_The Certain Hour_ possesses as large license to look like a volume of +short stories as, say, a backgammon-board has to its customary guise of +a two-volume history; but as an average-novel-reader, one must vote +otherwise. As an average-novel-reader, one must condemn the very book +which, as a seasoned scribbler, one was moved to write through long +consideration of the drama already suggested--that immemorial drama of +the desire to write perfectly of beautiful happenings, and the obscure +martyrdom to which this desire solicits its possessor. + +Now, clearly, the struggle of a special temperament with a fixed force +does not forthwith begin another story when the locale of combat +shifts. The case is, rather, as when--with certainly an intervening +change of apparel--Pompey fights Caesar at both Dyrrachium and +Pharsalus, or as when General Grant successively encounters General Lee +at the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor and Appomattox. The +combatants remain unchanged, the question at issue is the same, the +tragedy has continuity. And even so, from the time of Sire Raimbaut to +that of John Charteris has a special temperament heart-hungrily +confronted an ageless problem: at what cost now, in this fleet hour of +my vigor, may one write perfectly of beautiful happenings? + + +Thus logic urges, with pathetic futility, inasmuch as we +average-novel-readers are profoundly indifferent to both logic and good +writing. And always the fact remains that to the mentally indolent +this book may well seem a volume of disconnected short stories. All of +us being more or less mentally indolent, this possibility constitutes a +dire fault. + +Three other damning objections will readily obtrude themselves: _The +Certain Hour_ deals with past epochs--beginning before the introduction +of dinner-forks, and ending at that remote quaint period when people +used to waltz and two-step--dead eras in which we average-novel-readers +are not interested; _The Certain Hour_ assumes an appreciable amount of +culture and information on its purchaser's part, which we +average-novel-readers either lack or, else, are unaccustomed to employ +in connection with reading for pastime; and--in our eyes the crowning +misdemeanor--_The Certain Hour_ is not "vital." + +Having thus candidly confessed these faults committed as the writer of +this book, it is still possible in human multifariousness to consider +their enormity, not merely in this book, but in fictional +reading-matter at large, as viewed by an average-novel-reader--by a +representative of that potent class whose preferences dictate the +nature and main trend of modern American literature. And to do this, +it may be, throws no unsalutary sidelight upon the still-existent +problem: at what cost, now, may one attempt to write perfectly of +beautiful happenings? + + + + +III + + +Indisputably the most striking defect of this modern American +literature is the fact that the production of anything at all +resembling literature is scarcely anywhere apparent. Innumerable +printing-presses, instead, are turning out a vast quantity of +reading-matter, the candidly recognized purpose of which is to kill +time, and which--it has been asserted, though perhaps too +sweepingly--ought not to be vended over book-counters, but rather in +drugstores along with the other narcotics. + +It is begging the question to protest that the class of people who a +generation ago read nothing now at least read novels, and to regard +this as a change for the better. By similar logic it would be more +wholesome to breakfast off laudanum than to omit the meal entirely. +The nineteenth century, in fact, by making education popular, has +produced in America the curious spectacle of a reading-public with +essentially nonliterary tastes. Formerly, better books were published, +because they were intended for persons who turned to reading through a +natural bent of mind; whereas the modern American novel of commerce is +addressed to us average people who read, when we read at all, in +violation of every innate instinct. + +Such grounds as yet exist for hopefulness on the part of those who +cordially care for _belles lettres_ are to be found elsewhere than in +the crowded market-places of fiction, where genuine intelligence +panders on all sides to ignorance and indolence. The phrase may seem +to have no very civil ring; but reflection will assure the fair-minded +that two indispensable requisites nowadays of a pecuniarily successful +novel are, really, that it make no demand upon the reader's +imagination, and that it rigorously refrain from assuming its reader to +possess any particular information on any subject whatever. The author +who writes over the head of the public is the most dangerous enemy of +his publisher--and the most insidious as well, because so many +publishers are in private life interested in literary matters, and +would readily permit this personal foible to influence the exercise of +their vocation were it possible to do so upon the preferable side of +bankruptcy. + +But publishers, among innumerable other conditions, must weigh the fact +that no novel which does not deal with modern times is ever really +popular among the serious-minded. It is difficult to imagine a tale +whose action developed under the rule of the Caesars or the +Merovingians being treated as more than a literary _hors d'oeuvre_. We +purchasers of "vital" novels know nothing about the period, beyond a +hazy association of it with the restrictions of the schoolroom; our +sluggish imaginations instinctively rebel against the exertion of +forming any notion of such a period; and all the human nature that +exists even in serious-minded persons is stirred up to resentment +against the book's author for presuming to know more than a potential +patron. The book, in fine, simply irritates the serious-minded person; +and she--for it is only women who willingly brave the terrors of +department-stores, where most of our new books are bought +nowadays--quite naturally puts it aside in favor of some keen and +daring study of American life that is warranted to grip the reader. +So, modernity of scene is everywhere necessitated as an essential +qualification for a book's discussion at the literary evenings of the +local woman's club; and modernity of scene, of course, is almost always +fatal to the permanent worth of fictitious narrative. + +It may seem banal here to recall the truism that first-class art never +reproduces its surroundings; but such banality is often justified by +our human proneness to shuffle over the fact that many truisms are +true. And this one is pre-eminently indisputable: that what mankind +has generally agreed to accept as first-class art in any of the varied +forms of fictitious narrative has never been a truthful reproduction of +the artist's era. Indeed, in the higher walks of fiction art has never +reproduced anything, but has always dealt with the facts and laws of +life as so much crude material which must be transmuted into +comeliness. When Shakespeare pronounced his celebrated dictum about +art's holding the mirror up to nature, he was no doubt alluding to the +circumstance that a mirror reverses everything which it reflects. + +Nourishment for much wildish speculation, in fact, can be got by +considering what the world's literature would be, had its authors +restricted themselves, as do we Americans so sedulously--and +unavoidably--to writing of contemporaneous happenings. In +fiction-making no author of the first class since Homer's infancy has +ever in his happier efforts concerned himself at all with the great +"problems" of his particular day; and among geniuses of the second rank +you will find such ephemeralities adroitly utilized only when they are +distorted into enduring parodies of their actual selves by the broad +humor of a Dickens or the colossal fantasy of a Balzac. In such cases +as the latter two writers, however, we have an otherwise competent +artist handicapped by a personality so marked that, whatever he may +nominally write about, the result is, above all else, an exposure of +the writer's idiosyncrasies. Then, too, the laws of any locale wherein +Mr. Pickwick achieves a competence in business, or of a society wherein +Vautrin becomes chief of police, are upon the face of it extra-mundane. +It suffices that, as a general rule, in fiction-making the true artist +finds an ample, if restricted, field wherein the proper functions of +the preacher, or the ventriloquist, or the photographer, or of the +public prosecutor, are exercised with equal lack of grace. + +Besides, in dealing with contemporary life a novelist is goaded into +too many pusillanimous concessions to plausibility. He no longer moves +with the gait of omnipotence. It was very different in the palmy days +when Dumas was free to play at ducks and drakes with history, and +Victor Hugo to reconstruct the whole system of English government, and +Scott to compel the sun to set in the east, whenever such minor changes +caused to flow more smoothly the progress of the tale these giants had +in hand. These freedoms are not tolerated in American noveldom, and +only a few futile "high-brows" sigh in vain for Thackeray's "happy +harmless Fableland, where these things are." The majority of us are +deep in "vital" novels. Nor is the reason far to seek. + + + + +IV + + +One hears a great deal nowadays concerning "vital" books. Their +authors have been widely praised on very various grounds. Oddly +enough, however, the writers of these books have rarely been commended +for the really praiseworthy charity evinced therein toward that large +long-suffering class loosely describable as the average-novel-reader. + +Yet, in connection with this fact, it is worthy of more than passing +note that no great while ago the _New York Times'_ carefully selected +committee, in picking out the hundred best books published during a +particular year, declared as to novels--"a 'best' book, in our opinion, +is one that raises an important question, or recurs to a vital theme +and pronounces upon it what in some sense is a last word." Now this +definition is not likely ever to receive more praise than it deserves. +Cavilers may, of course, complain that actually to write the last word +on any subject is a feat reserved for the Recording Angel's unique +performance on judgment Day. Even setting that objection aside, it is +undeniable that no work of fiction published of late in America +corresponds quite so accurately to the terms of this definition as do +the multiplication tables. Yet the multiplication tables are not +without their claims to applause as examples of straightforward +narrative. It is, also, at least permissible to consider that therein +the numeral five, say, where it figures as protagonist, unfolds under +the stress of its varying adventures as opulent a development of real +human nature as does, through similar ups-and-downs, the Reverend John +Hodder in _The Inside of the Cup_. It is equally allowable to find the +less simple evolution of the digit seven more sympathetic, upon the +whole, than those of Undine Spragg in _The Custom of the Country_. +But, even so, this definition of what may now, authoritatively, be +ranked as a "best novel" is an honest and noteworthy severance from +misleading literary associations such as have too long befogged our +notions about reading-matter. It points with emphasis toward the +altruistic obligations of tale-tellers to be "vital." + +For we average-novel-readers--we average people, in a word--are now, as +always, rather pathetically hungry for "vital" themes, such themes as +appeal directly to our everyday observation and prejudices. Did the +decision rest with us all novelists would be put under bond to confine +themselves forevermore to themes like these. + +As touches the appeal to everyday observation, it is an old story, at +least coeval with Mr. Crummles' not uncelebrated pumps and tubs, if not +with the grapes of Zeuxis, how unfailingly in art we delight to +recognize the familiar. A novel whose scene of action is explicit will +always interest the people of that locality, whatever the book's other +pretensions to consideration. Given simultaneously a photograph of +Murillo's rendering of _The Virgin Crowned Queen of Heaven_ and a +photograph of a governor's installation in our State capital, there is +no one of us but will quite naturally look at the latter first, in +order to see if in it some familiar countenance be recognizable. And +thus, upon a larger scale, the twentieth century is, pre-eminently, +interested in the twentieth century. + +It is all very well to describe our average-novel-readers' dislike of +Romanticism as "the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a +glass." It is even within the scope of human dunderheadedness again to +point out here that the supreme artists in literature have precisely +this in common, and this alone, that in their masterworks they have +avoided the "vital" themes of their day with such circumspection as +lesser folk reserve for the smallpox. The answer, of course, in either +case, is that the "vital" novel, the novel which peculiarly appeals to +us average-novel-readers, has nothing to do with literature. There is +between these two no more intelligent connection than links the paint +Mr. Sargent puts on canvas and the paint Mr. Dockstader puts on his +face. + +Literature is made up of the re-readable books, the books which it is +possible--for the people so constituted as to care for that sort of +thing--to read again and yet again with pleasure. Therefore, in +literature a book's subject is of astonishingly minor importance, and +its style nearly everything: whereas in books intended to be read for +pastime, and forthwith to be consigned at random to the wastebasket or +to the inmates of some charitable institute, the theme is of paramount +importance, and ought to be a serious one. The modern novelist owes it +to his public to select a "vital" theme which in itself will fix the +reader's attention by reason of its familiarity in the reader's +everyday life. + +Thus, a lady with whose more candid opinions the writer of this is more +frequently favored nowadays than of old, formerly confessed to having +only one set rule when it came to investment in new +reading-matter--always to buy the Williamsons' last book. Her reason +was the perfectly sensible one that the Williamsons' plots used +invariably to pivot upon motor-trips, and she is an ardent +automobilist. Since, as of late, the Williamsons have seen fit to +exercise their typewriter upon other topics, they have as a matter of +course lost her patronage. + +This principle of selection, when you come to appraise it sanely, is +the sole intelligent method of dealing with reading-matter. It seems +here expedient again to state the peculiar problem that we +average-novel-readers have of necessity set the modern +novelist--namely, that his books must in the main appeal to people who +read for pastime, to people who read books only under protest and only +when they have no other employment for that particular half-hour. + +Now, reading for pastime is immensely simplified when the book's theme +is some familiar matter of the reader's workaday life, because at +outset the reader is spared considerable mental effort. The motorist +above referred to, and indeed any average-novel-reader, can without +exertion conceive of the Williamsons' people in their automobiles. +Contrariwise, were these fictitious characters embarked in palankeens +or droshkies or jinrikishas, more or less intellectual exercise would +be necessitated on the reader's part to form a notion of the +conveyance. And we average-novel-readers do not open a book with the +intention of making a mental effort. The author has no right to expect +of us an act so unhabitual, we very poignantly feel. Our prejudices he +is freely chartered to stir up--if, lucky rogue, he can!--but he ought +with deliberation to recognize that it is precisely in order to avoid +mental effort that we purchase, or borrow, his book, and afterward +discuss it. + +Hence arises our heartfelt gratitude toward such novels as deal with +"vital" themes, with the questions we average-novel-readers confront or +make talk about in those happier hours of our existence wherein we are +not reduced to reading. Thus, a tale, for example, dealing either with +"feminism" or "white slavery" as the handiest makeshift of +spinsterdom--or with the divorce habit and plutocratic iniquity in +general, or with the probable benefits of converting clergymen to +Christianity, or with how much more than she knows a desirable mother +will tell her children--finds the book's tentative explorer, just now, +amply equipped with prejudices, whether acquired by second thought or +second hand, concerning the book's topic. As endurability goes, +reading the book rises forthwith almost to the level of an +afternoon-call where there is gossip about the neighbors and Germany's +future. We average-novel-readers may not, in either case, agree with +the opinions advanced; but at least our prejudices are aroused, and we +are interested. + +And these "vital" themes awake our prejudices at the cost of a +minimum--if not always, as when Miss Corelli guides us, with a +positively negligible--tasking of our mental faculties. For such +exemption we average-novel-readers cannot but be properly grateful. +Nay, more than this: provided the novelist contrive to rouse our +prejudices, it matters with us not at all whether afterward they be +soothed or harrowed. To implicate our prejudices somehow, to raise in +us a partizanship in the tale's progress, is our sole request. Whether +this consummation be brought about through an arraignment of some +social condition which we personally either advocate or reprehend--the +attitude weighs little--or whether this interest be purchased with +placidly driveling preachments of generally "uplifting" +tendencies--vaguely titillating that vague intention which exists in us +all of becoming immaculate as soon as it is perfectly convenient--the +personal prejudices of us average-novel-readers are not lightly lulled +again to sleep. + +In fact, the jealousy of any human prejudice against hinted +encroachment may safely be depended upon to spur us through an +astonishing number of pages--for all that it has of late been +complained among us, with some show of extenuation, that our original +intent in beginning certain of the recent "vital" novels was to kill +time, rather than eternity. And so, we average-novel-readers plod on +jealously to the end, whether we advance (to cite examples already +somewhat of yesterday) under the leadership of Mr. Upton Sinclair +aspersing the integrity of modern sausages and millionaires, or of Mr. +Hall Caine saying about Roman Catholics what ordinary people would +hesitate to impute to their relatives by marriage--or whether we be +more suavely allured onward by Mrs. Florence Barclay, or Mr. Sydnor +Harrison, with ingenuous indorsements of the New Testament and the +inherent womanliness of women. + +The "vital" theme, then, let it be repeated, has two inestimable +advantages which should commend it to all novelists: first, it spares +us average-novel-readers any preliminary orientation, and thereby +mitigates the mental exertion of reading; and secondly, it appeals to +our prejudices, which we naturally prefer to exercise, and are +accustomed to exercise, rather than our mental or idealistic faculties. +The novelist who conscientiously bears these two facts in mind is +reasonably sure of his reward, not merely in pecuniary form, but in +those higher fields wherein he harvests his chosen public's honest +gratitude and affection. + +For we average-novel-readers are quite frequently reduced by +circumstances to self-entrustment to the resources of the novelist, as +to those of the dentist. Our latter-day conditions, as we cannot but +recognize, necessitate the employment of both artists upon occasion. +And with both, we average-novel-readers, we average people, are most +grateful when they make the process of resorting to them as easy and +unirritating as may be possible. + + + + +V + + +So much for the plea of us average-novel-readers; and our plea, we +think, is rational. We are "in the market" for a specified article; +and human ingenuity, co-operating with human nature, will inevitably +insure the manufacture of that article as long as any general demand +for it endures. + +Meanwhile, it is small cause for grief that the purchaser of American +novels prefers Central Park to any "wood near Athens," and is more at +home in the Tenderloin than in Camelot. People whose tastes happen to +be literary are entirely too prone to too much long-faced prattle about +literature, which, when all is said, is never a controlling factor in +anybody's life. The automobile and the telephone, the accomplishments +of Mr. Edison and Mr. Burbank, and it would be permissible to add of +Mr. Rockefeller, influence nowadays, in one fashion or another, every +moment of every living American's existence; whereas had America +produced, instead, a second Milton or a Dante, it would at most have +caused a few of us to spend a few spare evenings rather differently. + +Besides, we know--even we average-novel-readers--that America is in +fact producing her enduring literature day by day, although, as rarely +fails to be the case, those who are contemporaneous with the makers of +this literature cannot with any certainty point them out. To voice a +hoary truism, time alone is the test of "vitality." In our present +flood of books, as in any other flood, it is the froth and scum which +shows most prominently. And the possession of "vitality," here as +elsewhere, postulates that its possessor must ultimately perish. + +Nay, by the time these printed pages are first read as printed pages, +allusion to those modern authors whom these pages cite--the pre-eminent +literary personages of that hour wherein these pages were written--will +inevitably have come to savor somewhat of antiquity: so that sundry +references herein to the "vital" books now most in vogue will rouse +much that vague shrugging recollection as wakens, say, at a mention of +_Dorothy Vernon_ or _Three Weeks_ or _Beverly of Graustark_. And while +at first glance it might seem expedient--in revising the last +proof-sheets of these pages--somewhat to "freshen them up" by +substituting, for the books herein referred to, the "vital" and more +widely talked-of novels of the summer of 1916, the task would be but +wasted labor; since even these fascinating chronicles, one comprehends +forlornly, must needs be equally obsolete by the time these +proof-sheets have been made into a volume. With malice aforethought, +therefore, the books and authors named herein stay those which all of +three years back our reviewers and advertising pages, with perfect +gravity, acclaimed as of enduring importance. For the quaintness of +that opinion, nowadays, may profitably round the moral that there is +really nothing whereto one may fittingly compare a successful +contribution to "vital" reading-matter, as touches evanescence. + +And this is as it should be. _Tout passe.--L'art robust seul a +l'eternite_, precisely as Gautier points out, with bracing +common-sense; and it is excellent thus to comprehend that to-day, as +always, only through exercise of the auctorial virtues of distinction +and clarity, of beauty and symmetry, of tenderness and truth and +urbanity, may a man in reason attempt to insure his books against +oblivion's voracity. + +Yet the desire to write perfectly of beautiful happenings is, as the +saying runs, old as the hills--and as immortal. Questionless, there +was many a serviceable brick wasted in Nineveh because finicky persons +must needs be deleting here and there a phrase in favor of its cuneatic +synonym; and it is not improbable that when the outworn sun expires in +clinkers its final ray will gild such zealots tinkering with their +"style." This, then, is the conclusion of the whole matter. Some few +there must be in every age and every land of whom life claims nothing +very insistently save that they write perfectly of beautiful +happenings. And even we average-novel-readers know it is such folk who +are to-day making in America that portion of our literature which may +hope for permanency. + +Dumbarton Grange + 1914-1916 + + + + +BELHS CAVALIERS + + +"_For this RAIMBAUT DE VAQUIERAS lived at a time when prolonged habits +of extra-mundane contemplation, combined with the decay of real +knowledge, were apt to volatilize the thoughts and aspirations of the +best and wisest into dreamy unrealities, and to lend a false air of +mysticism to love. . . . It is as if the intellect and the will had +become used to moving paralytically among visions, dreams, and mystic +terrors, weighed down with torpor._" + + + Fair friend, since that hour I took leave of thee + I have not slept nor stirred from off my knee, + But prayed alway to God, S. Mary's Son, + To give me back my true companion; + And soon it will be Dawn. + + Fair friend, at parting, thy behest to me + Was that all sloth I should eschew and flee, + And keep good Watch until the Night was done: + Now must my Song and Service pass for none? + For soon it will be Dawn. + + RAIMBAUT DE VAQUIERAS.--_Aubade, from F. York Powell's version_. + + + + +BELHS CAVALIERS + + +You may read elsewhere of the long feud that was between Guillaume de +Baux, afterward Prince of Orange, and his kinsman Raimbaut de +Vaquieras. They were not reconciled until their youth was dead. Then, +when Messire Raimbaut returned from battling against the Turks and the +Bulgarians, in the 1,210th year from man's salvation, the Archbishop of +Rheims made peace between the two cousins; and, attended by Makrisi, a +converted Saracen who had followed the knight's fortunes for well nigh +a quarter of a century, the Sire de Vaquieras rode homeward. + +Many slain men were scattered along the highway when he came again into +Venaissin, in April, after an absence of thirty years. The crows whom +his passing disturbed were too sluggish for long flights and many of +them did not heed him at all. Guillaume de Baux was now undisputed +master of these parts, although, as this host of mute, hacked and +partially devoured witnesses attested, the contest had been dubious for +a while: but now Lovain of the Great-Tooth, Prince Guillaume's last +competitor, was captured; the forces of Lovain were scattered; and of +Lovain's lieutenants only Mahi de Vernoil was unsubdued. + +Prince Guillaume laughed a little when he told his kinsman of the +posture of affairs, as more loudly did Guillaume's gross son, Sire +Philibert. But Madona Biatritz did not laugh. She was the widow of +Guillaume's dead brother--Prince Conrat, whom Guillaume succeeded--and +it was in her honor that Raimbaut had made those songs which won him +eminence as a practitioner of the Gay Science. + +Biatritz said, "It is a long while since we two met." + +He that had been her lover all his life said, "Yes." + +She was no longer the most beautiful of women, no longer his be-hymned +Belhs Cavaliers--you may read elsewhere how he came to call her that in +all his canzons--but only a fine and gracious stranger. It was +uniformly gray, that soft and plentiful hair, where once such gold had +flamed as dizzied him to think of even now; there was no crimson in +these thinner lips; and candor would have found her eyes less wonderful +than those Raimbaut had dreamed of very often among an alien and +hostile people. But he lamented nothing, and to him she was as ever +Heaven's most splendid miracle. + +"Yes," said this old Raimbaut,--"and even to-day we have not reclaimed +the Sepulcher as yet. Oh, I doubt if we shall ever win it, now that +your brother and my most dear lord is dead." Both thought a while of +Boniface de Montferrat, their playmate once, who yesterday was King of +Thessalonica and now was so much Macedonian dust. + +She said: "This week the Prince sent envoys to my nephew. . . . And +so you have come home again----" Color had surged into her time-worn +face, and as she thought of things done long ago this woman's eyes were +like the eyes of his young Biatritz. She said: "You never married?" + +He answered: "No, I have left love alone. For Love prefers to take +rather than to give; against a single happy hour he balances a hundred +miseries, and he appraises one pleasure to be worth a thousand pangs. +Pardieu, let this immortal usurer contrive as may seem well to him, for +I desire no more of his bounty or of his penalties." + +"No, we wish earnestly for nothing, either good or bad," said Dona +Biatritz--"we who have done with loving." + +They sat in silence, musing over ancient happenings, and not looking at +each other, until the Prince came with his guests, who seemed to laugh +too heartily. + +Guillaume's frail arm was about his kinsman, and Guillaume chuckled +over jests and by-words that had been between the cousins as children. +Raimbaut found them no food for laughter now. Guillaume told all of +Raimbaut's oath of fealty, and of how these two were friends and their +unnatural feud was forgotten. "For we grow old,--eh, maker of songs?" +he said; "and it is time we made our peace with Heaven, since we are +not long for this world." + +"Yes," said the knight; "oh yes, we both grow old." He thought of +another April evening, so long ago, when this Guillaume de Baux had +stabbed him in a hedged field near Calais, and had left him under a +hawthorn bush for dead; and Raimbaut wondered that there was no anger +in his heart. "We are friends now," he said. Biatritz, whom these two +had loved, and whose vanished beauty had been the spur of their long +enmity, sat close to them, and hardly seemed to listen. + +Thus the evening passed and every one was merry, because the Prince had +overcome Lovain of the Great-Tooth, and was to punish the upstart on +the morrow. But Raimbaut de Vaquieras, a spent fellow, a derelict, +barren of aim now that the Holy Wars were over, sat in this unfamiliar +place--where when he was young he had laughed as a cock crows!--and +thought how at the last he had crept home to die as a dependent on his +cousin's bounty. + +Thus the evening passed, and at its end Makrisi followed the troubadour +to his regranted fief of Vaquieras. This was a chill and brilliant +night, swayed by a frozen moon so powerful that no stars showed in the +unclouded heavens, and everywhere the bogs were curdled with thin ice. +An obdurate wind swept like a knife-blade across a world which even in +its spring seemed very old. + +"This night is bleak and evil," Makrisi said. He rode a coffin's +length behind his master. "It is like Prince Guillaume, I think. What +man will sorrow when dawn comes?" + +Raimbaut de Vaquieras replied: "Always dawn comes at last, Makrisi." + +"It comes the more quickly, messire, when it is prompted." + +The troubadour only smiled at words which seemed so meaningless. He +did not smile when later in the night Makrisi brought Mahi de Vernoil, +disguised as a mendicant friar. This outlaw pleaded with Sire Raimbaut +to head the tatters of Lovain's army, and showed Raimbaut how easy it +would be to wrest Venaissin from Prince Guillaume. "We cannot save +Lovain," de Vemoil said, "for Guillaume has him fast. But Venaissin is +very proud of you, my tres beau sire. Ho, maker of world-famous songs! +stout champion of the faith! my men and I will now make you Prince of +Orange in place of the fiend who rules us. You may then at your +convenience wed Madona Biatritz, that most amiable lady whom you have +loved so long. And by the Cross! you may do this before the week is +out." + +The old knight answered: "It is true that I have always served Madona +Biatritz, who is of matchless worth. I might not, therefore, presume +to call myself any longer her servant were my honor stained in any +particular. Oh no, Messire de Vernoil, an oath is an oath. I have +this day sworn fealty to Guillaume de Baux." + +Then after other talk Raimbaut dismissed the fierce-eyed little man. +The freebooter growled curses as he went. On a sudden he whistled, +like a person considering, and he began to chuckle. + +Raimbaut said, more lately: "Zoraida left no wholesome legacy in you, +Makrisi." This Zoraida was a woman the knight had known in +Constantinople--a comely outlander who had killed herself because of +Sire Raimbaut's highflown avoidance of all womankind except the +mistress of his youth. + +"Nay, save only in loving you too well, messire, was Zoraida a wise +woman, notably. . . . But this is outworn talk, the prattle of Cain's +babyhood. As matters were, you did not love Zoraida. So Zoraida died. +Such is the custom in my country." + +"You trouble me, Makrisi. Your eyes are like blown coals. . . . Yet +you have served me long and faithfully. You know that mine was ever +the vocation of dealing honorably in battle among emperors, and of +spreading broadcast the rumor of my valor, and of achieving good by my +sword's labors. I have lived by warfare. Long, long ago, since I +derived no benefit from love, I cried farewell to it." + +"Ay," said Makrisi. "Love makes a demi-god of all--just for an hour. +Such hours as follow we devote to the concoction of sleeping-draughts." +He laughed, and very harshly. + +And Raimbaut did not sleep that night because this life of ours seemed +such a piece of tangle-work as he had not the skill to unravel. So he +devoted the wakeful hours to composition of a planh, lamenting vanished +youth and that Biatritz whom the years had stolen. + +Then on the ensuing morning, after some talk about the new campaign, +Prince Guillaume de Baux leaned back in his high chair and said, +abruptly: + +"In perfect candor, you puzzle your liege-lord. For you loathe me and +you still worship my sister-in-law, an unattainable princess. In these +two particulars you display such wisdom as would inevitably prompt you +to make an end of me. Yet, what the devil! you, the time-battered +vagabond, decline happiness and a kingdom to boot because of +yesterday's mummery in the cathedral! because of a mere promise given! +Yes, I have my spies in every rat-hole. I am aware that my barons hate +me, and hate Philibert almost as bitterly,--and that, in fine, a +majority of my barons would prefer to see you Prince in my unstable +place, on account of your praiseworthy molestations of heathenry. Oh, +yes, I understand my barons perfectly. I flatter myself I understand +everybody in Venaissin save you." + +Raimbaut answered: "You and I are not alike." + +"No, praise each and every Saint!" said the Prince of Orange, heartily. +"And yet, I am not sure----" He rose, for his sight had failed him so +that he could not distinctly see you except when he spoke with head +thrown back, as though he looked at you over a wall. "For instance, do +you understand that I hold Biatritz here as a prisoner, because her +dower-lands are necessary to me, and that I intend to marry her as soon +as Pope Innocent grants me a dispensation?" + +"All Venaissin knows that. Yes, you have always gained everything +which you desired in this world, Guillaume. Yet it was at a price, I +think." + +"I am no haggler. . . . But you have never comprehended me, not even in +the old days when we loved each other. For instance, do you +understand--slave of a spoken word!--what it must mean to me to know +that at this hour to-morrow there will be alive in Venaissin no person +whom I hate?" + +Messire de Vaquieras reflected. His was never a rapid mind. "Why, no, +I do not know anything about hatred," he said, at last. "I think I +never hated any person." + +Guillaume de Baux gave a half-frantic gesture. "Now, Heaven send you +troubadours a clearer understanding of what sort of world we live +in----!" He broke off short and growled, "And yet--sometimes I envy +you, Raimbaut!" + +They rode then into the Square of St. Michel to witness the death of +Lovain. Guillaume took with him his two new mistresses and all his +by-blows, each magnificently clothed, as if they rode to a festival. +Afterward, before the doors of Lovain's burning house, a rope was +fastened under Lovain's armpits, and he was gently lowered into a pot +of boiling oil. His feet cooked first, and then the flesh of his legs, +and so on upward, while Lovain screamed. Guillaume in a loose robe of +green powdered with innumerable silver crescents, sat watching, under a +canopy woven very long ago in Tarshish, and cunningly embroidered with +the figures of peacocks and apes and men with eagles' heads. His hands +caressed each other meditatively. + + +It was on the afternoon of this day, the last of April, that Sire +Raimbaut came upon Madona Biatritz about a strange employment in the +Ladies' Court. There was then a well in the midst of this enclosure, +with a granite ledge around it carven with lilies; and upon this she +leaned, looking down into the water. In her lap was a rope of pearls, +which one by one she unthreaded and dropped into the well. + +Clear and warm the weather was. Without, forests were quickening, +branch by branch, as though a green flame smoldered from one bough to +another. Violets peeped about the roots of trees, and all the world +was young again. But here was only stone beneath their feet; and about +them showed the high walls and the lead-sheathed towers and the +parapets and the sunk windows of Guillaume's chateau. There was no +color anywhere save gray; and Raimbaut and Biatritz were aging people +now. It seemed to him that they were the wraiths of those persons who +had loved each other at Montferrat; and that the walls about them and +the leaden devils who grinned from every waterspout and all those dark +and narrow windows were only part of some magic picture, such as a +sorceress may momentarily summon out of smoke-wreaths, as he had seen +Zoraida do very long ago. + +This woman might have been a wraith in verity, for she was clothed +throughout in white, save for the ponderous gold girdle about her +middle. A white gorget framed the face which was so pinched and shrewd +and strange; and she peered into the well, smiling craftily. + +"I was thinking death was like this well," said Biatritz, without any +cessation of her singular employment--"so dark that we may see nothing +clearly save one faint gleam which shows us, or which seems to show us, +where rest is. Yes, yes, this is that chaplet which you won in the +tournament at Montferrat when we were young. Pearls are the symbol of +tears, we read. But we had no time for reading then, no time for +anything except to be quite happy. . . . You saw this morning's work. +Raimbaut, were Satan to go mad he would be such a fiend as this +Guillaume de Baux who is our master!" + +"Ay, the man is as cruel as my old opponent, Mourzoufle," Sire Raimbaut +answered, with a patient shrug. "It is a great mystery why such +persons should win all which they desire of this world. We can but +recognize that it is for some sufficient reason." Then he talked with +her concerning the aforementioned infamous emperor of the East, against +whom the old knight had fought, and of Enrico Dandolo and of King +Boniface, dead brother to Madona Biatritz, and of much remote, +outlandish adventuring oversea. Of Zoraida he did not speak. And +Biatritz, in turn, told him of that one child which she had borne her +husband, Prince Conrat--a son who died in infancy; and she spoke of +this dead baby, who living would have been their monarch, with a sweet +quietude that wrung the old knight's heart. + +Thus these spent people sat and talked for a long while, the talk +veering anywhither just as chance directed. Blurred gusts of song and +laughter would come to them at times from the hall where Guillaume de +Baux drank with his courtiers, and these would break the tranquil flow +of speech. Then, unvexedly, the gentle voice of the speaker, were it +his or hers, would resume. + +She said: "They laugh. We are not merry." + +"No," he replied; "I am not often merry. There was a time when love +and its service kept me in continuous joy, as waters invest a fish. I +woke from a high dream. . . . And then, but for the fear of seeming +cowardly, I would have extinguished my life as men blow out a candle. +Vanity preserved me, sheer vanity!" He shrugged, spreading his hard +lean hands. "Belhs Cavaliers, I grudged my enemies the pleasure of +seeing me forgetful of valor and noble enterprises. And so, since +then, I have served Heaven, in default of you." + +"I would not have it otherwise," she said, half as in wonder; "I would +not have you be quite sane like other men. And I believe," she +added--still with her wise smile--"you have derived a deal of comfort, +off and on, from being heart-broken." + +He replied gravely: "A man may always, if he will but take the pains, +be tolerably content and rise in worth, and yet dispense with love. He +has only to guard himself against baseness, and concentrate his powers +on doing right. Thus, therefore, when fortune failed me, I persisted +in acting to the best of my ability. Though I had lost my lands and my +loved lady, I must hold fast to my own worth. Without a lady and +without acreage, it was yet in my power to live a cleanly and honorable +life; and I did not wish to make two evils out of one." + +"Assuredly, I would not have you be quite sane like other men," she +repeated. "It would seem that you have somehow blundered through long +years, preserving always the ignorance of a child, and the blindness of +a child. I cannot understand how this is possible; nor can I keep from +smiling at your high-flown notions; and yet,--I envy you, Raimbaut." + + +Thus the afternoon passed, and the rule of Prince Guillaume was made +secure. His supper was worthily appointed, for Guillaume loved color +and music and beauty of every kind, and was on this, the day of his +triumph, in a prodigal humor. Many lackeys in scarlet brought in the +first course, to the sound of exultant drums and pipes, with a blast of +trumpets and a waving of banners, so that all hearts were uplifted, and +Guillaume jested with harsh laughter. + +But Raimbaut de Vaquieras was not mirthful, for he was remembering a +boy whom he had known of very long ago. He was swayed by an odd fancy, +as the men sat over their wine, and jongleurs sang and performed tricks +for their diversion, that this boy, so frank and excellent, as yet +existed somewhere; and that the Raimbaut who moved these shriveled +hands before him, on the table there, was only a sad dream of what had +never been. It troubled him, too, to see how grossly these soldiers +ate, for, as a person of refinement, an associate of monarchs, Sire +Raimbaut when the dishes were passed picked up his meats between the +index- and the middle-finger of his left hand, and esteemed it infamous +manners to dip any other fingers into the gravy. + +Guillaume had left the Warriors' Hall. Philibert was drunk, and half +the men-at-arms were snoring among the rushes, when at the height of +their festivity Makrisi came. He plucked his master by the sleeve. + +A swarthy, bearded Angevin was singing. His song was one of old Sire +Raimbaut's famous canzons in honor of Belhs Cavaliers. The knave was +singing blithely: + + _Pus mos Belhs Cavaliers grazitz_ + _E joys m'es lunhatz e faiditz,_ + _Don no m' venra jamais conortz;_ + _Fer qu'ees mayer l'ira e plus fortz--_ + + +The Saracen had said nothing. He showed a jeweled dagger, and the +knight arose and followed him out of that uproarious hall. Raimbaut +was bitterly perturbed, though he did not know for what reason, as +Makrisi led him through dark corridors to the dull-gleaming arras of +Prince Guillaume's apartments. In this corridor was an iron lamp swung +from the ceiling, and now, as this lamp swayed slightly and burned low, +the tiny flame leaped clear of the wick and was extinguished, and +darkness rose about them. + +Raimbaut said: "What do you want of me? Whose blood is on that knife?" + +"Have you forgotten it is Walburga's Eve?" Makrisi said. Raimbaut did +not regret he could not see his servant's countenance. "Time was we +named it otherwise and praised another woman than a Saxon wench, but +let the new name stand. It is Walburga's Eve, that little, little hour +of evil! and all over the world surges the full tide of hell's desire, +and mischief is a-making now, apace, apace, apace. People moan in +their sleep, and many pillows are pricked by needles that have sewed a +shroud. Cry _Eman hetan_ now, messire! for there are those to-night +who find the big cathedrals of your red-roofed Christian towns no more +imposing than so many pimples on a butler's chin, because they ride so +high, so very high, in this brave moonlight. Full-tide, full-tide!" +Makrisi said, and his voice jangled like a bell as he drew aside the +curtain so that the old knight saw into the room beyond. + +It was a place of many lights, which, when thus suddenly disclosed, +blinded him at first. Then Raimbaut perceived Guillaume lying a-sprawl +across an oaken chest. The Prince had fallen backward and lay in this +posture, glaring at the intruders with horrible eyes which did not move +and would not ever move again. His breast was crimson, for some one +had stabbed him. A woman stood above the corpse and lighted yet +another candle while Raimbaut de Vaquieras waited motionless. A hand +meant only to bestow caresses brushed a lock of hair from this woman's +eyes while he waited. The movements of this hand were not uncertain, +but only quivered somewhat, as a taut wire shivers in the wind, while +Raimbaut de Vaquieras waited motionless. + +"I must have lights, I must have a host of candles to assure me past +any questioning that he is dead. The man is of deep cunning. I think +he is not dead even now." Lightly Biatritz touched the Prince's +breast. "Strange, that this wicked heart should be so tranquil when +there is murder here to make it glad! Nay, very certainly this +Guillaume de Baux will rise and laugh in his old fashion before he +speaks, and then I shall be afraid. But I am not afraid as yet. I am +afraid of nothing save the dark, for one cannot be merry in the dark." + +Raimbaut said: "This is Belhs Cavaliers whom I have loved my whole +life through. Therefore I do not doubt. Pardieu, I do not even doubt, +who know she is of matchless worth." + +"Wherein have I done wrong, Raimbaut?" She came to him with fluttering +hands. "Why, but look you, the man had laid an ambuscade in the marsh +and he meant to kill you there to-night as you rode for Vaquieras. He +told me of it, told me how it was for that end alone he lured you into +Venaissin----" Again she brushed the hair back from her forehead. +"Raimbaut, I spoke of God and knightly honor, and the man laughed. No, +I think it was a fiend who sat so long beside the window yonder, whence +one may see the marsh. There were no candles in the room. The +moonlight was upon his evil face, and I could think of nothing, of +nothing that has been since Adam's time, except our youth, Raimbaut. +And he smiled fixedly, like a white image, because my misery amused +him. Only, when I tried to go to you to warn you, he leaped up +stiffly, making a mewing noise. He caught me by the throat so that I +could not scream. Then while we struggled in the moonlight your +Makrisi came and stabbed him----" + +"Nay, I but fetched this knife, messire." Makrisi seemed to love that +bloodied knife. + +Biatritz proudly said: "The man lies, Raimbaut." + +"What need to tell me that, Belhs Cavaliers?" + +And the Saracen shrugged. "It is very true I lie," he said. "As among +friends, I may confess I killed the Prince. But for the rest, take +notice both of you, I mean to lie intrepidly." + +Raimbaut remembered how his mother had given each of two lads an apple, +and he had clamored for Guillaume's, as children do, and Guillaume had +changed with him. It was a trivial happening to remember after fifty +years; but Guillaume was dead, and this hacked flesh was Raimbaut's +flesh in part, and the thought of Raimbaut would never trouble +Guillaume de Baux any more. In addition there was a fire of juniper +wood and frankincense upon the hearth, and the room smelt too cloyingly +of be-drugging sweetness. Then on the walls were tapestries which +depicted Merlin's Dream, so that everywhere recoiling women smiled with +bold eyes; and here their wantonness seemed out of place. + +"Listen," Makrisi was saying; "listen, for the hour strikes. At last, +at last!" he cried, with a shrill whine of malice. + +Raimbaut said, dully: "Oh, I do not understand----" + +"And yet Zoraida loved you once! loved you as people love where I was +born!" The Saracen's voice had altered. His speech was like the +rustle of papers. "You did not love Zoraida. And so it came about +that upon Walburga's Eve, at midnight, Zoraida hanged herself beside +your doorway. Thus we love where I was born. . . . And I, I cut the +rope--with my left hand. I had my other arm about that frozen thing +which yesterday had been Zoraida, you understand, so that it might not +fall. And in the act a tear dropped from that dead woman's cheek and +wetted my forehead. Ice is not so cold as was that tear. . . . Ho, +that tear did not fall upon my forehead but on my heart, because I +loved that dancing-girl, Zoraida, as you do this princess here. I +think you will understand," Makrisi said, calmly as one who states a +maxim. + +The Sire de Vaquieras replied, in the same tone: "I understand. You +have contrived my death?" + +"Ey, messire, would that be adequate? I could have managed that any +hour within the last score of years. Oh no! for I have studied you +carefully. Oh no! instead, I have contrived this plight. For the +Prince of Orange is manifestly murdered. Who killed him?--why, Madona +Biatritz, and none other, for I will swear to it. I, I will swear to +it, who saw it done. Afterward both you and I must be questioned upon +the rack, as possibly concerned in the affair, and whether innocent or +guilty we must die very horribly. Such is the gentle custom of your +Christian country when a prince is murdered. That is not the point of +the jest, however. For first Sire Philibert will put this woman to the +Question by Water, until she confesses her confederates, until she +confesses that every baron whom Philibert distrusts was one of them. +Oh yes, assuredly they will thrust a hollow cane into the mouth of your +Biatritz, and they will pour water a little by a little through this +cane, until she confesses what they desire. Ha, Philibert will see to +this confession! And through this woman's torment he will rid himself +of every dangerous foe he has in Venaissin. You must stand by and wait +your turn. You must stand by, in fetters, and see this done--you, you, +my master!--you, who love this woman as I loved that dead Zoraida who +was not fair enough to please you!" + +Raimbaut, trapped, impotent, cried out: "This is not possible----" And +for all that, he knew the Saracen to be foretelling the inevitable. + +Makrisi went on, quietly: "After the Question men will parade her, +naked to the middle, through all Orange, until they reach the +Marketplace, where will be four horses. One of these horses they will +harness to each arm and leg of your Biatritz. Then they will beat +these horses. These will be strong horses. They will each run in a +different direction." + +This infamy also was certain. Raimbaut foresaw what he must do. He +clutched the dagger which Makrisi fondled. "Belhs Cavaliers, this +fellow speaks the truth. Look now, the moon is old--is it not strange +to know it will outlive us?" + +And Biatritz came close to Sire Raimbaut and said: "I understand. If I +leave this room alive it will purchase a hideous suffering for my poor +body, it will bring about the ruin of many brave and innocent +chevaliers. I know. I would perforce confess all that the masked men +bade me. I know, for in Prince Conrat's time I have seen persons who +had been put to the Question----" She shuddered; and she re-began, +without any agitation: "Give me the knife, Raimbaut." + +"Pardieu! but I may not obey you for this once," he answered, "since we +are informed by those in holy orders that all such as lay violent hands +upon themselves must suffer eternally." Then, kneeling, he cried, in +an extremity of adoration: "Oh, I have served you all my life. You +may not now deny me this last service. And while I talk they dig your +grave! O blind men, making the new grave, take heed lest that grave be +too narrow, for already my heart is breaking in my body. I have drunk +too deep of sorrow. And yet I may not fail you, now that honor and +mercy and my love for you demand I kill you before I also die--in such +a fashion as this fellow speaks of." + +She did not dispute this. How could she when it was an axiom in all +Courts of Love that Heaven held dominion in a lover's heart only as an +underling of the man's mistress? + +And so she said, with a fond smile: "It is your demonstrable +privilege. I would not grant it, dear, were my weak hands as clean as +yours. Oh, but it is long you have loved me, and it is faithfully you +have served Heaven, and my heart too is breaking in my body now that +your service ends!" + +And he demanded, wearily: "When we were boy and girl together what had +we said if any one had told us this would be the end?" + +"We would have laughed. It is a long while since those children +laughed at Montferrat. . . . Not yet, not yet!" she said. "Ah, pity +me, tried champion, for even now I am almost afraid to die." + +She leaned against the window yonder, shuddering, staring into the +night. Dawn had purged the east of stars. Day was at hand, the day +whose noon she might not hope to witness. She noted this incuriously. +Then Biatritz came to him, very strangely proud, and yet all tenderness. + +"See, now, Raimbaut! because I have loved you as I have loved nothing +else in life, I will not be unworthy of your love. Strike and have +done." + +Raimbaut de Vaquieras raised an already bloodied dagger. As emotion +goes, he was bankrupt. He had no longer any dread of hell, because he +thought that, a little later, nothing its shrewdest overseer could plan +would have the power to vex him. She, waiting, smiled. Makrisi, +seated, stretched his legs, put fingertips together with the air of an +attendant amateur. This was better than he had hoped. In such a +posture they heard a bustle of armored men, and when all turned, saw +how a sword protruded through the arras. + +"Come out, Guillaume!" people were shouting. "Unkennel, dog! Out, +out, and die!" To such a heralding Mahi de Vernoil came into the room +with mincing steps such as the man affected in an hour of peril. He +first saw what a grisly burden the chest sustained. "Now, by the +Face!" he cried, "if he that cheated me of quieting this filth should +prove to be of gentle birth I will demand of him a duel to the death!" +The curtains were ripped from their hangings as he spoke, and behind +him the candlelight was reflected by the armor of many followers. + +Then de Vernoil perceived Raimbaut de Vaquieras, and the spruce little +man bowed ceremoniously. All were still. Composedly, like a +lieutenant before his captain, Mahi narrated how these hunted remnants +of Lovain's army had, as a last cast, that night invaded the chateau, +and had found, thanks to the festival, its men-at-arms in uniform and +inefficient drunkenness. "My tres beau sire," Messire de Vernoil +ended, "will you or nill you, Venaissin is yours this morning. My +knaves have slain Philibert and his bewildered fellow-tipplers with +less effort than is needed to drown as many kittens." + +And his followers cried, as upon a signal: "Hail, Prince of Orange!" + +It was so like the wonder-working of a dream--this sudden and heroic +uproar--that old Raimbaut de Vaquieras stood reeling, near to intimacy +with fear for the first time. He waited thus, with both hands pressed +before his eyes. He waited thus for a long while, because he was not +used to find chance dealing kindlily with him. Later he saw that +Makrisi had vanished in the tumult, and that many people awaited his +speaking. + +The lord of Venaissin began: "You have done me a great service, Messire +de Vemoil. As recompense, I give you what I may. I freely yield you +all my right in Venaissin. Oh no, kingcraft is not for me. I daily +see and hear of battles won, cities beleaguered, high towers +overthrown, and ancient citadels and new walls leveled with the dust. +I have conversed with many kings, the directors of these events, and +they were not happy people. Yes, yes, I have witnessed divers +happenings, for I am old. . . . I have found nothing which can serve +me in place of honor." + +He turned to Dona Biatritz. It was as if they were alone. "Belhs +Cavaliers," he said, "I had sworn fealty to this Guillaume. He +violated his obligations; but that did not free me of mine. An oath is +an oath. I was, and am to-day, sworn to support his cause, and to +profit in any fashion by its overthrow would be an abominable action. +Nay, more, were any of his adherents alive it would be my manifest duty +to join them against our preserver, Messire de Vernoil. This necessity +is very happily spared me. I cannot, though, in honor hold any fief +under the supplanter of my liege-lord. I must, therefore, relinquish +Vaquieras and take eternal leave of Venaissin. I will not lose the +right to call myself your servant!" he cried out--"and that which is +noblest in the world must be served fittingly. And so, Belhs +Cavaliers, let us touch palms and bid farewell, and never in this life +speak face to face of trivial happenings which we two alone remember. +For naked of lands and gear I came to you--a prince's daughter--very +long ago, and as nakedly I now depart, so that I may retain the right +to say, 'All my life long I served my love of her according to my +abilities, wholeheartedly and with clean hands.'" + +"Yes, yes! you must depart from Venaissin," said Dona Biatritz. A +capable woman, she had no sympathy with his exquisite points of honor, +and yet loved him all the more because of what seemed to her his +surpassing folly. She smiled, somewhat as mothers do in humoring an +unreasonable boy. "We will go to my nephew's court at Montferrat," she +said. "He will willingly provide for his old aunt and her husband. +And you may still make verses--at Montferrat, where we lived verses, +once, Raimbaut." + +Now they gazed full upon each other. Thus they stayed, transfigured, +neither seeming old. Each had forgotten that unhappiness existed +anywhere in the whole world. The armored, blood-stained men about them +were of no more importance than were those wantons in the tapestry. +Without, dawn throbbed in heaven. Without, innumerable birds were +raising that glad, piercing, hurried morning-song which very anciently +caused Adam's primal waking, to behold his mate. + + + + +BALTHAZAR'S DAUGHTER + + +"_A curious preference for the artificial should be mentioned as +characteristic of ALESSANDRO DE MEDICI'S poetry. For his century was +anything but artless; the great commonplaces that form the main stock +of human thought were no longer in their first flush, and he addressed +a people no longer childish. . . . Unquestionably his fancies were +fantastic, anti-natural, bordering on hallucination, and they betray a +desire for impossible novelty; but it is allowable to prefer them to +the sickly simplicity of those so-called poems that embroider with old +faded wools upon the canvas of worn-out truisms, trite, trivial and +idiotically sentimental patterns._" + + + Let me have dames and damsels richly clad + To feed and tend my mirth, + Singing by day and night to make me glad; + + Let me have fruitful gardens of great girth + Fill'd with the strife of birds, + With water-springs, and beasts that house i' the earth. + + Let me seem Solomon for lore of words, + Samson for strength, for beauty Absalom. + + Knights as my serfs be given; + And as I will, let music go and come; + Till, when I will, I will to enter Heaven. + + ALESSANDRO DE MEDICI.--_Madrigal, from D. G. Rossetti's version_. + + + + +BALTHAZAR'S DAUGHTER + +Graciosa was Balthazar's youngest child, a white, slim girl with violet +eyes and strange pale hair which had the color and glitter of stardust. +"Some day at court," her father often thought complacently, "she, too, +will make a good match." He was a necessitous lord, a smiling, supple +man who had already marketed two daughters to his advantage. But +Graciosa's time was not yet mature in the year of grace 1533, for the +girl was not quite sixteen. So Graciosa remained in Balthazar's big +cheerless house and was tutored in all needful accomplishments. She +was proficient in the making of preserves and unguents, could play the +harpsichord and the virginals acceptably, could embroider an altarcloth +to admiration, and, in spite of a trivial lameness in walking, could +dance a coranto or a saraband against any woman between two seas. + +Now to the north of Balthazar's home stood a tall forest, overhanging +both the highway and the river whose windings the highway followed. +Graciosa was very often to be encountered upon the outskirts of these +woods. She loved the forest, whose tranquillity bred dreams, but was +already a woman in so far that she found it more interesting to watch +the highway. Sometimes it would be deserted save for small purple +butterflies which fluttered about as if in continuous indecision, and +rarely ascended more than a foot above the ground. But people passed +at intervals--as now a page, who was a notably fine fellow, clothed in +ash-colored gray, with slashed, puffed sleeves, and having a heron's +feather in his cap; or a Franciscan with his gown tucked up so that you +saw how the veins on his naked feet stood out like the carvings on a +vase; or a farmer leading a calf; or a gentleman in a mantle of +squirrel's fur riding beside a wonderful proud lady, whose tiny hat was +embroidered with pearls. It was all very interesting to watch, it was +like turning over the leaves of a book written in an unknown tongue and +guessing what the pictures meant, because these people were intent upon +their private avocations, in which you had no part, and you would never +see them any more. + +Then destiny took a hand in the affair and Guido came. He reined his +gray horse at the sight of her sitting by the wayside and deferentially +inquired how far it might be to the nearest inn. Graciosa told him. +He thanked her and rode on. That was all, but the appraising glance of +this sedate and handsome burgher obscurely troubled the girl afterward. + +Next day he came again. He was a jewel-merchant, he told her, and he +thought it within the stretch of possibility that my lord Balthazar's +daughter might wish to purchase some of his wares. She viewed them +with admiration, chaffered thriftily, and finally bought a topaz, dug +from Mount Zabarca, Guido assured her, which rendered its wearer immune +to terrors of any kind. + +Very often afterward these two met on the outskirts of the forest as +Guido rode between the coast and the hill-country about his vocation. +Sometimes he laughingly offered her a bargain, on other days he paused +to exhibit a notable gem which he had procured for this or that wealthy +amateur. Count Eglamore, the young Duke's favorite yonder at court, +bought most of them, it seemed. "The nobles complain against this +upstart Eglamore very bitterly," said Guido, "but we merchants have no +quarrel with him. He buys too lavishly." + +"I trust I shall not see Count Eglamore when I go to court," said +Graciosa, meditatively; "and, indeed, by that time, my father assures +me, some honest gentleman will have contrived to cut the throat of this +abominable Eglamore." Her father's people, it should be premised, had +been at bitter feud with the favorite ever since he detected and +punished the conspiracy of the Marquis of Cibo, their kinsman. Then +Graciosa continued: "Nevertheless, I shall see many beautiful sights +when I am taken to court. . . . And the Duke, too, you tell me, is an +amateur of gems." + +"Eh, madonna, I wish that you could see his jewels," cried Guido, +growing fervent; and he lovingly catalogued a host of lapidary marvels. + +"I hope that I shall see these wonderful jewels when I go to court," +said Graciosa wistfully. + +"Duke Alessandro," he returned, his dark eyes strangely mirthful, "is, +as I take it, a catholic lover of beauty in all its forms. So he will +show you his gems, very assuredly, and, worse still, he will make +verses in your honor. For it is a preposterous feature of Duke +Alessandro's character that he is always making songs." + +"Oh, and such strange songs as they are, too, Guido. Who does not know +them?" + +"I am not the best possible judge of his verses' merit," Guido +estimated, drily. "But I shall never understand how any singer at all +came to be locked in such a prison. I fancy that at times the paradox +puzzles even Duke Alessandro." + +"And is he as handsome as people report?" + +Then Guido laughed a little. "Tastes differ, of course. But I think +your father will assure you, madonna, that no duke possessing such a +zealous tax-collector as Count Eglamore was ever in his lifetime +considered of repulsive person." + +"And is he young?" + +"Why, as to that, he is about of an age with me, and in consequence old +enough to be far more sensible than either of us is ever likely to be," +said Guido; and began to talk of other matters. + +But presently Graciosa was questioning him again as to the court, +whither she was to go next year and enslave a marquis, or, at worst, an +opulent baron. Her thoughts turned toward the court's predominating +figure. "Tell me of Eglamore, Guido." + +"Madonna, some say that Eglamore was a brewer's son. Others--and your +father's kinsmen in particular--insist that he was begot by a devil in +person, just as Merlin was, and Plato the philosopher, and puissant +Alexander. Nobody knows anything about his origin." Guido was sitting +upon the ground, his open pack between his knees. Between the thumb +and forefinger of each hand he held caressingly a string of pearls +which he inspected as he talked. "Nobody," he idly said, "nobody is +very eager to discuss Count Eglamore's origin now that Eglamore has +become indispensable to Duke Alessandro. Yes, it is thanks to Eglamore +that the Duke has ample leisure and needful privacy for the pursuit of +recreations which are reputed to be curious." + +"I do not understand you, Guido." Graciosa was all wonder. + +"It is perhaps as well," the merchant said, a trifle sadly. Then Guido +shrugged. "To be brief, madonna, business annoys the Duke. He finds +in this Eglamore an industrious person who affixes seals, draughts +proclamations, makes treaties, musters armies, devises pageants, and +collects revenues, upon the whole, quite as efficiently as Alessandro +would be capable of doing these things. So Alessandro makes verses and +amuses himself as his inclinations prompt, and Alessandro's people are +none the worse off on account of it." + +"Heigho, I foresee that I shall never fall in love with the Duke," +Graciosa declared. "It is unbefitting and it is a little cowardly for +a prince to shirk the duties of his station. Now, if I were Duke I +would grant my father a pension, and have Eglamore hanged, and purchase +a new gown of silvery green, in which I would be ravishingly beautiful, +and afterward-- Why, what would you do if you were Duke, Messer Guido?" + +"What would I do if I were Duke?" he echoed. "What would I do if I +were a great lord instead of a tradesman? I think you know the answer, +madonna." + +"Oh, you would make me your duchess, of course. That is quite +understood," said Graciosa, with the lightest of laughs. "But I was +speaking seriously, Guido." + +Guido at that considered her intently for a half-minute. His +countenance was of portentous gravity, but in his eyes she seemed to +detect a lurking impishness. + +"And it is not a serious matter that a peddler of crystals should have +dared to love a nobleman's daughter? You are perfectly right. That I +worship you is an affair which does not concern any person save myself +in any way whatsoever, although I think that knowledge of the fact +would put your father to the trouble of sharpening his dagger. . . . +Indeed, I am not certain that I worship you, for in order to adore +wholeheartedly, the idolater must believe his idol to be perfect. Now, +your nails are of an ugly shape, like that of little fans; your mouth +is too large; and I have long ago perceived that you are a trifle lame +in spite of your constant care to conceal the fact. I do not admire +these faults, for faults they are undoubtedly. Then, too, I know you +are vain and self-seeking, and look forward contentedly to the time +when your father will transfer his ownership of such physical +attractions as heaven gave you to that nobleman who offers the highest +price for them. It is true you have no choice in the matter, but you +will participate in a monstrous bargain, and I would prefer to have you +exhibit distaste for it." And with that he returned composedly to +inspection of his pearls. + +"And to what end, Guido?" It was the first time Graciosa had +completely waived the reticence of a superior caste. You saw that the +child's parted lips were tremulous, and you divined her childish fits +of dreading that glittering, inevitable court-life shared with an +unimaginable husband. + +But Guido only grumbled whimsically. "I am afraid that men do not +always love according to the strict laws of logic. I desire your +happiness above all things; yet to see you so abysmally untroubled by +anything that troubles me is another matter." + +"But I am not untroubled, Guido----" she began swiftly. Graciosa broke +off in speech, shrugged, flashed a smile at him. "For I cannot fathom +you, Ser Guido, and that troubles me. Yes, I am very fond of you, and +yet I do not trust you. You tell me you love me greatly. It pleases +me to have you say this. You perceive I am very candid this morning, +Messer Guido. Yes, it pleases me, and I know that for the sake of +seeing me you daily endanger your life, for if my father heard of our +meetings he would have you killed. You would not incur such +hare-brained risks unless you cared very greatly; and yet, somehow, I +do not believe it is altogether for me you care." + +Then Guido was in train to protest an all-mastering and entirely candid +devotion, but he was interrupted. + +"Most women have these awkward intuitions," spoke a melodious voice, +and turning, Graciosa met the eyes of the intruder. This magnificent +young man had a proud and bloodless face which contrasted sharply with +his painted lips and cheeks. In the contour of his protruding mouth +showed plainly his negroid ancestry. His scanty beard, as well as his +frizzled hair, was the color of dead grass. He was sumptuously clothed +in white satin worked with silver, and around his cap was a gold chain +hung with diamonds. Now he handed his fringed riding-gloves to Guido +to hold. + +"Yes, madonna, I suspect that Eglamore here cares greatly for the fact +that you are Lord Balthazar's daughter, and cousin to the late Marquis +of Cibo. For Cibo has many kinsmen at court who still resent the +circumstance that the matching of his wits against Eglamore's earned +for Cibo a deplorably public demise. So they conspire against Eglamore +with vexatious industry, as an upstart, as a nobody thrust over people +of proven descent, and Eglamore goes about in hourly apprehension of a +knife-thrust. If he could make a match with you, though, your +father--thrifty man!--would be easily appeased. Your cousins, those +proud, grumbling Castel-Franchi, Strossi and Valori, would not prove +over-obdurate toward a kinsman who, whatever his past indiscretions, +has so many pensions and offices at his disposal. Yes, honor would +permit a truce, and Eglamore could bind them to his interests within +ten days, and be rid of the necessity of sleeping in chain armor. . . . +Have I not unraveled the scheme correctly, Eglamore?" + +"Your highness was never lacking in penetration," replied the other in +a dull voice. He stood motionless, holding the gloves, his shoulders a +little bowed as if under some physical load. His eyes were fixed upon +the ground. He divined the change in Graciosa's face and did not care +to see it. + +"And so you are Count Eglamore," said Graciosa in a sort of whisper. +"That is very strange. I had thought you were my friend, Guido. But I +forget. I must not call you Guido any longer." She gave a little +shiver here. He stayed motionless and did not look at her. "I have +often wondered what manner of man you were. So it was you--whose hand +I touched just now--you who poisoned Duke Cosmo, you who had the good +cardinal assassinated, you who betrayed the brave lord of Faenza! Oh, +yes, they openly accuse you of every imaginable crime--this patient +Eglamore, this reptile who has crept into his power through filthy +passages. It is very strange you should be capable of so much +wickedness, for to me you seem only a sullen lackey." + +He winced and raised his eyes at this. His face remained +expressionless. He knew these accusations at least to be demonstrable +lies, for as it happened he had never found his advancement to hinge +upon the commission of the crimes named. But even so, the past was a +cemetery he did not care to have revivified. + +"And it was you who detected the Marquis of Cibo's conspiracy. +Tebaldeo was my cousin, Count Eglamore, and I loved him. We were +reared together. We used to play here in these woods, and I remember +how Tebaldeo once fetched me a wren's nest from that maple yonder. I +stood just here. I was weeping because I was afraid he would fall. If +he had fallen and been killed, it would have been the luckier for him," +Graciosa sighed. "They say that he conspired. I do not know. I only +know that by your orders, Count Eglamore, my playmate Tebaldeo was +fastened upon a Saint Andrew's cross and his arms and legs were each +broken in two places with an iron bar. Then your servants took +Tebaldeo, still living, and laid him upon a carriage-wheel which was +hung upon a pivot. The upper edge of this wheel was cut with very fine +teeth like those of a saw, so that his agony might be complete. +Tebaldeo's poor mangled legs were folded beneath his body so that his +heels touched the back of his head, they tell me. In such a posture he +died very slowly while the wheel turned very slowly there in the sunlit +market-place, and flies buzzed greedily about him, and the shopkeepers +took holiday in order to watch Tebaldeo die--the same Tebaldeo who once +fetched me a wren's nest from yonder maple." + +Eglamore spoke now. "I gave orders for the Marquis of Cibo's +execution. I did not devise the manner of his death. The punishment +for Cibo's crime was long ago fixed by our laws. Cibo plotted to kill +the Duke. Cibo confessed as much." + +But the girl waved this aside. "And then you plan this masquerade. +You plan to make me care for you so greatly that even when I know you +to be Count Eglamore I must still care for you. You plan to marry me, +so as to placate Tebaldeo's kinsmen, so as to bind them to your +interests. It was a fine bold stroke of policy, I know, to use me as a +stepping-stone to safety--but was it fair to me?" Her voice rose now a +little. She seemed to plead with him. "Look you, Count Eglamore, I +was a child only yesterday. I have never loved any man. But you have +loved many women, I know, and long experience has taught you many ways +of moving a woman's heart. Oh, was it fair, was it worth while, to +match your skill against my ignorance? Think how unhappy I would be if +even now I loved you, and how I would loathe myself. . . . But I am +getting angry over nothing. Nothing has happened except that I have +dreamed in idle moments of a brave and comely lover who held his head +so high that all other women envied me, and now I have awakened." + +Meanwhile, it was with tears in his eyes that the young man in white +had listened to her quiet talk, for you could nowhere have found a +nature more readily sensitive than his to all the beauty and wonder +which life, as if it were haphazardly, produces every day. He pitied +this betrayed child quite ineffably, because in her sorrow she was so +pretty. + +So he spoke consolingly. "Fie, Donna Graciosa, you must not be too +harsh with Eglamore. It is his nature to scheme, and he weaves his +plots as inevitably as the spider does her web. Believe me, it is +wiser to forget the rascal--as I do--until there is need of him; and I +think you will have no more need to consider Eglamore's trickeries, for +you are very beautiful, Graciosa." + +He had drawn closer to the girl, and he brought a cloying odor of +frangipani, bergamot and vervain. His nostrils quivered, his face had +taken on an odd pinched look, for all that he smiled as over some +occult jest. Graciosa was a little frightened by his bearing, which +was both furtive and predatory. + +"Oh, do not be offended, for I have some rights to say what I desire in +these parts. For, _Dei gratia_, I am the overlord of these parts, +Graciosa--a neglected prince who wondered over the frequent absences of +his chief counselor and secretly set spies upon him. Eglamore here +will attest as much. Or if you cannot believe poor Eglamore any +longer, I shall have other witnesses within the half-hour. Oh, yes, +they are to meet me here at noon--some twenty crop-haired stalwart +cut-throats. They will come riding upon beautiful broad-chested horses +covered with red velvet trappings that are hung with little silver +bells which jingle delightfully. They will come very soon, and then we +will ride back to court." + +Duke Alessandro touched his big painted mouth with his forefinger as if +in fantastic mimicry of a man imparting a confidence. + +"I think that I shall take you with me, Graciosa, for you are very +beautiful. You are as slim as a lily and more white, and your eyes are +two purple mirrors in each of which I see a tiny image of Duke +Alessandro. The woman I loved yesterday was a big splendid wench with +cheeks like apples. It is not desirable that women should be so large. +All women should be little creatures that fear you. They should have +thin, plaintive voices, and in shrinking from you be as slight to the +touch as a cobweb. It is not possible to love a woman ardently unless +you comprehend how easy it would be to murder her." + +"God, God!" said Count Eglamore, very softly, for he was familiar with +the look which had now come into Duke Alessandro's face. Indeed, all +persons about court were quick to notice this odd pinched look, like +that of a traveler nipped at by frosts, and people at court became +obsequious within the instant in dealing with the fortunate woman who +had aroused this look, Count Eglamore remembered. + +And the girl did not speak at all, but stood motionless, staring in +bewildered, pitiable, childlike fashion, and the color had ebbed from +her countenance. + +Alessandro was frankly pleased. "You fear me, do you not, Graciosa? +See, now, when I touch your hand it is soft and cold as a serpent's +skin, and you shudder. I am very tired of women who love me, of all +women with bold, hungry eyes. To you my touch will always be a +martyrdom, you will always loathe me, and therefore I shall not weary +of you for a long while. Come, Graciosa. Your father shall have all +the wealth and state that even his greedy imaginings can devise, so +long as you can contrive to loathe me. We will find you a suitable +husband. You shall have flattery and titles, gold and fine glass, soft +stuffs and superb palaces such as are your beauty's due henceforward." + +He glanced at the peddler's pack, and shrugged. "So Eglamore has been +wooing you with jewels! You must see mine, dear Graciosa. It is not +merely an affair of possessing, as some emperors do, all the four kinds +of sapphires, the twelve kinds of emeralds, the three kinds of rubies, +and many extraordinary pearls, diamonds, cymophanes, beryls, green +peridots, tyanos, sandrastra, and fiery cinnamon-stones"--he enumerated +them with the tender voice of their lover--"for the value of these may +at least be estimated. Oh, no, I have in my possession gems which have +not their fellows in any other collection, gems which have not even a +name and the value of which is incalculable--strange jewels that were +shot from inaccessible mountain peaks by means of slings, jewels +engendered by the thunder, jewels taken from the heart of the Arabian +deer, jewels cut from the brain of a toad and the eyes of serpents, and +even jewels that are authentically known to have fallen from the moon. +We will select the rarest, and have a pair of slippers encrusted with +them, in which you shall dance for me." + +"Highness," cried Eglamore, with anger and terror at odds in his +breast, "Highness, I love this girl!" + +"Ah, then you cannot ever be her husband," Duke Alessandro returned. +"You would have suited otherwise. No, no, we must seek out some other +person of discretion. It will all be very amusing, for I think that +she is now quite innocent, as pure as the high angels are. See, +Eglamore, she cannot speak, she stays still as a lark that has been +taken in a snare. It will be very marvelous to make her as I +am. . . ." He meditated, as, obscurely aware of opposition, his +shoulders twitched fretfully, and momentarily his eyes lightened like +the glare of a cannon through its smoke. "You made a beast of me, some +long-faced people say. Beware lest the beast turn and rend you." + +Count Eglamore plucked aimlessly at his chin. Then he laughed as a dog +yelps. He dropped the gloves which he had held till this, +deliberately, as if the act were a rite. His shoulders straightened +and purpose seemed to flow into the man. "No," he said quietly, "I +will not have it. It was not altogether I who made a brain-sick beast +of you, my prince; but even so, I have never been too nice to profit by +your vices. I have taken my thrifty toll of abomination, I have stood +by contentedly, not urging you on, yet never trying to stay you, as you +waded deeper and ever deeper into the filth of your debaucheries, +because meanwhile you left me so much power. Yes, in some part it is +my own handiwork which is my ruin. I accept it. Nevertheless, you +shall not harm this child." + +"I venture to remind you, Eglamore, that I am still the master of this +duchy." Alessandro was languidly amused, and had begun to regard his +adversary with real curiosity. + +"Oh, yes, but that is nothing to me. At court you are the master. At +court I have seen mothers raise the veil from their daughters' faces, +with smiles that were more loathsome than the grimaces of a fiend, +because you happened to be passing. But here in these woods, your +highness, I see only the woman I love and the man who has insulted her." + +"This is very admirable fooling," the Duke considered. "So all the +world is changed and Pandarus is transformed into Hector? These are +sonorous words, Eglamore, but with what deeds do you propose to back +them?" + +"By killing you, your highness." + +"So!" said the Duke. "The farce ascends in interest." He drew with a +flourish, with actual animation, for sottish, debauched and +power-crazed as this man was, he came of a race to whom danger was a +cordial. "Very luckily a sword forms part of your disguise, so let us +amuse ourselves. It is always diverting to kill, and if by any chance +you kill me I shall at least be rid of the intolerable knowledge that +to-morrow will be just like to-day." The Duke descended blithely into +the level road and placed himself on guard. + +Then both men silently went about the business in hand. Both were +oddly calm, almost as if preoccupied by some more important matter to +be settled later. The two swords clashed, gleamed rigidly for an +instant, and then their rapid interplay, so far as vision went, melted +into a flickering snarl of silver, for the sun was high and each man's +shadow was huddled under him. Then Eglamore thrust savagely and in the +act trod the edge of a puddle, and fell ignominiously prostrate. His +sword was wrenched ten feet from him, for the Duke had parried +skilfully. Eglamore lay thus at Alessandro's mercy. + +"Well, well!" the Duke cried petulantly, "and am I to be kept waiting +forever? You were a thought quicker in obeying my caprices yesterday. +Get up, you muddy lout, and let us kill each other with some pretension +of adroitness." + +Eglamore rose, and, sobbing, caught up his sword and rushed toward the +Duke in an agony of shame and rage. His attack now was that of a +frenzied animal, quite careless of defense and desirous only of murder. +Twice the Duke wounded him, but it was Alessandro who drew backward, +composedly hindering the brutal onslaught he was powerless to check. +Then Eglamore ran him through the chest and gave vent to a strangled, +growling cry as Alessandro fell. Eglamore wrenched his sword free and +grasped it by the blade so that he might stab the Duke again and again. +He meant to hack the abominable flesh, to slash and mutilate that +haughty mask of infamy, but Graciosa clutched his weapon by the hilt. + +The girl panted, and her breath came thick. "He gave you your life." + +Eglamore looked up. She leaned now upon his shoulder, her face +brushing his as he knelt over the unconscious Duke; and Eglamore found +that at her dear touch all passion had gone out of him. + +"Madonna," he said equably, "the Duke is not yet dead. It is +impossible to let him live. You may think he voiced only a caprice +just now. I think so too, but I know the man, and I know that all this +madman's whims are ruthless and irresistible. Living, Duke +Alessandro's appetites are merely whetted by opposition, so much so +that he finds no pleasures sufficiently piquant unless they have God's +interdiction as a sauce. Living, he will make of you his plaything, +and a little later his broken, soiled and castby plaything. It is +therefore necessary that I kill Duke Alessandro." + +She parted from him, and he too rose to his feet. + +"And afterward," she said quietly, "and afterward you must die just as +Tebaldeo died." + +"That is the law, madonna. But whether Alessandro enters hell to-day +or later, I am a lost man." + +"Oh, that is very true," she said. "A moment since you were Count +Eglamore, whom every person feared. Now there is not a beggar in the +kingdom who would change lots with you, for you are a friendless and +hunted man in peril of dreadful death. But even so, you are not +penniless, Count Eglamore, for these jewels here which formed part of +your masquerade are of great value, and there is a world outside. The +frontier is not two miles distant. You have only to escape into the +hill-country beyond the forest, and you need not kill Duke Alessandro +after all. I would have you go hence with hands as clean as possible." + +"Perhaps I might escape." He found it quaint to note how calm she was +and how tranquilly his own thoughts ran. "But first the Duke must die, +because I dare not leave you to his mercy." + +"How does that matter?" she returned. "You know very well that my +father intends to market me as best suits his interests. Here I am so +much merchandise. The Duke is as free as any other man to cry a +bargain." He would have spoken in protest, but Graciosa interrupted +wearily: "Oh, yes, it is to this end only that we daughters of Duke +Alessandro's vassals are nurtured, just as you told me--eh, how long +ago!--that such physical attractions as heaven accords us may be +marketed. And I do not see how a wedding can in any way ennoble the +transaction by causing it to profane a holy sacrament. Ah, no, +Balthazar's daughter was near attaining all that she had been taught to +desire, for a purchaser came and he bid lavishly. You know very well +that my father would have been delighted. But you must need upset the +bargain. 'No, I will not have it!' Count Eglamore must cry. It cost +you very highly to speak those words. I think it would have puzzled my +father to hear those words at which so many fertile lands, stout +castles, well-timbered woodlands, herds of cattle, gilded coaches, +liveries and curious tapestries, fine clothing and spiced foods, all +vanished like a puff of smoke. Ah, yes, my father would have thought +you mad." + +"I had no choice," he said, and waved a little gesture of impotence. +He spoke as with difficulty, almost wearily. "I love you. It is a +theme on which I do not embroider. So long as I had thought to use you +as an instrument I could woo fluently enough. To-day I saw that you +were frightened and helpless--oh, quite helpless. And something +changed in me. I knew for the first time that I loved you and that I +was not clean as you are clean. What it was of passion and horror, of +despair and adoration and yearning, which struggled in my being then I +cannot tell you. It spurred me to such action as I took,--but it has +robbed me of sugared eloquence, it has left me chary of speech. It is +necessary that I climb very high because of my love for you, and upon +the heights there is silence." + +And Graciosa meditated. "Here I am so much merchandise. Heigho, since +I cannot help it, since bought and sold I must be, one day or another, +at least I will go at a noble price. Yet I do not think I am quite +worth the value of these castles and lands and other things which you +gave up because of me, so that it will be necessary to make up the +difference, dear, by loving you very much." + +And at that he touched her chin, gently and masterfully, for Graciosa +would have averted her face, and it seemed to Eglamore that he could +never have his fill of gazing on the radiant, shamed tenderness of +Graciosa's face. "Oh, my girl!" he whispered. "Oh, my wonderful, +worshiped, merry girl, whom God has fashioned with such loving care! +you who had only scorn to give me when I was a kingdom's master! and +would you go with me now that I am friendless and homeless?" + +"But I shall always have a friend," she answered--"a friend who showed +me what Balthazar's daughter was and what love is. And I am vain +enough to believe I shall not ever be very far from home so long as I +am near to my friend's heart." + +A mortal man could not but take her in his arms. + +"Farewell, Duke Alessandro!" then said Eglamore; "farewell, poor clay +so plastic the least touch remodels you! I had a part in shaping you +so bestial; our age, too, had a part--our bright and cruel day, wherein +you were set too high. Yet for me it would perhaps have proved as easy +to have made a learned recluse of you, Alessandro, or a bloodless +saint, if to do that had been as patently profitable. For you and all +your kind are so much putty in the hands of circumspect fellows such as +I. But I stood by and let our poisoned age conform that putty into the +shape of a crazed beast, because it took that form as readily as any +other, and in taking it, best served my selfish ends. Now I must pay +for that sorry shaping, just as, I think, you too must pay some day. +And so, I cry farewell with loathing, but with compassion also!" + +Then these two turned toward the hills, leaving Duke Alessandro where +he lay in the road, a very lamentable figure in much bloodied finery. +They turned toward the hills, and entered a forest whose ordering was +time's contemporary, and where there was no grandeur save that of the +trees. + +But upon the summit of the nearest hill they paused and looked over a +restless welter of foliage that glittered in the sun, far down into the +highway. It bustled like an unroofed ant-hill, for the road was alive +with men who seemed from this distance very small. Duke Alessandro's +attendants had found him and were clustered in a hubbub about their +reviving master. Dwarfish Lorenzino de Medici was the most solicitous +among them. + +Beyond was the broad river, seen as a ribbon of silver now, and on its +remoter bank the leaded roofs of a strong fortress glistened like a +child's new toy. Tilled fields showed here and there, no larger in +appearance than so many outspread handkerchiefs. Far down in the east +a small black smudge upon the pearl-colored and vaporous horizon was +all they could discern of a walled city filled with factories for the +working of hemp and furs and alum and silk and bitumen. + +"It is a very rich and lovely land," said Eglamore--"this kingdom which +a half-hour since lay in the hollow of my hand." He viewed it for a +while, and not without pensiveness. Then he took Graciosa's hand and +looked into her face, and he laughed joyously. + + + + +JUDITH'S CREED + + +"_It does not appear that the age thought his works worthy of +posterity, nor that this great poet himself levied any ideal tribute on +future times, or had any further prospect than of present popularity +and present profit. So careless was he, indeed, of fame, that, when he +retired to ease and plenty, while he was yet little declined into the +vale of years, and before he could be disgusted with fatigue or +disabled by infirmity, he desired only that in this rural quiet he who +had so long mazed his imagination by following phantoms might at last +be cured of his delirious ecstasies, and as a hermit might estimate the +transactions of the world._" + + + + + Now my charms are all o'erthrown, + And what strength I have's my own, + Which is most faint. + + Now I want + Spirits to enforce, art to enchant; + And my ending is despair, + Unless I be relieved by prayer, + Which pierces so, that it assaults + Mercy itself, and frees all faults. + + As you from crimes would pardon'd be, + Let your indulgence set me free. + + WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.--_Epilogue to The Tempest_. + + + +He was hoping, while his fingers drummed in unison with the beat of his +verse, that this last play at least would rouse enthusiasm in the pit. +The welcome given its immediate predecessors had undeniably been tepid. +A memorandum at his elbow of the receipts at the Globe for the last +quarter showed this with disastrous bluntness; and, after all, in 1609 +a shareholder in a theater, when writing dramas for production there, +was ordinarily subject to more claims than those of his ideals. + +He sat in a neglected garden whose growth was in reversion to primal +habits. The season was September, the sky a uniform and temperate +blue. A peachtree, laden past its strength with fruitage, made about +him with its boughs a sort of tent. The grass around his writing-table +was largely hidden by long, crinkled peach leaves--some brown and +others gray as yet--and was dotted with a host of brightly-colored +peaches. Fidgeting bees and flies were excavating the decayed spots in +this wasting fruit, from which emanated a vinous odor. The bees hummed +drowsily, their industry facilitating idleness in others. It was +curious--he meditated, his thoughts straying from "an uninhabited +island"--how these insects alternated in color between brown velvet and +silver, as they blundered about a flickering tessellation of amber and +dark green . . . in search of rottenness. . . . + +He frowned. Here was an arid forenoon as imagination went. A seasoned +plagiarist by this, he opened a book which lay upon the table among +several others and duly found the chapter entitled _Of the Cannibals_. + +"So, so!" he said aloud. "'It is a nation,' would I answer Plato, +'that has no kind of traffic, no knowledge of letters----'" And with +that he sat about reshaping Montaigne's conceptions of Utopia into +verse. He wrote--while his left hand held the book flat--as orderly as +any county-clerk might do in the recordance of a deed of sale. + +Midcourse in larceny, he looked up from writing. He saw a tall, dark +lady who was regarding him half-sorrowfully and half as in the grasp of +some occult amusement. He said nothing. He released the telltale +book. His eyebrows lifted, banteringly. He rose. + +He found it characteristic of her that she went silently to the table +and compared the printed page with what he had just written. "So +nowadays you have turned pickpocket? My poet, you have altered." + +He said: "Why, yes. When you broke off our friendship, I paid you the +expensive compliment of falling very ill. They thought that I would +die. They tell me even to-day I did not die. I almost question it." +He shrugged. "And to-day I must continue to write plays, because I +never learned any other trade. And so, at need, I pilfer." The topic +did not seem much to concern him. + +"Eh, and such plays!" the woman cried. "My poet, there was a time when +you created men and women as glibly as Heaven does. Now you make +sugar-candy dolls." + +"The last comedies were not all I could have wished," he assented. "In +fact, I got only some L30 clear profit." + +"There speaks the little tradesman I most hated of all persons living!" +the woman sighed. Now, as in impatience, she thrust back her +traveling-hood and stood bare-headed. + +Then she stayed silent,--tall, extraordinarily pallid, and with dark, +steady eyes. Their gaze by ordinary troubled you, as seeming to hint +some knowledge to your belittlement. The playmaker remembered that. +Now he, a reputable householder, was wondering what would be the upshot +of this intrusion. His visitor, as he was perfectly aware, had little +patience with such moments of life as could not be made dramatic. . . . +He was recollecting many trifles, now his mind ran upon old +times. . . . No, no, reflection assured him, to call her beautiful +would be, and must always have been, an exaggeration; but to deny the +exotic and somewhat sinister charm of her, even to-day, would be an +absurdity. + +She said, abruptly: "I do not think I ever loved you as women love +men. You were too anxious to associate with fine folk, too eager to +secure a patron--yes, and to get your profit of him--and you were +always ill-at-ease among us. Our youth is so long past, and we two are +so altered that we, I think, may speak of its happenings now without +any bitterness. I hated those sordid, petty traits. I raged at your +incessant pretensions to gentility because I knew you to be so much +more than a gentleman. Oh, it infuriated me--how long ago it was!--to +see you cringing to the Court blockheads, and running their errands, +and smirkingly pocketing their money, and wheedling them into helping +the new play to success. You complained I treated you like a lackey; +it was not unnatural when of your own freewill you played the lackey so +assiduously." + +He laughed. He had anatomized himself too frequently and with too much +dispassion to overlook whatever tang of snobbishness might be in him; +and, moreover, the charge thus tendered became in reality the speaker's +apology, and hurt nobody's self-esteem. + +"Faith, I do not say you are altogether in the wrong," he assented. +"They could be very useful to me--Pembroke, and Southampton, and those +others--and so I endeavored to render my intimacy acceptable. It was +my business as a poet to make my play as near perfect as I could; and +this attended to, common-sense demanded of the theater-manager that he +derive as much money as was possible from its representation. What +would you have? The man of letters, like the carpenter or the +blacksmith, must live by the vending of his productions, not by the +eating of them." The woman waved this aside. + +She paced the grass in meditation, the peach leaves brushing her proud +head--caressingly, it seemed to him. Later she came nearer in a +brand-new mood. She smiled now, and her voice was musical and thrilled +with wonder. "But what a poet Heaven had locked inside this little +parasite! It used to puzzle me." She laughed, and ever so lightly. +"Eh, and did you never understand why by preference I talked with you +at evening from my balcony? It was because I could forget you then +entirely. There was only a voice in the dark. There was a sorcerer at +whose bidding words trooped like a conclave of emperors, and now sang +like a bevy of linnets. And wit and fancy and high aspirations and my +love--because I knew then that your love for me was splendid and +divine--these also were my sorcerer's potent allies. I understood then +how glad and awed were those fabulous Greekish queens when a god wooed +them. Yes, then I understood. How long ago it seems!" + +"Yes, yes," he sighed. "In that full-blooded season was Guenevere a +lass, I think, and Charlemagne was not yet in breeches." + +"And when there was a new play enacted I was glad. For it was our play +that you and I had polished the last line of yesterday, and all these +people wept and laughed because of what we had done. And I was +proud----" The lady shrugged impatiently. "Proud, did I say? and +glad? That attests how woefully I fall short of you, my poet. You +would have found some magic phrase to make that ancient glory +articulate, I know. Yet,--did I ever love you? I do not know that. I +only know I sometimes fear you robbed me of the power of loving any +other man." + +He raised one hand in deprecation. "I must remind you," he cried, +whimsically, "that a burnt child dreads even to talk of fire." + +Her response was a friendly nod. She came yet nearer. "What," she +demanded, and her smile was elfish, "what if I had lied to you? What +if I were hideously tired of my husband, that bluff, stolid captain? +What if I wanted you to plead with me as in the old time?" + +He said: "Until now you were only a woman. Oh, and now, my dear, you +are again that resistless gipsy who so merrily beguiled me to the very +heart of loss. You are Love. You are Youth. You are Comprehension. +You are all that I have had, and lost, and vainly hunger for. Here in +this abominable village, there is no one who understands--not even +those who are more dear to me than you are. I know. I only spoil good +paper which might otherwise be profitably used to wrap herrings in, +they think. They give me ink and a pen just as they would give toys to +a child who squalled for them too obstinately. And Poesy is a thrifty +oracle with no words to waste upon the deaf, however loudly her +interpreter cry out to her. Oh, I have hungered for you, my proud, +dark lady!" the playmaker said. + +Afterward they stood quite silent. She was not unmoved by his outcry; +and for this very reason was obscurely vexed by the reflection that it +would be the essay of a braver man to remedy, rather than to lament, +his circumstances. And then the moment's rapture failed him. + +"I am a sorry fool," he said; and lightly he ran on: "You are a +skilful witch. Yet you have raised the ghost of an old madness to no +purpose. You seek a master-poet? You will find none here. Perhaps I +was one once. But most of us are poets of one sort or another when we +love. Do you not understand? To-day I do not love you any more than I +do Hecuba. Is it not strange that I should tell you this and not be +moved at all? Is it not laughable that we should stand here at the +last, two feet apart as things physical go, and be as profoundly +severed as if an ocean tumbled between us?" + +He fell to walking to and fro, his hands behind his back. She waited, +used as she was to his unstable temperament, a trifle puzzled. +Presently he spoke: + +"There was a time when a master-poet was needed. He was +found--nay,--rather made. Fate hastily caught up a man not very +different from the run of men--one with a taste for stringing phrases +and with a comedy or so to his discredit. Fate merely bid him love a +headstrong child newly released from the nursery." + +"We know her well enough," she said. "The girl was faithless, and +tyrannous, and proud, and coquettish, and unworthy, and false, and +inconstant. She was black as hell and dark as night in both her person +and her living. You were not niggardly of vituperation." + +And he grimaced. "Faith," he replied, "but sonnets are a more natural +form of expression than affidavits, and they are made effective by +compliance with different rules. I find no flagrant fault with you +to-day. You were a child of seventeen, the darling of a noble house, +and an actor--yes, and not even a pre-eminent actor--a gross, poor +posturing vagabond, just twice your age, presumed to love you. What +child would not amuse herself with such engaging toys? Vivacity and +prettiness and cruelty are the ordinary attributes of kittenhood. So +you amused yourself. And I submitted with clear eyes, because I could +not help it. Yes, I who am by nature not disposed to underestimate my +personal importance--I submitted, because your mockery was more +desirable than the adoration of any other woman. And all this helped +to make a master-poet of me. Eh, why not, when such monstrous passions +spoke through me--as if some implacable god elected to play godlike +music on a mountebank's lute? And I made admirable plays. Why not, +when there was no tragedy more poignant than mine?--and where in any +comedy was any figure one-half so ludicrous as mine? Ah, yes, Fate +gained her ends, as always." + +He was a paunchy, inconsiderable little man. By ordinary his elongated +features and high, bald forehead loaned him an aspect of serene and +axiom-based wisdom, much as we see him in his portraits; but now his +countenance was flushed and mobile. Odd passions played about it, as +when on a sullen night in August summer lightnings flicker and merge. + +His voice had found another cadence. "But Fate was not entirely +ruthless. Fate bade the child become a woman, and so grow tired of all +her childhood's playthings. This was after a long while, as we +estimate happenings. . . . I suffered then. Yes, I went down to the +doors of death, as people say, in my long illness. But that crude, +corporal fever had a providential thievishness; and not content with +stripping me of health and strength,--not satisfied with pilfering +inventiveness and any strong hunger to create--why, that insatiable +fever even robbed me of my insanity. I lived. I was only a broken +instrument flung by because the god had wearied of playing. I would +give forth no more heart-wringing music, for the musician had departed. +And I still lived--I, the stout little tradesman whom you loathed. +Yes, that tradesman scrambled through these evils, somehow, and came +out still able to word adequately all such imaginings as could be +devised by his natural abilities. But he transmitted no more +heart-wringing music." + +She said, "You lie!" + +He said, "I thank Heaven daily that I do not." He spoke the truth. +She knew it, and her heart was all rebellion. + +Indefatigable birds sang through the following hush. A wholesome and +temperate breeze caressed these silent people. Bees that would die +to-morrow hummed about them tirelessly. + +Then the poet said: "I loved you; and you did not love me. It is the +most commonplace of tragedies, the heart of every man alive has been +wounded in this identical fashion. A master-poet is only that wounded +man--among so many other bleeding folk--who perversely augments his +agony, and utilizes his wound as an inkwell. Presently time scars over +the cut for him, as time does for all the others. He does not suffer +any longer. No, and such relief is a clear gain; but none the less, he +must henceforward write with ordinary ink such as the lawyers use." + +"I should have been the man," the woman cried. "Had I been sure of +fame, could I have known those raptures when you used to gabble +immortal phrases like a stammering infant, I would have paid the price +without all this whimpering." + +"Faith, and I think you would have," he assented. "There is the +difference. At bottom I am a creature of the most moderate +aspirations, as you always complained; and for my part, Fate must in +reason demand her applause of posterity rather than of me. For I +regret the unlived life that I was meant for--the comfortable level +life of little happenings which all my schoolfellows have passed +through in a stolid drove. I was equipped to live that life with +relish, and that life only; and it was denied me. It was demolished in +order that a book or two be made out of its wreckage." + +She said, with half-shut eyes: "There is a woman at the root of all +this." And how he laughed! + +"Did I not say you were a witch? Why, most assuredly there is." + +He motioned with his left hand. Some hundred yards away a young man, +who was carrying two logs toward New Place, had paused to rest. A girl +was with him. Now laughingly she was pretending to assist the porter +in lifting his burden. It was a quaintly pretty vignette, as framed by +the peach leaves, because those two young people were so merry and so +candidly in love. A symbolist might have wrung pathos out of the +girl's desire to aid, as set against her fond inadequacy; and the +attendant playwright made note of it. + +"Well, well!" he said: "Young Quiney is a so-so choice, since women +must necessarily condescend to intermarrying with men. But he is far +from worthy of her. Tell me, now, was there ever a rarer piece of +beauty?" + +"The wench is not ill-favored," was the dark lady's unenthusiastic +answer. "So!--but who is she?" + +He replied: "She is my daughter. Yonder you see my latter muse for +whose dear sake I spin romances. I do not mean that she takes any +lively interest in them. That is not to be expected, since she cannot +read or write. Ask her about the poet we were discussing, and I very +much fear Judith will bluntly inform you she cannot tell a B from a +bull's foot. But one must have a muse of some sort or another; and so +I write about the world now as Judith sees it. My Judith finds this +world an eminently pleasant place. It is full of laughter and +kindliness--for could Herod be unkind to her?--and it is largely +populated by ardent young fellows who are intended chiefly to be +twisted about your fingers; and it is illuminated by sunlight whose +real purpose is to show how pretty your hair is. And if affairs go +badly for a while, and you have done nothing very wrong--why, of +course, Heaven will soon straighten matters satisfactorily. For +nothing that happens to us can possibly be anything except a benefit, +because God orders all happenings, and God loves us. There you have +Judith's creed; and upon my word, I believe there is a great deal to be +said for it." + +"And this is you," she cried--"you who wrote of Troilus and Timon!" + +"I lived all that," he replied--"I lived it, and so for a long while I +believed in the existence of wickedness. To-day I have lost many +illusions, madam, and that ranks among them. I never knew a wicked +person. I question if anybody ever did. Undoubtedly short-sighted +people exist who have floundered into ill-doing; but it proves always +to have been on account of either cowardice or folly, and never because +of malevolence; and, in consequence, their sorry pickle should demand +commiseration far more loudly than our blame. In short, I find +humanity to be both a weaker and a better-meaning race than I had +suspected. And so, I make what you call 'sugar-candy dolls,' because I +very potently believe that all of us are sweet at heart. Oh no! men +lack an innate aptitude for sinning; and at worst, we frenziedly +attempt our misdemeanors just as a sheep retaliates on its pursuers. +This much, at least, has Judith taught me." + +The woman murmured: "Eh, you are luckier than I. I had a son. He was +borne of my anguish, he was fed and tended by me, and he was dependent +on me in all things." She said, with a half-sob, "My poet, he was so +little and so helpless! Now he is dead." + +"My dear, my dear!" he cried, and he took both her hands. "I also had +a son. He would have been a man by this." + +They stood thus for a while. And then he smiled. + +"I ask your pardon. I had forgotten that you hate to touch my hands. +I know--they are too moist and flabby. I always knew that you thought +that. Well! Hamnet died. I grieved. That is a trivial thing to say. +But you also have seen your own flesh lying in a coffin so small that +even my soft hands could lift it. So you will comprehend. To-day I +find that the roughest winds abate with time. Hatred and self-seeking +and mischance and, above all, the frailties innate in us--these buffet +us for a while, and we are puzzled, and we demand of God, as Job did, +why is this permitted? And then as the hair dwindles, the wit grows." + +"Oh, yes, with age we take a slackening hold upon events; we let all +happenings go by more lightly; and we even concede the universe not to +be under any actual bond to be intelligible. Yes, that is true. But +is it gain, my poet? for I had thought it to be loss." + +"With age we gain the priceless certainty that sorrow and injustice are +ephemeral. Solvitur ambulando, my dear. I have attested this merely +by living long enough. I, like any other man of my years, have in my +day known more or less every grief which the world breeds; and each +maddened me in turn, as each was duly salved by time; so that to-day +their ravages vex me no more than do the bee-stings I got when I was an +urchin. To-day I grant the world to be composed of muck and sunshine +intermingled; but, upon the whole, I find the sunshine more pleasant to +look at, and--greedily, because my time for sightseeing is not very +long--I stare at it. And I hold Judith's creed to be the best of all +imaginable creeds--that if we do nothing very wrong, all human +imbroglios, in some irrational and quite incomprehensible fashion, will +be straightened to our satisfaction. Meanwhile, you also voice a tonic +truth--this universe of ours, and, reverently speaking, the Maker of +this universe as well, is under no actual bond to be intelligible in +dealing with us." He laughed at this season and fell into a lighter +tone. "Do I preach like a little conventicle-attending tradesman? +Faith, you must remember that when I talk gravely Judith listens as if +it were an oracle discoursing. For Judith loves me as the wisest and +the best of men. I protest her adoration frightens me. What if she +were to find me out?" + +"I loved what was divine in you," the woman answered. + +"Oddly enough, that is the perfect truth! And when what was divine in +me had burned a sufficiency of incense to your vanity, your vanity's +owner drove off in a fine coach and left me to die in a garret. Then +Judith came. Then Judith nursed and tended and caressed me--and Judith +only in all the world!--as once you did that boy you spoke of. Ah, +madam, and does not sorrow sometimes lie awake o' nights in the low +cradle of that child? and sometimes walk with you by day and clasp your +hand--much as his tiny hand did once, so trustingly, so like the +clutching of a vine--and beg you never to be friends with anything save +sorrow? And do you wholeheartedly love those other women's boys--who +did not die? Yes, I remember. Judith, too, remembered. I was her +father, for all that I had forsaken my family to dance Jack-pudding +attendance on a fine Court lady. So Judith came. And Judith, who sees +in play-writing just a very uncertain way of making money--Judith, who +cannot tell a B from a bull's foot,--why, Judith, madam, did not ask, +but gave, what was divine." + +"You are unfair," she cried. "Oh, you are cruel, you juggle words, +make knives of them. . . . You" and she spoke as with difficulty--"you +have no right to know just how I loved my boy! You should be either +man or woman!" + +He said pensively: "Yes, I am cruel. But you had mirth and beauty +once, and I had only love and a vocabulary. Who then more flagrantly +abused the gifts God gave? And why should I not be cruel to you, who +made a master-poet of me for your recreation? Lord, what a deal of +ruined life it takes to make a little art! Yes, yes, I know. Under +old oaks lovers will mouth my verses, and the acorns are not yet shaped +from which those oaks will spring. My adoration and your perfidy, all +that I have suffered, all that I have failed in even, has gone toward +the building of an enduring monument. All these will be immortal, +because youth is immortal, and youth delights in demanding explanations +of infinity. And only to this end I have suffered and have catalogued +the ravings of a perverse disease which has robbed my life of all the +normal privileges of life as flame shrivels hair from the arm--that +young fools such as I was once might be pleased to murder my rhetoric, +and scribblers parody me in their fictions, and schoolboys guess at the +date of my death!" This he said with more than ordinary animation; and +then he shook his head. "There is a leaven," he said--"there is a +leaven even in your smuggest and most inconsiderable tradesman." + +She answered, with a wistful smile: "I, too, regret my poet. And just +now you are more like him----" + +"Faith, but he was really a poet--or, at least, at times----?" + +"Not marble, nor the gilded monuments of princes shall outlive this +powerful rhyme----'" + +"Dear, dear!" he said, in petulant vexation; "how horribly emotion +botches verse. That clash of sibilants is both harsh and +ungrammatical. _Shall_ should be changed to _will_." And at that the +woman sighed, because, in common with all persons who never essayed +creative verbal composition, she was quite certain perdurable writing +must spring from a surcharged heart, rather than from a rearrangement +of phrases. And so, + +"Very unfeignedly I regret my poet," she said, "my poet, who was +unhappy and unreasonable, because I was not always wise or kind, or +even just. And I did not know until to-day how much I loved my +poet. . . . Yes, I know now I loved him. I must go now. I would I +had not come." + +Then, standing face to face, he cried, "Eh, madam, and what if I also +have lied to you--in part? Our work is done; what more is there to +say?" + +"Nothing," she answered--"nothing. Not even for you, who are a +master-smith of words to-day and nothing more." + +"I?" he replied. "Do you so little emulate a higher example that even +for a moment you consider me?" + +She did not answer. + + +When she had gone, the playmaker sat for a long while in meditation; +and then smilingly he took up his pen. He was bound for "an +uninhabited island" where all disasters ended in a happy climax. + +"So, so!" he was declaiming, later on: "_We, too, are kin To dreams and +visions; and our little life Is gilded by such faint and cloud-wrapped +suns_--Only, that needs a homelier touch. Rather, let us say, _We are +such stuff As dreams are made on_--Oh, good, good!--Now to pad out the +line. . . . In any event, the Bermudas are a seasonable topic. Now +here, instead of _thickly-templed India_, suppose we write _the +still-vexed Bermoothes_--Good, good! It fits in well enough. . . ." + +And so in clerkly fashion he sat about the accomplishment of his stint +of labor in time for dinner. A competent workman is not disastrously +upset by interruption; and, indeed, he found the notion of surprising +Judith with an unlooked-for trinket or so to be at first a very +efficacious spur to composition. + +And presently the strong joy of creating kindled in him, and phrase +flowed abreast with thought, and the playmaker wrote fluently and +surely to an accompaniment of contented ejaculations. He regretted +nothing, he would not now have laid aside his pen to take up a scepter. +For surely--he would have said--to live untroubled, and weave beautiful +and winsome dreams is the most desirable of human fates. But he did +not consciously think of this, because he was midcourse in the evoking +of a mimic tempest which, having purged its victims of unkindliness and +error, aimed (in the end) only to sink into an amiable calm. + + + + +CONCERNING CORINNA + + +"_Dr. Herrick told me that, in common with all the Enlightened or +Illuminated Brothers, of which prying sect the age breeds so many, he +trusted the great lines of Nature, not in the whole, but in part, as +they believed Nature was in certain senses not true, and a betrayer, +and that she was not wholly the benevolent power to endow, as accorded +with the prevailing deceived notion of the vulgar. But he wished not +to discuss more particularly than thus, as he had drawn up to himself a +certain frontier of reticence; and so fell to petting a great black +pig, of which he made an unseemly companion, and to talking idly._" + + + A Gyges ring they bear about them still, + To be, and not, seen when and where they will; + + They tread on clouds, and though they sometimes fall, + They fall like dew, and make no noise at all: + + So silently they one to th' other come + As colors steal into the pear or plum; + + And air-like, leave no pression to be seen + Where'er they met, or parting place has been. + + ROBERT HERRICK.--_My Lovers how They Come and Part_. + + + + +CONCERNING CORINNA + + +The matter hinges entirely upon whether or not Robert Herrick was +insane. Sir Thomas Browne always preferred to think that he was; +whereas Philip Borsdale perversely considered the answer to be +optional. Perversely, Sir Thomas protested, because he said that to +believe in Herrick's sanity was not conducive to your own. + +This much is certain: the old clergyman, a man of few friends and no +intimates, enjoyed in Devon, thanks to his time-hallowed reputation for +singularity, a certain immunity. In and about Dean Prior, for +instance, it was conceded in 1674 that it was unusual for a divine of +the Church of England to make a black pig--and a pig of peculiarly +diabolical ugliness, at that--his ordinary associate; but Dean Prior +had come long ago to accept the grisly brute as a concomitant of Dr. +Herrick's presence almost as inevitable as his shadow. It was no crime +to be fond of dumb animals, not even of one so inordinately +unprepossessing; and you allowed for eccentricities, in any event, in +dealing with a poet. + +For Totnes, Buckfastleigh, Dean Prior--all that part of Devon, in +fact--complacently basked in the reflected glory of Robert Herrick. +People came from a long distance, now that the Parliamentary Wars were +over, in order just to see the writer of the _Hesperides_ and the +_Noble Numbers_. And such enthusiasts found in Robert Herrick a +hideous dreamy man, who, without ever perpetrating any actual +discourtesy, always managed to dismiss them, somehow, with a sense of +having been rebuffed. + +Sir Thomas Browne, that ardent amateur of the curious, came into Devon, +however, without the risk of incurring any such fate, inasmuch as the +knight traveled westward simply to discuss with Master Philip Borsdale +the recent doings of Cardinal Alioneri. Now, Philip Borsdale, as Sir +Thomas knew, had been employed by Herrick in various transactions here +irrelevant. In consequence, Sir Thomas Browne was not greatly +surprised when, on his arrival at Buckfastleigh, Borsdale's +body-servant told him that Master Borsdale had left instructions for +Sir Thomas to follow him to Dean Prior. Browne complied, because his +business with Borsdale was of importance. + +Philip Borsdale was lounging in Dr. Herrick's chair, intent upon a +lengthy manuscript, alone and to all appearances quite at home. The +state of the room Sir Thomas found extraordinary; but he had graver +matters to discuss; and he explained the results of his mission without +extraneous comment. + +"Yes, you have managed it to admiration," said Philip Borsdale, when +the knight had made an end. Borsdale leaned back and laughed, +purringly, for the outcome of this affair of the Cardinal and the Wax +Image meant much to him from a pecuniary standpoint. "Yet it is odd a +prince of any church which has done so much toward the discomfiture of +sorcery should have entertained such ideas. It is also odd to note the +series of coincidences which appears to have attended this Alioneri's +practises." + +"I noticed that," said Sir Thomas. After a while he said: "You think, +then, that they must have been coincidences?" + +"MUST is a word which intelligent people do not outwear by too constant +usage." + +And "Oh----?" said the knight, and said that alone, because he was +familiar with the sparkle now in Borsdale's eyes, and knew it heralded +an adventure for an amateur of the curious. + +"I am not committing myself, mark you, Sir Thomas, to any statement +whatever, beyond the observation that these coincidences were +noticeable. I add, with superficial irrelevance, that Dr. Herrick +disappeared last night." + +"I am not surprised," said Sir Thomas, drily. "No possible antics +would astonish me on the part of that unvenerable madman. When I was +last in Totnes, he broke down in the midst of a sermon, and flung the +manuscript of it at his congregation, and cursed them roundly for not +paying closer attention. Such was never my ideal of absolute decorum +in the pulpit. Moreover, it is unusual for a minister of the Church of +England to be accompanied everywhere by a pig with whom he discusses +the affairs of the parish precisely as if the pig were a human being." + +"The pig--he whimsically called the pig Corinna, sir, in honor of that +imaginary mistress to whom he addressed so many verses--why, the pig +also has disappeared. Oh, but of course that at least is simply a +coincidence. . . . I grant you it was an uncanny beast. And I grant +you that Dr. Herrick was a dubious ornament to his calling. Of that I +am doubly certain to-day," said Borsdale, and he waved his hand +comprehensively, "in view of the state in which--you see--he left this +room. Yes, he was quietly writing here at eleven o'clock last night +when old Prudence Baldwin, his housekeeper, last saw him. Afterward +Dr. Herrick appears to have diverted himself by taking away the mats +and chalking geometrical designs upon the floor, as well as by burning +some sort of incense in this brasier." + +"But such avocations, Philip, are not necessarily indicative of sanity. +No, it is not, upon the whole, an inevitable manner for an elderly +parson to while away an evening." + +"Oh, but that was only a part, sir. He also left the clothes he was +wearing--in a rather peculiarly constructed heap, as you can see. +Among them, by the way, I found this flattened and corroded bullet. +That puzzled me. I think I understand it now." Thus Borsdale, as he +composedly smoked his churchwarden. "In short, the whole affair is as +mysterious----" + +Here Sir Thomas raised his hand. "Spare me the simile. I detect a +vista of curious perils such as infinitely outshines verbal brilliancy. +You need my aid in some insane attempt." He considered. He said: "So! +you have been retained?" + +"I have been asked to help him. Of course I did not know of what he +meant to try. In short, Dr. Herrick left this manuscript, as well as +certain instructions for me. The last are--well! unusual." + +"Ah, yes! You hearten me. I have long had my suspicions as to this +Herrick, though. . . . And what are we to do?" + +"I really cannot inform you, sir. I doubt if I could explain in any +workaday English even what we will attempt to do," said Philip +Borsdale. "I do say this: You believe the business which we have +settled, involving as it does the lives of thousands of men and women, +to be of importance. I swear to you that, as set against what we will +essay, all we have done is trivial. As pitted against the business we +will attempt to-night, our previous achievements are suggestive of the +evolutions of two sand-fleas beside the ocean. The prize at which this +adventure aims is so stupendous that I cannot name it." + +"Oh, but you must, Philip. I am no more afraid of the local +constabulary than I am of the local notions as to what respectability +entails. I may confess, however, that I am afraid of wagering against +unknown odds." + +Borsdale reflected. Then he said, with deliberation: "Dr. Herrick's +was, when you come to think of it, an unusual life. He is--or perhaps +I ought to say he was--upward of eighty-three. He has lived here for +over a half-century, and during that time he has never attempted to +make either a friend or an enemy. He was--indifferent, let us say. +Talking to Dr. Herrick was, somehow, like talking to a man in a +fog. . . . Meanwhile, he wrote his verses to imaginary women--to +Corinna and Julia, to Myrha, Electra and Perilla--those lovely, shadow +women who never, in so far as we know, had any real existence----" + +Sir Thomas smiled. "Of course. They are mere figments of the poet, +pegs to hang rhymes on. And yet--let us go on. I know that Herrick +never willingly so much as spoke with a woman." + +"Not in so far as we know, I said." And Borsdale paused. "Then, too, +he wrote such dainty, merry poems about the fairies. Yes, it was all +of fifty years ago that Dr. Herrick first appeared in print with his +_Description of the King and Queen of the Fairies_. The thought seems +always to have haunted him." + +The knight's face changed, a little by a little. "I have long been an +amateur of the curious," he said, strangely quiet. "I do not think +that anything you may say will surprise me inordinately." + +"He had found in every country in the world traditions of a race who +were human--yet more than human. That is the most exact fashion in +which I can express his beginnings. On every side he found the notion +of a race who can impinge on mortal life and partake of it--but always +without exercising the last reach of their endowments. Oh, the +tradition exists everywhere, whether you call these occasional +interlopers fauns, fairies, gnomes, ondines, incubi, or demons. They +could, according to these fables, temporarily restrict themselves into +our life, just as a swimmer may elect to use only one arm--or, a more +fitting comparison, become apparent to our human senses in the fashion +of a cube which can obtrude only one of its six surfaces into a plane. +You follow me, of course, sir?--to the triangles and circles and +hexagons this cube would seem to be an ordinary square. Conceiving +such a race to exist, we might talk with them, might jostle them in the +streets, might even intermarry with them, sir--and always see in them +only human beings, and solely because of our senses' limitations." + +"I comprehend. These are exactly the speculations that would appeal to +an unbalanced mind--is that not your thought, Philip?" + +"Why, there is nothing particularly insane, Sir Thomas, in desiring to +explore in fields beyond those which our senses make perceptible. It +is very certain these fields exist; and the question of their extent I +take to be both interesting and important." + +Then Sir Thomas said: "Like any other rational man, I have +occasionally thought of this endeavor at which you hint. We exist--you +and I and all the others--in what we glibly call the universe. All +that we know of it is through what we entitle our five senses, which, +when provoked to action, will cause a chemical change in a few ounces +of spongy matter packed in our skulls. There are no grounds for +believing that this particular method of communication is adequate, or +even that the agents which produce it are veracious. Meanwhile, we are +in touch with what exists through our five senses only. It may be that +they lie to us. There is, at least, no reason for assuming them to be +infallible." + +"But reflection plows a deeper furrow, Sir Thomas. Even in the +exercise of any one of these five senses it is certain that we are +excelled by what we vaingloriously call the lower forms of life. A dog +has powers of scent we cannot reach to, birds hear the crawling of a +worm, insects distinguish those rays in the spectrum which lie beyond +violet and red, and are invisible to us; and snails and fish and +ants--perhaps all other living creatures, indeed--have senses which man +does not share at all, and has no name for. Granted that we human +beings alone possess the power of reasoning, the fact remains that we +invariably start with false premises, and always pass our judgments +when biased at the best by incomplete reports of everything in the +universe, and very possibly by reports which lie flat-footedly." + +You saw that Browne was troubled. Now he rose. "Nothing will come of +this. I do not touch upon the desirability of conquering those fields +at which we dare only to hint. No, I am not afraid. I dare assist you +in doing anything Dr. Herrick asks, because I know that nothing will +come of such endeavors. Much is permitted us--'but of the fruit of the +tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, to us who are +no more than human, Ye shall not eat of it.'" + +"Yet Dr. Herrick, as many other men have done, thought otherwise. I, +too, will venture a quotation. 'Didst thou never see a lark in a cage? +Such is the soul in the body: this world is like her little turf of +grass, and the heavens o'er our heads, like her looking-glass, only +gives us a miserable knowledge of the small compass of our prison.' +Many years ago that lamentation was familiar. What wonder, then, that +Dr. Herrick should have dared to repeat it yesterday? And what wonder +if he tried to free the prisoner?" + +"Such freedom is forbidden," Sir Thomas stubbornly replied. "I have +long known that Herrick was formerly in correspondence with John +Heydon, and Robert Flood, and others of the Illuminated, as they call +themselves. There are many of this sect in England, as we all know; +and we hear much silly chatter of Elixirs and Philosopher's Stones in +connection with them. But I happen to know somewhat of their real aims +and tenets. I do not care to know any more than I do. If it be true +that all of which man is conscious is just a portion of a curtain, and +that the actual universe in nothing resembles our notion of it, I am +willing to believe this curtain was placed there for some righteous and +wise reason. They tell me the curtain may be lifted. Whether this be +true or no, I must for my own sanity's sake insist it can never be +lifted." + +"But what if it were not forbidden? For Dr. Herrick asserts he has +already demonstrated that." + +Sir Thomas interrupted, with odd quickness. "True, we must bear it in +mind the man never married--Did he, by any chance, possess a crystal of +Venice glass three inches square?" + +And Borsdale gaped. "I found it with his manuscript. But he said +nothing of it. . . . How could you guess?" + +Sir Thomas reflectively scraped the edge of the glass with his +finger-nail. "You would be none the happier for knowing, Philip. Yes, +that is a blood-stain here. I see. And Herrick, so far as we know, +had never in his life loved any woman. He is the only poet in history +who never demonstrably loved any woman. I think you had better read me +his manuscript, Philip." + +This Philip Borsdale did. + + +Then Sir Thomas said, as quiet epilogue: "This, if it be true, would +explain much as to that lovely land of eternal spring and daffodils and +friendly girls, of which his verses make us free. It would even +explain Corinna and Herrick's rapt living without any human ties. For +all poets since the time of AEschylus, who could not write until he was +too drunken to walk, have been most readily seduced by whatever +stimulus most tended to heighten their imaginings; so that for the sake +of a song's perfection they have freely resorted to divers artificial +inspirations, and very often without evincing any undue +squeamishness. . . . I spoke of AEschylus. I am sorry, Philip, that +you are not familiar with ancient Greek life. There is so much I could +tell you of, in that event, of the quaint cult of Kore, or Pherephatta, +and of the swine of Eubouleus, and of certain ambiguous maidens, whom +those old Grecians fabled--oh, very ignorantly fabled, my lad, of +course--to rule in a more quietly lit and more tranquil world than we +blunder about. I think I could explain much which now seems +mysterious--yes, and the daffodils, also, that Herrick wrote of so +constantly. But it is better not to talk of these sinister delusions +of heathenry." Sir Thomas shrugged. "For my reward would be to have +you think me mad. I prefer to iterate the verdict of all logical +people, and formally to register my opinion that Robert Herrick was +indisputably a lunatic." + +Borsdale did not seem perturbed. "I think the record of his +experiments is true, in any event. You will concede that their results +were startling? And what if his deductions be the truth? what if our +limited senses have reported to us so very little of the universe, and +even that little untruthfully?" He laughed and drummed impatiently +upon the table. "At least, he tells us that the boy returned. I +fervently believe that in this matter Dr. Herrick was capable of any +crime except falsehood. Oh, no I depend on it, he also will return." + +"You imagine Herrick will break down the door between this world and +that other inconceivable world which all of us have dreamed of! To me, +my lad, it seems as if this Herrick aimed dangerously near to +repetition of the Primal Sin, for all that he handles it like a problem +in mechanical mathematics. The poet writes as if he were instructing a +dame's school as to the advisability of becoming omnipotent." + +"Well, well! I am not defending Dr. Herrick in anything save his desire +to know the truth. In this respect at least, he has proven himself to +be both admirable and fearless. And at worst, he only strives to do +what Jacob did at Peniel," said Philip Borsdale, lightly. "The +patriarch, as I recall, was blessed for acting as he did. The legend +is not irrelevant, I think." + +They passed into the adjoining room. + + +Thus the two men came into a high-ceiled apartment, cylindrical in +shape, with plastered walls painted green everywhere save for the +quaint embellishment of a large oval, wherein a woman, having an +eagle's beak, grasped in one hand a serpent and in the other a knife. +Sir Thomas Browne seemed to recognize this curious design, and gave an +ominous nod. + +Borsdale said: "You see Dr. Herrick had prepared everything. And much +of what we are about to do is merely symbolical, of course. Most +people undervalue symbols. They do not seem to understand that there +could never have been any conceivable need of inventing a periphrasis +for what did not exist." + +Sir Thomas Browne regarded Borsdale for a while intently. Then the +knight gave his habitual shrugging gesture. "You are braver than I, +Philip, because you are more ignorant than I. I have been too long an +amateur of the curious. Sometimes in over-credulous moments I have +almost believed that in sober verity there are reasoning beings who are +not human--beings that for their own dark purposes seek union with us. +Indeed, I went into Pomerania once to talk with John Dietrick of +Ramdin. He told me one of those relations whose truth we dread, a tale +which I did not dare, I tell you candidly, even to discuss in my +_Vulgar Errors_. Then there is Helgi Thorison's history, and that of +Leonard of Basle also. Oh, there are more recorded stories of this +nature than you dream of, Philip. We have only the choice between +believing that all these men were madmen, and believing that ordinary +human life is led by a drugged animal who drowses through a purblind +existence among merciful veils. And these female creatures--these +Corinnas, Perillas, Myrhas, and Electras--can it be possible that they +are always striving, for their own strange ends, to rouse the sleeping +animal and break the kindly veils?--and are they permitted to use such +amiable enticements as Herrick describes? Oh, no, all this is just a +madman's dream, dear lad, and we must not dare to consider it +seriously, lest we become no more sane than he." + +"But you will aid me?" Borsdale said. + +"Yes, I will aid you, Philip, for in Herrick's case I take it that the +mischief is consummated already; and we, I think, risk nothing worse +than death. But you will need another knife a little later--a knife +that will be clean." + +"I had forgotten." Borsdale withdrew, and presently returned with a +bone-handled knife. And then he made a light. "Are you quite ready, +sir?" + +Sir Thomas Browne, that aging amateur of the curious, could not resist +a laugh. + +And then they sat about proceedings of which, for obvious reasons, the +details are best left unrecorded. It was not an unconscionable while +before they seemed to be aware of unusual phenomena. But as Sir Thomas +always pointed out, in subsequent discussions, these were quite +possibly the fruitage of excited imagination. + +"Now, Philip!--now, give me the knife!" cried Sir Thomas Browne. He +knew for the first time, despite many previous mischancy happenings, +what real terror was. + +The room was thick with blinding smoke by this, so that Borsdale could +see nothing save his co-partner in this adventure. Both men were +shaken by what had occurred before. Borsdale incuriously perceived +that old Sir Thomas rose, tense as a cat about to pounce, and that he +caught the unstained knife from Borsdale's hand, and flung it like a +javelin into the vapor which encompassed them. This gesture stirred +the smoke so that Borsdale could see the knife quiver and fall, and +note the tiny triangle of unbared plaster it had cut in the painted +woman's breast. Within the same instant he had perceived a naked man +who staggered. + +"_Iz adu kronyeshnago_----!" The intruder's thin, shrill wail was that +of a frightened child. The man strode forward, choked, seemed to grope +his way. His face was not good to look at. Horror gripped and tore at +every member of the cadaverous old body, as a high wind tugs at a flag. +The two witnesses of Herrick's agony did not stir during the instant +wherein the frenzied man stooped, moving stiffly like an ill-made toy, +and took up the knife. + +"Oh, yes, I knew what he was about to do," said Sir Thomas Browne +afterward, in his quiet fashion. "I did not try to stop him. If +Herrick had been my dearest friend, I would not have interfered. I had +seen his face, you comprehend. Yes, it was kinder to let him die. It +was curious, though, as he stood there hacking his chest, how at each +stab he deliberately twisted the knife. I suppose the pain distracted +his mind from what he was remembering. I should have forewarned +Borsdale of this possible outcome at the very first, I suppose. But, +then, which one of us is always wise?" + + +So this adventure came to nothing. For its significance, if any, +hinged upon Robert Herrick's sanity, which was at best a disputable +quantity. Grant him insane, and the whole business, as Sir Thomas was +at large pains to point out, dwindles at once into the irresponsible +vagaries of a madman. + +"And all the while, for what we know, he had been hiding somewhere in +the house. We never searched it. Oh, yes, there is no doubt he was +insane," said Sir Thomas, comfortably. + +"Faith! what he moaned was gibberish, of course----" + +"Oddly enough, his words were intelligible. They meant in Russian 'Out +of the lowest hell.'" + +"But, why, in God's name, Russian?" + +"I am sure I do not know," Sir Thomas replied; and he did not appear at +all to regret his ignorance. + +But Borsdale meditated, disappointedly. "Oh, yes, the outcome is +ambiguous, Sir Thomas, in every way. I think we may safely take it as +a warning, in any event, that this world of ours, whatever its +deficiencies, was meant to be inhabited by men and women only." + + +"Now I," was Sir Thomas's verdict, "prefer to take it as a warning that +insane people ought to be restrained." + +"Ah, well, insanity is only one of the many forms of being abnormal. +Yes, I think it proves that all abnormal people ought to be restrained. +Perhaps it proves that they are very potently restrained," said Philip +Borsdale, perversely. + +Perversely, Sir Thomas always steadfastly protested, because he said +that to believe in Herrick's sanity was not conducive to your own. + +So Sir Thomas shrugged, and went toward the open window. Without the +road was a dazzling gray under the noon sun, for the sky was cloudless. +The ordered trees were rustling pleasantly, very brave in their +autumnal liveries. Under a maple across the way some seven laborers +were joking lazily as they ate their dinner. A wagon lumbered by, the +driver whistling. In front of the house a woman had stopped to +rearrange the pink cap of the baby she was carrying. The child had +just reached up fat and uncertain little arms to kiss her. Nothing +that Browne saw was out of ordinary, kindly human life. + +"Well, after all," said Sir Thomas, upon a sudden, "for one, I think it +is an endurable world, just as it stands." + +And Borsdale looked up from a letter he had been reading. It was from +a woman who has no concern with this tale, and its contents were of no +importance to any one save Borsdale. + +"Now, do you know," said Philip Borsdale, "I am beginning to think you +the most sensible man of my acquaintance! Oh, yes, beyond doubt it is +an endurable sun-nurtured world--just as it stands. It makes it doubly +odd that Dr. Herrick should have chosen always to + + 'Write of groves, and twilights, and to sing + The court of Mab, and of the Fairy King, + And write of Hell.'" + + +Sir Thomas touched his arm, protestingly. "Ah, but you have forgotten +what follows, Philip-- + + 'I sing, and ever shall, + Of Heaven,--and hope to have it after all.'" + + +"Well! I cry Amen," said Borsdale. "But I wish I could forget the old +man's face." + +"Oh, and I also," Sir Thomas said. "And I cry Amen with far more +heartiness, my lad, because I, too, once dreamed of--of Corinna, shall +we say?" + + + + +OLIVIA'S POTTAGE + + +"_Mr. Wycherley was naturally modest until King Charles' court, that +late disgrace to our times, corrupted him. He then gave himself up to +all sorts of extravagances and to the wildest frolics that a wanton wit +could devise. . . . Never was so much ill-nature in a pen as in his, +joined with so much good nature as was in himself, even to excess; for +he was bountiful, even to run himself into difficulties, and charitable +even to a fault. It was not that he was free from the failings of +humanity, but he had the tenderness of it, too, which made everybody +excuse whom everybody loved; and even the asperity of his verses seems +to have been forgiven._" + + + + + I the Plain Dealer am to act to-day. + + * * * * * * + + Now, you shrewd judges, who the boxes sway, + Leading the ladies' hearts and sense astray, + And for their sakes, see all and hear no play; + Correct your cravats, foretops, lock behind: + The dress and breeding of the play ne'er mind; + For the coarse dauber of the coming scenes + To follow life and nature only means, + Displays you as you are, makes his fine woman + A mercenary jilt and true to no man, + Shows men of wit and pleasure of the age + Are as dull rogues as ever cumber'd stage. + + WILLIAM WYCHERLEY.--_Prologue to The Plain Dealer_. + + + + +OLIVIA'S POTTAGE + + +It was in the May of 1680 that Mr. William Wycherley went into the +country to marry the famed heiress, Mistress Araminta Vining, as he had +previously settled with her father, and found her to his vast relief a +very personable girl. She had in consequence a host of admirers, +pre-eminent among whom was young Robert Minifie of Milanor. Mr. +Wycherley, a noted stickler for etiquette, decorously made bold to +question Mr. Minifie's taste in a dispute concerning waistcoats. A +duel was decorously arranged and these two met upon the narrow beach of +Teviot Bay. + +Theirs was a spirited encounter, lasting for ten energetic minutes. +Then Wycherley pinked Mr. Minifie in the shoulder, just as the +dramatist, a favorite pupil of Gerard's, had planned to do; and the +four gentlemen parted with every imaginable courtesy, since the wounded +man and the two seconds were to return by boat to Mr. Minifie's house +at Milanor. + +More lately Wycherley walked in the direction of Ouseley Manor, +whistling _Love's a Toy_. Honor was satisfied, and, happily, as he +reflected, at no expense of life. He was a kindly hearted fop, and +more than once had killed his man with perfectly sincere regret. But +in putting on his coat--it was the black camlet coat with silver +buttons--he had overlooked his sleevelinks; and he did not recognize, +for twenty-four eventful hours, the full importance of his carelessness. + + +In the heart of Figgis Wood, the incomparable Countess of Drogheda, +aunt to Mr. Wycherley's betrothed, and a noted leader of fashion, had +presently paused at sight of him--laughing a little--and with one tiny +hand had made as though to thrust back the staghound which accompanied +her. "Your humble servant, Mr. Swashbuckler," she said; and then: "But +oh! you have not hurt the lad?" she demanded, with a tincture of +anxiety. + +"Nay, after a short but brilliant engagement," Wycherley returned, "Mr. +Minifie was very harmlessly perforated; and in consequence I look to be +married on Thursday, after all." + +"Let me die but Cupid never meets with anything save inhospitality in +this gross world!" cried Lady Drogheda. "For the boy is heels over +head in love with Araminta,--oh, a second Almanzor! And my niece does +not precisely hate him either, let me tell you, William, for all your +month's assault of essences and perfumed gloves and apricot paste and +other small artillery of courtship. La, my dear, was it only a month +ago we settled your future over a couple of Naples biscuit and a bottle +of Rhenish?" She walked beside him now, and the progress of these +exquisites was leisurely. There were many trees at hand so huge as to +necessitate a considerable detour. + +"Egad, it is a month and three days over," Wycherley retorted, "since +you suggested your respected brother-in-law was ready to pay my debts +in full, upon condition I retaliated by making your adorable niece +Mistress Wycherley. Well, I stand to-day indebted to him for an +advance of L1500 and am no more afraid of bailiffs. We have performed +a very creditable stroke of business; and the day after to-morrow you +will have fairly earned your L500 for arranging the marriage. Faith, +and in earnest of this, I already begin to view you through appropriate +lenses as undoubtedly the most desirable aunt in the universe." + +Nor was there any unconscionable stretching of the phrase. Through the +quiet forest, untouched as yet by any fidgeting culture, and much as it +was when John Lackland wooed Hawisa under, its venerable oaks, old even +then, the little widow moved like a light flame. She was clothed +throughout in scarlet, after her high-hearted style of dress, and +carried a tall staff of ebony; and the gold head of it was farther from +the dead leaves than was her mischievous countenance. The big +staghound lounged beside her. She pleased the eye, at least, did this +heartless, merry and selfish Olivia, whom Wycherley had so ruthlessly +depicted in his _Plain Dealer_. To the last detail Wycherley found +her, as he phrased it, "_mignonne et piquante_," and he told her so. + +Lady Drogheda observed, "Fiddle-de-dee!" Lady Drogheda continued: +"Yes, I am a fool, of course, but then I still remember Bessington, and +the boy that went mad there----" + +"Because of a surfeit of those dreams 'such as the poets know when they +are young.' Sweet chuck, beat not the bones of the buried; when he +breathed he was a likely lad," Mr. Wycherley declared, with signal +gravity. + +"Oh, la, la!" she flouted him. "Well, in any event you were the first +gentleman in England to wear a neckcloth of Flanders lace." + +"And you were the first person of quality to eat cheesecakes in Spring +Garden," he not half so mirthfully retorted. "So we have not entirely +failed in life, it may be, after all." + +She made of him a quite irrelevant demand: "D'ye fancy Esau was +contented, William?" + +"I fancy he was fond of pottage, madam; and that, as I remember, he got +his pottage. Come, now, a tangible bowl of pottage, piping hot, is not +to be despised in such a hazardous world as ours is." + +She was silent for a lengthy while. "Lord, Lord, how musty all that +brave, sweet nonsense seems!" she said, and almost sighed. "Eh, well! +_le vin est tire, et il faut le boire_." + +"My adorable aunt! Let us put it a thought less dumpishly; and render +thanks because our pottage smokes upon the table, and we are blessed +with excellent appetites." + +"So that in a month we will be back again in the playhouses and Hyde +Park and Mulberry Garden, or nodding to each other in the New +Exchange,--you with your debts paid, and I with my L500----?" She +paused to pat the staghound's head. "Lord Remon came this afternoon," +said Lady Drogheda, and with averted eyes. + +"I do not approve of Remon," he announced. "Nay, madam, even a Siren +ought to spare her kin and show some mercy toward the more +stagnant-blooded fish." + +And Lady Drogheda shrugged. "He is very wealthy, and I am lamentably +poor. One must not seek noon at fourteen o'clock or clamor for better +bread than was ever made from wheat." + +Mr. Wycherley laughed, after a pregnant silence. + +"By heavens, madam, you are in the right! So I shall walk no more in +Figgis Wood, for its old magic breeds too many day-dreams. Besides, we +have been serious for half-an-hour. Now, then, let us discuss +theology, dear aunt, or millinery, or metaphysics, or the King's new +statue at Windsor, or, if you will, the last Spring Garden scandal. Or +let us count the leaves upon this tree; and afterward I will enumerate +my reasons for believing yonder crescent moon to be the paring of the +Angel Gabriel's left thumb-nail." + +She was a woman of eloquent silences when there was any need of them; +and thus the fop and the coquette traversed the remainder of that +solemn wood without any further speech. Modish people would have +esteemed them unwontedly glum. + + +Wycherley discovered in a while the absence of his sleeve-links, and +was properly vexed by the loss of these not unhandsome trinkets, the +gifts of Lady Castlemaine in the old days when Mr. Wycherley was the +King's successful rival for her favors. But Wycherley knew the tide +filled Teviot Bay and wondering fishes were at liberty to muzzle the +toys, by this, and merely shrugged at his mishap, midcourse in toilet. + +Mr. Wycherley, upon mature deliberation, wore the green suit with +yellow ribbons, since there was a ball that night in honor of his +nearing marriage, and a confluence of gentry to attend it. Miss Vining +and he walked through a minuet to some applause; the two were heartily +acclaimed a striking couple, and congratulations beat about their ears +as thick as sugar-plums in a carnival. And at nine you might have +found the handsome dramatist alone upon the East Terrace of Ouseley, +pacing to and fro in the moonlight, and complacently reflecting upon +his quite indisputable and, past doubt, unmerited good fortune. + +There was never any night in June which nature planned the more +adroitly. Soft and warm and windless, lit by a vainglorious moon and +every star that ever shone, the beauty of this world caressed and +heartened its beholder like a gallant music. Our universe, Mr. +Wycherley conceded willingly, was excellent and kindly, and the Arbiter +of it too generous; for here was he, the wastrel, like the third prince +at the end of a fairy-tale, the master of a handsome wife, and a fine +house and fortune. Somewhere, he knew, young Minifie, with his arm in +a sling, was pleading with Mistress Araminta for the last time; and +this reflection did not greatly trouble Mr. Wycherley, since +incommunicably it tickled his vanity. He was chuckling when he came to +the open window. + +Within a woman was singing, to the tinkling accompaniment of a spinet, +for the delectation of Lord Remon. She was not uncomely, and the hard, +lean, stingy countenance of the attendant nobleman was almost genial. +Wycherley understood with a great rending shock, as though the thought +were novel, that Olivia, Lady Drogheda, designed to marry this man, who +grinned within finger's reach--or, rather, to ally herself with Remon's +inordinate wealth,--and without any heralding a brutal rage and hatred +of all created things possessed the involuntary eavesdropper. + +She looked up into Remon's face and, laughing with such bright and +elfin mirth as never any other woman showed, thought Wycherley, she +broke into another song. She would have spared Mr. Wycherley that had +she but known him to be within earshot. . . . Oh, it was only Lady +Drogheda who sang, he knew,--the seasoned gamester and coquette, the +veteran of London and of Cheltenham,--but the woman had no right to +charm this haggler with a voice that was not hers. For it was the +voice of another Olivia, who was not a fine and urban lady, and who +lived nowhere any longer; it was the voice of a soft-handed, tender, +jeering girl, whom he alone remembered; and a sick, illimitable rage +grilled in each vein of him as liltingly she sang, for Remon, the old +and foolish song which Wycherley had made in her praise very long ago, +and of which he might not ever forget the most trivial word. + +Men, even beaux, are strangely constituted; and so it needed only +this--the sudden stark brute jealousy of one male animal for another. +That was the clumsy hand which now unlocked the dyke; and like a flood, +tall and resistless, came the recollection of their far-off past and of +its least dear trifle, of all the aspirations and absurdities and +splendors of their common youth, and found him in its path, a painted +fellow, a spendthrift king of the mode, a most notable authority upon +the set of a peruke, a penniless, spent connoisseur of stockings, +essences and cosmetics. + + +He got but little rest this night. + +There were too many plaintive memories which tediously plucked him +back, with feeble and innumerable hands, as often as he trod upon the +threshold of sleep. Then too, there were so many dreams, half-waking, +and not only of Olivia Chichele, naive and frank in divers rural +circumstances, but rather of Olivia, Lady Drogheda, that perfect piece +of artifice; of how exquisite she was! how swift and volatile in every +movement! how airily indomitable, and how mendacious to the tips of her +polished finger-nails! and how she always seemed to flit about this +world as joyously, alertly, and as colorfully as some ornate and tiny +bird of the tropics! + +But presently parochial birds were wrangling underneath the dramatist's +window, while he tossed and assured himself that he was sleepier than +any saint who ever snored in Ephesus; and presently one hand of +Moncrieff was drawing the bed-curtains, while the other carefully +balanced a mug of shaving-water. + + +Wycherley did not see her all that morning, for Lady Drogheda was +fatigued, or so a lackey informed him, and as yet kept her chamber. +His Araminta he found deplorably sullen. So the dramatist devoted the +better part of this day to a refitting of his wedding-suit, just come +from London; for Moncrieff, an invaluable man, had adjudged the pockets +to be placed too high; and, be the punishment deserved or no, Mr. +Wycherley had never heard that any victim of law appeared the more +admirable upon his scaffold for being slovenly in his attire. + +Thus it was as late as five in the afternoon that, wearing the +peach-colored suit trimmed with scarlet ribbon, and a new French +beaver, the exquisite came upon Lady Drogheda walking in the gardens +with only an appropriate peacock for company. She was so beautiful and +brilliant and so little--so like a famous gem too suddenly disclosed, +and therefore oddly disparate in all these qualities, that his decorous +pleasant voice might quite permissibly have shaken a trifle (as indeed +it did), when Mr. Wycherley implored Lady Drogheda to walk with him to +Teviot Bay, on the off-chance of recovering his sleeve-links. + +And there they did find one of the trinkets, but the tide had swept +away the other, or else the sand had buried it. So they rested there +upon the rocks, after an unavailing search, and talked of many trifles, +amid surroundings oddly incongruous. + +For this Teviot Bay is a primeval place, a deep-cut, narrow notch in +the tip of Carnrick, and is walled by cliffs so high and so precipitous +that they exclude a view of anything except the ocean. The bay opens +due west; and its white barriers were now developing a violet tinge, +for this was on a sullen afternoon, and the sea was ruffled by spiteful +gusts. Wycherley could find no color anywhere save in this glowing, +tiny and exquisite woman; and everywhere was a gigantic peace, vexed +only when high overhead a sea-fowl jeered at these modish persons, as +he flapped toward an impregnable nest. + +"And by this hour to-morrow," thought Mr. Wycherley, "I shall be +chained to that good, strapping, wholesome Juno of a girl!" + +So he fell presently into a silence, staring at the vacant west, which +was like a huge and sickly pearl, not thinking of anything at all, but +longing poignantly for something which was very beautiful and strange +and quite unattainable, with precisely that anguish he had sometimes +known in awaking from a dream of which he could remember nothing save +its piercing loveliness. + +"And thus ends the last day of our bachelorhood!" said Lady Drogheda, +upon a sudden. "You have played long enough--La, William, you have led +the fashion for ten years, you have written four merry comedies, and +you have laughed as much as any man alive, but you have pulled down all +that nature raised in you, I think. Was it worth while?" + +"Faith, but nature's monuments are no longer the last cry in +architecture," he replied; "and I believe that _The Plain Dealer_ and +_The Country Wife_ will hold their own." + +"And you wrote them when you were just a boy! Ah, yes, you might have +been our English Moliere, my dear. And, instead, you have elected to +become an authority upon cravats and waistcoats." + +"Eh, madam"--he smiled--"there was a time when I too was foolishly +intent to divert the leisure hours of posterity. But reflection +assured me that posterity had, thus far, done very little to place me +under that or any other obligation. Ah, no! Youth, health and--though +I say it--a modicum of intelligence are loaned to most of us for a +while, and for a terribly brief while. They are but loans, and Time is +waiting greedily to snatch them from us. For the perturbed usurer +knows that he is lending us, perforce, three priceless possessions, and +that till our lease runs out we are free to dispose of them as we +elect. Now, had I jealously devoted my allotment of these treasures +toward securing for my impressions of the universe a place in yet +unprinted libraries, I would have made an investment from which I could +not possibly have derived any pleasure, and which would have been to +other people of rather dubious benefit. In consequence, I chose a +wiser and devouter course." + +This statement Lady Drogheda afforded the commentary of a grimace. + +"Why, look you," Wycherley philosophized, "have you never thought what +a vast deal of loving and painstaking labor must have gone to make the +world we inhabit so beautiful and so complete? For it was not enough +to evolve and set a glaring sun in heaven, to marshal the big stars +about the summer sky, but even in the least frequented meadow every +butterfly must have his pinions jeweled, very carefully, and every +lovely blade of grass be fashioned separately. The hand that yesterday +arranged the Himalayas found time to glaze the wings of a midge! Now, +most of us could design a striking Flood, or even a Last judgment, +since the canvas is so big and the colors used so virulent; but to +paint a snuff-box perfectly you must love the labor for its own sake, +and pursue it without even an underthought of the performance's +ultimate appraisement. People do not often consider the simple fact +that it is enough to bait, and quite superfluous to veneer, a trap; +indeed, those generally acclaimed the best of persons insist this world +is but an antechamber, full of gins and pitfalls, which must be +scurried through with shut eyes. And the more fools they, as all we +poets know! for to enjoy a sunset, or a glass of wine, or even to +admire the charms of a handsome woman, is to render the Artificer of +all at least the tribute of appreciation." + +But she said, in a sharp voice: "William, William----!" And he saw +that there was no beach now in Teviot Bay except the dwindling crescent +at its farthest indentation on which they sat. + +Yet his watch, on consultation, recorded only five o'clock; and +presently Mr. Wycherley laughed, not very loudly. The two had risen, +and her face was a tiny snowdrift where every touch of rouge and +grease-pencils showed crudely. + +"Look now," said Wycherley, "upon what trifles our lives hinge! Last +night I heard you singing, and the song brought back so many things +done long ago, and made me so unhappy that--ridiculous conclusion!--I +forgot to wind my watch. Well! the tide is buffeting at either side of +Carnrick; within the hour this place will be submerged; and, in a +phrase, we are as dead as Hannibal or Hector." + +She said, very quiet: "Could you not gain the mainland if you stripped +and swam for it?" + +"Why, possibly," the beau conceded. "Meanwhile you would have drowned. +Faith, we had as well make the best of it." + +Little Lady Drogheda touched his sleeve, and her hand (as the man +noted) did not shake at all, nor did her delicious piping voice shake +either. "You cannot save me. I know it. I am not frightened. I bid +you save yourself." + +"Permit me to assist you to that ledge of rock," Mr. Wycherley +answered, "which is a trifle higher than the beach; and I pray you, +Olivia, do not mar the dignity of these last passages by talking +nonsense." + +For he had spied a ledge, not inaccessible, some four feet higher than +the sands, and it offered them at least a respite. And within the +moment they had secured this niggardly concession, intent to die, as +Wycherley observed, like hurt mice upon a pantry-shelf. The business +smacked of disproportion, he considered, although too well-bred to say +as much; for here was a big ruthless league betwixt earth and sea, and +with no loftier end than to crush a fop and a coquette, whose speedier +extinction had been dear at the expense of a shilling's worth of +arsenic! + +Then the sun came out, to peep at these trapped, comely people, and +doubtless to get appropriate mirth at the spectacle. He hung low +against the misty sky, a clearly-rounded orb that did not dazzle, but +merely shone with the cold glitter of new snow upon a fair December +day; and for the rest, the rocks, and watery heavens, and all these +treacherous and lapping waves, were very like a crude draught of the +world, dashed off conceivably upon the day before creation. + +These arbiters of social London did not speak at all; and the bleak +waters crowded toward them as in a fretful dispute of precedence. + +Then the woman said: "Last night Lord Remon asked me to marry him, and +I declined the honor. For this place is too like Bessington--and, I +think, the past month has changed everything----" + +"I thought you had forgotten Bessington," he said, "long, long ago." + +"I did not ever quite forget--Oh, the garish years," she wailed, "since +then! And how I hated you, William--and yet liked you, too,--because +you were never the boy that I remembered, and people would not let you +be! And how I hated them--the huzzies! For I had to see you almost +every day, and it was never you I saw--Ah, William, come back for just +a little, little while, and be an honest boy for just the moment that +we are dying, and not an elegant fine gentleman!" + +"Nay, my dear," the dramatist composedly answered, "an hour of naked +candor is at hand. Life is a masquerade where Death, it would appear, +is master of the ceremonies. Now he sounds his whistle; and we who +went about the world so long as harlequins must unmask, and for all +time put aside our abhorrence of the disheveled. For in sober verity, +this is Death who comes, Olivia,--though I had thought that at his +advent one would be afraid." + +Yet apprehension of this gross and unavoidable adventure, so soon to be +endured, thrilled him, and none too lightly. It seemed unfair that +death should draw near thus sensibly, with never a twinge or ache to +herald its arrival. Why, there were fifty years of life in this fine, +nimble body but for any contretemps like that of the deplorable +present! Thus his meditations stumbled. + +"Oh, William," Lady Drogheda bewailed, "it is all so big--the incurious +west, and the sea, and these rocks that were old in Noah's youth,--and +we are so little----!" + +"Yes," he returned, and took her hand, because their feet were wetted +now; "the trap and its small prey are not commensurate. The stage is +set for a Homeric death-scene, and we two profane an over-ambitious +background. For who are we that Heaven should have rived the world +before time was, to trap us, and should make of the old sea a +fowling-net?" Their eyes encountered, and he said, with a strange gush +of manliness: "Yet Heaven is kind. I am bound even in honor now to +marry Mistress Araminta; and you would marry Remon in the end, +Olivia,--ah, yes! for we are merely moths, my dear, and luxury is a +disastrously brilliant lamp. But here are only you and I and the +master of all ceremony. And yet--I would we were a little worthier, +Olivia!" + +"You have written four merry comedies and you were the first gentleman +in England to wear a neckcloth of Flanders lace," she answered, and her +smile was sadder than weeping. + +"And you were the first person of quality to eat cheese-cakes in Spring +Garden. There you have our epitaphs, if we in truth have earned an +epitaph who have not ever lived." + +"No, we have only laughed--Laugh now, for the last time, and hearten +me, my handsome William! And yet could I but come to God," the woman +said, with a new voice, "and make it clear to Him just how it all fell +out, and beg for one more chance! How heartily I would pray then!" + +"And I would cry Amen to all that prayer must of necessity contain," he +answered. "Oh!" said Wycherley, "just for applause and bodily comfort +and the envy of innumerable other fools we two have bartered a great +heritage! I think our corner of the world will lament us for as much +as a week; but I fear lest Heaven may not condescend to set apart the +needful time wherein to frame a suitable chastisement for such poor +imbeciles. Olivia, I have loved you all my life, and I have been +faithful neither to you nor to myself! I love you so that I am not +afraid even now, since you are here, and so entirely that I have +forgotten how to plead my cause convincingly. And I have had practice, +let me tell you. . . . !" Then he shook his head and smiled. "But +candor is not _a la mode_. See, now, to what outmoded and bucolic +frenzies nature brings even us at last." + +She answered only, as she motioned seaward, "Look!" + + +And what Mr. Wycherley saw was a substantial boat rowed by four of Mr. +Minifie's attendants; and in the bow of the vessel sat that wounded +gentleman himself, regarding Wycherley and Lady Drogheda with some +disfavor; and beside the younger man was Mistress Araminta Vining. + +It was a perturbed Minifie who broke the silence. "This is very +awkward," he said, "because Araminta and I are eloping. We mean to be +married this same night at Milanor. And deuce take it, Mr. Wycherley! +I can't leave you there to drown, any more than in the circumstances I +can ask you to make one of the party." + +"Mr. Wycherley," said his companion, with far more asperity, "the +vanity and obduracy of a cruel father have forced me to the adoption of +this desperate measure. Toward yourself I entertain no ill-feeling, +nor indeed any sentiment at all except the most profound contempt. My +aunt will, of course, accompany us; for yourself, you will do as you +please; but in any event I solemnly protest that I spurn your odious +pretensions, release myself hereby from an enforced and hideous +obligation, and in a phrase would not marry you in order to be Queen of +England." + +"Miss Vining, I had hitherto admired you," the beau replied, with +fervor, "but now esteem is changed to adoration." + +Then he turned to his Olivia. "Madam, you will pardon the awkward but +unavoidable publicity of my proceeding. I am a ruined man. I owe your +brother-in-law some L1500, and, oddly enough, I mean to pay him. I +must sell Jephcot and Skene Minor, but while life lasts I shall keep +Bessington and all its memories. Meanwhile there is a clergyman +waiting at Milanor. So marry me to-night, Olivia; and we will go back +to Bessington to-morrow." + +"To Bessington----!" she said. It was as though she spoke of something +very sacred. Then very musically Lady Drogheda laughed, and to the eye +she was all flippancy. "La, William, I can't bury myself in the +country until the end of time," she said, "and make interminable +custards," she added, "and superintend the poultry," she said, "and for +recreation play short whist with the vicar." + +And it seemed to Mr. Wycherley that he had gone divinely mad. "Don't +lie to me, Olivia. You are thinking there are yet a host of heiresses +who would be glad to be a famous beau's wife at however dear a cost. +But don't lie to me. Don't even try to seem the airy and bedizened +woman I have known so long. All that is over now. Death tapped us on +the shoulder, and, if only for a moment, the masks were dropped. And +life is changed now, oh, everything is changed! Then, come, my dear! +let us be wise and very honest. Let us concede it is still possible +for me to find another heiress, and for you to marry Remon; let us +grant it the only outcome of our common-sense! and for all that, laugh, +and fling away the pottage, and be more wise than reason." + +She irresolutely said: "I cannot. Matters are altered now. It would +be madness----" + +"It would undoubtedly be madness," Mr. Wycherley assented. "But then I +am so tired of being rational! Oh, Olivia," this former arbiter of +taste absurdly babbled, "if I lose you now it is forever! and there is +no health in me save when I am with you. Then alone I wish to do +praiseworthy things, to be all which the boy we know of should have +grown to. . . . See how profoundly shameless I am become when, with +such an audience, I take refuge in the pitiful base argument of my own +weakness! But, my dear, I want you so that nothing else in the world +means anything to me. I want you! and all my life I have wanted you." + +"Boy, boy----!" she answered, and her fine hands had come to Wycherley, +as white birds flutter homeward. But even then she had to deliberate +the matter--since the habits of many years are not put aside like +outworn gloves,--and for innumerable centuries, it seemed to him, her +foot tapped on that wetted ledge. + +Presently her lashes lifted. "I suppose it would be lacking in +reverence to keep a clergyman waiting longer than was absolutely +necessary?" she hazarded. + + + + +A BROWN WOMAN + + +"_A critical age called for symmetry, and exquisite finish had to be +studied as much as nobility of thought. . . . POPE aimed to take first +place as a writer of polished verse. Any knowledge he gained of the +world, or any suggestion that came to him from his intercourse with +society, was utilized to accomplish his main purpose. To put his +thoughts into choice language was not enough. Each idea had to be put +in its neatest and most epigrammatic form._" + + + + + Why did I write? what sin to me unknown + Dipt me in ink, my parents', or my own? + As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame, + I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came. + The muse but served to ease some friend, not wife, + To help me through this long disease, my life. + + * * * * * * + + Who shames a scribbler? break one cobweb through, + He spins the slight, self-pleasing thread anew; + Destroy his fib or sophistry in vain, + The creature's at his foolish work again, + Throned in the centre of his thin designs, + Proud of a vast extent of flimsy lines! + + ALEXANDER POPE.--_Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot_. + + + + +A BROWN WOMAN + +"But I must be hurrying home now," the girl said, "for it is high time +I were back in the hayfields." + +"Fair shepherdess," he implored, "for heaven's sake, let us not cut +short the _pastorelle_ thus abruptly." + +"And what manner of beast may that be, pray?" + +"'Tis a conventional form of verse, my dear, which we at present +strikingly illustrate. The plan of a _pastorelle_ is simplicity's +self: a gentleman, which I may fairly claim to be, in some fair rural +scene--such as this--comes suddenly upon a rustic maiden of surpassing +beauty. He naturally falls in love with her, and they say all manner +of fine things to each other." + +She considered him for a while before speaking. It thrilled him to see +the odd tenderness that was in her face. "You always think of saying +and writing fine things, do you not, sir?" + +"My dear," he answered, gravely, "I believe that I was undoubtedly +guilty of such folly until you came. I wish I could make you +understand how your coming has changed everything." + +"You can tell me some other time," the girl gaily declared, and was +about to leave him. + +His hand detained her very gently. "Faith, but I fear not, for already +my old hallucinations seem to me incredible. Why, yesterday I thought +it the most desirable of human lots to be a great poet"--the gentleman +laughed in self-mockery. "I positively did. I labored every day +toward becoming one. I lived among books, esteemed that I was doing +something of genuine importance as I gravely tinkered with alliteration +and metaphor and antithesis and judicious paraphrases of the ancients. +I put up with life solely because it afforded material for +versification; and, in reality, believed the destruction of Troy was +providentially ordained lest Homer lack subject matter for an epic. +And as for loving, I thought people fell in love in order to exchange +witty rhymes." + +His hand detained her, very gently. . . . Indeed, it seemed to him he +could never tire of noting her excellencies. Perhaps it was that +splendid light poise of her head he chiefly loved; he thought so at +least, just now. Or was it the wonder of her walk, which made all +other women he had ever known appear to mince and hobble, like rusty +toys? Something there was assuredly about this slim brown girl which +recalled an untamed and harmless woodland creature; and it was that, he +knew, which most poignantly moved him, even though he could not name +it. Perhaps it was her bright kind eyes, which seemed to mirror the +tranquillity of forests. . . . + +"You gentry are always talking of love," she marveled. + +"Oh," he said, with acerbity, "oh, I don't doubt that any number of +beef-gorging squires and leering, long-legged Oxford dandies----" He +broke off here, and laughed contemptuously. "Well, you are beautiful, +and they have eyes as keen as mine. And I do not blame you, my dear, +for believing my designs to be no more commendable than theirs--no, not +at all." + +But his mood was spoiled, and his tetchy vanity hurt, by the thought of +stout well-set fellows having wooed this girl; and he permitted her to +go without protest. + +Yet he sat alone for a while upon the fallen tree-trunk, humming a +contented little tune. Never in his life had he been happier. He did +not venture to suppose that any creature so adorable could love such a +sickly hunchback, such a gargoyle of a man, as he was; but that Sarah +was fond of him, he knew. There would be no trouble in arranging with +her father for their marriage, most certainly; and he meant to attend +to that matter this very morning, and within ten minutes. So Mr. +Alexander Pope was meanwhile arranging in his mind a suitable wording +for his declaration of marital aspirations. + +Thus John Gay found him presently and roused him from phrase-spinning. +"And what shall we do this morning, Alexander?" Gay was always +demanding, like a spoiled child, to be amused. + +Pope told him what his own plans were, speaking quite simply, but with +his countenance radiant. Gay took off his hat and wiped his forehead, +for the day was warm. He did not say anything at all. + +"Well----?" Mr. Pope asked, after a pause. + +Mr. Gay was dubious. "I had never thought that you would marry," he +said. "And--why, hang it, Alexander! to grow enamored of a milkmaid is +well enough for the hero of a poem, but in a poet it hints at +injudicious composition." + +Mr. Pope gesticulated with thin hands and seemed upon the verge of +eloquence. Then he spoke unanswerably. "But I love her," he said. + +John Gay's reply was a subdued whistle. He, in common with the other +guests of Lord Harcourt, at Nuneham Courtney, had wondered what would +be the outcome of Mr. Alexander Pope's intimacy with Sarah Drew. A +month earlier the poet had sprained his ankle upon Amshot Heath, and +this young woman had found him lying there, entirely helpless, as she +returned from her evening milking. Being hale of person, she had +managed to get the little hunchback to her home unaided. And since +then Pope had often been seen with her. + +This much was common knowledge. That Mr. Pope proposed to marry the +heroine of his misadventure afforded a fair mark for raillery, no +doubt, but Gay, in common with the run of educated England in 1718, did +not aspire to be facetious at Pope's expense. The luxury was too +costly. Offend the dwarf in any fashion, and were you the proudest +duke at Court or the most inconsiderable rhymester in Petticoat Lane, +it made no difference; there was no crime too heinous for "the great +Mr. Pope's" next verses to charge you with, and, worst of all, there +was no misdoing so out of character that his adroit malignancy could +not make it seem plausible. + +Now, after another pause, Pope said, "I must be going now. Will you +not wish me luck?" + +"Why, Alexander--why, hang it!" was Mr. Gay's observation, "I believe +that you are human after all, and not just a book in breeches." + + +He thereby voiced a commentary patently uncalled-for, as Mr. Pope +afterward reflected. Mr. Pope was then treading toward the home of old +Frederick Drew. It was a gray morning in late July. + +"I love her," Pope had said. The fact was undeniable; yet an +expression of it necessarily halts. Pope knew, as every man must do +who dares conserve his energies to annotate the drama of life rather +than play a part in it, the nature of that loneliness which this +conservation breeds. Such persons may hope to win a posthumous esteem +in the library, but it is at the bleak cost of making life a wistful +transaction with foreigners. In such enforced aloofness Sarah Drew had +come to him--strong, beautiful, young, good and vital, all that he was +not--and had serenely befriended "the great Mr. Pope," whom she viewed +as a queer decrepit little gentleman of whom within a week she was +unfeignedly fond. + +"I love her," Pope had said. Eh, yes, no doubt; and what, he fiercely +demanded of himself, was he--a crippled scribbler, a bungling artisan +of phrases--that he should dare to love this splendid and deep-bosomed +goddess? Something of youth awoke, possessing him--something of that +high ardor which, as he cloudily remembered now, had once controlled a +boy who dreamed in Windsor Forest and with the lightest of hearts +planned to achieve the impossible. For what is more difficult of +attainment than to achieve the perfected phrase, so worded that to +alter a syllable of its wording would be little short of sacrilege? + +"What whimwhams!" decreed the great Mr. Pope, aloud. "Verse-making is +at best only the affair of idle men who write in their closets and of +idle men who read there. And as for him who polishes phrases, whatever +be his fate in poetry, it is ten to one but he must give up all the +reasonable aims of life for it." + +No, he would have no more of loneliness. Henceforward Alexander Pope +would be human--like the others. To write perfectly was much; but it +was not everything. Living was capable of furnishing even more than +the raw material of a couplet. It might, for instance, yield content. + +For instance, if you loved, and married, and begot, and died, with the +seriousness of a person who believes he is performing an action of real +importance, and conceded that the perfection of any art, whether it be +that of verse-making or of rope-dancing, is at best a by-product of +life's conduct; at worst, you probably would not be lonely. No; you +would be at one with all other fat-witted people, and there was no +greater blessing conceivable. + +Pope muttered, and produced his notebook, and wrote tentatively. + +Wrote Mr. Pope: + + The bliss of man (could pride that blessing find) + Is not to act or think beyond mankind; + No powers of body or of soul to share + But what his nature and his state can bear. + + +"His state!" yes, undeniably, two sibilants collided here. "His +wit?"--no, that would be flat-footed awkwardness in the management of +your vowel-sounds; the lengthened "a" was almost requisite. . . . Pope +was fretting over the imbroglio when he absent-mindedly glanced up to +perceive that his Sarah, not irrevocably offended, was being embraced +by a certain John Hughes--who was a stalwart, florid personable +individual, no doubt, but, after all, only an unlettered farmer. + +The dwarf gave a hard, wringing motion of his hands. The diamond-Lord +Bolingbroke's gift--which ornamented Pope's left hand cut into the +flesh of his little finger, so cruel was the gesture; and this little +finger was bleeding as Pope tripped forward, smiling. A gentleman does +not incommode the public by obtruding the ugliness of a personal wound. + +"Do I intrude?" he queried. "Ah, well! I also have dwelt in Arcadia." +It was bitter to comprehend that he had never done so. + +The lovers were visibly annoyed; yet, if an interruption of their +pleasant commerce was decreed to be, it could not possibly have sprung, +as they soon found, from a more sympathetic source. + +These were not subtle persons. Pope had the truth from them within ten +minutes. They loved each other; but John Hughes was penniless, and old +Frederick Drew was, in consequence, obdurate. + +"And, besides, he thinks you mean to marry her!" said John Hughes. + +"My dear man, he pardonably forgets that the utmost reach of my designs +in common reason would be to have her as my kept mistress for a month +or two," drawled Mr. Pope. "As concerns yourself, my good fellow, the +case is somewhat different. Why, it is a veritable romance--an affair +of Daphne and Corydon--although, to be unpardonably candid, the plot of +your romance, my young Arcadians, is not the most original conceivable. +I think that the denouement need not baffle our imaginations." + +The dwarf went toward Sarah Drew. The chary sunlight had found the +gold in her hair, and its glint was brightly visible to him. "My +dear--" he said. His thin long fingers touched her capable hand. It +was a sort of caress--half-timid. "My dear, I owe my life to you. My +body is at most a flimsy abortion such as a night's exposure would have +made more tranquil than it is just now. Yes, it was you who found a +caricature of the sort of man that Mr. Hughes here is, disabled, +helpless, and--for reasons which doubtless seemed to you +sufficient--contrived that this unsightly parody continue in existence. +I am not lovable, my dear. I am only a hunchback, as you can see. My +aspirations and my sickly imaginings merit only the derision of a +candid clean-souled being such as you are." His finger-tips touched +the back of her hand again. "I think there was never a maker of +enduring verse who did not at one period or another long to exchange an +assured immortality for a sturdier pair of shoulders. I think--I think +that I am prone to speak at random," Pope said, with his half-drowsy +smile. "Yet, none the less, an honest man, as our kinsmen in Adam +average, is bound to pay his equitable debts." + +She said, "I do not understand." + +"I have perpetrated certain jingles," Pope returned. "I had not +comprehended until to-day they are the only children I shall leave +behind me. Eh, and what would you make of them, my dear, could +ingenuity contrive a torture dire enough to force you into reading +them! . . . Misguided people have paid me for contriving these +jingles. So that I have money enough to buy you from your father just +as I would purchase one of his heifers. Yes, at the very least I have +money, and I have earned it. I will send your big-thewed adorer--I +believe that Hughes is the name?--L500 of it this afternoon. That sum, +I gather, will be sufficient to remove your father's objection to your +marriage with Mr. Hughes." + +Pope could not but admire himself tremendously. Moreover, in such +matters no woman is blind. Tears came into Sarah's huge brown eyes. +This tenderhearted girl was not thinking of John Hughes now. Pope +noted the fact with the pettiest exultation. "Oh, you--you are good." +Sarah Drew spoke as with difficulty. + +"No adjective, my dear, was ever applied with less discrimination. It +is merely that you have rendered no inconsiderable service to +posterity, and merit a reward." + +"Oh, and indeed, indeed, I was always fond of you----" The girl sobbed +this. + +She would have added more, no doubt, since compassion is garrulous, had +not Pope's scratched hand dismissed a display of emotion as not +entirely in consonance with the rules of the game. + +"My dear, therein you have signally honored me. There remains only to +offer you my appreciation of your benevolence toward a sickly monster, +and to entreat for my late intrusion--however unintentional--that +forgiveness which you would not deny, I think, to any other impertinent +insect." + +"Oh, but we have no words to thank you, sir----!" Thus Hughes began. + +"Then don't attempt it, my good fellow. For phrase-spinning, as I can +assure you, is the most profitless of all pursuits." Whereupon Pope +bowed low, wheeled, walked away. Yes, he was wounded past sufferance; +it seemed to him he must die of it. Life was a farce, and Destiny an +overseer who hiccoughed mandates. Well, all that even Destiny could +find to gloat over, he reflected, was the tranquil figure of a smallish +gentleman switching at the grass-blades with his cane as he sauntered +under darkening skies. + +For a storm was coming on, and the first big drops of it were +splattering the terrace when Mr. Pope entered Lord Harcourt's mansion. + + +Pope went straight to his own rooms. As he came in there was a vivid +flash of lightning, followed instantaneously by a crashing, splitting +noise, like that of universes ripped asunder. He did not honor the +high uproar with attention. This dwarf was not afraid of anything +except the commission of an error in taste. + +Then, too, there were letters for him, laid ready on the writing-table. +Nothing of much importance he found there.--Here, though, was a rather +diverting letter from Eustace Budgell, that poor fool, abjectly +thanking Mr. Pope for his advice concerning how best to answer the +atrocious calumnies on Budgell then appearing in _The Grub-Street +Journal_,--and reposing, drolly enough, next the proof-sheets of an +anonymous letter Pope had prepared for the forthcoming issue of that +publication, wherein he sprightlily told how Budgell had poisoned Dr. +Tindal, after forging his will. For even if Budgell had not in point +of fact been guilty of these particular peccadilloes, he had quite +certainly committed the crime of speaking lightly of Mr. Pope, as "a +little envious animal," some seven years ago; and it was for this grave +indiscretion that Pope was dexterously goading the man into insanity, +and eventually drove him to suicide. . . . + +The storm made the room dark and reading difficult. Still, this was an +even more amusing letter, from the all-powerful Duchess of Marlborough. +In as civil terms as her sick rage could muster, the frightened woman +offered Mr. Pope L1,000 to suppress his verbal portrait of her, in the +character of Atossa, from his _Moral Essays_; and Pope straightway +decided to accept the bribe, and afterward to print his verses +unchanged. For the hag, as he reflected, very greatly needed to be +taught that in this world there was at least one person who did not +quail before her tantrums. There would be, moreover, even an +elementary justice in thus robbing her who had robbed England at large. +And, besides, her name was Sarah. . . . + +Pope lighted four candles and set them before the long French mirror. +He stood appraising his many curious deformities while the storm raged. +He stood sidelong, peering over his left shoulder, in order to see the +outline of his crooked back. Nowhere in England, he reflected, was +there a person more pitiable and more repellent outwardly. + +"And, oh, it would be droll," Pope said, aloud, "if our exteriors were +ever altogether parodies. But time keeps a diary in our faces, and +writes a monstrously plain hand. Now, if you take the first letter of +Mr. Alexander Pope's Christian name, and the first and last letters of +his surname, you have A. P. E.," Pope quoted, genially. "I begin to +think that Dennis was right. What conceivable woman would not prefer a +well-set man of five-and-twenty to such a withered abortion? And what +does it matter, after all, that a hunchback has dared to desire a +shapely brown-haired woman?" + +Pope came more near to the mirror. "Make answer, you who have dared to +imagine that a goddess was ever drawn to descend into womanhood except +by kisses, brawn and a clean heart." + +Another peal of thunder bellowed. The storm was growing furious. "Yet +I have had a marvelous dream. Now I awaken. I must go on in the old +round. As long as my wits preserve their agility I must be able to +amuse, to flatter and, at need, to intimidate the patrons of that ape +in the mirror, so that they will not dare refuse me the market-value of +my antics. And Sarah Drew has declined an alliance such as this in +favor of a fresh-colored complexion and a pair of straight shoulders!" + +Pope thought a while. "And a clean heart! She bargained royally, +giving love for nothing less than love. The man is rustic, illiterate; +he never heard of Aristotle, he would be at a loss to distinguish +between a trochee and a Titian, and if you mentioned Boileau to him +would probably imagine you were talking of cookery. But he loves her. +He would forfeit eternity to save her a toothache. And, chief of all, +she can make this robust baby happy, and she alone can make him happy. +And so, she gives, gives royally--she gives, God bless her!" + +Rain, sullen rain, was battering the window. "And you--you hunchback +in the mirror, you maker of neat rhymes--pray, what had you to offer? +A coach-and-six, of course, and pin-money and furbelows and in the end +a mausoleum with unimpeachable Latin on it! And--_pate sur pate_--an +unswerving devotion which she would share on almost equal terms with +the Collected Works of Alexander Pope. And so she chose--chose brawn +and a clean heart." + +The dwarf turned, staggered, fell upon his bed. "God, make a man of +me, make me a good brave man. I loved her--oh, such as I am, You know +that I loved her! You know that I desire her happiness above all +things. Ah, no, for You know that I do not at bottom. I want to hurt, +to wound all living creatures, because they know how to be happy, and I +do not know how. Ah, God, and why did You decree that I should never +be an obtuse and comely animal such as this John Hughes is? I am so +tired of being 'the great Mr. Pope,' and I want only the common joys of +life." + +The hunchback wept. It would be too curious to anatomize the writhings +of his proud little spirit. + + +Now some one tapped upon the door. It was John Gay. He was bidden to +enter, and, complying, found Mr. Pope yawning over the latest of +Tonson's publications. + +Gay's face was singularly portentous. "My friend," Gay blurted out, "I +bring news which will horrify you. Believe me, I would never have +mustered the pluck to bring it did I not love you. I cannot let you +hear it first in public and unprepared, as, otherwise, you would have +to do." + +"Do I not know you have the kindest heart in all the world? Why, so +outrageous are your amiable defects that they would be the public +derision of your enemies if you had any," Pope returned. + +The other poet evinced an awkward comminglement of consternation and +pity. "It appears that when this storm arose--why, Mistress Drew was +with a young man of the neighborhood--a John Hewet----" Gay was +speaking with unaccustomed rapidity. + +"Hughes, I think," Pope interrupted, equably. + +"Perhaps--I am not sure. They sought shelter under a haycock. You +will remember that first crash of thunder, as if the heavens were in +demolishment? My friend, the reapers who had been laboring in the +fields--who had been driven to such protection as the trees or hedges +afforded----" + +"Get on!" a shrill voice cried; "for God's love, man, get on!" Mr. +Pope had risen. This pallid shaken wisp was not in appearance the +great Mr. Pope whose ingenuity had enabled Homeric warriors to excel in +the genteel. + +"They first saw a little smoke. . . . They found this Hughes with one +arm about the neck of Mistress Drew, and the other held over her face, +as if to screen her from the lightning. They were both"--and here Gay +hesitated. "They were both dead," he amended. + +Pope turned abruptly. Nakedness is of necessity uncouth, he held, +whether it be the body or the soul that is unveiled. Mr. Pope went +toward a window which he opened, and he stood thus looking out for a +brief while. + +"So she is dead," he said. "It is very strange. So many rare +felicities of curve and color, so much of purity and kindliness and +valor and mirth, extinguished as one snuffs a candle! Well! I am +sorry she is dead, for the child had a talent for living and got such +joy out of it. . . . Hers was a lovely happy life, but it was sterile. +Already nothing remains of her but dead flesh which must be huddled out +of sight. I shall not perish thus entirely, I believe. Men will +remember me. Truly a mighty foundation for pride! when the utmost I +can hope for is but to be read in one island, and to be thrown aside at +the end of one age. Indeed, I am not even sure of that much. I print, +and print, and print. And when I collect my verses into books, I am +altogether uncertain whether to took upon myself as a man building a +monument, or burying the dead. It sometimes seems to me that each +publication is but a solemn funeral of many wasted years. For I have +given all to the verse-making. Granted that the sacrifice avails to +rescue my name from oblivion, what will it profit me when I am dead and +care no more for men's opinions than Sarah Drew cares now for what I +say of her? But then she never cared. She loved John Hughes. And she +was right." + +He made an end of speaking, still peering out of the window with +considerate narrowed eyes. + +The storm was over. In the beech-tree opposite a wren was raising +optimistic outcry. The sun had won his way through a black-bellied +shred of cloud; upon the terrace below, a dripping Venus and a Perseus +were glistening as with white fire. Past these, drenched gardens, the +natural wildness of which was judiciously restrained with walks, ponds, +grottoes, statuary and other rural elegancies, displayed the +intermingled brilliancies of diamonds and emeralds, and glittered as +with pearls and rubies where tempest-battered roses were reviving in +assertiveness. + +"I think the storm is over," Mr. Pope remarked. "It is strange how +violent are these convulsions of nature. . . . But nature is a +treacherous blowsy jade, who respects nobody. A gentleman can but +shrug under her onslaughts, and henceforward civilly avoid them. It is +a consolation to reflect that they pass quickly." + +He turned as in defiance. "Yes, yes! It hurts. But I envy them. +Yes, even I, that ugly spiteful hornet of a man! 'the great Mr. Pope,' +who will be dining with the proudest people in England within the hour +and gloating over their deference! For they presume to make a little +free with God occasionally, John, but never with me. And _I_ envy +these dead young fools. . . . You see, they loved each other, John. I +left them, not an hour ago, the happiest of living creatures. I looked +back once. I pretended to have dropped my handkerchief. I imagine +they were talking of their wedding-clothes, for this broad-shouldered +Hughes was matching poppies and field-flowers to her complexion. It +was a scene out of Theocritus. I think Heaven was so well pleased by +the tableau that Heaven hastily resumed possession of its enactors in +order to prevent any after-happenings from belittling that perfect +instant." + +"Egad, and matrimony might easily have proved an anti-climax," Gay +considered. + +"Yes; oh, it is only Love that is blind, and not the lover necessarily. +I know. I suppose I always knew at the bottom of my heart. This +hamadryad was destined in the outcome to dwindle into a village +housewife, she would have taken a lively interest in the number of eggs +the hens were laying, she would even have assured her children, +precisely in the way her father spoke of John Hughes, that young people +ordinarily have foolish fancies which their rational elders agree to +disregard. But as it is, no Eastern queen--not Semele herself--left +earth more nobly--" + +Pope broke off short. He produced his notebook, which he never went +without, and wrote frowningly, with many erasures. "H'm, yes," he +said; and he read aloud: + + "When Eastern lovers feed the funeral fire, + On the same pile the faithful fair expire; + Here pitying heaven that virtue mutual found, + And blasted both that it might neither wound. + Hearts so sincere the Almighty saw well pleased, + Sent His own lightning and the victims seized." + + +Then Pope made a grimace. "No; the analogy is trim enough, but the +lines lack fervor. It is deplorable how much easier it is to express +any emotion other than that of which one is actually conscious." Pope +had torn the paper half-through before he reflected that it would help +to fill a printed page. He put it in his pocket. "But, come now, I am +writing to Lady Mary this afternoon. You know how she loves oddities. +Between us--with prose as the medium, of course, since verse should, +after all, confine itself to the commemoration of heroes and royal +persons--I believe we might make of this occurrence a neat and moving +_pastorelle_--I should say, pastoral, of course, but my wits are +wool-gathering." + +Mr. Gay had the kindest heart in the universe. Yet he, also, had +dreamed of the perfected phrase, so worded that to alter a syllable of +its wording would be little short of sacrilege. Eyes kindling, he took +up a pen. "Yes, yes, I understand. Egad, it is an admirable subject. +But, then, I don't believe I ever saw these lovers----?" + +"John was a well-set man of about five-and-twenty," replied Mr. Pope; +"and Sarah was a brown woman of eighteen years, three months and +fourteen days." + +Then these two dipped their pens and set about a moving composition, +which has to-day its proper rating among Mr. Pope's Complete Works. + + + + +PRO HONORIA + + +"_But that sense of negation, of theoretic insecurity, which was in the +air, conspiring with what was of like tendency in himself, made of Lord +UFFORD a central type of disillusion. . . . He had been amiable +because the general betise of humanity did not in his opinion greatly +matter, after all; and in reading these 'SATIRES' it is well-nigh +painful to witness the blind and naked forces of nature and +circumstance surprising him in the uncontrollable movements of his own +so carefully guarded heart._" + + + + Why is a handsome wife adored + By every coxcomb but her lord? + + From yonder puppet-man inquire + Who wisely hides his wood and wire; + Shows Sheba's queen completely dress'd + And Solomon in royal vest; + + But view them litter'd on the floor, + Or strung on pegs behind the door, + Punch is exactly of a piece + With Lorrain's duke, and prince of Greece. + + HORACE CALVERLEY.--_Petition to the Duke of Ormskirk_. + + + + +PRO HONORIA + +In the early winter of 1761 the Earl of Bute, then Secretary of State, +gave vent to an outburst of unaccustomed profanity. Mr. Robert +Calverley, who represented England at the Court of St. Petersburg, had +resigned his office without prelude or any word of explanation. This +infuriated Bute, since his pet scheme was to make peace with Russia and +thereby end the Continental War. Now all was to do again; the minister +raged, shrugged, furnished a new emissary with credentials, and marked +Calverley's name for punishment. + +As much, indeed, was written to Calverley by Lord Ufford, the poet, +diarist, musician and virtuoso: + + +Our Scottish Mortimer, it appears, is unwilling to have the map of +Europe altered because Mr. Robert Calverley has taken a whim to go into +Italy. He is angrier than I have ever known him to be. He swears that +with a pen's flourish you have imperiled the well-being of England, and +raves in the same breath of the preferment he had designed for you. +Beware of him. For my own part, I shrug and acquiesce, because I am +familiar with your pranks. I merely venture to counsel that you do not +crown the Pelion of abuse, which our statesmen are heaping upon you, +with the Ossa of physical as well as political suicide. Hasten on your +Italian jaunt, for Umfraville, who is now with me at Carberry Hill, has +publicly declared that if you dare re-appear in England he will have +you horsewhipped by his footmen. In consequence, I would most +earnestly advise---- + + +Mr. Calverley read no further, but came straightway into England. He +had not been in England since his elopement, three years before that +spring, with the Marquis of Umfraville's betrothed, Lord Radnor's +daughter, whom Calverley had married at Calais. Mr. Calverley and his +wife were presently at Carberry Hill, Lord Ufford's home, where, +arriving about moon-rise, they found a ball in progress. + +Their advent caused a momentary check to merriment. The fiddlers +ceased, because Lord Ufford had signaled them. The fine guests paused +in their stately dance. Lord Ufford, in a richly figured suit, came +hastily to Lady Honoria Calverley, his high heels tapping audibly upon +the floor, and with gallantry lifted her hand toward his lips. Her +husband he embraced, and the two men kissed each other, as was the +custom of the age. Chatter and laughter rose on every side as pert and +merry as the noises of a brook in springtime. + +"I fear that as Lord Umfraville's host," young Calverley at once began, +"you cannot with decorum convey to the ignoramus my opinion as to his +ability to conjugate the verb _to dare_." + +"Why, but no! you naturally demand a duel," the poet-earl returned. +"It is very like you. I lament your decision, but I will attempt to +arrange the meeting for to-morrow morning." + +Lord Ufford smiled and nodded to the musicians. He finished the dance +to admiration, as this lean dandified young man did +everything--"assiduous to win each fool's applause," as his own verses +scornfully phrase it. Then Ufford went about his errand of death and +conversed for a long while with Umfraville. + +Afterward Lord Ufford beckoned to Calverley, who shrugged and returned +Mr. Erwyn's snuff-box, which Calverley had been admiring. He followed +the earl into a side-room opening upon the Venetian Chamber wherein the +fete was. Ufford closed the door. You saw that he had put away the +exterior of mirth that hospitality demanded of him, and perturbation +showed in the lean countenance which was by ordinary so proud and so +amiably peevish. + +"Robin, you have performed many mad actions in your life!" he said; +"but this return into the three kingdoms out-Herods all! Did I not +warn you against Umfraville!" + +"Why, certainly you did," returned Mr. Calverley. "You informed +me--which was your duty as a friend--of this curmudgeon's boast that he +would have me horsewhipped if I dared venture into England. You will +readily conceive that any gentleman of self-respect cannot permit such +farcical utterances to be delivered without appending a gladiatorial +epilogue. Well! what are the conditions of this duel?" + +"Oh, fool that I have been!" cried Ufford, who was enabled now by +virtue of their seclusion to manifest his emotion. "I, who have known +you all your life----!" + +He paced the room. Pleading music tinged the silence almost insensibly. + +"Heh, Fate has an imperial taste in humor!" the poet said. "Robin, we +have been more than brothers. And it is I, I, of all persons living, +who have drawn you into this imbroglio!" + +"My danger is not very apparent as yet," said Calverley, "if Umfraville +controls his sword no better than his tongue." + +My lord of Ufford went on: "There is no question of a duel. It is as +well to spare you what Lord Umfraville replied to my challenge. Let it +suffice that we do not get sugar from the snake. Besides, the man has +his grievance. Robin, have you forgot that necklace you and Pevensey +took from Umfraville some three years ago--before you went into Russia?" + +Calverley laughed. The question recalled an old hot-headed time when, +exalted to a frolicsome zone by the discovery of Lady Honoria Pomfret's +love for him, he planned the famous jest which he and the mad Earl of +Pevensey perpetrated upon Umfraville. This masquerade won quick +applause. Persons of ton guffawed like ploughboys over the +discomfiture of an old hunks thus divertingly stripped of his bride, +all his betrothal gifts, and of the very clothes he wore. An anonymous +scribbler had detected in the occurrence a denouement suited to the +stage and had constructed a comedy around it, which, when produced by +the Duke's company, had won acclaim from hilarious auditors. + +So Calverley laughed heartily. "Gad, what a jest that was! This +Umfraville comes to marry Honoria. And highwaymen attack his coach! I +would give L50 to have witnessed this usurer's arrival at Denton Honor +in his underclothes! and to have seen his monkey-like grimaces when he +learned that Honoria and I were already across the Channel!" + +"You robbed him, though----" + +"Indeed, for beginners at peculation we did not do so badly. We robbed +him and his valet of everything in the coach, including their breeches. +You do not mean that Pevensey has detained the poor man's wedding +trousers? If so, it is unfortunate, because this loud-mouthed miser +has need of them in order that he may be handsomely interred." + +"Lord Umfraville's wedding-suit was stuffed with straw, hung on a pole +and paraded through London by Pevensey, March, Selwyn and some dozen +other madcaps, while six musicians marched before them. The clothes +were thus conveyed to Umfraville's house. I think none of us would +have relished a joke like that were he the butt of it." + +Now the poet's lean countenance was turned upon young Calverley, and as +always, Ufford evoked that nobility in Calverley which follies veiled +but had not ever killed. + +"Egad," said Robert Calverley; "I grant you that all this was +infamously done. I never authorized it. I shall kill Pevensey. +Indeed, I will do more," he added, with a flourish. "For I will +apologize to Umfraville, and this very night." + +But Ufford was not disposed to levity. "Let us come to the point," he +sadly said. "Pevensey returned everything except the necklace which +Umfraville had intended to be his bridal gift. Pevensey conceded the +jest, in fine; and denied all knowledge of any necklace." + +It was an age of accommodating morality. Calverley sketched a whistle, +and showed no other trace of astonishment. + +"I see. The fool confided in the spendthrift. My dear, I understand. +In nature Pevensey gave the gems to some nymph of Sadler's Wells or +Covent Garden. For I was out of England. And so he capped his knavery +with insolence. It is an additional reason why Pevensey should not +live to scratch a gray head. It is, however, an affront to me that +Umfraville should have believed him. I doubt if I may overlook that, +Horace?" + +"I question if he did believe. But, then, what help had he? This +Pevensey is an earl. His person as a peer of England is inviolable. +No statute touches him directly, because he may not be confined except +by the King's personal order. And it is tolerably notorious that +Pevensey is in Lord Bute's pay, and that our Scottish Mortimer, to do +him justice, does not permit his spies to be injured." + +Now Mr. Calverley took snuff. The music without was now more audible, +and it had shifted to a merrier tune. + +"I think I comprehend. Pevensey and I--whatever were our motives--have +committed a robbery. Pevensey, as the law runs, is safe. I, too, was +safe as long as I kept out of England. As matters stand, Lord +Umfraville intends to press a charge of theft against me. And I am in +disgrace with Bute, who is quite content to beat offenders with a +crooked stick. This confluence of two-penny accidents is annoying." + +"It is worse than you know," my lord of Ufford returned. He opened the +door which led to the Venetian Chamber. A surge of music, of laughter, +and of many lights invaded the room wherein they stood. "D'ye see +those persons, just past Umfraville, so inadequately disguised as +gentlemen? They are from Bow Street. Lord Umfraville intends to +apprehend you here to-night." + +"He has an eye for the picturesque," drawled Calverley. "My tragedy, +to do him justice, could not be staged more strikingly. Those +additional alcoves have improved the room beyond belief. I must +apologize for not having rendered my compliments a trifle earlier." + +Internally he outstormed Termagaunt. It was infamous enough, in all +conscience, to be arrested, but to have half the world of fashion as +witnessess of ones discomfiture was perfectly intolerable. He +recognized the excellent chance he had of being the most prominent +figure upon some scaffold before long, but that contingency did not +greatly trouble Calverley, as set against the certainty of being made +ridiculous within the next five minutes. + +In consequence, he frowned and rearranged the fall of his shirt-frill a +whit the more becomingly. + +"Yes, for hate sharpens every faculty," the earl went on. "Even +Umfraville understands that you do not fear death. So he means to have +you tried like any common thief while all your quondam friends sit and +snigger. And you will be convicted----" + +"Why, necessarily, since I am not as Pevensey. Of course, I must +confess I took the necklace." + +"And Pevensey must stick to the tale that he knows nothing of any +necklace. Dear Robin, this means Newgate. Accident deals very hardly +with us, Robin, for this means Tyburn Hill." + +"Yes; I suppose it means my death," young Calverley assented. "Well! I +have feasted with the world and found its viands excellent. The +banquet ended, I must not grumble with my host because I find his +choice of cordials not altogether to my liking." Thus speaking, he was +aware of nothing save that the fiddlers were now about an air to which +he had often danced with his dear wife. + +"I have a trick yet left to save our honor,----" Lord Ufford turned to +a table where wine and glasses were set ready. "I propose a toast. +Let us drink--for the last time--to the honor of the Calverleys." + +"It is an invitation I may not decorously refuse. And yet--it may be +that I do not understand you?" + +My lord of Ufford poured wine into two glasses. These glasses were +from among the curios he collected so industriously--tall, fragile +things, of seventeenth century make, very intricately cut with roses +and thistles, and in the bottom of each glass a three-penny piece was +embedded. Lord Ufford took a tiny vial from his pocket and emptied its +contents into the glass which stood the nearer to Mr. Calverley. + +"This is Florence water. We dabblers in science are experimenting with +it at Gresham College. A taste of it means death--a painless, quick +and honorable death. You will have died of a heart seizure. Come, +Robin, let us drink to the honor of the Calverleys." + +The poet-earl paused for a little while. Now he was like some seer of +supernal things. + +"For look you," said Lord Ufford, "we come of honorable blood. We two +are gentlemen. We have our code, and we may not infringe upon it. Our +code does not invariably square with reason, and I doubt if Scripture +would afford a dependable foundation. So be it! We have our code and +we may not infringe upon it. There have been many Calverleys who did +not fear their God, but there was never any one of them who did not +fear dishonor. I am the head of no less proud a house. As such, I +counsel you to drink and die within the moment. It is not possible a +Calverley survive dishonor. Oh, God!" the poet cried, and his voice +broke; "and what is honor to this clamor within me! Robin, I love you +better than I do this talk of honor! For, Robin, I have loved you +long! so long that what we do to-night will always make life hideous to +me!" + +Calverley was not unmoved, but he replied in the tone of daily +intercourse. "It is undoubtedly absurd to perish here, like some +unreasonable adversary of the Borgias. Your device is rather +outrageously horrific, Horace, like a bit out of your own romance--yes, +egad, it is pre-eminently worthy of the author of _The Vassal of +Spalatro_. Still I can understand that it is preferable to having fat +and greasy fellows squander a shilling for the privilege of perching +upon a box while I am being hanged. And I think I shall accept your +toast-- + +"You will be avenged," Ufford said, simply. + +"My dear, as if I ever questioned that! Of course, you will kill +Pevensey first and Umfraville afterward. Only I want to live. For I +was meant to play a joyous role wholeheartedly in the big comedy of +life. So many people find the world a dreary residence," Mr. Calverley +sighed, "that it is really a pity some one of these long-faced +stolidities cannot die now instead of me. For I have found life +wonderful throughout." + +The brows of Ufford knit. "Would you consent to live as a transported +felon? I have much money. I need not tell you the last penny is at +your disposal. It might be possible to bribe. Indeed, Lord Bute is +all-powerful to-day and he would perhaps procure a pardon for you at my +entreaty. He is so kind as to admire my scribblings. . . Or you might +live among your fellow-convicts somewhere over sea for a while longer. +I had not thought that such would be your choice----" Here Ufford +shrugged, restrained by courtesy. "Besides, Lord Bute is greatly +angered with you, because you have endangered his Russian alliance. +However, if you wish it, I will try----" + +"Oh, for that matter, I do not much fear Lord Bute, because I bring him +the most welcome news he has had in many a day. I may tell you since +it will be public to-morrow. The Tzaritza Elizabeth, our implacable +enemy, died very suddenly three weeks ago. Peter of Holstein-Gottrop +reigns to-day in Russia, and I have made terms with him. I came to +tell Lord Bute the Cossack troops have been recalled from Prussia. The +war is at an end." Young Calverley meditated and gave his customary +boyish smile. "Yes, I discharged my Russian mission after all--even +after I had formally relinquished it--because I was so opportunely +aided by the accident of the Tzaritza's death. And Bute cares only for +results. So I would explain to him that I resigned my mission simply +because in Russia my wife could not have lived out another year----" + +The earl exclaimed, "Then Honoria is ill!" Mr. Calverley did not +attend, but stood looking out into the Venetian Chamber. + +"See, Horace, she is dancing with Anchester while I wait here so near +to death. She dances well. But Honoria does everything adorably. I +cannot tell you--oh, not even you!--how happy these three years have +been with her. Eh, well! the gods are jealous of such happiness. You +will remember how her mother died? It appears that Honoria is +threatened with a slow consumption, and a death such as her mother's +was. She does not know. There was no need to frighten her. For +although the rigors of another Russian winter, as all physicians tell +me, would inevitably prove fatal to her, there is no reason why my +dearest dear should not continue to laugh just as she always does--for +a long, bright and happy while in some warm climate such as Italy's. +In nature I resigned my appointment. I did not consider England, or my +own trivial future, or anything of that sort. I considered only +Honoria." + +He gazed for many moments upon the woman whom he loved. His speech +took on an odd simplicity. + +"Oh, yes, I think that in the end Bute would procure a pardon for me. +But not even Bute can override the laws of England. I would have to be +tried first, and have ballads made concerning me, and be condemned, and +so on. That would detain Honoria in England, because she is +sufficiently misguided to love me. I could never persuade her to leave +me with my life in peril. She could not possibly survive an English +winter." Here Calverley evinced unbridled mirth. "The irony of events +is magnificent. There is probably no question of hanging or even of +transportation. It is merely certain that if I venture from this room +I bring about Honoria's death as incontestably as if I strangled her +with these two hands. So I choose my own death in preference. It will +grieve Honoria----" His voice was not completely steady. "But she is +young. She will forget me, for she forgets easily, and she will be +happy. I look to you to see--even before you have killed +Pevensey--that Honoria goes into Italy. For she admires and loves you, +almost as much as I do, Horace, and she will readily be guided by +you----" + +He cried my lord of Ufford's given name some two or three times, for +young Calverley had turned, and he had seen Ufford's face. + +The earl moistened his lips. "You are a fool," he said, with a thin +voice. "Why do you trouble me by being better than I? Or do you only +posture for my benefit? Do you deal honestly with me, Robert +Calverley?--then swear it----" He laughed here, very horribly. "Ah, +no, when did you ever lie! You do not lie--not you!" + +He waited for a while. "But I am otherwise. I dare to lie when the +occasion promises. I have desired Honoria since the first moment +wherein I saw her. I may tell you now. I think that you do not +remember. We gathered cherries. I ate two of them which had just lain +upon her knee----" + +His hands had clenched each other, and his lips were drawn back so that +you saw his exquisite teeth, which were ground together. He stood thus +for a little, silent. + +Then Ufford began again: "I planned all this. I plotted this with +Umfraville. I wrote you such a letter as would inevitably draw you to +your death. I wished your death. For Honoria would then be freed of +you. I would condole with her. She is readily comforted, impatient of +sorrow, incapable of it, I dare say. She would have married me. . . . +Why must I tell you this? Oh, I am Fate's buffoon! For I have won, I +have won! and there is that in me which will not accept the stake I +cheated for." + +"And you," said Calverley--"this thing is you!" + +"A helpless reptile now," said Ufford. "I have not the power to check +Lord Umfraville in his vengeance. You must be publicly disgraced, and +must, I think, be hanged even now when it will not benefit me at all. +It may be I shall weep for that some day! Or else Honoria must die, +because an archangel could not persuade her to desert you in your +peril. For she loves you--loves you to the full extent of her merry +and shallow nature. Oh, I know that, as you will never know it. I +shall have killed Honoria! I shall not weep when Honoria dies. +Harkee, Robin! they are dancing yonder. It is odd to think that I +shall never dance again." + +"Horace--!" the younger man said, like a person of two minds. He +seemed to choke. He gave a frantic gesture. "Oh, I have loved you. I +have loved nothing as I have loved you." + +"And yet you chatter of your passion for Honoria!" Lord Ufford +returned, with a snarl. "I ask what proof is there of this?--Why, that +you have surrendered your well-being in this world through love of her. +But I gave what is vital. I was an honorable gentleman without any act +in all my life for which I had need to blush. I loved you as I loved +no other being in the universe." He spread his hands, which now +twitched horribly. "You will never understand. It does not matter. I +desired Honoria. To-day through my desire of her, I am that monstrous +thing which you alone know me to be. I think I gave up much. _Pro +honoria!_" he chuckled. "The Latin halts, but, none the less, the jest +is excellent." + +"You have given more than I would dare to give," said Calverley. He +shuddered. + +"And to no end!" cried Ufford. "Ah, fate, the devil and that code I +mocked are all in league to cheat me!" + +Said Calverley: "The man whom I loved most is dead. Oh, had the world +been searched between the sunrise and the sunsetting there had not been +found his equal. And now, poor fool, I know that there was never any +man like this!" + +"Nay, there was such a man," the poet said, "in an old time which I +almost forget. To-day he is quite dead. There is only a poor wretch +who has been faithless in all things, who has not even served the devil +faithfully." + +"Why, then, you lackey with a lackey's soul, attend to what I say. Can +you make any terms with Umfraville?" + +"I can do nothing," Ufford replied. "You have robbed him--as me--of +what he most desired. You have made him the laughing-stock of England. +He does not pardon any more than I would pardon." + +"And as God lives and reigns, I do not greatly blame him," said young +Calverley. "This man at least was wronged. Concerning you I do not +speak, because of a false dream I had once very long ago. Yet +Umfraville was treated infamously. I dare concede what I could not +permit another man to say and live, now that I drink a toast which I +must drink alone. For I drink to the honor of the Calverleys. I have +not ever lied to any person in this world, and so I may not drink with +you." + +"Oh, but you drink because you know your death to be the one event +which can insure her happiness," cried Ufford. "We are not much +unlike. And I dare say it is only an imaginary Honoria we love, after +all. Yet, look, my fellow-Ixion! for to the eye at least is she not +perfect?" + +The two men gazed for a long while. Amid that coterie of exquisites, +wherein allusion to whatever might be ugly in the world was tacitly +allowed to be unmentionable, Lady Honoria glitteringly went about the +moment's mirthful business with lovely ardor. You saw now unmistakably +that "Light Queen of Elfdom, dead Titania's heir" of whom Ufford writes +in the fourth Satire. Honoria's prettiness, rouged, frail, and +modishly enhanced, allured the eye from all less elfin brilliancies; +and as she laughed among so many other relishers of life her charms +became the more instant, just as a painting quickens in every tint when +set in an appropriate frame. + +"There is no other way," her husband said. He drank and toasted what +was dearest in the world, smiling to think how death came to him in +that wine's familiar taste. "I drink to the most lovely of created +ladies! and to her happiness!" + +He snapped the stem of the glass and tossed it joyously aside. + +"Assuredly, there is no other way," said Ufford. "And armored by that +knowledge, even I may drink as honorable people do. Pro honoria!" Then +this man also broke his emptied glass. + +"How long have I to live?" said Calverley, and took snuff. + +"Why, thirty years, I think, unless you duel too immoderately," replied +Lord Ufford,--"since while you looked at Honoria I changed our glasses. +No! no! a thing done has an end. Besides, it is not unworthy of me. +So go boldly to the Earl of Bute and tell him all. You are my cousin +and my successor. Yes, very soon you, too, will be a peer of England +and as safe from molestation as is Lord Pevensey. I am the first to +tender my congratulations. Now I make certain that they are not +premature." + +The poet laughed at this moment as a man may laugh in hell. He reeled. +His lean face momentarily contorted, and afterward the poet died. + +"I am Lord Ufford," said Calverley aloud. "The person of a peer is +inviolable----" He presently looked downward from rapt gazing at his +wife. + +Fresh from this horrible half-hour, he faced a future so alluring as by +its beauty to intimidate him. Youth, love, long years of happiness, +and (by this capricious turn) now even opulence, were the ingredients +of a captivating vista. And yet he needs must pause a while to think +of the dear comrade he had lost--of that loved boy, his pattern in the +time of their common youthfulness which gleamed in memory as bright and +misty as a legend, and of the perfect chevalier who had been like a +touchstone to Robert Calverley a bare half-hour ago. He knelt, touched +lightly the fallen jaw, and lightly kissed the cheek of this poor +wreckage; and was aware that the caress was given with more tenderness +than Robert Calverley had shown in the same act a bare half-hour ago. + +Meanwhile the music of a country dance urged the new Earl of Ufford to +come and frolic where every one was laughing; and to partake with gusto +of the benefits which chance had provided; and to be forthwith as merry +as was decorous in a peer of England. + + + + +THE IRRESISTIBLE OGLE + + +"_But after SHERIDAN had risen to a commanding position in the gay life +of London, he rather disliked to be known as a playwright or a poet, +and preferred to be regarded as a statesman and a man of fashion who +'set the pace' in all pastimes of the opulent and idle. Yet, whatever +he really thought of his own writings, and whether or not he did them, +as Stevenson used to say, 'just for fun,' the fact remains that he was +easily the most distinguished and brilliant dramatist of an age which +produced in SHERIDAN'S solemn vagaries one of its most characteristic +products._" + + + + Look on this form,--where humor, quaint and sly, + Dimples the cheek, and points the beaming eye; + Where gay invention seems to boast its wiles + In amorous hint, and half-triumphant smiles. + + Look on her well--does she seem form'd to teach? + Should you expect to hear this lady preach? + Is gray experience suited to her youth? + Do solemn sentiments become that mouth? + + Bid her be grave, those lips should rebel prove + To every theme that slanders mirth or love. + + RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN.--_Second Prologue to The Rivals_. + + + + +THE IRRESISTIBLE OGLE + +The devotion of Mr. Sheridan to the Dean of Winchester's daughter, Miss +Esther Jane Ogle--or "the irresistible Ogle," as she was toasted at the +Kit-cat--was now a circumstance to be assumed in the polite world of +London. As a result, when the parliamentarian followed her into +Scotland, in the spring of 1795, people only shrugged. + +"Because it proves that misery loves company," was Mr. Fox's +observation at Wattier's, hard upon two in the morning. "Poor Sherry, +as an inconsolable widower, must naturally have some one to share his +grief. He perfectly comprehends that no one will lament the death of +his wife more fervently than her successor." + + +In London Mr. Fox thus worded his interpretation of the matter; and +spoke, oddly enough, at the very moment that in Edinburgh Mr. Sheridan +returned to his lodgings in Abercromby Place, deep in the reminiscences +of a fortunate evening at cards. In consequence, Mr. Sheridan entered +the room so quietly that the young man who was employed in turning over +the contents of the top bureau-drawer was taken unprepared. + +But in the marauder's nature, as far as resolution went, was little +lacking. "Silence!" he ordered, and with the mandate a pistol was +leveled upon the representative for the borough of Stafford. "One cry +for help, and you perish like a dog. I warn you that I am a desperate +man." + +"Now, even at a hazard of discourtesy, I must make bold to question +your statement," said Mr. Sheridan, "although, indeed, it is not so +much the recklessness as the masculinity which I dare call into +dispute." + +He continued, in his best parliamentary manner, a happy blending of +reproach, omniscience and pardon. "Only two months ago," said Mr. +Sheridan, "I was so fortunate as to encounter a lady who, alike through +the attractions of her person and the sprightliness of her +conversation, convinced me I was on the road to fall in love after the +high fashion of a popular romance. I accordingly make her a +declaration. I am rejected. I besiege her with the customary +artillery of sonnets, bouquets, serenades, bonbons, theater-tickets and +threats of suicide. In fine, I contract the habit of proposing to Miss +Ogle on every Wednesday; and so strong is my infatuation that I follow +her as far into the north as Edinburgh in order to secure my eleventh +rejection at half-past ten last evening." + +"I fail to understand," remarked the burglar, "how all this prolix +account of your amours can possibly concern me." + +"You are at least somewhat involved in the deplorable climax," Mr. +Sheridan returned. "For behold! at two in the morning I discover the +object of my adoration and the daughter of an estimable prelate, most +calumniously clad and busily employed in rumpling my supply of cravats. +If ever any lover was thrust into a more ambiguous position, madam, +historians have touched on his dilemma with marked reticence." + +He saw--and he admired--the flush which mounted to his visitor's brow. +And then, "I must concede that appearances are against me, Mr. +Sheridan," the beautiful intruder said. "And I hasten to protest that +my presence in your apartments at this hour is prompted by no unworthy +motive. I merely came to steal the famous diamond which you brought +from London--the Honor of Eiran." + +"Incomparable Esther Jane," ran Mr. Sheridan's answer, "that stone is +now part of a brooch which was this afternoon returned to my cousin's, +the Earl of Eiran's, hunting-lodge near Melrose. He intends the gem +which you are vainly seeking among my haberdashery to be the adornment +of his promised bride in the ensuing June. I confess to no +overwhelming admiration as concerns this raucous if meritorious young +person; and will even concede that the thought of her becoming my +kinswoman rouses in me an inevitable distaste, no less attributable to +the discord of her features than to the source of her eligibility to +disfigure the peerage--that being her father's lucrative transactions +in Pork, which I find indigestible in any form." + +"A truce to paltering!" Miss Ogle cried. "That jewel was stolen from +the temple at Moorshedabad, by the Earl of Eiran's grandfather, during +the confusion necessarily attendant on the glorious battle of Plassy." +She laid down the pistol, and resumed in milder tones: "From an +age-long existence as the left eye of Ganesh it was thus converted into +the loot of an invader. To restore this diamond to its lawful, +although no doubt polygamous and inefficiently-attired proprietors is +at this date impossible. But, oh! what claim have you to its +possession?" + +"Why, none whatever," said the parliamentarian; "and to contend as much +would be the apex of unreason. For this diamond belongs, of course, to +my cousin the Earl of Eiran----" + +"As a thief's legacy!" She spoke with signs of irritation. + +"Eh, eh, you go too fast! Eiran, to do him justice, is not a graduate +in peculation. At worst, he is only the sort of fool one's cousins +ordinarily are." + +The trousered lady walked to and fro for a while, with the impatience +of a caged lioness. "I perceive I must go more deeply into matters," +Miss Ogle remarked, and, with that habitual gesture which he fondly +recognized, brushed back a straying lock of hair. "In any event," she +continued, "you cannot with reason deny that the world's wealth is +inequitably distributed?" + +"Madam," Mr. Sheridan returned, "as a member of Parliament, I have +necessarily made it a rule never to understand political economy. It +is as apt as not to prove you are selling your vote to the wrong side +of the House, and that hurts one's conscience." + +"Ah, that is because you are a man. Men are not practical. None of +you has ever dared to insist on his opinion about anything until he had +secured the cowardly corroboration of a fact or so to endorse him. It +is a pity. Yet, since through no fault of yours your sex is invariably +misled by its hallucinations as to the importance of being rational, I +will refrain from logic and statistics. In a word, I simply inform you +that I am a member of the League of Philanthropic Larcenists." + +"I had not previously heard of this organization," said Mr. Sheridan, +and not without suspecting his response to be a masterpiece in the +inadequate. + +"Our object is the benefit of society at large," Miss Ogle explained; +"and our obstacles so far have been, in chief, the fetish of +proprietary rights and the ubiquity of the police." + +And with that she seated herself and told him of the league's inception +by a handful of reflective persons, admirers of Rousseau and converts +to his tenets, who were resolved to better the circumstances of the +indigent. With amiable ardor Miss Ogle explained how from the petit +larcenies of charity-balls and personally solicited subscriptions the +league had mounted to an ampler field of depredation; and through what +means it now took toll from every form of wealth unrighteously +acquired. Divertingly she described her personal experiences in the +separation of usurers, thieves, financiers, hereditary noblemen, +popular authors, and other social parasites, from the ill-got profits +of their disreputable vocations. And her account of how, on the +preceding Tuesday, she, single-handed, had robbed Sir Alexander +McRae--who then enjoyed a fortune and an enviable reputation for +philanthropy, thanks to the combination of glucose, vitriol and other +chemicals which he prepared under the humorous pretext of manufacturing +beer--wrung high encomiums from Mr. Sheridan. + +"The proceeds of these endeavors," Miss Ogle added, "are +conscientiously devoted to ameliorating the condition of meritorious +paupers. I would be happy to submit to you our annual report. Then +you may judge for yourself how many families we have snatched from the +depths of poverty and habitual intoxication to the comparative comfort +of a vine-embowered cottage." + +Mr. Sheridan replied: "I have not ever known of any case where +adoration needed an affidavit for foundation. Oh, no, incomparable +Esther Jane! I am not in a position to be solaced by the reports of a +corresponding secretary. I gave my heart long since; to-night I fling +my confidence into the bargain; and am resolved to serve wholeheartedly +the cause to which you are devoted. In consequence, I venture to +propose my name for membership in the enterprise you advocate and +indescribably adorn." + +Miss Ogle was all one blush, such was the fervor of his utterance. +"But first you must win your spurs, Mr. Sheridan. I confess you are +not abhorrent to me," she hurried on, "for you are the most +fascinatingly hideous man I have ever seen; and it was always the +apprehension that you might look on burglary as an unmaidenly avocation +which has compelled me to discourage your addresses. Now all is plain; +and should you happen to distinguish yourself in robbery of the +criminally opulent, you will have, I believe, no reason to complain of +a twelfth refusal. I cannot modestly say more." + +He laughed. "It is a bargain. We will agree that I bereave some +person of either stolen or unearned property, say, to the value of +L10,000----" And with his usual carefulness in such matters, Mr. +Sheridan entered the wager in his notebook. + +She yielded him her hand in token of assent. And he, depend upon it, +kissed that velvet trifle fondly. + +"And now," said Mr. Sheridan, "to-morrow we will visit Bemerside and +obtain possession of that crystal which is in train to render me the +happiest of men. The task will be an easy one, as Eiran is now in +England, and his servants for the most part are my familiars." + +"I agree to your proposal," she answered. "But this diamond is my +allotted quarry; and any assistance you may render me in procuring it +will not, of course, affect in any way our bargain. On this +point"--she spoke with a break of laughter--"I am as headstrong as an +allegory on the banks of the Nile." + +"To quote an author to his face," lamented Mr. Sheridan, "is bribery as +gross as it is efficacious. I must unwillingly consent to your +exorbitant demands, for you are, as always, the irresistible Ogle." + +Miss Ogle bowed her gratitude; and, declining Mr. Sheridan's escort, +for fear of arousing gossip by being seen upon the street with him at +this late hour, preferred to avoid any appearance of indecorum by +climbing down the kitchen roof. + + +When she had gone, Mr. Sheridan very gallantly attempted a set of +verses. But the Muse was not to be wooed to-night, and stayed +obstinately coy. + +Mr. Sheridan reflected, rather forlornly, that he wrote nothing +nowadays. There was, of course, his great comedy, _Affectation_, his +masterpiece which he meant to finish at one time or another; yet, at +the bottom of his heart, he knew that he would never finish it. But, +then, deuce take posterity! for to have written the best comedy, the +best farce, and the best burlesque as well, that England had ever +known, was a very prodigal wiping-out of every obligation toward +posterity. Boys thought a deal about posterity, as he remembered; but +a sensible man would bear in mind that all this world's delicacies--its +merry diversions, its venison and old wines, its handsomely-bound books +and fiery-hearted jewels and sumptuous clothings, all its lovely things +that can be touched and handled, and more especially its ear-tickling +applause--were to be won, if ever, from one's contemporaries. And +people were generous toward social, rather than literary, talents for +the sensible reason that they derived more pleasure from an agreeable +companion at dinner than from having a rainy afternoon rendered +endurable by some book or another. So the parliamentarian sensibly +went to bed. + + +Miss Ogle during this Scottish trip was accompanied by her father, the +venerable Dean of Winchester. The Dean, although in all things worthy +of implicit confidence, was not next day informed of the intended +expedition, in deference to public opinion, which, as Miss Ogle pointed +out, regards a clergyman's participation in a technical felony with +disapproval. + +Miss Ogle, therefore, radiant in a becoming gown of pink lute-string, +left Edinburgh the following morning under cover of a subterfuge, and +with Mr. Sheridan as her only escort. He was at pains to adorn this +role with so many happy touches of courtesy and amiability that their +confinement in the postchaise appeared to both of incredible brevity. + +When they had reached Melrose another chaise was ordered to convey them +to Bemerside; and pending its forthcoming Mr. Sheridan and Miss Ogle +strolled among the famous ruins of Melrose Abbey. The parliamentarian +had caused his hair to be exuberantly curled that morning, and figured +to advantage in a plum-colored coat and a saffron waistcoat sprigged +with forget-me-nots. He chatted entertainingly concerning the Second +Pointed style of architecture; translated many of the epitaphs; and was +abundant in interesting information as to Robert Bruce, and Michael +Scott, and the rencounter of Chevy Chase. + +"Oh, but observe," said Mr. Sheridan, more lately, "our only covering +is the dome of heaven. Yet in their time these aisles were populous, +and here a score of generations have besought what earth does not +afford--now where the banners of crusaders waved the ivy flutters, and +there is no incense in this consecrated house except the breath of the +wild rose." + +"The moral is an old one," she returned. "Mummy is become merchandise, +Mizraim cures wounds, and Pharaoh is sold for balsams." + +"You are a reader, madam?" he observed, with some surprise; and he +continued: "Indeed, my thoughts were on another trail. I was +considering that the demolishers of this place--those English armies, +those followers of John Knox--were actuated by the highest and most +laudable of motives. As a result we find the house of Heaven converted +into a dustheap." + + +"I believe you attempt an apologue," she said, indignantly. "Upon my +word, I think you would insinuate that philanthropy, when forced to +manifest itself through embezzlement, is a less womanly employment than +the darning of stockings!" + +"Whom the cap fits----" he answered, with a bow. "Indeed, incomparable +Esther Jane, I had said nothing whatever touching hosiery; and it was +equally remote from my intentions to set up as a milliner." + + +They lunched at Bemerside, where Mr. Sheridan was cordially received by +the steward, and a well-chosen repast was placed at their disposal. + +"Fergus," Mr. Sheridan observed, as they chatted over their dessert +concerning famous gems--in which direction talk had been adroitly +steered"--Fergus, since we are on the topic, I would like to show Miss +Ogle the Honor of Eiran." + +The Honor of Eiran was accordingly produced from a blue velvet case, +and was properly admired. Then, when the steward had been dismissed to +fetch a rare liqueur, Mr. Sheridan laughed, and tossed and caught the +jewel, as though he handled a cricket-ball. It was the size of a +pigeon's egg, and was set among eight gems of lesser magnitude; and in +transit through the sunlight the trinket flashed and glittered with +diabolical beauty. The parliamentarian placed three bits of sugar in +the velvet case and handed the gem to his companion. + +"The bulk is much the same," he observed; "and whether the carbon be +crystallized or no, is the responsibility of stratigraphic geology. +Fergus, perhaps, must go to jail. That is unfortunate. But true +philanthropy works toward the benefit of the greatest number possible; +and this resplendent pebble will purchase you innumerable pounds of tea +and a warehouseful of blankets." + +"But, Mr. Sheridan," Miss Ogle cried, in horror, "to take this brooch +would not be honest!" + +"Oh, as to that----!" he shrugged. + +"----because Lord Eiran purchased all these lesser diamonds, and very +possibly paid for them." + +Then Mr. Sheridan reflected, stood abashed, and said: "Incomparable +Esther Jane, I confess I am only a man. You are entirely right. To +purloin any of these little diamonds would be an abominable action, +whereas to make off with the only valuable one is simply a stroke of +retribution. I will, therefore, attempt to prise it out with a +nutpick." + +Three constables came suddenly into the room. "We hae been tauld this +missy is a suspectit thieving body," their leader cried. "Esther Jane +Ogle, ye maun gae with us i' the law's name. Ou ay, lass, ye ken weel +eneugh wha robbit auld Sir Aleexander McRae, sae dinna ye say naething +tae your ain preejudice, lest ye hae tae account for it a'." + +Mr. Sheridan rose to the occasion. "My exceedingly good friend, Angus +Howden! I am unwilling to concede that yeomen can excel in gentlemanly +accomplishments, but it is only charity to suppose all three of you as +drunk as any duke that ever honored me with his acquaintance." This he +drawled, and appeared magisterially to await an explanation. + +"Hout, Mr. Sheridan," commenced the leading representative of justice, +"let that flee stick i' the wa'--e dinna mean tae tell me, Sir, that ye +are acquaintit wi' this--ou ay, tae pleasure ye, I micht e'en say wi' +this----" + +"This lady, probably?" Mr. Sheridan hazarded. + +"'Tis an unco thing," the constable declared, "but that wad be the word +was amaist at my tongue's tip." + +"Why, undoubtedly," Mr. Sheridan assented. "I rejoice that, being of +French extraction, and unconversant with your somewhat cryptic patois, +the lady in question is the less likely to have been sickened by your +extravagances in the way of misapprehension. I candidly confess such +imbecility annoys me. What!" he cried out, "what if I marry! is +matrimony to be ranked with arson? And what if my cousin, Eiran, +affords me a hiding-place wherein to sneak through our honeymoon after +the cowardly fashion of all modern married couples! Am I in +consequence compelled to submit to the invasions of an intoxicated +constabulary?" His rage was terrific. + +"_Voila la seule devise. Ils me connaissent, ils ont confidence dans +moi. Si, taisez-vous! Si non, vous serez arretee et mise dans la +prison, comme une caractere suspicieuse!_" Mr. Sheridan exhorted Miss +Ogle to this intent with more of earnestness than linguistic +perfection; and he rejoiced to see that instantly she caught at her one +chance of plausibly accounting for her presence at Bemerside, and of +effecting a rescue from this horrid situation. + +"But I also spik the English," she sprightlily announced. "I am +appleed myself at to learn its by heart. Certainly you look for a +needle in a hay bundle, my gentlemans. I am no stealer of the grand +road, but the wife of Mistaire Sheridan, and her presence will say to +you the remains." + +"You see!" cried Mr. Sheridan, in modest triumph. "In short, I am a +bridegroom unwarrantably interrupted in his first _tete-a-tete_, I am +responsible for this lady and all her past and its appurtenances; and, +in a phrase, for everything except the course of conduct I will +undoubtedly pursue should you be visible at the conclusion of the next +five minutes." + +His emphasis was such that the police withdrew with a concomitant of +apologies. + + +"And now I claim my bond," said Mr. Sheridan, when they were once again +free from intrusion. "For we two are in Scotland, where the common +declaration of a man and woman that they are married constitutes a +marriage." + +"Oh----!" she exclaimed, and stood encrimsoned. + +"Indeed, I must confess that the day's work has been a trick +throughout. The diamond was pawned years ago. This trinket here is a +copy in paste and worth perhaps some seven shillings sixpence. And +those fellows were not constables, but just my cousin Eiran and two +footmen in disguise. Nay, madam, you will learn with experience that +to display unfailing candor is not without exception the price of +happiness." + +"But this, I think, evades our bargain, Mr. Sheridan. For you were +committed to pilfer property to the value of L10,000----" + +"And to fulfil the obligation I have stolen your hand in marriage. +What, madam! do you indeed pretend that any person outside of Bedlam +would value you at less? Believe me, your perfections are of far more +worth. All persons recognize that save yourself, incomparable Esther +Jane; and yet, so patent is the proof of my contention, I dare to leave +the verdict to your sense of justice." + +Miss Ogle did not speak. Her lashes fell as, with some ceremony, he +led her to the long French mirror which was in the breakfast room. +"See now!" said Mr. Sheridan. "You, who endanger life and fame in +order to provide a mendicant with gruel, tracts and blankets! You, who +deny a sop to the one hunger which is vital! Oh, madam, I am tempted +glibly to compare your eyes to sapphires, and your hair to thin-spun +gold, and the color of your flesh to the arbutus-flower--for that, as +you can see, would be within the truth, and it would please most women, +and afterward they would not be so obdurate. But you are not like +other women," Mr. Sheridan observed, with admirable dexterity. "And I +aspire to you, the irresistible Ogle! you, who so great-heartedly +befriend the beggar! you, who with such industry contrive alleviation +for the discomforts of poverty. Eh, eh! what will you grant to any +beggar such as I? Will you deny a sop to the one hunger which is +vital?" He spoke with unaccustomed vigor, even in a sort of terror, +because he knew that he was speaking with sincerity. + +"To the one hunger which is vital!" he repeated. "Ah, where lies the +secret which makes one face the dearest in the world, and entrusts to +one little hand a life's happiness as a plaything? All Aristotle's +learning could not unriddle the mystery, and Samson's thews were +impotent to break that spell. Love vanquishes all. . . . You would +remind me of some previous skirmishings with Venus's unconquerable +brat? Nay, madam, to the contrary, the fact that I have loved many +other women is my strongest plea for toleration. Were there nothing +else, it is indisputable we perform all actions better for having +rehearsed them. No, we do not of necessity perform them the more +thoughtlessly as well; for, indeed, I find that with experience a man +becomes increasingly difficult to please in affairs of the heart. The +woman one loves then is granted that pre-eminence not merely by virtue +of having outshone any particular one of her predecessors; oh, no! +instead, her qualities have been compared with all the charms of all +her fair forerunners, and they have endured that stringent testing. +The winning of an often-bartered heart is in reality the only conquest +which entitles a woman to complacency, for she has received a real +compliment; whereas to be selected as the target of a lad's first +declaration is a tribute of no more value than a man's opinion upon +vintages who has never tasted wine." + +He took a turn about the breakfast room, then came near to her. "I +love you. Were there any way to parade the circumstance and bedeck it +with pleasing adornments of filed phrases, tropes and far-fetched +similes, I would not grudge you a deal of verbal pageantry. But three +words say all. I love you. There is no act in my past life but +appears trivial and strange to me, and to the man who performed it I +seem no more akin than to Mark Antony or Nebuchadnezzar. I love you. +The skies are bluer since you came, the beauty of this world we live in +oppresses me with a fearful joy, and in my heart there is always the +thought of you and such yearning as I may not word. For I love you." + +"You--but you have frightened me." Miss Ogle did not seem so terrified +as to make any effort to recede from him; and yet he saw that she was +frightened in sober earnest. Her face showed pale, and soft, and glad, +and awed, and desirable above all things; and it remained so near him +as to engender riotous aspirations. + +"I love you," he said again. You would never have suspected this man +could speak, upon occasion, fluently. "I think--I think that Heaven +was prodigal when Heaven made you. To think of you is as if I listened +to an exalted music; and to be with you is to understand that all +imaginable sorrows are just the figments of a dream which I had very +long ago." + +She laid one hand on each of his shoulders, facing him. "Do not let me +be too much afraid! I have not ever been afraid before. Oh, +everything is in a mist of gold, and I am afraid of you, and of the big +universe which I was born into, and I am helpless, and I would have +nothing changed! Only, I cannot believe I am worth L10,000, and I do +so want to be persuaded I am. It is a great pity," she sighed, "that +you who convicted Warren Hastings of stealing such enormous wealth +cannot be quite as eloquent to-day as you were in the Oudh speech, and +convince me his arraigner has been equally rapacious!" + +"I mean to prove as much--with time," said Mr. Sheridan. His breathing +was yet perfunctory. + +Miss Ogle murmured, "And how long would you require?" + +"Why, I intend, with your permission, to devote the remainder of my +existence to the task. Eh, I concede that space too brief for any +adequate discussion of the topic; but I will try to be concise and very +practical----" + +She laughed. They were content. "Try, then----" Miss Ogle said. + +She was able to get no farther in the sentence, for reasons which to +particularize would be indiscreet. + + + + +A PRINCESS OF GRUB STREET + + +"_Though--or, rather, because--VANDERHOFFEN was a child of the French +Revolution, and inherited his social, political and religious--or, +rather, anti-religious--views from the French writers of the eighteenth +century, England was not ready for him and the unshackled individualism +for which he at first contended. Recognizing this fact, he turned to +an order of writing begotten of the deepest popular needs and addressed +to the best intelligence of the great middle classes of the community._" + + + Now emperors bide their times' rebuff + I would not be a king--enough + Of woe it is to love; + The paths of power are steep and rough, + And tempests reign above. + + I would not climb the imperial throne; + 'Tis built on ice which fortune's sun + Thaws in the height of noon. + Then farewell, kings, that squeak 'Ha' done!' + To time's full-throated tune. + + PAUL VANDERHOFFEN.--_Emma and Caroline_. + + + + +A PRINCESS OF GRUB STREET + + +It is questionable if the announcement of the death of their Crown +Prince, Hilary, upon the verge of his accession to the throne, aroused +more than genteel regret among the inhabitants of Saxe-Kesselberg. It +is indisputable that in diplomatic circles news of this horrible +occurrence was indirectly conceded in 1803 to smack of a direct +intervention of Providence. For to consider all the havoc dead Prince +Fribble--such had been his sobriquet--would have created, _Dei gratia_, +through his pilotage of an important grand-duchy (with an area of no +less than eighty-nine square miles) was less discomfortable now +prediction was an academic matter. + +And so the editors of divers papers were the victims of a decorous +anguish, court-mourning was decreed, and that wreckage which passed for +the mutilated body of Prince Hilary was buried with every appropriate +honor. Within the week most people had forgotten him, for everybody +was discussing the execution of the Duc d'Enghein. And the aged +unvenerable Grand-Duke of Saxe-Kesselberg died too in the same March; +and afterward his other grandson, Prince Augustus, reigned in the merry +old debauchee's stead. + +Prince Hilary was vastly pleased. His scheme for evading the tedious +responsibilities of sovereignty had been executed without a hitch; he +was officially dead; and, on the whole, standing bareheaded between a +miller and laundress, he had found his funeral ceremonies to be +unimpeachably conducted. He assumed the name of Paul Vanderhoffen, +selected at random from the novel he was reading when his postchaise +conveyed him past the frontier of Saxe-Kesselberg. Freed, penniless, +and thoroughly content, he set about amusing himself--having a world to +frisk in--and incidentally about the furnishing of his new friend Paul +Vanderhoffen with life's necessaries. + + +It was a little more than two years later that the good-natured Earl of +Brudenel suggested to Lady John Claridge that she could nowhere find a +more eligible tutor for her son than young Vanderhoffen. + +"Hasn't a shilling, ma'am, but one of the most popular men in London. +His poetry book was subscribed for by the Prince Regent and half the +notables of the kingdom. Capital company at a dinner-table--stutters, +begad, like a What-you-may-call-'em, and keeps everybody in a roar--and +when he's had his whack of claret, he sings his own songs to the piano, +you know, and all that sort of thing, and has quite put Tommy Moore's +nose out of joint. Nobody knows much about him, but that don't matter +with these literary chaps, does it now? Goes everywhere, ma'am--quite +a favorite at Carlton House--a highly agreeable, well-informed man, I +can assure you--and probably hasn't a shilling to pay the cabman. +Deuced odd, ain't it? But Lord Lansdowne is trying to get him a +place--spoke to me about a tutorship, ma'am, in fact, just to keep +Vanderhoffen going, until some registrarship or other falls vacant. +Now, I ain't clever and that sort of thing, but I quite agree with +Lansdowne that we practical men ought to look out for these clever +fellows--see that they don't starve in a garret, like poor +What's-his-name, don't you know?" + +Lady Claridge sweetly agreed with her future son-in-law. So it befell +that shortly after this conversation Paul Vanderhoffen came to +Leamington Manor, and through an entire summer goaded young Percival +Claridge, then on the point of entering Cambridge, but pedagogically +branded as "deficient in mathematics," through many elaborate +combinations of x and y and cosines and hyperbolas. + +Lady John Claridge, mother to the pupil, approved of the new tutor. +True, he talked much and wildishly; but literary men had a name for +eccentricity, and, besides, Lady Claridge always dealt with the +opinions of other people as matters of illimitable unimportance. This +baronet's lady, in short, was in these days vouchsafing to the universe +at large a fine and new benevolence, now that her daughter was safely +engaged to Lord Brudenel, who, whatever his other virtues, was +certainly a peer of England and very rich. It seems irrelevant, and +yet for the tale's sake is noteworthy, that any room which harbored +Lady John Claridge was through this fact converted into an absolute +monarchy. + +And so, by the favor of Lady Claridge and destiny, the tutor stayed at +Leamington Manor all summer. + +There was nothing in either the appearance or demeanor of the fiancee +of Lord Brudenel's title and superabundant wealth which any honest +gentleman could, hand upon his heart, describe as blatantly repulsive. + +It may not be denied the tutor noted this. In fine, he fell in love +with Mildred Claridge after a thorough-going fashion such as Prince +Fribble would have found amusing. Prince Fribble would have smiled, +shrugged, drawled, "Eh, after all, the girl is handsome and deplorably +cold-blooded!" Paul Vanderhoffen said, "I am not fit to live in the +same world with her," and wrote many verses in the prevailing Oriental +style rich in allusions to roses, and bulbuls, and gazelles, and peris, +and minarets--which he sold rather profitably. + +Meanwhile, far oversea, the reigning Duke of Saxe-Kesselberg had been +unwise enough to quarrel with his Chancellor, Georges Desmarets, an +invaluable man whose only faults were dishonesty and a too intimate +acquaintance with the circumstances of Prince Hilary's demise. As +fruit of this indiscretion, an inconsiderable tutor at Leamington +Manor--whom Lady John Claridge regarded as a sort of upper servant was +talking with a visitor. + + +The tutor, it appeared, preferred to talk with the former Chancellor of +Saxe-Kesselberg in the middle of an open field. The time was +afternoon, the season September, and the west was vaingloriously +justifying the younger man's analogy of a gigantic Spanish omelette. +Meanwhile, the younger man declaimed in a high-pitched pleasant voice, +wherein there was, as always, the elusive suggestion of a stutter. + +"I repeat to you," the tutor observed, "that no consideration will ever +make a grand-duke of me excepting over my dead body. Why don't you +recommend some not quite obsolete vocation, such as making papyrus, or +writing an interesting novel, or teaching people how to dance a +saraband? For after all, what is a monarch nowadays--oh, even a +monarch of the first class?" he argued, with what came near being a +squeak of indignation. "The poor man is a rather pitiable and +perfectly useless relic of barbarism, now that 1789 has opened our +eyes; and his main business in life is to ride in open carriages and +bow to an applauding public who are applauding at so much per head. He +must expect to be aspersed with calumny, and once in a while with +bullets. He may at the utmost aspire to introduce an innovation in +evening dress,--the Prince Regent, for instance, has invented a really +very creditable shoe-buckle. Tradition obligates him to devote his +unofficial hours to sheer depravity----" + +Paul Vanderhoffen paused to meditate. + +"Why, there you are! another obstacle! I have in an inquiring spirit +and without prejudice sampled all the Seven Deadly Sins, and the common +increment was an inability to enjoy my breakfast. A grand-duke I take +it, if he have any sense of the responsibilities of his position, will +piously remember the adage about the voice of the people and hasten to +be steeped in vice--and thus conform to every popular notion concerning +a grand-duke. Why, common intelligence demands that a grand-duke +should brazenly misbehave himself upon the more conspicuous high-places +of Chemosh! and personally, I have no talents such as would qualify me +for a life of cynical and brutal immorality. I lack the necessary +aptitude, I would not ever afford any spicy gossip concerning the Duke +of Saxe-Kesselberg, and the editors of the society papers would +unanimously conspire to dethrone me----" + +Thus he argued, with his high-pitched pleasant voice, wherein there +was, as always, the elusive suggestion of a stutter. And here the +other interrupted. + +"There is no need of names, your highness." Georges Desmarets was +diminutive, black-haired and corpulent. He was of dapper appearance, +point-device in everything, and he reminded you of a perky robin. + +The tutor flung out an "Ouf! I must recall to you that, thank heaven, I +am not anybody's highness any longer. I am Paul Vanderhoffen." + +"He says that he is not Prince Fribble!"--the little man addressed the +zenith--"as if any other person ever succeeded in talking a half-hour +without being betrayed into at least one sensible remark. Oh, how do +you manage without fail to be so consistently and stupendously idiotic?" + +"It is, like all other desirable traits, either innate or else just +unattainable," the other answered. "I am so hopelessly light-minded +that I cannot refrain from being rational even in matters which concern +me personally--and this, of course, no normal being ever thinks of +doing. I really cannot help it." + +The Frenchman groaned whole-heartedly. + +"But we were speaking--well, of foreign countries. Now, Paul +Vanderhoffen has read that in one of these countries there was once a +prince who very narrowly escaped figuring as a self-conscious +absurdity, as an anachronism, as a life-long prisoner of etiquette. +However, with the assistance of his cousin--who, incidentally, was also +his heir--the prince most opportunely died. Oh, pedant that you are! +in any event he was interred. And so, the prince was gathered to his +fathers, and his cousin Augustus reigned in his stead. Until a certain +politician who had been privy to this pious fraud----" The tutor +shrugged. "How can I word it without seeming hypercritical?" + +Georges Desmarets stretched out appealing hands. "But, I protest, it +was the narrow-mindedness of that pernicious prig, your cousin--who +firmly believes himself to be an improved and augmented edition of the +Four Evangelists----" + +"Well, in any event, the proverb was attested that birds of a feather +make strange bedfellows. There was a dispute concerning some petit +larceny--some slight discrepancy, we will imagine, since all this is +pure romance, in the politician's accounts----" + +"Now you belie me----" said the black-haired man, and warmly. + +"Oh, Desmarets, you are as vain as ever! Let us say, then, of grand +larceny. In any event, the politician was dismissed. And what, my +dears, do you suppose this bold and bad and unprincipled Machiavelli +went and did? Why, he made straight for the father of the princess the +usurping duke was going to marry, and surprised everybody by showing +that, at a pinch, even this Guy Fawkes--who was stuffed with all manner +of guile and wickedness where youthful patriotism would ordinarily +incline to straw--was capable of telling the truth. And so the father +broke off the match. And the enamored, if usurping, duke wept bitterly +and tore his hair to such an extent he totally destroyed his best +toupet. And privily the Guy Fawkes came into the presence of the +exiled duke and prated of a restoration to ancestral dignities. And he +was spurned by a certain highly intelligent person who considered it +both tedious and ridiculous to play at being emperor of a backyard. +And then--I really don't recall what happened. But there was a general +and unqualified deuce to pay with no pitch at a really satisfying +temperature." + +The stouter man said quietly: "It is a thrilling tale which you +narrate. Only, I do recall what happened then. The usurping duke was +very much in earnest, desirous of retaining his little kingdom, and +particularly desirous of the woman whom he loved. In consequence, he +had Monsieur the Runaway obliterated while the latter was talking +nonsense----" + +The tutor's brows had mounted. + +"I scorn to think it even of anybody who is controlled in every action +by a sense of duty," Georges Desmarets explained, "that Duke Augustus +would cause you to be murdered in your sleep." + +"A hit!" The younger man unsmilingly gesticulated like one who has +been touched in sword-play. "Behold now, as the populace in their +blunt way would phrase it, I am squelched." + +"And so the usurping duke was married and lived happily ever +afterward." Georges Desmarets continued: "I repeat to you there is only +the choice between declaring yourself and being--we will say, removed. +Your cousin is deeply in love with the Princess Sophia, and thanks to +me, has now no chance of marrying her until his title has been secured +by your--removal. Do not deceive yourself. High interests are +involved. You are the grain of sand between big wheels. I iterate +that the footpad who attacked you last night was merely a prologue. I +happen to know your cousin has entrusted the affair to Heinrich +Obendorf, his foster-brother, who, as you will remember, is not +particularly squeamish." + +Paul Vanderhoffen thought a while. "Desmarets," he said at last, "it +is no use. I scorn your pribbles and your prabbles. I bargained with +Augustus. I traded a duchy for my personal liberty. Frankly, I would +be sorry to connect a sharer of my blood with the assault of yesterday. +To be unpardonably candid, I have not ever found that your assertion of +an event quite proved it had gone through the formality of occurring. +And so I shall hold to my bargain." + +"The night brings counsel," Desmarets returned. "It hardly needs a +night, I think, to demonstrate that all I say is true." + +And so they parted. + + +Having thus dismissed such trifles as statecraft and the well-being of +empires, Paul Vanderhoffen turned toward consideration of the one +really serious subject in the universe, which was of course the bright, +miraculous and incredible perfection of Mildred Claridge. + +"I wonder what you think of me? I wonder if you ever think of me?" The +thought careered like a caged squirrel, now that he walked through +autumn woods toward her home. + +"I wish that you were not so sensible. I wish your mother were not +even more so. The woman reeks with common-sense, and knows that to be +common is to be unanswerable. I wish that a dispute with her were not +upon a par with remonstrance against an earthquake." + +He lighted a fresh cheroot. "And so you are to marry the Brudenel +title and bank account, with this particular Heleigh thrown in as a +dividend. And why not? the estate is considerable; the man who +encumbers it is sincere in his adoration of you; and, chief of all, +Lady John Claridge has decreed it. And your decision in any matter has +always lain between the claws of that steel-armored crocodile who, by +some miracle, is your mother. Oh, what a universe! were I of hasty +temperament I would cry out, TUT AND GO TO!" + +This was the moment which the man hid in the thicket selected as most +fit for intervention through the assistance of a dueling pistol. Paul +Vanderhoffen reeled, his face bewilderment. His hands clutched toward +the sky, as if in anguish he grasped at some invisible support, and he +coughed once or twice. It was rather horrible. Then Vanderhoffen +shivered as though he were very cold, and tottered and collapsed in the +parched roadway. + +A slinking man whose lips were gray and could not refrain from +twitching came toward the limp heap. "So----!" said the man. One of +his hands went to the tutor's breast, and in his left hand dangled a +second dueling pistol. He had thrown away the other after firing it. + +"And so----!" observed Paul Vanderhoffen. Afterward there was a +momentary tussle. Now Paul Vanderhoffen stood erect and flourished the +loaded pistol. "If you go on this way," he said, with some severity, +"you will presently be neither loved nor respected. There was a time, +though, when you were an excellent shot, Herr Heinrich Obendorf." + +"I had my orders, highness," said the other stolidly. + +"Oh yes, of course," Paul Vanderhoffen answered. "You had your +orders--from Augustus!" He seemed to think of something very far away. +He smiled, with quizzically narrowed eyes such as you may yet see in +Raeburn's portrait of the man. "I was remembering, oddly enough, that +elm just back of the Canova Pavilion--as it was twenty years ago. I +managed to scramble up it, but Augustus could not follow me because he +had such short fat little legs. He was so proud of what I had done +that he insisted on telling everybody--and afterward we had oranges for +luncheon, I remember, and sucked them through bits of sugar. It is not +fair that you must always remember and always love that boy who played +with you when you were little--after he has grown up to be another +person. Eh no! youth passes, but all its memories of unimportant +things remain with you and are less kind than any self-respecting viper +would be. Decidedly, it is not fair, and some earnest-minded person +ought to write to his morning paper about it. . . . I think that is +the reason I am being a sentimental fool," Paul Vanderhoffen explained. + +Then his teeth clicked. "Get on, my man," he said. "Do not remain too +near to me, because there was a time when I loved your employer quite +as much as you do. This fact is urging me to dangerous ends. Yes, it +is prompting me, even while I talk with you, to give you a lesson in +marksmanship, my inconveniently faithful Heinrich." + +He shrugged. He lighted a cheroot with hands whose tremblings, he +devoutly hoped, were not apparent, for Prince Fribble had been ashamed +to manifest a sincere emotion of any sort, and Paul Vanderhoffen shared +as yet this foible. + +"Oh Brutus! Ravaillac! Damiens!" he drawled. "O general compendium +of misguided aspirations! do be a duck and get along with you. And I +would run as hard as I could, if I were you, for it is war now, and you +and I are not on the same side." + + +Paul Vanderhoffen paused a hundred yards or so from this to shake his +head. "Come, come! I have lost so much that I cannot afford to throw +my good temper into the bargain. To endure with a grave face this +perfectly unreasonable universe wherein destiny has locked me is +undoubtedly meritorious; but to bustle about it like a caged canary, +and not ever to falter in your hilarity, is heroic. Let us, by all +means, not consider the obdurate if gilded barriers, but rather the +lettuce and the cuttle-bone. I have my choice between becoming a +corpse or a convict--a convict? ah, undoubtedly a convict, sentenced to +serve out a life-term in a cess-pool of castby superstitions." + +He smiled now over Paul Vanderhoffen's rage. "Since the situation is +tragic, let us approach it in an appropriate spirit of frivolity. My +circumstances bully me. And I succumb to irrationality, as rational +persons invariably end by doing. But, oh, dear me! oh, Osiris, +Termagaunt, and Zeus! to think there are at least a dozen other +ne'er-do-wells alive who would prefer to make a mess of living as a +grand-duke rather than as a scribbler in Grub Street! Well, well! the +jest is not of my contriving, and the one concession a sane man will +never yield the universe is that of considering it seriously." + +And he strode on, resolved to be Prince Fribble to the last. + +"Frivolity," he said, "is the smoked glass through which a civilized +person views the only world he has to live in. For, otherwise, he +could not presume to look upon such coruscations of insanity and remain +unblinded." + +This heartened him, as a rounded phrase will do the best of us. But +by-and-bye, + +"Frivolity," he groaned, "is really the cheap mask incompetence claps +on when haled before a mirror." + + +And at Leamington Manor he found her strolling upon the lawn. It was +an ordered, lovely scene, steeped now in the tranquillity of evening. +Above, the stars were losing diffidence. Below, and within arms' +reach, Mildred Claridge was treading the same planet on which he +fidgeted and stuttered. + +Something in his heart snapped like a fiddle-string, and he was +entirely aware of this circumstance. As to her eyes, teeth, coloring, +complexion, brows, height and hair, it is needless to expatiate. The +most painstaking inventory of these chattels would necessarily be +misleading, because the impression which they conveyed to him was that +of a bewildering, but not distasteful, transfiguration of the universe, +apt as a fanfare at the entrance of a queen. + +But he would be Prince Fribble to the last. And so, "Wait just a +moment, please," he said, "I want to harrow up your soul and freeze +your blood." + +Wherewith he suavely told her everything about Paul Vanderhoffen's +origin and the alternatives now offered him, and she listened without +comment. + +"Ai! ai!" young Vanderhoffen perorated; "the situation is complete. I +have not the least desire to be Grand-Duke of Saxe-Kesselberg. It is +too abominably tedious. But, if I do not join in with Desmarets, who +has the guy-ropes of a restoration well in hand, I must inevitably +be--removed, as the knave phrases it. For as long as I live, I will be +an insuperable barrier between Augustus and his Sophia. Otototoi!" he +wailed, with a fine tone of tragedy, "the one impossible achievement in +my life has always been to convince anybody that it was mine to dispose +of as I elected!" + +"Oh, man proposes----" she began, cryptically. Then he deliberated, +and sulkily submitted: "But I may not even propose to abdicate. +Augustus has put himself upon sworn record as an eye-witness of my +hideous death. And in consequence I might keep on abdicating from now +to the crack of doom, and the only course left open to him would be to +treat me as an impostor." + +She replied, with emphasis, "I think your cousin is a beast!" + +"Ah, but the madman is in love," he pleaded. "You should not judge +poor masculinity in such a state by any ordinary standards. Oh really, +you don't know the Princess Sophia. She is, in sober truth, the nicest +person who was ever born a princess. Why, she had actually made a mock +of even that handicap, for ordinarily it is as disastrous to feminine +appearance as writing books. And, oh, Lord! they will be marrying her +to me, if Desmarets and I win out." Thus he forlornly ended. + +"The designing minx!" Miss Claridge said, distinctly. + +"Now, gracious lady, do be just a cooing pigeon and grant that when men +are in love they are not any more encumbered by abstract notions about +honor than if they had been womanly from birth. Come, let's be lyrical +and open-minded," he urged; and he added, "No, either you are in love +or else you are not in love. And nothing else will matter either way. +You see, if men and women had been primarily designed to be rational +creatures, there would be no explanation for their being permitted to +continue in existence," he lucidly explained. "And to have grasped +this fact is the pith of all wisdom." + +"Oh, I am very wise." A glint of laughter shone in her eyes. "I would +claim to be another Pythoness if only it did not sound so snaky and +wriggling. So, from my trident--or was it a Triton they used to stand +on?--I announce that you and your Augustus are worrying yourselves +gray-headed over an idiotically simple problem. Now, I disposed of it +offhand when I said, 'Man proposes.'" + +He seemed to be aware of some one who from a considerable distance was +inquiring her reasons for this statement. + +"Because in Saxe-Kesselberg, as in all other German states, when a +prince of the reigning house marries outside of the mediatized nobility +he thereby forfeits his right of succession. It has been done any +number of times. Why, don't you see, Mr. Vanderhoffen? Conceding you +ever do such a thing, your cousin Augustus would become at once the +legal heir. So you must marry. It is the only way, I think, to save +you from regal incarceration and at the same time to reassure the +Prince of Lueminster--that creature's father--that you have not, and +never can have, any claim which would hold good in law. Then Duke +Augustus could peaceably espouse his Sophia and go on reigning---- And, +by the way, I have seen her picture often, and if that is what you call +beauty----" Miss Claridge did not speak this last at least with any air +of pointing out the self-evident. + +And, "I believe," he replied, "that all this is actually happening. I +might have known fate meant to glut her taste for irony." + +"But don't you see? You have only to marry anybody outside of the +higher nobility--and just as a makeshift----" She had drawn closer in +the urgency of her desire to help him. An infinite despair and mirth +as well was kindled by her nearness. And the man was insane and dimly +knew as much. + +And so, "I see," he answered. "But, as it happens, I cannot marry any +woman, because I love a particular woman. At least, I suppose she +isn't anything but just a woman. That statement," he announced, "is a +formal tribute paid by what I call my intellect to what the vulgar call +the probabilities. The rest of me has no patience whatever with such +idiotic blasphemy." + +She said, "I think I understand." And this surprised him, coming as it +did from her whom he had always supposed to be the fiancee of Lord +Brudenel's title and bank-account. + +"And, well!"--he waved his hands--"either as tutor or as grand-duke, +this woman is unattainable, because she has been far too carefully +reared"--and here he frenziedly thought of that terrible matron whom, +as you know, he had irreverently likened to a crocodile--"either to +marry a pauper or to be contented with a left-handed alliance. And I +love her. And so"--he shrugged--"there is positively nothing left to +do save sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the deaths of +kings." + +She said, "Oh, and you mean it! You are speaking the plain truth!" A +change had come into her lovely face which would have made him think it +even lovelier had not that contingency been beyond conception. + +And Mildred Claridge said, "It is not fair for dreamers such as you to +let a woman know just how he loves her. That is not wooing. It is +bullying." + +His lips were making a variety of irrational noises. And he was near +to her. Also he realized that he had never known how close akin were +fear and joy, so close the two could mingle thus, and be quite +undistinguishable. And then repentance smote him. + +"I am contemptible!" he groaned. "I had no right to trouble you with +my insanities. Indeed I had not ever meant to let you guess how mad I +was. But always I have evaded my responsibilities. So I remain Prince +Fribble to the last." + +"Oh, but I knew, I have always known." She held her eyes away from +him. "And I wrote to Lord Brudenel only yesterday releasing him from +his engagement." + +And now without uncertainty or haste Paul Vanderhoffen touched her +cheek and raised her face, so that he saw it plainly in the rising +twilight, and all its wealth of tenderness newborn. And what he saw +there frightened him. + +For the girl loved him! He felt himself to be, as most men do, a +swindler when he comprehended this preposterous fact; and, in addition, +he thought of divers happenings, such as shipwrecks, holocausts and +earthquakes, which might conceivably have appalled him, and understood +that he would never in his life face any sense of terror as huge as was +this present sweet and illimitable awe. + +And then he said, "You know that what I hunger for is impossible. +There are so many little things, like common-sense, to be considered. +For this is just a matter which concerns you and Paul Vanderhoffen--a +literary hack, a stuttering squeak-voiced ne'er-do-well, with an +acquired knack for scribbling verses that are feeble-minded enough for +Annuals and Keepsake Books, and so fetch him an occasional guinea. +For, my dear, the verses I write of my own accord are not sufficiently +genteel to be vended in Paternoster Row; they smack too dangerously of +human intelligence. So I am compelled, perforce, to scribble such +jingles as I am ashamed to read, because I must write +_something_. . . ." Paul Vanderhoffen shrugged, and continued, in tones +more animated: "There will be no talk of any grand-duke. Instead, +there will be columns of denunciation and tittle-tattle in every +newspaper--quite as if you, a baronet's daughter, had run away with a +footman. And you will very often think wistfully of Lord Brudenel's +fine house when your only title is--well, Princess of Grub Street, and +your realm is a garret. And for a while even to-morrow's breakfast +will be a problematical affair. It is true Lord Lansdowne has promised +me a registrarship in the Admiralty Court, and I do not think he will +fail me. But that will give us barely enough to live on--with strict +economy, which is a virtue that neither of us knows anything about. I +beg you to remember that--you who have been used to every luxury! you +who really were devised that you might stand beside an emperor and set +tasks for him. In fine, you know----" + +And Mildred Claridge said, "I know that, quite as I observed, man +proposes--when he has been sufficiently prodded by some one who, +because she is an idiot--And that is why I am not blushing--very +much----" + +"Your coloring is not--repellent." His high-pitched pleasant voice, in +spite of him, shook now with more than its habitual suggestion of a +stutter. "What have you done to me, my dear?" he said. "Why can't I +jest at this . . . as I have always done at everything----?" + +"Boy, boy!" she said; "laughter is excellent. And wisdom too is +excellent. Only I think that you have laughed too much, and I have +been too shrewd--But now I know that it is better to be a princess in +Grub Street than to figure at Ranelagh as a good-hearted fool's latest +purchase. For Lord Brudenel is really very good-natured," she argued, +"and I did like him, and mother was so set upon it--and he was +rich--and I honestly thought----" + +"And now?" he said. + +"And now I know," she answered happily. + +They looked at each other for a little while. Then he took her hand, +prepared in turn for self-denial. + +"The _Household Review_ wants me to 'do' a series on famous English +bishops," he reported, humbly. "I had meant to refuse, because it +would all have to be dull High-Church twaddle. And the _English +Gentleman_ wants some rather outrageous lying done in defense of the +Corn Laws. You would not despise me too much--would you, Mildred?--if +I undertook it now. I really have no choice. And there is plenty of +hackwork of that sort available to keep us going until more solvent +days, when I shall have opportunity to write something quite worthy of +you." + +"For the present, dear, it would be much more sensible, I think, to +'do' the bishops and the Corn Laws. You see, that kind of thing pays +very well, and is read by the best people; whereas poetry, of course-- +But you can always come back to the verse-making, you know----" + +"If you ever let me," he said, with a flash of prescience. "And I +don't believe you mean to let me. You are your mother's daughter, +after all! Nefarious woman, you are planning, already, to make a +responsible member of society out of me! and you will do it, +ruthlessly! Such is to be Prince Fribble's actual burial--in his own +private carriage, with a receipted tax-bill in his pocket!" + +"What nonsense you poets talk!" the girl observed. But to him, +forebodingly, that familiar statement seemed to lack present +application. + + + + +THE LADY OF ALL OUR DREAMS + + +"_In JOHN CHARTERIS appeared a man with an inborn sense of the supreme +interest and the overwhelming emotional and spiritual relevancy of +human life as it is actually and obscurely lived; a man with +unmistakable creative impulses and potentialities; a man who, had he +lived in a more mature and less self-deluding community--a community +that did not so rigorously confine its interest in facts to business, +and limit its demands upon art to the supplying of illusions--might +humbly and patiently have schooled his gifts to the service of his +vision. . . . As it was, he accepted defeat and compromised +half-heartedly with commercialism._" + + + + And men unborn will read of Heloise, + And Ruth, and Rosamond, and Semele, + When none remembers your name's melody + Or rhymes your name, enregistered with these. + + And will my name wake moods as amorous + As that of Abelard or Launcelot + Arouses? be recalled when Pyramus + And Tristram are unrhymed of and forgot?-- + Time's laughter answers, who accords to us + More gracious fields, wherein we harvest--what? + + JOHN CHARTERIS. _Torrismond's Envoi, in Ashtaroth's Lackey_. + + + + +THE LADY OF ALL OUR DREAMS + + +"Our distinguished alumnus," after being duly presented as such, had +with vivacity delivered much the usual sort of Commencement Address. +Yet John Charteris was in reality a trifle fagged. + +The afternoon train had been vexatiously late. The little novelist had +found it tedious to interchange inanities with the committee awaiting +him at the Pullman steps. Nor had it amused him to huddle into +evening-dress, and hasten through a perfunctory supper in order to +reassure his audience at half-past eight precisely as to the +unmitigated delight of which he was now conscious. + +Nevertheless, he alluded with enthusiasm to the arena of life, to the +dependence of America's destiny upon the younger generation, to the +enviable part King's College had without exception played in history, +and he depicted to Fairhaven the many glories of Fairhaven--past, +present and approaching--in superlatives that would hardly have seemed +inadequate if applied to Paradise. His oration, in short, was of a +piece with the amiable bombast that the college students and Fairhaven +at large were accustomed to applaud at every Finals--the sort of +linguistic debauch that John Charteris himself remembered to have +applauded as an undergraduate more years ago than he cared to +acknowledge. + +Pauline Romeyne had sat beside him then--yonder, upon the fourth bench +from the front, where now another boy with painstakingly plastered hair +was clapping hands. There was a girl on the right of this boy, too. +There naturally would be. Mr. Charteris as he sat down was wondering +if Pauline was within reach of his voice? and if she were, what was +her surname nowadays? + +Then presently the exercises were concluded, and the released auditors +arose with an outwelling noise of multitudinous chatter, of shuffling +feet, of rustling programs. Many of Mr. Charteris' audience, though, +were contending against the general human outflow and pushing toward +the platform, for Fairhaven was proud of John Charteris now that his +colorful tales had risen, from the semi-oblivion of being cherished +merely by people who cared seriously for beautiful things, to the +distinction of being purchasable in railway stations; so that, in +consequence, Fairhaven wished both to congratulate him and to renew +acquaintanceship. + +He, standing there, alert and quizzical, found it odd to note how +unfamiliar beaming faces climbed out of the hurly-burly of retreating +backs, to say, "Don't you remember me? I'm so-and-so." These were the +people whom he had lived among once, and some of these had once been +people whom he loved. Now there was hardly any one whom at a glance he +would have recognized. + +Nobody guessed as much. He was adjudged to be delightful, cordial, +"and not a bit stuck-up, not spoiled at all, you know." To appear this +was the talisman with which he banteringly encountered the universe. + +But John Charteris, as has been said, was in reality a trifle fagged. +When everybody had removed to the Gymnasium, where the dancing was to +be, and he had been delightful there, too, for a whole half-hour, he +grasped with avidity at his first chance to slip away, and did so under +cover of a riotous two-step. + +He went out upon the Campus. + +He found this lawn untenanted, unless you chose to count the marble +figure of Lord Penniston, made aerial and fantastic by the moonlight, +standing as it it were on guard over the College. Mr. Charteris chose +to count him. Whimsically, Mr. Charteris reflected that this battered +nobleman's was the one familiar face he had exhumed in all Fairhaven. +And what a deal of mirth and folly, too, the old fellow must have +witnessed during his two hundred and odd years of sentry-duty! On +warm, clear nights like this, in particular, when by ordinary there +were only couples on the Campus, each couple discreetly remote from any +of the others. Then Penniston would be aware of most portentous pauses +(which a delectable and lazy conference of leaves made eloquent) +because of many unfinished sentences. "Oh, YOU know what I mean, +dear!" one would say as a last resort. And she-why, bless her heart! +of course, she always did. . . . Heigho, youth's was a pleasant +lunacy. . . . + +Thus Charteris reflected, growing drowsy. She said, "You spoke very +well to-night. Is it too late for congratulations?" + +Turning, Mr. Charteris remarked, "As you are perfectly aware, all that +I vented was just a deal of skimble-scamble stuff, a verbal syllabub of +balderdash. No, upon reflection, I think I should rather describe it +as a conglomeration of piffle, patriotism and pyrotechnics. Well, +Madam Do-as-you-would-be-done-by, what would you have? You must give +people what they want." + +It was characteristic that he faced Pauline Romeyne--or was it still +Romeyne? he wondered--precisely as if it had been fifteen minutes, +rather than as many years, since they had last spoken together. + +"Must one?" she asked. "Oh, yes, I know you have always thought that, +but I do not quite see the necessity of it." + +She sat upon the bench beside Lord Penniston's square marble pedestal. +"And all the while you spoke I was thinking of those Saturday nights +when your name was up for an oration or a debate before the Eclectics, +and you would stay away and pay the fine rather than brave an audience." + +"The tooth of Time," he reminded her, "has since then written wrinkles +on my azure brow. The years slip away fugacious, and Time that brings +forth her children only to devour them grins most hellishly, for Time +changes all things and cultivates even in herself an appreciation of +irony,--and, therefore, why shouldn't I have changed a trifle? You +wouldn't have me put on exhibition as a _lusus naturae_?" + +"Oh, but I wish you had not altered so entirely!" Pauline sighed. + +"At least, you haven't," he declared. "Of course, I would be compelled +to say so, anyhow. But in this happy instance courtesy and veracity +come skipping arm-in-arm from my elated lips." And, indeed, it seemed +to him that Pauline was marvelously little altered. "I wonder now," he +said, and cocked his head, "I wonder now whose wife I am talking to?" + +"No, Jack, I never married," she said quietly. + +"It is selfish of me," he said, in the same tone, "but I am glad of +that." + +And so they sat a while, each thinking. + +"I wonder," said Pauline, with that small plaintive voice which +Charteris so poignantly remembered, "whether it is always like this? +Oh, do the Overlords of Life and Death ALWAYS provide some obstacle to +prevent what all of us have known in youth was possible from ever +coming true?" + +And again there was a pause which a delectable and lazy conference of +leaves made eloquent. + +"I suppose it is because they know that if it ever did come true, we +would be gods like them." The ordinary associates of John Charteris, +most certainly, would not have suspected him to be the speaker. "So +they contrive the obstacle, or else they send false dreams--out of the +gates of horn--and make the path smooth, very smooth, so that two +dreamers may not be hindered on their way to the divorce-courts." + +"Yes, they are jealous gods! oh, and ironical gods also! They grant +the Dream, and chuckle while they grant it, I think, because they know +that later they will be bringing their playthings face to face--each +married, fat, inclined to optimism, very careful of decorum, and +perfectly indifferent to each other. And then they get their +fore-planned mirth, these Overlords of Life and Death. 'We gave you,' +they chuckle, 'the loveliest and greatest thing infinity contains. And +you bartered it because of a clerkship or a lying maxim or perhaps a +finger-ring.' I suppose that they must laugh a great deal." + +"Eh, what? But then you never married?" For masculinity in argument +starts with the word it has found distasteful. + +"Why, no." + +"Nor I." And his tone implied that the two facts conjoined proved much. + +"Miss Willoughby----?" she inquired. + +Now, how in heaven's name, could a cloistered Fairhaven have surmised +his intention of proposing on the first convenient opportunity to +handsome, well-to-do Anne Willoughby? He shrugged his wonder off. +"Oh, people will talk, you know. Let any man once find a woman has a +tongue in her head, and the stage-direction is always 'Enter Rumor, +painted full of tongues.'" + +Pauline did not appear to have remarked his protest. "Yes,--in the end +you will marry her. And her money will help, just as you have +contrived to make everything else help, toward making John Charteris +comfortable. She is not very clever, but she will always worship you, +and so you two will not prove uncongenial. That is your real tragedy, +if I could make you comprehend." + +"So I am going to develop into a pig," he said, with relish,--"a +lovable, contented, unambitious porcine, who is alike indifferent to +the Tariff, the importance of Equal Suffrage and the market-price of +hams, for all that he really cares about is to have his sty as +comfortable as may be possible. That is exactly what I am going to +develop into,--now, isn't it?" And John Charteris, sitting, as was his +habitual fashion, with one foot tucked under him, laughed cheerily. +Oh, just to be alive (he thought) was ample cause for rejoicing! and +how deliciously her eyes, alert with slumbering fires, were peering +through the moon-made shadows of her brows! + +"Well----! something of the sort." Pauline was smiling, but +restrainedly, and much as a woman does in condoning the naughtiness of +her child. "And, oh, if only----" + +"Why, precisely. 'If only!' quotha. Why, there you word the key-note, +you touch the cornerstone, you ruthlessly illuminate the mainspring, of +an intractable unfeeling universe. For instance, if only + + You were the Empress of Ayre and Skye, + And I were Ahkond of Kong, + We could dine every day on apple-pie, + And peddle potatoes, and sleep in a sty, + And people would say when we came to die, + 'They _never_ did anything wrong.' + +But, as it is, our epitaphs will probably be nothing of the sort. So +that there lurks, you see, much virtue in this 'if only.'" + +Impervious to nonsense, she asked, "And have I not earned the right to +lament that you are changed?" + +"I haven't robbed more than six churches up to date," he grumbled. +"What would you have?" + +The answer came, downright, and, as he knew, entirely truthful: "I +would have had you do all that you might have done." + +But he must needs refine. "Why, no--you would have made me do it, +wrung out the last drop. You would have bullied me and shamed me into +being all that I might have been. I see that now." He spoke as if in +wonder, with quickening speech. "Pauline, I haven't been entirely not +worth while. Oh, yes, I know! I know I haven't written five-act +tragedies which would be immortal, as you probably expected me to do. +My books are not quite the books I was to write when you and I were +young. But I have made at worst some neat, precise and joyous little +tales which prevaricate tenderly about the universe and veil the +pettiness of human nature with screens of verbal jewelwork. It is not +the actual world they tell about, but a vastly superior place where the +Dream is realized and everything which in youth we knew was possible +comes true. It is a world we have all glimpsed, just once, and have +not ever entered, and have not ever forgotten. So people like my +little tales. . . . Do they induce delusions? Oh, well, you must give +people what they want, and literature is a vast bazaar where customers +come to purchase everything except mirrors." + +She said soberly, "You need not make a jest of it. It is not +ridiculous that you write of beautiful and joyous things because there +was a time when living was really all one wonderful adventure, and you +remember it." + +"But, oh, my dear, my dear! such glum discussions are so sadly +out-of-place on such a night as this," he lamented. "For it is a night +of pearl-like radiancies and velvet shadows and delicate odors and big +friendly stars that promise not to gossip, whatever happens. It is a +night that hungers, and all its undistinguishable little sounds are +voicing the night's hunger for masks and mandolins, for rope-ladders +and balconies and serenades. It is a night . . . a night wherein I +gratefully remember so many beautiful sad things that never +happened . . . to John Charteris, yet surely happened once upon a time +to me . . ." + +"I think that I know what it is to remember--better than you do, Jack. +But what do you remember?" + +"In faith, my dear, the most Bedlamitish occurrences! It is a night +that breeds deplorable insanities, I warn you. For I seem to remember +how I sat somewhere, under a peach-tree, in clear autumn weather, and +was content; but the importance had all gone out of things; and even +you did not seem very important, hardly worth lying to, as I spoke +lightly of my wasted love for you, half in hatred, and--yes, still half +in adoration. For you were there, of course. And I remember how I +came to you, in a sinister and brightly lighted place, where a +horrible, staring frail old man lay dead at your feet; and you had +murdered him; and heaven did not care, and we were old, and all our +lives seemed just to end in futile tangle-work. And, again, I remember +how we stood alone, with visible death crawling lazily toward us, as a +big sullen sea rose higher and higher; and we little tinseled creatures +waited, helpless, trapped and yearning. . . . There is a boat in that +picture; I suppose it was deeply laden with pirates coming to slit our +throats from ear to ear. I have forgotten that part, but I remember +the tiny spot of courtplaster just above your painted lips. . . . Such +are the jumbled pictures. They are bred of brain-fag, no doubt; yet, +whatever be their lineage," said Charteris, happily, "they render glum +discussion and platitudinous moralizing quite out of the question. So, +let's pretend, Pauline, that we are not a bit more worldly-wise than +those youngsters who are frisking yonder in the Gymnasium--for, upon my +word, I dispute if we have ever done anything to suggest that we are. +Don't let's be cowed a moment longer by those bits of paper with +figures on them which our too-credulous fellow-idiots consider to be +the only almanacs. Let's have back yesterday, let's tweak the nose of +Time intrepidly." Then Charteris caroled: + + "For Yesterday! for Yesterday! + I cry a reward for a Yesterday + Now lost or stolen or gone astray, + With all the laughter of Yesterday!" + + +"And how slight a loss was laughter," she murmured--still with the +vague and gentle eyes of a day-dreamer--"as set against all that we +never earned in youth, and so will never earn." + +He inadequately answered "Bosh!" and later, "Do you remember----?" he +began. + +Yes, she remembered that, it developed. And "Do you remember----?" she +in turn was asking later. It was to seem to him in retrospection that +neither for the next half-hour began a sentence without this formula. +It was as if they sought to use it as a master-word wherewith to +reanimate the happinesses and sorrows of their common past, and as if +they found the charm was potent to awaken the thin, powerless ghosts of +emotions that were once despotic. For it was as if frail shadows and +half-caught echoes were all they could evoke, it seemed to Charteris; +and yet these shadows trooped with a wild grace, and the echoes +thrilled him with the sweet and piercing surprise of a bird's call at +midnight or of a bugle heard in prison. + +Then twelve o'clock was heralded by the College bell, and Pauline arose +as though this equable deep-throated interruption of the music's levity +had been a signal. John Charteris saw her clearly now; and she was +beautiful. + +"I must go. You will not ever quite forget me, Jack. Such is my sorry +comfort." It seemed to Charteris that she smiled as in mockery, and +yet it was a very tender sort of derision. "Yes, you have made your +books. You have done what you most desired to do. You have got all +from life that you have asked of life. Oh, yes, you have got much from +life. One prize, though, Jack, you missed." + +He, too, had risen, quiet and perfectly sure of himself. "I haven't +missed it. For you love me." + +This widened her eyes. "Did I not always love you, Jack? Yes, even +when you went away forever, and there were no letters, and the days +were long. Yes, even knowing you, I loved you, John Charteris." + +"Oh, I was wrong, all wrong," he cried; "and yet there is something to +be said upon the other side, as always. . . ." Now Charteris was still +for a while. The little man's chin was uplifted so that it was toward +the stars he looked rather than at Pauline Romeyne, and when he spoke +he seemed to meditate aloud. "I was born, I think, with the desire to +make beautiful books--brave books that would preserve the glories of +the Dream untarnished, and would re-create them for battered people, +and re-awaken joy and magnanimity." Here he laughed, a little +ruefully. "No, I do not think I can explain this obsession to any one +who has never suffered from it. But I have never in my life permitted +anything to stand in the way of my fulfilling this desire to serve the +Dream by re-creating it for others with picked words, and that has cost +me something. Yes, the Dream is an exacting master. My books, such as +they are, have been made what they are at the dear price of never +permitting myself to care seriously for anything else. I might not +dare to dissipate my energies by taking any part in the drama I was +attempting to re-write, because I must so jealously conserve all the +force that was in me for the perfection of my lovelier version. That +may not be the best way of making books, but it is the only one that +was possible for me. I had so little natural talent, you see," said +Charteris, wistfully, "and I was anxious to do so much with it. So I +had always to be careful. It has been rather lonely, my dear. Now, +looking back, it seems to me that the part I have played in all other +people's lives has been the role of a tourist who enters a cafe +chantant, a fortress, or a cathedral, with much the same forlorn sense +of detachment, and observes what there is to see that may be worth +remembering, and takes a note or two, perhaps, and then leaves the +place forever. Yes, that is how I served the Dream and that is how I +got my books. They are very beautiful books, I think, but they cost me +fifteen years of human living and human intimacy, and they are hardly +worth so much." + +He turned to her, and his voice changed. "Oh, I was wrong, all wrong, +and chance is kindlier than I deserve. For I have wandered after +unprofitable gods, like a man blundering through a day of mist and fog, +and I win home now in its golden sunset. I have laughed very much, my +dear, but I was never happy until to-night. The Dream, as I now know, +is not best served by making parodies of it, and it does not greatly +matter after all whether a book be an epic or a directory. What really +matters is that there is so much faith and love and kindliness which we +can share with and provoke in others, and that by cleanly, simple, +generous living we approach perfection in the highest and most lovely +of all arts. . . . But you, I think, have always comprehended this. +My dear, if I were worthy to kneel and kiss the dust you tread in I +would do it. As it happens, I am not worthy. Pauline, there was a +time when you and I were young together, when we aspired, when life +passed as if it were to the measures of a noble music--a +heart-wringing, an obdurate, an intolerable music, it might be, but +always a lofty music. One strutted, no doubt--it was because one knew +oneself to be indomitable. Eh, it is true I have won all I asked of +life, very horribly true. All that I asked, poor fool! oh, I am weary +of loneliness, and I know now that all the phantoms I have raised are +only colorless shadows which belie the Dream, and they are hateful to +me. I want just to recapture that old time we know of, and we two +alone. I want to know the Dream again, Pauline,--the Dream which I had +lost, had half forgotten, and have so pitifully parodied. I want to +know the Dream again, Pauline, and you alone can help me." + +"Oh, if I could! if even I could now, my dear!" Pauline Romeyne left +him upon a sudden, crying this. And "So!" said Mr. Charteris. + +He had been deeply shaken and very much in earnest; but he was never +the man to give for any lengthy while too slack a rein to emotion; and +so he now sat down upon the bench and lighted a cigarette and smiled. +Yet he fully recognized himself to be the most enviable of men and an +inhabitant of the most glorious world imaginable--a world wherein he +very assuredly meant to marry Pauline Romeyne say, in the ensuing +September. Yes, that would fit in well enough, although, of course, he +would have to cancel the engagement to lecture in Milwaukee. . . . How +lucky, too, it was that he had never actually committed himself with +Anne Willoughby! for while money was an excellent thing to have, how +infinitely less desirable it was to live perked up in golden sorrow +than to feed flocks upon the Grampian Hills, where Freedom from the +mountain height cried, "I go on forever, a prince can make a belted +knight, and let who will be clever. . . ." + + +"--and besides, you'll catch your death of cold," lamented Rudolph +Musgrave, who was now shaking Mr. Charteris' shoulder. + +"Eh, what? Oh, yes, I daresay I was napping," the other mumbled. He +stood and stretched himself luxuriously. "Well, anyhow, don't be such +an unmitigated grandmother. You see, I have a bit of rather important +business to attend to. Which way is Miss Romeyne?" + +"Pauline Romeyne? why, but she married old General Ashmeade, you know. +She was the gray-haired woman in purple who carried out her squalling +brat when Taylor was introducing you, if you remember. She told me, +while the General was getting the horses around, how sorry she was to +miss your address, but they live three miles out, and Mrs. Ashmeade is +simply a slave to the children. . . . Why, what in the world have you +been dreaming about?" + +"Eh, what? Oh, yes, I daresay I was only napping," Mr. Charteris +observed. He was aware that within they were still playing a riotous +two-step. + + + + +_BALLAD OF PLAGIARY_ + + "_Freres et matres, vous qui cultivez_"--PAUL VERVILLE. + + + Hey, my masters, lords and brothers, ye that till the fields of rhyme, + Are ye deaf ye will not hearken to the clamor of your time? + + Still ye blot and change and polish--vary, heighten and transpose-- + Old sonorous metres marching grandly to their tranquil close. + + Ye have toiled and ye have fretted; ye attain perfected speech: + Ye have nothing new to utter and but platitudes to preach. + + And your rhymes are all of loving, as within the old days when + Love was lord of the ascendant in the horoscopes of men. + + Still ye make of love the utmost end and scope of all your art; + And, more blind than he you write of, note not what a modest part + + Loving now may claim in living, when we have scant time to spare, + Who are plundering the sea-depths, taking tribute of the air,-- + + Whilst the sun makes pictures for us; since to-day, for good or ill, + Earth and sky and sea are harnessed, and the lightnings work our will. + + Hey, my masters, all these love-songs by dust-hidden mouths were sung + That ye mimic and re-echo with an artful-artless tongue,-- + + Sung by poets close to nature, free to touch her garments' hem + Whom to-day ye know not truly; for ye only copy them. + + Them ye copy--copy always, with your backs turned to the sun, + Caring not what man is doing, noting that which man has done. + + _We are talking over telephones, as Shakespeare could not talk;_ + _We are riding out in motor-cars where Homer had to walk;_ + + _And pictures Dante labored on of mediaeval Hell_ + _The nearest cinematograph paints quicker, and as well._ + + But ye copy, copy always;--and ye marvel when ye find + This new beauty, that new meaning,--while a model stands behind, + + Waiting, young and fair as ever, till some singer turn and trace + Something of the deathless wonder of life lived in any place. + + Hey, my masters, turn from piddling to the turmoil and the strife! + Cease from sonneting, my brothers; let us fashion songs from life. + + _Thus I wrote ere Percie passed me. . . . Then did I epitomize_ + _All life's beauty in one poem, and make haste to eulogize_ + _Quite the fairest thing life boasts of, for I wrote of Percie's eyes._ + + + + +EXPLICIT DECAS POETARUM + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Certain Hour, by James Branch Cabell + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CERTAIN HOUR *** + +***** This file should be named 288.txt or 288.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. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +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 + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. |