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diff --git a/41875-0.txt b/41875-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c066d0e --- /dev/null +++ b/41875-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7344 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41875 *** + + THE YELLOW BOOK + + An Illustrated Quarterly + + Volume I April 1894 + + [Illustration: Magazine Cover] + + London: Elkin Mathews & John Lane + + + + + Contents + + + + + Letterpress + + + I. The Death of the Lion By Henry James _Page_ 7 + + II. Tree-Worship Richard Le Gallienne 57 + + III. A Defence of Cosmetics Max Beerbohm 65 + + IV. Daimonizomenos Arthur Christopher Benson 83 + + V. Irremediable Ella D'Arcy 87 + + VI. The Frontier } + } William Watson 113 + VII. Night on Curbar Edge } + + VIII. A Sentimental Cellar George Saintsbury 119 + + IX. Stella Maris Arthur Symons 129 + + X. Mercedes } + } Henry Harland 135 + XI. A Broken Looking-Glass } + + XII. Alere Flammam } + } Edmund Gosse 153 + XIII. A Dream of November } + + XIV. The Dedication Fred M. Simpson 159 + + XV. A Lost Masterpiece George Egerton 189 + + XVI. Reticence in Literature Arthur Waugh 201 + + XVII. Modern Melodrama Hubert Crackanthorpe 223 + + XVIII. London } + } John Davidson 233 + XIX. Down-a-down } + + XX. The Love-Story of Luigi } Richard Garnett, LL.D. 235 + Tansillo } + + XXI. The Fool's Hour { John Oliver Hobbes } 253 + { and George Moore } + + + + + Pictures + + + I. A Study { By Sir Frederic Leighton, + { P.R.A. _Frontispiece_ + + II. L'Education Sentimentale Aubrey Beardsley _Page_ 55 + + III. Le Puy en Velay Joseph Pennell 63 + + IV. The Old Oxford Music Hall Walter Sickert 85 + + V. Portrait of a Gentleman Will Rothenstein 111 + + VI. The Reflected Faun Laurence Housman 117 + + VII. Night Piece Aubrey Beardsley 127 + + VIII. A Study Sir Frederic Leighton, P.R.A. 133 + + IX. Portrait of a Lady Will Rothenstein 151 + + X. Portrait of Mrs. Patrick } Aubrey Beardsley 157 + Campbell } + + XI. The Head of Minos J. T. Nettleship 187 + + XII. Portrait of a Lady Charles W. Furse 199 + + XIII. A Lady Reading Walter Sickert 221 + + XIV. A Book Plate Aubrey Beardsley 251 + + XV. A Book Plate R. Anning Bell 251 + + + + +[Illustration: + + The Yellow Book + An Illustrated Quarterly + Volume I April 1894 + London: Elkin Mathews + & John Lane + Boston: Copeland & + Day] + + + + + Ballantyne Press + London & Edinburgh + + + + +A Study + + By Sir Frederic Leighton, P.R.A. + +_Reproduced by the Swan Electric Engraving Company_ + + +[Illustration: A Study] + + + + +The Death of the Lion + + By Henry James + + + I + +I had simply, I suppose, a change of heart, and it must have begun when +I received my manuscript back from Mr. Pinhorn. Mr. Pinhorn was my +"chief," as he was called in the office: he had accepted the high +mission of bringing the paper up. This was a weekly periodical, and had +been supposed to be almost past redemption when he took hold of it. It +was Mr. Deedy who had let it down so dreadfully--he was never mentioned +in the office now save in connection with that misdemeanour. Young as I +was I had been in a manner taken over from Mr. Deedy, who had been owner +as well as editor; forming part of a promiscuous lot, mainly plant and +office-furniture, which poor Mrs. Deedy, in her bereavement and +depression, parted with at a rough valuation. I could account for my +continuity only on the supposition that I had been cheap. I rather +resented the practice of fathering all flatness on my late protector, +who was in his unhonoured grave; but as I had my way to make I found +matter enough for complacency in being on a "staff." At the same time I +was aware that I was exposed to suspicion as a product of the old +lowering system. This made me feel that I was doubly bound to have +ideas, and had doubtless been at the bottom of my proposing to Mr. +Pinhorn that I should lay my lean hands on Neil Paraday. I remember that +he looked at me first as if he had never heard of this celebrity, who +indeed at that moment was by no means in the middle of the heavens; and +even when I had knowingly explained he expressed but little confidence +in the demand for any such matter. When I had reminded him that the +great principle on which we were supposed to work was just to create the +demand we required, he considered a moment and then rejoined: "I see; +you want to write him up." + +"Call it that if you like." + +"And what's your inducement?" + +"Bless my soul--my admiration!" + +Mr. Pinhorn pursed up his mouth. "Is there much to be done with him?" + +"Whatever there is, we should have it all to ourselves, for he hasn't +been touched." + +This argument was effective, and Mr. Pinhorn responded: "Very well, +touch him." Then he added: "But where can you do it?" + +"Under the fifth rib!" I laughed. + +Mr. Pinhorn stared. "Where's that?" + +"You want me to go down and see him?" I inquired, when I had enjoyed his +visible search for this obscure suburb. + +"I don't 'want' anything--the proposal's your own. But you must remember +that that's the way we do things _now_," said Mr. Pinhorn, with another +dig at Mr. Deedy. + +Unregenerate as I was, I could read the queer implications of this +speech. The present owners superior virtue as well as his deeper craft +spoke in his reference to the late editor as one of that baser sort who +deal in false representations. Mr. Deedy would as soon have sent me to +call on Neil Paraday as he would have published a "holiday-number;" but +such scruples presented themselves as mere ignoble thrift to his +successor, whose own sincerity took the form of ringing door-bells and +whose definition of genius was the art of finding people at home. It was +as if Mr. Deedy had published reports without his young men's having, as +Mr. Pinhorn would have said, really been there. I was unregenerate, as I +have hinted, and I was not concerned to straighten out the journalistic +morals of my chief, feeling them indeed to be an abyss over the edge of +which it was better not to peer. Really to be there this time moreover +was a vision that made the idea of writing something subtle about Neil +Paraday only the more inspiring. I would be as considerate as even Mr. +Deedy could have wished, and yet I should be as present as only Mr. +Pinhorn could conceive. My allusion to the sequestered manner in which +Mr. Paraday lived (which had formed part of my explanation, though I +knew of it only by hearsay) was, I could divine, very much what had made +Mr. Pinhorn bite. It struck him as inconsistent with the success of his +paper that any one should be so sequestered as that. Moreover, was not +an immediate exposure of everything just what the public wanted? Mr. +Pinhorn effectually called me to order by reminding me of the promptness +with which I had met Miss Braby at Liverpool, on her return from her +fiasco in the States. Hadn't we published, while its freshness and +flavour were unimpaired, Miss Braby's own version of that great +international episode? I felt somewhat uneasy at this coupling of the +actress and the author, and I confess that after having enlisted Mr. +Pinhorn's sympathies I procrastinated a little. I had succeeded better +than I wished, and I had, as it happened, work nearer at hand. A few +days later I called on Lord Crouchley and carried off in triumph the +most unintelligible statement that had yet appeared of his lordship's +reasons for his change of front. I thus set in motion in the daily +papers columns of virtuous verbiage. The following week I ran down to +Brighton for a chat, as Mr. Pinhorn called it, with Mrs. Bounder, who +gave me, on the subject of her divorce, many curious particulars that +had not been articulated in court. If ever an article flowed from the +primal fount it was that article on Mrs. Bounder. By this time, however, +I became aware that Neil Paraday's new book was on the point of +appearing, and that its approach had been the ground of my original +appeal to Mr. Pinhorn, who was now annoyed with me for having lost so +many days. He bundled me off--we would at least not lose another. I have +always thought his sudden alertness a remarkable example of the +journalistic instinct. Nothing had occurred, since I first spoke to him, +to create a visible urgency, and no enlightenment could possibly have +reached him. It was a pure case of professional _flair_--he had smelt +the coming glory as an animal smells its distant prey. + + + II + +I may as well say at once that this little record pretends in no degree +to be a picture either of my introduction to Mr. Paraday or of certain +proximate steps and stages. The scheme of my narrative allows no space +for these things and in any case a prohibitory sentiment would be +attached to my recollection of so rare an hour. These meagre notes are +essentially private, and if they see the light the insidious forces +that, as my story itself shows, make at present for publicity will +simply have overmastered my precautions. The curtain fell lately enough +on the lamentable drama. My memory of the day I alighted at Mr. +Paraday's door is a fresh memory of kindness, hospitality, compassion, +and of the wonderful illuminating talk in which the welcome was +conveyed. Some voice of the air had taught me the right moment, the +moment of his life at which an act of unexpected young allegiance might +most come home. He had recently recovered from a long, grave illness. I +had gone to the neighbouring inn for the night, but I spent the evening +in his company, and he insisted the next day on my sleeping under his +roof. I had not an indefinite leave: Mr. Pinhorn supposed us to put our +victims through on the gallop. It was later, in the office, that the +step was elaborated and regulated. I fortified myself however, as my +training had taught me to do, by the conviction that nothing could be +more advantageous for my article than to be written in the very +atmosphere. I said nothing to Mr. Paraday about it, but in the morning, +after my removal from the inn, while he was occupied in his study, as he +had notified me that he should need to be, I committed to paper the +quintessence of my impressions. Then thinking to commend myself to Mr. +Pinhorn by my celerity, I walked out and posted my little packet before +luncheon. Once my paper was written I was free to stay on, and if it was +designed to divert attention from my frivolity in so doing I could +reflect with satisfaction that I had never been so clever. I don't mean +to deny of course that I was aware it was much too good for Mr. Pinhorn; +but I was equally conscious that Mr. Pinhorn had the supreme shrewdness +of recognising from time to time the cases in which an article was not +too bad only because it was too good. There was nothing he loved so much +as to print on the right occasion a thing he hated. I had begun my visit +to Mr. Paraday on a Monday, and on the Wednesday his book came out. A +copy of it arrived by the first post, and he let me go out into the +garden with it immediately after breakfast. I read it from beginning to +end that day, and in the evening he asked me to remain with him the rest +of the week and over the Sunday. + +That night my manuscript came back from Mr. Pinhorn, accompanied with a +letter, of which the gist was the desire to know what I meant by sending +him such stuff. That was the meaning of the question, if not exactly its +form, and it made my mistake immense to me. Such as this mistake was I +could now only look it in the face and accept it. I knew where I had +failed, but it was exactly where I couldn't have succeeded. I had been +sent down there to be personal, and in point of fact I hadn't been +personal at all; what I had sent up to London was merely a little +finicking, feverish study of my author's talent. Anything less relevant +to Mr. Pinhorn's purpose couldn't well be imagined, and he was visibly +angry at my having (at his expense, with a second-class ticket) +approached the object of our arrangement only to be so deucedly distant. +For myself, I knew but too well what had happened, and how a miracle--as +pretty as some old miracle of legend--had been wrought on the spot to +save me. There had been a big brush of wings, the flash of an opaline +robe, and then, with a great cool stir of the air, the sense of an +angel's having swooped down and caught me to his bosom. He held me only +till the danger was over, and it all took place in a minute. With my +manuscript back on my hands I understood the phenomenon better, and the +reflections I made on it are what I meant, at the beginning of this +anecdote, by my change of heart. Mr. Pinhorn's note was not only a +rebuke decidedly stern, but an invitation immediately to send him (it +was the case to say so) the genuine article, the revealing and +reverberating sketch to the promise of which--and of which alone--I owed +my squandered privilege. A week or two later I recast my peccant paper, +and giving it a particular application to Mr. Paraday's new book, +obtained for it the hospitality of another journal, where, I must admit, +Mr. Pinhorn was so far justified that it attracted not the least +attention. + + + III + +I was frankly, at the end of three days, a very prejudiced critic, so +that one morning when, in the garden, Neil Paraday had offered to read +me something I quite held my breath as I listened. It was the written +scheme of another book--something he had put aside long ago, before his +illness, and lately taken out again to reconsider. He had been turning +it round when I came down upon him, and it had grown magnificently under +this second hand. Loose, liberal, confident, it might have passed for a +great gossiping, eloquent letter--the overflow into talk of an artist's +amorous plan. The subject I thought singularly rich, quite the strongest +he had yet treated; and this familiar statement of it, full too of fine +maturities, was really, in summarised splendour, a mine of gold, a +precious, independent work. I remember rather profanely wondering +whether the ultimate production could possibly be so happy. His reading +of the epistle, at any rate, made me feel as if I were, for the +advantage of posterity, in close correspondence with him--were the +distinguished person to whom it had been affectionately addressed. It +was high distinction simply to be told such things. The idea he now +communicated had all the freshness, the flushed fairness of the +conception untouched and untried: it was Venus rising from the sea, +before the airs had blown upon her. I had never been so throbbingly +present at such an unveiling. But when he had tossed the last bright +word after the others, as I had seen cashiers in banks, weighing mounds +of coin, drop a final sovereign into the tray, I became conscious of a +sudden prudent alarm. + +"My dear master, how, after all, are you going to do it?" I asked. "It's +infinitely noble, but what time it will take, what patience and +independence, what assured, what perfect conditions it will demand! Oh +for a lone isle in a tepid sea!" + +"Isn't this practically a lone isle, and aren't you, as an encircling +medium, tepid enough?" he replied; alluding with a laugh to the wonder +of my young admiration and the narrow limits of his little provincial +home. "Time isn't what I've lacked hitherto: the question hasn't been to +find it, but to use it. Of course my illness made a great hole, but I +daresay there would have been a hole at any rate. The earth we tread has +more pockets than a billiard-table. The great thing is now to keep on my +feet." + +"That's exactly what I mean." + +Neil Paraday looked at me with eyes--such pleasant eyes as he had--in +which, as I now recall their expression, I seem to have seen a dim +imagination of his fate. He was fifty years old, and his illness had +been cruel, his convalescence slow. "It isn't as if I weren't all +right." + +"Oh, if you weren't all right I wouldn't look at you!" I tenderly said. + +We had both got up, quickened by the full sound of it all, and he had +lighted a cigarette. I had taken a fresh one, and, with an intenser +smile, by way of answer to my exclamation, he touched it with the flame +of his match. "If I weren't better I shouldn't have thought of _that_!" +He flourished his epistle in his hand. + +"I don't want to be discouraging, but that's not true," I returned. "I'm +sure that during the months you lay here in pain you had visitations +sublime. You thought of a thousand things. You think of more and more +all the while. That's what makes you, if you will pardon my familiarity, +so respectable. At a time when so many people are spent you come into +your second wind. But, thank God, all the same, you're better! Thank +God, too, you're not, as you were telling me yesterday, 'successful.' If +_you_ weren't a failure, what would be the use of trying? That's my one +reserve on the subject of your recovery--that it makes you 'score,' as +the newspapers say. It looks well in the newspapers, and almost anything +that does that is horrible. 'We are happy to announce that Mr. Paraday, +the celebrated author, is again in the enjoyment of excellent health.' +Somehow I shouldn't like to see it." + +"You won't see it; I'm not in the least celebrated--my obscurity +protects me. But couldn't you bear even to see I was dying or dead?" my +companion asked. + +"Dead--_passe encore_; there's nothing so safe. One never knows what a +living artist may do--one has mourned so many. However, one must make +the worst of it; you must be as dead as you can." + +"Don't I meet that condition in having just published a book?" + +"Adequately, let us hope; for the book is verily a masterpiece." + +At this moment the parlour-maid appeared in the door that opened into +the garden: Paraday lived at no great cost, and the frisk of petticoats, +with a timorous "Sherry, sir?" was about his modest mahogany. He allowed +half his income to his wife, from whom he had succeeded in separating +without redundancy of legend. I had a general faith in his having +behaved well, and I had once, in London, taken Mrs. Paraday down to +dinner. He now turned to speak to the maid, who offered him, on a tray, +some card or note, while agitated, excited, I wandered to the end of +the garden. The idea of his security became supremely dear to me, and I +asked myself if I were the same young man who had come down a few days +before to scatter him to the four winds. When I retraced my steps he had +gone into the house and the woman (the second London post had come in) +had placed my letters and a newspaper on a bench. I sat down there to +the letters, which were a brief business, and then, without heeding the +address, took the paper from its envelope. It was the journal of highest +renown, _The Empire_ of that morning. It regularly came to Paraday, but +I remembered that neither of us had yet looked at the copy already +delivered. This one had a great mark on the "editorial" page, and, +uncrumpling the wrapper, I saw it to be directed to my host and stamped +with the name of his publishers. I instantly divined that _The Empire_ +had spoken of him, and I have not forgotten the odd little shock of the +circumstance. It checked all eagerness and made me drop the paper a +moment. As I sat there, conscious of a palpitation, I think I had a +vision of what was to be. I had also a vision of the letter I would +presently address to Mr. Pinhorn, breaking as it were with Mr. Pinhorn. +Of course, however, the next minute the voice of _The Empire_ was in my +ears. + +The article was not, I thanked Heaven, a review; it was a "leader," the +last of three, presenting Neil Paraday to the human race. His new book, +the fifth from his hand, had been but a day or two out, and _The +Empire_, already aware of it, fired, as if on the birth of a prince, a +salute of a whole column. The guns had been booming these three hours in +the house without our suspecting them. The big blundering newspaper had +discovered him, and now he was proclaimed and anointed and crowned. His +place was assigned him as publicly as if a fat usher with a wand had +pointed to the topmost chair; he was to pass up and still up, higher +and higher, between the watching faces and the envious sounds--away up +to the daïs and the throne. The article was a date; he had taken rank at +a bound--waked up a national glory. A national glory was needed, and it +was an immense convenience he was there. What all this meant rolled over +me, and I fear I grew a little faint--it meant so much more than I could +say "yea" to on the spot. In a flash, somehow, all was different; the +tremendous wave I speak of had swept something away. It had knocked +down, I suppose, my little customary altar, my twinkling tapers and my +flowers, and had reared itself into the likeness of a temple vast and +bare. When Neil Paraday should come out of the house he would come out a +contemporary. That was what had happened--the poor man was to be +squeezed into his horrible age. I felt as if he had been overtaken on +the crest of the hill and brought back to the city. A little more and he +would have dipped down to posterity and escaped. + + + IV + +When he came out it was exactly as if he had been in custody, for beside +him walked a stout man with a big black beard, who, save that he wore +spectacles, might have been a policeman, and in whom at a second glance +I recognised the highest contemporary enterprise. + +"This is Mr. Morrow," said Paraday, looking, I thought, rather white; +"he wants to publish heaven knows what about me." + +I winced as I remembered that this was exactly what I myself had wanted. +"Already?" I exclaimed, with a sort of sense that my friend had fled to +me for protection. + +Mr. Morrow glared, agreeably, through his glasses: they suggested the +electric headlights of some monstrous modern ship, and I felt as if +Paraday and I were tossing terrified under his bows. I saw that his +momentum was irresistible. "I was confident that I should be the first +in the field," he declared. "A great interest is naturally felt in Mr. +Paraday's surroundings." + +"I hadn't the least idea of it," said Paraday, as if he had been told he +had been snoring. + +"I find he has not read the article in _The Empire_," Mr. Morrow +remarked to me. "That's so very interesting--it's something to start +with," he smiled. He had begun to pull off his gloves, which were +violently new, and to look encouragingly round the little garden. As a +"surrounding" I felt that I myself had already been taken in; I was a +little fish in the stomach of a bigger one. "I represent," our visitor +continued, "a syndicate of influential journals, no less than +thirty-seven, whose public--whose publics, I may say--are in peculiar +sympathy with Mr. Paraday's line of thought. They would greatly +appreciate any expression of his views on the subject of the art he so +brilliantly practises. Besides my connection with the syndicate just +mentioned, I hold a particular commission from _The Tatler_, whose most +prominent department, 'Smatter and Chatter'--I daresay you've often +enjoyed it--attracts such attention. I was honoured only last week, as a +representative of _The Tatler_, with the confidence of Guy Walsingham, +the author of 'Obsessions.' She expressed herself thoroughly pleased +with my sketch of her method; she went so far as to say that I had made +her genius more comprehensible even to herself." + +Neil Paraday had dropped upon the garden-bench and sat there, at once +detached and confused; he looked hard at a bare spot in the lawn, as if +with an anxiety that had suddenly made him grave. His movement had been +interpreted by his visitor as an invitation to sink sympathetically into +a wicker chair that stood hard by, and as Mr. Morrow so settled himself +I felt that he had taken official possession and that there was no +undoing it. One had heard of unfortunate people's having "a man in the +house," and this was just what we had. There was a silence of a moment, +during which we seemed to acknowledge in the only way that was possible +the presence of universal fate; the sunny stillness took no pity, and my +thought, as I was sure Paraday's was doing, performed within the minute +a great distant revolution. I saw just how emphatic I should make my +rejoinder to Mr. Pinhorn, and that having come, like Mr. Morrow, to +betray, I must remain as long as possible to save. Not because I had +brought my mind back, but because our visitor's last words were in my +ear, I presently inquired with gloomy irrelevance if Guy Walsingham were +a woman. + +"Oh yes, a mere pseudonym; but convenient, you know, for a lady who goes +in for the larger latitude. 'Obsessions, by Miss So-and-So,' would look +a little odd, but men are more naturally indelicate. Have you peeped +into 'Obsessions'?" Mr. Morrow continued sociably to our companion. + +Paraday, still absent, remote, made no answer, as if he had not heard +the question: a manifestation that appeared to suit the cheerful Mr. +Morrow as well as any other. Imperturbably bland, he was a man of +resources--he only needed to be on the spot. He had pocketed the whole +poor place while Paraday and I were woolgathering, and I could imagine +that he had already got his "heads." His system, at any rate, was +justified by the inevitability with which I replied, to save my friend +the trouble: "Dear, no; he hasn't read it. He doesn't read such things!" +I unwarily added. + +"Things that are _too_ far over the fence, eh?" I was indeed a godsend +to Mr. Morrow. It was the psychological moment; it determined the +appearance of his notebook, which, however, he at first kept slightly +behind him, as the dentist, approaching his victim, keeps his horrible +forceps. "Mr. Paraday holds with the good old proprieties--I see!" And, +thinking of the thirty-seven influential journals, I found myself, as I +found poor Paraday, helplessly gazing at the promulgation of this +ineptitude. "There's no point on which distinguished views are so +acceptable as on this question--raised perhaps more strikingly than ever +by Guy Walsingham--of the permissibility of the larger latitude. I have +an appointment, precisely in connection with it, next week, with Dora +Forbes, the author of 'The Other Way Round,' which everybody is talking +about. Has Mr. Paraday glanced at 'The Other Way Round'?" Mr. Morrow now +frankly appealed to me. I took upon myself to repudiate the supposition, +while our companion, still silent, got up nervously and walked away. His +visitor paid no heed to his withdrawal; he only opened out the notebook +with a more motherly pat. "Dora Forbes, I gather, takes the ground, the +same as Guy Walsingham's, that the larger latitude has simply got to +come. He holds that it has got to be squarely faced. Of course his sex +makes him a less prejudiced witness. But an authoritative word from Mr. +Paraday--from the point of view of _his_ sex, you know--would go right +round the globe. He takes the line that we _haven't_ got to face it?" + +I was bewildered; it sounded somehow as if there were three sexes. My +interlocutor's pencil was poised, my private responsibility great. I +simply sat staring, however, and only found presence of mind to say: "Is +this Miss Forbes a gentleman?" + +Mr. Morrow hesitated an instant, smiling: "It wouldn't be +'Miss'--there's a wife!" + +"I mean is she a man?" + +"The wife?"--Mr. Morrow, for a moment, was as confused as myself. But +when I explained that I alluded to Dora Forbes in person he informed me, +with visible amusement at my being so out of it, that this was the +"pen-name" of an indubitable male--he had a big red moustache. "He only +assumes a feminine personality because the ladies are such popular +favourites. A great deal of interest is felt in this assumption, and +there's every prospect of its being widely imitated." Our host at this +moment joined us again, and Mr. Morrow remarked invitingly that he +should be happy to make a note of any observation the movement in +question, the bid for success under a lady's name, might suggest to Mr. +Paraday. But the poor man, without catching the allusion, excused +himself, pleading that, though he was greatly honoured by his visitor's +interest, he suddenly felt unwell and should have to take leave of +him--have to go and lie down and keep quiet. His young friend might be +trusted to answer for him, but he hoped Mr. Morrow didn't expect great +things even of his young friend. His young friend, at this moment, +looked at Neil Paraday with an anxious eye, greatly wondering if he were +doomed to be ill again; but Paraday's own kind face met his question +reassuringly, seemed to say in a glance intelligible enough: "Oh, I'm +not ill, but I'm scared: get him out of the house as quietly as +possible." Getting newspaper-men out of the house was odd business for +an emissary of Mr. Pinhorn, and I was so exhilarated by the idea of it +that I called after him as he left us: + +"Read the article in _The Empire_, and you'll soon be all right!" + + + V + +"Delicious my having come down to tell him of it!" Mr. Morrow +ejaculated. "My cab was at the door twenty minutes after _The Empire_ +had been laid upon my breakfast-table. Now what have you got for me?" he +continued, dropping again into his chair, from which, however, the next +moment he quickly rose. "I was shown into the drawing-room, but there +must be more to see--his study, his literary sanctum, the little things +he has about, or other domestic objects or features. He wouldn't be +lying down on his study-table? There's a great interest always felt in +the scene of an author's labours. Sometimes we're favoured with very +delightful peeps. Dora Forbes showed me all his table-drawers, and +almost jammed my hand into one into which I made a dash! I don't ask +that of you, but if we could talk things over right there where he sits +I feel as if I should get the keynote." + +I had no wish whatever to be rude to Mr. Morrow, I was much too +initiated not to prefer the safety of other ways; but I had a quick +inspiration and I entertained an insurmountable, an almost superstitious +objection to his crossing the threshold of my friend's little lonely, +shabby, consecrated workshop. "No, no--we sha'n't get at his life that +way," I said. "The way to get at his life is to--But wait a moment!" I +broke off and went quickly into the house; then, in three minutes, I +reappeared before Mr. Morrow with the two volumes of Paraday's new book. +"His life's here," I went on, "and I'm so full of this admirable thing +that I can't talk of anything else. The artist's life's his work, and +this is the place to observe him. What he has to tell us he tells us +with _this_ perfection. My dear sir, the best interviewer's the best +reader." + +Mr. Morrow good-humouredly protested. "Do you mean to say that no other +source of information should be opened to us?" + +"None other till this particular one--by far the most copious--has been +quite exhausted. Have you exhausted it, my dear sir? Had you exhausted +it when you came down here? It seems to me in our time almost wholly +neglected, and something should surely be done to restore its ruined +credit. It's the course to which the artist himself at every step, and +with such pathetic confidence, refers us. This last book of Mr. +Paraday's is full of revelations." + +"Revelations?" panted Mr. Morrow, whom I had forced again into his +chair. + +"The only kind that count. It tells you with a perfection that seems to +me quite final all the author thinks, for instance, about the advent of +the 'larger latitude.'" + +"Where does it do that?" asked Mr. Morrow, who had picked up the second +volume and was insincerely thumbing it. + +"Everywhere--in the whole treatment of his case. Extract the opinion, +disengage the answer--those are the real acts of homage." + +Mr. Morrow, after a minute, tossed the book away. "Ah, but you mustn't +take me for a reviewer." + +"Heaven forbid I should take you for anything so dreadful! You came down +to perform a little act of sympathy, and so, I may confide to you, did +I. Let us perform our little act together. These pages overflow with the +testimony we want: let us read them and taste them and interpret them. +You will of course have perceived for yourself that one scarcely does +read Neil Paraday till one reads him aloud; he gives out to the ear an +extraordinary quality, and it's only when you expose it confidently to +that test that you really get near his style. Take up your book again +and let me listen, while you pay it out, to that wonderful fifteenth +chapter. If you feel that you can't do it justice, compose yourself to +attention while I produce for you--I think I can!--this scarcely less +admirable ninth." + +Mr. Morrow gave me a straight glance which was as hard as a blow between +the eyes; he had turned rather red and a question had formed itself in +his mind which reached my sense as distinctly as if he had uttered it: +"What sort of a damned fool are _you_?" Then he got up, gathering +together his hat and gloves, buttoning his coat, projecting hungrily all +over the place the big transparency of his mask. It seemed to flare over +Fleet Street and somehow made the actual spot distressingly humble: +there was so little for it to feed on unless he counted the blisters of +our stucco or saw his way to do something with the roses. Even the poor +roses were common kinds. Presently his eyes fell upon the manuscript +from which Paraday had been reading to me and which still lay on the +bench. As my own followed them I saw that it looked promising, looked +pregnant, as if it gently throbbed with the life the reader had given +it. Mr. Morrow indulged in a nod toward it and a vague thrust of his +umbrella. "What's that?" + +"Oh, it's a plan--a secret." + +"A secret!" There was an instant's silence, and then Mr. Morrow made +another movement. I may have been mistaken, but it affected me as the +translated impulse of the desire to lay hands on the manuscript, and +this led me to indulge in a quick anticipatory grab which may very well +have seemed ungraceful, or even impertinent, and which at any rate left +Mr. Paraday's two admirers very erect, glaring at each other while one +of them held a bundle of papers well behind him. An instant later Mr. +Morrow quitted me abruptly, as if he had really carried something away. +To reassure myself, watching his broad back recede, I only grasped my +manuscript the tighter. He went to the back-door of the house, the one +he had come out from, but on trying the handle he appeared to find it +fastened. So he passed round into the front garden, and, by listening +intently enough, I could presently hear the outer gate close behind him +with a bang. I thought again of the thirty-seven influential journals +and wondered what would be his revenge. I hasten to add that he was +magnanimous: which was just the most dreadful thing he could have been. +_The Tatler_ published a charming, chatty, familiar account of Mr. +Paraday's "Home-life," and on the wings of the thirty-seven influential +journals it went, to use Mr. Morrow's own expression, right round the +globe. + + + VI + +A week later, early in May, my glorified friend came up to town, where, +it may be veraciously recorded, he was the king of the beasts of the +year. No advancement was ever more rapid, no exaltation more complete, +no bewilderment more teachable. His book sold but moderately, though the +article in _The Empire_ had done unwonted wonders for it; but he +circulated in person in a manner that the libraries might well have +envied. His formula had been found--he was a "revelation." His momentary +terror had been real, just as mine had been--the overclouding of his +passionate desire to be left to finish his work. He was far from +unsociable, but he had the finest conception of being let alone that I +have ever met. For the time, however, he took his profit where it seemed +most to crowd upon him, having in his pocket the portable sophistries +about the nature of the artist's task. Observation too was a kind of +work and experience a kind of success; London dinners were all material +and London ladies were fruitful toil. "No one has the faintest +conception of what I'm trying for," he said to me, "and not many have +read three pages that I've written; but they're all enthusiastic, +enchanted, devoted." He found himself in truth equally amused and +fatigued; but the fatigue had the merit of being a new sort, and the +phantasmagoric town was perhaps after all less of a battlefield than the +haunted study. He once told me that he had had no personal life to speak +of since his fortieth year, but had had more than was good for him +before. London closed the parenthesis and exhibited him in relations; +one of the most inevitable of these being that in which he found himself +to Mrs. Weeks Wimbush, wife of the boundless brewer and proprietress of +the universal menagerie. In this establishment, as everybody knows, on +occasions when the crush is great, the animals rub shoulders freely with +the spectators and the lions sit down for whole evenings with the lambs. + +It had been ominously clear to me from the first that in Neil Paraday +this lady, who, as all the world agreed, was tremendous fun, considered +that she had secured a prime attraction, a creature of almost heraldic +oddity. Nothing could exceed her enthusiasm over her capture, and +nothing could exceed the confused apprehensions it excited in me. I had +an instinctive fear of her which I tried without effect to conceal from +her victim, but which I let her perceive with perfect impunity. Paraday +heeded it, but she never did, for her conscience was that of a romping +child. She was a blind, violent force, to which I could attach no more +idea of responsibility than to the hum of a spinning-top. It was +difficult to say what she conduced to but to circulation. She was +constructed of steel and leather, and all I asked of her for our +tractable friend was not to do him to death. He had consented for a +time to be of indiarubber, but my thoughts were fixed on the day he +should resume his shape or at least get back into his box. It was +evidently all right, but I should be glad when it was well over. I was +simply nervous--the impression was ineffaceable of the hour when, after +Mr. Morrow's departure, I had found him on the sofa in his study. That +pretext of indisposition had not in the least been meant as a snub to +the envoy of _The Tatler_--he had gone to lie down in very truth. He had +felt a pang of his old pain, the result of the agitation wrought in him +by this forcing open of a new period. His old programme, his old ideal +even had to be changed. Say what one would, success was a complication +and recognition had to be reciprocal. The monastic life, the pious +illumination of the missal in the convent cell were things of the +gathered past. It didn't engender despair, but it at least required +adjustment. Before I left him on that occasion we had passed a bargain, +my part of which was that I should make it my business to take care of +him. Let whoever would represent the interest in his presence (I had a +mystical prevision of Mrs. Weeks Wimbush), I should represent the +interest in his work--in other words, in his absence. These two +interests were in their essence opposed; and I doubt, as youth is +fleeting, if I shall ever again know the intensity of joy with which I +felt that in so good a cause I was willing to make myself odious. + +One day, in Sloane Street, I found myself questioning Paraday's +landlord, who had come to the door in answer to my knock. Two vehicles, +a barouche and a smart hansom, were drawn up before the house. + +"In the drawing-room, sir? Mrs. Weeks Wimbush." + +"And in the dining-room?" + +"A young lady, sir--waiting: I think a foreigner." + +It was three o'clock, and on days when Paraday didn't lunch out he +attached a value to these subjugated hours. On which days, however, +didn't the dear man lunch out? Mrs. Wimbush, at such a crisis, would +have rushed round immediately after her own repast. I went into the +dining-room first, postponing the pleasure of seeing how, upstairs, the +lady of the barouche would, on my arrival, point the moral of my sweet +solicitude. No one took such an interest as herself in his doing only +what was good for him, and she was always on the spot to see that he did +it. She made appointments with him to discuss the best means of +economising his time and protecting his privacy. She further made his +health her special business, and had so much sympathy with my own zeal +for it that she was the author of pleasing fictions on the subject of +what my devotion had led me to give up. I gave up nothing (I don't count +Mr. Pinhorn) because I had nothing, and all I had as yet achieved was to +find myself also in the menagerie. I had dashed in to save my friend, +but I had only got domesticated and wedged; so that I could do nothing +for him but exchange with him over people's heads looks of intense but +futile intelligence. + + + VII + +The young lady in the dining-room had a brave face, black hair, blue +eyes, and in her lap a big volume. "I've come for his autograph," she +said, when I had explained to her that I was under bonds to see people +for him when he was occupied. "I've been waiting half an hour, but I'm +prepared to wait all day." I don't know whether it was this that told me +she was American, for the propensity to wait all day is not in general +characteristic of her race. I was enlightened probably not so much by +the spirit of the utterance as by some quality of its sound. At any rate +I saw she had an individual patience and a lovely frock, together with +an expression that played among her pretty features as a breeze among +flowers. Putting her book upon the table, she showed me a massive album, +showily bound and full of autographs of price. The collection of faded +notes, of still more faded "thoughts," of quotations, platitudes, +signatures, represented a formidable purpose. + +"Most people apply to Mr. Paraday by letter, you know," I said. + +"Yes, but he doesn't answer. I've written three times." + +"Very true," I reflected; "the sort of letter you mean goes straight +into the fire." + +"How do you know the sort I mean?" my interlocutress asked. She had +blushed and smiled and in a moment she added: "I don't believe he gets +many like them!" + +"I'm sure they're beautiful, but he burns without reading." I didn't add +that I had told him he ought to. + +"Isn't he then in danger of burning things of importance?" + +"He would be, if distinguished men hadn't an infallible nose for a +petition." + +She looked at me a moment--her face was sweet and gay. "Do _you_ burn +without reading, too?" she asked; in answer to which I assured her that +if she would trust me with her repository I would see that Mr. Paraday +should write his name in it. + +She considered a little. "That's very well, but it wouldn't make me see +him." + +"Do you want very much to see him?" It seemed ungracious to catechise so +charming a creature, but somehow I had never yet taken my duty to the +great author so seriously. + +"Enough to have come from America for the purpose." + +I stared. "All alone?" + +"I don't see that that's exactly your business; but if it will make me +more appealing I will confess that I am quite by myself. I had to come +alone or not at all." + +She was interesting; I could imagine that she had lost parents, natural +protectors--could conceive even that she had inherited money. I was in a +phase of my own fortunes when keeping hansoms at doors seemed to me pure +swagger. As a trick of this frank and delicate girl, however, it became +romantic--a part of the general romance of her freedom, her errand, her +innocence. The confidence of young Americans was notorious, and I +speedily arrived at a conviction that no impulse could have been more +generous than the impulse that had operated here. I foresaw at that +moment that it would make her my peculiar charge, just as circumstances +had made Neil Paraday. She would be another person to look after, and +one's honour would be concerned in guiding her straight. These things +became clearer to me later; at the instant I had scepticism enough to +observe to her, as I turned the pages of her volume, that her net had, +all the same, caught many a big fish. She appeared to have had fruitful +access to the great ones of the earth; there were people moreover whose +signatures she had presumably secured without a personal interview. She +couldn't have waylaid George Washington and Friedrich Schiller and +Hannah More. She met this argument, to my surprise, by throwing up the +album without a pang. It wasn't even her own; she was responsible for +none of its treasures. It belonged to a girl-friend in America, a young +lady in a western city. This young lady had insisted on her bringing it, +to pick up more autographs: she thought they might like to see, in +Europe, in what company they would be. The "girl-friend," the western +city, the immortal names, the curious errand, the idyllic faith, all +made a story as strange to me, and as beguiling, as some tale in the +Arabian Nights. Thus it was that my informant had encumbered herself +with the ponderous tome; but she hastened to assure me that this was the +first time she had brought it out. For her visit to Mr. Paraday it had +simply been a pretext. She didn't really care a straw that he should +write his name; what she did want was to look straight into his face. + +I demurred a little. "And why do you require to do that?" + +"Because I just love him!" Before I could recover from the agitating +effect of this crystal ring my companion had continued: "Hasn't there +ever been any face that you've wanted to look into?" + +How could I tell her so soon how much I appreciated the opportunity of +looking into hers? I could only assent in general to the proposition +that there were certainly for everyone such faces; and I felt that the +crisis demanded all my lucidity, all my wisdom. "Oh, yes, I'm a student +of physiognomy. Do you mean," I pursued, "that you've a passion for Mr. +Paraday's books?" + +"They've been everything to me--I know them by heart. They've completely +taken hold of me. There's no author about whom I feel as I do about Neil +Paraday." + +"Permit me to remark then," I presently rejoined, "that you're one of +the right sort." + +"One of the enthusiasts? Of course I am!" + +"Oh, there are enthusiasts who are quite of the wrong. I mean you're one +of those to whom an appeal can be made." + +"An appeal?" Her face lighted as if with the chance of some great +sacrifice. + +If she was ready for one it was only waiting for her, and in a moment I +mentioned it. "Give up this rigid purpose of seeing him. Go away without +it. That will be far better." + +She looked mystified; then she turned visibly pale. "Why, hasn't he any +personal charm?" The girl was terrible and laughable in her bright +directness. + +"Ah, that dreadful word 'personal'!" I exclaimed; "we're dying of it, +and you women bring it out with murderous effect. When you encounter a +genius as fine as this idol of ours, let him off the dreary duty of +being a personality as well. Know him only by what's best in him, and +spare him for the same sweet sake." + +My young lady continued to look at me in confusion and mistrust, and the +result of her reflection on what I had just said was to make her +suddenly break out: "Look here, sir--what's the matter with him?" + +"The matter with him is that, if he doesn't look out, people will eat a +great hole in his life." + +She considered a moment. "He hasn't any disfigurement?" + +"Nothing to speak of!" + +"Do you mean that social engagements interfere with his occupations?" + +"That but feebly expresses it." + +"So that he can't give himself up to his beautiful imagination?" + +"He's badgered, bothered, overwhelmed, on the pretext of being +applauded. People expect him to give them his time, his golden time, who +wouldn't themselves give five shillings for one of his books." + +"Five? I'd give five thousand!" + +"Give your sympathy--give your forbearance. Two-thirds of those who +approach him only do it to advertise themselves." + +"Why, it's too bad!" the girl exclaimed, with the face of an angel. + +I followed up my advantage. "There's a lady with him now who's a +terrible complication, and who yet hasn't read, I am sure, ten pages +that he ever wrote." + +My visitor's wide eyes grew tenderer. "Then how does she talk----?" + +"Without ceasing. I only mention her as a single case. Do you want to +know how to show a superlative consideration? Simply avoid him." + +"Avoid him?" she softly wailed. + +"Don't force him to have to take account of you; admire him in silence, +cultivate him at a distance and secretly appropriate his message. Do you +want to know," I continued, warming to my idea, "how to perform an act +of homage really sublime?" Then as she hung on my words: "Succeed in +never seeing him!" + +"Never?" she pathetically gasped. + +"The more you get into his writings the less you'll want to; and you'll +be immensely sustained by the thought of the good you're doing him." + +She looked at me without resentment or spite, and at the truth I had put +before her with candour, credulity and pity. I was afterwards happy to +remember that she must have recognised in my face the liveliness of my +interest in herself. "I think I see what you mean." + +"Oh, I express it badly; but I should be delighted if you would let me +come to see you--to explain it better." + +She made no response to this, and her thoughtful eyes fell on the big +album, on which she presently laid her hands as if to take it away. "I +did use to say out West that they might write a little less for +autographs (to all the great poets, you know) and study the thoughts and +style a little more." + +"What do they care for the thoughts and style? They didn't even +understand you. I'm not sure," I added, "that I do myself, and I daresay +that you by no means make me out." She had got up to go, and though I +wanted her to succeed in not seeing Neil Paraday I wanted her also, +inconsequently, to remain in the house. I was at any rate far from +desiring to hustle her off. As Mrs. Weeks Wimbush, upstairs, was still +saving our friend in her own way, I asked my young lady to let me +briefly relate, in illustration of my point, the little incident of my +having gone down into the country for a profane purpose and been +converted on the spot to holiness. Sinking again into her chair to +listen, she showed a deep interest in the anecdote. Then, thinking it +over gravely, she exclaimed with her odd intonation: + +"Yes, but you do see him!" I had to admit that this was the case; and I +was not so prepared with an effective attenuation as I could have +wished. She eased the situation off, however, by the charming quaintness +with which she finally said: "Well, I wouldn't want him to be lonely!" +This time she rose in earnest, but I persuaded her to let me keep the +album to show to Mr. Paraday. I assured her I would bring it back to her +myself. "Well, you'll find my address somewhere in it, on a paper!" she +sighed resignedly, as she took leave. + + + VIII + +I blush to confess it, but I invited Mr. Paraday that very day to +transcribe into the album one of his most characteristic passages. I +told him how I had got rid of the strange girl who had brought it--her +ominous name was Miss Hurter and she lived at an hotel; quite agreeing +with him moreover as to the wisdom of getting rid with equal promptitude +of the book itself. This was why I carried it to Albemarle Street no +later than on the morrow. I failed to find her at home, but she wrote to +me and I went again: she wanted so much to hear more about Neil Paraday. +I returned repeatedly, I may briefly declare, to supply her with this +information. She had been immensely taken, the more she thought of it, +with that idea of mine about the act of homage: it had ended by filling +her with a generous rapture. She positively desired to do something +sublime for him, though indeed I could see that, as this particular +flight was difficult, she appreciated the fact that my visits kept her +up. I had it on my conscience to keep her up; I neglected nothing that +would contribute to it, and her conception of our cherished author's +independence became at last as fine as his own conception. "Read him, +read him," I constantly repeated; while, seeking him in his works, she +represented herself as convinced that, according to my assurance, this +was the system that had, as she expressed it, weaned her. We read him +together when I could find time, and the generous creature's sacrifice +was fed by our conversation. There were twenty selfish women, about whom +I told her, who stirred her with a beautiful rage. Immediately after my +first visit her sister, Mrs. Milsom, came over from Paris, and the two +ladies began to present, as they called it, their letters. I thanked our +stars that none had been presented to Mr. Paraday. They received +invitations and dined out, and some of these occasions enabled Fanny +Hurter to perform, for consistency's sake, touching feats of submission. +Nothing indeed would now have induced her even to look at the object of +her admiration. Once, hearing his name announced at a party, she +instantly left the room by another door and then straightway quitted +the house. At another time, when I was at the opera with them (Mrs. +Milsom had invited me to their box) I attempted to point Mr. Paraday out +to her in the stalls. On this she asked her sister to change places with +her, and, while that lady devoured the great man through a powerful +glass, presented, all the rest of the evening, her inspired back to the +house. To torment her tenderly I pressed the glass upon her, telling her +how wonderfully near it brought our friend's handsome head. By way of +answer she simply looked at me in grave silence; on which I saw that +tears had gathered in her eyes. These tears, I may remark, produced an +effect on me of which the end is not yet. There was a moment when I felt +it my duty to mention them to Neil Paraday; but I was deterred by the +reflection that there were questions more relevant to his happiness. + +These questions indeed, by the end of the season, were reduced to a +single one--the question of reconstituting, so far as might be possible, +the conditions under which he had produced his best work. Such +conditions could never all come back, for there was a new one that took +up too much place; but some perhaps were not beyond recall. I wanted +above all things to see him sit down to the subject of which, on my +making his acquaintance, he had read me that admirable sketch. Something +told me there was no security but in his doing so before the new factor, +as we used to say at Mr. Pinhorn's, should render the problem +incalculable. It only half reassured me that the sketch itself was so +copious and so eloquent that even at the worst there would be the making +of a small but complete book, a tiny volume which, for the faithful, +might well become an object of adoration. There would even not be +wanting critics to declare, I foresaw, that the plan was a thing to be +more thankful for than the structure to have been reared on it. My +impatience for the structure, none the less, grew and grew with the +interruptions. He had, on coming up to town, begun to sit for his +portrait to a young painter, Mr. Rumble, whose little game, as we used +to say at Mr. Pinhorn's, was to be the first to perch on the shoulders +of renown. Mr. Rumble's studio was a circus in which the man of the +hour, and still more the woman, leaped through the hoops of his showy +frames almost as electrically as they burst into telegrams and +"specials." He pranced into the exhibitions on their back; he was the +reporter on canvas, the Vandyke up to date, and there was one roaring +year in which Mrs. Bounder and Miss Braby, Guy Walsingham and Dora +Forbes proclaimed in chorus from the same pictured walls that no one had +yet got ahead of him. + +Paraday had been promptly caught and saddled, accepting with +characteristic good-humour his confidential hint that to figure in his +show was not so much a consequence as a cause of immortality. From Mrs. +Wimbush to the last "representative" who called to ascertain his twelve +favourite dishes, it was the same ingenuous assumption that he would +rejoice in the repercussion. There were moments when I fancied I might +have had more patience with them if they had not been so fatally +benevolent. I hated, at all events, Mr. Rumble's picture, and had my +bottled resentment ready when, later on, I found my distracted friend +had been stuffed by Mrs. Wimbush into the mouth of another cannon. A +young artist in whom she was intensely interested, and who had no +connection with Mr. Rumble, was to show how far he could shoot him. Poor +Paraday, in return, was naturally to write something somewhere about the +young artist. She played her victims against each other with admirable +ingenuity, and her establishment was a huge machine in which the tiniest +and the biggest wheels went round to the same treadle. I had a scene +with her in which I tried to express that the function of such a man was +to exercise his genius--not to serve as a hoarding for pictorial +posters. The people I was perhaps angriest with were the editors of +magazines who had introduced what they called new features, so aware +were they that the newest feature of all would be to make him grind +their axes by contributing his views on vital topics and taking part in +the periodical prattle about the future of fiction. I made sure that +before I should have done with him there would scarcely be a current +form of words left me to be sick of; but meanwhile I could make surer +still of my animosity to bustling ladies for whom he drew the water that +irrigated their social flower-beds. + +I had a battle with Mrs. Wimbush over the artist she protected, and +another over the question of a certain week, at the end of July, that +Mr. Paraday appeared to have contracted to spend with her in the +country. I protested against this visit; I intimated that he was too +unwell for hospitality without a _nuance_, for caresses without +imagination; I begged he might rather take the time in some restorative +way. A sultry air of promises, of reminders hung over his August, and he +would greatly profit by the interval of rest. He had not told me he was +ill again--that he had had a warning; but I had not heeded this, and I +found his reticence his worst symptom. The only thing he said to me was +that he believed a comfortable attack of something or other would set +him up: it would put out of the question everything but the exemptions +he prized. I am afraid I shall have presented him as a martyr in a very +small cause if I fail to explain that he surrendered himself much more +liberally than I surrendered him. He filled his lungs, for the most +part, with the comedy of his queer fate: the tragedy was in the +spectacles through which I chose to look. He was conscious of +inconvenience, and above all of a great renouncement; but how could he +have heard a mere dirge in the bells of his accession? The sagacity and +the jealousy were mine, and his the impressions and the anecdotes. Of +course, as regards Mrs. Wimbush, I was worsted in my encounters, for was +not the state of his health the very reason for his coming to her at +Prestidge? Wasn't it precisely at Prestidge that he was to be coddled, +and wasn't the dear Princess coming to help her to coddle him? The dear +Princess, now on a visit to England, was of a famous foreign house, and, +in her gilded cage, with her retinue of keepers and feeders, was the +most expensive specimen in the good lady's collection. I don't think her +august presence had had to do with Paraday's consenting to go, but it is +not impossible that he had operated as a bait to the illustrious +stranger. The party had been made up for him, Mrs. Wimbush averred, and +everyone was counting on it, the dear Princess most of all. If he was +well enough he was to read them something absolutely fresh, and it was +on that particular prospect the Princess had set her heart. She was so +fond of genius, in _any_ walk of life, and she was so used to it, and +understood it so well; she was the greatest of Mr. Paraday's admirers, +she devoured everything he wrote. And then he read like an angel. Mrs. +Wimbush reminded me that he had again and again given her, Mrs. Wimbush, +the privilege of listening to him. + +I looked at her a moment. "What has he read to you?" I crudely inquired. + +For a moment too she met my eyes, and for the fraction of a moment she +hesitated and coloured. "Oh, all sorts of things!" + +I wondered whether this were a perfect fib or only an imperfect +recollection, and she quite understood my unuttered comment on her +perception of such things. But if she could forget Neil Paraday's +beauties she could of course forget my rudeness, and three days later +she invited me, by telegraph, to join the party at Prestidge. This time +she might indeed have had a story about what I had given up to be near +the master. I addressed from that fine residence several communications +to a young lady in London, a young lady whom, I confess, I quitted with +reluctance and whom the reminder of what she herself could give up was +required to make me quit at all. It adds to the gratitude I owe her on +other grounds that she kindly allows me to transcribe from my letters a +few of the passages in which that hateful sojourn is candidly +commemorated. + + + IX + +"I suppose I ought to enjoy the joke," I wrote, "of what's going on +here, but somehow it doesn't amuse me. Pessimism on the contrary +possesses me and cynicism solicits. I positively feel my own flesh sore +from the brass nails in Neil Paraday's social harness. The house is full +of people who like him, as they mention, awfully, and with whom his +talent for talking nonsense has prodigious success. I delight in his +nonsense myself; why is it therefore that I grudge these happy folk +their artless satisfaction? Mystery of the human heart--abyss of the +critical spirit! Mrs. Wimbush thinks she can answer that question, and +as my want of gaiety has at last worn out her patience she has given me +a glimpse of her shrewd guess. I am made restless by the selfishness of +the insincere friend--I want to monopolise Paraday in order that he may +push me on. To be intimate with him is a feather in my cap; it gives me +an importance that I couldn't naturally pretend to, and I seek to +deprive him of social refreshment because I fear that meeting more +disinterested people may enlighten him as to my real spirit. All the +disinterested people here are his particular admirers and have been +carefully selected as such. There is supposed to be a copy of his last +book in the house, and in the hall I come upon ladies, in attitudes, +bending gracefully over the first volume. I discreetly avert my eyes, +and when I next look round the precarious joy has been superseded by the +book of life. There is a sociable circle or a confidential couple, and +the relinquished volume lies open on its face, as if it had been dropped +under extreme coercion. Somebody else presently finds it and transfers +it, with its air of momentary desolation, to another piece of furniture. +Every one is asking every one about it all day, and everyone is telling +everyone where they put it last. I'm sure it's rather smudgy about the +twentieth page. I have a strong impression too that the second volume is +lost--has been packed in the bag of some departing guest; and yet +everybody has the impression that somebody else has read to the end. You +see therefore that the beautiful book plays a great part in our +conversation. Why should I take the occasion of such distinguished +honours to say that I begin to see deeper into Gustave Flaubert's +doleful refrain about the hatred of literature? I refer you again to the +perverse constitution of man. + +"The Princess is a massive lady with the organisation of an athlete and +the confusion of tongues of a _valet de place_. She contrives to commit +herself extraordinarily little in a great many languages, and is +entertained and conversed with in detachments and relays, like an +institution which goes on from generation to generation or a big +building contracted for under a forfeit. She can't have a personal +taste, any more than, when her husband succeeds, she can have a personal +crown, and her opinion on any matter is rusty and heavy and plain--made, +in the night of ages, to last and be transmitted. I feel as if I ought +to pay some one a fee for my glimpse of it. She has been told +everything in the world and has never perceived anything, and the echoes +of her education respond awfully to the rash footfall--I mean the casual +remark--in the cold Valhalla of her memory. Mrs. Wimbush delights in her +wit and says there is nothing so charming as to hear Mr. Paraday draw it +out. He is perpetually detailed for this job, and he tells me it has a +peculiarly exhausting effect. Every one is beginning--at the end of two +days--to sidle obsequiously away from her, and Mrs. Wimbush pushes him +again and again into the breach. None of the uses I have yet seen him +put to irritate me quite so much. He looks very fagged, and has at last +confessed to me that his condition makes him uneasy--has even promised +me that he will go straight home instead of returning to his final +engagements in town. Last night I had some talk with him about going +to-day, cutting his visit short; so sure am I that he will be better as +soon as he is shut up in his lighthouse. He told me that this is what he +would like to do; reminding me, however, that the first lesson of his +greatness has been precisely that he can't do what he likes. Mrs. +Wimbush would never forgive him if he should leave her before the +Princess has received the last hand. When I say that a violent rupture +with our hostess would be the best thing in the world for him he gives +me to understand that if his reason assents to the proposition his +courage hangs wofully back. He makes no secret of being mortally afraid +of her, and when I ask what harm she can do him that she hasn't already +done he simply repeats: 'I'm afraid, I'm afraid! Don't inquire too +closely,' he said last night; 'only believe that I feel a sort of +terror. It's strange, when she's so kind! At any rate, I would as soon +overturn that piece of priceless Sèvres as tell her that I must go +before my date.' It sounds dreadfully weak, but he has some reason, and +he pays for his imagination, which puts him (I should hate it) in the +place of others and makes him feel, even against himself, their +feelings, their appetites, their motives. He's so beastly intelligent. +Besides, the famous reading is still to come off, and it has been +postponed a day, to allow Guy Walsingham to arrive. It appears that this +eminent lady is staying at a house a few miles off, which means of +course that Mrs. Wimbush has forcibly annexed her. She's to come over in +a day or two--Mrs. Wimbush wants her to hear Mr. Paraday. + +"To-day's wet and cold, and several of the company, at the invitation of +the Duke, have driven over to luncheon at Bigwood. I saw poor Paraday +wedge himself, by command, into the little supplementary seat of a +brougham in which the Princess and our hostess were already ensconced. +If the front glass isn't open on his dear old back perhaps he'll +survive. Bigwood, I believe, is very grand and frigid, all marble and +precedence, and I wish him well out of the adventure. I can't tell you +how much more and more _your_ attitude to him, in the midst of all this, +shines out by contrast. I never willingly talk to these people about +him, but see what a comfort I find it to scribble to you! I appreciate +it; it keeps me warm; there are no fires in the house. Mrs. Wimbush goes +by the calendar, the temperature goes by the weather, the weather goes +by God knows what, and the Princess is easily heated. I have nothing but +my acrimony to warm me, and have been out under an umbrella to restore +my circulation. Coming in an hour ago, I found Lady Augusta Minch +rummaging about the hall. When I asked her what she was looking for she +said she had mislaid something that Mr. Paraday had lent her. I +ascertained in a moment that the article in question is a manuscript, +and I have a foreboding that it's the noble morsel he read me six weeks +ago. When I expressed my surprise that he should have passed about +anything so precious (I happen to know it's his only copy--in the most +beautiful hand in all the world) Lady Augusta confessed to me that she +had not had it from himself, but from Mrs. Wimbush, who had wished to +give her a glimpse of it as a salve for her not being able to stay and +hear it read. + +"'Is that the piece he's to read,' I asked, 'when Guy Walsingham +arrives?' + +"'It's not for Guy Walsingham they're waiting now, it's for Dora +Forbes,' Lady Augusta said. 'She's coming, I believe, early to-morrow. +Meanwhile Mrs. Wimbush has found out about _him_ and is actively wiring +to him. She says he also must hear him.' + +"'You bewilder me a little,' I replied; 'in the age we live in one gets +lost among the genders and the pronouns. The clear thing is that Mrs. +Wimbush doesn't guard such a treasure as jealously as she might.' + +"'Poor dear, she has the Princess to guard! Mr. Paraday lent her the +manuscript to look over.' + +"'Did she speak as if it were the morning paper?' + +"Lady Augusta stared--my irony was lost upon her. 'She didn't have time, +so she gave me a chance first; because unfortunately I go to-morrow to +Bigwood.' + +"'And your chance has only proved a chance to lose it?' + +"'I haven't lost it. I remember now--it was very stupid of me to have +forgotten. I told my maid to give it to Lord Dorimont--or at least to +his man.' + +"'And Lord Dorimont went away directly after luncheon.' + +"'Of course he gave it back to my maid--or else his man did,' said Lady +Augusta. 'I daresay it's all right.' + +"The conscience of these people is like a summer sea. They haven't time +to 'look over' a priceless composition; they've only time to kick it +about the house. I suggested that the 'man,' fired with a noble +emulation, had perhaps kept the work for his own perusal; and her +ladyship wanted to know whether, if the thing didn't turn up again in +time for the session appointed by our hostess, the author wouldn't have +something else to read that would do just as well. Their questions are +too delightful! I declared to Lady Augusta briefly that nothing in the +world can ever do as well as the thing that does best; and at this she +looked a little confused and scared. But I added that if the manuscript +had gone astray our little circle would have the less of an effort of +attention to make. The piece in question was very long--it would keep +them three hours. + +"'Three hours! Oh, the Princess will get up!' said Lady Augusta. + +"'I thought she was Mr. Paraday's greatest admirer.' + +"'I daresay she is--she's so awfully clever. But what's the use of being +a Princess----' + +"'If you can't dissemble your love?' I asked, as Lady Augusta was vague. +She said, at any rate, that she would question her maid; and I am hoping +that when I go down to dinner I shall find the manuscript has been +recovered." + + + X + +"It has not been recovered," I wrote early the next day, "and I am +moreover much troubled about our friend. He came back from Bigwood with +a chill and, being allowed to have a fire in his room, lay down a while +before dinner. I tried to send him to bed and indeed thought I had put +him in the way of it; but after I had gone to dress Mrs. Wimbush came up +to see him, with the inevitable result that when I returned I found him +under arms and flushed and feverish, though decorated with the rare +flower she had brought him for his button-hole. He came down to dinner, +but Lady Augusta Minch was very shy of him. To-day he's in great pain, +and the advent of those ladies--I mean of Guy Walsingham and Dora +Forbes--doesn't at all console me. It does Mrs. Wimbush, however, for +she has consented to his remaining in bed, so that he may be all right +to-morrow for the _séance_. Guy Walsingham is already on the scene, and +the doctor, for Paraday, also arrived early. I haven't yet seen the +author of 'Obsessions,' but of course I've had a moment by myself with +the doctor. I tried to get him to say that our invalid must go straight +home--I mean to-morrow or next day; but he quite refuses to talk about +the future. Absolute quiet and warmth and the regular administration of +an important remedy are the points he mainly insists on. He returns this +afternoon, and I'm to go back to see the patient at one o'clock, when he +next takes his medicine. It consoles me a little that he certainly won't +be able to read--an exertion he was already more than unfit for. Lady +Augusta went off after breakfast, assuring me that her first care would +be to follow up the lost manuscript. I can see she thinks me a shocking +busybody and doesn't understand my alarm, but she will do what she can, +for she's a good-natured woman. 'So are they all honourable men.' That +was precisely what made her give the thing to Lord Dorimont and made +Lord Dorimont bag it. What use _he_ has for it God only knows. I have +the worst forebodings, but somehow I'm strangely without +passion--desperately calm. As I consider the unconscious, the +well-meaning ravages of our appreciative circle I bow my head in +submission to some great natural, some universal accident; I'm rendered +almost indifferent, in fact quite gay (ha-ha!) by the sense of +immitigable fate. Lady Augusta promises me to trace the precious object +and let me have it, through the post, by the time Paraday is well +enough to play his part with it. The last evidence is that her maid did +give it to his lordship's valet. One would think it was some thrilling +number of _The Family Budget_. Mrs. Wimbush, who is aware of the +accident, is much less agitated by it than she would doubtless be were +she not for the hour inevitably engrossed with Guy Walsingham." + +Later in the day I informed my correspondent, for whom indeed I kept a +sort of diary of the situation, that I had made the acquaintance of this +celebrity and that she was a pretty little girl who wore her hair in +what used to be called a crop. She looked so juvenile and so innocent +that if, as Mr. Morrow had announced, she was resigned to the larger +latitude, her fortitude must have come to her early. I spent most of the +day hovering about Neil Paraday's room, but it was communicated to me +from below that Guy Walsingham, at Prestidge, was a success. Towards +evening I became conscious somehow that her resignation was contagious +and by the time the company separated for the night I was sure that the +larger latitude had been generally accepted. I thought of Dora Forbes +and felt that he had no time to lose. Before dinner I received a +telegram from Lady Augusta Minch. "Lord Dorimont thinks he must have +left bundle in train--inquire." How could I inquire--if I was to take +the word as a command? I was too worried and now too alarmed about Neil +Paraday. The doctor came back, and it was an immense satisfaction to me +to feel that he was wise and interested. He was proud of being called to +so distinguished a patient, but he admitted to me that night that my +friend was gravely ill. It was really a relapse, a recrudescence of his +old malady. There could be no question of moving him: we must at any +rate see first, on the spot, what turn his condition would take. +Meanwhile, on the morrow, he was to have a nurse. On the morrow the +dear man was easier and my spirits rose to such cheerfulness that I +could almost laugh over Lady Augusta's second telegram: "Lord Dorimont's +servant been to station--nothing found. Push inquiries." I did laugh, I +am sure, as I remembered this was the mystic scroll I had scarcely +allowed poor Mr. Morrow to point his umbrella at. Fool that I had been: +the thirty-seven influential journals wouldn't have destroyed it, they +would only have printed it. Of course I said nothing to Paraday. + +When the nurse arrived she turned me out of the room, on which I went +downstairs. I should premise that at breakfast the news that our +brilliant friend was doing well excited universal complacency, and the +Princess graciously remarked that he was only to be commiserated for +missing the society of Miss Collop. Mrs. Wimbush, whose social gift +never shone brighter than in the dry decorum with which she accepted +this blemish on her perfection, mentioned to me that Guy Walsingham had +made a very favourable impression on her Imperial Highness. Indeed I +think everyone did so and that, like the money-market or the national +honour, her Imperial Highness was constitutionally sensitive. There was +a certain gladness, a perceptible bustle in the air, however, which I +thought slightly anomalous in a house where a great author lay +critically ill. "_Le roy est mort--vive le roy_": I was reminded that +another great author had already stepped into his shoes. When I came +down again after the nurse had taken possession I found a strange +gentleman hanging about the hall and pacing to and fro by the closed +door of the drawing-room. This personage was florid and bald, he had a +big red moustache and wore showy knickerbockers--characteristics all +that fitted into my conception of the identity of Dora Forbes. In a +moment I saw what had happened: the author of "The Other Way Round" had +just alighted at the portals of Prestidge, but had suffered a scruple to +restrain him from penetrating further. I recognised his scruple when, +pausing to listen at his gesture of caution, I heard a shrill voice +lifted in a prolonged monotonous quaver. The famous reading had begun, +only it was the author of "Obsessions" who now furnished the sacrifice. +The new visitor whispered to me that he judged something was going on +that he oughtn't to interrupt. + +"Miss Collop arrived last night," I smiled, "and the Princess has a +thirst for the _inédit_." + +Dora Forbes lifted his bushy brows. "Miss Collop?" + +"Guy Walsingham, your distinguished _confrère_--or shall I say your +formidable rival?" + +"Oh!" growled Dora Forbes. Then he added: "Shall I spoil it if I go in?" + +"I should think nothing could spoil it!" I ambiguously laughed. + +Dora Forbes evidently felt the dilemma; he gave an irritated crook to +his moustache. "_Shall_ I go in?" he presently asked. + +We looked at each other hard a moment; then I expressed something bitter +that was in me, expressed it in an infernal "Yes!" After this I got out +into the air, but not so quickly as not to hear, as the door of the +drawing-room opened, the disconcerted drop of Miss Collop's public +manner: she must have been in the midst of the larger latitude. +Producing with extreme rapidity, Guy Walsingham has just published a +work in which amiable people who are not initiated have been pained to +see the genius of a sister-novelist held up to unmistakable ridicule; so +fresh an exhibition does it seem to them of the dreadful way men have +always treated women. Dora Forbes, it is true, at the present hour, is +immensely pushed by Mrs. Wimbush, and has sat for his portrait to the +young artists she protects, sat for it not only in oils but in +monumental alabaster. + +What happened at Prestidge later in the day is of course contemporary +history. If the interruption I had whimsically sanctioned was almost a +scandal, what is to be said of that general dispersal of the company +which, under the doctor's rule, began to take place in the evening? His +rule was soothing to behold, small comfort as I was to have at the end. +He decreed in the interest of his patient an absolutely soundless house +and a consequent break-up of the party. Little country practitioner as +he was, he literally packed off the Princess. She departed as promptly +as if a revolution had broken out, and Guy Walsingham emigrated with +her. I was kindly permitted to remain, and this was not denied even to +Mrs. Wimbush. The privilege was withheld indeed from Dora Forbes; so +Mrs. Wimbush kept her latest capture temporarily concealed. This was so +little, however, her usual way of dealing with her eminent friends that +a couple of days of it exhausted her patience, and she went up to town +with him in great publicity. The sudden turn for the worse her afflicted +guest had, after a brief improvement, taken on the third night raised an +obstacle to her seeing him before her retreat; a fortunate circumstance +doubtless, for she was fundamentally disappointed in him. This was not +the kind of performance for which she had invited him to Prestidge, or +invited the Princess. Let me hasten to add that none of the generous +acts which have characterised her patronage of intellectual and other +merit have done so much for her reputation as her lending Neil Paraday +the most beautiful of her numerous homes to die in. He took advantage to +the utmost of the singular favour. Day by day I saw him sink, and I +roamed alone about the empty terraces and gardens. His wife never came +near him, but I scarcely noticed it: as I paced there with rage in my +heart I was too full of another wrong. In the event of his death it +would fall to me perhaps to bring out in some charming form, with notes, +with the tenderest editorial care, that precious heritage of his written +project. But where _was_ that precious heritage, and were both the +author and the book to have been snatched from us? Lady Augusta wrote me +that she had done all she could and that poor Lord Dorimont, who had +really been worried to death, was extremely sorry. I couldn't have the +matter out with Mrs. Wimbush, for I didn't want to be taunted by her +with desiring to aggrandise myself by a public connection with Mr. +Paraday's sweepings. She had signified her willingness to meet the +expense of all advertising, as indeed she was always ready to do. The +last night of the horrible series, the night before he died, I put my +ear closer to his pillow. + +"That thing I read you that morning, you know." + +"In your garden--that dreadful day? Yes!" + +"Won't it do as it is?" + +"It would have been a glorious book." + +"It _is_ a glorious book," Neil Paraday murmured. "Print it as it +stands--beautifully." + +"Beautifully!" I passionately promised. + +It may be imagined whether, now that he has gone, the promise seems to +me less sacred. I am convinced that if such pages had appeared in his +lifetime the Abbey would hold him to-day. I have kept the advertising in +my own hands, but the manuscript has not been recovered. It's +impossible, and at any rate intolerable, to suppose it can have been +wantonly destroyed. Perhaps some chance blundering hand, some brutal +ignorance has lighted kitchen-fires with it. Every stupid and hideous +accident haunts my meditations. My undiscourageable search for the lost +treasure would make a long chapter. Fortunately I have a devoted +associate in the person of a young lady who has every day a fresh +indignation and a fresh idea and who maintains with intensity that the +prize will still turn up. Sometimes I believe her, but I have quite +ceased to believe myself. The only thing for us, at all events, is to go +on seeking and hoping together; and we should be closely united by this +firm tie even were we not at present by another. + + + + +L'Education Sentimentale + + By Aubrey Beardsley + +_Reproduced by the Swan Electric Engraving Company_ + +[Illustration: L'Education Sentimentale] + + + + +Tree-Worship + + By Richard Le Gallienne + + + Vast and mysterious brother, ere was yet of me + So much as men may poise upon a needle's end, + Still shook with laughter all this monstrous might of thee, + And still with haughty crest it called the morning friend. + + Thy latticed column jetted up the bright blue air, + Tall as a mast it was, and stronger than a tower; + Three hundred winters had beheld thee mighty there, + Before my little life had lived one little hour. + + With rocky foot stern-set like iron in the land, + With leafy rustling crest the morning sows with pearls, + Huge as a minster, half in heaven men saw thee stand, + Thy rugged girth the waists of fifty Eastern girls. + + Knotted and warted, slabbed and armoured like the hide + Of tropic elephant; unstormable and steep + As some grim fortress with a princess-pearl inside, + Where savage guardian faces beard the bastioned keep: + + So hard a rind, old tree, shielding so soft a heart, + A woman's heart of tender little nestling leaves; + Nor rind so hard but that a touch so soft can part, + And spring's first baby-bud an easy passage cleaves. + + I picture thee within with dainty satin sides, + Where all the long day through the sleeping dryad dreams, + But when the moon bends low and taps thee thrice she glides, + Knowing the fairy knock, to bask within her beams. + + And all the long night through, for him with eyes and ears, + She sways within thine arms and sings a fairy tune, + Till, startled with the dawn, she softly disappears, + And sleeps and dreams again until the rising moon. + + But with the peep of day great bands of heavenly birds + Fill all thy branchy chambers with a thousand flutes, + And with the torrid noon stroll up the weary herds, + To seek thy friendly shade and doze about thy roots; + + Till with the setting sun they turn them once more home: + And, ere the moon dawns, for a brief enchanted space, + Weary with million miles, the sore-spent star-beams come, + And moths and bats hold witches' sabbath in the place. + + And then I picture thee some bloodstained Holyrood, + Dread haunted palace of the bat and owl, whence steal, + Shrouded all day, lost murdered spirits of the wood, + And fright young happy nests with homeless hoot and squeal. + + Some Rizzio nightingale that plained adulterous love + Beneath the boudoir-bough of some fast-married bird, + Some dove that cooed to some one else's lawful dove, + And felt the dagger-beak pierce while his lady heard. + + Then, maybe, dangling from thy gloomy gallows boughs, + A human corpse swings, mournful, rattling bones and chains-- + His eighteenth century flesh hath fattened nineteenth century cows-- + Ghastly Æolian harp fingered of winds and rains. + + Poor Rizpah comes to reap each newly-fallen bone + That once thrilled soft, a little limb, within her womb; + And mark yon alchemist, with zodiac-spangled zone, + Wrenching the mandrake root that fattens in the gloom. + + So rounds thy day, from maiden morn to haunted night, + From larks and sunlit dreams to owl and gibbering ghost; + A catacomb of dark, a sponge of living light, + To the wide sea of air a green and welcome coast. + + I seek a god, old tree: accept my worship, thou! + All other gods have failed me always in my need. + I hang my votive song beneath thy temple bough, + Unto thy strength I cry--Old monster, be my creed! + + Give me to clasp this earth with feeding roots like thine, + To mount yon heaven with such star-aspiring head, + Fill full with sap and buds this shrunken life of mine, + And from my boughs O might such stalwart sons be shed! + + With loving cheek pressed close against thy horny breast, + I hear the roar of sap mounting within thy veins; + Tingling with buds, thy great hands open towards the west, + To catch the sweetheart wind that brings the sister rains. + + O winds that blow from out the fruitful mouth of God, + O rains that softly fall from his all-loving eyes, + You that bring buds to trees and daisies to the sod, + O God's best Angel of the Spring, in me arise. + + + +Le Puy en Velay + + By Joseph Pennell + +_Reproduced by the Swan Electric Engraving Company_ + +[Illustration: Le Puy en Velay] + + + + +A Defence of Cosmetics + + By Max Beerbohm + + +Nay, but it is useless to protest. Artifice must queen it once more in +the town, and so, if there be any whose hearts chafe at her return, let +them not say, "We have come into evil times," and be all for resistance, +reformation or angry cavilling. For did the king's sceptre send the sea +retrograde, or the wand of the sorcerer avail to turn the sun from its +old course? And what man or what number of men ever stayed that +reiterated process by which the cities of this world grow, are very +strong, fail and grow again? Indeed, indeed, there is charm in every +period, and only fools and flutterpates do not seek reverently for what +is charming in their own day. No martyrdom, however fine, nor satire, +however splendidly bitter, has changed by a little tittle the known +tendency of things. It is the times that can perfect us, not we the +times, and so let all of us wisely acquiesce. Like the little wired +marionettes, let us acquiesce in the dance. + +For behold! The Victorian era comes to its end and the day of sancta +simplicitas is quite ended. The old signs are here and the portents to +warn the seer of life that we are ripe for a new epoch of artifice. Are +not men rattling the dice-box and ladies dipping their fingers in the +rouge-pots? At Rome, in the keenest time of her degringolade, when there +was gambling even in the holy temples, great ladies (does not Lucian +tell us?) did not scruple to squander all they had upon unguents from +Arabia. Nero's mistress and unhappy wife, Poppæa, of shameful memory, +had in her travelling retinue fifteen--or, as some say, +fifty--she-asses, for the sake of their milk, that was thought an +incomparable guard against cosmetics with poison in them. Last century, +too, when life was lived by candle-light, and ethics was but etiquette, +and even art a question of punctilio, women, we know, gave the best +hours of the day to the crafty farding of their faces and the towering +of their coiffures. And men, throwing passion into the wine-bowl to sink +or swim, turned out thought to browse upon the green cloth. Cannot we +even now in our fancy see them, those silent exquisites round the long +table at Brooks', masked, all of them, "lest the countenance should +betray feeling," in quinze masks, through whose eyelets they sat +peeping, peeping, while macao brought them riches or ruin? We can see +them, those silent rascals, sitting there with their cards and their +rouleaux and their wooden money-bowls, long after the dawn had crept up +St. James' and pressed its haggard face against the window of the little +club. Yes, we can raise their ghosts--and, more, we can see manywhere a +devotion to hazard fully as meek as theirs. In England there has been a +wonderful revival of cards. Roulette may rival dead faro in the tale of +her devotees. Her wheel is spinning busily in every house and ere long +it may be that tender parents will be writing to complain of the +compulsory baccarat in our public schools. + +In fact, we are all gamblers once more, but our gambling is on a finer +scale than ever it was. We fly from the card-room to the heath, and from +the heath to the City, and from the City to the coast of the +Mediterranean. And just as no one seriously encourages the clergy in its +frantic efforts to lay the spirit of chance, that has thus resurged +among us, so no longer are many faces set against that other great sign +of a more complicated life, the love for cosmetics. No longer is a lady +of fashion blamed if, to escape the outrageous persecution of time, she +fly for sanctuary to the toilet-table; and if a damosel, prying in her +mirror, be sure that with brush and pigment she can trick herself into +more charm, we are not angry. Indeed, why should we ever have been? +Surely it is laudable, this wish to make fair the ugly and overtop +fairness, and no wonder that within the last five years the trade of the +makers of cosmetics has increased immoderately--twentyfold, so one of +these makers has said to me. We need but walk down any modish street and +peer into the little broughams that flit past, or (in Thackeray's +phrase) under the bonnet of any woman we meet, to see over how wide a +kingdom rouge reigns. We men, who, from Juvenal down to that +discourteous painter of whom Lord Chesterfield tells us, have especially +shown a dislike of cosmetics, are quite yielding; and there are, I +fancy, many such husbands as he who, suddenly realising that his wife +was painted, bad her sternly, "Go up and take it all off," and, on her +reappearance, bad her with increasing sternness, "Go up and put it all +on again." + +But now that the use of pigments is becoming general, and most women are +not so young as they are painted, it may be asked curiously how the +prejudice ever came into being. Indeed, it is hard to trace folly, for +that it is inconsequent, to its start; and perhaps it savours too much +of reason to suggest that the prejudice was due to the tristful +confusion man has made of soul and surface. Through trusting so keenly +to the detection of the one by keeping watch upon the other, and by +force of the thousand errors following, he has come to think of surface +even as the reverse of soul. He supposes that every clown beneath his +paint and lip-salve is moribund and knows it, (though in verity, I am +told, clowns are as cheerful a class of men as any other), that the +fairer the fruit's rind and the more delectable its bloom, the closer +are packed the ashes within it. The very jargon of the hunting-field +connects cunning with a mask. And so perhaps came man's anger at the +embellishment of women--that lovely mask of enamel with its shadows of +pink and tiny pencilled veins, what must lurk behind it? Of what +treacherous mysteries may it not be the screen? Does not the heathen +lacquer her dark face, and the harlot paint her cheeks, because sorrow +has made them pale? + +After all, the old prejudice is a-dying. We need not pry into the secret +of its birth. Rather is this a time of jolliness and glad indulgence. +For the era of rouge is upon us, and as only in an elaborate era can man +by the tangled accrescency of his own pleasures and emotions reach that +refinement which is his highest excellence, and by making himself, so to +say, independent of Nature, come nearest to God, so only in an elaborate +era is woman perfect. Artifice is the strength of the world, and in that +same mask of paint and powder, shadowed with vermeil tinct and most +trimly pencilled, is woman's strength. + +For see! We need not look so far back to see woman under the direct +influence of Nature. Early in this century, our grandmothers, sickening +of the odour of faded exotics and spilt wine, came out into the daylight +once more and let the breezes blow around their faces and enter, sharp +and welcome, into their lungs. Artifice they drove forth, and they set +Martin Tupper upon a throne of mahogany to rule over them. A very reign +of terror set in. All things were sacrificed to the fetish Nature. Old +ladies may still be heard to tell how, when they were girls, affectation +was not; and, if we verify their assertion in the light of such literary +authorities as Dickens, we find that it is absolutely true. Women appear +to have been in those days utterly natural in their conduct--flighty, +gushing, blushing, fainting, giggling and shaking their curls. They knew +no reserve in the first days of the Victorian era. No thought was held +too trivial, no emotion too silly, to express. To Nature everything was +sacrificed. Great heavens! And in those barren days what influence was +exerted by women? By men they seem not to have been feared nor loved, +but regarded rather as "dear little creatures" or "wonderful little +beings," and in their relation to life as foolish and ineffectual as the +landscapes they did in water-colour. Yet, if the women of those years +were of no great account, they had a certain charm and they at least had +not begun to trespass upon men's ground; if they touched not thought, +which is theirs by right, at any rate they refrained from action, which +is ours. Far more serious was it when, in the natural trend of time, +they became enamoured of rinking and archery and galloping along the +Brighton Parade. Swiftly they have sped on since then from horror to +horror. The invasion of the tennis-courts and of the golf-links, the +seizure of the tricycle and of the type-writer, were but steps +preliminary in that campaign which is to end with the final victorious +occupation of St. Stephen's. But stay! The horrific pioneers of +womanhood who gad hither and thither and, confounding wisdom with the +device on her shield, shriek for the unbecoming, are doomed. Though they +spin their tricycle-treadles so amazingly fast, they are too late. +Though they scream victory, none follow them. Artifice, that fair exile, +has returned. + +Yes, though the pioneers know it not, they are doomed already. For of +the curiosities of history not the least strange is the manner in which +two social movements may be seen to overlap, long after the second has, +in truth, given its deathblow to the first. And, in like manner as one +has seen the limbs of a murdered thing in lively movement, so we need +not doubt that, though the voices of those who cry out for reform be +very terribly shrill, they will soon be hushed. Dear Artifice is with +us. It needed but that we should wait. + +Surely, without any of my pleading, women will welcome their great and +amiable protectrix, as by instinct. For (have I not said?) it is upon +her that all their strength, their life almost, depends. Artifice's +first command to them is that they should repose. With bodily activity +their powder will fly, their enamel crack. They are butterflies who must +not flit, if they love their bloom. Now, setting aside the point of view +of passion, from which very many obvious things might be said, (and +probably have been by the minor poets), it is, from the intellectual +point of view, quite necessary that a woman should repose. Hers is the +resupinate sex. On her couch she is a goddess, but so soon as ever she +put her foot to the ground--lo, she is the veriest little sillypop and +quite done for. She cannot rival us in action, but she is our mistress +in the things of the mind. Let her not by second-rate athletics, nor +indeed by any exercise soever of the limbs, spoil the pretty procedure +of her reason. Let her be content to remain the guide, the subtle +suggester of what _we_ must do, the strategist whose soldiers we are, +the little architect whose workmen. + +"After all," as a pretty girl once said to me, "women are a sex by +themselves, so to speak," and the sharper the line between their worldly +functions and ours, the better. This greater swiftness and less erring +subtlety of mind, their forte and privilege, justifies the painted mask +that Artifice bids them wear. Behind it their minds can play without +let. They gain the strength of reserve. They become important, as in the +days of the Roman Empire were the Emperor's mistresses, as was the +Pompadour at Versailles, as was our Elizabeth. Yet do not their faces +become lined with thought; beautiful and without meaning are their +faces. + +And, truly, of all the good things that will happen with the full +renascence of cosmetics, one of the best is that surface will finally be +severed from soul. That damnable confusion will be solved by the +extinguishing of a prejudice which, as I suggest, itself created. Too +long has the face been degraded from its rank as a thing of beauty to a +mere vulgar index of character or emotion. We had come to troubling +ourselves, not with its charm of colour and line, but with such +questions as whether the lips were sensuous, the eyes full of sadness, +the nose indicative of determination. I have no quarrel with +physiognomy. For my own part, I believe in it. But it has tended to +degrade the face æsthetically, in such wise as the study of cheirosophy +has tended to degrade the hand. And the use of cosmetics, the masking of +the face, will change this. We shall gaze at a woman merely because she +is beautiful, not stare into her face anxiously, as into the face of a +barometer. + +How fatal it has been, in how many ways, this confusion of soul and +surface! Wise were the Greeks in making plain masks for their mummers to +play in, and dunces we not to have done the same! Only the other day, an +actress was saying that what she was most proud of in her art--next, of +course, to having appeared in some provincial pantomime at the age of +three--was the deftness with which she contrived, in parts demanding a +rapid succession of emotions, to dab her cheeks quite quickly with rouge +from the palm of her right hand, or powder from the palm of her left. +Gracious goodness! why do not we have masks upon the stage? Drama is the +presentment of the soul in action. The mirror of the soul is the voice. +Let the young critics, who seek a cheap reputation for austerity, by +cavilling at "incidental music," set their faces rather against the +attempt to justify inferior dramatic art by the subvention of a quite +alien art like painting, of any art, indeed, whose sphere is only +surface. Let those, again, who sneer, so rightly, at the "painted +anecdotes of the Academy," censure equally the writers who trespass on +painter's ground. It is a proclaimed sin that a painter should concern +himself with a good little girl's affection for a Scotch greyhound, or +the keen enjoyment of their port by elderly gentlemen of the early +'forties. Yet, for a painter to prod the soul with his paint-brush is no +worse than for a novelist to refuse to dip under the surface, and the +fashion of avoiding a psychological study of grief by stating that the +owner's hair turned white in a single night, or of shame by mentioning a +sudden rush of scarlet to the cheeks, is as lamentable as may be. But! +But with the universal use of cosmetics and the consequent secernment of +soul and surface, which, at the risk of irritating a reader, I must +again insist upon, all those old properties that went to bolster up the +ordinary novel--the trembling lips, the flashing eyes, the determined +curve of the chin, the nervous trick of biting the moustache--aye and +the hectic spot of red on either cheek--will be made spiflicate, as the +puppets were spiflicated by Don Quixote. Yes, even now Demos begins to +discern. The same spirit that has revived rouge, smote his mouth as it +grinned at the wondrous painter of mist and river, and now sends him +sprawling for the pearls that Meredith dived for in the deep waters of +romance. + +Indeed the revival of cosmetics must needs be so splendid an influence, +conjuring boons innumerable, that one inclines almost to mutter against +that inexorable law by which Artifice must perish from time to time. +That such branches of painting as the staining of glass or the +illuminating of manuscripts should fall into disuse seems in comparison, +so likely; these were esoteric arts; they died with the monastic +spirit. But personal appearance is art's very basis. The painting of the +face is the first kind of painting man can have known. To make beautiful +things--is it not an impulse laid upon few? But to make oneself +beautiful is an universal instinct. Strange that the resultant art could +ever perish! So fascinating an art too! So various in its materials from +stimmis, psimythium and fuligo to bismuth and arsenic, so simple in that +its ground and its subject-matter are one, so marvellous in that its +very subject-matter becomes lovely when an artist has selected it! For +surely this is no idle nor fantastic saying. To deny that "making-up" is +an art, on the pretext that the finished work of its exponents depends +for beauty and excellence upon the ground chosen for the work, is +absurd. At the touch of a true artist, the plainest face turns comely. +As subject-matter the face is no more than suggestive, as ground, merely +a loom round which the beatus artifex may spin the threads of any golden +fabric: + + "Quae nunc nomen habent operosi signa Maronis + Pondus iners quondam duraque massa fuit. + Multa viros nescire decet; pars maxima rerum + Offendat, si non interiora tegas," + +and, as Ovid would seem to suggest, by pigments any tone may be set +aglow on a woman's cheek, from enamel the features take any form. +Insomuch that surely the advocates of soup-kitchens and free-libraries +and other devices for giving people what providence did not mean them to +receive, should send out pamphlets in the praise of self-embellishment. +For it will place Beauty within easy reach of many who could not +otherwise hope to attain it. + +But of course Artifice is rather exacting. In return for the repose she +forces--so wisely!--upon her followers when the sun is high or the moon +is blown across heaven, she demands that they should pay her long homage +at the sun's rising. The initiate may not enter lightly upon her +mysteries. For, if a bad complexion be inexcusable, to be ill-painted is +unforgivable; and when the toilet is laden once more with the fulness of +its elaboration, we shall hear no more of the proper occupation for +women. And think, how sweet an energy, to sit at the mirror of coquetry! +See the dear merits of the toilet as shown upon old vases, or upon the +walls of Roman dwellings, or, rather still, read Böttiger's alluring, +scholarly description of "Morgenscenen im Puttzimmer Einer Reichen +Römerin." Read of Sabina's face as she comes through the curtain of her +bed-chamber to the chamber of her toilet. The slave-girls have long been +chafing their white feet upon the marble floor. They stand, those timid +Greek girls, marshalled in little battalions. Each has her appointed +task, and all kneel in welcome as Sabina stalks, ugly and frowning, to +the toilet chair. Scaphion steps forth from among them, and, dipping a +tiny sponge in a bowl of hot milk, passes it lightly, ever so lightly, +over her mistress' face. The Poppæan pastes melt beneath it like snow. A +cooling lotion is poured over her brow and is fanned with feathers. +Phiale comes after, a clever girl, captured in some sea-skirmish in the +Aegean. In her left hand she holds the ivory box wherein are the phucus +and that white powder, psimythium; in her right a sheaf of slim brushes. +With how sure a touch does she mingle the colours, and in what sweet +proportion blushes and blanches her lady's upturned face. Phiale is the +cleverest of all the slaves. Now Calamis dips her quill in a certain +powder that floats, liquid and sable, in the hollow of her palm. +Standing upon tip-toe and with lips parted, she traces the arch of the +eyebrows. The slaves whisper loudly of their lady's beauty, and two of +them hold up a mirror to her. Yes, the eyebrows are rightly arched. But +why does Psecas abase herself? She is craving leave to powder Sabina's +hair with a fine new powder. It is made of the grated rind of the +cedar-tree, and a Gallic perfumer, whose stall is near the Circus, gave +it to her for a kiss. No lady in Rome knows of it. And so, when four +special slaves have piled up the head-dress, out of a perforated box +this glistening powder is showered. Into every little brown ringlet it +enters, till Sabina's hair seems like a pile of gold coins. Lest the +breezes send it flying, the girls lay the powder with sprinkled attar. +Soon Sabina will start for the Temple of Cybele. + +Ah! Such are the lures of the toilet that none will for long hold aloof +from them. Cosmetics are not going to be a mere prosaic remedy for age +or plainness, but all ladies and all young girls will come to love them. +Does not a certain blithe Marquise, whose _lettres intimes_ from the +Court of Louis Seize are less read than their wit would merit, tell us +how she was scandalised to see "_même les toutes jeunes demoiselles +émaillées comme ma tabatière_?" So it shall be with us. Surely the +common prejudice against painting the lily can but be based on mere +ground of economy. That which is already fair is complete, it may be +urged--urged implausibly, for there are not so many lovely things in +this world that we can afford not to know each one of them by heart. +There is only one white lily, and who that has ever seen--as I have--a +lily really well painted could grudge the artist so fair a ground for +his skill? Scarcely do you believe through how many nice metamorphoses a +lily may be passed by him. In like manner, we all know the young girl, +with her simpleness, her goodness, her wayward ignorance. And a very +charming ideal for England must she have been, and a very natural one, +when a young girl sat even on the throne. But no nation can keep its +ideal for ever and it needed none of Mr. Gilbert's delicate satire in +"Utopia" to remind us that she had passed out of our ken with the rest +of the early Victorian era. What writer of plays, as lately asked some +pressman, who had been told off to attend many first nights and knew +what he was talking about, ever dreams of making the young girl the +centre of his theme? Rather he seeks inspiration from the tried and +tired woman of the world, in all her intricate maturity, whilst, by way +of comic relief, he sends the young girl flitting in and out with a +tennis-racket, the poor eidôlon amauron of her former self. The +season of the unsophisticated is gone by, and the young girl's final +extinction beneath the rising tides of cosmetics will leave no gap in +life and will rob art of nothing. + +"Tush," I can hear some damned flutterpate exclaim, "girlishness and +innocence are as strong and as permanent as womanhood itself! Why, a few +months past, the whole town went mad over Miss Cissie Loftus! Was not +hers a success of girlish innocence and the absence of rouge? If such +things as these be outmoded, why was she so wildly popular?" Indeed, the +triumph of that clever girl, whose début made London nice even in +August, is but another witness to the truth of my contention. In a very +sophisticated time, simplicity has a new dulcedo. Hers was a success of +contrast. Accustomed to clever malaperts like Miss Lloyd or Miss Reeve, +whose experienced pouts and smiles under the sun-bonnet are a standing +burlesque of innocence and girlishness, Demos was really delighted, for +once and away, to see the real presentment of these things upon his +stage. Coming after all those sly serios, coming so young and mere with +her pink frock and straightly combed hair, Miss Cissie Loftus had the +charm which things of another period often do possess. Besides, just as +we adored her for the abrupt nod with which she was wont at first to +acknowledge the applause, so we were glad for her to come upon the +stage with nothing to tinge the ivory of her cheeks. It seemed so +strange, that neglect of convention. To be behind footlights and not +rouged! Yes, hers was a success of contrast. She was like a daisy in the +window at Solomons'. She was delightful. And yet, such is the force of +convention, that when last I saw her, playing in some burlesque at the +Gaiety, her fringe was curled and her pretty face rouged with the best +of them. And, if further need be to show the absurdity of having called +her performance "a triumph of naturalness over the jaded spirit of +modernity," let us reflect that the little mimic was not a real +old-fashioned girl after all. She had none of that restless naturalness +that would seem to have characterised the girl of the early Victorian +days. She had no pretty ways--no smiles nor blushes nor tremors. +Possibly Demos could not have stood a presentment of girlishness +unrestrained. + +But with her grave insouciance, Miss Cissie Loftus had much of the +reserve that is one of the factors of feminine perfection, and to most +comes only, as I have said, with artifice. Her features played very, +very slightly. And in truth, this may have been one of the reasons of +her great success. For expression is but too often the ruin of a face; +and, since we cannot as yet so order the circumstances of life that +women shall never be betrayed into "an unbecoming emotion," when the +brunette shall never have cause to blush, and the lady who looks well +with parted lips be kept in a permanent state of surprise, the safest +way by far is to create, by brush and pigments, artificial expressions +for every face. + +And this--say you?--will make monotony? You are mistaken, _toto coelo_ +mistaken. When your mistress has wearied you with one expression, then +it will need but a few touches of that pencil, a backward sweep of that +brush, and lo, you will be revelling in another. For though, of course, +the painting of the face is, in manner, most like the painting of +canvas, in outcome it is rather akin to the art of music--lasting, like +music's echo, not for very long. So that, no doubt, of the many little +appurtenances of the Reformed Toilet Table, not the least vital will be +a list of the emotions that become its owner, with recipes for +simulating them. According to the colour she wills her hair to be for +the time--black or yellow or, peradventure, burnished red--she will +blush for you, sneer for you, laugh or languish for you. The good +combinations of line and colour are nearly numberless, and by their +means poor restless woman will be able to realise her moods in all their +shades and lights and dappledoms, to live many lives and masquerade +through many moments of joy. No monotony will be. And for us men +matrimony will have lost its sting. + +But be it remembered! Though we men will garner these oblique boons, it +is into the hands of women that Artifice gives her pigments. I know, I +know that many men in a certain sect of society have shown a marked +tendency to the use of cosmetics. I speak not of the countless gentlemen +who walk about town in the time of its desertion from August to October, +artificially bronzed, as though they were fresh from the moors or from +the Solent. This, I conceive, is done for purely social reasons and need +not concern me here. Rather do I speak of those who make themselves up, +seemingly with an æsthetic purpose. Doubtless--I wish to be quite +just--there are many who look the better for such embellishment; but, at +the hazard of being thought old-fashioned and prejudiced, I cannot speak +of the custom with anything but strong disapproval. If men are to lie +among the rouge-pots, inevitably it will tend to promote that +amalgamation of the sexes which is one of the chief planks in the +decadent platform and to obtund that piquant contrast between him and +her, which is one of the redeeming features of creation. Besides, +really, men have not the excuse of facial monotony, that holds in the +case of women. Have we not hair upon our chins and upper lips? And can +we not, by diverting the trend of our moustache or by growing our beard +in this way or that, avoid the boredom of looking the same for long? Let +us beware. For if, in violation of unwritten sexual law, men take to +trifling with the paints and brushes that are feminine heritage, it may +be that our great ladies will don false imperials, and the little doner +deck her pretty chin with a Newgate fringe! After all, I think we need +not fear that many men will thus trespass. Most of them are in the City +nowadays, and the great wear and tear of that place would put their use +of rouge--that demands bodily repose from its dependents--quite outside +the range of practical æsthetics. + +But that in the world of women they will not neglect this art, so +ripping in itself, in its result so wonderfully beneficent, I am sure +indeed. Much, I have said, is already done for its full renascence. The +spirit of the age has made straight the path of its professors. Fashion +has made Jezebel surrender her monopoly of the rouge-pot. As yet, the +great art of self-embellishment is for us but in its infancy. But if +Englishwomen can bring it to the flower of an excellence so supreme as +never yet has it known, then, though Old England may lose her martial +and commercial supremacy, we patriots will have the satisfaction of +knowing that she has been advanced at one bound to a place in the +councils of æsthetic Europe. And, in sooth, is this hoping too high of +my countrywomen? True that, as the art seems always to have appealed to +the ladies of Athens, and it was not until the waning time of the +Republic that Roman ladies learned to love the practice of it, so Paris, +Athenian in this as in all other things, has been noted hitherto as a +far more vivid centre of the art than London. But it was in Rome, under +the Emperors, that unguentaria reached its zenith, and shall it not be +in London, soon, that unguentaria shall outstrip its Roman perfection? +Surely there must be among us artists as cunning in the use of brush and +puff as any who lived at Versailles. Surely the splendid, impalpable +advance of good taste, as shown in dress and in the decoration of +houses, may justify my hope of the preëminence of Englishwomen in the +cosmetic art. By their innate delicacy of touch they will accomplish +much, and much, of course, by their swift feminine perception. Yet it +were well that they should know something also of the theoretical side +of the craft. Modern authorities upon the mysteries of the toilet are, +it is true, rather few; but among the ancients many a writer would seem +to have been fascinated by them. Archigenes, a man of science at the +Court of Cleopatra, and Criton at the Court of the Emperor Trajan, both +wrote treatises upon cosmetics--doubtless most scholarly treatises that +would have given many a precious hint. It is a pity they are not extant. +From Lucian or from Juvenal, with his bitter picture of a Roman _levée_, +much may be learnt; from the staid pages of Xenophon and Aristophanes' +dear farces. But best of all is that fine book of the Ars Amatoria that +Ovid has set aside for the consideration of dyes, perfumes and pomades. +Written by an artist who knew the allurements of the toilet and +understood its philosophy, it remains without rival as a treatise upon +Artifice. It is more than a poem, it is a manual; and if there be left +in England any lady who cannot read Latin in the original, she will do +well to procure a discreet translation. In the Bodleian Library there is +treasured the only known copy of a very poignant and delightful +rendering of this one book of Ovid's masterpiece. It was made by a +certain Wye Waltonstall, who lived in the days of Elizabeth, and, seeing +that he dedicated it to "the Vertuous Ladyes and Gentlewomen of Great +Britain," I am sure that the gallant writer, could he know of our great +renascence of cosmetics, would wish his little work to be placed once +more within their reach. "Inasmuch as to you, ladyes and gentlewomen," +so he writes in his queer little dedication, "my booke of pigments doth +first addresse itself, that it may kisse your hands and afterward have +the lines thereof in reading sweetened by the odour of your breath, +while the dead letters formed into words by your divided lips may +receive new life by your passionate expression, and the words marryed in +that Ruby coloured temple may thus happily united, multiply your +contentment." It is rather sad to think that, at this crisis in the +history of pigments, the Vertuous Ladyes and Gentlewomen cannot read the +libellus of Wye Waltonstall, who did so dearly love pigments. + +But since the days when these great critics wrote their treatises, with +what gifts innumerable has Artifice been loaded by Science! Many little +partitions must be added to the narthecium before it can comprehend all +the new cosmetics that have been quietly devised since classical days, +and will make the modern toilet chalks away more splendid in its +possibilities. A pity that no one has devoted himself to the compiling +of a new list; but doubtless all the newest devices are known to the +admirable unguentarians of Bond Street, who will impart them to their +clients. Our thanks, too, should be given to Science for ridding us of +the old danger that was latent in the use of cosmetics. Nowadays they +cannot, being purged of any poisonous element, do harm to the skin that +they make beautiful. There need be no more sowing the seeds of +destruction in the furrows of time, no martyrs to the cause like +Georgina Gunning, that fair dame but infelix, who died, so they relate, +from the effect of a poisonous rouge upon her lips. No, we need have no +fears now. Artifice will claim not another victim from among her +worshippers. + +Loveliness shall sit at the toilet, watching her oval face in the oval +mirror. Her smooth fingers shall flit among the paints and powder, to +tip and mingle them, catch up a pencil, clasp a phial, and what not and +what _not_, until the mask of vermeil tinct has been laid aptly, the +enamel quite hardened. And, heavens, how she will charm us and ensorcel +our eyes! Positively rouge will rob us for a time of all our reason; we +shall go mad over masks. Was it not at Capua that they had a whole +street where nothing was sold but dyes and unguents? We must have such a +street, and, to fill our new Seplasia, our Arcade of the Unguents, herbs +and minerals and live creatures shall give of their substance. The white +cliffs of Albion shall be ground to powder for loveliness, and perfumed +by the ghost of many a little violet. The fluffy eider-ducks, that are +swimming round the pond, shall lose their feathers, that the powder-puff +may be moonlike as it passes over loveliness's lovely face. Even the +camels shall become ministers of delight, giving their hair in many +tufts to be stained by the paints in her colour-box, and across her +cheek the swift hare's foot shall fly as of old. The sea shall offer her +the phucus, its scarlet weed. We shall spill the blood of mulberries at +her bidding. And, as in another period of great ecstasy, a dancing +wanton, la belle Aubrey, was crowned upon a church's lighted altar, so +Arsenic, that "green-tress'd goddess," ashamed at length of skulking +between the soup of the unpopular and the test-tubes of the Queen's +analyst, shall be exalted to a place of highest honour upon loveliness's +toilet-table. + +All these things shall come to pass. Times of jolliness and glad +indulgence! For Artifice, whom we drove forth, has returned among us, +and, though her eyes are red with crying, she is smiling forgiveness. +She is kind. Let us dance and be glad, and trip the cockawhoop! +Artifice, sweetest exile, is come into her kingdom. Let us dance her a +welcome! + + + + +Daimonizomenos + + By Arthur Christopher Benson + + + You were clear as a sandy spring + After a drought, when its waters run + Evenly, sparingly, filtering + Into the eye of the sun. + + Love you took with a placid smile, + Pain you bore with a hopeful sigh, + Never a thought of gain or guile + Slept in your wide blue eye. + + Suddenly, once, at a trivial word,-- + Side by side together we stept,-- + Rose a tempest that swayed and stirred; + Over your soul it swept. + + Dismal visitants, suddenly, + Pulled the doors in your house of clay; + Out of the windows there stared at me + Something horrible, grey. + + + + +The Old Oxford Music Hall + + By Walter Sickert + +_Reproduced by the Swan Electric Engraving Company_ + +[Illustration: The Old Oxford Music Hall] + + + + +Irremediable + + By Ella D'Arcy + + +A young man strolled along a country road one August evening after a +long delicious day--a day of that blessed idleness the man of leisure +never knows: one must be a bank clerk forty-nine weeks out of the +fifty-two before one can really appreciate the exquisite enjoyment of +doing nothing for twelve hours at a stretch. Willoughby had spent the +morning lounging about a sunny rickyard; then, when the heat grew +unbearable, he had retreated to an orchard, where, lying on his back in +the long cool grass, he had traced the pattern of the apple-leaves +diapered above him upon the summer sky; now that the heat of the day was +over he had come to roam whither sweet fancy led him, to lean over +gates, view the prospect and meditate upon the pleasures of a well-spent +day. Five such days had already passed over his head, fifteen more +remained to him. Then farewell to freedom and clean country air! Back +again to London and another year's toil. + +He came to a gate on the right of the road. Behind it a foot-path +meandered up over a glassy slope. The sheep nibbling on its summit cast +long shadows down the hill almost to his feet. Road and field-path were +equally new to him, but the latter offered greener attractions; he +vaulted lightly over the gate and had so little idea he was taking thus +the first step towards ruin that he began to whistle "White Wings" from +pure joy of life. + +The sheep stopped feeding and raised their heads to stare at him from +pale-lashed eyes; first one and then another broke into a startled run, +until there was a sudden woolly stampede of the entire flock. When +Willoughby gained the ridge from which they had just scattered he came +in sight of a woman sitting on a stile at the further end of the field. +As he advanced towards her he saw that she was young and that she was +not what is called "a lady"--of which he was glad: an earlier episode in +his career having indissolubly associated in his mind ideas of feminine +refinement with those of feminine treachery. + +He thought it probable this girl would be willing to dispense with the +formalities of an introduction and that he might venture with her on +some pleasant foolish chat. + +As she made no movement to let him pass he stood still, and, looking at +her, began to smile. + +She returned his gaze from unabashed dark eyes and then laughed, showing +teeth white, sound, and smooth as split hazel-nuts. + +"Do you wanter get over?" she remarked familiarly. + +"I'm afraid I can't without disturbing you." + +"Dontcher think you're much better where you are?" said the girl, on +which Willoughby hazarded: + +"You mean to say looking at you? Well, perhaps I am!" + +The girl at this laughed again, but nevertheless dropped herself down +into the further field; then, leaning her arms upon the cross-bar, she +informed the young man: "No, I don't wanter spoil your walk. You were +goin' p'raps ter Beacon Point? It's very pretty that wye." + +"I was going nowhere in particular," he replied: "just exploring, so to +speak. I'm a stranger in these parts." + +"How funny! Imer stranger here too. I only come down larse Friday to +stye with a Naunter mine in Horton. Are you stying in Horton?" + +Willoughby told her he was not in Orton, but at Povey Cross Farm out in +the other direction. + +"Oh, Mrs. Payne's, ain't it? I've heard aunt speak ovver. She takes +summer boarders, don't chee? I egspec you come from London, heh?" + +"And I expect you come from London too?" said Willoughby, recognising +the familiar accent. + +"You're as sharp as a needle," cried the girl with her unrestrained +laugh; "so I do. I'm here for a hollerday 'cos I was so done up with the +work and the hot weather. I don't look as though I'd bin ill, do I? But +I was, though: for it was just stifflin' hot up in our workrooms all +larse month, an' tailorin's awful hard work at the bester times." + +Willoughby felt a sudden accession of interest in her. Like many +intelligent young men, he had dabbled a little in Socialism and at one +time had wandered among the dispossessed; but since then, had caught up +and held loosely the new doctrine--It is a good and fitting thing that +woman also should earn her bread by the sweat of her brow. Always in +reference to the woman who, fifteen months before, had treated him ill, +he had said to himself that even the breaking of stones in the road +should be considered a more feminine employment than the breaking of +hearts. + +He gave way therefore to a movement of friendliness for this working +daughter of the people, and joined her on the other side of the stile in +token of his approval. She, twisting round to face him, leaned now with +her back against the bar, and the sunset fires lent a fleeting glory to +her face. Perhaps she guessed how becoming the light was, for she took +off her hat and let it touch to gold the ends and fringes of her rough +abundant hair. Thus and at this moment she made an agreeable picture, to +which stood as background all the beautiful wooded Southshire view. + +"You don't really mean to say you are a tailoress?" said Willoughby with +a sort of eager compassion. + +"I do, though! An' I've bin one ever since I was fourteen. Look at my +fingers if you don't b'lieve me." + +She put out her right hand, and he took hold of it, as he was expected +to do. The finger-ends were frayed and blackened by needle-pricks, but +the hand itself was plump, moist, and not unshapely. She meanwhile +examined Willoughby's fingers enclosing hers. + +"It's easy ter see you've never done no work!" she said, half admiring, +half envious. "I s'pose you're a tip-top swell, ain't you?" + +"Oh, yes! I'm a tremendous swell indeed!" said Willoughby ironically. He +thought of his hundred and thirty pounds' salary; and he mentioned his +position in the British and Colonial Banking house, without shedding +much illumination on her mind; for she insisted: + +"Well, anyhow, you're a gentleman. I've often wished I was a lady. It +must be so nice ter wear fine clo'es an' never have ter do any work all +day long." + +Willoughby thought it innocent of the girl to say this; it reminded him +of his own notion as a child--that kings and queens put on their crowns +the first thing on rising in the morning. His cordiality rose another +degree. + +"If being a gentleman means having nothing to do," said he, smiling, "I +can certainly lay no claim to the title. Life isn't all beer and +skittles with me, any more than it is with you. Which is the better +reason for enjoying the present moment, don't you think? Suppose, now, +like a kind little girl, you were to show me the way to Beacon Point, +which you say is so pretty?" + +She required no further persuasion. As he walked beside her through the +upland fields where the dusk was beginning to fall, and the white +evening moths to emerge from their daytime hiding-places, she asked him +many personal questions, most of which he thought fit to parry. Taking +no offence thereat, she told him, instead, much concerning herself and +her family. Thus he learned her name was Esther Stables, that she and +her people lived Whitechapel way; that her father was seldom sober, and +her mother always ill; and that the aunt with whom she was staying kept +the post-office and general shop in Orton village. He learned, too, that +Esther was discontented with life in general; that, though she hated +being at home, she found the country dreadfully dull; and that, +consequently, she was extremely glad to have made his acquaintance. But +what he chiefly realised when they parted was that he had spent a couple +of pleasant hours talking nonsense with a girl who was natural, +simple-minded, and entirely free from that repellently protective +atmosphere with which a woman of the "classes" so carefully surrounds +herself. He and Esther had "made friends" with the ease and rapidity of +children before they have learned the dread meaning of "etiquette," and +they said good-night, not without some talk of meeting each other again. + +Obliged to breakfast at a quarter to eight in town, Willoughby was +always luxuriously late when in the country, where he took his meals +also in leisurely fashion, often reading from a book propped up on the +table before him. But the morning after his meeting with Esther Stables +found him less disposed to read than usual. Her image obtruded itself +upon the printed page, and at length grew so importunate he came to the +conclusion the only way to lay it was to confront it with the girl +herself. + +Wanting some tobacco, he saw a good reason for going into Orton. Esther +had told him he could get tobacco and everything else at her aunt's. He +found the post-office to be one of the first houses in the widely spaced +village-street. In front of the cottage was a small garden ablaze with +old-fashioned flowers; and in a larger garden at one side were +apple-trees, raspberry and currant bushes, and six thatched beehives on +a bench. The bowed windows of the little shop were partly screened by +sunblinds; nevertheless the lower panes still displayed a heterogeneous +collection of goods--lemons, hanks of yarn, white linen buttons upon +blue cards, sugar cones, churchwarden pipes, and tobacco jars. A +letter-box opened its narrow mouth low down in one wall, and over the +door swung the sign, "Stamps and money-order office," in black letters +on white enamelled iron. + +The interior of the shop was cool and dark. A second glass-door at the +back permitted Willoughby to see into a small sitting-room, and out +again through a low and square-paned window to the sunny landscape +beyond. Silhouetted against the light were the heads of two women: the +rough young head of yesterday's Esther, the lean outline and bugled cap +of Esther's aunt. + +It was the latter who at the jingling of the door-bell rose from her +work and came forward to serve the customer; but the girl, with much +mute meaning in her eyes and a finger laid upon her smiling mouth, +followed behind. Her aunt heard her footfall. "What do you want here, +Esther?" she said with thin disapproval; "get back to your sewing." + +Esther gave the young man a signal seen only by him and slipped out into +the side-garden, where he found her when his purchases were made. She +leaned over the privet-hedge to intercept him as he passed. + +"Aunt's an awful ole maid," she remarked apologetically; "I b'lieve +she'd never let me say a word to enny one if she could help it." + +"So you got home all right last night?" Willoughby inquired; "what did +your aunt say to you?" + +"Oh, she arst me where I'd been, and I tolder a lotter lies!" Then, with +woman's intuition, perceiving that this speech jarred, Esther made haste +to add, "She's so dreadful hard on me! I dursn't tell her I'd been with +a gentleman or she'd never have let me out alone again." + +"And at present I suppose you'll be found somewhere about that same +stile every evening?" said Willoughby foolishly, for he really did not +much care whether he met her again or not. Now he was actually in her +company he was surprised at himself for having given her a whole +morning's thought; yet the eagerness of her answer flattered him, too. + +"To-night I can't come, worse luck! It's Thursday, and the shops here +close of a Thursday at five. I'll havter keep aunt company. But +to-morrer?--I can be there to-morrer. You'll come, say?" + +"Esther!" cried a vexed voice, and the precise, right-minded aunt +emerged through the row of raspberry-bushes; "whatever are you thinking +about, delayin' the gentleman in this fashion?" She was full of rustic +and official civility for "the gentleman," but indignant with her niece. +"I don't want none of your London manners down here," Willoughby heard +her say as she marched the girl off. + +He himself was not sorry to be released from Esther's too friendly eyes, +and he spent an agreeable evening over a book, and this time managed to +forget her completely. + +Though he remembered her first thing next morning, it was to smile +wisely and determine he would not meet her again. Yet by dinner-time the +day seemed long; why, after all, should he not meet her? By tea-time +prudence triumphed anew--no, he would not go. Then he drank his tea +hastily and set off for the stile. + +Esther was waiting for him. Expectation had given an additional colour +to her cheeks, and her red-brown hair showed here and there a beautiful +glint of gold. He could not help admiring the vigorous way in which it +waved and twisted, or the little curls which grew at the nape of her +neck, tight and close as those of a young lamb's fleece. Her neck here +was admirable, too, in its smooth creaminess; and when her eyes lighted +up with such evident pleasure at his coming, how avoid the conviction +she was a good and nice girl after all? + +He proposed they should go down into the little copse on the right, +where they would be less disturbed by the occasional passerby. Here, +seated on a felled tree-trunk, Willoughby began that bantering silly +meaningless form of conversation known among the "classes" as flirting. +He had but the wish to make himself agreeable, and to while away the +time. Esther, however, misunderstood him. + +Willoughby's hand lay palm downwards on his knee, and she noticing a +ring which he wore on his little finger, took hold of it. + +"What a funny ring!" she said; "let's look?" + +To disembarrass himself of her touch he pulled the ring off and gave it +her to examine. + +"What's that ugly dark green stone?" she asked. + +"It's called a sardonyx." + +"What's it for?" she said, turning it about. + +"It's a signet ring, to seal letters with." + +"An' there's a sorter king's head scratched on it, an' some writin' too, +only I carn't make it out?" + +"It isn't the head of a king, although it wears a crown," Willoughby +explained, "but the head and bust of a Saracen against whom my ancestor +of many hundred years ago went to fight in the Holy Land. And the words +cut round it are the motto of our house, 'Vertue vaunceth,' which means +virtue prevails." + +Willoughby may have displayed some slight accession of dignity in giving +this bit of family history, for Esther fell into uncontrolled laughter, +at which he was much displeased. And when the girl made as though she +would put the ring on her own finger, asking, "Shall I keep it?" he +coloured up with sudden annoyance. + +"It was only my fun!" said Esther hastily, and gave him the ring back, +but his cordiality was gone. He felt no inclination to renew the +idle-word pastime, said it was time to go back, and, swinging his cane +vexedly, struck off the heads of the flowers and the weeds as he went. +Esther walked by his side in complete silence, a phenomenon of which he +presently became conscious. He felt rather ashamed of having shown +temper. + +"Well, here's your way home," said he with an effort at friendliness. +"Good-bye, we've had a nice evening anyhow. It was pleasant down there +in the woods, eh?" + +He was astonished to see her eyes soften with tears, and to hear the +real emotion in her voice as she answered, "It was just heaven down +there with you until you turned so funny-like. What had I done to make +you cross? Say you forgive me, do!" + +"Silly child!" said Willoughby, completely mollified, "I'm not the least +angry. There! good-bye!" and like a fool he kissed her. + +He anathematised his folly in the white light of next morning, and, +remembering the kiss he had given her, repented it very sincerely. He +had an uncomfortable suspicion she had not received it in the same +spirit in which it had been bestowed, but, attaching more serious +meaning to it, would build expectations thereon which must be left +unfulfilled. It were best indeed not to meet her again; for he +acknowledged to himself that, though he only half liked, and even +slightly feared, her, there was a certain attraction about her--was it +in her dark unflinching eyes or in her very red lips?--which might lead +him into greater follies still. + +Thus it came about that for two successive evenings Esther waited for +him in vain, and on the third evening he said to himself with a grudging +relief that by this time she had probably transferred her affections to +some one else. + +It was Saturday, the second Saturday since he left town. He spent the +day about the farm, contemplated the pigs, inspected the feeding of the +stock, and assisted at the afternoon milking. Then at evening, with a +refilled pipe, he went for a long lean over the west gate, while he +traced fantastic pictures and wove romances in the glories of the sunset +clouds. + +He watched the colours glow from gold to scarlet, change to crimson, +sink at last to sad purple reefs and isles, when the sudden +consciousness of some one being near him made him turn round. There +stood Esther, and her eyes were full of eagerness and anger. + +"Why have you never been to the stile again?" she asked him. "You +promised to come faithful, and you never came. Why have you not kep your +promise? Why?--why?" she persisted, stamping her foot because Willoughby +remained silent. + +What could he say! Tell her she had no business to follow him like this; +or own, what was, unfortunately, the truth, he was just a little glad to +see her? + +"P'raps you don't care to see me?" she said. "Well, why did you kiss me, +then?" + +Why, indeed! thought Willoughby, marvelling at his own idiotcy, and +yet--such is the inconsistency of man--not wholly without the desire to +kiss her again. And while he looked at her she suddenly flung herself +down on the hedge-bank at his feet and burst into tears. She did not +cover up her face, but simply pressed one cheek down upon the grass +while the water poured from her eyes with astonishing abundance. +Willoughby saw the dry earth turn dark and moist as it drank the tears +in. This, his first experience of Esther's powers of weeping, distressed +him horribly; never in his life before had he seen anyone weep like +that; he should not have believed such a thing possible, and he was +alarmed, too, lest she should be noticed from the house. He opened the +gate; "Esther!" he begged, "don't cry. Come out here, like a dear girl, +and let us talk sensibly." + +Because she stumbled, unable to see her way through wet eyes, he gave +her his hand, and they found themselves in a field of corn, walking +along the narrow grass-path that skirted it, in the shadow of the +hedgerow. + +"What is there to cry about because you have not seen me for two days?" +he began; "why, Esther, we are only strangers, after all. When we have +been at home a week or two we shall scarcely remember each other's +names." + +Esther sobbed at intervals, but her tears had ceased. "It's fine for you +to talk of home," she said to this. "You've got something that is a +home, I s'pose? But me! my home's like hell, with nothing but +quarrellin' and cursin', and father who beats us whether sober or drunk. +Yes!" she repeated shrewdly, seeing the lively disgust on Willoughby's +face, "he beat me, all ill as I was, jus' before I come away. I could +show you the bruises on my arms still. And now to go back there after +knowin' you! It'll be worse than ever. I can't endure it and I won't! +I'll put an end to it or myself somehow, I swear!" + +"But, my poor Esther, how can I help it, what can I do?" said +Willoughby. He was greatly moved, full of wrath with her father, with +all the world which makes women suffer. He had suffered himself at the +hands of a woman, and severely, but this, instead of hardening his +heart, had only rendered it the more supple. And yet he had a vivid +perception of the peril in which he stood. An interior voice urged him +to break away, to seek safety in flight even at the cost of appearing +cruel or ridiculous; so, coming to a point in the field where an +elm-bole jutted out across the path, he saw with relief he could now +withdraw his hand from the girl's, since they must walk singly to skirt +round it. + +Esther took a step in advance, stopped and suddenly turned to face him; +she held out her two hands and her face was very near his own. + +"Don't you care for me one little bit?" she said wistfully, and surely +sudden madness fell upon him. For he kissed her again, he kissed her +many times, and pushed all thoughts of the consequences far from him. + +But some of these consequences already called loudly to him as he and +Esther reached the last gate on the road to Orton. + +"You know I have only £130 a year?" he told her: "it's no very brilliant +prospect for you to marry me on that." + +For he had actually offered her marriage, although such conduct to the +mediocre man must appear incredible or at least uncalled for. But to +Willoughby it seemed the only course possible. How else justify his +kisses, rescue her from her father's brutality, or bring back the smiles +to her face? + +As for Esther, sudden exultation had leaped in her heart; then ere +fifty seconds were gone by, she was certain she would never have +consented to anything less. + +"O! I'me used to managin'," she told him confidently, and mentally +resolved to buy herself, so soon as she was married, a black feather +boa, such as she had coveted last winter. + +Willoughby spent the remaining days of his holiday in thinking out and +planning with Esther the details of his return to London and her own, +the secrecy to be observed, the necessary legal steps to be taken, and +the quiet suburb in which they would set up housekeeping. And, so +successfully did he carry out his arrangements, that within five weeks +from the day on which he had first met Esther Stables he and she came +out one morning from a church in Highbury husband and wife. It was a +mellow September day, the streets were filled with sunshine, and +Willoughby, in reckless high spirits, imagined he saw a reflection of +his own gaiety on the indifferent faces of the passers-by. There being +no one else to perform the office he congratulated himself very warmly, +and Esther's frequent laughter filled in the pauses of the day. + +Three months later Willoughby was dining with a friend, and the +hour-hand of the clock nearing ten the host no longer resisted the +guest's growing anxiety to be gone. He arose and exchanged with him good +wishes and good-byes. + +"Marriage is evidently a most successful institution," said he, half +jesting, half sincere; "you almost make me inclined to go and get +married myself. Confess now your thoughts have been at home the whole +evening?" + +Willoughby thus addressed turned red to the roots of his hair, but did +not deny the soft impeachment. + +The other laughed. "And very commendable they should be," he continued, +"since you are scarcely, so to speak, out of your honeymoon." + +With a social smile on his lips Willoughby calculated a moment before +replying, "I have been married exactly three months and three days;" +then, after a few words respecting their next meeting, the two shook +hands and parted, the young host to finish the evening with books and +pipe, the young husband to set out on a twenty minutes' walk to his +home. + +It was a cold clear December night following a day of rain. A touch of +frost in the air had dried the pavements, and Willoughby's footfall +ringing upon the stones re-echoed down the empty suburban street. Above +his head was a dark remote sky thickly powdered with stars, and as he +turned westward Alpherat hung for a moment "comme le point sur un _i_," +over the slender spire of St. John's. But he was insensible to the +worlds about him; he was absorbed in his own thoughts, and these, as his +friend had surmised, were entirely with his wife. For Esther's face was +always before his eyes, her voice was always in his ears, she filled the +universe for him; yet only four months ago he had never seen her, had +never heard her name. This was the curious part of it--here in December +he found himself the husband of a girl who was completely dependent upon +him not only for food, clothes, and lodging, but for her present +happiness, her whole future life; and last July he had been scarcely +more than a boy himself, with no greater care on his mind than the +pleasant difficulty of deciding where he should spend his annual three +weeks' holiday. + +But it is events, not months or years, which age. Willoughby, who was +only twenty-six, remembered his youth as a sometime companion +irrevocably lost to him; its vague, delightful hopes were now +crystallised into definite ties, and its happy irresponsibility +displaced by a sense of care inseparable perhaps from the most fortunate +of marriages. + +As he reached the street in which he lodged his pace involuntarily +slackened. While still some distance off his eye sought out and +distinguished the windows of the room in which Esther awaited him. +Through the broken slats of the Venetian blinds he could see the yellow +gaslight within. The parlour beneath was in darkness; his landlady had +evidently gone to bed, there being no light over the hall door either. +In some apprehension he consulted his watch under the last street-lamp +he passed, to find comfort in assuring himself it was only ten minutes +after ten. He let himself in with his latch-key, hung up his hat and +overcoat by the sense of touch, and, groping his way upstairs, opened +the door of the first floor sitting-room. + +At the table in the centre of the room sat his wife, leaning upon her +elbows, her two hands thrust up into her ruffled hair; spread out before +her was a crumpled yesterday's newspaper, and so interested was she to +all appearance in its contents that she neither spoke nor looked up as +Willoughby entered. Around her were the still uncleared tokens of her +last meal: tea-slops, bread-crumbs, and an eggshell crushed to fragments +upon a plate, which was one of those trifles that set Willoughby's teeth +on edge--whenever his wife ate an egg she persisted in turning the +egg-cup upside down upon the tablecloth, and pounding the shell to +pieces in her plate with her spoon. + +The room was repulsive in its disorder. The one lighted burner of the +gaselier, turned too high, hissed up into a long tongue of flame. The +fire smoked feebly under a newly administered shovelful of "slack," and +a heap of ashes and cinders littered the grate. A pair of walking boots, +caked in dry mud, lay on the hearthrug just where they had been thrown +off. On the mantelpiece, amidst a dozen other articles which had no +business there, was a bedroom-candlestick; and every single article of +furniture stood crookedly out of its place. + +Willoughby took in the whole intolerable picture, and yet spoke with +kindliness. "Well, Esther! I'm not so late, after all. I hope you did +not feel the time dull by yourself?" Then he explained the reason of his +absence. He had met a friend he had not seen for a couple of years, who +had insisted on taking him home to dine. + +His wife gave no sign of having heard him; she kept her eyes rivetted on +the paper before her. + +"You received my wire, of course," Willoughby went on, "and did not +wait?" + +Now she crushed the newspaper up with a passionate movement, and threw +it from her. She raised her head, showing cheeks blazing with anger, and +dark, sullen, unflinching eyes. + +"I did wyte then!" she cried. "I wyted till near eight before I got your +old telegraph! I s'pose that's what you call the manners of a +'gentleman,' to keep your wife mewed up here, while you go gallivantin' +off with your fine friends?" + +Whenever Esther was angry, which was often, she taunted Willoughby with +being a "gentleman," although this was the precise point about him which +at other times found most favour in her eyes. But to-night she was +envenomed by the idea he had been enjoying himself without her, stung by +fear lest he should have been in company with some other woman. + +Willoughby, hearing the taunt, resigned himself to the inevitable. +Nothing that he could do might now avert the breaking storm, all his +words would only be twisted into fresh griefs. But sad experience had +taught him that to take refuge in silence was more fatal still. When +Esther was in such a mood as this it was best to supply the fire with +fuel, that, through the very violence of the conflagration, it might the +sooner burn itself out. + +So he said what soothing things he could, and Esther caught them up, +disfigured them, and flung them back at him with scorn. She reproached +him with no longer caring for her; she vituperated the conduct of his +family in never taking the smallest notice of her marriage; and she +detailed the insolence of the landlady, who had told her that morning +she pitied "poor Mr. Willoughby," and had refused to go out and buy +herrings for Esther's early dinner. + +Every affront or grievance, real or imaginary, since the day she and +Willoughby had first met, she poured forth with a fluency due to +frequent repetition, for, with the exception of to-day's added injuries, +Willoughby had heard the whole litany many times before. + +While she raged and he looked at her, he remembered he had once thought +her pretty. He had seen beauty in her rough brown hair, her strong +colouring, her full red mouth. He fell into musing ... a woman may lack +beauty, he told himself, and yet be loved.... + +Meantime Esther reached white heats of passion, and the strain could no +longer be sustained. She broke into sobs and began to shed tears with +the facility peculiar to her. In a moment her face was all wet with the +big drops which rolled down her cheeks faster and faster and fell with +audible splashes on to the table, on to her lap, on to the floor. To +this tearful abundance, formerly a surprising spectacle, Willoughby was +now acclimatised; but the remnant of chivalrous feeling not yet +extinguished in his bosom forbade him to sit stolidly by while a woman +wept, without seeking to console her. As on previous occasions, his +peace-overtures were eventually accepted. Esther's tears gradually +ceased to flow, she began to exhibit a sort of compunction, she wished +to be forgiven, and, with the kiss of reconciliation, passed into a +phase of demonstrative affection perhaps more trying to Willoughby's +patience than all that had preceded it. "You don't love me?" she +questioned, "I'm sure you don't love me?" she reiterated; and he +asseverated that he loved her until he loathed himself. Then at last, +only half satisfied, but wearied out with vexation--possibly, too, with +a movement of pity at the sight of his haggard face--she consented to +leave him; only what was he going to do? she asked suspiciously: write +those rubbishing stories of his? Well, he must promise not to stay up +more than half an hour at the latest--only until he had smoked one pipe! + +Willoughby promised, as he would have promised anything on earth to +secure to himself a half-hour's peace and solitude. Esther groped for +her slippers, which were kicked off under the table; scratched four or +five matches along the box and threw them away before she succeeded in +lighting her candle; set it down again to contemplate her tear-swollen +reflection in the chimney-glass, and burst out laughing. + +"What a fright I do look, to be sure!" she remarked complacently, and +again thrust her two hands up through her disordered curls. Then, +holding the candle at such an angle that the grease ran over on to the +carpet, she gave Willoughby another vehement kiss and trailed out of the +room with an ineffectual attempt to close the door behind her. + +Willoughby got up to shut it himself, and wondered why it was that +Esther never did any one mortal thing efficiently or well. Good God! how +irritable he felt! It was impossible to write. He must find an outlet +for his impatience, rend or mend something. He began to straighten the +room, but a wave of disgust came over him before the task was fairly +commenced. What was the use? To-morrow all would be bad as ever. What +was the use of doing anything? He sat down by the table and leaned his +head upon his hands. + + * * * * * + +The past came back to him in pictures: his boyhood's past first of all. +He saw again the old home, every inch of which was familiar to him as +his own name; he reconstructed in his thought all the old well-known +furniture, and replaced it precisely as it had stood long ago. He passed +again a childish linger over the rough surface of the faded Utrecht +velvet chairs, and smelled again the strong fragrance of the white +lilac-tree, blowing in through the open parlour-window. He savoured anew +the pleasant mental atmosphere produced by the dainty neatness of +cultured women, the companionship of a few good pictures, of a few good +books. Yet this home had been broken up years ago, the dear familiar +things had been scattered far and wide, never to find themselves under +the same roof again; and from those near relatives who still remained to +him he lived now hopelessly estranged. + +Then came the past of his first love-dream, when he worshipped at the +feet of Nora Beresford, and, with the wholeheartedness of the true +fanatic, clothed his idol with every imaginable attribute of virtue and +tenderness. To this day there remained a secret shrine in his heart +wherein the Lady of his young ideal was still enthroned, although it was +long since he had come to perceive she had nothing whatever in common +with the Nora of reality. For the real Nora he had no longer any +sentiment: she had passed altogether out of his life and thoughts; and +yet, so permanent is all influence, whether good or evil, that the +effect she wrought upon his character remained. He recognised to-night +that her treatment of him in the past did not count for nothing among +the various factors which had determined his fate. + +Now the past of only last year returned, and, strangely enough, this +seemed farther removed from him than all the rest. He had been +particularly strong, well and happy this time last year. Nora was +dismissed from his mind, and he had thrown all his energies into his +work. His tastes were sane and simple, and his dingy, furnished rooms +had become through habit very pleasant to him. In being his own they +were invested with a greater charm than another man's castle. Here he +had smoked and studied, here he had made many a glorious voyage into the +land of books. Many a home-coming, too, rose up before him out of the +dark ungenial streets to a clean blazing fire, a neatly laid cloth, an +evening of ideal enjoyment; many a summer twilight when he mused at the +open window, plunging his gaze deep into the recesses of his neighbour's +lime-tree, where the unseen sparrows chattered with such unflagging +gaiety. + +He had always been given to much day-dreaming, and it was in the silence +of his rooms of an evening that he turned his phantasmal adventures into +stories for the magazines; here had come to him many an editorial +refusal, but, here, too, he had received the news of his first +unexpected success. All his happiest memories were embalmed in those +shabby, badly furnished rooms. + +Now all was changed. Now might there be no longer any soft indulgence of +the hour's mood. His rooms and everything he owned belonged now to +Esther, too. She had objected to most of his photographs, and had +removed them. She hated books, and were he ever so ill-advised as to +open one in her presence, she immediately began to talk, no matter how +silent or how sullen her previous mood had been. If he read aloud to her +she either yawned despairingly, or was tickled into laughter where there +was no reasonable cause. At first, Willoughby had tried to educate her +and had gone hopefully to the task. It is so natural to think you may +make what you will of the woman who loves you. But Esther had no wish to +improve. She evinced all the self-satisfaction of an illiterate mind. To +her husband's gentle admonitions she replied with brevity that she +thought her way quite as good as his; or, if he didn't approve of her +pronunciation, he might do the other thing, she was too old to go to +school again. He gave up the attempt, and, with humiliation at his +previous fatuity, perceived that it was folly to expect a few weeks of +his companionship could alter or pull up the impressions of years, or +rather of generations. + +Yet here he paused to admit a curious thing: it was not only Esther's +bad habits which vexed him, but habits quite unblameworthy in +themselves, and which he never would have noticed in another, irritated +him in her. He disliked her manner of standing, of walking, of sitting +in a chair, of folding her hands. Like a lover he was conscious of her +proximity without seeing her. Like a lover, too, his eyes followed her +every movement, his ear noted every change in her voice. But, then, +instead of being charmed by everything as the lover is, everything +jarred upon him. + +What was the meaning of this? To-night the anomaly pressed upon him: he +reviewed his position. Here was he quite a young man, just twenty-six +years of age, married to Esther, and bound to live with her so long as +life should last--twenty, forty, perhaps fifty years more. Every day of +those years to be spent in her society; he and she face to face, soul to +soul; they two alone amid all the whirling, busy, indifferent world. So +near together in semblance, in truth so far apart as regards all that +makes life dear. + +Willoughby groaned. From the woman he did not love, whom he had never +loved, he might not again go free; so much he recognised. The feeling he +had once entertained for Esther, strange compound of mistaken chivalry +and flattered vanity, was long since extinct; but what, then, was the +sentiment with which she inspired him? For he was not indifferent to +her--no, never for one instant could he persuade himself he was +indifferent, never for one instant could he banish her from his +thoughts. His mind's eye followed her during his hours of absence as +pertinaciously as his bodily eye dwelt upon her actual presence. She was +the principal object of the universe to him, the centre around which his +wheel of life revolved with an appalling fidelity. + +What did it mean? What could it mean? he asked himself with anguish. + +And the sweat broke out upon his forehead and his hands grew cold, for +on a sudden the truth lay there like a written word upon the tablecloth +before him. This woman, whom he had taken to himself for better for +worse, inspired him with a passion--intense indeed, all-masterful, +soul-subduing as Love itself--.... But when he understood the terror of +his Hatred, he laid his head upon his arms and wept, not facile tears +like Esther's, but tears wrung out from his agonising, unavailing +regret. + + + + +Portrait of a Gentleman + + By Will Rothenstein + +_Reproduced by the Swan Electric Engraving Company_ + +[Illustration: Portrait of a Gentleman] + + + + +Two Sonnets + + By William Watson + + + I--The Frontier + + At the hushed brink of twilight,--when, as though + Some solemn journeying phantom paused to lay + An ominous finger on the awestruck day, + Earth holds her breath till that great presence go,-- + A moment comes of visionary glow, + Pendulous 'twixt the gold hour and the grey, + Lovelier than these, more eloquent than they + Of memory, foresight, and life's ebb and flow. + + So have I known, in some fair woman's face, + While viewless yet was Time's more gross imprint, + The first, faint, hesitant, elusive hint + Of that invasion of the vandal years + Seem deeper beauty than youth's cloudless grace, + Wake subtler dreams, and touch me nigh to tears. + + + II--Night on Curbar Edge, Derbyshire + + No echo of man's life pursues my ears; + Nothing disputes this Desolation's reign; + Change comes not, this dread temple to profane, + Where time by æons reckons, not by years. + Its patient form one crag, sole-stranded, rears, + Type of whate'er is destined to remain + While yon still host encamped on Night's waste plain + Keeps armèd watch, a million quivering spears. + + Hushed are the wild and wing'd lives of the moor; + The sleeping sheep nestle 'neath ruined wall, + Or unhewn stones in random concourse hurled: + Solitude, sleepless, listens at Fate's door; + And there is built and 'stablisht over all + Tremendous Silence, older than the world. + + + + +The Reflected Faun + + By Laurence Housman + +_Reproduced by Messrs. Carl Hentschel & Co._ + +[Illustration: The Reflected Faun] + + + + +A Sentimental Cellar + + By George Saintsbury + + + [It would appear from the reference to a "Queen" that the following + piece was written in or with a view to the reign of Queen Anne, + though an anachronism or two (such as a reference to the '45 and a + quotation from Adam Smith) may be noted. On the other hand, an + occasional mixture of "you" and "thou" seems to argue a date before + Johnson. It must at any rate have been composed for, or in + imitation of the style of, one or other of the eighteenth-century + collections of Essays.] + +It chanced the other day that I had a mind to visit my old friend +Falernianus. The maid who opened the door to me showed me into his +study, and apologised for her master's absence by saying that he was in +the cellar. He soon appeared, and I rallied him a little on the gravity +of his occupation. Falernianus, I must tell you, is neither a drunkard +nor a man of fortune. But he has a pretty taste in wine, indulges it +rather in collection than in consumption, and arranges his cellar (or, +as he sometimes calls it, "cellaret") himself, having no butler or other +man-servant. He took my pleasantry very good-humouredly; and when I +asked him further if I might behold this temple of his devotions he +complied at once. "'Tis rather a chantry than a temple, Eugenius," said +he, "but you are very welcome to see it if you please; and if you are +minded to hear a sermon, perhaps I can preach one different from what +you may expect at an Oracle of the Bottle." + +We soon reached the cavern, which, indeed, was much less magnificent +than that over which Bacbuc presided; and I perused, not without +interest (for I had often tasted the contents), the various bins in +which bottles of different shapes and sizes were stowed away with a +modest neatness. Falernianus amused himself, and did not go so far as to +weary me, with some tales of luck or disappointment in his purchases, of +the singular improvement of this vintage, and the mortifying conduct of +that. For these wine-lovers are curious in their phrase; and it is not +disgusting to hear them say regretfully that the claret of such and such +a year "has not spoken yet"; or that another was long "under the curse +of the seventies." This last phrase, indeed, had a grandiloquent and +romantic turn which half surprised me from my friend, a humourist with a +special horror of fine speech or writing, and turning sharply I saw a +smile on his lips. + +"But," said I, "my Falernianus, your sermon? For I scarce think that +this wine-chat would be dignified by you with such a name." + +"You are right, Eugenius," answered he, "but I do not quite know whether +I am wise to disclose even to you the ruling fancy under which I have +formed this little liquid museum, or Baccheum if you prefer it." + +"I think you may," said I, "for in the first place we are old enough +friends for such confidences, and in the second I know you to be too +much given to laugh at your own foibles to be greatly afraid of +another's ridicule." + +"You say well," he said, "so mark! For if my sermon inflicts what our +toasts call ennui upon you, remember that in the words of their +favourite Molière, 'You have willed it.' + +"I do not, Eugenius, pretend to be indifferent to good wine in itself. +But when I called this little cellar of mine just now a museum I did no +dishonour to the daughters of Mnemosyne. For you will observe that wine, +by the fact of its keeping powers and by the other fact of its date +being known, is a sort of calendar made to the hand of whoso would +commemorate, with a festive solemnity, the things that are, as Mr. +Dryden says, + + 'Hid in the sacred treasure of the past.' + +If not the mere juice of the grape (for the merit of the strongest wine +after fifty or sixty years is mostly but itself a memory), strong waters +brewed on the day of a man's birth will keep their fire and gain ever +fresh mellowness though he were to outlive the longest lifetime; and in +these little flasks here, my Eugenius, you will find a cup of Nantz that +was born with me, and that will keep its virtues long after thou and I +have gone to solve the great enigma. Again, thou seest those pints of +red port which nestle together? Within a few days, Eugenius, of the time +when that must was foaming round the Douro peasants, I made mine +entrance at the University. You can imagine with what a mixture of +tender and humorous feelings I quaff them now and then. When their juice +was tunned, what amiable visions, what boyish hopes floated before my +eyes! I was to carry off all that Cam or Isis had of honours or profit, +all that either could give of learning. I was to have my choice of +learned retirement on the one hand, or of ardent struggle at the hoarse +bar on the other, with the prizes of the senate beyond. They were scarce +throwing down their crust when that dream faded; they had scarce become +drinkable by a hasty toper before I saw clearly that metaphysical aid +was wanting, and that a very different fate must be mine. I make no moan +over it, Eugenius, and I puff away like a worse than prostitute as she +is, the demon Envy when she whispers in my ear the names of Titius or +Seius, and adds, 'Had they better parts, or only better stars than you?' +But as they fable that the wine itself throbs with the early movement of +the sap in the vines, so, Eugenius, when I sip that cordial (and truth +'tis a noble vintage) the old hopes, the old follies, the old dreams +waken in me, and I am once more eighteen. + +"Look yonder again at those cobwebbed vessels of various shapes that lie +side by side, although of different vineyards, in the peaceful bins. +They all date from a year in which the wheel of fortune brought honest +men to the top in England; and if only for a brief space, as, I am told, +they sing in North Britain, 'the de'il went hame wi' a' the Whigs before +him' (I must tell you, Mr. ----, that Falernianus, though a loyal +subject to our good Queen, is a most malignant Tory, and indeed I have +heard him impeached of Jacobitism by ill-willers). But no more of +politics." He paused a moment and then went on: "I think I see you smile +again, Eugenius, and say to yourself, 'These are but dry-lipped subjects +for so flowing a calendar.' And to tell the truth, my friend, the main +part of my ephemerides of this kind has been filled by the aid of the +goddess who was ever nearest and kindest to Bacchus. In yonder bin lie +phials of the mightiest port that Lusitanian summers ever blackened, and +flasks of sack from the more southern parts of that peninsula, which our +Ben or his son Herrick would have loved. In the same year which saw the +pressing of these generous juices the earth was made more fair by the +birth of Bellamira and Candiope. The blackest purple of the Lusitanian +grape is not so black as the tresses of Candiope's hair, nor doth the +golden glow of the sherris approach in flame the locks of Bellamira; but +if I let the sunlight play through both, Love, with fantastic triumph, +shows me, as the bright motes flicker and flee through the sack, the +tawny eyes of Candiope, and the stain, no longer black or purple, but +rosy red, that floats from the Oportian juice on the white napery, +recalls the velvet blush of Bellamira's cheek." + +"And this?" I said, pointing to a bin of Bordeaux near me. "Thou shalt +try it this very day," said Falernianus with a laugh, which I thought +carried off some feelings a little overstrained; "'tis a right pleasant +wine, and they made it in the year when I first saw the lips of Damaris. +The flavour is not unlike theirs, and if it should fluster thine head a +little, and cause thee what men call heartburn, I will not say that the +effects are wholly dissimilar." It is not like Falernianus even to jest +at women, and I turned to another. His face cleared. "Many a year has +passed," he said, "since the grape that bore that juice was gathered, +and even as it was ripening it chanced that I met Lalage and won her. +The wine was always good and the love likewise; but in neither in their +early years was there half the pleasure that there is now. But I weary +you, Eugenius, and perhaps the philosopher speaks truly in saying that +these things are not matters of sympathy, or, as the Scripture saith, a +stranger is not partaker of them. Suffice it to say that these +imprisoned rubies and topazes, amethysts and jacinths, never flash in +the glass, nor collect their deeper body of colour in the flagon, +without bringing a memory with them, that my lips seldom kiss them +without recalling other kisses, my eye never beholds them without seeing +other colours and other forms in 'the sessions of sweet silent thought.' +At the refining of this elixir I assumed the virile gown; when that +nectar was fit for drinking I made my first appearance in the field of +letters; and this again recalls the death of dear friends and the +waning of idle hopes. When I am dead, or if any reverse of fortune makes +me part with this cabinet of quintessence, it will pass to heirs or +purchasers as so much good wine and nothing more. To me it is that and +much more--a casket of magic liquors, a museum, as I have called it, of +glasses like that of Dr. Dee, in which I see again the smile of beauty +and the hope of youth, in which once more I win, lose, possess, conquer, +am defeated; in which I live over again in the recesses of fantasy the +vanished life of the past. + +"But it is not often that I preach in this fashion. Let us take a turn +in the garden while they get dinner ready, that you may taste," and he +smiled, "that you may taste--if you dare--the wine that I have likened +to the lips of Damaris." + + + + +Night Piece + + By Aubrey Beardsley + +_Reproduced by the Swan Electric Engraving Company_ + +[Illustration: Night Piece] + + + + +Stella Maris + + by Arthur Symons + + + Why is it I remember yet + You, of all women one has met + In random wayfare, as one meets + The chance romances of the streets, + The Juliet of a night? I know + Your heart holds many a Romeo. + And I, who call to mind your face + In so serene a pausing-place, + Where the bright pure expanse of sea, + The shadowy shore's austerity, + Seems a reproach to you and me, + I too have sought on many a breast + The ecstasy of love's unrest, + I too have had my dreams, and met + (Ah me!) how many a Juliet. + Why is it, then, that I recall + You, neither first nor last of all? + For, surely as I see to-night + The glancing of the lighthouse light, + Against the sky, across the bay, + As turn by turn it falls my way, + So surely do I see your eyes + Out of the empty night arise, + Child, you arise and smile to me + Out of the night, out of the sea, + The Nereid of a moment there, + And is it seaweed in your hair? + + O lost and wrecked, how long ago, + Out of the drownèd past, I know, + You come to call me, come to claim + My share of your delicious shame. + Child, I remember, and can tell + One night we loved each other well; + And one night's love, at least or most, + Is not so small a thing to boast. + You were adorable, and I + Adored you to infinity, + That nuptial night too briefly borne + To the oblivion of morn. + Oh, no oblivion! for I feel + Your lips deliriously steal + Along my neck, and fasten there; + I feel the perfume of your hair, + And your soft breast that heaves and dips, + Desiring my desirous lips, + And that ineffable delight + When souls turn bodies, and unite + In the intolerable, the whole + Rapture of the embodied soul. + + That joy was ours, we passed it by; + You have forgotten me, and I + Remember you thus strangely, won + An instant from oblivion. + And I, remembering, would declare + That joy, not shame, is ours to share, + Joy that we had the will and power, + In spite of fate, to snatch one hour, + Out of vague nights, and days at strife, + So infinitely full of life. + And 'tis for this I see you rise, + A wraith, with starlight in your eyes, + Here, where the drowsy-minded mood + Is one with Nature's solitude; + For this, for this, you come to me + Out of the night, out of the sea. + + + + +A Study + + By Sir Frederic Leighton, P.R.A. + +_Reproduced by the Swan Electric Engraving Company_ + +[Illustration: A Study] + + + + +Two Sketches + + By Henry Harland + + + I--Mercedes + +When I was a child some one gave me a family of white mice. I don't +remember how old I was, I think about ten or eleven; but I remember very +clearly the day I received them. It must have been a Thursday, a +half-holiday, for I had come home from school rather early in the +afternoon. Alexandre, dear old ruddy round-faced Alexandre, who opened +the door for me, smiled in a way that seemed to announce, "There's a +surprise in store for you, sir." Then my mother smiled too, a smile, I +thought, of peculiar promise and interest. After I had kissed her she +said, "Come into the dining-room. There's something you will like." +Perhaps I concluded it would be something to eat. Anyhow, all agog with +curiosity, I followed her into the dining-room--and Alexandre followed +_me_, anxious to take part in the rejoicing. In the window stood a big +cage, enclosing the family of white mice. + +I remember it as a very big cage indeed; no doubt I should find it +shrunken to quite moderate dimensions if I could see it again. There +were three generations of mice in it: a fat old couple, the founders of +the race, dozing phlegmatically on their laurels in a corner; then a +dozen medium-sized, slender mice, trim and youthful-looking, rushing +irrelevantly hither and thither, with funny inquisitive little faces; +and then a squirming mass of pink things, like caterpillars, that were +really infant mice, newborn. They didn't remain infants long, though. In +a few days they had put on virile togas of white fur, and were +scrambling about the cage and nibbling their food as independently as +their elders. The rapidity with which my mice multiplied and grew to +maturity was a constant source of astonishment to me. It seemed as if +every morning I found a new litter of young mice in the cage--though how +they had effected an entrance through the wire gauze that lined it was a +hopeless puzzle--and these would have become responsible, +self-supporting mice in no time. + +My mother told me that somebody had sent me this soul-stirring present +from the country, and I dare say I was made to sit down and write a +letter of thanks. But I'm ashamed to own I can't remember who the giver +was. I have a vague notion that it was a lady, an elderly +maiden-lady--Mademoiselle ... something that began with P--who lived +near Tours, and who used to come to Paris once or twice a year, and +always brought me a box of prunes. + +Alexandre carried the cage into my play-room, and set it up against the +wall. I stationed myself in front of it, and remained there all the rest +of the afternoon, gazing in, entranced. To watch their antics, their +comings and goings, their labours and amusements, to study their shrewd, +alert physiognomies, to wonder about their feelings, thoughts, +intentions, to try to divine the meaning of their busy twittering +language--it was such keen, deep delight. Of course I was an +anthropomorphist, and read a great deal of human nature into them; +otherwise it wouldn't have been such fun. I dragged myself reluctantly +away when I was called to dinner. It was hard that evening to apply +myself to my school-books. Before I went to bed I paid them a parting +visit; they were huddled together in their nest of cotton-wool, sleeping +soundly. And I was up at an unheard-of hour next morning, to have a bout +with them before going to school. I found Alexandre, in his nightcap and +long white apron, occupied with the _soins de propreté_, as he said. He +cleaned out the cage, put in fresh food and water, and then, pointing to +the fat old couple, the grandparents, who stopped lazily abed, sitting +up and rubbing their noses together, whilst their juniors scampered +merrily about their affairs, "Tiens! On dirait Monsieur et Madame +Denis," he cried. I felt the appositeness of his allusion; and the old +couple were forthwith officially denominated Monsieur and Madame Denis, +for their resemblance to the hero and heroine of the song--though which +was Monsieur, and which Madame, I'm not sure that I ever clearly knew. + +It was a little after this that I was taken for the first time in my +life to the play. I fancy the theatre must have been the Porte St. +Martin; at any rate, it was a theatre in the Boulevard, and towards the +East, for I remember the long drive we had to reach it. And the piece +was _The Count of Monte Cristo_. In my memory the adventure shines, of +course, as a vague blur of light and joy; a child's first visit to the +play, and that play _The Count of Monte Cristo_! It was all the +breath-taking pleasantness of romance made visible, audible, actual. A +vague blur of light and joy, from which only two details separate +themselves. First, the prison scene, and an aged man, with a long white +beard, moving a great stone from the wall; then--the figure of Mercedes. +I went home terribly in love with Mercedes. Surely there are no such +_grandes passions_ in maturer life as those helpless, inarticulate ones +we burn in secret with before our teens; surely we never love again so +violently, desperately, consumedly. Anyhow, I went home terribly in love +with Mercedes. And--do all children lack humour?--I picked out the +prettiest young ladyish-looking mouse in my collection, cut off her +moustaches, adopted her as my especial pet, and called her by the name +of my _dea certè_. + +All of my mice by this time had become quite tame. They had plenty to +eat and drink, and a comfortable home, and not a care in the world; and +familiarity with their master had bred assurance; and so they had become +quite tame and shamefully, abominably lazy. Luxury, we are taught, was +ever the mother of sloth. I could put my hand in amongst them, and not +one would bestir himself the littlest bit to escape me. Mercedes and I +were inseparable. I used to take her to school with me every day; she +could be more conveniently and privately transported than a lamb. Each +_lycéen_ had a desk in front of his form, and she would spend the +school-hours in mine, I leaving the lid raised a little, that she might +have light and air. One day, the usher having left the room for a +moment, I put her down on the floor, thereby creating a great excitement +amongst my fellow-pupils, who got up from their places and formed an +eager circle round her. Then suddenly the usher came back, and we all +hurried to our seats, while he, catching sight of Mercedes, cried out, +"A mouse! A white mouse! Who dares to bring a white mouse to the class?" +And he made a dash for her. But she was too quick, too 'cute, for "the +likes of" Monsieur le Pion. She gave a jump, and in the twinkling of an +eye had disappeared up my leg, under my trousers. The usher searched +high and low for her, but she prudently remained in her hiding-place; +and thus her life was saved, for when he had abandoned his ineffectual +chase, he announced, "I should have wrung her neck." I turned pale to +imagine the doom she had escaped as by a hair's breadth. "It is useless +to ask which of you brought her here," he continued. "But mark my +words: if ever I find a mouse again in the class _I will wring her +neck_!" And yet, in private life, this bloodthirsty _pion_ was a quite +gentle, kindly, underfed, underpaid, shabby, struggling fellow, with +literary aspirations, who would not have hurt a fly. + +The secrets of a schoolboy's pocket! I once saw a boy surreptitiously +angling in Kensington Gardens, with a string and a bent pin. Presently +he landed a fish, a fish no bigger than your thumb, perhaps, but still a +fish. Alive and wet and flopping as it was, he slipped it into his +pocket. I used to carry Mercedes about in mine. One evening, when I put +in my hand to take her out, I discovered to my bewilderment that she was +not alone. There were four little pink mites of infant mice clinging to +her. + +I had enjoyed my visit to the theatre so much that at the _jour de l'an_ +my father included a toy-theatre among my presents. It had a real +curtain of green baize, that would roll up and down, and beautiful +coloured scenery that you could shift, and footlights, and a trap-door +in the middle of the stage; and indeed it would have been altogether +perfect, except for the Company. I have since learned that this is not +infrequently the case with theatres. My company consisted of pasteboard +men and women who, as artists, struck me as eminently unsatisfactory. +They couldn't move their arms or legs, and they had such stolid, +uninteresting faces. I don't know how it first occurred to me to turn +them all off, and fill their places with my mice. Mercedes, of course, +was leading lady; Monsieur and Madame Denis were the heavy parents; and +a gentlemanlike young mouse named Leander was _jeune premier_. Then, in +my leisure, they used to act the most tremendous plays. I was +stage-manager, prompter, playwright, chorus, and audience, placing the +theatre before a looking-glass, so that, though my duties kept me +behind, I could peer round the edge, and watch the spectacle as from +the front. I would invent the lines and deliver them, but, that my +illusion might be the more complete, I would change my voice for each +personage. The lines tried hard to be verses; no doubt they were _vers +libres_. At any rate, they were mouth-filling and sonorous. The first +play we attempted, I need hardly say, was _Le Comte de Monte Cristo_, +such version of it as I could reconstruct from memory. That had rather a +long run. Then I dramatised _Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp_, _Paul et +Virginie_, _Quentin Durward_, and _La Dame de Monsoreau_. Mercedes made +a charming Diane, Leander a brilliant and dashing Bussy; Monsieur Denis +was cast for the rôle of Frère Gorenflot; and a long, thin, +cadaverous-looking mouse, Don Quichotte by name, somewhat inadequately +represented Chicot. We began, as you see, with melodrama; presently we +descended to light comedy, playing _Les Mémoires d'un Ane_, _Jean qui +rit_, and other works of the immortal Madame de Ségur. And then at last +we turned a new leaf, and became naturalistic. We had never heard of the +naturalist school, though Monsieur Zola had already published some +volumes of the _Rougon-Macquart_; but ideas are in the air; and we, for +ourselves, discovered the possibilities of naturalism simultaneously, as +it were, with the acknowledged apostle of that form of art. We would +impersonate the characters of our own world--our schoolfellows and +masters, our parents, servants, friends--and carry them through +experiences and situations derived from our impressions of real life. +Perhaps we rather led them a dance; and I dare say those we didn't like +came in for a good deal of retributive justice. It was a little +universe, of which we were the arch-arbiters, our will the final law. + +I don't know whether all children lack humour; but I'm sure no grown-up +author-manager can take his business more seriously than I took mine. +Oh, I enjoyed it hugely; the hours I spent at it were enraptured hours; +but it was grim, grim earnest. After a while I began to long for a less +subjective public, a more various audience. I would summon the servants, +range them in chairs at one end of the room, conceal myself behind the +theatre, and spout the play with fervid solemnity. And they would +giggle, and make flippant commentaries, and at my most impassioned +climaxes burst into guffaws. My mice, as has been said, were overfed and +lazy, and I used to have to poke them through their parts with sticks +from the wings; but this was a detail which a superior imagination +should have accepted as one of the conventions of the art. It made the +servants laugh, however; and when I would step to the front in person, +and, with tears in my eyes, beseech them to be sober, they would but +laugh the louder. "Bless you, sir, they're only mice--_ce ne sont que +des souris_," the cook called out on one such occasion. She meant it as +an apology and a consolation, but it was the unkindest cut of all. Only +mice, indeed! To me they had been a young gentleman and lady lost in the +Desert of Sahara, near to die for the want of water, and about to be +attacked, captured, and sold into slavery, by a band of Bedouin Arabs. +Ah, well, the artist must steel himself to meet with indifference or +derision from the public, to be ignored, misunderstood, or jeered at; +and to rely for his real, his legitimate, reward on the pleasure he +finds in his work. + +And now there befell a great change in my life. Our home in Paris was +broken up, and we moved to St. Petersburg. It was impossible to take my +mice with us; their cage would have hopelessly complicated our +impedimenta. So we gave them to the children of our concierge. Mercedes, +however, I was resolved I would not part with, and I carried her all the +way to the Russian capital by hand. In my heart I was looking to her to +found another family--she had so frequently become a mother in the +past. But month succeeded month, and she forever disappointed me, and at +last I abandoned hope. In solitude and exile Mercedes degenerated sadly; +got monstrously fat; too indolent to gnaw, let her teeth grow to a +preposterous length; and in the end died of a surfeit of _smetana_. + +When I returned to Paris, at the age of twenty, to _faire mon droit_ in +the Latin Quarter, I paid a visit to our old house, and discovered the +same old concierge in the _loge_. I asked her about the mice, and she +told me her children had found the care of them such a bother that at +first they had neglected them, and at last allowed them to escape. "They +took to the walls, and for a long time afterwards, Monsieur, the mice of +this neighbourhood were pied. To this day they are of a paler hue than +elsewhere." + + + II--A Broken Looking-Glass + +He climbed the three flights of stone stairs, and put his key into the +lock; but before he turned it, he stopped--to rest, to take breath. On +the door his name was painted in big white letters, Mr. Richard Dane. It +is always silent in the Temple at midnight; to-night the silence was +dense, like a fog. It was Sunday night; and on Sunday night, even within +the hushed precincts of the Temple, one is conscious of a deeper hush. + +When he had lighted the lamp in his sitting-room, he let himself drop +into an arm-chair before the empty fireplace. He was tired, he was +exhausted. Yet nothing had happened to tire him. He had dined, as he +always dined on Sundays, with the Rodericks, in Cheyne Walk; he had +driven home in a hansom. There was no reason why he should be tired. +But he was tired. A deadly lassitude penetrated his body and his spirit, +like a fluid. He was too tired to go to bed. + +"I suppose I am getting old," he thought. + +To a second person the matter would have appeared one not of supposition +but of certainty, not of progression but of accomplishment. Getting old +indeed? But he _was_ old. It was an old man, grey and wrinkled and +wasted, who sat there, limp, sunken upon himself, in his easy-chair. In +years, to be sure, he was under sixty; but he looked like a man of +seventy-five. + +"I am getting old, I suppose I am getting old." + +And vaguely, dully, he contemplated his life, spread out behind him like +a misty landscape, and thought what a failure it had been. What had it +come to? What had it brought him? What had he done or won? Nothing, +nothing. It had brought him nothing but old age, solitude, +disappointment, and, to-night especially, a sense of fatigue and apathy +that weighed upon him like a suffocating blanket. On a table, a yard or +two away, stood a decanter of whisky, with some soda-water bottles and +tumblers; he looked at it with heavy eyes, and he knew that there was +what he needed. A little whisky would strengthen him, revive him, and +make it possible for him to bestir himself and undress and go to bed. +But when he thought of rising and moving to pour the whisky out, he +shrunk from that effort as from an Herculean labour; no--he was too +tired. Then his mind went back to the friends he had left in Chelsea +half an hour ago; it seemed an indefinably long time ago, years and +years ago; they were like blurred phantoms, dimly remembered from a +remote past. + +Yes, his life had been a failure; total, miserable, abject. It had come +to nothing; its harvest was a harvest of ashes. If it had been a useful +life, he could have accepted its unhappiness; if it had been a happy +life, he could have forgotten its uselessness; but it had been both +useless and unhappy. He had done nothing for others, he had won nothing +for himself. Oh, but he had tried, he had tried. When he had left Oxford +people expected great things of him; he had expected great things of +himself. He was admitted to be clever, to be gifted; he was ambitious, +he was in earnest. He wished to make a name, he wished to justify his +existence by fruitful work. And he had worked hard. He had put all his +knowledge, all his talent, all his energy, into his work; he had not +spared himself; he had passed laborious days and studious nights. And +what remained to show for it? Three or four volumes upon Political +Economy, that had been read in their day a little, discussed a little, +and then quite forgotten--superseded by the books of newer men. "Pulped, +pulped," he reflected bitterly. Except for a stray dozen of copies +scattered here and there--in the British Museum, in his College library, +on his own bookshelves--his published writings had by this time (he +could not doubt) met with the common fate of unsuccessful literature, +and been "pulped." + +"Pulped--pulped; pulped--pulped." The hateful word beat rhythmically +again and again in his tired brain; and for a little while that was all +he was conscious of. + +So much for the work of his life. And for the rest? The play? The +living? Oh, he had nothing to recall but failure. It had sufficed that +he should desire a thing, for him to miss it; that he should set his +heart upon a thing, for it to be removed beyond the sphere of his +possible acquisition. It had been so from the beginning; it had been so +always. He sat motionless as a stone, and allowed his thoughts to drift +listlessly hither and thither in the current of memory. Everywhere they +encountered wreckage, derelicts: defeated aspirations, broken hopes. +Languidly he envisaged these. He was too tired to resent, to rebel. He +even found a certain sluggish satisfaction in recognising with what +unvarying harshness destiny had treated him, in resigning himself to the +unmerited. + +He caught sight of his hand, lying flat and inert upon the brown leather +arm of his chair. His eyes rested on it, and for the moment he forgot +everything else in a sort of torpid study of it. How white it was, how +thin, how withered; the nails were parched into minute corrugations; the +veins stood out like dark wires; the skin hung loosely on it, and had a +dry lustre: an old man's hand. He gazed at it fixedly, till his eyes +closed and his head fell forward. But he was not sleepy, he was only +tired and weak. + +He raised his head with a start, and changed his position. He felt cold; +but to endure the cold was easier than to get up, and put something on, +or go to bed. + +How silent the world was; how empty his room. An immense feeling of +solitude, of isolation, fell upon him. He was quite cut off from the +rest of humanity here. If anything should happen to him, if he should +need help of any sort, what could he do? Call out? But who would hear? +At nine in the morning the porter's wife would come with his tea. But if +anything should happen to him in the meantime? There would be nothing +for it but to wait till nine o'clock. + +Ah, if he had married, if he had had children, a wife, a home of his +own, instead of these desolate bachelor chambers! + +If he had married, indeed! It was his sorrow's crown of sorrow that he +had not married, that he had not been able to marry, that the girl he +had wished to marry wouldn't have him. Failure? Success? He could have +accounted failure in other things a trifle, he could have laughed at +what the world calls failure, if Elinor Lynd had been his wife. But +that was the heart of his misfortune, she wouldn't have him. + +He had met her for the first time when he was a lad of twenty, and she a +girl of eighteen. He could see her palpable before him now: her slender +girlish figure, her bright eyes, her laughing mouth, her warm brown hair +curling round her forehead. Oh, how he had loved her. For twelve years +he had waited upon her, wooed her, hoped to win her. But she had always +said, "No--I don't love you. I am very fond of you; I love you as a +friend; we all love you that way--my mother, my father, my sisters. But +I can't marry you." However, she married no one else, she loved no one +else; and for twelve years he was an ever-welcome guest in her father's +house; and she would talk with him, play to him, pity him; and he could +hope. Then she died. He called one day, and they said she was ill. After +that there came a blank in his memory--a gulf, full of blackness and +redness, anguish and confusion; and then a sort of dreadful sudden calm, +when they told him she was dead. + +He remembered standing in her room, after the funeral, with her father, +her mother, her sister Elizabeth. He remembered the pale daylight that +filled it, and how orderly and cold and forsaken it all looked. And +there was her bed, the bed she had died in; and there her +dressing-table, with her combs and brushes; and there her writing-desk, +her bookcase. He remembered a row of medicine bottles on the +mantelpiece; he remembered the fierce anger, the hatred of them, as if +they were animate, that had welled up in his heart as he looked at them, +because they had failed to do their work. + +"You will wish to have something that was hers, Richard," her mother +said. "What would you like?" + +On her dressing-table there was a small looking-glass in an ivory +frame. He asked if he might have that, and carried it away with him. She +had looked into it a thousand times, no doubt; she had done her hair in +it; it had reflected her, enclosed her, contained her. He could almost +persuade himself that something of her must remain in it. To own it was +like owning something of herself. He carried it home with him, hugging +it to his side with a kind of passion. + +He had prized it, he prized it still, as his dearest treasure; the +looking-glass in which her face had been reflected a thousand times; the +glass that had contained her, known her; in which something of herself, +he felt, must linger. To handle it, look at it, into it, behind it, was +like holding a mystic communion with her; it gave him an emotion that +was infinitely sweet and bitter, a pain that was dissolved in joy. + +The glass lay now, folded in its ivory case, on the chimney-shelf in +front of him. That was its place; he always kept it on his +chimney-shelf; so that he could see it whenever he glanced round his +room. He leaned back in his chair, and looked at it; for a long time his +eyes remained fixed upon it. "If she had married me, she wouldn't have +died. My love, my care, would have healed her. She could not have died." +Monotonously, automatically, the phrase repeated itself over and over +again in his mind, while his eyes remained fixed on the ivory case into +which her looking-glass was folded. It was an effect of his fatigue, no +doubt, that his eyes, once directed upon an object, were slow to leave +it for another; that a phrase once pronounced in his thought had this +tendency to repeat itself over and over again. + +But at last he roused himself a little, and leaning forward, put his +hand out and up, to take the glass from the shelf. He wished to hold it, +to touch it and look into it. As he lifted it towards him, it fell open, +the mirror proper being fastened to a leather back, which was glued to +the ivory, and formed a hinge. It fell open; and his grasp had been +insecure; and the jerk as it opened was enough. It slipped from his +fingers, and dropped with a crash upon the hearthstone. + +The sound went through him like a physical pain. He sank back into his +chair, and closed his eyes. His heart was beating as after a mighty +physical exertion. He knew vaguely that a calamity had befallen him; he +could vaguely imagine the splinters of shattered glass at his feet. But +his physical prostration was so great as to obliterate, to neutralise, +emotion. He felt very cold. He felt that he was being hurried along with +terrible speed through darkness and cold air. There was the continuous +roar of rapid motion in his ears, a faint, dizzy bewilderment in his +head. He felt that he was trying to catch hold of things, to stop his +progress, but his hands closed upon emptiness; that he was trying to +call out for help, but he could make no sound. On--on--on, he was being +whirled through some immeasurable abyss of space. + + * * * * * + +"Ah, yes, he's dead, quite dead," the doctor said. "He has been dead +some hours. He must have passed away peacefully sitting here in his +chair." + +"Poor gentleman," said the porter's wife. "And a broken looking-glass +beside him. Oh, it's a sure sign, a broken looking-glass." + + + + +Portrait of a Lady + + By Will Rothenstein + +_Reproduced by the Swan Electric Engraving Company_ + +[Illustration: Portrait of a Lady] + + + + +Two Poems + + By Edmund Gosse + + + I--Alere Flammam + + To A. C. B. + + In ancient Rome, the secret fire,-- + An intimate and holy thing,-- + Was guarded by a tender choir + Of kindred maidens in a ring; + Deep, deep within the house it lay, + No stranger ever gazed thereon, + But, flickering still by night and day, + The beacon of the house, it shone; + Thro' birth and death, from age to age, + It passed, a quenchless heritage; + + And there were hymns of mystic tone + Sung round about the family flame, + Beyond the threshold all unknown, + Fast-welded to an ancient name; + There sacrificed the sire as priest, + Before that altar, none but he, + Alone he spread the solemn feast + For a most secret deity; + He knew the god had once been sire, + And served the same memorial fire. + + Ah! so, untouched by windy roar + Of public issues loud and long, + The Poet holds the sacred door, + And guards the glowing coal of song; + Not his to grasp at praise or blame, + Red gold, or crowns beneath the sun, + His only pride to tend the flame + That Homer and that Virgil won, + Retain the rite, preserve the act, + And pass the worship on intact. + + Before the shrine at last he falls; + The crowd rush in, a chattering band + But, ere he fades in death, he calls + Another priest to ward the brand; + He, with a gesture of disdain, + Flings back the ringing brazen gate, + Reproves, repressing, the profane, + And feeds the flame in primal state; + Content to toil and fade in turn, + If still the sacred embers burn. + + + II--A Dream of November + + Far, far away, I know not where, I know not how, + The skies are grey, the boughs are bare, bare boughs in flower: + Long lilac silk is softly drawn from bough to bough, + With flowers of milk and buds of fawn, a broidered shower. + + Beneath that tent an Empress sits, with slanted eyes, + And wafts of scent from censers flit, a lilac flood; + Around her throne bloom peach and plum in lacquered dyes, + And many a blown chrysanthemum, and many a bud. + + She sits and dreams, while bonzes twain strike some rich bell, + Whose music seems a metal rain of radiant dye; + In this strange birth of various blooms, I cannot tell + Which spring from earth, which slipped from looms, which sank from sky. + + Beneath her wings of lilac dim, in robes of blue, + The Empress sings a wordless hymn that thrills her bower; + My trance unweaves, and winds, and shreds, and forms anew + Dark bronze, bright leaves, pure silken threads, in triple flower. + + + + +Portrait of Mrs. Patrick Campbell + + By Aubrey Beardsley + +_Reproduced by the Swan Electric Engraving Company_ + +[Illustration: Portrait of Mrs. Patrick Campbell] + + + + +The Dedication + + By Fred M. Simpson + + + PERSONS REPRESENTED + + Lucy Rimmerton. Harold Sekbourne + + + +Scene I--The period is 1863 + +_The sitting-room in_ Lucy Rimmerton's _lodgings. She is seated in front +of the fire making some toast._ + +_Lucy._ There! I think that will do, although it isn't anything very +great. [_Rises._] What a colour I must have! Harold says I always manage +to toast myself very much better than I do the bread. [_Lights the gas, +and begins arranging some flowers on the table._] His favourite flowers; +I know he will be pleased when he sees them. How strange it is that he +should really care for me!--I, who am so commonplace and ordinary, +hardly pretty either, although he says I am. I always tell him he might +have done so much better than propose to a poor governess without a +penny.--Oh, if only his book proves a success!--a really great +success!--how glorious it will be! Why doesn't the wretched publisher +make haste and bring it out? I believe he is keeping it back on purpose. +What dreadful creatures they are! At first--squabble, squabble, +squabble; squabble about terms, squabble about this, another squabble +about that, and then, when everything is finally arranged, delay, delay, +delay. "You must wait for the publishing season." As though a book were +a young lady whose future might be seriously jeopardised if it made its +_début_ at an unfashionable time. + + [_The door opens, and_ Harold _bursts into the room_.] + +_Harold._ It's out, it's out; out at last. + +_Lucy._ What, the book! Really! Where is it? Do show it to me. + +_Harold._ Do you think you deserve it! + +_Lucy._ Oh! don't tantalise me. Have you seen it? What is it like! + +_Harold._ It is printed, and very much like other books. + +_Lucy._ You are horrid. I believe you have it with you. Have you? + +_Harold._ And what if I say yes? + +_Lucy._ You have. Do let me see it. + +_Harold._ And will you be very good if I do! + +_Lucy._ I'll be angelic. + +_Harold._ Then on that condition only--There! take it gently. [Lucy +_snatches it, and cuts the string_.] I thought you never cut string? + +_Lucy._ There is never a never that hasn't an exception. + +_Harold._ Not a woman's, certainly. + +_Lucy._ Oh! how nice it looks! And to think that it is yours, really and +truly yours. "Grace: a Sketch. By Harold Sekbourne." It's delicious! +[_Holding the book, dances round the room._] + +_Harold._ I shall begin to be jealous. You will soon be more in love +with my book than you are with me. + +_Lucy._ And why shouldn't I be? Haven't you always said that a man's +work is the best part of him? + +_Harold._ If my silly sayings are to be brought up in evidence against +me like this, I shall---- + +_Lucy._ You shall what? + +_Harold._ Take the book back. + +_Lucy._ Oh, will you? I should like to see you do it. [_Holds it behind +her._] You have got to get it first. + +_Harold._ And what are you going to give me for it? + +_Lucy._ Isn't it a presentation copy? + +_Harold._ It is the very first to leave the printer's. + +_Lucy._ Then you ought not to want any payment. + +_Harold._ I do though, all the same. Come--no payment, no book. + +_Lucy._ There, there, there! + +_Harold._ And there. + +_Lucy._ Oh! don't! You'll stifle me. And is this for me; may I really +keep it? + +_Harold._ Of course you may; I brought it expressly for you. + +_Lucy._ How nice of you! And you'll write my name in it? + +_Harold._ I'll write the dedication. + +_Lucy._ What do you mean? + +_Harold._ You shall see. Pen and ink for the author! A new pen and +virgin ink! + +_Lucy._ Your Authorship has but to command to be obeyed. + +_Harold._ [_Sitting down, writes._] It is printed in all the other +copies, but this one I have had bound specially for you, with a blank +sheet where the dedication comes, so that in your copy, and yours alone, +I can write it myself. There. + +_Lucy._ [_Looks over his shoulder and reads._] "To my Lady Luce." Oh, +Harold, you have dedicated it to me! + +_Harold._ Who else could I dedicate it to? although 'tis-- + + "Not so much honouring thee, + As giving it a hope that now + It may immortal be." + +_Lucy._ It is good of you. + +_Harold._ [_Writes again._] "Harold Sekbourne"--what's to-day?--oh, yes, +"3rd November, 1863." + +_Lucy._ And will people know who the "Lady Luce" is? + +_Harold._ They will some day. The dedication in my next book shall be +"To my Lady Wife." + +_Lucy._ I wonder if I shall ever be that. It seems so long coming. + +_Harold._ I don't mind when it is--to-morrow, if you like. + +_Lucy._ Don't talk nonsense, although it is my fault for beginning it. +And now sit down--no, here in the arm-chair--and you shall have some +nice tea. + + [_She makes and pours out the tea as Harold talks._] + +_Harold._ You won't have to wait long if this proves a success: and it +will be one. I know it; I feel it. It isn't only that everybody who has +read it, likes it; it's something else that I can't describe, not even +to you; a feeling inside, that--call it conceit if you like, but it +isn't conceit; it isn't conceit to feel confidence in oneself. Why, look +at the trash, the arrant trash, that succeeds every day; you will say, +perhaps, that it succeeds because it is trash, that trash is what people +want--they certainly get it. But no book that ever had real stuff in it +has failed yet, and I feel that--Ha! ha! the same old feeling mentioned +above. Don't think me an awful prig, Luce. I don't talk to anybody else +as I do to you; and if you only knew what a relief it is to me to let +myself go a bit occasionally, you would excuse everything. + +_Lucy._ You have a right to be conceited. + +_Harold._ Not yet. I have done nothing yet; but I mean to. [_Takes up +the book._] I wonder what will become of you and your fellows; what will +be your future? Will you one day adorn the shelves of libraries, figure +in catalogues of "Rare books and first editions," and be contended for +by snuffy, long-clothed bibliomaniacs, who will bid one against the +other for the honour of possessing you? Or will you descend to the +tables of secondhand book-stalls marked at a great reduction; or lie in +a heap, with other lumber, outside the shop-front, all this lot sixpence +each, awaiting there, uncared for, unnoticed, and unknown, your ultimate +destination, the dust-hole? + +_Lucy._ You are horrid. What an idea! + +_Harold._ No, I don't think that will be your end. [_Puts down the +book._] You are not going to the dustbin, you are going to be a success. +No more hack work for me after this. Why, supposing only the first +edition is sold, I more than clear expenses, and if it runs to +two--ten--twenty editions, I shall receive--the amount fairly takes my +breath away. Twentieth thousand; doesn't it sound fine? We shall have +our mansion in Grosvenor Square yet, Luce; and that charming, little old +house we saw the other day up the river--we'll have that, too; so that +we can run down here from Saturday to Monday, to get away from London +fog and nastiness. Yes, I am going to be rich some day--rich--in ten +years' time, if this book gets a fair start and I have anything like +decent luck, I shall be the best known author in England. [_Rises._] The +son of the old bookseller who failed will be able then to repay those +who helped him when he wanted help, and, more delightful thought still, +pay back those with interest who did their best to keep him down, when +they could just as easily have helped him to rise. I am going to have a +success, I feel it. In a few weeks' time I'll bring you a batch of +criticisms that will astonish you. But what is the matter? why so silent +all of a sudden? has my long and conceited tirade disgusted you? + +_Lucy._ No, not at all. + +_Harold._ Then what is it? + +_Lucy._ I was only thinking that--[_hesitates_]. + +_Harold._ Thinking what? About me: + +_Lucy._ Yes, about you and--and also about myself. + +_Harold._ That is just as it should be, about us two together. + +_Lucy._ Yes, but I was afraid---- + +_Harold._ [_Smiling._] Afraid! what of? + +_Lucy._ Nothing, nothing really. I am ashamed that--let me give you some +more tea. + +_Harold._ No, thanks. Come, let me hear, make a clean breast of it. + +_Lucy._ I can't, really; you would only laugh at me. + +_Harold._ Then why deny me a pleasure, for you know I love to laugh? + +_Lucy._ Well, then--if you become famous--and rich---- + +_Harold._ If I do; well? + +_Lucy._ You won't--you won't forget me, will you? + +_Harold._ Forget you, what an idea! Why do I want to become famous? why +do I want to become rich? For my own sake? for the sake of the money? +Neither. I want it for your sake, so that you can be rich; so that you +can have everything you can possibly want. I don't mind roughing it a +bit myself, but---- + +_Lucy._ No more do I: I am sure we might be very happy living even here. + +_Harold._ No, thank you; no second pair fronts for me, or, rather, none +for my wife. I want you to forget all about this place, as though it had +never existed; I want you to only remember your giving lessons as a +nightmare which has passed and gone. I want you to take a position in +the world, to go into society---- + +_Lucy._ But, Harold---- + +_Harold._ To entertain, receive, lead---- + +_Lucy._ But I could never lead. I detest receiving. I hate +entertaining---- + +_Harold._ Except me. + +_Lucy._ I often wonder if I do. You are so clever and I---- + +_Harold._ Such a goose. Whatever put such ideas into your head? Why, you +are actually crying. + +_Lucy._ I am not. + +_Harold._ Then what is that? [_Puts his finger against her cheek._] What +is that little sparkling drop? + +_Lucy._ It must be a tear of joy, then. + +_Harold._ Which shall be used to christen the book! + +_Lucy._ Oh, don't--there, you have left a mark. + +_Harold._ It is your fault. My finger wouldn't have done it by itself. +Are you going to be silly any more? + +_Lucy._ No, I am not. + +_Harold._ And you are going to love me, believe in me, and trust me? + +_Lucy._ I do all three--implicitly. + +_Harold._ [_He kisses her._] The seal of the trinity. [_Looks at his +watch._] By jove, I must be going. + +_Lucy._ So soon? + +_Harold._ Rather; I have to dine in Berkeley Square at eight o'clock, at +Sir Humphrey Mockton's. You would like their house, it's a beauty, a +seventeenth or eighteenth century one, with such a gorgeous old +staircase. He's awfully rich, and just a little bit vulgar--"wool" I +think it was, or "cottons," or some other commodity; but his daughter is +charming--I should say daughters, as there are two of them, so you +needn't be jealous. + +_Lucy._ Jealous? of course I am not. Have you known them long? + +_Harold._ Oh! some little time. They are awfully keen to see my book. I +am going to take--send them a copy. You see I must be civil to these +people, they know such an awful lot of the right sort; and their +recommendation of a book will have more weight than fifty +advertisements. So good-bye. [_Takes his overcoat._] + +_Lucy._ Let me help you. But you are going without noticing my flowers. + +_Harold._ I have been admiring them all along, except when I was looking +at you. + +_Lucy._ Don't be silly. + +_Harold._ They are charming. Sir Humphrey has some orchids just the same +colours; you ought to see them; he has basketsful sent up every week +from his place in Surrey. + +_Lucy._ No wonder my poor little chrysanthemums didn't impress you. + +_Harold._ What nonsense! I would give more for one little flower from +you, than for the contents of all his conservatories. + +_Lucy._ Then you shall have that for nothing. + +_Harold._ Don't, it will destroy the bunch. + +_Lucy._ What does that matter? they are all yours. + +_Harold._ You do your best to spoil me. + +_Lucy._ [_Pins the flower into his button-hole._] Don't talk nonsense. +There! + +_Harold._ What a swell you have made me look! + +_Lucy._ Good-bye; when shall I see you again? + +_Harold._ Not until Sunday, I am afraid; I am so busy just now. But I'll +come round early, and, if fine, we'll go and lunch at Richmond, and have +a good walk across the Park afterwards. Would you like it? + +_Lucy._ Above all things, but--but don't spend all your money on me. + +_Harold._ Bother the money! I am going to be rich. Good-bye till Sunday. + +_Lucy._ _Au revoir_; and while you are dining in your grand house, with +lots of grand people, I am going to enjoy a delightful evening here, not +alone, as I shall have your book for company. Good-bye. + + +Six Months elapse between Scene I. and Scene II. + + + +Scene II--The Scene and Persons are the same + +Lucy _is dressed as before; she is seated_. Harold _is in evening dress, +with a flower in his button-hole; he stands by the fireplace_. + +_Harold._ Well, all I have to say is, I think you are most unreasonable. + +_Lucy._ You have no right to say that. + +_Harold._ I have if I think it. + +_Lucy._ Well, you have no right to think it. + +_Harold._ My thoughts are not my own, I suppose? + +_Lucy._ They are so different from what I should have expected you to +have that I almost doubt it. + +_Harold._ Better say I have changed at once. + +_Lucy._ And so you have. + +_Harold._ Who is saying things one has no right to say now? + +_Lucy._ I am only saying what I think. + +_Harold._ Then if you want to have the right to your own thoughts, +kindly let me have the right to mine. [_Walks to the window._] I can't +prevent people sending me invitations, can I? + +_Lucy._ You need not accept them. + +_Harold._ And make enemies right and left, I suppose? + +_Lucy._ I don't want you to do that, and I don't want either to prevent +your enjoying yourself; but--but, I do want to see you occasionally. + +_Harold._ And so you do. + +_Lucy._ Yes, very--perhaps I should say I want to see you often. + +_Harold._ And so do I you, but I can't be in two places at once. This is +what I mean when I say you are unreasonable. I must go out. If I am to +write, I must study people, character, scenes. I can't do that by +stopping at home: I can't do that by coming here; I know you and I know +your landlady, and there is nobody else in the house, except the slavey +and the cat; and although the slavey may be a very excellent servant and +the cat a most original quadruped, still, I don't want to make elaborate +studies of animals--either four-legged or two. One would imagine, from +the way you talk, that I did nothing except enjoy myself. I only go out +in the evenings. + +_Lucy._ Still you might spare a little time, now and then, to come and +see me, if only for half an hour. + +_Harold._ What am I doing now? I gave up a dinner-party to come here +to-night. + +_Lucy._ Do you know it is exactly a month yesterday since you were here +last? + +_Harold._ I can't be always dangling at your apron-strings. + +_Lucy._ Harold! + +_Harold._ If we are going to be married, we---- + +_Lucy._ If? + +_Harold._ Well, when, if you like it better; we shall see enough of one +another then. I have written to you, it isn't as though I hadn't done +that. + +_Lucy._ But that is not the same thing as seeing you; and your letters, +too, have been so scrappy. [Harold _throws himself into the arm-chair_.] +They used to be so different before your book came out. + +_Harold._ I had more time then. + +_Lucy._ I sometimes wish that it had never been published at all, that +you had never written it, or, at all events, that it had never been such +a success. + +_Harold._ That's kind, at all events--deuced kind and considerate! + +_Lucy._ It seems to have come between us as a barrier. When I think how +eagerly we looked forward to its appearance, what castles in the air we +built as to how happy we were going to be, and all the things we were +going to do, if it were a success, and now to think that---- + +_Harold._ [_Jumps up._] Look here, Lucy, I'm damned if--I can't stand +this much longer! Nag, nag, nag! I can't stand it. I am worked off my +head during the day, I am out half the night, and when I come here for a +little quiet, a little rest, its--[_Breaks off suddenly_]. + +_Lucy._ I am so sorry. If I had thought---- + +_Harold._ Can't you see that you are driving me mad? I have been here +half an hour, and the whole of the time it has been nothing but +reproaches. + +_Lucy._ I don't think they would have affected you so much if you hadn't +felt that you deserved them! + +_Harold._ There you go again! I deserve them--[_laughs harshly_]. It is +my fault, I suppose, that it is the season; it is my fault that people +give dinner-parties and balls; it is my fault, I suppose, that you don't +go out as much as I do? + +_Lucy._ Certainly not; although, as a matter of fact, I haven't been out +one single evening for the last three--nearly four--months. + +_Harold._ That's right; draw comparisons; say I'm a selfish brute. +You'll tell me next that I am tired of you, and---- + +_Lucy._ Harold! don't, don't--you--you hurt me! Of course I never +thought of such a--[_she rises_]--You are not, are you? I--I couldn't +bear it! + +_Harold._ Of course I am not. Don't be so silly. [_He sits._] + +_Lucy._ It was silly of me, I confess it. I know you better than that. +Why, it's rank high treason, I deserve to lose my head; and my only +excuse is that thinking such a thing proves I must have lost it already. +Will your majesty deign to pardon? + +_Harold._ [_Testily._] Yes, yes, that's all right! There, look out, +you'll crumple my tie. + +_Lucy._ I am so sorry! And now tell me all about your grand friends +and---- + +_Harold._ They are not grand to me. Simply because a person is rich or +has a title, I don't consider them any "grander" than I--by jove, no! +These people are useful to me, or else I shouldn't stand it. They +"patronise" me, put their hand on my shoulder and say, "My dear young +friend, we predict great things for you." The fools, as though a single +one of them was capable even of forming an opinion, much less of +prophesying. They make remarks about me before my face; they talk of, +and pet, me as though I were a poodle. I go through my tricks and they +applaud; and they lean over with an idiotic simper to the dear friend +next to them and say, "Isn't he clever?" as though they had taught me +themselves. Bah! They invite me to their houses, I dine with them once a +week; but if I were to tell them to-morrow that I wanted to marry one of +their daughters, they would kick me out of the room, and consider it a +greater insult than if the proposal had come from their own footman. + +_Lucy._ But that doesn't matter, because you don't want to marry one of +them, do you? Was that Miss Mockton with you in the Park last Sunday? + +_Harold._ How do you know I was in the Park at all? + +_Lucy._ Because I saw you there. + +_Harold._ You were spying, I suppose. + +_Lucy._ Spying? I don't know what you mean. I went there for a walk +after church. + +_Harold._ Alone? + +_Lucy._ Of course not, I was with Mrs. Glover. + +_Harold._ Your landlady? + +_Lucy._ Why not?--Oh! you need not be afraid. I shouldn't have brought +disgrace upon you by obliging you to acknowledge me before your grand +friends. I took good care to keep in the background. + +_Harold._ Do you mean to insinuate that I am a snob? + +_Lucy._ Be a little kind. + +_Harold._ Well, it is your own fault, you insinuate that---- + +_Lucy._ I was wrong. I apologise, but--but--[_begins to cry_]. + +_Harold._ There, don't make a scene--don't, there's a good girl. There, +rest your head here. I suppose I am nasty. I didn't mean it, really. You +must make allowances for me. I am worried and bothered. I can't work--at +least I can't do work that satisfies me--and altogether I am not quite +myself. Late hours are playing the very deuce with my nerves. There, let +me kiss away the tears--now give me your promise that you will never be +so foolish again. + +_Lucy._ I--I promise. It is silly of me--now I am all right. + +_Harold._ Giboulées d'Avril! The sun comes out once more, the shower is +quite over. + +_Lucy._ Yes, quite over; you always are so kind. It is my fault +entirely. I--I think my nerves must be a little upset, too. + +_Harold._ We shall make a nice couple, shan't we? if we are often going +to behave like this! Now, are you quite calm? + +_Lucy._ Yes, quite. + +_Harold._ That's right, because I want you to listen patiently for a few +minutes to what I am going to say; it is something I want to talk to you +about very seriously. You won't interrupt me until I have quite +finished, will you? + +_Lucy._ What is it? not that--no, I won't. + +_Harold._ You know we talked about--I mean it was arranged we should be +married the beginning of July--wasn't it? + +_Lucy._ Yes. + +_Harold._ Well, I want to know if you would mind very much putting it +off a little--quite a little--only till the autumn? I'll tell you why. +Of course if you _do_ mind very much, I sha'n't press it, but--it's like +this: the scene of my new book is, as you know, laid abroad. I have been +trying to write it, but can't get on with it one little bit. I want some +local colour. I thought I should be able to invent it, I find I can't. +It is hampering and keeping me back terribly. And so--and so I thought +if you didn't mind very much that--that if I were to go to France +for--for six months or so--alone, that--in fact it would be the making +of me. I have never had an opportunity before; it has always been grind, +grind, grind, and if I am prevented from going now, I may never have a +chance again. What do you say? + +_Lucy._ But why shouldn't we be married as arranged, and spend our +honeymoon over there? + +_Harold._ Because I want to work. + +_Lucy._ And would my being there prevent you? You used to say you always +worked so much better when I was---- + +_Harold._ But you don't understand. This is different. I want to work +_hard_, and no man could do that on his honeymoon--at least I know I +couldn't. + +_Lucy._ No, but--And--and till when did you want to put off our--our +marriage? Until your return? + +_Harold._ Well, that would depend on circumstances. You don't suppose I +would postpone it for a second, if I could help it; but--Until my +return? I hope sincerely that it can be managed then, but, you see, over +there I shall be spending money all the time, and not earning a sou, +and--and so we _might_ have to wait a little bit longer, just until I +could replenish the locker, until I had published and been paid for my +new book. + +_Lucy._ But I have given notice to leave at midsummer. + +_Harold._ Has Mrs. Duncan got another governess! + +_Lucy._ No, but---- + +_Harold._ Then you can stop on, can't you! They will surely be only too +delighted to keep you. + +_Lucy._ Yes--I can stop on. [_He tries to kiss her._] No, don't; not +now. + +_Harold._ And you don't really mind the postponement very much, do you? + +_Lucy._ Not if it will assist you. + +_Harold._ I thought you would say that, I knew you would. It will assist +me very much. I shouldn't otherwise suggest it. It does seem too bad +though, doesn't it? To have to postpone it after waiting all these +years, and just as it was so near, too. I have a good mind not to go, +after all--only, if I let this chance slip, I may never have another. +Besides, six months is not so very long, is it? And when they are over, +then we won't wait any longer. You will come and see me off, won't you? +It would never do for an engaged man to go away for even six months, +without his lady love coming to see him start. + +_Lucy._ Yes, I will come. When do you go? + +_Harold._ The end of next week, I expect; perhaps earlier if I can +manage it. But I shall see you before then. We'll go and have dinner +together at our favourite little restaurant. When shall it be! Let me +see, I am engaged on--I can't quite remember what my engagements are. + +_Lucy._ I have none. + +_Harold._ Then that's settled. Good-bye, Luce; you don't mind very much, +do you? The time will soon pass. You are a little brick to behave as you +have done. [_Going._] It will be Monday or Tuesday next for our dinner, +but I will let you know. Good-bye. + +_Lucy._ Good-bye. + + +Thirty Years elapse between Scene II. and Scene III. + + + +Scene III--Lucy Rimmerton, Agnes Rimmerton (her niece) + +_A well-furnished comfortable room in_ Lucy Rimmerton's _house. She is +seated in front of the fire, in an easy-chair, reading. The door opens, +without her noticing it, and_ Agnes _comes in, closes the door gently, +crosses the room, and bends over her_. + +_Agnes._ A happy New Year to you, Aunt Luce. + +_Lucy._ What! Agnes, is that you? I never heard you come in. I really +think I must be getting deaf. + +_Agnes._ What nonsense! I didn't intend you should hear me. I wanted to +wish you a happy New Year first. + +_Lucy._ So as to make your Aunt play second fiddle. The same to you, +dear. + +_Agnes._ Thank you. [_Warms her hands at the fire._] Oh, it _is_ cold; +not here I mean, but out of doors; the thermometer is down I don't know +how many degrees below freezing. + +_Lucy._ It seems to agree with you, at all events. You look as bright +and rosy as though you were the New Year itself come to visit me. + +_Agnes._ [_Laughs merrily._] So I ought to. I ran nearly all the way, +except when I slid, to the great horror of an old gentleman who was +busily engaged lecturing some little boys on the enormity of their sins +in making a beautifully long slide in the middle of the pavement. + +_Lucy._ And what brought you out so early? + +_Agnes._ To see you, of course. Besides, the morning is so lovely it +seemed a sin to remain indoors. I do hope the frost continues all the +holidays. + +_Lucy._ It is all very well for you, but it must be terribly trying for +many people--the poor, for instance. + +_Agnes._ Yes. [_A pause._] Auntie, you don't know anything, do you, +about how--how poor people live? + +_Lucy._ Not so much as I ought to. + +_Agnes._ I didn't mean _very_ poor people, not working people. I meant a +person poor like--like I am poor. + +_Lucy._ [_Smiling._] Don't you know how you live yourself? + +_Agnes._ Of course I do, but--I was thinking of--of a friend of mine, a +governess like myself, who has just got engaged; and I--I was wondering +on how much, or, rather, how little, they could live. But you don't know +of course. You are rich, and---- + +_Lucy._ But I wasn't always rich. Thirty years ago when I was your +age---- + +_Agnes._ When you were my age! I like that! why you are not fifty. + +_Lucy._ Little flatterer. Fifty-two last birthday. + +_Agnes._ Fifty-two! Well, you don't look it, at all events. + +_Lucy._ Gross flatterer. When I was your age I was poor and a governess +as you are. + +_Agnes._ But I thought that your Aunt Emily left you all her money. + +_Lucy._ So she did, or nearly all; but that was afterwards. It isn't +quite thirty years yet since she came back from India, a widow, just +after she had lost her husband and only child. I was very ill at the +time--I almost died; and she, good woman as she was, came and nursed me. + +_Agnes._ Of course, I know. I have heard father talk about it. And then +she was taken ill, wasn't she? + +_Lucy._ Yes, almost before I was well. It was very unfair that she +should leave everything to me; your father was her nephew, just as I was +her niece, but he wouldn't hear of my sharing it with---- + +_Agnes._ I should think not indeed! I should be very sorry to think that +my father would ever allow such a thing. Although, at the same time, it +is all very well for you to imagine that you don't share it, but you +_do_. Who pays for Lillie's and May's and George's schooling? Who sent +Alfred to Cambridge, and Frank to---- + +_Lucy._ Don't, please. What a huge family you are, to be sure. + +_Agnes._ And last, but not least, who gave me a chance of going to +Girton? Oh, we are not supposed to know anything about it, I know, but +you see we do. You thought you had arranged it all so beautifully, and +kept everyone of us entirely in the dark, but you haven't one little +bit. + +_Lucy._ Nonsense, Agnes, you---- + +_Agnes._ Oh, you are a huge big fraud, you know you are; I am quite +ashamed of you. [Lucy _is going to speak_.] You are not to be thanked, I +know; and you needn't be afraid, I am not going to do so; but if you +could only hear us when we are talking quietly together, you would find +that a certain person, who shall be nameless, is simply worship---- + +_Lucy._ Hush! you silly little girl. You don't know what you are saying. +You have nothing to thank me for whatsoever. + +_Agnes._ Haven't we just? I know better. + +_Lucy._ Young people always do. So you see I do know something of how +"the poor" live. + +_Agnes._ Yes, but you were never married. + +_Lucy._ No, dear. + +_Agnes._ That is what I want to----Why weren't you married? Oh, I know +I have no business to ask such a question: it is fearfully rude I know, +but I have wondered so often. You are lovely now, and you must have been +beautiful when you were a girl. + +_Lucy._ No, I wasn't--I was barely pretty. + +_Agnes._ I can't believe that. + +_Lucy._ And I am not going to accept your description of me now as a +true one; although I confess I am vain enough--even in my present old +age--to look in the glass occasionally, and say to myself: "You are +better-looking now than you ever were." + +_Agnes._ Well, at all events you were always an angel. + +_Lucy._ And men don't like angels; besides--I was poor. + +_Agnes._ You were not poor when you got Aunt Emily's money. + +_Lucy._ No, but then it was too----I mean I then had no wish to marry. + +_Agnes._ You mean you determined to sacrifice yourself for us, that is +what you mean. + +_Lucy._ I must have possessed a very prophetic soul then, or been gifted +with second sight, as none of you, except Reginald, were born. But to +come back to your friend, Agnes; has she no money? + +_Agnes._ No, none. + +_Lucy._ Nor he? + +_Agnes._ Not a penny. + +_Lucy._ And they want to get married? + +_Agnes._ Yes. + +_Lucy._ And are afraid they haven't enough. + +_Agnes._ They certainly haven't. + +_Lucy._ Then why don't they apply to some friend or relative who has +more than enough; say, to--an aunt, for instance. + +_Agnes._ Auntie! + +_Lucy._ And what is his name? + +_Agnes._ Geo----Mr. Reddell. + +_Lucy._ And hers is? + +_Agnes._ Oh, I never intended to tell you. I didn't mean to say a word. + +_Lucy._ When did it happen? + +_Agnes._ Three days ago. That is to say, he proposed to me then, but of +course it has been going on for a long time. I could see that he--at +least I thought I could see. But I can hardly realise it yet. It seems +all so strange. And I _did_ intend telling you, I felt I _must_ tell +somebody, although George doesn't want it known yet, because, as I told +you, he--and so I haven't said a word to father yet; but I must +soon--and you won't say anything, will you? and--and oh, I am silly. + +_Lucy._ There, have your cry out, it will do you good. Now tell me about +Mr. Reddell. What is he? + +_Agnes._ He is a writer--an author. Don't you remember I showed you a +story of his a little time ago? + +_Lucy._ I thought I knew the name. + +_Agnes._ And you said you liked it; I was so pleased. + +_Lucy._ Yes, I did. I thought it clever and---- + +_Agnes._ He _is_ clever; and I do so want you to know him. He wants to +know you, too. You will try to like him, won't you, for my sake? + +_Lucy._ I have no doubt I shall. + +_Agnes._ He is just bringing out a book. Some of the stories have been +published before; the one you read was one, and if that proves a success +then it will be all right; we shall be able to get married and---- + +_Lucy._ Wait a minute, Agnes. How long have you known him? + +_Agnes._ Over a year--nearly two years. + +_Lucy._ And do you really know him well? Are you quite certain you can +trust him? + +_Agnes._ What a question! How can you doubt it? You wouldn't for a +minute if you knew him. + +_Lucy._ I ought not to, knowing you, you mean. And supposing this book +is a success. May it not spoil him--make him conceited? + +_Agnes._ All the better if it does. He is not conceited enough, and so I +always tell him. + +_Lucy._ But may it not make him worldly? May he not, after a time, +regret his proposal to you if he sees a chance of making a more +advantageous---- + +_Agnes._ Impossible. What a dreadful opinion you must have of mankind. +You don't think it really, I know. I have never heard you say or hint +anything nasty about anybody before. + +_Lucy._ I only do it for your own good, my dear. I once knew a man--just +such another as you describe Mr. Reddell to be. He was an author, too, +and--and when I knew him his first book was also just about to appear. +He was engaged to be married to--to quite a nice girl too, although she +was never so pretty as you are. + +_Agnes._ Who is the flatterer now? + +_Lucy._ The book was published. It was a great success. He became quite +the lion of the season--it is many years ago now. The wedding-day was +definitely fixed. Two months before the date he suggested a +postponement--for six months. + +_Agnes._ How horrible! + +_Lucy._ And just about the time originally fixed upon for the wedding +she received a letter from him--he was abroad at the time--suggesting +that their engagement had better be broken off. + +_Agnes._ Oh, the brute! the big brute! But she didn't consent, did she? + +_Lucy._ Of course. The man she had loved was dead. The new person she +was indifferent to. + +_Agnes._ But how--but you don't suggest that Mr. Reddell could behave +like that? he couldn't. He wouldn't, I feel certain. But there must +surely have been something else; I can't believe that any man would +behave so utterly unfeelingly--so brutally. They say there are always +two sides to every story. Mayn't there have been some reason that you +knew nothing about? Mayn't she have done something? She must have been a +little bit to blame, too, and this side of the story you never heard. + +_Lucy._ Yes--it is possible. + +_Agnes._ I can't think that any man would deliberately behave so like a +cad as you say he did. + +_Lucy._ It may have been her fault. I used to think it might be--just a +little, as you say. + +_Agnes._ Well, it sha'n't be mine at all events. I won't give any +cause--besides even if I did----Oh, no, it is utterly impossible to +imagine such a thing! + +_Lucy._ I hope it is, for your sake. + +_Agnes._ Of course it is; of that I am quite certain. And you don't +think it is very wrong of me to--to---- + +_Lucy._ To say Yes to a man you love. No, my dear, that can never be +wrong, although it may be foolish. + +_Agnes._ From a worldly point of view, perhaps; but I should never have +thought that you---- + +_Lucy._ I didn't mean that. But love seems to grow so quickly when you +once allow it to do so, that it is sometimes wiser to----but never mind, +bring him to see me, and--and may you be happy. [_A long pause._] + +_Agnes._ You are crying now, Auntie! You have nothing---- + +_Lucy._ Haven't I? What, not at the chance of losing you? So this is +what brought you out so early this morning and occasioned your bright, +rosy cheeks? You didn't only come to see me. + +_Agnes._ To see you and talk to you, yes, that was all. No, by-the-by, +it wasn't all. Have you seen a paper this morning? No? I thought it +would interest you so I brought it round. It is bad news, not good news; +your favourite author is dead. + +_Lucy._ I am afraid my favourite authors have been dead very many years. + +_Agnes._ I should say the author of your favourite book. + +_Lucy._ You mean---- + +_Agnes._ Sir Harold Sekbourne. [Lucy _leans back in her chair_.] He died +last night. Here it is; here is the paragraph. [_Reads._] "We regret to +announce the death of Sir Harold Sekbourne, the well-known novelist, +which occurred at his town house, in Prince's Gate, late last evening." +Shall I read it to you? + +_Lucy._ No--no, give me the paper. And--and, Agnes, do you mind going +down to Franklin's room, and telling her that receipt you promised her? + +_Agnes._ For the Japanese custard? Of course I will; I quite forgot all +about it. There it is. [_Gives her the paper, indicating the paragraph +with her finger, then goes out._] + +_Lucy._ [_Sits staring at the paper for a few seconds, then reads +slowly._] "Sir Harold had been slightly indisposed for some weeks, but +no anxiety was felt until two days ago, when a change for the worse set +in, and despite all the care, attention, and skill of Drs. Thornton and +Douglas, who hardly left his bedside, he never rallied, and passed +peacefully away, at the early age of fifty-eight, at the time above +mentioned. It is now thirty years ago since the deceased baronet +published his first book, 'Grace: a Sketch,' which had such an immediate +and great success. This was followed nearly a year afterwards by 'Alain +Treven,' the scene of which is laid in Brittany; and from that time +until his death his pen was never idle. His last work, 'The Incoming +Tide,' has just been published in book form, it having appeared in the +pages of _The Illustrated Courier_ during the last year. Despite the +rare power of his later works, disclosing thoroughly, as they do, his +scholarly knowledge, his masterly construction, vivid imagination, and +his keen insight into character and details of every-day life, they none +of them can, for exquisite freshness and rare delicacy of execution, +compare with his first publication, 'Grace: a Sketch.' We have before +us, as we write, a first edition of this delightful story, with its +curiously sentimental dedication 'To my Lady Luce,' which in the +subsequent editions was omitted. A baronetcy was conferred on Sir Harold +by her Majesty two years ago, at the personal instigation, it is said, +of the Prime Minister, who is one of his greatest admirers, but the +title is now extinct, as Sir Harold leaves no son. He married in June, +1866, a daughter of the late Sir Humphrey Mockton, who survives him. His +two daughters are both married--one to Lord Duncan, eldest son of the +Earl of Andstar; the other to Sir Reginald de Laver. His loss will be +greatly felt, not only in the literary world, but wherever the English +tongue is spoken and read." + + [Lucy _goes to the bookcase, takes out a book, and opens it_. Agnes + _comes in_.] + +_Agnes._ Franklin is silly. I had to repeat the directions three times, +and even now I doubt if she understands them properly. [_Comes behind_ +Lucy _and looks over her shoulder_.] Why, I never knew you had a first +edition. [Lucy _starts and closes the book, then opens it again_.] May I +look at it? But this is written; the ink is quite faded. "To my Lady +Luce. Harold Sekbourne, 3rd November, 1863." What a strong handwriting +it is! Luce! how strange that the name should be the same as---- [_Looks +suddenly at_ Lucy.] Oh, Auntie, forgive me. I never dreamt----I am so +sorry. + + + + +The Head of Minos + + By J. T. Nettleship + +_Reproduced by the Swan Electric Engraving Company_ + +[Illustration: The Head of Minos] + + + + +A Lost Masterpiece + +A City Mood, Aug. '93 + + By George Egerton + + +I regret it, but what am I to do? It was not my fault--I can only regret +it. It was thus it happened to me. + +I had come to town straight from a hillside cottage in a lonely +ploughland, with the smell of the turf in my nostrils, and the swish of +the scythes in my ears; the scythes that flashed in the meadows where +the upland hay, drought-parched, stretched thirstily up to the clouds +that mustered upon the mountain-tops, and marched mockingly away, and +held no rain. + +The desire to mix with the crowd, to lay my ear once more to the heart +of the world and listen to its life-throbs, had grown too strong for me; +and so I had come back--but the sights and sounds of my late life clung +to me--it is singular how the most opposite things often fill one with +associative memory. + +That _gamin_ of the bird-tribe, the Cockney sparrow, recalled the +swallows that built in the tumble-down shed; and I could almost see the +gleam of their white bellies, as they circled in ever narrowing sweeps +and clove the air with forked wings, uttering a shrill note, with a +querulous grace-note in front of it. + +The freshness of the country still lurked in me, unconsciously +influencing my attitude towards the city. + +One forenoon business drove me citywards, and following an inclination +that always impels me to water-ways rather than roadways, I elected to +go by river steamer. + +I left home in a glad mood, disposed to view the whole world with kindly +eyes. I was filled with a happy-go-lucky _insouciance_ that made walking +the pavements a loafing in Elysian fields. The coarser touches of +street-life, the oddities of accent, the idiosyncrasies of that most +eccentric of city-dwellers, the Londoner, did not jar as at other +times--rather added a zest to enjoyment; impressions crowded in too +quickly to admit of analysis, I was simply an interested spectator of a +varied panorama. + +I was conscious, too, of a peculiar dual action of brain and senses, +for, though keenly alive to every unimportant detail of the life about +me, I was yet able to follow a process by which delicate inner threads +were being spun into a fanciful web that had nothing to do with my outer +self. + +At Chelsea I boarded a river steamer bound for London Bridge. The river +was wrapped in a delicate grey haze with a golden subtone, like a +beautiful bright thought struggling for utterance through a mist of +obscure words. It glowed through the turbid waters under the arches, so +that I feared to see a face or a hand wave through its dull amber--for I +always think of drowned creatures washing wearily in its murky +depths--it lit up the great warehouses, and warmed the brickwork of the +monster chimneys in the background. No detail escaped my outer eyes--not +the hideous green of the velveteen in the sleeves of the woman on my +left, nor the supercilious giggle of the young ladies on my right, who +made audible remarks about my personal appearance. + +But what cared I? Was I not happy, absurdly happy?--because all the +while my inner eyes saw undercurrents of beauty and pathos, quaint +contrasts, whimsical details that tickled my sense of humour +deliciously. The elf that lurks in some inner cell was very busy, now +throwing out tender mimosa-like threads of creative fancy, now recording +fleeting impressions with delicate sure brushwork for future use; +touching a hundred vagrant things with the magic of imagination, making +a running comment on the scenes we passed. + +The warehouses told a tale of an up-to-date Soll und Haben, one of my +very own, one that would thrust old Freytag out of the book-mart. The +tall chimneys ceased to be giraffic throats belching soot and smoke over +the blackening city. They were obelisks rearing granite heads +heavenwards! Joints in the bricks, weather-stains? You are mistaken; +they were hieroglyphics, setting down for posterity a tragic epic of man +the conqueror, and fire his slave; and how they strangled beauty in the +grip of gain. A theme for a Whitman! + +And so it talks and I listen with my inner ear--and yet nothing outward +escapes me--the slackening of the boat--the stepping on and off of +folk--the lowering of the funnel--the name "Stanley" on the little tug, +with its self-sufficient puff-puff, fussing by with a line of grimy +barges in tow; freight-laden, for the water washes over them--and on the +last a woman sits suckling her baby, and a terrier with badly cropped +ears yaps at us as we pass.... + +And as this English river scene flashes by, lines of association form +angles in my brain; and the point of each is a dot of light that expands +into a background for forgotten canal scenes, with green-grey water, and +leaning balconies, and strange crafts--Canaletti and Guardi seen long +ago in picture galleries.... + +A delicate featured youth with gold-laced cap, scrapes a prelude on a +thin-toned violin, and his companion thrums an accompaniment on a harp. + +I don't know what they play, some tuneful thing with an undernote of +sadness and sentiment running through its commonplace--likely a +music-hall ditty; for a lad with a cheap silk hat, and the hateful +expression of knowingness that makes him a type of his kind, grins +appreciatively and hums the words. + +I turn from him to the harp. It is the wreck of a handsome instrument, +its gold is tarnished, its white is smirched, its stucco rose-wreaths +sadly battered. It has the air of an antique beauty in dirty ball +finery; and is it fancy, or does not a shamed wail lurk in the tone of +its strings? + +The whimsical idea occurs to me that it has once belonged to a lady with +drooping ringlets and an embroidered spencer; and that she touched its +chords to the words of a song by Thomas Haynes Baily, and that Miss La +Creevy transferred them both to ivory. + +The youth played mechanically, without a trace of emotion; whilst the +harpist, whose nose is a study in purples and whose bloodshot eyes have +the glassy brightness of drink, felt every touch of beauty in the poor +little tune, and drew it tenderly forth. + +They added the musical note to my joyous mood; the poetry of the city +dovetailed harmoniously with country scenes too recent to be treated as +memories--and I stepped off the boat with the melody vibrating through +the city sounds. + +I swung from place to place in happy, lightsome mood, glad as a fairy +prince in quest of adventures. The air of the city was exhilarating +ether--and all mankind my brethren--in fact I felt effusively +affectionate. + +I smiled at a pretty anaemic city girl, and only remembered that she was +a stranger when she flashed back an indignant look of affected affront. + +But what cared I? Not a jot! I could afford to say pityingly: "Go thy +way, little city maid, get thee to thy typing." + +And all the while that these outward insignificant things occupied me, I +knew that a precious little pearl of a thought was evolving slowly out +of the inner chaos. + +It was such an unique little gem, with the lustre of a tear, and the +light of moonlight and streamlight and love smiles reflected in its pure +sheen--and, best of all, it was all my own--a priceless possession, not +to be bartered for the Jagersfontein diamond--a city childling with the +prepotency of the country working in it--and I revelled in its fresh +charm and dainty strength; it seemed original, it was so frankly +natural. + +And as I dodged through the great waggons laden with wares from outer +continents, I listened and watched it forming inside, until my soul +became filled with the light of its brightness; and a wild elation +possessed me at the thought of this darling brain-child, this offspring +of my fancy, this rare little creation, perhaps embryo of genius that +was my very own. + +I smiled benevolently at the passers-by, with their harassed business +faces, and shiny black bags bulging with the weight of common every-day +documents, as I thought of the treat I would give them later on; the +delicate feast I held in store for them, when I would transfer this +dainty elusive birthling of my brain to paper for their benefit. + +It would make them dream of moonlit lanes and sweethearting; reveal to +them the golden threads in the sober city woof; creep in close and +whisper good cheer, and smooth out tired creases in heart and brain; a +draught from the fountain of Jouvence could work no greater miracle than +the tale I had to unfold. + +Aye, they might pass me by now, not even give me the inside of the +pavement, I would not blame them for it!--but later on, later on, they +would flock to thank me. They just didn't realise, poor money-grubbers! +How could they? But later on.... I grew perfectly radiant at the thought +of what I would do for poor humanity, and absurdly self-satisfied as the +conviction grew upon me that this would prove a work of genius--no mere +glimmer of the spiritual afflatus--but a solid chunk of genius. + +Meanwhile I took a 'bus and paid my penny. I leant back and chuckled to +myself as each fresh thought-atom added to the precious quality of my +pearl. Pearl? Not one any longer--a whole quarrelet of pearls, Oriental +pearls of the greatest price! Ah, how happy I was as I fondled my +conceit! + +It was near Chancery Lane that a foreign element cropped up and +disturbed the rich flow of my fancy. + +I happened to glance at the side-walk. A woman, a little woman, was +hurrying along in a most remarkable way. It annoyed me, for I could not +help wondering why she was in such a desperate hurry. Bother the jade! +what business had she to thrust herself on my observation like that, and +tangle the threads of a web of genius, undoubted genius? + +I closed my eyes to avoid seeing her; I could see her through the lids. +She had square shoulders and a high bust, and a white gauze tie, like a +snowy feather in the breast of a pouter pigeon. + +We stop--I look again--aye, there she is! Her black eyes stare boldly +through her kohol-tinted lids, her face has a violet tint. She grips her +gloves in one hand, her white-handled umbrella in the other, handle up, +like a knobkerrie. + +She has great feet, too, in pointed shoes, and the heels are under her +insteps; and as we outdistance her I fancy I can hear their decisive +tap-tap above the thousand sounds of the street. + +I breathe a sigh of relief as I return to my pearl--my pearl that is to +bring _me_ kudos and make countless thousands rejoice. It is dimmed a +little, I must nurse it tenderly. + +Jerk, jerk, jangle--stop.--Bother the bell! We pull up to drop some +passengers, the idiots! and, as I live, she overtakes us! How the men +and women cede her the middle of the pavement! How her figure dominates +it, and her great feet emphasise her ridiculous haste! Why should she +disturb me? My nerves are quivering pitifully; the sweet inner light is +waning, I am in mortal dread of losing my little masterpiece. Thank +heaven, we are off again.... + +"Charing Cross, Army and Navy, V'toria!"--Stop! + +Of course, naturally! Here she comes, elbows out, umbrella waving! How +the steel in her bonnet glistens! She recalls something, what is +it?--what is it? A-ah! I have it!--a strident voice, on the deck of a +steamer in the glorious bay of Rio, singing: + + "Je suis le vr-r-rai pompier, + Le seul pompier...." + +and _la mióla_ snaps her fingers gaily and trills her _r's_; and the +Corcovado is outlined clearly on the purple background as if bending to +listen; and the palms and the mosque-like buildings, and the fair islets +bathed in the witchery of moonlight, and the star-gems twinned in the +lap of the bay, intoxicate as a dream of the East. + + "Je suis le vr-r-rai pompier, + Le seul pompier...." + +What in the world is a _pompier_? What connection has the word with this +creature who is murdering, deliberately murdering, a delicate creation +of my brain, begotten by the fusion of country and town? + + "Je suis le vr-r-rai pompier,..." + +I am convinced _pompier_ expresses her in some subtle way--absurd word! +I look back at her, I criticise her, I anathematise her, I _hate_ her! + +What is she hurrying for? We can't escape her--always we stop and let +her overtake us with her elbowing gait, and tight skirt shortened to +show her great splay feet--ugh! + +My brain is void, all is dark within; the flowers are faded, the music +stilled; the lovely illusive little being has flown, and yet she pounds +along untiringly. + +Is she a feminine presentment of the wandering Jew, a living embodiment +of the ghoul-like spirit that haunts the city and murders fancy? + +What business had she, I ask, to come and thrust her white-handled +umbrella into the delicate network of my nerves and untune their +harmony? + +Does she realise what she has done? She has trampled a rare little +mind-being unto death, destroyed a precious literary gem. Aye, one that, +for aught I know, might have worked a revolution in modern thought; +added a new human document to the archives of man; been the keystone to +psychic investigations; solved problems that lurk in the depths of our +natures and tantalise us with elusive gleams of truth; heralded in, +perchance, the new era; when such simple problems as Home Rule, +Bimetallism, or the Woman Question will be mere themes for schoolboard +compositions--who can tell? + +Well, it was not my fault.--No one regrets it more, no one--but what +could I do? + +Blame her, woman of the great feet and dominating gait, and waving +umbrella-handle!--blame her! I can only regret it--regret it! + + + + +Portrait of a Lady + + By Charles W. Furse + +_Reproduced by the Swan Electric Engraving Company_ + +[Illustration: Portrait of a Lady] + + + + +Reticence in Literature + + By Arthur Waugh + + +_He never spoke out._ Upon these four words, gathered by chance from a +private letter, Matthew Arnold, with that super-subtle ingenuity which +loved to take the word and play upon it and make it of innumerable +colours, has constructed, as one may conjecture some antediluvian wonder +from its smallest fragment, a full, complete, and intimate picture of +the poet Thomas Gray. _He never spoke out._ Here, we are told, lies the +secret of Gray's limitation as much in life as in literature: so +sensitive was he in private life, so modest in public, that the thoughts +that arose in him never got full utterance, the possibilities of his +genius were never fulfilled; and we, in our turn, are left the poorer +for that nervous delicacy which has proved the bane of the poet, living +and dead alike. It is a singularly characteristic essay--this paper on +Gray, showing the writer's logical talent at once in its strongest and +its weakest capacities, and a complete study of Arnold's method might +well, I think, be founded upon its thirty pages. But in the present +instance I have recurred to that recurring phrase, _He never spoke out_, +not to discuss Matthew Arnold's estimate of Gray, nor, indeed, to +consider Gray's relation to his age; but merely to point out, what the +turn of Arnold's argument did not require him to consider, namely, the +extraordinarily un-English aspect of this reticence in Gray, a +reticence alien without doubt to the English character, but still more +alien to English literature. Reticence is not a national +characteristic--far otherwise. The phrase "national characteristic" is, +I know well, a cant phrase, and, as such, full of the dangers of abuse. +Historical and ethnographical criticism, proceeding on popular lines, +has tried from time to time to fix certain tendencies to certain races, +and to argue from individuals to generalities with a freedom that every +law of induction belies. And so we have come to endow the Frenchman, +universally and without exception, with politeness, the Indian, equally +universally, with cunning, the American with the commercial talent, the +German with the educational, and so forth. Generalisations of this kind +must, of course, be accepted with limitations. But it is not too much, +perhaps, to say that the Englishman has always prided himself upon his +frankness. He is always for speaking out; and it is this faculty of +outspokenness that he is anxious to attribute to those characters which +he sets up in the market-places of his religion and his literature, as +those whom he chiefly delights to honour. The demigods of our national +verse, the heroes of our national fiction, are brow-bound, above all +other laurels, with this glorious freedom of free speech and open +manners, and we have come to regard this broad, untrammelled virtue of +ours, as all individual virtues _will_ be regarded with the revolution +of the cycle of provinciality, as a guerdon above question or control. +We have become inclined to forget that every good thing has, as +Aristotle pointed out so long ago, its corresponding evil, and that the +corruption of the best is always worst of all. Frankness is so great a +boon, we say: we can forgive anything to the man who has the courage of +his convictions, the fearlessness of freedom--the man, in a word, who +speaks out. + +But we have to distinguish, I think, at the outset between a national +virtue in the rough and the artificial or acquired fashion in which we +put that virtue into use. It is obvious that, though many things are +possible to us, which are good in themselves, many things are +inexpedient, when considered relatively to our environment. Count +Tolstoi may preach his gospel of non-resistance till the beauty of his +holiness seems almost Christ-like; but every man who goes forth to his +work and to his labour knows that the habitual turning of the right +cheek to the smiter of the left, the universal gift of the cloak to the +beggar of our coat, is subversive of all political economy, and no +slight incentive to immorality as well. In the same way, it will be +clear, that this national virtue of ours, this wholesome, sincere +outspokenness, is only possible within certain limits, set by custom and +expediency, and it is probably a fact that there was never a truly wise +man yet but tempered his natural freedom of speech by an acquired habit +of reticence. The man who never speaks out may be morose; the man who is +always speaking out is a most undesirable acquaintance. + +Now, I suppose everyone is prepared to admit with Matthew Arnold that +the literature of an age (we are not now speaking of poetry alone, be it +understood, but of literature as a whole), that this literature must, in +so far as it is truly representative of, and therefore truly valuable +to, the time in which it is produced, reflect and criticise the manners, +tastes, development, the life, in fact, of the age for whose service it +was devised. We have, of course, critical literature probing the past: +we have philosophical literature prophesying the future; but the truly +representative literature of every age is the creative, which shows its +people its natural face in a glass, and leaves to posterity the record +of the manner of man it found. In one sense, indeed, creative literature +must inevitably be critical as well, critical in that it employs the +double methods of analysis and synthesis, dissecting motives and +tendencies first, and then from this examination building up a type, a +sample of the representative man and woman of its epoch. The truest +fiction of any given century, yes, and the truest poetry, too (though +the impressionist may deny it), must be a criticism of life, must +reflect its surroundings. Men pass, and fashions change; but in the +literature of their day their characters, their tendencies, remain +crystallised for all time: and what we know of the England of Chaucer +and Shakespeare, we know wholly and absolutely in the truly +representative, truly creative, because truly critical literature which +they have left to those that come after. + +It is, then, the privilege, it is more, it is the duty of the man of +letters to speak out, to be fearless, to be frank, to give no ear to the +puritans of his hour, to have no care for the objections of prudery; the +life that he lives is the life he must depict, if his work is to be of +any lasting value. He must be frank, but he must be something more. He +must remember--hourly and momently he must remember--that his virtue, +step by step, inch by inch, imperceptibly melts into the vice which +stands at its pole; and that (to employ Aristotelian phraseology for the +moment) there is a sort of middle point, a centre of equilibrium, to +pass which is to disturb and overset the entire fabric of his labours. +Midway between liberty and license, in literature as in morals, stands +the pivot of good taste, the centre-point of art. The natural +inclination of frankness, the inclination of the virtue in the rough, is +to blunder on resolutely with an indomitable and damning sincerity, till +all is said that can be said, and art is lost in photography. The +inclination of frankness, restrained by and tutored to the limitations +of art and beauty, is to speak so much as is in accordance with the +moral idea: and then, at the point where ideas melt into mere report, +mere journalistic detail, to feel intuitively the restraining, the +saving influence of reticence. In every age there has been some point +(its exact position has varied, it is true, but the point has always +been there) at which speech stopped short; and the literature which has +most faithfully reflected the manners of that age, the literature, in +fine, which has survived its little hour of popularity, and has lived +and is still living, has inevitably, invariably, and without exception +been the literature which stayed its hand and voice at the point at +which the taste of the age, the age's conception of art, set up its +statue of reticence, with her finger to her lips, and the inscription +about her feet: "So far shalt thou go, and no further." + +We have now, it seems, arrived at one consideration, which must always +limit the liberty of frankness, namely, the standard of contemporary +taste. The modesty that hesitates to align itself with that standard is +a shortcoming, the audacity that rushes beyond is a violence to the +unchanging law of literature. But the single consideration is +insufficient. If we are content with the criterion of contemporary taste +alone, our standard of judgment becomes purely historical: we are left, +so to speak, with a sliding scale which readjusts itself to every new +epoch: we have no permanent and universal test to apply to the +literature of different ages: in a word, comparative criticism is +impossible. We feel at once that we need, besides the shifting standard +of contemporary taste, some fixed unit of judgment that never varies, +some foot-rule that applies with equal infallibility to the literature +of early Greece and to the literature of later France; and such an unit, +such a foot-rule, can only be found in the final test of all art, the +necessity of the moral idea. We must, in distinguishing the thing that +may be said fairly and artistically from the thing whose utterance is +inadmissible, we must in such a decision control our judgment by two +standards--the one, the shifting standard of contemporary taste: the +other, the permanent standard of artistic justification, the presence of +the moral idea. With these two elements in action, we ought, I think, to +be able to estimate with tolerable fairness the amount of reticence in +any age which ceases to be a shortcoming, the amount of frankness which +begins to be a violence in the literature of the period. We ought, with +these two elements in motion, to be able to employ a scheme of +comparative criticism which will prevent us from encouraging that +retarding and dangerous doctrine that what was expedient and +justifiable, for instance, in the dramatists of the Restoration is +expedient and justifiable in the playwrights of our own Victorian era; +we ought, too, to be able to arrive instinctively at a sense of the +limits of art, and to appreciate the point at which frankness becomes a +violence, in that it has degenerated into mere brawling, animated +neither by purpose nor idea. Let us, then, consider these two standards +of taste and art separately: and first, let us give a brief attention to +the contemporary standard. + +We may, I think, take it as a rough working axiom that the point of +reticence in literature, judged by a contemporary standard, should be +settled by the point of reticence in the conversation of the taste and +culture of the age. Literature is, after all, simply the ordered, +careful exposition of the thought of its period, seeking the best matter +of the time, and setting it forth in the best possible manner; and it is +surely clear that what is written in excess of what is spoken (in excess +I mean on the side of license) is a violence to, a misrepresentation of, +the period to whose service the literature is devoted. The course of the +highest thought of the time should be the course of its literature, the +limit of the most delicate taste of the time the limit of literary +expression: whatever falls below that standard is a shortcoming, +whatever exceeds it a violence. Obviously the standard varies immensely +with the period. It would be tedious, nor is it necessary to our +purpose, to make a long historical research into the development of +taste; but a few striking examples may help us to appreciate its +variations. + +To begin with a very early stage of literature, we find among the +Heracleidae of Herodotus a stage of contemporary taste which is the +result of pure brutality. It is clear that literature adjusted to the +frankness of the uxorious pleasantries of Candaules and Gyges would +justifiably assume a degree of license which, reasonable enough in its +environment, would be absolutely impossible, directly the influences of +civilisation began to make themselves felt. The age is one of +unrestrained brutality, and the literature which represented it would, +without violence to the contemporary taste, be brutal too. To pass at a +bound to the Rome of Juvenal is again to be transported to an age of +national sensuality: the escapades of Messalina are the inevitable +outcome of a national taste that is swamped and left putrescent by +limitless self-indulgence; and the literature which represented this +taste would, without violence, be lascivious and polluted to its depth. +In continuing, with a still wider sweep, to the England of Shakespeare, +we find a new development of taste altogether. Brutality is softened, +licentiousness is restrained, immorality no longer stalks abroad +shouting its coarse phrases at every wayfarer who passes the Mermaid or +the Globe. But, even among types of purity, reticence is little known. +The innuendoes are whispered under the breath, but when once the voice +is lowered, it matters little what is said. Rosalind and Celia enjoy +their little _doubles entendres_ together. Hero's wedding morning is an +occasion for delicate hints of experiences to come. Hamlet plies the +coarsest suggestions upon Ophelia in the intervals of a theatrical +performance. The language reflects the taste: we feel no violence here. +To take but one more instance, let us end with Sheridan. By his time +speech had been refined by sentiment, and the most graceful compliments +glide, without effort, from the lips of the adept courtier. But even +still, in the drawing-rooms of fashion, delicate morsels of scandal are +discussed by his fine ladies with a freedom which is absolutely unknown +to the Mayfair of the last half-century, where innuendo might be +conveyed by the eye and suggested by the smile, but would never, so +reticent has taste become, find the frank emphatic utterance which +brought no blush to the cheek of Mrs. Candour and Lady Sneerwell. In the +passage of time reticence has become more and more pronounced; and +literature, moving, as it must, with the age, has assumed in its normal +and wholesome form the degree of silence which it finds about it. + +The standard of taste in literature, then, so far as it responds to +contemporary judgment, should be regulated by the normal taste of the +hale and cultured man of its age: it should steer a middle course +between the prudery of the manse, which is for hiding everything vital, +and the effrontery of the pot-house, which makes for ribaldry and +bawdry; and the more it approximates to the exact equilibrium of its +period, the more thoroughly does it become representative of the best +taste of its time, the more certain is it of permanent recognition. The +literature of shortcoming and the literature of violence have their +reward: + + "They have their day, and cease to be"; + +the literature which reflects the hale and wholesome frankness of its +age can be read, with pleasure and profit, long after its openness of +speech and outlook has ceased to reproduce the surrounding life. The +environment is ephemeral, but the literature is immortal. But why is the +literature immortal? Why is it that a play like _Pericles_, for +instance, full as it is of scenes which revolt the moral taste, has +lived and is a classic forever, while innumerable contemporary pieces of +no less genius (for _Pericles_ is no masterpiece) have passed into +oblivion? Why is it that the impurity of _Pericles_ strikes the reader +scarcely at all, while the memory dwells upon its beauties and forgets +its foulness in recollection of its refinement? The reason is not far to +seek. _Pericles_ is not only free of offence when judged by the taste of +its age, it is no less blameless when we subject it to the test by which +all literature is judged at last; it conforms to the standard of art; it +is permeated by the moral idea. The standard of art--the presence of the +idea--the two expressions are, I believe, synonymous. It is easy enough +to babble of the beauty of things considered apart from their meaning, +it is easy enough to dilate on the satisfaction of art in itself, but +all these phrases are merely collocations of terms, empty and +meaningless. A thing can only be artistic by virtue of the idea it +suggests to us; when the idea is coarse, ungainly, unspeakable, the +object that suggests it is coarse, ungainly, unspeakable; art and ethics +must always be allied in that the merit of the art is dependent on the +merit of the idea it prompts. + +Perhaps I shall show my meaning more clearly by an example from the more +tangible art of painting; and let me take as an instance an artist who +has produced pictures at once the most revolting and most moral of any +in the history of English art. I mean Hogarth. We are all familiar with +his coarsenesses; all these have we known from our youth up. But it is +only the schoolboy who searches the Bible for its indecent passages; +when we are become men, we put away such childish satisfactions. Then +we begin to appreciate the idea which underlies the subject: we feel +that Hogarth-- + + "Whose pictured morals charm the mind, + And through the eye correct the heart"-- + +was, even in his grossest moments, profoundly moral, entirely sane, +because he never dallied lasciviously with his subject, because he did +not put forth vice with the pleasing semblance of virtue, because, like +all hale and wholesome critics of life, he condemned excess, and +pictured it merely to portray the worthlessness, the weariness, the +dissatisfaction of lust and license. Art, we say, claims every subject +for her own; life is open to her ken; she may fairly gather her subjects +where she will. Most true. But there is all the difference in the world +between drawing life as we find it, sternly and relentlessly, surveying +it all the while from outside with the calm, unflinching gaze of +criticism, and, on the other hand, yielding ourselves to the warmth and +colour of its excesses, losing our judgment in the ecstasies of the joy +of life, becoming, in a word, effeminate. + +The man lives by ideas; the woman by sensations; and while the man +remains an artist so long as he holds true to his own view of life, the +woman becomes one as soon as she throws off the habit of her sex, and +learns to rely upon her judgment, and not upon her senses. It is only +when we regard life with the untrammelled view of the impartial +spectator, when we pierce below the substance for its animating idea, +that we approximate to the artistic temperament. It is unmanly, it is +effeminate, it is inartistic to gloat over pleasure, to revel in +immoderation, to become passion's slave; and literature demands as much +calmness of judgment, as much reticence, as life itself. The man who +loses reticence loses self-respect, and the man who has no respect for +himself will scarcely find others to venerate him. After all, the world +generally takes us at our own valuation. + +We have now, I trust, arrived (though, it may be, by a rather circuitous +journey) at something like a definite and reasonable law for the +exercise of reticence; it only remains to consider by what test we shall +most easily discover the presence or absence of the animating moral idea +which we have found indispensable to art. It seems to me that three +questions will generally suffice. Does the work, we should ask +ourselves, make for that standard of taste which is normal to +wholesomeness and sanity of judgment? Does it, or does it not, encourage +us to such a line of life as is recommended, all question of tenet and +creed apart, by the experience of the age, as the life best calculated +to promote individual and general good? And does it encourage to this +life in language and by example so chosen as not to offend the +susceptibilities of that ordinarily strong and unaffected taste which, +after all, varies very little with the changes of the period and +development? When creative literature satisfies these three +requirements--when it is sane, equable, and well spoken, then it is safe +to say it conforms to the moral idea, and is consonant with art. By its +sanity it eludes the risk of effeminate demonstration; by its choice of +language it avoids brutality; and between these two poles, it may be +affirmed without fear of question, true taste will and must be found to +lie. + +These general considerations, already too far prolonged, become of +immediate interest to us as soon as we attempt to apply them to the +literature of our own half-century, and I propose concluding what I +wished to say on the necessity of reticence by considering, briefly and +without mention of names, that realistic movement in English literature +which, under different titles, and protected by the ægis of various +schools, has proved, without doubt, the most interesting and suggestive +development in the poetry and fiction of our time. During the last +quarter of a century, more particularly, the English man-of-letters has +been indulging, with an entirely new freedom, his national birthright of +outspokenness, and during the last twelve months there have been no +uncertain indications that this freedom of speech is degenerating into +license which some of us cannot but view with regret and apprehension. +The writers and the critics of contemporary literature have, it would +seem, alike lost their heads; they have gone out into the byways and +hedges in search of the new thing, and have brought into the study and +subjected to the microscope mean objects of the roadside, whose analysis +may be of value to science but is absolutely foreign to art. The age of +brutality, pure and simple, is dead with us, it is true; but the age of +effeminacy appears, if one is to judge by recent evidence, to be growing +to its dawn. The day that follows will, if it fulfils the promise of its +morning, be very serious and very detrimental to our future literature. + +Every great productive period of literature has been the result of some +internal or external revulsion of feeling, some current of ideas. This +is a commonplace. The greatest periods of production have been those +when the national mind has been directed to some vast movement of +emancipation--the discovery of new countries, the defeat of old enemies, +the opening of fresh possibilities. Literature is best stimulated by +stirrings like these. Now, the last quarter of a century in English +history has been singularly sterile of important improvements. There has +been no very inspiring acquisition to territory or to knowledge: there +has been, in consequence, no marked influx of new ideas. The mind has +been thrown back upon itself; lacking stimulus without, it has sought +inspiration within, and the most characteristic literature of the time +has been introspective. Following one course, it has betaken itself to +that intimately analytical fiction which we associate primarily with +America; it has sifted motives and probed psychology, with the result +that it has proved an exceedingly clever, exact, and scientific, but +scarcely stimulating, or progressive school of literature. Following +another course, it has sought for subject-matter in the discussion of +passions and sensations, common, doubtless, to every age of mankind, +interesting and necessary, too, in their way, but passions and +sensations hitherto dissociated with literature, hitherto, perhaps, +scarcely realised to their depth and intensity. It is in this +development that the new school of realism has gone furthest; and it is +in this direction that the literature of the future seems likely to +follow. It is, therefore, not without value to consider for a moment +whither this new frankness is leading us, and how far its freedom is +reconciled to that standard of necessary reticence which I have tried to +indicate in these pages. + +This present tendency to literary frankness had its origin, I think, no +less than twenty-eight years ago. It was then that the dovecotes of +English taste were tremulously fluttered by the coming of a new poet, +whose naked outspokenness startled his readers into indignation. +Literature, which had retrograded into a melancholy sameness, found +itself convulsed by a sudden access of passion, which was probably +without parallel since the age of the silver poets of Rome. This new +singer scrupled not to revel in sensations which for years had remained +unmentioned upon the printed page; he even chose for his subjects +refinements of lust, which the commonly healthy Englishman believed to +have become extinct with the time of Juvenal. Here was an innovation +which was absolutely alien to the standard of contemporary taste--an +innovation, I believe, that was equally opposed to that final moderation +without which literature is lifeless. + +Let us listen for one moment: + + "By the ravenous teeth that have smitten + Through the kisses that blossom and bud, + By the lips intertwisted and bitten + Till the foam has a savour of blood, + By the pulse as it rises and falters, + By the hands as they slacken and strain, + I adjure thee, respond from thine altars, + Our Lady of Pain. + + As of old when the world's heart was lighter, + Through thy garments the grace of thee glows, + The white wealth of thy body made whiter + By the blushes of amorous blows, + And seamed with sharp lips and fierce fingers, + And branded by kisses that bruise; + When all shall be gone that now lingers, + Ah, what shall we lose? + + Thou wert fair in thy fearless old fashion, + And thy limbs are as melodies yet, + And move to the music of passion + With lithe and lascivious regret. + What ailed us, O gods, to desert you + For creeds that refuse and restrain? + Come down and redeem us from virtue, + Our Lady of Pain." + +This was twenty-eight years ago; and still the poetry lives. At first +sight it would seem as though the desirable reticence, upon which we +have been insisting, were as yet unnecessary to immortality. A quarter +of a century has passed, it might be argued, and the verse is as fresh +to-day and as widely recognised as it was in its morning: is not this a +proof that art asks for no moderation? I believe not. It is true that +the poetry lives, that we all recognise, at some period of our lives, +the grasp and tenacity of its influence; that, even when the days come +in which we say we have no pleasure in it, we still turn to it at times +for something we do not find elsewhere. But the thing we seek is not the +matter, but the manner. The poetry is living, not by reason of its +unrestrained frankness, but in spite of it, for the sake of something +else. That sweet singer who charmed and shocked the audiences of 1866, +charms us, if he shocks us not now, by virtue of the one new thing that +he imported into English poetry, the unique and as yet imperishable +faculty of musical possibilities hitherto unattained. There is no such +music in all the range of English verse, seek where you will, as there +is in him. But the perfection of the one talent, its care, its +elaboration, have resulted in a corresponding decay of those other +faculties by which alone, in the long run, poetry can live. Open him +where you will, there is in his poetry neither construction nor +proportion; no development, no sustained dramatic power. Open him where +you will, you acquire as much sense of his meaning and purpose from any +two isolated stanzas as from the study of a whole poem. There remains in +your ears, when you have ceased from reading, the echo only of a +beautiful voice, chanting, as it were, the melodies of some outland +tongue. + +Is this the sort of poetry that will survive the trouble of the ages? It +cannot survive. The time will come (it must) when some newer singer +discovers melodies as yet unknown, melodies which surpass in their +modulations and varieties those poems and ballads of twenty-eight years +ago; and, when we have found the new note, what will be left of the +earlier singer, to which we shall of necessity return? A message? No. +Philosophy? No. A new vision of life? No. A criticism of contemporary +existence? Assuredly not. There remains the melody alone; and this, when +once it is surpassed, will charm us little enough. We shall forget it +then. Art brings in her revenges, and this will be of them. + +But the new movement did not stop here. If, in the poet we have been +discussing, we have found the voice among us that corresponds to the +decadent voices of the failing Roman Republic, there has reached us from +France another utterance, which I should be inclined to liken to the +outspoken brutality of Restoration drama. Taste no longer fails on the +ground of a delicate, weakly dalliance, it begins to see its own +limitations, and springs to the opposite pole. It will now be virile, +full of the sap of life, strong, robust, and muscular. It will hurry us +out into the fields, will show us the coarser passions of the common +farm-hand; at any expense it will paint the life it finds around it; it +will at least be consonant with that standard of want of taste which it +falsely believes to be contemporary. We get a realistic fiction abroad, +and we begin to copy it at home. We will trace the life of the +travelling actor, follow him into the vulgar, sordid surroundings which +he chooses for the palace of his love, be it a pottery-shed or the +ill-furnished lodging-room with its black horsehair sofa--we will draw +them all, and be faithful to the lives we live. Is that the sort of +literature that will survive the trouble of the ages? It cannot survive. +We are no longer untrue to our time, perhaps, if we are to seek for the +heart of that time in the lowest and meanest of its representatives; but +we are untrue to art, untrue to the record of our literary past, when we +are content to turn for our own inspiration to anything but the best +line of thought, the highest school of life, through which we are +moving. This grosser realism is no more representative of its time than +were the elaborate pastiches of classical degradation; it is as though +one should repeople Eden with creatures imagined from a study of the +serpent's head. In the history of literature this movement, too, will +with the lapse of time pass unrecognised; it has mourned unceasingly to +an age which did not lack for innocent piping and dancing in its +market-places. + +The two developments of realism of which we have been speaking seem to +me to typify the two excesses into which frankness is inclined to fall; +on the one hand, the excess prompted by effeminacy--that is to say, by +the want of restraints which starts from enervated sensation; and on the +other, the excess which results from a certain brutal virility, which +proceeds from coarse familiarity with indulgence. The one whispers, the +other shouts; the one is the language of the courtesan, the other of the +bargee. What we miss in both alike is that true frankness which springs +from the artistic and moral temperament; the episodes are no part of a +whole in unity with itself; the impression they leave upon the reader is +not the impression of Hogarth's pictures; in one form they employ all +their art to render vice attractive, in the other, with absolutely no +art at all, they merely reproduce, with the fidelity of the kodak, +scenes and situations the existence of which we all acknowledge, while +taste prefers to forget them. + +But the latest development of literary frankness is, I think, the most +insidious and fraught with the greatest danger to art. A new school has +arisen which combines the characteristics of effeminacy and brutality. +In its effeminate aspect it plays with the subtler emotions of sensual +pleasure, on its brutal side it has developed into that class of fiction +which for want of a better word I must call chirurgical. In poetry it +deals with very much the same passions as those which we have traced in +the verse to which allusion has been made above; but, instead of leaving +these refinements of lust to the haunts to which they are fitted, it has +introdduced them into the domestic chamber, and permeated marriage with +the ardours of promiscuous intercourse. In fiction it infects its +heroines with acquired diseases of names unmentionable, and has debased +the beauty of maternity by analysis of the process of gestation. Surely +the inartistic temperament can scarcely abuse literature further. I own +I can conceive nothing less beautiful. + +It was said of a great poet by a little critic that he wheeled his +nuptial couch into the area; but these small poets and smaller novelists +bring out their sick into the thoroughfare, and stop the traffic while +they give us a clinical lecture upon their sufferings. We are told that +this is a part of the revolt of woman, and certainly our women-writers +are chiefly to blame. It is out of date, no doubt, to clamour for +modesty; but the woman who describes the sensations of childbirth does +so, it is to be presumed--not as the writer of advice to a wife--but as +an artist producing literature for art's sake. And so one may fairly ask +her: How is art served by all this? What has she told us that we did not +all know, or could not learn from medical manuals? and what impression +has she left us over and above the memory of her unpalatable details? +And our poets, who know no rhyme for "rest" but that "breast" whose +snowinesses and softnesses they are for ever describing with every +accent of indulgence, whose eyes are all for frills, if not for garters, +what have they sung that was not sung with far greater beauty and +sincerity in the days when frills and garters were alluded to with the +open frankness that cried shame on him who evil thought. The one +extremity, it seems to me, offends against the standard of contemporary +taste; ("people," as Hedda Gabler said, "do not say such things now"); +the other extremity rebels against that universal standard of good taste +that has from the days of Milo distinguished between the naked and the +nude. We are losing the distinction now; the cry for realism, naked and +unashamed, is borne in upon us from every side: + + "Rip your brother's vices open, strip your own foul passions bare; + Down with Reticence, down with Reverence--forward--naked--let them + stare." + +But there was an Emperor once (we know the story) who went forth among +his people naked. It was said that he wore fairy clothes, and that only +the unwise could fail to see them. At last a little child raised its +voice from the crowd! "Why, he has nothing on," it said. And so these +writers of ours go out from day to day, girded on, they would have us +believe, with the garments of art; and fashion has lacked the courage to +cry out with the little child: "They have nothing on." No robe of art, +no texture of skill, they whirl before us in a bacchanalian dance naked +and unashamed. But the time will come, it must, when the voices of the +multitude will take up the cry of the child, and the revellers will +hurry to their houses in dismay. Without dignity, without +self-restraint, without the morality of art, literature has never +survived; they are the few who rose superior to the baser levels of +their time, who stand unimpugned among the immortals now. And that +mortal who would put on immortality must first assume that habit of +reticence, that garb of humility by which true greatness is best known. +To endure restraint--_that_ is to be strong. + + + + +A Lady Reading + + By Walter Sickert + +_Reproduced by Messrs. Carl Hentschel & Co._ + +[Illustration: A Lady Reading] + + + + +Modern Melodrama + + By Hubert Crackanthorpe + + +The pink shade of a single lamp supplied an air of subdued mystery; the +fire burned red and still; in place of door and windows hung curtains, +obscure, formless; the furniture, dainty, but sparse, stood detached and +incoördinate like the furniture of a stage-scene; the atmosphere was +heavy with heat, and a scent of stale tobacco; some cut flowers, half +withered, tissue-paper still wrapping their stalks, lay on a gilt, +cane-bottomed chair. + +"Will you give me a sheet of paper, please?" + +He had crossed the room, to seat himself before the principal table. He +wore a fur-lined overcoat, and he was tall, and broad, and bald; a sleek +face, made grave by gold-rimmed spectacles. + +The other man was in evening dress; his back leaning against the +mantelpiece, his hands in his pockets: he was moodily scraping the +hearthrug with his toe. Clean-shaved; stolid and coarsely regular +features; black, shiny hair, flattened on to his head; under-sized eyes, +moist and glistening; the tint of his face uniform, the tint of +discoloured ivory; he looked a man who ate well and lived hard. + +"Certainly, sir, certainly," and he started to hurry about the room. + +"Daisy," he exclaimed roughly, a moment later, "where the deuce do you +keep the note-paper?" + +"I don't know if there is any, but the girl always has some." She spoke +in a slow tone--insolent and fatigued. + +A couple of bed-pillows were supporting her head, and a scarlet plush +cloak, trimmed with white down, was covering her feet, as she lay curled +on the sofa. The fire-light glinted on the metallic gold of her hair, +which clashed with the black of her eyebrows; and the full, blue eyes, +wide-set, contradicted the hard line of her vivid-red lips. She drummed +her fingers on the sofa-edge, nervously. + +"Never mind," said the bald man shortly, producing a notebook from his +breast-pocket, and tearing a leaf from it. + +He wrote, and the other two stayed silent; the man returned to the +hearthrug, lifting his coat-tails under his arms; the girl went on +drumming the sofa-edge. + +"There," sliding back his chair, and looking from the one to the other, +evidently uncertain which of the two he should address. "Here is the +prescription. Get it made up to-night, a table-spoonful at a time, in a +wine-glassful of water at lunch-time, at dinner-time and before going to +bed. Go on with the port wine twice a day, and (to the girl, +deliberately and distinctly) you _must_ keep quite quiet; avoid all sort +of excitement--that is extremely important. Of course you must on no +account go out at night. Go to bed early, take regular meals, and keep +always warm." + +"I say," broke in the girl, "tell us, it isn't bad--dangerous, I mean?" + +"Dangerous!--no, not if you do what I tell you." + +He glanced at his watch, and rose, buttoning his coat. + +"Good-evening," he said gravely. + +At first she paid no heed; she was vacantly staring before her: then, +suddenly conscious that he was waiting, she looked up at him. + +"Good-night, doctor." + +She held out her hand, and he took it. + +"I'll get all right, won't I?" she asked, still looking up at him. + +"All right--of course you will--of course. But remember you must do what +I tell you." + +The other man handed him his hat and umbrella, opened the door for him, +and it closed behind them. + + * * * * * + +The girl remained quiet, sharply blinking her eyes, her whole expression +eager, intense. + +A murmer of voices, a muffled tread of footsteps descending the +stairs--the gentle shutting of a door--stillness. + +She raised herself on her elbow, listening; the cloak slipped +noiselessly to the floor. Quickly her arm shot out to the bell-rope: she +pulled it violently; waited, expectant; and pulled again. + +A slatternly figure appeared--a woman of middle-age--her arms, bared to +the elbows, smeared with dirt; a grimy apron over her knees. + +"What's up?--I was smashin' coal," she explained. + +"Come here," hoarsely whispered the girl--"here--no--nearer--quite +close. Where's he gone?" + +"Gone? 'oo?" + +"That man that was here." + +"I s'ppose 'ee's in the downstairs room. I ain't 'eard the front door +slam." + +"And Dick, where's he?" + +"They're both in there together, I s'ppose." + +"I want you to go down--quietly--without making a noise--listen at the +door--come up, and tell me what they're saying." + +"What? down there?" jerking her thumb over her shoulder. + +"Yes, of course--at once," answered the girl, impatiently. + +"And if they catches me--a nice fool I looks. No, I'm jest blowed if I +do!" she concluded. "Whatever's up?" + +"You must," the girl broke out excitedly. "I tell you, you must." + +"Must--must--an' if I do, what am I goin' to git out of it?" She paused, +reflecting; then added: "Look 'ere--I tell yer what--I'll do it for half +a quid, there?" + +"Yes--yes--all right--only make haste." + +"An' 'ow d' I know as I'll git it?" she objected doggedly. "It's a jolly +risk, yer know." + +The girl sprang up, flushed and feverish. + +"Quick--or he'll be gone. I don't know where it is--but you shall have +it--I promise--quick--please go--quick." + +The other hesitated, her lips pressed together; turned, and went out. + +And the girl, catching at her breath, clutched a chair. + + * * * * * + +A flame flickered up in the fire, buzzing spasmodically. A creak +outside. She had come up. But the curtains did not move. Why didn't she +come in? She was going past. The girl hastened across the room, the +intensity of the impulse lending her strength. + +"Come--come in," she gasped. "Quick--I'm slipping." + +She struck at the wall; but with the flat of her hand, for there was no +grip. The woman bursting in, caught her, and led her back to the sofa. + +"There, there, dearie," tucking the cloak round her feet. "Lift up the +piller, my 'ands are that mucky. Will yer 'ave anythin'?" + +She shook her head. "It's gone," she muttered. "Now--tell me." + +"Tell yer?--tell yer what! Why--why--there ain't jest nothin' to tell +yer." + +"What were they saying? Quick." + +"I didn't 'ear nothin'. They was talking about some ballet-woman." + +The girl began to cry, feebly, helplessly, like a child in pain. + +"You might tell me, Liz. You might tell me. I've been a good sort to +you." + +"That yer 'ave. I knows yer 'ave, dearie. There, there, don't yer take +on like that. Yer'll only make yerself bad again." + +"Tell me--tell me," she wailed. "I've been a good sort to you, Liz." + +"Well, they wasn't talkin' of no ballet-woman--that's straight," the +woman blurted out savagely. + +"What did he say?--tell me." Her voice was weaker now. + +"I can't tell yer--don't yer ask me--for God's sake, don't yer ask me." + +With a low crooning the girl cried again. + +"Oh! for God's sake, don't yer take on like that--it's awful--I can't +stand it. There, dearie, stop that cryin' an' I'll tell yer--I will +indeed. It was jest this way--I slips my shoes off, an' I goes down as +careful--jest as careful as a cat--an' when I gets to the door I +crouches myself down, listenin' as 'ard as ever I could. The first +things as I 'ears was Mr. Dick speakin' thick-like--like as if 'ee'd bin +drinkin'--an t'other chap 'ee says somethin' about lungs, using some +long word--I missed that--there was a van or somethin' rackettin' on the +road. Then 'ee says 'gallopin', gallopin',' jest like as 'ee was talkin' +of a 'orse. An' Mr. Dick, 'ee says, 'ain't there no chance--no'ow?' and +'ee give a sort of a grunt. I was awful sorry for 'im, that I was, 'ee +must 'ave been crool bad, 'ee's mostly so quiet-like, ain't 'ee? An', in +a minute, ee sort o' groans out somethin', an' t'other chap 'es answer +'im quite cool-like, that 'ee don't properly know; but, anyways, it 'ud +be over afore the end of February. There I've done it. Oh! dearie, it's +awful, awful, that's jest what it is. An' I 'ad no intention to tell +yer--not a blessed word--that I didn't--may God strike me blind if I +did! Some'ow it all come out, seein' yer chokin' that 'ard an' feelin' +at the wall there. Yer 'ad no right to ask me to do it--'ow was I to +know 'ee was a doctor?" + +She put the two corners of her apron to her eyes, gurgling loudly. + +"Look 'ere, don't yer b'lieve a word of it--I don't--I tell yer they're +a 'umbuggin' lot, them doctors, all together. I know it. Yer take my +word for that--yer'll git all right again. Yer'll be as well as I am, +afore yer've done--Oh, Lord!--it's jest awful--I feel that upset--I'd +like to cut my tongue out, for 'avin' told yer--but I jest couldn't 'elp +myself." She was retreating towards the door, wiping her eyes, and +snorting out loud sobs--"An', don't you offer me that half quid--I +couldn't take it of yer--that I couldn't." + + * * * * * + +She shivered, sat up, and dragged the cloak tight round her shoulders. +In her desire to get warm she forgot what had happened. She extended the +palms of her hands towards the grate: the grate was delicious. A smoking +lump of coal clattered on to the fender: she lifted the tongs, but the +sickening remembrance arrested her. The things in the room were +receding, dancing round: the fire was growing taller and taller. The +woollen scarf chafed her skin: she wrenched it off. Then hope, keen and +bitter, shot up, hurting her. "How could he know? Of course he couldn't +know. She'd been a lot better this last fortnight--the other doctor said +so--she didn't believe it--she didn't care----Anyway, it would be over +before the end of February!" + +Suddenly the crooning wail started again: next, spasms of weeping, harsh +and gasping. + +By-and-by she understood that she was crying noisily, and that she was +alone in the room; like a light in a wind, the sobbing fit ceased. + +"Let me live--let me live--I'll be straight--I'll go to church--I'll do +anything! Take it away--it hurts--I can't bear it!" + +Once more the sound of her own voice in the empty room calmed her. But +the tension of emotion slackened, only to tighten again: immediately she +was jeering at herself. What was she wasting her breath for? What had +Jesus ever done for her? She'd had her fling, and it was no thanks to +Him. + +"'Dy-sy--Dy-sy----'" + +From the street below, boisterous and loud, the refrain came up. And, as +the footsteps tramped away, the words reached her once more, indistinct +in the distance: + +"'I'm jest cryzy, all for the love o' you.'" + +She felt frightened. It was like a thing in a play. It was as if some +one was there, in the room--hiding--watching her. + +Then a coughing fit started, racking her. In the middle, she struggled +to cry for help; she thought she was going to suffocate. + +Afterwards she sank back, limp, tired, and sleepy. + +The end of February--she was going to die--it was important, +exciting--what would it be like? Everybody else died. Midge had died in +the summer--but that was worry and going the pace. And they said that +Annie Evans was going off too. Damn it! she wasn't going to be +chicken-hearted. She'd face it. She'd had a jolly time. She'd be game +till the end. Hell-fire--that was all stuff and nonsense--she knew that. +It would be just nothing--like a sleep. Not even painful: she'd be just +shut down in a coffin, and she wouldn't know that they were doing it. +Ah! but they might do it before she was quite dead! It had happened +sometimes. And she wouldn't be able to get out. The lid would be nailed, +and there would be earth on the top. And if she called, no one would +hear. + +Ugh! what a fit of the blues she was getting! It was beastly, being +alone. Why the devil didn't Dick come back? + +That noise, what was that? + +Bah! only some one in the street. What a fool she was! + +She winced again as the fierce feeling of revolt swept through her, the +wild longing to fight. It was damned rough--four months! A year, six +months even, was a long time. The pain grew acute, different from +anything she had felt before. + +"Good Lord! what am I maundering on about? Four months--I'll go out with +a fizzle like a firework. Why the devil doesn't Dick come?--or Liz--or +somebody? What do they leave me alone like this for?" + +She dragged at the bell-rope. + + * * * * * + +He came in, white and blear-eyed. + +"Whatever have you been doing all this time?" she began angrily. + +"I've been chatting with the doctor." He was pretending to read a +newspaper: there was something funny about his voice. + +"It's ripping. He says you'll soon be fit again, as long as you don't +get colds, or that sort of thing. Yes, he says you'll soon be fit +again"--a quick, crackling noise--he had gripped the newspaper in his +fist. + +She looked at him, surprised, in spite of herself. She would never have +thought he'd have done it like that. He was a good sort, after all. +But--she didn't know why--she broke out furiously: + +"You infernal liar!--I know. I shall be done for by the end of +February--ha! ha!" + +Seizing a vase of flowers, she flung it into the grate. The crash and +the shrivelling of the leaves in the flames brought her an instant's +relief. Then she said quietly: + +"There--I've made an idiot of myself; but" (weakly) "I didn't know--I +didn't know--I thought it was different." + +He hesitated, embarrassed by his own emotion. Presently he went up to +her and put his hands round her cheeks. + +"No," she said, "that's no good, I don't want that. Get me something to +drink. I feel bad." + +He hurried to the cupboard and fumbled with the cork of a champagne +bottle. It flew out with a bang. She started violently. + +"You clumsy fool!" she exclaimed. + +She drank off the wine at a gulp. + +"Daisy," he began. + +She was staring stonily at the empty glass. + +"Daisy," he repeated. + +She tapped her toe against the fender-rail. + +At this sign, he went on: + +"How did you know?" + +"I sent Liz to listen," she answered mechanically. + +He looked about him, helpless. + +"I think I'll smoke," he said feebly. + +She made no answer. + +"Here, put the glass down," she said. + +He obeyed. + +He lit a cigarette over the lamp, sat down opposite her, puffing dense +clouds of smoke. + +And, for a long while, neither spoke. + +"Is that doctor a good man?" + +"I don't know. People say so," he answered. + + + + +Two Songs + + By John Davidson + + + I--London + + Athwart the sky a lowly sigh + From west to east the sweet wind carried; + The sun stood still on Primrose Hill; + His light in all the city tarried: + The clouds on viewless columns bloomed + Like smouldering lilies unconsumed. + + "Oh, sweetheart, see, how shadowy, + Of some occult magician's rearing, + Or swung in space of Heaven's grace, + Dissolving, dimly reappearing, + Afloat upon ethereal tides + St. Paul above the city rides!" + + A rumour broke through the thin smoke + Enwreathing Abbey, Tower, and Palace, + The parks, the squares, the thoroughfares, + The million-peopled lanes and alleys, + An ever-muttering prisoned storm, + The heart of London beating warm. + + + II-Down-a-down + + Foxes peeped from out their dens, + Day grew pale and olden; + Blackbirds, willow-warblers, wrens, + Staunched their voices golden. + + High, oh high, from the opal sky, + Shouting against the dark, + "Why, why, why must the day go by?" + Fell a passionate lark. + + But the cuckoos beat their brazen gongs, + Sounding, sounding so; + And the nightingales poured in starry songs + A galaxy below. + + Slowly tolling the vesper bell + Ushered the stately night. + Down-a-down in a hawthorn dell + A boy and a girl and love's delight. + + + + +The Love-Story of Luigi Tansillo + + By Richard Garnett + + + Now that my wings are spread to my desire, + The more vast height withdraws the dwindling land, + Wider to wind these pinions I expand, + And earth disdain, and higher mount and higher + Nor of the fate of Icarus inquire, + Or cautious droop, or sway to either hand; + Dead I shall fall, full well I understand; + But who lives gloriously as I expire? + Yet hear I my own heart that pleading cries, + Stay, madman! Whither art thou bound? Descend! + Ruin is ready Rashness to chastise. + But I, Fear not, though this indeed the end; + Cleave we the clouds, and praise our destinies, + If noble fall on noble flight attend. + +The above sonnet, one of the finest in Italian literature, is already +known to many English readers in another translation by the late Mr. J. +Addington Symonds, which originally appeared in the _Cornhill Magazine_, +and is prefixed to his translation of the sonnets of Michael Angelo and +Campanella (London, 1878), under the title of "The Philosopher's +Flight." In his preface Mr. Symonds says: "The sonnet prefixed as a +proem to the whole book is generally attributed to Giordano Bruno, in +whose Dialogue in the 'Eroici Furori' it occurs. There seems, however, +good reason to suppose that it was really written by Tansillo, who +recites it in that dialogue. Whoever may have been its author, it +expresses in noble and impassioned verse the sense of danger, the +audacity, and the exultation of those pioneers of modern thought, for +whom philosophy was a voyage of discovery into untravelled regions." Mr. +Symonds's knowledge of Italian literature was so extensive that he must +have had ground for stating that the sonnet is generally attributed to +Giordano Bruno; as it certainly is by De Sanctis, though it is printed +as Tansillo's in all editions of his works, imperfect as these were +before the appearance of Signor Fiorentino's in 1882. It is, +nevertheless, remarkable that he should add: "_There seems good reason +to suppose_ that it was really written by Tansillo," as if there could +be a shadow of doubt on the matter. "Eroici Furori" is professedly a +series of dialogues between Luigi Tansillo the Neapolitan poet, who had +died about twenty years before their composition, and Cicero, but is in +reality little more than a monologue, for Tansillo does nearly all the +talking, and Cicero receives his instructions with singular docility. +The reason of Tansillo's selection for so great an honour was +undoubtedly that, although born at Venosa, he belonged by descent to +Nola, Bruno's own city. In making such free use of Tansillo's poetry as +he has done throughout these dialogues, Bruno was far from the least +idea of pillaging his distinguished countryman. In introducing the four +sonnets he has borrowed (for there are three besides that already +quoted) he is always careful to make Tansillo speak of them as his own +compositions, which he never does when Bruno's own verses are put into +his mouth. If a particle of doubt could remain, it would be dispelled by +the fact that this sonnet, with other poems by Tansillo, including the +three other sonnets introduced into Bruno's dialogue, is published under +his name in the "Rime di diversi illustri Signori Napoletani," edited by +Lodovico Dolce at Venice, in 1555, when Bruno was about seven years old! + +Mr. Symonds's interpretation of the sonnet also is erroneous--in so far, +at least, as that the meaning assigned by him never entered into the +head of the author. It is certainly fully susceptible of such an +exposition. But Tansillo, no philosopher, but a cavalier, the active +part of whose life was mainly spent in naval expeditions against the +Turks, no more thought with Mr. Symonds of "the pioneers of modern +philosophy," than he thought with Bruno of "arising and freeing himself +from the body and sensual cognition." On the contrary, the sonnet is a +love-sonnet, and depicts with extraordinary grandeur the elation of +spirit, combined with a sense of peril, consequent upon the poet having +conceived a passion for a lady greatly his superior in rank. The proof +of this is to be found in the fact that the sonnet is one of a series, +unequivocally celebrating an earthly passion; and especially in the +sonnet immediately preceding it in Dolce's collection, manifestly +written at the same time and referring to the same circumstance, in +which the poet ascribes his Icarian flight, not to the influence of +Philosophy, but of Love: + + Love fits me forth with wings, which so dilate, + Sped skyward at the call of daring thought, + I high and higher soar, with purpose fraught + Soon to lay smiting hand on Heaven's gate. + Yet altitude so vast might well abate + My confidence, if Love not succour brought, + Pledging my fame not jeopardised in aught, + And promising renown as ruin great. + If he whom like audacity inspired, + Falling gave name immortal to the flood, + As sunny flame his waxen pinion fired; + Then of thee too it shall be understood, + No meaner prize than Heaven thy soul required, + And firmer than thy life thy courage stood. + +The meaning of the two sonnets is fully recognised by Muratori, who +prints them together in his treatise, "Della perfetta poesia," and adds: +"_volea dire costui che s'era imbarcato in un'amor troppo alto, e +s'andava facendo coraggio_." + +This is surely one of the most remarkable instances possible to adduce +of the infinite significance of true poetry, and its capacity for +inspiring ideas and suggesting interpretations of which the poet never +dreamed, but which are nevertheless fairly deducible from his +expressions. + +It is now a matter of considerable interest to ascertain the identity of +this lady of rank, who could inspire a passion at once so exalted and so +perilous. The point has been investigated by Tansillo's editor, Signor +F. Fiorentino, who has done so much to rescue his unpublished +compositions from oblivion, and his view must be pronounced perfectly +satisfactory. She was Maria d'Aragona, Marchioness del Vasto, whose +husband, the Marquis del Vasto, a celebrated general of Spanish descent, +famous as Charles the Fifth's right hand in his successful expedition +against Tunis, and at one time governor of the Milanese, was as +remarkable for his jealousy as the lady, grand-daughter of a King of +Naples, was for her pride and haughtiness. Fiorentino proves his case by +showing how well all personal allusions in Tansillo's poems, so far as +they can be traced, agree with the circumstances of the Marchioness, and +in particular that the latter is represented as at one time residing on +the island of Ischia, where del Vasto was accustomed to deposit his +wife for security, when absent on his campaigns. He is apparently not +aware that the object of Tansillo's affection had already been +identified with a member of the house of Aragon by Faria e Sousa, the +Portuguese editor of Camoëns, who, in his commentary on Camoëns's +sixty-ninth sonnet, gives an interminable catalogue of ladies celebrated +by enamoured poets, and says, "Tansillo sang Donna Isabel de Aragon." +This lady, however, the niece of the Marchioness del Vasto, was a little +girl in Tansillo's time, and is only mentioned by him as inconsolable +for the death of a favourite dwarf. + +The sentiment, therefore, of the two sonnets of Tansillo which we have +quoted, is sufficiently justified by the exalted station of the lady who +had inspired his passion, and the risk he ran from the power and +jealousy of her husband. It seems certain, however, that the Marquis had +on his part no ground for apprehension. Maria d'Aragona does not seem to +have had much heart to bestow upon anyone, and would, in any case, have +disdained to bestow what heart she had upon a poor gentleman and +retainer of Don Garcia de Toledo, son of the Viceroy of Naples. She +would think that she honoured him beyond his deserts by accepting his +poetical homage. Tansillo, on his part, says in one of his sonnets that +his devotion is purely platonic; it might have been more ardent, he +hints, but he is dazzled by the splendour of the light he contemplates, +and intimidated by the richness of the band by which he is led. So it +may have been at first, but as time wore on the poet naturally craved +some proof that his lady was not entirely indifferent to him, and did +not tolerate him merely for the sake of his verses. This, in the nature +of things, could not be given; and the poet's raptures pass into doubt +and suspicion, thence into despairing resignation; thence into +resentment and open hostility, terminating in a cold reconciliation, +leaving him free to marry a much humbler but probably a more +affectionate person, to whom he addresses no impassioned sonnets, but +whom he instructs in a very elegant poem ("La Balia") how to bring up +her infant children. These varying affections are depicted with extreme +liveliness in a series of sonnets, of which we propose to offer some +translated specimens. The order will not be that of the editions of +Tansillo, where the pieces are distributed at random, but the probable +order of composition, as indicated by the nature of the feeling +expressed. It is, of course, impossible to give more than a few +examples, though most deserve to be reproduced. Tansillo had the +advantage over most Italian poets of his time of being in love with a +real woman; hence, though possibly inferior in style and diction to such +artists in rhyme as Bembo or Molza, he greatly surpasses them in all the +qualities that discriminate poetry from the accomplishment of verse. + +The first sonnet which we shall give is still all fire and rapture:-- + + I + + Lady, the heart that entered through your eyes + Returneth not. Well may he make delay, + For if the very windows that display + Your spirit, sparkle in such wondrous wise, + Of her enthroned within this Paradise + What shall be deemed? If heart for ever stay, + Small wonder, dazzled by more radiant day + Than gazers from without can recognise. + Glory of sun and moon and silver star + In firmament above, are these not sign + Of things within more excellent by far? + Rejoice then in thy kingdom, heart of mine, + While Love and Fortune favourable are, + Nor thou yet exiled for default of thine. + +Although, however, Tansillo's heart might well remain with its lady, +Tansillo's person was necessitated to join the frequent maritime +expeditions of the great nobleman to whom he was attached, Don Garcia de +Toledo, against the Turks. The constant free-booting of the Turkish and +Barbary rovers kept the Mediterranean in a state of commotion comparable +to that of the Spanish Main in the succeeding age, and these +expeditions, whose picturesque history remains to be written, were no +doubt very interesting; though from a philosophical point of view it is +impossible not to sympathise with the humane and generous poet when he +inquires:-- + + Che il Turco nasca turco, e 'l Moro moro, + È giusta causa questa, ond'altri ed io + Dobbiam incrudelir nel sangue loro? + +With such feelings it may well be believed that in his enforced absence +he was thinking at least as much of love as of war, and that the +following sonnet is as truthful as it is an animated picture of his +feelings:-- + + II + + No length of banishment did e'er remove + My heart from you, nor if by Fortune sped + I roam the azure waters, or the Red, + E'er with the body shall the spirit rove: + If by each drop of every wave we clove, + Or by Sun's light or Moon's encompassèd, + Another Venus were engenderèd, + And each were pregnant with another Love: + And thus new shapes of Love where'er we went + Started to life at every stroke of oar, + And each were cradled in an amorous thought; + Not more than now this spirit should adore; + That none the less doth constantly lament + It cannot worship as it would and ought. + +Before long, however, the pangs of separation overcome this elation of +spirit, while he is not yet afraid of being forgotten:-- + + III + + Like lightning shining forth from east to west, + Hurled are the happy hours from morn to night, + And leave the spirit steeped in undelight + In like proportion as themselves were blest. + Slow move sad hours, by thousand curbs opprest, + Wherewith the churlish Fates delay their flight; + Those, impulses of Mercury incite, + These lag at the Saturnian star's behest. + While thou wert near, ere separation's grief + Smote me, like steeds contending in the race, + My days and nights with equal speed did run: + Now broken either wheel, not swift the pace + Of summer's night though summer's moon be brief; + Or wintry days for brevity of sun. + + IV + + Now that the Sun hath borne with him the day, + And haled dark Night from prison subterrene, + Come forth, fair Moon, and, robed in light serene, + With thy own loveliness the world array. + Heaven's spheres, slow wheeled on their majestic way, + Invoke as they revolve thy orb unseen, + And all the pageant of the starry scene, + Wronged by thy absence, chides at thy delay. + Shades even as splendours, earth and heaven both + Smile at the apparition of thy face, + And my own gloom no longer seems so loth; + Yet, while my eye regards thee, thought doth trace + Another's image; if in vows be troth, + I am not yet estranged from Love's embrace. + +Continual separation, however, and the absence of any marked token that +he is borne in memory, necessarily prey more and more on the sensitive +spirit of the poet. During the first part, her husband's tenure of +office as Governor of the Milanese, the Marchioness, as already +mentioned, took up her residence in the island of Ischia, where she +received her adorer's eloquent aspirations for her welfare--heartfelt, +but so worded as to convey a reproach: + + V + + That this fair isle with all delight abound, + Clad be it ever in sky's smile serene, + No thundering billow boom from deeps marine, + And calm with Neptune and his folk be found. + Fast may all winds by Æolus be bound, + Save faintest breath of lispings Zephyrene; + And be the odorous earth with glowing green + Of gladsome herbs, bright flowers, quaint foliage crowned. + All ire, all tempest, all misfortune be + Heaped on my head, lest aught thy pleasure stain, + Nor this disturbed by any thought of me, + So scourged with ills' innumerable train, + New grief new tear begetteth not, as sea + Chafes not the more for deluge of the rain. + +The "quaint foliage" is in the original "Arab leaves," _arabe frondi_, +an interesting proof of the cultivation of exotic plants at the period. + +The lady rejoins her husband at Milan, and Tansillo, landing on the +Campanian coast, lately devastated by earthquakes and eruptions, finds +everywhere the image of his own bosom, and rejoices at the opportunity +which yawning rifts and chasms of earth afford for an appeal to the +infernal powers:-- + + VI + + Wild precipice and earthquake-riven wall; + Bare jagged lava naked to the sky; + Whence densely struggles up and slow floats by + Heaven's murky shroud of smoke funereal; + Horror whereby the silent groves enthral; + Black weedy pit and rifted cavity; + Bleak loneliness whose drear sterility + Doth prowling creatures of the wild appal: + Like one distraught who doth his woe deplore, + Bereft of sense by thousand miseries, + As passion prompts, companioned or alone; + Your desert so I rove; if as before + Heaven deaf continue, through these crevices, + My cry shall pierce to the Avernian throne. + +The poet's melancholy deepens, and he enters upon the stage of dismal +and hopeless resignation to the inevitable: + + VII + + As one who on uneasy couch bewails + Besetting sickness and Time's tardy course, + Proving if drug, or gem, or charm have force + To conquer the dire evil that assails: + But when at last no remedy prevails, + And bankrupt Art stands empty of resource, + Beholds Death in the face, and scorns recourse + To skill whose impotence in nought avails. + So I, who long have borne in trust unspent + That distance, indignation, reason, strife + With Fate would heal my malady, repent, + Frustrate all hopes wherewith my soul was rife, + And yield unto my destiny, content + To languish for the little left of life. + +A lower depth still has to be reached ere the period of salutary and +defiant reaction:-- + + VIII + + So mightily abound the hosts of Pain, + Whom sentries of my bosom Love hath made, + No space is left to enter or evade, + And inwardly expire sighs born in vain, + If any pleasure mingle with the train, + By the first glimpse of my poor heart dismayed, + Instant he dies, or else, in bondage stayed, + Pines languishing, or flies that drear domain. + Pale semblances of terror keep the keys, + Of frowning portals they for none displace + Save messengers of novel miseries: + All thoughts they scare that wear a gladsome face; + And, were they anything but Miseries, + Themselves would hasten from the gloomy place. + +Slighted love easily passes from rejection into rebellion, and we shall +see that such was the case with Tansillo. The following sonnet denotes +an intermediate stage, when resignation is almost renunciation, but has +not yet become revolt:-- + + IX + + Cease thy accustomed strain, my mournful lute; + New music find, fit for my lot forlorn; + Henceforth be Wrath and Grief resounded, torn + The strings that anciently did Love salute, + Not on my own weak wing irresolute + But on Love's plumes I trusted to be borne, + Chanting him far as that remotest bourne + Whence strength Herculean reft Hesperian fruit. + To such ambition was my spirit wrought + By gracious guerdon Love came offering + When free in air my thought was bold to range: + But otherwhere now dwells another's thought, + And Wrath has plucked Love's feather from my wing, + And hope, style, theme, I all alike must change. + +This, however, is not a point at which continuance is possible, the mind +must go either backward or forward. The lover for a time persuades +himself that he has broken his mistress's yoke, and that his infatuation +is entirely a thing of the past. But the poet, like the lady, protests +too much:-- + + X + + If Love was miser of my liberty, + Lo, Scorn is bounteous and benevolent, + Such scope permitting, that, my fetter rent, + Not lengthened by my hand, I wander free. + The eyes that yielded tears continually + Have now with Lethe's drops my fire besprent, + And more behold, Illusion's glamour spent, + Than fabled Argus with his century. + The tyrant of my spirit, left forlorn + As vassal thoughts forsake him, doth remove, + And back unto her throne is Reason borne, + And I my metamorphosis approve, + And, old strains tuning to new keys, of Scorn + Will sing as anciently I sang of Love. + +Several solutions of this situation are conceivable. Tansillo's is that +which was perhaps that most likely in the case of an emotional nature, +where the feelings are more powerful than the will. He simply surrenders +at discretion, retracts everything disparaging that he has said of the +lady (taking care, however, not to burn the peccant verses, which are +much too good to be lightly parted with), and professes himself her +humble slave upon her own terms:-- + + XI + + All bitter words I spoke of you while yet + My heart was sore, and every virgin scroll + Blackened with ire, now past from my control, + These would I now recall; for 'tis most fit + My style should change, now Reason doth reknit, + Ties Passion sundered, and again make whole; + Be then Oblivion's prey whate'er my soul + Hath wrongly of thee thought, spoke, sung, or writ. + Not, Lady, that impeachment of thy fame + With tongue or pen I ever did design; + But that, if unto these shall reach my name, + Ages to come may study in my line + How year by year more streamed and towered my flame, + And how I living was and dying thine. + +There is no reason to doubt the perfect sincerity of these lines at the +period of their composition; but Tansillo's mistress had apparently +resolved that his attachment should not henceforth have the diet even of +a chameleon; and it is small wonder to find him shortly afterwards a +tender husband and father, lamenting the death of an infant son in +strains of extreme pathos, and instructing his wife on certain details +of domestic economy in which she might have been supposed to be better +versed than himself. His marriage took place in 1550, and in one of his +sonnets he says that his unhappy attachment had endured sixteen years, +which, allowing for a decent interval between the Romeo and the +Benedict, would date its commencement at 1532 or 1533. + +Maria d'Aragona died on November 9, 1568, and Tansillo, whose services +had been rewarded by a judicial appointment in the kingdom of Naples, +followed her to the tomb on December 1. If her death is really the +subject of the two poems in terza rima which appear to deplore it, he +certainly lost no time in bewailing her, but the interval is so brief, +and the poems are so weak, that they may have been composed on some +other occasion. With respect to the latter consideration, however, it +must be remembered that he was himself, in all probability, suffering +from disabling sickness, having made his will on November 29. It is also +worthy of note that the first sonnets composed by Petrarch upon the +death of Laura are in general much inferior in depth of tenderness to +those written years after the event. "In Memoriam" is another proof that +the adequate poetical expression of grief, unlike that of life, requires +time and study. Tansillo, then, may not have been so completely +disillusioned as his editor thinks. If the poems do not relate to Maria +d'Aragona, we have no clue to the ultimate nature of his feelings +towards her. + +A generally fair estimate of Tansillo's rank as a poet is given in +Ginguéné's "History of Italian Literature," vol. ix., pp. 340-343. It +can scarcely be admitted that his boldness and fertility of imagination +transported him beyond the limits of lyric poetry--for this is hardly +possible--but it is true that they sometimes transcended the limits of +good taste, and that the germs may be found in him of the extravagance +which so disfigured Italian poetry in the seventeenth century. On the +other hand, he has the inestimable advantage over most Italian poets of +his day of writing of genuine passion from genuine experience. Hence a +truth and vigour preferable even to the exquisite elegance of his +countryman, Angelo di Costanzo, and much more so to the mere amatory +exercises of other contemporaries. After Michael Angelo he stands +farther aloof than any contemporary from Petrarch, a merit in an age +when the study of Petrarch had degenerated into slavish imitation. His +faults as a lyrist are absent from his didactic poems, which are models +of taste and elegance. His one unpardonable sin is want of patriotism; +he is the dependant and panegyrist of the foreign conqueror, and seems +equally unconscious of the past glories, the actual degradation, or the +prospective regeneration of Italy. Born a Spanish subject, his ideal of +loyalty was entirely misplaced, and he must not be severely censured for +what he could hardly avoid. But Italy lost a Tyrtæus in him. + + + + + A Book Plate for + J. L. Propert, Esq. + By Aubrey Beardsley + + + A Book Plate for + Major-General Gosset + By R. Anning Bell + + _Reproduced by Messrs. Carl Hentschel & Co._ + +[Illustration: Book Plate for J. L. Propert] + +[Illustration: Book Plate for Major-General Gosset] + + + + +The Fool's Hour + +The First Act of a Comedy + + By John Oliver Hobbes + and George Moore + + + CHARACTERS OF THE COMEDY + + Lord Doldrummond + Cyril, _his Son_ (Viscount Aprile) + Sir Digby Soame + Charles Mandeville, _a tenor_ + Mr. Banish, _a banker_ + The Hon. Arthur Featherleigh + Mr. Samuel Benjamin, _a money-lender_ + Lady Doldrummond + Julia, _an heiress_ + The Hon. Mrs. Howard de Trappe, _her mother, a widow_ + Sarah Sparrow, _an American prima donna_ + + + + + Act I + +Scene--_The Library in_ Lord Doldrummond's _house at Brighton. The scene +represents a richly-furnished but somewhat oppressive room. The chairs +and tables are all narrow, the lamp-shades stiff, the windows have +double glasses._ Lord Doldrummond, _a man of middle-age, handsome, but +with a dejected, browbeaten air, sits with a rug over his knees, reading +"The Church Times." The_ Butler _announces_ "Sir Digby Soame." Sir Digby +_is thin and elderly; has an easy smile and a sharp eye; dresses well; +has two manners--the abrupt with men, the suave with women; smiles into +his beard over his own witticisms._ + + +_Lord Dol._ Ah, Soame, so you are here at last? + +_Soame._ [_Looking at his watch._] I am pretty punctual, only a few +minutes late. + +_Lord Dol._ I am worried, anxious, irritable, and that has made the time +seem long. + +_Soame._ Worried, anxious? And what about? Are you not well? Have you +found that regularity of life ruins the constitution? + +_Lord Dol._ No, my dear Soame, no. But I am willing to own that the +existence which my wife enjoys, and which I have learnt to endure, would +not suit everyone. + +_Soame._ I am glad to find you more tolerant. You used to hold the very +harshest and most crude opinions. I remember when we were boys, I could +never persuade you to accept the admirable doctrine that a reformed rake +makes the best husband! + +_Lord Dol._ [_Timidly._] Repentance does not require so large an income +as folly! This may explain that paradox. You know, in my way, I, too, +am something of a philosopher! I married very young, whereas you entered +the Diplomatic Service and resolved to remain single: you wished to +study women. I have lived with one for five-and-twenty years. [_Sighs._] + +_Soame._ Oh, I admit at once that yours is the greater achievement and +was the more daring ambition. + +_Lord Dol._ I know all I wish to know about women, but men puzzle me +extremely. So I have sent for you. I want your advice. It is Cyril who +is the cause of my uneasiness. I am afraid that he is not happy. + +_Soame._ Cyril not happy? What is he unhappy about? You have never +refused him anything? + +_Lord Dol._ Never! No man has had a kinder father! When he is +unreasonable I merely say "You are a fool, but please yourself!" No man +has had a kinder father! + +_Soame._ Does he complain? + +_Lord Dol._ He has hinted that his home is uncongenial--yet we have an +excellent cook! Ah, thank heaven every night and morning, my dear Digby, +that you are a bachelor. Praying for sinners and breeding them would +seem the whole duty of man. I was no sooner born than my parents were +filled with uneasiness lest I should not live to marry and beget an heir +of my own. Now I have an heir, his mother will never know peace until +she has found him a wife! + +_Soame._ And will you permit Lady Doldrummond to use the same method +with Cyril which your mother adopted with such appalling results in your +own case? + +_Lord Dol._ It does not seem my place to interfere, and love-affairs are +not a fit subject of conversation between father and son! + +_Soame._ But what does Cyril say to the matrimonial prospect? + +_Lord Dol._ He seems melancholy and eats nothing but oranges. Yes, Cyril +is a source of great uneasiness. + +_Soame._ Does Lady Doldrummond share this uneasiness? + +_Lord Dol._ My wife would regard a second thought on any subject as a +most dangerous form of temptation. She insists that Cyril has everything +which a young man could desire, and when he complains that the house is +dull, she takes him for a drive! + +_Soame._ But _you_ understand him? + +_Lord Dol._ I think I do. If I were young again---- + +_Soame._ Ah, you regret! I always said you would regret it if you did +not take your fling! The pleasures we imagine are so much more alluring, +so much more dangerous, than those we experience. I suppose you +recognise in Cyril the rascal you might have been, and feel that you +have missed your vocation? + +_Lord Dol._ [_Meekly._] I was never unruly, my dear Soame. We all have +our moments, I own, yet--well, perhaps Cyril has inherited the tastes +which I possessed at his age, but lacked the courage to obey. + +_Soame._ And so you wish me to advise you how to deal with him! Is he in +love? I have constantly observed that when young men find their homes +unsympathetic, it is because some particular lady does not form a member +of the household. It is usually a lady, too, who would not be considered +a convenient addition to any mother's visiting-list! + +_Lord Dol._ Lady Doldrummond has taught him that women are the scourges +of creation. You, perhaps, do not share that view! + +_Soame._ Certainly not. I would teach him to regard them as the reward, +the compensation, the sole delight of this dreariest of all possible +worlds. + +_Lord Dol._ [_Uneasily._] Reward! Compensation! Delight! I beg you will +not go so far as that. What notion would be more upsetting? Pray do not +use such extreme terms! + +_Soame._ Ha! ha! But tell me, Doldrummond, is it true that your wife +insists on his retiring at eleven and rising at eight? I hear that she +allows him nothing stronger than ginger ale and lemon; that she selects +his friends, makes his engagements, and superintends his amusements? +Should he marry, I am told she will even undertake the office of best +man! + +_Lord Dol._ Poor soul! she means well; and if devotion could make the +boy a saint he would have been in heaven before he was out of his long +clothes. As it is, I fear that nothing can save him. + +_Soame._ Save him? You speak as though you suspected that he was not +such a saint as his mother thinks him. + +_Lord Dol._ I suspect nothing. I only know that my boy is unhappy. You +might speak to him, and draw him out if occasion should offer--but do +not say a word about this to Lady Doldrummond. + + [_Enter_ Lady Doldrummond.--_She is a tall, slight, but not angular + woman. Her hair is brown, and brushed back from her temples in the + simplest possible fashion. Self-satisfaction (of a gentle and ladylike + sort) and eminent contentment with her lot are the only writings on her + smooth, almost girlish countenance. She has a prim tenderness and charm + of manner which soften her rather cutting voice._] + +_Lady Dol._ What! Cyril not here? How do you do, Sir Digby? I am looking +for my tiresome boy. I promised to take him to pay some calls this +afternoon, and as he may have to talk I must tell him what to say. He +has no idea of making himself pleasant to women, and is the shyest +creature in the world! + +_Soame._ You have always been so careful to shield him from all +responsibility, Lady Doldrummond. Who knows what eloquence, what +decision, what energy he might display, if you did not possess these +gifts in so pre-eminent a degree as to make any exertion on his part +unnecessary, and perhaps disrespectful. + +_Lady Dol._ Ah! mothers are going out of fashion. Even Cyril +occasionally shows a certain impatience when I venture to correct him. +As if I would hurt anyone's feelings unless from a sense of duty! And +pray, where is the pleasure of having a son if you may not direct his +life? + +_Lord Dol._ Cyril might ask, where is the pleasure of having parents if +you may not disobey them. + +_Lady Dol._ [_To_ Soame.] When Herbert is alone with me he never makes +flippant remarks of this kind. [_To_ Lord Doldrummond.] I wonder that +you like to give your friends such a wrong impression of your character. +[_Turning to_ Sir Digby.] But I think I see your drift, Sir Digby. You +wish to remind me that Cyril is now at an age when I must naturally +desire to see him established in a home of his own. + +_Soame._ You have caught my meaning. As he is now two-and-twenty, I +think he should be allowed more freedom than may have been expedient +when he was--say, six months old. + +_Lady Dol._ I quite agree with you, and I trust you will convince +Herbert that women understand young men far better than their fathers +ever could. I have found the very wife for Cyril, and I hope I may soon +have the pleasure of welcoming her as a daughter. + +_Soame._ A wife! Good heavens! I was suggesting that the boy had more +liberty. Marriage is the prison of all emotions, and I should be very +sorry to ask any young girl to be a man's gaol-keeper. + +_Lord Dol._ Sir Digby is right. + +_Lady Dol._ The presence of a third person has the strangest effect on +Herbert's moral vision. As I have trained my son with a care and +tenderness rarely bestowed nowadays even on a girl, I think I may show +some resentment when I am asked to believe him a being with the +instincts of a ruffian and the philosophy of a middle-aged bachelor. No, +Sir Digby, Cyril is not _my_ child if he does not make his home and his +family the happiest in the world! + +_Soame._ Yes? + +_Lady Dol._ He has no taste for cards, horses, brandy, or actresses. We +read together, walk together, and drive together. In the evening, if he +is too tired to engage in conversation, I play the piano while he dozes. +Lately he has taken a particular interest in Mozart's classic light +opera. Any interest of that kind is so elevating, and I know of nothing +more agreeable than a musical husband. + +_Lord Dol._ You see she is resolved on his marriage, and she has had +Julia de Trappe on a visit with us for the last five weeks in the hope +of bringing matters to a crisis. + +_Lady Dol._ And why not? Our marriage was arranged for us, and what idle +fancies of our own could have led to such perfect contentment? + + [Lord Doldrummund _avoids her eyes_.] + +_Soame._ Julia de Trappe? She must be the daughter of that Mrs. Howard +de Trappe who gives large At Homes in a small house, and who spends her +time hunting for old lovers and new servants. + +_Lady Dol._ I own that dear Julia has been allowed to meet men and women +who are not fit companions for a young girl, no matter how interesting +they may be to the general public. Only yesterday she told me she was +well acquainted with Mr. Mandeville, the tenor. Mrs. de Trappe, it +seems, frequently invites him to dinner. Still, Julia herself is very +sensible, and the family is of extraordinary antiquity. + +_Soame._ But the mother? If she has not been in the divorce court, it is +through no fault of her own. + +_Lady Dol._ [_Biting her lip._] Mrs. de Trappe is vain and silly, I +admit; but as she has at last decided to marry Mr. Banish, the banker, I +am hoping she will live in his house at Hampstead, and think a little +more about her immortal soul. + +_Soame._ Does Cyril seem at all interested in Miss Julia? + +_Lady Dol._ Cyril has great elegance of mind, and is not very strong in +the expression of his feelings one way or the other. But I may say that +a deep attachment exists between them. + +_Soame._ A man must have sound wisdom before he can appreciate +innocence. But I have no desire to be discouraging, and I hope I may +soon have the pleasure of congratulating you all on the wedding. +Good-bye. + +_Lord Dol._ What! Must you go? + +_Soame._ Yes. But [_aside to_ Lord Dol.] I shall bear in mind what you +say. I will do my best. I have an engagement in town to-night. +[_Chuckles._] An amusing one. + +_Lord Dol._ [_With envy._] Where? + +_Soame._ At the Parnassus. + +_Lady Dol._ [_With a supercilious smile._] And what is the Parnassus? + +_Soame._ A theatre much favoured by young men who wish to be thought +wicked, and by young ladies who _are._ Good-bye, good-bye. [_Shakes +hands with_ Lord _and_ Lady Doldrummond _and goes out_.] + +_Lady Dol._ Thank goodness, he is gone! What a terrible example for +Cyril. I was on thorns every second lest he should come in. Soame has +just those meretricious attractions which appeal to youth and +inexperience. That you should encourage such an acquaintance, and even +discuss before him such an intimate matter as my hope with regard to +Julia, is, perhaps, more painful than astonishing. + +_Lord Dol._ They are both too young to marry. Let them enjoy life while +they may. + +_Lady Dol._ _Enjoy_ life? What a degrading suggestion! I have often +observed that there is a lurking taste for the vicious in every +Doldrummond. [_Picking up_ Cyril's _miniature from the table_.] Cyril is +pure Bedingfield: my second self! + + [_The Butler announces_ Mrs. De Trappe, Mr. Arthur Featherleigh, Mr. + Banish. Mrs. de Trappe _is a pretty woman with big eyes and a small + waist; she has a trick of biting her under-lip, and looking shocked, as + it were, at her own audacity. Her manner is a little effusive, but + always well-bred. She does not seem affected, and has something artless, + confiding, and pathetic._ Mr. Featherleigh _has a nervous laugh and a + gentlemanly appearance; otherwise inscrutable_. Mr. Banish _is old, + well-preserved, rather pompous, and evidently mistakes deportment for + dignity_.] + +_Mrs. de Trappe._ [_Kissing_ Lady Dol. _on each cheek_.] Dear Edith, I +knew we should surprise you. But Mr. Banish and I are house-hunting, and +I thought I must run in and see you and Julia, if only for a second. I +felt sure you would not mind my bringing Arthur [_indicating_ +Featherleigh.] He is so lonely at the prospect of my marriage that Mr. +Banish and I have promised to keep him always with us. We have known +each other so long. How should we spend our evenings without him? James +admits they would be tedious, don't you, James? [_Indicating_ Banish.] + +_Banish._ Certainly, my dear. + +_Lady Dol._ [_Stiffly._] I can well understand that you have learned to +regard Mr. Featherleigh as your own son. And as we advance in years, it +is so pleasant to have young people about us. + +_Mrs. de Trappe._ [_After a slight pause._] How odd that it should never +have struck me in that light before! I have always thought of Arthur as +the trustee, as it were, of my poor fatherless Julia [_To_ Banish.] Have +I not often said so, James? + +_Banish._ [_Dryly._] Often. In fact I have always thought that Julia +would never lack a father whilst Arthur was alive. But I admit that he +is a little young for the responsibility. + +_Feather._ [_Unmoved._] Do not forget, Violet, that our train leaves in +fifty-five minutes. + +_Lord Dol._ [_Catching a desperate glance from_ Lady Doldrummond.] Then +I shall have time to show you the Russian poodles which the Duke of +Camdem brought me from Japan. + +_Mrs. de Trappe._ [_Peevishly._] Yes, please take them away. [_Waving +her hand in the direction of_ Banish _and_ Featherleigh.] Edith and I +have many secrets to discuss. Of course she will tell you [_to_ Lord +Dol.] everything I have said when we are gone, and I shall tell Arthur +and James all she has said as we go home. But it is so amusing to think +ourselves mysterious for twenty minutes. [_As the men go out laughing, +she turns to_ Lady Doldrummond _with a sigh_.] Ah, Edith, when I pause +in all these gaieties and say to myself, Violet, you are about to marry +a second husband, I cannot feel sufficiently thankful that it is not the +third. + +_Lady Dol._ The third? + +_Mrs. de Trappe._ To face the possibility of a third honeymoon, a third +disappointment, and a third funeral would tax my courage to the utmost! +And I am not strong. + +_Lady Dol._ I am shocked to see you so despondent. Surely you anticipate +every happiness with Mr. Banish? + +_Mrs. de Trappe._ Oh, yes. He has money, and Arthur thinks him a very +worthy sort of person. He is a little dull, but then middle-class people +are always so gross in their air when they attempt to be lively or +amusing; so long as they are grave I can bear them well enough, but I +know of nothing so unpleasant as the sight of a banker laughing. As +Arthur says, City men and butlers should always be serious. + +_Lady Dol._ Do you think that the world will quite understand--Arthur? + +_Mrs. de Trappe._ What do you mean, Edith? A woman must have an adviser. +Arthur was my late husband's friend, and he is my future husband's +friend. Surely that should be enough to satisfy the most exacting. + +_Lady Dol._ But why marry at all? why not remain as you are? + +_Mrs. de Trappe._ How unreasonable you are, Edith! How often have you +urged me to marry Mr. Banish, and now that it is all arranged and Arthur +is satisfied, you begin to object. + +_Lady Dol._ I thought that you liked Mr. Banish better. + +_Mrs. de Trappe._ Better than Arthur? No, I am not so unkind as that, +nor would James wish it. I am marrying because I am poor. My husband, as +you know, left nearly all his money to Julia, and I feel the injustice +so acutely that the absurd settlement he made on me is spent upon +doctor's bills alone. If it were not for Arthur and one or two other +kind friends who send me game and other little things from time to time, +I could not exist at all. [_Draws off her gloves, displays a diamond +ring on each finger, and wipes her eyes with a point-lace +pocket-handkerchief._] And when I think of all that I endured with De +Trappe! How often have I been roused from a sound sleep to see the room +illuminated and De Trappe, rolled up in flannel, sitting by the fire +reading "Lead, kindly Light." What an existence! But now tell me about +Julia. I hope she does not give you much trouble. + +_Lady Dol._ I only hope that I may keep her always with me. + +_Mrs. de Trappe._ How she must have improved! When she is at home I find +her so depressing. And she does not appeal to men in the least. + +_Lady Dol._ I could wish that all young girls were as modest. + +_Mrs. de Trappe._ Oh, I daresay Julia has all the qualities we like to +see in some other woman's daughter. But if you were her mother and had +to find her a husband, you would regard her virtues in another light. +Fortunately she has eight thousand a year, so she may be able to find +somebody. Still, even money does not tempt men as it once did. A girl +must have an extraordinary charm. She is so jealous of me. I cannot keep +her out of the drawing-room when I have got callers, especially when Mr. +Mandeville is there. + +_Lady Dol._ I have heard of Mr. Mandeville. He is an actor, a singer. + +_Mrs. de Trappe._ A lovely tenor voice. All the women are in love with +him, except me. I would not listen to him. And now they say he is going +to marry Sarah Sparrow--a great mistake. I should like to know who would +care about him or his singing, once he is married. + +_Lady Dol._ And who is Sarah Sparrow? + +_Mrs. de Trappe._ Don't you know? She is the last great success. She has +two notes: B flat and the lower G--the orchestra plays the rest. You +must go to the Parnassus and hear her. To-night is the dress rehearsal +of the new piece. + +_Lady Dol._ And do you receive Miss Sparrow? + +_Mrs. de Trappe._ No, women take up too much time. They say, too, that +she is frantically jealous because Mandeville used to come and practise +in my boudoir. He says no one can accompany him as I do! + +_Lady Dol._ I hope Cyril does not meet Mr. Mandeville when he goes to +your house. + +_Mrs. de Trappe._ Let me see. I believe I introduced them. At any rate, +I know I saw them at luncheon together last week. + +_Lady Dol._ At luncheon together! Cyril and this person who sings? What +could my boy and Mr. Mandeville have in common? + +_Mrs. de Trappe._ They both appear to admire Sarah Sparrow very much. +And I cannot find what men see in her. She is not tall and her figure is +most innocent; you would say she was still in pinafores. As for her +prettiness, I admit she has fine eyes, but of course she blackens them. +I think the great attraction is her atrocious temper. One never knows +whom she will stab next. + +_Lady Dol._ [_Half to herself._] Last week Cyril came in after midnight. +He refused to answer my questions. + +_Mrs. de Trappe._ You seem absent-minded, my dear Edith. [_Pause._] I +must be going now. Where are Arthur and James? We have not a moment to +lose. We are going to choose wedding presents. James is going to choose +Arthur's and Arthur is going to choose James's, so there can be no +jealousy. It was I who thought of that way out of the difficulty. One +does one's best to be nice to them, and then something happens and +upsets all one's plans. Where is Cyril? + +_Lady Dol._ I am afraid Cyril is not at home. + +_Mrs. de Trappe._ Then I shall not see him. Tell him I am angry, and +give my love to Julia. I hope she does not disturb you when you are in +the drawing-room and have visitors. So difficult to keep a grown-up girl +out of the drawing-room. Where can those men be? [_Enter_ Lord +Doldrummond, Mr. Featherleigh, _and_ Mr. Banish.] Ah! here they are. +Now, come along; we haven't a moment to lose. Good-bye, Edith. + + [_Exeunt_ (_after wishing their adieux_) Mrs. de Trappe, Mr. + Featherleigh, _and_ Mr. Banish, Lord Doldrummond _following them_.] + +_Lady Dol._ [_Stands alone in the middle of the room, repeating._] Cyril +and--Sarah Sparrow! My son and Sarah Sparrow! And he has met her through +the one woman for whom I have been wrong enough to forget my prejudices. +What a punishment! + + [Julia _enters cautiously. She is so unusually beautiful that she barely + escapes the terrible charge of sublimity. But there is a certain + peevishness in her expression which adds a comfortable smack of human + nature to her classic features._] + +_Julia._ I thought mamma would never go. I have been hiding in your +boudoir ever since I heard she was here. + +_Lady Dol._ Was Cyril with you? + +_Julia._ Oh, no; he has gone out for a walk. + +_Lady Dol._ Tell me, dearest, have you and Cyril had any disagreement +lately? Is there any misunderstanding? + +_Julia._ Oh, no. [_Sighs._] + +_Lady Dol._ I remember quite well that before I married Herbert he often +suffered from the oddest moods of depression. Several times he entreated +me to break off the engagement. His affection was so reverential that he +feared he was not worthy of me. I assure you I had the greatest +difficulty in overcoming his scruples, and persuading him that whatever +his faults were I could help him to subdue them. + +_Julia._ But Cyril and I are not engaged. It is all so uncertain, so +humiliating. + +_Lady Dol._ Men take these things for granted. If the truth were known, +I daresay he already regards you as his wife. + +_Julia._ [_With an inspired air._] Perhaps that is why he treats me so +unkindly. I have often thought that if he were my husband he could not +be more disagreeable! He has not a word for me when I speak to him. He +does not hear. Oh, Lady Doldrummond, I know what is the matter. He is in +love, but I am not the one. You are all wrong. + +_Lady Dol._ No, no, no. He loves you; I am sure of it. Only be patient +with him and it will come all right. Hush! is that his step? Stay here, +darling, and I will go into my room and write letters. [_Exit, brushing +the tears from her eyes._] + + [Butler _ushers in_ Mr. Mandeville. _Neither of them perceive Julia, who + has gone to the window._] + +_Butler._ His Lordship will be down in half an hour, sir. He is now +having his hair brushed. + +_Julia._ [_In surprise as she looks round._] Mr. Mandeville! [_Pause._] +I hardly expected to meet you here. + +_Mandeville._ And why, may I ask? + +Julia. You know what Lady Doldrummond is. How did you overcome her +scruples? + +_Mandeville._ Is my reputation then so very bad? + +_Julia._ You--you are supposed to be rather dangerous. You sing on the +stage, and have a tenor voice. + +_Mandeville._ Is that enough to make a man dangerous? + +_Julia._ How can _I_ tell? But mamma said you were invincible. You +admire mamma, of course. [_Sighs._] + +_Mandeville._ A charming woman, Mrs. de Trappe. A very interesting +woman; so sympathetic. + +_Julia._ But she said she would not listen to you. + +_Mandeville._ Did she say that? [_A slight pause._] I hope you will not +be angry when I own that I do not especially _admire_ your mother. A +quarter of a century ago she may have had considerable attractions, +but--are you offended? + +_Julia._ Offended? Oh, no. Only it seems strange. I thought that all men +admired mamma. [_Pause._] You have not told me yet how you made Lady +Doldrummond's acquaintance. + +_Mandeville._ I am here at Lord Aprile's invitation. He has decided that +he feels no further need of Lady Doldrummond's apron-strings. + +_Julia._ Oh, Mr. Mandeville, are you teaching him to be wicked? + +_Mandeville._ But you will agree with me that a young man cannot make +his mother a kind of scribbling diary? + +_Julia._ Still, if he spends his time well, there does not seem to be +any reason why he should refuse to say where he dines when he is not at +home. + +_Mandeville._ Lady Doldrummond holds such peculiar ideas; she would find +immorality in a sofa-cushion. If she were to know that Cyril is coming +with me to the dress rehearsal of our new piece! + +_Julia._ It would break her heart. And Lord Doldrummond would be +indignant. Mamma says his own morals are so excellent! + +_Mandeville._ Is he an invalid? + +_Julia._ Certainly not. Why do you ask? + +_Mandeville._ Whenever I hear of a charming husband I always think that +he _must_ be an invalid. But as for morals, there can be no harm in +taking Cyril to a dress rehearsal. If you do not wish him to go, +however, I can easily say that the manager does not care to have +strangers present. [_Pause._] Afterwards there is to be a ball at Miss +Sparrow's. + +_Julia._ Is Cyril going there, too? + +_Mandeville._ I believe that he has an invitation, but I will persuade +him to refuse it, if you would prefer him to remain at home. + +_Julia._ You are very kind, Mr. Mandeville, but it is a matter of +indifference to me where Lord Aprile goes. + +_Mandeville._ Perhaps I ought not to have mentioned this to you? + +_Julia._ [_Annoyed._] It does not make the least difference. In fact, I +am delighted to think that you are taking Cyril out into the world. He +is wretched in this house. [_With heroism._] I am glad to think that he +knows anyone so interesting and clever and beautiful as Sarah Sparrow. I +suppose she would be considered beautiful? + +_Mandeville._ [_With a profound glance._] One can forget her--sometimes. + +_Julia._ [_Looking down._] Perhaps--when I am as old as she is--I shall +be prettier than I am at present. + +_Mandeville._ You always said you liked my voice. We never see anything +of each other now. I once thought that--well--that you might like me +better. Are you sure you are not angry with me because I am taking Cyril +to this rehearsal? + +_Julia._ Quite sure. Why should I care where Cyril goes? I only wish +that I, too, might go to the theatre to-night. What part do you play? +And what do you sing? A serenade? + +_Mandeville._ [_Astounded._] Yes. How on earth did you guess that? The +costume is, of course, picturesque, and that is the great thing in an +opera. A few men can sing--after a fashion--but to find the right +clothes to sing _in_--that shows the true artist. + +_Julia._ And Sarah; does she look _her_ part? + +_Mandeville._ Well, I do not like to say anything against her, but she +is not quite the person I should cast for la Marquise de la Perdrigonde. +Ah! if you were on the stage, Miss de Trappe! You have just the +exquisite charm, the grace, the majesty of bearing which, in the opinion +of those who have never been to Court, is the peculiar distinction of +women accustomed to the highest society. + +_Julia._ Oh, I should like to be an actress! + +_Mandeville._ No! no! I spoke selfishly--if you only acted with _me_, it +would be different; but--but I could not bear to see another man making +love to you--another man holding your hand and singing into your +eyes--and--and----Oh, this is madness. You must not listen to me. + +_Julia._ I am not--angry, but--you must never again say things which you +do not mean. If I thought you were untruthful it would make me so--so +miserable. Always tell me the truth. [_Holds out her hand._] + +_Mandeville._ You are very beautiful! + + [_She drops her eyes, smiles, and wanders unconsciously to the mirror._] + + [Lady Doldrummond _suddenly enters from the boudoir, and_ Cyril _from + the middle door_. Cyril _is handsome, but his features have that + delicacy and his expression that pensiveness which promise artistic + longings and domestic disappointment_.] + +_Cyril._ [_Cordially and in a state of suppressed excitement._] Oh, +mother, this is my friend Mandeville. You have heard me mention him? + +_Lady Dol._ I do not remember, but---- + +_Cyril._ When I promised to go out with you this afternoon, I forgot +that I had another engagement. Mandeville has been kind enough to call +for me. + +_Lady Dol._ Another engagement, Cyril? + + [Lord Doldrummond _enters and comes down, anxiously looking from one to + the other_.] + +_Cyril._ Father, this is my friend Mandeville. We have arranged to go up +to town this afternoon. + +_Lady Dol._ [_Calmly._] What time shall I send the carriage to the +station for you? The last train usually arrives about---- + +_Cyril._ I shall not return to-night. I intend to stay in town. +Mandeville will put me up. + +_Lord Dol._ And where are you going? + +_Mandeville._ He is coming to our dress rehearsal of the "Dandy and the +Dancer." + +_Cyril._ At the Parnassus. [Lord _and_ Lady Doldrummond _exchange +horrified glances_.] I daresay you have never heard of the place, but it +amuses me to go there, and I must learn life for myself. I am +two-and-twenty, and it is not extraordinary that I should wish to be my +own master. I intend to have chambers of my own in town. + +_Lady Dol._ Surely you have every liberty in this house? + +_Lord Dol._ If you leave us, you will leave the rooms in which your +mother has spent every hour of her life, since the day you were born, +planning and improving. Must all her care and thought go for nothing? +The silk hangings in your bedroom she worked with her own hands. There +is not so much as a pen-wiper in your quarter of the house which she did +not choose with the idea of giving you one more token of her affection. + +_Cyril._ I am not ungrateful, but I cannot see much of the world through +my mother's embroidery. As you say, I have every comfort here. I may +gorge at your expense and snore on your pillows and bully your servants. +I can do everything, in fact, but live. Dear mother, be reasonable. +[_Tries to kiss her. She remains quite frigid._] + + [Footman _enters_.] + +_Footman._ The dog-cart is at the door, my lord. + +_Cyril._ You think it well over and you will see that I am perfectly +right. Come on, Mandeville, we shall miss the train. Make haste: there +is no time to be polite. [_He goes out, dragging_ Mandeville _after him, +and ignoring_ Julia.] + +_Lord Dol._ Was that my son? I am ashamed of him! To desert us in this +rude, insolent, heartless manner. If I had whipped him more and loved +him less, he would not have been leaving me to lodge with a God knows +who. I disown him! The fool! + +_Lady Dol._ If you have anything to say, blame _me_! Cyril has the +noblest heart in the world; _I_ am the fool. + + + _Curtain._ + + + + + Transcriber's Notes: + +Words in italics are surrounded by underscores, _like this_. + +Greek words have been transliterated. + +Punctuation was standardized. Words in dialect, obsolete or alternative +spellings were not changed. The following were corrected: + + missing 'f' added to 'of' ... implications of his speech ... + 'allution' to 'allusion' ... without catching the allusion ... + 'needed' to 'heeded' ... I had not heeded this ... + 'undiscouragable' to 'undiscourageable' ... My undiscourageable search ... + 'snggest' to 'suggest' ... reason to suggest that ... + 'gasp' to 'grasp' ... his grasp had been insecure; ... + 'deing' to 'being' ... he was being whirled through ... + 'geos' to 'goes' ... then goes out._] ... + 'Gardi' to 'Guardi' ... Canaletti and Guardi seen long ago ... + 'waning' to 'waving' ... elbows out, umbrella waving,... + 'allign' to 'align' ... that hesitates to align itself ... + 'poem' to 'poet' ... upon the poet having conceived a passion ... + 'requiees' to 'requires' ... requires time and study.... + 'upsettting' to 'upsetting' ... would be more upsetting?... + missing 'l' added to 'small' ... in a small house ... + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Yellow Book, +edited by Henry Harland + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41875 *** |