Books: Ardath

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"They are the very devil!".. he murmured plaintively, staring at
the score, and hitching up his unruly instrument more securely
against his knee, . . "Perhaps the bow wants a little rosin."

This was one of his minor weaknesses,--he would never quite admit
that false notes were his own fault. "They COULDN'T be, you know!"
he mildly argued, addressing the obtrusive neck of the 'cello,
which had a curious, stubborn way of poking itself into his chin,
and causing him to wonder how it got there, . . surely the manner in
which he held it had nothing to do with this awkward occurrence!
"I'm not such a fool as not to understand how to find the right
notes, after all my practice! There's something wrong with the
strings,--or the bridge has gone awry,--or"--and this was his last
resource--"the bow wants more rosin!"

Thus he hugged himself in deliciously wilful ignorance of his own
shortcomings, and shut his ears to the whispered reproaches of
musical conscience. Had he been married his wife would no doubt
have lost no time in enlightening him,--she would have told him he
was a wretched player, that his scrapings on the 'cello were
enough to drive one mad, and sundry other assurances of the
perfectly conjugal type of frankness,--but as it chanced he was a
happy bachelor, a free and independent man with more than
sufficient means to gratify his particular tastes and whims. He
was partner in a steadily prosperous banking concern, and had just
enough to do to keep him pleasantly and profitably occupied. Asked
why he did not marry, he replied with blunt and almost brutal
honesty, that he had never yet met a woman whose conversation he
could stand for more than an hour.

"Silly or clever," he said, "they are all possessed of the same
infinite tedium. Either they say nothing, or they say everything;
they are always at the two extremes, and announce themselves as
dunces or blue-stockings. One wants the just medium,--the dainty
commingling of simplicity and wisdom that shall yet be pure
womanly,--and this is precisely the jewel 'far above rubies' that
one cannot find. I've given up the search long ago, and am
entirely resigned to my lot. I like women very well--I may say
very much--as friends, but to take one on chance as a comrade for
life! ... No, thank you!"

Such was his fixed opinion and consequent rejection of matrimony;
and for the rest, he studied art and literature and became an
authority on both; so much so that on one occasion he kept a
goodly number of people away from visiting the Royal Academy
Exhibition, he having voted it a "disgrace to Art."

"English artists occupy the last grade in the whole school of
painting," he had said indignantly, with that decisive manner of
his which somehow or other carried conviction, . . "The very Dutch
surpass them; and instead of trying to raise their standard, each
year sees them grovelling in lower depths. The Academy is becoming
a mere gallery of portraits, painted to please the caprices of
vain men and women, at a thousand or two thousand guineas apiece;
ugly portraits, too, woodeny portraits, utterly uninteresting
portraits of prosaic nobodies. Who cares to see 'No. 154. Mrs.
Flummery in her presentation-dress'.. except Mrs. Flummery's own
particular friends? ... or '283. Miss Smox, eldest daughter of
Professor A. T. Smox,' or '516. Baines Bryce, Esq.'? ... Who IS
Baines Bryce? ... Nobody ever heard of him before. He may be a
retired pork-butcher for all any one knows! Portraits, even of
celebrities, are a mistake. Take Algernon Charles Swinburne, for
instance, the man who, when left to himself, writes some of the
grandest lines in the English language, HE had his portrait in the
Academy, and everybody ran away from it, it was such an
unutterable hideous disappointment. It was a positive libel of
course, . . Swinburne has fine eyes and a still finer brow, but
instead of idealizing the POET in him, the silly artist painted
him as if he had no more intellectual distinction than a bill-
sticker! ... English art! ... pooh! ... don't speak to me about it!
Go to Spain, Italy, Bavaria--see what THEY can do, and then say a
Miserere for the sins of the R A's!"

Thus he would talk, and his criticisms carried weight with a
tolerably large circle of influential and wealthy persons, who
when they called upon him, and saw the perfection of his house and
the rarity of his art collections, came at once to the conclusion
that it would be wise, as well as advantageous to themselves, to
consult him before purchasing pictures, books, statues, or china,
so that he occupied the powerful position of being able with a
word to start an artist's reputation or depreciate it, as he
chose,--a distinction he had not desired, and which was often a
source of trouble to him, because there were so few, so very few,
whose work he felt he could conscientiously approve and encourage.
He was eminently good-natured and sympathetic; he would not give
pain to others without being infinitely more pained himself; and
yet, for all his amiability, there was a stubborn instinct in him
which forbade him to promote, by word or look, the fatal
nineteenth century spread of mediocrity. Either a thing must be
truly great and capable of being measured by the highest
standards, or for him it had no value. This rule he carried out in
all branches of art,--except his own 'cello-playing. That was NOT
great,--that would never be great,--but it was his pet pastime; he
chose it in preference to the billiards, betting, and bar-lounging
that make up the amusements of the majority of the hopeful manhood
of London, and, as has already been said, he never inflicted it
upon others.

He rubbed the rosin now thoughtfully up and down his bow, and
glanced at the quaint old clock--an importation from Nurnberg--
that ticked solemnly in one corner near the deep bay-window,
across which the heavy olive green plush curtains were drawn, to
shut out the penetrating chill of the wind. It wanted ten minutes
to nine. He had given orders to his man servant that he was on no
account to be disturbed that evening, . . no matter what visitors
called for him, none were to be admitted. He had made up his mind
to have a long and energetic practice, and he felt a secret
satisfaction as he heard the steady patter of the rain outside, . .
the very weather favored his desire for solitude,--no one was
likely to venture forth on such a night.

Still gravely rubbing his brow, his eyes travelled from the clock
in the corner to a photograph on the mantel-shelf--the photograph
of a man's face, dark, haughty, beautiful, yet repellent in its
beauty, and with a certain hard sternness in its outline--the face
of Theos Alwyn. From this portrait his glance wandered to the
table, where, amid a picturesque litter of books and papers, lay a
square, simply bound volume, with an ivory leaf-cutter thrust in
it to mark the place where the reader left off, and its title
plainly lettered in gold at the back--"NOURHALMA."

"I wonder where he is!" ... he mused, his thoughts naturally
reverting to the author of the book.. "He cannot know what all
London knows, or surely he would be back here like a shot! It is
six months ago now since I received his letter and that poem in
manuscript from Tiflis in Armenia,--and not another line has he
sent to tell me of his whereabouts! Curious fellow he is! ... but,
by Jove, what a genius! No wonder he has besieged Fame and taken
it by storm! I don't remember any similar instance, except that of
Byron, in which such an unprecedented reputation was made so
suddenly! And in Byron's case it was more the domestic scandal
about him than his actual merit that made him the rage, . . now the
world knows literally nothing about Alwyn's private life or
character--there's no woman in his history that I know of--no
vice, ... he hasn't outraged the law, upset morals, flouted at
decency, or done anything that according to modern fashions OUGHT
to have made him famous--no! ... he has simply produced a perfect
poem, stately, grand, pure, and pathetic,--and all of a sudden
some secret spring in the human heart is touched, some long-closed
valve opened, and lo and behold, all intellectual society is
raving about him,--his name is in everybody's mouth, his book in
every one's hands. I don't altogether like his being made the
subject of a 'craze';--experience shows me it's a kind of thing
that doesn't last. In fact, it CAN'T last.. the reaction
invariably sets in. And the English public is, of all publics, the
most insane in its periodical frenzies, and the most capricious.
Now, it is all agog for a 'shilling sensational'--then it
discusses itself hoarse over a one-sided theological novel made up
out of theories long ago propounded and exhaustively set forth by
Voltaire, and others of his school,--anon it revels in the gross
descriptions of shameless vice depicted in an 'accurately
translated' romance of the Paris slums,--now it writes thousands
of letters to a black man, to sympathize With him because he has
been CALLED black!--could anything be more absurd! ... it has even
followed the departure of an elephant from the Zoo in weeping
crowds! However, I wish all the crazes to which it is subject were
as harmless and wholesome as the one that has seized it for
Alwyn's book,--for if true poetry were brought to the front,
instead of being, as it often is, sneered at and kept in the
background, we should have a chance of regaining the lost Divine
Art, that, wherever it has been worthily followed, has proved the
glory of the greatest nations. And then we should not have to put
up with such detestable inanities as are produced every day by
persons calling themselves poets, who are scarcely fit to write
mottoes for dessert crackers, . . and we might escape for good and
all from the infliction of 'magazine-verse,' which is emphatically
a positive affront to the human intelligence. Ah me! what wretched
upholders we are of Shakespeare's standard! ... Keats was our last
splendor,--then there is an unfilled gap, bridged in part by
Tennyson.. ... and now comes Alwyn blazing abroad like a veritable
meteor,--only I believe he will do more than merely flare across
the heavens,--he promises to become a notable fixed star."

Here he smiled, somewhat pleased with his own skill in metaphor,
and having rubbed his bow enough, he drew it lingeringly across
the 'cello strings. A long, sweet, shuddering sound rewarded him,
like the upward wave of a wind among high trees, and he heard it
with much gratification. He would try the Cavatina again now, he
decided, and bringing his music-stand closer, he settled himself
in readiness to begin. Just then the Nurnberg clock commenced
striking the hour, accompanying each stroke with a very soft and
mellow little chime of bells that sent fairy-like echoes through
the quiet room. A bright flame started up from the glowing fire in
the grate, flinging ruddy flashes along the walls,--a rattling
gust of rain dashed once at the windows,--the tuneful clock
ceased, and all was still. Villiers waited a moment; then with
heedful earnestness, started the first bar of Raff's oft-murdered
composition, when a knock at the door disturbed him and
considerably ruffled his equanimity.

"Come in!" he called testily.

His man-servant appeared, a half-pleased, half-guilty look on his
staid countenance.

"Please, sir, a gentleman called--"

"Well!--you said I was out?"

"No, sir! leastways I thought you might be at home to him, sir!"

"Confound you!" exclaimed Villiers petulantly, throwing down his
bow in disgust,--"What business had you to think anything about
it? ... Didn't I tell you I wasn't at home to ANYBODY?"

"Come, come, Villiers!".. said a mellow voice outside, with a
ripple of suppressed laughter in its tone, . . "Don't be
inhospitable! I'm sure you are at home to ME!"

And passing by the servant, who at once retired, the speaker
entered the apartment, lifted his hat, and smiled. Villiers sprang
from his chair in delighted astonishment.

"Alwyn!" he cried; and the two friends--whose friendship dated
from boyhood--clasped each other's hands heartily, and were for a
moment both silent,--half-ashamed of those affectionate emotions
to which impulsive women may freely give vent, but to which men
may not yield without being supposed to lose somewhat of the
dignity of manhood.

"By Jove!" said Villiers at last, drawing a deep breath. "This IS
a surprise! Only a few minutes ago I was considering whether we
should not have to note you down in the newspaper as one of the
'mysterious disappearances' grown common of late! Where do you
come from, old fellow?"

"From Paris just directly," responded Alwyn, divesting himself of
his overcoat, and stepping outside the door to hang it on an
evidently familiar nail in the passage, and then re-entering,--
"But from Bagdad in the first instance. I visited that city,
sacred to fairy-lore, and from thence journeyed to Damascus like
one of our favorite merchants in the Arabian Nights,--then I went
to Beyrout, and Alexandria, from which latter place I took ship
homeward, stopping at delicious Venice while on my way."

"Then you did the Holy Land, I suppose?" queried Villiers,
regarding him with sudden and growing inquisitiveness.

"My dear fellow, certainly NOT! The Holy Land, invested by touts,
and overrun by tourists, would neither appeal to my imagination
nor my sentiments--and in its present state of vulgar abuse and
unchristian sacrilege, it is better left unseen by those who wish
to revere its associations, . . don't you think so?"

He smiled as he put the question, and drawing up an old-fashioned
oak chair to the fire, seated himself. Villiers meanwhile stared
at him in unmitigated amazement, . . what had come to the fellow, he
wondered? How had he managed to invest himself with such an
overpowering distinction of look and grace of bearing? He had
always been a handsome man,--yes, but there was certainly
something more than handsome about him now. There was a singular
magnetism in the flash of the fine soft eyes, a marvellous
sweetness in the firm lines of the perfect mouth, a royal grandeur
and freedom in the very poise of his well-knit figure and noble
head, that certainly had not before been apparent in him.
Moreover, that was an odd remark for him to make about "wishing to
revere" the associations of the Holy Land,--very odd, considering
his formerly skeptical theories!

Rousing himself from his momentary bewilderment, Villiers
remembered the duties of hospitality.

"Have you dined, Alwyn?" he asked, with his hand on the bell.

"Excellently!" was the response, accompanied by a bright upward
glance; "I went to that big hotel opposite the Park, had dinner,
left the surplus of my luggage in charge, selected one small
portmanteau, took a hansom and came on here, resolved to pass one
night at least under your roof ..."

"One night!" interrupted Villiers; "You're very much mistaken, if
you think you are going to get off so easily! You'll not escape
from me for a month, I tell you! Consider yourself a prisoner!"

"Good! Send for the luggage to-morrow!" laughed Alwyn, flinging
himself back in his chair in an attitude of lazy comfort, "I give
in!--I resign myself to my fate! But what of the 'cello?"

And he pointed to the bulgy-looking casket of sweet sleeping
sounds--sleeping generally so far as Villiers was concerned, but
ready to wake at the first touch of the master-hand. Villiers
glanced at it with a comical air of admiring vanquishment.

"Oh, never mind the 'cello!" he said indifferently, "that can bear
being put by for a while. It's a most curious instrument,--
sometimes it seems to sound better when I have let it rest a
little. Just like a human thing, you know--it gets occasionally
tired of me, I suppose! But I say, why didn't you come straight
here, bag, baggage, and all? ... What business had you to stop on
the way at any hotel? ... Do you call that friendship?"

Alwyn laughed at his mock injured tone.

"I apologize, Villiers! ... I really do! But I felt it would be
scarcely civil of me to come down upon you for bed, board, and
lodging, without giving you previous notice, and at the same time
I wanted to take you by surprise, as I DID. Besides I wasn't sure
whether I should find you in town--of course I knew I should be
welcome if you were!"

"Rather!" assented Villiers shortly and with affected gruffness..
"If you were sure of nothing else in this world, you might be sure
of that!".. He paused squared his shoulders, and put up his
eyeglass, through which he scanned his friend with such a
persistently scrutinizing air, that Alwyn was somewhat amused.

"What are you staring at me for?" he demanded gayly,--"Am I so
bronzed?"

"Well--you ARE rather brown," admitted Villiers slowly ... "But that
doesn't surprise me. The fact is, it's very odd and I can't
altogether explain it, but somehow I find you changed, . .
positively very much changed too!"

"Changed? In appearance, do you mean? How?"

"'Look here upon this picture and on this,'" quoted Villiers
dramatically, taking down Alwyn's portrait from the mantleshelf,
and mentally comparing it with the smiling original. "No two heads
were ever more alike, and yet more distinctly UNlike. Here"--and
he tapped the photograph--"you have the appearance of a modern
Timon or Orestes.. but now, as you actually ARE, I see more
resemblance in your face to THAT"--and he pointed to the serene
and splendid bust of the "Apollo"--"than to this 'counterfeit
presentment,' of your former self."

Alwyn flushed,--not so much at the implied compliment, as at the
words "FORMER SELF." But quickly shaking off his embarrassment, he
glanced round at the "Apollo" and lifted his eyebrows
incredulously.

"Then all I can say, my dear boy, is, that that eyeglass of yours
represents objects to your own view in a classic light which is
entirely deceptive, for I fail to trace the faintest similitude
between my own features and that of the sunborn Lord of Laurels."

"Oh, YOU may not trace it," said Villiers calmly, "but
nevertheless others will. Some people say that no man knows what
he really is like, and that even his own reflection in the glass
deceives him. Besides, it is not so much the actual contour for
the features that impresses one, it is the LOOK,--you have the
LOOK of the Greek god, the look of conscious power and inward
happiness."

He spoke seriously, thoughtfully,--surveying his friend with a
vague feeling of admiration akin to reverence.

Alwyn stooped, and stirred the fire into a brighter blaze. "Well,
so far, my looks do not belie me," he said gently, after a pause..
"I AM conscious of both power and joy!"

"Why, naturally!" and Villiers laid one hand affectionately on his
shoulder.. "Of course the face of the whole world has changed for
you, now that you have won such tremendous fame!"

"FAME!"--Alwyn sprang upright so suddenly that Villiers was quite
startled,--"Fame! Who says I am famous?" And his eyes flashed
forth an amazed, almost haughty resentment.

His friend stared--then laughed outright.

"Who says it? ... Why, all London says it. Do you mean to tell me,
Alwyn, that you've not seen the English papers and magazines,
containing all the critical reviews and discussions on your poem
of 'Nourhalma?"

Alwyn winced at the title,--what a host of strange memories it
recalled!

"I have seen nothing," he replied hurriedly, "I have made it a
point to look at no papers, lest I should chance on my own name
coupled, as it has been before, with the languid abuse common to
criticism in this country. Not that I should have cared,--NOW! ..."
and a slight smile played on his lips.. "In fact I have ceased
to care. Moreover, as I know modern success in literature is
chiefly commanded by the praise of a 'clique,' or the services of
'log-rollers,' and as I am not included in any of the journalistic
rings, I have neither hoped nor expected any particular favor or
recognition from the public."

"Then," said Villiers excitedly, seizing him by the hand, "let me
be the first to congratulate you! It is often the way that when we
no longer specially crave a thing, that thing is suddenly thrust
upon us whether we will or no,--and so it has happened in YOUR
case. Learn, therefore, my dear fellow, that your poem, which you
sent to me from Tiflis, and which was published under my
supervision about four months ago, has already run through six
editions, and is now in its seventh. Seven editions of a poem,---a
POEM, mark you!--in four months, isn't bad, . . moreover, the demand
continues, and the long and the short of it is, that your name is
actually at the present moment the most celebrated in all London,
--in fact, you are very generally acknowledged the greatest poet of
the day! And," continued Villiers, wringing his friend's hand with
uncommon fervor.. "I say, God bless you, old boy! If ever a man
deserved success, YOU do! 'Nourhalma' is magnificent!--such a
genius as yours will raise the literature of the age to a higher
standard than it has known since the death of Adonais [Footnote:
Keats.] You can't imagine how sincerely I rejoice at your
triumph!"

Alwyn was silent,--he returned his companion's cordial hand-
pressure almost unconsciously. He stood, leaning against the
mantelpiece, and looking gravely down into the fire. His first
emotion was one of repugnance,--of rejection, . . what did he need
of this will-o'-the-wisp called Fame, dancing again across his
path,--this transitory torch of world-approval! Fame in London!
... What was it, what COULD it be, compared to the brilliancy of
the fame he had once enjoyed as Laureate of Al-Kyris! As this
thought passed across his mind, he gave a quick interrogative
glance at Villiers, who was observing him with much wondering
intentness, and his handsome face lighted with sudden laughter.

"Dear old boy!" he said, with a very tender inflection in his
mellow, mirthful voice--"You are the best of good fellows, and I
thank you heartily for your news, which, if it seems satisfactory
to you, ought certainly to be satisfactory to me! But tell me
frankly, if I am as famous as you say, how did I become so? ...
how was it worked up?"

"Worked up!" Villiers was completely taken back by the oddity of
this question.

"Come!" continued Alwyn persuasively, his fine eyes sparkling with
mischievous good-humor.. "You can't make me believe that 'All
England' took to me suddenly of its own accord,--it is not so
romantic, so poetry-loving, so independent, or so generous as
THAT! How was my 'celebrity' first started? If my book,--which has
all the disadvantage of being a poem instead of a novel,--has so
suddenly leaped into high favor and renown, why, then, some
leading critic or other must have thought that I myself was dead!"

The whimsical merriment of his face seemed to reflect itself on
that of Villiers.

"You're too quick-witted, Alwyn, positively you are!" he
remonstrated with a frankly humorous smile.. "But as it happens,
you're perfectly right! Not ONE critic, but THREE,--three of our
most influential men, too--thought you WERE dead!--and that
'Nourhalma' was a posthumous work of PERISHED GENIUS!"

CHAPTER XXXII.

ZABASTESISM AND PAULISM.

The delighted air of triumphant conviction with which Alwyn
received this candid statement was irresistible, and Villiers's
attempt at equanimity entirely gave way before it. He broke into a
roar of laughter,--laughter in which his friend joined,--and for a
minute or two the room rang with the echoes of their mutual mirth.

"It wasn't MY doing," said Villiers at last, when he could control
himself a little,--"and even now I don't in the least know how the
misconception arose! 'Nourhalma' was published, according to your
instructions, as rapidly as it could be got through the press, and
I had no preliminary 'puffs' or announcements of any kind
circulated in the papers. I merely advertised it with a notable
simplicity, thus: 'Nourhalma. A Love-Legend of the Past. A Poem.
By Theos Alwyn.' That was all. Well, when it came out, copies of
it were sent, according to custom, round to all the leading
newspaper offices, and for about three weeks after its publication
I saw not a word concerning it anywhere. Meanwhile I went on
advertising. One day at the Constitutional Club, while glancing
over the Parthenon, I suddenly spied in it a long review,
occupying four columns, and headed 'A Wonder-Poem'; and just out
of curiosity, I began to read it. I remember--in fact I shall
never forget,--its opening sentence, . . it was so original!" and he
laughed again. "It commenced thus: 'It has been truly said that
those whom the gods love die young!' and then on it went, dragging
in memories of Chatterton and Shelley and Keats, till I found
myself yawning and wondering what the deuce the writer was driving
at. Presently, about the end of the second column, I came to the
assertion that 'the posthumous poem of "Nourhalma" must be
admitted as one of the most glorious productions in the English
language.' This woke me up considerably, and I read on, groping my
way through all sorts of wordy phrases and used-up arguments, till
my mind gradually grasped the fact that the critic of the
Parthenon had evidently never heard of Theos Alwyn before, and
being astonished, and perhaps perplexed, by the original beauty
and glowing style of 'Nourhalma,' had jumped, without warrant, to
the conclusion that its author must be dead. The wind-up of his
lengthy dissertation was, as far as I can recollect, as follows: