ABSTRACT
EDGAR FAUCETT, A MINOR WRITER IN THE LITERARY

CURRENT or HIS arms: AN EDITION OF HIS.UNPUBLISHED
NOVEL, THE PRIDE 93 INTELLECT

 

 

by Stanley R. Harrison

Edgar Fawcett (18147-19019 is an obscure literary
figure today despite his having been one of America's
most prolific writers. During his lifetime he wrote
some one-hundred novels, “seven volumes of poetry, five
play which met with production, and a countless number
of essays, critical articles, poems, and abort stories
which appeared in practically every newspaper and peri-
odical of his time. The volume of his writing suggests
a literary popularity. in his own day and makes his works
fair game for the historian of ideas.

‘ The thesis presents a textual edition, based upon
an authentic manuscript, of Fawcett's last and unpublished
novel, The; 21511 23 Intellect; it also offers an edited

 

collection of his literary letters. The novel and letters
combine to form the core of the study'which attempts to
locate Fawcett in the literary current of his time and to
suggestuthe significance of the minor writer's works in
this current.

The preponderance of Fawcett's prose works are in

Stanley R. Harrison

a realistic literary tradition, and, appearing at the be—
ginning of this movement, they met with harsh critical
judgments. His works, admittedly inferior, did not in-
fluence those of the later realists, but they did culmi-
nate in the works of Crane, London, Norris, and Dreiser.
From a glimpse of Fawcett as a contributor to the
development of a new literary movement, the study shifts
to a view of Fawcett as a follower of an already estab-
lished American literary motif. A major current in
Pawcett's novels is the expression of the international
theme, and a dominant influencing force here are the
works of Henry James. In many ways Fawcett's life was
close to James's. Fawcett held that the lack of tradi—
tion in American culture frustrated the development of
letters in this country. He became a part of the ex-
patriate movement in 1897 when he emigrated to London
where he remained until his death in 19014.. He frequent-
ly singled out James as America's greatest writer and
dedicated his novel, £33.". £233, to James. And his works,
time and again, touched upon the international theme,
whether in passing reference or in full-blown treatment.
Fawcett's letters serve to illustrate how his cul-
tural ambivalence affected his literary opinions, and 3h:
Pride of Intellect provides an excellent illustration of

 

how a minor but popular writer utilizes a dominant

Stanley R. Harrison

literary theme when influenced by the work of a major
author. The novel also serves as a reflection of
Pawcett's art. It contains the literary weaknesses of
characterization, theme, and plot which mar his earlier
writings; the prose style is as affected here as in his
other works; the realistic tendency is manifest; and the

international theme is present. In a sense, The Pride of

 

Intellect is the summation and reflection of Fawcett's

 

life's work.

There are nine chapters in the thesis. The first
presents a biographical study Of Fawcett's later years
with an.emphasis upon his literary thoughts. Chapter two
details the critical reception of Fawcett's writings.
Chapter three discusses the substance of his prose-—in
particular, the realistic tendencies and the expression
of the international thmne. Chapter four comments upon
the significance of Fawcett'sletters; chapter five ex-
plains the rationale for the editing of the letters; and
chapter six presents the letters. The seventh chapter

deals with the editing of The Prido'gg Intellect; the

 

eighth presents an.analysis of the novel, and chapter

nine is the edition of the novel itself.

EDGAR FAUCETT, A MINOR WRITER IN THE LITERARY
CURRENT OF HIS TIME: AN EDITION OF HIS UNPUBLISHED

 

NOVEL, m PRIDE 25 INTELLECT
By

Stanley R. Harrison

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State university
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of English
' 196k

In the spring of 1963, Mr. and Mrs. William
Hurney of Narragansett, Rhode Island, granted me the
rights to edit their manuscript of Edgar Pawcett's novel,
The Pride of Intellect. The actual work on this study

 

 

was begunthem, although the story of the manuscript itself
has a much earlier history. In 1897, Edgar Fawcett, a
prolific American novelist, essayist, dramatist, and poet
left the United States to take up residence in England.

He was repelled by what he considered to be cultural ari-
dity in America and by harsh critical judgments of his
work; he was attracted by what he thought were the rich
cultural traditions of England and by the possibility of
winning a more favorable critical response.

Pawcett never returned to this country; he died in
London seven years later on May 2, 190k. There is reason
to believe that his effects were sent back'to this country
shortly after his death and that they remained unopened
until the spring of 1963 when the Murneys happened upon
them. But before the Hurneys arrived upon the scene there
were two other people involved.

Fawcett had one sister who had three children,
Theakston, Beatrice, and Gertrude de Coppet. The story of
the manuscript concerns itself with Fawcett's two nieces,
Beatrice and Gertrude. These two sisters, who never mar-

ried, lived on an estate, in Narragansett, Rhode Island.

11

After their death, the Hurneys purchased the contents of
the de Coppet estate and discovered among their posses-
sions a number of unopened cartons containing the papers
and manuscripts of Edgar Fawcett. My part in the dis-
covery dates from that moment, for the Murneys called me
to ask if I would examine the manuscripts. They later
told me that they had heard my name mentioned in the com-
munity as a teacher of American literature at the Univer-
sity of Rhode Island.

I met with Mr. and lira. Hurney many times to dis-
cuss their Fawcett collection which consisted of ten
plays, one short story, and one novel.:L When I discovered
that none of the works had previously been published,2 the
Hurneys graciously granted me permission to edit the one

 

r

lThere are two untitled plays in addition to: "A
Heart's History," "Brenda," "The Icicle," "Oceanview,".
"Christine," "Dorothy Vanderveer,'.' "The Unpardonable Sin,"
and "Lady Meadowmere *s Method.” Theshort story is "An
Innocent Anglomaniae," and the novel is The Pride of
Intellect. . —" ""

 

2There can be no absolute determination, but there
is a reasonable certainty that these works were never
published. The Library of Congress finds no such titles
in their seventy-five listings of Fawcett's works, nor is
there any reference to these works in Jacob Blanck's
Biblio raph of American Literature (New Haven, 1959), III,
BE-IUU. ' IE irpmtmort story was published
in a periodical, but a thorough search of all periodicals
Fawcett mentions in his letters reveals no such printing.
Since there is reason to believe that the story, along
with the novel, was written shortly before Fawcett's death,
then the possibility of publication becomes even more re—
mote. For a speculation upon the dating of the novel,
see, pp.l9h-l95.

111

novel in their possession, The Pride g_f_ Intellect. I

 

 

was not yet sure of the significance of this find, but
after a great deal of research which uncovered, among
other things, a collection of Fawcett letters, a pattern
began to suggest itself.

Edgar Fawcett is not a writer of the first rank.
His obscurity and lack of reputation alone would suggest
this; and an analysis of his verse-—doggerel, in the main..-
and of his prose--melodrama, replete with stilted charac-
terisations, didactic themes, and plots of innocent in-
trigueuwould strengthen that judgment. The importance
of presenting a new edition of an unpublished manuscript
from an inferior and unknown writer must be sought else-
where than in its contribution to belles lettres.3

In the first place, one edits such a manuscript be-
cause it is there. It is the last novel written by Faw-
cett, and since it is the only one which did not meet with
publication, the editing of the manuscript completes the
corpus of Fawcett's printed novels. This in itself is
reason enough, no matter the obscurity of the writer or
the imperfection of his prose.

Beyond this there is another reason. A presentation

 

3Despite this negative estimate of Fawcett's ability,
there were critics and writers who held him to be one of the
finest writers of his time. See William Dean Howells's
review of Fawcett's Fantasy and. Passion,p.13li, fn.139.

iv

of the novel and an accompanying study of Fawcett place
his writings within the realistic movement or his time
and also within a broader American literary current. The
study helps to make that broader current--the expression
of the international theme-.more readily understandable.
The international theme is one of the earliest motifs in
American literature. It was implicit in Charles Brockden
Brown's dedication of his novel Ormond, in 1799, to a
German friend. "My undertaking will...introduce you to
scenes to which you have been hitherto a stranger," he
wrote. "The modes of life, the influence of public events
upon theicharacter and happiness of individuals, in America,
are new to you. The distinction of birth, the artificial
degrees of esteem‘or contempt which connect themselves
with different professions and ranks in your country are
but little known to us." The cultural contrast began
with a recognition of cultural differences; it deepened as
cultural amb ivalences developed .

Thus the study opens with a presentation of Fawcett's
background which places him in a literary perspective,
evokes his literary intentions, and sets forth his own
speculations upon the reasons for his poor literary recep-
tion. In a very personal manner, Fawcett reveals his cul-
tural grievances when he holds the critics, the book pub-
lishers, and the reading public responsible for his liter-
ary failures.

The analysis of the critical reception which fol-
lows makes Fawcett's tarnished literary reputation evident,
exposes the weaknesses of his writing, and places him
within a main—current realistic movement of the time. The
discussion of Fawcett's literary realism leads directly. to
comentary on the international theme. There are remarks
here on the substance of international works, on the pe-
culiarities of Fawcett's own cultural conflict, and on the
influence of Henry James upon Fawcett. All of this cul-
minates in an examination of the international theme in
Pawcett's novels—-including E: .1319... 3.1:. Intellect and "An

 

Innocent Anglomaniac"--u and in a comparison of Fawcett's
treatment of the subject matter with Mark Twain's and
Henry James 's exploitation of it. Fawcett's letters fol-
low, and they reveal the intensity of the cultural con-
flict within him which shaped his literary Judgments.

The work concludes with the presentation of The

Pride of Intellect. The short discussion preceding the

 

novel illuminates those characteristics which Fawcett's
last work shares in canon with his published writings.
The Pride of Intellect is poorly written and evidences

 

the faults of-his earlier works; it is realistic in inten-
tion and places Fawcett within the literary current of his

 

1""An Innocent Anglomaniac" is the short story in
the Hurney's collection. .

vi

time; it contains a full and serious development of the
international theme and underscores Fawcett's fictional
preoccupation with this matter. The novel is important,
for, in its reflection of his life's work, it highlights
patterns which fuse the commentary of the study into a
final unity.

vii

I would like to acknowledge the great debt I owe to
Mr. andnrs. william Murney whose contribution to scholar-
ship should not go unnoticed for it was their cooperation
which.mede this dissertation possible. I am.also obligated
to the United States Trust Company of New Ybrk for granting
me the rights to the Fawcett letters, and to the libraries
which provided me with photoprints of the letters to be
used for reproduction. The letters appear by courtesy of
the trustees of the Boston Public Library; the Buffalo
and Erie County Public Library; the Chicago Historical
Society; the Columbia University Library; the Cornell Uni-
versity Library; the Duke university Library; the Henry E.
Huntington Library and Art Gallery; the Rew‘York Public
Library; the State University of New York at Buffalo Li-
brary; the University of Southern California Library; the
University of Texas Library; and the Clifton Waller Barrett
Library of the University of Virginia Library.

I am.indebted to Mr. Robert Rhodes and Miss
Mhrianne Gelbert of the reference library at the Uhiver-
sity of Rhode Island for their time and help in locating
and obtaining documents and editions of works for me, and
to Drs. Warren.Smith and Henry Leonard for their unique
contributions of friendship. A

I would also like to express my deep gratitude to
all the members of my graduate committee at Michigan Sate

viii

University--Professors Russell Rye, Adrian Jaffe, Herbert
Weisinger, C. David Mead, and Clyde Henson--for their con-
tributions of thought and guidance. I would like especial-
ly to thank Professor lye, the chairman of the committee,
for his patience and faith, and Professor Jaffe because he
cared.

Of course, to my mother I owe the most, and I can

only repay this by offering love from her son, the Doctor.
stuck-44

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER
I Fawcett as a Minor Writer--His
Cultural Grievances
II Fawcett's Critical Reception
III Realism.and the International Theme
in Fawcett's Fiction
IV International Considerations in
Fawcett's Literary Criticism,-
a Discussion of His Letters
V Editing of the Letters
VI The Letters
VII Editing of The Pride of Intellect
VIII Introduction to The Pride 93. Intellect
IX The Pride 2£_Inte11ect

Bibliography

PAGE

22

h2

SS
62
65
131
lhl
223
3h8

Edgar Fawcett was born in New York City on May 26,
18M. From that time until his graduation from Columbia
College in 1867 and his emergence as a literary figure,
there is relatively little known about him. The entry in
the Dictionary of. American Biographl, for example, is
typical of other biographical accounts of these early years
in that it contains a paucity of information:5

FAWCETI', EDGAR (May 26, l8Li7-May 2, 19014.), author,
was born in New York, and despite much foreign
travel and a residence abroad during his later
years, his native city remained throughout his life
the principal theme of his literary work. His
father, Frederick Fawcett, was an Englishman who
became a prosperous merchant in New York; his
mother, Sarah Lawrence Fawcett, was of American
descent. After obtaining his preliminary educa-
tion in the public schools of New York, Fawcett
entered Columbia College. Here he failed of
distinction as a studentuhis name appeared on
the minutes of faculty meetings chiefly as the
recipient of admonitions for irregular attend-
ance upon olasses--but he gained a campus re-
putation as a man of letters, and, as a member

of the Philolexian literary society, he was pro-
minent in undergraduate literary activities. He
graduated in 1867, and three years latgr Columbia
conferred the degree of ILA. upon him.

But by 1880, only ten years after receiving his FLA.

 

5There is even less information of Fawcett's early
years inWho's Who in America, Ap leton's golopaedia of
American BIO 'ra' E ,Tme'rIca'n' AuEEoEr"s' and Boo , an 3"
Ia’c'IonaI c opae is g: fiericanTIOgraphz. .
6(New York, 1931), v1, 302'.

l

2
from Columbia, Fawcett had achieved sufficient literary

reputation to prompt an editorial sketch in the New York

 

Tim where he was described as being "of medium height,
solidly, though proportionately built, with a rather
square head, dark eyes, florid complexion, black hair and
mustache." The article concluded with the statement that
"he is soearnest in the pursuit of literature that he
hires a fourth-story room in a tenement-house on the East
Side, where he may work without interruption. His love of
manuscript-making must be an uncomfortable passion."7

Fawcett's zeal was unmistakable. A similar passion
in a Van Gogh bears the mark of genius, but in Fawcett it
conveyed little more than the pathos of a misplaced energy.
William H. Rideing, in an article in the Bookman six years
after Fawcett's death, recalled the intensity which had
enveloped Fawcett:

He seethed with ideas and, travelling or at home,

at all hours, early and late, sick or well, he
found his chief pleasure in that varied work which
flowed from him without intermission, now running
clear, and then, as was inevitable, thickening and
stumbling in its haste. He always had a note-book
in his pocket, and out it came not for mere memo-
randa, but for things begun and finished while we
waited, such as a sonnet composed within ten minutes
of our arrival at the top of the Righi when we were
touring together in Switzerland, or another sonnet
excogitated within as short a time amidst the hubbub
of embarkation at Liverpool. Facility was his bane,
and overwork his ruin. His querulousness was but

 

7June 22, p.li.

3

the outcry of his abused and protesting nerves,
which suffered not only from the number of his
working hours but also from.the fact that those
hours were nocturnal. A

I called at his lodgings one day. The floor
and the table in his parlour were littered with
books pulled from their shelves the previous
night—-the books of Tennyson, Swinburne, Keats,
Shelley and Baudelaire, English and French, the
books he admired open at the pages he liked to
repeat. The sun creeping through the drawn
blinds discovered nothing of the day. Everything ’
betokened the previous night and its occupations,
the glasses, the ashes of tobacco, the choice of
books. I surmised congenial company parting only
with the dawnp-Haurice Barrymore very likely,
Frank Saltus and George Parsons Lathrop. My re-
sounding knock on the bedroom door had to be re-
peated before it told. Then a thunderous and
indignant voice cried out from.within, "Go away.
Go away! How dare anybody disturb me at this
hour of the night." I looked in, and there he
was in bed, prepared for vengeance on the disturb-
er, furious till he recognized me. A small
table within his reach held a pencil and a pad;
he had been writing even after that prolonged
causerie. He was a handsome man of florid
complexion and Jet black hair, with a head and
jowl suggestive of tenacity of purpose and ob-
stinacy, beardless but heavily mustached. His
eyes in contrast with his other features were
like those of a girl's, an.exquisite violet.

"Good heavens, William} What's the matter?
‘What has happened to bring you here in the
middle of the night?"

I looked at my watch: noon had passed but the
information did not startle huh.

"Those fellows stayed quite late," he yawned,
and with a smile he handed me the verses he had
Jetted down.before going to sleep--

TO A NEWSPAPER CRITIC

For blood, an adder's gall;

For brain, a gnat's weak hate;
For heart, a pebble small;

For soul, "a whiskey straight."

h
For conscience, pelf and hire;
For pride, a donkey's tether;

For ink, a gutter's mire;
For pen, a goose's feather.8

The pity is that such fervor resulted in nothing more than
this crude eight line outburst.

This passion of Fawcett's for creation did not sud-
denly erupt in his mature years; he had nurtured the zeal
since childhood. His reminiscences reveal the early awaken-
ing of his artistic impulse:

In trying to recall Just when I began to "write," I
find myself drifting among very childish.memories.
Unless I greatly mistake, I could not have been much
over nine years old when I conceived the idea of
composing a story. I remember its name perfectly.
I called it "Hrs. Morse; or, A Widow's Trials." At
this time I had a mania for names, and on the first
foolscap page of my maiden.manmscript I placed
eighteen feminine and masculine. They designated
the half-orphan progeny of my heroine, Hrs. Horse.
She had been left with them.at the opening of the
tale, and she was supporting them.(Walter, Olivia,
Julian, Claribel, Harold, and thirteen others)
‘under circumstances of the most poignant want.
Their want was, indeed, so poignant that they were
all stated to be in the early throes of starvation
on.my first foolscap page. Then I am distinctly
conscious that I created a villain who held Mrs.
Horse in his power, and who incidentally forced his
way into her one miserable apartment and gloated
over her. I had no definite conception of what I
meant by letting my villain gloat. But it looked
well, and I seemed to have some sort of authority
for its being a tendency on the part of the vil-
lains, so I introduced and rather simplified the
circumstances. All the rest of the story is mist-
ed with forgetfulness, except one luridly dramatic
point of it, near the close. One day, while Mrs.
Morse, surrounded by her eighteen clinging children

 

8December, 1910, pp.h38-h39.

5

with their beautiful names, was being gloated upon
more industriously than usual, the villain suddenly
resolved to carry her off. I have not the least
recollection of why or whither he desired to carry
her off; but I feel certain that my unhappy Mrs.
Morse accomplished her salvation by a deus ex
machine which I thought singularly fine. ”SEIzing
E'EEEEIe of brandy, which by some blessed chance
happened to be within arm's reach of this starving
and prolific widow, she dexterously poured its
contents down the villain's throat; and, while he
was strangling from.the results of this opportune
alcoholic assault, Hrs. Horse eagerly followed by
her enormous offspring, rushed from.the clutches
of her baffled tormentor. .

my future stories were all written in capy-books.
And it is extraordinary how many copy-bookfuls of
fiction I produced during the next two years....
One copy-book story I clearly remember. I thought
it my averly," my "Pore Goriot," my "Vanity Fair."
It was called 'Rosa: A Tale of Spain and Portu-
gal." I wrote the title before I wrote the story,
--as was usually my custom. The hero (whose name,
I believe, was Don Alonzo) had passed several chap-
ters of existence in Spain, when I suddenly recol-
lected that my narrative was also to deal with
Portugal. Disheartened but not crushed by this
consideration, I promptly put Don Alonzo on board
of a ship, wrecked him disastrously after a day or
two of seafaring, and made him.swim.through a par. .
tion of the Bay of Biscay until he reached the
Portuguese shore. Here ended.my first copy—book.
The second cepy-book dealt with Portugal, since my
hero had been safely landed there; and so, while
filling it, I felt that I was conscientiously
meeting the demand of a large and exacting future
public.9

The structure and character of Fawcett's works changed
very little from.these beginnings. Accident and manipula—

tion.remained as constant factors in his works; the intro-

 

9"A Few Litera "
ry Experiences Lippincott's Monthly
Magazine, 1886, pp.l|.12-lilli. '. .

6
duction of a villain or cynic--Ada1bert Hurst, Austin
Iegree, Oscar Schuyler--was an inevitable occurence; and
the "mania for names"--Harmaduke Plinlimmon, Cyril
Cursitor, Rivington Van Corlear--never abated. Also, the
voluminous production of Fawcett's early years never
slackened. During his lifetime he published some ninety
works of which seven were volumes of poetry, two were
verse dramas, and at least sixty were novels. There were
five plays which met with production and a countless num-
ber of essays, critical articles, poems, and short stories,
which appeared in practically every newspaper and periodi-
cal of his day.10 His output was so vast that George
Parsons Lathrop, writing in the November, 1886’, issue of
Harper's magazine, remarked that Fawcett "has been before
the public for fifteen years, and during that period he has
been.more prolific both of verse and prose than any of his

fellows among local authors."11

Proliferation was the stamp of the man, but it was
a mark without distinction. No matter what pleasure

 

10The numbers given for publications and dramatic
productions are reasonably, but not absolutely accurate.
The occasional difficulty in distinguishing between a novel
and a short story accounts, in part, for the speculative
nature of the figures; a similar drama-verse drama dilemma
and the problems in verifying dramatic productions create
further confusiont

11"The Literary Movement in.New York," p.819. For
further comment to this effect see the Scribner review of

Fantasy and Passion, p.159, fn.1h9.

7
Fawcett may have derived from his productivity, he seldom
had cause for satisfaction when he contemplated his reputa-
tion. He was tormented by the thought that he was destined
for literary obscurity. His correspondence with Paul
Hamilton Hayne, though often casual in tone, reflected his
despair. "To grasp the poetic spirit of our time is the
most that any of us can do," he wrote in 1875. "Some do
it very ill! I often believe myself among the number of
bunglers!" And one year later, in 1876: "It seems to me

that I have (pardon me) a rather strong sense of words; we

 

have discussed this question before, you know, of my ver-
bal coloring. Well, in the Judgment of many, I suppose
that to be this is merely to be mechanical or else tur-
gid." Again, in 1876: "If I am ever really famous (and
I never expect to be and‘care very little whether. I am or
no). your rosy prephecies shall be remembered." Finally,
in December of 1878 Fawcett wrote that "I only wish...I
could confine myself exclusively to one'order of work, but
I am compelled not alone to write poems and short stories,
but novels as well. If I never come to anything-“and I
think the probability-of'my ultimate nothingness stronger
every day--it will be solely because of this pressure; or

so I imagine, but I may be wholly wrong here."12

 

12All letters to Hayne are from the Paul Hamilton Hayne

Papers at the Duke University Library. The dates of these

8
In 1899, less than five years before his death, in
a series of letter from London to Edmund Clarence Stedman,
Fawcett expressed the same disappointment with a curious
mixture of pride, acceptance, and irritation at an.unde-
served fate. Stedman had asked Fawcett's permission.to
include some of his poetry in a forthcoming anthology and

Fawcett responded:

If the American public does not think me worth.pur—
chasing in.book-form--that is, the form I have
assumed when addressing it--I greatly prefer not to
be A prendre on d laisser amid a crowd of lyrics Go.
by EWt'é'Fs': even th'ough these may be far and
away my superiors. Since I have lived here several
(not many, but several) requests for certain pieces
of verse have come to me from strangers in course of
preparing anthologies. I have always politely de-
clined to allow them.any use whatever of my composi-
tions. My reasons appear to me quite Justified. I
have no position whatever before the American world
of letters as a poet, and no one is better aware of
that than your gifted father. I am perfectly willing
to admit that in four published volumes I have tried
and failed; I am perfectly willing to admit that I
had not the note of distinction which deserved to be
accepted by any large body of my cultured country-
folk. But, nevertheless, facts like these, I should
say, are not inconsistent with a wish to preserve
what I hold an attitude of permissable dignity and re-
serve. I am.no longer young, and a good while ago
literary.obscurity lost all terrors for me.

Stedman wrote again, but Fawcett was adamant:

Your letter is very kind, but it does not alter my
views. I am wholly indifferent to but one thing,

as regards my verse in.America. That thing is my
own indifference, or rather the chance of manifesting

 

letters are: Ma 10, 1875; August 8, 1876; n.d., 1876; and
December 19, 187 . The date of the 1878 letter is suspect;
see p.10h, fn.112.

to

s.
‘I

see

at

9

it, of exploiting it, whenever such chance may ar-
rive. All through the best years of my life they
stamped upon.me, Jumped upon.me,...[illeg.] me in-
to the ground, and now they have their reward--
they have killed.mm. Non omnis moriar,13 however,
in at least one sensez—t‘th'HaIT—n'a'f read me in
anthologies--not even in one so excellent and so
far above the averagelfls that which your scholarly
hand is sure to make.

Fawcett's alternating currents of pride and self-
pity, evident in.the Stedman letters, also mark the charac-
ter of Ralph Indermaur in The Pride of Intellect. Indermaur's

 

 

career closely parallels Fawcett's and his self-confessions
in the novel, if they are of autobiographical significance,
suggest that it was a lack of recognition and a sense of
failure which prompted him.to quit the United States in
1897. Indermaur, the dying father, informs his son
Kenneth: ’

I took this little house in Chelsea, and staid here
on and on. I never wrote, prroJected books; I
never wrote more than twenty pages or so of manu-
script, all told, and these were dragged forth from
a brain always tired by any attempt at cerebration,
and were finally destroyed in.a fit of despairful
self-surrender....

I have wanted you to swim.with the current. I
swam.against it. I was right; I shall die protest-
ing I was right. But what is it, after all, to be
"Right"? One doesnit lose one's own.soul--to put
it fancifully--but one misses the whole world. And
to miss the whole world has a prodigious meaning.

 

13Nonomnis moriar. For autobiographical implica-
tions in TEE'PTTHE'ET'IEEellect, Cf. the same expression in
the novel, p.2I5."" .

1""J’uly 22, 1889, and August 15, 1889. These letters
are courtesy the Columbia University Library.

 

‘ua

e. ‘
I
0..

.IO

 

10
If I were you, Kenneth, I would make "Propitiate"
my motto. Heet.folk a little more than half way.
Never cringe, but constantly unbend. Whenever you
discern a hate give it prompt battle. That is,
try and turn it into a friendship. Of all profes-
sions the literary is most infested by hate. There,
you see, the great prizes are so few, the paths of
ascent so craggy and thorny. There, too, fashions
are peculiarly despotic, and the leviig of more whim
can hurt like the blow of a bludgeon.

It is a relatively simple matter to be made aware of
the world's Judgment; it is altogether something else to
accept it, and Fawcett's letters reveal that he did not.

He held others accountable for the miscarriage of his re-
putation. He often argued that the criticasters, with
their intolerable carping,made a mockery of his intentions;
at other times he insisted that insensitive publishers in
the throes of an unsettled market vitiated the strength of
his writings by making capitulation to their taste a condi-
tion.of publication; then, too, he frequently attributed
his unpopularity to the conservative desires of a reading
public which was not yet ready to accept his advanced views.
There is some validity in these contentions and Fawcett's
comments upon the critics, the publishers, and the substance
of his radical convictions reveals the extent of it.

Of the three offenders Fawcett believed the critics
to be his greatest detractors. He questioned the acuity of

their perceptions and the honesty of their intentions. "I

 

15pp.2lo-212.

11

am afraid," he wrote to Hayne in 1876:

that I shall not be half as well treated by the

N;Y. editors, for they are nearly all arrogant

and filled with strange preJudices--literary

snobs, in fact, of a sort that dear old Thackerary
wS have drawn superbly....The Nation prides itself,
I hear, upon being the one.literafy authority of
America. It certainly succeeds, very often in being
extremely insolent and uncritical. Their arch-
reviler of authors is now dead; his name was Deunet,
a man, I am.told,.of fine abilities, though acrid
bitterness. A critic, in my opinion shfl always seek,
in a book, somethin £2 praise. That chi be his
chief aim, s rangely enough it has become the
fashion among the Saturday Reviews &.Athenaeums (of
which the Nation is at best but a meagre copy) to
not alone indulge every conceivable Opportunity for
sneering, but to make Opportunities that never could
possibly exist unless thus artificially manufactur-
ed. ‘Well, I suppose the real truth is that these
men.are nearly alwayz the human wrecks themselves of
forceful ambitions.

In another letter written later that year Fawcett ex-

pressed the same attitude:

Not long ago you told me that you.thought an author
who spoke of editorial ill-treatment cut a very
sorry figure. I do not at all agree with you here.
Narrowness of Judgment, unreasoning prejudice and
intolerable obstinacy are the order of the day with
most of our magazines; or so I have always found.
For example, the Independent (as you know, perhaps)
thinks me a grosst'IfififiraI wretch because I wrote
Purple 222 Fine Linen; or rather a seraphic, evan-
g'eTTE'creature named HP. Hayes Ward so considers me;
and I am sure that if I sent him one of th most
attractively devout hymns conceivable he ._ decline
it on suspicion.of its being latently prurient.

Do you happen.to know this pure creature? Jupiter-
ian look; his gait is modest--some ill-natured
people might say that he shambled instead of walking,
like a slip-shod lady. Altogether his style is
rather ladylike. One of his fixed tenets of belief

 

16n.d.

12

is my own irreclaimable immorality. Honestly 8:

candidly--1 consider that the unjust and wholly un-

prejudicedopinion of this most unpleasant person

is, after all, a tolerably good specimen of editori-

al fairness . 17

Fawcett scorned evaluation resulting from the appli-
cation of moral standards rather than aesthetic ones, but
he seldom considered the Judgment of any critical opinion
to be valid no matter what its character. He constantly
braced himself to receive poor notices; he convinced him-
self even before the publication of a work that the critics
would condemn it. "Mr. Howells asked me not long ago to
let him recommend my serious poems to Osgood," he wrote to
Hayne. "I have already begun to copy them, with numberless
alterations. It is an endless task. I doubt if the book
will be ready for the publisher before next autumn. go!
the critics will pitch into it."18
Fawcett did not confine .11 of his comments on the

calibre ‘of criticism and the personality of the critic to
his private letters; he also revealed his convictions
publicly. In an article for Egflncott's Monthly Magazine
in 188719 Fawcett railed against the futility of criticism

and its destructive capacity in the hands ’of the venonmous

 

17To Hayne, November 19, 1876.
13mm 11;, 1876.

19"Should Critics Be Gentlemen?" pp.163-177~

13
critic. He insisted that when the same literary work al-
ternately evoked praise, scorn, and pronouncements of medio-
crity from three different newspaper reviewers, then the re-
liability of criticism itself was suspect: "These discord-
ances of opinion are not occasional; they occur every day.
They are to my mind the great proof of how absurdly needless
are all published comments on books in current newspapers."
Fawcett reasoned that the futility of criticism was.

manifest in its inability to arrive at absolute pronounce-
ments, and that the shortcomings of the critics were evident
in their desire to castigate even the ineffectual writer
whose only trespass lay in his aspiration:

Why rail against these harmless victims of an

illus ive will-o'-the-wisp? Why call them names,

and stamp upon them, and question Jove himself as

to the object of their creation? No service to

literature is done by giving them sleepless nights

and days of torment. Their feeble books are per-

fectly sure of dying, without denunciation being

hurled at them the moment they are born. Nobody '

will read them, in any case. Pray do not flatter

yourself, fiery-eyed critic, with your furious

foot still upon one of their gilt-edged offspring,

that you have performed the slightest public bene-

fit by your frenzyof condemnation. You have simply

succeeded inmaking a fellow-creature's heart suf-

fer,--nothing more. '

If this seems to be a mild, impersonal expression

of annoyance with a general critical practice than what
follows is not, for in the same article Fawcett bitterly
related a personal anecdote illustrative of the arrogance,

egotism, and corrupt power of the critic:

1h

One evening about eight years ago, just be-

fore the appearance of my first book of poems,
"Fantasy and Passion," I went to a reception
given at the Lotos Club in New‘York. Among the
assembled guests was a certain person whom.some
optimists have seriously stated to be a poet.

He had a position, then, upon some evening paper
as its literary critic; I am.not quite sure
whether or no it was the Journal which he at pre-
sent represents, though I think not. He had been
writing with belligerence and not a little clear
malignity about certain poems of mine in the
Atlantic Monthly and elsewhere, and when I re-
ceived Trom.a mutual acquaintance his request to
cross the room.and speak with hum, I felt con-
siderable surprise. After very little hesitation,
however, I refused point-blank; and yet I sent no
uncivil message, since the whole affair was one
of quite too much indifference to me for that.

As I subsequently learned, however, he became ex-
cessively angry on hearing of my unwillingness and
indeed lost all control of his temper. "I will
kill that man!" he exclaimed to my peaceful and
astonished mmissary, finishing his sentence with
another. "By---, I've killed bigger men than he
is, and I'll kill him!" This murderous threat
bore no allusion.t8'fiy own life, but rather to
that of my first book of poems, "Fantasy and
Passion." On the appearance of that book, the
gentleman.certainly behaved like a critic with

a private graveyard for the corpses of those regu-
tations which he had already wrathfully slain.2

In affirmative answer to the question in the ar-
ticle's title--"Should Critics Be Gentlemen?"--Fawcett in-
sisted that "most fair and thoughtful criticism.is of neces-
sity kindly," and he concluded his own attack with the gentle
reminder that the first foothold of criticism is "humane

courtesy." He wished criticism to concern itself only with

 

20The critic is R.H. Stoddard. Cf. letter to Hayne

about Stoddard in which Fawcett tells the same story,

pp.lS7-158. Also see Stoddard's review of Fantasy and
Passion, p.159, fn.1h9. '—

15
the singling out of an author's virtues; he had not long
to wait before being made aware of the futility of his de-
sire. James Lane Allen, writing in the January 15, 1887,
issue of the Critic, responded to Fawcett by questioning
his sincerity: '

It is not Hr. Fawcett's logic...that most hurts his
article; and this may be said sorrowfully enough.

It is the too obvious fact, that while he comes for-
ward to plead for courtesy and humanity in criticism,
he is himself neither courteous nor humane. Hay, he
is even contemptuous and revengeful. His article
does not make one feel gentle, but savage. What
critic can catch his spirit and be otherwise than en-
venomed? Does Mr. Fawcett know what he compels his
readers to do, when he measures in his nasty little
bric-a-brac way the great sufferings and the great
genius of Thomas Carlyle?~ He compels them to turn
to another page of his article and apply to hum his
own words: "Give hum [a young writer] his head, and
he will scammer roughshod over Dante...and Hilton."
And did Poe ever crowd into one paragraph as much
abuse of another as Mr. Fawcett does of Poe? Even
the one poor pitiful little story that remained un-
told, of Poe's being in debt to Longfellow for a

sum of money--how does Hr. Fawcett tell that?
Sorrowfully? net at all. He enjoys putting himself
on record as the last man in the world who could add
a stigma to a dead fellow-poet's already blackened
name. Does not Hr. Fawcett know that "humane cour-
tesy" must be shown not only to the living but to
the dead?

A critical struggle whose outcome is dependent upon
which of the contestants is more humane and which has the
higher>morality can have no respectable victor. It is the
right battle but the standards have little to do with the
creative work itself. Yet these were the concerns, and
Fawcett never tired of blaming his literary failures on the
misplaced functions of criticism.and on the personal

u

.“a

e

"a

16
discourtesy and arrOgance of the critics themselves.

‘If Fawcett ever paused in his assault upon critics,
it was not because he wearied of the crusade, but only be-
cause he was otherwise occupied in attacking publishers.
He had cause, he felt, to believe that primitive publish-
ing conditions and insensitive boolmen were also respon-
sible for his failures. The following group of letters to
Sherrill and Company, a publishing house, have no relevancy
to factors militating for or against Fawcett's success as
a writer, but they do reveal what must have been a con-
stant source of irritation to him. The letters follow in
sequence; the nature of the annoyance is implicit:

Dear Sir: I have not yet roof} the ms. which you
wrote me that you do not desire to 'fi'é'e.
Very truly yours,
Dear Sir: I fail to remember the amount of postage
which my ms. cost. If you will kindly inform me, I
will forw'i'r'd it to you, as also the six cents (I
believe that is correct?) which your notes to me
shall, altogether, have caused you to expend.
Respectfully,

Please find enclosed 18 etc in posgage stamps.
E. Fawcett 1

Qnibbling over pennies for the return of a manil-
script was distasteful to Fawcett, but the matter of fin-
ancial remuneration for literary compositions was not of

small concern to him. Contractual arrangements with pub-

 

2:I'Oourtesy the State University of New York at
Buffalo Library. .

’1
Abs

3"
.0

a.‘

.Is.
-
he.

0
a

1?

lishers were not calculated to encourage the writer. "I
am disheartened," Fawcett wrote to Hayne, "by the very
thought of publishing my poems in this country. It seems
to:me that if Chatto and Hindus or Blackwood, in London,
should bring them.aut, there might be some vague chance
for them; but here I doubt if 2000 copies would be sold—-
a miserable sale enough when our paltry lO p.c. is con-
sidered, but a splendid one on the other side of the water,
‘where the author receives 1/2 profits. I almost think
‘that I will keep the poems till I can afford to go to
England."22

For one reason or another there were too many fac-
tors militating against even a moderate financial success.
IErank Luther Mott, in.Golden.Multitudes, notes that during
the period from 1875 to 1893 book publishers were making
smaller and smaller profits, greater numbers of books were
being placed at the mercy of bargain seekers, and the qual—
ity of bookmaking was sinking to new and lower depths. He
attributes all of this to the emergence of the dime-novel
and the introduction.of a cheap-book publishing program
‘which.resu1ted in a glutted and inactive market.23 Of
this, Fawcett wrote to Bayard Taylor in 1878: "By the way,

 

ZZSeptember 2h, 1876.

23(New York, l9h7), pp.lh8-lSS.

 

 

0a

V.
'c

5..“
~,

18

the Hbssrs. Roberts pleasantly tell me that it will be
like burying my book to bring it out with the market in
such a slothful state; so I must of course bid good-bye
to any thought of a 33222! d'argent.”2h

‘Unsatisfactory royalty arrangements and an uncertain
market were only two unhappy conditions the writer of
Fawcett's time had to overcome; editorial carelessness was
a third. Fawcett believed that much of his work was dis-
torted by printer's barbarisms. In a letter from England
he wrote that "I .e intensely sensitive to bad punctua-
tion, & see that 'Keely' if full of commas which I didn't
place there. In the 1:: stanza there is one, there are 3
in third a one in fourth. I take for granted that this is
the printer's work, but it makes nonsense of the text. Fbr
instance, a comma after nil g2 mortuis is meaningless, or,
rather, destructive of meaning."25

Editorial revision was also destructive of content
and meaning on occasion. "Once I contributed a serial
story to The Youth's Companion' [sic] called 'The Country
Cousin'; but," Fawcett complained, "I did not‘offer it
afterward to a publisher because the Etg. people changed
my text at the end of the last chapter in a way that I

 

2”March 3; courtesy the Cornell University Library.

25March 28; courtesy the University of Virginia
Library.

19
found very unsatisfactory."26 Editorial pruning was pos-
sibly even more damaging: ’

I know that you will be glad to hear that Roberts
Bros have finally decided to bring out my poems,
”Fantasy a Passion," some time in early January.

I say "my poems," but the book has been.cut down
to 210 pages or thereabout, for imperative reasons
of saleability. "Hypocrites" &.mot a few of my
cynical morbid poems must be left out in this book,
and oh! (a far harder thing to bear) my three long-
est poems, "Alan.Eliot“ "Vanity of Vanities" and
”The Magic Flower" must also be postponed till
another volume appears--if it ever does appear!
You may readily believe that I rebelled most con-
tumaciously at first against these Lycurgan de-
crees; but there was no appeal. I feel as if
"Fantasy and Passion" had all the "passion" now
taken out of it. My "Hamlet," so to speak, has

no Danish prince. 'Fidelitas" remains and not a
few poems of that sort. There will perhaps be abt
200 poems in all. The idea is to make something
picturesque and warm-colored, without anything but
an.occasional shiver in it. Now I have as dark a
wrong side as I have a gay right; & this does not
at all please me, since I wished to publish a re-
presentative book of abt.3SO pages and show the
world at one coup what I am.worth. Then, if the
world had shrEEEEd its shoulders I should at least
have had the satisfaction of feeling that I had
forcibly pulled its sleeve in.my effort to gain
its notice. But Roberts was afraid of such a
book, from a commercial point OE view, & I dare-
say that he is immensely right. 7

Fawcett's bitterness toward publishers was deeply

ingrained. He frequently attributed his failures to their

 

26November 21; the year is probably 1897 as Fawcett
and Paine, to whom.this letter is addressed, corresponded
prior to the publication of Fawcett's novel, New YOrk, in
1898. All letters to Paine are courtesy the HEEry’IE'
Huntington Library and Art Gallery.

27To Hayne; October 10, 1877.

Os-

-
e-sv

as.
to.

‘a
I

20
insensitive editing, but in a letter to a publisher, Paine,
he expanded the reasons for his failures to encompass every-
thing from international copyright conditions to conserva-
tive publishing policies to spiteful editors. He charged
the publishers with complicity in a plot to degrade him,
damage his reputation, and frustrate his success. In re-
sponse to Paine's request to see the manuscript of the
novel l_I_e_w_ York before agreeing to publication terms, Fawcett
wrote a letter from Rome severing his relations with Paine:

I would prefer putting my ms. over a slow fire to
sending it to you under the—conditions you name.

I am the author of nearly 14.0 published novels and

I don't think my name a totall unknown one either
in America or in England. our note didn't make me
in the least angry, but I must say that it somewhat
amused me. . ..

You could just as well have snubbed me two months
ago, if that was your plan, as to snub me now when I
am in Rome. How can you conceivably suppose that
after you have written me this "frankly' I would send
you my ms? If I were the obscurist writer in the
United S't'ates you could not have assumed toward me a
more indifferent and cooly de haut on has manner. Do
you fancy that for an install? mun 3551 with you
on any such tom-'87:": _..._.._...

You must forgive me...if I state quite frankly
that I had hoped the "Combined Press" would strike
out into new paths is forsake the old tedious beaten
ruts. The whole situation is now pitiable and dis-
gusting. International Copyright has been a shame-
ful failure with us thus far. Sensational and
trashy English tales have been preferred at a large
price to strong and able American work at a compara-
tively small price. Authors are afraid to speak out
--they are afraid of the Gilders and Aldens. News-
papers will not speak out, because they desire the
advertisements of certain magazines. Meanwhile the
petty despostism continues and it is a sorry fact
that no American author to-day, though he should
write another "Vicar of Wakefield" or another
"Scarlet letter," could gain the least vogue for it

.1!

.41 h

21

_unless it were printed by the "Century" or
"Harper's.“ It is, I think, certainly 15 years
since Mr. Alden ever had an opportunity of reading
one of my mss., and it will be 15 more if life '
spares me ifi'long. As for Mr. Gilder, I told him
my views some time ago with pronounced clearness.

There does not seem to me the faintest conceiv-
able reason why you should not have made arrange-
ments with me regarding my new serial, accepting
the word of an old and tried writer that it was of
his best works-~as it is But you think otherwise,
5% so the matter ends.28 .

For Fawcett the matter seldom ended in so simple a
fashion; a personal declaration in.a letter was never suf-
ficient expression. In his war against the critics he had
issued a public statement calling for humane courtesy in
criticism, and in his battle with the publishers he also
expressed his views in print. In the January 1896 issue of
Author's Journal, he charged the publishers with frustrat-
ing the aspirations and success of the talented literary
man--a man like himself--by printing works of dubious merit
in keeping with their own inferior standards of taste. It
was the Critic which had responded to his previous onslaught
against reviewers, and it was the Critic which once again
took Fawcett to task for his complaint against the publish—
ers: M

It seems to me that the unsuccessful author is the
most unreasonable person in the world. He is never
willing to lay his unsuccess at the door of fate, but

goes directly with it to the door of the publisher
and there lays it down, Not only does he lay it

 

28Probably 1898; see fn. 26.

'II III "

I 1“

! \Ir.‘ ‘2‘

I?! ‘l

22

there, but he calls the whole world to see how he
has been wronged, and who has done him the wrong
....ur. Fawcett has a grievance, and that griev-
ance appears to be that he is not a pOpular author;
and he, like the others, blames the publishers and
the editors for this unhappy situation. I can
understand an author who has never found a publish-
er cherishing a mild grudge against that class for
their denseness in.not recognizing his genius, but
I cannot see how a writer who has published several
books can hold the publishing fraternity responsible
for his failure to secure popularity.

In.my opinion, the public, and the public alone,
is responsible. Hr. Fawcett has been writing novels
of all kinds for a number of years, and the public
certainly knows hum, for the publishers will give the
public what it wants--that is what they are in busi-
ness for. They are not an organized band formed for
the sole purpose of squelching the popular author,
as so many unpopular authors suppose. I do not like
to set up my own commonsense as superior to that of
Mr. Fawcett, or any author with a grievance, but it
does seem to me that, if I were so fortunate as to
get a book published and so unfortunate as not to
have it sell, I should hardly blame the publisher
for that misfortune, or think him.a curmudgeon, if
he preferred to publish the books of an author that
the public wanted to read. I might rail at the bad
taste of the public, but I do not see how I could
have any quarrel with the publisher.29

The article does penetrate to the heart of Fawcett's
rationalizations, although its oversimplification is mis-
leading on a number of counts. Commercial cOnsiderations
did frustrate American authorship; popular taste alone did
not determine literary success or failure; and publishers
were responsible for the creation of conditions which
stifled American literary develOpment. without the pro-
tections and safeguards of an international copyright

 

29February 15, 1896, p. llh.

23

agreement the best and most popular works of English
authors were printed here at unbelievably low costs. So
long as these were freely acquired, American writings had
little chance for publications and small possibility of
successfully competing in the cheap-book.market. Hellmut
Lehmann-Haupt, in The £933 in America, maintains that as
a result of this situation vigorous American authorship did
not become possible until after the date of the internation-
a1 copyright agreement in 1891.30

A further oversimplification in the Critic's retort
to Fawcett exists in its oversimplification of Fawcett
himself. Fawcett did not wholly "lay his unsuccess at the
door...of the publisher," but also held the critics re-
sponsible--the critic molded the Opinion and the publisher
catered to it. Beyond this there was still the third an-
tagonistic force that Fawcett deemed culpable in his fail-
ure to achieve recognition, success, and reputation. Upon
occasion he was given to looking within rather than with-
out, and at such moments he held his own expression ac-
countable for failure. It was not, however, his own
literary lbmitations which he seized upon, but his expres-
sion of radical literary and social views which he felt
certain.antagonized the reading public. He attributed his

 

30(Iow Ybrk. 1952), p.210.

.I‘
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.

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9‘5.

u!

fit.

.0.

2h
poor reception to the public's rejection of his opinions
or their inability to comprehend his views. He was, he
believed, a man ahead of his times who would have to suf-
fer the fate of all men of vision and radical pronounce-
ment.

As an agnostic Fawcett felt he was certain to Of-
fend many. "The very existence of that particular Christ
whose life and death are recorded in the New Testament is
by no mmans a proven fact," he maintained in his essay on
"Agnosticism," "The ridiculous story that he was born of
a virgin is scarcely less to be respected by unbiased
judges than the story that he was ever born at all. He is
a figure not a whit more actual than.Helen of Sparta,
Achilles, or Hector, and the entire legend of his crucifix-
ion has no more historic weight than that of the siege of
Troy." He held his unpopularity to be a result of such
forthright assertion.

Fawcett believed, however, that the future would
acknowledge his worth. "What a debt do we owe to the an-
cestors that freed us frOm.superstition's trammelling
tyrannies!" he proclaimed. "A like debt will our success-
ors owe to us in the ages unborn. This realisation.mmst
content the agnostic. It is a lofty one, and it is
chastely unselfish as well. He cannot say that he has no
good cause for thanks; he has been saved from.temporizing
and makeshift; he has escaped the silliness of Theosophy,

25
'Christian.Science,' 'spiritualism,' and like tawdry
lures to the fancy and the senses; he has stooped his
lips to the crystal waters of pure knowledge and found
there a draught far wholesomer and more flavorous than
any sacramental wine ever served by foolish priests!"31
Resigned to the acceptance of present disparage-
ment, Fawcett often conjured up these future glories. In
his poem, "To Robert G. Ingersoll," he contemplated a tbme
when Science would reign King and his contributions would
be valued:
...In oblivion our lots will be cast
When the future hath built firm and
fair on the bulk of a petrified past.
Yet its edifice hardier shall bide for
the boons fraught with help that we give--
Per the wrongs that we cope with and slay,
for the lies that we crush and outlivei32
There were other provocative views Fawcett held.
As a foe of an entrenched aristocracy he did not endear
himself to the influential: "The great point with pluto-
cracy and snobbery is to perpetuate themselves--to go on
producing scions who will uphold for them.future genera-
tions of selfishness and arrogance. One sees the same

sort of procreative tendency in certain of our hardiest

and coarsest weeds. Sometimes a gardner comes along with

 

31
A sticism.=g§ Other Essays (New‘York, 1889),
pp-BS. 62-5;-

32Arena, December, 1893, pp.llh-ll7.

 

Ol-
bee-i

L":

.I
i...

I
.‘t.

26

hoe, spade, and a strong uprooting animus. In human life
that kind of gardener goes by the ugly name of Revolution."33
As an adversary of an apologetic Christianity he did not
speak in.a manner calculated to gain hhm the acceptance
of the flock: "If the working-girl of New York has any
arch foe it is that sad fraud which today is termed
Christianity. If today there is any class of men who en-
tirely desert the requirements of their avowed profession
it is the class of the c1ergy."3l’r

Fawcett was aware of the consequences of his forth-
rightness. In a letter dated October 18, to "Dear Sir,"
he wrote: "Shall you care to use this paper, which I 8

have Just finished, for $50 (payable on acceptance, not

 

publication) in your magazine? Though.my views on.N.Y.
Society, as here expressed, are in the strongest way sin-
cere, I have little doubt that they will provoke much dis-
cussion and possibly indignation as well."35

Fawcett's literary heresies, though less likely to
touch off popular indignation, were also in evidence. He

was acutely aware of the peculiarity of his poetic theories

 

33"Plutocracy and Snobbery in New Ybrk," Arena,
July, 1891, p.151. _ '—

3h"fhe‘Woes of the New York Working-Girl," Arena,
December, 1891, p.3h. . ""'

3500urtesy the State University of New York at
Buffalo Library.

27
and, as usual, was aware of the disfavor such theories
would bring him. In a letter to Hayne he confessed that:

I have what are called peculiar theories, per-
haps, regarding the province of poetry. It seems
to me that horror, duplicity, all human baseness,
law'be included therein. I honestly don't pro—
fess at all to know what poetry is. I know that
certain lines, certain phrases thrill me, & that
these are not necessarily yearnings after ideals,
longings for "the light that never was on sea or
land," intense desires after inconceivable types
of beauty. All these things can be poetry, I
admit, if treated properly; bit—t5? most revolt-
ing passions, the most loathsome experiences, the
most vile &.cowardly & contemptible impulses, if
dealt with after a certain fashion, if managed
after a certain.sort of power & held in, so to
speak, by a certainr.e'in--let us say the rein of
genius--are also worthy of the sacred name. Am
I diseased? Perhaps yes. Surely my feelings,
on these points, are immensely unpopular. It is
conventional to believe Just the Opposite. Some-
times I wish that I could so believe. Mind you,
I worship color, sweetness, light, nobility of
treatment, refinement of aspiration--all these '
things are adorable to me--and I23 I must admit,
also, that one of Dore's most agonizing pictures
"one of Swinburne's most lascivious an outrageous
poems--have force to thrill me after much the
same fashion as verse of artistic conception that
brims with the loveliest reaching after loftier
life and supremer life-methods. All this is a
sort of confession; & yet I should admit to every-
one what I now admit to you, because my future
book, if it ever appears, will prove my own
theories with salient if by no means convincing
influence.36

There is a definite foundation for attributing the
unenthusiastic response to Fawcett's works to the niggling

character of newspaper reviews, to chaotic commercial

 

36lovember 20, 1875 .

e".

is

‘e

's

28
publishing conditions, and to Fawcett's own espousal of
unpopular beliefs. Inevitably, however, one must arrive
at the conclusion that his work itself was of a quality
that did not merit praise. The singleness of his liter-
ary theme--the attack upon the abuses of a privileged
c1ass--is repetitive and ultimately banal, as the number
of possible variations is fixed. And Fawcett compromises
the strength of his theme in each individual work because at
the same time he condemns his aristocratic figures he
also admires the trappings of their existence. There is a
parallel movement in the works of F. Scott'Fitzgerald who
was also fascinated and repelled by the adornments of
wealth. In Fitsgerald, however, this ambivalence results
in the torment of conflict, whereas in Fawcett, only a
weakness of construction and intent emerges.

But this study is not concerned with an aesthetic
analysis leading to an evaluation of Fawcett's art, nor
with an analysis of why poor writing is poor. It is an
underlying assumption of the work that Fawcett's writings
are not worthy of serious literary consideration. In one
of his letters to Hayne, Fawcett enclosed his poem,
"Hypocrites," with the revelation that "I place this among
my 1111 M'things." This is the same‘poem whose deletion

from the emasculated'edition of "Fantasy and Passion" caused

29
Fawcett much anguish.37 The !:£y_2222 poem.follows and it
serves to establish the nature of Fawcett's art and the
uselessness of subjecting it to analysis:
I and my neighbor met to-day,
Face to face, on the common way.

My neighbor babbled in pleasant wise.
With smiling lips and with smiling eyes.

I, for answer, was all as gay,
Meeting her there on the common way.

But she, beneath her smile, I know,
Felt the curse of a wasting woe;

Since now, not many days gone by,
Her harlot daughter came home to die.

Yet we were masked with an equal skill,
For, seeming happy, I had no will

To strip the mask from my face and show

The marks of my husband's drunken blow!
Fawcett was a poor writer but he preferred to hold Ameri-
can cultural attitudes responsible for his literary failures

rather than to acknowledge his own inadequacies.

 

37See letter to Hayne, p.19.

‘b

II

The critical opinion of Fawcett's writings, by its
illumination of the content of his works, substantiates

much that has already been suggested.38 It reveals that

 

381 have gathered the critical comment on Fawcett and
his works from one newspaper, the New York Times, and nine
periodicals: the Atlantic Monthl , the EBOEEEET the Catholic
World, the Critic, the Dial, arper's New Efinffil Ma azIne,
ESE—Independent, Lip incott's HBnEEI HE'azIne, and gEe
Nation. scanned many period ca s uE Ead to arrive at a
Ifiiftid selection since there were some 2,h00 periodicals in
existence in 1880, about 3,300 in 1885, and h,h00 by 1890.
with the exceptions of the Catholic World, the Independent
and the New York Times, the-EEEEETfieE'I'EtilizeH'WSFi'EHE'
ones whiEE'FEfififitE—EEE published in, those he commented
upon in his letters, and those which had attained a re—
sponsible literary reputation. The review printed from the
Catholic werld is included because it is both perceptive
EEH'EFBIcEI'TE its expression; the Independent review is a
strong expression of a rather common—EEETTFFEIistic liter-
ary point of view; and since most of Fawcett's works are
set in New York City, the newspaper reaction of the New York
Times, which reflects a popular literary attitude, is-veryr-
much to the point.

Frank Luther Mott discusses the literary importance
of the other periodicals in volumes 3 and L of his A History
g£ American Magazines (Cambridge, 1938 and 1957): -

Li incott's ...must be given a high rank among
IfierIcan magazines (v.3, p.h01).

Perhaps there was a more consistent excellence
in the book reviews of the Nation, the Critic,
the Dial, and the Atlantic {EEK—Tn those-5T"
other—pfiriodicals TvTET‘57232).

The most important Journals of this period de-
voted to criticism of current literature were...
the Critic...the dogmatic...Dia1...Harry
Thurstofi'Peck's Bookman most Brilliant of
monthlies . . . (mamas).

30

fisl
h-

7'.

-g.

'3.

31
Fawcett's fiction was poorly contrived and executed, and
it establishes that his controversial expression--in this
case, his efforts at literary realism--often resulted in
the condemnation of a particular work.

The criticism itself was vital and lively. There
were some reviews which presented conclusions without bene-
fit of critical probing; but even, these, which were defi-
cient in analysis, contributed to the intensity of critical
attitudes. For example, without comment upon the "tedious-

ness" of the-work, the Critic reviewer of Fawcett's The New

Ling Arthur could assert with conviction that "there are
amusing things in 'The New King'Arthur,‘ by the author of
'The Buntling Ball" (Funk Gawagnalls), but as a whole the
verses are a lamentable falling off from the author's earli-
or effort. The book is, indeed, hardly woth reading for the

sake of the very few plums to be extracted from its general

4—

At the beginning of the twenty year period 1885—1905,
the leaders in the field of national illustrated

monthlies devoted to the publication of literary mis-
cellany were two New York magazines, Harper's and the

Cenm (v.h., p.143).

The Atlantic Honthl of Boston, occupied, in the
worm a , a place by itself." And that
old-school crI'tTE went on to say that the Atlantic
stood "more distinctly for culture than any—0'55?—
American Magazine" (v.h, p.hJ4.).

These were the leading literary periodicals and their
reviews provide a perceptive contemporary judgment of
Fawcett's works; they also reveal the intensity of criti-
cal expression at a time when literary matters were of
vital popular concern.

 

0!
'0.

f2!

'0

32

tediousness."39 The following comment from.the Nation was
in the same vein:‘ "'The New King Arthur' (Funk and Wag-
nalls) is by the author of 'The Buntling Ball,‘ and must,
therefore, according to the evident expectation of the pub-
lishers, have many readers; but we should be sorry to be
among them,-except for editorial duty; it belongs to the
dreariest class of college poetry. This book is not 11-
lustrated, except very tawdrily on the outside."h0

Brevity and a cutting wit were characteristic of
many reviews, and so, too, were the frequent presentations
of plot synopses. The obvious melodrama and theatrics of
a Fawcett plot, provided the critic with an Opportunity to
utilize a synoptic technique for the purpose of evaluation.

The New York Times review of Fawcett's Hemen Must weep was

 

a critique of this sort:

Trask? Isaac Trask? You certainly know him.when
he kept the apothecary shop somewhere in.New-York,
in.a plain unassuming neighborhood, and you must
remember when you bought a toothbrush of him, or a
box of cough lozenges, and how pleasant and courte-
ous, yet how dignified, he was, and when you said,
"Thank you, doctor," though you suspected he had no
diploma, yet you seemed to think the title exactly
suited hime As you lived just round the corner,
you had heard of Apothecary Trask's three fine
girls-—Eunice, Dora, and Annette--and what good
daughters they were, and had heard, too, (to use
the vernacular of the quarter) how they "took on"'
when their pa died. Perhaps, too, you wondered

 

39February 6, 1886, pp.68-69.
hoDecember 2h, 1885, p.5hl.

33

how there could have been any relationship between
Aunt Liza Heffernan and the Trask girls; but then,
the gossips told you that Aunt Liza was their true
aunt, as was Hrs. Ida Giebelhouse, the wife of the
placid German florist; but then you had been assur-
ed that there was the widest difference between the
honest, whole-souled Aunt Liza and the narrowzminded,
cantankerous Aunt Ida. The three Trask girls, be-
cause their father had looked down on.rumsellers,
had not been kindly inclined toward Aunt Heffernan,
but when their father died and left them the shop
alone, with a house or two, mortgaged for more than
they were worth, it was then that Andy Heffernan

and his wife did all they could so as to save the
girls their little property. The store was put
under the charge of Austin Legree, who had an as-
sistant, Harvey Kennicutt, (you have certai 1y taken
home a fry in a box from.ane of Kennicutt p re's
oyster houses and restaurants.) It was in a surrep-
titious way that Andy Heffernan3. the rumseller and
ward politician had promised the capital necessary
to run the druggist's shop. Then Eunice, who is

the eldest girl, married Legree, who seemed to be

an active, pushing fellow. Dora took Harvey Kenni-
cutt, but it was pretty, gentle Annette, the young-
est, who was supposed to have won the best man whose
name was Gordon Ammidown, and Ammidown, the father,
was an editor and proprietor of a successful New-
York Journal. Then comes in the refrain, "for men
must work, and women.must weep." Legree turns out
to be a tyrannical brute, and he strikes his high-
spirited wife, and Eunice then leathes him. Dora's
husband is "volage," and of that meek, amorous dis-
position which.makes him.follow any woman.that smiles
at hum; and as to poor Annette, her Gordon was a
periodical drunkard, and the Ammidown family knew it
when they palmed off their dissipated son on the poor
girl. The upshot is much weeping and wailing on the
part of the two daughters of Trask, who, leaving
their husbands, and for good reasons, return to that
old home Heffernan and Aunt Liza have kept for them.
Annette, through thick and thin, hangs on to her
drunken.master until there is a tragedy, for a ruf-
fian, Larr cGonigal, kills both Gordon and

‘3
Heffernan~.1

 

ulFebruary 1h, 1892, p.19.

3h

The reviewer for the Critic, employing the same
technique of presenting a plot synopsis which contained an
implicit Judgment, expressed similar opinion.of another

Fhwcett novel, Hiriam.Balestier. He, too, was disturbed by

 

the heavy handed manipulation of plot, the one dimensional
nature of conflict between the innocent and the wicked,and
the fortuitous melodramatic victory for the forces of good.h2

Miriam Balestier lived in dreary rooms in Blocker
Street.. Her mother drank; her sister was a trial.
She had a.brother who had written an opera. Miriam
wanted to sing the leading part, if she could get
any one to bring the opera out. She took it to a
manager, vulgar but human, who refused the thing.
Paula, an acquaintance of Miriam's, who went with
her, was more vulgar than the manager, but she was
more successful than Miriam, for she was engaged to
sing in a new Operetta. San Francisco was the spot
chosen for the production of the musical gem. It
was to be brought out by a man who loved Miriam.
Paula was Jealous of Hirimm, but she concealed her
Jealousy and called her "my dear." Could any de-
ception be cleverer? When.Hiriam.returned from her
unsuccessful interview with the vulgar manager, she
found her mother drunk, her sister Just horrid; and
to round out a state of affairs, her brother struck
her because the manager had refused his opera.
Hiriam.therefore went to California with Paula, the
man.who loved her (erst Paula's lover), and the
troupe. One night en.route Paula induced Miriam.to
go out on the plathFmT' It was the day before vesti-
bule trains, and Paula, like Hrs. Johnny Sands in the
song, was intent u n pushing Miriam off; when--

Ecce deus ex machina!--thern was a collision. Paula
w""'as"" "‘kmd "; 'HIr'i'am' "w"as no t . 3

At times it was difficult for a critic to distinguish

 

"20:. letter to Hamlin Garland, p.121. Garland also
objected to Fawcett's artificially contrived plot.

h3March 23, 1889, pp.lh2-lh3.

Ii

urn
at!

94-
'I.

"‘

5..

35

between the melodramatic nature of one of Fawcett's plots
and the dis Jointed movements within the plot development.
They were closely related and all too often the chance
happening, such as Paula's death, erased a villain and per—
mitted virtue to triumph. Thus any comment upon the plot
usually revealed an insight" into the melodrama of forces
g; the chaos of structure. This was so even when the re-

New York Times, did not make pointed reference to the ir-

 

relevant movements which obliterated structure and advanced
confusion. "In this romance," the review began, "are two
sisters, Charlotte and Pamela-Verplanck, who supposably
existed in.the New York of 1820. Charlotte is beloved by
Mark Prankland, and Gerald Suydam has lost his heart to
Pamela. Pamela is a hysterical person, 'complicated, mys-
terious, unmanageable,‘ and the Verplanck father fears for
her health. In order to effect her cure, since she has
taken a sudden fancy for Charlotte's bethrothed, Mark, the
family insist that he, (Hark) must marry the unwholesome
Pamela. Aaron Burr is pulled into the story, and Mr.
Fawcett explains the fascination this man had over women.
You can scarce appreciate the sisterly devotion in Char-
lotte, who pretends she does not love Gerald [sic], so as

to effect Pamela's cure, and your liking or your interest

36
for the anaemic Pamela is of the slightest."1m
Not all reviews took the form of plot synopsis,

and not all reviewers concerned themselves with the melo-
dramatics of plot. There were some who were capable of
disentangling the structure of the plot from.its melo-
dramatic nature and passing comment upon the former only.
The reviewer for the Nation called attention to the hap-

hazard construction of The Adventures gfpa‘widow and, in .

 

fact, suggested that it was the lack of total unity in
Fawcett's works which.militated against the fulfillment of
his potential. "we sometimes think no one comes so near to
great work as Hr. Fawcett," the reviewer ventured. "In
some conceptions of character, in some detached scenes, he
almost attains it, but in.a moment he falls so far below it
that we wonder at our own faith in.hime 'The Adventures of
a‘Widow' in parts deserved something better than the in-
felicity of its title. The poorer chapters in it are thrown
by some failure of perspective into altogether undue pro-
minence....The failure is in the selection of incidents by
which the action is carried on."“5

Other critics, not concerned with the idiosyncra-
cies of plot structure, expressed dissatisfaction with the
superficiality of Fawcett's thmmes. Though the reviewer

 

hhfihy 1, 1897. pp.3-h-
h50ctober 9, 188h, p.3lh.

f)

”a

N!

37
for the Critic characterized A Demoralizing Marriage as

 

"shoddy, salacious, sickening," he implied he would wel-
come the work if only "he [Fawcett] brought us somewhat
nearer to truth by these pictures of demoralized human-
ity."h6 The complaint was with the dreariness of a narra—
tion without purpose. It was substantially the same con-
sideration which prompted the reviewer of Social gil—
houettes to remark that "Mr. Fawcett is not incisive
enough; in.most of his sketches he does not go deeper
than the mere froth of society."h7

Fawcett's lack of incision drew frequent notice.
The review in the Dial of The House _a_t. High Bridge com-

 

mented upon his superficiality, for purposes of evaluation.
"The main plot," the reviewer noted, "has been transferred
bodily from an English work, being no 'other than that em-
ployed by Mr. Guthrie in his story of 'The Giant's Robe.’
The trouble with this plot is that it was not worth taking
at all--by Mr. Fawcett. A great analyst, one knowing pre-
foundly the human heart, a Balzac, in short, might make

an effective central figure of the unread novelist who be-
comes famous upon the publication of another man's work as

his own, but the present writer is so far from being a

 

h6April 6, 1889, p.167.

h7Critic, January 23, 1886, p.h8; reprint of a re-
view from-'t'mthenaeum.

 

38

Balzac that he cannot make such a figure even interest-
ing.“48

Fawcett's inability to invest a plot with profound
meaning suggests his failure to penetrate to the complexity
of movement and to illuminate the dilemma of conflicting
forces. This, however, was not his only failing. When the
reviewer for the Dial_remarked that Fawcett was unable to
make his leading figure even.mildly interesting, he touched
upon a weakness in characterization which other critics
also noted. Fawcett designed his protagonists to be men
and women of heroic proportions. He endowed them with
sound minds and sound bodies; he graced them with unassail-
able characters, magnetic personalities, and penetrating
wits. Occasionally, he imposed a weakness upon them, a
tragic flaw, but the chink in the armor was of such in-
substantial stuff that it never truly threatened their ulti-
mate victory. The attributes were grand, but there was only
the word of the omniscient author to testify to their
existence. Fawcett asserted these qualities into being, but
he never established them.through action, thought, or
dialogue- The £91 York 2.1.1293. review of _A_ Mild Barbarian

 

 

noted the result of this sort of characterization: "Mr.
Fawcett, perhaps, started out to draw the picture of a
perfect man, morally, physically, intellectually perfect,

 

haDecember, 1886, pp.189-l90.

39
and entirely uncontaminated by the evil influences of
modern society. He has, however, simply pictured a
rather amiable, but frequently inconsistent boor, without
much blood in his veins. The task Mr. Fawcett set for
himself evidently required’more patient toil and more
thought than he has expended on its execution."’*9

Two other reviews from the New York Times concurred

 

with this Judgment; their expression was so similar that it
is more than likely they were written by the same man. In
1880, the reviewer of _A_ Hopeless .9332. observed that "Oscar
Schuyler is the cynical gentleman of the book, for 'in a
certain way he was feared; peOple often cultivated him to
gain his good-will; the celebrity of his biting tongue
silenced would-be adversaries, it was like the famed spear
of Lancelot, at whose first blow, however slight, tough
warriors went down.‘ The cynic in the story under review
is not very mordant. He rather recalls from Mr. Fawcett's
description of him what Saint Beuve tells about Mlle.
ScudSry. This lady had a charming way of complimenting
herself, and in her dialogues, when anybody said anything
which she thought was fairly good, the reply she placed in

the mouth of the person who answered was: 'Tout ce sue vous

 

 

"90otohor lh, 189u, p.27.

.le-

.0.

‘-

91

I.

O-

V-

.e
s.

h

ho

dites est bien dit,‘ or 'Tau’t cela est merveilleusement

 

 

 

 

trouv’e. “'50 The 1883 review of in Ambitious 2121112 contain-
ed the coho: '"The dialogue, the most difficult task of
the novelist, shows rather the eccentricities of the per-
sonages than their mental differences. Mrs. Diggs says
to Claire, 'I never saw you so spirituelle, Claire. You
have said at least 18 delicious things.' Readers are
never inclined to accept such declarations of brilliancy .
on the sole authority of the author. Saint Beuve laughs
at Mlle. de Scudery for this method of complimenting her
own characters. The platitude of one speaker was follow—
ed in the dialogue by another person's saying, 'Tgu_t 33

gue vous dites est bien dit,‘ or'Tout cela est marveil-

 

leus ement trouve . ' "51

 

It is difficult to conceive of anything other than
a common origin for these two reviews; but whether or not
the views were separately formulated is of no consequence.
Such criticism is responsible and perceptive. It reveals
a limitation of Fawcett's art even though Fawcett himself
would have taken exception since he considered strength of
characterization to be the outstanding achievement of his
fiction. "I am very glad that you think Archie well-drawn,"

 

5°Juno 27, p.10.

SJ’December 17, p.3.

.Vi

has

0a
IV

2!.-
.5“

kl

he wrote to Hayne in 1876 with reference to m m,
"and that you see so keenly Just what I meant Ellen to be.
Your own words express perfectly the ideal of her that I
myself had formed. It is a great literary achievement to
have drawn.one really noble & true woman in a large
Titianesque way."52 Three years later, in another letter
to Rhyme, Fawcett evidenced the same pride of accomplish-
ment for his delineation of character: "Saltus tells me
that you like 'Rutherford.‘ That is welcome news. I worked
terribly hard over the portraitures in that book; I tried
to do it altogether in the grand manner, &:make artistic
repose its chief excellence."53

Fawcett's intentions, however, did not constitute
achievement in the eyes of the critics. In another comp
ment on A Hopeless 2:53, this time from the Atlantic Monthly,
the reviewer remarked upon the one dimensional aspect of
characterization: "He [Fawcett].has seen the woman beneath
the fashionable figure, and has presented her to our re-
‘ spect. Now given this sincerity and real humanness, we
contend that Agnes WOlverton, with all her fine sentiments,
failed clearly to discern it [the conventionalism.of society

life], and our complaint is that Mr. Fawcett has tried his

 

52n.d.

53February 2.

 

(so

‘I
'-

h2

hand at depicting a girl of a higher plane, and has left
out the true woman." This weakness in characterization
was a damning defect, for it was the reviewer's final
opinion that "as a portraiture of one phase of New Ybrk
society, it seems to us exceptionally clever."5’4

The reviewers directed much of their attention to
Fawcettis inept handling of characterization, to his con-
trived plots, and to his unsubstantial themes; but they
also touched upon other aspects of his art. In fact, re-
ferences to Fawcett's turgid prose style and his hyper—
bolic expression permeated almost every review. 0f;A

Man's Will, the Nation commented upon a style "cursed

 

with adverbs, pompous and viscid."55 The N." ybfk Timesls

 

observation was of a kind: "The author of 'Tinkligg

' Cymbals' is always overfond of presenting the toilets of
his heroines. Nemen wear zones of silver, or assort their
complexions to their gowns, and bonnets are so minutely
described that an intelligent milliner of Division Street
might buy Mr. Fawcett's novels and follow his text for
patterns."56 And with reference to the same novel, the

Nation had much the same reaction: "Mr. Fawcett cannot

 

5“September, 1880, pp.h15-hl6.
55June 28, 1886, p.530.

56June 22, 188h, p.5.

li3
afford to neglect his English. 'Flinchless,‘ and 'wafture,‘

and 'the indulgent period' would have a doubtful sound any-
where, and all the more in a style that turns easily to
large phrases."57

The Athenaeum, in the same vein, noted that Fawcett's

 

studies in Social Silhouettes were, as a rule, "too long,

 

and details which are not essential are over-elaborated."58

The New York Times maintained of Rutherford that "it is Mr.

 

 

Fawcett's chiefest fault that he is immensely elaborate."59

Of course, Fawcett dissented from.this opinion also; in a

letter to Hayne he contended that Rutherford was "poetic,

 

elegant, sonorously rhetorical and generally classical in
style."60 But the collective sound of critical Judgment
diminished the strength of Fawcett's voice. The reviewer
for the Catholic E2312 pronounced that Fawcett, in.é New
2255 Family, "has never, to our knowledge, written so seri-
ously and so well." He also observed that Fawcett's style
was "far more unaffected than.usual," but he, too, asserted
that Fawcett had "not yet shaken off his fondness for on,

playing common words in remote and unaccustomed senses.

 

57July 31, 188h, p.96.

58366 In. R7.

59August 23, lash, p.3.

6°n.d., 1876.

.s.‘

E

U-

‘0

uh

Thus he says of Everard, on one occasion, that his 'lovely
personality disarrayed' another man, and that without the
slighest intention on his own part to dismay the reader's
imagination."61

The Atlantic Monthly contributed its opinion to the
body of comment. The reviewer of in Ambitious m noted
that Fawcett "everywhere shows a taste for gaudy and florid
expression, which is a part of this defective manner; elabo-
rating trifles of statement in overloaded and forced
phrases."62 And the Egleork Times developed this observa—

 

tion at length in its own review of the same novel:

Over—elaborateness is Mr. Fawcett's peculiarity.
In the treatment of that Special subject he so
delights in, New York society, he incumbers his
stage with properties. The toilets of women, the
dress of the men, the upholstery of drawing-rooms,
the garniture of the supper table, are described
with infinite pains. Claire Hollister, the heroine,
puts on a dress of white velvet, "whose trailing
heaviness blent with purple lengths of the same
lustreless and sculpturesque fabric." In her hair
she wore "aigrettes of sapphires and amethysts
shaped like pennies, and while her sleeves were cut
short to show either arm from wrist to elbow and
permit of bracelets that were circles of jewels
wrought in semblance of the same flower and with
the same blue or lilac gems, her bust and throat
were clad in one cloud of rare filmy lace, from
which her delicate head rose with a stately and
aerial grace."...

One mannerism of Mr. Fawcett's method of writ-
ing is the over-use of qualifying adjectives.
The idiosyncrasies of a character may adopt this

 

61July, 1892, pp.599-600.

62May, 188h, p.711.

1&5

style, and Hrs. Diggs may call Jane Van Corlear,
"a dear consistent, inoffensive, companionable
goose," or declare her to be "tallowy, obese,
complaisant"--but Hr. Fawcett.in his picturing
of objects,.animate or ingnimate, constantly
piles on the deseriptiv . 3

The turgid expression, the stilted diction, and the
over-elaboration.of Fawcett's swollen prose carried over
into his poetry. "Too much elaboration for the thought,"
the Nation said of Fantas and Passion.“+ In its review
of Song and Story, six years later, the Nation again noted
that "the want of simplicity...seems likely always to prove
his bane."65 The £91 32315 213333 concurred: "His
[Fawcett's] choice of adjectives as well as his reckless~
profusion of them.carry his verse so near to the verge of
bathos that it needs much good-will not to tumble over and
have one's laughout."66

Despite these unfavorable comments, Fawcett enjoyed
a better reputation as a poet than as a writer of prose.

The same New York Times review of Song and Story concluded

 

 

with the caution that "if there seems a small proportion of
good things in the 180 pages of indifferent and rankly bad,
it must be remembered that the poet is to be judged by his

 

63December 17, 1883, p.3.
64Hey 16, 1878, p.328.
65December 18, 188h, p.528.

66October 26, 188h, p.6.

I. .

De-
N-ev

‘ e

\

ho

best, not by the average, and on this view it is clear
that Hr. Fawcett deserves a fair rank among the minor
poets of today."
. Fawcett, too, believed his poetic talents were of
a higher order than his prosaic ones. "It is my own belief
that my poetical faculty is my most authentic one," he
stated in an article for Lippincottis monthly Magazine in
1886. "When I am.impelled to write a poem, there always}
appears to be but a single truly effective way of attaining
this object, while in dealing with prose I am often more
doubtful concerning methods, as if it were a dialect less
natural to me than the metrical one. And here it may not
be amiss for me to state frankly what I have tried to do as
a writer of verse. I have avoided obscurity, ahmed at a
rich yet robust style, shunned mannerism, affectation, and
mere dilettante archaism, striven.to have my poetry reflect
the thme in which I live, cultivated with zeal the delight-
ful possibilities of rhythm and melody, and cordially dee
tested the prevailing bmpulse to employ sound as the in-
ferior of sense."67

To an extent Fawcett succeeded as a poet for he did
gain contemporary recognition. There was the New York

Times comment ranking htm among the minor poets of his day,

 

 

67"A Few Literary Experiences." 223°1t'9 P-hlSo

M7
and also the opinion of the Dial that Songs 93'. Doubt and

 

M "fairly entitles him to a place among our American
poets of the second rank."68 Harper's 312! Monthly Lagg-
£322.“8r°°d3 they maintained that Fantasy and Passion was
"a collection from.the magazines and papers of the contri-
butions of several years from the pen.of one of the most
promising of our younger poets."69 222 National 22°10-
paedia of American Biography added that "Fawcett's fame as

 

a poet extends farther than as a novelist, because, as has
been said, in his verse there is that quality transcending
talent, the individual and incommunicable quality of
genius.”0 ‘

Fawcett's poetry won its highest praise from other
writers, and Fawcett valued these judgments more than he did
the appraisals of the critics. Julian Hawthorne was one of
his appreciators and Fawcett luxuriated in this recognition.
"What you write about my verses delighted and cheered me,"
he confessed in a letter to Hawthorne. "It is nothing to.
stir the shallow pools, fer so many can do that. It is
when we. stir the deep ones that we are made happy; and to

have given you a single real sensation of actual pleasure

 

68July 16, 1893, 13.1.12.

691878. p.h69.

70(New York, 1897), v.7, 191.

.‘I

h8

is an untold pride to mm."7l Where Hawthorne derived
pleasure, James Russell Lowell responded with praise.
Fawcett revealed Lowell's reaction in a letter to Hayne:
"About Mr. Lowell: he is, I think, the only literary man
to whom I ever addressed an unsolicited note. Some two
years ago Mr. Howells took the trouble to write me that a
poem.of mine in the Atlantic called Immortelles, had won

 

strong eneomiums from.Mr. Lowell and that he had asked a
number of questions concerning me 'very few of which,‘ said
Mr. Howells, 'was I able to answer.'"72

waells, htmself, said of Fawcett that as a poet of
fantasy he was the "first...among all the English-writing
Poets of our time."73 11.11. Stoddard, in Poet's £911.23, de-
voted an entire chapter to Fawcett in praise of his poetic
achievements. He offered his tribute without any reserva-
tions:

But industry and versatility, only too often, as

we know, accompany feebleness, or at least care-
lessness of composition. It is but justice to

Mr. Fawcett to say that everything which he writes
bears in.a most striking degree the marks of
thorough artistic care. Aslip-shod rhyme, or an
ill-constructed sentence are unknown amid his work.
Not long ago he showed the writer a letter address-
ed to him.by an.ominent American poet, in which the
following words occurred: "Whence come such

 

71August 21; courtesy the Berg Collection of the Few
Ybrk Public Library.

72September 9, 1876.

73See p.13h, fn. 139, for William.Dean.Howell's re-
view of Fantasy and Passion. _ .

is.

\a

.-

III

e.

on.
\v.

 

M9

intellectual power and constancy to your work,

that you are enabled to compose novels, prose

sketches, long poems and short, in so lbmited

a period of time? And then the art of these

pieces is always so admirable!"

Surely this is rare praise; but those most
familiar with.Mr. Fawcett's writings must admit
it to be well-deserved.7h
Fawcett's poetry occasioned few expressions of dis-

pleasure from.ather writers, but the comments of the re-
viewers were disparaging despite their general conclusions
that he was a poet of some worth. The reviewer for
Harper's New'Monthly Magazine noted, for example, the
"great force and beauty," and the "ripe and versatile im-
agination" of Fawcett's narrative poetry in Song and Story,
but he still insisted that "the perfection of all these
poems is marred by a grandiloquence of style which recalls
the bombastic mouthings against which Shakespeare directed
the battery of his raillery in the persons of Malvolio,
Sir Jehn Falstaff, and honest Hick Bottom."75

I The criticism.swayed from.the occasional comment of
praise to the more frequent note of disapproval, and in so

doing it established judgment and revealed the nature of

Fawcett's works; but these ends were not vital to the main

 

7"(~Boston, 1879), p.77. In light of Stoddard's
appreciation of Fawcett's poetry, it is difficult to under-
stand Fawcett's attitude toward him; see pp.lu,and 157-60.

75188h, p.967.

50
consideration of late nineteenth century critical thought.
The significant critical debate at this time had nothing
to do with the complexity of literary characterization,
the soundness of plot construction, the profundity of
theme, or the grace of diction. Such concerns were peri-
pheral to the argument over the merits of the romantic,
the realistic, and the naturalistic work.76 This new con-
troversy was widespread; it affected almost all of the
periodical criticism of the time and it shaped a substan-
tial part of the comment on.Fawcett's novels. Before
indicating the effect it had upon the criticism.af Fawcett's
writings, however, it would be beneficial to reveal the
intensity of the argument and to illuminate its nature.

A writer in the 22525 characterized the literary
clash as "The New Battle of the Books." "For a long
time," he noted, "a wordy war has raged in the magazines
and the newspapers between so-called realists and romanti-
cists. In Harper's Monthly Mr. Hewells has been asserting
the importance of novels that keep close to the fact of
life; and the critics and criticasters have daily attacked
his teaching and practice as materialistic and debasing...
the ground is strewn with dead and dying reputations."77
Although both sides expressed a confidence in the outcome

 

768cc Mott, v.h, pp.lll-113 and 121-12h.

77July, 1888, p. 561;.

- .4
I"

‘ I
..0

"e

I“

.0

'_-

h .‘

e O

n..

51
of the struggle, there were occasional notes of despair.
Nancy Banks, reacting to the publication of Frank Morris's
McTeagEe, lamented that "the passing of morbid realism.has
never been quite some complete as the healthyeminded hoped
it would be, when it was swept out of sight five or six
years ago by the sudden on-rush of ideality and romance
which arose like a fresh, sweet wind to clear the literary
atmosphere. In this resistless new movement toward light
and hope and peace, these black books were cast aside and
forgotten, and there was fair hepe for a time that the
celebration of the painful and unclean had passed from fic-
tion forever."78 ‘ ‘

It is not possible to determine whether Miss Banks
formulated her comment in accordance with her moral conyic-
tions or her aesthetic judgements, for both factors shaped
the response to the realistic work. Reflections of reality
offended the moral sensibilities of many critics who be-
lieved that the recounting of base actions impaired artis-
tic expression. _Many of these critics argued that "this
country is flooded with a nasty literature that is not
only crude, but as low in tone as it is atrocious in

taste."79 Amelia Barr's comment on the modern heroine in

 

78Bookman, June, 1899, pp.356-357.

79Belford's Magazine, July, 1888, p.263.

r 3

52
the North.American Review typified the synthesis of lit-

 

erary and moral judgment in periodical criticism at the
time:

The one thing to be regretted in.many of the
lighter novels of the day is their kind of
heroine. She is not a nice girl. She talks too
much, and talks in a slangy, jerky way, that is
odiously vulgar. She is frank, too frank, on
every subject and occasion. She is contemptuous
of authority, even of parental authority, and
behaves in a high-handed way about her love af-
fairs. She is, alas! something of a Freethinker.
She rides a bicycle, and plays tennis, and rows

a boat. She laughs loudly, and dresses in.manly
fashion, and acts altogether in accord with an
epoch that travels its sixty miles an hour. She
is very smart and clever, but in her better mo-
ments she makes us sigh for the girls who thought
their parents infallible and who were reverent
church-womenp-the girls who were so shrinkingly
modest, and yet so brave in great emergencies--
the girls who were so fully accomplished and so
beautiful, and who yet had no higher ambition
than to be the dearly loved wife of a noble-
hearted man and the good house-mother of happy
children. Perhaps fifty years after this, the
world will look back to this picturesque, lova 1e
creature, and give her a glorious resurection.

Even the writings of William.Dean Howells were not
entirely free from.this confusion, Hithout equivocation
Howells argued that the realist can hold nothing to be
insignificant in life if he is to raise truth from.its
obscure mirings. "All tells for destiny and character;
nothing that God he: made is contemptible," he insisted.
"He [the realist] cannot look upon.human life and declare

this thing or that thing unworthy of notice, any more

 

80November, 189h, p. 598.

 

_q‘

a!

:3

Us.

‘1-
"I

I.“

53

than the scientist can declare a fact of the material world
beneath the dignity of his inquiry." And yet, in the same
essay, Howells compromised the strength of this aesthetic
assertion by suggesting in.moral tones that the novel
should concern itself only with sentiment that "could be
openly spoken of before the tenderest society bud at
dinner."81

On the one side of the controversy were those who
believed the function of literature to be the evocation of
truth through the reflection of the mundane; on the other
side were those who discerned literary merit only in the
emergence of a transcendent beauty removed from.the rigors
of every-day existence. These were the separate literary
faiths, but considerations of morality entered in on both
sides and influenced judgment. Fawcett's realistic works,
while not at the heart of this argument, provoked comments
which reflected it.

The New York Times reviewer of Tinkligg gymbals,

 

considering a reflection of the actual to be a standard
in the determination of literary merit, judged that it
"is...a very good story, and, in a certain way, reflects

the manners of a great many snobbish people."82 The

 

81"Criticismand Fiction," Criticism.and Fiction and

Other Essays, ed. Clara and Rudolf Kirk (New York, 1959),
PP-Ig, 0

82June 22, 188h, p.5.

I.“

(G

Sh

observation that the novel reflected certain.manners was
not unrelated to the judgment itself, for the substance
of the critique suggested that the novel was good precisely

because it mirrored existing manners. Another new York

 

Times review of a Fawcett novel, printed fifteen years later'

 

in 1898, presented the same criterion for evaluation; the

critic praised New Ybrk because it was "much like the real

 

world of Gotham." He regarded the work'as "a notable edi-
tion to the hundred and one stories inspired by Gotham.and
its life....Mr. Fawcett...pictures the slums of Water
Street and its environs, the regions of Cherry Hill and its
denizens, the missions and that form.of charity that is too
purposeful and too important to be given its cant name of
'slumming.’ Weaving, as he always does, well-known bits

of latter-day local history and incident into his pages,
often only thinly disguised, he describes the workings of

a gang of 'firebugs,‘ and later on the trial of a besmirch-
ed police Captain. From.these scenes he turns to a
Patriarch's ball at Dehmonico's and shows the world of
fashion at its height. The 'smart set' flits across the
pages. ...It is a mimic world that these men and women move
in, one that in its scenes and primal passions is much like

the real world of Gotham."83,,

In l90h, after Fawcett's death, the Bookman commented

 

83October 8, p.662.'

55

upon his works with reference to the same standard of
photographic realism, Fawcett's aptitude for accurate re-
presentation.was the only manifest concern of the evalua-
tion. It was the critic's cpinion that "Mr. Fawcett's
knowledge of the slums was at best superficial, and when
he essayed to write of low life in TE: Evil 1E1; E15 Pg,
he failed to impress the modern reader." But, he added,
A £2! 121:5 Family was "one of his. best novels," because
"he brought in.Hoboken and Greenpoint as backgrounds, and
his description of the latter remains the very best to be
found in fiction....Perhaps none of his books was more en-

tertaining than Social Silhouettes, a series of sketches of

 

types, which is well worth re-reading for itself, and which
will be found inyaluable to any one who wishes to recon-
struct a certain period of New York life." "He deserves to
be rememembered," the estimate concluded, "for his genuine
effort to describe life as he saw it and to make use of
American material at a time when it was not fashionable to
do so."8’4

.The realistic elements in Fawcett's novels elicited
favorable comment during his life, too. Some three and
one-half months after their initial review of E2: 3355,

the New York Ttmes presented another critique of the novel

 

BhJuno . pp. Bill-3&2 -

56
and the novelist. The reflections were more penetrating,
but the judgment, other than that it was strengthened,had
not changed--the truth of detail within the novel still
commanded respect:

And so few writers are so well equipped as Mr.
Fawcett, both by the clearness of his perceptions
and by the whole trend of his literary work, to
follow M. Zola's perilous example, and to gather
the results of his long observation and experience
into a novel bearing the title of the great world
city of the Western Hemisphere. ‘Yet, as in even
M. Zola's case, the title of necessity promises
and implies too much. Rome and Lourdes have each
its distinctive cachet; but who can compress New
York and Paris into the limits of a single novel?
New'York is of all faiths--and of none. It is a.
Northern city, a Western city, a Southern city, a
foreign city. It is a city of the extremes of
selfishness and of philanthropy....There is poli-
tical New York, in itself a theme as huge and as
repulsive as the monster Frankenstein. There is
educational New York, more and more a gracious and
permeating force. There is bohemian New York,
unique and fascinating, as Miss Glasgow has drama-
tically depicted it. There is the greatest New
York of all, the New York of stress and stuggle,
whose energies are unceasingly bent upon solving
that most elusive of problems how to "make both
ends meet," and below all, as in every great city,
is the vast, mysterious, awful gulf of utter pover-.
ty, of nameless sin, of crime that knows no law
save that of fear....

And how pack all this into one book? Yet Mr.
Fawcett has very nearly done it. The released
convict problem, the race problem, the immigra-
tion problmm, the problem of the classes and the
masses; international marriage, "the curse of
caste," the "vile civic conditions," that have
made so much of our municipal government, a bias-
ing and a reproach, the iniquity of the cold-blood-
ed self-righteousness that holds back its skirts
from suffering and sine-of all these things and of
many more does Mr. Fawcett write in strong words

57
and wise and eloquent withal.85
The realistic novel's adherence to detail and its

accurate representation of actual movement were the hm-
mediate concerns for the individual reviewer; nevertheless,
the reviewer's personal taste frequently influenced his
judgment. Evaluation.was as much a manifestation of the
critic's sensibility as it was a display of his critical
faculty. The realistic achievement of New York impressed
the New York Times critic, but his opinion was equally mold-
ed by the moral tone of the work. He offered his convic-
tion that "whether or not 'New Yorki becomes a successful
book, its readers will find it‘s true and suggestive one,
‘ and the wider that circle of readers the wider will be an
influence that 'makes for righteousness.'" On the other
hand, since the heroine was not a model gir1--she was a
possible force for ill-he questioned the propriety of the
characterization: .

The characters are firmly and clearly drawn, though

we are constrained to protest against the heroine,

Doris. Novelists are very fond of creating such

young women, a law unto themselves, a reproach to

worldly parents and guardians. Should these writers

own sisters or daughters walk in the ways of their

supposedly perfect heroines, great would be the con-

sternation, prompt would be the restraining edict

to hold the young girls back from.their adventurous

and dangerous paths. Doris is charming on the

printed page but clothe her in flesh and she would
be as "difficult," it is to be hoped as impossible,

 

85January 28, 1899, p.6h.

58

as the young Marcella. Such portrayals may
make older readers smile, but to the imitative
and willful girls they are distinctly harmful.

Moral considerations also prompted the New Ybrk

Times's favorable review of & Man's'will which welcomed

 

 

the novel because it was a weapon in the cause of temper-
ance:

Hr. Fawcett writes this romance with a purpose,
just as does Hr. Besant, and the cause of temp-
erance has found in Mr. Fawcett a warm.advocate.
The O'Raffertys and Hullonys may drink bad

liquor and make beasts of themselves, but so do
those peculiar people Mr. Fawcett delights to por-
tray as the "Amsterdams, Hanhattans, Stuyvesants,
an? Courtlands." The latter may first take their
ch teau mar aux, or clos de vougeot in fine crystal,
Efif'ffi'tffiifitfiay wilI swaIIbw poor Jersey lightning
in heavy squat green glass tumblers. Between the
man who drinks from.the growler and he who sips
champagne frappe there are social differences, but
excess lays all by the heels and they are swine....
The lesson this story teaches is that a man who is
inclined to drink, to whom.the taking of a single
drop of alcohol means inability to stop until he
has reached the lowest depth of human degradation,
must never take that first drop. It is then and
only then that the will comes into play. Nothing
is more difficult than to fight this first battle,
but fight it a man must. Utter, absolute abstemi-
ousness is a moral and physical necessity to such,
or overboard go life, health, strength, ang posi-
tion. Hr. Fawcett's romance is realistic. 6

The Nation reviewer of the same work was able to
disengage his critical intellect from.his moral persuasion.
His sympathy for the cause of the novel did not prevent him
from.discerning its lack of merit; he established the separ-
ate drifts at the outset of his review: "Inasmuch as Mr.

 

86July 22, 1888, p.10.

S9

Fawcett has lent his brain and pen to the cause of tem-
perance, he is to be applauded; and inasmuch as he has
made a repetitious and dreary novel, he is to be forgiven.
Some day, perhaps, the novel will be written which shall
do for temperance what 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' did for anti-
slavery, what 'Nicholas iickleby' did for the cause of
kindness. Perhaps, till Fiction has set her might engine
in motion, Philanthropy will lack her best ally. All
honor to Mr. Fawcett for the attempt, failure though it
is."87

Quite often, the result of the disengagement took
a different turn; it was Fawcett's artistic ability to re-
flect life which favorably impressed the reviewer and the
significance of that sight which disturbed him. The is:

York Times reviewer of g Gentleman of Leisure remarked

 

with approval that "a very fair and somewhat glowing ac-
count is given of New-York clubs and balls. Under ficti-
tious names, mstly Dutch in their make-up, many well-
known persons, male and female, are depicted not untruth-
fullyqus. Spencer Vanderhoff being especially easy to
locate." But the M reviewer went on to question the
taste of such an authentic reproduction for "in order to

heighten the flavor no little injustic is a... to persons

 

87June 28, 1888, p.530.

60

whose friends cannot fail, if the book comes in their way,
to recognize the portraits. Personality of this kind seems
hardly worth the candle, in view of the slightness of the
work; yet the day is realistic in tendency, and possibly
only realism is palatable."88

Realism was the vigorous literary expression of the
day, but the realistic turn of Fawcett's works was too vivid

for many reviewers. It provoked their condemnation. "Ellen

 

Smuds an ill-painted picture of an ill-chosen theme,"
said Harper's New Monthly Magazine.89 It is difficult to.
imagine," mourned the Critic, "how Edgar Fawcett, who put
some good work into 'An Ambitious Noman,’ “could have degen—
erated so as to write such hopeless stuff as is contained
in his latest novel, 'A New York Family'....It is bad
enough to have to read the doings of Tammany in the morning
papers without taking them up in fiction, too."90 The
Nation raised its voice in behalf of taste: "We should feel
inclined to call it [Bressant, a novel by Julian Hawthorne]
the worst novel in our list this week if it were not that
we have just been obliged, in the way of duty, to read Nr.
Edgar Fawcett's ' Purple and Fine Linen,’ which might more

 

88July 10, 1881, p.10.

891876, p.629.
9°June 27, 1891, p.335.

61
Justly bear the title of 'Scarlet and Dirty Linen,"'91

The review of Tinkling Cymbals in Lippincott's Monthly

 

Magazine warned that "liberal as have been the concessions

to modern heroines in the way of enabling them to dismiss
pleasing traditions, we must venture to suggest that in the
case of Miss Leah.Romilly the final limit has been reached.“92

The Independent reviewer of New York was upset by the novel

 

because 'the movements were "too frankly pictured. The de-
pravity 'of certain quarters. of New York, the absolute cor-
ruption of the police, the brutality of tenement-house land-
lords, and a thousand and one phases of squalor, immorality
and filth are photographed in minutest details."93

Many reviewers did not share Howells's conviction
that the writer, like the scientist, had to commit himself
to the examination of the minutest details. But the theore-
tical preferences of the reviewers are not at issue, nor is
their understanding of this literary theory a matter of
moment. Their critical comments reveal a groping to apply
the tenets of realistic thought to specific works, and the
ferment of these expressions is important for it created an

atmosphere conducive to the maturation of a serious literature.

 

91July 10, 1873, p.27.
92August, 188a, p.215.
93January 26, 1899, p.280.

62
In fact, the entire body of Fawcett criticism-"whether
concerned with structure, characterization, style, thought,
or realistic expression--suggests a literary intensity
which played its part in vivifying American letters.

The same critical commentary also established
Fawcett's place in American letters. There were a few
favorable notices, but the predominant'critical response
to Fawcett's works was negative; it denied him the gratifi-
cation of literary distinction. The criticism marked the
stilted nature of his writings and called attention to his
pretentious style and undistinguished thought. The fact
that most of the commentary was topical, however, and rele-
vant to the literary controversy of the time suggests that
Fawcett's writings were part of a vital literary movement.
Just as the reviewers were striving to infuse a new literary
theory into their criticism, Fawcett was attempting to
translate the same theory into art. The critics found him
to be unsuccessful, but the nature of their criticism
places him in the same literary current which shaped the
realistic works of such writers as Crane, Garland, Norris,

London, and Dreiser.

III

Fawcett's novels did not influence those of Crane,
Garland, Norris, London, or Dreiser, but his concern with
similar themes and his uninterrupted stream of publica-
tion helped to keep a literary movement alive long enough
to culminate in the works of vastly superior artists. There
were occasions when the major work preceded Fawcett's con-
tribution. Crane's Ma ie, for example, was popularly pub-
lished in 1896 and‘Fawcett's novel, lg! 3933, did not
appear until 1898. The artistic gulf between the two works
is vast. Crane provides no exit for his characters and
never relieves the intensity of his novel. In contrast,
it takes but one social worker to bring happiness to the
children and hope to the aged in Fawcett's work. Yet the
parallels are present. Fawcett brings as much detail to
those sections of Egg XE! which portray the dispossessed.
as Crane does to his particular reflection of a slum exist-
ence. Also, the conditions of life are the same for the
characters in both.novels--and imbrutement is the common
consequence of those conditions.

'Environmental forces which shape human destiny and
the circumstance of chance which impresses itself upon
human movement are the powers to be reckoned with in
Fawcett's Miriam Balestier, published twelve years before
Dreiseris Carrie, eight years before Crane's Maggie, and

63

611

three years before Garland's Main-Travelle_d Roads. Forces

 

beyond her control sweep Miriam to her fate with no less
sway than they propel Carrie from desire to desire, than
they carry Maggie to her inevitable doom, than they force
Garland's migrant farmers from one parcel of land to the
next. There is a deterministic universe in all four novels.

Fawcett decries the values and experiences of the
plutocrats in A Hapeless gag; (1880) with much less incision
and power than London does in Martin E_1_d_e_n_ (1909), but the
views are similar. There are also correspondences between
Pawcett's work and Frank Norris's. Norris is the greater
artist, but Fawcett's indictment of political corruption
(5 Na: 2255 Family, 1891) and the power of wealth (Tinkligg
afghan, 1881,) links him with Norris who expresses the
same convictions in Sh; Octopus (1901).

The realistic'elements in Fawcett's writings place
him in the literary flow of his own time, but there are
other facets of his fiction and occurences in his life
which locate him within a wider current of American expres-
sion. The American expatriate procession and the inter-
national theme in American literature are complimentary
manifestations of this broader movement; and Fawcett's
life and art brought him in contact with both. To appre-
ciate the extent of his involvement, an understanding of
the character of the movement is helpful.

American literature is not Just literature which

6S

happens to be written by Americans. There are thematic
concerns which distinguish this body or literature from
other national expressions, and the existence of an in-
ternational theme is one such interest. In his Studies
_i_n Classic American Literature, D.H. Lawrence asserts that
Americans came to America "largely to get Muthat most
simple of motives. To getaway. Away from what? In the
long run, away from themselves. Away from everything. ..
from the old authority of Europe, from kings and bishops
and popes. And more." Lawrence insists, however, that
the old master still sits over in Europe "like a parent.
Somewhere deep in every Americanheart lies a rebellion
against the old parenthood of Europe. Yet no American
feels he has completely escaped its mastery."9’+

Lawrence explains the cultural conflict in terms
of the American psyche. But whatever the compulsion,
Americans have looked back to contrast the manners, values,
and moralities of the new and old worldse-to proclaim the
success of the American experiment or to lament its fail-
ure. It is from this superimposition of one cultural
pattern upon another that the international theme emerges.

The theme is implicit in Freneau's Pictures 91 Columbus,

 

 

and also in Irving's A Histogz g_f_ New York and in "The

 

9“"(New York, 1923), pp.S-7.

66
Author's Account of Himself" from gh_e_ Sketch 1033. It
is found in passages from Cooper's'Gleanings in Euroge,
in Emerson's "American Scholar," and in substantial sec-

tions of whitman's Leaves of Grass. Melville's Benito

 

Cereno and Twain's Connecticut Yankee and Innocents

 

Abroad reveal the same preoccupation. The theme attains
its ultimate expression in the writings of Henry James.

The American expatriate movement, the pilgrimage
away from these shores and back to those of the older cul-
ture, is a literal manifestation of this international
theme and Edgar Fawcett was as much a part of the movement
as ever was Henry James, Henry Adams, Edith Wharton,
Gertrude Stein, or Ernest Hemingway. The motivation for
their leaving was seldom the same, but’the fact of their
departure fused them into the same grouping. The artis-
tic necessity to draw upon the conditions of an establish-
ed culture propelled James; a society without form, other
than the one possible emerging pattern of corruption, im-
pelled Adams; Edith Wharton fled from the stifling re-
strictions of New York wealthnher creative fulfillment
demanded a less narrow culture; for Gertrude Stein, Paris
was the center of artistic upheaval, of experimentation
with form in painting, literature, and music; Hemingway
went to Paris in search of Gertrude Stein and because the
writers were there.

There were many factors which motivated Fawcett to

67

leave this country in 1897, though he never explicitly
formulated any of them. He was not an Anglophile, but
he was of the opinion that the English soil had nourish-
ed the greatest of writers--Swinburne and Tennyson among
his contemporaries-wand the'appeal of living in the same
environment fascinated him. Conditions of publication
which he felt were far more favorable to the writer in
migland than they were to the writer in America added to
the appeal. He held the abuses of New York society--
the corruption of wealth and political immorality--to be
intolerable and sought to remove himself from the unwhole-
some environment. And finally, in leaving, Fawcett was
rejecting the literary community which had rejected him.
His writing, with few exceptions, had never been greeted
with enthusiasm, and he believed it was the venom of per-
sonal criticism which had denied him his laurels. And
so, out of one part despondency--of never having been
accepted; one part despair—-of ever being accepted; one
part petulance-u-of refusing his talent to those who hurt
him; and one part hope--of finding a more favorable liter-
ary environment and a more appreciative audience--Fawcett
joined the ranks of the emings.

It is Fawcett's withdrawal to England coupled with
his literary expression of the international theme which
establishes his place in a main-current movement. His

novels do not reveal a complete involvement with the

68

theme, for there was seldom.a full maturation of it in
any one of them; but there are sufficient traces and hints
of it throughout his works to identify him with the liter-
ary tendency. At times there is only an occasional remark
within a novel, such as Miss Brown's idle comment in A
HoEeless £222, but it ig_there: "I think that the dowagers
whom.one meets are mostly charming....They make us re-
member that society here in.America has something solid
about it. I should like, though, if we had titles here,
as they have abroad. Titles are so nice and dignified."95

Whenever Fawcett directed himself more fully to the
cultural conflict, he reversed the setting--the Englishman
was in.America, or, more precisely, in New Ybrk. In the
novel EEELXEEE! Fawcett introduces Lord Brecknock and imp
mediately involves him with Grace Jbsselyn, the daughter
of an American.millionaire. Brecknock has lost his
wealth, but since he still possesses a title he must main-
tain the appurtenances of that title--estates, servants,
costs of tasteful entertainment. The Jbsselyns are eager
to exchange their wealth for the distinction of title and
the attraction.of culture. In simple strokes Fawcett pre-
sents the picture of the honest, bluff American who has
surpassed the Englishman in the accumulation.of wealth,
but who has never known the respectability of position

 

95(Boston, 1880), PP.67-68.

w
a.

 

as

..

i

~

1.
'1

69
and tradition. The Englishman, on the other hand, only
superficially bears the imprint of a desirable Old World
culture; he must infuse it with a New World wealth in
order to preserve its appearance. Both the Jesselyns and
Brecknock operate from an awareness of deficiency, and the
marriage of the English Lord to the American heiress ap-
pears to be a union of mutual advantage. The Englishman,
however, deals from a situation of strength--title is the
more regarded attribute--and the American barters from a
position of weakness--wealth is the lesser fortune.

The English-American contrast is a minor note in
£23. 3931:, but seventeen years earlier Fawcett had develop-
ed ‘an entire novel around the international theme. ' In A
Gentlemen of Leisure the Englishman is again within the
circle of New York society, but here the "Englishman,"
Clinton Wainwright, is a young American, who after spend-
ing twenty years in England, returns to these shores as
a stranger. In a sense he is the naive observer who can
contrast the manners, morals, and values of the two cul-
tures without manifesting a conditioned bias for either.
His inculcated values are offset by his affinity with the
land of his birth.

During his three month's stay, Wainwright meets
the stock characters associated with such a novel and he

draws the expected and appropriate conclusions. The

Anglophiles make their appearance and their affectations

70
suggest a disdain for American customs and an ignorance
of English tradition. They antagonize Americans and
Englishmen.alike and alienate themselves from both cul-
tures. As an.American,‘Wainwright expresses contempt
for these men who reject their own culture; as an English-
mun, he reacts with amusement at their uninformed notions
of English behavior.

Then there are the individual characters who re-
present distinct types. Bodenstein is the loathsome
German whose combination.of wealth (New World) and aris-
tocratic.mannerism.(01d World) gain him the top rung in
New York society. ‘Wainwright finds the cultural syn-
thesis incongruous and dangerous, for he holds that the
transplantation here of social distinctions threatens
the vitality of American.republicanism.

The Grosvenors, who represent the established
wealth of America, are less attractive than even.Boden-
stein. They, too, foster class differences, but where
Bodenstein displays a continental warmth, they are
austere, unimaginative, and without charm.

Townsend Spring is the newly arrived American.man
of wealth. He is daring, speculative, a man of riches
today, of poverty tomorrow, and of riches again the day
after. He experiences life with great intensity, but
ignores the values of life in his obsession to accumu-

late the wealth necessary to buy the values. His wife,

(“O

C’

-4.

r9

1.!

71

who does not hesitate to trade respect for money, is
crass and vulgar; her existence is immoral and worldly.

Finally, there is Ruth Cheever, the honest, sensi-
tive, cultured young American heroine, who is neither
overawed by trappings of European culture, nor impressed
by the splendors of established wealth, nor corrupted as
her sister, Mrs. wansend spring, by the overnight ac-
cumulations of fortune. Clinton Wainwright marries her.

The novel suggests nothing more profound than that
there is good and bad in the values of both cultures. In
America,‘Wainwright "met quicker wit, prompter decision,
less formality of intelligence, less needless delibera-
tion.and sobriety. It seemed to him that we drove at a
livelier pace than they, did in England, but that we avoided
quite as many ruts and stones. As a pe0ple we fascinated
him; he did not like what was coarse about us any better
than he liked what was coarse about the country he had
just left. Our inconsistencies often.amused hum as gro-
tesque; our follies and foibles often were him.to a break-
neck rashness; our very independence had somettmes a dis-
tressing braggadocio. He was perpetually wondering at
our restless modes of living, our feverish tendency to
annihilate time and to nullify space, our apparent con-
stitutional feud with the idea of leisure."96

 

96(Boston, 1881), p.156.

72

Wainwright's final decision to marry Ruth, settle
in America, and run for Congress implies that he has
found a greater vitality and a more complete social syn-
thesis here, rather than in England. His presence will
bring to this country the best of England, and the cul-
tural union will contribute toward making this the best
of all possible worlds.

It is not by chance that the manuscripts of TE:
312.33 of Intellect and A__x_1 Innocent Anglomaniac concern
themselves in part or in whole with the same theme.
Fawcett resided in England the last seven years of his
life and the expression of the international conflict in
his last works would seem to be a natural consequence of
his own unresolved cultural affections. His great admira-
tion for Henry James inevitably left its mark, also.
"Mr. Henry James' 'American' in the Atlantic delights me,"
Fawcett wrote to Hayne on one occasion. Other letters
reveal the same enthusiastic response: "Henry James is
now doing superb work for the magazines. I believe that
man will yet hold a place in our letters equal to
Thackeray"; "James's Hawthorne is a charming book"; and
"James's 'Private Lire' story is I think exquisitely writ-
ten." In one letter, Fawcett indulged in a hundred-years-
fromenow speculation and projected his judgment without

equivocation: "If you at I ever meet 100 years from now,

I}.

Q‘:

73

a: clasp ghostly hands in 'No Man's Land,‘ I am sure that
if we discuss the literary developments in a certain
tiny, remote planet, we shall both agree that H.J. 92.
make his permanent mark there. Perhaps in a sepulchral
semi-tone I shall say 'I told you so.'"97

Fawcett never concealed his esteem for James's
fiction and the impact of James's art upon him ultimately
translated itself into his own expression. In his review
of _A_ Gentleman 25: Leisure, William Dean Howells noted the
influence of Jamesupon Fawcett. Though the review does
not mention James by name, the allusion is obvious:

This is another instance of the international
novel, the view of America seen through eyes
not alien, yet adjusted to a focus and perspec-
tive different from our own. The author inti-
mates this distinctly, and the oppositeness of
its aim and intent from some of those other
stories of similar construction; yet not only
is the main idea, the position of the hero,
borrowed, but there are peculiarities of expres-
sion betraying an influence which Mr. Fawcett
would no doubt repudiate. One cannot mistake
the model of such sentences as these: "He had
been from the hour of his landing an admirable
subject for impressions;" "Because I must have
taxed you so by asking you to do that little
favor,‘ Mrs. Vanderhogf returned, it deepening
her handsome smile. "9

The New York Times reviewer of the same work did

 

not hesitate to identify James as the writer of influence.

 

97See pp.l3S-l39 for Fawcett's comments on James in
his letters. ‘

98Atlantic Monthly, October, 1881, p.56Li.‘

711
He even ventured to suggest Fawcett's mastery: "A short
novel in the style of Henry James, Jr., but with strong
distinctive characteristics of its own....There is some
clever dialogue, and a good piece of wit is now and then
introduced, superior to, in.its life, Henry James, Jr.,
if not always equal to him.in its fineness. The charac-
ters are truer to the facts, but they want that intricacy
or that subtlety, which, it must be confessed, Mr. James
somewhat overdoes. They are in no respect psychological
puzzles, but rather the well-defined characters that are
found in the modern realistic drama. There is a minimum
of plot and a maximum.of dialogue and description."99

The Nation reviewsr of Agfimmbitious Woman also

 

 

compared Fawcett favorably with.James. "So far as it
goes," he reasoned, "it does something toward answering
the question what a higheminded American girl would do
in a position of actual hazard, with nothing but her own
traditions to aid her. Daisy Miller never had any tradi-
tions and the Lady of the Aroostock was so carefully
provided for (by the author) that no one ever knew what

she could do."100

Other critics noting an identity of purpose be-

tween.the two novelists rendered judgment in favor of

 

99July 10, 1881, p.10.
looEebruary 28, last, p.19h.

75
James. The New York Times reviewer of Tinkling EEbals

 

observed that "Mr. Fawcett's favorite field of romance
is one found in fashionable society. Mr. James's in-
spirations are derived from pretty nearly the same source.
But the difference between these two writers is that Mr.
Fawcett's impressions seem as if they came from some
one outside of this particular existence, while Mr. James
gives distinct impressions, not derivable from the out—
side, but from what the characters say."1°1
Of consequence here is not whether Fawcett was
the equal of Henry James. He was not; but it is evident
that his concern with the international theme emanated
from a Jamesian spark and the critics noted the parallels.
In his last works Fawcett returned to the foibles
of the Anglophile which had been of minor concern only
in _A_. Gentleman 2;" Leisure. In An_ Innocent Anglomaniac,
the entire story revolves around the foolish passions
and misapprehensions of one of their number, Ernest
Graydon; and the setting is now England, not America.
The similarities between the two works and with the plot
movements which place Clinton Wainwright in America for
three months in A Gentleman 23 Leisure and set Ernest
Graydon in Iondon for two months in An Innocent

 

 

lOlJune 22, 18811, p.5.

0-1-

76
Anglomaniac. Wainwright is a mature, level-headed
human being, and Graydon.is a guileless fool who is
enamored of everything English--he is not the uncomit-
ted observer.

Within days of his arrival in London, Graydon is
duped by a confidence man posing as a member of the
nobility; he mistakes beggars for gentlemen, barmaids
for ladies, and behaves like a country boy in a big city.
He is made ecstatic by contact with English soil, and he
transcends the dullness of his American existence by
breathing English air, by sighting English clouds. The
name of a barmaid, Miss Lyndhurst, reminds him.of
"abbeys, ruined monasteries, ivy-mantled towers," and
the most casual remark from.an Englishman evokes from
hum the affected revery, "how old-worldlike."

The work is not a serious fictional treatment of
the international theme, but rather a satire upon a
limited aspect of the problem. The story is slight, and
at the conclusion, Ernest is rescued with not a moment
to spare from.the clutches of a blackguard who had preyed
upon the innocence of the pitiable Anglophile. All ends
happily as Ernest has learned his lesson well. Fawcett
does not contrast values, but ridicules an immoderate
and foolish passion, born of a sense of inferiority and

fed by a condition of ignorance.

I».

1"

9.4

77
It is in The Pride 23 Intellect that Fawcett

 

manifests a more-serious concern and reflects the com-
. plexity of the cultural conflict. The work is set in
England, but this time, in a departure from previous
practice, it portrays Englishmen in England. Even
within such a structure, however, the international con-
trasts are present. Jack and Lizzie Prawle, brother and
sister, are two visitors from Boston, Massachusetts.
Jack is Ernest Graydon again, clothed in Sackville Street
garb. Everything about him smacks of affectation includ-
ing his speech. "I say Lizzie," he admonishes his sister,
"I've been hearini your voice harf way across the drawin'-
room. You'd better cut this rot of talkin' like a girl
from the wild West. ’ If you don't, I'm blessed if I'll
not chuck the whole game and go over to Paris, leavin'
you and the maid to shift for yourselves. There!"
Lizzie, on the other hand, is the antithesis of
her brother. She has come to Europe in search of mar—
riage-—at present a Lord Kilmerary is attentive to her..-
and she exaggerates her Anerican mannerisms. The "wild
West" speech reflects her national pride: "6h, 32, Mr.
Indermaur...I'm just crazy about your splendid book!
I've known exactly such women as your Adelaide. O'course
she takes the cake for a nasty mean thing. You meant
her to be a nasty mean thing, I'm dead sure, didn't you,
now? There; that's right. Smirk; you've got such a

ET

C:

H

pr

78
beautiful smirk! I had a letter today from.a friend

across the big pond. She says everybody's reading 'Loaves
'n Fishes.’ She went into the Big Store in New York the
other day and saw a pile of 'em that looked for all the
world like one of our skyscrapers. So I guess you'll
have to come over and lecture. Ybu can bet one thing--
we'll give you a grand send-off in Bawston. There's no
city in 'Herica where they love being lectured to so much
as in.Bawston." Lizzie's honesty and freshness make her
much.more vital and attractive than her brother.

The entrance of the Prawles in the novel permits
Fawcett'to satirize the English view of America. Whereas
the American either cultivates the English.manner or re-
fuses to do soy-both designs calculated to win approval--
the Englishman.remains himself. A woman of fashion
casually dismisses the significance of anything American;
she reveals her own provinciality, but her reflections are
her own. They have not been shaped by a desire to please
or antagonize Americans. "Algy and I took in Boston when
we made our American tour last year," she remarks. "It's
a pretty fair town, with a largish green.space at one end,
which the inhabitants hold in great awe, but which isn't
half as large as Clapham.Common, though they never play
cricket there, or anything like that, and are never tired
of telling you that it's 'historic.' But we met some quite
nice people in Boston. They have a curious style of

79
speaking; one minute you find it like ours and the next
minute you don't.“

From a contrast of manner and opinions, the focus
of the novel shifts. to a contrast of literary and cultur-
al standards. In rapid sequence an American painter, Mr.
Simonson, is introduced, offers pronouncement on literary
taste, and then disappears from view. Before departing,
however, he pleads for a serious acceptance of American
literature, or, more precisely, an appreciation of serious
mrican literature. With obvious allusion to Twain, Poe,
and Whitman, Simonson argues that the English welcome only
the minnrous, the fantastic, and the hysterical American ’
literary expression because they believe that "grotesque-
ness and caprice" reflect the idiosyncratic American
nature. Simonson's plea, in effect, is for an acceptance
of American literature as literature; it is a plea for
others to demand of it something more than a reflection
of national life, and to desire of it more than a bar-
baric utterance from an untutored people.

Implicit in Simonson's argument is the belief
that American writing has? not yet come of age, and that
the condescending attitude held by men of culture toward
American life frustrates its maturation. Simonson's view,
and Fawcett's, is predicated upon the Judgment that there
18 nothing of merit in the works of Twain, Poe, and

80

Vhitman.102 The argument, since it is founded upon this
unlikely premise, is. questionable, but it stands as
another manifestation of the American desire for English
acceptance so prevalent in Fawcett's international works.

Upon occasion Fawcett conveyed this vision of
American insecurity in humoroustones reminiscent of Mark
Twain. Ernest Graydon and Jack Prawle are "innocents
abroad," and Lizzie Prawle's chauvinism makes her eligible
also for membership in Twain's entourage. Fawcett's view,
however, is one dimensional as contrasted with Twain's
complex insight. In strokes of caricature, Fawcett es-
tablishes £2: defect of the Englishman or the American,
whereas Twain effectively employs a double filter, allow—
ing him to comment at one minent upon the American's
lively sense of humor which renders the European impotent,
and at another moment upon the American'e boorishness
which dignifies the European's character by contrast.

Of the two, Twain's humor is themore incisive.
His portrayal of American indifference to European tradi-
tion reveals the emergence in fiction of the Independent
American. He is not as noble a figure as Emerson had an-
ticipated in 1837, but his existence in Twain presages a
coming of age in America. Fawcett, on the other hand,

 

1°23ee The Pride of Intellect, pp. 282 283, and pp-

151 152, 182- lBS'fo r" 'Fawcetf"s"c"o' e'nts on Poe and whitman
in his letters.

r.

d)

(N

t_- 1

81
concerns himself with the aberrations of the Anglophile
or the provinciality of the nationalist; his caricatures
do not reflect dominant currents. They are merely exag-
gerations of eccentric attitudes.

Humor was not Fawcett's strength and he seldom
utilized it. His treatment of the international theme
was generally sober and more in keeping with the tone of
Henry James's works. The parallels with James, however,
begin with the noting of influence and abruptly and with
the observing of common intent; the differences are more
numerous. Where James insists upon penetrating to the
psychic effects of cultural antagonisms, Fawcett satis-
fies himself by presenting a catalogue of conflicting
values only; where a literary ambiguity results from
James's vision of goodness underlying deceit and honesty
resulting in treachery, nothing more than a superficial
statement emerges from Fawcett'e novels--the Amarican

should cultivate his own garden. I

V The conclusion of a Fawcett novel generally serves
as the assumption of one of James's works. Fawcett's final
understanding that the American cherishes his freedom but
compromises it by affecting EurOpean manners is an early
awareness of James's Isabel Archer who simultaneously ex-
periences "the elation of liberty and the pain of exclu...
sion." The presentation of one view occupies Fawcett's tal-

ents, whereas James records every possible American opinion

D

E.‘

I.)

I.)

82
of the Old WOrld in order to illuminate the nature of
both cultures.

In The Portrait 2;: 3 L331, for example, Mr.
Touchett never loses his sense of being an.American and
he appreciates the values of both cultures. Mrs. Touchett
mingles with bored expatriates who cultivate an affected
taste for the beautiful, but who never appreciate it;
their existence is sterile. Miss Climer, the American
tourist, is shocked by the forthright proposals she re-
ceives from.Europeans, but her love for Europe is in
direct proportion to the number of proposals preferred.
Caspar Goodwood, the blunt, industrious, dull, capable
American sees nothing as he travels through Europe; he is
oblivious to the existence of a European culture. Henri-
etta Stackpole is the coarse, outspoken, chauvinistic
American.who observes everything in Europe and values
nothing. And Isabel Archer carries with her to Europe
the American sense of liberty and independence. For con-
trast there is Bantling the likable Englishman who finds
American.manners quaint; Warburton, the respected Lord
whose radical views appear conservative to the American
mind; and Osmond who resents an aristocracy only because
he is not of it.

There are as many attitudes as there are characters

in a James novel, and the Old werld-Hew‘HOrld cultural

"1‘.
in.“
'v v

.‘F‘
'6'“

v .
..a;

83
conflict emerges as a complex synthesis of the different
perspectives. In Fawcett's international works, there
is only the simple expression of fortunate and unfortun-
ate--it is fortunate that American culture has advanced;
it is unfortunate that Americans themselves are not pro-
foundly aware of this development, that the world is not,
and that as a consequence, Americans suffer from a belief
in their own inadequacy. If there is any literary ambi-
guity at all in Fawcett's works it exists in the observa-
tion that there are good and bad on both sides of the
Atlantic.

IV

The influence of Henry James accounted in part
for Fawcett's main-current involvement with the inter-
national theme. The pressures of cultural cross cur-
rents, however, were very much a part ofFawcett's en-
tire life. They were in operation from his admiration
of James to his removal to England; they were in motion
from the infrequent international express ions in his
early fiction to the developed manifestations of the
theme in his last two works. In fact, the presence of
the conflict colored almost all of his observations and
shaped almost all of his views. It was at the root of
his belief that American criticism was not as percep-
tive as English criticism; that American publishing
conditions were not as advanced as English conditions;
that the American reading public was not nearly as dis-
cerning as the English public; and that American writers
were primitive in contrast to English writers.

Even Fawcett's own literary criticism was not
something developed apart from international considera-
tions. His letters, which embody his critical opinion,
suggest the influencing force of cultural considerations.
There are no explicit statements within the letters
which announce the inferior quality of American literature

at

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85
or proclaim.the superior nature of English writing, but
evidences of this opinion are implicit throughout. The
letters reveal the intensity of the conflicting national
loyalties in his own life which gave rise to the crea-
tion.of Ag Innocent Anglomaniac and portions of The Pride

 

93 Intellect, and they thus illuminate the depth of his
involvement with the American literary formulation of the
international theme.

There are, of course, many literary comments in
Fawcett's letters which.offer no direct evidence of a cul-
tural ambivalence. In one letter, Fawcett writes: "I
remember that I set myself three rules--to be: 122
lucid, 2&2 impersonal, a 32 melodious....I believe...in
observing rules. Good 'rhetorics' are admirable guides,
and there is no literary genius that can not be aided in
closely studying these accumulated syntheses of capable
and intelligent teachers." Though this statement of
literary principles betrays no cultural predilections,
Fawcett's preference for English literature is implicit
in his choice of models: "Macaulay, unless I am.nistaken,
first wakened me to a sense of style in prose--and the
immortal Tennyson in verse."103

Fawcett's affection for English culture did not

 

103November 27, to "Dear Sir"; courtesy of Buffalo
and Erie County Public Library. .

‘he

he:

01‘ ‘
W

“I

e'v.

[1‘

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86
move him to pass favorable judgment upon all English lit-
erature, nor did his disapproval of American thought and
manners lead him.to a blanket condemnation of all American
writing. He expressed a dislike for the poetry of Eliza-
beth Barrett Browning and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and,
conversely, he had praise for the works of Thomas Bailey
Aldrich and Hamlin Garland. The letters do'not reveal
the judgment of an.Anglophile. They do, however, attest
to the existence of a cultural preference, and they illume
inate the relationship between that preference and the
'forging of critical opinion.

It is not by chance that Fawcett named two English-
men as the greatest poets of his age. He believed the
poetic spirit of the time to reside in England and maintain-
ed that both Swinburne and Tennyson had grasped that spirit.
In fact, when Swinburne praised a republican spirit in his
poetry, Fawcett judged him to be admirable but, nonetheless,
naive. He lamented Swinburne's dim.vision which prompted
him.to romanticize the virtues of America. "He quite
over-rates our governmental advantages," Fawcett argued,
"his own country is surely as well ruled as ours."

Fawcett never overestimated the value of anything on the
American scene. In the matter of literary taste he held
that it was a poor reflection upon this country "that so

great a poet [as Swinburne] &:one of so expansive a

EC.

YE

and

87
lyrical magnificence, should not have a better American
constituency. "

Fawcett's comments on Tennyson are reminiscent of
Henry James's reflections upon American culture in his
essay on Hawthorne. Hawthorne was handicapped, James
maintained, by the newness of his culture, by the lack of
an American tradition to draw upon. In the same vein, but
in the opposite direction, Fawcett attributed Tennyson's
genius to his inheritance of "English verse as Shelley,
Keats, Wordsworth, Byron a Coleridge had left it." He
also alluded to the. wealth of traditions and legends--
the Arthurian legend in particular--which Tennyson had
at his disposal to convert into poetic expression.

Host of Fawcett's praise for English literature
was in tribute to its use of traditional forms, its ad-
herence to rules, and its concentration upon rhythmical
grace. On this side of the Atlantic, however, there was
a nation without the poetic inspiration of past times,
and its writers were experimenting with innovation and
reflecting the present development of a new culture. In
Fawcett's opinion this American literature was a brash
expression of an unruly people; he held it to be defiant
in tone and unpleasing in form. "You have once or twice
asked me abt Mr. Sydney Lanier," Fawcett wrote to Hayne.
"I have scarcely words to express my dislike of his writ-
ing. There seems to be an artistic insolence about it,

88
an utter jumbling together of rules, a violation of
decent taste, a kind of gymnastic egotism and a general-
ly wild puffing-and-blowing strain after effect, that
make even the most patient reader require nerves of steel
in order to read one of this gentleman's compositions
through."

Fawcett expressed his cpinion of Joaquin Miller
in the same tone: "Joaquin Miller gave a little promise
at first. He had certain true fire, though immense
crudity. But how utterly he has gone to the dogs in
poetry! As if he could enter in cowhide boots, with a
hop, skip a jump, divine realms where his immortal bet-
ters have walked with reverent unshodden feet."

Since Fawcett's aesthetic sensibilities-were of-
fended by the -translation of a rude democratic spirit
into poetic expression, it was inevitable that he should
hold Walt Uhitman to be the arch defiler of the muse. In
A Gentleman g_f_ Leisure there is evident reference to
Whitman in the following dialogue:

"What are his writings like?" inquired Wainwright.
. "He calls them democraticchants. They are
about boundless prairies and brotherly love and-
the grand coming amelioration of humanity. They
are Carlyle and Emerson jumbled together in wild
parody. He discards rhyme, he discards metre, he
insults art. Of course he has a little wor-
shipping constituency; such poseurs always do
have. They think he is a mighty organ-voice. I
wonder why everything that is rhapsodical, inco-

herent and bombastic is always compared to an
oratorio or a church-organ. I advise you to avoid

r:

l“!
“a

M

89
his book. It is printed at the author's ex—
pense; its name is 'Earth-Clods and Star-
beams.’ If that is to be the poetry of the

future, Heaven ave mercy on our unborn
generations."lo

Whitmanfis poetry reflected that part of America which was
irreverent of past traditions and institutions; he flout-
ed the laws of art, Fawcett insisted, and he sacrificed
dignity for the preservation of his pose. Fawcett's judg-
ment of Whitman is vividly recorded within the letters.
The letters are important for they reveal cultural
considerations entangled within the literary judgment,
and this along with Fawcett's fiction of realism.and de-
velopment of the international theme in his writings es-
tablishes him firmly within the literary climate of his
time. His position within this mainecurrent permitted
him.to pass within the inner circle and to meet and asso-
ciate with other literary figures. Though his intimate
friends were minor writers--Hayne, Saltus, Thompson,
Lathrop, Rideing--he also knew men of such stature as
whittier, Holmes, Longfellow, Howells, Garland, and
James; and he was welcome in their company. The inti-
macy did not contribute to the development of Fawcett's
artistic talent, but his letters, which are steeped in

literary lore, emerged from.this involvement, and in a

 

1°"P9.271-272.

9O
fortuitous manner they constitute an.unlooked for liter-
ary contribution.

The same pomposity which is so much a part of
Fawcett's novels marks the letters. They are often
verbose, seldom casual, and never'hnmorous. Yet what is
destructive of the novel form.establishe8 character in
the letters. In the same manner that Samuel Sewall's
diary is vital, Fawcett's letters manifest a freshness;
they are a curious blend of the critical and the vindic-
tive. What ultimately emerges from them is a reflection
of literary affairs, literary men, and literary works from
the point of view of a fringe writer whose personal reac-
tions are as important to his forming of judgment as are
his literary standards. The letters suggest a dedication
to the arts on.Fawcett's part, but within this committment
there is constant self-justification for his own failings.

Fawcett holds nothing back. He never refrains from
expressing his view of an event or his opinion of a per-
son. He despises the Brentano Brothers, non-literary
booksellers, who thrive on the efforts of creative men,
but who display little literary sensitivity themselves.
They are merely ill-educated traders who never read, and
they are "miserably inferior to the good & precious books
in which they constantly deal." ‘

I Fawcett knew booksellers and everyone also con-

nected with literary activity. The letters reveal the

91
existence of a close-knit, though seldom harmonious,
literary club. The best of writers and the worst of
writers mingled in the same society, but with character-
istic disdain.Fawcett exiles from.his company any whose
literary taste he deems questionable and any who depre-
cate his works. Thus, Gilder is a "poetic humbug,"
Holland is "a despicable literary figure," and Stoddard
is "a wretched, pathetic sort of figure."’ "As a poet,"
Fawcett writes, "I have never thought S_ of the least con»
sequence. As a man I begin to think him.worthy of much
greater contempt." '

All is not fire and anger. Fawcett reacts with
humility when a young writer seeks his opinion; he re-
flects satisfaction when he offers encouragement and
advice to Hamlin Garland; and he manifests sensitivity
when he writes of Frank Saltus as a father would write
of a loved son. These are the pleasures of recognition;
there are also the wounds of rejection. Fawcett loved
and respected Thomas Bailey Aldrich, but when Aldrich
sanctioned a severe criticism of one of his works a deep
hurt was all that remained of a warm friendship: "Yes,
the Atlantic critique was hard. It cut me deeply, be-
cause Aldrich liked the book and yet let that contemptu-
ous screed go in. And he a I had been.cuoh good friends.
Ah, me! how’many silent funerals take place in life,

a...
in.

L1

‘8

“i

M.
Na

‘1"!

92
that no one sees! We put friendships into their graves,
with no audible lamentations, no visible mourning-
badges, no cortege. I.am not getting cynical as I get
older; but I sometimes feel very tired of it all."

These are reflections of Fawcett and they appear
throughout the letters. He is a fierce man with an in-
tense pride. He is easily hurt, quick to lash out at
others, but the anger is usually a reaction to a previous
insult, not an initial assault.

.Beyond revealing Fawcett's character the letters
unveil images of others.' Longfellow is a benignant
figure, a venerable man: "His head made me think of
busts of Aeschylus or Sophocles, with its reverend,
majestic look." The tenderness of Longfellow and the
affection he commanded is suggested in Fawcett's lines
on his death: "And, ah, think what the winter has done:
the dark woodman has set his cold axe to two noble trees
--Longfellow and Emerson! Your lines to Longfellow had
great fire, feeling and tenderness. I have written
nothing yet about the dear poet, though his hospitali-
ties when I read the Harvard poem.two or three years
ago, have made me love hum ever since."

Of Oscar Wilde, Fawcett writes that he is health-
ful, boyish, sincere, "his few affectations are never

offensive." There is the inference that Wilde was

311.5!

asse:
bath

but '.
‘V. ‘

. 93

obliged to perpetuate his own.imege; he had to be witty.
In an invitation to Wilde, Fawcett writes: "Do not for-
get this evening, here, at Seven....We shall expect you
to be in your IEEZ.EEEE charming and brilliant mood--"

Fawcett's literary judgments constitute a vital
aspect of the letters. His comments range from.dogmatic
assertion to occasional uncertain speculation. Eliza-
beth Barrett Browning's verse is too feminine and vapid
for FawcettPs taste; William.Cullen Bryant's poetry .
lacks an intense passion; Howell's fiction is charming,
but it is wanting in strength and profundity. These
opinions are provocative but apt; there are others, how-
ever, which display less acwmen. It is questionable
that the works of Ouida are stamped with genius; it is
an error in Judgment to project that Frank Saltus's
"fame will gradually go on increasing."
I It is difficult to separate Fawcett's critical
opinion from.his emotional attitudes. If he worships
Jmmes it is because he is enamored of his fiction. He
seldom.effers dispassionate comment as he does when,
with complete detachment, he quarrels with Poe's defi-
nition of poetry. More typical is the reaction to
Sydney Lanier whose verse "shocks, irritates & disgusts,"
or the description.of Whitman as "a contumacious buffalo,
of letters." This deep personal involvement with liter-

ature is evident in.Fawcett's words on Tennyson: "By

_ 91+

the way, 'Harold' is Just announced here. I tremble for
fear it may be some such senile stupidity as My: 1231.
Its 'dramatic form' has a very suspicious sound. I hope
that I may not be called upon to say, at the end of this
new poem, something relative to the advisability of
Tennyson's immediate death. But what words am I speaking?
'Harold' m prove a masterpiece...and yet I somehow feel '
in my bones that I am going to gnash my teeth over it!"

Fawcett suffered with the demise of Tennyson's
poetic greatness, he was moved to ecstasy by Swinburne,
irritated by Elizabeth _Barrett Browning, angered by
Whitman, disappointed by Howells, and gratified by James.

He was personally involved with all.

V

The Fawcett letters in this study do not repre-
sent a complete collection. To begin with, American
Literary Manuscripts acknowledges certain omissions in
its findings.105 Also, some libraries are reluctant to
provide photOprints of their col].ections,1°6 privately
owned letters are difficult to locate, and some collec-
tions are not currently available.107 Though an exhaus-
tive presentation is hardly possible, I'have obtained
ll3 01' the more than 1140 letters listed in American

 

Liter-ail Manuscripts. The incomplete nature of the col-

lection, however, is as‘nmch a matter of intentional

 

105Joseph Jones, Ernest Merchand, et alii (Austin,
1960) . The editors researched over 270 firm li-
brarioa,.but the information they offer is neither exhaus-
tive mr definitive: "We preach, in conclusion, a healthy
Ilflp‘liictism of our results. We have tried to make them as
°°nprohensive as possible, and we believe that they may
prove of considerable service, but at the same time a
caveat is imperative: let no one assume that we have
"0110 all the work, for we know--only too well—-that in
“1° aFatematizing of manuscripts there is no end" (p.xix).
American Literar Manuscripts provides an excellent
35%; . We: the work are understand-
' 19, but they are no less real.

ti 1061110 Yale University Library has a fine collec-
tion or F‘"°°tt letters, but they do not reproduce en-
1" ‘30 llections.

gr. 1 lo7'.l‘he Fawcett letters in the Barrett Collection
0: v1“ the. process of being transferred to the University
1"Silnia Library; they are not currently available.

95

9.6
design as it is a result of having encountered diffie
culties. I have not reproduced all the letters in my
possession, and of those utilized, I have reprinted few
in their entirety.

Since the value of the letters lies in their ex—
posure of Fawcett's critical opinion of English and
American writers and in their illumination of his close
relationship with the literary fraternity of his day,
then a traditional, chronological presentation would
have been purposeless; much in the letters is irre-
levant, much is banal, and much would have been lost in
the verbiage of such an ordering. Rather, I have ex-
cerpted sections of letters, from occasional lines to
lengthy passages, and have so arranged the fragments
as to present independent sections of comment upon in-
dividual authors. The excerpts are chronologically
ordered only within'these author headings. Thus there
1' t separate section for each author Fawcett comments
“PM“, and these sections are alphabetically arranged be-
sinning with Thomas Bailey Aldrich and concluding with
Constancg Fenimore Woolson. The one exception to this
Pattern. is the complete presentation of Fawcett's letters
t° Haml in Garland. These seem substantial enough and cen-

tered enough upon the two men to merit reproduction in
full.

‘L

'i.

97

To turn to any author reveals Fawcett's critical
comment—upon the writer's works, frequently his personal
judgment of the writer's character, and often, by infer-
ence, the writer's opinion of Fawcett the author, and
Fawcett the man. Since each section has its own import
a certain amount of repetition is unavoidable, but I
have kept this to an absolute minimum. That is, if
Fawcett, in one of the letters, remarks upon Swinburne
and Tennyson within the same passage, then I have entered
the cement under both Swinburne and Tennyson. A sys-
tem of cross references would have confused rather than
clarified, and would have detracted from the totality
of theseparate sections.

I have made no attempt--as with the editing of
the novel--to correct punctation, to spell out abbrevia-
tion. , or to standardize appearance. Revision and correc-
tion ostablish the tone and meaning of the novel, but an
exact reproduction contributes to the formation of a more
POPIIOnal view of the letter writer. I have provided
extensive footnootes, however, and their intent is,
wherever possible, to identify minor persons and obscure
"”1“ referred to in the letters, to mark the expression
°r “1 idea in the letters and note the appearance of that
1d“ in the novel, and to offer a reasoned argument for

the redating of certain letters.

Pa
iletter:
Ilzich th
ate. I
in, b:
the ‘W
m if

to.

the pig

uté
Y 5.,
New“
‘&
UH
Tu
w
e “
w

98
Fawcett seldom marked the year in his dating of

a letter, but most libraries, based upon information
which they possess, have affixed a probable year to the
date. I have generally accepted the library designa-
tion, but when internal evidence makes the accuracy of
the appended date suspect, then I have placed a question
mark after the date and rectified the error in a foot-
note. All letters with suspect dates follow, along with
the page and footnote number of their first appearance:

Letter to Hayne: December 8, 18gh° p.11h fn.122.
Letter to Hayne: December 19, l 76‘; p.10 , fn.112.
Letter to Hayne: February 17 1883; p.10 , fn.11h.
Letter to wean: March 10, 1690; p.107, fn.115.
Letter to Whiting: April 5, 189_; p.110, fn.120.

A significant number of letters in this section
are from the Paul Hamilton Hayne Papers of the Duke Uni-
versity Library. Fawcett's correspondence with Hayne, a
southern poet and editor of Russell's Magazine, began in
the early 1870's and continued without interruption until

Hayne's death in 1886. The letters reveal a deep friend-

 

ship and a mutual respect for each other's literary works.
The letter to Miss whiting is from the Boston Pub-
lic Library; the letter to Hyman is from the Chicago
Historical Society: the Oscar‘wilde letter is from the
University of Texas Library: the letter to Bishop is
from the New York Public Library: the Bayard Taylor
letters are from the Cornell University Library: and the
Hamlin Garland letters are from the University of South-
ern California Library.

VI

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH

So few poets seem to understand what a sonnet
should be. I think that Aldrich has done most ex-
quisite work in this most difficult line. His Egypt,
Pursuit 5 Possession, Fredericksburg a: Accomplices

 

seem.to me indaglios of a matchless finish.

To Hayne-eMay 10, 1875

Here you pleased by Mr. Aldrich's Identity in

 

the July Atlantic? It pleased mg immensely. I found
‘myself warmly defending it, indeed, against the animad—
versions of my family. It will not bear very close
logical inspection, perhaps, but at the same time, I
think it a poam.in which the imagination plays a part
thoroughly legitimate even if thoroughly grotesque
else.

To Hayne--Ju1y 7, 1875

I think that a sonnet shfl be composed, in the
first place, of extremely striking thought, and that,

in the second place, its vehicle of expression should

99

100
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH--2

be thoroughly commodious, easy and natural--as though
the subject had set itself to the music of the four-
teen lines, and there had been no shadow of strain on
the poet's part. Fer this reason, I find Mr. Lowell's
sonnet abt Heine in the Sept. Atlantic a very clumsy
production, and beautiful as are both of Aldrich's, I
nevertheless thipk that he HE have done better to have
put them.in three stanza poems, or something of this
sort.

To Hayne--August 21, 1875

The cause of Art is a very noble & lovely one,
and though her real true lovers "must hunger and waste
and burn.Ere the beautiful heathen heart will stir,"
as Aldrich tells us, when it does stir, what divine re-

ward for the expectant devotee!
To Hayne--January 18, 1876
I can‘t say that I like Mr. Aldrich's legend in

the Hbrch Atlantic. It seems to lack his old magic of

style. Compared with his lovely "Friar Jerome's

H

‘v

101
THOMAS BAILEY.ALDRICH--3

Beautiful Book"108 it is, in.my thinking, as water unto
wine. Of course it has true touches of Aldrich. Per-
haps I am.wrong, but the whole poem, like the bambino
itself, seems to me wooden. Indeed, Mr. A_ has done
little that fully represents his power, in.my cpinion,
since that exquisite poem.called Destiny in one of the
Atlantic's year before last, tho' he showed a decided
gleam of the old fire in that weird little piece Identity,

 

which I am very fond of.

To Hayne--March 1h, 1876

Mr. Aldrich tells me that during 2 or 3 years
past he has composed 50 or 60 sonnets & from.these has
only preserved eleven.

To Hayne--September 9, 1876

I have r0c§.one or two interesting letters from
Mr. Aldrich of late. He tells me that he has written
50 or 60 sonnets during the past two years and destroy-
ed all but 11. Surely [this] is self-discipline and

 

108This poem.became the title-piece for a collec-
tion.of selected reprints which Aldrich published in 1881.

lew

.re
“a

i

102

moms BAILET ALDRICH-4i
self-repression. I envy him his power to wear sack-
cloth. when I write anything that I think particularly
bad I always have an odd pity for it, as though it were
a deformed child, and often I spend a long time in try-
ing to lick it into shape again--if you will pardon the
vulgarismt Hr. Aldrich likes a closely-knitted sonnet,
thinking that octave and sestette shfi not be separated.
Here I thoroughly disagree with him. I pitched into
him.badly for altering his Cloth of Gold109 as he did,
in the last edition of those poems. It is extraordinary
how ill he appreciates and understands the beauties of
his own.work. When Tennyson alters, it is almost always
for the better; with A_ it is almost always constantly

for the worse.

To Hayne--September 2h, 1876

Of course you have seen.Aldrich's new book, Flower

‘2 Thorn.110 He sent me a copy, as he had previously done

 

in the case of Cloth 33 Gold. I felt greatly honored at

 

 

1°9Cloth of cold and Other Poems (Boston, 1871+).
is a reprint or 311 55' poemI’HEToEIIIHrich.wished to
retain from the edition published in 1865, The Poems of
Thomas Bailey Aldrich.

110Flower and Thorn: Later POOMB, 1877-

 

 

103
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH- -5

very grateful. I am sure that I owe A_ a great deal.

For years I have loved and studied his poems.

To Hayne--March 26, 1877

After all, I did not go to the Whittier dinner.111
It was on Monday a'so I could not have gone by boat with-
out remaining several days in Boston, at by cars [‘2‘] the
journey would have been so expensive that I did not feel
like affording it. Aldrich and I were in N.Y. to-
gether at the time, and during his stay we had two charm-
ing lunches together-..one with Stedman, at the latter's
business-office and one at my club. What a witty, charm-
ing fellow Aldrich is! His society is delicious. I can
never somehow get at the poet in him (the poet who, as
you know, I think so indisputably there) as much as I
can reach the humorist; but this last is a very delight-
ful £33132 d3 21.91153 it must be owned. It is entirely
through his influence and persuasive conduct that Roberts
has come to bring out Fantasy £5 Passion. For this reason,

_—

lllIn celebration of Whittier's seventieth birth-
day. The Atlantic Monthl publishers, Houghton, Hifflin
and CompanyT'E'FF'E—nge or this affair and they later fol-
lowed it with a Breakfast to Dr. Holmes and a Garden
Party for Harriet Beecher Stowe. .

10h
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH--6
I dedicate the book to him.

To Hayne--January S, 1878

Stedman says that Aldrich was his pupil.
Aldrich does not admit this, and if it be true, the
pupil has immensely eclipsed the master; for I think
that Aldrich has written about twenty of the most per—

fect brief picturesque lyrics of any time.

To Hayne-enarch l, 1878

Have you seen Aldrich's lovely new book? Ah,
there is a true artist! I don't care if his range "is
not quite so wide as other singers." Could any of them
attain his exquisite art they mightbecome Tennysons.

To Hayne--December l9, l878(?)112

 

112Aldrich did not publish a collection of verse
in 1878, and so the reference must be to The Queen of
Sheba, 1877, or to A Hidni ht Fantas and-Emmi"
IféTI'nist, also in I8 . s nce afit‘f‘d’oes refer
to the work as a "new book," the dating of the letter
becomes questionable. The Tennyson excerpt (pp.l7S-l76)
is from the same letter.

 

._J

I}

.4

105
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH--7

I have just returned from Boston, where I had
a delightful time. I staid with.Longfellow in his love-
ly old house at Cambridge & then I went to Aldrich, at
Ponkapog. They are both.charming hosts--each utterly
different from the other, and yet similar because of
their common love for what is best in letters. I spoke
of you to Longfellow & he was very sorry to hear that
you were still unwell. I delivered the Phi Beta poem
at Harvard during my stay: I was prodigiously frighten-
ed, but I think that I got through.reputably. Dr. Holmes
anler. Longfellow & a lot of other kind literati as-
sured me that I did, and it is certainly pleasant to
believe so. Is not Cambridge a rare, sweet old place?
I know you think so. Aldrich kept me in a roar of I
laughter all the time I was there. Truly, I think he
is the Sydney Smith of his time.113 He does not put '
enough of his ebullient humor into his prose writings.

To Hayne—~July 19, 1880

 

1133ydney Smith, English clergyman and author
(1771-18h5). His questioning of the value of American
culture gained him much notoriety in this country. In
the Edinbur h Review for January, 1820, Smith asked: "In
the our quarEEFE—BT the globe, who reads an American .
book? or goes to an American play? or looks at an Ameri-
can picture or statue?" Fawcett, however, is obviously

106
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH--8

I think you are quite wrong about Aldrich. He
is a very warm friend where he once gives his friend-
ship. He has been badly treated by certain 'critical'
creatures, & has won his present success in the teeth
of:much discouragement. But a truer and more sterling
fellow never lived.

To Hayne--November 19, 1880

Toe, the Atlantic critique was hard. It cut me
deeply, because Aldrich liked the book and yet let that
contemptuous screed go in. And he & I had been such
good friends. Ah, me! how many silent funerals take
place in life, that no one sees! We put friendships
into their graves, with no audible lamentations, no
visible mourning-badges, no cortege. I am.not getting
cynical as I get older; but I sometimes feel very tired

of it all.
To Hayne--February l7, 1883(?)11h
FET35FIEE't6'EE3‘TEH3'SEfflE1iflTEfififir1fir1fifiroifiiflifitor'or

many humorous bon' meta.

 

llb’Aldrich was editor of the Atlantic Honthl from
1881 to 1890. The date of this lettEF'TE-EfieEETSEEEle for
there are no reviews of Fawcett's works in the periodical
in 1882, nor during the first two months of 1883. Pos-
sibly Fawcett's reference is to the review of A Gentleman
‘gf Leisure which appeared in the Atlantic in.OEt653?T'IBBl.

107
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH--9

Aldrich, for example, smooth-flowing as his
verses are, lacks any decided rhythmic power, but his
lovely richness and color of phrasing stands, in its

special cabinet-picture way, nearly unequalled.

so Wymane-Harch 10, 1890(?)115

s o, e c rec a e e e er wou p -
bably be 1882. The Oscar Wilde excerpt from.the same
letter (pp.l90-l9l) would also suggest the year 1882 since
this would be in keeping with the year of Wilde's Ameri-
can visit. The Rossetti excerpt (p.153), and the
Swinburne excerpt (p.167), are from the same letter.

llSMore likely the date of this letter is the

latter part of March, 1875. At the beginning of the
letter Fawcett refers to the "initiative days" of Spring
which suggests the last week in.Harch. As for the year,
1875 would seem.most probable, for in a reference to '
Swinburne within the same letter Fawcett writes:
"Swinburne (as Mr. E.C. Stedman, in Scribner's Honthly
for March, justly says) has carried English rhythm be-
yond the border of anything which it had previously at-
tained3..." And in the March issue of Scribner's

Honthl for 1875 there is an article hymn which
H?”fi?!%es: "I wish to speak at some length upon the one
faculty in which Swinburne excels any living English poet:
in which I doubt if his equal has existed among recent
poets of any tongue, unless Shelley be excepted, or, pos-
sibly some lyrist of the modern.French school. This is
his miraculous gift of rhythm, his command over the un—
suspected resources of a language" (p.585). The Stoddard
(pp.159-l60), Swinburne (pp.167-168), Taylor (pp.17l-l72),
and Tbnnyson (pp.l76-179) excerpts are from the same
letter.

108

PIERRE CHARLES BAUDELAIRE

Mr. Thompson [James Maurice] thinks my
letters interesting enough to answer them, I am
happy in saying, very charmingly indeed. He is,
like myself, a profound lover of Baudelaire. I
consider B_ an excessively immoral poet, 8:
Swinburne not. 8. is always dramatic. He rarely
sneers at good in his own voice ; he usually makes
someone else, whom he personates, utter atrocious
sentiments, whilst Baudelaire, in the most diabolic
fiendish style, simply seems to denounce and £2-
nounce all idea of virtue...

And I do love poems written, as Chas.
Baudelaire said--"seulement pour le plaisir

de 'ecrire un poems . "

To Hayne--September 22, 1875

(AFN-ill"

109

BRENTAN0116

 

It is delightful to hear that you have so
generously sent mm Watson's poems.117 E123 so long
ago, fascinated by some of the quotations, which
Howells made from his book, I ordered it of Brentano.
But B_ (who is, 22352 BEBE! a bookseller merely, and
will never be anything more) professed himself, after
long delay, unable to procure the volume. He had sent
here: he had inquired there; &c--good Heavens! Why
don't they make you or me proprietors of a leading book—
shop? Wouldn't we make things hum, BLEEELEETEEE?" you,
especially with your extraordinary literary outlook and
your wondrous flair for what is classic and good. But
the Brentanos are all more traders: they never read;
they are ill-educated to any degree. The brother in
Paris strikes me as a little better (there are brothers
and brothers, stretching away till the crack o'doom,
like the ghosts in.Macbeth), but they all seem to me

 

116Three generations of the Brentano family have
been employed in bookselling; August Brentano, an Austrian
immigrant, founded the business in the early 1870's. By
1882£rthree nephews--Arthur, August, and Simon--took charge
0 a a rs. '

117Possibly a reference to Walter Watson, a Scottish
poet (1780-185h), who achieved some popularity in his time,
or, more likely to Johanhitaker Watson (182h-1890), who
issued a volume of poetry in 1869 entitled Beautiful Snow
and Other Poems.

 

 

 

llO .
BREHTANO--2

miserably inferior to the good & precious books in
which they constantly deal. They none of them.have
any special sense of difference between Walter Savage
Lander and Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett118—-and I
donfit know if I could have hit upon a huger gulf of
difference..do you?

To Miss Whiting119--April 5, lag-120

 

 

ELIZABETH B: BROWNING
Hrs. Browning's Portuguese Sonnets I have read,
but they are not familiar. Except for Aurora Leigh,

which is in.some ways a wonderful poem, I find the work

of Mrs. B_ is wholly disagreeable to me. Robert Browning

 

118Most well known for her sentimental, romantic
novels and children's stories of which the most popular
is Little Lord Fauntleroy, 1886.

 

119Possibly Lillian.Whiting, an assistant editor
of the Boston Budget in the 90's.

120The date, in Fawcett's own hand, is difficult to
establish from the photoprint of the letter; it is pro-
bably 1892. The James excerpt (p.139) is from.the same
letter. .

111
ELIZABETH B. BROWNING-~2

I am very fond of, but his spouse always seems to me
hysterical, posing, a sometimes Laura-Matildaish be—
yond language.

To Hayne--September 22, 1875

You are indeed wrong in supposing me at all an-
noyed by yr remarks abt Mrs. Browning's poetry. For
Heaven's sake why should I dream of being so? Surely
you have a right most incontestable to yr own opinions,
& doubtless I, for that matter, am thoroughly wrong in
the judgment which I passed. Truly my sincerity, here,
is my only defence against the charge of pure arrogance
& self-assumption. I cannot like Mrs. Browning's poetry.
Even in that noble romance of Aurora Leigh there are
passages that absolutely disgust me. I don't mean hys-
terical weakness. You have rather misunderStood me
there. I meet no lack of force, but rather a posing
impulse that I find intolerable. I seem to see a very
clever, very poetic~souled person, if you choose,
straining wildly after effects--and such effects! such
confused extravagances! Such things that never could
properly say themselves this side of Bedlam--such.out-

rageous archaisms, solecisms, graecisms! Frankly, I

112
ELIZABETH B . BROWNING-- 3

think that Mrs. B_ often insults her art from simply
over-adoring it. You see that she feels vastly, but

I find that she often expresses with an unpardonable

 

amount of gush; a this is what I meant by Laura-
Hatildaish. M, for example, is a poem full of wild
self-abandonments, but does Tennyson ever pass beyond
"that goal of ordinance," as he himself says, "where
all should pause as is most meet for all"? I do not
think so, tho' a gentleman told me, the other day, that
he considered the short metre passage "Rosy are her
cheeks" an atrociously silly, hysterical &c. Mrs.

Browning's pedantry is to me often execrable. Mere

 

learning in an author is so uninteresting, anyway! I

 

haven't her poems here at hand or I could, I am sure,
refer to many affectations of a simply heinous charac-
ter. Still, I don't a bit blame you, mind, for over-
looking faults which of course strike you a; loving the
ore for the gold, as one might say. Hundreds, thousands
have done this. I am perhaps to blame for not doing it.
I am afraid I run'too much toward art; I am too much the
artificer a too little the warm-souled poet. "Effects"
of words or color will almost draw tears from my eyes a
set my heart throbbing a my blood aglow, whilst the

113
ELIZEBETH B. BROWNING-4+

loveliest and grandest sentiments, ill-expressed (or
expressed as I, in my artistic despotism & egotism,

don't like) will scarcely affect me. But it seems to

me that I am outliving this vice. I think, for example,
that I can now more greatly enjoy the luscious loveliness
of Keats than before, because I am able with more success
to forget & ignore his faults. Let me again tell you
what a wonderful poem I think Aurora Leigh. I have many

passages of it stored away in my notebook.

To Hayne--October 15, 1875

Or perhaps I shall only say it in Mrs. Browning's

'thmnders of white silence'! (By the way, did it ever-
occur to you what an abomination that bit of verse is?)

To Hayne-~January 6, 1882

‘WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

 

It seems to me that you expressed with much force
the attitude taken by Mr. Bryant as regards the Poe
matter. I myself find that B's reputation is precisely
what you express it--arctic 2B2 frozen. He has a throng

1114
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT--2

of worshippers about him, but I doubt if these do more
than vehemently respect the "integer vitae scelerisque
purus"121 of the man. Have any of them a passionate
love for his poetry? Are many of them more than re-
spectably familiar with it? Compare nu position with
Tennyson's. How much lordlier and more beloved for pure
genius alone is the latter! For my part, I can think of
nothing which Bryant has written that I can truly say I
love. Thanatopsis rolls along effectively, but although

 

really to be condemned by our modern self-styled critics
as morbid, it possesses nothing fascinatingly original
amidst its morbidity. To me there is a stately stupidity
about the man, a sort of resonant old-fogyism in his

verse, that I often have found literally intolerable.

To Hayne--December 1, 1871;122

 

12li'he complete quotation from Horace is: Integer

vitae scelerisque gurus non e et scrum-A man of upr g
III'e am, pure from gu E, nee s no weapon to defend him.

l22$ee the Howells excerpt from the same letter
(p.132, fn.136) for speculation as to correct date--
December 8, 1875; the Poe (pp.lSl—152), Tennyson (p.172),
and Thompson (p.181) excerpts are from the same letter.

115

OLIVER BELL BUNCE

 

Yes, I have been to two of Mr. Bunce's Sunday
evenings since my return to town. Mrs. Bunce & the
young ladies always speak of you, & not long ago I
think that she said you had recently written her. I
shall remember you to them with great pleasure.

To Hayne-~January 18, 1876

I am sorry you had trouble with Bunce. He is a
very gpod-hearted fellow. I think his faults all on
the surface, tho' I admit often most unpleasantly, even
painfully so. For a long time he and I were only on
terms of the most perfectly cold ceremony toward one
another. It is very easy to quarrel with him, I know.
What one of his contributors has he not made writhe?123
I have for a long time had but one opinion regarding
him: he is tortured by 111 health a for that reason
excusable. I believe that all his arrogance a dog-
matism are not Bunce; they are disease. On that ac-
count his rudeness has a kind of pathetic side to me.

I try only to think of his green foliage, not of his
uncouth dead limbs. And there is truly a great deal

in the man to admire and respect.

To Hayne-ADecember 12, 1877

 

ZBBunce was the editor of Appleton's Journal from
1872 to 1881. .

 

116
HAMLIN GARLAND

My dear Mr. Garland,

Your letter was extremely welcome. I know your
poetic work well--and have reason to know it. Hardly
much.more than a year ago Mr. wyckoff, poor fellow, edi-
tor of the.£merican Magazine (he whose sad death from
over-work & general editorial strain you may have heard
of) asked me to act as the Rhadamanthus of his poetry--
to ziggr all the mss. & tell him.just what I thought de-
served to pan muster. This was then, if I mistake not,
quite a secret matter, but now that the magazine has
changed hands I donfit mind divulging my share of it.
Always your verses seemed to me full of an extraordinary
merit. I said to wyckoff—-or wrote bins-more than once:
"This man, Hamlin Garland, has very brilliant abilities,
mg ludioe, & his future great distinction is only a
question of his own industry & self—governance"--or
words to that effect. If Wyckoff & I had been able to
work together on the magazine, I would have pushed you
more than I did; as it was, I remmmber suggesting the
return.of but one poem, and that was because I pre-
ferred another that came to me in the same "bundle"
with it. My reasons of preferment & disfavor were what
Howells once told me he felt toward one of my own bits

of verse years ago--"lover's reasons."

.su

117
HAMLIN GARLAND-"2

On this account--as I take for granted you had
never learned how original, trenchant and vigorous I
had pronounced your work, I found your good note to me a
remarkable coincidence. I should greatly like to hear
your lecture upon my printed stuff, a hope that some
day I shall do so. I am glad enough that anything I
have done pleases you. I will send you a copy of some
verses of mine under the name of "Romance 5: Revery,"
if you have not seen it. It is my third book of poems,
"Fantasy a Passion" a "Song a Story" being the other two.
It seems to me that you might care for something metrical
of mine, since your own poetry has repeatedly appealed to
mg from amid masses of other 1332. You must not call
yourself "an unknown man" now, since your name has be-
come in a'short time familiar to American readers; and
I am sure that it will become more so--and most credit-
ably--as time lapses. I see that you live at Jamaica
Plain, near my good friends, the Ticknors.12h VI sup-
pose you know them. Ticknor is one of the best and

truest of fellows, and a sweeter, more thoroughly fas-

 

121+w1111m Davis Ticknor, A Boston publisher; his
firm published the North American Review and the Atlantic
Month from 1851.. tTIB'Eh.

 

11-8
HAMLIN GARLAND--3

cinating women than handsome Mrs. Ticknor I have rare-
ly not. She seems to me the embodiment of all that a
high-bred New England woman ought to be--& that, for
me, who greatly like & respect New England, is saying
a great deal. '
I am fond of Boston, but I almost dread going

there again. Arlo Bhtosle & a man named Wolf, on the
Gazette, by their bitter slanderous comments upon.me &

my work, have invested even that beautiful city with a

strange atmosphere of discomfort. Still, this is mere
folly, I grant. Thanking you again for all your kind-
work, I’am ever faithfully,
I Edgar Fawcett
‘October 7, 1888

My dear Mr. Garland,

I return your critique with many thanks to you
for the great pleasure of reading it. I wish I were
not so busy a man...correspondence 8: work both'crowd

upon.me, a it is only now and then that I get the

 

125Arlo Bates (1850-1918) was a novelist, a drama-
tist, poet, teacher of English, and writer of textbooks.
He frequently contributed criticism to leading periodi-
cals and was a Boston newspaper editor.

119
HAMLIN GARLAND--h

chance of a real long letter to anyone whom I re-

spect at esteem--or, for that matter--with whom I have
held friendliest relations in the past. But rest sure,
dear Mr. Garland, that your future growing success will
always be dear to me, and of keenest interest. If you
come to New York he sure to leave a card for me here at
this club. Afterward I will try to arrange that we
shall meet and have the most comfortable at amicable

of chats. I sympathize with your aims, a: feel sure that
you can at will carry them out. ‘If I held any editorial
pos ition' I should love to ask you for a poem every now
and then. You have a fine saliency 8t crispness of
phrase, and a breadth of treatment wholly your own. I
don't know your prose at all well, 8: will get the
Belford's you speak of and study it--provided, by the
way, I 233 get that special no.--though it is so diffi-
cult now to find them, somehow. (Ah, what a muddle of
syntax! By "them" I mean back nos. of magazines.) I
am glad thatHowells is your friend. He at I are, I am
sorry to state, only acquaintances. We meet, shake
hands, say a few words to one another, at the great world
pushes itself between us for months. An extraordinary

artist--a man of the most enchanting subtleties! Faulty

120
HAMLIN GARLAND--5

as a critic now and then,--and again wondrously true &
penetrative. I often wonder why Howells, with his fine
19th Century liberalisms, is not more expansive in his
novels--why he so persistently ignores the passions and
cultivates the niceties & prettinesses. I am delighted
that you are so firm a believer in Herbert Spencer 23.32

omne genus. That mixture of genius & absurdity,

 

Swinburne, called Victor Hugo the spiritual sovereign of
this century. What shall we call Spencer?-—a simpler
name, perhaps, but as true a one--the help & the hope of
truth! To speak of my own poor self, you seem.to have
grasped all that I aim for in prose. In poetry I want
to dissipate superstition as a philosopher and as a mere
shmple post to try to find some fresh forms of pure
beauty that the world may perhaps recall--say 10 years or
20 years after I am dead. Can.a man hope for more
nowadays? I will send you "Romance & Revery" soon.

With thanks for your charming letter & deepest appre-
ciation of it.

Ever faithfully yours,

Edgar Fawcett
October 19, 1888

121

MIN GARLAND-m6

My dear Mr. Garland,
I was very glad to get your exceedingly kind

note. I agree with all your less eulogistic words

about my poor little story. The railway accident is
Perhaps a 293;! 25, though I somehow didn't want it to

1’0 Just that. I, too, hate the "happening" of things

In a. novel. At the same time, I'believe firmly in coin-
cidences, and although the entire human story often
seems to me ragged, contradictory, plotless, indetermin-
ate, still I should be inclined to insist on occasional
"touches" in it just like that of the train tumbling
67°? an embannent at the precise instant of Paula's
mec11‘tated crime.126 However, I am not defending myself.
And ~after reading my proofs of the latter portion of: the
3%, I grew thoroughly disgusted, and told myself that
it has not only commonplace & ineffably conventional,
but; stupid past all words. You are too good to like the
first part as much as you do. I strive for a perfect

°xbression of life a: read what I have accomplished in

 

\.

3‘ 126mm: action is from Fawcett's novel, Miriam
lostier (Chicago, 1888); Paula is about to pus

We) the platform of a moving train when a colli-
1011 takes place resulting in Paula's death. Of. the

my: review of the novel: 13- 311"

122

HAMLIN GARLAND--7
cold type afterward only to cry "Bah! how monstrous a
shortcoming!" But your words, and all such words as
yours, when I am lucky enough to get them from men of
brains and artistic sense, are preciously stimulating.

I have not forgotten my promise abt "Romance 8: Revery,"
8: will send it to-morrow. I have just obtained the copy.
With many warm wishes for your deserved success, believe .
me over gratefully at faithfully

Edgar Fawcett
November 6, 1888

My dear Mr. Garland,

I enjoyed your last letter greatly. Am I, then,
ml‘bid? I did not know it. I don't want to be. But
I cSan't‘ help seeing the horrors of life, just as I. see
11:8 brightness. And, after all, is there any real

 

bI‘ ightness? But the darkness at sadness are so pitilessly
I"8.1! I sometimes think there are no peOple on earth
who perfectly enjoy life except children, and they don't
knOI-t when they do! By a queer accident I did see your
:‘I‘per's Weekly story a thought it very strong a fine!127

127nm... R1ploy'8 Trip," November 214,. 1888.

 

123
HAMLIN GARLAND--8

Your style is full of repose a power. You have great
talents; you are sure to be a light in letters if you
only keep the lamp industriously trimmed. But I care
most for your poetry; there you seem to me most authen-
tic, most definitely yourself. All good poets (with
very few exceptions) have written good prose. Still,

I know the demand, the trend, our time. I, for my

part , w_i_._l_.}_ not abandon verse. I don't think I ever did
nothing spontaneously except that. .The twilight will
61181130 to day, before long--be sure of it. Everything
in literature goes by fads It fashions. I have been be-
fore the public for 15 years a written hard for 20, a

I tflaure you that nothing at once so disconcerts at
““1803 me as the absurd whims of popular feeling. In

‘ little while somebody will write as greatly public a
m°°¢ms in verse as my Elsmere is in prose.1‘28 Then
all the publishers will _a_s_k the rhymesters for their wares.

All that the artist can do is to possess his soul, in

P‘tionce. The drama is almost an impossibility for the

\

1231:; 3.1811,}; noygl by Mrs. Humphrey Ward which
attained a great popularity in the United States. Frank
uthgr Mott, in his Golden Multitudes (New York, 191.37),

its the novel as an over-all best seller in the United
31wants in the decade 1880-1889.

12h.
HAMLIN GARLAND--9

six-1:1 at, just now. But let him go on writing. If he be
a real dramatic artist he mu_s__t. Let the poet go on sing-
ing- The novelists are having it all their own way, just
now; but never mind that. Rome wasn't built in a day, at
the big, absurd, giddy crowd can't be coerced in one.
They don't know what they reallthant or why they want
it. They just push on with their freaks and feelings.

”I motto is--"Never _t_r_z for success in any o_n_g thing, but
151‘? always to reach your own ideal as nearly as you can."
You never can...but always keep on trying. There all the
happiness of life lies for the artist--the true creator,
the real “GUI"i'. 129 of the Greeks. Meanwhile, one must
dine, of course. That is the key-note of the whole
matter, after a11--how we scribblers are to dine and yet
”mun dignified. Well, thank Heaven, the silliness of
Grub Street is abolished nowadays, with its left-handed
“Obbories at its candor-veneered affectations. That's a
In"Wernent in the right direction. Howells told me also
that he hated "Sister Brenda." I love to think of any
"“1 who desires that "the teaching of Spencer" shall

1" evident in his stories. That means a great ideal:

\

129maker: poet-

125
HAMLIN GARLAND-~10

..-now, about the American Magazine. For my novel,
Olivia Delaplaine, I got the full $3,600 promised me,
paid without delay. But later on, I had occasion to
talk with a young poet in my rooms, one afternoon, and
as he had some verses which I thought poor Wyckoff would
like, I said to him--"I'll give you a cheque for these,"
1 a: it will be all right afterward." He took my cheque,
and Wyckoff said I should soon be‘indemnified. It wasn't
much- -only $25 infect. But Wyckoff .died, as though I
have written to Col. Ropes abt the matter I've never reed
‘ dime-m1 would keep my short-story copyrights if I were

you- I haven't keep mine, but then most of my short

stories have been very bad. I somehow can't put the

Lord's prayer on a shilling, as Thackeray boasted that

he could do. I suppose the only'way to keep one 's cOpy-

right is to stipulate with the publishers beforehand.
why not send a short story to _O_n<_:_e_ 2 1°15 101; to 110
A"I'Orney Street LY. and tell the editor, Hugent Robinson
h°" I admire your work? He's a shaming fellow, and the
P‘Por pays well for contributions. I don't promise you
‘uccess, but’tell Mr. Robinson, if you choose, how I was
"on by your work without knowing you from Adam.

Ever Faithfully ,

Edgar Fawcett
December 7, 1888

126
HAMLIN GARLAND--11

My dear Mr. Garland,

I was glad to get your kind letter, and am sorry
that untold impediments have stood in the way of an
earlier reply. It is pleasant to learn that you take so
much interest in the future fortunes of "Miriam Balestier."
I only wish you would condescend to amplify the narration;
it 1. , I assure you, quite beyond my own poor powers of
story-telling. She ought not to have married Matarand,
but I very much fear that she did do so. Still, I am
not by any means certain. She cut my acquaintance in-
dfifinitely at the last page of. her partial biography.

1 don't know the writer of "Conventionalities" at "Para-
doxos ," whom you mention so ‘admiringly. George-ism, I
“81‘, is only a dream. Human selfishness and monopoly
I”quire as much slow disintegration from future centuries
‘3 did the early ape before he slowly differentiated into
“”1- No, I'll even go back to the primordial atom, and
‘° lake it a more hopelessly wide range. Look at our
Pr°8ent administration, begun to-day, with such men as

I“’r‘ton at Wanamaker at the governmental front. Of course

they are two most divergent types, but they represent

1zhe same terrible, insidious power of money. Howells

m0st truly made his Mr. Peek in "Annie Kilburn" say

127
HAMLIN GARLAND--12

that the world had secured liberty and equality after
infinite struggle & bloodshed, but that fraternity had
yet to arrive. How long before it 11:11 arrive? When
Boston is a forgotten dust-mound, perhaps, and the bio-
graphical dictionaries tell us that Washington was an

early mythic king of America! Yes, I have seen Howells

twice during the past few weeks. He was very genial 8c

charming, as always, at to-night I so regretted reading
in the newspaper that his eldest daughter (long, I be-
lieve, an invalid) had recently died.130 This will be

a hard blow, no doubt, though I have hard that she has
been partially insane for some time. No, I do not ex-
pact to see Boston this year, at least. It is a lovely
tom--far more so that our ugly New York-..and, from all
I have observed, most socially attractive. By all means
cepy my "Poverty" 8: use it if you desire. I» greatly
'mDathize with your proposed Conservatory work, and
think your effort to treat the aims at tendencies of

Young writers a most commendable one. It makes me wish

I “are only a young writer myself. The great trouble is
that to—day we have no careful review-work whatever. The

\

130Winifred Howells .

128
HAMLIN GARLAND-13

journals bristle with vulgar personalities, and leisure-
ly, conscientious criticism has fled to another land, if
not to another planet. I am at work on a new novel; it
seems to me that I am always either doing that or ending
.a comparatively old one. I shouldn't object to being a
machine if I only had golden wheels and a diamond pivot
or two. But alas! I fear the muses only brought to my
cradle the cast-off gifts of inferior scribblers. You

havo my warm sympathy, always, in your work and your

e11¢?r'gies for it. But don't forget poetry!
Faithfully yours,
Edgar Fawcett

March 1;, 1889

Dear Mr . Garland ,

I am sorry to have missed you when you were in
New York. My stay here has been very pleasant & I have
found Iondon revisited even a more agreeable place than
“1011 formerly seen. I have both dined and lunched with
H'nry James at his charming home in Kensington, and it
"a8 a decided treat to shake hands and talk with him once
‘Sain. You speak in your last note of Miss wilkins.131

131Mary Wilkins Freeman (1852-1930): atthe time 01‘

129
HAMLIN GARLAND-“lb,

I know little of her work, and though I respect what

I have seen of it I must confess that its incessant
dialect repels me. I cannot stomach (to use a homely
phrase) so much remorseless vernacular, and in spite of
all prevailing fashions I feel convinced that such fac—
tors in fiction should be used sparingly. If an artist
1! in love with the folk-lore of his town and time, I
believe that the impressions of it which he seeks to
convoy to us should be imparted through media which are
not wholly concerned with massacred syntax. Be "enthrall-
ad by realities" as much as you please, but portray by
methods more universal at less particular. Still, here
I m uttering counsels, who have no right to play ad-
718 or and whose own literary sins are surely enough for
”V one full-grown man to answer for. Pardon me; we
afiftibblers are all far more of bigots, cavillers, at
PPOo is lame than we often admit. You should know this
“d, grand, historic old London, if you do not already
know it...but perhaps you do. I expect to sail westward
a"’Oll-mmost probably on Oct. 211th. Meanwhile with most
Wm

s e
F'I‘eeman in 1902) had onl published one volume of poetry,

corative Plaques (1883 , and The Adventures of Ann
tI885) aha e Romance (1887). '-

130
HAMLIN GARLAND-"15

hearty good wishes for your personal & literary welfare,
believe me .
Always Faithfully,
Edgar Fawcett
A October 16, 1889

There are many attractive a interesting literary men here,

both young & old, whom one rarely hears of in America. EF

Dear Mr. Garland, ‘

I was sorry to miss you when last here. Yes, I
believe "The Evil that Men Do"132 is very pleasing to the
people. 'I never can understand about these matters. I
think the best working-mood is neither to understand nor
to care. (I always try to be artistic and human--perhaps
I constantly fail in both directions.

A Pray look me up when you come to this big, giddy
town again, & believe me.
Always faithfully,
.Edgar Fawcett
February 19, 1890

 

132A novel by Fawcett (New York, 1889).

131
JOSIAH g. HOLLAND

"Tupper" Holland, as he is always called North,
is down upon.me for some reason. Ybu know his wretched
"Kathrina" "Bitter Sweet" &c. I suppose the enclosed
poem has rather increased his hatred.133 I daresay, he
has tried on the cap it found that it fits him admirably.
A very sneering paragraph apropos of my Evolution ar-
ticle appeared in the Springfield Republican the other
day. Gilder, whom.I criticized adversely a whom I con-
sider a poetic humbug, is a friend of Holland.13h The
paragraph says that I have more conceits than Donne and
more egotism than Swinburne, and that Gilder is worth 20
Fawcetts. I have no doubt that either H; or G_ wrote it.
If one tells the truth in this world one must always suf-
fer, I find. Doubtless I have been impolitic, but I have
the cause of American poetry very deeply at heart; I can't
help fighting against pretentious charlatanisms Holland

has always been to me a despicable literary figure.

To Hayne--July 19, 1876

 

133The poem is missing.

13hJosiah Gilbert Holland (1819-1881) was a novel-
ist, editor of the Sprin field Republican, and the first
editor of Scribner's HfihgfiIy'(IB7UTI88ITT Richard Watson
Gilder (lBBEIIHUHT'fias a poet and assistant_editor of
Scribner's Monthl with Holland after 1870. He edited
ENE-CEHEEEI rom. 881 until his death. .

132
‘WILLIAM 2. HowELle35

Mr. Howells tells me that he thinks ill of
Thompson's book. I don't at all sympathize with him
in his bad opinion. ' i

To Hayne--December 8, 187140)136

I agree with you almost absolutely regarding what
you say of Mr. Howells. He writes charming critiques

 

ac, but surely he does not possess creative breadth either
in fiction or poetry. His own book of poems is a fact,
I should say, by no means in harmony, as it stands, with
the line of conduct often adopted toward his contribu-
tors. He has been very kind to me, but....Justice is
justice. I can't 8: w__o_n_'_t like any more or less of his
poems for that reason. It is not a book I could ever
love--ever very deeply care for, as far as that is con-
cerned. It seems to me in parts curiously weak a in
parts wholly 2931331 _t_h_e_ gg_. "Private Theatricals"

has many good things....Mr. Howells has a book of my

humorous verses which he is reading a will pass a

 

135For other comment on Howells see Fawcett's
letter to Garland, pp. 119-120.

1361f the reference in this letter is to Hoosier
Mosaics (1875), as it seems to be, then the date 01' the
letter is more likely to be December 8, 1875.

133
WILLIAM D. HOWELLS-u-Z

criticism.upon. These latter I shall not bring out
under my own name.

To Hayne-oJanuary 18, 1876

Ho, Howells has not reviewed Ellen.Story.137
I do not know why; I never cared to inquire. It dis—
tresses me that I shi find his own.prose (& notably
"Out of the Question")l38 so namby-pamby, finical a
trivial; for I should like intensely to like his writ-
ing, since he has treated me with such kindness. The
thought of his knowing how I dislike his prose wfl be,
under the circumstances, almost abhorrent to me, and
I make this confidence to you as to a man of 30321;,

feeling sure that it will go no further.

To Hayne--March 26, 1877

Do you know, it distresses me that you shfl
send nothing more to Howells. Pray do so; never mind

his rejections; some day he will accept again. A very

 

137At this time Howells was editor of the Atlantic
Monthly (1871-1881). "_—

138A play by Howells.

131i
WILLIAM D. HOWELLS--3

eminent man.of letters said to me the other day:
"Howells has rejected everything I have sent him.for
a year & I have resolved never to send him.another
thing." A friend nearby-—equally eminent, or almost
so, replied: "Oh, yes, Blank; you will, I am.sure."
I sat and wondered. V ‘

To Hayne--March l, 1878

I notice that Howells's critique has influenced
other papers. But I am.resolved to be philosophic; if
he has spoken falsely time should refute him.139

To Hayne--May 26, 1878

 

139Howells reviewed Fantas and Passion in the
Atlantic monthly for Hay of I878. FifibeftTE'Efibiguous
remark seems o e quite reserved especially since Howells
had this to say of his poetry: "The Fantasy and Passion
of Mr. Fawcett is better named as to the Fantasy than as
to the Passion. He is, to our thinking, eminently the
poet of Fancy. In that he is a master, and seems first
among American poets; we do not know why we should stop
short of saying among all the English-writing poets of
our true. Possibly Leigh Hunt alone surpasses htm in
our literature; we shall not try to establish his place
too definitely, for criticism must not leave time with
nothing to do' (p.632). See p.19, for Fawcett's remarks,
in a letter to Hayne, upon the emasculation of the
Passion from.Fantasz and Passion.

135
WILLIAM D. HOWELLS--h

I think Howells's new novel a great success.
It towers over everything else he has done. Man of
whims as the man is, we must remember always hereafter

that he wrote "The Undiscovered Country."
To Hayne--April 27, 1880
James (take my word for it!) is a very big man.

He includes a good many Howellses. Howells might stand

for one of his turrets, or perhaps a left wing.

To Hayne--January 6, 1882

\

HENRY JKMES

 

 

Mr. Henry James's "American” in the Atlantic
delights me. Is he trying for popularity? I suppose
so. One hardly recognizes in this light filigree-work
the same hand that wrought Rodericszudson's solidity

 

and stateliness. But it is filigree work of real bronze,
however. I can't abide, though, his use of the phrase
"our hero." Did you read his short story in the Aug.

136
HENRY JAMES--2
Scribner‘IU'lO I think it a failure-~but a charming one.

To Hayne--August 6, 1876

Henry James is now doing superb work for the
magazines. I believe that man will yet hold a place in
our letters equal to Thackeray. His story in the pre-
sent Scribner (though not in his grand manner) is a de-

licious bit.l‘+l

James's Hawthorne is a charming book. It

 

has made Boston & Concord furious, but I can't see why.
He wrote it for English readers, & besides it is full
of reverence for the great master of romance--1f a

critic can ever be reverent.

To Hayne--April 27, 1880

I fancy there is a good deal of doubt that James
ever said anything of that contemptuous sort about my
verses, as I told Frank Saltus the other evening. I
know just how the story originated. A very pretty,
very charming, but rather impulsive young girl, who has

 

lh0"Crawford's Consistency."
lhlpov.mb.r, 1877, "Four Meetings."

137
HENRY JAMES--3

fallen into the bigoted belief that I am one of the
world's literary luminaries, bored James a good deal by
talking about my books one day at a dinner party. I
feel pretty sure that what Miss as that he said
is a good deal exaggerated. Peeple here seem to vie
with each other in uttering bitter things about James.
I did not meet him, though I wanted to, immensely. He
sent me one of his novels, which certainly does not
look very disdainful. It seems to me that he must only
seem snobbish to snobs. Of course there are many men
of genius whom I can imagine doing uncouth a: weird
things. But James is not one of these. His writings
show such an enormous sense of what is fit, decent,
gentlemanly in the highest sense. It is the fashion to
sneer at him now, but all that will soon pass. It is a
mere senseless manifestation of rancor. James (take my
word for it!) is -a very big man. He includes a good
many Howellses. Howells might stand for one of- his
turrets, or perhaps a left wing. James, too, possesses
one of the greatest of literary preservatives, a lucid,
classic, sinewy style. He is absurdly maligned. He has
never reviled this country. He has written of it, at all

times, with an impersonal pen. No prejudice colors him,

138
HENRY JAMES--14

tho' he has been accused of vast prejudice. The most
that peeple can truly say is that he prefers to live

in England. I don't see why he should not, There, he
meets hosts of brilliantly-equipped people; we have
nothing remotely like the English intellectual society
in this country. To-night a correspondent in the Even-
ing—Post pitches into him.as responsible for the senti-
ments of the English Member of Parliament in his 'Point
of View'? Could anything be more monstrously unjust?

I thought of answering the letters on the same IOgical
principle, and roundly accusing James of waving the
Star-Spangled Banner with offensive Yankee-ism.& of talk-
ing Spread-Eagle talk in the most tiresomely vulgar way,

since in the same charming brochure just referred to, he

 

puts all sorts of anti-European rancors in the mouth of
one special correspondent. The plain truth is that James
is himself keenly interested by the international question
in its entirety. He takes it up in his hand, so to speak,
& looks at it on this side a on that. He describes it

to us with a magnificent fidelity. His 'Daisy Miller'

has her contra-type in 'The International Episode'....

But I might go on prosing like this for hours. If you a

I ever meet 100 years from.now, a clasp ghostly hands in

139
HENRY JAMES--5

"No Man's Land," I am sure that if we discuss the lit-
erary developments in a certain tiny, remote planet, we
shall both agree that H.J. did make his permanent mark
there. Perhaps in a sepulchral semi-tone I shall say

"I told you so." Or perhaps I shall only say it in Mrs.
Browning's "thunders of white silence"! (By the way did
it ever occur to you what an abomination that bit of
verse is?)

To Hayne--January 6, 1882

James's "Private-Life" story is, I think exqui-
sitely written.l But oh, what a failure! It is as bad,
in this way, as his "Sir Edward Orme." How can a pro-
fessed realist deal in this odd stuff? The impression
left upon.me was that of a waste of lovely & brilliant
power. The realistic frame made matters so much worse.
One felt oneself hungering for the wildly romantic
backgrounds of poor old Anne Radcliffe! do you know,

I have scarcely seen such silliness and genius combined

in one story.

To Miss Whiting--April 5, 189_(?)

1h0

§XQNEY LANIER

You have once or twice asked me abt Mr. Sydney
Lanier. I have scarcely words to express my dislike
of his writing. There seems to me an artistic inso-
lence about it, an utter jumbling together of rules, a
violation of decent taste, a kind of gymnastic egotism
and a generally wild puffing-and-blowing strain after
effect, that make even the most patient reader require
nerves of steel in order to read one of this gentleman's
compositions through. His attitude is in itself so
ridiculous that even his occasional touches of moderate
self-control (and these seem.very rare) quite lose
weight. I repeat, Mr. D_'s verse shocks, irritates &
disgusts me. Surely you cannot have heard his Psalm
of the Vest seriously praised?

To Hayne--Ju1y 28, 1876

Perhaps I was wrong abt Lanier. Pray, the next
tune that he is conceited, however, and speaks of'"the
future," send him this little slip from Daniel Deronda.
It is one of the most bitingly shrewd things George Eliot
ever said.

By the bye, I think that "waiting for the future"

lhl
SYDNEY LANIER--2

attitude which you.mention in Lanier is a terribly

flippant one.
To Hayne--August 8, 1876

 

 

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

Longfellow's Morituri Salutamus is being widely

 

copied, I see. It is thoroughly his style--not possess-
ing an.original thought, adapted altogether for the popu-
lar ear, full of a certain easy grace--a poem which he
who runs may read. What a gulf of difference between
Longfellow & Tennyson! I sometimes wonder that two
singers so widely opposite should each have attained
such heights of popularity in the same century.

To Hayne--July 7, 1875

Still apropos of sonnets & also of your remarks
abt Longfellow, I must tell you that I think 3 has, in
at least three instances,:made this species of composi-
tion thoroughly perfect--if he has not prominently dis-
tinguished himself in other walks of poesy. Do you

recall his sonnet on translating Dante's Divine Comedy,

1H2
HENRI HADSWORTH LONGFELLOW--2

which begins, "I enter & see thee in the gloom”?

Also the other, beginning "How strange the sculptures
that adorn these towers"?1h2 I find it impossible to
imagine how thought & phrasing could harmonize more
exquisitely than in each of these sonnets. There seems
not a word too much, or too little, and the rhythm
strikes me as superb. Then again, "Giotto's Tower" is

a magnificent sonnet, to my thinking.

To Hayne--August 21, 1875

I recall hearing that Longfellow had greatly
admired your sonnets. You have surely caught the sonnet
idea with admirable thoroughness; and L., by the bye,
though a good judge of what a sonnet should be, does not
always deserve to have this said of himself.

To Hayne--July 1h, 1878

When I went to the Holmes breakfast1h3 I ca11ed

upon Longfellow. He is a most benignant & venerable

 

luaSonnets III and II respectively.
ll"3See p.103, fn. 111.

1&3
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW--3

figure; his head made me think of busts of Aeschylus or
Sophocles, with its reverend, majestic look. He should
reflect his time more, with that superb head. I would
have given it to Herbert Spencer, or some of the masters
of modern thought--not to that sweet-voiced gentle singer.
But I know he is one of your warships, so I won't say
anything that might rouse you to take a defensive atti-
tude. L's poetry pleases me, but--1 don't know why--

it has never stirred me.

To Hayne--March 8, 1880

I have just returned from.Eoston, where I had a
delightful time. I staid with Longfellow in his lovely
old house at Cambridge, a then I went to Aldrich at
Ponkapog. They are both charming hosts--each utterly
different from.the other, and yet similar because of
their common love for what is best in letters. I spoke
of you to Longfellow, a he was very sorry to hear that
you were still unwell. I delivered the Phi Beta poem
at Harvard during my stay; I was prodigiously frightened,
but I think that I got through reputably. Dr. Holmes
and Mr. Longfellow a a lot of other kind literati

luu
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW—-LL

assured me that I did, and it is certainly pleasant

to believe so.

To Hayne--July 19, 1880

And, ah, think what the winter has done! The
dark woodman has set his cold axe to two noble trees--
Longfellow & Emerson! Your lines to Longfellow had
great fire, feeling and tenderness, I have written
nothing yet about the dear poet, though his hospitali-
ties when I read the Harvard poem two or three years

ago, have made me love him.ever since.

To Mr. and Mrs. Hayne--May 22, 1882

JAMES R. LOWELL

 

I think that a sonnet shfi always be composed,
in the first place, of extremely striking thought, and
that, in the second place, its vehicle of expression.
should be thoroughly commodious, easy and natural--as
though the subject had set itself to the music of the
fourteen lines, and there had been no shadow of strain

on the poet's part. For this reason I find Mr. Lowell's

1’45
JAMES R. LOWELL--2

sonnet abt Heine in the Sept. Atlantic a very clumsy
production,lhh and beautiful as are both of Aldrieh's,1h5
I nevertheless think that he wfi have done better to have
put them.in three stanza poems, or something of this
sort....

Mr. Lowell's attempt in the present Atlantic is
like a bulging carpet-bag packed with more than it can
accomodate. It does not sing itself; it is something
distorted, after the most Procrustian fashion, into the
fourteen-lined limit. Indeed, I think (remember, please,
that it is always "I think") Mr. Lowell a most conspi-
cuously unsuccessful sonneteer....Lowell's poem on
Washington has much.noble stuff in it, I thought, as
also his previous Swinburnian ode. He is a great poet,
but he lacks grace and charmc He is like some "faultily
faultless" woman, when at his best; you praise her lines,
her posing, her stature, but you only praise, you do not

love.

 

To Hayne--August 21, 1875

 

11m'"The Dancing Bear."

lu5"Rache1-Ristori" and "Sleep."

1&6
JAMES R. LOWELL-~3

Yes, Lowell has written effective fourteen-
lined scraps, but it seems to me that when he attempts
the real Italian sonnet he fails to be graceful. I have
great respect for his genius, tho! he has always (espe-
cially in that ”blue a gold" edition which you mention)
seemed to be decidedly too didactic. When he does not
sing hot-&-heavy patriotism he plays the vehement moral-
ist or anti-slavery man. And I do love poems written,
as Chas. Baudelaire said--"seulement pour 1e plaisir

d'ecrire un poeme."

To Hayne--September 22, 1875

About Mr. Lowell: he is, I think, the only
literary man to whom I ever addressed an unsolicited
note. Some two years ago Mr. Howells took the trouble to
write me that a poem of mine in the Atlantic called

Immortelleslh6 had won strong encomiums from Lowell and

 

that he had asked a number of questions concerning me,
”very few of which,” said Mr. Howells, "I was able to
answer." How I have been for years a deep admirer of

Lowell's poetry-~indeed, both of his poetry & his humor.

 

1M’Aprn, 1875.

1&7
JAMES R. LOWELL--L|.

Some little time before this the idea had occurred to

me of preparing for the North ABLE Review a very elabor-
ate and radical study of Mr. Lowell's poetry--something
more analytically searching and of more discriminative
handling than had ever appeared before on this subject.
ILseemed to myself in a manner well qualified, at the
outset, for such an undertaking; nevertheless, I studied
his earlier poems (some of them rather monotonously
didactic, you may agree) and was in the act, so to speak,
of diligently drawing comparisons between his more matured
8: his youthful methods, when Mr. Howells's note came.

I was, for reasons stated, tempted to write Mr. Iowell

a few words regarding myself. I said nothing obtrusive
or vainglorious; my letter was almost a mere note of
thanks; I refrained from mentioning the labor of love on
which I was abt to embark, because fearful lest my scheme
might seem to him an audacity. I said not a few praise-
ful things abt his own poems, however, but there must
certainly have been a spontaneity 8c genuineness in what
I wrote that only the most ungoverned irascibility c2
dream of resenting. Well-u-(and there is a kind of bathos
at the end of my anecdote which seems painfully amusing,

sometimes) I never received the slightest answer to my

lh8
JAMES R. LOWELL--S

communication. The philosopher's part wfl have been,
doubtless, for me to continue my study of this man's
works; but somehow the task grew almost repulsive to me;
it was not that any spite or rancor made it so, but
rather that I had lost faith in my subject. It was as
tho' I had seen wordsworth snub his ”little cottage-
girl," or Burns kill his immortal mouse instead of spar-
ing its life. Mr. Lowell's verse brims with such manly
feeling and in it we seem to see the sparkle of such a
humane fire; and moreover while constantly the man he
appears, likewise, so constantly the gentleman, that to
know him guilty of such an assailant discourtesy, such
a mere vulgarity of rudeness, was like coming upon rotten
emptiness where one has looked for vigorous wholesome
solidity. I found it hard not to think that here was a
sinner of the unpardonable sin-~an insulter, literally,
of the holy spirit; one whose words and deeds were divided
by an ugly black chasm of hypocrisy.--But if my case was
unpleasant yours has much darker features; for you know
the man & wrote him not as a stranger but a friend. One
can only say that what he did--or failed to do--is a
blot upon his name. Perhaps he thinks it would be very
pleasant to feel oneself the preprietor of a Muse

1&9
JAMES R. LOWELL--6

who lifts up, so to speak, her classic Greek robes and
shows soiled petticoats underneath theme We can toler-
ate a great many eccentricities in genius, but when a
man talks cleanliness to us by the thousand lines at a
time his arguments lose force should we catch a glimpse
of dirty shirt-linen.

To Hayne--September 9, 1876

J OAQUIN MILLER

Joaquin Miller gave a little promise at first.
He had certain true fire, though immense crudity. But
how utterly he has gone to the dogs in poetry! As if he
could enter in cowhide boots, with a hop, skip & jump,
divine realms where his immortal betters have walked
with reverent unshodden feet. He has outraged Art in-
solently, of late. He has gathered a handful of dust
E flung it in the sphinx's face; but winds have dissi-
pated the sand before it reached her, and she still

smiles on....

To Hayne--N0vember 3, 1877

150
OUIDA (MARIE LOUISE DE LA RAMIEE)1br7

Have you read Ouida's last book Ariadne? It
is simply godlike. This is no excess of praise; I
am sure you will agree with.me. Ouida's earlier work
was full of crudeness and vulgarity, but E2112 Farina,

ngoe, Pascarel & giggg are divine prose-poems, while

 

Ariadne crowns them all with its incomparable loveli-
ness. If you have not read these great works of
genius do so at once, by all means. I envy you the
enchantment that gigga, £3112 Farina and Ariadne must
bring a man of your warm and enthusiastic temperament.
It is infamous that Ouida shfl be so sneered at by
modern critics because of her past faults. She has
become a marvel--a colossus, & nobody admits it.

T.S. Perry stultifies himself by a recent review of

her in Lippincott.

 

To Hayne-4December 12, 1877

l"t'rouida (18hO-l908); her most popular novel in
America was Under Two Flggs (Philadelphia, 1867).

 

151

EDGAR ALLEN POE

 

 

I can't say that I agree with Poe in his defini-
tion of what poetry'should be. It seems to me that
poetry is not necessarily beauty of any sort. Beauty
seems to us its most natural subject, because beauty
yields most readily to the effects of its treatment.

"In its ultimate essence," says Herbert Spencer, "nothing
can be known." Heat, Light & Electricity are indefin-
ible [sic] forces, and I do not see what prevents Poetry
from.heing an equally indefinable one. We only know it
by its effects. We recognise it in Milton's descrip-
tions of Satan & we perceive it in Tennyson's matchless-
ly pure pictures of Elaine. What we call poetry is
really a kind of unexplainable transfiguring splendor
thrown upon.objects both.mmterial and ethereal. Pray,
mark that word "transfiguring." Baudelaire has managed
to throw this light upon objects of the most loathsome
and noxious nature. The task of doing this is an
excessively difficult 233. To deal in the beautiful is
:much easier--possibly because of less inherent antagon-
ism between the mode of treatment & its object. Surely
there is much in what the world considers Poe's best
poetry to be cast out of his works if his own definition
holds good. Is not Tennyson's Vision of §_i_r_1_ a superb

152
EDGAR.ALLAN POE--2

poem--and poetic in a grand sense? And yet it feasts

upon.horrors.

To Hayne-~December 8, 187h(?)

DANTE G. ROSSETTI

 

You rightly, I think, call Rossetti's sonnets
labored. I left my volume in town, otherwise I shE
like to refer to certain of them which have specially
pleased me. One I remember--"Mary's Girlhood," in
which the artistic self-restraint & delicacy of touch
is extremely manifest; but often I found that they
were immensely pretentious in form and manner, without
truly amounting to much in the end; and sometimes
Rossetti is so unpardonably affected! ‘we have a yankee
word, Miss Hancyish that expresses 1t. One can't think
of him as a large-souled ample thoughted man & yet caring
for such flummegz of versification as he often shows a
liking of; Tennyson, at his very worst, does not compare
with him in affectations. I hope I am not casting pitch
at one of your idols. I know that many aesthetic tastes
are deeply fond of Rossetti.

To Hayne-~September 22, 1875

153
DANTE c. ROSSETTI--2

I would not give them [the poems of Oscar Wilde]
for all the affected attitudinizing of Rossetti, whose
poetry never appeals to me in the least. No one of
that school surpasses Wilde, in.my opinion, except
Swinburneuif you can say that S. belongs to any school.

To Hayne--February 17, 1883(?)

 

FRANK SALTUS
Saltus told me that he had written you. I
hope, if you can, that you will send him one of your

long, charming letters. He is a genius; you will never
regret having him for a correspondent.

To Hayne--July 1h, 1878

I am.so glad that you & Saltus have become cor-
respondents. There is no doubt whatever of Saltus being
a man of decided genius. I am sure that from the present
year his fame will gradually go on increasing. The son-
net of his in.Appleton's is not in his best vein. Some-
times he absolutely refuses to polish his verses enough;

15h
FRANK sums—-2

but of late he has been much more careful. His mind
seems steeped in shadow; I do not mean that he is an
unbeliever; nearly everybody is that, nowadays, who
thinks at all; I mean, rather, that he willfully selects
for subjects of poetic treatment the most uncanny & re-
pulsive things. Sometimes he inevitably fails, just as
Baudelaire did; but I find that his successes are very
notable. This sort of composition is sneered at by the
conventionalists, who can endure nothing that they do
not understand in art, and who understand nothing ex-
cept what has been beaten into their brains from
infancy.

To Hayne--September 17, 1878

I agree with all that you say regarding Saltus.
It seems to me that he is a strange case of genius with-
.out ambition. I am.sure that he cares much more for my
literary success than his own. His recent developments
from.srudity of style into the ornate yet sinewy verse
which he at present writes, has interested me greatly.
I have been a severe critic with him; some of my lash-
strokes may have drawn blood, but he has never winced,

and has bravely endeavored to profit by the castigation.

15S
FRANK SALTUS—-3

He represents a big responsibility. I find that he
trusts & believes in my literary judgments too much.
Although people have given me, in some quarters, a
very pretty reputation for a most obstinate egotist,
you, I know, understand me well enough to feel the ab-
surdity of their verdict; and I constantly wonder
whether I have been an efficient or trustworthy guide
for a man.of S.'s fiery yet beautiful creativeness.
Our methods of composition are so different! I am so
deliberating and judicial; he is so impulsive and
passionate in his work. Well, perhaps we each do the
other good. Let it be hoped so.

To Hayne-—February 2, 1879
Saltus, too, has not been well; I have been

worried about him; you know his reckless life; I am.so

afraid that he may suffer from.a general defaillance;

 

‘ and with his wit, genius, and individual charm, it would
indeed be a terrible loss if anything happened to hime
But he is better, now, and if he will only consent to
take care of himself why should there not be a chance of
his vigorous constitution triumphing?

To Hayne--July I9, 1880

156
FRANK SALTUS--h

I think Saltus has greatly improved. He- has
decidedly put on the brakes in his ruinously rapid
course. At one time, you know, he never went to bed

8: never got up. Now he does both with the proper re-

gularity.
To Hayne--November 19, 1880

EDMUND g. STEDMAN
I have so long neglected answering your last
letter that I felt quite a pang of remorse when Mr.

Stedman. told me the other evening that you had written
him some kind things about me.

To Hayne--October 10, 1877

I see that Stedman's new book is out. I glanced
at it in Brentano's this morning. Excepting Hawthorne,

 

I found that nearly all--in fact all--of the poems were
not printed for the first time.

To Hayne-"October 23, 1877

157
EDMUND c. STEDMAN--2

Stedman says that Aldrich was his pupil. Aldrich
does not admit this, and if it be true, the pupil has
immensely eclipsed the master, for I think that Aldrich
has written about twenty of the most perfect brief
picturesque lyrics of any time.

To Hayne--March l, 1878

RICHARD HENRY STODDARD

I do not know Mr. Stoddard--0therwise I wfl try to
get you news abt him.
To Hayne--July 7, 1875

I have a bit of gossip for you. Stoddard has
recently been doing the literary work of the Evening
Express, and has said the most cheap, stupid & even in-
solent things about a number of writers. His English has
been bad, his style vulgar, & his best friends (few in
number, I fear) have been saddened by the spite, inelegance
and ridiculous shafts, and yet, the other night, he cooly

sent a messenger (a mutual friend) to my side, at the

158

RICHARD HENRY STODDARD--2
Lotos Club reception, asking me to come over & speak to
him" I had before known him.but slightly; I wished the
acquaintance now to terminate, and refused to notice his
request. I suppose it was what we call the "cut direct".
I meant it for this--and, I think, justifiably. To the
gentleman who brought back word that I had refused to
approach him, S_ became very amusingly explosive. "I
have held out my hand," he exclaimed in furious tones,
"to F._ and he has declined it. I promised Mrs ._
that I‘wfl say nothing more against him, but now by G-d,
I'll kill hims I've killed bigger men, and by {_Q_
I'll not leave him.a leg to stand on." This is, almost
verbatim, what was said. Pardon.my literalness, but the
egotism.of this volcanic old gentleman is so funny that
I think you will enjoy it. Can you imagine his giving
himself away so recklessly?--As a poet I have never
thought S_ of the least consequence. As a man, I begin
to think him.worthy of much greater contempt. But perhaps
it is dotage.1“'8

Tb Hayne--February 6, 1878

 

luBCf. recounting of same incident in Lippincott
article, p.13-lu.

 

159
RICHARD HENRY STODDARD--3

I must tell you that Stoddard wrote the Independ-
ent review of Fantasy §_Rassion and also the Scribner
one.lh9 This I know positively. Did you ever hear of
such pitiable spite? What a wretched, pathetic sort of
figure this invidious old man cuts! I think that even
Thackeray would have compassion upon him if tempted
accurately to draw his portrait.

To Hayne-~July 1h, 1878

Someone once told me of R.H. Stoddard that he be-
lieves in divesting verse from.all such adornment, and I
consider, from what specimens I have seen of his own work

that such altheory has resulted, in his case, in baldness

 

1“(’The reviews are not as destructive as Fawcett's
comment would suggest. The Scribner review of June, 1878,
notes that "he [Fawcett].has, proBaBly, printed a greater
number of verses during the last ten years than any other
writer in.America," and therefore, the review contends,
"it would not be just to criticize his work as that of a
novice." The criticism.continues in severe fashion by
arguing that "if the examples of a lack of taste which
we have quoted in this notice were exceptional, it would
be an ungracious and unnecessary task to dwell upon them,
But they indicate the inveterate habit of the writer,--
they seem.to be the result of choice, they are well-
considered methods of composition and not mere lapses...."
The review, however, does conclude on this note: "If
Mr. Fawcett does have in him.the power of growth, which
the author of poems as good as are his best should possess,
his work in the future will be worthier of his best aims."

160
RICHARD HENRY STODDARD--h

and primness and a total lack of that divine (appar—

ent) laisser aller which marks so charmingly a few of

 

his contemporaries.

Tb wyman--March 10, 1890(?)

ALGERNON Q, SWINBURNE

What appears to us uncouth & awkward among the
verses of dead masters, has, after all, been the fullest
result of their own period. They were groping toward
metrical ideals, just as we are groping; but their age
weighed heavily upon them, as indeed ours (if we could
see more plainly) weighs heavily upon us. Hereafter,
the magnificent rhythms of Swinburne may lack much of
what now seems to us the most splendid rolling harmony;
but Swinburne has pushed verse beyond Shelley's best
effort--and to grasp the poetic spirit of our time is

the most that any of us can do.

To Hayne--may 10, 1875

161
ALGERNON C. SWINBURNE--2

I was very glad indeed to see the letter from
Mr. Swinburne. I retain it, but shall not do so if
this was not your desire. Yen said nothing abt my re-
turning it, and so I confess that I felt a most avari-
cious objection to letting it again quit my hands unless
thro' your special orders. What makes the letter pecu-
liarly valuable, I think, is the sentence from.so great
a poet about so great a book as his Songs before Sunrise.
The handwriting is conspicuously bad-amuch worse than in
a note of his which Hr. Richardson of the Independent
showed mm abt a year ago. Surely there is something very
charming in the sympathy shown by this young poet for
the republican cause & the superbly inspired way in which
he upholds it. I am.afraid that he quite over-rates our
governmental advantages; his own country is surely as well
ruled as ours. Perhaps a few weeks among the lobbyists
at Washington would open his eyes somewhat. Do you re-
member in the Epilogue of Songs before Sunrise, those
exquisite lines on page 273--"One thought they have, even
love" 8oc--And again, the description of the swimmer on

 

page 283--Then what marvelous words those are on page 5th
of the prelude--"We too have tracked, by star-proof
trees," and further on that matchless description of how

162
ALGERNON C. SWINBURNE--3

they ”called on Cotys by her name Edonian &c" There is

a grand monotony in the book; it undoubtedly cloys; but
when has the world seen.such variably magnificent rhyth-
mic grace before? Never, surely. Perhaps the grandest
passage of all is in Quia Multum Amavit,15o beginning on
page 135, "By the lightening of the lips of guns, whose
flashes" & running alone to middle of page 136, ending
with the imperiously saxon question "Why hastthou done
this thing?" He may well say ”This book is myself."

Ah! He is’a very great post! ~Sometimes I am led to think

 

him in many respects the greatest lyrist (even allowing for

the age which he inherits) that the world has ever seen....
He [J.H. Thompson] is, like myself, a profound

lover of Baudelaire. I consider B_ an excessively

immoral poet, & Swinburne not. 3. is always dramatic.

He rarely sneers at good in his own voice; he usually

makes someone else, whom he personates, utter atrocious

sentiments, whilst Baudelaire, in the most diabolic,

fiendish style, simply seems to denounce and renounce

 

15°"Qu1 Multum Amavit ."

163
ALGERNON c. SWINBURNE--h

all idea of virtue.
To Hayne-—September 22, 1875

Do you know I shE like to meet O'Shaughnessy,
Payne &a few others of the younger English poets & beg
them.not to imitate Swinburne. It seems to me that this
tendency will be their ruin.

To Hayne--0ctober 15, 1875

Do you ever hear from.swinburne now? It must be

very charming to receive letters from him--

To Hayne--July 19, 1876

I have the greatestreverence for S.'s genius, but
I can not agree with you abt Tristram.& Iseult. It seems
to me to contain his worst affectations without his mag-
nificent rhythms and powers of lyrical expression. I am
beginning to think him.enly a lyrical poet. He never
seems to me superbly successful except in this one de-
partment. I except Chastelard, which contains incompar-
able passages-—Ybu ask me why I have not sent S_ some of

my poems. About a year ago I did so. I made him.the one

16h
ALGEBNON C. SHINBURNE--S

great exception in this respect, and without any note,
forwarded him at least 20 of the poems which I think
the best. He has never acknowledged them. There was
no reason for him to do so , and I hardly expected that
he would. But I confess that I should like to know

what so great a poet thought of my work.

To Hayne-- 18 76151

It must be very charming to be in correspondence
with Swinburne. I have from time to time sent him some
of my poems, soliciting no reply howeveruand getting
none. I daresay that he thinks I amount to very little.
Don't, pray don't think this conceited, but if he shfl
ever write you’a line regarding anything of mine, praise-
ful or otherwise, I should greatly like to see it!...By
the bye, I can't agree with you abt Swinburne's Tristram

 

_a_ Iseult. It possesses, to me, his worst conceits and
extravagances without much of his magnificent fervor.
He is making a great mistake, I think, in touching this

ground, already so consecreated by the lovely genius

 

151There is no way to account for the similarity
of thought and expression betwun this excerpt and the
following one from a different letter.

165
ALGERNON C. SWINBURNE-—6

of Tennyson. The love-songs are turgid, horribly af-

fected & almost meaningless, I think.

To Hayne--March 26, 1877

Do you ever hear from.Swinburne nowadays? It
seems to me a sad shame that so great a poet, and one of
so expansive a lyrical magnificence, should not have a
better American constituency. He has been doing some
foolish "critical" work of late, I think, & has said
some things about George Eliot which struck me as no
less silly than in.lamentable taste. He sometimes seems
to mm like a marvellous genius mixed with a little child.
I suppose it is the old story of geniuses--0ne faculty

superbly developed at the expense of others.

To Hayne--0ctober 10, 1877

I often wonder whether Swinburne has ever spoken
to you of the poems which I sent him, No matter how dis-
paragingly he may have written, pray let me see anything
that he writes. By the way, I think him.ebout as absurdly

wretched &'unanalytical a critic as he is a great poet.

To Hayne--October 23, 1877

.166
ALGERNON C. SWINBURNE--7

What Swinburne said about George Eliot being
thrown sprawling over the crupper of her spavined
Pegasus was to me both silly and impudent. I cannot
tell you how repulsive I find that sort of half-hidden
billingsgate.

To Hayne--November 3, 1877

New I am.going to ask a favor of you. Will you
not send me the letter in which Whittier spoke to you of
my poetry as also the last letter which you recs from Mr.
Swinburne? I do not think there is much risk of their
being lost in the mail, and I promise to take the best,
care of them.and return them punctually. Of course you
may have reasons for not granting this request, & if so
have no hesitation in saying as much; I shall not be a
whit offended. Swinburne to me is one-of the greatest,
most curious & interesting poets who ever lived, and
anything he mmy write I sh2.suppose that it wfi be a rare
treat to see.

To HayneepFebruary 6, 1878

I am very disappointed with Swinburne's last book,
the and series of Poems & Ballads. That is my review

167
ALGERNON C. SWINBURNE--8
signed E.F. in the Library Table.

To Hayne--July lLi, 1878

I would not give them [the poems of Oscar Wilde]
for all the affected attitudinizing of Rossetti, whose
poetry never appeals to me in the least. No'one of that
school surpasses Wilde, in my opinion, except Swinburne--

if you can say that S. belongs to any school.

To Hayne-~February 17, 1883(?)

Swinburne (as Mr. E.C. Stedman, in Scribner's
Monthly for March, justly says) has carried English
Rhythm beyond the border of anything which it had pre-
viously attained; in his M g Ballads he has overleapt
a chasm of metrical and rhymthical difficulty which seem-
ed before wholly impassable; he has given us music that,
as regards its creation, suggests so strongly the possession
of genius as to make that much-disputed word no longer in
doubt as to its thorough right of existence. How he has
accomplished his marvellous melodies transcends the power
of analytic explanation; it is miraculous, unthinkable;

he had no apparent material out of which to make his

wondrous sounding song; Shelley's odes are nothing compared

168
ALGERNON C. SWINBURNE--9

with his own, though they are perhaps, their reasonable
antecedents....Yet has Swinburne ever shown himself a'
worthy peer of Tennyson in subtlety, largeness of
pathetic sympathy, love of nature, clairvoyance of re-
flection, of psychological insight, of investigation
into those exquisitely shadowy fancies, dreams & yearnings
which hover on almost invisible wings over the grosser
realm.of graspable & positive thought. Swinburne is the
greater rhythmist;_a gymnast of verse so incomparably
graceful in his evolutions that to professional no less
than to layman eyes their artificiality is lost in their
grandeur of performance.

Swinburne has immense strength of phrasing & some
color, but his rhythm far surpasses both.

Tb WymanP-March 10, 1890(?)

BAYARD TAYLOR

And what do you think of Mr. Bayard Taylor's new
volume? Some of the poems please me extremely.

To Hayne--December S, 1875

169
EAYARD TAYLOR--2

My dear Mr. Taylor,

I thought that I would let you see this early copy
of my book.152 I do not know whether you still continue
your critical duties on the Tribune or no, but if you do
it may be of service to you in reviewing the poems. I
cannot say when they will appear, but should suppose
that it will be abt the 18th of March. With kindest re-
gards, believe me

Sincerely yours,

Edgar Fawcett
To Taylor--February 26, 1878

I was very glad that Bayard Taylor recfl the

German mission; he is perfectly suited to it—-such a genial,

wise, scholarly fellow.

To Hayne--March l, 1878

My dear Mr. Taylor,

I shall indeed be glad if you will write your
opinion about "Fantasy & Passion" from Berlin, whither

 

l5217'antasz and Passion.

170
BAYARD TAYLOR--3

our country has had the excellent judgment to send you
--an atonement, in.my congratulating eyes, for even
their wild misconduct on the silver question. But you
must let me send you a bound copy, will you not?--and
with a little dedicace, saying with what feelings I
confer the small gift. This I shall surely remember
to do. By the way, the Messrs. Roberts pleasantly tell
me that it will be like burying my book to bring it
out with the market in such a slothful state; so I
mmst of course bid good—bye to any thought of a succes
d'argent.

I enjoyed my single Sunday morning at your house
so much that after all I must admit to not feeling wholly
pleased at your having recE.the Berlin mission. It will
give me sincere pleasure to get a line from you now &
then.while away, tho' doubtless you will be bombarded by
correspondents.

Always sincerely yours,

Edgar Fawcett

To Taylor—-March 3, 1878

171
BAYARD TAYLOR-~h

My dear Mr. Taylor,

Thanks for your kind invitation to visit you on
Sunday evening. I shall come with pleasure, and with
your permission will bring hr. John Meran, a young Irish
poet, who desires especially to meet you. Do not bore
yourself by answering this note just now, unless you
object to my last proposition. Mr. Moran requested me
yesterday to bring him.

Sincerely yours,

Edgar Fawcett

To Taylor--March 8, 1878

Of course you must deeply have felt Bayard
Thylor's death. If I mistake not, he was a dear friend
of yours. I greatly admired your delicately ethereal
tribute to him.in the Tribune. For my part, I liked
Taylor the man better than Taylor the writer; but,

 

possibly for this very reason, I felt his death with
keenest regret.

To Hayne--February 2, 1879

Bayard Taylor never gave me any special thrills;

I recollect (being than a boy) always feeling that he

172
BAYARD TAYLOR—~S

had spoiled his best lyrics by some awkward untasteful
word which could be replaced with far finer result by
some other.

To Wyman--March 10, 1890(?)

 

ALFRED TENNYSON

Compare his [Bryant's] position with Tennyson's.
How much lordlierand more beloved for pure genius alone
is the latter!

Is not Tennyson's Vision of §_i_n_ a superb poem--
and poetic in a grand sense? And yet it feasts upon
horrors. '

To Hayne--December 8, l87h(?)

Have you dipped into "Queen.Mary" yet? I have .
been greatly astonished by it. There seems no discover-
able reason why Tennyson should have so completely
abandoned his old manner. One looks in vain for traces
of those exquisite notes that sounded in Locksley Hall,
The Idylls, The Dream.of Fair WOmen,& numerous other

173
ALFRED TENNYSON--2

masterpieces. What is the necessityof such a writer

 

giving the world such a poem? It is no answer to the
sneers of those who unjustly deny his dramatic power;
for there is not a character in all this rather stupid
& pompous work which approaches those he has already
‘drawn in Elaine, Godiva, the Prince, the Princess, Dora,
Vivien, Enid, Guinevere & many others. Whilst I read
Queen Mary the conyiction once or twice flashed across
me that it was some literary fraud--that Tennyson, the
matchless melodist of other days, never wrote it! But
of course this view is wholly improbable....

What a gulf of difference between Longfellow and
Tennyson! I sometimes wonder that two singers so widely
opposite should each have attained such heights of popu-
larity in the same century.

To Hayne--July 7, 1875

Yen rightly laugh at the great fuss which people
are making over Queen Mary. It merely shows Tennyson's
greatness, I suppose; but I doubt if the French people
would behave in this way if one of their idols had com.
posed a mass of archaic dilettanteism.like this. Nobody

seems, in.my mind, to have assumed the right attitude

171+
ALFRED TENNYSON-- 3

toward Tennyson's new book. He gave us the right to
expect a legitimate successor of Locksley Hall, The
Princess or the exquisite idylls, woven, if you please,
into dramatic form. I can ill find, myself, the faint-
est vestige of the old master-singer who used so force-
fully to charm me....

Tennyson, at his very worst, does not compare

with him [Rossetti] in affectations.

To Haynes-September 22, 1875

...does Tennyson ever pass beyond "that goal of
ordinance," as he himself says, "where all should pause

as is most meet for all"? _]_Z do not think so,...

To Hayne--October 15, 1875

When Tennyson alters it is almost always for the
better; with A_ [Aldrich] it is almost constantly for

the worse .

To Hayne--September 21+, 1876

Take the case of a man who has loved in the one

grand supreme way during life, yet has never possessed--

175
ALFRED TENNYSON--h

never had more than a cold look from.the eyes he adored.
Ought not that man to feel insulted by God (if he be—
lieve in a personal God) for having been made like a
river with no sea into which he might flow? The magni-
ficent and unique rest of utter annihilation cannot pro-
perly recompense him, His suffering has been ironically
and hideously without a raison d'etre. He has been what
Tennyson (in whom I begin to think all life is to be
found) has called "The ball of time, bandied by the hands
of fools." I.

To Hayne--March l, 1878

Have you seen Aldrich's lovely new book? Ah,
there is a true artist! I don't care if his range "33
not quite so wide as other singers." Could any of them
attain his exquisite art they might become Tennysons.
By the way, "Harold" is just announced here. I tremble
for fear it may be some such senile stupidity as Queen
‘Mary, Its "dramatic form” has a very suspicious sound.
I hepe that I may not be called upon to say, at the end
of this new poem, something relative to the advisability
of Tennyson's immediate death. But what words am.I

speaking? "Harold" may prove a masterpiece...and yet I

176
ALFRED TENNYSON- -5

somehow feel in my bones that I am going to gnash.my
teeth over it!--

To Hayne--December 19, 1878(?)

When.you asked me to tell you what were my impres-
sions of Tennyson's poetry I had a dreary sensation that
I could not possibly say anything new to you regarding
that matchless singer, and now, when I really try to rally
all my dispersed beliefs & opinions on this subject under
the standard of anything like positive logical sequence,
I lament the unoriginal result which is sure to follow.
However deeply a co-worker in English verse may admire
the work of him who has given us ”Guinevere" and "The
Vision of Sin” is "The Princess," he surely can mingle
with his eulogism no regret that the world should not
have shared in his own esteem; for when we consider the
supremity of renown which this singer has reached, we
must confess that it is something;which thoroughly
dwarfs the passionate partisanship accorded to Wbrdsworfih
during his life, the adulation enjoyed by Pope or the
wide notoriety which waited.upon Southey. I know of three
separate concordances published in England upon Tennyson's

poems; the greatest sages, statesmen, and philosophers

177
ALFRED TENNYSON--6

seem.to concur in praising him with an immense unani-
mity of encomium; wherever the language is known by cul-
tured people, these appear to pour out for him a perpetu-
al stream of enthusiastic appreciation;--and yet...has he
even now gained his just need of praise? I cannot think
so! Inheriting English verse as Shelley, Keats, WOrds-
worth, Byron & Coleridge left it, he has been like an
heir who has invested his birthright at a sort of sublime
poetical compound interest, and has not alone made his
name a superb succession to those great names before him,
but has touched it, as well, with a lustre that is more
richly, goldenly Olympian than surrounds any preceding
name. For myself, I confess candidly that, although I
had made verses since the age of about nine years, I
never truly saw into the glorious possibilities of a poetic
career until the unrivalled "effects" of this singer first
dawned upon.me. I have no special favorites among his
poems; all are to me exquisite, serenely artistic and
consonant with the spirit of his particular age (an age
now passing away) as nothing contemporary with his writ—
ing has ever approached being! Of course, the "airy
fairy Lillian" and "The Owl" and perhaps one or two other

lyrics possess a touch of unnecessary grotesqueness &

178

ALFRED TENNYSON--7

chercher which are good food for the laughter of the

 

‘ungodly & ignorant; but I question whether the retention
of these lines among Tennyson's others has not resulted

from.a sort of dilettante desire on the poet's part to

 

heighten the impressions produced of his poetry by the
stinging & whetting stimulus of contrast. Swinburne

(as Mr. E.C. Stedman, in Scribner's Monthly for March,
justly says) has carried English rhythm beyond the border
of anything which it had previously attained; in his

Poems and Ballads he has overleapt a chasm of metrical

 

and rhythmical difficulty which seemed before wholly
impassable; he has given us music that, as regards its
creation, suggests as strongly the possession of genius‘
as to make that much-disputed word no longer in doubt as
to its thorough right of existence. How he has accom-
plished his marvellous melodies transcends all power of
analytic explanation; it is miraculous, unthinkable; he
had not apparent material out of which to make his
wondrous sounding song; Shelley's odes are nothing com,
pared with his own, though they are perhaps, their reason-
able antecedents....Yet hhs Swinburne ever shown himself

a worthy peer of Tennyson in subtlety, largeness of pathe-

tic sympathy, 1ove of nature, clairvoyance of reflection,

179 '
ALFRED TENNYSON--8

of psychological insight, of investigation into those
exquisitely shadowy fancies, dreams a yearnings which
hover on almost invisible wings over the grosser realm

of graspable & positive thought? Swinburne is the greater
rhythmist; a gymnast of verse so incomparably graceful in
his evolution, that to professional no less than to lay-
man eyes their artificiality is lost in their grandeur of
performance;--but Tennyson, to my thinking, still holds
his own domain of calm, sculptural, radiant beauty! It
is an absolute pain for me to think that his supremacy
shall one day dwindle; that his lovely effects, imitated
by future generations, shall lose their dewy, balmy
freshness; that he is fated to become relatively and con-
trastedly commonplace; and this is the fate of nearly all
great poets, let the infallible critics shake their heads
ever so denyingly. Doubtless you and I would have
thrilled and flushed over the Corsair and the £332,153
had we been born in the Byronic day, and to our grand-
children perhaps there will be hours of yawning over the
charms of gggg and‘Elgigg.

To Wyman--March 10, 1890(?)

 

153Two poems by Byron (181h) ostensibly based upon
the life of Jean Lafitte.

180

 

JAMES MAURICE THOMPSON

YOu spoke of Mr. J. Maurice Thompson in your
last letter. Mr. T_ wrote to me abt a month ago,
telling me that he had seen a note of mine to Mr. Howells,
in which I had praised his poem.2$323. His note was a
sort of off-handedly, whole-souledly cordial affair, to
which I responded with considerable promptitude; but
since then I have not heard anything from Mr. Thompson;
I have repeatedly wondered whether he ever rec2,my
reply....

I send you a little poem of mine on Decoration
Day, printed in the N.Y} World of May 31st. Tell me how
you like my patriotic dactyls & send it to mr. Thompson
if you think he will care to see it.

To Hayne--July 7, 1875

Mr. Thompson thinks my letters interesting enough
to answer them, I am happy in saying, very charmingly
indeed. He is, like myself, a profound lover of
Baudelaire....Mr. Thompson sent me his book,15h & I
like it extremely, except that Hoosierdom.always bores
me a little, as I told him. ‘

To Hayne--September 22, 1875

 

ls1"I-I'oosier Mosaics.

181
JAMES MAURICE THOMPSON--2

I hope Thompson's book is succeeding, tho' I
am.honestly afraid that it will not succeed. A book
nowadays must have such a keen voice to make itself
heard in the great clamor. I sommtimes think that books

of the best flavor are not noticed at_all nowadays.

To Hayne—-October 15, 1875

Mr. Howells tells me that he thinks ill of
Thompson's book. I don't at all sympathize with him in
his bad opinion. ’

To Hayne-~December 8, 187h(?)

Maurice Thompson has made a hit with his bow-
and-arrow articles. I think it unfortunate. He is a
poet, &Iit wfi be far better if he were known in that
way alone, no matter how slow he was in winning his

spurs; do you not think so.

To Hayne-~July 19, 1876

I see that Mr. Thompson has a poem in the
October Lippincott. I'do not think it at all bad, but

182
JAMES MAURICE THOMPSON--3
it seems to me that he can do better work.

To Hayne--September 2h, 1876'

I hear that our friend Thompson has written a
very brilliant Roman story for Scribner,155 but I have
not yet had an opportunity of reading it. Thompson has
not done anything, in.my opinion, at all equal to his
"Diana" in an old no. of the Atlantic, as far as verse
is concerned. Ybu doubtless remember this poem,

Aldrich spoke to me of it with great praise.

To Hayne--February 2, 1879

WALT WHITMAN156

 

No; I care very little for Whitman and have never

admitted that he was anything more than a kind of high—

 

8 15S"The Doom of Claudius and Cynthia," beruary
1 79. . - '

156Whitman's poetry repelled Fawcett: Cf. the
remarks in A Gentleman of Leisure, pp.88-89, and The

Pride 2E InfeIIecE, pp.232-283.

 

 

183
WALT WHITMAN-~2

flown cataloguist of everything in general &.nothing in
particular. Incoherence, if carried to a great enough
excess, has something sublime abt it, and just as huge
bulk, extension.&c. no matter 35 what material the attri-
bute, impress us strikingly, so does the pretentious work
of Whitman produce like results. His trick is to be
gigantic in everything; he is a kind of colossal poseur.
What is to me specially irritating abt the man is his
evident insincerity. I don't believe that he believes

at all in himself, & feel sure that he has but acted a
lifelong part. Who could not be original if he flung
aside the very laws that govern originality? If poetry
is capable of definition and if this definition makes

it separate from.prose, then Walt Whitman is not a poet.
I think that he now & then strikes upon a good thing.
Amid such vast masses of pudding the wonder would be

that we should find no plums whatever.

To Hayne--March 1h, 1876

The fact of Tennyson &.others so admiring Whitman
is truly remarkable. I suppose that it is chiefly to be
explained by their ignorance of our country. Many clever

Englishmen, you know, affect their ignorance. But it seems

18h
WALT WHITMAN--3

so strange to me that while they allow us to be a new
country they will not admit that we are not a new people;
and from.a new people alone could so lawless & wildly
generalizing a bard possibly spring--I mean, of course,
if he were a genuine singer and not a mere dealer in ef-
fect. Whitman seems to have strong personal friends who
believe in him. I suppose you have seen how John
Burroughs & several others defend him, mentioning his de-
voted charities in the thme of the War & his self-
sacrificing attentions to the wounded soldiers in the
Washington hospitals.

To Hayne--April 2h, 1876

Yes, this Whitman business in England has always
amazed me. I fancy that those great Englishmen have a
foolish though inextirpable contempt for all Ammrican
letters, and that when everything is said they have only
praised Whitman.gum;g£§nd. But is not the feeling dying
out? I fancy so. Art is long. She has outlived all her
insultors thus far, Thank God!

To Hayne--November 3, 1877

185
WALT WHITMAN-4i

I sometimes wonder what I should do if some
marvelously new poet, teeming with an audacious individu-
ality & yet transcendently an artist, should appear
among us. Wbuld I hesitate before I rushed into his arms?
Ah, how often I feel that aching need of something dia-
metrically different from.all we have had before, and yet
unquestionably within the domain of art!--not a contwma-
cious buffalo of letters, like that absurdly overpraised
Whitman!

Tb Hayne--September 17, 1878

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

I was deeply impressed by Whittier's kind words,
and thank you very much for repeating them.

To Hayne--April 2h, 1876

I gladly send you another copy of 22:, & shall
feel most honored if it be thought worthy of e place in
the memorial. It was originally printed in the N.Y.
Tribune for Sept 30th 1875, with one on Whittier, which

186
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER--2

I also enclose. The two were included under the title

Antipodes. Apropos of the Whittier sonnet, I must tell

 

you that when.§llen S2251 appeared I sent a cOpy of this
poem to Whittier himself on the flyleaf of my novel. He
has never acknowledged it, & if he has ever received it
the slight is almost unpardonable. Do you not think so?
I can 111 find it in.my power to believe, however, that
the book did reach him, But for this very reason the
uncertainty is most unpleasant. I can imagine a man like
Mr. Whittier disliking such a worldly sort of book as

Ellen Story excessively; but this, of course, is no

 

excuse for bad breeding.

To Hayne-_August 2h, 1876

On Sunday eve I am going to Boston for the dinner
given by the Atlantic Monthly publishers to Whittier on
his 70th birthday. How pleasant to meet you there! But
of course you will not have your Pine-woods for a dinner,
even tho! Whittier were the occasion for it. I suppose
I shall have a pleasant time, tho' I shall not know any
of the Boston grandees. YOur little poem in the Liter-
ary World on Whittier I thought by far the best of the

187
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER--3

group, & several people have told me that they thought
the same thing. I congratulate you upon it. It
pleased me more than I can tell you. I should have
liked to be W_ while I read it, if only to have such
poetic & felicitious things said of me.

To Hayne--December 12, 1877

After all, I did not go to the Whittier dinner.
It was on Mbnday & so I could not go by boat without
remaining several days in BostOn & by cars the journey
would have been so expensive that I did not feel like
affording it.

To Hayne--January 5, 1878

Now I am going to ask a favor of you. Will you
not send me the letter in which Whittier spoke to you of
my poetry & also the last letter which you rec2,from,Mr.
Swinburne? I do not think there is much risk of their
being lost in the mail, and I promise to take the best

care of them.and return them punctually.

To Hayne--February 6, 1878

188

OSCAR WILDE

 

 

I have recently seen Oscar Wilde & have been
strongly impressed by his brilliant, healthful & half-
boyish personality. The word 'healthful' I use in a
sort of animal sense, though Wilde's conversation, fluent,
enthusiastic and often keenly humorous, suggests nothing
like gross sensuousness. He certainly looks at the out-
sides of things. I don't know if he is capable of
sitting up all night with a lily, as somebody contemp-
tuously recorded of him, but if he did I am sure that it
would be solely from a rhapsOdical love of the lily's

form.and not its symbolic essence. That sounds rather

 

posing & hyper-aesthetical on my part, but I am sure
you will understand my ill-expressed meaning. Of one
thing be sure--He is sincere au}£22d, & his few affec-
tations are never offensive. He revels in the mere
beauteousness of beauty; it is his god; he is a 19th
century pagan, and a curiously winning and interesting
one. I suppose a man requires something extraordinary
about him.in order to make a continent laught at him,
and I assure you I was roused, stimulated, charmed be-
fore he had spoken ten sentences to me. There is no
gush; all his aims and belief are settled in the Beauti-

ful, and he makes you comprehend this and in a manner

189
OSCAR WILDE--2

feel with him though you may refrain from anything like
the deeper order of sympathy.

To Mr. and Mrs. Hayne--May 22, 1882

My dear Oscar,
Do not forget this evening, here, at Seven. YOur
entertainers are to be:
Tal.:
Martin Van Buren
Frankie Riggs
&
Myself

We shall expect you to be in your very most charming &

 

brilliant mood--
Ever yours,

Edgar Fawcett

To Wilde-~November 10, 1882

I know you did not like Oscar that night. I felt it
in my bones; but I am certain that you would be enormous-
1y amused and entertained by him if you knew him better.

He is, of course, not always to be taken seriously. He

190
OSCAR WILDEp-B

says things that he does not mean & that he does not
mean to be taken as if meant. Do not judge him too
hastily.

To Bishop157-—November 18, 1882

I agree with you in much that you say of Oscar
Wilde. The attitude he has assumed before the American
public is rash and silly; for certain people will never
forgive him his knee-breaches, his lilies & his sun-
flowers. But his poetry strikes me as wonderfully pro—
mising. It is insincere as yet. He said in his lecture
that we are all trying to find the secret of life, &
that the secret of life was in art. How untrue that is!
No one but a young poet would have said such a thing.
The secret is in love--humanity, philanthropy and charity,
as well as passion. We all know that after we have lived
three decades, don't we? Still, 'Charmides,‘ 'The Gar-
den of Eros! & 'The Burden of Itys' are very striking
poems. I would not give them.for all the affected atti-

tudinizing of Rossetti, whose poetry never appeals to me

 

157WilliamHenry Bishop; a novelist (18h7-l928).
At this time Bishop had written two works: Detmold (1879),
and The House of a Merchant Prince (1882).

191
OSCAR WILDE-u-Li

in the least. No one of that school surpasses Wilde,
in my opinion, except Swinburne--if you can say that S.

belongs to any school.

To Hayne--February 17, 1883(?)

CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON

 

I was charmed to read what Miss WOolson said about
me. Praise of this spontaneous sort from.such a source
is surely sweet enough to hearten the most discouraged
toiler. Miss W's own stories have repeatedly given me
great pleasure. Her contributions to Appleton are held
in high esteem by Mr. Bunce, who has often mentioned her
to me.

To Hayne--August 2h, 1876

Thanks for having so kindly sent me Miss Woolson's
letter.' I have read it with great interest. HOw strange
'it is that most literary peOple of any ability have this
same shrinking from.society. One might almost feel in-

clined to suspect that they are born with a latent sense

192
CONSTAN CE FEN IMORE NO 015 ON- -2

. ‘¢ I
of their own superiority over thefijwwvfl- 158 Miss

 

Woolson's contentment with the existing order of things
is a trait strictly feminine....Miss Woolson has achieved
in her short stories, I think, an extremely charming
style. Perhaps she is not quite strong-colored enough,
just yet, to be popular in any great degree; but that
will probably come with time and study. Her North-and-
South life give her rare opportunities....It was ex-
tremely kind of you to send Atonement to Miss Woolson.

I am afraid that she was rather shocked by it, however.

To Hayne--September 214., 1876

 

158the multitude .

VII

There are general concerns and standard prin-
ciples involved in the editing of all manuscripts. It
is an editor's responsibility to maintain accuracy in
his presentation and consistency in his methodology; he
must also establish the nature of the proposed edition--
textual, critical, or pOpular---159 prior to the under-
taking. There are other considerations, but the idio-
syncracies of the manuscript determine these. Problems
in authenticity or attribution may exist; different ver-
sions of a manuscript may.“ have to be collated; it may be
necessary to establish an authoritative text from vari-
ant copies; even the problem of dating a manuscript may

be vital to the presentation.

 

159There is some ambiguity and overlapping of func-
tion with reference to the terms textual and critical. A
textual edition is the presentation of a bona fide text to
serve as an authentic basis for sound literary interpre-
tation. W.W. Greg (Studies in Biblio raph , 1950-1951, III,
19-36), considers the 'e'arIIeFE printeé taxi-the one closest
in time to the manuscript itself-..to be the most authori-
tative. Chauncey Sanders, in An Introduction to Research

in lish Literar Histor (N'é'v? W 'd'e‘fI'fi'e'ET"
FFiHfi'a‘f‘e’dfilFfl—fig er "intended for scholars, for
serious students of an author or a period" (p.97). A
critical edition, then, is also a textualone since it is
based upon an authoritative text; it goes beyond the merely
textual, however, in that it provides comment of a critical
nature, setting the work in literary and historical per-
spective. For a discussion of textual study see Richard D.
Altfickgs The Art of Literary Research (New York, 1963),

pp. 9- 3.'.""" "- "" -

 

193

19a,

These specialized concerns, however, are usually
the result of working with documents of_earlier cen-
turies. An editor encounters fewer problems with manu-
scripts or texts of recent origin. No eighteenth cen-
tury editing task could possibly be as complex as the
‘Piggg Plowman dilmmma wherein there are some sixty-odd
ccpies of manuscripts representing three different and
separate versions of the poem, There is sparse comment
even by textual critics on nineteenth century editing
tasks, and nothing whatsoever on twentieth century pro-
blemm; this lack of discussion reflects the comparative
simplicity of contemporary editing needs, and the fact
that studies of earlier problems inevitably encompass
the relatively fewer modern editing enigmas.

Thus in the editing of 22: Pride fig Intellect I

 

 

had no need to concern myself with matters of collatiOn
or textual variation since there is but one known.manu-
script in existence. There were problems in authenti-
city, dating, and attribution, but, again, the recent
origin of the manuscript simplified these affairs. I
found the manuscript in a carton which was part of the
contents of the de Coppet estate in.larragansett, Rhode
Island. The de Coppets, two unmarried sisters, were
nieces of Edgar Fawcett. The manuscript itself is

legibly written in Fawcettis own hand, his signature

195

appears on the first and last page, and his address--
7 St. Loo Mansions, Cheyne Gardens, Chelsea, S.W.,
London--appears on the first page. Since the Diction-
ggy'g£_American Biography locates Fawcett's address at
death in the Chelsea district of London, and since his
previous London addresses from 1899 to 1903, as listed
in who's Egg.ig;America, were not in the Chelsea area,

 

it seems reasonable to assume that Fawcett began.or com-
pleted the novel while he lived in Chelsea, which would
have been early in l90h. Shortly before his death,
Fawcett either mmiled the manuscript to his nieces in
iarragansett for possible American publication, or, more
probably, someone else sent his effects to the do Coppet
sisters after his death in l90h. So much for authenti-
city, attribution, and the determination.of a reasonable
date.

Since standard editing concerns were of little
consequence in.working with this modern manuscript, my
first considerations had to do with the nature of the
edition.and the extent and kind of manuscript revision.
I have prepared a textual and critical edition, and have
accepted the guidelines of Reverend Dr. Alexander B.
Grosart as a model for editorial responsibility: "'Here
I wish mainly to state, by way of General Preface, that
with Greene, as in all my editing, my law and endeavor

196

combined, is to reproduce the Author's own text in inte-
grity 1.2 it, without an attempt at (so-called) "improve-
ments," or even modernisation of the spelling, punctuation,
etc."‘. Of course Grosart is not suggesting a reproduction
without change. "'Such few corrections of misprints and
mispunctuations as it has been deemed expedient to make ,'"
he adds, "'are recorded in the Iotes and Illustrations,
save trifles such as a reversed letter, as n for u; mis—
placed letters, as hwose for howse (=house); misplaced
words as "yet if he doubting he" for "yet doubting if he",
...and the like....'"16° ° '

Grosart's principles, in their general formulation,
provide the basis for currently acceptable standards. The
Harvard 2% to; American Histogy notes that even in a '
modernized text--the most liberal edition of all--there
should be no "attempt to improve the writer's grammar,
syntax or choice of words."161 Thus the manuscript itself
is sacred save for the correction of inadvertent errors in
spelling and punctuation. .

I have, accordingly, without benefit of notes,
changedthe spelling of words, altered punctuation, and
spelled out abbreviations. I have waived the dictum of

 

1601s quoted in Sanders, pp.95-96.

16J-Oscar Handlin, _e_t _al. (Cambridge, 1951i). P-99o

197
consistency, however, with reference to Fawcett's alter-
nate employment of British and American word construc-
tions. without any. discernible rationale, Fawcett is
given upon one occasion to employ an 9-1—1!- ending as in
honour, and upon another occasion to spell the word 299.23
without the 2' In the same random manner he now writes
the word m and then my; be is consistent with his
utilization of I_I_ instead of _z_ in such words as recognise
and realise, and with the 32 rather than 2 ending as in
lustre and sombre 3 and yet there is no apparent pattern
for he prefers Judgent to Qudgemen .

Consistency would have me stabilize the disparate
spellings, but an insight into Fawcett's own life and the
nature of the novel would have it otherwise. The confusion
results from the fact that Fawcett spent the last seven
years of his life in London, and since much of the novel
reflects the theme of‘cultural conflict--English and
American-..a fidelity to the confused spelling pattern
evokes the nature and intensity of the conflict in Fawcett's
life and in the life of the novel. Conversely, to modern-
ize a period novel is to divest it of its own imediacy,
and the lack of spelling pattern does tend to place the
work in time.

Such an editorial Judgment is arbitrary but sound;
other decisions which culminate in change rather than in

198
accurate reproduction, I have explained in the notes. I
_ have not provided translations in the notes for those
Latin and French phrases of readily apparent meaning.

Chauncey Sanders, in.én Introduction.tg Research

$2.§E§11'h Literary History, establishes the responsi-
bilities of‘a critical edition:

First, it should provide a correct text, re-
presenting as exactly as possible the author's
final intention, with all errors elflminated.
Second, it should explain any allusions or
other readings that are likely to prove dif-
ficult for the sort of person who may be ex-
pected to use the work. Third, it should fur-
nish a commentary that will serve to fit the
work into its setting so that the reader may
be able to appreciate its literary and his-
torical significance. Fourth, it should, as
Professor Mbrize wrote, "be easy to handle

and convenient, arranged and printed in such
a way as to afford instruction and pleasure,
with notes gaat elucidate and do not submerge
the text."1 .

Including the discussion in Chapter III on the
literary and historical significance of the novel, the
present edition fulfills all four of Sander's conditions.
However, a fifth responsibility--the presentation of a

detailed analysis of the novel--also exists.

 

1
6213.97.

VII

Periodical criticism of Pawcett's novels estab-
lishes the existence of certain tendencies in his works
and exposes a pattern of consistent weaknesses. A syn-
thesis of this commentary would provide critical judg-
ment broad enough to encompass all of Fawcett's writings
and incisive enough to apply to any and of the individu-
al works. This composite analysis would undoubtedly
have application to _T_h_e_ £1212. 9.1... Intellect. That is,

 

the plot of gh_e_ 3:122 35 Intellect creaks with con-
trivance; the characterizdtion is one dimensional in
melodramatic fashion and dependent upon omniscient state-
ment rather than internal movement for its validity; the
theme is superficial and trite; and the style, which is
turgid and heavy, bears no relationship to _the theme.
The plot revolves about the fortunes of. young
Kenneth Indermaur, the brilliant commoner who Just hap—
pens to have written the two most popular literary works
of the English speaking world. One work, Thoughts 2.22.
£92.29 is a heart-warming, cheerful study which Indermaur
published anonymously; the other, Loaves 23 Fishes,
which Indermaur acknowledges to be his own, is an honest,
biting, and bitter satire. Given this base it follows
that the young woman of Indermaur's affection loves the

199

200

sentiment of the first work and contemns the cynicism of
the latter. Indermaur cannot admit Thoughts 9_u_t_ _lgyl to
be his own, and so he has doubly deceiveduhe has deceiv-
ed his lady, Myrtle, and he has deceived the world, for
the ideas expressed in Thoughts, which he composed upon
a dare, are not sincere. Upon this unlikely structure a
series of unlikely events are hinged: Indermaur becomes
the darling of a good part of the nobility; he replaces
a scheduled speaker at the Tatterdemalion dinner and his
skillful and brilliant oratory sweeps the remaining seg-
ment of the influential and high-positioned into his

.0

camp Adalbert Hurst cleverly exposes Indermaur's dupli-
city; Cursitor cleverly exposes Adalbert's malevolence
and dishonesty; firtle casts Indermaur aside when she
learns of his secret authorship and deceit; Indermaur
freely confesses his deviousness to Myrtle; Myrtle has

a change of heart and takes him back as the novel ends

and life begins for the two young people.

7 There is humor in such a structure, but it is the
kind occasioned by stylized obsolescence. Other than for
its historical import in the develOpment of literary form,
the novel cannot be approached seriously as a work of art.
Certainly no theme which emanates from such an artificial

fabric can be accorded any aesthetic literary value.

There is nothing more weighty than the final statement

201
that "true love conquers all"; nothing more intense or
probing than the banality that "duplicity must out"; in

fact, a sub-title might even be appropriate: The Pride

 

22 Intellect, or, Humility ig_the Best Policy. The host

 

of possible themes which emerge from the novel are neither
provocative nor ambiguous; they are superficial and com.
mon-place observations.

The characterization in no way compensates for
these inadequacies of plot and theme; it is as pathetical-

ly conceived as all else. Kenneth Indermaur is the bril-

 

liant, sensitive young man, governed by his brilliant inner
light of honesty and aided in his quest of Myrtle by;
Cursitor, the loyal friend, who is slightly less brilliant,
slightly less sensitive, and slightly less governed by an
intense inner light of honesty; yet his every action is
calculated to win for his friend, Indermaur, the hand of:
Myrtle, the beautiful,-intelligent, sensitive, virtuous,
pure, young heroine who is unattainable but who becomes at-
tainable to Indermaur despite the machinations of the bril-
liant but evil: Adalbert Hurst, who is a cold, ruthless,
cruel, heartless, calculating, and worthy foe. There is no
other way to present an insight into the nature of the per-
sonnae; they are stilted, flat, stereotyped figures who
move in established patterns. They do not lend themselves

to lengthy comment or profound analysis.

202

While the nature of character prohibits serious
comment, Fawcett's method of characterization.does pro-
voke a response. Fawcett establishes character by state-
ment alone; action, dialogue, and behavior convey nothing.
Thus Fawcett insists that the brilliant Indermaur, by vir-
tue of his charm and wit, is capable of winning the admira-
tion and affection of all who come in contact with him, even
those who are predisposed to disliking him, He then places
Indermmur in the company of Lord Plinlimmon who had pre-
viously expressed his distaste for Indermaur's sort and had
vowed to be nothing if not uncivil to him. Only Cursitor
views the meeting, however, and Fawcett does not permit the
reader to witness Indermaur's conquest:

He watched Indermaur, so to phrase it, from
afar. His nerves were steeled against all
possible catastrophe--what name could be too
serious for the action, provided Lord Plinlim-
mom stripped off all sacred vesting of host-
ship and played the nude cad before a bidden
guest?...

The light struck with a sidelong and search-
ing effect, Just‘then, full upon Indermaur.
"When," thought his covert observer, "was manly
shapeliness joined in securer harmony to the
facial proof of an intellect large and alert?
that a frame to tempt the mulptor's chisel, .
what poise of head, what felicity of carriage!
At Oxford, in the early days of his sojourn
there, a few exclusive malcontents tried to
teach hbm paces; but in the end how he brought
them.round, made them.walk in his wake! And
it was all so effortless with him, a conquest
so good-humoured, a turning of the tables at
once so placid and complete!...But these were
collegiate innings. How he plays in the bigger
game of life. How about Marmaduke, who Just
now represents it? Will he dare carry out the

203

threat he hurled at Blanche?"

What followed for.Cursitor--who was too
far away to hear and could only see--meant
the most potent of _pantomimes. Indermaur
seated himself, and Lord Plinlimmon, with
arched nose in the air, paid him no heed
whatever. The Earl simply went on speak-
ing with the person on his other side...

Indermaur did not show a trace of chag-
rin. One hand played carelessly with a
voided wine-glass. He was smiling as he
reached forth his other hand and faintly
touched with it the shoulder of his host.

Lord Plinlimmon turned sharply, almost
fiercely. The vigilant Cursitor felt like
closing his eyes and shuddering one minute,
and the next like rushing forward and drag-
ging his adored Kenneth outside the radius
of raw insult. .

But soon he saw a change that seemed to
flavor of miracle. The Earl burst into a
laugh. Then Indermaur spoke on, while his
listener surveyed him, visibly appealed to
by his virile symmetries, by the brightness
and sweetness and quiet nobility that summed
up the peculiar beauty of his face. -

"It's Oxford all over again," swept through
Cursitor's gladdened spirit. 'He's done it
here, Just as so often he did it there! He's
got him! He's landed his fish--is there a
fish in the social waters that he can't land
if he pleases?..."

Fawcett never directly reveals any of Indermaur's
virtues; For his glowing undergraduate years, we have
only Cursitor's word; for his glorious oration at the
Tatterdemalion dinner, we have only Fawcett's word; and
for his conyersational brilliance, ws have only the word
of those characters who have been privileged to hear him
speak.

The verbose prose style of the novel makes the

failure to establish character through movement all the

201+

more pathetic. Fawcett expends little effort upon char-
acterization and‘wastes much on unessential movements and
irrelevant details. He describes 'a room, for example, for
the sake of the verbiage alone. The description does not
suggest an environmental influence upon character, nor does
it reveal the nature of the character who occupies the
lodging. Cursitor's room is described as follows:

The Tito Street house was small, but opulent in

three qualities, comfort, cosiness, and taste.

On every floor the footfall was deadened by car-

pets .of richest texture. Certain heavy arras-

like fabrics were family heirlooms, as also not

a few mellow old pictures of worth and price.

Nothing leapt to the eye; all was softness, ease,

and that peculiar luxury which woos its way into

one's appreciation instead of rushing to capture

it. The ornamentation was so meagre that you

mightpardonably neglect its details. But to

examine the least of them was to find yourself

seaming an obJect rare and choice.

This description does not set Cursitor's nature
apart from that of any other character in the novel--per—
haps this is because the characters themselves are all of
the same mold.

The Pride 2;: Intellect is a poorly written novel
beyond aesthetic redemption, but it does possess a literary
importance in its manifestation of realistic tendencies and
international expressions. The descriptive passages in the
novel are peripheral, yet they do represent an attempt by
Fawcett to focus, in realistic fashion, on the detail of

setting and movement for the purpose of evoking a societal

205
truth. As in his earlier novels, Fawcett sets about to
expose the sham behavior and sterile existence of the
upper class. The only significant differences between _The
3133; g_r_ Intellect and its predecessors are that the setting
has been transferred to England and that the society in
question maintains its position through title rather than
wealth. That society, however, despite Fawcett's inten-
tions to the contrary, still emerges as s group of rather
inoffensive, amiable people; they are neither unpleasant,
nor self-centered, nor shallow.- The contrast between
Indermaur's brilliant, honest, sensitive nature and the
aristocracy's dull, insincere, callous behavior never de-
velops because Indermaur is as fatuous as are his antago-
nists. Also, his desire to win their favor suggests that
their society is attractive and thus dulls the little con-
trast there is.

As for the international theme, it controls a cer-
tain amount of the action in the novel and possibly even
more than has already been suggested. In fact, if Inder-
maur can be viewed as an American--and this is not as un-
reasonable as it may seem--then the cultural contrast be-
comes the focal point of the entire novel. Indermaur is
an outsider. He is not a part of any group within the
novel. The students at Oxford do not initially accept
him, and'the members of the aristocracy view him with

206
suspicion. His values, which are ostensibly different
from those of the surrounding culture, are democratically
inspired in his agitation against tradition and in his
violation of the existing class structure. His virtues
are typically American in a fictional senses-he is more
resourceful than any of the others in the novel, more af-
fected by matters of integrity, and he possesses a greater
vitality and a finer sense of humor than any one else.
Like many of Pawcett's other American characters, Indermaur
takes pride in his own accomplishments, but he is also in
awe of aristocratic personages. Just as the Josselyns,
Ernest Graydon, and Lizzie and Jack Prawle, he is willing
to compromise or trade the virtues of an American heri-
tags for the privilege of winning English acceptance.

The thought of Kenneth Indermaur as an American is
intriguing and compelling. It'is also a reasonable point
of view to impose upon the novel, for the unresolved in-
ternational conflict which influenced the writings of other
Americans had an intense effect upon Fawcett. It would be
in keeping with Fawcett's entire lifeafor this last novel,

 

The Pride 93. Intellect, to reflect the full power of his
thought. -

 

The Pride sf Intellect

"Kenneth, are you there?"

files, father; it's I." "

The young man.had stolen.into the bedroom, not
sure if his father were asleep or awake. He stood in
dense shadow while he spoke. As he approached the bed
on which Ralph Indermaur lay, a volume of lamplight struck
his vigorous young shape, tall, gracefully moulded. He
wore evening dress, and with his distinguished cast or
head looked a figure of striking elegance.

"You're dressed, I see, for the Plinlimmons'
dinner.“ I I

“Not Just that," said Kenneth, at once seating him-
self beside the bed." 'As you know, I often put on these
toga when.you're well enough to permit of my going about.
The Plinlimmons live, if you remember, here in Chelsea.163
Theirs is one of those big Embankment houses, only the
merest slip away. I told Cyril that I might not be able
to turn up at the dinner, however. He understands. And

 

163London was Fawcett's home during the last few
years of his life; he-died in Chelsea.

207

208
I've considerable time yet."

Indermaur reached out a hand, patting one of the
firm, strong-muscled arms at his side. "You'll go to the
dinner, my son. or course you will Kenneth. I don't need
any attendance. The pain has quite left me now. And old
Martha is always downstairs. She can do whatever I want--
and that, after all, isn't much. When it grows unbearable
anguish--morphia. When it's more ordinary suffering--
bromide as strong as possible this side of self-murder."

"Oh, you mustn't dream of that, sir. I wouldn't.
go if I'thought--" '

"But you needn't think. The attack's dwindling
away. I shan't have any more pain for a good while. I
shall be weak, and lie here, and have you come in from
time to time, and at length I shall be able to get up and
move about. But I'm utterly'beyond all cure, my son. The
great Sir Edward Sexton told me so, and charged precisely
ten guineas for the information."

"Recollect, father, that he told you your heart
was wonderfully strong."

"Oh, yes; which merely meant a probable dreary post-
ponement of the final collapse....Go to this dinner, by
all means. Have you heard yet from the publishers about
your book, by the bye?"

"Yes. A chequeuthis morning for two hundred pounds."

209
"Bravo, Kenneth! And you're not out of Oxford a

full'year! I knew that your 'Loaves and Fishes' would
startle by its brilliant satire. You mustn't mind some
of those reviews I read."

"They don't bother me, father. Not in the least."

"Ah, how confidently you speak, my boy! I, too,'
was once vastly confident. But I hadn't your brain, I
hadn't your great good looks. I hadn't your extraordinary
powers of winning people over."16h

From.his emaciated face Ralph Indermaur's eyes
gleamed abnormally large. He wetted his dry lips with a
vacillant tip of tongue, but waved away the drink that
Kenneth, by a reach.of hand toward the near table, could
easily proffer.

"’And now, my boy, you've all the world before you.
I think you're on the right track toward what is termed suc-

cess. Oh, we've talked together, haven't we? You're all

 

16“There are obvious autobiographical implications
here and throughout the chapter. Fawcett never considered
“winning people over" to be a mark of virtue. He could
not "prOpitiate," and yet he believed it was a necessary
condition of success. In a letter to Hayne, he writes:
"If one tells the truth in this world one must always suf-
fer, I find. Doubtless I have been.impolitic, but I have
the cause of American poetry very deeply at heart; I
can't help fighting against pretentious charlatanixm."
See p.131 for fuller comment from the same letter.

210

for the safe side. I wasn't. You ensepulchre your sin-
cerities; I blazoned‘mine. You are wise in your genera-
tion; I was foolhardy. You don't take men seriously; I
took them in passionate earnest. You're metal; I was wax.
I flung prudence to the winds; you have served it like a
silversmith, and panoplied yourself in it as with chain-
armor. Corselet, cuirass, hauberk and shield--I've got
the whole valiant figure you cut in it!" ‘

The oddest laugh, chill as the dreariest sigh, fol-
lowed these words. "My own life has been such a failure,
Kenneth! Years ago I came up here to London after your
mother's death, with‘my fairly decent fortune torn from
trade down in the north. But ah, so soon afterward, my
son, [it was] almost while. you, a little lad, were leaning
against my knee and hearingme tell you of the galleries and
theatres and museums we should visit together provided you
were a good boy and duteously learned your tasks, that first
abrupt failures overcame me. It was the first approach of
that subtle and rare paralysis which has afterward forever
martyrised in days. I took this little house in Chelsea,
and staid here on and-on. I never wrote, I proJected
books; I never wrote more than twenty pages or so of manu-
script, all told, and these were dragged forth from a brain
always tired by any attempt at cerebration, and were finally
destroyed in a fit of despairful self-surrender. Later, I
became a confirmed invalid, as you know. The winters racked

211
me, and the springs brought me, in this little brick-
house near the river, alleviative promises that summer
would always break! My life, while you were at Eton and
at Oxford, has been.cne long twilight, now of despondence,
now of pain, anon.of both combined. But from twilight
stars are born, and in.mine a great one is hanging now.
Itsname--need I tell you its name is--yours? Your 'Loaves
and Fishes' bites deep with satire, my boy, but it shirks
all popular offence. YOu make 'propriety' laugh at itself,
but you always contrive to escape wounding it. That's why
the solid ability of the book blunts indignation and tickles
amusement."

Kenneth gave no answer. He was accustomed to these
monoIOgues. They usually meant that his father was "getting
better." He leaned back a little into the shadow ofthe
lamp, and surreptitiously glanced at his watch. There was
time yet for him.to appear with proper punctuality at the
Plinlimmon dinner. Indeed, he had still some little time
to spare.

"I know," feebly resumed the sick man, "that my
counsel in past years has affected you. And by now you
:must have seen the true impulse of its trend. My own life
was a mistake, and I have wanted yours to be a success. I
have wanted you to swim with the current. I swam against

it. I was right; I shall die protesting I was right. But

212
what is it, after all, to be 'Right'? One doesn't lose
one's own sou1--to put it fancifullye-but one misses the
whole world. And to miss the whole world has a prodigi-
ous meaning. If I were you, Kenneth, I would make 'Pro-
pitiate' my motto. Meet folk a little more than half way.
Hever cringe, but constantly unbend. Whenever you discern
a hate give it prompt battle. That is, try and turn it
into a friendship. or all professions the literary iswmost
infested by hates. There, you see, the great prizes are
so few, the paths of ascent so craggy and thorny. There,
too, fashions are peculiarly despotic, and the levity of
mere whim.can hurt like the blow of a bludgeon. Voltaire
said of Dante that his reputation was safe because no
sensible people read hum. Queen Caroline once declared of
Bishop Butler that she thought he was dead; and the friend
who desired for him.roya1 patronage and promotion answer-
ed 'llo, Madam, he is not dead, but he is buried.'165
Ruskin affirmed of Byron that he wrote English as an eagle
flies; but Rivarol sneered at Condorcet as one who wrote

with opium on a page of lead,166 and Wordsworth told

 

165Reference to Caroline of Ansbach (1683-1737), wife
of George II. Queen Caroline's recommendation.of Bishop
Joseph Butler (1692-1752) led to his appointment to the
bishopric of Bristol in 1738 and ultimately to the clerk of
the closet to the King in 17h6.

166Hivarol's Petit Almanach de nos rands hommes
pour 1788, in which Ee'"'r'i'd‘i'Eu'IeTc'ofieip'"'orary autE—‘rs ,' "seems
E'ITker source for this allusion.

213
Emerson that the grand Gibbon could not write English at
all. And so the war of opinions is forever raging. You
have a very luminous and spacious mind, Kenneth, but it's
my belief that you do not possess geniusQ-God help you if
you.did!"

"Is genius so fatal a gift?" asked Kenneth.

"Horribly. The sensitiveness with which it is
nearly always twinned makes it a constant curse. Men die
of it before their time. It is a disease. How, you are
not sensitive. Oh, I have watched you well!‘ You think
deeply, but you do not feel 2 deeply. That is three-
quarters of the right--not to yield 393 deeply. I believe
there is nothing intellectual that you cannot master if
you try. Look at your Oxford record."

Kenneth spoke with a roused, assertive manner not
hitherto shown.' "In college I dealt with other men's ideas.
In 'Loaves and Fishes'--poor stuff it now seems to me!--

I tried for originality, creation." He gave a low, cheer-
ful laugh; his laugh was always cheerful. "But what are
these"--and he snapped finger and thumb audibly--"without
the divine element of emotion? If I haven't thaté-well,
then, I simply will never be s writer of the first rank.
Amen!".

. Ralph Indermaur stretched out a hand, clasping that
of his son. The hand had never felt so chill to Kenneth

before. It sansuously corresponded with the drawn, haggard

211.,
face, the white attenuated lips, the bigness and dry
glitter of the eyes.

"Of all things on earth you don't need it," he re-
turned with tones that were modulated, yet somehow a re-
primanding cry. "It's the rock that split L": in twain!
It's the sworn foe of success. He who feels overmuch is
forever stumbling into quicksands of miscalculation. I
don't say you're callous, my boy." 7

"That's encouraging," smiled Kenneth, with gentle
satire. . g t I

"But your mother left you Just the right leaven of
coo l-headedness . "

"You've told me so little about her."

"There was little to tell. She gave‘you her good
looks. ”She was enormously handsome, and she was not--
where's the word?--impressionable. There; now about this
friend, this Oxford friend, who clings to you so."

"Cyril Cursitor?"

"Yes. He's an aristocrat. High up, eh? Yes, of
course-LIremember. He shows it, with his curved nostrils
and silky voice and trained bearing. You're going to his
house to dine this evening. Mo, to his cousin's house.
Lord...Lord..."

I "Lord Plinlimmon. But cousins by marriage only.
Cyril is related to his wire."

215
"This young Cursitor, Kenneth. He's very fond of you.

He let it all out to me, the other day, while we talked
together in your absence. His eyes had the strangest glow
as he spoke. I almost thought of a woman.confessing her
love." A

"Oh, he's very manly," said Kenneth, with the faint-
est tinge of resentment. "Under his softness there's a lot
of masculinity. One of the best oarsmen of his year. He
can box like a professional, and stops at nothing when he
rides."

i"I see. And you've infatuated him; he's dazzled by
you. Rich, Kenneth?" ,

"Twenty thousand a year. Expectations besides."

"Do you care for hum?" '

"What a question, father! Who wouldn't?"

"He might be of great service to you. Have you
thought or that?"

Kenneth gave a vague shrug. "Oh, yes. Why not?"

- Hone the young man rose, still holding his father's
hand. "Then.if you'll let me go," he pursued," I shall
have to hurry along. But you're quite sure—-"'

"Yos, quite. I think I shall sleep well tonight.
I feel that last drug Dr. Alsop gave me beginning to work
already...Kenneth." '

"res, rather."

216

"I hope I shall see you very famous, very import—
ant, before thetides close over my head!" He was still
holding his son's hand with a pitiful cling in every slim
finger. His voice had become thrillingly plaintive. "That
will be a kind of crown after all my sufferings. Life has
been hard for me. But if I go when you've harvested an
armful of honours, ny boy, I shall feel like one of those
runners in the Old Greek genes who hands, while he falls,
the torch to a comrade. 193 253i: moriar.167 That's the
right Latin, isn't it? I‘lnever knew much and picked it
all upby myself down there in the north. So your friend,
Cursitor, has twenty thousand a year. I can only leave
you about that, all told. But it's better than nothing.
At least it isn't beggarly, is it?...There, I'm keeping
you. Go and have a merry time with the swells. But don't
take any airs from then. Blunt their little darts if they
try to spring them on your Still, amiably, amiably.
Propitiate, my son. We Indermaurs have no coat-of-arms,

no crest, but make that your motto, as I said."

 

167"I shall not wholly die." The quotation is from
Horace and.has a literary allusion: "My works, my poetry,
will be immortal." Cf. letter to Stedman, p.9.

217
II

"Father's more ill than he knows, this evening,"
thoughtKenneth Indermaur, as he moved at quick pace through
the dim aide-street, aoon gaining the Embankment, where a
May sky flung hieroglyphs of sunset gold on the wrinkled
river. "Perhaps I should not have left him, after all.
But thenhe was so insistent."
' And after that Kennethgave up thinking at all about
his father. Other more agreeable reflections invited him,
and he chose these with unhesitating preference. He liked
to use gloom on his written-page, Just as a painter uses
it on his canvas; but to deal with it practically, in his
daily experience, was quite another affair. How his mind
had caught up the glittering web of a bright anticipation,
and was busied in shaking out, so to speak, its radiant
folds. It had been so kind of his dear friend Cyril, to
secure for him this dinner at Laughton House. The thing
meant such a cachet in itselfr His name would doubtless
be seen in at least one of tomorrow's newspapers. How
strong an upward push it would prove! Just like Cyril!
There would probably be ten or twelve smart persons there
besides the Earl and Countess of Plinlimmon.

The beautiful old-fashioned drawing-rooms, with
their immense prism-wrought chandeliers , and their

218
lustreless but costly furniture, and their Gainsboroughs
or Romneys or Reynoldses168 pendant from.the walls, held
only what seemed a sprinkling of peOple as Indermaur's
name was announced. Yet this effect was due to the great
size of the apartments; for the dinner numbered twenty
guests in all.

The moment that Kenneth Indermaur appeared, his pre-
sence caused a faint but definite flutter. He was Just as
handsome fer a man as his mother had been for a woman. But
between them there was this pregnant difference: on one.
association had bestowed few graces of deportment, and on
the other it had showered many. Lady Plinlimmon.extended
her hand, then her husband put forth his. Weither spoke,
and at once Indermaur found himself civilly brushed aside,
by two fresh arrivals. He receded a little, and looked at
the gathered guests. He was not easily dashed, but now a
pang of embarrassment smote him. Every man and woman whom
he saw was a stranger, and all of them had levelled upon
him.a united stare, not strong enough to be impolite yet
palpable enough to create for him.the commencement of a
sharp ordeal. ‘What should he do? Whither should he be-
take himself? Should he go and plant his form against
yonder wall sud wait there, in sombre tormenta, the

 

168The three most prominent English portrait paint-
era in the latter half of the eighteenth century.

219
directing whim of his hosts? In certain Oxford social
circles he had been warmly welcomed. Here in London re-
fined householders had opened willing doors to him. But
10:! He felt his cheeks flush, and furtively gnawed his
lips.

Then, in a moment, the tensity of his position
slackened. A firm clasp was on his arm; he turned and
saw Cyril Cursitor.

"Pardon me, Kenneth. I was in the other room--off
my post. My cousins had put you in my] charge. You're to
go down with Miss Myrtle Sartorys. Let me take you to her
at once." ’ i

As Indermaur passed into the rear drawing-room with
Cursitor'sarm’linked in his own, he was the subject of
much low-voiced conversation. Some of the sentences ran
like this:

"lever saw him before. Immensely good-looking,
thoughf Such an air, hasn't he? One must find out about
him." ‘

' "He's that Oxford man, you know--Kenneth Indermaur.
Just as-clever as he is handsome. Took 'firsts' in
'Greats' and lbdern History, and stroked the Eight that
yearn-which was it?-Qwhen the Cantabs were so badly beaten."

"Oh, did he write 'Loaves and Fishes'? I hate the .
book, it's so hard and cold, and ends ‘so horribly. But I

220
couldn't leave it off till I'd finished it. Nobody can."

"An author besides being an athlete! Oh, 'Loaves
and Fishes'? Really! I wept over it! Such a tragedy, and
yet so true 1'" I

"Who _i_g_ he? You mean in point of birth, and all
that? Shy, nobody at all. I've heard his people are linen-
drapers, or something similar, in a village near Liverpool
or Birmingham-none forgets which. Still, if he had money,
this would be nowadays la moindre 92 choses. He has,
however, nothing mtable--nothing whatever."

"Young Indermaur, you know. Isn't he quite too jolly
handsome? My brother Bertie knew him at Balliol. Had a
regular little court there. They used to call him the Pro-
fessional Beauty. Iever to his face, though; he wouldn't
have stood it." _

"How on'earth has he got 595:? That's what _I_ would
like tonknow. It's. one of the most difficult houses in
town, and Plinlimmon is such a beastly snob....0h, yes; it's
all clear now. Cyril Cursitor is Lady Plinlinmon's first-
cousin, and Cyril adores this Indermaur. It will be a
great feather in his cap to have been seen-here, of course."

Cyril Cursitor and his friend Miss Myrtle Sartorys
seated [themselves] on a sofa in the next room. She struck
Indermaur at first as being merely a tall, pale girl, with

a rather grave face and an overplus of shining chestnut

221
hair heaped high above a fragile throat. But Cyril talk-
ed, and two other men talked, and it was not until they
were seated side by side in the luxurious dining-room
downstairs that he gave her much visual attention.

Just before this, however, he remembered that
Cursitor had mentioned her name to him.not long ago, tell-
ing him that she was thought both very handsome and very
intellectual, but also exceedingly proud. moreover, that
she came of an old family in one of the midland counties,
and had inherited much wealth, besides, from.hoth her dead
parents.

"A.magnificent match for you," Cursitor had added.
"I must certainly arrange an introduction.as early as pos-
sible."

."Oh, if she is proud," Indermaur had retorted, "she
wouldn't look at a nobody like me." .

Here Cursitor's mild eyes kindled. Their limpid
blue had grown flamy as he scoffed out: "How dare you call
yourself a nobody--you, Kenneth Indermaur, with.your glori-
ous college record and the prestige of having written a
novel that half the civilized world is either reading or
has read?"

As Indermaur now'turned and looked at the young woman
whom he had taken down to dinner those words about her being

"proud" specially recurred to him.

222

But she did not look proud. Oddly enough, her
delicateeface, her p1acid.movements, the casual posturings
of her slender shape, suggested a perished hauteur rather
than a live one. He could not understand the mystery of
his own.decision; and yet, while they spoke together,
almost mechanically, of the charming old house, its age
and its store of antique treasures, he became more and
more conrinced that if what Cursitor had said was true,
then some curious and subtle agency had been at work with
her during recent days.

"For now," he thought, "she is surely most affable
and gracious. Yet even if I had not heard of her pride it
seems to me that I should see traces of it, like footsteps
of a departed influence, a banished characteristic." I

Then the flattering randy came upon him that she
was perhaps desirous of showing him particular favour.

But a kind of instinctive negative vetoed this belief;
and Just as he had begun to feel himself prisoned rather
stringently in the tender but strong network of an excep-
tional interest, the lady at his other side exerted upon
him.a tyrannous claim.

She was a large lady, well past her forties, with
prominent eyes and a fat chin threatening doubleness. Her
dinner-companion.was a man whom.Indermaur had known slight-

1y at Oxford, and she herself was a person accustomed to

223
having her own way in everything. Accordingly she brought
about an introduction between herself and the author of a
new novel which she had relished most separatively among
the many others it was her habit to devour from month to
month, and then began a series of gushing raptures on the
subject of "Loaves and Fishes."

Quite promptly Indermaur discovered that her praises
were not of the sort for which he cared a button. He had
already observed, again and again, just how his book had
been operative in affecting the average commonplace mind.
He know, after the lady had spoken her first ten words about
it, precisely what qualities in the whole composition she
would pronounce the most attractive. 'i'hese, he was well
aware, held the least intrinsic value {and stood like sign-
posts warning him not to repeat the mistakes which they
embodied.

Still, he gave no evidence of being bored; and in-
deed, when at last he again turned toward Miss Sartorys, '
the lady with the plethora of panegyrics rolled'toward him
her prominent eyes in regret rather than resentment.

But Hiss Sartorys was talking with the gentleman on
her right. She soon deserted him, however, and addressed
Indermaur.

"I heard some of the sugar-plums drop into your lap
with dull thuds. Haven't you had rather a surfeit of

22h
sweets?"

"She's made no feed on the roses and lie in the
lilies of criticism, Pray, do I not look shockingly
pampered?" ’

"I don't detect any signs of lassitude. Perhaps
you've grown used to this sort of thing."

"I've grown.used to nothing in life," he said, "not
even its grimness. I seem.to exist in a constant encounter
of thresholds. ‘Draperies are always being drawn aside for
me, and new vistas inritingly disclosed."

She lifted her brows a little, as though in sur-
prise. "Such youth of feeling!" escaped from her. "I
should never have imagined it."

"Bless me. Miss Sartorys! Do I appear jaded and
forlorn?” - I

"You appear all sunshine," she said, letting her
eyes briefly linger on his face.' "But you don't write as
you appear." r

"Now for the other side of the medal: You evidently
disapprove Mrs. Oleeve's sugar-plums."

She nodded with a veiled smile. "I've read the book."

With abomination? You wouldn't be the first if you '
said so." . .

"I couldn't say so. Rather, with admiration. And
yet...". But here she paused.

225

"well?" he encouraged her. "With condemnation?"

"I confess that you seem to have found the right word."

"Your 'but,' you see, made it almost inevitable."

As her eyes floated over his face he thought hos
strangely lovely they were. At a slight distance they
seemed a lucid hazel, matching her hair; but a nearer view
brought out in them violet lights, and still a nearer one
made them blue without the least amber shading.

"No," she said, a flavor of soliloquy in her lowered
speech.' "You don't look as if you'd written it. I'm not
referring'to its unhappiness as a story. I'm thinking of
how one may read between its lines." I

"And what does one discover," asked Indermaur, "when
one agreed between its lines?" O '

She hesitated. "That there isn't anything really
worth while--that men and women are only the masques in a
hollow masque. "

"Tell me the passage in which I give the reader any
such grisly tidings," he exclaimed, "and I promise that my
next edition shall go to press without it!"

"Ah, that I could never do: It is all a philosophy
indefinitely conveyed. It is atmospheric. If you had put
it down in black and white, I should have thought your book
by no means unusual. I should have pronounced it merely one

of those fashionably: pessimistic French things, of which we

226
say 'How clever1' one day and whose morbidness we have for-
gotten.the next. But you have not worked that way. You
have employed great skill of suggestion, striking artistry
of general handling, and yet your result is all the very
litany of despair."

Indermaur sipped his wine. "Despair of what?"

"Oh, of the entire human race. We are no more, be-
tween.your covers, than the grass of the field."

"I've great respect for the grass of the field.
Lofty and low, all of us are clad by it at last. Bond
Street never dreamed of any tailoring at once so permanent
and so deft. But you will think this flippant; and from.e
the religious viewpoint it surely is. I didn't know you
were religious, although I'd heard you were proud."

The last phrase slipped from.him.unawares. He saw
a faint cloud of rose steal into her face and then deepen
there. Expecting some show of resentment, he braced him-
self, regretfully, for its advent.

But this did not occur. "Cyril Cursitor no doubt
told you so. Still, you needn't either deny or affirm”
It's of no consequence. I :22.proud-—yesterday."

"I'm.glad this is tomorrow, Miss Sartorys," he re-
plied. . '

Her voice had become serious; it still remained so.

"Pride mantles a multitude of definitions, all of which are

227
not sins. But mine, I fear, was of the sinful sort. I
made myself unapproachable except by a preferred few. 'I
cultivated arrogance. I was glacially uncharitable. I
revelled in rudeness toward those whom for silly reasons I
presumed to rate as my inferiors. Truly, I must have been
the most odious kind of person. . '

Indermaur felt startled as he watched her. Quiet
though her tones had been, they somehow invested her immedi-
ate surroundings with the drama if not the sanctity of a
confessional.

"That was yesterday," he said, throwing out the re-
sponse at random, yet in the sense of palliative reminder.
"It was before I came across a certain book."

"Ah," he laughed, "and the book wasn't 'Loaves and
Fishes'? How my crime of having written such pagan stuff
is to find me out! I'm to learn what vast opportunities
I've missed." I
‘ Her eyes were drooped. They seemed rivetted on a
white rose in the front of her gowne "If you had read the
book I don't think you would satirise it. But perhaps you
have read it. It is short--only a little more than two
hundred pages in.length. But it is winning its way, they
tell me. I know quite a number of people who hold it very
dear--who have read it over and over again."

"Is it a novel?" he asked.

228
"Oh, dear no, just a collection of meditations,

contemplations. I think it was published a good while be-
fore 'Loaves and Fishes'...And yet"--here she again lifted
her look--"I heard our hostess, Lady Plinlimon, say not

long ago, that for her it was somehow a comforting answer
to all the latent bitterness and cynicism of your story."

"And it has influenced you so much?" he asked, with
manifest astonishment. '-

"It has influenced me unspeakably," was her reply.
"It has turned rusty keys in rusty locks; .it has thrown
open solid yet needless doors; it has drawn aside moulder-
ing draperies; it has revealed unsuspected vistas. Has that
a high-flown sound? Well, hyperbole is not necessarily
falsehood; and besides, I speak simply of my own estimates
and tenets." .

His surprise had augmented. "A single short series
of essays has done all this! ‘Pray tell me its name."

"Did I not tell you?" she answered. "Oh, I see. The
qualityof the book engrossed me. It has (most-unpreten-
tious title, yet one that to me is most winsome. It is
called 'Thoughts Out Loud.” '

Indermaur again sipped his wine. But he did so with
an odd suddenness, and at the same time asked himself if he
had not grown betrayingly pale. ‘

229

III

When the ladies had gone away Cursitor joined his
friend.-

"Traitor," said Indermaur, below his breath, "I must
have itout withyou." _

But the other looked guilelessly innocent. "In
pity's name, Kenneth, what has happened?" '

"'Pity' is the last word for yourperfidious lips,
my dear'cyril. As if you might not have warned me in time!"
Indermaur now bore himself with all his wanted ease and
brightness. "I shall postpone my anathemas. Meanwhile,
may I notslipuover to Lord Plinlimmon? The idea has oc-
curred to me of knowing him better." . i

"or course," Cursitor assented. But he trembled in-
wardly'as the answer came and as its hearer coolly rose.

He was thinking of the tough experience which he and
Lady Plinlimmon had naturally undergone. It was waged with
this very gentleman whom Indermaur had just announced his
desire to "know better.” .

Only a few days ago Lord Plinlimmon had stood in his
own library before one of the little fires which comfort
will sometimes demand in London even during the month of
May. His long calfless legs looked hardly human as he

230
stretched them.apart in their tight-fitting fashionable
trousers, and both bony arms described eerie angles as he
grasped either coat-tail with rearward hands. He had a
small head, spotted on the crown with a baldness that
looked as if some past evil agency had clapped on its
sparse and sandy locks a depilatory plaster as neatly cir-
cular as a saucer. His narrow face appeared thinner and
pinker than.usual, his high, frail nose seemed to describe
a colder curve.

"I don't care a brass farthin', Blanche, what funny
bounders you choose to cultivate, so long as you don't
bring'em.to our dinner-table. You and Cyril Cursitor can
go gaddin' about as much as you like among your literary
holes and artistic dens. He's your blood relation, so I
suppose the whole infernal thing might be called a kind of
family folly."

"What preposterous, talk, Marmaduke!" ridiculed his
wife. "Only last week you brought a horrid horsey person
home to dine with us. I almost smelt the stables while I
looked at his puffy face, with about as much expression in
it as a brandied peach."

Here Cyril audibly sighed. "As for holes and dens,"
he said withfmild boldness, "those to which I've taken
Cousin Blanche have been delightful 'at homes' given by

men and. women of talent--sometimes of genius."

231

"I hate men and women who paint and write," growled
Lord Plinlimmon. "They're always so beastly conceited and
so deucedly sloppy.“ Still, there's no objection to 'em if
they only keep their places and don't try to get into
society."

Lady Plinlimmon rose. She was a tall woman, with a
large mouth, beatifully cut, and large dull eyes, like
smoked glass. But they were eyes that sometimes lit, and
now a flash left them as she said:

"I only wish mre people with brains in their heads
would try to get into society, as you call it. 22 do
everything to pave the paths for them!" She impatiently
shook her head. "I say, Marmaduke, you're well aware that
you've only one way of making me afraid of you. It's a
vilely ungentlemanly way, but you now and then practise it.
You treat uncivilly the people whom I ask to dine here.
Now, in this present matter of Mr. Kenneth Indermaur putting
his legs under our mahogany, I intend that he shall do so.
But please understand more." .

"Well," muttered her'husband, while he thrust a
ploughing forefinger inside his stiff, elevated collar, as
though some roughness of the linen hurt the flesh it sheath-
ed, "what more am I to understand?" He rolled, at the same
moment, a hostile eye toward Cursitor. "Is it some new

caper that Cyril, there, has been setting-you up to?"

232

"Oh, for the love of common justice spare 22!" re-
belled Cursitor. "You surely ought to know Blanche'well
enough by this time, Marmaduke, to realise that she always
sails her own boat, and that they who go aboard with her
must be content to take her orders, not give them. "-

"Cyril is quite right," abetted his kinswoman, drily.
"My new. 'caper' as you're pleased to term it, is simply
this: The next time you show a shade of incivility to any
of my guests I'll repay it by making myself equally dis-
agreeable to yours. You won't like my course of action
when the time comes, and so I warn you in advance. Things
have gone on like this quite-long enough. I shall observe
very keenly just how you treat Mr. Indermaur when'he dines
here. As it is, you have the worstemanners of any so-called
gentleman in England. Hug your vulgarities to yourself as
tightly as you please. Be sincerely a ruffian if so dis-
posed. Only, draw the line at those whom I choose to en-
tertain under this roof. You must deport yourself toward
them with politeness. Otherwise he prepared for a stout
fight." She had spoken, thus far, with a sort of languid
hardihood. low her soft voice took a higher key, and her
accent grew cleaner-edged. "It will prove--I again warn
you--a fight where I'm in deadest earnest. To put it in
terms of the prize-ring--a dialect for which‘your fondness
is both sincere and notorious--you'll get back a facer,

233
Marmaduke, every time you give one."

Lord Plinlimmon glared at her, for an instant, then
strutted to a door. Reaching it, he swept around and answer-
ed in a voice husky with wrath. "It's such women as you,
Blanche, and it's such young chapsas Cyril, that are doing
all you can to turn this country upside down. The creeds
and views of my ancestors are quite good enough. for me;
they've kept England safe for centuries, and they'll keep
her so for centuries to come. All right,.my lady! You
want it a fight; then let it be one. My horsey men, as you
called him, was cousin to a duke. Good sportsmanship has.
always been one of the glories of Great Britain; every
other country merely apes us in our splendid cult of it. a
Our aristocracy, nowadays, is called snobbery by the im-
pudent gangs of middle-class daubers and scribblers you-
visit. They all want to send conservatism to the devil--
quite naturally. Conservatism is the ballast in the ship of
state, and they'd like to see that ship of state upset be-
cause they haven't got the berths in it that suit 'em. The
Sovereign, the Clergy, the Army, the Mobilityuthese are.
the four feet that the British Lion walks on. Cut off one,
and he'll immediately limp. And this is precisely what
nine-tenths of your mighty men or women with 'genius' would
like to do--make him limp till every other nation on the
globe held its sides with laughter. Conservatism? I only

23h
wish I could take a tangible bath of it every morning.
Half the misery of mankind has come from.not wanting to
stay where God put him, The moment I'm.asked to meet any-
body with 'brains,' no position and little money, I always
feel as if he were going to inquire my opinion about
abolishing the House of Lords. The sole excuse for quitting
one sphere of life to occupy another, is wealth. It makes
an excellent ladder, with pounds, shillings and pence for
its rungs. There's no dignity without money, as a matter
of course. It's the garden-hose that keeps respectability
green and fresh. It feeds our aristocracy-—why not? If
your upstart friend had a million pounds or so, Blanche, I
might excuse his 'genius.' But no; damme if I'll yield a
jot this time. You may have it war to the knife or not,
hereafter, just as you please." And out of the room shot
his lordship, all bellicose bluster and pompous irony.

Cyril Cursitor, lounging in a low chair, with one
arm.flung over its back, raised his free hand, waving the
wide-spread fingers to and fro.

"Blanche!" he exclaimed; "I, for one, quite pull in
my horns. Kenneth mustn't come and dine here. I feel-as
if he would be eaten instead of the dinner."

"Nonsense," rejoined Lady Plinlimmon, again seating
herself. "He shall come; I'll write him his invitation
this morning, and you shall fetch it him. They shall sit

235
miles apart from one another; I'll arrange all that."

Cursitor's grave glance was taking her in. "My dear
woman," he murmured, "how do you manage it?" '

."Manage what?" she asked airily. .

"Oh, living with him."

She shook her head as .though in sombre exasperation.
"How often must I tell you that we're rather happily mar-
ried? In certain matters, I grant, we're at daggers drawn.
I dare say there are wives who would have loathed him, by
this. But I don't." Her glance roved among the rare ap-
pointments and ornamentations of the chamber, as though in
the face of some old print, in the very scrollwork of some
rug, she might find her strange leniency picturesquely dup-
licated. "I admit that it's odd of me, Cyril,"ahewent on,
"to bear with him as I do." .

. "You're a rich'woman in your own right, Blanche,"
began her kinsman, "and"-- .

"Might leavehim'if I chose?" She threw at Cursitor
an indignant glance. "That's doubtless your meaning. But
I don't choose. He's horrible at tines; he was particue
larly horrible just now. But, after all, he's consistent.
So many men are not; so many are the wildest weathervanes.
There's Marmaduke 's mediaeval, feudal conservatism, with its
vulgar modern money-worshipping touch. But, nevertheless,

it's sufficient unto itself; it's complete as far as it

236
goes. I hate it, and yet I can't 'help admiring it."

"Admiring it, Blanche!" flashed Cursitor. "Such
bigotry!"

"But it hangs together with so fine a cohesiveness.
That I try never to forget. It makes such a perfectly
harmonious whole. lot so very long ago he'd have gone to
the scaffold for his beliefs rather than retract them--Oh,
I'm sure of it."

"And nowhe goes to the Carlton Club," replied
Cursitor, "where he often drinks more brandy'than is good
for him." After a pause, spent in biting his lips and
painfully frowning, the young man resumed, with tense, ex- .
cited 'speed: "To think of his rebuffing Kenneth Indermaur,
my magnificent Kenneth! The idea is positively nauseous!"

And so, when Indermaur had expressed, at this evening
of the dinner at Laughton House, a wish "to slip over" to
his host, and had avowed himself moved by an idea of "know-
ing him better," it was slight wonder that poor Cursitor
felt inward trepidations, while the air seemed charged for
him with electric portent. '

237
IV

He watched Indermaur, so to phrase it, from afar.
His nerves were steeled against all possible catastrophe
--what.nmne could be too serious for the action, provided
Lord Plinlimmon stripped off all sacred vesting of hostship
and played the nude cad before a bidden.guest?

Suddenly Cursitor had an.impulse to hurry forward
and recall his friend. Better to have told him.et first.
Better still to have put him on his guard and then let him
take what course he chose. Anyway, there might yet be
time to save him from somebrute thrust.

But just then a little man with a big beard put out
a hand to Cursitor. "So good of you," he said, "to send us
that handsome cheque for our charity." .

"Don't mention it, my dear Sir Frederick..." And
then, with the utterance of this sentence, all chance to
detain Indermaur fled. Cursitor could only drop into an
empty seat beside Sir Frederick and look as though he cared
both to talk and listen.

Meanwhile he saw his cherished friend approach Lord
Plinlimmon. The latter was in converse with a gentleman
on his right.' Close on his left was a vacated chair. To
this, having reached the side of his host, Indermaur
briefly pointed. The gesture implied an inquiry not difficult

238
to guess. With a curt nod--which Cursitor's anxiety
luridly translated into "Yes, you can sit there if you
want, but bless me if I'll take any notice of you"--the
peer treated this graceful overture. .

The light struck with a sidelong and searching ef-
fect, just then, full upon Indermaur. "When," thought his
covert observer, "was manly shapeliness joined in securer
harmony to the facial proof of an intellect large and alert?
What a frame to tempt the sculptor's chisel, what poise of
head, what felicity of carriage! At Oxford, in the early
days of his sojourn there, a few exclusive malcontents
tried to teach him.paces; but in the and how he brought
them round, made them.walk in his wake! And it was all so
effortless with him, a conquest so good-humoured, a turning
of the.tables at once so placid and complete!...But these
were collegiate innings. How he plays in the bigger game
of life. How about Marmaduke, who just now represents it?
Will he dare carry out the_threat he hurled at Blanche?"

What followed for Cursitor--who was too far away to
hear and could only see--meant the most potent of panto—
2mbmes. Indermaur seated himself, and Lord Plinlimmon, with
arched nose in the air, paid him no heed whatever. The Earl
simply went on speaking with the person on his other side--
a Hebrew of South African antecedents, fat, swart, airing
a miniature Koh-inoor on one of his little fingers, and

239
prOprietor of a Park Lane palace where he shone, every
season, like Solomon in all his glory.

Indermaur did not show a trace of chagrin, One hand
played carelessly with a voided wine-glass. He was smiling
as he reached forth his other hand and faintly touched with
it the shoulder of his best.

Lord Plinlimmon turned sharply, almost fiercely. The

vigilant Cursitor felt like closing his eyes and shuddering
one minute, and the next like rushing forward and dragging
his adored Kenneth outside the radius of raw insult.

But eoon he saw a change that seemed to flavor of
miracle. The Earl burst into a laugh. Then Indermaur spoke
on, while his listener surveyed him, visibly appealed to by
his virile symmetries, by the brightness and sweetness and
quiet nobility that summed up the peculiar beauty of his
face.

"It's Oxford all over again," swept through Cursitor's
gladdened spirit. "He's done it here, just as so often he
did it there! He'sgot him! He's landed his fish--is
there a fish in the social waters that he can't land if he
pleases? That touch on the shoulder was such a part of his!
Who'd have dared it but Kenneth? And he's followed it up
with.some quick little spirt of red-fire wit. Marmaduke is
laughing again. He's pushed back his chair so as to bring

the rich Jew and Kenneth.=2;face. Mow, he's introducing

. 2w
them. With how exquisite an air of breeding does Kenneth
greet Mr. Dietrichstein! And now another flash of wit!
The Jew's fat sides are shaking. Plinlimmon leans back in
his chair, empurpled by laughter. Of what on earth can
Kenneth be talking? Surely of some racecourse scandal,
some gossip born of the turf and smelling of the stables.
What else could possibly 'draw' such a hearer as Marmaduke
Laughton? And yet Kenneth, while he loves a fine horse,
'execrates' all this professional jargon and tattle."

"My dear Mr. Cursitor," Sir Frederick was saying,
in his voice so replete with suavity that it almost resembled

the roucoulement of a pigeon, "you will be glad, I am sure,
to learn that our Society for the Protection of Lost
Sailors' Mothers-in-Law may soon secure the patronage of
Royalty itself. We have great hopes and such generous con-
tributions as your own, accompanied by a name so...er...
important, will help, Mr. cursitor, will most markedly
help. And I think you must agree with me that the mother-
in-law of the lost sailor has hitherto been cruelly ignored.
His widow, his parents, his orphans, have thus far been
loaded with sympathy. But his poor neglected mother-in-
law! How, really, Mr. Cursitor, do you “£3 think...?"

So the rivulet of Sir Frederick's discourse went
gliding on. Cursitor permitted it to bathe him innocuously
until everybody rose to join the ladies. Of course, Lord

Zhl
Plinlimmon gave the signal, but how--to borrow from
Cursitor's half-stunned reflections--did he wondrously
elect to give it? By walking forth from.the dining-room
with an arm actually linked in Kenneth Indermaur's while
Mr. Dietrichstein doddered obesely at the new favorite's
elbow.

A sadness overcame Cursitor while he passed forth
with the general black-coated throng. This was victory,
of course, for Indermaur, but at what price had he achieved
it? Was it not all the harvest of an adroit and glacial
hypocrisy?

Still, Cursitor loved his friend no less because of
the fault deplored in him. He had witnessed all this sort
of temperamental magic before, in its easy and serene ex-
ploitation. He had repeatedly delighted in it even while
he disapproved it. Indermaur was his idol, and it had
grown a commonplace regret with hum that the idol should
have feet of clay. For that matter, even the feet of clay
were not without their charm, There were times when they
seemed rather to humanise his divinity than to degrade it.

Once in the drawing-room Lord Plinlimmon paused
with his two companions before Myrtle Sartorys. "Has Mr.
Indermaur been telling you any of his funny stories?" he
heard the Earl inquire. "He's got a hundred of 'em up his

sleeve, I should say; he's the best company in town."

2&2

Cursitor passed onward, with the elegant and seri-
ous Sir Frederick, who was forever stroking a beard of
nebulous grey with a small, white, womanish hand. Presently
.he met Lady Plinlimmon, and Sir Frederick drifted off, pro-
bably toward some lady whom he had not yet sufficiently im-
pressed, in his own opinion, with the anguish attendant
upon the lot of the lost sailor's mother-in-law.

"My dear Cyril!" said his cousin. Her three words
were three volumes. '

"You saw them come in like that? he answered. "But
it's merely the natural sequence of what passed in the
dining-room. With Kenneth prepare for the impossible!
Those funny stories! Yes, I remember how he used them as
weapons of witchery at Oxford. They were always marvel-
lously fresh--not a 'chestnut,' as the Americans say,
among them. I think he invents them at a moment's notice.
He has half conceded as much to me, at other times. The
gift of the story-teller, you know. But then he has so
many other gifts as well."

Lady Plinlimmon gave a short nod. "But to think
of conquering Plin! My contumacious and outrageous Plin,
of all people on earth! And then he's so handsome."

"I told you that ," Cursitor said, remindingly.
"Oh, you told me semen tell it of men, Cyril.

But we women have a different angle of vision."

2&3

"I don‘t understand, Blanche."

"Of course, you don't. Only a woman.would. So
many of us are untouched by what you call beauty in your
own sex. 'We want something behind that--a latent chivalry,
gallantry, mmgnetismp-somwthing that we feel after a man
has spoken ten words to us, assertive as an odour, a sound,
a taste. Now beauty in a man does not always go with this
trait. Indeed, I think the opposite is true. But when it
does go, then there is great power of charm.

"And with Indermaur it is like that?"

"Yes," replied Lady Plinlimmon, deliberatingly,

"it is like that; it must be. Perhaps myrtle Sartorys is
quite prepared to endorse my verdict."

"What a match for Kenneth!" fell from Cursitor.

"But, gyr_i_l_:" And Lady Plinlimmon smote him on
the shoulder with her sheathed fan. "It's not to be
dreamed of!”

"Oh, I know!" he retorted, bitterly. "Your demo-
cracy shrivels at the bare fancy! .EEEZE' Blanche! Spoken
like the wife of your husband." ‘

The Countess was visibly piqued. Her democracy was
her one sensitive point. She treated it like some rare bit
of marble or bronze on a revolving swivel. She was never
tired of slowly turning it round and admiring its various
outlines. To have its perfection assailed cost her dis-
comfiting pangs.

am

"Oh, certain lines must be drawn," she affirmed,
giving her white throat a statelier turn. "There are such
marriages, I admit. But when the man is born humbly he has
nearly always done something, made himself a somebody."

Cursitor's mild eyes kindled. "And has Kenneth‘done
nothing? To be the author of 'Loaves and Fishes! is then to
be a nobody?"

I "Deer, dear," said Lady Plinlimmon, with petulance.
”Everybody writes novels, nowadays. I even suspect my maid;
she certainly has a talent for fiction. And when was litera-
ture a real social stepping-stone? Besides, Myrtle Sartorys
isn't in the dimmest degree romantic. And then, you know,
there 's Adalbert Hurst. For a year he's been at Hyrtle's
feet."

’ "An appropriate posture."

"Oh, I share your prejudice. Adalbert is a little
fellow with mincing manners, a babyish treble voice, and-
moral convictions as narrow as his chest. But he 's heir
to a marquisate, and by hook or by crook gets himself rather
often listened to in the House of Commons. Myrtle is not
only unromantic, but she's cold. And Adalbert snarls at
everybody who comes near her. His protective attitude is
droll, but it's also serious. For Myrtle, you see, doesn't
send him adrift, and if tomorrow she took him, scores of

folk would pronounce it an ideal union. "

2&5

Cursitor laughed loudly. "I can imagine him snarl-
ing at Kenneth. A lapdog and a lion. But here I am," he
broke off with a sudden gravity, "talking of my friend's
possible marriage. I don't thinkhe's even dreamed of matri-
mony--yet. I've told you he's ambitious. But all the
world's before him, and though Myrtle Sartoryses don't pre-
cisely grow on bushes, there is quite a number of them,
nevertheless....See, your fellow-diners are beginning to
go....In a minute you'll be inundated by farewells. Mine
comes first, dear Blanche, and let me add to it my grateful
professions. For Kenneth is really _l_a_n_g_é now. It will
never startle society to see him anywhere, after this, since
he has passed below the lintel of your home. Good-bye, and
remember that you have permitted me to enroll you among
the guests at our next Tatterdemalion banquet." He named
a certain date. "I am to call for you that evening, and
together we shall'drive to the Hotel Cecil. It's a red-
letter night, you know. The Tatterdemalions are to enter-
tain the famous luericen humorist, Luke Laight. An immense
crowd is expected."

"Nothing would induce me to miss it," said Lady
Plinlimmon. "Your reminder is quite unnecessary. There is
a ball at theOerman Ambassador's that night, to which we
are both bidden. We can go on after the Tatterdemalion's
revel, to Carlton House Terrace. Midnight for the latter,
will be quite early enough."

2H6

V

Indermaur and Cursitor quitted Laughton House side
by side.

"You'll come to me for a while, Kenneth, before
going home? Tite Street is Just a slip away, you know."

"I ought to know your little gem of a house by this
time, Cyril." Here Indermaur paused. "But father wasn't
well when I left him. However," as he glanced at his
watch, "it's a bit earlier than I thought." Then he gave
Cursitor an odd look, half smile and half frown, in the
vernal starlight. "Besides, I've that bone to pick with
you." . . .

' "All right," said Cursitor. "Come along, and we'll
pick it as clean as you want." -

The Tite Street house was small, but opulent in
three qualities, comfort, cosiness, and taste. On every
floor the footfall was deadened by carpets of richest
texture. Certain heavy arras-like fabrics were family
heir-looms, as also not a few mellow old pictures of worth
and price. Hothing leapt to the eye; all was softness,
ease, and that peculiar luxury which woos its way into one's
appreciation instead of rushing to capture it. The orna-
mmntation was so meagre that you might pardonably neglect

its details. But to examine the least of them.was to find

2h?
yourself scanning an object rare and choice.

Cursitor led his friend into a rear room, where the
softened lights brooded upon a prevalence of velvety purples
and the gilded letterings of inumerable book covers ranged
on a continuity of shelves.

"So I'm a traitor?" he said, after they were seated,
each with a cigarette. ..

"Oh, a rank one, Cyril. You must have known!"

"Known whet, Kenneth?" '

"That Hiss Sartorys adores that other book of mine."

Cursitor laughed.169 "Frankly, I only round it out
yesterday. We met at a tea in Kensington. By that time I
had asked Lady Plinlimmon to let you take her down to ‘
dinner. So you see, the fatal slip had been irrecoverably
chosen. Besides, I knew that you'd pull through all right.
You always do pull‘through everything all right. You were
miraculous this evening, for example, with Plinlimmon. He
hates--" Cursitor paused.

"Few people? You mean that?"

"Oh, he's intolerably hedged-about by nonsensical
theories. But I watched you bowl them' over in a trice.
How on earth did you manage it?"

 

169m manuscript reads: "Kenneth laughed."

2148

Indermaur made a big smoke-cloud. "Oh, I said
something that amused him, no doubt. And then...why, then
I kept it up in the same vein. Really, I couldn't tell
you Just what trash I talked. At sight I read him for just
what you've described him, and it diverted me to try and
batter down his rusty old'gates. I think I succeeded, too
....But never mind if I did or no. We're off the subject.
Miss Sartory's confession--1 can't call it anything less
sensational—-has amazed me very much."

"She's not the only one, Kenneth," said Cursitor,
breaking a little silence. I

"Oh, I know. Those letters that you bring me.
They'd bc growing into a great heap if I didn't scrupulous-
ly make of them a week-end holocaust. But then they're
nearly all written by persons who think uneducatedly when
not spelling precariously. Among the throng, let me
assure you, I've never yet been approached by anyone who
seemed even the pale reflection of a Myrtle Sartorys."

"Which proves," answered Cursitor, "that whilc one
book has 'caught hold of the popular intellect, one has
seized the popular heart." He looked steadily at his friend
in the chastened light of'the little fascinating chamber.
"It is certainly a most remarkable beginning."
" "Remarkable!" cried Indermaur. He struck one
clenched'hand into the hollow palm of the other. "It's

unprecedented! "

21:9

"Beyond a doubt," assented Cursitor. "Your two
first books are running the strangest kind of race. 'Thoughts
Out Loud,' your volume of essays, which has been slowly
gaining ground with all sorts of emotionalists until now
the cult for it has become an actual enthusiasm, you firmly
refuse to acknowledge as your own. 'Loaves and Fishes,'
your novel, which bears your name and has reaped for its
writer an enviable repute during the couple of months that
have elapsed since its publication, you are quite willing
to father. Of one you are ashamed, as conventional and
commonplace; in the other you feel an artist's justifiable
pride. Meanwhile the books are both, in their different
ways, attracting great attention. ‘But this is not all. By
some freak of public taste or opinion, through some chance
of an extreme dulness just now thralling the general book-
market, these two works are being made the watchwords of
two separate factions. Each has its crowd of adherents,
and almost daily either crowd grows larger. The admirers
of that cryptic and somewhat evangelical writer, 'Hr.
Hobody,' point to his 'Thoughts Out Loud,' as a direct
refutation.of the merciless rationalism.in which they de-
clare 'Loaves and Fishes' to abound. The advocates of
'Loaves and Fishes,' on the other hand, refer with con-
temptuous challenge to the flimsy conventionalism of
'Thoughts Out Loud.' A huge gulf separates, in the

.250
judgment of each constituency, 'Mr. Hobody' from Kenneth
Indermaur." Here Cursitor leaned back in his gold-brown
arm-chair, 'closed his eyes, and gave vent to low ripples of
laughter. "Was there ever so queer a 'Battle of the
Books'? How piercingly epical! It makes one thing of
Homer. . 'Achilles and Agamemnon stood apart, having quar-
reled.' But, bless you, Achilles and Agamemnon are one and
the same hero!"

"Hero!".echoed Indermaur, with the most unfamiliar
harshness. "Say hypocrite! It's a wordihr more fitting."

Cursitor straightened himself, with a quick series?
of negative nods. "How absurd, Kenneth! That isn't like
you. As a rule you'face everything with equable pulse.

1 day or two ago you told me that the moneys I am forever
handing you for 'Thoughts' were hardly less agreeable than
some of those newspaper squabbles where lemo170 and

Indermaur were alternately whipped over one another's should-
crs."

"Yes, I did say so, Cyril. But I somehow don't say
it tonight. I realise that I've done a most shabby thing.
To enact the double part--to play the heme; duplex-"may be
well enough in politics, diplomacy, finance; but in letters,
that noblest of all the crafts, I only find," he paused at

 

170110 one .

251
the word, then gloomily dragged it out, "degradation."

Cursitor shot an anxious glance at his friend's
troubled face, with its ebbed colour, its compressed lips.

"Kenneth!" he exclaimed, "it's all my fault! I'm
sorry you take it like this! And suddenly, too! What's
happened? Ah, I see. Myrtle Sartorys, with her eulogies
of Monsieur Personne, has got on your nerves."

"She's a very exceptional woman," murmured Indermaur,
with his eyes on the ground. "It's terrible to think that
anything I wrote should have changed her whole life like
that. She told me, Cyril, just what the change had been.

So drastic, so radical! And then she denounced the other
book. It's all been an ordeal to me--a stab of conscience.
I've had tonight the most painful awakening. I--I feel,

as I sit here, steeped, literally steeped, in duplicity."

* "Kenneth! And yet you went afterward to Lord '
Plinlimmon, and battered down his ramparts with a tempest
of funny stories!"

"Is that aOreproach? ' Well, I deserve it."

"Ho, it's not a reproach. It's merely a reminder
that you yourself over-rate this passionate penitence. If
Myrtle 's words had cut deeper you couldn't have summoned
your mirth and wit into service with such nimble promptness."

"A kind of forlorn defiance made me do it, I think," .
Indermaur replied. "Or perhaps I wanted to drive from my -

252

brain.the echoes of her unconsciously accusing voice."

"Good heavens! One would suppose, Kenneth that
you'd bcen committing some crime.. In that case I would
have to admit myself your accomplice. But I decline to
accept either proposition. It has all simply meant, you
know, the happening of the unexpected. How well I re-
member our talk that evening at Oxford! We were strolling
along toward the old grey tower of Magdalen, silhouetted
against a tumultuous twilight sky. As we paused on the
bridge that spans the sparkling little Cherwell I pointed
to an effect of cloud like steps hewn in the side of a
golden hill.’ 'That, Kenneth,' I said, 'is the stairway of
success. Your feet are upon it already; and see what a
blaze of glory is waiting for you at the top.' And later,
as we strolled onward, I assured you that there was nothing
in the way of mental effort which you were unable to ac-
complish. Then I checked myself, laughing, and soon.after—
ward I added: 'wo, Sir Skeptic, I've a reservation, after
all; for I verily feel confident that you could not, to
save your neck from.the halter, write a small bookful of
respectable optimistic essays, containing a strong reli-
gious tinge.'"

Indermaur had leaned an elbow on the arm of his chair
and had'cheded hie eyes with a curving hand. The attitude

was retrospective; to his companion it flavored of contrition

as well.

253

"And I was just in the arrogant mood, Cyril, to let
myself be dared into doing what you had pronounced beyond
my powers. Never was the pride of intellect more boyishly,
more bumptiously displayed. You had spoken half in jest,
but yau had pricked my vanity, notwithstanding; for behind
your frolic air of demarcation I suspected that a real
doubt lurked. Hell, and so I planned for you a surprise.
In a month--hardly more--I handed you, one day, 'Thoughts
Out Loud.' Honestly, as you will grant, I had never
dreamed of its publication."

"But I insisted," Cursitor here eagerly urged. "It
was I who arranged everything. Ho anonymity could have‘been
more’carefully guarded. The obscure publisher, whom the
book has made prosperous if not wealthy, is under oath not
to reveal the fact of my having offered him your manuscript.
And as for his knowledge of its actual authorship, that has
not even the most spectral existence. I have given him a
solemn oath that the writer is not myself. He accepts this
as conclusive. Repeatedly I have hinted in plainest terms
that the writer is a.woman.. This belief I have good reason
to feel that he now securely entertains. And so, Kenneth,
your secret is altogether safe. The cheques which Forester
makes payable to my order I turn into money before handing
you their amounts. Hence, when they are returned to him he

sees only my endorsement on.their backs. Trust me, since

25h ,

you now so regard disclosure with such a deepened abhor-
rence, there are no breakers ahead for you, my boy-“not
the glimmer of a white-cap on your placid sea of security.
All you will have to do is the performance of what quixot-
ism alone would call an unpleasant task. That is, to pile
up your somewhat fat percentages as they drift in upon you,
month by month."

Indermaur rose, after a sudden nervous movement. He
went over to his friend's side and stood there for a moment
in silence. Then: "It may sound theatrical, but the money
will seem, now, likeOthe wages of sin."

"Sin?" Cursitor deplored.

"A man sins when he writes and prints what he doesn't
believe. I do so wish that you hadn't let the thing ever
get printed, Cyril. I'm not blaming you--"

"Your blame is "my full desert. I was quite tyran-
nical, recollect. Persuasion became compulsion. I hunger-
ed to see the essays in type. I thought them amazingly
clever--and think so still. I believe--it was two years
ago, and at the age I'd then reached one grows appreciably
wiser with each new month--1 believed, Kenneth, that you'd

 

someday be very proud of this effective little tour 2: £932."

"I've only been getting more and more ashamed of i
it," said Indermaur, with a dejection that hurt his hearer
almost like some blast of censure. "Mortification had

255
reached a climax with me, perhaps. The announcement made
by Miss Sartorys was like the camel's final straw. Only
yesterday, while keeping watch in the room next my father's,
I read the book over, from beginning to end. It isn't exag-
geration, Cyril, when I tell you that the very binding
seemed to me slimy with duplicity."

"Kenneth!"

"A wolf in sheep's clothing isn't to be named the
same year with me! Always, you know, since I could reason
at all, I have taken the rationalistic stand. I paused be-
fore what I could not prove, and refused to accept any
message as authentic which came from visionary and mystic
sources. Hevertheless, I was no flippant scoffer, and
while irritated by too easy a credulity I held all honest
conviction in sincerest respect. Moreover, though firmly
entrenched in my own creeds, I have never lost sight of the
fact that I am still young, and that to live must mean indi-
vidually to change, even though one is unable to conjecture
along what lines the momentum of experience may push his
estimates and ideals. While in one sense, therefore, it was
pride of intellect that prompted me toward a serious
travesty of views opposed to my own, humility of intellect
has thus far swayed, for me, all serious endeavour and those
who rail against the novel which I have given my name must
be incited solely by the firm grasp with which I cling to

256
certain persuasions, conclusions; for in no case have I
attacked or condemned opposing tenets."

"Surely, Kenneth," replied Cursitor, looking up at
him with eyes where glistened the old spark of admiration,
"I cannot dispute one word of what you have said."

"And hence my masquerade, public yet private, notori-
ous yetlclandestine, is all the more a matter for contri-
tion. I've murdered my own literary self-respect--"

"No, no! You mustn't put it so harshly!"

But Indermaur was obdurate. "--And only you, my
accomplice, know where and how the corpse has been buried.
If by any grim chance it should be unearthed, the critical
world, I imagine, would soon build, for me a stout gallows,
and hang me high on it with triumphant glee."

"But there's no such grim chance-“nous whatever."

"Let us devoutly trust so."

Cursitor took the hand which his friend put forth
for good-night, and flurriedly rose while still clasping
it.

"Good heawens, Kenneth! You can't possibly sus-
pect--?" ’

"What?" smiled Indermaur. "Discovery? Ruin? Ho.
Pardon the gruesome vagaries of a guilty conscience. Good-
night, and may your dreams be less goblin than mine."

"Nonsense!" Cursitor tossed back, while following
him out-into the hall.

257
VI

As Indermaur walked homeward along the Embankment,
its midnight loneliness, flanked by flashes of the gliding
river, may have added new stimulus to his already active
reflections. Yes, he mused, his father had been right. He
was ambitious, and the "safe side" lured him. He had al-~
ready learned the prudence of compromise, the folly of
fighting against hostile odds. And yet diplomacy, tact,
finesse could always be kept abysmally divided from
trickery. Thus he had often told himself, hardily scout-
ing the idea that to be politic was of necessity to em-
ploy the least noxious deceit. Of course he had played
the mountebank, but was his fault so dire that it should
threaten to sting him with so scorpionlike a whip? He felt,
while listening in the silence to his own boot-heels on
the dim, deserted pavement, as though by some effort of
superhuman collectiveness he must make one gigantic bon-
fire of every volume containing those fateful undergradu-
ate essays. Hero wished that all Romans had but a single
neck for his decapitating broadsword. How delightful if
the disseminated copies of this tormenting book might be
resolved into one, and straightaway dropped into oblivious
flames!

0n reaching home Indermaur stole noiselessly to the

258
threshold of his father's room“ The gas had been turned
”to a star, and through another doorway, three quarters
closed, he heard the heavy breathings of old Martha." Draw-
ing near the bedside, he listened for some sound. So
deep reigned [sleep], however, in the region of the sick
man's pillows, that Indermaur began to doubt if his father
were still alive.

But he mistook for death what was only its languid
semblance. Hext day Ralph Indermaur regained some measure
of physical strength; yet the last slow step of his
strangely lingering malady had been taken, and from that
icy lethargy he awoke as one pathetically yet mercilessly
reprieved. A permanent shadow had fallen upon his mind,
and in its dusk all future suffering had perished. He never
again spoke coherently, and only at times recognised his
son. .

In connection with the wide notice which his first
attempt at fiction had so quickly secured, a most unusual
and peculiar circumstance, as Kenneth now kept reflecting,
had surely occurred. As we know, the anonymous volume
called "Thoughts Out Loud" had for somm time been slowly
pushing its way-eassisted, preadventure, by a notably
stagnant interregnum.in the book-trade. Although Indermaur
had not even the vaguest suspicion of any such truth, each

book, widely as it differed from the other in subject and

259
treatment, owed attractiveness to one and the same origina-
ting force. Nature had dowered him with the ability to cap-
tivate his readers. He had the mi 5.122 of the horn man of
letters, apart from all merits or shortcomings. In the two
books which he had thus far written, this power was equally
operative.

Cursitor showed the warmest sympathy on learning of
his father's new piteous lapse. "How astounding, Kenneth,
are the various approaches to death! Some are like weari-
some paths through interminable thickets of thorn, others
like abrupt leaps from sheer cliffs...But you tell me that
the doctor supports you in believing that your father's pain
has now completely ceased. He will not require, then, your
constant care? That is good news. I saw Myrtle Sartorys
last night at the opera. we spoke of you, and she bade me
to inform you that her 'day' was Thursday-~the day after
tomorrow. I shall try to drop in during the afternoon by
six or a little later. Ho. 18a Berkely Square. Can you
manage it?"

Indermaur's eyes flashed pleasure. "Can I not,
indeed!" ‘ t

"Then go, _by all means. And yet I must warn you.
9333‘ m my friend."
"What on earth do you mean?"

"You want the watch-dog's name?"

260

You told me Miss Sartorys is an orphan. Oh, I see.
There's some haughty old dragon of a relation--some dismally
patrician duenna in the shape of cousin, aunt-m"

"Stop at 'aunt', please. There is an aunt. Poor,
dear Lady Cloome! Her amiable eyes will make you tremble
with repentance; Myrtle's will is law to her, and there
was never so deliciously‘high-bred an old nonentity. Ho,
the watch-dog is a man, and his name is Adalbert Hurst. He
intends to marry Myrtle, and there isn't an eligible duke
in the kingdom against when he's not prepared to show fight."

"Really," said Indermaur, with a smile of faint ‘
defiance just touching either corner of his clear-cut lips.
He laid a hand on Cursitor's arm. "Please tell me more of
this very tenacious adorer;.." .

For two hours the drawing-rooms were apt to be fairly
well filled on Lady Cloome's and Miss Sartorys's Thursdays,
while aunt and niece remained in town. But on-the especial
day when Indermaur had arranged to visit. their small yet
luxurious home in Berkeley Square, an early guest had pre-
sented himself, eager to find Myrtle alone.

"I came, as you see," Adalbert Hurst declared, "a
good half-hour before your usual time of receiving. I.
strove in vain for a private word with you last night at

Mrs . Towerley' s . "

261

Myrtle Sartorys looked full into his eyes, yet some-
how absently, as if she but half saw them. "Ybur’private
word, as you term it, has been spoken.and answered a good
many times before."

"Granted," said Adalbert Hurst. "But not in the way
I want." His eyelids contracted a little while he narrowly
watched her. "You're distraite. Something preoccupies you;
or is it somebody?" He gave a laugh of airy mockery that
had a crashing effect, as though some costly piece of china
had been wickedly shattered. He was a man.whom certain
wayward moods would sometimes impel into tones, looks, acts
as ugly as his own.body and visage. ‘When so inclined, howb
ever, he could.make you forget both, for his mind was broad,
his wit nimble, his worldly knowledge lavish. .A few people
feared him, others hated him, but the majority beamed upon
him as a possible grandee in Parliament and the heir-pre-
sumptive of an ancient title. ,

"Perhaps it's that wonderful book, 'Thoughts Out
Loud,” he continued, "cm which you raved the last time we
'were clone together. I've read it since then. Do you still
swear by it?" t

"I know it almost by heart," said Myrtle. "If you
donfit like it please restrain.your adverse opinions. You're
in c bad humor, this afternoon, and frankly I'm sorry that

you came so early."

262

Adalbert folded his arms over his limited chest and
scowled at the apposite wall.

“You heard me speak last Tuesday in the House?" he
mutteredly asked. .

"Yes, I used the ticket you kindly sent. Aunt Olive
and I both enjoyed your speech very much. You commanded
attention; once or twice you rose to fine heights. It was
all exceedingly good.”

“H-m. Thanks.‘ Latterly I've been forcing them to
listen. My voice, of course, is an elfin screech, and with
my small body and big-head I have the most caricaturish out.”

”You must not. say such things of yourself--"

“But I do , for I know that others are forever saying
thou. hast Tuesday I was in dead earnest, and felt sure I
would win. And I did. My speech settled the bill. Sir
Rupert Ross got the credit of it, but I'd paved the way for
him, dear old superannuated maunderer! -Everybody’ realized
it. Gladwyn came up to me and shook my hand after the
division had been called and the bill thrown ignominiously
out. 'Adalbert,‘ he said, 'you've got the same bulldog
.pertinaoity that’made' your grandfather one of our greatest
Ierd Chancellors.' I liked that from such a man as Gladwyn,
for everybody knows. _h_i_._g record." ‘

Here the speaker rose, went to a small ebony table
covered with ornaments, and took up a piece of old Japanese

bronze, a serpent with scales marvellously articulated.

263
Soon he dropped the bauble with a thud that bespoke negli-
gence. “Bulldog tenacity," he went on, going close to
Myrtle and throwing himself into a low cushioned chair
whose rim almost touched her gown. ”A commonplace form of
speech, but tremendously expressive.‘ I won't give you up.
Lfter all, you don't dislike me. That's something to work
upon. I've asked you ten distinct times to marry me, and
today makes the eleventh. But I'll go resolutely on; I'll
never weaken a jet. I'm determined, you know. I adore you.
Of course you can grow‘angry and turn me adrift. You can
cut me dead, and all that. There's a risk I must run. But
somehow I don't fear it. ~Do’you know why?"

His voice often so raspingly harsh,’.had grown gentle,
almost sweet. His unfortunate face could express no lover-
like tenderness, yet in the very lines of his ill-shapen
figure there were curious symbols of appeal and entreaty.
"Do you know lathy'tm he softly repeated.

”lo," saidlnyrtle. It was conceded'among certain
women who cared neither for his prospective title nor his
growing political chances, that he had remarkably at command
a power to interest and please. They could not explain it;
they sometimes treated it, in attitudes of mutual criticism,
as a singular kind of Joke. Butthey recognised, all the
same, its peculiar, undeniable spell; and once, when a man
about town had asked a great feminine leader how the deuce
such a belle and heiress as Myrtle Sartorys could stand

2614.

having that gnomish little mannikin perpetually dangle at
her skirts, the reply had come short and sharp: "Hy dear
colonel, Grace frelawney was a belle and an heiress. You
lost her, but if you'd had that same gnomish little man-
nikin's gift of winsomeness, you mightn't now be in terror
of your tailor and groaning-over your debts to the money
lenders." f

'i will tell you why," Adalbert Hurst continued,
still in the same gentle voice. "I don't fear your _dis-
missal, m__a_ 2355.11.29 because I'm convinced that your inherent
coldness has never yet been invaded by the faintest flush
of a passion. There lies my safety, my security, my hope I”

At Myrtle's side, set between the curtains of two '
windows, rose a tiered receptacle for books. Reaching forth
a hand, she secured one, with an ease that betokened thorough
knowledge of its locality. ‘

“fall: of a passion!" she exclaimed, half with mis-
chief, perhaps, yet half in actual earnest. 'I can imagine
myself very quickly developing one for the author of this
exquisite book."

“What book?" he asked. Then, springing up, he glanced
at the open pages on which her eyes were resting. "Ah...”
a matter of course, your beloved 'Thoughts Out Loud'! And
there's not even any rumor as to its author's name?'7'r

* Myrtle looked up quickly, all alert with curiosity.
"Nonnone that I've heard. Have you happened to hear any?”

265

Adalbert gave a sharp negative headshake. "And you
could fall in love with the writer of these essays." He
stroked his beardless chin and added dryly: ”Suppose they
were written by a woman.” _

Myrtle flashed his a look of imperious veto. "Never,
never! There are three things I'm sure of concerningthe
author. He's a man, he's young, .and he has a noble heart!"

266
VII

Soon afterwards visitors came drifting into the
beautiful old rooms of this smallish Berkely Square house,
where Lady Cloome had passed many decades and witnessed
many momentous changes. She had come downstairs to
"receive" beside Myrtle, a tall, delicate shape, with hair
as snowy as the laces at her bosom, and with a fragile,
pink-tinted face that was one incarnate smile. Somebody
had once called her the ”resigned Niche.“ She had cer-
tainly buried all her kith and kin save the niece who now
inseparably dwelt with her, and yet the pangs of untold
heartaches had failed to dissipate her impregnable cheer-
fulness. There it had been, and there it staid. No intell-
ectual capacity was behind it; rosy, temperamental, peren-
nial, it had defied sorrows that might have laid many a
woman in her grave years ago. She never "went out," but
she loved to "receive," and the "Thursdays" which would
often have bored her sole-left relation were clad with
unceasing gladness because'of "Aunt Olive's' Joy in them.

ale had surely aged with an immense grace. ”New
People" struck no disturbing note into the harmony or her
inveterate complaisance. She had long ago shrugged her
fragile shoulders when patricians of her own world had
railed against social innovations. "One must go with the

times," she had said, and serenely as a curtsying boat she

267
had let the altered currents take her. Over all who came
she cast the sweet sorcery of her welcome, like a veil woven
of glistening air. In Myrtle's discretion she placed per-
fect trust; her niece could of course make no mistakes re-
garding the suitability of this or that stranger. By
Indermaur she was immediately fascinated. She had always
admired beauty in men, and at once his fair, strong face
and distinguished bearing reminded her of some dead beau,
famed in the past as a military light or a gallant squire
of Dames.

"You do not seem half so much like a writer as a
soldier," she said to him, in her placid, beaming way. "But
your novel, after all, is soldierly in some respects; I mean
that it has so much force. Alas, my poor eyes have grown
cruel tyrants, and I must be read to, nowadays, instead of
reading for myself. But that, Mr. Indermaur, is a crucial
test. I assure you that you stand it with great success."

"Believe me, Lady Cleans," he answered, ”yours is i
the most honoring criticism I have yet received, and also
by far ‘the most original.”

His response was weightless enough in itself, but the

felicity of manner and tone with which he invested it at
once enchanted its recipient. "He has the be; _a_i_r_," she mur-
mured afterward to a young woman of fashion. "Ah, my dear
Cecilia, it has become such a rarity of late. ’we old women
are laughed at if we mention it and thought either scolding

268

sentimentalists or lackadaisical bores. But we can't
help feeling the sad decadence of courtliness; we are
haunted by inalienable memories, my dear, when we witness
the slang and strut of today. Pardon me for this burst
of discontent. But, really, Hr. Indermaur is to blame
for it. He has stirred me into a retrospective mood...
Watch his bright, pure-cut face, his unconscious elegance
of demeanor, as he listens to that young girl with the
rather loud voice. Miss Prawle, I believe; an American,
is she not?"171

”Decidedly American," said Lady Gloome's companion,
with coldness. ”They say that she comes from'Boston.
Algy and I took in Boston when we made our American tour
last year. It's a fairly pretty town, with a largish green
space at one end, which the inhabitants hold in great awe,
but which isn't half as large as Clapham Common, though they
never play cricket there, or anything like that, and are
never tired of telling you that it's 'historic.' But we
met some quite nice people in Boston. ” They have a curious
style of speaking; one minute you find it like ours and the

next minute you don't."

 

171The Jamesian international theme emerges with the
appearance of Miss Prawle and her brother, Jack. The con-
trast of manners and speech is painfully apparent as are
the superficial cross-currents of thought. See pp.77-79.

269

"Fancy!” rippled Lady Clocme. "A sort of Anglo-
American dialect, I imagine?"

”It's by way of being something in that line--yes.
But this Miss Prawle doesn't speak in the least like a
Bostonian. They say that she affects the most raw Yankee-
ism because she's heard that this sort of thing is just
new highly popular in England.“

"How extraordinary," smiled Lady Gloome.

Indemaur, in another sense, found it so. He was
aware of Miss Prawle's reputed masquerade. He thought her
thin, keen face pretty, and the intense vivacity of her
mien amused him. He liked the excessive richness of her
dress because [it was] so palpably tempered by taste. But
her voice, which now hinted of Liverpool and now made him
regret the comparison, was a stern disillusionment.

"Oh, oh, Hr. Indermaur,u the‘young lady was affiming.
"I'm just crazy about your splendid book! I've known exactly
such women as your Adelaide. O'course she takes the cake for
a nasty mean thing. You meant her to be a nasty mean thing,
I'm dead sure, M you, now? There; that's right.
smirk: you've got such a beautiful smirk! I—had a letter
today'frome friend across the big pond.“ She says every-
body's reading 'Loaves 'n Fishes." She went into the Big
Store in New York, the other day and saw a pile of 'em
that looked for all the world like one of our skyscrapers.

270
So I guess you'll have to come over and lecture. You can
hot one thing-ewe'll give you a grand send-off in Bawston.
There's no city in 'Herica where they love being lectured
to so -much as in Bawston.'

'I want so very much to have you meet my cousin,
Hrs. Cavendish Arbuthnot,” said Lady Plinlimmon, Just then,
pausing at Indermaur's side. "She has been reading you
with such deep pleasure, and wants to tell you how angry a
recent article has made her. I think it appeared in the
'Saturday Sentinel. ' Something about the false ring of
your novel when compared with that other book which every-
body is also absorbed in Just now--'Thoughts Out Loud."

Hiss Prawle looked pettishlyflwoebegone when Indermaur
had vanished from her side. The next instant her brother,
an idler of about twonty and an Anglomaniac of the most
passionate type, came gliding up to her, garbed in all the
latest modish devices of Sackville Street.

"I say, Lizzie, I've been hearin' your voice harf
way across the drawin'-room. You'd better cut this lot of
talkin' like a girl iron the wild’west. If you don't, I'm
blessed if I'll not chuck the whole game and go over to ’
Paris, leavin' you and the maid to shift for yourselves.
There!” -

- Lizzie looked up at her brother's long, sallow face,
and replied to him sullenly, under her'breath. ”You can do
as you please, Jack. Why don't 23 cut your h’glish airs,

on

271

by the bye? what's sauce for the gooseuyou know the rest.
And if you dare threaten me again I'll cable to pa. He'll
soon freeze you out of Paris when he knows you've deserted
me, and Just as Lord Kilmerary has grown so attentive!”

Indermaur, despite certain marked civilities, by
no means carried everything before him. Myrtle gave him
agreeable greeting, but a few of the younger men and women
who surrounded her, or who stood in pairs and groups at
various distances away, chose to appear quite as uncon-
scious of his great personal attraction as of the renown
he had lately achieved. Oxford had taught Indermaur more
than lay in the texts of its libraries. He know perfectly
well that a spirit of antagonism was rising against him.
There were more foes to conquer than his Lordship of
Plinlimmon. In a few minutes, as he was well aware, every-
body had got to know his name: and yet everybody was not,
for this reason, anxious to make his acquaintance. He saw
male eyes look past him-~they could not very well look
over him--with that peculiar blankness which is so often
studied and yet seems an indifference completely spontaneous.
Feminine eyes were in several instancesno less avoidant.
Cursitor, who presently arrived, watched and drew his an-
noyed inferences. ”It is so ridiculous," he mused, "for
them to pretend they don't notice Kenneth. Hot to do so
would be simply impossible. His form and face command heed

272
the instant he appears. Such folk--brainless young guards-

men, moneyed fops and snobs, empty-pated girls whose natural
feelings and ideas are all corseted in by caste-~will try
to irritate him even if they can't impede his progress."

But in truth Indermaur was not irritated. Perhaps
his father's words, "propitiate, propitiate," rang in his
recollection. Anyway, propitiation was his natural weapon.
He recognised the futility of any other. Before long Cur-

sitor had introduced him to a young man with languid eye-

lids, the son of a prominent peer. Immediately Indermaur,
with neat swiftness of phrase, referred to a game of pole
at Ranelagh, in which he had seen the youth display singular
nerve and skill. Without a suggestion of flattery he des-
cribed the pluck and keen-sightedness which his new acquain-
tance had shown, addressing Cursitor as though the Honorable
Cedric were not present, and choosing terms whose deft and
apt usage betrayed thorough knowledge of the game. It de-
lighted Cursitor to observe how the Honorable Cedric bright-
ened and almost sparkled. Once more a facile and vivid vic-
tory had been gained. But soon afterward Myrtle Sartorys
called Indermaur's name quite audibly, with a beckoning ges-
ture, and while the latter moved away, leaving behind him an
unexplainable warmth of cordiality, Cursitor felt his arm
vehemently grasped.

"I say, old chap, tell me about him! He's a devil-
ish nice sort! I'd like to see more of him! How can I,

and.where?"

273

A few minutes later Myrtle introduced Indermaur to
Adalbert Hurst. It had once been spitemlly averred of
Adalbert that he was never civil to handsome men. But
he now put his cold', slim hand into Indermaur's large,
warm one with a fairly genial promptness. -

"I must congratulate you,” he said, "on not let-
ting your celebrity make you appear bored."-

”Thanks, Mr. Hurst," came the quick‘reply. ”Such
as it is, I'd quite forgotten it in the same apartments
with so famous a statesman as yourself.”

”Perfect!" exclaimed Hrs. Cavendish Arbuthnot, a
dark, supple woman, with great black eyes and a pointed
chin. ”How delightful to find an author who can talk as
well as he writes!”

”You mustn't spoil Hr. Indermaur with compliments,"
announced Lady Plinlimon, gliding up. V

"Oh," said Indermaur, with his bell-like, contag-
ious laugh, "'one is always fondest of what one doesn't
deserve.” 7 -

With his slaty, expressionless eyes Adalbert had
been furtively scanning every "point" of Indermaur, as
though he were a horse of contemplated purchase.

"Modesty saves us many pangs," the queerly inflex-
ible suitor of Myrtle Sartorys now said. "I shouldn't
be so impertinent as to assume that yours, -Mr. Indermaur,

is not genuine. And hence this curious new rivalry

27br
between your own book and 'Thoughts Out Loud--'"

"well, sir, what of it, pray?" Indermaur spoke
‘with a sudden harshness, not in the least violent, though
clearly abrupt.

At once, Adalbert broke into a cackle of laughter;
his mirth was hardly ever made manifest save in this
weirdish.way.

"Oh, what have I done?" he cried, and with exag-
gerated mock regretfulness he covered his face. The pos-
ture that he struck wascomic, and provoked laughter.

In this Indermaur, who had recovered himself with intense
speed, heartily Joined.

"Pardon.me, Mr. Hurst,” he said, "you certainly
haven't 'done' anything except surprise me. For how can
a mere light comedy of manners like my little story be
spoken of as maintaining 'rivalry"with a serious book
of essays?" '

”You must not speak so contemptuously of your
novel," protested Lady Plinlimmon.

"It is very much.more than a light comedy of
manners," broke in.Myrtle.

Here Adalbert made a grimace. "Bless my soul,

I hope it isn't a heavy one!"

"It has weight--decided weight," asserted Mrs.

Arbuthnot. "In the same sense,” she added, as 'The

School for Scandal. "'

275

"But I trust it doesn't contain any scandal,"
hastened Adalbert. “

"Ah, you give yourself away," said Cursitor,
Joining them. "Too evidently you haven't read it. I
take for granted that you're all talking about 'Loaves
and Fishes.'” - -

”Everybody is talking about it,” pealed Miss
Prawle, who had crossed the room in hopes of another chat
with Indermaur.

”well, I plead guilty," avowed Adalbert. "so, I
haven't read it--yet. What are we poor politicians to
do? Heaven knows we've fiction enough to occupy us in
the House of Commons."

”0h, we're not discussing immoral fiction,” obJec—
ted a voice. “ a

”But I hex: chanced to read the other popular book
of the period," oontinued.Adalbert, with a meaning glance
at Myrtle. ”And though.Hr. Indermaur has Just been kind
enough to call it serious, I confess that I couldn't take
it seriously. nor could I wonder, indeed, that the author
should have concealed his name, for it all strikes me as
the most sophomorical stuff...Pray, Mr. Indermaur,“ he
proceeded, ”what is your opinion of this 'Thoughts-Out
Loud'? I am really anxious to learn if a trained writer
like yourself agrees with.me in pronouncing it more pic-

turesque platitude.”

276

Cursitor's eyes were fixed, now, with secret
eagerness on the face of his friend. He was prepared
for at least a change of color. But none came. Inder-
maur was steeled against all further self-betrayal. He
bent his tall frame a little to answer Adalbert Hurst,
but what he said was lost upon several listeners, includ-
ing Cursitor himself, for Just then a small flock of
guests came pushing toward Myrtle with their intended
farewells, and the group already near her became divi-
ded and almost dispersed.

”What answer did you make?" he asked Indermaur,
after they had quitted the house and were turning from
Berkeley Square into Bruton Street.~

"I told him," said Indermaur, slowly, "that since
the two-books had been a good deal mentioned together in
various reviews, of late, and were running what seemed
to be a kind of neck-and-neck commercial race, it might
perhaps prove a more discreet step for me to keep silence
in the matter of all personal Judgment."

"M-m. Excellent. I don't suppose he liked it,
however." b

Indermaur nodded. "He looked as if he didn't.
And he doesn't like me." P '

"He doesn't like~anyone whom Myrtle Sartorys

likes. I warnedfiyou, remember."

277

”But why do you think," quickly inquired Indermaur,
"that Myrtle Sartorys likes me?"

'I've very little doubt or it--that's all." Here
cursitor started. "Good God, man! What'shthe matter?
You're turning pale." .. - ,

- nHow she would despise me, Cyril, if she knew!"

*Nonsense. She doesn't know, and never possibly

can!”

278
VIII

The next fortnight kept incessantly striking new
chimes of grateful change into Kenneth Indermaur's rather
eventless recent life. Lady Plinlimmon's endorsement
had much meaning, and she now freely dispensed it. Other
women of influence rallied to her aid, and some difficult
doors were thrown open. But the presence that passed
through them was finely exceptional; scores were soon con-
ceding this. Indermaur, as someone said with prettiness,
could no more be avoided than the rhododendrons in the
Park. There he was; he had come in with the season. You
couldn't say that you didn't like to have him about, even
thoughflto say that you did’might be to give democracy a
fortifying fillip not at all after your taste. At first
there had seemed a prospect of sides being taken, of
'pros' and 'cons' urged. But it soon became a contest
from which all opositicn quite absurdly collapsed. The
male British snob always teens with particular hostility
against a handsome outsider of his own sex, and whatever
roses may sparsely strew the path of his progress are
sure to be scattered there by fingers feminine. But the
Earl of Plinlimmon and our younger acquaintance, the
Honorable Cedric, figure in but two of many similar epi-
sodes. Truth was, the men made only a futile flourish

279
of belligerence, after all. Indermaur's present vantage
lay in his being a man's man; for the man's man, when
he knows how to win women, is a tower of social strength
which.oothing save wealth can overtOp.

At the Tatterdemalions' great complimentary dinner
Lady Plinlimmon appeared in the company of Myrtle Sartorys,
and with Cursitor and Indermaur in close attendance. From
a viewpoint of mere rank alone she was altogether the most
important lady of this great assemblage. The banquet num-
bered fully five-hundred guests, and in the galleries
that lined the walls, connecting with aerial restaurants
opening on the immense and magnificent hall like the
proscenium-boxes of some vast theatre, throngs of specta-
tors were afterward ensconced.

A long time elapsed before dinner was served. Mean-
while the crush.in the antechambers grew more and more
dense. It was a curious gathering, because at once so
bohemian yet so refined. The men were all conventionally
coated and cravatted, but the women, some of whom possessed
remarkable beauty, often displayed garments of the most
fantastic material and cut. naturally, considering that
the guest of honor was a renowned transatlantic humorist,
many.Americans were sprinkled among the multitude. But
London had poured forth a host of her literary celebri-
ties.

280

Here you saw the sallow and sad-eyed Hr. Powerscourt
Foulke, who had redeemed the shilling-shocker, dipping it
lustrally in wells of English undefiled; the plump and
rubicund Hr. Trotaway, who had written a book on every
known subject, from the Zendavesta of Zoroaster to the
morals of the Maoris, including an annual Christmas fairy-
tale for the past two decades, and a newspaper leader six
times a week for certainly three; the bald and massive Hr.
Pomfret Puddifant, who wrote "historical" romances, sold
them by the tons and had already convinced the rising Anglo-
Baxon generation that Queen Elizabeth tried six times to
poison Mary Stuart before beheading her, and that William
III made a secret Journey to St. Germain, where he knelt
tearfully at the feet of his father-in-law, James II,
imploring him to return to England and assuring him that
if he did so ”all would be forgiven." Then there was the
pallid and slender Hr. Ruthven Rugge, who had three times
fled in despair from his ”style," through fear of detested
clich‘s, and now who wrote in so"original" a strain that
his preciosities had given his devoted wife brain-fever
while acting as his amanuensis. Also Kiss Emily Ogston,
angular and impetuous, who was said to begin her novels
by inventing fifty epigrams and then putting them into the
mouths of five or six "characters," few of whom had a
title lower than that e: viscount er baroness, though

haronets were sometimes tolerated, or even, at a pinch,

281

the humble knight. But “lady writers" were copiously
represented, and to stretch the list would be to chal-
lenge prolixity.

"Take my arm,” said Lady Plinlimmon to Myrtle,
"and we will move about as well as we can in the crush.
Cyril and Er. Indermaur will keep track of us--or at
least we'll hope ”.172 You noticed, no doubt, that cer-
tain very tiresome persons have been seeking me. Some
I've met at the studios, others at charming receptions
where 'smartness' does not condescend to assert itself.
But the gates of-what they call Upper Bohemia are unfor-
tunately too wide open. I confess it gets on my nerves
to meet people who address no as 'my lady,' and 'your
ladyship.'...ih, here is Mr. Simonson, the'American
painter}, she put out her hand to an exceedingly well-
bred looking man, with animated yellowish eyes and a
big tawny moustache. "Now, Mr. Simonson, are you not
delighted at this splendid ovation to a writer who is
your fellow-countryman1'173

"No, Lady minim-on," was the reply, earnestly
yet somewhat cautiously delivered, while Mr. Simonson

 

172‘1'he manuscript reads: "Cyril and Mr. Cursitor
will keep track of us--" -

173% manuscript reads: ”Now, Mr. Bimonson, are
you not Jdelighted at this splendid ovation to a writer of
illng who is your fellow-countryman?"

282

rolled his luminous eyes left and right, as if in fear
of some auditor. ”I confess to you that it only shows
the enormous indifference of England to all our legiti-
mate literary endeavor.”

Indermaur, much interested, pushed forward. He
had met Mr. Simonson before, and shook hands with him
while saying:

"Whom, then, do you want us to honor in American
letters if not so native a fun-maker as Mr. Luke Laight?"

"The American writers whom I would prefer you to ._
honor, Hr. Indermaur, are those wb do not merely make
us laugh overseas but who also make us think. But you
English will rarely if ever do that. You are continually
crying out for something that ' smells of our soil.' The
moment it is a question of our‘civilised novelists‘you
yawn and point to your Thackerays and your George Eliots.
The moment it is a question of our civilised poets, you
yawn and point to your Tennysons and your Matthew Arnolds.
With our historians, essayists, controversialists, it is
always the same. I donot wish to be thought a dispara-
ger of Mr. Luke Laight; but I insist that what you all
chiefly care for in him, over here, is his eccentricity
rather than his force. This is why you applaud as poetry
the fantastic Jingles of, Poe and the hysteric exaggerations
of Whitman. You are always crying out for us to 'represent'
something, and you neglect, for this reason, all that is —

283
classically true and fine in our literary develOpment,
and hail as 'original' its least symptom of grotesque-
ness and caprice."17h

"A rather just arraignment," fell from.Cursitor.

“Still," objected Indermaur, "there is another
point of outlook, and if you will permit me, I would
bring forward..." ‘

"Very probably Indermaur is going to 'bring for-
ward' something stupendously clever," said Lady Plin-
1tmmon, as she pushed further along with Myrtle's arm
still in her own, "YOu think him very nice, my dear, by
the way, do you not?"

"on, very," said Myrtle, with airy vagueness.

*For my own part, myrtle, I've got the strangest
idea. But perhaps you won't like me to tell it you.“

'"I shan't mind at all," replied Myrtle, with measure-
less innocence. "Strange ideas are so pleasant. One hears
so few."

“Except from.hém. Now don't look as if you were
not sure whom.I mean by 'hhm'. .Ah, there is Hr. Luke
Laight again, and here comes Sir George Jermayne to tell

me that the Guest of the Evening is to conduct me to my

 

17”Again, the Anglo-American contrast, this time
with reference to literary taste. Cf. remarks in letters,
pp.lSl-152 and 182-185; also see pp.79-80, 88-89, for
additional comment.

28k
seat. You are to sit between Cyril and Mr. Indermaur,175
and we shall all be near one another at the 252;:
d'honneur.'

‘ After the great hall was filled and dinner had
actually commenced, Cursitor's chair was discovered by
Myrtle and Indermaur to be empty. But at the end of soup
he hurriedly arrived.and held with.his friend a low cone
versation, while standing behind Indermaur's chair. Myrtle
heard, but no one else, and in the great hall, with its
countless agencies of distraction, Cursitor's eagerness,
disclosed both.by'position and visage, passed.unnoticed.

A certain most bewildering thing had happened.
The gentleman.who was to have answered one of the chief
toasts of the evening had been suddenly taken ill. He
was a trained and favorite after-dinner speaker. uneh
had been expected of him. The chairman, the honorable
secretaries, and several members of the general committee,
were all in.despair. For the Tatterdemalions, notwith-
standing their devil-may-care sort of'name, were a body
in which decorum and punctilie held secure sway. Who,
it was now lamentingly asked, could take the place, could
approximate toward taking the place, of their lost Lancelot
Courtenay? As it happened, Cursitor, who knew everybody,

 

175The manuscript reads: "You are to sit between
Cyril and Mr. Cursitor,...' ,

285
knew one of these desolated wailers. "I can tell you
of a man," he said, and named Kenneth Indermaur. "I
have heard him in debate at Oxford, and his gift is be-
yond dispute. Lately, also, I have been present at two
dinners where he was asked to speak, and each time he
has spoken quite impromptu. Each time, moreover, he
acquitted himself most capably. He is here this evening,
as perhaps I need not tell you. He may find himself
wholly unprepared to deal with the toast, 'Literary
London.' I cannot, of course, be sure if he will ac-
cept this responsibility at so brief a notice. But I
will do 'my best to persuade him, provided I am empowered
with your permission."

Cursitor at length returned to his own seat. In-
dermaur talked with Myrtle Sartorys, and now and then with
Lady Plinlimmon, as though nothing had happened. Some- .
times Miss Sartorys would turn to Cursitor, seated on her
other side. Presently she said: ”Your friend astonishes
me.” _

"I dislike that term, 'your friend," replied Cyril.
"SurelyiKenneth, by this timelis also yours."

Myrtle gave him a mystic little smile. "How you
take one up. Has the lady on your other side put you out
of humor?"

"not at all. She's the widely read Mrs. Abbott

Appleby. In conversation she's all sunshine and serenity.

A

286
In her books she's all fustian and ferment. Give her a
knife and fork and something to eat with them, as now,
and she reminds one of a playful kitten. Put a pen in
her hand and she becomes a tigress...But why, pray, does
Kenneth astonish you?" A

"Oh, I overheard much of your recent conversation,"
said Myrtle. "He consented to take the absent Hr. ‘
Courtenay's place.“ -

"He consented, yes."

"But he goes on talking, all the time, either to
myself or Lady Plinlimmon."

”Well? And you wonder at this?"

“Why should I not?" asked.Myrtle, with.a perplexed
crease in her smooth brow. "He's giving himself no time
to think it over." ’

"The speech?" laughed Cursitor. “Ah, you don't
know his as I do! 'He's thinking it over, nonetheless.

Of course he may fail. But we shall see."”

"I hope he will not fail!" Myrtle-said, with
abruptest candor. "I should hate that! You like him
very much; I've observed it, of course." Her manner be-
came nervously reproachful. “was it quite fair of you
to ask of him so terribly hard a task? I mean, unless
you were sure. And you cannot be sure. Oh, I shall blame

you greatly if he does not succeed!"

287

”She's in love with him," thought Cursitor. "New,
Adalbert Hurst, you'll have to fight in hard earnest, and
I wonder what tactics you'll resolve upon. All common
ones must be abandoned. The bark of the watch-dog will
go for nothing. One must be prepared for novelty, if
nothing more, in the manner of his bite.”

At last the dinner came to an.end, and the speeches
were in order. A ponderous and labored address of the
Chairman finally called Mr. Luke Laight to his feet. He
rose at the opposite limit of the spacious hall, and
stood immovable, for a time, amid a tumult of welcome.

He was lean, tall, and extremely bald. His voice, when
he began to speak, revealed itself at once as the voice
which England does not like, for it was very nasal and
very shrill. But it was also quite unable to fill the
expanse of the chamber, whose acoustic qualities had thus
baffled many an.orator in past times, and had defied even
more sternly the Chairman's recent attempts. All in all,
however, he acquitted himself with credit, though the
high-strung hearers who had of old laughed themselves
sick over’his funny tales were disappointed, now, at the
prevailing sobriety of his discourse. They did not know
that he rarely Joked with his lips and that ink and.paper
'were the two sole aids by which.he ever managed to be

amusing....Then followed three more speeches, responses to

288
prearranged toasts. As the third ceased, and everybody
felt that it had been lamer than the other two, both of
which had miserably halted and one of which had proved
almost inaudible, Myrtle turned toward Indermaur.

”You are next, are you not?" she asked, pointing
to a paragraph on her programe. ’-

"Yes," he said, with a smile in his luminous eyes.
”How did you know I would speak?”

”Have I not ears? Could I not hear Cyril Cursitor
begging you?"

"Ah, yes-“I see.” He looked more closely into
her face, with its anemone-like fragility gleaming below
the auburn affluence of her hair, and its wonderful rich-
ness of expression, due, yet not wholly, to the large,
changeful eyes. “I said nothing about the speech,” he
went on, ”because ‘ in talking of it I might have grown
doubtful of my own powers to deliver it."

”And you are not doubtful now?u '

"I have my hopes--that is all '1: dare state. It
must be spontaneous or nothing. There was no time to
think it over. I feel like a diver on a cliff who knows
nothing of the waters below, but who has resolved to take
his header, Just the‘same." He paused, and she saw his
glance rest on her lips and chin, which Just then had
grown unsteady and seemed to her as if at. any moment they

289
might betray some tell-tale quiver. "You somehow appear
anxious. Is it on my account?"

She tried to laugh this off. “Cyril Cursitor be-
lieves that you have been thinking your subject over all
through.dinner.”

”Cyril is wrong...Listen; the Chairman has already
mentioned my name. He is telling them of how I volunteered
to take Mr. Courtenay's place.”

"I-I can't imagine your doing this thing!" Myrtle
now softly exclaimed. "What made you? Ibu might have
refrained, and so saved yourself--" her voice broke in
her throat; she marvelled at her own inward tumult. He
had grown.paler, by this. And then she found herself
giving him her eyes with a sense of unexplainably sweet
self-surrender. At the same instant she felt her hand
ready for his clasp, even waiting for it. She had read
in his look, somehow, that it would come, and swiftly it
did. Their'palms and fingers met unseent He crushed her
hand in his, and with.heating heart she answered the pres-
sure. It was more than.oympathy on her part, more than
appeal on his. Both understood. A minute afterward he
rose, obeying the little bout of noisy acclaim that sum-
moned him.

no sooner had he commenced to speak than one salient

quality became distinct to all. He possessed a voice of

290
rare depth and compass. It never betokened the least
strain; the "oratorio" element had no share in its full,
golden outflow. It produced the effect of grasp but not
of seizure. You realised, in its virile music, an op-
portunity met, a diffusion and expansiveness quietly
secured. It filled the great void as few vocal organs
had yet shown power to do, and behind it lurked the easy
and constant suggestion of an.undemanded, unneeded re-
serve.

This alone was half the battle, for it straight-
away enticed his audience by the mellow sorceries of
accent, crescendo, and cadence. At first his listeners
thought more of how he addressed them than of the sub-
stance his discourse ensheathed. But soon they burst
into sympathetic laughter, for he quickly broke away
from ceremonious comment and clothed "Literary London"
in glittering tissues of satiric humor.

'A.century ago," he said, "Grub Street was a
couple of taverns in some dingy lane near the Strand.
Now the tentacles of its imperialism have closed about
the entire‘west‘End, and when a successful author drives
in smart state through the Park, he is expected, by an
unwritten ethical law, to toss occasional compassionate
coppers to any of those shabby individuals, either on

benches or on foot, whom his own recollection, aided by

291
the reminders of a thoughtful footman, bid him recognise
as indigent publishers....The bestowal of Old Age Pen-
sions, too long delayed by Parliament, has no more zealous
adherents, I am confidently assured, than our great body
of multi-millionaire authors. For while admitting the
woebegone condition of thousands throughout this grand
metropolis, they are chiefly mindful of those publishers
whom an ill-starred ambition, or perhaps too secure a
self-reliance, may have lured into financial wreck....
Literary London, it would be folly to deny, is a miracle
of prosperity and productiveness. Like the Gaul of Caesar
it is divided into three parts: First, those who receive
a guinea a word for their manuscripts, complete six a
year, and are often seen in society: second, those whose
price is ten shillings a word, who complete only three a
year, and never miss a reputable entertainment; and third,176
those who accept five shillings a word, include football,
cricket and polo in the round of their diversions, think
nothing of dashing off a chapter while on a‘bicycle or
in a motor-car, and are known habitually to write while
asleep....Our honored guest has by this time visited, I
doubt not, many happy and luxurious homes in Literary

London. But even these, as he has probably observed, are

 

176The manuscript reads: " . . . and fourth, . . . "

292

not without their seamy side; for though at many boards
he must certainly have eaten off gold plate, it cannot
be contested that some few authors are still chained to
the modest simplicity of silverware....I take for granted
that Mr. Laight has already met many London ladies who
write books. If by any disastrous chance this privilege
has not befallen him, his case should indeed be called
extraordinary, since the superior sex is now so dominant
a factor in our creative letters that it has grown there
as ubiquitous a potency as sunshine, which of course it
radiantly resembles. For myself, I am quite willing to
rob of all mythic origin the report that nine educated
London women out of every ten have mantled themselves in
the maJesty of authorship; but I cannot bring myself to
believe all those flattering tales told at present of the
value accorded such a professional 93.5.1132. The story,
for instance, strikes Illa as apocryphal that when a certain
prominent duchess asked her groom of the chambers why he
had given warning, she received the answer, in terms of
dignified regret: 'Your Grace did me the honor of en-
gaging me, but younGrace, as I have since ascertained,
has never written a book."

This extravagant fooleryutreated only in excerpts
by its recorder--was soon brought into sharp contrast

with a vein of calm yet stinging seriousness. Here

 

   

, 293
Indermaur struck stronger chords. The Mglish dislike
an ”eloquent" speech, and he was old enough, wise enough
in his generation, to know it. But he gave them, toward
the last, some thrilling eloquence, after all, hiding
his time, watching keenly their receptive modd, and sud-
denly showering upon them a series of sentences in which
rhetoric undoubtedly played its part, but with a sagacity,
a timeliness, a hidden aptitude of calculation that were
like an arrow that goes singing straight to its intended
mark. ‘

He seated himself almost in silence, for amaze-
ment at the blended adroitness and ability of his speech
was its first and necessitous result. Then the applause
began thunderously, like a loosened torrent. But Inder-
maur, at the same moment, received his own share‘of sur-
prise. Turning toward the chair which Myrtle had oc-
cupied, he found it empty. Lady Plinlimon's chair was
the same. And further along he saw'another, likewise
vacated-«that of Cursitor.

Imediately, then, he slipped from his own. Hun-
dreds of eyes were levelled upon him, but he did not
care; he was beset with curiosity, and a vague dread as
well. For a brief time he held parley with one of the
waiters. Then, learning where to go in search of his.
missing friends, he repaired to a reception room not many

yards away.

291+

Here, in a recess half obscured by the frondage
of some high palms, Lady Plinlimmon and Cursitor were
bending over a lounge. And on the lounge, with a large
cushion propping her head, Myrtle reclined. ale had
refused to lie down, and was Just insisting, with an
energy full of encouragement to her watchers, that she
now felt much better, when Indermaur passed into the
leafy retreat.

"You were taken ill?" he began, looking straight
into her eyes. "I'm so sorry."

"It was really nothing} hurried Cursitor. "Just
a little dizziness, no doubt, caused by the heat of-the
rooms.”

'"See," supplied Lady Plinliimnon, "her color is
coming back; in a minute she'll be quitdstrong again.
Then, perhaps, we four might’as well steal away to the
German Ambassador's. I've a card for you, by the way,
Mr. Indermaur, but forgot, most stupidly, to tell you
I'd secured it. Take me to the cloak-room, will you not,
Cyril? Mr. Indermaur can remain with Myrtle till one of
us! returns 9'

Cursitor understood. While he and Lady Plinlimmon
were moving downstairs together, their feet on the rich-
carpeted steps and walls of polished African marble sump-
tously glimmering on either side of them, he said to his

295
companion: ”She was afraid for Kenneth; you think that?"
"I'm certain.” '8
"And you don't shrink from such a marriage any
longer? You don't 'draw the line' as tightly as you
did?" ' - ‘ '

' Lady Plinlimmon tossed her stately head. "I don't
draw any line at all. I'm in love with the idea or their
being in love. I'm up in.arns against Adalbert Hurst."

”So am I,“-muttered Cursitor. '

Meanwhile Indermaur, seated beside Myrtle, was
steadily searching her face. "I think, after all," he
said, “that I did not quite fail.” ‘

I'You were admirable,” she returned. "It was only
I who failed.” ” '

"Because you were doubtful of me?”

”I wanted it to be fine--to go off with a great
‘élgg, It did--I'm sure it did--I saw how they took it.
Then excitement mastered me. Cyril saw; he motioned to
Lady Plinlimmon. The immense room was going around. I
was frightened when I had got upon my feet, dragging at
Cyril's arm. Presently, in a flash, she, too, was near
me. They got me here. I don't think anyone noticed us.
They were all too absorbed infiyour speech."

"And so you cared for me enough--?"8 He stopped
short. Their hands had again met. "If I’asked you-4‘"

His lips‘ were close to here. “"If you asked me;-
what?"

296

"To--be my wife?"

"If you did not--"

"Well?”

”PerhapsuI might--hate you!” She recoiled the
next instant, trembling with shamenat this half hysteric
wildness.

"If you hated me it would kill me, Myrtle!"

She broke into a laugh whose airy silver seemed
to entangle itself among the green complexities of the
palms. "Well, then, rather than have your death on my
conscience. . ."

And now came silence. When Cursitor appeared
they were sitting quite demurely side by side.

"Lady Plinlimmon is waiting cloaked and hooded
downstairs," he said, ”and soon her carriage will be
stopping the way." Exclusively to Myrtle he went on:
"Do you feel wellenough to go down and Join her for
the party at Carlton House Terrace, she bade me ask,
or shall she drop you in Berkely Square?"

Myrtle rose at once, with sprightliness. "Oh,
I feel well enough for anything!" she exclaimed, ner-
rily. I 8

297
IX

"I'm blessed if the news doesn't delight mei"said
Lord Plinlimmon to his wife. ' ‘

The latter threw back her head in a pictorial ac-
cess of mirth. "It isn't many weeks ago, Marmaduke,”
she cried, "since you stood before that same fireplace-e
Just as from force of habit you're standing now, though
there isn't a speck of fire in zit-«and poured disdain
upon Kenneth Indermaur and all 'bounders' like him! Pray,
sir, do you not remember?" L ' "

”Perfectly," replied the Earl. ”Don't tempt me
into the copy-book sentiment, Blanche, thatnexceptions
prove rules. Indermaur is a stupendously good fellow.
Of course, you Imow, we require new blood, now and then.
I've never said that we didn't." And Lord Plinlimmon,
who had gambled nearly all night at his club and consumed
about five more whiskies-and-soda than he ought to have
done, turned and surveyed his tallowy morning visage in
the mirror Just behind him.

"Myrtle will be pleased," said his wife, "to learn
that you give him your support." H

"Support? Why, already I've put him up at two
clubs-«White's and The Bachelor's."

I'So sweet of'you, Marmieuear." Whenever she called

298
him "Mal-mic" it meant that he was preeminently in her
~good hooks.

"By the way," Lord Plinlimmon proceeded, "I've
heard that his father was once a hot radical. Tried to
raise the deuce with crazy theories about politics,
morals, religion-~nearly everything. Wanted to get into
Parliament, and almost succeeded. Is there any truth
in it, do you chance to know?"

"If there was--and I'm not sure--it all happened
a thousand years ago, Marmie. His father, as I do happen
to be aware, is a hopeless invalid now. Indermaur is
devoted to him, and he may die any minute. He lingers
along, however, a complete mental wreck. Still, by
no means a pauper. Indermaur will have decidedly some-
thing, when he dies, including a house here in Chelsea.”

"All the better," said Lord Plinlimmon. "He'll
measurably escape the fierce light that beats on a poor
man who marries an heiress. Myrtle Sartorys is a great
match for him. I hope he'll be happy as her husband.
I'll wager he was devilish happy as her lover when I
shook hands with him yesterday at the Charity Bazaar."

But this deduction was hardly correct. Indermaur
now comprehended in more senses than one that to marry
Myrtle would mean for him "a great match." The girl's
name and place and wealth all pleased his ambition. But

299

above these, at once .cheapening and exalting them, spread
the glamour of a masterful love. 'Still, every new day
since that of their betrothal brought with it keen pangs
of conscience. In vain Cursitor had argued; in vain he
argued yet. Indermaur could not help gauging the depth
of..Myrtle's affection by that of his own deceit. He had
determined to succeed in life, but he had determined, with
an equal ardor, to preserve honor untarnished. Should
he be doing this if he married the passionate admirer of

"Thoughts Out Loud” without telling her that its author-
ship lay at his own door?

One morning they returned from a long stroll below
the chestnuts and among the brilliant flower beds of
Regent's Park. Lady Cloome, all smiles, received them.
Luncheon, she said, was a good half-hour old, but added
that she would forgive them this once because their engage-
ment was still so young. fie had turned pale with con-
sternation when this engagement was first made known to
her. But afterward, with her sweetest voice and air, she
had said to her niece: "Upon my word, if I attempted to
oppose your decision, _my'dear, Jealousy would have to
serve as my sole plea; for the truth is, I've fallen very
much in love with Mr. Indermaur myself." -

After luncheon she discreetly vanished, and the
young people drifted together into one of the drawing-rooms.

300

"It all has such a familiar look," said Indermaur,
glancing about him at the old family portraits, the
choice and ancient furniture, the minor adornments, costly
but few. ”It was here, you know, that I first felt the
heavens opening for me."

"And we had met only once before that," said Myrtle,
"at the Plinlimmons' grand and formal dinner-party." She
let him take her hand and hold it against his lips while
they seated themselves on one of the sofas. "You must
have fancied me so odd, talking to a stranger as I did!"

"You talked most winningly.“ ' '

"But half of it was about my treasured book, 'Thoughts
Out Loud.' There! You again wear that wearied look,
Kenneth! 'no you know, I've an idea that you hate to hear
no speak of 'Thoughts.""

"No, no; far from that! How strange you should
evenf imagine it!" Here a pang of cowardice, of self-con-
tempt, assailed’him.

”Last night,” Myrtle went on, "I had the most
peculiar dream. I was talking with you, Just as now, and
you suddenly said to me, almost in anger: 'Hever: mention
those ”Thoughts" again! I detest them, and‘if you keep
praising them so we must forever bid one another good-bye.’
Was it not queer? A sort of nightmare, I suppose. But I
you don't detest them, Kenneth, do you?" -

n

301

"I could detest nothing, dearest, that you cherish."

"Ah, that's an evasive answer," she sighed, though
a little laugh followed. "Now, please let me read aloud
to you a few of my favorite passages!" The next instant
she sprang from the sofa, quickly found her cherished
work, and came back with it to her former place.” "Here,
now, for instance. Is not this too tender and hopeful
and stimulating?" She began to read, with her heart in
her voice, and with slight catches of the breath which he
would have pronounced, had her text been from any other
volume--Tupper,177 or Mother Goose, or the dreariest Sun-
day School commonplace--infinitely charming.

But as it was, he suffered torment. All the rest
of that day he went about with a load of lead at his heart,
and in his brain the sullen shadow of impending doom.

"The book has become a religion to her,” he told
Cursitor that same afternoon, meeting his friend in the
pleasant little book-lined room which Ralph Indermaur had
used for so many years as a library. The invalid had
shown certain signs, of late, that his vitality might
flare wildly up before its final cessation. 0n returning
home today old Martha had come to him with a scared face.

 

177Martin Farquhar Tapper (1810-1889) whose blank
verse didactic moralisings. in the Proverbial Philosophy
enjoyed a great popular appeal.

302

There had been restlessness and touches of delirium.
Indermaur, after spending a half-hour in the sick man's
chamber, concluded that despite a resumption of the old
placid conditions he had best cancel by telegraph an
agreement to drive in the Park that afternoon with Myrtle
and Lady Cloome. A little later he despatched a message
to Cursitor, whose Chelsea dwelling lay so near his own.
Luckily Cursitor had been at home, and obeyed the summons
with promptness; for the return of his father's coma,
the silence, the solitude, and the gnawing distress of
conscience that so harshly irked him, had all conspired
to shroud Indermaur's mind with inkiest gloom.

”A religion,'yes," Cursitor now answered, "so long
as it lasts." “ '

The other started. "Ybu believe it will not last,
Cyril?" ’

"'In six months there will remain no trace of it.

In a year she will have forgotten that book exists."

"Allowing the wisdom-of your prophecy," Indermaur
returned, ”what then? in I Justified in marrying her
without a full confession of the fact!"'

Cursitor gave a low groan. "Ah, Kenneth, when
your poor father advised you to 'propitiate, propitiate,‘
do you fancy that he did not desire you should propitiate

circumstance no less than people? How the old proverbs

303
come back to us when we need counsel! Here is one of
them: 'Let sleeping dogs lie.' Your position is abso-
lutely hedged about with four impregnable walls of
safety. I assure you of this, and I have every con-
ceivable reason to know that I am right. Cease--in
heaven's name cease-~to indulge this needless melancho-
lia. A present disclosure of the truth might work
hateful mischief. One or two years later, when Myrtle
has become your wife, you could tell her everything in
perfect security. She would then merely smile where now.
she might shudder. And if you did tell her now, imagine
the glee of Adalbert Hurst! Come, Kenneth, resolve that
you'll not play madly with’your own future! Think less
of honor, dear boy, and more of pity." - '

”Pity?" Indermaur repeated.

“Yes. "show it toward Egg. If she gave you up,
spurred by an impetus of outrage and disgust, do you
fancy that she would not acutely suffer? Ah, above all
things, my friend, you owe to her a course of rigid
reti cence. And tear from your mind the idle imagining
that now films like a tenacious cobweb its faculties of
common sense. Perfect silence is not only your most pru-
dent course; it is also your most merciful. If your
father could hear me and understand me at this moment, I
am but too convinced that he would sanction every word I
speak!"

30h

Indermaur's pained face here slowly but signifi-
cantly lost its cloud. He staid quite unresponsive for
several seconds. Then, rising from his chair, he strode
up to Cursitor and stretched out his hand.

"There, Cyril, once and for all I pull down my
flag. You've brought me round. You've shown me some-
thing to deceive her _f_t_)_r_. That something is her own
happiness. Farewell to all future qualms of compunction.
I'll wage battle with myself no longer; I'll save all
such savagery for Adalbert Hurst." “

”Very little will be required," laughed Cursitor,
with all his old gentle levity. 'i'he‘watch-dog has been
effectively ranged. He can only bark a little, now: he's

powerless to bite . "

305
1:

But Myrtle, this same afternoon, discovered that
he could bark with both venom and vigor. On receiving
her lover's telegram she detemined not to attend a
certain immense "at Home" in Baton Square. Lady Cloome,
however, persuaded her to go, even if she remained the
briefest while. ”For Mrs. Waynefleete, my dear,” purled
her aunt, "is oncof our kindred, you know; and it's
always better to be a bit .clannish, even if you bore
yourself in the attempt."

"I shall be always thinking of poor Kenneth at
his father's bedside," murmured Myrtle. ”And cousin
Lydia doeshgivc such frightful crushes!” -

Today half London seemed to havesqueezed itself
inside the capacious Waynefleete drawing-rooms. Myrtle
received many congratulations on her engagement, some of
which veiled--or did she only imagine it--a kind of
admonishing hauteur. The day was hot and the drawing-
rooms became almost stifling. So dense had grown the
crowd that she hailed with keen relief the nearness of
an alcove window. while swerving between its half-drawn
tapestries she could not help eagerly hoping that she
would find beyond them a coign of grateful vacancy.

306

And at first she did. But scarcely had she seated
herself on the cushioned ledge that underlay each con-
nected casement, than someone slipped from the throng
beyond and sank unceremoniously at her side.

“Adalbert!" she said, almost frightenedly.

"Yes, I,"”he answered; and it occurred to her that
she hadnever seen him look uglier than now, while he
chewed his lower lip and restively tangled and disentangled
the slim fingers of either hand.

"You refused to see me on Vednesday afternoon," he
began, hugging one knee with his pale gloved hands but
keeping his eyes fixedly on her face.

Myrtle had drawn herself up. "Of course I remsed,""
she said glacially. "Two days before—that you had come to
me literally rocking with rudeness."

"Oh, you call it rudeness, eh?"

“What else could one possibly call it? Mr. Inder-
maur knows nothing of your visit. Even Aunt FOlive has
only a dim idea of what you said. I fancied that you
would trouble me no more. Nothing that you could urge
against my engagement would affect me in the least.
Kenneth's father might have been a scoundrel of the dark-
est dye, instead of merely the political incendiary you
called him. Perhaps you have lighted on new scandals
concerning his ancestry. If so , be good enough to keep

307

them from my hearing. Cry them from the housetops, if
you are so maliciously disposed. Let others listen and
jeer and sneer behind my back. But do not bore me with
any recital of them. I entreat this, Adalbert, I also
command it."

Myrtle rose as her words ended. Her tormentor
rose as well, but his reply came cutting and unabashed.

"I've found out who his mother was. Think of it!
Some common creature, down there in the north! The '
daughter of a blacksmith! It's doubtful if she could
either read or write. She was handsome and Ralph Indermaur
married her in a fit of gross infatuation. Afterward--"

"I will not hear another word," interjected Myrtle.
"Kenneth does not remember his mother, and knows nothing
of the family from which she sprang. If it were twice
humbler than you describe, however, I should not in the
least care. This matter of birth, by the bye, is touched
upon in that dear book, 'Thoughts Out Loud,' which you
have pelted with your sneers. Here is one exquisite pas-
sage which I know by heart." She slowly quoted several
sentences, lingering over each word with a delicate unc-
tion that seemed like a caress of the lips. ”For me this
entire question,” she went on, ”is dealt withfiand defini-
tely settled in that one most eloquent paragraph."

"Really?” giggled Adalbert. "How opportune that
your 'dear book,' as you call it, should have brought

 

b.

308
you the benefit of its profound philosophy Just as you
were called upon to decide whether you should accept
or refuse the overtures of an ill-born and adventuring
fo rtune -hunter! "

Anger drew a transient flash from Myrtle 's eyes.
"Let it be Just as you will,” she said taking a’forward
step or two. "But if you do not wish me to treat you
as a stranger, Adalbert, you will curb hereafter this
malignant spirit. How we bear Jealousy is, after all,
the touchstone of our characters. For myself, I've
never empowered you with the right to feel one tinge
of it. But if you do, I claim my own right to have
you bear with it toward myself like a gentlemen."

And before he could speak a word of response Myrtle
passed out of the alcove, leaving him alone with his wrath
and pain. In a short time he quitted the curtained re-
treat, slipped through the crowd with inward curses at
its thwarting delays, gained the doorway, jumped into
a cab, and had himself driven to his chambers at the
Albany. Once having reached his own quarters in this
famed old establishment, he snubbed the servant who asked
him a respectful question and locked himself in his sit-
ting room. Here for a long while he paced the floor,
with hands locked behind him and eyes that glared at
nothing.

309

And so, after all, he reflected, Myrtle was for-
ever lost to him! He had money, position, influence,
prominent kindred, all the enviable gifts of life save
one, personal comeliness. But even this M178 was
counterbalanced, as he had good reason to know, by the
curious yet cogent charm which almost at will he could
exploit with the majority of women. He was ugly and
cynical, yet he could make women like him. Certainly he
had made Myrtle Sartorys do far more than endure him.
And he had not once lost hope of at last securing her
matrimonial consent. The quick and easy victory of
Indermaur had inflicted upon him a terrible disarray.
Never before had he found himself so insurmountably im-
peded. It was the old story, with him, of the baffled
cgoist. Nothing remained, now, but to pull himself to-
gether and face defeat. Parliament had closed, and
might not open again till late in the Autumn. He would
go abroad-~to Norway, Russia, the Levant, and-drill these
tingling nerves, this impracticable fury, into that
stolid semblance of resignation which might hereafter
pass current among English environments as the lethargy
of callous indifference.

And yet--

He flung himself into a chair beside his writing
table, and took from it the volume called ”Loaves and

 

178dcfect.

,c

310

Fishes” which lay there side by side with another,
"Thoughts Out Loud.” The essays he had recently read
over again, and liked them even less than before. He
was an acute literary critic, and might have shown in
this capacity if circumstance had so directed. The“
cleverness of the essays he at last could not deny.
But a conviction of some spurious taint in them had
grown more apparent after a second perusal. They rang
wrong. They wholly lacked the spontaneous element,
and this quality was one which their strongly emotional
subject should chiefly have drawn forth. They flavored
to him of a certain insincerity, as though the writer
had manufactured rather than felt them. Below them
lay an undoubted stock-in-trade cut-and-dried senti-
mentalism, and the picturesque syntax, with its bounty
of skilled metaphor and tactful verbal embellishmont,
was far too betrayingly a work of deliberate craft.

0n "leaves and Fishes” he would have liked to
pass a still more contemptuous judgnent. But no. He
had lately read it through at a single sitting, and had
given it warmest approval. He now glanced again at some
of its pages. How frank was this man's style, how logi-
cal, how consistent! It encased his subject as a glove
encases a hand. He'had not sought it; he had simply given
it play. Here you saw the horn writer, on whose text the

311
mot lusts was forever dropping like a star. He had

 

living men and women to draw, and he draw them by the
clear light of his own temperament, hence achieving an
originality signal and secure.

"I hate the fellow," mused Adalbert, "for having
wrecked my dearest hope. But as an artist I hold him--
why not--in highest esteem. How different he is from the
author of 'thoughts Out Loud!' The anonymous person has
plainly set himself to a task for which he felt no sum-
mons of predilection. He writes well, at his best,
though.now and then a certain boyishness--or is it
girlishness--creeps into the texture of his prose.
And...there is something...almost like an echo, at
times...that hints of someone else. What is it? ‘Who
is it? I seem on the verge of guessing, but still--"

I Here Adalbert's reflections were sharply broken
off. He had leaned back in his chair, with Indermaur's
novel resting on his knees. His hands met behind his~
head; his eyelids had almost closed.

Suddenly, as if some electric force had impelled
him, he started to his feet. Tossing the novel aside,
he snatched up the essays. For many minutes he stood
perusing the latter, pausing here, skimming there, while
two spots of color rose and deepened in his usually pal-
lid cheeks. At length a low cry left him. He threw down

312
the essays and again caught up the novel. Among the
pages of this he once more plunged, sinking into another
chair at the verge of his broad writing-table.

"Yes, yes,” he soon unconsciously muttered, "the
same trick of expression in either book. The same car-
marks, the same ghgtglgg_ph£ggg.l79 a liking for the
same adjectives. This word 'marmoreal,' so seldom em-
ployed, is found twice in each book. Ashburton says
in the novel, 'You picture me as an idealist, when my
portrait should be painted in pigments by no means
ethereal and silvery.' Here, in the essays I read: '80
tender, so ethereal are the tints of certain dawns, that
to watch them,'>painted as if by angelic hands with sil-
very pigments borrowed from unearthly palettes is in it-
self to realise the existence of deity.' And there is
morc--much more. The resemblances are often subtle, but
they all point one way. @3183 _tw_o M £33 _b_g_e_n written
BI 21.1.0. .932 Esta!” .

Another low cry here escaped from Adalbert. He
had never appeared uglier than now, for his face was
contracted by a sneer of the most malicious triumph.
Drawing toward him a folio of blank paper, and seizing

a pen, he at once began a series of annotations, with

 

179brilliant style.

(O

<~¢

313
constant reference to either book. As he worked on and
on, now consulting the novel, now the essays, he wore
an air of merciless and increasing ferocity. Utterly
forgetful of food, he let the hours slip past him. At
the end of his labors he had filled many sheets of fool-
scap. Never, in all his parliamentary preparations, had
he toiled so hard. At last, when his efforts were ended,
he drew in a long, deep breath.

"It will damn him forever in he}; eyes when she
hears of this double game! After all, it would seem,

I shan't have pulled my horns in quite so meekly! No;

the tide turns in my favor. Pcrhaps--who shall prophesy?“
she'll turn and marry me out of pure pique before another
month has passed?"

Then, for the first time, a sensation of hunger
assailed him. He draw out his watch. It was past mid-
night.

"I'm dining late," he said aloud, grimly, but
with an accent of strong I! exultation.

"You may go to bed, Struthers," he told his servant
a little later, with unwonted affability. "I've been very
much occupied, and shall slip over to Booles for a bite
of something cold."

314

)CI

"It is not true,” said Myrtle Sartorys. "It
cannot possibly be true."

‘With.a shrug, Adalbert Hurst slightly lifted the
roll of papers which she had just returned to him. Then,
while the hand with which he clutched this documentary
piece of testimony fell slowly against his side, he flung_
back an unrelenting answer.

"To wish a thing false is not to make it so.
These proofs-J

"They are not proofs: they are accidents,” darted
Myrtle. ”You wanted to dishonor him in my regard, and
you have chosen this odious method. I shall see Kenneth
inside the next two hours: he is to drive out with.Aunt
Olive and myself. I know just how he will receive this
outrageous charge. He will merely smile and say to me:
'Cbuld.not Mr. Hurst, with all his reputed cleverness,
have hit upon a shrewder mode of annihilating me?'--or
words to that effect.” W

This retort had a valiant enough sound. But in
its tones Adalbert detected an.underquiver of alarm.

"You are playing a part, Myrtle," he affirmed,
”but not in.the least am I deceived by it. In your
heart you fear that Indermaur is guilty. This analysis

315
of mine cannot, after studying it, leave you without
suspicion. I saw plainly that you did study it during
the last half-hour. Still you have denied my proofs:
you have called them accidents."

"I insist that they are accidents," the girl as-
servated. file was very pale, but in the tightened arc
of either nostril, in the visible'quickness of her
breathing, in the back-thrown posture of her head, was
portrayed obdurate defiance. .

"Then," slowly replied Adalbert, "you shall re-
ceive furtherkproof, which differs, toto’coelo,180 from
these others. Yesterday I made a visit upon Mr. Forester,
the publisher of 'Thoughts Out Loud.' I think it ”highly
probable that after having heard my very candid state-
ments of the views I entertained concerning the author-
ship of the essays, he would much have enjoyed chucking
me out of one of his office windows. He's a little
man, even smaller than I am myself, and unless I'm in
error, every bit as ugly. My name and my position as a
member of Parliament somewhat awed him, however, and
presently I got from him a declaration which I felt to
be veracious. He knew nothing at all as to the real

authorship of the book. A gentleman whom he had every

 

180by the whole heavens 3 diametrically opposed.

316
reason to believe was not its author, had brought him
the manuscript. This gentleman's name he had solemnly
sworn to keep secret, but he was willing to give me his
word of honor that it was not Kenneth Indermaur."

"Ah,” dropped from Myrtle, who was eagerly lis-
tening. "Not Kenneth! Well? What more?"

"This. ‘ Just as Forester had thus assured me, a
knock sounded-at his door. He rose and opened it, hold-
ing afterward a few words with someone whom I could not
see. Next he turned to me and begged that I would excuse
him for a few minutes, as a person had just called with
whom he had made a previous appointment. I bowed my
acquiescence, and he departed. And now, Myrtle, comes
a rather startling revelation."

”Yes? what is it?” Her voice, while low, was
an imperious challenge. her hands were knotted together
in her lap, and lay there quite moveless. She had
scornfully curled her lips, but between this token of
haughty skepticism and the harrowed, wistful look of
her burningly attentive eyes a piteous contrast was
disclosed.

”Left alone in the office," continued Adalbert,
"I glanced about me. Everything looked orderly, even
to a degree of finical primness. The furniture was
disposed with a tedious precision, the small mats that

317
strewed the floor made one think of parallelograms in
Euclid. On an ample desk I observed certain packets
of papers ranged in.severely straight rows, while the
pens were placed at regular intervals apart, flanking
on either side an inkstand of specklessly polished
glass. As I stood contemplating all this rigorous neat-
ness, my gaze chanced to fall on.an envelope without
post-mark, which.bore the name and address of Cyril
Cursitor. Instantly I felt that here might lie the
most precious enlightening help. Cursitor, I swiftly
concluded, was the bosom friend of Indermaur. Why
should any correspondence exist between this publisher
and.himself? What if he were the 'gentleman' of whom
Forester had spoken, as having‘brought him the essays
and negotiated their'publioation. For a little while I
stared down at the letter, making up my mind how to act.
But soon all such deliberation became futile. I heard
an approaching step, yielded to the irresistible, caught
up the letter and concealed it. Forester soon afterward
appeared. I made the remainder of our interview as
brief as common caution would permit, got forth'upon.the
street, plunged myself into a cab, and during my home-
ward journey opened the envelope. The contents were
extremely businesslike. They presented Cursitor with

an account of sales, during a given time, of the book

318
'Thoughts Out Loud.' Accompanying this declaration was
a cheque for three hundred pounds, a few shilling and
a few pence. Here is the letter, and here is the cheque.
If you will kindly glance over both you will be enabled
to realise the fruits of my audacious theft. But Cursitor
shall of course get back the full communication intended
for him. There; will you have the goodness to read and
to verify?"

Myrtle received what he offered her, and for sev-
eral moments bent over it in complete silence. Then she
gave it back with an unsteady hand, her face colorless,
her manner apathetic, stunned.

"Now at. last," said Adalbert, "you must admit that
the evidence is overwhelming.” -

"I admit nothing of the sort!” exclaimed Myrtle,
her torpor pierced with a sudden asperity of revolt.
“Cyril's side of the affair yet remains to be heard.
Meanwhile I can only condemn your course as you yourself
have forestalled me in condemning it. For indeed it has
been a most audacious theft! Perhaps Cyril may legally
punish it. The ground on which you have trodden so reck-
lessly may prove more dangerous than you guess. And
pray believe one thing; I shall assert that you have made
out no clear case whatever against Kenneth Indermaur,
and that he is now as innocent in my eyes as when you

first approached me with your elaborate accusations."

319

Stung past control by what seemed to him.the cruel
goad ofthis response, Adalbert flung both hands into the
air, uttering a cry of rebuke.

"This is mere bravado. Gratitude would be better
timed. ..But that cannot fail to follow, and profuse apolo-
gies besides!" Here he rose, thrusting the envelope back
into the breast-pocket whence he had drawn it, and then
buttoning his coat-front with slum, white, fluttered
fingers.

"Gratitude for what, pray?" Myrtle called after
him while he was brusquely hurrying toward the door.

He stopped short, half turning. Pride of race
and the acrimony of reproach each gave to his aspect
embittering touches, but their union had bred, neverthe-
less, an undeniable dignity.

"Fur having saved you from a oharlatan," he re-
plied.

"No, no" she insisted. "He never wrote it--never!
Iim.as sure as that I live and breathe! I'm.as sure--"

But the door had closed on.Adalbert's receding .
form. He knew what seed he had sown. He had left
silence and solitude to bring forth from it their certain
harvest of disillusion and dismay.

320
XII

Myrtle's first feeling, when.her tormentor had
departed, was one of regret that she should have con-
sented to see him after the distressing little episode
at Mrs.‘waynefleete's reception. But today he had
scribbled on his card a few words of such urgent en-
treaty that her mood.had softened. True, he had dealt
her, that other afternoon, the harshest hurt. But ought
not the glow of her own happiness to reflect pardoning
light upon.his fault? ‘Has not the fault born, moreover,
of a love that this same happiness taught her to under-
stand? Ah, yes, she could afford to be lenient, she
could afford to forget!

But now the very air seemed tainted with her
loathing of Adalbert Hurst. She felt her cheeks tingle
as [if] his hands had inflicted blows there. To have
used his clever brain in this detestable way! Could.not
any man of'mental ability and fine scholarship have em-
ployed them in some such.tgur'dg.fg£ggi ‘Uere they not
claiming, nowadays, that Shakespeare himself was a fraud,
robbing him of his adorable Beatrice and Rosalind, his
still more adorable Romeo and Juliet? ‘What artful manoeu-
vre could not the trickery of an accomplished fabricator

invent?

321

And yet there had never before been cast a slur
of dishonor on Adalbert's name. Not a few men disliked
him; now and then women? shrank from him. But his inte-
grity had never been questioned even by those whom his
bad manners or his trenchant wit offended most. Perhaps,
then, he really believed this monstrous thing about
Kenneth Indermaur! Why not? Had not the wisest minds
deceived themselves into crediting falsehoods thousands
of times since the world began?

But that letter to Cyril Cursitor, containing the
mysterious cheque! “hat could it possibly mean? Might
Cyril have written ”Thoughts Out Loud”? Ridiculous! Had
she not known CyrilOintimately for years? He was fond
of reading; he did not lack intellect of a kind. But
even the composition of an ordinary letter bored him.

And then--but oh, it was too absurd! As well suspect

him of having written "Childe Harold” or ”The Princess."
Mo; some friend of his-snot a woman, “but a man--had em-
ployed his agency for the preservation of a literary
secret. Kenneth was by no means his only friend, though
doubtless his dearest one. He had scores of others, and
besides, his good-nature was proverbial. For one of these
he had acted. Adalbert had merely jumped to a preposterous
conclusion.

Thus did poor Myrtle settle the entire affair to

what seemed, for a short time, her own steadfast

322
satisfaction. Then a slow creeping dread assailed her,
and the edifice of argument that she had reared began
palpably to crumble.

mic told herself, with quickening heart-beats,
that she must see Cyril at once. She would wire to
his address-~wire to his favorite c1ub...But suddenly
this resolve changed. Indermaur and Lady Plinlimmon
were to dine in Berkely Square, that evening, and accom-
pany. her to the opera. Cyril had promised to join them
afterward in their box. It was now nearly five o'clock.
There would, after all, be only a short time to wait.
Dinner had been ordered for seven, and Kenneth would no
doubt appear a half-hour earlier.

Presently Myrtle went upstairs to her aunt's
apartment. Somehow she had no sooner looked into-the
lovesome face of Lady Cloome than pity made her dread the
sacrilege of disturbing so much benign spiritual peace.
However strong her impulse to sink on her knees beside
this kindliest of kinswomen and confess what turmoil the
assertions of Adalbert were engendering in her heart,
she determined at least for the nonce to pursue an op-
posite plan. I

But behind their gold-rimmed glasses the eyes of
Lady Cloome saw keenly. "My dear Myrtle,” she said, "I
do hope that Adalbert has “been behaving nicely.” ‘

323

The girl checked a little feverish laugh. "Oh,
Aunt Olive, as if he could ever do that!" '

"Well, my dear, if he has scolded'you this time
you.mmst forgive him." Lady Cloome laid down her novel
and began.gently to smooth the silken lap of her gown
with.milky hands that still kept their charming contour.
"Love, you know, is such a sovereign magician....But you
must not have that worried look at the opera, my dear.

Ah, however, Mr. Kenneth Indermaur's coming will soon
dispel it."

"I hope so, auntie." And as Myrtle pronounced the
little word "hope" it pained her like a pang of conscience.
How dare she even vaguely hint to her own fancy that
Kenneth would not shatter by a single light armpswsep
this entire skilful scaffolding of incrimination.

"It is wonderful," her aunt went musically babbling
on, "how your handsome fiance has taken the town by storm.
I haven't told you, my dear, how Mrs. Heatherleigh raved
about him this morning. She assured me that those who
heard his brilliant speech at the literary dinner were
nearly all in ecstasies over its eloquence. People are
beginning to say that anyone who could deliver such a
fine oration.impromptu ought by all means to try for
Parliament. And after you are married, Myrtle, I hope
you will do everything in your power to bring about his
taking of this highly sensible step. For if marked

321i
political honor were bestowed upon him, they who now

carp at his tumble origin would feel themselves compel-
led to acknowledge..."

But Myrtle, to whom a card had just been delivered,
ceased listening. "Mr. Cyril Cursitor,” she read aloud,
in somewhat shaken voice. Then to the servant: ”Say
that I will see him directly.”

She found Cursitor in the drawing-room. "I've
a message from Kenneth," he began. ”His poor father is
again very low. He dare not leave Mr. Indermaur's bed-
side. There is terrible prostration and entire uncon-
sciousness. He begged‘me to come here with this news,
hating to telegraph it. He is writing you now. He
spoke of my asking you to pardon him," Cursitor added,
with a faint, sad laugh. "But I knewyou would resent
the word. And so, I am sure, Myrtle, you do!”

"Pardon him?" said Myrtle, with a strange inflec-
tion in her voice. "Why should he suggest it?” Then
she dropped into a chair, motioning for her companion
to seat himself.

"But you, Cyril," she at once went on--" to par-
don m is another affair."

"Me?" fell the surprised answer.

"Your-yes. For all this time you have known who
wrote 'Thoughts Out Loud,' and have never told me.”

325

A flash of white light seemed suddenly cast on
Cursitor's face. "Of what can you be dreaming?” he
faltered. {

"Oh, it's no dream. It's hard reality. You
receive from the publisher, Mr. Forester, cheques for
the sales of this book. You arranged with him the pub-
lication of it. I know this; and now let me make it
quite plain to you why and how I know."

There is no doubt that in a long succession of
brisk, decisive sentences Myrtle did make it exceedingly
plain. She soon concerned herself, however, with other
stages of the story. Adalbert's full course of action
was next narrated--his allegedflcritieal discovery, his
visit to Forester's office, his cool purloining of the
letter. when she‘had finished, Cursitor set before her
pale and impassive, named in every fibre against all
future shock.

"Adalbert Hurst's conduct spells the meanest
jealousy," he said, "and the most shameless theft as
well." i *

"You must not think him a common thief," Myrtle
petitioned, coldly. "He‘will of course give back the
cheque and the letter‘now that he has shown me both."

"Doubtless," replied Cursitor? in contemptuous

undertone. "And he has tried to convince you, by this

326
and other means, that Kenneth Indermaur wrote those
essays."

"But he has failed there!" cried Myrtle, with
eagerness. "I do not--I could not believe it! Kenneth
would never go grossly deceive me. But with you, Cyril,
it is utterly different."

Cursitor gave a slow, icy nod. "I think I under-
stand you. But my knowledge of who wrote the book is
something, you must surely admit, which I had and still
have the right to keep concealed."

”The right--yes." ‘

“The unquestionable right," sternly replied her
visitor--he, with whom sternness was so rare, so incon-
grous.

“Ah!" Myrtle exclaimed, woundedly. "But in a
case like this everything is altered." .

"why?” shot from Cursitor. ”Because Adalbert has
accused the man to whom you're engaged? But remember,
please, that you have just declared your absolute faith
in Kenneth."

”I declare it still!"

”Then why speak of this matter as if it [were an
extraordinary case? Why arraign me as if you were some
judge of my doings, providentially appointed?"

Myrtle's restless hands threatened to .tear in

327
tatters the handkerchief they held. "You will not tell
me, then, who wrote it? You are going to be so horribly
unkind-«so shockingly cruel?"

Cursitor smiled as if'in despair. "This is the
reckless logic of woman.” ,

"Oh, leave woman alone! She has quite enough
on her shoulders already. Whenever a man wishes to be
particularly nasty to one of us he calls her 'illogical. '
We've known each other for years and years, Cyril, and
you ought to feel heartily sawed of yourself.”

"For what reason, if you please?”

"For having assumed. these preposterous airs.

For not having let me know what you must so long have
known. To think of it! While I was landing that book
to the skies-affirming that it had changed my life,
become my bible, my oracle, my fountain of all wisdom
and truth, you must have been lauyiing at me in your
sleeve!” '

*1 did not laugh at you in my sleeve, Myrtle,”
came Cursitor's quick contradiction. He now had himself
well in hand.‘ ”I kept my secret and that was all."

Myrtle rose and began to roam the chamber. ‘While
touching an ornament here, rearranging a fall of tapestry
there, flicking a speck of dust off this picture-frame
or kneading into shape that discomposed sofa-cushion, she

328
let her words flow violently forth.

"You kept your secret-«yes! But your very reti-
cence, all this time, has been a living duplicity. we
saw one another so often; you were so thoroughly aware
of how the book had affected me. I'm acquainted with
nearly ell your friends. Who can it be? Not a women--
never a woman-~I've always stuck to that! But why
should anyone who had it in his soul to write so beauti-
ful, so holy a book, wish" to conceal his name?"

She was yards away from Cursitor as this last
sentence left her lips. Her back was turned from him,
but suddenly she veered round and saw that he sat with
drooped eyes in rigid gaze upon the floor.

"Cyril!”

he started as she swept toward him, her face
deathly, the swirl of her light summer garments like
the rush of flame. With both hands she caught his arm
and peered into his face.

”Cyril, you're not keeping the worst back? §_e_
did not write it? idslbert Egg wrong! Kenneth did not,
could not have written it, as I said!” Someone else
wrote it! Cyril, Cyril, an I not right?"

He looked at her fixedly. "Someone else wrote it,"
he replied. ' '

"0n--on you word of honor?"

"On my word of honor."

329
XIII

"Your father?” were Cursitor's first words to
Indermaur as they met in the latter's Chelsea home about
an hour afterward.

"He rallied again,” said Indermaur. ”That lethargy
has given.place to a natural sleep. The doctor has just
gone. He tells me that there cannot possibly be any suf-
fering now. His very sleep may prelude another fit of
heart-failure, and then..." Indermaur drew a deep sigh.
"Come into the study," he pursued. "Martha is with.him;
at the least sign of change she will warn.me."

When they had entered the study Cursitor had
rested himself in the corner of an ample lounge, burying
his elbow into its tufted ledge and so propping his head
with one hand. The late midsummer dusk had not yet
fallen. The room was pervaded by a tender silvery light.

”You saw Myrtle?” said Indermaur, while seating
himself near his friend.

”Yes.”

"You seem tired."

Cursitor's reclining posture ceased, and with the
most stringent abruptness. He passed both hands half
bewilderingly across his forehead. "Good God, Kenneth,"
he broke out, "I've just been lying horribly--lying for-

your sake!"

330

"What on earth do you mean?"

Then, without missing a single detail, Cursitor
recounted all that he had heard from Myrtle. Indermaur's
face looked grayish when he finished, and the gathering
twilight had not made it so. "A watch-dog indeed, this
Adalbert Hurst," he wrenched forth gruffly, from between
stiffened lips. "And you say, Cyril, that Myrtle refused
to credit all this evidence against me?"

"Ybs, Kenneth, And yet there was an undercurrent
of--doubt."

"Ah, no wonder!" And at this Indermaur gave a
great start. "You spoke of having lied to her for my
sake. I see! Ybu told her, Cyril, that I did not write
the book--that someone also wrote it!"

"Ybs--I told her that."

Indermaur swiftly quitted his chair, went up to
Cursitor, and caught his hand. He held it pressed between
both his own as he said:

"You, of all others, Cyril! You, the most truthful
man I have ever known! What a sacrifice! From my soul
I thank you! And yet you should have understood! "

"Understood.what?”

The pressure of Indermaur's hands tightened.

"That I would accept no such service. For my sake you

made it, dear friend. For yours I must refuse it."

331
"Kenneth!" cried Cursitor, struggling to his feet.

"What madness do you dream of planning?"

f Indermaur smiled. In this faded light the mould-
ings of his face, with.its unaccustomed paleness, wore

a new and sculptural beauty.

"Cyril,” he said, in deep, sweet tones that seemed
to overflow the limits of the room, though freed from the
least effect of loudness. "I would rather lose Myrtle
Sartorys forever, dearly as you know that I love her, than
allow this lie--spoken.by you from motives of infinite
kindness--to remain unretracted! And so, with your full
authorisation, I will go to_her and ask her to pardon you
fer having spoken it."

Cyril tore away his hand. "You shall do nothing
so wildly rash! I refuse—-" But there he paused.
Levelled steadily upon.his own, the eyes of Indermaur

appeared to search his soul.

332
XIV

The dinner in Berkely Square that evening was
overshadowed by Indermaur's absence. Only three persons
partook of it, Myrtle, her aunt and Lady Plinlimmon.

The latter came glittering in those braveries which
women so love to air at the opera, but her splendid
garb looked anomalous beside Lady Cloome's discreet
colorings and the simple white gown of Myrtle, relieved
by a great rope of superb ancestral pearls.

"I mustn't speak much of my disappointment,‘I said
Lady Plinlimmon, while doing justice, in the old phrase,
to some excellent champagne, and not refusing this or
that savoury course when proffered her. "For if I
lament too copiously, Myrtle, I may cast gloom upon
young love 's dream, my dear, that crystal mirror which
it takes so light a breath to tarnish. But, really,
nonsense quite aside, I've grown over so fond of him’!
And though well aware that he would have no eyes but-
for yourself, I'd firmly resolved to steal as many
glances as luck’would allow me."

"I like to think of kenneth," fluted Lady Cloome,
"as such a dutiful son.. Many young‘men would [have] been
more neglectful, especially as poor Mr. Indermaur is sub-

ject to these distressing attacks."

333 .
”Oh, I would not for the world have had him risk

going," struck in Myrtle, with great seriousness.
"Think‘how terrible if the worst had happened while he
was there at Covent Garden, in all that gaiety and glit-
ter!"

F . They had just risen from the table when a fooman
approached Myrtle. a few low words passed betwoen them.
"In the drawing-room!" she presently exclaimed. Then,
turning toward her companions: ”Kenneth is waiting for
me upstairs! How strange! He begs to see me quite alone.
His father's illness may have changed for the better. I
will join him at once.”

Leaving murmurs of astonishment behind her, she
hurried upstairs. At the door of the rear drawing-room
Indermaur met her. He clasped her outstretched hand,
leading her, as it were, across the threshold, and then
softly closing the door. After that he released her
hand, but made no other sign of greeting.

"Your father-m" began Myrtle. ”Is he--?" Then
she stapped, devouring his face with avid eyes N

"I have done wrong in leaving him, perhaps, But
my cab is waiting outside. I only wanted a few words
with you Myrtle. Then I must hurry back." ‘

"A few words, Kenneth?" Somethingin his voice
had pierced her with dread. I

33h

"Yes," he answered. "Cyril Cursitor was here
with you this afternoon."

”Ah, you've seen him since then?”

”I've seen him. And he has told‘me everything."

"storythingi" she echoed, blankly.

”The entire story. What Adalbert Hurst did.

How he, Cyril, talked with you of that. What you re-
plied. What he finally affirmed. Nothingnnothing
has been left out." '

Myrtle surveyed his features, for a few seconds,
with hungry, glowing gaze. Then she drew slightly
backward. ”Did he tell you...?"

“That I was not the author of 'Thoughts Out Loud'?
Yes. And he now sends me to beg yourfipardonm-most humbly,
repentantly, to beg your pardon."

"For what?” The two little words were flashed
forth like daggers from sheaths .

"For having, at the merciful impulse of a pro-
found friendship, spoken to a lie."

"a lie?" Her face grew whiter than her gown and
seemed changing to stone while he watched it. "Then you

_d_i_d write that book?”

"Yes. I wrote that book." For the first time
emotion swayed him. "Good God, Myrtle, don't look so
implacable! It was long before I ever kmew’of your

335
existence. I did it for a sort of wager. I was still

at Oxford-~indeed I did not take my degree till two
\years later. No one ever found out but Cyril. One
day he had jokingly taunted me with not having the
capacity to write such a book. He put me on my boyish
mettle-«for what was I then but a boy? Pride of intel-
1ect--that quality so active and dominant in early
youth, so apt to die down into a sane humility as we
age--had laid me under its perverting spell. I saw
later that I had done an ignoble thing--that I had tri-
fled with my own sense of truth and dignity. But it had
never occurred to me that the book would win more than
a handful of readers. Its vogue, gradually increasing,
became a surprise, then s sharp annoyance. But when I
met you, Myrtle--when I heard from you the change it
had wrought in your life---"

"Hush!” She chided, .notheringly. Her hands
hung clenched at her sides. "No explanation is possible--
none, at least, that would satisfy. You had time to en-
lighten me when you-~found out--that I was willing--to
become your wife.” This last broken utterance ended
in a short, low gasp.

"When I found that out? Found it out suddenly?
Suddenly felt the charm and Joy of it? Ah, yes, I had

time to make all clear! But I was a coward, then.

336
Conscience may turn us cowards, but so does love--a
love like mine, with circumstance threatening it so
strangely! Could I help feeling afraid to lose you?
Ask yourself, Myrtle, if this cowardice was .not the ’
natural product of my passion?"

But she answered him relentlessly, waving one
tremulous hand before her wan, strained face.

"And so you went on deceiving me! You had heard
me say what I owed to that book--how itflhad bettered me,
lifted me--led me into fresh, bright paths. And you
were selfish enough-J

"No!" he threw in, » "I was merciful enough!"

"Ah,-you call it mercy! To let me go on being
duped by such flippant trickery! Sooner or later I
must have guessed! You committed your fault, but you
could not have lived it. Something would have told me."
she turned toward the door with an almost stumbling step,
and grasped its knob. Across one shoulder she added as
if in forlornest afterthought: ”The pride of intellect
you've called it. lot the pride, 3 call it, but the
shone! And that shame may God at some future hour give
me the grace to pardon! Not now! Not, perhaps in years
from now! Goodbye!” ’ -

She went from the room, and Indermaur stood alone

in it, quite still, heedless of the lapsing minutes.

337

Then an abrupt remembrance of his father crossed his
turmoil of pain. He passed out into the hall and
quickly descended the stairs, eager to reach his wait-
ing cab.

is his foot struck the lower floor a figure came
gliding toward him. Lady Plinlimmon, with her height,
her pliant carriage, her generous pronouncement of
visage, shoulders, bust, never looked more harmoniously
handsome than when clad, as now, with a flashing bounty
of jewels and a festal wealth of laces and silks. Reach-
ing the side of Indermaur, she plucked him with one large
white hand firmly by the sleeve.

"You look as if you were bound for one of the
bridges'to fling yourself off," sped her vibrant semi-
whisper. ”But I know you're not; you're far too sensi-
ble. Yes; 'your father, I. see; you needn't answer;
you're hurrying back to him; I understand. And you've
staid upstairs, there, stunned, petrified, longer than
you knew. Now you're rushing on... Well, my dear man,
listen. Myrtle's yonder, in the library. Lady Cloome
has fallen into’e doze in the little room beyond. I
have the girl all to myself. She's told me half--more
than half. I guess all the rest; And so you wrote
the 'Thoughts.' You're more wonderful than I dreamed!
You're in fact» simply magnificent! She's an idiot. I»

338
She's lovely, and true as steel, but for all that,
she's an idiot! We're not going to the opera. I
shall stay here and'fight it out with her. I'll win,
too. She shan't fling you off like this, fore mere
visionary reason! Trust me. I'll wrestle with her
if it takes till dawn!"

"Dear Lady Plinlimmon, it would take till dawn
of Doomsday!"

"Ah,'Kenneth Indermaur, you don't know me yet!
I'm a power when I'm roused. I've had‘my defeats, and
people may say that my husband is one of them. But
Marmaduke, after all, isn't a defeat; he's a compromise.
I chose to make him one rather than--But'never mind
family history. I've had my victories too, and tonight
shall add another to the list. There; 53 m. Hope,
my friend. Screw up your courage, and hope--hope!"

"I will try," he said, pressing her hand at the
threshold of the main doorway. But the words rang
hollow as he spoke them, and Despair, not Hope, was the
lacquey that ushered him into his hansom and bade its
driver speed with best haste westward to Chelsea.

Back again to the library then darted Lady Plin-
limmon. Her guns had been. silenced, but only for a
brief interval. Now they again began their smokeless,
noiseless, yet determined battle. Myrtle had always

339

loved her and relied upon her counsels; of that she

had for years been sure. The difference betwoen their
ages counted hardly more than ten years, but she had
married early, and had always loomed for Myrtle as a
mighty social personage long before the girl had es-
caped from schoolroom tasks. Then, too, she had taken
Lady Cloome's place in the way of chaperonage, relieving
the girl, on countless occasions, from that dreaded fate
of the motherless English maiden, a hired protectress,

a 'well-positioned' yet salaried duenna.

' And now, while Myrtle sat with covered face, or
moved about with bent head, or cast herself half-recum-
bent upon a lounge with straight-ahead stare from dry-
glittering eyes, Lady Plinlimmon plied, firmly assiduous,
her self-imposed task.

Did Myrtle for a moment fancy that she would ever
be able to destroy her love? Idle hallucination! She
would love Kenneth Indermaur even better a year from
today‘than she loved him now. And why? Because arro-
gance was the keynote of her entire conduct. Instead
of assuming a prerogative of contempt for this most gifted
man, she should now hold him in all the higher respect.
How preposterous, forsooth, to maintain the theory that
all writers should continually stick to one line of
thought! Not long ago a very able writer had wittily

3&0
observed that consistency was the last refuge of the
unimaginative. What was the use of great philosophic
intelligences except to shadow forth the varying moods
of the human soul? Ah, she was a fine young commentator,
surely! was her attitude, to speak most leniently of it,
a modest one? How, pray, would she deal with the grand
poets of her own and other lands? lHust her pretty little
sceptre, wielded by a girlish hand, banish half of then
to oblivion because some of the sentiments and concep-
tions bodied in their songs were "inconsistent” as re-
garded others? And this sense of betrayal, of imposition,
of cozenage, at'which.Myrt1e cried out. was it not
really the voice of her own vanity, her own egotism, that
she had mistaken.for honest revolt? There had been, on
Indermaur's part, no voluntary deception whatever. was
it his fault that she had fallen in love with one of his
books before she had fallen in love with him? Granted
her disappointment at its authorship. ‘Why should she
presume to call the composition of it hypocrisy? Could
Indermaur himself even presume so far? It came from his
brain. The human brain had always been an enigma, and
by its possessor it was often less comprehended than by
those who watched it. Indermaur may have been sincerer
than he dreamed while writing these essays. He might

hereafter write others beside which these would seem almost

3&1

irreligious! Was there no allowance to be made for the
mental mutationsuthe self-contradictions, the mystic
deve10pments--of a mind so remarkable and yet so young?
Meanwhile Myrtle had his book to be thankful for. If '
she hurled it away, if she hurled Q out of her future
because of it, her own sense of humor, if nothing else,
would shower vengeance upon her in the future.

"Time, unpitying time, my dear,” cried Lady Plin-
limmon, with lips that upcurled in a smile of reckless
irony, "will paint your portrait for you hereafter and
thrust it, chuckling, before your sight. And how will
you appear in it? Why, simply as a female blue-stocking
in a ludicrous temper!"

Myrtle startedsharply, at this cutting onslaught,
and her white cheeks grew scarlet.

"Good! Anything to rouse her," thought Lady
Plinlimon. 'i mistress of satiric raillery, she forth-
with shot arrow after arrow of poignant ridicule, resol-
ute to be cruel only that she might be kind.

311.2

XV

Alighting at his own door after a fleet drive to
Chelsea, Indermaur soon found that his father's condi-
tion had in no manner changed for the worse. H'flnre the
sleeper lay, seemingly in utter peace, his breathing
faint yet regular, his face hueless as a waxen mask.

Indermaur glanced at his watch by the dim light.
It was still early in the evening. He seated himself
at the bedside.

”Poor father,” he reflected, "if you wake from
this sleep and once morerally, and once more go living
on in your spiritless, benighted way, it will be pleasant
to feel that no regrets can ever reach you for my crushed
ambitions and the abandoned hopes. There is money enough
for me--more than my simple needs will require. I shall
go into the country and dwell there among books, reading
what others have written, but never again giving to the
world a line of my own. There is a curse upon my talent;
it has brought me nothing but despair; from tonight I
bury it and roll the stone over its grave! In time,
perhaps, I may travel; in time I may care'for the com-
panionship of my fellows. But never shall the dead
spark of effort and struggle reawaken in my soul. You
said that I could not feel profoundly. But you forgot
to add--'Unless you once profoundly love!"'

3&3
Presently old Martha came into the room and whis-

pered that dinner could now be served him at once if he
so wished. He neither wished nor otherwise, but went
downstairs and sat for an hour at the table, scarcely
noting what was placed before him. At the end of this
time Cursitor reappeared.

"Kenneth!" he appealed, anxiously, "you have
seen Myrtle?" F ‘

”Yes.“

"With.what result?"

*The expected one, Cyril."

Cursitor gnawed his nether lip. "She refuses to--
pardon,you?”

"Absolutely.”

*Then.it's all over?"

“Quite over.”

Cursitor, groaning low to himself, began.to pace
the floor. He slapped the palm of one hand upon the
tightened knuckles of the other. ”If it had not been
for that reptile, Adalbert Hurst!" He stopped at Inder-
maur's side. '"But I've seen him, Kenneth, since we last
met.* .

”Seen.him?"

“And spoken.with him. It happened like this. After
leaving you, I went home to Tite Street. An envelope

3hh

awaited me there, containing Forester's letter and the
cheque of which Myrtle told you. There was nothing

more. These had been mailed me, too evidently by
Adalbert Hurst. I confess, Kenneth, that a great anger
then seized me. I had myself driven at once to Adalbert's
rooms in the Albany. While the servant announced my name
I swept past him. Hurst was in dressing-gown and slip-
pers, bending over a table covered with papers and books.
'I've only this to say,' I began, stationing myself about
three yards or so from his wide-eyed face. 'You went to
Mr. Forester's office and stole from his desk a letter
addressed tome. You afterward opened this letter. You
returned it, with the accompanying cheque. But your act
was nevertheless a criminal one, and I shall hold you
responsible according to English law.'

"His face, always ugly, now looked ogreish, as he
wreathedit'with.a sardonic smile. 'What, Cursitor!' he
piped, 'shall you then actually give your friend,
Indermaur, away, as the author of "Thoughts Out Loud"'?

"Rage almost choked me, Kenneth, but I knew that
an explosion would rather have pleased him than otherwise.
And so, with a fair amount of collectedness I replied:

'There can be no question of that in the suit
which I shall prefer against you. The lawyers will be
compelled to stick to the main point. Your own knowledge

3&5
of law must show you this, if you choose to reflect.

My suit against you will simply be for purloining a
letter which did not belong to you. It's a grave
charge, and as sure as I stand here I shall prefer it.
When your position as a member of Parliament is con-
sidered, it seems graver still. You have not an atom
of proof that the book was written by Indermaur, and
your so-called "literary" deductions would count for
nothing in the case, even if they were permitted to be
aired in court. On only one item can you-be tried--the
stealing of a letter not addressed to you, and the sub-
sequent opening of it. I think, Mr. Hurst, that when
the Judges and I have done with you your borough will
not feel inclined to return you at Westminster on the
next elections!

”It wasplain, Kenneth, that he felt the intense
seriousness of my response. 'Stay a moment,' he cried,
shrilly and frightenedly, as I wheeled around, intent
upon quitting him. But I did not stay. I left him with
that Parthian shaft striking in his guileful little heart!
And tomorrow my solicitor and I shall hold together a
council of war.”

"It would be hard to blame you," said Indermaur.
”That one word 'tomorrowl'" he sombrely added. “What a
novelty of definition itholds for me!" ‘

3H6

Cursitor drew a quick sigh. "Oh, Kenneth, if she
throws you over for so slight a reason she is undeserving
of such a love as yours! After a while that reflection
should bring you some comfort!”

"No,” said Indermaur, {'it can bring me not a shred
of comfort, *Cyril. Her reason is not a slight one. She
is a woman, and women possess capacities of emotion, of
idealisation, of worship, all their own. Myrtle treasured
that book with an unspeakable reverence. She loved me in
spite of it. I know there were times when she felt that
if I had written it a sort of crowning perfection would
have surmounted her happiness. But to learn that I had
written it in‘zthe spirit of a more gay escapade--as a
playing at bowls with solemnest ethical subjects-«this
arousal could only dethrone me forever from that pure
height, her maiden heart! Indeed, it is because of the
very sensitiveness she would show at such a discovery
that I myself loved her the more. No, Cyril, the gates
are closed against me forever, and over them- waves the
flaming sword! Were I a woman like herself, I should not
have behaved differently. I have no word of reproach for
her--none whatever!"

But Cursitor, stung into indignation, retorted with
haste and heat. "Reproach will come later with you,
Kenneth, and in Just bitterness of revolt!. Good heavens!

3&7
is this love on Myrtle 's part, or is it the flimsiest

travesty of love? A woman like her, indeed! Thank.
heaven--if she does not soon play for you a; different
tune on the fiddle of her high-strung self-esteem!--
that there are not many women so cantankerously 'like
her' in even this hurly-burly world!" h

.. Indermaur vaguely and yet very sorrowfully shook
his head. ”For me there can never be any woman who '
bears toward her the faintest real resemblance! " Then,
straightening, his eyes gave out a sudden flash; his
whole manner underwent a change. "Cyril! Do you know
that I thoroughly Justify her? That I think she has
been absolutely right? That I do not merit her pardon
and have no conceivable claim upon her for any‘ ..such
sublime favor?"

Just as he ceased there came two loud raps, like
those of the imemorial London postman, at the adjacent
hall-door. Indermaur answered the sumons. It was not
made by a postman, but a messenger-boy. Cursitor soon
afterward, heard the door clangingly shut.

"My God! It can't be! No, no! And yet..."

This also did Cursitor hear. he sped from the
dining-room, and joined his friend in the hall.

Indermaur stood below the hall light. He held
something white in his hand. "Road that, Cyril, and tell

me--tell me if I'm awake or dreaming!"

31:8
Cursitor took the paper, and read aloud from it:
I forgive, and I also ask tg_bg forgiven.

Myrtle
Through some odd.mutual impulse the two men

 

caught each other by the shoulders and ransacked one
another's faced with their eyes.

i'Grod bless Lady Plinlimmon! Cyril!"

"Yes, Kenneth?” - “—

"What's o'clock?"

"About...“ and Cursitor named the hour. "figuther
late, if you mean--"

”I do mean it,” Indermaur struck in. "If you'd
said midnight I'd have meant it still." * '

"Meant what?" murmured Cursitor, as if he did not
perfectly know the answer.

"Battling over to Berkely Square. Will you join
me?" ‘

"Yes, I'll be in at the-~"

"not the death, surely!" hAnd Indermaur snatched
at his hand wringing it.

"Nb, at the life, Kenneth--the new life!"

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Fawcett 's Works

Essays
Agnosticism and Other Essays. New York, 1889.

 

For Novelists and Poets. Copyright, March 6, 1888.

 

How a Novel is Written. Copyright, November 20, 1888.

Novels

The Adopted Daughter. Chicago, 1892.
re. Adventures 35 S. widow. Boston, 188a.

 

_A_n Ambitious Woman. Boston, 1881i.

 

American Push. Chicago, 1893.
All Anonymous Letter. Copyright, March 1;, 1891.

 

Asses Ears. New York, 1871

 

_B. 2. Romance. New York, 1912.
The. Best Match in Town. Copyright, March 1h, 1895.

2.": 3°“ 23 22.23.13,? Copyright, March 10, 1892.

 

Cheviot's Last Chance. Copyright, November 12, 1888.

 

Comedy g_1_'_ Counterplots. Copyright, November 16, 18914.

 

'_i'_h_e_ Confessions 95 £333. Boston, 1887.

_A_ Daughter if Silence. flew. York, 1890.

.4. Dead “32....“ Veggeance. Copyright, July 17, 1889.
_A_ Demoralizing Marriage. Philadelphia, 1889.

 

 

3H9

 

350
E2 Destruction 35" Eh: {1335. Copyright, February 5, 1892.

 

Divided £1133 . Chicago, 1888.

Dorothy Dillow., Copyright, February 1, 1893.
Douglas 232:. Philadelphia, 1888.

£132 m. low York, 1876.

221 2:2}; That _M_g_z_i 22. New York, 1889.

 

Fabian Dimitry. Chicago, 1890.

 

Frankieand His Kindred. copyright, August 22, 1887.
g Gentleman of. Leisure. Boston, 1881. d
The Ghost o_i_‘_ Guy Thyrle. New York, 1895.

 

la_n Heir £2 Millions. Chicago, 1892.

 

Her! Fair Fame. Iew York, 18911,.

 

gel Statue. Copyright, November 11;, 1893.
a: Q_n_2_Ly Child. Copyright, May 2, 1888.
5 Hopeless 233. Boston, 1880.

‘T_h_e' {1322 at High Bridge. Boston, 1887.
Hg! 3 Husband Forgave. lew York, 1890.

Life's Fitful Fever Be the Memoirs of Clarence Disowa
wmw or ,1'89‘57—— "’ _""'"""' .

Loaded Dice. Hew York, 1893.
_A_ Lost Day. Copyright, April 9, 1891.
Man from Mars. Copyright, June 3, 1891.

 

_a Man's Will. New York, 1888.

 

Mark's Mother. Copyright, July 28, 1893.
A Martyr g; Destiny. New York, 18911.
_A_ Mild Barbarian. low York, 1891;.

351
Mildred Allaire. Copyright, July 9, 1881i.
Miriam Balestier. 'Chicago, 1888.

 

fl. Thorndyke's Conscience. Copyright, March 10, 1885.
Ey gay 35 222. Cprright, September 11, 1896.

33y}: Q. How York, 1893.

3;! York. sew York, 1898.

 

_A_ is: £23.15. Family. law York, 1891.

Olivia Delaplaine. Boston, 1888.

Outrageous Fortune. ‘Hew York, 1891]..

_A_ Portrait Painter. Copyright, January 6, 1893.
Purple .932 Egg Linen. lew York, 1873.

 

Revegge or P_a_r____don. Whi____c__h? Copyright, September 11, 1896.
11 Romance of Old lew York. Philadelphia, 1897.

A Romance of Two Brothers. New York, 1891.

Rutherford. sew York, 1881;.

 

Social Silhouettes. Boston, 1885.
Solarion. Philadelphia, 1889.
_A_ Special Providence. Cepyright, September 11, 1896.
;A_ Steamy W_iLh_. Copyright, July 6, 1893.

5%.. of Tw__o_ Cousins. Copyright, February 10, 1885.
The Tale of Two Misers. Copyright, September 28, 1891.

inlay CEbals Boston, 18814..

Two Dagghters 35 one Race. Philadelphia, 1897.
pp; Vulgarians. low York, 1903.
Was It a Chost____3_ Copyright, May 12, 1885.

Women Must Weep. Chicago, 1891.

 

352

P1ays--date and place of first production in
parentheses

Americans Abroad. (Daly's Theatre, New York, October 5,
—IB'BI")"'__ .

The Earl. (Hollis Street Theatre, Boston, April 11, 1887.

A False Friend. (Union Square Theatre, New York, June 21,
"' ‘1'8'80. 7' 'Pl'iblished as The False Friend, New York, 1880.

 

 

Sixes and Sevens. (Bijou'opera House, New York, March, 1881.)

Our Best Society.
Our First Families. (Daly's Theatre, September 23, 1880.)

Poetyy
Blooms and Brambles, a Book of Verses. London, 1889.

Fantasy and Passion. Boston, 1878.

A Few Verses as Recited b the Author at a Farewell Dinner

" Given to H- UeIf'ic , at EEe' Unfin-CIuE on' Jamia'Ey'"
ZZZ—I890. ew York, 'IB9OT" . "'-

Romance and Revery; Poems. Boston, 1886.

 

Short Poems for Short People. New York, 1872.

Song and Stoyy, Later Poems. Boston, 1881...
Songs 23 Doubt and Dream. New York, 1891.

 

Voices and Visions, Later Verses. London, 1903.

Verse Drama

1?

Buntlin'g' Ball. low York, 1881;.
The New £25. Arthur. New York, 1885.

353

Location.3£_Fawcett Manuscripts

 

Buffalo Public Library

"Iron I!

"My Echo."
"Sister Dorothy."

 

Chicago Historical Society

"A City Eclogue."
"A Dead World." .
"What to Read in.Summer."

Duke University Librayy '

"Art . N

”Barcarolle."

"Eternity."

"Fabrics.".

VFrom.a Lover."

"From.a Madhouse."

“He and She."
”Hypocrites.”

"Keats." .

"The Meeting."

"Le Revers de.1a Medaille."
"so Paul Hamilton.Hayne."
”Whittier." .
"Will It Be Strong?"

Harvard university Libragy

"The Dominick Diamonds."
"Nature in Bondage."
“Some City Days.‘ .

Henry E. multigton Library and Art Galleyy

"Married Bohemians."

35h
The New York Public Library

"A Tuberose."

Trinity College Library
"A White Camellia. "

Uhiversity_ of Virgmm1a Library
"The Punishment."

Yale University Library

 

"Bigotry. "
"Lilacs.".
”The Twilight of the Poets."

Fawcett's Poetyy and Prose £3 Periodicals

"Allegory," Cent (April 1893), 891.
"American Impress on of the New Grub Street, " Bookman
(October 1900), 129- 132

”American in England, " Munse 's hazine (April 1903) no.
"Antitheses," Centur (FeBruan IBSET, '639 ’

“Aux Invalides, on ur (March 1891), 696.
"Baltimore Oriole, " GEIEen Book Ma azine (July 1926).
"Baudelaire," AtlantIE'MEEtEIy—( cem er 1875),
"Bizarrerie," EIppIncotE'S H5 nthl Ma azine (April 31903), 512.
, CurreWe‘UITl—ll
"Dead iorIa, " Ce ntm (FeEruary 1891), M98.
"Doreen," LippIEEEEE;s Monthly Ma azine (January 190k), 3-72.
FExtravagaEZET“'Mfifi§3"i‘ME'EEine ovember 1902), 195.
"A Few Literary Eiperiences," EIppincott's Monthly Magazine
. (1886), h12-hl7.
"Grapes, " Atlantic Monthly (November 1875), 602 603.
"Harp oijy'HEEFET“_EIE§TECCtt's Monthly Magazine (March
1903 382
"Immortelles, " Atlantic Monthly (April 1875),
"In the Year Ten TESusanET"_IFEna (February 1890), 2&7- 252.
"International Sweethearts,"'L€fi'Eng1and Magazine (April
1902), 152 16 ‘—
, Overland Mbnthl (April 1902), 7 5- 757.
“EIEEEIh LEEEIEEF, oe re, (October1199), 258.

355

"Literature and the Drama, " Dial (January 16,1893), 38-h0.
VLove in Masquerade,V Century—Tluguat 189h), 558.

VMinorchord, " Centur (HEy IB9h)
Vlathan Hale,"T"Tzea er (June 19011) 100-101.

VOne mouch of we," Cent (March h1893), 759.
VOriole," lature Ma azine anuaryl
"Paradise of Gm b era, rena (November )1891) 6&1- 651.
VPavement Pictures," Cantu (October 1892), 8&5
VPawnbroker,‘ Centw November 1890), 32.
"Plutfigragy anETS"EEEry in.Iew'York, ' Arena (July 1891),
1 -l 1.
"Oediphua and the Sphinx, V North American Re__v____iew (December
Prig, “ Centur May 1 93 , l
VQueen CEFIEETEE and de Liar," Arena (June 1890),
VReaurrection of Edith, V Lippincott'a Monthly mgazine
(January 1903), 85- 9h.
VRetroapect, " Nation (March 31, 1892), 25k.
, Dial TTI—u y 16,1893),
“SEBEIH'CETEIca Be Gentlemen? Lippincott'a Mbnthl Ma a-
zine (1887), 163- 177. _—l —L'

VSleep and Death, " Inde endent (February 1,1900) 303.
"Spring Daya in Ven ce, oamopolitan (April 1901), 613 622.

VStronger than Death, V mine (June 1903), th-
"To Robert G. Ingeraoll-V'IFEEE'TDEEe fiBe er 1893), 11h-117.

VTraffic," Century"(July 18927' 38h.

VUhpardogabe Mey'a Magazine (January 1903),
-0

"waate, Atlantic Mbnthl (June 1875), 683.
VWOea6of555e New YBrE Working Girl, " Arena (December 1891),
2 -3

Periodicals Conaulted

Aldrich, Thomas Bailey. 8"§:chel-Riatcri, " Atlantic
Monthly September 1 7 297 ""”'

eep " Atlantic Monthl (September 1875) 297.
IIIefi,'Jamee L.£..m ma Cr {Egan RGentlemen?'V Critic

(January 15, 1887L 25.
Banka,lancy%"1io Recent Revival: in Realism," Bookman
(June 1 99 .356-357-
Barr, Amelia B. "The Mbdern.love1, " lbrth.&merican.Review
(HOvember 189M), 592- 600. '_—""
"Chronicle and Comment, 'Bookman (June 190k) 3h0£ 3&2.
VEdgar Fawcett, V lew York Times (June 22,1880) h.
Fawcett, Edgar.. ew Miterarnyxperiences," Lippincott'a

Mbnthl Ma azine (1886), h12-h17.
g"§mmorteIIea," Atlantic Mbntm my (April 1875), #07.

 

 

356

. "Plutocracy and Snobbery in New York," Arena
_TJm-y 1891), 114-2-151- -. V .
. "Should Critics Be Gentlemen," Lippincott'a
mthlyflMa azine (1887.), 163-177. _

. “TE-fi'é'FeT'? G. Ingeraoll," Arena (December 1893)
"—_IIE—ll7. . "—

. "The Woee of the New York Working Girl," Arena
""'"'("D'e'cemlz’er118912.13136}?.1 . Tri " H ' W kl
Garland, Haml n. a. p e a p, arEer a ee 1

(November 211., 1888), 89);- 95.
Gilder Jeanette. "The Lounger," Critic (February 15, 1896),
l . .. - . -
Greg, Sir Walter W. "The Rationale of Copy-Text," Studies
in Biblio raph , III (1950-1951), 122-36.1 . _—
Jame'fi'? Henr' y. "Crawford's Consistency, Scr bner'a Monthly
Magazine (August 1876),356zg58h; Mo thl M in

. ur et a, or nor a n 2 age: e
'—"'Tl'5'vember 1877), -56.
Lathrop, George Parsons. "The Literary Movement in New

gorké" Harper's New Monthly Magazine (November 1886),
13- 33- _—
Lowell, Jamee Ruaaell. "The Dancing Bear," Atlantic Monthl
(September 1875), 329. ——'— —'_l
Fellow, Geor e. "The New Battle of the Books," Forum
(July 18 8), 56h. , . - . .—
Rideing, William H. "Edgar Fawcett," Bookman (December
1910), h36-u39. . . .f"""‘—" .
Stedman, Edmund Clarence. "Latter Day British Poets,"

H Scribner'a Monthl Ma azine (March 1875), 585-596.
ThomWice. "¥he &om'of Claudine and Cynthia,"

Scribner'a Monthly Magazine (February 1879), Sin-552.

 

 

Reviews 93 Fawcett's Works

"The Adventures of a Widow," Nation (October 9, 18814,), 3111..

"An Ambitious Woman," Atlantic" Enthl (May 18814), 710-711.

. , Nation (February 28, l , 9%. .
, New York Times (December 17, l 83), 8.

Wraming Marriage," Critic (April 6, l 89), 167.

"Divided Lives," Critic (January 26, 1889), hO.

"Ellen Story," Ham New Monthl Magazine (1876), 629.

"Fantasy and Pam—Am c nt ay 1878), 632-635.
PEnEEI" ME azfne

. Har er'a New (1878), 69.
"""'"""'""i Nat on 7167—1875 '36?— h

'__'""', Wer'a Monthl Ma,azin; (June 1878), 296-298.
WeWthmnthly (October 1881) ,

561-5614.. . -——

.
. v
_
'
.
e _
. .
.
o .
. u
e
o
.
e
.
.
.
. .
o
. .
.
.
e
o n

357

"A Gentleman of Leisure," New York Times (July 10 1881), 10.
"A Hopeless Case," Atlantic _EEII (September 1880), 1.115-

14.16.
New York Times (June 27, 1880), 10.
Muse atm Br Ids " Dial (December 1886), 189- 190.
"A Man's Will," Nation June‘za',’ 1888) 530.
. , New York—ms (July 22, 1888), 10.
m BEWaFI", "Te—w' York Times (October 114. 18911), 27.
"Miriam Balestier," WtWZL 1889), 3.
"The New King Arthurmtic (Februar16,1886), 68- 69.
Nation (December—2E: 1885), 51
“mrkmependent (January 26,1 99), 280- 281.
, Newm (October 86 1898) 662.
-"'—'— Wm m (January 26 ,1899), 611
Womymtuonc World (July 1892), 599-600.
, Critic (June—2777891),335.
""PE'r—I" awe Linen," Nation (July 10,1873), 27.
"A Romance of Old New YormJ York Limes (May 1,1897),

3- LL

"Rutherford," New York Times (August 23, 18814),

"Social Silhoui't't'efl-A‘EES'IIEeum reprinted in the 3Critic:
(January 23, 1886)—EBT— _—

"Song and Story," Critic and Go__o__d Literature (September 6,
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