Chapter 32 of our Daph by Marie Corelli, this LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Zabasticism and Paulism. The delighted air of triumphant conviction with which Alvin received this candid statement was irresistible, and Villiers' attempt at equanimity entirely gave way before it. He broke into a roar of laughter, laughter in which his friend joined, and for a minute or two the room rang with the echoes of their mutual mirth. It wasn't my doing, said Villiers at last, when he could control himself a little, and even now I don't in the least know how the misconception arose. Newer Harma was published according to your instructions as rapidly as it could be got through the press, and I had no preliminary puffs or announcements of any kind circulated in the papers. I merely advertised it without notable simplicity, thus. Newer Harma, a love legend of the past, a poem by Theos Alvin. That was all. Well, when it came out copies of it were sent, according to custom, round all the leading newspaper offices, and for about three weeks after his publication I saw it not a word concerning it anywhere. Meanwhile, I went on advertising. One day at the Constitutional Club, while glancing over the Parthenon, I suddenly spied in it a long review, occupying four columns and headed a wonder poem. And just out of curiosity, I began to read it. I remember, in fact, that I shall never forget. Its opening sentence, it was so original, and he laughed again. It commenced thus.  And then on it went, dragging in memories of Chatterton and Shelley and Keats, till I found myself yawning and wondering what the deuce the writer was driving at. Presently about the end of the second column, I came to the assertion that the posthumous poem of Newer Harma must be admitted as one of the most glorious productions in the English language. This woke me up considerably, and I read on, groping my way through all sorts of woody phrases and used up arguments till my mind gradually grasped the fact that the critic of the Parthenon had evidently never heard a theos all and before, and being astonished and perhaps perplexed by the original beauty and glowing style of Newer Harma had jumped without warrant to the conclusion that its author must be dead. The wind-up of his lengthy dissertation was, as far as I can recollect, as follows. It is a thousand pitties. This gifted poet is no more splendid as the work of his youthful geniuses. There is no doubt but that, had he lived, he would have endowed the world anew with an inheritance of thought worthy of the grandest masterminds. Well, when I had fully realized the situation, I began to think to myself, shall I enlighten this oracle of the press and tell him the dead author he so enthusiastically eulogizes is alive and well, or was so at any rate the last time I heard from him? I debated the question seriously, and after a much cogitation decided to leave him for the present in ignorance. First of all, because critics like to consider themselves the wisest men in the world, and hate to be told anything, secondly because I rather enjoy the fun, the publisher of Newer Harma, a very excellent fellow, sent me the critique and wrote asking me whether it was true that the author of the poem was really dead, and if not whether he should contradict the report. I waited a bit before answering that letter, and while I waited two more critiques appeared in two of the most assertively pompous and dictatorial journals of the day echoing the eulogies of the Parthenon, declaring this dead poet worthy to rank with the highest of the immortals, and a number of other similar grandiose declarations. One reviewer took an infinite deal of pains to prove that if the genius of Theos Alvin had only been spared to England, he must have infallibly been elected poet laureate as soon as the post became vacant, and that too without a single dissentient voice saved such as were raised in envy or malice. The being dead continued this estimable scribe, all we can say is that he yet speaketh, and that Newer Harma is a poem of which the literary world cannot be otherwise than justly proud, that the tears that we shed for this gifted singer's untimely decease be mingled with gratitude for the priceless value of the work his creative genius has bequeathed to us. Airbilliers paused his blue eyes sparkling with inward amusement, and looked at Alvin, whose face, though perfectly serene, had now the faintest, softest shadow of a gray pathos hovering about it. By this time he continued I thought we had had about enough sports, so I wrote off to the publisher to at once contradict the erroneous rumor, but now that publisher had his story to tell. He called upon me, and with a blandly persuasive air said that as Newer Harma was having an extraordinary sale, was it worthwhile to deny the statement of your death just yet? He was very anxious, but I was fine, unless he should waver. I wrote several letters myself to the leading journals to establish the certainty so far as I was aware of your being in the land of the living, and then what do you think happened? Alvin met his bright satirical glance with a look that was half questioning, half wistful, but said nothing. It was the most laughable, and at the same time the most beautifully instructive lesson ever taught by the whole annals of journalism. The press turned round like a weathercock with the wind, and exhausted every epithet of abuse they could find in the dictionaries. Newer Harma was a poor ill-conceived work in outrage to intellectual perception, a good idea spoiled in the treatment, an amazingly obscure attempt at sublimity, etc., but there you can yourself peruse all the criticisms, both favorable and adverse, for I have acted the part of the fond granny to you in the careful cutting out and pasting of everything I could find written concerning you and your work in a book devoted to the purpose, and I believe I've missed nothing. Mark you, however, the Parthenon never reversed its judgment, nor did the other two leading journals of literary opinion. It wouldn't do for such big wigs to confess they had blundered, you know, and the vituperation of the smaller fly was just the other rate in the balance which made the thing equal. The sale of near Harma grew fast and furious, all expenses were cleared three times over, and at the present moment the publisher is getting conscientiously anxious, for some publishers are more conscientious than some authors will admit to hand you over a nice little check for an amount which is not to be despised in this work-a-day world, I assure you. I did not write for money, interrupted all in quietly, nor shall I ever do so. Of course, not a centadil is promptly no poet, and indeed no author whatsoever who lays claim to a fraction of conscience writes for money only, those with whom money is the first consideration, debates their art into a coarse, huckstream trade, and are no better than contentious bakers, and cheese-mongers who jostle each other in a vulgar struggle as to rich sell perishable goods at the highest profit. None of the lasting works of the world were written so, nevertheless if the public voluntarily choose to lavish what they can of their best on the author who imparts to them inspired thoughts and noble teachings, and that author must not be churlish or slow to accept the gratitude implied, I think the most appropriate maxim for a poet to address to his readers is, freely ye have received, freely give. There was a moment's silence, all when it resumed his seat in the chair near the fire, and billiards leaning one arm on the mantelpiece, still stood looking down upon him. Such, my dear fellow, he went on complacently, is the history of the success of Neurahama. It certainly began with the belief that you were no longer able to benefit by the eulogy received, but all the same that eulogy has been uttered and cannot be unuttered. It has led all the lovers of the highest literature to get the book for themselves and to prove your actual worth independently of press opinions, and the result is an immense and steadily widening verdict in your favor. Speaking personally, I've never read anything that gave me quite so much artistic pleasure as this poem of yours, except Hyperion. Only Hyperion is distinctly classical, while Neurahama takes us back into some hitherto unexplored world of antique paganism, which though essentially pagan is wonderfully full of pure and lofty sentiment. When did the idea first strike you? A long time ago, returned Arwen with a slight serious smile. I assure you it is by no means original. The years gave him a quick surprise glance. No, well, it seems to me singularly original, he said. In fact, one of your critics says you are too original. Mind you, Arwen, that is a very serious fault in this imitated age. Arwen laughed a little. His thoughts were very busy. Again, in imagination, he beheld the burning temple of Megiah in his dream of Alcarus. Again, he saw himself carrying the corpse of his former self through fire and flame, and again he heard the last words of a dying Zabastis. I was the poet's adverse critic, and who but I should write his eulogy. Save me, if only for the sake of Saluma's future honor. Thou knowest not how warmly, how generously, how nobly I can praise the dead. True, how easy to praise the poor, deaf, fearless clay, when sense and spirit have fled from it forever. No fear to spoil a corpse by flattery. The heavily sealed up eyes can never more unclose to lighten with glad hope or fond ambition. The quiet heart cannot leap with gratitude or joy at that word spoken in due season, which aids its noblest aspirations to become realized. The dead poet pressed the cold clouds of earth over him, and then ran to above his grave, telling how great he was, what infinite possibilities were displayed in his work, what excellence, what merit, what subtlety of thought, what grace of style, rant and rave. Print reams of acclaiming verbosity, pronounce orations, raise up statues, mark the house he lived in Starden with a laudatory medallion, and print his once rejected stanzas in every sort of type and fashion, from the cheap to the costly, teach the multitude how worthy he was to be loved and honored, and never fear that he will move from his rigid and chill repose to be happy for once in his life, and to learn with amazement that the world he toiled so patiently for is actually learning to be grateful for his existence. Once dead and buried he can be safely made glories. He cannot affront us either with his superior intelligence or make us envy the splendors of his fame. Some such thoughts as these pass through all one's mind as he dreamily gazed into the red hollows of the fire and reconsidered all that his friend had told him. He had no personal acquaintances on the press, no literary club, or a clique to haul them up into the top gallant mast of renowned bi-persistent puffery. He was not related even distantly to any great personage, either at statesman, professor, or divine. He had not the mysterious recommendation of being a university man. None of the many wheels within wheels which are nowadays so frequently set in motion to make up a momentary literary furor were his to command, and yet the Parthenon had praised him, wonder of wonders. The Parthenon was a singularly obtuse journal, rich glance at the whole world of letters merely through the eyes of three or four men of distinctly narrow and egotistical opinions, and these three or four men kept it as much as possible to themselves using its columns chiefly for the purpose of admiring one another. As a consequence of this restricted arrangement, very few outsiders could expect to be noticed for their work unless they were in the set where Least had occasionally dined with one of the mystic three or four, and so it had chance that Arwen's first venture into literature had been totally disregarded by the Parthenon.   Well, well, after all, Neurhalma was a posthumous work. It had been written before ages since when he as Saluma had perished there, he had had time to give it to the world. He had merely remembered it, thrown it forth again as it were from that dim deep vistas of past deeds. So those who had reviewed it as the production of one dead in youth were right in their judgment, though they did not know it. It was old, nothing but repetition. But now he had something new and true and passionate to say, something that if God pleased it should be his to utter with the clearness and forcibleness common to the Greek thunderers of your who spoke out what was in them, grandly, simply, and with the fearless majesty of thought that wreak nothing of opinions. Oh, he would rouse the hearts of men from paltry greed and covetousness, from lust and hatred and all things evil, no matter if he lost his own life in the effort. He would still do his utmost best to lift, if only in a small degree, the deepening weight of self-wrought agony from self-blinded mankind. Yes, he must work to fulfill the commands and deserve the blessings of Edras. Edras, ah, the memory of her pure angel loveliness rushed upon him like a flood of invigorating warmth and light. And when he looked up from his grief reverie, his countenance beautiful and kindling with inward order affected him strangely, almost as a very grand and perfect strain of music might affect and unsteady one's nerves. The attraction he had always felt for his poet friend, Deepin, to quite a fervent intensity, a vibration, but he was not the man to betray his feelings outwardly and to shake off his emotion he rushed into speech again. By the by, Alvin, your old acquaintance, Professor Mock Saul, is very much down on your book. You know he doesn't write reviews, except on matters connected with evolutionary phenomena, but I met him the other day and he was quite upset about you too transcendental. He said Dismarie, shaking his ball, paid to and fro. The whole poem is a vaporous tissue of absurd impossibilities. Ah, dear, dear me, what a terrible falling off in a young man of such hopeful ability. I thought he had done with poetry forever. I took the greatest pains to prove to him what a ridiculous past time it was and how unworthy to be considered for a moment seriously as an art, and he seemed to understand my reasoning thoroughly. Indeed, he promised to be one of our most powerful adherents. He had an excellent grasp of the material sciences and a fine contempt for religion. Why, with such a quick analytical brain as his, he might have carried on Darwin's researches to an extremer point of the origination of species than has yet been reached. All a ruin, sir, a positive ruin. A man who will in cold blood write such lines as these. Grander is death than life and sweeter far the splendors of the infinite future than our eyes. Weary with tearful watching yet can see. Condemns himself as a positive lunatic and young all in two, he who had so completely recognized the foolishness and futility of expecting any other life than this one good heavens near Alma as I understand it is a sort of pagan poem. But with such incredible ideas and sentiments as are expressed in it, the author might as well go and be a Christian at once. And with that he hobbled off right with Sunday afternoon, and he was on his way to St. George's Hall to delight. He assembled skeptics by telling them in an elaborate lecture what absurd and a melancholy they all were. All in smile, there was a soft light in his eyes, an expression of serene contentment on his face for old Moxel. He said gently, I'm sorry for him, he makes life very desolate both for himself and others who accept his theories. I'm afraid his disappointment in me will have to continue for as it happens I am a Christian. That is, so far as I can in my unworthiness be a follower of a faith so grand and pure and true. There you started his mouth opened in sheer astonishment, he could scarcely believe his own ears, and he uttered some sound between a gasp and an exclamation of incredulity, all when met his widely wondering gaze without both sweet and unembarrassed calm. How amazed you look, he observed half faithfully, religion must be at a very low ebb. If in a so-called Christian country you are surprised to hear a man openly acknowledge himself a disciple of the Christian creed. There was a brief pause during which the chiming clock rang out the hour musically on that stillness, and there you were still in a state of most profound bewilderment, sat down deliberately in a chair opposite all wings, and placed one hand familiarly on his knee. Look here, old fellow, he said impressively, do you really mean it? Are you going over to some church or other? Alvin laughed, his friends' anxiety was so genuine, not I. He responded promptly, don't be alarm-villiers, I am not a convert to any particular set form of faith. What I care for is the faith itself, one can follow and serve Christ without any church dogma. He has himself told us plainly in words simple enough for a child to understand what he would have us to do, and though I, like many others, must regret the absence of a true universal church where the servants of Christ may meet altogether without a shadow of difference in opinion and worship him as he should be worshipped, still that is no reason why I should refrain from endeavoring to fulfill as far as in me lies my personal duty toward him. The fact is Christianity has never yet been rightly taught, grasped, or comprehended for over as long as men seek through it their own worldly advantage, it never will be, so that the majority of the people are really as yet ignorant of its true spiritual meaning thanks to the quarrels and differences of sex and preachers, but notwithstanding the unhappy position of religion at the present day. I repeat, I am a Christian, if love for Christ and implicit belief in him can make me so. He spoke simply, without the slightest affectation of reserve, various were still puzzled. I thought all when he ventured to say presently with some little diffidence that you entirely rejected the idea of Christ's divinity as a mere superstition, in dense ignorance of the extent of God's possibilities, I certainly did so, returned all when quietly, but I have had good reason to see that my own inability to comprehend supernatural causes was entirely to blame for that rejection. Are we able to explain all the numerous and complex variations and manifestations of matter? No. Then why do we dare to doubt the certainly conceivable variations and manifestations of spirit? The doctrine about purely human Christ is untenable. A greed founded on that idea alone would make no way with the immortal aspirations of the soul. What link could there be between a mere man, like ourselves, and heaven? None, whatever, it needs the divine in Christ to overleap the darkness of the grave, to serve us as the symbol of certain resurrection, to teach us that this life is not the all, but only one loop in the chain of existence, only one of the many mansions in the Father's house. Human teachers of high morals there have always been in the world, Confucius, Buddha, Zoro, Aster, Socrates, Plato, there is no end to them, and their teachings have been valuable so far as they went. But even Plato's majestic arguments in favor of the immortality of the soul fall short of anything sure and graspable. There were so many prefigurements of what was to come, just as the sign of the cross was used in the temple of Sarapas, and was held in singular mystic veneration by various tribes of Egyptians, Arabians, and Indians ages before Christ came. And now that these prefigurements have resolved themselves into an actual divine symbol, the doubting world still hesitates, and by this hesitation paralyzes both its will and instinct so that it fails to cut out the core of Christianity's true solution or to learn what Christ really meant when he said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father but by me. Have you ever considered a particular rate of that word man in that text? It is rightly specified that no man cometh for there are hosts of other beings in other universes who are not of our puny race, and who do not need to be taught either the way, truth, or life as they know all free, and have never lost their knowledge from the beginning. His voice quivered a little, and he paused. Villagers watched him with a strange sense of ever-deepening fascination and wonder. I've lately studied the whole thing carefully. He was zoomed presently, and I see no reason why we who call ourselves a progressive generation should revert back to the old theory of Corinthus, who as early as sixty-seven years after Christ denied his divinity. There is nothing new in the hypothesis. It is no more original than the doctrine of evolution, which was skillfully enough handled by democratics, and probably by many another before him. Voltaire certainly thrust out the subject exhaustively, and I think Carlisle's address to him on the uselessness of his work is one of the finest of his kind. Do you remember it? Villiers shook his head in the negative, whereupon Alvin Rose and Glancing Along, an evidently well-remembered bookshelf, took from thence Sardar Rosardus and turned over the pages quickly. Here it is, and he read out the following passage.  Sufficiently hast thou demonstrated this proposition, considerable or otherwise, that the mythes of the Christian religion looks not in the 18th century as it did in the 8th. Alas, were thou six and thirty quarters, and that six and thirty thousand other quarters, and folios, and flying sheets, or reams, printed before and since on that same subject all needed to convince us of so little. But what next? Will thou help us to embody the divine spirit of that religion in a new mythos, in a new vehicle and vesture, that our souls otherwise too like Parisian may live? What, thou hast no faculty in that kind, only a torch foreburning, and no hammer for building? Take art, thanks, then, and by itself away. Thou, your smile, then, straightened himself in military fashion, as was his habit, when particularly gratified. Excellent old two-fold drach, Imermer Sotovoce, he had a rugged method of explaining himself, but it was decisive enough in all conscience. Decisive and to the point, a scented omen putting the book back in its place, and then confronting his friend, and he states precisely what is wanted by the world today, wanted pressingly, eagerly, namely that the divine spirit of the Christian religion should be set forth in a new vehicle and vesture to keep pace with the advancing inquiry and scientific research of man. And truly, for this, it need only be expounded according to its old, pure, primal spiritual intention, and then the more science progresses, the more true will it be proved. Christ distinctly claimed his divinity, and everywhere gave manifestations of it. Of course, it can be said that these manifestations rest on testimony, and that the testimony was drawn up afterward, and as a spurious invention, but we have no more proof that it is spurious than we have of, footnote C, chapter 13 in Al-Kiris, the allusion to Orozal. Homer's Iliad being a compilation of several writers and not the work of a Homer at all, nothing, not even the events of the past week, can be safely rested on absolute, undifferent testimony in as much as no two narrators tell the same story alike. But all the same, we have the Iliad. It cannot be taken from us by any amount of argument, and we have the fruits of Christ's gospel, half obscured as it is visible among us. Everywhere civilization of a high and aspiring order has followed Christianity even at the cost of blood and tears. Slavery has been abolished, and women lifted from unspeakable degradation to honor and reverence. And had men been more reasonable and self-controlled, the purifying work would have been done peacefully and without persecution. It was St. Paul's preaching that upset all the beautiful pristine simplicity of the faith. It is very evident he had no calling or election, such as he pretended. I wonder Jeremy Bentham's conclusive book on the subject is not more universally known. Paul's sermonizing gave rise to a thousand different shades of opinion and argument, and for a mere hair's breadth of needless discussion, nation has fought against nation, a man against man, to the very name of religion, has been made a ghastly mockery. That, however, is not the fault of Christianity, but the fault of those who profess to follow it like Paul, while merely following a scheme of their own personal advantage or convenience, and the result of it all is that at this very moment, there is not a church in Christendom where Christ's actual commands are really unto the letter fulfilled. Strong, ejaculated viewers with a slight smile mustn't say that before our clergymen. Why not, demanded all men? Why should not clerics be told once and for all, how ill they perform their sacred mission? Look at the wilderness of spreading atheism today, and look at the multitudes of men and women who are hungry and thirsting for a greater comprehension of spiritual things than they have hitherto had. And yet the preachers tread browsily on in the old ruts they have made for themselves and give neither sympathy nor heed to the increasing pain, feverish bewilderment, and positive want of those they profess to guide. Concerning science too, what is the good of telling a toiling, more or less suffering race, that there are 18 millions of sons in the milky way, and that viewed by the immensity of the universe man is nothing but a small, mean, imperishable insect. Humanity hears the statement with dull, perplexed brain, and its weight of sorrow is doubled. It demands at once why, if an insect, its insect life should be at all, if nothing is to come of it, but weariness and woe. The marvels of scientific discovery offer no solace to the huge majority of the afflicted, unless we point the lesson that the soul of man is destined to live through more than these wonders, and that the millions of planetary systems in the milky way have the sublime hereafter, which is our natural heritage if we will but set ourselves honestly to win it. Moreover, we should not foolishly imagine that we are to lead good lives merely for the sake of some suggestive reward or wages, no but simple because in practicing progressive good, we are equalizing ourselves and placing ourselves in active working harmony with the whole progressive good of a creator's plan. We have no more right to do a deliberately evil thing than a musician has a right to spoil a melody by a false note on his instrument. Why should we willingly jar God's music of which we are apart? I tell you that religion as taught today is rather one of custom and fear than love and confidence, men cower and propitiate when they should be full of thankfulness and praise, and as for any reserve on these matters, I have none. In fact, I feel to see why truth, spiritual truth should not be openly proclaimed now, even as it is sure to be proclaimed hereafter. His manner had warmed with his words and he lifted his head with an involuntary gesture, a vellicant resolve, his eyes flashing, splendid scorn for all things hypocritical and mean, there he was looked at him feeling curiously moved and impressed by his fervent earnestness. Well, I was right in one thing at any rate, Alwyn. He said, Salfa, you are changed. There is not a doubt about it, but it seems to me the change is distinctly for the better. It does my heart good to hear you speak with such distinct and manly emphasis on a subject which though it is one of the burning questions of the day, is too often treated irreverently or altogether dismissed with a few sentences of languid banter or cheap sarcasm. As regards myself personally, I must say that a man without faith in anything but himself has always seemed to me exactly in keeping with the description given of an atheist by Lady Ashburton to Carlisle, namely a person who robs himself not only of clothes but of flesh as well and walks about the world in his bones. And oddly enough, in spite of all the controversies going on about Christianity, I've always really worshipped Christ in my heart of hearts, and yet I can't go to church. I seem to lose the idea of him altogether there. But, and his frank face took upon itself a dreamy light of deep feeling. There are times when walking alone in the fields or through a very quiet grove of trees or on the seashore, I begin to think of his majestic life and death and the immense sun-failing sympathy he showed for every sort of human suffering. And then I can really believe in him as divine friend, comrade, teacher, and king. And I'm scarcely able to decide which is the deepest emotion in my mind toward him, love or reverence. He paused, all one's eyes, rested upon him with a quick, comprehensive friendliness. In one exchange of looks, the two men became mutually aware of the strong undercurrents of thought that lay beneath each other's individual surface history, and that perhaps had never been so clearly recognized before. And the kind of swift, speechless, satisfactory agreement between their two separate natures seemed suddenly drawn up, ratified, and sealed in a glance. I've often thought continued views, more lightly, and smiling as he spoke, that we are all angels or devils, angels in our best moments, devils in our worst, if we could only keep the best moments always uppermost. Ah, poor, deluded human nature, as all moxel says, while in that same breath he contradicts himself by asserting that human reason is the only infallible means of ascertaining anything. How it can be deluded and infallible at the same time I can't quite understand. But, Alwyn, you haven't told me how you likely get up above your book. And he handed the volume in question to its author who turned it over with the most curious air of careless recognition. In his fancy, he again saw Zabasti's writing each line of it down to Salerno's dictation. It's very well printed, he said at last, and very tastefully bound. You have superintended the work, Con Amore. Billius and I, as Zabasti, as friendship will let me be. You know what that means. It means no obligation at all, declared Billius Gailey, because friends who are released worthy, the name take delight in furthering each other's interests and have no need to be thanked for doing what is particularly agreeable to them. You really like the appearance of it then, but you've got the sixth edition. This is the first. And he took it from outside table, acquaint, small quarter bound in a very superb imitation of old embossed leather, which Alwyn Beholding was at once struck by the resemblance that bore to the elaborate designs that had adorned covers of the papyrus volumes possessed by his shadow self Saluma. This is very sumptuous, he said, with a dreamy smell that looks quite antique. Doesn't it? Exclaimed Billius delighted. I had copied from that first edition of Petrarcha, which happens to be in my collection. This specimen of Nohama has become valuable and unique. It was published at 10 and 6 and can't be got anywhere under five or 60. If for that, of course, a copy of each edition has been set aside for you. Alwyn laid down in the book with a gentle indifference. My dear fellow, I've had enough of Nohama who said I'll keep a copy of the first edition, if only as a souvenir of your goodwill and energy and bringing it out so admirably. But for the rest, the book belongs to me no more but to the public and so let the public be with it what they will. Billius raised his eyebrows perplexedly. I believe after all, Alwyn, you don't really care for your fame. Not in the least replied Alwyn laughing. Why should I? You long for it once has the utmost good. True, but there are other utmost goods, my friend, that I desire more keenly. But are they attainable, queried? Billius, men and especially poets often hanker after what is not possible for secure. Granted, responded Alwyn cheerfully, but I do not crave for the impossible, I only seek to recover what I have lost. And that is what most men have lost or are insanely doing their best to lose. Said Alwyn meditatively, a grasp of things eternal through the veil of things temporal. There was a short silence during which Billius eyed his friend wistfully. What was that adventure you spoke about in your letter from the monastery on the pass of Dario? He asked after a while. You said you were on the search for a new sensation. Did you experience it? Alwyn smiled. I certainly did. Did it arise from a contemplation of the sight of the ruins of Babylon? Not exactly. Babylon or rather the earthmounds which are now called Babylon had very little to do with it. Don't you want to tell me about it? Demanded Billius abruptly? Not just yet, answered Alwyn with good, humored frankness. Not tonight, at any rate. But I will tell you, never fear. For the present, we've talked enough. Don't you think bed suggests itself as a fitting conclusion to our converse? Fears left and acquiesced, and after pressing his friend to partake of something in the way of supper, which refreshment was declined, he preceded him to a small, presently cozy room, his guest chamber, as he called it, but which was really almost exclusively set apart for Alwyn's use alone, and was always in readiness for him whenever he chose to occupy it. Turning on the pretty electric lamp that lit the whole apartment with the softened, shaded luster billiards shook hands heartily with his old schoolfeather and favorite comrade and bidding him a brief but cordial goodnight, left him to repose. As soon as he was alone, Alwyn took out from his breast pocket a small velvet lettercase from which he gently drew forth a slightly pressed but unfaded white flower. Setting this in a glass of water, he placed it in his bed, and watched it for a moment, delicately and gradually, its pressed petals expanded. Its golden corolla, brightened in hue, a subtle sweet odor permeated the air, and soon the angelic immortal of the field of our death shone wondrously as a white star in the quiet room. And when the lamp was extinguished and that poet slept, that strange, fair blossom seemed to watch him like a soft, luminous eye in the darkness, a symbol of things divine and lasting, a token of far and brilliant worlds where even flowers cannot fade. End of Chapter 32, Chapter 33 of Our Death by Marie Corelli. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, Realism. At the end of about a week or so, it became very generally known among the mystic upper ten of artistic and literary circles that Theos Alwyn, the famous author of Nirama, was to put it fashionably, in town. According to the classic phrasing of a leading society journal, Mr. Theos Alwyn, the poet whom some of our contemporaries, erroneously reported as dead, has arrived in London from his tour in the East. He is for the present a guest of the Honorable Francis Villiers. The consequence of this and other similar announcements was that the postman seemed never to be away from Villiers's door. And every time he came he was laden with letters and cards of invitation addressed for the most part to Villiers himself, who with something of dismay saw his study table getting gradually covered with accumulating piles of society litter, such as is comprised in the various formal notifications of dinners, dances, vows, soirees at homes, and all the diverse sorts of entertainment with which the English Samuse Moult treats them all. Some of these invitations, less ceremonious, were in form of pretty little notes from great ladies who entreated their dear Mr. Villiers to give them the extreme honor and pleasure of his company at certain select and extra brilliant receptions where royalty itself would be represented, adding as an earnest postscript and do bring the line, you know, your very interesting friend Mr. Alwyn with you. A good many such billy do were addressed to Alwyn personally and as he opened and read them he was somewhat amused to see how many who had formerly been mere bowing acquaintances were now suddenly almost magically transformed into apparently eager, admiring, and devoted friends. When would think these people really liked me for myself he said one morning tossing aside a particularly gushing pressing note from a lady who was celebrated for the motley crowd she managed to squeeze into her rooms regardless of anyone's comfort or convenience and yet as the matter stands they actually know nothing of me. I might be a villain of the deepest dye a kickable cat or a coarse ruffian but so long as I have written a successful book and I'm somebody a literary notable what matter my tastes my morals or my disposition if this sort of thing is fame all I can say is that it savers a very detestable vulgarity. Of course it does a centavilius but what else do you expect from modern society what can you expect from a community which is chiefly ruled by money parvenu but vulgarity if you go to this woman's place for instance and he glanced at the note all when head thrown on the table you will share the honors of the evening with the famous man milliner of bond street an artist in gowns the female upholsterer and house decorator likewise an artist the ladies who compose sonnets and regent street also artists and chiefest among the motley crowd perhaps the so-called new apostle of aestheticism a ponderous gentleman who says nothing and does nothing and who by reason of his stupendous inertia and tass eternity is considered the greatest gun of all it's no use you're going among such people in fact no one who has any reverence left in him for the truth of art can mix with those whose profession of it is a mere trade and hypocritical sham such dunderheads would see no artistic difference between fideas and the man of today who hues out and sets up a common marble mantelpiece i'm not a fellow to moan over the good old times no not a bit of it for those good old times had much in them that was decidedly bad but i wish progress would not rob us altogether of refinement but society professes to be growing more and more cultured every day observed all when oh it professes yes that's just the mischief of it its professions are not worth a groat it professes to be one thing while anybody with eyes can see that it actually is another the old style of aristocrat and gentleman is dying out the new style is the horsey lord the bedding duke the cold dealing earl the stock-broken by count trade is a very excellent thing a very necessary and important thing but its influences distinctly not refining i have the greatest respect for my cheese monger for instance and he has an equal respect for me since he has found that i know the difference between real butter and butterine but all the same i don't want to see him in parliament i am arrogant enough to believe that i even i having studied somewhat know more about the country's interest than he does i view it by the light of ancient and modern historical evidence he views it according to the demand it makes on his cheese we may both be narrow and limited in judgment nevertheless i think with all due modesty that his judgment is likely to be more limited than mine but it's no good talking about it this dear old land is given up to us sort of ignorant democracy which only needs time to become anarchy and we haven't got a strong man among us who dares speak out the truth of the inevitable disasters looming above us all and society is not only vulgar but demoralized moreover what is worse is that aided by its preachers and teachers it is sinking into deeper depths of demoralization with every passing month and year of time alwin leaned back in his chair thoughtfully a sorrowful expression clouding his face surely things are not so bad as they seem billiards he said gently are you not taking a pessimistic view of affairs not at all and billiards warming with his subject walked up and down the room excitedly nor am i judging by the narrow observation of any particular set or a circle i look at the expressive visible outcome of the whole the plainly manifest signs of the threatening future of course there are ever so many good people earnest people thinking people but they are a mere handful compared to the overpowering millions supposed to them and his motto is evil be thou my good now you for instance are full of splendid ideas and lucid plans of check and reform you are seized with a passionate desire to do something great for the world and you are ready to speak the truth fearlessly on all occasions but just think of the enormous task it would be to stir to even half an inch of aspiring nobleness the frightful mass of corruption in london today in all trades and professions it is the same story everything is a question of gain to begin with look at the church the pillar of the state there all sorts of worthless incompetent men are hastily thrust into livings by wealthy patrons who care not a jot as to whether they are morally or intellectually fit for their sacred mission and a disgraceful universal model is the result from this model which resembles a sort of stagnant pool emerge the strangest fungus growths clergymen who take to acting a miracle play ostensibly for the purposes of charity but really to gratify their own tastes and leanings toward the murmur's art all the time utterly regardless of the effect their behavior is likely to have on the minds of the unthinking populace who are led by the newspapers and who read their in bantering inquiries as to whether the church is co-getting with the stage whether the two are likely to become one and whether religion will in the future occupy no more serious consideration than the drama what is one to think when one sees clerical notabilities seated in the stalls of a theater complacently looking on at the representation of a society play degrading in plot repulsive in detail and in nearly every case having to do with a married woman who indulges in a lover as a matter of course a playful of ambiguous side hits and equivocal jests which if the men of the church were staunch to their vocation they would be the first to condemn why I saw the other day in a fairly reliable journal that some of these excellent divines were going to start smoking sermons a sort of imitation of smoking concerts I suppose which are vile enough in all conscience but to mix up religious matters with the selfish smoke mania is vile or still I say that any clergyman who will allow men to smoke in his presence while he is preaching sacred doctrine is a coarse cad and ought to be hounded out of the church he paused his face flushing with vigorous righteous wrath all one's eyes grew dark with an infinite pain his thoughts always led back to his dream of alchiris with a tendency to draw comparisons between the past and the present the religion of that long buried city have been mere memory and splendid outward show what was the religion of London he moved restlessly how all the warnings of history repeat themselves he said suddenly an age of mockery sham sentiment and irreverence has always preceded a downfall can it be possible that we are already receiving hints of the downfall of England I not only of England but of a good many other nations besides said they use or if not actual downfall change and terrific upheaval France and England particularly are the prey of the demon of realism and all the writers who should use their pens to inspire and elevate the people assist in degrading them when their books are not obscene they are blasphemous Russia too joins in the cry of realism realism let us have the filth of the gutters the scourgings of dust holes the corruption of graves the odors of malaria the howlings of drunkers the revelings of sensualists the worst side of the world in its vilest aspect which is the only real aspect of those who are voluntarily vile let us see to what a reeking depth of unutterable shameless brutality man can fall if he chooses not as formally when it was shown to what glorious heights of noble supremacy he could rise for in this age the heights are called transcendental volley and the reeking depths are called realism and yet what is realism really queried all and does anybody know it is supposed to be the actuality of everyday existence without any touch of romance or pathos to soften it frequently hideous commonplace but the fact is the commonplace is not the real the highest flights of imagination in the human being failed to grasp the reality of the splendors everywhere surrounding him and viewed rightly realism would become romance and romance realism we see a ragged woman in the streets picking up scraps for her daily food that is what we may call realistic but we are not looking at the actual woman after all we cannot see her inner self or form any certain comprehension of the possible romance or tragedy which that inner self has experienced or is experiencing we see the outer appearance of the woman but what of that the realism of the suffering creatures hidden this relies beyond us so far beyond us that it is called romance because it seems so impossible to fathom or understand true most absolutely true severe sympathically but it is a truth you will get very few to admit everything today is in a state of substantiality and sham we have even sham realism as well as sham sentiment sham religion sham art sham morality we have a parliament that sits in jabber's lengthy platitudes that lead to nothing while army and navy are slowly slipping into a state of helpless desperate to end the mutterings of discontented millions are almost unregarded the specter revolution assuming somewhat of the shape in which it appalled the french in 1789 is dimly approaching in the distance even our london county council hears the far off faint shadow of a very prosaic resemblance to the national assembly of that era and our weak efforts to cure cureless grievances and to deafen our ears to crying evils are very similar to the clumsy attempts made by louis the 16th and his partisans to botch up a terribly bad business oh the people the people they are unquestionably the flesh blood bone and sinew of the country and the english people say what's near as well to the contrary are a good people patient plotting for bearing strong and on the whole most equitable tempered but their teachers teach them wrongly and confuse their brains instead of clearing them and throw a weight of compulsory education at their heads without caring how they may use it or how such a blow from that clenched fist of knowledge may stupefy and bewilder them and the consequences that now were a strong mentor arise without lucid brain and eloquent power of expressing through the great sympathy with his kind and an immense indifference to his own fate in the contest he could lead this last waiting wandering growling hydro-headed london where so ever he would but in order you are billiards said all one with a half smile i never heard you come out so strongly before my dear fellow replied veers in a calmer tongue it's enough to make any man with warm blood in his veins feel everywhere signs of weakness cowardice compromise hesitation vacillation incompetency and everywhere in thoughtful minds the keen sense of a fate advancing like the giant in the seven league boots at huge strides every day the ponderous law and the solid police hemis in on each side as though the nation were a helpless infant toddling between two portly nurses we dare not denounce a scoundrel and liar but must needs put up with him thus we should be involved in an action for libel and we dare not knock down a vulgar bully thus we should be given in charge for assault hence liars and scoundrels and vulgar bullies abound and men skulk and grin and play the double face till they lose all manfulness society sits smirking foolishly on the top of a smoldering volcano and the chief symbols of greatness among us religion poise art are burning as feebly as tapers in the catacombs the church resembles a drudge who tired of routine is gradually sinking into laziness and inertia and the press ye gods the press hear speech seemed to fail him he threw himself into a chair and to relieve his mind kicked away the advertisement sheet of the morning's newspaper with so much angry vehemence that all men laughed outright what ails you now billiards he demanded merthly you are a regular fire eater of would be crusader against a modern sarasen host why are you choked with such seemingly unutterable wrath what of the press it is at any rate free free glad they are sitting bolt up right and shooting out the word like a bullet from a gun free the press it is the various bound slave that was ever hampered by the chains of party prejudice and the only attempted freedom it ever makes in its lower grades is an occasional outbreak into a scurrility and yet think what a majestic power for good the true real liberty of the press might wield over the destinies of nations broadly viewed the press should be the strong practical helping right hand of civilization dealing out equal justice equal sympathy equal instruction it should be the foster of the arts and sciences the everyday guide of the morals and culture of the people it should not specially advocate any cause safe honor it should be as far as possible the unanimous voice of the nation it should be but what is it look round and judge for yourself every daily paper panders more or less to the lowest tastes of the mob well if the higher sentiments of men are not actually sneer dead they're made a subject for feeble surprise or vapid gush an active heroic unselfishness meets with such a cackling course of amazed half bantering approval from the leading article writers that one is forced to accept the suggestion implied namely that to be heroic or unselfish is evidently an outbreak of noble instinct that is entirely unexpected and remarkable may even eccentric and inexplicable the spirit of mockery pervades everything and while the story of a murder is allowed to occupy three and four columns of print the account of some great scientific discovery or the report of some famous literary or artistic achievement is squeezed into a few lukewarm and unsatisfactory lines i've seen a female paragraph is idiotic description of an actress's gown allowed to take more space in a journal than the review of a first class book moreover if an honest man desires of giving vent to an honest opinion on some crying abuse of the day were to set forth that opinion in letter form and try to get it published in a leading and important newspaper the chances are tend to one that it would never be inserted unless he happened to know the editor or one of the staff and perhaps not even then because mark you his opinion must be in accordance with the literary editor's opinion or it will be considered of no value to the world consider that gigantic absurdity consider that when we read our newspapers we are not learning the views of europe on a certain point we are absorbing the ideas of the editor to whom everything must be submitted before insertion in the oracular columns we pin our faith on thus it is that criticism literary criticism at any rate is a lost art you know that a man must either be dead or considered dead or in a click to receive any open encouragement at all from the so-called crack critics and the clicky men are generally such stupendous bigots for their own particular and restrictive form of style anything new they hate anything daring they treat with ridicule some of them have no hesitation in saying they prefer Matthew Arnold remember he's dead to Tennyson and swinberg as yet living well as a fact if we are to go by the high standards of cortical art left us by shakespeare keith shelly and baron Matthew Arnold is about the very tamest most unimaginative bald bard that ever kindled a lucifer match a verse and fancied at the fire of apollo it's utterly impossible to get either a just a broad view of literature out of clicks and the press like many of our other magnificent institutions as working entirely on a wrong system but it was going to be wise or strong or diplomatic enough to reform it know when at present and we shall jog along and read up the details of vice in our dailies and weeklies till we almost lose the savor of virtue until the last degraded in comes of it all and blatant young america thrones herself on the shores of britain and censor egrel screech of conquest echoing over old world and new don't think it billiards it exclaimed all in impetuously there is a medal in the english that will never be conquered billiards shrugged his shoulders we will hope so my dear boy he said resignedly but the medal under bad government with bad weapons and more or less untried ships can scarcely be blamed if it should not be able to resist a tremendous force majeure besides all the parliaments in the world cannot upset the laws of the universe the things are false and corrupt they must be swept away nature will not have them she will transmute and transform them somehow no matter at what cost it is the cry of the old prophets over again because you have not obeyed god's law therefore shall you meet with destruction egoism is certainly not god's law and we shall have to return on our imagined progressive steps and be beaten with rods of affliction till we understand what his law is it is for one thing the wheel that keeps this universe going our laws are no use whatever in the management of his sublime cosmos nations like individuals are punished for their own willful misdeeds the punishment may be tardy but sure as death it comes and our fancy america will be our scourge in the lord's hand as the bible hath it that pretty dollar crusted young republican once in aristocracy she will engraft it on the old roots here in fact she has already begun to engraft it it is even on the cards that she may need a monarchy if she does she won't plant it here then it will be time for englishmen to adopt another country and forget if they can their own disgrace nationality and yet if as shakespeare says england were to herself but true if she had great statesman as of your intellectual earnest self abnegating fearless unhesitating workers who would devote themselves hardened soul to her welfare she might gather not only her colonies but america also to her knee as the mother gathers children and the most magnificent christian empire the world has ever seen might rise up a supreme marvel of civilization and union that would make all other nations wonder and revere but the selfishness of the day and the ruling passion of gain are the fatal obstructions in the path of such a desirable millennium he ended abruptly he had unburdened his mind to one he knew understood him and sympathized with him and he turned to the perusal of some letters just received the two friends were sitting that morning in the breakfast room a charming little octagonal apartment looking out on a small very small garden which despite the london atmosphere looked just now very bright with tastefully arranged parterres of white and yellow crocuses mingled with the soft blue of the dainty hepatica that frank faced little blossom which seems to express such an honest confidence in the goodness of god sky a few spares of dissipated appearance were bathing their city plumes in a pool of equally city water left in the garden as a token of last night's rain and they splashed and twitted and debated and fussed with each other concerning their ablutions with almost as much importance as could have been displayed by the effeminate romans of the augustan era when desporting themselves in their sumptuous termy awen's eyes rested on them unseemly his thoughts were very far away from all his surroundings before his imagination rose like a henna like picture of the world in which he had to live the world of fashion and form and usage the world he was to try and rouse to a sense of better things a promethean task indeed to fill human life with new symbols of hope to set up a white standard of faith amid the swift rushing on and reckless tramping down of desperate battle to pour out on all rich or poor worthy or unworthy the divine born balm of sympathy which when given freely and sincerely from man to man serves often as a check device a silent yet all eloquent rebuke to crime and can more easily instill into refractory intelligences things of God and desires for good than any preacher's argument no matter how finely worded to touch the big wayward better heart of humanity could he in very truth do it or was the work too vast for his ability tormented by various cross currents of feeding he gave vent to a troubled sigh and looked dubiously at his friend in such a state of things as you described there you see said what a useless unit i am a poet who wants me in this age of sale and barter is not a producer of poems always considered more or less of a fool nowadays no matter how much his works may be in fashion for the moment i'm sure in spite of the success of no hamah that the era of poetry has passed him over it certainly seems to have given place to the very baldest the most unbeautiest forms of prose as for instance if a book is written which contains what is called poetic prose the critics are all ready to denounce it as turgid overladen strain for effect and hysterical sublime hyenas rice builder which is one of the most exquisite poems and prose ever given to the world is nearly incomprehensible to the majority of english minds so much so indeed that the english translators in their rendering of it have not only lost the delicate glamour of its very like fancifulness but have also blunted all the fine points of its dazzling sarcasm and wealth of imagery it is evident enough that the larger mess of people prefer mediocrity to high excellence else such a number of merely mediocre works of art were not and could not be tolerated and as long as mediocrity is permitted to whole ground it is almost an impossibility to do much toward raising the standard of literature the few who love the best authors are as a mere drop in the ocean of those who not only choose the worst but who also fail to see any difference between good and bad true enough a centadel you're still the few you speak of are worth all the rest for the few homo rote playtoe marcus aurelius apictides and the few are capable of teaching the majority if they will only set about it rightly but at present they are setting about it wrongly all children are taught to read but no child is guided in what to read this is like giving a loaded gun to a boy and saying shoot away no matter in which direction you point your aim shoot yourself if you like and others to anyhow you've got the gun of course there are a few fellows who have occasionally drawn up a list of books as suitable for everybody's perusal but then these lists cannot be taken as true criterions as they all differ from one another as much as church sex one would be instructing the art of reading says we ought all to study tom jones and i don't see the necessity of that and not the enough these lists scarcely ever include the name of a poet which is the absurdest mistake ever made a liberal education in the highest works of policy is absolutely necessary to the thinking abilities of man but all when you need not trouble yourself about what is good for the million and what isn't whatever you write is sure to be read now you've got the ear of the public the fair large ear of the ass's head which disguises bottom the weaver who frankly says of them self i am such a tender ass in my hair do but tickle me i'm a scratch oh and smile he was thinking of what his shadow self had said on this very subject a book or poem to be great and keep its greatness hereafter must be judged by the natural instincts of peoples this worldwide decision has never yet been and never will be hastened by any amount of written criticism it is the responsive beat of the enormous pulse of life that thrills through all mankind high and low gentlemen simple its great throbs are slow and solemnly measured yet if once it answers to a poet's touch that poet's name is made glories forever he and the character saluma has seemed to utter these sentiments many ages ago and now the words repeated themselves in his thoughts with a new and deep intensity of meaning of course at a billiard suddenly you must expect plenty of adverse criticism now as it is known beyond all doubt that you are alive and able to read what is written concerning you but if you once pay attention to critics you may as well put a side pen all together as it is the business of these worthies never to be entirely satisfied with anything even shelly and baron in that critical capacity abused keys till the poor suffering youth who promised to be greater than either of them died of a broken heart as much as disease this sort of injustice will go on to the end of time or till men become more christianized than paul's version of christianity has ever yet made them here a knock at the door interrupted the conversation the servant entered bringing a note gorgeously crusted and coordinated in gold the years to whom it was addressed opened and read it what shall we do about this he asked when his man had retired it is an invitation from the duchess dilla san tozzy she asked us to go and dine with her next week a party of 20 reception afterward i think we'd better accept what do you say owen riles himself from his reverie anything to please you my dear boy he answered cheerfully but i haven't the faintest idea who the duchess dilla san tozzy is no well she's an english woman who's married a french duke he is a delightful old fellow the pink of courtesy and the model of perfect egotism a true parisian and of course an atheist a very polished atheist too without most charming reliance on his own infallibility his wife writes novels which have a slight leaning toward zolaism she is an extremely witty woman sarcastic and cold-blooded enough to be a female robespierre yet on the whole amusing as a study of what curious nondescript forms the feminine nature can adapt unto itself if it chooses she has an immense respect for genius mind i say genius advisedly because she really is one of those rare few who cannot endure mediocrity everything at her house is the best of his kind and the people she entertains are the best of theirs her welcome of you will be at any rate a sincerely admiring one and as i think in spite of your desire for quiet you will have to show yourself somewhere it may as well be there owen looked dubious and not at all resigned to the prospect of showing himself your description of her does not strike me as particularly attractive he said i cannot endure that 19th century her mafra did it production a managed woman oh but she isn't altogether managed declared failures besides i mustn't forget to add that she is extremely beautiful owen shrugged his shoulders indifferently his friend noticed the gesture and laughed still impervious to beauty oh boy he said galey you always were i remember owen flushed a little and rose from his chair not always he answered steadily there have been times in my life when the beauty of women near physical beauty has exercised great influence over me but i've lately learned how a fair face may sometimes mask a foul mind and unless i can see the substance of soul looking through the semblance of body then i know that the beauty eyes seem to behold his mere appearance and not reality hence unless your beautiful duchess be like the king's daughter of david song all glories within her apparent loveliness will have no charm for me now and he smiled and spoke in a less serious tone if you have no objection i'm off to my room to scribble for an hour or so come for me if you want me you know i don't in the least mind being disturbed the failures detained in a moment and looked inquisitively at him full in the eyes you've got some singular new attraction about you owen he said with a strange sense of keen edward excitement as he met his friends calm yet flash in glance something mysterious something that compels what is it i believe that visit of yours to the ruins of bablon had a more important motive than you will admit moreover i believe you are in love in love owen laughed a little as he repeated the words what a foolish term that is when you come to think of it for to be in love suggests the possibility of getting out again which of love be true can never happen say that i love and you will be nearer the mark now don't look so mystified and don't ask me any more questions just now tonight when we are sitting together in the library i'll tell you the whole story of my bablonian adventure and with the light parting wave of the hand he left the room and values hurt him humming a tune softly to himself as he ascended the stairs to his own apartments wherever since he arrived he had made it his custom to do two or three hour study writing every morning for a moment or so after he had gone values stood lost and thought with knitted brows and meditative eyes then rousing himself he went on to his study and sitting down at his desk wrote an answer to the duchess de la santoise accepting her invitation end of chapter 33 chapter 34 of our death by marie carelli this libra vox recording is in the public domain chapter 34 rewards of fame and habitual resident in london who is gifted with a keen faculty of hearing and observation will soon learn to know instinctively the various characteristics of the people who call upon him by the particular manner in which each one handles his doorbell or knocker he will recognize the timid from the bow the modest from the arrogant the meditative thinker from the busting manifestation the familiar friend from the formal acquaintance every individual's method of announcing his or her arrival to the household is distinctly different and failures who studied a little of everything had not failed to take note of the curiously diversified degrees of single and double wrapping by means of which his visitors sought admittance to his abode in fact he rather prided himself on being able to guess with almost invariable correctness what special type of man or woman was at his door provided he could hear the whole dire pace and of their knock from beginning to end when he was shut in his den however the sounds were muffled by distance and he could form no just judgment sometimes indeed he did not hear them at all especially if he happened to be playing his cello at the time so that this morning he was considerably startled when having finished his letter to the Duchess de la sound to a z along in persistent rat tat tatting echoed noisily through the house like the smart quick blows of a carpenter's hammer a species of knock that was entirely unfamiliar to him and that while so emphatic in character suggested to his mind neither friend nor foe he laid down his pen listened and waited in a minute or two his servant entered the room if you please sir a lady to see mr allwin shall I show her out billiards rose slowly out of his chair and stood eyeing his man in blank bewilderment a lady to see mr allwin he repeated his thoughts instantly reverting to his friends vaguely hinted love affair what name she gives no name sir she says it isn't needed mr allwin will know who she is mr allwin will know who she is will he murmur billiards dubiously what is she like young and pretty over the man's servants stayed countenance came the glimmer of a demure respectful smile oh no sir not young sir a person about 50 I should say this was mystifying a person about 50 who could she be billiards hastily considered there must be some mistake he thought at any rate he would see the unknown intruder himself first and find out what her business was before breaking in upon allwin's peaceful studies upstairs show the lady in here he said I can't disturb mr allwin just now the servant retired and soon reappeared ushering in a tall gaunt black robed female who walked with the stride of a dergun and the demeanor of a police inspector and who merely nodding briskly in response to billiards's amaze bow selected with one comprehensive glance the most comfortable chair in the room and seated herself at ease therein she then put up her veil displaying a long narrow face cold pale arrogant eyes a nose inclined to redness at the tip and a thin close-set mouth lined with little sarcastic wrinkles which came into prominent and unbecoming play as soon as she began to speak which she did almost immediately I suppose I'd better introduce myself to you mr allwin she said with a condescending and confident air though really we know each other so well by reputation that there seem scarcely any necessity for it of course you have heard of tiger lily the years gazed at her helplessly he had never felt so uncomfortable in all his life here was a strange woman who had actually taken bodily possession of his apartment as though it were her own who had settled herself down in his particular pet louis couture's chair who stated him with this routinizing complacency of a professional physiognomist and who seemed to think no explanation of her extraordinary conduct was necessary in as much as of course he the years had heard of tiger lily it was very singular almost like madness perhaps she was mad how could he tell she had a remarkably high knobby brow a brow with an unpleasantly bald appearance owing to the uncompromising way in which her hair was brushed well off it he had seen such brows before in certain spiritualists who believed or pretended to believe in the suddenly willed dematerialization of matter and they were mad he knew or else very foolishly feigning madness endeavoring to compose his bewildered mind he fixed class in I in regard to through it with an inquiring solemnity he would have spoken but before he could utter a word she went on rapidly you are not in the least like the person I imagine due to be however that doesn't matter literary celebrities are always so different to what we expect pardon me madam began failures politely you are making a slight error my servant probably did not explain I am not Mr. Alvin my name is failures Mr. Alvin is my guest but he is at present very much occupied and unless your business is extremely urgent certainly it is urgent said the lady decisively otherwise I should not have come and so you are not Mr. Alvin well I thought you couldn't be now then where you have the kindness to tell Mr. Alvin I'm here by this time there you said recover his customary self-possession and he met her commanding glance with a somewhat defiant coolness I'm not aware to whom I have the honor of speaking he said frigidly perhaps you will oblige me with your name my name doesn't in the least matter she replied calmly though I will tell you afterward if you wish but you don't seem to understand I I am Tiger Lily the situation was becoming ludicrous failures felt strongly disposed to laugh I'm afraid I'm very ignorant he said with a humorous sparkle in his blue eyes but really I am quite in the darkest to your meaning will you explain the ladies nose grew deeper of tint and the look she shot at him had quite a killing vindictiveness with evident difficulty she forced to smile oh you must have heard of me she declared with a ponderous attempt at playfulness you read the papers don't you some of them return values cautiously not all not the sunday ones for instance still you can't possibly have helped seeing my descriptions of famous people at home you know I write forever so many journals I think and she became complacently reflective I think I may stay with perfect truth that I have interviewed everybody who has ever done anything worth noting from our biggest provision dealer to our latest sensational novelist and all my articles are signed Tiger Lily now do you remember oh you must remember I am so very well known there was a touch of genuine anxiety in her voice that was almost pathetic the veers made no attempt to soothe her wounded vanity I have no recollection or whatever of the name he said bluntly but that is easily accounted for as I never read newspaper descriptions of celebrities so you are an interviewer for the press exactly and the lady leaned back more comfortably in that louis couture's photo to you and of course I want to interview mr allwin I want to your drawing out a business looking notebook from her pocket she opened it in glance to the different headings there in enumerated I want to describe his personal appearance to know when he was born and where he was educated whether his father or mother had literary tastes whether he had or has brothers or sisters or both whether he is married or likely to be and how much money he has made by his book she paused and gave an apple glance at billius who returned it with a blank and stony stare then she resumed energetically I wish to know what are his methods of work where he gets his ideas and how elaborates them how many hours he writes at a time and whether he is an early riser also what he usually takes for dinner whether he drinks wine or is a total abstainer and at one hour he retires to rest all this is so intense the interesting to the public perhaps he might be inclined to give me a few notes of his recent tour in the east and of course I should be very glad if he will state his opinions on the climate customs and governments of the countries through which he has passed this a great pity this is not his own house it is a pretty place and a description of it would read well let me see and she meditated I think I could manage to insert a few lines about this apartment it would be easy to say the picturesque library in the house of the honorable Francis Villiers were Mr. Alvin received me etc yes that would do very well very well indeed I should like to know whether he has a residence of his own anywhere and if not whether he intends to take one in London because in the latter case it would be as well to ascertain by whom he intends to have it furnished a little discussion on the poultry is so especially fascinating to my readers then naturally I'm desirous to learn how the erroneous rumor of his death was first started whether in the course of his travels he met with some serious accident or illness which gave rise to the report now and she shut her notebook and folded her hands I don't mind waiting an hour or more if necessary but I'm sure if you will tell Mr. Alvin who I am and what I've come for he will be only too delighted to see me with as little delay as possible she sees Villiers drew a long breath his compressed lips parted in a slightly sarcastic smile squaring his shoulders with that peculiar pugnacious gesture of his which always indicated to those who knew him well that his mind was made up and that nothing would induce him to altered he said in a tone of stiff civility I'm sorry madam very sorry but I'm compelled to inform you that your visit here is entirely useless where I could tell my friend of the purpose you have in view concerning him he would not feel so much flattered as you seem to imagine but rather insulted excuse my frankness you've spoken plainly I must speak plainly to provision dealers and sensational story writers may find that it serves their purpose to be interviewed if only as a means of gaining extra advertisement but a truly great and conscientious author like Theos Alvin is quite above all that sort of thing the lady raised her pale eyebrows with an expression of enterocative scorn above all that sort of thing she echoed incredulously dear me how very extraordinary I've always found all our celebrities so exceedingly pleased to be given a little additional notoriety and I should have thought a poet this with much depreciative emphasis would have been particularly glad of that chance because of course you know that unless a very astonishing success is made as in the case of Mr. Alvin's newer Alma people really take such slight interest in writers averse that it is hardly ever worth while interviewing them precisely agree dear seronically the private history of a prize fighter would naturally be much more thrilling he paused his tempo was fast rising but quickly reflecting that after all the indignation he felt was not so much against his visitors against the system she represented he resumed quietly may I ask you madam whether you have ever interviewed her majesty the queen her glance swept slidingly over him certainly not such a thing would be impossible then you have never thought went on values with a thrill of earnestness and his manly vibrating voice that it might be quite as impossible to interview a great poet who if great indeed is in every way as royal as any sovereign that ever adorned a throne I do not speak of petty verse writers I say a great poet by which term I imply a great creative genius who is honestly faithful to his high vocation such in one could know more tell you his methods of work than a rainbow could prattle about the way it shines and as for his personal history I should like to know by what right society is entitled to pry into the sacred matters of a man's private life simply because he happens to be famous I consider the modern love of prying and probing into other people's affairs a most degrading and abominable sign of the times it is morbid and wholesome and utterly contemptible or over I think that writers who consent to be interviewed condemn themselves as literary charlatans unworthy of that profession they have wrongfully adopted you see I have the courage of my opinions on this matter in fact I believe if every one were to speak their honest mind openly a better state of things might be the result and interviewing would gradually come to be considered in its true light namely as a vulgar and illegitimate method of advertisement I mean no disrespect to you madam this as the lady suddenly put down a veil thrust her notebook in her pocket and rose somewhat founcingly from her chair I'm only sorry you should find such an occupation as that of the interviewer open to you I can scarcely imagine such work to be congenial to a lady's feelings as in the case of really distinguished personages she must assuredly meet with many a rebuff I hope I have not offended you by my bluntness here he trailed off into inaudible polite murmurs while the tiger lily marched steadily toward the door oh dear no I'm not in the least offended she retorted contemptuously on the contrary this has been a most amusing experience most amusing I assure you and quite unique why and suddenly stopping short she turned smartly round and gesticulated with one hand I've interviewed all the favorite actors and actresses in London the biggest brewers in Great Britain have received me at their country mansions and given me all the particulars of their lives from earliest childhood the author of hugger mugger's curse took the greatest pains to explain to me how he first collected the materials for his design the author of that most popular story darlings twins gave me a description of all the houses he has ever lived in he even told me where he purchased his writing paper pens and ink and to think that a poet should be too grand to be interrogated oh the idea is really very funny quite too funny for anything she gave a short laugh then relapsing into severity she added you will I hope tell mr. Alvin I called there he was bad assuredly thank you because it is possible he may have different opinions to yours in that case if he writes me a line fixing an appointment I shall be very pleased to call again I will leave my card and if mr. Alvin is a sensible man he will certainly hold broader ideas on the subject of interviewing then you appear to entertain you are quite sure I cannot see him quite there was no mistake about the firm emphasis of this reply oh very well here she opened the door rattling the handle with rather an unnecessary violence I'm sorry to have taken up any of your time mr. Villiers good morning good morning return Villiers calmly touching the bell that his servant might be in readiness to show her out but the baffled tiger lily was not altogether gone she looked back her face wrinkling into one of those strangely unbecoming expressions of grim playfulness I have a mind to make and at home out of you she said nodding at him energetically only you're not important enough Villiers burst out laughing he was not poof against this touch of humor and on a sudden good natured impulse sprang to the door and shook hands with her no indeed I'm not he said with a charming smile think a bit I haven't even invented a new biscuit come let me see you into the hall I'm really sorry if I've spoken roughly but I assure you all once not at all the sort of man you want for interviewing he's far too modest and noble hearted believe me I'm not romancing a bit I'm in earnest there are some few fine men they gifted fellows left in the world who do their work for the love of the work alone and not for the sake of notoriety and he is one of them now I'm not certain if you were quite candid with me you'd admit that you yourself don't think much of the people who actually like to be interviewed his amiable glance his kindly manner took the gaunt female by surprise and threw her quite off her guard she laughed a natural unforced laugh in which there was not a trace of bitterness he was really a delightful young man she thought in spite of his old fashioned out of the way notions well perhaps I don't she replied frankly but you see it is not my business to think about them at all I simply interview them and I generally find they are very willing and often eager to tell me all about themselves even too quite trifling and unnecessary details and of course each one thinks himself or herself the only or the chief celebrity in London or for that matter in the world I've always to tone down the egotistical part of it a little especially with authors for if I were to write out exactly what they separately say of their contemporaries it would be simply frightful they would be all at daggers drawn in no time I assure you interviewing is often the most delicate and difficult business would it were altogether impossible civilians hardly but as long as there is a plethora of little authors and a scarcity of great ones so long I suppose must it continue for little men love notoriety and great ones shrink from it just in the same way that good women like flattery while bad ones court it I hope you don't bear me any grudge because I consider my friend all and both good and great and resent the idea of his being placed no matter with what excellent intention so ever on the level of the small and mean the lady surveyed him with a twinkle of latent approval and her pale colored eyes not in the least she replied in a tone of perfect good humor on that contrary I rather admire your frankness still I think that as matters stand nowadays you are very odd and I suppose your friend is odd too but of course there must be exceptions to every rule at the same time you should recollect that in many people's opinion to be interviewed is one of the chiefest rewards of fame the years shrugged his shoulders expressively oh yes it seems a poor reward to you no doubt she continued smiling but there are no end of authors who would do anything to secure the notoriety of it now suppose that after all mr. allan does care to submit to the operation you will let me know won't you certainly I will and bill you is accepting her card in which was inscribed her own private name and address shook hands once more and bowed her courteously out no sooner have the door closed upon her than he sprang upstairs three steps at a time and broke impetuously in upon allan who seated at a table covered the papers looked up with a surprised smile at the abrupt fashion of his entrance in a few minutes he had disburdened himself of the whole story of the tiger lilies visit telling it in a whimsical way of his own much to the amusement of his friend who listened pen and hand with a half laughing half perplexed light in his fine poetic eyes now did I express the proper opinion he demanded in conclusion was I not right in thinking you would never consent to be interviewed right why of course you were responded all one quickly can you imagine me calmly stating the details of my personal life and history to a strange woman and allowing her to turn it into a half guinea article for some society journal that they use what an extraordinary state of things we are coming to if the press can actually condescend to employ a sort of spy or literary detective to inquire into the private experience of each man or woman who comes honorably to the front honorably or dishonorably it doesn't matter which said values that is just the worst of it one day it is an author who is interviewed the next it is a murderer now a statesman then a ballet dancer the same honors paid to all who have won any distinct notoriety and what is so absurd is that the reading million don't seem able to distinguish between notoriety and fame the two things are so widely utterly apart Byron's reputation for instance was much more notoriety during his life than fame while Keats had actually late hold on fame while as yet deeming himself unfamous it's curious but true nevertheless that very often the writers who thought least of themselves during their lifetime have become the most universally renowned after their deaths Shakespeare I dare say had no very exaggerated idea of the beauty of his own place he seems to have written just the best that was in him without caring what anybody thought of it and I believe that is the only way to succeed in the end in the end repeated all in dreamland in the end no worldly success is worth attaining a few thousand years and the greatest are forgotten not the greatest of their years warmly the greatest must always be remembered no my friend not even the greatest do you not think there must have been great and wise and gifted men entire inside and in Carthage and Babylon there are five men mentioned in scriptures being ready to write swiftly Sariah, Debrea, Salimia, Econus and Ariel there where is where is the no doubt admirable work done by these perhaps who knows one of them was as great as Homer and genius we cannot tell true we cannot tell responded to yours meditatively but Alvin if you persist in doing things through such tremendous vistas of time and in measuring the future by the past then one may ask what is the use of anything there is no use in anything except in the making of a strong persistent steady effort after good said Alvin earnestly we men are cast as it were between two swift currents wrong and right self and God and it seems more easy to shut our eyes and drift into self and wrong than to strike out brave arms and swim despite all difficulty toward God and right yet if we once take the latter course we shall find it the most natural and the least fatiguing and with every separate stroke of high endeavor we carry others with us we raise our raise we bear it onward upward and the true reward or best result the fame is that having succeeded in winning brief attention from the multitude a man may be able to pronounce one of God's lightning messages of inspired truth plainly to them while they are yet willing to stand and listen this momentary hearing from the people is as I take it the sole reward any writer can dare to hope for and when he obtains that he should remember that his audience remains with him but a very short while so that it is his duty to see that he employed his chance well not to win applause for himself but to cheer and lift others to noble thought and still more noble fulfillment there yours regarded him was fully almond my dear fellow do you want to be the sisyphus of this era you will find the stone of evil heavy to roll upward moreover it will exhibit the usually painful tendency to slip back and crush you how can it crush me asked his friend with a serene smile my heart cannot be broken or my spirit dismayed and as for my body it can but die and death comes to every man I would rather try to roll up the stone however fruitless the task than sit idly looking at it and doing nothing your heart cannot be broken how do you know and there your shirk his head dubiously what man can be certain of his own destiny every man can will his own destiny return to all one firmly that is just it but here we are getting into a serious discussion and I have determined to talk no more on such subjects till tonight and tonight we are to go in for them thoroughly I suppose in quite various with a quick look tonight my dear boy you will have to decide whether you consider me mad or sane said Alvin cheerfully I shall tell you truths that seem like romances and facts that sound like bables moreover I shall have to assure you that miracles do happen whenever God chooses in spite of all human denial of their possibility do you remember Waite Lee's clever skit historical doubts of Napoleon the first showing how easy it was to logically prove that Napoleon never existed that ought to enlighten people as to the very precise and convincing manner in which we can if we choose argue away what is nevertheless an incontestable fact thus do skeptics deny miracles yet we live surrounded by miracles do you think me crazed for saying so do yours laugh grazed no indeed I wish every man in london were sane and sound as you are but wait till tonight and all one's eyes sparkle merthfully perhaps you will alter your opinion then here collecting his scattered manuscripts he put them by I've done work for the present he said shall we go for a walk somewhere the years are sending and they left the room together end of chapter 34