Ardath, Marie Corelli [e ink ebook reader txt] 📗

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 like the ‘get-up’ of 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 Zabastes writing each line of it down to Sahluma’s dictation!

 

“It’s very well printed”—he said at last,—“and very tastefully bound. You have superintended the work con amore, Villiers, . . and I am as obliged to you as friendship will let me be. You know what that means?”

 

“It means no obligation at all”—declared Villiers gayly..

“because friends who are the least 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 up from a side-table a quaint small quarto, bound is a very superb imitation of old embossed leather, which Alwyn, beholding, was at once struck by the resemblance it bore to the elaborate designs that had adorned the covers of the papyrus volumes possessed by his Shadow-Self, Sahluma!

 

“This is very sumptuous!” he said with a dreamy smile—“It looks quite antique!”

 

“Doesn’t it!” exclaimed Villiers, delighted—“I had it copied from a first edition of Petrarca which happens to be in my collection.

This specimen of ‘Nourhalma’ has become valuable and unique. It was published at ten-and-six, and can’t be got anywhere under five or six guineas, if for that. Of course a copy of each edition has been set aside for YOU.”

 

Alwyn laid down the book with a gentle indifference.

 

“My dear fellow, I’ve had enough of ‘Nourhalma,’” … he said …

“I’ll keep a copy of the first edition, if only as a souvenir of your good-will and energy in 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 do with it what they will!”

 

Villiers 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 longed for it once as the utmost good!”

 

“True!—but there are other utmost goods, my friend, that I desire more keenly.”

 

“But are they attainable?”—queried Villiers. “Men, and specially poets, often hanker after what is not possible to 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 Villiers eyed his friend wistfully.

 

“What was that ‘adventure’ you spoke about in your letter from the Monastery on the Pass of Dariel?” 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 site of the Ruins of Babylon?”

 

“Not exactly. Babylon,—or rather the earth-mounds which are now called Babylon,—had very little to do with it.”

 

“Don’t you want to tell me about it?” demanded Tilliers 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?”

 

Villiers laughed 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, pleasantly cosy 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 a soft and shaded lustre, Villiers shook hands heartily with his old school-fellow and favorite comrade, and bidding him a brief but cordial good-night left him to repose.

 

As soon as he was alone Alwyn took out from his breast pocket a small velvet letter-case, from which he gently drew forth a slightly pressed but unfaded white flower. Setting this in a glass of water he placed it near 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 “immortelle” of the Field of Ardath shone wondrously as a white star in the quiet room. And when the lamp was extinguished and the 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!

 

CHAPTER XXXIII.

 

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 “Nourhalma” 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, balls, soirees, “at homes,” and all the divers sorts of entertainment with which the English “s’amusent moult tristement.” 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 LION, you know, your VERY interesting friend, Mr. Alwyn, with you!”—A good many such billets-doux 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.

 

“One 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 crowds she managed to squeeze into her rooms, regardless of any one’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 cad, or a coarse ruffian, but so long as I have written a ‘successful’ book and am a ‘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 savors of very detestable vulgarity!”

 

“Of course it does!”—assented Villiers-“But what else do you expect from modern society? … What CAN you expect from a community which is chiefly ruled by moneyed parvenus, BUT

vulgarity? If you go to this woman’s place, for instance”—and he glanced at the note Alwyn had 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 in 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 taciturnity, is considered the greatest ‘gun’ of all! … it’s no use YOUR 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 Phidias and the man of to-day who hews 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 Alwyn.

 

“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 betting Duke, the coal-dealing Earl, the stock-broking Viscount! Trade is a very excellent thing,—a very necessary and important thing,—but its influence is distinctly NOT refining. I have the greatest respect for my cheesemonger, 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 a 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.”

 

Alwyn leaned hack in his chair thoughtfully, a sorrowful expression clouding his face.

 

“Surely things are not so bad as they seem, Villiers,”—he said gently—“Are you not taking a pessimistic view of affairs?”

 

“Not at all!” and Villiers, warming with his subject, walked up and down the room excitedly … “Nor am I judging by the narrow observation of any particular ‘set’ or 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 opposed to them, and whose 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 to-day! In all trades and professions it is the same story,—everything