That night my manuscript came back from Mr. Pinhorn, accompanied with a letter the gist of which was the desire to know what I meant by trying to fob off on him such stuff. That was the meaning of the question, if not exactly its form, and it made my mistake immense to me. Such as this mistake was I could now only look it in the face and accept it. I knew where I had failed, but it was exactly where I couldnt have succeeded. I had been sent down to be personal and then in point of fact hadnt been personal at all: what I had dispatched to London was just a little finicking feverish study of my authors talent. Anything less relevant to Mr. Pinhorns purpose couldnt well be imagined, and he was visibly angry at my having (at his expense, with a second-class ticket) approached the subject of our enterprise only to stand off so helplessly. For myself, I knew but too well what had happened, and how a miracleas pretty as some old miracle of legendhad been wrought on the spot to save me. There had been a big brush of wings, the flash of an opaline robe, and then, with a great cool stir of the air, the sense of an angels having swooped down and caught me to his bosom. He held me only till the danger was over, and it all took place in a minute. With my manuscript back on my hands I understood the phenomenon better, and the reflexions I made on it are what I meant, at the beginning of this anecdote, by my change of heart. Mr. Pinhorns note was not only a rebuke decidedly stern, but an invitation immediately to send himit was the case to say sothe genuine article, the revealing and reverberating sketch to the promise of which, and of which alone, I owed my squandered privilege. A week or two later I recast my peccant paper and, giving it a particular application to Mr. Paradays new book, obtained for it the hospitality of another journal, where, I must admit, Mr. Pinhorn was so far vindicated as that it attracted not the least attention.
CHAPTER III
I was frankly, at the end of three days, a very prejudiced critic, so that one morning when, in the garden, my great man had offered to read me something I quite held my breath as I listened. It was the written scheme of another booksomething put aside long ago, before his illness, but that he had lately taken out again to reconsider. He had been turning it round when I came down on him, and it had grown magnificently under this second hand. Loose liberal confident, it might have passed for a great gossiping eloquent letterthe overflow into talk of an artists amorous plan. The theme I thought singularly rich, quite the strongest he had yet treated; and this familiar statement of it, full too of fine maturities, was really, in summarised splendour, a mine of gold, a precious independent work. I remember rather profanely wondering whether the ultimate production could possibly keep at the pitch. His reading of the fond epistle, at any rate, made me feel as if I were, for the advantage of posterity, in close correspondence with himwere the distinguished person to whom it had been affectionately addressed. It was a high distinction simply to be told such things. The idea he now communicated had all the freshness, the flushed fairness, of the conception untouched and untried: it was Venus rising from the sea and before the airs had blown upon her. I had never been so throbbingly present at such an unveiling. But when he had tossed the last bright word after the others, as I had seen cashiers in banks, weighing mounds of coin, drop a final sovereign into the tray, I knew a sudden prudent alarm.
My dear master, how, after all, are you going to do it? Its infinitely noble, but what time it will take, what patience and independence, what assured, what perfect conditions! Oh for a lone isle in a tepid sea!
Isnt this practically a lone isle, and arent you, as an encircling medium, tepid enough? he asked, alluding with a laugh to the wonder of my young admiration and the narrow limits of his little provincial home. Time isnt what Ive lacked hitherto: the question hasnt been to find it, but to use it. Of course my illness made, while it lasted, a great holebut I dare say there would have been a hole at any rate. The earth we tread has more pockets than a billiard-table. The great thing is now to keep on my feet.
Thats exactly what I mean.
Neil Paraday looked at me with eyessuch pleasant eyes as he hadin which, as I now recall their expression, I seem to have seen a dim imagination of his fate. He was fifty years old, and his illness had been cruel, his convalescence slow. It isnt as if I werent all right.
Oh if you werent all right I wouldnt look at you! I tenderly said.
We had both got up, quickened as by this clearer air, and he had lighted a cigarette. I had taken a fresh one, which with an intenser smile, by way of answer to my exclamation, he applied to the flame of his match. If I werent better I shouldnt have thought of that! He flourished his script in his hand.
I dont want to be discouraging, but thats not true, I returned. Im sure that during the months you lay here in pain you had visitations sublime. You thought of a thousand things. You think of more and more all the while. Thats what makes you, if youll pardon my familiarity, so respectable. At a time when so many people are spent you come into your second wind. But, thank God, all the same, youre better! Thank God, too, youre not, as you were telling me yesterday, successful. If you werent a failure what would be the use of trying? Thats my one reserve on the subject of your recoverythat it makes you score, as the newspapers say. It looks well in the newspapers, and almost anything that does thats horrible. We are happy to announce that Mr. Paraday, the celebrated author, is again in the enjoyment of excellent health. Somehow I shouldnt like to see it.
You wont see it; Im not in the least celebratedmy obscurity protects me. But couldnt you bear even to see I was dying or dead? my host enquired.
Deadpasse encore; theres nothing so safe. One never knows what a living artist may doone has mourned so many. However, one must make the worst of it. You must be as dead as you can.
Dont I meet that condition in having just published a book?
Adequately, let us hope; for the books verily a masterpiece.
At this moment the parlour-maid appeared in the door that opened from the garden: Paraday lived at no great cost, and the frisk of petticoats, with a timorous Sherry, sir? was about his modest mahogany. He allowed half his income to his wife, from whom he had succeeded in separating without redundancy of legend. I had a general faith in his having behaved well, and I had once, in London, taken Mrs. Paraday down to dinner. He now turned to speak to the maid, who offered him, on a tray, some card or note, while, agitated, excited, I wandered to the end of the precinct. The idea of his security became supremely dear to me, and I asked myself if I were the same young man who had come down a few days before to scatter him to the four winds. When I retraced my steps he had gone into the house, and the womanthe second London post had come inhad placed my letters and a newspaper on a bench. I sat down there to the letters, which were a brief business, and then, without heeding the address, took the paper from its envelope. It was the journal of highest renown, The Empire of that morning. It regularly came to Paraday, but I remembered that neither of us had yet looked at the copy already delivered. This one had a great mark on the editorial page, and, uncrumpling the wrapper, I saw it to be directed to my host and stamped with the name of his publishers. I instantly divined that The Empire had spoken of him, and Ive not forgotten the odd little shock of the circumstance. It checked all eagerness and made me drop the paper a moment. As I sat there conscious of a palpitation I think I had a vision of what was to be. I had also a vision of the letter I would presently address to Mr. Pinhorn, breaking, as it were, with Mr. Pinhorn. Of course, however, the next minute the voice of The Empire was in my ears.