Robert Chambers - Iole

Robert W. Chambers

Iole

PREFACE

DOES anybody remember the opera of The Inca, and that heartbreaking episode where the Court Undertaker, in a morbid desire to increase his professional skill, deliberately accomplishes the destruction of his middle-aged relatives in order to inter them for the sake of practise?

If I recollect, his dismal confession runs something like this:

And so he talked them to death, the subject being What Really is Art? Afterward he was sorry

Now it is a very dreadful thing to suggest that those highly respectable pseudo-spinsters, the Sister Arts, supposedly cozily immune in their polygamous chastity (for every suitor for favor is popularly expected to be wedded to his particular art)I repeat, it is very dreadful to suggest that these impeccable old ladies are in danger of being talked to death.

But the talkers are talking and Art Nouveau rockers are rocking, and the trousers of the prophet are patched with stained glass, and it is a day of dinkiness and of thumbs.

Let us find comfort in the ancient proverb: Art talked to death shall rise again. Let us also recollect that Dinky is as dinky does; that All is not Shaw that Bernards; that Better Yeates than Clever; that words are so inexpensive that there is no moral crime in robbing Henry to pay James.

Firmly believing all this, abjuring all atom-pickers, slab furniture, and woodchuck literaturesave only the immortal verse:

Abjuring, as I say, dinkiness in all its forms, we may still hope that those cleanly and respectable spinsters, the Sister Arts, will continue throughout the ages, rocking and drinking tea unterrified by the million-tongued clamor in the back yard and below stairs, where thumb and forefinger continue the question demanded by intellectual exhaustion: Larr! Kesker say larr?

I

 I AINT never knowed no one like him, continued the station-agent reflectively. He made us all look like monkeys, but he was good to us. Ever see a ginuine poet, sir?

Years ago one was pointed out to me, replied Briggs.

Was yours smooth shaved, with large, fat, white fingers? inquired the station-agent.

If I remember correctly, he was thin, said Briggs, sitting down on his suit-case and gazing apprehensively around at the landscape. There was nothing to see but low, forbidding mountains, and forests, and a railroad track curving into a tunnel.

The station-agent shoved his hairy hands into the pockets of his overalls, jingled an unseen bunch of keys, and chewed a dry grass stem, ruminating the while in an undertone:

This poet come here five years ago with all them kids, an the fust thing he done was to dress up his girls in boys pants. Then he went an built a humpy sort o house out of stones and boulders. Then he went to work an wrote pieces for the papers about jay-birds an woodchucks an goddesses. He claimed the woods was full of goddesses. That was his way, sir.

The agent contemplated the railroad track, running his eye along the perspective of polished rails:

Yes, sir; his name wasand isClarence Guilford, an I fust seen it signed to a piece in the Uticy Star. An next I knowed, folks began to stop off here inquirin for Mr. Guilford. Is this here where Guilford, the poet, lives? sez they; an they come thicker an thicker in warm weather. There wasnt no wagon to take em up to Guilfords, but they didnt care, an they called it a litry shrine, an they hit the pike, women, children, menspeshil the women, an I heard em tellin how Guilford dressed his kids in pants an how Guilford was a famous new litry poet, an they said he was fixin to lecture in Uticy.

The agent gnawed off the chewed portion of the grass stem, readjusted it, and fixed his eyes on vacancy.

Three year this went on. Mr. Guilford was makin his pile, I guess. He set up a shop an hired art bookbinders from York. Then he set up another shop an hired some of us round here to go an make them big, slabby art-chairs. All his shops was called At the sign of somethin r other. Bales of vellum arrived for to bind little dinky books; art rocking-chairs was shipped out o here by the carload. Meanwhile Guilford he done poetry on the side an run a magazine; an hearin the boys was makin big money up in that crank community, an that the town was boomin, I was plum fool enough to drop my job here an be a art-worker up to Rose-Crossthats where the shops was; bout three mile back of his house into the woods.

The agent removed his hands from his overalls and folded his arms grimly.

Well? inquired Briggs, looking up from his perch on the suit-case.

Well, sir, continued the agent, the hull thing bust. I guess the public kinder sickened o them art-rockers an dinky books without much printin into them. Guilford he stuck to it noble, but the shops closed one by one. My wages wasnt paid for three months; the boys that remained got together that autumn an fixed it up to quit in a bunch.

The poet was sad; he come out to the shops an he says, Boys, sez he, art is long an life is dam brief. I aint got the cash, but, sez he, you can levy onto them art-rockers an the dinky vellum books in stock, an, sez he, you can take the hand-presses an the tools an bales o vellum, which is very precious, an all the wagons an hosses, an go sell em in that proud world that refuses to receive my message. The woodland fellowship is rent, sez he, wavin his plump fingers at us with the rings sparklin on em.

Then the boys looked glum, an they nudged me an kinder shoved me front. So, bein elected, I sez, Friend, sez I, art is on the bum. It aint your fault; the boys is sad an sorrerful, but they aint never knocked you to nobody, Mr. Guilford. You was good to us; you done your damdest. You made up pieces for the magazines an papers an you advertised how we was all cranks together here at Rose-Cross, a-lovin Nature an dicky-birds, an wanderin about half nood for arts sake.

Mr. Guilford, sez I, that gilt brick went. But it has went as far as it can travel an is now reposin into the soup. Git wise or eat hay, sir. Art is on the blink.

The agent jingled his keys with a melancholy wink at Briggs.

So I come back here, an thankful to hold down this job. An five mile up the pike is that there noble poet an his kids a-makin up pieces for to sell to the papers, an a sorrerin over the cold world what refuses to buy his poemsan a mortgage onto his house an a threat to foreclose.

Indeed, said Briggs dreamily, for it was his business to attend to the foreclosure of the mortgage on the poets house.

Was you fixin to go up an see the place? inquired the agent.

Shall I be obliged to walk?

I guess you will if you cant flutter, replied the agent. I aint got no wagon an no horse.