The Streets of Ascalon. Chambers Robert William
these phases of 'The Real Thing' are fretting and mortifying Karl to the verge of distraction. He awakes to find himself not famous but notorious – not criticised for his workmanship, good or bad, but gabbled about because some ludicrous old Uncle Foozle pretends to discover a similarity between Karl's episodes and characters and certain doings of which Uncle F. is personally cognisant.
"The great resource of stupidity is and has always been the anagram; and as stupidity is almost invariably suspicious, the hunt for hidden meanings preoccupies the majority of mankind.
"Because I have ventured to send you Karl's new book is no reason why I also should have presumed to write you a treatise in several volumes.
"But I miss you, oddly enough – miss everything I never had of you – your opinions on what interests us both; the delightful discussions of things important, which have never taken place between us. It's odd, isn't it, Mrs. Leeds, that I miss, long for, and even remember so much that has never been?
"Molly Wycherly wrote to Mrs. Lannis that you were having a gay time in Florida; that Sir Charles Mallison had joined your party; that you'd had luncheons and dinners given you at the Club, at the Inlet, at the Wiers's place, 'Coquina Castle'; and that Jim and Sir Charles had bravely slain many ducks. Which is certainly glory enough to go round. In a friendly little note to me you were good enough to ask what I am doing, and to emphasise your request for an answer by underlining your request.
"Proud and flattered by your generous interest I hasten to inform you that I am leading the same useful, serious, profitable, purposeful, ambitious, and ennobling life which I was leading when I first met you. Such a laudable existence makes for one's self-respect; and, happy in that consciousness, undisturbed by journalistic accusations concerning marmosets and vulgarity, I concentrate my entire intellectual efforts upon keeping my job, which is to remain deaf, dumb, and blind, and at the same time be ornamental, resourceful, good-tempered, and amusing to those who are not invariably all of these things at the same time.
"Is it too much to expect another note from you?
She answered him on the fourth week of her absence.
"My dear Mr. Quarren:
"Your letter interested me, but there was all through it an undertone of cynicism which rang false – almost a dissonance to an ear which has heard you strike a truer chord.
"I do not like what you say of yourself, or of your life. I have talked very seriously with Molly, who adores you; and she evidently thinks you capable of achieving anything you care to undertake. Which is my own opinion – based on twenty-four hours of acquaintance.
"I have read Mr. Westguard's novel. Everybody here is reading it. I'd like to talk to you about it, some day. Mr. Westguard's intense bitterness confuses me a little, and seems almost to paralyse any critical judgment I may possess. A crusade in fiction has always seemed to me but a sterile effort. To do a thing is fine; to talk about it in fiction a far less admirable performance – like the small boy, safe in the window, who defies his enemy with out-thrust tongue.
"When I was young – a somewhat lonely child, with only a very few books to companion me – I pored over Carlyle's 'French Revolution,' and hated Philip Egalité. But that youthful hatred was a little modified because Egalité did actually become personally active. If he had only talked, my hatred would have become contempt for a renegade who did not possess the courage of his convictions. But he voted death to his own caste, facing the tribunal. He talked, but he also acted.
"I do not mean this as a parallel between Mr. Westguard and the sanguinary French iconoclast. Mr. Westguard, also, has the courage of his convictions; he lives, I understand, the life which he considers a proper one. It is the life which he preaches in 'The Real Thing' – a somewhat solemn, self-respecting, self-supporting existence, devoted to self-development; a life of upright thinking, and the fulfilment of duty, civil and religious, incident to dignified citizenship. Such a life may be a blameless one; I don't know.
"Also it might even be admirable within its limits if Mr. Westguard did not also appoint himself critic, disciplinarian, and prophet of that particular section of society into which accident of birth has dumped him.
"Probably there is no section of human society that does not need a wholesome scourging now and then, but somehow, it seems to me, that it could be done less bitterly and with better grace than Mr. Westguard does it in his book. The lash, swung from within, and applied with judgment and discrimination, ought to do a more thorough and convincing piece of work than a knout allied with the clubs of the proletariat, hitting at every head in sight.
"Let the prophets and sybils, the augurs and oracles of the Hoi polloi address themselves to them; and let ours talk to us, not about us to the world at large.
"A renegade from either side makes an unholy alliance, and, with his first shout from the public pulpit, tightens the master knot which he is trying to untie to the glory of God and for the sake of peace and good will on earth. And the result is Donnybrook Fair.
"I hate to speak this way to you of your friend, and about a man I like and, in a measure, really respect. But this is what I think. And my inclination is to tell you the truth, always.
"Concerning the artistic value of Mr. Westguard's literary performance, I know little. The simplicity of his language recommends the pages to me. The book is easy to read. Perhaps therein lies his art; I do not know.
"Now, as I am in an unaccountably serious mood amid all the frivolity of this semi-tropical place, may I not say to you something about yourself? How are you going to silence me?
"Well, then; you seem to reason illogically. You make little of yourself, yet you offer me your friendship, by implication, every time you write to me. You seek my society mentally. Do you really believe that my mind is so easily satisfied with intellectual rubbish, or that I am flattered by letters from a nobody?
"What do you suppose there is attractive about you, Mr. Quarren – if you really do amount to as little as you pretend? I've seen handsomer men, monsieur, wealthier men, more intelligent men; men more experienced, men of far greater talents and attainments.
"Why do you suppose that I sit here in the Southern sunshine writing to you when there are dozens of men perfectly ready to amuse me? – and qualified to do it, too!
"For the sake of your beaux-yeux? Non pas!
"But there is a something which the world recognises as a subtle and nameless sympathy. And it stretches an invisible filament between you and the girl who is writing to you.
"That tie is not founded on sentiment; I think you know that. And, of things spiritual, you and I have never yet spoken.
"Therefore I conclude that the tie must be purely intellectual; that mind calls to mind and finds contentment in the far response.
"So, when you pretend to me that you are of no intellectual account, you pay me a scurvy compliment. Quod erat demonstrandum.
"With this gentle reproof I seal my long, long letter, and go where the jasmine twineth and the orchestra playeth; for it is tea-time, my friend, and the Park of Peacocks is all a-glitter with plumage. Soft eyes look wealth to eyes that ask again; and all is brazen as a dinner bell!
"O friend! do you know that since I have been here I might have attained to fortune, had I cared to select any one of several generous gentlemen who have been good enough to thrust that commodity at me?
"To be asked to marry a man no longer distresses me. I am all over the romantic idea of being sorry for wealthy amateurs who make me a plain business proposition, offering to invest a fortune in my good looks. To amateurs, connoisseurs, and collectors, there is no such thing as a fixed market value to anything. An object of art is worth what it can be bought for. I don't yet know how much I am worth. I may yet find out.
"There are nice men here, odious men, harmless men, colourless men, worthy men, and the ever-present fool. He is really the happiest, I suppose.
"Then, all in a class by himself, is an Englishman, one Sir Charles Mallison. I don't know what to