Read Trilby Page 6

  LITTLE BILLEE

  _An Interlude_

  "Then the mortal coldness of the Soul like death itself comes down; It cannot feel for others' woes, it dare not dream its own; That heavy chill has frozen o'er the fountain of our tears, And, though the eye may sparkle yet, 'tis where the ice appears.

  "Though wit may flash from fluent lips, and mirth distract the breast, Through midnight hours that yield no more their former hope of rest: 'Tis but as ivy leaves around a ruined turret wreathe, All green and wildly fresh without, but worn and gray beneath."

  When Taffy and the Laird went back to the studio in the Place St.Anatole des Arts, and resumed their ordinary life there, it was with asense of desolation and dull bereavement beyond anything they could haveimagined; and this did not seem to lessen as the time wore on.

  They realized for the first time how keen and penetrating andunintermittent had been the charm of those two central figures--Trilbyand Little Billee--and how hard it was to live without them, after suchintimacy as had been theirs.

  "Oh, it _has_ been a jolly time, though it didn't last long!" So Trilbyhad written in her farewell letter to Taffy; and these words were truefor Taffy and the Laird as well as for her.

  And that is the worst of those dear people who have charm: they are soterrible to do without, when once you have got accustomed to them andall their ways.

  And when, besides being charming, they are simple, clever, affectionate,constant, and sincere, like Trilby and Little Billee! Then thelamentable hole their disappearance makes is not to be filled up! Andwhen they are full of genius, like Little Billee--and like Trilby, funnywithout being vulgar! For so she always seemed to the Laird and Taffy,even in French (in spite of her Gallic audacities of thought, speech,and gesture).

  All seemed to have suffered change. The very boxing and fencing weregone through perfunctorily, for mere health's sake; and a thin layer ofadipose deposit began to soften the outlines of the hills and dales onTaffy's mighty forearm.

  Dodor and l'Zouzou no longer came so often, now that the charming LittleBillee and his charming mother and still more charming sister had goneaway--nor Carnegie, nor Antony, nor Lorrimer, nor Vincent, nor theGreek. Gecko never came at all. Even Svengali was missed, little as hehad been liked. It is a dismal and sulky looking piece of furniture, agrand-piano that nobody ever plays--with all its sound and its souvenirslocked up inside--a kind of mausoleum! a lop-sided coffin--trestles andall!

  So it went back to London by the "little quickness," just as it hadcome!

  Thus Taffy and the Laird grew quite sad and mopy, and lunched at theCafé de l'Odéon every day--till the goodness of the omelets palled, andthe redness of the wine there got on their nerves and into their headsand faces, and made them sleepy till dinner-time. And then, waking up,they dressed respectably, and dined expensively, "like gentlemen," inthe Palais Royal, or the Passage Choiseul, or the Passage desPanoramas--for three francs, three francs fifty, even five francs ahead, and half a franc to the waiter!--and went to the theatre almostevery night, on that side of the water--and more often than not theytook a cab home, each smoking a Panatella, which costs twenty-fivecentimes--five sous--2-1/2_d._

  Then they feebly drifted into quite decent society--like Lorrimer andCarnegie--with dress-coats and white ties on, and their hair parted inthe middle and down the back of the head, and brought over the ears in abunch at each side, as was the English fashion in those days; andsubscribed to _Galignani's Messenger_; and had themselves proposed andseconded for the Cercle Anglais in the Rue Sainte-n'y touche, a circleof British philistines of the very deepest dye; and went to hear divineservice on Sunday mornings in the Rue Marbœuf!

  Indeed, by the end of the summer they had sunk into such depths ofdemoralization that they felt they must really have a change; anddecided on giving up the studio in the Place St. Anatole des Arts, andleaving Paris for good; and going to settle for the winter inDüsseldorf, which is a very pleasant place for English painters who donot wish to overwork themselves--as the Laird well knew, having spent ayear there.

  DEMORALIZATION]

  It ended in Taffy's going to Antwerp for the Kermesse, to paint theFlemish drunkard of our time just as he really is; and the Laird's goingto Spain, so that he might study toreadors from the life.

  I may as well state here that the Laird's toreador pictures, which hadhad quite a vogue in Scotland as long as he had been content to paintthem in the Place St. Anatole des Arts, quite ceased to please (or sell)after he had been to Seville and Madrid; so he took to painting Romancardinals and Neapolitan pifferari from the depths of hisconsciousness--and was so successful that he made up his mind he wouldnever spoil his market by going to Italy!

  So he went and painted his cardinals and his pifferari in Algiers; andTaffy joined him there, and painted Algerian Jews--just as they reallyare (and didn't sell them); and then they spent a year in Munich, andthen a year in Düsseldorf, and a winter in Cairo, and so on.

  And all this time Taffy, who took everything _au grandsérieux_--especially the claims and obligations offriendship--corresponded regularly with Little Billee, who wrote himlong and amusing letters back again, and had plenty to say about hislife in London--which was a series of triumphs, artistic and social--andyou would have thought from his letters, modest though they were, thatno happier young man, or more elate, was to be found anywhere in theworld.

  It was a good time in England, just then, for young artists of promise;a time of evolution, revolution, change, and development--of thefounding of new schools and the crumbling away of old ones--a keenstruggle for existence--a surviving of the fit--a preparation, let ushope, for the ultimate survival of the fittest.

  And among the many glories of this particular period two names stand outvery conspicuously--for the immediate and (so far) lasting fame theirbearers achieved, and the wide influence they exerted, and continue toexert still.

  The world will not easily forget Frederic Walker and William Bagot,those two singularly gifted boys, whom it soon became the fashion tobracket together, to compare and to contrast, as one compares andcontrasts Thackeray and Dickens, Carlyle and Macaulay, Tennyson andBrowning--a futile though pleasant practice, of which the temptationsseem irresistible!

  Yet why compare the lily and the rose?

  These two young masters had the genius and the luck to be theprogenitors of much of the best art-work that has been done in Englandduring the last thirty years, in oils, in water-color, in black andwhite.

  They were both essentially English and of their own time; bothabsolutely original, receiving their impressions straight from natureitself; uninfluenced by any school, ancient or modern, they foundedschools instead of following any, and each was a law unto himself, and alaw-giver unto many others.

  FRED WALKER]

  Both were equally great in whatever they attempted--landscape, figures,birds, beasts, or fishes. Who does not remember the fish-monger's shopby F. Walker, or W. Bagot's little piebald piglings, and their venerableblack mother, and their immense, fat, wallowing pink papa? An ineffablecharm of poetry and refinement, of pathos and sympathy and delicatehumor combined, an incomparable ease and grace and felicity ofworkmanship belong to each; and yet in their work are they not as wideapart as the poles; each complete in himself and yet a complement to theother?

  And, oddly enough, they were both singularly alike in aspect--both smalland slight, though beautifully made, with tiny hands and feet; alwaysarrayed as the lilies of the field, for all they toiled and spun soarduously; both had regularly featured faces of a noble cast and mostwinning character; both had the best and simplest manners in the world,and a way of getting themselves much and quickly and permanentlyliked....

  _Que la terre leur soit légère!_

  And who can say that the fame of one is greater than the other's!

  Their pinnacles are twin, I venture to believe--of just an equal heightand width and thickness, like their bodies in this life; but unliketheir frail bod
ies in one respect: no taller pinnacles are to be seen,methinks, in all the garden of the deathless dead painters of our time,and none more built to last!

  * * * * *

  But it is not with the art of Little Billee, nor with his fame as apainter, that we are chiefly concerned in this unpretending little tale,except in so far as they have some bearing on his character and hisfate.

  "I should like to know the detailed history of the Englishman's firstlove, and how he lost his innocence!"

  "Ask him!"

  "Ask him yourself!"

  Thus Papelard and Bouchardy, on the morning of Little Billee's firstappearance at Carrel's studio, in the Rue des Potirons St. Michel.

  And that is the question the present scribe is doing his little best toanswer.

  * * * * *

  A good-looking, famous, well-bred, and well-dressed youth finds thatLondon Society opens its doors very readily; he hasn't long to knock;and it would be difficult to find a youth more fortunately situated,handsomer, more famous, better dressed or better bred, more seeminglyhappy and successful, with more attractive qualities and more condonablefaults, than Little Billee, as Taffy and the Laird found him when theycame to London after their four or five years in foreign parts--theirWanderjahr.

  He had a fine studio and a handsome suite of rooms in Fitzroy Square.Beautiful specimens of his unfinished work, endless studies, hung on hisstudio walls. Everything else was as nice as it could be--the furniture,the bibelots, and bric-à-brac, the artistic foreign and Easternknick-knacks and draperies and hangings and curtains and rugs--thesemi-grand piano by Collard & Collard.

  That immortal canvas, the "Moon-Dial" (just begun, and alreadycommissioned by Moses Lyon, the famous picture-dealer), lay on hiseasel.

  No man worked harder and with teeth more clinched than Little Billeewhen he was at work--none rested or played more discreetly when it wastime to rest or play.

  PLATONIC LOVE]

  The glass on his mantel-piece was full of cards of invitation,reminders, pretty mauve and pink and lilac-scented notes; nor werecoronets wanting on many of these hospitable little missives. He hadquite overcome his fancied aversion for bloated dukes and lords and therest (we all do sooner or later, if things go well with us); especiallyfor their wives and sisters and daughters and female cousins; even theirmothers and aunts. In point of fact, and in spite of his tender years,he was in some danger (for his art) of developing into that type adoredby sympathetic women who haven't got much to do: the friend, the tamecat, the platonic lover (with many loves)--the squire of dames, thetrusty one, of whom husbands and brothers have no fear!--the delicate,harmless dilettante of Eros--the dainty shepherd who dwells "dans lepays du tendre!"--and stops there!

  The woman flatters and the man confides--and there is no dangerwhatever, I'm told--and I am glad!

  One man loves his fiddle (or, alas! his neighbor's sometimes) for allthe melodies he can wake from it--it is but a selfish love!

  Another, who is no fiddler, may love a fiddle too; for its symmetry, itsneatness, its color--its delicate grainings, the lovely lines and curvesof its back and front--for its own sake, so to speak. He may have awhole galleryful of fiddles to love in this innocent way--a harem!--andyet not know a single note of music, or even care to hear one. He willdust them and stroke them, and take them down and try to put them intune--pizzicato!--and put them back again, and call them ever such sweetlittle pet names: viol, viola, viola d'amore, viol di gamba, violinomio! and breathe his little troubles into them, and they will give backinaudible little murmurs in sympathetic response, like a damp Æolianharp; but he will never draw a bow across the strings, nor wake a singlechord--or discord!

  And who shall say he is not wise in his generation? It is but anold-fashioned philistine notion that fiddles were only made to be playedon--the fiddles themselves are beginning to resent it; and rightly, Iwot!

  In this harmless fashion Little Billee was friends with more than onefine lady _de par le monde_.

  Indeed, he had been reproached by his more bohemian brothers of thebrush for being something of a tuft-hunter--most unjustly. But nothinggives such keen offence to our unsuccessful brother, bohemian orbourgeois, as our sudden intimacy with the so-called great, the littlelords and ladies of this little world! Not even our fame and success,and all the joy and pride they bring us, are so hard to condone--soimbittering, so humiliating, to the jealous fraternal heart.

  Alas! poor humanity--that the mere countenance of our betters (if they_are_ our betters!) should be thought so priceless a boon, so consummatean achievement, so crowning a glory, as all that!

  "A dirty bit of orange-peel, The stump of a cigar-- Once trod on by a princely heel, How beautiful they are!"

  Little Billee was no tuft-hunter--he was the tuft-hunted, or had been.No one of his kind was ever more persistently, resolutely, hospitablyharried than this young "hare with many friends" by people of rank andfashion.

  And at first he thought them most charming; as they so often are, thesegraceful, gracious, gay, good-natured stoics and barbarians, whosemanners are as easy and simple as their morals--but how muchbetter!--and who, at least, have this charm, that they can wallow inuntold gold (when they happen to possess it) without ever seeming tostink of the same: yes, they bear wealth gracefully--and the want of itmore gracefully still! and these are pretty accomplishments that haveyet to be learned by our new aristocracy of the shop and counting-house,Jew or gentile, which is everywhere elbowing its irresistible way tothe top and front of everything, both here and abroad.

  Then he discovered that, much as you might be with them, you could neverbe _of_ them, unless perchance you managed to hook on by marrying one oftheir ugly ducklings--their failures--their remnants! and even then lifeisn't all beer and skittles for a rank outsider, I'm told! Then hediscovered that he didn't want to be of them in the least; especially atsuch a cost as that! and that to be very much with them was apt to pall,like everything else.

  Also, he found that they were very mixed; good, bad, andindifferent--and not always very dainty or select in theirpredilections, since they took unto their bosoms such queer outsiders(just for the sake of being amused a little while) that their capriciousfavor ceased to be an honor and a glory--if it ever was! And, then,their fickleness!

  Indeed, he found, or thought he found, that they could be just asclever, as liberal, as polite or refined--as narrow, insolent,swaggering, coarse, and vulgar--as handsome, as ugly--as graceful, asungainly--as modest or conceited, as any other upper class of thecommunity--and, indeed, some lower ones!

  Beautiful young women, who had been taught how to paint pretty littlelandscapes (with an ivy-mantled ruin in the middle distance), talkedtechnically of painting to him, _de pair à pair_, as though they werequite on the same artistic level, and didn't mind admitting it, in spiteof the social gulf between.

  Hideous old frumps (osseous or obese, yet with unduly bared neck, andshoulders that made him sick) patronized him and gave him good advice,and told him to emulate Mr. Buckner both in his genius and hismanners--since Mr. Buckner was the only "gentleman" who ever painted forhire; and they promised him, in time, an equal success!

  Here and there some sweet old darling specially enslaved him by herkindness, grace, knowledge of life, and tender womanly sympathy, likethe dowager Lady Chiselhurst--or some sweet young one, like the lovelyDuchess of Towers, by her beauty, wit, good-humor, and sisterly interestin all he did, and who in some vague, distant manner constantly remindedhim of Trilby, although she was such a great and fashionable lady!

  But just such darlings, old or young, were to be found, with stillhigher ideals, in less exalted spheres; and were easier of access, withno impassable gulf between--spheres where there was no patronizing,nothing but deference and warm appreciation and delicate flattery, frommen and women alike--and where the aged Venuses, whose prime was of thedays of Waterloo, went with their historical remains duly shroude
d, likeivy-mantled ruins (and in the middle distance!).

  "DARLINGS, OLD OR YOUNG"]

  So he actually grew tired of the great before they had time to tire ofhim--incredible as it may seem, and against nature; and this saved himmany a heart-burning; and he ceased to be seen at fashionable drums orgatherings of any kind, except in one or two houses where he wasespecially liked and made welcome for his own sake; such as LordChiselhurst's in Piccadilly, where the "Moon-Dial" found a home for afew years, before going to its last home and final resting-place in theNational Gallery (R. I. P.); or Baron Stoppenheim's in Cavendish Square,where many lovely little water-colors signed W. B. occupied places ofhonor on gorgeously gilded walls; or the gorgeously gilded bachelorrooms of Mr. Moses Lyon, the picture-dealer in Upper Conduit Street--forLittle Billee (I much grieve to say it of a hero of romance) was anexcellent man of business. That infinitesimal dose of the good oldOriental blood kept him straight, and not only made him stick to hislast through thick and thin, but also to those whose foot his last wasfound to match (for he couldn't or wouldn't alter his last).

  He loved to make as much money as he could, that he might spend itroyally in pretty gifts to his mother and sister, whom it was hispleasure to load in this way, and whose circumstances had been very muchaltered by his quick success. There was never a more generous son orbrother than Little Billee of the clouded heart, that couldn't love anylonger!

  * * * * *

  As a set-off to all these splendors, it was also his pleasure now andagain to study London life at its lower end--the eastest end of all.Whitechapel, the Minories, the Docks, Ratcliffe Highway, Rotherhithe,soon got to know him well, and he found much to interest him and much tolike among their denizens, and made as many friends there amongship-carpenters, excisemen, longshoremen, jack-tars, and what not, as inBayswater and Belgravia (or Bloomsbury).

  He was especially fond of frequenting sing-songs, or "free-and-easys,"where good, hard-working fellows met of an evening to relax and smokeand drink and sing--round a table well loaded with steaming tumblers andpewter pots, at one end of which sits Mr. Chairman in all his glory, andat the other "Mr. Vice." They are open to any one who can afford a pipe,a screw of tobacco, and a pint of beer, and who is willing to do hisbest and sing a song.

  "THE MOON-DIAL"]

  No introduction is needed; as soon as any one has seated himself andmade himself comfortable, Mr. Chairman taps the table with his long claypipe, begs for silence, and says to his vis-à-vis: "Mr. Vice, it strikesme as the gen'l'man as is just come in 'as got a singing face. Per'aps,Mr. Vice, you'll be so very kind as juster harsk the aforesaid gen'l'manto oblige us with a 'armony."

  Mr. Vice then puts it to the new-comer, who, thus appealed to, simulatesa modest surprise, and finally professes his willingness, like Mr.Barkis; then, clearing his throat a good many times, looks up to theceiling, and after one or two unsuccessful starts in different keys,bravely sings "Kathleen Mavourneen," let us say--perhaps in a touchinglysweet tenor voice:

  "Kathleen Mavourneen, the gry dawn is brykin', The 'orn of the 'unter is 'eard on the 'ill." ...

  And Little Billee didn't mind the dropping of all these aitches if thevoice was sympathetic and well in tune, and the sentiment simple,tender, and sincere.

  Or else, with a good rolling jingo bass, it was,

  "'Earts o' hoak are our ships; 'earts o' hoak are our men; And we'll fight and we'll conkwer agen and agen!"

  And no imperfection of accent, in Little Billee's estimation, subtractedone jot from the manly British pluck that found expression in thesenoble sentiments--nor added one tittle to their swaggering, blatant, andidiotically aggressive vulgarity!

  Well, the song finishes with general applause all round. Then thechairman says, "Your 'ealth and song, sir!" And drinks, and all do thesame.

  Then Mr. Vice asks, "What shall we 'ave the pleasure of saying, sir,after that very nice 'armony?"

  THE CHAIRMAN]

  And the blushing vocalist, if he knows the ropes, replies, "A roastleg o' mutton in Newgate, and nobody to eat it!" Or else, "May 'im as isgoing up the 'ill o' prosperity never meet a friend coming down!" Orelse, "'Ere's to 'er as shares our sorrers and doubles our joys!" Orelse, "'Ere's to 'er as shares our joys and doubles our expenses!" andso forth.

  More drink, more applause, and many 'ear, 'ears. And Mr. Vice says tothe singer: "You call, sir. Will you be so good as to call on some othergen'l'man for a 'armony?" And so the evening goes on.

  And nobody was more quickly popular at such gatherings, or sang bettersongs, or proposed more touching sentiments, or filled either chair orvice-chair with more grace and dignity than Little Billee. Not evenDodor or l'Zouzou could have beaten him at that.

  And he was as happy, as genial, and polite, as much at his ease, inthese humble gatherings as in the gilded saloons of the great, wheregrand-pianos are, and hired accompanists, and highly-paid singers, and agood deal of talk while they sing.

  So his powers of quick, wide, universal sympathy grew and grew, and madeup to him a little for his lost power of being specially fond of specialindividuals. For he made no close friends among men, and ruthlesslysnubbed all attempts at intimacy--all advances towards an affectionwhich he felt he could not return; and more than one enthusiasticadmirer of his talent and his charm was forced to acknowledge that, withall his gifts, he seemed heartless and capricious; as ready to drop youas he had been to take you up.

  He loved to be wherever he could meet his kind, high or low; and felt ashappy on a penny steamer as on the yacht of a millionaire--on thecrowded knife-board of an omnibus as on the box-seat of a nobleman'sdrag--happier; he liked to feel the warm contact of his fellow-man ateither shoulder and at his back, and didn't object to a little honestgrime! And I think all this genial caressing love of his kind, thisdepth and breath of human sympathy, are patent in all his work.

  On the whole, however, he came to prefer for society that of the bestand cleverest of his own class--those who live and prevail by theprofessional exercise of their own specially trained and highly educatedwits, the skilled workmen of the brain--from the Lord Chief-Justice ofEngland downward--the salt of the earth, in his opinion: and stuck tothem.

  There is no class so genial and sympathetic as _our own_, in thelong-run--even if it be but the criminal class! none where the welcomeis likely to be so genuine and sincere, so easy to win, so difficult tooutstay, if we be but decently pleasant and successful; none where thememory of us will be kept so green (if we leave any memory at all!).

  So Little Billee found it expedient, when he wanted rest and play, toseek them at the houses of those whose rest and play were like hisown--little halts in a seeming happy life-journey, full of toil andstrain and endeavor; oases of sweet water and cooling shade, where thefood was good and plentiful, though the tents might not be of cloth ofgold; where the talk was of something more to his taste than court orsport or narrow party politics; the new beauty; the coming match of theseason the coming ducal conversion to Rome; the last elopement in highlife--the next! and where the music was that of the greatestmusic-makers that can be, who found rest and play in making better musicfor love than they ever made for hire--and were listened to as theyshould be, with understanding and religious silence, and all the ferventgratitude they deserved.

  There were several such houses in London then--and are still--thankHeaven! And Little Billee had his little billet there--and there he waswont to drown himself in waves of lovely sound, or streams of clevertalk, or rivers of sweet feminine adulation, seas! oceans!--a somewhatrelaxing bath!--and forget for a while his everlasting chronic plague ofheart-insensibility, which no doctor could explain or cure, and to whichhe was becoming gradually resigned--as one does to deafness or blindnessor locomotor ataxia--for it had lasted nearly five years! But now andagain, during sleep, and in a blissful dream, the lost power ofloving--of loving mother, sister, friend--would be restored to him; justas with a blind man who sometimes dreams he has r
ecovered his sight; andthe joy of it would wake him to the sad reality: till he got to know,even in his dream, that he was only dreaming, after all, whenever thatpriceless boon seemed to be his own once more--and did his utmost not towake. And these were nights to be marked with a white stone, andremembered!

  And nowhere was he happier than at the houses of the great surgeons andphysicians who interested themselves in his strange disease. When theLittle Billees of this world fall ill, the great surgeons and physicians(like the great singers and musicians) do better for them, out of merelove and kindness, than for the princes of the earth, who pay themthousand-guinea fees and load them with honors.

  * * * * *

  And of all these notable London houses none was pleasanter than that ofCornelys the great sculptor, and Little Billee was such a favorite inthat house that he was able to take his friends Taffy and the Lairdthere the very day they came to London.

  First of all they dined together at a delightful little Franco-Italianpothouse near Leicester Square, where they had bouillabaisse (imaginethe Laird's delight), and spaghetti, and a poulet rôti, which is _such_a different affair from a roast fowl! and salad, which Taffy was allowedto make and mix himself; and they all smoked just where they sat, themoment they had swallowed their food--as had been their way in the goodold Paris days.

  That dinner was a happy one for Taffy and the Laird, with their LittleBillee apparently unchanged--as demonstrative, as genial, and caressingas ever, and with no swagger to speak of; and with so many things totalk about that were new to them, and of such delightful interest! Theyalso had much to say--but they didn't say very much about Paris, forfear of waking up Heaven knows what sleeping dogs!

  And every now and again, in the midst of all this pleasant foregatheringand communion of long-parted friends, the pangs of Little Billee'smiserable mind-malady would shoot through him like poisoned arrows.

  He would catch himself thinking how fat and fussy and serious abouttrifles Taffy had become; and what a shiftless, feckless, futile dufferwas the Laird; and how greedy they both were, and how red and coarsetheir ears and gills and cheeks grew as they fed, and how shiny theirfaces; and how little he would care, try as he might, if they both felldown dead under the table! And this would make him behave morecaressingly to them, more genially and demonstratively than ever--for heknew it was all a grewsome physical ailment of his own, which he couldno more help than a cataract in his eye!

  Then, catching sight of his own face and form in a mirror, he wouldcurse himself for a puny, misbegotten shrimp, an imp--an abortion--nobigger, by the side of the herculean Taffy or the burly Laird ofCockpen, than six-pennorth o' half-pence: a wretched little overratedfollower of a poor trivial craft--a mere light amuser! For what didpictures matter, or whether they were good or bad, except to thetriflers who painted them, the dealers who sold them, the idle,uneducated, purse-proud fools who bought them and stuck them up on theirwalls because they were told!

  And he felt that if a dynamite shell were beneath the table where theysat, and its fuse were smoking under their very noses, he would neitherwish to warn his friends nor move himself. He didn't care a d----!

  And all this made him so lively and brilliant in his talk, sofascinating and droll and witty, that Taffy and the Laird wondered atthe improvement success and the experience of life had wrought in him,and marvelled at the happiness of his lot, and almost found it in theirwarm, affectionate hearts to feel a touch of envy!

  A HAPPY DINNER]

  Oddly enough, in a brief flash of silence, "entre la poire et lefromage," they heard a foreigner at an adjoining table (one of a verynoisy group) exclaim: "Mais quand je vous dis que j'l'ai entendue, moi,la Svengali! et même qu'elle a chanté l'Impromptu de Chopin absolumentcomme si c'était un piano qu'on jouait! voyons!..."

  "Farceur! la bonne blague!" said another--and then the conversationbecame so noisily general it was no good listening any more.

  "Svengali! how funny that name should turn up! I wonder what's become of_our_ Svengali, by-the-way?" observed Taffy.

  "I remember _his_ playing Chopin's Impromptu," said Little Billee; "whata singular coincidence!"

  There were to be more coincidences that night; it never rains them butit pours!

  So our three friends finished their coffee and liqueured up, and went toCornelys's, three in a hansom--

  "Like Mars, A-smokin' their poipes and cigyars."

  Sir Louis Cornelys, as everybody knows, lives in a palace on CampdenHill, a house of many windows; and whichever window he looks out of, hesees his own garden and very little else. In spite of his eighty years,he works as hard as ever, and his hand has lost but little of itscunning. But he no longer gives those splendid parties that made himalmost as famous a host as he was an artist.

  "A-SMOKIN' THEIR POIPES AND CIGYARS"]

  When his beautiful wife died he shut himself up from the world; andnow he never stirs out of his house and grounds except to fulfil hisduties at the Royal Academy and dine once a year with the Queen.

  It was very different in the early sixties. There was no pleasanter ormore festive house than his in London, winter or summer--no lordlierhost than he--no more irresistible hostesses than Lady Cornelys and herlovely daughters; and if ever music had a right to call itself divine,it was there you heard it--on late Saturday nights during the Londonseason--when the foreign birds of song come over to reap their harvestin London Town.

  It was on one of the most brilliant of these Saturday nights that Taffyand the Laird, chaperoned by Little Billee, made their début at MechelenLodge, and were received at the door of the immense music-room by atall, powerful man with splendid eyes and a gray beard, and a smallvelvet cap on his head--and by a Greek matron so beautiful and statelyand magnificently attired that they felt inclined to sink them on theirbended knees as in the presence of some overwhelming Easternroyalty--and were only prevented from doing so, perhaps, by the simple,sweet, and cordial graciousness of her welcome.

  And whom should they be shaking hands with next but Antony, Lorrimer,and the Greek--with each a beard and mustache of nearly five years'growth!

  But they had no time for much exuberant greeting, for there was a suddenpiano crash--and then an immediate silence, as though for pins todrop--and Signor Giuglini and the wondrous maiden Adelina Patti sang theMiserere out of Signor Verdi's most famous opera--to the delight of allbut a few very superior ones who had just read Mendelssohn's letters (ormisread them) and despised Italian music; and thought cheaply of "merevirtuosity," either vocal or instrumental.

  When this was over, Little Billee pointed out all the lions to hisfriends--from the Prime Minister down to the present scribe--who wasright glad to meet them again and talk of auld lang syne, and presentthem to the daughters of the house and other charming ladies.

  Then Roucouly, the great French barytone, sang Durien's favorite song,

  "Plaisir d'amour ne dure qu'un moment; Chagrin d'amour dure toute la vie...."

  with quite a little drawing-room voice--but quite as divinely as he hadsung "Noël, noël," at the Madeleine in full blast one certain ChristmasEve our three friends remembered well.

  Then there was a violin solo by young Joachim, then as now the greatestviolinist of his time; and a solo on the piano-forte by Madame Schumann,his only peeress! and these came as a wholesome check to the levity ofthose for whom all music is but an agreeable pastime, a mere emotionaldelight, in which the intellect has no part; and also as a well-deservedhumiliation to all virtuosi who play so charmingly that they make theirlisteners forget the master who invented the music in the lesser masterwho interprets it!

  For these two--man and woman--the highest of their kind, never let youforget it was Sebastian Bach they were playing--playing in absoluteperfection, in absolute forgetfulness of themselves--so that if youweren't up to Bach, you didn't have a very good time!

  But if you were (or wished it to be understood or thought you were), y
ouseized your opportunity and you scored; and by the earnestness of yourrapt and tranced immobility, and the stony, gorgon-like intensity ofyour gaze, you rebuked the frivolous--as you had rebuked them before bythe listlessness and carelessness of your bored resignation to theSignorina Patti's trills and fioritures, or M. Roucouly's pretty littleFrench mannerisms.

  And what added so much to the charm of this delightful concert was thatthe guests were not packed together sardinewise, as they are at mostconcerts; they were comparatively few and well chosen, and could get upand walk about and talk to their friends between the pieces, and wanderoff into other rooms and look at endless beautiful things, and stroll inthe lovely grounds, by moon or star or Chinese-lantern light.

  And there the frivolous could sit and chat and laugh and flirt when Bachwas being played inside; and the earnest wander up and down together insoul-communion, through darkened walks and groves and alleys where thesound of French or Italian warblings could not reach them, and talk inearnest tones of the great Zola, or Guy de Maupassant and Pierre Loti,and exult in beautiful English over the inferiority of Englishliterature, English art, English music, English everything else.

  For these high-minded ones who can only bear the sight of classicalpictures and the sound of classical music do not necessarily readclassical books in any language--no Shakespeares or Dantes or Molièresor Goethes for _them_. They know a trick worth two of that!

  And the mere fact that these three immortal French writers of lightbooks I have just named had never been heard of at this particularperiod doesn't very much matter; they had cognate predecessors whosenames I happen to forget. Any stick will do to beat a dog with, andhistory is always repeating itself.

  Feydeau, or Flaubert, let us say--or for those who don't know French andcultivate an innocent mind, Miss Austen (for to be dead and buried isalmost as good as to be French and immoral!)--and Sebastian Bach, andSandro Botticelli--that all the arts should be represented. These namesare rather discrepant, but they made very good sticks for dog-beating;and with a thorough knowledge and appreciation of these (or thesemblance thereof), you were well equipped in those days to hold yourown among the elect of intellectual London circles, and snub thephilistine to rights.

  Then, very late, a tall, good-looking, swarthy foreigner came in, with aroll of music in his hands, and his entrance made quite a stir; youheard all round, "Here's Glorioli," or "Ecco Glorioli," or "VoiciGlorioli," till Glorioli got on your nerves. And beautiful ladies,ambassadresses, female celebrities of all kinds, fluttered up to himand cajoled and fawned;--as Svengali would have said, "Prinzessen,Comtessen, Serene English Altessen!"--and they soon forgot theirHighness and their Serenity!

  For with very little pressing Glorioli stood up on the platform, withhis accompanist by his side at the piano, and in his hands a sheet ofmusic, at which he never looked. He looked at the beautiful ladies, andogled and smiled; and from his scarcely parted, moist, thick, beardedlips, which he always licked before singing, there issued the mostravishing sounds that had ever been heard from throat of man or woman orboy! He could sing both high and low and soft and loud, and thefrivolous were bewitched, as was only to be expected; but even theearnestest of all, caught, surprised, rapt, astounded, shaken, tickled,teased, harrowed, tortured, tantalized, aggravated, seduced,demoralized, corrupted into naturalness, forgot to dissemble theirdelight.

  And Sebastian Bach (the especially adored of all really great musicians,and also, alas! of many priggish outsiders who don't know a single noteand can't remember a single tune) was well forgotten for the night; andwho were more enthusiastic than the two great players who had beenplaying Bach that evening? For these, at all events, were broad andcatholic and sincere, and knew what was beautiful, whatever its kind.

  "BONJOUR, SUZON!"]

  It was but a simple little song that Glorioli sang, as light and prettyas it could well be, almost worthy of the words it was written to, andthe words are De Musset's; and I love them so much I cannot resist thetemptation of setting them down here, for the mere sensuous delight ofwriting them, as though I had just composed them myself:

  "Bonjour, Suzon, ma fleur des bois! Es-tu toujours la plus jolie? Je reviens, tel que tu me vois, D'un grand voyage en Italie! Du paradis j'ai fait le tour-- J'ai fait des vers--j'ai fait l'amour.... Mais que t'importe! Mais que t'importe! Je passe devant ta maison: Ouvre ta porte! Ouvre ta porte! Bonjour, Suzon!

  "Je t'ai vue au temps des lilas. Ton cœur joyeux venait d'éclore, Et tu disais: 'je ne veux pas, Je ne veux pas qu'on m'aime encore.' Qu'as-tu fait depuis mon départ? Qui part trop tôt revient trop tard. Mais que m'importe? Mais que m'importe? Je passe devant ta maison: Ouvre ta porte! Ouvre ta porte! Bonjour, Suzon!"

  And when it began, and while it lasted, and after it was over, one feltreally sorry for all the other singers. And nobody sang any more thatnight; for Glorioli was tired, and wouldn't sing again, and none werebold enough or disinterested enough to sing after him.

  Some of my readers may remember that meteoric bird of song, who, thougha mere amateur, would condescend to sing for a hundred guineas in thesaloons of the great (as Monsieur Jourdain sold cloth); who would singstill better for love and glory in the studios of his friends.

  For Glorioli--the biggest, handsomest, and most distinguished-lookingJew that ever was--one of the Sephardim (one of the Seraphim!)--hailedfrom Spain, where he was junior partner in the great firm of Moralés,Peralés, Gonzalés & Glorioli, wine-merchants, Malaga. He travelled forhis own firm; his wine was good, and he sold much of it in England. Buthis voice would bring him far more gold in the month he spent here; forhis wines have been equalled--even surpassed--but there was no voicelike his anywhere in the world, and no more finished singer.

  Anyhow, his voice got into Little Billee's head more than any wine, andthe boy could talk of nothing else for days and weeks; and was soexuberant in his expressions of delight and gratitude that the greatsinger took a real fancy to him (especially when he was told that thisfervent boyish admirer was one of the greatest of English painters); andas a mark of his esteem, privately confided to him after supper thatevery century two human nightingales were born--only two! a male and afemale; and that he, Glorioli, was the representative "male rossignol ofthis soi-disant dix-neuvième siècle."

  "I can well believe that! And the female, your mate that should be--_larossignolle_, if there is such a word?" inquired Little Billee.

  "Ah! mon ami ... it was Alboni till la petite Adelina Patti came out ayear or two ago; and now it is _la Svengali_."

  "La Svengali?"

  "Oui, mon fy! You will hear her some day--et vous m'en direz desnouvelles!"

  "Why, you don't mean to say that she's got a better voice than MadameAlboni?"

  "Mon ami, an apple is an excellent thing--until you have tried a peach!Her voice to that of Alboni is as a peach to an apple--I give you myword of honor! but bah! the voice is a detail. It's what she does withit--it's incredible! it gives one cold all down the back! it drives youmad! it makes you weep hot tears by the spoonful! Ah! the tear, mon fy!tenez! I can draw everything but _that_! Ça n'est pas dans mes cordes!_I_ can only madden with _love_! But la Svengali!... And then, in themiddle of it all, prrrout!... she makes you laugh! Ah! le beau rire!faire rire avec des larmes plein les yeux--voilà qui me passe!... Monami, when I heard her it made me swear that even _I_ would never try tosing any more--it seemed _too_ absurd! and I kept my word for a month atleast--and you know, je sais ce que je vaux, moi!"

  "You are talking of la Svengali, I bet," said Signor Spartia.

  "Oui, parbleu! You have heard her?"

  "Yes--at Vienna last winter," rejoined the greatest singing-master inthe world. "J'en suis fou! hélas! I thought _I_ could teach a woman howto sing till I heard that blackguard Svengali's pupil. He has marriedher, they say!"

  A HUMAN NIGHTINGALE]
/>
  "That _blackguard_ Svengali!" exclaimed Little Billee ... "why, thatmust be a Svengali I knew in Paris--a famous pianist! a friend of mine!"

  "That's the man! also une fameuse crapule (sauf vot' respect); his realname is Adler; his mother was a Polish singer; and he was a pupil at theLeipsic Conservatorio. But he's an immense artist, and a greatsinging-master, to teach a woman like that! and such a woman! bellecomme un ange--mais bête comme un pot. I tried to talk to her--all shecan say is 'ja wohl,' or 'doch,' or 'nein,' or 'soh'! not a word ofEnglish or French or Italian, though she sings them, oh! but _divinely_!It is '_il bel canto_' come back to the world after a hundred years...."

  "But what voice is it?" asked Little Billee.

  "Every voice a mortal woman can have--three octaves--four! and of such aquality that people who can't tell one tune from another cry withpleasure at the mere sound of it directly they hear her; just likeanybody else. Everything that Paganini could do with his violin she doeswith her voice--only better--and what a voice! un vrai baume!"

  "Now I don't mind petting zat you are schbeaking of la Sfencali," saidHerr Kreutzer, the famous composer, joining in. "Quelle merfeille, hein?I heard her in St. Betersburg, at ze Vinter Balace. Ze vomen all ventmat, and pulled off zeir bearls and tiamonts and kave zem to her--venttown on zeir knees and gried and gissed her hants. She tit not say vunvort! She tit not efen schmile! Ze men schnifelled in ze gorners, andlooked at ze bictures, and tissempled--efen I, Johann Kreutzer! efen zeEmperor!"

  "You're joking," said Little Billee.

  "My vrent, I neffer choke ven I talk apout zinging. You vill hear herzum tay yourzellof, and you vill acree viz me zat zere are two classesof beoble who zing. In ze vun class, la Sfencali; in ze ozzer, all zeozzer zingers!"

  "And does she sing good music?"

  "I ton't know. _All_ music is koot ven _she_ zings it. I forket ze zong;I can only sink of ze zinger. Any koot zinger can zing a peautiful zongand kif bleasure, I zubboce! But I voot zooner hear la Sfencali zing ascale zan anypotty else zing ze most peautiful zong in ze vorldt--efenvun of my own! Zat is berhaps how zung ze crate Italian zingers of zelast century. It vas a lost art, and she has found it; and she must hafpecun to zing pefore she pecan to schpeak--or else she voot not haf hatze time to learn all zat she knows, for she is not yet zirty! She zingsin Paris in Ogdoper, Gott sei dank! and gums here after Christmas tozing at Trury Lane. Chullien kifs her ten sousand bounts!"

  "I wonder, now! Why, that must be the woman I heard at Warsaw two yearsago--or three," said young Lord Witlow. "It was at Count Siloszech's.He'd heard her sing in the streets, with a tall, black-bearded ruffian,who accompanied her on a guitar, and a little fiddling gypsy fellow. Shewas a handsome woman, with hair down to her knees, but stupid as an owl.She sang at Siloszech's, and all the fellows went mad and gave her theirwatches and diamond studs and gold scarf-pins. By gad! I never heard orsaw anything like it. I don't know much about music myself--couldn'ttell 'God Save the Queen' from 'Pop Goes the Weasel,' if the peopledidn't get up and stand and take their hats off; but I was as mad as therest--why, I gave her a little German silver vinaigrette I'd just boughtfor my wife; hanged if I didn't--and I was only just married, you know!It's the peculiar twang of her voice, I suppose!"

  And hearing all this, Little Billee made up his mind that life had stillsomething in store for him, since he would some day hear la Svengali.Anyhow, he wouldn't shoot himself till then!

  * * * * *

  Thus the night wore itself away. The Prinzessen, Comtessen, and SereneEnglish Altessen (and other ladies of less exalted rank) departed homein cabs and carriages; and hostess and daughters went to bed. Latesitters of the ruder sex supped again, and smoked and chatted andlistened to comic songs and recitations by celebrated actors. Nobledukes hobnobbed with low comedians; world-famous painters and sculptorssat at the feet of Hebrew capitalists and aitchless millionaires.Judges, cabinet ministers, eminent physicians, and warriors andphilosophers saw Sunday morning steal over Campden Hill and through themany windows of Mechelen Lodge, and listened to the pipe ofhalf-awakened birds, and smelled the freshness of the dark summer dawn.And as Taffy and the Laird walked home to the Old Hummums by daylight,they felt that last night was ages ago, and that since then they hadforegathered with "much there was of the best in London." And then theyreflected that "much there was of the best in London" were stillstrangers to them--except by reputation--for there had not been time formany introductions: and this had made them feel a little out of it; andthey found they hadn't had such a very good time after all. And therewere no cabs. And they were tired, and their boots were tight.

  And the last they had seen of Little Billee before leaving was a glimpseof their old friend in a corner of Lady Cornelys's boudoir, gravelyplaying cup-and-ball with Fred Walker for sixpences--both so rapt in thegame that they were unconscious of anything else, and both playing sowell (with either hand) that they might have been professionalchampions!

  And that saturnine young sawbones, Jakes Talboys (now Sir Jakes, and oneof the most genial of Her Majesty's physicians), who sometimes aftersupper and champagne was given to thoughtful, sympathetic, and acuteobservation of his fellow-men, remarked to the Laird in a whisper thatwas almost convivial: "Rather an enviable pair! Their united ages amountto forty-eight or so, their united weights to about fifteen stone, andthey couldn't carry you or me between them. But if you were to roll allthe other brains that have been under this roof to-night into one, youwouldn't reach the sum of their united genius.... I wonder which of thetwo is the most unhappy!"

  * * * * *

  * * * * *

  The season over, the song-birds flown, summer on the wane, his picture,the "Moon-Dial," sent to Moses Lyon's (the picture-dealer in ConduitStreet), Little Billee felt the time had come to go and see his motherand sister in Devonshire, and make the sun shine twice as brightly forthem during a month or so, and the dew fall softer!

  So one fine August morning found him at the Great Western Station--thenicest station in all London, I think--except the stations that book youto France and far away.

  It always seems so pleasant to be going west! Little Billee loved thatstation, and often went there for a mere stroll, to watch the peoplestarting on their westward way, following the sun towards Heaven knowswhat joys or sorrows, and envy them their sorrows or their joys--anysorrows or joys that were not merely physical, like a chocolate drop ora pretty tune, a bad smell or a toothache.

  And as he took a seat in a second-class carriage (it would be third inthese democratic days), south corner, back to the engine, with _SilasMarner_, and Darwin's _Origin of Species_ (which he was reading for thethird time), and _Punch_, and other literature of a lighter kind, tobeguile him on his journey, he felt rather bitterly how happy he couldbe if the little spot, or knot, or blot, or clot which paralyzed thatconvolution of his brain where he kept his affections could but beconjured away!

  The dearest mother, the dearest sister in the world, in the dearestlittle sea-side village (or town) that ever was! and other dearpeople--especially Alice, sweet Alice with hair so brown, his sister'sfriend, the simple, pure, and pious maiden of his boyish dreams: andhimself, but for that wretched little kill-joy cerebral occlusion, assound, as healthy, as full of life and energy as he had ever been!

  CUP-AND-BALL]

  And when he wasn't reading _Silas Marner_, or looking out of window atthe flying landscape, and watching it revolve round its middle distance(as it always seems to do), he was sympathetically taking stock of hisfellow-passengers, and mildly envying them, one after another,indiscriminately!

  A fat, old, wheezy philistine, with a bulbous nose and only one eye, whohad a plain, sickly daughter, to whom he seemed devoted, body and soul;an old lady, who still wept furtively at recollections of the partingwith her grandchildren, which had taken place at the station (they hadborne up wonderfully, as grandchildren do); a consumptive curate, on theopposite
corner seat by the window, whose tender, anxious wife (sittingby his side) seemed to have no thoughts in the whole world but for him;and her patient eyes were his stars of consolation, since he turned tolook into them almost every minute, and always seemed a little thehappier for doing so. There is no better star-gazing than that!

  So Little Billee gave her up _his_ corner seat, that the poor sufferermight have those stars where he could look into them comfortably withoutturning his head.

  Indeed (as was his wont with everybody), Little Billee made himselfuseful and pleasant to his fellow-travellers in many ways--so many thatlong before they had reached their respective journeys' ends they hadalmost grown to love him as an old friend, and longed to know who thissingularly attractive and brilliant youth, this genial, dainty,benevolent little princekin could possibly be, who was dressed sofashionably, and yet went second class, and took such kind thought ofothers; and they wondered at the happiness that must be his at merelybeing alive, and told him more of their troubles in six hours than theytold many an old friend in a year.

  But he told them nothing about himself--that self he was so sick of--andleft them to wonder.

  And at his own journey's end, the farthest end of all, he found hismother and sister waiting for him, in a beautiful littlepony-carriage--his last gift--and with them sweet Alice, and in hereyes, for one brief moment, that unconscious look of love surprisedwhich is not to be forgotten for years and years and years--which canonly be seen by the eyes that meet it, and which, for the time it lasts(just a flash), makes all women's eyes look exactly the same (I'm told):and it seemed to Little Billee that, for the twentieth part of a second,Alice had looked at him with Trilby's eyes--or his mother's, when thathe was a little tiny boy.

  It all but gave him the thrill he thirsted for! Another twentieth partof a second, perhaps, and his brain-trouble would have melted away; andLittle Billee would have come into his own again--the kingdom of love!

  A beautiful human eye! _Any_ beautiful eye--a dog's, a deer's, adonkey's, an owl's even! To think of all that it can look, and all thatit can see! all that it can even _seem_, sometimes! What a prince amonggems! what a star!

  But a beautiful eye that lets the broad white light of infinite space(so bewildering and garish and diffused) into one pure virgin heart, tobe filtered there! and lets it out again, duly warmed, softened,concentrated, sublimated, focussed to a point as in a precious stone,that it may shed itself (a love-laden effulgence) into some strayfellow-heart close by--through pupil and iris, entre quatre-z-yeux--thevery elixir of life!

  Alas! that such a crown-jewel should ever lose its lustre and go blind!

  Not so blind or dim, however, but it can still see well enough to lookbefore and after, and inward and upward, and drown itself in tears, andyet not die! And that's the dreadful pity of it. And this is a quiteuncalled-for digression and I can't think why I should have gone out ofmy way (at considerable pains) to invent it! In fact--

  "Of this here song, should I be axed the reason for to show, I don't exactly know, I don't exactly know! _But all my fancy dwells upon Nancy._" ...

  "How pretty Alice has grown, mother! quite lovely, I think! and so nice;but she was always as nice as she could be!"

  So observed Little Billee to his mother that evening as they sat in thegarden and watched the crescent moon sink to the Atlantic.

  "Ah! my darling Willie! If you _could_ only guess how happy you wouldmake your poor old mammy by growing fond of Alice.... And Blanche, too!what a joy for _her_!"

  "Good heavens! mother.... Alice is not for the likes of _me_! She's forsome splendid young Devon squire, six foot high, and acred andwhiskered within an inch of his life!..."

  "Ah, my darling Willie! you are not of those who ask for love invain.... If you only _knew_ how she believes in you! She almost beatsyour poor old mammy at _that_!"

  SWEET ALICE]

  And that night he dreamed of Alice--that he loved her as a sweet goodwoman should be loved; and knew, even in his dream, that it was but adream; but, oh! it was good! and he managed not to wake; and it was anight to be marked with a white stone! And (still in his dream) she hadkissed him, and healed him of his brain-trouble forever. But when hewoke next morning, alas! his brain-trouble was with him still, and hefelt that no dream kiss would ever cure it--nothing but a real kiss fromAlice's own pure lips!

  And he rose thinking of Alice, and dressed and breakfasted thinking ofher--and how fair she was, and how innocent, and how well and carefullytrained up the way she should go--the beau ideal of a wife.... Could shepossibly care for a shrimp like himself?

  For in his love of outward form he could not understand that any womanwho had eyes to see should ever quite condone the signs of physicalweakness in man, in favor of any mental gifts or graces whatsoever.

  Little Greek that he was, he worshipped the athlete, and opined that allwomen without exception--all English women especially--must see with thesame eyes as himself.

  He had once been vain and weak enough to believe in Trilby's love (witha Taffy standing by--a careless, unsusceptible Taffy, who was like untothe gods of Olympus!)--and Trilby had given him up at a word, ahint--for all his frantic clinging.

  She would not have given up Taffy, _pour si peu_, had Taffy but lifted alittle finger! It is always "just whistle, and I'll come to you, mylad!" with the likes of Taffy ... but Taffy hadn't even whistled! Yetstill he kept thinking of Alice--and he felt he couldn't think of herwell enough till he went out for a stroll by himself on a sheep-trimmeddown. So he took his pipe and his Darwin, and out he strolled into theearly sunshine--up the green Red Lane, past the pretty church, Alice'sfather's church--and there, at the gate, patiently waiting for hismistress, sat Alice's dog--an old friend of his, whose welcome was avery warm one.

  Little Billee thought of Thackeray's lovely poem in _Pendennis_:

  "She comes--she's here--she's past! May heaven go with her!..."

  Then he and the dog went on together to a little bench on the edge ofthe cliff--within sight of Alice's bedroom window. It was called "theHoneymooners' Bench."

  "That look--that look--that look! Ah--but Trilby had looked like that,too! And there are many Taffys in Devon!"

  He sat himself down and smoked and gazed at the sea below, which the sun(still in the east) had not yet filled with glare and robbed of thelovely sapphire-blue, shot with purple and dark green, that comes overit now and again of a morning on that most beautiful coast.

  There was a fresh breeze from the west, and the long, slow billows brokeinto creamier foam than ever, which reflected itself as a tender whitegleam in the blue concavities of their shining shoreward curves as theycame rolling in. The sky was all of turquoise but for the smoke of adistant steamer--a long thin horizontal streak of dun--and there werelittle brown or white sails here and there, dotting; and the statelyships went on....

  Little Billee tried hard to feel all this beauty with his heart as wellas his brain--as he had so often done when a boy--and cursed hisinsensibility out loud for at least the thousand and first time.

  Why couldn't these waves of air and water be turned into equivalentwaves of sound, that he might feel them through the only channel thatreached his emotions! That one joy was still left to him--but, alas!alas! he was only a painter of pictures--and not a maker of music!

  He recited "Break, break, break," to Alice's dog, who loved him, andlooked up into his face with sapient, affectionate eyes--and whosename, like that of so many dogs in fiction and so few in fact, wassimply Tray. For Little Billee was much given to monologues out loud,and profuse quotations from his favorite bards.

  Everybody quoted that particular poem either mentally or aloud when theysat on that particular bench--except a few old-fashioned people, whostill said,

  "Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll!"

  or people of the very highest culture, who only quoted the nascent (andcrescent) Robert Browning; or people of no culture at all, who simplyheld their tongues--and o
nly felt the more!

  Tray listened silently.

  "Ah, Tray, the best thing but one to do with the sea is to paint it. Thenext best thing to that is to bathe in it. The best of all is to lieasleep at the bottom. How would _you_ like that?

  "'And on thy ribs the limpet sticks, And in thy heart the scrawl shall play....'"

  Tray's tail became as a wagging point of interrogation, and he turnedhis head first on one side and then on the other--his eyes fixed onLittle Billee's, his face irresistible in its genial doggy wistfulness.

  "Tray, what a singularly good listener you are--and therefore whatsingularly good manners you've got! I suppose all dogs have!" saidLittle Billee; and then, in a very tender voice, he exclaimed,

  "Alice, Alice, Alice!"

  And Tray uttered a soft, cooing, nasal croon in his head register,though he was a barytone dog by nature, with portentous, warlikechest-notes of the jingo order.

  "Tray, your mistress is a parson's daughter, and therefore twice as muchof a mystery as any other woman in this puzzling world!

  "Tray, if my heart weren't stopped with wax, like the ears of thecompanions of Ulysses when they rowed past the sirens--you've heard ofUlysses, Tray? he loved a dog--if my heart weren't stopped with wax, Ishould be deeply in love with your mistress; perhaps she would marry meif I asked her--there's no accounting for tastes!--and I know enough ofmyself to know that I should make her a good husband--that I should makeher happy--and I should make two other women happy besides.

  "As for myself personally, Tray, it doesn't very much matter. One goodwoman would do as well as another, if she's equally good-looking. Youdoubt it? Wait till you get a pimple inside your bump of--your bumpof--wherever you keep your fondnesses, Tray.

  "For that's what's the matter with me--a pimple--just a little clot ofblood at the root of a nerve, and no bigger than a pin's point!

  "That's a small thing to cause such a lot of wretchedness, and wreck afellow's life, isn't it? Oh, curse it, curse it, curse it--every day andall day long!

  "And just as small a thing will take it away, I'm told!

  "Ah! grains of sand are small things--and so are diamonds! But diamondor grain of sand, only Alice has got that small thing! Alice alone, inall the world, has got the healing touch for me now; the hands, thelips, the eyes! I know it--I feel it! I dreamed it last night! Shelooked me well in the face, and took my hand--both hands--and kissed me,eyes and mouth, and told me how she loved me. Ah! what a dream it was!And my little clot melted away like a snow-flake on the lips, and I wasmy old self again, after many years--and all through that kiss of a purewoman.

  "I've never been kissed by a pure woman in my life--never! except by mydear mother and sister; and mothers and sisters don't count, when itcomes to kissing.

  "Ah! sweet physician that she is, and better than all! It will all comeback again with a rush, just as I dreamed, and we will have a good timetogether, we three!...

  "MAY HEAVEN GO WITH HER!"]

  "But your mistress is a parson's daughter, and believes everything she'sbeen taught from a child, just as you do--at least, I hope so. And Ilike her for it--and you too.

  "She has believed her father--will she ever believe me, who think sodifferently? And if she does, will it be good for her?--and then, wherewill her father come in?

  "Oh! it's a bad thing to live, and no longer believe and trust in yourfather, Tray! to doubt either his honesty or his intelligence. For he(with your mother to help) has taught you all the best he knows, if hehas been a good father--till some one else comes and teaches youbetter--or worse!

  "And, then, what are you to believe of what good still remains of allthat early teaching--and how are you to sift the wheat from thechaff?...

  "Kneel undisturbed, fair saint! I, for one, will never seek to underminethy faith in any father, on earth or above it!

  "Yes, there she kneels in her father's church, her pretty head bowedover her clasped hands, her cloak and skirts falling in happy foldsabout her: I see it all!

  "And underneath, that poor, sweet, soft, pathetic thing of flesh andblood, the eternal woman--great heart and slender brain--foreverenslaved or enslaving, never self-sufficing, never free ... that dear,weak, delicate shape, so cherishable, so perishable, that I've had topaint so often, and know so well by heart! and love ... ah, how I loveit! Only painter-fellows and sculptor-fellows can ever quite know thefulness of that pure love.

  "There she kneels and pours forth her praise or plaint, meekly and duly.Perhaps it's for me she's praying!

  "'Leave thou thy sister when she prays.'

  "She believes her poor little prayer will be heard and answeredsomewhere up aloft. The impossible will be done. She wants what shewants so badly, and prays for it so hard.

  "She believes--she believes--what _doesn't_ she believe, Tray?

  "The world was made in six days. It is just six thousand years old. Onceit all lay smothered under rain-water for many weeks, miles deep,because there were so many wicked people about somewhere down inJude_e_, where they didn't know everything! A costly kind of clearance!And then there was Noah, who _wasn't_ wicked, and his most respectablefamily, and his ark--and Jonah and his whale--and Joshua and the sun,and what not. I remember it all, you see, and, oh! such wonderful thingsthat have happened since! And there's everlasting agony for those whodon't believe as she does; and yet she is happy, and good, and verykind; for the mere thought of any live creature in pain makes herwretched!

  "After all, if she believes in me, she'll believe in anything; let her!

  "Indeed, I'm not sure that it's not rather ungainly for a pretty woman_not_ to believe in all these good old cosmic taradiddles, as it is fora pretty child not to believe in Little Red Riding-hood, and Jack andthe Beanstalk, and Morgiana and the Forty Thieves; we learn them at ourmother's knee, and how nice they are! Let us go on believing them aslong as we can, till the child grows up and the woman dies and it's allfound out.

  "Yes, Tray, I will be dishonest for her dear sake. I will kneel by herside, if ever I have the happy chance, and ever after, night andmorning, and all day long on Sundays if she wants me to! What will I_not_ do for that one pretty woman who believes in _me_? I will respecteven _that_ belief, and do my little best to keep it alive forever. Itis much too precious an earthly boon for _me_ to play ducks and drakeswith....

  "So much for Alice, Tray--your sweet mistress and mine.

  "But, then, there's Alice's papa--and that's another pair of sleeves, aswe say in France.

  "Ought one ever to play at make-believe with a full-grown man for anyconsideration whatever--even though he be a parson, and a possiblefather-in-law? _There's_ a case of conscience for you!

  "When I ask him for his daughter, as I must, and he asks me for myprofession of faith, as he will, what can I tell him? The truth?

  "But, then, what will _he_ say? What allowances will _he_ make for apoor little weak-kneed, well-meaning waif of a painter-fellow like me,whose only choice lay between Mr. Darwin and the Pope of Rome, and whohas chosen once and forever--and that long ago--before he'd ever evenheard of Mr. Darwin's name.

  "Besides, why should he make allowances for me? I don't for him. I thinkno more of a parson than he does of a painter-fellow--and that'sprecious little, I'm afraid.

  "What will he think of a man who says:

  "'Look here! the God of your belief isn't mine and never will be--but Ilove your daughter, and she loves me, and I'm the only man to make herhappy!'

  "He's no Jephthah; he's made of flesh and blood, although he's aparson--and loves his daughter as much as Shylock loved his.

  "Tell me, Tray--thou that livest among parsons--what man, not being aparson himself, can guess how a parson would think, an average parson,confronted by such a poser as that?

  "Does he, dare he, _can_ he ever think straight or simply on any subjectas any other man thinks, hedged in as he is by so many limitations?

  "He is as shrewd, vain, worldly, self-seeking, ambitious, jealous,censorious, an
d all the rest, as you or I, Tray--for all his Christianprofession--and just as fond of his kith and kin!

  "He is considered a gentleman--which perhaps you and I are not--unlesswe happen to behave as such; it is a condition of his noble calling.Perhaps it's in order to become a gentleman that he's become a parson!It's about as short a royal road as any to that enviable distinction--asshort almost as her Majesty's commission, and much safer, and much lessexpensive--within reach of the sons of most fairly successful butchersand bakers and candlestick-makers.

  "While still a boy he has bound himself irrevocably to certain beliefs,which he will be paid to preserve and preach and enforce through life,and act up to through thick and thin--at all events, in the eyes ofothers--even his nearest and dearest--even the wife of his bosom.

  "They are his bread and butter, these beliefs--and a man mustn't quarrelwith his bread and butter. But a parson must quarrel with those whodon't believe as he tells them!

  "'SO MUCH FOR ALICE, TRAY'"]

  "Yet a few years' thinking and reading and experience of life, one wouldsuppose, might possibly just shake his faith a little (just as though,instead of being parson, he had been tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor,gentleman, apothecary, ploughboy, thief), and teach him that many ofthese beliefs are simply childish--and some of them very wickedindeed--and most immoral.

  "It is very wicked and most immoral to believe, or affect to believe,and tell others to believe, that the unseen, unspeakable, unthinkableImmensity we're all part and parcel of, source of eternal, infinite,indestructible life and light and might, is a kind of wrathful,glorified, and self-glorifying ogre in human shape, with human passions,and most inhuman hates--who suddenly made us out of nothing, one fineday--just for a freak--and made us so badly that we fell the next--andturned us adrift the day after--damned us from the very beginning--_abovo--ab ovo usque ad malum_--ha, ha!--and ever since! never gave us achance!

  "All-merciful Father, indeed! Why, the Prince of Darkness was an angelin comparison (and a gentleman into the bargain).

  "Just think of it, Tray--a finger in every little paltry pie--an eye andan ear at every key-hole, even that of the larder, to catch us tripping,and find out if we're praising loud enough, or grovelling low enough, orfasting hard enough--poor god-forsaken worms!

  "And if we're naughty and disobedient, everlasting torment for us;torture of so hideous a kind that we wouldn't inflict it on the basestcriminal, not for one single moment!

  "Or else, if we're good and do as we are bid, an eternity of bliss sofutile, so idle, and so tame that we couldn't stand it for a week, butfor thinking of its one horrible alternative, and of our poor brotherfor ever and ever roasting away, and howling for the drop of water henever gets.

  "Everlasting flame, or everlasting dishonor--nothing between!

  "Isn't it ludicrous as well as pitiful--a thing to make one sniggerthrough one's tears? Isn't it a grievous sin to believe in such thingsas these, and go about teaching and preaching them, and being paid forit--a sin to be heavily chastised, and a shame? What a legacy!

  "They were shocking bad artists, those conceited, narrow-minded Jews,those poor old doting monks and priests and bigots of the grewsome, darkage of faith! They couldn't draw a bit--no perspective, nochiaro-oscuro; and it's a woful image they managed to evolve for us outof the depths of their fathomless ignorance, in their zeal to keep usoff all the forbidden fruit we're all so fond of, because we were builtlike that! And by whom? By our Maker, I suppose (who also made theforbidden fruit, and made it very nice--and put it so conveniently foryou and me to see and smell and reach, Tray--and sometimes even pick,alas!).

  "And even at that it's a failure. Only the very foolish little birds arefrightened into good behavior. The naughty ones laugh and wink at eachother, and pull out its hair and beard when nobody's looking, and buildtheir nests out of the straw it's stuffed with (the naughty little birdsin black, especially), and pick up what they want under its very nose,and thrive uncommonly well; and the good ones fly away out of sight; andsome day, perhaps, find a home in some happy, useful father-land faraway, where the Father isn't a bit like this. Who knows?

  "And I'm one of the good little birds, Tray--at least, I hope so. Andthat unknown Father lives in me whether I will or no, and I love Himwhether He be or not, just because I can't help it, and with the bestand bravest love that can be--the perfect love that believeth no evil,and seeketh no reward, and casteth out fear. For I'm His father as muchas He's mine, since I've conceived the thought of Him after my ownfashion!

  "And He lives in you too, Tray--you and all your kind. Yes, good dog,you king of beasts, I see it in your eyes....

  "Ah, bon Dieu Père, le Dieu des bonnes gens! Oh! if we only knew for_certain_, Tray! what martyrdom would we not endure, you and I, with ahappy smile and a grateful heart--for sheer _love_ of such a father! Howlittle should _we_ care for the things of this earth!

  "But the poor parson?

  "He must willy-nilly go on believing, or affecting to believe, just ashe is told, _word for word_, or else good-bye to his wife and children'sbread and butter, his own preferment, perhaps even his verygentility--that gentility of which his Master thought so little, and heand his are apt to think so much--with possibly the Archbishopric ofCanterbury at the end of it, the bâton de maréchal that lies in everyclerical knapsack.

  "What a temptation! one is but human!

  "So how can he be honest without believing certain things, to believewhich (without shame) one must be as simple as a little child; as,by-the-way, he is so cleverly told to be in these matters, and socleverly tells us--and so seldom is himself in any other matterwhatever--his own interests, other people's affairs, the world, theflesh, and the devil! And that's clever of him too....

  "And if he chooses to be as simple as a little child, why shouldn't Itreat him as a little child, for his own good, and fool him to the topof his little bent for his dear daughter's sake, that I may make herhappy, and thereby him too?

  "And if he's _not_ quite so simple as all that, and makes artful littlecompromises with his conscience--for a good purpose, of course--whyshouldn't I make artful little compromises with mine, and for a betterpurpose still, and try to get what I want in the way _he_ does? I wantto marry his daughter far worse than he can ever want to live in apalace, and ride in a carriage and pair with a mitre on the panels.

  "If he _cheats_, why shouldn't I cheat too?

  "If _he_ cheats, he cheats everybody all round--the wide, wide world,and something wider and higher still that can't be measured, somethingin himself. _I_ only cheat _him_!

  "_If_ he cheats, he cheats for the sake of very worldly thingsindeed--tithes, honors, influence, power, authority, socialconsideration and respect--not to speak of bread and butter! _I_ onlycheat for the love of a lady fair--and cheating for cheating, I like mycheating best.

  "So, whether he cheats or not, I'll--

  "Confound it! what would old Taffy do in such a case, I wonder?...

  "Oh, bother! it's no good wondering what old Taffy would do.

  "Taffy never wants to marry _anybody's_ daughter; he doesn't even wantto paint her! He only wants to paint his beastly ragamuffins and thievesand drunkards, and be left alone.

  "Besides, Taffy's as simple as a little child himself, and couldn't foolany one, and wouldn't if he could--not even a parson. But if any onetries to fool _him_, my eyes! don't he cut up rough, and call names, andkick up a shindy, and even knock people down! That's the worst offellows like Taffy. They're too good for this world and too solemn.They're impossible, and lack all sense of humor. In point of fact,Taffy's a _gentleman_--poor fellow! _et puis voilà!_

  "I'm not simple--worse luck; and I can't knock people down--I only wishI could! I can only paint them! and not even _that_ 'as they reallyare!' ... Good old Taffy!...

  "Faint heart never won fair lady!

  "Oh, happy, happy thought--I'll be brave and win!

  "I can't knock people down, or do doughty deeds, but I'll be brave in myown li
ttle way--the only way I can....

  "I'll simply lie through thick and thin--I must--I will--nobody needever be a bit the wiser! I can do more good by lying than by telling thetruth, and make more deserving people happy, including myself and thesweetest girl alive--the end shall justify the means: that's my excuse,my only excuse! and this lie of mine is on so stupendous a scale that itwill have to last me for life. It's my only one, but its name is _Lion_!and I'll never tell another as long as I live.

  "And now that I know what temptation really is, I'll never think anyharm of any parson any more ... never, never, never!"

  So the little man went on, as if he knew all about it, had found it allout for himself, and nobody else had ever found it out before! and I amnot responsible for his ways of thinking (which are not necessarily myown).

  It must be remembered, in extenuation, that he was very young, and notvery wise: no philosopher, no scholar--just a painter of lovelypictures; only that and nothing more. Also, that he was reading Mr.Darwin's immortal book for the third time, and it was a little toostrong for him; also, that all this happened in the early sixties, longere Religion had made up her mind to meet Science half-way, and hobnoband kiss and be friends. Alas! before such a lying down of the lion andthe lamb can ever come to pass, Religion will have to perform a largershare of the journey than half, I fear!

  Then, still carried away by the flood of his own eloquence (for he hadnever had such an innings as this, no such a listener), he againapostrophized the dog Tray, who had been growing somewhat inattentive(like the reader, perhaps), in language more beautiful than ever:

  "Oh, to be like you, Tray--and secrete love and good-will from morn tillnight, from night till morning--like saliva, without effort! with nevera moment's cessation of flow, even in disgrace and humiliation! How muchbetter to love than to be loved--to love as you do, my Tray--so warmly,so easily, so unremittingly--to forgive all wrongs and neglect andinjustice so quickly and so well--and forget a kindness never! Lucky dogthat you are!

  "'Oh! could I feel as I have felt, or be as I have been, Or weep as I could once have wept, o'er many a vanished scene, As springs in deserts found seem sweet, all brackish tho' they be, So 'midst this withered waste of life those tears would flow to me!'

  "What do you think of those lines, Tray? I _love_ them, because mymother taught them to me when I was about your age--six years old, orseven! and before the bard who wrote them had fallen; like Lucifer, sonof the morning! Have you ever heard of Lord Byron, Tray? He too, likeUlysses, loved a dog, and many people think that's about the best thereis to be said of him nowadays! Poor Humpty Dumpty! Such a swell as heonce was! 'Not all the king's horses, nor all the--'"

  Here Tray jumped up suddenly and bolted--he saw some one else he wasfond of, and ran to meet him. It was the vicar, coming out of hisvicarage.

  A very nice-looking vicar--fresh, clean, alert, well tanned by sun andwind and weather--a youngish vicar still; tall, stout, gentlemanlike,shrewd, kindly, wordly, a trifle pompous, and authoritative more than atrifle; not much given to abstract speculation, and thinking fifty timesmore of any sporting and orthodox young country squire, well-inched andwell-acred (and well-whiskered), than of all the painters inChristendom.

  "'When Greeks joined Greeks, then was the tug of war,'" thought LittleBillee; and he felt a little uncomfortable. Alice's father had neverloomed so big and impressive before, or so distressingly nice to lookat.

  "Welcome, my Apelles, to your ain countree, which is growing quite proudof you, I declare! Young Lord Archie Waring was saying only last nightthat he wished he had half your talent! He's _crazed_ about painting,you know, and actually wants to be a painter himself! The poor dear oldmarquis is quite sore about it!"

  With this happy exordium the parson stopped and shook hands; and theyboth stood for a while, looking seaward. The parson said the usualthings about the sea--its blueness; its grayness; its greenness; itsbeauty; its sadness; its treachery.

  "'Who shall put forth on thee, Unfathomable sea!'"

  "Who indeed!" answered Little Billee, quite agreeing. "I vote _we_don't, at all events." So they turned inland.

  The parson said the usual things about the land (from thecountry-gentleman's point of view), and the talk began to flow quitepleasantly, with quoting of the usual poets, and capping of quotationsin the usual way--for they had known each other many years, both hereand in London. Indeed, the vicar had once been Little Billee's tutor.

  And thus, amicably, they entered a small wooded hollow. Then the vicar,turning of a sudden his full blue gaze on the painter, asked, sternly:

  "What book's that you've got in your hand, Willie?"

  "A--a--it's the _Origin of Species_, by Charles Darwin. I'm veryf-f-fond of it. I'm reading it for the third time.... It's veryg-g-good. It _accounts_ for things, you know."

  Then, after a pause, and still more sternly:

  "What place of worship do you most attend in London--especially of anevening, William?"

  Then stammered Little Billee, all self-control forsaking him:

  "I d-d-don't attend any place of worship at all, morning, afternoon, orevening. I've long given up going to church altogether. I can only befrank with you; I'll tell you why...."

  And as they walked along the talk drifted on to very momentous subjectsindeed, and led, unfortunately, to a serious falling out--for whichprobably both were to blame--and closed in a distressful way at theother end of the little wooded hollow--a way most sudden and unexpected,and quite grievous to relate. When they emerged into the open the parsonwas quite white, and the painter crimson.

  "Sir," said the parson, squaring himself up to more than his full heightand breadth and dignity, his face big with righteous wrath, his voicefull of strong menace--"sir, you're--you're a--you're a _thief_, sir, a_thief_! You're trying to _rob me of my Saviour_! Never you dare todarken _my_ door-step again!"

  "Sir," said Little Billee, with a bow, "if it comes to calling names,you're--you're a--no; you're Alice's father; and whatever else you arebesides, I'm another for trying to be honest with a parson sogood-morning to you."

  And each walked off in an opposite direction, stiff as pokers; and Traystood between, looking first at one receding figure, then at theother, disconsolate.

  "'YOU'RE A _THIEF_, SIR!'"]

  And thus Little Billee found out that he could no more lie than he couldfly. And so he did not marry sweet Alice after all, and no doubt it wasordered for her good and his. But there was tribulation for many days inthe house of Bagot, and for many months in one tender, pure, and piousbosom.

  And the best and the worst of it all is that, not very many years after,the good vicar--more fortunate than most clergymen who dabble in stocksand shares--grew suddenly very rich through a lucky speculation in Irishbeer, and suddenly, also, took to thinking seriously about things (as aman of business should)--more seriously than he had ever thought before.So at least the story goes in North Devon, and it is not so new as to beincredible. Little doubts grew into big ones--big doubts resolvedthemselves into downright negations. He quarrelled with his bishop; hequarrelled with his dean; he even quarrelled with his "poor dear oldmarquis," who died before there was time to make it up again. Andfinally he felt it his duty, in conscience, to secede from a Churchwhich had become too narrow to hold him, and took himself and hisbelongings to London, where at least he could breathe. But there he fellinto a great disquiet, for the long habit of feeling himself always _enévidence_--of being looked up to and listened to without contradictionof exercising influence and authority in spiritual matters (and eventemporal); of impressing women, especially, with his commandingpresence, his fine sonorous voice, his lofty brow, so serious andsmooth, his soft, big, waving hands, which soon lost their countrytan--all this had grown as a second nature to him, the breath of hisnostrils, a necessity of his life. So he rose to be the most popularUnitarian preacher of his day, and pretty broad at that.

  But his dear daughter Alice, she stuck to the ol
d faith, and married avenerable High-Church archdeacon, who very cleverly clutched at andcaught her and saved her for himself just as she stood shivering on thevery brink of Rome; and they were neither happy nor unhappytogether--_un ménage bourgeois, ni beau ni laid, ni bon ni mauvais_. Andthus, alas! the bond of religious sympathy, that counts for so much inunited families, no longer existed between father and daughter, and theheart's division divided them. _Ce que c'est que de nous!_ ... The pityof it!

  And so no more of sweet Alice with hair so brown.