Henry James

“ Heaven forbid I should take you for anything so dreadful! You came down to perform a little act of sympathy, and so, I may confide to you, did I. Let us perform our little act together. These pages overflow with the testimony we want: let us read them and taste them and interpret them. You’ll of course have perceived for yourself that one scarcely does read Neil Paraday till one reads him aloud; he gives out to the ear an extraordinary full tone, and it’s only when you expose it confidently to that test that you really get near his style. ”

“ Rumble’s picture, and had my bottled resentment ready when, later on, I found my distracted friend had been stuffed by Mrs. Wimbush into the mouth of another cannon. A young artist in whom she was intensely interested, and who had no connexion with Mr. Rumble, was to show how far he could make him go. Poor Paraday, in return, was naturally to write something somewhere about the young artist. She played her victims against each other with admirable ingenuity, and her establishment was a huge machine in which the tiniest and the biggest wheels went round to the same treadle. ”

“ Producing with extreme rapidity, Guy Walsingham has just published a work in which amiable people who are not initiated have been pained to see the genius of a sister-novelist held up to unmistakeable ridicule; so fresh an exhibition does it seem to them of the dreadful way men have always treated women. Dora Forbes, it’s true, at the present hour, is immensely pushed by Mrs. Wimbush and has sat for his portrait to the young artists she protects, sat for it not only in oils but in monumental alabaster. ”

“ At any rate I saw she had an individual patience and a lovely frock, together with an expression that played among her pretty features like a breeze among flowers. Putting her book on the table she showed me a massive album, showily bound and full of autographs of price. The collection of faded notes, of still more faded “thoughts,” of quotations, platitudes, signatures, represented a formidable purpose.
I could only disclose my dread of it. “Most people apply to Mr. Paraday by letter, you know.” ”

“ Wimbush would never forgive him if he should leave her before the Princess has received the last hand. When I hint that a violent rupture with our hostess would be the best thing in the world for him he gives me to understand that if his reason assents to the proposition his courage hangs woefully back. He makes no secret of being mortally afraid of her, and when I ask what harm she can do him that she hasn’t already done he simply repeats: ‘I’m afraid, I’m afraid! Don’t enquire too closely,’ he said last night; ‘only believe that I feel a sort of terror. It’s strange, when she’s so kind! ”

“ Wimbush thinks she can answer that question, and as my want of gaiety has at last worn out her patience she has given me a glimpse of her shrewd guess. I’m made restless by the selfishness of the insincere friend—I want to monopolise Paraday in order that he may push me on. To be intimate with him is a feather in my cap; it gives me an importance that I couldn’t naturally pretend to, and I seek to deprive him of social refreshment because I fear that meeting more disinterested people may enlighten him as to my real motive. ”

“ I said. “The way to get at his life is to—But wait a moment!” I broke off and went quickly into the house, whence I in three minutes reappeared before Mr. Morrow with the two volumes of Paraday’s new book. “His life’s here,” I went on, “and I’m so full of this admirable thing that I can’t talk of anything else. The artist’s life’s his work, and this is the place to observe him. What he has to tell us he tells us with this perfection. My dear sir, the best interviewer is the best reader.” ”

“ In a moment I saw what had happened: the author of “The Other Way Round” had just alighted at the portals of Prestidge, but had suffered a scruple to restrain him from penetrating further. I recognised his scruple when, pausing to listen at his gesture of caution, I heard a shrill voice lifted in a sort of rhythmic uncanny chant. The famous reading had begun, only it was the author of “Obsessions” who now furnished the sacrifice. ”

“ The confidence of young Americans was notorious, and I speedily arrived at a conviction that no impulse could have been more generous than the impulse that had operated here. I foresaw at that moment that it would make her my peculiar charge, just as circumstances had made Neil Paraday. She would be another person to look after, so that one’s honour would be concerned in guiding her straight. ”

“ I positively feel my own flesh sore from the brass nails in Neil Paraday’s social harness. The house is full of people who like him, as they mention, awfully, and with whom his talent for talking nonsense has prodigious success. ”

“ Paraday, the celebrated author, is again in the enjoyment of excellent health.’ Somehow I shouldn’t like to see it.”
“You won’t see it; I’m not in the least celebrated—my obscurity protects me. But couldn’t you bear even to see I was dying or dead?” my host enquired.
“Dead—passe encore; there’s nothing so safe. One never knows what a living artist may do—one has mourned so many. However, one must make the worst of it. You must be as dead as you can.” ”

“ Morrow good-humouredly protested. “Do you mean to say that no other source of information should be open to us?”
“None other till this particular one—by far the most copious—has been quite exhausted. Have you exhausted it, my dear sir? Had you exhausted it when you came down here? It seems to me in our time almost wholly neglected, and something should surely be done to restore its ruined credit. It’s the course to which the artist himself at every step, and with such pathetic confidence, refers us. This last book of Mr. Paraday’s is full of revelations.” ”

“ There’s no author about whom I’m in such a state as I’m in about Neil Paraday.”
“Permit me to remark then,” I presently returned, “that you’re one of the right sort.”
“One of the enthusiasts? Of course I am!”
“Oh there are enthusiasts who are quite of the wrong. I mean you’re one of those to whom an appeal can be made.”
“An appeal?” Her face lighted as if with the chance of some great sacrifice.
If she was ready for one it was only waiting for her, and in a moment I mentioned it. “Give up this crude purpose of seeing him! Go away without it. That will be far better.” ”

“ The Princess is a massive lady with the organisation of an athlete and the confusion of tongues of a valet de place. She contrives to commit herself extraordinarily little in a great many languages, and is entertained and conversed with in detachments and relays, like an institution which goes on from generation to generation or a big building contracted for under a forfeit. ”

“ Morrow, to betray, I must remain as long as possible to save. Not because I had brought my mind back, but because our visitors last words were in my ear, I presently enquired with gloomy irrelevance if Guy Walsingham were a woman.
“Oh yes, a mere pseudonym—rather pretty, isn’t it?—and convenient, you know, for a lady who goes in for the larger latitude. ‘Obsessions, by Miss So-and-so,’ would look a little odd, but men are more naturally indelicate. Have you peeped into ‘Obsessions’?” Mr. Morrow continued sociably to our companion. ”

“ Lady Augusta went off after breakfast, assuring me her first care would be to follow up the lost manuscript. I can see she thinks me a shocking busybody and doesn’t understand my alarm, but she’ll do what she can, for she’s a good-natured woman. ‘So are they all honourable men.’ That was precisely what made her give the thing to Lord Dorimont and made Lord Dorimont bag it. What use he has for it God only knows. I’ve the worst forebodings, but somehow I’m strangely without passion—desperately calm. ”

“ His visitor paid no heed to his withdrawal; but opened out the note-book with a more fatherly pat. “Dora Forbes, I gather, takes the ground, the same as Guy Walsingham’s, that the larger latitude has simply got to come. He holds that it has got to be squarely faced. Of course his sex makes him a less prejudiced witness. But an authoritative word from Mr. Paraday—from the point of view of his sex, you know—would go right round the globe. He takes the line that we haven’t got to face it?” ”

“ There’s a great interest always felt in the scene of an author’s labours. Sometimes we’re favoured with very delightful peeps. Dora Forbes showed me all his table-drawers, and almost jammed my hand into one into which I made a dash! I don’t ask that of you, but if we could talk things over right there where he sits I feel as if I should get the keynote.”
I had no wish whatever to be rude to Mr. Morrow, I was much too initiated not to tend to more diplomacy ”

“ You think of more and more all the while. That’s what makes you, if you’ll pardon my familiarity, so respectable. At a time when so many people are spent you come into your second wind. But, thank God, all the same, you’re better! Thank God, too, you’re not, as you were telling me yesterday, ‘successful.’ If you weren’t a failure what would be the use of trying? That’s my one reserve on the subject of your recovery—that it makes you ‘score,’ as the newspapers say. It looks well in the newspapers, and almost anything that does that’s horrible. ”

“ Paraday. But the poor man, without catching the allusion, excused himself, pleading that, though greatly honoured by his visitor’s interest, he suddenly felt unwell and should have to take leave of him—have to go and lie down and keep quiet. His young friend might be trusted to answer for him, but he hoped Mr. Morrow didn’t expect great things even of his young friend. His young friend, at this moment, looked at Neil Paraday with an anxious eye, greatly wondering if he were doomed to be ill again ”

“ Fortunately I’ve a devoted associate in the person of a young lady who has every day a fresh indignation and a fresh idea, and who maintains with intensity that the prize will still turn up. Sometimes I believe her, but I’ve quite ceased to believe myself. The only thing for us at all events is to go on seeking and hoping together ”

“ The conscience of these people is like a summer sea. They haven’t time to look over a priceless composition; they’ve only time to kick it about the house. I suggested that the ‘man,’ fired with a noble emulation, had perhaps kept the work for his own perusal; and her ladyship wanted to know whether, if the thing shouldn’t reappear for the grand occasion appointed by our hostess, the author wouldn’t have something else to read that would do just as well. ”

“ Somebody else presently finds it and transfers it, with its air of momentary desolation, to another piece of furniture. Every one’s asking every one about it all day, and every one’s telling every one where they put it last. ”

“ It’s indeed inveterately against himself that he makes his imagination act. What a pity he has such a lot of it! He’s too beastly intelligent. Besides, the famous reading’s still to come off, and it has been postponed a day to allow Guy Walsingham to arrive. It appears this eminent lady’s staying at a house a few miles off, which means of course that Mrs. Wimbush has forcibly annexed her. She’s to come over in a day or two—Mrs. Wimbush wants her to hear Mr. Paraday.
“To-day’s wet and cold, and several of the company, at the invitation of the Duke, have driven over to luncheon at Bigwood. ”

“ It does Mrs. Wimbush, however, for she has consented to his remaining in bed so that he may be all right to-morrow for the listening circle. Guy Walsingham’s already on the scene, and the Doctor for Paraday also arrived early. I haven’t yet seen the author of ‘Obsessions,’ but of course I’ve had a moment by myself with the Doctor. I tried to get him to say that our invalid must go straight home—I mean to-morrow or next day; but he quite refuses to talk about the future. Absolute quiet and warmth and the regular administration of an important remedy are the points he mainly insists on. ”

“ Morrow so settled himself I felt he had taken official possession and that there was no undoing it. One had heard of unfortunate people’s having “a man in the house,” and this was just what we had. There was a silence of a moment, during which we seemed to acknowledge in the only way that was possible the presence of universal fate; the sunny stillness took no pity, and my thought, as I was sure Paraday’s was doing, performed within the minute a great distant revolution. I saw just how emphatic I should make my rejoinder to Mr. Pinhorn, and that having come, like Mr. ”

“ I’ve a strong impression, too, that the second volume is lost—has been packed in the bag of some departing guest; and yet everybody has the impression that somebody else has read to the end. You see therefore that the beautiful book plays a great part in our existence. ”

“ The Tatler published a charming chatty familiar account of Mr. Paraday’s “Home-life,” and on the wings of the thirty-seven influential journals it went, to use Mr. Morrow’s own expression, right round the globe.
CHAPTER VI.
A week later, early in May, my glorified friend came up to town, where, it may be veraciously recorded he was the king of the beasts of the year. No advancement was ever more rapid, no exaltation more complete, no bewilderment more teachable. ”

“ I should premise that at breakfast the news that our brilliant friend was doing well excited universal complacency, and the Princess graciously remarked that he was only to be commiserated for missing the society of Miss Collop. ”