Oliver Onions

“ Perry smoked cigarettes as he worked at it; and as he continued to twit Millington that his interminable running mouldings might proceed from machines, Millington, in his heart of hearts, could not see that a machine could not also be devised that would turn out such work as Perry’s. He helped Perry to cast the Sorrow in plaster and to paint it to the hue of green bronze, the hue of the lichens of the fragments of the courtyard. ”

“ Here, on warm afternoons, red-shawled old women knitted in the sun and nurses tended children with crutches or cramp-irons on their legs. From the upper windows of his house behind the studio Millington could look forth on the Hospital lawns; and seldom a fine afternoon passed but he left the studio and passed up to his small sitting-room at the hour when Nurse Hemsley issued from the low doorway with her arm about the peevish old woman who dragged one foot in a semicircle. ”

“ The Gothic saves me from that.”
Perry deprecated his own Gold Medal and Travelling Scholarship. “You don’t give yourself a chance, man,” he urged. “Why don’t you experiment? If you can’t get very far wrong in the Gothic, why,”—he added, triumphantly,—“you can’t get very right either!”
Millington looked sorrowfully at him. “I only want never to get very far wrong, Perry.”
“But, hang it, there’s a Universal Principle—Compensation, you know—which means, my dear chap, that the man who is capable of the greatest heights is also capable of the lowest falls.” ”

“ Perry’s own work consisted of a series of orgasms, and in the intervals of prostration he was always irritable.
“Good Heavens, man!” he exclaimed one morning, as Millington began the day with his rule and callipers: “that cookery-book business again! all absolutely alike—a straight line, then a break, then the little tuck-away. Haven’t you a soul?”
“What do you say, Perry?” Millington inquired gently, taking the cherrywood pipe from his lips.
“To the artist, each fresh task should be a fresh wonder and problem; not that. ... Haven’t you a soul?” ”

“ Perry’s talk was of the vital relationship Art should bear to life as it is; and since Millington could never fully reckon up what life as it is, after all, consisted of, the effect of Perry’s truths on him was to bewilder him still further and to make him rumple his prematurely grizzled hair the more. The only Gothic thing about Perry was his own fair, centrally-parted hair ”

“ Looking up, his eyes met the quiet grey eyes of Nurse Hemsley. He removed his hat; but she did not pass on, and he stood with the hat in his hand.
“I have met you luckily,” a contralto voice said; “I want to see you about one of our old women who died the other day.”
Millington had missed the ill-natured old woman: he murmured something, and the nurse continued:
“‘Who dragged her foot’?—Yes, that one: of course; you can see from your premises. ... Her daughter, who is the wife of a tallow-chandler in the town, wants to provide a tombstone. ”

“ Why don’t you set to work and do something?”
There was a beseeching look in Millington’s brown eyes, but Perry did not heed it. He began again to talk.
And as he talked, Millington, clutching his hair, reflected that he could get rid of Perry,—but then, Perry might be right. The horrible blank opened again before him. Perry continued the wise charming, and then began to whistle. Millington rose heavily. Whether Perry was right or wrong, to waste time was certainly a sin. A piece of leaden piping lay at his elbow, and he bent it into a loop and straightened it again. He bent it again ”

“ It seemed that she was able to divine what it was she had given him, for her head was very low and the colour flashed brighter in her cheeks.
“You would not take that away?” he murmured, close to her.
“I would not.”
“Then, Helen ... oh for a Gothic in speech, for I am a fool without it ... then? ...”
“I do not consider you a fool,” she answered simply, “nor shall you yourself.”
“Not a fool?” ”

“ Millington replied gravely; and he thought again of what she called the picturesque part of her occupation, and of the other mean and thankless requirements that were not picturesque. It seemed a beauty past the comprehension of Perry that she should devote her life to them; perhaps it was the secret of the peace in her tranquil eyes.
And then, as she began to move about again, a daring resolution took shape in Millington’s mind. The bust stood on the tripod, covered with the wet cloths, and Miss Hemsley was approaching it. Should he? ... ”

“ The longest-living author of this work died in 1961, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 62 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. ”