Robert W. Chambers

“ He stuck.
“Yes, Briggs,” softly suggested the poet, spraying the night air with more sweetness.
“Briggs has spoken to you about—about your daughter Vanessa. You see, Briggs is my closest friend; his happiness is—er—important to me. I want to see Briggs happy; that’s why I want to stay here, just to see Briggs happy. I—I love Briggs. You understand me, don’t you, Mr. Guilford?”
The poet breathed a dulcet breath. “Perfectly,” he murmured. “The contemplation of Mr. Briggs’ happiness eliminates all thoughts of self within you. By this process of elimination you arrive at happiness yourself. ”

“ Meanwhile the poet’s rich, resonant voice filled the studio with an agreeable and rambling monotone:
“Verse is a vehicle for expression; expression is a vehicle for verse; sound, in itself, is so subtly saturated with meaning that it requires nothing of added logic for its vindication. Sound, therefore, is sense, modified by the mysterious portent of tone. Thank you for understanding, thank you for a thought—very, very precious, a thought beautiful.” ”

“ Is that what you mean?”
“No!” said the poet softly, “no, George, that is not what I mean. Wealth is a great thing. Only the little things are precious to me. And the most precious of all is absolutely nothing!” But, as he wandered away into the great luxurious habitation of his son-in-law, his smile grew sweeter and sweeter and his half-closed eyes swam, melting into a saccharine reverie.
“The little things,” he murmured, thumbing 99 the air absently—“the little things are precious, but not as precious as absolutely nothing. For nothing is perfection. ”

“ Chlorippe, twelve, and Philodice, thirteen, yawned, pink-mouthed, sleepy-eyed; Dione, fourteen, laid her golden head on the shoulder of Aphrodite, fifteen.
The finger-tips of Lissa and Harrow still touched, scarcely clinging; they had turned toward one another when the curtain fell. But the play, to them, had been a pantomime of silhouettes, the stage, a void edged with flame—the scene, the audience, the theater, the poet himself as unreal and meaningless as the shadowy 76 attitudes of the shapes that vanished when the phantom curtain closed its folds. ”

“ Guilford,” he said, “I wonder 90 whether this note—and my answer to it—concerns you.”
The poet used his handkerchief, adjusted a pair of glasses, and blinked at the penciled scrawl. Twice he read it; then, like the full sun breaking through a drizzle—like the glory of a search-light dissolving a sticky fog, the smile of smiles illuminated everything: footmen, messenger, financier.
“Thank you,” he said thickly; “thank you for your thought. Thought is but a trifle to bestow—a little thing in itself. ”

“ You ask me what is Art. I will tell you; it is this!” And the poet, inverting his thumb, pressed it into the air. Then, carefully inspecting the dent he had made in the atmosphere, he erased it with a gesture and folded his arms, looking gravely at Harrow, whose fascinated eyes protruded.
Behind him Lethbridge whispered hoarsely, “I told you how it would be in the New Arts Theater. I told you a young man alone was likely to get spoken to. Now those six girls know you’re a broker!” ”

“ The lone note of a piano broke the thread of the sweetest, maddest discourse Harrow had ever listened to; the girl’s cheeks flushed and she turned expectantly toward the curtained stage. Again the lone note, thumped vigorously, sounded a staccato monotone.
“Precious—very precious,” breathed the poet, closing his eyes in a sort of fatty ecstasy. ”

“ Oh, you can’t imagine how many attractive men I see every day in New York—and I should like to know them all—and many do look at me as though they would like it, too; but Mr. Wayne is so queer, and so are father and Mr. Briggs—about my speaking to people in public places. They have told me not to, but I—I—thought I would,” she ended, smiling. ”

“ Her attitude was almost prayerful; her eyes burned.
“Art,” continued the poet, opening his heavy lids with a large, sweet smile, “Art 55 is above Art, but Art is never below Art. Art, to be Art, must be artless. That is a very precious thought—very, very precious. Thank you for understanding me—thank you.” And he included in his large smile young Harrow, who had been unconsciously bending forward, hypnotized by the monotonous resonance of the poet’s deep, rich voice.
Now that the spell was broken, he sank back in his chair, looking at Lethbridge a little wildly. ”

“ Would you mind getting me a hansom?”
“The one next to me has them all pinched to death,” breathed Harrow unsteadily. “Look!—when she isn’t looking. Did you ever see such eyes and mouth—such a superb free poise——”
“Sh-sh-h-h!” muttered Lethbridge, “the bell-mule is talking to them.”
“Art,” said the poet, leaning over to look along the line of fragrant, fresh young beauty, “Art is an art.” ”

“ She checked Aphrodite, looked wisely around at her lovely sisters, then turned to remount the stairs, summoning them with a gay little confidential gesture.
And when the breathless crew had trooped after her, and the pad of little, eager, sandaled feet had died away on the thick rugs of the landing above, the poet, clasping his fat white hands, thumbs joined, across his rotund abdomen, stole a glance at his dazed son-in-law, which was partly apprehensive and partly significant, almost cunning. “An innocent saturnalia,” he murmured. “The charming abandon of children.” ”

“ Thank you.”
“Dear friend,” said the poet in an artistically-modulated whisper, “I have long, long followed you in the high course of your career. To me the priceless simplicity of poverty: to you the responsibility for millions. To me the daisy, the mountain stream, the woodchuck 82 and my Art! To you the busy mart, the haunts of men, the ship of finance laden with a nation’s wealth, the awful burden of millions for which you are answerable to One higher!” ”

“ The curtain rose very, very slowly, upon the first scene of Barnard Haw’s masterpiece of satire; and the lovely firing-line quivered, blue 63 batteries opening very wide, lips half parted in breathless anticipation. And about that time Harrow almost expired as a soft, impulsive hand closed nervously over his.
And there, upon the stage, the human species was delicately vivisected in one act; human frailty exposed, human motives detected, human desire quenched in all the brilliancy of perverted epigram and the scalpel analysis of the astigmatic. ”

“ There all is quiet and simple and exquisitely humble—though now, through the grace of my valued son, there is no mortgage hanging like the brand of Damocles above our lowly roof. But I bid you welcome in the name of my son-in-law, on whom—I should say, with whom—I and my babes are sojourning in this clamorous city. Come and let us talk, soul to soul, heart to heart; come and partake of what simples we have. ”

“ What, for God’s sake?” stammered Wayne.
The poet, deliberately joining thumb and 98 forefinger, pinched out a portion of the atmosphere.
“That! That George! For that is Art! And Art is justice! And justice, affronted, demands an answer.”
He refolded his arms, mused for a space, then stealing a veiled glance sideways:
“You—you are—ah—convinced that my two lost lambs need dread no bodily vicissitudes——”
“Cybele and Lissa?”
“Ah—yes——”
“Lethbridge will have money to burn if he likes the aroma of the smoke. Harrow has burnt several stacks already; but his father will continue to fire the furnace. ”

“ Wayne’s mouth was partly open, his eyes hopeless yet fixed upon the poet with a fearful fascination.
“Art,” breathed the poet, “is a solemn, a fearful responsibility. You are responsible, George, and some day you must answer for every violation of Art, to the eternal outraged fitness of things. ”

“ Now it is a very dreadful thing to suggest that those highly respectable pseudo-spinsters, the Sister Arts, supposedly cozily immune in their polygamous chastity (for every suitor for favor is popularly expected to be wedded to his particular art) —I repeat, it is very dreadful to suggest that these impeccable old ladies are in danger of being talked to death.
But the talkers are talking and Art Nouveau rockers are rocking, and the trousers of the prophet are patched with stained glass, and it is a day of dinkiness and of thumbs. ”

“ Through the gay babble of voices and amid cries and interruptions, Wayne managed to comprehend the story. He tried to speak, but everybody except the poet laughed and chatted, and the poet, suffused now with a sort of sad sweetness, waved his hand in slow 95 unctuous waves until even the footmen’s eyes protruded.
“It’s all right,” said Wayne, raising his voice; “it’s topsyturvy and irregular, but it’s all right. I’ve known Harrow and Leth—For Heaven’s sake, Dione, don’t kiss me like that; I want to talk!—You’re hugging me too hard, Philodice. Oh, Lord! will you stop chattering all together! ”

“ And all the while the battery of round blue 74 eyes gazed on unwinking; the poet’s dewlaps quivered with stored emotion, and the spellbound audience breathed as people breathe when the hostess at table attempts to smooth over a bad break by her husband.
“Is that life?” whispered Cybele to Lethbridge, her sensitive mouth aquiver. “Did the author actually know such people? Do you? Is conscience really only an attitude? Is instinct the only guide? ”

“ All my life I have been nourished on the classics of ages dead; the literature of the Orient, of Asia, of Europe I am familiar with; the literature of England—as far as Andrew Bang’s boyhood verses. I—all my sisters—read, write, speak, even think, in ten languages. I long for something to read which is vital, familiar, friendly—something of my own time, my own day. I wish to know what young people do and dare; what they really think, what they believe, strive for, desire! ”

“ For the last time, Stuyve Briggs, are you going to bounce one defaulting poet and progeny, arrange to have survey and warnings posted, order timber and troughs for hatchery, engage extra patrol—or are you not? ”

“ Words, smells, sounds, attitudes, rocking-chairs—and candles profaning the sunshine—I am suffocated, I need more air, more sense and less incense—less sound, less art——”
“Less—what?” he gasped.
“Less art!—what you call ‘l’arr’!—yes, I’ve said it; I’m sick! sick of art! I know what I require now.” ”

“ When she had mated him twice, and he was still gazing blankly at the mess into which she had driven his forces, she sat up sideways, gathering her slim ankles into one hand, and cast about her for something to do, eyes wandering over the sunny meadow. ”

“ Stuyvesant Briggs, what the devil is the matter with you? It’s absolutely necessary that I have the Ashton stream for a hatchery, and you know it. What sort of a business man are you, anyhow? Of course I don’t propose to treat that poet inhumanly. Arrange to bid in the tract, run up the price against your own bidding, and let the poet have a few thousand if he is hard put. Don’t worry me any more; I’m busy with a fool crew, and you are spoiling my cruise by not joining me.
Wayne. ”

“ He laid a large plump hand on Wayne’s shoulders. “Where are my lambs?” he quavered; “where are they?”
“Which lambs?” inquired the young man uneasily. “If you mean Iole and Vanessa——”
“No! My ravished lambs! Give me my stolen lambs. Trifle no longer with a father’s affections! Lissa!—Cybele! Great Heavens! Where are they?” he sobbed hoarsely.
“Well, where are they?” retorted his son-in-law, horrified. “Come into the house; people in the street are looking.”
In the broad hall the poet paused, staggered, strove to paw Wayne, then attempted to fold his arms in an attitude of bitter scorn. ”

“ These girls have been brought up like so many guileless speckled fawns out here in the backwoods. You know all about Guilford, the poet who’s dead stuck on Nature and simplicity. Well, that’s the man and 17 that’s his pose. He hasn’t any money, and he won’t work. His daughters raise vegetables, and he makes ’em wear bloomers, and he writes about chippy-birds and the house beautiful, and tells people to be natural, and wishes that everybody could go around without clothes and pick daisies——”
“Do they?” demanded Wayne in an awful voice. ”

“ Wayne, not knowing what to say, sidled around the walls. It was almost bare of furniture; what there was appeared to be of the slab variety.
“I call my house the house beautiful,” murmured Guilford with his large, sweet smile. “Beauty is simplicity; beauty is unconsciousness; beauty is the child of elimination. A single fly in an empty room is beautiful to me, Mr. Wayne.”
“They carry germs,” muttered Wayne, but the poet did not hear him and led the way to another enormous room, bare of everything 23 save for eight thick and very beautiful Kazak rugs on the polished floor. ”

“ XIII
t the poet’s third Franco-American Conference that afternoon the room was still vibrating with the echoes of Aphrodite’s harp accompaniment to her own singing, and gushing approbation had scarcely ceased, when the poet softly rose and stood with eyes half-closed as though concentrating all the sweetness within him upon the surface of his pursed lips.
A wan young man whose face figured only as a by-product of his hair whispered “Hush!” and several people, who seemed to be more or less out of drawing, assumed 105 attitudes which emphasized the faulty draftsmanship. ”

“ The faintest glimmer of a smile troubled her lips. She thought: “I do wish he’d speak!”
There was a very becoming color in his face, partly because he was experienced enough not to mistake her; partly from a sudden and complete realization of her beauty.
“It’s so odd,” thought Aphrodite, “that attractive people consider it dangerous to speak to one another. I don’t see any danger.... I wonder what he has in that square box beside him? It can’t be a camera.... It can’t be a folding easel! It simply can’t be that he is an artist! a man like that——”
115
“Are you?” ”

“ And when the proper moment arrived the poet would rise, exhaling sweetness from every pore of his bulky entity, to interpret what he called a “Thought.” Sometimes it was a demonstration of the priceless value of “nothings”; sometimes it was a naive suggestion that no house could afford to be without an “Art”-rocker with Arr Noovo insertions. Such indispensable luxuries were on sale up-stairs. Again, he performed a “necklace of precious sounds”—in other words, some verses upon various topics, nature, woodchucks, and the dinkified in Art. ”