The Tragic Muse

at down with him, but at the end of five minutes uttered a protest against the crush and confusion, the publicity and vulgarity of the place, the shuffling procession of the crowd, the jostle of fello

Boulevard, with its conventional grimace, into greater aversio

emphasise, to compare. They fell into discussion, into confidence, into inquiry, sympathetic or satiric, and into explanations which needed in turn to be explained. The balmy night, the time for talk, the amusement of Paris, the memory of younger passages, gave a lift to the occasion. Nick had already forgotten his little brush with Julia on his leaving Peter's tea-party at her side, and that he had been almost disconcerted by the asperity with which she denounced the odious man he had taken it into his head to force upon her. Impertinent and fatuous she had called him; and when Nick began to plead that he was really neither of these things, though he could imagine his manner might sometimes suggest them, she had declared

if you think Mrs. Dallow charming what on earth need it matter to you what I think? The superi

nd out what I think of y

set upon it in a manner which, as a thing seen and remembered, should doubtless count for us as a gift of the gods. She's the perfect type of the object raised or bred, and everything about her hangs together and conduces to the effect, from the angle of her

worse th

e didn

a monster of conceit, and she would think so still

n idea a good many people think that. It strikes me a

ittle s

ame to every one. People have so bemuddled themselves that t

l yourself simple

nostrum to advertise, no power to conciliate, no axe to grind. I'm not

s provoking!" Nick

new-comer should give us a password, come over to our side, join our little camp or religion, get into our little boat, in short, whatever it is, and help us to row it. It's natural enough; we're mostly in different tubs and cockles, paddling for life.

aid Nick. "It's the overcrowde

not so much from fear of sinking as from a want of interest in the course or the company. He swims, he plunges, he dives, he dips down and visits the fishes and the mermaids and the submarine caves; he

rate; for, in your turn"-Nick found the figure deli

nse you mean. I've grown a tail if you will; I'm the

ay, my dear fellow, do you mind mentioning to me whether you're the greatest humbug and

" Nash replied benignly. "But I'm very sincere. And I

ou give people

a ha

an-for thinking you

er: they're so unused t

on't you try ano

e can, and mine moreover's

e system you're no better than any on

dull, dense, literal prose, has so sealed people's eyes that they've ended by thinking the most natural of all things the most perverse. Why so keep up the dreariness, in our poor little day? No one can tell me why, and almost every one calls me names for simply asking the question. But I go on, for I believe one can do a little good by it. I want so much

damned impudent," N

eyes, Nick saw under the lamps of the quay that he had brought a f

admitted that I don't i

e encountered men and women who thought you impudent if you weren't simply so stupid as they. The only impudence is unprovoked, or even mere dull, aggression, and I indignantly protest that I'm never guilty of that clumsiness. Ah for what do they take one, with their beastly presumption? Even to defend myself sometimes I've to make believe to myself that I care. I always feel as if I didn't successfully make others think so. Perhaps they see impudence in that. But I daresay the offence is in the things that I take, as I say, for granted; for if one tries to be pleased

u talking about, in God

ness. It's impossible to grant it so

and terribly vague. Many good things are dreary-virtue and d

dreary, my dear fellow!

whole my besett

o read, or at all events to enjoy, us; but is that a reason for giving it up-for not being, in this other sphere, if one possibly can, an Addison, a Ruskin, a Renan? Ah we must write our best; it's the great thing we can do in the world, on the right side. One has one's form, que diable, and a mighty good thing that one has. I'm not afraid of putting all life into mine, and without unduly squeezing it. I'm not afraid of putting in honour and courage and char

's a trifle affected?" Nick

the first act of reflective expression-the substitution of the few placed articulate words for the cry or the thump or the hug. Of course one isn't perfect; but that's the delightful thing about art, that there's always

yours-I don't know what I've got hold of. But Notre Dame is truth; Notre Dame is c

leave the reader to estimate, crossed the wide, short bridge which made them face toward the monuments of old Paris-the Palais de Justice, the Conciergerie, the holy chapel of Saint Louis. They came out before the church, which looks down on a square where the past, once so thick in the very heart of Paris, has been made rather a blank, pervaded however by the everlasting freshness of the vast cathedr

s vapours-anything that's done!" said Nick; while

ar old

instead of muddling and questioning;

a cathedral?"

just

n, my dear fellow. You can'

e great poets

enchanting collocations and unforgettable signs

into the Seine or rise out of it, floating expansively-a ship of stone with its flying buttresses thrown forth like an array of mighty oars. Nick Dormer lingered near it in joy, in soothing content, as if it had been the temple of a faith so dear to him that there was peace and security in its precinct. And there was comfort too and consolation of the same sort in the com

n. It was a friendly establishment and an unfashionable quarter, far away from the caravan-series; there were the usual little tables and chairs on the quay, the muslin curtains behind the glazed front, the general sense of sawdust and of drippings of watery beer. The place was subdued to stillness, but not extinguished, by the lateness of the hour; no vehicles passed, only now and then a light Parisian foot. Beyond the p

is your

tacle of

. "And what do y

o with spectacles? I

s," Nick however objected. "You described yoursel

n it. Sometimes I've to go far to find it-very likely; but that's just what I do. I go far-as far as my means permit me. Last year I heard of such a delightful little spot; a place where a w

at did

first green gr

's all you accomplish

s: let me tell you that's not so common. It's rare to have them, and if you chance to have th

oney for your travellin

, I don't think it's so horrible, my character. But we've so befogged and befouled the whole question of liberty, of sponta

thinking too mu

nk too little,"

d for Harsh," said Nick wi

who are lucky

xplained. "My expen

o must think

after a moment said: "I wish very

ow for

system-the ?s

ed to choose between several answers, any one of which would be so right. "Oh havi

ted than anything else,

f intelligence, honourable, and very honourable, in its way, from which it may legitimately appear important to have something to show. If you must confine yourself to that plan

looking before him in a conscious, modest way which would

telling me you're going back to

inter; and of portraits, on the whole, I think. That's the abject, crude, ridiculous fact. In this out-of-the-wa

how to paint?

ent of burlesque is theref

o difference.

I don't k

You're a delightful case, and I like delightful case

can do anything?

ur work? Doesn't it come back to me that at Oxford you used to

?" Nick asked with his

ht side-on the si

tle of the 'fine' if I pr

f that. There'll be the beauty of having been disinterested and inde

paint decently if I ca

make your case less clear

nd enough, with the fig

ght? Wi

t of all. I'm awf

e me on the other

es me near or far; my family, my blood, my heredity, my traditions, my promises, my circumstances,

Nash exclaimed. "And Mrs. Dal

Dallow if

in love w

n the

with you-so

aid Nick Dormer wit

ompanion pronounced, judging

ed been dropped? I look back from generation to generation; I scour our annals without finding the least little sketching grandmother, any sign of a building or versifying or collecting or even tulip-raising ancestor. They were all as blind as bats, and none the less happy for that. I'm a wanton variation, an unaccountable monster. My dear father, rest his soul, went through life without a suspicion that there's anything in it that can't be boiled into blue-books, and became in that conviction a very distinguished person. He brought me up in the same simplicity and in the hope of

ed to this recital with radiant interest and cur

ntidote. And at pres

oth

e of you may disagree with me to that ext

n," said Nash. "Poor fellow-

e scandal my apostasy would provoke, the injury and suffering it would inflict. I beli

e him jump!"

top of me. And then the grotesqueness of

d, it's too lovely

th and so forth, is about to give up his seat and withdraw from public life in order to devote himself to the practice of portrait-painting-

e than I thought," said Nash. "It's the

must of course come immedia

of having talent-which of course wi

early perverted. It's too l

ss your election at your per

difica

ng it all up th

asant for Mr. Cart

Carte

riend who'll wish to

ht for such de

said Nick as he ro

ll me use

t I shall perhaps console myself with the brush," Nick returned

e muses then don't stan

At any rate

omised Mrs

-she'll put me

I'll pull you out!