raifo' LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE LISTENER'S LURE BY THE SAME AUTHOR Mr. Ingleside Over Bemerton's One Day and Another Fireside and Sunshine Character and Comedy Old Lamps for New The Hambledon Men The Open Road The Friendly Town Her Infinite Variety Good Company The Gentlest Art The Second Post The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb The Life of Charles Lamb A Swan and Her Friends A Wanderer in London A Wanderer in Holland A Wanderer in Paris Highways and Byways in Sussex Anne's Terrible Good Nature The Slowcoach and The Pocket Edition of the Works ot Charles Lamb LISTENER'S LURE AN OBLIQUE NARRATION BY E. V. LUCAS NINTH EDITION METHUEN & CO. LTD. 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. LONDON First Published {Crown Svo) . . September igob Second Edition October igob Third Edition November igob Fourth Edition January igoj Fifth Edition (Fcaf>. Szo) . . . September igo8 Sixth Edition October /goo Seventh Edition October igio Eighth Edition March ign Ninth Edition ign \\\ THE PEOPLE IN THE BOOK Albourne, Dennis. A protege' of Mrs. Pink's. A journalist. Arundel, Gurney. Squire of Winfield. Arundel, Mrs. His wife. Arundel, Cyril. Their son. Arundel, Joan. Their daughter. Bamside-Block, Mrs. A vicar's widow. Bates, Nelly. A schoolfellow of Cynthia Hyde. Beloe, Mrs. An old woman. Bertha. A flower-girl. Bok, Dr. Greeley. An American religionist. Captain, A. Cogan, Miss. A deranged lady. Conran, Charles. Mrs. Pink's factotum. Crask, Mr. Miss Fase's bank manager. Cunningham, Mrs. Miss Mitt's employer. Damp, Algernon. See Farrar. Deuce. A fox-terrier. Farrar, Algernon. Originally Algernon Damp, the friend of Jack Frome. Fase, Charlotte. Edith Graham's aunt. Fielding, Miss Adelaide. Mrs. Pink's sister. Frome, The Rev. Augustus. Rector of Winfield. Frome, John Lindsay. His son. Frome, Gwendolen Mary. His Daughter. Giant, A. GiGl. A French child. Graham, Edith. Lynn Harberton's Ward. Guide, A. Harberton, Annie. Lynn Harberton's sister. Harberton, Lynn, of Winfield. A literary dilettante. Guar- dian of Edith Graham. Harberton, Wordsworth. Lynn Harberton's brother. Hennessy. See Ings. v LISTENER'S LURE Hyde, Cynthia. Mrs. Pink's niece. Hyde, Herbert Chisholm. Her husband. Hyde, Arthur. Their eldest son. Hyde, Dermot. Their second son. Ings, Dr. Prescott. An American religionist (whose real name is Hennessy). Lark, Mr. A friend of Miss Fase. Lenox, The Rev. Hercules. Miss Somerscale's fiance. Margaret. Lynn Harberton's old nurse. Mitt, Lydia. A governess. Orton, Mr. A county gentleman. Osborne, Enid. A little girl. Partridge, Mr. A dowser. Pedder, Job. Lynn Harberton's gardener. Pember, Mr. Miss Fase's chemist. Perivale, Mr. A young mystic. 1'imi'O. A clown. Pink, The Rev. Wilberforce. A retired clergyman of the Church of England. Pink, Mrs. His wifa who lives apart from him. Edith Graham's employer. Pouly, pere. A bull-fighter. Pouly ', fds. His son. Radbone, Mr. Miss Fase's butcher. Ring, Mrs. Mrs. Harberton's housekeeper. Rodwell, Orme. Mrs. Pink's nephew. A literary youth. Royce, Sir Herbert. Lynn Harberton's half-brother. Somerscales, Eileen. An old schoolfellow of Edith Graham's. Stunt. A spaniel. Tootell, Mrs. An old woman. TRIMBER, Mrs. Edith Graham's landlady at Winfield. Wjllocks, Mr. A churchwarden. The documents that follow belong to a period between September /yoj and June iqo6. LISTENERS LURE FROML YNNHARBER TON, OF THE MANOR HOUSE, WIN FIELD, GENTLEMAN, AND EDITOR OF THE BOLT COURT EDITION OF BO SWELL'S "JOHN- SON" {IN 12 VOLS.), TO EDITH GRAHAM, HIS WARD AND AMANUENSIS, LODGING AT MRS. TRIMBER'S, CHURCH COTTAGE, WINFIELD (By Hand) ist September 1905 Edith Dear, I have something to tell you which I should have the greatest pain and difficulty in saying in your presence ; and so I write it instead. This is both cowardly and sensible, like so many actions which look well in biographies and are rewarded in the world. Briefly, my dear child, the time has come for you to leave Winfield and begin to live your own life. For too long you have been living mine and Doctor Johnson's. But now that the Doctor is edited and finished, and I have no plan in my head for further work, and no inclination to begin again until the spring (if then), you must go away and be yourself. We have been very happy ; but it was a happiness A 1 LISTENER'S LURE that could not last and probably should not. I am a middle-aged, crotchety, self-protective bookworm and idler ; you are young and enterprising and generous, and the world needs you and you need the world. So I am going to steel my heart and do what your father would have wished, which is to find you a post in London. The many other things I could say and perhaps should say in so many words you will find between each sentence of this very slowly- written letter. Don't answer it. Just say that you agree and we will begin the campaign. Yours L. H. EDITH GRAHAM TO LYNN HARBERTON (By Hand) Dear Guardian, Your letter does not distress me so much as you feared, because of course I knew it had to be. I knew this was all too happy to last, but I wish you would not say that it perhaps should not last. I shall never agree with you about things like that ; nothing shall make me meet unhappiness half-way as you do. As you have no more use for me as a secretary I must of course find something to do, just as I should have to if we were not friends. Please do not be unhappy about it, because you will be sure to be interested in something else soon and 2 A TRAP FOR LYDIA MITT begin all over again, and then you will want me again. Wherever I am, you will only have to say you want me, and I shall come. Do let us be happy now, for the little while before we go away. You do not say where you are going or for how long, or what is to become of the Manor House and Mrs. Ring and the servants and Deuce. You will tell me at dinner, won't you ? Yours E. G. P.S. Don't call yourself middle-aged. Thirty- seven is not middle-aged ; or if it is, twenty-five must be nearly so, and I hate to think that. FROM THE "DAILY TELEGRAPH" Wanted at once. Governess for two children. Must be Lady. Music. Quiet refined home. Three servants kept. Apply Mrs. C., "Belle Vue," Bed- ford. MISS CHARLOTTE EASE, EDITH GRAHAMS A UNT ON THE MOTHER'S SIDE, TO EDITH GRAHAM The Laurels Grange-over-Sands My dear Edith, I am not, as you know, given either to asking favours or offering advice, but I should like to oblige LISTENER'S LURE my neighbour Mrs. Wootton-Bassett, a very nice cultured lady who took Miss Passmore's house fur- nished for the summer, at much too low a figure, 1 think, only three guineas and the use of the tennis things and all the wall fruit, and who is just going. She is the widow of a poet at Bewdley who published quite a number of volumes in his lifetime, but who was the victim of a conspiracy among the critics and so is not known, and her great passion is collecting autographs. She has of course a great many of her husband's, and one of Mrs. Alec Tweedie's, but she wants to make her collection really representative, and when I said that my niece assisted Mr. Harber- ton, the editor of Boswell's Life of Johnson, which is a book I could never get on with very well — so scrappy and a little coarse in places, not at all nice employ- ment for a young girl, I think — nothing would do but I must write to you for Mr. Harberton's auto- graph and any more that he could give. Mrs. Wootton-Bassett, who naturally knows the habits of literary men, says that he must of course get several interesting letters from important authors by every post. She particularly wants the autograph of Mr. T. P. O'Connor, which she says she under- stands is very hard to get. Will you do what you can for me and I shall be greatly obliged. We shall miss Mrs. Wootton-Bassett's society very much, she is most intellectual and never travels without several of the Temple Classics. She has given me three of her husband's books, which I am sure I 4 DR. GREELEY BOK ENTERS shall enjoy thoroughly, after the new housemaid comes. I must stop now or I shall miss the post. Your loving Aunt Charlotte P.S. Mr. Lark has just come in with the sad news that Mr. Saunders the lawyer has had a stroke. You do not know him, but you will I am sure be sorry. Such a nice kind lawyer too. I have heard of people recovering completely from such visitations. It is the third that is fatal, I am told. Perhaps Mr. Saunders will be quite himself again soon, but as he has had two strokes already I am rather doubtful. We must hope for the best. DR. GREELE Y BOK TO MRS. W1LBERFORCE PINK Shakespeare Private Hotel Bloomsbury Place, W.C. My dear Madam, I should crave your pardon for thus intruding upon you were it not that I have an introduction from our mutual friend Dr. Russell Mynde, whom I consider to be one of the greatest forces in contem- porary mentality, albeit I cannot see eye to eye with him in every particular. Doubtless he has mentioned my name to you, and I need therefore not introduce 5 LISTENER'S LURE myself further, beyond saying that I am probably the only Anglo-Saxon exponent of pure Confucianism now before the public. My career has been, I venture to think, not un- interesting. I was born in a suburb of Chicago in 1857 of poor but intellectual parents, who were able to get me a little schooling. Coming early under the influence of that remarkable man, Wilbur H. Corn- stock, I was spared many of the disillusions of boy- hood and youth, and naturally gravitated to the ministry. I was the pastor of the Silas L. Younker Congregational Church at Chicago for some years until I received a call to visit China as a missionary. While there I became aware of the sanity and beauty of the Confucian creed, and after a long and agonised period of struggle I accepted it. It was then but a natural step to wish to spread this serene and satis- fying message to all and sundry, and after a success- ful mission in my own country I am now preparing for an English campaign, assisted by my friend Washington Fig, who throws on the sheet scenes of Chinese calm and happiness. It was because I had heard so much of your in- terest in the Truth, in whatever shape it may come, and your influence in the more brainy and advanced section of London society, that I felt I must at any cost endeavour to gain your sympathy. My intro- duction to the best English intellect would, I am certain, be assured if I might be permitted to hold my first meeting in your drawing-room. 6 LYNN ASKS FOR HELP I shall give myself the honour of waiting upon you to-morrow afternoon at 4.30 p.m. Believe me, dear Madam Yours in the Truth Greeley Bok LYNN HARBERTON TO MISS ADELAIDE FIELDING, 17 VICARAGE GATE, KENSINGTON The Manor House Winfielu Dear Friend, I wonder if you could help me. But of course you can, because to help is your tnitier. Well, this is what I want. I want to find a position in London for my ward Edith. My own literary need of her is over, and I am not likely to have more just yet as I have no present work and am going away. Meanwhile Edith ought to live in London for a while, if it is only to hear Beethoven and to see how much wiser Winfield really is. But as she cannot afford to do so either in pocket or character as an idle person, she must have some work found for her. So I turn naturally to you. What do you suggest ? You know what she has been doing for me. I hate to break habits, as you know, and this closing of a joint task of some years is a sad business ; but is there anything that is not transitory — except your kindness? That goes on for ever. 7 LISTENER'S LURE This reminds me that though I don't often have presents, one of the squire's little girls, Joan, who has rather appropriated me as a lay uncle, gave me something on my birthday last week which made me think of you. It is a copy of an illuminated page of a fifteenth-century book, — framed, to stand about on one's desk or wherever it will catch the selfish eye, — and the text runs : — I shall pass through this world but once : any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me not defer it, or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again. There is no doubt that it was a fitting enough re- minder for me, for I neglect and defer all the time. While I am wondering whether a kindness is really kind or not, the opportunity goes. But you have no doubts. Something that happened yesterday I think might amuse you. I went to call on one of our old villagers, a tenant of mine, who is chair-ridden but otherwise all right. I noticed at once that he was brighter than usual — I should -say, less lethargic. He sat more erect, extended his hand with a freer gesture for his ounce of tobacco, and where for many months now he has languidly agreed with me as to the weather, or at most recorded rather weakly a differ- ing opinion, he contradicted me outright. It was not so cold as yesterday, he affirmed, when I re- marked that it was colder : not so cold — and this in quite a firm voice. I read him a few paragraphs 8 LYNN GETS ADVICE from the paper, listened to his comments, fished a little for his news, but had to come away no wiser as to the cause of this improvement in spirits — I might also say, this access of pride. In the street I met the doctor. "So old Dickson's gone," he said; "eighty-six." "Has he?" I replied; "I hadn't heard." " Yes ; early this morning." I walked on, thinking about Dickson. And suddenly I understood my old friend's reinvigoration. It was a case of promotion. He had taken Dickson's place ; he had become the oldest inhabitant. Yours always L. H. MISS FIELDING TO LYNN HARBERTON 17 Vicarage Gate Kensington Dear Lynn, I am not convinced that you are doing the wisest thing. If I know anything about you at all I know that you will be unhappy directly you stop working. You must have something to do : work is your safety valve. There are men who can be idle cheerfully and without doing any one or themselves any harm ; but you are not like that. And what is more, it will be worse for you to be idle without your ward, who has probably become very necessary to 9 LISTENER'S LURE you, as women always have to be to selfish men (and I have no reason to suppose that you are any less selfish than any one else). This being the case I wish that before you decide to send her here to fend for herself, you would consider the possibility of coming too, taking rooms near the Museum, say, and doing some work there for a while. Edith can still help you and be in London at the same time. You make a mistake in thinking that London is necessary for her in any way whatever. She is quite as ready for life's crises as ever she will be. Girls are. It is men who want to be taught and broken in. And when you talk of her beginning to lead her own life you make me laugh — as if any woman who is helping a man is not leading her own life. What other life have we ? What else can we do? Is not that our fate? If I personally am not engaged in it, it is only because of my father's folly in leaving me too much money and my own folly in being too particular about the man I was to help. But I know perfectly well, however degrading the thought may be, that that is the true destiny of the sex, and I for one, though I may affect indigna- tion, do not quarrel with it. Beethoven indeed ! Beethoven is only embroidery, although it masquer- ades as the real stuff of life only too often in this idle city. But she won't hear much Beethoven just now, all the same, for he is out of date- Even Tchai- kowsky is a little out of date too. We all have to 10 TO EVERY ONE A CAMERA OR TWO talk Richard Strauss to-day — Domestic Symphonies with realistic tone reproductions of babies sucking their bottles. 1 wonder how your bearish Doctor would have defined a Domestic Symphony ! Tell me what you think about my suggestion. If it is impossible (and I may not, of course, know all the facts), I can, I am sure, find Edith something at once. Your friend Adelaide Fielding I wish you would send me a photograph of your- self. I feel that the one I have, taken when we were all at Cromer in 1894, can no longer be repre- sentative. Are you still clean-shaven ? I hope so. Do you still set your face like a rock against the blandishments of fashion? Of course you do. It is quite useless to tell me that you never go to a photographer. That excuse is dead and buried. Photographers come to us now. I am as certain that Edith has a camera as that I have not. Slip a snapshot of Edith in too, that I may know her before I meet her. from the " witford herald" Winfield Correspondence Mr. James Death, who was thrown from his cart last market day, on leaving the Pelham Arms, and sustained three broken ribs, is doing well. II LISTENER'S LURE Great regret is experienced in the village at the intended departure of Mr. Harberton of the Manor House, who is leaving on a prolonged visit to his brother and sister at Algiers. Mr. Harberton has endeared himself to all by his courtesy and kindliness, and Winfield will not be the same until he returns. Mr. Harberton has just completed his edition of Boswell's immortal biography of the Great Lexico- grapher, rare Ben Jonson, a task of which Winfield may well be proud. Hitherto our only local author has been Miss Nelly Turle, the gifted poetess, so many of whose effusions may be read in the church- yard ; but Mr. Harberton henceforward will bear away the bell. In all warmth and sincerity we say to him, in the words of the old Greek poet, " Vale ! Vale ! " LYNN HARBERTON TO MISS FIELDING The Manor House Winfield My Dear Friend, It cannot be. I want Edith to go to London, and to go alone. I am leaving almost directly on a longish visit to my brother and sister at Algiers. But even if I had not this determination I could not contemplate a stay of any time in London. London affects me disastrously. I have no spirits, no re- 12 LONDON THE LEVELLER bound, after two days of it — even in May. And London also dislikes me, or at least misunderstands me. I am too low-spoken and slow for it. I have to say everything twice or even three times. Waiters disregard me ; shopkeepers consider me insignificant ; Post-office clerks serve others first. London op- presses me, robs me of individuality : in the phrase of a friend of mine, makes me " so damned anony- mous." I don't say I mind that, but I do resent being just one of a white-faced hurrying crowd. One feels it instantly on setting foot on St. Pancras platform. Now and then there is compensation — in seeing others suffer too. The last time, for example, I came to town, our squire travelled with me. The squire is a big man here, of course, and when he drives down the street there is a punctilious touching of hats, and many of the younger and timider folk — those that are not hardened to the world — experience something of a tremor, a spasm of awe. I will not say that at first, before I knew him, I was myself completely free from some such emotion : just as I still feel a desire to cry when I see a Royal personage driving by in state. Well, when the squire and I travelled to town together on the occasion I am recalling, our station- master himself opened the carriage door, obsequious porters made an avenue for him to pass through (a short one, it is true, for we have only two porters), and the guard did all the cap-touching that is good *3 LISTENER'S LURE for a man on a bright spring morning. Meanwhile I was left to carry my bag myself. But at St. Pancras the balance was adjusted, for the squire was a nonentity there, merely an elderly, not very well dressed man, obviously from the country, and the porters shouted " By your leave ! " and a newspaper boy cannoned into him, and when he left me and was climbing into his cab he looked as much like every one else as if he were no squire at all : or rather, he looked like a provincial up for the day, which is worse. But down here, as I say, he is a monarch, an emperor. It is not perhaps to be wondered at that he and I leave home so seldom. For you must not think that at Winfield I am not a swell too. It is only when I am with the squire that I am disregarded. We can all of us be a swell to some one, if we really want to ; but I am a swell without wanting it. You see I have a certain number of pensioners here, and though my voice is low, and I have no horse or motor car, and I prefer a back door to a front one, and in this world one is taken at one's own valuation, yet all the same I am considered a swell far too much. It is a great nuisance, for it prevents real inter- course. Just to take a small case. — There live near us two bcautifully-brought-up little girls in white aprons and clean print frocks, to whom I always want to say something pleasant. But I can't, because when- ever they see me coming they stand quite still in 14 THE POOR V. THE RICH the middle of the lane until I am within range, and then they curtsey. It is a very simple curtsey, a bend of the white stockings with a hand at each side of the print frock — a perfectly simple curtsey, without any affectation — and yet it leaves me mute and un- comfortable. Not quite mute perhaps, for I murmur "Good morning," or possibly " Thank you" (I don't really know what I say) ; but certainly uncomfort- able and ashamed. I have a feeling that when one receives the homage of a curtsey, one ought to make a fitting reply, a sweep of the hat, a bow, "Your servant, ma'am." But if I did anything of the kind these nice little girls would be far more uncomfort- able than I am ; and more, they would have an un- pleasant feeling that I — who wish them nothing but good things and merriment — were making fun of their politeness. So there is nothing for it but to grow inured and look condescending and superior (which is what they expect and want), and realise that really good intimate terms are not destined to subsist between big houses and little ones. Punctilio blocks the way. I wonder if it is at all understood that the poor are far more the enemies of socialism than the rich ; or how should I put it to include myself? — the unedu- cated are more the enemies of socialism than the educated. For I suppose I am educated. At least I can say " De mortuis " tactfully and "Verb sap." on the right occasions. If I were not afraid of hurting their mother's feel- 15 LISTENER'S LURE ings, I would ask her, as far as I was concerned, to tell her daughters to omit the curtsey. I cannot feel worth it. " Honour where honour is due " is a good maxim, and no honour is due to me from those nice little sisters. The important thing is to teach country children to honour • and respect old age. The way that old people are treated by some village children suggests that reverence for age is a purely artificial growth, the primitive idea being contempt and abuse and perhaps compulsory euthanasia. There are some boys here who climb a tree that hangs over a footpath near us, and, keeping silent as birds, spit on the wayfarers beneath. (I can under- stand the attraction : perhaps I can remember it !) Their special victim is a very aged neighbour of ours — one of my pensioners in fact. Although an octo- genarian, she is full of vigour and activity and has also not a little dignity, which makes the conduct of these boys the more unnatural ; for usually boys persecute only those who by making the mistake of being feeble or stupid may be said, in our civilisa- tion, to invite it. A village boy's eye for frailty and lack of dignity is fiendishly accurate. But I fancy the old lady has given her case away by wearing a very wide-brimmed black straw hat, which lends her a mushroom appearance. Any kind of unconven- tional garment is an almost irresistible invitation to the cruel side of a little boy's character. I never meant to write so much but my pen ran away Also I am happier for it — and by your own 16 FIRST GLIMPSE OF MRS. PINK showing, for it is tantamount to a little of the desired and necessary "work." But if I go on writing like this you will begin to be sorry I ever asked you to do anything. Please tell me what you have in store for Edith, because I am impatient for her to begin. Once I really make up my mind I am in a fret till I act. Yours always L. H. MISS FIELDING TO LYNN HARBERTON 17 Vicarage Gate Kensington Dear Lynn, Very well. I have already found the very thing for your Edith : to be a mixture of friend, companion and secretary to my sister Mrs. Pink, who, although seventy-three, is still convinced that she can do the world some good by holding drawing- room meetings, and distributing Rationalist tracts, and feeding and clothing agnostic prophets ; and therefore wants some one to hold her pen. She lectures me in words a yard long which were not invented when I was at school, and I pray for her, and we are both the better for our own efforts ; so it is all right. But she is the dearest woman I know, and she is ready for Edith whenever she wants to come ; and you need not worry about the salary being too low or the work too heavy, because all her servants ever since the beginning have died of in- B 17 LISTENER'S LURE activity and swollen Post-office-savings-books. Nor need you fear that Edith's orthodoxy (if she is so eccentric as to have any) will be disturbed, for my sister's Voltaires, when all is said, are very circum- spect dovelike creatures, although she is too simple and sweet to suspect it. So that is settled. You were a good boy to send the photographs : I expected a great outburst of mock modesty. I like your new face even better than fhe old, and am delighted to see that you still abjure the moustache and beard. It would have been terrible had you a pointed beard : I suppose you have noticed that men with pointed beards are always conceited and self-protective ? But why have you gone grey over the temple ? With your untroubled life ! And with such a secretary ! My dear Lynn, she is beautiful. I had no idea she was like that. I was thinking rather of the serene intellectual type — Girton and Ruskin, spectacles even, everything except charm. And she is delightful, with quite a little mischief even in this tiny picture. How you can trust her to London I can't think. But you were always a problem. My dear friend, you will be bored to death after a week of Algiers. Why don't you arrange to return quickly and throw yourself into a more active life ? I suppose I might as well suggest football as politics, but there are other interests that can take one out of oneself. What you need to do is to forget Lynn Harberton for a while. Write a play and attend the 18 POSTILLION STREET, KENSINGTON rehearsals : I should guess that that is as complete a change as a country recluse can need. Have you no parish councils ? If I were an autocrat I should make a law preventing introspective moody men from possessing private incomes. You should all have spades and pickaxes instead, which reminds me that you ought to take up gardening. That is your best corrective. Stay at home and garden, whatever Edith may do. You will write to me now and then, won't you ? And I will tell you what I think of Edith. Your friend Adelaide Fielding P.S. If Edith does not care for the work at my sister's Unsettlement (as I call it), I wish she would stay with us here while she is looking about. We are between Kensington Palace on the one side and Church Street on the other — the only street I have ever known in which postillions are still to be seen all day long. I should like to have her here, if only to see how she does her hair like that. I love it over the ears with the little Leonardo hint. MISS FASE TO EDITH GRAHAM The Laurels Grange-over-Sands My dear Edith, I am very glad to hear that you are leaving Winfield for a while. As you know, I never ap- 19 LISTENER'S LURE proved of your being so much with Mr. Harberton. In my opinion he is too young to want an amanu- ensis. When I was a girl there was no talk of amanuenses, but people who wanted to write books wrote them and said no more about it. I remember our dear old doctor, of whom you have probably heard your dear father tell — after he retired he wrote a book, and a very good one too, on the probability of those odd mounds outside the village, which turned out to be a disused Fencible camp, being the graves of ancient Britons, and he never wanted an amanu- ensis or the constant company of a young girl. But the world grows different every day. It is not that I do not approve of Mr. Harberton, who for all I know is a very nice man and was chosen by your dear father to be your guardian, although your dear father, clever man as he was and the best gentleman gardener in Yorkshire, as every one said, especially with sweet peas, was not always a good judge of men ; but I do not like the new way of girls being on such terms of intimacy with single men, or indeed any men except their husbands, and I am not sure that I quite like the way in which some husbands and wives now behave in public, as if they were schoolfellows rather than what they are to each other. I like to see a wife leaning on her husband's arm. You must be very careful in London. I have never been there, but I am told by Mr. Lark and other friends here that it is a city of draughts and 20 MR. PEMBER'S ERRAND BOY dangerous crossings. The best preventive of a cold I have always found to be camphor-balls, if taken in time, or later, ammoniated quinine. My neighbour Mrs. Forty-Smith has been taking salicin with good results, but one must be careful with new drugs. I hope there are good chemists in London. I have every confidence in our Mr. Pember here. Poor man, he has lately had a great misfortune, having been robbed by his errand boy to the extent of more than two pounds. It is not so much the loss of money, he said to me when I was in last, either on Wednesday or Thursday, on Wednesday I think, but the loss of trust in human nature. He had done so much for this particular boy, taking him from a bad home and treating him almost as one of the family. Life is very difficult. If I am to catch the night's post I must stop now. Your loving Aunt Charlotte P.S. I have just asked Ellen and she says it was on Wednesday that I went to Mr. Pember's. So I was right after all. LYNN HARBERTON TO MISS FIELDING The Manor House Winfield Dear Miss Fielding, No gardening, I think. I sometimes wonder indeed whether I really want flowers at all ; whethei 21 LISTENER'S LURE the pleasure which they bring is not lost in the thought of their transitoriness and, through them, the transitoriness of all things and the terrible swift foot of time. The daffodils begin the lesson : one day they are not, the next they are, and again they are faded on their stalks ; then tulips ; then lupins and delphiniums ; then sweet peas ; then lilies ; then hollyhocks ; and so forth, through the year, all so slow to come, then coming so eagerly, and dying just as certainly afterwards. I hate to be reminded of the passage of time, and in a garden of flowers one can never escape from it. It is one of the charms of a garden of grass and evergreens, that there for a while one is allowed to hug the illusion that time tarries. If old Job here (a sanctimonious rascal) were not my master, and if I were not naturally so given to the line of least resistance, I should have only grass and evergreens ; but I cannot. Of one thing I am certain, and that is that if ever, I do move to another house it shall be a house with a shrubbery, a real dark shrubbery. No one who has not a shrubbery really knows what the evening song of the blackbird and thrush can be — especially, I think, the blackbird. The perfect con- ditions are, perhaps, April, six o'clock, a shower's last drops just pattering, and the sky yellow in the west. Arnold's "wet, bird-haunted, English lawn" must have had a shrubbery on the edge of it. Yet no one seems to strive after the shrubbery any longer. One reason for its neglect is, I imagine, that 22 GREEN THOUGHTS FOR GRANDSONS the good shrubbery does not come to perfection in the lifetime of its planter, or at any rate not until he is full of years ; and we are more selfish than we used to be — more inclined for rapid results. Planting a green shade in which one's grandchildren may have green thoughts is a pastime that has to a large ex- tent gone out. Hence it is that houses with good shrubberies must be old ; and to-day most houses that one sees are new. The shrubbery belongs to the days of Miss Austen. In one of her books — I forget which — the impossibility of taking a house without a shrubbery is insisted on. A house with a good shrubbery is always a house old enough for Miss Austen's characters to have lived in it ; which is another point in its favour. Here is another long letter all about anything but Edith. Yours L. H. MISS EILEEN SOMERSCALES [AN OLD SCHOOL- FELLOW) TO EDITH GRAHAM 13 The Crescent Bath Dear Edith, Your news is very interesting, and as usual you are having good luck. To go to London is the one thing I have always wanted, but mother of course will not hear of it, and has even renewed the lease of this house for another twenty-one years at 23 LISTENER'S LURE the very moment when we might have got free and taken things into our own hands. She has also given up the Library subscription, because she says that the set of Edna Lyall which Uncle Fred has sent her will last for a year, by which time one of our West- country newspapers is sure to have a cheap circu- lating library of its own. This is very hard on me, but mother does not think of that. I shall be glad to have your London address if you care to continue to correspond with one of us poor benighted provincials. Yours ever Eileen EILEEN SOMERSCALES TO EDITH GRAHAM 13 The Crescent Bath My dear Edith, I am afraid I wrote you rather a cross letter yesterday, but I had one of my bad headaches and things were looking rather black. Of course I am glad you are going to London and I do so hope you will be happy there. Yours ever Eileen 24 MORE ADVICE FOR LYNN MISS FIELDING TO LYNN HARBERTON 17 Vicarage Gate Kensington Dear Lynn, Wait but another minute before deciding : for I have another idea for you. You have always grumbled about your house and your gardener and the irksomeness of some of your neighbours. Very well then — take this opportunity of leaving Winfield. You are breaking your habits sufficiently by going away for six months ; break them a little more by leaving altogether, and instead of moping at Algiers v 'which you will get to loathe, for there is nothing better calculated to irritate and embitter a fastidious man like you than the society of expatriated English people) spend your time in house-hunting ; find a house ; alter it to suit you ; furnish it ; and lay out the garden afresh. There is a perfect occupation. Meanwhile Edith can be undergoing her ridiculous metropolitan noviciate, just as if you were fretting in Africa, or wherever Algiers is. That scheme is absurd for you if I know anything about you ; nor do your brother and sister want you. You are the kind of relation that loves and is loved better by post and at a distance. Your friend Adelaide Fielding 25 LISTENER'S LURE P.S. You are very eloquent about shrubberies, but they are grubby places. Give me beds and borders of flowers,— geraniums and lobelias and calceolarias even, those nice bright things that every one sneers at to-day but which always bring back my happiest years to me. LYNN HARBERTON TO MISS FIELDING The Manor House Win field Dear Counsellor, I would leave Winfield at once if I had any kind of notion where to live instead. But bad as my house is, I am used to it, and that is everything. If I were to go blind, which is not an impossible fate for one who has pored over so many books, I should never be lost here. The only way to get a house wholly to one's mind is to build it,— and that means several horrible things, the first of which is newness, to say nothing of the difficulties of deciding on a plan, and, before the plan, of an architect. I think I have more terror of falling into the hands of an architect than of any other bondage. I am continually wondering how people who are going to build a house to live and die in ever come to a decision about an architect at all. It must be the hardest thing. I can understand the 26 THE CARAVAN PROBLEM choice of a site : one can choose a site absolutely and know that it is right. But the house? Why, within a week after the last of the builders' men had at last gone, you would see somewhere else the very thing you had been wanting all the while — the gables and chimneys, the quality of tile and brick, the arrangement of windows and doors. Only persons of great strength of mind or of very easy-going nature can decide without a qualm on an architect. I am sure I never could. One of the odd things about architects — and this makes another difficulty — is that better ones are so constantly appearing. It seems as if only by post- poning can one get the really satisfactory house. That friend of William Morris who built his house in an orchard without cutting down a tree — that is the kind of man one thinks one wants. Or on the other hand it is perhaps wiser to be utterly unmindful of beauty altogether, like Halliwell-Phillipps, the Shake- spearian, whom I used to know slightly, who bought the side of a hill near Brighton and ordered enough galvanised iron buildings to form the nucleus of a habitation. After that, whenever he wanted to put up a friend, or increase his space for other reasons, he despatched a postcard ordering another room. Possibly the guest and the room would travel from town together, like a snail. If only we had a climate, a caravan would be the solution. I knew a pair of lovers who vowed to spend their honeymoon in a caravan, and went so 27 LISTENER'S LURE far as to have one built. It was a caravan of such delicate splendour that were a sleeping gipsy to be transported into it he would awake believing himself in heaven, if gipsies have these pretty fancies. The cabin of a royal yacht could hardly be more sumptu- ously appointed. But the project broke down, the loving pair went to Como or another of the prescribed localities, and the caravan was idle. The question then arose, what to do with it ? — a question which always seems insistent with amateur caravan-owners. For a long time it reposed, with a plug in its distinguished chimney, in a field belonging to a friend, whose children, as a great treat, were allowed to play in it, but not (so cruelly unimaginative are those in authority) to cook at the stove. And then, when the winds and rains had stolen away its fresh youth, it was sold, as all amateur caravans eventually are, to a travelling photographer, who at once filled one of the windows with red glass. Per- haps photographers and gipsies are the only persons who can really solve the caravan problem. For after the question of winter-storing is settled there are the difficulties of the horse and shelter at night. To live in a caravan should probably remain one of the inaccessible ideals. It is better so. And so the philosophic mind, vexed by the dangers attending any decision upon an architect, accepts Kingsley's maxim that the external beauty of one's own house matters nothing, since you are in it and cannot see it, the really important thing being to 28 HUNTING THE HOUSE have pleasant houses around you which you can see. In other words it is the mission of good architects to work entirely for our neighbours. The same comment applies to pictures. A man rarely looks at his own pictures : he takes them for granted ; but the first thing he does on entering a friend's house is to study his walls. All the same, though I shall certainly never move unless the squire evicts me with a battering ram, I think there are few occupations more pleasant than to look over country houses as if one meant to take them ; or to look over them with a house-hunting friend, as I did last week. We examined several within a twenty mile radius of this village. All were different, and, to me, impossible ; but my friend chose them all in turn (it was the kind of day on which every country house seems perfect to a towns- man, as he is), and it was delightful to watch him planning out the rooms and garden. These should be his own suite ; here he would work ; there he would put visitors ; here should be roses and there sweetbriars and a lavender hedge. The lawn must be made a little larger, for golf-croquet ; perhaps that tree might go. In one of the gardens was a ruined summer-house which he transformed instantly into a working room with an Italian loggia above it. My friend chose them all, I say, but he took none, and so we may have the agreeable task all over again in some other desirable quarter. All the houses had spacious kitchen departments, 29 LISTENER'S LURE brick ovens as well as ranges, wash-houses, dairies and so forth, in the old-fashioned way. All had stabling too, and it was very good to move about on the cobbled stones amid the atmosphere of honest horses, after the petrolised highways which we had left outside. One returns to the past in an old house empty more thoroughly than in an old house occupied, however retrograde the occupants may be. In the old house occupied there will cer tainly be signs of the times — books, magazines, pictures ; in the old house empty there are only the ghosts of ancient dwellers, and all is spacious and silent. It occurred to me as we passed from room to room and debated their potentialities, what an inter- esting occupation for women of taste the advising upon decoration and adaptabilities of houses must be. Such work is rather out of Edith's line, or she would be just the woman for it. She could fur- nish her own house very comfortably, I am sure, but no one else's. Nor could I. My idea of furniture begins and ends with a fire, an arm- chair, book-shelves, a writing table, envelopes of all sizes up to a foot square, blue-black ink and matches. No, I shall stay at the Manor House till I am carried out of it — "back to the land." You are very good to be so much concerned about me and my plans, although you run so badly to pessimism. I really don't think it will hurt or irk 3° UNCLEANLINESS AND GODLINESS me to idle in Algiers a little ; and if I am bored, why I can write to you. Yours L. H. P.S. But I don't want to go. P.S. 2. You are horribly practical in what you say about shrubberies being dirty. So they are. But to avoid a shrubbery after a summer shower is to love one's clothes too much. Uncleanliness can be next to godliness too. A wet shrubbery smells like nothing else in the world. But I like your deter- mined Victorian stand. Some one must have the courage of the past or we shall cease to be a nation altogether — with the Americanising and Continental- ising that are now going on. Yet there are limits, I imagine, even to your fidelity : I doubt if you would care to see the revival of a frame of mind which could admire or see nothing absurd in such a poem is that which I copy here, or rather which I have got Edith to copy for me (that being my way). I came across it in a Keepsake, or Casque I of Getns, or Friendship's Offering, belonging to the wonderful eighteen-thirties, before any one had learned to laugh again. Dickens and Thackeray were just coming, to kill off Byronism ; but they were not yet. Here is the jewel . I am omitting one stanza — V LISTENER'S LURE THE FEMALE FRIEND In this imperfect gloomy scene Of complicated ill, How rarely is a day serene, The throbbing bosom still ! Will not a beauteous landscape bright, Or music's soothing sound Console the heart — afford delight — And throw sweet peace around? They may — but never comfort lend Like an accomplished female friend. With such a friend the social hour In sweetest pleasure glides : There is in female charms a power Which lastingly abides. The fragrance of the blushing rose, — Its tints, and splendid hue, — Will, with the seasons, decompose And pass, as flitting dew; On firmer ties his joys depend Who has a faithful female friend. As orbs revolve, and years recede, And seasons onward roll, The fancy may on beauties feed With discontented soul. A thousand objects bright and fair May for a moment shine, Yet many a sigh, and many a tear But mark their swift decline : While lasting joys the man attend Who has a polished female friend. This poem, which I did not make up for you and which is genuine enough, is another proof that if we want to see the times reflected in literature we must 3? THE DANGER OF FINISHING go to the second and third rate writers. The best writers contain all time, — they are in their own and of it, but not exclusively of it. Good-night again L. H. LYNN HARBERTON TO WORDSWORTH HARBER- TON, HIS ELDER BROTHER, A MARTYR TO ASTHMA, WHO LIVES DURING THE WINTER MONTHS WITH HIS SISTER ANNIE IN THE VILLA DELACROIX A T ALGIERS The Manor House Winfield Dear Wordsworth, I am all unsettled and have no plans except to have none. The last revise of the last proof has gone in, and the work of five years is finished. It is a great mistake to finish anything : the wise man would extenuate and extenuate even if he wrote only a sentence a day, rather than put " Finis " to his book. How long it will take me to collect enough energy and purpose to begin another task of the same magnitude — and only in a large and exacting task could I be happy — I cannot tell. For one thing, I am older now and fewer things seem worth while; for another, I do not see any man for whom I could work as I worked for the Doctor, who, no matter what Annie may say, was worth it. C 33 LISTENER'S LURE Another circumstance that makes for restlessness is the loss of Edith. She had of course to go, my work being done ; and indeed I should have had to open the cage anyway, for it was becoming a wicked thing and a complete betrayal of trust to hold her longer in this village ; although when you come to essentials a village can offer as many as a city. But she is too young to be kept to essentials : she is entitled to a little vanity and embroidery. And of course she has her life to live as well as I — if mine can be called a life which is one long series of self- indulgence in the artificial luxury of literary com- position, the evasion of everything at all troublesome that can be evaded, and the submersion of myself in the personality of a dead dogmatist (better though, Annie, than any living lion that ever I heard roar). Edith is only twenty-five. She is not anti-social as I am ; she has the quickest sympathies, so quick that I tremble for her in a selfish world ; and it is only fair to her that she should see men other than myself — her Prospero and Caliban in one. Ferdinand may be washed ashore any day ; but not here. The coast of Winfield is guiltless of any such flotsam. So she is going to London as the companion of an altru- istic old Pagan lady of whom I know something and like everything (sister of my old correspondent Miss Fielding), and there she will have a chance of en- larging her horizon, and correcting her standards, and reducing my halo to the dimensions of a forage cap — if indeed it does not disappear altogether. 34 GWENDOLEN AND THE RUCTIONS And so, Edith gone and no work to my hand here, I am going to do a desperate and unheard of thing : I am coming to see Annie and you. I shall probably start at once and come through France gradually and then take a boat at Marseilles. I will telegraph an address now and then. Yours Lynn GWENDOLEN MARY FROME, ONLY DAUGHTER OF THE REV. AUGUSTUS FROME, RECTOR OF WINFIELD, TO HER BROTHER JOHN LINDSA Y FROME OF MERTON COLLEGE, OXFORD, UNDERGRADUA TE The Rectory Winfield Dear Jack, This is just a short note to say that the rottenest thing has happened. Mr. Harberton is going away to stay with his brother and sister in some idiotic foreign place, and Edith is going to London to be companion to some one in Kensing- ton, and what I'm going to do without her I don't know. The usual ructions are in full swing here as I write, this week's butcher's bill being several thousand pounds too much, and New Zealand meat at that— or so the Rector says. I tried to soothe things a little by making a mild joke to the effect that the 35 LISTENER'S LURE more Canterbury lamb he ate the more fit he'd be to be Archbishop of the same place ; but all I got for my pains was the request to leave the room while serious matters were being discussed between my parents, unless I could refrain from my deplorable habit of facetiousness. But isn't it a bore about Edith? I don't know how long it's going to last. I'm going to take on all her old women while she's away, and that will be something to do anyway, even though it's no fun. But there's just nothing at all to look forward to, because she's quite the most frightfully decent sort I shall ever know, and now she's going. Yours wretchedly Gwen JOHN LINDSA Y FROME TO EDITH GRAHAM Merton College Oxford Dear Edith, I am so awfully sick about your going to London that I don't know what to do. The only thing I can think of is that you will be near Queen's Club and able to see the match. You know I could never write a letter for nuts, and I don't suppose I ever shall, but I wanted to say that this London business seems to me the most awful tosh, and 36 JACK'S RIPPING IDEA Winfield will be just nothing at all without you. I don't suppose there is anything I can do for you, but if there is please tell me and I will do it. I am Your devoted friend Jack Frome P.S. I've just got an awfully ripping idea. Algy Damp, who is my particular chum here, has got a motor, and he often gets up to town for the day in it. It's against the rules, of course, but that's all the more fun. Well, my idea is that directly you are all settled I shall come up with him and then we can go out in the afternoon and have tea in one of those Bond Street places or perhaps take you for a ride round Richmond Park and back. LYNN HARDERTON TO EDITH GRAHAM Hotel Foyot Paris My dear Child, I thought of staying here a while, but shall go on to Fontainebleau instead as the weather is so gorgeous. This morning, at lunch in the restaurant here, whom should I find but my half-brother, Herbert, just back from five years in the East. He goes to England immediately, and I am giving him a letter 37 LISTENER'S LURE to you. It is quite time you knew him. He and I, as you know, do not hit it off as well as we might : he is externally a little too destructive for me, and I am probably too undecided for him ; but he is an unusual man and better company than most, whether you agree or disagree. He talks of settling down in England now, but of course will not — the go-fever burns too fiercely in his bones. How I envy him crossing the Channel, the right way, to-morrow. Yours L. H. EDITH GRAHAM TO LYNN HARBERTON, POSTE RES TANTE, EON TA I NEB LEA U 17A Kensington Square W. Dear Guardian, Here I am in London. The house, which is in Kensington Square, is one of the nicer kind of houses where people have lived before, with a flavour of your dear Miss Austen about it. My room looks over the garden. It is all very quiet, but only a few yards away there are 'buses and trains and cabs and enormous shops with odd names, and in half an hour I can be in the centre of the world, and in five minutes in Kensington Gardens, unless I am run over by a motor car on the way — which seems a very likely end for me after the safety of Winfield roads. 38 MRS. PINK, SCEPTIC Mrs. Pink is a very charming old lady, but she is old only in years. Do you remember some lines you showed me which Lowell wrote about Mrs. Procter, beginning " I know a girl, she's eighty-two " ? Well, Mrs. Pink is like that. One often thinks of old age with a feeling of dread, but if one could grow old like Mrs. Pink and her sister Miss Fielding, who looked in this morning for a few minutes, one would not mind how soon the white hairs came. Mrs. Pink, although seventy-three, seems to be wholly dedicated to new movements. She looks with suspicion upon everything old, particularly the Church of England. Every Sunday she has a drawing-room meeting, at which a new philosopher unfolds a new religion. She seems to have a particular weakness for ex-priests. A large part of my duty will be to carry on the correspondence with these mystics, most of whom receive a fee for the meeting, and to send out cards and so forth. Miss Fielding laughs at all this, but the two sisters are very good-natured about their differences. Miss Fielding says she simply has not enough courage to call the Bible " interesting assorted literature," even if she wanted to : she would be afraid of being overheard above ; and Mrs. Pink says " O, Addy, Addy, what has our intelligence been given us for ? " I think I shall be as happy here as I could be any- where away from Winfield ; but I miss you horribly whenever I am not busy. I hope you will make a point of writing now and 39 LISTENER'S LURE again to Mrs. Ring while you are away. Picture postcards would do. Gwen, who is going to look after the cottagers, will probably keep me informed of how everything goes on. The person I am really most sorry for is poor Deuce. I rather think I shall try to get Jack to have him at Oxford. I met the queerest little thing in the train coming here — a Miss Mitt, whose father has just died and who has therefore to earn her own living (like me — although she has not been turned out by a cruel guardian, as I have), and she has just got what promises to be a very good situation as a governess at Bedford. So we travelled together as far as that town, and she had one of my hard-boiled eggs, having brought nothing for herself except two small biscuits. She is going to write to me now and then, she says. I suppose you are too 1 Yours Edith M/SS EASE TO EDITH GRAHAM The Laurels Grange-over-Sands My dear Edith, What you tell me of your new home and occupations fills me with misgivings. I do not at all like your employer's interest in lecturers who know more than the Bible, especially Americans. Life 40 BLUE PERSIANS AND ROME has difficulties enough as it is without adding to them. Even here in a little place like Grange we have great perplexities, and to add to everything else the best butcher in the town has just retired and sold his business to a firm with hundreds of branches who cannot give the individual attention that Mr. Radbone used to. We shall all feel it, but no one more than my poor Griselda, because her little pieces of raw meat every morning (you know that Blue Persians must have raw meat if they are to keep in good health, and even then they are delicate and lose their hair and are often ill through swallowing it) were so carefully looked out for her by Mrs. Radbone herself, a very nice woman, who will now I feel sure find the time hang very heavily on her hands. She talks of a small farm, and I hope she will keep her husband up to it, but his ambition seems to be to travel a little, and that I know will not suit her at all, she being very corpulent and shy. I hope you will be very careful to go to church regularly in spite of Mrs. Pink. I understand there is a large church quite near Kensington Square, but Mr. Lark, who used to live in Highbury, has rather distressed me by saying that Kensington is quite a stronghold of Roman Catholics. I don't hold with giving advice, but you must feel your way very warily, my dear child, especially as you are I know fond of music, and these people are so cunning that they find out one's weaknesses at once. I gave up painting in water colours in 1SS1 entirely owing to 41 LISTENER'S LURE the interest which a young Roman Catholic lady professed to take in my progress in that accomplish- ment, but which was probably something much more serious, for they are always hoping to make converts, or perverts as I prefer to call them, to the Pope. Those of us who have any artistic sense are so much more precariously placed than the others. I must stop now or I shall miss the post. Your loving Aunt Charlotte P.S. I am sending you a few eggs which I have no doubt your employer, who seems for all her mistaken laxity to be a humane woman, will allow you to ask the cook to boil. I think three and a quarter minutes the exact time, but servants are very careless and very often the water is not boiling when the egg is dropped in (sometimes so carelessly that it breaks and all its goodness escapes) or if it is, the egg puts it off. Mr. Lark tells me that there are no really fresh eggs in London, whatever the shopkeepers may say. Life can be very hard. S/R HERBERT ROYCE TO LYNN HARBERTON Morton's Hotel Jermyn Street Dear Lynn, I found your ward entertaining guests in her Kensington menagerie. Two or three American 42 THE FOOLISH LONDONERS prophets whose lucrative business it is to trim God to their own size eyeing each other like rival wrest- ling champions ; a literary youth or two ; and several tea-drinking women. Mrs. Pink is sound at bottom but too lenient to fools. It is amusing to see so old a woman so tenacious of revolt. I talked a little with her about it, but could get nothing but the phrase " People must be taught to think " ; her idea being that everything non- or anti-scriptural is necessarily thoughtful. She is perhaps the oldest of that body of women in London at this moment who accept Bernard Shaw volubly and patronisingly without be- ing in the least ready for him or really knowing what his game is. For it is all Shaw now in these circles, and it is chiefly women who fill his theatre, just as it is chiefly women who fill the churches. But women are always quick to get the machinery of modernity although underneath they remain as primal as Eve. I have asked Miss Graham to dine with me and to go to a play. There is no chance of getting to know her at Mrs. Pink's. I find London a good deal changed. New buildings everywhere and too many motor cars, and the foolish •Londoners rather more foolish than of old. They take their various kinds of measles so thoroughly, the three varieties just now being Bridge, motoring and eating. The worst thing about games is that proficiency in them can be obtained only by the neglect of everything else ; which means that gradu- ally the brain ossifies in all other directions That 43 LISTENER'S LURE is why really accomplished cricketers or billiard players, huntsmen or Bridge players, can seldom talk about anything else. The English seem to be unable as a people to have a place for everything and every- thing in its place. Every one here is frivolous now. Scepticism and cynicism are in the air, with a kind of desperate high spirits and want of thought. They might all be characters in one of their own musical comedies. I notice it particularly, because when I was in England last, it was during the Boer war, and things were very gloomy. It was said that for every lieutenant who died in that heroic struggle twenty girls in English society went into mourning. But there is no mourning now. People seem to have given up dying. One gets an impression, among the smart lot, of perpetual spark- ling motion. The rest however is drab and still enough. I have taken rooms in a hotel in Jermyn Street, convenient to Rowland Ward, who is going to make a fine job of my skins. Yours H. R. MISS MITT TO EDITH GRAHAM c/o Mrs. Cunningham Bellevue Bedford Dear Miss Graham, I hope you reached London quite safely and did not feel the want of the egg you so kindly gave 44 LYDIA MITT ENTRAPPED me. There was no one to meet me and I had some difficulty in rinding the house, but it is all right now and I am very happy here. It is rather an enclosed house, but my bedroom, which I share with the two children, has a window looking over the roofs to the top branches of a very beautiful tree, and I see this as I dress. The children are quite nice, although rather noisy, and they wake up earlier than I should wish ; but I think the happy voices of children make a very sweet music even when one would rather be sleeping, don't you ? As they have no nurse just now, the old one having left and Mrs. Cunningham being anxious to see how we can manage without another, I have to help them dress, and look after them rather more than I was expecting from her letter ; but I have always been fond of children, and I cannot in my first situation have too much experience, can I ? I am a little troubled about one thing, and that is the absence of a piano. It was distinctly under- stood that my music should be allowed to go on, but the old piano was sold quite recently, and as Mrs. Cunningham cannot make up her mind what make to try next, there is none. It means of course that Maggie's lessons cannot be given, but Mrs. Cunning- ham says that her head is so bad just now that per- haps this is as well. Perhaps I can find some one who has a piano on which I can practise on my evenings out, although just now, and until there is a nurse, I don't see much chance of having many, 45 LISTENER'S LURE as Maggie is so nervous that some one must sit by her bed while she goes to sleep. I should so prize a letter from you, dear Miss Graham. Yours most truly Lydia Mitt EDITH GRAHAM TO MISS MITT 17A Kensington Square W. Dear Miss Mitt, Your letter made me unhappy because I am afraid you have fallen into rather a selfish house where they will take advantage of your good nature. You really must not stay for more than the first month unless Mrs. Cunningham gets a nurse and a piano and you have far more time to yourself. It makes me very unhappy to feel that while I am happily placed here you are being overworked. Do let me know that things are being made easier. Yours sincerely Edith Graham EDITH GRAHAM TO JOHN LIN DBA Y FROME 17A Kensington Square W. Dear Jack, It is very nice of you to be sorry about my leaving Winfield. I like to be missed. But I shall 46 JACK ON HIS DEFENCE be back before very long, as Mr. Harberton is certain to want me to help him again. This change is no more for me than one of your terms is for you, — except that / shall probably do some work. Now I want to ask you a favour — Will you have Deuce? I can't leave him with Mrs. Ring because she will only overfeed him and he will have no exercise. As it is, she gives him tea, which is very wrong ; and if he went to the Rectory he would have rather a bad time with the other dogs and make them very unhappy and jealous. So may I tell Mrs. Ring to send him to you ? Then I shall know he is in good hands. Yours sincerely Edith Graham JOHN LINDSA Y FROME TO EDITH GRAHAM Merton College Oxford Dear Edith, Of course I will have Deuce. But the rotten rules of this college won't let us keep dogs in our rooms, so he will have to be boarded out, but I shall take him for walks every day and I shall see that the people he is with are decent. That was rather a nasty one about my not working. I have made a resolution to work like b, like anything this term, because you asked me to, and have hit on rather a 47 LISTENER'S LURE dodgy way of reminding myself I am going to. It is two cards, one stuck up on the looking-glass in my bedroom and one on the inside of the door in my other room, and on both of them I have printed the words WORK FIRST, PLAY AFTERWARDS. You see I see it whenever I shave or brush my hair, and whenever I am going out. So don't ever say any more that I'm a slacker. I shall give Deuce a ripping time. You didn't say anything in your letter about that splendid idea of mine of coming to see you in Algy's car. I suppose you were too busy thinking about Deuce. Algy says that Kensington Square is just off the high road to Richmond. So it will be very easy for us to take you. The car is a fair snorter and we'll have you there and back before you can say knife. Your devoted friend Jack Frome LYNN HARBERTON TO EDITH GRAHAM Barbizon Dear, Some day we must go to Fontainebleau together— and in October, when it is brown and yellow and gold and full of the scent of the Fall and all the visitors have gone. It is splendid, but splendid in a way quite different from our English forests— Windsor, for example, or the New Forest. 43 LYNN AT BARBIZON The first thing that one misses is the grass. Our beautiful lawns in England have no counterpart here. I remember that the first time I saw the New Forest (I was ten) these lawns shocked me — they seemed to be against the rules. A forest as I understood it then was a dense mass of trees, gloomy, terrible, almost impenetrable, black. Prob- ably Grimm and Andersen were at the bottom of this fancy. Open spaces of smooth sunny turf were unfair, I remember thinking : just as in my first experience of the underground railway in London I was pained to catch now and then glimpses of the sky. I wish you were here, there is so much beauty to share. And yet it is better as it is. I write this at a table under a chestnut tree in the garden of an odd little hotel, and every now and then a chestnut falls. So far nothing is broken, but the man at the next table to me has just had his soup splashed all over him. We will stay at Barbizon to- gether, one day, you and I. Indeed we might even settle for a while, for Millet's house here is to let, and I nearly took it this morning. I think I could work there. Rousseau's house near by has become a little church : he left it so in his will. Diaz' house is almost opposite Millet's. I remember walking in Wordsworth's garden at Rydal Mount on a perfect Sunday afternoon in April and remarking that if a man could not write poetry there he could not write it anywhere (which was, of D 49 LISTENER'S LURE course, a very shallow thing to say. The same re- mark has more point here — in this wonderful light — as applied to painting. I never saw such light : we have nothing like it in England. Our light, compared with the light of Barbizon, is light under muslin, one might say. I went early this morning to see the heads of Millet and Rousseau in bronze let into a rock close to the village. I wish rather that Corot's had been the other head, because Rousseau does not touch me as Corot does ; but Corot belonged to Barbizon hardly at all — Ville d'Avray was his home — although his is the first name that springs to mind when the little white village is mentioned (the white now splashed with scarlet Virginia creeper). Corot, however, would be furious if he thought that any one had thought or suggested this — the simple generous crea- ture, who said of himself and Rousseau, " Rousseau ! Ah yes, he is an eagle, while I, I am only a lark who sings small sweet songs in a gray sky." All day I have been thinking of this brave old bachelor, painting steadily all his life in spite of every kind of opposition at home and not much honour from those who ought to have known. There is no story of him that does not rejoice one, but best of all I like that which tells how he handed over to Daumier, another great artist, who had come on bad days and feared eviction, the title deeds of his house. I like too to think of him offering money to establish a battery against the Prussians at Ville d'Avray and 50 A VICTORIAN SYBIL remarking to a friend who visited his studio during the war " That little picture will last as long as any work of Bismarck's— and it will have harmed no one." (I like to think it is the little view of the Seine at Saint Cloud, just below Ville d'Avray, which hangs in the study and every time we look at it lays a cool soft hand on our foreheads.) And no story has ever so infuriated me as that of a late English railway millionaire having so many Corots that he stacked scores of them with their faces to the wall in his attics, neither seeing them himself nor making it easy for others to see them. If ever there was an indictment of wealth it is there. But one must not get bitter in this air. I hope you will see as much of Miss Fielding as you can. She is a very remarkable woman — one of the Victorian sybils, clear-sighted, clear-spoken, humorous and very kind. Mrs. Pink amuses me a good deal with her devotion to new causes. Between this philanthropic old optimist and so shrewd a student of life as her sister you ought to do well. Don't let Herbert make you cynical ; but that is impossible. And don't forget me. Yours L. H. 5i LISTENER'S LURE MISS MITT TO EDITH GRAHAM c/o Mrs. Cunningham Bellevue Bedford Dear Miss Graham, How very kind of you to find time to write to me. Please don't think that I am unhappy— I am not at all. It is so splendid to be earning some money and being really independent, and although I am always very busy I don't think it ought to be called overwork. I am very strong, you know, and one is so much happier when one is busy. I confess I should rather have liked a room to myself, but we can't have everything, and I know of so many girls that are really much more in need of a situation than I was who cannot get anything for months ; whereas I got this at once, without any trouble at all. Just now it is a little difficult to get on with the children's lessons, because the cook left suddenly on Saturday, and as Mrs. Cunningham is not strong, and the housemaid cannot cook at all, I have been trying my hand. It is very lucky that I took a few lessons before I left home. I find I can do really rather well with simple things, and it makes me laugh sometimes to think what funny duties I am carrying out as a governess. I am so glad to hear that you are happy. I don't think I ever loved any face so much as yours. I was looking at it for so long in the railway carriage 52 HERCULES PROPOSES before you spoke, and I was hoping so much that something would happen to make it possible for you to speak to me. Do you know, dear Miss Graham, I was even rather naughty, for I was trying to think of some way of attracting your notice as if it was an accident, but I could think only of dropping my book, and I did not like to do that because you might have rather a tender toe and it would have been so dreadful if I had hurt it. I have been writing this in my room, but there is now no more candle to see by, so I must stop. Yours very truly Lydia Mitt EILEEN SOMERSCALES TO EDITH GRAHAM 13 The Crescent Bath Dear Edith, You will be interested to hear that Mr. Lenox proposed to-night, after the concert, where he sang " Twankydillo." Of course I have known for some time that this was coming, but I did not expect it just yet, least of all to-night, because I had been rather cross with him for choosing a country song like that, instead of something fine, but he said that there was too much classical music in the programme and the poorer part of the audience ought to have something more lively. I was so vexed that I re- 53 LISTENER'S LURE fused to play his accompaniment, and so the younger Miss Fleeter played it, and very badly too ; and he actually made the audience join in the chorus, which I was glad to find they did only half-heartedly. How- ever I let Mr. Lenox bring me home, and was really, I am afraid, rather short with him, but he took no notice, and suddenly stopped and said he had always loved me and admired me, and would I be his wife ? And he looked so white and worn that I forgot all about "Twankydillo," and kissed his poor head as it it was a little child's, and said yes. I have not told mother yet. In fact she was in bed when I got back. I am sitting up writing now, because to sleep is quite out of the question. Hercules is very kind, as you know, and he comes of a very old family. His grandmother was related to the Earl of Dacre. Of course I wish he wasn't a curate, but one can't have everything. Only you can do that. Do write me a letter saying you are very glad. I have so few friends. You seem to have all you want, and nothing but pleasant flattering people round you. Mother gets more trying every day, but perhaps my engagement will make her happier. She will have to find a companion, I suppose. Yours ever Eileen P.S. Hercules, who is very odd in some ways, through having had a Quaker grandmother I suppose 54 THE TERRIBLE TURKEY has a prejudice against engagement rings ; but I shall try to overcome that. LYNN HARBERTON TO EDITH GRAHAM FONTAINEBLEAU Dear Child, I have had a ridiculous adventure. I walked out this morning from Fontainebleau to a village eight or nine miles away called Fleury-en-Biere where there is a desolate chateau which I wanted to see. The only way in seemed to be through a farmyard, and this I took, and had got half-way across, towards the desired gateway, when I was stopped by a foe — an angry turkey. There is probably a short way with angry turkeys, but I have not learned it. I know more or less what to do if a bull were to run at me, or a dog try to bite me ; but a bird is different. There are no laws for dealing with assailing birds. It is said that a swan if aroused to attack a man can break his arm with one blow of its wing, but I never heard of any prescribed line of conduct for the man. Similarly with a turkey. A turkey cannot do such damage as that, but what is one to do but retreat lamely and in shame when a turkey pursues you closely across a large farmyard totally lacking cover, and now and then threatens to bite or peck? 55 LISTENER'S LURE No one came to the rescue. Had any one come I learned afterwards, I should never have been able to see the chateau. Slowly and painfully, waving my stick, but horrified at the idea of feeling it hit the bird, with terror breaking out damply all over me I reached an open doorway and slid through it. The turkey came too. Beyond I saw a high gate. I backed to it and stood by it, holding the turkey with a fixed glare. It stopped. I glared harder and felt for the lower bar of the gate with my foot. The turkey retreated a step, and I rose a step. It retreated another, and I rose another, and then I turned to scramble over. The turkey made no attempt to follow, and I was within the courtyard of the chateau. Everything was deserted and desolate. The great house fills, or almost fills, one end of the court, while stables and other offices and an imposing gateway complete the square. All is in red brick, rather ornately finished, and all is crumbling. The chateau itself is surrounded by a moat, now dry and filled with rank greenery, and to get into the house I had to go round to the front and cross a bridge. In front of the house stretches a park, equally empty and forlorn, with a lake in the hollow. Inside the state of things is not so bad. The wainscotting is good, the windows keep their glass. The kitchens are immense, with elaborate wash- houses and larders and cellars all contiguous. Up- stairs one walked more cautiously, for it seemed that every door must give on an ancient French family 56 TRESPASSING, SEVEN FRANCS at tambour work or cards. There were, however, only mice and vacancy. It was all very strange and a little eerie ; the sense of emptiness and dead owners was too vivid. The next thing was to get away, the trespass done, and to get away without meeting the turkey. It seemed as if the great gateway of the courtyard which led to the road direct would be the best way, but it turned out to be locked. None of the other buildings contained a door that led anywhere, and in the end there was nothing for it but to run the blockade through the turkey's domain, the farmyard, — as it were, the Dardanelles. Very gingerly I descended from the gate and entered the doorway of the farm. I glanced hastily round. The turkey was on the other side, among a crowd of servile poultry, probably telling them of his late conquest over man ; but immediately in front of me, apparently awaiting my appearance with the liveliest Interest, was a new enemy, a stout farmer's wife talking to a chauffeur ; and then I learned that the owner of the estate had just arrived in his motor car, and had seen me from the park moving before the windows, and had sent his chauffeur to demand who I was. It cost five francs to pacify the woman, and two, the man. I fancy I came out in the report as an eccentric American artist. Good-night L. 57 LISTENER'S LURE MISS FIELDING TO LYNN HARBERTON 17 Vicarage Gate Kensington Dear Exile, Your ward has come and conquered. My sister Victoria, who used to be thought of as a strong- minded independent woman, already gives signs of abdication. To me, who belong to the past, even if I never fluttered and trembled and twittered quite as much as was the rule, there is something almost uncanny in this new, level-eyed, quick, self-possessed, resolute, silent type of young woman who gets most of the things she wants. But Edith is not quite like that, because she is diffident and sympathetic too. Also she does not smoke, and that is getting to be one of the shortest cuts to my diminishing and obsolete heart. I think that if there is any occasion on which smoking would be justified in a woman it is when she gives a cook notice. I feel that if one could then light a pipe and do the deed coolly between the puffs, it would be the perfect way — unless of course it could be managed by telephone. But otherwise I dislike intensely to see them emitting clouds like so many clubmen. But of course women are clubmen to-day. There is a large building in Piccadilly where, I am told, they swagger about for all the world like the real thing. Why don't you give up ornamental literature 58 WOMAN'S DESTINY and write some trenchant pamphlets to tell England a few truths — not the least among them that there will never be any hope for the country so long as its girls try to be boys and its women men and work is considered shameful ? Your musty old Doctor John- son would have let them know it. I have no great opinion of the modern young man, but I have less of the modern young woman, with her slang, and her Bridge, and her hockey, and her cigarettes. Nature has arranged that there is only one thing for a woman to do, and that is to be a mother. Every- thing else she does is just an evasion. I used to deny this, and even now it is against my wish to believe it ; but I do believe it. I believe that every un- married woman is a ridiculous or pathetic figure ; I believe that every childless woman is a tragic figure ; and both are outstaying their welcome in Nature's house — are there only on sufferance. Women no doubt can do useful social things — speak, agitate, organise, and so forth ; but it is all beside the mark. Their duty is to be mothers. How Nature and the gods must laugh or weep at our frivolous efforts to lose sight of this destiny. My sister's proselytising zeal for example. I am beginning to want to see two things again — a lady and a mother. One mother, it is true, I can see at any time, by just sending for my niece, Mrs. Hyde, who is sweet and merry motherhood personi- fied ; but there are no more accessible ladies. Women in any number, girls, good fellows, " exquisitely 59 LISTENER'S LURE gowned hostesses," but ladies have gone out. Or are they all serving at Jay's ? Of course we are very glad that you have no need of Edith for the present, because we want her here, but if I had been in your place I should have in- vented a new book instantly in order to retain her company — even if it had been another work on Nelson. One of the nicest things about her is her silent intelligence. No one could ever call her "brainy," which is I think the worst of the new words. In my poor sister's drawing-room they are at present bending under "mentality," but that monster never wanders my way. I represent the old guard, and keep Tennyson on the drawing-room table. Good-bye for the present. My advice to you is to cut short your visit to your brother and come back and be human and obvious. Foreign lands are no place for a man who is dissatisfied with himself and perplexed as to his duty. All travel for pleasure is expensive and unnecessary, but it is never so foolish as when a sore head is your only companion. You should give up being cleverer than other people : it is a great mistake. There is a cry just now about going back to the land. That is what you ought to do, using "land" in its fullest sense. This is the last time that I shall bore you with my advice, so don't fear I am becoming a revivalist. Your friend Adelaide Fielding 60 WE MEET CYNTHIA HYDE P.S. Edith's orthodoxy is all right. She has not yet begun to say her prayers in bed ; and that is the intermediate stage between simple faith and infidelity. If she is snapped up by some vain London gentle- man you will have no reason to complain, for it will be largely through her five years' apprenticeship as a listener to your gifted tongue. It is no use training listeners in the country and sending them to this capital of male selfishness, if you are going to grumble when you lose them. I have watched her with male talkers. Her ear is more powerful than many tongues. MRS. PINK TO CYNTHIA HYDE, OF THE CORNER HOUSE, LEATHERHEAD, WIFE OF HERBERT C HIS HOLM HYDE, OF THE WOODS AND FORES TSDEPAR TMENT, MRS. PINK'S NEPHE I V 17A Kensington Square W. Dear Cynthia, I want you to come and tell me what you think of Adelaide's nominee, Miss Graham. I have my own opinion, which I will keep until I hear yours. The mother died young and left her, an only child, to the care of her father, a country vicar. He seems to have died when Edith was about nine- teen, after appointing a literary friend, a Mr. Har- berton, who knows all about Dr. Johnson, as her guardian. For the past few years she has lodged in the village and has helped Mr. Harberton as an 61 LISTENER'S LURE amanuensis. It was because his book was done, and because he thought she ought to see more of life, that she came to me. I like her immensely ; no, love her. (How silly of me 1 I never meant to say that, but I hate crossing things out and even more I hate writing things over again. But when you come, don't let my opinion affect yours.) A most extraordinary man has just come to London, an American, who after being for several years a Congregational minister in Chicago gave up everything to become a missionary in China, but while there was himself converted to Confucianism. He is now trying to win others to this most in- teresting philosophy, and I have arranged a meeting for him here on Sunday, the 23rd. I hope you will come up for the day. His name is Dr. Greeley Bok. (What a pity it is that one gets one's name so long before one's walk in life is decided.) I enclose two tickets for the meeting, but I suppose it is quite useless to expect Herbert to come too ; so bring one of the more intelligent members of your suite instead. Yours affectionate Aunt Victoria lynn harderton to edith graham FONTAINEBLEAU Dear Child, I have had rather an interesting experience. I have met a giant. There is a fete in full swing 62 THE GIANT in this town of many soldiers, and in wandering through it I came suddenly upon a picture of a gren- adier leaning against a lamp post and lighting his cigar at the flame. Underneath it were the words "The Tallest Private in the British Army." I paid my ten centimes and entered. Others entered too, and when there were enough of us the giant stoop- ingly emerged from the back compartment and un- folded himself to his ridiculous full height. His face was unmistakably English and as unmistak- ably the face of a very sick man — a large, dreary, pale, loose face. His red tunic was a world too big for him ; he was a giant only in height — a dwarf could have knocked him down. On his head he wore a bearskin, to add to the military illusion ; and he got his hand up to the salute laboriously, as though every muscle were stretched and limp. We walked erect under his outstretched arm, dropped coins in the tin box that he proffered with an im- portunate rattle, and the show was over, — for all except me. I could not let him go without a word, and he asked me to come inside where it was warm, and talk. I followed him into the tiny compartment at the back of the tent. He sank wearily into a chair, threw away his bearskin, and sat there, a dejected monster, with the stove between his knees. He came from Lincolnshire, he said, and had never been in the British army. He shivered over the stove as he warmed his vast hands. We talked about 63 LISTENER'S LURE Lincolnshire a little, and then of himself ; he said that his life was a hell, especially on the road ; his employer allowed him to walk out only furtively, late at night and in lonely places, for a giant whose inches are his fortune must not be seen free. He was clearly in a late stage of consumption, as so many giants are in this decadent day, and he would not be sorry when the end came. After so many years in a circumscribed caravan and a low-pitched tent, the grave must appeal to him mainly as a place where limbs can be stretched without let. We parted good friends, and I have since been back with a bottle and some English tobacco ; but never has a gleam of life flitted across the bleak and snowy regions of his face. It will not, I fear, be for much longer that he gives the peasantry of France a false idea of the size of Mr. Thomas Atkins. Death has set his seal too unmistakably on his face. But what a life ! He has not even enough spirit left to mind whether or not he sees Lincolnshire any more. He is as completely done as a man can be : a glaring example of the unwisdom of being abnormal in this trim world. I have sent Mrs. Ring a postcard of Napoleon's bedroom, coloured. I hope it won't stir her to make any alterations in mine. Good-night L. 64 DR. BOK MEETS A CRITIC CYNTHIA HYDE TO MRS. PINK The Corner House Leatherhead My dear Aunt, I was sorry I had to run away this afternoon to catch my train, without saying good-bye. I don't like your new prophet at all. I don't like him, and I don't like what he said. I hope you will not en- courage him to make a resort of Kensington Square ; or if you do, I hope you will lock up the spoons. I am very glad Herbert did not come with me, as I am sure he would have been rude. Do take up Christian Science or something nice and quiet and refined. This great bull of a man revolts me, and I can't bear to think of Chinese religion. The Chinese have such horrible little eyes, one couldn't possibly share their faith. Besides they despise women, which is a shame, and worship their an- cestors. You know perfectly well that I couldn't worship mine. Just think of worshipping that horrible man the Duke of Marlborough had to have shot for copying despatches. He was my great-great- grandfather, I believe. I think it is awful to en- courage these unsettling Americans. Your loving niece Cynthia e 65 LISTENER'S LURE SIR HERBERT ROYCE TO LYNN HARBERTON Morton's Hotel Jermyn Street Dear Lynn, Edith interests me a good deal and amuses me too. What I like so much about her is her refusal to waste time— more than she must, I mean. By taking most things for granted, or accepting them quietly as if she did, she saves all the time that less sensible women, and men too, lose in surprise and resentment. Again, she never clucks. Most Lon- doners cluck all the time, over their neighbours' shortcomings or virtues : Edith takes them as they come. The temptation to say What a nice man so-and-so is ! and What a dear woman Mrs. Blank is ! to which most of us fall, seems to leave her untroubled. To her all men and women seem to be equally desirable, and she never analyses their merits. This might be called inhuman ; but Edith is very human at heart, although the despair of those who want their own views of men and women to be shared absolutely by their friends. We all of us say that we take people as we find them : but Edith does it. Yours H. R. 66 NATURE'S CRUELTY LYNN HARBERTON TO MISS ADELAIDE FIELDING FONTAINEBLEAU Dear Mentor, You say something in your letter about the Back to the Land cry. It is a picturesque enough rally, but if you lived in the country and saw the lives which the labourers have" to pass you would be less enthusiastic. One may deplore the steady drifting of the boys to the towns ; but it is easily understood. To reproduce the father's drudgery over again can- not present any charm. In a town there is always a possibility of a lucky chance leading to prosperity : the books are full of meagre beginnings and illustrious endings — Carnegies and Wilson Barretts and John Burns' ; but there is no future for the farm lad who sticks to the farm but a pound a week at the most and rheumatism. Your friend Nature is so cruel. She insists that he who gives his services to the land shall be nothing short of a slave. He must be of the land and of the land only : he must think land and live land : and in reward the land will get into his bones and cripple him. I sometimes wonder if field work is a human being's work at all— when I see the gnarled and creeping things about here that are called old men and old women, who ought to be upright and happy, but are mournful and crooked and lacking both the oppor- tunity and the power of enjoying the ameliorations of civilisation. 67 LISTENER'S LURE I hate machinery, but machinery would be better than this ; and yet of course it is machinery that has emptied the rural districts. Town life is bad enough, with its crowded slums and fiercer struggle for ex- istence ; but there at least you get society and dry walls. You should see some of our cottages — such picturesque little bits for the artist ! — on wet days. And it is not only the labourers. I wonder at the employers too. I stood the other day on a hill at home, looking over the plain, while an old country- man pointed out the boundaries of the farms beneath us and told stories of present and past inhabitants of some of the cottages,. His eighty-first birthday was only a month ago ; he has worked on the same farm for nearly sixty years, and he was born in the cottage in which he now lives. Eighty-one years is a long distance to send back a memory ; but his makes the journey with little difficulty. So we stood there, he and I, and picked out the dividing hedges and discussed farmers dead and living. God-fearing farmers — and otherwise ; gentle farmers — and other- wise ; sober farmers — and otherwise ; but mostly otherwise. "Wonderful hard drinking "—that was the burden of most of his recollections. As he talked I seemed to be a part of the life he described, and to see inside those old houses at our feet. I was conscious of the drawing-room, with the horsehair sofas, the crocheted antimacassars, the bright green carpets, the tall lamp with flowers painted on it, the oleographs on the wall, the thick 68 UNDER THE WEATHER tablecloth, the closed - from - Monday - to - Saturday smell ; I was conscious of the little parlour with the black kettle on the hob, the pipes and tobacco jars on the mantelpiece, the gun hanging over it, the grocer's almanack with its bright picture, the thread- bareness of the carpet along the main routes of thoroughfare, the black ceiling, the smell of last night's smoke. . . . And I seemed to understand so clearly why that wonderful hard drinking had set in. The isolated life, the meteorological reverses, one lot of crops soaked until they are sodden, another baked dry, hay ruined at the last minute, corn spoiled, cattle disease, sheep rot, valuable horses falling lame, and so forth. There is something so inexorable about the expenses of a farm. No matter how bad the harvest, no matter what wretched price the cattle and sheep have fetched in the market, there the expenses are just the same. Who can be surprised that farmers take to the bottle? These are trials that call for the fortitude of philosophers ; and farmers are only farmers. A farmer who goes through adversity and comes out the other side still sweet, that is a man to take off one's hat to. Think of an unsuccessful farmer on a wet day. Imagine an unsuccessful farmer, middle-aged, with no balance at his banker's, and all going wrong at home, and his illusions dead, and the future one stern frown, and the present a grey sheet of rain, falling, falling, pitilessly. Great Heavens I wasn't 69 1 LISTENER'S LURE alcohol invented for such a case ? You know the German proverb about tobacco : " God first made man, and then He made woman ; and then He felt sorry for man and made tobacco." Well, equally one might say He first made the land, and then He made the agriculturalist, and then He felt sorry for the agriculturalist and made wine. It was not until the Flood that Noah exceeded. I write this in a hotel at Fontainebleau. I am very lonely. Good-night. Yours L. H. MISS FASE TO EDITH GRAHAM The Laurels Grange-over-Sands My dear Edith, I have wanted to write to you for some time on a very delicate subject, but have not been able to bring myself to begin. But now I feel I must delay no longer. I refer to the Heart. You are, dear, living in a great city full of young men, and sooner or later you will become an object of their admiration. Although I do not hold with giving advice, yet I hope you will be very careful. I do not say that you should be so careful that you should never marry at all. One can make gyave mistakes in that way, 70 CONCERNING EDITH'S HEART very great mistakes. But you must search your heart very narrowly before you say Yes to any one. The natural tendency of a nicely brought-up girl is always to say No, but of course, as she learns after- wards, when alas ! it is too late, there are times when she really meant the opposite. My dear child, do not make this mistake. I have known lives made permanently sad through it. It is said that marriages are made in heaven, but it is difficult to believe it of some. The Bank Manager here, such a nice man, a Mr. Crask, has the utmost unhappiness in his home life. I am sure there could not be a more gentlemanly official than he is, and it is a pleasure to ask for one's pass book, but no sooner does he get upstairs than his troubles begin. I am told that Mrs. Crask cannot forgive him for being only a clerk. She married him under the impression that he was a banker, and such is her nature that she persecutes him day and night for her mistake. I am told that he met her at Blackpool, where her mother kept a boarding-house ; and though of course there is nothing in your case that corresponds to hers, I thought you ought to know about it. On the other hand the senior curate here is one of the most happily married men you could conceive of, with a large family and a pony. His wife was the daughter of a rich farmer in Derbyshire, and they have the best cheese I ever tasted. She has a little private income and a perfectly placid disposition. But I wish she would buy better tea, for the Dorcas 7i LISTENER'S LURE meetings at her house are only half as pleasant as they should be. The taste for China tea is not com- mon, most people seeming to prefer the rough Indian or Ceylon. At the last Dorcas meeting we began to read aloud Sir Frederick Treves' travel book, The Other Side of the Latiterti — such a charming work. It would, I am sure, do your Mrs. Pink good. I must now stop or I shall miss the post. Your loving Aunt Charlotte P.S. You will not, I am sure, misunderstand that remark about marriages being made in Heaven. Of course I believe that all things are made in Heaven, but some are for our chastisement and are too mys- terious for us to comprehend, like Mrs. Crask's temper. Poor Mr. Crask once called on me, in the morning, on a question connected with my signature, and his manners were most refined and gentle. He bowed to me over a glass of sherry in a way that almost put me out of countenance. EDITH GRAHAM TO LYNN HARBERTON 17A Kensington Square W. Dear Guardian, I am getting to know the family by degrees. Mrs. Pink's niece by marriage, a Mrs. Hyde, called 72 FRY OR JACKSON? to-day with two of her many boys. I liked her in- stantly, and I hoped she liked me. She is abundant in every way : large and easy in body, and large and easy in mind. You I fancy would call her Shake- spearian, and so should I if you had not come first and made it look like copying, which is detestable. I find that she has a reputation for saying deliciously frank and natural things, and even in the hour I was with her this morning I saw several spring to her eyes and lips and fall back again at a prompting of reserve. But I think I knew what they were. If she had known that I knew what they were she would have said them, but even Cynthias (her name is Cynthia) have to be careful before their aunts' new Companions. She is somewhere in the thirties, with a complexion like milk and roses. The dear thing, Miss Fielding tells me, collects lovers as other people collect postage stamps or autographs, and if there are none about she invents them. The two boys who came with her were Arthur and Dermot. Dermot asked me at once if I preferred Fry to Jackson. For the moment I thought he was referring to chocolate, but he went on quickly to add that they knew some one to whom Fry had given a bat, and that saved me from a fatal error. It also gave me a hint as to what I should say, and I chose Fry instantly. This made us friends for life ; although of course Fry can't bowl and Jackson can. Arthur also is satisfied with me because I knew the 73 LISTENER'S LURE name of a moth which he was carrying in a match- box. So that is all right. I have arranged about Deuce : Jack has him at Oxford. Good-night Edith LYNN HARBERTON TO EDITH GRAHAM i FONTAINEBLEAU Dear, Just a scrap to-night. I do not say that Fon- tainebleau is the perfect place to walk in : it is a little too trim ; but it is good enough for me. It is a very good place to be alone in, and just now I am glad to be alone. I have been bored horribly at the hotel this evening by two artists who could not think how I could care for solitary walking. 1 was moved to an unexpected pitch of argumentative eloquence. All in a moment I saw why I cared for solitary walking, and I told them so in one long, and, I don't doubt, rather noisy paragraph. I assumed the character of the contemplative vagabond, and, as near as I can remember now, said this : That the true vagabond is happiest alone. That there is absurdity in two men walking together ; three— and the thing becomes grotesque. Hazlitt was right in deprecating conver- sation : the walker does not want to converse, except 74 THE NATURE OF THE VAGABOND with nature and himself. I doubt even if Hazlitt's exception in favour of a few words in anticipation of the supper at the inn was really sound ; for food that is articulately anticipated is rarely satisfying. No- thing, I said, so robs a poulet of its divinity as to ex- patiate on it in advance. Solitary, silent, sub-conscious anticipations of the meal are wiser. The cultivated vagabond will talk gladly with the denizens of the country, with bagmen, gipsies, circus-men, pedlars ; but almost the last thing he wishes to find at the inn is another like himself. There are a hundred reasons why he wishes to be alone : his sacred selfishness de- mands it ; he came out for it, otherwise he would have stayed in the city ; no one is quite worthy to commune with him, every true vagabond being- superior to every one else ; he detests having his attention called to beautiful things, every true vaga- bond being the first detector and judge of beautiful things ; he does not want to agree, even less does he want to disagree, for every true vagabond knows best. And I concluded with this epigram : A com- panion is a mistake in many ways, but chiefly be- cause when he is with you you are not alone. Then I said good-night and came up to write to you and go to bed. Good-night L 75 LISTENER'S LURE EILEEN SOMERSCALES TO EDITH GRAHAM 13 The Crescent Bath • Dear Edith, Your long letter about the Sunday afternoon concert was very interesting. I had no idea that anything but sacred music was allowed. How very fortunate you are ! You seem just to open your mouth for pleasant things to drop in, while I am tied to this wretched dull invalids' town, and almost to the house. As for Sundays, I am afraid I must say good-bye to them now and for ever. Hercules makes such a point of my going to the evening service as well as the morning, and he rather wants me to come for him after school in the afternoon to walk home. I have always felt that the one day in the week on which engaged people in our class need not walk out to- gether is Sunday ; but Hercules does not seem to trouble about things like that. I never knew any one so completely careless about what other people are thinking. I thought our engagement would make mother happier, but when we are alone she grumbles more than ever. Hercules is the only person who can keep her happy, but of course he cannot be here very much. Yourj ever Eileen 76 LITTLE MR. CONRAN EDITH GRAHAM TO LYNN HARBERTON 17A Kensington Square W. Dear Guardian, I think you will like to know what my duties are. Here is a typical day. — I get up at eight and we have breakfast at nine. After breakfast Mrs. Pink reads her letters and we answer them. There are always a great many, and we are usually about an hour or two over it. Among them are pretty sure to be one or two asking for money, and these Mrs. Pink likes to examine before she does anything. There is a funny little man, Mr. Conran, who calls every morning at half-past ten for orders, just like the butcher, whose sole duty it is to make inquiries about the begging-letter writers. It is awful the number that are not genuine. Mr. Conran is a very kind little man, whose face gets sadder and sadder as he finds out another and another impostor. Mrs. Pink discovered him in an A.B.C. where he was sitting next her one day when she was in a hurry and offered her his cup of coffee and roll, saying he could wait as he had time to spare. She liked his face so much that they talked a little, and she gave him her card and asked him to call. And the next thing he was get- ting thirty shillings a week as her almoner and de- tective. His real business is that of legal engrosser, which leaves him plenty of time. He is a widower 77 LISTENER'S LURE with no children, and he lives in one room in Gray's Inn. Soon after eleven Mrs. Pink goes out, and she likes me to go too. We have lunch at one, and after that until half-past four, when tea is brought in, I am free, because Mrs. Pink either reads or goes to Com- mittee meetings. She never pays calls, and no one now expects her to, but there are few days on which callers do not come here, and I am kept busy talking and pouring out tea until six every afternoon. Most of the callers talk fads, but we have some interesting ones too, and three or four young men, the nicest of whom is Mr. Albourne, a protege of Mrs. Pink's. He is different from all the other young men I have so far met. One of the pleasantest things about him is his frank way of criticising himself. He stands on one side, as it were, and sees himself file by, and calls out impudent things to the proces- sion. London is full of laughers, I find, but he is the first to realise the truth that the best laugher begins at home. He is on one of the weekly reviews, but he does a good deal of work for other papers too — little anonymous satirical articles and sometimes verse. Mrs. Pink, who knew his parents, offered to pay for him to go either to Oxford or Cambridge, but he said he would prefer two years in London, with means to do nothing all the while, and she consented. I think he was right. He has never published any of his verse, but we have several of his poems (which 78 ENTER DENNIS ALBOURNE he will not allow us to call poems) pasted into a little book. I am copying two of them, representing two of his principal moods, for you to read. You will see that in one he believes in human nature's sweetness and in the other he mocks at one of its weaknesses : he is always swinging between these two phases of mind— reverencing simplicity and genuineness and mocking pretentiousness and affec- tation. He is very delicate, a little inclined to be consumptive I am afraid, and is probably the worst dressed man, without being untidy, in the world (worse than you). These are the poems : — THE DIVINE IN THE COMMONPLACE At the moment that Fate had set apart For their meeting, they met ; and from heart to heart A bond of sympathy straightway grew, And one they became, who till then were two. Had you asked his friends to tell you aught Of the kind of fellow the girl had "caught," — One would have called him "an honest soul," Another, "a very good sort on the whole,' And all would assure you the man had naught Of hidden depths, and they couldn't conceive ("But you can't account for a woman's whim!") Whatever the girl could see in him. Her friends would have answered much the same Of the girl henceforward to bear his name : "A plain, little, inoffensive thing, Lucky to win a wedding ring ; Pleasant enough, but tame as tame ; " And try as they might they couldn't perceive (" But a man's such a gullible character!") Whatever her husband could see in her. 79 LISTENER'S LURE Such would have been the wise world's speech ;- While love transfigured each for each, And she was his soul's mysterious star, And he her wonderful Avatar. This is the other : — THE HIGHER ALTRUISM The conduct of myself is — what? A bagatelle, a trifle, not A matter for persistent care, But something which, when I can spare A minute, may, perhaps be scanned With profit. On the other hand, The conduct of my friends, my neighbours, Demands my best, untiring labours. My ways, alas ! are fixed, were fixed When God first took the trowel and mixed The mud of which he fashioned man. A part of the predestined plan, Fate ties my hands ; I cannot move Except in the appointed groove. To grumble argues little wit ; I see my weird and bow to it. But none the less can I descry My neighbour's faults with half an eye. His little weaknesses I see, And recommend the remedy, And strive by every means to raise My neighbour into wiser ways. Nay, more, with other folk I run His foibles over, one by one, Till all believe each limitation And pine for his regeneration. So pure a joy is self-negation. 80 LONDON'S GOSSIPS We have dinner at half-past seven, and after dinner, if no one is here, I read to Mrs. Pink. We have just finished Diana of the Crossways and are going to begin One of Our Conquerors again. I say again, because we tried it before Diana, and the first chapter was fatal. So this time I am going to paraphrase the first chapter and begin with the second. Mrs. Pink's favourite poem seems to be "The Eloping Angels" by William Watson. I don't think you have read this ; but if you had you would at once realise her revolutionary turn of mind. It is very wonderful in any one so old, I think. Miss Fielding, her sister, is greatly amused by it all, and never omits to ask me just before she goes how my ortho- doxy is getting on. She pretends to see my bump of reverence diminishing day by day. We go to bed at half-past ten ; or at least Mrs. Pink does. I sit up an hour or so longer and write to you or read. So you see it is a quiet and regular life. I am as happy, I think, as I could be away from Winfield. The only times when I feel really miserable are when the fogs come. Kensington Square seems to be peculiarly adapted to hold fogs. They seem to treat it as a resting-place, to lie down in and gain fresh strength. One thing that shocks me and rather frightens me too is the way that London gossips. In the country we get into the way of thinking that London is in earnest : that it seriously discusses statesman- ship and art, literature and sociology, religion and F 81 LISTENER'S LURE music. But it is all a mistake. London only dis- cusses people. However the conversations may begin, even in this strenuous house, they end, in spite of Mrs. Pink, in gossip about men and women, chiefly women. I like Sir Herbert Royce more and more, but it is not easy to keep pace with him. He is very de- structive. I suppose killing lions and tigers makes men feel superior, and that leads to contemptuous- ness. I wish he had not killed any, it seems to me so dreadful to do anything to spoil such beautiful pieces of life and strength : so unfair too to do it with a gun. He says he quite agrees with me, but to kill is second nature with him, and as it is against the law to kill men in England, he has to kill big game in Africa and India. If I thought he meant it when he talks like this I should be very unhappy, but it is only his humour, I am sure. For all his cold talk he is much more thoughtfully kind than any of the other men that come here. Good-night Edith P.S. I don't mean that he is kinder than Mr. Albourne, but more satisfactorily so. Mr. Albourne gives one the impression that he could be kind even to his own hurt ; but Sir Herbert would always be strong too. 82 THE PERNICKETY PENSIONERS GWENDOLEN FROME TO EDITH GRAHAM The Rectory Winfield Dear old Thing, I am afraid I am making the most awful mess of your work here. For one thing the old women don't like me so much as they liked you, of course ; and then there is the drawback that I am the Rector's daughter, which makes me a sort of policeman and puts them rather on their guard. " I do 'ope Miss Edith is coming back soon," they say most of the time. Mrs. Beloe is the worst. She really is a terror, I can't do anything right for her. I took her some beef-tea the other morning and heated it on the fire and gave it to her. " Thank you, miss," she said, " but Miss Edith never puts pepper in because she knows that I can't take it, it makes me cough that dreadful." Well, she didn't cough and she mopped up the whole cupful, but I stood there just feeling a rotten failure. Mrs. Tootell has had a most awful tooth, and I took her to old Weedon's on Thursday, the day that the dentist comes, to have it out. All the way there and all the way back she was whimpering, " Miss Edith would have given me something to cure it, Miss Edith would. She wouldn't let the brutes pull 83 LISTENER'S LURE it out" — although the tooth was quite hollow and breaking away. The dentist was very gentle and quick, but she thinks and speaks of him still only as " the brutes." Father says it is very wrong of Mr. Harberton to allow these old people enough to stay on in their cottages when they are not earning anything. He says the cottages are wanted for younger people, and the old ones are bound to need more and more attention which they cannot pay for, and they ought to go on the parish. I suppose there is something in it, but I quite agree with you about their horror of going to the workhouse and the importance of sticking to their own roofs as long as they can. Of course what Winfield wants is some almshouses. They would not mind going into them, and if they were endowed like those at Rambourne everything would be made easy for the old things. A letter from Jack says he's working like a nigger : but I bet that's all tommy rot. I know Jack better. When I told father he said "The negro, my child, is the laziest and most procrastinating creature on God's earth." Jack also says that Deuce has been biting one of the sillier Dons' leg, and every one is delighted. Do write to me. Yours ever Gwen THE ALMSHOUSE SOLUTION EDITH GRAHAM TO GWENDOLEN FROME (Fragment) 17A Kensington Square, W. It is very good of you to look after my old charges. They are rather a grumbling set I know, but it isn't much fun to be old like that and full of rheumatism. I am always surprised that they grumble so little, not so much. But it isn't their grumbling to me that I mind, it's their grumbling to Mr. Harberton. He is always so weak and they know just how to get round him. They tell him he looks overworked. I believe that clever women always tell men they look overworked. You are quite right about the almshouses — that would be splendid. It is the only form of charity about which one feels quite happy, and it can be beautiful too if you get a good architect. But I suppose they cost a tremendous lot. Always yours Edith DENNIS ALBOURNE TO EDITH GRAHAM 8 Hare Court The Temple Dear Miss Graham, I have received a circular inviting me to join an American Success Club. A Success Club is a 35 LISTENER'S LURE very clever idea, thoroughly American, and I want Mrs. Pink to know about it. It seems to me a little too much in her line, but don't say I said so. The process is very simple, as these passages cut from the circular will show you. Perhaps you are ambitious and eager to make an effort to win success, but lack confidence in your ability, or do not know just how to commence. You perhaps feel that you possess natural talent and ability, and if you only had some one to encourage and direct you in the right channel of thought, you could take up your work with renewed energy and increased hope and make a success of it. This is where a membership in this Club would help you, for it would supply the missing link between you and success, through the assisting influence of the Mentalism of every member. You would at once become a link with the other members, in the chain that moves the machinery of success. Their combined mental strength would be united with yours and before such a mighty force all obstacles would give way. . . . Thoughts are things, and Mentalism is the subtle force by which thoughts are intelligently conveyed from one to another. The concentrating and centralising of this great force by thou- sands of minds, upon a special subject at a certain hour, always creates the condition desired. . . . Each member of the Club is instructed in the use of the Law of Mentalism, so that he may by its use create for himself and for others the elements of success. While every man and woman possessing a knowledge of this law can assist himself or herself to success, still they can have that assistance increased a thousandfold, if they are also in harmony with, and receive the mental help and influence from a thousand people who are already attaining success. Then if that number is increased to ten thousand, the success will be increased in a corresponding ratio. The mental vibrations of one member are strengthened by those of all the members of the club. Every member will use his mental Force to help you, and you in return will send out your mental vibrations to unite with theirs and help them. 86 THE ENGLISH FAILURE CLUB As they become more successful, your success will increase, for you will all become as one great mind and think with one accord. Isn't that clever? The inventor of such a notion ought to be on The Times; perhaps he is. I am offered, for a dollar, two months' concentrated American mentalism on any affair I may have in hand. As my affairs are all literary I am not accepting, or in the result I might find myself writing like Matthew Arnold's friend the Reverend E. P. Roe or even Lew Wallace — the most successful American authors, 1 believe. But it has given me an idea. What do you think of an English Failure Club? The Failures will combine to think steadily of the new book or play upon which one of those successful men who cannot make a mistake is at present engaged ; and by our concentrated mentalism get merit — and un- popularity — into it. Terms free. Yours sincerely D. A. LYNN HARBERTON TO EDITH GRAHAM H6tel Dv Soleil Avignon Dear, I have been to another fair, or rather I found myself suddenly surrounded by fair at this place and 87 LISTENER'S LURE surrendered to it. It was the usual thing save for two incidents which perhaps are worth describing to you. One was the demeanour of a young woman who confessed to the possession of three legs, and indeed was unmistakably the owner of that number on the picture outside, each one as robust and identifiable a leg as those wooden models on which hosiers display lace stockings, or as the legendary Manxman's. Having set myself the task of evading no single booth, I went in and was im- mensely taken with the calm self-possession and modesty with which the Phenomenon displayed her draped treasures. It was no small achievement under a fire of sceptical criticism by a dozen caustic wits. She was rather pretty, and quite young, and there she sat, without the faintest tinge of emotion, until they began to show signs of exhaustion. Then " Merci, messieurs ! " she said very sweetly, and dropped the curtain, and we filed out. After all, when one has three legs and can make money by the gift one can afford to be tolerant. But it is odd and rather hard when the wrong person blushes, and that person oneself. I felt somehow as if I had been peeping over some one's shoulder to read a private letter and had been caught doing it. The other incident was connected with a round- about. My vow of thoroughness did not include riding on a revolving pig or rabbit, but I looked with a good deal of amusement at those that did. The correct thing is for an observer to provide himself 88 TENDER-HEART AND THE GRISETTE with long rolls of coloured paper and to throw these over the young woman he likes best as she whirls by. Every girl on this roundabout had an admirer, and several of them were covered with votive streamers ; every girl except one, a little plump solid thing of about seventeen, wearing deep mourning, who could win no notice whatever. Round she went and round, and each time was still uncomplimented and more visibly mortified at such a public confession of failure. And so what do you think I did ? I bought some rolls of paper and very deftly got two over her shoulders just before the ride was over. A sight for some of our neighbours, Mrs. Clayton-Bush for example : Mr. Lynn Harberton, the Winfield recluse and editor of Boswell, among the grisettes ! Before she could dismount I had disappeared into the crowd and so escaped whatever sequel such advances may have. Good-night L. GWENDOLEN FROME TO EDITH GRAHAM The Rectory Winfield Dear old Edith, We go on missing you awfully. Why ever did you go away? The place is absurd without either you or Mr. Harberton, and his garden is a 89 LISTENER'S LURE perfect disgrace. Father does what he can to make Job work, but, as you know, the old scamp wants continual looking after. The house is all right inside, except that it's empty, but Mrs. Ring has no power over Job, whose one mission in life, father says, is to exhaust our patience. The drive is full of weeds, and nothing is done that ought to be done. We don't know what to do, and it is really rather serious with such a ripping garden as Mr. Har- berton's. Of course Job ought to be sacked, but then Mr. Harberton would never allow that. All he says when he is spoken to about it is " All in the Lord's good time," which is a terrific facer for father, who doesn't know what to reply. That's the worst of being a clergyman, they are always being had by the people who pretend to be religious. Don't you think you might write to Mr. Harberton about it? Yours ever GWEN THE REV. WILBERFORCE PINK TO EDITH GRAHAM c/o Dr. Knackfuss Rauheim, Germany Dear Miss Graham, You will be surprised to receive a letter in unfamiliar handwriting, but let me say at once that I am only partially a stranger to you, having heard of you from my poor wife Mrs. Pink, whose unhappy 90 THE REV. WILBERFORCE PINK life you are, I trust, to be enabled to lighten and rectify. The state of my own health, as you have probably by this time heard, makes it imperative for me to live out of England, in resorts whither Mrs. Pink refuses to accompany me — on the fantastic plea that she has work to do in the great city and no time in which to study her physical well-being. The world undoubtedly grows madder every day, for never before, I am convinced, can a lady have preferred the mischievous task of unsettling the minds of others (which is in its nakedness the upshot of my deluded wife's philanderings with agnosticism), to accompanying her husband on his painful but necessary search for bodily ease. I appeal to you, Miss Graham, whom I have con- ceived of as a very sensible Christian woman, to do everything in your power to restore health to Mrs. Pink's mind. You will oblige me by seeing that a copy of the Scriptures is always placed in her room, however often she may repulse it, and I should be happier in mind if I had your assurance that she was reducing her customary amount of flesh food. At present I am living on a German mountain side in a single garment of flannel, barefooted and bare- headed in all weathers, and eating only cheese and farinaceous dishes. When I am a little stronger I shall perhaps be able to return as near home as a Devonshire watering place, where it will, I trust, be possible for you to visit me by one of the day excur- sions in order that I may instruct you further con- 91 LISTENER'S LURE cerning my unhappy wife's spiritual and bodily regeneration. Meanwhile, believe me to be, in strict confidence, Yours cordially WlLBER FORCE PlNK MRS. PINK TO THE REV. WILBERFORCE PINK 17A Kensington Square W. Dear Wilberforce, Please do not worry Miss Graham with your anxiety about my welfare, spiritual or bodily. I am very well. Miss Graham is a very dear girl who has come to be companion to me, and me only, and I cannot have her troubled by details of your hypochondria. V. P. P.S. Miss Graham did not show me your letter or tell me of it ; but I chanced to see the envelope on the breakfast table, and I know how history repeats itself LYNN HARBERTON TO EDITH GRAHAM Le Cheval Noir NlMES My dear Child, I thought you would like to hear about a Course Provencale which I saw this Sunday afternoon in the old Roman arena here. A Course Provencale 92 THE POULY QUADRILLE is merely a muffled tame version of a bull fight, a bull fight with the buttons on, an Easter Monday review instead of a battle ; but if, as a man in this hotel who has seen scores of bull fights in Spain assures me, there is only one moment in the real thing — the entrance of the bull — one can taste that as well at a Course Provencale as at Madrid. I had that moment five times repeated. There are, however, bulls and bulls, and I can never believe that the minute and ingratiating cattle of the Provencal arena are worthy representatives of the noble beasts that too seldom destroy the toreadors of Spain. Nevertheless, though the bulls of Provence hardly exceed the stature of a Kerry cow, or the nurse in Peter Pan, we had our thrills now and then ; for, as it happens, a very small bull can make a very large bull-fighter run quite as fast as if a herd of buffalo snorted at his heels. According to the bills ours was to be a Grande Course Provenqale avec le Concoars de Poulyfils, Pouly fere, et leur quadrille, qui travailleront cinq superbes taureaux. The company was to consist of the Poulys — Pouly fils, chef, and Pouly pere, sous-chef, — and of LAiglon, sauteur d la perche, Clarion, banderillo, Sawnur, saut pe'rilleux, and Gras, sauteur attaqueur. The performance, the bills also stated, was to begin at three o'clock precisely, and at half-past one Pouly fils, Pouly pere, and their quadrille, accom- panied by a band, were to make a triumphant progress through the town. 93 LISTENER'S LURE I had forgotten this part of the programme, and was therefore the more surprised, on turning a corner after lunch, to come upon two cabs full of bull-fighters, and a waggonette packed to the utter- most with instruments of brass and men blowing them. A bull -fighter in a cab is as bizarre a sight as you need look for, especially in Nimes, for nothing in Nimes is so shabby as a cab and nothing so splendid as a bull-fighter. There was also the contrast of size, the Nimes cab being very small and the Nimes bull-fighter very large, — an enormous fellow, dazzling in scarlet and purple and gold and intensely pink stockings : on this broiling Sunday afternoon a wanton addition to heat that was already almost insupportable. The cabs were stationary before the Cafe du Sport, and the two Poulys and their companions leaned back in their seats and smoked lazily, gathering in homage with bold roving eyes. Young men pressed forward to shake the heroes by the hand ; I saw one offer the burning end of his cigarette for L'Aiglon to take a light from, and, the offer being accepted, tremble beneath the honour. It was a great moment. And yet there was one unhappy being in the huge crowd. Pouly pere was unhappy, and I felt sorry for him. Pouly pire wore the look of one who, after years with the key turned, and the chain up, and the bolts shot well home, and untroubled sleep, had heard the younger generation knocking at the door and had perforce opened to it. There was the 94 FATHER AND SON bitter fact on all the bills : — Pouly fils, chef, Pouly pere, sous-chef. We who lead ordinary humdrum English lives, with never a bull from January to December, can have no idea what it must be for a hero of the arena (even the Provencal arena) to find himself growing old and ceding his triumphs to his son. Pouly pere had been travailling bulls while his son was in the cradle. That warm Provencal applause, mingled with full-flavoured Provencal wit, had come to be part of his life, and now — Pouly fils, chef Pouly pere, sous-chef I It was probably at his father's ample knee that Pouly fils learned his picturesque profession. Paternal pride no doubt counts for something on the other side ; but to be subordinate to one's own son — that must be hard ! And Pouly pere looked by no means past his prime ; he was immense, with a neck that he might have appropriated from the most magnificent of his victims. His eye was bright ; his admirers were many. But it was Pouly fils who rode in the first cab and whom the young men were jostling each other to shake by the hand. After a slight difficulty, based on a misunderstand- ing of heroic status, concerning the payment for the refreshment of one of the lesser heroes — a hero just on the debatable line between the condition of some- times paying for oneself and the condition of always being paid for — the procession moved away, to the accompaniment of a too familiar air by F>izet ; and the crowd melted into the arena. 95 LISTENER'S LURE I wandered into the arena too ; a crumbling relic of the Roman occupation of the Midi, yet, though crumbling, good for hundreds of years still ; a beauti- ful example of the accuracy of the Roman mason's art, with the huge stones, cut to the nicest angles, laid one upon the other without mortar. That was the way to build ; the Latin races always understood the art, and understand it still. By degrees the western half of the arena filled, fathers and mothers and little children in the better seats, and elsewhere soldiers, idlers, and boys. The sun blazed on the white stone of the Roman masons ; the sky was intensely blue ; the boys whistled the eternal Carmen. At three o'clock a bugle sounded, the eastern doors were flung open, and, again to the strains of the Toreador's song, in marched the brave men. Although they were merely playing at danger, and their adversaries were so trifling and their affec- tations so absurd, they impressed me strangely. They carried it off, you see, having no self-conscious- ness, none of that terror of appearing ridiculous which freezes an Englishman. I assure you that when those six glittering figures marched in, with their brilliant cloaks on their shoulders and careless Southern insolence in their mien, I found myself thrilling to a new emotion. Really it was rather splendid. Right across the arena they came, while the people clamoured and cheered. Then pausing before the dais, they bowed, and flung their cloaks with a fine 96 POULY PERE'S TRIUMPH abandon to fortunate occupants of the front seats, who (with pride also) spread them over the railing : all except Pouly fils — he flung his to the bugler on the dais. There was a brief lull while they provided themselves with pale pink cloths and took up their places here and there in the arena. The bugle sounded again. The moment was coming. The spectators stiffened a little (I was conscious of it) all round the building, as a smaller gate at the far end was thrown open. We waited nearly a minute, and then in trotted (trotted !) a blunt-nosed little bull with wide horns and a wandering, inquiring, even ingratiating, eye. If it had only rushed in or paused at the threshold with an air of arrogance its size would have been a matter apart ; but to trot in and to be no bigger than a St. Bernard ! The pity of it ! It was as though one had seen with one's own eyes the mountain bring forth the mouse. Pouly ftere, however, was above such regrets. One course and one only lies open to that simple mind when a bull enters an arena ; he has to perform a particular feat of his own, of which his son shall never deprive him. No sooner was the bull well in the midst than Pouly pere prepared for his achieve- ment. He seized a long pole, striped like a barber's, and hurried to meet the bull. Not divining his odd intention, "Do they harry them with poles?" I asked myself. But no ; Pouly pere's purpose was more original, more pacific. Having shouted suffi- ciently to annoy and attract the bull, he awaited its g 97 LISTENER'S LURE rush upon him, and then, as it reached him, grounded the pole, leaped lightly over its charging body, and fled to the barricade, a figure of delight and triumph. The spectators cheered to the full, and Pouly/