The translation was not too abrupt; I found a constant and careful invocation of meaning that was a little aside of the common comprehension, and also a sweet depravity of ear for unexpected falls of phrase, and of eye for the less observed depths of colours, which although new was a sort of sequel to the education I had chosen, and a continuance of it in foreign, but not wholly unfamiliar medium, and having saturated myself with Pater, the passage to De Quincey was easy.  He, too, was a Latin in manner and in temper of mind; but he was truly English, and through him I passed to the study of the Elizabethan dramatists, the real literature of my race, and washed myself clean.

CHAPTER XI

THOUGHTS IN A STRAND LODGING

Awful Emma has undressed and put the last child away—­stowed the last child away in some mysterious and unapproachable corner that none knows of but she; the fat landlady has ceased to loiter about my door, has ceased to pester me with offers of brandy and water, tea and toast, the inducements that occur to her landlady’s mind; the actress from the Savoy has ceased to walk up and down the street with the young man who accompanied her home from the theatre; she has ceased to linger on the doorstep talking to him, her key has grated in the lock, she has come upstairs, we have had our usual midnight conversation on the landing, she has told me her latest hopes of obtaining a part, and of the husband whom she was obliged to leave; we have bid each other good-night, she has gone up the creaky staircase.  I have returned to my room, littered with MS. and queer publications; the night is hot and heavy, but now a wind is blowing from the river.  I am listless and lonely....  I open a book, the first book that comes to hand ... it is Le Journal des Goncourts, p. 358, the end of a chapter:—­

“It is really curious that it should be the four men the most free from all taint of handicraft and all base commercialism, the four pens the most entirely devoted to art, that were arraigned before the public prosecutor:  Baudelaire, Flaubert, and ourselves.”

Yes it is indeed curious, and I will not spoil the piquancy of the moral by a comment.  No comment would help those to see who have eyes to see, no comment would give sight to the hopelessly blind.  Goncourt’s statement is eloquent and suggestive enough; I leave it a naked simple truth; but I would put by its side another naked simple truth.  This:  If in England the public prosecutor does not seek to override literature, the means of tyranny are not wanting, whether they be the tittle-tattle of the nursery or the lady’s drawing-room, or the shameless combinations entered into by librarians....  In England as in France those who loved literature the most purely, who were the least mercenary in their love, were marked out for persecution, and all three were driven into exile.  Byron, Shelley, and George Moore; and Swinburne, he,