And Jewdwine accepted her portrait as the true one.  It appealed irresistibly to his artistic sense.  He was by profession a connoisseur of things beautifully done.  Rickman’s behaviour, as described by Lucia, revived his earlier amused admiration for his young disciple.  It was so like him.  In its spontaneity, its unexpectedness, its—­its colossal impertinence, it was pure Rickman.

Lucia had achieved a masterpiece of appreciation.

But what helped him in his almost joyous re-discovery of his Rickman was his perception that here (in doing justice to Rickman) lay his chance of rehabilitating himself.  If he could not buy back the Harden library, he could at any rate redeem his own character.  He did not hold himself responsible for Lucia’s father’s debts, but he was willing, not to say glad, to take up Lucia’s.  It was certainly most improper that she should be under any obligation to Rickman.  In any case, Rickman’s action concerned Lucia’s family as much as Lucia; that is to say, it was his (Jewdwine’s) affair.  And personally he disliked indebtedness.

Another man might have handed Rickman a cheque for fifty pounds (the price of the catalogue raisonne) and washed his hands of him.  But Jewdwine was incapable of that grossness.

He gave the matter a fortnight’s delicate consideration.  At the end of that time he had made up his mind not only to invite Rickman to contribute regularly to The Museion (a thing he would have done in any case) but to offer him, temporarily, the sub-editorship.  Rash as this resolution seemed, Jewdwine had fenced himself carefully from any risk.  The arrangement was not to be considered permanent until Rickman had proved himself both capable and steady—­if then.  In giving him any work at all on The Museion Jewdwine felt that he was stretching a point.  It was a somewhat liberal rendering of his editorial programme.

The Museion was the one solitary literary journal that had the courage to profess openly a philosophy of criticism.  Its philosophy might be obsolete, it might be fantastic, it might be altogether wrong; the point was that it was there.  Its presence was a protest against the spirit of anarchy in the world of letters.  The paper had lost influence lately owing to a certain rigidity in the methods of its late editor, also to an increasing dulness in its style.  It was suffering, like all old things, from the unequal competition with insurgent youth.  The proprietors were almost relieved when the death of its editor provided them with a suitable opportunity for giving it over into the hands of younger men.  “We want new blood,” said the proprietors.  The difficulty was how to combine new blood with the old spirit, and Horace Jewdwine solved their problem, presenting the remarkable combination of an old head upon comparatively young shoulders.  He was responsible, authoritative, inspired by a high and noble seriousness.  He had taken his Aristotle with a high and noble seriousness; and in the same spirit he had approached his Kant, his Hegel and his Schopenhauer in succession.  He was equipped with the most beautiful metaphysical theory of Art, and had himself written certain Prolegomena to AEsthetics.