II

To attempt tragedy out of such absurd material is, you will say, merely stupid.  Well, I’m sorry.  I know no other way to make it save life’s own, and I know that the tragedy of William’s life hung upon a silly little ink-stained ‘J’ pen.  I would pretend that it was made of much more grandiose material if I could.  But the facts are as I shall tell you.  And surely if you fulfil that definition of man which describes him as a reflective being, if you ever think on life at all, you must have noticed how even the great tragedies that go in purple in the great poets all turn on things no less trifling in themselves, all come of people pretending to care for some bauble more than they really do.

And you must have wondered, too, as you stood awestruck before the regal magnificence, the radiant power, the unearthly beauty, of those glorious and terrible angels of passion—­that splendid creature of wrath, that sorrow wonderful as a starlit sky—­you must have wondered that life has not given these noble elementals material worthier of their fiery operation than the paltry concerns of humanity; just as you may have wondered too, that so god-like a thing as fire should find nothing worthier of its divine fury than the ugly accumulations of man.

At any rate, I know that all the sorrow that saddens, sanctifies, and sometimes terrifies my friend, centres round that silly little ‘J’ pen.  The difference is that the angels dance on its point now, instead of the devils; but it is too late.

A night of unhappiness had ended once more as I described.  The long darkness had slowly passed, and morning, sunny with forgiveness, had come at length.  William’s heart yearned for his wife in the singing of the birds.  He would first slip down into the garden and gather her some fresh flowers, then steal with them into the room and kiss her little sulky mouth till she awoke; and, before she remembered their sorrow, her eyes would see the flowers.

It was a lover’s simple thought, sweeter even than the flowers he had soon gathered.

But then, reader, why tease you with transparent secrets?  You know that Dora could not smell the flowers.

You know that Death had come to dance with the devils that night, and that Dora and William would quarrel about little ‘J’ pens no more for ever.

POETS AND PUBLISHERS

I

A serious theme demands serious treatment.  Let us, therefore, begin with definitions.  What is a poet? and what is a publisher?  Popularly speaking, a poet is a fool, and a publisher is a knave.  At least, I am hardly wrong in saying that such is the literal assumption of the Incorporated Society of Authors, a body well acquainted with both.  Indeed, that may be said to be its working hypothesis, the very postulate of its existence.