The Divine Fire Part 59

There's nothing like them. They'll take you out of this ugly, weary, modern world where you and I, Rickman, had no business to be born."

"And yet," said Rickman, "there _are_ modern poets."

"There are very few, and those not the greatest. By modern, I mean inspired by the modern spirit; and the modern spirit does not inspire great poetry. The greatest have been obliged to go back--back to primeval nature, back to the Middle Ages, back to Greece and Rome--but always back."

"I can't go back," said Rickman. "I mayn't know what I'm working for yet, but I believe I'm on the right road. How can I go back?"

"Why not? Milton went back to the Creation, and _he_ was only born in the seventeenth century. You have had the unspeakable misfortune to be born in the nineteenth. You must live on your imagination--the world has nothing for you."

"I believe it _has_ something for me, if I could only find it."

"Well, don't lose too much time in looking for it. Art's long and life's short, especially modern life; and that's the trouble."

Rickman shook his head. "No; that's not the trouble. It's the other way about. Life's infinite and art's one. And at first, you know, it's the infinity that staggers you." He flung himself into a chair opposite Jewdwine, planted his elbows on the table, and propped his chin on his hands. He looked as if he saw the infinity he spoke of. "I can't describe to you," he said, "what it is merely to be alive out there in the streets, on a sunny day, when the air's all fine watery gold, and goes dancing and singing into your head like dry champagne.

I've given up alcohol. It isn't really necessary. I got as drunk as a lord the other day going over Hampstead Heath in a west wind" (he _looked_ drunk at the mere thought of it). "Does it ever affect _you_ in that way?"

Jewdwine smiled. The wind on Hampstead Heath had never affected him in that way.

"No. It isn't what you think. I used to go mad about women, just as I used to drink. I don't seem to care a rap about them now." But his eyes had a peculiar large and brilliant look, as if he saw the woman of his desire approaching him. His voice softened. "Don't you know when the world--all the divine maddening beauty of it--lies naked before your eyes, and you want to get hold of it--now--this minute, and instead it gets hold of you, and pulls you every way at once--don't you know? The thing's got a thousand faces, and two thousand arms, and ten thousand devils in it."

Jewdwine didn't know. How should he? He had a horror of this forcing of the sensuous and pa.s.sionate note. The author of the _Prolegomena to aesthetics_ recoiled from "too much temperament." He felt, moreover, the jealous pang of the master who realizes that he has lost his hold.

This was not that Rickman who used to hang all flushed and fervid on Jewdwine's words. He remembered how once on an April day, a year ago, the disciple had turned at the call of woman and of the world, the call of the Spring in his heart and in his urgent blood.

And yet this was not that Rickman either.

"My dear Rickman, I don't understand. Are you talking about the world?

Or the flesh? Or the devils?"

"All of them, if you like. And you can throw in the sun and the moon and the stars, too. There are moments, Jewdwine, when I understand G.o.d. At any rate I know how he felt the very day before creation. His world's all raw chaos to me, and I've got to make my world out of it."

"I'm afraid I cannot help you _there_."

As they parted he felt that perhaps he had failed to be sufficiently sympathetic. "I'll do my best," said he, "to set you right with the public."

Left alone, he stood staring earnestly at the chair where Rickman had sat propping his chin in his hands. He seemed to be contemplating his phantom; the phantom that had begun to haunt him.

What had he let himself in for?

CHAPTER XLIII

There was one man who was sure, perfectly sure; and that man was Maddox. He had read Rickman's book before Jewdwine had seen it, and while Jewdwine was still shaking his head over it in the office of the _The Museion_, its chances were being eagerly discussed in the office of _The Planet_. Maddox was disgusted with the publishers, Stables with the price, Rankin with the ill.u.s.trations.

"It's all very well," said Rankin; "but those borrowed plumes will have to be paid for."

"Borrowed plumes with a vengeance," said Maddox. "Vaughan might just as well have turned him out tarred and feathered as ill.u.s.trated by Mordaunt Crawley. Mind you, some of that tar will stick. It'll take him all his time to get it off."

"Did you see," said Stables, "that Hanson bracketed him with Letheby in this morning's _Courier_?"

"No, did he?" said Maddox; "I'm sorry for that. It's rough on little Rickman."

"It's what you must expect," said Rankin, "if you're ill.u.s.trated by Crawley."

"It's what you must expect," said Stables, "if you go out of your way to offend people who can help you. You know he refused an introduction to Hanson the other day?"

"No!"

"Fact. And it was in his sublimest manner. He said he hadn't any use for Hanson. Hanson couldn't help him till he'd helped himself. I don't know whether any one was kind enough to tell that tale to Hanson."

"Hanson," said Maddox, "is too big a man to mind it if they did."

"Anyhow, he _hasn't_ helped him."

"No," said Rankin; "but that's another story. Hanson was dining with Jewdwine, and Jewdwine was cracking up Rickman most extravagantly (for him). That was quite enough to make Hanson jump on him. He was bound to do it by way of a.s.serting his independence."

"I wonder if Jewdwine calculated that that would be the natural effect."

"Oh, come, he's a subtle beast; but I don't suppose he's as subtle as all that."

"You'll find that all the reviews will follow Hanson like a flock of sheep."

"How about the _Literary Observer_? Mackinnon was friendly."

Maddox smiled. "He was. But our Ricky-ticky alienated Mackinnon on the very eve of publication."

"How?"

"By some awful jest. Something about Mackinnon's head and the dome of the British Museum."

"Well, if it was a joke, Mackinnon wouldn't see it."

"No, but he'd feel it, which would be a great deal worse. Our Ricky-ticky is devoid of common prudence."

"Our Ricky-ticky is a d----d fool," said Stables.

"Well," said Rankin, "I suppose he knows what he's about. He's got Jewdwine at his back."

Maddox shrugged his enormous shoulders. "Jewdwine? Jewdwine won't slate his own man, but he can't very well turn round and boom the set he always goes for. This," said Maddox, "is my deal. I shall sail in and discover Ricky-ticky."

"He's taking precious good care to hide himself. It's a thousand pities he ever got in with those wretched decadents."

"He isn't in with them."

"Well, he mayn't be exactly immersed, but the tide's caught him."

"The tide? You might be talking of the Atlantic."