LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1400, 10 August 1878, Page 3

LITERATURE.

A RIVER STORY.

[‘ Cassell’ Family Magazine.’] I WAS fain to supplement my income, pending the time when my learning, eloquence, and acute instinctive grasp of difficult cases in all their bearings, should have brought the British solicitor to my feet—with such literary work as I could obtain.

Having an uncle an editor, and two college friends successful journalists, my efforts were not doomed to that disappointment which awaits the vast majority of young men and women, who are tempted by some early magazine acceptance to engage in that great,neverending competitive examination, comprised in the endeavour to earn a living out of periodical literature, and I got as much occupation for my pen as I could perform without neglecting my legal studies and prospects. Amongst other pickings I received a guinea a week for an article in the ‘ Paternoster Row Gazette.’ Ostensibly it was the review of a book, but in reality the said book the excuse or text for an essay which was intended to be witty, but was too often, I fear, merely flippant. ‘ I do not care for a dull account of the book you review ; all I want is a paper,’ said the editor. And I did ray best. One of my most facetious papers, I_ remember, was written apropos of a little volume of poems issued in the orthodox green cover, and entitled ‘ Echoes of the Heart,’ by ‘Dora.’ I did not take tho trouble to read them, but just dipped in here and there without even cutting the leaves, to get points for funny ‘copy.’ I found one couplet, for example, in which ‘girl’ was made to rhyme with ‘ curl,’ whereupon I spelt girl, ‘ gurl,’ throughout the article. T called ‘ Dora’ a ‘ gurl,’ drew an imaginary picture of her as a gushing young thing of fifty, with spectacles, and an ink-stained thumb, and suggested that her proper occupation was the artistic cooking of a sheep’s heart, rather than writing nonsense about the echoes of her own. I inquired how a heart can have an echo, and insinuated that the Gurl of the Echoing Heart must be a ventriloquist ; with a great deal more flippant stuff of the same kind, winding up with an nfiectedly serious diatribe against poetasters of both sexes, and the publishers who print their effusions: a disgraceful article which was exactly to the faste of the nil admirari class, from which the readers of the ‘ Paternoster Row Gazette’ were principally recruited. It was during this early period of my career, and at the season when London was dullest, that I met my old college friend Sinclair in the Strand, and naturally asked what brought him to town in the autumn. ‘ I have been ordering a dog-cart in Long Acre,’ ho replied; ‘ but why are you not out for a holiday ? ’ ‘ I have nowhere particular to go, and no one to go with me. As has often been said, London when empty has more people in it than any other place has when full;’ said 1. ‘Besides, if I went out, I should be paying for my empty chambers all the time, as well as for my temporary lodgings.’ ‘Ay, ay; but still, a breath of country air does a man a world of good. And you can afford it; you have made a start, and 1 expect the two ends meet, eh ? ’ « Yes, but 1 am waiting till they overlap before I indulge in luxuries.’ ‘ Look here,’ said Sinclair after a pause, ‘ I wish you would come back with mo to Aitcham this evening.’ * You live at Aitcham now ? ’

‘ Yes, I have taken a furnished house there till tho end of September. Rather a pretty place on the banks of the Thames; lawn sloping to tho edge of the river ; perch and pike, they say —I have never caught any ; boat-house, and all that. My wife took a fancy to the place, and it is just the same to me as any other until the hunting begins,’

‘ Is it far ? ’ ‘ Oh, no, near Pangbuurne ; we shall run down in a couple of hours. It is not any complinent to ask you, I own, for we are monstrous dull. But yoii have as good as owned that you have nothing to keep you in London, and it would be very good-natured if you would come and take an oar.’ ‘ Take an oar ? ’ ‘ Yes ; I am rather tired of sculling those two about every afternoon by myself . Some of the girls in the neighbourhood have taken to rowing themselves, and lotting their husbands, brothers, &c., steer, but ray womenfolk don’t seem to see it.’ ”

‘ You speak in tho plural.’ ‘ Yes ; my wife, you know, must have some one to speak to.’ ‘ She has you- ’

< Pooh ! if is easy to see that you have no experience. Why, we have been married nearly two years! 1 can’t talk of furbelows, and my wife can’t talk of hunting. She wants another woman to talk to, and so Miss Filmer is staying with us. And I want a man to talk to, and you will be he, won’t you ? There is a quiet little room opening out into the garden, where you shall do any reading

and writing you want, undisturbed all the morning. Come! ’ He led me to my chambers, made me pack my portmanteau, and had mo down to the station and in a railway carriage, almost before I had quite made up my mind whether I would go or not;. ‘ You have not forgotten how to row, have you ? ’ he asked, as we rushed through the country. ‘ No, I fancy not; but I’m not in the condition I was when wo rowed in our first boat during the May races. What time do you dine, by the way ? ’ ‘ We never dine.’ ‘No! ’ ‘No. We breakfast and lunch, and go on the water when the latter meal has been digested, and come back to a cold spread when we have had enough mist and moonlight. It is very romantic, I assure you.’ ‘ No doubt,’ said I, thinking that I would have a pressing engagement to tear me back to town very soon. ‘Do you know what nightmare is ? ’ ‘Not very well; I saw a picture of one once, in an old almanac, I think.’ The clutch of the metropolis is never shaken off while you remain in the railway carriage which started from it; nay, the turmoil of the streets still sings in your ears for several minutes after you have left the station. We had almost reached Sinclair’s villa before the sweet odours of grass and flowers got fair hold of my senses, or the strange stillness of everything ceased to confuse me.

It was a delicious place; the house was white, and wide, and low, and covered with jessamine and honeysuckle, and shaded on three sides by a broad verandah, upon which the French windows of the fitting room opened. The stables and kitchen were out )of sight and smell somewhere ; the lawn was cool with trees, and the bright, swiftly flowing river shone at the bottom of it. A lady sat in a cane camp chair in the verandah, reading the paper. She heard our voices and rose, and I was introduced to Mrs Sinclair. My friend had made a good selection ; she was handsome, well-dressed, courteous, hospitable, without knowing it. By which, as I cannot read people’s hearts, I of course mean that she gave one the impression of not knowing it. She rather patronised me as being a benighted bachelor, after the manner of matrons of twenty. It was about five o’clock in the afternoon, and »he wanted to have dinner for me in a couple of hours, but, of course, I would not let them alter their domestic arrangemeuts, so I had a slicht snack then and there, after which I declared my readiness to take to the water. Passing out on to the lavra, I found another lady with Mm Sinclair, and was made acquainted with Miss Filmer, a quiet, retiring little girl, rather nice looking when you came to notice her particularly, which one might very well neglect doing when there were several other girls present. Mrs Sinclair, called her Daisy, and a most appropriate name it was for her. The boat-house, which was also arranged as a convenient bath-house, giving promise of an early plunge next morning, contained an outrigger, a canoe, and a skiff. The latter which was afloat and only fastened by a padlock, was loosened ; the ladies seated themselves in the stern, Mrs Sinclair taking the tiller, and as her husband remembered that I had rowed on the stroke side at the University, I was placed in the after-thwart, in easy conversational contact with them. When Sinclair wanted to join in the talk he had to raise his voice, and to demand repetition of any laughter-causing observation with a 4 What’s that!’

I had not rowed for some time, and my hands were rather tender, but I took it easy and saved them.

It was a calm and glowing evening, the scenery was that which I like beat, the conversation of the ladies was by no means of furbelows, as Sinclair had put it, but clever, natural, and interesting ; so that I was enjoying myself thoroughly, and no longer calculated on an early departure. • Are yon talking about ?’ cried Sinclair from the bows. ‘ Mind what you say, Kate ; Jones there is an authority.’ ‘ No, no,’ said I; ‘I am only a hanger-on to journalism.’ ‘ Oh, I am so glad that you are a literary man! Ido so want a really good opinion about a certain book. Miss Filmer, you must know, is an authoress.” ‘Oh, no, Kate!’ ‘ You are, Daisy, and you are a great deal too diffident. Diffidence is a grfeat bar to success, is it not, Mr Jones ?’ ‘ In my proper profession, the law, it certainly would be fatal,’ I replied laughing. ‘ And I think that in authorship a littl« confidence is just as well. But what is your work, Miss Filmer—a novel ?’ ‘ No, though I am accused of diffidence, I was so ambitions as to write verses. But I was rightly punished for my temerity, and their worthlessness was fully exposed.’ ‘ The most di°gracefnl, the moat unmanly, cowardly attack that was ever penned I’ cried Mrs Sinclair indignantly. ‘Some of the poems are beautiful; all show originality and talent; you shall see them for yourself, Mr Jones, and judge.’ ‘Oh, no, please 1’ said Miss Filmer, who looked really distressed, ‘ I hope you will not refuse mo the pleasure of reading them,’ said I. ‘She cannot; you shall have my copy,’ cried Sinclair from behind me. ‘I am no judge of poetry myself, but I thought them capital, and so did the publisher—really, you know, because he printed them without making any charge.’ ‘ I am afraid he has lost money, poor man,’ sighed the poetess. ‘ Oh, Miss Filmer !’exclaimed I; ‘never waste pityon a publisher. And do not be cast down by hostile criticism. You would care little for that it you knew how some of it was manufactured. What was the name of the review that attacked you V ‘The “Paternoster Bow Gazette,”’ replied Mrs Sinclair for her friend. “ Did you ever hear of it ?’

* Yes,’ said I, as carelessly as I could, but a bit of a lump began to rise in my throat ; ‘ I have seen the periodical. Bid Miss Filmer publish under her own name ?’ ‘No, she took the non de plume of “Dora” fortunately; 1 think she would hardly ever have got over the attack, if it had not been for the shelter of a pseudonym ’ *Mr Jones will think me very thinskinned,’ said Miss Filmer with a smile ; ‘ but I do not think that I should have taken any fair criticism of my book, however severe, to heart. Indeed, some were kind and others harsh, and I set them against one another. Bat this particular notice seemed to be dictated by personal malice, for it sought to turn me into ridicule, as well as as my work. It made me feel as if I had done a bold and unwomanly thing, and certainly cured me for ever of authorship. No success would compensate one for being made the object of such attacks.’ If I gave you my real name, which of course is not Jones, you would recognise the fact that I am not generally considered deli cient in that useful forensic quality—er—suppose we call it brass. Fiven in those early days I was not easily put out of countenance. Hut on that occasion I did wish that the bottom of the boat would open, and a friendly barbel of whale-like proportions absorb me quietly. For once in my life I did feel most utterly and intolerably ashamed of myself. That pretty little, delicate, gentle girl, so refined, sensitive —oh, it was just as if I had struck a blind man, or an infant 1

‘That is the old form,’gasped Sinclair. ‘ But I—say—you know—we have—to come —back—again.’ ‘You will knock my poor husband quite up, if you row so fast,’ said his wife with a smile which had a touch of anxiety in it. And in truth, trying to escape from my reflections, and not aware what I was about, I had set him a racing stroke, and we were tearing through the water at a grand pace. I eased at once, and presently we turned ; I was po thoroughly disconcerted, however, that 1 made my blistered hands an excuse for changing places, and so shifting the brunt of the conversation to Sinclair.

Before we retired that evening, I borrowed the volume of poems. It was indeed the

“ Echoes of the Heart ” which I had treated so unkindly ; but why did they let her choose such a provoking title ? I read every line before going to bed, and felt more ashamed of myself as I proceeded. It was not merely the merit of the verses which rebuked me, though they were more than meritorious, but the kindliness, the broad charity, the flashes of eloquent admiration, excited by all that is most noble in humanity, should have guaranteed the book against insult, at all events. I passed a bad night over it, hut recovered rny self-possession in the morning, and at breakfast expressed myself in terms which brought colour into the cheeks and light into the eyes of the poetess. As for the hostile critic, I alluded to him in a way which prevented the ladies ever mentioning his libel again, for fear, as Sinclair told me, lest I should find out who the culprit was, and become engaged in some Eersonal conflict with him. That I might e spared no element of remorse, Miss Daisy proved to be an orphan, and poor; her father, a retired colonel, having fallen into the trap which catches so many old officers, and become director of some company which broke down and swallowed his little property. However, I managed to calm myself down, and tried to make amends by being as agreeable as I could to the young lady I had unwittingly injured. It was rather a dangerous operation, considering that I was several years short of thirty, and she was still younger, but it had the fascination about it which dangerous games often have. What with bathing, boating, and making amends, a fortnight slipped away presently, and when I returned to town at the end of that time, I could hardly be called a free man, Lewis Hough,