that North and the rest of you were doing just now. We lost our tempers
and Curtis ended the matter by saying: "I tell you what it is, Burrage,
if you ever bring out a book yourself I'll send it to you to review. You
can praise it as much as you like. But don't let this occur again, with
any one else's work." Burrage turned quite white, I thought, and Curtis,
noticing the effect of his words, went up and taking him by the hand,
added more kindly, "My poor Burrage, are you quite well? I never saw you
in so morbid a state before. All this is mere sentimentality--so
different from your usual manly spirit. Go away for a change, to
Brighton or Eastbourne, and you must come back with that wholesome
contempt for your contemporaries that characterises most of your
writings. I'll look over the matter this time, and we'll say no more
about it." And here Curtis was so overcome that he dashed a tear from
his eye. A few hours later I saw Burrage off to the sea. He was very
strange in his manner. "I'll never be quite the same again. If I only
dared to tell you," he said. And the train rolled out of the station.

'Some weeks later I was again in the editorial room and Curtis showed me
a curiously bound book, printed on hand-made paper, entitled
_Prejudices_. I had already seen it. "That book," Curtis remarked,
"ought to have been noticed long ago. I was keeping it for Burrage when
he gets better. Shall I send it to him?"

'_Prejudices_ for some weeks had been the talk of London. It was a
series of very ineffectual essays on different subjects. Sight, Colour,
Sound, Art, Letters, and Religion were all dealt with in that highly
glowing and original manner now termed _Style_. It was delightfully
unwholesome and extraordinarily silly. Young persons had already begun
to get foolish over it, and leaving the more stimulating pages of Mr.
Pater they hailed the work as an earnest of the English Renaissance.
Instead of stroking _Marius the Epicurean_ they fondled a copy of
_Prejudices_. I prophesied that Burrage would vindicate himself over it
and that the public would hear very little of _Prejudices_ in a year's
time. The book was sent; and the first part of my prophecy was
fulfilled, Burrage spared neither the author nor his admirers. The
pedantry, the affected style, the cheap hedonism were all pitilessly
exposed. London, rocked with laughter. Some of the admirers, with the
generosity of youth, nobly came to the re