; to which
the boy made the crushing rejoinder: "It may be bad to live off the
reputation of one's father, but it's better than living off the
reputation of God."--This was very subtle and it was necessary to
ponder it. God was dead; and the worthy bishop did not know it! But let
him take a new God, who had no reputation, and go out into the world
and make a living out of him!

Then Strathcona discussed literature. He paid his tribute to the
"Fleurs de Mal" and the "Songs before Sunrise"; but most, he said, he
owed to "the divine Oscar." This English poet of many poses and some
vices the law had seized and flung into jail; and since the law is a
thing so brutal and wicked that whoever is touched by it is made
thereby a martyr and a hero, there had grown up quite a cult about the
memory of "Oscar." All up-to-date poets imitated his style and his
attitude to life; and so the most revolting of vices had the cloak of
romance flung about them--were given long Greek and Latin names, and
discussed with parade of learning as revivals of Hellenic ideals. The
young men in Strathcona's set referred to each other as their "lovers";
and if one showed any perplexity over this, he was regarded, not with
contempt--for it was not aesthetic to feel contempt--but with a slight
lifting of the eyebrows, intended to annihilate.

One must not forget, of course, that these young people were poets, and
to that extent were protected from their own doctrines. They were
interested, not in life, but in making pretty verses about life; there
were some among them who lived as cheerful ascetics in garret rooms,
and gave melodious expression to devilish emotions. But, on the other
hand, for every poet, there were thousands who were not poets, but
people to whom life was real. And these lived out the creed, and
wrecked their lives; and with the aid of the poet's magic, the glamour
of melody and the fire divine, they wrecked the lives with which they
came into contact. The new generation of boys and girls were deriving
their spiritual sustenance from the poetry of Baudelaire and Wilde; and
rushing with the hot impulsiveness of youth into the dreadful traps
which the traders in vice prepared for them. One's heart bled to see
them, pink-cheeked and bright-eyed, pursuing the hem of the Muse's robe
in brothels and dens of infamy!

CHAPTER XVII

The social mill ground on for another month. Montague withdrew himself
as much as his brother would le