but his shamed, anxious silence to go by, I
participated only vaguely in the little hum that surrounded his act
of sacrifice. It was blown about the town that the public would be
surprised; it was hinted, it was printed that he was making a desperate
bid. His new work was spoken of as "more calculated for general
acceptance." These tidings produced in some quarters much reprobation,
and nowhere more, I think, than on the part of certain persons who had
never read a word of him, or assuredly had never spent a shilling on
him, and who hung for hours over the other attractions of the
newspaper that announced his abasement. So much asperity cheered me a
little--seemed to signify that he might really be doing something. On
the other hand I had a distinct alarm; some one sent me for some alien
reason an American journal (containing frankly more than that source
of affliction) in which was quoted a passage from our friend's last
instalment. The passage--I couldn't for my life help reading it--was
simply superb. Ah, he _would_ have to move to the country if that was
the worst he could do! It gave me a pang to see how little after all he
had improved since the days of his competition with Pat Moyle. There was
nothing in the passage quoted in the American paper that Pat would for a
moment have owned. During the last weeks, as the opportunity of reading
the complete thing drew near, one's suspense was barely endurable, and
I shall never forget the July evening on which I put it to rout. Coming
home to dinner I found the two volumes on my table, and I sat up with
them half the night, dazed, bewildered, rubbing my eyes, wondering at
the monstrous joke. _Was_ it a monstrous joke, his second manner--was
_this_ the new line, the desperate bid, the scheme for more general
acceptance and the remedy for material failure? Had he made a fool of
all his following, or had he most injuriously made a still bigger fool
of himself? Obvious?--where the deuce was it obvious? Popular?--how on
earth could it be popular? The thing was charming with all his charm
and powerful with all his power: it was an unscrupulous, an unsparing, a
shameless, merciless masterpiece. It was, no doubt, like the old letters
to the _Beacon_, the worst he could do; but the perversity of the
effort, even though heroic, had been frustrated by the purity of
the gift. Under what illusion had he laboured, with what wavering,
treacherous compass had he steered? His honour was inv