th?" against whom much the same
objection could be taken, and he replied with what seemed to me a dreamy
look, as though suddenly reminded of a lost opportunity--"Ah, there was no
popular press in Hogarth's day." We were not allowed to forget that in our
own day there was a popular press, and its opinions began to affect our
casual acquaintance, and even our comfort in public places. At some
well-known house, an elderly man to whom I had just been introduced, got
up from my side and walked to the other end of the room; but it was as
much my reputation as an Irish rebel as the evil company that I was
supposed to keep, that excited some young men in a railway carriage to
comment upon my general career in voices raised that they might catch my
attention. I discovered, however, one evening that we were perhaps envied
as well as despised. I was in the pit at some theatre, and had just
noticed Arthur Symons a little in front of me, when I heard a young man,
who looked like a shop-assistant or clerk, say, "There is Arthur Symons.
If he can't get an order, why can't he pay for a stall." Clearly we were
supposed to prosper upon iniquity, and to go to the pit added a sordid
parsimony. At another theatre I caught sight of a woman that I once liked,
the widow of some friend of my father's youth, and tried to attract her
attention, but she had no eyes for anything but the stage curtain; and at
some house where I met no hostility to myself, a popular novelist snatched
out of my hand a copy of _The Savoy_, and opening it at Beardsley's
drawing, called _The Barber_, began to expound its bad drawing and wound
up with, "Now if you want to admire really great black and white art,
admire the Punch Cartoons of Mr Lindley Sambourne," and our hostess, after
making peace between us, said, "O, Mr Yeats, why do you not send your
poems to _The Spectator_ instead of to _The Savoy_." The answer, "My
friends read the _Savoy_ and they do not read _The Spectator_," brought a
look of deeper disapproval.

Yet, even apart from Beardsley, we were a sufficiently distinguished body:
Max Beerbohm, Bernard Shaw, Ernest Dowson, Lionel Johnson, Arthur Symons,
Charles Conder, Charles Shannon, Havelock Ellis, Selwyn Image, Joseph
Conrad; but nothing counted but the one hated name. I think that had we
been challenged we might have argued something after this
fashion:--"Science through much ridicule and some persecution has won its
right to explore whatever passes b