racle, that the appearance of
the so-desired form might be shaped before him. And when he was alone in
quiet places in the wood, he fell down again on his knees, and even on
his face, stretching out vain hands in the air, as if they would feel her
flesh. His father noticed in those days that the inner pocket of his coat
was stuffed with papers; he would see Lucian walking up and down in a
secret shady place at the bottom of the orchard, reading from his sheaf
of manuscript, replacing the leaves, and again drawing them out. He would
walk a few quick steps, and pause as if enraptured, gazing in the air as
if he looked through the shadows of the world into some sphere of glory,
feigned by his thought. Mr. Taylor was almost alarmed at the sight; he
concluded of course that Lucian was writing a book. In the first place,
there seemed something immodest in seeing the operation performed under
one's eyes; it was as if the "make-up" of a beautiful actress were done
on the stage, in full audience; as if one saw the rounded calves fixed
in position, the fleshings drawn on, the voluptuous outlines of the
figure produced by means purely mechanical, blushes mantling from the
paint-pot, and the golden tresses well secured by the wigmaker. Books,
Mr. Taylor thought, should swim into one's ken mysteriously; they should
appear all printed and bound, without apparent genesis; just as children
are suddenly told that they have a little sister, found by mamma in the
garden. But Lucian was not only engaged in composition; he was plainly
rapturous, enthusiastic; Mr. Taylor saw him throw up his hands, and bow
his head with strange gesture. The parson began to fear that his son
was like some of those mad Frenchmen of whom he had read, young fellows
who had a sort of fury of literature, and gave their whole lives to it,
spending days over a page, and years over a book, pursuing art as
Englishmen pursue money, building up a romance as if it were a business.
Now Mr. Taylor held firmly by the "walking-stick" theory; he believed
that a man of letters should have a real profession, some solid
employment in life. "Get something to do," he would have liked to say,
"and then you can write as much as you please. Look at Scott, look at
Dickens and Trollope." And then there was the social point of view; it
might be right, or it might be wrong, but there could be no doubt that
the literary man, as such, was not thought much of in English society.
Mr. Taylor kn