FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117  
118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   >>   >|  
BOOK III. AMBITION. "I count life just a stuff To try the soul's strength on, educe the man, Who keeps one end in view makes all things serve." ROBERT BROWNING. CHAPTER XII. ALAN WALCOTT. Alan Walcott knew perfectly well that he had done a mad, if not an unaccountable thing in writing his letter to Miss Campion. He knew it, that is to say, after the letter was gone, for when he was writing it, and his heart was breaking through the bonds of common-sense which generally restrained him, he did not feel the difficulty of accounting either for his emotions or for his action. The wild words, as he wrote them, had for him not only the impress of paramount truth, but also the sanction of his convictions and impulse at the moment. No stronger excuse has been forthcoming for heroic deeds which have shaken the world and lived in history. Who amongst us all, when young and ardent, with the fire of generosity and imagination in the soul, has not written at least one such letter, casting reserve and prudence to the winds, and placing the writer absolutely at the mercy of the man or woman who received it? This man was a poet by nature and by cultivation; but what is the culture of a poet save the fostering of a distempered imagination? I do not mean the culture of a prize poet, or a poet on a newspaper staff, or a gentleman who writes verses for society, or a professor of poetry, or an authority who knows the history and laws of prosody in every tongue, and can play the bard or the critic with equal facility. Alan Walcott had never ceased to work in distemper, because his nature was distempered to begin with, and his taste had not been modified to suit the conventional canons of his critics. Therefore it was not much to be wondered at if his prose poem to the woman he loved was a distempered composition. The exaltation of the mood in which he had betrayed himself to Lettice was followed by a mood of terrible depression, and almost before it would have been possible for an answer to reach him, even if she had sat down and written to him without an hour's delay, he began to assure himself that she intended to treat him with silent contempt--that his folly had cost him not only her sympathy but her consideration, and that there was no hope left for him. He had indeed told her that he did not expect a reply; but now he tortured himself with the belief that silence on her
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117  
118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

letter

 

distempered

 

writing

 
history
 
nature
 

culture

 

imagination

 

written

 
Walcott
 

distemper


ceased
 

fostering

 

modified

 

gentleman

 

newspaper

 

professor

 

authority

 

tongue

 
prosody
 

conventional


facility

 

society

 

verses

 

poetry

 

critic

 

writes

 

Lettice

 

silent

 

contempt

 

intended


assure

 

sympathy

 
consideration
 

expect

 

belief

 

composition

 

exaltation

 
betrayed
 
wondered
 

critics


Therefore

 
tortured
 

answer

 

silence

 
terrible
 
depression
 

canons

 

Campion

 

unaccountable

 

perfectly