And he was at last in the city of the streets, a part of the shadow, of the amber-lighted gloom.
It a long time since he had his in the lane, the moon-fire upon them from the dark circle of the fort, the air and the light and his full of haunting, the touch of the his heart; and now he sat in a terrible "bed-sitting-room" in a western suburb, by a and of papers on the of a old bureau.
He had put his breakfast-tray out on the landing, and was of the morning's work, and of some very pages that he had the night before. But when he had his briar, he there was an waiting for him on the table; he had the vague, of Miss Deacon, his cousin. There was not much news; his father was "just the same as usual," there had been a good of rain, the farmers to make a of cider, and so forth. But at the close of the Miss Deacon useful for and admonition.
"I was at Caermaen on Tuesday," she said, "and called on the Gervases and the Dixons. Mr. Gervase when I told him you were a man, in London, and said he was you wouldn't it a very practical career. Mrs. Gervase was very proud of Henry's success; he passed for some examination, and will with nearly four hundred a year. I don't wonder the Gervases are delighted. Then I to the Dixons, and had tea. Mrs. Dixon wanted to know if you had published anything yet, and I said I not. She me a book is talking about, called the Dog and the Doctor. She says it's selling by thousands, and that one can't take up a paper without the author's name. She told me to tell you that you ought to try to something like it. Then Mr. Dixon came in from the study, and your name was mentioned again. He said he was you had a mistake in trying to take up as if it were a profession, and to think that a place in a house of would be more and more practical. He pointed out that you had not had the of a training, and said that you would men who had good friends, and had the of the university, would be you at every step. He said Edward was doing very well at Oxford. He to them that he noblemen, and that Philip Bullingham (son of Sir John Bullingham) is his most friend; of this is very satisfactory for the Dixons. I am afraid, my dear Lucian, you have your powers. Wouldn't it be better, now, to look out for some work to do, of your time over those old books? I know well how the Gervases and the Dixons feel; they think so for a man, and likely to lead to habits. You know, my dear Lucian, I am only like this of my for you, so I am sure, my dear boy, you won't be offended."
Lucian pigeon-holed the in the "Barbarians." He that he ought to ask himself some questions: "Why haven't I passed fifth? why isn't Philip (son of Sir John) my most friend? why am I an idler, to into habits?" but he was to to his work, a and piece of analysis. So the bureau, the of papers, and the thick of his pipe, him and him for the of the morning. Outside were the October mists, the and life of a street, and beyond, on the main road, the and of the trains. But he none of the of the quarter, not the of the garden gates the of the on his round, for in his great him of the world outside.
He had come by paths to this Shepherd's Bush and Acton Vale. The of the passed on in their procession, and Annie had not returned, neither had she written. Lucian, on his side, sat apart, why his for her were not sharper. As he though of his he would to himself, and wonder he had not the world and Annie with it. In the garden of Avallaunius his of had and indistinct; the actual, material life every day to a show, a of across a great white light. At last the news came that Annie Morgan had been married from her sister's house to a farmer, to it appeared, she had been long engaged, and Lucian was to himself only of amusement, with gratitude. She had been the key that opened the palace, and he was now secure on the of and gold. A days after he had the news he the of his boyhood; for the second time he the hillside, and the brake. He disillusion, but his was at the activity of imagination. There was no terror now in the green bulwarks, and the did not in any way extraordinary. Yet he did not laugh at the memory of his sensations, he was not angry at the cheat. Certainly it had been all illusion, all the and of boyhood, its of terror were without significance. But he that the of the child only from those of the man in that they were more picturesque; in and in the Stock Exchange as of were vain, but the of was as well as inept. It was better, he knew, and wiser, to wish for a coach than to for a well-appointed and servants.
He his on the green and the dark without any of or resentment. After a little while he to think of his with pleasure; the by which he had had disappeared, but he was safe on the height. By the of a girl he had been from a world of and torture, the world of into which he had come a stranger, by which he had been tormented. He looked at a of of himself as he was a year before, a and on the of the pit, to the laughing for but one of cold water to his tongue. He to himself, with some contempt, that he had been a social being, for his on the of others; he had hard to write, chiefly, it was true, from love of the art, but a little from a social motive. He had that a book and the of would him the respect of the people. It was a idea, and he saw the naked; in the place, a artist in was not by the respectable; secondly, books should not be with the object of the of the and interests; thirdly and chiefly, no man should in any way on another.
From this darkness, from of madness, the dear and sweet Annie had him. Very and fitly, as Lucian thought, she had done her work without any to him, she had to her own passion, and in doing this had to him the secret. And he, on his side, had the process; to make himself a for the of his sweetheart, he had the world, and had the truth, which now with him, and enduring.
And since the news of the marriage he that his of her had by no means vanished; in his was the of a happy love, and spotless; it would be like a of gold without alloy, and for ever. For Lucian, it was no in the woman that she was and faithless; he had not an for or accidents, but for the very woman. Guided by the self-evident that is to be by literature, and not by humanity, he the Lycidas and Annie. Only the would object to the cant of the one, or to the of the other. A might say that the man who Herbert and Laud, Donne and Herrick, Sanderson and Juxon, Hammond and Lancelot Andrewes into "our Clergy" must be either an or a scoundrel, or both. The would be perfectly true, but as a of Lycidas it would be a piece of folly. In the case of the woman one the of the lover; of the who, with his in his cheek, "reverences and respects" all women, and home early in the a leading article on St English Girl. Lucian, on the other hand, to the Annie, she had at the right moment her image from his way. He to himself that, latterly, he had a little her return as an interruption; he had at the that their relations would what was so called an "intrigue" or "affair." There would be all the and common stratagems, the of assignations, and an the period of Mr. Thomas Moore and Lord Byron and "segars." Lucian had been of all this; he had love itself should love.
He that now, from the of the body, the green water that makes thirst more burning, he was perfectly in the true knowledge of the and love. There to him a in the that there be no true love without a presence of the beloved; the popular of "Absence makes the fonder," and "familiarity contempt," to the contrary. He thought, sighing, and with compassion, of the manner in which men are by the of the senses. In order that the might still be added to the born, nature had men with the wild that the of the lover and the was above all things, and so, by the false of pleasure, the was to vanity, and to an thirst for the non-existent.
Again and again he gave thanks for his own escape; he had been set free from a life of and and folly, from all the and that are most by the wise. He laughed as he what would be the common view of the situation. An ordinary lover would all the of and contempt; there would be for a mistress, and at her faithlessness, and in the heart; one on another, and the man to ruin. For what would be called the woman he now nothing; if he had that she had died in her farm in Utter Gwent, he would have only a sorrow, such as he might at the death of any one he had once known. But he did not think of the farmer's wife as the Annie; he did not think of the frost-bitten in winter as the rose. Indeed, the life of many him of the flowers; more of those flowers which to all are for many years but and of green, and suddenly, in one night, into the of blossom, and all the with odor; till the morning. It was in that night that the flower lived, not through the long years; and, in like manner, many lives, he thought, were in the and the of day. But he had the flower in all its glory, not it to in the hard light, but it in a place, where it be destroyed. Truly now, and for the time, he Annie, as a man the gold which he has from the and of its baseness.
He was over these when a piece of news, very and unexpected, at the rectory. A distant, almost a relative, from as "Cousin Edward in the Isle of Wight," had died, and by some had left Lucian two thousand pounds. It was a to give his father five hundred pounds, and the on his for a of days to his on his hand. From the of the capital, which was well invested, Lucian he would something sixty and seventy a year, and his old for and a in the returned to him. He to be free from the that him in the country, to work and live in a new atmosphere; and so, with many good from his father, he came to the in the waste places of London.
He was in high when he the square, clean room, furnished, in the by-street that from the main road, and in an to the and the that was neither town country. On every streets, each house the of its neighbor, to the east an wilderness, north and west and south the and market-gardens, the of the country, the where sweet had been, of trees, the of hedges, here and there an of its bark, white and and leprous, like a corpse. And the air always grey, and the from the was grey.
At he the into which had him. His only was of the great of in which he to engage, and his his "bed-sitting-room" him that there was no piece of for his purpose. The table, like the of the suite, was of bird's-eye maple; but the maker to have the of the rocking-stone, the thing was in a of perpetually. For some days he through the streets, the second-hand shops, and at last, in a byway, an old Japanese bureau, and forlorn, bedsteads, sorry china, and all the of homes and desolate. The pleased him in of its and and dirt. Inlaid mother-of-pearl, the of in red gold, and of design through the of neglect and ill-usage, and when the woman of the shop him the and well and pigeon-holes, he saw that it would be an for his studies.
The was to his room and replaced the "bird's-eye" table under the gas-jet. As Lucian what papers he had accumulated: the sketches of experiments, and of but completed, of plots, two or three through and through with of the hills, he a of at the of work to be accomplished, of a new world all open him.
He set out on the with a of enthusiasm; his last at night when all the of was empty and was of the problem, and his ran on phrases, and when he in the he was to to his desk. He himself in a minute, almost a analysis of literature. It was no longer enough, as in the old days, to the and of a line or a word; he to the secret, to something of the suggestion, all from the sense, that to him the of literature, as from the long of "character-drawing," "psychological analysis," and all the that to make the three-volume of commerce.
He himself by the from the to the streets. There be no doubt, he thought, that a life, only in himself and his own thoughts, he had in a measure inhuman. The of things, black in woods, in places, those still by on every side, always with the of their brooks, had to him an like that of a drug, a color and to his thoughts. And from early there had been another in his life, the of the old Roman world, those that he had from the white of Caermaen, and from the of the fort. It was in the of many years that had the city, and had him the vine-trellis and the marbles and the in the garden of Avallaunius. And the of love had it all so and warm with life, that now, when he let his pen drop, the rich noise of the and the of the theatre above the of the streets. Looking back, it was as much a part of his life as his schooldays, and the were as as the square of his feet.
But he that he had escaped. He now survey those and from without, as if he read of dreams, and he no longer a that had once him, that his very was being into the hills, and into the black of still waterpools. He had taken in the streets, in the of a modern suburb, from the vague, magic that had his life. Whenever he to to the old wood-whisper or to the of the he more to his work, a ear to the incantations.
In the labor of the he that was renewed. He again, and with a more impulse, the that had the of his book a year or two before, and so, perhaps, passed from one to another. It was, indeed, with something of that he the great of years all to be to the analysis of words, to the of the sentence, as if it were a piece of jewelry or mosaic.
Sometimes, in the of the work, he would up and his cell, looking out of the window now and again and for an into the street. As the year the days more and more misty, and he himself the of a little about with the of a white and sea. In the the would denser, out not only but sound; the of the garden gates, the of the tram-bell as if from a way. Then there were days of rain; he see a sky and the in the street, and the houses all and with wet.
He himself of one great aversion. He was no longer at the of a and left unfinished. Formerly, when an idea rose in his mind and wonderful, he had always approached the paper with a of and dislike, all the he had made. But now he that to a was almost a and special art, a thing from the story, to be with care. Whenever an opening to him he noted it in a book, and he many long winter to the of these beginnings. Sometimes the would only a paragraph or a sentence, and once or twice but a and word, which to Lucian all and rich with adventure. But often he was able to three or four pages, studying above all the hint and of the and actions, to work into the lines the of and promise, and the of events to come.
In this one of his the labor almost endless. He would a pages and then them, using the same and nearly the same words, but that something which is so much as manner, or atmosphere. He was at the that was thus effected, and often, though he himself had done the work, he in how it was done. But it was clear that in this art of manner, or suggestion, all the of literature, that by it all the great were performed. Clearly it was not style, for in itself was untranslatable, but it was that high magic that the English Don Quixote, by some Jervas, the best of all English books. And it was the same that the of Roderick Random to London, so a of and common and manners, told in no very choice diction, a of the eighteenth century, to one's very the of the Great North Road, iron-bound under black frost, woods, by highwaymen, with an waiting every turn, and great old in the of winter lands.
It was this magic that Lucian for his opening chapters; he to that quality that to something their and their meaning, that in the lines of a book should but all significant. Often he for many hours without success, and the wet once him still for sentences, for mystical, symbolic. On the shelves, in the upper part of his bureau, he had the books which, as to matter, to have a part in this quality of suggestion, and in that which might almost be called supernatural. To these books he often had recourse, when appeared hopeless, and pages in Coleridge and Edgar Allan Poe had the power of him in a of delight, to and which he to the of the understanding. Such lines as:
Bottomless and floods,
And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods,
With that no man can discover
For the that all over;
had for Lucian more than the of a drug, him into a waking-sleep, every word being a incantation. And it was not only his mind that was by such passages, for he at the same time a and that him motionless, without the or power to from his seat. And there were phrases in Kubla Khan that had such a magic that he would sometimes wake up, as it were, to the that he had been on the or in the chair by the bureau, a single line over and over again for two or three hours. Yet he perfectly well that he had not been asleep; a little a of the wall-paper, with its pink flowers on a ground, and of the muslin-curtained window, in the winter light. He had been some seven months in London when this odd to him. The day opened and cold and clear, with a and wind the of the street, and the and of paper that the into circles, as if a of black rain were to come. Lucian had sat late the night before, and rose in the and and heavy-headed. While he dressed, his him as with weights, and he and nearly in to the for his tea-tray. He the lamp on the with shaking, hands, and out the tea when it was ready. A cup of tea was one of his luxuries; he was of the of the green leaf, and this he the straw-colored liquid eagerly, it would the cloud of languor. He his best to himself into the of and with which he the day, walking up and and his papers in order. But he not free himself from depression; as he opened the dear a of came upon him, and he to ask himself he were not a dream, for that had no existence. He out his cousin's and read it again, sadly enough. After all there was a good of truth in what she said; he had "overrated" his powers, he had no friends, no education. He to count up the months since he had come to London; he had his two thousand in March, and in May he had said good-bye to the and to the dear and paths. May, June, July, August, September, October, November, and of December had gone by; and what had he to show? Nothing but the experiment, the attempt, which had no end purpose. There was nothing in his that he produce as of his capacity, no of accomplishment. It was a of bitterness, but it as if the were in the right—a place in a house of would have been more suitable. He his on his with the of his own judgment. He to himself again by the of all the hours of happy he had his papers, for a great idea with patience. He to mind something that he had always to keep in the of his hopes, the foundation-stone of his life, which he had out of sight. Deep in his was the that he might one day a book; he to the aspiration, he his too deeply, but yet this was the of all his painful and patient effort. This he had in to himself, that if he without ceasing, without tiring, he might produce something which would at all events be art, which would from the objects like books, printed with printers' ink, and called by the name of books that he had read. Giotto, he knew, was a painter, and the man who walnut-wood on the doors opposite was a painter, and he had to be a very in the class of the former. It was better, he thought, to fail in attempting than to succeed in the of the contemptible; he had he would be the of Cervantes's than top-boy in the of A Bad Un to Beat and Millicent's Marriage. And with this purpose he had himself to and years, so that his capacity, the pains should not be wanting. He now to himself from a by the of this high aim, but it all vanity. He looked out into the street, and it a symbol of his life, and and and with a wind. There were the of the going about their common business; a man was "mackerel" in a voice, slowly up the street, and into the white-curtained "parlors," for the of a purchaser the India-rubber plants, birds, and of books that the windows. One of the doors over the way banged, and a woman came out on some errand, and the garden gate two notes as she opened it and let it after her. The little called gardens were mostly untilled, for, of moss, with of grass, but here and there were the and of and marigolds. And beyond, he knew, the of more or less squalid, but all and dull, and were the and the of bricks, and to the north was a great wide cold waste, treeless, desolate, by wind. It was all like his own life, he said again to himself, a of and desolation, and his mind as black and as the winter sky. The thus till twelve o'clock, and he put on his and great-coat. He always out for an hour every day twelve and one; the was a necessity, and the his in the interval. The wind the from the into his as he the door, and with the came the odor of the street, a of cabbage-water and and the from the brickfields. Lucian walked for the hour, going eastward, along the main road. The wind him, and the was blinding, and the of the his misery. The of common shops, full of common things, the public-houses, the Independent chapel, a of a Greek temple with a façade of that was a nightmare, like Pharisees, shops again, a church in Gothic, an old garden and by the builder, these were the pictures of the way. When he got home again he himself on the bed, and there till him. He ate a of and some water, and to up and the room, there were no from despair. Writing impossible, and what he did he opened his and took out a book from the shelves. As his on the page the air dark and as night, and the wind suddenly, loudly, terribly.
"By woman for her Demon lover." The were on his when he his again. A of clear light was into the room, and when he looked out of the window he saw the road all by of water, and as the last of the rain-storm these the sun into the wrack. Lucian about him, perplexed, till his on the clock above his empty hearth. He had been sitting, motionless, for nearly two hours without any of the passage of time, and without he had those as he an story. He the of Coleridge himself; strange, amazing, to have been presented to him, not in the of the idea, but actually and materially, but he was less than Coleridge in that he not, vaguely, image to himself what he had seen. Yet when he his mind he that the of the room in which he sat had left him; he had the thick gather, and had the of rain through the air. Windows had been with a crash, he had noted the of people to shelter, the landlady's voice to some one to look at the rain in under the door. It was like into some old picture, one see at last that the itself into the of trees and and travelers. And against this of his room, and the storm, and the of the street, his out illuminated, he he had to the very depths, into the that are the soul. He to record the history of his impressions; the in his memory, but the meaning was all conjecture.
The next morning, when he awoke, he or the of the day. He it had all away and had been succeeded by an exaltation. Afterwards, when at he the same of the consciousness, he this to be the result, the hour of was always succeeded by a of delight, by of and powers. On that December day after the he rose joyously, and set about the labor of the with the of success, almost with the of to be overcome. He had long himself with those which Poe had in the Philosophy of Composition, and many hours had been in the which may be produced by the and of words. But he had been by the that in the there were more than the loud and music of "never more," and he to the of those pages and which spoke, less directly, and less obviously, to the than to the ear, being with a and the of voices. It was admirable, no doubt, to phrases that at a their designed rhythm, and with words, but he of a in which the music should be less explicit, of names than notes. He was that at his own and facility; he succeeded in a page of paper to his satisfaction, and the sentences, when he read them out, appeared to a chanting, but almost imperceptible, like the echo of the from the of a church.
He that such happy well him for the of which he sometimes had to suffer, and for the of "possession" at intervals, and after many of diet. His income, he found, to sixty-five a year, and he for at a time on fifteen a week. During these his only food was bread, at the of a a day; but he of green tea, and a black tobacco, which to him a more mother of than any from the East. "I you go to some place for dinner," his cousin; "there used to be some excellent eating-houses in London where one a good cut from the joint, with of gravy, and a potato, for a shilling. Aunt Mary that you should try Mr. Jones's in Water Street, Islington, father came from near Caermaen, and was always most in her day. I the walk there would do you good. It is such a you that tobacco. I had a from Mrs. Dolly (Jane Diggs, who married your John Dolly) the other day, and she said they would have been to take you for only twenty-five a week for the of the family if you had not been a smoker. She told me to ask you if you had a or a dog tobacco. They are such nice, people, and the children would have been company for you. Johnnie, who used to be such a dear little fellow, has just gone into an office in the City, and to have excellent prospects. How I wish, my dear Lucian, that you do something in the same way. Don't Mr. Jones's in Water Street, and you might mention your name to him."
Lucian Mr. Jones; but these of his cousin's always him by the of contrast. He to himself a part of the Dolly family, going every to the City on the bus, and returning in the for high tea. He the odor of about the house on Sunday afternoons, papa asleep in the dining-room, down, and the children good and happy with their "Sundays books." In the evening, after supper, one read the Quiver till bedtime. Such pictures as these were to Lucian a and a help, a against despair. Often when he by the of the work he had undertaken, he of the career, and was strengthened.
He returned again and again to that of a which should faintly, not so much with an music, but with the memory and echo of it. In the night, when the last tram had gone by, and he had looked out and the all about in of the mist, he some of his most experiments. In that white and midnight of the he the of being on a tower, and and high above all the of the earth. The lamp, which was nearly opposite, in a of light, and the houses themselves were marks and that whiteness, out the world and its noises. The knowledge of the life that was so still, though it him, the than that of the the dawn; it was as if he alone and looked out a sleeping at his feet. The came in by the open window in puffs, and as Lucian he noticed that it and like the sea, up and across the of the lamp, and, these vanishing, others succeeded. It was as if the passed by from the river to the north, as if it still passed by in the silence.
He would his window gently, and in his room with all the of the white upon him. It was then that he himself in the mood for labors, and able to with some touch of the more of the craft. He for that magic by which all the and of were to through the and of Don Quixote, by which Hawthorne had his Sabbath fires, and a about the village of the Scarlet Letter. In Hawthorne the and the suggestion, though and of different worlds, were than to one another; but Cervantes had done a thing. One read of Don Quixote, beaten, dirty, and ridiculous, for giants, sheep for an army; but the was of the forest, of Avalon, of the San Graal, "far in the city." And Rabelais him, the letter, the Tourainian sun on the above Chinon, on the of narrow, streets, on the high-pitched, roofs, on the grey-blue tourelles, from the of walls. He the of plain-song from the choir, of from the rich vineyards; he to the of those that in the of the by the white, road. The and châteaux on the Loire and the Vienne rose and to the of vast, dim, far-lifted Gothic naves, that to take the great deep, and away from the and of to in the of the clear city that foundations. The rank of the garderobe, of the farm-kitchen, with the reasoned, of the schools, with Platonic argument; the old of the Middle Ages put on the of a fresh life. There was a of and of incense, of June and of books, and through it all he hearkened, intent, to the of for a new in a new land. He would pages with the analysis of these marvels, the the words, and yet like the in a of samite, or like that device of the old by which a picture appeared on the of a book. He to this art, to the of the great effect, a page of Hawthorne, and an here and there, how sometimes the of a word would a whole into darkness, as if one of those blood-red had been extinguished. Sometimes, for practice, he to in the manner of this or that master. He over these attempts, over the pieces of which would not life; but he himself to an perseverance. Through the white hours he on the and of papers; books and overflowed from the to the floor; and if he looked out he saw the still pass by, still from the river to the north.
It was not till the winter was well that he at all to the region in which he lived. Soon after his in the he had taken one or two walks, noticing where he or what he saw; but for all the he had himself in his room, nothing but the and color of words. For his walk he almost the one direction, going along the Uxbridge Road Notting Hill, and returning by the same thoroughfare. Now, however, when the new year was its days, he to occasionally to right and left, sometimes his in odd corners, in the of eighteenth-century taverns, that still the sea of modern streets, or in new "publics" on the borders of the brickfields, of the from which they had swollen. He waste by-places railway where he his pipe from the wind; sometimes there was a by an old pear-orchard where he sat and at the wet of the market-gardens, a biscuits by way of dinner. As he a of slowly upon him; it was as if, from the little of his room, that one place, he pushed out into the unknown, into a city that for him was as the desert.
He came to his after these always with a of relief, with the of taking from grey. As he the and opened the of his and saw the of papers him, it was as if he had passed from the black and the wind and the of the into all the and and color of the south.