_Wherein a Man of the World commits the Indiscretion of putting his
Experiences into Writing_
“Dear Noll,” writes Horace Malahide about this time, “I have a son.
He speaks English as yet with a strong foreign accent--but lack of
experience may have more than something to do with it. If you come,
I’ll let you play with him.
I live in a whirl of tangled emotions in these days.
T’other evening I went home, to my father’s marble halls, to seek
the old gentleman on an affair of hot urgency. It was in the long
hours. I lost some temper--the butler being a sphinx of ducal
know-nothingness--so I rang up the housekeeper. Yes, she knew where a
telegram would find Sir Pompey if I would leave it with her.
I!
Leave it!
Gods! said I, am I utterly disinherit?
Forthwith the heir of this branch of the Malahides demanded the address.
It lay at St. John’s Wood!
I nodded ‘That will do’ to the twain, and dismissed them; and, they
being dismissed, I whistled long.
Naughty old gentleman!...
The next morning Pa did not return. Mid-day passed. Evening stole
on.... The dusk saw me descend at the doors of the address in St.
John’s Wood from mine hansom cab.
I must preach the decencies; thus I, strengthening the intention as I
rang.
‘Sir Pompey Malahide is here,’ said I sternly to the smart maid that
opened the door.
‘Yes, sir,’ said she.
‘I desire to see my father,’ said I, and marched boldly towards the
furious racket that filled the room near at hand--the paternal roar
distinctly discernible, bassoonlike as though he cried small coal.
I flung open the door--burst upon the riot----
On the floor lay the Byronic Bartholomew Doome with three children
rolling over him--three, no less!--another in his arms--Sir Pompey
Malahide, my father, on all fours, pretending to be a she-bear, his
coat-tails over his head, shaking a footstool in his teeth, and
growling like an ass in pain--and seated on the immaculate waistcoat of
the dark mysterious Bartholomew the most beautiful young woman I have
ever seen. The din infernal--and Pa the worst part of the din.
‘What does this mean, Pa?’ cried I.
They gathered themselves up, shamelessly--laughed--ye gods, twittingly,
at _me_! Wholly unabashed, Pa, shaking himself into comfort in his
clothes, slapped me upon the back:
‘Horace, my son----’
‘Don’t be familiar, Sir Pompey,’ said I. ‘You are speaking to the heir
to a baronetcy.’
The baronet laughed vulgarly:
‘Mrs. Bartholomew Doome,’ he said--‘allow me to introduce to you
Horace, my son--at least, my reputed son.’
Bows, chassées, and greetings.
‘Horace--the Misses Doome, Master Horace Doome, and Master Oliver
Doome----’
The old gentleman slapped me upon the back again with mighty hand that
near drove me down amongst the fire-irons.
He dug me in the ribs:
‘The rogue’s been married this seven years,’ cried he; ‘and now he’s
signed the deeds as partner in Malahide and Son, and you’re just in
the nick of time, the fool of a lawyer is upstairs--only--look here,
Horace, you must, like Doome, sign a bond not to touch the business
arrangements--you and he would wreck the counting-house in six
months....’
Doome took an early opportunity to draw me aside and to whisper to me
the grave disappointment it must be to all who respected him if they
should discover the real Don Juan, begged me not to expose him, and
pointed out the serious loss of prestige he must suffer in the eyes of
the British Public; so we sat down together on a sofa and pitied him
for his decencies.
Luddy, luddy! how the homely virtues will persist!
The idol of our youth, the dark, mysteriously wicked man--with feet of
honest clay and a clean simple heart after all! Even prolific, and----
Well, damn romance, say I....
Oh, and more!
Even the gods fall out--drift apart.
Aubrey and the O’Myre go different ways--Aubrey in pain that O’Myre
has now discovered that there is no great work of art without a moral
purpose--Aubrey holding that Aubrey himself is sufficient purpose. He,
Aubrey, avers that he has found himself--nothing matters after that.
He must back to Paris. There the women have secular lips and voices
of brocade and understand being loved. Tiens! He will in future give
his splendid talents to attack the Philistinic brutality of strength
and the barbarity of the over-rated glory in mere outdoor delight
that to-day holds England in poisonous embrace; in all the pride of
effeminacy he withdraws into the palace of his Egoism, where he is
lord--back to Paris--_there_ are mirrors, where he may reflect upon
himself, take himself up by the roots and dwell upon his own image!
I expect he will come back to us occasionally to see what he looks like.
The egregious O’Myre also hath descended on London town--stays,
however, but a little while----
Yet a wondrous thing of a man, the O’Myre--the most consistent surely
of all created things--always wrong. He and _The Times_. He must have
been suckled on half-truths, and nurtured on the Irish Bull; he now
browses on false conclusions. But with what an air! Nevertheless, he
has it all on the most philosophic basis--has for ever been blaming
something for his lack of greatness. It now appears the English drama
is dead. The O’Myre will breathe new life into it.
Meanwhile, he has laid it down, like a minor god with a throaty tenor
voice, that scenery destroys the illusion of the drama--therefore it
comes about to-day that if you would be in the vogue with the ladies
you must go in state not to the play, but to the dress rehearsal--the
bare theatre and the dinginess being alone at back, the low tone
and the cobwebs and the like giving mystery to the spoken word that
requires for enunciation but beautiful lips. God! how the ducks quack!
Thus mews he much monstrous wisdom, sitting like a pale emotional
maggot upon the apple of discord that is called the modern drama.”...
The rest of the letter is a matter of affection and goodwill. A man
is always ridiculous about his first-born--exaggerative, egotistical.
As though he had invented the business. Whereas, like heredity,
immortality, and the latest fashion, it is thrust upon us.