A CHANGE OF AIR
[Illustration: ANTHONY HOPE HAWKINS.]
A CHANGE OF AIR.
BY
ANTHONY HOPE
AUTHOR OF "THE PRISONER OF ZENDA," ETC.
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1894
COPYRIGHT, 1894,
BY
HENRY HOLT & CO.
THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS,
RAHWAY, N. J.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
"ANTHONY HOPE", vii
I. A MISSION TO THE HEATHEN, 1
II. THE NEW MAN AT LITTLEHILL, 7
III. DENBOROUGH DETERMINES TO CALL, 16
IV. A QUIET SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 26
V. THE NECESSARY SCAPEGOAT, 36
VI. LITTLEHILL GOES INTO SOCIETY, 47
VII. "TO A PRETTY SAINT," 57
VIII. AN INDISCREET DISCIPLE, 67
IX. DALE'S OWN OPINION, 77
X. A PREJUDICED VERDICT, 87
XI. A FABLE ABOUT BIRDS, 98
XII. A DEDICATION--AND A DESECRATION, 106
XIII. THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF GENIUS, 114
XIV. MR. DELANE LIKES THE IDEA, 123
XV. HOW IT SEEMED TO THE DOCTOR, 132
XVI. "NO MORE KINGS," 141
XVII. DALE TRIES HIS HAND AT AN ODE, 153
XVIII. DELILAH JOHNSTONE, 161
XIX. A WELL-PAID POEM, 169
XX. AN EVENING'S END, 177
XXI. "THE OTHER GIRL DID," 183
XXII. THE FITNESS OF THINGS, 191
XXIII. A MORBID SCRUPLE, 200
XXIV. THE HEROINE OF THE INCIDENT, 208
XXV. THE SCENE OF THE OUTRAGE, 219
XXVI. AGAINST HER BETTER JUDGMENT, 229
XXVII. A VILLAIN UNMASKED, 237
XXVIII. A VISION, 245
"ANTHONY HOPE."
In his speech at the annual banquet of the Royal Academy in 1894, among
many other good things, Mr. Andrew Lang said:
"The thrifty plan of giving us sermons, politics, fiction, all in
one stodgy sandwich, produces no permanent literature, produces
but temporary 'tracts for the times.' Fortunately we have among us
many novelists--young ones, luckily--who are true to the primitive
and eternal, the Fijian canons of fiction. We have Oriental romance
from the author of 'Plain Tales from the Hills.' We have the humor
and tenderness--certainly not Fijian, I admit--which produces that
masterpiece 'A Window in Thrums'; we have the adventurous fancy that
gives us 'A Gentleman of France,' 'The Master of Ballantrae,' 'Micah
Clarke,' 'The Raiders,' 'The Prisoner of Zenda.'"
The last of these books was by Anthony Hope Hawkins, whom Mr. Lang thus
classed among potential immortals. This romance has made him within the
last three months fairly famous. Walter Besant, too, has stamped it
with his high approval, and the English and American press have been
unusually unanimous in their praise.
Its hero is a rare and striking figure, and thoroughly represents the
ideal soldier of our Anglo-Saxon race. He faces great dangers and does
brave deeds, quietly and quickly. He suffers and loves deeply, but says
little. In his portrayal, the possibilities of "repressed emotion" have
been startlingly indicated. He appeals to Americans and English far
more than the swaggering and loquacious, though more historic heroes of
Dumas and his school ever can.
Much curiosity has been excited regarding "Anthony Hope."
The author's methods of composition and what may have suggested the
very original plot are as yet unknown. Besides what we may get from
his portrait, we are told that he is "a tall, thin, dark man, with a
face that would be ascetic if it were not bubbling with humor." He is a
lawyer, as other good romancers have been before him, and has chambers
in the Middle Temple, a place made famous in fiction by Thackeray and
on the stage by Pinero. His profession and politics are his chief
concerns, and literature a diversion in his leisure hours. He is an
extremely modest man, and in response to a request from his American
publishers for autobiographical matter, gave the barest facts of his
life. He expressed absolutely no opinion on literary canons or on his
own work. There was, however, a rare sincerity and cordiality in his
letters.
Anthony Hope Hawkins was born in 1863, his father being the Rev. E.
C. Hawkins of St. Brides, Fleet Street, London. He was educated at
Marlborough, and at Balliol College, Oxford, of which he was a scholar.
At Oxford, he was a hard worker and obtained first classes in Classical
Moderations and in the School of Litteræ Humaniores, commonly known as
"Greats." At this university, where he attained the degree of M. A.
some eight years ago, he began to show an aptitude for public life, was
a striking figure among his contemporaries, and became president of the
Union. In 1892 he stood as a Liberal candidate for a seat in Parliament
from the southern division of Buckinghamshire, but was defeated by
Viscount Curzon.
His first book, "A Man of Mark," was published in 1890, and was
followed next year by "Father Stafford," an interesting study of an
Anglican priest's struggles between love and sense of obligation to his
vow of celibacy. The pictures of his cheerless ascetic life are marked
by the sincerity conspicuous in Mr. Hawkins' later books. Some very
thoughtful conversations on art and on religion are introduced.
In 1892 appeared "Mr. Witt's Widow, a Frivolous Tale" of a lady who
had "harmonious contrasts," such as dark eyes and golden hair. It
foreshadows the power in plot-making that characterizes our author's
later works.
In the spring of 1893 appeared "Sport Royal," a collection of Mr.
Hawkins' short stories, mostly from the _St. James' Gazette_.
In "Half a Hero," published last year, there are several foreshadowings
of "The Prisoner of Zenda." In both stories the scene is imaginary,
but given realism by characteristics respectively of New Zealand and
of Germany; in both intrigues and heroism are conspicuous, though in
the latter the author did not adopt the old device of giving his hero
some bad qualities to make him human. "Half a Hero" contains much firm,
crisp character-drawing, and a strong love interest, but has the slight
taint of the "purpose novel," already noted in Father Stafford; in this
case, the discussion being politics, especially the "labor" element.
Anthony Hope inherited refinement through a father in an exalted
calling; he used his college advantages to the utmost, and now his
interests are in living public affairs, and in his chosen calling as a
lawyer, he has good opportunities to study life, and seems already to
have well mastered the best elements of Anglo-Saxon character. From his
work, he appears to have read widely and with a sympathetic eye for the
merits of markedly diverse writers, which he seems to make his own. His
style has the terseness and suggestiveness characteristic of Kipling,
but without his harshness, and at times he shows a sense of beauty
almost worthy of our own Hawthorne, and withal the military dash and
snap of Lever. It would be strange if the foundation for the remarkably
life-like colonists of "Half a Hero," and the German officers of "The
Prisoner of Zenda," had had not been laid by travel and the observation
of their more or less remote prototypes.
"A Change of Air," while containing much of its humor and snap,
furnishes a marked contrast to "The Prisoner of Zenda," and is in
a more serious vein, having a strong and tragic undercurrent, and
not without an element of peril. Confining its occurrences pretty
severely to the possible and generally probable, it nevertheless is
highly original. Dale Bannister, the wild young poet, who commences by
thoroughly scandalizing Market Denborough, is a most picturesque and
uncommon character. The effect of his early principles on his later
life is deftly indicated. The story moves on steadily, and while it
teaches a lesson of moderation and charity, it does so entirely by the
acts and thoughts of the characters without any sermonizing on the part
of the author. Some good authorities that have seen this book place
it even above "The Prisoner of Zenda," which we probably shall see on
the stage next year, as the author has a friend busily engaged on its
dramatization.
R. H.
_July, 1894._
A CHANGE OF AIR.
CHAPTER I.
=A Mission to the Heathen.=
When the Great King, that mirror of a majesty whereof modern times
have robbed the world, recoiled aghast from the threatened indignity
of having to wait, he laid his finger with a true touch on a
characteristic incident of the lot of common men, from which it was
seemly that the state of God's Vicegerents should be free. It was a
small matter, no doubt, a thing of manners merely, and etiquette; yet
manners and etiquette are first the shadowed expression of facts and
then the survival of them; the reverence once paid to power, and now
accorded, in a strange mixture of chivalry and calculation, to mere
place whence power has fled. The day of vicegerents is gone, and the
day of officers has come; and it is not unknown that officers should
have to wait, or even--such is the insolence, no longer of office,
but of those who give it--should altogether go without. Yet, although
everybody has now to wait, everybody has not to wait the same length of
time. For example, a genius needs not wait so long for what he wants
as a fool--unless, as chances now and then, he be both a genius and a
fool, when probably his waiting will be utterly without end.
In a small flat in Chelsea, very high toward heaven, there sat one
evening in the summer, two young men and a genius; and the younger of
the young men, whose name was Arthur Angell, said discontentedly to the
genius:
"The brute only sent me ten and sixpence. What did you get for yours?"
The genius blushed and murmured apologetically:
"That agent chap I've sold myself to got twenty pounds for it."
The second young man, who was not so young, being, in fact, well
turned of thirty, and growing bald, took his pipe out of his mouth,
and, pointing the stem first at the genius, then at Arthur Angell, and
lastly, like a knife, at his own breast, said:
"Pounds--shillings--and pence. He sent me nothing at all."
A pause followed, and the genius began:
"Look here, you fellows----" But Philip Hume went on: "Ten and sixpence
is a good sum of money, a comfortable sum of money, and, my dear
Arthur, I should say the full value of your poem. As to Dale's poem,
who knows the value of Dale's poem? By what rod shall you measure----"
He broke off with a laugh at Dale's gesture of protest.
"I'm making the deuce of a lot of money," said Dale in an awestruck
tone. "It's rolling in. I don't know what to do with it."
"Littlehill will swallow it," said Philip.
"You don't mean that he sticks to that idea?" exclaimed Arthur. "You
don't, do you, Dale?"
"I do," answered Dale. "I'm not going permanently. I'm not going to
forsake our old ways or our old life. I'm not going to turn into a rich
man."
"I hope not, by Jove!" cried Arthur.
"But I want to see the country--I've not seen it for years. And I want
to see country people, and--and----"
"It'll end in our losing you," prophesied Arthur gloomily.
"Nonsense!" said Dale, flushing a little. "It'll end in nothing of the
sort. I've only taken the house for a year."
"A gentleman's residence," said Philip; "five sitting rooms, twelve
bedrooms, offices, stabling, and three acres of grounds."
Arthur groaned.
"It sounds a villa all over," he said.
"Not at all," said Dale sharply; "it's a country house."
"Is there any difference?" asked Arthur scornfully.
"All the difference," said Philip; "as you would know if you moved in
anything approaching respectable circles."
"I'm glad I don't," said Arthur. "What will respectable circles say to
'The Clarion,' eh, Dale?"
"Who cares what they say?" laughed Dale. "They seem to buy it."
Arthur looked at him with revengeful eye, and suddenly inquired.
"What about Nellie?"
"That's just the delightful part of it," answered Dale eagerly.
"Nellie's been seedy ever so long, you know. She was ordered perfect
rest and country air. But it didn't run to it."
"It never ran to anything here," said Philip in a tone of dispassionate
acquiescence in facts, "till you became famous."
"Now I can help!" pursued Dale. "She and Mrs. Hodge are coming to pay
me a long visit. Of course, Phil's going to be there permanently.
You'll come too, Arthur?"
At first Arthur Angell said he would not go near a villa; he could not
breath in a villa; or sleep quiet o' nights in a villa; but presently
he relented.
"I can't stand it for long, though," he said. "Still, I'm glad you're
going to have Nellie there. She'd have missed you awfully. When do you
go?"
"Actually, to-morrow. I'm not used to it yet."
Arthur shook his head again, as he put on his hat.
"Well, good-night," said he. "I hope it's all right."
Dale waited till the door was closed behind his guest, and then laughed
good-humoredly.
"I like old Arthur," he said. "He's so keen and in earnest about it.
But it's all bosh. What difference can it make whether I live in London
or the country? And it's only for a little while."
"He begins to include you in the well-to-do classes, and suspects you
accordingly," replied Philip.
There was a knock at the door, and a pretty girl came in.
"Oh, I ran up," she said, "to ask whether this hat would do for
Denshire. I don't want to disgrace you, Dale;" and she held up a hat
she carried in her hand.
"It would do for Paradise," said Dale. "Besides, there isn't going to
be any difference at all in Denshire. We are going to be and do and
dress just as we are and do and dress here. Aren't we, Phil?"
"That is the scheme," said Philip.
"We shall care for no one's opinion," pursued Dale, warming to his
subject. "We shall be absolutely independent. We shall show them that
their way of living is not the only way of living. We----"
"In fact, Nellie," interrupted Philip, "we shall open their eyes
considerably. So we flatter ourselves."
"It's not that at all," protested Dale.
"You can't help it, Dale," said Nellie, smiling brightly at him. "Of
course they will open their eyes at the great Mr. Bannister. We all
open our eyes at him, don't we, Mr. Hume? Well, then, the hat will
do--as a week-day hat, I mean?"
"A week-day hat?" repeated Philip. "Dear old phrase! It recalls one's
happy church-going youth. Have you also provided a Sunday hat?"
"Of course, Mr. Hume."
"And, Dale, have you a Sunday coat?"
Dale laughed.
"It's a pretty excuse for pretty things, Phil," he said. "Let Nellie
have her Sunday hat. I doubt if they'll let me into the church."
Philip stretched out his hand and took up a glass of whisky and water
which stood near him.
"I drink to the success of the expedition!" said he.
"To the success of our mission!" cried Dale gayly, raising his glass.
"We will spread the light!"
"Here's to Dale Bannister, apostle _in partibus_!" and Philip drank the
toast.