The young lady in the dining-room had a brave face, black hair, blue
eyes, and in her lap a big volume. “I’ve come for his autograph,” she
said when I had explained to her that I was under bonds to see people for
him when he was occupied. “I’ve been waiting half an hour, but I’m
prepared to wait all day.” I don’t know whether it was this that told me
she was American, for the propensity to wait all day is not in general
characteristic of her race. I was enlightened probably not so much by
the spirit of the utterance as by some quality of its sound. At any rate
I saw she had an individual patience and a lovely frock, together with an
expression that played among her pretty features like a breeze among
flowers. Putting her book on the table she showed me a massive album,
showily bound and full of autographs of price. The collection of faded
notes, of still more faded “thoughts,” of quotations, platitudes,
signatures, represented a formidable purpose.
I could only disclose my dread of it. “Most people apply to Mr. Paraday
by letter, you know.”
“Yes, but he doesn’t answer. I’ve written three times.”
“Very true,” I reflected; “the sort of letter you mean goes straight into
the fire.”
“How do you know the sort I mean?” My interlocutress had blushed and
smiled, and in a moment she added: “I don’t believe he gets many like
them!”
“I’m sure they’re beautiful, but he burns without reading.” I didn’t add
that I had convinced him he ought to.
“Isn’t he then in danger of burning things of importance?”
“He would perhaps be so if distinguished men hadn’t an infallible nose
for nonsense.”
She looked at me a moment—her face was sweet and gay. “Do _you_ burn
without reading too?”—in answer to which I assured her that if she’d
trust me with her repository I’d see that Mr. Paraday should write his
name in it.
She considered a little. “That’s very well, but it wouldn’t make me see
him.”
“Do you want very much to see him?” It seemed ungracious to catechise so
charming a creature, but somehow I had never yet taken my duty to the
great author so seriously.
“Enough to have come from America for the purpose.”
I stared. “All alone?”
“I don’t see that that’s exactly your business, but if it will make me
more seductive I’ll confess that I’m quite by myself. I had to come
alone or not come at all.”
She was interesting; I could imagine she had lost parents, natural
protectors—could conceive even she had inherited money. I was at a pass
of my own fortunes when keeping hansoms at doors seemed to me pure
swagger. As a trick of this bold and sensitive girl, however, it became
romantic—a part of the general romance of her freedom, her errand, her
innocence. The confidence of young Americans was notorious, and I
speedily arrived at a conviction that no impulse could have been more
generous than the impulse that had operated here. I foresaw at that
moment that it would make her my peculiar charge, just as circumstances
had made Neil Paraday. She would be another person to look after, so
that one’s honour would be concerned in guiding her straight. These
things became clearer to me later on; at the instant I had scepticism
enough to observe to her, as I turned the pages of her volume, that her
net had all the same caught many a big fish. She appeared to have had
fruitful access to the great ones of the earth; there were people
moreover whose signatures she had presumably secured without a personal
interview. She couldn’t have worried George Washington and Friedrich
Schiller and Hannah More. She met this argument, to my surprise, by
throwing up the album without a pang. It wasn’t even her own; she was
responsible for none of its treasures. It belonged to a girl-friend in
America, a young lady in a western city. This young lady had insisted on
her bringing it, to pick up more autographs: she thought they might like
to see, in Europe, in what company they would be. The “girl-friend,” the
western city, the immortal names, the curious errand, the idyllic faith,
all made a story as strange to me, and as beguiling, as some tale in the
Arabian Nights. Thus it was that my informant had encumbered herself
with the ponderous tome; but she hastened to assure me that this was the
first time she had brought it out. For her visit to Mr. Paraday it had
simply been a pretext. She didn’t really care a straw that he should
write his name; what she did want was to look straight into his face.
I demurred a little. “And why do you require to do that?”
“Because I just love him!” Before I could recover from the agitating
effect of this crystal ring my companion had continued: “Hasn’t there
ever been any face that you’ve wanted to look into?”
How could I tell her so soon how much I appreciated the opportunity of
looking into hers? I could only assent in general to the proposition
that there were certainly for every one such yearnings, and even such
faces; and I felt the crisis demand all my lucidity, all my wisdom. “Oh
yes, I’m a student of physiognomy. Do you mean,” I pursued, “that you’ve
a passion for Mr. Paraday’s books?”
“They’ve been everything to me and a little more beside—I know them by
heart. They’ve completely taken hold of me. There’s no author about
whom I’m in such a state as I’m in about Neil Paraday.”
“Permit me to remark then,” I presently returned, “that you’re one of the
right sort.”
“One of the enthusiasts? Of course I am!”
“Oh there are enthusiasts who are quite of the wrong. I mean you’re one
of those to whom an appeal can be made.”
“An appeal?” Her face lighted as if with the chance of some great
sacrifice.
If she was ready for one it was only waiting for her, and in a moment I
mentioned it. “Give up this crude purpose of seeing him! Go away
without it. That will be far better.”
She looked mystified, then turned visibly pale. “Why, hasn’t he any
personal charm?” The girl was terrible and laughable in her bright
directness.
“Ah that dreadful word ‘personally’!” I wailed; “we’re dying of it, for
you women bring it out with murderous effect. When you meet with a
genius as fine as this idol of ours let him off the dreary duty of being
a personality as well. Know him only by what’s best in him and spare him
for the same sweet sake.”
My young lady continued to look at me in confusion and mistrust, and the
result of her reflexion on what I had just said was to make her suddenly
break out: “Look here, sir—what’s the matter with him?”
“The matter with him is that if he doesn’t look out people will eat a
great hole in his life.”
She turned it over. “He hasn’t any disfigurement?”
“Nothing to speak of!”
“Do you mean that social engagements interfere with his occupations?”
“That but feebly expresses it.”
“So that he can’t give himself up to his beautiful imagination?”
“He’s beset, badgered, bothered—he’s pulled to pieces on the pretext of
being applauded. People expect him to give them his time, his golden
time, who wouldn’t themselves give five shillings for one of his books.”
“Five? I’d give five thousand!”
“Give your sympathy—give your forbearance. Two-thirds of those who
approach him only do it to advertise themselves.”
“Why it’s too bad!” the girl exclaimed with the face of an angel. “It’s
the first time I was ever called crude!” she laughed.
I followed up my advantage. “There’s a lady with him now who’s a
terrible complication, and who yet hasn’t read, I’m sure, ten pages he
ever wrote.”
My visitor’s wide eyes grew tenderer. “Then how does she talk—?”
“Without ceasing. I only mention her as a single case. Do you want to
know how to show a superlative consideration? Simply avoid him.”
“Avoid him?” she despairingly breathed.
“Don’t force him to have to take account of you; admire him in silence,
cultivate him at a distance and secretly appropriate his message. Do you
want to know,” I continued, warming to my idea, “how to perform an act of
homage really sublime?” Then as she hung on my words: “Succeed in never
seeing him at all!”
“Never at all?”—she suppressed a shriek for it.
“The more you get into his writings the less you’ll want to, and you’ll
be immensely sustained by the thought of the good you’re doing him.”
She looked at me without resentment or spite, and at the truth I had put
before her with candour, credulity, pity. I was afterwards happy to
remember that she must have gathered from my face the liveliness of my
interest in herself. “I think I see what you mean.”
“Oh I express it badly, but I should be delighted if you’d let me come to
see you—to explain it better.”
She made no response to this, and her thoughtful eyes fell on the big
album, on which she presently laid her hands as if to take it away. “I
did use to say out West that they might write a little less for
autographs—to all the great poets, you know—and study the thoughts and
style a little more.”
“What do they care for the thoughts and style? They didn’t even
understand you. I’m not sure,” I added, “that I do myself, and I dare
say that you by no means make me out.”
She had got up to go, and though I wanted her to succeed in not seeing
Neil Paraday I wanted her also, inconsequently, to remain in the house.
I was at any rate far from desiring to hustle her off. As Mrs. Weeks
Wimbush, upstairs, was still saving our friend in her own way, I asked my
young lady to let me briefly relate, in illustration of my point, the
little incident of my having gone down into the country for a profane
purpose and been converted on the spot to holiness. Sinking again into
her chair to listen she showed a deep interest in the anecdote. Then
thinking it over gravely she returned with her odd intonation: “Yes, but
you do see him!” I had to admit that this was the case; and I wasn’t so
prepared with an effective attenuation as I could have wished. She eased
the situation off, however, by the charming quaintness with which she
finally said: “Well, I wouldn’t want him to be lonely!” This time she
rose in earnest, but I persuaded her to let me keep the album to show Mr.
Paraday. I assured her I’d bring it back to her myself. “Well, you’ll
find my address somewhere in it on a paper!” she sighed all resignedly at
the door.