The Unknown Critic to Robin Adair, or the Lady Anne Garland to Peter the Piper  
London,
 
July 7th.
 
Dear Robin Adair,—I have met another admirer of your book, a delightful old man of courtly manners of the style of the eighteenth century. At first he assumed disparagement of it, or at the best a faint half-hearted kind of praise, which would, I believe, in any case have roused a spirit of contradiction in me. With your book as the subject I waxed eloquent. I took up the cudgels of defence, and I flatter myself wielded them with dexterity. When at last the flow of my discourse ceased—and I trust I was not too didactic in my observations—he confessed calmly that he had merely assumed disparagement in [Pg 155]order that he might have the pleasure of hearing me refute him! It knocked the wind completely out of my sails. I was left helpless, stranded, entirely at a loss for a suitable reply. I hope I carried off the situation with at least a passable degree of savoir-faire, but I have my doubts.
 
I so frequently find myself addressing really witty and brilliant remarks to my bedpost fully an hour or so after the opportunity of making them has passed, when the witticism, the brilliance, might have been delivered in the presence of another, and have covered me with a dazzling glory. It is humiliating to contrast what one has said with what one might have remarked. You writers have the better time. In silence and solitude you can consider your epigrams, and then place them in the mouths of your fictional people at the psychological moment, and the world is left to marvel at your brilliance.
 
But to return to my old courtier. He has a sad history, which he hides under a mask of urbane and suave courtliness. He has a son, who—so the story runs—has disgraced their name. The old man being too proud to overlook the disgrace—too proud, perhaps, to stoop and delve for ex[Pg 156]tenuating circumstances—has cut the son out of his life; but fortunately, or unfortunately, he cannot cut him out of his heart, which is aching, pining, for the lack of him. Why can he not put pride in his pocket and ease his heartache? It’s a pitiful little story, and one which has caused my own heart to ache, though quite possibly I should have dismissed it without a second thought if I had not met the old courtier.
 
The friend with whom I am staying has soothed the spirit of discontent which was awake in me when I last wrote. Her method is entirely unobvious. I think it lies in her own incurably good spirits, and her optimism, both of which are infectious. There is an “everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds” air about her which is exhilarating.
 
I have, though, been disappointed in another friend, if I may use the word. Personally I feel there should be another to use. An acquaintance signifies one of whom we have but a passing and superficial knowledge, and a friend some one much closer—very close—the word in its real sense. Am I drawing too fine a point? Perhaps one might use the terms I have heard children use, [Pg 157]“friends,” and “truly friends.” So, to use the first term in application to this woman, I have been disappointed in a friend. She is not what I believed her to be, what I believe she wished me to believe her. It has spoilt, as far as I am concerned the intimacy between us. I cannot re-adjust myself towards her, and I feel myself acting the part of a hypocrite. I have picked up her broken pieces as best I may, and mended them, but I am conscious of the cracks. My mending has not been as neat a job as I could wish. Is it any use trying to mend? Tell me what you think, O Man!
 
The worst of it is that before she broke I asked her to spend a few days with me in August. During those days I shall be terribly, hideously conscious of the cracks. I shall find myself staring at them with a kind of awful fascination. Pray Heaven she’ll not observe it, for if she did I—in the rôle of hostess—would be forever disgraced in my own eyes.
 
I do not know why I should write all this to you; why I should trouble you with what, I am fully aware, are mere absurdities which any sane and reasonable person would assuredly dismiss without a second thought. May I plead in excuse that [Pg 158]somehow you have taken the position of a “truly friend,” one to whom trivialities—which after all make up the greater part of one’s life—may be mentioned without fear of a laugh or a snub?
 
I went to a Beethoven concert the other day. To me he stands head and shoulders above every other composer, living or dead. Does music give you the sensation of colour and form? It does me. That was a purple concert, sphere-shaped. Mozart’s music is sapphire blue and shaped like a star. Bach’s is dark green and square. Grieg’s is pale green with a hint of pink and a slim oval, Wagner’s is crimson and purple and shaped like a massive crown. I might go on enumerating, if I did not fear to bore you.
 
Have you read Conard’s life of Beethoven? Do you know Beethoven’s own words: “Oh hommes, si vous lisez un jour ceci, pensez que vous avez été injustes pour moi; et que le malheureux se console, en trouvant un malheureux comme lui, qui, malgré tous les obstacles de la nature, a cependant fait tout ce qui était en son pouvoir, pour être admis au rang des artistes et des hommes d’élites?”
 
 
Grand, glorious Beethoven! the struggle over all infirmity, the victory, and his lonely yet dramatic death! “Il mourut pendant un orage—une tempête de neige—dans un éclat de tonnerre. Une main étrangère lui fermer les yeux.” If I am a hero-worshipper, and it would seem that I am, Beethoven stands in the front rank of my heroes. Read his life—by Conard—if you have not already done so. It is one which every artist, of whatever branch his art, should know.
 
How goes it with your Wanderer? Is he reconciled to his distance from his star? Or have you let the star fall to his hilltop?
 
Good-night.
 
Robin Adair to the Unknown Critic, or Peter the Piper to the Lady Anne Garland
 
July 9th.
 
Dear Lady,—I have re-read your letter more than once. It is—dare I say?—somewhat illogical, and therein most delightfully feminine.
 
You suggest that your old courtier should ease his heartache. Do you not see that in so attempting he could only bring into his life a thing which [Pg 160]is in his eyes broken? And, however carefully he might mend it, would he not be—as you are—painfully and terribly aware of the cracks? Men, I fancy, choose the wiser way; they throw aside the broken pieces into a neat little dustbin, making no attempt to mend. For, after all, is not the glue which holds the thing together a certain sophism which is always apparent to the repairer, and which is, frequently, not very adhesive? Once broken—in spite of the glue—it is apt to fall to pieces on the slightest handling. No, the dustbin, in my opinion, is the better solution. You, as a woman, doubtless will not agree with me. Women invariably mend, and the majority—less critical than you—fancy they make of the mending a neat job.
 
Let me offer you one piece of advice. Do not let your heart ache for the story you have heard. It was, no doubt, related to you by another than your courtier, and was soothed, softened, rendered pathetic in the telling. You, in your tenderness, have imagined your courtier as hankering after the broken pieces of his image in the dustbin. Your tender imagination removed, the glamour of pathos round the story would be removed also, and you would find heartaches and such-like non-existent.
 
I do not believe that the wind is ever so completely knocked out of your sails—as you say—that you are unable to find some appropriate reply. That is merely your modesty. I picture you as talking with charm, with ease, with brilliance. Witticisms I leave outside the category. They belong to older men and women, and are apt to have a poignant edge foreign to my idea of your words.
 
I like to think that you count me, as the children say, a “truly friend.” Your friendship—disembodied though it is—has brought me refreshment, happiness. Though for a time my Wanderer had obsessed me with his mood, the obsession is passed. It has passed with him also. He does not desire that the star should fall to him. Its very charm lies in its altitude. Perhaps one day, when he has cast off the mantle of his flesh, he will build himself that ladder of moonbeams, and mount to it. As it is—his mood of discontent passed—he is worshipping, grateful that it shines in his otherwise empty firmament. From the little hilltop—which he found was but an ant-heap—from the lanes, from the fields, he looks up to it, and addresses to it his thoughts, his fancies. He is once more a cheerful soul, appreciating the earth, the wind, and the flowers. His love and worship he keeps for his star.
 
I have not read Conard’s life of Beethoven, nor, I conf............