"Where are you going?" he asked. "For a little pleasure trip." Ernest knew that the boy lied. He remembered that Abel Felton was at work upon some book, a play or a
novel. It occurred to him to inquire how far he had progressed with it. Abel smiled sadly. "I am not writing it." "Not writing it?" "Reginald is." "I am afraid I don't understand." "Never mind. Some day you will." IV


"I am so happy you came," Reginald Clarke said, as he conducted Ernest
into his studio. It was a large, luxuriously furnished room overlooking
the Hudson and Riverside Drive. Dazzled and bewildered, the boy's eyes wandered from object to object,
from picture to statue. Despite seemingly incongruous details, the whole
arrangement possessed style and distinction. A satyr on the mantelpiece whispered obscene secrets into the ears of
Saint Cecilia. The argent limbs of Antinous brushed against the garments
of Mona Lisa. And from a corner a little rococo lady peered coquettishly
at the gray image of an Egyptian sphinx. There was a picture of Napoleon
facing the image of the Crucified. Above all, in the semi-darkness,
artificially produced by heavy draperies, towered two busts. "Shakespeare and Balzac!" Ernest exclaimed with some surprise. "Yes," explained Reginald, "they are my gods." His gods! Surely there was a key to Clarke's character. Our gods are
ourselves raised to the highest power. Clarke and Shakespeare! Even to Ernest's admiring mind it seemed almost blasphemous to name a
contemporary, however esteemed, in one breath with the mighty master of
song, whose great gaunt shadow, thrown against the background of the
years has assumed immense, unproportionate, monstrous dimensions. Yet something might be said for the comparison. Clarke undoubtedly was
universally broad, and undoubtedly concealed, with no less exquisite
taste than the Elizabethan, his own personality under the splendid
raiment of his art. They certainly were affinities. It would not have
been surprising to him to see the clear calm head of Shakespeare rise
from behind his host. Perhaps--who knows?--the very presence of the bust in his room had, to
some extent, subtly and secretly moulded Reginald Clarke's life. A man's
soul, like the chameleon, takes colour from its environment. Even
comparative trifles, the number of the house in which we live, or the
colour of the wallpaper of a room, may determine a destiny. The boy's eyes were again surveying the fantastic surroundings in which
he found himself; while, from a corner, Clarke's eyes were watching his
every movement, as if to follow his thoughts into the innermost
labyrinth of the mind. It seemed to Ernest, under the spell of this
passing fancy, as though each vase, each picture, each curio in the
room, was reflected in Clarke's work. In a long-queued, porcelain
Chinese mandarin he distinctly recognised a quaint quatrain in one of
Clarke's most marvellous poems. And he could have sworn that the grin of
the Hindu monkey-god on the writing-table reappeared in the weird rhythm
of two stanzas whose grotesque cadence had haunted him for years. At last Clarke broke the silence. "You like my studio?" he asked. The simple question brought Ernest back to reality. "Like it? Why, it's stunning. It set up in me the queerest train of
thought." "I, too, have been in a whimsical mood to-night. Fancy, unlike genius,
is an infectious disease." "What is the peculiar form it assumed in your case?" "I have been wondering whether all the things that environ us day by day
are, in a measure, fashioning our thought-life. I sometimes think that
even my little mandarin and this monkey-idol which, by the way, I
brought from India, are exerting a mysterious but none the less real
influence upon my work." "Great God!" Ernest replied, "I have had the identical thought!" "How very strange!" Clarke exclaimed, with seeming surprise. "It is said tritely but truly, that great minds travel the same roads,"
Ernest observed, inwardly pleased. "No," the older man subtly remarked, "but they reach the same
conclusion by a different route." "And you attach serious importance to our fancy?" "Why not?" Clarke was gazing abstractedly at the bust of Balzac. "A man's genius is commensurate with his ability of absorbing from life
the elements essential to his artistic completion. Balzac possessed this
power in a remarkable degree. But, strange to say, it was evil that
attracted him most. He absorbed it as a sponge absorbs water; perhaps
because there was so little of it in his own make-up. He must have
purified the atmosphere around him for miles, by bringing all the evil
that was floating in the air or slumbering in men's souls to the point
of his pen. "And he"--his eyes were resting on Shakespeare's features as a man might
look upon the face of a brother--"he, too, was such a nature. In fact,
he was the most perfect type of the artist. Nothing escaped his mind. From life and from books he drew his material, each time reshaping it
with a master-hand. Creation is a divine prerogative. Re-creation,
infinitely more wonderful than mere calling into existence, is the
prerogative of the poet. Shakespeare took his colours from many
palettes. That is why he is so great, and why his work is incredibly
greater than he. It alone explains his unique achievement. Who was he? What education did he have, what opportunities? None. And yet we find in
his work the wisdom of Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh's fancies and
discoveries, Marlowe's verbal thunders and the mysterious loveliness of
Mr. W.H." Ernest listened, entranced by the sound of Clarke's mellifluous voice. He was, indeed, a master of the spoken word, and possessed a miraculous
power of giving to the wildest fancies an air of vraisemblance. V


"Yes," said Walkham, the sculptor, "it's a most curious thing." "What is?" asked Ernest, who had been dreaming over the Sphinx that was
looking at him from its corner with the sarcastic smile of five thousand
years. "How our dreams of yesterday stare at us like strangers to-day." "On the contrary," remarked Reginald, "it would be strange if they were
still to know us. In fact, it would be unnatural. The skies above us and
the earth underfoot are in perpetual motion. Each atom of our physical
nature is vibrating with unimaginable rapidity. Change is identical with
life." "It sometimes seems," said the sculptor, "as if thoughts evaporated like
water." "Why not, under favorable conditions?" "But where do they go? Surely they cannot perish utterly?" "Yes, that is the question. Or, rather, it is not a question. Nothing
is ever lost in the spiritual universe." "But what," inquired Ernest, "is the particular reason for your
reflection?" "It is this," the sculptor replied; "I had a striking motive and lost
it." "Do you remember," he continued, speaking to Reginald, "the Narcissus I
was working on the last time when you called at my studio?" "Yes; it was a striking thing and impressed me very much, though I
cannot recall it at the moment."