The Philistines | Page 7

of reasoning. Although to an ordinary and uninspired intellect it may appear perfectly obvious that a lyric means simply and clearly what it says, the true Browningite is better informed. He is deeply aware that if the poet seems to say one thing, this is proof indisputable that another is intended. To take a work in straightforward fashion would at once rob the Browning Club of all excuse for existence, and while parlor chairs are easy, the air warm and perfumed, and it is the fashion for idle minds to concern themselves with that rococo humbug Philistines call culture, societies of this sort must continue.
Once it is agreed that a poem means something not apparent, it is easy to make it mean anything and everything, especially if the discussion, as is usually the case, be interspersed with discursions of which the chief use is to give some clever person or other a chance to say smart things. When all else fails, moreover, the club can always fall back upon allegory. Commentators on the poets have always found much field for ingenious quibbling and sounding speculation in the line of allegory. Let a poem be but considered an allegory, and there is no limit to the changes which may be rung upon it, not even Mrs. Malaprop's banks of the Nile restraining the creature's headstrong ranging. Only a failure of the fancy of the interpreter can afford a check, and as everybody reads fiction nowadays, few people are without a goodly supply of fancies, either original or acquired.
Although Fenton had declined to go to Mrs. Gore's with his wife, he had finished his cigar when the carriage was announced, and decided to accompany her, after all. The parlors were filling when they arrived, and Arthur, who knew how to select good company, managed to secure a seat between Miss Elsie Dimmont, a young and rather gay society girl, and Mrs. Frederick Staggchase, a descendant of an old Boston family, who was called one of the cleverest women of her set.
"Is Mr. Fenwick going to read?" he asked of the latter, glancing about to see who was present.
"Yes," Mrs. Staggchase answered, turning toward him with her distinguished motion of the head and high-bred smile. "Don't you like him?"
"I never had the misfortune to hear him. I know he detests me, but then I fear, that like olives and caviare, I have to be an acquired taste."
"Acquired tastes," she responded, with that air of being amused by herself which always entertained Fenton, "are always the strongest."
"And generally least to a man's credit," he retorted quickly. "What is he going to inflict upon us?"
"Really, I don't know. I seldom come to this sort of thing. I don't think it pays."
"Oh, nothing pays, of course," was Fenton's reply, "but it is more or less amusing to see people make fools of themselves."
The president of the club, at this moment, called the assembly to order, and announced that Mr. Fenwick had kindly consented--"Readers always kindly consent," muttered Fenton aside to Mrs. Staggchase--to read, _Bishop Blougram's Apology_, to which they would now listen. There was a rustle of people settling back into their chairs; the reader brushed a lank black lock from his sallow brow, and with a tone of sepulchral earnestness began:
"'No more wine? then we'll push back chairs, and talk.'"
For something over an hour, the monotonous voice of the reader went dully on. Fenton drew out his tablets and amused himself and Miss Dimmont by drawing caricatures of the company, ending with a sketch of a handsome old dowager, who went so soundly to sleep that her jaw fell. Over this his companion laughed so heartily that Mrs. Staggchase leaned forward smilingly, and took his tablets away from him; whereat he produced an envelope from his pocket and was about to begin another sketch, when suddenly, and apparently somewhat to the surprise of the reader, the poem came to an end.
There was a joyful stir. The dowager awoke, and there was a perfunctory clapping of hands when Mr. Fenwick laid down his volume, and people were assured that there was no mistake about his being really quite through. A few murmurs of admiration were heard, and then there was an awful pause, while the president, as usual, waited in the never- fulfilled hope that the discussion would start itself without help on his part.
"How cleverly you do sketch," Miss Dimmont said, under her breath; "but it was horrid of you to make me laugh."
"You are grateful," Fenton returned, in the same tone. "You know I kept you from being bored to death."
"I have a cousin, Miss Wainwright," pursued Miss Dimmont, "whose picture we want you to paint."
"If she is as good a subject as her cousin," Fenton answered, "I shall be delighted to do it."
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