Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (94 page)

I
scream
'd,
"I
will
race
you,
Master/"
"What
matter,"
he
shriek'd,
"to-night
Which
of us runs
the
taster? There is
nothing
to
fear
to-night In
the
foul
moon
's
light.'"

Then
I
look'd
him
in
the
eyes, And
I
laugh'd
full
shrill
at
the
lie
he
told And
the
gnawing
fear
he
would
fain
disguise. It
was
true,
what
I'd
time
and
again
been
told:
He
was
old—old.

There
was,
I
felt,
quite
a
swing
about
that
first
stanza—a
joyous and
rollicking
note
of
comradeship.
The
second
was
slightly
hysterical perhaps.
But
I
liked
the
third:
it
was
so
bracingly
unorthodox,
even according
to
the
tenets
of
Soames'
peculiar
sect
in
the
faith.
Not much
"trusting
and
encouraging"
here!
Soames
triumphantly
exposing
the
Devil
as
a
liar,
and
laughing
"full
shrill,"
cut
a
quite heartening
figure,
I
thought—then!
Now,
in
the
light
of
what
befell, none
of
his
poems
depresses
me
so
much
as
"Nocturne."

I
looked
out
for
what
the
metropolitan
reviewers
would
have
to
say.
They
seemed
to
fall
into
two
classes:
those
who
had little
to
say
and
those
who
had
nothing.
The
second
class
was the
larger,
and
the
words
of
the
first
were
cold;
insomuch
that

Strikes
a
note
of
modernity
throughout.
.
.
.These tripping
numbers.—Preston
Telegraph.

was
the
only
lure
offered
in
advertisements
by
Soames'
publisher.
I
had
hopes
that
when
next
I
met
the
poet
I
could
congratulate
him on
having
made
a
stir;
for
I
fancied
he
was
not
so
sure
of
his
intrinsic greatness
as
he
seemed.
I
was
but
able
to
say,
rather
coarsely,
when next
I
did
see
him,
that
I
hoped
"Fungoids"
was
"selling
splendidly." He
looked
at
me
across
his
glass
of
absinthe
and
asked
if
I
had bought
a
copy.
His
publisher
had
told
him
that
three
had
been sold.
I
laughed,
as
at
a
jest.

"You
don
't
suppose
I
care,
do
you?"
he
said,
with
something
like a
snarl.
I
disclaimed
the
notion.
He
added
that
he
was
not
a
tradesman.
I
said
mildly
that
I
wasn't,
either,
and
murmured
that
an
artist who
gave
truly
new
and
great
things
to
the
world
had
always
to
wait
long for recognition. He said he cared not a sou for recognition. I
agreed that the act of creation was its own reward.

His
moroseness might have alienated me if I had regarded myself as a nobody. But
ah! hadn't both John Lane and Aubrey Beardsley suggested that I should write an
essay for the great new venture that was afoot—"The Yellow Book"? And
hadn't Henry Harland, as editor, accepted my essay? And wasn't it to be in the
very first number? At Oxford I was still in statu pupillari. In London I
regarded myself as very much indeed a graduate now—one whom no Soames could
ruffle. Partly to show off, partly in sheer good-will, I told Soames he ought
to contribute to "The Yellow Book." He uttered from the throat a
sound of scom for that publication.

Nevertheless,
I did, a day or two later, tentatively ask Harland if he knew anything of the
work of a man called Enoch Soames. Harland paused in the midst of his
characteristic stride around the room, threw up his hands towards the ceiling,
and groaned aloud: he had often met "that absurd creature" in Paris,
and this very morning had received some poems in manuscript from him.

"Has he no
talent?" I asked.

"He
has an income. He's all right." Harland was the most joyous of men and
most generous of critics, and he hated to talk of anything about which he
couldn't be enthusiastic. So I dropped the subject of Soames. The news that
Soames had an income did take the edge off solicitude. I learned afterwards
that he was the son of an unsuccessful and deceased bookseller in Preston, but
had inherited an annuity of
¿300
from
a married aunt, and had no surviving relatives of any kind. Materially, then,
he was "all right." But there was still a spiritual pathos about him,
sharpened for me now by the possibility that even the praises of The
Pieston
Telegraph might not have been forthcoming had
he not been the son of a Preston man. He had a sort of weak doggedness which I
could not but admire. Neither he nor his work received the slightest
encouragement; but he persisted in behaving as a personage: always he kept his
dingy little flag flying. Wherever congregated the /eunes feroces of the arts,
in whatever Soho restaurant they had just discovered, in whatever music-hall
they were most frequenting, there was Soames in the midst of them, or rather on
the fringe of them, a dim but inevitable figure. He never sought to propitiate
his fellow-writers, never báted a jot of his
arrogance
about
his
own
work
or
of
his
contempt
for
theirs.
To
the painters
he
was
respectful,
even
humble;
but
for
the
poets
and prosaists
of
"The
Yellow
Book,"
and
later
of
"The
Savoy,"
he
had never
a
word
but
of
scorn.
He
wasn't
resented.
It
didn't
occur
to anybody
that
he
or
his
Catholic
Diabolism
mattered.
When,
in the
autumn
of
'96,
he
brought
out
(at
his
own
expense,
this
time)
a
third
book,
his
last
book,
nobody
said
a
word
for
or
against
it.
I meant,
but
forgot,
to
buy
it.
I
never
saw
it,
and
am
ashamed
to
say I
don't
even
remember
what
it
was
called.
But
I
did,
at
the
time of
its
publication,
say
to
Rothenstein
that
I
thought
poor
old
Soames was
really
a
rather
tragic
figure,
and
that
I
believed
he
would
literally die
for
want
of
recognition.
Rothenstein
scoffed.
He
said
I
was trying
to
get
credit
for
a
kind
heart
which
I
didn't
possess;
and perhaps
this
was
so.
But
at
the
private
view
of
the
New
English Art
Club,
a
few
weeks
later,
I
beheld
a
pastel
portrait
of
"Enoch Soames,
Esq."
It
was
very
like
him,
and
very
like
Rothenstein
to have
done
it.
Soames
was
standing
near
it,
in
his
soft
hat
and
his waterproof
cape,
all
through
the
afternoon.
Anybody
who
knew
him would
have
recognised
the
portrait
at
a
glance,
but
nobody
who didn't
know
him
would
have
recognised
the
portrait
from
its
bystander:
it
"existed"
so
much
more
than
he;
it
was
bound
to.
Also, it
had
not
that
expression
of
faint
happiness
which
on
this
day
was discernible,
yes,
in
Soames'
countenance.
Fame
had
breathed
on
him. Twice
again
in
the
course
of
the
month
I
went
to
the
New
English, and
on
both
occasions
Soames
himself
was
on
view
there.
Looking back,
I
regard
the
close
of
that
exhibition
as
having
been
virtually the
close
of
his
career.
He
had
felt
the
breath
of
Fame
against
his cheek—so
late,
for
such
a
little
while;
and
at
its
withdrawal
he
gave in,
gave
up,
gave
out.
He,
who
had
never
looked
strong
or
well,
looked ghastly
now—a
shadow
of
the
shade
he
had
once
been.
He
still frequented
the
domino
room,
but,
having
lost
all
wish
to
excite curiosity,
he
no
longer
read
books
there.
"You
read
only
at
the Museum
now?"
asked
I,
with
attempted
cheerfulness.
He
said
he never
went