A DIALOGUE UP TO DATE.
(With some Remarks on the Importance of Talking an infinite deal of Nothing.)
SCENE—A Room, PERSONS—GILNEST and ERBERT.
[For further details, See Mr. OSCAR WILDE'S Article in The Nineteenth Century for July.]
Erbert (at the banjo). My dear GILLIE, what are you doing?
Gilnest (yawning). I was wondering when you were going to begin. We have been sitting here for an hour, and nothing has been said upon the important subject we proposed to discuss.
E. (tapping him lightly on the cheek). Tut, tut, my dear boy, you must not be petulant. And yet, when I come to study you more closely, your face looks charming when you make a moue. Let me see you do it again. Ah, yes. You look into my eyes with the divine sullenness that broods tragically upon the pale brow of the Antinous. And through your mind, though you know it not (how indeed should you?), march many mystical phantoms that are not of this base world. Pale HELEN steps out upon the battlements and turns to FLAUBERT her appealing glance, and CELLINI paces with Madame DE SEVIGNÉ through the eternal shadows of unrevealed realism. And BROWNING, and HOMER, and MEREDITH, and OSCAR WILDE are with them, the fleet-footed giants of perennial youth, like unto the white-limbed Hermes, whom Polyxena once saw, and straight she hied her away to the vine-clad banks of Ilyssus, where Mr. PATER stands contemplative, like some mad scarlet thing by DVORÁK, and together they march with the perfect significance of silence through realms that are cloud-capped with the bright darkness that shines from the poet's throne amid the stars.
[Stops, and lights a cigarette.
G. Oh, beautiful, beautiful! Now indeed I recognise my ERBERT's voice; and that is—yes, it must be—the scent of the cigarettes you lately imported. Grant me one, only one. (Takes one and lights it.) But what were you talking about?
E. (pinches his cheek). There you are horrid again. But you smile. Je te connais, mon brave. Γιγνωσκω σε παι (never mind the accents). Ich kenne dich, mein alter. Cognosco te, amice. I know you, old fellow. You are only chaffing. As if you had not discovered that which all truly great indolence has taught ever since the first star looked out and beheld chaotic vastness on every hand. For to say something is what every puny whipster can do. To talk much, and in many languages, and yet to have said nothing, that, my dear GILLIE, is what all have striven for, but only one, gifted above his fellows with magic power of weaving the gossamer thread of words, has truly attained. For it is in that reconcilement of apparent opposites, and in the cadenced measures of a musical voice, that the dignified traditions of an æsthetic purity, repellent to the thin, colourless lips of impotence, reside and make their home. But— [Breaks off, and lights a cigarette.
G. (lighting a cigarette). Is that really so?
E. Yea, even as LUCIAN— [Short notes, to be afterwards filled out:—Throw in Hector, the Myrmidons, COLERIDGE, RUSKIN, OHNET, LEWIS MORRIS, ARISTOTLE, LIONARDO, St. Anne, Juno, Mr. HOWELLS, LONGINUS, FRONTO, LESSING, Narcissus. Stir up with SHAKSPEARE and MILTON. Add CICERO and BALZAC]
G. ERBERT, ERBERT, how learned you are, and how lovely! But I am weary, and must away.
[He moves off. ERBERT attempts to detain him. In the end they quarrel. ERBEBT breaks the banjo over GILNEST'S head.
E. You are a horrid pig, and I don't like you at all!
(Not to be continued.)
JAMES'S HAIR APPARENT.—Everyone recognises ex-President JAMES, author of the Whistlerian book on The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, by his distinguished white lock just over his forehead. No one dare call this "a white feather," as he has never shown it. Some people looked upon it as caused by JAMES'S powder. This is not so. It may be correctly described as an illustration of "Locke on the Understanding."