Mr. Corson at once answered her. He spoke in a forced, loitering way. He wore the dress of a man who scorns all edicts of mode, and yet he was very commonplace in appearance.
"The literature of the present age is in a state of decadence," he said. Mr. Corson, himself, looked to be in a state of plump prosperity; even his rosy baldness had a vivid suggestion of youth and of the enjoyments which youth bestows. "I write hopelessly," he continued, "because I live in a hopeless time. My 'Sonnet to a Skull' has been praised, because"—
"It has not been praised," said Leander Prawle firmly and severely.
Mr. Corson regarded Prawle with an amused pity. "It has been praised by people whom you don't know," he said, "and who don't want to know you."
"It is horrible," enunciated Leander Prawle, while he appealingly rolled toward Pauline his dark eyes, which the confirmed pallor of his face made still darker. "Mrs. Varick," he went on, "I am sure that you will agree with me in asserting that skulls and skeletons and disease are not fit subjects for poetical treatment."
"Yes," answered Pauline, "I think that they are not beautiful—and for this reason I should condemn them."
"Then you will make a great mistake, Mrs. Varick," now quickly interposed Arthur Trevor. He passed one hand backward along the yellow mane of his hair while he thus spoke. But he still kept an arm about the neck of his friend, Corson. "I maintain," he continued, "that Corson has a perfect right to sing of autumnal things. A corpse is as legitimate a subject as a sunset. They are both morbid; they both mean what is moribund."
"Oh, but they are so different!" exclaimed the fat Miss Upton. "One is the work of Gawd, to delight man, and the other is—oh, dear! the other is—well, it's only a mere dead body! None of the great poets have ever written in that dreadful style, Mr. Trevor. Of course, I know that Mr. Corson has done some powerful work, but is it right to give people the shudders and horrors, as he does? Why not have sunshine in poetry, instead of gloom and misery?"
"Sunshine is commonplace," said Arthur Trevor.
"Very," said Mr. Corson.