“But,” said my pushful gentleman—“I have just seen visitors go in.”
The footman put himself across the doorway, barring entrance: “You are Mr. Myre, sir?”
“Yes.”
“Her ladyship has given instructions that she is never at home to persons of the name of Myre. Go away.” He slammed the door in the great man’s face.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
Which has to do with the Breaking of a Pretty Lady’s Picture
Horace at this time by letter again urges Noll to get him forthwith and for awhile to Paris and live amongst the clouds—puts it in terms of poetry and of romance and of pounds shillings and pence—essaying all the temptations. His letter ends on the Horatian note: “And, my dear old Noll, do, for the love of art, go and see my people. My old father has urgings to speak on the Liberty of the Press—England’s great Heritage of Freedom—the Source of her Magnificence, of her Benignant Purity—which through Journalism has built up the Conscience of the People—Tol-lol-der-rol-lol-der-rol-lay—and all the rest of it. You know the thumping music of the National Organ when all the stops are out. Now, do give Doome some aid in educating the dear old sire in letters. Look what revolution he hath wrought in English furnishments! The father’s name; is it not become the household word for the artistic home? And why? Because he discovered the Man who could tell him what was good furnishment. He himself at inmost heart prefers the cuckoo-clock.... And the girls too, thou canst widen their view, enlarge the outlook of their narrow Putney eyes; your good-fellowship must of a certainty mitigate their cockney ambitions. They write to me of ‘cutting’ people—‘giving the cold shoulder’ to old friends—they are bitten with all the smart vulgarities, for all the world like déclassé duchesses and such as are not of assured position. Get thee to my father’s house, Noll—and bear with the overplus of marble, the gaudy boastfulness of the too ornate enrichments. There’s a big heart at the back of it all, and it loves thee.
Horace.