Oh, and more!
Even the gods fall out—drift apart.
Aubrey and the O’Myre go different ways—Aubrey in pain that O’Myre has now discovered that there is no great work of art without a moral purpose—Aubrey holding that Aubrey himself is sufficient purpose. He, Aubrey, avers that he has found himself—nothing matters after that. He must back to Paris. There the women have secular lips and voices of brocade and understand being loved. Tiens! He will in future give his splendid talents to attack the Philistinic brutality of strength and the barbarity of the over-rated glory in mere outdoor delight that to-day holds England in poisonous embrace; in all the pride of effeminacy he withdraws into the palace of his Egoism, where he is lord—back to Paris—there are mirrors, where he may reflect upon himself, take himself up by the roots and dwell upon his own image!
I expect he will come back to us occasionally to see what he looks like.
The egregious O’Myre also hath descended on London town—stays, however, but a little while——
Yet a wondrous thing of a man, the O’Myre—the most consistent surely of all created things—always wrong. He and The Times. He must have been suckled on half-truths, and nurtured on the Irish Bull; he now browses on false conclusions. But with what an air! Nevertheless, he has it all on the most philosophic basis—has for ever been blaming something for his lack of greatness. It now appears the English drama is dead. The O’Myre will breathe new life into it.
Meanwhile, he has laid it down, like a minor god with a throaty tenor voice, that scenery destroys the illusion of the drama—therefore it comes about to-day that if you would be in the vogue with the ladies you must go in state not to the play, but to the dress rehearsal—the bare theatre and the dinginess being alone at back, the low tone and the cobwebs and the like giving mystery to the spoken word that requires for enunciation but beautiful lips. God! how the ducks quack!
Thus mews he much monstrous wisdom, sitting like a pale emotional maggot upon the apple of discord that is called the modern drama.”...
The rest of the letter is a matter of affection and goodwill. A man is always ridiculous about his first-born—exaggerative, egotistical. As though he had invented the business. Whereas, like heredity, immortality, and the latest fashion, it is thrust upon us.