A shudder ran through the assemblage at the mention of the hated name.
‘That MacAlpine has acknowledged the authorship of this poem.’
‘What poem?’ demanded Ponto, trembling and turning pale.
‘Why, of “Lily and Eue.” Go and buy the third edition—you’ll find his name on the title-page.’
A terrible silence followed. The men looked in horror at one another. One man rose, livid and ghastly, put his hand to his head and left without a word. It was the editor of the ‘Megatherium.’
‘Poor MacNeill,’ cried Crieff, with another laugh. ‘This is the second trick of the kind that MacAlpine has played him; this is the second time that he has devoted columns of praise to an author whom he would gladly see handed over, like the old heretics, to the secular arm. It only shows what humbug criticism is!’
‘Excuse me,’ said Gass the critic, hysterically, ‘criticism is not humbug. It would be easy to show, on a profounder examination of this disagreeable work, that it is the work of a Philistine. The over-accentuation of the sensuous passages (which, by the way, are not sensuous, but prurient and ponderous), the want of finish in the trochaic couplets, the crudeness of the poetic terminology—’
‘Would all have been evident enough,’ interrupted Crieff, dryly, ‘if MacAlpine’s name had been on the title-page. Without that, even superhuman insight, like yours, could not detect them.’
And he laughed again; but no one joined in the laugh except Blanco Serena, who was not a little amused. There was a general feeling of discomfort, to relieve which Gavrolles went to his bookcase, and took down several new importations from France. Passed from hand to hand, these works were freely and generally discussed; but when they reached Crieff, that rude person again shocked the sensibilities of his companions.
‘The literature of the Lollipop,’ he said with a grin. ‘Somehow I never touch any of it without feeling nasty; “sticky” all over, as it were.’