Then I looked into the heavens above me, and behold, high above the esplanade hung a hand, enormous as the one that had set its marks on everything below, but white, white; and it held a brush and wrote until the sky was full of signs, and they had form and colour, but not of this world, and those who ran could read them.
And I bought a shell-box and a bath bun, and closed my eyes, and lay musing in an agony of soul. Suddenly I felt the pain snap, and something grow in me, and I saw in my soul's dawning the great half-opened shell of a strange oyster.
And this oyster has its bed on my very heart, and it is my salt tears that nourish it, and it grows inside, invisible to all but me.
But I know that, when the oyster opens, I shall find within its shell, like a gleaming dove-coloured pearl, the great Panacea of the To Be; and, if you ask me to explain my meaning more fully, I reply that the bearings of this blind allegory lie in the application thereof, and that ye are a blow-fly brood of dull-witted hucksters.
A FIRST STEP
TOWARDS HISTRIONICS.—II.
(Under the guidance of Herr Goethemann.)
- Questioner. You were good enough to promise me at our next meeting a specimen of the Author-publisher's dramatic manner.
- Answer. With pleasure. I will read it to you.
"Afternoon. Two-pair suburban back. Upright piano. High-minded table. Henry (dramatic author and host) under it, heavy with wine. Romeo (his friend and Town Blood) communing with Mary Ann (local ingénue). Eliza (her sister and hostess) outside just now, making coffee. She will come in presently, and realise Dramatic Moment.
Mary Ann. Get up, Henry, and give us a regular old rousing tune.