Mrs. St. Quinten was nearer, to my way of thinking, in this respect than the others; and therefore I appealed to her while the tea-things were still before her, thinking that I might obtain from her a suggestion in favour of the conversations. The introductory poem and the Latin ballad were gone. For spilt milk what wise man weeps? My verses had not even left my pocket. Not one there knew that they had been written. And I was determined that not one should know. But my conversations might still live. Ah, if I could only blend the elements! “Sophronie,” said I, taking courage, and speaking with a voice from which all sense of shame and fear of failure were intended to be banished; “Sophronie will tell us what she intends to do for us herself.”
I looked into my friend’s face and saw that she liked it. But she turned to her cousin, Churchill Smith, as though for approval—and met none. “We had better be in earnest,” said Churchill Smith, without moving a muscle in his face or giving the slightest return to the glance which had fallen upon him from his cousin.
“No one can be more thoroughly in earnest than myself,” I replied.
“Let us have no calling of names,” said Churchill Smith. “It is inappropriate, and especially so when a lady is concerned.”
“It has been done scores of times,” I rejoined; “and that too in the very highest phases of civilisation, and among the most discreet of matrons.”
“It seems to me to be twaddle,” said Walter Watt.
“To my taste it’s abominably vulgar,” said Churchill Smith.
“It has answered very well in other magazines,” said I.
“That’s just the reason we should avoid it,” said Walter Watt.
“I think the thing has been about worn out,” said Pat Regan.
I was now thrown upon my mettle. Rising again upon my legs—for the tea-things had now been removed—I poured out my convictions, my hopes, my fears, my ambitions. If we were thus to disagree on every point, how should we ever blend the elements? If we could not forbear with one another, how could we hope to act together upon the age as one great force? If there was no agreement between us, how could we have the strength of union? Then I adverted with all the eloquence of which I was master to the great objects to be attained by these imaginary conversations. “That we may work together, each using his own words—that is my desire,” I said. And I pointed out to them how willing I was to be the least among them in this contest, to content myself with simply acting as chorus, and pointing to the lessons of wisdom which would fall from out of their mouths. I must say that they listened to me on this occasion with great patience. Churchill Smith sat there, with his great hollow eyes fixed upon me; and it seemed to me, as he looked, that even he was being persuaded. I threw myself into my words, and implored them to allow me on this occasion to put them on the road to success. When I had finished speaking I looked around, and for a moment I thought they were convinced. There was just a whispered word between our Sophronie and her cousin, and then she turned to me and spoke. I was still standing, and I bent down over her to catch the sentence she should pronounce. “Give it up,” she said.
And I gave it up. With what a pang this was done few of my readers can probably understand. It had been my dream from my youth upwards. I was still young, no doubt, and looking back now I can see how insignificant were the aspirations which were then in question. But there is no period in a man’s life in which it does not seem to him that his ambition is then, at that moment, culminating for him—till the time comes in which he begins to own to himself that his life is not fit for ambition. I had believed that I might be the means of doing something, and of doing it in this way. Very vague indeed had been my notions;—most crude my ideas. I can see that now. What it was that my interlocutors were to say to each other I had never clearly known. But I had felt that in this way each might speak his own speech without confusion and with delight to the reader. The elements, I had thought, might be so blent. Then there came that little whisper between Churchill Smith and our Sophronie, and I found that I had failed. “Give it up,” said she.
“Oh, of course,” I said, as I sat down; “only just settle what you mean to do.” For some few minutes I hardly heard what matters were being discussed among them, and, indeed, during the remainder of the evening I took no real share in the conversation. I was too deeply wounded even to listen. I was resolute at first to abandon the whole affair. I had already managed to scrape together the sum of money which had been named as the share necessary for each of us to contribute towards the production of the first number, and that should be altogether at their disposal. As for editing a periodical in the management of which I was not allowed to have the slightest voice, that was manifestly out of the question. Nor could I contribute when every contribution which I suggested was rejected before it was seen. My
