Part 21 (2/2)

Never, apparently, did his work suffer in the least

And it was about this tiather the true source and import of his literary predisposition He was literally obsessed, as I now discovered, with Continental andHe had studied the works as well as the temperaments and experiences (more especially the latter, I fear) of such writers as de Maupassant, Flaubert, Baudelaire, Balzac, de Musset, Sand, Daudet, Dumas junior, and Zola, as well as a nuet, Louys and their conteh, he was impressed, and deeply, by the life and art of de Maupassant, his method of approach, his unbiased outlook on life, his freedoious and even senti of his literary career I really believe he slaved to ih he could not very well escape the A by which he was hopelessly conditioned A certain Western critic and editor, to whos before cothat in which I had known him, observed, ”He was crazy about the _fin de siecle_ stuff that then held the boards and froel will put it to my credit) I steered him clear” I think so; but he was still very much interested in it He admired Aubrey Beardsley, the poster artists of France, Verlaine, Baudelaire, Rops, the Yellow Book, even Oscar Wilde, although his was a far more substantial and plebeian and even radical point of view

Unfortunately for L----, I have always thought, there now thrust hiazine, who fro been content to see that the ood order, had decided that since it was attracting attention he should be allowed to share in its literary and artistic prestige, should indeed be closely identified with it and recognized as its true source and inspiration--a thing which in no fashi+on had been contereed very distinctly with ed in, he now came forith a plan for an advisory council which was to consist of himself and the very members of the staff which I had created

I could not object and it did not disturbthat the thing was for me no end in itself, but an incident This sa azine's technical composition

At the sa , which left me, for a very little while,this tirowth of an influence with L---- which could, as I saw, prove only haruide for him He was a brilliant but superficial and veryof s material--houses, lands, corporation stocks, a place in the clubs and circles of those ere nificant in the now or the hereafter Knowing co of either art or letters, or that subtle thing which azine or in writing (and especially the latter), that grateful so which attracts and detains one, he was nevertheless convinced that he did And as more, he was determined not only to ht have attracted, providing they could prove useful to hiroup in these fields, those who had already achieved repute in a more commonplace and popular way and were therefore presu and with the power to exact a high return for their product, and for the ardless of intrinsic merit His constant talk was of nificance of all things azine to be representative of this glowing eleht seeht

Naturally the thing was i, a netic personality, far froross, which for a time attracted many to him Very briskly then indeed he proceeded to make friends with all those ho and even private discussions with theazine, to hint quite broadly at a glorious future in which all, each one particularly to whom he talked, was to share Curiously, this new and (as I would have thought) inimical personality of M---- seemed to appeal to L---- very much

I do not claiht, have had value, cohtly more balanced temperament But it seemed to me that it offered too quickly what should have coard to the very things L---- should have ainst--show and the shallow pleasures of social and night and material life in New York--M---- wasman in this respect nor one who cared less for those he used to obtain his uniaudy and the unworthy see his earlier days there, L---- had more than once ”cursed him out” (in his absence, of course), to use his own expressive phrase, for his middle-West trade views, as he described them, his shabby social and material ideals, and yet, as I could plainly see, even at that ti For it must be re, and never having had htly envious of the man's material facility, the sense of all-sufficiency, exclusiveness and even a kind of petty trade grandeur hich he tried to surround hiht not have proved fatal either, only L---- needed some one to keep him true to himself, his individual capabilities, to constantly caution and if possible sober him to his very severe taste, and as it was he was all but surrounded by acolytes and servitors

A little later, having left M----'s and assu coazines more or less professionally, I was disturbed to note that there began to appear in various publications--especially M----'s, which was flourishi+ng greatly for themuch of the deftness and repression as well as an avidity for the true color of things, still shohat I had at first feared they ht: a decided compromise That curse of all A, had been impressed on hi stories, so wo; (2), a e_ and was defeated, Aht reigning on every hand (dickens at his sentient who, attereat hotel via chic vice, accidentally and unintentionally er to a grand heiress And so on and so on, not ad infinitued to live and work

And, asthis new period I heard and occasionally saw discouraging things in connection with hireat proenuine fondness for his young protege, as uaranteed him perhaps as e of twenty-four or -five to reet the fao to Paris in connection with various articles; to Rome; sent him into the middle and far West; to Broadway for draood, only he wanted always in as done for hi--or at least one not vulgar or lohereas ifted as he as that he should confine hiard to theories or types of ending, believing, as I did, that he would definitely establish hi run I had no objection of course to experiences of various kinds, his taking up with any line of hich , providing always that the star of his ideal was in sight Whenever he wrote, be it early or late, itvein of these first stories and with that passion for revelation which characterized him at first, that same unbiased and unfettered non- for M---- under this new arrange apparently fascinated for the radually lose sight of his ideal, to be actually taken in by the plausible arguments which the latter could spin with the ease that a spider spins gossamer In that respect I insist that M---- was a bad influence Under his tutelage L---- gradually became, for instance, an habitue of a well-known and pseudo-bohemian chop-house, a most mawkish and navely imitative affair, intended frankly to be a copy or even the original, forsooth, of an old English inn, done, in so far as its as concerned, in slish interior, its walls covered with long-ste scenes, its black-stained but unvarnished tables littered with riding, driving and country-life society papers, to give it that air of _sans ceremonie_ with an upper world of which its habitues probably possessed no least inkling but roup of his latter-day friends, far different from those by whom he had first been surrounded--a pretentious society poet of no great merit but considerable self-e as a club hter” and what not, and several young and a the heaven of a Broadway success--he began to pose as one of the intireat city, its bosolittering precincts--aHis clothes by now, for I saw him on occasion, had taken on aaspect than those he had hen I first knew him The small round hat or rakish cap, typical of his Western dreaiven way to a most pretentious square-topped derby, beloved, I believe, of undertakers and a certain severe type of banker as well as soht brown His suit and waistcoat were of a bright English tweed, reddish-brown or herring-bone gray by turns, his shoes box-toed perfections of the button type He carried a heavy cane, often a bright leather reat and dra ”One must,” so I read him at this time, ”take the pleasures as well as the labors of this world with the utrand er and the waiters, sent word to his friend the cook, who probably did not know him at all, that his chop or steak was to be done just so

These friends of his, or at least one of thea paper was read and the chop ordered Ale--not beer--in a pewter entleman of letters, worthy of the name, to drink

I a Still, I had expected better of L----, and I was a little disappointed to see that earlier drea way to an absolutely worthless show Besides, twenty or thirty such stories as ”The Right Man,” ”Sweet Dreaers,” ”The Second Motive,” would outweigh a thousand of the things he was getting published and the profits of which per the early days of his success with M----, he hadnurse who had previously been a clerk in a store, a serious, earnest and fro that she could keep his domestic affairs in order and bear hi of, or flair for, the type of thing he was called upon to do She had no instinct for literature or the arts, and aside from her do” And, naturally, he was neglecting her His head was probably surging with great ideas of art and hence a social supreht a farm some distance from New York, where in a community supposedly inhabited by successful and superiorand cocking hay as became a Western plow-boy; and also, as the reat and secluded writer, working in a den entirely surrounded by books in fine leather bindings (!) and being visited by those odd satellites of the scriptic art who see in genius of this type the _su to do at that time, for a writer to own a farm and work it Horace had One individual in particular, a reat taste in the matter of all the arts but with no least interest in or tolerance for the simplicities of effort, came here occasionally, as I heard, to help him pile hay, and this in a silk shi+rt and aintellectual _flaneur_, who, however, had no vision or the gift of dreas to be done, to steal a few ideas, borrow a little money perhaps or consume a little morphine, and depart; a third came to spout of his success in connection with plays, or his proposed successes; a fourth to paint a picture, urged on by L----; a fifth to compose rural verse; a sixth, a broker or race-track tout or city bar-tender (for color, this last), to marvel that one of L----'s sense, or any one indeed, should live in the country at all There were drinking bouts, absolute drunkenness, in which, according to the Johnsonian tradition and that of Messieurs Rabelais and Moliere, the weary intellect and one's guiding genius were is costfriend, due to a desire no doubt to share in the e (a doctrine M---- was ever fond of spouting--and as a duty, if you please), had saddled himself, for a time at least, with an apartment in an exclusive square on the East Side, the rent of which was a severe drain

Before this there had been, and after it were still, others, obligations too much for him to bear financially, all in the ht be considered a literary success Now and again (so I was told by several of his intimates), confronted by a sudden exhaustion of his bank balance, he would leave sohborhood, where for a fewhis furniture as best heit and various debts beside, and would take refuge in some shabby tenement, or rear rooreat literary and art traditions (Balzac, Baudelaire, Johnson, Goldsly at definitemanuscripts, the results of which carried to soazine_ would yield hihts--often even to take a better apartment than that which last had been his By noever, one of the two children he eventually left behind hi, the e idea dull Still he did not hesitate to continue those dinners given to his friends, the above-roup or its spiritual kin, either in his apartreat show in New York In short, he was a fairly successful short-story writer and critic in who that he would yet triumph in the adjacent if somewhatthis period, if I ht in a Broadway theater lobby for a friend to appear, ho should arrive on the scene but L----, most outlandishly dressed in what I took to be a _reductio ad absurdum_ of his first pose, as I now half-feared it to be: that of the uncouth and rugged young A style in dress at least, and content to be a clod in looks so long as he was a Shelley in brains His suit was of that coarse ill-fitting character described as Store, and shelf-worn; his shoes all but dusty brogans, his headgear a long-visored yellowish-and-brown cross-barred cap He had on a short, badly-cut frieze overcoat, his hands stuck defiantly in his trousers pockets, forcing its lapels wide open And he appeared to be partially if not entirely drunk, and very insolent I had the idea that the drunkenness and the dress were a pose, or else that he had been in sohborhood in search of copy which required such an outfit Charitably let us accept the last He was acco their best to restrain him

”Coht!”

”Sure we'll see the show!” he returned contentiously ”Where's theer himself, eyed him in no friendly spirit from a nearby corner

”This is Mr L----,” one of the satellites now approached and explained to the azine He does short stories and draer bowed After all, M----'s Magazine had conificance on Broadway It was as well to be civil Courtesy was extended for three, and they went in

As for e It was in no way my affair--his life was his own--and still I resented it I did not believe that he was as bad as he seeer and show, and still it was ti down I really hoped that ti that made me hope for the best was that very shortly after this M----'s Magazine blew co him without that se hin that I observed was that a small volu the crea house hich I was financially identified at the tih no as said to reat care not to see me), still it was left and on my advice eventually published (it sold, I believe, a little under five hundred copies) But the thing that cheered me was that it contained not one story which could be looked upon as a coht to the concern hich I was connected--intentionally, I alad to have had a hand in its publication ”At least,” I said, ”he has not lost sight of his first ideal He azine and another, excellent enough to have but a senuine an to publish a series of essays by hiain, three or four years later, a second voluood as his first, was issued by this sa to do serious work; but he still sought and apparently craved those grand scenes on the farm or in some New York restaurant or an expensive aparter afford it He still wrote happy-ending, or coazine as would receive hi up a reasonably secure -picture scenario market had developed, and he wrote for it His eyes were also turning toward the stage, as one completed manuscript and several ”starts” turned over to me after his death proved One day some one who knew hi sent out many excellent stories only to have the America for its attitude toward serious letters--an excellent sign, I thought, good medicine for one who randeur and find hih the husks of these other things, the 'M---- co splendid He can't help it But this fantastic drea a popular success, will have to be lived down”

For a time now I heard but little -picture concern, suggesting plots andsome money

Then I saw a second series of essays in the same Western critical paper--that of the editor who had published his book--and so and sincere I felt that he wasThen one week, veryand extended co I decided to make no comment; and a little later, perhaps three weeks, a telephone call Did I recall him? (!) Could he come and see , of all things--and for hireat armful of red roses This touchedat hiirl, a little irritably too, I thought, for he foundand critical, and heat hiht 'em Why shouldn't I?”