the unknown critic to robin adair
“the terrace,
“june 8th.
“here, robin adair, is a night-stock from below my terrace. i enclose it while it is white and fragrant. it will reach you brown and shrivelled; but, as you say, less shrivelled than my letter would have been—in fact, as it now is. it lies on the terrace beside me, a little heap of grey powdered ashes. this flower is its resurrected form. it is slighter, subtler, more fragrant than that letter. i began to re-read it, but did not get far; it was too serious, robin adair.
“i am, as the above will have told you, writing from my terrace in the cool of the evening. a lamp in the window of my morning-room affords me light. the sky is grey-blue, and away in the west, venus, who is an evening star at the moment, is shining calm and peaceful.
“i had a concert on this very terrace yesterday afternoon. a so-called vagabond piped to me, wearing shabby clothes and a peacock feather in his hat....”
peter laid down the letter a moment. his brain was whirling. not even on the receipt of the first letter from his lady had it whirled with such rapidity. here, then, was the explanation. of course, he had known her before. he had had glimpses of her mind, her soul, her delicate fanciful imaginings. she had embodied suddenly before him, and unconsciously his soul had recognized her, though reason had urged to the contrary. it was incredible, marvellous! in actual everyday life such things did not happen. yet here was the proof thereof, finely, clearly traced with black ink on a sheet of bluish note-paper.
he picked up the letter again, and began to read further.
“it was a wonderful concert. music has [pg 116]never before so stirred, so moved me. picture to yourself an ordinary penny whistle, from which divine music was produced. he told a life-story in his piping, yet fragmentary sentences alone reached me. it was as if i were reading a book in a language of which i knew but a few words. can you understand?
“what there was in the first part of his theme, i know not; but he, that strolling player, had suffered. part of his theme beat and struggled for liberty like a caged bird, or like an imprisoned mind—a fettered expression. and when the expression, the liberty came—that was what hurt—it was smashed, broken. can you picture a caged skylark, longing, pining for liberty, then seeing the cage door open, and flying forth into the sunlight, its throat bursting with rapture, only to find itself seized by some ruthless hand, wings torn from its body? yet the bird was not dead; there was the horror. it lay still, bleeding, apparently lifeless, then lifted its head. maimed though it was, it would still sing; and its song should be no complaint, but one to encourage and cheer all other injured things. i could have wept for the pluck, the courage of the little creature. and after a time it began to grow wings—little young wings that carried it just above the earth into the open it loved. it was only a little way, but it meant such a lot to that skylark. it was here, at the end, that the music spoke most directly to my heart. the song the partially healed skylark sang seemed to be sung for me alone, and yet here the translation of the words most failed me.
“the man is an artist. i wish he would play for me again. yet i dare no more ask him now than i would dare ask sarasate to come to my terrace and play.
“he—this piper—is living on the outskirts of the village, in a cottage reputed to be haunted. doubtless he has charmed and soothed the restless spirits by his piping. this is a great deal to write to you regarding an unknown strolling player—though he is not strolling now—but the man himself is unusual, while his music is superb. he struck me as one of gentle birth. his speech was educated, and his whole appearance, in spite of his shabby clothes, refined. i am sure he has a story—one, robin adair, that might be worthy of your pen.
“my companion—a dear, but very old-fashioned—resented his behaviour. she thought he did not treat me with sufficient respect, mainly because he did not jump at the proposal of playing to me again. i did suggest i should like to hear him; but to send for him again, to send a footman to fetch him as i did before, would be impossible. i hope burton delivered my message nicely. i worded it courteously, at all events.
“how goes your wanderer, and are his thoughts progressing? that you should dedicate those thoughts to me pleases me immensely. i think it an honour that you should care to do so.
“i am glad you did not burn my letter. i am glad you cared enough about it—poor dull thing though it was—to refuse to do so. i did not mean to say this to you, yet i have.
“good-night.”
peter (alias robin adair) to the unknown critic, whom he now knows to be the lady anne garland
“june 10th.
“dear lady,—i am in a contrary frame of mind to-night. i want to write to you, yet am in no mood to do so.
“i have met your vagabond piper, and know him more intimately than you might suppose. he is an impostor, though a harmless one, i grant. his music is not bad, but i doubt his playing to you again. the fellow has a good conceit of himself.
“after all, i find i cannot write to-night. thank you for the flower.
“robin adair.”
the unknown critic to robin adair
“the terrace,
“june 18th.
“why are you so hard on my piper? i do not believe he is an impostor. and as for his music being not bad! robin adair, are you one ‘who has no music in him, and is not moved by concord of sweet sounds,’ or in what way has this man vexed you? the latter i believe to be the solution, robin adair, and it is not worthy of you. but i will not write more of him. i have not seen him again, and the villagers speak of him with bated breath as a friend of the evil one. if he were of my faith, i would ask father lestrange, a kindly man, to call at the cottage. but as he [pg 120]never hears mass he is evidently of another way of thinking, and might regard the visit as an intrusion. and for some reason he desires solitude. one dare not therefore intrude. i feel, however, that he is lonely, and have had, perhaps foolishly, a desire to lessen that loneliness.
“the country is very peaceful after london, and i am revelling in my flowers, more especially my roses. they are adoring this unwavering sunshine and the warm nights. the gardeners keep their roots well watered, so they—the roses—do not suffer from thirst.
“i had a letter from a friend of mine the other day, a woman with a surplus of relations all eager and willing to offer good advice and to point out various neat and narrow little paths in which she should walk and from which her soul recoils. after remarking on their latest suggestions, she writes succinctly: ‘the patience of job was over-estimated. his relations died.’
“why are some people so sure that their plan is the right one, and why cannot they allow others to go their own way, provided, of course, the way does not run strictly counter to the law? in that case, of course, there might be complications.
“am i being very unoriginal when i lament the little originality there is in the world, or, at all events, in that portion of it which i know? and what little there is, is so frequently mere eccentricity. i believe some people would call it original to discard one’s clothes and walk down bond street in war-paint and feathers, though certainly there would be a large majority who would call it merely indecent, and in that case the majority would doubtless be right. i believe i am in a discontented mood this afternoon. there is a discord somewhere in my harmonies.
“are you in a better mood for recording the thoughts of your wanderer than for writing to me? i hope so. i am looking forward to reading them. i want something to soothe me. in spite of the peace that lies around me—the quiet peace of nature—i am restless.
“write to me, robin adair; tell me of your wanderer.”
robin adair to his one time unknown critic, or peter the piper to the lady anne garland
“june 20th.
“dear lady,—i was churlish when i last wrote. [pg 122]i know more of your piper than you suppose. do not write to me of him, i beg.
“as for my wanderer, he has escaped me. i intended to keep him entirely to the fields and lanes, but he is off now to a hilltop. he has caught a glimpse of a star, and thinks to gain a closer vision of it from the hill. poor fool! what will the height of an ant-heap advantage him? there are millions of miles between him and the star. on the hill he will be restless and miserable that he is no nearer. why could he not keep his eyes to the attainable?—the wayside flowers, the green leaves of the hedges, all that which is common property to prince and peasant alike.
“long ago in his past—i told you he had a past which he had thrown behind him—he cut himself off from communion with his fellow-men. he did not realize at the moment how complete the severance would be; yet, if he had, i believe he would have acted as he did. there seemed then nothing else that he could do; even now there appears to him nothing else. maybe he made a great mistake. if he did, he did not suffer alone, there were others who suffered too; there’s the rub. he did not realize that they would suffer. his optimism in human nature was too great. now he realizes that there are only the fields and roads for him, only the companionship of birds, beasts, and flowers, to whom his past is unknown and can never be disclosed. his wings were torn from him like the wings of that skylark of which your vagabond piper piped. true, he, too, grew new wings with which he could rise just far enough above the earth to see the star. but he can never reach it, and, unlike your skylark, he cannot sing cheerfully. perhaps before he saw the star he might have done so, but now his song lacks buoyancy.
“i fancy i shall have to leave him for a while gazing disconsolately at his star, and start a new book. he has endowed me with too much of his present mood, and who will care to hear the pinings of a wanderer for the unattainable? i might bring him from the hilltop, blot out the star from the sky. i have, indeed, already tried to do so, but my wanderer has moped and sulked. that is the worst of these fiction people. you feed them with your heart’s blood, you give them life of your life that they may move as living creatures and not as mere puppets pulled by strings, and suddenly they escape you. the path you have carefully chosen, in which they are to tread, is refused by them. ‘it is the way you have chosen,’ they will cry, ‘not the way we choose!’ and if you protest that their path will be of little interest to the public, they sulk, insisting that, interest or no interest, it is the true path. i will leave this flesh and blood creature on the hilltop. if he bewails the distance of his star from him, i will not record his wailings. i will fashion a puppet, and merely a puppet, and from first to last chapter i will pull the strings myself.
“therefore i fear that the thoughts of my wanderer will never be printed to soothe you, nor, i fear, can i be of much use in the matter. i told you he had endowed me with his thoughts. i might be the man himself. he has obsessed me. i tell myself that i will look at his star and worship it from afar, thankful for its benign rays. but his restlessness is upon me. i want to get near it, though i recognize the futility of my desire. i am a fool.
“may i take your friend, with her many relations, as the puppet for my next story? i will pull the strings deftly, and she shall dance away from them or frolic on their mangled corpses. which think you she would prefer?
“i find that again my mood for letter-writing is not of the most cheerful.
“good-night.
“robin adair.”
the unknown critic to robin adair, or the lady anne garland to peter the piper
“the terrace,
“june 27th.
“dear robin adair,—what is it, i wonder, that has disturbed us both? some small and unpleasant breeze has ruffled the surface of our mind’s lake. yet your course seems clear. since your wanderer desires his star, let him attain it. let him build a ladder of moonbeams and climb up to it, or if he is too much flesh and blood, too material, for such a feat, let the star descend to him. are there not falling stars?
“since writing last i have had a letter from a friend of mine. she is not well, and is feeling lonely. i go to town next thursday to stay with her for three weeks, till her sister-in-law can come and join her. perhaps when i return i shall have regained my old calm. at all events, the stir, the movement of london will serve to shake me out of this mood, which i cannot define, but which is foreign to my nature.
“i wish the vagabond piper would give me another concert before i go, but i dare not ask him.”
