Jewdwine's first "concession to modernity," was a long leading review
of the "Art of Herbert Rankin." Herbert Rankin was so much amused with
it that it kept him quiet for at least three weeks in his playground
of _The Planet_. After such a handsome appreciation as that, he had to
wait a decent interval before "going for Jewdwine." When he remarked
to Rickman that it would have been more to the purpose if Jewdwine had
devoted his six columns to the Art of S.K.R., Rickman blushed and
turned his head away, as if Rankin had been guilty of some gross
indelicacy. He was still virginally sensitive where Jewdwine was
concerned.
But, in a sense not intended by Rankin, Jewdwine was very much
occupied, not to say perturbed by the art of S.K.R. Not exactly to the
exclusion of every other interest; for Rickman, looking in on the
great editor one afternoon, found him almost enthusiastic over his
"last discovery." A new poet, according to Jewdwine, had arisen in the
person of an eminent Cabinet Minister, who in ninety-seven was
beguiling the tedium of office with a very pretty playing on the
pastoral pipe. Mr. Fulcher's _In Arcadia_ lay on the editorial table,
bound in white vellum, with the figure of the great God Pan
symbolizing Mr. Fulcher, on the cover. Jewdwine's attitude to Mr.
Fulcher was for Jewdwine humble, not to say reverent. He intimated to
Rickman that in Fulcher he had found what he had wanted.
Jewdwine in the early days of _Metropolis_ wore the hungry look of a
man who, having swallowed all his formulas, finds himself unnourished.
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