"Soon! Oh, soon! Dear Lord," she gasped, "I shall be with Thee for ever. If it seemeth good to Thee, let me be taken up on some such tranquil night as this. And I thank Thee, Dear Saviour, that Thou hast poured Thy Grace into the soul of Gilbert Lothian, the Poet. Through the white soul of this poet, which Thou hast chosen to be a conduit of comfort to me, my night pain has gone. I am drawn nearer to Thee, Jesus who hast died for me!
"Lord, bless the poet. Pour down Thy Grace upon him. Guard him, shield him and his for ever more. And, Sweet Lord, if it be Thy will, let me meet him in Heaven and tell him of this night--this fair night of summer when I lay dying and happy and thinking kindly and with grat.i.tude of him.
"Jesus!"
CHAPTER IV
LOTHIAN GOES TO THE LIBRARY OF PURE LITERATURE
"I only knew one poet in my life: And this, or something like it, was his way."
--_Browning._
The Podley Library in West Kensington was a fad of its creator. Mr.
John Podley was a millionaire, or nearly so, and the head of a great pin-making firm. He was a public man of name and often preached or lectured at the species of semi-religious conversations known as "Pleasant Sunday Afternoons."
Sunday afternoon in England--though Mr. Podley called it "The Sabbath"--represented the pin-maker"s mental att.i.tude with some fidelity. All avenues to pleasure of any kind were barred, though possibly amus.e.m.e.nt is the better word. A heavy meal clogged the intellect, an imperfectly-understood piece of Jewish religious politics was made into an idol, erected and bowed down to.
Mr. Podley had always lived with the fear of G.o.d, and the love of money constantly before his eyes. "Sabbath observance" and total abstinence were his watchwords, and he also took a great interest in "Literature"
and had p.r.o.nounced views upon the subject. These views, like everything else about him, were confined and narrow, but were the sincere convictions of an ignorant, pompous and highly successful man.
He had, accordingly, established the Podley Free Library in Kensington in order to enunciate and carry out his ideas in a practical way. What he considered--and not without some truth--the immoral tendency of modern writers, was to be sternly prohibited in his model house of books.
Nothing should repose upon those shelves which might bring a blush to the cheeks of the youngest girl or unsettle the minds of any one at all. "Very unsettling" was a great phrase of this good, wealthy and stupid old man. He really was good, vulgar and limited as were all his tastes, and he had founded the Library to the glory of G.o.d.
He found it impossible--when he became confronted by the task--to choose the books himself, as he had hoped to do.
He had sat down one day in his elegant private sanctum at Tulse Hill with sheets of foolscap before him, to make a first list. The "Pilgrim"s Progress" was written down immediately in his flowing clerkly hand. Then came the novels of Mrs. Henry Wood. "Get all of this line" was the pencilled note in the margin. Memories of his youth rea.s.serted themselves, so "Jessica"s First Prayer," "Ministering Children" and "A Peep Behind the Scenes" were quickly added, and then there had been a pause.
"Milton, Shakespeare and the Bible?" said Mrs. Podley, when consulted.
"They"re pure enough, I"m sure!" and the pin-maker who had never been to a theatre, nor read a line of the great poets, wrote them down at once. As for the Bible, it was G.o.d"s word, and so "would never bring a blush" etc. It was Mr. Podley"s favourite reading--the Old Testament more than the New--and if any one had scoffed at the idea that the Almighty had written it Himself, in English and with a pen, Podley would have thought him infidel.
The millionaire was quite out of date. The modern expansions of thought among the Non-conformists puzzled him when he was (rarely) brought into any contact with them. His grim, uncultured beliefs were such as exist only in the remote granite meeting houses of the Cornish moors to-day.
"I see that Bunyan wrote another book, the "Holy War,"" said Mr. Podley to his wife. "I never heard of it and I"m a bit doubtful. I don"t like the name, shall I enter it up or not?"
The good lady shook her head. "Not knowing, can"t say," she remarked.
"But if it is the same man who wrote "Pilgrim"s Progress" then it"s sure to be pure."
"It"s the "Holy" that puzzles me," he answered, "that"s a papist word--"Holy Church" "Holy Mary" and that."
"Then I should leave it out. But I tell you what, my dear, choosing these books"ll take up a lot of your valuable time, especially if each one"s got to be chose separate. You might have to read a lot of them yourself, there"s no knowing! And why should you?"
"Why, indeed?" said Mr. Podley. "But I don"t see how----"
"Well, I do then, John. It"s as simple as A. B. C. You want to establish a library in which there shan"t be any wicked books."
"That is so?"
"Yes, my dear. Pure, absolutely pure!"
"Well, then, have them bought for you by an expert--like you do the metal for the pins. You don"t buy metal yourself any more. You pay high wages to your buyers to do it. Treat the books the same!"
"There"s a good deal in that, dear. But I want to take a _personal_ interest in the thing."
"Now don"t you worry, John. "Tis right that we should all be conscientious in what we do, but them as has risen to the head of great businesses haven"t any further call to trouble about minor details.
I"ve heard you say it many a time. And so with this library. You"re putting down the money for it. You"ve bought the land and the building is being erected. You"ve got to pay, and if that isn"t taking a personal interest then I"m sure I don"t know what is!"
"You advise me?--"
"To go to the best book shop in London--there"s that place opposite the Royal Academy that is the King"s booksellers. See one of the partners.
Explain that you want the library furnished with pure books, state the number you want, and get an estimate of the cost. It"s their business to know what books are pure and what aren"t--and, besides, at a shop like that, they wouldn"t sell any wicked books. It would be beneath them."
Podley had taken his wife"s advice. He had "placed an order" for an initial ten thousand pure volumes with the firm in question, and the thing was done.
The shop in Piccadilly was a very famous shop indeed. It had all the _cachet_ of a library of distinction. Its director was a man of letters and an anthologist of repute. The men who actually sold the books were gentlemen of knowledge and taste, invaluable to many celebrated authors, mines of information, and all of them trained bibliophiles.
"Now look here, Lewis," the director said, to one of his a.s.sistants, an Oxford man who translated Flaubert and wrote introductions to English editions of Gautier in his spare time, "you"ve got to fill a library with books."
Mr. Lewis smiled. "Funny thing they should come to us," he said; "I should have thought they would have bought them by the yard, in the Strand. What is it, American millionaire? question of bindings and wall-s.p.a.ce?"
"No, not quite," said the director. "It"s Mr. Podley, the pin millionaire and philanthropist. He"s founding a public library of "pure literature" in Kensington. The only books he has ever read, apparently, are the books of the Old Testament. He was with me for an hour this morning. Take a week and make a list. He wants ten thousand volumes for a start."
The eyes of Mr. Lewis gleamed. "Certainly!" he said. "It will be quite delightful. It seems almost too good to be true. But will the list be scrutinised before the books are actually bought? Won"t this Podley man take another opinion?"
The director shook his head. "He doesn"t know any one who could give him one," he answered. "It would only mean engaging another expert, and he"s quite satisfied with our credentials. "Pure books"! Good Lord! I wonder what he thinks he means. I should like to get inside that man"s head and poke about for an hour. It would be interesting."
Mr. Lewis provided for the Kensington Inst.i.tute exactly the library he would have acquired for himself, if he could have afforded it. The result, for all real lovers of books, would have been delightful if any of them had known of it But the name frightened them away, and they never went there. Members of the general public were also deterred by the name of the Inst.i.tute--though for quite different reasons--and folk of Mr. Podley"s own mental att.i.tude were too illiterate (like him), to want books--"pure" or otherwise--at all.
Podley, again after consultation with his wife, appointed a clerk from the Birmingham pin works as chief librarian. "It won"t matter," that shrewd woman had pointed out, "if he knows anything about literature or not! His duties will be to supervise the lending of the books, and a soft job he"ll have too!"
A Mr. Hands had been elected, a limpet-like adherent to Podley"s particular shibboleth, and a person as anaemic in mind and body as could have been met with in a month of search.
An old naval pensioner and his wife were appointed care-takers, and a lady-typist and sub-librarian was advertised for, at thirty-five shillings a week.
Rita Wallace had obtained the post.
Hardly any one ever came to the library. In the surge and swell of London life it became as remote as an island in the Hebrides. Podley had endowed it--it was the public excuse for the knighthood he purchased in a year from the Liberal Party--and there it was!
Rita Wallace had early taken entire charge and command of her nominal superior--the whiskered and despondent Mr. Hands. The girl frightened and dazzled him. As he might have done at the foot of Etna or Stromboli, he admired, kept at a distance, and accepted the fact that she was there.
The girl was absolute mistress of the solitary building full of beautiful books. Sometimes Hands, whose wife was dying of cancer, and who had no stated times of attendance, stayed away for several days.
Snell and his wife--the care-takers--adored her, and she lunched every day with them in the bas.e.m.e.nt.