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SuADOWLAND
vaguely lined sea of inertia, physical, mental and moral.
Now and then something penetrated, bnt it was generally with the pricklingly uncomfortable sensation of the penetration of a pin. The cardinal sin, one of his most expounded doctrines was, consisted in interference. To live and let live . . . ah, Swinburne had been infinitely wise. He read Swinburne, with pleasure. Why work when one might drift, with no exertion and immeasurably more of pleasure? Why do when one might dream . . . purple and mauve . . . old gold and jade . . . ?
Rot, said Jimmie Blake, of the world of activity.
Then came two pin pricks. Generally, mostly, Jimmie endured these with a sort of philosophy he had evolved out of necessity. These, he found, were more persistent, even recurrent. One was from Valerie Vincent, a sculptress and his good friend. She, among all of them, attempted to prod Jimmie now and again.
"You fool," she would apostrophize him, "you're grubbing in the mire when you might be touching the stars. You're a sloth and a drone. If you were a bee you would be exterminated."
"I wish I were a bee," had replied the immovable Jimmie.
On this occasion Valerie had a manuscript she wished him to criticize. "It's from a very dear friend of mine, Jimmie," she told him, "a Southern girl, and charming. They are in beastly circumstances. Straitened, terribly, you know, and all that. I want a real opinion on it. If she believes she
cant make good ... it may keep her from many futile years. Please, Jimmie. Come out of it just long enough for a solid answer. Dont be an utter worm."
Jimmie read it and pronounced it drivel. He added that it was maundering. He thought that it was pitiful and very young and as such, appealing in its evident sincerity. He had got out of the habit of saying what •he thought. He almost always said something quite different. It was considered "smart" in the Village.
The second pin prick was a visit from Mr. Paige, his publisher.
John Paige believed in Jimmie. He had published his great novel, "The Thorn," and he felt that he would have known it to be great even tho the world had turned it down. That the world had not turned it down inflated his coffers but not his original judgment. He had known a rather
bitter dis
appoint
B-aK^nifted t0 ™een' mentatthe
wich Village . . . lhere ,
was an endless chain of subsequent
that sort of thing disappear
Eugenie Vardeman met him in the entrance hall, a gracious survival of a quaint, old-time Southern hostess
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