The yellow book: an illustrated quarterly (5.1895)

The Papers of Basil Fillimer

ßy H. D. Traill

My name is Johnson, just plain John Johnson—nothing more
subtle than that; and my individuality is, as they say, “ in a
concatenation accordingly.” In other words, the character of my
intellect is exactly what you would expect in a man of my name.
This was well known to my old friend, schoolmate, and fellow-
student at Oxford, the late Basil Fillimer ; a man of the very
subtlest mind that I should think has ever housed itself in human
body since the brain of the last mediaeval schoolman ceased to
“ distinguish.” Yet Basil Fillimer must needs appoint me—me of
all men in the world—his literary executor, and Charge me with
the duty of making a selection from his papers and preparing them
for publication. They include a series of “Analytic Studies,” a
diary extending over several years, and a three-volume novel
turning on the question whether the hero before marrying the
heroine was or was not bound to communicate to her the fact
that he had once unjustly suspected her mother of circulating
reports injurious to the reputation of his aunt.

Basil knew, I say—he must have known—that I was quite
unable to follow him in these refined speculations. Hence I can
only suppose that at the time when his will was drawn he had not
yet discovered my psychological incompetence, and that after he
The Yellow Book—Vol. V. b had