The yellow book: an illustrated quarterly (5.1895)

The Phantasies of Philarete

By James Ashcroft Noble

I

For quite a month or two it was noticed at the Shandy Club
that a certain change had passed over Hartmann West,
West was rather a notability at the club, though he was, com-
paratively speaking, a young member. To be precise, he had
belonged to it just two years and a half, and six months before
his election he had published his first book, Drafts upon Inexperi-
ence. It was a volume of somewhat exotic sentiment and para-
doxical reflection, with a dash of what was just then beginning to
be called “ the new humour ” ; and the novelty, as represented by
West, found no great favour with the critics. In most quarters
the book was either energetically slated or altogether ignored—
which, as we all know, is a much worse fate—but somehow,
perhaps as a consequence of the very vigour of the slating,
perhaps in virtue of that touch of unconventional genius which
critics are not always quick to detect, the Drafts were honoured
by the great reading public, and in half a year Hartmann West
was a hero of six editions, and a member of the somewhat
exclusive Shandy Club.

On the whole, he was a fairly populär member, in spite of the

fact