DOI article:
Thorp, Sidney Benson: An immortal
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.25499#0161
By Sidney Benson Thorp 157
reflected thence disclosed the furniture indispensable for man’s
dual existence : a narrow bed, from beneath which the rim of a
bath protruded ; the table, and a couple of chairs. The walls
were unadorned, the boards were bare.
The appearance of Henry Longton’s volume had been the
literary event of a season. The new man had been recognised as
standing in a solitude unapproachable by the twittering mob of a
prolific generation. A great poet, who chanced to be also himself
a great critic, had dared to stake his reputation upon the future of
the new Immortal. And so for a while he had lived in a hashish
dream of exultation. Fie knew his achievements to be high ; and
as he wandered by day or night through howling thoroughfares,
lonely amid the turgid waves of half-evolved humanity, he forgot
the cruel side of life, and hugged himself in the warm cloak of
flattering memories : the tumult of the traffic sounded drums and
trumpets to his song.
Importunate came the hour when he must set forth once more
to produce. A royalty on a limited edition may mount to a
handsome dole of pocket-money, but it is not a chartered company.
Longton’s small capital had long since melted away ; and he sat
down, therefore, to write immortal verse for the liquidation of his
landlady’s bill.
The time had been when a mere act of attention sufficed to
the erection of jewelled palaces from the piled-up treasures of his
brain. Now, to his dismay, the most assiduous research could
discover among the remnants nothing but the oft-rejected, the
discoloured, and the flawed. The heavy wrath of the gods had
fallen upon him, and he was dumb : he must betake himself to the
merest hack-work of anonymous journalism ; and the bitterest
drop in the cup of this set-back was the reflection that the tide
was ebbing for one whom nature had framed unfit to profit by its
flood.
reflected thence disclosed the furniture indispensable for man’s
dual existence : a narrow bed, from beneath which the rim of a
bath protruded ; the table, and a couple of chairs. The walls
were unadorned, the boards were bare.
The appearance of Henry Longton’s volume had been the
literary event of a season. The new man had been recognised as
standing in a solitude unapproachable by the twittering mob of a
prolific generation. A great poet, who chanced to be also himself
a great critic, had dared to stake his reputation upon the future of
the new Immortal. And so for a while he had lived in a hashish
dream of exultation. Fie knew his achievements to be high ; and
as he wandered by day or night through howling thoroughfares,
lonely amid the turgid waves of half-evolved humanity, he forgot
the cruel side of life, and hugged himself in the warm cloak of
flattering memories : the tumult of the traffic sounded drums and
trumpets to his song.
Importunate came the hour when he must set forth once more
to produce. A royalty on a limited edition may mount to a
handsome dole of pocket-money, but it is not a chartered company.
Longton’s small capital had long since melted away ; and he sat
down, therefore, to write immortal verse for the liquidation of his
landlady’s bill.
The time had been when a mere act of attention sufficed to
the erection of jewelled palaces from the piled-up treasures of his
brain. Now, to his dismay, the most assiduous research could
discover among the remnants nothing but the oft-rejected, the
discoloured, and the flawed. The heavy wrath of the gods had
fallen upon him, and he was dumb : he must betake himself to the
merest hack-work of anonymous journalism ; and the bitterest
drop in the cup of this set-back was the reflection that the tide
was ebbing for one whom nature had framed unfit to profit by its
flood.