to have this opportunity of making your acquaintance, sir." Mr. Thinkwell remembered "Caroline's eldest boy," who had been a leader in that mincing fashion, that affectation of personal elegance, which had arisen among young men at the close of the last century and had affected Miss Smith so disagreeably. He seemed, in spite of his grandmother, to have reverted to floral decoration behind the ear, which suited him remarkably well. He seemed an exquisite man, the flower of island civilisation. One could imagine that he might hold the office of Arbiter Elegantiæ among his peers. "As Tomkins can't at present cut my hair," he said, "I shall stroll over to Hibernia and see Peter Conolly. Do you care to come, Mr. Thinkwell?" Mr. Thinkwell was glad to do so. He thought that Hindley Smith-Rimski would be a better escort than Albert Edward Smith, whom they left in the barber's chair having a shampoo. CHAPTER XIX THE ARTS, IF ANY I "My good uncle," said Hindley, as they took the path round the shore towards Hibernia, "is rather a tedious old bore. I should think you would be glad to be rid of him sometimes." "Well," Mr. Thinkwell admitted, "he is very kind, but I certainly find Mr. Denis Smith, for example, rather easier company." "Oh, Uncle Denis is good company enough. But not quite always available. This afternoon, for instance, he dined well, and . . . in short, he dined well. Dear Uncle Denis; he is very amusing, but it is rather vulgar and Orphan of him to get drunk so crudely. For my part, there is a berry I chew, which soothes and stimulates but doesn't intoxicate, so I am never unpresentable, like some of my family. . . . Well, so we are all to see the great world at last. It will be very diverting. Is it all as absurd as this island, I wonder, or can one take it seriously?" "It is quite absurd," said Mr. Thinkwell, "to many minds. Some, however, succeed in taking it seriously enough. In any case, it has a considerable variety of aspects and modes of life, so is not a monotonous spectacle." "I do wonder," said Hindley, "how we shall all get on! We egregious Smiths, in particular. That spec tacle, anyhow, I shall completely enjoy. As for the rest, I find Smith Island entertaining enough for my purposes. I amuse myself very well always." "How do you pass the time?" Mr. Thinkwell inquired. "Oh, I stroll about and talk to people. And play chess." "You have chess, then?" "Oh, yes. My grandfather was very fond of it, and taught it to his children. I find it a very good game. Then I take my meals, and rest, and chew berries, and write a little." ... "Indeed! What do you write?" "All kinds of things. Prose and verse. It has always been my recreation." "I wish you would show me some of your writings." "By all means; there is nothing I enjoy more than showing off. That, too, has always been a favourite recreation of mine. I believe that I write rather well. I notice that most of those who write believe that. In any case, I enjoy my own things. But I dare say you will despise them. The arts, you see, haven't had many models to follow on Smith Island. We have had to rely on our natural gifts. I believe I am a little gifted. But far less so than my sister's son, young Peter Conolly, who paints pictures. I should like to show you those. That enchanting youth is a great favourite of mine; he has, I think, genius as well as beauty. I am half in love with him, and half with his Flora. An exquisite pair. It would seem a pity if they should ever marry, and become staid unromantic parents. I have a passion for celibacy; it is more elegant-don't you agree with me?” "Really, I never thought about it," said Mr. Thinkwell. He was not quite sure that he liked this suave, talkative man. Of course one met him elsewhere; he was an eternal type; one had met him in ancient Greece and Rome, and one met him in Cambridge, in Oxford, in London; even, it has been said, in Manchester, if not in Glasgow, and on this island that they all persisted in calling Smith. There was something rather tiresome about Hindley, in spite of his intelligence and his bland charm. "I suppose," said Mr. Thinkwell, "that there must have been a good deal of writing here, as in other places." "Oh, yes. It is a disease which a great many of our young men and women pass through; fortunately they mostly come safely out on the other side. Probably you have only heard from my uncles of the official library-that queer collection of out-moded books which my grandparents thought fit to bring to this island when they began life here. No one nowadays pays any attention to those old books; we have our modern literature, most of which the last generation despises." "Indeed! I remember little mention of literature in Miss Smith's journal." "No. My grandmamma regards modern literature as a vice. She used, in the days when she went about and cast her eye over all of us to see how we were behaving, to see some of us writing, but she called it wasting time, and said it was ridiculous to think that we could write anything with none of the great literary models before us. As to models-that was the sort of model she provided us with." He pointed with his cane to the stalwart trunk of a banian tree, down which was carved three stanzas of poetry. "There is a dreadful Hell, And everlasting pains; There sinners must with devils dwell, Can such a wretch as I Then will I read and pray, While I have life and breath, "That," said Hindley, "is my worthy grandmamma's idea of good verse. She says there are also the great English poets-Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Gray, Dr. Akenside, Southey, Cowper, Mrs. Hemans, and Alfred Tennyson-but, beyond a little here and there, she didn't know them by heart or make us acquainted with them. And, as she thinks Dr. Watts, the author of that poem, good, I dare say those others aren't much better. So, you see, poets on this island have had to work on their own lines. Prose writers, too.' "Have you much prose?" "A good deal, yes. A long time ago a few people took to writing down the stories that were told in the evenings by the older people, and then to inventing others for themselves. Often they are about island life, often about what we imagine life in the wider world to be. You would find them great nonsense, no doubt. As to myself, I used, when I was young, to write a great deal of verse, but for some years now I have only written prose. I began once a kind of satiric |