The Author of Beltraffio

(1884)

CHAPTER I

Much as I wished to see him I had kept my letter of introduction
three weeks in my pocket-book. I was nervous and timid about
meeting him--conscious of youth and ignorance, convinced that he was
tormented by strangers, and especially by my country-people, and not
exempt from the suspicion that he had the irritability as well as the
dignity of genius. Moreover, the pleasure, if it should occur--for
I could scarcely believe it was near at hand--would be so great that
I wished to think of it in advance, to feel it there against my
breast, not to mix it with satisfactions more superficial and usual.
In the little game of new sensations that I was playing with my
ingenuous mind I wished to keep my visit to the author of
"Beltraffio" as a trump-card. It was three years after the
publication of that fascinating work, which I had read over five
times and which now, with my riper judgement, I admire on the whole
as much as ever. This will give you about the date of my first
visit--of any duration--to England for you will not have forgotten
the commotion, I may even say the scandal, produced by Mark Ambient's
masterpiece. It was the most complete presentation that had yet
been made of the gospel of art; it was a kind of aesthetic war-cry.
People had endeavoured to sail nearer to "truth" in the cut of their
sleeves and the shape of their sideboards; but there had not as yet
been, among English novels, such an example of beauty of execution
and "intimate" importance of theme. Nothing had been done in that
line from the point of view of art for art. That served me as a
fond formula, I may mention, when I was twenty-five; how much it
still serves I won't take upon myself to say--especially as the
discerning reader will be able to judge for himself. I had been in
England, briefly, a twelve-month before the time to which I began by
alluding, and had then learned that Mr. Ambient was in distant lands-
-was making a considerable tour in the East; so that there was
nothing to do but to keep my letter till I should be in London again.
It was of little use to me to hear that his wife had not left England
and was, with her little boy, their only child, spending the period
of her husband's absence--a good many months--at a small place they
had down in Surrey. They had a house in London, but actually in the
occupation of other persons. All this I had picked up, and also
that Mrs. Ambient was charming--my friend the American poet, from
whom I had my introduction, had never seen her, his relations with
the great man confined to the exchange of letters; but she wasn't,
after all, though she had lived so near the rose, the author of
"Beltraffio," and I didn't