The daily Cairo bulletin. (Cairo, Ill.) 1878-1???, 1884-02-17
BY THE GATE OF THE SEA.
A NOV Ell.
BY DAVID CHRISTIE MURRAY.
CHAPTER II.

1t was about the time of the events just
recorded that Mr. Ronald Marsh dawned
upon London There are various ways Of
dawning, The gray way is perhaps cs-
teemed the most prosperous, but Mr.. Marsh
dawned in vivid splendors, and his glories
at the beginning were inclined to be tent
pcstuous. London is a biggish place to
dawn upon, and the luminary whose rays
pierce every Granny and corner of it must
rise high and shine bright indeed Now,
Mr.. Marsh made no pretense Though he
knew himself a sun of the first magnitudcl
20 shineupon the vulgar, The fog of their
understanding was obviously too dense for
him. He did not even count upon illuming
the whole of the polite world, as yet, There
are men and women in the highest circles
who never get thrill of warmth or q ray
of conscious light out of Aeschylus or
Shakespeare Not that Mr.. Marsh thought
much of Aeschylus or Shakespeare, but
they had passed, up till now, as among the
earth's greatest, and they were well enough
in the way OF parallel or illustration. he
was content for the present to be seen and
known of few. He would have been con-
tent in a way, not to be seen or known at
au-at least, he had the modesty to say So
to shine UNDECIDED, and TO rejoice in his own
strength and radiance,
He dawnod, then, in fitful splendors, and
his signs and portcnts were first noted in
the house Of Lady Marguerite Capucine,
where he appeared in unstarched linen and
apparel Of strange device, and with head
of hair like a disorderly halo, He had no
actual companions, but two or three satel-
lites accompanied him, rising at his risings
and setting at his settings. Their merely
physical aspect was like his own: they wore
their hair at as great u length and in rs
picturesque disorder; their sombreros and
their cloaks wero as brigandish as their
leaders. They thought great things of
themselves and Of each other; but they
sworc by the Leader, and proclaimed him
tho Emancipator of Human Thought.
They used to say, with every evidence Of
sincerity, that when the Leader gave his
poems TO the world the pillars OF a worn
out system would be shaken.
The Leader could occasionally be pre-
vailed upon to repeat or read mere frag-
mcntary extract from his work, and the APP
petite Of his followers grew with what it
fed on. In these excerpts the world was
called upon to break its fctters-not par
ticulariZed with clcarness-and there were
mighty sonorous passages about the ode
graded gods" and the need for their COM
pete abolition.
Nobody can live always at EXTREMIST
high pressure, and Mr.. Ronald Marsh went
about sometimes like an ordinary person.
At these times he consorted for the most
part with people who were literary, artistic,
aud theatrical, Bohemia is a sparsely-pco-
pied country now One or two men who
really knew its crowded haunts and its few
solitudcs, its cheerful highways and sad by
ways wrote about it and made it familiar
to tho world Then came the inevitable
cloud OF imitators and pretenders, and
made poor old Bohemia an impossible place
to live in any longer Its name is so cheap
ened that the very mention Of il has q ring
of sham sentiment and sham mirth; even
its tried gold has been so lacquered that it
looks like pinchbeck But there was Bo.
hernia worth knowing even so late as Ron
aid Marsh's day, and the great young man
sometimes strayed into it, and tried to feel
as II he were native there.
There was, and is, dingy back room in
one OF the Oldest houses in the Strand,
mere box Of an apartment, in which, by
crowding themselves intentionally, ten
men Of average breadth of beam can sit
around the clumsy comfortable. Half one
side OF the room is occupied by window,
but the smoke-incrusted wall Of neighbour
ing building rises within two yards Of 1t,
and grewsome twilight reigns within the
apartment even at noontide There, once
week, in the days Of which write spec.
trai-looking figures sat and held high con.
verso on books and pictures and the drama,
and on the men and women who wrote or
painted, or played. The air was heavy
with tobacco-smoke and the scent of strong
potables, and newcomer, entering from
the fresher air Of the Strand had some ado
to make out the inmates of the room Tho
spectral nine welcomed the poet with grave
voicesSand wedged themselves TO make room
Tor him. The Leader took his seat with an
Cir OF modesty, and the spectral nine began
TO chaff him
81 am sorry to tell you, Mr. Marsh" said
one, speaking from the cloudiest corner,
that the petition yet awaits a signature Il
What petitionf" asked the poet, remov.
ing his sombrero, and passing hand Of un,
usual nv whiteness through his auburn locks.
"l'i responded tne OtHer,
bending forward to be more impressive. and
waving the smoke aside with one hand
signed by the crowned heads Of Eurona.
the Pope Of Rome, and the Englsh AK
bishops, and now awaiting the sgn S~ 49, u,
the Metropolitan of the Greek ChnraS " "
Moscow VI Nv
81 do not read the newspapers sais ,.o
poet, daintily lighting cigar. VIVA, :,
the object Of the petitioni"
"Gentiemen" cried the man in ,h,
corner, ~ appeal TO you: Is 1t not unfai,
for Mr. Marsh to feign ignorance on such
topici"
"Unfair In the extreme" said eight sol
emn voices. "Disingenuous," one added
when the grave murmurs had died away
They all echoed" Disingenuous.n
1.-THE distinguished personages alread
enumerated" said the man in the corne,
address their petition to you, sir, and en-
treat you not to smash things. They drea
the advent OF your coming volume Tho,
beseesh you TO spare the Christian faith
aud to allow monarchial institutions q tlno
chance,n
The poet smiled, and caressed his shaver
check with the tips Of his fingers. Many