The Madison daily leader. [volume] (Madison, S.D.) 1890-current, 1895-08-22
ROUTED.

a respectable young oma Of mature
years and lives on her sufficiency, and
he goes about pretending to bca literary
character ON the strength of an edition
of q classic, an examination success ut
some university place or other, and oc- |
c~asional reviewing. He likes to talk
about books and is Extensively familiar
with all the master pieces and most of
the rest of English literature. He con
siders gable about books intellectual
conversation. He regards Il quiet man
smoking in a chair as fair game for his
scraps of quotation-which he is as
eager to void AS he is greedy to acquire
and he cannot understand that people
who write books never read them and
are full Of bitter memories of their W
adventures in authorship. He wears Il
pince nez, and Mrs. Pingwill, when
present, echoes all his quavering severi-
ties with the explanation that George
is so satirical." He is exasperatingly
reliable in the matter of names and
dates, and at first, perhaps, we made
the mistake Of encouraging Pingwill.
Hevdinger was the chief encourager
Of Pingwill. He is u humorfst, a kind
of person who sees jokes in things that
u the passions Of ordinary people,
and he found an u~naccOuntable pleasure
in developing one particular aspect Of
the Pingwill constitution. No retired
pork butchers lady, no wife of a village
rector who has married beneath him,
could be more punctiliOus Of her in
timacv than Pingwill among his au-
thors. And Pingwill was just as in
tensely sensitive to the breath Of scan
dial, which in matters literary is called
criticism. No one could be thicker with
a really chic author; no one reader to
''cut' the writer who fell under the
shadow of adverse comment.
He was, in fact, a literary snOb-a by
no means rare variety-and he had an
almost passionate dread of admiring the
wrong man. He took reviews in the
weeklies quite seriously. Naturally he
had nothing but serene contempt for
Dickens and Jerome and Mark Twain,
and people Of that stamp" And Hey
dinger never tired of drawing him out
upon Kipling. In a careless moment he
had informed us that Kipling's style
was rough and untinished-it seems he
tried for once to form a Judgment for
himself and had happened upon really
quite vulgar and coarse expressions. Aft
er he had learned better from u review,
the mere name filled him with uncom-
Portable memories. 1t was as if the
~rector's wife had cut the duchess by
mistake. Horrible! Then he was pri-
vately in great trouble about Besant and
Hall Caine. Ought I to know them?'
was the attitude. The oracles differed.
He was deliciously guarded upon these
authors under Heydinger's most search
ing questions, but his face flushed guilt
lily. LIE Gallienne, Zangwill, and most
Of the younger men, who have warm
friends and animated critics, bothered
him more or less, and he had a horrible
dread, l know, that Ruskin, whom he
had committed himself to admire, was
not quite all that he should be. lone
has to be SO very particular, was Ping
Wills attitude.
However, after awhile we tired OF
this creatures odd way with books, and
his proximity then became, as l say, {
nuisance. But Heydinger, who had form
ed an adequate conception of his char
acter, suggested the remedy, and tOgeth
or we routed him. Both Heydinger ant
had got through a mornings work
and in he came, fresh and freshly prim
ed. He dropped into a chair and emit
ted some Indifferent remarks.
Il have heard" he said, THAT these
delicious child sketches Of Kenneth Ora
hams are out in a book by themselves.
Read EN- said Heydinger brutally
"No-hardly-yet,' said Pingwill
but they're good, aren't they
Very" said 1, but that no reason
why You should go about calling then
delicious before you have read them. "
Perhaps not said PingwilL per
haps not
"They remind me very much Of Wen
> die Hooper, said Heydinger. "4o
know him, Bellows:'
ultimately" I said. Il have one c
his first editions at home"
iou III NC Etl1liLlteu very ulutil =
Wendle Hooper," said Heydinger, turn
ing to PingwilL
Indeed said Pingwill, steppin
into the trap.
1.-THE same subtle suggestiveness {
phrase" said Heydinger. THE san
delicate yet penetrating sympathy"
Il must certainly read Them" sal
Pingwill, evidently searching his mil
for the name Of Wendle Hooper al
flushing slightly.
II know of no man. said Heydi
ger, Except, perhaps. Liant, who com
so near to Hooper as Graham. You kno
Lant's style, pingwilI?"
Pingwill flushed a little deeper, al
his ears grew pink. II can't say sa
he, 'that I've read
"He's not 80 well known as Hooper
admitted. HE was in the little
that clustered round Leigh Hunt
Pingwill suddenly felt hotter aga
81 think Leigh Hunt he began, e