The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-08-18

editorial rooms of the Sentinel, apparently
loafing and blinking in the sunlight. One
step below him the crowd moved to and
fro, but his head was thrown back, his chin
elevated above the level of the heads of the
passers-by and his eyes were fixed upon
the patch of blue sky that showed above
the cluster of roofs, where the narrow,
serpentine thoroughfare was lost to view
in one of it's many turns, and apparently
ended in the fantastic ugliness of sky
| scraping buildings. The busy throng,
staring and eIbowing and pushing on the
pavements, held no face or CLEAN of color
| or moving interest to catch and hold his
| injurious, dreamy eyes, and the unceasing
rattle and rumble of the traffic, punctured
every few minutes by the sharp, Earring
| clang-clang of the electric bells of the
string of creeping cars, only made dron-
| ing accompaniment to his stirring, rowing
| thoughts.
| He had descended the long dusky stair
| way with the slow uncertain step of man
| stricken with pain. His heart and mind
were filled to sitting with fury and Bit
| terness at some fresh indignity put upon
| him in the horrible trade he loathed but
was compelled to engage in from neces-
| sity, and that strange quirk of intellectual
| incapacity for business so common among
men with the esthetic temperament and
creative imagination. He was bitterly con-
scious of this lack of adaptability as a
weakness. and cursed himself and his fate
| a thousand times day; but he had learned
| from experience that he could not cope with
other men in the cunning and shrewdneSs
| necessary in the world of affairs, and he
| shrank from every contact with its grim
realities. And all his dreams of giving
| his life to literature were long ago dis
| PEELED by his knowledge of the actual de-
mands and requirements of the literary
shop But yet poetry and beauty and
truth were the supreme, the real, things
| in life to him, and he could not divorce his
mind and his life from thoughts of the
beauty and the mystery and poetry that
| filled the sad old world-even this world of
| trifies and tragedy-that it scared his
| heart to be obliged to chronicle every day.
And SO all the time he was fascinated
and tortured by the show OF life, and every
days round of trivial interests broke his
spirit anew on the wheel. But when the
rich, luminous glow of the day-the tender
caressing sunshine of early summer-en-
| wrapped and filled him with the strange
tickle passion of mere life, more potent for
the moment even than thought, the tumult
w
his mind and gave place to the memories
of old days filled with dreams and sun
shine, whose greatest sorrows were the
pains of clamorous hopes deferred.
Thus, finding some solace for the ills and
deprivations of the present in the half OBJ
livion of recalling the old sorrow of those
early hopes, whose fulfillment long habit
had dulled and diminished and made half
unreal, he crossed the street to spend an
hour in the Old Corner Bookstore finger
ing the books he intended to buy and read
in the far-away leisure of Lotus land that
was 10 be his when his own works should
be read and famous and all his days his
own to squeeze the soul out of life and
weave all he had lived into the fantasies
which haunted his Imagination.
He smiled at the thought. 1t was too
late now. His am bition was gone. He
was enchanted with the unconquerab lie
sloth that comes of debasing and frittering
away the mind and imagination in the
vulgar travesties of literature and the long
sorrow that is inconsolable for its lost past
of prime. His love of books and literature,
however, survived his ambition, and in the
happiest and most oblivious moods he en-
joyed little snatches of the triumphs of
others, and this privilege was accorded
him at the Old Corner.
AS he entered the store one of the clerks
with whom he was on friendly terms nod
THAT was clever sketch of yours in yes
terday's Golden Era Clifford. The
whole town is talking of it. Old Judge
Hawkins was in here and guffawed aloud
over it, and you know twenty such men
gossiping here make public opinion"
"Ah, then the villa1ny may yet reach
the ears of the gods, and shall be damned
in another world as well as in this. 'Sh
say no more, Wilkins. These small noises
carry too far, while they last, nowadays
and drown all the articulate utterances of
the time. That is the irony of enfranchis-
ing the million wits TO give them the
freedom of the achievements of the world
of poets and men of science; the end is the
obstruction of thought in the fippant,
lecherous desire of 10000, GOO empty heads.
Our newspapers are mirrors for 100000
despots who from ruling the hearthstone,
now rule the world of thought. Let magis-
trates take heed that the mere blackboard
schoolmaster and his muddled devils do
not prosper too long at the expense of free
thought and poetry, beauty and magma
ton, the state and civilization. With the
eclipse of beauty comes complacency, alb
sorption in the petty hour, the diminish
ing of all ideals, a rupture with tradition,
a break in the historic consciousness of
civilization of mere getting and mechanism
without meaning or morality-anarchy
But whatever is, is right, of course, and
especially inevitable in democracy. My
generations about slipped away, anyway,
and after me, the deluge! So let US have
look, won't you, at this new poet | see
heralded in the London papers What's
bis name? Murchison. 1t may be l can
make little story out of him for the Sun
day paper"
He was glancing through the uncut
pages of the dainty London book, when
familiar voice at his elbow gave him
little start and he turned to see Miss Abby
Wilbourne smiling up at him.
"And why were you not at Mrs. Brad
deck reception on Thursday? have not
seen you there once this season, and you
must confess they are really more anus
ing than most occasions of the sort in Bos-
ton. looked for you especially last week,
and only gave you up at the last moment,
though l could have known better. You
are such a recluse."
These two were well acquainted, and
Clifford knew that Miss Wilbourne was
neither prude nor a simpleton-the two
things he most abhorred = but very
clever and moreover kindly and sympa-
thetic little woman, as well as pretty
one. That is, he thought her pretty, for
he thought the greatest beauty in life was
an animated intelligence; and she was
one of those rare women who set all wits
ablaZe not with conscious STRIVING To