The Washington herald., 1914-06-07
Copyright, lsll)
Copyright lsl4)
@F COURSE the cultivated reader
" has heard Of Aubrey vair. He has

indeed, border on indelicacy-and his coll
umn .'of Things Literary" in the Climax
is well known. His Byronic visage and
an interview have appeared in the Per
feet Lady" 1t was Aubrey Vair, I be-
Heve, who demonstrated that the humor
of Dickens was worse than his sentiment
and who detected "a subtle bourgeois
flavor" in Shakespeare. However, it is
not generally known that Aubrey Vair
has had erotic experiences as we'll as
erotic inspirations. He adopted Goethe
some little time since as his literary
prototype. and thatvffay have had some
thing to do with his temporary lapse
from moral integrity.
For It is one of the commonest things
that undermine literary men. giving US
= landslips and picturesque effects along
the otherwise even cliff OF their respect
able life, ranking next to avarfce, and
certainly above drink, this instability
called genius, or, more fully, the con-
sciousness Of genius, such as Aubrey Vair
possessed. Since Shelley set the fashion,
YOUR man Of gifts has been assured that
his duty to himself and his duty to his
wife are Incompatible, and his renuncia-
ton of the Philistine has been marked
hv such infidelity as his means and cour-
age warranted. Most virtue is lack Of
Imagination. At any rate, q minor gen.
ius without his affections twisted into an
;nextricable muddle. and who did not oc-
casionaIly shed sonnets over his troubles,
I have never met.
Even Aubrey vair did this. weeping the
sonnets overnight into his blotting book.
and pretending to write literary causerie
when his wife came down in her bath
slippers to see what kept him up. She
did not understand him. Of course. He
did this even before the other woman
appeared, so ingreined is contugal treach-
cry in the talented mind. Indeed. he
wrote more sonnets before the other
woman came than after that event. be-
cause thereafter he spent much Of his
leisure in cutting down the old produc-
tions, retrimmfng them, and generally al
tering this ready-made clothing Of his
passion to suit her particular height and
complexion
Aubrey vair lived in a little red villa
with a lawn at the back and a view Of
the Downs behind Reigate. He lived
upon discreet investment eked out by
literary work His wife was handsome.
sweet. and gentle, and-such Is the ten
der humility of good married women-she
found her life's happiness in seeing that
little Aubrey vair had weIl-cooked va
ricty for dinner and that their house was
the neatest and brightest of all the houses
they entered. Aubrey vair enjoyed the
dinners and was proud OF the house. yet
nevertheless he mourned because his
genius dwindled. Moreover. he grew
plump and corpulence threatened him.
We learn in suffering what We teach
in song, and Aubrey Vair knew certainly
that his soul could give no creditable
And how to harrow them was the trou-
BILE. for Reigate is a moral neighborhood
So Aubrey vairs romantic longings
blew loose for time, much as a seed
ling creeper might planted in the midst
Of a flower bed. But at last. in the full
ness of time, the other woman came to
the embrace of Aubrey Vars yearning
heart tendrils, and his romantic episode
proceeded as is here faithfully written
down.
The other woman was really a girl, and
Aubrey VAR met her nrst at tennis
party at RedhiIl. Aubrey Vair did not
play tennis after the accident to Miss
Morton's eye, and because latterly it
made him pant and get warmer and
moister than even a poet should be; and
this young lady had only recently arrived
in England, and could not play. So they
gravitated into the two vacant basket
chairs beside Mrs. Bayne's deaf aunt, in
front o. the hollyhocks, and were pres
entity talking at their case together.
The other womar's name was unpropi-
tious-Miss Srlith-but you would never
have suspected it from her face and CO.'S
tune Her parentage was promising. She
was an orphan, her mother was a Hin
doc. and her father an Indian civil ser
want; and Aubrey vair-himself a happy
mixture of Kelt and Teuton, as, indeed,
all literary men have to be nowadays
naturally believed in the literary conse-
quences of a mixture of races. She was
dressed in white. She had finely nodded,
pale features, great depth Of expression.