The Washington herald., 1922-09-06
The Beautiful
And Damned


p Dick yawned.
s.very we'll You stay. we stay"
He walked out from under the
shed and surveyed the heavens.
Rather a nice night. after all.
stars are out and everything. Ex-
ceptionally tasty assortment Of
them"
Lets see" Gloria moved after
htmsand the other two followed her.
Let's sit out here" she suggested.
Il like IL much better"
- Anthony and Dick convertel a
long box into a backrest and found
a-board dry enough for Gloria to
sit on Anthony dropped down be-
side her and with some effort Dick
hoisted himself onto an apple barrel
near them.
-Tana went to sleep in the porch
hammock" he remarked. we car
ried him in and left him next to the
kitchen stove to dry. He was
drenched to the skin"
That awful little man" sighed
Gloria.
Ea~-.How do you do" The voice,
sonorous and funereal. had come
from above. and they looked up
startled to fnd that in some man
ner Maury had climbed to the roof
OF the shed. where he sat dangling
his feet over the edge. outlined as a
shadowy and fantastic gargoyle
against the now brilliant sky.
1T must be for such occasions as
this" he began softly. his words
having the effect of floating down
Kra
Ting softly upon his auditors, that
the righteous of the land decorate
the railroads with bill-boards as
serting In red and yellow that
Jesus Christ Is Cod placing them.
appropriately enough, next to an
nouncements that Gunter's whisky
Is Good"
There was gentle laughter and
the three below kept their heads
tilted upward
i think l shall tell you the story
Of my education" continued Maury.
under these sardonic constella-
tions"
do. PIeaser'
Shall 1. really?'
They waited expectantly while he
directed a ruminative yawn toward
the white smiling moon.
Well" he began. "as an infant /
prayed. l stored up prayers against
future wickedness. One year /
stored up nineteen hundred Now l
/. lay mes"
Throw down a cigarette" mur-
INJURED some one.
A small package reached the
platform simultaneously with the
stentorian command:
silence, / am about to unburden
myself of many memorable remarks
reserved for the darkness OF such
earths and the brilliance of such
skies"
Below, a lighted match was
The oice resumed:
7 vas adept at foo,ing the deity.
I prayed Immediately after all
crimes until eventually prayer and
crime became indistinguishable to
me. 1 believed that because a man
cried out Ny God" when a safe fell
on him. it proved that belief was
rooted deep In the human breast.
Then / went to school. For fourteen
years half a hundred earnest men
pointed to ancient fintlocks and
cried to me: There's the real thing
These new rifles are only shallow.
superficial limitations They damned
the book I,read and the things /
thOIsht by calling them immoral;
later the fashion changed, and they
damned things by calling them
clever
And so l turned. canny for my
years. from the professors to the
poets listening-to the lyric tenor
of Swinburne and the tenor robusto
of Shelley, to Shakespeare with his
first bass and his fine range, to
Tennyson with his second bass and
his occasional falsetto. to Milton
and NARROW. bassos profundo. I
gave-ear to Browning chatting. By
ron declaiming and Wordsworth
droning. This. at least, did me =:
harm. l learned a little of beauty
enough to know that it had moth
ing to do with truth-and l found.
moreover. that there was no great
literary tradition: there was only
the tradition of the eventfuI death
Of every literary tradition.
Then / grew up. and the beauty
of suCculent illusions fell way
from ME. The fibre of my mind
coarsened and my eyes grew miser-
ably keen. LIE rose around my
island like a sea. and presently /
was swimming
The transition was subtle-the
thing had lain in wait for me for
some time. 1t has its insidious,
seemingly innocuous trap for every
one. With me? No-I didn't try to
seduce the janitor's wife-nor did
! run through the streets unclothed.
proclaiming my virility. 1t is never
quite passion that does the business
1t is the dress that passion wears
i became bored-that was all. Bore
dom, which is another name and a
frequent disguise for vitality, be-
came the unconscious motive of all
my acts Beauty was behind me.
10 you understand?-I was grown"
He paused. End of school and
college period. Opening of art
Two"
Three quietly active points of
light showed the location % his
listeners. Gloria was now half sit
ting, half lying. in Anthony's lap.
Hts arm was around her so tightly
that she could hear the beating of
his heart. Richard Caramel, perched
on the apple barrel. from time to
time stirred. and gave of a faint
grunt.
Il grew up then. into this land of
Jazz, and fell Immediately i-to
state of almost audible confusion.
Life stood over me like an H. moral
schoolmistress, editing my ordered
thoughts But. with a mistaken
faith in intelligence, 1 plodded on.
read Smith, who laughed at char
ity and insisted that the sneer was