The American spirit, some may think, is too complex to be thus defined once and for all; but in Louise Imogen Guiney, rather than in Whitman, with his " sweeping annihilation of all accepted canons," Whitman “unrelated, and voluntarily so, to any school of characteristic or system," -we are bidden to recognise the individual and particular note of "American culture." CHAPTER XVII THOSE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY FRIENDS TIME: A sunlit day in June, 1914. PLACE An old English manor house, first built in the Thirteenth Century; altered about the time the Wars of the Roses ended; improved during the spacious days when Drake was circumnavigating the globe; enlarged in the stormy reign of Charles the First. Inhabited without a break from the Thirteenth Century to the Nineteenth; given over for a while to the bats and owls; but rescued at last, lived in again, and loved. SCENE: The hall; golden sunlight streaming through a large five-mullioned window. Central figure a guest from Boston, U.S.A., reading aloud his tragedy in blank verse, 'Red Wine of Roussillon," to an audience of three. Silence at the close: then, from one of the listeners, interested comments on the play itself and on the old Provençal story which suggested it. "Ah," said the poet; you remind me of Louise Guiney." "Louise Guiney!" The exclamation was one of delighted surprise: "Can you possibly mean Louise Imogen Guiney, of 'A short life in the saddle, Lord! "You shall! And when you and she get together, you will bewitch the clock. will be the date!" Not 1914, but 1714, or even 1114, When can I meet her?" "In a few days I am to see her at Oxford. She shall hear of you. Then you could write to her. Tempt her to come and see you: she can't resist an old house. The 'most modern' part of this is of Charles the First's day, you said; and the foundations are contemporary with the time when Saint Louis was taken prisoner by the Saracens. Tell her that! But I can tell her and I shan't rest till I've brought you two together." When, some hours later, the guest took his leave, he said, "You shall meet Louise Guiney soon; and then I'll come down purposely to hear how you like her. Au revoir." Not for more than six years was this Bostonian to return to Kent; and in the interval the Lusitania calamity was to have rent away from him the most beautiful and joyous of his household; his English friends were to have given-pro Rege et Patria-the one in whose career had been their greatest pride and delight; and Louise Imogen Guiney was to have been stricken with a mortal illness. But when, on that June afternoon of roses and sunlight, the American was driving away, as he looked back at the house which had survived the changes and chances of so many centuries, no presentiment of sorrow overshadowed him. His Red Wine of Roussillon," his vivid portrayal of "old unhappy far-off things," had been approved, and he was feeling happy. At Oxford, as arranged, he told Miss Guiney of the admirers who were so eager to meet her. Then a letter and invitation followed. She could not, at the moment, accept the invitation; but it was the prelude to a correspondence destined to ripen into such whole-hearted friendship as the author of "Red Wine" had confidently anticipated. What a delightful letter you have given me!" she wrote from Oxford. When you say 'old manors and Claverhouse' you call me to the portcullis to salute. (I assure you, I live in the cock-loft or the dungeon for the most part, being of a hermitical turn whenever I get the chance.) "Mr. Lindsey, an old friend, spoke to me of you when he came here.... That Sunday he whisked myself, and the nineteen-year-old cousin who lives with me,1 off in a motor. We went, among other places, to Burford: I wish you might see that dear ex-ruin of a Priory, now for sale again. It has been most sagaciously handled by Colonel Terrier during these last three years, and gives nothing but unmixed joy to one who has loved it, as I have, for half a lifetime. Falkland's memory is more fragrant there than ever. Not many days ago, by way of getting a needed rest, I walked many miles to Great Tew, where Falkland's lovely walled gardens are in bloom, near his unlocated grave! Oh, those Seventeenth Century Friends! Of Dundee I know infinitely less than you do, but my feeling for him is only on this side idolatry.'. . . 'Mr. Barrington's new book's prospectus (what a vile phrase!) came yesterday. I hope this work is the last word the Whiggified world needs to have that for the good of its soul. ་་ "I never seem to get to London nowadays, so I hope Oxford may lie in your way. . . . May we meet someday! "Yours with friendly good wishes." Her interest in these new acquaintances was stimulated when she heard that their post town was one of the districts in which a favourite Carolian poet of hers-celebrated in his own day as a devoted Royalist, a fearless fighter, a graceful courtier, and very beautiful in his person,'-had recruited for volunteers. Every reader of "Happy Ending" will remember the " Footnote to a Famous Lyric": "True Love's own talisman, which here Gave to our Saxon speech : 1 Miss Grace Guiney. 2" Grahame of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee, 1648-1689" (a military biography), by Michael Barrington; presumably new then to Miss Guiney, but the date of publication had been 1911. "A much-loved book," she called it afterwards. Chief miracle of theme and touch That all must envy and adore : Young knight and wit and beau, who won 'Twas virtue's breath inflamed your lyre: And till your strophe sweet and bold Love's self outdo, dear Lovelace, hold She used to say that Colonel Richard Lovelace's "To Lucasta" on his "going to the Warres," and the Great Marquess of Montrose's "Dear and Only Love," were "more chivalrous in their thought and expression than any of their kindred in English literature." Mystical Crashaw and light-hearted Herrick ; Cartwright, Carew, Stanley, Habington, Quarles, Sir John Suckling (of "Why so pale and wan, fond lover?"), neglected Crompton, Fanshawe, and Sherburne, satiric Marvell, even rakish Lord Rochester, each had his place in her interest or affection. But John Donne, the poet of Absence hear thou my protestation Distance and length"; and Henry Vaughan, best remembered now for his exquisite elegy, "They are all gone into the World of Light," |