Snowdrops from a Curate’s Garden

upon the Chien Rouge. Nor could any fool live long in that light. It turned him inside out ; it revealed him even to himself as a leper and an out- cast ; and he could not stand it. In such a circle humbug could not live. Men of high intellectual distinction, passing through Paris, were constant visitors at the Chien Rouge. As guests they were treated with high honour ; but woe to the best of them if some chance word let fall led D . . . or L . . . to suspect that he had a weak spot somewhere ! When this happened, nothing could save him : he was rent and cast to the car- rion beasts for a prey. How often have I seen some literary or pictorial Pentheus, impious and self-sufficient as he, dis- guise himself (with a tremor of fear) in his noblest artistic attire, as the foolish king in the bassara of the Maenads ! How often have I seen Dionysus — or some god — discover the cheat and give him over to those high-priests of dialectic, D . . . and L . . . , to be stripped and ravaged amid the gleeful shrieks of the wit-intoxicated crowd ! But once the victim was upon the altar, once he rose from his chair, then what a silence fell ! Frozen with the icy contempt of the assembly, the wretch would slink down the room with a scared grin on his face, and not until he had faced that cruel ordeal, more terrible (even to a callous fool) than an actual whipping would have been, not until the door had closed behind him would the silence break as someone exclaimed “ My God, what a worm ! ” and led the conversation to some more savoury subject. On the other hand, there was B . . . , a popular painter, upon whom the whole Dog pounced as one man, to destroy him. But when they saw that his popular painting was not he, that he had a true heart and an honest [9]