Part 76

All that is ancient history, and I will do no more than allude to the unparalleled bitterness of the attacks made by the Church on a book which is now quoted again and again from every pulpit in England--in the world--and has been translated into almost every language under the sun.

Thus he leaped into fame and fortune at a bound, and at first they delighted him. He would take little Roberta on to the top of his head and dance "La Paladine" on his hearth-rug, singing:

"Rataplan, Rataplan, I'm a celebrated man--"

in imitation of Sergeant Bouncer in Cox and Box.

But in less than a year celebrity had quite palled, and all his money bored him--as mine does me. He had a very small appetite for either the praise or the pudding which were served out to him in such excess all through his life. It was only his fondness for the work itself that kept his nose so constantly to the grindstone.

Within six months of the Sardonyx Barty wrote La quatrième Dimension in French, which was published by Dollfus-Moïs frères, in Paris, with if possible a greater success; for the clerical opposition was even more virulent. The English translation, which is admirable, is by Scatcherd.

Then came Motes in a Moonbeam, Interstellar Harmonics, and Berthe aux grands Pieds within eighteen months, so that before he was quite thirty, in the space of two years, Barty had produced five works--three in English and two in French--which, though merely novels and novelettes, have had as wide and far-reaching an influence on modern thought as the Origin of Species, that appeared about the same time, and which are such, for simplicity of expression, exposition, and idea, that an intelligent ploughboy can get all the good and all the pleasure from them almost as easily as any philosopher or sage.

Such was Barty's début as a man of letters. This is not the place to criticise his literary work, nor am I the proper person to do so; enough has been written already about Barty Josselin during his lifetime to fill a large library--in nearly every language there is. I tremble to think of what has yet to follow!

Sardonyx came of age nearly twelve years ago--what a coming of age that was the reader will remember well. I shall not forget its celebration at Marsfield; it happened to coincide with the birth of Barty's first grandchild, at that very house.

I will now go back to Barty's private life, which is the sole object of this humble attempt at book-making on my part.

During the next ten years Barty's literary activity was immense. Beautiful books followed each other in rapid succession--and so did beautiful little Bartys, and Leah's hands were full.

And as each book, English or French, was more beautiful than the last; so was each little Barty, male or female. All over Kensington and Campden Hill--for they took Gretna Lodge, next door to Cornelys, the sculptor's--the splendor of these little Bartys, their size, their beauty, their health and high spirits, became almost a joke, and their mother became almost a comic character in consequence--like the old lady who lived in a shoe.

Money poured in with a profusion few writers of good books have ever known before, and every penny not wanted for immediate household expenses was pounced upon by Scatcherd or by me to be invested in the manner we thought best: nous avons eu la main heureuse!

The Josselins kept open house, and money was not to be despised, little as Barty ever thought of money.

Then every autumn the entire smalah migrated to the coast of Normandy, or Picardy, or Brittany, or to the Highlands of Inverness, and with them the Scatcherds and the chronicler of these happy times--not to mention cats, dogs, and squirrels, and guinea-pigs, and white mice, and birds of all kinds, from which the children would not be parted, and the real care of which, both at home and abroad, ultimately devolved on poor Mrs. Josselin--who was not so fond of animals as all that--so that her life was full to overflowing of household cares.

Another duty had devolved upon her also: that of answering the passionate letters that her husband received by every post from all parts of the world--especially America--and which he could never be induced to answer himself. Every morning regularly he would begin his day's work by writing "Yours truly--B. Josselin" on quite a score of square bits of paper, to be sent through the post to fair English and American autograph collectors who forwarded stamped envelopes, and sometimes photographs of themselves, that he might study the features of those who loved him at a respectful distance, and who so frankly told their love; all of which bored Barty to extinction, and was a source of endless amusement to his wife.

But even she was annoyed when a large unstamped or insufficiently stamped parcel arrived by post from America, enclosing a photograph of her husband to which his signature was desired, and containing no stamps to frank it on its return journey!

And the photographers he had to sit to! and the interviewers, male and female, to whom he had to deny himself! Life was too short!

How often has a sturdy laborer or artisan come up to him, as he and I walked together, with:

"I should very much like to shake you by the hand, Mr. Josselin, if I might make so bold, sir!"

And such an appeal as this would please him far more than the most fervently written outpourings of the female hearts he had touched.

They, of course, received endless invitations to stay at country-houses all over the United Kingdom, where they might have been lionized to their hearts' content, if such had been their wish; but these they never accepted. They never spent a single night away from their own house till most of their children were grown up--or ever wanted to; and every year they got less and less into the way of dining out, or spending the evening from home--and I don't wonder; no gayer or jollier home ever was than that they made for themselves, and each other, and their intimate friends; not even at Cornelys's, next door, was better music to be heard; for Barty was friends with all the music-makers, English and foreign, who cater for us in and out of the season; even they read his books, and understood them; and they sang and played better for Barty--and for Cornelys, next door--than even for the music-loving multitude who filled their pockets with British gold.

And the difference between Barty's house and that of Cornelys was that at the former the gatherings were smaller and more intimate--as became the smaller house--and one was happier there in consequence.

Barty gave himself up entirely to his writing, and left everything else to his wife, or to me, or to Scatcherd. She was really a mother to him, as well as a passionately loving and devoted helpmeet.

To make up for this, whenever she was ill, which didn't often happen--except, of course, when she had a baby--he forgot all his writing in his anxiety about her; and in his care of her, and his solicitude for her ease and comfort, he became quite a motherly old woman, a better nurse than Mrs. Jones or Mrs. Gibson--as practical and sensible and full of authority as Dr. Knight himself.

And when it was all over, all his amiable carelessness came back, and with it his genius, his school-boy high spirits, his tomfooling, his romps with his children, and his utter irresponsibility, and absolute disdain for all the ordinary business of life; and the happy, genial temper that never seemed to know a moment's depression or nourish an unkind thought.

Poor Barty! what would he have done without us all, and what should we have done without Barty? As Scatcherd said of him, "He's having his portion in this life."

But it was not really so.