Much Ado about Sonnets [pp. 212-222]

MUCH ADO ABOUT SONNETS.
"Well, you know what a despairing poet is apt to do," she
replied. "But we hoped you had merely changed your residence.
Grief does not drive a good Catholic to suicide. It makes him
better. But let me ask you, Did you meet in Clayburg that
lovely Ruth Pendleton?"
It was more than the poet could do to keep the blood from
his fair face. It rose to his collar, over it, to his ears, to his
eyes, to the roots of his hair, nor could his glib chatter hide it
from her eyes.
"It is more than I expected," said she, ignoring his talk and
fixing her eyes on the tell-tale blush. "How did you get so well
acquainted with Ruth Pendleton?"
"You know how it is with some acquaintances, Frank. Yet
I loved her for eight years, and I haven't spoken a word of love
to her yet. But I hope, at least I think-"
"She couldn't resist a poet, the dear girl, and I believe you
two were assuredly made for each other."
"Thank you for that," said he, "but not more so than you
and Florian."
"And, by the nine gods," he added in secret, "this thing shall
be accomplished yet! "
TO BE CONTINUED.
MUCH ADO ABOUT SONNETS.
WHATEVER the date of its first appearance, it is very evident
that when the idea that the Shakspere sonnets were expressions
of hidden and cipher meanings, of unique or interwritten philosophy, mystic or erotic relations between personages contemporary with their composition (were anything, in fact, but some
one hundred and fifty-four desultory rhymes in sonnet form),
came into English literature, it came to stay. For, often as it has
been dismissed and discarded, it is still to the fore; and even
now, within this current year of enlightenment, when most other
mundane things not responding to the touchstone of nineteenthcentury scrutiny have been discarded as rubbish, when even on
the stage and in decorative art the romantic, rococo, and purposeless have disappeared-even here are one stout volume and two
ponderous essays in as many phlegmatic reviews, which thresh
the old floors once more, reread once more the alleged crypto
[Nov.,
212