Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
Author of 'Jimbo,' 'John Silence,'
'The Centaur,' 'Education of Uncle Paul,' Etc.
1913
"Les Pensees!
O leurs essors fougueux, leurs flammes dispersees,
Leur rouge acharnement ou leur accord vermeil!
Comme la-haut les etoiles criblaient la nue,
Elles se constellaient sur la plaine inconnue;
Elles roulaient dans l'espace, telles des feux,
Gravissaient la montagne, illuminaient la fleuve
Et jetaient leur parure universelle et neuve
De mer en mer, sur les pays silencieux."
Le Monde, EMILE VERHAEREN
Man is his own star; and the soul that can
Render an honest and a perfect man
Commands all light, all influence, all fate,
Nothing to him falls early, or too late.
Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,
Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.
BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
Minks—Herbert Montmorency—was now something more than secretary,even than private secretary: he was confidential-private-secretary,adviser, friend; and this, more because he was a safe receptacle forhis employer's enthusiasms than because his advice or judgment had anyexceptional value. So many men need an audience. Herbert Minks was afine audience, attentive, delicately responsive, sympathetic,understanding, and above all—silent. He did not leak. Also, hisapplause was wise without being noisy. Another rare quality hepossessed was that he was honest as the sun. To prevaricate, even bygesture, or by saying nothing, which is the commonest form of untruth,was impossible to his transparent nature. He might hedge, but he couldnever lie. And he was 'friend,' so far as this was possible betweenemployer and employed, because a pleasant relationship of years'standing had established a bond of mutual respect under conditions ofbusiness intimacy which often tend to destroy it.
Just now he was very important into the bargain, for he had a secretfrom his wife that he meant to divulge only at the proper moment. Hehad known it himself but a few hours. The leap from being secretary inone of Henry Rogers's companies to being that prominent gentleman'sconfidential private secretary was, of course, a very big one. Hehugged it secretly at first alone. On the journey back from the Cityto the suburb where he lived, Minks made a sonnet on it. For hisemotions invariably sought the safety valve of verse. It was a wisersafety valve for high spirits than horse-racing or betting on thefootball results, because he always stood to win, and never to lose.Occasionally he sold these bits of joy for half a guinea, his wifepasting the results neatly in a big press album from which he oftenread aloud on Sunday nights when the children were in bed. They weresigned 'Montmorency Minks'; and bore evidence of occasional pencilcorrections on the margin with a view to publication later in avolume. And sometimes there were little lyrical fragments too, in awild, original metre, influenced by Shelley and yet entirely his own.These had special pages to themselves at t