In the meanwhile some of us had read his books: chromo-lithographs,
struck in the primary colours; pasteboard complications of passion and
adventure, with the conservative entanglement of threadbare
marionnettes--a hero, tall, with golden brown moustaches and blue
eyes; a heroine, lissome, with 'sunny locks;' then a swarthy villain,
for the most part a nobleman, and his Spanish-looking female
accomplice, who had an uncomfortable habit of delivering her remarks
'from between clenched teeth,' and, generally, 'in a blood-chilling
hiss'--the narrative set forth in a sustained _fortissimo_, and
punctuated by the timely exits of the god from the machine. Never a
felicity, never an impression. I fancy he had made his notes of human
nature whilst observing the personages of a melodrama at a provincial
theatre. He loved the obvious sentiment, the obvious and but
approximate word.
But the climax of his infatuation was not disclosed till the night
before he left us. Again we were in session at the Cafe des Souris,
and the talk had turned upon metempsychosis. Blake, for a wonder,
pricked up his ears and appeared to listen, at the same time watching
his chance to take the floor. Half-a-dozen men had their say first,
however; then he cut in.
'Metempsychosis is not a theory, it is a fact.
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