The critics welcomed Humphrey Carruthers as a new star in the firmament.
They praised his distinction, his subtlety, his delicate irony, and his insight.
They praised his style, his sense of beauty, and his atmosphere.
Here at last was a writer who had raised the short story from the depths into which in English-speaking countries it had fallen and here was work to which an Englishman could point with pride; it bore comparison with the best compositions in this manner of Finland, Russia, and Czecho-Slovakia.
Three years later Humphrey Carruthers brought out his second book and the critics commented on the interval with satisfaction.
Here was no hack prostituting his talent for money!
The praise it received was perhaps a little cooler than that which welcomed his first volume, the critics had had time to collect themselves, but it was enthusiastic enough to have delighted any common writer who earns his living by his pen and there was no doubt that his position in the world of letters was secure and honourable.
The story that attracted most commendation was called The Shaving Mop and all the best critics pointed out with what beauty the author in three or four pages had laid bare the tragic soul of a barber's assistant.
But his best-known story, which was also his longest, was called Week End.
It gave its title to his first book.
It narrated the adventures of a number of people who left Paddington Station on Saturday afternoon to stay with friends at Taplow and on Monday morning returned to London.
It was so delicate that it was a little difficult to know exactly what happened.
A young man, parliamentary secretary to a Cabinet Minister, very nearly proposed to a baronet's daughter, but didn't.
Two or three others went on the river in a punt.
They all talked a great deal in an allusive way, but none of them ever finished a sentence and what they meant was very subtly indicated by dots and dashes.
There were a good many descriptions of flowers in the garden and a sensitive picture of the Thames under the rain.
It was all seen through the eyes of the German governess and everyone agreed that Carruthers had conveyed her outlook on the situation with quite delicious humour.
I read both Humphrey Carruthers's books.
I think it part of the writer's business to make himself aware of what is being written by his contemporaries.
I am very willing to learn and I thought I might discover in them something that would be useful to me.
I was disappointed.
I like a story to have a beginning, a middle, and an end.
I have a weakness for a point.
I think atmosphere is all very well, but atmosphere without anything else is like a frame without a picture; it has not much significance.
But it may be that I could not see the merit of Humphrey Carruthers on account of defects in myself, and if I have described his two most successful stories without enthusiasm the cause perhaps lies in my own wounded vanity.
For I was perfectly conscious that Humphrey Carruthers looked upon me as a writer of no account.
I am convinced that he had never read a word I had written.
The popularity I enjoyed was sufficient to persuade him that there was no occasion for him to give me any of his attention.
For a moment, such was the stir he created, it looked as though he might himself be faced with that ignominy, but it soon appeared that his exquisite work was above the heads of the public.
One can never tell how large the intelligentsia is, but one can tell fairly well how many of its members are prepared to pay money to patronize the arts they cherish.
The plays that are of too fine a quality to attract the patrons of the commercial theatre can count on an audience of ten thousand, and the books that demand from their readers more comprehension than can be expected from the common herd sell twelve hundred copies.
For the intelligentsia, notwithstanding their sensitiveness to beauty, prefer to go to the theatre on the nod and to get a book from the library.
I am sure this did not distress Carruthers.
He was an artist.
He was also a clerk in the Foreign Office.
His reputation as a writer was distinguished; he was not interested in the vulgar, and to sell well would possibly have damaged his career.
I could not surmise what had induced him to invite me to have coffee with him.
It is true he was alone, but I should have supposed he found his thoughts excellent company, and I could not believe he imagined that I had anything to say that would interest him.
Nevertheless I could not but see that he was doing his dreary best to be affable.
He reminded me of where we had last met and we talked for a moment of common friends in London.
He asked me how I came to be in Rome at this season and I told him.
He volunteered the information that he had arrived that morning from Brindisi.
Our conversation did not go easily and I made up my mind that as soon as I civilly could I would get up and leave him.
But presently I had an odd sensation, I hardly know what caused it, that he was conscious of this and was desperately anxious not to give me the opportunity.
I was surprised.
I gathered my wits about me.
I noticed that whenever I paused he broke in with a new topic.
He was trying to find something to interest me so that I should stay.
He was straining every nerve to be agreeable.
Surely he could not be lonely; with his diplomatic connexions he must know plenty of people with whom he could have spent the evening.