S last book had been reviewed obediently to smart taps from the then
commanding bâton of Mr. Tonans, and Mr. Whitmonby's choice picking of specimens
down three columns of his paper. A Literary Review (Charles Rainer's property)
had suggested that perhaps »the talented authoress might be writing too
rapidly«; and another, actuated by the public taste of the period for our
»vigorous homely Saxon« in one and two syllable words, had complained of a
»tendency to polysyllabic phraseology.« The remainder, a full majority, had
sounded eulogy with all their band-instruments, drum, trumpet, fife, trombone.
Her foregoing work had raised her to Fame, which is the Court of a Queen when
the lady has beauty and social influence, and critics are her dedicated
courtiers, gaping for the royal mouth to be opened, and reserving the kicks of
their independent manhood for infamous outsiders, whom they hoist in the style
and particular service of pitchforks. They had fallen upon a little volume of
verse, »like a body of barn-door hens on a stranger chick,« Diana complained;
and she chid herself angrily for letting it escape her forethought to propitiate
them on the author's behalf. Young Rhodes was left with scarce a feather; and
what remained to him appeared a preposterous ornament for the decoration of a
shivering and welted poet. He laughed, or tried the mouth of laughter. ANTONIA'S
literary conscience was vexed at the different treatment she had met and so
imperatively needed that the reverse of it would have threatened the smooth
sailing of her costly household. A merry-go-round of creditors required a
corresponding whirligig of receipts. She felt mercenary, debased by comparison
with the well-scourged verse-mason, Orpheus of the untenanted city, who had done
his publishing ingenuously for glory: a good instance of the comic-pathetic. She
wrote to Emma, begging her to take him in at Copsley for a few days: - »I told
you I had no troubles. I am really troubled about this poor boy. He has very
little money and has embarked on literature. I cannot induce any of my friends
to lend him a hand. Mr. Redworth gruffly insists on his going back to his
law-clerk's office and stool, and Mr. Dacier says that no place is vacant. The
reality of Lord Dannisburgh's death is brought before me by my helplessness. He
would have made him an assistant private Secretary, pending a Government
appointment, rather than let me plead in vain.«
    Mr. Rhodes with
