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people were not "artists," the whole was nevertheless artistic. That young man with the long,
auburn hair and the impudent face--that young man was not really a poet; but surely he was a
poem. That old gentleman with the wild, white beard and the wild, white hat--that venerable
humbug was not really a philosopher; but at least he was the cause of philosophy in others.
That scientific gentleman with the bald, egg-like head and the bare, bird-like neck had no real
right to the airs of science that he assumed. He had not discovered anything new in biology; but
what biological creature could he have discovered more singular than himself? Thus, and thus
only, the whole place had properly to be regarded; it had to be considered not so much as a
workshop for artists, but as a frail but finished work of art. A man who stepped into its social
atmosphere felt as if he had stepped into a written comedy.
More especially this attractive unreality fell upon it about nightfall, when the extravagant roofs
were dark against the afterglow and the whole insane village seemed as separate as a drifting
cloud. This again was more strongly true of the many nights of local festivity, when the little
gardens were often illuminated, and the big Chinese lanterns glowed in the dwarfish trees like
some fierce and monstrous fruit. And this was strongest of all on one particular evening, still
vaguely remembered in the locality, of which the auburn-haired poet was the hero. It was not by
any means the only evening of which he was the hero. On many nights those passing by his
little back garden might hear his high, didactic voice laying down the law to men and particularly
to women. The attitude of women in such cases was indeed one of the paradoxes of the place.
Most of the women were of the kind vaguely called emancipated, and professed some protest
against male supremacy. Yet these new women would always pay to a man the extravagant
compliment which no ordinary woman ever pays to him, that of listening while he is talking. And
Mr. Lucian Gregory, the red-haired poet, was really (in some sense) a man worth listening to,
even if one only laughed at the end of it. He put the old cant of the lawlessness of art and the art
of lawlessness with a certain impudent freshness which gave at least a momentary pleasure. He
was helped in some degree by the arresting oddity of his appearance, which he worked, as the
phrase goes, for all it was worth. His dark red hair parted in the middle was literally like a
woman's, and curved into the slow curls of a virgin in a pre-Raphaelite picture. From within this
almost saintly oval, however, his face projected suddenly broad and brutal, the chin carried
forward with a look of cockney contempt. This combination at once tickled and terrified the
nerves of a neurotic population. He seemed like a walking blasphemy, a blend of the angel and
the ape.
This particular evening, if it is remembered for nothing else, will be remembered in that place for
its strange sunset. It looked like the end of the world. All the heaven seemed covered with a
quite vivid and palpable plumage; you could only say that the sky was full of feathers, and of
feathers that almost brushed the face. Across the great part of the dome they were grey, with
the strangest tints of violet and mauve and an unnatural pink or pale green; but towards the
west the whole grew past description, transparent and passionate, and the last red-hot plumes
of it covered up the sun like something too good to be seen. The whole was so close about the
earth, as to express nothing but a violent secrecy. The very empyrean seemed to be a secret. It
expressed that splendid smallness which is the soul of local patriotism. The very sky seemed
small.
I say that there are some inhabitants who may remember the evening if only by that oppressive
sky. There are others who may remember it because it marked the first appearance in the place
of the second poet of Saffron Park. For a long time the red-haired revolutionary had reigned
without a rival; it was upon the night of the sunset that his solitude suddenly ended. The new
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