Page 667 - of-human-bondage-

LXXXIII

ronshaw was publishing his poems. His friends had
Cbeen urging him to do this for years, but his laziness
made it impossible for him to take the necessary steps. He
had always answered their exhortations by telling them that
the love of poetry was dead in England. You brought out a
book which had cost you years of thought and labour; it
was given two or three contemptuous lines among a batch
of similar volumes, twenty or thirty copies were sold, and
the rest of the edition was pulped. He had long since worn
out the desire for fame. That was an illusion like all else. But
one of his friends had taken the matter into his own hands.
This was a man of letters, named Leonard Upjohn, whom
Philip had met once or twice with Cronshaw in the cafes of
the Quarter. He had a considerable reputation in England
as a critic and was the accredited exponent in this country
of modern French literature. He had lived a good deal in
France among the men who made the Mercure de France
the liveliest review of the day, and by the simple process of
expressing in English their point of view he had acquired in
England a reputation for originality. Philip had read some of
his articles. He had formed a style for himself by a close imi-
tation of Sir Thomas Browne; he used elaborate sentences,
carefully balanced, and obsolete, resplendent words: it gave
his writing an appearance of individuality. Leonard Upjohn

Of Human Bondage