BY
Bernard Capes
LONDON
Sidgwick & Jackson, Ltd.
(First issued in 1912)
Wu Taotsz, the Celestial Painter
Ten of the following sketches are reprints from a volume,Historical Vignettes, published by Mr. Fisher Unwin in 1910. Theremaining twelve here appear in book-form for the first time. Theauthor’s renewed thanks, for permission to reprint this fresh matter,are due to the Editor of Truth.
Elfrida, wife of Athelwold, the King’s favourite, and daughter andheiress to Olgar Earl of Devonshire, was a beauty of the true Helenacomplexion. To see her, for most men, was to covet; to possess her,for the one, was to wear a crown of exquisite thorns. The orchardneeds most watching when the fruit is ripe, and Elfrida hung atperpetual ripeness, maddening to parched lips without. The keeper ofthis garden of sweet things might hardly enjoy it for his fear ofrobbers. And the worst of it was that, to maintain so ravishing apossession in its perfection, no warning as to its own irresistiblewitchery must be so much as hinted to it, lest the blue innocence oftwo of the most lovely wondering eyes in the world should be impairedthereby, and self-consciousness usurp in them the place ofnaïveté. Gazing into those artless depths, if one had theprivilege, one presently recognised in their little floating motes andshadows the souls of the many who had drowned themselves therein. WasElfrida conscious of the tragic secrets hidden away under those azurewaters? Her husband at least thought her the most loving, the mostunsophisticated, the most trustworthy of wives; and if the wish wasvery particularly the father to the thought, the tho