Still we had some talk together, and that is how I came to practise a deceit upon you. Seeing a copy of _The Gazette_ lying on the table this morning, Professor M---- was reminded to say that there was a "strong man," Philip Towers by name, connected with that paper now. I cocked my head at once like a starling listening to a new tune, for that was the first time I had heard your name praised by a literary man in the South. He went on to say that he had been delighted with your last book, _Milton and His Generation_, and asked if I had observed your work in the literary department of _The Gazette_. I admitted demurely that I had. He praised several reviews (all written by me!) particularly, and said that you were the only critic in America now who was telling the truth about modern fiction. Then he incensed me with this final comment:
"I do not understand how he does this newspaper work so forcefully, almost savagely, and is at the same time capable of writing such delicate, scholarly essays as this volume contains!"
"I have seen Mr. Towers," I remarked, mentally determining that you should suffer for that distinction.
"His dust has congealed, stiffened into a sort of plaster-of-Paris exterior, and he has what I call a _disinterred_ intelligence!"
"A man whose very personality is a kind of mental reservation, and whose intelligence has been resurrected up through the thought and philosophy of three thousand years."
And I hoped he would ask how you actually looked, for I was in the mood to give a perfectly God-fearing description of you.
But from the foregoing you will see that I am capable of sharing your literary glory on the sly, and without compunction. Indeed, the false rôle created in me a perverse mood. And I entered into a literary discussion with M---- that outraged his pedantic soul. It was my way of perjuring his judgment, in return for his unwitting approval of my reviews. Besides, the assumption of infallibility by dull, scholarly men who have neither imagination nor genius has always amused me. And this one danced now as frantically as if he had unintentionally grasped a live wire that hurt and burned, but would not let go! Finally I said very engagingly: