popularity of this or that writer. Hall Caine is an even larger George
Curzon, a better endowed mediocrity."
"But why should he have fame and state and power?" Oscar cried
indignantly.
"State and power, because he is George Curzon, but fame he never will
have, and I suspect if the truth were known, in the moments when he too
comes face to face with his own soul, as you say, he would give a good
deal of his state and power for a very little of your fame."
"That is probably true, Frank," cried Oscar, "that is almost certainly
the crumpled rose-leaf of his couch, but how grossly he is
over-estimated and over-rewarded.... Do you know Wilfred Blunt?"
"I have met him," I replied, "but don't know him. We met once and he
bragged preposterously about his Arab ponies. I was at that time editor
of _The Evening News_: and Mr. Blunt tried hard to talk down to my
level."
"He is by way of being a poet, and he has a very real love of
literature."
"I know," I said; "I really know his work and a good deal about him and
have nothing but praise for the way he championed the Egyptians, and for
his poetry when he has anything to say."
"Well, Frank, he had a sort of club at Crabbett Park, a club for poets,
to which only poets were invited, and he was a most admirable and
perfect host. Lady Blunt could never make out what he was up to. He used
to get us all down to Crabbett, and the poet who was received last had
to make a speech about the new poet--a speech in which he was supposed
to tell the truth about the new-comer. Blunt took the idea, no doubt,
from the custom of the French Academy. Well, he asked me down to
Crabbett Park, and George Curzon, if you please, was the poet picked to
make the speech about me."
"Good God," I cried, "Curzon a poet. It's like Kitchener being taken for
a great captain, or Salisbury for a statesman."
"He writes verses, Frank, but of course there is not a line of poetry in
him: his verses are good enough though, well-turned, I mean, and sharp,
if not witty. Well, Curzon had to make this speech about me after
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