Grant Allen

This Mortal Coil Grant Allen

Book Excerpt: ...entleman one reads about in Aristotle. I always admired that amiable Greek gentleman the ' megaloprepcs, I think Aristotle calls him. His berth would suit me down to the ground. He had nothing at all of any sort to do, and he did it most gracefully with princely generosity on a sufficient income.""But you must write poetry for something or other, Massinger; for if it isn't rude to make the suggestion, you can hardly write it, you know, for a livelihood."Massinger's dark face flushed visibly. "I write for fame," he answered majestically, with a lordly wave of his long thin hand. "For glory--for honor--for time--for eternity. Or, to be more precisely definite, if you prefer the phrase, for filthy lucre. In the coarse and crude phraseology of political economists, poetry takes rank nowadays, I humbly perceive, as a long investment. I'm a journalist by trade--a mere journeyman journalist; the gushing penny-a-liner of a futile and demoralized London press. But I have a soul within me above penny-a-...