+-----------------------------------------------------+ | | | THIS CLASSICAL VILLA | | | | with magnificent gardens in the Victorian-Italian | | style reaching down to the sea, and | | replete with Latin and Greek inscriptions, | | a garden study, literary associations, fully | | matured Oxford allusions, and a great | | number of conveniently arranged | | bedrooms, to be | | | | LET OR SOLD. | | | | _Apply to the owner_, | | Mr. W. H. MALLOCK, | | | | original author of | | "The New Republic." | | | | _Key within_. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------+ "'This _must_ be it, my dear Archer,' says one of the occupants of the motor-car, and he rises, throws aside his furs, and reveals--the urbane presence of the Encyclopædist. He descends, and rings a clangorous bell.... Eh?" "It's the garden of the 'New Republic'?" "Exactly. Revisited. It's an astonishing thing. Do you know the date of the 'New Republic'? The book's nearly forty years old! About the time of Matthew Arnold's 'Friendship's Garland,' and since that time there's been nothing like a systematic stocktaking of the English-speaking mind--until the Encyclopædist reported 'no effects.' And I propose to make this little party in the motor-car a sort of scratch expedition, under the impetus of the proposed Revival of Thought. They are prospecting for a Summer Congress, which is to go into the state of the republic of letters thoroughly. It isn't perhaps quite Gosse's style, but he has to be there--in a way he's the official British man of letters--but we shall do what we can for him, we shall make him show a strong disposition towards protective ironies and confess himself not a little bothered at being dragged into the horrid business. And I think we must have George Moore, who has played uncle to so many movements and been so uniformly disappointed in his nephews. And William Archer, with that face of his which is so exactly like his mind, a remarkably fine face mysteriously marred by an expression of unscrupulous integrity. And lastly, Keyhole." "Why Keyhole?" I asked.