Kenelm Chillingly — Volume 04Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
General
Kenelm Chillingly — Volume 04
Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
English fiction -- 19th century
Mr. CHILLINGLY MIVERS never gave a dinner at his own rooms. When he
did give a dinner it was at Greenwich or Richmond. But he gave
breakfast-parties pretty often, and they were considered pleasant. He
had handsome bachelor apartments in Grosvenor Street, daintily
furnished, with a prevalent air of exquisite neatness, a good library
stored with books of reference, and adorned with presentation copies
from authors of the day, very beautifully bound. Though the room
served for the study of the professed man of letters, it had none of
the untidy litter which generally characterizes the study of one whose
vocation it is to deal with books and papers. Even the implements for
writing were not apparent, except when required. They lay concealed
in a vast cylinder bureau, French made, and French polished. Within
that bureau were numerous pigeon-holes and secret drawers, and a
profound well with a separate patent lock. In the well were deposited
the articles intended for publication in "The Londoner," proof-sheets,
etc.; pigeon-holes were devoted to ordinary correspondence; secret
drawers to confidential notes, and outlines of biographies of eminent
men now living, but intended to be completed for publication the day
after their death.
No man wrote such funeral compositions with a livelier pen than that
of Chillingly Mivers; and the large and miscellaneous circle of his
visiting acquaintances allowed him to ascertain, whether by
authoritative report or by personal observation, the signs of mortal
disease in the illustrious friends whose dinners he accepted, and
whose failing pulses he instinctively felt in returning the pressure
of their hands; so that he was often able to put the finishing-stroke
to their obituary memorials days, weeks, even months, before their
fate took the public by surprise. That cylinder bureau was in harmony
with the secrecy in which this remarkable man shrouded the productions
of his brain. In his literary life Mivers had no "I," there he was
ever the inscrutable, mysterious "We." He was only "I" when you met
him in the world, and called him Mivers.
Adjoining the library on one side was a small dining or rather
breakfast room, hung with valuable pictures,--presents from living
painters. Many of these painters had been severely handled by Mr.
Mivers in his existence as "We,"--not always in "The Londoner." His
most pungent criticisms were often contributed to other intellectual
journals conducted by members of the same intellectual clique.
Painters knew not how contemptuously "We" had treated them when they
met Mr. Mivers. His "I" was so complimentary that they sent him a
tribute of their gratitude.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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