England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction; Wessex (England) -- Fiction
‘Or in his poems—so far as I know, that is.’
Robert Trewe took no interest in her house, in her poems, or in their
writer. As soon as she could get away she went into the nursery and
tried to let off her emotion by unnecessarily kissing the children,
till she had a sudden sense of disgust at being reminded how
plain-looking they were, like their father.
The obtuse and single-minded landscape-painter never once perceived
from her conversation that it was only Trewe she wanted, and not
himself. He made the best of his visit, seeming to enjoy the society of
Ella’s husband, who also took a great fancy to him, and showed him
everywhere about the neighbourhood, neither of them noticing Ella’s
mood.
The painter had been gone only a day or two when, while sitting
upstairs alone one morning, she glanced over the London paper just
arrived, and read the following paragraph:-
‘SUICIDE OF A POET
‘Mr. Robert Trewe, who has been favourably known for some years as one
of our rising lyrists, committed suicide at his lodgings at Solentsea
on Saturday evening last by shooting himself in the right temple with a
revolver. Readers hardly need to be reminded that Mr. Trewe has
recently attracted the attention of a much wider public than had
hitherto known him, by his new volume of verse, mostly of an
impassioned kind, entitled “Lyrics to a Woman Unknown,” which has been
already favourably noticed in these pages for the extraordinary gamut
of feeling it traverses, and which has been made the subject of a
severe, if not ferocious, criticism in the —— Review. It is supposed,
though not certainly known, that the article may have partially
conduced to the sad act, as a copy of the review in question was found
on his writing-table; and he has been observed to be in a somewhat
depressed state of mind since the critique appeared.’
Then came the report of the inquest, at which the following letter was
read, it having been addressed to a friend at a distance:-
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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