with that restrained humour which a strict adherence
to the vocabulary of Sir Thomas Browne necessitated.
With delicate sarcasm he narrated the last weeks, the
patience with which Cronshaw bore the well-meaning
clumsiness of the young student who had appointed
himself his nurse, and the pitifulness of that divine
vagabond in those hopelessly middle-class surroundings.
Beauty from ashes, he quoted from Isaiah. It
was a triumph of irony for that outcast poet to die
amid the trappings of vulgar respectability; it reminded
Leonard Upjohn of Christ among the Pharisees, and the
analogy gave him opportunity for an exquisite passage.
And then he told how a friend—his good
taste did not suffer him more than to hint subtly who
the friend was with such gracious fancies—had
laid a laurel wreath on the dead poet’s heart;
and the beautiful dead hands had seemed to rest with
a voluptuous passion upon Apollo’s leaves, fragrant
with the fragrance of art, and more green than jade
brought by swart mariners from the manifold, inexplicable
China. And, an admirable contrast, the article
ended with a description of the middle-class, ordinary,
prosaic funeral of him who should have been buried
like a prince or like a pauper. It was the crowning
buffet, the final victory of Philistia over art, beauty,
and immaterial things.
Leonard Upjohn had never written anything better.
It was a miracle of charm, grace, and pity. He
printed all Cronshaw’s best poems in the course
of the article, so that when the volume appeared much
of its point was gone; but he advanced his own position
a good deal. He was thenceforth a critic to be
reckoned with. He had seemed before a little aloof;
but there was a warm humanity about this article which
was infinitely attractive.
LXXXVI
In the spring Philip, having finished his dressing
in the out-patients’ department, became an in-patients’
clerk. This appointment lasted six months.
The clerk spent every morning in the wards, first in
the men’s, then in the women’s, with the
house-physician; he wrote up cases, made tests, and
passed the time of day with the nurses. On two
afternoons a week the physician in charge went round
with a little knot of students, examined the cases,
and dispensed information. The work had not the
excitement, the constant change, the intimate contact
with reality, of the work in the out-patients’
department; but Philip picked up a good deal of knowledge.
He got on very well with the patients, and he was a
little flattered at the pleasure they showed in his
attendance on them. He was not conscious of any
deep sympathy in their sufferings, but he liked them;
and because he put on no airs he was more popular with
them than others of the clerks. He was pleasant,
encouraging, and friendly. Like everyone connected
with hospitals he found that male patients were more
easy to get on with than female. The women were
often querulous and ill-tempered. They complained
bitterly of the hard-worked nurses, who did not show
them the attention they thought their right; and they
were troublesome, ungrateful, and rude.
