THE suburb of Saffron Park lay on the sunset side of London, as
red and ragged as a cloud of sunset. It was built of a bright
brick throughout; its sky-line was fantastic, and even its ground
plan was wild. It had been the outburst of a speculative builder,
faintly tinged with art, who called its architecture sometimes
Elizabethan and sometimes Queen Anne, apparently under the
impression that the two sovereigns were identical. It was described
with some justice as an artistic colony, though it never in any
definable way produced any art. But although its pretensions to be
an intellectual centre were a little vague, its pretensions to be a
pleasant place were quite indisputable. The stranger who looked for
the first time at the quaint red houses could only think how very
oddly shaped the people must be who could fit in to them. Nor when
he met the people was he disappointed in this respect. The place
was not only pleasant, but perfect, if once he could regard it not
as a deception but rather as a dream. Even if the people were not
"artists," the whole was nevertheless artistic. That young man with
the long, auburn hair and the impudent face--that young man was not
really a poet; but surely he was a poem. That old gentleman with
the wild, white beard and the wild, white hat--that venerable
humbug was not really a philosopher; but at least he was the cause
of philosophy in others. That scientific gentleman with the bald,
egg-like head and the bare, bird-like neck had no real right to the
airs of science that he assumed. He had not discovered anything new
in biology; but what biological creature could he have discovered
more singular than himself? Thus, and thus only, the whole place
had properly to be regarded; it had to be considered not so much
as a workshop for artists, but as a frail but finished work of art.
A man who stepped into its social atmosphere felt as if he had