world, but against one's self and one's fellow artist, by a kind of
affected modesty which is the Englishman's natural pose, half pride and
half self-distrust. So this brave venture of the Rhymers' Club, though it
lasted for two or three years, and produced two little books of verse which
will some day be literary curiosities, was not quite a satisfactory kind of
_cenacle_. Dowson, who enjoyed the real thing so much in Paris, did not, I
think, go very often; but his contributions to the first book of the club
were at once the most delicate and the most distinguished poems which it
contained. Was it, after all, at one of these meetings that I first saw
him, or was it, perhaps, at another haunt of some of us at that time, a
semi-literary tavern near Leicester Square, chosen for its convenient
position between two stage-doors? It was at the time when one or two of us
sincerely worshipped the ballet; Dowson, alas! never. I could never get him
to see that charm in harmonious and coloured movement, like bright shadows
seen through the floating gauze of the music, which held me night after
night at the two theatres which alone seemed to me to give an amusing
colour to one's dreams. Neither the stage nor the stage-door had any
attraction for him; but he came to the tavern because it was a tavern, and
because he could meet his friends there. Even before that time I have a
vague impression of having met him, I forget where, certainly at night; and
of having been struck, even then, by a look and manner of pathetic charm, a
sort of Keats-like face, the face of a demoralised Keats, and by something
curious in the contrast of a manner exquisitely refined, with an appearance
generally somewhat dilapidated. That impression was only accentuated
later on, when I came to know him, and the manner of his life, much more
intimately.

I think I may date my first impression of what one calls "the real man"
(as if it were more real than the poet of the disembodied verses!) from an
evening in which he first introduced me to those charming supper-houses,