Page:Genius, and other essays.djvu/188

 XIV

AUSTIN DOBSON

N usher at the drawing-room door serves as a foil to the courtly groups beyond him. All his bows and flourishes seem commonplace beside the easy grace of his betters, if, indeed, the guests vouchsafe him a glance as they pass within. Little they care whether his legs be cross-gartered. Still, the usher is thought to be, in his way, a useful personage. And an introduction to these Vignettes in Rhyme thus may bear a certain fitness,—lest otherwise the collection should lack that effect which some prosaic contrast may lend to the delicate art of the whole.

Once acquainted with these pages, the reader will find that my comparison is an apt one; that he is in good company, and that Mr. Dobson, more than other recent poets, seems not only to gather about him a select concourse of fine people, but to move at ease among them. It is a pleasure to meet these gentlefolk, and like a mark of our own rank. Here are gathered, it is true, those of various periods and manners, but all demean themselves with graceful breeding and without affectation, and are on good terms with one another and with their host. Here are the old noblesse, [174]