they write now that’s as good—I remember poor Thomas Ward. ‘Flaccus’ was the name he wrote under, a thin skeleton of a man always with his head 114 in the air and his mind somewhere else, used to write in the Knickerbocker Journal; I heard him recite one of his things. 114 “‘And, straining, fastened on her lips a kiss, That seemed to suck the life blood from her heart.’ “That stuck in my head, mostly, I expect, because Thomas Ward didn’t look as if he’d ever kissed a girl, but they are good lines and a lot better than they write nowadays.” The wind had risen a bit and was stirring in the leaves of the magnolias, white carnations growing near the sun dial shook their ruffles in the moonlight, and from near and far away came the sounds of Charleston, voices, the sound of traffic and then, a thread of tune tying moonbeams, magnolias, carnations and cherokee roses in a great southern bunch, came the notes of a banjo, plunk, plunk, and a voice from somewhere away in the back premises, the voice of a negro singing one of the old Plantation songs. Just a snatch before some closing door cut the singer off, but enough to make Phyl raise her head and listen, listen as though a whole world vaguely guessed, a world forgotten yet still warm and loving, youthful and sunlit, were striving to reach her and speak to her—As though Charleston the mysterious city that had greeted her first in Meeting Street were trying to tell her of things delightful, once loved, once known and forever vanished. As she lay awake that night with the moonlight showing through the blinds, the whole of that 115 strange day came before her in pictures: the face of Frances Rhett troubled her, yet she did not know in the least why; it seemed part of the horribleness of automobiles and the anger of Miss Pinckney and the tribulations of Edgar Allan Poe. 115 Then the fantastic band of forgotten literati trooped before her, led by “Flaccus,” the man who didn’t look as if he had ever kissed a girl, yet who wrote: “And, straining, fastened on her lips a kiss, That seemed to suck the life blood from her heart.”
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