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THE BAD GUY

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CELIA AARON

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 CONTENTS

Free Book

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50

Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Counsellor
1. Sinclair
2. Stella
3. Sinclair
4. Stella
5. Sinclair
6. Stella
7. Stella
8. Sinclair
9. Stella
10. Sinclair
11. Stella
12. Sinclair
13. Stella
14. Stella
 15. Sinclair
16. Stella
17. Stella
18. Sinclair
19. Stella
20. Sinclair

Also by Celia Aaron

About the Author
The Bad Guy Bonus Chapter

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 Celia Aaron
Copyright © 2017 Celia Aaron

All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book
only. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any
printed or electronic form without prior written permission from Celia Aaron.
This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference may be made to actual historical
events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are
products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual persons,
living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
WARNING: This e-book contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language.
DIRE WARNING: If you pirate this book, your soul will rot in hell.

Cover art by PopKitty

Cover model Jay Conroy
Cover image by Nina Duncan
Content Editing by J. Brooks
Copy Editing by Spell Bound

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 1
SEBASTIAN

M y name is Sebastian Lindstrom, and I’m the villain of this story.

I’d like to tell you that I try to be good, to do the right
thing. That would be a lie. As with most powerful men, the truth is a
minor inconvenience that can be bent like a circus stripper into
whatever form I want.
But I’ve decided to lay myself bare, to tell the truth for once in
my hollow life, no matter how dark it gets. And I can assure you, it
will get so dark that you’ll find yourself feeling around the blackened
corners of my mind, seeking a door handle that isn’t there.
Don’t mistake this for a confession. I neither seek forgiveness nor
would I accept it. My sins are my own. They keep me company.
Instead, this is the true tale of how I found her, how I stole her, and
how I lost her.
Her—Camille Briarlane. The one I’d been searching for. When I
found her, she was already in the company of her white knight. He’d
claimed her for himself, planting his flag and showing her off like the
treasure she is.
A fairy tale romance by all accounts.
But every fairy tale has a villain, someone waiting in the wings to
rip it all down. A scoundrel who will set the world on fire if that
means he gets what he wants. That’s me.
I’m the bad guy.
OceanofPDF.com
 2
CAMILLE

“A
Link’s.
looks okay?” I pulled the hem down on my
re you sure this
midnight blue dress as I stepped from the limo, my hand in

He smiled down at me, his perfect white teeth gleaming in the

low lights along the front of the swank New York hotel. “You
outshine everyone else here. Trust me.” His black tux gave him the
look of Hollywood glamor, every smooth line of his body perfectly
wrapped in the fabric.
I squeezed his hand as he led me up the stairs. “You haven’t
seen everyone else yet.”
“Don’t have to. I already know you’ll put them to shame.” He
wrapped his arm around my waist as the doorman ushered us into
the hotel lobby.
I welcomed the blast of warm air that dispersed the early winter
chill.
“May I?” An attendant offered to help with my coat.
“I’ll handle it.” Link smiled and slid his hands into my collar and
down my arms, peeling the wool coat from me. He passed it to the
attendant and wrapped his arms around me from behind. “I might
just take you back to my apartment and ditch this party altogether.”
I craned my neck to look at him. “I don’t think that would be a
wise move for Lindstrom’s newest VP of marketing.”
 His dark blond hair tickled along his forehead as he leaned down
and nipped at my neck. “Maybe it would be nice to make a bad
decision for once.”
“Link!” A rotund man strode up, his eyes already glassy from too
much wine.
Link released me and led me over to him where the men shook
hands.
“Is this the Camille I’ve heard so much about?” He took my palm
and placed a messy kiss on the back of my hand.
I wanted to wipe it on something. Link grabbed my hand in his
and pressed it against his pants leg, scrubbing the saliva without
making it obvious.
“Camille, this is Hal Baxter, VP of finance at Lindstrom. Hal, this is
the one and only Camille.” The pride in Link’s voice sent heat rushing
to my face.
Hal nodded, his chubby face widening into a grin. “Well, she’s a
beauty. Teacher, right?”
“Yes.” Link spoke before I could. “She’s at Trenton Prep—about
two hours outside the city. The best biology and life sciences teacher
they have.”
“Trenton, eh?” Hal took a large gulp of champagne. “One of my
nephews goes to school there. Minton Baxter. Do you know him?”
I cringed inwardly. Minton “Mint” Baxter had turned into one of
my worst students—he spent more time trying to undermine me
than he did learning. I forced a smile. “Yes, he’s in my senior biology
class.”
“Go easy on him.” Hal finished the drink in his chubby paw then
swiped another from a passing tray. “If he’s anything like his
uncle”—he pointed a thumb at himself—“he may need a little after
hours instruction. Though they didn’t make teachers like you when I
was in school.” He gave me an elevator look as our conversation
veered from awkward to unbearable. I wished I was still wearing my
coat over the strapless dress.
Link’s grip tightened. “Good to see you, Hal. Enjoy the party.”
We walked away, weaving through the crowd of people drinking
and talking. My heels clicked on the marble floor, and I counted my
steps to avoid thinking about my mortification. Women pranced by,
their designer dresses and breakneck heels reminding me that this
wasn’t my scene. But when Link asked me to be his date, I couldn’t
turn him down. He’d recently been promoted to VP and wanted to
impress his coworkers at the annual Lindstrom gala.
He pulled me into a small alcove in between the lobby and the
ballroom. “I’m sorry about that. Are you all right?” He ran a hand
down my cheek.
“I’m fine.” I pulled at my hem again, wishing it fell to my knees
instead of mid-thigh. “He was drunk.”
“He was an ass.” He swept my light brown hair off my shoulder.
“I’ll have a word with him at the office on Monday.”
I shook my head. “Don’t worry about it.”
He smiled and kissed my forehead. “It’s my job to worry about
you. Because I lo—”
“Link.” A cold voice cut between us.
Link stepped back and straightened. “Mr. Lindstrom.”
I stared up into dark green eyes flecked with hazel. This had to
be the younger Lindstrom. Sebastian. His father owned the
company, and Sebastian served as the CEO. Based on what little Link
had told me about him, I’d expected a man in his forties, but
Sebastian looked early thirties. Tall and dark, he had an air of
command. I wanted to drop my gaze, but something in his eyes held
me.
His nostrils flared for a moment, his dark eyebrows lifting, but
then he gave a polite smile and shook Link’s hand. “Link, glad you
could make it. And this is?”
“Camille Briarlane.” Link beamed. “My girlfriend.”
“Very nice to meet you, Mr. Lindstrom.” I held out my hand to
shake.
“Please call me Sebastian.” He took my hand and dropped a kiss
on my knuckles, though he kept his eyes on mine. His touch was
soft, intimate, and my skin warmed where his lips grazed against
me. Unlike Hal’s kiss, I was fine with leaving this one right where
he’d placed it.
 “Looks like it’s going to be a great party.” Link gave his all-
American smile and pulled me to his side.
Sebastian kept his eyes on me and did nothing to return Link’s
small talk. The sound of the party faded as his cold eyes kept me
captive. Link’s fingers dug into my waist, and the hackles rose on the
back of my neck as Sebastian’s stare veered into awkward territory.
It was too direct, as if he was trying to see my thoughts.
Link cleared his throat. “So, are you going to give some sort of
speech, Mr. Lindstrom?”
He blinked. “Not a chance.”
I dropped my gaze and tried to play off my discomfort by
accepting a flute of champagne from a passing server. I sipped it
and examined my shoes.
“Sebastian.” An older man walked up beside him and put a hand
on his shoulder. “Did I just hear something about you giving a
speech?” His hair was a steely gray, and he was almost as tall as
Sebastian, though his eyes were a light blue instead of emerald.
“Absolutely not.” Sebastian crossed his arms over his broad chest,
his fitted tux no match to his will.
The older man turned to us. “Link, good to see you.”
“Thank you, Mr. Lindstrom. This is my girlfriend, Camille.”
He smiled warmly and took my hand in both of his. “So good to
meet you. I think some of the VPs were beginning to take bets on
whether Link here was just making you up.”
His smile appeared genuine, and he seemed far more friendly
than his son.
“Teaching takes up so much of my time, especially now that the
fall semester is in full swing. I haven’t been able to get to the city as
much as I’d like.” I preferred the quiet life at the prep school to the
constant sound and fury of New York City, though I’d never tell Link
that. He wanted me to look for a job at one of the schools in town
and move into his penthouse apartment.
“You teach?” Sebastian’s cool voice cut through the friendly
conversation.
Link answered for me again. “Yes, she teaches biology at Trenton
Prep.”
 Sebastian’s gaze flickered, and a slight frown pulled at the corner
of his lips, as if irritated that Link had spoken instead of me. “So you
don’t live in town?”
“No.” I responded before Link could.
“Not yet.” Link squeezed my upper arm, pressing me into his
side. “I hope I can convince her to move after fall term is over.”
I clenched my teeth shut. Link knew I wanted to go on a
research trip during the holidays. Moving to the city wasn’t included
in those plans. Besides, I couldn’t leave my students in the middle of
the year. I thought I’d made all that clear, but he was still trying to
get his way. One of his most endearing traits could sometimes be
the most annoying.
“Are you going to move, then?” Sebastian asked the question
with a sharpness in his tone that almost made me wince.
“I, um…” I was on the spot, both men looking at me for an
answer. “Well, I intend to do some traveling over the Christmas
break. Maybe I can decide while I’m up to my elbows in research.
Sort of clear my head.”
“Research?” Sebastian leaned closer.
“A science teacher who actually does research?” Mr. Lindstrom
smiled. “Now that’s something to be proud of.” He waved at a small
group of older men standing in the open foyer. “Looks like business
never ends around here. I have elbow rubbing to do. Nice to meet
you, young lady. And good job, Link.” He gave a conciliatory wink
before striding toward the power circle.
“What sort of research?” Sebastian pressed.
He’d asked the one question Link couldn’t answer for me. “I’d like
to visit the Amazon. One of my former professors is there right now
conducting a study on a certain type of deciduous fern that he thinks
may have a role in explaining why a particular species of frog is able
to switch sexes and impregnate itself.” My passion spilled into my
voice as I talked faster than usual. “He doesn’t have any spots
available for me, but there are a few other expeditions going on that
I could possibly join. One investigating a rogue species of belladonna
and another focusing on the upper canopy, harvesting the various
plants that grow there to determine any pharmacological uses.”
 Link laughed. “She’s my little explorer.”
Sebastian cut his gaze to Link, his frown deepening before his
expression returned to neutral. “What was your professor’s name?”
“Stephen Weisman. Do you know him?”
“No. I’m afraid I studied business. It’s more of an art than a
science.” He smiled, though his eyes never warmed. “We should go
in.” The dismissal in his tone was unmistakable.
He showed interest one moment, and became taciturn the next—
I couldn’t figure him out. Link had told me Sebastian could be “off-
putting,” and he wasn’t kidding.
“Right. I suppose we’ll see you inside.” Link led me away from
the alcove and toward the ballroom. Music swirled through the air as
a live band played, drawing the partygoers forward.
A chill raced down my spine, and I looked over my shoulder.
Sebastian hadn’t moved, his arms still crossed, his stern expression
focused on me. I shivered, though the ballroom was even warmer
than the lobby.
Link pressed his palm to my back and led me forward, sweeping
me onto the dance floor.
“What a fucking weirdo.” He pulled me close and swayed me to
the beat.
“He seemed nice.” The word stuck on my tongue, as if unwilling
to describe Sebastian Lindstrom. My gaze strayed toward the alcove,
though I couldn’t see beyond the other couples dancing to the slow
song.
“He’s an asshole.” He gripped me tighter. “And I didn’t like the
way he was looking at you.”
“I think he’s just sort of, I don’t know, maybe awkward? I’m sure
he means well.”
He leaned back and caught my gaze. “Why do you always think
the best of people?”
“Why not?”
His stare dropped to my mouth, then lower to the neckline of my
dress. He wetted his lips. “Because I’m having some particularly bad
thoughts right now.”
 “At a company function?” I opened my eyes wide with mock
surprise. “How very impertinent of you.”
“I can’t help it. I’m hot for teacher.”
I rolled my eyes as he spun me, then pulled me close again.
“Never heard that one.”
“Do you have any idea how hard all those teenage boys wank to
you every night?”
I slapped his arm. “Eww!”
“It’s true. You are a wet dream for them.” He leaned in closer and
nipped at my ear. “For me, too.”
“Would you mind if I cut in for a moment?” The cool voice sliced
through our flirting and stopped us mid-sway.

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 3
SEBASTIAN

L ink wanted to protest, his body tensing as I moved closer to

Camille. But there were quite a few perks to being Lindstrom
Corp.’s CEO. I stared him down, waiting for his inevitable
acquiescence.
“Be my guest.” His tone wasn’t as inviting as his words, but I
didn’t care. He could sulk in the corner for the rest of the night, and
it would suit me just fine. I had to get closer to Camille, and I wasn’t
above using my position as Link’s boss to get my way.
“Thank you.” I dismissed him and focused on his date. “If it’s all
right with you, of course.”
She looked at me over her shoulder, her eyes fringed with dark
lashes. “Um, sure.”
She’d drawn me in the moment I saw her standing next to him.
Her demure attempts to pull her dress down, the heavenly curve of
her neck, the raw intelligence that sparkled in her eyes. I had to
know who she was, even if it meant breaking out of my cold shell to
approach her. It was impulsive, but necessary.
“Shall we?” I held out my hands, well aware of the slight shake in
them.
So close to something I wanted, I couldn’t help the surge of
adrenaline that pooled in my brain. Take her. The sensation was as
strange as it was forceful. What was happening to me? The need to
take her, steal her, almost overwhelmed me, but I kept it at bay.
 Hiding my true intentions was the most important facet of the
personality I showed to the world. If people knew what I truly was,
I’d be a pariah. Instead, I was the CEO of a vast forestry company
that had been in my family for three generations.
She shot an unsure glance to Link, who gave her a nod of
approval. She seemed to stand straighter and moved forward into
my arms. The touch of her silky dress beneath my fingers, the slide
of her warm palm into mine—I was greedy for all of it. I kept a look
of disinterest on my face, the most-used mask in my repertoire, even
though every gear and cog inside me turned and clanked as if I
were a machine waking up after a long, dark sleep. Her energy was
like gasoline in my veins, powering me up for some mysterious
purpose.
We moved to the slow song, melding into the other dancers. She
tightened in my arms, no longer at ease the way she was with him.
She needed to be comfortable with me, to open up so I could see all
her inner workings. Her eyes hid from mine as she looked
everywhere but at me. I wanted to force her to tell me every
thought that flitted through her mind. But that wouldn’t work. My
father had worked on my finesse, as he called it, for years, to the
point that I was the puppet of perfect manners, a marionette on a
genteel string. Pull here, I smiled. Pull there, I offered condolences.
No string led to a kidnapping option. But I still had a few tricks of
my own.
The song switched to another slow dance, the singer crooning an
old Smoky Robinson tune. Though she was in my arms, her silence
kept a wide expanse between us, one I intended to cross. I
performed a brief calculus, trying to decide what a normal man
would say in this situation, which string to pull. It was an equation
I’d learned from my earliest days—figuring out what people
expected so that no one would notice there was something wrong
with me.
She’d mentioned her job and seemed to enjoy it. I started there.
“How many students do you have?”
Her eyebrows arched, and she finally met my gaze. “Each class is
about ten students, and I have five classes a day.”
 “Seems like a small class size?” I didn’t know since I’d been
home schooled after the first grade. Apparently, the incident where
I’d informed another first grader that I intended to disembowel him
the next time he tripped me on my way to class was frowned upon
by my parents and my private school.
“It is. Trenton has an entire department devoted to fundraising to
keep the educational standards top notch. We have a lot of legacies
whose parents are one percenters living in the city. I sit on the
financial aid board and make sure that we offer scholarships to
children from underachieving areas, even if some of our alumni
disagree.”
“So you’re a teacher and a social justice crusader?”
She stiffened. I didn’t like it.
“I just care about every child getting a great education.” Her
defensive tone told me I’d made a misstep.
“I didn’t mean any offense.” I tried to solve her puzzle and
choose the correct response to keep her talking. “I’m impressed,
actually.”
“Oh.” She blushed that delicious shade of pink. “Sorry. I guess
I’m just used to blowback from parents on the need-based
scholarships.”
“Don’t be sorry.” I leaned closer, pretending I had to speak into
her ear to be heard over the music. “What’s your favorite thing
about teaching?” Inhaling her scent, citrus and floral, ignited an
even stronger buzz inside me. Like bees building a hive in my brain,
each of them humming for me to take my queen.
“The students. Some of them are…let’s just say entitled. But
there are quite a few who love learning as much as I do, which is
saying something. And there are a few who I think could be first-rate
scientists one day, or at least real movers and shakers in the STEM
professions. They make me proud.” The tension in her body eased a
bit more, and she smiled up at me. “What’s your favorite part of
your job?”
Her smile worked to unravel the black wire that wrapped around
my heart. The sensation of falling and soaring melded into one. How
could the slight upturn of her mouth create so much chaos? I
wanted more.
“Control.” I tightened my hand at her waist, feeling her move
beneath the fabric. Her skin would be even softer, my fingers leaving
red marks along the pale flesh. My teeth would bruise her, my marks
lasting for days until I made fresh ones. But I was jumping ahead,
which was unlike me. And I was thinking about bedding a woman,
also unlike me. I’d been with women, taking my pleasure and then
moving on, but I’d never sought one out. They always came to me,
and if I was interested, I’d let them have a few hours of my time.
“Sebastian?” Two lines appeared between her eyebrows. Had she
been speaking and I’d missed it? Fuck.
“I apologize. What were you saying?”
The creases eased. “I was just saying that you must get quite a
bit of control as CEO.”
“Yes. It’s the family business, and my father has entrusted me
with running it. I keep an eye on all departments, make sure they
are sticking to the plan.” Father had to keep me occupied somehow,
to make sure I didn’t end up in an institution. Little did he know that
psychopaths made the best CEOs.
“Link’s mentioned how involved you are in every little thing.” She
stopped moving and frowned. “Oh, I probably shouldn’t have said
that.”
You’re right. You should never speak his name again. “It’s
perfectly all right.” I pulled the string that set my lips into a practiced
smile. “I’m sure my methods are a common complaint among the
VPs. People think I became CEO solely because of my father. But I
worked for it, spending time with the roughneck crews who cut trees
for us, then at the sawmills, and finally touring retail sites.”
“So you were a lumberjack?” Her eyes twinkled with interest.
“I wore flannel and everything.”
She laughed and began to move again, her body melting against
mine as her fears eased. “That would be an interesting sight.”
“I enjoyed it. At first light, I’d grab my chainsaw and head out
with the crew. We didn’t talk much, just worked.” I told her the
truth, a rarity for me. I was a creature of solitude, one who didn’t
need or care for the restrictions of society. Being a CEO was its own
sort of prison, but I owed it to my father to keep up appearances. “I
think I got more done in those two months than I have in the five
years I’ve been CEO.”
Camille didn’t notice we’d moved away from the stage and into
the darker area at the side of the ballroom. “I don’t know. Seems
like you’ve done a lot. Link tries to tell me all the numbers, how
much the company has grown and his ideas for how to make it even
more successful on the marketing front.”
I leaned in closer, my lips close to her ear. “I take it all that bores
you?”
Her breath hitched for a moment, but then she steadied herself.
“I wouldn’t say it’s boring, just not my thing.”
I pressed my lips against the shell of her ear and enjoyed the
shiver that shot through her curvy body. “Then what is your thing?”
“Plants.” Her voice trembled, setting the animal inside me alight.
I wanted to devour her.
“Ah, the Amazon trip.”
“Yes.” She didn’t pull away as her words grew breathy. “It’s a
dream of mine.”
You’re a dream of mine.
She took a deep breath and leaned her head back to catch my
gaze. “I think you’ve danced me into a stupor. Heavy-handed in the
boardroom, but light on your feet in the ballroom.” That smile again,
the warmth blooming in her eyes and transferring to me. Did she
even know the power she had?
“Let’s test that theory.” I twirled her around, and she held onto
me, her breasts pressing against my chest and her head tucked
under my chin. I lifted her with one arm and spun. Her laugh against
my throat woke up every nerve ending in my body until all I could
feel was her. Euphoria, the closest I’d ever gotten to the sensation of
happiness, washed over me. All it took was her, one taste of
whatever magic she wielded.
The song slowed to its end, and I reluctantly set her back on her
feet. Pink highlighted her cheeks, and I couldn’t miss the sparkle in
her eyes. She was exquisite, a treasure hidden in plain sight. One
that I wanted for myself.
“Thank you for the dance.” She ran her hand across my bicep
and rested her palm on my chest.
“My pleasure.” It was. And I didn’t want it to be over. I kept her
small hand in mine and pressed my palm against her lower back.
Her breaths came in shallow flutters as the skin along her chest
and neck turned a matching pink to the shade on her cheeks.
Arousal. She found me attractive, enjoyed my touch.
“There you are.” Link stepped up to us as a faster song began to
play. He’d been watching the entire time. I could feel his possessive
tendrils streaking through the crowd and trying to wrap around my
Camille. He was foolish enough to think he still had a claim on her.
The moment I saw her, his flimsy hold on her began to slip. I
intended to sever it completely, by any means necessary. I’d heard
about love at first sight, though I couldn’t claim that emotion. The
need to possess her was what fired through my veins, not the
sentimental nonsense of hearts and flowers.
She dropped her hand. I had to let her go, even though
murdering Link and tossing her over my shoulder seemed like the
more expedient option. My father and the rest of the attendees
would likely frown on my behavior. Camille backed away, the loss of
her heat returning my insides to their usual barren state.
Link wrapped an arm around her waist. A growl rose from my
throat but got lost in the music. She shifted from one heeled foot to
the other, nervous. I made her uncomfortable. She had no idea.
“Great party.” He offered again, then pointed through the crowd
to the hor d’oeuvres table. “I think we’ll see what’s on the menu.” He
took her elbow and steered her away.
An uncomfortable feeling settled in my chest. Acid reflux,
perhaps, or some other form of indigestion.
Link slid his hand to her lower back. My hands balled into fists,
and I fought the urge to follow them. Her chestnut brown hair
cascaded down her back in loose curls, the sway of her hips
magnetic. But she was with him, when she should have been with
me.
 The ache in my chest intensified. I’d have to stop by the
pharmacy on the way home.
Right before I lost sight of her, she turned and smiled at me, as if
sending me a spark of hope.
The spark lit an inferno. It blazed up and promised destruction
for anything that got between us.
She was mine. Even if I had to steal her.

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 4
CAMILLE

“W hat does the presence of these four micronutrients tell us

about the specimen’s biochemistry?” I flashed the
chlorophyll formation onto the screen, each molecule drawn by hand
and labeled for iron, zinc, and copper.
“That you have a nice ass.” A low voice from the back of the
room.
I spun as half the class laughed and the other half looked
anywhere but at me. Minton Baxter, it had to be him. He grinned
and pretended to be typing notes on his laptop.
My heartbeat thudded in my ears, and I knew I had to take
charge of the situation or else it would take charge of me. “Minton,
may I see you outside for a moment?”
A chorus of “oooohs” broke out across the room as he stood and
sauntered through the desks.
“Take out a piece of paper, all of you. When I get back, I expect
each of you to have perfectly drawn examples of Lamprocapnos
spectabilis.”
I followed Minton into the hall and closed the door on the
students’ groans. Blue lockers lined the empty hallway, and the gray
tile floor gleamed under the fluorescents. Minton leaned against the
wall next to the classroom door, his hands in his pockets and a cocky
grin on his face.
 “What is going on with you?” I crossed my arms. “When you
started the semester, you were engaged and doing well. Now, you
cut class and create constant disruptions. Your grades have tanked.
What am I missing here?”
He shrugged. “I was just telling the truth.”
“I think you know that your behavior is inappropriate, but you
keep doing it anyway.” I needed to get inside his head, figure out the
problem, and come up with a solution. There had to be a reason
why he’d gone from top marks to class clown. “What’s the deal?”
“Nothing.” He dropped his gaze and picked at the messy knot of
his tie.
“Is it your parents?”
His fingers froze. “No.”
“What is it that you’re not telling me?” I softened my voice. “I
want to help you, Mint, if you’ll let me.”
He met my eyes again, and I couldn’t mistake the pain that
flashed across his face. Then it was gone. “I can think of a few ways
you can help.” He licked his lips as his gaze roved up and down my
body.
I knew what he was doing—hiding behind inappropriate behavior
to deflect from the real problem. But I wasn’t going to get through
to him like this. “Get back to your desk. I expect you to turn in your
drawing first thing tomorrow.”
He huffed and returned to the classroom, closing the door too
hard behind him. I chewed on my thumbnail as the slam
reverberated down the hall. I wanted to contact his parents, but that
was obviously the sore spot. Maybe his uncle who worked with Link
knew something? But it wasn’t like I could just call him up and start
quizzing him on his nephew.
I fished in my pocket for my cell phone, but hesitated before
texting Link. I’d just seen him the previous weekend at the
Lindstrom party. He’d taken me back to his apartment. When I’d told
him I wasn’t ready to sleep together, he’d accepted it, though I
could sense the tension underneath. We’d been dating for months,
and he’d been more than patient, but I still didn’t know if it was time
for the next step. I wasn’t a virgin, but it had been a long time. Did I
even know what to do anymore?
The bell rang, pulling me from my thoughts. If I wanted to help
Mint, then I needed to get back to the city and have a chat with his
uncle. I pulled up Link’s number and texted.
Are you up for another visit this weekend? Maybe we can
get together with some of your work friends.
My classroom door opened, and the students streamed into the
hallway, their backpacks slung over one shoulder as they chatted
and laughed. The phone vibrated.
Link: I’d love to see you. But since when do you care
about my work friends?
I might as well tell the truth.
Since Minton Baxter started acting out in class. I’m
hoping his uncle might know what’s going on with him.
Once the last student left my room, I went back in and closed
the door behind me. It was my free period before lunch.
Link: A recon mission. And here I was hoping you just
wanted to see me.
I frowned and sank into the chair behind my desk.
I do want to see you, but I’m multi-tasking.
The three dots jumped at the bottom of the text box.
Disappeared. Then jumped again.
Link: All right. I’ll see if I can set up drinks Friday night.
Sound good?
Relief washed through me. He wasn’t mad.
Thank you. Yes.
Link: I’m looking forward to seeing you.
Me too.
I stowed my cell phone and listened to the noisy students mill
around in the hallway until the bell rang. The school quieted, though
I could distinctly here Dr. Potts next door giving a lecture extolling
the beauty and simplicity of the quadratic formula for finding any
solution. I wished it would solve the problems that meandered
around in my head. Whether to take my relationship with Link
further, what to do about Mint, and the biggest problem of all—why I
found my thoughts straying back to Sebastian Lindstrom whenever I
had a free moment.
I shifted in my chair, my memories of him making me
uncomfortable and warm at the same time. Closing my eyes, I
pictured him, the sharp line of his jaw, the imposing weight of his
voice. The way he’d held me as we danced, as if I were a lifeline.
Link hadn’t cared for the way Sebastian looked at me or the dance
we shared. He kept his jealousy in check, making jokes about how
odd the CEO of Lindstrom was, the rumors that swirled around his
love life. Link posited that Sebastian was gay, which explained why
he was never seen with women. But that dance told me different.
Sebastian was a lot of things, but gay wasn’t one of them.
A sharp rap at my door made me jump. The wood swung inward
on a squeaky hinge, and Gregory waltzed in, his eyes on the stack of
mail in his arms.
“Jeez, Gregory. A little more warning next time.” I stowed my
thoughts of Sebastian and gave the assistant headmaster a hard
look.
“Oh, lighten up.” He perched on the edge of my desk. “After all, I
knocked.” He smiled, his boyish good looks overtaking my irritation.
“Did you have a good weekend?” I took a stack of letters from
him and tossed them on my desk.
“Excellent. Went into the city on a blind date. Came out of it sore
but satisfied.” He winked.
“Did he have potential at least?”
“For long term?” He scratched his clean shaven jaw. “Not even
close. I’d have to be a power bottom to keep up with him. I’m more
of a ‘lay on my stomach and let him have at it’ sort of bottom. One
night only, my dear. And stop trying to distract me. You spent the
weekend with Link, right? Some company function? Did you get
down and dirty? Give me all the icky hetero details.”
I glanced to the door. “Keep it down. Just because you’re living la
vida loca doesn’t mean I want everyone to know about my sex life.”
Gregory had been out since high school and had no qualms being
himself even in the stuffy atmosphere of Trenton Prep. He’d been a
good friend to me since the day I’d arrived, fresh-faced and ready to
shape the youth of tomorrow.
“I’ll keep it down, but give me the details and leave nothing out.”
He pointed a thin finger at me. “Nothing.”
I plucked at the high collar of my forest green dress top. “No, we
didn’t…” I fidgeted. “You know.”
“You denied that handsome man again?” He straightened his
already perfect bowtie. “If he were batting for my team, I’d already
have taken him on a tour of everything this toned body has to offer.”
“That’s you. I’m a little more cautious.”
“He’s perfect for you. Tall, handsome, rich family, big hands,
good hair, and I can tell you right now that he’s got it where it
counts.”
Crimson flamed through my cheeks. “You mean—”
“A package, yeah. He’s got a big one.”
“You can’t tell that by looking.”
“You can’t.” He grinned. “I certainly can.” He waved a hand at
me. “If that was the end of your weekend tale, I am very
disappointed in you.”
I chewed my thumbnail while I debated whether I should tell him
about Sebastian.
“Ah ha!” He pointed at my thumb. “I knew it.”
“Knew what?”
“Whenever you go Bucky Beaver on your thumbnail, something’s
bothering you. Out with it.”
“That’s not true.” I dropped my hand to my lap where it joined its
sister in a death grip.
“It is.” He dropped the rest of the mail he’d been holding on the
corner of my desk and crossed his arms over his navy blue sweater
vest. “Spill.”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
He glowered as much as the Botox allowed. “My last boyfriend
was a liar, and you know what happened to him.”
“I was there, remember? I’m the one who helped you hide
sardines under his driver’s seat and Saran wrap his car.”
 “Keep that in mind. Now tell me your tale before Headmaster
Grinsley notices I’ve been gone too long and orders me back to be
her little bitch.”
“It’s nothing.” When his frown deepened, I hurried along, “Well,
there was this guy.”
“Yes.” He fist pumped. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Go on.”
“He’s the CEO of the forestry company where Link works.”
Gregory rubbed his palms together. “Money, money, money.
Continue.”
“We danced. He was, I don’t know…” How could I describe the
murky feeling? “There was something about him.”
“Good looking?”
“Yes, in a dark sort of way. But there was more. Like he has
secrets bubbling beneath his surface.”
“I love a man with a past.” He sighed. “How old?”
“I don’t know. Probably early thirties.”
“Mmm. He sounds tasty. Are you thinking of ditching Link for this
guy?”
“Whoa.” I held my hands up. “Your imagination is running wild. It
was one dance with Link’s boss. No. Link and I are—”
“Not doing the deed.” He crinkled up one side of his mouth in
disapproval. “That says a lot.”
“No it doesn’t. And I intend to take that step soon, but not until I
know I’m ready.”
“When will you know?”
I leaned forward and began flipping through my mail. “I just will.”
“Sure. Sounds legit.”
“Your sarcasm is noted.” I pulled a letter from the stack.
“Interesting.” Rainforest Fund was stamped at the top, and my name
and address were written in a bold hand.
“I’ve got to finish my deliveries.” Gregory scooped up the rest of
the mail as I slid my finger down the flap. “I’ll see you after school
for some much needed liquid refreshment and Mexican food. La
Conchita’s at six.”
“All right. See you there.” I slid out a letter, the paper heavy in
my hands.
 The door clicked closed as I unfolded the paper. I read each
word, my eyes growing wider as I went. When I finished reading, I
sat back and stared at the cream paper and matching envelope. My
dream expedition had just landed in my lap. An offer to work as a
staff biologist on a mission to the Amazon rainforest that would
focus on a particular area of the canopy. It even included airfare,
thanks to some extra funding from big pharma.
With shaking hands, I re-read the letter. Dr. Weisman had
recommended me so highly that the expedition’s lead scientist had
“no choice” but to hire me right away. I squeed so loud that Dr. Potts
paused in his lecture next door before resuming his monotone.
This was it. My chance. The one I’d been waiting for. And there
was nothing that could stand in my way.

OceanofPDF.com
 5
CAMILLE

“W hy do you always dress like a schoolteacher?” Veronica

pranced around her bedroom in a thong with a matching
red bra. Her long blonde hair flowed down her back in an unruly
mane of waves and curls.
“Because I am a schoolteacher.” I sat on her bed as she walked
into her closet. “And I’m not going out to find a date. I already have
one.”
“Sure, but you dressed like that before you and Link even got
together.” Her voice floated out of her closet and into her bedroom.
“You dress like your mom.” She cursed quietly, then poked her head
out of the closet. “I’m sorry. That was stupid. I was just trying to
make you laugh. You know I always thought Freesia had a great
sense of style, perfect for an older dame like her.”
“It’s okay.” My mother, Freesia, had passed a year ago from
cancer, and my father just six months after. He’d always been so
tangled up in her, their love one for the storybooks, that he seemed
to fade a little more each day after her funeral. One cold fall day, he
disappeared, too.
I’d mourned them in my own way, and I still thought of them
every day. My mom’s green thumb was the main reason I became
interested in plants when I was a child. Link and Veronica had been
my support system since their passing. Veronica’s worried eyes
spurred me to add, “Mom did have her own brand of style. Cornered
the market on vegetable-print scarves.”
Relief washed over her face, and she ducked back into the closet.
“She was a one-of-a-kind.”
“No doubt.” I stared out at the fading sunlight over the tops of
the buildings across the street. Veronica and I had been roommates
in college, though she focused on partying more than anything else.
After a few fights over missing food and her late night booty calls,
we’d managed to become best friends. Once we graduated, she’d
moved to the city to work as an editorial assistant at Vogue while I
settled in at Trenton.
She reappeared wearing a short black dress with slits along the
waist on either side. I glanced down at my modest cream top, gray
skirt, and black flats.
“Yeah, are you sure you don’t want to change?”
“I’m sure.” I lay back on her bed and followed the ducts of the
heating and cooling system with my eyes. “You’re going to freeze
your lady bits off in that outfit.”
“It’s Friday night, and I want to have some fun after we get done
with Link and his pals.” She bent over and zipped up some stiletto-
heeled boots. “I’m still single, ready to mingle. How are things with
Link, anyway?”
“They’re fine.” I drummed my fingers on my stomach.
“Fine?” She sat next to me. “That’s what people say when I ask
them how their trip to pick up dry-cleaning went, not what you
should say when I’m asking about your boyfriend.”
Guilt cascaded through me. “I meant they’re great. Things are
going well at his job, and we spend time together whenever we can.
He’s been really patient with me on the whole sex thing, so that’s
good.”
“Why are you still holding out?” She lay next to me, both of us
staring at the ceiling.
“I don’t know.” I shrugged.
“Don’t you want to do it?”
“Yes. We’ve gotten pretty hot and heavy a few times. He’s
gorgeous and kind…”
 “But? There’s definitely a but in there.” She grabbed my hand
and laced our fingers together. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong per se. I just don’t want to make a mistake. If I
take that final step, I feel like he’ll turn up the pressure on me
moving to the city and giving up my job at Trenton.”
“That’s a valid concern.” She squeezed my fingers. “Once he gets
a hit of that pussy, he’ll want it all the time.”
I laughed. “Thanks, V. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I
guess I’m just being too cautious.” There was no way I was going to
tell her about Sebastian. Though she was hiding it, she never cared
too much for Link. Any possibility—even one as remote as Sebastian
—would flip her busybody switch.
“You do you. If you’re not ready, then he can wait. He’s done a
good job so far.”
“Right. Do you think he’s going to get mad about the Amazon
trip?” I’d already told Veronica all about it. We talked at least twice a
week and texted constantly. She’d encouraged me to fill out the
expedition forms and return them so that I’d be all set to make my
dream come true.
“Maybe, but if he loves you, then he’ll want you to go.”
Do you want him to love you? I swatted the unwanted thought
away. Of course I wanted it. “I’ll talk it over with him tonight.”
“Good. Winter break will be here before you know it. I can’t wait
to go shopping and buy all the shorty-shorts in this city for you to
wear on your tropical vacay.”
I snorted. “I’ll be working the entire time. Maybe climbing trees,
maybe providing analysis on the ground. And have I mentioned all
the bugs? I’m not sure shorty-shorts are a wise choice.”
“Wrong.” She sat up. “Shorty-shorts are always the perfect
choice.”
“Would it do any good for me to argue?”
“None.” She slapped my thigh. “Now let’s get going. I need liquor
in these veins stat.”
 The Slush Bar was already buzzing by the time Veronica and I
walked in. Only one block from Link’s office building, the spot was
perfect for after-work drinks. Patrons sat on benches along the
mirrored walls and at the high-top tables scattered through the dark
space. Music bumped and whined in the background to a techno
beat. The bar was crowded, but Link waved us over to where he and
Hal were stationed.
Link pulled me into his arms, his familiar aftershave washing over
me. “I feel like it’s been months since I’ve seen you.” His hands
roved to my ass and squeezed.
I jumped and stared up into his eyes. “Are you drunk?”
“Nah.” He pointed to a stack of empty shot glasses on the bar.
“Just a little pre-gaming before you ladies arrived.” He glanced over
to Veronica. “Nice to see you.”
“Sure.”
“Holy smokes.” Hal grinned. “Who do we have here?” He gave
Veronica a once-over.
“Nothing for you.” She slid past Link and whistled to the
bartender.
“Spicy, I like it.” Hal slid his credit card to the bartender.
“Whatever she wants, man.”
Link leaned down to my neck, his warm lips leaving wet kisses.
“Missed you.”
“I missed you, too.” I stood on my tiptoes to whisper in his ear.
“Let me talk to Hal for a minute?”
 “Right, the plan.” He slid his hands to my waist and dropped a
final kiss on my lips. “I need to hit the head,” he announced far
more loudly than necessary, then walked toward the back of the bar.
I slid onto the stool next to Hal.
He pried his gaze away from Veronica. “If I’d know you had
friends like that, I would have insisted on taking you all for drinks a
lot sooner.”
I couldn’t tell if it was a compliment, so I just smiled and nodded.
Veronica slid a cocktail in front of me—something in a martini glass
with curls of lemon and orange hanging along the sides.
“How are things at Trenton? Did you tell Mint I said hi?” He
yanked down his wide tie and undid the button at his thick throat.
“I’m glad you mentioned him. Can I ask you something?” I
sipped my drink. It wasn’t bad, just a bit tart.
“Shoot.” He clinked his lowball glass to mine.
I decided to cut to the chase. “Has anything changed over the
past few months? Maybe with Mint’s parents?”
He set his glass down before taking a drink, then twisted it in a
circle. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know.” I kept my tone light. “Just anything going on at
home.”
“No.” He took a big swallow, then held up his finger to order
another.
I leaned closer, though I didn’t enjoy getting in his space. “I was
just curious. Mint is a particular favorite of mine, and I want to make
sure he’s getting the best education possible at Trenton.”
He smiled, though the look was strained, and shook his head.
“No, nothing I know of. Everything’s fine at home.”
“Okay. I was just curious.”
He fumbled his glass. “I mean, his parents are busy. My brother
is out of the country a lot. So, Rhonda gets left alone here in the
city.” His wide cheeks started to flush, and understanding dawned in
my mind. Hal and Mint’s mother must have been having an affair.
He looked away. “Why do you ask? Did he say something?” His
fingers tightened around his glass.
 “No.” I leaned back. “I’m probably being over-protective. I
sometimes go overboard when looking out for students. Sort of an
occupational hazard for me.”
“Right.” He seemed to relax. “Yeah, Mint’s fine. Don’t worry about
him.”
I sipped my drink. Mint must have found out somehow, which led
to his falling grades and bad attitude.
Link reappeared and clapped Hal on the back. “Let’s get another
round.”
Hal’s mood lightened, and he drained his glass. “I’m all for it.”

OceanofPDF.com
 6
SEBASTIAN

C amille turned to speak with the blonde she’d come in with, both of
them easily the prettiest pair in the entire bar. The blonde was
tall, leggy, and wearing a dress that didn’t leave much to the
imagination. I ignored her and focused on the real prize. Camille
wore a demure skirt and top, nothing as flashy as her dress at the
gala. Even so, the top hugged the curves of her breasts, the
narrowing of her waist, and the flare of her hips.
Link ran his hands along her waist, and bloodlust darkened my
vision. Why had I come here? When I’d overhead that moron Hal
bragging about going for drinks with Link and his girl, I wanted to
shake him and demand the information of where Camille would be
and when. Instead, all I had to do was wait for him to give all the
details about the bar and their plans during his loud boasting. I’d left
work early and claimed a seat toward the back of dark bar, which
gave me an excellent view.
I catalogued every move she made, from the way she pulled her
hair over one shoulder to the slight jut of her hips when she favored
her left foot. My need to possess her thrummed along with the
steady beat of my heart, but I counseled patience. The trap was set
and couldn’t be sprung until the appointed time. So I had to wait.
But time couldn’t stop my growing obsession. I gave myself this little
morsel of her until I could devour her completely. It would have to
be enough.
 But it wasn’t. I watched her—a butterfly unaware of my web—as
she disentangled herself from Link and made her way toward the
restrooms at the back of the bar. She skirted past me, only a few
feet away, and her eyes were troubled. I needed to sit still, to meld
into the crowd of social drinkers and drunks. Instead, I stood and
followed her into the back hallway.
I caught the flutter of her cream blouse as the ladies’ room door
closed. Leaning against the wall, I pulled my phone from my pocket
and waited. I typed a message to my secretary about my father’s
upcoming trip to the Pacific Northwest, but my true attention was
focused on the door that separated me from my prize.
The door opened and she stepped out. About to walk past me,
she paused.
“Sebastian?”
I glanced up from my phone and smiled. “Hello…” I let the word
trail off, as if I was having trouble placing her.
She didn’t miss a beat. “Camille, from the gala.”
“Right.” I shook my head. “Sorry about that. It’s been a long
day.”
“No worries.” She stepped closer as a pair of women in short
skirts pushed past us and into the restroom. “What brings you
here?”
“I was supposed to meet a friend, but he had to cancel at the
last minute.” Playing to sympathy had always resulted in positive
outcomes. “Since I was already at the bar, I figured I’d have a drink
and call it a night.”
“Do you want to sit with us at the bar?”
Yes, I want to keep a hold on you. “No, I couldn’t impose.”
“It’s not imposing, unless you don’t want to socialize with
employees or something. Link and Hal are with my friend Veronica
and me. I’d understand if that wasn’t your thing.” She shrugged,
then squeezed my forearm. “But I’m certain we’d all love to have
you.”
Her touch was just what I needed. The devil inside me roared to
life, greedy for more contact from the angel standing in front of me.
 “Well.” I drew out the word as if this were a tough decision for
me. Her tongue darted out to wet her lips as she stared up at me,
doe-eyed and completely unaware of the danger I posed.
“Come on. Let’s get a drink.” She tugged my arm, and I let her
pull me toward the bar.
We maneuvered past several people, and I enjoyed the view of
Camille turning her hips to slide through the crowd ahead of me.
She was like a Christmas gift that needed to be unwrapped and
enjoyed. I’d take my time with her when the moment came.
Link saw me first, his mouth turning down at the corners as his
eyes deadened. He plastered his fake as hell smile on his face to try
and hide it. Unlike Camille, he sensed the threat.
“Sebastian, what are you doing here?” He held his hand out and
we shook, his grip telling me that he wanted supremacy. He would
never get it. I had an inch and maybe twenty pounds on him, and I
would fight dirty.
“Just getting a drink before heading home.”
“He was meeting a friend who ditched.” Camille leaned into Link,
and he slid a hand to her waist. Touching my property right in front
of me.
“Mr. Lindstrom.” Hal’s meaty palm met mine.
“Hal.”
“Hello there, tall, dark, and handsome.” The blonde spun away
from the bar and eyed me like a hungry predator.
“Veronica.” Camille’s sweet voice turned stern. “This is Sebastian,
Link and Hal’s boss.”
“What are you drinking?” Veronica held up one finger, and the
bartender walked right over.
“I’ll have whatever you’re having.” I smiled, feigning interest as
Link stared daggers at me. I needed to throw him off, make him
think my interest lay elsewhere.
Veronica nodded. “Good choice.”
“I think I’m going to call it a night.” Hal stood and retrieved his
credit card from the bartender.
“So soon?” Link clapped him on the back. “We just got here.”
 Hal glanced to Camille and signed his tab in a hurry. Interesting.
“I’ve got a tennis lesson set first thing tomorrow. I forgot about it.”
“You? Tennis?” Link popped a toothpick between his lips.
“Seriously?”
“Yep.” Hal tucked his wallet into his back pocket and gave a small
wave. “Nice to see you ladies. And gents, I’ll catch you at the office
on Monday.” He hurried away through the crowd.
“What was that all about?” Link claimed Hal’s seat at the bar and
pulled Camille between his thighs.
“Tennis, I guess.” Camille answered a little too quickly, then took
a gulp from her martini glass.
“That guy playing tennis?” Link rested his fingers along Camille’s
hips. “Not a chance.”
I followed the movement of his fingertips, the slight pressure he
exerted on her. A vision of him with a knife protruding from his neck
made me smile.
Link returned my grin. “You imagining him on the court too?”
“Yes, funny.” I took a high ball glass from Veronica and sipped at
the smoky liquor inside. It burned on the way down, but I’d always
enjoyed pain. It was one of the few things that made me feel
human.
Camille set her half-full glass down. “I think I’ve already had
enough. That thing was strong.”
“You kidding?” Veronica took the drink and tossed it back, a
twisted lemon rind dangling from the side. She slapped the glass
down and leaned one elbow against the bar, her eyes roving me.
“Tell me more about being the boss.”
Flirting was not a particular skill in my repertoire, mainly because
it required me to appear warm and interested in people who bored
me. But, to get Link off my scent and keep Camille in my sights, it
was a necessary evil.
I adopted what I hoped was a devilish smile. “I enjoy taking
charge, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Meow. Aren’t these uncomfortable?” Veronica slid her hands up
my tie. “Wouldn’t you like me to get it off?”
 I cycled through my possible responses and settled on: “Hit me
with your best shot.”
She licked her lips and worked her fingers into the perfect double
Windsor at my throat.
Camille hissed, “Link’s boss.”
Veronica made quick work of the top button, her fingertips
dancing along my skin. There was no spark, no attraction like there
had been with Camille. I didn’t need to own Veronica, didn’t feel the
need to leave my marks on her tan skin.
“Much better.” Veronica smiled up at me, her red pout begging
for attention I wouldn’t be giving.
“Thank you.”
Link nuzzled into Camille’s hair and whispered in her ear. She
shifted to her right foot as her skin flushed crimson.
I snap up the empty martini glass, smash it on the bar, and jab
the sharp end into his chest. He screams. Blood gurgles from his
wound, coating my hand with crimson. Camille looks at me with
horror as I smear Link’s blood across my face, then pull her in for a
kiss.
“Sebastian?”
I heard my name and blinked twice. “Yeah?”
“Where’d you go there, buddy?” Link stood, taking Camille’s hand
in his.
“Just thinking of good times.”
“I know what you mean.” He nodded. “If you two don’t mind, I
think I’d like to take Camille out for a quiet dinner.”
“Ditching already?” Veronica wrinkled her nose.
“I thought you were going clubbing?” Link pressed his lips to
Camille’s hair as he spoke to Veronica.
He always had to touch her, and it was getting under my skin.
“Trying to get rid of me?” Veronica handed the bartender a nice
tip.
“No.” Link’s hands said otherwise, roving along Camille’s waist
and stomach. The fucker was torturing me. “I thought you had
plans. And I was under the impression Camille wanted to spend
some time with me tonight.”
 Camille paused. “Actually, Link’s right. We’ve got some things to
discuss.” She shot Veronica a look that I couldn’t decipher.
Though I was in the dark, Veronica picked up on the cue. “Right.
Since Link wants to get our darling Camille alone, do you have plans,
Sebastian?” Veronica hooked her arm through mine.
Fuck. I wanted nothing to do with Veronica, but Link had already
staked his claim on Camille for the evening. I couldn’t tip my hand,
not this early. I would have to let her go.
“I’m afraid I have a pile of work to get started on tonight, so
please accept a raincheck.” I patted her hand and slid it off me.
“Your loss.” She leaned over and kissed Camille on the cheek.
“Text me later.”
“Okay.” Camille hugged her friend, who turned and sauntered out
of the bar, leaving several men gawking in her wake.
Link stood and helped Camille with her coat. I marked each point
of contact, determined to cover over every spot where he touched
her with my own firm hands.
“Can you get us a taxi?” Camille squeezed Link’s bicep.
He gave me a wary look, but agreed. “Sure thing. I’ll be outside.
Good to see you, Sebastian.”
“Same here.”
Once he was out of earshot, Camille leaned closer, her sweet
scent dulling my senses. “Sorry about this. I’d love to have dinner
with you and Veronica, but I have some stuff to discuss with Link
about Christmas break. And he might be, um…” She chewed on her
thumbnail. “I don’t know how he’ll react.”
“No apology needed.”
“Sorry if that was TMI.”
“TMI?”
“Too much information.” She gave a wry smile.
“Not at all.”
“Well.” She glanced toward the front door. “I’d better go.”
I caught her hand in mine and pulled it to my lips, kissing her
knuckles gently. “Always a pleasure, Camille.”
Her cheeks pinked, and someone elbowed past me to claim our
vacated seats. I released her hand, and she backed away.
 My heartburn kicked in again. It was becoming a real problem. I
had a stash of Tums in my penthouse for when these little episodes
hit, though they didn’t seem to do much good.
“I guess I’ll see you around.” She turned and maneuvered
through the crowd.
I closed my fist, retaining all the heat from her small hand as I
watched her disappear. “Yes, you will.”

OceanofPDF.com
 7
CAMILLE

V eronica’s apartment was empty when I arrived back there after a

long dinner with Link. I dropped my bag on the table next to
the door and headed to her bedroom. Sinking onto her queen sized
mattress, I let out a long sigh, grateful for the relative quiet.
Link had taken the news of my Amazon trip as well as I could
have hoped. He’d been disappointed, complaining that it was time
for me to move to the city. So sincere and caring, he’d meant well,
but I wanted to do a little more exploring before I settled down.
I turned and buried my face in the pillow when I remembered
how he’d almost begged me to come home with him. His hands on
my body, the way he crushed his lips against mine—it was like he
was trying to cage me. My body reacted, but not to the point of
losing control. I couldn’t figure out what was holding me back. Link
was perfect: great job, smart, handsome, and patient. So why
wouldn’t I give him what he wanted? I didn’t have an answer.
I’d ended up back where I’d begun my evening, worrying myself
to pieces while lying in Veronica’s bed. A set of keys jangled in the
lock, and the click clack of Veronica’s heels met my ears.
“You back already?” I rolled over and looked down the hallway.
“Yeah, I wasn’t feeling the scene tonight. Too many hipsters are
invading further uptown. Skinny jeans everywhere, and not on the
women.” She made a gagging noise and flopped on the bed next to
me. “How did Link handle the Amazon news?”
Another random document with
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 THE CRYSTALLISING OF THE NEO-CLASSIC CREED.

CHAPTER I.

FROM MALHERBE TO BOILEAU.

The supplanting of Italy by 240 The history of Boileau’s 280
France reputation
Brilliancy of the French 241 The Art Poétique 281
representatives Its false literary history 281
Malherbe 242 Abstract of it 282
The Commentary on 244 Critical examination of it 286
Desportes Want of originality 287
What can be said for his 246 Faults of method 287
criticism
Obsession of good sense 288
Its defects stigmatised at 247
once by Regnier Arbitrary proscriptions 289
His Ninth Satire 247 Boileau’s other works 290
The contrast of the two a 249 The Satires 290
lasting one The Epigrams and Epistles 292
The diffusion of seventeenth 250 Prose—The Héros de 292
century criticism Roman; the Réflexions sur
Vaugelas 251 Longin
Balzac 252 The “Dissertation on 293
Joconde”
His Letters 252
A “Solifidian of Good Sense” 295
His critical Dissertations 253
The plea for his practical 296
Ogier and the Preface to Tyr 254 services
et Sidon
Historical examination of this 296
Chapelain: the 257
hopelessness of his verse Concluding remarks on him 299
The interest of his criticism 257 La Bruyère and Fénelon 300
The Sentiments de 258 The “Des Ouvrages de 301
l’Académie sur le Cid l’Esprit”
Prefaces 259 General observations 302
Sur les Vieux Romans 260 Judgments of authors 303
Letters, &c. 261 Fénelon. The Dialogues sur 305
l’Eloquence
Corneille 261
Sur les Occupations de 306
The Three Discourses 263 l’Académie Française
The Examens 263 A d it h ll t 307
The Examens 263 And its challenge to 307
La Mesnardière—Sarrasin— 264 correctness
Scudéry The Abbé D’Aubignac 309
Mambrun 266 His Pratique du Théâtre 309
Saint-Evremond 268 Rapin 310
His critical quality and 269 His method partly good 311
accomplishment
His particular absurdities as 311
His views on Corneille 270 to Homer in blame
On Christian subjects, &c. 270 As to Virgil in praise 312
On Ancients and Moderns 270 As to others 313
Gui Patin—his judgment of 272 The reading of his riddle 313
Browne
Le Bossu and the Abstract 314
Tallemant, Pellisson, 273 Epic
Ménage, Madame de
Sévigné Bouhours 315
The Ana other than 274 Encyclopædias and 316
Ménage’s, especially Newspapers
The Huetiana 275 Bayle 316
Valesiana 275 Baillet 317
Scaligerana 276 The ethos of a Critical 318
Pedant
And Parrhasiana 276
Gibert 319
Patru, Desmarets, and 277
others The Ancient and Modern 320
Quarrel
Malebranche 279
Its small critical value 321

CHAPTER II.

THE ITALIAN DECADENCE AND THE SPANIARDS.

Decadence of Italian 323 Poetics: Rengifo 337
Criticism Pinciano 338
Paolo Beni 324 La Cueva 341
Possevino: his Bibliotheca 325 Carvallo 341
Selecta Gonzales de Salas 341
Tassoni: his Pensieri Diversi 326 The Cigarrales of Tirso de 343
Aromatari 328 Molina
His Degli Autori del Ben 329 Lope’s Arte Nuevo, &c. 344
Parlare His assailants and 346
Boccalini and Minors 329 defenders
Influence of the Ragguagli 330 The fight over the Spanish 347
The set of Seicentist taste 331 drama
Spanish criticism: highly 331 Cervantes and Calderon 347
ranked by Dryden? Gongorism, Culteranism, &c. 349
The Origins—Villena 333 Quevedo 349
Santillana 333 Gracián 349
Encina 335 The limitations of Spanish 350
Valdés 335 criticism
The beginning of regular 336
Criticism. Humanist
Rhetoricians

CHAPTER III.

GERMAN AND DUTCH CRITICISM.

The hindmost of all 352 Heinsius: the De Tragœdiæ 356
Origins 353 Constitutione
Sturm 353 Voss 357
Fabricius 354 His Rhetoric 358
Version A. 354 His Poetics 359
Version B. 354 Opitz 360
Jac. Pontanus 355 The Buch der Deutschen 361
Poeterei

CHAPTER IV.

DRYDEN AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES.

Dead water in English 365 The Essay on Satire and the 385
Criticism Dedication of the Æneis
Milton 365 The Parallel of Poetry and 386
Cowley 366 Painting
The Prefatory matter of 367 The Preface to the Fables 386
Gondibert Dryden’s general critical 386
The “Heroic Poem” 368 position
Davenant’s Examen 369 His special critical method 387
Hobbes’s Answer 370 Dryden and Boileau 389
Dryden 371 Rymer 391
His advantages 372 The Preface to Rapin 392
The early Prefaces 373 The Tragedies of the Last 394
The Essay of Dramatic 376 Age
Poesy The Short View of Tragedy 395
Its setting and overture 376 The Rule of Tom the Second 397
Crites for the Ancients 377 Sprat 398
Eugenius for the “last age” 378 Edward Phillips 398
Lisideius for the French 378 His Theatrum Poetarum 399
Dryden for England and 379 Winstanley’s Lives 400
Liberty Langbaine’s Dramatic Poets 400
Coda on rhymed plays, and 380 Temple 401
conclusion Bentley 401
Conspicuous merits of the 381 Collier’s Short View 402
piece Sir T. P. Blount 404
The Middle Prefaces 382 Periodicals: The Athenian 406
Mercury, &c.
INTERCHAPTER V. 407

BOOK VI.

EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ORTHODOXY.

CHAPTER I.

FROM ADDISON TO JOHNSON.

Criticism at Dryden’s death 426 Trapp 462
Bysshe’s Art of English 426 Blair 462
Poetry The Lectures on Rhetoric 463
 Poetry The Lectures on Rhetoric 463
Gildon 429 The Dissertation on Ossian 464
Welsted 430 Kames 465
Dennis 431 The Elements of Criticism 466
On Rymer 432 Campbell 470
On Shakespeare 434 The Philosophy of Rhetoric 470
On “Machines” 435 Harris 473
His general theory of Poetry 435 The Philological Enquiries 474
Addison 437 “Estimate” Brown: his 476
The Account of the Best 438 History of Poetry
known English Poets Johnson: his preparation for 477
The Spectator criticisms 440 criticism
On True and False Wit 441 The Rambler on Milton 480
On Tragedy 441 On Spenser 482
On Milton 443 On History and Letter-writing 483
The “Pleasures of the 444 On Tragi-comedy 483
Imagination” “Dick Minim” 484
His general critical value 447 Rasselas 484
Steele 448 The Shakespeare Preface 485
Atterbury 449 The Lives of the Poets 486
Swift 450 Their general merits 487
The Battle of the Books 450 The Cowley 489
The Tale of a Tub 451 The Milton 489
Minor works 451 The Dryden and Pope 490
Pope 452 The Collins and Gray 491
The Letters 453 The critical greatness of the 493
The Shakespeare Preface 454 Lives and of Johnson
Spence’s Anecdotes 454 Minor Criticism: Periodical 496
The Essay on Criticism 455 and other
The Epistle to Augustus 457 Goldsmith 498
Remarks on Pope as a critic 457 Vicesimus Knox 499
And the critical attitude of his 460 Scott of Amwell 500
group
Philosophical and 461
Professional Critics

CHAPTER II.
 THE CONTEMPORARIES OF VOLTAIRE.
Close connection of French 501 Examples of it 515
seventeenth and Causes of his failure 518
eighteenth century Others: Buffon 519
Criticism: Fontenelle
“Style and the man” 520
Exceptional character of his 502
criticism Vauvenargues 521
His attitude to the “Ancient 503 Batteux 522
and Modern” Quarrel His adjustment of Rules and 523
The Dialogues des Morts 503 Taste
Other critical work 504 His incompleteness 524
La Motte 507 Marmontel 525
His “Unity of Interest” 508 Oddities and qualities of his 526
criticism
Rollin 509
Others 529
Brumoy 509
Thomas, Suard, &c. 529
Rémond de Saint-Mard 510
La Harpe 530
L. Racine 511
His Cours de Littérature 530
Du Bos 511
His critical position as 531
Stimulating but desultory 512 ultimus suorum
character of his Réflexions
The Academic Essay 533
Montesquieu 514
Rivarol 534
Voltaire: disappointment of 515
his criticism

CHAPTER III.

CLASSICISM IN THE OTHER NATIONS.

Preliminary remarks 537 Neo-classicism triumphs in 546
Temporary revival of Italian 538 Spain
Criticism The absurdities of Artiga 547
Gravina 538 Luzán 548
Muratori: his Della Perfetta 541 The rest uninteresting 549
Poesia Feyjóo, Isla, and others 549
Crescimbeni 542 Rise at last of German 550
Quadrio 542 Criticism
The emergence of literary 545 Its school time 551
history Classicism at bay almost 552
Further decadence of Italian 545 from the first—Gottsched
criticism The Versuch einer 553
Metastasio 546 Critischen Dichtkunst
Its chief idea 553
Specimen details 555
Gellert: he transacts 557

INTERCHAPTER VI.
§ I. THE NEMESIS OF CORRECTNESS 559
§ II. THE BALANCE-SHEET OF NEO-CLASSIC CRITICISM 566

INDEX 579
 BOOK IV

RENAISSANCE CRITICISM

“Le materie da scienza, o da arte, o da istoria

comprese, possano esser convenevoli soggetti a
poesia, e a poemi, pure che poeticamente sieno
trattate.”—Patrizzi.
 CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY—ERASMUS.
THE CRITICAL STARTING-POINT OF THE RENAISSANCE—INFLUENCES AT
WORK: GENERAL—PARTICULAR—WEAKNESS OF VERNACULARS—
RECOVERY OF ANCIENT CRITICISM—NECESSITY OF DEFENCE
AGAINST PURITANISM—THE LINE OF CRITICISM RESULTANT—NOT
NECESSARILY ANTI-MEDIÆVAL, BUT CLASSICAL AND ANTI-PURITAN—
ERASMUS—THE ‘CICERONIANUS'—THE ‘COLLOQUIES’—THE
‘LETTERS’—DISTRIBUTION OF THE BOOK.

We saw, in the second section of the Interchapter which served as

Conclusion to the first volume of this work, to what a point the Middle
The Critical starting- Ages had brought the materials and the
point of the methods of Literary Criticism, and what the
Renaissance. new age with its combined opportunities
might have done. We also endeavoured to indicate generally, and so
to speak, proleptically, what it did not do. It is now time to examine
what it did: and in the course of the examination to develop the
reasons, the character, and the consequences, both of its
commission and of its abstention.[1]
If no period has ever been more guilty of that too usual injustice to
predecessors which we noted, it is fair to acknowledge that none had
greater temptations to such injustice. The breach between the
Classical and the Dark Ages had been almost astonishingly gradual
—so gradual that it has needed no great hardiness of paradox to
enable men to deny that there was any breach at all. On the other
hand, though the breach at the Renaissance[2] is capable of being,
and has sometimes been, much exaggerated; though it was
preceded by a considerable transition period, and though mediæval
characteristics survived it long and far, yet the turning over of the
new leaf is again incontestable, and was as necessary in the order of
thought as it is certain in the sequence of fact.
It is not much more than a hundred years since the French
Revolution, a single event in one department only of things actual,
Influences at was sufficient to precipitate a change which is only
work: General. less—which some would hold likely to be not less—
than the change at the beginning of the Dark Ages, and the change
at the end of the Middle. At the Renaissance, not one but three or
four such events, in as many different departments, brought their
shock to bear upon the life and mind of Europe. The final
disappearance of the Eastern Empire, and the apparent—perhaps,
indeed, a little more than apparent—danger of a wide and
considerable barbarian invasion of even Western Europe, with the
balancing of this after a sort a little later by the extinction of the
Moorish power in Spain, coincided, as regards politics, with a
general tendency throughout Europe towards the change of feudal
into centralised monarchy. The determination (resulting no doubt
from no single cause, and taking effect after long preparation) of
direct, practical, and extensive study to the Classics, especially to
Greek, affected not merely literature, but almost everything of which
literature treats. The invention of printing enormously facilitated, not
merely the study but, the diffusion and propagation of ideas and
patterns. The discovery of America, and of the sea-route to the East,
excited that spirit of exploration and adventure which, once aroused,
is sure not to limit itself to the material world. And, lastly, the long-
threatened and at last realised protest against the corruptions of the
Christian Church, and the domination of the Pope, unsettled, directly
or indirectly, every convention, every compromise, every accepted
doctrine. In fact, to use the words of one of the greatest of English
writers,[3] in what is perhaps his most brilliant passage, “in the fabric
of habit which they had so laboriously built for themselves, men
could remain no longer.”
Their critical habits, as we have seen sufficiently in the last Book,
had been mainly negative; and for this reason, if for no other, a
considerable critical development would have been certain to spring
up. But there were other reasons, and powerful ones. In the first
place, the atmosphere of revolt which was abroad necessarily
breeds, or rather necessarily implies, criticism. A few, whom the
equal Jove has loved, may be able to criticise while acquiescing,
approving, even loving and strenuously championing; but this equity
is not exceedingly common, and the general tendency of
acceptance, and even of acquiescence, is distinctly uncritical. On the
other hand, the rebel is driven either to his rebellion by the exercise
of his critical faculty, or to the exercise of his critical faculty in order
to justify his rebellion. I do not myself hold that the Devil was the first
critic. I have not the slightest desire to serve myself and my subject
heirs to that spirit unfortunate; but I recognise the necessity of some
argument to rebut the filiation.
And that these generalities should become particular in reference
to Literary Criticism more especially, there were additional and
Particular. momentous inducements of two different kinds. In
the first place, the malcontents with the immediate
past must in any case have been drawn to attack the literary side of
its battlements, because of their extreme weakness. Everywhere but
in the two extremities of the West, Italy and Scotland (the latter,
owing to the very small bulk of its literary production, and the
rudimentary condition of its language, being hardly an exception at
all), the fifteenth century, even with a generous eking from the
earliest sixteenth, had been a time of literary torpor and literary
decadence, relieved only by a few—a very few—brilliant individual
performances. In England the successors of Chaucer, not content
with carrying his method and his choice of subject no further, had
almost incomprehensibly lost command of both. In France the
rhétoriqueur school of poets had degenerated less in form, but had
been almost equally unable to show any progress, or even any
Weakness of maintained command, of matter. Germany was far
Vernaculars. worse than either. If Chaucer himself could criticise,
indirectly but openly, the faults of the still vigorous and beautiful
romance—of the romance which in his own country was yet to boast
Chester in verse and Malory in prose—how much more must any
one with sharp sense and sound taste, at the beginning of the
sixteenth century, have been tempted to apply some similar process
to the fossilised formalism of rondeau and ballade; to the lifeless and
lumbering allegory of the latest “Rose” imitations; to the “aureate,” or
rather tinselled, bombast of Chastellain and Robertet?
But, as it happened, no inconsiderable part of the newly
disinterred classics dealt with this very subject of Literary Criticism,
and, having been most neglected, was certain to be most attended
Recovery of to. Later mediæval practice had provided the
Ancient examples of disease: earlier classical theory was to
Criticism. provide the remedy. Plato, the most cherished of the
recovered treasures, had—in his own peculiar way, no doubt—
criticised very largely; the Poetics and the Rhetoric were quickly set
afresh before the new age in the originals; Horace had always been
known; Quintilian was, since Rhetoric had not yet fallen into
disfavour, studied direct;[4] and, before the sixteenth century was half
over, Longinus himself had been unearthed and presented to a world
which (if it had chosen to attend thereto) was also for the first time
furnished with Dante’s critical performance.[5] With such an arsenal;
with such a disposition of mind abroad; and with such real or
imagined enemies to attack, it would have been odd if the forces of
criticism, so long disorganised, and indeed disembodied, had not
taken formidable shape.
There was, however, yet another influence which is not very easy
to estimate, and which has sometimes perhaps been not quite rightly
estimated, but which undoubtedly had a great deal to do with the
Necessity of matter. Almost as soon as—almost before indeed—
defence the main battle of the Renaissance engaged itself,
against certain phenomena, not unusual in similar cases,
Puritanism.
made their appearance. Men of letters, humanists,
students, were necessarily the protagonists of revolt or reform. There
had always, as we have seen, been a certain jealousy of Letters on
the part of the Church; and this was not likely to be lessened in the
new arrangement of circumstance. But the jealousy was by no
means confined to the party of order and of the defence. It had been
necessary, or it would have had no rank-and-file, for the attack to
enlist the descendants of the old Lollards and other opponents of the
Romish Church in different countries. But in these, to no small
extent, and in men like Calvin, when they made their appearance,
perhaps still more, the Puritan dislike of Art, and of Literature as part
of Art, was even more rampant than in the obscurest of obscuri viri
on the Catholic and Conservative side. And so men of letters had not
merely to attack what they thought unworthy and obsolete foes of
literature, but to defend literature itself from their own political and
ecclesiastical allies.
 The line which they took had been taken before, and was no doubt
partly suggested to them by Boccaccio in the remarkable book
already referred to[6]—the De Genealogia Deorum—which was
The line of repeatedly printed in the early days of the press.
criticism There can be very little question that this anticipates
resultant. the peculiar tone of what we may call anti-Platonic
Platonism, which is so noticeable in the Italian critics of the
Renaissance, and which was caught from them by Englishmen of
great note and worth, from Sidney to Milton. The excellent historian
of the subject—whom I have already quoted, and my indebtedness
to whom must not be supposed to be repudiated because I cannot
agree with him on some important points—is, I think, entirely wrong
in speaking of mediæval “distrust of literature,” while the statement
with which he supports this, that “popular literature had fallen into
decay, and, in its contemporary form, was beneath serious
consideration,”[7] is so astonishing, that I fear we must class it with
those judicia ignorantium of which our general motto speaks. In his
context Mr Spingarn mentions, as examples of mediæval treatment
of literature, Fulgentius, Isidore, John of Salisbury, Dante, Boccaccio.
What “popular” (by which I presume is meant vernacular) literature
was there in the times of Fulgentius or of Isidore? Is not the
statement that “popular literature had fallen into decay” in the time of
Dante self-exploded? And the same may be said of Boccaccio. As
for John of Salisbury, he certainly, as we have seen,[8] was not much
of a critic himself; but that popular literature was decaying in his time
is a statement which no one who knows the Chansons de Gestes
and the Arthurian Legend can accept for one moment; while the
documents also quoted supra, the Labyrinthus, the Nova Poetria,
and the rest—entirely disprove any “distrust” of letters.
The truth is, with submission to Mr Spingarn, that there never was
any such, except from the Puritan-religious side, and that this was by
Not no means specially conspicuous in the Middle Ages.
necessarily The “Defence of Poesy,” and of literature generally,
anti-mediæval, which animates men so different as Boccaccio and
Milton, as Scaliger and Sidney, is no direct revolt against the Middle
Ages at all, but, as has been said, a discourse Pro Domo, in the first
place, against the severer and more obscurantist partisans of
Catholicism, who were disposed to dislike men of letters as
Reformers, and literature as the instrument of Reformation;
secondly, and much more urgently, against the Puritan and Philistine
variety of Protestantism itself, which so soon turned against its
literary leaders and allies. And the special form which this defence
took was in turn mainly conditioned, not by anti-mediæval animus,
but in part by the circumstances of the case, in part by the character
of the critical weapons which men found in their new arsenal of the
Classics.
Classical Criticism, as we have seen in the preceding volume, had
invariably in theory, and almost as invariably in practice, confined
itself wholly or mainly to the consideration of “the subject.” Although
but classical Aristotle himself had not denied the special pleasure
of art and the various kinds of art, although Plato, in
distrusting and denouncing, had admitted the psychagogic faculties
thereof; yet nobody except Longinus had boldly identified the chief
end of it with “transport,” not with persuasion, with edification, or
anything of the kind. Accordingly, those who looked to the ancients to
help them against the Obscuri Viri on the one hand, and against
good Puritan folk like our own Ascham on the other, were almost
bound to keep the pleasure of poetry and literature generally in the
background; or, if they brought it to the front at all, to extol it and
defend it on ethical and philosophical, not on æsthetic grounds.
Taking a hint from their “sweet enemy” Plato, from Plutarch, and from
such neo-Platonic utterances as that tractate of Plotinus, which has
been discussed in its place,[9] they set themselves to prove that
poetry was not a sweet pleasant deceit or corrupting influence in the
republic, but a stronghold and rampart of religious and philosophical
and anti- truth. Calling in turn Aristotle to their assistance, and
Puritan. working him in with his master and rival, they dwelt
with redoubled and at length altogether misleading and misled
energy on “Action,” “Unity,” and the like. And when they did consider
form it was, always or too often, from the belittling point of view of
the ancients themselves in spirit, and from the meticulous point of
view of Horace (who had always been known) in detail. Here and
there in such a man as Erasmus (v. infra), who was nothing if not
sensible, we find the Gellian and Macrobian particularisms taken up
with a really progressive twist towards inquiry as to the bearing of
these particularities on the pleasure of the reader. But Erasmus was
writing in the “false dawn”; the Puritan tyranny of Protestantism on
the one side, and of the Catholic revival on the other, had not
brought back a partial night as yet; and some of the best as well as
some of the worst characteristics of the new age inclined those of his
immediate successors rather than contemporaries, who adopted
criticism directly, to quite different ways.
It would, however, be a glaring omission if the critical position of
Erasmus himself were not set forth at some length.[10] Standing as he
Erasmus. does, the most eminent literary figure of Europe on
the bridge of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,
nothing if not critical as he is in his general temperament, and on the
textual and exegetical, if not on the strictly literary sides of the Art,
one of its great historical figures—his absence from this gallery
would be justly regarded as inexcusable. And if his voluminous work
does not yield us very much within the more special and fully
enfranchising lines of our system, it might be regarded as a sufficient
answer to say that the imperfection of the vernaculars, his own
concentration on particular forms of Biblical and patristic text-
criticism, and that peculiar cosmopolitanism which made him
practically of no country at all, served to draw him away from a
practice in which he would, but for these circumstances and
conditions, have certainly indulged.
It may, however, be doubted whether Erasmus would ever have
made a capital figure as a purely literary critic. Very great man of
letters as he was, and almost wholly literary as were his interests,
those interests were suspiciously directed towards the applied rather
than the pure aspects of literature—were, in short, per se rather
scientific than literary proper. It is at least noteworthy that the
Ciceronianus (though Erasmus was undoubtedly on the right side in
it) was directed against a purely literary folly, against an
exaggeration of one of the tastes and appetites which spur on the
critic. And it is almost enough to read the Adagia and
Apophthegmata—books much forgotten now, but written with
enormous zest and pains by him, and received with corresponding
attention and respect by two whole centuries at least—to see how
much is there left out which a literary critic pur sang could not but
have said.
The Ciceronianus, however, must receive a little fuller treatment,
both because of its intimate connection with our subject, and
because hardly any work of Erasmus, except the Colloquies, so
definitely estates him in the new position of critical man of letters, as
distinguished from that of philosophical or rhetorical teacher. The
The piece[11] (which has for its second title De Optimo
Ciceronianus. Dicendi Genere) did not appear, and could not have
appeared, very early in his career. He might even, in the earlier part
of that career, have been slow to recognise the popular exaggeration
which, as in the other matter of the Reformation itself, struck his
maturer intelligence. He glances at its genesis in divers of his letters,
to Budæus, to Alciatus, and others, from 1527 onwards, and the
chief “begetter” of it seems to have been the Flemish scholar,
Longolius (Christophe de Longueil), who during the latter part of his
short life was actually very much such a fanatic as the Nosoponus of
the dialogue. This person is described by his friends Bulephorus and
Hypologus as olim rubicundulus, obesulus, Veneribus et gratiis
undique scatens, but now an austere shadow, who has no aspiration
in life but to be “Ciceronian.” In order to achieve this distinction, he
has given his days and nights wholly to the study of Cicero. The
“copy” of his Ciceronian lexicon would already overload two stout
porters. He has noted the differing sense of every word, whether
alone or in context; and by the actual occurrence, not merely of the
word itself, but of its form and case, he will be absolutely governed.
Thus, if you are to be a true Ciceronian, you may say ornatus and
ornatissimus, but not ornatior; while, though nasutus is permitted to
you, both comparative and superlative are barred. In the same way,
he will only pass the actual cases and numbers found in the
Arpinate; though every one but, let us say, the dative plural occurs,
the faithful must not presume to usurp that dative. Further, he
intends to reduce the whole of Cicero to quantitative rhythm, fully
specified; and in his own writing he thinks he has done well if he
accomplishes one short period in a winter night. The piece begins
with the characteristic Erasmian banter,—Nosoponus is a bachelor,
and Bulephorus observes that it is just as well, for his wife would in
the circumstances either make an irruption into the study, and turn it
topsy-turvy, or console herself with somebody else in some other
place,—but by degrees becomes more serious, and ends with a sort
of adjustment of most ancient and many modern Latin writers to the
Ciceronian point of view.
That Erasmus, with his usual shrewdness, hits the great blot of the
time—the merely literal and “Capernaite” interpretation of the
classics—is perhaps less surprising than that he should hit such
much later crazes as the Flaubertian devotion of a night to a clause,
and the still prevalent reluctance of many really literary persons to
allow a reasonable analogy and extension from the actual practice of
authority. It was inevitable that he should offend the pedants (from
Scaliger downwards), and be attacked by them with the usual
scurrility; and it is not quite certain that any but very few of his
readers thoroughly sympathised with him. In this as in other matters
he was not so much before his time (for the time of the wise is a
nunc stans), as outside of the time of his contemporaries. But even
here we see that he was still of that time as well. He has no real
sympathy with the vernaculars, nor any comprehension of the fact
that they are on equal literary terms with the classical tongues; and
even in regard to this—even when he is vindicating the freedom of
the letter—his thoughts are fixed on the letter mainly.
That it was better so, there can be no doubt. Literary criticism
proper could wait: correction of the mediæval habit of indiscriminate
acceptance of texts could not. And still, as it is, we have from
Erasmus not a little agreeable material of that kind which we have
sedulously gathered in the preceding volume; which, from men like
him, we shall not neglect in this; but for which there will be
decreasingly little and less room, both here and still more in the “not
impossible” third.
Considering the very wide range in subject of the Colloquies,[12] it
is not quite insignificant that literary matters have but a small place in
them; there is perhaps more significance still in the nature of the
The treatment where it does occur. The chief locus is
Colloquies. inevitably the Convivium Poeticum, where, except
the account of the feast itself, and the excellent by-play with the
termagant gouvernante Margaret, the whole piece is literary, and in a
manner critical. But the manner is wholly verbal; or else concerned
with the very mint and anise of form. A various reading in Terence
from a codex of Linacre’s; the possibility of eliding or slurring the
consonantal v; whether Exilis in the Palinode to Canidia is a noun or
a verb; whether the Ambrosian rhymes are to be scanned on strict
metrical principles; the mistakes made by Latin translators of
Aristotle,—this is the farrago libelluli. I must particularly beg to be
understood as not in the least slighting these discussions. They had
to be done; it is our great debt on this side to the Renaissance that it
got over the doing of them for us in so many cases; they are the
necessary preliminary to all criticism—nay, they are an important
part of criticism itself. But they are only the rudiments.
The Concio, sive Merdardus, after an explanation of the offensive
sub-title (which has less of good-humoured superiority, and more of
the snappish Humanist temper, than is usual with Erasmus), declines
into similar matters of reading and rendering—here in reference not
to profane but to sacred literature. And the curious Conflictus Thaliæ
et Barbariei, which is more dramatically arranged than most of the
Colloquies, and may even have taken a hint from the French Morality
of Science et Asnerye,[13] loses, as it may seem to us, an opportunity
of being critical in the best and real kind. The antagonists exchange
a good deal of abuse, which on Thalia’s part extends to some
mediæval writers cited by Barbaries (among whom our poor old
friend John of Garlandia rather unfairly figures), and the piece, which
is short, ends with a contest in actual citation of verse—Leonine and
scholastic enough on the part of Barbaries, gracefully enough
pastiched from the classics on the part of Thalia. But Erasmus either
deliberately declines, or simply does not perceive, the opening given
for a critical indication of the charms of purity and the deformities of
barbarism.
To thread the mighty maze of the Letters[14] completely, for the
critical utterances to be picked up there, were more tempting than
strictly incumbent on the present adventurer, who has, however, not
neglected a reasonable essay at the adventure. The adroit and
good-humoured attempt to soothe the poetic discontent of Eobanus
Hessus, who thought Erasmus had not paid him proper attention,[15]
contains, for instance, a little matter of the kind, and several
references to contemporary Latin poets. The most important thing,
perhaps, is the opinion—sensible as usual with the writer—that, as
the knowledge of Greek becomes more and more extended,
translation of it into Latin is more and more lost labour. But Erasmus,
as we should expect, evidently has more at heart the questions of
“reading and rendering” which fill his correspondence with Budæus
and others. To take the matter in order, a curious glimpse of the
literary manners, as well as the literary judgments, of the time is
afforded by an enclosure in a letter to John Watson of Cambridge.
Watson wanted to know what Erasmus had been doing, and
Erasmus, answering indirectly, sends him a letter on the subject by
The Letters. one Adrian Barland of Louvain to his brother. Some
incidental expressions here about Euripides as
nobilissimus poeta, and Apuleius as producing pestilentissimas
facetias, are more valuable to us than the copious laudations of
Barland on Erasmus’ own work, which pass without any “Spare my
blushes!” from the recipient and transmitter. We note that the moral
point of view is still uppermost, though the observations are taken
from a different angle. Aristophanes would have regarded Euripides
as much more “pestilent,” morally speaking, than Apuleius. The long
and necessarily complimentary letter (ii. 1) to Leo the Tenth contains
some praise of Politian and much of Jerome, on whom Erasmus was
then engaged; and while the language of this correspondence
naturally abounds in Ciceronian hyperbole, it is not insignificant that
Erasmus describes the Father with the Lion as omni in genere
litterarum absolutissimus, which, assuming any real meaning in it, is
not quite critical, though Jerome was certainly no small man of
letters. The letter to Henry Bovill (ii. 10), which contains the famous
story of “mumpsimus” and “sumpsimus,” as well as the almost
equally famous account of the studies of the University of Cambridge
in the ninth decade of the fifteenth century, contains also a notable
division of his own critics of the unfavourable kind. They are aut
adeo morosi ut nihil omnino probent nisi quod ipsi faciunt; aut adeo
stolidi ut nihil sentiant; aut adeo stupidi ut nec legant quod carpunt;
aut adeo indocti ut nihil judicent; aut adeo gloriæ jejuni avidique ut
carpendis aliorum laboribus sibi laudem parent. And their children
are alive with us unto this day.
 There is a very curious, half modest and severe, half confident
criticism of his own verses in ii. 22. He admits that there is nothing
“tumultuous” in them, “no torrent overflowing its banks,” no deinosis:
but claims elegance and Atticism. It would be perhaps unfair to
attach the character of deliberate critical utterance to his effusive
laudation of the style of Colet in an early letter (v. 4, dated 1498, but
Mr Seebohm has thrown doubt on these dates, and Mr Nichols
appears to be completely redistributing them), as placidus sedatus
inaffectatus, fontis limpidissimi in morem ditissimo e pectore scatens,
æqualis, sui undique similis, apertus, simplex, modestiæ plenus, nihil
usquam habens scabri contorti conturbati. But it is interesting, and
significant of his own performances, as is the comparison (v. 19) of
Jerome and Cicero as masters of rhetoric. The somewhat
intemperate and promiscuous contempt of mediæval writing which
appears in the Conflictus (vide supra) reappears, with the very same
names mentioned, in an epistle (vii. 3), Cornelio Suo, of 1490, which,
if it be rightly dated, must be long anterior to the Colloquy. But a
much more important expression of critical opinion than any of these
appears in v. 20 to Ammonius, where Erasmus gives his views on
poetry at large. They are much what we should suspect or expect
beforehand. Some folk, he says, think that a poem is not a poem
unless you poke in all the gods from heaven, and from earth, and
from under the earth. He has always liked poetry which is at no great
distance from prose—but the best prose.[16] He likes rhetorical poetry
and poetical rhetoric. He does not care for far-fetched thoughts; let
the poet stick to his subject, but give fair attention to smoothness of
versification. “Prose and sense,” in short: with a little rhetoric and
versification added.
But on such matters he always touches lightly, and with little
elaboration; and to see where his real interest lay we have but to
turn to the above-quoted verbal discussions with Budæus on the one
hand, to the minute and well-known account of More’s life and
conversation given to Hutten in x. 30 on the other. Nor do I think that
it is worth while to extend to the remaining two-thirds of the letters
the more exact examination which has here been given to the first
third or thereabouts.[17]