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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/32887-8.txt b/32887-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9f19e8e --- /dev/null +++ b/32887-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2419 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Trilbyana, by +Joseph Benson Gilder & Jeannette Leonard Gilder + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Trilbyana + The Rise and Progress of a Popular Novel + +Author: Joseph Benson Gilder & Jeannette Leonard Gilder + +Editor: Joseph Benson Gilder + Jeannette Leonard Gilder + +Release Date: June 19, 2010 [EBook #32887] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRILBYANA *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images of public domain material at +the Internet Archive.) + + + + + + + + + +TRILBYANA + +[Illustration: MR. DU MAURIER'S FIRST DRAWING IN "PUNCH" + +_Showing himself (smooth face) and Mr. Whistler (with eyeglass)._ (_See +page 14._) + +PHOTOGRAPHER.--"_No smoking here, Sir!_" + +DICK TINTO.--"_Oh! A thousand pardons! I was not aware that---- _" + +PHOTOGRAPHER [interrupting with dignity]."--_Please to remember, +Gentlemen, that this is not a Common Hartist's studio!_" [N. B.--Dick +and his friends, who _are_ Common Artists, feel shut up by this little +aristocratic distinction, which had not occurred to them.]] + + + + +TRILBYANA + +The Rise and Progress of a +Popular Novel + +NEW YORK +THE CRITIC CO. + +MDCCCXCV + +COPYRIGHT 1895 +BY +THE CRITIC CO. + +_This edition is limited to +250 copies, of which this +is No._ 194. + +_It is many a year since a book has attained the popularity of Mr. du +Maurier's second novel, "Trilby" (printed as a serial in Harper's +Monthly, from January to August, inclusive, and then issued in +book-form, on Saturday, 8 September, 1894). Several others have sold as +well--some even better; but neither "Looking Backward" nor "Ben Hur" (to +name but these two) has captivated the public in the same manner or in +the same degree as this romance, this fairy-tale of the three British +artists, the blanchisseuse who posed for "the altogether," the Parisian +masters of painting, and the trans-Rhenish masters of music, in the +Latin Quarter of the early fifties. It is a story written out of the +author's very heart, and it finds its way straight to the hearts of his +readers. This is the secret of its unique success. Its charm is +emotional rather than intellectual. With all its art, it impresses one +as essentially ingenuous. It is a book to be loved, not merely to be +liked or admired._ + +_On 16 June, 1894, The Critic printed, with comment, a letter in which +Mr. Whistler protested to the editor of an English newspaper against the +libellous likeness of himself to be found in the character of Joe +Sibley, one of the minor personages in the story of "Trilby." In the +fall there were so many sporadic calls for this number of the paper as +soon to exhaust the supply carried over from the summer. There seemed to +be a general desire on the part of our readers to bind up the Whistler +letters, etc., with the text and pictures of "Trilby" as printed in +Harper's Monthly, the American artist's protest having led to a slight +revision of the story before its appearance in book-form. The hint was +acted upon; and two pages of "Trilbyana" were printed in The Critic of +Nov. 17._ + +_Though an extra edition was struck off, the call for this number has at +last exhausted the supply; and the present pamphlet, containing among +its many items of interest a majority of those that have found a place +in the columns of The Critic, may fairly claim to be issued in response +to a popular call._ + +_J.B. & J.L. GILDER._ + + + + +TABLE OF CONTENTS + + + PAGE + +"Trilby: a Novel" 1 + +Mr. du Maurier as a Draughtsman 4 + +"Trilby" on the Stage 8 + +Personalia 11 + +Mr. du Maurier and Mr. Whistler 15 + +"Trilby" Entertainments 19 + +Miscellanea 22 + +Songs 30 + +A Search for Sources 35 + +Nodier's "Trilby," le Lutin d'Argail 37 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +Mr. du Maurier's Monogram Title-page + +Mr. du Maurier's First Drawing for _Punch_ Frontispiece + +Portrait of Mr. du Maurier from a Photograph Face 16 + +Portrait of Mr. du Maurier by Himself 11 + +Portrait of Mr. Whistler 15 + +"Platt, the New Svengali" 25 + +Mr. du Maurier's House on Hampton Heath Face 27 + + + + +"Trilby: a Novel" + +_By George du Maurier. With Illustrations by the Author. Harper & +Brothers._ + + +When "TRILBY" began to appear as a serial in _Harper's Monthly_, January +1894, Mr. Henry James prophesied that it would prove to be a +glorification of "the long leg and the twentieth year." The prophecy was +soon verified. At the outset, indeed, it seemed as if the glorification +were to be, not so much of the long leg, as of the large and shapely +foot. The whole story rested for a while on one of Trilby's feet. We say +one, for it was only one of them--the left one--that Little Billee +immortalized by drawing on the wall of the studio in the Place St. +Anatole des Arts; but they were equally perfect. As the young woman who +had the happiness of standing on this foot proclaims, kicking off one of +the big slippers in which she is introduced to us, "It's the handsomest +foot in all Paris: there's only one in all Paris to match it, and here +it is"--and off goes the other slipper. The sketch of it that proves +Little Billee already a master of his art is not shown till near the end +of the book; and neither this nor Mr. du Maurier's own portrait of the +_pieds nus_ on page 21 fully realizes one's notion of the thing's +unapproached perfection. + +As we have said, the whole story rests for a while on one of these +handsome feet; but the novelist manages at last to free his neck from +the thraldom of the "slim, straight, rosy heel, clean-cut and smooth as +the back of a razor," and proceeds to gratify our curiosity to know +something about the strange being who poked about the studios in the +Quartier Latin in the early fifties, bare-headed, and wearing a big, +military coat with epaulets, which she could throw off when she posed +for the _ensemble_ as easily as she could kick off the loose slippers +when only her foot was desired as a model. It will be seen that Trilby +was not a woman of any social standing. Her father was an educated +Irishman, her mother (his wife) a pretty barmaid. They both were dead, +and she herself was a professional model. + +Two things about her were equally marvellous: one was her foot, the +other her voice--an organ of surprising power, range and sweetness. No +less extraordinary, perhaps, was the trick that nature had played upon +her, by coupling so glorious a voice with an ear that could not +distinguish one note from another--could scarcely tell a bass from a +treble, and permitted her to sing so badly that her hearers either +stopped their ears, laughed in her face, or bolted from the room. The +American song "Ben Bolt" was the one she liked the best to sing, and +sang the worst. There was something else about her, almost as strange as +her beautiful feet, her magnificent voice and her defective (or +altogether lacking) ear for music; and that was the purity of her +character. She had had affairs with half a dozen men in the studios, +without really knowing that it wasn't the right thing to do. But her +heart remained spotless (so Mr. du Maurier assures us); and it is a most +unfortunate thing that Little Billee's mother comes tearing over to +Paris, leaving the peaceful dales and dairies of Devonshire behind her, +in her mad haste to break the engagement which Trilby has at last made +with the young English painter, after having repeatedly refused to do +so, notwithstanding her great love for him. Mrs. Bagot has no difficulty +in convincing her that she is no worthy mate for Little Billee; and she +accordingly runs away from Paris, heart-broken, and becomes a +_blanchisseuse de fin_. Little Billee's heart is broken, too; or if not +broken, benumbed; and henceforth, though he becomes a most successful +artist, and the pet of all London, he takes his pleasures and successes +sadly and listlessly, caring nothing for the wealth and fame that come +to him. + +In the meantime a great _prima-donna_ appears upon the European stage, +and all the world bows down before her. Happening to be in Paris, Little +Billee is persuaded by his old chums, Taffy the Yorkshireman ex-soldier, +and the "Laird of Cockpen"--painters both,--to go and hear the prodigy. +Fancy their stupefaction at recognizing in the glorious singer the +tuneless Trilby of five years gone! No longer Trilby O'Ferrall, but La +Svengali, wife of their old acquaintance Svengali the Jew, who had +recognized the possibilities of her voice when he first heard it in +their Paris studio, and had afterwards captured her and cultivated it +and by his mesmeric arts trained her as a singer and even made her love +him as a dog loves his master. A day or two later, meeting him at a +hotel, Svengali spits in Little Billee's face, and gets his nose pulled +for his pains by Taffy. And then the great _prima-donna_ and her master +go to London; and Trilby breaks down in trying to sing "Ben Bolt," and +is hooted off the stage--Svengali's sudden death in a stage-box (unknown +to anyone in the house) having broken the mesmeric influence that has +made her a singer. She pines away, surrounded by her old friends the +Englishmen, and an object of solicitude to all Christendom; and after +her death Little Billee pines away, too, and no one is left but the big +ex-officer Taffy--with the exception of Trilby, the most attractive +character in the book. For Little Billee (whose sister he marries, after +the death of Trilby, whom he, too, loved) is, truth to tell, somewhat of +a prig, even after the sight of Trilby at the concert in Paris has +roused him from the unemotional state to which her flight consigned him, +years before; and Svengali is a beast, and Gecko is insignificant. + +The text of the book is the counterpart of its illustrations, for Mr. du +Maurier writes as he draws--with infinite precision and detail. Nothing +is omitted that could possibly heighten an effect. Instead of flashing a +scene or a sensation upon you, he describes it and redescribes it, +heaping up the adjectives in masses. His art is a different art from +Kipling's, for instance, which never wastes a syllable. But the point to +be decided is not one of methods but of results; and as a whole "Trilby" +is delightful. It is a slow and laborious process by which the author +creates an impression and surrounds his characters with the atmosphere +he wishes us to see them in; but he does finally create the impression +and the atmosphere, and in so doing justifies his means. He has steeped +his mind in Thackeray, and so has had a noble master. Like "Peter +Ibbetson," his new story is unique. It is a book that could have been +written only by an artist--and illustrated only by the author; it is a +book, moreover, in which the man and the style are one. + +In its present form the story contains certain passages not printed in +the magazine--notably, a brief disquisition on sitting for the nude. On +the other hand, certain passages have been altered in deference to the +wishes of Mr. Whistler, who saw in Joe Sibley, as described and pictured +by Mr. du Maurier, an unpleasant resemblance to himself. Not only has +the text been altered, but our friend Sibley is now called Antony, and +his hitherto unbearded face is adorned with a non-Whistlerian beard. +(See "Trilby," opposite page 132.) One picture has been omitted +altogether. It needed not the accidental advertising of Mr. Whistler's +threatened libel suit to draw attention to the book. It is its own best +advertisement, and has fairly earned the success implied in advance +orders so numerous as to cause the postponement until to-day (8 Sept. +1894) of the original date of publication. + + + + +Mr. du Maurier as a Draughtsman + + +It is hardly necessary to say that Mr. du Maurier's work as a novelist +is in no way matched by his work as a draughtsman, as exemplified, for +instance, in the 120 drawings for "Trilby," exhibited in December, 1894, +at the Avery gallery. Until he began to write he was known merely as the +author of innumerable caricatures, which had a certain vogue because +they were at the same time pictures of fashionable society; but even of +these the legend was often the best part. He had mastered many types, +but they were nothing more than that; and one had seen his millionaires +and swells and singing people and artists until one had grown rather +tired of them. Then, suddenly, it was found, with the first chapters of +his first novel, that in writing he could give to all these well-known +figures individuality, could make flesh and blood of them. The drawings +themselves, at least those done as illustrations for his two romances, +seem to have gained by that discovery. These do not appear to be the +same French blouses and English guardsmen. Something has got into them, +a touch of life, which they did not have before. Yet no one will say +that the Little Billee of the drawings now exhibited at Avery's gallery +is even a shadow of the Little Billee of the text. Of Trilby there is +not so much as the famous foot. Any schoolboy, almost, might have made +as clever a travesty of the Venus de Milo. The best presentment of the +gigantic Taffy is that in which he poses as the Ilyssus. The Laird o' +Cockpen is much better, being frequently very like Mr. George W. Cable, +particularly where he listens to Trilby's confession--an accidental +likeness, no doubt, but one that increases our respect for the Laird. +The intentional likeness of Frederick Walker, who is said to be the real +original of Little Billee, is vastly superior to the ideal one; and the +many unnamed figures in the more crowded compositions that appear to +have been sketched from the life or from a particularly vivid memory are +among the most amusing and enjoyable things in the drawings. + +But it must not be denied that there is here and there a bit of _chic_ +that approaches the ideal--something not easily to be discovered in the +artist's former work. Svengali is throughout a creation of this sort. He +is as grotesquely romantic, as Mephistophelian a figure in the +illustration as in the printed page. The only failure is the head (on +page 59 of the book) which is in more senses than one "as bad as they +make them." He is excellent where he laughs over the two Englishmen +cleaning themselves; he is delightful where he examines the roof of +Trilby's mouth, "like the dome of the Panthéon," "room in it for 'toutes +les gloires de la France.'" Where he stands in the midst of the crowded +studio, "All as it Used to Be," he looks every inch the artist, more so +than the "idle apprentice," lounging against the door-jamb. If there +were such a man, one who had sunk his whole soul in his art, he might +look like this, or like the same figure in the hussar uniform, a Semitic +conqueror "out of the mysterious East." There is a touch of the spirit +of the illustrators of the romantic period in the pictures of the +Christmas festivities, especially in the two that illustrate the +peculiar interchange of rôles between Little Billee and the festive +Ribot, and in the sketch of Zouzou as the "Ducal French Fighting-Cock." +The scenes of common life, too, are admirable, the free-and-easy, the +"Happy Dinner," the bargaining of the Laird with Mme. Vinard--"Je +prong!"--and the scene at the rehearsal where "The First Violin Loses +his Temper." The art of the drawings is all in expression and action, +and Du Maurier, in spite of all that is French in him, is thoroughly +British in this, and a descendant in the right line of Hogarth, +Cruikshank and Leech. + +The "Trilby" drawings were bought _en bloc_ by some one in England. They +had been sent here to be engraved for _Harper's Monthly_ and the book; +the sale occurred before they were placed on exhibition in New York. A +representative of _The Critic_ asked Mr. Avery, who said that a number +of people had expressed a desire to buy some of them, what he thought +they would have brought, if sold over here. He replied that he could not +tell with any degree of accuracy, but he thought they would have +averaged at least $50 apiece. As there are 120 drawings, this would have +meant $6,000 more for Mr. du Maurier. _En bloc_, no doubt, they brought +a smaller sum. + +A painting of "Trilby," by Mr. Constant Mayer, was shown at Knoedler's +gallery, in December, along with half a dozen other and more +satisfactory paintings by the same artist. The hypnotic condition of the +subject was declared by Dr. Allan McLane Hamilton to be admirably +suggested in this fancy portrait. + + * * * * * + +TO THE EDITORS OF THE CRITIC:-- + +Those who express surprise at the sudden literary development of du +Maurier's genius do not apparently recognize the fact that the whole +series of his drawings has included the literary element. His thoughts +as expressed in art have always shown a close and philosophical +observation of life, an understanding of the actions and motives of men. +Every one of his illustrations tells not only an individual story, but a +story of surroundings and times, of tendencies, fads and foibles. And +the text is always as important as the picture; sometimes it is far more +so. Who can have forgotten the history and culmination of the "old +china" craze given by du Maurier in a four-inch-square illustration of +the young husband and wife examining an old teapot, with the exquisite +text, "Oh, Algernon, do you think we can ever live up to it?" Certainly +the man who could invent the application of that phrase must have stores +of wit and sense equal to the writing of many "Peter Ibbetsons" and +"Trilbys." And those stores were bound to find their larger expression +in literature. + +NEW YORK, 22 NOV., 1894. + +CANDACE WHEELER. + + * * * * * + +The New York _Tribune_ has printed the following protest against the +insinuation that the author of the book was not its illustrator also:-- + +"It ought not to be necessary for any formal contradiction to be made of +that absurd rumor which has just been set adrift concerning the +illustrations to 'Trilby.' On the face of it, it is impossible for +either Mrs. du Maurier or her daughter to have given the pictures the +character they possess. They have du Maurier's style, du Maurier's +technique, du Maurier's peculiar little touches of humor, not merely in +the broad idea but in that minute turn of the pen which makes all the +difference in the world between an empty profile and a funny one. It is +true that there is a dissimilarity between Trilby in one illustration +and Trilby in another, but it should be remembered that du Maurier's +eyesight has been failing him, that he has been compelled to be prolific +at a time when he has most needed to lie fallow as an artist; and, in +brief, the shortcomings of the 'Trilby' designs, if serious shortcomings +they have, are to be explained on the most natural and logical of +grounds. The intrinsic character of the drawings proclaims their +authorship. Only George du Maurier could have done them, and not any of +the trifling assistance which he may have received from his family in +matters of posing, costume, etc., could deprive him of his +responsibility or his honor. The recent tendency to criticise these +designs with some severity will soon be counteracted. As a matter of +fact, they present some of the cleverest work du Maurier has ever done." + + * * * * * + +The New York _Sun_ printed a letter, not long ago, in which the drawings +were declared to be anachronistic. "Why," it was asked, "should Mr. du +Maurier deny to his characters the crinolines, waterfalls, surtouts, +cravats, chignons, peg-top trousers and hoop-skirts of the early +sixties, and make them, despite Taffy's whiskers, of the _monde_ of +to-day? Is it that his artistic instincts have reverted to that fine +school of old masters who delighted to portray, saving Taffy's grace, +Hector fighting in the armor of the Black Prince, or turned out Madonnas +by the score in Margaret of Anjou skirts?" + + * * * * * + +In "Trilby" every stroke of pen or pencil seems to be significant. Is +there special meaning in the fact that, in the dainty tail-piece, one +glass in the spectacles appears to be heavily shaded, while the other is +clear? Is Mr. du Maurier, like so many literary people, afflicted with +partial loss of sight or other visual difficulty? + +AMHERST COLLEGE LIBRARY. + +W. I. FLETCHER. + +[Unhappily he is, and has been for many years. It is only with the +greatest difficulty that he is able to work with either pen or pencil.] + +[Illustration: From "Trilby." Copyright, 1894, by Harper & Brothers.] + + + + +"Trilby" on the Stage + + +Mr. Paul M. Potter's dramatization of "Trilby" was produced by Mr. A. M. +Palmer's company at the Boston Museum on Monday, 4 March, 1895, and +achieved so great a success that several companies were immediately put +upon the road to play it throughout the country. Its first production in +New York, with the original cast, occurred at the Garden Theatre, on +April 15. Hundreds of people were turned away from the door for want of +room to accommodate them; and an offer was received from Mr. Beerbohm +Tree, the eminent English actor, for the privilege of producing the play +in England, where he himself wished to impersonate Svengali. It would be +a pity if the Lyceum company did not secure the English rights; for Mr. +Irving would make an inimitable Svengali, and Ellen Terry would be +Trilby without trying. + +As nobody has ever succeeded, or is likely to succeed, in really +dramatizing a novel, it is not surprising that the stage version of +"Trilby" should prove in some respects unsatisfactory. It might be +thought that the book would lend itself readily to dramatic treatment; +but a little consideration will show that it offers peculiar +difficulties to the playwright, inasmuch as its chief charm is one of +manner, which cannot be transferred to the stage, while its story, +although it contains some striking situations, such as Trilby's collapse +upon the death of Svengali, consists chiefly of a series of episodes, +largely independent of each other and strung together very loosely. All +things considered, Mr. Potter ought not, perhaps, to be held to too +strict an account for the liberties he has taken with the text and some +of the personages, but he has certainly lowered the tone of the work, +and been guilty of various crudities of construction. There is some +excuse for his employment of Svengali as the evil influence which wrecks +the happiness of Little Billee and Trilby, but he leaves nothing of the +author's original intention, and infinitely belittles the character of +the girl, when he attributes her flight from her lover to mesmeric +suggestion, instead of her own noble and unselfish devotion. In many +other similar ways the spiritual side of the book suffers at his hands. +His persistent references to Trilby's posing for the figure, his +selection of that particular incident for her first introduction, and +the joking references to it which he puts into the mouths of other +personages, are in bad taste, while his travesty of the character of +Dr. Bagot is entirely without justification. Mrs. Bagot he treats with +more consideration, but he reduces her to the level of the dullest stage +conventionality. Trilby herself preserves a good many of her +characteristics, but is degraded even more than in the book by her +subserviency to Svengali. + +The play is in four acts, and the whole story up to the flight of Trilby +is compressed into the first two. This feat is accomplished with no +small ingenuity, but at great cost of probability. In this brief space +Trilby is wooed and won, Svengali asserts his mesmeric power, the +marriage of Little Billee is arranged and interrupted by the arrival of +his mother, and an elopement is planned and frustrated. In the third act +Trilby is to sing in the Cirque des Bashibazouck, and all the characters +reassemble as if by magic in the foyer of that temple of art, which is +abandoned of all other persons for their sole benefit. The proceedings +which are supposed to occur in this retired spot are intrinsically +absurd, but they are effective enough from a scenic and theatrical point +of view, and were accepted by the audience, on the first night, as +eminently natural and satisfactory. They culminate in the ghastly death +of Svengali and the restoration of Trilby in a dazed and exhausted +condition to the three faithful friends. In the fourth act there is +another reunion of characters, and Trilby, who has agreed once more to +marry Little Billee, and is supposed to be on the road to recovery, dies +suddenly, upon the unexpected apparition of Svengali's photograph. + +As it stands, the play is not much superior, if at all, to ordinary +melodrama, being almost wholly void of the literary, humorous and +personal charm of the book, but it is very well played, has a number of +effective scenes, and is unquestionably popular. Miss Harned's Trilby, +though rather a faint reflection of the original, has the merit of being +attractive and womanly, as well as free and frank, and exhibits true +pathos in the mesmeric scenes. On the whole, it is a very creditable +impersonation. Mr. Lackaye's Svengali is overwrought but indisputably +strong; and Burr McIntosh, John Glendenning and Alfred Hickman represent +the three friends cleverly, and furnish excellent living pictures of du +Maurier's sketches. Mr. Dietrichstein makes an admirable Zouzou, and all +the minor parts are performed competently. A feature of the +representation which is received with special favor is the Christmas +merrymaking in the Latin Quarter, which is as vivacious and realistic as +could be wished. + +A matter of considerable interest to authors and publishers, for the +copyright question involved, occurred in connection with the Boston +performances. Elmer Chickering, the well-known photographer of Boston, +took some pictures of Mr. A. M. Palmer's company, which naturally came +into demand at once. But rushing over the wires came a message from +Harper & Bros., saying that, as the characters were made up after du +Maurier's drawings, they should regard the sale of any such pictures as +an infringement of their copyright. To this, Mr. Chickering disagreed, +on the ground that the photographs were not copies of any drawings, but +of actual scenes on the stage, which any man might sketch. Telegrams +flew back and forth, for the Messrs. Harper would not yield. Meanwhile, +the papers sought for the photographs, and Mr. Palmer was apparently +willing to receive the advertisement their publication would ensure; but +the publishers still held off. At last Mr. Chickering decided to fight +it out on his own line, for two of the New York papers printed some of +the 160 "Trilby" pictures taken by him; and--as indicating an amicable +adjustment of the dispute--a number of them appeared in _Harper's +Weekly_. + +The morning papers of April 30 contained this despatch:--"DENVER, COL., +April 29. Did du Maurier write 'Trilby'? This novel question was +propounded to-day in the United States Court in good faith, when the +suit of Harper & Bros. and A. M. Palmer for an injunction against the +Lyceum Stock Company to restrain them from producing 'Trilby' at their +theatre was called. The defendants allege that the book entitled +'Trilby' was not originated, invented or written by du Maurier. They +assert that the original title and book of 'Trilby' were first published +in France in 1820, and afterwards translated and published in English in +1847, and that the title and book have been common property for +seventy-five years. The attorneys for the plaintiffs asked for time to +communicate with their clients in New York as to the course they should +pursue, and the Court postponed the hearing until Wednesday morning. +Should the allegations of the Lyceum Company be true, a sensation will +be caused all over the two continents. This is the first public +intimation of an attack on the authenticity of the work, and if it is +successful every company in the world will have as much right to play +'Trilby' as the Boston Organization." + +The Lounger reprinted the telegram with this comment:--"Charles Nodier's +'Trilby, le Lutin d'Argail,' was published in Paris in 1822. It has just +one thing in common with du Maurier's book--the first word in its +title." The Sunday papers of May 12 printed this paragraph:--"DENVER, +May 11. Judge Hallet, in the United States District Court to-day, +granted an injunction restraining the Lyceum Theatre from producing +'Trilby' hereafter, deciding that it infringed on the rights of Harper & +Bros., and others. To-day's performance was stopped." + +[Illustration: GEORGE DU MAURIER] + + + + +Personalia + + +A London correspondent of the Philadelphia _Press_ furnishes some +interesting notes of a talk with Mr. du Maurier. Concerning literary +practice, the artist-novelist said that "Peter Ibbetson" was absolutely +the first story he ever wrote. "And yet," he added, "I have in one sense +been writing stories all my life. Every one of my pictures, for example, +has had under it a story condensed to the smallest possible space. The +necessity of condensing my description and dialogue has been of great +benefit to me in writing my two novels." As for "Trilby," Mr. du Maurier +said that his earliest conception of the story was quite different from +the one he finally worked out. "I had first thought of Trilby as a girl +of very low birth--a servant, or something like that. Then it occurred +to me that it would be much better to make her interesting--to create a +person who would be liked by readers. As a good many people seem to be +fond of 'Trilby' now, I am very glad, indeed, that I made the change." +And he declared further that the character of Trilby was not a study +from life, but wholly imaginary. It was Henry James who suggested to the +artist that he should write novels. + +[Illustration: _BY HIMSELF_ + +FROM HARRY FURNISS'S "LIKA-JOKO"] + +"It was one day while we were walking together on Hampstead Heath. We +were talking about storywriting, and I said to him:--'If I were a +writer, it seems to me that I should have no difficulty about plots. I +have in my head now plots for fifty stories. I'm always working them out +for my own amusement.' 'Well,' he said, 'it seems to me that you are a +very fortunate person; I wish you'd tell me one of those plots.' Then I +told him the story of 'Trilby.'" "Yes, he praised it very generously. +'Well,' I said, 'you may have the idea and work it out to your own +satisfaction.' But he refused to accept it. 'You must write it +yourself,' he said: 'I'm sure you can do it, if you'll only try.' But I +insisted that I couldn't, and so we left the matter. But that night +after going home it occurred to me that it would be worth while trying +to write, after all. So on the impulse I sat down and began to work. It +was not on 'Trilby,' however, but on 'Peter Ibbetson.' I kept at it for +a time, but after doing several chapters I became utterly discouraged, +and said to myself one evening:--'Oh, I can't do anything with this. +It's a mad story. It's utter rubbish.' Then I took up the sheets and was +just about to throw them into the fire when I thought I'd keep them for +another day and think the thing over. That night in bed, while I was +worrying about the impossibility of going on with the tale, the solution +of my difficulty suddenly occurred to me. 'I'll make the hero mad,' I +cried to myself, 'that will put everything right.' So the next day I +wrote the introduction, explaining Peter's madness, and after that I +went on with the work to the end without any more trouble." + +"Trilby's" American publishers have sent out the following note:--"A +letter from Mr. du Maurier to the late James R. Osgood is given +herewith. Possibly the hint it contains as to the secret of an exquisite +literary style will interest the greater number of readers; or perhaps +his saying (in 1890) that he has 'several good ideas,' which would seem +to be an answer to those who have maintained that 'Trilby' was written +many years ago. * * * + +'MY DEAR OSGOOD:--Of course I remembered my promise, and as soon as my +book--"Peter Ibbetson"--was finished and typewritten, I wrote to +you--last week, as it happens--at 50 Fleet Street, but behold! you were +in America; so I sent them the copy, and I believe it starts by to-day's +mail for Harper in New York. I don't know how it got into the papers +that I was coming out in this new line, but I have already offers to +come to an arrangement. I have no notion whether it is suited to a +periodical or not--you will see; probably _not_,--but if it is I want to +be well paid for it; first [illegible], as far as my _first_ book is +concerned, whatever its merits; secondly, because the only people to +whom I have told the story (H. James, Canon Ainger, poor Allingham and a +few others) thought so well of it--or said so--as an _idea_; and I have +taken great pains in the carrying out thereof. If Harper's doesn't see +its way to it, I shall offer it elsewhere; and after that, I shall put +it in the hands of an agent. And if I don't get what I think I ought to, +I shall keep it and write another, as I have several good ideas, and +writing this has taught me a lot. All of which sounds very cheeky and +grand; but I am in no hurry to come before the public as a novelist +before I'm ripe, and to ripen myself duly I am actually rewriting it in +French, and you've no idea what a lesson _that_ is! * * * + +'Yours ever, G. DU MAURIER. + +'15 BAYSWATER TERRACE, LONDON, April 18, 1890.'" + +It is said that when the Messrs. Harper were negotiating with Mr. du +Maurier for "Trilby," he declined their offer of a royalty on the sales +of the book and decided in favor of a "lump sum." We do not know how +large this sum was, but we are pretty sure that it was not so much as he +would have made by the royalty plan. That would have earned at least +$30,000 for him on a sale of about 100,000 copies to 31 Dec., 1894. The +Messrs. Harper have, however, done a more than generous thing by him: +they have informed him that they will pay him a royalty, and a good big +one, too, on all sales after 1 Jan., 1895, on both "Trilby" and "Peter +Ibbetson." The 600 copies of the _édition de luxe_ of "Trilby," at $10 a +copy, were sold outright to the Syndicate Trading Co. + +Our London correspondent, Mr. Arthur Waugh, wrote to us on 16 April, +1895:--"The English reading public is to have its illustrated 'Trilby' +in one volume in June. Hitherto the three-volume edition has alone been +in circulation, and that without the illustrations. There are to be no +sketches in all, and arrangements are also in progress for a large-paper +edition of 250 copies, with six facsimile reproductions of original +drawings, unbound." Advance orders were received for 15,000 copies of +the six-shilling edition. + +In an interview reported in the _Tribune_ of June 14, Mr. J. Henry +Harper was quoted as saying, apropos of a cablegram to the effect that +the writing of "The Martians" was completed:-- + +"He assures me that his new story will not be ready for the publishers +until December, 1896. I cannot tell you much about the book itself yet, +but it will not be in any sense a sequel to 'Trilby' except so far as it +will succeed that book. The new story will deal in its opening chapters +with French school life, and then with English life, both fashionable +and rowdy; then the artistic world of Antwerp and Dusseldorf is +exploited, while the closing stages occur in England. There will be love +in the tale, of course, and du Maurier also brings in the supernatural +again. There will be plenty of liveliness and some tragedy. The book, I +am given to understand, will be capable of illustration; but I am sorry +to say there is some doubt as to whether du Maurier himself will +illustrate it. It will depend entirely upon the state of his health, +which of late has not been of the best. The length of the story will be +greater than 'Trilby' and will run through about twelve numbers of +_Harper's Magazine_, in which it will first be published in serial +form." + +As a matter of course, Mr. du Maurier has had no end of invitations to +read and lecture in this country, but to all these invitations he has +turned a deaf ear. In a recent letter to _The Critic's_ Lounger, he +expressed himself as flattered by these overtures, but added that his +health would not permit of his accepting any of the tempting +propositions. He might be more in the way of temptation, if it were not +for the play of "Trilby." This brings him in almost as much money as +readings would. We are told that he is in receipt of several hundred +dollars a week from this source--not ten hundred, but very near it. +This, surely, is a much easier way of earning money than travelling from +one end of a big country to the other, for it costs him no greater +exertion than the signing of his name to a check. + +No one who loves "Trilby" should fail to read the "autobiographic +interview" with du Maurier which Mr. Robert H. Sherard contributed, with +illustrations, to _McClure's Magazine_ for April, 1895. From this +singularly intimate and interesting article, one learns that the +author's first picture in _Punch_ represented himself and his chum +Whistler[A]; also, that the studio in the Latin Quarter where Trilby +visited the three English artists was drawn from that of his master, +Gleyre. + +Mr. du Maurier's monogram, which appears on the title-page of this +pamphlet, is reproduced from a carving on the table at which the staff +contributors to _Punch_ dine once a week, and on which many of them have +made similar inscriptions. We are indebted for it to _McClure's +Magazine_. + + + + +Mr. du Maurier and Mr. Whistler + + +The first two or three of the following paragraphs appeared on the +Lounger's page in _The Critic_ of 16 June, 1894, and were reprinted, +with most of the Whistler-du Maurier items that succeed them, in the +issue of Nov. 17. + +[Illustration: (From _The Westminster Budget_) + +MR. WHISTLER] + +Mr. Whistler has mastered two arts besides painting and sketching. One +he has immortalized in that unique brochure, "The Gentle Art of Making +Enemies"; the other is the Gentle Art of Advertising Oneself. These two +generalities are not always to be distinguished from each other. It is +quite possible to make an enemy in advertising oneself; and nothing is +easier than to draw general attention to oneself, by the same act that +incurs the enmity of individual--especially if the individual be +eminent. At the present moment M. du Maurier happens to be one of the +most conspicuous figures in the field jointly occupied by Art and +Letters. In choosing him as an object of clamorous attack, Mr. Whistler +has shown himself a past-master of the art of advertising oneself. By +identifying himself with one of the characters in a story that everyone +is reading, he brings himself more conspicuously before the public than +by painting a new picture. Moreover, in sending to an English newspaper +a letter in which he vituperates his quondam friend and fellow-artist, +he interrupts himself for but a moment in the pursuit of his legitimate +calling as a painter. + +In America, at least, few readers of "Trilby" would have known that, in +Joe Sibley, Mr. du Maurier had hit off some of the most salient +"peculiarities" of the immensely talented etcher, who, when he takes the +newspapers into his confidence, dips his pen in the corrosive acid with +which he bites his plates. Joe Sibley is not an engaging character; he +is a Bohemian of the Bohemians, clever, witty, penniless and presuming. +In taking his sibilant surname as a pseudonym for Whistler, we have the +endorsement of the artist himself, though he does not expressly declare +himself to be the archetype of this particular character. Sibley is the +only man in the book who _could_ have been drawn from Whistler--the +Whistler of a generation ago; and no one but Sibley could have written +the following letter, in which the creator of the character is so +wittily vilified:-- + +"TO THE EDITOR--SIR: It would seem, notwithstanding; my boastful +declaration, that, after all, I had not, before leaving England, +completely rid myself of the abomination--the 'friend '! One solitary, +unheeded one--Mr. George du Maurier--still remained, hidden in +Hampstead. On that healthy heath he has been harboring, for nearly half +a life, every villainy of good fellowship that could be perfected by the +careless frequentation of our early intimacy and my unsuspecting +_camaraderie_. Of this pent-up envy, malice and furtive intent he never +at any moment during all that time allowed me, while affectionately +grasping his honest Anglo-French fist, to detect the faintest +indication. Now that my back is turned, the old _marmite_ of our +_pot-au-feu_ he fills with the picric acid of 30 years' spite, and, in +an American magazine, fires off his bomb of mendacious recollection and +poisoned rancour. The lie with which it is loaded _à mon intention_ he +proposes for my possible 'future biographer'--but I fancy it explodes, +as is usual, in his own waistcoat, and he furnishes, in his present +unseemly state, an excellent example of all those others who, like +himself, have thought a foul friend a finer fellow than an open enemy. + +"PARIS. + +J. M'NEILL WHISTLER. + +"Reflection: The _compagnon_ of the _pétard_ we guillotine. Guineas are +given to the popular companion who prepares his infernal machine for the +distinguished associates in whose friendship he has successfully +speculated." + + * * * * * + +The following card appeared in _Harper's_ for October:-- + +"Pursuant to an arrangement made with Mr. J. McNeill Whistler by our +London agents, Messrs. Osgood, McIlvaine & Co., the publishers of the +English edition of _Harper's Magazine_, the following letter is +published:-- + +August 31, 1894. + +"'DEAR SIR--Our attention has been called to the attack made upon you by +Mr. du Maurier in the novel "Trilby," which appeared in our magazine. If +we had had any knowledge of personal reference to yourself being +intended, we should not have permitted the publication of such passages +as could be offensive to you. As it is, we have freely made such +reparation as is in our power. We have agreed to stop future sales of +the March number of _Harper's Magazine_,[B] and we undertake that, when +the story appears in the form of a book, the March number shall be so +rewritten as to omit every mention of the offensive character, and that +the illustration which represents the Idle Apprentice shall be excised, +and that the portraits of Joe Sibley in the general scene shall be +altered so as to give no clue to your identity. Moreover, we engage to +print and insert in our magazine for the month of October this letter of +apology addressed to you. Assuring you again of our sincere regret that +you should have sustained the least annoyance in any publication of +ours, we are, + +"'Yours respectfully, + +HARPER & BROTHERS. + +"'J. MCNEILL WHISTLER, ESQ.'" + + * * * * * + +One of the humors of the controversy was a letter that appeared in the +first number of Harry Furniss's _Lika-Joko_. It was supposed to have +been written by Whistler to express his indignation at having been cut +out of the book. The English as well as the American papers fell into +the trap, and discussed the letter as a genuine expression of Mr. +Whistler's outraged feelings. It was only a joke, however--and is said +to have been the only joke in Mr. Furniss's comic paper. To an +interviewer for _The Westminster Budget_, Mr. Whistler expressed his +surprise that anyone should have been taken in by the parody. "There was +no harm in the appearance of the article," he said, "but what caused my +merriment, though not surprise, is that anyone would have thought for a +moment that I had written it. But then, it was in England, and in +England anything is possible!" That the parody was a clever one will be +seen from the following extract:-- + +"In the fascinating numbers of 'Trilby,' as they appeared in _Harper's +Magazine_, I read with delight of one Joe Sibley, idle apprentice, king +of Bohemia, _roi des truands_, always in debt, vain, witty, exquisite +and original in art, eccentric in dress, genial, caressing, scrupulously +clean, sympathetic, charming; an irresistible but unreliable friend, a +jester of infinite humor, a man now perched upon a pinnacle of fame (and +notoriety), a worshipper of himself; a white-haired, tall, slim, +graceful person with pretty manners and an unimpeachable moral tone. My +only regret was that too little was said about so charming a creation. I +looked to see more of him in the published three volumes. But no! I +found the addition of some thoughtful excursuses by Mr. du Maurier upon +nudity, agnosticism, and other more hazardous subjects, which had, +presumably, been judged too strong for the ice-watered, ice-creamed +constitution of the American Philistine; but I looked in vain for the +delightful Joseph Sibley. In his place I find a yellow-haired Switzer, +one Antony, son of a respectable burgher of Lausanne, who is now tall, +stout, strikingly handsome and rather bald, but who in his youth had all +the characteristics of the lost Joseph Sibley--his idleness, his debts, +his humor, his art, his eccentricity, his charm. I rubbed my eye-glass. +_Je me suis demandé pourquoi._" + +Displeased with _The Speaker's_ comments on his connection with +"Trilby," Mr. Whistler compelled that paper to print a letter from his +solicitors, from which it appears that the revised MS. of the novel was +sent to him to be passed. And apropos of this, he remarks in a letter to +the editor:--"I question if it be not without precedent that a writer +ever before so abjectly regorged his spleen as to submit his Bowdlerized +work to his victim for his approval." + +In the Chicago _Tribune_ of Sunday, 2 Dec., 1894, were reprinted from +_Harper's_ the pictures of, and passages about, Joe Sibley which +provoked Mr. Whistler's threatened libel-suit. The revised passages, as +they appear in the book, were also given. + + + + +"Trilby" Entertainments + + +OF ENTERTAINMENTS founded upon Mr. du Maurier's book, the name is +legion. The most pretentious, and at the same time the most successful, +was the series of "Scenes and Songs from 'Trilby,'" given at Sherry's in +the afternoon and again in the evening of Saturday, February 9, for the +benefit of that admirable institution, the New York Kindergarten +Association. The affair, which had the advantage of distinguished +patronage, was given under the special management of Mrs. Charles H. +Ditson; Mr. E. Hamilton Bell arranged the details of scenery and +costume; and among those who personated the various characters were +several well-known artists. + +The audience was a large one, which was excellent for the little ones +who were to be benefited; and it was enthusiastic, which was only a just +and fit tribute to managers, performers and singers. Every detail of the +tableaux had been thought out with infinite care, and posing, grouping +and make-up were as near perfection as du Maurier himself could have +wished. The program included the singing of "Ben Bolt," "Bonjour, +Suzon," "Au Clair de la Lune" and several other songs, and the following +tableaux:--"The Three Musketeers of the Brush"; "Wistful and Sweet"; +"Svengali"; "I will Not!"; "All As it Used to Be"; "Answer Me, Trilby!"; +"The Soft Eyes"; "The Sweet Melodic Phrase"; "Dors, Ma Mignonne"; "The +Nightingale's First Song"; "Malbrouck" and "It was Trilby." The +entertainment opened most effectively with a quartet by Messrs. Devoll, +Moore, Bracewell and Devoll. The first tableau, "Three Musketeers of the +Brush," received the admiration it deserved, as did, also, the singing +of Miss Akers and Mr. Mackenzie Gordon interspersed with the different +tableaux. The first appearance of Trilby was awaited with impatient +expectancy, and when she came, she proved to be "wistful and sweet," +indeed, in the person of Mrs. Eric Pape, the wife of the well-known +young artist. The last tableau of the second part, "It was Trilby," was +most effectively arranged by Mr. Pape. The full cast of characters was +as follows:--Trilby, Mrs. Eric Pape; Taffy, W. Harris Roome; The Laird, +Evert Jansen Wendell; Little Billee, J. Gerald Benkard; Svengali, Robert +Reid; Gecko, Eric Pape; Dodor, William Abbott; Zouzou, Franklin C. +Butler; Mrs. Bagot, Mrs. J. Wells Champney; Miss Bagot, Miss Lilian +Wing; Mme. Malbrouck, Mme. Bettini; Durien, Leslie G. Cauldwell; +Blanchisseuse, Miss Lou-lou Noel; Fencer, Lieut. Gianni Bettini. + +During the intermission between the first and second parts of the +program, Mrs. Kate Douglas Wiggin sold a copy of "Trilby" presented by +the Messrs. Harper. To this Mr. du Maurier and Mr. Henry James (who +persuaded the author to write the book) had contributed their +autographs, and Dr. English a manuscript copy of his song "Ben Bolt." +The volume fetched $100, making the net addition to the Kindergarten +Association's treasury about $2500. + + * * * * * + +AT MR. MANSFIELD'S Garrick Theatre, "Trilby" has been burlesqued. It had +already been parodied in book-form, produced as a melodrama, read aloud +in drawing-rooms, with music, and put on the platform in "scenes and +songs," so that nothing was left to do with it but to make an "operatic +burlesque" of it; and this was duly accomplished by Messrs. Joseph W. +Herbert and Charles Puerner, the latter being responsible for the music +and the former for the words. The piece is called "Thrilby." As in the +serious play founded upon the novel, the villain (rechristened +"Spaghetti") is the principal figure; and mesmerism is carried to a +ridiculous excess, even inanimate objects succumbing to its influence. +There is a farce within this farce; for "Mme. Sans-Gêne" is parodied in +a sub-play introduced under the name of "Mme. Sans Ra-Gêne." The +burlesque is by no means free from horse-play, but it unquestionably +accomplishes its purpose, which is merely to amuse. + +At the Casino, as well as at the Garrick, "Trilby" and "Mme. Sans Gêne" +have both been travestied. + + * * * * * + +(_Harper's Weekly_) + +"THE _Weekly_ has received a copy of the programme of a novel and +decidedly interesting literary and musical entertainment that was given +on Oct. 17, at Omaha. It was called 'An Evening with Trilby.' The +participants were all gentlemen. The subjects of the papers read were +'The Story of Trilby,' 'Du Maurier, his Life and Work,' 'The French of +Trilby,' 'The Identity of the Artists in Trilby,' 'Trilby's Voice and +Method,' 'Trilby as a Hypnotic Subject,' 'Could Trilby be Successfully +Dramatized?' After each paper there was Trilby music, which included +'Ben Bolt,' 'Au Clair de la Lune,' 'Malbrouck s'en va-t-en Guerre' and +other songs and instrumental pieces. At the end of the programme comes +the inquiry, What shall we 'ave the pleasure of drinkin' after that +werry nice 'armony?' and then the page turns over to the farewell +couplet:-- + + 'A little warmth, a little light + Of love's bestowing--and so, good-night.' + +"It is a pretty far cry from Paris to Omaha, but Trilby's voice seems to +have carried that distance without the least trouble. It is worth +remarking that these Omaha gentlemen made seven 'papers' about her +without finding it necessary to discuss her morals." + + * * * * * + +OF THE MANY "Trilby" entertainments in New York one of the most +successful was given in May, at the house of Postmaster Dayton, for the +benefit of St. Luke's Home for Indigent Christian Females. A literary +criticism of the book was read, and one of the chapters of the story; +and the songs that are oftenest alluded to were sung. The affair was +given under the auspices of the Daughters of the Revolution. + + * * * * * + +"TRILBY'S" WIDE POPULARITY--in the sense that many people who are not, +ordinarily, novel-readers take a lively interest in it--is evidenced by +many indications, not the least significant being the concerts made up +from the music mentioned in the novel. One such was given in San +Francisco last December, under the management of the ladies of the +Mercantile Library Auxiliary and for the benefit of the Library's +unfortunately slender exchequer. According to _The Argonaut_, a very +interesting program was presented, including Schubert's "Rosamonde," +Adam's "Cantique de Noël," Chopin's Impromptu in A flat, "Bonjour +Suzon," "Le Capitaine Roquefinette" and the much-discussed "Ben Bolt." + + * * * * * + +"TRILBY" REPRESENTATIONS have broken out in all sorts of strange places. +At the Eden Musée, New York, Miss Ganthony has been restrained from +impersonating du Maurier's heroine; and at "The Greatest Show on Earth," +Miss Marie Meers, who has not been restrained, appears nightly in Trilby +costume, riding bareback (not barefoot) around the tan-bark to the +snapping of ringmaster Svengali's whip. + + + + +Miscellanea + + +MR. DU MAURIER and Mr. James took a walk together, one day, and the +artist unfolded to the novelist the plot of "Trilby," suggesting that he +should use it in a novel. Mr. James persuaded him to write the story +himself. He did so; and what has been the result? Think of the time and +skill, the money and material that have been employed in putting the +thing in type, preparing its illustrations, printing it as a serial and +reprinting it in book-form; in dramatizing it, burlesquing it in books +and on the stage, in adapting its songs and illustrations for +reproduction on lecture-platforms and in drawing-rooms, and in +translating and publishing Nodier's tale, from which the author took his +title! Its presentation has given employment, onerous or enjoyable, +honorary or remunerative, to thousands; hundreds of thousands have read +it, and hundreds of thousands seen it on the stage; and its leading +characters--Trilby, Svengali and "the three musketeers of the +brush"--have become household names and personalities. It has enriched +its author, added to the wealth of its publishers, put money in the +purses of playwright and manager and replenished the treasuries of more +than one excellent charity. Directly or indirectly, no doubt, it has +caused much more than a million dollars to change hands within the past +eighteen months. And last but not least, it is responsible for this +pamphlet, in which is chronicled the story of its rise and progress. + + * * * * * + +AT THE Mercantile Library, New York, it was found necessary, at the time +when "Trilby" was in greatest demand, to circulate a hundred copies of +the book; at the beginning of June the number in circulation was +seventy. Mr. Wingate wrote to _The Critic_ from Boston, in June, that +there were six copies of the book in the main building of the Public +Library, and one in each of its branches, but that this supply was +inadequate, 72 demands for the book having come from the branch +libraries in a single day. And Mr. Hild writes to us from Chicago that +the Public Library of that city has 26 copies, but that they do not +begin to supply the demand. "I believe we could use 260 and never find a +copy on the shelves. Every one of our 54,000 card-holders seems +determined to read the book." + +ON THE POINT of the morality or immorality of the book, _The +Independent_ says:-- + +"Mr. du Maurier, apparently in deference to the current craze for +heroines that have been seduced, or are just going to be, bedaubs the +first fifty pages of his otherwise clean story with telling how his pure +heroine, Trilby, a _blanchisseuse de fin_, had been led astray, and so +forth. That is to say, he unnecessarily goes behind the true door of his +story to wash some dirty linen, and then he sets forth." + +On this point the San Francisco _Argonaut_ does not agree with its New +York contemporary:-- + +"With those who think these passages immoral, we cannot agree. Mr. du +Maurier has treated with candor some facts belonging to the realm of +things which are usually understood instead of being talked about; but +he has done this with singular manliness and delicacy, and with entire +absence of mawkish or other improper sentiment. The impression of +Trilby's character left upon the reader is entirely that of a noble, +generous woman, whose life is not a sin, but a tragedy." + +The same paper reproduces "a letter Mr. du Maurier wrote to a Paterson, +N. J., man who contended that the relations of Trilby with her +hypnotizer were chaste, so far as her consciousness of them went, and +decided to find out if he were right by writing to the novelist":-- + +"NEW GROVE HOUSE, HAMPSTEAD HEATH, + +"October 31, 1894. + +"DEAR SIR: In answer to your letter of September 24th, I beg to say that +you are right about Trilby. When free from mesmeric influence, she lived +with him as his daughter, and was quite innocent of any other relation. +In haste, yours very truly, + +"G. DU MAURIER." + + * * * * * + +EARLY IN March, 1895, one of the Boston clergymen advertised Robert +Grant's "Art of Living," as our Boston correspondent reported at the +time, and on Sunday, March 17, another prominent minister took up +"Trilby." So it is evident that, even if Boston authorship is on the +decline, as so many New Yorkers enviously declare, the Boston clergy are +going to keep alive the interest in literary matters by emphatic words +to their congregations. "Have you read 'Trilby'?" was the theme of the +Rev. George W. Bicknell's sermon, and the topic crowded the church. The +Reverend Doctor declared that he had spent five hours reading the book, +and had decided that it was a story of magnificent possibilities, but +that its morality was "as one viewed it." He considered the tale +far-fetched and over-drawn and lacking in healthful flavor, and placed +it in the same class of art with the nude paintings at the World's +Fair--a position to which, we presume, the author would not object. Then +he launched out into an emphatic declaration that it was time for the +pulpit to speak out against art of this kind. + + * * * * * + +DU MAURIER'S heroine has been heard of over in Brooklyn. A married +woman, aged twenty-nine, got into a dispute with her husband, recently, +as to the morals of the young model, and proved her point by "smashing +him over the head with an earthenware jar." In the newspaper in which we +read of this intemperate act, the husband's age is not given, nor the +side he took in the argument, before he was shown to be wrong. The fact +that he got his head broken proves little--except the folly of arguing +with a woman; nor the additional fact that he refused to appear against +his wife in court. But the case is one in which a good deal might be +said on both sides--if earthenware jars were not introduced too early in +the discussion. + + * * * * * + +MR. DU MAURIER has worse offenses to atone for than the breaking of the +Brooklyn man's silly head. But for his entertaining book we should have +been spared the unreadable prose of "Biltry: a Parody on 'Trilby'" and +the unspeakable verse of "Drilby Re-versed," the former by Mary Kyle +Dallas, the latter by Leopold Jordan. In vulgarity and banality, these +two precious productions run each other a close race. Of the two we +think "Drilby" a trifle the less objectionable, merely because the +proportion of text to white paper is somewhat smaller. Both are poorly +illustrated, and printed on much better paper than they deserve. + + * * * * * + +E. C. OF NEW ALBANY, IND., thinks that "Trilby's" possibilities as a +vehicle of evil to the much-considered American "young person" are +emphasized by a conversation recently overheard by her between two +feminine "young persons" in Indiana. "What is this 'Trilby' everybody is +talking about?" asked one of these. "Oh," replied the other, "it's a +book--a novel." "They say it is awfully bad," said the first young +person. "Yes, I've heard so; but it isn't so at all. I read it clear +through, and there wasn't anything bad in it. I didn't like it either; +there is too much French in it." "French?" commented the first young +woman; "well that's it, then--all the bad part is in French." "I hadn't +thought of that," mused the other one; "I suppose that's just the way of +it. Anyway, it isn't nearly as good as 'Dally.'" + +[Illustration: PLATT. THE NEW SVENGALI. + +THE HYPNOTIZING OF MORTON. + +Have you read "Trilby?" Svengali was a bad, wicked man, who used to +hypnotize poor, sweet little Trilby and make her sing and act as he +pleased--With apologies to Du Maurier.] + +"Trilby" has even got into American politics. This shows better than +anything else how wide an audience the story most have reached. How many +allusions to a book of the current year would be comprehensible to the +average reader of a New York daily paper? We reproduce the accompanying +cartoon from the _World_ of Dec. 9 as a curiosity of literature and an +interesting contribution to "Trilbyana." It is adapted from Mr. du +Maurier's drawing entitled "Et Maintenant Dors, ma Mignonne!" + + * * * * * + +A Broadway caterer now "molds his ice-cream in the shape of a model of +Trilby's ever-famous foot." Mr. du Maurier can want no greater evidence +of the popularity of his story in America. That there is not a "Trilby" +shoe on the market reflects little credit upon the enterprise of our +bootmakers. It is an opportunity that no soap-maker would neglect if it +came his way. Possibly the fact that Trilby's foot was large (as well as +shapely) has something to do with the shoemakers' backwardness. Hers +were not Cinderella slippers. ("The Lounger," 30 March, 1895.) + +Mr. C. W. Coleman, Librarian of William and Mary College, writes from +Williamsburg, Va., to say that I am in error in supposing that the +bootmakers of this wide-wake country have not yet seized the name of du +Maurier's heroine for advertising purposes. In his note of correction he +encloses a clipping from the catalogue of a Chicago house, containing a +picture of a high-heeled ladies' shoe, flanked by an advertisement of +"'The Trilby,' price $3, postage 15 cts.--'an ornament to any foot,'" +etc. And I hear that the shop-windows of Norfolk, Va., fairly bristle +with shoes of this brand. Moreover, a bootmaker's advertisement in the +Pittsburg _Post_ shows (as a punning Pennsylvania correspondent writes +to me) that "Trilby has obtained a foothold even in the Iron City." +According to the advertisement, "this enterprising firm offer to the +lady sending in the most accurate dimensions according to the diagram +above, together with a drawn outline of the nude foot on paper, a +handsome pair of the highest grade 'Trilby' shoe, which they will have +made up especially for the winner. This stylish foot adornment for +Pittsburgh's model feet will be satin or silk lined throughout, of the +finest quality kid and best workmanship. Bear in mind, ladies, it need +not be the smallest feet that win, but the most perfect form of a foot +from a standpoint of proportionate measurements." ("The Lounger," 13 +April, 1895.) + + * * * * * + +G. A. D. writes from Philadelphia to deplore the Quaker City's +vulgarization of the name and fame of Trilby; and in justification of +his plaint encloses a Chestnut Street dealer's advertisement of the +"Trilby Sausage"! This, it is claimed, "is something new, and fills a +long-felt want"; "they melt in your mouth." They don't melt in G. A. +D.'s mouth, but they rankle in his æsthetic soul. "What next?" he +exclaims; "an Ophelia tooth-wash, a Duchess of Towers garbage-pail!" Our +correspondent has not yet heard of the "Trilby Ham." This, if anything, +is worse than the Sausage. It has been heard of in this city; whether or +no it originated here, I do not care to inquire. But in an Eighth Avenue +dime-museum, there are "Twenty Trilbys," and visitors vote for the +handsomest! Moreover, we have now the "Trilby Hearth-brush"; and huge +posters on the East Side announce a picnic of the "Trilby Coterie and +Chowder Club." + + * * * * * + +_The Evening Post_ reprints from James Braid's "Observations of Trance" +(1850, page 43) the following paragraph, which is of singular interest +in connection with the novel which has made such an extraordinary +sensation in this country during the past year, and has become as great +a success on the stage as in book-form. Svengali's transformation +of a girl with no ear for music into a singer of marvellous powers seems +to have been almost paralleled in real life, half a century ago:-- + +[Illustration: DU MAURIER'S HOUSE. + +HAMPSTEAD HEATH.] + +"Many patients will thus repeat accurately what is spoken in _any_ +language; and they may be also able to sing correctly and simultaneously +both words and music of songs in any language which they have never +heard before--_i. e._, they catch the words as well as music so +instantaneously as to accompany the other singer as if both had been +previously equally familiar with both words and music. In this manner a +patient of mine, who, when awake, knew not the grammar of even her own +language, and who had very little knowledge of music, was enabled to +follow Mlle. Jenny Lind correctly in songs in different languages, +giving both words and music _so correctly and so simultaneously with +Jenny Lind_, that two parties in the room could not for some time +imagine that there were two voices, so perfectly did they accord, both +in musical tone and vocal pronunciation of Swiss, German and Italian +songs. She was equally successful in accompanying Mlle. Lind in one of +her extemporaneous effusions, which was a long and extremely difficult +elaborate chromatic exercise, which the celebrated cantatrice tried by +way of taxing the powers of the somnambulist to the utmost. When awake +the girl durst not even _attempt_ to do anything of the sort; and, after +all, wonderful as it was, it was _only phonic imitation_, for she did +not understand the meaning of a single word of the foreign language +which she had uttered so correctly." + + * * * * * + +(_Miss Frances Albert Doughty, in The Critic, 15 June, 1895._) + +"The strength of 'Trilby' as a novel lies in the exquisitely dear +realization of the good in the girl's nature, which the fine art of the +author has been able to give to the reader. The divine in the Laird, in +Taffy and in Little Billee responded to the divine in that undeveloped +girl, and to them the angel in her was the real Trilby in spite of all +her past experience. But idealism and realism in this charming story are +not quite happily balanced: the reader receives a blow on the spiritual +side of his being from the manifestation of an agency in the universe +that is endowed with an all-conquering malevolence, something extraneous +from the individual and yet able to arrest in her the growth of the +budding germ of holiness and moral beauty, a power triumphant even at +the moment when her spirit was about to return to the God who gave it. +Without Svengali there would be no novel of Trilby; nevertheless, he is +the sole blot upon it." + + * * * * * + +(_San Francisco Argonaut_) + +"Perhaps the most surprising circumstance connected with 'Trilby' in the +eyes of American readers is the way the book has been received in +England. At best it has been accorded lukewarm praise, and the tone of +its reviews has run the gamut down to downright slating. Some have been +spiteful enough to be exceptionally entertaining. Of these, that of _The +Pall Mall Gazette_ is the most striking, the reviewer of that journal +showing himself to be (as an exchange puts it) a master of vituperative +diction. To this reviewer, 'Trilby's' three Englishmen are 'British +prigs cut in pasteboard,' and their biographer is denied even the poor +ability to express himself in grammatical English." + + * * * * * + +TO THE EDITORS OF THE CRITIC:-- + +If there yet remains a word to be said in criticism of this book, it +may, perhaps, be in regard to the musical part of it. Whether +intentionally or not, du Maurier has certainly added an instance, which +tends to prove the theory true, that music in itself is neither +elevating nor refining. Svengali is drawn with inimitable skill, and +with so much realism that the reader feels that he must have been known +and hated by du Maurier in all his repulsiveness. And yet this loathsome +creature has the power of so seizing and expressing the noblest works of +the great masters of harmony as to move his hearers to tears, to sway +them at his will by the tenderness and feeling he puts into the notes. +It is a hard thing for a music-lover to comprehend, that a man of low +and vicious life, and utterly without aspirations, can so express the +penetrating beauty that lies in music more than in any other art. It +shows, too, that music gives us only what it finds in us, and proves the +folly of "program music," or music with a translation. + +AUBURN, N. Y. + +S. M. COX. + +(_Mrs. Emma Carleton, in the Louisville Courier-Journal._) + +"A great deal has been said and written about 'Ben Bolt,'" said a woman +who doesn't pretend to be musical, "and the other songs of the Trilby +repertoire; but I have not yet seen or heard any comment on Trilby's +'great and final performance'--the vocalization of Chopin's Impromptu, A +flat. Du Maurier devotes two entire pages to most wonderful description +of this wonderful musical achievement; two exquisite pages of music +painted in words, in most masterly and matchless fashion. Who can forget +the depiction of La Svengali's voice, 'as a light nymph catching the +whirl of a double-skipping rope as she warbles that long, smooth, +lilting, dancing laugh, that wondrous song without words.' This +impromptu should be rechristened the 'Trilby Impromptu,' and musicians +everywhere should now--while the Trilby wave is riding high--be charming +their audiences by playing it." + + * * * * * + +The Oliver Ditson Co. has published a pamphlet of "Trilby" songs, etc., +containing the words and music of "Ben Bolt," "Malbrouck," "Bonjour, +Suzon," "Der Nussbaum" ("The Nut-tree") "Cantique de Noël" and "Au Clair +de la Lune," and the music of Chopin's "Impromptu." + + * * * * * + +On March 1, 1895, a postcard was sent from the office of _Life_, calling +the attention of "exchange editors" throughout the country to "A +'Trilby' Examination." We reprint the card in full:-- + +"_Life's Monthly Calendar_ offers a series of cash prizes for the best +sets of replies to the following questions on 'Trilby': + +1. What does the author claim as the king of all instruments? Who does +he claim was the greatest violinist of his time? What does he call the +most bourgeois piece of music he knows? + +2. What was Svengali's real name? + +3. Where does the author state that he is a social lion? Where does he +deny that he is a snob? + +4. Where does he bring Little Billee in contact with Punch? + +5. What did the Laird call M. le général Comte de la Tour-aux-Loups? + +6. In what places does the author compare Gecko to a dog? + +7. How old was Trilby when she died? + +8. What was Little Billee's physical explanation of his inability to +love? + +9. What verbal description of one of the heroes contradicts almost every +one of the author's drawings of him? + +10. What incident of the story is inconsistent with the author's own +argument in behalf of the nude in art? + + +"Dear Sir: The above questions are covered by our copyright, but in view +of the popular interest in 'Trilby,' you may wish to reproduce them. We +should be more than pleased to have you do so, if you will give us +credit. + +Yours very truly, + +JAMES S. METCALFE, + +Editor and Manager _Life's Monthly Calendar_." + + + + +The Songs in "Trilby" + + +Dr. Thomas Dunn English wrote the words of "Ben Bolt" in New York, in +1842, when he was a young man of three-and-twenty. Mr. N. P. Willis had +asked him to write a sea-song for _The New Mirror_, and so he wound up +the last stanza with an allusion to "the salt-sea gale!" As a sea-song, +"Ben Bolt" is not a success; but it has been sung on every sea and in +every land where the English tongue is spoken. At Pittsburgh, +Pennsylvania, in 1848, an English journalist named Hunt quoted the words +(from a defective memory) to Nelson Kneass, who was attached to the +local theatre; and, adapted by Kneass to a German melody, the song, in a +somewhat garbled version, was introduced in a play called "The Battle of +Buena Vista." In Helen Kendrick Johnson's "Our Familiar Songs, and Those +Who Made Them" (Henry Holt & Co., 1881), the story of its vogue in +England as well as in America is told effectively. Not only were ships +and steam-boats named in its honor, but a play was built upon its +suggestions, and as recently as in 1877 an English novelist made the +memories evoked by the singing of the song a factor in the development +of his catastrophe. Its revival at the hand of Mr. du Maurier is the +latest and perhaps the most striking tribute to its hold upon the +popular heart. To the author himself--in his ripe old age a member of +the LIIId Congress--its fame is seemingly a bore, for he is quoted as +saying:--"I am feeling very well and enjoying life as well as an old man +can, but this eternal 'Ben Bolt' business makes me so infernally weary +at times that existence becomes a burden. The other night, at a meeting +of a medical association at my home in Newark, some one proposed that +all hands join in singing 'Ben Bolt,' whereupon I made a rush for the +door, and came very near forgetting the proprieties by straightway +leaving home. However, I recovered my equilibrium and rejoined my +friends. I don't think that General Sherman ever grew half so tired of +'Marching Through Georgia' as I have of that creation of mine, and it +will be a blessed relief to me when the public shall conclude to let it +rest." + +Apropos of the use made of the song in "Trilby," _Harper's Bazar_ +published the words and music; whereupon the author sent this letter to +the editor:-- + +"It is very pleasing to an old man like myself to have the literary work +of a half-century since dragged to light and commended, as has been the +case with 'Ben Bolt' of late. I was flattered by seeing my likeness--or, +rather, the likeness of a younger man than myself--in your pages; but I +must protest against some errors which, in spite of careful editing, +enter into your transcription of the song. The words of the original +were:-- + + 'Don't you remember the school, Ben Bolt, + With the master so cruel and grim, + And the shaded nook in the running brook, + Where the children went to swim?' + +"This has been changed in the song, as usually sung, to read:-- + + 'With the master so kind and so true. + And the little nook by the clear-running brook, + Where we gathered the flowers as they grew?' + +"You have copied this, but in a better shape, with the exception of +changing the rhythm. I must protest against this change, because the +school-masters of between sixty and seventy years since were, to my +memory, 'cruel and grim'; they were neither kind nor true. They seemed +to think the only way to get learning into a boy's head was by the use +of the rod. There may have been exceptions, but I never met them. At all +events, 'what I have written I have written.'" + +BEN BOLT + + I + + Oh, don't you remember, Sweet Alice, Ben Bolt? + Sweet Alice, whose hair was so brown, + Who wept with delight when you gave her a smile, + And trembled with fear at your frown! + In the old churchyard, in the valley, Ben Bolt, + In a corner obscure and alone, + They have fitted a slab of the granite so gray. + And Alice lies under the stone! + + II + + Under the hickory tree, Ben Bolt, + Which stood at the foot of the hill, + Together we've lain in the noon-day shade, + And listened to Appleton's mill. + The mill-wheel has fallen to pieces, Ben Bolt, + The rafters have tumbled in, + And a quiet that crawls round the walls as you gaze, + Has followed the olden din. + + III + + Do you mind the cabin of logs, Ben Bolt, + At the edge of the pathless wood, + And the button-ball tree with its motley limbs, + Which nigh by the door-step stood? + The cabin to ruin has gone, Ben Bolt, + The tree you would seek in vain; + And where once the lords of the forest waved, + Grows grass and the golden grain. + + IV + + And don't you remember the school, Ben Bolt, + With the master so cruel and grim, + And the shaded nook in the running brook, + Where the children went to swim? + Grass grows on the master's grave, Ben Bolt, + The spring of the brook is dry, + And of all the boys who were schoolmates then, + There are only you and I. + + V + + There is change in the things I loved, Ben Bolt, + They have changed from the old to the new; + But I feel in the depths of my spirit the truth, + There never was change in you. + Twelve-months twenty have past, Ben Bolt, + Since first we were friends--yet I hail + Thy presence a blessing, thy friendship a truth, + Ben Bolt, of the salt-sea gale! + + * * * * * + +TO THE EDITORS OF THE CRITIC:-- + +In your columns of "Trilbyana" I have seen no mention of the fact that +George W. Cable, in his "Dr. Sevier"--a thousand times better novel and +better work, in every way, than "Trilby,"--has introduced the old song +"Ben Bolt" with wonderful effect. It is strange that the old melody +should have appealed to the two men, so widely apart, and it is but fair +that the American's first, and most skilful, use of it should have due +recognition. + +PHILADELPHIA. + +JOHN PATTERSON. + + * * * * * + +TO THE EDITORS OF THE CRITIC:-- + +Du Maurier says that there is but one verse of the little French song, +which Trilby sings with so much effect--"Au clair de la lune." He +mistakes; there is another, running thus:-- + + "Je n'ouvrirai pas la porte, J'ouvre bien la porte, + À un vieux savetier, À un pâtissier, + * * * * * Qui m'apporte des brioches + * * * * Dans un tablier." + +The two missing lines have escaped the memory of the writer. + +AUBURN, N. Y. + +S. M. COX. + + * * * * * + +Your correspondent, S. M. Cox, offers some more verses of "Mon Ami +Pierrot." They do not quite agree with those taught me, shortly after +the Revolution of 1848, by an old French gentleman. You will notice that +the French of the last verse is quite "eighteenth-century" in style and +diction. + + II III + + Je n'ouvre pas ma porte Mais j'ouvre bien ma porte + À des savetiers, À des officiers, + Ils ont des alènes, Ils ont des pistoles, + C'est pour me piquer. C'est pour me les baîller. + + PARIS, 1 Jan., 1895. B. F. + + * * * * * + +Mr. du Maurier was correct in saying that there is only one verse of "Au +Clair de la Lune"; yet there are possibly, and probably, a thousand made +in imitation of it, which go to the same air. We quote from the San +Francisco _Argonaut_:-- + +"It is to be observed that these _amateurs de Trilby_ do not go the +length of singing 'Au Clair de la Lune,' even repeating the first stanza +twice, as Trilby did. But perhaps they are as ignorant concerning the +song as is Mr. du Maurier, who declares there is but one verse. There +are four. The first is given in 'Trilby' thus:-- + + 'Au clair de la lune, Ma chandelle est morte.... + Mon ami Pierrot! Je n'ai plus de feu! + Prête-moi ta plume Ouvre-moi ta porte + Pour écrire un mot. Pour l'amour de Dieu!' + +The second runs:-- + + 'Au clair de la lune Va chez la voisine-- + Pierrot répondit: Je crois qu'elle y est, + Je n'ai pas de plume, Car, dans sa cuisine, + Je suis dans mon lit. On bat le briquet.' + +The third stanza contains the point of the song:-- + + 'Au clair de la lune Qui frappe de la sorte? + S'en va Arléquin Il dit à son tour: + Frapper chez la brune Ouvre-moi ta porte + Qui répond soudain: Pour le dieu d'amour.' + +The fourth stanza continues in the same strain, and it goes farther." + + * * * * * + + "MALBROUCK S'EN VA'T EN GUERRE" + + Malbrouck s'en va-t'en guerre-- + _Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!_ + Malbrouck s'en va-t'en guerre.... + Ne sais quand reviendra! + Ne sais quand reviendra! + Ne sais quand reviendra! + + Il reviendra-z-à Pâques-- + _Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!_ + Il reviendra-z-à Pâques.... + Ou ... à la Trinit! + + La Trinité se passe-- + _Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!_ + La Trinité se passe.... + Malbrouck ne revient pas! + + Madame à sa tour monte-- + _Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!_ + Madame à sa tour monte, + Si haut qu'elle peut monter! + + Elle voit de loin son page-- + _Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!_ + Elle voit de loin son page, + Tout de noire habillé! + + "Mon page--mon beau page!-- + _Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!_ + Mon page--mon beau page! + Quelles nouvelles apportez?" + + "Aux nouvelles que j'apporte-- + _Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!_ + Aux nouvelles que j'apporte, + Vos beaux yeux vont pleurer!" + + "Quittez vos habits roses-- + _Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!_ + Quittez vos habits roses, + Et vos satins brochés!" + + "Le Sieur Malbrouck est mort-- + _Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!_ + Le Sieur--Malbrouck--est--mort! + Est mort--et enterré!" + + * * * * * + +There is no more eloquent description of the effect of music on an +impressionable nature than du Maurier gives of the impression made upon +Little Billee by the singing of Adam's "Cantique de Noël" at the +Madeleine on Christmas Eve. + + CANTIQUE DE NOËL + + Minuit, Chrétiens, c'est l'heure solennelle, + Où l'homme Dieu descendit jusqu'à nous, + Pour effacer la tache originelle + Et de son Père arrêter le courroux. + Le monde entier tressaille d'espérance + A cette nuit qui lui donne un sauveur. + Peuple à genoux! attends la délivrance! + Noël, Noël, voici le Rédempteur! + + + + +A Search for Sources + + +TO THE EDITORS OF THE CRITIC:-- + +The liquid name, "Trilby," of du Maurier's heroine having been duly run +down to its source, will a slight excursus be amiss as to the origin of +the affectionate title applied by the novelist on his charming little +hero--"Little Billee"? Evidently the name, together with certain +descriptive touches, has been taken from Thackeray's ballad, "Little +Billee." This racy skit, as many doubtless know, is in the best vein of +the great humorist's inimitable burlesque. It narrates the tragic cruise +of + + "Three sailors of Bristol city + Who took a boat and went to sea," + +the second stanza running thus:-- + + "There was gorging Jack, and guzzling Jimmy + _And the youngest, he was Little Billee_. + Now when they got as far as the Equator + They'd nothing left, but one split pea." + +And the unpleasant ultimatum being arrived at, that "We've nothing left, +us must eat we," the poem continues:-- + + "Says gorging Jack to guzzling Jimmy, + With one another we shouldn't agree, + There's little Bill, _he's young and tender_, + We're old and tough, so let's eat he." + +Here, I say, we have the origin of the novelist's "Little Billee," +while, in the italicized phrases, we have also du Maurier's, "the third, +he was little Billee" (page 6), and "he was young and tender, was little +Billee." + +It would be sheer nonsense, of course, to urge against the famous +novelist any charge of unacknowledged borrowing in matters so entirely +trivial. The point is merely a curious one of origins; a little +siccatine botanizing, so to speak, on the _folia disjecta_ that have +been wonderfully spun by du Maurier's genius into a fabric of grace and +beauty so rare as is this "Trilby." Nor, indeed, should the further fact +be a detraction from the gifted author of "Trilby," that his +indebtedness to Thackeray is obviously greater than in the minutiæ under +consideration--that, in fact, he has caught from the great immortal the +note of much that is best in his book. In his limpid, graceful +simplicity of words, and their easy, natural flow--in his delicate, +playful humor, and tender but not overwrought pathos, we discover a +careful study of found only a few general remarks about fairies, their +habits and habitations, nothing in the least resembling the story of +Jeannie's lover. Perhaps Nodier was mistaken about his source. As he +travelled in the Highlands, he may possibly have "collected" the tale at +first hand, and, there being no folk-lore societies in those early days +of romanticism, he was not aware of the honor that thus accrued to him. +It cannot have evolved itself from a mere hint. We appeal to Mr. Lang to +take up and follow the chase farther. He might be worse occupied than in +tracing out the original John Trilby MacFarlane, and whence he got his +English-sounding name, his fairy powers and his connection with Saint +Columba--the last probably from Nodier himself, who may have been +reading Montalembert's "Monks of the West" before setting out upon his +pilgrimage. Mr. Dole, by the way, irreverently converts the Dove of the +Churches into a "Saint Columbine," unknown to any respectable +hagiographer. Think, Mr. Lang, what a delightful coil this romancing +Frenchman, let loose among your Hielan' men, fairies, monks and Scotch +novels, has made for you to straighten out, and how many strange +discoveries may be made while you are about the job! + +Miss Smith (2) has prepared another translation of Nodier's story, and, +though there is little choice between her version and Mr. Dole's, we +prefer it. It seems a trifle less exact, but it is more idiomatic; and, +if anything, she perhaps intensifies the local color a little, which +does not do the tale any harm. Her book is got up in tartan cover; Mr. +Dole's has a design adapted from Paul Konewka. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Richard Mansfield has secured from Estes & Lauriat the right to +dramatize and produce Mr. Dole's translation of Nodier's "Trilby, le +Lutin d'Argail." + + + + +Nodier's "Trilby, le Lutin d'Argail" + + +It was not long after the appearance of "Trilby" that our readers +detected the French origin of the name of Mr. du Maurier's heroine. The +story of the unearthing of this delightful French fairy-tale may be +followed in this series of communications to _The Critic_: + +On looking over Roche's "Prosateurs Français," I find that one of the +"plus jolis" contes of Charles Nodier (1788-1844) is entitled "Trilby"; +therefore the title of du Maurier's much-bought novel is not original +with him. I should be pleased if any reader of _The Critic_ would inform +me as to the plot of Nodier's story. + +ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI RECTORY, + +WM. J. MCCLURE, + +MT. KISCO, N. Y., 29th Oct., 1894. + + * * * * * + +The following lines occur in the "Réponse à M. Charles Nodier" of Alfred +de Musset:-- + + "Non pas cette belle insomnie + Du génie + Où Trilby vient, prêt à chanter, + T'écouter." + +This would seem to offer some clue to the origin of the name chosen by +Mr. du Maurier for his heroine. Can you enlighten me as to the identity +of the "Trilby" referred to by Musset? + +RIDGEFIELD, CONN., 19 Nov., 1894. + +ROSWELL BACON. + + * * * * * + +In answer to the request of your correspondent in _The Critic_ of Nov. +17, I find the tale of "Trilby" in my copy of the "Contes de Charles +Nodier, illustrés par Tony Johannot." "Trilby" is the story of a +household fairy of Scotland (a "Lutin familier de la Chaumière"). It is +fantastic and touching, but it has nothing in common with du Maurier's +"Trilby." + +LEESBURGH, VIRGINIA, 20 Nov., 1894. + +I. L. P. + + * * * * * + +From the recent contributions to "Trilbyana" in your columns, it would +appear as if the name of Trilby (originally Scotch or Irish?) were not +uncommon in the writings of French authors. Charles Nodier, in his +_conte_, says that M. de Latouche--a contemporary--wrote on the same +subject, "où cette charmante tradition était racontée en vers +enchanteurs"--which gives one to suppose that "Trilby" was the name of +his enchantress; though, perhaps, he refers to the old story of "Le +Diable Amoureux." I find, moreover, that Balzac takes the name for a +type in his "Histoire des Treize: Ferragus: Vol. I. Scènes de la Vie +Parisienne" (page 48 of edition of 1843):--"Pour développer cette +histoire dans toute la vérité de ses détails, pour en suivre le cours +dans toutes ses sinuosités, il faut ici divulguer quelques secrets de +l'amour, se glisser sous les lambris d'une chambre à coucher, non pas +effrontément, mais à la manière de Trilby [the opposite to du Maurier's +Trilby], n'effaroucher ni Dougal, ni Jeannie, n'effaroucher personne," +etc. + +TUXEDO PARK, 26 Nov., 1894. + +E. L. B. + + * * * * * + +(_Boston Evening Transcript, 1 Dec. 1894._) + +"The Listener was asked the other day where du Maurier got the name of +Trilby--a sweet and pleasant word, neither English nor French, which +seemed to suit so perfectly the adorable young person of his creation. +He was able to answer, more by accident certainly than as the result of +erudition, that the name was not invented by du Maurier but belongs to +the French classics--possibly to Scottish folk-lore. In the year 1822 +there was first published in Paris a _nouvelle_, by Charles Nodier, +afterward a member of the French Academy, entitled, "Trilby, or the Fay +of Argyle"; it was a sort of fairy-story, in which a fay is in love with +a mortal woman, and the woman is very far from being indifferent to his +sentiment. This 'Trilby' attained a considerable degree of popularity; +it became, indeed, a French classic; Sainte-Beuve has particularly +praised the charm of its style. * * * In his preface to the story, +Nodier says: 'The subject of this story is derived from a preface or a +note to one of the romances of Sir Walter Scott, I do not know which +one.' This is a very indefinite acknowledgment While Nodier may have got +his subject from Scott, the Listener doubts if he got the name 'Trilby' +from him. It is just the sort of name that a French writer would give to +a Scotch fay. Nevertheless, Trilby may be a real Scotch elfin. The +Listener would hardly claim personal acquaintance with them all. + +"Du Maurier's 'Trilby' is curiously prefigured, in part at least, in +Nodier's; and yet there is not the smallest thing that the most jealous +critic could call a plagiarism; it is a legitimate parentage. As you go +on with Nodier's story, you love his Trilby more and more, as you do du +Maurier's, until you think that there was never so bewitching a fairy; +and your love for Trilby is interwoven with your love for Jeannie, his +mortal sweetheart, just as your love for du Manner's Trilby is forever +mixed up with your tender sentiment for Little Billee. You feel a sort +of enchantment over you like the hypnotism that you are under in du +Maurier's strange book. And both stories, while abounding in wit and +pretty things, are deeply tragical. It has been said of Nodier's +'Trilby' that it belongs to the realm of the _supra-sensible_, and so, +in large measure, certainly does du Maurier's. Du Maurier has confessed +his obligation flatly in giving his story the very name that Nodier's +bore. It is conceivable that the image of the Frenchman's haunting fairy +dwelt with him until he resolved to reincarnate the adorable elf in the +body of a girl as adorable. He gave his Trilby a Scotch ancestry to +connect her the more naturally with the _lutin d'Argail_; and her fairy +ancestry will easily account not only for her early prankishness, but +for her later unreality. But it is a prefiguring merely, and not a +direct suggestion. Whatever du Maurier's 'Trilby' lacks, it isn't +originality!" + + * * * * * + +(_From Mr. C. E. L. Wingate's Boston Letter in The Critic of 20 April, +1893._) + +It appears that the first mention of the French book appeared in _The +Critic_, last November. It was in the same month that Mr. Bradford +Torrey * * * happened to find a copy of Nodier's "Trilby" in the Boston +Athenæum. He took the book to his friend, Mr. J. E. Chamberlin of _The +Youth's Companion_, who began its translation at once. A few days later +appeared a note in _The Critic_ from a correspondent in Virginia. +Thinking that secrecy was no longer worth while, Mr. Chamberlin wrote +his paragraphs for the _Transcript_ "Listener" column, incorporating a +bit of translation. This was printed on Dec. 1. Miss Minna C. Smith went +to Roberts Bros. at once, to ask them if they would consider the +publication of a translation of the romance by her _Transcript_ +confrère, and Mr. F. Alcott Pratt replied that they would like very much +to see that gentleman's work. Circumstances made Mr. Chamberlin decide +not to finish the translation, and he gave Miss Smith his idea and a few +pages of the manuscript for a Christmas present. During several weeks +following she was engaged upon her careful translation. The Scotch words +and names of localities in her manuscript were corrected by Mr. J. +Murray Kay of Houghton, Mifflin & Co., an accomplished Scot, who walked +through Argyle with his daughters last summer. On March 19, an article +on Charles Nodier's story, foreshadowing Miss Smith's translation, +appeared in the _Transcript_. On the morning of March 20, Mr. Dana Estes +sent for Mr. Nathan Haskell Dole and asked him to make a translation, +which was done with remarkable rapidity, and put out on March 29. +Learning of this, Lamson, Wolffe & Co. hurried on Miss Smith's book, +which had been in the hands of their printer at the Collins press for +days, advertised it on Thursday and brought it out on Saturday, in +Scotch plaid covers. + +This firm of Lamson, Wolffe & Co., by the way, has just been dissolved +for a novel reason. Mr. Wolffe is a member of the class of '95 at +Harvard. The publication of "Trilby, the Fairy of Argyle" called the +attention of the faculty to his publishing business, and he was asked to +give it up, or else forfeit his degree. He chose the former alternative, +and although the firm name will remain Lamson, Wolffe & Co., a new and, +for the present, silent member of the firm has added capital and +scholarship to the house. + + * * * * * + +"Trilby, the Fairy of Argyle" + +_By Charles Noder. 1. Translated from the French, with introduction, by +Nathan Haskell Dole. Estes & Lauriat. 2. From the French by Minna +Caroline Smith. Boston: Lamson, Wolffe & Co._ + +Nodier's "Trilby," who now revisits the book-stores owing to Mr. du +Maurier's having taken his name for his heroine's, is one of the few +latter-day fairies that have fairy blood (or ichor) in their veins. He +belongs on the same shelf with Fouqué's "Undine," but, though he was +only joking when he personated a father who "had not seen him since the +days of King Fergus," he is certainly of the breed of Una and Maer, +Caoilte and Mananan. That he made a sensation on his first appearance in +the world of letters is shown by Victor Hugo's ode, warning the Fairy of +Argyle to beware of ink-slinging penny-a-liners:-- + + "Car on en veut aux Trilbys + * * * * * * * * + Ils souilleraient d'encre noire, + Hélas! ton manteau de moire, + Ton aigrette de rubis"-- + +advice which might be repeated apropos of Mr. du Maurier's creation. + +Mr. Dole, who has made a translation (1) of Nodier's "Trilby," has +looked through all of Scott's novels, he says, to discover, if possible, +the "preface or note" from which the French author claimed to have drawn +his story, and has the deft art of "Pendennis" and "The Newcomes." And +the "Cave of Harmony," with its songs and its bumpers and long whiffs, +the gay nights and rollicking days of F. B. and Clive and Pendennis--the +glamor of all which has enticed full many a youngster towards the easy +descent, or the shining slopes (as the case may be) of art and +letters--all these scenes have doubtless served as the studies of the +pictures, almost as delightful and masterly as their prototypes, that du +Maurier gives us of the joyous Bohemian life of the three jolly +Musketeers of the Brush in the Quartier Latin in "Trilby." + +AUBURN, ALA., 26 Dec., 1894. + +CHARLES C. THACH. + + * * * * * + +As a small contribution to "Trilbyana," I would call attention to the +fact, unnoted so far, that Trilby was the name of Eugénie de Guérin's +pet dog, mentioned several times in the journal she kept for her brother +Maurice. Was the dog, perhaps, named for the fairy? + +LOUISVILLE, KY. + +A. C. B. + + * * * * * + +As there seems to be a mania for hunting up the sources of the +inspiration of certain authors, I will engage in the game also. In +Saintine's "Picciola," Book I., Chap XII., after the first paragraph, +you will find the germ of "Peter Ibbetson." + +GRAND RAPIDS, MICH. + +C. C. + + * * * * * + + +THE CRITIC + +A Weekly Review of Literature and the Arts + +Edited (since 1881) by J. B. & J. L. GILDER + +"The only paper to which we can look for a week-by-week record of +American literature."--_Sir Walter Besant_. + +"_The Critic_ long since took rank as the foremost literary paper in +America."--_The New York Times_. + +"The only purely literary weekly in America."--_The Athenæum_. + +_A few occasional contributors during the past fifteen years_:-- + + JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL + JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER + AUSTIN DOBSON + THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH + WALT WHITMAN + MRS. BURTON HARRISON + RICHARD HENRY STODDARD + OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES + FRANCIS PARKMAN + EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN + ANDREW LANG + FREDERICK LOCKER + I. ZANGWILL + FRANK R. STOCKTON + +10 cts. a copy. $3 a year. (Foreign postage, $1.) + + * * * * * + +"TRILBYANA: The Rise and Progress of a Popular Novel." A 56-page +illustrated pamphlet, untrimmed, rubricated cover. 250 signed copies on +hand-made paper. $1, net. Regular edition, 25 cts. + + * * * * * + +"ESSAYS FROM THE CRITIC." A reprint of some of the most striking +contributions to the earlier numbers. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Trilbyana + The Rise and Progress of a Popular Novel + +Author: Joseph Benson Gilder & Jeannette Leonard Gilder + +Editor: Joseph Benson Gilder + Jeannette Leonard Gilder + +Release Date: June 19, 2010 [EBook #32887] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRILBYANA *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images of public domain material at +the Internet Archive.) + + + + + + +</pre> + +<hr /> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/ill_title.jpg" alt="Trilbyana" style="max-width:50%;" title="Trilbyana" /> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 562px;margin-top:15%;"> +<a name="frontispiece" id="frontispiece"></a> +<span class="caption">Mr. du Maurier's First Drawing in "Punch"<br />Showing himself (smooth face) and Mr. Whistler (with eyeglass). (See <a href="#page_014">page 14</a>.)</span> +<a href="images/ill_009_lg.png"> +<img src="images/ill_009_sml.png" width="562" height="550" alt="Mr. du Maurier's First Drawing in "Punch"" title="Mr. du Maurier's First Drawing in "Punch"" /></a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Photographer.</span>—"No smoking here, Sir!"</p> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Dick Tinto.</span>—"Oh! A thousand pardons! I was not aware that——"</p> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Photographer</span> [interrupting with dignity."—<i>Please to remember, Gentlemen, that this is +not a Common Hartist's studio!</i>" [N. B.—Dick and his friends, who <i>are</i> Common Artists, feel +shut up by this little aristocratic distinction, which had not occurred to them.] +</p> +</div> + +<h1>TRILBYANA</h1> + +<h2>The Rise and Progress of a<br /> +Popular Novel</h2> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 150px;"> +<a name="Mr_du_Mauriers_Monogram" id="Mr_du_Mauriers_Monogram"></a> +<img src="images/ill_010.png" width="150" height="139" alt="Mr. du Maurier's Monogram" title="Mr. du Maurier's Monogram" /> +</div> + +<h3>NEW YORK<br /> +THE CRITIC CO.<br /> +<br /> +MDCCCXCV</h3> + +<p class="c"><span class="smcap">Copyright 1895<br /> +by<br /> +The Critic Co.</span></p> + +<p class="c"><i>This edition is limited to<br /> +250 copies, of which this<br /> +is No.</i> 194.</p> + +<p><i>It is many a year since a book has attained the popularity +of Mr. du Maurier's second novel, "Trilby" (printed +as a serial in Harper's Monthly, from January to August, +inclusive, and then issued in book-form, on Saturday, 8 September, +1894). Several others have sold as well—some even +better; but neither "Looking Backward" nor "Ben Hur" +(to name but these two) has captivated the public in the same +manner or in the same degree as this romance, this fairy-tale +of the three British artists, the blanchisseuse who posed for +"the altogether," the Parisian masters of painting, and the +trans-Rhenish masters of music, in the Latin Quarter of the +early fifties. It is a story written out of the author's very +heart, and it finds its way straight to the hearts of his readers. +This is the secret of its unique success. Its charm is +emotional rather than intellectual. With all its art, it impresses +one as essentially ingenuous. It is a book to be loved, +not merely to be liked or admired.</i></p> + +<p><i>On 16 June, 1894, The Critic printed, with comment, a +letter in which Mr. Whistler protested to the editor of an English +newspaper against the libellous likeness of himself to be +found in the character of Joe Sibley, one of the minor personages +in the story of "Trilby." In the fall there were so many +sporadic calls for this number of the paper as soon to exhaust +the supply carried over from the summer. There seemed +to be a general desire on the part of our readers to bind +up the Whistler letters, etc., with the text and pictures of +"Trilby" as printed in Harper's Monthly, the American artist's +protest having led to a slight revision of the story before its +appearance in book-form. The hint was acted upon; and two +pages of "Trilbyana" were printed in The Critic of Nov. 17.</i></p> + +<p><i>Though an extra edition was struck off, the call for this +number has at last exhausted the supply; and the present +pamphlet, containing among its many items of interest a majority +of those that have found a place in the columns of The Critic, +may fairly claim to be issued in response to a popular call.</i></p> + +<p class="r"><i><span class="smcap">J.B. & J.L. Gilder.</span></i><br /> +</p> + +<h3>TABLE OF CONTENTS</h3> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="toc"> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="right" class="smcap">Page</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">"Trilby: a Novel"</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_001">1</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Mr. du Maurier as a Draughtsman</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_004">4</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">"Trilby" on the Stage</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_008">8</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Personalia</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_011">11</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Mr. du Maurier and Mr. Whistler</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_015">15</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">"Trilby" Entertainments</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_019">19</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Miscellanea</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_022">22</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Songs</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_030">30</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">A Search for Sources</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_035">35</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Nodier's "Trilby," le Lutin d'Argail</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_037">37</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<h3>ILLUSTRATIONS</h3> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="illustrations"> +<tr><td align="left">Mr. du Maurier's Monogram</td><td align="left"><a href="#Mr_du_Mauriers_Monogram">Title-page</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Mr. du Maurier's First Drawing for <i>Punch</i></td><td align="left"><a href="#frontispiece">Frontispiece</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Portrait of Mr. du Maurier from a Photograph</td><td align="right">Face <a href="#page_010">10</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Portrait of Mr. du Maurier by Himself</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_011">11</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Portrait of Mr. Whistler</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_015">15</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">"Platt, the New Svengali"</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_025">25</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Mr. du Maurier's House on Hampton Heath</td><td align="right">Face <a href="#page_027">27</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<p><a name="page_001" id="page_001"></a></p> + +<h3>"Trilby: a Novel"</h3> + +<p class="c"><i>By George du Maurier. With Illustrations by the Author. Harper & +Brothers.</i></p> + +<p>When "<span class="smcap">Trilby</span>" began to appear as a serial in <i>Harper's +Monthly</i>, January 1894, Mr. Henry James prophesied that +it would prove to be a glorification of "the long leg and the +twentieth year." The prophecy was soon verified. At the +outset, indeed, it seemed as if the glorification were to be, +not so much of the long leg, as of the large and shapely foot. +The whole story rested for a while on one of Trilby's feet. +We say one, for it was only one of them—the left one—that +Little Billee immortalized by drawing on the wall of the +studio in the Place St. Anatole des Arts; but they were +equally perfect. As the young woman who had the happiness +of standing on this foot proclaims, kicking off one of +the big slippers in which she is introduced to us, "It's the +handsomest foot in all Paris: there's only one in all Paris to +match it, and here it is"—and off goes the other slipper. +The sketch of it that proves Little Billee already a master of +his art is not shown till near the end of the book; and neither +this nor Mr. du Maurier's own portrait of the <i>pieds nus</i> on +page 21 fully realizes one's notion of the thing's unapproached +perfection.</p> + +<p>As we have said, the whole story rests for a while on one +of these handsome feet; but the novelist manages at last to +free his neck from the thraldom of the "slim, straight, rosy +heel, clean-cut and smooth as the back of a razor," and proceeds +to gratify our curiosity to know something about the +strange being who poked about the studios in the Quartier +Latin in the early fifties, bare-headed, and wearing a big, +military coat with epaulets, which she could throw off when +she posed for the <i>ensemble</i> as easily as she could kick off the +loose slippers when only her foot was desired as a model. It +will be seen that Trilby was not a woman of any social +standing. Her father was an educated Irishman, her mother +(his wife) a pretty barmaid. They both were dead, and she +herself was a professional model.</p> + +<p>Two things about her were equally marvellous: one was her +foot, the other her voice—an organ of surprising power, range +and sweetness. No less extraordinary, perhaps, was the trick +that nature had played upon her, by coupling so glorious a +voice with an ear that could not distinguish one note from<a name="page_002" id="page_002"></a> +another—could scarcely tell a bass from a treble, and permitted +her to sing so badly that her hearers either stopped +their ears, laughed in her face, or bolted from the room. The +American song "Ben Bolt" was the one she liked the best to +sing, and sang the worst. There was something else about +her, almost as strange as her beautiful feet, her magnificent +voice and her defective (or altogether lacking) ear for music; +and that was the purity of her character. She had had affairs +with half a dozen men in the studios, without really knowing +that it wasn't the right thing to do. But her heart remained +spotless (so Mr. du Maurier assures us); and it is a most unfortunate +thing that Little Billee's mother comes tearing over +to Paris, leaving the peaceful dales and dairies of Devonshire +behind her, in her mad haste to break the engagement which +Trilby has at last made with the young English painter, after +having repeatedly refused to do so, notwithstanding her great +love for him. Mrs. Bagot has no difficulty in convincing her +that she is no worthy mate for Little Billee; and she accordingly +runs away from Paris, heart-broken, and becomes a +<i>blanchisseuse de fin</i>. Little Billee's heart is broken, too; or +if not broken, benumbed; and henceforth, though he becomes +a most successful artist, and the pet of all London, he +takes his pleasures and successes sadly and listlessly, caring +nothing for the wealth and fame that come to him.</p> + +<p>In the meantime a great <i>prima-donna</i> appears upon the +European stage, and all the world bows down before her. +Happening to be in Paris, Little Billee is persuaded by +his old chums, Taffy the Yorkshireman ex-soldier, and the +"Laird of Cockpen"—painters both,—to go and hear the +prodigy. Fancy their stupefaction at recognizing in the +glorious singer the tuneless Trilby of five years gone! No +longer Trilby O'Ferrall, but La Svengali, wife of their old +acquaintance Svengali the Jew, who had recognized the +possibilities of her voice when he first heard it in their Paris +studio, and had afterwards captured her and cultivated it +and by his mesmeric arts trained her as a singer and even +made her love him as a dog loves his master. A day or two +later, meeting him at a hotel, Svengali spits in Little Billee's +face, and gets his nose pulled for his pains by Taffy. And +then the great <i>prima-donna</i> and her master go to London; +and Trilby breaks down in trying to sing "Ben Bolt," and is +hooted off the stage—Svengali's sudden death in a stage-box +(unknown to anyone in the house) having broken the mesmeric +influence that has made her a singer. She pines +away, surrounded by her old friends the Englishmen, and +an object of solicitude to all Christendom; and after her<a name="page_003" id="page_003"></a> +death Little Billee pines away, too, and no one is left but +the big ex-officer Taffy—with the exception of Trilby, the +most attractive character in the book. For Little Billee +(whose sister he marries, after the death of Trilby, whom he, +too, loved) is, truth to tell, somewhat of a prig, even after the +sight of Trilby at the concert in Paris has roused him from +the unemotional state to which her flight consigned him, years +before; and Svengali is a beast, and Gecko is insignificant.</p> + +<p>The text of the book is the counterpart of its illustrations, +for Mr. du Maurier writes as he draws—with infinite precision +and detail. Nothing is omitted that could possibly +heighten an effect. Instead of flashing a scene or a sensation +upon you, he describes it and redescribes it, heaping +up the adjectives in masses. His art is a different art from +Kipling's, for instance, which never wastes a syllable. But +the point to be decided is not one of methods but of results; +and as a whole "Trilby" is delightful. It is a slow and +laborious process by which the author creates an impression +and surrounds his characters with the atmosphere he wishes +us to see them in; but he does finally create the impression +and the atmosphere, and in so doing justifies his means. He +has steeped his mind in Thackeray, and so has had a noble +master. Like "Peter Ibbetson," his new story is unique. +It is a book that could have been written only by an artist—and +illustrated only by the author; it is a book, moreover, in +which the man and the style are one.</p> + +<p>In its present form the story contains certain passages not +printed in the magazine—notably, a brief disquisition on +sitting for the nude. On the other hand, certain passages +have been altered in deference to the wishes of Mr. Whistler, +who saw in Joe Sibley, as described and pictured by Mr. du +Maurier, an unpleasant resemblance to himself. Not only +has the text been altered, but our friend Sibley is now called +Antony, and his hitherto unbearded face is adorned with a +non-Whistlerian beard. (See "Trilby," opposite page 132.) +One picture has been omitted altogether. It needed not the +accidental advertising of Mr. Whistler's threatened libel suit +to draw attention to the book. It is its own best advertisement, +and has fairly earned the success implied in advance +orders so numerous as to cause the postponement until to-day +(8 Sept. 1894) of the original date of publication.<a name="page_004" id="page_004"></a></p> + +<h3>Mr. du Maurier as a Draughtsman</h3> + +<p>It is hardly necessary to say that Mr. du Maurier's work +as a novelist is in no way matched by his work as a draughtsman, +as exemplified, for instance, in the 120 drawings for +"Trilby," exhibited in December, 1894, at the Avery gallery. +Until he began to write he was known merely as the author +of innumerable caricatures, which had a certain vogue because +they were at the same time pictures of fashionable +society; but even of these the legend was often the best +part. He had mastered many types, but they were nothing +more than that; and one had seen his millionaires and +swells and singing people and artists until one had grown +rather tired of them. Then, suddenly, it was found, with the +first chapters of his first novel, that in writing he could give +to all these well-known figures individuality, could make +flesh and blood of them. The drawings themselves, at least +those done as illustrations for his two romances, seem to +have gained by that discovery. These do not appear to be +the same French blouses and English guardsmen. Something +has got into them, a touch of life, which they did not +have before. Yet no one will say that the Little Billee of the +drawings now exhibited at Avery's gallery is even a shadow of +the Little Billee of the text. Of Trilby there is not so much +as the famous foot. Any schoolboy, almost, might have +made as clever a travesty of the Venus de Milo. The best +presentment of the gigantic Taffy is that in which he poses as +the Ilyssus. The Laird o' Cockpen is much better, being +frequently very like Mr. George W. Cable, particularly where +he listens to Trilby's confession—an accidental likeness, no +doubt, but one that increases our respect for the Laird. The +intentional likeness of Frederick Walker, who is said to be +the real original of Little Billee, is vastly superior to the +ideal one; and the many unnamed figures in the more crowded +compositions that appear to have been sketched from the life +or from a particularly vivid memory are among the most +amusing and enjoyable things in the drawings.</p> + +<p>But it must not be denied that there is here and there a +bit of <i>chic</i> that approaches the ideal—something not easily +to be discovered in the artist's former work. Svengali is +throughout a creation of this sort. He is as grotesquely romantic, +as Mephistophelian a figure in the illustration as in +the printed page. The only failure is the head (on page 59<a name="page_005" id="page_005"></a> +of the book) which is in more senses than one "as bad as +they make them." He is excellent where he laughs over the +two Englishmen cleaning themselves; he is delightful where +he examines the roof of Trilby's mouth, "like the dome of +the Panthéon," "room in it for 'toutes les gloires de la +France.'" Where he stands in the midst of the crowded studio, +"All as it Used to Be," he looks every inch the artist, +more so than the "idle apprentice," lounging against the +door-jamb. If there were such a man, one who had sunk his +whole soul in his art, he might look like this, or like the same +figure in the hussar uniform, a Semitic conqueror "out of +the mysterious East." There is a touch of the spirit of the +illustrators of the romantic period in the pictures of the +Christmas festivities, especially in the two that illustrate the +peculiar interchange of rôles between Little Billee and the +festive Ribot, and in the sketch of Zouzou as the "Ducal +French Fighting-Cock." The scenes of common life, too, +are admirable, the free-and-easy, the "Happy Dinner," the +bargaining of the Laird with Mme. Vinard—"Je prong!"—and +the scene at the rehearsal where "The First Violin +Loses his Temper." The art of the drawings is all in expression +and action, and Du Maurier, in spite of all that is +French in him, is thoroughly British in this, and a descendant +in the right line of Hogarth, Cruikshank and Leech.</p> + +<p>The "Trilby" drawings were bought <i>en bloc</i> by some one +in England. They had been sent here to be engraved for +<i>Harper's Monthly</i> and the book; the sale occurred before +they were placed on exhibition in New York. A representative +of <i>The Critic</i> asked Mr. Avery, who said that a number of +people had expressed a desire to buy some of them, what he +thought they would have brought, if sold over here. He replied +that he could not tell with any degree of accuracy, but he +thought they would have averaged at least $50 apiece. As there +are 120 drawings, this would have meant $6,000 more for Mr. +du Maurier. <i>En bloc</i>, no doubt, they brought a smaller sum.</p> + +<p>A painting of "Trilby," by Mr. Constant Mayer, was +shown at Knoedler's gallery, in December, along with half a +dozen other and more satisfactory paintings by the same +artist. The hypnotic condition of the subject was declared +by Dr. Allan McLane Hamilton to be admirably suggested +in this fancy portrait.</p> + +<p class="asterisks">* * *</p> + +<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">To the Editors of The Critic</span>:—</p> + +<p>Those who express surprise at the sudden literary development +of du Maurier's genius do not apparently recognize +the fact that the whole series of his drawings has included<a name="page_006" id="page_006"></a> +the literary element. His thoughts as expressed in art have +always shown a close and philosophical observation of life, +an understanding of the actions and motives of men. Every +one of his illustrations tells not only an individual story, but +a story of surroundings and times, of tendencies, fads and +foibles. And the text is always as important as the picture; +sometimes it is far more so. Who can have forgotten the +history and culmination of the "old china" craze given by +du Maurier in a four-inch-square illustration of the young +husband and wife examining an old teapot, with the exquisite +text, "Oh, Algernon, do you think we can ever live up to +it?" Certainly the man who could invent the application +of that phrase must have stores of wit and sense equal to +the writing of many "Peter Ibbetsons" and "Trilbys." And +those stores were bound to find their larger expression in +literature.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">New York, 22 Nov., 1894.</span> +<span style="margin-left:10em;"><span class="smcap">Candace Wheeler.</span></span><br /> +</p> + +<p class="asterisks">* * *</p> + +<p>The New York <i>Tribune</i> has printed the following protest +against the insinuation that the author of the book was not +its illustrator also:—</p> + +<p>"It ought not to be necessary for any formal contradiction to +be made of that absurd rumor which has just been set adrift concerning +the illustrations to 'Trilby.' On the face of it, it is impossible +for either Mrs. du Maurier or her daughter to have given the +pictures the character they possess. They have du Maurier's style, +du Maurier's technique, du Maurier's peculiar little touches of +humor, not merely in the broad idea but in that minute turn of the +pen which makes all the difference in the world between an empty +profile and a funny one. It is true that there is a dissimilarity between +Trilby in one illustration and Trilby in another, but it should +be remembered that du Maurier's eyesight has been failing him, +that he has been compelled to be prolific at a time when he has +most needed to lie fallow as an artist; and, in brief, the shortcomings +of the 'Trilby' designs, if serious shortcomings they have, +are to be explained on the most natural and logical of grounds. +The intrinsic character of the drawings proclaims their authorship. +Only George du Maurier could have done them, and not any of the +trifling assistance which he may have received from his family in +matters of posing, costume, etc., could deprive him of his responsibility +or his honor. The recent tendency to criticise these designs +with some severity will soon be counteracted. As a matter +of fact, they present some of the cleverest work du Maurier has +ever done."</p> + +<p class="asterisks">* * *</p> + +<p>The New York <i>Sun</i> printed a letter, not long ago, in which +the drawings were declared to be anachronistic. "Why," it +was asked, "should Mr. du Maurier deny to his characters<a name="page_007" id="page_007"></a> +the crinolines, waterfalls, surtouts, cravats, chignons, peg-top +trousers and hoop-skirts of the early sixties, and make them, +despite Taffy's whiskers, of the <i>monde</i> of to-day? Is it that +his artistic instincts have reverted to that fine school of old +masters who delighted to portray, saving Taffy's grace, Hector +fighting in the armor of the Black Prince, or turned out Madonnas +by the score in Margaret of Anjou skirts?"</p> + +<p class="asterisks">* * *</p> + +<p>In "Trilby" every stroke of pen or pencil seems to be +significant. Is there special meaning in the fact that, in +the dainty tail-piece, one glass in the spectacles appears +to be heavily shaded, while the other is clear? Is Mr. +du Maurier, like so many literary people, afflicted with +partial loss of sight or other visual difficulty?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Amherst College Library.</span> +<span style="margin-left:10em;"><span class="smcap">W. I. Fletcher.</span></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>[Unhappily he is, and has been for many years. It is +only with the greatest difficulty that he is able to work with +either pen or pencil.]</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ill_020_lg.png"> +<img src="images/ill_020_sml.png" width="350" height="174" alt="From "Trilby." Copyright, 1894, by Harper & Brothers." title="From "Trilby." Copyright, 1894, by Harper & Brothers." /></a> +<br /> +<span class="caption">From "Trilby." <span style="margin-left: 3em;">Copyright, 1894, by Harper & Brothers.</span></span> +</div> + +<p><a name="page_008" id="page_008"></a></p> + +<h3>"Trilby" on the Stage</h3> + +<p>Mr. Paul M. Potter's dramatization of "Trilby" was produced +by Mr. A. M. Palmer's company at the Boston Museum +on Monday, 4 March, 1895, and achieved so great a success +that several companies were immediately put upon the road +to play it throughout the country. Its first production in +New York, with the original cast, occurred at the Garden +Theatre, on April 15. Hundreds of people were turned away +from the door for want of room to accommodate them; and +an offer was received from Mr. Beerbohm Tree, the eminent +English actor, for the privilege of producing the play in +England, where he himself wished to impersonate Svengali. +It would be a pity if the Lyceum company did not secure the +English rights; for Mr. Irving would make an inimitable +Svengali, and Ellen Terry would be Trilby without trying.</p> + +<p>As nobody has ever succeeded, or is likely to succeed, in +really dramatizing a novel, it is not surprising that the stage +version of "Trilby" should prove in some respects unsatisfactory. +It might be thought that the book would lend itself +readily to dramatic treatment; but a little consideration will +show that it offers peculiar difficulties to the playwright, inasmuch +as its chief charm is one of manner, which cannot be +transferred to the stage, while its story, although it contains +some striking situations, such as Trilby's collapse upon the +death of Svengali, consists chiefly of a series of episodes, +largely independent of each other and strung together very +loosely. All things considered, Mr. Potter ought not, perhaps, +to be held to too strict an account for the liberties he has +taken with the text and some of the personages, but he has +certainly lowered the tone of the work, and been guilty of +various crudities of construction. There is some excuse for +his employment of Svengali as the evil influence which wrecks +the happiness of Little Billee and Trilby, but he leaves nothing +of the author's original intention, and infinitely belittles +the character of the girl, when he attributes her flight from her +lover to mesmeric suggestion, instead of her own noble and +unselfish devotion. In many other similar ways the spiritual +side of the book suffers at his hands. His persistent references +to Trilby's posing for the figure, his selection of that +particular incident for her first introduction, and the joking +references to it which he puts into the mouths of other personages, +are in bad taste, while his travesty of the character<a name="page_009" id="page_009"></a> +of Dr. Bagot is entirely without justification. Mrs. Bagot he +treats with more consideration, but he reduces her to the level +of the dullest stage conventionality. Trilby herself preserves a +good many of her characteristics, but is degraded even more +than in the book by her subserviency to Svengali.</p> + +<p>The play is in four acts, and the whole story up to the flight +of Trilby is compressed into the first two. This feat is accomplished +with no small ingenuity, but at great cost of probability. +In this brief space Trilby is wooed and won, Svengali +asserts his mesmeric power, the marriage of Little Billee +is arranged and interrupted by the arrival of his mother, and +an elopement is planned and frustrated. In the third act +Trilby is to sing in the Cirque des Bashibazouck, and all the +characters reassemble as if by magic in the foyer of that temple +of art, which is abandoned of all other persons for their +sole benefit. The proceedings which are supposed to occur +in this retired spot are intrinsically absurd, but they are effective +enough from a scenic and theatrical point of view, and +were accepted by the audience, on the first night, as eminently +natural and satisfactory. They culminate in the ghastly death +of Svengali and the restoration of Trilby in a dazed and exhausted +condition to the three faithful friends. In the fourth +act there is another reunion of characters, and Trilby, who +has agreed once more to marry Little Billee, and is supposed +to be on the road to recovery, dies suddenly, upon the unexpected +apparition of Svengali's photograph.</p> + +<p>As it stands, the play is not much superior, if at all, to +ordinary melodrama, being almost wholly void of the literary, +humorous and personal charm of the book, but it is very +well played, has a number of effective scenes, and is unquestionably +popular. Miss Harned's Trilby, though rather a faint +reflection of the original, has the merit of being attractive +and womanly, as well as free and frank, and exhibits true +pathos in the mesmeric scenes. On the whole, it is a very +creditable impersonation. Mr. Lackaye's Svengali is overwrought +but indisputably strong; and Burr McIntosh, John +Glendenning and Alfred Hickman represent the three friends +cleverly, and furnish excellent living pictures of du Maurier's +sketches. Mr. Dietrichstein makes an admirable Zouzou, +and all the minor parts are performed competently. A feature +of the representation which is received with special +favor is the Christmas merrymaking in the Latin Quarter, +which is as vivacious and realistic as could be wished.</p> + +<p>A matter of considerable interest to authors and publishers, +for the copyright question involved, occurred in connection +with the Boston performances. Elmer Chickering,<a name="page_010" id="page_010"></a> +the well-known photographer of Boston, took some pictures +of Mr. A. M. Palmer's company, which naturally came into +demand at once. But rushing over the wires came a message +from Harper & Bros., saying that, as the characters were +made up after du Maurier's drawings, they should regard +the sale of any such pictures as an infringement of their copyright. +To this, Mr. Chickering disagreed, on the ground +that the photographs were not copies of any drawings, but +of actual scenes on the stage, which any man might sketch. +Telegrams flew back and forth, for the Messrs. Harper +would not yield. Meanwhile, the papers sought for the +photographs, and Mr. Palmer was apparently willing to receive +the advertisement their publication would ensure; but +the publishers still held off. At last Mr. Chickering decided +to fight it out on his own line, for two of the New York papers +printed some of the 160 "Trilby" pictures taken by him; +and—as indicating an amicable adjustment of the dispute—a +number of them appeared in <i>Harper's Weekly</i>.</p> + +<p>The morning papers of April 30 contained this despatch:—"<span class="smcap">Denver, +Col.</span>, April 29. Did du Maurier write 'Trilby'? +This novel question was propounded to-day in the United States +Court in good faith, when the suit of Harper & Bros. and A. M. +Palmer for an injunction against the Lyceum Stock Company to +restrain them from producing 'Trilby' at their theatre was called. +The defendants allege that the book entitled 'Trilby' was not +originated, invented or written by du Maurier. They assert that +the original title and book of 'Trilby' were first published in +France in 1820, and afterwards translated and published in English +in 1847, and that the title and book have been common property +for seventy-five years. The attorneys for the plaintiffs asked +for time to communicate with their clients in New York as to the +course they should pursue, and the Court postponed the hearing +until Wednesday morning. Should the allegations of the Lyceum +Company be true, a sensation will be caused all over the two continents. +This is the first public intimation of an attack on the +authenticity of the work, and if it is successful every company in +the world will have as much right to play 'Trilby' as the Boston +Organization."</p> + +<p>The Lounger reprinted the telegram with this comment:—"Charles +Nodier's 'Trilby, le Lutin d'Argail,' was published +in Paris in 1822. It has just one thing in common with du +Maurier's book—the first word in its title." The Sunday +papers of May 12 printed this paragraph:—"<span class="smcap">Denver</span>, May +11. Judge Hallet, in the United States District Court to-day, +granted an injunction restraining the Lyceum Theatre +from producing 'Trilby' hereafter, deciding that it infringed +on the rights of Harper & Bros., and others. To-day's performance +was stopped."</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 502px;"> +<a href="images/ill_024_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_024_sml.jpg" width="502" height="550" alt="Portrait of George du Maurier" title="Portrait of George du Maurier" /></a> +<span class="caption smcap">George du Maurier</span> +</div> + +<p><a name="page_011" id="page_011"></a></p> + +<h3>Personalia</h3> + +<p>A London correspondent of the Philadelphia <i>Press</i> furnishes +some interesting notes of a talk with Mr. du Maurier. +Concerning literary practice, the artist-novelist said that +"Peter Ibbetson" was +absolutely the first +story he ever wrote. +"And yet," he added, +"I have in one sense +been writing stories all +my life. Every one of +my pictures, for example, +has had under +it a story condensed to +the smallest possible +space. The necessity +of condensing my description +and dialogue +has been of great benefit +to me in writing my +two novels." As for +"Trilby," Mr. du Maurier +said that his earliest +conception of the +story was quite different +from the one he +finally worked out. "I +had first thought of +Trilby as a girl of very +low birth—a servant, or something like that. Then it occurred +to me that it would be much better to make her +interesting—to create a person who would be liked by readers. +As a good many people seem to be fond of 'Trilby' +now, I am very glad, indeed, that I made the change." And +he declared further that the character of Trilby was not a +study from life, but wholly imaginary. It was Henry James +who suggested to the artist that he should write novels.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 377px;"> +<a href="images/ill_026_lg.png"> +<img src="images/ill_026_sml.png" width="377" height="550" alt="By Himself +From Harry Furniss's "Lika-Joko"" title="By Himself +From Harry Furniss's "Lika-Joko"" /></a> +<span class="caption">BY HIMSELF +From Harry Furniss's "Lika-Joko"</span> +</div> + +<p>"It was one day while we were walking together on +Hampstead Heath. We were talking about storywriting, and +I said to him:—'If I were a writer, it seems to me that I +should have no difficulty about plots. I have in my head +now plots for fifty stories. I'm always working them out for +my own amusement.' 'Well,' he said, 'it seems to me that<a name="page_012" id="page_012"></a> +you are a very fortunate person; I wish you'd tell me one of +those plots.' Then I told him the story of 'Trilby.'" "Yes, +he praised it very generously. 'Well,' I said, 'you may have +the idea and work it out to your own satisfaction.' But he refused +to accept it. 'You must write it yourself,' he said: 'I'm +sure you can do it, if you'll only try.' But I insisted that I +couldn't, and so we left the matter. But that night after going +home it occurred to me that it would be worth while +trying to write, after all. So on the impulse I sat down and +began to work. It was not on 'Trilby,' however, but on +'Peter Ibbetson.' I kept at it for a time, but after doing +several chapters I became utterly discouraged, and said to +myself one evening:—'Oh, I can't do anything with this. +It's a mad story. It's utter rubbish.' Then I took up the +sheets and was just about to throw them into the fire when +I thought I'd keep them for another day and think the thing +over. That night in bed, while I was worrying about the +impossibility of going on with the tale, the solution of my +difficulty suddenly occurred to me. 'I'll make the hero mad,' +I cried to myself, 'that will put everything right.' So the +next day I wrote the introduction, explaining Peter's madness, +and after that I went on with the work to the end without +any more trouble."</p> + +<p>"Trilby's" American publishers have sent out the following +note:—"A letter from Mr. du Maurier to the late James +R. Osgood is given herewith. Possibly the hint it contains +as to the secret of an exquisite literary style will interest the +greater number of readers; or perhaps his saying (in 1890) +that he has 'several good ideas,' which would seem to be an +answer to those who have maintained that 'Trilby' was +written many years ago.<span class="spc"> * * *</span></p> + +<p>'<span class="smcap">My Dear Osgood</span>:—Of course I remembered my promise, +and as soon as my book—"Peter Ibbetson"—was finished and +typewritten, I wrote to you—last week, as it happens—at 50 +Fleet Street, but behold! you were in America; so I sent them +the copy, and I believe it starts by to-day's mail for Harper in +New York. I don't know how it got into the papers that I was +coming out in this new line, but I have already offers to come to +an arrangement. I have no notion whether it is suited to a periodical +or not—you will see; probably <i>not</i>,—but if it is I want to +be well paid for it; first [illegible], as far as my <i>first</i> book is concerned, +whatever its merits; secondly, because the only people to +whom I have told the story (H. James, Canon Ainger, poor Allingham +and a few others) thought so well of it—or said so—as an +<i>idea</i>; and I have taken great pains in the carrying out thereof. +If Harper's doesn't see its way to it, I shall offer it elsewhere; +and after that, I shall put it in the hands of an agent. And if I +don't get what I think I ought to, I shall keep it and write another,<a name="page_013" id="page_013"></a> +as I have several good ideas, and writing this has taught me a lot. +All of which sounds very cheeky and grand; but I am in no hurry +to come before the public as a novelist before I'm ripe, and to +ripen myself duly I am actually rewriting it in French, and you've +no idea what a lesson <i>that</i> is!<span class="spc"> * * *</span></p> + +<p class="r">'Yours ever, <span class="smcap">G. du Maurier</span>.</p> + +<p>'<span class="smcap">15 Bayswater Terrace, London</span>, April 18, 1890.'"</p> + +<p>It is said that when the Messrs. Harper were negotiating +with Mr. du Maurier for "Trilby," he declined their offer of +a royalty on the sales of the book and decided in favor of a +"lump sum." We do not know how large this sum was, but +we are pretty sure that it was not so much as he would have +made by the royalty plan. That would have earned at least +$30,000 for him on a sale of about 100,000 copies to 31 Dec., +1894. The Messrs. Harper have, however, done a more +than generous thing by him: they have informed him that +they will pay him a royalty, and a good big one, too, on all +sales after 1 Jan., 1895, on both "Trilby" and "Peter Ibbetson." +The 600 copies of the <i>édition de luxe</i> of "Trilby," +at $10 a copy, were sold outright to the Syndicate Trading Co.</p> + +<p>Our London correspondent, Mr. Arthur Waugh, wrote to +us on 16 April, 1895:—"The English reading public is to +have its illustrated 'Trilby' in one volume in June. Hitherto +the three-volume edition has alone been in circulation, and +that without the illustrations. There are to be no sketches +in all, and arrangements are also in progress for a large-paper +edition of 250 copies, with six facsimile reproductions of +original drawings, unbound." Advance orders were received +for 15,000 copies of the six-shilling edition.</p> + +<p>In an interview reported in the <i>Tribune</i> of June 14, Mr. J. +Henry Harper was quoted as saying, apropos of a cablegram +to the effect that the writing of "The Martians" was completed:—</p> + +<p>"He assures me that his new story will not be ready for the +publishers until December, 1896. I cannot tell you much about +the book itself yet, but it will not be in any sense a sequel to +'Trilby' except so far as it will succeed that book. The new story +will deal in its opening chapters with French school life, and then +with English life, both fashionable and rowdy; then the artistic +world of Antwerp and Dusseldorf is exploited, while the closing +stages occur in England. There will be love in the tale, of course, +and du Maurier also brings in the supernatural again. There will +be plenty of liveliness and some tragedy. The book, I am given +to understand, will be capable of illustration; but I am sorry to +say there is some doubt as to whether du Maurier himself will illustrate +it. It will depend entirely upon the state of his health, +which of late has not been of the best. The length of the story +will be greater than 'Trilby' and will run through about twelve<a name="page_014" id="page_014"></a> +numbers of <i>Harper's Magazine</i>, in which it will first be published +in serial form."</p> + +<p>As a matter of course, Mr. du Maurier has had no end +of invitations to read and lecture in this country, but to all +these invitations he has turned a deaf ear. In a recent +letter to <i>The Critic's</i> Lounger, he expressed himself as flattered +by these overtures, but added that his health would not +permit of his accepting any of the tempting propositions. +He might be more in the way of temptation, if it were not +for the play of "Trilby." This brings him in almost as much +money as readings would. We are told that he is in receipt +of several hundred dollars a week from this source—not ten +hundred, but very near it. This, surely, is a much easier way +of earning money than travelling from one end of a big +country to the other, for it costs him no greater exertion +than the signing of his name to a check.</p> + +<p>No one who loves "Trilby" should fail to read the "autobiographic +interview" with du Maurier which Mr. Robert +H. Sherard contributed, with illustrations, to <i>McClure's +Magazine</i> for April, 1895. From this singularly intimate and +interesting article, one learns that the author's first picture in +<i>Punch</i> represented himself and his chum Whistler<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a>; also, that +the studio in the Latin Quarter where Trilby visited the +three English artists was drawn from that of his master, +Gleyre.</p> + +<p>Mr. du Maurier's monogram, which appears on the title-page +of this pamphlet, is reproduced from a carving on the table at +which the staff contributors to <i>Punch</i> dine once a week, and +on which many of them have made similar inscriptions. We +are indebted for it to <i>McClure's Magazine</i>.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 50px;"> +<img src="images/ill_design.png" width="50" height="51" alt="spiral floral decoration" title="spiral floral decoration" /> +</div> + +<p><a name="page_015" id="page_015"></a></p> + +<h3>Mr. du Maurier and Mr. Whistler</h3> + +<p>The first two or three of the following paragraphs appeared +on the Lounger's page in <i>The Critic</i> of 16 June, +1894, and were reprinted, with most of the Whistler-du Maurier +items that succeed them, in the issue of Nov. 17.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 442px;"> +<a href="images/ill_030_lg.png"> +<img src="images/ill_030_sml.png" width="442" height="500" alt="drawing: (From The Westminster Budget) +Mr. Whistler" title="drawing: (From The Westminster Budget) +Mr. Whistler" /></a> +<p class="whistler">(From The Westminster Budget)<br /> +Mr. Whistler</p> +</div> + +<p>Mr. Whistler has mastered two arts besides painting and +sketching. One he has immortalized in that unique brochure, +"The Gentle Art of Making Enemies"; the other is the Gentle +Art of Advertising +Oneself. +These two generalities +are not +always to be distinguished +from +each other. It +is quite possible +to make an enemy +in advertising +oneself; and nothing +is easier than +to draw general +attention to oneself, +by the same +act that incurs +the enmity of +individual—especially +if the +individual be +eminent. At the +present moment +M. du Maurier +happens to be +one of the most +conspicuous figures in the field jointly occupied by Art and +Letters. In choosing him as an object of clamorous attack, +Mr. Whistler has shown himself a past-master of the art of +advertising oneself. By identifying himself with one of the +characters in a story that everyone is reading, he brings himself +more conspicuously before the public than by painting a +new picture. Moreover, in sending to an English newspaper +a letter in which he vituperates his quondam friend and fellow-artist, +he interrupts himself for but a moment in the +pursuit of his legitimate calling as a painter.<a name="page_016" id="page_016"></a></p> + +<p>In America, at least, few readers of "Trilby" would have +known that, in Joe Sibley, Mr. du Maurier had hit off some +of the most salient "peculiarities" of the immensely talented +etcher, who, when he takes the newspapers into his confidence, +dips his pen in the corrosive acid with which he bites +his plates. Joe Sibley is not an engaging character; he is +a Bohemian of the Bohemians, clever, witty, penniless and +presuming. In taking his sibilant surname as a pseudonym +for Whistler, we have the endorsement of the artist himself, +though he does not expressly declare himself to be the archetype +of this particular character. Sibley is the only man in +the book who <i>could</i> have been drawn from Whistler—the +Whistler of a generation ago; and no one but Sibley could +have written the following letter, in which the creator of the +character is so wittily vilified:—</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">To the Editor—SIR</span>: It would seem, notwithstanding; +my boastful declaration, that, after all, I had not, before leaving +England, completely rid myself of the abomination—the 'friend '! +One solitary, unheeded one—Mr. George du Maurier—still remained, +hidden in Hampstead. On that healthy heath he has been +harboring, for nearly half a life, every villainy of good fellowship +that could be perfected by the careless frequentation of our early +intimacy and my unsuspecting <i>camaraderie</i>. Of this pent-up envy, +malice and furtive intent he never at any moment during all that +time allowed me, while affectionately grasping his honest Anglo-French +fist, to detect the faintest indication. Now that my back +is turned, the old <i>marmite</i> of our <i>pot-au-feu</i> he fills with the picric +acid of 30 years' spite, and, in an American magazine, fires off +his bomb of mendacious recollection and poisoned rancour. The +lie with which it is loaded <i>à mon intention</i> he proposes for my possible +'future biographer'—but I fancy it explodes, as is usual, in +his own waistcoat, and he furnishes, in his present unseemly state, +an excellent example of all those others who, like himself, have +thought a foul friend a finer fellow than an open enemy.</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">Paris.</span> <span style="margin-left:10em;"><span class="smcap">J. M'Neill Whistler.</span></span></p> + +<p>"Reflection: The <i>compagnon</i> of the <i>pétard</i> we guillotine. Guineas +are given to the popular companion who prepares his infernal +machine for the distinguished associates in whose friendship he +has successfully speculated."</p> + +<p class="asterisks">* * *</p> + +<p>The following card appeared in <i>Harper's</i> for October:—</p> + +<p>"Pursuant to an arrangement made with Mr. J. McNeill Whistler +by our London agents, Messrs. Osgood, McIlvaine & Co., the +publishers of the English edition of <i>Harper's Magazine</i>, the following +letter is published:—</p> + +<p class="r">August 31, 1894.</p> + +<p>"'<span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>—Our attention has been called to the attack +made upon you by Mr. du Maurier in the novel "Trilby," which +appeared in our magazine. If we had had any knowledge of personal<a name="page_017" id="page_017"></a> +reference to yourself being intended, we should not have +permitted the publication of such passages as could be offensive to +you. As it is, we have freely made such reparation as is in our +power. We have agreed to stop future sales of the March number +of <i>Harper's Magazine</i>,<a name="FNanchor_B_2" id="FNanchor_B_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a> and we undertake that, when the +story appears in the form of a book, the March number shall be so +rewritten as to omit every mention of the offensive character, and +that the illustration which represents the Idle Apprentice shall be +excised, and that the portraits of Joe Sibley in the general scene +shall be altered so as to give no clue to your identity. Moreover, +we engage to print and insert in our magazine for the month of +October this letter of apology addressed to you. Assuring you +again of our sincere regret that you should have sustained the +least annoyance in any publication of ours, we are,</p> + +<p> +"'Yours respectfully, +<span style="margin-left: 10em;"><span class="smcap">Harper & Brothers</span>.</span><br /> +"'<span class="smcap">J. McNeill Whistler, Esq.</span>'"<br /> +</p> + +<p class="asterisks">* * *</p> + +<p>One of the humors of the controversy was a letter that appeared +in the first number of Harry Furniss's <i>Lika-Joko</i>. +It was supposed to have been written by Whistler to express +his indignation at having been cut out of the book. The +English as well as the American papers fell into the trap, and +discussed the letter as a genuine expression of Mr. Whistler's +outraged feelings. It was only a joke, however—and is said +to have been the only joke in Mr. Furniss's comic paper. +To an interviewer for <i>The Westminster Budget</i>, Mr. Whistler +expressed his surprise that anyone should have been taken +in by the parody. "There was no harm in the appearance +of the article," he said, "but what caused my merriment, +though not surprise, is that anyone would have thought for +a moment that I had written it. But then, it was in England, +and in England anything is possible!" That the parody +was a clever one will be seen from the following extract:—</p> + +<p>"In the fascinating numbers of 'Trilby,' as they appeared in +<i>Harper's Magazine</i>, I read with delight of one Joe Sibley, idle +apprentice, king of Bohemia, <i>roi des truands</i>, always in debt, vain, +witty, exquisite and original in art, eccentric in dress, genial, +caressing, scrupulously clean, sympathetic, charming; an irresistible +but unreliable friend, a jester of infinite humor, a man now +perched upon a pinnacle of fame (and notoriety), a worshipper of +himself; a white-haired, tall, slim, graceful person with pretty +manners and an unimpeachable moral tone. My only regret was +that too little was said about so charming a creation. I looked to +see more of him in the published three volumes. But no! I found +the addition of some thoughtful excursuses by Mr. du Maurier upon +nudity, agnosticism, and other more hazardous subjects, which +had, presumably, been judged too strong for the ice-watered, ice-<a name="page_018" id="page_018"></a>creamed constitution of the American Philistine; but I looked in +vain for the delightful Joseph Sibley. In his place I find a yellow-haired +Switzer, one Antony, son of a respectable burgher of Lausanne, +who is now tall, stout, strikingly handsome and rather +bald, but who in his youth had all the characteristics of the lost +Joseph Sibley—his idleness, his debts, his humor, his art, his +eccentricity, his charm. I rubbed my eye-glass. <i>Je me suis demandé +pourquoi.</i>"</p> + +<p>Displeased with <i>The Speaker's</i> comments on his connection +with "Trilby," Mr. Whistler compelled that paper to +print a letter from his solicitors, from which it appears that +the revised MS. of the novel was sent to him to be passed. +And apropos of this, he remarks in a letter to the editor:—"I +question if it be not without precedent that a writer ever +before so abjectly regorged his spleen as to submit his +Bowdlerized work to his victim for his approval."</p> + +<p>In the Chicago <i>Tribune</i> of Sunday, 2 Dec., 1894, were reprinted +from <i>Harper's</i> the pictures of, and passages about, Joe +Sibley which provoked Mr. Whistler's threatened libel-suit. +The revised passages, as they appear in the book, were also +given.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 50px;margin-top:10%;"> +<img src="images/ill_design2.png" width="50" height="30" alt="floral design" title="floral design" /> +</div> + +<p><a name="page_019" id="page_019"></a></p> + +<h3>"Trilby" Entertainments</h3> + +<p><span class="smcap">Of entertainments</span> founded upon Mr. du Maurier's book, +the name is legion. The most pretentious, and at the same +time the most successful, was the series of "Scenes and +Songs from 'Trilby,'" given at Sherry's in the afternoon and +again in the evening of Saturday, February 9, for the benefit +of that admirable institution, the New York Kindergarten +Association. The affair, which had the advantage of distinguished +patronage, was given under the special management +of Mrs. Charles H. Ditson; Mr. E. Hamilton Bell arranged +the details of scenery and costume; and among those who +personated the various characters were several well-known +artists.</p> + +<p>The audience was a large one, which was excellent for the +little ones who were to be benefited; and it was enthusiastic, +which was only a just and fit tribute to managers, performers +and singers. Every detail of the tableaux had been thought +out with infinite care, and posing, grouping and make-up +were as near perfection as du Maurier himself could have +wished. The program included the singing of "Ben Bolt," +"Bonjour, Suzon," "Au Clair de la Lune" and several other +songs, and the following tableaux:—"The Three Musketeers +of the Brush"; "Wistful and Sweet"; "Svengali"; "I will +Not!"; "All As it Used to Be"; "Answer Me, Trilby!"; +"The Soft Eyes"; "The Sweet Melodic Phrase"; +"Dors, Ma Mignonne"; "The Nightingale's First Song"; +"Malbrouck" and "It was Trilby." The entertainment +opened most effectively with a quartet by Messrs. Devoll, +Moore, Bracewell and Devoll. The first tableau, "Three +Musketeers of the Brush," received the admiration it deserved, +as did, also, the singing of Miss Akers and Mr. Mackenzie +Gordon interspersed with the different tableaux. The first +appearance of Trilby was awaited with impatient expectancy, +and when she came, she proved to be "wistful and sweet," +indeed, in the person of Mrs. Eric Pape, the wife of the well-known +young artist. The last tableau of the second part, +"It was Trilby," was most effectively arranged by Mr. Pape. +The full cast of characters was as follows:—Trilby, Mrs. Eric +Pape; Taffy, W. Harris Roome; The Laird, Evert Jansen +Wendell; Little Billee, J. Gerald Benkard; Svengali, Robert +Reid; Gecko, Eric Pape; Dodor, William Abbott; Zouzou, +Franklin C. Butler; Mrs. Bagot, Mrs. J. Wells Champney; +Miss Bagot, Miss Lilian Wing; Mme. Malbrouck, Mme. Bettini;<a name="page_020" id="page_020"></a> +Durien, Leslie G. Cauldwell; Blanchisseuse, Miss Lou-lou +Noel; Fencer, Lieut. Gianni Bettini.</p> + +<p>During the intermission between the first and second parts +of the program, Mrs. Kate Douglas Wiggin sold a copy of +"Trilby" presented by the Messrs. Harper. To this Mr. +du Maurier and Mr. Henry James (who persuaded the author +to write the book) had contributed their autographs, and Dr. +English a manuscript copy of his song "Ben Bolt." The +volume fetched $100, making the net addition to the Kindergarten +Association's treasury about $2500.</p> + +<p class="asterisks">* * *</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">At Mr. Mansfield's</span> Garrick Theatre, "Trilby" has been +burlesqued. It had already been parodied in book-form, +produced as a melodrama, read aloud in drawing-rooms, with +music, and put on the platform in "scenes and songs," so +that nothing was left to do with it but to make an "operatic +burlesque" of it; and this was duly accomplished by Messrs. +Joseph W. Herbert and Charles Puerner, the latter being +responsible for the music and the former for the words. The +piece is called "Thrilby." As in the serious play founded +upon the novel, the villain (rechristened "Spaghetti") is the +principal figure; and mesmerism is carried to a ridiculous +excess, even inanimate objects succumbing to its influence. +There is a farce within this farce; for "Mme. Sans-Gêne" +is parodied in a sub-play introduced under the name of +"Mme. Sans Ra-Gêne." The burlesque is by no means free +from horse-play, but it unquestionably accomplishes its purpose, +which is merely to amuse.</p> + +<p>At the Casino, as well as at the Garrick, "Trilby" and +"Mme. Sans Gêne" have both been travestied.</p> + +<p class="asterisks">* * *</p> + +<p class="c">(<i>Harper's Weekly</i>)</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">The</span> <i>Weekly</i> has received a copy of the programme of a +novel and decidedly interesting literary and musical entertainment +that was given on Oct. 17, at Omaha. It was +called 'An Evening with Trilby.' The participants were all +gentlemen. The subjects of the papers read were 'The +Story of Trilby,' 'Du Maurier, his Life and Work,' 'The +French of Trilby,' 'The Identity of the Artists in Trilby,' +'Trilby's Voice and Method,' 'Trilby as a Hypnotic Subject,' +'Could Trilby be Successfully Dramatized?' After +each paper there was Trilby music, which included 'Ben +Bolt,' 'Au Clair de la Lune,' 'Malbrouck s'en va-t-en Guerre' +and other songs and instrumental pieces. At the end of the +programme comes the inquiry, What shall we 'ave the pleasure +of drinkin' after that werry nice 'armony?' and then the +page turns over to the farewell couplet:—<a name="page_021" id="page_021"></a></p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left">'A little warmth, a little light</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Of love's bestowing—and so, good-night.'</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>"It is a pretty far cry from Paris to Omaha, but Trilby's +voice seems to have carried that distance without the least +trouble. It is worth remarking that these Omaha gentlemen +made seven 'papers' about her without finding it necessary +to discuss her morals."</p> + +<p class="asterisks">* * *</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Of the many</span> "Trilby" entertainments in New York one +of the most successful was given in May, at the house of +Postmaster Dayton, for the benefit of St. Luke's Home for +Indigent Christian Females. A literary criticism of the book +was read, and one of the chapters of the story; and the +songs that are oftenest alluded to were sung. The affair +was given under the auspices of the Daughters of the Revolution.</p> + +<p class="asterisks">* * *</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">"Trilby's" wide popularity</span>—in the sense that many +people who are not, ordinarily, novel-readers take a lively interest +in it—is evidenced by many indications, not the least +significant being the concerts made up from the music mentioned +in the novel. One such was given in San Francisco +last December, under the management of the ladies of the +Mercantile Library Auxiliary and for the benefit of the +Library's unfortunately slender exchequer. According to <i>The +Argonaut</i>, a very interesting program was presented, including +Schubert's "Rosamonde," Adam's "Cantique de Noël," +Chopin's Impromptu in A flat, "Bonjour Suzon," "Le Capitaine +Roquefinette" and the much-discussed "Ben Bolt."</p> + +<p class="asterisks">* * *</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">"Trilby" representations</span> have broken out in all sorts +of strange places. At the Eden Musée, New York, Miss +Ganthony has been restrained from impersonating du +Maurier's heroine; and at "The Greatest Show on Earth," +Miss Marie Meers, who has not been restrained, appears +nightly in Trilby costume, riding bareback (not barefoot) +around the tan-bark to the snapping of ringmaster Svengali's +whip.<a name="page_022" id="page_022"></a></p> + +<h3>Miscellanea</h3> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mr. du Maurier</span> and Mr. James took a walk together, +one day, and the artist unfolded to the novelist the plot of +"Trilby," suggesting that he should use it in a novel. Mr. +James persuaded him to write the story himself. He did so; +and what has been the result? Think of the time and skill, +the money and material that have been employed in putting +the thing in type, preparing its illustrations, printing it as a +serial and reprinting it in book-form; in dramatizing it, burlesquing +it in books and on the stage, in adapting its songs +and illustrations for reproduction on lecture-platforms and in +drawing-rooms, and in translating and publishing Nodier's +tale, from which the author took his title! Its presentation +has given employment, onerous or enjoyable, honorary or +remunerative, to thousands; hundreds of thousands have read +it, and hundreds of thousands seen it on the stage; and its +leading characters—Trilby, Svengali and "the three musketeers +of the brush"—have become household names and +personalities. It has enriched its author, added to the wealth +of its publishers, put money in the purses of playwright and +manager and replenished the treasuries of more than one excellent +charity. Directly or indirectly, no doubt, it has +caused much more than a million dollars to change hands +within the past eighteen months. And last but not least, it +is responsible for this pamphlet, in which is chronicled the +story of its rise and progress.</p> + +<p class="asterisks">* * *</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">At the</span> Mercantile Library, New York, it was found necessary, +at the time when "Trilby" was in greatest demand, to +circulate a hundred copies of the book; at the beginning of +June the number in circulation was seventy. Mr. Wingate +wrote to <i>The Critic</i> from Boston, in June, that there were six +copies of the book in the main building of the Public Library, +and one in each of its branches, but that this supply was inadequate, +72 demands for the book having come from the +branch libraries in a single day. And Mr. Hild writes to +us from Chicago that the Public Library of that city has 26 +copies, but that they do not begin to supply the demand. +"I believe we could use 260 and never find a copy on the +shelves. Every one of our 54,000 card-holders seems determined +to read the book."<a name="page_023" id="page_023"></a></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">On the point</span> of the morality or immorality of the book, +<i>The Independent</i> says:—</p> + +<p>"Mr. du Maurier, apparently in deference to the current craze +for heroines that have been seduced, or are just going to be, bedaubs +the first fifty pages of his otherwise clean story with telling +how his pure heroine, Trilby, a <i>blanchisseuse de fin</i>, had been led +astray, and so forth. That is to say, he unnecessarily goes behind +the true door of his story to wash some dirty linen, and then +he sets forth."</p> + +<p>On this point the San Francisco <i>Argonaut</i> does not agree +with its New York contemporary:—</p> + +<p>"With those who think these passages immoral, we cannot +agree. Mr. du Maurier has treated with candor some facts belonging +to the realm of things which are usually understood instead of +being talked about; but he has done this with singular manliness +and delicacy, and with entire absence of mawkish or other improper +sentiment. The impression of Trilby's character left upon +the reader is entirely that of a noble, generous woman, whose +life is not a sin, but a tragedy."</p> + +<p>The same paper reproduces "a letter Mr. du Maurier +wrote to a Paterson, N. J., man who contended that the relations +of Trilby with her hypnotizer were chaste, so far as +her consciousness of them went, and decided to find out if +he were right by writing to the novelist":—</p> + +<p class="r">"<span class="smcap">New Grove House, Hampstead Heath</span>,<br /> + +"October 31, 1894.<br /> +</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>: In answer to your letter of September 24th, I beg +to say that you are right about Trilby. When free from mesmeric +influence, she lived with him as his daughter, and was quite innocent +of any other relation. In haste, yours very truly,</p> + +<p class="r"> +"<span class="smcap">G. du Maurier</span>."</p> + +<p class="asterisks">* * *</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Early in</span> March, 1895, one of the Boston clergymen advertised +Robert Grant's "Art of Living," as our Boston correspondent +reported at the time, and on Sunday, March 17, +another prominent minister took up "Trilby." So it is evident +that, even if Boston authorship is on the decline, as so +many New Yorkers enviously declare, the Boston clergy are +going to keep alive the interest in literary matters by emphatic +words to their congregations. "Have you read +'Trilby'?" was the theme of the Rev. George W. Bicknell's +sermon, and the topic crowded the church. The Reverend +Doctor declared that he had spent five hours reading the +book, and had decided that it was a story of magnificent possibilities, +but that its morality was "as one viewed it." He +considered the tale far-fetched and over-drawn and lacking +in healthful flavor, and placed it in the same class of art<a name="page_024" id="page_024"></a> +with the nude paintings at the World's Fair—a position to +which, we presume, the author would not object. Then he +launched out into an emphatic declaration that it was time +for the pulpit to speak out against art of this kind.</p> + +<p class="asterisks">* * *</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Du Maurier's</span> heroine has been heard of over in Brooklyn. +A married woman, aged twenty-nine, got into a dispute with +her husband, recently, as to the morals of the young model, +and proved her point by "smashing him over the head with +an earthenware jar." In the newspaper in which we read of +this intemperate act, the husband's age is not given, nor +the side he took in the argument, before he was shown to be +wrong. The fact that he got his head broken proves little—except +the folly of arguing with a woman; nor the additional +fact that he refused to appear against his wife in court. +But the case is one in which a good deal might be said on +both sides—if earthenware jars were not introduced too early +in the discussion.</p> + +<p class="asterisks">* * *</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mr. du Maurier</span> has worse offenses to atone for than the +breaking of the Brooklyn man's silly head. But for his entertaining +book we should have been spared the unreadable +prose of "Biltry: a Parody on 'Trilby'" and the unspeakable +verse of "Drilby Re-versed," the former by Mary Kyle Dallas, +the latter by Leopold Jordan. In vulgarity and banality, +these two precious productions run each other a close race. +Of the two we think "Drilby" a trifle the less objectionable, +merely because the proportion of text to white paper is somewhat +smaller. Both are poorly illustrated, and printed on +much better paper than they deserve.</p> + +<p class="asterisks">* * *</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">E. C. of New Albany, Ind.</span>, thinks that "Trilby's" possibilities +as a vehicle of evil to the much-considered American +"young person" are emphasized by a conversation recently +overheard by her between two feminine "young persons" in +Indiana. "What is this 'Trilby' everybody is talking +about?" asked one of these. "Oh," replied the other, "it's +a book—a novel." "They say it is awfully bad," said the +first young person. "Yes, I've heard so; but it isn't so at +all. I read it clear through, and there wasn't anything bad +in it. I didn't like it either; there is too much French in +it." "French?" commented the first young woman; "well +that's it, then—all the bad part is in French." "I hadn't +thought of that," mused the other one; "I suppose that's +just the way of it. Anyway, it isn't nearly as good as 'Dally.'"<a name="page_025" id="page_025"></a></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;"> +<span class="caption">PLATT. THE NEW SVENGALI.</span> +<a href="images/ill_040_lg.png"> +<img src="images/ill_040_sml.png" width="550" height="485" alt="PLATT. THE NEW SVENGALI. +THE HYPNOTIZING OF MORTON. +Have you read "Trilby?" Svengali was a bad, wicked man, who +used to hypnotize poor, sweet little Trilby and make her sing and +act as he pleased—With apologies to Du Maurier." title="" /></a> +<p class="c caption">THE HYPNOTIZING OF MORTON.</p> +<p class="caption">Have you read "Trilby?" Svengali was a bad, wicked man, who +used to hypnotize poor, sweet little Trilby and make her sing and +act as he pleased—With apologies to Du Maurier.</p> +</div> + +<p>"Trilby" has even got into American politics. This +shows better than anything else how wide an audience the +story most have reached. How many allusions to a book of +the current year would be comprehensible to the average +reader of a New York daily paper? We reproduce the accompanying +cartoon from the <i>World</i> of Dec. 9 as a curiosity of +literature and an interesting contribution to "Trilbyana." +It is adapted from Mr. du Maurier's drawing entitled "Et +Maintenant Dors, ma Mignonne!"</p> + +<p class="asterisks">* * *</p> + +<p>A Broadway caterer now "molds his ice-cream in the +shape of a model of Trilby's ever-famous foot." Mr. du +Maurier can want no greater evidence of the popularity of +his story in America. That there is not a "Trilby" shoe on +the market reflects little credit upon the enterprise of our +bootmakers. It is an opportunity that no soap-maker would +neglect if it came his way. Possibly the fact that Trilby's +foot was large (as well as shapely) has something to do with +the shoemakers' backwardness. Hers were not Cinderella +slippers. ("The Lounger," 30 March, 1895.)</p> + +<p>Mr. C. W. Coleman, Librarian of William and Mary College, +writes from Williamsburg, Va., to say that I am in error +in supposing that the bootmakers of this wide-wake country<a name="page_026" id="page_026"></a> +have not yet seized the name of du Maurier's heroine for +advertising purposes. In his note of correction he encloses +a clipping from the catalogue of a Chicago house, containing +a picture of a high-heeled ladies' shoe, flanked by an advertisement +of "'The Trilby,' price $3, postage 15 cts.—'an +ornament to any foot,'" etc. And I hear that the shop-windows +of Norfolk, Va., fairly bristle with shoes of this brand. +Moreover, a bootmaker's advertisement in the Pittsburg <i>Post</i> +shows (as a punning Pennsylvania correspondent writes to me) +that "Trilby has obtained a foothold even in the Iron City." +According to the advertisement, "this enterprising firm offer +to the lady sending in the most accurate dimensions according +to the diagram above, together with a drawn outline of the +nude foot on paper, a handsome pair of the highest grade +'Trilby' shoe, which they will have made up especially for +the winner. This stylish foot adornment for Pittsburgh's model +feet will be satin or silk lined throughout, of the finest quality +kid and best workmanship. Bear in mind, ladies, it need not +be the smallest feet that win, but the most perfect form of +a foot from a standpoint of proportionate measurements." +("The Lounger," 13 April, 1895.)</p> + +<p class="asterisks">* * *</p> + +<p>G. A. D. writes from Philadelphia to deplore the Quaker +City's vulgarization of the name and fame of Trilby; and in +justification of his plaint encloses a Chestnut Street dealer's +advertisement of the "Trilby Sausage"! This, it is claimed, +"is something new, and fills a long-felt want"; "they melt +in your mouth." They don't melt in G. A. D.'s mouth, but +they rankle in his æsthetic soul. "What next?" he exclaims; +"an Ophelia tooth-wash, a Duchess of Towers garbage-pail!" +Our correspondent has not yet heard of the "Trilby Ham." +This, if anything, is worse than the Sausage. It has been +heard of in this city; whether or no it originated here, I do +not care to inquire. But in an Eighth Avenue dime-museum, +there are "Twenty Trilbys," and visitors vote for the handsomest! +Moreover, we have now the "Trilby Hearth-brush"; +and huge posters on the East Side announce a picnic of the +"Trilby Coterie and Chowder Club."</p> + +<p class="asterisks">* * *</p> + +<p><i>The Evening Post</i> reprints from James Braid's "Observations +of Trance" (1850, page 43) the following paragraph, +which is of singular interest in connection with the novel +which has made such an extraordinary sensation in this +country during the past year, and has become as great a success +on the stage as in book-form. Svengali's transformation<a name="page_027" id="page_027"></a> +of a girl with no ear for music into a singer of marvellous +powers seems to have been almost paralleled in real life, half +a century ago:—</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;"> +<a href="images/ill_042_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill_042_sml.jpg" width="550" height="408" alt="Du Maurier's House. +Hampstead Heath." title="Du Maurier's House. +Hampstead Heath." /></a> +<span class="caption">DU MAURIER'S HOUSE.<br /> +HAMPSTEAD HEATH.</span> +</div> + +<p>"Many patients will thus repeat accurately what is spoken in +<i>any</i> language; and they may be also able to sing correctly and +simultaneously both words and music of songs in any language +which they have never heard before—<i>i. e.</i>, they catch the words as +well as music so instantaneously as to accompany the other singer +as if both had been previously equally familiar with both words +and music. In this manner a patient of mine, who, when awake, +knew not the grammar of even her own language, and who had +very little knowledge of music, was enabled to follow Mlle. Jenny +Lind correctly in songs in different languages, giving both words +and music <i>so correctly and so simultaneously with Jenny Lind</i>, that +two parties in the room could not for some time imagine that there +were two voices, so perfectly did they accord, both in musical +tone and vocal pronunciation of Swiss, German and Italian songs. +She was equally successful in accompanying Mlle. Lind in one of +her extemporaneous effusions, which was a long and extremely difficult +elaborate chromatic exercise, which the celebrated cantatrice +tried by way of taxing the powers of the somnambulist to the +utmost. When awake the girl durst not even <i>attempt</i> to do anything +of the sort; and, after all, wonderful as it was, it was <i>only +phonic imitation</i>, for she did not understand the meaning of a +single word of the foreign language which she had uttered so correctly."</p> + +<p class="asterisks">* * *</p> + +<p class="c">(<i>Miss Frances Albert Doughty, in The Critic, 15 June, 1895.</i>)</p> + +<p>"The strength of 'Trilby' as a novel lies in the exquisitely +dear realization of the good in the girl's nature, which the +fine art of the author has been able to give to the reader. +The divine in the Laird, in Taffy and in Little Billee responded +to the divine in that undeveloped girl, and to them +the angel in her was the real Trilby in spite of all her past +experience. But idealism and realism in this charming story +are not quite happily balanced: the reader receives a blow +on the spiritual side of his being from the manifestation of +an agency in the universe that is endowed with an all-conquering +malevolence, something extraneous from the individual +and yet able to arrest in her the growth of the budding +germ of holiness and moral beauty, a power triumphant even +at the moment when her spirit was about to return to the +God who gave it. Without Svengali there would be no novel +of Trilby; nevertheless, he is the sole blot upon it."</p> + +<p class="asterisks">* * *</p> + +<p class="c">(<i>San Francisco Argonaut</i>)</p> + +<p>"Perhaps the most surprising circumstance connected with +'Trilby' in the eyes of American readers is the way the<a name="page_028" id="page_028"></a> +book has been received in England. At best it has been +accorded lukewarm praise, and the tone of its reviews has +run the gamut down to downright slating. Some have been +spiteful enough to be exceptionally entertaining. Of these, +that of <i>The Pall Mall Gazette</i> is the most striking, the reviewer +of that journal showing himself to be (as an exchange +puts it) a master of vituperative diction. To this reviewer, +'Trilby's' three Englishmen are 'British prigs cut in pasteboard,' +and their biographer is denied even the poor ability +to express himself in grammatical English."</p> + +<p class="asterisks">* * *</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">To the Editors of The Critic</span>:—</p> + +<p>If there yet remains a word to be said in criticism of this +book, it may, perhaps, be in regard to the musical part of it. +Whether intentionally or not, du Maurier has certainly +added an instance, which tends to prove the theory true, that +music in itself is neither elevating nor refining. Svengali is +drawn with inimitable skill, and with so much realism that +the reader feels that he must have been known and hated +by du Maurier in all his repulsiveness. And yet this loathsome +creature has the power of so seizing and expressing the +noblest works of the great masters of harmony as to move +his hearers to tears, to sway them at his will by the tenderness +and feeling he puts into the notes. It is a hard thing +for a music-lover to comprehend, that a man of low and +vicious life, and utterly without aspirations, can so express +the penetrating beauty that lies in music more than in any +other art. It shows, too, that music gives us only what it +finds in us, and proves the folly of "program music," or +music with a translation.</p> + +<p> +<span class="smcap">Auburn, N. Y.</span> <span style="margin-left: 10em;"><span class="smcap">S. M. Cox.</span></span></p> + +<p class="c">(<i>Mrs. Emma Carleton, in the Louisville Courier-Journal.</i>)</p> + +<p>"A great deal has been said and written about 'Ben Bolt,'" +said a woman who doesn't pretend to be musical, "and the +other songs of the Trilby repertoire; but I have not yet seen +or heard any comment on Trilby's 'great and final performance'—the +vocalization of Chopin's Impromptu, A flat. Du +Maurier devotes two entire pages to most wonderful description +of this wonderful musical achievement; two exquisite +pages of music painted in words, in most masterly and matchless +fashion. Who can forget the depiction of La Svengali's +voice, 'as a light nymph catching the whirl of a double-skipping +rope as she warbles that long, smooth, lilting, dancing +laugh, that wondrous song without words.' This impromptu<a name="page_029" id="page_029"></a> +should be rechristened the 'Trilby Impromptu,' and musicians +everywhere should now—while the Trilby wave is riding +high—be charming their audiences by playing it."</p> + +<p class="asterisks">* * *</p> + +<p>The Oliver Ditson Co. has published a pamphlet of +"Trilby" songs, etc., containing the words and music of +"Ben Bolt," "Malbrouck," "Bonjour, Suzon," "Der Nussbaum" +("The Nut-tree") "Cantique de Noël" and "Au +Clair de la Lune," and the music of Chopin's "Impromptu."</p> + +<p class="asterisks">* * *</p> + +<p>On March 1, 1895, a postcard was sent from the office of +<i>Life</i>, calling the attention of "exchange editors" throughout +the country to "A 'Trilby' Examination." We reprint the +card in full:—</p> + +<p>"<i>Life's Monthly Calendar</i> offers a series of cash prizes for the +best sets of replies to the following questions on 'Trilby':</p> + +<p>1. What does the author claim as the king of all instruments? +Who does he claim was the greatest violinist of his time? What +does he call the most bourgeois piece of music he knows?</p> + +<p>2. What was Svengali's real name?</p> + +<p>3. Where does the author state that he is a social lion? Where +does he deny that he is a snob?</p> + +<p>4. Where does he bring Little Billee in contact with Punch?</p> + +<p>5. What did the Laird call M. le général Comte de la Tour-aux-Loups?</p> + +<p>6. In what places does the author compare Gecko to a dog?</p> + +<p>7. How old was Trilby when she died?</p> + +<p>8. What was Little Billee's physical explanation of his inability +to love?</p> + +<p>9. What verbal description of one of the heroes contradicts almost +every one of the author's drawings of him?</p> + +<p>10. What incident of the story is inconsistent with the author's +own argument in behalf of the nude in art?</p> + +<p class="c">———</p> + +<p>"Dear Sir: The above questions are covered by our copyright, +but in view of the popular interest in 'Trilby,' you may +wish to reproduce them. We should be more than pleased to have +you do so, if you will give us credit.</p> +<p> +Yours very truly,</p> + +<p class="r"><span class="smcap">James S. Metcalfe</span>,<br /> +Editor and Manager <i>Life's Monthly Calendar</i>."</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 25px;"> +<img src="images/ill_design3.png" width="25" height="46" alt="floral decoration" title="floral decoration" /> +</div> + +<p><a name="page_030" id="page_030"></a></p> + +<h3>The Songs in "Trilby"</h3> + +<p>Dr. Thomas Dunn English wrote the words of "Ben +Bolt" in New York, in 1842, when he was a young man of +three-and-twenty. Mr. N. P. Willis had asked him to write +a sea-song for <i>The New Mirror</i>, and so he wound up the last +stanza with an allusion to "the salt-sea gale!" As a sea-song, +"Ben Bolt" is not a success; but it has been sung on every sea +and in every land where the English tongue is spoken. At +Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1848, an English journalist named +Hunt quoted the words (from a defective memory) to Nelson +Kneass, who was attached to the local theatre; and, adapted +by Kneass to a German melody, the song, in a somewhat +garbled version, was introduced in a play called "The Battle +of Buena Vista." In Helen Kendrick Johnson's "Our +Familiar Songs, and Those Who Made Them" (Henry Holt +& Co., 1881), the story of its vogue in England as well as in +America is told effectively. Not only were ships and steam-boats +named in its honor, but a play was built upon its suggestions, +and as recently as in 1877 an English novelist made the +memories evoked by the singing of the song a factor in the +development of his catastrophe. Its revival at the hand of +Mr. du Maurier is the latest and perhaps the most striking +tribute to its hold upon the popular heart. To the author +himself—in his ripe old age a member of the LIIId Congress—its +fame is seemingly a bore, for he is quoted as saying:—"I +am feeling very well and enjoying life as well as an old +man can, but this eternal 'Ben Bolt' business makes me so +infernally weary at times that existence becomes a burden. +The other night, at a meeting of a medical association at my +home in Newark, some one proposed that all hands join in +singing 'Ben Bolt,' whereupon I made a rush for the door, +and came very near forgetting the proprieties by straightway +leaving home. However, I recovered my equilibrium and rejoined +my friends. I don't think that General Sherman ever +grew half so tired of 'Marching Through Georgia' as I have +of that creation of mine, and it will be a blessed relief to me +when the public shall conclude to let it rest."</p> + +<p>Apropos of the use made of the song in "Trilby," <i>Harper's +Bazar</i> published the words and music; whereupon the author +sent this letter to the editor:—</p> + +<p>"It is very pleasing to an old man like myself to have the literary +work of a half-century since dragged to light and commended,<a name="page_031" id="page_031"></a> +as has been the case with 'Ben Bolt' of late. I was flattered by +seeing my likeness—or, rather, the likeness of a younger man than +myself—in your pages; but I must protest against some errors +which, in spite of careful editing, enter into your transcription of +the song. The words of the original were:—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left">'Don't you remember the school, Ben Bolt,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">With the master so cruel and grim,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">And the shaded nook in the running brook,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where the children went to swim?'</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>"This has been changed in the song, as usually sung, to read:—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left">'With the master so kind and so true.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">And the little nook by the clear-running brook,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Where we gathered the flowers as they grew?'</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>"You have copied this, but in a better shape, with the exception +of changing the rhythm. I must protest against this change, +because the school-masters of between sixty and seventy years +since were, to my memory, 'cruel and grim'; they were neither +kind nor true. They seemed to think the only way to get learning +into a boy's head was by the use of the rod. There may have been +exceptions, but I never met them. At all events, 'what I have +written I have written.'"</p> + +<p class="c"><span class="smcap">Ben Bolt</span></p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="center">I</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Oh, don't you remember, Sweet Alice, Ben Bolt?</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sweet Alice, whose hair was so brown,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Who wept with delight when you gave her a smile,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And trembled with fear at your frown!</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">In the old churchyard, in the valley, Ben Bolt,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">In a corner obscure and alone,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">They have fitted a slab of the granite so gray.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And Alice lies under the stone!</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">II</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Under the hickory tree, Ben Bolt,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which stood at the foot of the hill,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Together we've lain in the noon-day shade,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">And listened to Appleton's mill.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">The mill-wheel has fallen to pieces, Ben Bolt,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">The rafters have tumbled in,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">And a quiet that crawls round the walls as you gaze,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Has followed the olden din.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">III</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Do you mind the cabin of logs, Ben Bolt,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">At the edge of the pathless wood,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">And the button-ball tree with its motley limbs,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which nigh by the door-step stood?</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">The cabin to ruin has gone, Ben Bolt,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">The tree you would seek in vain;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">And where once the lords of the forest waved,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Grows grass and the golden grain.<a name="page_032" id="page_032"></a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">IV</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">And don't you remember the school, Ben Bolt,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">With the master so cruel and grim,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">And the shaded nook in the running brook,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where the children went to swim?</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Grass grows on the master's grave, Ben Bolt,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">The spring of the brook is dry,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">And of all the boys who were schoolmates then,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">There are only you and I.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">V</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">There is change in the things I loved, Ben Bolt,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">They have changed from the old to the new;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">But I feel in the depths of my spirit the truth,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">There never was change in you.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Twelve-months twenty have past, Ben Bolt,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Since first we were friends—yet I hail</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Thy presence a blessing, thy friendship a truth,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ben Bolt, of the salt-sea gale!</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="c">———</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">To the Editors of The Critic</span>:—</p> + +<p>In your columns of "Trilbyana" I have seen no mention +of the fact that George W. Cable, in his "Dr. Sevier"—a +thousand times better novel and better work, in every way, +than "Trilby,"—has introduced the old song "Ben Bolt" +with wonderful effect. It is strange that the old melody +should have appealed to the two men, so widely apart, and it +is but fair that the American's first, and most skilful, use of it +should have due recognition.</p> + +<p> +<span class="smcap">Philadelphia.</span> <span style="margin-left: 10em;"><span class="smcap">John Patterson.</span></span></p> + +<p class="asterisks">* * *</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">To the Editors of The Critic</span>:—</p> + +<p>Du Maurier says that there is but one verse of the little +French song, which Trilby sings with so much effect—"Au +clair de la lune." He mistakes; there is another, running +thus:—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="songs"> +<tr><td align="left">"Je n'ouvrirai pas la porte, </td><td align="left">J'ouvre bien la porte,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">À un vieux savetier,</span></td><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">À un pâtissier,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left" class="spc">* * * * * </td><td align="left">Qui m'apporte des brioches</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left" class="spc"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">* * * *</span></td><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dans un tablier."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>The two missing lines have escaped the memory of the +writer.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Auburn, N. Y.</span> +<span style="margin-left: 10em;"><span class="smcap">S. M. Cox.</span></span></p> + +<p class="c">———</p> + +<p>Your correspondent, S. M. Cox, offers some more verses of +"Mon Ami Pierrot." They do not quite agree with those +taught me, shortly after the Revolution of 1848, by an old +French gentleman. You will notice that the French of the +last verse is quite "eighteenth-century" in style and diction.<a name="page_033" id="page_033"></a></p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="song"> +<tr><td align="center">II</td><td align="center">III</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Je n'ouvre pas ma porte</td><td align="left">Mais j'ouvre bien ma porte</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">À des savetiers,</span></td><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">À des officiers,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Ils ont des alènes,</td><td align="left">Ils ont des pistoles,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">C'est pour me piquer. </span></td><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">C'est pour me les baîller.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Paris</span>, 1 Jan., 1895.</td><td align="right">B. F.</td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="c">———</p> + +<p>Mr. du Maurier was correct in saying that there is only +one verse of "Au Clair de la Lune"; yet there are possibly, +and probably, a thousand made in imitation of it, which go to +the same air. We quote from the San Francisco <i>Argonaut</i>:—</p> + +<p>"It is to be observed that these <i>amateurs de Trilby</i> do not +go the length of singing 'Au Clair de la Lune,' even repeating +the first stanza twice, as Trilby did. But perhaps they +are as ignorant concerning the song as is Mr. du Maurier, +who declares there is but one verse. There are four. The +first is given in 'Trilby' thus:—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="song"> +<tr><td align="left">'Au clair de la lune, </td><td align="left">Ma chandelle est morte....</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Mon ami Pierrot!</td><td align="left"> Je n'ai plus de feu!</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Prête-moi ta plume</td><td align="left">Ouvre-moi ta porte</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Pour écrire un mot.</td><td align="left"> Pour l'amour de Dieu!'</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>The second runs:—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="song"> +<tr><td align="left">'Au clair de la lune</td><td align="left">Va chez la voisine—</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Pierrot répondit:</td><td align="left"> Je crois qu'elle y est,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Je n'ai pas de plume,</td><td align="left">Car, dans sa cuisine,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Je suis dans mon lit. </td><td align="left"> On bat le briquet.'</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>The third stanza contains the point of the song:—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="song"> +<tr><td align="left">'Au clair de la lune</td><td align="left">Qui frappe de la sorte?</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> S'en va Arléquin</td><td align="left"> Il dit à son tour:</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Frapper chez la brune </td><td align="left">Ouvre-moi ta porte</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Qui répond soudain:</td><td align="left"> Pour le dieu d'amour.'</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>The fourth stanza continues in the same strain, and it +goes farther."</p> + +<p class="c">———</p> + +<p class="c">"<span class="smcap">Malbrouck s'en va't en Guerre</span>"</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left"> Malbrouck s'en va-t'en guerre—</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> <i>Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Malbrouck s'en va-t'en guerre....</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Ne sais quand reviendra!</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Ne sais quand reviendra!</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Ne sais quand reviendra!</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Il reviendra-z-à Pâques—</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> <i>Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Il reviendra-z-à Pâques....</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Ou ... à la Trinit!</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> La Trinité se passe—</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> <i>Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> La Trinité se passe....</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Malbrouck ne revient pas!</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Madame à sa tour monte—</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> <i>Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Madame à sa tour monte,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Si haut qu'elle peut monter!</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Elle voit de loin son page—</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> <i>Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Elle voit de loin son page,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Tout de noire habillé!</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> "Mon page—mon beau page!—</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> <i>Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Mon page—mon beau page!</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Quelles nouvelles apportez?"</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> "Aux nouvelles que j'apporte—</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> <i>Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Aux nouvelles que j'apporte,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Vos beaux yeux vont pleurer!"</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> "Quittez vos habits roses—</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> <i>Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Quittez vos habits roses,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Et vos satins brochés!"</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> "Le Sieur Malbrouck est mort—</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> <i>Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Le Sieur—Malbrouck—est—mort!</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Est mort—et enterré!"</td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="c">———</p> + +<p>There is no more eloquent description of the effect of +music on an impressionable nature than du Maurier gives +of the impression made upon Little Billee by the singing of +Adam's "Cantique de Noël" at the Madeleine on Christmas +Eve.</p> + +<p class="c"><span class="smcap">Cantique de Noël</span></p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left">Minuit, Chrétiens, c'est l'heure solennelle,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Où l'homme Dieu descendit jusqu'à nous,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Pour effacer la tache originelle</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Et de son Père arrêter le courroux.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Le monde entier tressaille d'espérance</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">A cette nuit qui lui donne un sauveur.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Peuple à genoux! attends la délivrance!</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Noël, Noël, voici le Rédempteur!</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p><a name="page_035" id="page_035"></a></p> + +<h3>A Search for Sources</h3> + +<p><span class="smcap">To the Editors of The Critic</span>:—</p> + +<p>The liquid name, "Trilby," of du Maurier's heroine having +been duly run down to its source, will a slight excursus be +amiss as to the origin of the affectionate title applied by the +novelist on his charming little hero—"Little Billee"? Evidently +the name, together with certain descriptive touches, +has been taken from Thackeray's ballad, "Little Billee." +This racy skit, as many doubtless know, is in the best vein of +the great humorist's inimitable burlesque. It narrates the +tragic cruise of</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left">"Three sailors of Bristol city</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Who took a boat and went to sea,"</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">the second stanza running thus:—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left">"There was gorging Jack, and guzzling Jimmy</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><i>And the youngest, he was Little Billee</i>.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Now when they got as far as the Equator</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">They'd nothing left, but one split pea."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>And the unpleasant ultimatum being arrived at, that "We've +nothing left, us must eat we," the poem continues:—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left">"Says gorging Jack to guzzling Jimmy,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">With one another we shouldn't agree,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">There's little Bill, <i>he's young and tender</i>,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">We're old and tough, so let's eat he."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>Here, I say, we have the origin of the novelist's "Little +Billee," while, in the italicized phrases, we have also du +Maurier's, "the third, he was little Billee" (page 6), and +"he was young and tender, was little Billee."</p> + +<p>It would be sheer nonsense, of course, to urge against the +famous novelist any charge of unacknowledged borrowing in +matters so entirely trivial. The point is merely a curious one +of origins; a little siccatine botanizing, so to speak, on the +<i>folia disjecta</i> that have been wonderfully spun by du Maurier's +genius into a fabric of grace and beauty so rare as is +this "Trilby." Nor, indeed, should the further fact be a detraction +from the gifted author of "Trilby," that his indebtedness +to Thackeray is obviously greater than in the +minutiæ under consideration—that, in fact, he has caught +from the great immortal the note of much that is best in his +book. In his limpid, graceful simplicity of words, and their +easy, natural flow—in his delicate, playful humor, and tender +but not overwrought pathos, we discover a careful study of<a name="page_036" id="page_036"></a> +found only a few general remarks about fairies, their habits +and habitations, nothing in the least resembling the story of +Jeannie's lover. Perhaps Nodier was mistaken about his +source. As he travelled in the Highlands, he may possibly +have "collected" the tale at first hand, and, there being no +folk-lore societies in those early days of romanticism, he was +not aware of the honor that thus accrued to him. It cannot +have evolved itself from a mere hint. We appeal to Mr. +Lang to take up and follow the chase farther. He might be +worse occupied than in tracing out the original John Trilby +MacFarlane, and whence he got his English-sounding name, +his fairy powers and his connection with Saint Columba—the +last probably from Nodier himself, who may have been +reading Montalembert's "Monks of the West" before setting +out upon his pilgrimage. Mr. Dole, by the way, irreverently +converts the Dove of the Churches into a "Saint Columbine," +unknown to any respectable hagiographer. Think, Mr. Lang, +what a delightful coil this romancing Frenchman, let loose +among your Hielan' men, fairies, monks and Scotch novels, +has made for you to straighten out, and how many strange +discoveries may be made while you are about the job!</p> + +<p>Miss Smith (2) has prepared another translation of Nodier's +story, and, though there is little choice between her version +and Mr. Dole's, we prefer it. It seems a trifle less exact, but +it is more idiomatic; and, if anything, she perhaps intensifies +the local color a little, which does not do the tale any harm. +Her book is got up in tartan cover; Mr. Dole's has a design +adapted from Paul Konewka.</p> + +<p class="asterisks">* * *</p> + +<p>Mr. Richard Mansfield has secured from Estes & Lauriat +the right to dramatize and produce Mr. Dole's translation +of Nodier's "Trilby, le Lutin d'Argail."<a name="page_037" id="page_037"></a></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 25px;"> +<img src="images/ill_design4.png" width="25" height="34" alt="decoration" title="" /> +</div> + +<h3>Nodier's "Trilby, le Lutin d'Argail"</h3> + +<p>It was not long after the appearance of "Trilby" that +our readers detected the French origin of the name of Mr. +du Maurier's heroine. The story of the unearthing of this +delightful French fairy-tale may be followed in this series of +communications to <i>The Critic</i>:</p> + +<p class="c">———</p> + +<p>On looking over Roche's "Prosateurs Français," I find +that one of the "plus jolis" contes of Charles Nodier (1788-1844) +is entitled "Trilby"; therefore the title of du Maurier's +much-bought novel is not original with him. I should +be pleased if any reader of <i>The Critic</i> would inform me as +to the plot of Nodier's story.</p> + +<p> +<span class="smcap">St. Francis of Assisi Rectory</span>, <span style="margin-left: 10em;"><span class="smcap">Wm. J. McClure</span>,</span></p> + +<p class="c"><span class="smcap">Mt. Kisco, N. Y.</span>, 29th Oct., 1894.</p> + +<p class="asterisks">* * *</p> + +<p>The following lines occur in the "Réponse à M. Charles +Nodier" of Alfred de Musset:—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left">"Non pas cette belle insomnie</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Du génie</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Où Trilby vient, prêt à chanter,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">T'écouter."</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>This would seem to offer some clue to the origin of the name +chosen by Mr. du Maurier for his heroine. Can you enlighten +me as to the identity of the "Trilby" referred to by +Musset?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Ridgefield, Conn.</span>, 19 Nov., 1894. <span style="margin-left: 10em;"><span class="smcap">Roswell Bacon</span>.</span></p> + +<p class="asterisks">* * *</p> + +<p>In answer to the request of your correspondent in <i>The +Critic</i> of Nov. 17, I find the tale of "Trilby" in my copy of the +"Contes de Charles Nodier, illustrés par Tony Johannot." +"Trilby" is the story of a household fairy of Scotland (a +"Lutin familier de la Chaumière"). It is fantastic and +touching, but it has nothing in common with du Maurier's +"Trilby."</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Leesburgh, Virginia</span>, 20 Nov., 1894. <span style="margin-left: 10em;">I. L. P.</span></p> + +<p class="asterisks">* * *</p> + +<p>From the recent contributions to "Trilbyana" in your +columns, it would appear as if the name of Trilby (originally +Scotch or Irish?) were not uncommon in the writings of +French authors. Charles Nodier, in his <i>conte</i>, says that M. +de Latouche—a contemporary—wrote on the same subject, +"où cette charmante tradition était racontée en vers enchanteurs<a name="page_038" id="page_038"></a>"—which +gives one to suppose that "Trilby" was +the name of his enchantress; though, perhaps, he refers to +the old story of "Le Diable Amoureux." I find, moreover, +that Balzac takes the name for a type in his "Histoire des +Treize: Ferragus: Vol. I. Scènes de la Vie Parisienne" +(page 48 of edition of 1843):—"Pour développer cette histoire +dans toute la vérité de ses détails, pour en suivre le +cours dans toutes ses sinuosités, il faut ici divulguer quelques +secrets de l'amour, se glisser sous les lambris d'une chambre +à coucher, non pas effrontément, mais à la manière de Trilby +[the opposite to du Maurier's Trilby], n'effaroucher ni Dougal, +ni Jeannie, n'effaroucher personne," etc.</p> + +<p> +<span class="smcap">Tuxedo Park</span>, 26 Nov., 1894. <span style="margin-left: 10em;">E. L. B.</span></p> + +<p class="asterisks">* * *</p> + +<p class="c">(<i>Boston Evening Transcript, 1 Dec. 1894.</i>)</p> + +<p>"The Listener was asked the other day where du Maurier +got the name of Trilby—a sweet and pleasant word, neither +English nor French, which seemed to suit so perfectly the +adorable young person of his creation. He was able to +answer, more by accident certainly than as the result of erudition, +that the name was not invented by du Maurier but +belongs to the French classics—possibly to Scottish folk-lore. +In the year 1822 there was first published in Paris a +<i>nouvelle</i>, by Charles Nodier, afterward a member of the +French Academy, entitled, "Trilby, or the Fay of Argyle"; +it was a sort of fairy-story, in which a fay is in love with a +mortal woman, and the woman is very far from being indifferent +to his sentiment. This 'Trilby' attained a considerable +degree of popularity; it became, indeed, a French +classic; Sainte-Beuve has particularly praised the charm of +its style. * * * In his preface to the story, Nodier says: +'The subject of this story is derived from a preface or a +note to one of the romances of Sir Walter Scott, I do not +know which one.' This is a very indefinite acknowledgment +While Nodier may have got his subject from Scott, +the Listener doubts if he got the name 'Trilby' from him. +It is just the sort of name that a French writer would give +to a Scotch fay. Nevertheless, Trilby may be a real Scotch +elfin. The Listener would hardly claim personal acquaintance +with them all.</p> + +<p>"Du Maurier's 'Trilby' is curiously prefigured, in part at +least, in Nodier's; and yet there is not the smallest thing +that the most jealous critic could call a plagiarism; it is a +legitimate parentage. As you go on with Nodier's story, +you love his Trilby more and more, as you do du Maurier's, +until you think that there was never so bewitching a fairy;<a name="page_039" id="page_039"></a> +and your love for Trilby is interwoven with your love for +Jeannie, his mortal sweetheart, just as your love for du +Manner's Trilby is forever mixed up with your tender sentiment +for Little Billee. You feel a sort of enchantment over +you like the hypnotism that you are under in du Maurier's +strange book. And both stories, while abounding in wit +and pretty things, are deeply tragical. It has been said of +Nodier's 'Trilby' that it belongs to the realm of the <i>supra-sensible</i>, +and so, in large measure, certainly does du Maurier's. +Du Maurier has confessed his obligation flatly in +giving his story the very name that Nodier's bore. It is conceivable +that the image of the Frenchman's haunting fairy +dwelt with him until he resolved to reincarnate the adorable +elf in the body of a girl as adorable. He gave his Trilby a +Scotch ancestry to connect her the more naturally with the +<i>lutin d'Argail</i>; and her fairy ancestry will easily account +not only for her early prankishness, but for her later unreality. +But it is a prefiguring merely, and not a direct suggestion. +Whatever du Maurier's 'Trilby' lacks, it isn't originality!"</p> + +<p class="asterisks">* * *</p> + +<p class="c">(<i>From Mr. C. E. L. Wingate's Boston Letter in The Critic of 20 +April, 1893.</i>)</p> + +<p>It appears that the first mention of the French book appeared +in <i>The Critic</i>, last November. It was in the same +month that Mr. Bradford Torrey * * * happened to +find a copy of Nodier's "Trilby" in the Boston Athenæum. +He took the book to his friend, Mr. J. E. Chamberlin of +<i>The Youth's Companion</i>, who began its translation at once. +A few days later appeared a note in <i>The Critic</i> from a correspondent +in Virginia. Thinking that secrecy was no longer +worth while, Mr. Chamberlin wrote his paragraphs for the +<i>Transcript</i> "Listener" column, incorporating a bit of translation. +This was printed on Dec. 1. Miss Minna C. Smith +went to Roberts Bros. at once, to ask them if they would consider +the publication of a translation of the romance by her +<i>Transcript</i> confrère, and Mr. F. Alcott Pratt replied that +they would like very much to see that gentleman's work. +Circumstances made Mr. Chamberlin decide not to finish the +translation, and he gave Miss Smith his idea and a few pages +of the manuscript for a Christmas present. During several +weeks following she was engaged upon her careful translation. +The Scotch words and names of localities in her +manuscript were corrected by Mr. J. Murray Kay of Houghton, +Mifflin & Co., an accomplished Scot, who walked through +Argyle with his daughters last summer. On March 19, an<a name="page_040" id="page_040"></a> +article on Charles Nodier's story, foreshadowing Miss Smith's +translation, appeared in the <i>Transcript</i>. On the morning of +March 20, Mr. Dana Estes sent for Mr. Nathan Haskell +Dole and asked him to make a translation, which was done +with remarkable rapidity, and put out on March 29. Learning +of this, Lamson, Wolffe & Co. hurried on Miss Smith's +book, which had been in the hands of their printer at the +Collins press for days, advertised it on Thursday and brought +it out on Saturday, in Scotch plaid covers.</p> + +<p>This firm of Lamson, Wolffe & Co., by the way, has just +been dissolved for a novel reason. Mr. Wolffe is a member +of the class of '95 at Harvard. The publication of "Trilby, +the Fairy of Argyle" called the attention of the faculty to his +publishing business, and he was asked to give it up, or else +forfeit his degree. He chose the former alternative, and +although the firm name will remain Lamson, Wolffe & Co., a +new and, for the present, silent member of the firm has added +capital and scholarship to the house.</p> + +<p class="asterisks">* * *</p> + +<p class="c">"Trilby, the Fairy of Argyle"</p> + +<p><i>By Charles Noder. 1. Translated from the French, with introduction, +by Nathan Haskell Dole. Estes & Lauriat. 2. From the French +by Minna Caroline Smith. Boston: Lamson, Wolffe & Co.</i></p> + +<p>Nodier's "Trilby," who now revisits the book-stores +owing to Mr. du Maurier's having taken his name for his +heroine's, is one of the few latter-day fairies that have fairy +blood (or ichor) in their veins. He belongs on the same +shelf with Fouqué's "Undine," but, though he was only joking +when he personated a father who "had not seen him +since the days of King Fergus," he is certainly of the breed +of Una and Maer, Caoilte and Mananan. That he made a +sensation on his first appearance in the world of letters is +shown by Victor Hugo's ode, warning the Fairy of Argyle to +beware of ink-slinging penny-a-liners:—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left">"Car on en veut aux Trilbys</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left" class="spc"> * * * * * * * *</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Ils souilleraient d'encre noire,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Hélas! ton manteau de moire,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Ton aigrette de rubis"—</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">advice which might be repeated apropos of Mr. du Maurier's +creation.</p> + +<p>Mr. Dole, who has made a translation (1) of Nodier's +"Trilby," has looked through all of Scott's novels, he says, +to discover, if possible, the "preface or note" from which +the French author claimed to have drawn his story, and has<a name="page_041" id="page_041"></a> +the deft art of "Pendennis" and "The Newcomes." And +the "Cave of Harmony," with its songs and its bumpers and +long whiffs, the gay nights and rollicking days of F. B. and +Clive and Pendennis—the glamor of all which has enticed +full many a youngster towards the easy descent, or the shining +slopes (as the case may be) of art and letters—all these scenes +have doubtless served as the studies of the pictures, almost as +delightful and masterly as their prototypes, that du Maurier +gives us of the joyous Bohemian life of the three jolly Musketeers +of the Brush in the Quartier Latin in "Trilby."</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Auburn, Ala.</span>, 26 Dec., 1894. <span style="margin-left: 10em;"><span class="smcap">Charles C. Thach.</span></span></p> + +<p class="asterisks">* * *</p> + +<p>As a small contribution to "Trilbyana," I would call attention +to the fact, unnoted so far, that Trilby was the name +of Eugénie de Guérin's pet dog, mentioned several times in +the journal she kept for her brother Maurice. Was the dog, +perhaps, named for the fairy?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Louisville, Ky.</span> <span style="margin-left: 10em;">A. C. B.</span></p> + +<p class="asterisks">* * *</p> + +<p>As there seems to be a mania for hunting up the sources +of the inspiration of certain authors, I will engage in the +game also. In Saintine's "Picciola," Book I., Chap XII., +after the first paragraph, you will find the germ of "Peter +Ibbetson."</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Grand Rapids, Mich.</span> <span style="margin-left: 10em;">C. C.</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 30px;margin-top:10%;"> +<img src="images/ill_design5.png" width="30" height="39" alt="decoration" title="" /> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<h1>THE CRITIC</h1> + +<h2>A Weekly Review of Literature<br /> +and the Arts</h2> + +<p class="c">Edited (since 1881) by J. B. & J. L. GILDER</p> + +<p>"The only paper to which we can look for a week-by-week record of +American literature."—<i>Sir Walter Besant</i>.</p> + +<p>"<i>The Critic</i> long since took rank as the foremost literary paper in +America."—<i>The New York Times</i>.</p> + +<p>"The only purely literary weekly in America."—<i>The Athenæum</i>.</p> + +<p><i>A few occasional contributors during the past fifteen years</i>:—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="author list" +style="font-variant:small-caps;font-size:70%;"> +<tr><td align="left"> James Russell Lowell</td><td align="left"> Oliver Wendell Holmes</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> John Greenleaf Whittier</td><td align="left"> Francis Parkman</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Austin Dobson</td><td align="left"> Edmund Clarence Stedman</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Thomas Bailey Aldrich</td><td align="left"> Andrew Lang</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Walt Whitman</td><td align="left"> Frederick Locker</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Mrs. Burton Harrison</td><td align="left"> I. Zangwill</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Richard Henry Stoddard</td><td align="left"> Frank R. Stockton</td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="c">10 cts. a copy. $3 a year. (Foreign postage, $1.)</p> + +<p class="asterisks">* * *</p> + +<p>"TRILBYANA: The Rise and Progress of a Popular +Novel." A 56-page illustrated pamphlet, untrimmed, rubricated cover. +250 signed copies on hand-made paper. $1, net. Regular edition, +25 cts.</p> + +<p class="asterisks">* * *</p> + +<p>"ESSAYS FROM THE CRITIC." A reprint of some of the +most striking contributions to the earlier numbers. Cloth, $1.</p> + +<p class="c">THE CRITIC CO., 287 Fourth Ave., New York.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3 class="top5">FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> See frontispiece.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_B_2" id="Footnote_B_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_2"><span class="label">[B]</span></a> Unless in amended form.</p></div> +</div> +<hr /> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Trilbyana, by +Joseph Benson Gilder & Jeannette Leonard Gilder + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRILBYANA *** + +***** This file should be named 32887-h.htm or 32887-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/8/8/32887/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images of public domain material at +the Internet Archive.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Trilbyana + The Rise and Progress of a Popular Novel + +Author: Joseph Benson Gilder & Jeannette Leonard Gilder + +Editor: Joseph Benson Gilder + Jeannette Leonard Gilder + +Release Date: June 19, 2010 [EBook #32887] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRILBYANA *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images of public domain material at +the Internet Archive.) + + + + + + + + + +TRILBYANA + +[Illustration: MR. DU MAURIER'S FIRST DRAWING IN "PUNCH" + +_Showing himself (smooth face) and Mr. Whistler (with eyeglass)._ (_See +page 14._) + +PHOTOGRAPHER.--"_No smoking here, Sir!_" + +DICK TINTO.--"_Oh! A thousand pardons! I was not aware that---- _" + +PHOTOGRAPHER [interrupting with dignity]."--_Please to remember, +Gentlemen, that this is not a Common Hartist's studio!_" [N. B.--Dick +and his friends, who _are_ Common Artists, feel shut up by this little +aristocratic distinction, which had not occurred to them.]] + + + + +TRILBYANA + +The Rise and Progress of a +Popular Novel + +NEW YORK +THE CRITIC CO. + +MDCCCXCV + +COPYRIGHT 1895 +BY +THE CRITIC CO. + +_This edition is limited to +250 copies, of which this +is No._ 194. + +_It is many a year since a book has attained the popularity of Mr. du +Maurier's second novel, "Trilby" (printed as a serial in Harper's +Monthly, from January to August, inclusive, and then issued in +book-form, on Saturday, 8 September, 1894). Several others have sold as +well--some even better; but neither "Looking Backward" nor "Ben Hur" (to +name but these two) has captivated the public in the same manner or in +the same degree as this romance, this fairy-tale of the three British +artists, the blanchisseuse who posed for "the altogether," the Parisian +masters of painting, and the trans-Rhenish masters of music, in the +Latin Quarter of the early fifties. It is a story written out of the +author's very heart, and it finds its way straight to the hearts of his +readers. This is the secret of its unique success. Its charm is +emotional rather than intellectual. With all its art, it impresses one +as essentially ingenuous. It is a book to be loved, not merely to be +liked or admired._ + +_On 16 June, 1894, The Critic printed, with comment, a letter in which +Mr. Whistler protested to the editor of an English newspaper against the +libellous likeness of himself to be found in the character of Joe +Sibley, one of the minor personages in the story of "Trilby." In the +fall there were so many sporadic calls for this number of the paper as +soon to exhaust the supply carried over from the summer. There seemed to +be a general desire on the part of our readers to bind up the Whistler +letters, etc., with the text and pictures of "Trilby" as printed in +Harper's Monthly, the American artist's protest having led to a slight +revision of the story before its appearance in book-form. The hint was +acted upon; and two pages of "Trilbyana" were printed in The Critic of +Nov. 17._ + +_Though an extra edition was struck off, the call for this number has at +last exhausted the supply; and the present pamphlet, containing among +its many items of interest a majority of those that have found a place +in the columns of The Critic, may fairly claim to be issued in response +to a popular call._ + +_J.B. & J.L. GILDER._ + + + + +TABLE OF CONTENTS + + + PAGE + +"Trilby: a Novel" 1 + +Mr. du Maurier as a Draughtsman 4 + +"Trilby" on the Stage 8 + +Personalia 11 + +Mr. du Maurier and Mr. Whistler 15 + +"Trilby" Entertainments 19 + +Miscellanea 22 + +Songs 30 + +A Search for Sources 35 + +Nodier's "Trilby," le Lutin d'Argail 37 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +Mr. du Maurier's Monogram Title-page + +Mr. du Maurier's First Drawing for _Punch_ Frontispiece + +Portrait of Mr. du Maurier from a Photograph Face 16 + +Portrait of Mr. du Maurier by Himself 11 + +Portrait of Mr. Whistler 15 + +"Platt, the New Svengali" 25 + +Mr. du Maurier's House on Hampton Heath Face 27 + + + + +"Trilby: a Novel" + +_By George du Maurier. With Illustrations by the Author. Harper & +Brothers._ + + +When "TRILBY" began to appear as a serial in _Harper's Monthly_, January +1894, Mr. Henry James prophesied that it would prove to be a +glorification of "the long leg and the twentieth year." The prophecy was +soon verified. At the outset, indeed, it seemed as if the glorification +were to be, not so much of the long leg, as of the large and shapely +foot. The whole story rested for a while on one of Trilby's feet. We say +one, for it was only one of them--the left one--that Little Billee +immortalized by drawing on the wall of the studio in the Place St. +Anatole des Arts; but they were equally perfect. As the young woman who +had the happiness of standing on this foot proclaims, kicking off one of +the big slippers in which she is introduced to us, "It's the handsomest +foot in all Paris: there's only one in all Paris to match it, and here +it is"--and off goes the other slipper. The sketch of it that proves +Little Billee already a master of his art is not shown till near the end +of the book; and neither this nor Mr. du Maurier's own portrait of the +_pieds nus_ on page 21 fully realizes one's notion of the thing's +unapproached perfection. + +As we have said, the whole story rests for a while on one of these +handsome feet; but the novelist manages at last to free his neck from +the thraldom of the "slim, straight, rosy heel, clean-cut and smooth as +the back of a razor," and proceeds to gratify our curiosity to know +something about the strange being who poked about the studios in the +Quartier Latin in the early fifties, bare-headed, and wearing a big, +military coat with epaulets, which she could throw off when she posed +for the _ensemble_ as easily as she could kick off the loose slippers +when only her foot was desired as a model. It will be seen that Trilby +was not a woman of any social standing. Her father was an educated +Irishman, her mother (his wife) a pretty barmaid. They both were dead, +and she herself was a professional model. + +Two things about her were equally marvellous: one was her foot, the +other her voice--an organ of surprising power, range and sweetness. No +less extraordinary, perhaps, was the trick that nature had played upon +her, by coupling so glorious a voice with an ear that could not +distinguish one note from another--could scarcely tell a bass from a +treble, and permitted her to sing so badly that her hearers either +stopped their ears, laughed in her face, or bolted from the room. The +American song "Ben Bolt" was the one she liked the best to sing, and +sang the worst. There was something else about her, almost as strange as +her beautiful feet, her magnificent voice and her defective (or +altogether lacking) ear for music; and that was the purity of her +character. She had had affairs with half a dozen men in the studios, +without really knowing that it wasn't the right thing to do. But her +heart remained spotless (so Mr. du Maurier assures us); and it is a most +unfortunate thing that Little Billee's mother comes tearing over to +Paris, leaving the peaceful dales and dairies of Devonshire behind her, +in her mad haste to break the engagement which Trilby has at last made +with the young English painter, after having repeatedly refused to do +so, notwithstanding her great love for him. Mrs. Bagot has no difficulty +in convincing her that she is no worthy mate for Little Billee; and she +accordingly runs away from Paris, heart-broken, and becomes a +_blanchisseuse de fin_. Little Billee's heart is broken, too; or if not +broken, benumbed; and henceforth, though he becomes a most successful +artist, and the pet of all London, he takes his pleasures and successes +sadly and listlessly, caring nothing for the wealth and fame that come +to him. + +In the meantime a great _prima-donna_ appears upon the European stage, +and all the world bows down before her. Happening to be in Paris, Little +Billee is persuaded by his old chums, Taffy the Yorkshireman ex-soldier, +and the "Laird of Cockpen"--painters both,--to go and hear the prodigy. +Fancy their stupefaction at recognizing in the glorious singer the +tuneless Trilby of five years gone! No longer Trilby O'Ferrall, but La +Svengali, wife of their old acquaintance Svengali the Jew, who had +recognized the possibilities of her voice when he first heard it in +their Paris studio, and had afterwards captured her and cultivated it +and by his mesmeric arts trained her as a singer and even made her love +him as a dog loves his master. A day or two later, meeting him at a +hotel, Svengali spits in Little Billee's face, and gets his nose pulled +for his pains by Taffy. And then the great _prima-donna_ and her master +go to London; and Trilby breaks down in trying to sing "Ben Bolt," and +is hooted off the stage--Svengali's sudden death in a stage-box (unknown +to anyone in the house) having broken the mesmeric influence that has +made her a singer. She pines away, surrounded by her old friends the +Englishmen, and an object of solicitude to all Christendom; and after +her death Little Billee pines away, too, and no one is left but the big +ex-officer Taffy--with the exception of Trilby, the most attractive +character in the book. For Little Billee (whose sister he marries, after +the death of Trilby, whom he, too, loved) is, truth to tell, somewhat of +a prig, even after the sight of Trilby at the concert in Paris has +roused him from the unemotional state to which her flight consigned him, +years before; and Svengali is a beast, and Gecko is insignificant. + +The text of the book is the counterpart of its illustrations, for Mr. du +Maurier writes as he draws--with infinite precision and detail. Nothing +is omitted that could possibly heighten an effect. Instead of flashing a +scene or a sensation upon you, he describes it and redescribes it, +heaping up the adjectives in masses. His art is a different art from +Kipling's, for instance, which never wastes a syllable. But the point to +be decided is not one of methods but of results; and as a whole "Trilby" +is delightful. It is a slow and laborious process by which the author +creates an impression and surrounds his characters with the atmosphere +he wishes us to see them in; but he does finally create the impression +and the atmosphere, and in so doing justifies his means. He has steeped +his mind in Thackeray, and so has had a noble master. Like "Peter +Ibbetson," his new story is unique. It is a book that could have been +written only by an artist--and illustrated only by the author; it is a +book, moreover, in which the man and the style are one. + +In its present form the story contains certain passages not printed in +the magazine--notably, a brief disquisition on sitting for the nude. On +the other hand, certain passages have been altered in deference to the +wishes of Mr. Whistler, who saw in Joe Sibley, as described and pictured +by Mr. du Maurier, an unpleasant resemblance to himself. Not only has +the text been altered, but our friend Sibley is now called Antony, and +his hitherto unbearded face is adorned with a non-Whistlerian beard. +(See "Trilby," opposite page 132.) One picture has been omitted +altogether. It needed not the accidental advertising of Mr. Whistler's +threatened libel suit to draw attention to the book. It is its own best +advertisement, and has fairly earned the success implied in advance +orders so numerous as to cause the postponement until to-day (8 Sept. +1894) of the original date of publication. + + + + +Mr. du Maurier as a Draughtsman + + +It is hardly necessary to say that Mr. du Maurier's work as a novelist +is in no way matched by his work as a draughtsman, as exemplified, for +instance, in the 120 drawings for "Trilby," exhibited in December, 1894, +at the Avery gallery. Until he began to write he was known merely as the +author of innumerable caricatures, which had a certain vogue because +they were at the same time pictures of fashionable society; but even of +these the legend was often the best part. He had mastered many types, +but they were nothing more than that; and one had seen his millionaires +and swells and singing people and artists until one had grown rather +tired of them. Then, suddenly, it was found, with the first chapters of +his first novel, that in writing he could give to all these well-known +figures individuality, could make flesh and blood of them. The drawings +themselves, at least those done as illustrations for his two romances, +seem to have gained by that discovery. These do not appear to be the +same French blouses and English guardsmen. Something has got into them, +a touch of life, which they did not have before. Yet no one will say +that the Little Billee of the drawings now exhibited at Avery's gallery +is even a shadow of the Little Billee of the text. Of Trilby there is +not so much as the famous foot. Any schoolboy, almost, might have made +as clever a travesty of the Venus de Milo. The best presentment of the +gigantic Taffy is that in which he poses as the Ilyssus. The Laird o' +Cockpen is much better, being frequently very like Mr. George W. Cable, +particularly where he listens to Trilby's confession--an accidental +likeness, no doubt, but one that increases our respect for the Laird. +The intentional likeness of Frederick Walker, who is said to be the real +original of Little Billee, is vastly superior to the ideal one; and the +many unnamed figures in the more crowded compositions that appear to +have been sketched from the life or from a particularly vivid memory are +among the most amusing and enjoyable things in the drawings. + +But it must not be denied that there is here and there a bit of _chic_ +that approaches the ideal--something not easily to be discovered in the +artist's former work. Svengali is throughout a creation of this sort. He +is as grotesquely romantic, as Mephistophelian a figure in the +illustration as in the printed page. The only failure is the head (on +page 59 of the book) which is in more senses than one "as bad as they +make them." He is excellent where he laughs over the two Englishmen +cleaning themselves; he is delightful where he examines the roof of +Trilby's mouth, "like the dome of the Pantheon," "room in it for 'toutes +les gloires de la France.'" Where he stands in the midst of the crowded +studio, "All as it Used to Be," he looks every inch the artist, more so +than the "idle apprentice," lounging against the door-jamb. If there +were such a man, one who had sunk his whole soul in his art, he might +look like this, or like the same figure in the hussar uniform, a Semitic +conqueror "out of the mysterious East." There is a touch of the spirit +of the illustrators of the romantic period in the pictures of the +Christmas festivities, especially in the two that illustrate the +peculiar interchange of roles between Little Billee and the festive +Ribot, and in the sketch of Zouzou as the "Ducal French Fighting-Cock." +The scenes of common life, too, are admirable, the free-and-easy, the +"Happy Dinner," the bargaining of the Laird with Mme. Vinard--"Je +prong!"--and the scene at the rehearsal where "The First Violin Loses +his Temper." The art of the drawings is all in expression and action, +and Du Maurier, in spite of all that is French in him, is thoroughly +British in this, and a descendant in the right line of Hogarth, +Cruikshank and Leech. + +The "Trilby" drawings were bought _en bloc_ by some one in England. They +had been sent here to be engraved for _Harper's Monthly_ and the book; +the sale occurred before they were placed on exhibition in New York. A +representative of _The Critic_ asked Mr. Avery, who said that a number +of people had expressed a desire to buy some of them, what he thought +they would have brought, if sold over here. He replied that he could not +tell with any degree of accuracy, but he thought they would have +averaged at least $50 apiece. As there are 120 drawings, this would have +meant $6,000 more for Mr. du Maurier. _En bloc_, no doubt, they brought +a smaller sum. + +A painting of "Trilby," by Mr. Constant Mayer, was shown at Knoedler's +gallery, in December, along with half a dozen other and more +satisfactory paintings by the same artist. The hypnotic condition of the +subject was declared by Dr. Allan McLane Hamilton to be admirably +suggested in this fancy portrait. + + * * * * * + +TO THE EDITORS OF THE CRITIC:-- + +Those who express surprise at the sudden literary development of du +Maurier's genius do not apparently recognize the fact that the whole +series of his drawings has included the literary element. His thoughts +as expressed in art have always shown a close and philosophical +observation of life, an understanding of the actions and motives of men. +Every one of his illustrations tells not only an individual story, but a +story of surroundings and times, of tendencies, fads and foibles. And +the text is always as important as the picture; sometimes it is far more +so. Who can have forgotten the history and culmination of the "old +china" craze given by du Maurier in a four-inch-square illustration of +the young husband and wife examining an old teapot, with the exquisite +text, "Oh, Algernon, do you think we can ever live up to it?" Certainly +the man who could invent the application of that phrase must have stores +of wit and sense equal to the writing of many "Peter Ibbetsons" and +"Trilbys." And those stores were bound to find their larger expression +in literature. + +NEW YORK, 22 NOV., 1894. + +CANDACE WHEELER. + + * * * * * + +The New York _Tribune_ has printed the following protest against the +insinuation that the author of the book was not its illustrator also:-- + +"It ought not to be necessary for any formal contradiction to be made of +that absurd rumor which has just been set adrift concerning the +illustrations to 'Trilby.' On the face of it, it is impossible for +either Mrs. du Maurier or her daughter to have given the pictures the +character they possess. They have du Maurier's style, du Maurier's +technique, du Maurier's peculiar little touches of humor, not merely in +the broad idea but in that minute turn of the pen which makes all the +difference in the world between an empty profile and a funny one. It is +true that there is a dissimilarity between Trilby in one illustration +and Trilby in another, but it should be remembered that du Maurier's +eyesight has been failing him, that he has been compelled to be prolific +at a time when he has most needed to lie fallow as an artist; and, in +brief, the shortcomings of the 'Trilby' designs, if serious shortcomings +they have, are to be explained on the most natural and logical of +grounds. The intrinsic character of the drawings proclaims their +authorship. Only George du Maurier could have done them, and not any of +the trifling assistance which he may have received from his family in +matters of posing, costume, etc., could deprive him of his +responsibility or his honor. The recent tendency to criticise these +designs with some severity will soon be counteracted. As a matter of +fact, they present some of the cleverest work du Maurier has ever done." + + * * * * * + +The New York _Sun_ printed a letter, not long ago, in which the drawings +were declared to be anachronistic. "Why," it was asked, "should Mr. du +Maurier deny to his characters the crinolines, waterfalls, surtouts, +cravats, chignons, peg-top trousers and hoop-skirts of the early +sixties, and make them, despite Taffy's whiskers, of the _monde_ of +to-day? Is it that his artistic instincts have reverted to that fine +school of old masters who delighted to portray, saving Taffy's grace, +Hector fighting in the armor of the Black Prince, or turned out Madonnas +by the score in Margaret of Anjou skirts?" + + * * * * * + +In "Trilby" every stroke of pen or pencil seems to be significant. Is +there special meaning in the fact that, in the dainty tail-piece, one +glass in the spectacles appears to be heavily shaded, while the other is +clear? Is Mr. du Maurier, like so many literary people, afflicted with +partial loss of sight or other visual difficulty? + +AMHERST COLLEGE LIBRARY. + +W. I. FLETCHER. + +[Unhappily he is, and has been for many years. It is only with the +greatest difficulty that he is able to work with either pen or pencil.] + +[Illustration: From "Trilby." Copyright, 1894, by Harper & Brothers.] + + + + +"Trilby" on the Stage + + +Mr. Paul M. Potter's dramatization of "Trilby" was produced by Mr. A. M. +Palmer's company at the Boston Museum on Monday, 4 March, 1895, and +achieved so great a success that several companies were immediately put +upon the road to play it throughout the country. Its first production in +New York, with the original cast, occurred at the Garden Theatre, on +April 15. Hundreds of people were turned away from the door for want of +room to accommodate them; and an offer was received from Mr. Beerbohm +Tree, the eminent English actor, for the privilege of producing the play +in England, where he himself wished to impersonate Svengali. It would be +a pity if the Lyceum company did not secure the English rights; for Mr. +Irving would make an inimitable Svengali, and Ellen Terry would be +Trilby without trying. + +As nobody has ever succeeded, or is likely to succeed, in really +dramatizing a novel, it is not surprising that the stage version of +"Trilby" should prove in some respects unsatisfactory. It might be +thought that the book would lend itself readily to dramatic treatment; +but a little consideration will show that it offers peculiar +difficulties to the playwright, inasmuch as its chief charm is one of +manner, which cannot be transferred to the stage, while its story, +although it contains some striking situations, such as Trilby's collapse +upon the death of Svengali, consists chiefly of a series of episodes, +largely independent of each other and strung together very loosely. All +things considered, Mr. Potter ought not, perhaps, to be held to too +strict an account for the liberties he has taken with the text and some +of the personages, but he has certainly lowered the tone of the work, +and been guilty of various crudities of construction. There is some +excuse for his employment of Svengali as the evil influence which wrecks +the happiness of Little Billee and Trilby, but he leaves nothing of the +author's original intention, and infinitely belittles the character of +the girl, when he attributes her flight from her lover to mesmeric +suggestion, instead of her own noble and unselfish devotion. In many +other similar ways the spiritual side of the book suffers at his hands. +His persistent references to Trilby's posing for the figure, his +selection of that particular incident for her first introduction, and +the joking references to it which he puts into the mouths of other +personages, are in bad taste, while his travesty of the character of +Dr. Bagot is entirely without justification. Mrs. Bagot he treats with +more consideration, but he reduces her to the level of the dullest stage +conventionality. Trilby herself preserves a good many of her +characteristics, but is degraded even more than in the book by her +subserviency to Svengali. + +The play is in four acts, and the whole story up to the flight of Trilby +is compressed into the first two. This feat is accomplished with no +small ingenuity, but at great cost of probability. In this brief space +Trilby is wooed and won, Svengali asserts his mesmeric power, the +marriage of Little Billee is arranged and interrupted by the arrival of +his mother, and an elopement is planned and frustrated. In the third act +Trilby is to sing in the Cirque des Bashibazouck, and all the characters +reassemble as if by magic in the foyer of that temple of art, which is +abandoned of all other persons for their sole benefit. The proceedings +which are supposed to occur in this retired spot are intrinsically +absurd, but they are effective enough from a scenic and theatrical point +of view, and were accepted by the audience, on the first night, as +eminently natural and satisfactory. They culminate in the ghastly death +of Svengali and the restoration of Trilby in a dazed and exhausted +condition to the three faithful friends. In the fourth act there is +another reunion of characters, and Trilby, who has agreed once more to +marry Little Billee, and is supposed to be on the road to recovery, dies +suddenly, upon the unexpected apparition of Svengali's photograph. + +As it stands, the play is not much superior, if at all, to ordinary +melodrama, being almost wholly void of the literary, humorous and +personal charm of the book, but it is very well played, has a number of +effective scenes, and is unquestionably popular. Miss Harned's Trilby, +though rather a faint reflection of the original, has the merit of being +attractive and womanly, as well as free and frank, and exhibits true +pathos in the mesmeric scenes. On the whole, it is a very creditable +impersonation. Mr. Lackaye's Svengali is overwrought but indisputably +strong; and Burr McIntosh, John Glendenning and Alfred Hickman represent +the three friends cleverly, and furnish excellent living pictures of du +Maurier's sketches. Mr. Dietrichstein makes an admirable Zouzou, and all +the minor parts are performed competently. A feature of the +representation which is received with special favor is the Christmas +merrymaking in the Latin Quarter, which is as vivacious and realistic as +could be wished. + +A matter of considerable interest to authors and publishers, for the +copyright question involved, occurred in connection with the Boston +performances. Elmer Chickering, the well-known photographer of Boston, +took some pictures of Mr. A. M. Palmer's company, which naturally came +into demand at once. But rushing over the wires came a message from +Harper & Bros., saying that, as the characters were made up after du +Maurier's drawings, they should regard the sale of any such pictures as +an infringement of their copyright. To this, Mr. Chickering disagreed, +on the ground that the photographs were not copies of any drawings, but +of actual scenes on the stage, which any man might sketch. Telegrams +flew back and forth, for the Messrs. Harper would not yield. Meanwhile, +the papers sought for the photographs, and Mr. Palmer was apparently +willing to receive the advertisement their publication would ensure; but +the publishers still held off. At last Mr. Chickering decided to fight +it out on his own line, for two of the New York papers printed some of +the 160 "Trilby" pictures taken by him; and--as indicating an amicable +adjustment of the dispute--a number of them appeared in _Harper's +Weekly_. + +The morning papers of April 30 contained this despatch:--"DENVER, COL., +April 29. Did du Maurier write 'Trilby'? This novel question was +propounded to-day in the United States Court in good faith, when the +suit of Harper & Bros. and A. M. Palmer for an injunction against the +Lyceum Stock Company to restrain them from producing 'Trilby' at their +theatre was called. The defendants allege that the book entitled +'Trilby' was not originated, invented or written by du Maurier. They +assert that the original title and book of 'Trilby' were first published +in France in 1820, and afterwards translated and published in English in +1847, and that the title and book have been common property for +seventy-five years. The attorneys for the plaintiffs asked for time to +communicate with their clients in New York as to the course they should +pursue, and the Court postponed the hearing until Wednesday morning. +Should the allegations of the Lyceum Company be true, a sensation will +be caused all over the two continents. This is the first public +intimation of an attack on the authenticity of the work, and if it is +successful every company in the world will have as much right to play +'Trilby' as the Boston Organization." + +The Lounger reprinted the telegram with this comment:--"Charles Nodier's +'Trilby, le Lutin d'Argail,' was published in Paris in 1822. It has just +one thing in common with du Maurier's book--the first word in its +title." The Sunday papers of May 12 printed this paragraph:--"DENVER, +May 11. Judge Hallet, in the United States District Court to-day, +granted an injunction restraining the Lyceum Theatre from producing +'Trilby' hereafter, deciding that it infringed on the rights of Harper & +Bros., and others. To-day's performance was stopped." + +[Illustration: GEORGE DU MAURIER] + + + + +Personalia + + +A London correspondent of the Philadelphia _Press_ furnishes some +interesting notes of a talk with Mr. du Maurier. Concerning literary +practice, the artist-novelist said that "Peter Ibbetson" was absolutely +the first story he ever wrote. "And yet," he added, "I have in one sense +been writing stories all my life. Every one of my pictures, for example, +has had under it a story condensed to the smallest possible space. The +necessity of condensing my description and dialogue has been of great +benefit to me in writing my two novels." As for "Trilby," Mr. du Maurier +said that his earliest conception of the story was quite different from +the one he finally worked out. "I had first thought of Trilby as a girl +of very low birth--a servant, or something like that. Then it occurred +to me that it would be much better to make her interesting--to create a +person who would be liked by readers. As a good many people seem to be +fond of 'Trilby' now, I am very glad, indeed, that I made the change." +And he declared further that the character of Trilby was not a study +from life, but wholly imaginary. It was Henry James who suggested to the +artist that he should write novels. + +[Illustration: _BY HIMSELF_ + +FROM HARRY FURNISS'S "LIKA-JOKO"] + +"It was one day while we were walking together on Hampstead Heath. We +were talking about storywriting, and I said to him:--'If I were a +writer, it seems to me that I should have no difficulty about plots. I +have in my head now plots for fifty stories. I'm always working them out +for my own amusement.' 'Well,' he said, 'it seems to me that you are a +very fortunate person; I wish you'd tell me one of those plots.' Then I +told him the story of 'Trilby.'" "Yes, he praised it very generously. +'Well,' I said, 'you may have the idea and work it out to your own +satisfaction.' But he refused to accept it. 'You must write it +yourself,' he said: 'I'm sure you can do it, if you'll only try.' But I +insisted that I couldn't, and so we left the matter. But that night +after going home it occurred to me that it would be worth while trying +to write, after all. So on the impulse I sat down and began to work. It +was not on 'Trilby,' however, but on 'Peter Ibbetson.' I kept at it for +a time, but after doing several chapters I became utterly discouraged, +and said to myself one evening:--'Oh, I can't do anything with this. +It's a mad story. It's utter rubbish.' Then I took up the sheets and was +just about to throw them into the fire when I thought I'd keep them for +another day and think the thing over. That night in bed, while I was +worrying about the impossibility of going on with the tale, the solution +of my difficulty suddenly occurred to me. 'I'll make the hero mad,' I +cried to myself, 'that will put everything right.' So the next day I +wrote the introduction, explaining Peter's madness, and after that I +went on with the work to the end without any more trouble." + +"Trilby's" American publishers have sent out the following note:--"A +letter from Mr. du Maurier to the late James R. Osgood is given +herewith. Possibly the hint it contains as to the secret of an exquisite +literary style will interest the greater number of readers; or perhaps +his saying (in 1890) that he has 'several good ideas,' which would seem +to be an answer to those who have maintained that 'Trilby' was written +many years ago. * * * + +'MY DEAR OSGOOD:--Of course I remembered my promise, and as soon as my +book--"Peter Ibbetson"--was finished and typewritten, I wrote to +you--last week, as it happens--at 50 Fleet Street, but behold! you were +in America; so I sent them the copy, and I believe it starts by to-day's +mail for Harper in New York. I don't know how it got into the papers +that I was coming out in this new line, but I have already offers to +come to an arrangement. I have no notion whether it is suited to a +periodical or not--you will see; probably _not_,--but if it is I want to +be well paid for it; first [illegible], as far as my _first_ book is +concerned, whatever its merits; secondly, because the only people to +whom I have told the story (H. James, Canon Ainger, poor Allingham and a +few others) thought so well of it--or said so--as an _idea_; and I have +taken great pains in the carrying out thereof. If Harper's doesn't see +its way to it, I shall offer it elsewhere; and after that, I shall put +it in the hands of an agent. And if I don't get what I think I ought to, +I shall keep it and write another, as I have several good ideas, and +writing this has taught me a lot. All of which sounds very cheeky and +grand; but I am in no hurry to come before the public as a novelist +before I'm ripe, and to ripen myself duly I am actually rewriting it in +French, and you've no idea what a lesson _that_ is! * * * + +'Yours ever, G. DU MAURIER. + +'15 BAYSWATER TERRACE, LONDON, April 18, 1890.'" + +It is said that when the Messrs. Harper were negotiating with Mr. du +Maurier for "Trilby," he declined their offer of a royalty on the sales +of the book and decided in favor of a "lump sum." We do not know how +large this sum was, but we are pretty sure that it was not so much as he +would have made by the royalty plan. That would have earned at least +$30,000 for him on a sale of about 100,000 copies to 31 Dec., 1894. The +Messrs. Harper have, however, done a more than generous thing by him: +they have informed him that they will pay him a royalty, and a good big +one, too, on all sales after 1 Jan., 1895, on both "Trilby" and "Peter +Ibbetson." The 600 copies of the _edition de luxe_ of "Trilby," at $10 a +copy, were sold outright to the Syndicate Trading Co. + +Our London correspondent, Mr. Arthur Waugh, wrote to us on 16 April, +1895:--"The English reading public is to have its illustrated 'Trilby' +in one volume in June. Hitherto the three-volume edition has alone been +in circulation, and that without the illustrations. There are to be no +sketches in all, and arrangements are also in progress for a large-paper +edition of 250 copies, with six facsimile reproductions of original +drawings, unbound." Advance orders were received for 15,000 copies of +the six-shilling edition. + +In an interview reported in the _Tribune_ of June 14, Mr. J. Henry +Harper was quoted as saying, apropos of a cablegram to the effect that +the writing of "The Martians" was completed:-- + +"He assures me that his new story will not be ready for the publishers +until December, 1896. I cannot tell you much about the book itself yet, +but it will not be in any sense a sequel to 'Trilby' except so far as it +will succeed that book. The new story will deal in its opening chapters +with French school life, and then with English life, both fashionable +and rowdy; then the artistic world of Antwerp and Dusseldorf is +exploited, while the closing stages occur in England. There will be love +in the tale, of course, and du Maurier also brings in the supernatural +again. There will be plenty of liveliness and some tragedy. The book, I +am given to understand, will be capable of illustration; but I am sorry +to say there is some doubt as to whether du Maurier himself will +illustrate it. It will depend entirely upon the state of his health, +which of late has not been of the best. The length of the story will be +greater than 'Trilby' and will run through about twelve numbers of +_Harper's Magazine_, in which it will first be published in serial +form." + +As a matter of course, Mr. du Maurier has had no end of invitations to +read and lecture in this country, but to all these invitations he has +turned a deaf ear. In a recent letter to _The Critic's_ Lounger, he +expressed himself as flattered by these overtures, but added that his +health would not permit of his accepting any of the tempting +propositions. He might be more in the way of temptation, if it were not +for the play of "Trilby." This brings him in almost as much money as +readings would. We are told that he is in receipt of several hundred +dollars a week from this source--not ten hundred, but very near it. +This, surely, is a much easier way of earning money than travelling from +one end of a big country to the other, for it costs him no greater +exertion than the signing of his name to a check. + +No one who loves "Trilby" should fail to read the "autobiographic +interview" with du Maurier which Mr. Robert H. Sherard contributed, with +illustrations, to _McClure's Magazine_ for April, 1895. From this +singularly intimate and interesting article, one learns that the +author's first picture in _Punch_ represented himself and his chum +Whistler[A]; also, that the studio in the Latin Quarter where Trilby +visited the three English artists was drawn from that of his master, +Gleyre. + +Mr. du Maurier's monogram, which appears on the title-page of this +pamphlet, is reproduced from a carving on the table at which the staff +contributors to _Punch_ dine once a week, and on which many of them have +made similar inscriptions. We are indebted for it to _McClure's +Magazine_. + + + + +Mr. du Maurier and Mr. Whistler + + +The first two or three of the following paragraphs appeared on the +Lounger's page in _The Critic_ of 16 June, 1894, and were reprinted, +with most of the Whistler-du Maurier items that succeed them, in the +issue of Nov. 17. + +[Illustration: (From _The Westminster Budget_) + +MR. WHISTLER] + +Mr. Whistler has mastered two arts besides painting and sketching. One +he has immortalized in that unique brochure, "The Gentle Art of Making +Enemies"; the other is the Gentle Art of Advertising Oneself. These two +generalities are not always to be distinguished from each other. It is +quite possible to make an enemy in advertising oneself; and nothing is +easier than to draw general attention to oneself, by the same act that +incurs the enmity of individual--especially if the individual be +eminent. At the present moment M. du Maurier happens to be one of the +most conspicuous figures in the field jointly occupied by Art and +Letters. In choosing him as an object of clamorous attack, Mr. Whistler +has shown himself a past-master of the art of advertising oneself. By +identifying himself with one of the characters in a story that everyone +is reading, he brings himself more conspicuously before the public than +by painting a new picture. Moreover, in sending to an English newspaper +a letter in which he vituperates his quondam friend and fellow-artist, +he interrupts himself for but a moment in the pursuit of his legitimate +calling as a painter. + +In America, at least, few readers of "Trilby" would have known that, in +Joe Sibley, Mr. du Maurier had hit off some of the most salient +"peculiarities" of the immensely talented etcher, who, when he takes the +newspapers into his confidence, dips his pen in the corrosive acid with +which he bites his plates. Joe Sibley is not an engaging character; he +is a Bohemian of the Bohemians, clever, witty, penniless and presuming. +In taking his sibilant surname as a pseudonym for Whistler, we have the +endorsement of the artist himself, though he does not expressly declare +himself to be the archetype of this particular character. Sibley is the +only man in the book who _could_ have been drawn from Whistler--the +Whistler of a generation ago; and no one but Sibley could have written +the following letter, in which the creator of the character is so +wittily vilified:-- + +"TO THE EDITOR--SIR: It would seem, notwithstanding; my boastful +declaration, that, after all, I had not, before leaving England, +completely rid myself of the abomination--the 'friend '! One solitary, +unheeded one--Mr. George du Maurier--still remained, hidden in +Hampstead. On that healthy heath he has been harboring, for nearly half +a life, every villainy of good fellowship that could be perfected by the +careless frequentation of our early intimacy and my unsuspecting +_camaraderie_. Of this pent-up envy, malice and furtive intent he never +at any moment during all that time allowed me, while affectionately +grasping his honest Anglo-French fist, to detect the faintest +indication. Now that my back is turned, the old _marmite_ of our +_pot-au-feu_ he fills with the picric acid of 30 years' spite, and, in +an American magazine, fires off his bomb of mendacious recollection and +poisoned rancour. The lie with which it is loaded _a mon intention_ he +proposes for my possible 'future biographer'--but I fancy it explodes, +as is usual, in his own waistcoat, and he furnishes, in his present +unseemly state, an excellent example of all those others who, like +himself, have thought a foul friend a finer fellow than an open enemy. + +"PARIS. + +J. M'NEILL WHISTLER. + +"Reflection: The _compagnon_ of the _petard_ we guillotine. Guineas are +given to the popular companion who prepares his infernal machine for the +distinguished associates in whose friendship he has successfully +speculated." + + * * * * * + +The following card appeared in _Harper's_ for October:-- + +"Pursuant to an arrangement made with Mr. J. McNeill Whistler by our +London agents, Messrs. Osgood, McIlvaine & Co., the publishers of the +English edition of _Harper's Magazine_, the following letter is +published:-- + +August 31, 1894. + +"'DEAR SIR--Our attention has been called to the attack made upon you by +Mr. du Maurier in the novel "Trilby," which appeared in our magazine. If +we had had any knowledge of personal reference to yourself being +intended, we should not have permitted the publication of such passages +as could be offensive to you. As it is, we have freely made such +reparation as is in our power. We have agreed to stop future sales of +the March number of _Harper's Magazine_,[B] and we undertake that, when +the story appears in the form of a book, the March number shall be so +rewritten as to omit every mention of the offensive character, and that +the illustration which represents the Idle Apprentice shall be excised, +and that the portraits of Joe Sibley in the general scene shall be +altered so as to give no clue to your identity. Moreover, we engage to +print and insert in our magazine for the month of October this letter of +apology addressed to you. Assuring you again of our sincere regret that +you should have sustained the least annoyance in any publication of +ours, we are, + +"'Yours respectfully, + +HARPER & BROTHERS. + +"'J. MCNEILL WHISTLER, ESQ.'" + + * * * * * + +One of the humors of the controversy was a letter that appeared in the +first number of Harry Furniss's _Lika-Joko_. It was supposed to have +been written by Whistler to express his indignation at having been cut +out of the book. The English as well as the American papers fell into +the trap, and discussed the letter as a genuine expression of Mr. +Whistler's outraged feelings. It was only a joke, however--and is said +to have been the only joke in Mr. Furniss's comic paper. To an +interviewer for _The Westminster Budget_, Mr. Whistler expressed his +surprise that anyone should have been taken in by the parody. "There was +no harm in the appearance of the article," he said, "but what caused my +merriment, though not surprise, is that anyone would have thought for a +moment that I had written it. But then, it was in England, and in +England anything is possible!" That the parody was a clever one will be +seen from the following extract:-- + +"In the fascinating numbers of 'Trilby,' as they appeared in _Harper's +Magazine_, I read with delight of one Joe Sibley, idle apprentice, king +of Bohemia, _roi des truands_, always in debt, vain, witty, exquisite +and original in art, eccentric in dress, genial, caressing, scrupulously +clean, sympathetic, charming; an irresistible but unreliable friend, a +jester of infinite humor, a man now perched upon a pinnacle of fame (and +notoriety), a worshipper of himself; a white-haired, tall, slim, +graceful person with pretty manners and an unimpeachable moral tone. My +only regret was that too little was said about so charming a creation. I +looked to see more of him in the published three volumes. But no! I +found the addition of some thoughtful excursuses by Mr. du Maurier upon +nudity, agnosticism, and other more hazardous subjects, which had, +presumably, been judged too strong for the ice-watered, ice-creamed +constitution of the American Philistine; but I looked in vain for the +delightful Joseph Sibley. In his place I find a yellow-haired Switzer, +one Antony, son of a respectable burgher of Lausanne, who is now tall, +stout, strikingly handsome and rather bald, but who in his youth had all +the characteristics of the lost Joseph Sibley--his idleness, his debts, +his humor, his art, his eccentricity, his charm. I rubbed my eye-glass. +_Je me suis demande pourquoi._" + +Displeased with _The Speaker's_ comments on his connection with +"Trilby," Mr. Whistler compelled that paper to print a letter from his +solicitors, from which it appears that the revised MS. of the novel was +sent to him to be passed. And apropos of this, he remarks in a letter to +the editor:--"I question if it be not without precedent that a writer +ever before so abjectly regorged his spleen as to submit his Bowdlerized +work to his victim for his approval." + +In the Chicago _Tribune_ of Sunday, 2 Dec., 1894, were reprinted from +_Harper's_ the pictures of, and passages about, Joe Sibley which +provoked Mr. Whistler's threatened libel-suit. The revised passages, as +they appear in the book, were also given. + + + + +"Trilby" Entertainments + + +OF ENTERTAINMENTS founded upon Mr. du Maurier's book, the name is +legion. The most pretentious, and at the same time the most successful, +was the series of "Scenes and Songs from 'Trilby,'" given at Sherry's in +the afternoon and again in the evening of Saturday, February 9, for the +benefit of that admirable institution, the New York Kindergarten +Association. The affair, which had the advantage of distinguished +patronage, was given under the special management of Mrs. Charles H. +Ditson; Mr. E. Hamilton Bell arranged the details of scenery and +costume; and among those who personated the various characters were +several well-known artists. + +The audience was a large one, which was excellent for the little ones +who were to be benefited; and it was enthusiastic, which was only a just +and fit tribute to managers, performers and singers. Every detail of the +tableaux had been thought out with infinite care, and posing, grouping +and make-up were as near perfection as du Maurier himself could have +wished. The program included the singing of "Ben Bolt," "Bonjour, +Suzon," "Au Clair de la Lune" and several other songs, and the following +tableaux:--"The Three Musketeers of the Brush"; "Wistful and Sweet"; +"Svengali"; "I will Not!"; "All As it Used to Be"; "Answer Me, Trilby!"; +"The Soft Eyes"; "The Sweet Melodic Phrase"; "Dors, Ma Mignonne"; "The +Nightingale's First Song"; "Malbrouck" and "It was Trilby." The +entertainment opened most effectively with a quartet by Messrs. Devoll, +Moore, Bracewell and Devoll. The first tableau, "Three Musketeers of the +Brush," received the admiration it deserved, as did, also, the singing +of Miss Akers and Mr. Mackenzie Gordon interspersed with the different +tableaux. The first appearance of Trilby was awaited with impatient +expectancy, and when she came, she proved to be "wistful and sweet," +indeed, in the person of Mrs. Eric Pape, the wife of the well-known +young artist. The last tableau of the second part, "It was Trilby," was +most effectively arranged by Mr. Pape. The full cast of characters was +as follows:--Trilby, Mrs. Eric Pape; Taffy, W. Harris Roome; The Laird, +Evert Jansen Wendell; Little Billee, J. Gerald Benkard; Svengali, Robert +Reid; Gecko, Eric Pape; Dodor, William Abbott; Zouzou, Franklin C. +Butler; Mrs. Bagot, Mrs. J. Wells Champney; Miss Bagot, Miss Lilian +Wing; Mme. Malbrouck, Mme. Bettini; Durien, Leslie G. Cauldwell; +Blanchisseuse, Miss Lou-lou Noel; Fencer, Lieut. Gianni Bettini. + +During the intermission between the first and second parts of the +program, Mrs. Kate Douglas Wiggin sold a copy of "Trilby" presented by +the Messrs. Harper. To this Mr. du Maurier and Mr. Henry James (who +persuaded the author to write the book) had contributed their +autographs, and Dr. English a manuscript copy of his song "Ben Bolt." +The volume fetched $100, making the net addition to the Kindergarten +Association's treasury about $2500. + + * * * * * + +AT MR. MANSFIELD'S Garrick Theatre, "Trilby" has been burlesqued. It had +already been parodied in book-form, produced as a melodrama, read aloud +in drawing-rooms, with music, and put on the platform in "scenes and +songs," so that nothing was left to do with it but to make an "operatic +burlesque" of it; and this was duly accomplished by Messrs. Joseph W. +Herbert and Charles Puerner, the latter being responsible for the music +and the former for the words. The piece is called "Thrilby." As in the +serious play founded upon the novel, the villain (rechristened +"Spaghetti") is the principal figure; and mesmerism is carried to a +ridiculous excess, even inanimate objects succumbing to its influence. +There is a farce within this farce; for "Mme. Sans-Gene" is parodied in +a sub-play introduced under the name of "Mme. Sans Ra-Gene." The +burlesque is by no means free from horse-play, but it unquestionably +accomplishes its purpose, which is merely to amuse. + +At the Casino, as well as at the Garrick, "Trilby" and "Mme. Sans Gene" +have both been travestied. + + * * * * * + +(_Harper's Weekly_) + +"THE _Weekly_ has received a copy of the programme of a novel and +decidedly interesting literary and musical entertainment that was given +on Oct. 17, at Omaha. It was called 'An Evening with Trilby.' The +participants were all gentlemen. The subjects of the papers read were +'The Story of Trilby,' 'Du Maurier, his Life and Work,' 'The French of +Trilby,' 'The Identity of the Artists in Trilby,' 'Trilby's Voice and +Method,' 'Trilby as a Hypnotic Subject,' 'Could Trilby be Successfully +Dramatized?' After each paper there was Trilby music, which included +'Ben Bolt,' 'Au Clair de la Lune,' 'Malbrouck s'en va-t-en Guerre' and +other songs and instrumental pieces. At the end of the programme comes +the inquiry, What shall we 'ave the pleasure of drinkin' after that +werry nice 'armony?' and then the page turns over to the farewell +couplet:-- + + 'A little warmth, a little light + Of love's bestowing--and so, good-night.' + +"It is a pretty far cry from Paris to Omaha, but Trilby's voice seems to +have carried that distance without the least trouble. It is worth +remarking that these Omaha gentlemen made seven 'papers' about her +without finding it necessary to discuss her morals." + + * * * * * + +OF THE MANY "Trilby" entertainments in New York one of the most +successful was given in May, at the house of Postmaster Dayton, for the +benefit of St. Luke's Home for Indigent Christian Females. A literary +criticism of the book was read, and one of the chapters of the story; +and the songs that are oftenest alluded to were sung. The affair was +given under the auspices of the Daughters of the Revolution. + + * * * * * + +"TRILBY'S" WIDE POPULARITY--in the sense that many people who are not, +ordinarily, novel-readers take a lively interest in it--is evidenced by +many indications, not the least significant being the concerts made up +from the music mentioned in the novel. One such was given in San +Francisco last December, under the management of the ladies of the +Mercantile Library Auxiliary and for the benefit of the Library's +unfortunately slender exchequer. According to _The Argonaut_, a very +interesting program was presented, including Schubert's "Rosamonde," +Adam's "Cantique de Noel," Chopin's Impromptu in A flat, "Bonjour +Suzon," "Le Capitaine Roquefinette" and the much-discussed "Ben Bolt." + + * * * * * + +"TRILBY" REPRESENTATIONS have broken out in all sorts of strange places. +At the Eden Musee, New York, Miss Ganthony has been restrained from +impersonating du Maurier's heroine; and at "The Greatest Show on Earth," +Miss Marie Meers, who has not been restrained, appears nightly in Trilby +costume, riding bareback (not barefoot) around the tan-bark to the +snapping of ringmaster Svengali's whip. + + + + +Miscellanea + + +MR. DU MAURIER and Mr. James took a walk together, one day, and the +artist unfolded to the novelist the plot of "Trilby," suggesting that he +should use it in a novel. Mr. James persuaded him to write the story +himself. He did so; and what has been the result? Think of the time and +skill, the money and material that have been employed in putting the +thing in type, preparing its illustrations, printing it as a serial and +reprinting it in book-form; in dramatizing it, burlesquing it in books +and on the stage, in adapting its songs and illustrations for +reproduction on lecture-platforms and in drawing-rooms, and in +translating and publishing Nodier's tale, from which the author took his +title! Its presentation has given employment, onerous or enjoyable, +honorary or remunerative, to thousands; hundreds of thousands have read +it, and hundreds of thousands seen it on the stage; and its leading +characters--Trilby, Svengali and "the three musketeers of the +brush"--have become household names and personalities. It has enriched +its author, added to the wealth of its publishers, put money in the +purses of playwright and manager and replenished the treasuries of more +than one excellent charity. Directly or indirectly, no doubt, it has +caused much more than a million dollars to change hands within the past +eighteen months. And last but not least, it is responsible for this +pamphlet, in which is chronicled the story of its rise and progress. + + * * * * * + +AT THE Mercantile Library, New York, it was found necessary, at the time +when "Trilby" was in greatest demand, to circulate a hundred copies of +the book; at the beginning of June the number in circulation was +seventy. Mr. Wingate wrote to _The Critic_ from Boston, in June, that +there were six copies of the book in the main building of the Public +Library, and one in each of its branches, but that this supply was +inadequate, 72 demands for the book having come from the branch +libraries in a single day. And Mr. Hild writes to us from Chicago that +the Public Library of that city has 26 copies, but that they do not +begin to supply the demand. "I believe we could use 260 and never find a +copy on the shelves. Every one of our 54,000 card-holders seems +determined to read the book." + +ON THE POINT of the morality or immorality of the book, _The +Independent_ says:-- + +"Mr. du Maurier, apparently in deference to the current craze for +heroines that have been seduced, or are just going to be, bedaubs the +first fifty pages of his otherwise clean story with telling how his pure +heroine, Trilby, a _blanchisseuse de fin_, had been led astray, and so +forth. That is to say, he unnecessarily goes behind the true door of his +story to wash some dirty linen, and then he sets forth." + +On this point the San Francisco _Argonaut_ does not agree with its New +York contemporary:-- + +"With those who think these passages immoral, we cannot agree. Mr. du +Maurier has treated with candor some facts belonging to the realm of +things which are usually understood instead of being talked about; but +he has done this with singular manliness and delicacy, and with entire +absence of mawkish or other improper sentiment. The impression of +Trilby's character left upon the reader is entirely that of a noble, +generous woman, whose life is not a sin, but a tragedy." + +The same paper reproduces "a letter Mr. du Maurier wrote to a Paterson, +N. J., man who contended that the relations of Trilby with her +hypnotizer were chaste, so far as her consciousness of them went, and +decided to find out if he were right by writing to the novelist":-- + +"NEW GROVE HOUSE, HAMPSTEAD HEATH, + +"October 31, 1894. + +"DEAR SIR: In answer to your letter of September 24th, I beg to say that +you are right about Trilby. When free from mesmeric influence, she lived +with him as his daughter, and was quite innocent of any other relation. +In haste, yours very truly, + +"G. DU MAURIER." + + * * * * * + +EARLY IN March, 1895, one of the Boston clergymen advertised Robert +Grant's "Art of Living," as our Boston correspondent reported at the +time, and on Sunday, March 17, another prominent minister took up +"Trilby." So it is evident that, even if Boston authorship is on the +decline, as so many New Yorkers enviously declare, the Boston clergy are +going to keep alive the interest in literary matters by emphatic words +to their congregations. "Have you read 'Trilby'?" was the theme of the +Rev. George W. Bicknell's sermon, and the topic crowded the church. The +Reverend Doctor declared that he had spent five hours reading the book, +and had decided that it was a story of magnificent possibilities, but +that its morality was "as one viewed it." He considered the tale +far-fetched and over-drawn and lacking in healthful flavor, and placed +it in the same class of art with the nude paintings at the World's +Fair--a position to which, we presume, the author would not object. Then +he launched out into an emphatic declaration that it was time for the +pulpit to speak out against art of this kind. + + * * * * * + +DU MAURIER'S heroine has been heard of over in Brooklyn. A married +woman, aged twenty-nine, got into a dispute with her husband, recently, +as to the morals of the young model, and proved her point by "smashing +him over the head with an earthenware jar." In the newspaper in which we +read of this intemperate act, the husband's age is not given, nor the +side he took in the argument, before he was shown to be wrong. The fact +that he got his head broken proves little--except the folly of arguing +with a woman; nor the additional fact that he refused to appear against +his wife in court. But the case is one in which a good deal might be +said on both sides--if earthenware jars were not introduced too early in +the discussion. + + * * * * * + +MR. DU MAURIER has worse offenses to atone for than the breaking of the +Brooklyn man's silly head. But for his entertaining book we should have +been spared the unreadable prose of "Biltry: a Parody on 'Trilby'" and +the unspeakable verse of "Drilby Re-versed," the former by Mary Kyle +Dallas, the latter by Leopold Jordan. In vulgarity and banality, these +two precious productions run each other a close race. Of the two we +think "Drilby" a trifle the less objectionable, merely because the +proportion of text to white paper is somewhat smaller. Both are poorly +illustrated, and printed on much better paper than they deserve. + + * * * * * + +E. C. OF NEW ALBANY, IND., thinks that "Trilby's" possibilities as a +vehicle of evil to the much-considered American "young person" are +emphasized by a conversation recently overheard by her between two +feminine "young persons" in Indiana. "What is this 'Trilby' everybody is +talking about?" asked one of these. "Oh," replied the other, "it's a +book--a novel." "They say it is awfully bad," said the first young +person. "Yes, I've heard so; but it isn't so at all. I read it clear +through, and there wasn't anything bad in it. I didn't like it either; +there is too much French in it." "French?" commented the first young +woman; "well that's it, then--all the bad part is in French." "I hadn't +thought of that," mused the other one; "I suppose that's just the way of +it. Anyway, it isn't nearly as good as 'Dally.'" + +[Illustration: PLATT. THE NEW SVENGALI. + +THE HYPNOTIZING OF MORTON. + +Have you read "Trilby?" Svengali was a bad, wicked man, who used to +hypnotize poor, sweet little Trilby and make her sing and act as he +pleased--With apologies to Du Maurier.] + +"Trilby" has even got into American politics. This shows better than +anything else how wide an audience the story most have reached. How many +allusions to a book of the current year would be comprehensible to the +average reader of a New York daily paper? We reproduce the accompanying +cartoon from the _World_ of Dec. 9 as a curiosity of literature and an +interesting contribution to "Trilbyana." It is adapted from Mr. du +Maurier's drawing entitled "Et Maintenant Dors, ma Mignonne!" + + * * * * * + +A Broadway caterer now "molds his ice-cream in the shape of a model of +Trilby's ever-famous foot." Mr. du Maurier can want no greater evidence +of the popularity of his story in America. That there is not a "Trilby" +shoe on the market reflects little credit upon the enterprise of our +bootmakers. It is an opportunity that no soap-maker would neglect if it +came his way. Possibly the fact that Trilby's foot was large (as well as +shapely) has something to do with the shoemakers' backwardness. Hers +were not Cinderella slippers. ("The Lounger," 30 March, 1895.) + +Mr. C. W. Coleman, Librarian of William and Mary College, writes from +Williamsburg, Va., to say that I am in error in supposing that the +bootmakers of this wide-wake country have not yet seized the name of du +Maurier's heroine for advertising purposes. In his note of correction he +encloses a clipping from the catalogue of a Chicago house, containing a +picture of a high-heeled ladies' shoe, flanked by an advertisement of +"'The Trilby,' price $3, postage 15 cts.--'an ornament to any foot,'" +etc. And I hear that the shop-windows of Norfolk, Va., fairly bristle +with shoes of this brand. Moreover, a bootmaker's advertisement in the +Pittsburg _Post_ shows (as a punning Pennsylvania correspondent writes +to me) that "Trilby has obtained a foothold even in the Iron City." +According to the advertisement, "this enterprising firm offer to the +lady sending in the most accurate dimensions according to the diagram +above, together with a drawn outline of the nude foot on paper, a +handsome pair of the highest grade 'Trilby' shoe, which they will have +made up especially for the winner. This stylish foot adornment for +Pittsburgh's model feet will be satin or silk lined throughout, of the +finest quality kid and best workmanship. Bear in mind, ladies, it need +not be the smallest feet that win, but the most perfect form of a foot +from a standpoint of proportionate measurements." ("The Lounger," 13 +April, 1895.) + + * * * * * + +G. A. D. writes from Philadelphia to deplore the Quaker City's +vulgarization of the name and fame of Trilby; and in justification of +his plaint encloses a Chestnut Street dealer's advertisement of the +"Trilby Sausage"! This, it is claimed, "is something new, and fills a +long-felt want"; "they melt in your mouth." They don't melt in G. A. +D.'s mouth, but they rankle in his aesthetic soul. "What next?" he +exclaims; "an Ophelia tooth-wash, a Duchess of Towers garbage-pail!" Our +correspondent has not yet heard of the "Trilby Ham." This, if anything, +is worse than the Sausage. It has been heard of in this city; whether or +no it originated here, I do not care to inquire. But in an Eighth Avenue +dime-museum, there are "Twenty Trilbys," and visitors vote for the +handsomest! Moreover, we have now the "Trilby Hearth-brush"; and huge +posters on the East Side announce a picnic of the "Trilby Coterie and +Chowder Club." + + * * * * * + +_The Evening Post_ reprints from James Braid's "Observations of Trance" +(1850, page 43) the following paragraph, which is of singular interest +in connection with the novel which has made such an extraordinary +sensation in this country during the past year, and has become as great +a success on the stage as in book-form. Svengali's transformation +of a girl with no ear for music into a singer of marvellous powers seems +to have been almost paralleled in real life, half a century ago:-- + +[Illustration: DU MAURIER'S HOUSE. + +HAMPSTEAD HEATH.] + +"Many patients will thus repeat accurately what is spoken in _any_ +language; and they may be also able to sing correctly and simultaneously +both words and music of songs in any language which they have never +heard before--_i. e._, they catch the words as well as music so +instantaneously as to accompany the other singer as if both had been +previously equally familiar with both words and music. In this manner a +patient of mine, who, when awake, knew not the grammar of even her own +language, and who had very little knowledge of music, was enabled to +follow Mlle. Jenny Lind correctly in songs in different languages, +giving both words and music _so correctly and so simultaneously with +Jenny Lind_, that two parties in the room could not for some time +imagine that there were two voices, so perfectly did they accord, both +in musical tone and vocal pronunciation of Swiss, German and Italian +songs. She was equally successful in accompanying Mlle. Lind in one of +her extemporaneous effusions, which was a long and extremely difficult +elaborate chromatic exercise, which the celebrated cantatrice tried by +way of taxing the powers of the somnambulist to the utmost. When awake +the girl durst not even _attempt_ to do anything of the sort; and, after +all, wonderful as it was, it was _only phonic imitation_, for she did +not understand the meaning of a single word of the foreign language +which she had uttered so correctly." + + * * * * * + +(_Miss Frances Albert Doughty, in The Critic, 15 June, 1895._) + +"The strength of 'Trilby' as a novel lies in the exquisitely dear +realization of the good in the girl's nature, which the fine art of the +author has been able to give to the reader. The divine in the Laird, in +Taffy and in Little Billee responded to the divine in that undeveloped +girl, and to them the angel in her was the real Trilby in spite of all +her past experience. But idealism and realism in this charming story are +not quite happily balanced: the reader receives a blow on the spiritual +side of his being from the manifestation of an agency in the universe +that is endowed with an all-conquering malevolence, something extraneous +from the individual and yet able to arrest in her the growth of the +budding germ of holiness and moral beauty, a power triumphant even at +the moment when her spirit was about to return to the God who gave it. +Without Svengali there would be no novel of Trilby; nevertheless, he is +the sole blot upon it." + + * * * * * + +(_San Francisco Argonaut_) + +"Perhaps the most surprising circumstance connected with 'Trilby' in the +eyes of American readers is the way the book has been received in +England. At best it has been accorded lukewarm praise, and the tone of +its reviews has run the gamut down to downright slating. Some have been +spiteful enough to be exceptionally entertaining. Of these, that of _The +Pall Mall Gazette_ is the most striking, the reviewer of that journal +showing himself to be (as an exchange puts it) a master of vituperative +diction. To this reviewer, 'Trilby's' three Englishmen are 'British +prigs cut in pasteboard,' and their biographer is denied even the poor +ability to express himself in grammatical English." + + * * * * * + +TO THE EDITORS OF THE CRITIC:-- + +If there yet remains a word to be said in criticism of this book, it +may, perhaps, be in regard to the musical part of it. Whether +intentionally or not, du Maurier has certainly added an instance, which +tends to prove the theory true, that music in itself is neither +elevating nor refining. Svengali is drawn with inimitable skill, and +with so much realism that the reader feels that he must have been known +and hated by du Maurier in all his repulsiveness. And yet this loathsome +creature has the power of so seizing and expressing the noblest works of +the great masters of harmony as to move his hearers to tears, to sway +them at his will by the tenderness and feeling he puts into the notes. +It is a hard thing for a music-lover to comprehend, that a man of low +and vicious life, and utterly without aspirations, can so express the +penetrating beauty that lies in music more than in any other art. It +shows, too, that music gives us only what it finds in us, and proves the +folly of "program music," or music with a translation. + +AUBURN, N. Y. + +S. M. COX. + +(_Mrs. Emma Carleton, in the Louisville Courier-Journal._) + +"A great deal has been said and written about 'Ben Bolt,'" said a woman +who doesn't pretend to be musical, "and the other songs of the Trilby +repertoire; but I have not yet seen or heard any comment on Trilby's +'great and final performance'--the vocalization of Chopin's Impromptu, A +flat. Du Maurier devotes two entire pages to most wonderful description +of this wonderful musical achievement; two exquisite pages of music +painted in words, in most masterly and matchless fashion. Who can forget +the depiction of La Svengali's voice, 'as a light nymph catching the +whirl of a double-skipping rope as she warbles that long, smooth, +lilting, dancing laugh, that wondrous song without words.' This +impromptu should be rechristened the 'Trilby Impromptu,' and musicians +everywhere should now--while the Trilby wave is riding high--be charming +their audiences by playing it." + + * * * * * + +The Oliver Ditson Co. has published a pamphlet of "Trilby" songs, etc., +containing the words and music of "Ben Bolt," "Malbrouck," "Bonjour, +Suzon," "Der Nussbaum" ("The Nut-tree") "Cantique de Noel" and "Au Clair +de la Lune," and the music of Chopin's "Impromptu." + + * * * * * + +On March 1, 1895, a postcard was sent from the office of _Life_, calling +the attention of "exchange editors" throughout the country to "A +'Trilby' Examination." We reprint the card in full:-- + +"_Life's Monthly Calendar_ offers a series of cash prizes for the best +sets of replies to the following questions on 'Trilby': + +1. What does the author claim as the king of all instruments? Who does +he claim was the greatest violinist of his time? What does he call the +most bourgeois piece of music he knows? + +2. What was Svengali's real name? + +3. Where does the author state that he is a social lion? Where does he +deny that he is a snob? + +4. Where does he bring Little Billee in contact with Punch? + +5. What did the Laird call M. le general Comte de la Tour-aux-Loups? + +6. In what places does the author compare Gecko to a dog? + +7. How old was Trilby when she died? + +8. What was Little Billee's physical explanation of his inability to +love? + +9. What verbal description of one of the heroes contradicts almost every +one of the author's drawings of him? + +10. What incident of the story is inconsistent with the author's own +argument in behalf of the nude in art? + + +"Dear Sir: The above questions are covered by our copyright, but in view +of the popular interest in 'Trilby,' you may wish to reproduce them. We +should be more than pleased to have you do so, if you will give us +credit. + +Yours very truly, + +JAMES S. METCALFE, + +Editor and Manager _Life's Monthly Calendar_." + + + + +The Songs in "Trilby" + + +Dr. Thomas Dunn English wrote the words of "Ben Bolt" in New York, in +1842, when he was a young man of three-and-twenty. Mr. N. P. Willis had +asked him to write a sea-song for _The New Mirror_, and so he wound up +the last stanza with an allusion to "the salt-sea gale!" As a sea-song, +"Ben Bolt" is not a success; but it has been sung on every sea and in +every land where the English tongue is spoken. At Pittsburgh, +Pennsylvania, in 1848, an English journalist named Hunt quoted the words +(from a defective memory) to Nelson Kneass, who was attached to the +local theatre; and, adapted by Kneass to a German melody, the song, in a +somewhat garbled version, was introduced in a play called "The Battle of +Buena Vista." In Helen Kendrick Johnson's "Our Familiar Songs, and Those +Who Made Them" (Henry Holt & Co., 1881), the story of its vogue in +England as well as in America is told effectively. Not only were ships +and steam-boats named in its honor, but a play was built upon its +suggestions, and as recently as in 1877 an English novelist made the +memories evoked by the singing of the song a factor in the development +of his catastrophe. Its revival at the hand of Mr. du Maurier is the +latest and perhaps the most striking tribute to its hold upon the +popular heart. To the author himself--in his ripe old age a member of +the LIIId Congress--its fame is seemingly a bore, for he is quoted as +saying:--"I am feeling very well and enjoying life as well as an old man +can, but this eternal 'Ben Bolt' business makes me so infernally weary +at times that existence becomes a burden. The other night, at a meeting +of a medical association at my home in Newark, some one proposed that +all hands join in singing 'Ben Bolt,' whereupon I made a rush for the +door, and came very near forgetting the proprieties by straightway +leaving home. However, I recovered my equilibrium and rejoined my +friends. I don't think that General Sherman ever grew half so tired of +'Marching Through Georgia' as I have of that creation of mine, and it +will be a blessed relief to me when the public shall conclude to let it +rest." + +Apropos of the use made of the song in "Trilby," _Harper's Bazar_ +published the words and music; whereupon the author sent this letter to +the editor:-- + +"It is very pleasing to an old man like myself to have the literary work +of a half-century since dragged to light and commended, as has been the +case with 'Ben Bolt' of late. I was flattered by seeing my likeness--or, +rather, the likeness of a younger man than myself--in your pages; but I +must protest against some errors which, in spite of careful editing, +enter into your transcription of the song. The words of the original +were:-- + + 'Don't you remember the school, Ben Bolt, + With the master so cruel and grim, + And the shaded nook in the running brook, + Where the children went to swim?' + +"This has been changed in the song, as usually sung, to read:-- + + 'With the master so kind and so true. + And the little nook by the clear-running brook, + Where we gathered the flowers as they grew?' + +"You have copied this, but in a better shape, with the exception of +changing the rhythm. I must protest against this change, because the +school-masters of between sixty and seventy years since were, to my +memory, 'cruel and grim'; they were neither kind nor true. They seemed +to think the only way to get learning into a boy's head was by the use +of the rod. There may have been exceptions, but I never met them. At all +events, 'what I have written I have written.'" + +BEN BOLT + + I + + Oh, don't you remember, Sweet Alice, Ben Bolt? + Sweet Alice, whose hair was so brown, + Who wept with delight when you gave her a smile, + And trembled with fear at your frown! + In the old churchyard, in the valley, Ben Bolt, + In a corner obscure and alone, + They have fitted a slab of the granite so gray. + And Alice lies under the stone! + + II + + Under the hickory tree, Ben Bolt, + Which stood at the foot of the hill, + Together we've lain in the noon-day shade, + And listened to Appleton's mill. + The mill-wheel has fallen to pieces, Ben Bolt, + The rafters have tumbled in, + And a quiet that crawls round the walls as you gaze, + Has followed the olden din. + + III + + Do you mind the cabin of logs, Ben Bolt, + At the edge of the pathless wood, + And the button-ball tree with its motley limbs, + Which nigh by the door-step stood? + The cabin to ruin has gone, Ben Bolt, + The tree you would seek in vain; + And where once the lords of the forest waved, + Grows grass and the golden grain. + + IV + + And don't you remember the school, Ben Bolt, + With the master so cruel and grim, + And the shaded nook in the running brook, + Where the children went to swim? + Grass grows on the master's grave, Ben Bolt, + The spring of the brook is dry, + And of all the boys who were schoolmates then, + There are only you and I. + + V + + There is change in the things I loved, Ben Bolt, + They have changed from the old to the new; + But I feel in the depths of my spirit the truth, + There never was change in you. + Twelve-months twenty have past, Ben Bolt, + Since first we were friends--yet I hail + Thy presence a blessing, thy friendship a truth, + Ben Bolt, of the salt-sea gale! + + * * * * * + +TO THE EDITORS OF THE CRITIC:-- + +In your columns of "Trilbyana" I have seen no mention of the fact that +George W. Cable, in his "Dr. Sevier"--a thousand times better novel and +better work, in every way, than "Trilby,"--has introduced the old song +"Ben Bolt" with wonderful effect. It is strange that the old melody +should have appealed to the two men, so widely apart, and it is but fair +that the American's first, and most skilful, use of it should have due +recognition. + +PHILADELPHIA. + +JOHN PATTERSON. + + * * * * * + +TO THE EDITORS OF THE CRITIC:-- + +Du Maurier says that there is but one verse of the little French song, +which Trilby sings with so much effect--"Au clair de la lune." He +mistakes; there is another, running thus:-- + + "Je n'ouvrirai pas la porte, J'ouvre bien la porte, + A un vieux savetier, A un patissier, + * * * * * Qui m'apporte des brioches + * * * * Dans un tablier." + +The two missing lines have escaped the memory of the writer. + +AUBURN, N. Y. + +S. M. COX. + + * * * * * + +Your correspondent, S. M. Cox, offers some more verses of "Mon Ami +Pierrot." They do not quite agree with those taught me, shortly after +the Revolution of 1848, by an old French gentleman. You will notice that +the French of the last verse is quite "eighteenth-century" in style and +diction. + + II III + + Je n'ouvre pas ma porte Mais j'ouvre bien ma porte + A des savetiers, A des officiers, + Ils ont des alenes, Ils ont des pistoles, + C'est pour me piquer. C'est pour me les bailler. + + PARIS, 1 Jan., 1895. B. F. + + * * * * * + +Mr. du Maurier was correct in saying that there is only one verse of "Au +Clair de la Lune"; yet there are possibly, and probably, a thousand made +in imitation of it, which go to the same air. We quote from the San +Francisco _Argonaut_:-- + +"It is to be observed that these _amateurs de Trilby_ do not go the +length of singing 'Au Clair de la Lune,' even repeating the first stanza +twice, as Trilby did. But perhaps they are as ignorant concerning the +song as is Mr. du Maurier, who declares there is but one verse. There +are four. The first is given in 'Trilby' thus:-- + + 'Au clair de la lune, Ma chandelle est morte.... + Mon ami Pierrot! Je n'ai plus de feu! + Prete-moi ta plume Ouvre-moi ta porte + Pour ecrire un mot. Pour l'amour de Dieu!' + +The second runs:-- + + 'Au clair de la lune Va chez la voisine-- + Pierrot repondit: Je crois qu'elle y est, + Je n'ai pas de plume, Car, dans sa cuisine, + Je suis dans mon lit. On bat le briquet.' + +The third stanza contains the point of the song:-- + + 'Au clair de la lune Qui frappe de la sorte? + S'en va Arlequin Il dit a son tour: + Frapper chez la brune Ouvre-moi ta porte + Qui repond soudain: Pour le dieu d'amour.' + +The fourth stanza continues in the same strain, and it goes farther." + + * * * * * + + "MALBROUCK S'EN VA'T EN GUERRE" + + Malbrouck s'en va-t'en guerre-- + _Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!_ + Malbrouck s'en va-t'en guerre.... + Ne sais quand reviendra! + Ne sais quand reviendra! + Ne sais quand reviendra! + + Il reviendra-z-a Paques-- + _Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!_ + Il reviendra-z-a Paques.... + Ou ... a la Trinit! + + La Trinite se passe-- + _Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!_ + La Trinite se passe.... + Malbrouck ne revient pas! + + Madame a sa tour monte-- + _Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!_ + Madame a sa tour monte, + Si haut qu'elle peut monter! + + Elle voit de loin son page-- + _Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!_ + Elle voit de loin son page, + Tout de noire habille! + + "Mon page--mon beau page!-- + _Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!_ + Mon page--mon beau page! + Quelles nouvelles apportez?" + + "Aux nouvelles que j'apporte-- + _Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!_ + Aux nouvelles que j'apporte, + Vos beaux yeux vont pleurer!" + + "Quittez vos habits roses-- + _Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!_ + Quittez vos habits roses, + Et vos satins broches!" + + "Le Sieur Malbrouck est mort-- + _Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!_ + Le Sieur--Malbrouck--est--mort! + Est mort--et enterre!" + + * * * * * + +There is no more eloquent description of the effect of music on an +impressionable nature than du Maurier gives of the impression made upon +Little Billee by the singing of Adam's "Cantique de Noel" at the +Madeleine on Christmas Eve. + + CANTIQUE DE NOEL + + Minuit, Chretiens, c'est l'heure solennelle, + Ou l'homme Dieu descendit jusqu'a nous, + Pour effacer la tache originelle + Et de son Pere arreter le courroux. + Le monde entier tressaille d'esperance + A cette nuit qui lui donne un sauveur. + Peuple a genoux! attends la delivrance! + Noel, Noel, voici le Redempteur! + + + + +A Search for Sources + + +TO THE EDITORS OF THE CRITIC:-- + +The liquid name, "Trilby," of du Maurier's heroine having been duly run +down to its source, will a slight excursus be amiss as to the origin of +the affectionate title applied by the novelist on his charming little +hero--"Little Billee"? Evidently the name, together with certain +descriptive touches, has been taken from Thackeray's ballad, "Little +Billee." This racy skit, as many doubtless know, is in the best vein of +the great humorist's inimitable burlesque. It narrates the tragic cruise +of + + "Three sailors of Bristol city + Who took a boat and went to sea," + +the second stanza running thus:-- + + "There was gorging Jack, and guzzling Jimmy + _And the youngest, he was Little Billee_. + Now when they got as far as the Equator + They'd nothing left, but one split pea." + +And the unpleasant ultimatum being arrived at, that "We've nothing left, +us must eat we," the poem continues:-- + + "Says gorging Jack to guzzling Jimmy, + With one another we shouldn't agree, + There's little Bill, _he's young and tender_, + We're old and tough, so let's eat he." + +Here, I say, we have the origin of the novelist's "Little Billee," +while, in the italicized phrases, we have also du Maurier's, "the third, +he was little Billee" (page 6), and "he was young and tender, was little +Billee." + +It would be sheer nonsense, of course, to urge against the famous +novelist any charge of unacknowledged borrowing in matters so entirely +trivial. The point is merely a curious one of origins; a little +siccatine botanizing, so to speak, on the _folia disjecta_ that have +been wonderfully spun by du Maurier's genius into a fabric of grace and +beauty so rare as is this "Trilby." Nor, indeed, should the further fact +be a detraction from the gifted author of "Trilby," that his +indebtedness to Thackeray is obviously greater than in the minutiae under +consideration--that, in fact, he has caught from the great immortal the +note of much that is best in his book. In his limpid, graceful +simplicity of words, and their easy, natural flow--in his delicate, +playful humor, and tender but not overwrought pathos, we discover a +careful study of found only a few general remarks about fairies, their +habits and habitations, nothing in the least resembling the story of +Jeannie's lover. Perhaps Nodier was mistaken about his source. As he +travelled in the Highlands, he may possibly have "collected" the tale at +first hand, and, there being no folk-lore societies in those early days +of romanticism, he was not aware of the honor that thus accrued to him. +It cannot have evolved itself from a mere hint. We appeal to Mr. Lang to +take up and follow the chase farther. He might be worse occupied than in +tracing out the original John Trilby MacFarlane, and whence he got his +English-sounding name, his fairy powers and his connection with Saint +Columba--the last probably from Nodier himself, who may have been +reading Montalembert's "Monks of the West" before setting out upon his +pilgrimage. Mr. Dole, by the way, irreverently converts the Dove of the +Churches into a "Saint Columbine," unknown to any respectable +hagiographer. Think, Mr. Lang, what a delightful coil this romancing +Frenchman, let loose among your Hielan' men, fairies, monks and Scotch +novels, has made for you to straighten out, and how many strange +discoveries may be made while you are about the job! + +Miss Smith (2) has prepared another translation of Nodier's story, and, +though there is little choice between her version and Mr. Dole's, we +prefer it. It seems a trifle less exact, but it is more idiomatic; and, +if anything, she perhaps intensifies the local color a little, which +does not do the tale any harm. Her book is got up in tartan cover; Mr. +Dole's has a design adapted from Paul Konewka. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Richard Mansfield has secured from Estes & Lauriat the right to +dramatize and produce Mr. Dole's translation of Nodier's "Trilby, le +Lutin d'Argail." + + + + +Nodier's "Trilby, le Lutin d'Argail" + + +It was not long after the appearance of "Trilby" that our readers +detected the French origin of the name of Mr. du Maurier's heroine. The +story of the unearthing of this delightful French fairy-tale may be +followed in this series of communications to _The Critic_: + +On looking over Roche's "Prosateurs Francais," I find that one of the +"plus jolis" contes of Charles Nodier (1788-1844) is entitled "Trilby"; +therefore the title of du Maurier's much-bought novel is not original +with him. I should be pleased if any reader of _The Critic_ would inform +me as to the plot of Nodier's story. + +ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI RECTORY, + +WM. J. MCCLURE, + +MT. KISCO, N. Y., 29th Oct., 1894. + + * * * * * + +The following lines occur in the "Reponse a M. Charles Nodier" of Alfred +de Musset:-- + + "Non pas cette belle insomnie + Du genie + Ou Trilby vient, pret a chanter, + T'ecouter." + +This would seem to offer some clue to the origin of the name chosen by +Mr. du Maurier for his heroine. Can you enlighten me as to the identity +of the "Trilby" referred to by Musset? + +RIDGEFIELD, CONN., 19 Nov., 1894. + +ROSWELL BACON. + + * * * * * + +In answer to the request of your correspondent in _The Critic_ of Nov. +17, I find the tale of "Trilby" in my copy of the "Contes de Charles +Nodier, illustres par Tony Johannot." "Trilby" is the story of a +household fairy of Scotland (a "Lutin familier de la Chaumiere"). It is +fantastic and touching, but it has nothing in common with du Maurier's +"Trilby." + +LEESBURGH, VIRGINIA, 20 Nov., 1894. + +I. L. P. + + * * * * * + +From the recent contributions to "Trilbyana" in your columns, it would +appear as if the name of Trilby (originally Scotch or Irish?) were not +uncommon in the writings of French authors. Charles Nodier, in his +_conte_, says that M. de Latouche--a contemporary--wrote on the same +subject, "ou cette charmante tradition etait racontee en vers +enchanteurs"--which gives one to suppose that "Trilby" was the name of +his enchantress; though, perhaps, he refers to the old story of "Le +Diable Amoureux." I find, moreover, that Balzac takes the name for a +type in his "Histoire des Treize: Ferragus: Vol. I. Scenes de la Vie +Parisienne" (page 48 of edition of 1843):--"Pour developper cette +histoire dans toute la verite de ses details, pour en suivre le cours +dans toutes ses sinuosites, il faut ici divulguer quelques secrets de +l'amour, se glisser sous les lambris d'une chambre a coucher, non pas +effrontement, mais a la maniere de Trilby [the opposite to du Maurier's +Trilby], n'effaroucher ni Dougal, ni Jeannie, n'effaroucher personne," +etc. + +TUXEDO PARK, 26 Nov., 1894. + +E. L. B. + + * * * * * + +(_Boston Evening Transcript, 1 Dec. 1894._) + +"The Listener was asked the other day where du Maurier got the name of +Trilby--a sweet and pleasant word, neither English nor French, which +seemed to suit so perfectly the adorable young person of his creation. +He was able to answer, more by accident certainly than as the result of +erudition, that the name was not invented by du Maurier but belongs to +the French classics--possibly to Scottish folk-lore. In the year 1822 +there was first published in Paris a _nouvelle_, by Charles Nodier, +afterward a member of the French Academy, entitled, "Trilby, or the Fay +of Argyle"; it was a sort of fairy-story, in which a fay is in love with +a mortal woman, and the woman is very far from being indifferent to his +sentiment. This 'Trilby' attained a considerable degree of popularity; +it became, indeed, a French classic; Sainte-Beuve has particularly +praised the charm of its style. * * * In his preface to the story, +Nodier says: 'The subject of this story is derived from a preface or a +note to one of the romances of Sir Walter Scott, I do not know which +one.' This is a very indefinite acknowledgment While Nodier may have got +his subject from Scott, the Listener doubts if he got the name 'Trilby' +from him. It is just the sort of name that a French writer would give to +a Scotch fay. Nevertheless, Trilby may be a real Scotch elfin. The +Listener would hardly claim personal acquaintance with them all. + +"Du Maurier's 'Trilby' is curiously prefigured, in part at least, in +Nodier's; and yet there is not the smallest thing that the most jealous +critic could call a plagiarism; it is a legitimate parentage. As you go +on with Nodier's story, you love his Trilby more and more, as you do du +Maurier's, until you think that there was never so bewitching a fairy; +and your love for Trilby is interwoven with your love for Jeannie, his +mortal sweetheart, just as your love for du Manner's Trilby is forever +mixed up with your tender sentiment for Little Billee. You feel a sort +of enchantment over you like the hypnotism that you are under in du +Maurier's strange book. And both stories, while abounding in wit and +pretty things, are deeply tragical. It has been said of Nodier's +'Trilby' that it belongs to the realm of the _supra-sensible_, and so, +in large measure, certainly does du Maurier's. Du Maurier has confessed +his obligation flatly in giving his story the very name that Nodier's +bore. It is conceivable that the image of the Frenchman's haunting fairy +dwelt with him until he resolved to reincarnate the adorable elf in the +body of a girl as adorable. He gave his Trilby a Scotch ancestry to +connect her the more naturally with the _lutin d'Argail_; and her fairy +ancestry will easily account not only for her early prankishness, but +for her later unreality. But it is a prefiguring merely, and not a +direct suggestion. Whatever du Maurier's 'Trilby' lacks, it isn't +originality!" + + * * * * * + +(_From Mr. C. E. L. Wingate's Boston Letter in The Critic of 20 April, +1893._) + +It appears that the first mention of the French book appeared in _The +Critic_, last November. It was in the same month that Mr. Bradford +Torrey * * * happened to find a copy of Nodier's "Trilby" in the Boston +Athenaeum. He took the book to his friend, Mr. J. E. Chamberlin of _The +Youth's Companion_, who began its translation at once. A few days later +appeared a note in _The Critic_ from a correspondent in Virginia. +Thinking that secrecy was no longer worth while, Mr. Chamberlin wrote +his paragraphs for the _Transcript_ "Listener" column, incorporating a +bit of translation. This was printed on Dec. 1. Miss Minna C. Smith went +to Roberts Bros. at once, to ask them if they would consider the +publication of a translation of the romance by her _Transcript_ +confrere, and Mr. F. Alcott Pratt replied that they would like very much +to see that gentleman's work. Circumstances made Mr. Chamberlin decide +not to finish the translation, and he gave Miss Smith his idea and a few +pages of the manuscript for a Christmas present. During several weeks +following she was engaged upon her careful translation. The Scotch words +and names of localities in her manuscript were corrected by Mr. J. +Murray Kay of Houghton, Mifflin & Co., an accomplished Scot, who walked +through Argyle with his daughters last summer. On March 19, an article +on Charles Nodier's story, foreshadowing Miss Smith's translation, +appeared in the _Transcript_. On the morning of March 20, Mr. Dana Estes +sent for Mr. Nathan Haskell Dole and asked him to make a translation, +which was done with remarkable rapidity, and put out on March 29. +Learning of this, Lamson, Wolffe & Co. hurried on Miss Smith's book, +which had been in the hands of their printer at the Collins press for +days, advertised it on Thursday and brought it out on Saturday, in +Scotch plaid covers. + +This firm of Lamson, Wolffe & Co., by the way, has just been dissolved +for a novel reason. Mr. Wolffe is a member of the class of '95 at +Harvard. The publication of "Trilby, the Fairy of Argyle" called the +attention of the faculty to his publishing business, and he was asked to +give it up, or else forfeit his degree. He chose the former alternative, +and although the firm name will remain Lamson, Wolffe & Co., a new and, +for the present, silent member of the firm has added capital and +scholarship to the house. + + * * * * * + +"Trilby, the Fairy of Argyle" + +_By Charles Noder. 1. Translated from the French, with introduction, by +Nathan Haskell Dole. Estes & Lauriat. 2. From the French by Minna +Caroline Smith. Boston: Lamson, Wolffe & Co._ + +Nodier's "Trilby," who now revisits the book-stores owing to Mr. du +Maurier's having taken his name for his heroine's, is one of the few +latter-day fairies that have fairy blood (or ichor) in their veins. He +belongs on the same shelf with Fouque's "Undine," but, though he was +only joking when he personated a father who "had not seen him since the +days of King Fergus," he is certainly of the breed of Una and Maer, +Caoilte and Mananan. That he made a sensation on his first appearance in +the world of letters is shown by Victor Hugo's ode, warning the Fairy of +Argyle to beware of ink-slinging penny-a-liners:-- + + "Car on en veut aux Trilbys + * * * * * * * * + Ils souilleraient d'encre noire, + Helas! ton manteau de moire, + Ton aigrette de rubis"-- + +advice which might be repeated apropos of Mr. du Maurier's creation. + +Mr. Dole, who has made a translation (1) of Nodier's "Trilby," has +looked through all of Scott's novels, he says, to discover, if possible, +the "preface or note" from which the French author claimed to have drawn +his story, and has the deft art of "Pendennis" and "The Newcomes." And +the "Cave of Harmony," with its songs and its bumpers and long whiffs, +the gay nights and rollicking days of F. B. and Clive and Pendennis--the +glamor of all which has enticed full many a youngster towards the easy +descent, or the shining slopes (as the case may be) of art and +letters--all these scenes have doubtless served as the studies of the +pictures, almost as delightful and masterly as their prototypes, that du +Maurier gives us of the joyous Bohemian life of the three jolly +Musketeers of the Brush in the Quartier Latin in "Trilby." + +AUBURN, ALA., 26 Dec., 1894. + +CHARLES C. THACH. + + * * * * * + +As a small contribution to "Trilbyana," I would call attention to the +fact, unnoted so far, that Trilby was the name of Eugenie de Guerin's +pet dog, mentioned several times in the journal she kept for her brother +Maurice. Was the dog, perhaps, named for the fairy? + +LOUISVILLE, KY. + +A. C. B. + + * * * * * + +As there seems to be a mania for hunting up the sources of the +inspiration of certain authors, I will engage in the game also. In +Saintine's "Picciola," Book I., Chap XII., after the first paragraph, +you will find the germ of "Peter Ibbetson." + +GRAND RAPIDS, MICH. + +C. C. + + * * * * * + + +THE CRITIC + +A Weekly Review of Literature and the Arts + +Edited (since 1881) by J. B. & J. L. GILDER + +"The only paper to which we can look for a week-by-week record of +American literature."--_Sir Walter Besant_. + +"_The Critic_ long since took rank as the foremost literary paper in +America."--_The New York Times_. + +"The only purely literary weekly in America."--_The Athenaeum_. + +_A few occasional contributors during the past fifteen years_:-- + + JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL + JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER + AUSTIN DOBSON + THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH + WALT WHITMAN + MRS. BURTON HARRISON + RICHARD HENRY STODDARD + OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES + FRANCIS PARKMAN + EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN + ANDREW LANG + FREDERICK LOCKER + I. ZANGWILL + FRANK R. STOCKTON + +10 cts. a copy. $3 a year. (Foreign postage, $1.) + + * * * * * + +"TRILBYANA: The Rise and Progress of a Popular Novel." A 56-page +illustrated pamphlet, untrimmed, rubricated cover. 250 signed copies on +hand-made paper. $1, net. Regular edition, 25 cts. + + * * * * * + +"ESSAYS FROM THE CRITIC." A reprint of some of the most striking +contributions to the earlier numbers. 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