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diff --git a/39116-8.txt b/39116-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..89f8a90 --- /dev/null +++ b/39116-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9233 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Unicorns, by James Huneker + +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/license + + +Title: Unicorns + +Author: James Huneker + +Release Date: March 12, 2012 [EBook #39116] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNICORNS *** + + + + +Produced by David Edwards, Ewa "czupirek" Jaros and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by The Internet Archive) + + + + + + + + + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES + + +The original punctuation and spelling were retained, with the +exception of a few printer's mistakes. The text contains also +inconsistently spelled words. The full list of both changes to the +text and the inconsistencies in spelling can be found at the end of +this file. + + + + +BOOKS BY JAMES HUNEKER + +PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS + + + UNICORNS. 12mo, _net_, $1.75 + + IVORY APES AND PEACOCKS. 12mo, _net_, $1.50 + + NEW COSMOPOLIS. 12mo, _net_, $1.50 + + THE PATHOS OF DISTANCE. 12mo, _net_, $2.00 + + FRANZ LISZT. Illustrated. 12mo, _net_, $2.00 + + PROMENADES OF AN IMPRESSIONIST. 12mo, _net_, $1.50 + + EGOISTS: A BOOK OF SUPERMEN. 12mo, _net_, $1.50 + + ICONOCLASTS: A BOOK OF DRAMATISTS. 12mo, _net_, $1.50 + + OVERTONES: A BOOK OF TEMPERAMENTS. 12mo, _net_, $1.50 + + MEZZOTINTS IN MODERN MUSIC. 12mo, _net_, $1.50 + + CHOPIN: THE MAN AND HIS MUSIC. With Portrait. 12mo, _net_, $2.00 + + VISIONARIES. 12mo, _net_, $1.50 + + MELOMANIACS. 12mo, _net_, $1.50 + + + + + UNICORNS + + + + + UNICORNS + + BY + + JAMES HUNEKER + + + "I would write on the lintels + of the door-post, 'Whim.'" + --_Emerson_ + + + NEW YORK + + CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS + + 1917 + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1917, by + CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS + + + Published September, 1917 + + + COPYRIGHT, 1906, BY THE NEW YORK HERALD COMPANY + COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY THE RIDGEWAY COMPANY + COPYRIGHT, 1909, 1911, 1916, 1917, BY THE SUN PRINTING AND + PUBLISHING CO. + COPYRIGHT, 1914, 1915, 1916, 1917, BY THE NEW YORK TIMES COMPANY + COPYRIGHT, 1915, 1916, BY PUCK PUBLISHING CO. + COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY NORTH AMERICAN + COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY THE NEW YORK EVENING MAIL + + + + + THIS BOOK + OF SPLEEN AND GOSSIP IS INSCRIBED + TO MY FRIEND + EDWARD ZIEGLER + + + "Come! let us lay a crazy lance in rest + And tilt at windmills under a wild sky." + --_John Galsworthy._ + + + "He is a fribble, a sonsy faddle, whose conceits veer with the + breeze like a creaking weather-vane. As the sterile moon hath + her librations, so must he boast of his oscillations, thinking + them eternal verities. A very cockatoo in his perched-up vanity + and prodigious clatter...." + [_From "The Velvet Cactus." Anonymous. + Printed at the Sign of the Cat and + Cameo, Threadneedle Street, London. + A.D. 1723. Rare._] + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I. IN PRAISE OF UNICORNS 1 + + II. AN AMERICAN COMPOSER: THE PASSING OF EDWARD MACDOWELL 6 + + III. REMY DE GOURMONT: HIS IDEAS. THE COLOUR OF HIS MIND 18 + + IV. ARTZIBASHEF 33 + + V. A NOTE ON HENRY JAMES 53 + + VI. GEORGE SAND 67 + + VII. THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL 82 + + VIII. THE CASE OF PAUL CÉZANNE 96 + + IX. BRAHMSODY 106 + + X. THE OPINIONS OF J.-K. HUYSMANS 111 + + XI. STYLE AND RHYTHM IN ENGLISH PROSE 121 + + XII. THE QUEEREST YARN IN THE WORLD 139 + + XIII. ON REREADING MALLOCK 151 + + XIV. THE LOST MASTER 161 + + XV. THE GRAND MANNER IN PIANOFORTE PLAYING 171 + + XVI. JAMES JOYCE 187 + + XVII. CREATIVE INVOLUTION 195 + + XVIII. FOUR DIMENSIONAL VISTAS 203 + + XIX. O. W. 212 + + XX. A SYNTHESIS OF THE SEVEN ARTS 218 + + XXI. THE CLASSIC CHOPIN 228 + + XXII. LITTLE MIRRORS OF SINCERITY 241 + + XXIII. THE REFORMATION OF GEORGE MOORE 261 + + XXIV. PILLOWLAND 277 + + XXV. CROSS-CURRENTS IN MODERN FRENCH LITERATURE 283 + + XXVI. MORE ABOUT RICHARD WAGNER 300 + + XXVII. MY FIRST MUSICAL ADVENTURE 317 + + XXVIII. VIOLINISTS NOW AND YESTERYEAR 323 + + XXIX. RIDING THE WHIRLWIND 339 + + XXX. PRAYERS FOR THE LIVING 353 + + + + +UNICORNS + + + + +CHAPTER I + +IN PRAISE OF UNICORNS + + "The Lion and the Unicorn were fighting for the crown: + The Lion beat the Unicorn all round the town." ... + + +In the golden book of wit and wisdom, Through the Looking-Glass, the +Unicorn rather disdainfully remarks that he had believed children to +be fabulous monsters. Alice smilingly retorts: "Do you know, I +always thought Unicorns were fabulous monsters, too? I never saw one +alive before!" "Well, now that we _have_ seen each other," said the +Unicorn, "if you'll believe in me, I'll believe in you. Is that a +bargain?" "Yes, if you like," said Alice. No such ambiguous bargains +are needed to demonstrate the existence of Unicorns. That is, not +for imaginative people. A mythical monster, a heraldic animal, he +figures in the dictionary as the Monoceros, habitat, India; and he +is the biblical Urus, sporting one horn, a goat beard and a lion's +tail. He may be all these things for practical persons; no man is a +genius to his wife. But maugre that he is something more for +dreamers of dreams; though not the Hippogriff, with its liberating +wings, volplaning through the Fourth Dimension of Space; nor yet is +he tender Undine, spirit of fountains, of whom the Unicorn asked: +"By the waters of what valley has jealous mankind hidden the source +of your secrets?" (Cousin german to the Centaur of Maurice de +Guérin, he can speak in like cadence.) + +Alice with her "dreaming eyes of wonder" was, after the manner of +little girls, somewhat pragmatic. She believed in Unicorns only when +she saw one. Yet we must believe without such proof. Has not the +Book of Job put this question: "Canst thou bind the Unicorn with his +band in the furrow?" As if a harnessed Unicorn would be credible. We +prefer placing the charming monster, with the prancing tiny hoofs of +ivory (surely Chopin set him to musical notation in his capricious +second Etude in F; Chopin who, if man were soulless, would have +endowed him with one) in the same category as the Chimera of "The +Temptation of St. Antony," which thus taunted the Sphinx: "I am +light and joyous! I offer to the eyes of men dazzling perspectives +with Paradise in the clouds above.... I seek for new perfumes, for +vaster flowers, for pleasures never felt before...." + +With Unicorns we feel the nostalgia of the infinite, the sorcery of +dolls, the salt of sex, the vertigo of them that skirt the edge of +perilous ravines, or straddle the rim of finer issues. He dwells in +equivocal twilights; and he can stare the sun out of countenance. +The enchanting Unicorn boasts no favoured zone. He runs around the +globe. He is of all ages and climes. He knows that fantastic land of +Gautier, which contains all the divine lost landscapes ever painted, +and whose inhabitants are the lovely figures created by art in +granite, marble, or wood, on walls, canvas, or crystal. Betimes he +flashes by the nymph in the brake, and dazzled, she sighs with +desire. Mallarmé set him to cryptic harmonies, and placed him in a +dim rich forest (though he called him a faun; a faun in retorsion). +Like the apocryphal Sadhuzag in Flaubert's cosmical drama of dreams, +which bore seventy-four hollow antlers from which issued music of +ineffable sweetness, our Unicorn sings ravishing melodies for those +who possess the inner ear of mystics and poets. When angered he +echoes the Seven Thunders of the Apocalypse, and we hear of +desperate rumours of fire, flood, and disaster. And he haunts those +ivory gates of sleep whence come ineffable dreams to mortals. + +He has always fought with the Lion for the crown, and he is always +defeated, but invariably claims the victory. The crown is Art, and +the Lion, being a realist born, is only attracted by its glitter, +not the symbol. The Unicorn, an idealist, divines the inner meaning +of this precious fillet of gold. Art is the modern philosopher's +stone, and the most brilliant jewel in this much-contested crown. +Eternal is the conflict of the Real and the Ideal; Aristotle and +Plato; Alice and the Unicorn; the practical and the poetic; +butterflies and geese; and rare roast-beef versus the impossible +blue rose. And neither the Lion nor the Unicorn has yet fought the +battle decisive. Perhaps the day may come when, weariness invading +their very bones, they may realise that they are as different sides +of the same coveted shield; matter and spirit, the multitude and the +individual. Then unlock the ivory tower, abolish the tyrannies of +superannuated superstitions, and give the people vision, without +which they perish. The divine rights of humanity, no longer of +kingly cabbages. + +The dusk of the future is washed with the silver of hope. The Lion +and the Unicorn in single yoke. Strength and Beauty should represent +the fusion of the Ideal and the Real. There should be no anarchy, no +socialism, no Brotherhood or Sisterhood of mankind, just the +millennium of sense and sentiment. What title shall we give that +far-away time, that longed-for Utopia? With Alice and the Faun we +forget names, so let us follow her method when in doubt, and +exclaim: "Here then! Here then!" Morose and disillusioned souls may +cry aloud: "Ah! to see behind us no longer, on the Lake of Eternity, +the implacable Wake of Time!" nevertheless, we must believe in the +reality of our Unicorn. He is Pan. He is Puck. He is Shelley. He is +Ariel. He is Whim. He is Irony. And he can boast with Emerson: + + "I am owner of the sphere, + Of the seven stars and the solar year, + Of Cæsar's hand and Plato's brain, + Of Lord Christ's heart and Shakespeare's strain." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +AN AMERICAN COMPOSER + +THE PASSING OF EDWARD MACDOWELL + + +Whom the gods love----! + +Admirers of Edward MacDowell's Sonata Tragica may recall the last +movement, in which, after a triumphant climax, the curtain falls on +tragic misery. It was the very Greek-like belief of MacDowell that +nothing is more sublimely awful than "to heighten the darkness of +tragedy by making it follow closely on the heels of triumph." This +he accomplished in his first sonata, and fate has ironically +transposed to the life of its composer the cruel and tragic drama of +his own music. Despite occasional days brightened by a flitting +hope, the passing of Edward MacDowell has begun. He is no longer an +earth-dweller. His body is here, but his brain elsewhere. Not mad, +not melancholy, not sunken in the stupor of indifference, his mind +is translated to a region where serenity, even happiness, dwells. +It is doubtless the temporary arrest of the dread mental malady +before it plunges its victims into darkness. Luckily, with the +advent of that last phase, the body will also succumb, and the most +poetic composer of music in America be for us but a fragrant memory. + +Irony is a much-abused word, yet does it not seem the very summit of +pitiless irony for a man of MacDowell's musical and intellectual +equipment and physical health to be stricken down at the moment +when, after the hard study of twenty-five years, he has, as the +expression goes, found himself? And the gods were good to him--too +good. + +At his cradle poetry and music presided. He was a born tone-poet. He +had also the painter's eye and the interior vision of the seer. A +mystic and a realist. The practical side of his nature was shown by +his easy grasp of the technics of pianoforte-playing. He had a +large, muscular hand, with a formidable grip on the keyboard. Much +has been said of the idealist MacDowell, but this young man, who had +in his veins Scotch, Irish, and English blood, loved athletic +sports; loved, like Hazlitt, a fast and furious boxing-match. The +call of his soul won him for music and poetry. Otherwise he could +have been a sea-captain, a soldier, or an explorer in far-away +countries. He had the physique; he had the big, manly spirit. We are +grateful, selfishly grateful, considering his life's tragedy, that +he became a composer. + +Here, again, in all this abounding vitality, the irony of the skies +is manifest. Never a dissipated man, without a touch of the +improvidence we ascribe to genius, a practical moralist--rare in any +social condition--moderate in his tastes, though not a Puritan, he +nevertheless has been mowed down by the ruthless reaper of souls as +if his were negligible clay. But he was reckless of the most +precious part of him, his brain. He killed that organ by overwork. +Not for gain--the money-getting ideal and this man were widely +asunder--but for the love of teaching, for the love of sharing with +others the treasures in his overflowing storehouse, and primarily +for the love of music. He, American as he was--it is sad to speak of +him in the past tense--and in these piping days of the pursuit of +the gold piece, held steadfast to his art. He attempted to do what +others have failed in, he attempted to lead, here in our huge, noisy +city, antipathetic to æsthetic creation, the double existence of a +composer and a pedagogue. He burned away the delicate neurons of the +cortical cells, and to-day he cannot say "pianoforte" without a +trial. He suffers from aphasia, and locomotor ataxia has begun to +manifest itself. It would be tragedy in the household of any man; it +is doubly so in the case of Edward MacDowell. + +He has just passed forty-five years and there are to his credit some +sixty works, about one hundred and thirty-two compositions in all. +These include essays in every form, except music-drama--symphonic +and lyric, concertos and sonatas for piano, little piano pieces of +delicate workmanship, charged with poetic meanings, suites for +orchestra and a romance for violoncello, with orchestral +accompaniment. As a boy of fifteen MacDowell went to the Paris +Conservatoire, there entering the piano classes of Marmontel. It was +in 1876. Two years later I saw him at the same institution and later +in comparing notes we discovered that we had both attended a concert +at the Trocadero, wherein Nicholas Rubinstein, the brilliant brother +of Anton, played the B flat minor concerto of a youthful and unknown +composer, Peter Illyitch Tschaikovsky by name. This same concerto +had been introduced to America in 1876 by Hans von Bülow, to whom it +is dedicated. Rubinstein's playing took hold of young MacDowell's +imagination. He saw there was no chance of mastering such a +torrential style in Paris, or, for that matter, in Germany. He had +enjoyed lessons from Teresa Carreño, but the beautiful Venezuelan +was not then the virtuosa of to-day. + +So MacDowell, who was accompanied by his mother, a sage woman and +deeply in sympathy with her son's aims, went to Frankfort, where he +had the benefit of Karl Heymann's tuition. He was the only pianist I +ever heard who could be compared to our Rafael Joseffy. But his +influences, while marked in the development of his American pupil, +did not weaken MacDowell's individuality. Studies in composition +under Joachim Raff followed, and then he journeyed to Weimar for his +baptism of fire at the hands of Liszt. That genial Prospero had +broken his wand of virtuoso and devoted himself to the culture of +youthful genius and his own compositions. He was pleased by the +force, the surety, the brilliancy and the poetic qualities of +MacDowell's playing, and he laughingly warned Eugen d'Albert to look +to his laurels. But music was in the very bones of MacDowell, and a +purely virtuoso career had no attraction for him. He married in 1884 +Marian Nevins, of New York, herself a pianist and a devoted +propagandist of his music. The pair settled in Wiesbaden, and it was +the happiest period of MacDowell's career. He taught; he played as +"guest" in various German cities; above all, he composed. His entire +evolution is surveyed in Mr. Lawrence Gilman's sympathetic +monograph. It was in Wiesbaden that he laid the foundation of his +solid technique as a composer. + +I once asked him during one of our meetings how he had summoned the +courage to leave such congenial surroundings. In that half-smiling, +half-shy way of his, so full of charm and naïveté, he told me his +house had burned down and he had resolved to return home and make +enough money to build another. He came to America in 1888 and found +himself, if not famous, at least well known. To Frank van der +Stucken belongs the glory of having launched the young composer, and +so long ago as 1886 in the old Chickering Hall. Some would like to +point to the fact that America was MacDowell's artistic undoing, but +the truth is against them. As a matter of musical history he +accomplished his best work in the United States, principally on his +farm at Peterboro, N. H.--hardly, one would imagine, artistic soil +for such a dreamer in tones. But life has a way of contradicting our +theories. Teaching, I have learned, was not pursued to excess by +MacDowell, who had settled in Boston. Yet I wish there were +sumptuary legislation for such cases. Why should an artist like +MacDowell have been forced into the shafts of dull routine? It is +the larger selfishness, all this, but I cling to it. MacDowell +belonged to the public. Joseffy belongs to the public. They +doubtless did and do much good as teachers, but the public is the +loser. Besides, if MacDowell, who was a virtuoso had confined +himself to recitals he might not---- + +Alas! all this is bootless imagining. He launched himself with his +usual unselfishness into the advancement of his scholars, and when +in 1896 he was called to the chair of music at Columbia the +remaining seven years of his incumbency he gave up absolutely to his +classes. A sabbatical year intervened. He went to Switzerland for a +rest. Then he made a tour of the West, a triumphal tour; and later +followed the regrettable difference with Columbia. He resigned in +1904, and I doubt if he had had a happy day since--that is, until +the wave of forgetfulness came over him and blotted out all +recollections. + +As a pianist I may only quote what Rafael Joseffy once said to me +after a performance of the MacDowell D minor concerto by its +composer: "What's the use of a poor pianist trying to compete with a +fellow who writes his own music and then plays it the way MacDowell +does?" It was said jestingly, but, as usual, when Joseffy opens his +mouth there is a grain of wisdom in the speech. MacDowell's French +training showed in his "pianism" in the velocity, clarity, and +pearly quality of his scales and trills. He had the elegance of the +salon player; he knew the traditions. But he was modern, German and +Slavic in his combined musical interpretation and fiery attack. His +tone was large; at times it was brutal. This pianist did not shine +in a small hall. He needed space, as do his later compositions. +There was something both noble and elemental in the performance of +his own sonatas. At his instrument his air of preoccupation, his +fine poetic head, the lines of which were admirably salient on the +concert stage, and his passion in execution were notable details in +the harmonious picture. Like Liszt, MacDowell and his Steinway were +as the rider and his steed. They seemed inseparable. Under the +batons of Nikisch, Gericke, Paur, and Seidl we heard him, and for +once at least the critics were unanimous. + +When I first studied the MacDowell music I called the composer "a +belated Romantic." A Romantic he is by temperament, while his +training under Raff further accentuated that tendency. It is a +dangerous matter to make predictions of a contemporary composer, yet +a danger critically courted in these times of rapid-fire judgments. +I have been a sinner myself, and am still unregenerate, for if it be +sinful to judge hastily in the affirmative, by the same token it is +quite as grave an error to judge hastily in the negative. So I shall +dare the possible contempt of the succeeding critical generation, +which I expect--and hope--will not calmly reverse our dearest +predictions, and range myself on the side of MacDowell. And with +this reservation; I called him the most poetic composer of America. +He would be a poetic composer in any land; yet it seems to me that +his greatest, because his most individual, work is to be found in +his four piano sonatas. I am always subdued by the charm of his +songs; but he did not find his fullest expression in his lyrics. + +The words seemed to hamper the bold wing strokes of his inspiration. +He did not go far enough in his orchestral work to warrant our +saying: "Here is something new!" He shows the influence of Wagner +slightly, of Grieg, of Raff, of Liszt, in his first Orchestral +Suite, his Hamlet and Ophelia, Launcelot and Elaine; The Saracens +and Lovely Alda, the Indian Suite, and in the two concertos. The +form is still struggling to emerge from the bonds of the +Romantics--of classic influence there is little trace. But the +general effect is fragmentary. It is not the real MacDowell, +notwithstanding the mastery of technical material, the genuine +feeling for orchestral colour, which is natural, not studied. There +are poetic moods--MacDowell is always a poet--yet no path-breaker. +Indeed, he seemed as if hesitating. I remember how we discussed +Brahms, Tschaikovsky, and Richard Strauss. The former he admired as +a master builder; the latter piqued his curiosity tremendously, +particularly Also Sprach Zarathustra. I think that Tschaikovsky made +the deepest appeal, though he said that the Russian's music sounded +better than it was. Grieg he admired, but Grieg could never have +drawn the long musical line we find in the MacDowell sonatas. + +The fate of intermediate types is inevitable. Music is an art of +specialisation: the Wagner music-drama, Chopin piano music, Schubert +songs, Beethoven symphony, Liszt symphonic poems, and Richard +Strauss tone-poems, all these are unique. MacDowell has invented +many lovely melodies. That the Indian duet for orchestra, the +Woodland Sketches, New England Idyls, the Sea Pieces--To the Sea is +a wonderful transcription of the mystery, and the salt and savour of +the ocean--will have a long life, but not as long as the piano +sonatas. By them he will stand or fall. MacDowell never goes +chromatically mad on his harmonic tripod, nor does he tear passion +to tatters in his search of the dramatic. If he recalls any English +poet it is Keats, and like Keats he is simple and sensuous in his +imagery, and a lover of true romance; not the sham ecstasies of mock +mediæval romance, but that deep and tender sentiment which we +encounter in the poetry of Keats--in the magic of a moon half veiled +by flying clouds; in the mystery and scent of old and tangled +gardens. I should call MacDowell a landscape-painter had I not heard +his sonata music. Those sonatas, the Tragica, Eroica, Norse, and +Keltic, with their broad, coloured narrative, ballad-like tone, +their heroic and chivalric accents, epic passion, and feminine +tenderness. The psychology is simple if you set this music against +that of Strauss, of Loeffler, or of Debussy. + +But it is noble, noble as the soul of the man who conceived it. +Elastic in form, orchestral in idea, these sonatas--which are looser +spun in the web than Liszt's--will keep alive the name of MacDowell. +This statement must not be considered as evidence that I fail to +enjoy his other work. I do enjoy much of it, especially the Indian +Orchestral Suite; but the sonatas stir the blood, above all the +imagination. When the Tragica appeared I did not dream of three such +successors. Now I like best the Keltic, with its dark magic and its +tales of Deirdré and the "great Cuchullin." This fourth sonata is as +Keltic as the combined poetic forces of the neo-Celtic renascence in +Ireland. + +I believe MacDowell, when so sorely stricken, was at the parting of +the ways. He spoke vaguely to me of studies for new symphonic works, +presumably in the symphonic-poem form of Liszt. He would have always +remained the poet, and perhaps have pushed to newer scenes, but, +like Schumann, Donizetti, Smetana and Hugo Wolf, his brain gave way +under the strain of intense study. The composition of music involves +and taxes all the higher cerebral centres. + +The privilege was accorded me of visiting the sick man at his hotel +several weeks ago, and I am glad I saw him, for his appearance +dissipated the painful impression I had conjured up. Our interview, +brief as it was, became the reverse of morbid or unpleasant before +it terminated. With his mental disintegration sunny youth has +returned to the composer. In snowy white, he looks not more than +twenty-five years old, until you note the grey in his thick, +rebellious locks. There is still gold in his moustache and his eyes +are luminously blue. His expression suggests a spirit purged of all +grossness waiting for the summons. He smiles, but not as a madman; +he talks hesitatingly, but never babbles. There is continuity in his +ideas for minutes. Sometimes the word fits the idea; oftener he uses +one foreign to his meaning. His wife, of whose devotion, almost +poignant in its earnestness, it would be too sad to dwell upon, is +his faithful interpreter. He moves with difficulty. He plays +dominoes, but seldom goes to the keyboard. He reads slowly and, like +the unfortunate Friedrich Nietzsche, he rereads one page many times. +I could not help recalling what Mrs. Elizabeth Foerster-Nietzsche +told me in Weimar of her brother. One day, noticing that she +silently wept, the poet-philosopher exclaimed: + +"But why do you weep, little sister? Are we not very happy?" + +MacDowell is very happy and his wife is braver than Nietzsche's +sister. One fragment of his conversation I recall. With glowing +countenance he spoke of the thunderbolt in his wonderfully realistic +piano poem, The Eagle. There had been a lightning-storm during the +afternoon. Then he told me how he had found water by means of the +hazel wand on his New Hampshire farm--a real happening. As I went +away I could not help remembering that the final words I should ever +hear uttered by this friend were of bright fire and running water +and dream-music. + + [The above appeared in the New York _Herald_, June 24, 1906, + and is reprinted by request. Edward MacDowell died January 23, + 1908.] + + + + +CHAPTER III + +REMY DE GOURMONT + +HIS IDEAS. THE COLOUR OF HIS MIND + + "Je dis ce que je pense"--R. DE G. + + +I + +Those were days marked by a white stone when arrived in the familiar +yellow cover a new book, with card enclosed from "Remy de Gourmont, +71, rue des Saints-Pères, Paris." Sometimes I received as many as +two in a year. But they always found me eager and grateful, did +those precious little volumes bearing the imprint of the _Mercure de +France_, with whose history the name of De Gourmont is so happily +linked. And there were post-cards too in his delicate handwriting on +which were traced sense and sentiment; yes, this man of genius +possessed sentiment, but abhorred sentimentality. His personal charm +transpired in a friendly salutation hastily pencilled. He played +exquisitely upon his intellectual instrument, and knew the value of +time and space. So his post-cards are souvenirs of his courtesy, and +it was through one, which unexpectedly fell from the sky in 1897, I +began my friendship with this distinguished French critic. His +sudden death in 1915 at Paris (he was born 1858), caused by +apoplexy, was the heroic ending of a man of letters. Like Flaubert +he was stricken while at his desk. I can conceive no more fitting +end for a valiant soldier of literature. He was a moral hero and the +victim of his prolonged technical heroism. + +De Gourmont was incomparable. Thought, not action, was his chosen +sphere, but ranging up and down the vague and vast territory of +ideas he encountered countless cerebral adventures; the most +dangerous of all. An aristocrat born, he was, nevertheless, a +convinced democrat. The latch was always lifted on the front door of +his ivory tower. He did live in a certain sense a cloistered +existence, a Benedictine of arts and letters; but he was not, as has +been said, a sour hermit nursing morose fancies in solitude. De +Gourmont, true pagan, enjoyed the gifts the gods provide, and had, +despite the dualism of his nature, an epicurean soul. But of a +complexity. He never sympathised with the disproportionate fuss +raised by the metaphysicians about Instinct and Intelligence, yet +his own magnificent cerebral apparatus was a battle-field over which +swept the opposing hosts of Instinct and Intelligence, and in a +half-hundred volumes the history of this conflict is faithfully set +down. As personal as Maurice Barrès, without his egoism, as subtle +as Anatole France, De Gourmont saw life steadier and broader than +either of these two contemporaries. He was one who said "vast things +simply." He was the profoundest philosopher of the three, and never, +after his beginnings, exhibited a trace of the dilettante. Life soon +became something more than a mere spectacle for him. He was a +meliorist in theory and practice, though he asserted that +Christianity, an Oriental-born religion, has not become spiritually +acclimated among Occidental peoples. But he missed its consoling +function; religion, the poetry of the poor, never had for him the +prime significance that it had for William James; a legend, vague, +vast, and delicious. + +Old frontiers have disappeared in science and art and literature. We +have Maeterlinck, a poet writing of bees, Poincaré, a mathematician +opening our eyes to the mystic gulfs of space; solid matters +resolved into mist, and the law of gravitation questioned. The new +horizons beckon ardent youth bent on conquering the secrets of life. +And there are more false beacon-lights than true. But if this is an +age of specialists a man occasionally emerges who contradicts the +formula. De Gourmont was at base a poet; also a dramatist, novelist, +raconteur, man of science, critic, moralist of erudition, and, +lastly, a philosopher. Both formidable and bewildering were his +accomplishments. He is a poet in his Hieroglyphes, Oraisons +mauvaises, Le Livre des Litanies, Les Saintes du Paradis, Simone, +Divertissements--his last appearance in singing robes (1914); he is +a raconteur--and such tales--in Histoires magiques, Prose moroses, +Le Pèlerin du silence, D'un Pays lointain, Couleurs; a novelist in +Merlette--his first book--Sixtine, Le Fantôme, les Chevaux de +Diomède, Le Songe d'une Femme, Une Nuit au Luxembourg, Un C[oe]ur +virginal; dramatist in Théodat, Phénissa, Le vieux Roi, Lilith; as +master critic of the æsthetics of the French language his supremacy +is indisputable; it is hardly necessary to refer here to Le Livre +des Masques, in two volumes, the five volumes of Promenades +littéraires, the three of Promenades philosophiques; as moralist he +has signed such works as l'Idealisme, La Culture des Idées, Le +Chemin de Velours; historian and humanist, he has given us Le Latin +mystique; grammarian and philologist, he displays his learning in Le +Problème du Style, and Esthétique de la Langue française, and +incidentally flays an unhappy pedagogue who proposed to impart the +secret of style in twenty lessons. He edited many classics of French +literature. + +His chief contribution to science, apart from his botanical and +entomological researches, is Physique de l'Amour, in which he +reveals himself as a patient, thorough observer in an almost new +country. And what shall we say to his incursions into the actual, +into the field of politics, sociology and hourly happenings of Paris +life; his Epilogues (three volumes), Dialogues des Amateurs, the +collected pages from his monthly contributions to _Mercure de +France_? Nothing human was alien to him, nor inhuman, for he +rejected as quite meaningless the latter vocable, as he rejected +such clichés as "organic and inorganic." Years before we heard of a +pluralistic universe De Gourmont was a pragmatist, though an +idealist in his conception of the world as a personal picture. +Intensely interested in ideas, as he was in words, he might have +fulfilled Lord Acton's wish that some one would write a History of +Ideas. At the time of his death the French thinker was composing a +work entitled La Physique des M[oe]urs, in which he contemplated a +demonstration of his law of intellectual constancy. + +A spiritual cosmopolitan, he was like most Frenchmen an ardent +patriot. The little squabble in the early eighties over a skit of +his, Le Jou-jou--patriotisme (1883), cost him his post at the +National Library in Paris. As a philosopher he deprecated war; as a +man, though too old to fight, he urged his countrymen to victory, as +may be noted in his last book, Pendant l'Orage (1916). But the +philosopher persists in such a sorrowful sentence as: "In the +tragedy of man peace is but an entr'acte." To show his mental +balance at a time when literary men, artists, and even philosophers, +indulged in unseemly abuse, we read in Jugements his calm admission +that the war has not destroyed for him the intellectual values of +Goethe, Schopenhauer, or Nietzsche. He owes much to their thought as +they owed much to French thought; Goethe has said as much; and of +Voltaire and Chamfort, Schopenhauer was a disciple. Without being a +practical musician, De Gourmont was a lover of Beethoven and Wagner. +He paid his compliments to Romain Rolland, whose style, both chalky +and mucilaginous, he dislikes in that overrated and spun-out series +Jean-Christophe. Another little volume, La Belgique littéraire, was +published in 1915, which, while it contains nothing particularly new +about Georges Rodenbach, Emile Verhaeren, Van Lerberghe, Camille +Lemonnier, and Maurice Maeterlinck, is excellent reading. The French +critic was also editor of the _Revue des Idées_, and judging from +the bibliography compiled by Pierre de Querlon as long ago as 1903, +he was a collaborator of numerous magazines. He wrote on Emerson, +English humour, or Thomas à Kempis with the same facility as he +dissected the mystic Latin writers of the early centuries after +Christ. Indeed, such versatility was viewed askance by the plodding +crowd of college professors, his general adversaries. But his +erudition could not be challenged; only two other men matched his +scholarship, Anatole France and the late Marcel Schwob. And we have +only skimmed the surface of his accomplishments. Remy de Gourmont is +the Admirable Crichton of French letters. + + +II + +Prodigious incoherence might be reasonably expected from this +diversity of interests, yet the result is quite the reverse. The +artist in this complicated man banished confusion. He has told us +that because of the diversity of his aptitudes man is distinguished +from his fellow animals, and the variety in his labours is a proof +positive of his superiority to such fellow critics as the mentally +constipated Brunetière, the impressionistic Anatole France, the +agile and graceful Lemaître, and the pedantic philistine Faguet. But +if De Gourmont always attains clarity with no loss of depth, he +sometimes mixes his genres; that is, the poet peeps out in his +reports of the psychic life of insects, as the philosopher lords it +over the pages of his fiction. A mystic betimes, he is a +crystal-clear thinker. And consider the catholicity evinced in Le +Livre des Masques. He wrote of such widely diverging talents as +Maeterlinck, Mallarmé, Villiers de l'Isle Adam, and Paul Adam; of +Henri de Régnier and Jules Renard; of Huysmans and Jules Laforgue; +the mysticism of Francis Poictevin's style and the imagery of +Saint-Pol-Roux he defined, and he displays an understanding of the +first symbolist poet, Arthur Rimbaud, while disliking the +personality of that abnormal youth. But why recite this litany of +new talent literally made visible and vocal by our critic? It is a +pleasure to record the fact that most of his swans remained swans +and did not degenerate into tame geese. In this book he shows +himself a profound psychologist. + +Insatiably curious, he yet contrived to drive his chimeras in double +harness and safely. His best fiction is Sixtine and Une Nuit au +Luxembourg, if fiction they may be called. Never will their author +be registered among best-sellers. Sixtine deals with the adventures +of a masculine brain. Ideas are the hero. In Un C[oe]ur virginal we +touch earth, fleshly and spiritually. This story shocked its +readers. It may be considered as a sequel to Physique de l'Amour. It +shows mankind as a gigantic insect indulging in the same apparently +blind pursuit of sex sensation as a beetle, and also shows us the +"female of our species" endowed with less capacity for modesty than +the lady mole, the most chaste of all animals. Disconcerting, too, +is the psychology of the heroine's virginal soul, not, however, +cynical; cynicism is the irony of vice, and De Gourmont is never +cynical. But a master of irony. + +Une Nuit au Luxembourg has been done into English. It handles with +delicacy and frankness themes that in the hands of a lesser artist +would be banished as brutal and blasphemous. The author knows that +all our felicity is founded on a compromise between the dream and +reality, and for that reason while he signals the illusion he never +mocks it; he is too much an idealist. In the elaborately carved +cups of his tales, foaming over with exquisite perfumes and nectar, +there lurks the bitter drop of truth. He could never have said with +Proudhon that woman is the desolation of the just; for him woman is +often an obsession. Yet, captain of his instincts, he sees her +justly; he is not subdued by sex. With a gesture he destroys the +sentimental scaffolding of the sensualist and marches on to new +intellectual conquests. + +In Lilith, an Adamitic Morality, he reveals his Talmudic lore. The +first wife of our common ancestor is a beautiful hell-hag, the +accomplice of Satan in the corruption of the human race. Thus +mediæval play is epical in its Rabelaisian plainness of speech. +Perhaps the Manichean in De Gourmont fabricated its revolting +images. He had traversed the Baudelairian steppes of blasphemy and +black pessimism; Baudelaire, a poet who was a great critic. Odi +profanum vulgus! was De Gourmont's motto, but his soul was +responsive to so many contacts that he emerged, as Barrès emerged, a +citizen of the world. Anarchy as a working philosophy did not long +content him, although he never relinquished his detached attitude of +proud individualism. He saw through the sentimental equality of J.J. +Rousseau. Rousseau it was who said that thinking man was a depraved +animal. Perhaps he was not far from the truth. Man is an affective +animal more interested in the immediate testimony of his senses than +in his intellectual processes. His metaphysic may be but the +reverberation of his sensations on the shore of his subliminal self, +the echo of the sounding shell he calls his soul. And our critic had +his scientific studies to console him for the inevitable sterility +of soul that follows egoism and a barren debauch of the sensations. +He did not tarry long in the valley of excess. His artistic +sensibility was his saviour. + +Without being a dogmatist, De Gourmont was an antagonist of +absolutism. A determinist, (which may be dogmatism à rebours), a +relativist, he holds that mankind is not a specially favoured +species of the animal scale; thought is only an accident, possibly +the result of rich nutrition. An automaton, man has no free will, +but it is better for him to imagine that he has; it is a sounder +working hypothesis for the average human. The universe had no +beginning, it will have no end. There is no first link or last in +the chain of causality. Everything must submit to the law of +causality; to explain a blade of grass we must dismount the stars. +Nevertheless, De Gourmont no more than Renan, had the mania of +certitude. Humbly he interrogates the sphinx. There are no isolated +phenomena in time or space. The mass of matter is eternal. Man is an +animal submitting to the same laws that govern crystals or brutes. +He is the expression of matter in physique and chemistry. Repetition +is the law of life. Thought is a physiological product; +intelligence the secretion of matter and is amenable to the law of +causality. (This sounds like Taine's famous definition of virtue and +vice.) And who shall deny it all in the psychochemical laboratories? +It is not the rigid old-fashioned materialism, but a return to the +more plastic theories of Lamarck and the transformism of the Dutch +botanist, Hugo de Vries. For De Gourmont the Darwinian notion that +man is at the topmost notch of creation is as antique and absurd as +most cosmogonies; indeed, it is the Asiatic egocentric idea of +creation. Jacob's ladder repainted in Darwinian symbols. Voilà +l'ennemi! said De Gourmont and put on his controversial armour. What +blows, what sudden deadly attacks were his! + +Quinton has demonstrated to the satisfaction of many scientists that +bird life came later on our globe than the primates from whom we +stem. The law of thermal constancy proves it by the interior +temperature of birds. Man preceded the carnivorous and ruminating +animals, of whom the bodily temperature is lower than that of birds. +The ants and bees and beavers are not a whit more automatic than +mankind. Automatism, says Ribot, is the rule. Thought is not free, +wrote William James, when to it an affirmation is added; then it is +but the affirmation of a preference. "L'homme," asserts De Gourmont, +"varie à l'infini sa mimique. Sa supériorité, c'est la diversité +immense de ses aptitudes." He welcomed Jules de Gaultier and his +theory of Bovaryisme; of the vital lie, because of which we pretend +to be what we are not. That way spells security, if not progress. +The idea of progress is another necessary illusion, for it provokes +a multiplicity of activities. Our so-called free will is naught but +the faculty of making a decision determined by a great and varied +number of motives. As for morality, it is the outcome of tribal +taboos; the insect and animal world shows deepest-dyed immorality, +revolting cruelty, and sex perversity. Rabbits and earthworms +through no fault of their own suffer from horrible maladies. From +all of which our critic deduces his law of intellectual constancy. +The human brain since prehistoric times has been neither diminished +nor augmented; it has remained like a sponge, which can be dry or +saturated, but still remains itself. It is a constant. In a +favourable environment it is enriched. The greatest moment in the +history of the human family was the discovery of fire by an +anthropoid of genius. Prometheus then should be our god. Without him +we should have remained more or less simian, and probably of +arboreal habits. + + +III + +A synthetic brain is De Gourmont's, a sower of doubts, though not a +No-Sayer to the universe. He delights in challenging accepted +"truths." Of all modern thinkers a master of Vues d'ensembles, he +smiles at the pretensions, usually a mask for poverty of ideas, of +so-called "general ideas." He dissociates such conventional grouping +of ideas as Glory, Justice, Decadence. The shining ribs of +disillusion shine through his psychology; a psychology of nuance and +finesse. Disillusioning reflections, these. Not to be put in any +philosophical pigeonhole, he is as far removed from the eclecticism +of Victor Cousin as from the verbal jugglery and metaphysical +murmurings of Henri Bergson. The world is his dream; but it is a +tangible dream, charged with meaning, order, logic. The truest +reality is thought. Action spoils. (Goethe said: "Thought expands, +action narrows.") Our abstract ideas are metaphysical idols, says +Jules de Gaultier. The image of the concrete is De Gourmont's +touchstone. Théophile Gautier declared that he was a man for whom +the visible world existed. He misjudged his capacity for +apprehending reality. The human brain, excellent instrument in a +priori combinations is inept at perceiving realities. The "Sultan of +the Epithet," as De Goncourt nicknamed "le bon Théo," was not the +"Emperor of Thought," according to Henry James, and for him it was a +romantic fiction spun in the rich web of his fancy. A vaster, greyer +world is adumbrated in the books of De Gourmont. He never allowed +symbolism to deform his representation of sober, every-day life. He +pictured the future domain of art and ideas as a fair and shining +landscape no longer a series of little gardens with high walls. A +hater of formulas, sects, schools, he teaches that the capital crime +of the artist, the writer, the thinker, is conformity. (Yet how +serenely this critic swims in classic currents!) The artist's work +should reflect his personality, a magnified reflection. He must +create his own æsthetic. There are no schools, only individuals. And +of consistency he might have said that it is oftener a mule than a +jewel. + +Sceptical in all matters, though never the fascinating sophist that +is Anatole France, De Gourmont criticised the thirty-six dramatic +situations, reducing the number to four. Man as centre in relation +to himself; in relation to other men; in relation to the other sex; +in relation to God, or Nature. His ecclesiastical _fond_ may be +recognised in Le Chemin de Velours with its sympathetic exposition +of Jesuit doctrine, and the acuity of its judgments on Pascal and +the Jansenists. The latter section is as an illuminating foot-note +to the history of Port-Royal by Sainte-Beuve. The younger critic has +the supple intellect of the supplest-minded Jesuit. His bias toward +the order is unmistakable. There are few books I reread with more +pleasure than this Path of Velvet. Certain passages in it are as +silky and sonorous as the sound of Eugène Ysaye's violin. + +The colour of De Gourmont's mind is stained by his artistic +sensibility. A maker of images, his vocabulary astounding as befits +both a poet and philologist, one avid of beautiful words, has +variety. The temper of his mind is tolerant, a quality that has +informed the finer intellects of France since Montaigne. His +literary equipment is unusual. A style as brilliant, sinuous, and +personal as his thought; flexible or massive, continent or coloured, +he discourses at ease in all the gamuts and modes major, minor, and +mixed. A swift, weighty style, the style of a Latinist; a classic, +not a romantic style. His formal sense is admirable. The tenderness +of Anatole France is absent, except in his verse, which is less +spontaneous than volitional. A pioneer in new æsthetic pastures, De +Gourmont is a poet for poets. He has virtuosity, though the gift of +tears nature--possibly jealous because of her prodigality--has +denied him. But in the curves of his overarching intellect there may +be found wit, gaiety, humour, the Gallic attributes, allied with +poetic fancy, profundity of thought, and a many-sided comprehension +of life, art, and letters. He is in the best tradition of French +criticism only more versatile than either Sainte-Beuve or Taine; as +versatile as Doctor Brandes or Arthur Symons, and that is saying +much. With Anatole France he could have exclaimed: "The longer I +contemplate human life, the more I believe that we must give it, for +witnesses and judges, Irony and Pity...." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +ARTZIBASHEF + + +I + +Once upon a time Maurice Maeterlinck wrote: "Whereas, it is far away +from bloodshed, battle-cry, and sword-thrust that the lives of most +of us flow on, and the tears of men are silent to-day, and +invisible, and almost spiritual...." This is a plea for his own +spiritualised art, in which sensations are attenuated, and emotions +within emotions, the shadow of the primal emotions, are spun into +crepuscular shapes. But literature refused to follow the example of +the Belgian dreamer, and since the advent of the new century there +has been a recrudescence of violence, a melodramatic violence, that +must be disconcerting to Maeterlinck. + +It is particularly the case with Russian poetry, drama, and fiction. +That vast land of promise and disillusionment is become a trying-out +place for the theories and speculations of western Europe; no other +nation responds so sensitively to the vibrations of the Time-Spirit, +no other literature reflects with such clearness the fluctuations of +contemporary thought and sensibility. The Slav is the most +emotional among living peoples. + +Not that mysticism is missing; indeed, it is the key-note of much +Russian literature; but it was the clash of events; the march of +ideas which precipitated young Russia into the expression of revolt, +pessimism, and its usual concomitant, materialism. There were +bloodshed, battle-cries, and sword-thrusts, and tears, tangible, not +invisible, in the uprising of ten years ago. The four great masters, +Gogol, Dostoievsky, Turgenev, and Tolstoy, still ruled the minds of +the intellectuals, but a younger element was the yeast in the new +fermentation. + +Tchekov, with his epical ennui, with his tales of mean, colourless +lives, Gorky and his disinherited barefoot brigade, the dramatic +Andreiev, the mystic Sologub, and Kuprin, Zensky, Kusmin, Ivanov, +Ropshin, Zaitzeff, Chapygin, Serafimovitch (I select a few of the +romancers)--not to mention such poets as Block, Reminsov, and +Ivanov--are the men who are fighting under various banners but +always for complete freedom. + +Little more than a decade has passed since the appearance of a young +man named Michael Artzibashef who, without any preliminary blaring +of trumpets, has taken the centre of the stage and still holds it. +He is as Slavic as Dostoievsky, more pessimistic than Tolstoy, +though not the supreme artist that was Turgenev. Of Gogol's +overwhelming humour he has not a trace; instead, a corroding irony +which eats into the very vitals of faith in all things human. Gorky, +despite his "bitter" nickname, is an incorrigible optimist compared +with Artzibashef. One sports with Nietzsche, the other not only +swears by Max Stirner, but some of his characters are Stirnerism +incarnate. His chosen field in society is the portrayal of the +middle-class and proletarian. + +To André Villard, his friend and one of his translators, the new +Russian novelist told something of his life, a life colourless, +dreary, bare of dramatic events. Born in a small town in southern +Russia (1878), Michael Artzibashef is of Tatar, French, Georgian, +and Polish blood. His great-grandfather on the maternal side was the +Polish patriot Kosciusko. His father, a retired officer, was a small +landowner. In the lad there developed the seeds of tuberculosis. His +youth was a wretched one. At school he was unhappy because of its +horrors--he has written of them in his first story, Pasha +Tumanow--and he drifted from one thing to another till he wrote for +a literary weekly in the provinces founded by a certain Miroliuboff, +to whom he ascribes his first lift in life. Fellow contributors at +the time were Maxim Gorky, Leonid Andreiev, Kuprin, and other young +men who, like Artzibashef, have since "arrived." + +His first successful tale was Ivan Lande. It brought him +recognition. This was in 1904. But the year before he had finished +Sanine, his masterpiece, though it did not see publication till +1908. This was three years after the revolution of 1905, so that +those critics were astray who spoke of the book as a naturally +pessimistic reaction from the fruitless uprising. Pessimism was born +in the bones of the author and he needed no external stimulus to +provoke such a realistic study as Sanine. Whether he is happier, +healthier, whether he has married and raised a family, we know not. +Personal as his stories are said to be, their art renders them +objective. + +The world over Sanine has been translated. It is a significant book, +and incorporates the aspirations of many young men and women in the +Russian Empire. It was not printed at first because of the +censorship, and in Germany it had to battle for its life. + +It is not only written from the standpoint of a professed +immoralist, but the Russian censor declared it pernicious because of +its "defamation of youth," its suicidal doctrine, its depressing +atmosphere. The sex element, too, has aroused indignant protests +from the clergy, from the press, from society itself. + +In reply to his critics Artzibashef has denied libelling the younger +generation. "Sanine," he says, "is the apology for individualism: +the hero of the novel is a type. In its pure form this type is still +new and rare, but its spirit is in every frank, bold, and strong +representative of the new Russia." And then he adds his own protest +against the imitators of Sanine, who "flooded the literary world +with pornographic writings." Now, whatever else it may be, Sanine is +not pornographic, though I shall not pretend to say that its +influence has been harmless. We should not forget Werther and the +trail of sentimental suicides that followed its publication. But +Sanine is fashioned of sterner stuff than Goethe's romance, and if +it be "dangerous," then all the better. + +Test all things, and remember that living itself is a dangerous +affair. Never has the world needed precepts of daring, courage, +individualism more than in this age of cowardly self-seeking, and +the sleek promises of altruism and its soulless well-being. Sanine +is a call to arms for individualists. And recall the Russian saying: +Self-conceit is the salt of life. + + +II + +That Artzibashef denies the influence of Nietzsche while admitting +his indebtedness to Nietzsche's forerunner, Max Stirner, need not +particularly concern us. There are evidences scattered throughout +the pages of Sanine that prove a close study of Nietzsche and his +idealistic superman. Artist as is Artzibashef, he has densely spun +into the fabric of his work the ideas that control his characters, +and whether these ideas are called moral or immoral does not +matter. The chief thing is whether they are propulsive forces in the +destiny of his puppets. + +That he paints directly from life is evident: he tells us that in +him is the débris of a painter compelled by poverty to relinquish +his ambitions because he had not money enough to buy paper, pencil, +colour. Such a realistic brush has seldom been wielded as the brush +of Artzibashef. I may make one exception, that of J.-K. Huysmans. +The Frenchman is the greater artist, the greater master of his +material, and, as Havelock Ellis puts it, the master of "the +intensest vision of the modern world"; but Huysmans lacks the +all-embracing sympathy, the tremulous pity, the love of suffering +mankind that distinguishes the young Russian novelist, a love that +is blended with an appalling distrust, nay, hatred of life. Both men +prefer the sordid, disagreeable, even the vilest aspects of life. + +The general ideas of Artzibashef are few and profound. The leading +motive of his symphony is as old as Ecclesiastes: "The thing that +hath been, it is that which shall be." It is not original, this +theme, and it is as eternal as mediocrity; but it has been +orchestrated anew by Artzibashef, who, like his fellow countrymen, +Tschaikovsky and Moussorgsky, contrives to reveal to us, if no +hidden angles of the truth, at least its illusion in terms of +terror, anguish, and deadly nausea produced by mere existence. With +such poisoned roots Artzibashef's tree of life must soon be blasted. +His intellectual indifferentism to all that constitutes the solace +and bravery of our daily experience is almost pathological. The aura +of sadism hovers about some of his men. After reading Artzibashef +you wonder that the question, "Is life worth living?" will ever be +answered in the affirmative among these humans, who, as old Homer +says, hasten hellward from their birth. + +The corollary to this leading motive is the absolute futility of +action. A paralysis of the will overtakes his characters, the +penalty of their torturing introspection. It was Turgenev, in an +essay on Hamlet, who declared that the Russian character is composed +of Hamlet-like traits. Man is the only animal that cannot live in +the present; a Norwegian philosopher, Sören Kierkegaard, has said +that he lives forward, thinks backward; he aspires to the future. +An idealist, even when close to the gorilla, is doomed to +disillusionment. He discounts to-morrow. + +Russian youth has not always the courage of its chimera, though it +fraternises with the phantasmagoria of its soul. Its Golden Street +soon becomes choked with fog. The political and social conditions of +the country must stifle individualism, else why should Artzibashef +write with such savage intensity? His pen is the pendulum that has +swung away from the sentimental brotherhood of man as exemplified +in Dostoievsky, and from the religious mania of Tolstoy to the +opposite extreme, individual anarchy. Where there is repression +there is rebellion. Max Stirner represents the individualism which +found its vent in the Prussia of 1848; Nietzsche the reaction from +the Prussia of 1870; Artzibashef forestalled the result of the 1905 +insurrection in Russia. + +His prophetic soul needed no proof; he knew that his people, the +students and intellectuals, would be crushed. The desire of the clod +for the cloud was extinguished. Happiness is an eternal hoax. Only +children believe in life. The last call of the devil's dinner-bell +has sounded. In the scenery of the sky there is only mirage. The +moonlit air is a ruse of that wily old serpent, nature, to arouse +romance in the breast of youth and urge a repetition of the life +processes. We graze Schopenhauer, overhear Leopardi, but the +Preacher has the mightiest voice. Naturally, the novelist says none +of these things outright. The phrases are mine, but he points the +moral in a way that is all his own. + +What, then, is the remedy for the ills of this life? Is its misery +irremediable? Why must mankind go on living if the burden is so +great? Even with wealth comes ennui or disease, and no matter how +brilliant we may live, we must all die alone. Pascal said this +better. In several of his death-bed scenes the dying men of +Artzibashef curse their parents, mock at religion, and--here is a +novel nuance--abuse their intellectual leaders. Semenow the student, +who appears in several of the stories, abuses Marx and Nietzsche. Of +what use are these thinkers to a man about to depart from the world? +It is the revolt of stark humanity from the illusions of brotherly +love, from the chiefest illusion--self. + +Artzibashef offers no magic draft of oblivion to his sufferers. With +a vivid style that recalls the Tolstoy of The Death of Ivan Illitch +he shows us old and young wrestling with the destroyer, their souls +emptied of all earthly hopes save one. Shall I live? Not God's will +be done, not the roseate dream of a future life, only--why must I +die? though the poor devil is submerged in the very swamp of life. +But life, life, even a horrible hell for eternity, rather than +annihilation! In the portrayal of these damned creatures Artzibashef +is elemental. He recalls both Dante and Dostoievsky. + +He has told us that he owes much to Tolstoy (also to Goethe, Hugo, +Dostoievsky, and much to Tchekov), but his characters are usually +failures when following the tenets of Tolstoy, the great moralist +and expounder of "non-resistance." He simply explodes the torpedo of +truth under the ark of socialism. This may be noted in Ivan +Lande--now in the English volume entitled The Millionaire--where we +see step by step the decadence of a beautiful soul obsessed by the +love of his fellows. + +It is in the key of Tolstoy, but the moral is startling. Not thus +can you save your soul. Max Stirner is to the fore. Don't turn your +other cheek if one has been smitten, but smite the smiter, and +heartily. However, naught avails, you must die, and die like a dog, +a star, or a flower. Better universal suicide. Success comes only to +the unfortunate. And so we swing back to Eduard von Hartmann, who, +in his philosophy of the unconscious, counsels the same thing. (A +ferocious advocate of pessimism and a disciple of Arthur +Schopenhauer, by name Mainlander, preached world destruction through +race suicide.) + +But all these pessimists seem well fed and happy when compared to +the nihilists of Artzibashef. He portrays every stage of +disillusionment with a glacial calmness. Not even annihilation is +worth the trouble of a despairing gesture. Cui bono? Revolutionist +or royalist--your career is, if you but dare break the conspiracy of +silence--a burden or a sorrow. Happiness is only a word. Love a +brief sensation. Death a certainty. For such nihilism we must go to +the jungles of Asia, where in a lifelong silence, some fanatic +fatidically stares at his navel, the circular symbol of eternity. + + +III + +But if there is no philosophical balm in Gilead, there is the world +of the five senses, and a glorious world it may prove if you have +only the health, courage, and contempt for the Chinese wall with +which man has surrounded his instincts. There are no laws, except to +be broken, no conventions that cannot be shattered. There is the +blue sky, brother, and the air on the heath, brother! Drop the +impedimenta and lead a free, roving life. How the world would wag +without work no one tells us. Not didactic, the novelist disdains to +draw a moral. + +There is much Stirner, some Nietzsche in Sanine, who is a handsome +young chap, a giant, and a "blond barbarian." It is the story of the +return of the native to his home in a small town. He finds his +mother as he left her, older, but as narrow as ever, and his sister +Lydia, one of the most charming girls in Russian fiction. Sanine is +surprised to note her development. He admires her--too much so for +our Western taste. However, there is something monstrous in the +moral and mental make-up of this hero, who is no hero. He may be a +type, but I don't believe in types; there are only humans. His motto +might be: What's the difference? He is passive, not with the +fatalism of Oblomov, Gontcharov's hero; not with the apathy of +Charles Bovary, or the timid passivity of Frederic Moreau; he +displays an indifference to the trivial things of life that makes +him seem an idler on the scene. + +When the time arrives for action he is no skulker. His sister +has been ruined by a frivolous officer in garrison, and she +attempts suicide. Her brother rescues her, not heroically, but +philosophically, and shows her the folly of believing in words. +Ruined! Very well, marry and forget! However, he drives the officer +to suicide by publicly disgracing him. He refuses a duel, punches +his head, and the silly soldier with his silly code of honour blows +out his brains. A passive rôle is Sanine's in the composition of +this elaborate canvas, the surface simplicity of which deceives us +as to its polyphonic complexity. He remains in the background while +about him play the little destinies of little souls. Yet he is +always the fulcrum for a climax. I have not yet made up my mind +whether Sanine is a great man or a thorough scoundrel. Perhaps both. + +A temperamental and imaginative writer is Artzibashef. I first read +him (1911) in French, the translation of Jacques Povolozky, and his +style recalled, at times, that of Turgenev, possibly because of the +language. In the German translation he is not so appealing; again +perhaps of the difference in the tongues. As I can't read Russian, I +am forced to fall back on translations, and they seldom give an idea +of personal rhythm, unless it be a Turgenev translating into +Russian the Three Tales of his friend Flaubert. + +Nevertheless, through the veil of a foreign speech the genius of +Artzibashef shines like a crimson sun in a mist. Of course, we miss +the caressing cadence and rich sonorousness of the organ-toned +Russian language: The English versions are excellent, though, +naturally enough, occasionally chastened and abbreviated. I must +protest here against the omission of a chapter in Breaking Point +which is a key to the ending of the book. I mean the chapter in +which is related the reason why the wealthy drunkard goes to the +monastery, there to end his days. Years ago Mr. Howells said that we +could never write of America as Dostoievsky did of Russia, and it +was true enough at the time; nor, would we ever tolerate the +nudities of certain Gallic novelists. Well, we have, and I am fain +to believe that the tragic issues of American life should be given +fuller expression, and with the same sincerity as Artzibashef's, +whose strength is his sincerity, whose sincerity is a form of his +genius. + +The very air of America makes for optimism; our land of milk and +honey may never produce such prophets of pessimism as Artzibashef, +unless conditions change. But the lesson for our novelists is the +courageous manner--and artistic, too--with which the Russian pursues +the naked soul of mankind and dissects it. He notes, being a +psychologist as well as a painter, the exquisite recoil of the +cerebral cells upon themselves which we call consciousness. +Profoundly human in his sympathies, without being, in the least +sentimental, he paints full-length portraits of men and women with a +flowing brush and a fine sense of character values. But he will +never bend the bow of Balzac. + +Vladimir Sanine is not his only successful portrait. In the book +there are several persons: the disgraced student Yourii, who is +self-complacent to the point of morbidity; his lovely sister, and +her betrothed. The officers are excellently delineated and +differentiated, while the girls, Sina Karsavina and her friend the +teacher, are extremely attractive. + +Karsavina is a veracious personality. The poor little homeless +Hebrew who desires light on the mystery of life could not be +bettered by Dostoievsky; for that matter Artzibashef is partially +indebted to Dostoievsky for certain traits of Ivan Lande--who is +evidently patterned from Prince Myshkin in The Idiot. Wherever +Sanine passes, trouble follows. He is looked on as possessing the +evil eye, yet he does little but lounge about, drink hard, and make +love to pretty girls. But as he goes he snuffs out ideals like +candles. + +As Artzibashef is a born story-teller, it must not be supposed that +the book is unrelieved in its gloom. There are plenty of gay +episodes, sensational, even shocking; a picnic, a shooting-party, +and pastorals done in a way which would have extorted the +admiration of Turgenev. Thomas Hardy has done no better in his +peasant life. There are various gatherings, chiefly convivial, a +meeting of would-be intellectuals for self-improvement--related with +blasting irony--and drinking festivals which are masterly in their +sense of reality; add to these pages of nature descriptions, +landscapes, pictures of the earth in all seasons and guises, +revealing a passionate love of the soil which is truly Russian. You +fairly smell the frosty air of his Winter days. + +Little cause for astonishment that Sanine at its appearance provoked +as much controversy, as much admiration and hatred as did Fathers +and Sons of Turgenev. Vladimir Sanine is not as powerful as Bazarov +the anarchist, but he is a pendant, he is an anarch of the new +order, neither a propagandist by the act, but a philosophical anarch +who lazily mutters: "Let the world wag; I don't care so that it +minds its own business and lets me alone." With few exceptions most +latter-day fiction is thin, papery, artificial, compared with +Artzibashef's rich, red-blooded genius. + +I have devoted so much attention to Sanine that little space is left +for the other books, though they are all significant. Revolutionary +Tales contains a strong companion picture to Sanine, the portrait of +the metal-worker Schevyrjoy, who is a revolutionist in the literal +sense. His hunted life and death arouse a terrific impression. The +end is almost operatic. A captivating little working girl figures in +one episode. It may be remarked in passing that Artzibashef does not +paint for our delectation the dear dead drabs of yesteryear, nor yet +the girl of the street who heroically brings bread to her starving +family (as does Sonia in Crime and Punishment). Few outcasts of this +sort are to be found in his pages, and those few are unflinchingly +etched, as, for example, the ladies in The Millionaire. + +This story, which is affiliated in ideas with Sanine, is Tolstoyian +in the main issue, yet disconcertingly different in its +interpretation. Wealth, too, may become an incitement to +self-slaughter from sheer disgust. The story of Pasha Tumanow is +autobiographical, and registers his hatred of the Russian grammar +schools where suicides among the scholars are anything but +infrequent. Morning Shadows relates the adventures of several young +people who go to Petrograd to seek fame, but with tragic +conclusions. The two girl students end badly, one a suicide, the +other a prisoner of the police as an anarchist caught red-handed. A +stupefying narrative in its horrid realism and sympathetic handling. +The doctor gives us a picture of a pogrom in a tiny Russian province +town. You simply shudder at the details of the wretched Jews shot +down, ripped open, maltreated, and driven into the wilderness. It is +a time for tears; though I cannot quite believe in this doctor, +who, while not a Jew, so sympathises with them that he lets die the +Chief of Police that ordered the massacre. Another story of similar +intensity, called Nina in the English translation, fills us with +wonder that such outrages can go unpunished. But I am only +interested in the art of the novelist, not in political conditions +or their causes. + +Perhaps the most touching story in Revolutionary Tales is The Blood +Stain, confessedly beloved by its author. Again we are confronted by +the uselessness of all attempts to right injustice. Might is right, +ever was, ever will be. Again the victims of lying propagandists and +the cruel law lie "on stretchers, with white eyes staring upward. In +these eyes there was a look, a sad, questioning look of horror and +despair." Always despair, in life or death, is the portion of these +poor. [This was written in 1915, before the New Russia was born. +Since the beginning of the war Artzibashef has served in the field +and hospitals. He has written several plays, one of which, War, has +been translated. It is a terrific arraignment of war. His latest +story, The Woman Standing in the Midst, has not yet appeared here.] + +Without suggesting a rigid schematology, there is a composition plan +in his larger work that may be detected if the reader is not +confused by the elliptical patterns and the massive mounds of minor +details in his novel Breaking Point. The canvas is large and +crowded, the motivation subtly managed. As is the case with his +novels, the drama plays in a provincial town, this time on the +steppes, where the inhabitants would certainly commit suicide if the +place were half as dreary as depicted. Some of them do so, and you +are reminded of that curious, nervous disease, indigenous to +Siberia, named by psychiatrists "myriachit," or the epidemic of +imitation. A man, a sinister rascal, Naumow, preaches the greyness +and folly of living, and this "Naumowism" sets by the ears three or +four impressionable young men who make their exit with a bare bodkin +or its equivalent. Naumow recalls a character in The Possessed, also +the sinister hero of The Synagogue of Satan by the dramatic Polish +writer Stanislaw Przybyszewski. To give us a central point the +"chorus" of the novel is a little student who resembles a goldfinch, +and has a birdlike way of piping about matters philosophical. + +There are oceans of talk throughout the novels, talks about death. +Really, you wonder how the Russians contrive to live at all till you +meet them and discover what normal people they are. (It should not +be forgotten that art must contain as an element of success a slight +deformation of facts.) The student watches the comedy and tragedy of +the town, his brain flaming with noble ideas for the regeneration of +mankind! Alas! Naumow bids him reflect on the uselessness of +suffering from self-privation so that some proletarian family may +eat roast larks in the thirtieth century. Eventually he succumbs to +the contagion of resemblance, takes to drink, and hangs himself to a +nail in the wall, his torn gum shoes, clinging to his feet, faithful +to the last--they, Dickens-like, are shown from the start. + +There is a nihilistic doctor--the most viable character of all about +whose head hovers the aura of apoplexy--a particularly fascinating +actress, an interesting consumptive, two wretched girls betrayed by +a young painter (a Sanine type, _i. e._, Max Stirnerism in action), +while the officers of the garrison and club life are cunningly +pictured. A wealthy manufacturer, with the hallmarks of Mr. Rogozhin +in Dostoievsky's The Idiot, makes an awful noise till he luckily +vanishes in a monastery. Suicide, rapine, disorder, drunkenness, and +boredom permeate nearly every page. Breaking Point is the most +poignant and intolerable book I ever read. It is the prose +complement of Tschaikovsky's so-called Suicide Symphony. Browning is +reversed. Here the devil is in heaven. All's wrong in the world! Yet +it compels reflection and rereading. Why? + +Because, like all of his writings, it is inevitable, and granting +the exaggeration inherent in the nature of the subject, it is +lifelike, though its philosophy is dangerously depressing. The +little city of the steppes is the cemetery of the Seven Sorrows. +However, in it, as in Sanine, there is many an oasis of consolation +where sanity and cheerfulness and normal humans may be enjoyed. But +I am loath to believe that young Russia, Holy Russia, as the +mystagogues call her, has lost her central grip on the things that +most count; above all, on religious faith. Then needs must she pray +as prayed Des Esseintes in Huysmans's novel A Rebours: "Take pity, O +Lord, on the Christian who doubts, on the sceptic who desires to +believe, on the convict of life who embarks alone, in the night, +beneath a sky no longer lit by the consoling beacons of ancient +faith." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +A NOTE ON HENRY JAMES + + +I + +In company with other distinguished men who have passed away during +the progress of the war, the loss of Henry James was passably +chronicled. News from the various battle-fields took precedence over +the death of a mere man of literary genius. This was to be expected. +Nor need the fact be disguised that his secession from American +citizenship may have increased the coolness which prevailed, still +prevails, when the name of Mr. James is mentioned in print. More +English than the English, he only practised what he preached, though +tardily in the matter of his British naturalisation. That he did not +find all the perfections in his native land is a personal matter; +but that he should be neglected in favour of mediocrity is simply +the penalty a great artist pays for his devotion to art. There is no +need of indignation in the matter. Time rights such critical wrongs. +Consider the case of Stendhal. The fiction of Henry James is for the +future. + +James seceded years ago from the English traditions, from Fielding, +Dickens, Thackeray, and George Eliot. The Wings of a Dove, The +Ambassadors, The Golden Bowl are fictions that will influence future +novelists. In our own days we see what a power James has been; a +subtle breath on the waters of creation; Paul Bourget, Edith +Wharton, even Joseph Conrad, and many minor English novelists. His +later work, say, beginning with The Tragic Muse, is the prose +equivalent of the seven arts in a revolutionary ferment. A marked +tendency in the new movements is to throw overboard superfluous +technical baggage. The James novel is one of grand simplifications. + +As the symphony was modified by Liszt into the symphonic poem and +later emerged in the shape of the tone-poem by Richard Strauss, so +the novel of manners evolved from Flaubert's Sentimental Education, +which, despite its "heavenly length," contains in solution all that +the newer men have accomplished. Zola patterned after it in the +prodigious Rougon-Macquart series; Daudet found therein the +impressionism of his Sapho anticipated; Maupassant and Huysmans +delved patiently and practised characteristic variations. Flaubert +is the father of realism as he is part parent of symbolism. His +excessive preoccupation with style and his attaching esoteric +significance to words sound the note of symbolism. Now Henry James +disliked Sentimental Education--like other great critics he had his +blind side--yet he did not fail to benefit by the radical formal +changes introduced by Flaubert, changes as revolutionary as those of +Wagner in the music-drama. I call the later James novel a +simplification. All the conventional chapter endings are dispensed +with; many are suspended cadences. The accustomed and thrice-barren +modulations from event to event are swept away; unprepared +dissonances are of continual occurrence. There is no descriptive +padding--that bane of second-class writers; nor are we informed at +every speech of the name of a character. This elliptical method +James absorbed from Flaubert, while his sometime oblique psychology +is partly derived from Stendhal; indeed, without Stendhal both +Meredith and James would have been sadly shorn of their +psychological splendour. Nor is the shadow of Turgenev missing, not +to mention that of Jane Austen. + +Possibly the famous "third manner" of James was the result of his +resorting to dictation; the pen inhibits where speech does not. +These things make difficult reading for a public accustomed to the +hypnotic passes of successful fiction-mongers. In James nothing is +forestalled, nothing is obvious, one is for ever turning the curve +of the unexpected. The actual story may be discouraging in its +bareness, yet the situations are seldom fantastic. (The Turn of the +Screw is an exception.) You rub your eyes as you finish; for with +all your credulity, painful in its intensity, you have assisted at a +pictorial evocation; both picture and evocation reveal magic in +their misty attenuations. And there is ever the triumph of poetic +feeling over banal sentiment. The portraiture in Milly Theale +and Maggie Verver is clairvoyant. Milly's life is a miracle, her +ending, art superlative. The Wings of a Dove is filled with the +faintly audible tread of destiny behind the arras of life. The +reverberations are almost microphonic with here and there a +crescendo or a climax. The spiritual string music of Henry James is +more thrilling to the educated ear than the sound of the big drum +and the blaring of trumpets. The implacable curiosity of the +novelist concerning causes that do not seem final has been amply +dealt with by Mr. Brownell. The question whether his story is worth +the telling is a critical impertinence too often uttered; what most +concerns us now in the James case is his manner, not his matter. All +the rest is life. + +As far as his middle period his manner is limpidity itself; the +later style is a jungle of inversions, suspensions, elisions, +repetitions, echoes, transpositions, transformations, neologisms, in +which the heads of young adjectives despairingly gaze from afar at +the verbs which come thundering at the close of sentences leagues +long. It is bewildering, but more bewildering is this peculiarly +individual style when draughted into smooth journalistic prose. +Nothing remains. Henry James has not spoken. His dissonances cannot +be resolved except in the terms of his own matchless art. His +meanings evaporate when phrased in our vernacular. This may prove a +lot of negating things, or it may not. Why prose should lag behind +its sister arts I can't say; possibly because every pothouse +politician is supposed to speak it. For that matter any one who has +dipped into the well of English undefiled, seventeenth-century +literature, must realise that nowadays we write a parlous prose. +However, it is not a stately prose that James essayed. The son of a +metaphysician and moralist--the writings of Henry James, the elder, +are far from negligible--the brother of the greatest American +psychologist, the late William James of brilliant memory, it need +hardly be added that character problems are of more interest to this +novelist than the external qualities of rhetorical sonority, or the +fascination of glowing surfaces. You can no more read aloud a page +of James than you can read aloud De Goncourt. For Flaubert, who +modelled his magnificent prose harmonies on the Old Testament, +Shakespeare, Bossuet, and Châteaubriand, the final test of noble +prose is the audible reading thereof. Flaubert called it "spouting." +The James prose appeals rather to the inner ear. Nuance and +overtones not dazzling tropical hues or rhythmical variety. Henry +James is a law unto himself. His novels may be a precursor of the +books our grandchildren will enjoy when the hurly-burly of noisy +adventure, cheap historical vapidities, and still cheaper +drawing-room struttings shall have vanished. (But, like the poor, +the stupid reader we shall always have with us.) In the fiction of +the future a more complete synthesis will be attained. An +illuminating essay by Arthur Symons places George Meredith among the +decadents, the murderers of their mother tongue, the men who shatter +syntax to serve their artistic ends. Henry James belonged to this +group for a longer time than the majority of his critics suspected. +In his ruthless disregard of the niceties and conventionalities of +sentence-structure I see the outcome of his dictation. Yet no matter +how crabbed and involved is his page, a character always emerges +from the smoke of his muttered enchantments. The chief fault is not +his obscurity (his prose, like the prose in Browning's Sordello, is +packed with too many meanings), but that his character always speaks +in purest Jacobean. So do the people in Balzac's crowded, electric +world. So the men and women of Dickens and Meredith. It is the +fault--or virtue--of all subjective genius; however, not a fault or +virtue of Flaubert or Turgenev or Tolstoy. All in all, Henry James +is a distinctly American novelist, a psychologist of extraordinary +power and divination. He has pinned to paper the soul of the +cosmopolitan. The obsession of the moral problem that we feel in +Hawthorne is not missing. Be his manner never so cryptic, his +deep-veined humanity may be felt by those who read him aright. His +Americans abroad suffer a deep-sea change; a complete gamut of +achieved sensibility divides Daisy Miller from Maggie Verver. Henry +James is a faithful Secretary to Society--the phrase is Balzac's--to +the American afloat from his native mooring as well as at home. And +his exquisite notations are the glory of English fiction. + + +II + +Before me lies an autograph letter from Henry James to his friend +Doctor Rice. It is dated December 26, 1904, and the address 21 East +Eleventh Street. It thus concludes: "I am not one of 'The +Bostonians,' but was born in this city April 15, 1843. Believe me, +truly yours, Henry James." Although he died a naturalised +Englishman, there seems to be some confusion as to his birthplace in +the minds of his English critics. In Ford Madox Hueffer's critical +study, Henry James, we read on page 95 that the life of James "began +in New England in 1843." He was born in America in 1843, then a land +where culture was rare! That delightful condescension in foreigners +is still extant. Now this isn't such a serious matter, for Henry +James was a citizen of the world; but the imputation of a New +England birthplace does matter, because it allows the English +critic--and how many others?--to perform variations on the theme of +Puritanism, the Puritanism of his art. James as a temperamental +Puritan--one is forced to capitalise the unhappy word! Apart from +the fact that there is less Puritanism in New England than in the +Middle West, James is not a Puritan. He does not possess the famous +New England conscience. He would have been the first to repudiate +the notion. For him the Puritan temperament has a "faintly acrid +perfume." To ascribe to Puritanism the seven deadly virtues and +refinement, sensibility, intellectuality, is a common enough +mistake. James never made that mistake. He knew that all the good +things of life are not in the exclusive possession of the Puritans. +He must not be identified with the case he studies. Strictly +speaking, while he was on the side of the angels, like all great +artists, he is not a moralist; indeed, he is our first great +"immoralist," a term that has supplanted the old-fashioned +amoralist. And he wrote the most unmoral short story in the English +language, one that also sets the spine trilling because of its +supernatural element as never did Poe, or De Maupassant. + +Another venerable witticism, which has achieved the pathos of +distance, was made a quarter of a century ago by George Moore. Mr. +Moore said: "Henry James went to France and read Turgenev. W. D. +Howells stayed at home and read Henry James." To lend poignancy to +this mild epigram Mr. Hueffer misquotes it, substituting the name of +De Maupassant for Turgenev's. A rather uncanny combination--Henry +and Guy. A still more aged "wheeze" bobs up in the pages of Mr. +Hueffer. Need we say that it recites the ancient saw about William +James, the fictionist, and his brother Henry, the psychologist. None +of these things is in the least true. With the prudishness and +peanut piety of puritanism Henry James has nothing in common. He did +not alone read Turgenev, he met him and wrote of him with more +sympathy and understanding than he did of Flaubert or Baudelaire; +and Mr. Howells never wrote a page that resembled either the +Russian's or the American's fiction. Furthermore, James is a +masterly psychologist and a tale-teller. To the credit of his latest +English critics this is acknowledged, and generously. + +Mr. Hueffer is an accomplished craftsman in many literary fields, he +writes with authority, though too often in a superlative key. But +how James would have winced when he read in Mr. Hueffer's book that +he is or was "the greatest of living men." This surely is a +planet-struck phrase. The Hueffer study is stuffed with startling +things. He bangs Balzac over the head. He tells the truth about +Flaubert, whose Sentimental Education is an entire Human Comedy. He +thinks ill of "big business," that "business and whatever takes +place 'down-town' or in the city is simply not worth the attention +of any intelligent being. It is a manner of dirty little affairs +incompetently handled by men of the lowest class of intelligence." +But all this in a volume about the most serene and luminous +intelligence of our times. Mr. Hueffer also "goes for" James as +critic. He once dared to couple the name of the "odious" George +Eliot with Flaubert's. It does rather take the breath away, but, +after all, didn't the tolerant and catholic critic who was Henry +James say that no one is constrained to like any particular kind of +writing? As to the "cats and monkeys, monkeys and cats--all human +life is there," of The Madonna of the Future, we need not take the +words as a final message; nor are the other phrases quoted: "The +soul is immortal certainly--if you've got one, but most people +haven't! Pleasure would be right if it were pleasure right through, +but it never is." Mr. Hueffer says that James "found English people +who were just people singularly nasty," and who can say him nay +after reading The Sacred Fount? But he ends on the right note: "And +for a man to have attained to international rank with phrases +intimately national is the supreme achievement of writers--a glory +that is reserved only for the Dantes, the Goethes, and the +Shakespeares, who none the less remain supremely national." Neither +Mr. Hueffer nor Miss West is in doubt as to the essential +Americanism of Henry James. He is almost as American as Howells, who +is our Anthony Trollope, plus style and vision. And Trollope, by the +way, will loom larger in the future despite his impersonality and +microscopic manner. + +The James art is Cerebral Comedy, par excellence. To alter his own +words, he plays his intellectual instrument to perfection. He is a +portraitist doubled by a psychologist. His soul is not a solitary +pool in a midnight forest, but an unruffled lake, sun-smitten or +cloud-shadowed; yet in whose depths there is a moving mass of +exquisite living things. His pages reverberate with the under hum of +humanity. We may not exactly say of him as Hazlitt said of Walter +Scott: "His works, taken altogether, are almost like a new edition +of human nature." But we can follow with the coda of that same +dictum: "This is indeed to be an author." Many more than the dozen +superior persons mentioned by Huysmans enjoy the James novels. His +swans are not always immaculate, but they are not "swans of the +cesspool," to quote Landor. There is never an odour of leaking gas +in his premises, as he once remarked of the D'Annunzio fiction. He +has the cosmopolitan soul. There is no slouch in his spiritual gait. +Like Renan, he abhorred the "horrible mania of certitude" to be +found in the writing of his realistic contemporaries. He does not +always dot the "i's" of his irony, a subrisive irony. But the +spiritual antennæ which he puts forth so tentatively always touch +real things, not conjectural. And what tactile sense he boasts. He +peeps into the glowing core of emotion, but seldom describes it. +His ears are for overtones, not the brassy harmonies of the obvious, +of truths, flat and flexible. Yet what novelist has kept his ear so +close to quotidian happenings, and with what dignity and charm in +his crumbling cadences? Not even that virtuoso of the ugly, +Huysmans, than whom no writer of the past century ever "rendered" +surfaces into such impeccable truth, with such implacable ferocity, +is as clairvoyant as James. + +Fustian and thunder form no part of the James stories, which are +like a vast whispering gallery, the dim reverberations of which fill +the listening ear. He is an "auditive" as well as a "visualist," to +employ the precious classification of the psychiatrists. His astute +senses tell him of a world which we are only beginning to +comprehend. He is never obscure, never recondite; but, like +Browning, he sends a veritable multiplex of ideas along a single +wire. Mr. Howells has rightly said of him that it is not well to +pursue the meanings of an author to the very heart of darkness. +However, readers as a rule like their fiction served on a shiny +plate; above all, they don't like a story to begin in one key and +end in another. If it's to be pork and molasses or "hog and hominy" +(George Meredith's words), then let it be these delectable dishes +through every course. But James is ever in modulation. He tosses his +theme ballwise in the air, and while its spirals spin and bathe in +the blue he weaves a web of gold and lace, and it is marvellously +spun. He is more atmospheric than linear. His theme is shown from a +variety of angles, but the result is synthetic. Elizabeth Luther +Cary has pointed out that he is not a remorseless analyst. He does +not take the mechanism of his marionette apart, but lets us examine +it in completeness. As a psychologist he stands midway between +Stendhal and Turgenev. He interprets feeling, rather than fact. + +Like our sister planet, the moon, he has his rhythmic moments of +libration; he then reveals his other side, a profoundly human, +emotional one. He is not all frosty intellect. But he holds in +horror the facile expression of the sentiments. It's only too easy +to write for those avid of sentimentalism, or to express what Thomas +Huxley calls "sensualistic caterwauling." In the large, generous +curve of his temperament there is room for all life, but not for a +lean or lush statement of life. You may read him in a state of +mellow exasperation, but you cannot deny his ultimate sincerity. +There is no lack of substance in his densely woven patterns, for +patterns there are, though the figure be difficult to piece out. His +route of emerald is elliptical; follow him who dare! A "wingy +mystery." He is all vision. He does not always avoid naked issues. +His thousand and one characters are significantly vital. His is not +"the shadow land of American fiction"; simply his supreme tact of +omission has dispensed with the entire banal apparatus of fiction +as commonly practised. To use a musical example: his prose is like +the complicated score of some latter-day composer, and his art, like +music, is a solvent. He discards lumbering descriptions, antique +melodramatics, set developments and dénouements, mastodonic +structures. The sharp savour of character is omnipresent. His very +pauses are eloquent. He evokes. His harmonic tissue melts into +remoter harmonic perspectives. He composes in every tonality. +Continuity of impression is unfailing. When reading him +sympathetically one recalls the saying of Maurice Barrès: "For an +accomplished spirit there is but one dialogue, that between our two +egos--the momentary ego that we are and the ideal one toward which +we strive." For Jacobeans this interior dialogue, with its +"secondary intention" marches like muted music through the pages of +the latter period. Henry James will always be a touchstone for the +tasteless. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +GEORGE SAND + + Thou large-brained woman and large-hearted man, self-called + George Sand! + --MRS. BROWNING. + + +I + +Who reads George Sand nowadays? was asked at the time of her +centenary (she was born, 1804; died, 1876). Paris responded in +gallant phrases. She was declared one of the glories of French +literature. Nevertheless, we are more interested in the woman, in +her psychology, than in her interminable novels. The reason is +simple; her books were built for her day, not to endure. She never +created a vital character. Her men and women are bundles of +attributes, neither flesh nor blood nor good red melodrama. She was +a wonderful journalist, one is tempted to say the first of her sex, +and the first feminist. Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin was a shriller +propagandist, yet she accomplished no more for the cause than her +French neighbour, not alone because she didn't smoke big cigars or +wear trousers, but on general principles. In a word, Mrs. Godwin +didn't exactly practise what she preached and George Sand did. For +her there was no talk of getting the vote; her feminism was a +romantic revolt, not economic or political rebellion. George Sand +should be enshrined as the patron saint of female suffragism. By no +means a deep thinker, for she reflected as in a mirror the ideas of +the intellectual men she met, she had an enormous vogue. Her +reputation was worldwide. + +We know more about her now, thanks to the three volumes recently +published by Vladimir Karénine (the pen-name of a Russian lady, Mme. +Komaroff, the daughter of Dmitri Stassow). This writer has brought +her imposing work (thus far over 1,700 pages) down to 1848, and, as +much happened in the life of her heroine after that, we may expect +at least two more fat volumes. Her curiosity has been insatiable. +She has read all the historical and critical literature dealing with +Sand. She has at first-hand from friends and relatives facts +hitherto unpublished, and she is armed with a library of documents. +More, she has read and digested the hundred-odd stories of the +fecund writer, and actually analyses their plots, writes at length +of the characters, and incidentally throws light on her own +intellectual processes. + +Mme. Karénine is not a broad critic. She is a painstaking +historian. While some tales of Sand are worth reading--The Devil's +Pool, Letters of a Voyager, even Consuelo, above all, her +autobiography--the rest is a burden to the spirit. Her facility +astounds, and also discourages. She confesses that with her writing +was like the turning on of a water-tap, the stream always flowed, a +literary hydrant. Awaken her in the night and she could resume her +task. She was of the centrifugal temperament, hence the resultant +shallowness of her work. She had charm. She had style, serene, +flowing, also tepid and fatuous, the style detested by Charles +Baudelaire, and admired by Turgenev and Renan and Lamennais. +Baudelaire remarked of this "best seller" that she wrote her chefs +d'[oe]uvre as if they were letters, and posted them. The "style +coulant," praised by bourgeois critics, he abhorred, as it lacked +accent, relief, individuality. "She is the Prudhomme of immorality," +he said--not a bad definition--and "she is stupid, heavy, and a +chatterer." She loves the proletarian, and her sentiment is adapted +to the intelligent wife of the concierge and the sentimental harlot. +Which shows that even such a versatile critic as Baudelaire had his +prejudices. The sweetness and nobility of her nature were recognised +by all her associates. + +Nietzsche is no less impolite. She derives from Rousseau--he might +have added Byron, also--she is false, artificial, inflated, +exaggerated; ... her style is of a variegated wall-paper pattern. +She betrays her vulgarity in her ambition to expose her generous +feelings. She is, like all the Romantics, a cold, insufferable +artist. She wound herself up like a timepiece and--wrote. Nietzsche, +like his great master, Schopenhauer, was never a worshipper of the +irresponsible sex. And her immorality? Père Didon said that her +books are more immoral than Zola's, because more insidious, tinted +as they are with false ideas and sentiments. George Sand immoral? +What bathos! How futile her fist-shakings at conventional morality. +As well say Marie Corelli or Ouida is immoral. This literature of +gush and gabble is as dangerous to the morals of our time as the +Ibsen plays or Æsop's fables. + +Unreality, cheap socialism, and sentiment of the downtrodden shop +girl are the stigmata of the Sand school. She has written many +memorable pages, many beautiful pages; such masters as Sainte-Beuve, +Balzac, Delacroix, Flaubert, Ballanche, Heine, Dostoievsky, and +Turgenev have told us so. Her idyllic stories are of an indubitable +charm. But her immorality, like her style, is old-fashioned--there +is a dating mark even in immorality, for if, as Ibsen maintained, +all truths stale and die after two decades, how much less life may +be allowed a lie? Your eternal verities, then, may be as evanescent +as last year's mist. + +Mme. Karénine does not belong to the School of Moral Rehabilitation, +so prevalent here and in England. She does not spare her subject; +indeed, makes out a worse case than we had supposed. She is not a +prude and, if critically she is given to discovering a masterpiece +under every bush planted by that indefatigable gardener, George +Sand, she is quite aware of George's flagrant behaviour. The list of +lovers is a longer one than given by earlier biographers. Dumas +fils, a close observer of the novelist, asserts that she had no +temperament at all, thus corroborating the earlier testimony of +Heine. This further complicates the problem. She was not, then, a +perverse pursuer of young genius, going about seeking whom she could +devour, and indulging in what Mother Church calls morose +delectation! A "cold devil"--à la Félicien Rops. I doubt this. +Maternal she was. I once described her as a maternal nymphomaniac, a +metaphysical Messalina. She presided at numerous artistic +accouchements; she was, pre-eminently, the critical midwife to many +poets, pianists, painters, composers, and thinkers. If she made some +of them unhappy, she brought into the life of others much happiness. +Matthew Arnold believed in her, so did the Brownings, Elizabeth and +Robert; George Eliot admired her; she, too, was rowing in the same +kind of a moral galley, but with heavier oars and through the +Sargossian seas of British prudery. + +In contact with the finest minds of her times, George Sand was +neither a moral monster nor yet the arrant Bohemian that legend has +fashioned of her. She was a fond mother, and a delightful +grandmother. She had the featherbed temperament, and soothed +masculine nerves exacerbated by the cruel exigencies of art. Jules +Laforgue would have said of her: Stability, thy name is Woman! She +died in the odour of domestic sanctity, mourned by her friends, and +the idol of the literary world. + +How account for her uprightness of character, her abundant +virtues--save one? She was as true as the compass to her friends, to +her family. Either she has been slandered or else she is an anomaly +in the moral world. In either case we need a new transvaluation of +morals. She was not made of the stuff of courtesans, she refused to +go to the devil. Like Aspasia, she was an immoralist. As an artist +she could have had social position. But she didn't crave it; she +didn't crave notoriety; paradoxical as it may sound, notoriety was +thrust upon her. At Nohant, her château in Berri, there was usually +a conglomeration of queer people: Socialists, reformers, crazy +dreamers, artists, and poets, occasionally working men in their +blouses. Of that mystic crew Matthew Arnold could have repeated his +famous "What a set!" which he despairingly uttered about the +Shelley-Godwin gatherings. + + +II + +George Sand was a normal woman. She preferred the society of men; +with women she was always on her guard, a cat sleeping with one eye +open. Her friendship with Mme. D'Agoult, the elective affinity of +Liszt, soon ended. She never summered in soft Sapphic seas, nor +hankered after poetic Leucadian promontories. She never did +approvingly quote the verse of Baudelaire beginning: "Lo! the +Lesbians their sterile sex advancing." She was a woman from top to +toe. Nor did she indulge often in casual gallant adventures. Her +affairs were romantic. With the author of Carmen her spiritual +thermometer registered at its lowest. She endured him just eight +days, and Mérimée is responsible for the tasteless anecdote which he +tells as his reason for leaving her. He saw her of a cold morning +making the fire, her head in curl-papers, and attired in an old +dressing-gown. No passion could survive that shock, and selfish +Prosper at once grew frigid. + +A French expression may suit George: She always had her heart "en +compote." And she was incorrigibly naïve--they called it "Idealism" +in those days--witness her affair with Doctor Pagello in Venice. The +first handsome Italian she met she fell in love with and allowed +poor sick Alfred de Musset to return to Paris alone, although she +had promised his mother to guard him carefully. He was suffering +from an attack of delirium tremens in Venice. He had said of +himself: "I am not tender, I am excessive." He was. His name, unlike +Keats's, is writ in absinthe, not water. Nevertheless, you can +reread him. + +But the separation didn't kill him. He was twenty-two, George six +years older. Their affair struggled along about six months. Alfred +consoled himself with Rachel and many others. He was more poet than +artist, more artist than man; and a pretty poor specimen of a man. +He wrote the history of his love for George. She followed suit. This +sphinx of the ink-well was a journalist born. She used her lovers +for "copy"; and for that matter Byron and Goethe did the same. +George always discoursed of her thirst for the "infinite." It was +only a species of moral indigestion. Every romance ended in +disillusionment. The one with Chopin lasted the longest, nearly ten +years. She first met the Pole in 1836, not in 1837, as the +Chopinists believe. Liszt introduced them. Later Chopin quarrelled +with Liszt about her. Chopin did not like her at first; blue +stockings were not to the taste of this conventional man of the +world. Yet he succumbed. He died of the liaison itself, rather than +from the separation in 1847. Sand divined the genius of Chopin +before many of his critical contemporaries. She had the courage--and +the wisdom--to write that one of his Tiny Preludes contained more +genuine music than much of Meyerbeer's mighty Trumpetings. And +Meyerbeer ruled the world of music when she said this. + +The immediate cause of this separation I hinted at in my early study +of Chopin. Solange Sand, the daughter of George, was a thoroughly +perverse girl. She not only flirted with Chopin, seeking to lure him +from her mother--truly a Gallic triangle--but she so contrived +matters that her mother was forced to allow the intriguing girl to +marry her lover, Clésinger, the sculptor. The knowledge of this Mme. +Sand kept from Chopin for a while because she feared that he would +side with Solange. He promptly did so, being furious at the +deception. He it was who broke with George, possibly aided thereto +by her nagging. He saw much of Solange, and pecuniarily helped her +young and unhappy household. He announced by letter to George the +news that she was a grandmother; they occasionally corresponded. + +Clésinger did not get on with his mother-in-law. She once boxed his +ears. He drank, gambled, and brutally treated Solange. George Sand +suffered the agony of seeing in her daughter's life a duplicate of +her own. Her husband, François-Casimir Dudevant, a debauched country +squire, drank, was unfaithful, and beat her betimes. He treated his +dogs better. No wonder she ran away to Paris, there to live with +Jules Sandeau. (She had married in 1822, and brought her husband +five hundred thousand francs.) + +But, rain or shine, joy or sorrow, she did her daily stunt at her +desk. She was a journalist and wrote by the sweat of her copious +soul. She was the rare possessor of the Will-to-Sit-Still, as +metaphysicians would say. She thought with her nerves and felt with +her brain. She was, morally speaking, magnificently disorganised. +She was a subtle mixer of praise and poison, and her autobiography +is stuffed with falsehoods. She couldn't help falsifying facts, for +she was an incurable sentimentalist. Heine has cruelly said that +women writers write with one eye on the paper, the other on some +man; all except the Countess Hahn-Hahn, who had one eye. George Sand +wrote with both eyes fixed on a man, or men. Charity should cover a +multitude of her missteps. In her case we don't know all. We know +too much. Still, I believe she was more sinned against than sinning. + + +III + +Since the fatal day when our earliest ancestors left the Garden of +Eden, when Adam digged and Eve span, there have been a million +things that women were told they shouldn't attempt, that is, not +without the penalty of losing their "womanliness," or interfering +with their family duties. But they continued, did these same +refractory females, to overcome obstacles, leap social hurdles, make +mock of antique taboos, and otherwise disport themselves as if they +were free individuals, and not petticoated with absurd prejudices. +They loved. They married. They became mothers. George Sand was in +the vanguard of this small army of protestants against the +prevailing moral code (for woman only). Her unhappy marriage was a +blazing bonfire of revolt. The misunderstood woman at last had her +innings. Sand stood for all that was wicked and hateful in the eyes +of law and order. Yet, compared with the feminine fiction of our +days, Sand's is positively idyllic. She is one parent of the Woman +movement, unpalatable as her morals may prove to churchgoers. She +acted in life what so many of our belligerent ladies urge others to +do--and never attempt on their own account. George was brave. And +George was polyandrous. If she hadn't much temperament, she had the +courage to throw her bonnet over the windmill when she saw the man +she liked, and if she suffered later, she, being an artist, made a +literary asset of these sufferings. She is the true ancestor of the +New Woman. Her books were considered so immoral by her generation +that to be seen reading them was enough to damn a man. Other males, +other tales. + +She dared "to live her own life," as the Ibsenites say, and she was +the original Ibsen girl, proof-before-all-letters. I haven't the +slightest doubt that to-day she would speak to street crowds, urging +the vote for woman. Why shouldn't woman vote? she might be supposed +to argue. There will be less dyspepsia in America when women desert +the kitchen for the halls of legislation. Men, perforce, are better +cooks. So, by all means, let woman vote. Will it not be an acid test +applied to our alleged democratic institutions? George Sand believed +herself to be a social-democrat. She trusted in Pierre Leroux's +mysticism, trusted in the phalanstery of Fourier, in the doctrines +of Saint-Simon, the latter especially because of her intimacy with +Franz Liszt; nevertheless, she might shudder at the emancipation of +ideas in our century, and, as she had a sensitive soul, modern +democracy might prove for her a very delirium of ugliness. She was +always æsthetic. She could portray with a tender pen the stammering +litany of young caresses, but she couldn't face a fact in her +fiction. Her Indianas, Lélias, and the other romantic insurgents +against society are Byronic, Laras in petticoats. All rose-water and +rage, they are as rare in life as black lightning on a blue sky. Her +stories are as sad and as ridiculous as a nightcap. + + +IV + +George Sand was not beautiful. Edouard Grenier declares that she was +short and stout. "Her eyes were wonderful, but a little too close +together." Do you recall Heine's phrase, "Femme avec l'[oe]il +sombre"? Black they were, those eyes, and they reminded Grenier at +once of unpolished marble and velvet. "Her nose was thick and not +overshapely. She spoke with great simplicity and her manner was very +quiet." With these rather negative physical attractions she +conquered men like Napoleon. Even prim President Thiers tried to +kiss her and her indignation was epical. He is said to have giggled +in a silly way when reproved. It seems incredible. (Did you ever see +the Bonnat portrait of this philistine statesman?) Liszt never +wholly yielded to her. Mérimée despised her in his chilly fashion. +Michel de Bourges treated her rudely. Poor Alfred de Musset--who, +when he was short of money, would dine in an obscure tavern, and, +with a toothpick in his mouth, would stand at the entrance of some +fashionable boulevard café--seems to have loved her romantically, +the sort of love she craved. What was her attraction? She had brains +and magnetism, but that she could have loved all the lovers she is +credited with is impossible. + +There is, to begin at the beginning, Jules Sandeau, who was followed +by De Musset; after him the deluge: Doctor Pagello--who was jilted +when he followed her to Paris; Michel de Bourges, Pierre Leroux, +Félicien Mallefille, Chopin, Mérimée, Manceau, and the platonic +friendship with Flaubert. This was her sanest friendship; the +correspondence proves it. She went to the Magny dinners with +Flaubert, Goncourt, Renan, Zola, Turgenev, and Daudet. Her influence +on the grumbling giant of Croisset was tonic. It was she who should +have written Sentimental Education. But where is that sly old +voluptuary, Sainte-Beuve, or the elder Dumas (the Pasha of many +tales), or Liszt, who was her adorer for a brief period, +notwithstanding Mme. Karénine's denial? She denies the Leroux +affair, too. Are these all? Who dare say? + +Dumas fils carried a bundle of Chopin's letters from Warsaw and Sand +buried them at Nohant. This story, doubted by Doctor Niecks, has +been corroborated since by Mme. Karénine. What a loss for +inquisitive critics! George was named Lucile Aurore Dupin, and she +was descended from a choice chain of rowdy and remotely royal +ancestors. In her mature years she became optimistic, proper, +matronly. She was a cheerful milch cow for her two children. It is +delicious comedy to read the warnings to her son Maurice against +actresses. Solange she gave up as hopelessly selfish, wicked for the +sheer sake of wickedness, a sort of inverted and evil art-for-art. + +Nearly all the facts of the quarrel with Solange are to be found in +Samuel Rocheblave's George Sand et Sa Fille. After Solange left +Clésinger she formed a literary partnership with the Marquis +Alfieri, nephew of the great Italian poet. "Soli" opened a salon in +Paris, to which came Gambetta, Jules Ferry, Floquet, Taine, Hervé, +Henry Fouquier, and Weiss, the critic who describes her as having +the "curved Hebraic nose of her mother and hair cold black." She, +too, must write novels. She died at Nohant, her mother's old home, +in 1899. Maurice Sand, her brother, died ten years earlier. + +Jules Claretie tells an amusing story about Sand. In 1870, when she +was old and full of honours, she went one day to visit the Minister +of Instruction. There, being detained in the antechamber, she fell +into a pleasant conversation with a well-groomed, decorated old +gentleman. After ten minutes' chat the unknown consulted his watch, +arose, and bowed to Mme. Sand. "If I could always find such a +charming companion I would visit the Ministry often," he gallantly +said, and went away. The novelist called an attendant. "Who is that +amiable gentleman?" she asked. "Ah, that is M. Jules Sandeau of the +French Academy." And he, her first flame in Paris, inquired the name +of the lady. What a lot of head-shaking and moralising must have +ensued! The story is pretty enough to have been written in the +candied thunder of Sand herself. + +De Lenz, author of several rather neglected volumes about musicians, +did not like Sand because she was rude to him when introduced by +Chopin. He asked her concierge, "What is Madame properly +called--Dudevant?" "Ah, Monsieur, she has many names," was the +reply. But it is her various names, and not her novels, that +interest us, and will intrigue the attention of posterity. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL + + +I + +When the supreme master of the historical novel modestly confessed +that he could do the "big bow-wow strain," but to Jane Austen must +be accorded the palm of exquisite craftsmanship, there was then no +question upon the critical map of the so-called "great American +novel." Sir Walter Scott--to whom such authors of historical novels +as Châteaubriand and his Martyrs, the Salammbô of Flaubert, and that +well-nigh perfect fiction, The History of Henry Esmond, by +Thackeray, yield precedence--might have achieved the impossible: the +writing of a library, epitomising the social history of "These +States"--as Walt Whitman would say. After Scott no name but Balzac's +occurs to the memory; Balzac, who laid all France under his +microscope (and France is all of a piece, not the checker-board of +nationalities we call America). Even the mighty Tolstoy would have +balked the job. And if these giants would have failed, what may be +said of their successors? The idea of a great American novel is an +"absolute," and nature abhors an absolute, despite the belief of +some metaphysicians to the contrary. Yet the notion still obtains +and inquests are held from time to time, and the opinions of +contemporary novelists are taken toll of; as if each man and woman +could give aught else but their own side of the matter, that side +which is rightfully enough personal and provincial. The question is, +after all, an affair for critics, and the great American novel will +be in the plural; thousands perhaps. America is a chord of many +nations, and to find the key-note we must play much and varied +music. + +While a novelist may be cosmopolitan at his own risk, a critic +should be ever so. Consider the names of such widely contrasted +critical temperaments as Sainte-Beuve, Taine, De Gourmont, Matthew +Arnold, Brandes, Swinburne, Arthur Symons, Havelock Ellis, Henry +James, Gosse, and W. C. Brownell; all cosmopolitan as well as +national. The sublime tenuities of Henry James, like the black music +of Michael Artzibashef, are questions largely temperamental. But the +Russian is all Slavic, and no one would maintain that Mr. James +shows a like ingrained nationalism. Nevertheless, he is American, +though dealing only with a certain side of American life, the +cosmopolitan phase. At his peril an American novelist sails eastward +to describe the history of his countrymen abroad. With the critic we +come upon a different territory. He may go gadding after new +mud-gods (the newest god invented by man is always the greatest), +for the time being, and return to his native heath mentally +refreshed and broadened by his foreign outing. Not so the maker of +fiction. Once he cuts loose his balloon he is in danger of not +getting home again. + +Mr. James is a splendid case for us; he began in America and landed +in England, there to stay. Our other felicitous example of +cosmopolitanism is Henry Blake Fuller, the author of The Chevalier +Pensieri Vani and The Châtelaine de la Trinité, who was so widely +read in the nineties. After those charming excursions into a rapidly +vanishing Europe Mr. Fuller reversed the proceeding of James; he +returned to America and composed two novels of high artistic +significance, The Cliff Dwellers and With the Procession, which, +while they continued the realistic tradition of William Dean +Howells, were also the forerunners of a new movement in America. It +is not necessary to dwell now on The Last Refuge, or on that +masterly book of spiritual parodies, The Puppet-Booth. But Mr. +Fuller did not write the great American novel. Neither did Mr. +Howells, nor Mr. James. Who has? No one. Is there such a thing? +Without existing it might be described in Celtic fashion, this +mythical work, as pure fiction. Let us admit for the sake of +argument that if it were written by some unknown monster of genius, +it would, like Lewis Carroll's Snark, turn into a Boojum. + +Henry James has said that no one is compelled to admire any +particular sort of writing; that the province of fiction is all +life, and he has also wisely remarked that "when you have no taste +you have no discretion, which is the conscience of taste," and may +we add, when you have no discretion you perpetrate the shocking +fiction with which America is deluged at this hour. We are told that +the new writers have altered the old canons of bad taste, but "plus +ça change, plus c'est la même chose." A liquorish sentimentality is +the ever-threatening rock upon which the bark of young American +novelists goes to pieces. (Pardon the mixed metaphor.) Be +sentimental and you will succeed! We agree with Dostoievsky that in +fiction, as well as in life, there are no general principles, only +special cases. But these cases, could they not be typical? even if +there are not types, only individuals. And are men and women so +inthralled by the molasses of sentimentalism in life? Have the +motion-pictures hopelessly deranged our critical values? I know that +in America charity covers a multitude of mediocrities, nevertheless, +I am loath to believe that all one reads in praise of wretched +contemporary fiction is meant in earnest. + +Well, chacun à ses dégoûts! The "thrilling" detective story, the +romantic sonorities of the ice cream-soda woman novelist?--with a +triple-barrelled name, as Rudyard Kipling put it once upon a +time--or that church of Heavenly Ennui, the historical novel--what +a cemetery of ideas, all of them! An outsider must be puzzle-pated +by this tumult of tasteless writing and worse observation. However, +history in fiction may be a cavalcade of shining shadows, brilliant, +lugubrious, dull, or joyful happenings; but where Thackeray +succeeded multitudes have failed. Who shall bend the bow of that +Ulysses? Native talent, subtle and robust, we possess in abundance; +thus far it has cultivated with success its own parochial +garden--which is as it should be. The United States of Fiction. +America is Cosmopolis. + + +II + +As to the Puritanism of our present novels one may dare to say in +the teeth of youthful protestants that it is non-existent. The +pendulum has swung too far the other way. And as literary artists +are rare, the result has not been reassuring. Zola seems prudish +after some experiments of the younger crowd. How badly they pull off +the trick. How coarse and hard and heavy their touch. Most of these +productions read like stupid translations from a dull French +original. They are not immoral, only vulgar. As old Flaubert used to +say: such books are false, nature is not like that. How keenly he +saw through the humbug of "free love"--a romantic tradition of +George Sand's epoch--may be noted in his comment that Emma Bovary +found in adultery all the platitudes of marriage. Ah! that +much-despised, stupid, venerable institution, marriage! How it has +been flouted since the days of Rousseau--the father of false +romanticism and that stupefying legend, the "equality" of mankind. +(O! the beautiful word, "equality," invented for the delectation of +rudimentary minds.) A century and more fiction has played with the +theme of concubinage. If the Nacquet divorce bill had been +introduced a decade or so before it was in France, what would have +become of the theatre of Dumas fils, or later, of the misunderstood +woman in Ibsen's plays? All such tribal taboos make or unmake +literature. + +So, merely as a suggestion to ambitious youngsters, let the novelist +of the future in search of a novelty describe a happy marriage, +children, a husband who doesn't drink or gamble, a wife who votes, +yet loves her home, her family, and knows how to cook. What a +realistic bombshell he would hurl into the camp of sentimental +socialists and them that believe a wedding certificate is like +Balzac's La Peau de Chagrin--a document daily shrinking in +happiness. Absurdities make martyrs, but of all the absurd and +ineffectual martyrdoms that of running off with another's wife is +usually the crowning one. "I don't call this very popular pie," said +the little boy in Richard Grant White's story; and the man in the +case is usually the first to complain of his bargain in pastry. + +However, categories are virtually an avowal of mental impuissance, +and all marriages are not made in heaven. In the kingdom of morality +there are many mansions. When too late you may sport with the +shade--not in the shade--of Amaryllis, and perhaps elbow epigrams as +a lean consolation. That is your own affair. Paul Verlaine has told +us that "j'ai vécu énormément," though his living enormously did not +prove that he was happy. Far from it. But he had at least the +courage to relate his terrors. American novelists may agree with +Dostoievsky that "everything in the world always ends in meanness"; +or with Doctor Pangloss that all is for the best in the best of +possible worlds. An affair of temperament. But don't mix the values. +Don't confuse intellectual substances. Don't smear a fact with +treacle and call it truth. Above all, don't preach. Impiety is an +indiscretion, yet, don't be afraid to tell the truth. From Jane +Austen and Walter Scott, the parents of the modern English novel, to +many modern instances, fiction has thrived best on naked truth. All +the rest is sawdust, tripe-selling, and sentimentalism. Didn't Mr. +Roundabout declare in one of his famous papers that "Figs are sweet, +but fictions are sweeter"? In our land we can't get the latter sweet +enough. Altruism, Brotherhood of Man Uplifting. These are the +shibboleths of the "nouvelles couches sociales." Prodigious! + + +III + +J.-K. Huysmans declared that in the land of books there are no +schools; no idealism, realism, symbolism; only good writers and bad. +Whistler said the same about painting and painters. Setting aside +the technical viewpoint of such dicta, we fancy that our "best +sellers" do not preoccupy themselves with the "mere writing" of +their fictions, but they have developed a formidable faculty of +preaching. Old-fashioned fiction that discloses personal charm, that +delineates manners, or stirs the pulse of tragedy--not melodrama, is +vanishing from publishers' lists. Are there not as many charming men +and women perambulating the rind of the planet as there were in the +days when Jane Austen, or Howells, or Turgenev wrote? We refuse to +believe there are not; but there is little opportunity, in a word, +no market, for the display of these qualities. The novel with a +purpose, generally an unpleasant purpose, has usurped the rule of +the novel of character and manners. Boanerges, not Balzac, now +occupies the pasteboard pulpit of fiction. + +I quoted Henry James to the effect that all life is the province of +the novelist. Nevertheless, the still small garden wherein is reared +the tender solitary flower does but ill represent the vaster, +complicated forest of common humanity. The ivory tower of the +cultivated egoist is not to be unduly admired; rather Zola's La +Terre with its foul facts than a palace of morbid art. Withal, the +didactic side of our fiction is overdone. I set it down to the +humbug about the "masses" being opposed to the "classes." Truly a +false antithesis. As if the French bourgeois were not a product of +the revolution (poor bourgeois, always abused by the novelist). As +if a poor man suddenly enriched didn't prove, as a rule, the hardest +taskmaster to his own class. Consider the new-rich. What a study +they afford the students of manners. A new generation has arisen. +Its taste, intelligence, and culture; its canned manners, canned +music--preferably pseudo-African--canned art, canned food, canned +literature; its devotion to the mediocre--what a field for our +aspiring young "secretaries to society." + +Cheap prophylactics, political and religious--for religion is fast +being butchered to make the sensational evangelists' holiday--are in +vogue. They affect our fiction-mongers, who burn to avenge wrongs, +write novels about the "downtrodden masses," and sermons on social +evils--evils that have always existed, always will exist. Like the +knife-grinder, story they have none to tell. Why write fiction, or +what they are pleased to call fiction? Why not join the brave +brigade of agitators and pamphleteers? The lay preachers are +carrying off the sweepstakes. For them Mr. Howells is a +superannuated writer. Would there were more like him in continence +of speech, wholesomeness of judgment, nobility of ideals, and in the +shrewd perception of character. + +Fiction, too, is a fine art, though this patent fact has escaped the +juvenile Paul Prys, who are mainly endeavouring to arouse class +against mass. It's an old dodge, this equality theory, as old as +Beelzebub, Lord of Flies. When all fruit fails, welcome envy and +malicious slandering. When you have nothing else to write about, +attack your neighbour, especially if he hath a much-coveted +vineyard. Max Stirner, least understood of social philosophers, +wrote, "Mind your own business," and he forged on the anvil of +experience a mighty leading motive for the conduct of life. But our +busy little penmen don't see in this golden motto a sufficient +sentimental appeal. It doesn't flatter the "masses." Mr. Bryan a few +years ago told us that we were all middle class. What is middle +class? In Carlyle's day it was a "gig-man"; in ours is it the owner +of a "flivver"? But in the case of Snob vs. Mob, Snob always wins. + +This twaddle about "democratic art" is the bane of our literature. +There is only good art. Whether it deals with such "democratic" +subjects as L'Assommoir or Germinie Lacerteux, or such "aristocratic" +themes as those of D'Annunzio and Paul Bourget, it is the art +thereof that determines the product. I hold no brief for the +sterile fiction that is enrolled under the banner of "Art for Art." +I go so far as to believe that a novelist with a beautiful style +often allows that style to get in the way of human nature. +Stained-glass windows have their use, but they falsify the daylight. +A decorative style may suit pseudo-mediæval romances, but for +twentieth-century realism it is sadly amiss. Nor is the +arterio-sclerotic school of psychological analysis to be altogether +commended. It has been well-nigh done to death by Stendhal, +Meredith, James, and Bourget; and it is as cold as a star. Flaubert +urged as an objection to writing a novel, proving something that the +other fellow can prove precisely the opposite. In either case +selection plays the rôle. + +The chief argument against the novel "with a purpose"--as the jargon +goes--is its lack of validity either as a document or as art. A +novel may be anything, but it must not be polemical. Zola has been, +still is, the evil genius of many talented chaps who "sling ink," +not to make a genuine book, but to create a sensation. Such writers +lack patience, art, and direction. They always keep one eye on the +box-office. Indeed, the young men and women of the day, who are +squandering upon paper their golden genius, painfully resemble in +their productions the dime novels once published by the lamented +Beadle or the lucubrations in the Saturday weeklies of long ago. +But in those publications there was more virility. The heroes then +were not well-dressed namby-pambies; the villains were villainous; +the detectives detected real crimes, and were not weavers of +metaphysical abstractions like your latter-day miracle-workers of an +impossible Scotland Yard; and the girls were girls, neither +neurasthenic, nor did they outgolf all creation. The "new" novelists +still deal with the same raw material of melodrama. Their handling +of love-episodes has much of the blaring-brass quality of +old-fashioned Italian opera. They loudly twang the strings of sloppy +sentiment, which evoke not music, but mush and moonshine. And these +are our "motion-masters" to-day. + + +IV + +There can be no objection to literature and life coming to grips. +Letters should touch reality. Many a sturdy blow has been struck at +abuses by penmen masquerading behind fiction. No need to summon +examples. As for realism--I deny there are commonplace people. Only +those writers are commonplace that believe in the phrase. It is one +of the paradoxes of art that the commonplace folk of Thackeray, +Flaubert, or Anthony Trollope who delight us between covers would in +life greatly bore us. The ennui is artistically suggested, though +not experienced by the reader. It is the magic of the novelist, his +style and philosophy, that make his creations vital. + +Dostoievsky says there are no old women--to be sure he puts the +expression in the mouth of the sensualist Karamazov--and as a +corollary I maintain that nothing is uninteresting if painted by a +master hand, from carrots to Chopin. As for the historical novel, +there is Sentimental Education as a model, if you desire something +epical in scale and charged with the modern ironic spirit. A +Flaubertian masterpiece, this book, with its daylight atmosphere; +the inimitable sound, shape, gait, and varied prose rhythms of its +sentences, its marvellous gallery of portraits executed in the Dutch +manner of Hals and Vermeer, its nearness to its environment, and its +fidelity to the pattern of life. It is a true "historical" novel, +for it is real--to employ the admirable simile of Mr. Howells. + +No need to transpose the tragic gloom of Artzibashef to America; we +are an optimistic people, thanks to our air and sky, political +conditions, and the immigration of sturdy peasant folk. Yet we, too, +have our own peculiar gloom and misery and social problems to solve. +We are far from being the "shadow-land" of fiction, as a certain +English critic said. When I praise the dissonantal art of Michael +Artzibashef it is not with the idea that either his style or his +pessimism should be aped. That way unoriginality lies. But I do +contend that in the practice of his art, its sincerity, its +profundity, he might be profitably patterned after by the younger +generation. Art should elevate as well as amuse. Must fiction always +be silly and shallow? It need be neither sordid nor didactic. + +William James put the matter in a nutshell when he wrote that "the +whole atmosphere of present-day Utopian literature tastes mawkish +and dish-watery to people who still keep a sense of life's more +bitter flavours." And on this fundamentally sound note I must end my +little sermon--for I find that I have been practising the very +preaching against which I warned embryo novelists. But, then, isn't +every critic a lay preacher? + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE CASE OF PAUL CÉZANNE + + +The case of painter Paul Cézanne. Is he a stupendous nobody or a +surpassing genius? The critical doctors disagree, an excellent omen +for the reputation of the man from Provence. We do not discuss a +corpse, and though Cézanne died in 1906 he is still a living issue +among artists and writers. Every exhibition calls forth comment: +fair, unfair, ignorant, and seldom just. Yet the Cézanne question, +is it so difficult to resolve? Like Brahms, the Frenchman is often +misrepresented; Brahms, known now as a Romantic writing within the +walls of accepted forms, neither a pedant nor a revolutionist; +Cézanne, not a revolutionist, not an innovator, vastly interested in +certain problems, has been made "chef d'école" and fathered with a +lot of theories which would send him into one of his famous rages if +he could hear them. Either a revolutionist or a plagiarist! cried +Paul Gauguin--whose work was heartily detested by Cézanne; but truth +is ever mediocre, whether it resides at the bottom of a well or +swings on the cusps of the new moon. What is the truth about +Cézanne? The question bobs up every season. His so-called followers +raise a clamour over the banality of "representation" in art, and +their master is the one man in the history of art who squandered on +canvas startling evocations of actuality, whose nose was closest to +the soil. Huysmans was called an "eye" by Remy de Gourmont. Paul +Cézanne is also an eye. + +In 1901 I saw at the Champs de Mars Salon a picture by Maurice Denis +entitled Hommage à Cézanne, the idea of which was manifestly +inspired by Manet's Hommage à Fantin-Latour. The canvas depicted a +still life by Cézanne on a chevalet and surrounded by Bonnard, +Denis, Redon, Roussel, Serusier, Vuillard, Mellerio, and Vollard. +Himself (as they say in Irish) is shown standing and apparently +unhappy, embarrassed. Then came the brusque apotheosis of 1904 at +the Autumn Salon, the most revelatory of his unique gift thus far +made. Puvis de Chavannes had a special Salle, so had Eugène +Carrière; Cézanne held the place of honour. The critical press was +hostile or half-hearted. Poor Cézanne, with his naïve vanity, seemed +dazzled by the uproarious championship of "les jeunes," and, to give +him credit for a peasant-like astuteness, he was rather suspicious +and always on his guard. He stolidly accepted the frantic homage of +the youngsters, looking all the while like a bourgeois Buddha. In +The Sun of 1901, 1904, and 1906 (the latter the year of his death) +appeared my articles on Cézanne, among the first, if not the first, +that were printed in this country. Since then he has been hoisted to +the stars by his admirers, and with him have mounted his prices. Why +not? When juxtaposed with most painters his pictures make the others +look like linoleum or papier-mâché. + +He did not occupy himself, as did Manet, with the manners, ideas, +and aspects of his generation. In the classic retort of Manet he +could have replied to those who taunted him with not "finishing" his +pictures: "Sir, I am not a historical painter." Nor need we be +disconcerted, in any estimate of him, by the depressing snobbery of +collectors who don't know B from a bull's foot, but who go off at +half-trigger when a hint is dropped about the possibilities of a +painter appreciating in a pecuniary sense. Cézanne is the painting +idol of the hour, as were Manet and Monet a decade ago. These +fluctuations must not distract us, because Cabanel, Bouguereau and +Henner, too, were idolised once upon a time, and served to make a +millionaire's holiday by hanging in his marble bathroom. It is the +undeniable truth that Cézanne has become a tower of strength in the +eyes of the younger generation of artists which intrigues critical +fancy. Sincerity is strength; Cézanne is sincere to the core; but +even stark sincerity does not necessarily imply the putting forth of +masterpieces. Before he attained his original, synthetic power he +patiently studied Delacroix, Courbet, and several others. He +achieved at times the foundational structure of Courbet, but his +pictures, so say his enemies, are sans composition, sans linear +pattern, sans personal charm. But "Popularity is for dolls," cried +Emerson. + +Cézanne's was a twilight soul. And a humourless one. His early +modelling in paint was quasi-structural. Always the architectural +sense, though his rhythms are elliptical at times and he betrays a +predilection for the asymmetrical. Nevertheless, a man who has given +to an art in two dimensions the illusion of a third; tactile values +are here raised to the _n_th degree. His colour is personal and +rhythmic. Huysmans was clairvoyant when, nearly a half-century ago, +he spoke of Cézanne's work as containing the prodromes of a new art. +He was absorbed in the handling of his material, not in the lyric, +dramatic, anecdotic, or rhetorical elements. His portraits are vital +and charged with character. And he often thinks profoundly on +unimportant matters. + +When you are young your foreground is huddled: it is the desire for +more space that begets revolutionists; not unlike a big man elbowing +his way in a crowd. Laudable then are all these sporadic outbursts; +and while a creative talent may remain provincial, even parochial, +as was the case with Cézanne, a critic must be cosmopolitan or +nothing. An artist may stay rooted in his own bailiwick his life +long, yet paint like an angel; but a provincial critic is a +contradiction in terms. He reminds one of a razor so dull that it +can't cut butter. Let us therefore be hospitable to new ideas; even +Cabanel has his good points. + +The tang of the town is not in Cézanne's portraits of places. His +leaden landscapes do not arouse to spontaneous activity a jaded +retina fed on Fortuny, Monticelli, or Monet. As for the groups of +bathing women, how they must wound the sensibility of George Moore, +Professor of Energy at the University of Erotica. There is no sex +appeal. Merely women in their natural pelt. It is related of the +Empress Eugénie that in front of Courbet's Les Baigneuses (Salon, +1853) she asked: "Est-ce aussi une percheronne?" Of the +heavy-flanked Percheron breed of horse are the ladies on the +canvases of Cézanne. The remark of the Empress appealed to the +truculent vanity of Courbet. It might not have pleased Cézanne. With +beauty, academic or operatic, he had no traffic. If you don't care +for his graceless nudes you may console yourself that there is no +disputing tastes--with the tasteless. They are uglier than the +females of Degas, and twice as truthful. + +We have seen some of his still-life pieces so acid in tonal quality +as to suggest that divine dissonance produced on the palate by a +slightly stale oyster, or akin to the rancid note of an oboe in a +score by Stravinski. But what thrice-subtle sonorities, what colour +chords are in his best work. I once wrote in the Promenades of an +Impressionist that his fruits and vegetables savour of the earth. +Chardin interprets still-life with realistic beauty; when he painted +an onion it revealed a certain grace. Vollon would have dramatised +it. When Cézanne painted one you smelt it. A feeble witticism, to be +sure, but it registered the reaction on the sounding-board of my +sensibility. + +The supreme technical qualities in Cézanne are volume, +ponderability, and an entrancing colour scheme. What's the use of +asking whether he is a "sound" draughtsman? He is a master of edges +and a magician of tonalities. Huysmans spoke of his defective +eyesight; but disease boasts its discoveries, as well as health. The +abnormal vision of Cézanne gave him glimpses of a "reality" denied +to other painters. He advised Emile Bernard to look for the +contrasts and correspondences of tones. He practised what he +preached. No painter was so little affected by personal moods, by +those variations of temperament dear to the artist. Had Cézanne the +"temperament" that he was always talking about? If so it was not +decorative in the accepted sense. An unwearying experimenter, he +seldom "finished" a picture. His morose landscapes were usually +painted from one scene near his home at Aix. I visited the spot. The +pictures do not resemble it; which simply means that Cézanne had the +vision and I had not. A few themes with polyphonic variations +filled his simple life. Art submerged by the apparatus. And he had +the centripetal, not the centrifugal temperament. + +In his rigid, intense ignorance there was no room for climate, +personal charm, not even for sunshine. Think of the blazing blue sky +and sun of Provence; the romantic, semitropical riot of its +vegetation, its gamuts of green and scarlet, and search for this +mellow richness and misty golden air in the pictures of our master. +You won't find them, though a mystic light permeates the entire +series. The sallow-sublime. He did not paint portraits of Provence, +as did Daudet in Numa Roumestan, or Bizet in L'Arlésienne. He sought +for profounder meanings. The superficial, the facile, the staccato, +and the brilliant repelled him. Not that he was an "abstract" +painter--as the jargon goes. He was eminently concrete. He plays a +legitimate trompe-l'[oe]il on the optic nerve. His is not a +pictorial illustration of Provence, but the slow, patient +delineation by a geologist of art of a certain hill on old Mother +Earth, shamelessly exposing her bare torso, bald rocky pate, and +gravelled feet. The illusion is not to be escaped. As drab as the +orchestration of Brahms, and as austere in linear economy; and as +analytical as Stendhal or Ibsen, Cézanne never becomes truly lyrical +except in his still-life. Upon an apple he lavishes his palette of +smothered jewels. And, as all things are relative, an onion for him +is as beautiful as a naked woman. And he possesses a positive +genius for the tasteless. + +The chiefest misconception of Cézanne is that of the theoretical +fanatics who not only proclaim him their chief of school, which may +be true, but also declare him to be the greatest painter that ever +wielded a brush since the Byzantines. The nervous, shrinking man I +saw at Paris would have been astounded at some of the things printed +since his death; while he yearned for the publicity of the official +Salon (as did Zola for a seat in the Academy) he disliked notoriety. +He loved work; above all, solitude. He took with him a fresh batch +of canvases every morning and trudged to his pet landscapes, the +Motive he called it, and it was there that he slaved away with +technical heroism, though he didn't kill himself with his labours as +some of his fervent disciples have asserted. He died of unromantic +diabetes. When I first saw him he was a queer, sardonic old +gentleman in ill-fitting clothes, with the shrewd, suspicious gaze +of a provincial notary, A rare impersonality, I should say. + +There is a lot of inutile talk about "significant form" by +propagandists of the New Æsthetic. As if form had not always been +significant. No one can deny Cézanne's preoccupation with form; nor +Courbet's either. Consider the Ornans landscapes, with their sombre +flux of forest, by the crassest realist among French painters (he +seems hopelessly romantic to our sharper and more petulant modern +mode of envisaging the world); there is "significant form," and a +solid structural sense. But Cézanne quite o'ercrows Courbet in his +feeling for the massive. Sometimes you can't see the ribs because of +the skeleton. + +Goethe has told us that because of his limitations we may recognise +a master. The limitations of Paul Cézanne are patent to all. He is a +profound investigator, and if he did not deem it wise to stray far +from the territory he called his own then we should not complain, +for therein he was monarch of all he surveyed. His non-conformism +defines his genius. Imagine reversing musical history and finding +Johann Sebastian Bach following Richard Strauss! The idea seems +monstrous. Yet this, figuratively speaking, constitutes the case of +Cézanne. He arrived after the classic, romantic, impressionistic, +symbolic schools. He is a primitive, not made, like Puvis, but one +born to a crabbed simplicity. His veiled, cool harmonies sometimes +recall the throb of a deep-bass organ-pipe. Oppositional splendour +is there, and the stained radiance of a Bachian chorale. The music +flows as if from a secret spring. + +What poet asked: "When we drive out from the cloud of steam +majestical white horses, are we greater than the first men, who led +black ones by the mane?" Why can't we be truly catholic in our +taste? The heaven of art contains many mansions, and the rainbow +more colours than one. Paul Cézanne will be remembered as a painter +who respected his material, and as a painter, pure and complex. No +man who wields a brush need wish a more enduring epitaph. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +BRAHMSODY + + +After Wagner the deluge? No, Johannes Brahms. Wagner, the high +priest of the music-drama; a great scene-painter in tones. Brahms, a +wrestler with the Dwellers on the Threshold of the Infinite; a +musical philosopher, but ever a poet. "Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms," +cried Von Bülow; but he forgot Schumann. The molten tide of passion +and extravagance that swept over intellectual Europe threescore +years ago bore on its foaming crest Robert Schumann. He was first +cousin to the prince of romancists, Heinrich Heine; Heine, who +dipped his pen in honey and gall and sneered and wept in the same +couplet. In the tangled, rich underwood of Schumann the young Brahms +wandered. There he heard the moon sing silvery, and the leaves +rustle rhythms to the heart-beats of lovers. All German romance, +fantasy, passion was in Schumann, the Schumann of the Papillons and +the Carneval. Brahms walked as did Dante, with the Shades. Bach +guided his footsteps; Beethoven bade him glance aloft at the stars. +And Brahms had for his legacy polyphony, form, and masterful +harmonies. In his music the formulist finds perfect things. +Structurally he is as great as Beethoven, perhaps greater. His +architectonic is superb. His melodic content is his own as he +strides in stately pomp in the fugued Alexandrines of Bach. Brahms +and Browning. Brahms and Freedom. Brahms and Now. + +The romantic infant of 1832 died of intellectual anæmia, leaving the +world as a legacy one of the most marvellous groupings of genius +since Athens's sky carolled azure glances to Pericles. Then came the +revolution of 1848, and later a race of sewermen sprang up from the +mud. Flaubert, his face turned to the past, his feet to the future, +gazed sorrowfully at Carthage and wrote an epic of the bourgeois. +Zola and his gang delved into moral cesspools, and the world grew +aweary of the malodor. Chopin and Schumann, faint, fading flowers of +romanticism, were put in albums where their purple harmonies and +subtle sayings are pressed into sweet twilight forgetfulness. Even +Berlioz, whose orchestral ozone revivified the scores of Wagner and +Liszt; even mad Hector, with the flaming locks, sounded garishly +empty, brilliantly superficial. The New Man had arrived. A short, +stocky youth played his sonata in C, his Opus I, for Liszt, and the +Magyar of Weimar returned the compliment by singing in archangelic +tones his own fantasy in B minor, which he fondly and futilely +believed a sonata. Brahms fell asleep, and Liszt was enraged. But +how symbolical of Brahms to fall asleep at the very onset of his +career, fall asleep before Liszt's music. It is the new wearied of +the old, the young fatigued by the garrulities of age. It is sad. It +is wonderful. Brahms is of to-day. He is the scientist turned +philosopher, the philosopher turned musician. If he were not a great +composer he would be a great biologist, a great metaphysician. There +are passages in his music in which I detect the philosopher in +omphalic meditation. + +Brahms dreams of pure white staircases that scale the Infinite. A +dazzling, dry light floods his mind, and you hear the rustling of +wings--wings of great, terrifying monsters; hippogriffs of horrid +mien; hieroglyphic faces, faces with stony stare, menace your +imagination. He can bring down within the compass of the octave +moods that are outside the pale of mortals. He is a magician, +spectral at times, yet his songs have the homely lyric fervour and +concision of Robert Burns. A groper after the untoward, shudders at +certain bars in his F sharp minor sonata and weeps with the moonlit +tranquillity in the slow movement of the F minor sonata. He is often +dull, muddy-pated, obscure, and maddeningly slow. Then a rift of +lovely music wells out of the mist; you are enchanted and cry: +"Brahms, master, anoint again with thy precious melodic chrism our +thirsty eyelids!" + +Brahms is an inexorable formulist. His four symphonies, his three +piano sonatas, the choral works and chamber music--are they not all +living testimony to his admirable management of masses? He is not a +great colourist. For him the pigments of Makart, Wagner, and +Théophile Gautier are as naught. Like Puvis de Chavannes, he is a +Primitive. Simple, flat tints, primary and cool, are superimposed +upon rhythmic versatility and strenuousness of thought. Ideas, +noble, profundity-embracing ideas he has. He says great things in a +great manner, but it is not the smart, epigrammatic, scarlet, +flashing style of your little man. He disdains racial allusions. He +is German, but a planetary Teuton. You seek in vain for the +geographical hints, hintings that chain Grieg to the map of Norway. +Brahms's melodies are world-typical, not cabined and confined to his +native Hamburg. This largeness of utterance, lack of polish, and a +disregard for the politesse of his art do not endear him to the +unthinking. Yet, what a master miniaturist he is in his little piano +pieces, his Intermezzi. There he catches the tender sigh of +childhood or the intimate flutterings of the heart stirred by +desire. Feminine he is as no woman composer; and virile as are few +men. The sinister fury, the mocking, drastic fury of his first +rhapsodies--true soul-tragedies--how they unearthed the core of +pessimism in our age. Pessimist? Yes, but yet believer; a believer +in himself, thus a believer in men and women. + +He reminds me more of Browning than does Schumann. The full-pulsed +humanity, the dramatic--yes, Brahms is dramatic, not theatric--modes +of analysis, the flow, glow, and relentless tracking to their +ultimate lair of motives is Browning; but the composer never loses +his grip on the actualities of structure. After Chopin, Brahms? He +gives us a cooling, deep draught in exchange for the sugared +wormwood, the sweet, exasperated poison of the Polish charmer. A +great sea is his music, and it sings about the base of that mighty +mount we call Beethoven. Brahms takes us to subterrane depths; +Beethoven is for the heights. Strong lungs are needed for the +company of both giants. + +Brahms, the surgeon whose scalpel pierces the aches of modern +soul-maladies. Bard and healer. Beethoven and Brahms. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE OPINIONS OF J.-K. HUYSMANS + + +A monument should be erected to the memory of the inventor of +playing-cards because he did something toward suppressing the free +exchange of human imbecility! The Frenchman Huysmans, who wrote this +charming sentiment, was not necessarily companionable. He was the +most unpleasant among the world's great writers; for as a great +master of prose he ranks high in the literature of his country. His +detestation of the mediocre became a tormenting fixed idea. Like +Flaubert, a neurotic, his digestive organs in a dyspeptic condition, +Huysmans pursued the disagreeable with the ardour of a sportsman +tracking game. Why precisely such subjects appealed to him must be +left to the truffle-hunters of degeneration. Swift is in the same +class, but Swift enjoyed scarifying his Yahoos. Huysmans did not. +Nor for that matter did Flaubert. The De Goncourts have told us in +their copious confidences the agony they endured when digging for +documents. Germinie Lacerteux was painful travail, not alone because +of the tortuous style it demanded, but also because of the author's +natural repugnance to such vulgar material. They were aristocrats. +Huysmans came of a solid bourgeois family; Dutch on the paternal +side, his father hailed from Breda, and Parisian on the distaff. +Therefore he might have described his modest surroundings with less +acerbity than the irritable De Goncourts. Such was not the case. He +loathed his themes. He was unhappy while developing them. Perhaps +the clairvoyance of hatred, which may be a powerful incentive, +forced his pen to the task. But the fact remains that, art and +religion aside, Huysmans did not love what he transposed from life +to his marvellously written pages. His was a veritable Æsthetic of +the Ugly and Hateful. Yet he possessed a nature sensitive to the +pathological point. And, like Schopenhauer, he masked this undue +sensibility with a repelling misanthropy. + +In a study of him by his disciple, Gustave Coquiot, Le Vrai J.-K. +Huysmans, with an etched portrait by Raffaelli, we are shown some +intimate characteristics. Huysmans never beat about the social +ambush, but freely expressed his opinions concerning contemporaries; +indeed, a phrase of the Goncourts might have been his, "Je vomis mes +contemporains." He has been called an "exasperated Goncourt," which +is putting it mildly. However, it must not be supposed that he was a +roaring egoist, hitting out blindly. He seems, according to the +account of Coquiot and Remy de Gourmont, to have been an unassuming +and industrious functionary in the Ministry of the Interior, and +even when aroused not so truculent as sarcastic. The Dutch and +Flemish base to his temperament endowed him with considerable +phlegm; he was never demonstrative, disliked effusiveness in life +and literature, and only in his ironical speech lurked the distilled +bitterness of his prejudices. He had many. Yet, fearful of a +literary career, with its poverty and disillusionments, he endured +the ennui and fatigues of thirty-two years of office work, and, a +model clerk, he was decorated when he left his bureau in the +Ministry. That is, decorated for his zeal and punctuality, not for +his books. Numberless are the jokes made about the Legion of Honour, +yet none contain such subacid irony as this one. Huysmans the +irascible among decorated philistines! + +"Perhaps it is only a stupid book that some one has mentioned, or a +stupid woman; as he speaks the book looms up before one, becomes +monstrous in its dulness, a masterpiece and a miracle of imbecility; +the unimportant little woman grows into a slow horror before your +eyes. It is always the unpleasant aspect of things that he seizes, +but the intensity of his revolt from that unpleasantness brings a +touch of the sublime into the very expression of his disgust. Every +sentence is an epigram, and every epigram slaughters a reputation or +an idea. He speaks with an accent as of pained surprise, and amused +look of contempt, so profound that it becomes almost pity, for +human imbecility." This tiny etched portrait is by Mr. Arthur +Symons, who practically introduced Huysmans to English-speaking +letters. + +Pitiless he was, as pitiless to himself as to others. Yet Coquiot +found him entertaining betimes, while De Gourmont scoffs at his +tales of stomachic woe. Huysmans, he says, ate heartily in the very +restaurants he so viciously abuses throughout that Iliad of +indigestion, A Vau-l'Eau. He was the M. Folantin, the unheroic hero; +as he was the unpatriotic hero of The Knapsack--published in Zola's +collection, Les Soirées de Medan. In all his books he figures. Jules +Lemaître describes them collectively as: a young man with the +dysentery; a young man who disliked single blessedness--the critic +used a stronger expression; a man who couldn't get a beefsteak in +Paris cooked as he wanted it, and a man who liked to read the chaste +chronicle of Gilles de Rais, otherwise known as the sadistic +Bluebeard--these comprise the characters of Huysmans. After his +conversion he made amends, though he was always the atrabilious +faultfinder. + +No matter. One of the most notable of art critics in a city +abundantly supplied with criticism was this same Huysmans. His +critical achievement may outlive his fiction and his religious +confessions. He preferred Certains to his other books. It is written +in his most astounding and captivating style. The portraits of +certain artists in this unique volume recite the history of the +critic's acuity and clairvoyance. He first announced Edgar Degas as +the "greatest artist we possess to-day in France." He discovered +Odilon Redon, Raffaelli, Forain, and wrote of Gustave Moreau in +enamelled prose. Whistler, Chéret, Pissarro, Gauguin were praised by +him before they had attracted the pontifical disdain of academic +criticism. To Rops he consecrated some extraordinary pages, for +Huysmans was a verbal virtuoso superior to any of the artists he +praised and later he cynically confessed to Coquiot that he didn't +highly estimate the Belgian etcher, but found in him excellent +pasture for his own picture-making pen. In a word, the erotic Rops +attracted him more than Rops the every-day craftsman, and rightly +enough. With the Japanese this erotic side of Rops is only for the +connoisseur. + +Huysmans said some just things of Whistler, and he was the first +critic to salute the rising star of Paul Cézanne, who, he asserts, +contributed more to the impressionist movement than Manet; and one +who also discovered the prodromes of a new art. (This was as early +as 1877.) He found the Cézanne still-life brutally real; above all, +a preoccupation with forms and "edges," that betrayed this painter's +tendency toward a novel synthesis. But according to Coquiot, +Huysmans saw through the hole in the Cézanne millstone. The +Provençal was a rusé, an intrigant, and a money-grubber in his old +age, and proved his plebeian ancestry. His father began barber, +ended banker, shaved faces as well as notes, bled his clientèle in +both professions. + +American collectors of art Huysmans treated as brigands. In the +matter of the classical painters and sculptors he manifested himself +intransigent. He adored the Flemish primitives, the School of +Cologne and a few of the Italian primitives, but with the exception +of Fra Angelico found their types detestingly androgynous. (He +employed a more pungent term.) In the Low Countries are the true +primitives, he declared, as the only mysticism is that of John of +the Cross and Saint Teresa. Matthias Grünewald's Crucifixion is his +idol. Huysmans's opinion of Puvis de Chavannes in Certains is +stimulating though inconclusive. For him Puvis tries to dance a +rigaudon at a Requiem mass! But as a descendant of Cornelis +Huysmans, the Parisian sees with almost an abnormal vision, and in +prose paints like a veritable Fleming. Little wonder De Gourmont +called him an "eye." His prose is addressed to the eye, rather than +to the ear. Sumptuous in colouring, its rhythmic movement is +pompous, its tone hieratic; and he so manipulated it that it was a +perfect medium to depict the Paris of his time. + +Huysmans did not think too highly of his brothers under the same +literary yoke. His opinions are concise. Coquiot prints them. +Despite his affiliations with Zola and the naturalistic group, +Huysmans soon tired of his chief, tired of his theories, his crude +notions of art and life. He definitely broke away from him in his +famous preface to Là Bas. And it should not be forgotten that he was +the first to celebrate in fiction, if celebration it may be called, +the prostitute of modern Paris. Marthe appeared a year earlier than +either Nana or La Fille Elise, the latter by Edmond de Goncourt. But +he sickened of the sewer fiction only to dive deeper in the mediæval +vileness of Là Bas. He met Goncourt through the offices of Léon +Cladel, a writer little known to our generation. Huysmans was a +friend in need to Villiers de l'Isle Adam, and frequented the +eccentric company of Barbey d'Aurévilly, in whose apartment he said +that Paul Bourget was apt to pop out of a closet or a cloak. He did +not care for that "Cherubin of the Duchesses of the Faubourg +Saint-Antoine." + +Of Corneille, Racine, Molière, Dante, Schiller, and Goethe he spoke +with ill-concealed contempt. Raseurs, all these "solemn pontiffs." +His major detestation was Voltaire. Balzac, the prodigious novelist, +left him unstirred. "Not an artistic epithet" in his edition, fifty +volumes long, and not a novelist easy to reread. Théophile Gautier +did not attract him; he found the impeccable master cold and +diluted; so many pages published to say nothing! Huysmans believed +in "saying something," and for him it usually meant something +disagreeable, or else contrary to accepted belief. He hated the +theatre and his opinions of Scribe, Augier, Dumas fils, Sardou, +Feuillet, and of the "old pedant" Sarcey, are savage. He had no +feeling for the footlights, and not possessing much imagination and +deficient in what are called "general ideas" (that is, the +stereotyped commonplaces of journalism and tenth-rate "thinkers"), +he revolted at the lean or hysterical stuff manufactured by +dramatists; plays that are neither life nor literature, nor even +theatrical. + +Baudelaire, the profoundest of soul-explorers in the poetical +Parnassus of that period, appealed to Huysmans. He admired, as +well he might, Flaubert, but found his company intolerable. That +giant from Normandy was too healthy for the slender overwrought +Parisian. He had, so said Huysmans, the manners of a traveling +salesman--Balzac's Gaudissart--and would play his own Homais, being +addicted to punning and disconcerting joking. Poor Flaubert! Poorer +Huysmans! Such sensibility as his must have been a daily torture. +Victor Hugo was "an incomparable trumpet, an epic of the garde +nationale." + +From Edmond de Goncourt with his condescending airs of "un vieux +maître," he escaped by flight; and Turgenev, most amiable of great +men, was a tedious Russian, "a spigot of tepid water always +flowing." If Verlaine had been penned up in hospital or prison it +would have been for the greater glory of French poetry. Jules +Laforgue, "Quelle joie!" Remy de Gourmont: "I wrote a preface to one +of his books" (Le Latin mystique). "That says enough." Marcel +Provost: "Le jeune premier des romans de Georges Ohnet," which isn't +bad. He rather evades a definite judgment of Anatole France: "Il s'y +connaît, le gaillard; mais ce qu'il se défile!" The style and +thought of these two remarkable artists is antipodal. He calls +Maurice Barrès "Lord Beaconsfield," a high compliment to that +exquisite writer's political attainments. He sums up Ferdinand +Brunetière as "constipé," a sound definition of a shrewd, +unsympathetic critic. Naturally women writers, "little geese," are +not spared by this waspish misogynist, whose intense, pessimistic +vision deformed ideas as well as objects. + +In A Rebours there is the account of a trip to London by the anæmic +hero, Des Esseintes. He gets no further than one of the English +taverns opposite the Gare Saint-Lazare. It is risible, this episode; +Huysmans could display verve and a sort of grim humour when he +wished. Brunetière, who was serious to solemnity, and lacked a funny +bone, declared that Huysmans borrowed the incident from a popular +vaudeville, Le Voyage à Dieppe, by Fulgence and Wafflard. He need +not have gone so far afield, for in the life of Baudelaire by the +Crépets (Eugène and Jacques) there is the genesis of the story. To +become better acquainted with English speech and manners, Baudelaire +frequented an English tavern in the Rue de Rivoli, where he drank +whisky, read _Punch_, and also sought the company of English grooms +in the Faubourg Saint-Honoré. Huysmans loved Baudelaire as much as +Brunetière detested him. There is no doubt he knew this thoroughly +Baudelairian anecdote. A perverse comet in the firmament of French +literature, Joris-Karl Huysmans will always be more admired than +loved. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +STYLE AND RHYTHM IN ENGLISH PROSE + + +I + +Stylists in prose are privileged persons. They may write nonsense +and escape the castigation of prudish pedants; or, dealing with +cryptic subjects, they can win the favour of the unthinking; +witness, in the brain-carpentry of metaphysics, say, the verbal +man[oe]uvres of three such lucid though disparate thinkers as +Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and William James. The names of these three +writers are adduced as evidence that it is not necessary to be foggy +of style even when dealing with abstract ideas. And Germany has long +been the Nibelheim of philosophy; need we mention Hegel, whose +commentators have made his meanings thrice-confounded? Style in +literature is an antiseptic. It may embalm foolish flies in its +amber, and it is a brevet of immortality--that is, as immortality +goes; a brief thing, but a man's boast. When the shoeblack part of +the affair is over and done with, the grammar, which was made for +schoolmarms in male garb, and the shining rhetoric, what remains? +The answer is eternal: Style cannot be taught. A good style is +direct, plain, and simple. The writer's keyboard is that humble +camel the dictionary. Style, being concerned with the process of +movement, has nothing to do with results, says one authority. And an +impertinent collusion on the part of the writer with his own +individuality does not always constitute style; for individual +opinion is virtually private opinion, notwithstanding its appearance +in editions half a hundred long; Sainte-Beuve and De Quincey here +occur to the memory. Men change; mankind never. + +Too close imitation of the masters has its dangers for the novice. +Apes and peacocks beset the way. Stevenson's prose style is highly +synthesised and a mosaic of dead men's manner. He has no esoteric +message beyond the expression of his sprite-like, whimsical +personality, and this expression is, in the main, consummate. The +lion in his pathway is the thinness of his intellectual processes; +as in De Quincey's case, a master of the English language beyond +compare, who in the region of pure speculation often goes sadly +limping; his criticism of Kant proves it. But a music-maker in our +written speech, Robert Louis Stevenson is the supreme mocking-bird +in English literature. He overplayed the sedulous imitator. John Jay +Chapman in a brilliant essay has traced the progress of this prose +pilgrim, a professional stylist as well as a professional invalid. +The American critic registers the variations in style and +sensibility of the Scotsman, who did not always demonstrate in his +writing the fundamental idea that the sole exponent of sensibility +is analytic power. He drew freely on all his predecessors, and his +personal charm exhibits the "glue of unanimity," as old Boëthius +would say. Mr. Chapman quotes a passage supposedly from Sir Thomas +Browne, beginning, "Time sadly overcometh all things," which is not +to be found in his collected writings. Yet it is apropos because, +like Stevenson's prose, it is from the crucible of an alchemist, +though at the time Mr. Chapman quoted it was not known to be a +clever Liverpudlian forgery. Since then, after considerable +controversy, the paragraph in question has been shown as the +fabrication of a Liverpool man of letters, whose name we have +forgotten. But it suggests, does this false Browne, that good prose +may be successfully simulated, though essentials be missing. + +If style cannot be imparted, what, then, is the next best thing to +do, after a close study of the masters? We should say, go in a +chastened mood to the nearest newspaper office and apply for a +humble position on its staff. Then one will come to grips with life, +the pacemaker of style. There is a lot of pompous advice emitted by +the college professor--the Eternal Sophomore--about fleeing +"journalese"; whereas it is in the daily press, whether New York, +Paris, Vienna, or London, that one may find the soundest, most +succinct prose, prose stripped of superfluous ornament, prose bare +to the bone, and in fighting trim. But not elevated prose, +"numerous" prose, as Quintilian hath it. For the supreme harmony of +English prose we must go to the Bible (the Authorised, not the +Revised, the latter manufactured by "the persons called revisers," +as George Saintsbury bluntly describes them); to Shakespeare, Jeremy +Taylor, Sir Thomas Browne, Walter Raleigh, Milton, De Quincey, +Ruskin, Swinburne, Cardinal Newman, Pater, and Arthur Symons. And +not forgetting the sweet intimacy of Charles Lamb, the sly charm of +Max Beerbohm, or the harmonious and imaginative prose of W. H. +Hudson, whose Green Mansions recalls the Châteaubriand of Atala, +without its hateful note of morbid egotism. + +Nor are the exponents of the grand manner, of an ornate style, to be +patterned after. If elevation of theme is not present, then the +peril of "fine writing" is scarcely to be avoided. Better follow +such writers as Bacon, Bunyan, Hobbes, Swift in preference. Or the +Augustan group, Dryden, Addison, Shaftesbury, and Temple. But Doctor +Johnson, Burke and Gibbon are not models for the beginner, any more +than the orotund prose of Bossuet, the musical utterance of +Châteaubriand, or the dramatic prose of Hugo are safe models for +French students. The rich continence of Flaubert, the stippled +concision of Mérimée or the dry-sherry wit of Voltaire are surer +guides. And the urbane ease and flowing rhythms of Thackeray are +preferable to the baphometic verbal baptisms of Carlyle the +Boanerges. + +Yet what sweet temptations are to be found in the golden age of +English prose, beginning with the evocation of Sir Walter Raleigh, +"O eloquent, just, and mighty death; whom none could advise, thou +hast persuaded"; surely not far beneath the magnificent prose of the +sixtieth chapter of Isaiah in the Authorised, "Arise, shine; for thy +light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen unto thee," which +is so mighty in rhythm that even those "dolefullest of creatures ... +utterly ignorant of English literature, the Revisers of 1870-85, +hardly dared to touch at all," blandly remarks Professor Saintsbury. +And to balance the famous "Now since these dead bones" of Sir +Thomas, there is the tender coda to Sir William Temple's Use of +Poetry and Music, "When all is done, human life is at the greatest +and best." Those long, sweeping phrases, drumming with melody and +cadences, like the humming of slow, uplifting walls of water +tumbling on sullen strands, composed by the masters of that "other +harmony of prose," are not mere "purple panels" but music made by +immortals. (And I am convinced that if R. L. S. were alive and +condemned to read this last sentence of mine, with its monotonous +"run" of M's, he would condemn it.) Consider Milton and his +majestic evocation: "Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant +nation arousing herself, ... an eagle mewing her mighty youth ..." +and then fall down and worship, for we are in the holy of holies. +Stevenson preferred the passage, "I cannot praise a fugitive and +cloistered virtue," and who shall gainsay him? And Stevenson has +written a most inspiring study of the Technical Elements of Style in +Literature, to be found in the Biographical Edition. In it he calls +the Macaulay "an incomparable dauber" for running the letter "k" +through a paragraph, and in it he sets forth in his chastened and +classic style the ineluctable (Henry James revived this pretty word) +perils of prose. Also its fascinations. "The prose writer," he says, +"must keep his phrases large, rhythmical, comely, without letting +them fall into the strictly metrical; harmonious in diversity, +musical in the mouth, in texture woven into committed phrases and +rounded periods." The stylist may vault airily into the saddle of +logic, or in the delicate reticulation of his silver-fire paragraphs +he may take, as an exemplar, John Henry Newman. + +Stevenson is a perfectionist, and that way lies madness for all save +a few valiant spirits. Sir Walter Raleigh, formerly Professor +Raleigh, has written a crystal-clear study on Style, an essay of +moment because in the writing thereof he preaches what he practises. +He confesses that "inanity dogs the footsteps of the classic +tradition," and that "words must change to live, and a word once +fixed becomes useless.... This is the error of the classical creed, +to imagine that in a fleeting world, where the quickest eye can +never see the same thing twice, and a deed once done can never be +repeated, language alone should be capable of fixity and finality." +The Flaubertian crux. Nevertheless, Flaubert could write of style in +a fluid, impressionistic way: "A style ... which will be as rhythmic +as verse, as precise as the language of science, which will have +undulations, modulations, like those of a violoncello, flashes of +fire. A style which would enter into the idea like the stroke of a +stiletto, ... all the combinations of prosody have been made, those +of prose are still to make." Flaubert was not obsessed by the +"unique word," but by a style which is merged in the idea; as the +melodic and harmonic phrases of Richard Wagner were born +simultaneously and clothed in the appropriate orchestral colours. +Perhaps the cadenced prose of Pater, with its multiple resonance and +languorous rhythms, may be a sort of sublimated chess-game, as +Saintsbury more than hints; yet, what a fair field for his carved +ivory pieces. His undulating and iridescent periods are like the +solemn sound of organ music accompanied from afar by a symphony of +flutes, peacocks, and pomegranates. + +No wonder Stevenson pronounces French prose a finer art than +English, though admitting that in the richer, denser harmonies of +English its native writers find at first hand the very quality so +eagerly sought for by Flaubert. French is a logical language, one of +distinction and clarity, and one in which metre never intrudes, but +it lacks the overtones of our mother speech. The English shares in +common with the Russian the art of awakening feelings and thoughts +by the resonance of words, which seem to be written not in length +but in depth, and then are lost in faint reverberations. + +But artistic prose, chiselled prose, is a negligible quantity +nowadays. It was all very well in the more spacious times of +linkboys, sedan-chairs, and bag-wigs, but with the typist cutting +one's phrases into angular fragments, with the soil at our heels +saturated in slang, what hope is there for assonance, variety in +rhythm, and the sonorous cadences of prose? Write "naturally," we +are told. Properly speaking, there is no such thing as a "natural +style." Even Newman, master of the pellucid, effortless phrase, +confesses to laborious days of correction, and he wrote with the +idea uppermost and with no thought of style, so-called. Abraham +Lincoln nourished his lonely soul on the Bible and Bunyan. He is a +writer of simple yet elevated prose, without parallel in our native +literature other than Emerson. Hawthorne and Poe wrote in the key of +classic prose; while Walt Whitman's jigsaw jingle is the ultimate +deliquescence of prose form. For practical every-day needs the +eighteenth-century prose men are the best to follow. But the Bible +is the Golden Book of English prose. + +Quintilian wrote: "We cannot even speak except in longs and shorts, +and longs and shorts are the material of feet." All personal prose +should go to a tune of its own. The curious are recommended to the +monumental work of George Saintsbury, A History of English Prose +Rhythm. Prose may be anything else, but it must not be bad blank +verse. "Numerous" as to rhythms, but with no hint of balance, in the +metrical sense; without rhythm it is not prose at all. Professor +Oliver Elton has set this forth with admirable lucidity in his +English Prose Numbers. He also analyses a page from The Golden Bowl +of Henry James, discovering new beauties of phrasing and subtle +cadences in the prose of this writer. Professor Saintsbury's study +is the authoritative one among its fellows. Walter Pater's essay on +Style is honeycombed with involutions and preciosity. When On the +Art of Writing, by Arthur Quiller-Couch, appeared we followed +Hazlitt's advice and reread an old book, English Composition, by +Professor Barrett Wendell, and with more pleasure and profit than +followed the later perusal of the Cornish novelist's lectures. + +He warns against jargon. But the seven arts, science, society, +medicine, politics, religion, have each their jargon. Not +music-criticism, not baseball, are so painfully "jargonised" as +metaphysics. Jargon is the fly in the ointment of every critic. Even +the worthy fellow of Jesus College, Sir Arthur himself, does not +altogether escape it. On page 23 of his Inaugural Address he speaks +of "loose, discinct talk." "Discinct" is good, but "ungirded" is +better because it is not obsolete, and it is more sonorous and +Saxon. On page 42 we stumble against "suppeditate" and gnash our +teeth. After finishing the book the timid neophyte will be apt to +lay the flattering unction to his soul that he is a born stylist, +like the surprised Mr. Jourdain, who spoke prose so many years +without knowing it. + + +II + +Fancy a tall, imposing man, in the middle years, standing before a +music-desk, humming and beating time. His grey, lion-like mane is in +disorder; his large eyes, pools of blue light, gleam with +excitement. The colour of his face is reddish, the blood mounts +easily to his head, a prophetic sign of his death by apoplexy. It is +Gustave Flaubert in his study at Croisset, a few miles down the +Seine below Rouen. He is chanting a newly composed piece of prose, +marking time as if he were conducting a music-drama. "What are you +doing there?" asked his friend. "Scanning these words, because they +don't sound well," he replied. Flaubert would spend a day over a +sentence and practically tested it by declaiming--spouting, he +called it--for as he wisely remarked: "A well-constructed phrase +adapts itself to the rhythm of respiration." His delight in prose +assonance and cadence manifested itself in his predilection for such +a phrase as Châteaubriand's in Atala: "Elle répand dans le bois ce +grand secret de mélancholie qu'elle aime à raconter aux vieux chênes +et aux rivages antiques des mers." There's a "mouther" for you! as +George Saintsbury would say. But in this age of uninflected speech +the louder the click of the type-machine the better the style. + +If modern prose were written for the ear as well as the eye, chanted +and scanned, it might prove more sonorous and rhythmic than it does, +and more artistic. Curiously enough, Professor Saintsbury in his +magisterial work writes: "I rather doubt myself whether the very +finest and most elaborate prose is not better read than heard." That +is, it must be overheard by the inner ear, which statement rather +puts a damper on Flaubert's contention. What saith the worthy +Aristotle? "All things are determined by number." Prose should have +rhythm but should not be metrical ("Rhetoric"); which Robert Louis +Stevenson thus paraphrased in his Technical Elements of Style in +Literature: "The rule of scansion in verse is to suggest no measure +but the one in hand; in prose to suggest no measure at all. Prose +must be rhythmical, and it may be as much so as you will; but it +must not be metrical. It may be anything, but it must not be verse." +(Probably if he had read the amorphous stuff by courtesy named "vers +libre" Stevenson would have written a stronger word than +"anything.") Or, again, Saintsbury: "The Rhythm of Prose, like the +Metre of Verse, can, in English as well as the classical languages, +be best expressed by the foot system, or system of mathematical +combinations of 'long' and 'short' syllables." A fig for your +"ancient trumpery of skeleton scanning," cries Professor William +Morrison Patterson in his The Rhythm of Prose: "Amphibrachs, +bacchics, antibacchics, antipasts, molossi, dochmiacs, and +proceleusmatics, which heretofore have been brandished before our +eyes, as if they were anything more than, as stress-patterns, merely +half the story." + +The Columbia University professor would be far more likely to +indorse the axiom of Remy de Gourmont that style is physiological, +which Flaubert well knew. And now, having deployed my heaviest +artillery of quotation, let me begin by saying that Professor +Patterson's study is a remarkable contribution to the critical +literature of a much-debated theme, Prose Rhythms, and this without +minifying the admirable labours of Saintsbury, Shelley, Oliver +Elton, Ker, or Professor Bouton of the New York University. One of +the reasons that interest the present writer in the monograph is its +strong musical bias. Professor Patterson is evidently the possessor +of a highly organised musical ear, even if he be not a practical +musician. He no doubt agrees with Disraeli's dictum that the key to +literature is music; _i. e._, number, cadence, rhythm. I recall Miss +Dabney's study, The Musical Basis of Verse, dealing as it does with +a certain side of the subject. But the Patterson procedure is +different. It is less "literary" than psychological, less +psychological than physiological. He experiments with the Remy de +Gourmont idea, though he probably never saw it in print. "Rhythm," +he writes in his preface, "is thus regarded as first of all an +experience, established, as a rule, by motor performance of however +rudimentary a nature." Here is the man of science at work. + +He speaks of the "lost art of rhythm," adduces syncopation so easily +mastered by those born "timers," the Indians and Negroes, +pertinently remarks that "no two individuals ever react exactly +alike. The term 'type' is in many ways a highly misleading fiction." +Prose Rhythm, he continues, "must be classed as subjective +organisation of irregular, virtually haphazard arrangement of +sounds.... The ultimate basis of all rhythmic experience, however, +is the same. To be clear-cut it must rest upon a series of definite +temporal units." + +Professor Patterson experimented in two rooms: "one the regular +sound-room belonging to the department of psychology at Columbia; +the other an expressly constructed, fairly sound-proof cabinet built +into one end of an underground room belonging to the department of +physics." + +It has a slightly sinister ring, all this, has it not? Padded cells +and aural finger-prints!--to make an Irish bull. Max Nordau called +John Ruskin a Torquemada of Æsthetics. Professor Patterson might be +styled a Tonal Torturer. But the experimentings were painless. "The +first object," he informs us, "was to find out, as far as possible, +how a group of twelve people, ten men and two women, differed with +respect to the complex of mental processes usually designated +roughly as the 'sense of rhythm.' After they had been ranked +according to the nature of their reactions and achievements in +various tests, one of the group, who had evinced a measure of ease +in rapid tapping, was chosen to make drum-beat records on a +phonograph. A sentence from Walter Pater, a sentence from Henry +James, a passage of music from Chopin, a haphazard arrangement of +words and a haphazard arrangement of musical notes, were tapped upon +a small metal drum and the beats recorded by the phonograph. The +words were tapped according to the syllables as felt, a tap for each +syllable. 'Hours,' for instance, was given two beats. The notes +were tapped according to their designated time-values. Observer No. +1, having had long training as a musician, found no technical +difficulty in the task. The remaining eleven observers, without +being told the source of the records, heard the five series of +drumbeats and passed judgment upon them. The most significant +judgment made was that of Observer No. 7, who declared that all five +records gave him the impression of regular musical themes. A large +number of the observers, especially on the first hearing, found all +of the records, including even the passage from Chopin, elusive and +more or less irregular. An attempt was then made, by means of +accompanying schedules, to find out how much or how little +organisation each observer could be brought to feel in the beats +corresponding to the passage from Walter Pater and the passage of +haphazard musical notes." All the data are carefully set down in the +Appendices. + +The sentence by Walter Pater was chosen from his essay on Leonardo +da Vinci, in The Renaissance. "It is the landscape, not of dreams or +of fancy, but of places far withdrawn, and hours selected from a +thousand with a miracle of finesse"; subtly rhythmic, too much so +for any but trained ears. Some simpler excerpt from Sir Thomas +Browne or John Ruskin might have been selected, such as, in the +former case, the coda from the Urn Burial, or even that +chest-expanding phrase, "To subsist in bones, and to be pyramidally +extant is a fallacy in duration." Or, best of all, because of its +tremendous intensity, the passage from Saint Paul: "For I am +persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor +principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, +nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to +separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our +Lord." The drum-beat is felt throughout, but the pulsation is not +marked as in the pages of Macaulay; nor has it the monotony found in +Lohengrin on account of the prevalence of common or four-four time, +and also the coincidence of the metrical and rhythmic beat, a +coincidence that Chopin usually avoids, and all latter-day composers +flee as dulness-breeding. The base-rhythm of English prose is, so +Professor Saintsbury writes, "the pæon, or four-syllabled foot," +and, he could have added, provocative of ennui for delicate ears. +Variety in rhythms is the ideal. Our author appositely quotes from +Puffer's Studies in Symmetry: "A picture composed in substitutional +symmetry is more rich in its suggestions of motor impulse, and thus +more beautiful, than an example of geometrical symmetry." And this +applies to prose and music as well as to pictures. It is the very +kernel of the art of Paul Cézanne; rhythmic irregularity, +syncopation, asymmetry. + +De Quincey's Our Lady of Darkness and a sentence from Cardinal +Newman's Grammar of Assent were included among the tests. Also one +from Henry James; in the preface to The Golden Bowl: "For I have +nowhere found vindicated the queer thesis that the right values of +interesting prose depend all on withheld tests." If, according to +lovers of the old rhetoric, of the resounding "purple panels" of +Bossuet, Châteaubriand, Flaubert, Raleigh, Browne, and Ruskin, the +cooler prose of Mr. James cannot be "spouted"; nevertheless, the +interior rhythmic life is finer and more complex. The Chopin +nocturne played was the familiar one in G minor, Opus 37, No. 1, +simple in rhythmic structure though less interesting than its sister +nocturne in G, Opus 37, No. 2 (the first is in common, the second in +six-eighths time). Professor Patterson knows Riemann and his "agogic +accent," which, according to that editor of the Chopin Etudes, is a +slight expansion in the value of the note; not a dynamic accent. + +In his treatment of vers libre our author is not too sympathetic. He +thinks that "in their productions"--free-verse poets--"the +disquieting experience of attempting to dance up the side of a +mountain" is suggested. "For those who find this task exhilarating +vers libre, as a form, is without rival. With regard to subtle +cadence, however, which has been claimed as the chief distinction of +the new poets, it is still a question as to how far they have +surpassed the refinement of balance that quickens the prose of +Walter Pater." They have not, despite the verbal ingenuity, +banished the impression of dislocation, of the epileptic. In French, +in the hands of Rimbaud, Verlaine, Verhaeren, Gustave Kahn, Régnier, +Stuart Merrill, Vielé Griffin, and Jules Laforgue, the rhythms are +supple, the assonances grateful to the ear, the irregular patterns +not offensive to the eye; in a word, a form, or a deviation from +form, more happily adapted to the genius of the French or Italian +language than to the English. Most of our native vers libre sounds +like a ton of coal falling through too small an aperture in the +sidewalk. However, "it's not the gilt that makes a god, but the +worshipper." + +For musicians and writers the interesting if abstruse study of +Professor Patterson will prove valuable. After reading of the +results in his laboratory at Columbia we feel that we have been, all +of us, talking rhythmic prose our life long. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE QUEEREST YARN IN THE WORLD + + +The way the story leaked out was this: A young Irishman from Sligo, +as he blushingly admitted, whose face was a passport of honesty +stamped by nature herself, had served two customers over the bar of +the old chop-house across the street from the opera-house. To him +they were just two throats athirst; nothing more. They ordered +drinks, and this first attracted his attention, for they agreed on +cognac. Now, brandy after dinner is not an unusual drink, but this +pair had asked for a large glass. Old brandy was given them, and +such huge swallows followed that the bartender was compelled by his +conscience to ring up one dollar for the two drinks. It was paid, +and another round commanded, as if the two men were hurried, as +indeed they were, for it was during an entr'acte at the opera that +they had slipped out for liquid refreshments. Against the bar of the +establishment a dozen or more humans were ranged, and the noise was +deafening, but not so great as to prevent the Irishman from catching +scraps of the conversation dropped by the brandy-drinkers. Their +talk went something like this, and, although Michael had little +schooling, his memory was excellent, and, being a decent chap, there +is no need to impeach the veracity of his report. + +The taller man, neither young, neither old, and, like his friend, +without a grey hair, burst out laughing after the disappearance of +the second cognac. "I say, old pal, who was it wrote that brandy was +for heroes? Kipling? What?" The other man, stockily built, +foreign-looking, answered in a contemptuous tone ("sneering-like," +as my informant put it): + +"Where's your memory? Gone to rack and ruin like your ideals, I +suppose! Kipling! What do such youngsters know? Doctor Johnson or +Walter Savage Landor was the originator of the lying epigram; after +them Byron gobbled it up, as he gobbled up most of the good things +of his generation, and after him, the deluge of this mediocre +century. When I told Byron this, at Milan, I think it was, he vowed +me an ass. Now, it was Doctor Johnson." + +"Cheer up, it's not so bad. I remember once at Paris, or was it +Vienna, you said the same thing about----" and here followed a +strange name. + +"And, anyhow, you are mixing dates; Landor followed Byron, please, +but I suppose he said it first. I told Metternich of your bon-mot, +and, egad! he laughed, did that old parchment face. As for +Bonaparte, upstart and charlatan, he was too selfish to smile at +anybody's wit but his own, and little he had. Do you remember the +Congress of Vienna?" + +"Do I--1815?" + +"Some such year. Or was it in 1750 when we saw Casanova at Venice? +Well--" At this point the alarm-signal went off, and the mob went +over to the opera. The young bartender's heart was beating so fast +that it "leapt up in his bosom," as he described it. Two middle-aged +men talking of a century ago as calmly as if they had spoken of +yesterday flustered him a bit. He heard the dates. He noticed the +perfectly natural manner in which events were mentioned. There was +no mystification. For the first time in his life Michael was sorry +the between-act pause was so short, and he longed for the next one, +though fatigued from the labours of the last. Would these gentlemen +return for more cognac? In an hour they came back with the crowd, +again drank old five-star brandy, and gossiped about a lot of +incomprehensible things that had evidently taken place in the +sixteenth or seventeenth century; at least, Michael overheard them +disputing dates, and one of them bet the other that the big fire in +London occurred in 1666, and referred the question to Mr. Peppers, +or Peps--some such name. + +"Ah, poor old Pepys," sighed the dark man; "if he had only taken +better care of himself he might have been with us to-day instead of +mouldering in his grave." + +"Oh, well! you can't expect every one to believe in your Struldbrug +cure," replied his friend dreamily. "Even Her Majesty, Queen Anne, +would not take your advice, though Mrs. Masham and Mr. Harley begged +her to." + +"Yes, about the only thing they ever agreed upon in their life. +Where is Harley to-day?" + +"Oh, I suppose in London," carelessly replied the other. "For a +young bird of several centuries he's looking as fit as a fiddle; but +see here, Swift, old boy, your bogy-tales are worrying our young +friend," and with that Michael says they pointed to him, heartily +laughed, and went away. + +He crossed himself, and for a moment the electric lights burned dim, +so it seemed to the superstitious laddie-buck. But he had had a good +chance to study the odd pair. They were not, as he repeated, old +men, neither were they youthful. Say thirty-five or forty years, and +he noticed this time the freshness of their complexions, the +brilliancy of their eyes. They were just gentlemen in evening +clothes and had run across Broadway without overcoats, a +reprehensible act even for a young man. But they were healthy, +self-contained, and hard-headed--they took, according to the +statistician behind the bar, about a quart of brandy between them, +and were as fresh as daisies after the fiery stuff. Who were they? +"Blagueurs," said I, after I had carefully deciphered the runic +inscriptions in Michael's mind. (This was a week later.) Two +fellows out on a lark, bent on scaring a poor Irish boy. But what +was Swift, or Queen Anne, or Metternich, or Mr. Harley to him? Just +words. Bonaparte he might be expected to remember. It was curious +all the same that he could reel off the unusual names of Mrs. Masham +and Casanova. The deuce! was there something in the horrid tale? Two +immortals stalking the globe when their very bones should have been +dissolved into everlasting dust! Two wraiths revisiting the glimpses +of the moon--hold on! Struldbrug! Who was Struldbrug? What his cure? +I tried to summon from the vasty deep all the worthies of the +eighteenth century. Struldbrug. Swift. Struldbrug. Sir William +Temple. Struldbrug--ah! by the great horn spoon! The Struldbrugs of +the Island of Laputa! Gulliver's hideous immortals--and then the +horror of the story enveloped me, but, despite my aversion to +meeting the dead, I determined to live in the chop-house till I saw +face to face these ghosts from a vanished past. My curiosity was +soon gratified, as the sequel will show. + +Just one week after the appearance of this pair I stood talking to +the Irish barman, when I saw him start and pale. Ha! I thought, here +are my men. I was not mistaken. Two well-built and well-groomed +gentlemen asked for brandy, and swallowed it in silence. They were +polite enough to avoid my rather rude stare. No wonder I stared. +They recalled familiar faces, yet I couldn't at once place the +owners. Presently they went over to a table and seated themselves. +Loudly calling for a mug of musty ale, I boldly put myself at an +adjacent spot, and continued my spying tactics. The friends were +soon in hot dispute. It concerned the literary reputation of Balzac. +I sat with my mouth wide open. + +The elder of the pair, the one called Swift, snapped at his friend: +"Zounds, sir! you and your Balzac. Hogwash and roosters in +rut--that's about his capacity. Of course, when your own dull stuff +appeared he praised you for the sake of the paradox. You moderns! +Balzac the father of French fiction! You the father, or is it +grandfather, of psychology--a nice crew! That boy Maupassant had +more stuff in him than a wilderness of Zolas, Goncourts, and the +rest. He is almost as amusing as Paul de Kock--" The other, the +little man, bristled with rage. + +"Because you wrote a popular boy's book, full of filth and +pessimism, you think you know all literature. And didn't you copy +Cyrano de Bergerac's Voyagers, and Defoe? You satirise every one +except God, whom you spare because you don't know him. I don't care +much for Balzac, though I'm free to confess he did treat me +handsomely in praising my Chartreuse----" + +"Good God!" I groaned, "it's Stendhal, otherwise Henry Beyle, laying +down the law to the tremendous author of Gulliver's Travels." And +yet neither man looked the accepted portrait of himself. Above all, +no Struldbrug moles were in view. I forgot my former fear, being +interested in the dispute of these two giant writers who are more +akin artistically than ever taken cognisance of by criticism. Dead? +What did I care! They were surely alive now, and I was not dreaming. +I didn't need to pinch myself, for my eyes and ears reported the +occurrence. A miracle? Why not. Miracles are daily, if we but knew +it. Living is the most wonderful of all miracles. The discussion +proceeded. Swift spoke tersely, just as he wrote: + +"Enough, friend Beyle. You are a charlatan. Your knowledge of the +human heart is on a par with your taste in literature. You abominate +Flaubert because his prose is more rhythmic than yours." + +"I vow I protest," interrupted Stendhal. + +"No matter. I'm right. Mérimée, your pupil, is your master at every +point." + +I could no longer contain myself, and, bursting with curiosity, I +cried: + +"Pardon me, dear masters, for interrupting such a luminous +altercation, but, notwithstanding the queerness of the situation, +may I not say that I meet in the flesh, Jonathan Swift and Henry +Beyle-Stendhal?" + +"Discovered, by the eternal Jehovah!" roared Swift, adding an +obscene phrase, which I discreetly omit. Stendhal took the incident +coolly. + +"As I am rediscovered about every decade by ambitious young critics +anxious to achieve reputations, I am not disturbed by our young +friend here. Your apology, monsieur, is accepted. Pray, join us in a +fresh drink and conversation." But I was only thirsty for more talk, +oceans of talk. I eagerly asked Stendhal, who regarded me with +cynical eyes, all the while fingering his little whisker: "Did you +ever hear Chopin play?" + +"Who," he solemnly asked in turn, "is Chopin?" + +"He was at his best in the forties, and as you didn't die till----" + +"Pardon me, monsieur. I never died. Your Chopin may have died, but I +am immortal." + +"You venerable Struldbrug," giggled Swift. I was disagreeably +impressed, yet held my ground: + +"You must have met him. He was a friend of Balzac--his music was +then in vogue at Paris--" I stumbled in my speech. + +"He probably means that little Polish piano-player who dangled at +the petticoats of George Sand," interpolated Swift. + +"I knew Cimarosa, Rossini I saw, but I never heard of Chopin. As for +the Sand woman, that cow who chewed and rechewed her literary +cud--don't mention her name to me, please. She is the village pump +of fiction; water, wet water. Balzac was bad enough." My heart +sank. Chopin not even remembered by a contemporary! This then is +fame. But the immortality of Stendhal, of Swift--what of +that? Its reality was patent to me. Perhaps Balzac, Sand, Flaubert +were still alive. I propounded the question. Swift answered it. + + * * * * * + +"Yes, they are alive. My Struldbrugs are meant to symbolise the +immortality of genius. Only stupid people die. Sand is a barmaid in +London. Balzac is on the road selling knit-goods, and a mighty good +drummer he is sure to be; but poor Flaubert has had hard luck. He +was the reader to a publishing house, and forced to pass judgment on +the novels of the day--favourable judgment, mind you, on the popular +stuff. He nearly burst a blood-vessel when they gave him a Marie +Corelli manuscript to correct--to correct the style, mind you, he, +Flaubert! The gods are certainly capricious. Now the old chap--he +has aged since 1880--is in New York reading proof at a daily +newspaper office. He sits at the same desk with Ben de Casseres, and +every time he mutters over the rhythm of a sentence Ben raps him on +the knuckles, and says: + +"'You are an old-fashioned bourgeois, Pop Flaubert! Some night I'll +take you over to Jack's and recite my Sermon on Suicide, to teach +you what brilliance and Bovarysme really mean.'" I was shocked at +this blasphemy, and said so. Stendhal calmly bade me to keep my +temper. + +"But isn't Mr. Swift joking?" + +"Mr. Swift is always joking," was the far from reassuring reply. To +fill in the interval I called for the waiter. The ghosts again +demanded cognac. Stendhal looked like the caricature by Félicien +Rops, in which his little pot-bellied figure, broad face, snub nose, +and protuberant eyes are shown dominating some strange Cosmopolis of +1932. In life--or death--he seemed supremely self-satisfied. He +glowered at the name of Flaubert, rejoicing in the sad existence of +the mighty prose master, but he smiled superciliously when I +reproached him with not knowing Chopin. Heine's poetic fantasy of +the gods of Greece, alive, and still in hiding, was not precisely +convincing in the present reincarnation. A feeling of repulsion +ensued, and finally I arose and said good night to my very new and +very old friends. Swift's picture of the Struldbrugs was realised, +and it was an unpleasant one. Men of genius should never be seen; in +their works alone they live. Swift, with his nasty, sly, constipated +humour; Stendhal, with his overwhelming air of arrogance and +superiority, did not win my sympathy. They evidently noted my +dismay. + +"You're disappointed. So sorry!" said Swift ironically. "At first I +was vastly intrigued at the opportunity of talking with one of you +modern persons, but I see I'm mistaken--ha! Beyle, what d'ye say?" + +Stendhal pondered. "Cimarosa, Rossini, and Haydn I knew. Correggio I +admire, but who was Chopin?" + +Stung to anger, I retorted: "Yours is the loss, not Chopin's." +Whereat Michael, the bartender, merrily laughed, and the company +joined him. I was the sacrificial goat. My head was on the +chopping-block, and Stendhal was the executioner. Forgetting the +respect due to such illustrious shades, I shook my finger under +Stendhal's upturned nostrils: "You may be a couple of impostors for +all I know, but even if you are not, I wish to tell you how heartily +I dislike your petty carping criticisms. Better oblivion than +immortality for your lean and sinister souls." Again hysterical +laughter. As I left I overheard Swift say in reproachful accents, as +if his vanity had been wounded: + +"This saucy Yahoo reads our books and believes in them, but when we +talk he doubts us. As Sam Johnson used to say, 'The reciprocal +civility of authors is one of the most risible scenes in the farce +of life.'" + +Stendhal boomed out: "He is dead himself but doesn't know it yet. +All critics are stillborn. But _we_ live on for ever. Garçon! some +more brandy." + +Out on crowded, expressive Broadway I stood, dazed and irritated. +After all the palaver of authors, it is the critic who has the last +word, like a woman. Rejoicing over the originality of the idea, I +went my wooden way. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +ON REREADING MALLOCK + + +It seems the "dark backward and abysm of time" when writing the name +of William Hurrell Mallock, yet not forty years ago he was the most +discussed author of his day. The old conundrum, Is Life Worth +Living? he revived, and newly orchestrated with particular reference +to the spiritual needs of the hour. And A Romance of the Nineteenth +Century was denounced as immoral as Mademoiselle de Maupin. Gautier +was read then and Swinburne's lilting paganism quite filled the +lyric sky. Mr. Mallock's rôle was that of a philosophical novelist +and essayist who reproved the golden materialism of his age, not +with fuliginous menace, as did Carlyle, nor with melodious +indignation, like Ruskin, but with a more subtle instrument of +castigation, irony. He laughed at the gods of the new scientific +dispensation, Darwin, Spencer, Huxley, Tyndall, Clifford, and he put +them in the pages of his New Republic for the delectation of the +world, and most appealing foolery it was; this and the sheer +burlesque of The New Paul and Virginia. Mr. Mallock was an +individualist. The influence of John Stuart Mill had not yet waned +in the seventies--he occupied then a place midway between Bentham +and Spencer. His birth, breeding, and temperament made Mallock a foe +to socialism, to the promiscuous in politics, religion, society, +therefore an apostle of culture, not missing its precious side; +witness Mr. Rose in The New Republic, and one who abhorred the crass +and the irreverent in the New Learning. He enjoyed vogue. His ideas +were boldly seized and transformed by the men of the nineties, yet +to-day it is difficult to get a book of his. They are mostly out of +print--which is equivalent to saying, out of mind. + +With what personal charm he invested his romances! He is the +literary progenitor of a long line of young men, artistic in taste, +a trifle sceptical as to final causes, wealthy, worldly, widely +cultured, and aristocratic. The staler art of Oscar Wilde gives the +individual of Mallock petrified into a rather unpleasant type. +Walter Pater's fear that the word "hedonist" would be suspected as +immoral came true in Wilde's books. The heroes of A Romance of the +Nineteenth Century, Tristram Lacy and The New Republic have a strong +family resemblance. They were supermen before Nietzsche was +discovered. They are prepossessed by theological problems, they love +the seven arts, and are a trifle decadent; though when action is +demanded they do not fail to respond. As stories go, A Romance is +the best of Mallock's; the canvas of Tristram Lacy is larger, the +intrigue less intense, and the characterisation more human. The +unhappy girl, Cynthia Walters, who so shocked our mothers, is not +duplicated in Tristram. Mr. Mallock wrote a preface to the second +edition of A Romance, a superfluous one, for the book needs no +apology. It never did. It is as moral as Madame Bovary, though not +as pleasant. The Triangle is a revered convention in French fiction, +but the naturalistic photographs in A Romance are not agreeable, and +Cynthia's epitaph, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall +see God," leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. It is in the mode +ironical almost projected to the key of cynicism. No doubt the +leisurely gait of these fictions would be old-fashioned to the +present generation, with its preference for staccato English, morbid +sensationalism, and lack of grace and scholarship. Mr. Mallock is a +scholar and a gentleman who writes a prose of distinction, and he is +also a thinker, reactionary, to be sure, but a tilter at sham +philosophies and sham religions. Last, but not least, he has +abundant humour and a most engaging wit. Possibly all these +qualities would make him unpopular in our present century. + +What a gathering of choice spirits in The New Republic: Matthew +Arnold, Professor Jowett--a fine character etching--Huxley, Tyndall, +Carlyle, Pater--rather cruelly treated--Ruskin, Doctor Pusey, Mrs. +Mark Pattison, W. K. Clifford, Violet Fane--how the author juggles +with their personalities, with their ideas. It's the cleverest +parody of its kind. Otho Laurence and Robert Leslie are closely +related in aspirations to Ralph Vernon, Alie Campbell, and the +priest Stanley of A Romance. As portraits, those of the Premier Lord +Runcorn in Tristram Lacy, and the faded dandy, poet, and man about +town, Lord Surbiton, of A Romance, are difficult to match outside of +Disraeli. Epigrams drop like snowflakes. The décor is always +gorgeous--Monte Carlo, Provence, Cap de Juan, countries flowing with +milk and honey, marble ruins, the ilex, cypress, and palm. Palaces +there are, and inhabited by languid, fascinating young men who +anxiously examine in the glass their expressive countenances, asking +the Lord whether He is pleased with them. And lovely girls, +charming, and in Cynthia Walters's case a lily with a cankered +calyx. Then there are the Price-Bousefields and the inimitable Mrs. +Norham, "celebrated authoress and upholder of the people." One of +the notable blackguards in fiction is Colonel Stapleton; and the +Poodle and the new-rich Helbecksteins--a complete picture-gallery +may be found in these interesting novels. Romance rules; poetry, +tenderness in the appreciation of the eternal feminine, and a pity +for living things. Poor Cynthia Walters, the "dear, dead woman," +lingers in the memory, as modern as yesterday, and as effaced as a +daguerreotype. + +But if his heroes sow their oats tamely Mr. Mallock as an antagonist +is most vigorous. He went at the scientific men with all the weapons +in his armoury. To-day there no longer exists the need of such +polemics. In the moral world there are analogies to the physical, +and particularly in geology, with its prehistoric stratifications, +its vast herbarium, its quarries and petrifications, its ossuaries, +the bones of vanished forms, ranging from the shadow of a leaf to +the flying crocodile, the horrid pterodactyl--now reduced to the +exquisite and iridescent dragon-fly; from the monstrous mammoth to +the tiny forerunner of the horse. Philosophy and Religion, too, have +their mighty dead, their immemorial tombs wherein repose the bones +of the buried dead skeletons of obsolete systems. And on the sands +of time lie the arch-images of antique thought awaiting the condign +catastrophe. There are Kant and his followers, and near the +idealists are the materialists; next to Hegel is Büchner, and at the +base of the vast structure so patiently reared by Herbert Spencer +the mists are already dense, though not as obscuring as the clouds +about the mausoleum of Comte. That great charmless woman, George +Eliot, smiles a smile of sombre ennui before the Spencer tomb, and +the invisible voice of Ernest Haeckel is heard whispering: Where is +your Positivism? Where is your Rationalism? What has become of your +gaseous invertebrate god? Surely there is sadly required in the +cynical universities of the world a Chair of Irony with subtle Edgar +Saltus as its first incumbent. + +Now, Mr. Mallock knows that religion and philosophy may travel on +parallel lines, therefore never collide. He took the catch-word "the +bankruptcy of science" too seriously. Notwithstanding the persuasive +rhetoric of that silken sophist Henri Bergson, a belated visionary +metaphysician in a world of realities, the trend of latter-day +thought is toward the veritable victories of science. A new world +has come into being. And what discoveries: spectral analysis, the +modes of force, matter displaced by energy, the relations of atoms +in molecules--a renewed geology, astronomy, palæontology, biology, +embryology, wireless telegraphy, the conquest of the air, and, last +but not least, the discovery of radium. The slightly war-worn +evolution theory is now confronted by the Transformism of Hugo de +Vries, who has shown in a most original manner that nature also +proceeds by sudden leaps as well as in slow, orderly progress. And +the brain, that telephonic centre, according to Bergson, is become +another organ. Ramon y Cajal, the Spanish biologist, with his +neurons--little erectile bodies in the cells of the cortex, stirred +to motor impulses when a message is sent them from the sensory +nerves--has done more for positive knowledge than a wilderness of +metaphysicians. + +That famous interrogation, "Is life worth living?" +may be viewed to-day from a different angle. Mr. Mallock +acknowledged that the question must be answered in the terms of the +individual only. Here we encounter a new crux. What is the +individual? The family is the unit of society, not the individual. +And the autonomous "I" exists no longer, except as a unit in the +colony of cells which are "We." Man is a being afloat in an ocean of +vibrations. Society demands the co-operation of its component cells, +else relegates to solitude the individual who cannot adapt himself +to play a humble part in the cosmical orchestra. That protean theory +Socialism has changed its chameleonic hues many times since Mr. +Mallock wrote Is Life Worth Living? His idea is worked out with +great clearness in the apprehension of details, but with little +feeling for their relations to each other. Sadly considered, we may +take it for granted that life has a definite aim. We live, as a +modern thinker puts it, because we stand like the rest of cognisable +nature under the universal law of causality; this idea is founded +not on a metaphysical but a biological basis. Metaphysics is a +pleasing diversion, though it doesn't get us to finalities. +Happiness is an absolute. Therefore it has no existence. There never +was, there never will be an earthly paradise, no matter what the +socialists say. Content is the summum bonum of mankind; the content +that comes with sound health and a clear conscience. The wrangling +over Free Will is now considered a sign of ghost-worship. + +Schopenhauer and his mystic Will-to-Live are both rather amusing +survivals of antique animism. The problem is not whether we can do +what we want to do, but whether we can will what we want to will. +But the illusion of individual freedom of will is the last illusion +to be dissipated in this most deterministic of worlds and most +pluralistic of universes. It's a poor conception of eternity that +doesn't work both ways. As there will be no end to things, there +never was a beginning. Eternity is now. Professor Hugh S. R. Elliott +wrote in his brilliant refutation of Bergson that "the feeling we +have of a necessity for such an explanation [the attempt to explain +the universe] arises from the conformation of our brains, which +think by associating disjoined ideas; ... no last explanation is +possible or perhaps even exists," which will please the relativists +and pain the absolutists. But deprive mankind of its dreams and it +is like the naughty child in Hans Christian Andersen's fable. A +fairy punished this child by giving him dreamless slumber. Without +vision, old as well as young limp through life. + +Pessimism as a philosophy, it has been pointed out, is the last +superstition of primordial times. It is a form of egomania. From +Byron to D'Annunzio pessimism filled poetry; from Werther to Sanine +it has ruled fiction. It is less a philosophy than a matter of +temperament. It was the mode during the last century, and as an +issue is as dead as the humanitarianism that followed. Is life worth +living? was properly, if somewhat cynically, answered: It depends on +the liver. Pessimism is the pathetic fallacy reduced to medicinal +formula. It is now merely in our stock of mental attitudes, usually +a pose; when it is not, it's bound to be pathological. Yet Bossuet +has spoken of "the inexorable ennui which forms the basis of life." +Mr. Mallock was once accused of dilettanteism, æsthetic and ethical; +nevertheless, there is no mistaking his moral earnestness at the +close of Is Life Worth Living? Furthermore, he foresaw the muddle +the world is making to-day in the conduct of life. All the +self-complacent chatter about self-annihilation during the Buddhist +upheaval some decades ago has been translated into a veritable +annihilation. The holy name of Altruism--social emotion made +functional--has vanished into the intense inane. The higher forms of +discontent have modulated into the debasing superstition of +universal slaughter. With Bergson the divinity of diving into the +subconscious--what else is his intuition?--is set before the lovers +of the mystic to worship. Years ago the Sufi doctrine declared that +the judging faculty should be abandoned for the intuitive. Don't +reason! Just dream! The poet Rogers replied to a lady who asked his +religion that his was the religion of all sensible men. "And what is +that?" she persisted. "That no sensible men ever tell." But Mr. +Mallock has told, and four decades after his confession he is still +worth rereading. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE LOST MASTER + + +"What's become of Waring since he gave us all the slip?" was quoted +by a man at the Painters' Club the other night. What made him think +of Browning, he blandly explained to the two or three chaps sitting +at his table on the terrace, was not the terrific heat, but the line +swam across his memory when he recalled the name of Albertus Magnus +as a green meteor seen for a moment far out at sea drops into the +watery void. "Who, in the name of Apollo, is Albertus Magnus?" was +asked. The painter sat up. "There you are, you fellows!" he roared. +"You all paint or write or spoil marble, but for the history of your +art you don't care a rap." "Yes, but what has your Albertus +Thingamajig to do with Browning's Waring?" "Only this," was the +grumbling reply; "it is a similar case." "A story, a story!" we all +cried, and settled down for a yarn; but no yarn was spun. The +painter relapsed into silence, and the group gradually dissolved. We +sat still, hoping against hope. + +"See here," we expostulated, "really you should not arouse +expectations, and then evade the logical conclusions. It's not +fair." "I didn't care to explain to those other fellows," was the +reply. "They are too cynical for my taste. They go to the holy of +holies of art to pray, and come away to scoff. Materialism, rather +realism, as you call it, is the canker of modern art. Suppose I told +you that here, now, in this noisy Tophet of New York, there lives +a man of genius, who paints like a belated painter of the +Renaissance? Suppose I said that I could show you his work, would +you think I was crazy?" He paused. "A young genius, poor, unknown? +Oh, lead us to him, Sir Painter, and we shall call you blest!" "He +is not young, and, while the great public and the little dealers +have not heard of him, he has a band of admirers, rich men leagued +in a conspiracy of silence, who buy his pictures, though they don't +show them to the critics." We reiterated our request: "Lead us to +him!" Without noticing our importunities, he continued: "He paints +for the sake of beautiful paint; he paints as did Hokusai, the +Old-Man-Mad-for-Painting, or like Frenhofer, the hero in Balzac's +story, The Unknown Masterpiece! He is more like Balzac's +Frenhofer--is that the chap's name?--than Browning's Waring. He is +the lost master, a Frenhofer who has conquered, for he has a hundred +masterpieces stored away in his studio." "Lost master?" we +stuttered; "a hundred masterpieces that have never been shown to +critic or public? Oh! 'Never star was lost here but it rose afar.'" +"Yes, and he quotes Browning by the yard, for he was a close friend +of the poet, and of his best critic, Nettleship, the animal painter, +now dead." "Won't you tell his story connectedly, and put us out of +our agony?" we pleaded. "No," he answered; "I'll do better. I'll +take you to his studio." The evening ended in a blaze of fireworks. + +The afternoon following we found ourselves in Greenwich Village, in +front of a row of old-fashioned cottages covered with honeysuckle. +You may recall the avenue and this particular block that has thus +far resisted the temptation to become either lofty apartment or +business palace. But the painter met us here, and conducted us +westward until we reached a warehouse--gloomy, in need of repair, +yet solid, despite the teeth of time. We entered the wagonway, +traversed a dirty court, mounted a dark staircase, and paused before +a low door. "Do you knock," we were admonished, and at once did so. +Approaching footsteps. A rattling and grating of rusty bolts and +keys. The door was slowly opened. A big hairy head appeared. The +eyes set in this halo of white hair were positively the most +magnificent I had ever seen sparkle and glow in a human countenance. +If a lion were capable of being at once poet and prophet and exalted +animal, his eyes would have possessed something of the glance of +this stranger. We turned anxiously to to our friend. He had +disappeared. What a trick to play at such a moment. "Who do you +wish?" rumbled a mellow voice. "Albertus Magnus?" we timidly +inquired, expecting to be pitched down the stairs the next minute. +"Ah!" was the reply. Silence. Then, "Come in, please; don't stumble +over the canvases." We followed the old man, whose stature was not +as heroic as his head; and we did not fail to stumble, for the way +was obscure, and paved with empty frames, canvases, and a litter of +bottles, paint-tubes, easels, rugs, carpets, wretched furniture, and +all the other flotsam and jetsam of an old-style studio. We were not +sorry when we came into open space and light. We were in the room +that doubtless concealed the lost masterpieces, and there, blithely +smoking a cigarette, sat our guide, the painter. He had entered by +another door, he explained; and, without noticing our discontented +air, he introduced us to the man of the house. In sheer daylight he +looked younger, though his years must have bordered upon the +biblical threescore and ten. But the soul, the brain that came out +of his wonderful eyes, were as young as to-morrow. + +"Isn't he a corker?" irreverently demanded our friend. "He is not +even as old as he looks. He doesn't eat vegetables, when thirsty he +drinks anything he can get, and smokes day and night. And yet he +calls himself an idealist." The old painter smiled. "I suppose I +have been described as Waring to you, because I knew Robert +Browning. I did vanish from the sight of my friends for years, but +only in the attempt to conquer paint, not to achieve money or +kingship, like the original Alfred Domett, called Waring in the +poem. But when I returned from Italy I was a stranger in a strange +land. No one remembered me. I had last seen Elihu Vedder at Capri. +Worst of all, I had forgotten that with time fashions change in art +as in dress, and nowadays no one understands me, and, with the +exception of Arthur Davies, I understand no one. I come from the +Venetians, Davies from the early Florentines; his line is as +beautiful as Pollajuolo. I love gold more than did Facino Cane of +Balzac. Gold, ah! luscious gold, the lost secret of the masters. +Tell me, do you love Titian?" We swore allegiance to the memory of +Titian. The artist seemed pleased. "You younger men are devoted to +Velasquez and Hals--too much so. Great as painters, possibly +greatest among painters, their souls never broke away from the soil +like runaway balloons. They miss height and depth. Their colour +never sings like Titian's. They surprise secrets in the eyes of +their sitters, but never the secret surprised by the Italian. I sat +at his feet, before his canvases, fifty years, and I'm further away +than ever--" Our friend interrupted this rhapsody. + +"Look here, Albertus, you man with a name out of Thomas Aquinas, +don't you think you are playing on your visitors' nerves, just to +set them on edge with expectancy? I've heard this choral service for +the glorification of Titian more than once, and I've inevitably +noticed that you had a trump of your own up your sleeve. You love +Titian. Well, admit it. You don't paint like him, your colour scheme +is something else, and what you are after you only know yourself. +Come! trot out your Phantom Ship or The Cascade of Gold, or, better +still, that landscape with a river-bank and shepherds." The old man +gravely bowed. Then he manipulated the light, placed a big easel in +proper position, fumbled among the canvases that made the room +smaller, secured one and placed it before us. We drew a long breath. +"Richard Wagner, not Captain Maryatt, was the inspiration," murmured +the master. + +The tormented vessel stormed down the picture, every inch of sail +bellying out in a wind that blew a gale infernal beneath the rays, +so it seemed to us, of a poisonous golden moon. The water was +massive and rhythmic. In the first plane a smaller ship does not +even attempt to tack. You anticipate the speedy crackling and +smashing when the Flying Dutchman rides over her; but it never +happens. Like the moonshine, the phantom ship may melt into +air-bubbles before it reaches the other boat. No figures are shown. +Nevertheless, as we studied the picture we fancied that we discerned +the restless soul of Vanderdecken pacing his quarter-deck, cursing +the elements, or longing for some far-away Senta. A poetic +composition handled with masterly evasiveness, the colour was the +strangest part of it. Where had Albertus caught the secret of that +flowing gold, potable gold; gold that threateningly blazed in the +storm wrack, gold as lyric as sunshine in spring! And why such +sinister gold in a moonlit sea? We suspected illusion. My friend, +the painter, laughed: "Aha! you are looking for the sun, and is it +only a moon overhead? Our conjurer here has a few tricks. Know then, +credulous one, that the moon yonder is really the sun. Seek the +reason for that suffused back sky, realise that the solar +photosphere in a mist is precisely the breeder of all this magic +gold you so envy." "Yes," we exclaimed, "but the motion of it all, +the grip! Only Turner--" We were interrupted by a friendly slap on +the back. "Now, you are talking sense," said our friend. "Turner, a +new Turner, who has heard the music of Wagner and read the magic +prose of Joseph Conrad." What followed we shall not pretend to +describe. Landscapes of old ivory and pearly greys; portraits, in +which varnish modulated with colours of a gamut of intensity that +set tingling the eyeballs, and played a series of tonal variations +in the thick of which the theme was lost, hinted at, emerged +triumphantly, and at the end vanished in the glorious arabesque; +then followed apocalyptic visions, in which the solid earth +staggered through the empyrean after a black sun--a magnetic disk +doomed by a mighty voice that cried aloud: "It is accomplished." +Pastorals as ravishing as Giorgione's, with nuances of gold +undreamed of since the yellow flecks in the robes of Rembrandt, +faced us. Our very souls centred in our eyes; but, uncritical as was +our mood in the presence of all this imaginative art, we could not +help noting that it was without a single trait of the modern. Both +in theme and treatment these pictures might have been painted at the +time of the Renaissance. The varnish was as wonderful as that on the +belly of a Stradivarius fiddle. The blues were of a celestial +quality to be found in Titian or Vermeer; the resonant browns, the +whites--ah! such exquisite whites, "plus blanche que la plus blanche +hermine"--the rich blacks, sonorous reds and yellows--what were all +these but secrets recovered from the old masters. The subjects were +mainly legendary or mythological; no discordant note of "modernity" +obtruded its ugly self. We were in the presence of something as rare +as a lyric by Shelley or the playing of Frédéric Chopin. + +What! Why! How! we felt like asking all at once, but Albertus Magnus +only smiled, and we choked our emotion. Why had he never exhibited +at the Academy or at a special show? Our friend saw our +embarrassment, and shielded us by blurting out: "No! he never +exhibited, this obstinate Albertus. He never will. He makes more +money than he needs, and will leave it to some cat asylum, for he is +a hardened bachelor. Women do not interest him. You won't find one +female head in all this amazing collection. Nor has the dear old +Diogenes suffered from a love-affair. His only love is his paint. +His one weakness is a selfish, a miserly desire to keep all this +beautiful paint for himself. Balzac would have delighted to analyse +such a peculiar mania. Degas is amiability itself compared with this +curmudgeon of genius. Now, don't stop me, Albertus--" "But I must," +expostulated the painter. "I am always glad to receive visitors here +if they are not dealers or persons ignorant of art, or those who +think the moderns can paint. Yet no one comes to see me. My +chattering friend here occasionally asks them, and he is a hoaxer. +While I go nowhere--I haven't been east of Ninth Avenue for years. +What shall I do?" "Paint!" was the curt answer of our friend, as we +took our leave. In New York, now, a painter of genius who is known +to few! Extraordinary! Is his name really Albertus Magnus, or is +that only Latin for Albert Ryder? Our friend shrugged his shoulders +and smiled mysteriously. We hate tomfoolery. "Be frank!" we adjured +him. He hummed: "In Vishnu land what avatar?" "More Browning!" we +sneered. + +Then we crossed over to the club and talked art far into the night. +Also wet our clay. And Albertus Magnus, will he never come from his +paint cave and reveal to the world his masterpieces? Perhaps. Who +knows? As the Russians say--_Avos!_ + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE GRAND MANNER IN PIANOFORTE PLAYING + + +Here lies one whose name is writ on ivory! might be the epigraph of +every great pianist's life, and the ivory is about as perdurable +stuff as the water in which is written the epitaph of John Keats. +Despite cunning reproductive contrivances the executive musician has +no more chance of lasting fame than the actor. The career of both is +brief, but brilliant. Glory, then, is largely a question of memory, +and when the contemporaries of a tonal artist pass away then he has +no existence except in the biographical dictionaries. Creative, not +interpretative, art endures. Better be "immortal" while you are +alive, which wish may account for the number of young men who write +their memoirs while their cheeks are still virginal of beards, while +the pianist or violinist plays his autobiography, and this may be +some compensation for the eternal injustice manifested in matters +mundane. + +Whosoever heard the lion-like velvet paws of Anton Rubinstein caress +the keyboard shall never forget the music. He is the greatest +pianist in my long and varied list. Think of his delivery of the +theme at the opening of Beethoven's G major concerto; or in that +last page of Chopin's Barcarolle. It was no longer the piano tone, +but the sound of distant waters and horns from elf-land. A mountain +of fire blown skyward, when the elemental in his profoundly +passionate temperament broke loose, he could roar betimes as gently +as a dove. Yet, when I last heard him in Paris, the few remaining +pupils of Chopin declared that he was brutal in his treatment of +their master. He played Rubinstein, not Chopin, said Georges Mathias +to me. Mathias knew, for he had heard the divine Frédéric play. +Nevertheless, Rubinstein played Chopin, the greater and the +miniature, as no one before or since. + +To each generation its music-making. The "grand manner" in +piano-playing has almost vanished. A few artists still live who +illustrate this manner; you may count them on the fingers of one +hand. Rosenthal, D'Albert, Carreño, Friedheim--Reisenaur had the +gift, too--how many others? Paderewski I heard play in Leipsic in +1912 at a Gewandhaus concert under the baton of the greatest living +conductor, Arthur Nikisch, and I can vouch for the plangent tone +quality and the poetic reading he displayed in his performance of +that old war-horse, the F minor concerto of Chopin. Furthermore, my +admiration of Paderewski's gift as a composer was considerably +increased after hearing his Polish symphony interpreted by Nikisch. +How far away we were from Manru. Joseffy, who looked upon +Paderewski, as a rare personality, told me that the Polish Fantasy +for piano and orchestra puzzled him because of its seeming +simplicity in figuration. "Only the composer," enthusiastically +exclaimed Joseffy, "could have made it so wonderful." + +But the grand manner, has it become too artificial, too rhetorical? +It has gone out of fashion with the eloquence of the old histrions, +probably because of the rarity of its exponents; also because it no +longer appeals to a matter-of-fact public. Liszt was the first. He +was dithyrambic. He was a volcano; Thalberg--his one-time +rival--possessed all the smooth and icy perfections of Nesselrode +pudding. Liszt in reality never had but two rivals close to his +throne; Karl Tausig, the Pole, and Anton Rubinstein, the Russian. +Von Bülow was all intellect; his Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, and Brahms +were cerebral, not emotional. He had the temperament of the pedant. +I first heard him in Philadelphia in 1876 at the Academy of Music. +He introduced the Tschaikovsky B flat minor concerto, with B. J. +Lang directing the orchestra, a quite superfluous proceeding, as Von +Bülow gave the cues from the keyboard and distinctly cursed the +conductor, the band, the composition, and his own existence, as +befitted a disciple of Schopenhauer. Oh! he could be fiery enough, +though in his playing of the Romantics the fervent note was absent; +but his rhythmic attack was crisp and irresistible. You need only +recall the pungency of his reading of Beethoven's Scherzo in the +Sonata Opus 31, No. 3. It was staccato as a hail-storm. Two years +later, in Paris, I heard the same concerto played by Nicholas +Rubinstein at the Trocadéro (Exposition, 1878), the very man who had +first flouted the work so rudely that Tschaikovsky, deeply offended, +changed the dedication to Von Bülow. + +Anton Rubinstein displayed the grand manner. His style was a +compound of tiger's blood and honey. Notwithstanding the gossip +about his "false notes" (he wrote a Study on False Notes, as if in +derision), he was, with Tausig and Liszt, a supreme stylist. He was +not always in practice and most of the music he wrote for his +numerous tours was composed in haste and repented of at leisure. It +is now almost negligible. The D minor concerto reminds one of a +much-traversed railroad-station. But Rubinstein the virtuoso! It was +in 1873 I heard him, but I was too young to understand him. Fifteen +years later, or thereabouts, he gave his Seven Historical Recitals +in Paris and I attended the series, not once, but twice. He played +many composers, but for me he seemed to be playing the Book of Job, +the Apocalypse, and the Scarlet Sarafan. He had a ductile tone like +a golden French horn--Joseffy's comparison--and the power and +passion of the man have never been equalled. Neither Tausig nor +Liszt did I hear, worse luck, but there were plenty of witnesses to +tell me of the differences. Liszt, it seems, when at his best, was +both Rubinstein and Tausig combined, with Von Bülow thrown in. Anton +Rubinstein played every school with consummate skill, from the iron +certitudes of Bach's polyphony to the magic murmurs of Chopin and +the romantic rustling in the moonlit garden of Schumann. Beethoven, +too, he interpreted with intellectual and emotional vigour. Yet this +magnificent Calmuck--he wasn't of course, though he had Asiatic +features--grew weary of his instrument, as did Liszt, and fought the +stars in their courses by composing. But his name is writ in ivory, +and not in enduring music. + +Scudo said that when Sigismund Thalberg played, his scales were like +perfectly strung pearls falling on scarlet velvet; with Liszt the +pearls had become red hot. This extravagant image is of value. We +have gone back to the Thalbergian pearls, for too much passion in +piano-playing is voted bad taste to-day. Nuance, then colour, and +ripe conception. Technique for technique's sake is no longer a +desideratum; furthermore, as Felix Leifels wittily remarked: "No one +plays the piano badly"; just as no one acts Hamlet disreputably. Mr. +Leifels, as a veteran contrabassist and at present manager of the +Philharmonic Society, ought to be an authority on the subject; the +old Philharmonic has had all the pianists, from H. C. Timm, in +1844--a Hummel concerto--to Thalberg and Rubinstein, Joseffy, +Paderewski, and Josef Hofmann. Truly the standard of virtuosity is +higher than it was a quarter of a century ago. Girls give recitals +with programmes that are staggering. The Chopin concertos now occupy +the position, technically speaking, of the Hummel and Mendelssohn +concertos. Every one plays Chopin as a matter of course, and, with a +few exceptions horribly. Yes, Mr. Leifels is right; no one plays the +piano badly, yet new Rubinsteins do not materialise. + +The year of the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, 1876, was a +memorable one for visiting pianists. I heard not only Hans von +Bülow, but also two beautiful women, one at the apex of her artistic +career, Annette Essipoff (or Essipowa) and Teresa Carreño, just +starting on her triumphal road to fame. Essipowa was later the wife +of Leschetizky--maybe she was married then--and she was the most +poetic of all women pianists that I have heard. Clara Schumann was +as musical, but she was aged when I listened to her. Essipowa played +Chopin as only a Russian can. They are all Slavs, these Poles and +Russians, and no other nation, except the Hungarian, interpret +Chopin. Probably the greatest German virtuoso was Adolf Henselt, +Bavarian-born, though a resident of Petrograd. He had a Chopin-like +temperament and played that master's music so well that Schumann +called him the "German Chopin." Essipowa, I need hardly tell you, +communicated no little of her gracious charm to Paderewski. He +learned more from her plastic style than from all the precepts of +Leschetizky. + +On a hot night in 1876, and in old Association Hall, I first saw and +heard Teresa (then Teresita) Carreño. I say "saw" advisedly, for she +was a blooming girl, and at the time shared the distinction with +Adelaide Neilson and Mrs. Scott-Siddons of being one of the three +most beautiful women on the stage. Carreño, still vital, still +handsome, and still the conquering artist, till her death last +spring, was in that far-away day fresh from Venezuela, a pupil of +Gottschalk and Anton Rubinstein. She wore a scarlet gown, as fiery +as her playing, and when I wish to recall her I close my eyes and +straightway as if in a scarlet mist I see her, hear her; for her +playing has always been scarlet to me, as Rubinstein's is golden, +and Joseffy's silvery. + +The French group I have heard, beginning with Theodore Ritter, who +came to New York in company with Carlotta Patti; Planté--still +living and over eighty, so I have been told by M. Phillipp; +Saint-Saëns, whom I first saw and heard at the Trocadéro, Paris, +with his pupil, Montigny-Remaury; Clotilde Kleeberg, Diémer, Risler; +the venerable Georges Mathias, a pupil of Chopin; Raoul Pugno, who +was veritably a pugnacious pianist, Cécile Chaminade, Marie Jaell, +and her corpulent husband, Alfred Jaell. + +Eugen d'Albert, surely the greatest of Scotch pianists--he was born +at Glasgow, though musically educated in London--is another +heaven-stormer. I heard him at Berlin some years ago, in +Philharmonic Hall, and people stood up in their excitement--Liszt +redivivus! + +It was the grand manner in its most chaotic form. A musical volcano +belching up lava, scoriæ, rocks, hunks of Beethoven--the +Appassionata Sonata it happened to be--while the infuriated little +Vulcan threw emotional fuel into his furnace. The unfortunate +instrument must have been a mass of splintered steel, wood, and wire +after the musical giant had finished. It was a magnificent +spectacle, and the music glorious. Eugen d'Albert, whether he is or +isn't the son of Karl Tausig--as Weimar gossip had it; Weimar, when +in the palmy days every other pianist you met was a natural son of +Liszt--or else pretended to be one--has more than a moiety of that +virtuoso's genius. He is a great artist, and occasionally the magic +fire flares and lights up the firmament of music. + +I think it was in 1879 that Rafael Joseffy visited us for the first +time; but I didn't hear him till 1880. The reason I remember the +date is that this greatly beloved Hungarian made his début at old +Chickering Hall (then at Fifth Avenue and Eighteenth Street); but I +saw him in Steinway Hall. Another magician with a peculiarly +personal style. In the beginning you thought of the aurora borealis, +shooting-stars, and exquisite meteors; a beautiful style, though not +a classic interpreter then. With the years Joseffy deepened and +broadened. The iridescent shimmer was never absent. No one played +the E minor Concerto of Chopin as did Joseffy. He had the tradition +from his beloved master, Tausig, as Tausig had it from Chopin by way +of Liszt. (Tausig always regretted that he had never heard Chopin +play.) Joseffy, in turn, transmitted the tradition to his early +pupil, Moriz Rosenthal, in whose répertoire it is the most +Chopinesque of all his performances. + +And do you remember the Chevalier de Kontski, Carl Baermann, Franz +Rummel, S. B. Mills--who introduced here so many modern +concertos--the huge Norwegian Edmund Neupert, who lived at the Hotel +Liszt, next door to Steinway Hall, Constantin von Sternberg, and Max +Vogrich, the Hungarian with the Chopin-like profile? + +In the same school as Joseffy is the capricious De Pachmann; with +Joseffy I sat at the first recital of this extraordinary Russian in +Chickering Hall (1890). Joseffy, with his accustomed generosity of +spirit--he was the most sympathetic and human of great virtuosi--at +once recognised the artistic worth of Vladimir de Pachmann. This +last representative of a school that included the names of Hummel, +Cramer, Field, Thalberg, Chopin, the little De Pachmann (he was then +bearded like a pirate) captivated us. It was all miniature, without +passion or pathos or the grand manner, but in its genre his playing +was perfection; the polished perfection of an intricately carved +ivory ornament. De Pachmann played certain sides of Chopin +incomparably; capriciously, even perversely. In a small hall, +sitting on a chair that precisely suited his fidgety spirit, then, +if in the mood, a recital by him was something unforgettable. + +After De Pachmann--Paderewski. Paderewski, the master-colourist, the +grand visionary, whose art is often strained, morbid, fantastic. And +after Paderewski? Why, Leopold Godowsky, of course. He belongs to +the Joseffy-De Pachmann, not to the Rubinstein-Josef Hofmann, group. +I once called him the superman of piano-playing. Nothing like him, +as far as I know, is to be found in the history of piano-playing +since Chopin. He is an apparition. A Chopin doubled by a +contrapuntalist. Bach and Chopin. The spirit of the German cantor +and the Polish tone-poet in curious conjunction. His playing is +transcendental; his piano compositions the transcendentalism of the +future. That way, else retrogression! All has been accomplished in +ideas and figuration. A new synthesis--the combination of seemingly +disparate elements and styles--with innumerable permutations, he has +accomplished. He is a miracle-worker. The Violet Ray. Dramatic +passion, flame, and fury are not present; they would be intruders on +his map of music. The piano tone is always legitimate, never forced. +But every other attribute he boasts. His ten digits are ten +independent voices recreating the ancient polyphonic art of the +Flemings. He is like a Brahma at the piano. Before his serene and +all-embracing vision every school appears and disappears in the +void. The beauty of his touch and tone are only matched by the +delicate adjustment of his phrasing to the larger curve of the +composition. Nothing musical is foreign to him. He is a pianist for +pianists, and I am glad to say that the majority of them gladly +recognise this fact. + +One evening Godowsky was playing his piano sonata with its subtle +intimations of Brahms, Chopin, and Liszt, and its altogether +Godowskian colour and rhythmic life--he is the greatest creator of +rhythmic values since Liszt, and that is a "large order"--when he +was interrupted by the entrance of Josef Hofmann. Godowsky and +Hofmann are as inseparable as were Chopin and Liszt. Heine called +the latter pair the Dioscurii of music. In the Godowsky apartment +stood several concert grands. Hofmann nonchalantly removed his coat +and, making an apology for disturbing us, he went into another room +and soon we heard him slowly practising. What do you suppose? Some +new concerto with new-fangled bedevilments? O Sancta Simplicitas! +This giant, if ever there was one, played at a funereal tempo the +octave passages in the left hand of the Heroic Polonaise of Chopin +(Opus 53). Every schoolgirl rattles them off as "easy," but, with +the humility of a great artist, Hofmann practised the section as if +it were still a stumbling-block. De Lenz records that Tausig did the +same. + +Later, Conductor Artur Bodanzky of the Metropolitan Opera dropped +in, and several pianists and critics followed, and soon the Polish +pianist was playing for us all some well-known compositions by a +certain Dvorsky; also an extremely brilliant and effective concert +study in C minor by Constantin von Sternberg. From 1888, when he was +a wonder-child here, Jozio Hofmann's artistic development has been +logical and continuous. His mellow muscularity evokes Rubinstein. No +one plays Rubinstein as does this Harmonious Blacksmith--and with +the piety of Rubinstein's pet pupil. I once compared him to a +steam-hammer, whose marvellous sensitivity enables it to crack an +egg-shell or crush iron. Hofmann's range of tonal dynamics is +unequalled, even in this age of perfected piano technique. He is at +home in all schools, and his knowledge is enormous. At moments his +touch is as rich as a Kneisel Quartet accord. + +At the famous Rudolph Schirmer dinner, given in 1915, among other +distinguished guests there were nearly a score of piano virtuosi. +The newspapers humorously commented upon the fact that there was +not a squabble, though with so many nationalities one row, at +least, might have been expected. As a matter of fact, if any +discussion had arisen it would not have been over politics, but +about the fingering of the Double-Note Study in G sharp minor of +Chopin, so difficult to play slowly--the most formidable of +argument-breeding questions among pianists. A parterre of pianists, +indeed, some in New York because of the war, while Paderewski and +Rosenthal were conspicuous by their absence. Think of a few names: +Joseffy--he died several months later, Gabrilowitsch, Hofmann, +Godowsky, Carl Friedberg, Mark Hambourg--a heaven-stormer in the +Rubinstein-Hercules manner--Leonard Borwick, Alexander Lambert, +Ernest Schelling, Stojowski, Percy Grainger--the young Siegfried of +the Antipodes--August Fraemcke, Cornelius Ruebner, and--another +apparition in the world of piano-playing--Ferruccio Busoni. + +This Italian, the greatest of Italian piano virtuosi--the history of +which can claim such names as Domenico Scarlatti, Clementi, +Fumigalli, Martucci, Sgambati--is also a composer who has set agog +conservative critics by the boldness of his imagination. As an +artist he may be said to embody the intellectuality of Von Bülow, +the technical brilliancy of the Liszt group. Busoni is eminently a +musical thinker. + +America probably will never again harbour such a constellation of +piano talent. I sometimes wonder if the vanished generation of piano +artists played much better than those men. Godowsky, Hofmann, the +lyric and most musical Harold Bauer; the many-sided, richly endowed, +and charming Ossip Gabrilowitsch, Hambourg, Busoni, and Paderewski +are not often matched. Heine called Thalberg a king, Liszt a +prophet, Chopin a poet, Herz an advocate, Kalkbrenner a minstrel +(not a negro minstrel, for a chalk-burner is necessarily white), +Mme. Pleyel a sibyl, and Doehler--a pianist! The contemporary piano +hierarchy might be thus classed: Josef Hofmann, a king; Paderewski, +a poet; Godowsky, a prophet; Fannie Bloomfield-Zeisler, a sibyl; +D'Albert, a titan; Busoni, a philosopher; Rosenthal, a hero, and +Alexander Lambert--a pianist. Well, Mr. Lambert may be congratulated +on such an ascription; Doehler was a great technician in his day, +and when the "friend of pianists" (Lambert could pattern after +Schindler, whose visiting-card read: "l'Ami de Beethoven") masters +his modesty an admirable piano virtuoso is revealed. So let him be +satisfied with the honourable appellation of "pianist." He is in +good company. + +And the ladies! I am sorry I can't say, "place aux dames!" Space +forbids. I've heard them all, from Arabella Goddard to Mme. +Montigny-Remaury (in Paris, 1878, with her master, Camille +Saint-Saëns); from Alide Topp, Marie Krebs, Anna Mehlig, Pauline +Fichtner, Vera Timinoff, Ingeborg Bronsart, Madeline Schiller, to +Julia Rivé-King; from Cecilia Gaul and Svarvady-Clauss to Anna +Bock; from the Amazon, Sofie Menter, the most masculine of Liszt +players, to Adèle Margulies, Yoland Maero, and Antoinette +Szumowska-Adamowska; from Ilonka von Ravacsz to Ethel Leginska--who +plays like a house afire; from Helen Hopekirk to Katharine Goodson; +from Clara Schumann to Fannie Bloomfield-Zeisler, Olga Samaroff, and +the newly come Brazilian Guiomar Novaes--the list might be unduly +prolonged. + +I heard Paderewski play last spring. Surely he has now the "grand +manner" in all its dramatic splendour, and without its old-fashioned +pretentious rhetoric. Nor has he lost the lusciousness of his +touch--a Caruso voice on the keyboard--or the poetic intensity of +his Chopin and Schumann interpretations. He is still Prince +Charming. + +Not only do I fear prolixity, but the confusing of critical values, +for I write from memory, and I admit that I've had more pleasure +from the "intimate" pianists than from the forgers of tonal +thunderbolts; that is--Rubinstein excepted--from such masters in +miniature as Joseffy, Godowsky, Carl Heyman, De Pachmann, and +Paderewski. I find in the fresh, sparkling playing of Mischa +Levitski, Benno Moiseivich, and Guiomar Novaes high promise for +their future. The latter came here unheralded and as the pupil of +that sterling virtuoso and pedagogue, Isidor Phillipp of the Paris +Conservatory. + +It is noteworthy that only Chopin, Liszt, and Von Bülow were +Christian born among the supreme masters of the keyboard; the rest +(with a few exceptions) were and are members of that race whose +religious tenets specifically incline them to the love and practice +of music. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +JAMES JOYCE + + +Who is James Joyce? is a question that was answered by John Quinn, +who told us that the new writer was from Dublin and at present +residing in Switzerland; that he is not in good health--his eyes +trouble him--and that he was once a student in theology, but soon +gave up the idea of becoming a priest. He is evidently a member of +the new group of young Irish writers who see their country and +countrymen in anything but a flattering light. Ireland, surely the +most beautiful and most melancholy island on the globe, is not the +Isle of Saints for those iconoclasts. George Moore is a poet who +happens to write English, though he often thinks in French; Bernard +Shaw, notwithstanding his native wit, is of London and the +Londoners; while Yeats and Synge are essentially Celtic, and both +poets. Yes, and there is the delightful James Stephen, who mingles +angels' pin-feathers with rainbow gold; a magic decoction of which +we never weary. But James Joyce, potentially a poet, and a realist +of the De Maupassant breed, envisages Dublin and the Dubliners with +a cruel scrutinising gaze. He is as truthful as Tchekov, and as +grey--that Tchekov compared with whose the "realism" of De +Maupassant is romantic bric-à-brac, gilded with a fine style. Joyce +is as implacably naturalistic as the Russian in his vision of the +sombre, mean, petty, dusty commonplaces of middle-class life, and he +sometimes suggests the Frenchman in his clear, concise, technical +methods. The man is indubitably a fresh talent. + +Emerson, after his experiences in Europe, became an armchair +traveller. He positively despised the idea of voyaging across the +water to see what is just as good at home. He calls Europe a +tapeworm in the brain of his countrymen. "The stuff of all countries +is just the same." So Ralph Waldo sat in his chair and enjoyed +thinking about Europe, thus evading the worries of going there too +often. It has its merit, this Emersonian way, particularly for souls +easily disillusioned. To anticipate too much of a foreign city may +result in disappointment. We have all had this experience. Paris +resembles Chicago, or Vienna is a second Philadelphia at times; it +depends on the colour of your mood. Few countries have been so +persistently misrepresented as Ireland. It is lauded to the eleventh +heaven of the Burmese or it is a place full of fighting devils in a +hell of crazy politics. Of course, it is neither, nor is it the land +of Lover and Lever; Handy Andy and Harry Lorrequer are there, but +you never encounter them in Dublin. John Synge got nearer to the +heart of the peasantry, and Yeats and Lady Gregory brought back +from the hidden spaces fairies and heroes. + +Is Father Ralph by Gerald O'Donovan a veracious picture of Irish +priesthood and college life? Is the fiction of Mr. Joyce +representative of the middle class and of the Jesuits? A cloud of +contradictory witnesses passes across the sky. What is the Celtic +character? Dion Boucicault's The Shaughraun? Or isn't the +pessimistic dreamer with the soul of a "wild goose," depicted in +George Moore's story, the real man? Celtic magic, cried Matthew +Arnold. He should have said, Irish magic, for while the Irishman is +a Celt, he is unlike his brethren across the Channel. Perhaps he is +nearer to the Sarmatian than the continental Celt. Ireland and +Poland! The Irish and the Polish! Dissatisfied no matter under which +king! Not Playboys of the Western World, but martyrs to their +unhappy temperaments. + +The Dublin of Mr. Joyce shows another variation of this always +interesting theme. It is a rather depressing picture, his, of the +daily doings of his contemporaries. His novel is called A Portrait +of the Artist as a Young Man, a title quite original and expressive +of what follows; also a title that seems to have emerged from the +catalogue of an art-collector. It is a veritable portrait of the +artist as a boy, a youth and a young man. From school to college, +from the brothel to the confessional, from his mother's +apron-strings to coarse revelry, the hero is put to the torture by +art and relates the story of his blotched yet striving soul. We do +not recall a book like this since the autobiography En Route of +J.-K. Huysmans. This Parisian of Dutch extraction is in the company +of James Joyce. Neither writer stops at the half-way house of +reticence. It's the House of Flesh in its most sordid aspects, and +the human soul is occasionally illuminated by gleams from the grace +of God. With both men the love of Rabelaisian speech is marked. +This, if you please, is a Celtic trait. Not even the Elizabethans so +joyed in "green" words, as the French say, as do some Irish. Of +richest hue are his curses, and the Prince of Obliquity himself must +chuckle when he overhears one Irishman consign another to +everlasting damnation by the turn of his tongue. + +Stephen, the hero of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, tells +his student friend about his father. These were his attributes: "A +medical student, an oarsman, a tenor, an amateur actor, a shouting +politician, a small landlord, a small investor, a drinker, a good +fellow, a story-teller, somebody's secretary, something in a +distillery, a tax-gatherer, a bankrupt, at present a praiser of his +own past." He could talk the devil out of the liver-wing of a +turkey--as they say up Cork way. The portrait is well-nigh perfect. +The wild goose over again, and ever on the wing. Stephen became +violently pious after a retreat at the Jesuits. From the extreme of +riotous living he was transformed into a militant Catholic. The +reverend fathers had hopes of him. He was an excellent Latinist, but +his mind was too speculative; later it proved his spiritual undoing. +To analyse the sensibility of a soul mounting on flaming pinions to +God is easier than to describe the modulations of a moral +recidivist. Stephen fell away from his faith, though he did not +again sink into the slough of Dublin low life. Cranly, the student, +saw through the hole in his sceptical millstone. "It is a curious +thing, do you know," Cranly said dispassionately, "how your mind is +supersaturated with the religion in which you say you disbelieve." A +profound remark. Once a Roman Catholic always a Roman Catholic, +particularly if you are born in Ireland. + +Mr. Joyce holds the scales evenly. He neither abuses nor praises. He +is evidently out of key with religious life; yet he speaks of the +Jesuits with affection and admiration. The sermons preached by them +during the retreat are models. They are printed in full--strange +material for a novel. And he can show us the black hatred caused by +the clash of political and religious opinions. There is a scene of +this sort in the house of Stephen's parents that simply blazes with +verity. At a Christmas dinner the argument between Dante (a certain +Mrs. Riordan) and Mr. Casey spoils the affair. Stephen's father +carves the turkey and tries to stop the mouths of the angry man and +woman with food. The mother implores. Stephen stolidly gobbles, +watching the row, which culminates with Mr. Casey losing his +temper--he has had several tumblers of mountain dew and is a little +"how come you so?" He bursts forth: "No God in Ireland! We have had +too much God in Ireland! Away with God!" "Blasphemer! Devil!" +screamed Dante, starting to her feet and almost spitting in his +face. "Devil out of hell! We won! We crushed him to death! Fiend!" +The door slammed behind her. Mr. Casey suddenly bowed his head on +his hands with a sob of pain. "Poor Parnell!" he cried loudly. "My +dead King." Naturally the dinner was not a success. Stephen noted +that there were tears in his father's eyes at the mention of +Parnell, but that he seemed debonair enough when the old woman +unpacked her heart of vile words like a drab. + +There is no denying that the novel is as a whole hardly cheerful. +Its grip on life, its intensity, its evident truth, and unflinching +acceptance of facts will make A Portrait disagreeable to the average +reader. There is relief in the Trinity College episodes; humour of a +saturnine kind in the artistic armoury of Mr. Joyce. There is no +ironist like an Irishman. The book is undoubtedly written from a +full heart, but the author must have sighed with relief when he +wrote the last line. No one may tell the truth with impunity, and +the portrait of Stephen in its objective frigidity--as an artistic +performance--and its passionate personal note, is bound to give +offence in every quarter. It is too Irish to be liked by the Irish; +not an infrequent paradox. The volume of tales entitled Dubliners +reveals a wider range, a practised technical hand, and a gift for +etching character that may be compared with De Maupassant's. A big +comparison, but read such masterpieces in pity and irony as The +Dead, A Painful Case, The Boarding-House or Two Gallants, and be +convinced that we do not exaggerate. + +Dublin, we have said elsewhere, is a huge whispering gallery. +Scandal of the most insignificant order never lacks multiple echoes. +From Merrion Square, from the Shelbourne, to Dalkey or Drumcondra; +from the Monument to Chapelizod, the repercussion of spoken gossip +is unfailing. The book Dubliners is filled with Dublinesque +anecdotes. It is charged with the sights and scents and gestures of +the town. The slackers who pester servant-girls for their shillings +to spend on whisky; the young man in the boarding-house who succumbs +to the "planted" charms of the landlady's daughter to fall into the +matrimonial trap--only De Maupassant could better the telling of +this too commonplace story; the middle-aged man, parsimonious as to +his emotions and the tragic ending of a love-affair that had hardly +begun; and the wonderfully etched plate called The Dead with its +hundred fine touches of comedy and satire--these but prove the claim +of James Joyce's admirers that he is a writer signally gifted. A +malevolent fairy seemingly made him a misanthrope. With Spinoza he +could say--oh, terrifying irony!--that "mankind is not necessary" in +the eternal scheme. We hope that with the years he may become +mellower, but that he will never lose the appreciation of "life's +more bitter flavours." Insipid novelists are legion. He is +Huysmans's little brother in his flair for disintegrating character. +But yet an Irishman, who sees the shining vision in the sky, a +vision that too often vanishes before he can pin its beauty on +canvas. But yet an Irishman in his sense of the murderous humour of +such a story as Ivy Day in the Committee-Room, which would bring to +a Tammany heeler what Henry James called "the emotion of +recognition." Ah! the wild goose. The flying dream. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +CREATIVE INVOLUTION + + +Israel Zangwill, in the papers he contributed once upon a time to +the _Strand Magazine_ and later reunited in a book bearing the +happy title Without Prejudice, spoke of women writers as being +significant chiefly in their self-revelation. What they tell of +themselves is of more value than what they write about. Whether +Mr. Zangwill now believes this matters little in the discussion of +an unusual book by a woman. Perhaps to-day he would open both eyes +widely after reading Creative Involution, by Cora L. Williams, +M. S., with an apposite introduction by Edwin Markham. Miss Williams +deals with no less a bagatelle than the Fourth Dimension of Space +(what we do not know we fear, and fear is always capitalised). +Speculative as is her work, she is not a New-Thoughter, a Christian +Scientist, or a member of any of the other queer rag-tag and bobtail +beliefs and superstitions--fortune-telling, astrology, selling +"futures" in the next life, table-rapping, and such like. Cora +Lenore Williams is an authority in mathematics, as was the +brilliant, unhappy Sonya Kovalevska. Her ideas, then, are not +verbal wind-pudding, but have a basis of mathematics and the +investigations of the laboratory, where "chemists and physicists +are finding that the conduct of certain molecules and crystals +is best explained as a fourth-dimensional activity." + +We have always enjoyed the idea of the Fourth Spatial Dimension. The +fact that it is an _x_ in the plotting of mathematicians in general +does not hinder it from being a fascinating theme. J. K. F. +Zoellner, of Leipsic, proved to his own satisfaction the existence +of a Fourth Dimension when he turned an india-rubber ball inside out +without tearing it. Later he became a victim to incurable +melancholy. No wonder. If you have read Cayley, or Abbot's Flatland, +or the ingenious speculations of Simon Newcomb and W. K. Clifford, +you will learn the attractions of the subject. Perpetual motion, +squaring the circle, are only variants of the alchemical pursuit of +the philosopher's stone, the transmutation of the baser metals, the +cabalistic Abracadabra, the quest of the absolute. Man can't live on +machinery alone, and the underfed soul of the past period of +positivism craves more spiritual nourishment to-day. Hasn't the +remarkable mathematician Henri Poincaré (author of Science and +Hypothesis, The Value of Science, Science and Method) declared that +between the construction of the spirit and the absolute of truth +there is an abysm caused by free choice and the voluntary +elimination which have necessitated such inferences? Note the word +"free"; free-will is restored to its old and honourable estate in +the hierarchy of thought. The cast-iron determinism of the seventies +and eighties has gone to join the materialistic ideas of Büchner and +Clifford. It is a pluralistic world now, and lordly Intuition--a +dangerous vocable--rules over mere mental processes. (There is, as +George Henry Lewes asserted, profound truth in the Cullen paradox: +_i. e._, there are more false facts than false theories current.) +Science only attains the knowledge of the correspondence and +relativity of things--no mean intellectual feat, by the way--but not +of the things themselves; one must join, adds Poincaré, to the +faculty of reasoning the gift of direct sympathy. In a word, +Intuition. Even mathematics as an exact science is not immutable, +and the geometries of Lebatchevsky and Riemann are as legitimate as +Euclid's. And at this point the earth beneath us begins to tremble +and the stars to totter in their spheres. Is the age of miracles +now? + +Perhaps music is in the Fourth Dimension. Time may be in two +dimensions. Heraclitus before Bergson compared Time to a river +always flowing, yet a permanent river: if we emerged from this +stream at a certain moment and entered it an hour later, would it +not signify that Time has two dimensions. And where does music stand +in the eternal scheme of things? Are not harmony with its vertical +structure and melody with its horizontal flow proof that music is +another dimension in Time? Miss Williams's notion of the Fourth +Spatial Dimension is a spiritual one. Creative Involution is to +supersede the Darwinian evolution. Again, the interior revolution +described for our salvation in the epistles of the Apostle Paul. All +roads lead to religion. Expel religion forcibly and it returns under +strange disguises, usually as debasing superstitions. Yet religion +without dogma is like a body without a skeleton--it can't be made to +stand upright. + +Mathematicians are poets, and religion is the poetry of the poor, +just as philosophy is the diversion of professors. Modern science, +said Mallock, put out the footlights of life's stage when it denied +religion. But matter, in the light of recent experiment, is become +spirit, energy, anything but gross matter. Tyndall might have to +revise the conclusions of his once famous Belfast address in the +presence of radium. Remy de Gourmont said that the essential thing +is to search the eternal in the diverse and fleeting movements of +form. From a macrocosmic monster our gods are become microcosmic; +god may be a molecule, a cell. A god to put in a phial; thus far has +the zigzag caprice of theory attained. And religion is "a sum of +scruples which impede the free exercise of our faculties," says +Salomon Reinach in Orpheus. Bossuet did not write his Variations in +vain. All is vanity, even doctrinal fluctuations. Goethe has warned +us that "Man is not born to solve the mystery of Existence; but he +must nevertheless attempt it, in order that he may learn how to keep +within the limits of the Knowable." Goethe detested all "thinking +about thought." Spinoza was his only philosophical recreation. + +Man must no longer be egocentric. The collective soul is born. The +psychology of the mob, according to Professor Le Bon, is different +from the psychology of the individual. We know this from the mental +workings of a jury. Twelve otherwise intelligent men put in a +jury-box contaminate each other's will so that their united judgment +is, as a rule, that of a full-fledged imbecile. Mark Twain noted +this in his accustomed humorous (a mordant humour) fashion, adding +that trial by jury was all very well in the time of Alfred the +Great, candle-clocks, and small communities. Miss Williams, who sees +salvation for the single soul in the collective soul--not +necessarily socialistic--nevertheless warns parents against the +dangers in our public-school system, where the individuality of the +child is so often disturbed, if not destroyed, by class teaching. +Mob psychology is always false psychology. The crowd obliterates the +ego. Yet to collective consciousness may belong the future. It is +all very well for Mallock to call war the glorification, the result, +and the prop of limited class interests. (This was years ago.) +Stately, sedate, stable is the class that won't tolerate war; a +class of moral lollipops. War we must have; it is one of the prime +conditions of struggling existence. As belief in some totem, fetich, +taboo is the basis of all superstitions, so the superstition of +yesterday builds the cathedrals of faith to-day. (Read Frazer's +Golden Bough--James Frazer, who is the Darwin of Social +Anthropology.) Happiness requires limitations, as a wine needs a +glass to hold it; and if patriotism is a crime of lèse-majesty +against mankind, then be it so. But like the poor, war and +patriotism are precious essences in the scheme of life, and we shall +always have them with us. However, the warning of Miss Williams is a +timely one. At school our children's souls are clogged with bricks +and mortar, instead of being buoyant and individual. + +She quotes--and her little volume contains a mosaic of apt +quotations--with evident approbation from Some Neglected Factors in +Evolution, by the late H. M. Bernard, an English thinker: "Organic +life is thus seen advancing out of the dim past upon a series of +waves, each of which can be scanned in detail until we come to that +one on which we ourselves, the organisms of to-day, and the human +societies to which we belong, are swept onward. Here we must +necessarily pause, but can we doubt that the great organic rhythm +which has brought life so far will carry it on to still greater +heights in the unknown future?" Rhythm, measured flow, is the +shibboleth. Zarathustra tells us that man is a discord and hybrid of +plant and ghost. "I teach you Beyond-Man (superman); Man is +something that will be surpassed ... once man was ape, and is ape in +a higher degree than any ape.... Man is a rope connecting animal and +Beyond-Man." "Believe that which thou seest not," cries Flaubert in +his marvellous masque of mythologies ancient and modern, The +Temptation of St. Anthony. Tertullian said the same centuries before +the Frenchman: Believe what is impossible. We all do. Perhaps it is +the price we pay for cognition. + +Miss Williams is not a Bergsonian, though she appreciates his +plastic theories. She has a receptive mind. Henri Bergson is a +mystagogue, and all mystagogues are mythomaniacs. He has yet to +answer Professor Hugh S. R. Elliott's three questions: "1. Bergson +says, 'Time is a stuff both resistant and substantial.' Where is the +specimen on which this allegation is founded? 2. Consciousness is to +some extent independent of cerebral structure. Professor Bergson +thinks he is disproving a crude theory of localisation of mental +qualities. Will he furnish evidence of its existence apart from +local structure? 3. Instinct leads us to a comprehension of life +that intellect can never give. Will Professor Bergson furnish +instances of the successes of instinct in biological inquiries where +intellect has failed?" (From Modern Science and the Illusions of +Professor Bergson, 1912.) These "metaphysical curiosities," as they +are rather contemptuously called by Sir Ray Lankester in his preface +to this solidly reasoned confutation, are the pabulum of numerous +persons, dilettantes, with a craving for an embellished theory of +the Grand Perhaps. Miss Williams is not the dupe of such silken +sophistries, and while her divagations are sometimes in the +air--which, like the earth, hath bubbles, as was observed by the +greatest of poets--she plants her feet on tangible affirmations. And +to have faith we must admit the Illative sense of John Henry Newman. +Thus "the wheel is come full circle." Creative Involution will +please mystics and mathematicians alike. The author somersaults in +the vasty blue, but safely volplanes to mother earth. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +FOUR DIMENSIONAL VISTAS + + +Hamlet, sometime Prince of Denmark, warned his friend that there +were more things in heaven and earth than dreamed of in his +philosophy. Now, both Hamlet and Horatio had absorbed the +contemporary wisdom of Wittenberg. And let it be said in passing +that their knowledge did not lag behind ours, metaphysically +speaking. Nevertheless, Hamlet, if he had lived longer, might have +said that no philosophy would ever solve the riddle of the sphinx; +that we never know, only name, things. Noah is the supreme symbol of +science, he the first namer of the animals in the ark. The world of +sensation is our ark and we are one branch of the animal family. We +come whence we know not and go where we shall never guess. Standing +on this tiny Isle of Error we call the present, we think backward +and live forward. Hamlet the sceptical would now demand something +more tangible than the Grand Perhaps. My kingdom for a fulcrum! he +might cry to Horatio--on which I may rest my lever and pry this too +too solid earth up to the starry skies! What the implement? +Religion? Remember Hamlet was a Catholic, too sensitive to send +unshrived to hell's fire the soul of his uncle. Philosophy? Read +Jules Laforgue's Hamlet and realise that if he were alive to-day the +melancholy Prince might be a delicate scoffer at all fables. A +Hamlet who had read Schopenhauer. What then the escape? We all need +more elbow-room in the infinite. The answer is--the Fourth Dimension +in Higher Space. Eureka! + +After studying Saint Teresa, John of the Cross, Saint Ignatius, or +the selections in Vaughan's Hours with the Mystics, even the +doubting Thomas is forced to admit that here is no trace of rambling +discourse, fugitive ideation, half-stammered enigmas; on the +contrary, the true mystic abhors the cloudy, and his vision pierces +with crystalline clearness the veil of the visible world. As +literary style we find sharp contours and affirmations. Mysticism is +not all cobweb lace and opal fire. Remember that we are not +stressing the validity of either the vision or its consequent +judgments; we only wish to emphasise the absence of muddy thinking +in these writings. This quality of precision, allied to an eloquent, +persuasive style, we encounter in Claude Bragdon's Four Dimensional +Vistas. The author is an architect and has written much of his art +and of projective ornament. (He was a Scammon lecturer at the +Chicago Art Institute in 1915.) He is a mystic. He is also eminently +practical. His contribution to æsthetics in The Beautiful Necessity +is suggestive, and on the purely technical side valuable. But Mr. +Bragdon, being both a mathematician and a poet, does not stop at +three-dimensional existence. Like the profound English mystic +William Blake, he could ask: "How do you know but every bird that +cuts the airy way is an immense world of delight, closed by your +senses five?" + +What is the Fourth Dimension? A subtle transposition of precious +essences from the earthly to the spiritual plane. We live in a world +of three dimensions, the symbols of which are length, breadth, +thickness. A species of triangular world, a prison for certain souls +who see in the category of Time an escape from that other +imperative, Space (however, not the Categorical Imperative of Kant +and its acid moral convention). Helmholtz and many mathematicians +employed the "n" dimension as a working hypothesis. It is useful in +some analytical problems, but it is not apprehended by the grosser +senses. Pascal, great thinker and mathematician, had his "Abyss"; it +was his Fourth Dimension, and he never walked abroad without the +consciousness of it at his side. This illusion or obsession was the +result of a severe mental shock early in his life. Many of us are +like the French philosopher. We have our "abyss," mystic or real. +Mr. Bragdon quotes from the mathematician Bolyai, who in 1823 +"declared with regard to Euclid's so-called axiom of parallels, 'I +will draw two lines through a given point both of which will be +parallel to a given line.'" Space, then, may be curved in another +dimension. Mr. Bragdon believes that it is, though he does not +attempt to prove it, as that would be impossible; but he gives his +readers the chief points in the hypothesis. The "n" dimension may be +employed as a lever to the imagination. Even revealed religion +demands our faith, and imagination is the prime agent in the +interpretation of the universe, according to the gospel of mystic +mathematics. + +Nature geometrises, said Emerson, and it is interesting to note the +imagery of transcendentalism through the ages. It is invariably +geometrical. Spheres, planes, cones, circles, spirals, tetragrams, +pentagrams, ellipses, and what-not. A cubistic universe. Xenophanes +said that God is a sphere. And then there are the geometrical +patterns made by birds on the wing. Heaven in any religion is +another sphere. Swedenborg offers a series of planes, many mansions +for the soul at its various stages of existence. The Bible, the +mystical teachings of Mother Church--why evoke familiar witnesses? +We are hemmed in by riddles, and the magnificent and mysterious +tumult of life asks for the eye of imagination, which is also the +eye of faith. The cold fire and dark light of the mystics must not +repel us by their strangeness. Not knowledge but perception is +power, and the psychic is the sign-post of the future. What do all +these words mean: matter, energy, spirit, cells, molecules, +electrons, but the same old thing? I am a colony of cells, yet that +fact does not get me closer to the core of the soul. What will? A +fourth spatial dimension, answers Claude Bragdon. Truly a poetic +concept. + +He calls man a space-eater. Human ambition is to annihilate space. +Wars are fought for space, and every step in knowledge is based upon +its mastery. What miracles are wireless telegraphy, flying-machines, +the Roentgen ray! Astronomy--what ghastly gulfs it shows us in +space! Time and space were abolished as sense illusions by the +worthy Bishop of Cloyne, George Berkeley; but as we are up to our +eyes in quotidian life, which grows over and about us like grass, we +cannot shake off the oppression. First thought, and then realised, +these marvels are now accepted as matter of fact because mankind has +been told the technique of them; as if any explanation can be more +than nominal. We shall never know the real nature of the phenomena +that crowd in on us from lust to dust. Not even that synthesis of +the five senses, the sixth, or sex sense, with its evanescent +ecstasy, cuts deeply into the darkness. There may be a seventh +sense, a new dimension, intimations of which are setting advanced +thinkers on fresh trails. But there is as yet no tangible proof. +Philosophers, who, like some singers, bray their brainless +convictions to a gaping auditory, ask of us much more credence, and +little or no imagination. As that "old mole," working in the ground, +gravitation, is defied by aeroplanes, then we should not despair of +any hypothesis which permits us a peep through the partly opened +door. Plato's cavern and the shadows. Who knows but in this universe +there may be a crevice through which filters the light of another +life? Emerson, who shed systems yet never organised one, hints at +aerial perspectives. A flight through the sky with the sun bathing +in the blue jolts one's conception of a rigid finite world. In such +perilous altitudes I have enjoyed this experience and felt a +liberation of the spirit which has no parallel; not even when +listening to Bach or Beethoven or Chopin. Music, indeed, is the +nearest approach to psychic freedom. + +Mr. Bragdon approvingly quotes Goethe's expression "frozen music," +applied to Gothic architecture. (Stendhal appropriated this phrase.) +For us the flying buttress is aspiring, and the pointed arch is a +fugue. Our author is rich in his analogies, and like Sir Thomas +Browne sees "quincunxes" in everything; his particular "quincunx" +being Higher Space. The precise patterns in our brain, like those of +the ant, bee, and beaver, which enable us to perceive and build the +universe (otherwise called innate ideas) are geometrical. Space is +the first and final illusion. Time--which is not "a stuff both +resistant and substantial," as Henri Bergson declares--is perhaps +the Fourth Dimension in the guise of a sequence of states, and not +grasped simultaneously, as is the idea of Space. That Time can +shrink and expand, opium-eaters, who are not always totally drugged +by their dreams, assure us. A second becomes an æon. And space +curvature? Is it any wonder that "Lewis Carroll," who wrote those +extraordinary parables for little folk, Through the Looking-Glass +and Alice in Wonderland, was a mathematician? A topsy-turvy world; +it is even upside down as an optical image. The other side of good +and evil may be around the corner. Eternity can lurk in a molecule +too tiny to harbour Queen Mab. And we may all live to see the back +of our own heads without peering in mirrors. That "astral trunk" +once so fervently believed in may prove a reality; it is situated +behind the ear and is a long tube that ascends to the planet Saturn, +and by its aid we should be enabled to converse with spirits! The +pineal gland is the seat of the soul, and miracles fence us in at +every step. We fill our belly with the east wind of vain desires. We +eat the air promise-crammed. This world is but a point in the +universe, and our universe only one of an infinite series. There was +no beginning, there is no end. Eternity is now; though death and the +tax-gatherer never cease their importunings. + +All this Mr. Bragdon does not say, though he leans heavily on the +arcana of the ancient wisdom. The truth is that the majority of +humans are mentally considered vegetables, living in two dimensions. +To keep us responsive to spiritual issues, as people were awaked in +Swift's Laputa by flappers, is the service performed by such +transcendentalists as C. Howard Hinton, author of The Fourth +Dimension; Claude Bragdon and Cora Lenore Williams. Their thought is +not new; it was hoary with age when the Greeks went to old Egypt for +fresh learning; Noah conversed with his wives in the same +terminology. But its application is novel, as are the personal +nuances. The idea of a fourth spatial dimension may be likened to +a fresh lens in the telescope or microscope of speculation. For the +present writer the hypothesis is just one more incursion into the +fairyland of metaphysics. Without fairies the heart grows old and +dusty. + +The seven arts are fairy-tales in fascinating shapes. As for the +paradise problem, it is horribly sublime for me, this idea of an +eternity to be spent in a place which, with its silver, gold, plush, +and diamonds, seems like the dream of a retired pawnbroker. The +Eternal Recurrence is more consoling. The only excuse for life is +its brevity. Why, then, do we yearn for that unending corridor +through which in processional rhythms we move, our shoulders bowed +by the burden of our chimera--our ego? I confess that I prefer to +watch on the edge of some vast promontory the swift approach of +a dark sun rushing out from the primordial depths of interstellar +spaces to the celestial assignation made at the beginning of Time +for our little solar system, whose provinciality, remote from the +populous path of the Milky Way, has hitherto escaped colliding +with a segment of the infinite. Perhaps in that apocalyptic +flare-up--surely a more cosmical and heroic death than stewing +in greasy bliss--Higher Space may be manifested and Time and +Tri-Dimensional Space be no more. The rest is silence. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +O. W. + + +It is an enormous advertisement nowadays to win a reputation as a +martyr--whether to an idea, a vice, or a scolding wife. You have a +label by which a careless public is able to identify you. Oscar +Wilde was a born advertiser. From the sunflower days to Holloway +Gaol, and from the gaol to the Virgins of Dieppe, he kept himself in +the public eye. Since his death the number of volumes dealing with +his glittering personality, negligible verse and more or less +insincere prose, have been steadily accumulating; why, I'm at a loss +to understand. If he was a victim to British "middle-class +morality," then have done with it, while regretting the affair. If +he was not, all the more reason to maintain silence. But no, the +clamour increases, with the result that there are many young people +who believe that Oscar was a great man, a great writer, when in +reality he was neither. Here is Alfred Douglas slamming the memory +of his old chum in a not particularly edifying manner, though he +tells some truths, wholesome and unwholesome. Henley paid an +unpleasant tribute to his dead friend, Robert Louis Stevenson, but +the note of hatred was absent; evidently literary depreciation was +the object. However, there are many to whom the truth will be more +welcome than the spectacle of broken friendship. Another, and far +more welcome book, is that written by Martin Birnbaum, a slender +volume of "fragments and memories." His Oscar Wilde is the Oscar of +the first visit to New York, and there are lots of anecdotes and +facts that are sure to please collectors of Wildiana--or +Oscariana--which is it? Pictures, too. I confess that his early +portraits flatter the Irish writer. "He looked like an old maid in a +boarding-house" said a well-known Philadelphia portrait-painter. He +was ugly, not a "beautiful Greek god," as his fervent admirers +think. His mouth was loose, ill-shaped, his eyes dull and "draggy," +his forehead narrow, the cheeks flabby, his teeth protruding and +"horsy," his head and face was pear-shaped. He was a big fellow, as +was his brother Willie Wilde, who once lived in New York, but he +gave no impression of muscular strength or manliness; on the other +hand, he was not a "Sissy," as so many have said. Indeed, to know +him was to like him; he was the "real stuff," as the slang goes, and +if he had only kept away from a pestilential group of flatterers and +spongers, his end might have been different. + +I've heard many eloquent talkers in my time, best of them all was +Barbey d'Aurévilly, of Paris, after whom Oscar palpably +modelled--lace cuffs, clouded cane, and other minor affectations. +But when Oscar was in the vein, which was usually once every +twenty-four hours, he was inimitable. Edgar Saltus will bear me out +in this. For copiousness, sustained wit, and verbal brilliancy the +man had few equals. It was amazing, his conversation. I met him when +he came here, and once again much later. Possibly that is why I care +so little for his verse, a pasticcio of Swinburne--(in the wholly +admirable biography of this poet by Mr. Gosse, reference is made to +O. W. by the irascible hermit of Putney: "I thought he seemed a +harmless young nobody.... I should think you in America must be as +tired of his name as we are in London of Mr. Barnum's and his +Jumbos")--Milton, Tennyson, or for his prose, a dilution of Walter +Pater and Flaubert. His Dorian Grey, apart from the inversion +element, is poor Huysmans's--just look into that masterpiece, A +Rebours; not to mention Poe's tale, The Oval Portrait; while Salomé +is Flaubert in operetta form--his gorgeous Herodias watered down for +uncritical public consumption. It is safe to say the piece--which +limps dramatically--would never have been seriously considered if +not for the Richard Strauss musical setting. As for the vaunted +essay on Socialism, I may only call attention to one fact, _i. e._, +it does not deal with socialism at all, but with philosophical +anarchism; besides, it is not remarkable in any particular. His +Intentions is his best, because his most "spoken" prose. The +fairy-tales are graceful exercises by a versatile writer, with an +excellent memory, but if I had children I'd give them the Alice in +Wonderland books, through which sweeps a bracing air, and not the +hothouse atmosphere of Wilde. The plays are fascinating as +fireworks, and as remote from human interest. Perhaps I'm in error, +yet, after reading Pater, Swinburne, Rossetti, Huysmans, I prefer +them to the Wilde imitations, strained as they are through his very +gay fancy. + +He wasn't an evil-minded man; he posed à la Byron and Baudelaire; +but to hear his jolly laughter was to rout any notion of the morbid +or the sinister. He was materialistic, he loved good cookery, old +wines, and strong tobacco. Positively the best book Wilde ever +inspired was The Green Carnation, by Robert Hichens, which book +gossip avers set the ball rolling that fetched up behind +prison-bars. In every-day life he was a charming, companionable, and +very human chap, and, as Frederick James Gregg says, dropped more +witty epigrams in an hour than Whistler did annually. The best thing +Whistler ever said to Wilde was his claiming in advance as his own +anything Oscar might utter; and here Whistler was himself borrowing +an epigram of Baudelaire, as he borrowed from the same source and +amplified the idea that nature is monotonous, nature is a +plagiarist from art, and all the rest of such paradoxical chatter +and inconsequent humour. Both Whistler and Wilde have been taken too +seriously--I mean on this side. Whistler was a great artist. Wilde +was not. Whistler discoursed wittily, waspishly, but he wasn't +knee-high to a grasshopper when confronted with Wilde. As for the +tragic dénouement that has been thrashed to death by those who +know, suffice to add that William Butler Yeats told me that he +called at the Wilde home after the scandal had broken, and saw +Willie Wilde, who roundly denounced his brother for his truly brave +attitude--always attitudes with Oscar. He would not be persuaded to +leave London, and perhaps it was the wisest act of his life, though +neither the Ballad of Reading Gaol nor De Profundis carry +conviction. Need I say that my judgment is personal? I have read in +cold type that Pater was a "forerunner" of Wilde; that Wilde is a +second Jesus Christ--which latter statement stuns one. (The +Whitmaniacs are fond of claiming the same for Walt, who is not +unlike that silly and sinister monster described by Rabelais as +quite overshadowing the earth with its gigantic wings, and after +dropping vast quantities of mustard-seed on the embattled hosts +below flew away yawping: "Carnival, Carnival, Carnival!") For me, +he simply turned into superior "journalism" the ideas of Swinburne, +Pater, Flaubert, Huysmans, De Quincey, and others. If his readers +would only take the trouble to study the originals there might be +less talk of his "originality." I say all this without any +disparagements of his genuine gifts; he was a born newspaper man. +Henry James calls attention to the fact that the so-called æsthetic +movement in England never flowered into anything so artistically +perfect as the novels of Gabriel d'Annunzio. Which is true; +but he could have joined to the name of the Italian poet and +playwright that of Aubrey Beardsley, the one "genius" of the +"Eighteen-Nineties." Beardsley gave us something distinctly +individual. Wilde, a veritable cabotin, did not--nothing but his +astounding conversation, and that, alas! is a fast fading memory. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +A SYNTHESIS OF THE SEVEN ARTS + + +Nothing new in all this talk about a fusion of the Seven Arts; it +has been tried for centuries. Richard Wagner's attempt just grazed +success, though the æsthetic principle at the base of his theory is +eminently unsound. Pictures, sculpture, tone, acting, poetry, and +the rest are to be found in the Wagnerian music-drama; but the very +titles are significant--a hybrid art is there. With Wagner music is +the master. His poetry, his drama, are not so important, though his +scenic sense is unfailing. Every one of his works delights the eye; +truly moving pictures. Yet if the lips of the young man of Urbino +had opened to music, they would have sung the melodies of the young +man of Salzburg. Years ago Sadikichi Hartmann, the Japanese poet +from Hamburg, made a bold attempt in this direction, adding to other +ingredients of the sensuous stew, perfume. The affair came off at +Carnegie Hall, and we were wafted on the wings of song and smell to +Japan--only I detected the familiar odour of old shoes and the scent +of armpits--of the latter Walt Whitman has triumphantly sung. A New +York audience is not as pleasant to the nostrils as a Japanese +crowd. That Mr. Finck has assured us. In the Théâtre d'art, Paris, +and in the last decade of the last century, experiments were made +with all the arts--except the art of the palate. Recently, Mary +Hallock, a Philadelphia pianist, has invented a mixture of music, +lights, and costumes; for instance, in a certain Debussy piece, the +stage assumes a deep violet hue, which glides into a light purple. +The Turkish March of Mozart is depicted in deep "reds, yellows, and +greens." Philip Hale, the Boston music-critic, has written learnedly +on the relation of tones and colours, and that astonishing poet, +Arthur Rimbaud, in his Alchimie du Verbe, tells us: "I believe in +all the enchantments. I invented the colour of the vowels: A, black; +E, white; I, red; O, blue; U, green." This scheme he set forth in +his famous sonnet, Voyelles, which was only a mystification to catch +the ears of credulous ones. René de Ghil invented an entirely new +system of prosody, which no one understood; least of all, the poet. +I wrote a story, The Piper of Dreams (in Melomaniacs), to prove that +music and the violet rays combined might prove deadly in the hands +of an anarch composer like Illowski--or Richard Strauss. And now New +York has enjoyed its first Light Symphony, by Alexander Scriabine. +It was played by the Russian Symphony Orchestra under the suave +conductorship of Modeste Altschuler (who is so Jacobean), while his +brother Jacob (who is so modest) sat at the keyboard and pressed +down the keys which regulated the various tintings on a screen; a +wholly superfluous proceeding, as the colours did not mollify the +truculence of the score; indeed, were quite meaningless, though not +optically unpleasant. I admired this Russian, Scriabine, ever since +I heard Josef Hofmann play a piano of his étude in D sharp minor. +Chopinesque, very, but a decided personality was also shown in it. +I've heard few of his larger orchestral works. Nevertheless, I did +not find Prometheus as difficult of comprehension as either +Schoenberg or Ornstein. Judged purely on the scheme set by its +composer, I confess I enjoyed its chaotic beauties and passionate +twaddle, and singular to relate, the music was best when it recalled +Wagner and Chopin (a piano part occasionally sounded bilious +premonitions of Chopin). But, for such a mighty theme as Prometheus, +the Light-Bringer (a prehistoric Ben Franklin without his +electrified kite), the leading motives of this new music were often +undersized. The dissociation of conventional keys was rigorously +practised, and at times we were in the profoundest gulfs of +cacophony. But the scoring evoked many novel effects; principally, +Berlioz and vodka. I still think Scriabine a remarkable composer, if +not much addicted to the languishing Lydian mode. But his Light +Symphony proved to be only a partial solution of the problem. In +Paris the poet Haraucourt and Ernest Eckstein invented puppet-shows +with perfume symphonies. + +A quarter of a century ago I visited the Théâtre d'art, in Paris; +that is, my astral soul did, for in those times I was a confirmed +theosophist. The day had been a stupid one in Gotham, and I hadn't +enough temperament to light a cigarette, so I simply pressed the +nombril button, took my Rig-Veda--a sacred buggy--projected my +astral being, and sailed through space to the French capital, there +to enjoy a bath in the new art, or synthesis of the seven arts, +eating included. As it was a first performance, even the police were +deprived of their press-tickets, and the deepest mystery was +maintained by the experimenters. I found the theatre, soon after my +arrival, plunged into an orange gloom, punctured by tiny balls of +violet light, which daintily and intermittently blinked. The +dominant odour of the atmosphere was Cologne-water, with a florid +counterpoint that recalled bacon and eggs, a mélange that appealed +to my nostrils; and, though at first it seems hardly possible that +the two dissimilar odours could even be made to modulate and merge, +yet I had not been indoors ten minutes before the subtlety of the +duet was apparent. Bacon has a delicious smell, and, like a freshly +cut lemon, it causes a premonitory tickling of the palate and little +rills of hunger in one's stomach. "Aha!" I cried (astrally, of +course), "this is a concatenation of the senses never dreamed of by +Plato when he conceived the plan of his Republic." + +The lanquid lisp of those assembled in the theatre drifted into +little sighs, and then a low, long-drawn-out chord in B flat minor, +scored for octoroons, octopuses, shofars, tympani, and piccolo, +sounded. Immediately a chorus of male soprani blended with this +chord, though they sang the common chord of A major. The effect was +one of vividity (we say "avidity," why can't we say "vividity"?); it +was a dissonance, pianissimo, and it jarred my ears in a way that +made their drums warble. Then a low burbling sound ascended. "The +bacon frying," I cried, but I was mistaken. It was caused by the +hissing of a sheet of carmilion (that is carmine and vermilion) +smoke which slowly upraised on the stage; as it melted away the +lights in the auditorium turned green and topaz, and an odour of +jasmine and stewed tomatoes encircled us. My immediate neighbours +seemed to be swooning; they were nearly prostrate, with their lips +glued to the rod that ran around the seats. I grasped it, and +received a most delicious thrill, probably electrical in origin, +though it was velvety pleasure merely to touch it, and the palms of +my hands exquisitely ached. "The tactile motive," I said. As I +touched the rod I noted a small mouthpiece, and thinking I might +hear something, I applied my ear; it instantly became wet. So +evidently it was not the use to which it should be put. Again +inspecting this mouthpiece, I put my finger to it and cautiously +raised the moist end to my lips. "Heavenly!" I murmured. What sort +of an earthly paradise was I in? And then losing no time, I placed +my astral lips to the orifice, and took a long pull. Gorgeous was +the result. Gumbo soup, as sure as I ever ate it, not your +pusillanimous New York variety, but the genuine okra soup that one +can't find outside of Louisiana, where old negro mammies used to +make it to perfection. "The soup motive," I exclaimed. + +Just as I gurgled the gumbo nocturne down my thirsty throat, a +shrill burst of brazen clangour (this is not tautological) in the +orchestra roused me from my dream, and I gazed on the stage. The +steam had cleared away, and now showed a rocky and wooded scene, the +trees sky-blue, the rocks a Nile-green. The band was playing +something that sounded like a strabismic version of the prelude to +Tristan. But strange odour-harmonies disturbed my enjoyment of the +music, for so subtly allied were the senses in this new temple of +art that a separate smell, taste, touch, vision, or sound jarred the +ensemble. This uncanny interfusion of the arts took my breath away, +but, full of gumbo soup as I was--and you have no idea how soup +discommodes the astral stomach--I was anchored to my seat, and +bravely determined not to leave till I had some clew to the riddle +of the new evangel of the seven--or seventeen--arts. The stage +remained bare, though the rocks, trees, and shrubbery changed their +hues about every twenty seconds. At last, as a blazing colour hit my +tired eyeballs, and when the odour had shifted to decayed fish, +dried grapefruit, and new-mown hay, I could stand it no longer, and, +turning to my neighbour, I tapped him on the shoulder, and politely +asked: "Monsieur, will you please tell me the title of this play, +piece, drama, morceau, stueck, sonata, odour, picture, symphony, +cooking-comedy, or whatever they call it?" The young man to whom I +had appealed looked fearfully about him--I had foolishly forgotten +that I was invisible in my astral shape--then clutched at his +windpipe, beat his silly skull, and screamed aloud: "Mon Dieu! still +another kind of aural pleasure," and was carried out in a superbly +vertiginous fit. Fright had made him mad. The spectators were too +absorbed, or drugged, to pay attention to the incident. Followed a +slow, putrid silence. + +Realising the folly of addressing humans in my astral garb, I sat +down in my corner and again watched the stage. Still no trace of +actors. The scenery had faded into a dullish dun hue, while the +orchestra played a Bach fugue for oboe, lamp-post (transposed to E +flat and two policemen) accordions in F and stopped-strumpets. +Suddenly the lights went out, and we were plunged into a blackness +that actually pinched the sight, so drear, void, and dead was it. A +smell of garlic made us cough, and by a sweep of some current we +were saturated with the odours of white violets, the lights were +tuned in three keys: yellow of eggs, marron glacé, and orchids, and +the soup supply shifted to whisky-sours. "How delicate these +contrasts!" hiccoughed my neighbour, and I astrally acquiesced. +Then, at last, the stage became peopled by one person, a very tall +old man with three eyes, high heels, and a deep voice. Brandishing +aloft his whiskers, he curiously muttered: "And hast thou slain the +Jabberwock? Come to my arms my beamish boy." Alice in Wonderland, +was the mystery-play, and I had arrived too late to witness the +slaying of the monster in its many-buttoned waistcoat. How gallantly +the "beamish boy" must have dealt the death-stroke to the queer +brute as the orchestra sounded the Siegfried and the Dragon motives, +and the air all the while redolent with heliotrope. I couldn't help +wondering what the particular potage was at this crucial moment. My +cogitation was interrupted by the appearance of a gallant-appearing +young knight in luminous armour, who dragged after him a huge +carcass, half-dragon and two-thirds pig (the other three-thirds must +have been suffering from stage fright). The orchestra proclaimed the +Abattoir motive, and instantly rose-odours penetrated the air, the +electric shocks ceased, and subtle little kicks were administered to +the audience, which, by this time, was well-nigh swooning with these +composite pleasures. The scenery had begun to dance gravely to an +odd Russian rhythm, and the young hero monotonously intoned a verse, +making the vowel sounds sizzle with his teeth, and almost swallowing +the consonants: "And as in uffish thought he stood, the Jabberwock, +with eyes of flame, came whiffling through the tulgey wood, and +burbled as it came." "This beats Gertrude Stein," I thought, as the +orchestra played the Galumphing motive from The Ride of the Valkyrs, +and the lights were transposed to a shivering purple. Then lilac +steam ascended, the orchestra gasped in C-D flat major (for corno di +bassetto and three yelping poodles), a smell of cigarettes and +coffee permeated the atmosphere, and I knew that this magical +banquet of the senses was concluded. I was not sorry, as every nerve +was sore from the strain imposed. Talk about faculty of attention! +When you are forced to taste, see, hear, touch, and smell +simultaneously, then you yearn for a less alembicated art. Synthesis +of the arts? Synthesis of rubbish! One at a time, and not too much +time at that. I pressed my astral button, and flew homeward, +wearily, slowly; I was full of soup and tone, and my ears and +nostrils quivered from exhaustion. When I landed at the Battery it +was exactly five o'clock. It had stopped snowing, and an angry sun +was preparing to bathe for the night in the wet of the western sky. +New Jersey was etched against a cold hard background, and as an old +hand-organ struck up It's a Long, Long Way to Retrograd, I threw my +cap in the air and joined in (astrally, but joyfully) the group of +ragged children who danced around the venerable organist with jeers +and shouting. After all, life is greater than the Seven Arts. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE CLASSIC CHOPIN + + +That Chopin is a classic need not be unduly insisted upon; he is +classic in the sense of representing the best in musical literature; +but that he is of a classical complexion as a composer from the +beginning of his career may seem in the nature of a paradox. +Nevertheless, it is a thesis that can be successfully maintained +now, since old party lines have been effaced. To battle seriously +for such words as Classic or Romantic or Realism is no longer +possible. Cultured Europe did so for a century, as it once +wrangled over doctrinal points; as if the salvation of mankind +depended upon the respective verbal merits of transubstantiation +or consubstantiation. Only yesterday that ugly word "degeneracy," +thanks to quack critics and charlatan "psychiatrists," figured as +a means of estimating genius. This method has quite vanished +among reputable thinkers, though it has left behind it another +misunderstood vocable--decadence. Wagner is called decadent. So is +Chopin. While Richard Strauss is held up as the prime exponent of +musical decadence. What precisely is decadent? Says Havelock Ellis: + +"Technically, a decadent style is only such in relation to a +classic style. It is simply a further development of a classic +style, a further specialisation, the homogeneous, in Spencerian +phraseology, having become heterogeneous. The first is beautiful +because the parts are subordinated to the whole; the second is +beautiful because the whole is subordinated to the parts.... Swift's +prose is classic, Pater's decadent.... Roman architecture is +classic, to become in its Byzantine developments completely +decadent, and Saint Mark's is the perfected type of decadence in +art; pure early Gothic, again, is strictly classic in the highest +degree because it shows an absolute subordination of detail to the +bold harmonies of structure, while the later Gothic ... is +decadent.... All art is the rising and falling of the slopes of a +rhythmic curve between these two classic and decadent extremes." + +I make this quotation for it clearly sets forth a profound but not +widely appreciated fact. In art, as in life, there is no absolute. +Perhaps the most illuminating statement concerning the romantic +style was uttered by Théophile Gautier. Of it he wrote (in his essay +on Baudelaire): "Unlike the classic style it admits shadow." We need +not bother ourselves about the spirit of romanticism; that has been +done to the death by hundreds of critics. And it is a sign of the +times that the old-fashioned Chopin is fading, while we are now +vitally interested in him as a formalist. Indeed, Chopin the +romantic, poetic, patriotic, sultry, sensuous, morbid, and Chopin +the pianist, need not enter into our present scheme. He has appeared +to popular fancy as everything from Thaddeus of Warsaw to an exotic +drawing-room hero; from the sentimental consumptive consoled by +countesses to the accredited slave of George Sand. All this is truly +the romantic Chopin. It is the obverse of the medal that piques +curiosity. Why the classic quality of his compositions, their +clarity, concision, purity, structural balance, were largely missed +by so many of his contemporaries is a mystery. Because of his +obviously romantic melodies he was definitely ranged with the most +extravagant of the romantics, with Berlioz, Schumann, Liszt; but, as +a matter of fact, he is formally closer to Mendelssohn. His original +manner of distributing his thematic material deceived the critics. +He refused to join the revolutionists; later in the case of Flaubert +we come upon an analogous condition. Hailed as chief of the +realists, the author of Madame Bovary took an ironic delight in +publishing Salammbô, which was romantic enough to please that prince +of romanticists, Victor Hugo. Chopin has been reproached for his +tepid attitude toward romanticism, and also because of his rather +caustic criticisms of certain leaders. He, a musical aristocrat _pur +sang_, held aloof, though he permitted himself to make some sharp +commentaries on Schubert, Schumann, and Berlioz. Decidedly not a +romantic despite his romantic externalism. Decidedly a classic +despite his romantic "content." Of him Stendhal might have written: +a classic is a dead romantic. (Heine left no epic, yet he is an +indubitable classic.) Wise Goethe said: "The point is for a work to +be thoroughly good and then it is sure to be classical." + +But it is not because of the classicism achieved by the pathos of +distance that Chopin's special case makes an appeal. It is Chopin as +a consummate master of music that interests us. In his admirable +Chopin the Composer, Edgar Stillman Kelley considers Chopin and puts +out of court the familiar "gifted amateur," "improvisatore of +genius," and the rest of the theatrical stock description by proving +beyond peradventure of a doubt that Frédéric François Chopin was not +only a creator of new harmonies, inventor of novel figuration, but +also a musician skilled in the handling of formal problems, one +grounded in the schools of Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven; furthermore, +that if he did not employ the sonata form in its severest sense, he +literally built on it as a foundation. He managed the rondo with +ease and grace, and if he did not write fugues it was because the +fugue form did not attract him. Perhaps the divination of his own +limitations is a further manifestation of his extraordinary genius. +This does not imply that Chopin had any particular genius in +counterpoint, but to deny his mastery of polyphony is a grave +error. And it is still denied with the very evidence staring his +critics in the face. Beethoven in his sonatas demonstrated his +individuality, though coming after Mozart's perfect specimens in +that form. Chopin did not try to bend the bow of Ulysses, though +more than a word might be said of his two last Sonatas--the first is +boyishly pedantic, and monotonous in key-contrast, while the 'cello +and piano sonata hardly can be ranked as an exemplar of classic +form. + +Of the Etudes Kelley says: + +"In this group of masterpieces we find the more desirable features +of the classical school--diatonic melodies, well-balanced phrase and +period-building--together with the richness afforded by chromatic +harmonies and modulatory devices heretofore unknown." + +Indeed, a new system of music that changed the entire current of the +art. It was not without cause that I once called Chopin the "open +door"; through his door the East entered and whether for good or for +ill certainly revolutionised Western music. Mr. Hadow is right in +declaring that "Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, are not as far from +each other as the music of 1880 from that of 1914." And Chopin was +the most potent influence, in company with Beethoven and Wagner, in +bringing about that change. I say in company with Beethoven and +Wagner, for I heartily agree with Frederick Niecks in his recent +judgment: + +"I consider Chopin to be one of the three most powerful factors in +the development of nineteenth-century music, the other two being, of +course, Beethoven and Wagner. The absolute originality of Chopin's +personality, and that of its expression through novel harmony, +chromaticism, figuration justifies the assertion. And none will deny +the fact who takes the trouble to trace the Polish master's +influence on his contemporaries and successors. The greatest and +most powerful composers came under this influence, to a large +extent, by the process of infiltration." + +Kelley gives us chapter and verse in the particular case of Wagner +and his absorption of the harmonic schemes of Chopin, as did the +late Anton Seidl many times for my particular benefit. + +However, this only brings us to Chopin the innovator, whereas it is +the aspect of the classic Chopin which has been neglected. "As far +back as 1840 Chopin was employing half-tones with a freedom that +brought upon him the wrath of conservative critics," writes Hadow, +who admires the Pole with reservations, not placing him in such +august company as has Kelley and Niecks. True, Chopin was a pioneer +in several departments of his art, yet how few recognised or +recognise to-day that Schumann is the more romantic composer of the +pair; his music is a very jungle of romantic formlessness; his +Carneval the epitome of romantic musical portraiture--with its +"Chopin" more Chopin than the original. Contrast the noble Fantasy +in C, Opus 17 of Schumann, with the equally noble Fantasy in F +minor, Opus 49 of Chopin, and ask which is the more romantic in +spirit, structure, and technique. Unquestionably to Schumann would +be awarded the quality of romanticism. He is more fantastic, though +his fantasy is less decorative; he strays into the most delightful +and umbrageous paths and never falters in the preservation of +romantic atmosphere. Now look on the other picture. There is Chopin, +who, no matter his potentialities, never experimented in the larger +symphonic mould, and as fully imbued with the poetic spirit as +Schumann; nevertheless a master of his patterns, whether in +figuration or general structure. His Mazourkas are sonnets, and this +Fantasy in F minor is, as Kelley points out, a highly complex rondo; +as are the Ballades and Scherzos. Beethoven, doubtless, would have +developed the eloquent main theme more significantly; strictly +speaking, Chopin introduces so much new melodic material that the +rondo form is greatly modified, yet never quite banished. The +architectonics of the composition are more magnificent than in +Schumann, although I do not propose to make invidious comparisons. +Both works are classics in the accepted sense of the term. But +Chopin's Fantasy is more classic in structure and sentiment. + +The Sonatas in B flat minor and B minor are "awful examples" for +academic theorists. They are not faultless as to form and do sadly +lack organic unity. Schumann particularly criticises the Sonata Opus +35 because of the inclusion of the Funeral March and the homophonic, +"invertebrate" finale. But the two first movements are distinct +contributions to Sonata literature, even if in the first movement +the opening theme is not recapitulated. I confess that I am glad it +is not, though the solemn title "Sonata" becomes thereby a mockery. +The composer adequately treats this first motive in the development +section so that its absence later is not annoyingly felt. There are, +I agree with Mr. Kelley, some bars that are surprisingly like a +certain page of Die Götterdämmerung, as the Feuerzauber music may be +noted in the flickering chromaticism of the E minor Concerto; or as +the first phrase of the C minor Etude, Opus 10, No. 12, is to be +found in Tristan and Isolde--Isolde's opening measure, "Wer wagt +mich zu höhnen." (The orchestra plays the identical Chopin phrase.) +This first movement of the B flat minor Sonata--with four bars of +introduction, evidently suggested by the sublime opening of +Beethoven's C minor Sonata, Opus 111, does not furnish us with as +concrete an example as the succeeding Scherzo in E flat minor, (for +me) one of the most perfect examples of Chopin's exquisite formal +sense. While it is not as long-breathed as the C sharp minor +Scherzo, its concision makes it more tempting to the student. In +character stormier than the Scherzo, Opus 39, its thematic economy +and development--by close parallelism of phraseology, as Hadow +points out--reveal not only a powerful creative impulse, but +erudition of the highest order. No doubt Chopin did improvise +freely, did come easily by his melodies, but the travail of a giant +in patience--again you think of Flaubert--is shown in the polishing +of his periods. He is a poet who wrote perfect pages. + +The third Scherzo, less popular but of deeper import than the one +in B flat minor, is in spirit splenetic, ironical, and passionate, +yet with what antithetic precision and balance the various and +antagonistic moods are grasped and portrayed. And every measure +is logically accounted for. The automatism inherent in all passage +work he almost eliminated, and he spiritualised ornament and +arabesque. It is the triumph of art over temperament. No one has +ever accused Chopin of lacking warmth; indeed, thanks to a total +misconception of his music, he is tortured into a roaring tornado by +sentimentalists and virtuosi. But if he is carefully studied it will +be seen that he is greatly preoccupied with form--his own form, be +it understood--and that the linear in nearly all of his compositions +takes precedence over colour. I know this sounds heretical. But +while I do not yield an iota in my belief that Chopin is the most +poetic among composers (as Shelley is among poets, and Vermeer is +the painter's painter) it is high time that he be viewed from a +different angle. The versatility of the man, his genius as composer +and pianist, the novelty of his figuration and form dazzled his +contemporaries or else blinded them to his true import. Individual +as are the six Scherzos--two of them are in the Sonatas--they +nevertheless stem from classic soil; the scherzo is not new with +him, nor are its rhythms. But the Ballades are Chopinesque to the +last degree, with their embellished thematic cadenzas, modulatory +motives, richly decorated harmonic designs, and their incomparable +"content"; above all, in their amplification of the coda, a striking +extension of the postlude, making it as pregnant with meaning as the +main themes. The lordly flowing narration of the G minor Ballade; +the fantastic wavering outlines of the second Ballade--which on +close examination exhibits the firm burin of a masterful etcher; the +beloved third Ballade, a formal masterpiece; and the F minor +Ballade, most elaborate and decorative of the set--are there, I ask, +in all piano literature such original compositions? The four +Impromptus are mood pictures, highly finished, not lacking boldness +of design, and in the second, F sharp major, there are fertile +figurative devices and rare harmonic treatment. The melodic +organ-point is original. Polyphonic complexity is to be found in +some of the Mazourkas. Ehlert mentions a "perfect canon in the +octave" in one of them (C sharp minor, Opus 63). + +Of the Concertos there is less to be said, for the conventional form +was imposed by the title. Here Chopin is not the Greater Chopin, +notwithstanding the beautiful music for the solo instrument. The +sonata form is not desperately evaded, and in the rondo of the E +minor Concerto he overtops Hummel on his native heath. As to the +instrumentation I do not believe Chopin had much to do with it; it +is the average colourless scoring of his day. Nor do I believe with +some of his admirers that he will bear transposition to the +orchestra, or even to the violin. It does not attenuate the power +and originality of his themes that they are essentially of the +piano. A song is for the voice and is not bettered by orchestral +arrangement. The same may be said of the classic concertos for +violin. With all due respect for those who talk about the Beethoven +Sonatas being "orchestral," I only ask, Why is it they sound so +"unorchestral" when scored for the full battery of instruments? The +Sonata Pathétique loses its character thus treated. So does the A +flat Polonaise of Chopin, heroic as are its themes. Render unto the +keyboard that which is composed for it. The Appassionata Sonata in +its proper medium is as thrilling as the Eroica Symphony. The +so-called "orchestral test" is no test at all; only a confusion of +terms and of artistic substances. Chopin thought for the piano; he +is the greatest composer for the piano; by the piano he stands or +falls. The theme of the grandiose A minor Etude (Opus 25, No. 11) is +a perfect specimen of his invention; yet it sounds elegiac and +feminine when compared with the first tragic theme of Beethoven's C +minor Symphony. + +The Allegro de Concert, Opus 46, is not his most distinguished work, +truncated concerto as it is, but it proves that he could fill a +larger canvas than the Valse. In the Mazourkas and Etudes he is +closer to Bach than elsewhere. His early training under Elsner was +sound and classical. But he is the real Chopin when he goes his own +way, a fiery poet, a bold musician, but also a refined, tactful +temperament, despising the facile, the exaggerated, and bent upon +achieving a harmonious synthesis. Truly a classic composer in his +solicitude for contour, and chastity of style. The Slav was tempered +by the Gallic strain. Insatiable in his dreams, he fashioned them +into shapes of enduring beauty. + +You would take from us the old Chopin, the greater Chopin, the +dramatic, impassioned poet-improvisatore, I hear some cry! Not in +the least. Chopin is Chopin. He sings, even under the fingers of +pedants, and to-day is butchered in the classroom to make a holiday +for theorists. Nevertheless, he remains unique. Sometimes the whole +in his work is subordinated to the parts, sometimes the parts are +subordinated to the whole. The romantic "shadow" is there, also the +classic structure. Again let me call your attention to the fact that +if he had not juggled so mystifyingly with the sacrosanct tonic and +dominant, had not distributed his thematic material in a different +manner from the prescribed methods of the schools, he would have +been cheerfully, even enthusiastically, saluted by his generation. +But, then, we should have lost the real Chopin. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +LITTLE MIRRORS OF SINCERITY + + +BARNEY IN THE BOX-OFFICE + +_First Scene._ It is snowing on the Strand. Not an American actor is +in sight, though voices are wafted occasionally from the bar of the +Savoy (remember this is a play, and the unusual is bound to happen). +In front of the newly built Theatre of Arts, Shaw, and Science, two +figures stand as if gazing at the brilliantly lighted façade. The +doors are wide open, a thin and bearded man sits smiling and talking +to himself in the box-office. His whiskers are as sandy as his wit. +The pair outside regard him suspiciously. Both are tiny fellows, one +clean-shaven, the other wearing elaborately arranged hair on his +face. They are the two Maxes--Nordau and Birnbaum. Says Nordau: + +"Isn't that Bernard in the booking-office?" "By jove, it is, let's +go in." "Hasn't he a new play on?" "I can't say. I'm only a critic +of the drayma." "No cynicism, Maxixe," urges Nordau. They approach. +In unanimous flakes the snow falls. It is very cold. Cries Bernard +on recognising them: + +"Hi there, skip! To-night free list is suspended. I'm giving my +annual feast in the Cave of Culture of the modern idols, in one +scene. No one may enter, least of all you, Nordau, or you, Sir +Critic." "Why, what's up, George?" asks in a pleading mid-Victorian +timbre the little Maxixe. "Back to the woods, both of you!" commands +George, who has read both Mark Twain and Oliver Herford. "Besides," +he confidentially adds, "you surely don't wish to go to a play in +which your old friends Ibsen and Nietzsche are to be on view." "On +view!" quoth the author of Degeneration. "Yes, visible on a short +furlough from Sheol, for one night only. My benefit. Step up, ladies +and gentlemen. A few seats left. The greatest show on earth. I'm in +it. Lively, please!" A mob rushes in. The two Maxes fade into the +snow, but in the eyes of one there is a malicious glitter. "I'm no +Maxixe," he murmurs, "if I can't get into a theatre without paying." +Nordau doesn't heed him. They part. The night closes in, and only +the musical rattle of bangles on a naughty wrist is heard. + +_Second Scene._ On the stage of the theatre there are two long +tables. The scene is set as if for a banquet. The curtain is down. +Some men walk about conversing--some calmly, some feverishly. +Several are sitting. The lighting is feeble. However, may be +discerned familiar figures; Victor Hugo solemnly speaking to Charles +Baudelaire--who shivers (un nouveau frisson); Flaubert in a corner +roaring at Sainte-Beuve--the old row over Salammbô is on again. +Richard Strauss is pulling at the velvet coat-tails of Richard +Wagner, without attracting his attention. The Master, in company +with nearly all the others, is staring at a large clock against the +back drop. "Listen for the Parsifal chimes," he says, delight +playing over his rugged features. "Ape of the ideal," booms a deep +voice hard by. It is that of Nietzsche, whose moustaches droop in +Polish cavalier style. + +"Batiushka! If those two Dutchmen quarrel over the virility of +Parsifal I'm going away." The speaker is Tolstoy, attired in his +newest Moujik costume, top-boots and all. In his left hand he holds +a spade. "To table, gentlemen!" It is the jolly voice of the Irish +Ibsen, G. B. S. Lights flare up. Without is heard the brumming of +the audience, an orchestra softly plays motives from Pelléas et +Mélisande. Wagner wipes his spectacles, and Maurice Maeterlinck +crushes a block of Belgian oaths between his powerful teeth. But +Debussy doesn't appear to notice either man. He languidly strikes +his soup-spoon on a silver salt-cellar and immediately jots down +musical notation. "The correspondences of nuances," he sings to his +neighbour, who happens to be Whistler. "The correspondence of +fudge," retorts James. "D'ye think I'm interested in wall-paper +music? Oh, Lil'libulero!" All are now seated. With his accustomed +lingual dexterity Mr. Shaw says grace, calling down a blessing upon +the papier-mâché fowls and the pink stage-tea, from what he +describes as a gaseous invertebrate god--he has read Haeckel--and +winds up with a few brilliant heartless remarks: + +"I wish you gentlemen, ghosts, idols, gods, and demigods, alive or +dead, to remember that you are assembled here this evening to honour +me. Without me, and my books and plays, you would, all of you, be +dead in earnest--dead literature as well as dead bones. As for the +living, I'll have a shy at you some day. I'm not fond of +Maeterlinck. ["Hear, hear!" comes from Debussy's mystic beard.] As +for you, Maurice, I can beat you hands down at bettering +Shakespeare, and, for Richard Strauss--well, I've never tried +orchestration, but I'm sure I'd succeed as well as you----" + +"Oh, please, won't some one give me a roast-beef sandwich? In Russia +I daren't eat meat on account of my disciples there and in +England--" It is Tolstoy who speaks. Shaw fixes him with an +indignant look, he, the prince of vegetarians: "Give him some salt, +he needs salting." In tears, Tolstoy resumes his reading of the +confessions of Huysmans. The band, on the other side of the curtain, +swings into the Kaisermarch. "Stop them! Stop it!" screams Wagner. +"I'm a Social-Democrat now. I wrote that march when I was a +Monarchist." This was the chance for Nietzsche. Drawing up his +tall, lanky figure, he began: "You mean, Herr Geyer--to give you +your real name--you wrote it for money. You mean, Richard Geyer, +that you cut your musical coat to suit your snobbish cloth. You +mean, the Wagner you never were, that you wrote your various +operas--which you call music-dramas--to flatter your various +patrons. Parsifal for the decadent King Ludwig----" + +"Pardieu! this is too much." Manet's blond beard wagged with rage. +"Have we assembled this night to fight over ancient treacheries, or +are we met to do honour to the only man in England, and an Irishman +at that, who, in his plays, has kept alive the ideas of Ibsen, +Nietzsche, Wagner? As for me, I don't need such booming. I'm a +modest man. I'm a painter." "Hein! You a painter!" Sitting alone, +Gérôme discloses spiteful intonations in his voice. "Yes, a +painter," hotly replies Manet. "And I'm in the Louvre, my Olympe--" +"All the worse for the Louvre," sneers Gérôme. The two men would +have been at each other's throats if some one from the Land of the +Midnight Whiskers hadn't intervened. It was Henrik Ibsen. + +"Children," he remarks, in a strong Norwegian brogue, "please to +remember my dignity if not your own. Long before Max Stirner--" +Nietzsche interrupted: "There never was such a person." Ibsen calmly +continued, "I wrote that 'my truth is the truth.' And when I see +such so-called great men acting like children, I regret having left +my cool tomb in Norway. But where are the English dramatists, our +confrères? Ask the master of the revels." Ibsen sat down. Shaw pops +in his head at a practicable door. + +"Who calls?" + +"We wish to know why our brethren, the English playwrights, are not +bidden to meet us?" said Maeterlinck, after gravely bowing to Ibsen. +Smiling beatifically, Saint Bernard replied: + +"Because there ain't no such thing as an English dramatist. The only +English dramatist is Irish." He disappears. Ensues a lively +argument. "He may be right," exclaims Maeterlinck, "yet I seem to +have heard of Pinero, Henry Arthur Jones, Barrie--well, I'll have to +ask the trusty A. B. C. Z. Walkley." "And the Americans?" cries +Ibsen, who is annoyed because Richard Strauss persists in asking for +a symphonic scenario of Peer Gynt. "I'm sure," the composer +complains, "Grieg will be forgotten if I write new incidental music +for you." Ibsen looks at him sourly. + +"American dramatists, or do you mean American millionaires?" Manet +interpolated. "No, I fancy he means the American painters who +imitate my pictures, making them better than the originals, and also +getting better prices than I did." + +"What envy! what slandering! what envious feelings!" sighs +Nietzsche. "If my doctrine of the Eternal Recurrence of all things +sublunary is a reality, then I shall be sitting with these venomous +spiders, shall be in this identical spot a trillion of years hence. +Oh, horrors! Why was I born?" + +"Divided tones," argues Manet, clutching Whistler by his carmilion +necktie, "are the only--" Suddenly Shaw leaps on the stage. + +"Gentlemen, gods, ghosts, idols, I've bad news for you. Max Nordau +is in the audience." "Nordau!" wails every one. Before the lights +could be extinguished the guests were under the table. "No taking +chances," whispers Nietzsche. "Quoi donc! who is this Nordau--a spy +of Napoleon's?" demands Hugo, in bewildered accents. For answer, +Baudelaire shivers and intones: "O Poe, Poe! O Edgar Poe." Silence +so profound that one hears the perspiration drop from Wagner's +massive brow. + +_Third Scene._ It still snows without. Max, the only Nordau, stands +in silent pride. He is alone. The erstwhile illuminated theatre is +as dark as the Hall of Eblis. "Gone the idols! All. I need but crack +that old whip of Decadence and they crumble. So much for a mere +word. And now to work. I'll write the unique tale of Shaw's Cave of +Idols, for I alone witnessed the dénouement." He spoke aloud. Judge +his chagrin when he heard the other Max give him this cheery leading +motive: "I saw it all--what a story for my weekly review." "How +like a yellow pear-tree!" exclaims the disgusted theorist of mad +genius. Nordau speeds his way, as from the box-office comes the +chink of silver. It is G. B. S. counting the cash. Who says a poet +can't be a pragmatist? The little Maxixe calls out: "Me, too, +Blarney! Remember I'm the only living replica of Charles Lamb." "You +mean dead mutton," tartly replied Bernard. The other giggled. "The +same dear old whimsical cactus," he cries; "but with all your faults +we love you still--I said still, if that's possible for your tongue, +George, quite still!" Curtain. + + +THE WOMAN WHO BUYS + +She (entering art gallery): "I wish to buy a Titian for my +bridge-whist this evening. Is it possible for you to send me one to +the hotel in time?" He (nervously elated): "Impossible. I sent the +last Titian we had in stock to Mrs. Groats's Déjeuner Féroce." She +(making a face): "That woman again. Oh, dear, how tiresome!" He +(eagerly): "But I can give you a Raphael." She (dubiously): +"Raphael--who?" He (magisterially): "There are three Raphaels, +Madame--the archangel of that name, Raphael Sanzio, the painter, and +Raphael Joseffy. It is to the second one I allude. Perhaps you would +like to see--" She (hurriedly): "Oh! not at all. I fancy it's all +right. Send it up this afternoon, or hadn't I better take it along +in my car?" (A shrill hurry-up booing is heard without. It is the +voice of the siren on a new one hundred horse-power Cubist machine, +1918 pattern.) She (guiltily): "Tiens! That is my chauffeur, +Constant. The poor fellow. He is always so hungry about this time. +By the way, Mr. Frame, how much do you ask for that Raphael? My +husband is so--yes, really, stingy this winter. He says I buy too +much, forgetting we are all beggars, anyhow. And what is the +subject? I want something cheerful for the game, you know. It +consoles the kickers who lose to look at a pretty picture." He +(joyfully): "Oh, the price! The subject! A half-million is the +price--surely not too much. The picture is called The Wooing of Eve. +It has been engraved by Bartolozzi. Oh, oh, it is a genuine Raphael. +There are no more imitation old masters, only modern art is forged +nowadays." She (interrupting, proudly): "Bartolozzi, the man who +paints skinny women in Florence, something like Boldini, only in +old-fashioned costumes?" He (resignedly): "No, Madame. Possibly you +allude to Botticelli. The Bartolozzi I mention was a school friend +of Raphael or a cousin to Michael Angelo--I've forgotten which. +That's why he engraved Raphael's paintings." (He colours as he +recalls conflicting dates.) She (in a hurry): "It doesn't much +matter, Mr. Frame, I hate all this affectation over a lot of musty, +fusty pictures. Send it up with the bill. I ought to win at least +half the money from Mrs. Stonerich." (She rushes away. An odour of +violets and stale cigarette smoke floats through the hallway. The +siren screams, and a rumbling is heard in the middle distance.) He +(waking, as if from a sweet dream, vigorously shouts): "George, +George, fetch down that canvas Schmiere painted for us last summer, +and stencil it Raphael Sanzio. Yes--S-a-n-z-i-o--got it? Hurry up! +I'm off for the day. If any one 'phones, I'm over at Sherry's, in +the Cafe." (Saunters out, swinging his stick, and repeating the old +Russian proverb, "A dark forest is the heart of a woman.") + + +SCHOOLS IN ART + +"Yes," said the venerable auctioneer, as he shook his white head, +"yes, I watch them coming and going, coming and going. One year it's +light pictures, another it's dark. The public is a woman. What +fashion dictates to a woman she scrupulously follows. She sports +bonnets one decade, big picture hats the next. So, the public that +loves art--or thinks it loves art. It used to be the Hudson River +school. And then Chase and those landscape fellows came over from +Europe, where they got a lot of new-fangled notions. Do you remember +Eastman Johnson? He was my man for years. Do you remember the +Fortuny craze? His Gamblers, some figures sitting on the grass? +Well, sir, seventeen thousand dollars that canvas fetched. Big price +for forty-odd years ago. Bang up? Of course. Meissonier, Bouguereau, +and Detaille came in. We couldn't sell them fast enough. I guess the +picture counterfeiters' factories up on Montmartre were kept busy +those times. It was after our Civil War. There were a lot of +mushroom millionaires who couldn't tell a chromo from a Gérôme. +Those were the chaps we liked. I often began with: 'Ten thousand +dollars--who offers me ten thousand dollars for this magnificent +Munkaczy?' Nowadays I couldn't give away Munkaczy as a present. He +is too black. Our people ask for flashing colours. Rainbows. +Fireworks. The new school? Yes, I'm free to admit that the Barbizon +men have had their day. Mind you, I don't claim they are falling +off. A few seasons ago a Troyon held its own against any Manet you +put up. But the 1830 chaps are scarcer in the market, and the +picture cranks are beginning to tire of the dull greys, soft blues, +and sober skies. The Barbizons drove out Meissonier and his crowd. +Then Monet and the Impressionists sent the Barbizons to the wall. I +tell you the public is a woman. It craves novelty. What's that? +Interested in the greater truth of Post-Impressionism? Excuse me, my +dear sir, but that's pure rot. The public doesn't give a hang for +technique. It wants a change. Indeed? Really? They have made a +success, those young whippersnappers, the Cubists. Such cubs! Well, +I'm not surprised. Perhaps our public is tiring of the Academy. +Perhaps young American painters may get their dues--some day. We may +even export them. I've been an art auctioneer man and boy over fifty +years, and I tell you again the public is a woman. One year it's +dark paint, another it's light. Bonnets or hats. Silks or satins. +Lean or stout. All right. Coming--coming!" Clearing his throat, the +old auctioneer slowly moves away. + + +THE JOY OF STARING + +Watch the mob. Watch it staring. Like cattle behind the rails which +bar a fat green field they pass at leisure, ruminating, or its +equivalent, gum-chewing, passing masterpiece after masterpiece, only +to let their gaze joyfully light upon some silly canvas depicting a +thrice-stupid anecdote. The socialists assure us that the herd is +the ideal of the future. We must think, see, feel with the People. +Our brethren! Mighty idea--but a stale one before Noah entered the +ark. "Let us go to the people," cried Tolstoy. But we are the +people. How can we go to a place when we are already there? And the +people surge before a picture which represents an old woman kissing +her cow. Or, standing with eyeballs agog, they count the metal +buttons on the coat of the Meissonier Cuirassier. It is great art. +Let the public be educated. Down with the new realism--which only +recalls to us the bitterness and meanness of our mediocre existence. +(Are we not all middle-class?) How, then, can art be aristocratic? +Why art at all? Give us the cinematograph--pictures that act. +Squeaking records. Canned vocally, Caruso is worth a wilderness of +Wagner monkeys. Or self-playing unmusical machines. Or chromos. +Therefore, let us joyfully stare. Instead of your "step," watch the +mob. + + +A DILETTANTE + +He is a little old fellow, with a slight glaze over the pupils of +his eyes. He is never dressed in the height of the fashion, yet, +when he enters a gallery, salesmen make an involuntary step in his +direction; then they get to cover as speedily as possible, +grumbling: "Look out! it's only the old bird again." But one of them +is always nailed; there is no escaping the Barmecide. He thinks he +knows more about etchings than Kennedy or Keppel, and when Montross +and Macbeth tell him of American art, he violently contradicts them. +He is the embittered dilettante; embittered, because with his +moderate means he can never hope to own even the most insignificant +of the treasures exposed under his eyes every day, week, and month +in the year. So he rails at the dealers, inveighs against the +artists, and haunts auction-rooms. He never bids, but is extremely +solicitous about the purchases of other people. He has been known to +sit for hours on a small print, until, in despair, the owner leaves. +Then, with infinite precautions, our amateur arises, so contriving +matters that his hard-won victory is not discovered by profane and +prying eyes. Once at home, he gloats over his prize, showing it to a +favoured few. He bought it. He selected it. It is a tribute to his +exquisite taste. And the listeners are beaten into dismayed silence +by his vociferations, by his agile, ape-like skippings and parrot +ejaculations. Withal, he is not a criminal, only a monomaniac of +art. He sometimes mistakes a Whistler for a Dürer; but he puts the +blame upon his defective eyesight. + + +THE CITY OF BROTHERLY NOISE + +Philadelphia is the noisiest city in North America. If you walk +about any of the narrow streets of this cold-storage abode of +Brotherly Love you will soon see tottering on its legs the +venerable New York joke concerning the cemetery-like stillness of +the abode of brotherly love. Over there the nerve shock is +ultra-dynamic. As for sleep, it is out of the question. Why, then, +will ask the puzzled student of national life, does the venerable +witticism persist in living? The answer is that in the United +States a truth promulgated a century ago never dies. We are a race +of humourists. Noise-breeding trolley-cars, constricted streets that +vibrate with the clangour of the loosely jointed machinery, an army +of carts and the cries of vegetable venders, a multitude of jostling +people making for the ferries on the Delaware or the bridges on the +Schuylkill rivers, together with the hum of vast manufactories, all +these and a thousand other things place New York in a more modest +category; in reality our own city emits few pipes in comparison with +the City of Brotherly Noise which sprawls over the map of +Pennsylvania. Yet it is called dead and moss-grown. The antique joke +flourishes the world over; in Philadelphia it is stunned by the +welter and crush of life and politics. Oscar Hammerstein first +crossed the Rubicon of Market Street. The mountain of "society" was +forced to go northward to this Mahomet of operatic music; else +forego Richard Strauss, Debussy, Massenet, Mary Garden, and Oscar's +famous head-tile. What a feat to boast of! For hundreds of years +Market Street had been the balking-line of supernice Philadelphians. +Above the delectable region north of the City Hall and Penn's statue +was Cimmerian darkness. Hammerstein, with his opera company, +accomplished the miracle. Perfectly proper persons now say "Girard +Avenue" or "Spring Garden" without blushing, because of their +increased knowledge of municipal topography. Society trooped +northward. Motor-cars from Rittenhouse Square were seen near Poplar +Street. Philadelphia boasts a much superior culture in the +crustacean line. The best fried oysters in the world are to be found +there. Terrapin is the local god. And Dennis McGowan of Sansom +Street hangs his banners on the outer walls; within, red-snapper +soup and deviled crabs make the heart grow fonder. + +The difference in the handling of the social "hammer" between +Philadelphia and New York, or Boston and Philadelphia, may be thus +illustrated: At the clubs in Philadelphia they say: "Dabs is going +fast. Pity he drinks. Did you see the seven cocktails he got away +with before dinner last night?" In Boston they say: "Dabs is quite +hopeless. This afternoon he mixed up Botticelli with Botticini. Of +course, after that--!" Now, in New York, we usually dismiss the case +in this fashion: "Dabs went smash this morning. The limit! Serves +the idiot right. He never would take proper tips." Here are certain +social characteristics of three cities set forth by kindly disposed +clubmen. As the Chinese say: An image-maker never worships his +idols. We prefer the Cambodian sage who remarked: "In hell, it's bad +form to harp on the heat." + + +THE SOCIALIST + +The socialist is not always sociable. Nor is there any reason why he +should be. He usually brings into whatever company he frequents his +little pailful of theories and dumps them willy-nilly on the carpet +of conversation. He enacts the eternal farce of equality for all, +justice for none. The mob, not the individual, is his shibboleth. +Yet he is the first to resent any tap on his shoulder in the way of +personal criticism. He has been in existence since the coral atoll +was constructed by that tiny, busy, gregarious creature, and in the +final cosmic flare-up he will vanish in company with his fellow man. +He is nothing if not collective. His books, written in his own +tongue, are translated into every living language except sound +English, which is inimical to jargon. If his communal dreams could +come true he would charge his neighbour with cheating above his +position; being a reformer, the fire of envy brightly burns in his +belly--a sinister conflagration akin to that of Ram Dass (see +Carlyle). In the thick twilight of his reason he vaguely wanders, +reading every new book about socialism till his confusion grows +apace and is thrice confounded. From ignorance to arrogance is but a +step. At the rich table of life, groaning with good things, he turns +away, preferring to chew the dry cud of self-satisfaction. He would +commit Barmecide rather than surrender his theory of the "unearned +increment." He calls Shaw and Wells traitors because they see the +humorous side of their doctrines and, occasionally, make mock of +them. The varieties of lady socialists are too numerous to study. +It may be said of them, without fear of being polite, that females +rush in where fools fear to tread. But, then, the woman who +hesitates--usually gets married. + + +THE CRITIC WHO GOSSIPS + +He has a soul like a Persian rug. Many-coloured are his ways, his +speech. He delights in alliteration of colours, and avails himself +of it when he dips pen into ink. He is fond of confusing the +technical terms of the Seven Arts, writing that "stuffing the +ballot-box is no greater crime than constipated harmonics." But what +he doesn't know is that such expressions as gamut of colours, +scales, harmonies, tonal values belong to the art of painting, and +not alone to music. He is fonder of anecdote and gossip than of +history. But what's the use! You can't carve rotten wood. Our critic +will quote for you, with his gimlet eye of a specialist boring into +your own, the story which was whispered to Anthony Trollope (in +1857, please don't forget) if he would be so kind (it was at the +Uffizi Galleries, Florence) as to show him the way to the Medical +Venus. This is marvellous humour, and worth a ton of critical +comment (which, by Apollo! it be). But, as Baudelaire puts it: +"Nations, like families, produce great men against their will"; and +our critic is "produced," not made. In the realm of the blind, the +cock-eyed is king. The critic is said to be the most necessary +nuisance--after women--in this "movie" world of ours. But all human +beings are critics, aren't they? + + +THE MOCK PSYCHIATRIST + +If for the dog the world is a smell, for the eagle a picture, +for the politician a Nibelung hoard, then for the psychiatrist +life is a huge, throbbing nerve. He dislikes, naturally, the +antivivisectionists, but enjoys the moral vivisection of his fellow +creatures. It's a mad world for him, my masters! And if your ears +taper at the top, beware! You have the morals of a faun; or, if your +arms be lengthy, you are a reversion to a prehistoric type. The only +things that are never too long, for our friend the "expert" of rare +phobias, are his bills and the length of his notice in the +newspapers. If he agrees with Charles Lamb that Adam and Eve in +Milton's Paradise behave too much like married people, he quickly +resents any tracing of a religion to an instinct or a perception. He +maintains that religious feeling is only "a mode of reaction," and +our conscience but a readjusting apparatus. His trump-card is the +abnormal case, and if he can catch tripping a musician, a poet, a +painter, he is professionally happy. Homer nodded. Shakespeare +plagiarised. Beethoven drank. Mozart liked his wife's sister. Chopin +coughed. Turner was immoral. Wagner, a little how-come-ye-so! +Hurray! Cracked souls, and a Donnybrook Fair of the emotions. The +psychiatrist can diagnose anything from rum-thirst to sudden death. +Nevertheless, in his endeavour to assume the outward appearance of a +veritable man of science, the psychiatrist reminds one of the +hermit-crab as described in E. H. Banfield's Confessions of a Beach +Comber (p. 132). "The disinterested spectator," remarks Professor +Banfield, "may smile at the vain, yet frantically anxious efforts of +the hermit-crab to coax his flabby rear into a shell obviously a +flattering misfit; but it is not a smiling matter to him. Not until +he has exhausted a programme of ingenious attitudes and comic +contortions is the attempt to stow away a No. 8 tail in a No. 5 +shell abandoned." The mock psychiatrist is the hermit-crab of +psychology. And of the living he has never been known to speak a +word of praise. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE REFORMATION OF GEORGE MOORE + + +I + +Dear naughty George Moore--sad, bad, mad--has reformed. He tells us +why in his book, Vale, the English edition of which I was lucky +enough to read; for, the American edition is expurgated, nay, +fumigated, as was the Memoirs of My Dead Life by the same Celtic +Casanova. Vale completes the trilogy; Hail and Farewell, Ave and +Salve being the titles of the preceding two. In the first, Moore is +sufficiently vitriolic, and in Salve he serves up George Russell, +the poet and painter, better known as "Æ." in a more sympathetic +fashion. When Vale was announced several years ago as on the brink +of completion I was moved to write: "I suppose when the final book +appears it means that George Moore has put up the shutters of his +soul, not to say, his shop. But I have my serious doubts." After +reading Vale I still had them. Only death will end the streaming +confessions of this writer. He who lives by the pen shall perish by +the pen. (This latter sentence is not a quotation from the sacred +books of any creed, merely the conviction of a slave chained to the +ink-well.) + +I said that Vale is expurgated for American consumption. Certainly. +We are so averse to racy, forcible English in America--thanks to the +mean, narrow spirit in our arts and letters--that a hearty oath +scares us into the Brooklyn backyard of our timid conscience. George +calls a spade a spade, and he delights on stirring up rank +malodorous soil with his war-worn agricultural implement. When he +returned some years ago to Dublin, there to help in the national +literary and artistic movement, he found a devoted band of brethren: +William Butler Yeats, Lady Gregory, Douglas Hyde, John M. Synge, +Edward Martyn, Russell, and others. + +I shan't attempt even a brief mention of the neo-Celtic awakening. +Yeats was the prime instigator, also the storm-centre. He literally +discovered Synge, the dramatist--in reality the only strong man of +the group, the only dramatist of originality--and, with his +exquisite lyric gift, he, also discovered a new Ireland, a fabulous, +beautiful Erin, unsuspected by Tom Moore, Samuel Lover, Carleton, +Mangan, Lever, and the too busy Boucicault. + +As I soon found out, when there, Dublin is a vast whispering +gallery. Delightful, hospitable Dublin is also a provincial town, +given to gossip and backbiting. Say something about somebody in the +smoking-room of the Shelbourne, and a few hours later the clubs +will be repeating it. Mr. Moore said things every hour in the day, +and in less than six days he had sown for himself a fine crop of +enemies. To "get even" he conceived the idea of writing a series of +novels, with real people bearing their own names. That he hasn't +been shot at, horsewhipped, or sued for libel thus far is just his +usual good luck. Vale is largely a book of capricious insults. + +But then the facts it sets down in cruel type! When the years have +removed the actors therein from the earthly scene, our grandchildren +will chuckle over Moore's unconscious humour and Pepys-like +chronicling of small-beer. For the social historian this trilogy +will prove a mine of gossip, rich veracious gossip. It throws a +calcium glare on the soul of the author, who, self-confessed, is now +old, and no longer a dangerous Don Juan. In real life he was, as far +as I can make out, not particularly a monster of iniquity; but, oh! +in his Confessions and Memoirs what a rake was he. How the +"lascivious lute" did sound. Some of the pages of the new volume +(see pp. 274-278, English edition), in which he describes his +tactics to avoid a kiss (kissing gives him a headache in these +lonesome latter years, though he was only born in 1857), is to set +you wondering over the frankness of the man. Walter Pater once +called him "audacious George Moore," and audacious he is with pen +and ink. Otherwise, like Bernard Shaw, he is not looking for +physical quarrels. + +He once spoke of Shaw as "the funny man in a boarding-house," though +he never mentions his name in his memoirs. He doesn't like Yeats; +what's more, he prints the news as often and as elaborately as +possible. In the present book he doesn't exactly compare Yeats to a +crane or a pelican, but he calls attention to the fact that the poet +belonged to the "lower middle-class." It seems that Yeats had been +thundering away at the artistic indifference of the Dublin +bourgeoisie. Now, looking at Yeats the night when John Quinn gave +him a dinner at Delmonico's, you could not note any resemblance to +exotic birds, though he might recall a penguin. He was very solemn, +very bored, very fatigued, his eyes deep sunken from fatigue. Posing +as a tame parlour poet for six weeks had tired the man to his very +bones. But catch him in private with his waistcoat unbuttoned--I +speak figuratively--and you will enjoy a born raconteur, one who +slowly distils witty poison at the tip of every anecdote, till, +bursting with glee, you cry: "How these literary men do love each +other! How one Irishman dotes on another!" Yeats may be an exception +to the rule that a poet is as vain and as irritable as a tenor. I +didn't notice the irritability, finding him taking himself +seriously, as should all apostles of culture and Celtic twilight. + +He "got even" with George Moore's virulent attacks by telling a +capital story, which he confessed was invented, one that went all +over Dublin and London. When George felt the call of a Protestant +conversion he was in Dublin. He has told us of his difficulties, +mental and temperamental. One day some question of dogma presented +itself and he hurried to the Cathedral for advice. He sent in his +name to the Archbishop, and that forgetful dignitary exclaimed: +"Moore, Moore, oh, that man again! Well, give him another pair of +blankets." In later versions, coals, candles, even shillings, were +added to the apocryphal anecdote--which, by the way, set smiling the +usually impassive Moore, who can see a joke every now and then. + +Better still is the true tale of George, who boasts much in Vale of +his riding dangerous mounts; and when challenged at an English +country house did get on the back of a vicious animal and ride to +hounds the better part of a day. He wouldn't, quite properly, take +the "dare," although when he reached his room he found his boots +full of blood. So there is sporting temper in him. Any one reading +his Esther Waters may note that he knows the racing stable by heart. +In Vale he describes his father's stable at Castle Moore, County +Mayo. + +Of course, this is not the time to attempt an estimate of his +complete work, for who may say what fresh outbursts, what new +imprudences in black and white, we may expect? He has paid his +respects to his fellow countrymen, and is heartily despised by all +camps, political, religious, artistic. He has belittled the work of +Lady Gregory, Yeats, and Edwin Martyn, and has rather patronised +John M. Synge; the latter, possibly, because Synge was "discovered" +by Yeats, not Moore. Yet do we enjoy the vagaries of George Moore. I +only saw him once, a long time ago, to be precise in 1901, at +Bayreuth. He looked more like a bird than Yeats, though his beak is +not so predaceous as Yeats's; a golden-crested bird, with a chin as +diffident as a poached egg, and with melancholy pale-blue eyes, and +an undecided gait. He talked of the Irish language as if it were the +only redemption for poor unhappy Ireland. In Vale there is not the +same enthusiasm. He dwells with more delight on his early Parisian +experiences--it is the best part of the book--and to my way of +thinking the essential George Moore is to be found only in Paris; +London is an afterthought. The Paris of Manet, Monet, Degas, +Whistler, Huysmans, Zola, Verlaine, and all the "new" men of +1880--what an unexplored vein he did work for the profit and +delectation of the English-speaking world. True critical yeoman's +work, for to preach impressionism twenty-five years ago in London +was to court a rumpus. What hard names were rained upon the yellow +head of George Moore--that colour so admired by Manet and so +wonderfully painted by him--in the academic camp. He replied with +all the vivacity of vocabulary which your true Celt usually has on +tap. He even "went for" the Pre-Raphaelites, a band of overrated +mediocrities--on the pictorial side, at least--though John Millais +was a talent--and for years was as a solitary prophet in a city of +Philistines. The world caught up with Moore, and to-day the shoe +pinches on the other foot--it is George who is a belated critic of +the "New Art" (most of it as stale as the Medes and Persians), and +many are the wordy battles waged at the Café Royal, London, when +Augustus John happens in of an evening and finds the author of +Modern Painting denouncing Debussy in company with Matisse and other +Post-Imitators. Manet, like Moore, is "old hat" (vieux chapeau) for +modern youth. It's well to go to bed not too late in life, else some +impertinent youngster may cry aloud: "What's that venerable +granddaddy doing up at this time of night?" To each generation its +critics. + + +II + +In one of his fulminations against Christianity Nietzsche said that +the first and only Christian died on the cross. George Moore thinks +otherwise, at least he gives a novel version of the narrative in the +synoptic Gospels. The Brook Kerith is a fiction dealing with the +life of Christ. It is a book that will offend the faithful, and one +that will not convince the heterodox. In it George Moore sets forth +his ideas concerning the Christ "myth," evoking, as does Flaubert in +Salammbô, a vanished land, a vanished civilisation, and in a style +that is artistically beautiful. Never has he written with such +sustained power, intensity and nobility of phrasing, such finely +tempered, modulated prose. It is a rhythmed prose which first peeped +forth in some pages of Mr. Moore's Evelyn Innes when the theme +bordered on the mystical. Yet it is of an essentially Celtic +character. Mysticism and Moore do not seem bedfellows. Nevertheless, +Mr. Moore has been haunted from his first elaborate novel, A Drama +in Muslin, by mystic and theological questions. A pagan by +temperament, his soul is the soul of an Irish Roman Catholic. He can +no more escape the fascinating ideas of faith and salvation than did +Huysmans. (He has taken exception to this statement in an open +letter.) A realist at the beginning, he has leaned of late years +heavily on the side of the spirit. But like Baudelaire, Barbey +d'Aurévilly, Villiers de L'Isle Adam, Paul Verlaine, and Huysmans, +Mr. Moore is one of those sons of Mother Church who give anxious +pause to his former coreligionists. The Brook Kerith will prove a +formidable rock of offence, and it may be said that it was on the +Index before it was written. And yet we find in it George Moore +among the prophets. + +Perhaps Mr. Moore has read the critical work of Professor Arthur +Drews, The Christ Myth. It is a masterpiece of destruction. There +are many books in which Jesus Christ figures. Ernest Renan's Life, +written in his silky and sophisticated style, is no more admired by +Christians than the cruder study by Strauss. After these the deluge, +ending with the dream by the late Remy de Gourmont, Une Nuit au +Luxembourg. And there is the brilliant and poetic study of Edgar +Saltus, his Mary Magdalen. Anatole France has distilled into his The +Revolt of the Angels some of his acid hatred of all religions, with +blasphemous and obscene notes not missing. It may be remembered that +M. France also wrote that pastel of irony The Procurator of Judea, +in which Pontius Pilate is shown in his old age, rich, ennuied, +sick. He has quite forgotten, when asked, about the Jewish agitator +who fancied himself the son of God and was given over to the Temple +authorities in Jerusalem and crucified. Rising from the tomb on the +third day he became the Christ of the Christian dispensation, aided +by the religious genius of one Paul, formerly known as Saul the +Tent-maker of Tarsus. Now Mr. Moore does in a larger mould and in +the grand manner what Anatole France accomplished in his miniature. +The ironic method, a tragic irony, suffuses every page of The Brook +Kerith, and the story of the four Gospels is twisted into something +perverse, and for Christians altogether shocking. It will be called +"blasphemous," but we must remember that our national Constitution +makes no allowance for so-called "blasphemers"; that the mythologies +of the Greeks and Romans, Jews and Christians, Mohammedans and +Mormons may be criticised, yet the criticism is not inherently +"blasphemous." America is no more a Christian than a Jewish nation +or a nation of freethinkers. It is free to all races and religions, +and thus one man's spiritual meat may be another's emetic. + +Having cleared our mind of cant, let us investigate The Brook +Kerith. The title is applied to a tiny community of Jewish mystics, +the Essenes, who lived near this stream; perhaps the Scriptural +Kedron? This brotherhood had separated from the materialistic +Pharisees and Sadducees, not approving of burnt sacrifices or Temple +worship; furthermore, they practised celibacy till a schism within +their ranks drove the minority away from the parent body to shift +for themselves. A young shepherd, Jesus of Nazareth, son of Joseph, +a carpenter in Galilee, and of Miriam, his mother--they have other +sons--is a member of this community. But too much meditation on the +prophecies of Daniel and the meeting with a wandering prophet, John +the Baptist, the precursor of the long-foretold Messiah, lead him +astray. Baptised in the waters of Jordan, Jesus becomes a +theomaniac--he believes himself to be the son of God, appointed by +the heavenly father to save mankind; especially his fellow Jews. +Filled with a fanatical fire, he leads away a dozen disciples, poor, +ignorant fishermen. He also attracts the curiosity of Joseph, the +only son of a rich merchant of Arimathea. Two-thirds of the novel +are devoted to the psychology of this youthful philosopher, who, +inducted into the wisdom of the Greek sophists, is, notwithstanding, +a fervent Jew, a rigid upholder of the Law and the Prophets. The +dialogues between father and son rather recall Erin, hardly Syria. +Joseph becomes interested in Jesus, follows him about, and the fatal +day of the crucifixion he beseeches his friend Pilate to let him +have the body of his Lord for a worthy interment. Pilate demurs, +then accedes. Joseph, with the aid of the two holy women Mary and +Martha, places the corpse of the dead divinity in a sepulchre. + +If Joseph hadn't been killed by the zealots of Jerusalem (heated to +this murder by the High Priest) the title of the book might have +been "Joseph of Arimathea." He is easily the most viable figure. +Jesus is too much of the god from the machine; but he serves the +author for the development of his ingenious theory. Finding the +Christ still alive, Joseph carries him secretly and after dark to +the house of his father, hides him and listens unmoved to the +fantastic tales of a resurrection. But the spies of Caiaphas are +everywhere, Jesus is in danger of a second crucifixion, so Joseph +takes him back to the Essenes, where he resumes his old occupation +of herding sheep. Feeble in mind and body, he gradually wins back +health and spiritual peace. He regrets his former arrogance and +blasphemy and ascribes the aberration to the insidious temptings of +the demon. It seems that in those troubled days the cities and +countryside were infested by madmen, messiahs, redeemers, preaching +the speedy destruction of the world. For a period Jesus called +himself a son of God and threatened his fellow men with fire and the +sword. + +Till he was five and fifty years Jesus lived with his flocks. The +idyllic pictures are in Mr. Moore's most charming vein; sober, as +befits the dignity of the theme. He has fashioned an undulating +prose, each paragraph a page long, which flows with some of the +clarity and music of a style once derided by him, the style coulant +of that master of harmonies, Cardinal Newman. He is a great +landscape-painter. + +Jesus is aging. He gives up his shepherd's crook to his successor +and contemplates a retreat where he may meditate the thrilling +events of his youth. Then Paul of Tarsus intervenes. He is +vigorously painted. A refugee from Jerusalem, with Timothy lost +somewhere in Galilee, he invades the Essenian monastery. Eloquent +pages follow. Paul relates his adventures under the banner of Jesus +Christ. A disputatious man, full of the Lord, yet not making it any +easier for his disciples. You catch a glimpse of Pauline +Christianity, differing from the tender message of Jesus; that Jesus +of whom Havelock Ellis wrote: "Jesus found no successor. Over the +stage of those gracious and radiant scenes swiftly fell a fireproof +curtain, wrought of systematic theology and formal metaphysics, +which even the divine flames of that wonderful personality were +unable to melt." + +If this be the case then Paul was, if not the founder, the +foster-father of the new creed. A seer of epileptic visions--Edgar +Saltus has said of the "sacred disease" that all founders of +religions have been epileptics--Paul, with the intractable +temperament of a stubborn Pharisee, was softened by some Greek +blood, yet as Renan wrote of Amiel: "He speaks of sin, of salvation, +of redemption and conversion, and other theological bric-a-brac, as +if these things were realities." For Paul and those who followed him +they were and are realities; from them is spun the web of our modern +civilisation. The dismay of Paul on learning from the lips of Jesus +that he it was who, crucified, came back to life may be fancy. The +sturdy Apostle, who recalled the reproachful words of Jesus issuing +from the blinding light on the road to Damascus: "Paul, Paul, why +persecutest thou me?" naturally enough denounced Jesus as a madman, +but accepted his services as a guide to Cæsarea, where, in company +with Timothy, he hoped to embark for Rome, there to spread the glad +tidings, there to preach the Gospel of Christ and Him crucified. + +On the way he cautiously extracts from Jesus, whose memory of his +cruel tormentors is halting, parts of his story. He believes him a +half-crazy fanatic, deluded with the notion that he is the original +Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus gently expounds his theories, though George +Moore pulls the wires. A pantheism that ends in Nirvana, Néant, +Nada, Nothing! Despairing of ever forcing the world to see the +light, he is become a Quietist, almost a Buddhist. He might have +quoted the mystic Joachim Flora--of the Third Kingdom--who said that +the true ascetic counts nothing his own save only his harp. ("Qui +vere monachus est nihil reputat esse suum nisi citharam.") When a +man's cross becomes too heavy a burden to carry then let him cast it +away. Jesus cast his cross away--his spiritual ambition--believing +that too great love of God leads to propagation of the belief, then +to hatred and persecution of them that won't believe. + +The Jews, says Jesus, are an intolerant, stiff-necked people; they +love God, yet they hate men. Horrified at all this, Paul parts +company with the Son of Man, secretly relieved to hear that he is +not going, as he had contemplated, to give himself up to Hanan, the +High Priest in Jerusalem, to denounce the falseness of the heretical +sect named after him. Paul, without crediting the story, saw in +Jesus a dangerous rival. The last we hear of the divine shepherd is +a rumour that he may join a roving band of East Indians and go to +the source of all beliefs, to Asia, impure, mysterious Asia; the +mother of mystic cults. Paul too disappears, and on the little coda: +"The rest of his story is unknown." We are fain to believe that the +"rest of his story" is very well known in the wide world. The book +is another milestone along Mr. Moore's road to Damascus. + +If, as Charles Baudelaire has said, "Superstition is the reservoir +of all truths," then, we have lost our spiritual bearings in the +dark forest of modern rationalism. To be sure, we have a Yankee Pope +Joan, a Messiah in petticoats who has uttered the illuminating +phrase, "My first and for ever message is one and eternal," which is +no more a parody of Holy Writ than The Brook Kerith, a book which +while it must have given its author pains to write--so full of +Talmudic and Oriental lore and the lore of the apocryphal gospels is +it--must have been also a joy to him as a literary artist. The +poignant irony of Paul's disbelief in the real Jesus is +understandable, though it is bound to raise a chorus of +protestations. But Mr. Moore never worried over abuse. He has, Celt +that he is, followed his vision. In every man's heart there is a +lake, he says, and the lake in his heart is a sombre one, a very +pool of incertitudes. One feels like quoting to him--though it would +be unnecessary, as he knows well the quotation--what Barbey +d'Aurévilly once wrote to Baudelaire, and years later of Joris-Karel +Huysmans, that he would either blow out his brains or prostrate +himself at the foot of the cross. Mr. Moore has in the past made his +genuflections. But they were before the Jesus of his native +religion; the poetic though not profound image he has created in his +new book will never seem the godlike man of whom Browning said in +Saul: "Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee. See the +Christ stand!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +PILLOWLAND + + +In his immortal essay on the "flat swamp of convalescence" Charles +Lamb speaks from personal experience of the "king-like way" the sick +man "sways his pillow--tumbling, and tossing, and shifting, and +lowering, and thumping, and flatting, and moulding it, to the +ever-varying requisitions of his throbbing temples. He changes +_sides_ oftener than a politician." How true this is--even to the +italicised word--I discovered for myself after a personal encounter +with the malignant Pneumococcus, backed up by his ally, the +pleurisy. Such was the novelty of my first serious illness that it +literally took my breath away. When I recovered my normal wind I +found myself monarch of all I surveyed, my kingdom a bed, yet +seemingly a land without limit,--who dares circumscribe the +imagination of an invalid? As to the truth of Mr. Lamb's remarks on +the selfishness of the sick man there can be no denial. His pillow +is his throne--from it he issues his orders for the day, his +bulletins for the night. The nurse is his prime minister, his right +hand; with her moral alliance he is enabled to defy a host of +officious advisers. But woe betide him if nurse and spouse plot +against him. Then he is helpless. Then he is past saving. His little +pet schemes are shattered in the making. He is shifted and mauled. +He is prodded and found wanting. No hope for the helpless devil as +his face is scrubbed, his hands made clean, his miserable tangled +hair combed straight. In Pillowland what Avatar? None, alas! +Nevertheless, your pillow is your best friend, your only confidant. +In its cool yielding depths you whisper (yes, one is reduced to an +evasive whisper, such is the cowardice superinduced by physical +weakness) "Bedpans are not for bedouins. I'll have none of them." +And then you swallow the next bitter pill the nurse offers. +Suffering ennobles, wrote Nietzsche. I suppose he is right, but in +my case the nobility is yet to appear. Meek, terribly meek, sickness +makes one. You suffer a sea change, and without richness. The most +annoying part of the business is that you were not consulted as to +your choice of maladies; worse remains: you are not allowed to cure +yourself. I loathe pneumonia, since I came to grips with the beast. +The next time I'll go out of my way to select some exotic fever. +Then my doctor will be vastly intrigued. I had a common or garden +variety of lung trouble. Pooh! his eyes seemed to say--I read their +meaning with the clairvoyance of the defeated--we shall have this +fellow on his hind-legs in a jiffy. And I didn't want to get well +too rapidly. Like Saint Augustine I felt like praying with a slight +change of text: "Give me chastity and constancy, but not yet." Give, +I said to my doctor, health, but let me loaf a little longer. Time +takes toll of eternity and I've worked my pen and wagged my tongue +for twice twenty years. I need a rest. So do my readers. The divine +rights of cabbages and of kings are also shared by mere newspaper +men. A litany of massive phrases followed. But in vain. The doctor +was inexorable. I had pneumonia. My temperature was tropical. My +heart beat in ragtime rhythm, and my pulse was out of the running. I +realised as I tried to summon to my parched lips my favourite "red +lattice oaths" that, as Cabanis put it years ago: "Man is a +digestive tube pierced at both ends." All the velvet vanities of +life had vanished. I could no longer think in alliterative +sentences. Only walking delegates of ideas filled my hollow skull +like dried peas in a bladder. Finally, I "concentrated"--as the +unchristian unscientists say--on the nurse, my nurse. + +As an old reporter of things theatrical I had seen many plays with +the trained nurse as heroine. One and all I abhorred them, even the +gentle and artistic impersonation of Margaret Anglin in a piece +whose name I've forgotten. I welcomed a novel by Edgar Saltus in +which the nurse is depicted as a monster of crime incarnate. How +mistaken I have been. Now, the trained nurse seems an angel without +wings. She may not be the slender, dainty, blue-eyed, flaxen-haired +girl of the footlights; she is often mature and stout and a lover of +potatoes. But she is a sister when a man is down. She is severe, but +her severity hath good cause. At first you feebly utter the word +"nurse." Later she is any Irish royal family name. Follows, "Mary," +and that way danger lies for the elderly invalid. When he calls her +"Marie" he is doomed. Every day the newspapers tell us of marriages +made in pillowland between the well-to-do widower, Mr. A. Sclerosis, +and Miss Emma Metic of the Saint Petronius Hospital staff. Married +sons and daughters may protest, but to no avail. A sentimental +bachelor or widower in the lonesome latter years hasn't any more +chance with a determined young nurse of the unfair sex than a +"snowbird in hell"--as Brother Mencken phrases it. + +However, every nurse has her day. She finally departs. Your eyes are +wet. You are weeping over yourself. The nurse represented not only +care for your precious carcass but also a surcease from the demands +of the world. Her going means a return to work, and you hate to work +if you are a convalescent of the true-blue sort. Hence your tears. +But you soon recover. You are free. The doctor has lost interest in +your case. You throw physic to the dogs. You march at a lenten tempo +about your embattled bed. You begin sudden little arguments with +your wife, just to see if you haven't lost any of your old-time +virility in the technique of household squabbling. You haven't. You +swell with masculine satisfaction and for at least five minutes you +are the Man of the House. A sudden twinge, a momentary giddiness, +send you scurrying back to your bailiwick, the bedroom, and the +familiar leitmotiv is once more sounded, and with what humility of +accent: "Mamma!" The Eternal Masculine? The Eternal Child! You +mumble to her that it is nothing, and as you recline on that +thrice-accursed couch, you endeavour to be haughty. But she knows +you are simply a sick grumpy old person of the male species who +needs be ruled with a rod of iron, although the metal be well +hidden. + +The first cautious peep from a window upon the world you left snow +white, and find in vernal green, is an experience almost worth the +miseries you have so impatiently endured. A veritable vacation for +the eyes, you tell yourself, as the fauna and flora of Flatbush +break upon your enraptured gaze. Presently you watch with breathless +interest the man[oe]uvres of ruddy little Georgie in the next garden +as he manfully deploys a troupe of childish contemporaries, his +little sister doggedly traipsing at the rear. Sturdy Georgie has the +makings of a leader. He may be a Captain of Commerce, a Colonel, and +Master-politician; but he will always be foremost, else nowhere. +"You are the audience," he imperiously bids his companions, and +when rebellion seemed imminent he punched, without a trace of anger, +a boy much taller. I envied Georgie his abounding vitality. +Furtively I raised the window. Instantly I was spied by Georgie who +cried lustily: "Little boy, little boy, come down and play with me!" +I almost felt gay, "You come up here," I called out with one lung. +"I haven't a stepladder," he promptly replied. The fifth floor is as +remote without a ladder as age is separated from youth. (Now I'm +moralising!) Undismayed, Georgie continued to call: "Little boy, +little boy, come down and play with me!" + +The most disheartening thing about a first sickness is the friend +who meets you and says: "I never saw you look better in your life." +It may be true, but he shouldn't have said it so crudely. You +renounce then and there the doctor with all his pomps of healing. +You refuse to become a professional convalescent. You are cured +and once more a commonplace man, one of the healthy herd. +Notwithstanding you feel secretly humiliated. You are no longer King +of Pillowland. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +CROSS-CURRENTS IN MODERN FRENCH LITERATURE + + +I + +They order certain things better in France than elsewhere; I mean +such teasing and unsatisfactory forms of book-making known as +Inquiries ("Enquête," which is not fair to translate into the +lugubrious literalism, "Inquest"), Anthologies, and books that +masquerade as books, as Charles Lamb hath it. Without a trace of +pedantry or dogmatism, such works appear from time to time in Paris +and are delightful reminders of the good breeding and suppleness of +Gallic criticism. To turn to favour and prettiness a dusty +department of literature is no mean feat. + +What precisely is the condition of French letters since Catulle +Mendès published his magisterial work on The French Poetic Movement +from 1867 to 1900? (Paris, 1903.) Nothing so exhaustive has appeared +since, though a half-dozen Inquiries, Anthologies, and Symposiums +are in existence. + +The most comprehensive recently is Florian-Parmentier's Contemporary +History of French Letters from 1885 to 1914. The author is a poet, +one of les Jeunes, and an expert swimmer in the multifarious +cross-currents of the day. His book is a bird's-eye view of the map +of literary France as far as the beginning of the war. He is quite +frank in his likes and dislikes, and always has his reasons for his +major idolatries and minor detestations. + +As a corrective to his enthusiasm and hatreds there are several new +Anthologies at hand which aid us to form our own opinion of the +younger men's prose and verse. And, finally, there is the +significant Inquiry of Emile Henriot: "A Quoi Rêvent les Jeunes +Gens?" (1913); of which more anon. + +M. Florian-Parmentier is a native of Valenciennes, a writer whose +versatility and fecundity are noteworthy in a far from barren +literary epoch. He has, with the facility of a lettered young +Frenchman, tried his hand at every form. All themes, so they be +human, are welcome to him, from art criticism to playwriting. He is +seemingly fair to his colleagues. Perhaps they may not admit this; +but the question may be answered in the affirmative: Is he a safe +critical guide in the labyrinth of latter-day French letters? + +He notes, with an unaccustomed sense of humour in a critical +barometer, the tendency of youthful poets, prose penmen, and others +to form schools, to create cénacles, to begin fighting before they +have any defined ideal. It leads to a lot of noisy, explosive +manifestoes, declarations, and challenges, most of them rather in +the air; though it cannot be denied that these ebullitions of gusty +temperaments do clear that same air, murky with theories and +traversed by an occasional flash of genius. + +After paying his respects to the daily Parisian press, which he +belabours as venal, cynical, and impure, our critic evokes a picture +of the condition of literary men; not a reassuring one. Indeed, we +wonder how young people can dream of embracing such a profession, +with its heartaches, disappointments, inevitable poverty. Unless +these aspiring chaps have a private income, how do they contrive to +live? + +The answer is, they don't live, unless they write twaddle for the +Grand Old Public, which must be tickled with fluff and flattery. You +say to yourself, after all Paris is not vastly different in this +respect from benighted New York. Detective stories, melodrama, the +glorification of the stale triangle in fiction and drama, the +apotheosis of the Apache--what are all these but slight variants of +the artistic pabulum furnished by our native merchants in +mediocrity? Consoled, because your mental and emotional climate is +not as inartistic as it is painted, you return to Florian-Parmentier +and his divagations. He has much to say. Some of it is not as tender +as tripe, but none is salted with absurdity. + +Then you make a discovery. There is in France a distinct class, the +Intellectuals, who control artistic opinion because of its superior +claims; a class to which there is no analogy either in England or in +America. (The French Academy is not particularly referred to just +now.) Poets, journalists, wealthy amateurs, bohemians, and +professors--all may belong to it if they have the necessary +credentials: brains, talent, enthusiasm. It is the latter quality +that floats out on the sea of speculation many adventuring barks. +Each sports a tiny pennant proclaiming its ideals. Each is steered +by some dreamer of proud, impossible dreams. But they float, do +these frail boats, laden with visions and captained by noble +ambitions. + +Or, another image; a long, narrow street, on either side houses of +manifold styles--fantastic or sensible, castellated or commonplace, +baroque, stately, turreted, spired, and lofty, these eclectic +architectures reflect the souls of the dwellers within. The ivory +tower is not missing, though a half-century ago it was more in +evidence; the church is there, though sadly dwarfed--France is still +spiritually crippled and flying on one wing (this means previous to +1914); and a host of other strange and familiar houses that Jack the +poet built. + +On the doors of each is a legend; it may be Neo-Symbolism, +Neo-Classicism, Free-Verse, Sincerism, Intenseism, Spiritualists, +Floralism or the School of Grace, Dramatism and Simultanism, +Imperialism, Dynamism, Futurism, Regionalism, Pluralism, Sereneism, +Vivantism, Magism, Totalism, Subsequentism, Argonauts, Wolves, +Visionarism, and, most discussed of all, Unanimism, headed by that +fiery propagandist and poet, Jules Romains. + +Now, every one of these cults in miniature has its following, its +programmes, sometimes its special reviews, monthly or weekly. They +are the numerous progeny of the elder Romantic, Realistic, and +Symbolistic schools, long dead and gathered to their fathers. + +Charles Baudelaire, from whose sonnet Correspondences the Symbolists +dated; Baudelaire, the precursor of so much modern, is to-day +chiefly studied in his prose writings, critical and æsthetic. His +Little Poems in Prose are a breviary for the youths who are turning +out an amorphous prose, which they call Free. Paul Verlaine's +influence is still marked, for he is a maker of Debussy-like music; +moonlit, vapourish, intangible, subtle, and perverse. The very +quintessence of poetry haunts the vague terrain of his verse; but +his ideas, his morbidities, these are negligible, indeed, abhorred. + +The new schools, whether belonging to the Extreme Right or Extreme +Left, are idealistic in their aim and practice; that or nothing. The +brutalities of Zola and the Naturalistic School, the frigid +perfection and metallic impassibility of the Parnassians are over +and done with. Cynical cinders no longer blind the eye of the +ideal. There is a renaissance of sensibility. The universe is become +pluralistic, sentimental pantheism is in the air. Irony has ceased +to be a potent weapon in the armoury of poets and prosateurs. It is +replaced by an ardent love of humanity, by a socialism that weeps on +the shoulder of one's neighbour, by a horror of egoism--whether +masquerading as a philosophy such as Nietzsche's, or a poesy such as +the Parnassians. For these poetlings issues are cosmical. + +Coeval with this revival of sentiment is a decided leaning toward +religion; not the "white soul of the Middle Ages," as Huysmans would +say; not the mediæval curiosities of Hugo, Gautier, Lamartine; but +the carrying aloft of the banner of belief; the opposition to +sterile agnosticism by the burning tongues of the holy spirit. No +dilettante movement this return to Roman Catholicism. The time came +for many of these neophytes when they had to choose at the +cross-roads. Either--Or? The Button-Moulder was lying in wait for +such adolescent Peer Gynts, and, outraged and nauseated by the gross +license of their day and hour, by the ostentation of evil instincts, +they turned to the right--some, not all of them. The others no +longer cry aloud their pagan admiration of the nymph's flesh in the +brake, of the seven deadly arts and their sister sins. + +In a word, since 1905 a fresher, a more tonic air has been blowing +across the housetops of French art and literature. Science is too +positive. Every monad has had its day. Pictorial impressionism is +without skeleton. Mysticism is coming into fashion again; only, the +youngsters wear theirs with a difference. Even the Cubists are +working for formal severity, despite their geometrical fanaticism. +Youth will have its fling, and joys in esoteric garb, in flaring +colours, and those doors in the narrow street called "Perhaps," do +but prove the eternal need of the new and the astounding. Man cannot +live on manna alone. He must, to keep from volplaning to the +infinite, go down and gnaw his daily bone. The forked human radish +with the head fantastically carved has underpinnings also; else his +chamber of dreams might overflow into reality, and then we should be +converted in a trice to angels, pin-feathers and all. + +What were the controlling factors in young French literature up +to the greatest marking date of modern history, 1914? The philosophy +of Henri Bergson is one; that philosophy, full of poetic impulsion, +graceful phrasing, and charming evocations; a feminine, nervous, +fleshless philosophy, though deriving, as it does, from an +intellectual giant, Emile Boutroux. Maurice Barrès is another +name to conjure with; once the incarnation of a philosophical +and slightly cruel egoism; then the herald of regionalism, +replacing the flinty determinism of Taine with the watch-words: +Patriotism, reverence for the dead--a reverence perilously near +ancestor-worship--the prose-master Barrès went into the political +arena, and became, notwithstanding his rather aggressive +"modernism," an idealistic reactionary. + +He is more subtle in his intellectual processes than his one-time +master, Paul Bourget, from whom his psychology stemmed, and, if his +patriotism occasionally becomes chauvinistic, his sincerity cannot +be challenged. That sincerest form of insincerity--"moral +earnestness," so called--has never been his. He is no more a sower +of sand on the bleak and barren shore of negation. Little wonder he +is accepted as a vital teacher. + +Other names occur as generators of present schools. Stendhal, +Mallarmé, Georges Rodenbach, Rimbaud--that stepfather of symbolism +--Emil Verhaeren--who is truly an elemental and disquieting +force--Paul Adam, Maeterlinck, the late Remy de Gourmont--who +contributed so much to contemporary thought in the making--Francis +Jammes, Villiers de l'Isle Adam, Renard, Samain, Saint-Georges de +Bouhelier, Jules Laforgue--and how many others, to be found in the +pages of Vance Thompson's French Portraits, which valuable study +dates back to the middle of the roaring nineties. + + +II + +When we are confronted by a litany of strange names, by the +intricate polyphony of literary sects and cénacles, the American +lover of earlier French poets is bewildered, so swiftly does the +whirligig of time bring new talents. Already the generation of 1900 +has jostled from their place the "elders" of a decade previous: you +read of Paul-Napoléon Roinard, Maurice Beaubourg, Hans Ryner--a +remarkable writer--André Gide, Charles-Louis Philippe, of Paul Fort, +Paul Claudel, André Suarès, Stéphane Servant, André Spire, Philéas +Lebesgue, Georges Polti (whose Thirty-six Dramatic Situations +deserves an English garb), and you recall some of them as potent +creators of values. + +But if London, a few hours from Paris, only hears of these men +through a few critical intermediaries, such as Arthur Symons, Edmund +Gosse, and other cultivated and cosmopolitan spirits, what may we +not say of America, a week away from the scene of action? As a +matter of fact, we are proud of our provincialism, and for those who +"create"--as the jargon goes--that same provincialism is a +windshield against the draughts of too tempting imitation; but for +our criticism there is no excuse. A critic will never be a catholic +critic of his native literature or art if he doesn't know the +literatures and arts of other lands, paradoxical as this may sound. +We lack æsthetic curiosity. Because of our uncritical parochialism +America is comparable to a cemetery of clichés. + +Nevertheless, those of us who went as far as the portraits by Vance +Thompson and Amy Lowell must feel a trifle strange in the long, +narrow street of Florian-Parmentier, with its alternations of +Septentrional mists and the blazing blue sky of the Midi. This +critic, by the way, is a staunch upholder of the Gaul. He will have +no admixture of Latin influence. He employs what has jocosely been +called the "Woad" argument; he goes back not to the early Britons, +but to Celticism. He is a sturdy Kymrist, and believes not in +literatures transalpine or transpyrenean. He loathes the "pastiche," +the purveyors of "canned" classics, the chilly rhetoricians who set +too much store on conventional learning. A Frank, a northerner, and +the originator of Impulsionism is Florian-Parmentier. In his +auscultation of genius, La Physiologie Morale du Poète (1904), may +be found the germs of his doctrine. This doctrine seems familiar +enough now, as does the flux of Heraclitus and the Becoming of +Renan, in the teachings of Bergson. Unanimism has had some +influence. M. Florian-Parmentier does not admire this movement or +its prophet, Jules Romains. Unanimism. Ah! the puissant magic of the +word for these budding poets and philosophers. It ought to warm the +cockles of the heart of critics. + +And then the generation of 1900--Alexander Mercereau, Henri +Hertz, Sébastien Voirol, Pierre Jaudon, Jacques Nayral, Fernand +Divoire, Tancrède Visan, Strentz, Giraudoux, Mandin, Guillaume +Apollinaire--all workers in the vast inane, dwellers on the +threshold of the future. The past and present bearings of the +Academy Goncourt are carefully indicated. Thus far nothing +extraordinary has come from it. Balzac is still the mighty one in +fiction. Thus far the names of Anatole France, Paul Adam, the +brothers Rosny, Pierre Mille--a brilliant, versatile man--still +maintain their primacy. + +Thus far, among the essayists, Remy de Gourmont, Camille Mauclair, +Maeterlinck, Romain Rolland, J. H. Fabre, Jules Bois--now sojourning +in America and a thinker of verve and originality--and Henry +Houssaye, hold their own against the younger generation. + +In the theatre there are numerous and vexing tendencies: +Maeterlinck, loyally acknowledging his indebtedness to gentle +Charles van Lerburghe, created a spiritual drama and has disciples; +but the theatre is the theatre and resists innovation. Ibsen, who +had his day in Paris, and Antoine of the Free Theatre were accepted +not because of their novelty, but in spite of it. They both were men +of the theatre. There is a school of Ideo-realism, and there are +Curel, Bataille, Porto-Riche, Maeterlinck, Trarieux, and Marie +Leneru; but the technique of the drama is immutable. + +In the domain of philosophy and experimental science we find Emile +Boutroux, and such collective psychologists as Durckheim, Gustave +le Bon, and Gabriel Tarde; names such as Binet, Ribot, Michel +Savigny, Alfred Fouillée, and the eminent mathematician, Henri +Poincaré--who finally became sceptical of his favourite logic, +philosophy, and mathematics. This intellectual volte-face caused +endless discussion. The truth is that intuition, the instinctive +vs. intellectualism--what William James called "vicious +intellectualism"--is swaying the younger French thinkers and poets. + +There is, if one is to judge by the anthologies, far too much of +metaphysics in contemporary poetry. Poetry is in danger of +suffocating in a misty mid-region of metaphysics. The vital impulse, +intuitionalism, and rhythmic flow of time in Bergson caught the +fancy of the poets. Naturally enough. Literary dogmatism had +prevailed too long in academic centres. Now it is the deliquescence +of formal verse that is to be feared. Vers-libre, which began with +such initiators as that astonishing prodigy, Arthur Rimbaud, has run +the gamut from esoteric illuminism to sonorous yawping from the +terrace of the brasseries. Have frogs wings? we are tempted to ask. +Voices they have, but not bird-like voices. + +That fascinating philosopher and friend of Remy de Gourmont--who +practically introduced him--must not be overlooked, for he had +genuine influence. I refer to brilliant Jules Gaultier, who evolved +from Flaubert's Madame Bovary the idea of his Bovarysme--which, +succinctly stated, is the instinct in mankind to appear other than +it is; from the philosopher to the snob, from the priest to the +actor, from the duchess to the prostitute. + +Of the influence of politics upon art and literature--which happily +are no cloistered virtues in France--we need not speak here. M. +Florian-Parmentier does so in his admirable and bulky book, of which +we have only exposed the high lights. + +Since Jules Huret's Enquête sur l'Evolution Littéraire (1890), +followed by similar works of Vellay, Jean Muller, and Gaston Picard +(1913), we recall no such pamphlet as Emile Henriot's, mentioned +above. He put the questions: "Where are we? Where are we going?" in +_Le Temps_ of Paris, June, 1912, to a number of representative +thinkers and poets, and reprinted between covers their answers in +1913. + +The result is rather confusing, a cloud of contradictory witnesses +are assembled, and what one affirms the other denies. There are no +schools! Yes, there are groups! We are going to the devil headlong! +The sky is full of rainbows and the humming of harps celestial! +Better the extravagances of the decayed Romanticists than the +debasing realism of the modern novel, cry the Symbolists. A plague +on all your houses! say the Unanimists. One fierce Wolf (Loup) +admitted that at the banquets of his cénacle he and his fellow poets +always ate in effigy the classic writers. Or was it at the +Symbolists'? Does it much matter? The gesture counts alone with +these youthful "Fumistes"--as Leconte de Lisle had christened their +predecessors. + +Verlaine, in his waggish mood, persisted in spelling as "Cymbalists" +the Symbolists, his own followers. Gongs would have been a better +word. A punster speaks of Theists as those who love "le bon Dieu and +tea." The new critical school, at its head Charles Maurras, do not +conceal their contempt for all these "arrivistes" and revolutionary +groups, believing that only a classic renaissance will save Young +France. Barnums, the entire lot! pronounces in faded accents the +ultra-academic group. Three critics of wide-reaching influence are +dead since the war began: Emile Faguet, Jules Lemaître, and Remy de +Gourmont. They leave no successors worthy of their mettle. + + +III + +The three volumes of anthology of French Contemporary Poets from +1866 to 1916 have been supplemented by a fourth entitled Poets of +Yesterday and To-day (1916). Edited by the painstaking M. G. Walch, +it comprises the verse of poets born as late as 1886. Among the +rest is the gifted Charles Dumas, who fell in battle, 1914. As +epigraph to the new collection the editor has used a line from this +poet's testament: "Ce désir d'être tout que j'appelle mon âme!" +Another anthology of the new poets is prefaced by M. Gustave Lanson, +but the Walch collection reveals more promising talents, or else the +poems are more representative. + +Signor Marinetti, who is bilingual, is eccentrically amusing. But +are his contortions on the tripod art? The auto and aeroplane are +celebrated, also steam, speed, mist, and the destruction of all art +prior to 1900. The new schools are wary of rhetoric, thus following +Paul Verlaine's injunction: Take Eloquence by the neck and wring it! +Imagists abound, but they are in an aristocratic minority. The +watchword is: sobriety in thinking and expression. + +Strangely enough, two names emerge victoriously from the confusing +lyric symphony and they are those of Belgian-born poets--Emile +Verhaeren, whose tragic death last year was a loss to literature, +and Maurice Maeterlinck. What living lyric poet has the incomparable +power of that epical Verhaeren, unless it be that of the more +sophisticated Gabriele d'Annunzio, or the sumptuous decorative verse +of Henri de Régnier, whose polished art is the antithesis of the +exuberant, lawless, resonant reverberations of Verhaeren? + +What thinker and dramatist is known like Maeterlinck, except it be +the magical Gerhart Hauptmann? Rough to brutality--for Verhaeren at +one time emulated Walt Whitman (variously spelled as "Walth" and +"Withman"); with the names of foreigners Paris has ever been +careless in its orthography, witness "Litz" and "Edgard Poë"; he can +boast the divine afflatus. His personality is of the centrifugal +order. He has a tumultuous rhythmic undertow that sweeps one +irresistibly with him. But his genius is disintegrating, rather than +constructive. + +Of what French poet among the younger group dare we say the same? +Grace, lyric sweetness, subtlety in ideas, facile technique--all +these, yes, but not the power of saying great things greatly. + +As for Maeterlinck, he owes something to Emerson; but his mellow +wisdom and clairvoyance are his own. He is a seer, and his +crepuscular pages are pools of glimmering incertitudes, whereas of +Verhaeren we may say, as Carlyle said of Landor's prose: "The sound +of it is like the ring of Roman swords on the helmets of +barbarians." + +Henry James tells a story of an argument between Zola, Flaubert, and +Turgenev, the Russian novelist declaring that for him Châteaubriand +was not the Ultima Thule of prose perfection. This insensibility to +the finer nuances of the language angered and astounded Zola and +Flaubert. They set it down to the fact that none but a Frenchman +can quite penetrate the inner sanctuary of his own language; which +may be true, though I believe that for Turgenev the author of Atala +was temperamentally distasteful. + +Therefore, when an American makes the statement that the two +Belgians are superior to the living Frenchmen it may be classed as a +purely personal judgment. But the proposition first mooted by a +distinguished critic, Remy de Gourmont, that Maeterlinck and +Verhaeren be elected to the French Academy, was not a bizarre one. +The war has effaced many artistic frontiers. The majority of the +little circles that once pullulated in Paris no longer exist. Both +Verhaeren and Maeterlinck are now Frenchmen of the French. Their +inclusion in the Academy would have honoured that venerable and too +august body as much as the Belgian poets. + +As to the war's influence on French letters, that question is for +soothsayers to decide, not for the present writer. After 1870 +certain psychiatrists pretended that a degeneration of body and soul +had blighted artistic and literary Europe. Well, we can only wish +for the new France of 1920 and later such a galaxy of talents and +genius as the shining groups from 1875 to 1914. No need to finger +the chaplet of their names and achievements. Such books as those by +Catulle Mendès, Florian-Parmentier, Lanson, and Walch prove our +contention. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +MORE ABOUT RICHARD WAGNER + + +Time was when a fame-craving young man could earn a reputation for +originality by merely going to the market-place and loudly +proclaiming his disbelief in a deity. It would seem that modern +critics of Richard Wagner, busily engaged in placing the life of the +composer under their microscopes, are seeking the laurels of the +ambitious chap aforesaid. + +Never has the music of Wagner been more popular than now; his name +on the opera billboards is bound to crowd a house. And never, +paradoxical as it may sound, has there been such a critical hue and +cry over his works and personality. The publication of his +autobiography has much to do with this renewal of interest. There is +some praise, much abuse, to be found in the newly published books on +the subject. European critics are building up little islands of +theory, coral-like, some with fantastic lagoons, others founded on +stern truth, and many doomed to be washed away over-night. +Nevertheless, the true Richard Wagner is beginning to emerge from +the haze of Nibelheim behind which he contrived to hide his real +self. + +Wagner the gigantic comedian; Wagner the egotist; Wagner the victim +of a tragic love, Wagner tone-poet, mock philosopher, and a +wonderful apparition in the world of art till success overtook him; +then Wagner become bored, with no more worlds to conquer, deserted +by his best friends--whom he had alienated--without the solace of +the men he had most loved, the men who had helped him over the +thorny path of his life--Liszt, Nietzsche, Von Bülow, Otto +Wesendonk, and how many others, even King Ludwig II, whom he had +treated with characteristic ingratitude! No, Richard Wagner during +the sterile years, so called, from 1866 to 1883, was not a contented +man, despite his union with Cosima von Bülow-Liszt and the +foundation of a home and family at Baireuth. + + +I + +However, there are exceptions. One is the book of Otto Bournot +entitled Ludwig Geyer, the Stepfather of Richard Wagner. I wrote +about it in 1913 for the _New York Times_. In this slender volume of +only seventy-two pages the author sifts all the evidence in the +Geyer-Wagner question, and he has delved into archives, into the +newspapers of Geyer's days, and has had access to hitherto untouched +material. It must be admitted that his conclusions are not to be +lightly denied. August Böttiger's Necrology has until recently been +the chief source of facts in the career of Geyer, but Wagner's +Autobiography--which in spots Bournot corrects--and the life of +Wagner by Mary Burrell, not to mention other books, have furnished +Bournot with new weapons. + +The Geyers as far back as 1700 were simple pious folk, the first of +the family being a certain Benjamin Geyer, who about 1700 was a +trombone-player and organist. Indeed, the chief occupation of many +Geyers was in some way or other connected with the Evangelical +Church. Ludwig Heinrich Christian Geyer was a portraitist of no mean +merit, an actor of considerable power--his Franz Moor was a +favourite rôle with the public--a dramatist of fair ability (he +wrote a tragedy, among others, named The Slaughter of the +Innocents), and also a verse-maker. His acquaintance with Weber +stimulated his interest in music; Weber discovered his voice, and he +sang in opera. Truly a versatile man who displayed in miniature all +the qualities of Wagner. The latter was too young at the time of +Geyer's death, September, 1821, to have profited much by the +precepts of his stepfather, but his example certainly did prove +stimulating to the imagination of the budding poet and composer. +Geyer married Johanna Wagner-Bertz (Mary Burrell was the first to +give the correct spelling of her maiden name), the widow of the +police functionary Wagner (to whose memory Richard pays such cynical +homage in his obituary), August 14, 1814. She had about two hundred +and sixty-one thalern, and eight children. A ninth came later in the +person of Cäcile, who afterward married a member of the Avenarius +family. Cäcile, or Cicely, was a prime favourite with Richard. + + * * * * * + +Seven years passed, and again Frau Geyer found herself a widow, with +nine children and little money. How the family all tumbled up in the +world, owing much to the courage, wit, vivacity, and unshaken +will-power of their mother, may be found in the autobiography. +Bournot admits that Geyer and his wife may have carried to the grave +certain secrets. Richard Wagner until he was nine years old was +known as Richard Geyer, and on page thirteen of his book our author +prints the following significant sentence: "The possibility of +Wagner's descent from Geyer contains in itself nothing detrimental +to our judgment of the art-work of Baireuth." + + +II + +In 1900 a twenty-page pamphlet bearing the title Richard Wagner in +Zurich was published in Leipsic. It was signed Hans Bélart, and gave +for the first time to a much mystified world the story of Wagner's +passion for Mathilde Wesendonk, thus shattering beyond hope of +repair our cherished belief that Cosima von Bülow-Liszt had been +the lode-stone of Wagner's desire, that to her influence was due the +creation of Tristan and Isolde, its composer's high-water mark in +poetic, dramatic music. Now, Bélart, not content with his +iconoclastic pamphlet, has just sent forth a fat book which he calls +Richard Wagner's Love-Tragedy with Mathilde Wesendonk. + +We had thought that the last word in the matter had been said when +Baireuth (Queen Cosima I) allowed the publication of Wagner's +diaries and love-letters to Mathilde--though her complete +correspondence is as yet unpublished. But Bélart is one of the +busiest among the German critical coral builders. He has dug into +musty newspapers and letters, and gives at the close of his work a +long list of authorities. Yet nothing startlingly new comes out of +his researches. We knew that Mathilde Wesendonk (or Wesendonck) was +the first love of Wagner, a genuine and noble passion, not his usual +self-seeking philandering. We also knew that Otto Wesendonk behaved +like a patient husband and a gentleman--any other man would have put +a bullet in the body of the thrice impertinent genius; knew, too, +that Tristan and Isolde was born of this romance. But there is a +mass of fresh details, petty backstairs gossip, all the +tittle-tattle beloved of such writers, that in company with Julius +Kapp's Wagner und die Frauen, makes Bélart's new book a valuable one +for reference. + +Kapp, who has written a life of Franz Liszt, goes Bélart one better +in hinting that the infatuated couple transformed their idealism +into realism. Bélart does not believe this; neither does Emil +Ludwig, the latest critical commentator on Wagner. But neither +critic gives the profoundest proof that the love of Richard and +Mathilde was an exalted, platonic one, _i. e._, the proof +psychologic. I firmly believe that if Mathilde Wesendonk had eloped +with Wagner in 1858, as he begged her to do, Tristan and Isolde +might not have been finished; at all events, the third act would not +have been what it now is. A mighty longing is better for the birth +of great art than facile happiness. For the first time in his +selfish unhappy life Wagner realised Goethe's words of wisdom: +"Renounce thou shalt; shalt renounce." It was a bitter sacrifice, +but out of its bitter sweetness came the honey and moonlight of +Tristan and Isolde. Wagner suffered, Mathilde suffered, Otto +Wesendonk suffered, and last, but not least, Minna Wagner, the poor +pawn in his married game, suffered to distraction. Let us begin with +a quotation on the last page but three of Bélart's book: "Remarked +Otto Wesendonk to a friend: 'I have hunted Wagner from my +threshold....'" + +This was in August, 1858. Wagner first met the Wesendonks about +1852, three years after he had fled to Zurich from Dresden because +of his participation in the uprising of 1849. (Wagner as amateur +revolutionist!) Thanks to the request of his wife Mathilde, Otto +Wesendonk furnished a little house on the hill near his splendid +villa for the Wagners. First christened "Fafner's Repose," Wagner +changed the title to the "Asyl," and for a time it was truly an +asylum for this perturbed spirit. + +But he must needs fall deeply in love with his charming and +beautiful neighbour, a woman of intellectual and poetic gifts, and +to the chagrin of her husband and of Wagner's faithful wife. The +gossip in the neighbourhood was considerable, for the complete +frankness of the infatuated ones was not the least curious part of +the affair. Liszt knew of it, so did the Princess Layn-Wittgenstein. +An immense amount of "snooping" was indulged in by interested lady +friends of Minna Wagner. She has her apologists, and, judging from +the letters she wrote at the time and afterward--several printed for +the first time by Kapp and Bélart--she took a lively hand in the +general proceedings. Evidently she was tired of her good man's +behaviour, and when he solemnly assured her that it was the +master-passion of his life she didn't believe him. Naturally not. He +had cried "wolf" too often; besides, Minna, like a practical person, +viewed the possibility of a rupture with Otto Wesendonk as a +distinct misfortune. Otto had not only advanced much money to +Richard, but he paid twelve thousand francs for the scores of +Rheingold and Walküre and for the complete performing rights. +Afterward he sent both to King Ludwig II as a gift--but I doubt if +he ever got a penny from his tenants for rent. He also defrayed the +expenses of the Wagner concert at Zurich, a little item of nine +thousand francs. Scandal and calumny invaded his home, the fair fame +of his wife was threatened. No wonder the finale, long deferred, was +stormy, even operatic. + +The lady was much younger than her husband; she was born at the +close of 1828, therefore Wagner's junior by fifteen years. She was a +Luckemeyer, her mother a Stein; a cultured, sweet-natured woman, it +is more than doubtful if she could have endured Wagner as a husband. +She did a wise thing in resisting his prayers. Not only was her +husband a bar to such a proceeding, but her children would have +always prevented her thinking of a legal separation. All sorts of +plans were in the air. When, in 1857, the American panic seriously +threatened the prosperity of Otto Wesendonk, who had heavy business +interests in New York, gossip averred that Frau Wesendonk would ask +for a divorce; but the air cleared and matters resumed their old +aspect. Minna Wagner's health, always poor, became worse. It was a +case of exasperated nerves made worse by drugs. She daily made +scenes at home and threatened to tell what she knew. That she knew +much is evident from her correspondence with Frau Wilk. She said +that Wagner had two hearts, but while he delighted in intellectual +and emotional friendship with such a superior soul as Mathilde, he +nevertheless would not forego the domestic comforts provided by +Minna. Like many another genius, Wagner was bourgeois. Those +intolerable dogs, the parrot, the coffee-drinking, the soft beds and +solicitude about his underclothing, all were truly German; +human-all-too-human. + +In September, 1857, the newly married Von Bülows paid the Wagners a +visit, and as the guest-chamber of the cottage was occupied they +took up temporary quarters at an inn, "The Raven" (Wotan's ravens!) +Cosima, young, impressionable, turned her face to the wall and wept +when Wagner played and sang for his friends the first and second +acts of Siegfried. Even then she felt the "pull" of his magnetism, +of his genius, and doubtless regretted having married the fussy, +irritable Von Bülow--who had gone down in the social scale in +wedding a girl of dubious descent. (In Paris Liszt for many years +was only a strolling gipsy piano-player to whom the Countess +d'Agoult had "condescended.") + +Mathilde Wesendonk entertained the Von Bülows, who went away pleased +with their reception, above all deeply impressed by the exiled +Wagner. They so reported to Liszt, and Von Bülow did more; as the +scion of an old aristocratic family, he made many attempts to +secure an amnesty for Wagner, as well as making propaganda for his +music. Which favours Wagner, who was the very genius of ingratitude, +repaid later. + +In one point Herr Ludwig is absolutely correct: the composer was +supported by his friends from 1849 to the year when King Ludwig +intervened. The starvation talk was a part of the Wagner legend, +even the Paris days were greatly exaggerated as to their black +poverty. Wagner was always a spendthrift. + +From November, 1857, to May, 1858, Wagner set to music the five +poems of Mathilde, veritable sketches for Tristan. Early in +September, 1857, the relations between Minna and Mathilde had become +strained. Wagner accused his wife of abusing Mathilde in a vulgar +manner; worse remained; he had sent a letter by the gardener to Frau +Wesendonk and the jealous wife intercepted it, broke the seal, read +the contents. To Wagner, this was the blackest of crimes; yet can +you blame her? To be sure, she had no conception of her husband's +genius. For her Rienzi was his only work. Had it not succeeded? So +had Tannhäuser and Lohengrin, also The Flying Dutchman, but Rienzi +was her darling. How often she begged him to write another opera of +the same Wagnerian calibre he has not failed to tell us. Otto +Wesendonk's wife she firmly believed was leading him into a +quagmire. What theatre could ever produce The Ring? One thing, +however, Minna did not do, as most writers on the subject say she +did: she did not show the fatal letter to Wesendonk at the time, but +only to Wagner. Later she made its meanings clear to the injured +husband, which no doubt provoked the explosive phrase quoted above. + + * * * * * + +The youthful Karl Tausig, bearing credentials from Liszt, appeared +on the scene in May, 1858, and the entire household was soon in an +uproar. Luckily, Wagner had persuaded Minna to take a cold-water +cure at a sanatorium some distance from Zurich, so he could handle +the wild-eyed Tausig, whose volcanic piano performances at the age +of sixteen made the mature composer both wonder and admire. Tausig +smoked black cigars, a trait he imitated from Liszt, and almost +lived on coffee. Here is a curious criticism of him made by Cosima +Von Bülow, who, it must be remembered, was both the daughter and +wife of famous pianists. She said: "Tausig has no touch, no +individuality; he is a caricature of Liszt." This, in the light of +Tausig's subsequent artistic career, sounds almost comical; it also +shows the intensely one-sided temperament of a remarkable woman, who +banished from her life both von Bülow and her father, Franz Liszt, +when Wagner entered into her dreams. The fortitude she displayed +after her Richard's death in 1883 was not tempered by any human +feeling toward her father. His telegrams were unanswered. She +denied herself to him. She became a Brünnhilde frozen into a symbol +of intolerable grief. + +Of her personal fascination the sister of Nietzsche, Elizabeth +Foerster-Nietzsche, told me, when I last saw her at Weimar. Von +Bülow succumbed to this charm; Rubinstein also (query: perhaps that +is the reason he so savagely abused Wagner in his Conversations on +Music?), and, if gossip doesn't lie, Nietzsche was another victim. + +On September 17, 1858, after a general row, Wagner left his home on +the green hill, his "Asyl," for ever. Why? Plenty of conjectures, no +definite statements. He makes a great show of frankness in his +diaries, in his autobiography; but they were obviously "edited" by +Baireuth. Tristan and Isolde remains as evidence that a mighty +emotion had transfigured the nature of a genius, and instead of an +erotic anecdote the world of art is richer in the possession of a +moving drama of desire and woe and tragedy. At the Berlin premiere +of Tristan the old Kaiser Wilhelm remarked: "How Wagner must have +loved when he wrote the work;" which is sound psychology. + + +III + +The two books discussed are constructive in nature; not so the book +by Emil Ludwig, Wagner, or the Disenchanted, which is frankly +destructive. Since The Wagner Case by Nietzsche--and not Nietzsche +at his best--there has not been written a book so overflowing with +hatred for Wagner, the man as well as the musician. Ludwig is the +author of poems, plays, and a study of Bismarck, the latter a +noteworthy achievement. He is thorough in his attacks, though he +does not measure up to Ernest Newman in his analysis of Wagner's +poetry, libretti, and philosophy. The English critic's studies +remain the best of its kind, because it is written without +parti-pris. + +Ludwig slashes à la Nietzsche, though he cannot boast that poet's +diamantine style. He accuses Wagner of being paroxysmal, erotic--a +painter of moods; he couldn't build a Greek temple like +Beethoven--weak as a poet, inconclusive as a musician. For Tristan +and Die Meistersinger he has words of hearty praise. The Ludwig book +stirred up a nest of hornets, and one lawsuit resulted. A newspaper +critic presumed to criticise, and the sensitive poet, who calls +Wagner every bad name in the Schimpf Lexicon, invoked the aid of the +law. We know only too well, thanks to that ill-tasting but +engrossing autobiography, that Wagner was a monster of ingratitude. +Hasn't Nietzsche, against his own natural feeling, proclaimed the +futility of gratitude? Perhaps he learned this lesson from his hard +experience with Wagner. We also know that Wagner wanted to run the +universe, but after a brief note from Ludwig II he left Munich +rather than face the angry burghers. + +He attempted to coerce Bismarck, but there he ran up against a wall +of granite. Bismarck was a Beethoven lover, and he abhorred, as did +Von Beust, revolutionists. Thereat Wagner wrote sarcastic things +about the uselessness and vanity of statesmen. He didn't treat +Ludwig II right when he announced from Venice that he wasn't in +sufficient health and spirits to grant the King's request for a +performance of the prelude to Lohengrin in a darkened theatre with +one listener, Ludwig II. (By the way, Ludwig II never sat through a +performance alone of Parsifal. Once and once only, years before the +completion of the work, he heard a performance of the prelude in +Munich given for his sole benefit.) Wagner's gruff letter wounded +the sensitive idealist. In 1866, a few weeks after the death of +Minna Wagner-Planer, Cosima von Bülow-Liszt followed Wagner to +Switzerland. Probably the hostile attitude of Liszt in the affair +was largely inspired by the fact that when Richard and Cosima +married, the latter abjured Catholicism and became a Protestant. +Liszt, a religious man (despite his pyrotechnical virtuosity in the +luxurious region of sentiment), never could reconcile himself to +this defection on the part of a beloved child. + +It angered Nietzsche to discover in Wagner a leaning toward +mysticism, toward religion: witness the mock-duck mysticism and +burlesque of religious ritual in Parsifal. After Feuerbach came +Arthur Schopenhauer in the intellectual life of Wagner. This was in +1854. His friend Wille lent him the book. Immediately he started to +"Schopenhauerise" the Ring, thereby making a hopeless muddle of +situation and character. The enormous vitality of Wagner's +temperament expressed itself in essentially optimistic terms. He was +not a pessimist, and he hopelessly misunderstood his new master. +Wotan must needs become a Schopenhauerian; and Siegfried, a +pessimist at the close. + +Nietzsche was right; Schopenhauer proved a powerful poison for +Wagner. And Schopenhauer himself laughed at Wagner's music; he +remained true to Rossini and Mozart and advised Wagner, through a +friend, to stick to the theatre and hang his music on a nail in the +wall; but when his library was overhauled several marginalia were +discovered, one which he contemptuously wrote on a verse of +Wagner's: "Ear! Ear! Where are your ears, musician?" + +Wagner, when Liszt adjured him to turn to religion as a consolation, +replied: "I believe only in mankind." Ludwig compares this +declaration with some of the latter opinions concerning +Christianity, of which Wagner has said many evil things. Wagner's +life was a series of concessions to the inevitable. He modified his +art theories as he grew older, and with fame and riches his +character deteriorated. + +He couldn't stand success--he, the bravest man of his day; the +undaunted fighter for an idea crooked the knee to caste, became an +amateur mystic and announced his intention of returning to absolute +music, of writing a symphony strict in form--which, for his +reputation, he luckily did not attempt. He was a colossal actor +and the best self-advertiser the world has yet known since Nero. +But I can't understand Herr Ludwig when he asserts that from 1866 +to 1883 the composer did nothing but compose two marches, finish +Siegfried and Götterdämmerung. Rather a large order, considering the +labours of the man as practical opera conductor, prose writer, +poet-dramatist, and composer. And then, too, the gigantic scheme of +Baireuth was realised in 1876. + +Comparatively barren would be a fairer phrase. After Tristan and +Isolde, what could any man compose? A work which its creator +rightfully said was a miracle he couldn't understand. After the +anecdotage of Wagner's career is forgotten, after Baireuth has +become owl-haunted, Tristan and Isolde will be listened to by men +and women who love or have loved. + +It isn't pleasant to read a book like Ludwig's, truthful as it may +be in parts. Nor should he call our attention to the posthumous +venom of the composer as expressed in his hateful remarks concerning +Otto Wesendonk. There Wagner was his own Mime, his own Alberich, not +the knightly hero who would not woo the fair Irish maid till magic +did melt his will. Richard Wagner was once Tristan. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +MY FIRST MUSICAL ADVENTURE + + +Music-mad, I arrived in Paris during the last weeks of the World's +Fair of 1878, impelled there by a parching desire to see Franz +Liszt, if not to hear him. He was then honorary director of the +Austro-Hungarian section. But I could not find him, although I heard +of him everywhere, of musical fêtes and the usual glittering company +that had always surrounded this extraordinary son of fortune. One +day I fancied I saw him. I was sadly walking the Rue de Rivoli of an +October afternoon, when in a passing carriage I saw an old chap with +bushy white hair, his face full of expressive warts, and in his +mouth a long black cigar, which he was furiously puffing. Liszt! I +gasped, and started in pursuit. It was not an easy job to keep up +with the carriage. At last, because of a blocked procession, I +caught up and took a long stare, the object of which composedly +smiled at me, but did not truly convince me that he was Franz Liszt. +You see there were so many different pictures of him; even the warts +were not always the same in number. When I am in the Cambyses vein I +swear I've seen Liszt. Perhaps I did. + +Liszt or no Liszt, my ambition was fired, and at the advice of +Frederick Boscovitz, a pupil of Liszt and cousin of Rafael Joseffy, +I went to the Conservatoire Nationale, with a letter of introduction +to the acting secretary, Emile Rety. I was told that I was too old +to enter, being a few months past eighteen. I was disappointed and +voiced my woes to Lucy Hamilton Hooper, then a clever writer and +correspondent of several American newspapers. Her husband was +Vice-Consul Robert Hooper and he kindly introduced me to General +Fairchild, the consul, and after a cross-examination I was given +a letter in which the United States Government testified to my good +social standing (I was not a bandit, nor yet an absconder from +justice) and extreme youth. Armed with this formidable document, +I again besieged the gates of the great French conservatoire--whose +tuition, it must be remembered, is free. I was successful, inasmuch +as I was permitted to present myself at the yearly examination, which +took place November 13 (ominous date). To say that I studied hard and +shook in my boots is a literal statement. I lived at the time in an +alley-like street off the Boulevard des Batignolles and lived +luxuriously on five dollars a week, eating one satisfying meal a day +(with a hot bowl of coffee in the morning) and practising on a +wretched little cottage piano as long as my neighbours would stand +the noise. They chucked boots or any old faggot they could find at +my door, and after twelve hours I was so tired of patrolling the +keyboard that I was glad to stop. Then, a pillow on my stomach to +keep down the pangs of a youthfully gorgeous appetite, I would lie +in bed till dinner-time. O Chopin! O consommé and boiled beef! O +sour blue wine at six cents the litre! + +At last the fatal day dawned, as the novelists say. It was nasty, +chilling, foggy autumnal, but my long locks hung negligently and my +velveteen coat was worn defiantly open to the wind. I reached the +Conservatoire--then in the old building on the Rue du Faubourg +Poissonière--at precisely nine o'clock of the morn. I was put in a +large room with an indiscriminate lot of candidates, some of them so +young as to be fit for the care of a nurse. Like lost sheep we +huddled and as my eyes feverishly rambled I noticed a lad of about +twelve with curling hair worn artist fashion; a naughty haughty boy +he was, for he sneered at my lengthy legs and audibly inquired: "Is +grandpa to play with us!" I knew enough French to hate that little +monster with a nervous hatred. There was a tightened feeling about +my throat and heart and I waited in an agitated spirit for my +number. A bearded and shy young man came in from examination and was +at once mocked by the incipient virtuoso in pantalettes. Another +unfortunate, with a roll of music! Then the little devil was +summoned. We sat up. In ten minutes he returned with downcast mien, +flushed face, tears in his eyes, and tried to sneak out of the +room, but too late. After shaking hands all round we solemnly danced +in a circle about the now sobbing and no longer sinister child. Who +says youth is ever generous? + +"Number thirteen!" sang out a voice, and I was pushed through a +narrow entry and a minute later was standing on the historic stage +of the Paris Conservatoire. The lighting was dim, but I discerned a +group of persons somewhere in front of me. A man asked me to sit +down at the grand piano--of course, like most pianos, out of +tune--and I tremblingly obeyed his polite request. At this juncture +a woman's voice inquired: "How old are you, monsieur?" I told her. A +feminine laugh rippled through the gloom, for I wore a fluffy little +beard, was undeniably gawky, and looked conspicuously older than my +years. That laugh settled me. Queer, creepy feelings seized my legs, +my eyes were full of solar spectrums, my throat a furnace and my +heart beat like a triphammer. I was not the first man, young or old, +to be knocked out by a woman's laugh. (Later I met the lady. She was +Madame Massart, and the wife of the well-known violin master, +Massart, of the Conservatoire.) Again the demand, "Play something." +It was a foregone conclusion that I couldn't. I began a minuetto +from a Beethoven Sonata, hesitated, saw fiery snakes and a +kaleidoscope of comets, then pitched into a presto by the +unfortunate Beethoven, and was soon stopped. A sheet of manuscript +was placed before me. I could have sworn that it was upside down, so +as a sight-reading test it was a failure. I was altogether a +distinguished failure, and with the audible comment of the examining +faculty ringing in my ears, I stumbled across the stage into welcome +darkness, and without waiting to thank Secretary Rety for his +amiability I got away, crossing in a hurry that celebrated courtyard +in which the hideous noises made by many instruments, including the +human voice, reminded me of a torture circle in Dante's Inferno. + +The United States had no reason to be proud of her musical--or +unmusical--son that dull day in November, 1878. When I arrived in my +garret I swore I was through and seriously thought of studying the +xylophone. But my mood of profound discouragement was succeeded by a +more hopeful one. If you can't enter the Paris Conservatoire as an +active student you may have influence enough to become an +"auditeur," a listener; and a listener I became and in the class of +Professor Georges Mathias, a genuine pupil of Chopin. My musical +readers will understand my good luck. From that spiritual master I +learned many things about the Polish composer; heard from his still +supple fingers much music as Chopin had interpreted it. Delicate and +discriminating in style, M. Mathias had never developed into a +brilliant concert pianist; sometimes he produced effects on the +keyboard that sounded like emotional porcelain falling from a high +shelf and melodiously shattering on velvet mirrors. He also taught +me that if a pianist or violinist or singer is too nervous before +the public, then he or she has not a musical vocation--the case of +Adolf Henselt to the contrary notwithstanding. But better would it +be for me to admit that I failed because I didn't will earnestly +enough to succeed. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +VIOLINISTS NOW AND YESTERYEAR + + +With the hair of the horse and the entrails of the cat, magicians of +the four strings weave their potent spells. What other instrument +devised by the hand of man has ever approached the violin? Gladstone +compared it with the locomotive; yet complete as is the mechanism of +the wheeled monster, its type is transitional; steam is already +supplanted by electricity; while the violin is perfection, as +perfect as a sonnet, and in its capacity for the expression of +emotion next to the human voice; indeed it is even more poignant. +Orchestrally massed, it can be as terribly beautiful as an army with +banners. In quartet form it represents the very soul of music; it is +both sensuous and intellectual. The modern grand pianoforte with its +great range, its opulence of tone, its delicacy of mechanism is, +nevertheless, a monster of music if placed beside the violin, with +its simple curves, its almost primitive method of music-making. The +scraping of one substance against another goes back to prehistoric +times, nay, may be seen in the grasshopper and its ingenious manner +of producing sound. But the violin, as we know it to-day, is not +such an old invention; it was the middle of the sixteenth century +before it made its appearance, with its varnished and modelled back. + +Restricted as is its range of dynamics, the violin has had for its +votaries men of such widely differing temperaments as Paganini and +Spohr, Wilhelmj and Sarasate, Joachim and Ysaye. Its literature does +not compare with that of the piano, for which Bach, Beethoven, +Schumann, Chopin, and Brahms have written their choicest music, yet +the intimate nature of the violin, its capacity for passionate +emotion, crowns it--and not the organ, with its mechanical tonal +effects--as the king of instruments. Nor does the voice make the +peculiar appeal of the violin. Its lowest note is the G below the +treble clef, and its top note a mere squeak; but it seems in a few +octaves to have imprisoned within its wooden walls a miniature world +of feeling; even in the hands of a clumsy amateur it has the +formidable power of giving pain; while in the grasp of a master it +is capable of arousing the soul. + +No other instrument has the ecstatic quality; neither the +shallow-toned pianoforte, nor the more mellow and sonorous +violoncello. The angelic, demoniacal, lovely, intense tones of the +violin are without parallel in music or nature. It is as if this box +with four strings across its varnished belly had a rarer nervous +system than all other instruments. It is a cry, a shriek, a hymn to +heaven, a call to arms, an exquisite evocation, a brilliant series +of multi-coloured visions, a broad song of passion, or mocking +laughter--what cannot the violin express if the soul that guides it +be that of an artist? Otherwise, it is only a fiddle. It is the +hero, the heroine, the vanguard of every composition. As a solo +instrument in a concerto, its still small voice is heard above the +din and thunder of the accompaniment. In a word, this tiny music-box +is the ruler among instruments. + +Times have changed since 1658 in England, when the following +delightful ordinance was made for the benefit of musical genius, or +otherwise: + +"And be it enacted that if any person or persons, commonly called +Fiddlers, or minstrels, shall at any time after the said first of +July be taken playing, fiddling, or making music in any inn, +alehouse or tavern, or shall be proffering themselves, or desiring, +or entreating any person or persons to hear them play ... shall be +adjudged rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars." + +Decidedly, England was not then the abode of the muses, for the poor +actor suffered in company with the musician. You wonder whether this +same penalty would be imposed upon musical managers ... they +certainly do "entreat" the public to listen to their "fiddlers." Yet +in 1690 when Corelli, the father of violin playing, led the band at +Cardinal Ottoboni's house in Rome, he stopped the music because his +churchly patron was talking, and he made an epigram that has since +served for other artists: "Monsignore," remarked this intrepid +musician, when asked why the band had ceased, "I feared the music +might interrupt the conversation." How well Liszt knew this anecdote +may be recalled by his retort to a czar of Russia under similar +circumstances. + +Until a few months ago I had not heard Eugene Ysaye play for years. +In the old days he had enchanted my ears, and in company with +Gerardy, the violoncellist and Pugno the pianist had made music fit +for the gods. Considering the flight of the years, I found the art +of the Belgian comparatively untouched. Like Liszt, like Paderewski, +Ysaye has his good moments and his indifferent. He is the Paderewski +of the strings in his magical interpretations. And unlike his +younger contemporaries, he still carves out the whole block of the +great classics, sonatas, and concertos. He plays little things +tenderly, exquisitely, and the man is first the musician, then the +virtuoso. + +I heard neither Paganini nor Spohr. Joachim, Wilhelmj, Wieniawski, +and Ysaye I have heard and seen. My memory assures me of keener +satisfactions than any book about these giants of the four strings +could give me. The first violinist I ever listened to was in the +early seventies. I was hardly at the age of musical discrimination. +Yet I remember much. It was at the opera, a matinee in the +Philadelphia Academy of Music. Nilsson was singing. I can't recall +her on that occasion, though it seems only the other day when +Carlotta Patti sang the Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute, and +limped over the stage--possibly the lameness fixed the event in my +mind more than the music. + +A "front" set was dropped between the acts at this particular +matinee--I do not recollect the name of the opera--and through a +"practicable" door came an old gentleman with a violin in his hands. +He was white-haired, he wore white side-whiskers, and he looked to +my young eyes like a prosperous banker. He played. It was as the +sound of falling waters on a moonlight night. I asked the name of +the old gentleman. My father said, "Henri Vieuxtemps," which told me +nothing then, though it means much to me now. What did he play? I do +not know. Yet whenever I hear the younger men attack his Fantaisie +Caprice, his Ballade and Polonaise, his Concertos, I think proudly: +"I have heard Vieuxtemps!" He was a Belgian, born 1820, died 1881. +His style was finished, elegant, charming. He was a pupil of De +Bériot and represented, with his master, perfection in the Belgian +school. + +After an interval of some years, I heard the only pupil of +Paganini, as he called himself, Camillo Sivori. It was in Paris, +1879. The precise day I can't say but my letter from Paris which +appeared in the Philadelphia _Evening Bulletin_ was dated January +31, 1879. I still preserve it in a venerable scrap-book. I was in my +'teens but I wrote with the courage of youthful ignorance as +follows: (It almost sounds like a musical criticism.) "Although it +was generally supposed that Sivori, the great violinist, would not +play this season in Paris, he, nevertheless delighted a large +audience, last Sunday, at the Concert Populaire, with his lovely +music. He is no longer a young man, but the vigour and fire of his +playing are immense. He gave, with the orchestral accompaniment, a +Berceuse, his own composition, with unapproachable delicacy. It was +played throughout with the mute. In contrast came a Mouvement +Perpetuel. Sivori's tone is not like that of Joachim or Wilhelmj, +but it is sweeter than either. It reminds one of gold drawn to +cobweb fineness. As an encore he played the too well known Carnival +of Venice. That it was given in the style of his illustrious master, +Paganini, who may say? But it was amazing, painful, finally +tiresome." That same season I heard Anna Bock, Boscovitz, Diémer, +Planté, Theodore Ritter, the two Jaells, fat Alfred and his thin +wife. + +Sivori (1815-1894), dapper, modest, stood up in the vast spaces of +the Cirque d'Hiver, which was engaged every Sunday by Jacques +Pasdeloup and his orchestra. (Jacob Wolfgang was the real name of +this conductor who braved the wrath of his audiences by putting +Wagner on his programmes; and one afternoon we had a pitched battle +over Rimsky-Korsakoff's Symphonic Poem, Sadko.) Sivori played a +tarantella; every tone was clearly heard in the great, crowded +auditorium. Pupils of De Bériot and Paganini I have heard, though I +hardly recall the style of the former and nothing of the latter. But +there was little of Paganini's fiery attack in Sivori; possibly he +was too old. Fire and fury I later found in Wieniawski. + +I must not omit the name of Ole Bull (1810-1880), for, though I +heard him as a boy, I best remember him in 1880, when he gave his +last concerts in America. In the fifties, while on a visit to my +father's house, he went on his two thumbs around a dining-table, +lifting his body clear from the ground. His muscular power was +remarkable. It showed in the dynamics of his robust and sentimental +playing. Spohr discouraged him as a boy, but later spoke of his +"wonderful playing and sureness of his left hand; unfortunately, +like Paganini, he sacrifices what is artistic to something that is +not quite suitable to the noble instrument. His tone, too, is +bad...." For Spohr any one's tone was, naturally enough, bad, as he +possessed the most monumental tone that ever came from a violin. + +The truth is that Ole Bull was not a classical player; as I remember +him, he could not play in strict tempo; like Chopin, he indulged in +the rubato and abused the portamento. But he knew his public. +America a half-century ago, particularly in the regions he visited, +was not in the mood for sonatas or concertos. Old Dan Tucker and the +Arkansaw Traveller were the mode. Bull played them both, played jigs +and old tunes, roused the echoes with the Star Spangled Banner and +Irish melodies. He played such things beautifully, and it would have +been musical snobbery to say that you didn't like them. You couldn't +help yourself. The grand old fellow bewitched you. He was a handsome +Merlin, with a touch of the charlatan and a touch of Liszt in his +tall, willowy figure, small waist, and heavy head of hair. Such +white hair! It tumbled in masses about his kindly face like one of +his native Norwegian cataracts. He was the most picturesque old man +I ever saw except Walt Whitman, at that time a steady attendant of +the Carl Gaertner String Quartet concerts in Philadelphia. (And what +Walt didn't know about music he made up in his love for stray dogs; +he was seldom without canine company.) + +Those were the days when Prume's La Mélancolie and Wieniawski's +Légende were the two favourite, yet remote, peaks of the student's +répertoire. How we loved them! Then came Wieniawski with Rubinstein +in 1872-1873, and such violin playing America had never before +heard--nor has it since, let me hasten to add. This Pole (1835-1880) +was a brilliant master. His dash and fire and pathos carried you off +your feet. His tone at times was like molten metal. He had a +caressing and martial bow. His technique was infallible, his +temperament truly Slavic, languorous, subtle, fierce. Wieniawski +always reminded me of a red-hot coal. How chivalric is his +Polonaise--that old war-horse! How elegiac his Légende! His +favourite pupil was Leopold Lichtenberg, the greatest violin talent +that has been thus far unearthed in America. Lichtenberg had +everything when a youth--temperament, brains, musical feeling, and +great technical ability. + +After Wieniawski followed Wilhelmj, who did not efface his memory, +but plunged one into another atmosphere; that of the calm, profound, +untroubled, and classic. No doubt Spohr's tone was larger, yet this +is difficult to believe. Wilhelmj drew from his instrument the +noblest sounds I ever heard; not Joachim, not Ysaye excelled him in +cantabile. He was the first to play Wagner transcriptions--no wonder +Wagner made him leader of the strings at Bayreuth in 1876. How he +read the Beethoven Concerto, the Bach Chaconne. Or the D flat +Nocturne of Chopin--in D. Or the much abused Mendelssohn E Minor +Concerto--with Max Vogrich accompanying him at the piano. A giant +in physique, when he faced his audience there was something of the +majestic, fair-haired god Wotan in his immobile posture. He never +appealed to his public as did Wieniawski; there was always something +of chilly grandeur and remoteness in Wilhelmj's play. The last time +I saw him was at Marienbad, shortly before his death, where, a +stooped-shouldered, grey-haired old man, he was taking a Kur. He +walked slowly, his hands clasped behind him, in his eyes the vacant +look of one busy with memories. He reminded me of Beethoven's +pictures. + +Joseph Joachim, that mighty Hungarian, was past his prime when I +heard him in London. He played out of tune--some of his pupils have +imitated his failing--but whether in a Beethoven quartet, concerto, +sonata with piano, he always stamped on your consciousness that +Joseph Joachim was the greatest violinist that had ever lived. This +is, of course, absurd, this unfair comparison of one artist with +another. Yet it is human to compare, and if a violinist can evoke +such a vision of perfection, then he must be of uncommon powers. +Maud Powell, a distinguished pupil of Joachim, has asserted that it +took her three years before she could recover herself in the +presence of Joachim's overwhelming personality. Yet he struck me as +not at all assertive. He seemed an "objective" player, _i. e._, you +thought only of Beethoven, of Brahms, as he calmly delivered himself +of their Olympian measures. The grand manner is now out of fashion. +We care more for exotic rhetoric than for simple and lofty measures. +Sarasate and Dengremont charmed me more; Wieniawski set my blood +coursing faster; but in Joachim's presence I felt as if near some +old Grecian temple hallowed by the presence of oft-worshipped gods. + +Remenyi was a puzzle. He could play divinely, and scratch +diabolically. He belonged to that old romantic school in which pose +and gesture, contortion and grimace occupied a prominent place. I +had an opportunity to study Remenyi (whose Austrian name was +Hoffman) (1830-1898), at close quarters. He brought to my father's +house in the early eighties his favourite instruments, and such a +wild night of music I never heard. He played hour after hour, +everything from Bach to Brahms--and incidentally scolded Brahms for +"stealing" some of his, Remenyi's, Hungarian dances! (Which is a +joke, as Brahms only followed the examples of Liszt and Joachim in +avowedly employing Hungarian folk melodies). He did such tricks as +dashing off in impeccable tune his arrangement of the D Flat Valse +of Chopin in double notes at a terrific tempo. Violinists will +understand the feat when I tell them that the key was the original +one--D flat. He made the walls shiver when he struck his bow +clangorously in the opening chords of the Rackoczy March. What a +hero then seemed this stout, little, prancing, baldheaded man with +the face of an unfrocked priest. How he could talk in a half-dozen +different languages; he had travelled enough and encountered enough +celebrated people to fill a dozen volumes with his recollections. He +was a violinist of unquestionable power; that he deteriorated in his +later years was to have been expected. Liszt understood and +appreciated Remenyi from the first; he nicknamed him "the Kossuth of +the Fiddle." + +To recall all the celebrities of the violin I have heard since 1870 +would be hardly possible. I've forgotten most of them, though I do +remember that wonderful boy, Maurice Dengremont, who ended his life, +so rich in possibilities, it is said as a billiard marker. He was +spoiled by women, for he was a comely lad. Another wonder-child kept +his head, and to-day fascinating Fritz Kreisler is a master of +masters and a favourite in America without peer. He first appeared +at Boston and in 1888. In Paris I recall Marsick and his polished +style; the gallant Sauret, Johannes Wolf, and the brilliant and +elegant Timothée Adamowski. And in 1880, Marie Tayau and her woman +quartet, a member of which was Jeanne Franko, the sister of the +conductors and violinists, Sam Franko and Nahan Franko; Cæsar +Thomson, the miraculous; C. M. Loeffler--subtle player, subtle +composer; Sarasate with his sweet tone; Brodsky and his masculine +manner; Willy Burmester and his pallid pyrotechnics; the learned +Schradieck, the Bohemian Ondricek, the dashing Ovide Musin, Bernhard +Listemann, Carl Halir; Gregorowitsch, the languid; brilliant +Marteau; Alexander Petschinikoff, the Russian; the musicianly Max +Bendix; the astonishing John Rhodes, the wonder-worker Kubelik and +his icy perfections; Kocian, Willy Hess, Efrem Zimbalist, Albert +Spalding, Arthur Hartman, and a myriad of spoiled youths, Von +Veczsey, Horszowski--all have crossed the map of my memory. And +Franz Kneisel and the Kneisel Quartet, dispensers of musical joys +for decades, but alas! no more. Alas! I would not barter memories of +their music-making for a wilderness of virtuosi. I must not forget +Joseph White, the Cuban violinist, who was with Theodore Thomas one +season. His style was finished and Parisian. He was a mulatto and a +handsome man. The night I heard him he played the Mendelssohn +concerto, and at the beginning of the slow movement his chanterelle +broke. Calmly he took concert master Richard Arnold's proffered +instrument and triumphantly finished the composition. + +Three violinists abide clear in my recollection: Wieniawski, +Wilhelmj, and Ysaye. The last named is dearer because nearer, +contrary to the supposed rule that the older the thing the worse it +is. Ysaye is the magician of the violin. He holds us in a spell with +that elastic, curving bow of his, with those many coloured tones, +tender, silky, sardonic, amorous, rich, and ductile. He interprets +the classics as well as the romantics; Bach, Beethoven, Brahms; +Vieuxtemps as well as Sibelius. Above all else, his mastery of the +violin's technical mysteries, looms his musical temperament. He has +imagination. + +I have reserved the women for the last. A goodly, artistic company. +It is not necessary to go back to the Milanolla sisters. We still +cherish remembrances of Camilla Urso and her broad musicianly +manner; the finished style of Normann-Neruda, Maris Soldat, the +gifted and unhappy Arma Senkrah, Nettie Carpenter, Teresina Tua--who +did not become a "Fiddle Fairy" when she visited us in 1887--Leonora +Jackson, Dora Becker, Olive Mead, and Maud Powell. In Europe many +years ago, I heard Marcella Sembrich, who, after playing the E Flat +Polonaise of Chopin on the piano, picked up a violin and dashed off +the Wieniawski Polonaise; these feats were followed by songs, one +being Viardot-Garcia's arrangement of Chopin's D Major Mazourka. +Sembrich is the blue rose among great singers. Gericke, Paur, +Nikisch were at first violinists; so was Fritz Scheel, late +conductor of the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra. Franz Kneisel is a +conductor of great skill; so is Frederick Stock, who followed +Theodore Thomas as conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. +Theodore Spiering formerly concert-master of the Philharmonic +orchestra proved himself an excellent conductor. But that a little +Polish woman could handle with ease two instruments and sing like an +angel besides, borders on the fantastic. Geraldine Morgan is an +admirable violin artiste who plays solo as well as quartet with +equal authority. + +Maud Powell has fulfilled her early promise. She is a mature +artiste, one who will never be finished because she will always +study, always improve. A Joachim pupil, she is, nevertheless, a +pupil of Maud Powell, and her playing reveals breadth, musicianship, +beauty of tone and phrasing. She is our greatest American violin +virtuosa. + +I wrote this of Mischa Elman (the first of the many Mischas and +Jaschas who mew on the fiddle strings) after I heard him play in +London: "United to an amazing technical precision there is a still +more amazing emotional temperament, all dominated by a powerful +musical and mental intellect, uncanny in one not yet out of his +teens. What need to add that his conception of Beethoven is neither +as lovely as Kreisler's nor as fascinating as Ysaye's? Elman will +mature. In the romantic or the virtuoso realm he is past master. His +tone is lava-like in its warmth. He paints with many colours. He +displays numberless nuances of feeling. The musical in him dominates +the virtuoso. Naturally, the pride of hot youth asserts itself, and +often, self-intoxicated, he intoxicates his audiences with his +sensuous, compelling tone. Hebraic, tragic, melancholy, the +boisterousness of the Russian, the swift modulation from mad caprice +to Slavic despair--Elman is a magician of many moods. When I listen +to him I almost forget Ysaye." Yet when I heard Ysaye play last +season it was Elman that I forgot for the moment. After all, a +critic, too, may have his moods. And now comes another conqueror, +the lad Jasha Heifetz from Russia, a pupil of Leopold Auer and an +artist of such extraordinary attainments that the greatest among +contemporary violinists--is it necessary to mention names?--have +said of him that his art begins where theirs ends, and that they +will shut up shop when he plays here. All of which is a flattering +tribute, but it has been made before. Heifetz, however, may be the +dark horse in the modern fiddle sweepstakes. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +RIDING THE WHIRLWIND + + +Once Swinburne, in a Baudelaire mood, sang: "Shall no new sin be +born for men's troubles?" And it was an Asiatic potentate who +offered a prize for the discovery of a new pleasure. Or was it a +sauce? + +Mankind soon wearies. The miracles of yesteryear are the +commonplaces of to-day. Steam, telegraphy, electric motors, +wireless, and now wireless telephony are accepted as a matter of +course by the man in the street. How stale will seem woman suffrage +and prohibition after they have conquered. In the world of art +conditions are analogous. The cubist nail drove out the +impressionist, and the cubist will vanish if the futurist hammer is +sufficiently heavy. + +Nevertheless, there is a novel sensation in store for those who make +a first flight through the air. I don't mean in a balloon, whether +captive or free; in the case of the former, a trip to the top of the +Washington Monument or the Eiffel Tower will suffice; and while I +rode in a Zeppelin at Berlin in 1912 (100 marks, or about $25, was +the tariff) and saw Potsdam at my feet, yet I was unsatisfied. The +passengers sat in a comfortable salon, ate, drank, even smoked. The +travelling was so smooth as to suggest an inland lake on a summer +day. No danger was to be apprehended. The monster air-ship left its +hangar and returned to it on schedule time. The entire trip lacked +the flavour of adventure. And that leads me to a personal +confession. + +I am not a sport. In my veins flows sporting blood, but only in the +Darwinian sense am I a "sport," a deviation from the normal history +of my family, which has always been devoted to athletic pleasures. A +baseball match in which carnage ensues is a mild diversion for me. I +can't understand the fury of the contest. I yawn, though the +frenzied enthusiasm of the spectators interests me. I have fallen +asleep over a cricket match at Lord's in London, and the biggest +bore of all was a Sunday afternoon bull-fight in Madrid. It was such +a waste of potential beefsteaks. Prize-fights disgust, shell races +are puerile, football matches smack of obituaries. As for golf--that +is a prelude to senility, or the antechamber to an undertaker's +establishment. + +The swiftness of film pictures has set a new metronomic standard for +modern sports. I suppose playing Bach fugues on the keyboard is as +exciting a game as any; that is, for those who like it. A +four-voiced polyphony at a good gait is positively hair-raising. It +beats poker. All this is a preliminary to my little tale. + +Conceive me as an elderly person of generous waist measurement, +slightly reckless like most near-sighted humans; this recklessness +is psychical. Safety first, and I always watch my step; painful +experience taught me years ago the perils that lurk in ambush for a +Johnny-look-in-the-air. + +Flying in heavier-than-air machines fascinated me. The fantastic +stories of H. G. Wells were ever a joy. When the Argonauts of the +Air appeared, flying was practically assured, although a Paris +mathematician had demonstrated with ineluctable logic that it was +impossible; as proved a member of the Institute a century earlier +that birds couldn't fly. It was an illusion. Well, the Wrights flew, +even if Langley did not--Langley, the genuine father of the +aeroplane. + +Living so long in France and Belgium, I had grown accustomed to the +whirring of aerial motors, a sound not unlike that of a motor-boat +or the buzzing of a sawmill. I became accustomed to this drone above +the housetops, and since my return to America I have often wondered +why in the land where the aeroplane first flew, so little public +interest was manifested. To be sure, there are aero clubs, but they +never fly where the interest of the greater public can be intrigued. +Either there is a hectic excitement over some record broken or else +the aviator sulks in his tent. Is the money devil at the bottom of +the trouble? Sport for sport's sake, like art for art's sake, is +rarely encountered. The government has taken up flying, but that is +for pragmatic purposes. The aeroplane as a weapon of defence, not +the aeroplane as a new and agreeable pleasure. We are not a +disinterested nation; even symphony concerts and opera and the +salvation of souls are commercial propositions. Else would our skies +be darkened by flying machines instead of smoke, and our churches +thronged with aviators. + +Walking on the famous and fatiguing Boardwalk of Atlantic City I +suddenly heard a familiar buzzing in the air and looked up. There it +was, a big flying boat like a prehistoric dragon-fly, speeding from +the Inlet down to the million-dollar pier. Presently there were two +of them flying, and I felt as if I were in a civilised land. On the +trolleys were signs: "See the Flying Boats at the Inlet!" I did, the +very next morning. I had no notion of being a passenger. I was not +tempted by the thought. But as Satan finds work for idle hands, I +lounged down the beach to the Kendrick biplane, and stared my full +at its slender proportions. A young man in a bathing-suit explained +to me the technique of flying, and insinuated that hundreds and +hundreds had flown during the season without accident. Afternoon saw +me again on the sands, an excited witness of a flight; excited +because I stood behind the motor when it was started for a +preliminary tryout--"tuning up" is the slang phrase of the +profession--and the cyclonic gale blew my hat away, loosened my +collar, and made my teeth chatter. + +Such a tornadic roar! I firmly resolved that never would I trust +myself in such a devil's contrivance. Why, it was actually riding +the whirlwind--and, perhaps, reaping a watery grave. What else but +that? On a blast of air you sail aloft and along. When the air +ceases you drop (less than forty-five miles an hour). And this in a +flimsy box kite. Never for me! Not to-day, baker, call to-morrow +with a crusty cottage! as we used to say in dear old "Lunnon" years +ago. Nevertheless, the poison was in my veins; cunningly it began to +work. I saw a passenger, a fat man, weighing two hundred and four +pounds--I asked for the figures--trussed up like a calf in the arms +of a slight, muscular youth, who carried him a limp burden and +deposited him on a seat in the prow of the boat. I turned my head +away. I am not easily stirred--having reported musical and +theatrical happenings for a quarter of a century--but the sight of +that stout male, a man and a brother (I didn't know him from Adam), +evoked a chord of pity in my breast. I felt that I would never set +eyes again on this prospective food for fishes. I quickly left the +spot and returned to my hotel, determined to say, "Retro me, +Sathanas!" if that personage should happen to show me his hoofs, +horns, and hide. + +But he did not. The devil is a subtle beast. He had simply set +jangling the wires of suggestion, and my nerves accomplished the +rest. One morning, a few days later, I awoke parched with desire. I +drank much strong tea to steady me and smoked unremittingly. Again, +during the early afternoon, I found myself up the beach. "My feet +take hold on hell," I said to myself, but it was only hot sand. I +teased myself with speculations as to whether the game was worth the +candle--yes, I had got that far, traversing a vast mental territory +between the No-Sayer and the Yes-Sayer. I was doomed, and I knew it +when I began to circle about the machine. + +Courteously the bonny youth explained matters. It was a Glenn H. +Curtiss hydro-aeroplane, furnished with one of the new Curtiss +engines of ninety horse-power, capable of flying seventy to ninety +miles an hour, of lifting four hundred pounds, and weighing in all +about a ton. Was it safe? Were the taut, skinny piano wires that +manipulated the steering-gear and the plane durable? Didn't they +ever snap? Of course they were durable, and, of course, they +occasionally snapped. What then? Why, you drop, in spiral +fashion--volplane--charming vocable! But if the engine?--same thing. +You would come to earth, rather water, as naturally as a child takes +the breast. Nothing to fear. + +Young Beryl Kendrick is an Atlantic City product--he was a +professional swimmer and life-guard--and will look after you. The +price is fifteen dollars; formerly twenty-five dollars, but +competition, which is said to be the life of trade, had operated in +favour of the public. Rather emotionally I bade my man good day, +promising to return for a flight the next morning, a promise I +certainly did not mean to keep. This stupendous announcement he +received coolly. Flying to him was a quotidian banality. + +And then I noticed that the blazing sun had become darkened. Was it +an eclipse, or were some horrid, monstrous shapes like the +supposititious spindles spoken of by Langley devouring the light of +our parent planet? No, it was the chamber of my skull that was full +of shadows. The obsession was complete. I would go up, but I must +suffer terribly in the interim. + +Why should I fly and pay fifteen good shekels for the unwelcome +privilege? I computed the cost of various beverages, and as a +consoling thought recalled Mark Twain's story of the Western editor +who, missing from his accustomed haunts, was later found serenely +drunk, passionately reading to a group of miners from a table his +lantern-illuminated speech, in which he denounced the cruel raw +waste of grain in the making of bread when so many honest men were +starving for whisky. Yet did I feel that I would not begrudge my +hard-earned royalties (I'm not a best-seller), and thus tormented +between the devil of cowardice and the deep sea of curiosity I +retired and dreamed all night of fighting strange birds that +attacked me in an aeroplane. + +I shan't weary you with the further analysis of my soul-states +during this tempestuous period. I ate a light breakfast, swallowed +much tea. Then I resolutely went in company with a friend, and we +boarded an Inlet car. I had the day previous resorted to a major +expedient of cowards. I had said, so as to bolster up my fluttering +resolution, that I was going to fly; an expedient that seldom +misses, for I should never have been able to face the chief clerk, +the head waiter, or the proprietor at the hotel if I failed to keep +my promise. + +"Boaster! Swaggerer!" I muttered to myself en route. "Now are you +satisfied? Thou tremblest, carcass! Thou wouldst tremble much more +if thou knewest whither I shall soon lead thee!" I quoted Turenne, +and I was beginning to babble something about Icarus--or was it +Phæton, or Simon Magus?--brought to earth in the Colosseum by a +prayer from the lips of Saint Peter--when we arrived. How I hated +the corner where we alighted. It seemed mean and dingy and sinister +in the dazzling sunlight--a red-hot Saturday, September 11, 1915, +and the hour was 10.30 A. M. A condemned criminal could not have +noted more clearly every detail of the life he was about to quit. We +ploughed through the sand. We reached the scaffold--at least it +looked like one to me. "Hello, here's a church. Let's go in," I felt +like exclaiming in sheer desperation, remembering Dickens and Mr. +Wemmick. I would have, such was my blue funk, quoted Holy Scripture +to the sandlopers, but I hadn't the chance. + +I asked my friend, and my voice sounded steady enough, whether the +wind and weather seemed propitious for flying. Never better was the +reply, and my heart went down to my boots. I really think I should +have escaped if a stout man with a piratical moustache hadn't +approached me and asked: "Going up to-day?" I marvelled at his +calmness, and wished for his instant dissolution, but I gave an +affirmative shake of the head. Cornered at last! Handing my watch, +hat, and wallet to my friend, I coldly awaited the final +preparations. I had forgotten my ear protector, but cotton-wool +would answer the purpose of making me partially deaf to the +clangorous vibration of the propeller blades--which resemble in a +magnified shape the innocent air-fans of offices and cafés. I +essayed one more joke--true gallows humour--before I was led like a +lamb (a tough one) to the slaughter. I asked an attendant to whom I +had paid the official fee if my widows would be refunded the money +in case of accident; but this antique and tasteless witticism was +indifferently received, as it deserved. Finally the young man gave +me a raincoat, grabbed me around the waist, and bidding me clasp +his neck he carried me out into shallow water and sat me beside the +air-pilot, who looked like a mere lad in his bathing-clothes. My +hand must have been trembling (ah, that old piano hand), for he +inquiringly eyed me. The motor was screaming as we flew through the +water toward the Inlet. I hadn't courage of mind to make a farewell +signal to my companion. Too late, we're off! I thought, and at once +my trepidation vanished. + +I had for some unknown reason, possibly because of absolute despair, +suffered a rich sea-change. We churned the waves. I saw tiny sails +studding the deep blue. Men fished from the shore. As we neared the +Inlet, where a shambling wooden hotel stands on the sandy point, the +sound of the motor grew intenser. We began to lift, not all at once, +but gradually. Suddenly her nose poked skyward, and the boat climbed +the air with an ease that was astonishing. No shock. No jerkiness. +We simply glided aloft as if the sky were our native heath--you will +pardon the Hibernicism--and as if determined to pay a visit to the +round blazing sun bathing naked in the brilliant blue. And with the +mounting ascent I became unconscious of my corporeal vesture. I had +become pure spirit. I feared nothing. The legend of angels became a +certainty. I was on the way to the Fourth Dimensional vista. I +recalled Poincaré's suggestion that there is no such thing as +matter; only holes in the ether. Nature embracing a vacuum instead +of abhorring it. A Swiss cheese universe. Joseph Conrad has said +"Man on earth is an unforeseen accident which does not stand close +investigation." But man in the air? Man is destined to wings. Was I +not proving it? Flying is the sport of gods, and should be of humans +now that the motor-car is become slightly "promiscuous." + +The Inlet and thoroughfare at my feet were a network of silvery +ribbons. The heat was terrific, the glare almost unbearable. But I +no longer sneezed. Aviation solves the hay-fever problem. The wind +forced me to clench my teeth. We were hurled along at seventy miles +an hour, and up several thousand feet, yet below the land seemed +near enough to touch. As we swung across the masts of yachts I +wondered that we didn't graze them--so elusive was the crystal +clearness of the atmosphere, a magic mirror that made the remote +contiguous. The mast of the sunken schooner hard by the sand-bar +looked like a lead-pencil one could grasp and write a message to +Mars. + +Hello! I was become lyrical. It is inescapable up in the air. The +blood seethes. Ecstasy sets in; the kinetic ecstasy of a +spinning-top. I gazed at the pilot. He twisted his wheel +nonchalantly as if in an earthly automobile. I looked over the sides +of the cedar boat and was not giddy, for I had lived years at the +top of an apartment-house, ten stories high, from which I daily +viewed policemen killing time on the sidewalks; besides, I have +strong eyes and the stomach of a drover. Therefore, no giddiness, no +nausea. Only exaltation as we swooped down to lower levels. Atlantic +City, bizarre, yet meaningless, outrageously planned and executed, +stretched its ugly shape beneath us; the most striking objects were +the exotic hyphenated hotel, with its Asiatic monoliths and dome, +and its vast, grandiose neighbour, a mound of concrete, the biggest +hotel in the world. The piers were salient silhouettes. A +checker-board seemed the city, which modulated into a tremendous +arabesque of ocean and sky. I preferred to stare seaward. The +absorbent cotton in my ears was transformed into gun-cotton, so +explosive the insistent drumming of the motor-engine. Otherwise, we +flew on even keel, only an occasional dip and a sidewise swing +reminding me that I wasn't footing the ordinary highway. The initial +intoxication began to wear off, but not the sense of freedom, a +glorious freedom; truly, mankind will not be free till all fly. + +Alas! though we become winged we remain mortal. We may shed our +cumbersome pedestrian habits, but we take up in the air with us our +petty souls. I found myself indulging in very trite thoughts. What a +pity that war should be the first to degrade this delightful and +stimulating sport! Worse followed. Why couldn't I own a machine? +Base envy, you see. The socialistic leaven had begun to work. No +use; we shall remain human even in heaven or hell. + +I have been asked to describe the sensation of flying. I can't. It +seems so easy, so natural. If you have ever dreamed of flying, I can +only say that your dream will be realised in an aeroplane. Dreams do +come true sometimes. (Curiously enough, I've not dreamed of flying +since.) But as there is an end even to the most tedious story, so +mine must finish. + +Suddenly the sound of the engine ceased. The silence was thrilling, +almost painful. And then in huge circles, as if we were descending +the curves of an invisible corkscrew, we came down, the bow of the +flying boat pointing at an angle of forty-five degrees. Still no +dizziness, only a sense of regret that the trip was so soon over. It +had endured an eternity, but occupied precisely twenty-one minutes. + +We reached the water and settled on the foam like a feather. Then we +churned toward the beach; again I was carried, this time on to solid +land, where I had ridiculous trouble in getting the cotton from my +harassed eardrums. Perhaps my hands were unsteady, but if they were, +my feet were not. + +I reached the Inlet via the Boardwalk, making record time, and drew +the first happy sigh in a week as I sat down, lighted a cigar, and +twiddled my fingers at a waiter. Even if I had enjoyed a new +pleasure I didn't propose to give up the old ones. Then my nerves! +And when I meet Gabriele d'Annunzio I can look him in the eye. He +flew over Trieste, but I flew over my fears--a moral as well as a +physical victory for a timid conservative. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +PRAYERS FOR THE LIVING + +(From the editorial page of the New York _Sun_, December 31, 1916) + + +It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they +may be loosed from their sins; and it is as holy a prayer that begs +from the god of chance his pity for the living. Aye! it is those who +are about to live, not to die, that we should salute. Life is the +eternal slayer; death is but the final punctuation of the vital +paragraph. Life is also the betrayer. A cosmical conspiracy of +deception encircles us. We call it Maya, and flatter our finite +sense of humour that we are no longer entrapped by the shining +appearance of things when we say aloud: Stay, thou art so subtle +that we know you for what you are--the profoundest instinct of life: +its cruel delight in pretending to be what it is not. We are now, +all of us who think that we think, newly born Fausts with eyes +unbandaged of the supreme blinders, Time and Space. Nature clothes +the skeleton in a motley suit of flesh, but our supersharpened ears +overhear the rattling of the bones. We are become so wise that love +itself is no longer a sentiment, only a sensation; religion is +first cousin to voluptuousness; and if we are so minded we may jig +to the tune of the stars up the dazzling staircase, and sneer at the +cloud-gates of the infinite inane. Naught succeeds like negation, +and we swear that in the house of the undertaker it is impolite to +speak of shrouds. We are nothing if not determinists. And we believe +that the devil deserves the hindmost. + +We live in order to forget life. For our delicate machinery of +apperception there is no longer right or wrong; vice and virtue are +the acid and alkali of existence. And as too much acid deranges the +stomach, so vice corrodes the soul, and thus we are virtuous by +compulsion. Yet we know that evil serves its purpose in the vast +chemistry of being, and if banished the consequences might not be +for universal good; other evils would follow in the train of a too +comprehensive mitigation, and our end a stale swamp of vain virtues. +Resist not evil! Which may mean the reverse of what it seems to +preach. The master modern immoralist has said: Embrace evil! that we +may be over and done with it. Toys are our ideals; glory, goodness, +wealth, health, happiness; all toys except health; health of the +body, of the soul. And the first shall be last. + +The human soul in health? But there is no spiritual health. The +mystic, Doctor Tauler, has said: "God does not reside in a vigorous +body"; sinister; nevertheless, equitable. The dolorous certitude +that the most radiant of existences ends in the defeat of disease +and death; that happiness is relative, a word empty of meaning in +the light of experience, and non-existent as an absolute; that the +only divine oasis in our feverish activities is sleep; sleep the +prelude to the profound and eternal silence--why then this gabble +about soul-states and the peace that passeth all understanding? +Simply because the red corpuscles that rule our destinies are, when +dynamic, mighty breeders of hope; if the powers and principalities +of darkness prevail, our guardian angels, the phagocytes, are +dominated by the leucocytes. Gods and devils, Ormuzd and Ahriman, +and other phantasms of the sky, may all be put on a microscopic +slide and their struggles noted. And the evil ones are ever victors +in the diabolical game. No need to insist on it. In the heart of +mankind there is a tiny shrine with its burning taper; the idol is +Self; the propitiatory light is for subliminal foes. Alas! in vain. +We succumb, and in our weakness we sink into the grave. If only we +were sure of the River Styx afterward we should pay the ferry-tax +with joy. Better Hades than the poppy of oblivion. "Ready to be +anything in the ecstasy of being ever," as Sir Thomas Browne sagely +remarks. + +The pious and worthy Doctor Jeremy Taylor, who built cathedral-like +structures of English prose to the greater glory of God and for the +edification of ambitious rhetoricians, has dwelt upon the efficacy +of prayer in a singularly luminous passage: "Holy prayer procures +the ministry and services of angels. It rescinds the decrees of God. +It cures sickness and obtains pardon. It arrests the sun in its +course and stays the wheels of the chariot of the moon. It rules +over all God's creatures and opens and shuts the storehouses of +rain. It unlocks the cabinet of the womb and quenches the violence +of fire. It stops the mouths of lions and reconciles our sufferance +and weak faculties with the violence of torment and sharpness of +persecution. It pleases God and supplies all our needs. But prayer +that can do this much for us can do nothing at all without holiness, +for God heareth not sinners, but if any man be a worshipper of God +and doth His will, him He heareth." + +It should not be forgotten that Taylor, perhaps the greatest English +prose-master save John Milton, was a stickler for good works as well +as faith. He was considered almost heterodox because of his violence +of speech when the subject of death-bed repentance became a topic of +discussion; indeed, his bishop remonstrated with him because of his +stiff-necked opinions. To joust through life as at a pleasure +tournament and when the dews of death dampen the forehead to call on +God in your extremity seemed to this eloquent divine an act of +slinking cowardice. Far better face the evil one in a defiant spirit +than knock for admittance at the back door of paradise and try to +sneak by the winged policeman into a vulgar bliss: unwon, unhoped +for, undeserved. Therefore the rather startling statement, "God +heareth not sinners," read in the light of Bishop Taylor's fervent +conception of man's duty, hath its justification. + +But this atmosphere of proverbial commonplaces and "inspissated +gloom" should not be long maintained when the coursers of the sun +are plunging southward in the new year; when the Huntsman is up at +Oyster Bay and "they are already past their first sleep in Persia." +What a bold and adventurous piece of nature is man; yet how he +stares at life as a frowning entertainment. Why must we "act our +antipodes" when "all Africa and her prodigies are in us"? Ergo, let +us be cheerful. God is with the world. Let us pray that during the +ensuing year no rust shall colour our soul into a dingy red. Let us +pray for the living that they may be loosed from their politics and +see life steadily and whole. + +Let us pray that we may not take it on ourselves to feel holier than +our neighbours. Let us pray that we be not cursed with the itching +desire to reform our fellows, for the way of the reformer is hard, +and he always gets what he deserves: the contempt of his fellow men. +He is usually a hypocrite. Let us pray that we are not struck by +religious zeal; religious people are not always good people; good +people are not envious, jealous, penurious, censorious, or +busybodies, or too much bound up in the prospect of the mote in +their brother's eye and unmindful of the beam in their own. +Furthermore, good people do not unveil with uncharitable joy the +faults of women. Have faith. Have hope, and remember that charity is +as great as chastity. + +Let us pray for the misguided folk who, forgetful of Mother Church, +her wisdom, her consolations, flock to the tents of lewd, itinerant, +mumbo-jumbo howlers, that blaspheme the sacred name as they +epileptically leap, shouting glory-kingdom-come and please settle at +the captain's office. + +Though they run on all fours and bark as hyenas, they shall not +enter the city of the saints, being money-changers in the Temple, +and tripe-sellers of souls. Better Tophet and its burning pitch than +a wilderness of such apes of God. Some men and women of culture and +social position indorse these sorry buffoons, the apology for their +paradoxical conduct being any port in a storm; any degrading circus, +so it be followed by a mock salvation. But salvation for whom? What +deity cares for such foaming at the mouth, such fustian? Conversion +is silent and comes from within, and not to the din of brass-bands +and screaming hallelujahs. It takes all sorts of gods to make the +cosmos, but why return to the antics and fetishes of our primate +ancestors, the cave-dwellers? This squirming and panting and brief +reform "true religion"? On the contrary it is a throwback to +bestiality, to the vilest instincts. A "soul" that has to be saved +by such means is a soul not worth the saving. To the discard with +it, where, flaming in purgatorial fires, it may be refashioned for +future reincarnation on some other planet. + +Abuse of drink is to be deplored, but Prohibition is more enslaving +than alcohol. Paganism in its most exotic forms is preferable to +this prize-ring Christianity. One may be zealous without wallowing +in debasing superstition. Again, let us pray for these imbeciles and +for the charlatans who are blinding them. Neither arts and sciences +nor politics and philosophies will save the soul. The azure route +lies beyond the gates of ivory and the gates of horn. + +Let us pray for our sisters, the suffragettes, who are still +suffering from the injustice of Man, now some million of years. Let +us pray that they be given the ballot to prove to them its utter +futility as a cure-all. With it they shall be neither happier nor +different. Once a woman, always a martyr. Let them not be deceived +by illusive phrases. If they had not been oppressed they would +to-day be "free"! Alas! free from their sex? Free from the burden of +family? Free like men to carry on the rude labours of this ruder +earth? To what purpose? To become second-rate men, when nature has +endowed them with qualities that men vainly emulate, vainly seek to +evoke their spirit in the arts and literature! Ages past woman +should have attained that impossible goal, oppression or no; in +fact, adversity has made man what he is--and woman, too. Pray, that +she may not be tempted by the mirage into the desert, there to +perish of thirst for the promised land. Nearly a century ago George +Sand was preaching the equality of the sexes, and rightly enough. +What has come of it? The vote? Political office? Professions, +business opportunities? Yes, all these things, but not universal +happiness. Woman's sphere--stale phrase!--is any one she hankers +after; but let her not deceive herself. Her future will strangely +resemble her past. + +William Dean Howells was not wrong when he wrote: Woman has only her +choice in self-sacrifice. And sometimes not even the choosing. Why? +Why are eclipses? Why are some men prohibitionists? Why do hens +cluck after laying eggs? Let us pray for warring women that their +politically ambitious leaders may no longer dupe them with +fallacious promises--surely a "pathetic fallacy." But, then, females +rush in where fools fear to tread. + +And lastly, beloved sisters and brothers, let us heartily pray that +our imperial democracy (or is it a democratic empire?), our +plutocratic republic (or should we say republican plutocracy?) may +be kept from war; avoid "the drums and tramplings of three +conquests." But by the Eternal Jehovah, God of battles, if we are +forced to fight, then let us fight like patriotic Americans, and not +gently coo, like pacifists and other sultry south winds. A billion +for "preparedness," but not a penny for "pork," say we. + +And by the same token let us pray that those thundering humbugs and +parasites who call themselves labour leaders--the blind leading the +blind--for ever vanish. Because of their contumacious acts and +egregious bamboozling of their victims, because of their false +promises of an earthly paradise and a golden age, they deserve the +harshest condemnation. + +Like certain Oriental discourses, our little Morality which began in +the mosque has rambled not far from the tavern. Nevertheless, let us +pray for the living as well as the dead. Oremus! + + + * * * * * + + + + +BOOKS BY JAMES HUNEKER + + +_What some distinguished writers have said of them_: + +Maurice Maeterlinck wrote, May 15, 1905: "Do you know that +'Iconoclasts' is the only book of high and universal critical worth +that we have had for years--to be precise, since Georg Brandes. It +is at once strong and fine, supple and firm, indulgent and sure." + +And of "Ivory Apes and Peacocks" he said, among other things: "I +have marvelled at the vigilance and clarity with which you follow +and judge the new literary and artistic movements in all countries. +I do not know of criticism more pure and sure than yours." (October, +1915.) + + * * * * * + +Of "Visionaries" Remy de Gourmont wrote, June 22, 1906: "I am +convinced that you have written a very curious, very beautiful book, +and one of that sort comes to us rarely." + + * * * * * + +Paul Bourget wrote, Lundi de Paques, 1909, of "Egoists": "I have +browsed through the pages of your book and found that you touch in a +sympathetic style on diverse problems, artistic and literary. In the +case of Stendhal your catholicity of treatment is extremely rare and +courageous." + + * * * * * + +Dr. Georg Brandes, the versatile and profound Danish critic, wrote: +"I find your breadth of view and its expression more European than +American; but the essential thing is that you are an artist to your +very marrow." + + * * * * * + + +IVORY APES AND PEACOCKS + +12mo. $1.50 net + + "Out of the depressing welter of our American writing upon + æsthetics, with its incredible thinness and triteness and + paltriness, its intellectual sterility, its miraculous dulness, its + limitless and appalling vapidity, Mr. James Huneker, and the small + and honorable minority of his peers, emerge with a conspicuousness + that is both comforting and disgraceful.... Susceptibility, + clairvoyance, immediacy of response, are his; he is the friend of + any talent that is fine and strange and frank enough to incur the + dislike of the mighty army of Bourbons, Puritans, and B[oe]otians. + He is innocent of prepossessions. He is infinitely flexible and + generous. Yet if, in the twenty years that we have been reading + him, he has ever praised a commonplace talent, we have no + recollection of it. His critical tact is well-nigh infallible.... + His position among writers on æsthetics is anomalous and + incredible: no merchant traffics in his heart, yet he commands a + large, an eager, an affectionate public. Is it because he is both + vivid and acute, robust yet fine-fingered, tolerant yet unyielding, + astringent yet tender--a mellow pessimist, a kindly cynic? Or is it + rather because he is, primarily, a temperament--dynamic, + contagious, lovable, inveterately alive--expressing itself through + the most transparent of the arts?" + --LAWRENCE GILMAN, in _North American Review_ (October, 1915). + + * * * * * + + +NEW COSMOPOLIS + +12mo. $1.50 net + + "Mr. James Huneker, critic of music in the first place, is a + craftsman of diverse accomplishment who occupies a distinctive and + distinguished place among present-day American essayists. He is + intensely 'modern,' well read in recent European writers, and not + lacking sympathy with the more rebellious spirits. Ancient serenity + has laid no chastening hand on his thought and style, but he has + achieved at times a fineness of expression that lifts his work + above that of the many eager and artistic souls who strive to be + the thinkers of New England to-day. He flings off his impressions + at fervent heat; he is not ashamed to be enthusiastic; and he + cannot escape that large sentimentality which, to less disciplined + transatlantic writers, is known nakedly as 'heart interest.' Out of + his chaos of reading and observation he has, however, evolved a + criticism of life that makes for intellectual cultivation, although + it is of a Bohemian rather than an academic kind. Given a different + environment, another training, Mr. Huneker might have emerged as an + American Walter Pater." + --_London Athenæum_ (November 6, 1915). + + * * * * * + + +MELOMANIACS + +12mo. $1.50 net + + "It would be difficult to sum up 'Melomaniacs' in a phrase. Never + did a book, in my opinion at any rate, exhibit greater contrasts, + not, perhaps, of strength and weakness, but of clearness and + obscurity. It is inexplicably uneven, as if the writer were + perpetually playing on the boundary line that divides sanity of + thought from intellectual chaos. There is method in the madness, + but it is a method of intangible ideas. Nevertheless, there is + genius written over a large portion of it, and to a musician the + wealth of musical imagination is a living spring of + thought." + --HAROLD E. GORST, in _London Saturday Review_ (Dec. 8,1906). + + * * * * * + + +VISIONARIES + +12mo. $1.50 net + + "In 'The Spiral Road' and in some of the other stories both fantasy + and narrative may be compared with Hawthorne in his most unearthly + moods. The younger man has read his Nietzsche and has cast off his + heritage of simple morals. Hawthorne's Puritanism finds no echo in + these modern souls, all sceptical, wavering, and unblessed. But + Hawthorne's splendor of vision and his power of sympathy with a + tormented mind do live again in the best of Mr. Huneker's + stories." + --_London Academy_ (Feb. 3, 1906). + + * * * * * + + +ICONOCLASTS: + +A Book of Dramatists + +12mo. $1.50 net + + "His style is a little jerky, but it is one of those rare styles in + which we are led to expect some significance, if not wit, in every + sentence." + --G. K. CHESTERTON, in _London Daily News_. + + * * * * * + + +MEZZOTINTS IN MODERN MUSIC + +12mo. $1.50 net + + "Mr. Huneker is, in the best sense, a critic; he listens to the + music and gives you his impressions as rapidly and in as few words + as possible; or he sketches the composers in fine, broad, sweeping + strokes with a magnificent disregard for unimportant details. And + as Mr. Huneker is, as I have said, a powerful personality, a man of + quick brain and an energetic imagination, a man of moods and + temperament--a string that vibrates and sings in response to + music--we get in these essays of his a distinctly original and very + valuable contribution to the world's tiny musical literature." + --J. F. RUNCIMAN, in _London Saturday Review_. + + * * * * * + + +FRANZ LISZT + +_WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS_ + +12mo. $2.00 net + + * * * * * + + +CHOPIN: The Man and His Music + +12mo. $2.00 net + + * * * * * + + +OVERTONES: A Book of Temperaments + +_WITH FRONTISPIECE PORTRAIT OF RICHARD STRAUSS_ + +12mo. $1.50 net + + "In some respects Mr. Huneker must be reckoned the most brilliant + of all living writers on matters musical." + --_Academy, London_. + + * * * * * + + +THE PATHOS OF DISTANCE + +A Book of a Thousand and One Moments + +12mo. $2.00 net + + "He talks about Bergson as well as Matisse; he never can keep still + about Wagner; he hauls over his French library of modern immortals, + and he gives a touch to George Moore, to Arthur Davies, and to many + another valiant worker in paint, music, and letters. The book is + stimulating; brilliant even with an unexpected + brilliancy." + --_Chicago Tribune_. + + * * * * * + + +PROMENADES OF AN IMPRESSIONIST + +12mo. $1.50 net + + "We like best such sober essays as those which analyze for us the + technical contributions of Cézanne and Rodin. Here Mr. Huneker is a + real interpreter, and here his long experience of men and ways in + art counts for much. Charming, in the slighter vein, are such + appreciations as the Monticelli and Chardin." + --FRANK JEWETT MATHER, Jr., in _New York Nation_ and _Evening Post_. + + * * * * * + + +EGOISTS + +_WITH PORTRAIT AND FACSIMILE REPRODUCTIONS_ + +12mo. $1.50 net + + "Closely and yet lightly written, full of facts, yet as amusing as + a bit of discursive talk, penetrating, candid, and very + shrewd." + --ROYAL CORTISSOZ, in the _New York Tribune_. + + * * * * * + +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, NEW YORK + + + * * * * * + + + + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES + + +The original punctuation and spelling were retained, with the +exception of a few printer's mistakes. The text contains also +inconsistently spelled words. The oe ligature is indicated by +[oe]. + + * * * * * + +The full list of changes to the text is as following: + + +p. 10 + +"Lizst" changed to "Liszt" + + +p. 24 + +"Henri de Regnier" changed to "Henri de Régnier" + + +p. 40 + +"immediable" changed to "irremediable" + + +p. 66 + +"Maurice Barres" changed to "Maurice Barrès" + + +p. 77 + +"idylic" changed to "idyllic" + + +p. 83 + +"a critic should be ever so. (Consider" changed to +"a critic should be ever so. Consider" + +Explanation: the opening bracket (with no corresponding closing +bracket) was removed. + + +p. 108 + +"hippogrifs" changed to "hippogriffs" + + +p. 112 + +"misanthrophy" changed to "misanthropy" + + +p. 116 + +"Huysman's" changed to "Huysmans's" + + +p. 117, p. 276 + +"Barbey d'Aurevilly" changed to "Barbey d'Aurévilly" + + +p. 127 + +"promegranates" changed to "pomegranates" + + +p. 133 + +"Musica" changed to "Musical" + + +p. 156 + +"Cujol" changed to "Cajal" + + +p. 165 + +"Facino Cano" changed to "Facino Cane" + + +p. 168 + +"Frederic Chopin" changed to "Frédéric Chopin" + + +p. 244 + +"I'm a Social-Democrat now." changed to ""I'm a Social-Democrat now." + +Explanation: opening double quote added. + + +p. 246 + +"sich" changed to "such" + + +p. 246 + +"exclaims Maeterlinck," yet" changed to "exclaims Maeterlinck, "yet" + +Explanation: the double quote was moved to the next sentence. + + +p. 327 + +"De Beriot" changed to "De Bériot" + + * * * * * + +Please note that the text contains inconsistently spelled words or +phrases that were not changed. The following is a list of those +words. The number in brackets denotes the number of occurences of +each such word or phrase. + + - Café (1), Cafe (1) + - Eugene Ysaye (1), Eugène Ysaye (1) + - Karl Heymann (1), Carl Heyman (1) + - Trocadero (1), Trocadéro (2) + - bird-like (1), birdlike (1) + - bric-à-brac (1), bric-a-brac (1) + - free-will (1), free will (1) + - rusé (1), ruse (1) + - shadow-land (1), shadow land (1) + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Unicorns, by James Huneker + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNICORNS *** + +***** This file should be named 39116-8.txt or 39116-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/1/1/39116/ + +Produced by David Edwards, Ewa "czupirek" Jaros and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by 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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