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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1103935 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #62939 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/62939) diff --git a/old/62939-0.txt b/old/62939-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 5db17ab..0000000 --- a/old/62939-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2654 +0,0 @@ -Project Gutenberg's Essays Irish and American, by John Butler Yeats - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Essays Irish and American - -Author: John Butler Yeats - -Contributor: George William Russell - -Release Date: August 16, 2020 [EBook #62939] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS IRISH AND AMERICAN *** - - - - -Produced by Susan Carr, Tim Lindell and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - - - - - Essays Irish and American - - - - - _First Edition, May, 1918._ - _Reprinted, December, 1918._ - - - [Illustration: JOHN BUTLER YEATS] - - - - - Essays - Irish and American - - - By - JOHN BUTLER YEATS, R.H.A. - - With an Appreciation by Æ - - [Illustration] - - DUBLIN LONDON - The Talbot Press Ltd. T. Fisher Unwin Ltd. - 89 Talbot Street 1 Adelphi Terrace - - - 1918 - - - - - “_Homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto._” - - - - - Contents - - - Page - - An Appreciation 5 - - Recollections of Samuel Butler 9 - - Back to the Home 23 - - Why the Englishman is Happy 37 - - Synge and the Irish 51 - - The Modern Woman 63 - - Watts and the Method of Art 75 - - - - - Four of the following Essays have appeared in _Harper’s Weekly_ - and one in _The Seven Arts_. The thanks of The Talbot Press, - Limited, are due to the proprietors and editors of both Journals, - for permission to reprint. - - - - - AN APPRECIATION - - -We admire some because of their accomplishment, others because -of what they are. I admire Mr. John Yeats as an artist as much -as any, but I feel that nature’s best gift to him was a humanity -which delights in the humanity of others. Few artists I think -found it more easy to be interested in the people they met or -painted. All his portraits, whether of men or women, seem touched -with affection. Rarely has he pourtrayed any, young or old, where -something like a soul does not look at us through the eyes. I -have liked people after seeing Mr. Yeats’ portraits of them, and -I am sure I would not have liked them so much if I had not first -looked at them with his vision. In his delightful letters, of -which extracts have been already published, and in his essays he -lets us unconsciously into the secret of his meditation about his -sitters. He is always discriminating between themselves and their -ideas, searching for some lovable natural life. He complains in -one of his essays that the American women whom he admires cannot -be easily natural. They want so much to be the ideal daughter or -the ideal wife or the ideal friend that poor ordinary human nature -is not good enough for them. He perhaps never heard of Laotze--how -few people know of that fount of wisdom--but Mr. Yeats, who is, -I fancy, unhappy in the society of metaphysicians, economists or -theorists, would, I believe, have loved the Chinese sage who made -a religion with this law, “Be ye natural.” All the other religions -draw us away from hearth and home and love and dominate us by an -overlaw, but Laotze alone among religious teachers heaves a sigh -when he hears of someone setting out to reform the world because -he knows there will be no end to it. When Laotze says in his -ideal state people would be contented in themselves, think their -poor clothes beautiful and their plain food sweet, I think of -Mr. Yeats and his fear that the reformer will improve the Irish -peasant off the face of the earth. He delights in him as he is. -Why should anybody want to alter what is already natural, wild -and eloquent? To be primitive is to be unspoiled. Mr. Yeats seems -to be seeking everywhere in art and letters for the contours and -emotions which are the natural mould of face or mind. Mr. Orpen -can astonish us with technical accomplishment and Mr. John with -masterly drawing, but if we look at the face of a woman painted -by Mr. Yeats we will be attracted, not by the transient interest -of novelty in treatment, but because of some ancient and sweet -tradition of womanhood in the face, the eyes, the lips. We find the -eyes so kind that it is so we imagine mothers or wives from the -beginning of time have looked upon their children or have bewitched -men to build about them the shelter of home and civilisation. -Mr. Yeats in his art had this intimacy with the heart’s desire, -which is not external beauty, as those who have degenerated art -into the pourtrayal of prettiness suppose, but beauty of spirit. -Those who knew Mr. Yeats will remember that enchanting flow of -conversation which lightened the burden of sitting; and nature -was wise in uniting the gift of conversation with the gift of -portrait painting, because the artist was so happy in his art and -so reluctant to finish his work; without that grace of speech -few sitters could have endured to the end with an artist always -following up some new light of the soul, obliterating what already -seemed beautiful to substitute some other expression which seemed -more natural or characteristic. To those who knew Mr. Yeats these -essays will recall that conversation with which we did not always -agree but which always excited us and started us thinking on our -own account. The reader will find here thoughts which are profound, -said so simply that their wisdom might be overlooked, and also -much delightful folly uttered with such vivacity and gaiety that -it seems to have the glow of truth. Perhaps these fantasies and -freaks of judgment are as good as if they were true. One of the -most delightful inventions of nature is the kitten chasing its own -tail, and this and many other inventions of nature seem to indicate -that a beautiful folly is one of the many aspects of wisdom. What -is it but mere delight in life for its own sake, in invention for -its own sake, or, as Mr. Yeats puts it elsewhere, a disinterested -love of mischief for its own dear sake. How dear that is to us -Irish who have often had nothing but love of mischief to console -us when all the substantial virtues and prizes of life had been -amassed by our neighbours. How witty Mr. Yeats is those who read -these essays will discover. “When a belief rests on nothing you -cannot knock away its foundations,” he says, perhaps half slyly -thinking how secure were some of his own best sayings from attack. -I refuse to argue over or criticise the philosophy of the man who -wrote that, for I do not know how to get at him. I am content to -enjoy, as I am sure his friends will, and new friends also who will -be made by a reading of this book, and who will be grateful to -Mrs. Bellinger of New York, who cut out and preserved from various -papers these essays as they appeared; for the writer, unlike the -kitten, had no interest in chasing his own tail, and had forgotten -what he had written or where it had appeared. Gathered in one book -these essays reflect a light upon each other and recreate for us -a personality which has deserted Dublin, but which none who knew -would wish to forget. - - A. E. - - - - - RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BUTLER - - -I knew Butler. In the year 1867-68 I was a pupil at Heatherleigh’s -Art School, Newman Street, London, and Butler was there also. It is -not true that Butler had talent. To be a painter after the manner -of John Bellini was for years the passion of his life. It was vain; -he had no talent. At the time I knew him he was beginning to see -this and it was pathetic! We tried to comfort him and would have -cheered him with false hopes. All the intellect in the world won’t -make a painter if it is not the right kind of intellect. - -A Scotch friend of mine and his, whom Butler loved because of his -knowledge of music, would sometimes say, “Yes, Mr. Butler, you are -a dominie”--and he would chuckle slowly in his Scotch manner. Like -a dominie he kept us all in order. We called each other briefly -by our surnames without the prefix of the Mr.--Butler was always -_Mr._ Butler. Once a daring citizen of London ventured, “Have you -been to the Alhambra, Butler?” He pronounced it “Al’ambra”--that -gave Butler his opportunity. The Englishman in possession of all -his aitches can always hold the many in check because of their -deficiency in aitches. “Is there an aitch in the word?” said -Butler. Never again did my poor friend venture, or for that matter -any of us. - -The Irishman likes his equal and is, as every one admits, the best -of comrades; the German likes his superior; but the Englishman -likes to be with his inferior and is not comfortable in any other -relation. He is sent to the public school and the university by -his anxious parents and guardians that he may acquire the superior -manner. There are two sneers in England, the cockney variety which -no one respects, and the university and public school sneer which -compels respect, even among foreigners. It impressed Goethe. The -footman puts it on but overdoes it, so that at a glance we know it -to be counterfeit. Butler was the politest, the most ceremonious of -men, but the sneer was there and all the more palpable because so -carefully veiled. - -We were art students and tried to be Bohemian, or would have done -so had not Butler been one of us. There was a student whom he much -liked; one day he took him in hand and in his most paternal manner -admonished him that he must not use the word “chap.” Butler was -an Englishman through and through and an Englishman of “class.” -The Englishman of class will part with his faith, with his wife -and children, with his money, even, or his reputation and be -cheerful about it, but closer than his skin sticks to him his class -conceit; and in his accent, his voice, his gestures, his phrases he -carefully preserves all its insignia. Possessed of these he knows -he may go anywhere and associate with anyone; it is a passport -entitling him to a nobleman’s freedom. Every Englishman, gentle -or simple, either by force or by patient groping will try for a -sheltered spot where he may have his own thoughts and his own ways -hampered by none. But the Englishman of class is freest of all; a -policeman, even he, will hesitate to interfere with you if he knows -that you are a gentleman. - -In his “Way of All Flesh,” Butler describes English home life and -he enables us to see that affection and sympathy do not form part -of it. Butler, the product of that life, sets little importance -on either affection or sympathy; and yet there never was a kinder -man. Good nature was fundamental in his character and was, I think, -the source of most of his writings and opinions. The English going -about life in an intensely selfish way and doing this on principle -are obliged to have strict laws strictly enforced; yet outside -these laws they claim and allow the utmost license of action and -thought. It is their distinction among nations that they love -personal liberty so much,--that is for themselves, for they are -quite ready to enslave other people. With this love for personal -freedom has grown up, side by side with it and as part and parcel -of it, an immense appreciation of human nature itself. Against this -appreciation Puritanism has vainly and indeed dolorously struggled. -Butler’s good nature was due to his liking for human nature itself; -hence his zeal against all the conventions and illusions and -veiling “respectabilities” that would snatch from human nature its -proper food. - -The continental nations may hate human nature and produce their -Goyas, but such art among Englishmen excites only a lazy contempt. -Notwithstanding their passion for law and rule, a necessary thing -among people so selfishly bent on their own gains, the Englishman -does not actually hate his neighbour, even though he keeps aloof -from him. He has indeed a genial relish for the selfishness in his -neighbour which is so strong in himself. Edmund Burke has some -such sentence as “the _good nature_ and integrity of this ancient -people.” The Dutch, being a freedom-loving people, have a similar -good nature. Rembrandt and Shakespeare get artistic pleasure out -of the ugly but with laughter, not as in Goya with a grin of -hatred. Indeed, looking at some of Goya’s work, one is forced to -believe that he hated even the people who looked at his pictures -and wished through them to insult and offend all his friends,--a -kind of disorderly impulse which in him and others prompts to the -disgusting and obscene in art. Butler’s emancipated intellect had -won for his soul and senses a freedom which he wished to share -with others; he had as it were acquired a freedom to be on good -terms with himself. To be sure, a Scotchman is on good terms with -himself when he is conceited. Butler wanted people to be on good -terms with their senses and appetites and everything else that goes -into our make-up as men, to all of which Scotch conceit is the -enemy. For this he was always fighting, and he began to fight at -Heatherleigh’s Art School. He found us, as he thought, enslaved by -this or that convention or illusion and by his mockeries and his -wit worked for our liberation. - -He always occupied one place in the school chosen so that he -could be as close as possible to the model and might paint with -small brushes his kind of John Bellini art. There he would stand -very intent and mostly quite silent, intent also on our casual -conversation, watchful for the moment when he could make some sally -of wit that would crush his victim. He had thick eyebrows and grey -eyes,--or were they light hazel? These eyes would sometimes look -tired as he plied his hopeless task of learning how to paint. But -the discovery of any mental slavery or insincerity among our band -of students would bring a dangerous light into them, and he would -say things that perhaps hurt very much men who were absolutely -sincere, however mistaken. Then Butler, who respected, as he often -told me, every kind of sincerity, would humble himself and make -apologies that were not always accepted, and in the grey eyes, like -a little fire on a cold hearth, I would see a melting kindness that -it must have been hard to resist. The virtuous are not always the -generous, neither are they always as wise as Solomon. - -At that time I was a very busy student working from morning to -night, otherwise I should have tried to see more of Butler. -There is nothing so winning as a look of helpful kindness in a -mocking face. Besides, he was a good deal my senior and seniority -is attractive to ingenuous youth; and I was then ingenuous. I -sometimes think I have lost all my opportunities; the chance -of knowing Butler well was one of these. Slowly I have come to -feel that affection for human nature which is at the root of all -poetry and art, whether the poet be pessimist or optimist. Had I -stayed much with Butler I should have learned my lesson almost at -once. Matthew Arnold’s “sweetness and light” was not much to his -taste, and he cared nothing for the high ethics of Wordsworth. An -affectionate mother, such as we have among the peasants of Ireland, -where mother-love is a passion, does not want her children to be -good half as much as she wants them to be happy. It was so Butler -regarded poor, struggling and deceived human nature. _There_ was -the source of his “good nature” and of his influence. In this -he was pre-eminently English of the English, and in this there -was nothing of the system maker or the philanthropist. Nor was -he a philosopher or anything else except a mere man touching and -handling the concrete matters of everyday life. With tenderness of -humour and a most real poetry he touched, healingly, all the sores -of ailing humanity. - -Butler liked women but disapproved of marriage. He liked women -because, as I heard him say, they are so good natured. They would -laugh with him but never at him. Then they are obedient and -teachable and the dominie within him liked pupils. His attitude -towards them was a smiling indulgence. The charming women of those -backward days were still in the Middle Ages, apologetic, almost -penitential, as if they asked pardon for being so beautiful or so -merry and engaging, and did not a bit mind if Butler regarded them -as inferior, especially as towards them he was always kindly and -fatherly and innocent. It is quite easy to see why Butler disliked -marriage; it would have curtailed his freedom to follow out all -his queer vagaries of Butlerian thought and inclination. This -consideration does not affect the ordinary Englishman of coarser -grain, tenacious of his ancient right to do what he likes with his -own, his own being his wife and children and servants and “all that -he possesses.” The ordinary Englishman lives alone in his English -home, lord and master of it, with his wife second in command. -Butler, of course, could not so live; therefore to keep his liberty -he dismissed forever the thought of a married home. Had he married -I have no doubt he would have chosen a helpmate not likely to -dispute his supremacy. I knew Miss Savage, the model for his good -woman in “The Way of All Flesh.” She was a student at the art -school and not very young, and she was lame; life had disciplined -her. She was fair, with a roundish face and light blue eyes that -were very sensitive and full of light; a small head, her features -charmingly mobile and harmonious. She radiated goodness and sense. -She kept herself very much to herself, yet all liked her, even -though we never spoke to her. Butler soon discovered that she -laughed easily; but as usual he was cautious. One day he consulted -me as to whether he could with safety ask her a school-boy riddle -he had picked up somewhere, a school-boy riddle in that, though -quite innocent, it was not altogether nice. I don’t remember how I -advised, only that they became fast friends. - -Though he avoided marriage, his flesh was weak. “I have a little -needle-woman, a good little thing. I have given her a sewing -machine. I go to see her.” As he made his confession he retired -backwards, bowing his head several times as in mockery of himself -and acknowledgment of a sad necessity from which even he was not -exempt. For it was given to him also to tread “The Way of All -Flesh.” It was always part of his philosophy that he should confess -his sins, besides being a necessity to his social nature and one of -his most engaging qualities. - -Though he professed to despise Greek plays he was a good classical -scholar. Outside the classics he had read nothing except -Shakespeare and “The Origin of Species” and the Bible. For him “The -Origin of Species” was the book of books. If he took a fancy to a -student he would watch him for a few days and then approach him -with cautious ceremony--he was always ceremonious--and ask him if -he had read _the book_ and perhaps offer to lend it to him. I am -proud to remember that he lent it to me. “The Origin of Species” -had, as he told me, completely destroyed his belief in a personal -God; so occasionally instead of the usual question he would ask the -student if he believed in God. In this he did not confine himself -to students. There was a nude model named Moseley who often sat -to us at Heatherleigh’s. He liked this model, in whom he found a -whimsical uprightness that appealed to his sense of things. Once -in the deep silence of the class I heard him asking, “Moseley, -do you believe in God?” Without altering a muscle or a change -of expression, Moseley replied, “No, sir, don’t believe in old -Bogey.” The form of the answer was unexpected; its cheerful cockney -impudence was beyond even Butler’s reach of courage. He retired in -confusion, and we laughed. We liked a laugh at Butler’s expense. -Besides, in those days most of us were orthodox; in fact had never -given a thought to the question of Deity. But that fear kept them -quiet, there were some valiant spirits who would have cried out -against him, since then as well as now, in America as well as in -England, an orthodox inertia was characteristic of artists. They -do not go to church, they never give a thought to religion, but -they are profoundly orthodox in a deep, untroubled somnolency. I -remember that one man, a very successful student, did engage in -controversy and was highly sentimental in a dandified, affected -way. Butler’s reply was one word repeated several times--“Pooh!” -that ended it. I have no doubt that that gentleman still retains -his orthodoxy. When a belief rests on nothing you cannot knock away -its foundations. - -Butler’s father was a wealthy dean of the Church of England, and, I -fancy, pompous and authoritative. He told me that his father never -became excited unless the dinner was late. When he broke away from -orthodoxy and announced his intention of becoming an artist instead -of a clergyman, his family refused him all assistance. Nor is it -true that his father helped him in his New Zealand venture. He -himself told me that he managed to borrow from friends £10,000, and -that he was more proud of that than of anything else in his life. -He stayed in New Zealand four years, after which a lucky turn on -the market enabled him to return to England and repay the money, -while keeping enough to support himself in his pursuit of art. He -liked to tell of his New Zealand life and of his hatred of sheep. -They were always getting lost, so that he said the word “sheep” -would be found engraved on his heart. He did not know one of his -horses from another or from anybody else’s horse, and said he was -like the Lord, whose delight is not in the strength of a horse. - -Sam Butler’s desire for truth and his stripping away from life -and belief all the veils of illusion was the characteristic of a -man truly poetic. He and his pupil, G. B. Shaw, by their passion -for sincerity, help the imaginative life. When Michael Angelo -maintained that only the Italians understood art, Vittoria Colonna -pointed out that the German pictures touched the feelings. “Yes,” -he replied, “because of the weakness of our sensibilities.” -Poetry and the imaginative life can only flourish where truth -is of supreme moment; an education which contents itself with -half-knowledge and half-thought will inevitably produce a crowd -of sentimentalists and false poets and rhetoricians. The great -artist and the great poet have rigorous minds. Michael Angelo -said of those German pictures that they were only fit for “women, -ecclesiastics and people of quality.” After all a poet must -believe, and without rigorous thinking there is no sense of belief. - -To know things thoroughly, or not at all,--this was the habit of -Butler’s mind, derived from his classical education, in which the -whole stress is on the minutiæ of scholarship. For instance, he -told me that he never studied music till he was twenty-one years -of age, after which he gave to it every moment he could spare. Yet -he only cared for Händel, content that all the rest should be to -him an unknown world. What he could not study thoroughly he would -not study at all. In his eyes superficial knowledge was superficial -ignorance and the mental habits engendered by it disastrous. Among -painters he valued chiefly those who, like John Bellini, are -thorough to minuteness. Though he professed to despise style he was -a precisian in words. At a restaurant which he and I frequented -for our midday meal he met a man who said he never “used” hasty -pudding. This application of the verb “use” was to him a source of -endless amusement. I have heard him tell the story many times. - -I think he read Shakespeare continually. I know he read no other -poetry, although he did glance once a little wistfully at -Whitman,--“the catalogue man,” he called him. All the same he was -a genuine Englishman and brooded in the imaginative mood of a -self-centred solitude which could not be shared with anyone, as the -sympathetic Frenchman lives in the imaginative mood of an expansive -existence which he would share with everyone. - -I remember the last time I saw Butler. I was sitting at breakfast, -alone, in a lodging in an out of the way part of London, having -come from Ireland the night before after an absence of seven or -eight years. I saw him passing and in glad surprise at once raised -the window, meaning to hail him. But I reflected sadly and changed -my mind, closing the window and returning to my breakfast, as I -thought: “God forbid that I should intrude myself uninvited on any -Englishman.” - - - - - BACK TO THE HOME - - -Everywhere or almost everywhere among English-speaking peoples the -monarchical principle is under notice to quit. In the school it is -the boy and not the master who rules; even in the courts the judges -interpreting the law go cautiously, in fear of public disfavour; -finally, change has reached the home and the family, which were -wont to be a dual monarchy--the mother ruling within the house and -the father his own world outside. Just as business is a matter of -committees and syndicates and corporations--the individual man a -mere wheel or pulley in some immense machine which is controlled by -a cold-blooded arithmetician--so, inside the home, the mother is -superseded by an expert, some specialist in up-to-date science or -quackery who occupies her place and asks to sit where she sat. Can -we wonder that she sometimes leaves vacant her chair and goes in -pursuit of distraction? - -It is a curious change and means much; for one thing, the world -has lost its two most picturesque figures--the master of the house -and its mistress. When hospitality was hospitality, it meant that -you were admitted for a brief while to bask in the smiles of two -gracious sovereigns--the lord and the lady of the house that -entertained you--their good-will, radiating forth to warm you, the -real attraction, to which the wine and the food and the guests were -only secondary, so much heart on their side creating a heart within -your own narrow ribs. Now all is changed, and the entertainment -is more important than the entertainers. We come to be pleased, -we no longer come to please; the old delicious autocracy with its -smiling court of sympathetic and affectionate guests has tumbled -into the dust, the feelings of host and hostess, the home cookery -and the old-fashioned house with its gathered associations are -nothing to us; we demand to dine where the food and drink are up -to date, so we dine at a restaurant, where are noise, distraction -and confusion. I myself would sooner dine in a good man’s kitchen. -Personal rule is at an end. The host used authoritatively to lead -the talking and the hostess controlled it, for, though too busy -to talk, she was never too busy to listen, and the guests took -care that the conversation flowed in her direction and sought her -approval. In my youth, after the dinner-things were removed, we -sat around an ancient mahogany table, on which there was not, as -in later times, any garish white cloth. It would have been gloomy -but for the many-coloured reflections cast into its polished depths -from wine-filled glasses and decanters and from the faces and -dresses of the guests. Overhead were candelabra, the sole light in -the room; outside the circle of diners such deep shadows that the -faces looked like portraits by Rembrandt; and when, at the proper -moment, the hostess and her ladies swept out of the room, leaving -us to our men-talk, how lean would fall the entertainment! And it -was our hostess we missed, so much divinity did hedge her. - -The monarchical principle is extinct in the home, it is likewise -extinct in the schools. I was educated at a school where the master -ruled by terror. He was a Scotchman and knew no other method, -and we were not in the least bit democratic. But if we trembled -before him we did not fear one another. There were between fifty -and sixty of us, a curious collection of diversities; not a boy in -the place who had not something marked in him, either by his own -strength or because of his home individuality. It was a time when -parents had little money and travelling expenses were heavy, so -that holidays were scanty and far apart. For instance, we never -went home at Christmas. The cheap railway had not yet everywhere -supplanted the mail coach. Yet we lived haunted by the thought of -our homes,--it possessed us, it obsessed us, it was our food and -drink with which we fed our imaginations and spiritually nourished -ourselves. We would talk incessantly to one another of our homes; -and friendships, our only solace in that abode of sternness, were -made up of similarities of taste and experience in the matter of -homes. The methods of education were, if you like, brutal; but -the brutality made our homes all the dearer. We leaned heavily -on the thought of our homes; while in our happiness, as in our -misery, we possessed a faculty of concentration unknown to boys -educated in the latitudinarian methods of the modern schools. -Whether it was our first Latin author, Cornelius Nepos, or our -Latin exercises, or the horrible Latin grammar of that period, or -the big Latin dictionary or Greek lexicon--implements of education -whose repulsiveness was supposed to add to their efficiency--or -our letters from home, or our long talks of home and yearnings for -home--no matter what the subject, we brought to it an intensity -that would have been foreign to the careless boys of this -effeminate age. I remember a boy under twelve who talked to me in -whispers of his father and mother not being friendly, and of his -mother preferring to him his younger brother. There was another boy -whose trouble was that there was so little money at home. There was -yet another very little boy, who would take me aside and read long -letters from a beautiful sister married to a military officer in -India. Depend upon it, there is nothing that concentrates the mind -like having for schoolmaster a conscientious Scotchman teaching -Greek and Latin in the old clumsy methods. - -A young boy is mostly regarded as something quite outside the pale -of sympathy and understanding. Only his mother can endure him, -and she because, as many think, love has made her blind. Yet in -himself he is of all beings the most ingenuously and ingeniously -human, and a veritable fountain of imaginative desire, who, if -he do but retain his spontaneity, may become a Charles Lamb or a -Coleridge or a Shelley; or, if he be built on the grand scale, a -Dante or a Michael Angelo. The mission of the modern school is for -the boys themselves to take in hand this little boy and, by force -of their own rude animalism and with joyous pressure, strip him of -everything exceptional and compel him to take on another likeness. -I remember an English lady telling me that she had been to visit a -great public school to see her son, a little boy. She told me that -at a distance she could not distinguish him from any other boy; -and she smiled helplessly as she added that it was the ambition of -every little boy in that famous school to be exactly like the other -little boys. And yet we wonder that the world no longer produces -distinguished individualities. This mother knew that her boy would -come back to her the average boy, to grow into the average man, -like his father, like his uncle, like everybody else. A friend of -mine, a most interesting man, very happy in his hobbies and in his -dreams and visions and beliefs, a poet though without learning, and -without the sweet accomplishment of verse, lamented that he had not -been kept longer at school, where, as he said, he might have had -all the “nonsense knocked out of him.” The poor fellow does not -know how happy and interesting he is; he only knows that his wife -and all his friends find him different from other people and on -this account disapprove of him. Yet there was an old French artist -in 1830 who advised his friends to cultivate their faults carefully. - -The old methods were brutal and made the boys brutal, yet they, at -any rate, did not break down and insidiously destroy singularity -of character as is being done every day by the democratic methods -of modern schools. A celebrated master of Eton in the eighteenth -century said, “My business is to teach Greek, not morality.” In -that robust century people did not take much thought about one -another. You might be unhappy and all astray, but they let you -alone; provided you did your Greek right, your morals were your own -affair. Chatham may have left Eton a “cowed” boy, as he implied -he did, yet he brought with him an individuality of a quality -so angular and so challenging that it is impossible to believe -it could have survived had it been ground between the upper and -nether millstones of modern school-boy life. These schools, both in -America and in England, with their great prestige and with the boys -in full control, have become so powerful in moulding character that -it is no longer accurate to say “the boy is father of the man,” but -rather, “the school-boy is father of the man.” In Ireland things -are different. The old brutal methods being discarded, the boys -do not fear the master, neither do they fear each other, and the -explanation is that the Irishman, man and boy, gentle and simple, -is much more of an aristocrat than a democrat. He belongs to his -home and to his family; he has the passion for home and family, he -passes through school or college without really belonging to either -of them. - -For that reason the home among the Irish remains stronger than -any school or college, exactly the reverse of what has happened -in England and may happen in America. When I say an Irishman, -gentle or simple, is an aristocrat, I do not mean that he is a -person of class or wants to be one, or that he bears the slightest -resemblance to the modern English nobleman, but I do mean that he -likes to think that he is a person of distinction, and that he -differs from all other men, and values himself accordingly. Nature -herself would, if we did not thwart her, evolve each man on a -different plan; as she makes every leaf and every twig and every -tree in the forest different from all its fellows. She has an Irish -delight in diversity, and smiles to see her sturdy children each -fighting for its own hand. - -The typical Irish family is poor, ambitious, and intellectual; and -all have the national habit, once indigenous in “Merry England,” -of much conversation. In modern England they like a dull man and -so they like a dull boy. We like bright men and bright boys. -When there is a dull boy we send him to England and put him into -business where he may sink or swim; but a bright boy is a different -story. Quickly he becomes the family confidant, learning all about -the family necessities; with so much frank conversation it cannot -be otherwise. He knows every detail in the school bills and what it -will cost to put him through the university, and how that cost can -be reduced by winning scholarships and prizes. As he grows older -he watches, like an expert, the younger brothers coming on, and -is eager to advise in his young wisdom as to their prospects. He -studies constantly, perhaps overworks himself while his mother and -sisters keep watch; and yet he is too serious, and they on their -side are too anxious for compliments. It is indeed characteristic -of the Irish mother that, unlike the flattering mothers of -England, she loves too anxiously to admire her children; with her -intimate knowledge there goes a cautious judgment. The family -habit of conversation into which he enters with the arrogance of -his tender years gives him the chance of vitalizing his newly -acquired knowledge. Father, mother, brothers and sisters are all -on his mind; and the family fortunes are a responsibility. He is -not dull-witted, as are those who go into business to exercise -the will in plodding along some prescribed path; on the contrary, -his intellect is in constant exercise. He is full of intellectual -curiosity, so much conversation keeping it alive, and therein is -unlike the English or the American boy. Indeed, he experiences -a constant temptation to spend in varied reading the time that -should be given to restricted study. He is at once sceptical and -credulous, but, provided his opinions are expressed gaily and -frankly, no one minds. With us intellect takes the place which -in the English home is occupied by the business faculty. We love -the valour of the free intellect; so that, the more audacious his -opinion, the higher rise the family hopes. He and all his family -approve of amusement--to do so is an Irish tradition unbroken from -the days before St. Patrick; but they have none. They are too poor -and too busy; or rather they have a great deal, but it is found -in boyish friendships and in the bonds of the strongest family -affection, inevitable because they are Irish and because they have -hopes that make them dependent upon one another. The long family -talks over the fire, the long talks between clever boys on country -walks--these are not the least exciting amusements--even though -they bear no resemblance to what is called “sport.” - -These are the gifts of the Irish home; among the poor, affection -infinite as the sea, which, because of an idleness which is not -their fault, has had full scope to grow into an intensity of -longing that makes it sometimes hungry as the sea; among the -better-off, ambition also and a free intellect; and in everybody an -ancient philosophy of human nature which warms rather than chills -human relations. - -The English boy has an entirely different history. He enters some -famous historical school, anxious, like his parents and all his -aunts and cousins, that he be stamped and sealed with its approval. -His desire is to be an Eton, Harrow, or Rugby boy, after which -he will become an Oxford or Cambridge man, marked in his accent, -clothes, and manner with the sign-manual of his university. For -the Irish boy this is as impossible as it is repugnant. His home -is stronger than his school and his college. In the great English -schools the boys manage one another; a system of rules and of -etiquette has democratically grown up which all must obey; this -kind of docility is English and not Irish. Our boys cannot thus -surrender themselves, for behind the Irish boy is the drama of a -full home life. There is no such drama in English home life--it is -prosperous, uneventful, and lies icily cold in the lap of law. -The Irish home, in which so much happens, awaits its novelist; -but, alas! English readers won’t read novels about Ireland, and -Irish readers are too few to make their custom worth anybody’s -attention. All we know is that the Irishman is, boy and man, a -detached personality. He is often the gayest and most sociable of -beings, and a true comrade, and he may be able to adapt himself to -every situation, yet he remains apart; even with his friends he -is inscrutable, he cannot be read. And this to my mind is right, -for no one should be able to read another’s secret, except the -mother who bore him, and sometimes a sweetheart. The ordinary -well-to-do Englishman has no secrets, for you can read them all -in his bank-book, in his Catechism, in the rules of his club and -the laws of his country. He is an admirable citizen on whom you -can calculate as on a railway time-table. The English mother when -she parts from her boy at the school doors may sigh to think that -she has lost her boy, yet be proud to think that he will return -remodelled into the smart Eton or Harrow boy. The Irish mother -has no such hopes and no such fears; her boy will come back what -he was when he left her side, and though he go to India, and rule -provinces, with many well-trained public-school Englishmen working -under him, he will still remain the passionate Irish boy of her -heart’s desire. - -The great factor in the Irish education is not the school, but the -Irish home, unique in its combination of small means, intellect, -and ambition with conversation. Without this conversation the home -would not be Irish. From every manor-house and cabin ascends the -incense of pleasant talk; it is that in which we most excel. With -us all journeys end in talkers’ meeting; “we are the greatest -talkers since the Greeks,” said Oscar Wilde. When any Irish reform -is proposed--and they are innumerable--I always ask, how will it -affect our conversation? France has her art and literature, England -her House of Lords, and America her vast initiative; we have our -conversation. We watch impatiently for the meals, because we are -hungry and thirsty for conversation; not for argument’s sake or to -improve ourselves, but because we spontaneously like one another. -We like human voices and faces and the smiles and gestures and all -the little drama of household colloquy, varying every moment from -serious to gay, with skill, with finesse; we like human nature -for its own sake, and we like it vocal--that is why we talk; we -even like our enemies, on the Irish principle that it is “better -to be quarrelling than to be lonesome.” Arthur Symons, staying in -a pilot’s cottage on the west of Ireland, said to my daughter: “I -don’t believe these people ever go to bed.” No, they have so much -to say to one another. - -“England,” said Bernard Shaw, “cannot do without its Irish and -Scots to-day because it cannot do without at least a little -sanity.” Both these nations are conversational. - -The home must play its part vigorously if the race is to be saved -for affection and happiness, and if we would bring back the -conditions from which spring art and poetry. - - - - - WHY THE ENGLISHMAN IS HAPPY - - AN IRISHMAN’S NOTES ON THE SAXON TEMPERAMENT - - -In the long quest for self-knowledge and self-fulfilment there are -two types of men and two methods. There are some who would have the -individual man care only for himself morning, noon, and night, for -his spirit, his mind, his body, his temporal and eternal welfare. -There are others who would say he should forget himself and lose -himself in great ideas, great causes, great enthusiasms, in -passionate love or humanitarianism, or even in the anger of battle. -Of these two methods the second is found in France while the first -is the Englishman’s creed. - -The English are a fortunate people, or seemed so in the happy past, -their primal good fortune being that they lived and grew up on an -island surrounded by stormy seas and fenced in by high cliffs. -Their second good fortune sprang out of the first; they never -submitted themselves to a strong central government. Of all people -in the known world, they were the least governed; of all men the -Englishman was the freest, little more being required of him than -that he should live on good terms with his neighbours. Doubtless -one of these neighbours was the brutal Norman noble who regarded -him as an inferior being of an inferior race, and as a landlord -oppressed him. Outside this relation of landlord and tenant, and -of superior and inferior, he lived a free man among his fellows -without, indeed, the dignity and honour of being a soldier, but -also without his constant subjection and unrelaxing discipline. He -was a boor, but his thoughts were his own; and his language, being -different from that of his oppressor, afforded him an additional -protection. He lived in his own world--he lived apart among his own -race and kindred. - -The other nations on the continent of Europe, notably France, lay -open to one another’s ravages; and for that reason had always to -remain under arms, every man a soldier, martial law superseding all -other laws. However England might war with other nations, however -she might despoil them, pursuit and revenge were impossible; -behind her cliffs she was safe. No matter how great the cloud of -hatred or what it threatened, she lived in security and laughed -at her enemies. The peasant returned in peace to his village and -his plough, the merchant to his shop, and the noble to his castle; -while crimes that could not be punished left no visitings of -remorse. The English grew in liberty and in the arts of peace while -other nations grew in the arts of war and lost their liberty. The -English poor man was never taught his military dignity, but he -was taught his social inferiority; yet, while he bowed down, as -he still does, before his social superior, his thoughts remained -free; the better part of liberty remained to him. Froissart was -astonished at the squalor in which the English peasant lived; yet, -had he looked a little closer, he would have seen that under the -smouldering ashes on his hearth a fire was burning that had long -been extinct in his own country. - -The French government was a military despotism, and since tyranny -begets tyranny and seeks to extend itself, it speedily drew to -itself the forces of religion, art and education, and allied -them in one vast conspiracy against the forces of freedom; so -that from the first the people were trained in submission to -power, authority and tradition. It was an eager and spontaneous -submission, the soldier proud to follow his captain, the student -eager to listen to his teacher, and the Catholic anxious to obey -the command of his priest. The people were accomplices in their own -enthralment; the more so since there was this discretion reserved -in the exercise of dominion: all were free to think out and draw -their own conclusions, provided that the State, the Church, and -the academies furnished the premises. Deductive logic was free; -inductive logic, the higher order, the kings, soldiers, magistrates -and statesmen kept in their own hands. As time advanced the French -became a nation of teachers and orators as well as soldiers, while -the creative impulse was everywhere arrested and hampered Welded -together and bound and clamped into a nation by their military -and ecclesiastical organizations, the French rapidly acquired the -instinct of solidarity; and the individual dwindled until he became -a mere unit of the state. This feeling of solidarity combined with -the free exercise of deductive logic, resulting in a fertility of -beautiful ideas--beautiful as rainbows on a stormy sky--and the -missionary habit. Of all men the Frenchman is the most picturesque -and the most attractive, as he is also the most eloquent and the -most persuasive. In literature, in life, in everything, the French -genius is social and sympathetic and propagandist. - -The Englishman is the contrary of all this. He has a passion for -liberty and cares little for equality, fraternity, or any of the -ideals which are the glory of the French intellect. He is, indeed, -so entirely without the faculty of ideas that even his feeling -for liberty has never become an idea or a doctrine; he has no -intellectual cognizance of it; it is merely his habit. A something -which from long use has grown into him and become part almost of -his physiology, it is in his blood and in his bones and remains -by him always, keeping vigilant watch and ward. But it is for -himself alone; it is not for universal application; it is not his -philosophy. So that when he robs another nation, as in the case -of India or Ireland, and, in order to facilitate the theft, first -takes away that nation’s liberty, his conscience does not smite -him, for by liberty he always means English liberty, which includes -the privilege of robbing any nation that is weak enough to stand -it. To me a Frenchman is always like a student; either as he is -when he works diligently at his studies or as he is when he plays -truant, breaks away from discipline, and defies his teachers. An -Englishman, on the other hand, is a person untutored, who has -never been either to school or to college; he has neither the -attractiveness of the diligent student nor the excesses of the -rebel student. He is still almost what he was when he came first -from his Maker’s hands. - -Besides his exemption from military organization and a central -government, there is yet another fact to be noted in the -Englishman’s history. A peaceful immigration into his country -has been as difficult as a warlike invasion. In other countries, -when the population was reduced by plague and pestilence, the -void was quickly filled up by an inrush of hungry foreigners; in -England this was impossible. There a sudden fall in population -meant a sudden rise in the abundance of food, because there was -no one to come from outside to take the food out of men’s mouths. -The population of mediæval England remained always small. The -Englishman’s native joviality and ease of heart were his song of -triumph over a condition in which, if he managed to survive, he -lived easily and fed well and clothed himself warmly. If other -people died, so much the worse for them and the better for him. To -this day the Englishman takes extraordinary care of his health. The -French and Irish contempt for death is to him a continual and a -shocking surprise. He never needed to work hard; he faced no great -struggles; he merely took care of his health. - -In those far-off days of ease, little work, and much mortality -the Englishman acquired all his habits, all his positive and -negative qualities, together with that fear of death which we know -oppressed Dr. Johnson; and though the last hundred years have -much blunted his characteristics, the pattern still remains. He -is still given to much self-contemplation in its various forms -of self-complacency, self-examination, self-condemnation, and -self-exultation. He talks continually of himself; deprived of that -subject and of what is akin to it, he is a silent man. Not to be -the subject of conversation, neither to be praised nor abused, is -to him a disconcerting experience. He is not vain; it is merely -that his occupation is gone. The Americans are too busy with their -own growing fortunes to remember his existence, and for that reason -he is, here in New York, either so gentle and sad or so peppery and -quarrelsome as to be quite unrecognizable. He is no longer himself. -In his own country he is an unwearied egotist. When pleased it -is with himself, when displeased it is still with himself. With -his neighbours he is often sulky; yet his worst quarrels are with -himself, and therefore the hardest to reconcile. His variations are -variations not of idea, but of mood. The French live in a ferment -of opinion; it is their atmosphere--man contending against man with -noise, vociferation, oratory, and much action and movement. Among -the English there is always the silence of inward communing, the -stillness of a people overweighted with meditation. In France new -schools of art and movements in literature are the triumphs or--it -may be--the eccentricities and freaks of the logical process. In -England such movements mean the welcome or unwelcome emergence into -light of a new species. French impressionism was ushered into the -world with loud argument. Turner’s art was something inscrutable -and mysterious, the expression of a temperament that did not -argue and looked for no converts. Under any strong excitement the -Englishman withdraws into himself as into the security of his own -home. The Frenchman, on the contrary, gets away from himself -into the world of friends and ideas and starts a propaganda to -embrace the world. He seeks to impress; his literature and art -are full of dramatic surprises, while English art and literature -have always avoided startling effects; and, if they impress, do -so accidentally, as a tall mountain might the people who lived -in the valley. They continually spring forth from the mysterious -depths of personality, and, concerning themselves only with moods -of feeling, rely for expression on rhythm and music. A personality -cannot explain itself or account for itself; it can only cure its -ache and soothe its irritability by the music--the long-drawn-out -or fantastic music of artistic creation. French art and literature -concern themselves with ideas, and their effort is to make these -brilliant, orderly and specious, using the emphasis and animation -and sonorousness of art rather that its deeper music. So that in -France they watch for a distinguished intellect, while in England -we look for an individuality that is at once powerful, strange, -and intimate, its expression intelligible only to those who have -explored the farthest recesses of consciousness. In France we -find a garden, in England a wilderness. Yet, do not forget, the -gardener will often visit the wilderness in search for new plants -and shrubs. The inductive mind sows that which the deductive mind -plants out and waters. - -The egotist is popularly supposed to be a wearisome chatterbox -incessantly talking about himself; and such men do abound in -England. An egotist is any man who habitually and instinctively -makes himself, his likings and dislikings, the sole test of truth; -and it is only when there is some streak of folly or childishness -that he becomes the garrulous chatterbox. Of these men some are -delightful humorists, as was Charles Lamb, or undelightful, as was -his boisterous brother John. Among them are, in fact, all sorts, -including all the bores, cranks and faddists, with the innumerable -company of monologists; including also the great pioneers and -forerunners of thought in poetry and art: the Shakespeares, -Turners, Hogarths, and Constables. - -Socially, the egotist, where there is not some great compensating -charm, is a failure; he does not amalgamate; he is ever an alien -in the company, a difficult person. You don’t know whether to -make much of him or drop him altogether. At a dinner-party the -Englishman is apt to be that sad mistake, a guest who has to -be apologized for. Lovers are always poor company except with -each other. This is proverbial, and the Englishman is always in -love--that is, with himself. The sociable man, the welcome guest, -is in love with other people. As it is in the lighter matters of -social intercourse, so it is in graver matters. Gladstone, who, as -a Scotchman in England, was an acute critic, once wrote that the -Englishman needed a great deal of discipline; and this is true. -A community whose members are not spontaneously amenable to one -another’s feelings must have definite rules laid down and enforced -by definite penalties. On the other hand, the Frenchman, with his -social impulses and social training, knows “how to behave.” He -does not need to get rules by heart, for he has intuition; and -where he has not this inner light he turns naturally to reason, the -great sociable spirit, the friendly arbiter, the wise judge before -whom all men are equal. The English egotist has not this social -impulse; neither does he willingly appeal to reason. Latterly -he has become saturated with class feeling, which is neither -sociable nor reasonable; but his original instinct, to which he -constantly returns, is to regard himself as neither a superior nor -an inferior, but different; a humorist who cannot be classed and to -whom no general rules can apply; and such a man will not readily -appeal to a tribunal before which all men are equal. - -The Frenchman is a gentleman; he has the finer instinct, the finer -training, and the finer intelligence; wanting these, the Englishman -has to be taught by the cumbrous methods of reward and punishment; -he learns under the whip and becomes more like a well-trained -animal than a reasonable human being. Yet--such is the blessedness -of mere habit--even he ends by doing quite cheerfully what he -learned most unwillingly. Legality, hard-and-fast rules that must -not be broken and that are interpreted in the narrowest spirit, -depressing enough in all conscience although they be, are to him -an enjoyment and a matter of incessant thought; since if they -circumscribe, they also define and secure the spaces of personal -liberty. They are his substitute for ideas, and, if they excite -no enthusiasm and are some of them admittedly bad, all the same, -he makes it his glad duty to obey them. Outside these laws he is -intractable and inclined to be surly, quarrels with his neighbours, -and is as jealous and suspicious of his rights as a dog with a -bone. Yet the Englishman is not unhappy. He has the happiness of a -perpetual self-complacency. Indeed, your self-absorbed egotist will -sometimes extract enjoyment of a kind out of the consciousness that -he is a wet blanket and a perpetual embarrassment and kill-joy; -it does not quicken the pulses, but it flatters his sense of -power, and, strange as it may seem, his sense of hatred. At any -rate, I have met such men both in England and elsewhere. And yet -there is another side to the picture; for this self-contained -egotist, when trained in a good school and taught the amenities -of good behaviour, and when he has received the discipline which -Gladstone said he so much needed, utters the best kind of talk, -since it flows not out of the logic which divides, but out of -the inner personality which makes the whole world kin. There is -in his conversation almost always a flavour of the intimate and -the confidential. He listens well, too, and never contradicts or -seeks to convince. Indeed, it disappoints him to find one opinion -where he thought there had been two. Cultivated Englishmen talking -together are like men sitting in the woods through a long summer’s -night and listening during the intervals of silence to the noise -made by a near-by stream or of a wind among the branches or to the -singing of a nightingale. So always should mortals talk: clamorous -and confident argument are the resource of the intellectual -half-breed. - -Out of his habit of mind the egotist gains two valuable qualities. -First of all he learns how to manage himself. This, of course, -is not the same as the high and difficult art of self-mastery, -yet it counts for much that a man should know how to get the best -and leave out the worst from his life, even though that life be -in its essential mean and meagre or vicious and self-indulgent. -Self-management, smooth and adroit, is eminently the Englishman’s -accomplishment. The other quality is still more important; the -egotist makes the best of all husbands if regard be had to the -ordinary woman’s needs; for what are these if they are not all -summed up in the one word--companionship? Now a wife cannot find -a sufficing companionship in her husband’s business concerns. Here -she is beaten by the confidential clerk. There is, however, one -kind of friendship, one kind of companionship, which she alone can -supply in the required abundance; it is when the husband talks of -himself. Here is the chamber into which the wife enters willingly -when everybody else keeps away: the husband’s talk of his pains -and aches and tribulations. There is the pain in his knee or his -elbow, or the never-to-be-sufficiently-indicated pain in his head -or his back, or his cough, and how it differs from every previous -cough in his experience, or bears a dangerous resemblance to some -other body’s cough, together with the innumerable aches of his -wounded and exaggerated self-love. All this wearisome detail about -what is mostly nothing at all and which everybody else flees from, -the “pleasing wife” listens to with an attentive and intelligent -and credulous ear. It is her duty, or so she thinks it, and the -greater the intelligence the greater the credulity. There are -happy wives married to husbands whom it would bore to talk about -themselves, but the happiest woman, in whom content ripens to its -fullest, is the egotist’s wife. Like a bee in a flower, she hides -herself almost out of sight in wifely devotion. He finds happiness -in living in and for himself, she in living out of herself and -in him. Both are pleased. This is English conjugal life as I have -observed it; and here in perfection we have side by side our two -methods of human growth. - - - - - SYNGE AND THE IRISH. - - -The acrimonious dispute carried on in the newspapers over John -M. Synge and his plays is the eternal dispute between the man of -prose and the man of imagination. Synge’s plays, his prefaces to -his plays, and his book on the Aran Islands, like his conversation, -describe a little community rich in natural poetry, in fancy, in -wild humour, and in wild philosophy; as wild flowers among rocks, -these qualities spring out of their lives of incessant danger and -incessant leisure; there are also bitter herbs. When I used to -listen to Synge’s conversation, so rare and sudden, as now when I -read or listen to what he has written, I can say to myself, “Here -among these peasants is the one spot in the British Islands, the -one spot among English-speaking people, where Shakespeare would -have found himself a happy guest.” - -The people in Mr. Shaw’s plays would not have bored him, only -because nothing human would have ever bored Shakespeare; but they -would not have inspired him. And though in their company he -might have stayed for a time and been perhaps as witty as Oscar -Wilde or Shaw, the lyrical Shakespeare, the poetical and creating -Shakespeare, would soon have tired of their arid gaieties, and have -gone to sit with the courteous peasants round their turf fires, -that he might listen to their words, musical sentences, musical -names, folk tales, and tales of apparitions, embodying images -and thoughts and theories of life and a whole variegated world -of lovely or bitter and sometimes savage emotion out of which to -construct poetical drama--a very different thing from the drama of -wit or satire or sensationalism whose inspiration is prose. - -It was Synge’s luck that he found this people before the modern -reformer had improved them off the face of the earth. Each of us -has his destiny, and this was his. Every event in his life and -every chance encounter did but help to push him along till he -found his real self by living among them in the intimacy of their -family life and in the closer intimacy that came from speaking -with them a language into which they put their inmost feelings and -longings, using English for what was merely external. It was his -destiny to know these people and reveal them, and then die; and -to be denounced as an obscene and indecent writer and artist by a -set of people who will not listen and therefore cannot know, and -whose service to Ireland consists in striving to shout down every -distinguished Irishman. - -Synge’s people are primitive in the sense that they are unspoiled. -A lady of fashion among the Chinese would regard the foot of a -European woman as primitive; we think it is unspoiled. Synge’s -offence consists in showing that these people have never been -moulded into the pattern that finds favour with the convent parlour -and in the fashionable drawing-room. New York is proud of its -progress and makes pretensions to high culture; and yet New York -might do worse than turn aside and learn of these humble people. A -young girl told a friend of mine that what she and her companions -always look forward to in Ireland are the long winter evenings -around the kitchen fire when the neighbours come in to talk. I -fancy all New York is in constant conspiracy to cut as short as -possible its dull winter evenings. - -In Ireland we are still medieval, and think that how to live is -more important than how to get a living. When I was a young man -if I announced that I intended next morning at break of day to -start on some enterprise of amusement, or it might be of high -duty, the whole family would get up to see me off; but if it were -on some matter of mere commercial gain, I would breakfast in the -care of the servants. It was thus through the whole of Irish life. -If Curran, for instance, fought a duel in Phœnix Park at some -unearthly hour, five hundred sleepy Dublin citizens would rouse -themselves out of their beds and be there to see the fight, to -witness the courage of the combatants and enjoy the wit of Curran, -that never failed when danger threatened--and in those days and in -that country people shot to kill. We Irish are still what we’ve -always been, a people of leisure; like people sitting at a play, we -watch the game of life, we enjoy our neighbours, whether we love or -hate them. - -Because of this enjoyment of the spectacle of life, we have -produced the ablest dramatists of latter-day England: Farquhar, -Goldsmith, Sheridan, Oscar Wilde, G. B. Shaw, and finally John -Synge. And of these, Synge, though he died so young, is the -greatest. He stands apart from them all, because he portrays -peasant poetry and passion, and a humour which cuts deep into -the mystery and terror of life. In the other dramatists we have -abundance of wit and liveliness, great powers of enjoyment, and a -commendable contempt for the prudential virtues; but there is also -a denial of spirituality and but a modicum of poetry; the deeper -feelings are never sounded, while their pathos is only a dainty -pity, not the genuine article: not one of them could have written -“Riders to the Sea.” Behind the Irish humour and pity are will -and intellect, as in Swift. In the drawing-room plays of Synge’s -predecessors there is merely the sensitive nature, so easily -chilled by what is not nice, becoming, and charming. Those who -object to Synge’s plays are suffering from the delicate stomach of -people who have lived effeminate lives. Dr. Swift would have come -to Synge’s plays and applauded them. - -A good many years ago cultivated people and others began to take -an interest in the Irish peasant; it added something to the gaiety -of London and Dublin drawing-rooms. But socialism and communism, -the labour party and anarchy, had not then been invented to teach -people the seriousness of starving poverty. So Carleton and other -writers set to work to exploit the Irish peasant and make him into -something “fit for a lady’s chamber.” Hence has arisen the foolish -tradition that the Irish are all gentleness and innocence, and, -though wildly amusing, still within the bounds of good taste; hence -also came the comic Irishman, a buffoon without seriousness who -lived by making laughter for his patrons. - -Synge’s plays exist to prove the contrary of all this. And yet -there is some truth in the picture. The Irish character has a -side which is turned toward spirituality and poetry, a musical -instrument exquisitely attuned to the beauties of nature and life. -Among this fighting race, square-chinned and with short features, -is scattered another type, with long, oval faces and soft eyes, -born to all hoping gentleness and affection, with imagination fed -on the mysteries of life and death and religion. This type Stella -might have discovered had she not been too English; Swift could -not, because probably he frightened it away. Yet Dr. Goldsmith was -as true an Irishman as Dr. Swift. How vividly Synge knew this side -of the Irish mind is shown in his book on the Aran Islands. The -other side is in his plays. - -“A picture,” said Blake, “should be like a lawyer presenting a -writ.” Synge presents us with such a picture. Let us be patient; -people brought up on the literature of good taste cannot be -expected all at once to enjoy the literature of power. - -“I can look at a knot in a piece of wood until I am frightened by -it,” so spake William Blake. This is the creative imagination, -and it is that of folklore and of the Aran Islands. These people -know no distinction between natural and supernatural; they believe -everything to be carried on by miracle; and the civilized man who -does not know that behind all science and reason and all moral -systems there is a something transcending all knowledge and which -is a continued miracle of love and beauty is not only incapable of -culture, he is incapable of desiring it. To him the Bible is as -inscrutable as Shelley. These peasants are not as well educated -as, say, Mr. Rockefeller, yet they have this feeling, this feeling -which is the religion of children and poets, and which is not -subject for reason at all--even though it be the source of our -whole intellectual life. - -False education is like the pressure which the Chinese mother -applies to the feet of her infant. True education liberates. The -industrial movement would turn these peasants into smug artisans, -without a thought that consoles or a hope that elevates, greedy, -envious, and covetous, seeking only the triumphs of selfishness. -And yet man is naturally a singing bird; sometimes he is singing in -a cage of childish and brutish ignorance; and sometimes, though the -cage be roomy and handsome, he does not sing at all, has not the -heart to do so. True education would liberate him so that he could -sing in the open sky of knowledge and power and desire. - -Synge says of these people that they have “some of the emotions -thought peculiar to people who have lived with the arts.” He also -speaks of “the singularly spiritual expression which is so marked” -on the faces of some of these women. And again he says that “they -are a people whose lives have the strange quality that is found in -the oldest legend and poetry.” A priest told me that on his return -from America the servant said she was glad to see him back, “for,” -said she, “while you were away there was a colour of loneliness in -the air.” In these people’s words, as in their lives, is the colour -of beauty, as the blue sky reflects itself in every little pool of -water among the rocks. - -As to Synge’s great comedy, “The Playboy of the Western World,” -could Synge have chosen a better type for his hero than Christy -Mahon? Despite certain newspaper critics who have written of the -play, he is neither a weakling nor a fool, but a young poet in the -supreme difficulty of getting born; only in this case the struggle -is a little worse than usual. He has a drink-maddened father of -great strength and most violent passions, whose cruelty, backed -by his strength, has driven away all his family except this young -boy. Of course, Christy has no education, and his circumstances -are altogether so dreadful that to live at all he must live the -life of the imagination, wandering on the hills poaching and -snaring rabbits. Finally he strikes his father with a spade, and -in his terror runs away from home. After travelling for many days -he arrives in Mayo and finds himself a hero; not because he is a -murderer, but because he is a good-looking fellow in distress, -and, as the sequel proves, spirited withal and athletic. His -talk about the murder is a sudden freak of self-advertisement; -no one so cunning as your young poet! Besides, he liked to be -frightening himself. No one really believes it, and the Widow -Quinn is scornfully sceptical; and when, later on, as they think, -he actually murders his father, every one turns against him--his -sweetheart, though it breaks her heart, joining actively in handing -him over to justice. - -In every well-constructed drama there is some central point of -interest around which all the other incidents are grouped. The -personality of the girl Pegeen, Christy’s sweetheart, is here the -central interest. She towers over every one, not only by her force, -but by her maidenly purity and Diana-like fierceness; nothing, -neither the coarseness she herself utters in wild humour, nor what -the others say or do, can soil her sunshine. And in the love-talk -between the lovers, he is all imagination and poet’s make-believe, -and she all heart and passion and actuality, which is the peasant -woman’s good sense! It is among peasants of the west of Ireland -that the poetical dramatist must henceforth find his opportunity. -Young gentlemen and young ladies in America have doctrinaire minds; -they have grown up attending classes and listening to lectures in -the atmosphere of a specious self-improvement, and know nothing of -the surroundings amid which this peasant girl grew up straight and -tall as a young tree. Some day people will recognize in this play -Synge’s tribute to the Irish peasant girl. “And to think it’s me is -talking sweetly, Christy Mahon, and I the fright of seven townlands -for my biting tongue. Well, the heart’s a wonder, and I’m thinking -there won’t be our like in Mayo for gallant lovers from this hour.” - -The peasants of the west of Ireland are like Christy Mahon; sorrow -and danger and ignorance are their daily portion, yet like -him they live the life of the imagination. Liberate them from -what oppresses, but so that they may still live the life of the -imagination. - -Synge’s history was peculiar. He took up music as his profession -and studied it in Germany, Rome, and Paris; and having only a -very small income, for economy’s sake always lived with poor -people. In Paris he stayed with a man cook and his wife, who was -a _couturière_. He told me that they had but one sitting-room, in -which the man did his cooking and the wife her sewing, with another -sewing-woman who helped. When, as sometimes happened, a large -order for hats came in, Synge, who by this time had given up music -for philology, would drop his studies and apply himself also to -hat-making, bending wires, etc. After a year or so he moved into a -hotel, where he met my son, who urged him to leave Paris for the -west of Ireland and apply himself to the study of Irish. Among -these western peasants he thenceforth spent a great part of every -winter, living as one of the family, they calling one another by -their Christian names; and he told me that he would rather live -among them than in the best hotel. - -Synge was morally one of the most fastidious men I ever met, at -once too sensitive and too proud and passionate for anything -unworthy. He was a well-built, muscular man, with broad shoulders, -carrying his head finely. He had large, light-hazel eyes which -looked straight at you. His conversation, like his book on the Aran -Islands, had the charm of entire sincerity, a quality rare among -men and artists, though it be the one without which nothing else -matters. He neither deceived himself nor anybody else, and yet he -had the enthusiasm of the poet. In this combination of enthusiasm -and veracity he was like that other great Irishman, Michael Davitt. -Like Davitt, also, he was without any desire to be pugnacious; -resolute, yet essentially gentle, he was a man of peace. - - - - - THE MODERN WOMAN - - REFLECTIONS ON A NEW AND INTERESTING TYPE - - -Queen Elizabeth, we know, had many lovers, but was herself never -in love; and so she was able to get the better of her cousin, Mary -Queen of Scots, who, poor soul! allowed herself to be ensnared by -the tender passion. Queen Elizabeth, on the historic page, is a -monster. Yet what was singular in her is now quite general. - -It has been America which has given the world, this strange type; -like everything else that happens in this country, she has sprung -suddenly upon us, as if she had neither father nor mother nor any -visible ancestry. - -She may be in a minority, yet she is not difficult to discover, for -she is most active, showing herself everywhere. Nor is it difficult -to describe her, since she spends much of her time in describing -herself. In the first place, like the orator, she is made rather -than born; indeed, she is herself a good deal of an orator, always -being ready to harangue her friends, explaining and enforcing -her ideas. Self-improvement is her passion; improvement in what -direction? you will ask. She herself does not know. Meantime she -insists on absolute personal liberty--moral, physical, mental, and -also political. That she may be free she places a ban on the senses -and upon sex; either of these would put her back under subjugation. -She announces herself to be eager for affection, but its object -must be some person who is supernaturally perfect and complete; -anything else would be illogical and unworthy and enslaving. And -while her mother dreamed of a life of love and duty in a world -where both are necessary because of its sorrowful imperfections, -she will be satisfied with nothing less than a perfect love and -a perfect affection. At the same time, while resolved on liberty -she does not forget that she is born into a business community; -therefore she has adopted the business man’s creed--efficiency: -“Whatsoever thou doest, do it with all thy might.” - -The young men know liberty to be a chimera--that vision has never -flattered their eyes. Life to them means hard work and obedience -and a constant struggle in circumstances where everything is -compromise, and where even honesty is not always the best policy; -and as to success and the making of money, even the greatest energy -will not suffice if there be not good luck and the opportunity. -Unlike the women, these young men have their dreams, for dreams -are the solace of labour and abstinence: dreams, first of all, -of success and fortune, of which they constantly speak; and then -another dream not so easy to talk about: that each may marry some -day the girl of his choice. - -Here you have American life as it is among the young. The man -under discipline and a dreamer; the woman a triumphant egotist, -and without any dreams at all. And as to this liberty which she -haughtily demands, what is it, among the girls, except the right -to choose and dismiss her teachers, abandoning everything and -everybody as soon as she ceases to feel interested? Never having -been curbed, she has not learned to prefer another to herself. -In vain nature cries out within her for the sweet burden of -service and sacrifice; she is much too busy listening to her -own voice, repeating its new catch words: “I will be myself. -I belong to myself, I must lead my own life.” Once she enters -society and becomes a woman and meets men, she acquires a very -definite purpose, and goes straight for it. Since she will not -serve the men, let the men serve her. “The American woman,” said a -languidly insolent Englishman to me, “are interesting; the men are -nonentities.” In the Englishman’s conception, the man who does not -take the upper hand with his women is a poor creature. - -The ladies in England do not like the modern American woman. Her -success with their own menkind is bitter to bear; yet they envy -her. For these men are serving woman as they never served before; -and it is precisely because, like the Englishman, the modern woman -is herself an egotist. Egoism the Englishman understands: it has -always been his honoured creed and his practice; and here at last -is a woman who, because of her frank selfishness, is perfectly -intelligible; no longer the mystery she used to be, but simple -like a child’s puzzle. Her frantic, brand-new egoism is not quite -the sober article he patronizes for himself, but it delights him -nevertheless, because it is so like his own daily contest with -antagonists whom he must overcome in business. And here is a -beautiful enemy, whom he must both overcome and capture and carry -away with him as a prize of war; to be the ornament of his house -and a delight to the eyes, to be his courtier, his worshipper, -his wife; and as to the extravagance of her egoism, he feels -that as a man he can soon teach her a different lesson, so that -she will settle back into tameness and play her woman’s part, -and be his English wife. And even if she does not, consider what -an advantage it is to have within doors a wife who is perfectly -intelligible, and with whom he knows what to do! Why, he can be -as logical in his own home as in his place of business. The woman -used to be the greatest mystery in the world--you might defy her, -or be kind and yield to her, or crush her with your iron will; but -you couldn’t understand her. No man could read that riddle. The -writers of comedy, the writers of tragedy, all tried their hands -at it. Satirists and wits were never tired of the fascinating -theme. Yet it was all guess-work. No one pretended to know, and -the husbands least of all. Henry the Eighth, who cut off the heads -of his wives, knew no more than last year’s lover. Such used to be -woman. Now she is as easy to read as an old almanac. Watch her as -she paces Fifth Avenue, with her businesslike air. How bright her -eyes, and yet hard as jewels! Her smile how thin-lipped! and her -figure that of a young athlete. Her mode of dress and of personal -array, how smart and efficient and almost military! She is the -very embodiment of briskness, and of commanding decision. But all -the lines of allurement are vanished, and she no longer undulates -with slow grace. She is not feline, neither is she deerlike; and -she no longer caresses, for her voice is as uncompromising as her -style of dress. The ordinary man, unless he was a gentleman of the -old school, or a high-placed nobleman, or an Irish peasant, has -always despised the arts of pleasing, until some charming woman has -taken him in hand; but the modern woman has ceased to instruct him, -and has become his imitator, so that her manners are almost as -intimidating as those of the successful business man. Where is that -threefold charm of mystery, subtlety and concealment, under which -womanhood was wont to veil its powers; and while so many bow down -before the conquering woman, where are the poets? The astronomers, -the mathematicians, the scientists, the men of business, the -lawyers, especially the lawyers, _are_ at her feet, but no music -comes from the poet; and she--is she so happy? - -Egoism is unhappiness for man and woman. Talleyrand called Napoleon -“the unamusable.” It used to be the man who was egotist and the -woman who served, for she said: Our mission is to please. Hence her -all-prevailing charm, and hence also her invincible happiness, for -happiness is the denial of egoism. However it be at other times, -the happy woman and the happy man are righteous--in man’s sight and -in God’s. - -Happiness is the secret known only to poets and to women; and it -was the women who taught it to the poets. Mere man knows little -about it; least of all the successful man, for risking everything -he has mostly lost everything; under his prosperity there is -generally distaste. And how sorrow and disaster can at times -degrade a man we all know; he becomes gloomy, bitter, or drearily -self-contained, or he drops into dissipation and becomes vulgar. -The woman, on the other hand, finds in disaster her opportunity; -and sorrow, which the woman’s life seldom escapes, however it -be with the men, only intensifies her womanhood, so that she -anticipates a later wisdom, and luminously refuses to recognize any -distinction except that between the happy and the unhappy. There -are only two people who are perfectly content--a woman busy in -her home and a poet among his rhymes. They have the secret; they -share it between them; they break bread together, they are of the -company, even though the poet knows nothing of domestic life nor -the other of rhymes. The true, the natural woman is like a bird, -she has wings. When she is a young girl she is like a bird just -spreading her wings for flight; when she is a matured woman she -is like a bird in full flight: desire gives her wings, and stirs -within her the creative impulse; and nothing can stop her strong -flight towards happiness. She has the creative gifts--wherever her -eye lights, there is happiness--she gilds with “heavenly alchemy” -whatever she touches. - -The resolute, practical man puts away the thought of happiness, and -for it substitutes pleasures, which are the gratification of the -senses, and his unquenchable thirst for variety and movement. These -gratifications he can resign with little effort--mere pleasure is -ashes in the mouth, while the other he thinks would unnerve him; -that is for poets, he will tell you. The woman does not believe in -pleasures, she believes in happiness. A supreme belief in happiness -is the woman’s soul. It awakens in her the moment she is in love -or has a child, and accompanies her everywhere. It explains, I -think, the curious self-centredness of her mind, and that strange -aloofness which seems to envelop her who has husband and children. -In her presence we talk of this and that, and do this and that, and -she watches us with eyes in which is the light of knowledge and -foreknowledge. - -The man is a worker and a fighter; with strenuous effort he pushes -along the car of progress, and dies under its wheels; and we make -lamentations. But these women should be carried to their graves -with song of hope and wistful triumph; any other kind of music -would be wounding to our recollections. A man talks mysticism and -he argues; and I am bored. A woman looks and perhaps smiles, and -almost as by the touching of hands communicates her own unfading -hopes. She does not use words, and we do not oppose her with words. - -Long ago people talked much of ladies’ eyes, and ancient Homer, as -we know, sang of the x-eyed Juno and the azure-eyed Minerva. Now -ladies’ eyes are too bright and too exacting to be so eloquent, so -persuading; and for all her dominating ways she is not the queen -she was, nor for all her witchlike effectiveness is she so calmly -beautiful. By turning egotist she has dropped down to our level. -She is one of us. - -And yet the modern woman is right and has arrived in the nick -of time; she is needed because the modern man is not always a -gentleman. Some fifteen years ago I was witness to a strange -scene on Kew Bridge, outside London, one Sunday morning. A line -of five young ladies came riding by on cycles, wearing bloomers. -This excited the loud derision of some loafers, some half-breeds, -standing together on the side-path, and one of them said something, -I did not know what, but the last of the girls heard it and -understood. She stopped, and, carefully adjusting her machine so -that it stood up against the curb of the side-path, walked back to -the young man and asked him if he had used the offensive words; she -then knocked him down, and he fell, probably not so much because -of her strength as because of his own surprise. Sheepishly he got -up, brushing his clothes, and his companions laughed as sheepishly, -while she remounted and rode after her friends. Here was the modern -woman but immature, effective on this occasion, yet much too crude -for anything except a guerrilla war. In Belfast, famous for its -bad manners, every one tries to be “boss” over some one else; yet -if every one can’t be “boss” in Belfast, there is no man even now -who cannot find, both in Belfast and New York and everywhere else, -a woman whom he may “boss.” This is one of the solid comforts of -the masculine existence; but young ladies teaching in the public -schools are watching sympathetically the career of the modern woman. - -It insults a woman nowadays to say that the woman’s destiny is -to be always dependent on some man; but we who say this know -perfectly well that it is equally true to say of the man that -it is his destiny to be dependent on some woman. These two must -patch up their differences. Man must yield to woman equality and -dignity; and she must take him back into favour. There is no such -companionship as that between a man and a woman. She brings her -wisdom, traditional with her sex, and derived from a long study -of the question how to live, and he brings his energy, derived -from his long study of how to make a living. When energy makes him -say, Let us forget the present and think about the future, she -will reply: Let us enjoy the present--am I not young? Is not the -childhood of these children exquisite? - -People forget or do not know that man’s desire for liberty is -not greater than his desire for restraint. By practising the art -of happiness he gets both. The gratification of all the desires, -tempered each by each, is happiness--hope restrained by memory and -the lust of the flesh by affection and sympathy; herein is richest -harmony and a servitude which is perfect freedom. Pleasure is the -gratification of some one desire pushed to excess and followed by -weariness and satiety; and while pleasure overwhelms intellect and -silences it, happiness makes intellect supreme. Happiness enforces -discipline spontaneously; pleasure relaxes it and brings on -licence, which is the shadow of liberty and its final destruction. - -It is character, they say, that saves the world. Does this mean -the will that is strong to grasp and hold? If so, then I know of -something infinitely greater: the full and varied knowledge that -comes from the whole complex human personality--every instrument -in the orchestra--being developed in our consciousness, so that -no single desire is “refused a hearing,” as in a good democracy -where every citizen has his rights secured. Here we have the benign -wisdom of Shakespeare and of good women, and its motive is the -deliberate search for happiness; it kindles the heart and shines in -the eyes of a beautiful woman when she goes about in her home and -among her friends and neighbours--beautiful and a sceptre-bearing -queen; because in a world where every one runs mad after this and -that falsehood, she stands for the simple truth of human happiness -and all its possibilities. Wisdom is better than force, and -supersedes it. - - - - - WATTS AND THE METHOD OF ART.[1] - - -I have often wished that some great painter had written his -autobiography, beginning with his earliest childhood. Saints and -sinners have left us their memoirs in more than sufficient detail; -and we have also the autobiographies of many famous writers. - -As yet we have not had the confessions of the Painter; for I am -sure they would be called confessions, since it would have been -with a sense of shame that these men, including the magnificent -Michael Angelo himself, would have confessed their failures at -school to learn as other boys learned, and receive, as other boys -did, instruction from their teachers. - -We are all familiar with instances of boys who, exceptionally -quick and clever to ordinary observation, are almost unteachable -at school. It would be thought cruel, as well as impossible, -to attempt teaching grammar and arithmetic to a young musical -genius in a concert-room where musicians were playing; yet this is -precisely what is done every time we try to teach grammar and such -things to a boy with the eyes of a painter. Time and experience -have at last taught us to be respectful and tender with the -musical mind; we accept, and we understand it; and the boy with -the wonderful ear is caught up and carried away and instructed and -fondled, and the world is made smooth for him. But how about the -boy with the wonderful eye? And yet the musical boy is only tempted -when music is actually being played, whereas this other is never -free from solicitation, since to him there is always, except in the -dark, colour and form and light and shade. He will know the shape -and surface of every object in his schoolroom, and how light falls -on desk and table; he will know among his school-fellows all the -profiles and all the front faces, what colour the eyes are, and how -they are shaped; every detail of form and colour will be familiar -to him, since to watch these things and to draw from them a -continuous, intellectual intoxication is the very purpose for which -he has been created; for with him the eyes are the gates of wisdom; -and with young children these eyes are so thronged by wisdom trying -to get in that all their time is taken up in opening the gates to -its inrush. - -In this progress of the painter--in this preparation for what, if -the conditions are favourable, ought to be the solemn business -of painting or sculpture--there will be various stages. At first -it will be all observation; after that will come a time in which -the boy will make inferences; to him the face will be the index -of the mind; and, looking round on master and boy, he will be a -physiognomist who has never heard of Lavater, or a craniologist -or phrenologist, until some happy moment when, having exhausted -his interest in scientific inquiry, there will burst upon him the -glorious world of intellectual desire. - -A friend of mine--an old painter, who went to school in the North -of Scotland--described to me his experience. The dominie had one -morning been particularly drastic in his methods, and this led -to great concentration of thought among the pupils, while at the -same time it did not in the least alter the usual current of their -ideas. My friend, for instance, busied himself as usual, observing -form and colour, only with a keener zest and, as I have said, -a more concentrated purpose. It was a spring morning, and, for -the first time that year, a ray of sunshine came into the room, -making a square of yellow light on the dusty floor at his feet. It -was only at that particular period of the year such a thing was -possible: later on there would be too many leaves on the trees, -and in winter the sun was not in that quarter of the heavens. My -friend was an unhappy and anxious schoolboy, but the events of that -morning and the menaces of the dominie, combined with the sudden -sunlight at his feet, made a new boy of him, and he looked at the -square of brightness which stirred his heart. He received, as it -were, his mystical message; and some time afterwards, leaving -school, he became a landscape-painter. - -With a man like Mr. Watts the world of desire would have burst -differently. He was the greatest figure-painter England has ever -produced. With the exception of Blake, who hardly counts, I may say -he was the one painter who worked in the grand manner and on great -subjects. Years ago, by a happy accident, I met him in my studio. I -remember his handsome face and a certain air, as it seemed to me, -of imperious detachment; in his voice also there was a touch of -austerity. He looked at my pictures without a word, till I asked -him for his opinion. It then came clear, frank, and to the point. I -did not tell him what, nevertheless, was the fact--that, though I -had never seen him before, I had been his diligent pupil for years, -and that from him first I learned the true meaning of painting, and -why I, or indeed anyone else, had been induced to take up the craft. - -All his days Watts was a hermit and a recluse; had he loved life -and enjoyed it, he would have lived in it and painted it, as -Hogarth lived and painted; yet he loved his fellow-man, and sought -unweariedly whatever made for his happiness: indeed it might be -said that he painted because he loved his fellow-man. With such a -man the world of desire must have burst in some scene that excited -his indignation or his pity, or his moral admiration and love, -and from that moment he would become a dreamer who incessantly -re-builds life, according to the dictates of a kindled imagination; -for since the eye finds what it looks for, the world of desire -becomes in the self-same moment the world of creation; the desiring -eye is the creating eye: the world itself is neither beautiful -nor ugly; it is a formless vast out of which we create, according -to our desires, new worlds; the madman and the poet look out on -the same scene, but where the one finds ugliness the other finds -beauty; and the world Watts looked out on was the world of men when -they suffer or when they strive together in serious purpose. - -In speaking about Watts, I would begin with his portraits. As -regards these, there is no controversy; some people harden their -hearts against his pictures, but no one denies his portraits. Now -it seems to me that the genius of portrait-painting is largely a -genius for friendship; at any rate, I am quite sure that the best -portraits will be painted where the relation of the sitter and the -painter is one of friendship; and it considerably helps my argument -to know that in Watts’ case he mostly painted people whom he had -himself invited to sit. - -The technique of portrait-painting is mainly a technique of -interpretation; to get the colour, to model the face adequately, -this to the practised hand is comparatively easy; to so paint that -people should, perforce, see the particular curve, the particular -shadow, and the particular shape of brow or eye that interest the -painter; here is the true difficulty, here the true enjoyment and -exquisite triumph of the painter. - -In his early portraits there is little attempt at this -interpretation. There is, indeed, the charm of atmosphere never -absent from Watts’ work at any time, and there is a very obvious -decorative purpose; but these early portraits do not grip the -attention as the later portraits do, because the technique of -interpretation is lacking. - -I have heard people say they liked his male portraits better than -his portraits of women, but I cannot share this preference; each in -its degree is perfect. Watts will paint a young lady in fashionable -evening attire--surely the most modern and up-to-date arrangement -possible--and he will so paint her, so gild her with the heavenly -alchemy of his art, that she shall appear like a Venetian beauty -gazing at us from the page of history. - -Indeed, over all his portraits, whether of men or women, he spreads -a sort of dim religious light; so that while painted with Dutch -realism, they yet seem to come to us out of the mists of memory and -romance. - -Before speaking of his pictures of imagination, I will discuss a -little the whole purpose of art and artists. - -The moralist says: I teach morality, without which society would -not hold together. - -The trader says: I teach trade, without which there would be no -wealth, and life would not be worth living. - -The religious teacher: I teach religion, without which people would -forget that there was another world or a judgment to come. - -And the scientist says: I teach truth, which is the basis of -everything. - -What can the artist say for himself in presence of this congress -of teachers, before whom we stand silent with hats off in age-long -reverence? - -First, what is his record? - -He works only to please himself, and regards it as the most -egregious folly--indeed, a kind of wickedness--to try and please -anybody else; he admires wrong as often as right; at one time -he occupies himself with the things of the spirit, and again he -turns just as eagerly to the things of sense; without conscience -and without scruple he flatters in turn every passion and every -instinct, good or bad; he will make the unhappy more unhappy, -and the wicked he will make worse; he inculcates no lessons, and -preaches no dogma; yet often the noble will become nobler for his -companionship. - -He is to be found in every community; among the sinners he is a -sort of father confessor, whose absolution is light, so that you -may confess all your sins to him, and you may still go on sinning; -he will laugh at the faces of the good, finding them guilty of -self-complacency, of formalism, of insincerity, of prudence, of -cowardice, of half-heartedness; indeed he is often much more -respectful to sinners than he is to good people of the earth; and -withal is it not from the hands of the painter and the poet that, -as in some royal caprice, the hero receives his crown? - -This strange creature with the dubious record; what use is he in -the scheme of things? He seems to stand outside the whole circle of -the utilities. - -Why there is morality, why there is commerce, and why there is -science, and why there is religion; these questions are easy to -answer. But why there are painters, and sculptors, and poets, and -musicians, is another mystery; it is as if you asked me why there -are billions of suns rolling through illimitable space. - -Among these august teachers the mere artist stands like another -Lucifer among the angels. And yet all these teachers, high and -mighty though they be, pay to the artist continual court, and would -fain make him one of themselves: would indeed rescue him as a very -wanton from his bad surroundings, and persuade him to live with -them always; and this partly because human nature is strong within -them, and they love the craft we practise, and partly because they -recognize that where men are gathered together the artist--that -is, the poet, the painter, the musician, and the sculptor--wields, -for good or evil, the mightiest power on earth. Where is the -theologian that the poet does not help? Where is the moralist? At -the present moment, here in this exhibition, it seems to me that, -in their astute way, the theologian, the moralist, and even the -metaphysician, all think that they have patched up an admirable -working arrangement with one of the greatest of our artists. - -The titles “Love and Death,” “Time, Death, and Judgment,” “The -Temptation of Eve,” “The Penitence of Eve,” “The Contrition -of Cain,” etc., do perhaps explain the facts that in Scotland -Presbyterian ministers crowded the Watts’ Gallery; and also that -here in Dublin, for the first time in the history of our animated -city, a splendid collection of pictures has been shown, and the -voice of detraction and malignant criticism remains silent. - -Well! do these pictures teach anything? Has Mr. Watts been -captured? Is he a theologian or a moralist, or a metaphysician? Or -is he merely a highly-gifted man, working out his salvation by way -of art? - -Take his two pictures of Eve. In all this collection there are none -more poetical. - -In the first of these, “The Temptation,” what have we? A woman -in the fulness of her magnificent animalism, and we have this -animalism in the moment of its highest provocation. She seems to -curl herself and to quiver with delight as she listens to the -whispers of the subtle serpent; how voluptuously she leans over -to the tempter, her body elastic with health and vitality. It is -womanhood; it is splendid animalism, as yet untouched by conscience -or doubt, and unchilled by the thoughts of death; all about her -summer flowers and rich perfumes. At her feet a leopard rolls, -itself a faint echo or reverberation of her vast personality. - -It is the merest sophistry to call this moral teaching; it -celebrates the deliciousness of temptation as Pindar, the ancient -poet, celebrates the wine-cup. In both these pictures Watts -celebrates the beauty of the nude and the beauty of the flesh. -Leighton would have painted Eve grand and statuesque--a figure out -of the penumbra of that decorative world where nothing is quite -real. But this woman, colossal and demi-god though she be, is as -real as one of his portraits--that of J. S. Mill, for instance, or -the Earl of Ripon. She is so real, that you feel almost that you -could touch her golden flesh, and hear her cries and murmurs of -delight; while the other Eve is so realistically painted that it -might be said she weeps audibly. - -Next take his picture of Paolo and Francesca. Of all pictures in -this gallery it is the most complete, possibly because his friends -liked it, and gave him the encouragement all artists need. It is at -once beautifully imaginative and a piece of charming decoration. -But these poor guilty lovers, these wrecks of humanity, these -fragments of tenuity, afloat on the winds like dead leaves, like -lightest gossamer, teach no moral lesson. This picture illustrates -afresh the sad fate of true lovers, and makes their punishment -tender and beautiful. I should like to have had John Knox’s opinion -of this picture. There was a certain grimness, a certain severity -in the painter. A meeting between these two champions would have -been interesting. - -Yet we are so hemmed about with difficulty, and so bewildered by a -multitude of counsellors, and have got so much into the pestilent -habit of seeking guidance everywhere, that one must needs find a -moral even in the bosom of a rose. - -Therefore--although it be quite unnecessary to the true -appreciation of art--I will, reluctantly as it were, entirely on my -own responsibility, pluck some moral guidance from imaginative art. - -If morality frames for our guidance rules of conduct which, if we -do not obey, we are to be punished--if it bids us shun temptation -and remove temptation from our path and from the paths of all -the world--Art, on the contrary, seems to say, with all its -strength and with all its voices: “Seek temptation; run to meet -it; we are here to be tempted.” Art does not say--“Be happy, or -be miserable, or be wise, or be prudent”; but it says--“Live, -have it out with fortune, don’t spare yourself, be no laggard -or coward, have no fear.” And this also is part of the message: -“Abide where Watts lived, and where the true artist always -lived--on the high table-lands, in the unshaded sunshine of -intellectual happiness--never descending into the valleys, where -hang, mist-like, the languors and lethargies, the low miseries, -sensualities, and adulteries which afflict human nature when it is -defeated, discouraged, disintegrated.” - -At the end of this room there is a large picture enormously -impressive--“Time, Death and Judgment.” To be impressive is itself -a great artistic merit; yet I do not think this a great picture; -there is, indeed, a fine arrangement of colour, and mass, and line, -yet behind it all there is no energy of conviction. - -Time moves forward, a striding figure, carrying a scythe; beside -him walks Death, his wife, a weary woman, tenderly gathering into -her lap the flowers of life; above these two figures is Judgment. -These figures are vague and conventional as regards any meaning or -intention they might convey. If this picture has any meaning, it is -as if Watts had said to himself: “I am a figure-painter and will, -by my craft of figure-painting, translate into a picture the kind -of pleasing terror which is excited by watching a fine sunset or -listening to an oratorio.” This is not art, as Michael Angelo gave -it. Blake said a picture should be like a lawyer presenting a writ. - -“Love and Death” seems much finer--it grips the attention at once. -Before the other picture we stand idly pensive; but here we want -to get at the root of the matter--to grope our way into the very -heart of the picture. There is the naked figure of Love, wavering, -falling backwards; and then Death, this huge bulk; draped, and -hooded, and horrid. Is it man? Is it woman? and its face is hidden; -and is this because it was in the thought of the painter that no -one has ever seen the face of Death except the piteous dead, who -carry their knowledge into the grave? - -As regards a famous picture not in this collection--the picture -called “Hope”--I would say that pleasing though it be, it owes -its success mainly to its faults; and that people like it because -no one can say exactly what it means. A man who really lived by -hope--a Krapotkin or a William Morris--would find its vagueness -utterly displeasing. - -England likes her artists to preserve a soft, indefinite touch, -because in her world of action and practical effort ideas must not -be pushed too far, and compromise rules. Art, on the contrary, -does not like half thoughts--she will have a positive yea or -nay. If thought is not pursued to its furthest bourne and limit, -the picture lacks energy, and is without effect. In Art, as in -everything else, energy is the true solvent. - -In my mind, pictures of this kind are meant to hang in the rooms -of the idle rich--because intended for people who wish, without -effort, to indulge themselves--and see all things past, present, -and to come, rosily and smilingly, however falsely. There are -artists, poets, and painters--and in this case Watts is among -them--who seem to keep in stock a sort of pharmacopœia of drugs and -opiates and soothing mixtures to be served out as required. Michael -Angelo owed his terribleness, his black melancholy, to the fact -that in his pride he would not accept any soothing mixtures; he -faced all the facts of life. - -Now, let me say a word in reply to those who are so ready to point -out defects in Watts’ technique. To find fault is easy--is at all -times easy. In this vivacious city it is a special accomplishment, -where, indeed, everyone has learned logic, but no one has learned -enthusiasm, and few care for the ideal or for poetry. - -In answer to these people I would enter a plea of confession and -avoidance. - -Granted all they say about these faults, I would ask, in all the -roll of English painters, is there one who would have given us that -magnificent Eve of the Temptation? How royally she leans forward as -she stoops to her fate: what swing and what pose in her movement. -In the strain, in the ecstacy of her sinning, every nerve and -every muscle seems to tremble. Not Millais, nor Leighton, nor Alma -Tadema--far more accomplished artists than Watts--could have done -it; nor Reynolds, nor Gainsborough, nor Vandyke. None of these men -had the technique to do what Watts has here done. Watts triumphs by -his technique. - -But it has not been always so in Watts’ work. When not roused to -great exertion by his theme, he fell away into carelessness and -into haste. You see, this man who lived so long a life had such a -teeming mind that his hands could not work fast enough. - -And here let me allude for a moment to Watts the man. All accounts -that have reached us represent him as singularly humble and modest. -It was so with Michael Angelo, and it is so with all men who work -among great ideas. When The Last Judgment was finished, and all -Italy burst into praise, and princes, cardinals, and poets, vied -with each other in presenting homage, Michael Angelo waved them -off with scorn. “If,” he said, “I carried Paradise in my bosom, -these words would be too much”; and he wrote in reply to one of -them: “I am merely a poor man, working in the Art God has given -me, and trying to lengthen out my life.” When an artist or poet -gives himself airs, puts on side, as we say, it is because, like -Lord Byron, he is working away from great ideas, and because in -all simplicity and good faith he finds nothing which asks his -reverence, nothing greater than his own fortunes and his own -sensations. Art for Art’s sake is for those who hate life, as many -poets do, or who hate ideas, as again many poets do. The great -artist is also a man like unto ourselves, and great personality is -the material out of which is woven all his Art. - -Now, let me offer most respectfully a startling opinion. I think -that as a religious painter Watts failed; and that he failed -because he was bound to fail. - -The spiritual world is as much with us as it was with the people -of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; but we seek to explore -its recesses, by tabulated observation, by sequences of thought, by -scientific guesses, and carefully planned experiments: things not -to be expressed in pictorial or plastic forms, even though Michael -Angelo has said everything might be expressed as sculpture. - -Is it that Nature never repeats herself? She has produced her -religious painter; his day is over; and Watts was trying to do what -was impossible. - -In those far-off days people believed--and actually, with the most -vivid realisation, believed--at one and the same time in angels, -archangels, and saints, and gods, and goddesses, and prophets, and -sybils, and fiends of the under-world, and all the machinery of -the supernatural, including angels, such as that which Watts has -painted in the picture “Love and Life”; and the painter who painted -those images worked under the exacting criticism of an alert and -expectant people. Now, in place of these beautiful or terrible -personages, we have substituted the forces of nature. - -Examine his picture called “Love and Life.” It is a vast subject. -The whole mind of the civilized world is groping a way among -its problems. But this picture is wholly inadequate. Life is -represented as a feeble mendicant sort of creature, blindly -stumbling up rocky stairs. This is a poor image of life. Milton -would have scorned it. Watts should have remembered his own “Eve.” -And “Love” is represented as a strong angel. It is precisely -because Love is not a strong angel that all the trouble is upon -us. If his picture of “Hope” should be placed in a lady’s boudoir, -this picture should hang in the cabinets of those who think life -is to be saved merely by the clasping of hands and turning eyes -heavenward. - -In “Eve’s Repentance” there is a cold light bursting through the -blue clouds, and shining over the back and shoulders. We have here -the old Venetian harmony of blue and yellow and white; and because -of it, in some subtle way, we have an enhanced sense of the warmth -of the palpitating, naked flesh. But, bless you! this is not all. -By this light breaking through the clouds, Watts symbolizes that -there is redemption for sinners. And who is interested? Compare -this symbolism with that in Michael Angelo’s picture, where the -just-created and half-awakened Adam raises his arm in superb -languor to receive Divine knowledge by the touching of God’s -forefinger. I do not here include the picture “Love and Death,” -because it does not seem to me in any sense a religious picture. -It suggests no dogma nor mystical theory, nor is there any kind -of sentiment. The artist, by his labour, has placed before us in -monumental effectiveness certain facts now and always with us. It -is a great picture, but it is not a religious picture. - -Watts is a portrait-painter beyond all praise; he is singular among -all painters for the interest he imparts to his subject. Before -most portraits people stand and say, “What dull things portraits -are! why are they ever exhibited?” or perhaps they say, “What a -clever painter! but what an ugly man to paint!” In presence of a -Watts we are interested in a face; we feel liking or aversion, or -a tantalizing curiosity. - -In Watts’ portraits craftsmanship attains its perfection, because -here he worked in an atmosphere of exacting criticism; everyone -understands a portrait, and the stupidest is interested when it is -his own portrait. - -When Watts painted his imaginative work, it was done in an -atmosphere of polite indifference. It is a strange paradox that -Watts lived surrounded by the most distinguished and intellectual -society of his time, and yet he worked in solitude. When he went -wrong, there was no one to tell him; and when he was right, equally -there was no response. They were interested in the artist, but not -in his art. This lofty-minded recluse, who laboured by his painting -to give the world great thoughts, impressed these cultivated -worldlings: they were interested in the man, but neither in his -thoughts nor in his pictures. At a private view in the Grosvenor -Gallery a friend of mine overheard Watts saying to a lady: -“Everyone is interested in my velvet coat, but no one asks me about -my pictures.” - -It was not so in ancient Italy. When Michael Angelo, at the -imperious command of the impetuous Pope Julius, uncovered half his -work on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, he stood to receive -the judgment of a people who were superstitious, ignorant men of -violence, men of war, homicidal, but each one of them impassioned -for Art. - -“Italy,” said the Spanish painter to Michael Angelo, “produces -the best Art, because Italians hate mediocrity.” We are clay in -the hands of the potter. We may affect to be proud and solitary -as Lucifer, but in vain; the artist gives that he may receive; to -seek sympathy and desire companionship is as instinctive as hunger -and thirst. To the true artist exacting criticism is comforting as -mother’s love; and, wanting this exacting criticism, Watts fell -away into slackness of work and of thought. - -We can only say that had he lived in Dublin his fate would have -been worse. Indifference, however polite and respectful, is bad: -but destructive criticism kills. - -There was once a small but mighty nation, now numerous as the sands -of the seashore, and no longer so interesting. To this nation was -born a poet, and they made him the poet of all time. They took him -and taught him all they knew--and they had great things to teach; -and when, at their command, he made great dramas, they stood at his -elbow; and everything they gave him he gave back to them tenfold. - -England was then Shakespeare’s land. - -The poet is always amongst us: the difficulty is how to find him; -he is like the proverbial needle in a bundle of hay. - -But one thing is certain--logicians without love will not find -him; they leave a desolation, and call it peace--nay, they call it -culture. Critics of this sort will allow nothing to exist except -themselves. No; I am wrong. There is one thing they admire more -even than themselves--the _fait accompli_, a mundane success. Had -Watts been born in Dublin, he would have read for the “Indian -Civil,” and perhaps--passed. - - J. B. 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Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net. - -These half-dozen tales of Ireland, ancient and modern, are in -that peculiar vein of historic realism which set the author’s -“Children of the Hills” apart from the average book of Irish short -stories. The Syngesque vigour and raciness of Mr. O’Byrne’s idiom -gives a quality to his writings which is absent from that of his -contemporaries. - - - A GARDEN BY THE SEA. By Forrest Reid. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net. - -The author of “The Bracknels” and “Following Darkness” has brought -together a volume of short stories marked by the distinction which -has characterised his previous novels of Irish life. - - * * * * * - - - - - Transcriber’s Notes: - - Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the - text, and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained. - - Front Matter “The thanks The Talbot Press, Limited” changed to - “The thanks of The Talbot Press, Limited”. - Page 13 Period at end of “make-up as men” changed to comma. - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Essays Irish and American, by John Butler Yeats - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS IRISH AND AMERICAN *** - -***** This file should be named 62939-0.txt or 62939-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/2/9/3/62939/ - -Produced by Susan Carr, Tim Lindell and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Essays Irish and American - -Author: John Butler Yeats - -Contributor: George William Russell - -Release Date: August 16, 2020 [EBook #62939] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS IRISH AND AMERICAN *** - - - - -Produced by Susan Carr, Tim Lindell and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - -</pre> - - - -<div class="figcenter w100" style="width: 697px;"> -<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="697" height="1000" alt="" /> -</div> - -<hr class="chap pg-brk" /> - -<h1>Essays Irish and American</h1> - -<hr class="chap p10 pg-brk" /> - -<p class="pfs100 p4"><i>First Edition, May, 1918.</i><br /> -<i>Reprinted, December, 1918.</i></p> - -<hr class="chap p10 pg-brk" /> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 516px;"> -<img src="images/yates-portrait.jpg" width="516" height="700" alt="Author Portrait" /> -</div> - -<p class="pfs120">JOHN BUTLER YEATS</p> - -<hr class="chap p10 pg-brk" /> - -<p class="pfs240 p2">Essays<br /> -Irish and American</p> - -<p class="pfs120 p1">By</p> - -<p class="pfs180"><span class="smcap">John Butler Yeats, r.h.a.</span></p> - -<p class="pfs135 p2">With an Appreciation by Æ</p> - -<p class="p3" /> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 102px;"> -<img src="images/colophon.png" width="102" height="150" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p class="p3" /> - -<div class="centerbox"> -<table class="narrow30" border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Publication Houses"> -<tr><td class="tdc fs100">DUBLIN</td><td class="tdc fs100 bl">LONDON</td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdc fs100">The Talbot Press Ltd.</td><td class="tdc fs100 bl">T. Fisher Unwin Ltd.</td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdc fs100">89 Talbot Street</td><td class="tdc fs100 bl">1 Adelphi Terrace</td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdc fs100"></td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdc fs120" colspan="2">1918</td></tr> -</table></div> - - -<hr class="chap p10 pg-brk" /> - -<p class="pfs120 p4">“<ins class="corrx" title="“I am human, and think nothing human is alien to me.”"><i>Homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto.</i></ins>”</p> - - -<hr class="chap p10 pg-brk" /> - -<h2 class="no-brk"><a name="Contents" id="Contents">Contents</a></h2> - -<div class="centerbox"> -<table class="narrow30" border="0" width="65%" summary="Contents"> -<tr><td class="tdl"></td><td class="tdr fs60">Page</td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdl"><a href="#AN_APPRECIATION">An Appreciation</a></td><td class="tdr">5</td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdl"><a href="#RECOLLECTIONS_OF_SAMUEL_BUTLER">Recollections of Samuel Butler</a></td><td class="tdr">9</td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdl"><a href="#BACK_TO_THE_HOME">Back to the Home</a></td><td class="tdr">23</td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdl"><a href="#WHY_THE_ENGLISHMAN_IS_HAPPY">Why the Englishman is Happy</a></td><td class="tdr">37</td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdl"><a href="#SYNGE_AND_THE_IRISH">Synge and the Irish</a></td><td class="tdr">51</td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdl"><a href="#THE_MODERN_WOMAN">The Modern Woman</a></td><td class="tdr">63</td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdl"><a href="#WATTS_AND_THE_METHOD_OF_ART">Watts and the Method of Art</a></td><td class="tdr">75</td></tr> - -</table> -</div> - - -<hr class="chap p10 pg-brk" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Front_Matter" id="Front_Matter"></a></span></p> - -<div class="blockquotx"> -<p class="drop-capy1 fs90 p3">FOUR of the following Essays have -appeared in <i class="bold">Harper’s Weekly</i> and one in -<i class="bold">The Seven Arts</i>. The -<ins class="corr" title="Transcriber’s Note—“The thanks The Talbot Press, Limited” changed to “The thanks of The Talbot Press, Limited”.">thanks of The Talbot Press</ins>, -Limited, are due to the proprietors and editors of both Journals, -for permission to reprint.</p> -</div> - - -<div class="chapter"></div> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h2 class="no-brk"><a name="AN_APPRECIATION" id="AN_APPRECIATION">AN APPRECIATION</a></h2> - -<div class="figleft" style="width: 90px;"> -<img src="images/i_005.png" width="90" height="90" alt="W" /> -</div> - -<p class="pfirst">E admire some because of their accomplishment, -others because of what they -are. I admire Mr. John Yeats as an -artist as much as any, but I feel that -nature’s best gift to him was a humanity which -delights in the humanity of others. Few artists I -think found it more easy to be interested in the -people they met or painted. All his portraits, -whether of men or women, seem touched with -affection. Rarely has he pourtrayed any, young or -old, where something like a soul does not look at -us through the eyes. I have liked people after -seeing Mr. Yeats’ portraits of them, and I am sure -I would not have liked them so much if I had not -first looked at them with his vision. In his delightful -letters, of which extracts have been already -published, and in his essays he lets us unconsciously -into the secret of his meditation about his sitters. -He is always discriminating between themselves -and their ideas, searching for some lovable natural -life. He complains in one of his essays that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> -American women whom he admires cannot be -easily natural. They want so much to be the ideal -daughter or the ideal wife or the ideal friend that -poor ordinary human nature is not good enough for -them. He perhaps never heard of Laotze—how few -people know of that fount of wisdom—but Mr. -Yeats, who is, I fancy, unhappy in the society of -metaphysicians, economists or theorists, would, I -believe, have loved the Chinese sage who made a -religion with this law, “Be ye natural.” All the -other religions draw us away from hearth and home -and love and dominate us by an overlaw, but Laotze -alone among religious teachers heaves a sigh when -he hears of someone setting out to reform the world -because he knows there will be no end to it. When -Laotze says in his ideal state people would be -contented in themselves, think their poor clothes -beautiful and their plain food sweet, I think of Mr. -Yeats and his fear that the reformer will improve -the Irish peasant off the face of the earth. He -delights in him as he is. Why should anybody -want to alter what is already natural, wild and -eloquent? To be primitive is to be unspoiled. Mr. -Yeats seems to be seeking everywhere in art and -letters for the contours and emotions which are the -natural mould of face or mind. Mr. Orpen can -astonish us with technical accomplishment and Mr. -John with masterly drawing, but if we look at the -face of a woman painted by Mr. Yeats we will be -attracted, not by the transient interest of novelty in -treatment, but because of some ancient and sweet<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> -tradition of womanhood in the face, the eyes, the -lips. We find the eyes so kind that it is so we -imagine mothers or wives from the beginning of -time have looked upon their children or have -bewitched men to build about them the shelter of -home and civilisation. Mr. Yeats in his art had -this intimacy with the heart’s desire, which is not -external beauty, as those who have degenerated art -into the pourtrayal of prettiness suppose, but beauty -of spirit. Those who knew Mr. Yeats will remember -that enchanting flow of conversation which -lightened the burden of sitting; and nature was wise -in uniting the gift of conversation with the gift of -portrait painting, because the artist was so happy in -his art and so reluctant to finish his work; without -that grace of speech few sitters could have endured -to the end with an artist always following up some -new light of the soul, obliterating what already -seemed beautiful to substitute some other expression -which seemed more natural or characteristic. To -those who knew Mr. Yeats these essays will recall -that conversation with which we did not always -agree but which always excited us and started us -thinking on our own account. The reader will find -here thoughts which are profound, said so simply -that their wisdom might be overlooked, and also -much delightful folly uttered with such vivacity and -gaiety that it seems to have the glow of truth. -Perhaps these fantasies and freaks of judgment are -as good as if they were true. One of the most -delightful inventions of nature is the kitten chasing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> -its own tail, and this and many other inventions of -nature seem to indicate that a beautiful folly is one -of the many aspects of wisdom. What is it but -mere delight in life for its own sake, in invention for -its own sake, or, as Mr. Yeats puts it elsewhere, a -disinterested love of mischief for its own dear sake. -How dear that is to us Irish who have often had -nothing but love of mischief to console us when all -the substantial virtues and prizes of life had been -amassed by our neighbours. How witty Mr. Yeats -is those who read these essays will discover. -“When a belief rests on nothing you cannot knock -away its foundations,” he says, perhaps half slyly -thinking how secure were some of his own best -sayings from attack. I refuse to argue over or -criticise the philosophy of the man who wrote -that, for I do not know how to get at him. I am -content to enjoy, as I am sure his friends will, and -new friends also who will be made by a reading of -this book, and who will be grateful to Mrs. Bellinger -of New York, who cut out and preserved from various -papers these essays as they appeared; for the -writer, unlike the kitten, had no interest in chasing -his own tail, and had forgotten what he had written -or where it had appeared. Gathered in one book -these essays reflect a light upon each other and recreate -for us a personality which has deserted -Dublin, but which none who knew would wish to -forget.</p> - -<p class="right">A. E.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span></p> - - -<div class="chapter"></div> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h2 class="no-brk"><a name="RECOLLECTIONS_OF_SAMUEL_BUTLER" id="RECOLLECTIONS_OF_SAMUEL_BUTLER">RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BUTLER</a></h2> - -<div class="figleft" style="width: 90px;"> -<img src="images/i_009.png" width="90" height="90" alt="I" /> -</div> - -<p class="pfirst"> knew Butler. In the year 1867-68 I was -a pupil at Heatherleigh’s Art School, -Newman Street, London, and Butler -was there also. It is not true that -Butler had talent. To be a painter after the manner -of John Bellini was for years the passion of his life. -It was vain; he had no talent. At the time I knew -him he was beginning to see this and it was -pathetic! We tried to comfort him and would have -cheered him with false hopes. All the intellect in -the world won’t make a painter if it is not the right -kind of intellect.</p> - -<p>A Scotch friend of mine and his, whom Butler -loved because of his knowledge of music, would -sometimes say, “Yes, Mr. Butler, you are a -dominie”—and he would chuckle slowly in his -Scotch manner. Like a dominie he kept us all in -order. We called each other briefly by our surnames -without the prefix of the Mr.—Butler was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> -always <em>Mr.</em> Butler. Once a daring citizen of London -ventured, “Have you been to the Alhambra, -Butler?” He pronounced it “Al’ambra”—that -gave Butler his opportunity. The Englishman in -possession of all his aitches can always hold the -many in check because of their deficiency in aitches. -“Is there an aitch in the word?” said Butler. Never -again did my poor friend venture, or for that matter -any of us.</p> - -<p>The Irishman likes his equal and is, as every one -admits, the best of comrades; the German likes his -superior; but the Englishman likes to be with his -inferior and is not comfortable in any other relation. -He is sent to the public school and the university by -his anxious parents and guardians that he may -acquire the superior manner. There are two sneers -in England, the cockney variety which no one -respects, and the university and public school sneer -which compels respect, even among foreigners. It -impressed Goethe. The footman puts it on but -overdoes it, so that at a glance we know it to be -counterfeit. Butler was the politest, the most ceremonious -of men, but the sneer was there and all the -more palpable because so carefully veiled.</p> - -<p>We were art students and tried to be Bohemian, -or would have done so had not Butler been one of -us. There was a student whom he much liked; one -day he took him in hand and in his most paternal -manner admonished him that he must not use the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> -word “chap.” Butler was an Englishman through -and through and an Englishman of “class.” The -Englishman of class will part with his faith, with his -wife and children, with his money, even, or his -reputation and be cheerful about it, but closer than -his skin sticks to him his class conceit; and in his -accent, his voice, his gestures, his phrases he carefully -preserves all its insignia. Possessed of these -he knows he may go anywhere and associate with -anyone; it is a passport entitling him to a nobleman’s -freedom. Every Englishman, gentle or -simple, either by force or by patient groping will -try for a sheltered spot where he may have his own -thoughts and his own ways hampered by none. -But the Englishman of class is freest of all; a policeman, -even he, will hesitate to interfere with you if -he knows that you are a gentleman.</p> - -<p>In his “Way of All Flesh,” Butler describes -English home life and he enables us to see that -affection and sympathy do not form part of it. -Butler, the product of that life, sets little importance -on either affection or sympathy; and yet there never -was a kinder man. Good nature was fundamental -in his character and was, I think, the source of most -of his writings and opinions. The English going -about life in an intensely selfish way and doing this -on principle are obliged to have strict laws strictly -enforced; yet outside these laws they claim and -allow the utmost license of action and thought. It<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> -is their distinction among nations that they love -personal liberty so much,—that is for themselves, -for they are quite ready to enslave other people. -With this love for personal freedom has grown up, -side by side with it and as part and parcel of it, an -immense appreciation of human nature itself. -Against this appreciation Puritanism has vainly and -indeed dolorously struggled. Butler’s good nature -was due to his liking for human nature itself; hence -his zeal against all the conventions and illusions and -veiling “respectabilities” that would snatch from -human nature its proper food.</p> - -<p>The continental nations may hate human nature -and produce their Goyas, but such art among -Englishmen excites only a lazy contempt. Notwithstanding -their passion for law and rule, a necessary -thing among people so selfishly bent on their own -gains, the Englishman does not actually hate his -neighbour, even though he keeps aloof from him. -He has indeed a genial relish for the selfishness in -his neighbour which is so strong in himself. -Edmund Burke has some such sentence as “the <em>good -nature</em> and integrity of this ancient people.” -The Dutch, being a freedom-loving people, have -a similar good nature. Rembrandt and Shakespeare -get artistic pleasure out of the ugly but -with laughter, not as in Goya with a grin of -hatred. Indeed, looking at some of Goya’s -work, one is forced to believe that he hated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> -even the people who looked at his pictures and wished through them -to insult and offend all his friends,—a kind of disorderly -impulse which in him and others prompts to the disgusting and -obscene in art. Butler’s emancipated intellect had won for his soul -and senses a freedom which he wished to share with others; he had -as it were acquired a freedom to be on good terms with himself. -To be sure, a Scotchman is on good terms with himself when he is -conceited. Butler wanted people to be on good terms with their -senses and appetites and everything else that goes into our -<ins class="corr" title="Transcriber’s Note—Period at end of “make-up as men” changed to comma.">make-up as men</ins>, -to all of which Scotch conceit is the enemy. For this he was always -fighting, and he began to fight at Heatherleigh’s Art School. -He found us, as he thought, enslaved by this or that convention -or illusion and by his mockeries and his wit worked for our -liberation.</p> - -<p>He always occupied one place in the school -chosen so that he could be as close as possible to the -model and might paint with small brushes his kind -of John Bellini art. There he would stand very -intent and mostly quite silent, intent also on our -casual conversation, watchful for the moment when -he could make some sally of wit that would crush -his victim. He had thick eyebrows and grey eyes,—or -were they light hazel? These eyes would -sometimes look tired as he plied his hopeless task -of learning how to paint. But the discovery of any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> -mental slavery or insincerity among our band of -students would bring a dangerous light into them, -and he would say things that perhaps hurt very -much men who were absolutely sincere, however -mistaken. Then Butler, who respected, as he often -told me, every kind of sincerity, would humble -himself and make apologies that were not always -accepted, and in the grey eyes, like a little fire on a -cold hearth, I would see a melting kindness that it -must have been hard to resist. The virtuous are -not always the generous, neither are they always -as wise as Solomon.</p> - -<p>At that time I was a very busy student working -from morning to night, otherwise I should have tried -to see more of Butler. There is nothing so winning -as a look of helpful kindness in a mocking face. -Besides, he was a good deal my senior and seniority -is attractive to ingenuous youth; and I was then -ingenuous. I sometimes think I have lost all my -opportunities; the chance of knowing Butler well -was one of these. Slowly I have come to feel that -affection for human nature which is at the root of all -poetry and art, whether the poet be pessimist or -optimist. Had I stayed much with Butler I should -have learned my lesson almost at once. Matthew -Arnold’s “sweetness and light” was not much to -his taste, and he cared nothing for the high ethics of -Wordsworth. An affectionate mother, such as we -have among the peasants of Ireland, where mother-love<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> -is a passion, does not want her children to be -good half as much as she wants them to be happy. -It was so Butler regarded poor, struggling and -deceived human nature. <em>There</em> was the source of -his “good nature” and of his influence. In this -he was pre-eminently English of the English, and in -this there was nothing of the system maker or the -philanthropist. Nor was he a philosopher or anything -else except a mere man touching and handling -the concrete matters of everyday life. With tenderness -of humour and a most real poetry he touched, -healingly, all the sores of ailing humanity.</p> - -<p>Butler liked women but disapproved of marriage. -He liked women because, as I heard him say, they -are so good natured. They would laugh with him -but never at him. Then they are obedient and -teachable and the dominie within him liked pupils. -His attitude towards them was a smiling indulgence. -The charming women of those backward days were -still in the Middle Ages, apologetic, almost penitential, -as if they asked pardon for being so beautiful -or so merry and engaging, and did not a bit mind -if Butler regarded them as inferior, especially as -towards them he was always kindly and fatherly and -innocent. It is quite easy to see why Butler disliked -marriage; it would have curtailed his freedom to -follow out all his queer vagaries of Butlerian thought -and inclination. This consideration does not affect -the ordinary Englishman of coarser grain, tenacious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> -of his ancient right to do what he likes with his -own, his own being his wife and children and -servants and “all that he possesses.” The ordinary -Englishman lives alone in his English home, lord -and master of it, with his wife second in command. -Butler, of course, could not so live; therefore to -keep his liberty he dismissed forever the thought of -a married home. Had he married I have no doubt -he would have chosen a helpmate not likely to -dispute his supremacy. I knew Miss Savage, the -model for his good woman in “The Way of All -Flesh.” She was a student at the art school and -not very young, and she was lame; life had disciplined -her. She was fair, with a roundish face -and light blue eyes that were very sensitive and full -of light; a small head, her features charmingly -mobile and harmonious. She radiated goodness -and sense. She kept herself very much to herself, -yet all liked her, even though we never spoke to her. -Butler soon discovered that she laughed easily; but -as usual he was cautious. One day he consulted me -as to whether he could with safety ask her a school-boy -riddle he had picked up somewhere, a school-boy -riddle in that, though quite innocent, it was not -altogether nice. I don’t remember how I advised, -only that they became fast friends.</p> - -<p>Though he avoided marriage, his flesh was weak. -“I have a little needle-woman, a good little thing. -I have given her a sewing machine. I go to see<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> -her.” As he made his confession he retired backwards, -bowing his head several times as in mockery -of himself and acknowledgment of a sad necessity -from which even he was not exempt. For it was -given to him also to tread “The Way of All Flesh.” -It was always part of his philosophy that he should -confess his sins, besides being a necessity to his -social nature and one of his most engaging qualities.</p> - -<p>Though he professed to despise Greek plays he -was a good classical scholar. Outside the classics -he had read nothing except Shakespeare and “The -Origin of Species” and the Bible. For him “The -Origin of Species” was the book of books. If he -took a fancy to a student he would watch him for a -few days and then approach him with cautious -ceremony—he was always ceremonious—and ask -him if he had read <em>the book</em> and perhaps offer to -lend it to him. I am proud to remember that he -lent it to me. “The Origin of Species” had, as he -told me, completely destroyed his belief in a personal -God; so occasionally instead of the usual -question he would ask the student if he believed in -God. In this he did not confine himself to students. -There was a nude model named Moseley who often -sat to us at Heatherleigh’s. He liked this model, -in whom he found a whimsical uprightness that -appealed to his sense of things. Once in the deep -silence of the class I heard him asking, “Moseley, -do you believe in God?” Without altering a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> -muscle or a change of expression, Moseley replied, -“No, sir, don’t believe in old Bogey.” The form -of the answer was unexpected; its cheerful cockney -impudence was beyond even Butler’s reach of -courage. He retired in confusion, and we laughed. -We liked a laugh at Butler’s expense. Besides, in -those days most of us were orthodox; in fact had -never given a thought to the question of Deity. But -that fear kept them quiet, there were some valiant -spirits who would have cried out against him, since -then as well as now, in America as well as in -England, an orthodox inertia was characteristic of -artists. They do not go to church, they never give -a thought to religion, but they are profoundly -orthodox in a deep, untroubled somnolency. I -remember that one man, a very successful student, -did engage in controversy and was highly sentimental -in a dandified, affected way. Butler’s reply -was one word repeated several times—“Pooh!” -that ended it. I have no doubt that that gentleman -still retains his orthodoxy. When a belief rests on -nothing you cannot knock away its foundations.</p> - -<p>Butler’s father was a wealthy dean of the Church -of England, and, I fancy, pompous and authoritative. -He told me that his father never became -excited unless the dinner was late. When he broke -away from orthodoxy and announced his intention -of becoming an artist instead of a clergyman, his -family refused him all assistance. Nor is it true<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> -that his father helped him in his New Zealand -venture. He himself told me that he managed to -borrow from friends £10,000, and that he was more -proud of that than of anything else in his life. He -stayed in New Zealand four years, after which a -lucky turn on the market enabled him to return to -England and repay the money, while keeping -enough to support himself in his pursuit of art. He -liked to tell of his New Zealand life and of his -hatred of sheep. They were always getting lost, so -that he said the word “sheep” would be found -engraved on his heart. He did not know one of his -horses from another or from anybody else’s horse, -and said he was like the Lord, whose delight is not -in the strength of a horse.</p> - -<p>Sam Butler’s desire for truth and his stripping -away from life and belief all the veils of illusion was -the characteristic of a man truly poetic. He and -his pupil, G. B. Shaw, by their passion for sincerity, -help the imaginative life. When Michael Angelo -maintained that only the Italians understood art, -Vittoria Colonna pointed out that the German pictures -touched the feelings. “Yes,” he replied, -“because of the weakness of our sensibilities.” -Poetry and the imaginative life can only flourish -where truth is of supreme moment; an education -which contents itself with half-knowledge and half-thought -will inevitably produce a crowd of sentimentalists -and false poets and rhetoricians. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> -great artist and the great poet have rigorous minds. -Michael Angelo said of those German pictures that -they were only fit for “women, ecclesiastics and -people of quality.” After all a poet must believe, -and without rigorous thinking there is no sense of -belief.</p> - -<p>To know things thoroughly, or not at all,—this -was the habit of Butler’s mind, derived from his -classical education, in which the whole stress is on -the minutiæ of scholarship. For instance, he told -me that he never studied music till he was twenty-one -years of age, after which he gave to it every -moment he could spare. Yet he only cared for -Händel, content that all the rest should be to him -an unknown world. What he could not study -thoroughly he would not study at all. In his eyes -superficial knowledge was superficial ignorance and -the mental habits engendered by it disastrous. -Among painters he valued chiefly those who, like -John Bellini, are thorough to minuteness. Though -he professed to despise style he was a precisian in -words. At a restaurant which he and I frequented -for our midday meal he met a man who said he -never “used” hasty pudding. This application of -the verb “use” was to him a source of endless -amusement. I have heard him tell the story many -times.</p> - -<p>I think he read Shakespeare continually. I know -he read no other poetry, although he did glance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> -once a little wistfully at Whitman,—“the catalogue -man,” he called him. All the same he was a -genuine Englishman and brooded in the imaginative -mood of a self-centred solitude which could not -be shared with anyone, as the sympathetic Frenchman -lives in the imaginative mood of an expansive -existence which he would share with everyone.</p> - -<p>I remember the last time I saw Butler. I was -sitting at breakfast, alone, in a lodging in an out of -the way part of London, having come from Ireland -the night before after an absence of seven or eight -years. I saw him passing and in glad surprise at -once raised the window, meaning to hail him. But -I reflected sadly and changed my mind, closing the -window and returning to my breakfast, as I thought: -“God forbid that I should intrude myself uninvited -on any Englishman.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span><br /> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span></p> - - -<div class="chapter"></div> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h2 class="no-brk"><a name="BACK_TO_THE_HOME" id="BACK_TO_THE_HOME">BACK TO THE HOME</a></h2> - -<div class="figleft" style="width: 89px;"> -<img src="images/i_023.png" width="89" height="90" alt="E" /> -</div> - -<p class="pfirst">VERYWHERE or almost everywhere -among English-speaking peoples the -monarchical principle is under notice to -quit. In the school it is the boy and not -the master who rules; even in the courts the judges -interpreting the law go cautiously, in fear of public -disfavour; finally, change has reached the home and -the family, which were wont to be a dual monarchy—the -mother ruling within the house and the father -his own world outside. Just as business is a matter -of committees and syndicates and corporations—the -individual man a mere wheel or pulley in some -immense machine which is controlled by a cold-blooded -arithmetician—so, inside the home, the -mother is superseded by an expert, some specialist -in up-to-date science or quackery who occupies her -place and asks to sit where she sat. Can we wonder -that she sometimes leaves vacant her chair and goes -in pursuit of distraction?</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span></p> - -<p>It is a curious change and means much; for one -thing, the world has lost its two most picturesque -figures—the master of the house and its mistress. -When hospitality was hospitality, it meant that you -were admitted for a brief while to bask in the smiles -of two gracious sovereigns—the lord and the lady -of the house that entertained you—their good-will, -radiating forth to warm you, the real attraction, to -which the wine and the food and the guests were -only secondary, so much heart on their side creating -a heart within your own narrow ribs. Now all is -changed, and the entertainment is more important -than the entertainers. We come to be pleased, we -no longer come to please; the old delicious autocracy -with its smiling court of sympathetic and affectionate -guests has tumbled into the dust, the feelings of -host and hostess, the home cookery and the old-fashioned -house with its gathered associations are -nothing to us; we demand to dine where the food -and drink are up to date, so we dine at a restaurant, -where are noise, distraction and confusion. I -myself would sooner dine in a good man’s kitchen. -Personal rule is at an end. The host used authoritatively -to lead the talking and the hostess controlled -it, for, though too busy to talk, she was never too -busy to listen, and the guests took care that the -conversation flowed in her direction and sought her -approval. In my youth, after the dinner-things -were removed, we sat around an ancient mahogany<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> -table, on which there was not, as in later times, any -garish white cloth. It would have been gloomy -but for the many-coloured reflections cast into its -polished depths from wine-filled glasses and decanters -and from the faces and dresses of the -guests. Overhead were candelabra, the sole light -in the room; outside the circle of diners such deep -shadows that the faces looked like portraits by -Rembrandt; and when, at the proper moment, the -hostess and her ladies swept out of the room, leaving -us to our men-talk, how lean would fall the entertainment! -And it was our hostess we missed, so -much divinity did hedge her.</p> - -<p>The monarchical principle is extinct in the home, -it is likewise extinct in the schools. I was educated -at a school where the master ruled by terror. He -was a Scotchman and knew no other method, and -we were not in the least bit democratic. But if we -trembled before him we did not fear one another. -There were between fifty and sixty of us, a curious -collection of diversities; not a boy in the place who -had not something marked in him, either by his -own strength or because of his home individuality. -It was a time when parents had little money and -travelling expenses were heavy, so that holidays -were scanty and far apart. For instance, we never -went home at Christmas. The cheap railway had -not yet everywhere supplanted the mail coach. -Yet we lived haunted by the thought of our homes,—it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> -possessed us, it obsessed us, it was our food -and drink with which we fed our imaginations and -spiritually nourished ourselves. We would talk incessantly -to one another of our homes; and friendships, -our only solace in that abode of sternness, -were made up of similarities of taste and experience -in the matter of homes. The methods of education -were, if you like, brutal; but the brutality made our -homes all the dearer. We leaned heavily on the -thought of our homes; while in our happiness, as -in our misery, we possessed a faculty of concentration -unknown to boys educated in the latitudinarian -methods of the modern schools. Whether it was -our first Latin author, Cornelius Nepos, or our Latin -exercises, or the horrible Latin grammar of that -period, or the big Latin dictionary or Greek lexicon—implements -of education whose repulsiveness was -supposed to add to their efficiency—or our letters -from home, or our long talks of home and yearnings -for home—no matter what the subject, we brought -to it an intensity that would have been foreign to the -careless boys of this effeminate age. I remember a -boy under twelve who talked to me in whispers of -his father and mother not being friendly, and of his -mother preferring to him his younger brother. -There was another boy whose trouble was that -there was so little money at home. There was yet -another very little boy, who would take me aside -and read long letters from a beautiful sister married<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> -to a military officer in India. Depend upon it, -there is nothing that concentrates the mind like -having for schoolmaster a conscientious Scotchman -teaching Greek and Latin in the old clumsy -methods.</p> - -<p>A young boy is mostly regarded as something -quite outside the pale of sympathy and understanding. -Only his mother can endure him, and -she because, as many think, love has made her -blind. Yet in himself he is of all beings the most -ingenuously and ingeniously human, and a veritable -fountain of imaginative desire, who, if he do but -retain his spontaneity, may become a Charles Lamb -or a Coleridge or a Shelley; or, if he be built on the -grand scale, a Dante or a Michael Angelo. The -mission of the modern school is for the boys themselves -to take in hand this little boy and, by force -of their own rude animalism and with joyous pressure, -strip him of everything exceptional and compel -him to take on another likeness. I remember -an English lady telling me that she had been to visit -a great public school to see her son, a little boy. -She told me that at a distance she could not distinguish -him from any other boy; and she smiled -helplessly as she added that it was the ambition of -every little boy in that famous school to be exactly -like the other little boys. And yet we wonder that -the world no longer produces distinguished individualities. -This mother knew that her boy would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> -come back to her the average boy, to grow into the -average man, like his father, like his uncle, like -everybody else. A friend of mine, a most interesting -man, very happy in his hobbies and in his -dreams and visions and beliefs, a poet though without -learning, and without the sweet accomplishment -of verse, lamented that he had not been kept longer -at school, where, as he said, he might have had all -the “nonsense knocked out of him.” The poor -fellow does not know how happy and interesting he -is; he only knows that his wife and all his friends -find him different from other people and on this -account disapprove of him. Yet there was an old -French artist in 1830 who advised his friends to -cultivate their faults carefully.</p> - -<p>The old methods were brutal and made the boys -brutal, yet they, at any rate, did not break down -and insidiously destroy singularity of character as -is being done every day by the democratic methods -of modern schools. A celebrated master of Eton -in the eighteenth century said, “My business is to -teach Greek, not morality.” In that robust century -people did not take much thought about one another. -You might be unhappy and all astray, but -they let you alone; provided you did your Greek -right, your morals were your own affair. Chatham -may have left Eton a “cowed” boy, as he implied -he did, yet he brought with him an individuality of -a quality so angular and so challenging that it is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> -impossible to believe it could have survived had it -been ground between the upper and nether millstones -of modern school-boy life. These schools, -both in America and in England, with their great -prestige and with the boys in full control, have -become so powerful in moulding character that it -is no longer accurate to say “the boy is father of -the man,” but rather, “the school-boy is father of -the man.” In Ireland things are different. The old -brutal methods being discarded, the boys do not -fear the master, neither do they fear each other, -and the explanation is that the Irishman, man and -boy, gentle and simple, is much more of an aristocrat -than a democrat. He belongs to his home and -to his family; he has the passion for home and -family, he passes through school or college without -really belonging to either of them.</p> - -<p>For that reason the home among the Irish remains -stronger than any school or college, exactly the -reverse of what has happened in England and may -happen in America. When I say an Irishman, -gentle or simple, is an aristocrat, I do not mean that -he is a person of class or wants to be one, or that he -bears the slightest resemblance to the modern -English nobleman, but I do mean that he likes to -think that he is a person of distinction, and that he -differs from all other men, and values himself accordingly. -Nature herself would, if we did not -thwart her, evolve each man on a different plan; as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> -she makes every leaf and every twig and every tree -in the forest different from all its fellows. She has -an Irish delight in diversity, and smiles to see her -sturdy children each fighting for its own hand.</p> - -<p>The typical Irish family is poor, ambitious, and -intellectual; and all have the national habit, once -indigenous in “Merry England,” of much conversation. -In modern England they like a dull man -and so they like a dull boy. We like bright men -and bright boys. When there is a dull boy we send -him to England and put him into business where -he may sink or swim; but a bright boy is a different -story. Quickly he becomes the family confidant, -learning all about the family necessities; with so -much frank conversation it cannot be otherwise. -He knows every detail in the school bills and what -it will cost to put him through the university, and -how that cost can be reduced by winning scholarships -and prizes. As he grows older he watches, -like an expert, the younger brothers coming on, and -is eager to advise in his young wisdom as to their -prospects. He studies constantly, perhaps overworks -himself while his mother and sisters keep -watch; and yet he is too serious, and they on their -side are too anxious for compliments. It is indeed -characteristic of the Irish mother that, unlike the -flattering mothers of England, she loves too -anxiously to admire her children; with her intimate -knowledge there goes a cautious judgment. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> -family habit of conversation into which he enters -with the arrogance of his tender years gives him the -chance of vitalizing his newly acquired knowledge. -Father, mother, brothers and sisters are all on his -mind; and the family fortunes are a responsibility. -He is not dull-witted, as are those who go into business -to exercise the will in plodding along some -prescribed path; on the contrary, his intellect is in -constant exercise. He is full of intellectual curiosity, -so much conversation keeping it alive, and -therein is unlike the English or the American boy. -Indeed, he experiences a constant temptation to -spend in varied reading the time that should be -given to restricted study. He is at once sceptical -and credulous, but, provided his opinions are expressed -gaily and frankly, no one minds. With us -intellect takes the place which in the English home -is occupied by the business faculty. We love the -valour of the free intellect; so that, the more audacious -his opinion, the higher rise the family hopes. -He and all his family approve of amusement—to do -so is an Irish tradition unbroken from the days -before St. Patrick; but they have none. They are -too poor and too busy; or rather they have a great -deal, but it is found in boyish friendships and in the -bonds of the strongest family affection, inevitable -because they are Irish and because they have hopes -that make them dependent upon one another. The -long family talks over the fire, the long talks between<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> -clever boys on country walks—these are not -the least exciting amusements—even though they -bear no resemblance to what is called “sport.”</p> - -<p>These are the gifts of the Irish home; among the -poor, affection infinite as the sea, which, because of -an idleness which is not their fault, has had full -scope to grow into an intensity of longing that makes -it sometimes hungry as the sea; among the better-off, -ambition also and a free intellect; and in everybody -an ancient philosophy of human nature which -warms rather than chills human relations.</p> - -<p>The English boy has an entirely different history. -He enters some famous historical school, anxious, -like his parents and all his aunts and cousins, that -he be stamped and sealed with its approval. His -desire is to be an Eton, Harrow, or Rugby boy, -after which he will become an Oxford or Cambridge -man, marked in his accent, clothes, and manner -with the sign-manual of his university. For the -Irish boy this is as impossible as it is repugnant. -His home is stronger than his school and his college. -In the great English schools the boys manage one -another; a system of rules and of etiquette has -democratically grown up which all must obey; this -kind of docility is English and not Irish. Our boys -cannot thus surrender themselves, for behind the -Irish boy is the drama of a full home life. There -is no such drama in English home life—it is prosperous, -uneventful, and lies icily cold in the lap of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> -law. The Irish home, in which so much happens, -awaits its novelist; but, alas! English readers won’t -read novels about Ireland, and Irish readers are too -few to make their custom worth anybody’s attention. -All we know is that the Irishman is, boy and -man, a detached personality. He is often the -gayest and most sociable of beings, and a true -comrade, and he may be able to adapt himself to -every situation, yet he remains apart; even with his -friends he is inscrutable, he cannot be read. And -this to my mind is right, for no one should be able -to read another’s secret, except the mother who bore -him, and sometimes a sweetheart. The ordinary -well-to-do Englishman has no secrets, for you can -read them all in his bank-book, in his Catechism, -in the rules of his club and the laws of his country. -He is an admirable citizen on whom you can calculate -as on a railway time-table. The English -mother when she parts from her boy at the school -doors may sigh to think that she has lost her boy, -yet be proud to think that he will return remodelled -into the smart Eton or Harrow boy. The Irish -mother has no such hopes and no such fears; her -boy will come back what he was when he left her -side, and though he go to India, and rule provinces, -with many well-trained public-school Englishmen -working under him, he will still remain the passionate -Irish boy of her heart’s desire.</p> - -<p>The great factor in the Irish education is not the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> -school, but the Irish home, unique in its combination -of small means, intellect, and ambition with -conversation. Without this conversation the home -would not be Irish. From every manor-house and -cabin ascends the incense of pleasant talk; it is that -in which we most excel. With us all journeys end -in talkers’ meeting; “we are the greatest talkers -since the Greeks,” said Oscar Wilde. When any -Irish reform is proposed—and they are innumerable—I -always ask, how will it affect our conversation? -France has her art and literature, England her -House of Lords, and America her vast initiative; -we have our conversation. We watch impatiently -for the meals, because we are hungry and thirsty -for conversation; not for argument’s sake or to -improve ourselves, but because we spontaneously -like one another. We like human voices and faces -and the smiles and gestures and all the little drama -of household colloquy, varying every moment from -serious to gay, with skill, with finesse; we like -human nature for its own sake, and we like it vocal—that -is why we talk; we even like our enemies, -on the Irish principle that it is “better to be quarrelling -than to be lonesome.” Arthur Symons, -staying in a pilot’s cottage on the west of Ireland, -said to my daughter: “I don’t believe these people -ever go to bed.” No, they have so much to say to -one another.</p> - -<p>“England,” said Bernard Shaw, “cannot do<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> -without its Irish and Scots to-day because it cannot -do without at least a little sanity.” Both these -nations are conversational.</p> - -<p>The home must play its part vigorously if the race -is to be saved for affection and happiness, and if we -would bring back the conditions from which spring -art and poetry.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span><br /> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span></p> - - -<div class="chapter"></div> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h2 class="no-brk"><a name="WHY_THE_ENGLISHMAN_IS_HAPPY" id="WHY_THE_ENGLISHMAN_IS_HAPPY">WHY THE ENGLISHMAN IS HAPPY</a></h2> - -<p class="pfs150"><span class="smcap">An Irishman’s Notes on the Saxon Temperament</span></p> - -<div class="figleft" style="width: 89px;"> -<img src="images/i_037.png" width="89" height="90" alt="I" /> -</div> - -<p class="pfirst">N the long quest for self-knowledge and -self-fulfilment there are two types of -men and two methods. There are some -who would have the individual man -care only for himself morning, noon, and night, for -his spirit, his mind, his body, his temporal and -eternal welfare. There are others who would say -he should forget himself and lose himself in great -ideas, great causes, great enthusiasms, in passionate -love or humanitarianism, or even in the anger of -battle. Of these two methods the second is found -in France while the first is the Englishman’s creed.</p> - -<p>The English are a fortunate people, or seemed so -in the happy past, their primal good fortune being -that they lived and grew up on an island surrounded -by stormy seas and fenced in by high cliffs. Their -second good fortune sprang out of the first; they -never submitted themselves to a strong central<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> -government. Of all people in the known world, -they were the least governed; of all men the Englishman -was the freest, little more being required of -him than that he should live on good terms with his -neighbours. Doubtless one of these neighbours was -the brutal Norman noble who regarded him as an -inferior being of an inferior race, and as a landlord -oppressed him. Outside this relation of landlord -and tenant, and of superior and inferior, he lived a -free man among his fellows without, indeed, the -dignity and honour of being a soldier, but also without -his constant subjection and unrelaxing discipline. -He was a boor, but his thoughts were his -own; and his language, being different from that of -his oppressor, afforded him an additional protection. -He lived in his own world—he lived apart among -his own race and kindred.</p> - -<p>The other nations on the continent of Europe, -notably France, lay open to one another’s ravages; -and for that reason had always to remain under -arms, every man a soldier, martial law superseding -all other laws. However England might war with -other nations, however she might despoil them, pursuit -and revenge were impossible; behind her cliffs -she was safe. No matter how great the cloud of -hatred or what it threatened, she lived in security -and laughed at her enemies. The peasant returned -in peace to his village and his plough, the merchant -to his shop, and the noble to his castle; while crimes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> -that could not be punished left no visitings of -remorse. The English grew in liberty and in the -arts of peace while other nations grew in the arts of -war and lost their liberty. The English poor man -was never taught his military dignity, but he was -taught his social inferiority; yet, while he bowed -down, as he still does, before his social superior, -his thoughts remained free; the better part of liberty -remained to him. Froissart was astonished at the -squalor in which the English peasant lived; yet, had -he looked a little closer, he would have seen that -under the smouldering ashes on his hearth a fire -was burning that had long been extinct in his own -country.</p> - -<p>The French government was a military despotism, -and since tyranny begets tyranny and seeks to -extend itself, it speedily drew to itself the forces of -religion, art and education, and allied them in one -vast conspiracy against the forces of freedom; so -that from the first the people were trained in submission -to power, authority and tradition. It was -an eager and spontaneous submission, the soldier -proud to follow his captain, the student eager to -listen to his teacher, and the Catholic anxious to -obey the command of his priest. The people were -accomplices in their own enthralment; the more so -since there was this discretion reserved in the exercise -of dominion: all were free to think out and -draw their own conclusions, provided that the State,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> -the Church, and the academies furnished the premises. -Deductive logic was free; inductive logic, -the higher order, the kings, soldiers, magistrates -and statesmen kept in their own hands. As time -advanced the French became a nation of teachers -and orators as well as soldiers, while the creative -impulse was everywhere arrested and hampered -Welded together and bound and clamped into a -nation by their military and ecclesiastical organizations, -the French rapidly acquired the instinct of -solidarity; and the individual dwindled until he -became a mere unit of the state. This feeling of -solidarity combined with the free exercise of deductive -logic, resulting in a fertility of beautiful ideas—beautiful -as rainbows on a stormy sky—and the -missionary habit. Of all men the Frenchman is the -most picturesque and the most attractive, as he is -also the most eloquent and the most persuasive. In -literature, in life, in everything, the French genius -is social and sympathetic and propagandist.</p> - -<p>The Englishman is the contrary of all this. He -has a passion for liberty and cares little for equality, -fraternity, or any of the ideals which are the glory -of the French intellect. He is, indeed, so entirely -without the faculty of ideas that even his feeling for -liberty has never become an idea or a doctrine; he -has no intellectual cognizance of it; it is merely his -habit. A something which from long use has -grown into him and become part almost of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> -physiology, it is in his blood and in his bones and -remains by him always, keeping vigilant watch and -ward. But it is for himself alone; it is not for -universal application; it is not his philosophy. So -that when he robs another nation, as in the case of -India or Ireland, and, in order to facilitate the theft, -first takes away that nation’s liberty, his conscience -does not smite him, for by liberty he always means -English liberty, which includes the privilege of -robbing any nation that is weak enough to stand it. -To me a Frenchman is always like a student; either -as he is when he works diligently at his studies or -as he is when he plays truant, breaks away from -discipline, and defies his teachers. An Englishman, -on the other hand, is a person untutored, who has -never been either to school or to college; he has -neither the attractiveness of the diligent student nor -the excesses of the rebel student. He is still almost -what he was when he came first from his Maker’s -hands.</p> - -<p>Besides his exemption from military organization -and a central government, there is yet another fact -to be noted in the Englishman’s history. A peaceful -immigration into his country has been as difficult -as a warlike invasion. In other countries, when the -population was reduced by plague and pestilence, -the void was quickly filled up by an inrush of -hungry foreigners; in England this was impossible. -There a sudden fall in population meant a sudden<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> -rise in the abundance of food, because there was -no one to come from outside to take the food out of -men’s mouths. The population of mediæval -England remained always small. The Englishman’s -native joviality and ease of heart were his song of -triumph over a condition in which, if he managed -to survive, he lived easily and fed well and clothed -himself warmly. If other people died, so much the -worse for them and the better for him. To this day -the Englishman takes extraordinary care of his -health. The French and Irish contempt for death -is to him a continual and a shocking surprise. He -never needed to work hard; he faced no great -struggles; he merely took care of his health.</p> - -<p>In those far-off days of ease, little work, and -much mortality the Englishman acquired all his -habits, all his positive and negative qualities, -together with that fear of death which we know -oppressed Dr. Johnson; and though the last hundred -years have much blunted his characteristics, the -pattern still remains. He is still given to much -self-contemplation in its various forms of self-complacency, -self-examination, self-condemnation, -and self-exultation. He talks continually of himself; -deprived of that subject and of what is akin to -it, he is a silent man. Not to be the subject of -conversation, neither to be praised nor abused, is -to him a disconcerting experience. He is not vain; -it is merely that his occupation is gone. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> -Americans are too busy with their own growing -fortunes to remember his existence, and for that -reason he is, here in New York, either so gentle -and sad or so peppery and quarrelsome as to be -quite unrecognizable. He is no longer himself. -In his own country he is an unwearied egotist. -When pleased it is with himself, when displeased -it is still with himself. With his neighbours he is -often sulky; yet his worst quarrels are with himself, -and therefore the hardest to reconcile. His -variations are variations not of idea, but of mood. -The French live in a ferment of opinion; it is their -atmosphere—man contending against man with -noise, vociferation, oratory, and much action and -movement. Among the English there is always -the silence of inward communing, the stillness of a -people overweighted with meditation. In France -new schools of art and movements in literature are -the triumphs or—it may be—the eccentricities and -freaks of the logical process. In England such -movements mean the welcome or unwelcome -emergence into light of a new species. French -impressionism was ushered into the world with loud -argument. Turner’s art was something inscrutable -and mysterious, the expression of a temperament -that did not argue and looked for no converts. -Under any strong excitement the Englishman withdraws -into himself as into the security of his own -home. The Frenchman, on the contrary, gets<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> -away from himself into the world of friends and -ideas and starts a propaganda to embrace the -world. He seeks to impress; his literature and art -are full of dramatic surprises, while English art and -literature have always avoided startling effects; and, -if they impress, do so accidentally, as a tall mountain -might the people who lived in the valley. -They continually spring forth from the mysterious -depths of personality, and, concerning themselves -only with moods of feeling, rely for expression on -rhythm and music. A personality cannot explain -itself or account for itself; it can only cure its ache -and soothe its irritability by the music—the long-drawn-out -or fantastic music of artistic creation. -French art and literature concern themselves with -ideas, and their effort is to make these brilliant, -orderly and specious, using the emphasis and -animation and sonorousness of art rather that its -deeper music. So that in France they watch for a -distinguished intellect, while in England we look -for an individuality that is at once powerful, -strange, and intimate, its expression intelligible -only to those who have explored the farthest -recesses of consciousness. In France we find a -garden, in England a wilderness. Yet, do not -forget, the gardener will often visit the wilderness -in search for new plants and shrubs. The inductive -mind sows that which the deductive mind plants -out and waters.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span></p> - -<p>The egotist is popularly supposed to be a -wearisome chatterbox incessantly talking about -himself; and such men do abound in England. An -egotist is any man who habitually and instinctively -makes himself, his likings and dislikings, the sole -test of truth; and it is only when there is some -streak of folly or childishness that he becomes the -garrulous chatterbox. Of these men some are -delightful humorists, as was Charles Lamb, or -undelightful, as was his boisterous brother John. -Among them are, in fact, all sorts, including all -the bores, cranks and faddists, with the innumerable -company of monologists; including also the -great pioneers and forerunners of thought in poetry -and art: the Shakespeares, Turners, Hogarths, and -Constables.</p> - -<p>Socially, the egotist, where there is not some -great compensating charm, is a failure; he does not -amalgamate; he is ever an alien in the company, a -difficult person. You don’t know whether to make -much of him or drop him altogether. At a dinner-party -the Englishman is apt to be that sad mistake, -a guest who has to be apologized for. Lovers are -always poor company except with each other. This -is proverbial, and the Englishman is always in -love—that is, with himself. The sociable man, the -welcome guest, is in love with other people. As -it is in the lighter matters of social intercourse, so -it is in graver matters. Gladstone, who, as a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> -Scotchman in England, was an acute critic, once -wrote that the Englishman needed a great deal of -discipline; and this is true. A community whose -members are not spontaneously amenable to one -another’s feelings must have definite rules laid -down and enforced by definite penalties. On the -other hand, the Frenchman, with his social impulses -and social training, knows “how to behave.” He -does not need to get rules by heart, for he has -intuition; and where he has not this inner light he -turns naturally to reason, the great sociable spirit, -the friendly arbiter, the wise judge before whom all -men are equal. The English egotist has not this -social impulse; neither does he willingly appeal to -reason. Latterly he has become saturated with -class feeling, which is neither sociable nor reasonable; -but his original instinct, to which he -constantly returns, is to regard himself as neither -a superior nor an inferior, but different; a humorist -who cannot be classed and to whom no general -rules can apply; and such a man will not readily -appeal to a tribunal before which all men are -equal.</p> - -<p>The Frenchman is a gentleman; he has the finer -instinct, the finer training, and the finer intelligence; -wanting these, the Englishman has to be taught by -the cumbrous methods of reward and punishment; -he learns under the whip and becomes more like a -well-trained animal than a reasonable human being.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> -Yet—such is the blessedness of mere habit—even -he ends by doing quite cheerfully what he learned -most unwillingly. Legality, hard-and-fast rules -that must not be broken and that are interpreted in -the narrowest spirit, depressing enough in all conscience -although they be, are to him an enjoyment -and a matter of incessant thought; since if they -circumscribe, they also define and secure the spaces -of personal liberty. They are his substitute for -ideas, and, if they excite no enthusiasm and are -some of them admittedly bad, all the same, he -makes it his glad duty to obey them. Outside -these laws he is intractable and inclined to be -surly, quarrels with his neighbours, and is as -jealous and suspicious of his rights as a dog with a -bone. Yet the Englishman is not unhappy. He -has the happiness of a perpetual self-complacency. -Indeed, your self-absorbed egotist will sometimes -extract enjoyment of a kind out of the consciousness -that he is a wet blanket and a perpetual embarrassment -and kill-joy; it does not quicken the pulses, -but it flatters his sense of power, and, strange as it -may seem, his sense of hatred. At any rate, I -have met such men both in England and elsewhere. -And yet there is another side to the picture; for -this self-contained egotist, when trained in a good -school and taught the amenities of good behaviour, -and when he has received the discipline which -Gladstone said he so much needed, utters the best<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> -kind of talk, since it flows not out of the logic -which divides, but out of the inner personality -which makes the whole world kin. There is in his -conversation almost always a flavour of the intimate -and the confidential. He listens well, too, and -never contradicts or seeks to convince. Indeed, it -disappoints him to find one opinion where he -thought there had been two. Cultivated Englishmen -talking together are like men sitting in the -woods through a long summer’s night and listening -during the intervals of silence to the noise made by -a near-by stream or of a wind among the branches -or to the singing of a nightingale. So always -should mortals talk: clamorous and confident -argument are the resource of the intellectual half-breed.</p> - -<p>Out of his habit of mind the egotist gains two -valuable qualities. First of all he learns how to -manage himself. This, of course, is not the same -as the high and difficult art of self-mastery, yet it -counts for much that a man should know how to -get the best and leave out the worst from his life, -even though that life be in its essential mean and -meagre or vicious and self-indulgent. Self-management, -smooth and adroit, is eminently the Englishman’s -accomplishment. The other quality is still -more important; the egotist makes the best of all -husbands if regard be had to the ordinary woman’s -needs; for what are these if they are not all summed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> -up in the one word—companionship? Now a wife -cannot find a sufficing companionship in her -husband’s business concerns. Here she is beaten -by the confidential clerk. There is, however, one -kind of friendship, one kind of companionship, -which she alone can supply in the required -abundance; it is when the husband talks of himself. -Here is the chamber into which the wife enters -willingly when everybody else keeps away: the -husband’s talk of his pains and aches and tribulations. -There is the pain in his knee or his elbow, -or the never-to-be-sufficiently-indicated pain in his -head or his back, or his cough, and how it differs -from every previous cough in his experience, or -bears a dangerous resemblance to some other -body’s cough, together with the innumerable aches -of his wounded and exaggerated self-love. All this -wearisome detail about what is mostly nothing at -all and which everybody else flees from, the -“pleasing wife” listens to with an attentive and -intelligent and credulous ear. It is her duty, or -so she thinks it, and the greater the intelligence -the greater the credulity. There are happy wives -married to husbands whom it would bore to talk -about themselves, but the happiest woman, in -whom content ripens to its fullest, is the egotist’s -wife. Like a bee in a flower, she hides herself -almost out of sight in wifely devotion. He finds -happiness in living in and for himself, she in living<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> -out of herself and in him. Both are pleased. This -is English conjugal life as I have observed it; and -here in perfection we have side by side our two -methods of human growth.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span></p> - - -<div class="chapter"></div> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h2 class="no-brk"><a name="SYNGE_AND_THE_IRISH" id="SYNGE_AND_THE_IRISH">SYNGE AND THE IRISH.</a></h2> - -<div class="figleft" style="width: 90px;"> -<img src="images/i_051.png" width="90" height="90" alt="T" /> -</div> - -<p class="pfirst">HE acrimonious dispute carried on in the -newspapers over John M. Synge and -his plays is the eternal dispute between -the man of prose and the man of -imagination. Synge’s plays, his prefaces to his -plays, and his book on the Aran Islands, like his -conversation, describe a little community rich in -natural poetry, in fancy, in wild humour, and in -wild philosophy; as wild flowers among rocks, these -qualities spring out of their lives of incessant danger -and incessant leisure; there are also bitter herbs. -When I used to listen to Synge’s conversation, so -rare and sudden, as now when I read or listen to -what he has written, I can say to myself, “Here -among these peasants is the one spot in the British -Islands, the one spot among English-speaking -people, where Shakespeare would have found himself -a happy guest.”</p> - -<p>The people in Mr. Shaw’s plays would not have -bored him, only because nothing human would have -ever bored Shakespeare; but they would not have -inspired him. And though in their company he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> -might have stayed for a time and been perhaps as -witty as Oscar Wilde or Shaw, the lyrical Shakespeare, -the poetical and creating Shakespeare, -would soon have tired of their arid gaieties, and -have gone to sit with the courteous peasants round -their turf fires, that he might listen to their words, -musical sentences, musical names, folk tales, and -tales of apparitions, embodying images and thoughts -and theories of life and a whole variegated world -of lovely or bitter and sometimes savage emotion -out of which to construct poetical drama—a very -different thing from the drama of wit or satire or -sensationalism whose inspiration is prose.</p> - -<p>It was Synge’s luck that he found this people -before the modern reformer had improved them off -the face of the earth. Each of us has his destiny, -and this was his. Every event in his life and every -chance encounter did but help to push him along -till he found his real self by living among them in -the intimacy of their family life and in the closer -intimacy that came from speaking with them a -language into which they put their inmost feelings -and longings, using English for what was merely -external. It was his destiny to know these people -and reveal them, and then die; and to be denounced -as an obscene and indecent writer and artist by a -set of people who will not listen and therefore cannot -know, and whose service to Ireland consists in -striving to shout down every distinguished Irishman.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span></p> - -<p>Synge’s people are primitive in the sense that -they are unspoiled. A lady of fashion among the -Chinese would regard the foot of a European woman -as primitive; we think it is unspoiled. Synge’s -offence consists in showing that these people have -never been moulded into the pattern that finds -favour with the convent parlour and in the fashionable -drawing-room. New York is proud of its -progress and makes pretensions to high culture; and -yet New York might do worse than turn aside and -learn of these humble people. A young girl told -a friend of mine that what she and her companions -always look forward to in Ireland are the long -winter evenings around the kitchen fire when the -neighbours come in to talk. I fancy all New York -is in constant conspiracy to cut as short as possible -its dull winter evenings.</p> - -<p>In Ireland we are still medieval, and think that -how to live is more important than how to get a -living. When I was a young man if I announced -that I intended next morning at break of day to -start on some enterprise of amusement, or it might -be of high duty, the whole family would get up to -see me off; but if it were on some matter of mere -commercial gain, I would breakfast in the care of -the servants. It was thus through the whole of -Irish life. If Curran, for instance, fought a duel in -Phœnix Park at some unearthly hour, five hundred -sleepy Dublin citizens would rouse themselves out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> -of their beds and be there to see the fight, to witness -the courage of the combatants and enjoy the wit of -Curran, that never failed when danger threatened—and -in those days and in that country people shot -to kill. We Irish are still what we’ve always been, -a people of leisure; like people sitting at a play, we -watch the game of life, we enjoy our neighbours, -whether we love or hate them.</p> - -<p>Because of this enjoyment of the spectacle of life, -we have produced the ablest dramatists of latter-day -England: Farquhar, Goldsmith, Sheridan, -Oscar Wilde, G. B. Shaw, and finally John Synge. -And of these, Synge, though he died so young, is -the greatest. He stands apart from them all, because -he portrays peasant poetry and passion, and -a humour which cuts deep into the mystery and -terror of life. In the other dramatists we have -abundance of wit and liveliness, great powers of -enjoyment, and a commendable contempt for the -prudential virtues; but there is also a denial of -spirituality and but a modicum of poetry; the deeper -feelings are never sounded, while their pathos is -only a dainty pity, not the genuine article: not one -of them could have written “Riders to the Sea.” -Behind the Irish humour and pity are will and -intellect, as in Swift. In the drawing-room plays -of Synge’s predecessors there is merely the sensitive -nature, so easily chilled by what is not nice, becoming, -and charming. Those who object to Synge’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> -plays are suffering from the delicate stomach of -people who have lived effeminate lives. Dr. Swift -would have come to Synge’s plays and applauded -them.</p> - -<p>A good many years ago cultivated people and -others began to take an interest in the Irish peasant; -it added something to the gaiety of London and -Dublin drawing-rooms. But socialism and communism, -the labour party and anarchy, had not then -been invented to teach people the seriousness of -starving poverty. So Carleton and other writers -set to work to exploit the Irish peasant and make -him into something “fit for a lady’s chamber.” -Hence has arisen the foolish tradition that the Irish -are all gentleness and innocence, and, though -wildly amusing, still within the bounds of good -taste; hence also came the comic Irishman, a buffoon -without seriousness who lived by making -laughter for his patrons.</p> - -<p>Synge’s plays exist to prove the contrary of all -this. And yet there is some truth in the picture. -The Irish character has a side which is turned -toward spirituality and poetry, a musical instrument -exquisitely attuned to the beauties of nature -and life. Among this fighting race, square-chinned -and with short features, is scattered another type, -with long, oval faces and soft eyes, born to all -hoping gentleness and affection, with imagination -fed on the mysteries of life and death and religion.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> -This type Stella might have discovered had she not -been too English; Swift could not, because probably -he frightened it away. Yet Dr. Goldsmith was as -true an Irishman as Dr. Swift. How vividly Synge -knew this side of the Irish mind is shown in his -book on the Aran Islands. The other side is in his -plays.</p> - -<p>“A picture,” said Blake, “should be like a -lawyer presenting a writ.” Synge presents us with -such a picture. Let us be patient; people brought -up on the literature of good taste cannot be expected -all at once to enjoy the literature of power.</p> - -<p>“I can look at a knot in a piece of wood until I -am frightened by it,” so spake William Blake. -This is the creative imagination, and it is that of -folklore and of the Aran Islands. These people -know no distinction between natural and supernatural; -they believe everything to be carried on by -miracle; and the civilized man who does not know -that behind all science and reason and all moral -systems there is a something transcending all knowledge -and which is a continued miracle of love and -beauty is not only incapable of culture, he is incapable -of desiring it. To him the Bible is as -inscrutable as Shelley. These peasants are not as -well educated as, say, Mr. Rockefeller, yet they -have this feeling, this feeling which is the religion -of children and poets, and which is not subject for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> -reason at all—even though it be the source of our -whole intellectual life.</p> - -<p>False education is like the pressure which the -Chinese mother applies to the feet of her infant. -True education liberates. The industrial movement -would turn these peasants into smug artisans, without -a thought that consoles or a hope that elevates, -greedy, envious, and covetous, seeking only the -triumphs of selfishness. And yet man is naturally -a singing bird; sometimes he is singing in a cage of -childish and brutish ignorance; and sometimes, -though the cage be roomy and handsome, he does -not sing at all, has not the heart to do so. True -education would liberate him so that he could sing -in the open sky of knowledge and power and desire.</p> - -<p>Synge says of these people that they have “some -of the emotions thought peculiar to people who -have lived with the arts.” He also speaks of “the -singularly spiritual expression which is so marked” -on the faces of some of these women. And again -he says that “they are a people whose lives have -the strange quality that is found in the oldest legend -and poetry.” A priest told me that on his return -from America the servant said she was glad to see -him back, “for,” said she, “while you were away -there was a colour of loneliness in the air.” In -these people’s words, as in their lives, is the colour -of beauty, as the blue sky reflects itself in every -little pool of water among the rocks.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span></p> - -<p>As to Synge’s great comedy, “The Playboy of -the Western World,” could Synge have chosen a -better type for his hero than Christy Mahon? -Despite certain newspaper critics who have written -of the play, he is neither a weakling nor a fool, but -a young poet in the supreme difficulty of getting -born; only in this case the struggle is a little worse -than usual. He has a drink-maddened father of -great strength and most violent passions, whose -cruelty, backed by his strength, has driven away -all his family except this young boy. Of course, -Christy has no education, and his circumstances are -altogether so dreadful that to live at all he must -live the life of the imagination, wandering on the -hills poaching and snaring rabbits. Finally he -strikes his father with a spade, and in his terror -runs away from home. After travelling for many -days he arrives in Mayo and finds himself a hero; -not because he is a murderer, but because he is a -good-looking fellow in distress, and, as the sequel -proves, spirited withal and athletic. His talk about -the murder is a sudden freak of self-advertisement; -no one so cunning as your young poet! Besides, -he liked to be frightening himself. No one really -believes it, and the Widow Quinn is scornfully -sceptical; and when, later on, as they think, he -actually murders his father, every one turns against -him—his sweetheart, though it breaks her heart, -joining actively in handing him over to justice.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span></p> - -<p>In every well-constructed drama there is some -central point of interest around which all the other -incidents are grouped. The personality of the girl -Pegeen, Christy’s sweetheart, is here the central -interest. She towers over every one, not only by -her force, but by her maidenly purity and Diana-like -fierceness; nothing, neither the coarseness she -herself utters in wild humour, nor what the others -say or do, can soil her sunshine. And in the love-talk -between the lovers, he is all imagination and -poet’s make-believe, and she all heart and passion -and actuality, which is the peasant woman’s good -sense! It is among peasants of the west of Ireland -that the poetical dramatist must henceforth find his -opportunity. Young gentlemen and young ladies -in America have doctrinaire minds; they have -grown up attending classes and listening to lectures -in the atmosphere of a specious self-improvement, -and know nothing of the surroundings amid which -this peasant girl grew up straight and tall as a young -tree. Some day people will recognize in this play -Synge’s tribute to the Irish peasant girl. “And to -think it’s me is talking sweetly, Christy Mahon, and -I the fright of seven townlands for my biting tongue. -Well, the heart’s a wonder, and I’m thinking there -won’t be our like in Mayo for gallant lovers from -this hour.”</p> - -<p>The peasants of the west of Ireland are like -Christy Mahon; sorrow and danger and ignorance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> -are their daily portion, yet like him they live the -life of the imagination. Liberate them from what -oppresses, but so that they may still live the life of -the imagination.</p> - -<p>Synge’s history was peculiar. He took up music -as his profession and studied it in Germany, Rome, -and Paris; and having only a very small income, for -economy’s sake always lived with poor people. In -Paris he stayed with a man cook and his wife, who -was a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">couturière</i>. He told me that they had but -one sitting-room, in which the man did his cooking -and the wife her sewing, with another sewing-woman -who helped. When, as sometimes happened, -a large order for hats came in, Synge, who -by this time had given up music for philology, would -drop his studies and apply himself also to hat-making, -bending wires, etc. After a year or so he -moved into a hotel, where he met my son, who -urged him to leave Paris for the west of Ireland and -apply himself to the study of Irish. Among these -western peasants he thenceforth spent a great part -of every winter, living as one of the family, they -calling one another by their Christian names; and -he told me that he would rather live among them -than in the best hotel.</p> - -<p>Synge was morally one of the most fastidious men -I ever met, at once too sensitive and too proud and -passionate for anything unworthy. He was a well-built, -muscular man, with broad shoulders, carrying<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> -his head finely. He had large, light-hazel eyes -which looked straight at you. His conversation, -like his book on the Aran Islands, had the charm of -entire sincerity, a quality rare among men and -artists, though it be the one without which nothing -else matters. He neither deceived himself nor anybody -else, and yet he had the enthusiasm of the -poet. In this combination of enthusiasm and -veracity he was like that other great Irishman, -Michael Davitt. Like Davitt, also, he was without -any desire to be pugnacious; resolute, yet essentially -gentle, he was a man of peace.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span><br /> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span></p> - - -<div class="chapter"></div> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h2 class="no-brk"><a name="THE_MODERN_WOMAN" id="THE_MODERN_WOMAN">THE MODERN WOMAN</a></h2> - -<p class="pfs150"><span class="smcap">Reflections on a New and Interesting Type</span></p> - -<div class="figleft" style="width: 90px;"> -<img src="images/i_063.png" width="90" height="90" alt="Q" /> -</div> - -<p class="pfirst">UEEN Elizabeth, we know, had -many lovers, but was herself never in -love; and so she was able to get the -better of her cousin, Mary Queen of -Scots, who, poor soul! allowed herself to be -ensnared by the tender passion. Queen Elizabeth, -on the historic page, is a monster. Yet what was -singular in her is now quite general.</p> - -<p>It has been America which has given the world, -this strange type; like everything else that happens -in this country, she has sprung suddenly upon us, -as if she had neither father nor mother nor any -visible ancestry.</p> - -<p>She may be in a minority, yet she is not difficult -to discover, for she is most active, showing herself -everywhere. Nor is it difficult to describe her, -since she spends much of her time in describing -herself. In the first place, like the orator, she is -made rather than born; indeed, she is herself a good<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> -deal of an orator, always being ready to harangue -her friends, explaining and enforcing her ideas. -Self-improvement is her passion; improvement in -what direction? you will ask. She herself does not -know. Meantime she insists on absolute personal -liberty—moral, physical, mental, and also political. -That she may be free she places a ban on the senses -and upon sex; either of these would put her back -under subjugation. She announces herself to be -eager for affection, but its object must be some -person who is supernaturally perfect and complete; -anything else would be illogical and unworthy and -enslaving. And while her mother dreamed of a -life of love and duty in a world where both are -necessary because of its sorrowful imperfections, -she will be satisfied with nothing less than a perfect -love and a perfect affection. At the same time, -while resolved on liberty she does not forget that -she is born into a business community; therefore -she has adopted the business man’s creed—efficiency: -“Whatsoever thou doest, do it with all -thy might.”</p> - -<p>The young men know liberty to be a chimera—that -vision has never flattered their eyes. Life to -them means hard work and obedience and a constant -struggle in circumstances where everything is -compromise, and where even honesty is not always -the best policy; and as to success and the making -of money, even the greatest energy will not suffice<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> -if there be not good luck and the opportunity. -Unlike the women, these young men have their -dreams, for dreams are the solace of labour and -abstinence: dreams, first of all, of success and -fortune, of which they constantly speak; and then -another dream not so easy to talk about: that each -may marry some day the girl of his choice.</p> - -<p>Here you have American life as it is among the -young. The man under discipline and a dreamer; -the woman a triumphant egotist, and without any -dreams at all. And as to this liberty which she -haughtily demands, what is it, among the girls, -except the right to choose and dismiss her teachers, -abandoning everything and everybody as soon as -she ceases to feel interested? Never having been -curbed, she has not learned to prefer another to -herself. In vain nature cries out within her for the -sweet burden of service and sacrifice; she is much -too busy listening to her own voice, repeating its -new catch words: “I will be myself. I belong to -myself, I must lead my own life.” Once she enters -society and becomes a woman and meets men, she -acquires a very definite purpose, and goes straight -for it. Since she will not serve the men, let the -men serve her. “The American woman,” said a -languidly insolent Englishman to me, “are interesting; -the men are nonentities.” In the Englishman’s -conception, the man who does not take the -upper hand with his women is a poor creature.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span></p> - -<p>The ladies in England do not like the modern -American woman. Her success with their own -menkind is bitter to bear; yet they envy her. For -these men are serving woman as they never served -before; and it is precisely because, like the Englishman, -the modern woman is herself an egotist. -Egoism the Englishman understands: it has always -been his honoured creed and his practice; and here -at last is a woman who, because of her frank -selfishness, is perfectly intelligible; no longer the -mystery she used to be, but simple like a child’s -puzzle. Her frantic, brand-new egoism is not quite -the sober article he patronizes for himself, but it -delights him nevertheless, because it is so like his -own daily contest with antagonists whom he must -overcome in business. And here is a beautiful -enemy, whom he must both overcome and capture -and carry away with him as a prize of war; to be -the ornament of his house and a delight to the -eyes, to be his courtier, his worshipper, his wife; -and as to the extravagance of her egoism, he feels -that as a man he can soon teach her a different -lesson, so that she will settle back into tameness -and play her woman’s part, and be his English -wife. And even if she does not, consider what an -advantage it is to have within doors a wife who is -perfectly intelligible, and with whom he knows -what to do! Why, he can be as logical in his own -home as in his place of business. The woman used<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> -to be the greatest mystery in the world—you might -defy her, or be kind and yield to her, or crush her -with your iron will; but you couldn’t understand -her. No man could read that riddle. The writers -of comedy, the writers of tragedy, all tried their -hands at it. Satirists and wits were never tired of -the fascinating theme. Yet it was all guess-work. -No one pretended to know, and the husbands least -of all. Henry the Eighth, who cut off the heads -of his wives, knew no more than last year’s lover. -Such used to be woman. Now she is as easy to -read as an old almanac. Watch her as she paces -Fifth Avenue, with her businesslike air. How -bright her eyes, and yet hard as jewels! Her -smile how thin-lipped! and her figure that of a -young athlete. Her mode of dress and of personal -array, how smart and efficient and almost military! -She is the very embodiment of briskness, and of -commanding decision. But all the lines of allurement -are vanished, and she no longer undulates -with slow grace. She is not feline, neither is she -deerlike; and she no longer caresses, for her voice -is as uncompromising as her style of dress. The -ordinary man, unless he was a gentleman of the -old school, or a high-placed nobleman, or an Irish -peasant, has always despised the arts of pleasing, -until some charming woman has taken him in -hand; but the modern woman has ceased to instruct -him, and has become his imitator, so that her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> -manners are almost as intimidating as those of the -successful business man. Where is that threefold -charm of mystery, subtlety and concealment, under -which womanhood was wont to veil its powers; -and while so many bow down before the conquering -woman, where are the poets? The astronomers, -the mathematicians, the scientists, the men of business, -the lawyers, especially the lawyers, <em>are</em> at -her feet, but no music comes from the poet; and -she—is she so happy?</p> - -<p>Egoism is unhappiness for man and woman. -Talleyrand called Napoleon “the unamusable.” -It used to be the man who was egotist and the -woman who served, for she said: Our mission is -to please. Hence her all-prevailing charm, and -hence also her invincible happiness, for happiness -is the denial of egoism. However it be at other -times, the happy woman and the happy man are -righteous—in man’s sight and in God’s.</p> - -<p>Happiness is the secret known only to poets and -to women; and it was the women who taught it to -the poets. Mere man knows little about it; least of -all the successful man, for risking everything he -has mostly lost everything; under his prosperity -there is generally distaste. And how sorrow and -disaster can at times degrade a man we all know; -he becomes gloomy, bitter, or drearily self-contained, -or he drops into dissipation and becomes -vulgar. The woman, on the other hand, finds in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> -disaster her opportunity; and sorrow, which the -woman’s life seldom escapes, however it be with -the men, only intensifies her womanhood, so that -she anticipates a later wisdom, and luminously -refuses to recognize any distinction except that -between the happy and the unhappy. There are -only two people who are perfectly content—a -woman busy in her home and a poet among his -rhymes. They have the secret; they share it between -them; they break bread together, they are of -the company, even though the poet knows nothing -of domestic life nor the other of rhymes. The -true, the natural woman is like a bird, she has -wings. When she is a young girl she is like a bird -just spreading her wings for flight; when she is a -matured woman she is like a bird in full flight: -desire gives her wings, and stirs within her the -creative impulse; and nothing can stop her strong -flight towards happiness. She has the creative -gifts—wherever her eye lights, there is happiness—she -gilds with “heavenly alchemy” whatever she -touches.</p> - -<p>The resolute, practical man puts away the -thought of happiness, and for it substitutes pleasures, -which are the gratification of the senses, and -his unquenchable thirst for variety and movement. -These gratifications he can resign with little effort—mere -pleasure is ashes in the mouth, while the -other he thinks would unnerve him; that is for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> -poets, he will tell you. The woman does not -believe in pleasures, she believes in happiness. A -supreme belief in happiness is the woman’s soul. -It awakens in her the moment she is in love or has -a child, and accompanies her everywhere. It explains, -I think, the curious self-centredness of her -mind, and that strange aloofness which seems to -envelop her who has husband and children. In -her presence we talk of this and that, and do this -and that, and she watches us with eyes in which -is the light of knowledge and foreknowledge.</p> - -<p>The man is a worker and a fighter; with strenuous -effort he pushes along the car of progress, and -dies under its wheels; and we make lamentations. -But these women should be carried to their graves -with song of hope and wistful triumph; any other -kind of music would be wounding to our recollections. -A man talks mysticism and he argues; and -I am bored. A woman looks and perhaps smiles, -and almost as by the touching of hands communicates -her own unfading hopes. She does not use -words, and we do not oppose her with words.</p> - -<p>Long ago people talked much of ladies’ eyes, -and ancient Homer, as we know, sang of the x-eyed -Juno and the azure-eyed Minerva. Now -ladies’ eyes are too bright and too exacting to be so -eloquent, so persuading; and for all her dominating -ways she is not the queen she was, nor for all her -witchlike effectiveness is she so calmly beautiful.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> -By turning egotist she has dropped down to our -level. She is one of us.</p> - -<p>And yet the modern woman is right and has -arrived in the nick of time; she is needed because -the modern man is not always a gentleman. Some -fifteen years ago I was witness to a strange scene -on Kew Bridge, outside London, one Sunday morning. -A line of five young ladies came riding by on -cycles, wearing bloomers. This excited the loud -derision of some loafers, some half-breeds, standing -together on the side-path, and one of them said -something, I did not know what, but the last of the -girls heard it and understood. She stopped, and, -carefully adjusting her machine so that it stood up -against the curb of the side-path, walked back to -the young man and asked him if he had used the -offensive words; she then knocked him down, and -he fell, probably not so much because of her -strength as because of his own surprise. Sheepishly -he got up, brushing his clothes, and his companions -laughed as sheepishly, while she remounted -and rode after her friends. Here was the modern -woman but immature, effective on this occasion, -yet much too crude for anything except a guerrilla -war. In Belfast, famous for its bad manners, every -one tries to be “boss” over some one else; yet if -every one can’t be “boss” in Belfast, there is no -man even now who cannot find, both in Belfast -and New York and everywhere else, a woman<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> -whom he may “boss.” This is one of the solid -comforts of the masculine existence; but young -ladies teaching in the public schools are watching -sympathetically the career of the modern woman.</p> - -<p>It insults a woman nowadays to say that the -woman’s destiny is to be always dependent on -some man; but we who say this know perfectly -well that it is equally true to say of the man that it -is his destiny to be dependent on some woman. -These two must patch up their differences. Man -must yield to woman equality and dignity; and she -must take him back into favour. There is no such -companionship as that between a man and a -woman. She brings her wisdom, traditional with -her sex, and derived from a long study of the -question how to live, and he brings his energy, -derived from his long study of how to make a -living. When energy makes him say, Let us forget -the present and think about the future, she will -reply: Let us enjoy the present—am I not young? -Is not the childhood of these children exquisite?</p> - -<p>People forget or do not know that man’s desire -for liberty is not greater than his desire for restraint. -By practising the art of happiness he gets both. -The gratification of all the desires, tempered each -by each, is happiness—hope restrained by memory -and the lust of the flesh by affection and sympathy; -herein is richest harmony and a servitude which -is perfect freedom. Pleasure is the gratification of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> -some one desire pushed to excess and followed by -weariness and satiety; and while pleasure overwhelms -intellect and silences it, happiness makes -intellect supreme. Happiness enforces discipline -spontaneously; pleasure relaxes it and brings on -licence, which is the shadow of liberty and its final -destruction.</p> - -<p>It is character, they say, that saves the world. -Does this mean the will that is strong to grasp and -hold? If so, then I know of something infinitely -greater: the full and varied knowledge that comes -from the whole complex human personality—every -instrument in the orchestra—being developed -in our consciousness, so that no single desire is -“refused a hearing,” as in a good democracy -where every citizen has his rights secured. Here -we have the benign wisdom of Shakespeare and -of good women, and its motive is the deliberate -search for happiness; it kindles the heart and shines -in the eyes of a beautiful woman when she goes -about in her home and among her friends and -neighbours—beautiful and a sceptre-bearing queen; -because in a world where every one runs mad after -this and that falsehood, she stands for the simple -truth of human happiness and all its possibilities. -Wisdom is better than force, and supersedes it.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span><br /> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span></p> - - -<div class="chapter"></div> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<h2 class="no-brk"><a name="WATTS_AND_THE_METHOD_OF_ART" id="WATTS_AND_THE_METHOD_OF_ART">WATTS AND THE METHOD OF ART.</a><a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></h2> - -<div class="figleft" style="width: 90px;"> -<img src="images/i_075.png" width="90" height="90" alt="I" /> -</div> - -<p class="pfirst"> have often wished that some great -painter had written his autobiography, -beginning with his earliest childhood. -Saints and sinners have left us their -memoirs in more than sufficient detail; and we -have also the autobiographies of many famous -writers.</p> - -<p>As yet we have not had the confessions of the -Painter; for I am sure they would be called confessions, -since it would have been with a sense of -shame that these men, including the magnificent -Michael Angelo himself, would have confessed their -failures at school to learn as other boys learned, and -receive, as other boys did, instruction from their -teachers.</p> - -<p>We are all familiar with instances of boys who, -exceptionally quick and clever to ordinary observation, -are almost unteachable at school. It would be -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>thought cruel, as well as impossible, to attempt -teaching grammar and arithmetic to a young -musical genius in a concert-room where musicians -were playing; yet this is precisely what is done every -time we try to teach grammar and such things to a -boy with the eyes of a painter. Time and experience -have at last taught us to be respectful and -tender with the musical mind; we accept, and we -understand it; and the boy with the wonderful ear -is caught up and carried away and instructed and -fondled, and the world is made smooth for him. -But how about the boy with the wonderful eye? -And yet the musical boy is only tempted when -music is actually being played, whereas this other -is never free from solicitation, since to him there is -always, except in the dark, colour and form and -light and shade. He will know the shape and -surface of every object in his schoolroom, and how -light falls on desk and table; he will know among -his school-fellows all the profiles and all the front -faces, what colour the eyes are, and how they are -shaped; every detail of form and colour will be -familiar to him, since to watch these things and to -draw from them a continuous, intellectual intoxication -is the very purpose for which he has been -created; for with him the eyes are the gates of -wisdom; and with young children these eyes are so -thronged by wisdom trying to get in that all their -time is taken up in opening the gates to its inrush.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span></p> - -<p>In this progress of the painter—in this preparation -for what, if the conditions are favourable, ought to -be the solemn business of painting or sculpture—there -will be various stages. At first it will be all -observation; after that will come a time in which -the boy will make inferences; to him the face will -be the index of the mind; and, looking round on -master and boy, he will be a physiognomist who -has never heard of Lavater, or a craniologist or -phrenologist, until some happy moment when, -having exhausted his interest in scientific inquiry, -there will burst upon him the glorious world of -intellectual desire.</p> - -<p>A friend of mine—an old painter, who went to -school in the North of Scotland—described to me -his experience. The dominie had one morning -been particularly drastic in his methods, and this -led to great concentration of thought among the -pupils, while at the same time it did not in the least -alter the usual current of their ideas. My friend, -for instance, busied himself as usual, observing -form and colour, only with a keener zest and, as I -have said, a more concentrated purpose. It was a -spring morning, and, for the first time that year, a -ray of sunshine came into the room, making a -square of yellow light on the dusty floor at his feet. -It was only at that particular period of the year such -a thing was possible: later on there would be too -many leaves on the trees, and in winter the sun was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> -not in that quarter of the heavens. My friend was -an unhappy and anxious schoolboy, but the events -of that morning and the menaces of the dominie, -combined with the sudden sunlight at his feet, made -a new boy of him, and he looked at the square of -brightness which stirred his heart. He received, as -it were, his mystical message; and some time afterwards, -leaving school, he became a landscape-painter.</p> - -<p>With a man like Mr. Watts the world of desire -would have burst differently. He was the greatest -figure-painter England has ever produced. With -the exception of Blake, who hardly counts, I may -say he was the one painter who worked in the grand -manner and on great subjects. Years ago, by a -happy accident, I met him in my studio. I -remember his handsome face and a certain air, as -it seemed to me, of imperious detachment; in his -voice also there was a touch of austerity. He -looked at my pictures without a word, till I asked -him for his opinion. It then came clear, frank, and -to the point. I did not tell him what, nevertheless, -was the fact—that, though I had never seen him -before, I had been his diligent pupil for years, and -that from him first I learned the true meaning of -painting, and why I, or indeed anyone else, had -been induced to take up the craft.</p> - -<p>All his days Watts was a hermit and a recluse;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> -had he loved life and enjoyed it, he would have -lived in it and painted it, as Hogarth lived and -painted; yet he loved his fellow-man, and sought -unweariedly whatever made for his happiness: -indeed it might be said that he painted because he -loved his fellow-man. With such a man the world -of desire must have burst in some scene that excited -his indignation or his pity, or his moral admiration -and love, and from that moment he would become -a dreamer who incessantly re-builds life, according -to the dictates of a kindled imagination; for since -the eye finds what it looks for, the world of desire -becomes in the self-same moment the world of -creation; the desiring eye is the creating eye: the -world itself is neither beautiful nor ugly; it is a -formless vast out of which we create, according to -our desires, new worlds; the madman and the poet -look out on the same scene, but where the one finds -ugliness the other finds beauty; and the world Watts -looked out on was the world of men when they -suffer or when they strive together in serious -purpose.</p> - -<p>In speaking about Watts, I would begin with his -portraits. As regards these, there is no controversy; -some people harden their hearts against his -pictures, but no one denies his portraits. Now it -seems to me that the genius of portrait-painting is -largely a genius for friendship; at any rate, I am -quite sure that the best portraits will be painted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> -where the relation of the sitter and the painter is -one of friendship; and it considerably helps my -argument to know that in Watts’ case he mostly -painted people whom he had himself invited to sit.</p> - -<p>The technique of portrait-painting is mainly a -technique of interpretation; to get the colour, to -model the face adequately, this to the practised -hand is comparatively easy; to so paint that people -should, perforce, see the particular curve, the particular -shadow, and the particular shape of brow or -eye that interest the painter; here is the true difficulty, -here the true enjoyment and exquisite triumph -of the painter.</p> - -<p>In his early portraits there is little attempt at this -interpretation. There is, indeed, the charm of -atmosphere never absent from Watts’ work at any -time, and there is a very obvious decorative purpose; -but these early portraits do not grip the attention -as the later portraits do, because the technique -of interpretation is lacking.</p> - -<p>I have heard people say they liked his male portraits -better than his portraits of women, but I -cannot share this preference; each in its degree is -perfect. Watts will paint a young lady in fashionable -evening attire—surely the most modern and -up-to-date arrangement possible—and he will so -paint her, so gild her with the heavenly alchemy of -his art, that she shall appear like a Venetian beauty -gazing at us from the page of history.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span></p> - -<p>Indeed, over all his portraits, whether of men or -women, he spreads a sort of dim religious light; so -that while painted with Dutch realism, they yet -seem to come to us out of the mists of memory and -romance.</p> - -<p>Before speaking of his pictures of imagination, I -will discuss a little the whole purpose of art and -artists.</p> - -<p>The moralist says: I teach morality, without -which society would not hold together.</p> - -<p>The trader says: I teach trade, without which -there would be no wealth, and life would not be -worth living.</p> - -<p>The religious teacher: I teach religion, without -which people would forget that there was another -world or a judgment to come.</p> - -<p>And the scientist says: I teach truth, which is the -basis of everything.</p> - -<p>What can the artist say for himself in presence of -this congress of teachers, before whom we stand -silent with hats off in age-long reverence?</p> - -<p>First, what is his record?</p> - -<p>He works only to please himself, and regards it -as the most egregious folly—indeed, a kind of -wickedness—to try and please anybody else; he -admires wrong as often as right; at one time he -occupies himself with the things of the spirit, and -again he turns just as eagerly to the things of sense; -without conscience and without scruple he flatters in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> -turn every passion and every instinct, good or bad; -he will make the unhappy more unhappy, and the -wicked he will make worse; he inculcates no lessons, -and preaches no dogma; yet often the noble -will become nobler for his companionship.</p> - -<p>He is to be found in every community; among the -sinners he is a sort of father confessor, whose absolution -is light, so that you may confess all your sins -to him, and you may still go on sinning; he will -laugh at the faces of the good, finding them guilty -of self-complacency, of formalism, of insincerity, of -prudence, of cowardice, of half-heartedness; indeed -he is often much more respectful to sinners than he -is to good people of the earth; and withal is it not -from the hands of the painter and the poet that, as -in some royal caprice, the hero receives his crown?</p> - -<p>This strange creature with the dubious record; -what use is he in the scheme of things? He seems -to stand outside the whole circle of the utilities.</p> - -<p>Why there is morality, why there is commerce, -and why there is science, and why there is religion; -these questions are easy to answer. But why there -are painters, and sculptors, and poets, and musicians, -is another mystery; it is as if you asked me -why there are billions of suns rolling through illimitable -space.</p> - -<p>Among these august teachers the mere artist -stands like another Lucifer among the angels. And<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> -yet all these teachers, high and mighty though they -be, pay to the artist continual court, and would fain -make him one of themselves: would indeed rescue -him as a very wanton from his bad surroundings, -and persuade him to live with them always; and -this partly because human nature is strong within -them, and they love the craft we practise, and partly -because they recognize that where men are gathered -together the artist—that is, the poet, the painter, the -musician, and the sculptor—wields, for good or -evil, the mightiest power on earth. Where is the -theologian that the poet does not help? Where is -the moralist? At the present moment, here in this -exhibition, it seems to me that, in their astute way, -the theologian, the moralist, and even the metaphysician, -all think that they have patched up an -admirable working arrangement with one of the -greatest of our artists.</p> - -<p>The titles “Love and Death,” “Time, Death, -and Judgment,” “The Temptation of Eve,” “The -Penitence of Eve,” “The Contrition of Cain,” etc., -do perhaps explain the facts that in Scotland Presbyterian -ministers crowded the Watts’ Gallery; -and also that here in Dublin, for the first time in the -history of our animated city, a splendid collection of -pictures has been shown, and the voice of detraction -and malignant criticism remains silent.</p> - -<p>Well! do these pictures teach anything? Has -Mr. Watts been captured? Is he a theologian or a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> -moralist, or a metaphysician? Or is he merely a -highly-gifted man, working out his salvation by way -of art?</p> - -<p>Take his two pictures of Eve. In all this collection -there are none more poetical.</p> - -<p>In the first of these, “The Temptation,” what -have we? A woman in the fulness of her magnificent -animalism, and we have this animalism in -the moment of its highest provocation. She seems -to curl herself and to quiver with delight as she -listens to the whispers of the subtle serpent; how -voluptuously she leans over to the tempter, her body -elastic with health and vitality. It is womanhood; -it is splendid animalism, as yet untouched by conscience -or doubt, and unchilled by the thoughts of -death; all about her summer flowers and rich perfumes. -At her feet a leopard rolls, itself a faint -echo or reverberation of her vast personality.</p> - -<p>It is the merest sophistry to call this moral teaching; -it celebrates the deliciousness of temptation as -Pindar, the ancient poet, celebrates the wine-cup. -In both these pictures Watts celebrates the beauty -of the nude and the beauty of the flesh. Leighton -would have painted Eve grand and statuesque—a -figure out of the penumbra of that decorative world -where nothing is quite real. But this woman, -colossal and demi-god though she be, is as real as -one of his portraits—that of J. S. Mill, for instance,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> -or the Earl of Ripon. She is so real, that you feel -almost that you could touch her golden flesh, and -hear her cries and murmurs of delight; while the -other Eve is so realistically painted that it might be -said she weeps audibly.</p> - -<p>Next take his picture of Paolo and Francesca. -Of all pictures in this gallery it is the most complete, -possibly because his friends liked it, and gave him -the encouragement all artists need. It is at once -beautifully imaginative and a piece of charming -decoration. But these poor guilty lovers, these -wrecks of humanity, these fragments of tenuity, -afloat on the winds like dead leaves, like lightest -gossamer, teach no moral lesson. This picture -illustrates afresh the sad fate of true lovers, and -makes their punishment tender and beautiful. I -should like to have had John Knox’s opinion of -this picture. There was a certain grimness, a certain -severity in the painter. A meeting between -these two champions would have been interesting.</p> - -<p>Yet we are so hemmed about with difficulty, and -so bewildered by a multitude of counsellors, and -have got so much into the pestilent habit of seeking -guidance everywhere, that one must needs find a -moral even in the bosom of a rose.</p> - -<p>Therefore—although it be quite unnecessary to -the true appreciation of art—I will, reluctantly as it -were, entirely on my own responsibility, pluck -some moral guidance from imaginative art.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span></p> - -<p>If morality frames for our guidance rules of conduct -which, if we do not obey, we are to be punished—if -it bids us shun temptation and remove -temptation from our path and from the paths of all -the world—Art, on the contrary, seems to say, with -all its strength and with all its voices: “Seek -temptation; run to meet it; we are here to be -tempted.” Art does not say—“Be happy, or be -miserable, or be wise, or be prudent”; but it says—“Live, -have it out with fortune, don’t spare yourself, -be no laggard or coward, have no fear.” And -this also is part of the message: “Abide where -Watts lived, and where the true artist always lived—on -the high table-lands, in the unshaded sunshine -of intellectual happiness—never descending into the -valleys, where hang, mist-like, the languors and -lethargies, the low miseries, sensualities, and -adulteries which afflict human nature when it is -defeated, discouraged, disintegrated.”</p> - -<p>At the end of this room there is a large picture -enormously impressive—“Time, Death and -Judgment.” To be impressive is itself a great -artistic merit; yet I do not think this a great picture; -there is, indeed, a fine arrangement of colour, and -mass, and line, yet behind it all there is no energy -of conviction.</p> - -<p>Time moves forward, a striding figure, carrying -a scythe; beside him walks Death, his wife, a weary -woman, tenderly gathering into her lap the flowers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> -of life; above these two figures is Judgment. These -figures are vague and conventional as regards any -meaning or intention they might convey. If this -picture has any meaning, it is as if Watts had said -to himself: “I am a figure-painter and will, by my -craft of figure-painting, translate into a picture the -kind of pleasing terror which is excited by watching -a fine sunset or listening to an oratorio.” This is -not art, as Michael Angelo gave it. Blake said a -picture should be like a lawyer presenting a writ.</p> - -<p>“Love and Death” seems much finer—it grips -the attention at once. Before the other picture we -stand idly pensive; but here we want to get at the -root of the matter—to grope our way into the very -heart of the picture. There is the naked figure of -Love, wavering, falling backwards; and then -Death, this huge bulk; draped, and hooded, and -horrid. Is it man? Is it woman? and its face is -hidden; and is this because it was in the thought -of the painter that no one has ever seen the face of -Death except the piteous dead, who carry their -knowledge into the grave?</p> - -<p>As regards a famous picture not in this collection—the -picture called “Hope”—I would say that -pleasing though it be, it owes its success mainly to -its faults; and that people like it because no one can -say exactly what it means. A man who really -lived by hope—a Krapotkin or a William Morris—would -find its vagueness utterly displeasing.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span></p> - -<p>England likes her artists to preserve a soft, indefinite -touch, because in her world of action and -practical effort ideas must not be pushed too far, -and compromise rules. Art, on the contrary, does -not like half thoughts—she will have a positive yea -or nay. If thought is not pursued to its furthest -bourne and limit, the picture lacks energy, and is -without effect. In Art, as in everything else, -energy is the true solvent.</p> - -<p>In my mind, pictures of this kind are meant to -hang in the rooms of the idle rich—because intended -for people who wish, without effort, to indulge -themselves—and see all things past, present, and -to come, rosily and smilingly, however falsely. -There are artists, poets, and painters—and in this -case Watts is among them—who seem to keep in -stock a sort of pharmacopœia of drugs and opiates -and soothing mixtures to be served out as required. -Michael Angelo owed his terribleness, his black -melancholy, to the fact that in his pride he would -not accept any soothing mixtures; he faced all the -facts of life.</p> - -<p>Now, let me say a word in reply to those who are -so ready to point out defects in Watts’ technique. -To find fault is easy—is at all times easy. In this -vivacious city it is a special accomplishment, -where, indeed, everyone has learned logic, but no -one has learned enthusiasm, and few care for the -ideal or for poetry.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span></p> - -<p>In answer to these people I would enter a plea of -confession and avoidance.</p> - -<p>Granted all they say about these faults, I would -ask, in all the roll of English painters, is there one -who would have given us that magnificent Eve of -the Temptation? How royally she leans forward as -she stoops to her fate: what swing and what pose -in her movement. In the strain, in the ecstacy of -her sinning, every nerve and every muscle seems -to tremble. Not Millais, nor Leighton, nor Alma -Tadema—far more accomplished artists than Watts—could -have done it; nor Reynolds, nor Gainsborough, -nor Vandyke. None of these men had -the technique to do what Watts has here done. -Watts triumphs by his technique.</p> - -<p>But it has not been always so in Watts’ work. -When not roused to great exertion by his theme, -he fell away into carelessness and into haste. You -see, this man who lived so long a life had such a -teeming mind that his hands could not work fast -enough.</p> - -<p>And here let me allude for a moment to Watts -the man. All accounts that have reached us -represent him as singularly humble and modest. -It was so with Michael Angelo, and it is so with -all men who work among great ideas. When The -Last Judgment was finished, and all Italy burst -into praise, and princes, cardinals, and poets, vied -with each other in presenting homage, Michael<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> -Angelo waved them off with scorn. “If,” he said, -“I carried Paradise in my bosom, these words -would be too much”; and he wrote in reply to one -of them: “I am merely a poor man, working in -the Art God has given me, and trying to lengthen -out my life.” When an artist or poet gives himself -airs, puts on side, as we say, it is because, -like Lord Byron, he is working away from great -ideas, and because in all simplicity and good faith -he finds nothing which asks his reverence, nothing -greater than his own fortunes and his own -sensations. Art for Art’s sake is for those who hate -life, as many poets do, or who hate ideas, as again -many poets do. The great artist is also a man like -unto ourselves, and great personality is the material -out of which is woven all his Art.</p> - -<p>Now, let me offer most respectfully a startling -opinion. I think that as a religious painter Watts -failed; and that he failed because he was bound to -fail.</p> - -<p>The spiritual world is as much with us as it was -with the people of the fifteenth and sixteenth -centuries; but we seek to explore its recesses, by -tabulated observation, by sequences of thought, by -scientific guesses, and carefully planned experiments: -things not to be expressed in pictorial or -plastic forms, even though Michael Angelo has said -everything might be expressed as sculpture.</p> - -<p>Is it that Nature never repeats herself? She has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> -produced her religious painter; his day is over; and -Watts was trying to do what was impossible.</p> - -<p>In those far-off days people believed—and -actually, with the most vivid realisation, believed—at -one and the same time in angels, archangels, -and saints, and gods, and goddesses, and prophets, -and sybils, and fiends of the under-world, and all -the machinery of the supernatural, including angels, -such as that which Watts has painted in the picture -“Love and Life”; and the painter who painted -those images worked under the exacting criticism -of an alert and expectant people. Now, in place -of these beautiful or terrible personages, we have -substituted the forces of nature.</p> - -<p>Examine his picture called “Love and Life.” -It is a vast subject. The whole mind of the -civilized world is groping a way among its -problems. But this picture is wholly inadequate. -Life is represented as a feeble mendicant sort of -creature, blindly stumbling up rocky stairs. This -is a poor image of life. Milton would have scorned -it. Watts should have remembered his own -“Eve.” And “Love” is represented as a strong -angel. It is precisely because Love is not a strong -angel that all the trouble is upon us. If his picture -of “Hope” should be placed in a lady’s boudoir, -this picture should hang in the cabinets of those -who think life is to be saved merely by the clasping -of hands and turning eyes heavenward.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span></p> - -<p>In “Eve’s Repentance” there is a cold light -bursting through the blue clouds, and shining over -the back and shoulders. We have here the old -Venetian harmony of blue and yellow and white; -and because of it, in some subtle way, we have an -enhanced sense of the warmth of the palpitating, -naked flesh. But, bless you! this is not all. By -this light breaking through the clouds, Watts -symbolizes that there is redemption for sinners. -And who is interested? Compare this symbolism -with that in Michael Angelo’s picture, where the -just-created and half-awakened Adam raises his -arm in superb languor to receive Divine knowledge -by the touching of God’s forefinger. I do not here -include the picture “Love and Death,” because it -does not seem to me in any sense a religious picture. -It suggests no dogma nor mystical theory, nor is -there any kind of sentiment. The artist, by his -labour, has placed before us in monumental -effectiveness certain facts now and always with us. -It is a great picture, but it is not a religious picture.</p> - -<p>Watts is a portrait-painter beyond all praise; he is -singular among all painters for the interest he -imparts to his subject. Before most portraits people -stand and say, “What dull things portraits are! -why are they ever exhibited?” or perhaps they -say, “What a clever painter! but what an ugly -man to paint!” In presence of a Watts we are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> -interested in a face; we feel liking or aversion, or a -tantalizing curiosity.</p> - -<p>In Watts’ portraits craftsmanship attains its -perfection, because here he worked in an atmosphere -of exacting criticism; everyone understands -a portrait, and the stupidest is interested when it is -his own portrait.</p> - -<p>When Watts painted his imaginative work, it -was done in an atmosphere of polite indifference. -It is a strange paradox that Watts lived surrounded -by the most distinguished and intellectual society -of his time, and yet he worked in solitude. When -he went wrong, there was no one to tell him; and -when he was right, equally there was no response. -They were interested in the artist, but not in his -art. This lofty-minded recluse, who laboured by -his painting to give the world great thoughts, impressed -these cultivated worldlings: they were -interested in the man, but neither in his thoughts -nor in his pictures. At a private view in the -Grosvenor Gallery a friend of mine overheard Watts -saying to a lady: “Everyone is interested in my -velvet coat, but no one asks me about my pictures.”</p> - -<p>It was not so in ancient Italy. When Michael -Angelo, at the imperious command of the impetuous -Pope Julius, uncovered half his work on -the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, he stood to -receive the judgment of a people who were superstitious, -ignorant men of violence, men of war,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> -homicidal, but each one of them impassioned for -Art.</p> - -<p>“Italy,” said the Spanish painter to Michael -Angelo, “produces the best Art, because Italians -hate mediocrity.” We are clay in the hands of -the potter. We may affect to be proud and solitary -as Lucifer, but in vain; the artist gives that he -may receive; to seek sympathy and desire companionship -is as instinctive as hunger and thirst. -To the true artist exacting criticism is comforting -as mother’s love; and, wanting this exacting -criticism, Watts fell away into slackness of work -and of thought.</p> - -<p>We can only say that had he lived in Dublin his -fate would have been worse. Indifference, however -polite and respectful, is bad: but destructive -criticism kills.</p> - -<p>There was once a small but mighty nation, now -numerous as the sands of the seashore, and no -longer so interesting. To this nation was born a -poet, and they made him the poet of all time. They -took him and taught him all they knew—and they -had great things to teach; and when, at their command, -he made great dramas, they stood at his -elbow; and everything they gave him he gave back -to them tenfold.</p> - -<p>England was then Shakespeare’s land.</p> - -<p>The poet is always amongst us: the difficulty is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> -how to find him; he is like the proverbial needle -in a bundle of hay.</p> - -<p>But one thing is certain—logicians without love -will not find him; they leave a desolation, and call -it peace—nay, they call it culture. Critics of this -sort will allow nothing to exist except themselves. -No; I am wrong. There is one thing they admire -more even than themselves—the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">fait accompli</i>, a -mundane success. Had Watts been born in Dublin, -he would have read for the “Indian Civil,” and -perhaps—passed.</p> - -<p class="right"> -<span class="smcap">J. B. 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