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diff --git a/old/waymn10h.htm b/old/waymn10h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1c6fb88 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/waymn10h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,7162 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII"> +<title>The Ways of Men</title> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">The Ways of Men, by Eliot Gregory</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ways of Men, by Eliot Gregory + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Ways of Men + +Author: Eliot Gregory + +Release Date: August, 1995 [EBook #319] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on August 18, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII +</pre> +<p> +<a name="startoftext"></a> +Transcribed from the 1900 Charles Scribner’s sons edition by David +Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +THE WAYS OF MEN<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER 1 - “<i>Uncle Sam</i>”<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +The gentleman who graced the gubernatorial armchair of our state when +this century was born happened to be an admirer of classic lore and +the sonorous names of antiquity.<br> +<br> +It is owing to his weakness in bestowing pompous cognomens on our embryo +towns and villages that to-day names like Utica, Syracuse, and Ithaca, +instead of evoking visions of historic pomp and circumstance, raise +in the minds of most Americans the picture of cocky little cities, rich +only in trolley-cars and Methodist meeting-houses.<br> +<br> +When, however, this cultured governor, in his ardor, christened one +of the cities Troy, and the hill in its vicinity Mount Ida, he little +dreamed that a youth was living on its slopes whose name was destined +to become a household word the world over, as the synonym for the proudest +and wealthiest republic yet known to history, a sobriquet that would +be familiar in the mouths of races to whose continents even the titles +of Jupiter or Mars had never penetrated.<br> +<br> +A little before this century began, two boys with packs bound on their +stalwart shoulders walked from New York and established a brickyard +in the neighborhood of what is now Perry Street, Troy. Ebenezer +and Samuel Wilson soon became esteemed citizens of the infant city, +their kindliness and benevolence winning for them the affection and +respect of the community.<br> +<br> +The younger brother, Samuel, was an especial favorite with the children +of the place, whose explorations into his deep pockets were generally +rewarded by the discovery of some simple “sweet” or home-made +toy. The slender youth with the “nutcracker” face +proving to be the merriest of playfellows, in their love his little +band of admirers gave him the pet name of “Uncle Sam,” by +which he quickly became known, to the exclusion of his real name. +This is the kindly and humble origin of a title the mere speaking of +which to-day quickens the pulse and moistens the eyes of millions of +Americans with the same thrill that the dear old flag arouses when we +catch sight of it, especially an unexpected glimpse in some foreign +land.<br> +<br> +With increasing wealth the brickyard of the Wilson brothers was replaced +by an extensive slaughtering business, in which more than a hundred +men were soon employed - a vast establishment for that day, killing +weekly some thousand head of cattle. During the military operations +of 1812 the brothers signed a contract to furnish the troops at Greenbush +with meat, “packed in full bound barrels of white oak”; +soon after, Samuel was appointed Inspector of Provisions for the army.<br> +<br> +It is a curious coincidence that England also should have taken an ex-army-contractor +as her patron saint, for if we are to believe tradition, St. George +of Cappadocia filled that position unsatisfactorily before he passed +through martyrdom to sainthood.<br> +<br> +True prototype of the nation that was later to adopt him as its godfather, +the shrewd and honest patriot, “Uncle Sam,” not only lived +loyally up to his contracts, giving full measure and of his best, but +proved himself incorruptible, making it his business to see that others +too fulfilled their engagements both in the letter and the spirit; so +that the “U.S.” (abbreviation of United States) which he +pencilled on all provisions that had passed his inspection became in +the eyes of officers and soldiers a guarantee of excellence. Samuel’s +old friends, the boys of Troy (now enlisted in the army), naïvely +imagining that the mystic initials were an allusion to the pet name +they had given him years before, would accept no meats but “Uncle +Sam’s,” murmuring if other viands were offered them. +Their comrades without inquiry followed this example; until so strong +did the prejudice for food marked “U.S.” become, that other +contractors, in order that their provisions should find favor with the +soldiers, took to announcing “Uncle Sam” brands.<br> +<br> +To the greater part of the troops, ignorant (as are most Americans to-day) +of the real origin of this pseudonym, “Uncle Sam’s” +beef and bread meant merely government provisions, and the step from +national belongings to an impersonation of our country by an ideal “Uncle +Sam” was but a logical sequence.<br> +<br> +In his vigorous old age, Samuel Wilson again lived on Mount Ida, near +the estates of the Warren family, where as children we were taken to +visit his house and hear anecdotes of the aged patriot’s hospitality +and humor. The honor in which he was held by the country-side, +the influence for good he exerted, and the informal tribunal he held, +to which his neighbors came to get their differences straightened out +by his common sense, are still talked of by the older inhabitants. +One story in particular used to charm our boyish ears. It was +about a dispute over land between the Livingstons and the Van Rensselaers, +which was brought to an end by “Uncle Sam’s” producing +a barrel of old papers (confided to him by both families during the +war, for safe keeping) and extracting from this original “strong +box” title deeds to the property in litigation.<br> +<br> +Now, in these troubled times of ours, when rumors of war are again in +the air, one’s thoughts revert with pleasure to the half-mythical +figure on the threshold of the century, and to legends of the clear-eyed +giant, with the quizzical smile and the tender, loyal heart, whose life’s +work makes him a more lovable model and a nobler example to hold up +before the youth of to-day than all the mythological deities that ever +disported themselves on the original Mount Ida.<br> +<br> +There is a singular fitness in this choice of “Uncle Sam” +as our patron saint, for to be honest and loyal and modest, to love +little children, to do one’s duty quietly in the heyday of life, +and become a mediator in old age, is to fulfil about the whole duty +of man; and every patriotic heart must wish the analogy may be long +maintained, that our loved country, like its prototype, may continue +the protector of the feeble and a peace-maker among nations.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER 2 - Domestic Despots<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Those who walk through the well-to-do quarters of our city, and glance, +perhaps a little enviously as they pass, toward the cheerful firesides, +do not reflect that in almost every one of these apparently happy homes +a pitiless tyrant reigns, a misshapen monster without bowels of compassion +or thought beyond its own greedy appetites, who sits like Sinbad’s +awful burden on the necks of tender women and distracted men. +Sometimes this incubus takes the form of a pug, sometimes of a poodle, +or simply a bastard cur admitted to the family bosom in a moment of +unreflecting pity; size and pedigree are of no importance; the result +is always the same. Once Caliban is installed in his stronghold, +peace and independence desert that roof.<br> +<br> +We read daily of fathers tyrannizing over trembling families, of stepmothers +and unnatural children turning what might be happy homes into amateur +Infernos, and sigh, as we think of martyrdoms endured by overworked +animals.<br> +<br> +It is cheering to know that societies have been formed for the protection +of dumb brutes and helpless children. Will no attempt be made +to alleviate this other form of suffering, which has apparently escaped +the eye of the reformer?<br> +<br> +The animal kingdom is divided - like all Gaul - into three divisions: +wild beasts, that are obliged to hustle for themselves; laboring and +producing animals, for which man provides because they are useful to +him - and dogs! Of all created things on our globe the canine +race have the softest “snap.” The more one thinks +about this curious exception in their favor the more unaccountable it +appears. We neglect such wild things as we do not slaughter, and +exact toil from domesticated animals in return for their keep. +Dogs alone, shirking all cares and labor, live in idle comfort at man’s +expense.<br> +<br> +When that painful family jar broke up the little garden party in Eden +and forced our first parents to work or hunt for a living, the original +Dog (equally disgusted with either alternative) hit on the luminous +idea of posing as the champion of the disgraced couple, and attached +himself to Adam and Eve; not that he approved of their conduct, but +simply because he foresaw that if he made himself companionable and +cosy he would be asked to stay to dinner.<br> +<br> +From that day to the present, with the exception of occasionally watching +sheep and houses - a lazy occupation at the best - and a little light +carting in Belgium (dogs were given up as turn-spits centuries ago, +because they performed that duty badly), no canine has raised a paw +to do an honest day’s work, neither has any member of the genus +been known voluntarily to perform a useful act.<br> +<br> +How then - one asks one’s self in a wonder - did the myth originate +that Dog was the friend of Man? Like a multitude of other fallacies +taught to innocent children, this folly must be unlearned later. +Friend of man, indeed! Why, the “Little Brothers of the +Rich” are guileless philanthropists in comparison with most canines, +and unworthy to be named in the same breath with them. Dogs discovered +centuries ago that to live in luxury, it was only necessary to assume +an exaggerated affection for some wealthy mortal, and have since proved +themselves past masters in a difficult art in which few men succeed. +The number of human beings who manage to live on their friends is small, +whereas the veriest mongrel cur contrives to enjoy food and lodging +at some dupe’s expense.<br> +<br> +Facts such as these, however, have not over-thrown the great dog myth. +One can hardly open a child’s book without coming across some +tale of canine intelligence and devotion. My tender youth was +saddened by the story of one disinterested dog that refused to leave +his master’s grave and was found frozen at his post on a bleak +winter’s morning. With the experience of years in pet dogs +I now suspect that, instead of acting in this theatrical fashion, that +pup trotted home from the funeral with the most prosperous and simple-minded +couple in the neighborhood, and after a substantial meal went to sleep +by the fire. He must have been a clever dog to get so much free +advertisement, so probably strolled out to his master’s grave +the next noon, when people were about to hear him, and howled a little +to keep up appearances.<br> +<br> +I have written “the richest and most simple minded couple,” +because centuries of self-seeking have developed in these beasts an +especial aptitude for spotting possible victims at a glance. You +will rarely find dogs coquetting with the strong-minded or wasting blandishments +where there is not the probability of immediate profit; but once let +even a puppy get a tenderhearted girl or aged couple under his influence, +no pity will be shown the victims.<br> +<br> +There is a house not a square away from Mr. Gerry’s philanthropic +headquarters, where a state of things exists calculated to extract tears +from a custom-house official. Two elderly virgins are there held +in bondage by a Minotaur no bigger than your two fists. These +good dames have a taste for travelling, but change of climate disagrees +with their tyrant. They dislike house-keeping and, like good Americans, +would prefer hotel life, nevertheless they keep up an establishment +in a cheerless side street, with a retinue of servants, because, forsooth, +their satrap exacts a back yard where he can walk of a morning. +These spinsters, although loving sisters, no longer go about together, +Caligula’s nerves being so shaken that solitude upsets them. +He would sooner expire than be left alone with the servant, for the +excellent reason that his bad temper and absurd airs have made him dangerous +enemies below stairs - and he knows it!<br> +<br> +Another household in this city revolves around two brainless, goggle-eyed +beasts, imported at much expense from the slopes of Fuji-yama. +The care that is lavished on those heathen monsters passes belief. +Maids are employed to carry them up and down stairs, and men are called +in the night to hurry for a doctor when Chi has over-eaten or Fu develops +colic; yet their devoted mistress tells me, with tears in her eyes, +that in spite of this care, when she takes her darlings for a walk they +do not know her from the first stranger that passes, and will follow +any boy who whistles to them in the street.<br> +<br> +What revolts me in the character of dogs is that, not content with escaping +from the responsibilities entailed on all the other inhabitants of our +globe by the struggle for existence, these four-legged Pecksniffs have +succeeded in making for themselves a fallacious reputation for honesty +and devotion. What little lingering belief I had in canine fidelity +succumbed then I was told that St. Bernards - those models of integrity +and courage - have fallen into the habit of carrying the flasks of brandy +that the kind monks provide for the succor of snowbound travellers, +to the neighboring hamlets and exchanging the contents for - chops!<br> +<br> +Will the world ever wake to the true character of these four-legged +impostors and realize that instead of being disinterested and sincere, +most family pets are consummate hypocrites. Innocent? Pshaw! +Their pretty, coaxing ways and pretences of affection are unadulterated +guile; their ostentatious devotion, simply a clever manoeuvre to excite +interest and obtain unmerited praise. It is useless, however, +to hope that things will change. So long as this giddy old world +goes on waltzing in space, so long shall we continue to be duped by +shams and pin our faith on frauds, confounding an attractive bearing +with a sweet disposition and mistaking dishevelled hair and eccentric +appearance for brains. Even in the Orient, where dogs have been +granted immunity from other labor on the condition that they organized +an effective street-cleaning department, they have been false to their +trust and have evaded their contracts quite as if they were Tammany +braves, like whom they pass their days in slumber and their nights in +settling private disputes, while the city remains uncleaned.<br> +<br> +I nurse yet another grudge against the canine race! That Voltaire +of a whelp, who imposed himself upon our confiding first parents, must +have had an important pull at headquarters, for he certainly succeeded +in getting the decree concerning beauty and fitness which applies to +all mammals, including man himself, reversed in favor of dogs, and handed +down to his descendants the secret of making defects and deformities +pass current as qualities. While other animals are valued for +sleek coats and slender proportions, canine monstrosities have always +been in demand. We do not admire squints or protruding under jaws +in our own race, yet bulldogs have persuaded many weak-minded people +that these defects are charming when combined in an individual of their +breed.<br> +<br> +The fox in the fable, who after losing his tail tried to make that bereavement +the fashion, failed in his undertaking; Dutch canal-boat dogs have, +however, been successful where the fox failed, and are to-day pampered +and prized for a curtailment that would condemn any other animal (except +perhaps a Manx cat) to a watery grave at birth.<br> +<br> +I can only recall two instances where canine sycophants got their deserts; +the first tale (probably apocryphal) is about a donkey, for years the +silent victim of a little terrier who had been trained to lead him to +water and back. The dog - as might have been expected - abused +the situation, while pretending to be very kind to his charge, never +allowed him to roll on the grass, as he would have liked, or drink in +peace, and harassed the poor beast in many other ways, getting, however, +much credit from the neighbors for devotion and intelligence. +Finally, one day after months of waiting, the patient victim’s +chance came. Getting his tormentor well out into deep water, the +donkey quietly sat down on him.<br> +<br> +The other tale is true, for I knew the lady who provided in her will +that her entire establishment should be kept up for the comfort and +during the life of the three fat spaniels that had solaced her declining +years. The heirs tried to break the will and failed; the delighted +domestics, seeing before them a period of repose, proceeded (headed +by the portly housekeeper) to consult a “vet” as to how +the life of the precious legatees might be prolonged to the utmost. +His advice was to stop all sweets and rich food and give each of the +animals at least three hours of hard exercise a day. From that +moment the lazy brutes led a dog’s life. Water and the detested +“Spratt“ biscuit, scorned in happier days, formed their +meagre ordinary; instead of somnolent airings in a softly cushioned +landau they were torn from chimney corner musings to be raced through +cold, muddy streets by a groom on horseback.<br> +<br> +Those two tales give me the keenest pleasure. When I am received +on entering a friend’s room with a chorus of yelps and attacked +in dark corners by snarling little hypocrites who fawn on me in their +master’s presence, I humbly pray that some such Nemesis may be +in store for these <i>faux</i> <i>bonhommes</i> before they leave this +world, as apparently no provision has been made for their punishment +in the next.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER 3 - Cyrano, Rostand, Coquelin<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Among the proverbs of Spanish folk-lore there is a saying that good +wine retains its flavor in spite of rude bottles and cracked cups. +The success of M. Rostand’s brilliant drama, <i>Cyrano de Bergerac</i>, +in its English dress proves once more the truth of this adage. +The fun and pathos, the wit and satire, of the original pierce through +the halting, feeble translation like light through a ragged curtain, +dazzling the spectators and setting their enthusiasm ablaze.<br> +<br> +Those who love the theatre at its best, when it appeals to our finer +instincts and moves us to healthy laughter and tears, owe a debt of +gratitude to Richard Mansfield for his courage in giving us, as far +as the difference of language and rhythm would allow, this <i>chef d’oeuvre</i> +unchanged, free from the mutilations of the adapter, with the author’s +wishes and the stage decorations followed into the smallest detail. +In this way we profit by the vast labor and study which Rostand and +Coquelin gave to the original production.<br> +<br> +Rumors of the success attained by this play in Paris soon floated across +to us. The two or three French booksellers here could not import +the piece fast enough to meet the ever increasing demand of our reading +public. By the time spring came, there were few cultivated people +who had not read the new work and discussed its original language and +daring treatment.<br> +<br> +On arriving in Paris, my first evening was passed at the Porte St. Martin. +After the piece was over, I dropped into Coquelin’s dressing-room +to shake this old acquaintance by the hand and give him news of his +many friends in America.<br> +<br> +Coquelin in his dressing-room is one of the most delightful of mortals. +The effort of playing sets his blood in motion and his wit sparkling. +He seemed as fresh and gay that evening as though there were not five +killing acts behind him and the fatigue of a two-hundred-night run, +uninterrupted even by Sundays, added to his “record.”<br> +<br> +After the operation of removing his historic nose had been performed +and the actor had resumed his own clothes and features, we got into +his carriage and were driven to his apartment in the Place de l’Etoile, +a cosy museum full of comfortable chairs and priceless bric-à-brac. +The conversation naturally turned during supper on the piece and this +new author who had sprung in a night from obscurity to a globe-embracing +fame. How, I asked, did you come across the play, and what decided +you to produce it?<br> +<br> +Coquelin’s reply was so interesting that it will be better to +repeat the actor’s own words as he told his tale over the dismantled +table in the tranquil midnight hours.<br> +<br> +“I had, like most Parisians, known Rostand for some time as the +author of a few graceful verses and a play <i>(Les Romanesques</i>)which +passed almost unnoticed at the Français.<br> +<br> +“About four years ago Sarah Bernhardt asked me to her ‘hôtel’ +to hear M. Rostand read a play he had just completed for her. +I accepted reluctantly, as at that moment we were busy at the theatre. +I also doubted if there could be much in the new play to interest me. +It was <i>La Princesse Lointaine</i>. I shall remember that afternoon +as long as I live! From the first line my attention was riveted +and my senses were charmed. What struck me as even more remarkable +than the piece was the masterly power and finish with which the boyish +author delivered his lines. Where, I asked myself, had he learned +that difficult art? The great actress, always quick to respond +to the voice of art, accepted the play then and there.<br> +<br> +“After the reading was over I walked home with M. Rostand, and +had a long talk with him about his work and ambitions. When we +parted at his door, I said: ‘In my opinion, you are destined to +become the greatest dramatic poet of the age; I bind myself here and +now to take any play you write (in which there is a part for me) without +reading it, to cancel any engagements I may have on hand, and produce +your piece with the least possible delay.’ An offer I don’t +imagine many young poets have ever received, and which I certainly never +before made to any author.<br> +<br> +“About six weeks later my new acquaintance dropped in one morning +to read me the sketch he had worked out for a drama, the title rôle +of which he thought would please me. I was delighted with the +idea, and told him to go ahead. A month later we met in the street. +On asking him how the play was progressing, to my astonishment he answered +that he had abandoned that idea and hit upon something entirely different. +Chance had thrown in his way an old volume of Cyrano de Bergerac’s +poems, which so delighted him that he had been reading up the life and +death of that unfortunate poet. From this reading had sprung the +idea of making Cyrano the central figure of a drama laid in the city +of Richelieu, d’Artagnan, and the <i>Précieuses Ridicules</i>, +a seventeenth-century Paris of love and duelling.<br> +<br> +“At first this idea struck me as unfortunate. The elder +Dumas had worked that vein so well and so completely, I doubted if any +literary gold remained for another author. It seemed foolhardy +to resuscitate the <i>Three Guardsmen</i> epoch - and I doubted if it +were possible to carry out his idea and play an intense and pathetic +rôle disguised with a burlesque nose.<br> +<br> +“This contrasting of the grotesque and the sentimental was of +course not new. Victor Hugo had broken away from classic tradition +when he made a hunchback the hero of a drama. There remained, +however, the risk of our Parisian public not accepting the new situation +seriously. It seemed to me like bringing the sublime perilously +near the ridiculous.<br> +<br> +“Fortunately, Rostand did not share this opinion or my doubts. +He was full of enthusiasm for his piece and confident of its success. +We sat where we had met, under the trees of the Champs Elysées, +for a couple of hours, turning the subject about and looking at the +question from every point of view. Before we parted the poet had +convinced me. The role, as he conceived it, was certainly original, +and therefore tempting, opening vast possibilities before my dazzled +eyes.<br> +<br> +“I found out later that Rostand had gone straight home after that +conversation and worked for nearly twenty hours without leaving the +study, where his wife found him at daybreak, fast asleep with his head +on a pile of manuscript. He was at my rooms the next day before +I was up, sitting on the side of my bed, reading the result of his labor. +As the story unfolded itself I was more and more delighted. His +idea of resuscitating the quaint interior of the Hôtel de Bourgogne +Theatre was original, and the balcony scene, even in outline, enchanting. +After the reading Rostand dashed off as he had come, and for many weeks +I saw no more of him.<br> +<br> +<i>“La Princesse Lointaine</i> was, in the meantime, produced +by Sarah, first in London and then in Paris. In the English capital +it was a failure; with us it gained a <i>succès d’estime</i>, +the fantastic grace and lightness of the piece saving it from absolute +shipwreck in the eyes of the literary public.<br> +<br> +“Between ourselves,” continued Coquelin, pushing aside his +plate, a twinkle in his small eyes, “is the reason of this lack +of success very difficult to discover? The Princess in the piece +is supposed to be a fairy enchantress in her sixteenth year. The +play turns on her youth and innocence. Now, honestly, is Sarah, +even on the stage, any one’s ideal of youth and innocence?” +This was asked so naïvely that I burst into a laugh, in which my +host joined me. Unfortunately, this grandmamma, like Ellen Terry, +cannot be made to understand that there are rôles she should leave +alone, that with all the illusions the stage lends she can no longer +play girlish parts with success.<br> +<br> +“The failure of his play produced the most disastrous effect on +Rostand, who had given up a year of his life to its composition and +was profoundly chagrined by its fall. He sank into a mild melancholy, +refusing for more than eighteen months to put pen to paper. On +the rare occasions when we met I urged him to pull himself together +and rise above disappointment. Little by little, his friends were +able to awaken his dormant interest and get him to work again on <i>Cyrano</i>. +As he slowly regained confidence and began taking pleasure once more +in his work, the boyish author took to dropping in on me at impossible +morning hours to read some scene hot from his ardent brain. When +seated by my bedside, he declaimed his lines until, lit at his flame, +I would jump out of bed, and wrapping my dressing-gown hastily around +me, seize the manuscript out of his hands, and, before I knew it, find +my self addressing imaginary audiences, poker in hand, in lieu of a +sword, with any hat that came to hand doing duty for the plumed headgear +of our hero. Little by little, line upon line, the masterpiece +grew under his hands. My career as an actor has thrown me in with +many forms of literary industry and dogged application, but the power +of sustained effort and untiring, unflagging zeal possessed by that +fragile youth surpassed anything I had seen.<br> +<br> +“As the work began taking form, Rostand hired a place in the country, +so that no visitors or invitations might tempt him away from his daily +toil. Rich, young, handsome, married to a woman all Paris was +admiring, with every door, social or Bohemian, wide open before his +birth and talent, he voluntarily shut himself up for over a year in +a dismal suburb, allowing no amusement to disturb his incessant toil. +Mme. Rostand has since told me that at one time she seriously feared +for his reason if not for his life, as he averaged ten hours a day steady +work, and when the spell was on him would pass night after night at +his study table, rewriting, cutting, modelling his play, never contented, +always striving after a more expressive adjective, a more harmonious +or original rhyme, casting aside a month’s finished work without +a second thought when he judged that another form expressed his idea +more perfectly.<br> +<br> +“That no success is cheaply bought I have long known; my profession +above all others is calculated to teach one that truth.<br> +<br> +“If Rostand’s play is the best this century has produced, +and our greatest critics are unanimous in pronouncing it equal, if not +superior, to Victor Hugo’s masterpieces, the young author has +not stolen his laurels, but gained them leaf by leaf during endless +midnight hours of brain-wringing effort - a price that few in a generation +would be willing to give or capable of giving for fame. The labor +had been in proportion to the success; it always is! I doubt if +there is one word in his ‘duel’ ballad that has not been +changed again and again for a more fitting expression, as one might +assort the shades of a mosaic until a harmonious whole is produced. +I have there in my desk whole scenes that he discarded because they +were not essential to the action of the piece. They will probably +never be printed, yet are as brilliant and cost their author as much +labor as any that the public applauded to-night.<br> +<br> +“As our rehearsals proceeded I saw another side of Rostand’s +character; the energy and endurance hidden in his almost effeminate +frame astonished us all. He almost lived at the theatre, drilling +each actor, designing each costume, ordering the setting of each scene. +There was not a dress that he did not copy from some old print, or a +<i>passade</i> that he did not indicate to the humblest member of the +troop. The marvellous diction that I had noticed during the reading +at Sarah’s served him now and gave the key to the entire performance. +I have never seen him peevish or discouraged, but always courteous and +cheerful through all those weary weeks of repetition, when even the +most enthusiastic feel their courage oozing away under the awful grind +of afternoon and evening rehearsal, the latter beginning at midnight +after the regular performance was over.<br> +<br> +“The news was somehow spread among the theatre-loving public that +something out if the ordinary was in preparation. The papers took +up the tale and repeated it until the whole capital was keyed up to +concert pitch. The opening night was eagerly awaited by the critics, +the literary and the artistic worlds. When the curtain rose on +the first act there was the emotion of a great event floating in the +air.” Here Coquelin’s face assumed an intense expression +I had rarely seen there before. He was back on the stage, living +over again the glorious hours of that night’s triumph. His +breath was coming quick and his eyes aglow with the memory of that evening. +“Never, never have I lived through such an evening. Victor +Hugo’s greatest triumph, the first night of <i>Hernani</i>, was +the only theatrical event that can compare to it. It, however, +was injured by the enmity of a clique who persistently hissed the new +play. There is but one phrase to express the enthusiasm at our +first performance - <i>une</i> <i>salle</i> <i>en délire</i> +gives some idea of what took place. As the curtain fell on each +succeeding act the entire audience would rise to its feet, shouting +and cheering for ten minutes at a time. The coulisse and the dressing-rooms +were packed by the critics and the author’s friends, beside themselves +with delight. I was trembling so I could hardly get from one costume +into another, and had to refuse my door to every one. Amid all +this confusion Rostand alone remained cool and seemed unconscious of +his victory. He continued quietly giving last recommendations +to the figurants, overseeing the setting of the scenes, and thanking +the actors as they came off the stage, with the same self-possessed +urbanity he had shown during the rehearsals. Finally, when the +play was over, and we had time to turn and look for him, our author +had disappeared, having quietly driven off with his wife to their house +in the country, from which he never moved for a week.”<br> +<br> +It struck two o’clock as Coquelin ended. The sleepless city +had at last gone to rest. At our feet, as we stood by the open +window, the great square around the Arc de Triomphe lay silent and empty, +its vast arch rising dimly against the night sky.<br> +<br> +As I turned to go, Coquelin took my hand and remarked, smiling: “Now +you have heard the story of a genius, an actor, and a masterpiece.”<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER 4 - Machine-made Men<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Among the commonplace white and yellow envelopes that compose the bulk +of one’s correspondence, appear from time to time dainty epistles +on tinted paper, adorned with crests or monograms. “Ha! +ha!” I think when one of these appears, “here is something +worth opening!” For between ourselves, reader mine, old +bachelors love to receive notes from women. It’s so flattering +to be remembered by the dear creatures, and recalls the time when life +was beginning, and <i>poulets</i> in feminine writing suggested such +delightful possibilities.<br> +<br> +Only this morning an envelope of delicate Nile green caused me a distinct +thrill of anticipation. To judge by appearances it could contain +nothing less attractive than a declaration, so, tearing it hurriedly +open, I read: “Messrs. Sparks & Splithers take pleasure in +calling attention to their patent suspenders and newest designs in reversible +paper collars!“<br> +<br> +Now, if that’s not enough to put any man in a bad humor for twenty-four +hours, I should like to know what is? Moreover, I have “patents” +in horror, experience having long ago revealed the fact that a patent +is pretty sure to be only a new way of doing fast and cheaply something +that formerly was accomplished slowly and well.<br> +<br> +Few people stop to think how quickly this land of ours is degenerating +into a paradise of the cheap and nasty, but allow themselves to be heated +and cooled and whirled about the streets to the detriment of their nerves +and digestions, under the impression that they are enjoying the benefits +of modern progress.<br> +<br> +So complex has life become in these later days that the very beds we +lie on and the meals we eat are controlled by patents. Every garment +and piece of furniture now pays a “royalty” to some inventor, +from the hats on our heads to the carpets under foot, which latter are +not only manufactured, but cleaned and shaken by machinery, and (be +it remarked <i>en passant</i>) lose their nap prematurely in the process. +To satisfy our national love of the new, an endless and nameless variety +of trifles appears each season, so-called labor and time-saving combinations, +that enjoy a brief hour of vogue, only to make way for a newer series +of inventions.<br> +<br> +As long as our geniuses confined themselves to making life one long +and breathless scramble, it was bad enough, but a line should have been +drawn where meddling with the sanctity of the toilet began. This, +alas! was not done. Nothing has remained sacred to the inventor. +In consequence, the average up-to-date American is a walking collection +of Yankee notions, an ingenious illusion, made up of patents, requiring +as nice adjustment to put together and undo as a thirteenth-century +warrior, and carrying hardly less metal about his person than a Crusader +of old.<br> +<br> +There are a number of haberdashery shops on Broadway that have caused +me to waste many precious minutes gazing into their windows and wondering +what the strange instruments of steel and elastic could be, that were +exhibited alongside of the socks and ties. The uses of these would, +in all probability, have remained wrapped in mystery but for the experience +of one fateful morning (after a night in a sleeping-car), when countless +hidden things were made clear, as I sat, an awestruck witness to my +fellow-passengers’ - toilets? - No! Getting their machinery +into running order for the day, would be a more correct expression.<br> +<br> +Originally, “tags” were the backbone of the toilet, different +garments being held together by their aid. Later, buttons and +attendant button-holes were evolved, now replaced by the devices used +in composing the machine-made man. As far as I could see (I have +overcome a natural delicacy in making my discoveries public, because +it seems unfair to keep all this information to myself), nothing so +archaic as a button-hole is employed at the present time by our patent-ridden +compatriots. The shirt, for instance, which was formerly such +a simple-minded and straightforward garment, knowing no guile, has become, +in the hands of the inventors, a mere pretence, a frail scaffold, on +which an elaborate superstructure of shams is erected.<br> +<br> +The varieties of this garment that one sees in the shop windows, exposing +virgin bosoms to the day, are not what they seem! Those very bosoms +are fakes, and cannot open, being instead pierced by eyelets, into which +bogus studs are fixed by machinery. The owner is obliged to enter +into those deceptive garments surreptitiously from the rear, by stratagem, +as it were. Why all this trouble, one asks, for no apparent reason, +except that old-fashioned shirts opened in front, and no Yankee will +wear a non-patented garment - if he can help it?<br> +<br> +There was not a single accessory to the toilet in that car which behaved +in a normal way. Buttons mostly backed into place, tail-end foremost +(like horses getting between shafts), where some hidden mechanism screwed +or clinched them to their moorings.<br> +<br> +Collars and cuffs (integral parts of the primitive garment) are now +a labyrinth, in which all but the initiated must lose themselves, being +double-decked, detachable, reversible, and made of every known substance +except linen. The cuff most in favor can be worn four different +ways, and is attached to the shirt by a steel instrument three inches +long, with a nipper at each end. The amount of white visible below +the coat-sleeve is regulated by another contrivance, mostly of elastic, +worn further up the arm, around the biceps. Modern collars are +retained in position by a system of screws and levers. Socks are +attached no longer with the old-fashioned garter, but by aid of a little +harness similar to that worn by pug-dogs.<br> +<br> +One traveller, after lacing his shoes, adjusted a contrivance resembling +a black beetle on the knot to prevent its untying. He also wore +“hygienic suspenders,” a discovery of great importance (over +three thousand patents have been taken out for this one necessity of +the toilet!). This brace performs several tasks at the same time, +such as holding unmentionable garments in place, keeping the wearer +erect, and providing a night-key guard. It is also said to cure +liver and kidney disease by means of an arrangement of pulleys which +throw the strain according to the wearer’s position - I omit the +rest of its qualities!<br> +<br> +The watches of my companions, I noticed with astonishment, all wore +India-rubber ruffs around their necks. Here curiosity getting +the better of discretion, I asked what purpose that invention served. +It was graciously explained to me how such ruffs prevented theft. +They were so made that it was impossible to draw your watch out of a +pocket unless you knew the trick, which struck me as a mitigated blessing. +In fact, the idea kept occurring that life might become terribly uncomfortable +under these complex conditions for absent-minded people.<br> +<br> +Pencils, I find, are no longer put into pockets or slipped behind the +ear. Every commercial “gent” wears a patent on his +chest, where his pen and pencil nestle in a coil of wire. Eyeglasses +are not allowed to dangle aimlessly about, as of old, but retire with +a snap into an oval box, after the fashion of roller shades. Scarf-pins +have guards screwed on from behind, and undergarments - but here modesty +stops my pen.<br> +<br> +Seeing that I was interested in their make-up, several travelling agents +on the train got out their boxes and showed me the latest artifices +that could be attached to the person. One gentleman produced a +collection of rings made to go on the finger with a spring, like bracelets, +an arrangement, he explained, that was particularly convenient for people +afflicted with enlarged joints!<br> +<br> +Another tempted me with what he called a “literary shirt front,” +- it was in fact a paper pad, from which for cleanliness a leaf could +be peeled each morning; the “wrong” side of the sheet thus +removed contained a calendar, much useful information, and the chapters +of a “continued” story, which ended when the “dickey” +was used up.<br> +<br> +A third traveller was “pushing” a collar-button that plied +as many trades as Figaro, combining the functions of cravat-holder, +stud, and scarf-pin. Not being successful in selling me one of +these, he brought forward something ”without which,” he +assured me, “no gentleman’s wardrobe was complete”! +It proved to be an insidious arrangement of gilt wire, which he adjusted +on his poor, overworked collar-button, and then tied his cravat through +and around it. “No tie thus made,” he said, “would +ever slip or get crooked.” He had been so civil that it +was embarrassing not to buy something of him; I invested twenty-five +cents in the cravat-holder, as it seemed the least complicated of the +patents on exhibition; not, however, having graduated in a school of +mechanics I have never been able to make it work. It takes an +hour to tie a cravat with its aid, and as long to get it untied. +Most of the men in that car, I found, got around the difficulty by wearing +ready-made ties which fastened behind with a clasp.<br> +<br> +It has been suggested that the reason our compatriots have such a strained +and anxious look is because they are all trying to remember the numbers +of their streets and houses, the floor their office is on, and the combination +of their safes. I am inclined to think that the hunted look we +wear comes from an awful fear of forgetting the secrets of our patents +and being unable to undo ourselves in an emergency!<br> +<br> +Think for a moment of the horror of coming home tired and sleepy after +a convivial evening, and finding that some of your hidden machinery +had gone wrong; that by a sudden movement you had disturbed the nice +balance of some lever which in revenge refused to release its prey! +The inventors of one well-known cuff-holder claim that it had a “bull-dog +grip.” Think of sitting dressed all night in the embrace +of that mechanical canine until the inventor could be called in to set +you free!<br> +<br> +I never doubted that bravery was the leading characteristic of the American +temperament; since that glimpse into the secret composition of my compatriots, +admiration has been vastly increased. The foolhardy daring it +must require - dressed as those men were - to go out in a thunder-storm +makes one shudder: it certainly could not be found in any other race. +The danger of cross-country hunting or bull-fighting is as nothing compared +to the risk a modern American takes when he sits in a trolley-car, where +the chances of his machinery forming a fatal “short circuit” +must be immense. The utter impossibility in which he finds himself +of making a toilet quickly on account of so many time-saving accessories +must increase his chances of getting “left” in an accident +about fifty per cent. Who but one of our people could contemplate +with equanimity the thought of attempting the adjustment of such delicate +and difficult combinations while a steamer was sinking and the life-boats +being manned?<br> +<br> +Our grandfathers contributed the wooden nutmeg to civilization, and +endowed a grateful universe with other money-saving devices. To-day +the inventor takes the American baby from his cradle and does not release +him even at the grave. What a treat one of the machine-made men +of to-day will be to the archeologists of the year 3000, when they chance +upon a well-preserved specimen, with all his patents thick upon I him! +With a prophetic eye one can almost see the kindly old gentleman of +that day studying the paraphernalia found in the tomb and attempting +to account for the different pieces. Ink will flow and discussions +rage between the camp maintaining that cuff-holders were tutelar deities +buried with the dead by pious relatives and the croup asserting that +the little pieces of steel were a form of pocket money in the year 1900. +Both will probably misquote Tennyson and Kipling in support of their +theories.<br> +<br> +The question has often been raised, What side of our nineteenth-century +civilization will be most admired by future generations? In view +of the above facts there can remain little doubt that when the secrets +of the paper collar and the trouser-stretcher have become lost arts, +it will be those benefits that remote ages will envy us, and rare specimens +of “ventilated shoes” and “reversible tissue-paper +undergarments” will form the choicest treasures of the collector.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER 5 - Parnassus<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Many years ago, a gentleman with whom I was driving in a distant quarter +of Paris took me to a house on the rue Montparnasse, where we remained +an hour or more, he chatting with its owner, and I listening to their +conversation, and wondering at the confusion of books in the big room. +As we drove away, my companion turned to me and said, “Don’t +forget this afternoon. You have seen one of the greatest writers +our century has produced, although the world does not yet realize it. +You will learn to love his works when you are older, and it will be +a satisfaction to remember that you saw and spoke with him in the flesh! +“<br> +<br> +When I returned later to Paris the little house had changed hands, and +a marble tablet stating that Sainte-Beuve had lived and died there adorned +its façade. My student footsteps took me many times through +that quiet street, but never without a vision of the poet-critic flashing +back, as I glanced up at the window where he had stood and talked with +us; as my friend predicted, Sainte-Beuve’s writings had become +a precious part of my small library, the memory of his genial face adding +a vivid interest to their perusal.<br> +<br> +I made a little Pilgrimage recently to the quiet old garden where, after +many years’ delay, a bust of this writer has been unveiled, with +the same companion, now very old, who thirty years ago presented me +to the original.<br> +<br> +There is, perhaps, in all Paris no more exquisite corner than the Garden +of the Luxembourg. At every season it is beautiful. The +winter sunlight seems to linger on its stately Italian terraces after +it has ceased to shine elsewhere. The first lilacs bloom here +in the spring, and when midsummer has turned all the rest of Paris into +a blazing, white wilderness, these gardens remain cool and tranquil +in the heart of turbulent “Bohemia,” a bit of fragrant nature +filled with the song of birds and the voices of children. Surely +it was a gracious inspiration that selected this shady park as the “Poets’ +Corner” of great, new Paris. Henri Murger, Leconte de Lisle, +Théodore de Banville, Paul Verlaine, are here, and now Sainte-Beuve +has come back to his favorite haunt. Like François Coppée +and Victor Hugo, he loved these historic <i>allées</i>, and knew +the stone in them as he knew the “Latin Quater,” for his +life was passed between the bookstalls of the quays and the outlying +street where he lived.<br> +<br> +As we sat resting in the shade, my companion, who had been one of Sainte-Beuve’s +pupils, fell to talking of his master, his memory refreshed by the familiar +surroundings. “Can anything be sadder,” he said, “than +finding a face one has loved turned into stone, or names that were the +watchwords of one’s youth serving as signs at street corners - +la rue Flaubert or Théodore de Banville? How far away they +make the past seem! Poor Sainte-Beuve, that bust yonder is but +a poor reward for a life of toil, a modest tribute to his encyclopaedic +brain! His works, however, are his best monument; he would be +the last to repine or cavil.<br> +<br> +“The literary world of my day had two poles, between which it +vibrated. The little house in the rue Montparnasse was one, the +rock of Guernsey the other. We spoke with awe of ‘Father +Hugo’ and mentioned ‘Uncle Beuve’ with tenderness. +The Goncourt brothers accepted Sainte-Beuve’s judgment on their +work as the verdict of a ‘Supreme Court.’ Not a poet +or author of that day but climbed with a beating heart the narrow staircase +that led to the great writer’s library. Paul Verlaine regarded +as his literary diploma a letter from this ‘Balzac de la critique.’ +”<br> +<br> +“At the entrance of the quaint Passage du Commerce, under the +arch that leads into the rue Saint-André-des-Arts, stands a hotel, +where for years Sainte-Beuve came daily to work (away from the importunate +who besieged his dwelling) in a room hired under the assumed name of +Delorme. It was there that we sent him a basket of fruit one morning +addressed to Mr. Delorme, <i>né</i> Sainte-Beuve. It was +there that most of his enormous labor was accomplished.<br> +<br> +“A curious corner of old Paris that Cour du Commerce! Just +opposite his window was the apartment where Danton lived. If one +chose to seek for them it would not be hard to discover on the pavement +of this same passage the marks made by a young doctor in decapitating +sheep with his newly invented machine. The doctor’s name +was Guillotin.<br> +<br> +“The great critic loved these old quarters filled with history. +He was fond of explaining that Montparnasse had been a hill where the +students of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries came to amuse themselves. +In 1761 the slope was levelled and the boulevard laid out, but the name +was predestined, he would declare, for the habitation of the ‘Parnassiens.’<br> +<br> +“His enemies pretended that you had but to mention Michelet, Balzac, +and Victor Hugo to see Sainte-Beuve in three degrees of rage. +He had, it is true, distinct expressions on hearing those authors discussed. +The phrase then much used in speaking of an original personality, ‘He +is like a character out of Balzac,’ always threw my master into +a temper. I cannot remember, however, having seen him in one of +those famous rages which made Barbey d’Aurévilly say that +‘Sainte-Beuve was a clever man with the temper of a turkey!’ +The former was much nearer the truth when he called the author of <i>Les +Lundis</i> a French Wordsworth, or compared him to a lay <i>bénédictin</i>. +He had a way of reading a newly acquired volume as he walked through +the streets that was typical of his life. My master was always +studying and always advancing.<br> +<br> +“He never entirely recovered from his mortification at being hissed +by the students on the occasion of his first lecture at the Collège +de France. Returning home he loaded two pistols, one for the first +student who should again insult him, and the other to blow out his own +brains. It was no idle threat. The man Guizot had nicknamed +‘Werther’ was capable of executing his plan, for this causeless +unpopularity was anguish to him. After his death, I found those +two pistols loaded in his bedroom, but justice had been done another +way. All opposition had vanished. Every student in the ‘Quarter’ +followed the modest funeral of their Senator, who had become the champion +of literary liberty in an epoch when poetry was held in chains.<br> +<br> +“The Empire which made him Senator gained, however, but an indocile +recruit. On his one visit to Compiègne in 1863, the Emperor, +wishing to be particularly gracious, said to him, ‘I always read +the <i>Moniteur</i> on Monday, when your article appears.’ +Unfortunately for this compliment, it was the <i>Constitutionnel</i> +that had been publishing the <i>Nouveaux Lundis</i> for more than four +years. In spite of the united efforts of his friends, Sainte-Beuve +could not be brought to the point of complimenting Napoleon III. on +his <i>Life of Caesar.<br> +<br> +</i>The author of <i>Les Consolations</i> remained through life the +proudest and most independent of men, a bourgeois, enemy of all tyranny, +asking protection of no one. And what a worker! Reading, +sifting, studying, analyzing his subject before composing one of his +famous <i>Lundis</i>, a literary portrait which he aimed at making complete +and final. One of these articles cost him as much labor as other +authors give to the composition of a volume.<br> +<br> +“By way of amusement on Sunday evenings, when work was temporarily +laid aside, he loved the theatre, delighting in every kind of play, +from the broad farces of the Palais Royal to the tragedies of Racine, +and entertaining comedians in order, as he said, ‘to keep young’! +One evening Théophile Gautier brought a pretty actress to dinner. +Sainte-Beuve, who was past-master in the difficult art of conversation, +and on whom a fair woman acted as an inspiration, surpassed himself +on this occasion, surprising even the Goncourts with his knowledge of +the Eighteenth century and the women of that time, Mme. de Boufflers, +Mlle. de Lespinasse, la Maréchale de Luxembourg. The hours +flew by unheeded by all of his guests but one. The <i>débutante</i> +was overheard confiding, later in the evening, to a friend at the Gymnase, +where she performed in the last act, ‘Ouf! I’m glad +to get here. I‘ve been dining with a stupid old Senator. +They told me he would be amusing, but I’ve been bored to death.’ +Which reminded me of my one visit to England, when I heard a young nobleman +declare that he had been to ‘such a dull dinner to meet a duffer +called “Renan!” ’<br> +<br> +“Sainte-Beuve’s <i>Larmes de Racine</i> was given at the +Théâtre Français during its author’s last +illness. His disappointment at not seeing the performance was +so keen that M. Thierry, then <i>administrateur</i> of La Comédie, +took Mlle. Favart to the rue Montparnasse, that she might recite his +verses to the dying writer. When the actress, then in the zenith +of her fame and beauty, came to the lines -<br> +<br> +<br> +Jean Racine, le grand poête,<br> +Le poête aimant et pieux,<br> +Après que sa lyre muette<br> +Se fut voilèe à tous les yeux,<br> +Renonçant à la gloire humaine,<br> +S’il sentait en son âme pleine<br> +Le flot contenu murmurer,<br> +Ne savait que fondre en prière,<br> +Pencher l’urne dans la poussière<br> +Aux pieds du Seigneur, et pleurer!<br> +<br> +<br> +the tears of Sainte-Beuve accompanied those of Racine!“<br> +<br> +There were tears also in the eyes my companion turned toward me as he +concluded. The sun had set while he had been speaking. The +marble of the statues gleamed white against the shadows of the sombre +old garden. The guardians were closing the gates and warning the +lingering visitors as we strolled toward the entrance.<br> +<br> +It seemed as if we had been for an hour in the presence of the portly +critic; and the circle of brilliant men and witty women who surrounded +him - Flaubert, Tourguéneff, Théophile Gautier, Renan, +George Sand - were realities at that moment, not abstractions with great +names. It was like returning from another age, to step out again +into the glare and bustle of the Boulevard St. Michel.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER 6 - Modern Architecture<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +If a foreign tourist, ignorant of his whereabouts, were to sail about +sunset up our spacious bay and view for the first time the eccentric +sky-line of lower New York, he would rub his eyes and wonder if they +were not playing him a trick, for distance and twilight lend the chaotic +masses around the Battery a certain wild grace suggestive of Titan strongholds +or prehistoric abodes of Wotan, rather than the business part of a practical +modern city.<br> +<br> +“But,” as John Drew used to say in <i>The</i> <i>Masked +Ball</i>, “what a difference in the morning!” when a visit +to his banker takes the new arrival down to Wall Street, and our uncompromising +American daylight dispels his illusions.<br> +<br> +Years ago <i>spiritual</i> Arthur Gilman mourned over the decay of architecture +in New York and pointed out that Stewart’s shop, at Tenth Street, +bore about the same relation to Ictinus’ noble art as an iron +cooking stove! It is well death removed the Boston critic before +our city entered into its present Brobdingnagian phase. If he +considered that Stewart’s and the Fifth Avenue Hotel failed in +artistic beauty, what would have been his opinion of the graceless piles +that crowd our island to-day, beside which those older buildings seem +almost classical in their simplicity?<br> +<br> +One hardly dares to think what impression a student familiar with the +symmetry of Old World structures must receive on arriving for the first +time, let us say, at the Bowling Green, for the truth would then dawn +upon him that what appeared from a distance to be the ground level of +the island was in reality the roof line of average four-story buildings, +from among which the keeps and campaniles that had so pleased him (when +viewed from the Narrows) rise like gigantic weeds gone to seed in a +field of grass.<br> +<br> +It is the heterogeneous character of the buildings down town that renders +our streets so hideous. Far from seeking harmony, builders seem +to be trying to “go” each other “one story better”; +if they can belittle a neighbor in the process it is clear gain, and +so much advertisement. Certain blocks on lower Broadway are gems +in this way! Any one who has glanced at an auctioneer’s +shelves when a “job lot” of books is being sold, will doubtless +have noticed their resemblance to the sidewalks of our down town streets. +Dainty little duodecimo buildings are squeezed in between towering in-folios, +and richly bound and tooled octavos chum with cheap editions. +Our careless City Fathers have not even given themselves the trouble +of pushing their stone and brick volumes into the same line, but allow +them to straggle along the shelf - I beg pardon, the sidewalk - according +to their own sweet will.<br> +<br> +The resemblance of most new business buildings to flashy books increases +the more one studies them; they have the proportions of school atlases, +and, like them, are adorned only on their backs (read fronts). +The modern builder, like the frugal binder, leaves the sides of his +creations unadorned, and expends his ingenuity in decorating the narrow +strip which he naively imagines will be the only part seen, calmly ignoring +the fact that on glancing up or down a street the sides of houses are +what we see first. It is almost impossible to get mathematically +opposite a building, yet that is the only point from which these new +constructions are not grotesque.<br> +<br> +It seems as though the rudiments of common sense would suggest that +under existing circumstances the less decoration put on a façade +the greater would be the harmony of the whole. But trifles like +harmony and fitness are splendidly ignored by the architects of to-day, +who, be it remarked in passing, have slipped into another curious habit +for which I should greatly like to see an explanation offered. +As long as the ground floors and the tops of their creations are elaborate, +the designer evidently thinks the intervening twelve or fifteen stories +can shift for themselves. One clumsy mass on the Bowling Green +is an excellent example of this weakness. Its ground floor is +a playful reproduction of the tombs of Egypt. About the second +story the architect must have become discouraged - or perhaps the owner’s +funds gave out - for the next dozen floors are treated in the severest +“tenement house” manner; then, as his building terminates +well up in the sky, a top floor or two are, for no apparent reason, +elaborately adorned. Indeed, this desire for a brilliant finish +pervades the neighborhood. The Johnson Building on Broad Street +(to choose one out of the many) is sober and discreet in design for +a dozen stories, but bursts at its top into a Byzantine colonnade. +Why? one asks in wonder.<br> +<br> +Another new-comer, corner of Wall and Nassau Streets, is a commonplace +structure, with a fairly good cornice, on top of which - an afterthought, +probably - a miniature State Capitol has been added, with dome and colonnade +complete. The result recalls dear, absent-minded Miss Matty (in +Mrs. Gaskell’s charming story), when she put her best cap on top +of an old one and sat smiling at her visitors from under the double +headdress!<br> +<br> +Nowhere in the world - not even in Moscow, that city of domes - can +one see such a collection of pagodas, cupolas, kiosks, and turrets as +grace the roofs of our office buildings! Architects evidently +look upon such adornments as compensations! The more hideous the +structure, the finer its dome! Having perpetrated a blot upon +the city that cries to heaven in its enormity, the repentant owner adds +a pagoda or two, much in the same spirit, doubtless, as prompts an Italian +peasant to hang a votive heart on some friendly shrine when a crime +lies heavy on his conscience.<br> +<br> +What would be thought of a book-collector who took to standing inkstands +or pepperboxes on the tops of his tallest volumes by way of adornment? +Yet domes on business buildings are every bit as appropriate. +A choice collection of those monstrosities graces Park Row, one much-gilded +offender varying the monotony by looking like a yellow stopper in a +high-shouldered bottle! How modern architects with the exquisite +City Hall before them could have wandered so far afield in their search +for the original must always remain a mystery.<br> +<br> +When a tall, thin building happens to stand on a corner, the likeness +to an atlas is replaced by a grotesque resemblance to a waffle iron, +of which one structure just finished on Rector Street skilfully reproduces’ +the lines. The rows of little windows were evidently arranged +to imitate the indentations on that humble utensil, and the elevated +road at the back seems in this case to do duty as the handle. +Mrs. Van Rensselaer tells us in her delightful <i>Goede Vrouw of Mana-ha-ta</i> +that waffle irons used to be a favorite wedding present among the Dutch +settlers of this island, and were adorned with monograms and other devices, +so perhaps it is atavism that makes us so fond of this form in building! +As, however, no careful <i>Hausfrau</i> would have stood her iron on +its edge, architects should hesitate before placing their buildings +in that position, as the impression of instability is the same in each +case.<br> +<br> +After leaving the vicinity of the City Hall, the tall slabs that like +magnified milestones mark the progress of Architecture up Broadway become +a shade less objectionable, although one meets some strange freaks in +so-called decoration by the way. Why, for instance, were those +Titan columns grouped around the entrance to the American Surety Company’s +building? They do not support anything (the “business” +of columns in architecture) except some rather feeble statuary, and +do seriously block the entrance. Were they added with the idea +of fitness? That can hardly be, for a portico is as inappropriate +to such a building as it would be to a parlor car, and almost as inconvenient.<br> +<br> +Farther up town our attention is arrested by another misplaced adornment. +What purpose can that tomb with a railing round it serve on top of the +New York Life Insurance building? It looks like a monument in +Greenwood, surmounted by a rat-trap, but no one is interred there, and +vermin can hardly be troublesome at that altitude.<br> +<br> +How did this craze for decoration originate? The inhabitants of +Florence and Athens did not consider it necessary. There must, +I feel sure, be a reason for its use in this city; American land-lords +rarely spend money without a purpose; perhaps they find that rococo +detail draws business and inspires confidence!<br> +<br> +I should like to ask the architects of New York one question: Have they +not been taught that in their art, as in every other, pretences are +vulgar, that things should be what they seem? Then why do they +continue to hide steel and fire-brick cages under a veneer of granite +six inches thick, causing them to pose as solid stone buildings? +If there is a demand for tall, light structures, why not build them +simply (as bridges are constructed), and not add a poultice of bogus +columns and zinc cornices that serve no purpose and deceive no one?<br> +<br> +Union Square possesses blocks out of which the Jackson and Decker buildings +spring with a noble disregard of all rules and a delicious incongruity +that reminds one of Falstaff’s corps of ill-drilled soldiers. +Madison Square, however, is <i>facile princeps</i>, with its annex to +the Hoffman House, a building which would make the fortune of any dime +museum that could fence it in and show it for a fee! Long contemplation +of this structure from my study window has printed every comic detail +on my brain. It starts off at the ground level to be an imitation +of the Doge’s Palace (a neat and appropriate idea in itself for +a Broadway shop). At the second story, following the usual New +York method, it reverts to a design suggestive of a county jail (the +Palace and the Prison), with here and there a balcony hung out, emblematical, +doubtless, of the inmates’ wash and bedding. At the ninth +floor the repentant architect adds two more stories in memory of the +Doge’s residence. Have you ever seen an accordion (concertina, +I believe, is the correct name) hanging in a shop window? The +Twenty-fifth Street Doge’s Palace reminds me of that humble instrument. +The wooden part, where the keys and round holes are, stands on the sidewalk. +Then come an indefinite number of pleats, and finally the other wooden +end well up among the clouds. So striking is this resemblance +that at times one expects to hear the long-drawn moans peculiar to the +concertina issuing from those portals. Alas! even the most original +designs have their drawbacks! After the proprietor of the Venetian +accordion had got his instrument well drawn out and balanced on its +end, he perceived that it dwarfed the adjacent buildings, so cast about +in his mind for a scheme to add height and dignity to the rest of the +block. One day the astonished neighborhood saw what appeared to +be a “roomy suburban villa” of iron rising on the roof of +the old Hoffman House. The results suggests a small man who, being +obliged to walk with a giant, had put on a hat several times too large +in order to equalize their heights!<br> +<br> +How astonished Pericles and his circle of architects and sculptors would +be could they stand on the corner of Broadway and Twenty-eighth Street +and see the miniature Parthenon that graces the roof of a pile innocent +of other Greek ornament? They would also recognize their old friends, +the ladies of the Erechtheum, doing duty on the Reveillon Building across +the way, pretending to hold up a cornice, which, being in proportion +to the building, is several hundred times too big for them to carry. +They can’t be seen from the sidewalk, - the street is too narrow +for that, - but such trifles don’t deter builders from decorating +when the fit is on them. Perhaps this one got his caryatides at +a bargain, and had to work them in somewhere; so it is not fair to be +hard on him.<br> +<br> +If ever we take to ballooning, all these elaborate tops may add materially +to our pleasure. At the present moment the birds, and angels, +it is to be hoped, appreciate the effort. I, perhaps, of all the +inhabitants of the city, have seen those ladies face to face, when I +have gone on a semi-monthly visit to my roof to look for leaks!<br> +<br> +“It’s all very well to carp and cavil,” many readers +will say, “but ‘Idler’ forgets that our modern architects +have had to contend with difficulties that the designers of other ages +never faced, demands for space and light forcing the nineteenth-century +builders to produce structures which they know are neither graceful +nor in proportion!”<br> +<br> +If my readers will give themselves the trouble to glance at several +office buildings in the city, they will realize that the problem is +not without a solution. In almost every case where the architect +has refrained from useless decoration and stuck to simple lines, the +result, if not beautiful, has at least been inoffensive. It is +where inappropriate elaboration is added that taste is offended. +Such structures as the Singer building, corner of Liberty Street and +Broadway, and the home of <i>Life</i>, in Thirty-first Street, prove +that beauty and grace of façade can be adapted to modern business +wants.<br> +<br> +Feeling as many New Yorkers do about this defacing of what might have +been the most beautiful of modern cities, it is galling to be called +upon to admire where it is already an effort to tolerate.<br> +<br> +A sprightly gentleman, writing recently in a scientific weekly, goes +into ecstasies of admiration over the advantages and beauty of a steel +mastodon on Park Row, a building that has the proportions of a carpenter’s +plane stood on end, decorated here and there with balconies and a colonnade +perched on brackets up toward its fifteenth story. He complacently +gives us its weight and height as compared with the pyramids, and numerous +other details as to floor space and ventilation, and hints in conclusion +that only old fogies and dullards, unable to keep pace with the times, +fail to appreciate the charm of such structures in a city. One +of the “points” this writer makes is the quality of air +enjoyed by tenants, amusingly oblivious of the fact that at least three +façades of each tall building will see the day only so long as +the proprietors of adjacent land are too poor or too busy to construct +similar colossi!<br> +<br> +When all the buildings in a block are the same height, seven eighths +of the rooms in each will be without light or ventilation. It’s +rather poor taste to brag of advantages that are enjoyed only through +the generosity of one’s neighbors.<br> +<br> +Business demands may force us to bow before the necessity of these horrors, +but it certainly is “rubbing it in” to ask our applause. +When the Eiffel Tower was in course of construction, the artists and +literary lights of Paris raised a tempest of protest. One wonders +why so little of the kind has been done here. It is perhaps rather +late in the day to suggest reform, yet if more New Yorkers would interest +themselves in the work, much might still be done to modify and improve +our metropolis.<br> +<br> +One hears with satisfaction that a group of architects have lately met +and discussed plans for the embellishment of our neglected city. +There is a certain poetical justice in the proposition coming from those +who have worked so much of the harm. Remorse has before now been +known to produce good results. The United States treasury yearly +receives large sums of “conscience money.”<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER 7 - Worldly Color-Blindness<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Myriads of people have no ear for music and derive but little pleasure +from sweet sounds. Strange as it may appear, many gifted and sensitive +mortals have been unable to distinguish one note from another, Apollo’s +harmonious art remaining for them, as for the elder Dumas, only an “expensive +noise.”<br> +<br> +Another large class find it impossible to discriminate between colors. +Men afflicted in this way have even become painters of reputation. +I knew one of the latter, who, when a friend complimented him on having +caught the exact shade of a pink toilet in one of his portraits, answered, +“Does that dress look pink to you? I thought it was green!” +and yet he had copied what he saw correctly.<br> +<br> +Both these classes are to be pitied, but are not the cause of much suffering +to others. It is annoying, I grant you, to be torn asunder in +a collision, because red and green lights on the switches combined into +a pleasing harmony before the brakeman’s eyes. The tone-deaf +gentleman who insists on whistling a popular melody is almost as trying +as the lady suffering from the same weakness, who shouts, “Ninon, +Ninon, que fais-tu de la vie!” until you feel impelled to cry, +”Que faites-vous, madame, with the key?”<br> +<br> +Examinations now keep daltonic gentlemen out of locomotives, and ladies +who have lost their “keys” are apt to find their friends’ +pianos closed. What we cannot guard against is a variety of the +genus <i>homo</i> which suffers from “social color-blindness.” +These well-meaning mortals form one of the hardest trials that society +is heir to; for the disease is incurable, and as it is almost impossible +to escape from them, they continue to spread dismay and confusion along +their path to the bitter end.<br> +<br> +This malady, which, as far as I know, has not been diagnosed, invades +all circles, and is, curiously enough, rampant among well-born and apparently +well-bred people.<br> +<br> +Why is it that the entertainments at certain houses are always dull +failures, while across the way one enjoys such agreeable evenings? +Both hosts are gentlemen, enjoying about the same amount of “unearned +increment,” yet the atmosphere of their houses is radically different. +This contrast cannot be traced to the dulness or brilliancy of the entertainer +and his wife. Neither can it be laid at the door of inexperience, +for the worst offenders are often old hands at the game.<br> +<br> +The only explanation possible is that the owners of houses where one +is bored are socially color-blind, as cheerfully unconscious of their +weakness as the keyless lady and the whistling abomination.<br> +<br> +Since increasing wealth has made entertaining general and lavish, this +malady has become more and more apparent, until one is tempted to parody +Mme. Roland’s dying exclamation and cry, “Hospitality! hospitility! +what crimes are committed in thy name!”<br> +<br> +Entertaining is for many people but an excuse for ostentation. +For others it is a means to an end; while a third variety apparently +keep a debit and credit account with their acquaintances - in books +of double entry, so that no errors may occur - and issue invitations +like receipts, only in return for value received.<br> +<br> +We can rarely tell what is passing in the minds of people about us. +Some of those mentioned above may feel a vague pleasure when their rooms +are filled with a chattering crowd of more or less well-assorted guests; +if that is denied them, can find consolation for the outlay in an indefinite +sensation of having performed a duty, - what duty, or to whom, they +would, however, find it difficult to define.<br> +<br> +Let the novice flee from the allurements of such a host. Old hands +know him and have got him on their list, escaping when escape is possible; +for he will mate the green youth with the red frump, or like a premature +millennium force the lion and the lamb to lie down together, and imagine +he has given unmixed pleasure to both.<br> +<br> +One would expect that great worldly lights might learn by experience +how fatal bungled entertainments can be, but such is not the case. +Many well-intentioned people continue sacrificing their friends on the +altar of hospitality year after year with never a qualm of conscience +or a sensation of pity for their victims. One practical lady of +my acquaintance asks her guests alphabetically, commencing the season +and the first leaf of her visiting list simultaneously and working steadily +on through both to “finis.” If you are an A, you will +meet only A’s at her table, with perhaps one or two B’s +thrown in to fill up; you may sit next to your mother-in-law for all +the hostess cares. She has probably never heard that the number +of guests at table should not exceed that of the muses; or if by any +chance she has heard it, does not care, and considers such a rule old-fashioned +and not appropriate to our improved modern methods of entertaining.<br> +<br> +One wonders what possible satisfaction a host can derive from providing +fifty people with unwholesome food and drink at a fixed date. +It is a physical impossibility for him to have more than a passing word +with his guests, and ten to one the unaccustomed number has upset the +internal arrangements of his household, so that the dinner will, in +consequence, be poor and the service defective.<br> +<br> +A side-light on this question came to me recently when an exceedingly +frank husband confided to a circle of his friends at the club the scheme +his wife, who, though on pleasure bent, was of a frugal mind, had adopted +to balance her social ledger.<br> +<br> +“As we dine out constantly through the year,” remarked Benedict, +“some return is necessary. So we wait until the height of +the winter season, when everybody is engaged two weeks in advance, then +send out our invitations at rather short notice for two or three consecutive +dinners. You’d be surprised,” he remarked, with a +beaming smile, “what a number refuse; last winter we cancelled +all our obligations with two dinners, the flowers and entrées +being as fresh on the second evening as the first! It’s +wonderful!” he remarked in conclusion, “how simple entertaining +becomes when one knows how!” Which reminded me of an ingenious +youth I once heard telling some friends how easy he had found it to +write the book he had just published. After his departure we agreed +that if he found it so easy it would not be worth our while to read +his volume.<br> +<br> +Tender-hearted people generally make bad hosts. They have a way +of collecting the morally lame, halt, and blind into their drawing-rooms +that gives those apartments the air of a convalescent home. The +moment a couple have placed themselves beyond the social pale, these +purblind hosts conceive an affection for and lavish hospitality upon +them. If such a host has been fortunate enough to get together +a circle of healthy people, you may feel confident that at the last +moment a leper will be introduced. This class of entertainers +fail to see that society cannot he run on a philanthropic basis, and +so insist on turning their salons into hospitals.<br> +<br> +It would take too long to enumerate the thousand idiosyncrasies of the +color-blind; few, however, are more amusing than those of the impulsive +gentlemen who invite people to their homes indiscriminately, because +they happen to feel in a good humor or chance to be seated next them +at another house, - invitations which the host regrets half an hour +later, and would willingly recall. “I can’t think +why I asked the So-and-sos!” he will confide to you. “I +can’t abide them; they are as dull as the dropsy!” +Many years ago in Paris, we used to call a certain hospitable lady’s +invitations “soup tickets,” so little individuality did +they possess.<br> +<br> +The subtle laws of moral precedence are difficult reading for the most +intelligent, and therefore remain sealed books to the afflicted mortals +mentioned here. The delicate tact that, with no apparent effort, +combines congenial elements into a delightful whole is lacking in their +composition. The nice discrimination that presides over some households +is replaced by a jovial indifference to other persons’ feelings +and prejudices.<br> +<br> +The idea of placing pretty Miss Débutante next young Strongboys +instead of giving her over into the clutches of old Mr. Boremore will +never enter these obtuse entertainers’ heads, any more than that +of trying to keep poor, defenceless Mrs. Mouse out of young Tom Cat’s +claws.<br> +<br> +It is useless to enumerate instances; people have suffered too severely +at the hands of careless and incompetent hosts not to know pretty well +what the title of this paper means. So many of us have come away +from fruitless evenings, grinding our teeth, and vowing never to enter +those doors again while life lasts, that the time seems ripe for a protest.<br> +<br> +If the color-blind would only refrain from painting, and the tone-deaf +not insist on inviting one to their concerts, the world would be a much +more agreeable place. If people would only learn what they can +and what they can’t do, and leave the latter feats alone, a vast +amount of unnecessary annoyance would be avoided and the tiresome old +grindstone turn to a more cheerful tune.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER 8 - Idling in Mid-Ocean<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +To those fortunate mortals from whom Poseidon exacts no tribute in crossing +his broad domain, a transatlantic voyage must afford each year an ever +new delight. The cares and worries of existence fade away and +disappear in company with the land, in the deep bosom of the ocean buried. +One no longer feels like the bored mortal who has all winter turned +the millstone of work and pleasure, but seems to have transmigrated +into a new body, endowed with a ravenous appetite and perfectly fresh +sensations.<br> +<br> +Perhaps it is only the novelty of the surroundings; but as I lie somnolent +in my chair, tucked into a corner of the white deck, watching the jade-colored +water rush past below, and the sea-gulls circle gayly overhead, the +<i>summum</i> <i>bonum</i> of earthly contentment seems attained. +The book chosen with care remains uncut; the sense of physical and mental +rest is too exquisite to be broken by any effort, even the reading of +a favorite author.<br> +<br> +Drowsy lapses into unconsciousness obscure the senses, like the transparent +clouds that from time to time dim the sunlight. A distant bell +in the wheel-house chimes the lazy half-hours. Groups of people +come and go like figures on a lantern-slide. A curiously detached +reeling makes the scene and the actors in it as unreal as a painted +ship manned by a shadowy crew. The inevitable child tumbles on +its face and is picked up shrieking by tender parents; energetic youths +organize games of skill or discover whales on the horizon, without disturbing +one’s philosophic calm.<br> +<br> +I congratulate myself on having chosen a foreign line. For a week +at least no familiar name will be spoken, no accustomed face appear. +The galling harness of routine is loosened; one breathes freely again +conscious of the unoccupied hours in perspective.<br> +<br> +The welcome summons to luncheon comes as a pleasant shock. Is +it possible that the morning has passed? It seems to have but +commenced. I rouse myself and descend to the cabin. Toward +the end of the meal a rubicund Frenchman opposite makes the startling +proposition that if I wish to send a message home he will undertake +to have it delivered. It is not until I notice the little square +of oiled paper he is holding out to me that I understand this reference +to the “pigeon post” with which the Compagnie Transatlantique +is experimenting. At the invitation of this new acquaintance I +ascend to the upper deck and watch his birds depart.<br> +<br> +The tiny bits of paper on which we have written (post-card fashion) +message and address are rolled two or three together, and inserted into +a piece of quill less than two inches long, which, however, they do +not entirely fill. While a pigeon is held by one man, another +pushes one of the bird’s tail-feathers well through the quill, +which is then fastened in its place by two minute wooden wedges. +A moment later the pigeon is tossed up into the air, and we witness +the working of that mysterious instinct which all our modern science +leaves unexplained. After a turn or two far up in the clear sky, +the bird gets its bearings and darts off on its five-hundred-mile journey +across unknown seas to an unseen land - a voyage that no deviation or +loitering will lengthen, and only fatigue or accident interrupt, until +he alights at his cote.<br> +<br> +Five of these willing messengers were started the first day out, and +five more will leave to-morrow, poor little aërial postmen, almost +predestined to destruction (in the latter case), for we shall then be +so far from land that their one chance of life and home must depend +on finding some friendly mast where an hour’s rest may be taken +before the bird starts again on his journey.<br> +<br> +In two or three days, according to the weather, we shall begin sending +French pigeons on ahead of us toward Havre. The gentleman in charge +of them tells me that his wife received all the messages he sent to +her during his westward trip, the birds appearing each morning at her +window (where she was in the habit feeding them) with their tidings +from mid-ocean. He also tells me that the French fleet in the +Mediterranean recently received messages from their comrades in the +Baltic on the third day by these feathered envoys.<br> +<br> +It is hoped that in future ocean steamers will be able to keep up communication +with the land at least four out of the seven days of their trips, so +that, in case of delay or accident, their exact position and circumstances +can be made known at headquarters. It is a pity, the originator +of the scheme remarked, that sea-gulls are such hopeless vagabonds, +for they can fly much greater distances than pigeons, and are not affected +by dampness, which seriously cripples the present messengers.<br> +<br> +Later in the day a compatriot, inspired doubtless by the morning’s +experiment, confided to me that he had hit on “a great scheme,” +which he intends to develop on arriving. His idea is to domesticate +families of porpoises at Havre and New York, as that fish passes for +having (like the pigeon) the homing instinct. Ships provided with +the parent fish can free one every twenty-four hours, charged with the +morning’s mail. The inventor of this luminous idea has already +designed the letter-boxes that are to be strapped on the fishes’ +backs, and decided on a neat uniform for his postmen.<br> +<br> +It is amusing during the first days “out” to watch the people +whom chance has thrown together into such close quarters. The +occult power that impels a pigeon to seek its kind is feeble in comparison +with the faculty that travellers develop under these circumstances for +seeking out congenial spirits. Twelve hours do not pass before +affinities draw together; what was apparently a homogeneous mass has +by that time grouped and arranged itself into three or four distinct +circles.<br> +<br> +The “sporty” gentlemen in loud clothes have united in the +bonds of friendship with the travelling agents and have chosen the smoking-room +as their headquarters. No mellow sunset or serene moonlight will +tempt these comrades from the subtleties of poker; the pool on the run +is the event of their day.<br> +<br> +A portly prima donna is the centre of another circle. Her wraps, +her dogs, her admirers, and her brand-new husband (a handsome young +Hungarian with a voice like two Bacian bulls) fill the sitting-room, +where the piano gets but little rest. Neither sunshine nor soft +winds can draw them to the deck. Although too ill for the regular +meals, this group eat and drink during fifteen out of the twenty-four +hours.<br> +<br> +The deck, however, is not deserted; two fashionable dressmakers revel +there. These sociable ladies asked the <i>commissaire</i> at the +start “to introduce all the young unmarried men to them,” +as they wanted to be jolly. They have a numerous court around +them, and champagne, like the conversation, flows freely. These +ladies have already become expert at shuffleboard, but their “sea +legs“ are not so good as might be expected, and the dames require +to be caught and supported by their admirers at each moment to prevent +them from tripping - an immense joke, to judge by the peals of laughter +that follow.<br> +<br> +The American wife of a French ambassador sits on the captain’s +right. A turn of the diplomatic wheel is taking the lady to Madrid, +where her position will call for supreme tact and self-restraint. +One feels a thrill of national pride on looking at her high-bred young +face and listening as she chats in French and Spanish, and wonders once +more at the marvellous faculty our women have of adapting themselves +so graciously and so naturally to difficult positions, which the women +of other nations rarely fill well unless born to the purple. It +is the high opinion I have of my countrywomen that has made me cavil, +before now, on seeing them turned into elaborately dressed nullities +by foolish and too adoring husbands.<br> +<br> +The voyage is wearing itself away. Sunny days are succeeded by +gray mornings, as exquisite in their way, when one can feel the ship +fight against contending wind and wave, and shiver under the blows received +in a struggle which dashes the salt spray high over the decks. +There is an aroma in the air then that breathes new life into jaded +nerves, and stirs the drop of old Norse blood, dormant in most American +veins, into quivering ecstasy. One dreams of throwing off the +trammels of civilized existence and returning to the free life of older +days.<br> +<br> +But here is Havre glittering in the distance against her background +of chalk cliffs. People come on deck in strangely conventional +clothes and with demure citified airs. Passengers of whose existence +you were unaware suddenly make their appearance. Two friends meet +near me for the first time. “Hallo, Jones!” says one +of them, “are you crossing?”<br> +<br> +“Yes,” answers Jones, “are you?”<br> +<br> +The company’s tug has come alongside by this time, bringing its +budget of letters and telegrams. The brief holiday is over. +With a sigh one comes back to the positive and the present, and patiently +resumes the harness of life.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER 9 - “Climbers” in England<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +The expression “Little Englander,” much used of late to +designate an inhabitant of the Mother Isle in contra-distinction to +other subjects of Her Majesty, expresses neatly the feeling of our insular +cousins not only as regards ourselves, but also the position affected +toward their colonial brothers and sisters.<br> +<br> +Have you ever noticed that in every circle there is some individual +assuming to do things better than his comrades - to know more, dress +better, run faster, pronounce more correctly? Who, unless promptly +suppressed, will turn the conversation into a monologue relating to +his own exploits and opinions. To differ is to bring down his +contempt upon your devoted head! To argue is time wasted!<br> +<br> +Human nature is, however, so constituted that a man of this type mostly +succeeds in hypnotizing his hearers into sharing his estimate of himself, +and impressing upon them the conviction that he is a rare being instead +of a commonplace mortal. He is not a bad sort of person at bottom, +and ready to do one a friendly turn - if it does not entail too great +inconvenience. In short, a good fellow, whose principal defect +is the profound conviction that he was born superior to the rest of +mankind.<br> +<br> +What this individual is to his environment, Englishmen are to the world +at large. It is the misfortune, not the fault, of the rest of +the human race, that they are not native to his island; a fact, by the +way, which outsiders are rarely allowed to lose sight of, as it entails +a becoming modesty on their part.<br> +<br> +Few idiosyncrasies get more quickly on American nerves or are further +from our hearty attitude toward strangers. As we are far from +looking upon wandering Englishmen with suspicion, it takes us some time +to realize that Americans who cut away from their countrymen and settle +far from home are regarded with distrust and reluctantly received. +When a family of this kind prepares to live in their neighborhood, Britons +have a formula of three questions they ask themselves concerning the +new-comers: “Whom do they know? How much are they worth?” +and “What amusement (or profit) are we likely to get out of them?” +If the answer to all or any of the three queries is satisfactory, my +lord makes the necessary advances and becomes an agreeable, if not a +witty or original, companion.<br> +<br> +Given this and a number of other peculiarities, it seems curious that +a certain class of Americans should be so anxious to live in England. +What is it tempts them? It cannot be the climate, for that is +vile; nor the city of London, for it is one of the ugliest in existence; +nor their “cuisine” - for although we are not good cooks +ourselves, we know what good food is and could give Britons points. +Neither can it be art, nor the opera, - one finds both better at home +or on the Continent than in England. So it must be society, and +here one’s wonder deepens!<br> +<br> +When I hear friends just back from a stay over there enlarging on the +charms of “country life,” or a London “season,” +I look attentively to see if they are in earnest, so incomparably dull +have I always found English house parties or town entertainments. +At least that side of society which the climbing stranger mostly affects. +Other circles are charming, if a bit slow, and the “Bohemia” +and semi-Bohemia of London have a delicate flavor of their own.<br> +<br> +County society, that ideal life so attractive to American readers of +British novels, is, taken on the whole, the most insipid existence conceivable. +The women lack the sparkle and charm of ours; the men, who are out all +day shooting or hunting according to the season, get back so fagged +that if they do not actually drop asleep at the dinner-table, they will +nap immediately after, brightening only when the ladies have retired, +when, with evening dress changed for comfortable smoking suits, the +hunters congregate in the billiard-room for cigars and brandy and seltzer.<br> +<br> +A particularly agreeable American woman, whose husband insists on going +every winter to Melton-Mowbray for the hunting, was describing the other +day the life there among the women, and expressing her wonder that those +who did not hunt could refrain from blowing out their brains, so awful +was the dulness and monotony! She had ended by not dining out +at all, having discovered that the conversation never by any chance +deviated far from the knees of the horses and the height of the hedges!<br> +<br> +Which reminds one of Thackeray relating how he had longed to know what +women talked about when they were alone after dinner, imagining it to +be on mysterious and thrilling subjects, until one evening he overheard +such a conversation and found it turned entirely on children and ailments! +As regards wit, the English are like the Oriental potentate who at a +ball in Europe expressed his astonishment that the guests took the trouble +to dance and get themselves hot and dishevelled, explaining that in +the East he paid people to do that for him. In England “amusers” +are invited expressly to be funny; anything uttered by one of these +delightful individuals is sure to be received with much laughter. +It is so simple that way! One is prepared and knows when to laugh. +Whereas amateur wit is confusing. When an American I knew, turning +over the books on a drawing-room table and finding Hare’s <i>Walks +in</i> <i>London</i>, in two volumes, said, “So you part your +hair in the middle over here,” the remark was received in silence, +and with looks of polite surprise.<br> +<br> +It is not necessary, however, to accumulate proofs that this much described +society is less intelligent than our own. Their authors have acknowledged +it, and well they may. For from Scott and Dickens down to Hall +Caine, American appreciation has gone far toward establishing the reputation +of English writers at home.<br> +<br> +In spite of lack of humor and a thousand other defects which ought to +make English swelldom antagonistic to our countrymen, the fact remains +that “smart” London tempts a certain number of Americans +and has become a promised land, toward which they turn longing eyes. +You will always find a few of these votaries over there in the “season,” +struggling bravely up the social current, making acquaintances, spending +money at charity sales, giving dinners and fêtes, taking houses +at Ascot and filling them with their new friends’ friends. +With more or less success as the new-comers have been able to return +satisfactory answers to the three primary questions.<br> +<br> +What Americans are these, who force us to blush for them infinitely +more than for the unlettered tourists trotting conscientiously around +the country, doing the sights and asking for soda-water and buckwheat +cakes at the hotels!<br> +<br> +Any one who has been an observer of the genus “Climber” +at home, and wondered at their way and courage, will recognize these +ambitious souls abroad; five minutes’ conversation is enough. +It is never about a place that they talk, but of the people they know. +London to them is not the city of Dickens. It is a place where +one may meet the Prince of Wales and perhaps obtain an entrance into +his set.<br> +<br> +One description will cover most climbers. They are, as a rule, +people who start humbly in some small city, then when fortune comes, +push on to New York and Newport, where they carry all before them and +make their houses centres and themselves powers. Next comes the +discovery that the circle into which they have forced their way is not +nearly as attractive as it appeared from a distance. Consequently +that vague disappointment is felt which most of us experience on attaining +a long desired goal - the unsatisfactoriness of success! Much +the same sensation as caused poor Du Maurier to answer, when asked shortly +before his death why he looked so glum, “I’m soured by success!”<br> +<br> +So true is this of all human nature that the following recipe might +be given for the attainment of perfect happiness: “Begin far down +in any walk of life. Rise by your efforts higher each year, and +then be careful to die before discovering that there is nothing at the +top. The excitement of the struggle - ‘the rapture of the +chase’ - are greater joys than achievement.”<br> +<br> +Our ambitious friends naturally ignore this bit of philosophy. +When it is discovered that the “world” at home has given +but an unsatisfactory return for cash and conniving, it occurs to them +that the fault lies in the circle, and they assume that their particular +talents require a larger field. Having conquered all in sight, +these social Alexanders pine for a new world, which generally turns +out to be the “Old,” so a crossing is made, and the “Conquest +of England” begun with all the enthusiasm and push employed on +starting out from the little native city twenty years before.<br> +<br> +It is in Victoria’s realm that foemen worthy of their steel await +the conquerors. Home society was a too easy prey, opening its +doors and laying down its arms at the first summons. In England +the new-comers find that their little game has been played before; and, +well, what they imagined was a discovery proves to be a long-studied +science with “<i>donnant! donnant</i>!” as its fundamental +law. Wily opponents with trump cards in their hands and a profound +knowledge of “Hoyle” smilingly offer them seats. Having +acquired in a home game a knowledge of “bluff,” our friends +plunge with delight into the fray, only to find English society so formed +that, climb they never so wisely, the top can never be reached. +Work as hard as they may, succeed even beyond their fondest hopes, there +will always remain circles above, toward which to yearn - people who +will refuse to know them, houses they will never be invited to enter. +Think of the charm, the attraction such a civilization must have for +the real born climber, and you, my reader, will understand why certain +of our compatriots enjoy living in England, and why when once the intoxicating +draught (supplied to the ambitious on the other side) has been tasted, +all home concoctions prove insipid.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER 10 - <i>Calvé</i> at Cabrières<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +While I was making a “cure” last year at Lamalou, an obscure +Spa in the Cevennes Mountains, Madame Calvé, to whom I had expressed +a desire to see her picturesque home, telegraphed an invitation to pass +the day with her, naming the train she could meet, which would allow +for the long drive to her château before luncheon. It is +needless to say the invitation was accepted. As my train drew +up at the little station, Madame Calvé, in her trap, was the +first person I saw, and no time was lost in getting <i>en route.<br> +<br> +</i>During the hour passed on the poplar-bordered road that leads straight +and white across the country I had time to appreciate the transformation +in the woman at my side. Was this gray-clad, nunlike figure the +passionate, sensuous Carmen of Bizet’s masterpiece? Could +that calm, pale face, crossed by innumerable lines of suffering, as +a spider’s web lies on a flower, blaze and pant with Sappho’s +guilty love?<br> +<br> +Something of these thoughts must have appeared on my face, for turning +with a smile, she asked, “You find me changed? It’s +the air of my village. Here I’m myself. Everywhere +else I’m different. On the stage I am any part I may be +playing, but am never really happy away from my hill there.” +As she spoke, a sun-baked hamlet came in sight, huddled around the base +of two tall towers that rose cool and gray in the noonday heat.<br> +<br> +“All that wing,” she added, “is arranged for the convalescent +girls whom I have sent down to me from the Paris hospitals for a cure +of fresh air and simple food. Six years ago, just after I had +bought this place, a series of operations became necessary which left +me prostrated and anaemic. No tonics were of benefit. I +grew weaker day by day, until the doctors began to despair of my life. +Finally, at the advice of an old woman here who passes for being something +of a curer, I tried the experiment or lying five or six hours a day +motionless in the sunlight. It wasn’t long before I felt +life creeping back to my poor feeble body. The hot sun of our +magic south was a more subtle tonic than any drug. When the cure +was complete, I made up my mind that each summer the same chance should +be offered to as many of my suffering sisters as this old place could +be made to accommodate.”<br> +<br> +The bells on the shaggy Tarbes ponies she was driving along the Languedoc +road drew, on nearing her residence, a number of peasant children from +their play.<br> +<br> +As the ruddy urchins ran shouting around our carriage wheels and scrambled +in the dust for the sous we threw them, my hostess pointed laughing +to a scrubby little girl with tomato-colored cheeks and tousled dark +hair, remarking, “I looked like that twenty years ago and performed +just those antics on this very road. No punishment would keep +me off the highway. Those pennies, if I’m not mistaken, +will all be spent at the village pastry cook’s within an hour.”<br> +<br> +This was said with such a tender glance at the children that one realized +the great artist was at home here, surrounded by the people she loved +and understood. True to the “homing” instinct of the +French peasant, Madame Calvé, when fortune came to her, bought +and partially restored the rambling château which at sunset casts +its shadow across the village of her birth. Since that day every +moment of freedom from professional labor and every penny of her large +income are spent at Cabrières, building, planning, even farming, +when her health permits.<br> +<br> +“I think,” she continued, as we approached the château, +“that the happiest day of my life - and I have, as you know, passed +some hours worth living, both on and off the stage - was when, that +wing completed, a Paris train brought the first occupants for my twenty +little bedrooms; no words can tell the delight it gives me now to see +the color coming back to my patients’ pale lips and hear them +laughing and singing about the place. As I am always short of +funds, the idea of abandoning this work is the only fear the future +holds for me.”<br> +<br> +With the vivacity peculiar to her character, my companion then whipped +up her cobs and turned the conversation into gayer channels. Five +minutes later we clattered over a drawbridge and drew up in a roomy +courtyard, half blinding sunlight and half blue shadow, where a score +of girls were occupied with books and sewing.<br> +<br> +The luncheon bell was ringing as we ascended the terrace steps. +After a hurried five minutes for brushing and washing, we took our places +at a long table set in the cool stone hall, guests stopping in the château +occupying one end around the chatelaine, the convalescents filling the +other seats.<br> +<br> +Those who have only seen the capricious diva on the stage or in Parisian +salons can form little idea of the proprietress of Cabrières. +No shade of coquetry blurs the clear picture of her home life. +The capped and saboted peasant women who waited on us were not more +simple in their ways. Several times during the meal she left her +seat to inquire after the comfort of some invalid girl or inspect the +cooking in the adjacent kitchen. These wanderings were not, however, +allowed to disturb the conversation, which flowed on after the mellow +French fashion, enlivened by much wit and gay badinage. One of +our hostess’s anecdotes at her own expense was especially amusing.<br> +<br> +“When in Venice,” she told us, “most prima donnas +are carried to and from the opera in sedan chairs to avoid the risk +of colds from the draughty gondolas. The last night of my initial +season there, I was informed, as the curtain fell, that a number of +Venetian nobles were planning to carry me in triumph to the hotel. +When I descended from my dressing-room the courtyard of the theatre +was filled with men in dress clothes, bearing lanterns, who caught up +the chair as soon as I was seated and carried it noisily across the +city to the hotel. Much moved by this unusual honor, I mounted +to the balcony of my room, from which elevation I bowed my thanks, and +threw all the flowers at hand to my escort.<br> +<br> +“Next morning the hotel proprietor appeared with my coffee, and +after hesitating a moment, remarked: ‘Well, we made a success +of it last night. It has been telegraphed to all the capitals +of Europe! I hope you will not think a thousand francs too much, +considering the advertisement!’ In blank amazement, I asked +what he meant. ‘I mean the triumphal progress,’ he +answered. ‘I thought you understood! We always organize +one for the “stars” who visit Venice. The men who +carried your chair last night were the waiters from the hotels. +We hire them on account of their dress clothes’! Think of +the disillusion,” added Calvé, laughing, “and my +disgust, when I thought of myself naïvely throwing kisses and flowers +to a group of Swiss garçons at fifteen francs a head. There +was nothing to do, however, but pay the bill and swallow my chagrin!”<br> +<br> +How many pretty women do you suppose would tell such a joke upon themselves? +Another story she told us is characteristic of her peasant neighbors.<br> +<br> +“When I came back here after my first season in St. Petersburg +and London the <i>curé</i> requested me to sing at our local +fête. I gladly consented, and, standing by his side on the +steps of the <i>Mairie</i>, gave the great aria from the <i>Huguenots</i> +in my best manner. To my astonishment the performance was received +in complete silence. ‘Poor Calvé,’ I heard +an old friend of my mother’s murmur. ‘Her voice used +to be so nice, and now it’s all gone!’ Taking in the +situation at a glance, I threw my voice well up into my nose and started +off on a well-known provincial song, in the shrill falsetto of our peasant +women. The effect was instantaneous! Long before the end +the performance was drowned in thunders of applause. Which proves +that to be popular a singer must adapt herself to her audience.”<br> +<br> +Luncheon over, we repaired for cigarettes and coffee to an upper room, +where Calvé was giving Dagnan-Bouveret some sittings for a portrait, +and lingered there until four o’clock, when our hostess left us +for her siesta, and a “break” took those who cared for the +excursion across the valley to inspect the ruins of a Roman bath. +A late dinner brought us together again in a small dining room, the +convalescents having eaten their simple meal and disappeared an hour +before. During this time, another transformation had taken place +in our mercurial hostess! It was the Calvé of Paris, Calvé +the witch, Calvé the <i>capiteuse</i>, who presided at the dainty, +flower-decked table and led the laughing conversation.<br> +<br> +A few notes struck on a guitar by one of the party, as we sat an hour +later on the moonlit terrace, were enough to start off the versatile +artist, who was in her gayest humor. She sang us stray bits of +opera, alternating her music with scenes burlesqued from recent plays. +No one escaped her inimitable mimicry, not even the “divine Sarah,” +Calvé giving us an unpayable impersonation of the elderly<i> +tragédienne</i> as Lorenzaccio, the boy hero of Alfred de Musset’s +drama. Burlesquing led to her dancing some Spanish steps with +an abandon never attempted on the stage! Which in turn gave place +to an imitation of an American whistling an air from <i>Carmen</i>, +and some “coon songs” she had picked up during her stay +at New York. They, again, were succeeded by a superb rendering +of the imprecation from Racine’s <i>Camille</i>, which made her +audience realize that in gaining a soprano the world has lost, perhaps, +its greatest <i>tragédienne.<br> +<br> +</i>At eleven o’clock the clatter of hoofs in the court warned +us that the pleasant evening had come to an end. A journalist +<i>en route</i> for Paris was soon installed with me in the little omnibus +that was to take us to the station, Calvé herself lighting our +cigars and providing the wraps that were to keep out the cool night +air.<br> +<br> +As we passed under the low archway of the entrance amid a clamor of +“adieu“ and “au revoir,” the young Frenchman +at my side pointed up to a row of closed windows overhead. “Isn’t +it a lesson,” he said, “for all of us, to think of the occupants +of those little rooms, whom the generosity and care of that gracious +artist are leaning by such pleasant paths back to health and courage +for their toilsome lives?”<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER 11 - A Cry For Fresh Air<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +“Once upon a time,” reads the familiar nursery tale, while +the fairies, invited by a king and queen to the christening of their +daughter, were showering good gifts on the baby princess, a disgruntled +old witch, whom no one had thought of asking to the ceremony, appeared +uninvited on the scene and revenged herself by decreeing that the presents +of the good fairies, instead of proving beneficial, should bring only +trouble and embarrassment to the royal infant.<br> +<br> +A telling analogy might be drawn between that unhappy princess over +whose fate so many youthful tears have been shed, and the condition +of our invention-ridden country; for we see every day how the good gifts +of those nineteenth century fairies, Science and Industry, instead of +proving blessings to mankind, are being turned by ignorance and stupidity +into veritable afflictions.<br> +<br> +If a prophetic gentleman had told Louis Fourteenth’s shivering +courtiers - whom an iron etiquette forced on winter mornings into the +(appropriately named) Galerie des Glaces, stamping their silk-clad feet +and blowing on their blue fingers, until the king should appear - that +within a century and a half one simple discovery would enable all classes +of people to keep their shops and dwellings at a summer temperature +through the severest winters, the half-frozen nobles would have flouted +the suggestion as an “iridescent dream,” a sort of too-good-to-be-true +prophecy.<br> +<br> +What was to those noblemen an unheard-of luxury has become within the +last decade one of the primary necessities of our life.<br> +<br> +The question arises now: Are we gainers by the change? Has the +indiscriminate use of heat been of advantage, either mentally or physically, +to the nation?<br> +<br> +The incubus of caloric that sits on our gasping country is particularly +painful at this season, when nature undertakes to do her own heating.<br> +<br> +In other less-favored lands, the first spring days, the exquisite awakening +of the world after a long winter, bring to the inhabitants a sensation +of joy and renewed vitality. We, however, have discounted that +enjoyment. Delicate gradations of temperature are lost on people +who have been stewing for six months in a mixture of steam and twice-breathed +air.<br> +<br> +What pleasure can an early April day afford the man who has slept in +an overheated flat and is hurrying to an office where eighty degrees +is the average all the year round? Or the pale shop-girl, who +complains if a breath of morning air strays into the suburban train +where she is seated?<br> +<br> +As people who habitually use such “relishes” as Chutney +and Worcestershire are incapable of appreciating delicately prepared +food, so the ”soft” mortals who have accustomed themselves +to a perpetual August are insensible to fine shadings of temperature.<br> +<br> +The other day I went with a friend to inspect some rooms he had been +decorating in one of our public schools. The morning had been +frosty, but by eleven o’clock the sun warmed the air uncomfortably. +On entering the school we were met by a blast of heated air that was +positively staggering. In the recitation rooms, where, as in all +New York schoolrooms, the children were packed like dominoes in a box, +the temperature could not have been under eighty-five.<br> +<br> +The pale, spectacled spinster in charge, to whom we complained of this, +was astonished and offended at what she considered our interference, +and answered that “the children liked it warm,” as for herself +she “had a cold and could not think of opening a window.” +If the rooms were too warm it was the janitor’s fault, and he +had gone out!<br> +<br> +Twelve o’clock struck before we had finished our tour of inspection. +It is to be doubted if anywhere else in the world could there be found +such a procession of pasty-faced, dull-eyed youngsters as trooped past +us down the stairs. Their appearance was the natural result of +compelling children dressed for winter weather to sit many hours each +day in hothouses, more suited to tropical plants than to growing human +beings.<br> +<br> +A gentleman with us remarked with a sigh, “I have been in almost +every school in the city and find the same condition everywhere. +It is terrible, but there doesn’t seem to be any remedy for it.” +The taste for living in a red-hot atmosphere is growing on our people; +even public vehicles have to be heated now to please the patrons.<br> +<br> +When tiresome old Benjamin Franklin made stoves popular he struck a +terrible blow at the health of his compatriots; the introduction of +steam heat and consequent suppression of all health-giving ventilation +did the rest; the rosy cheeks of American children went up the chimney +with the last whiff of wood smoke, and have never returned. Much +of our home life followed; no family can be expected to gather in cheerful +converse around a “radiator.”<br> +<br> +How can this horror of fresh air among us be explained? If people +really enjoy living in overheated rooms with little or no ventilation, +why is it that we hear so much complaining, when during the summer months +the thermometer runs up into the familiar nineties? Why are children +hurried out of town, and why do wives consider it a necessity to desert +their husbands?<br> +<br> +It’s rather inconsistent, to say the least, for not one of those +deserters but would “kick” if the theatre or church they +attend fell below that temperature in December.<br> +<br> +It is impossible to go into our banks and offices and not realize that +the air has been breathed again and again, heated and cooled, but never +changed, - doors and windows fit too tightly for that.<br> +<br> +The pallor and dazed expression of the employees tell the same tale. +I spoke to a youth the other day in an office about his appearance and +asked if he was ill. “Yes,” he answered, “I +have had a succession of colds all winter. You see, my desk here +is next to the radiator, so I am in a perpetual perspiration and catch +cold as soon as I go out. Last winter I passed three months in +a farmhouse, where the water froze in my room at night, and we had to +wear overcoats to our meals. Yet I never had a cold there, and +gained in weight and strength.”<br> +<br> +Twenty years ago no “palatial private residence” was considered +complete unless there was a stationary washstand (forming a direct connection +with the sewer) in each bedroom. We looked pityingly on foreigners +who did not enjoy these advantages, until one day we realized that the +latter were in the right, and straightway stationary washstands disappeared.<br> +<br> +How much time must pass and how many victims be sacrificed before we +come to our senses on the great radiator question?<br> +<br> +As a result of our population living in a furnace, it happens now that +when you rebel on being forced to take an impromptu Turkish bath at +a theatre, the usher answers your complaint with “It can’t +be as warm as you think, for a lady over there has just told me she +felt chilly and asked for more heat!”<br> +<br> +Another invention of the enemy is the “revolving door.” +By this ingenious contrivance the little fresh air that formerly crept +into a building is now excluded. Which explains why on entering +our larger hotels one is taken by the throat, as it were, by a sickening +long-dead atmosphere - in which the souvenir of past meals and decaying +flowers floats like a regret - such as explorers must find on opening +an Egyptian tomb.<br> +<br> +Absurd as it may seem, it has become a distinction to have cool rooms. +Alas, they are rare! Those blessed households where one has the +delicious sensation of being chilly and can turn with pleasure toward +crackling wood! The open fire has become, within the last decade, +a test of refinement, almost a question of good breeding, forming a +broad distinction between dainty households and vulgar ones, and marking +the line which separates the homes of cultivated people from the parlors +of those who care only for display.<br> +<br> +A drawing-room filled with heat, the source of which remains invisible, +is as characteristic of the parvenu as clanking chains on a harness +or fine clothes worn in the street.<br> +<br> +An open fire is the “eye” of a room, which can no more be +attractive without it than the human face can be beautiful if it lacks +the visual organs. The “gas fire” bears about the +same relation to the real thing as a glass eye does to a natural one, +and produces much the same sensation. Artificial eyes are painful +necessities in some cases, and therefore cannot be condemned; but the +household which gathers complacently around a “gas log” +must have something radically wrong with it, and would be capable of +worse offences against taste and hospitality.<br> +<br> +There is a tombstone in a New England grave-yard the inscription on +which reads: “I was well, I wanted to be better. Here I +am.”<br> +<br> +As regards heating of our houses, it’s to be feared that we have +gone much the same road as the unfortunate New Englander. I don’t +mean to imply that he is now suffering from too much heat, but we, as +a nation, certainly are.<br> +<br> +Janitors and parlor-car conductors have replaced the wicked fairies +of other days, but are apparently animated by their malignant spirit, +and employ their hours of brief authority as cruelly. No witch +dancing around her boiling cauldron was ever more joyful than the fireman +of a modern hotel, as he gleefully turns more and more steam upon his +helpless victims. Long acquaintance with that gentleman has convinced +me that he cannot plead ignorance as an excuse for falling into these +excesses. It is pure, unadulterated perversity, else why should +he invariably choose the mildest mornings to show what his engines can +do?<br> +<br> +Many explanations have been offered for this love of a high temperature +by our compatriots. Perhaps the true one has not yet been found. +Is it not possible that what appears to be folly and almost criminal +negligence of the rules of health, may be, after all, only a commendable +ambition to renew the exploits of those biblical heroes, Shadrach, Meshach, +and Abednego?<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER 12 - The Paris of our Grandparents<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +We are apt to fall into the error of assuming that only American cities +have displaced their centres and changed their appearance during the +last half-century.<br> +<br> +The “oldest inhabitant,” with his twice-told tales of transformations +and changes, is to a certain extent responsible for this; by contrast, +we imagine that the capitals of Europe have always been just as we see +them. So strong is this impression that it requires a serious +effort of the imagination to reconstruct the Paris that our grandparents +knew and admired, few as the years are that separate their day from +ours.<br> +<br> +It is, for instance, difficult to conceive of a Paris that ended at +the rue Royale, with only waste land and market gardens beyond the Madeleine, +where to-day so many avenues open their stately perspectives; yet such +was the case! The few fine residences that existed beyond that +point faced the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, with gardens running back +to an unkempt open country called the Champs Elysées, where an +unfinished Arc de Triomphe stood alone in a wilderness that no one ever +dreamed of traversing.<br> +<br> +The fashionable ladies of that time drove in the afternoon along the +boulevards from the Madeleine to the Château d’Eau, and +stopped their ponderous yellow barouches at Tortoni’s, where ices +were served to them in their carriages, while they chatted with immaculate +dandies in skin-tight nankeen unmentionables, blue swallow-tailed coats, +and furry ‘beaver” hats.<br> +<br> +While looking over some books in the company of an old lady who from +time to time opens her store of treasures and recalls her remote youth +at my request, and whose <i>spirituel</i> and graphic language gives +to her souvenirs the air of being stray chapters from some old-fashioned +romance, I received a vivid impression of how the French capital must +have looked fifty years ago.<br> +<br> +Emptying in her company a chest of books that had not seen the light +for several decades, we came across a “Panorama of the Boulevards,” +dated 1845, which proved when unfolded to be a colored lithograph, a +couple of yards long by five or six inches high, representing the line +of boulevards from the Madeleine to the Place de la Bastille. +Each house, almost each tree, was faithfully depicted, together with +the crowds on the sidewalks and the carriages in the street. The +whole scene was as different from the effect made by that thoroughfare +to-day as though five hundred and not fifty years had elapsed since +the little book was printed. The picture breathed an atmosphere +of calm and nameless quaintness that one finds now only in old provincial +cities which have escaped the ravages of improvement.<br> +<br> +My companion sat with the book unfolded before her, in a smiling trance. +Her mind had turned back to the far-away days when she first trod those +streets a bride, with all the pleasures and few of the cares of life +to think about.<br> +<br> +I watched her in silence (it seemed a sacrilege to break in on such +a train of thought), until gradually her eyes lost their far-away expression, +and, turning to me with a smile, she exclaimed: “How we ever had +the courage to appear in the street dressed as we were is a mystery! +Do you see that carriage?” pointing in the print to a high-swung +family vehicle with a powdered coachman on the box, and two sky-blue +lackeys standing behind. “I can remember, as if it were +yesterday, going to drive with Lady B-, the British ambassadress, in +just such a conveyance. She drove four horses with feathers on +their heads, when she used to come to Meurice’s for me. +I blush when I think that my frock was so scant that I had to raise +the skirt almost to my knees in order to get into her carriage.<br> +<br> +“Why we didn’t all die of pneumonia is another marvel, for +we wore low-necked dresses and the thinnest of slippers in the street, +our heads being about the only part that was completely covered. +I was particularly proud of a turban surmounted with a bird of paradise, +but Lady B--- affected poke bonnets, then just coming into fashion, +so large and so deep that when one looked at her from the side nothing +was visible except two curls, ‘as damp and as black as leeches.’ +In other ways our toilets were absurdly unsuited for every-day wear; +we wore light scarves over our necks, and rarely used furlined pelisses.”<br> +<br> +Returning to an examination of the panorama, my companion pointed out +to me that there was no break in the boulevards, where the opera-house, +with its seven radiating avenues, now stands, but a long line of Hôtels, +dozing behind high walls, and quaint two-storied buildings that undoubtedly +dated from the razing of the city wall and the opening of the new thoroughfare +under Louis XV.<br> +<br> +A little farther on was the world-famous Maison Dorée, where +one almost expected to see Alfred de Musset and le docteur Véron +dining with Dumas and Eugene Sue.<br> +<br> +“What in the name of goodness is that?” I exclaimed, pointing +to a couple of black and yellow monstrosities on wheels, which looked +like three carriages joined together with a “buggy” added +on in front.<br> +<br> +“That’s the diligence just arrived from Calais; it has been +two days <i>en route</i>, the passengers sleeping as best they could, +side by side, and escaping from their confinement only when horses were +changed or while stopping for meals. That high two-wheeled trap +with the little ‘tiger’ standing up behind is a tilbury. +We used to see the Count d’Orsay driving one like that almost +every day. He wore butter-colored gloves, and the skirts of his +coat were pleated full all around, and stood out like a ballet girl’s. +It is a pity they have not included Louis Philippe and his family jogging +off to Neuilly in the court ‘carryall,’ - the ‘Citizen +King,’ with his blue umbrella between his knees, trying to look +like an honest bourgeois, and failing even in that attempt to please +the Parisians.<br> +<br> +“We were in Paris in ’48; from my window at Meurice’s +I saw poor old <i>Juste Milieu</i> read his abdication from the historic +middle balcony of the Tuileries, and half an hour later we perceived +the Duchesse d’Orléans leave the Tuileries on foot, leading +her two sons by the hand, and walk through the gardens and across the +Place de la Concorde to the Corps Législatif, in a last attempt +to save the crown for her son. Futile effort! That evening +the ‘Citizen King’ was hurried through those same gardens +and into a passing cab, <i>en</i> <i>route</i> for a life exile.<br> +<br> +“Our balcony at Meurice’s was a fine point of observation +from which to watch a revolution. With an opera-glass we could +see the mob surging to the sack of the palace, the priceless furniture +and bric-à-brac flung into the street, court dresses waved on +pikes from the tall windows, and finally the throne brought out, and +carried off to be burned. There was no keeping the men of our +party in after that. They rushed off to have a nearer glimpse +of the fighting, and we saw no more of them until daybreak the following +morning when, just as we were preparing to send for the police, two +dilapidated, ragged, black-faced mortals appeared, in whom we barely +recognized our husbands. They had been impressed into service +and passed their night building barricades. My better half, however, +had succeeded in snatching a handful of the gold fringe from the throne +as it was carried by, an act of prowess that repaid him for all his +troubles and fatigue.<br> +<br> +“I passed the greater part of forty-eight hours on our balcony, +watching the mob marching by, singing <i>La Marseillaise</i>, and camping +at night in the streets. It was all I could do to tear myself +away from the window long enough to eat and write in my journal.<br> +<br> +“There was no Avenue de l’Opéra then. The trip +from the boulevards to the Palais-Royal had to be made by a long detour +across the Place Vendôme (where, by the bye, a cattle market was +held) or through a labyrinth of narrow, bad-smelling little streets, +where strangers easily lost their way. Next to the boulevards, +the Palais-Royal was the centre of the elegant and dissipated life in +the capital. It was there we met of an afternoon to drink chocolate +at the ‘Rotonde,’ or to dine at ‘Les Trois Frères +Provençaux,’ and let our husbands have a try at the gambling +tables in the Passage d’Orléans.<br> +<br> +“No one thought of buying jewelry anywhere else. It was +from the windows of its shops that the fashions started on their way +around the world. When Victoria as a bride was visiting Louis +Philippe, she was so fascinated by the aspect of the place that the +gallant French king ordered a miniature copy of the scene, made <i>in +papier-mâché</i>, as a present for his guest, a sort of +gigantic dolls’ house in which not only the palace and its long +colonnades were reproduced, but every tiny shop and the myriad articles +for sale were copied with Chinese fidelity. Unfortunately the +pear-headed old king became England’s uninvited guest before this +clumsy toy was finished, so it never crossed the Channel, but can be +seen to-day by any one curious enough to examine it, in the Musée +Carnavalet.<br> +<br> +“Few of us realize that the Paris of Charles X. and Louis Philippe +would seem to us now a small, ill-paved, and worse-lighted provincial +town, with few theatres or hotels, communicating with the outer world +only by means of a horse-drawn ‘post,’ and practically farther +from London than Constantinople is to-day. One feels this isolation +in the literature of the time; brilliant as the epoch was, the horizon +of its writers was bounded by the boulevards and the Faubourg Saint-Germain.”<br> +<br> +Dumas says laughingly, in a letter to a friend: “I have never +ventured into the unexplored country beyond the Bastille, but am convinced +that it shelters wild animals and savages.” The wit and +brains of the period were concentrated into a small space. Money-making +had no more part in the programme of a writer then than an introduction +into “society.” Catering to a foreign market and snobbishness +were undreamed-of degradations. Paris had not yet been turned +into the <i>Foire du Monde</i> that she has since become, with whole +quarters given over to the use of foreigners, - theatres, restaurants, +and hotels created only for the use of a polyglot population that could +give lessons to the people around Babel’s famous “tower.”<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER 13 - Some American Husbands<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Until the beginning of this century men played the <i>beau rôle</i> +in life’s comedy. As in the rest of the animal world, our +males were the brilliant members of the community, flaunting their gaudy +plumage at home and abroad, while the women-folk remained in seclusion, +tending their children, directing the servants, or ministering to their +lords’ comfort.<br> +<br> +In those happy days the husband ruled supreme at his own fireside, receiving +the homage of the family, who bent to his will and obeyed his orders.<br> +<br> +During the last century, however, the “part” of better half +has become less and less attractive in America, one prerogative after +another having been whisked away by enterprising wives. Modern +Delilahs have yearly snipped off more and more of Samson’s luxuriant +curls, and added those ornaments to their own <i>coiffures</i>, until +in the majority of families the husband finds himself reduced to a state +of bondage compared with which the biblical hero enjoyed a pampered +idleness. Times have indeed changed in America since the native +chief sat in dignified repose bedizened with all the finery at hand, +while the ladies of the family waited tremblingly upon him. To-day +it is the American husband who turns the grindstone all the year round, +and it is his pretty tyrant who enjoys the elegant leisure that a century +ago was considered a masculine luxury.<br> +<br> +To America must be given the credit of having produced the model husband, +a new species, as it were, of the <i>genus homo.<br> +<br> +</i>In no rôle does a compatriot appear to such advantage as in +that of Benedict. As a boy he is often too advanced for his years +or his information; in youth he is conspicuous neither for his culture +nor his unselfishness. But once in matrimonial harness this untrained +animal becomes bridle-wise with surprising rapidity, and will for the +rest of life go through his paces, waltzing, kneeing, and saluting with +hardly a touch of the whip. Whether this is the result of superior +horse-womanship on the part of American wives or a trait peculiar to +sons of “Uncle Sam,” is hard to say, but the fact is self-evident +to any observer that our fair equestrians rarely meet with a rebellious +mount.<br> +<br> +Any one who has studied marital ways in other lands will realize that +in no country have the men effaced themselves so gracefully as with +us. In this respect no foreign production can compare for a moment +with the domestic article. In English, French, and German families +the husband is still all-powerful. The house is mounted, guests +are asked, and the year planned out to suit his occupations and pleasure. +Here papa is rarely consulted until such matters have been decided upon +by the ladies, when the head of the house is called in to sign the checks.<br> +<br> +I have had occasion more than once to bewail the shortcomings of the +American man, and so take pleasure in pointing out the modesty and good +temper with which he fills this role. He is trained from the beginning +to give all and expect nothing in return, an American girl rarely bringing +any <i>dot</i> to her husband, no matter how wealthy her family may +be. If, as occasionally happens, an income is allowed a bride +by her parents, she expects to spend it on her toilets or pleasures. +This condition of the matrimonial market exists in no other country; +even in England, where <i>mariages</i> <i>de convenance</i> are rare, +“settlements” form an inevitable prelude to conjugal bliss.<br> +<br> +The fact that she contributes little or nothing to the common income +in no way embarrasses an American wife; her pretensions are usually +in an inverse proportion to her personal means. A man I knew some +years ago deliberately chose his bride from an impecunious family (in +the hope that her simple surroundings had inculcated homely taste), +and announced to an incredulous circle of friends, at his last bachelor +dinner, that he intended, in future, to pass his evenings at his fireside, +between his book and his pretty spouse. Poor, innocent, confiding +mortal! The wife quickly became a belle of the fastest set in +town. Having had more than she wanted of firesides and quiet evenings +before her marriage, her idea was to go about as much as possible, and, +when not so occupied, to fill her house with company. It may be +laid down as a maxim in this connection that a man marries to obtain +a home, and a girl to get away from one; hence disappointment on both +sides.<br> +<br> +The couple in question have in all probability not passed an evening +alone since they were married, the lady rarely stopping in the round +of her gayeties until she collapses from fatigue. Their home is +typical of their life, which itself can be taken as a good example of +the existence that most of our “smart” people lead. +The ground floor and the first floor are given up to entertaining. +The second is occupied by the spacious sitting, bath, and sleeping rooms +of the lady. A ten-by-twelve chamber suffices for my lord, and +the only den he can rightly call his own is a small room near the front +door, about as private as the sidewalk, which is turned into a cloak-room +whenever the couple receive, making it impossible to keep books or papers +of value there, or even to use it as a smoking-room after dinner, so +his men guests sit around the dismantled dining-table while the ladies +are enjoying a suite of parlors above.<br> +<br> +At first the idea of such an unequal division of the house shocks our +sense of justice, until we reflect that the American husband is not +expected to remain at home. That’s not his place! +If he is not down town making money, fashion dictates that he must be +at some club-house playing a game. A man who should remain at +home, and read or chat with the ladies of his family, would be considered +a bore and unmanly. There seems to be no place in an American +house for its head. More than once when the friend I have referred +to has asked me, at the club, to dine informally with him, we have found, +on arriving, that Madame, having an evening off, had gone to bed and +forgotten to order any dinner, so we were obliged to return to the club +for our meal. When, however, his wife is in good health, she expects +her weary husband to accompany her to dinner, opera, or ball, night +after night, oblivious of the work the morrow holds in store for him.<br> +<br> +In one family I know, paterfamilias goes by the name of the “purse.” +The more one sees of American households the more appropriate that name +appears. Everything is expected of the husband, and he is accorded +no definite place in return. He leaves the house at 8.30. +When he returns, at five, if his wife is entertaining a man at tea, +it would be considered the height of indelicacy for him to intrude upon +them, for his arrival would cast a chill on the conversation. +When a couple dine out, the husband is always <i>la bête</i> <i>noire</i> +of the hostess, no woman wanting to sit next to a married man, if she +can help it.<br> +<br> +The few Benedicts who have had the courage to break away from these +conditions and amuse themselves with yachts, salmon rivers, or “grass-bachelor” +trips to Europe, while secretly admired by the women, are frowned upon +in society as dangerous examples, likely to sow the seeds of discontent +among their comrades; although it is the commonest thing in the world +for an American wife to take the children and go abroad on a tour.<br> +<br> +Imagine a German or Italian wife announcing to her spouse that she had +decided to run over to England for a year with her children, that they +might learn English. The mind recoils in horror from the idea +of the catastrophe that would ensue.<br> +<br> +Glance around a ball-room, a dinner party, or the opera, if you have +any doubts as to the unselfishness of our married men. How many +of them do you suppose are present for their own pleasure? The +owner of an opera box rarely retains a seat in his expensive quarters. +You generally find him idling in the lobbies looking at his watch, or +repairing to a neighboring concert hall to pass the weary hours. +At a ball it is even worse. One wonders why card-rooms are not +provided at large balls (as is the custom abroad), where the bored husbands +might find a little solace over “bridge,” instead of yawning +in the coat-room or making desperate signs to their wives from the doorway, +- signals of distress, by the bye, that rarely produce any effect.<br> +<br> +It is the rebellious husband who is admired and courted, however. +A curious trait of human nature compels admiration for whatever is harmful, +and forces us, in spite of our better judgment, to depreciate the useful +and beneficent. The coats-of-arms of all countries are crowded +with eagles and lions, that never yet did any good, living or dead; +orators enlarge on the fine qualities of these birds and beasts, and +hold them up as models, while using as terms of reproach the name of +the goose or the cow, creatures that minister in a hundred ways to our +wants. Such a spirit has brought helpful, productive “better +halves” to the humble place they now occupy in the eyes of our +people.<br> +<br> +As long as men passed their time in fighting and carousing they were +heroes; as soon as they became patient bread-winners all the romance +evaporated from their atmosphere. The Jewish Hercules had his +revenge in the end and made things disagreeable for his tormentors. +So far, however, there are no signs of a revolt among the shorn lambs +in this country. They patiently bend their necks to the collar +- the kindest, most loving and devoted helpmates that ever plodded under +the matrimonial yoke.<br> +<br> +When in the East, one watches with admiration the part a donkey plays +in the economy of those primitive lands. All the work is reserved +for that industrious animal, and little play falls to his share. +The camel is always bad-tempered, and when overladen lies down, refusing +to move until relieved of its burden. The Turk is lazy and selfish, +the native women pass their time in chattering and giggling, the children +play and squabble, the ubiquitous dog sleeps in the sun; but from daybreak +to midnight the little mouse-colored donkeys toil unceasingly. +All burdens too bulky or too cumbersome for man are put on his back; +the provender which horses and camels have refused becomes his portion; +he is the first to begin the day’s labor, and the last to turn +in. It is impossible to live long in the Orient or the south of +France without becoming attached to those gentle, willing animals. +The rôle which honest “Bourico” fills so well abroad +is played on this side of the Atlantic by the American husband.<br> +<br> +I mean no disrespect to my married compatriots; on the contrary, I admire +them as I do all docile, unselfish beings. It is well for our +women, however, that their lords, like the little Oriental donkeys, +ignore their strength, and are content to toil on to the end of their +days, expecting neither praise nor thanks in return.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER 14 - “<i>Carolus</i>”<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +In the early seventies a group of students - dissatisfied with the cut-and-dried +instruction of the Paris art school and attracted by certain qualities +of color and technique in the work of a young Frenchman from the city +of Lille, who was just beginning to attract the attention of connoisseurs +- went in a body to his studio with the request that he would oversee +their work and direct their studies. The artist thus chosen was +Carolus-Duran. Oddly enough, a majority of the youths who sought +him out and made him their master were Americans.<br> +<br> +The first modest workroom on the Boulevard Montparnasse was soon too +small to hold the pupils who crowded under this newly raised banner, +and a move was made to more commodious quarters near the master’s +private studio. Sargent, Dannat, Harrison, Beckwith, Hinckley, +and many others whom it is needless to mention here, will - if these +lines come under their notice - doubtless recall with a thrill of pleasure +the roomy one-storied structure in the rue Notre-Dame des Champs where +we established our <i>atelier d’élèves</i>, a self-supporting +cooperative concern, each student contributing ten francs a month toward +rent, fire, and models, “Carolus” - the name by which this +master is universally known abroad - not only refusing all compensation, +according to the immutable custom of French painters of distinction, +but, as we discovered later, contributing too often from his own pocket +to help out the <i>massier</i> at the end of a difficult season, or +smooth the path of some improvident pupil.<br> +<br> +Those were cloudless, enchanted days we passed in the tumbled down old +atelier: an ardent springtime of life when the future beckons gayly +and no doubts of success obscure the horizon. Our young master’s +enthusiasm fired his circle of pupils, who, as each succeeding year +brought him increasing fame, revelled in a reflected glory with the +generous admiration of youth, in which there is neither calculation +nor shadow of envy.<br> +<br> +A portrait of Madame de Portalais, exhibited about this time, drew all +art-loving Paris around the new celebrity’s canvas. Shortly +after, the government purchased a painting (of our master’s beautiful +wife), now known as <i>La Femme au Gant</i>, for the Luxembourg Gallery.<br> +<br> +It is difficult to overestimate the impetus that a master’s successes +impart to the progress of his pupils. My first studious year in +Paris had been passed in the shadow of an elderly painter, who was comfortably +dozing on the laurels of thirty years before. The change from +that sleepy environment to the vivid enthusiasm and dash of Carolus-Duran’s +studio was like stepping out of a musty cloister into the warmth and +movement of a market-place.<br> +<br> +Here, be it said in passing, lies perhaps the secret of the dry rot +that too often settles on our American art schools. We, for some +unknown reason, do not take the work of native painters seriously, nor +encourage them in proportion to their merit. In consequence they +retain but a feeble hold upon their pupils.<br> +<br> +Carolus, handsome, young, successful, courted, was an ideal leader for +a band of ambitious, high-strung youths, repaying their devotion with +an untiring interest and lifting clever and dull alike on the strong +wings of his genius. His visits to the studio, on which his friend +Henner often accompanied him, were frequent and prolonged; certain Tuesdays +being especially appreciated by us, as they were set apart for his criticism +of original compositions.<br> +<br> +When our sketches (the subject for which had been given out in advance) +were arranged, and we had seated ourselves in a big half-circle on the +floor, Carolus would install himself on a tall stool, the one seat the +studio boasted, and chat <i>à propos</i> of the works before +him on composition, on classic art, on the theories of color and clair-obscur. +Brilliant talks, inlaid with much wit and incisive criticism, the memory +of which must linger in the minds of all who were fortunate enough to +hear them. Nor was it to the studio alone that our master’s +interest followed us. He would drop in at the Louvre, when we +were copying there, and after some pleasant words of advice and encouragement, +lead us off for a stroll through the galleries, interrupted by stations +before his favorite masterpieces.<br> +<br> +So important has he always considered a constant study of Renaissance +art that recently, when about to commence his <i>Triumph of Bacchus</i>, +Carolus copied one of Rubens’s larger canvases with all the naïveté +of a beginner.<br> +<br> +An occasion soon presented itself for us to learn another side of our +trade by working with our master on a ceiling ordered of him by the +state for the Palace of the Luxembourg. The vast studios which +the city of Paris provides on occasions of this kind, with a liberality +that should make our home corporations reflect, are situated out beyond +the Exhibition buildings, in a curious, unfrequented quarter, ignored +alike by Parisians and tourists, where the city stores compromising +statues and the valuable débris of her many revolutions. +There, among throneless Napoleons and riderless bronze steeds, we toiled +for over six months side by side with our master, on gigantic<i> Apotheosis +of Marie de Médicis</i>, serving in turn as painter and painted, +and leaving the imprint of our hands and the reflection of our faces +scattered about the composition. Day after day, when work was +over, we would hoist the big canvas by means of a system of ropes and +pulleys, from a perpendicular to the horizontal position it was to occupy +permanently, and then sit straining our necks and discussing the progress +of the work until the tardy spring twilight warned us to depart.<br> +<br> +The year 1877 brought Carolus-Duran the <i>médaille d’honneur</i>, +a crowning recompense that set the atelier mad with delight. We +immediately organized a great (but economical) banquet to commemorate +the event, over which our master presided, with much modesty, considering +the amount of incense we burned before him, and the speeches we made. +One of our number even burst into some very bad French verses, asserting +that the painters of the world in general fell back before him -<br> +<br> +<br> +. . . <i>épouvantès</i> -<br> +<i>Craignant ègalement sa brosse et son èpèe.<br> +<br> +<br> +</i>This allusion to his proficiency in fencing was considered particularly +neat, and became the favorite song of the studio, to be howled in and +out of season.<br> +<br> +Curiously enough, there is always something in Carolus-Duran’s +attitude when at work which recalls the swordsman. With an enormous +palette in one hand and a brush in the other, he has a way of planting +himself in front of his sitter that is amusingly suggestive of a duel. +His lithe body sways to and fro, his fine leonine face quivers with +the intense study of his model; then with a sudden spring forward, a +few rapid touches are dashed on the canvas (like home strokes in the +enemy’s weakest spot) with a precision of hand acquired only by +long years of fencing.<br> +<br> +An order to paint the king and queen of Portugal was the next step on +the road to fame, another rung on the pleasant ladder of success. +When this work was done the delighted sovereign presented the painter +with the order of “Christ of Portugal,” together with many +other gifts, among which a caricature of the master at work, signed +by his sitter, is not the least valued.<br> +<br> +When the great schism occurred several years ago which rent the art +world of France, Carolus-Duran was elected vice-president of the new +school under Meissonier, to whose office he succeeded on that master’s +death; and now directs and presides over the yearly exhibition known +as the <i>Salon du Champ de Mars.<br> +<br> +</i>At his château near Paris or at Saint Raphael, on the Mediterranean, +the master lives, like Leonardo of old, the existence of a grand seigneur, +surrounded by his family, innumerable guests, and the horses and dogs +he loves, - a group of which his ornate figure and expressive face form +the natural centre. Each year he lives more away from the world, +but no more inspiriting sight can be imagined than the welcome the president +receives of a “varnishing” day, when he makes his entry +surrounded by his pupils. The students cheer themselves hoarse, +and the public climbs on everything that comes to hand to see him pass. +It is hard to realize then that this is the same man who, not content +with his youthful progress, retired into an Italian monastery that he +might commune face to face with nature undisturbed.<br> +<br> +The works of no other painter give me the same sensation of quivering +vitality, except the Velasquez in the Madrid Gallery and, perhaps, Sargent +at his best; and one feels all through the American painter’s +work the influence of his first and only master.<br> +<br> +<i>“Tout ce qui n’est pas indispensable est nuisible</i>,” +a phrase which is often on Carolus-Duran’s lips, may be taken +as the keynote of his work, where one finds a noble simplicity of line +and color scheme, an elimination of useless detail, a contempt for tricks +to enforce an effect, and above all a comprehension and mastery of light, +vitality, and texture - those three unities of the painter’s art +- that bring his canvases very near to those of his self-imposed Spanish +master.<br> +<br> +Those who know the French painter’s more important works and his +many splendid studies from the nude, feel it a pity that such masterpieces +as the equestrian portrait of Mlle. Croisette, of the Comédie +Française, the <i>Réveil</i>, the superb full length of +Mme. Pelouse on the Terrace of Chenonceau, and the head of Gounod in +the Luxembourg, could not be collected into one exhibition, that lovers +of art here in America might realize for themselves how this master’s +works are of the class that typify a school and an epoch, and engrave +their author’s name among those destined to become household words +in the mouths of future generations.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER 15 - The Grand Opera Fad<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Without being more curious than my neighbors, there are several social +mysteries that I should like to fathom, among others, the real reasons +that induce the different classes of people one sees at the opera to +attend that form of entertainment.<br> +<br> +A taste for the theatre is natural enough. It is also easy to +understand why people who are fond of sport and animals enjoy races +and dog shows. But the continued vogue of grand opera, and more +especially of Wagner’s long-drawn-out compositions, among our +restless, unmusical compatriots, remains unexplained.<br> +<br> +The sheeplike docility of our public is apparent in numberless ways; +in none, however, more strikingly than in their choice of amusements. +In business and religion, people occasionally think for themselves; +in the selection of entertainments, never! but are apparently content +to receive their opinions and prejudices ready-made from some unseen +and omnipotent Areopagus.<br> +<br> +The careful study of an opera audience from different parts of our auditorium +has brought me to the conclusion that the public there may be loosely +divided into three classes - leaving out reporters of fashionable intelligence, +dressmakers in search of ideas, and the lady inhabitants of “Crank +Alley” (as a certain corner of the orchestra is called), who sit +in perpetual adoration before the elderly tenor.<br> +<br> +First - but before venturing further on dangerously thin ice, it may +be as well to suggest that this subject is not treated in absolute seriousness, +and that all assertions must not be taken <i>au pied</i> <i>de la lettre</i>. +First, then, and most important, come the stockholders, for without +them the Metropolitan would close. The majority of these fortunate +people and their guests look upon the opera as a social function, where +one can meet one’s friends and be seen, an entertaining antechamber +in which to linger until it’s time to “go on,” her +Box being to-day as necessary a part of a great lady’s outfit +as a country house or a ball-room.<br> +<br> +Second are those who attend because it has become the correct thing +to be seen at the opera. There is so much wealth in this city +and so little opportunity for its display, so many people long to go +about who are asked nowhere, that the opera has been seized upon as +a centre in which to air rich apparel and elbow the “world.” +This list fills a large part of the closely packed parquet and first +balcony.<br> +<br> +Third, and last, come the lovers of music, who mostly inhabit greater +altitudes.<br> +<br> +The motive of the typical box-owner is simple. Her night at the +opera is the excuse for a cosy little dinner, one woman friend (two +would spoil the effect of the box) and four men, without counting the +husband, who appears at dinner, but rarely goes further. The pleasant +meal and the subsequent smoke are prolonged until 9 or 9.30, when the +men are finally dragged murmuring from their cigars. If she has +been fortunate and timed her arrival to correspond with an <i>entr’acte</i>, +my lady is radiant. The lights are up, she can see who are present, +and the public can inspect her toilet and jewels as she settles herself +under the combined gaze of the house, and proceeds to hold an informal +reception for the rest of the evening. The men she has brought +with her quickly cede their places to callers, and wander yawning in +the lobby or invade the neighboring boxes and add their voices to the +general murmur.<br> +<br> +Although there is much less talking than formerly, it is the toleration +of this custom at all by the public that indicates (along with many +other straws) that we are not a music-loving people. Audible conversation +during a performance would not be allowed for a moment by a Continental +audience. The little visiting that takes place in boxes abroad +is done during the <i>entr’actes</i>, when people retire to the +salons back of their <i>loges</i> to eat ices and chat. Here those +little parlors are turned into cloak-rooms, and small talk goes on in +many boxes during the entire performance. The joke or scandal +of the day is discussed; strangers in town, or literary and artistic +lights - “freaks,” they are discriminatingly called - are +pointed out, toilets passed in review, and those dreadful two hours +passed which, for some undiscovered reason, must elapse between a dinner +and a dance. If a favorite tenor is singing, and no one happens +to be whispering nonsense over her shoulder, my lady may listen in a +distrait way. It is not safe, however, to count on prolonged attention +or ask her questions about the performance. She is apt to be a +bit hazy as to who is singing, and with the exception of <i>Faust</i> +and <i>Carmen</i>, has rudimentary ideas about plots. Singers +come and go, weep, swoon, or are killed, without interfering with her +equanimity. She has, for instance, seen the <i>Huguenots</i> and +the <i>Rheingold</i> dozens of times, but knows no more why Raoul is +brought blindfolded to Chenonceaux, or what Wotan and Erda say to each +other in their interminable scenes, than she does of the contents of +the Vedas. For the matter of that, if three or four principal +airs were suppressed from an opera and the scenery and costumes changed, +many in that chattering circle would, I fear, not know what they were +listening to.<br> +<br> +Last winter, when Melba sang in <i>Aida</i>, disguised by dark hair +and a brown skin, a lady near me vouchsafed the opinion that the “little +black woman hadn’t a bad voice;” a gentleman (to whom I +remarked last week “that as Sembrich had sung Rosina in the <i>Barber</i>, +it was rather a shock to see her appear as that lady’s servant +in the <i>Mariage de Figaro”</i>) looked his blank amazement until +it was explained to him that one of those operas was a continuation +of the other. After a pause he remarked, “They are not by +the same composer, anyway! Because the first’s by Rossini, +and the <i>Mariage</i> is by Bon Marché. I’ve been +at his shop in Paris.”<br> +<br> +The presence of the second category - the would-be fashionable people +- is not so easily accounted for. Their attendance can hardly +be attributed to love of melody, as they are, if anything, a shade less +musical than the box-dwellers, who, by the bye, seem to exercise an +irresistible fascination, to judge by the trend of conversation and +direction of glasses. Although an imposing and sufficiently attentive +throng, it would be difficult to find a less discriminating public than +that which gathers nightly in the Metropolitan parterre. One wonders +how many of those people care for music and how many attend because +it is expensive and “swell.”<br> +<br> +They will listen with the same bland contentment to either bad or good +performances so long as a world-renowned artist (some one who is being +paid a comfortable little fortune for the evening) is on the stage. +The orchestra may be badly led (it often is); the singers may flat - +or be out of voice; the performance may go all at sixes and sevens - +there is never a murmur of dissent. Faults that would set an entire +audience at Naples or Milan hissing are accepted herewith ignorant approval.<br> +<br> +The unfortunate part of it is that this weakness of ours has become +known. The singers feel they can give an American audience any +slipshod performance. I have seen a favorite soprano shrug her +shoulders as she entered her dressing-room and exclaim: <i>“Mon +Dieu</i>! How I shuffled through that act! They’d +have hooted me off the stage in Berlin, but here no one seems to care. +Did you notice the baritone to-night? He wasn’t on the key +once during our duo. I cannot sing my best, try as I will, when +I hear the public applauding good and bad alike!”<br> +<br> +It is strange that our pleasure-loving rich people should have hit on +the opera as a favorite haunt. We and the English are the only +race who will attend performances in a foreign language which we don’t +understand. How can intelligent people who don’t care for +music go on, season after season, listening to operas, the plots of +which they ignore, and which in their hearts they find dull?<br> +<br> +Is it so very amusing to watch two middle-aged ladies nagging each other, +at two o’clock in the morning, on a public square, as they do +in <i>Lohengrin</i>? Do people find the lecture that Isolde’s +husband delivers to the guilty lovers entertaining? Does an opera +produce any illusion on my neighbors? I wish it did on me! +I see too plainly the paint on the singers’ hot faces and the +cords straining in their tired throats! I sit on certain nights +in agony, fearing to see stout Romeo roll on the stage in apoplexy! +The sopranos, too, have a way, when about to emit a roulade, that is +more suggestive of a dentist’s chair, and the attendant gargle, +than of a love phrase.<br> +<br> +When two celebrities combine in a final duo, facing the public and not +each other, they give the impression of victims whom an unseen inquisitor +is torturing. Each turn of his screw draws out a wilder cry. +The orchestra (in the pay of the demon) does all it can to prevent their +shrieks from reaching the public. The lovers in turn redouble +their efforts; they are purple in the face and glistening with perspiration. +Defeat, they know, is before them, for the orchestra has the greater +staying power! The flutes bleat; the trombones grunt; the fiddles +squeal; an epileptic leader cuts wildly into the air about him. +When, finally, their strength exhausted, the breathless human beings, +with one last ear-piercing note, give up the struggle and retire, the +public, excited by the unequal contest, bursts into thunders of applause.<br> +<br> +Why wouldn’t it be a good idea, in order to avoid these painful +exhibitions, to have an arrangement of screens, with the singing people +behind and a company of young and attractive pantomimists going through +the gestures and movements in front? Otherwise, how can the most +imaginative natures lose themselves at an opera? Even when the +singers are comely, there is always that eternal double row of stony-faced +witnesses in full view, whom no crimes astonish and no misfortunes melt. +It takes most of the poetry out of Faust’s first words with Marguerite, +to have that short interview interrupted by a line of old, weary women +shouting, “Let us whirl in the waltz o’er the mount and +the plain!” Or when Scotch Lucy appears in a smart tea-gown +and is good enough to perform difficult exercises before a half-circle +of Italian gentlemen in pantalets and ladies in court costumes, does +she give any one the illusion of an abandoned wife dying of a broken +heart alone in the Highlands? Broken heart, indeed! It’s +much more likely she’ll die of a ruptured blood-vessel!<br> +<br> +Philistines in matters musical, like myself, unfortunate mortals whom +the sweetest sounds fail to enthrall when connected with no memory or +idea, or when prolonged beyond a limited period, must approach the third +group with hesitation and awe. That they are sincere, is evident. +The rapt expressions of their faces, and their patience, bear testimony +to this fact. For a long time I asked myself, “Where have +I seen that intense, absorbed attitude before?” Suddenly +one evening another scene rose in my memory.<br> +<br> +Have you ever visited Tangiers? In the market-place of that city +you will find the inhabitants crouched by hundreds around their native +musicians. When we were there, one old duffer - the Wagner, doubtless, +of the place - was having an immense success. No matter at what +hour of the day we passed through that square, there was always the +same spellbound circle of half-clad Turks and Arabs squatting silent +while “Wagner” tinkled to them on a three-stringed lute +and chanted in a high-pitched, dismal whine - like the squeaking of +an unfastened door in the wind. At times, for no apparent reason, +the never-varying, never-ending measure would be interrupted by a flutter +of applause, but his audience remained mostly sunk in a hypnotic apathy. +I never see a “Ring” audience now without thinking of that +scene outside the Bab-el-Marsa gate, which has led me to ask different +people just what sensations serious music produced upon them. +The answers have been varied and interesting. One good lady who +rarely misses a German opera confessed that sweet sounds acted upon +her like opium. Neither scenery nor acting nor plot were of any +importance. From the first notes of the overture to the end, she +floated in an ecstatic dream, oblivious of time and place. When +it was over she came back to herself faint with fatigue. Another +professed lover of Wagner said that his greatest pleasure was in following +the different “motives” as they recurred in the music. +My faith in that gentleman was shaken, however, when I found the other +evening that he had mistaken Van Dyck for Jean de Reszké through +an entire performance. He may be a dab at recognizing his friends +the “motives,” but his discoveries don’t apparently +go as far as tenors!<br> +<br> +No one doubts that hundreds of people unaffectedly love German opera, +but that as many affect to appreciate it in order to appear intellectual +is certain.<br> +<br> +Once upon a time the unworthy member of an ultra-serious “Browning” +class in this city, doubting the sincerity of her companions, asked +permission to read them a poem of the master’s which she found +beyond her comprehension. When the reading was over the opinion +of her friends was unanimous. “Nothing could be simpler! +The lines were lucidity itself! Such close reasoning etc.” +But dismay fell upon them when the naughty lady announced, with a peal +of laughter, that she had been reading alternate lines from opposite +pages. She no longer disturbs the harmony of that circle!<br> +<br> +Bearing this tale in mind, I once asked a musician what proportion of +the audience at a “Ring” performance he thought would know +if alternate scenes were given from two of Wagner’s operas, unless +the scenery enlightened them. His estimate was that perhaps fifty +per cent might find out the fraud. He put the number of people +who could give an intelligent account of those plots at about thirty +per hundred.<br> +<br> +The popularity of music, he added, is largely due to the fact that it +saves people the trouble of thinking. Pleasant sounds soothe the +nerves, and, if prolonged long enough in a darkened room will, like +the Eastern tom-toms, lull the senses into a mild form of trance. +This must be what the gentleman meant who said he wished he could sleep +as well in a “Wagner” car as he did at one of his operas!<br> +<br> +Being a tailless old fox, I look with ever-increasing suspicion on the +too-luxuriant caudal appendages of my neighbors, and think with amusement +of the multitudes who during the last ten years have sacrificed themselves +upon the altar of grand opera - simple, kindly souls, with little or +no taste for classical music, who have sat in the dark (mentally and +physically), applauding what they didn’t understand, and listening +to vague German mythology set to sounds that appear to us outsiders +like music sunk into a verbose dotage. I am convinced the greater +number would have preferred a jolly performance of <i>Mme. Angot</i> +or the <i>Cloches de Corneville</i>, cut in two by a good ballet.<br> +<br> +It is, however, so easy to be mistaken on subjects of this kind that +generalizing is dangerous. Many great authorities have liked tuneless +music. One of the most telling arguments in its favor was recently +advanced by a foreigner. The Chinese ambassador told us last winter +in a club at Washington that Wagner’s was the only European music +that he appreciated and enjoyed. “You see,” he added, +“music is a much older art with us than in Europe, and has naturally +reached a far greater perfection. The German school has made a +long step in advance, and I can now foresee a day not far distant when, +under its influence, your music will closely resemble our own.”<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER 16 - The Poetic <i>Cabarets</i> of Paris<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Those who have not lived in France can form little idea of the important +place the<i> café</i> occupies in the life of an average Frenchman, +clubs as we know them or as they exist in England being rare, and when +found being, with few exceptions, but gambling-houses in disguise. +As a Frenchman rarely asks an acquaintance, or even a friend, to his +apartment, the <i>café</i> has become the common ground where +all meet, for business or pleasure. Not in Paris only, but all +over France, in every garrison town, provincial city, or tiny village, +the <i>café</i> is the chief attraction, the centre of thought, +the focus toward which all the rays of masculine existence converge.<br> +<br> +For the student, newly arrived from the provinces, to whose modest purse +the theatres and other places of amusement are practically closed, the +<i>café</i> is a supreme resource. His mind is moulded, +his ideas and opinions formed, more by what he hears and sees there +than by any other influence. A restaurant is of little importance. +One may eat anywhere. But the choice of his <i>café</i> +will often give the bent to a young man’s career, and indicate +his exact shade of politics and his opinions on literature, music, or +art. In Paris, to know a man at all is to know where you can find +him at the hour of the <i>apéritif</i> - what Baudelaire called<br> +<br> +<br> +<i>L’heure sainte<br> +De l’absinthe.<br> +<br> +<br> +</i>When young men form a society among themselves, a <i>café</i> +is chosen as their meeting-place. Thousands of establishments +exist only by such patronage, as, for example, the Café de la +Régence, Place du Théâtre Français, which +is frequented entirely by men who play chess.<br> +<br> +Business men transact their affairs as much over their coffee as in +their offices. The reading man finds at his <i>café</i> +the daily and weekly papers; a writer is sure of the undisturbed possession +of pen, ink, and paper. Henri Murger, the author, when asked once +why he continued to patronize a certain establishment notorious for +the inferior quality of its beer, answered, “Yes, the beer is +poor, but they keep such good <i>ink</i>!<i>”<br> +<br> +</i>The use of a <i>café</i> does not imply any great expenditure, +a <i>consummation</i> costing but little. With it is acquired +the right to use the establishment for an indefinite number of hours, +the client being warmed, lighted, and served. From five to seven, +and again after dinner, the <i>habitués</i> stroll in, grouping +themselves about the small tables, each new-comer joining a congenial +circle, ordering his drink, and settling himself for a long sitting. +The last editorial, the newest picture, or the fall of a ministry is +discussed with a vehemence and an interest unknown to Anglo-Saxon natures. +Suddenly, in the excitement of the discussion, some one will rise in +his place and begin speaking. If you happen to drop in at that +moment, the lady at the desk will welcome you with, “You are just +in time! Monsieur So-and-So is speaking; the evening promises +to be interesting.” She is charmed; her establishment will +shine with a reflected light, and new patrons be drawn there, if the +debates are brilliant. So universal is this custom that there +is hardly an orator to-day at the French bar or in the Senate, who has +not broken his first lance in some such obscure tournament, under the +smiling glances of the <i>dame</i> <i>du comptoir.<br> +<br> +</i>Opposite the Palace of the Luxembourg, in the heart of the old Latin +Quarter, stands a quaint building, half hotel, half <i>café</i>, +where many years ago Joseph II. resided while visiting his sister, Marie +Antoinette. It is known now as Foyot’s; this name must awaken +many happy memories in the hearts of American students, for it was long +their favorite meeting-place. In the early seventies a club, formed +among the literary and poetic youth of Paris, selected Foyot’s +as their “home” during the winter months. Their summer +vacations were spent in visiting the university towns of France, reciting +verses, or acting in original plays at Nancy, Bordeaux, Lyons, or Caen. +The enthusiasm these youthful performances created inspired one of their +number with the idea of creating in Paris, on a permanent footing, a +centre where a limited public could meet the young poets of the day +and hear them recite their verses and monologues in an informal way.<br> +<br> +The success of the original “Chat Noir,” the first<i> cabaret</i> +of this kind, was largely owing to the sympathetic and attractive nature +of its founder, young Salis, who drew around him, by his sunny disposition, +shy personalities who, but for him, would still be “mute, inglorious +Miltons.” Under his kindly and discriminating rule many +a successful literary career has started. Salis’s gifted +nature combined a delicate taste and critical acumen with a rare business +ability. His first venture, an obscure little <i>café</i> +on the Boulevard Rochechouart, in the outlying quarter beyond the Place +Pigalle, quickly became famous, its ever-increasing vogue forcing its +happy proprietor to seek more commodious quarters in the rue Victor +Massé, where the world-famous “Chat Noir” was installed +with much pomp and many joyous ceremonies.<br> +<br> +The old word <i>cabaret</i>, corresponding closely to our English “inn,” +was chosen, and the establishment decorated in imitation of a Louis +XIII. <i>hôtellerie</i>. Oaken beams supported the low-studded +ceilings: The plaster walls disappeared behind tapestries, armor, old<i> +faïence</i>. Beer and other liquids were served in quaint +porcelain or pewter mugs, and the waiters were dressed (merry anachronism) +in the costume of members of the Institute (the Immortal Forty), who +had so long led poetry in chains. The success of the “Black +Cat” in her new quarters was immense, all Paris crowding through +her modest doors. Salis had founded Montmartre! - the rugged old +hill giving birth to a generation of writers and poets, and nourishing +this new school at her granite breasts.<br> +<br> +It would be difficult to imagine a form of entertainment more tempting +than was offered in this picturesque inn. In addition to the first, +the entire second floor of the building had been thrown into one large +room, the walls covered with a thousand sketches, caricatures, and crayon +drawings by hands since celebrated the world over. A piano, with +many chairs and tables, completed the unpretending installation. +Here, during a couple of hours each evening, either by the piano or +simply standing in their places, the young poets gave utterance to the +creations of their imagination, the musicians played their latest inspirations, +the <i>raconteur</i> told his newest story. They called each other +and the better known among the guests by their names, and joked mutual +weaknesses, eliminating from these gatherings every shade of a perfunctory +performance.<br> +<br> +It is impossible to give an idea of the delicate flavor of such informal +evenings - the sensation of being at home that the picturesque surroundings +produced, the low murmur of conversation, the clink of glasses, the +swing of the waltz movement played by a master hand, interrupted only +when some slender form would lean against the piano and pour forth burning +words of infinite pathos, - the inspired young face lighted up by the +passion and power of the lines. The burst of applause that his +talent called forth would hardly have died away before another figure +would take the poet’s place, a wave of laughter welcoming the +new-comer, whose twinkling eyes and demure smile promised a treat of +fun and humor. So the evening would wear gayly to its end, the +younger element in the audience, full of the future, drinking in long +draughts of poetry and art, the elders charmed to live over again the +days of their youth and feel in touch once more with the present.<br> +<br> +In this world of routine and conventions an innovation as brilliantly +successful as this could hardly be inaugurated without raising a whirlwind +of jealousy and opposition. The struggle was long and arduous. +Directors of theatres and concert halls, furious to see a part of their +public tempted away, raised the cry of immorality against the new-comers, +and called to their aid every resource of law and chicanery. At +the end of the first year Salis found himself with over eight hundred +summonses and lawsuits on his hands. After having made every effort, +knocked at every door, in his struggle for existence, he finally conceived +the happy thought of appealing directly to Grévy, then President +of the Republic, and in his audience with the latter succeeded in charming +and interesting him, as he had so many others. The influence of +the head of the state once brought to bear on the affair, Salis had +the joy of seeing opposition crushed and the storm blow itself out.<br> +<br> +From this moment, the poets, feeling themselves appreciated and their +rights acknowledged and defended, flocked to the “Sacred Mountain,” +as Montmartre began to be called; other establishments of the same character +sprang up in the neighborhood. Most important among these were +the “4 z’Arts,” Boulevard de Clichy, the “Tambourin,” +and La Butte.<br> +<br> +Trombert, who, together with Fragerolle, Goudezki, and Marcel Lefèvre, +had just ended an artistic voyage in the south of France, opened the +“4 z’Arts,” to which the novelty-loving public quickly +found its way, crowding to applaud Coquelin <i>cadet</i>, Fragson, and +other budding celebrities. It was here that the poets first had +the idea of producing a piece in which rival <i>cabarets</i> were reviewed +and laughingly criticised. The success was beyond all precedent, +in spite of the difficulty of giving a play without a stage, without +scenery or accessories of any kind, the interest centring in the talent +with which the lines were declaimed by their authors, who next had the +pleasant thought of passing in review the different classes of popular +songs, Clovis Hugues, at the same time poet and statesman, discoursing +on each subject, and introducing the singer; Brittany local songs, Provençal +ballads, ant the half Spanish, half French <i>chansons</i> of the Pyrenees +were sung or recited by local poets with the charm and abandon of their +distinctive races.<br> +<br> +The great critics did not disdain to attend these informal gatherings, +nor to write columns of serious criticism on the subject in their papers.<br> +<br> +At the hour when all Paris takes its <i>apéritif</i> the “4 +z’Arts” became the meeting-place of the painters, poets, +and writers of the day. Montmartre gradually replaced the old +Latin Quarter; it is there to-day that one must seek for the gayety +and humor, the pathos and the makeshifts of Bohemia.<br> +<br> +The “4 z’Arts,” next to the “Chat Noir,” +has had the greatest influence on the taste of our time, - the pleiad +of poets that grouped themselves around it in the beginning, dispersing +later to form other centres, which, in their turn, were to influence +the minds and moods of thousands.<br> +<br> +Another charming form of entertainment inaugurated by this group of +men is that of “shadow pictures,” conceived originally by +Caran d’Ache, and carried by him to a marvellous perfection. +A medium-sized frame filled with ground glass is suspended at one end +of a room and surrounded by sombre draperies. The room is darkened; +against the luminous background of the glass appear small black groups +(shadows cast by figures cut out of cardboard). These figures +move, advancing and retreating, grouping or separating themselves to +the cadence of the poet’s verses, for which they form the most +original and striking illustrations. Entire poems are given accompanied +by these shadow pictures.<br> +<br> +One of Caran d’Ache’s greatest successes in this line was +an <i>Epopée de Napoléon</i>, - the great Emperor appearing +on foot and on horseback, the long lines of his army passing before +him in the foreground or small in the distance. They stormed heights, +cheered on by his presence, or formed hollow squares to repulse the +enemy. During their evolutions, the clear voice of the poet rang +out from the darkness with thrilling effect.<br> +<br> +The nicest art is necessary to cut these little figures to the required +perfection. So great was the talent of their inventor that, when +he gave burlesques of the topics of the day, or presented the celebrities +of the hour to his public, each figure would be recognized with a burst +of delighted applause. The great Sarah was represented in poses +of infinite humor, surrounded by her menagerie or receiving the homage +of the universe. Political leaders, foreign sovereigns, social +and operatic stars, were made to pass before a laughing public. +None were spared. Paris went mad with delight at this new “art,” +and for months it was impossible to find a seat vacant in the hall.<br> +<br> +At the Boite à Musique, the idea was further developed. +By an ingenious arrangement of lights, of which the secret has been +carefully kept, landscapes are represented in color; all the gradations +of light are given, from the varied twilight hues to purple night, until +the moon, rising, lights anew the picture. During all these variations +of color little groups continue to come and go, acting out the story +of a poem, which the poet delivers from the surrounding obscurity as +only an author can render his own lines.<br> +<br> +One of the pillars of this attractive centre was Jules Jouy, who made +a large place for himself in the hearts of his contemporaries - a true +poet, whom neither privations nor the difficult beginnings of an unknown +writer could turn from his vocation. His songs are alternately +tender, gay, and bitingly sarcastic. Some of his better-known +ballads were written for and marvellously interpreted by Yvette Guilbert. +The difficult critics, Sarcey and Jules Lemaître, have sounded +his praise again and again.<br> +<br> +A <i>cabaret</i> of another kind which enjoyed much celebrity, more +on account of the personality of the poet who founded it than from any +originality or picturesqueness in its intallation, was the “Mirliton,” +opened by Aristide Bruant in the little rooms that had sheltered the +original “Chat Noir.”<br> +<br> +To give an account of the “Mirliton” is to tell the story +of Bruant, the most popular ballad-writer in France to-day. This +original and eccentric poet is as well-known to a Parisian as the boulevards +or the Arc de Triomphe. His costume of shabby black velvet, Brittany +waistcoat, red shirt, top-boots, and enormous hat is a familiar feature +in the caricatures and prints of the day. His little <i>cabaret</i> +remains closed during the day, opening its doors toward evening. +The personality of the ballad-writer pervades the atmosphere. +He walks about the tiny place hailing his acquaintances with some gay +epigram, receiving strangers with easy familiarity or chilling disdain, +as the humor takes him; then in a moment, with a rapid change of expression, +pouring out the ringing lines of one of his ballads - always the story +of the poor and humble, for he has identified himself with the outcast +and the disinherited. His volumes <i>Dans la Rue</i> and <i>Sur +la Route</i> have had an enormous popularity, their contents being known +and sung all over France.<br> +<br> +In 1892 Bruant was received as a member of the society of <i>Gens de +Lettres</i>. It may be of interest to recall a part of the speech +made by François Coppée on the occasion: “It is +with the greatest pleasure that I present to my confrères my +good friend, the ballad-writer, Aristide Bruant. I value highly +the author of <i>Dans la Rue</i>. When I close his volume of sad +and caustic verses it is with the consoling thought that even vice and +crime have their conscience: that if there is suffering there is a possible +redemption. He has sought his inspiration in the gutter, it is +true, but he has seen there a reflection of the stars.”<br> +<br> +In the Avenue Trudaine, not far from the other<i> cabarets</i>, the +“Ane Rouge” was next opened, in a quiet corner of the immense +suburb, its shady-little garden, on which the rooms open, making it +a favorite meeting-place during the warm months. Of a summer evening +no more congenial spot can be found in all Paris. The quaint chambers +have been covered with mural paintings or charcoal caricatures of the +poets themselves, or of familiar faces among the clients and patrons +of the place.<br> +<br> +One of the many talents that clustered around this quiet little garden +was the brilliant Paul Verlaine, the most Bohemian of all inhabitants +of modern Prague, whose death has left a void, difficult to fill. +Fame and honors came too late. He died in destitution, if not +absolutely of hunger; to-day his admirers are erecting a bronze bust +of him in the Garden of the Luxembourg, with money that would have gone +far toward making his life happy.<br> +<br> +In the old hôtel of the Lesdiguières family, rue de la +Tour d’Auvergne, the “Carillon” opened its doors in +1893, and quickly conquered a place in the public favor, the inimitable +fun and spirits of Tiercy drawing crowds to the place.<br> +<br> +The famous “Tréteau de Tabarin,” which to-day holds +undisputed precedence over all the <i>cabarets</i> of Paris, was among +the last to appear. It was founded by the brilliant Fursy and +a group of his friends. Here no pains have been spared to form +a setting worthy of the poets and their public.<br> +<br> +Many years ago, in the days of the good king Louis XIII., a strolling +poet-actor, Tabarin, erected his little canvas-covered stage before +the statue of Henry IV., on the Pont-Neuf, and drew the court and the +town by his fun and pathos. The founders of the latest and most +complete of Parisian <i>cabarets</i> have reconstructed, as far as possible, +this historic scene. On the wall of the room where the performances +are given, is painted a view of old Paris, the Seine and its bridges, +the towers of Notre Dame in the distance, and the statue of Louis XIII.’s +warlike father in the foreground. In front of this painting stands +a staging of rough planks, reproducing the little theatre of Tabarin. +Here, every evening, the authors and poets play in their own pieces, +recite their verses, and tell their stories. Not long ago a young +musician, who has already given an opera to the world, sang an entire +one-act operetta of his composition, changing his voice for the different +parts, imitating choruses by clever effects on the piano.<br> +<br> +Montmartre is now sprinkled with attractive <i>cabarets</i>, the taste +of the public for such informal entertainments having grown each year; +with reason, for the careless grace of the surroundings, the absence +of any useless restraint or obligation as to hour or duration, has a +charm for thousands whom a long concert or the inevitable five acts +at the Français could not tempt. It would be difficult +to overrate the influence such an atmosphere, breathed in youth, must +have on the taste and character. The absence of a sordid spirit, +the curse of our material day and generation, the contact with intellects +trained to incase their thoughts in serried verse or crisp and lucid +prose, cannot but form the hearer’s mind into a higher and better +mould. It is both a satisfaction and a hope for the future to +know that these influences are being felt all over the capital and throughout +the length and breadth of France. There are at this moment in +Paris alone three or four hundred poets, ballad writers, and <i>raconteurs</i> +who recite their works in public.<br> +<br> +It must be hard for the untravelled Anglo-Saxon to grasp the idea that +a poet can, without loss of prestige, recite his lines in a public <i>café</i> +before a mixed audience. If such doubting souls could, however, +be present at one of these <i>noctes</i> <i>ambrosianae</i>, they would +acknowledge that the Latin temperament can throw a grace and child-like +abandon around an act that would cause an Englishman or an American +to appear supremely ridiculous. One’s taste and sense of +fitness are never shocked. It seems the most natural thing in +the world to be sitting with your glass of beer before you, while some +rising poet, whose name ten years later may figure among the “Immortal +Forty,” tells to you his loves and his ambition, or brings tears +into your eyes with a description of some humble hero or martyr.<br> +<br> +From the days of Homer poetry has been the instructor of nations. +In the Orient to-day the poet story-teller holds his audience spellbound +for hours, teaching the people their history and supplying their minds +with food for thought, raising them above the dull level of the brutes +by the charm of his verse and the elevation of his ideas. The +power of poetry is the same now as three thousand years ago. Modern +skeptical Paris, that scoffs at all creeds and chafes impatiently under +any rule, will sit to-day docile and complaisant, charmed by the melody +of a poet’s voice; its passions lulled or quickened, like Alexander’s +of old, at the will of a modern Timotheus.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER 17 - Etiquette At Home and Abroad<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Reading that a sentinel had been punished the other day at St. Petersburg +for having omitted to present arms, as her Imperial Highness, the Grand +Duchess Olga, was leaving the winter palace - in her nurse’s arms +- I smiled at what appeared to be needless punctilio; then, as is my +habit, began turning the subject over, and gradually came to the conclusion +that while it could doubtless be well to suppress much of the ceremonial +encumbering court life, it might not be amiss if we engrafted a little +more etiquette into our intercourse with strangers and the home relations. +In our dear free and easy-going country there is a constant tendency +to loosen the ties of fireside etiquette until any manners are thought +good enough, as any toilet is considered sufficiently attractive for +home use. A singular impression has grown up that formal politeness +and the saying of gracious and complimentary things betray the toady +and the hypocrite, both if whom are abhorrent to Americans.<br> +<br> +By the force of circumstances most people are civil enough in general +society; while many fail to keep to their high standard in the intimacy +of home life and in their intercourse with inferiors, which is a pity, +as these are the two cases where self-restraint and amenity are most +required. Politeness is, after all, but the dictate of a kind +heart, and supplies the oil necessary to make the social machinery run +smoothly. In home life, which is the association during many hours +each day of people of varying dispositions, views, and occupations, +friction is inevitable; and there is especial need of lubrication to +lessen the wear and tear and eliminate jarring.<br> +<br> +Americans are always much shocked to learn that we are not popular on +the Continent. Such a discovery comes to either a nation or an +individual like a douche of cold water on nice, warm conceit, and brings +with it a feeling of discouragement, of being unjustly treated, that +is painful, for we are very “touchy” in America, and cry +out when a foreigner expresses anything but admiration for our ways, +yet we are the last to lend ourselves to foreign customs.<br> +<br> +It has been a home thrust for many of us to find that our dear friends +the French sympathized warmly with Spain in the recent struggle, and +had little but sneers for us. One of the reasons for this partiality +is not hard to discover.<br> +<br> +The Spanish who travel are mostly members of an aristocracy celebrated +for its grave courtesy, which has gone a long way toward making them +popular on the Continent, while we have for years been riding rough-shod +over the feelings and prejudices of the European peoples, under the +pleasing but fallacious illusion that the money we spent so lavishly +in foreign lands would atone for all our sins. The large majority +of our travelling compatriots forget that an elaborate etiquette exists +abroad regulating the intercourse between one class and another, the +result of centuries of civilization, and as the Medic and Persian laws +for durability. In our ignorance we break many of these social +laws and give offence where none was intended.<br> +<br> +A single illustration will explain my meaning. A young American +girl once went to the mistress of a <i>pension</i> where she was staying +and complained that the <i>concierge</i> of the house had been impertinent. +When the proprietress asked the <i>concierge</i> what this meant, the +latter burst out with her wrongs. “Since Miss B. has been +in this house, she has never once bowed to me, or addressed a word to +either my husband or myself that was not a question or an order; she +walks in and out of my <i>loge</i> to look for letters or take her key +as though my room were the street; I won’t stand such treatment +from any one, much less from a girl. The duchess who lives <i>au +quatrième</i> never passes without a kind word or an inquiry +after the children or my health.”<br> +<br> +Now this American girl had erred through ignorance of the fact that +in France servants are treated as humble friends. The man who +brings your matutinal coffee says “Good morning” on entering +the room, and inquires if “Monsieur has slept well,” expecting +to be treated with the same politeness he shows to you.<br> +<br> +The lady who sits at the <i>caisse</i> of the restaurant you frequent +is as sure of her position as her customers are of theirs, and exacts +a courteous salutation from every one entering or leaving her presence; +logically, for no gentleman would enter a ladies’ drawing-room +without removing his hat. The fact that a woman is obliged to +keep a shop in no way relieves him of this obligation.<br> +<br> +People on the Continent know their friends’ servants by name, +and speak to them on arriving at a house, and thank them for an opened +door or offered coat; if a tip is given it is accompanied by a gracious +word. So rare is this form of civility in America and England +(for Britons err as gravely in this matter as ourselves) that our servants +are surprised and inclined to resent politeness, as in the case of an +English butler who recently came to his master and said he should be +“obliged to leave.” On being questioned it came out +that one of the guests was in the habit of chatting with him, “and,” +added the Briton, “I won’t stand being took liberties with +by no one.”<br> +<br> +Some years ago I happened to be standing in the vestibule of the Hôtel +Bristol as the Princess of Wales and her daughters were leaving. +Mr. Morlock, the proprietor, was at the foot of the stairs to take leave +of those ladies, who shook hands with and thanked him for his attention +during their stay, and for the flowers he had sent. Nothing could +have been more gracious and freer from condescension than their manner, +and it undoubtedly produced the best impression. The waiter who +served me at that time was also under their charm, and remarked several +times that “there had never been ladies so easy to please or so +considerate of the servants.”<br> +<br> +My neighbor at dinner the other evening confided to me that she was +“worn out being fitted.” “I had such an unpleasant +experience this morning,” she added. “The <i>jupière</i> +could not get one of my skirts to hang properly. After a dozen +attempts I told her to send for the forewoman, when, to my horror, the +girl burst out crying, and said she should lose her place if I did. +I was very sorry for her, but what else could I do?” It +does not seem as if that lady could be very popular with inferiors, +does it?<br> +<br> +That it needs a lighter hand and more tact to deal with tradespeople +than with equals is certain, and we are sure to be the losers when we +fail. The last time I was in the East a friend took me into the +bazaars to see a carpet he was anxious to buy. The price asked +was out of all proportion to its value, but we were gravely invited +by the merchant to be seated and coffee was served, that bargaining +(which is the backbone of Oriental trade) might be carried on at leisure. +My friend, nervous and impatient, like all our race, turned to me and +said, “What’s all this tomfoolery? Tell him I’ll +give so much for his carpet; he can take it or leave it.” +When this was interpreted to the bearded tradesman, he smiled and came +down a few dollars in his price, and ordered more coffee. By this +time we were outside his shop, and left without the carpet simply because +my friend could not conform to the customs of the country he was visiting. +The sale of his carpet was a big affair for the Oriental; he intended +to carry it through with all the ceremony the occasion required, and +would sooner not make a sale than be hustled out of his stately routine.<br> +<br> +It is not only in intercourse with inferiors that tact is required. +The treatment of children and young people in a family calls for delicate +handling. The habit of taking liberties with young relations is +a common form of a relaxed social code and the besetting sin of elderly +people, who, having little to interest them in their own lives, imagine +that their mission is to reform the ways and manners of their family. +Ensconced behind the respect which the young are supposed to pay them, +they give free vent to inclination, and carp, cavil, and correct. +The victims may have reached maturity or even middle age, but remain +always children to these social policemen, to be reproved and instructed +in and out of season. “I am doing this for your own good,” +is an excuse that apparently frees the veterans from the necessity of +respecting the prejudices and feelings of their pupils, and lends a +gloss of unselfishness to actions which are simply impertinent. +Oddly enough, amateur “schoolmarms” who fall into this unpleasant +habit are generally oversensitive, and resent as a personal affront +any restlessness under criticism on the part of their victims. +It is easy, once the habit is acquired, to carry the suavity and consideration +of general society into the home circle, yet how often is it done? +I should like to see the principle that ordered presentation of arms +to the infant princess applied to our intimate relations, and the rights +of the young and dependent scrupulously respected.<br> +<br> +In the third act of <i>Caste</i>, when old Eccles steals the “coral” +from his grandson’s neck, he excuses the theft by a grandiloquent +soliloquy, and persuades himself that he is protecting “the weak +and the humble” (pointing to himself) “against the powerful +and the strong” (pointing to the baby). Alas, too many of +us take liberties with those whom we do not fear, and excuse our little +acts of cowardice with arguments as fallacious as those of drunken old +Eccles.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER 18 - What is “Art”?<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +In former years, we inquiring youngsters in foreign studios were much +bewildered by the repetition of a certain phrase. Discussion of +almost any picture or statue was (after other forms of criticism had +been exhausted) pretty sure to conclude with, “It’s all +very well in its way, but it’s not Art.” Not only +foolish youths but the “masters” themselves constantly advanced +this opinion to crush a rival or belittle a friend. To ardent +minds seeking for the light and catching at every thread that might +serve as a guide out of perplexity, this vague assertion was confusing. +According to one master, the eighteenth-century “school” +did not exist. What had been produced at that time was pleasing +enough to the eye, but “was not Art!” In the opinion +of another, Italian music might amuse or cheer the ignorant, but could +not be recognized by serious musicians.<br> +<br> +As most of us were living far from home and friends for the purpose +of acquiring the rudiments of art, this continual sweeping away of our +foundations was discouraging. What was the use, we sometimes asked +ourselves, of toiling, if our work was to be cast contemptuously aside +by the next “school” as a pleasing trifle, not for a moment +to be taken seriously? How was one to find out the truth? +Who was to decide when doctors disagreed? Where was the rock on +which an earnest student might lay his cornerstone without the misgiving +that the next wave in public opinion would sap its base and cast him +and his ideals out again at sea?<br> +<br> +The eighteenth-century artists and the Italian composers had been sincere +and convinced that they were producing works of art. In our own +day the idol of one moment becomes the jest of the next. Was there, +then, no fixed law?<br> +<br> +The short period, for instance, between 1875 and the present time has +been long enough for the talent of one painter (Bastien-Lepage) to be +discovered, discussed, lauded, acclaimed, then gradually forgotten and +decried. During the years when we were studying in Paris, that +young painter’s works were pronounced by the critics and their +following to be the last development of Art. Museums and amateurs +vied with each other in acquiring his canvases. Yet, only this +spring, while dining with two or three art critics in the French capital, +I heard Lepage’s name mentioned and his works recalled with the +smile that is accorded to those who have hoodwinked the public and passed +off spurious material as the real thing.<br> +<br> +If any one doubts the fleeting nature of a reputation, let him go to +a sale of modern pictures and note the prices brought by the favorites +of twenty years ago. The paintings of that arch-priest, Meissonier, +no longer command the sums that eager collectors paid for them a score +of years back. When a great European critic dares assert, as one +has recently, of the master’s “1815,” that “everything +in the picture appears metallic, except the cannon and the men’s +helmets,” the mighty are indeed fallen! It is much the same +thing with the old masters. There have been fashions in them as +in other forms of art. Fifty years ago Rembrandt’s work +brought but small prices, and until Henri Rochefort (during his exile) +began to write up the English school, Romneys, Lawrences, and Gainsboroughs +had little market value.<br> +<br> +The result is that most of us are as far away from the solution of that +vexed question “What is Art?” at forty as we were when boys. +The majority have arranged a compromise with their consciences. +We have found out what we like (in itself no mean achievement), and +beyond such personal preference, are shy of asserting (as we were fond +of doing formerly) that such and such works are “Art,” and +such others, while pleasing and popular, lack the requisite qualities.<br> +<br> +To enquiring minds, sure that an answer to this question exists, but +uncertain where to look for it, the fact that one of the thinkers of +the century has, in a recent “Evangel,” given to the world +a definition of “Art,” the result of many years’ meditation, +will be received with joy. “Art,” says Tolstoi, “is +simply a condition of life. It is any form of expression that +a human being employs to communicate an emotion he has experienced to +a fellow-mortal.”<br> +<br> +An author who, in telling his hopes and sorrows, amuses or saddens a +reader, has in just so much produced a work of art. A lover who, +by the sincerity of his accent, communicates the flame that is consuming +him to the object of his adoration; the shopkeeper who inspires a purchaser +with his own admiration for an object on sale; the baby that makes its +joy known to a parent - artists! artists! Brown, Jones, or Robinson, +the moment he has consciously produced on a neighbor’s ear or +eye the sensation that a sound or a combination of colors has effected +on his own organs, is an artist!<br> +<br> +Of course much of this has been recognized through all time. The +formula in which Tolstoi has presented his meditations to the world +is, however, so fresh that it comes like a revelation, with the additional +merit of being understood, with little or no mental effort, by either +the casual reader, who, with half-attention attracted by a headline, +says to himself, “‘What is art?’ That looks +interesting!” and skims lightly down the lines, or the thinker +who, after perusing Tolstoi’s lucid words, lays down the volume +with a sigh, and murmurs in his humiliation, “Why have I been +all these years seeking in the clouds for what was lying ready at my +hand?”<br> +<br> +The wide-reaching definition of the Russian writer has the effect of +a vigorous blow from a pickaxe at the foundations of a shaky and too +elaborate edifice. The wordy superstructure of aphorisms and paradox +falls to the ground, disclosing fair “Truth,” so long a +captive within the temple erected in her honor. As, however, the +newly freed goddess smiles on the ignorant and the pedants alike, the +result is that with one accord the aesthetes raise a howl! “And +the ‘beautiful,’” they say, “the beautiful? +Can there be any ‘Art’ without the ‘Beautiful’? +What! the little greengrocer at the corner is an artist because, forsooth, +he has arranged some lettuce and tomatoes into a tempting pile! +Anathema! Art is a secret known only to the initiated few; the +vulgar can neither understand nor appreciate it! We are the elect! +Our mission is to explain what Art is and point out her beauty to a +coarse and heedless world. Only those with a sense of the ‘beautiful’ +should be allowed to enter into her sacred presence.”<br> +<br> +Here the expounders of “Art” plunge into a sea of words, +offering a dozen definitions each more obscure than its predecessor, +all of which have served in turn as watchwords of different “schools.” +Tolstoi’s sweeping truth is too far-reaching to please these gentry. +Like the priests of past religions, they would have preferred to keep +such knowledge as they had to themselves and expound it, little at a +time, to the ignorant. The great Russian has kicked away their +altar and routed the false gods, whose acolytes will never forgive him.<br> +<br> +Those of my readers who have been intimate with painters, actors, or +musicians, will recall with amusement how lightly the performances of +an associate are condemned by the brotherhood as falling short of the +high standard which according to these wiseacres, “Art” +exacts, and how sure each speaker is of understanding just where a brother +carries his “mote.”<br> +<br> +Voltaire once avoided giving a definition of the beautiful by saying, +“Ask a toad what his ideas of beauty are. He will indicate +the particular female toad he happens to admire and praise her goggle-eyes +and yellow belly as the perfection of beauty!” A negro from +Guiana will make much the same unsatisfactory answer, so the old philosopher +recommends us not to be didactic on subjects where judgments are relative, +and at the same time without appeal.<br> +<br> +Tolstoi denies that an idea as subtle as a definition of Art can be +classified by pedants, and proceeds to formulate the following delightful +axiom: “A principle upon which no two people can agree does not +exist.” A truth is proved by its evidence to all. +Discussion outside of that is simply beating the air. Each succeeding +“school” has sounded its death-knell by asserting that certain +combinations alone produced beauty - the weakness of to-day being an +inclination to see art only in the obscure and the recondite. +As a result we drift each hour further from the truth. Modern +intellectuality has formed itself into a scornful aristocracy whose +members, esteeming themselves the élite, withdraw from the vulgar +public, and live in a world of their own, looking (like the Lady of +Shalott) into a mirror at distorted images of nature and declaring that +what they see is art!<br> +<br> +In literature that which is difficult to understand is much admired +by the simple-minded, who also decry pictures that tell their own story! +A certain class of minds enjoy being mystified, and in consequence writers, +painters, and musicians have appeared who are willing to juggle for +their amusement. The simple definition given to us by the Russian +writer comes like a breath of wholesome air to those suffocating in +an atmosphere of perfumes and artificial heat. Art is our common +inheritance, not the property of a favored few. The wide world +we love is full of it, and each of us in his humble way is an artist +when with a full heart he communicates his delight and his joy to another. +Tolstoi has given us back our birthright, so long withheld, and crowned +with his aged hands the true artist.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER 19 - The Genealogical Craze<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +There undoubtedly is something in the American temperament that prevents +our doing anything in moderation. If we take up an idea, it is +immediately run to exaggeration and then abandoned, that the nation +may fly at a tangent after some new fad. Does this come from our +climate, or (as I am inclined to think) from the curiously unclassified +state of society in our country, where so few established standards +exist and so few are sure of their own or their neighbors’ standing? +In consequence, if Mrs. Brown starts anything, Mrs. Jones, for fear +of being left behind, immediately “goes her one better” +to be in turn “raised” by Mrs. Robinson.<br> +<br> +In other lands a reasonable pride of birth has always been one of the +bonds holding communities together, and is estimated at its just value. +We, after having practically ignored the subject for half a century, +suddenly rush to the other extreme, and develop an entire forest of +genealogical trees at a growth.<br> +<br> +Chagrined, probably, at the small amount of consideration that their +superior birth commanded, a number of aristocratically minded matrons +united a few years ago as “Daughters of the Revolution,” +restricting membership to women descended from officers of Washington’s +army. There may have been a reason for the formation of this society. +I say “may” because it does not seem quite clear what its +aim was. The originators doubtless imagined they were founding +an exclusive circle, but the numbers who clamored for admittance quickly +dispelled this illusion. So a small group of the elect withdrew +in disgust and banded together under the cognomen of “Colonial +Dames.”<br> +<br> +The only result of these two movements was to awaken envy, hatred, and +malice in the hearts of those excluded from the mysterious rites, which +to outsiders seemed to consist in blackballing as many aspirants as +possible. Some victims of this bad treatment, thirsting for revenge, +struck on the happy thought of inaugurating an “Aztec” society. +As that title conveyed absolutely no idea to any one, its members were +forced to explain that only descendants of officers who fought in the +Mexican War were eligible. What the elect did when they got into +the circle was not specified.<br> +<br> +The “Social Order of Foreign Wars” was the next creation, +its authors evidently considering the Mexican campaign as a domestic +article, a sort of family squabble. Then the “Children of +1812” attracted attention, both groups having immediate success. +Indeed, the vogue of these enterprises has been in inverse ratio to +their usefulness or <i>raison d’être</i>, people apparently +being ready to join anything rather than get left out in the cold.<br> +<br> +Jealous probably of seeing women enjoying all the fun, their husbands +and brothers next banded together as “Sons of the Revolution.” +The wives retaliated by instituting the “Granddaughters of the +Revolution” and “The Mayflower Order,” the “price +of admission” to the latter being descent from some one who crossed +in that celebrated ship - whether as one of the crew or as passenger +is not clear.<br> +<br> +It was not, however, in the American temperament to rest content with +modest beginnings, the national motto being, “The best is good +enough for me.” So wind was quickly taken out of the Mayflower’s +sails by “The Royal Order of the Crown,” to which none need +apply who were not prepared to prove descent from one or more royal +ancestors. It was not stated in the prospectus whether Irish sovereigns +and Fiji Island kings counted, but I have been told that bar sinisters +form a class apart, and are deprived of the right to vote or hold office.<br> +<br> +Descent from any old king was, however, not sufficient for the high-toned +people of our republic. When you come to think of it, such a circle +might be “mixed.” One really must draw the line somewhere +(as the Boston parvenu replied when asked why he had not invited his +brother to a ball). So the founders of the “Circle of Holland +Dames of the New Netherlands” drew the line at descent from a +sovereign of the Low Countries. It does not seem as if this could +be a large society, although those old Dutch pashas had an unconscionable +number of children.<br> +<br> +The promoters of this enterprise seem nevertheless to have been fairly +successful, for they gave a fête recently and crowned a queen. +To be acclaimed their sovereign by a group of people all of royal birth +is indeed an honor. Rumors of this ceremony have come to us outsiders. +It is said that they employed only lineal descendants of Vatel to prepare +their banquet, and I am assured that an offspring of Gambrinus acted +as butler.<br> +<br> +But it is wrong to joke on this subject. The state of affairs +is becoming too serious. When sane human beings form a “Baronial +Order of Runnymede,” and announce in their prospectus that only +descendants through the male line from one (or more) of the forty noblemen +who forced King John to sign the Magna Charta are what our Washington +Mrs. Malaprop would call “legible,” the action attests a +diseased condition of the community. Any one taking the trouble +to remember that eight of the original barons died childless, and that +the Wars of the Roses swept away nine tenths of what families the others +may have had, that only one man in England (Lord de Ros) can at the +present day <i>prove</i> male descent further back than the eleventh +century, must appreciate the absurdity of our compatriots’ pretensions. +Burke’s Peerage is acknowledged to be the most “faked” +volume in the English language, but the descents it attributes are like +mathematical demonstrations compared to the “trees” that +members of these new American orders climb.<br> +<br> +When my class was graduated from Mr. McMullen’s school, we little +boys had the brilliant idea of uniting in a society, but were greatly +put about for an effective name, hitting finally upon that of Ancient +Seniors’ Society. For a group of infants, this must be acknowledged +to have been a luminous inspiration. We had no valid reason for +forming that society, not being particularly fond of each other. +Living in several cities, we rarely met after leaving school and had +little to say to each other when we did. But it sounded so fine +to be an “Ancient Senior,” and we hoped in our next school +to impress new companions with that title and make them feel proper +respect for us in consequence. Pride, however, sustained a fall +when it was pointed out that the initials formed the ominous word “Ass.”<br> +<br> +I have a shrewd suspicion that the motives which prompted our youthful +actions are not very different from those now inciting children of a +larger growth to band together, blackball their friends, crown queens, +and perform other senseless mummeries, such as having the weathercock +of a departed meeting-house brought in during a banquet, and dressing +restaurant waiters in knickerbockers for “one night only.”<br> +<br> +This malarial condition of our social atmosphere accounts for the quantity +of genealogical quacks that have taken to sending typewritten letters, +stating that the interest they take in your private affairs compels +them to offer proof of your descent from any crowned head to whom you +may have taken a fancy. One correspondent assured me only this +month that he had papers in his possession showing beyond a doubt that +I might claim a certain King McDougal of Scotland for an ancestor. +I have misgivings, however, as to the quality of the royal blood in +my veins, for the same correspondent was equally confident six months +ago that my people came in direct line from Charlemagne. As I +have no desire to “corner” the market in kings, these letters +have remained unanswered.<br> +<br> +Considering the mania to trace descent from illustrious men, it astonishes +me that a Mystic Band, consisting of lineal descendants from the Seven +Sages of Greece, has not before now burst upon an astonished world. +It has been suggested that if some one wanted to organize a truly restricted +circle, “The Grandchildren of our Tripoli War” would be +an excellent title. So few Americans took part in that conflict +- and still fewer know anything about it - that the satisfaction of +joining the society would be immense to exclusively-minded people.<br> +<br> +There is only one explanation that seems in any way to account for this +vast tomfoolery. A little sentence, printed at the bottom of a +prospectus recently sent to me, lets the ambitious cat out of the genealogical +bag. It states that “social position is assured to people +joining our order.” Thanks to the idiotic habit some newspapers +have inaugurated of advertising, gratis, a number of self-elected society +“leaders,” many feeble-minded people, with more ambition +than cash, and a larger supply of family papers than brains, have been +bitten with a social madness, and enter these traps, thinking they are +the road to position and honors. The number of fools is larger +than one would have believed possible, if the success of so many “orders,” +“circles,” “commanderies,” and “regencies” +were not there to testify to the unending folly of the would-be “smart.”<br> +<br> +This last decade of the century has brought to light many strange fads +and senseless manias. This “descent” craze, however, +surpasses them all in inanity. The keepers of insane asylums will +tell you that one of the hopeless forms of madness is <i>la folie des +grandeurs</i>. A breath of this delirium seems to be blowing over +our country. Crowns and sceptres haunt the dreams of simple republican +men and women, troubling their slumbers and leading them a will-o’-the-wisp +dance back across the centuries.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER 20 - As the Twig is Bent<br> +<br> +<br> +I knew, in my youth, a French village far up among the Cevennes Mountains, +where the one cultivated man of the place, saddened by the unlovely +lives of the peasants around him and by the bare walls of the village +school, organized evening classes for the boys. During these informal +hours, he talked to them of literature and art and showed them his prints +and paintings. When the youths’ interest was aroused he +lent them books, that they might read about the statues and buildings +that had attracted their attention. At first it appeared a hopeless +task to arouse any interest among these peasants in subjects not bearing +on their abject lives. To talk with boys of the ideal, when their +poor bodies were in need of food and raiment, seemed superfluous; but +in time the charm worked, as it always will. The beautiful appealed +to their simple natures, elevating and refining them, and opening before +their eager eyes perspectives of undreamed-of interest. The self-imposed +task became a delight as his pupils’ minds responded to his efforts. +Although death soon ended his useful life, the seed planted grew and +bore fruit in many humble homes.<br> +<br> +At this moment I know men in several walks of life who revere with touching +devotion the memory of the one human being who had brought to them, +at the moment when they were most impressionable, the gracious message +that existence was not merely a struggle for bread. The boys he +had gathered around him realize now that the encouragement and incentive +received from those evening glimpses of noble works existing in the +world was the mainspring of their subsequent development and a source +of infinite pleasure through all succeeding years.<br> +<br> +This reference to an individual effort toward cultivating the poor has +been made because other delicate spirits are attempting some such task +in our city, where quite as much as in the French village schoolchildren +stand in need of some message of beauty in addition to the instruction +they receive, - some window opened for them, as it were, upon the fields +of art, that their eyes when raised from study or play may rest on objects +more inspiring than blank walls and the graceless surroundings of street +or schoolroom.<br> +<br> +We are far too quick in assuming that love of the beautiful is confined +to the highly educated; that the poor have no desire to surround themselves +with graceful forms and harmonious colors. We wonder at and deplore +their crude standards, bewailing the general lack of taste and the gradual +reducing of everything to a commonplace money basis. We smile +at the efforts toward adornment attempted by the poor, taking it too +readily for granted that on this point they are beyond redemption. +This error is the less excusable as so little has been done by way of +experiment before forming an opinion, - whole classes being put down +as inferior beings, incapable of appreciation, before they have been +allowed even a glimpse of the works of art that form the daily mental +food of their judges.<br> +<br> +The portly charlady who rules despotically in my chambers is an example. +It has been a curious study to watch her growing interest in the objects +that have here for the first time come under her notice; the delight +she has come to take in dusting and arranging my belongings, and her +enthusiasm at any new acquisition. Knowing how bare her own home +was, I felt at first only astonishment at her vivid interest in what +seemed beyond her comprehension, but now realize that in some blind +way she appreciates the rare and the delicate quite as much as my more +cultivated visitors. At the end of one laborious morning, when +everything was arranged to her satisfaction, she turned to me her poor, +plain face, lighted up with an expression of delight, and exclaimed, +“Oh, sir, I do love to work in these rooms! I’m never +so happy as when I’m arranging them elegant things!” +And, although my pleasure in her pleasure was modified by the discovery +that she had taken an eighteenth-century comb to disentangle the fringes +of a rug, and broken several of its teeth in her ardor, that she invariably +placed a certain Whister etching upside down, and then stood in rapt +admiration before it, still, in watching her enthusiasm, I felt a thrill +of satisfaction at seeing how her untaught taste responded to a contact +with good things.<br> +<br> +Here in America, and especially in our city, which we have been at such +pains to make as hideous as possible, the schoolrooms, where hundreds +of thousands of children pass many hours daily, are one degree more +graceless than the town itself; the most artistically inclined child +can hardly receive any but unfortunate impressions. The other +day a friend took me severely to task for rating our American women +on their love of the big shops, and gave me, I confess, an entirely +new idea on the subject. “Can’t you see,” she +said, “that the shops here are what the museums abroad are to +the poor? It is in them only that certain people may catch glimpses +of the dainty and exquisite manufactures of other countries. The +little education their eyes receive is obtained during visits to these +emporiums.”<br> +<br> +If this proves so, and it seems probable, it only proves how the humble +long for something more graceful than their meagre homes afford.<br> +<br> +In the hope of training the younger generations to better standards +and less vulgar ideals, a group of ladies are making an attempt to surround +our schoolchildren during their impressionable youth with reproductions +of historic masterpieces, and have already decorated many schoolrooms +in this way. For a modest sum it is possible to tint the bare +walls an attractive color - a delight in itself - and adorn them with +plaster casts of statues and solar prints of pictures and buildings. +The transformation that fifty or sixty dollars judiciously expended +in this way produces in a schoolroom is beyond belief, and, as the advertisements +say, “must be seen to be appreciated,” giving an air of +cheerfulness and refinement to the dreariest apartment.<br> +<br> +It is hard to make people understand the enthusiasm these decorations +have excited in both teachers and pupils. The directress of one +of our large schools was telling me of the help and pleasure the prints +and casts had been to her; she had given them as subjects for the class +compositions, and used them in a hundred different ways as object-lessons. +As the children are graduated from room to room, a great variety of +high-class subjects can be brought to their notice by varying the decorations.<br> +<br> +It is by the eye principally that taste is educated. “We +speak with admiration of the eighth sense common among Parisians, and +envy them their magic power of combining simple materials into an artistic +whole. The reason is that for generations the eyes of those people +have been unconsciously educated by the harmonious lines of well-proportioned +buildings, finely finished detail of stately colonnade, and shady perspective +of quay and boulevard. After years of this subtle training the +eye instinctively revolts from the vulgar and the crude. There +is little in the poorer quarters of our city to rejoice or refine the +senses; squalor and all-pervading ugliness are not least among the curses +that poverty entails.<br> +<br> +If you have a subject of interest in your mind, it often happens that +every book you open, every person you speak with, refers to that topic. +I never remember having seen an explanation offered of this phenomenon.<br> +<br> +The other morning, while this article was lying half finished on my +desk, I opened the last number of a Paris paper and began reading an +account of the drama, <i>Les Mauvais Bergers</i> (treating of that perilous +subject, the “strikes”), which Sarah Bernhardt had just +had the courage to produce before the Paris public. In the third +act, when the owner of the factory receives the disaffected hands, and +listens to their complaints, the leader of the strike (an intelligent +young workman), besides shorter hours and increased pay, demands that +recreation rooms be built where the toilers, their wives, and their +children may pass unoccupied hours in the enjoyment of attractive surroundings, +and cries in conclusion: “We, the poor, need some poetry and some +art in our lives, man does not live by bread alone. He has a right, +like the rich, to things of beauty!”<br> +<br> +In commending the use of decoration as a means of bringing pleasure +into dull, cramped lives, one is too often met by the curious argument +that taste is innate. “Either people have it or they haven’t,” +like a long nose or a short one, and it is useless to waste good money +in trying to improve either. “It would be much more to the +point to spend your money in giving the poor children a good roast-beef +dinner at Christmas than in placing the bust of Clytie before them.” +That argument has crushed more attempts to elevate the poor than any +other ever advanced. If it were listened to, there would never +be any progress made, because there are always thousands of people who +are hungry.<br> +<br> +When we reflect how painfully ill-arranged rooms or ugly colors affect +our senses, and remember that less fortunate neighbors suffer as much +as we do from hideous environments, it seems like keeping sunlight from +a plant, or fresh air out of a sick-room, to refuse glimpses of the +beautiful to the poor when it is in our power to give them this satisfaction +with a slight effort. Nothing can be more encouraging to those +who occasionally despair of human nature than the good results already +obtained by this small attempt in the schools.<br> +<br> +We fall into the error of imagining that because the Apollo Belvedere +and the Square of St. Mark’s have become stale to us by reproduction +they are necessarily so to others. The great and the wealthy of +the world form no idea of the longing the poor feel for a little variety +in their lives. They do not know what they want. They have +no standards to guide them, but the desire is there. Let us offer +ourselves the satisfaction, as we start off for pleasure trips abroad +or to the mountains, of knowing that at home the routine of study is +lightened for thousands of children by the counterfeit presentment of +the scenes we are enjoying; that, as we float up the Golden Horn or +sit in the moonlight by the Parthenon, far away at home some child is +dreaming of those fair scenes as she raises her eyes from her task, +and is unconsciously imbibing a love of the beautiful, which will add +a charm to her humble life, and make the present labors lighter. +If the child never lives to see the originals, she will be happier for +knowing that somewhere in the world domed mosques mirror themselves +in still waters, and marble gods, the handiwork of long-dead nations, +stand in the golden sunlight and silently preach the gospel of the beautiful.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER 21 - Seven Small Duchesses<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Since those “precious” days when the habitués of +the Hôtel Rambouillet first raised social intercourse to the level +of a fine art, the morals and manners, the amusements and intrigues +of great French ladies have interested the world and influenced the +ways of civilized nations. Thanks to Memoirs and Maxims, we are +able to reconstruct the life of a seventeenth or eighteenth century +noblewoman as completely as German archeologists have rebuilt the temple +of the Wingless Victory on the Acropolis from surrounding débris.<br> +<br> +Interest in French society has, however, diminished during this century, +ceasing almost entirely with the Second Empire, when foreign women gave +the tone to a parvenu court from which the older aristocracy held aloof +in disgust behind the closed gates of their “hôtels” +and historic châteaux.<br> +<br> +With the exception of Balzac, few writers have drawn authentic pictures +of nineteenth-century noblewomen in France; and his vivid portrayals +are more the creations of genius than correct descriptions of a caste.<br> +<br> +During the last fifty years French aristocrats have ceased to be factors +even in matters social, the sceptre they once held having passed into +alien hands, the daughters of Albion to a great extent replacing their +French rivals in influencing the ways of the “world,” - +a change, be it remarked in passing, that has not improved the tone +of society or contributed to the spread of good manners.<br> +<br> +People like the French nobles, engaged in sulking and attempting to +overthrow or boycott each succeeding régime, must naturally lose +their influence. They have held aloof so long - fearing to compromise +themselves by any advances to the powers that be, and restrained by +countless traditions from taking an active part in either the social +or political strife - that little by little they have been passed by +and ignored; which is a pity, for amid the ruin of many hopes and ambitions +they have remained true to their caste and handed down from generation +to generation the secret of that gracious urbanity and tact which distinguished +the Gallic noblewoman in the last century from the rest of her kind +and made her so deft in the difficult art of pleasing - and being pleased.<br> +<br> +Within the last few years there have, however, been signs of a change. +Young members of historic houses show an amusing inclination to escape +from their austere surroundings and resume the place their grandparents +abdicated. If it is impossible to rule as formerly, they at any +rate intend to get some fun out of existence.<br> +<br> +This joyous movement to the front is being made by the young matrons +enlisted under the “Seven little duchesses’” banner. +Oddly enough, a baker’s half-dozen of ducal coronets are worn +at this moment, in France, by small and sprightly women, who have shaken +the dust of centuries from those ornaments and sport them with a decidedly +modern air!<br> +<br> +It is the members of this clique who, in Paris during the spring, at +their châteaux in the summer and autumn, and on the Riviera after +Christmas, lead the amusements and strike the key for the modern French +world.<br> +<br> +No one of these light-hearted ladies takes any particular precedence +over the others. All are young, and some are wonderfully nice +to look at. The Duchesse d’Uzès is, perhaps, the +handsomest, good looks being an inheritance from her mother, the beautiful +and wayward Duchesse de Chaulme.<br> +<br> +There is a vivid grace about the daughter, an intense vitality that +suggests some beautiful being of the forest. As she moves and +speaks one almost expects to hear the quick breath coming and going +through her quivering nostrils, and see foam on her full lips. +Her mother’s tragic death has thrown a glamor of romance around +the daughter’s life that heightens the witchery of her beauty.<br> +<br> +Next in good looks comes an American, the Duchesse de la Rochefoucauld, +although marriage (which, as de Maupassant remarked, is rarely becoming) +has not been propitious to that gentle lady. By rights she should +have been mentioned first, as her husband outranks, not only all the +men of his age, but also his cousin, the old Duc de la Rochefoucauld-Doudeauville, +to whom, however, a sort of brevet rank is accorded on account of his +years, his wealth, and the high rank of his two wives. It might +almost be asserted that our fair compatriot wears the oldest coronet +in France. She certainly is mistress of three of the finest châteaux +in that country, among which is Miromail, where the family live, and +Liancourt, a superb Renaissance structure, a delight to the artist’s +soul.<br> +<br> +The young Duchesse de Brissac runs her two comrades close as regards +looks. Brissac is the son of Mme. de Trédern, whom Newporters +will remember two years ago, when she enjoyed some weeks of our summer +season. Their château was built by the Brissac of Henri +IV.’s time and is one of the few that escaped uninjured through +the Revolution, its vast stone corridors and massive oak ceilings, its +moat and battlements, standing to-day unimpaired amid a group of châteaux +including Chaumont, Rochecotte, Azay-le-Rideau, Ussé, Chenonceau, +within “dining” distance of each other, that form a centre +of gayety next in importance to Paris and Cannes. In the autumn +these spacious castles are filled with joyous bands and their ample +stables with horses. A couple of years ago, when the king of Portugal +and his suite were entertained at Chaumont for a week of stag-hunting, +over three hundred people, servants, and guests, slept under its roof, +and two hundred horses were housed in its stables.<br> +<br> +The Duc de Luynes and his wife, who was Mlle. de Crussol (daughter of +the brilliant Duchesse d’Uzès of Boulanger fame), live +at Dampierre, another interesting pile filled with rare pictures, bric-à-brac, +and statuary, first among which is Jean Goujon’s life-sized statue +(in silver) of Louis XIII., presented by that monarch to his favorite, +the founder of the house. This gem of the Renaissance stands in +an octagonal chamber hung in dark velvet, unique among statues. +It has been shown but once in public, at the Loan Exhibition in 1872, +when the patriotic nobility lent their treasures to collect a fund for +the Alsace-Lorraine exiles.<br> +<br> +The Duchesse de Noailles, <i>née</i> Mlle. de Luynes, is another +of this coterie and one of the few French noblewomen who has travelled. +Many Americans will remember the visit she made here with her mother +some years ago, and the effect her girlish grace produced at that time. +The de Noailles’ château of Maintenon is an inheritance +from Louis XIV.’s prudish favorite, who founded and enriched the +de Noailles family. The Duc and Duchesse d’Uzès live +near by at Bonnelle with the old Duc de Doudeauville, her grandfather, +who is also the grandfather of Mme. de Noailles, these two ladies being +descended each from a wife of the old duke, the former from the Princesse +de Polignac and the latter from the Princesse de Ligne.<br> +<br> +The Duchesse de Bisaccia, <i>née</i> Princesse Radziwill, and +the Duchesse d’Harcourt, who complete the circle of seven, also +live in this vicinity, where another group of historic residences, including +Eclimont and Rambouillet, the summer home of the president, rivals in +gayety and hospitality the châteaux of the Loire.<br> +<br> +No coterie in England or in this country corresponds at all to this +French community. Much as they love to amuse themselves, the idea +of meeting any but their own set has never passed through their well-dressed +heads. They differ from their parents in that they have broken +away from many antiquated habits. Their houses are no longer lay +hermitages, and their opera boxes are regularly filled, but no foreigner +is ever received, no ambitious parvenu accepted among them. Ostracism +here means not a ten years’ exile, but lifelong banishment.<br> +<br> +The contrast is strong between this rigor and the enthusiasm with which +wealthy new-comers are welcomed into London society or by our own upper +crust, so full of unpalatable pieces of dough. This exclusiveness +of the titled French reminds me - incongruously enough - of a certain +arrangement of graves in a Lenox cemetery, where the members of an old +New England family lie buried in a circle with their feet toward its +centre. When I asked, many years ago, the reason for this arrangement, +a wit of that day - a daughter, by the bye, of Mrs. Stowe - replied, +“So that when they rise at the Last Day only members of their +own family may face them!”<br> +<br> +One is struck by another peculiarity of these French men and women - +their astonishing proficiency in <i>les arts d’agrément</i>. +Every Frenchwoman of any pretensions to fashion backs her beauty and +grace with some art in which she is sure to be proficient. The +dowager Duchesse d’Uzés is a sculptor of mark, and when +during the autumn Mme. de Trédern gives opera at Brissac, she +finds little difficulty in recruiting her troupe from among the youths +and maidens under her roof whose musical education has been thorough +enough to enable them to sing difficult music in public.<br> +<br> +Love of the fine arts is felt in their conversation, in the arrangement +and decoration of their homes, and in the interest that an exhibition +of pictures or old furniture will excite. Few of these people +but are <i>habitués</i> of the Hôtel Drouot and conversant +with the value and authenticity of the works of art daily sold there. +Such elements combine to form an atmosphere that does not exist in any +other country, and lends an interest to society in France which it is +far from possessing elsewhere.<br> +<br> +There is but one way that an outsider can enter this Gallic paradise. +By marrying into it! Two of the seven ladies in question lack +the quarterings of the rest. Miss Mitchell was only a charming +American girl, and the mother of the Princesse Radziwill was Mlle. Blanc +of Monte Carlo. However, as in most religions there are ceremonies +that purify, so in this case the sacrament of marriage is supposed to +have reconstructed these wives and made them genealogically whole.<br> +<br> +There is something incongruous to most people in the idea of a young +girl hardly out of the schoolroom bearing a ponderous title. The +pomp and circumstance that surround historic names connect them (through +our reading) with stately matrons playing the “heavy female” +roles in life’s drama, much as Lady Macbeth’s name evokes +the idea of a raw-boned mother-in-law sort of person, the reverse of +attractive, and quite the last woman in the world to egg her husband +on to a crime - unless it were wife murder!<br> +<br> +Names like de Chevreuse, or de la Rochefoucauld, seem appropriate only +to the warlike amazons of the Fronde, or corpulent kill-joys in powder +and court trains of the Mme. Etiquette school; it comes as a shock, +on being presented to a group of girlish figures in the latest cut of +golfing skirts, who are chattering odds on the Grand Prix in faultless +English, to realize that these light-hearted <i>gamines</i> are the +present owners of sonorous titles. One shudders to think what +would have been the effect on poor Marie Antoinette’s priggish +mentor could she have foreseen her granddaughter, clad in knickerbockers, +running a petroleum tricycle in the streets of Paris, or pedalling “tandem” +across country behind some young cavalry officer of her connection.<br> +<br> +Let no simple-minded American imagine, however, that these up-to-date +women are waiting to welcome him and his family to their intimacy. +The world outside of France does not exist for a properly brought up +French aristocrat. Few have travelled; from their point of view, +any man with money, born outside of France, is a “Rasta,” +unless he come with diplomatic rank, in which case his position at home +is carefully ferreted out before he is entertained. Wealthy foreigners +may live for years in Paris, without meeting a single member of this +coterie, who will, however, join any new club that promises to be amusing; +but as soon as the “Rastas” get a footing, “the seven” +and their following withdraw. Puteaux had its day, then the “Polo +Club” in the Bois became their rendezvous. But as every +wealthy American and “smart” Englishwoman passing the spring +in Paris rushed for that too open circle, like tacks toward a magnet, +it was finally cut by the “Duchesses,” who, together with +such attractive aides-de-camp as the Princesse de Poix, Mmes. de Murat, +de Morny, and de Broglie, inaugurated last spring “The Ladies’ +Club of the Acacias,” on a tiny island belonging to the “Tir +aux Pigeons,” which, for the moment, is the fad of its founders.<br> +<br> +It must be a surprise to those who do not know French family pride to +learn that exclusive as these women are there are cliques in France +to-day whose members consider the ladies we have been speaking of as +lacking in reserve. Men like Guy de Durfort, Duc de Lorges, or +the Duc de Massa, and their womenkind, hold themselves aloof on an infinitely +higher plane, associating with very few and scorning the vulgar herd +of “smart” people!<br> +<br> +It would seem as if such a vigorous weeding out of the unworthy would +result in a rather restricted comradeship. Who the “elect” +are must become each year more difficult to discern.<br> +<br> +Their point of view in this case cannot differ materially from that +of the old Methodist lady, who, while she was quite sure no one outside +of her own sect could possibly be saved, had grave fears concerning +the future of most of the congregation. She felt hopeful only +of the clergyman and herself, adding: “There are days when I have +me doubts about the minister!”<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER 22 - Growing Old Ungracefully<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +There comes, we are told, a crucial moment, “a tide” in +all lives, that taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. An assertion, +by the bye, which is open to doubt. What does come to every one +is an hour fraught with warning, which, if unheeded, leads on to folly. +This fateful date coincides for most of us with the discovery that we +are turning gray, or that the “crow’s feet” or our +temples are becoming visible realities. The unpleasant question +then presents itself: Are we to slip meekly into middle age, or are +arms be taken up against our insidious enemy, and the rest of life become +a losing battle, fought inch by inch?<br> +<br> +In other days it was the men who struggled the hardest against their +fate. Up to this century, the male had always been the ornamental +member of a family. Caesar, we read, coveted a laurel crown principally +because it would help to conceal his baldness. The wigs of the +Grand Monarque are historical. It is characteristic of the time +that the latter’s attempts at rejuvenation should have been taken +as a matter of course, while a few years later poor Madame de Pompadour’s +artifices to retain her fleeting youth were laughed at and decried.<br> +<br> +To-day the situation is reversed. The battle, given up by the +men - who now accept their fate with equanimity - is being waged by +their better halves with a vigor heretofore unknown. So general +has this mania become that if asked what one weakness was most characteristic +of modern women, what peculiarity marked them as different from their +sisters in other centuries, I should unhesitatingly answer, “The +desire to look younger than their years.”<br> +<br> +That people should long to be handsomer or taller or better proportioned +than a cruel Providence has made them, is natural enough; but that so +much time and trouble should be spent simply in trying to look “young,” +does seem unreasonable, especially when it is evident to everybody that +such efforts must, in the nature of things, be failures. The men +or women who do not look their age are rare. In each generation +there are exceptions, people who, from one cause or another - generally +an excellent constitution - succeed in producing the illusion of youth +for a few years after youth itself has flown.<br> +<br> +A curious fatality that has the air of a nemesis pursues those who succeed +in giving this false appearance. When pointing them out to strangers, +their admirers (in order to make the contrast more effective) add a +decade or so to the real age. Only last month I was sitting at +dinner opposite a famous French beauty, who at fifty succeeds in looking +barely thirty. During the meal both my neighbors directed attention +to her appearance, and in each case said: “Isn’t she a wonder! +You know she’s over sixty!” So all that poor lady +gained by looking youthful was ten years added to her age!<br> +<br> +The desire to remain attractive as long as possible is not only a reasonable +but a commendable ambition. Unfortunately the stupid means most +of our matrons adopt to accomplish this end produce exactly the opposite +result.<br> +<br> +One sign of deficient taste in our day is this failure to perceive that +every age has a charm of its own which can be enhanced by appropriate +surroundings, but is lost when placed in an incongruous setting. +It saddens a lover of the beautiful to see matrons going so far astray +in their desire to please as to pose for young women when they no longer +can look the part.<br> +<br> +Holmes, in <i>My Maiden Aunt</i>, asks plaintively: -<br> +<br> +<br> +<i>Why will she train that wintry curl in such a springlike way?<br> +<br> +<br> +</i>That this folly is in the air to-day, few will dispute. It +seems to be perpetrated unconsciously by the greater number, with no +particular object in view, simply because other people do it. +An unanswerable argument when used by one of the fair sex!<br> +<br> +Few matrons stop to think for themselves, or they would realize that +by appearing in the same attire as their daughters they challenge a +comparison which can only be to their disadvantage, and should be if +possible avoided. Is there any disillusion more painful than, +on approaching what appeared from a distance to be a young girl, to +find one’s self face to face with sixty years of wrinkles? +That is a modern version of the saying, “an old head on young +shoulders,” with a vengeance! If mistaken sexagenarians +could divine the effect that tired eyes smiling from under false hair, +aged throats clasped with collars of pearls, and rheumatic old ribs +braced into a semblance of girlish grace, produce on the men for whose +benefit such adornments have been arranged, reform would quickly follow. +There is something absolutely uncanny in the illusion. The more +successful it is, the more weird the effect.<br> +<br> +No one wants to see Polonius in the finery of Mercutio. What a +sense of fitness demands is, on the contrary, a “make up” +in keeping with the rôle, which does not mean that a woman is +to become a frump, but only that she is to make herself attractive in +another way.<br> +<br> +During the <i>Ancien Régime</i> in France, matters of taste were +considered all-important; an entire court would consult on the shade +of a brocade, and hail a new coiffure as an event. The great ladies +who had left their youth behind never then committed the blunder, so +common among our middle-aged ladies, of aping the maidens of the day. +They were far too clever for that, and appreciated the advantages to +be gained from sombre stuffs and flattering laces. Let those who +doubt study Nattier’s exquisite portrait of Maria Leczinska. +Nothing in the pose or toilet suggests a desire on the painter’s +part to rejuvenate his sitter. If anything, the queen’s +age is emphasized as something honorable. The gray hair is simply +arranged and partly veiled with black lace, which sets off her delicate, +faded face to perfection, but without flattery or fraud.<br> +<br> +We find the same view taken of age by the masters of the Renaissance, +who appreciated its charm and loved to reproduce its grace.<br> +<br> +Queen Elizabeth stands out in history as a woman who struggled ungracefully +against growing old. Her wigs and hoops and farthingales served +only to make her ridiculous, and the fact that she wished to be painted +without shadows in order to appear “young,” is recorded +as an aberration of a great mind.<br> +<br> +Are there no painters to-day who will whisper to our wives and mothers +the secret of looking really lovely, and persuade them to abandon their +foolish efforts at rejuvenation?<br> +<br> +Let us see some real old ladies once more, as they look at us from miniature +and portrait. Few of us, I imagine, but cherish the memory of +some such being in the old home, a soft-voiced grandmother, with silvery +hair brushed under a discreet and flattering cap, with soft, dark raiment +and tulle-wrapped throat. There are still, it is to be hoped, +many such lovable women in our land, but at times I look about me in +dismay, and wonder who is to take their places when they are gone. +Are there to be no more “old ladies”? Will the next +generation have to look back when the word “grandmother” +is mentioned, to a stylish vision in Parisian apparel, décolleté +and decked in jewels, or arrayed in cocky little bonnets, perched on +tousled curls, knowing jackets, and golfing skirts?<br> +<br> +The present horror of anything elderly comes, probably, from the fact +that the preceding generation went to the other extreme, young women +retiring at forty into becapped old age. Knowing how easily our +excitable race runs to exaggeration, one trembles to think what surprises +the future may hold, or what will be the next decree of Dame Fashion. +Having eliminated the “old lady” from off the face of the +earth, how fast shall we continue down the fatal slope toward the ridiculous? +Shall we be compelled by a current stronger than our wills to array +ourselves each year (the bare thought makes one shudder) in more and +more youthful apparel, until corpulent senators take to running about +in “sailor suits,” and octogenarian business men go “down +town” in “pinafores,” while belles of sixty or seventy +summers appear in Kate Greenaway costumes, and dine out in short-sleeved +bibs, which will allow coy glimpses of their cunning old ankles to appear +over their socks?<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER 23 - Around a Spring<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +The greatest piece of good luck that can befall a Continental village +is the discovery, within its limits, of a spring supplying some kind +of malodorous water. From that moment the entire community, abandoning +all other plans, give themselves over to hatching their golden egg, +experience having taught them that no other source of prosperity can +compare with a <i>source thermale</i>. If the water of the newfound +spring, besides having an unpleasant smell, is also hot, then Providence +has indeed blessed the township.<br> +<br> +The first step is to have the fluid analyzed by a celebrity, and its +medicinal qualities duly set forth in a certificate. The second +is to get official recognition from the government and the authorization +to erect a bath house. Once these preliminaries accomplished, +the way lies plain before the fortunate village; every citizen, from +the mayor down to the humblest laborer, devotes himself to solving the +all-important problem how to attract strangers to the place and keep +and amuse them when they have been secured.<br> +<br> +Multicolored pamphlets detailing the local attractions are mailed to +the four corners of the earth, and brilliant chromos of the village, +with groups of peasants in the foreground, wearing picturesque costumes, +are posted in every available railway station and booking-office, regardless +of the fact that no costumes have been known in the neighborhood for +half a century, except those provided by the hotel proprietors for their +housemaids. A national dress, however, has a fine effect in the +advertisement, and gives a local color to the scene. What, for +instance, would Athens be without that superb individual in national +get-up whom one is sure to see before the hotel on alighting from the +omnibus? I am convinced that he has given as much pleasure as +the Acropolis to most travellers; the knowledge that the hotel proprietors +share the expenses of his keep and toilet cannot dispel the charm of +those scarlet embroideries and glittering arms.<br> +<br> +After preparing their trap, the wily inhabitants of a new watering-place +have only to sit down and await events. The first people to appear +on the scene are, naturally, the English, some hidden natural law compelling +that race to wander forever in inexpensive by-ways and serve as pioneers +for other nations. No matter how new or inaccessible the spring, +you are sure to find a small colony of Britons installed in the half-finished +hotels, reading week-old editions of the <i>Times</i>, and grumbling +over the increase in prices since the year before.<br> +<br> +As soon as the first stray Britons have developed into an “English +colony,” the municipality consider themselves authorized to construct +a casino and open avenues, which are soon bordered by young trees and +younger villas. In the wake of the English come invalids of other +nationalities. If a wandering “crowned head” can be +secured for a season, a great step is gained, as that will attract the +real paying public and the Americans, who as a general thing are the +last to appear on the scene.<br> +<br> +At this stage of its evolution, the “city fathers” build +a theatre in connection with their casino, and (persuading the government +to wink at their evasion of the gambling laws) add games of chance to +the other temptations of the place.<br> +<br> +There is no better example of the way a spring can be developed by clever +handling, and satisfactory results obtained from advertising and judicious +expenditure, than Aix-les-Bains, which twenty years ago was but a tiny +mountain village, and to-day ranks among the wealthiest and most brilliant +<i>eaux</i> in Europe. In this case, it is true, they had tradition +to fall back on, for Aquae Gratinae was already a favorite watering-place +in the year 30 B.C., when Caesar took the cure.<br> +<br> +There is little doubt in my mind that when the Roman Emperor first arrived +he found a colony of spinsters and retired army officers (from recently +conquered Britain) living around this spring in <i>popinae</i> (which +are supposed to have corresponded to our modern boarding-house), wearing +waterproof togas and common-sense cothurni, with double cork soles.<br> +<br> +The wife of another Caesar fled hither in 1814. The little inn +where she passed a summer in the company of her one-eyed lover - while +the fate of her husband and son was being decided at Vienna and Waterloo +- is still standing, and serves as the annex of a vast new hotel.<br> +<br> +The way in which a watering-place is “run” abroad, where +tourists are regarded as godsends, to be cherished, spoiled, and despoiled, +is amusingly different from the manner of our village populations when +summer visitors (whom they look upon as natural enemies) appear on the +scene. Abroad the entire town, together with the surrounding villages, +hamlets, and farmhouses, rack their brains and devote their time to +inventing new amusements for the visitor, and original ways of enticing +the gold from his pocket - for, mind you, on both continents the object +is the same. In Europe the rural Machiavellis have had time to +learn that smiling faces and picturesque surroundings are half the battle.<br> +<br> +Another point which is perfectly understood abroad is that a cure must +be largely mental; that in consequence boredom retards recovery. +So during every hour of the day and evening a different amusement is +provided for those who feel inclined to be amused. At Aix, for +instance, Colonne’s orchestra plays under the trees at the Villa +des Fleurs while you are sipping your after-luncheon coffee. At +three o’clock “Guignol” performs for the youngsters. +At five o’clock there is another concert in the Casino. +At eight o’clock an operetta is given at the villa, and a comedy +in the Casino, both ending discreetly at eleven o’clock. +Once a week, as a variety, the park is illuminated and fireworks help +to pass the evening.<br> +<br> +If neither music nor Guignol tempts you, every form of trap from a four-horse +break to a donkey-chair (the latter much in fashion since the English +queen’s visit) is standing ready in the little square. On +the neighboring lake you have but to choose between a dozen kinds of +boats. The hire of all these modes of conveyance being fixed by +the municipality, and plainly printed in boat or carriage, extortions +or discussions are impossible. If you prefer a ramble among the +hills, the wily native is lying in wait for you there also. When +you arrive breathless at your journey’s end, a shady arbor offers +shelter where you may cool off and enjoy the view. It is not by +accident that a dish of freshly gathered strawberries and a bowl of +milk happen to be standing near by.<br> +<br> +When bicycling around the lake you begin to feel how nice a half hour’s +rest would be. Presto! a terrace overhanging the water appears, +and a farmer’s wife who proposes brewing you a cup of tea, supplementing +it with butter and bread of her own making. Weak human nature +cannot withstand such blandishments. You find yourself becoming +fond of the people and their smiling ways, returning again and again +to shores where you are made so welcome. The fact that “business” +is at the bottom of all this in no way interferes with one’s enjoyment. +On the contrary, to a practical mind it is refreshing to see how much +can be made of a little, and what a fund of profit and pleasure can +be extracted from small things, if one goes to work in the right way.<br> +<br> +The trick can doubtless be overdone: at moments one feels the little +game is worked a bit too openly. The other evening, for instance, +when we entered the dining-room of our hotel and found it decorated +with flags and flowers, because, forsooth, it was the birthday of “Victoria +R. and I.,” when champagne was offered at dessert and the band +played “God Save the Queen,” while the English solemnly +stood up in their places, it did seem as if the proprietor was poking +fun at his guests in a sly way.<br> +<br> +I was apparently the only person, however, who felt this. The +English were much flattered by the attention, so I snubbed myself with +the reflection that if the date had been July 4, I doubtless should +have considered the flags and music most <i>à propos.<br> +<br> +</i>There are also moments when the vivid picturesqueness of this place +comes near to palling on one. Its beauty is so suspiciously like +a set scene that it gives the impression of having been arranged by +some clever decorator with an eye to effect only.<br> +<br> +One is continually reminded of that inimitable chapter in Daudet’s +<i>Tartarin sur les Alpes</i>, when the hero discovers that all Switzerland +is one enormous humbug, run to attract tourists; that the cataracts +are “faked,” and avalanches arranged beforehand to enliven +a dull season. Can anything be more delicious than the disillusion +of Tartarin and his friends, just back from a perilous chamois hunt, +on discovering that the animal they had exhausted themselves in following +all day across the mountains, was being refreshed with hot wine in the +kitchen of the hotel by its peasant owner?<br> +<br> +When one visits the theatrical abbey across the lake and inspects the +too picturesque tombs of Savoy’s sovereigns, or walks in the wonderful +old garden, with its intermittent spring, the suspicion occurs, in spite +of one’s self, that the whole scene will be folded up at sunset +and the bare-footed “brother” who is showing us around with +so much unction will, after our departure, hurry into another costume, +and appear later as one of the happy peasants who are singing and drinking +in front of that absurdly operatic little inn you pass on the drive +home.<br> +<br> +There is a certain pink cottage, with a thatched roof and overhanging +vines, about which I have serious doubts, and fully expect some day +to see Columbine appear on that pistache-green balcony (where the magpie +is hanging in a wicker cage), and, taking Arlequin’s hand, disappear +into the water-butt while Clown does a header over the half-door, and +the cottage itself turns into a gilded coach, with Columbine kissing +her hand from the window.<br> +<br> +A problem which our intelligent people have not yet set themselves to +solve, is being worked out abroad. The little cities of Europe +have discovered that prosperity comes with the tourist, that with increased +facilities of communication the township which expends the most in money +and brains in attracting rich travellers to its gates is the place that +will grow and prosper. It is a simple lesson, and one that I would +gladly see our American watering-places learn and apply.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER 24 - The Better Part<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +As I watch, year after year, the flowers of our aristocratic hothouses +blooming behind the glass partitions of their conservatories, tended +always by the same gardeners, admired by the same amateurs, and then, +for the most part, withering unplucked on their virgin stems, I wonder +if the wild flowers appreciate the good luck that allows them to taste +the storm and the sunshine untrammelled and disperse perfume according +to their own sweet will.<br> +<br> +To drop a cumbersome metaphor, there is not the shadow of a doubt that +the tamest and most monotonous lives in this country are those led by +the women in our “exclusive” sets, for the good reason that +they are surrounded by all the trammels of European society without +enjoying any of its benefits, and live in an atmosphere that takes the +taste out of existence too soon.<br> +<br> +Girls abroad are kept away from the “world” because their +social life only commences after marriage. In America, on the +contrary, a woman is laid more or less on the shelf the day she becomes +a wife, so that if she has not made hay while her maiden sunshine lasted, +the chances are she will have but meagrely furnished lofts; and how, +I ask, is a girl to harvest always in the same field?<br> +<br> +When in this country, a properly brought up young aristocrat is presented +by her mamma to an admiring circle of friends, she is quite a <i>blasée</i> +person. The dancing classes she has attended for a couple of years +before her début (that she might know the right set of youths +and maidens) have taken the bloom off her entrance into the world. +She and her friends have already talked over the “men” of +their circle, and decided, with a sigh, that there were matches going +about. A juvenile Newporter was recently overheard deploring (to +a friend of fifteen summers), “By the time we come out there will +only be two matches in the market,” meaning, of course, millionnaires +who could provide their brides with country and city homes, yachts, +and the other appurtenances of a brilliant position. Now, the +unfortunate part of the affair is, that such a worldly-minded maiden +will in good time be obliged to make her début, dine, and dance +through a dozen seasons without making a new acquaintance. Her +migrations from town to seashore, or from one country house to another, +will be but changes of scene: the actors will remain always the same. +When she dines out, she can, if she cares to take the trouble, make +a fair guess as to who the guests will be before she starts, for each +entertainment is but a new shuffle of the too well-known pack. +She is morally certain of being taken in to dinner by one of fifty men +whom she has known since her childhood, and has met on an average twice +a week since she was eighteen.<br> +<br> +Of foreigners such a girl sees little beyond a stray diplomatist or +two, in search of a fortune, and her glimpses of Paris society are obtained +from the windows of a hotel on the Place Vendôme. In London +or Rome she may be presented in a few international salons, but as she +finds it difficult to make her new acquaintances understand what an +exalted position she occupies at home, the chances are that pique at +seeing some Daisy Miller attract all the attention will drive my lady +back to the city where she is known and appreciated, nothing being more +difficult for an American “swell” than explaining to the +uninitiated in what way her position differs from that of the rest of +her compatriots.<br> +<br> +When I see the bevies of highly educated and attractive girls who make +their bows each season, I ask myself in wonder, “Who, in the name +of goodness, are they to marry?”<br> +<br> +In the very circle where so much stress is laid on a girl’s establishing +herself brilliantly, the fewest possible husbands are to be found. +Yet, limited as such a girl’s choice is, she will sooner remain +single than accept a husband out of her set. She has a perfectly +distinct idea of what she wants, and has lived so long in the atmosphere +of wealth that existence without footmen and male cooks, horses and +French clothes, appears to her impossible. Such large proportions +do these details assume in her mind that each year the husband himself +becomes of less importance, and what he can provide the essential point.<br> +<br> +If an outsider is sufficiently rich, my lady may consent to unite her +destinies to his, hoping to get him absorbed into her own world.<br> +<br> +It is pathetic, considering the restricted number of eligible men going +about, to see the trouble and expense that parents take to keep their +daughters <i>en évidence</i>. When one reflects on the +number of people who are disturbed when such a girl dines out, the horses +and men and women who are kept up to convey her home, the time it has +taken her to dress, the cost of the toilet itself, and then see the +man to whom she will be consigned for the evening, - some bored man +about town who has probably taken her mother in to dinner twenty years +before, and will not trouble himself to talk with his neighbor, or a +schoolboy, breaking in his first dress suit, - when one realizes that +for many maidens this goes on night after night and season after season, +it seems incredible that they should have the courage, or think it worth +their while to keep up the game.<br> +<br> +The logical result of turning eternally in the same circle is that nine +times out of ten the men who marry choose girls out of their own set, +some pretty stranger who has burst on their jaded vision with all the +charm of the unknown. A conventional society maiden who has not +been fortunate enough to meet and marry a man she loves, or whose fortune +tempts her, during the first season or two that she is “out,” +will in all probability go on revolving in an ever-narrowing circle +until she becomes stationary in its centre.<br> +<br> +In comparison with such an existence the life of the average “summer +girl” is one long frolic, as varied as that of her aristocratic +sister is monotonous. Each spring she has the excitement of selecting +a new battle-ground for her manoeuvres, for in the circle in which she +moves, parents leave such details to their children. Once installed +in the hotel of her choice, mademoiselle proceeds to make the acquaintance +of an entirely new set of friends, delightful youths just arrived, and +bent on making the most of their brief holidays, with whom her code +of etiquette allows her to sail all day, and pass uncounted evening +hours in remote corners of piazza or beach.<br> +<br> +As the words “position” and “set” have no meaning +to her young ears, and no one has ever preached to her the importance +of improving her social standing, the acquaintances that chance throws +in her path are accepted without question if they happen to be good-looking +and amusing. She has no prejudice as to standing, and if her supply +of partners runs short, she will dance and flirt with the clerk from +the desk in perfect good humor - in fact, she stands rather in awe of +that functionary, and admires the “English” cut of his clothes +and his Eastern swagger. A large hotel is her dream of luxury, +and a couple of simultaneous flirtations her ideal of bliss. No +long evenings of cruel boredom, in order to be seen at smart houses, +will cloud the maiden’s career, no agonized anticipation of retiring +partnerless from cotillion or supper will disturb her pleasure.<br> +<br> +In the city she hails from, everybody she knows lives in about the same +style. Some are said to be wealthier than others, but nothing +in their way of life betrays the fact; the art of knowing how to enjoy +wealth being but little understood outside of our one or two great cities. +She has that tranquil sense of being the social equal of the people +she meets, the absence of which makes the snob’s life a burden.<br> +<br> +During her summers away from home our “young friend” will +meet other girls of her age, and form friendships that result in mutual +visiting during the ensuing winter, when she will continue to add more +new names to the long list of her admirers, until one fine morning she +writes home to her delighted parents that she has found the right man +at last, and engaged herself to him.<br> +<br> +Never having penetrated to those sacred centres where birth and wealth +are considered all-important, and ignoring the supreme importance of +living in one set, the plan of life that such a woman lays out for herself +is exceedingly simple. She will coquette and dance and dream her +pleasant dream until Prince Charming, who is to awaken her to a new +life, comes and kisses away the dew of girlhood and leads his bride +out into the work-a-day world. The simple surroundings and ambitions +of her youth will make it easy for this wife to follow the man of her +choice, if necessary, to the remote village where he is directing a +factory or to the mining camp where the foundations of a fortune lie. +Life is full of delicious possibilities for her. Men who are forced +to make their way in youth often turn out to be those who make “history” +later, and a bride who has not become prematurely <i>blasée</i> +to all the luxuries or pleasures of existence will know the greatest +happiness that can come into a woman’s life, that of rising at +her husband’s side, step by step, enjoying his triumphs as she +shared his poverty.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER 25 - La Comédie Française à Orange<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Idling up through the south of France, in company with a passionate +lover of that fair land, we learned on arriving at Lyons, that the actors +of the Comédie Française were to pass through there the +next day, <i>en route</i> for Orange, where a series of fêtes +had been arranged by “Les Félibres.” This society, +composed of the writers and poets of Provence, have the preservation +of the Roman theatre at Orange (perhaps the most perfect specimen of +classical theatrical architecture in existence) profoundly at heart, +their hope being to restore some of its pristine beauty to the ruin, +and give from time to time performances of the Greek masterpieces on +its disused stage.<br> +<br> +The money obtained by these representations will be spent in the restoration +of the theatre, and it is expected in time to make Orange the centre +of classic drama, as Beyreuth is that of Wagnerian music.<br> +<br> +At Lyons, the <i>cortège</i> was to leave the Paris train and +take boats down the Rhône, to their destination. Their programme +was so tempting that the offer of places in one of the craft was enough +to lure us away from our prearranged route.<br> +<br> +By eight o’clock the following morning, we were on foot, as was +apparently the entire city. A cannon fired from Fort Lamothe gave +the signal of our start. The river, covered with a thousand gayly +decorated craft, glinted and glittered in the morning light. It +world be difficult to forget that scene, - the banks of the Rhône +were lined with the rural population, who had come miles in every direction +to acclaim the passage of their poets.<br> +<br> +Everywhere along our route the houses were gayly decorated and arches +of flowers had been erected. We float past Vienne, a city once +governed by Pontius Pilate, and Tournon, with its feudal château, +blue in the distance, then Saint Peray, on a verdant vine-clad slope. +As we pass under the bridge at Montélimar, an avalanche of flowers +descends on us from above.<br> +<br> +The rapid current of the river soon brings our flotilla opposite Vivier, +whose Gothic cathedral bathes its feet in the Rhône. Saint +Esprit and its antique bridge appear next on the horizon. Tradition +asserts that the Holy Spirit, disguised as a stone mason, directed its +construction; there were thirteen workmen each day, but at sunset, when +the men gathered to be paid, but twelve could be counted.<br> +<br> +Here the mayor and the municipal council were to have received us and +delivered an address, but were not on hand. We could see the tardy +<i>cortège</i> hastening towards the bridge as we shot away down +stream.<br> +<br> +On nearing Orange, the banks and quays of the river are alive with people. +The high road, parallel with the stream, is alive with a many-colored +throng. On all sides one hears the language of Mistral, and recognizes +the music of Mireille sung by these pilgrims to an artistic Mecca, where +a miracle is to be performed - and classic art called forth from its +winding-sheet.<br> +<br> +The population of a whole region is astir under the ardent Provençal +sun, to witness a resurrection of the Drama in the historic valley of +the Rhône, through whose channel the civilization and art and +culture of the old world floated up into Europe to the ceaseless cry +of the <i>cigales.<br> +<br> +</i>Châteaurenard! our water journey is ended. Through the +leafy avenues that lead to Orange, we see the arch of Marius and the +gigantic proscenium of the theatre, rising above the roofs of the little +city.<br> +<br> +So few of our compatriots linger in the south of France after the spring +has set in, or wander in the by-ways of that inexhaustible country, +that a word about the representations at Orange may be of interest, +and perchance create a desire to see the masterpieces of classic drama +(the common inheritance of all civilized races) revived with us, and +our stage put to its legitimate use, cultivating and elevating the taste +of the people.<br> +<br> +One would so gladly see a little of the money that is generously given +for music used to revive in America a love for the classic drama.<br> +<br> +We are certainly not inferior to our neighbors in culture or appreciation, +and yet such a performance as I witnessed at Orange (laying aside the +enchantment lent by the surroundings) would not be possible here. +Why? But to return to my narrative.<br> +<br> +The sun is setting as we toil, ticket in hand, up the Roman stairway +to the upper rows of seats; far below the local <i>gendarmerie</i> who +mostly understand their orders backwards are struggling with the throng, +whose entrance they are apparently obstructing by every means in their +power. Once seated, and having a wait of an hour before us, we +amused ourselves watching the crowd filling in every corner of the vast +building, like a rising tide of multi-colored water.<br> +<br> +We had purposely chosen places on the highest and most remote benches, +to test the vaunted acoustic qualities of the auditorium, and to obtain +a view of the half-circle of humanity, the gigantic wall back of the +stage, and the surrounding country.<br> +<br> +As day softened into twilight, and twilight deepened into a luminous +Southern night; the effect was incomparable. The belfries and +roofs of mediaeval Orange rose in the clear air, overtopping the half +ruined theatre in many places. The arch of Marius gleamed white +against the surrounding hills, themselves violet and purple in the sunset, +their shadow broken here and there by the outline of a crumbling château +or the lights of a village.<br> +<br> +Behind us the sentries paced along the wall, wrapped in their dark cloaks; +and over all the scene, one snowtopped peak rose white on the horizon, +like some classic virgin assisting at an Olympian solemnity.<br> +<br> +On the stage, partly cleared of the débris of fifteen hundred +years, trees had been left where they had grown, among fallen columns, +fragments of capital and statue; near the front a superb rose-laurel +recalled the Attic shores. To the right, wild grasses and herbs +alternated with thick shrubbery, among which Orestes hid later, during +the lamentations of his sister. To the left a gigantic fig-tree, +growing again the dark wall, threw its branches far out over the stage.<br> +<br> +It was from behind its foliage that “Gaul,” “Provence,” +and “France,” personated by three actresses of the “Français,” +advanced to salute Apollo, seated on his rustic throne, in the prologue +which began the performance.<br> +<br> +Since midday the weather had been threatening. At seven o’clock +there was almost a shower - a moment of terrible anxiety. What +a misfortune if it should rain, just as the actors were to appear, here, +where it had not rained for nearly four months! My right-hand +neighbor, a citizen of Beaucaire, assures me, “It will be nothing, +only a strong ‘mistral’ for to-morrow.” An electrician +is putting the finishing touches to his arrangements. He tries +vainly to concentrate some light on the box where the committee is to +sit, which is screened by a bit of crumbling wall, but finally gives +it up.<br> +<br> +Suddenly the bugles sound; the orchestra rings out the Marseillaise; +it is eight o’clock. The sky is wild and threatening. +An unseen hand strikes the three traditional blows. The Faun Lybrian +slips down from a branch of a great elm, and throws himself on the steps +that later are to represent the entrance to the palace of Agamemnon, +and commences the prologue (an invocation to Apollo), in the midst of +such confusion that we hear hardly a word. Little by little, however, +the crowd quiets down, and I catch Louis Gallet’s fine lines, +marvellously phrased by Mesdames Bartet, Dudlay, Moreno, and the handsome +Fenoux as Apollo.<br> +<br> +The real interest of the public is only aroused, however, when <i>The +Erynnies</i> begins. This powerful adaptation from the tragedy +of AEschylus is <i>the chef d’oeuvre</i> of Leconte de Lisle. +The silence is now complete. One feels in the air that the moment +so long and so anxiously awaited has come, that a great event is about +to take place. Every eye is fixed on the stage, waiting to see +what will appear from behind the dark arches of the proscenium. +A faint, plaintive strain of music floats out on the silence. +Demons crawl among the leafy shadows. Not a light is visible, +yet the centre of the stage is in strong relief, shading off into a +thousand fantastic shadows. The audience sits in complete darkness. +Then we see the people of Argos, winding toward us from among the trees, +lamenting, as they have done each day for ten years, the long absence +of their sons and their king. The old men no longer dare to consult +the oracles, fearing to learn that all is lost. The beauty of +this lament roused the first murmur of applause, each word, each syllable, +chiming out across that vast semicircle with a clearness and an effect +impossible to describe.<br> +<br> +Now it is the sentinel, who from his watch-tower has caught the first +glimpse of the returning army. We hear him dashing like a torrent +down the turret stair; at the doorway, his garments blown by the wind, +his body bending forward in a splendid pose of joy and exultation, he +announces in a voice of thunder the arrival of the king.<br> +<br> +So completely are the twenty thousand spectators under the spell of +the drama that at this news one can feel a thrill pass over the throng, +whom the splendid verses hold palpitating under their charm, awaiting +only the end of the tirade to break into applause.<br> +<br> +From that moment the performance is one long triumph. Clytemnestra +(Madame Lerou) comes with her suite to receive the king (Mounet-Sully), +the conqueror! I never realized before all the perfection that +training can give the speaking voice. Each syllable seemed to +ring out with a bell-like clearness. As she gradually rose in +the last act to the scene with Orestes, I understood the use of the +great wall behind the actors. It increased the power of the voices +and lent them a sonority difficult to believe. The effect was +overwhelming when, unable to escape death, Clytemnestra cries out her +horrible imprecations.<br> +<br> +Mounet-Sully surpassed himself. Paul Mounet gave us the complete +illusion of a monster thirsting for blood, even his mother’s! +When striking her as she struck his father, he answers her despairing +query, “Thou wouldst not slay thy mother?” “Woman, +thou hast ceased to be a mother!” Dudlay (as Cassandra) +reaches a splendid climax when she prophesies the misfortune hanging +over her family, which she is powerless to avert.<br> +<br> +It is impossible in feeble prose to give any idea of the impression +those lines produce in the stupendous theatre, packed to its utmost +limits - the wild night, with a storm in the air, a stage which seems +like a clearing in some forest inhabited by Titans, the terrible tragedy +of AEschylus following the graceful fête of Apollo.<br> +<br> +After the unavoidable confusion at the beginning, the vast audience +listen in profound silence to an expression of pure art. They +are no longer actors we hear, but demi-gods. With voices of the +storm, possessed by some divine afflatus, thundering out verses of fire +- carried out of themselves in a whirlwind of passion, like antique +prophets and Sibyls foretelling the misfortunes of the world!<br> +<br> +That night will remain immutably fixed in my memory, if I live to be +as old as the theatre itself. We were so moved, my companion and +I, and had seen the crowd so moved, that fearing to efface the impression +if we returned the second night to see <i>Antigone</i>, we came quietly +away, pondering over it all, and realizing once again that a thing of +beauty is a source of eternal delight.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER 26 - Pre-palatial Newport<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +The historic Ocean House of Newport is a ruin. Flames have laid +low the unsightly structure that was at one time the best-known hotel +in America. Its fifty-odd years of existence, as well as its day, +are over. Having served a purpose, it has departed, together with +the generation and habits of life that produced it, into the limbo where +old houses, old customs, and superannuated ideas survive, - the memory +of the few who like to recall other days and wander from time to time +in a reconstructed past.<br> +<br> +There was a certain appropriateness in the manner of its taking off. +The proud old structure had doubtless heard projects of rebuilding discussed +by its owners (who for some years had been threatening to tear it down); +wounded doubtless by unflattering truths, the hotel decided that if +its days were numbered, an exit worthy of a leading rôle was at +least possible. “Pull me down, indeed! That is all +very well for ordinary hostleries, but from an establishment of my pretensions, +that has received the aristocracy of the country, and countless foreign +swells, something more is expected!”<br> +<br> +So it turned the matter over and debated within its shaky old brain +(Mrs. Skewton fashion) what would be the most becoming and effective +way of retiring from the social whirl. Balls have been overdone; +people are no longer tempted by receptions; a banquet was out of the +question. Suddenly the wily building hit on an idea. “I’ll +give them a <i>feu d’artifice</i>. There hasn’t been +a first-class fire here since I burned myself down fifty-three years +ago! That kind of entertainment hasn’t been run into the +ground like everything else in these degenerate days! I’ll +do it in the best and most complete way, and give Newport something +to talk about, whenever my name shall be mentioned in the future!”<br> +<br> +Daudet, in his <i>L’Immortel</i>, shows us how some people are +born lucky. His “Loisel of the Institute,” although +an insignificant and commonplace man, succeeded all through life in +keeping himself before the public, and getting talked about as a celebrity. +He even arranged (to the disgust and envy of his rivals) to die during +a week when no event of importance was occupying public attention. +In consequence, reporters, being short of “copy,” owing +to a dearth of murders and “first nights,” seized on this +demise and made his funeral an event.<br> +<br> +The truth is, the Ocean House had lived so long in an atmosphere of +ostentatious worldliness that, like many residents of the summer city, +it had come to take itself and its “position” seriously, +and imagine that the eyes of the country were fixed upon and expected +something of it.<br> +<br> +The air of Newport has always proved fatal to big hotels. One +after another they have appeared and failed, the Ocean House alone dragging +out a forlorn existence. As the flames worked their will and the +careless crowd enjoyed the spectacle, one could not help feeling a vague +regret for the old place, more for what it represented than for any +intrinsic value of its own. Without greatly stretching a point +it might be taken to represent a social condition, a phase, as it were, +in our development. In a certain obscure way, it was an epoch-marking +structure. Its building closed the era of primitive Newport, its +decline corresponded with the end of the pre-palatial period - an era +extending from 1845 to 1885.<br> +<br> +During forty years Newport had a unique existence, unknown to the rest +of America, and destined to have a lasting influence on her ways, an +existence now as completely forgotten as the earlier boarding-house +<i>matinée dansante</i> time. <a name="citation1"></a><a href="#footnote1">{1}</a> +The sixties, seventies, and eighties in Newport were pleasant years +that many of us regret in spite of modern progress. Simple, inexpensive +days, when people dined at three (looking on the newly introduced six +o’clock dinners as an English innovation and modern “frill”), +and “high-teaed” together dyspeptically off “sally +lunns” and “preserves,” washed down by coffee and +chocolate, which it was the toilsome duty of a hostess to dispense from +a silver-laden tray; days when “rockaways” drawn by lean, +long-tailed horses and driven by mustached darkies were, if not the +rule, far from being an exception.<br> +<br> +“Dutch treat” picnics, another archaic amusement, flourished +then, directed by a famous organizer at his farm, each guest being told +what share of the eatables it was his duty to provide, an edict from +which there was no appeal.<br> +<br> +Sport was little known then, young men passing their afternoons tooling +solemnly up and down Bellevue Avenue in top-hats and black frock-coats +under the burning August sun.<br> +<br> +This was the epoch when the Town and Country Club was young and full +of vigor. We met at each other’s houses or at historic sites +to hear papers read on serious subjects. One particular afternoon +is vivid in my memory. We had all driven out to a point on the +shore beyond the Third Beach, where the Norsemen were supposed to have +landed during their apocryphal visit to this continent. It had +been a hot drive, but when we stopped, a keen wind was blowing in from +the sea. During a pause in the prolix address that followed, a +coachman’s voice was heard to mutter, “If he jaws much longer +all the horses will be foundered,” which brought the learned address +to an ignominious and hasty termination.<br> +<br> +Newport during the pre-palatial era affected culture, and a whiff of +Boston pervaded the air, much of which was tiresome, yet with an under-current +of charm and refinement. Those who had the privilege of knowing +Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, will remember the pleasant “teas” +and sparkling conversation she offered her guests in the unpretending +cottage where the beauty of the daughter was as brilliant as the mother’s +wit.<br> +<br> +Two estates on Bellevue Avenue are now without the hostesses who, in +those days, showed the world what great ladies America could produce. +It was the foreign-born husband of one of these women who gave Newport +its first lessons in luxurious living. Until then Americans had +travelled abroad and seen elaborately served meals and properly appointed +stables without the ambition of copying such things at home. Colonial +and revolutionary state had died out, and modern extravagance had not +yet appeared. In the interregnum much was neglected that might +have added to the convenience and grace of life.<br> +<br> +In France, under Louis Philippe, and in England, during Victoria’s +youth, taste reached an ebb tide; in neither of those countries, however, +did the general standard fall so low as here. It was owing to +the <i>savoir faire</i> of one man that Newporters and New York first +saw at home what they had admired abroad, - liveried servants in sufficient +numbers, dinners served <i>à la Russe</i>, and breeched and booted +grooms on English-built traps, innovations quickly followed by his neighbors, +for the most marked characteristic of the American is his ability to +“catch on.”<br> +<br> +When, during the war of the secession, our Naval Academy was removed +from Annapolis and installed in the empty Atlantic House (corner of +Bellevue Avenue and Pelham Street), hotel life had already begun to +decline; but the Ocean House, which was considered a vast enterprise +at that time, inherited from the older hotels the custom of giving Saturday +evening “hops,” the cottagers arriving at these informal +entertainments toward nine o’clock and promenading up and down +the corridors or dancing in the parlor, to the admiration of a public +collected to enjoy the spectacle. At eleven the doors of the dining-room +opened, and a line of well-drilled darkies passed ices and lemonade. +By half-past eleven (the hour at which we now arrive at a dance) every +one was at home and abed.<br> +<br> +One remembers with a shudder the military manoeuvres that attended hotel +meals in those days, the marching and countermarching, your dinner cooling +while the head waiter reviewed his men. That idiotic custom has +been abandoned, like many better and worse. Next to the American +ability to catch on comes the facility with which he can drop a fad.<br> +<br> +In this peculiarity the history of Newport has been an epitome of the +country, every form of amusement being in turn taken up, run into the +ground, and then abandoned. At one time it was the fashion to +drive to Fort Adams of an afternoon and circle round and round the little +green to the sounds of a military band; then, for no visible reason, +people took to driving on the Third Beach, an inaccessible and lonely +point which for two or three summers was considered the only correct +promenade.<br> +<br> +I blush to recall it, but at that time most of the turnouts were hired +hacks. Next, Graves Point, on the Ocean Drive, became the popular +meeting-place. Then society took to attending polo of an afternoon, +a sport just introduced from India. This era corresponded with +the opening of the Casino (the old reading-room dating from 1854). +For several years every one crowded during hot August mornings onto +the airless lawns and piazzas of the new establishment. It seems +on looking back as if we must have been more fond of seeing each other +in those days than we are now. To ride up and down a beach and +bow filled our souls with joy, and the “cake walk” was an +essential part of every ball, the guests parading in pairs round and +round the room between the dances instead of sitting quietly “out.” +The opening promenade at the New York Charity Ball is a survival of +this inane custom.<br> +<br> +The disappearance of the Ocean House “hops” marked the last +stage in hotel life. Since then better-class watering places all +over the country have slowly but surely followed Newport’s lead. +The closed caravansaries of Bar Harbor and elsewhere bear silent testimony +to the fact that refined Americans are at last awakening to the charms +of home life during their holidays, and are discarding, as fast as finances +will permit, the pernicious herding system. In consequence the +hotel has ceased to be, what it undoubtedly was twenty years ago, the +focus of our summer life.<br> +<br> +Only a few charred rafters remain of the Ocean House. A few talkative +old duffers like myself alone survive the day it represents. Changing +social conditions have gradually placed both on the retired list. +A new and palatial Newport has replaced the simpler city. Let +us not waste too much time regretting the past, or be too sure that +it was better than the present. It is quite possible, if the old +times we are writing so fondly about should return, we might discover +that the same thing was true of them as a ragged urchin asserted the +other afternoon of the burning building:<br> +<br> +“Say, Tom, did ye know there was the biggest room in the world +in that hotel?”<br> +<br> +“No; what room?”<br> +<br> +“Room for improvement, ya!”<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER 27 - <i>Sardou</i> at Marly-le-Roy<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Near the centre of that verdant triangle formed by Saint Cloud, Versailles, +and Saint Germain lies the village of Marly-le-Roy, high up on a slope +above the lazy Seine - an entrancing corner of the earth, much affected +formerly by French crowned heads, and by the “Sun King” +in particular, who in his old age grew tired of Versailles and built +here one of his many villas (the rival in its day of the Trianons), +and proceeded to amuse himself therein with the same solemnity which +had already made vice at Versailles more boresome than virtue elsewhere.<br> +<br> +Two centuries and four revolutions have swept away all trace of this +kingly caprice and the art treasures it contained. Alone, the +marble horses of Coustou, transported later to the Champs Elysées, +remain to attest the splendor of the past.<br> +<br> +The quaint village of Marly, clustered around its church, stands, however +- with the faculty that insignificant things have of remaining unchanged +- as it did when the most polished court of Europe rode through it to +and from the hunt. On the outskirts of this village are now two +forged and gilded gateways through which the passer-by can catch a glimpse +of trim avenues, fountains, and well-kept lawns.<br> +<br> +There seems a certain poetical justice in the fact that Alexandre Dumas +<i>fils</i> and Victorien Sardou, the two giants of modern drama, should +have divided between them the inheritance of Louis XIV., its greatest +patron. One of the gates is closed and moss-grown. Its owner +lies in Père-la-Chaise. At the other I ring, and am soon +walking up the famous avenue bordered by colossal sphinxes presented +to Sardou by the late Khedive. The big stone brutes, connected +in one’s mind with heat and sandy wastes, look oddly out of place +here in this green wilderness - a bite, as it were, out of the forest +which, under different names, lies like a mantle over the country-side.<br> +<br> +Five minutes later I am being shown through a suite of antique salons, +in the last of which sits the great playwright. How striking the +likeness is to Voltaire, - the same delicate face, lit by a half cordial, +half mocking smile; the same fragile body and indomitable spirit. +The illusion is enhanced by our surroundings, for the mellow splendor +of the room where we stand might have served as a background for the +Sage of Ferney.<br> +<br> +Wherever one looks, works of eighteenth-century art meet the eye. +The walls are hung with Gobelin tapestries that fairly take one’s +breath away, so exquisite is their design and their preservation. +They represent a marble colonnade, each column of which is wreathed +with flowers and connected to its neighbor with garlands.<br> +<br> +Between them are bits of delicate landscape, with here and there a group +of figures dancing or picnicking in the shadow of tall trees or under +fantastical porticos. The furniture of the room is no less marvellous +than its hangings. One turns from a harpsichord of vernis-martin +to the clock, a relic from Louis XIV.’s bedroom in Versailles; +on to the bric-à-brac of old Saxe or Sèvres in admiring +wonder. My host drifts into his showman manner, irresistibly comic +in this writer.<br> +<br> +The pleasures of the collector are apparently divided into three phases, +without counting the rapture of the hunt. First, the delight a +true amateur takes in living among rare and beautiful things. +Second, the satisfaction of showing one’s treasures to less fortunate +mortals, and last, but perhaps keenest of all, the pride which comes +from the fact that one has been clever enough to acquire objects which +other people want, at prices below their market value. Sardou +evidently enjoys these three sensations vividly. That he lives +with and loves his possessions is evident, and the smile with which +he calls your attention to one piece after another, and mentions what +they cost him, attests that the two other joys are not unknown to him. +He is old enough to remember the golden age when really good things +were to be picked up for modest sums, before every parvenu considered +it necessary to turn his house into a museum, and factories existed +for the production of “antiques” to be sold to innocent +amateurs.<br> +<br> +In calling attention to a set of carved and gilded furniture, covered +in Beauvais tapestry, such as sold recently in Paris at the Valençay +sale - Talleyrand collection - for sixty thousand dollars, Sardou mentions +with a laugh that he got his fifteen pieces for fifteen hundred dollars, +the year after the war, from an old château back of Cannes! +One unique piece of tapestry had cost him less than one-tenth of that +sum. He discovered it in a peasant’s stable under a two-foot +layer of straw and earth, where it had probably been hidden a hundred +years before by its owner, and then all record of it lost by his descendants.<br> +<br> +The mention of Cannes sets Sardou off on another train of thought. +His family for three generations have lived there. Before that +they were Sardinian fishermen. His great-grandfather, he imagines, +was driven by some tempest to the shore near Cannes and settled where +he found himself. Hence the name! For in the patois of Provençal +France an inhabitant of Sardinia is still called <i>un Sardou.<br> +<br> +</i>The sun is off the front of the house by this time, so we migrate +to a shady corner of the lawn for our <i>apéritif</i>, the inevitable +vermouth or “bitters” which Frenchmen take at five o’clock. +Here another surprise awaits the visitor, who has not realized, perhaps, +to what high ground the crawling local train has brought him. +At our feet, far below the lawn and shade trees that encircle the château, +lies the Seine, twisting away toward Saint Germain, whose terrace and +dismantled palace stand outlined against the sky. To our right +is the plain of Saint Denis, the cathedral in its midst looking like +an opera-glass on a green table. Further still to the right, as +one turns the corner of the terrace, lies Paris, a white line on the +horizon, broken by the mass of the Arc de Triomphe, the roof of the +Opéra, and the Eiffel Tower, resplendent in a fresh coat of yellow +lacquer!<br> +<br> +The ground where we stand was occupied by the feudal castle of Les Sires +de Marly; although all traces of that stronghold disappeared centuries +ago, the present owner of the land points out with pride that the extraordinary +beauty of the trees around his house is owing to the fact that their +roots reach deep down to the rich loam collected during centuries in +the castle’s moat.<br> +<br> +The little château itself, built during the reign of Louis XIV. +for the <i>grand-veneur</i> of the forest of Marly, is intensely French +in type, - a long, low building on a stone terrace, with no trace of +ornament about its white façade or on its slanting roof. +Inside, all the rooms are “front,” communicating with each +other <i>en suite</i>, and open into a corridor running the length of +the building at the back, which, in turn, opens on a stone court. +Two lateral wings at right angles to the main building form the sides +of this courtyard, and contain <i>les communs</i>, the kitchen, laundry, +servants’ rooms, and the other annexes of a large establishment. +This arrangement for a summer house is for some reason neglected by +our American architects. I can recall only one home in America +built on this plan. It is Giraud Foster’s beautiful villa +at Lenox. You may visit five hundred French châteaux and +not find one that differs materially from this plan. The American +idea seems on the contrary to be a square house with a room in each +corner, and all the servants’ quarters stowed away in a basement. +Cottage and palace go on reproducing that foolish and inconvenient arrangement +indefinitely.<br> +<br> +After an hour’s chat over our drinks, during host has rippled +on from one subject to another with the lightness of touch of a born +talker, we get on to the subject of the grounds, and his plans for their +improvement.<br> +<br> +Good luck has placed in Sardou’s hands an old map of the gardens +as they existed in the time of Louis XV., and several prints of the +château dating from about the same epoch have found their way +into his portfolios. The grounds are, under his care, slowly resuming +the appearance of former days. Old avenues reopen, statues reappear +on the disused pedestals, fountains play again, and clipped hedges once +more line out the terraced walks.<br> +<br> +In order to explain how complete this work will be in time, Sardou hurries +me off to inspect another part of his collection. Down past the +stables, in an unused corner of the grounds, long sheds have been erected, +under which is stored the débris of a dozen palaces, an assortment +of eighteenth-century art that could not be duplicated even in France.<br> +<br> +One shed shelters an entire semicircle of <i>treillage</i>, pure Louis +XV., an exquisite example of a lost art. Columns, domes, panels, +are packed away in straw awaiting resurrection in some corner hereafter +to be chosen. A dozen seats in rose-colored marble from Fontainebleau +are huddled together near by in company with a row of gigantic marble +masques brought originally from Italy to decorate Fouquet’s fountains +at his château of Vaux in the short day of its glory. Just +how this latter find is to be utilized their owner has not yet decided. +The problem, however, to judge from his manner, is as important to the +great playwright as the plot of his next drama.<br> +<br> +That the blood of an antiquarian runs in Sardou’s veins is evident +in the subdued excitement with which he shows you his possessions - +statues from Versailles, forged gates and balconies from Saint Cloud, +the carved and gilded wood-work for a dozen rooms culled from the four +corners of France. Like the true dramatist, he has, however, kept +his finest effect for the last. In the centre of a circular rose +garden near by stands, alone in its beauty, a column from the façade +of the Tuileries, as perfect from base to flower-crowned capital as +when Philibert Delorme’s workmen laid down their tools.<br> +<br> +Years ago Sardou befriended a young stone mason, who through this timely +aid prospered, and, becoming later a rich builder, received in 1882 +from the city of Paris the contract to tear down the burned ruins of +the Tuileries. While inspecting the palace before beginning the +work of demolition, he discovered one column that had by a curious chance +escaped both the flames of the Commune and the patriotic ardor of 1793, +which effaced all royal emblems from church and palace alike. +Remembering his benefactor’s love for antiquities with historical +associations, the grateful contractor appeared one day at Marly with +this column on a dray, and insisted on erecting it where it now stands, +pointing out to Sardou with pride the crowned “H,” of Henri +Quatre, and the entwined “M. M.” of Marie de Médicis, +topped by the Florentine lily in the flutings of the shaft and on the +capital.<br> +<br> +A question of mine on Sardou’s manner of working led to our abandoning +the gardens and mounting to the top floor of the château, where +his enormous library and collection of prints are stored in a series +of little rooms or alcoves, lighted from the top and opening on a corridor +which runs the length of the building. In each room stands a writing-table +and a chair; around the walls from floor to ceiling and in huge portfolios +are arranged his books and engravings according to their subject. +The Empire alcove, for instance, contains nothing but publications and +pictures relating to that epoch. Roman and Greek history have +their alcoves, as have mediaeval history and the reigns of the different +Louis. Nothing could well be conceived more conducive to study +than this arrangement, and it makes one realize how honest was the master’s +reply when asked what was his favorite amusement. “Work!” +answered the author.<br> +<br> +Our conversation, as was fated, soon turned to the enormous success +of <i>Robespierre</i> in London - a triumph that even Sardou’s +many brilliant victories had not yet equalled.<br> +<br> +It is characteristic of the French disposition that neither the author +nor any member of his family could summon courage to undertake the prodigious +journey from Paris to London in order to see the first performance. +Even Sardou’s business agent, M. Roget, did not get further than +Calais, where his courage gave out. “The sea was so terrible!” +Both those gentlemen, however, took it quite as a matter of course that +Sardou’s American agent should make a three-thousand-mile journey +to be present at the first night.<br> +<br> +The fact that the French author resisted Sir Henry Irving’s pressing +invitations to visit him in no way indicates a lack of interest in the +success of the play. I had just arrived from London, and so had +to go into every detail of the performance, a rather delicate task, +as I had been discouraged with the acting of both Miss Terry and Irving, +who have neither of them the age, voice, nor temperament to represent +either the revolutionary tyrant or the woman he betrayed. As the +staging had been excellent, I enlarged on that side of the subject, +but when pressed into a corner by the author, had to acknowledge that +in the scene where Robespierre, alone at midnight in the Conciergerie, +sees the phantoms of his victims advance from the surrounding shadows +and form a menacing circle around him, Irving had used his poor voice +with so little skill that there was little left for the splendid climax, +when, in trying to escape from his ghastly visitors, Robespierre finds +himself face to face with Marie Antoinette, and with a wild cry, half +of horror, half of remorse, falls back insensible.<br> +<br> +In spite of previous good resolutions, I must have given the author +the impression that Sir Henry spoke too loud at the beginning of this +scene and was in consequence inadequate at the end.<br> +<br> +“What!” cried Sardou. “He raised his voice in +that act! Why, it’s a scene to be played with the soft pedal +down! This is the way it should be done!” Dropping +into a chair in the middle of the room my host began miming the gestures +and expression of Robespierre as the phantoms (which, after all, are +but the figments of an over-wrought brain) gather around him. +Gradually he slipped to the floor, hiding his face with his upraised +elbow, whispering and sobbing, but never raising his voice until, staggering +toward the portal to escape, he meets the Queen face to face. +Then the whole force of his voice came out in one awful cry that fairly +froze the blood in my veins!<br> +<br> +“What a teacher you would make!” instinctively rose to my +lips as he ended.<br> +<br> +With a careless laugh, Sardou resumed his shabby velvet cap, which had +fallen to the floor, and answered: “Oh, it’s nothing! +I only wanted to prove to you that the scene was not a fatiguing one +for the voice if played properly. I’m no actor and could +not teach, but any one ought to know enough not to shout in that scene!”<br> +<br> +This with some bitterness, as news had arrived that Irving’s voice +had given out the night before, and he had been replaced by his half-baked +son in the title rôle, a change hardly calculated to increase +either the box-office receipts or the success of the new drama.<br> +<br> +Certain ominous shadows which, like Robespierre’s visions, had +been for some time gathering in the corners of the room warned me that +the hour had come for my trip back to Paris. Declining reluctantly +an invitation to take potluck with my host, I was soon in the Avenue +of the Sphinx again. As we strolled along, talking of the past +and its charm, a couple of men passed us, carrying a piece of furniture +rolled in burlaps.<br> +<br> +“Another acquisition?” I asked. “What epoch +has tempted you this time?”<br> +<br> +“I’m sorry you won’t stop and inspect it,” answered +Sardou with a twinkle in his eye. “It’s something +I bought yesterday for my bedroom. An armchair! Pure Loubet!”<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER 28 - Inconsistencies<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +The dinner had been unusually long and the summer evening warm. +During the wait before the dancing began I must have dropped asleep +in the dark corner of the piazza where I had installed myself, to smoke +my cigar, away from the other men and their tiresome chatter of golf +and racing. Through the open window groups of women could be seen +in the ball-room, and the murmur of their conversation floated out, +mingling with the laughter of the men.<br> +<br> +Suddenly, in that casual way peculiar to dreams, I found myself conversing +with a solemn young Turk, standing in all the splendor of fez and stambouline +beside my chair.<br> +<br> +“Pardon, Effendi,” he was murmuring. “Is this +an American ball? I was asked at nine o’clock; it is now +past eleven. Is there not some mistake?”<br> +<br> +“None,” I answered. “When a hostess puts nine +o’clock on her card of invitation she expects her guests at eleven +or half-past, and would be much embarrassed to be taken literally.”<br> +<br> +As we were speaking, our host rose. The men, reluctantly throwing +away their cigars, began to enter the ball-room through the open windows. +On their approach the groups of women broke up, the men joining the +girls where they sat, or inviting them out to the lantern-lit piazza, +where the couples retired to dim, palm-embowered corners.<br> +<br> +“Are you sure I have not made a mistake?” asked my interlocutor, +with a faint quiver of the eyelids. “It is my intention, +while travelling, to remain faithful to my harem.”<br> +<br> +I hastened to reassure him and explain that he was in an exclusive and +reserved society.<br> +<br> +“Indeed,” he murmured incredulously. “When I +was passing through New York last winter a lady was pointed out to me +as the owner of marvellous jewels and vast wealth, but with absolutely +no social position. My informant added that no well-born woman +would receive her or her husband.<br> +<br> +“It’s foolish, of course, but the handsome woman with the +crown on sitting in the centre of that circle, looks very like the woman +I mean. Am I right?”<br> +<br> +“It’s the same lady,” I answered, wearily. “You +are speaking of last year. No one could be induced to call on +the couple then. Now we all go to their house, and entertain them +in return.”<br> +<br> +“They have doubtless done some noble action, or the reports about +the husband have been proved false?”<br> +<br> +“Nothing of the kind has taken place. She’s a success, +and no one asks any questions! In spite of that, you are in a +society where the standard of conduct is held higher than in any country +of Europe, by a race of women more virtuous, in all probability, than +has yet been seen. There is not a man present,” I added, +“who would presume to take, or a woman who would permit, a liberty +so slight even as the resting of a youth’s arm across the back +of her chair.”<br> +<br> +While I was speaking, an invisible orchestra began to sigh out the first +passionate bars of a waltz. A dozen couples rose, the men clasping +in their arms the slender matrons, whose smiling faces sank to their +partners’ shoulders. A blond mustache brushed the forehead +of a girl as she swept by us to the rhythm of the music, and other cheeks +seemed about to touch as couples glided on in unison.<br> +<br> +The sleepy Oriental eyes of my new acquaintance opened wide with astonishment.<br> +<br> +“This, you must understand,” I continued, hastily, “is +quite another matter. Those people are waltzing. It is considered +perfectly proper, when the musicians over there play certain measures, +for men to take apparent liberties. Our women are infinitely self-respecting, +and a man who put his arm around a woman (in public) while a different +measure was being played, or when there was no music, would be ostracized +from polite society.”<br> +<br> +“I am beginning to understand,” replied the Turk. +“The husbands and brothers of these women guard them very carefully. +Those men I see out there in the dark are doubtless with their wives +and sisters, protecting them from the advances of other men. Am +I right?”<br> +<br> +<i>“</i>Of course you’re not right,” I snapped out, +beginning to lose my temper at his obtuseness. “No husband +would dream of talking to his wife in public, or of sitting with her +in a corner. Every one would be laughing at them. Nor could +a sister be induced to remain away from the ball-room with her brother. +Those girls are ‘sitting out’ with young men they like, +indulging in a little innocent flirtation.”<br> +<br> +“What is that?” he asked. “Flirtation?”<br> +<br> +“An American custom rather difficult to explain. It may, +however, be roughly defined as the art of leading a man a long way on +the road to - nowhere!”<br> +<br> +“Women flirt with friends or acquaintances, never with members +of their family?”<br> +<br> +“The husbands are those dejected individuals wandering aimlessly +about over there like lost souls. They are mostly rich men, who, +having married beautiful girls for love, wear themselves out maintaining +elaborate and costly establishments for them. In return for his +labor a husband, however, enjoys but little of his wife’s society, +for a really fashionable woman can rarely be induced to go home until +she has collapsed with fatigue. In consequence, she contributes +little but ‘nerves’ and temper to the household. Her +sweetest smiles, like her freshest toilets, are kept for the public. +The husband is the last person considered in an American household. +If you doubt what I say, look behind you. There is a newly married +man speaking with his wife, and trying to persuade her to leave before +the cotillion begins. Notice his apologetic air! He knows +he is interrupting a tender conversation and taking an unwarrantable +liberty. Nothing short of extreme fatigue would drive him to such +an extremity. The poor millionnaire has hardly left his desk in +Wall Street during the week, and only arrived this evening in time to +dress for dinner. He would give a fair slice of his income for +a night’s rest. See! He has failed, and is lighting +another cigar, preparing, with a sigh, for a long wait. It will +be three before my lady is ready to leave.”<br> +<br> +After a silence of some minutes, during which he appeared to be turning +these remarks over in his mind, the young Oriental resumed: “The +single men who absorb so much of your women’s time and attention +are doubtless the most distinguished of the nation, - writers, +poets, and statesmen?”<br> +<br> +I was obliged to confess that this was not the case; that, on the contrary, +the dancing bachelors were for the most part impecunious youths of absolutely +no importance, asked by the hostess to fill in, and so lightly considered +that a woman did not always recognize in the street her guests of the +evening before.<br> +<br> +At this moment my neighbor’s expression changed from bewilderment +to admiration, as a young and very lovely matron threw herself, panting, +into a low chair at his side. Her décolleté was +so daring that the doubts of half an hour before were evidently rising +afresh in his mind. Hastily resuming my task of mentor, I explained +that a décolleté corsage was an absolute rule for evening +gatherings. A woman who appeared in a high bodice or with her +neck veiled would be considered lacking in politeness to her hostess +as much if she wore a bonnet.<br> +<br> +“With us, women go into the world to shine and charm. It +is only natural they should use all the weapons nature has given them.”<br> +<br> +“Very good!” exclaimed the astonished Ottoman. “But +where will all this end? You began by allowing your women to appear +in public with their faces unveiled, then you suppressed the fichu and +the collarette, and now you rob them of half their corsage. Where, +O Allah, will you stop?”<br> +<br> +“Ah!” I answered, laughing, “the tendency of civilization +is to simplify; many things may yet disappear.”<br> +<br> +“I understand perfectly. You have no prejudice against women +wearing in public toilets that we consider fitted only for strict intimacy. +In that case your ladies may walk about the streets in these costumes?”<br> +<br> +“Not at all!” I cried. “It would provoke a scandal +if a woman were to be seen during the daytime in such attire, either +at home or abroad. The police and the law courts would interfere. +Evening dress is intended only for reunions in private houses, or at +most, to be worn at entertainments where the company is carefully selected +and the men asked from lists prepared by the ladies themselves. +No lady would wear a ball costume or her jewels in a building where +the general public was admitted. In London great ladies dine at +restaurants in full evening dress, but we Americans, like the French, +consider that vulgar.”<br> +<br> +“Yet, last winter,” he said, “when passing through +New York, I went to a great theatre, where there were an orchestra and +many singing people. Were not those respectable women I saw in +the boxes? There were no <i>moucharabies</i> to screen them from +the eyes of the public. Were all the men in that building asked +by special invitation? That could hardly be possible, for I paid +an entrance fee at the door. From where I sat I could see that, +as each lady entered her box, opera-glasses were fixed on her, and her +‘points,’ as you say, discussed by the crowd of men in the +corridors, who, apparently, belonged to quite the middle class.”<br> +<br> +“My poor, innocent Padischa, you do not understand at all. +That was the opera, which makes all the difference. The husbands +of those women pay enormous prices, expressly that their wives may exhibit +themselves in public, decked in jewels and suggestive toilets. +You could buy a whole harem of fair Circassians for what one of those +little square boxes costs. A lady whose entrance caused no sensation +would feel bitterly disappointed. As a rule, she knows little +about music, and cares still less, unless some singer is performing +who is paid a fabulous price, which gives his notes a peculiar charm. +With us most things are valued by the money they have cost. Ladies +attend the opera simply and solely to see their friends and be admired.<br> +<br> +“It grieves me to see that you are forming a poor opinion of our +woman kind, for they are more charming and modest than any foreign women. +A girl or matron who exhibits more of her shoulders than you, with your +Eastern ideas, think quite proper, would sooner expire than show an +inch above her ankle. We have our way of being modest as well +as you, and that is one of our strongest prejudices.”<br> +<br> +“Now I know you are joking,” he replied, with a slight show +of temper, “or trying to mystify me, for only this morning I was +on the beach watching the bathing, and I saw a number of ladies in quite +short skirts - up to their knees, in fact - with the thinnest covering +on their shapely extremities. Were those women above suspicion?”<br> +<br> +“Absolutely,” I assured him, feeling inclined to tear my +hair at such stupidity. “Can’t you see the difference? +That was in daylight. Our customs allow a woman to show her feet, +and even a little more, in the morning. It would be considered +the acme of indecency to let those beauties be seen at a ball. +The law allows a woman to uncover her neck and shoulders at a ball, +but she would be arrested if she appeared décolleté on +the beach of a morning.”<br> +<br> +A long silence followed, broken only by the music and laughter from +the ball-room. I could see my dazed Mohammedan remove his fez +and pass an agitated hand through his dark hair; then he turned, and +saluting me gravely, murmured:<br> +<br> +“It is very kind of you to have taken so much trouble with me. +I do not doubt that what you have said is full of the wisdom and consistency +of a new civilization, which I fail to appreciate.” Then, +with a sigh, he added: “It will be better for me to return to +my own country, where there are fewer exceptions to rules.”<br> +<br> +With a profound salaam the gentle youth disappeared into the surrounding +darkness, leaving me rubbing my eyes and asking myself if, after all, +the dreamland Oriental was not about right. Custom makes many +inconsistencies appear so logical that they no longer cause us either +surprise or emotion. But can we explain them?<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER 29 - Modern “Cadets de Gascogne”<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +After witnessing the performance given by the Comédie Française +in the antique theatre at Orange, we determined - my companion and I +- if ever another opportunity of the kind offered, to attend, be the +material difficulties what they might.<br> +<br> +The theatrical “stars” in their courses proved favorable +to the accomplishment of this vow. Before the year ended it was +whispered to us that the “Cadets de Gascogne” were planning +a tram through the Cevennes Mountains and their native Languedoc - a +sort of lay pilgrimage to famous historic and literary shrines, a voyage +to be enlivened by much crowning of busts and reciting of verses in +the open air, and incidentally, by the eating of Gascony dishes and +the degustation of delicate local wines; the whole to culminate with +a representation in the arena at Béziers of <i>Déjanire</i>, +Louis Gallet’s and Saint-Saëns’s latest work, under +the personal supervision of those two masters.<br> +<br> +A tempting programme, was it not, in these days of cockney tours and +“Cook” couriers? At any rate, one that we, with plenty +of time on our hands and a weakness for out-of-the-way corners and untrodden +paths, found it impossible to resist.<br> +<br> +Rostand, in <i>Cyrano de Bergerac</i>, has shown us the “Cadets” +of Molière’s time, a fighting, rhyming, devil-may-care +band, who wore their hearts on their sleeves and chips on their stalwart +shoulders; much such a brotherhood, in short, as we love to imagine +that Shakespeare, Kit Marlowe, Greene, and their intimates formed when +they met at the “Ship” to celebrate a success or drink a +health to the drama.<br> +<br> +The men who compose the present society (which has now for many years +borne a name only recently made famous by M. Rostand’s genius) +come delightfully near realizing the happy conditions of other days, +and - less the fighting - form as joyous and picturesque a company as +their historic elders. They are for the most part Southern-born +youths, whose interests and ambitions centre around the stage, devotees +at the altar of Melpomene, ardent lovers of letters and kindred arts, +and proud of the debt that literary France owes to Gascony.<br> +<br> +It is the pleasant custom of this coterie to meet on winter evenings +in unfrequented <i>cafés</i>, transformed by them for the time +into clubs, where they recite new-made verses, discuss books and plays, +enunciate paradoxes that make the very waiters shudder, and, between +their “bocks,” plan vast revolutions in the world of literature.<br> +<br> +As the pursuit of “letters” is, if anything, less lucrative +in France than in other countries, the question of next day’s +dinner is also much discussed among these budding Molières, who +are often forced to learn early in their careers, when meals have been +meagre, to satisfy themselves with rich rhymes and drink their fill +of flowing verse.<br> +<br> +From time to time older and more successful members of the corporation +stray back into the circle, laying aside their laurel crowns and Olympian +pose, in the society of the new-comers to Bohemia. These honorary +members enjoy nothing more when occasion offers than to escape from +the toils of greatness and join the “Cadets” in their summer +journeys to and fro in France, trips which are made to combine the pleasures +of an outing with the aims of a literary campaign. It was an invitation +to join one of these tramps that tempted my friend and me away from +Paris at the season when that city is at its best. Being unable, +on account of other engagements, to start with the cohort from the capital, +we made a dash for it and caught them up at Carcassonne during the fêtes +that the little Languedoc city was offering to its guests.<br> +<br> +After having seen Aigues Mortes, it was difficult to believe that any +other place in Europe could suggest more vividly the days of military +feudalism. St. Louis’s tiny city is, however, surpassed +by Carcassonne!<br> +<br> +Thanks to twenty years of studious restoration by Viollet le Duc, this +antique jewel shines in its setting of slope and plain as perfect to-day +(seen from the distance) as when the Crusaders started from its crenelated +gates for the conquest of the Holy Sepulchre. The acropolis of +Carcassonne is crowned with Gothic battlements, the golden polygon of +whose walls, rising from Roman foundations and layers of ruddy Visigoth +brick to the stately marvel of its fifty towers, forms a whole that +few can view unmoved.<br> +<br> +We found the Cadets lunching on the platform of the great western keep, +while a historic pageant organized in their honor was winding through +the steep mediaeval streets - a cavalcade of archers, men at arms, and +many-colored troubadours, who, after effecting a triumphal entrance +to the town over lowered drawbridges, mounted to unfurl their banner +on our tower. As the gaudy standard unfolded on the evening air, +Mounet-Sully’s incomparable voice breathed the very soul of the +“Burgraves” across the silent plain and down through the +echoing corridors below. While we were still under the impression +of the stirring lines, he changed his key and whispered:-<br> +<br> +<br> +<i>Le soir tombe</i>. . . . <i>L’heure douce<br> +Qui s’èloigne sans secousse,<br> +Pose à peine sur la mousse<br> +Ses pieds.<br> +Un jour indècis persiste,<br> +Et le crèpuscule triste<br> +Ouvre ses yeux d’améthyste<br> +Mouillès.<br> +<br> +<br> +</i>Night came on ere the singing and reciting ended, a balmy Southern +evening, lit by a thousand fires from tower and battlement and moat, +the old walls glowing red against the violet sky.<br> +<br> +Picture this scene to yourself, reader mine, and you will understand +the enthusiasm of the artists and writers in our clan. It needed +but little imagination then to reconstruct the past and fancy one’s +self back in the days when the “Trancavel” held this city +against the world.<br> +<br> +Sleep that night was filled with a strange phantasmagoria of crenelated +châteaux and armored knights, until the bright Provençal +sunlight and the call for a hurried departure dispelled such illusions. +By noon we were far away from Carcassonne, mounting the rocky slopes +of the Cevennes amid a wild and noble landscape; the towering cliffs +of the “Causses,” zebraed by zig-zag paths, lay below us, +disclosing glimpses of fertile valley and vine-engarlanded plain.<br> +<br> +One asks one’s self in wonder why these enchanting regions are +so unknown. <i>En route</i> our companions were like children +fresh from school, taking haphazard meals at the local inns and clambering +gayly into any conveyance that came to hand. As our way led us +through the Cevennes country, another charm gradually stole over the +senses.<br> +<br> +“I imagine that Citheron must look like this,” murmured +Catulle Mendès, as we stood looking down from a sun-baked eminence, +“with the Gulf of Corinth there where you see that gleam of water.” +As he spoke he began declaiming the passage from Sophocles’s <i>OEdipus +the King</i> descriptive if that classic scene.<br> +<br> +Two thousand feet below lay Ispanhac in a verdant valley, the River +Tarn gleaming amid the cultivated fields like a cimeter thrown on a +Turkish carpet. Our descent was an avalanche of laughing, singing +“Cadets,” who rolled in the fresh-cut grass and chased each +other through the ripening vineyards, shouting lines from tragedies +to groups of open-mouthed farm-hands, and invading the tiny inns on +the road with song and tumult. As we neared our goal its entire +population, headed by the curé, came out to meet us and offer +the hospitality of the town.<br> +<br> +In the market-place, one of our number, inspired by the antique solemnity +of the surroundings, burst into the noble lines of Hugo’s <i>Devant</i> +<i>Dieu</i>, before which the awestruck population uncovered and crossed +themselves, imagining, doubtless, that it was a religious ceremony.<br> +<br> +Another scene recurs vividly to my memory. We were at St. Enimie. +I had opened my window to breathe the night air after the heat and dust +of the day and watch the moonlight on the quaint bridge at my feet. +Suddenly from out the shadows there rose (like sounds in a dream) the +exquisite tone of Sylvain’s voice, alternating with the baritone +of d’Esparbes. They were seated at the water’s edge, +intoxicated by the beauty of the scene and apparently oblivious of all +else.<br> +<br> +The next day was passed on the Tarn, our ten little boats following +each other single file on the narrow river, winding around the feet +of mighty cliffs, or wandering out into sunny pasture lands where solitary +peasants, interrupted in their labors, listened in astonishment to the +chorus thundered from the passing boats, and waved us a welcome as we +moved by.<br> +<br> +Space is lacking to give more than a suggestion of those days, passed +in every known conveyance from the antique diligence to the hissing +trolley, in company with men who seemed to have left their cares and +their years behind them in Paris.<br> +<br> +Our last stop before arriving at Béziers was at La Case, where +luncheon was served in the great hall of the château. Armand +Sylvestre presided at the repast; his verses alternated with the singings +of Emma Calvé, who had come from her neighboring château +to greet her old friends and compatriots, the “Cadets.”<br> +<br> +As the meal terminated, more than one among the guests, I imagine, felt +his heart heavy with the idea that to-morrow would end this pleasant +ramble and send him back to the realities of life and the drudgery of +daily bread-winning.<br> +<br> +The morning of the great day dawned cloudless and cool. A laughing, +many-colored throng early invaded the arena, the women’s gay toilets +lending it some resemblance to a parterre of fantastic flowers. +Before the bell sounded its three strokes that announced the representation, +over ten thousand spectators had taken their places and were studying +the gigantic stage and its four thousand yards of painted canvas. +In the foreground a cluster of Greek palaces and temples surround a +market-place; higher up and further back the city walls, manned by costumed +sentinels, rise against mountains so happily painted that their outlines +blend with nature’s own handiwork in the distance, - a worthy +setting for a stately drama and the valiant company of actors who have +travelled from the capital for this solemnity.<br> +<br> +Three hundred hidden musicians, divided into wind and chord orchestras, +accompany a chorus of two hundred executants, and furnish the music +for a ballet of seventy dancers.<br> +<br> +As the third stroke dies away, the Muse, Mademoiselle Rabuteau, enters +and declaims the salutation addressed by Louis Gallet to the City of +Béziers. At its conclusion the tragedy begins.<br> +<br> +This is not the place to describe or criticise at length so new an attempt +at classic restoration. The author follows the admirable fable +of antiquity with a directness and simplicity worthy of his Greek model. +The story of Dejanira and Hercules is too familiar to be repeated here. +The hero’s infidelity and the passion of a neglected woman are +related through five acts logically and forcibly, with the noble music +of Saint-Saëns as a background.<br> +<br> +We watch the growing affection of the demi-god for the gentle Iole. +We sympathize with jealous, desperate Dejanira when in a last attempt +to gain back the love of Hercules she persuades the unsuspecting Iole +to offer him a tunic steeped in Nessus’s blood, which Dejanira +has been told by Centaur will when warmed in the sun restore the wearer +to her arms.<br> +<br> +At the opening of the fifth act we witness the nuptial fêtes. +Religious dances and processions circle around the pyre laid for a marriage +sacrifice. Dejanira, hidden in the throng, watches in an agony +of hope for the miracle to be worked.<br> +<br> +Hercules accepts the fatal garment from the hands of his bride and calls +upon the sun-god to ignite the altars. The pyre flames, the heat +warms the clinging tunic, which wraps Hercules in its folds of torture. +Writhing in agony, he flings himself upon the burning pyramid, followed +by Dejanira, who, in despair, sees too late that she has been but a +tool in the hands of Nessus.<br> +<br> +No feeble prose, no characters of black or white, can do justice to +the closing scenes of this performance. The roar of the chorus, +the thunder of the actors’ voices, the impression of reality left +on the breathless spectators by the open-air reality of the scene, the +ardent sun, the rustling wind, the play of light and shade across the +stage, the invocation of Hercules addressed to the real heavens, not +to a painted firmament, combined an effect that few among that vast +concourse will forget.<br> +<br> +At the farewell banquet in the arena after the performance, Georges +Leygues, the captain of the Cadets, in answer to a speech from the Prefect, +replied: “You ask about our aims and purposes and speak in admiration +of the enthusiasm aroused by the passage of our band!<br> +<br> +“Our aims are to vivify the traditions and language of our native +land, and the memory of a glorious ancestry, to foster the love of our +little province at the same time as patriotism for the greater country. +We are striving for a decentralization of art, for the elevation of +the stage; but above all, we preach a gospel of gayety and healthy laughter, +the science of remaining young at heart, would teach pluck and good +humor in the weary struggle of existence, characteristics that have +marked our countrymen through history! We have borrowed a motto +from Lope de Vega (that Gascon of another race), and inscribe ‘<i>Par +la langua et par l’èpée</i>’ upon our banner, +that these purposes may be read by the world as it runs.”<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER 30 - The Dinner and the Drama<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Claude Frollo, holding the first printed book he had seen in one hand, +and pointing with the other to the gigantic mass of Notre Dame, dark +against the sunset, prophesied “<i>Ceci tuera cela</i>.” +One might to-day paraphrase the sentence which Victor Hugo put into +his archdeacon’s mouth, and pointing to the elaborately appointed +dinner-tables of our generation, assert that the Dinner was killing +the Drama.<br> +<br> +New York undoubtedly possesses at this moment more and better constructed +theatres, in proportion to its population, than any other city on the +globe, and, with the single exception of Paris, more money is probably +spent at the theatre by our people than in any other metropolis. +Yet curiously enough, each decade, each season widens the breach between +our discriminating public and the stage. The theatre, instead +of keeping abreast with the intellectual movement of our country, has +for the last thirty years been slowly but steadily declining, until +at this moment there is hardly a company playing in legitimate comedy, +tragedy, or the classic masterpieces of our language.<br> +<br> +In spite of the fact that we are a nation in full literary production, +boasting authors who rank with the greatest of other countries, there +is hardly one poet or prose-writer to-day, of recognized ability, who +works for the stage, nor can we count more than one or two high-class +comedies or lyric dramas of American origin.<br> +<br> +It is not my intention here to criticise the contemporary stage, although +the condition of the drama in America is so unique and so different +from its situation in other countries that it might well attract the +attention of inquiring minds; but rather to glance at the social causes +which have produced this curious state of affairs, and the strained +relations existing between our élite (here the word is used in +its widest and most elevated sense) and our stage.<br> +<br> +There can be little doubt that the deterioration in the class of plays +produced at our theatres has been brought about by changes in our social +conditions. The pernicious “star” system, the difficulty +of keeping stock companies together, the rarity of histrionic ability +among Americans are explanations which have at different times been +offered to account for these phenomena. Foremost, however, among +the causes should be placed an exceedingly simple and prosaic fact which +seems to have escaped notice. I refer to the displacement of the +dinner hour, and the ceremony now surrounding that meal.<br> +<br> +Forty years ago dinner was still a simple affair, taken at hours varying +from three to five o’clock, and uniting few but the members of +a family, holidays and fêtes being the rare occasions when guests +were asked. There was probably not a hotel in this country at +that time where a dinner was served later than three o’clock, +and Delmonico’s, newly installed in Mr. Moses Grinnell’s +house, corner of Fourteenth Street and Fifth Avenue, was the only establishment +of its kind in America, and the one restaurant in New York where ladies +could be taken to dine. In those tranquil days when dinner parties +were few and dances a rarity, theatre-going was the one ripple on the +quiet stream of home life. Wallack’s, at the corner of Thirteenth +Street and Broadway, Booth’s in Twenty-third Street, and Fechter’s +in Fourteenth Street were the homes of good comedy and high-class tragedy.<br> +<br> +Along about 1870 the more aristocratically-minded New Yorkers took to +dining at six or six-thirty o’clock; since then each decade has +seen the dinner recede further into the night, until it is a common +occurrence now to sit down to that repast at eight or even nine o’clock. +Not only has the hour changed, but the meal itself has undergone a radical +transformation, in keeping with the general increase of luxurious living, +becoming a serious although hurried function. In consequence, +to go to the theatre and be present at the rising of the curtain means, +for the majority possessing sufficient means to go often to the play +and culture enough to be discriminating, the disarrangement of the entire +machinery of a household as well as the habits of its inmates.<br> +<br> +In addition to this, dozens of sumptuous establishments have sprung +up where the pleasure of eating is supplemented by allurements to the +eye and ear. Fine orchestras play nightly, the air is laden with +the perfume of flowers, a scenic perspective of palm garden and marble +corridor flatters the senses. The temptation, to a man wearied +by a day of business or sport, to abandon the idea of going to a theatre, +and linger instead over his cigar amid these attractive surroundings, +is almost irresistible.<br> +<br> +If, however, tempted by some success, he hurries his guests away from +their meal, they are in no condition to appreciate a serious performance. +The pressure has been too high all day for the overworked man and his +<i>énervée</i> wife to desire any but the lightest tomfoolery +in an entertainment. People engaged in the lethargic process of +digestion are not good critics of either elevated poetry or delicate +interpretation, and in consequence crave amusement rather than a mental +stimulant.<br> +<br> +Managers were quick to perceive that their productions were no longer +taken seriously, and that it was a waste of time and money to offer +high-class entertainments to audiences whom any nonsense would attract. +When a play like <i>The</i> <i>Swell Miss Fitzwell</i> will pack a New +York house for months, and then float a company on the high tide of +success across the continent, it would be folly to produce anything +better. New York influences the taste of the country; it is in +New York really that the standard has been lowered.<br> +<br> +In answer to these remarks, the question will doubtless be raised, “Are +not the influences which it is asserted are killing the drama in America +at work in England or on the Continent, where people also dine late +and well?”<br> +<br> +Yes, and no! People abroad dine as well, undoubtedly; as elaborately? +Certainly not! With the exception of the English (and even among +them dinner-giving has never become so universal as with us), no other +people entertain for the pleasure of hospitality. On the Continent, +a dinner-party is always an “axe-grinding” function. +A family who asked people to dine without having a distinct end in view +for such an outlay would be looked upon by their friends and relatives +as little short of lunatics. Diplomatists are allowed certain +sums by their governments for entertaining, and are formally dined in +return by their guests. A great French lady who is asked to dine +out twice a week considers herself fortunate; a New York woman of equal +position hardly dines at home from December 1 to April 15, unless she +is receiving friends at her own table.<br> +<br> +Parisian ladies rarely go to restaurants. In London there are +not more than three or four places where ladies can be taken to dine, +while in this city there are hundreds; our people have caught the habit +of dining away from home, a custom singularly in keeping with the American +temperament; for, although it costs more, it is less trouble!<br> +<br> +The reason why foreigners do not entertain at dinner is because they +have found other and more satisfactory ways of spending their money. +This leaves people abroad with a number of evenings on their hands, +unoccupied hours that are generally passed at the theatre. Only +the other day a diplomatist said to me, “I am surprised to see +how small a place the theatre occupies in your thoughts and conversation. +With us it is the pivot around which life revolves.”<br> +<br> +From one cause or another, not only the wealthy, but the thoughtful +and cultivated among us, go less each year to the theatre. The +abstinence of this class is the most significant, for well-read, refined, +fastidious citizens are the pride of a community, and their influence +for good is far-reaching. Of this élite New York has more +than its share, but you will not meet them at the play, unless Duse +or Jefferson, Bernhardt or Coquelin is performing. The best only +tempts such minds. It was by the encouragement of this class that +Booth was enabled to give <i>Hamlet</i> one hundred consecutive evenings, +and Fechter was induced to linger here and build a theatre.<br> +<br> +In comparison with the verdicts of such people, the opinions of fashionable +sets are of little importance. The latter long ago gave up going +to the play in New York, except during two short seasons, one in the +autumn, “before things get going,” and again in the spring, +after the season is over, before they flit abroad or to the country. +During these periods “smart” people generally attend in +bands called “theatre parties,” an infliction unknown outside +of this country, an arrangement above all others calculated to bring +the stage into contempt, as such parties seldom arrive before the middle +of the second act, take ten minutes to get seated, and then chat gayly +among themselves for the rest of the evening.<br> +<br> +The theatre, having ceased to form an integral part of our social life, +has come to be the pastime of people with nothing better to do, - the +floating population of our hotels, the shop-girl and her young man enjoying +an evening out. The plays produced by the gentlemen who, I am +told, control the stage in this country for the moment, are adapted +to the requirements of an audience that, having no particular standard +from which to judge the literary merits of a play, the training, accent, +or talent of the actors, are perfectly contented so long as they are +amused. To get a laugh, at any price, has become the ambition +of most actors and the dream of managers.<br> +<br> +A young actress in a company that played an American translation of +<i>Mme. Sans Gêne</i> all over this continent asked me recently +what I thought of their performance. I said I thought it “a +burlesque of the original!” “If you thought it a burlesque +here in town,” she answered, “it’s well you didn’t +see us on the road. There was no monkey trick we would not play +to raise a laugh.”<br> +<br> +If one of my readers doubts the assertion that the better classes have +ceased to attend our theatres, except on rare occasions, let him inquire +about, among the men and women whose opinions he values and respects, +how many of last winter’s plays they considered intellectual treats, +or what piece tempted them to leave their cosy dinner-tables a second +time. It is surprising to find the number who will answer in reply +to a question about the merits of a play <i>en vogue</i>, “I have +not seen it. In fact I rarely go to a theatre unless I am in London +or on the Continent!”<br> +<br> +Little by little we have taken to turning in a vicious and ever-narrowing +circle. The poorer the plays, the less clever people will make +the effort necessary to see them, and the less such élite attend, +the poorer the plays will become.<br> +<br> +That this state of affairs is going to last, however, I do not believe. +The darkest hour is ever the last before the dawn. As it would +he difficult for the performances in most of our theatres to fall any +lower in the scale of frivolity or inanity, we may hope for a reaction +that will be deep and far-reaching. At present we are like people +dying of starvation because they do not know how to combine the flour +and water and yeast before them into wholesome bread. The materials +for a brilliant and distinctly national stage undoubtedly exist in this +country. We have men and women who would soon develop into great +actors if they received any encouragement to devote themselves to a +higher class of work, and certainly our great city does not possess +fewer appreciative people than it did twenty years ago.<br> +<br> +The great dinner-giving mania will eat itself out; and managers, feeling +once more that they can count on discriminating audiences, will no longer +dare to give garbled versions of French farces or feeble dramas as compiled +from English novels, but, turning to our own poets and writers, will +ask them to contribute towards the formation of an American stage literature.<br> +<br> +When, finally, one of our poets gives us a lyric drama like <i>Cyrano +de Bergerac</i>, the attractions of the dinner-table will no longer +be strong enough to keep clever people away from the theatre, and the +following conversation, which sums up the present situation, will become +impossible.<br> +<br> +<i>Banker</i> (to Crushed Tragedian). - No, I haven’t seen you +act. I have not been inside a theatre for two years!<br> +<br> +<i>C.T</i>. - It’s five years since I’ve been inside a bank!<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER 31 - The Modern <i>Aspasia<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +</i>Most of the historic cities of Europe have a distinct local color, +a temperament, if one may be allowed the expression, of their own. +The austere calm of Bruges or Ghent, the sensuous beauty of Naples, +attract different natures. Florence has passionate devotees, who +are insensible to the artistic grace of Venice or the stately quiet +of Versailles. In Cairo one experiences an exquisite <i>bien être</i>, +a mindless, ambitionless contentment which, without being languor, soothes +the nerves and tempts to indolent lotus-eating. Like a great hive, +Rome depends on the memories that circle around her, storing, like bees, +the centuries with their honey. Each of these cities must therefore +leave many people unmoved, who after a passing visit, wander away, wondering +at the enthusiasm of the worshippers.<br> +<br> +Paris alone seems to possess the charm that bewitches all conditions, +all ages, all degrees. To hold the frivolous-minded she paints +her face and dances, leading them a round of folly, exhaustive alike +to health and purse. For the student she assumes another mien, +smiling encouragement, and urging him upward towards the highest standards, +while posing as his model. She takes the dreaming lover of the +past gently by the hand, and leading him into quiet streets and squares +where she has stored away a wealth of hidden treasure, enslaves him +as completely as her more sensual admirers.<br> +<br> +Paris is no less adored by the vacant-minded, to whom neither art nor +pleasure nor study appeal. Her caprices in fashion are received +by the wives and daughters of the universe as laws, and obeyed with +an unwavering faith, a mute obedience that few religions have commanded. +Women who yawn through Italy and the East have, when one meets them +in the French capital, the intense manner, the air of separation from +things mundane, that is observable in pilgrims approaching the shrine +of their deity. Mohammedans at Mecca must have some such look. +In Paris women find themselves in the presence of those high priests +whom they have long worshipped from a distance. It is useless +to mention other subjects to the devotee, for they will not fix her +attention. Her thoughts are with her heart, and that is far away.<br> +<br> +When visiting other cities one feels that they are like honest married +women, living quiet family lives, surrounded by their children. +The French Aspasia, on the contrary, has never been true to any vow, +but has, at the dictate of her passions, changed from royal and imperial +to republican lovers, and back again, ruled by no laws but her caprices, +and discarding each favorite in turn with insults when she has wearied +of him. Yet sovereigns are her slaves, and leave their lands to +linger in her presence; and rich strangers from the four corners of +the earth come to throw their fortunes at her feet and bask a moment +in her smiles.<br> +<br> +Like her classic prototype, Paris is also the companion of the philosophers +and leads the arts in her train. Her palaces are the meeting-places +of the poets, the sculptors, the dramatists, and the painters, who are +never weary of celebrating her perfections, nor of working for her adornment +and amusement.<br> +<br> +Those who live in the circle of her influence are caught up in a whirlwind +of artistic production, and consume their brains and bodies in the vain +hope of pleasing their idol and attracting her attention. To be +loved by Paris is an ordeal that few natures can stand, for she wrings +the lifeblood from her devotees and then casts them aside into oblivion. +Paris, said one of her greatest writers, “<i>aime à briser +ses idoles</i>!” As Ulysses and his companions fell, in +other days, a prey to the allurements of Circe, so our powerful young +nation has fallen more than any other under the influence of the French +siren, and brings her a yearly tribute of gold which she receives with +avidity, although in her heart there is little fondness for the giver.<br> +<br> +Americans who were in Paris two years ago had an excellent opportunity +of judging the sincerity of Parisian affection, and of sounding the +depth and unselfishness of the love that this fickle city gives us in +return for our homage. Not for one moment did she hesitate, but +threw the whole weight of her influence and wit into the scale for Spain. +If there is not at this moment a European alliance against America it +is not from any lack of effort on her part towards that end.<br> +<br> +The stand taken by <i>la villa lumière</i> in that crisis caused +many naïve Americans, who believed that their weakness for the +French capital was returned, a painful surprise. They imagined +in the simplicity of their innocent hearts that she loved them for themselves, +and have awakened, like other rich lovers, to the humiliating knowledge +that a penniless neighbor was receiving the caresses that Croesus paid +for. Not only did the entire Parisian press teem at that moment +with covert insults directed towards us, but in society, at the clubs +and tables of the aristocracy, it was impossible for an American to +appear with self-respect, so persistently were our actions and our reasons +for undertaking that war misunderstood and misrepresented. In +the conversation of the salons and in the daily papers it was assumed +that the Spanish were a race of noble patriots, fighting in the defence +of a loved and loyal colony, while we were a horde of blatant cowards, +who had long fermented a revolution in Cuba in order to appropriate +that coveted island.<br> +<br> +When the Spanish authorities allowed an American ship (surprised in +one of her ports by the declaration of war) to depart unharmed, the +fact was magnified into an act of almost ideal generosity; on the other +hand, when we decided not to permit privateering, that announcement +was received with derisive laughter as a pretentious pose to cover hidden +interests. There is reason to believe, however, that this feeling +in favor of Spain goes little further than the press and the aristocratic +circles so dear to the American “climber”; the real heart +of the French nation is as true to us as when a century ago she spent +blood and treasure in our cause. It is the inconstant capital +alone that, false to her rôle of liberator, has sided with the +tyrant.<br> +<br> +Yet when I wander through her shady parks or lean over her monumental +quays, drinking in the beauty of the first spring days, intoxicated +by the perfume of the flowers that the night showers have kissed into +bloom; or linger of an evening over my coffee, with the brilliant life +of the boulevards passing like a carnival procession before my eyes; +when I sit in her theatres, enthralled by the genius of her actors and +playwrights, or stand bewildered before the ten thousand paintings and +statues of the Salon, I feel inclined, like a betrayed lover, to pardon +my faithless mistress: she is too lovely to remain long angry with her. +You realize she is false and will betray you again, laughing at you, +insulting your weakness; but when she smiles all faults are forgotten; +the ardor of her kisses blinds you to her inconstancy; she pours out +a draught that no other hands can brew, and clasps you in arms so fair +that life outside those fragile barriers seems stale and unprofitable.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER 32 - A Nation in a Hurry<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +In early days of steam navigation on the Mississippi, the river captains, +it is said, had the playful habit, when pressed for time or enjoying +a “spurt” with a rival, of running their engines with a +darky seated on the safety-valve.<br> +<br> +One’s first home impression after a season of lazy Continental +travelling and visiting in somnolent English country houses, is that +an emblematical Ethiopian should be quartered on our national arms.<br> +<br> +Zola tells us in <i>Nouvelle Campagne</i> that his vivid impressions +are all received during the first twenty-four hours in a new surrounding, +- the mind, like a photographic film, quickly losing its sensibility.<br> +<br> +This fleeting receptiveness makes returning Americans painfully conscious +of nerves in the home atmosphere, and the headlong pace at which our +compatriots are living.<br> +<br> +The habit of laying such faults to the climate is but a poor excuse. +Our grandparents and their parents lived peaceful lives beneath these +same skies, undisturbed by the morbid influences that are supposed to +key us to such a painful concert pitch.<br> +<br> +There was an Indian summer languor in the air as we steamed up the bay +last October, that apparently invited repose; yet no sooner had we set +foot on our native dock, and taken one good whiff of home air, than +all our acquired calm disappeared. People who ten days before +would have sat (at a journey’s end) contentedly in a waiting-room, +while their luggage was being sorted by leisurely officials, now hustle +nervously about, nagging the custom-house officers and egging on the +porters, as though the saving of the next half hour were the prime object +of existence.<br> +<br> +Considering how extravagant we Americans are in other ways it seems +curious that we should be so economical of time! It was useless +to struggle against the current, however, or to attempt to hold one’s +self back. Before ten minutes on shore had passed, the old, familiar, +unpleasant sensation of being in a hurry took possession of me! +It was irresistible and all-pervading; from the movements of the crowds +in the streets to the whistle of the harbor tugs, everything breathed +of haste. The very dogs had apparently no time to loiter, but +scurried about as though late for their engagements.<br> +<br> +The transit from dock to hotel was like a visit to a new circle in the +<i>Inferno</i>, where trains rumble eternally overhead, and cable cars +glide and block around a pale-faced throng of the damned, who are forced, +in expiation of their sins, to hasten forever toward an unreachable +goal.<br> +<br> +A curious curse has fallen upon our people; an “influence” +is at work which forces us to attempt in an hour just twice as much +as can be accomplished in sixty minutes. “Do as well as +you can,” whispers the “influence,” “but do +it quickly!” That motto might be engraved upon the fronts +of our homes and business buildings.<br> +<br> +It is on account of this new standard that rapidity in a transaction +on the Street is appreciated more than correctness of detail. +A broker to-day will take more credit for having received and executed +an order for Chicago and returned an answer within six minutes, than +for any amount of careful work. The order may have been ill executed +and the details mixed, but there will have been celerity of execution +to boast of<br> +<br> +The young man who expects to succeed in business to-day must be a “hustler,” +have a snap-shot style in conversation, patronize rapid transit vehicles, +understand shorthand, and eat at “breathless breakfasts.”<br> +<br> +Being taken recently to one of these establishments for “quick +lunch,” as I believe the correct phrase is, to eat buckwheat cakes +(and very good they were), I had an opportunity of studying the ways +of the modern time-saving young man.<br> +<br> +It is his habit upon entering to dash for the bill-of-fare, and give +an order (if he is adroit enough to catch one of the maids on the fly) +before removing either coat or hat. At least fifteen seconds may +be economized in this way. Once seated, the luncher falls to on +anything at hand; bread, cold slaw, crackers, or catsup. When +the dish ordered arrives, he gets his fork into it as it appears over +his shoulder, and has cleaned the plate before the sauce makes its appearance, +so that is eaten by itself or with bread.<br> +<br> +Cups of coffee or tea go down in two swallows. Little piles of +cakes are cut in quarters and disappear in four mouthfuls, much after +the fashion of children down the ogre’s throat in the mechanical +toy, mastication being either a lost art or considered a foolish waste +of energy.<br> +<br> +A really accomplished luncher can assimilate his last quarter of cakes, +wiggle into his coat, and pay his check at the desk at the same moment. +The next, he is down the block in pursuit of a receding trolley.<br> +<br> +To any one fresh from the Continent, where the entire machinery of trade +comes to a standstill from eleven to one o’clock, that <i>déjeuner</i> +may be taken in somnolent tranquillity, the nervous tension pervading +a restaurant here is prodigious, and what is worse - catching! +During recent visits to the business centres of our city, I find that +the idea of eating is repugnant. It seems to be wrong to waste +time on anything so unproductive. Last week a friend offered me +a “luncheon tablet” from a box on his desk. “It’s +as good as a meal,” he said, “and so much more expeditious!”<br> +<br> +The proprietor of one down-town restaurant has the stock quotations +exhibited on a black-board at the end of his room; in this way his patrons +can keep in touch with the “Street” as they hurriedly stoke +up.<br> +<br> +A parlor car, toward a journey’s end, is another excellent place +to observe our native ways. Coming from Washington the other day +my fellow-passengers began to show signs of restlessness near Newark. +Books and papers were thrown aside; a general “uprising, unveiling” +followed, accompanied by our objectionable custom of having our clothes +brushed in each other’s faces. By the time Jersey City appeared +on the horizon, every man, woman, and child in that car was jammed, +baggage in hand, into the stuffy little passage which precedes the entrance, +swaying and staggering about while the train backed and delayed.<br> +<br> +The explanation of this is quite simple. The “influence” +was at work, preventing those people from acting like other civilized +mortals, and remaining seated until their train had come to a standstill.<br> +<br> +Being fresh from the “other side,” and retaining some of +my acquired calm, I sat in my chair! The surprise on the faces +of the other passengers warned me, however, that it would not be safe +to carry this pose too far. The porter, puzzled by the unaccustomed +sight, touched me kindly on the shoulder, and asked if I “felt +sick”! So now, to avoid all affectation of superiority, +I struggled into my great-coat, regardless of eighty degrees temperature +in the car, and meekly joined the standing army of martyrs, to hurry, +scampering with them from the still-moving car to the boat, and on to +the trolley before the craft had been moored to its landing pier.<br> +<br> +In Paris, on taking an omnibus, you are given a number and the right +to the first vacant seat. When the places in a “bus” +are all occupied it receives no further occupants. Imagine a traction +line attempting such a reform here! There would be a riot, and +the conductors hanged to the nearest trolley-poles in an hour!<br> +<br> +To prevent a citizen from crowding into an over-full vehicle, and stamping +on its occupants in the process, would be to infringe one of his dearest +privileges, not to mention his chance of riding free.<br> +<br> +A small boy of my acquaintance tells me he rarely finds it necessary +to pay in a New York car. The conductors are too hurried and too +preoccupied pocketing their share of the receipts to keep count. +“When he passes, I just look blank!” remarked the ingenious +youth.<br> +<br> +Of all the individuals, however, in the community, our idle class suffer +the most acutely from lack of time, though, like Charles Lamb’s +gentleman, they have all there is.<br> +<br> +From the moment a man of leisure, or his wife, wakens in the morning +until they drop into a fitful slumber at night, their day is an agitated +chase. No matter where or when you meet them, they are always +on the wing.<br> +<br> +“Am I late again?” gasped a thin little woman to me the +other evening, as she hurried into the drawing-room, where she had kept +her guests and dinner waiting. “I’ve been so driven +all day, I’m a wreck!” A glance at her hatchet-faced +husband revealed the fact that he, too, was chasing after a stray half-hour +lost somewhere in his youth. His color and most of his hair had +gone in its pursuit, while his hands had acquired a twitch, as though +urging on a tired steed.<br> +<br> +Go and ask that lady for a cup of tea at twilight; ten to one she will +receive you with her hat on, explaining that she has not had time to +take it off since breakfast. If she writes to you, her notes are +signed, “In great haste,” or “In a tearing hurry.” +She is out of her house by half-past eight on most mornings, yet when +calling she sits on the edge of her chair, and assures you that she +has not a moment to stay, “has only run in,” etc.<br> +<br> +Just what drives her so hard is a mystery, for beyond a vague charity +meeting or two and some calls, she accomplishes little. Although +wealthy and childless, with no cares and few worries, she succumbs to +nervous prostration every two or three years, “from overwork.”<br> +<br> +Listen to a compatriot’s account of his European trip! He +will certainly tell you how short the ocean crossing was, giving hours +and minutes with zest, as though he had got ahead of Father Time in +a transaction. Then follows a list of the many countries seen +during his tour.<br> +<br> +I know a lady lying ill to-day because she would hurry herself and her +children, in six weeks last summer, through a Continental tour that +should have occupied three months. She had no particular reason +for hurrying; indeed, she got ahead of her schedule, and had to wait +in Paris for the steamer; a detail, however, that in no way diminished +madame’s pleasure in having done so much during her holiday. +This same lady deplores lack of leisure hours, yet if she finds by her +engagement book that there is a free week ahead, she will run to Washington +or Lakewood, “for a change,” or organize a party to Florida.<br> +<br> +To realize how our upper ten scramble through existence, one must also +contrast their fidgety way of feeding with the bovine calm in which +a German absorbs his nourishment and the hours Italians can pass over +their meals; an American dinner party affords us the opportunity.<br> +<br> +There is an impression that the fashion for quickly served dinners came +to us from England. If this is true (which I doubt; it fits too +nicely with our temperament to have been imported), we owe H.R.H. a +debt of gratitude, for nothing is so tiresome as too many courses needlessly +prolonged.<br> +<br> +Like all converts, however, we are too zealous. From oysters to +fruit, dinners now are a breathless steeplechase, during which we take +our viand hedges and champagne ditches at a dead run, with conversation +pushed at much the same speed. To be silent would be to imply +that one was not having a good time, so we rattle and gobble on toward +the finger-bowl winning-post, only to find that rest is not there!<br> +<br> +As the hostess pilots the ladies away to the drawing-room, she whispers +to her spouse, “You won’t smoke long, will you?” +So we are mulcted in the enjoyment of even that last resource of weary +humanity, the cigar, and are hustled away from that and our coffee, +only to find that our appearance is a signal for a general move.<br> +<br> +One of the older ladies rises; the next moment the whole circle, like +a flock of frightened birds, are up and off, crowding each other in +the hallway, calling for their carriages, and confusing the unfortunate +servants, who are trying to help them into their cloaks and overshoes.<br> +<br> +Bearing in mind that the guests come as late as they dare, without being +absolutely uncivil, that dinners are served as rapidly as is physically +possible, and that the circle breaks up as soon as the meal ends, one +asks one’s self in wonder why, if a dinner party is such a bore +that it has to be scrambled through, <i>coûte que coûte</i>, +we continue to dine out?<br> +<br> +It is within the bounds of possibility that people may have reasons +for hurrying through their days, and that dining out <i>à</i> +<i>la longue</i> becomes a weariness.<br> +<br> +The one place, however, where you might expect to find people reposeful +and calm is at the theatre. The labor of the day is then over; +they have assembled for an hour or two of relaxation and amusement. +Yet it is at the play that our restlessness is most apparent. +Watch an audience (which, be it remarked in passing, has arrived late) +during the last ten minutes of a performance. No sooner do they +discover that the end is drawing near than people begin to struggle +into their wraps. By the time the players have lined up before +the footlights the house is full of disappearing backs.<br> +<br> +Past, indeed, are the unruffled days when a heroine was expected (after +the action of a play had ended) to deliver the closing <i>envoi</i> +dear to the writers of Queen Anne’s day. Thackeray writes:-<br> +<br> +<br> +<i>The play is done! The curtain drops,<br> +Slow falling to the prompter’s bell!<br> +A moment yet the actor stops,<br> +And looks around</i>, <i>to say farewell!<br> +<br> +<br> +</i>A comedian who attempted any such abuse of the situation to-day +would find himself addressing empty benches. Before he had finished +the first line of his epilogue, most of his public would be housed in +the rapid transit cars. No talent, no novelty holds our audiences +to the end of a performance.<br> +<br> +On the opening night of the opera season this winter, one third of the +“boxes” and orchestra stalls were vacant before Romeo (who, +being a foreigner, was taking his time) had expired.<br> +<br> +One overworked matron of my acquaintance has perfected an ingenious +and time-saving combination. By signalling from a window near +her opera box to a footman below, she is able to get her carriage at +least two minutes sooner than her neighbors.<br> +<br> +During the last act of an opera like <i>Tann</i>-<i>häuser</i> +or <i>Faust</i>, in which the inconsiderate composer has placed a musical +gem at the end, this lady is worth watching. After getting into +her wraps and overshoes she stands, hand on the door, at the back of +her box, listening to the singers; at a certain moment she hurries to +the window, makes her signal, scurries back, hears Calvé pour +her soul out in <i>Anges purs</i>, <i>anges radieux</i>, yet manages +to get down the stairs and into her carriage before the curtain has +fallen.<br> +<br> +We deplore the prevailing habit of “slouch”; yet if you +think of it, this universal hurry is the cause of it. Our cities +are left unsightly, because we cannot spare time to beautify them. +Nervous diseases are distressingly prevalent; still we hurry! hurry!! +hurry!!! until, as a diplomatist recently remarked to me, the whole +nation seemed to him to be but five minutes ahead of an apoplectic fit.<br> +<br> +The curious part of the matter is that after several weeks at home, +much that was strange at first becomes quite natural to the traveller, +who finds himself thinking with pity of benighted foreigners and their +humdrum ways, and would resent any attempts at reform.<br> +<br> +What, for instance, would replace for enterprising souls the joy of +taking their matutinal car at a flying leap, or the rapture of being +first out of a theatre? What does part of a last act or the “star +song” matter in comparison with five minutes of valuable time +to the good? Like the river captains, we propose to run under +full head of steam and get there, or b--- explode!<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER 33 - The Spirit of History<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Buildings become tombs when the race that constructed them has disappeared. +Libraries and manuscripts are catacombs where most of us might wander +in the dark forever, finding no issue. To know dead generations +and their environments through these channels, to feel a love so strong +that it calls the past forth from its winding-sheet, and gives it life +again, as Christ did Lazarus, is the privilege only of great historians.<br> +<br> +France is honoring the memory of such a man at this moment; one who +for forty years sought the vital spark of his country’s existence, +striving to resuscitate what he called “the great soul of history,” +as it developed through successive acts of the vast drama. This +employment of his genius is Michelet’s title to fame.<br> +<br> +In a sombre structure, the tall windows of which look across the Luxembourg +trees to the Pantheon, where her husband’s bust has recently been +placed, a widow preserves with religious care the souvenirs of this +great historian. Nothing that can recall either his life or his +labor is changed.<br> +<br> +Madame Michelet’s life is in strange contrast with the ways of +the modern spouse who, under pretext of grief, discards and displaces +every reminder of the dead. In our day, when the great art is +to forget, an existence consecrated to a memory is so rare that the +world might be the better for knowing that a woman lives who, young +and beautiful, was happy in the society of an old man, whose genius +she appreciated and cherished, who loves him dead as she loved him living. +By her care the apartment remains as it stood when he left it, to die +at Hyères, - the furniture, the paintings, the writing-table. +No stranger has sat in his chair, no acquaintance has drunk from his +cup. This woman, who was a perfect wife and now fills one’s +ideal of what a widow’s life should be, has constituted herself +the vigilant guardian of her husband’s memory. She loves +to talk of the illustrious dead, and tell how he was fond of saying +that Virgil and Vico were his parents. Any one who reads the <i>Georgics</i> +or <i>The Bird</i> will see the truth of this, for he loved all created +things, his ardent spiritism perceiving that the essence which moved +the ocean’s tides was the same that sang in the robin at the window +during his last illness, which he called his “little captive soul.”<br> +<br> +The author of <i>La Bible de l’Humanité</i> had to a supreme +degree the love of country, and possessed the power of reincarnating +with each succeeding cycle of its history. So luminous was his +mind, so profound and far-reaching his sympathy, that he understood +the obscure workings of the mediaeval mind as clearly as he appreciated +Mirabeau’s transcendent genius. He believed that humanity, +like Prometheus, was self-made; that nations modelled their own destiny +during the actions and reactions of history, as each one of us acquires +a personality through the struggles and temptations of existence, by +the evolving power every soul carries within itself.<br> +<br> +Michelet taught that each nation was the hero of its own drama; that +great men have not been different from the rest of their race - on the +contrary, being the condensation of an epoch, that, no matter what the +apparent eccentricities of a leader may have been, he was the expression +of a people’s spirit. This discovery that a race is transformed +by its action upon itself and upon the elements it absorbs from without, +wipes away at a stroke the popular belief in “predestined races” +or providential “great men” appearing at crucial moments +and riding victorious across the world.<br> +<br> +An historian, if what he writes is to have any value, must know the +people, the one great historical factor. Radicalism in history +is the beginning of truth. Guided by this light of his own, Michelet +discovered a fresh factor heretofore unnoticed, that vast fermentation +which in France transforms all foreign elements into an integral part +of the country’s being. After studying his own land through +the thirteen centuries of her growth, from the chart of Childebert to +the will of Louis XVI., Michelet declared that while England is a composite +empire and Germany a region, France is a personality. In consequence +he regarded the history of his country as a long dramatic poem. +Here we reach the inner thought of the historian, the secret impulse +that guided his majestic pen.<br> +<br> +The veritable hero of his splendid Iliad is at first ignorant and obscure, +seeking passionately like OEdipus to know himself. The interest +of the piece is absorbing. We can follow the gradual development +of his nature as it becomes more attractive and sympathetic with each +advancing age, until, through the hundred acts of the tragedy, he achieves +a soul. For Michelet to write the history of his country was to +describe the long evolution of a hero. He was fond of telling +his friends that during the Revolution of July, while he was making +his translation of Vico, this great fact was revealed to him in the +blazing vision of a people in revolt. At that moment the young +and unknown author resolved to devote his life, his talents, his gift +of clairvoyance, the magic of his inimitable style and creative genius, +to fixing on paper the features seen in his vision.<br> +<br> +Conceived and executed in this spirit, his history could be but a stupendous +epic, and proves once again the truth of Aristotle’s assertion +that there is often greater truth in poetry than in prose.<br> +<br> +Seeking in the remote past for the origin of his hero, Michelet pauses +first before <i>the Cathedral</i>. The poem begins like some mediaeval +tale. The first years of his youthful country are devoted to a +mystic religion. Under his ardent hands vast naves rise and belfries +touch the clouds. It is but a sad and cramped development, however; +statutes restrain his young ardor and chill his blood. It is not +until the boy is behind the plough in the fields and sunlight that his +real life begins - a poor, brutish existence, if you will, but still +life. The “Jacques,” half man and half beast, of the +Middle Ages is the result of a thousand years of suffering.<br> +<br> +A woman’s voice calls this brute to arms. An enemy is overrunning +the land. Joan the virgin - “my Joan,” Michelet calls +her - whose heart bleeds when blood is shed, frees her country. +A shadow, however, soon obscures this gracious vision from Jacques’s +eyes. The vast monarchical incubus rises between the people and +their ideal. Our historian turns in disgust from the later French +kings. He has neither time nor heart to write their history, so +passes quickly from Louis XI. to the great climax of his drama - the +Revolution. There we find his hero, emerging at last from tyranny +and oppression. Freedom and happiness are before him. Alas! +his eyes, accustomed to the dim light of dungeons, are dazzled by the +sun of liberty; he strikes friend and foe alike.<br> +<br> +In the solitary galleries of the “Archives” Michelet communes +with the great spirits of that day, Desaix, Marceau, Kleber, - elder +sons of the Republic, who whisper many secrets to their pupil as he +turns over faded pages tied with tri-colored ribbons, where the cities +of France have written their affection for liberty, love-letters from +Jacques to his mistress. Michelet is happy. His long labor +is drawing to an end. The great epic which he has followed as +it developed through the centuries is complete. His hero stands +hand in hand before the altar with the spouse of his choice, for whose +smile he has toiled and struggled. The poet-historian sees again +in the <i>Fête</i> <i>de la Fédération</i> the radiant +face of his vision, the true face of France, <i>La Dulce.<br> +<br> +</i>Through all the lyricism of this master’s work one feels that +he has “lived” history as he wrote it, following his subject +from its obscure genesis to a radiant apotheosis. The faithful +companion of Michelet’s age has borne witness to this power which +he possessed of projecting himself into another age and living with +his subject. She repeats to those who know her how he trembled +in passion and burned with patriotic emotion in transcribing the crucial +pages of his country’s history, rejoicing in her successes and +depressed by her faults, like the classic historian who refused with +horror to tell the story of his compatriots’ defeat at Cannae, +saying, “I could not survive the recital.”<br> +<br> +“Do you remember,” a friend once asked Madame Michelet, +“how, when your husband was writing his chapters on the Reign +of Terror, he ended by falling ill?”<br> +<br> +“Ah, yes!” she replied. “That was the week he +executed Danton. We were living in the country near Nantes. +The ground was covered with snow. I can see him now, hurrying +to and fro under the bare trees, gesticulating and crying as he walked, +‘How can I judge them, those great men? How can I judge +them?’ It was in this way that he threw his ‘thousand +souls’ into the past and lived in sympathy with all men, an apostle +of universal love. After one of these fecund hours he would drop +into his chair and murmur, ‘I am crushed by this work. I +have been writing with my blood!’”<br> +<br> +Alas, his aged eyes were destined to read sadder pages than he had ever +written, to see years as tragic as the “Terror.” He +lived to hear the recital of (having refused to witness) his country’s +humiliation, and fell one April morning, in his retirement near Pisa, +unconscious under the double shock of invasion and civil war. +Though he recovered later, his horizon remained dark. The patriot +suffered to see party spirit and warring factions rending the nation +he had so often called the pilot of humanity’s bark, which seemed +now to be going straight on the rocks. “<i>Finis Galliae</i>,” +murmured the historian, who to the end lived and died with his native +land.<br> +<br> +Thousands yearly mount the broad steps of the Panthéon to lay +their wreaths upon his tomb, and thousands more in every Gallic schoolroom +are daily learning, in the pages of his history, to love <i>France la +Dulce</i>.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Footnotes:<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote1"></a><a href="#citation1">{1}</a> “Newport +of the Past,” <i>Worldly Ways and By-ways</i>.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE WAYS OF MEN ***<br> +<pre> + +******This file should be named waymn10h.htm or waymn10h.zip****** +Corrected EDITIONS of our EBooks get a new NUMBER, waymn11h.htm +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, waymn10ah.htm + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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