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diff --git a/319-0.txt b/319-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..89654ed --- /dev/null +++ b/319-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6971 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Ways of Men, by Eliot Gregory + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Ways of Men + + +Author: Eliot Gregory + + + +Release Date: August 10, 2008 [eBook #319] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WAYS OF MEN*** + + +Transcribed from the 1900 Charles Scribner’s sons edition by David Price, +email ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + +THE WAYS OF MEN + + + by + Eliot Gregory + (“_An Idler_”) + _Author of_ “_Worldly Ways and Byways_.” + + NEW YORK + Charles Scribner’s Sons + MCM + + _Copyright_, 1900, _by Charles Scribner’s Sons_ + + _D. B. Updike_, _The Merrymount Press_, _Boston_ + + + + +TO +Edith Wharton + + + “I have not lacked thy mild reproof, + Nor golden largess of thy praise.” + + + + +CHAPTER 1—“_Uncle Sam_” + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER 2—Domestic Despots + + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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! + +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 manœuvre 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 +_faux bonhommes_ before they leave this world, as apparently no provision +has been made for their punishment in the next. + + + + +CHAPTER 3—Cyrano, Rostand, Coquelin + + +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, _Cyrano de Bergerac_, 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. + +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 _chef d’œuvre_ +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.” + +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? + +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. + +“I had, like most Parisians, known Rostand for some time as the author of +a few graceful verses and a play (_Les Romanesques_) which passed almost +unnoticed at the Français. + +“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 +_La Princesse Lointaine_. 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. + +“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. + +“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 _Précieuses Ridicules_, a seventeenth-century Paris of love and +duelling. + +“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 +_Three Guardsmen_ 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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“_La Princesse Lointaine_ 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 _succès d’estime_, the fantastic grace and lightness +of the piece saving it from absolute shipwreck in the eyes of the +literary public. + +“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. + +“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 _Cyrano_. 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. + +“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. + +“That no success is cheaply bought I have long known; my profession above +all others is calculated to teach one that truth. + +“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. + +“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 _passade_ 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. + +“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 +_Hernani_, 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—_une salle en délire_ 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.” + +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. + +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.” + + + + +CHAPTER 4—Machine-made Men + + +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 _poulets_ in feminine writing suggested such +delightful possibilities. + +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!” + +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. + +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. + +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 +_en passant_) 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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! + +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! + +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? + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER 5—Parnassus + + +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! “ + +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. + +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. + +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 _allées_, 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. + +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 encyclopædic brain! His works, +however, are his best monument; he would be the last to repine or cavil. + +“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.’ ” + +“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, _né_ Sainte-Beuve. It was there that most of his enormous labor +was accomplished. + +“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. + +“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.’ + +“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 _Les Lundis_ a French Wordsworth, or compared him +to a lay _bénédictin_. 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. + +“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. + +“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 _Moniteur_ on +Monday, when your article appears.’ Unfortunately for this compliment, +it was the _Constitutionnel_ that had been publishing the _Nouveaux +Lundis_ 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 _Life of Cæsar_. + +The author of _Les Consolations_ 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 _Lundis_, 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. + +“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 _débutante_ 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!” ’ + +“Sainte-Beuve’s _Larmes de Racine_ 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 _administrateur_ 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— + + Jean Racine, le grand poête, + Le poête aimant et pieux, + Après que sa lyre muette + Se fut voilèe à tous les yeux, + Renonçant à la gloire humaine, + S’il sentait en son âme pleine + Le flot contenu murmurer, + Ne savait que fondre en prière, + Pencher l’urne dans la poussière + Aux pieds du Seigneur, et pleurer! + +the tears of Sainte-Beuve accompanied those of Racine!” + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER 6—Modern Architecture + + +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. + +“But,” as John Drew used to say in _The Masked Ball_, “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. + +Years ago _spiritual_ 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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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 _Goede Vrouw of Mana-ha-ta_ 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 _Hausfrau_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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! + +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? + +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 _facile princeps_, 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! + +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. + +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! + +“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!” + +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 _Life_, in Thirty-first Street, prove that beauty and +grace of façade can be adapted to modern business wants. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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.” + + + + +CHAPTER 7—Worldly Color-Blindness + + +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.” + +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. + +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?” + +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 _homo_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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!” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER 8—Idling in Mid-Ocean + + +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. + +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 _summum bonum_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The deck, however, is not deserted; two fashionable dressmakers revel +there. These sociable ladies asked the _commissaire_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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?” + +“Yes,” answers Jones, “are you?” + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER 9—“Climbers” in England + + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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! + +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 _Walks in London_, 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. + +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. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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!” + +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.” + +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. + +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 +“_donnant_! _donnant_!” 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. + + + + +CHAPTER 10—_Calvé_ at Cabrières + + +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 _en +route_. + +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? + +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. + +“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 +anæmic. 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.” + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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. + +“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!” + +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. + +“When I came back here after my first season in St. Petersburg and London +the _curé_ requested me to sing at our local fête. I gladly consented, +and, standing by his side on the steps of the _Mairie_, gave the great +aria from the _Huguenots_ 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.” + +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 _capiteuse_, who presided +at the dainty, flower-decked table and led the laughing conversation. + +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 _tragédienne_ 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 _Carmen_, 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 _Camille_, which made her audience realize +that in gaining a soprano the world has lost, perhaps, its greatest +_tragédienne_. + +At eleven o’clock the clatter of hoofs in the court warned us that the +pleasant evening had come to an end. A journalist _en route_ 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. + +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?” + + + + +CHAPTER 11—A Cry For Fresh Air + + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +What was to those noblemen an unheard-of luxury has become within the +last decade one of the primary necessities of our life. + +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? + +The incubus of caloric that sits on our gasping country is particularly +painful at this season, when nature undertakes to do her own heating. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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.” + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +How much time must pass and how many victims be sacrificed before we come +to our senses on the great radiator question? + +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!” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +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? + +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? + + + + +CHAPTER 12—The Paris of our Grandparents + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _spirituel_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +“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. + +“That’s the diligence just arrived from Calais; it has been two days _en +route_, 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. + +“We were in Paris in ’48; from my window at Meurice’s I saw poor old +_Juste Milieu_ 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, _en route_ for a life exile. + +“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. + +“I passed the greater part of forty-eight hours on our balcony, watching +the mob marching by, singing _La Marseillaise_, 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. + +“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. + +“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 _in papier-mâché_, 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. + +“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.” + +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 _Foire du Monde_ +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.” + + + + +CHAPTER 13—Some American Husbands + + +Until the beginning of this century men played the _beau rôle_ 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. + +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. + +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 _coiffures_, 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. + +To America must be given the credit of having produced the model husband, +a new species, as it were, of the _genus homo_. + +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. + +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. + +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 _dot_ 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 _mariages de convenance_ are rare, “settlements” form an +inevitable prelude to conjugal bliss. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _la bête noire_ of the hostess, no woman wanting to sit +next to a married man, if she can help it. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER 14—“_Carolus_” + + +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. + +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 +_atelier d’élèves_, 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 _massier_ at the end of a +difficult season, or smooth the path of some improvident pupil. + +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. + +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 _La Femme au Gant_, for the Luxembourg Gallery. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _à propos_ 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. + +So important has he always considered a constant study of Renaissance art +that recently, when about to commence his _Triumph of Bacchus_, Carolus +copied one of Rubens’s larger canvases with all the naïveté of a +beginner. + +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 _Apotheosis of Marie de Médicis_, +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. + +The year 1877 brought Carolus-Duran the _médaille d’honneur_, 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— + + . . . _épouvantès_— + _Craignant ègalement sa brosse et son èpèe_. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 +_Salon du Champ de Mars_. + +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. + +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. + +“_Tout ce qui n’est pas indispensable est nuisible_,” 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. + +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 +_Réveil_, 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. + + + + +CHAPTER 15—The Grand Opera Fad + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _au pied de la lettre_. 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. + +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. + +Third, and last, come the lovers of music, who mostly inhabit greater +altitudes. + +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 _entr’acte_, 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. + +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 _entr’actes_, when people retire to the salons back of their +_loges_ 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 _Faust_ and _Carmen_, 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 _Huguenots_ and the _Rheingold_ 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. + +Last winter, when Melba sang in _Aida_, 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 _Barber_, it was rather a shock +to see her appear as that lady’s servant in the _Mariage de Figaro_”) +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 _Mariage_ is by Bon Marché. I’ve been at his shop in +Paris.” + +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.” + +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. + +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: “_Mon Dieu_! 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!” + +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? + +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 +_Lohengrin_? 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. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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! + +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 _Mme. Angot_ +or the _Cloches de Corneville_, cut in two by a good ballet. + +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.” + + + + +CHAPTER 16—The Poetic _Cabarets_ of Paris + + +Those who have not lived in France can form little idea of the important +place the _café_ 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 _café_ 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 _café_ is the chief +attraction, the centre of thought, the focus toward which all the rays of +masculine existence converge. + +For the student, newly arrived from the provinces, to whose modest purse +the theatres and other places of amusement are practically closed, the +_café_ 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 _café_ 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 _apéritif_—what Baudelaire +called + + _L’heure sainte_ + _De l’absinthe_. + +When young men form a society among themselves, a _café_ 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. + +Business men transact their affairs as much over their coffee as in their +offices. The reading man finds at his _café_ 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 +_ink_!” + +The use of a _café_ does not imply any great expenditure, a +_consummation_ 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 _habitués_ 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 _dame du comptoir_. + +Opposite the Palace of the Luxembourg, in the heart of the old Latin +Quarter, stands a quaint building, half hotel, half _café_, 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. + +The success of the original “Chat Noir,” the first _cabaret_ 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 _café_ 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. + +The old word _cabaret_, corresponding closely to our English “inn,” was +chosen, and the establishment decorated in imitation of a Louis XIII. +_hôtellerie_. Oaken beams supported the low-studded ceilings: The +plaster walls disappeared behind tapestries, armor, old _faïence_. 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. + +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 +_raconteur_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _cadet_, Fragson, and other budding +celebrities. It was here that the poets first had the idea of producing +a piece in which rival _cabarets_ 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 _chansons_ of the Pyrenees +were sung or recited by local poets with the charm and abandon of their +distinctive races. + +The great critics did not disdain to attend these informal gatherings, +nor to write columns of serious criticism on the subject in their papers. + +At the hour when all Paris takes its _apéritif_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +One of Caran d’Ache’s greatest successes in this line was an _Epopée de +Napoléon_,—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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +A _cabaret_ 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.” + +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 _cabaret_ 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 +_Dans la Rue_ and _Sur la Route_ have had an enormous popularity, their +contents being known and sung all over France. + +In 1892 Bruant was received as a member of the society of _Gens de +Lettres_. 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 _Dans la Rue_. 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.” + +In the Avenue Trudaine, not far from the other _cabarets_, 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. + +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. + +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. + +The famous “Tréteau de Tabarin,” which to-day holds undisputed precedence +over all the _cabarets_ 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. + +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 _cabarets_ 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. + +Montmartre is now sprinkled with attractive _cabarets_, 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 +_raconteurs_ who recite their works in public. + +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 _café_ +before a mixed audience. If such doubting souls could, however, be +present at one of these _noctes ambrosianæ_, 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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER 17—Etiquette At Home and Abroad + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +A single illustration will explain my meaning. A young American girl +once went to the mistress of a _pension_ where she was staying and +complained that the _concierge_ of the house had been impertinent. When +the proprietress asked the _concierge_ 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 +_loge_ 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 _au quatrième_ never passes without a kind word or +an inquiry after the children or my health.” + +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. + +The lady who sits at the _caisse_ 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. + +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.” + +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.” + +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 _jupière_ 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? + +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. + +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. + +In the third act of _Caste_, 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. + + + + +CHAPTER 18—What is “Art”? + + +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. + +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? + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.” + +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! + +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?” + +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 æsthetes 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.” + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +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! + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER 19—The Genealogical Craze + + +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. + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +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 _raison +d’être_, people apparently being ready to join anything rather than get +left out in the cold. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _prove_ 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. + +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.” + +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.” + +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. + +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. + +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.” + +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 _la folie des grandeurs_. 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. + + + + +CHAPTER 20—As the Twig is Bent + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.” + +If this proves so, and it seems probable, it only proves how the humble +long for something more graceful than their meagre homes afford. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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, _Les Mauvais Bergers_ (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!” + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER 21—Seven Small Duchesses + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The Duchesse de Noailles, _née_ 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. + +The Duchesse de Bisaccia, _née_ 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. + +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. + +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!” + +One is struck by another peculiarity of these French men and women—their +astonishing proficiency in _les arts d’agrément_. 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. + +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 +_habitués_ 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. + +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. + +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! + +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 _gamines_ 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. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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!” + + + + +CHAPTER 22—Growing Old Ungracefully + + +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? + +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. Cæsar, 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. + +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.” + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +Holmes, in _My Maiden Aunt_, asks plaintively:— + + _Why will she train that wintry curl in such a springlike way_? + +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! + +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. + +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. + +During the _Ancien Régime_ 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. + +We find the same view taken of age by the masters of the Renaissance, who +appreciated its charm and loved to reproduce its grace. + +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. + +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? + +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? + +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? + + + + +CHAPTER 23—Around a Spring + + +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 _source thermale_. If the water of the newfound spring, +besides having an unpleasant smell, is also hot, then Providence has +indeed blessed the township. + +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. + +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. + +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 _Times_, and grumbling over the +increase in prices since the year before. + +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. + +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. + +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 _eaux_ in Europe. In this case, it is true, they had tradition +to fall back on, for Aquæ Gratinæ was already a favorite watering-place +in the year 30 B.C., when Cæsar took the cure. + +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 _popinæ_ (which +are supposed to have corresponded to our modern boarding-house), wearing +waterproof togas and common-sense cothurni, with double cork soles. + +The wife of another Cæsar 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _à propos_. + +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. + +One is continually reminded of that inimitable chapter in Daudet’s +_Tartarin sur les Alpes_, 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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER 24—The Better Part + + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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 _blasée_ +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. + +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. + +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?” + +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. + +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. + +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 _en évidence_. 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. + +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. + +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 manœuvres, 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _blasée_ 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. + + + + +CHAPTER 25—La Comédie Française à Orange + + +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, _en route_ +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. + +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. + +At Lyons, the _cortège_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 +_cortège_ hastening towards the bridge as we shot away down stream. + +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. + +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 _cigales_. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The sun is setting as we toil, ticket in hand, up the Roman stairway to +the upper rows of seats; far below the local _gendarmerie_ 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. + +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. + +As day softened into twilight, and twilight deepened into a luminous +Southern night; the effect was incomparable. The belfries and roofs of +mediæval 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The real interest of the public is only aroused, however, when _The +Erynnies_ begins. This powerful adaptation from the tragedy of Æschylus +is _the chef d’œuvre_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 Æschylus +following the graceful fête of Apollo. + +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! + +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 _Antigone_, we came quietly away, +pondering over it all, and realizing once again that a thing of beauty is +a source of eternal delight. + + + + +CHAPTER 26—Pre-palatial Newport + + +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. + +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!” + +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 _feu +d’artifice_. 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!” + +Daudet, in his _L’Immortel_, 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. + +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. + +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. + +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 +_matinée dansante_ time. {1} 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. + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _savoir +faire_ of one man that Newporters and New York first saw at home what +they had admired abroad,—liveried servants in sufficient numbers, dinners +served _à la Russe_, 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.” + +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. + +One remembers with a shudder the military manœuvres 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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: + +“Say, Tom, did ye know there was the biggest room in the world in that +hotel?” + +“No; what room?” + +“Room for improvement, ya!” + + + + +CHAPTER 27—_Sardou_ at Marly-le-Roy + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +There seems a certain poetical justice in the fact that Alexandre Dumas +_fils_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _un Sardou_. + +The sun is off the front of the house by this time, so we migrate to a +shady corner of the lawn for our _apéritif_, 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! + +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. + +The little château itself, built during the reign of Louis XIV. for the +_grand-veneur_ 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 _en suite_, 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 _les communs_, 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +One shed shelters an entire semicircle of _treillage_, 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. + +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. + +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. + +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 mediæval 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. + +Our conversation, as was fated, soon turned to the enormous success of +_Robespierre_ in London—a triumph that even Sardou’s many brilliant +victories had not yet equalled. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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! + +“What a teacher you would make!” instinctively rose to my lips as he +ended. + +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!” + +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. + +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. + +“Another acquisition?” I asked. “What epoch has tempted you this time?” + +“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!” + + + + +CHAPTER 28—Inconsistencies + + +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. + +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. + +“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?” + +“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.” + +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. + +“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.” + +I hastened to reassure him and explain that he was in an exclusive and +reserved society. + +“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. + +“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?” + +“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.” + +“They have doubtless done some noble action, or the reports about the +husband have been proved false?” + +“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.” + +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. + +The sleepy Oriental eyes of my new acquaintance opened wide with +astonishment. + +“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.” + +“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?” + +“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.” + +“What is that?” he asked. “Flirtation?” + +“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!” + +“Women flirt with friends or acquaintances, never with members of their +family?” + +“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.” + +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?” + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +“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?” + +“Ah!” I answered, laughing, “the tendency of civilization is to simplify; +many things may yet disappear.” + +“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?” + +“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.” + +“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 +_moucharabies_ 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.” + +“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. + +“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.” + +“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?” + +“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.” + +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: + +“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.” + +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? + + + + +CHAPTER 29—Modern “Cadets de Gascogne” + + +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. + +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 +_Déjanire_, Louis Gallet’s and Saint-Saëns’s latest work, under the +personal supervision of those two masters. + +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. + +Rostand, in _Cyrano de Bergerac_, 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. + +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. + +It is the pleasant custom of this coterie to meet on winter evenings in +unfrequented _cafés_, 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. + +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. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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 mediæval 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:— + + _Le soir tombe_. . . . _L’heure douce_ + _Qui s’èloigne sans secousse_, + _Pose à peine sur la mousse_ + _Ses pieds_. + _Un jour indècis persiste_, + _Et le crèpuscule triste_ + _Ouvre ses yeux d’améthyste_ + _Mouillès_. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +One asks one’s self in wonder why these enchanting regions are so +unknown. _En route_ 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. + +“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 _Œdipus the King_ descriptive if +that classic scene. + +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. + +In the market-place, one of our number, inspired by the antique solemnity +of the surroundings, burst into the noble lines of Hugo’s _Devant Dieu_, +before which the awestruck population uncovered and crossed themselves, +imagining, doubtless, that it was a religious ceremony. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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! + +“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 ‘_Par la langua et par +l’èpée_’ upon our banner, that these purposes may be read by the world as +it runs.” + + + + +CHAPTER 30—The Dinner and the Drama + + +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 “_Ceci tuera cela_.” 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 +_énervée_ 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. + +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 _The Swell Miss Fitzwell_ 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. + +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?” + +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. + +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! + +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.” + +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 _Hamlet_ one +hundred consecutive evenings, and Fechter was induced to linger here and +build a theatre. + +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. + +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. + +A young actress in a company that played an American translation of _Mme. +Sans Gêne_ 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.” + +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 _en vogue_, “I have not seen it. In fact I +rarely go to a theatre unless I am in London or on the Continent!” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +When, finally, one of our poets gives us a lyric drama like _Cyrano de +Bergerac_, 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. + +_Banker_ (to Crushed Tragedian).—No, I haven’t seen you act. I have not +been inside a theatre for two years! + +_C.T._—It’s five years since I’ve been inside a bank! + + + + +CHAPTER 31—The Modern _Aspasia_ + + +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 _bien être_, 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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, “_aime à briser ses idoles_!” +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. + +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. + +The stand taken by _la villa lumière_ 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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER 32—A Nation in a Hurry + + +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. + +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. + +Zola tells us in _Nouvelle Campagne_ 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. + +This fleeting receptiveness makes returning Americans painfully conscious +of nerves in the home atmosphere, and the headlong pace at which our +compatriots are living. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The transit from dock to hotel was like a visit to a new circle in the +_Inferno_, 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. + +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. + +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 + +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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +To any one fresh from the Continent, where the entire machinery of trade +comes to a standstill from eleven to one o’clock, that _déjeuner_ 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!” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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. + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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, _coûte que coûte_, we continue to dine out? + +It is within the bounds of possibility that people may have reasons for +hurrying through their days, and that dining out _à la longue_ becomes a +weariness. + +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. + +Past, indeed, are the unruffled days when a heroine was expected (after +the action of a play had ended) to deliver the closing _envoi_ dear to +the writers of Queen Anne’s day. Thackeray writes:— + + _The play is done_! _The curtain drops_, + _Slow falling to the prompter’s bell_! + _A moment yet the actor stops_, + _And looks around_, _to say farewell_! + +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. + +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. + +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. + +During the last act of an opera like _Tann-häuser_ or _Faust_, 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 _Anges purs_, _anges +radieux_, yet manages to get down the stairs and into her carriage before +the curtain has fallen. + +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. + +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. + +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! + + + + +CHAPTER 33—The Spirit of History + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _Georgics_ +or _The Bird_ 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.” + +The author of _La Bible de l’Humanité_ 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 +mediæval 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. + +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. + +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. + +The veritable hero of his splendid Iliad is at first ignorant and +obscure, seeking passionately like Œdipus 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. + +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. + +Seeking in the remote past for the origin of his hero, Michelet pauses +first before _the Cathedral_. The poem begins like some mediæval 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. + +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. + +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 _Fête de la Fédération_ the radiant face +of his vision, the true face of France, _La Dulce_. + +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 Cannæ, saying, “I could not survive the recital.” + +“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?” + +“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!’” + +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. +“_Finis Galliæ_,” murmured the historian, who to the end lived and died +with his native land. + +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 _France la Dulce_. + + + + +Footnotes: + + +{1} “Newport of the Past,” _Worldly Ways and By-ways_. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WAYS OF MEN*** + + +******* This file should be named 319-0.txt or 319-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/1/319 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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