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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: 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*** +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 1900 Charles Scribner’s sons +edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<h1>THE WAYS OF MEN</h1> +<p style="text-align: center">by<br /> +Eliot Gregory<br /> +(“<i>An Idler</i>”)<br /> +<i>Author of</i> “<i>Worldly Ways and +Byways</i>.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">new +york</span><br /> +Charles Scribner’s Sons<br /> +MCM</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Copyright</i>, 1900, <i>by +Charles Scribner’s Sons</i></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>D. B. Updike</i>, <i>The +Merrymount Press</i>, <i>Boston</i></p> +<h2><span class="smcap">to</span><br /> +Edith Wharton</h2> +<blockquote><p>“I have not lacked thy mild reproof,<br /> +Nor golden largess of thy praise.”</p> +</blockquote> +<h2>CHAPTER 1—“<i>Uncle Sam</i>”</h2> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER 2—Domestic Despots</h2> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Those two tales give me the keenest pleasure. When I am +received on entering a friend’s room with a chorus of yelps +and attacked in dark corners by snarling little hypocrites who +fawn on me in their master’s presence, I humbly pray that +some such Nemesis may be in store for these <i>faux bonhommes</i> +before they leave this world, as apparently no provision has been +made for their punishment in the next.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER 3—Cyrano, Rostand, Coquelin</h2> +<p>Among the proverbs of Spanish folk-lore there is a saying that +good wine retains its flavor in spite of rude bottles and cracked +cups. The success of M. Rostand’s brilliant drama, +<i>Cyrano de Bergerac</i>, in its English dress proves once more +the truth of this adage. The fun and pathos, the wit and +satire, of the original pierce through the halting, feeble +translation like light through a ragged curtain, dazzling the +spectators and setting their enthusiasm ablaze.</p> +<p>Those who love the theatre at its best, when it appeals to our +finer instincts and moves us to healthy laughter and tears, owe a +debt of gratitude to Richard Mansfield for his courage in giving +us, as far as the difference of language and rhythm would allow, +this <i>chef d’œuvre</i> unchanged, free from the +mutilations of the adapter, with the author’s wishes and +the stage decorations followed into the smallest detail. In +this way we profit by the vast labor and study which Rostand and +Coquelin gave to the original production.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“I had, like most Parisians, known Rostand for some time +as the author of a few graceful verses and a play (<i>Les +Romanesques</i>) which passed almost unnoticed at the +Français.</p> +<p>“About four years ago Sarah Bernhardt asked me to her +‘hôtel’ to hear M. Rostand read a play he had +just completed for her. I accepted reluctantly, as at that +moment we were busy at the theatre. I also doubted if there +could be much in the new play to interest me. It was <i>La +Princesse Lointaine</i>. I shall remember that afternoon as +long as I live! From the first line my attention was +riveted and my senses were charmed. What struck me as even +more remarkable than the piece was the masterly power and finish +with which the boyish author delivered his lines. Where, I +asked myself, had he learned that difficult art? The great +actress, always quick to respond to the voice of art, accepted +the play then and there.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“About six weeks later my new acquaintance dropped in +one morning to read me the sketch he had worked out for a drama, +the title rôle of which he thought would please me. I +was delighted with the idea, and told him to go ahead. A +month later we met in the street. On asking him how the +play was progressing, to my astonishment he answered that he had +abandoned that idea and hit upon something entirely +different. Chance had thrown in his way an old volume of +Cyrano de Bergerac’s poems, which so delighted him that he +had been reading up the life and death of that unfortunate +poet. From this reading had sprung the idea of making +Cyrano the central figure of a drama laid in the city of +Richelieu, d’Artagnan, and the <i>Précieuses +Ridicules</i>, a seventeenth-century Paris of love and +duelling.</p> +<p>“At first this idea struck me as unfortunate. The +elder Dumas had worked that vein so well and so completely, I +doubted if any literary gold remained for another author. +It seemed foolhardy to resuscitate the <i>Three Guardsmen</i> +epoch—and I doubted if it were possible to carry out his +idea and play an intense and pathetic rôle disguised with a +burlesque nose.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“<i>La Princesse Lointaine</i> was, in the meantime, +produced by Sarah, first in London and then in Paris. In +the English capital it was a failure; with us it gained a +<i>succès d’estime</i>, the fantastic grace and +lightness of the piece saving it from absolute shipwreck in the +eyes of the literary public.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“The failure of his play produced the most disastrous +effect on Rostand, who had given up a year of his life to its +composition and was profoundly chagrined by its fall. He +sank into a mild melancholy, refusing for more than eighteen +months to put pen to paper. On the rare occasions when we +met I urged him to pull himself together and rise above +disappointment. Little by little, his friends were able to +awaken his dormant interest and get him to work again on +<i>Cyrano</i>. As he slowly regained confidence and began +taking pleasure once more in his work, the boyish author took to +dropping in on me at impossible morning hours to read some scene +hot from his ardent brain. When seated by my bedside, he +declaimed his lines until, lit at his flame, I would jump out of +bed, and wrapping my dressing-gown hastily around me, seize the +manuscript out of his hands, and, before I knew it, find my self +addressing imaginary audiences, poker in hand, in lieu of a +sword, with any hat that came to hand doing duty for the plumed +headgear of our hero. Little by little, line upon line, the +masterpiece grew under his hands. My career as an actor has +thrown me in with many forms of literary industry and dogged +application, but the power of sustained effort and untiring, +unflagging zeal possessed by that fragile youth surpassed +anything I had seen.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“That no success is cheaply bought I have long known; my +profession above all others is calculated to teach one that +truth.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“As our rehearsals proceeded I saw another side of +Rostand’s character; the energy and endurance hidden in his +almost effeminate frame astonished us all. He almost lived +at the theatre, drilling each actor, designing each costume, +ordering the setting of each scene. There was not a dress +that he did not copy from some old print, or a <i>passade</i> +that he did not indicate to the humblest member of the +troop. The marvellous diction that I had noticed during the +reading at Sarah’s served him now and gave the key to the +entire performance. I have never seen him peevish or +discouraged, but always courteous and cheerful through all those +weary weeks of repetition, when even the most enthusiastic feel +their courage oozing away under the awful grind of afternoon and +evening rehearsal, the latter beginning at midnight after the +regular performance was over.</p> +<p>“The news was somehow spread among the theatre-loving +public that something out if the ordinary was in +preparation. The papers took up the tale and repeated it +until the whole capital was keyed up to concert pitch. The +opening night was eagerly awaited by the critics, the literary +and the artistic worlds. When the curtain rose on the first +act there was the emotion of a great event floating in the +air.” Here Coquelin’s face assumed an intense +expression I had rarely seen there before. He was back on +the stage, living over again the glorious hours of that +night’s triumph. His breath was coming quick and his +eyes aglow with the memory of that evening. “Never, +never have I lived through such an evening. Victor +Hugo’s greatest triumph, the first night of <i>Hernani</i>, +was the only theatrical event that can compare to it. It, +however, was injured by the enmity of a clique who persistently +hissed the new play. There is but one phrase to express the +enthusiasm at our first performance—<i>une salle en +délire</i> gives some idea of what took place. As +the curtain fell on each succeeding act the entire audience would +rise to its feet, shouting and cheering for ten minutes at a +time. The coulisse and the dressing-rooms were packed by +the critics and the author’s friends, beside themselves +with delight. I was trembling so I could hardly get from +one costume into another, and had to refuse my door to every +one. Amid all this confusion Rostand alone remained cool +and seemed unconscious of his victory. He continued quietly +giving last recommendations to the figurants, overseeing the +setting of the scenes, and thanking the actors as they came off +the stage, with the same self-possessed urbanity he had shown +during the rehearsals. Finally, when the play was over, and +we had time to turn and look for him, our author had disappeared, +having quietly driven off with his wife to their house in the +country, from which he never moved for a week.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER 4—Machine-made Men</h2> +<p>Among the commonplace white and yellow envelopes that compose +the bulk of one’s correspondence, appear from time to time +dainty epistles on tinted paper, adorned with crests or +monograms. “Ha! ha!” I think when one of these +appears, “here is something worth opening!” For +between ourselves, reader mine, old bachelors love to receive +notes from women. It’s so flattering to be remembered +by the dear creatures, and recalls the time when life was +beginning, and <i>poulets</i> in feminine writing suggested such +delightful possibilities.</p> +<p>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!”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>So complex has life become in these later days that the very +beds we lie on and the meals we eat are controlled by +patents. Every garment and piece of furniture now pays a +“royalty” to some inventor, from the hats on our +heads to the carpets under foot, which latter are not only +manufactured, but cleaned and shaken by machinery, and (be it +remarked <i>en passant</i>) lose their nap prematurely in the +process. To satisfy our national love of the new, an +endless and nameless variety of trifles appears each season, +so-called labor and time-saving combinations, that enjoy a brief +hour of vogue, only to make way for a newer series of +inventions.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER 5—Parnassus</h2> +<p>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! “</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>There is, perhaps, in all Paris no more exquisite corner than +the Garden of the Luxembourg. At every season it is +beautiful. The winter sunlight seems to linger on its +stately Italian terraces after it has ceased to shine +elsewhere. The first lilacs bloom here in the spring, and +when midsummer has turned all the rest of Paris into a blazing, +white wilderness, these gardens remain cool and tranquil in the +heart of turbulent “Bohemia,” a bit of fragrant +nature filled with the song of birds and the voices of +children. Surely it was a gracious inspiration that +selected this shady park as the “Poets’ Corner” +of great, new Paris. Henri Murger, Leconte de Lisle, +Théodore de Banville, Paul Verlaine, are here, and now +Sainte-Beuve has come back to his favorite haunt. Like +François Coppée and Victor Hugo, he loved these +historic <i>allées</i>, and knew the stone in them as he +knew the “Latin Quater,” for his life was passed +between the bookstalls of the quays and the outlying street where +he lived.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.’ ”</p> +<p>“At the entrance of the quaint Passage du Commerce, +under the arch that leads into the rue +Saint-André-des-Arts, stands a hotel, where for years +Sainte-Beuve came daily to work (away from the importunate who +besieged his dwelling) in a room hired under the assumed name of +Delorme. It was there that we sent him a basket of fruit +one morning addressed to Mr. Delorme, <i>né</i> +Sainte-Beuve. It was there that most of his enormous labor +was accomplished.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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.’</p> +<p>“His enemies pretended that you had but to mention +Michelet, Balzac, and Victor Hugo to see Sainte-Beuve in three +degrees of rage. He had, it is true, distinct expressions +on hearing those authors discussed. The phrase then much +used in speaking of an original personality, ‘He is like a +character out of Balzac,’ always threw my master into a +temper. I cannot remember, however, having seen him in one +of those famous rages which made Barbey d’Aurévilly +say that ‘Sainte-Beuve was a clever man with the temper of +a turkey!’ The former was much nearer the truth when +he called the author of <i>Les Lundis</i> a French Wordsworth, or +compared him to a lay <i>bénédictin</i>. He +had a way of reading a newly acquired volume as he walked through +the streets that was typical of his life. My master was +always studying and always advancing.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“The Empire which made him Senator gained, however, but +an indocile recruit. On his one visit to Compiègne +in 1863, the Emperor, wishing to be particularly gracious, said +to him, ‘I always read the <i>Moniteur</i> on Monday, when +your article appears.’ Unfortunately for this +compliment, it was the <i>Constitutionnel</i> that had been +publishing the <i>Nouveaux Lundis</i> for more than four +years. In spite of the united efforts of his friends, +Sainte-Beuve could not be brought to the point of complimenting +Napoleon III. on his <i>Life of Cæsar</i>.</p> +<p>The author of <i>Les Consolations</i> remained through life +the proudest and most independent of men, a bourgeois, enemy of +all tyranny, asking protection of no one. And what a +worker! Reading, sifting, studying, analyzing his subject +before composing one of his famous <i>Lundis</i>, a literary +portrait which he aimed at making complete and final. One +of these articles cost him as much labor as other authors give to +the composition of a volume.</p> +<p>“By way of amusement on Sunday evenings, when work was +temporarily laid aside, he loved the theatre, delighting in every +kind of play, from the broad farces of the Palais Royal to the +tragedies of Racine, and entertaining comedians in order, as he +said, ‘to keep young’! One evening +Théophile Gautier brought a pretty actress to +dinner. Sainte-Beuve, who was past-master in the difficult +art of conversation, and on whom a fair woman acted as an +inspiration, surpassed himself on this occasion, surprising even +the Goncourts with his knowledge of the Eighteenth century and +the women of that time, Mme. de Boufflers, Mlle. de Lespinasse, +la Maréchale de Luxembourg. The hours flew by +unheeded by all of his guests but one. The +<i>débutante</i> was overheard confiding, later in the +evening, to a friend at the Gymnase, where she performed in the +last act, ‘Ouf! I’m glad to get here. +I‘ve been dining with a stupid old Senator. They told +me he would be amusing, but I’ve been bored to +death.’ Which reminded me of my one visit to England, +when I heard a young nobleman declare that he had been to +‘such a dull dinner to meet a duffer called +“Renan!” ’</p> +<p>“Sainte-Beuve’s <i>Larmes de Racine</i> was given +at the Théâtre Français during its +author’s last illness. His disappointment at not +seeing the performance was so keen that M. Thierry, then +<i>administrateur</i> of La Comédie, took Mlle. Favart to +the rue Montparnasse, that she might recite his verses to the +dying writer. When the actress, then in the zenith of her +fame and beauty, came to the lines—</p> +<blockquote><p>Jean Racine, le grand poête,<br /> +Le poête aimant et pieux,<br /> +Après que sa lyre muette<br /> +Se fut voilèe à tous les yeux,<br /> +Renonçant à la gloire humaine,<br /> +S’il sentait en son âme pleine<br /> +Le flot contenu murmurer,<br /> +Ne savait que fondre en prière,<br /> +Pencher l’urne dans la poussière<br /> +Aux pieds du Seigneur, et pleurer!</p> +</blockquote> +<p>the tears of Sainte-Beuve accompanied those of +Racine!”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER 6—Modern Architecture</h2> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“But,” as John Drew used to say in <i>The Masked +Ball</i>, “what a difference in the morning!” when a +visit to his banker takes the new arrival down to Wall Street, +and our uncompromising American daylight dispels his +illusions.</p> +<p>Years ago <i>spiritual</i> Arthur Gilman mourned over the +decay of architecture in New York and pointed out that +Stewart’s shop, at Tenth Street, bore about the same +relation to Ictinus’ noble art as an iron cooking +stove! It is well death removed the Boston critic before +our city entered into its present Brobdingnagian phase. If +he considered that Stewart’s and the Fifth Avenue Hotel +failed in artistic beauty, what would have been his opinion of +the graceless piles that crowd our island to-day, beside which +those older buildings seem almost classical in their +simplicity?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>When a tall, thin building happens to stand on a corner, the +likeness to an atlas is replaced by a grotesque resemblance to a +waffle iron, of which one structure just finished on Rector +Street skilfully reproduces’ the lines. The rows of +little windows were evidently arranged to imitate the +indentations on that humble utensil, and the elevated road at the +back seems in this case to do duty as the handle. Mrs. Van +Rensselaer tells us in her delightful <i>Goede Vrouw of +Mana-ha-ta</i> that waffle irons used to be a favorite wedding +present among the Dutch settlers of this island, and were adorned +with monograms and other devices, so perhaps it is atavism that +makes us so fond of this form in building! As, however, no +careful <i>Hausfrau</i> would have stood her iron on its edge, +architects should hesitate before placing their buildings in that +position, as the impression of instability is the same in each +case.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>Union Square possesses blocks out of which the Jackson and +Decker buildings spring with a noble disregard of all rules and a +delicious incongruity that reminds one of Falstaff’s corps +of ill-drilled soldiers. Madison Square, however, is +<i>facile princeps</i>, with its annex to the Hoffman House, a +building which would make the fortune of any dime museum that +could fence it in and show it for a fee! Long contemplation +of this structure from my study window has printed every comic +detail on my brain. It starts off at the ground level to be +an imitation of the Doge’s Palace (a neat and appropriate +idea in itself for a Broadway shop). At the second story, +following the usual New York method, it reverts to a design +suggestive of a county jail (the Palace and the Prison), with +here and there a balcony hung out, emblematical, doubtless, of +the inmates’ wash and bedding. At the ninth floor the +repentant architect adds two more stories in memory of the +Doge’s residence. Have you ever seen an accordion +(concertina, I believe, is the correct name) hanging in a shop +window? The Twenty-fifth Street Doge’s Palace reminds +me of that humble instrument. The wooden part, where the +keys and round holes are, stands on the sidewalk. Then come +an indefinite number of pleats, and finally the other wooden end +well up among the clouds. So striking is this resemblance +that at times one expects to hear the long-drawn moans peculiar +to the concertina issuing from those portals. Alas! even +the most original designs have their drawbacks! After the +proprietor of the Venetian accordion had got his instrument well +drawn out and balanced on its end, he perceived that it dwarfed +the adjacent buildings, so cast about in his mind for a scheme to +add height and dignity to the rest of the block. One day +the astonished neighborhood saw what appeared to be a +“roomy suburban villa” of iron rising on the roof of +the old Hoffman House. The results suggests a small man +who, being obliged to walk with a giant, had put on a hat several +times too large in order to equalize their heights!</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>“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!”</p> +<p>If my readers will give themselves the trouble to glance at +several office buildings in the city, they will realize that the +problem is not without a solution. In almost every case +where the architect has refrained from useless decoration and +stuck to simple lines, the result, if not beautiful, has at least +been inoffensive. It is where inappropriate elaboration is +added that taste is offended. Such structures as the Singer +building, corner of Liberty Street and Broadway, and the home of +<i>Life</i>, in Thirty-first Street, prove that beauty and grace +of façade can be adapted to modern business wants.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER 7—Worldly Color-Blindness</h2> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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?”</p> +<p>Examinations now keep daltonic gentlemen out of locomotives, +and ladies who have lost their “keys” are apt to find +their friends’ pianos closed. What we cannot guard +against is a variety of the genus <i>homo</i> which suffers from +“social color-blindness.” These well-meaning +mortals form one of the hardest trials that society is heir to; +for the disease is incurable, and as it is almost impossible to +escape from them, they continue to spread dismay and confusion +along their path to the bitter end.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER 8—Idling in Mid-Ocean</h2> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Perhaps it is only the novelty of the surroundings; but as I +lie somnolent in my chair, tucked into a corner of the white +deck, watching the jade-colored water rush past below, and the +sea-gulls circle gayly overhead, the <i>summum bonum</i> of +earthly contentment seems attained. The book chosen with +care remains uncut; the sense of physical and mental rest is too +exquisite to be broken by any effort, even the reading of a +favorite author.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>The deck, however, is not deserted; two fashionable +dressmakers revel there. These sociable ladies asked the +<i>commissaire</i> at the start “to introduce all the young +unmarried men to them,” as they wanted to be jolly. +They have a numerous court around them, and champagne, like the +conversation, flows freely. These ladies have already +become expert at shuffleboard, but their “sea legs“ +are not so good as might be expected, and the dames require to be +caught and supported by their admirers at each moment to prevent +them from tripping—an immense joke, to judge by the peals +of laughter that follow.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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?”</p> +<p>“Yes,” answers Jones, “are you?”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER 9—“Climbers” in England</h2> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>Which reminds one of Thackeray relating how he had longed to +know what women talked about when they were alone after dinner, +imagining it to be on mysterious and thrilling subjects, until +one evening he overheard such a conversation and found it turned +entirely on children and ailments! As regards wit, the +English are like the Oriental potentate who at a ball in Europe +expressed his astonishment that the guests took the trouble to +dance and get themselves hot and dishevelled, explaining that in +the East he paid people to do that for him. In England +“amusers” are invited expressly to be funny; anything +uttered by one of these delightful individuals is sure to be +received with much laughter. It is so simple that +way! One is prepared and knows when to laugh. Whereas +amateur wit is confusing. When an American I knew, turning +over the books on a drawing-room table and finding Hare’s +<i>Walks in London</i>, in two volumes, said, “So you part +your hair in the middle over here,” the remark was received +in silence, and with looks of polite surprise.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!”</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>It is in Victoria’s realm that foemen worthy of their +steel await the conquerors. Home society was a too easy +prey, opening its doors and laying down its arms at the first +summons. In England the new-comers find that their little +game has been played before; and, well, what they imagined was a +discovery proves to be a long-studied science with +“<i>donnant</i>! <i>donnant</i>!” as its fundamental +law. Wily opponents with trump cards in their hands and a +profound knowledge of “Hoyle” smilingly offer them +seats. Having acquired in a home game a knowledge of +“bluff,” our friends plunge with delight into the +fray, only to find English society so formed that, climb they +never so wisely, the top can never be reached. Work as hard +as they may, succeed even beyond their fondest hopes, there will +always remain circles above, toward which to yearn—people +who will refuse to know them, houses they will never be invited +to enter. Think of the charm, the attraction such a +civilization must have for the real born climber, and you, my +reader, will understand why certain of our compatriots enjoy +living in England, and why when once the intoxicating draught +(supplied to the ambitious on the other side) has been tasted, +all home concoctions prove insipid.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER 10—<i>Calvé</i> at Cabrières</h2> +<p>While I was making a “cure” last year at Lamalou, +an obscure Spa in the Cevennes Mountains, Madame Calvé, to +whom I had expressed a desire to see her picturesque home, +telegraphed an invitation to pass the day with her, naming the +train she could meet, which would allow for the long drive to her +château before luncheon. It is needless to say the +invitation was accepted. As my train drew up at the little +station, Madame Calvé, in her trap, was the first person I +saw, and no time was lost in getting <i>en route</i>.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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!”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“When I came back here after my first season in St. +Petersburg and London the <i>curé</i> requested me to sing +at our local fête. I gladly consented, and, standing +by his side on the steps of the <i>Mairie</i>, gave the great +aria from the <i>Huguenots</i> in my best manner. To my +astonishment the performance was received in complete +silence. ‘Poor Calvé,’ I heard an old +friend of my mother’s murmur. ‘Her voice used +to be so nice, and now it’s all gone!’ Taking +in the situation at a glance, I threw my voice well up into my +nose and started off on a well-known provincial song, in the +shrill falsetto of our peasant women. The effect was +instantaneous! Long before the end the performance was +drowned in thunders of applause. Which proves that to be +popular a singer must adapt herself to her audience.”</p> +<p>Luncheon over, we repaired for cigarettes and coffee to an +upper room, where Calvé was giving Dagnan-Bouveret some +sittings for a portrait, and lingered there until four +o’clock, when our hostess left us for her siesta, and a +“break” took those who cared for the excursion across +the valley to inspect the ruins of a Roman bath. A late +dinner brought us together again in a small dining room, the +convalescents having eaten their simple meal and disappeared an +hour before. During this time, another transformation had +taken place in our mercurial hostess! It was the +Calvé of Paris, Calvé the witch, Calvé the +<i>capiteuse</i>, who presided at the dainty, flower-decked table +and led the laughing conversation.</p> +<p>A few notes struck on a guitar by one of the party, as we sat +an hour later on the moonlit terrace, were enough to start off +the versatile artist, who was in her gayest humor. She sang +us stray bits of opera, alternating her music with scenes +burlesqued from recent plays. No one escaped her inimitable +mimicry, not even the “divine Sarah,” Calvé +giving us an unpayable impersonation of the elderly +<i>tragédienne</i> as Lorenzaccio, the boy hero of Alfred +de Musset’s drama. Burlesquing led to her dancing +some Spanish steps with an abandon never attempted on the +stage! Which in turn gave place to an imitation of an +American whistling an air from <i>Carmen</i>, and some +“coon songs” she had picked up during her stay at New +York. They, again, were succeeded by a superb rendering of +the imprecation from Racine’s <i>Camille</i>, which made +her audience realize that in gaining a soprano the world has +lost, perhaps, its greatest <i>tragédienne</i>.</p> +<p>At eleven o’clock the clatter of hoofs in the court +warned us that the pleasant evening had come to an end. A +journalist <i>en route</i> for Paris was soon installed with me +in the little omnibus that was to take us to the station, +Calvé herself lighting our cigars and providing the wraps +that were to keep out the cool night air.</p> +<p>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?”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER 11—A Cry For Fresh Air</h2> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>What was to those noblemen an unheard-of luxury has become +within the last decade one of the primary necessities of our +life.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>The incubus of caloric that sits on our gasping country is +particularly painful at this season, when nature undertakes to do +her own heating.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>How much time must pass and how many victims be sacrificed +before we come to our senses on the great radiator question?</p> +<p>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!”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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?</p> +<h2>CHAPTER 12—The Paris of our Grandparents</h2> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>While looking over some books in the company of an old lady +who from time to time opens her store of treasures and recalls +her remote youth at my request, and whose <i>spirituel</i> and +graphic language gives to her souvenirs the air of being stray +chapters from some old-fashioned romance, I received a vivid +impression of how the French capital must have looked fifty years +ago.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“That’s the diligence just arrived from Calais; it +has been two days <i>en route</i>, the passengers sleeping as +best they could, side by side, and escaping from their +confinement only when horses were changed or while stopping for +meals. That high two-wheeled trap with the little +‘tiger’ standing up behind is a tilbury. We +used to see the Count d’Orsay driving one like that almost +every day. He wore butter-colored gloves, and the skirts of +his coat were pleated full all around, and stood out like a +ballet girl’s. It is a pity they have not included +Louis Philippe and his family jogging off to Neuilly in the court +‘carryall,’—the ‘Citizen King,’ +with his blue umbrella between his knees, trying to look like an +honest bourgeois, and failing even in that attempt to please the +Parisians.</p> +<p>“We were in Paris in ’48; from my window at +Meurice’s I saw poor old <i>Juste Milieu</i> read his +abdication from the historic middle balcony of the Tuileries, and +half an hour later we perceived the Duchesse +d’Orléans leave the Tuileries on foot, leading her +two sons by the hand, and walk through the gardens and across the +Place de la Concorde to the Corps Législatif, in a last +attempt to save the crown for her son. Futile effort! +That evening the ‘Citizen King’ was hurried through +those same gardens and into a passing cab, <i>en route</i> for a +life exile.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“I passed the greater part of forty-eight hours on our +balcony, watching the mob marching by, singing <i>La +Marseillaise</i>, and camping at night in the streets. It +was all I could do to tear myself away from the window long +enough to eat and write in my journal.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“No one thought of buying jewelry anywhere else. +It was from the windows of its shops that the fashions started on +their way around the world. When Victoria as a bride was +visiting Louis Philippe, she was so fascinated by the aspect of +the place that the gallant French king ordered a miniature copy +of the scene, made <i>in papier-mâché</i>, as a +present for his guest, a sort of gigantic dolls’ house in +which not only the palace and its long colonnades were +reproduced, but every tiny shop and the myriad articles for sale +were copied with Chinese fidelity. Unfortunately the +pear-headed old king became England’s uninvited guest +before this clumsy toy was finished, so it never crossed the +Channel, but can be seen to-day by any one curious enough to +examine it, in the Musée Carnavalet.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>Dumas says laughingly, in a letter to a friend: “I have +never ventured into the unexplored country beyond the Bastille, +but am convinced that it shelters wild animals and +savages.” The wit and brains of the period were +concentrated into a small space. Money-making had no more +part in the programme of a writer then than an introduction into +“society.” Catering to a foreign market and +snobbishness were undreamed-of degradations. Paris had not +yet been turned into the <i>Foire du Monde</i> that she has since +become, with whole quarters given over to the use of +foreigners,—theatres, restaurants, and hotels created only +for the use of a polyglot population that could give lessons to +the people around Babel’s famous “tower.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER 13—Some American Husbands</h2> +<p>Until the beginning of this century men played the <i>beau +rôle</i> in life’s comedy. As in the rest of +the animal world, our males were the brilliant members of the +community, flaunting their gaudy plumage at home and abroad, +while the women-folk remained in seclusion, tending their +children, directing the servants, or ministering to their +lords’ comfort.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>During the last century, however, the “part” of +better half has become less and less attractive in America, one +prerogative after another having been whisked away by +enterprising wives. Modern Delilahs have yearly snipped off +more and more of Samson’s luxuriant curls, and added those +ornaments to their own <i>coiffures</i>, until in the majority of +families the husband finds himself reduced to a state of bondage +compared with which the biblical hero enjoyed a pampered +idleness. Times have indeed changed in America since the +native chief sat in dignified repose bedizened with all the +finery at hand, while the ladies of the family waited tremblingly +upon him. To-day it is the American husband who turns the +grindstone all the year round, and it is his pretty tyrant who +enjoys the elegant leisure that a century ago was considered a +masculine luxury.</p> +<p>To America must be given the credit of having produced the +model husband, a new species, as it were, of the <i>genus +homo</i>.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>I have had occasion more than once to bewail the shortcomings +of the American man, and so take pleasure in pointing out the +modesty and good temper with which he fills this role. He +is trained from the beginning to give all and expect nothing in +return, an American girl rarely bringing any <i>dot</i> to her +husband, no matter how wealthy her family may be. If, as +occasionally happens, an income is allowed a bride by her +parents, she expects to spend it on her toilets or +pleasures. This condition of the matrimonial market exists +in no other country; even in England, where <i>mariages de +convenance</i> are rare, “settlements” form an +inevitable prelude to conjugal bliss.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>In one family I know, paterfamilias goes by the name of the +“purse.” The more one sees of American +households the more appropriate that name appears. +Everything is expected of the husband, and he is accorded no +definite place in return. He leaves the house at +8.30. When he returns, at five, if his wife is entertaining +a man at tea, it would be considered the height of indelicacy for +him to intrude upon them, for his arrival would cast a chill on +the conversation. When a couple dine out, the husband is +always <i>la bête noire</i> of the hostess, no woman +wanting to sit next to a married man, if she can help it.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER 14—“<i>Carolus</i>”</h2> +<p>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.</p> +<p>The first modest workroom on the Boulevard Montparnasse was +soon too small to hold the pupils who crowded under this newly +raised banner, and a move was made to more commodious quarters +near the master’s private studio. Sargent, Dannat, +Harrison, Beckwith, Hinckley, and many others whom it is needless +to mention here, will—if these lines come under their +notice—doubtless recall with a thrill of pleasure the roomy +one-storied structure in the rue Notre-Dame des Champs where we +established our <i>atelier d’élèves</i>, a +self-supporting cooperative concern, each student contributing +ten francs a month toward rent, fire, and models, +“Carolus”—the name by which this master is +universally known abroad—not only refusing all +compensation, according to the immutable custom of French +painters of distinction, but, as we discovered later, +contributing too often from his own pocket to help out the +<i>massier</i> at the end of a difficult season, or smooth the +path of some improvident pupil.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>A portrait of Madame de Portalais, exhibited about this time, +drew all art-loving Paris around the new celebrity’s +canvas. Shortly after, the government purchased a painting +(of our master’s beautiful wife), now known as <i>La Femme +au Gant</i>, for the Luxembourg Gallery.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>When our sketches (the subject for which had been given out in +advance) were arranged, and we had seated ourselves in a big +half-circle on the floor, Carolus would install himself on a tall +stool, the one seat the studio boasted, and chat <i>à +propos</i> of the works before him on composition, on classic +art, on the theories of color and clair-obscur. Brilliant +talks, inlaid with much wit and incisive criticism, the memory of +which must linger in the minds of all who were fortunate enough +to hear them. Nor was it to the studio alone that our +master’s interest followed us. He would drop in at +the Louvre, when we were copying there, and after some pleasant +words of advice and encouragement, lead us off for a stroll +through the galleries, interrupted by stations before his +favorite masterpieces.</p> +<p>So important has he always considered a constant study of +Renaissance art that recently, when about to commence his +<i>Triumph of Bacchus</i>, Carolus copied one of Rubens’s +larger canvases with all the naïveté of a +beginner.</p> +<p>An occasion soon presented itself for us to learn another side +of our trade by working with our master on a ceiling ordered of +him by the state for the Palace of the Luxembourg. The vast +studios which the city of Paris provides on occasions of this +kind, with a liberality that should make our home corporations +reflect, are situated out beyond the Exhibition buildings, in a +curious, unfrequented quarter, ignored alike by Parisians and +tourists, where the city stores compromising statues and the +valuable débris of her many revolutions. There, +among throneless Napoleons and riderless bronze steeds, we toiled +for over six months side by side with our master, on gigantic +<i>Apotheosis of Marie de Médicis</i>, serving in turn as +painter and painted, and leaving the imprint of our hands and the +reflection of our faces scattered about the composition. +Day after day, when work was over, we would hoist the big canvas +by means of a system of ropes and pulleys, from a perpendicular +to the horizontal position it was to occupy permanently, and then +sit straining our necks and discussing the progress of the work +until the tardy spring twilight warned us to depart.</p> +<p>The year 1877 brought Carolus-Duran the <i>médaille +d’honneur</i>, a crowning recompense that set the atelier +mad with delight. We immediately organized a great (but +economical) banquet to commemorate the event, over which our +master presided, with much modesty, considering the amount of +incense we burned before him, and the speeches we made. One +of our number even burst into some very bad French verses, +asserting that the painters of the world in general fell back +before him—</p> +<blockquote><p>. . . <i>épouvantès</i>—<br /> +<i>Craignant ègalement sa brosse et son +èpèe</i>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>When the great schism occurred several years ago which rent +the art world of France, Carolus-Duran was elected vice-president +of the new school under Meissonier, to whose office he succeeded +on that master’s death; and now directs and presides over +the yearly exhibition known as the <i>Salon du Champ de +Mars</i>.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“<i>Tout ce qui n’est pas indispensable est +nuisible</i>,” a phrase which is often on +Carolus-Duran’s lips, may be taken as the keynote of his +work, where one finds a noble simplicity of line and color +scheme, an elimination of useless detail, a contempt for tricks +to enforce an effect, and above all a comprehension and mastery +of light, vitality, and texture—those three unities of the +painter’s art—that bring his canvases very near to +those of his self-imposed Spanish master.</p> +<p>Those who know the French painter’s more important works +and his many splendid studies from the nude, feel it a pity that +such masterpieces as the equestrian portrait of Mlle. Croisette, +of the Comédie Française, the <i>Réveil</i>, +the superb full length of Mme. Pelouse on the Terrace of +Chenonceau, and the head of Gounod in the Luxembourg, could not +be collected into one exhibition, that lovers of art here in +America might realize for themselves how this master’s +works are of the class that typify a school and an epoch, and +engrave their author’s name among those destined to become +household words in the mouths of future generations.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER 15—The Grand Opera Fad</h2> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>First—but before venturing further on dangerously thin +ice, it may be as well to suggest that this subject is not +treated in absolute seriousness, and that all assertions must not +be taken <i>au pied de la lettre</i>. First, then, and most +important, come the stockholders, for without them the +Metropolitan would close. The majority of these fortunate +people and their guests look upon the opera as a social function, +where one can meet one’s friends and be seen, an +entertaining antechamber in which to linger until it’s time +to “go on,” her Box being to-day as necessary a part +of a great lady’s outfit as a country house or a +ball-room.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Third, and last, come the lovers of music, who mostly inhabit +greater altitudes.</p> +<p>The motive of the typical box-owner is simple. Her night +at the opera is the excuse for a cosy little dinner, one woman +friend (two would spoil the effect of the box) and four men, +without counting the husband, who appears at dinner, but rarely +goes further. The pleasant meal and the subsequent smoke +are prolonged until 9 or 9.30, when the men are finally dragged +murmuring from their cigars. If she has been fortunate and +timed her arrival to correspond with an <i>entr’acte</i>, +my lady is radiant. The lights are up, she can see who are +present, and the public can inspect her toilet and jewels as she +settles herself under the combined gaze of the house, and +proceeds to hold an informal reception for the rest of the +evening. The men she has brought with her quickly cede +their places to callers, and wander yawning in the lobby or +invade the neighboring boxes and add their voices to the general +murmur.</p> +<p>Although there is much less talking than formerly, it is the +toleration of this custom at all by the public that indicates +(along with many other straws) that we are not a music-loving +people. Audible conversation during a performance would not +be allowed for a moment by a Continental audience. The +little visiting that takes place in boxes abroad is done during +the <i>entr’actes</i>, when people retire to the salons +back of their <i>loges</i> to eat ices and chat. Here those +little parlors are turned into cloak-rooms, and small talk goes +on in many boxes during the entire performance. The joke or +scandal of the day is discussed; strangers in town, or literary +and artistic lights—“freaks,” they are +discriminatingly called—are pointed out, toilets passed in +review, and those dreadful two hours passed which, for some +undiscovered reason, must elapse between a dinner and a +dance. If a favorite tenor is singing, and no one happens +to be whispering nonsense over her shoulder, my lady may listen +in a distrait way. It is not safe, however, to count on +prolonged attention or ask her questions about the +performance. She is apt to be a bit hazy as to who is +singing, and with the exception of <i>Faust</i> and +<i>Carmen</i>, has rudimentary ideas about plots. Singers +come and go, weep, swoon, or are killed, without interfering with +her equanimity. She has, for instance, seen the +<i>Huguenots</i> and the <i>Rheingold</i> dozens of times, but +knows no more why Raoul is brought blindfolded to Chenonceaux, or +what Wotan and Erda say to each other in their interminable +scenes, than she does of the contents of the Vedas. For the +matter of that, if three or four principal airs were suppressed +from an opera and the scenery and costumes changed, many in that +chattering circle would, I fear, not know what they were +listening to.</p> +<p>Last winter, when Melba sang in <i>Aida</i>, disguised by dark +hair and a brown skin, a lady near me vouchsafed the opinion that +the “little black woman hadn’t a bad voice;” a +gentleman (to whom I remarked last week “that as Sembrich +had sung Rosina in the <i>Barber</i>, it was rather a shock to +see her appear as that lady’s servant in the <i>Mariage de +Figaro</i>”) looked his blank amazement until it was +explained to him that one of those operas was a continuation of +the other. After a pause he remarked, “They are not +by the same composer, anyway! Because the first’s by +Rossini, and the <i>Mariage</i> is by Bon Marché. +I’ve been at his shop in Paris.”</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>The unfortunate part of it is that this weakness of ours has +become known. The singers feel they can give an American +audience any slipshod performance. I have seen a favorite +soprano shrug her shoulders as she entered her dressing-room and +exclaim: “<i>Mon Dieu</i>! How I shuffled through +that act! They’d have hooted me off the stage in +Berlin, but here no one seems to care. Did you notice the +baritone to-night? He wasn’t on the key once during +our duo. I cannot sing my best, try as I will, when I hear +the public applauding good and bad alike!”</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>Is it so very amusing to watch two middle-aged ladies nagging +each other, at two o’clock in the morning, on a public +square, as they do in <i>Lohengrin</i>? Do people find the +lecture that Isolde’s husband delivers to the guilty lovers +entertaining? Does an opera produce any illusion on my +neighbors? I wish it did on me! I see too plainly the +paint on the singers’ hot faces and the cords straining in +their tired throats! I sit on certain nights in agony, +fearing to see stout Romeo roll on the stage in apoplexy! +The sopranos, too, have a way, when about to emit a roulade, that +is more suggestive of a dentist’s chair, and the attendant +gargle, than of a love phrase.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>Being a tailless old fox, I look with ever-increasing +suspicion on the too-luxuriant caudal appendages of my neighbors, +and think with amusement of the multitudes who during the last +ten years have sacrificed themselves upon the altar of grand +opera—simple, kindly souls, with little or no taste for +classical music, who have sat in the dark (mentally and +physically), applauding what they didn’t understand, and +listening to vague German mythology set to sounds that appear to +us outsiders like music sunk into a verbose dotage. I am +convinced the greater number would have preferred a jolly +performance of <i>Mme. Angot</i> or the <i>Cloches de +Corneville</i>, cut in two by a good ballet.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER 16—The Poetic <i>Cabarets</i> of Paris</h2> +<p>Those who have not lived in France can form little idea of the +important place the <i>café</i> occupies in the life of an +average Frenchman, clubs as we know them or as they exist in +England being rare, and when found being, with few exceptions, +but gambling-houses in disguise. As a Frenchman rarely asks +an acquaintance, or even a friend, to his apartment, the +<i>café</i> has become the common ground where all meet, +for business or pleasure. Not in Paris only, but all over +France, in every garrison town, provincial city, or tiny village, +the <i>café</i> is the chief attraction, the centre of +thought, the focus toward which all the rays of masculine +existence converge.</p> +<p>For the student, newly arrived from the provinces, to whose +modest purse the theatres and other places of amusement are +practically closed, the <i>café</i> is a supreme +resource. His mind is moulded, his ideas and opinions +formed, more by what he hears and sees there than by any other +influence. A restaurant is of little importance. One +may eat anywhere. But the choice of his <i>café</i> +will often give the bent to a young man’s career, and +indicate his exact shade of politics and his opinions on +literature, music, or art. In Paris, to know a man at all +is to know where you can find him at the hour of the +<i>apéritif</i>—what Baudelaire called</p> +<blockquote><p><i>L’heure sainte</i><br /> +<i>De l’absinthe</i>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>When young men form a society among themselves, a +<i>café</i> is chosen as their meeting-place. +Thousands of establishments exist only by such patronage, as, for +example, the Café de la Régence, Place du +Théâtre Français, which is frequented +entirely by men who play chess.</p> +<p>Business men transact their affairs as much over their coffee +as in their offices. The reading man finds at his +<i>café</i> the daily and weekly papers; a writer is sure +of the undisturbed possession of pen, ink, and paper. Henri +Murger, the author, when asked once why he continued to patronize +a certain establishment notorious for the inferior quality of its +beer, answered, “Yes, the beer is poor, but they keep such +good <i>ink</i>!”</p> +<p>The use of a <i>café</i> does not imply any great +expenditure, a <i>consummation</i> costing but little. With +it is acquired the right to use the establishment for an +indefinite number of hours, the client being warmed, lighted, and +served. From five to seven, and again after dinner, the +<i>habitués</i> stroll in, grouping themselves about the +small tables, each new-comer joining a congenial circle, ordering +his drink, and settling himself for a long sitting. The +last editorial, the newest picture, or the fall of a ministry is +discussed with a vehemence and an interest unknown to Anglo-Saxon +natures. Suddenly, in the excitement of the discussion, +some one will rise in his place and begin speaking. If you +happen to drop in at that moment, the lady at the desk will +welcome you with, “You are just in time! Monsieur +So-and-So is speaking; the evening promises to be +interesting.” She is charmed; her establishment will +shine with a reflected light, and new patrons be drawn there, if +the debates are brilliant. So universal is this custom that +there is hardly an orator to-day at the French bar or in the +Senate, who has not broken his first lance in some such obscure +tournament, under the smiling glances of the <i>dame du +comptoir</i>.</p> +<p>Opposite the Palace of the Luxembourg, in the heart of the old +Latin Quarter, stands a quaint building, half hotel, half +<i>café</i>, where many years ago Joseph II. resided while +visiting his sister, Marie Antoinette. It is known now as +Foyot’s; this name must awaken many happy memories in the +hearts of American students, for it was long their favorite +meeting-place. In the early seventies a club, formed among +the literary and poetic youth of Paris, selected Foyot’s as +their “home” during the winter months. Their +summer vacations were spent in visiting the university towns of +France, reciting verses, or acting in original plays at Nancy, +Bordeaux, Lyons, or Caen. The enthusiasm these youthful +performances created inspired one of their number with the idea +of creating in Paris, on a permanent footing, a centre where a +limited public could meet the young poets of the day and hear +them recite their verses and monologues in an informal way.</p> +<p>The success of the original “Chat Noir,” the first +<i>cabaret</i> of this kind, was largely owing to the sympathetic +and attractive nature of its founder, young Salis, who drew +around him, by his sunny disposition, shy personalities who, but +for him, would still be “mute, inglorious +Miltons.” Under his kindly and discriminating rule +many a successful literary career has started. +Salis’s gifted nature combined a delicate taste and +critical acumen with a rare business ability. His first +venture, an obscure little <i>café</i> on the Boulevard +Rochechouart, in the outlying quarter beyond the Place Pigalle, +quickly became famous, its ever-increasing vogue forcing its +happy proprietor to seek more commodious quarters in the rue +Victor Massé, where the world-famous “Chat +Noir” was installed with much pomp and many joyous +ceremonies.</p> +<p>The old word <i>cabaret</i>, corresponding closely to our +English “inn,” was chosen, and the establishment +decorated in imitation of a Louis XIII. +<i>hôtellerie</i>. Oaken beams supported the +low-studded ceilings: The plaster walls disappeared behind +tapestries, armor, old <i>faïence</i>. Beer and other +liquids were served in quaint porcelain or pewter mugs, and the +waiters were dressed (merry anachronism) in the costume of +members of the Institute (the Immortal Forty), who had so long +led poetry in chains. The success of the “Black +Cat” in her new quarters was immense, all Paris crowding +through her modest doors. Salis had founded +Montmartre!—the rugged old hill giving birth to a +generation of writers and poets, and nourishing this new school +at her granite breasts.</p> +<p>It would be difficult to imagine a form of entertainment more +tempting than was offered in this picturesque inn. In +addition to the first, the entire second floor of the building +had been thrown into one large room, the walls covered with a +thousand sketches, caricatures, and crayon drawings by hands +since celebrated the world over. A piano, with many chairs +and tables, completed the unpretending installation. Here, +during a couple of hours each evening, either by the piano or +simply standing in their places, the young poets gave utterance +to the creations of their imagination, the musicians played their +latest inspirations, the <i>raconteur</i> told his newest +story. They called each other and the better known among +the guests by their names, and joked mutual weaknesses, +eliminating from these gatherings every shade of a perfunctory +performance.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Trombert, who, together with Fragerolle, Goudezki, and Marcel +Lefèvre, had just ended an artistic voyage in the south of +France, opened the “4 z’Arts,” to which the +novelty-loving public quickly found its way, crowding to applaud +Coquelin <i>cadet</i>, Fragson, and other budding +celebrities. It was here that the poets first had the idea +of producing a piece in which rival <i>cabarets</i> were reviewed +and laughingly criticised. The success was beyond all +precedent, in spite of the difficulty of giving a play without a +stage, without scenery or accessories of any kind, the interest +centring in the talent with which the lines were declaimed by +their authors, who next had the pleasant thought of passing in +review the different classes of popular songs, Clovis Hugues, at +the same time poet and statesman, discoursing on each subject, +and introducing the singer; Brittany local songs, +Provençal ballads, ant the half Spanish, half French +<i>chansons</i> of the Pyrenees were sung or recited by local +poets with the charm and abandon of their distinctive races.</p> +<p>The great critics did not disdain to attend these informal +gatherings, nor to write columns of serious criticism on the +subject in their papers.</p> +<p>At the hour when all Paris takes its <i>apéritif</i> +the “4 z’Arts” became the meeting-place of the +painters, poets, and writers of the day. Montmartre +gradually replaced the old Latin Quarter; it is there to-day that +one must seek for the gayety and humor, the pathos and the +makeshifts of Bohemia.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>One of Caran d’Ache’s greatest successes in this +line was an <i>Epopée de Napoléon</i>,—the +great Emperor appearing on foot and on horseback, the long lines +of his army passing before him in the foreground or small in the +distance. They stormed heights, cheered on by his presence, +or formed hollow squares to repulse the enemy. During their +evolutions, the clear voice of the poet rang out from the +darkness with thrilling effect.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>A <i>cabaret</i> of another kind which enjoyed much celebrity, +more on account of the personality of the poet who founded it +than from any originality or picturesqueness in its intallation, +was the “Mirliton,” opened by Aristide Bruant in the +little rooms that had sheltered the original “Chat +Noir.”</p> +<p>To give an account of the “Mirliton” is to tell +the story of Bruant, the most popular ballad-writer in France +to-day. This original and eccentric poet is as well-known +to a Parisian as the boulevards or the Arc de Triomphe. His +costume of shabby black velvet, Brittany waistcoat, red shirt, +top-boots, and enormous hat is a familiar feature in the +caricatures and prints of the day. His little +<i>cabaret</i> remains closed during the day, opening its doors +toward evening. The personality of the ballad-writer +pervades the atmosphere. He walks about the tiny place +hailing his acquaintances with some gay epigram, receiving +strangers with easy familiarity or chilling disdain, as the humor +takes him; then in a moment, with a rapid change of expression, +pouring out the ringing lines of one of his ballads—always +the story of the poor and humble, for he has identified himself +with the outcast and the disinherited. His volumes <i>Dans +la Rue</i> and <i>Sur la Route</i> have had an enormous +popularity, their contents being known and sung all over +France.</p> +<p>In 1892 Bruant was received as a member of the society of +<i>Gens de Lettres</i>. It may be of interest to recall a +part of the speech made by François Coppée on the +occasion: “It is with the greatest pleasure that I present +to my confrères my good friend, the ballad-writer, +Aristide Bruant. I value highly the author of <i>Dans la +Rue</i>. When I close his volume of sad and caustic verses +it is with the consoling thought that even vice and crime have +their conscience: that if there is suffering there is a possible +redemption. He has sought his inspiration in the gutter, it +is true, but he has seen there a reflection of the +stars.”</p> +<p>In the Avenue Trudaine, not far from the other +<i>cabarets</i>, the “Ane Rouge” was next opened, in +a quiet corner of the immense suburb, its shady-little garden, on +which the rooms open, making it a favorite meeting-place during +the warm months. Of a summer evening no more congenial spot +can be found in all Paris. The quaint chambers have been +covered with mural paintings or charcoal caricatures of the poets +themselves, or of familiar faces among the clients and patrons of +the place.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>The famous “Tréteau de Tabarin,” which +to-day holds undisputed precedence over all the <i>cabarets</i> +of Paris, was among the last to appear. It was founded by +the brilliant Fursy and a group of his friends. Here no +pains have been spared to form a setting worthy of the poets and +their public.</p> +<p>Many years ago, in the days of the good king Louis XIII., a +strolling poet-actor, Tabarin, erected his little canvas-covered +stage before the statue of Henry IV., on the Pont-Neuf, and drew +the court and the town by his fun and pathos. The founders +of the latest and most complete of Parisian <i>cabarets</i> have +reconstructed, as far as possible, this historic scene. On +the wall of the room where the performances are given, is painted +a view of old Paris, the Seine and its bridges, the towers of +Notre Dame in the distance, and the statue of Louis XIII.’s +warlike father in the foreground. In front of this painting +stands a staging of rough planks, reproducing the little theatre +of Tabarin. Here, every evening, the authors and poets play +in their own pieces, recite their verses, and tell their +stories. Not long ago a young musician, who has already +given an opera to the world, sang an entire one-act operetta of +his composition, changing his voice for the different parts, +imitating choruses by clever effects on the piano.</p> +<p>Montmartre is now sprinkled with attractive <i>cabarets</i>, +the taste of the public for such informal entertainments having +grown each year; with reason, for the careless grace of the +surroundings, the absence of any useless restraint or obligation +as to hour or duration, has a charm for thousands whom a long +concert or the inevitable five acts at the Français could +not tempt. It would be difficult to overrate the influence +such an atmosphere, breathed in youth, must have on the taste and +character. The absence of a sordid spirit, the curse of our +material day and generation, the contact with intellects trained +to incase their thoughts in serried verse or crisp and lucid +prose, cannot but form the hearer’s mind into a higher and +better mould. It is both a satisfaction and a hope for the +future to know that these influences are being felt all over the +capital and throughout the length and breadth of France. +There are at this moment in Paris alone three or four hundred +poets, ballad writers, and <i>raconteurs</i> who recite their +works in public.</p> +<p>It must be hard for the untravelled Anglo-Saxon to grasp the +idea that a poet can, without loss of prestige, recite his lines +in a public <i>café</i> before a mixed audience. If +such doubting souls could, however, be present at one of these +<i>noctes ambrosianæ</i>, they would acknowledge that the +Latin temperament can throw a grace and child-like abandon around +an act that would cause an Englishman or an American to appear +supremely ridiculous. One’s taste and sense of +fitness are never shocked. It seems the most natural thing +in the world to be sitting with your glass of beer before you, +while some rising poet, whose name ten years later may figure +among the “Immortal Forty,” tells to you his loves +and his ambition, or brings tears into your eyes with a +description of some humble hero or martyr.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER 17—Etiquette At Home and Abroad</h2> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>A single illustration will explain my meaning. A young +American girl once went to the mistress of a <i>pension</i> where +she was staying and complained that the <i>concierge</i> of the +house had been impertinent. When the proprietress asked the +<i>concierge</i> what this meant, the latter burst out with her +wrongs. “Since Miss B. has been in this house, she +has never once bowed to me, or addressed a word to either my +husband or myself that was not a question or an order; she walks +in and out of my <i>loge</i> to look for letters or take her key +as though my room were the street; I won’t stand such +treatment from any one, much less from a girl. The duchess +who lives <i>au quatrième</i> never passes without a kind +word or an inquiry after the children or my health.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>The lady who sits at the <i>caisse</i> of the restaurant you +frequent is as sure of her position as her customers are of +theirs, and exacts a courteous salutation from every one entering +or leaving her presence; logically, for no gentleman would enter +a ladies’ drawing-room without removing his hat. The +fact that a woman is obliged to keep a shop in no way relieves +him of this obligation.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>My neighbor at dinner the other evening confided to me that +she was “worn out being fitted.” “I had +such an unpleasant experience this morning,” she +added. “The <i>jupière</i> could not get one +of my skirts to hang properly. After a dozen attempts I +told her to send for the forewoman, when, to my horror, the girl +burst out crying, and said she should lose her place if I +did. I was very sorry for her, but what else could I +do?” It does not seem as if that lady could be very +popular with inferiors, does it?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>In the third act of <i>Caste</i>, when old Eccles steals the +“coral” from his grandson’s neck, he excuses +the theft by a grandiloquent soliloquy, and persuades himself +that he is protecting “the weak and the humble” +(pointing to himself) “against the powerful and the +strong” (pointing to the baby). Alas, too many of us +take liberties with those whom we do not fear, and excuse our +little acts of cowardice with arguments as fallacious as those of +drunken old Eccles.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER 18—What is “Art”?</h2> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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?”</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER 19—The Genealogical Craze</h2> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>The “Social Order of Foreign Wars” was the next +creation, its authors evidently considering the Mexican campaign +as a domestic article, a sort of family squabble. Then the +“Children of 1812” attracted attention, both groups +having immediate success. Indeed, the vogue of these +enterprises has been in inverse ratio to their usefulness or +<i>raison d’être</i>, people apparently being ready +to join anything rather than get left out in the cold.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>But it is wrong to joke on this subject. The state of +affairs is becoming too serious. When sane human beings +form a “Baronial Order of Runnymede,” and announce in +their prospectus that only descendants through the male line from +one (or more) of the forty noblemen who forced King John to sign +the Magna Charta are what our Washington Mrs. Malaprop would call +“legible,” the action attests a diseased condition of +the community. Any one taking the trouble to remember that +eight of the original barons died childless, and that the Wars of +the Roses swept away nine tenths of what families the others may +have had, that only one man in England (Lord de Ros) can at the +present day <i>prove</i> male descent further back than the +eleventh century, must appreciate the absurdity of our +compatriots’ pretensions. Burke’s Peerage is +acknowledged to be the most “faked” volume in the +English language, but the descents it attributes are like +mathematical demonstrations compared to the “trees” +that members of these new American orders climb.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>This last decade of the century has brought to light many +strange fads and senseless manias. This +“descent” craze, however, surpasses them all in +inanity. The keepers of insane asylums will tell you that +one of the hopeless forms of madness is <i>la folie des +grandeurs</i>. A breath of this delirium seems to be +blowing over our country. Crowns and sceptres haunt the +dreams of simple republican men and women, troubling their +slumbers and leading them a will-o’-the-wisp dance back +across the centuries.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER 20—As the Twig is Bent</h2> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>If this proves so, and it seems probable, it only proves how +the humble long for something more graceful than their meagre +homes afford.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>The other morning, while this article was lying half finished +on my desk, I opened the last number of a Paris paper and began +reading an account of the drama, <i>Les Mauvais Bergers</i> +(treating of that perilous subject, the “strikes”), +which Sarah Bernhardt had just had the courage to produce before +the Paris public. In the third act, when the owner of the +factory receives the disaffected hands, and listens to their +complaints, the leader of the strike (an intelligent young +workman), besides shorter hours and increased pay, demands that +recreation rooms be built where the toilers, their wives, and +their children may pass unoccupied hours in the enjoyment of +attractive surroundings, and cries in conclusion: “We, the +poor, need some poetry and some art in our lives, man does not +live by bread alone. He has a right, like the rich, to +things of beauty!”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER 21—Seven Small Duchesses</h2> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>The Duchesse de Noailles, <i>née</i> Mlle. de Luynes, +is another of this coterie and one of the few French noblewomen +who has travelled. Many Americans will remember the visit +she made here with her mother some years ago, and the effect her +girlish grace produced at that time. The de Noailles’ +château of Maintenon is an inheritance from Louis +XIV.’s prudish favorite, who founded and enriched the de +Noailles family. The Duc and Duchesse d’Uzès +live near by at Bonnelle with the old Duc de Doudeauville, her +grandfather, who is also the grandfather of Mme. de Noailles, +these two ladies being descended each from a wife of the old +duke, the former from the Princesse de Polignac and the latter +from the Princesse de Ligne.</p> +<p>The Duchesse de Bisaccia, <i>née</i> Princesse +Radziwill, and the Duchesse d’Harcourt, who complete the +circle of seven, also live in this vicinity, where another group +of historic residences, including Eclimont and Rambouillet, the +summer home of the president, rivals in gayety and hospitality +the châteaux of the Loire.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!”</p> +<p>One is struck by another peculiarity of these French men and +women—their astonishing proficiency in <i>les arts +d’agrément</i>. Every Frenchwoman of any +pretensions to fashion backs her beauty and grace with some art +in which she is sure to be proficient. The dowager Duchesse +d’Uzés is a sculptor of mark, and when during the +autumn Mme. de Trédern gives opera at Brissac, she finds +little difficulty in recruiting her troupe from among the youths +and maidens under her roof whose musical education has been +thorough enough to enable them to sing difficult music in +public.</p> +<p>Love of the fine arts is felt in their conversation, in the +arrangement and decoration of their homes, and in the interest +that an exhibition of pictures or old furniture will +excite. Few of these people but are <i>habitués</i> +of the Hôtel Drouot and conversant with the value and +authenticity of the works of art daily sold there. Such +elements combine to form an atmosphere that does not exist in any +other country, and lends an interest to society in France which +it is far from possessing elsewhere.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>Names like de Chevreuse, or de la Rochefoucauld, seem +appropriate only to the warlike amazons of the Fronde, or +corpulent kill-joys in powder and court trains of the Mme. +Etiquette school; it comes as a shock, on being presented to a +group of girlish figures in the latest cut of golfing skirts, who +are chattering odds on the Grand Prix in faultless English, to +realize that these light-hearted <i>gamines</i> are the present +owners of sonorous titles. One shudders to think what would +have been the effect on poor Marie Antoinette’s priggish +mentor could she have foreseen her granddaughter, clad in +knickerbockers, running a petroleum tricycle in the streets of +Paris, or pedalling “tandem” across country behind +some young cavalry officer of her connection.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER 22—Growing Old Ungracefully</h2> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Holmes, in <i>My Maiden Aunt</i>, asks plaintively:—</p> +<blockquote><p><i>Why will she train that wintry curl in such a +springlike way</i>?</p> +</blockquote> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>During the <i>Ancien Régime</i> in France, matters of +taste were considered all-important; an entire court would +consult on the shade of a brocade, and hail a new coiffure as an +event. The great ladies who had left their youth behind +never then committed the blunder, so common among our middle-aged +ladies, of aping the maidens of the day. They were far too +clever for that, and appreciated the advantages to be gained from +sombre stuffs and flattering laces. Let those who doubt +study Nattier’s exquisite portrait of Maria +Leczinska. Nothing in the pose or toilet suggests a desire +on the painter’s part to rejuvenate his sitter. If +anything, the queen’s age is emphasized as something +honorable. The gray hair is simply arranged and partly +veiled with black lace, which sets off her delicate, faded face +to perfection, but without flattery or fraud.</p> +<p>We find the same view taken of age by the masters of the +Renaissance, who appreciated its charm and loved to reproduce its +grace.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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?</p> +<h2>CHAPTER 23—Around a Spring</h2> +<p>The greatest piece of good luck that can befall a Continental +village is the discovery, within its limits, of a spring +supplying some kind of malodorous water. From that moment +the entire community, abandoning all other plans, give themselves +over to hatching their golden egg, experience having taught them +that no other source of prosperity can compare with a <i>source +thermale</i>. If the water of the newfound spring, besides +having an unpleasant smell, is also hot, then Providence has +indeed blessed the township.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>After preparing their trap, the wily inhabitants of a new +watering-place have only to sit down and await events. The +first people to appear on the scene are, naturally, the English, +some hidden natural law compelling that race to wander forever in +inexpensive by-ways and serve as pioneers for other +nations. No matter how new or inaccessible the spring, you +are sure to find a small colony of Britons installed in the +half-finished hotels, reading week-old editions of the +<i>Times</i>, and grumbling over the increase in prices since the +year before.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>There is no better example of the way a spring can be +developed by clever handling, and satisfactory results obtained +from advertising and judicious expenditure, than Aix-les-Bains, +which twenty years ago was but a tiny mountain village, and +to-day ranks among the wealthiest and most brilliant <i>eaux</i> +in Europe. In this case, it is true, they had tradition to +fall back on, for Aquæ Gratinæ was already a favorite +watering-place in the year 30 B.C., when Cæsar took the +cure.</p> +<p>There is little doubt in my mind that when the Roman Emperor +first arrived he found a colony of spinsters and retired army +officers (from recently conquered Britain) living around this +spring in <i>popinæ</i> (which are supposed to have +corresponded to our modern boarding-house), wearing waterproof +togas and common-sense cothurni, with double cork soles.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>I was apparently the only person, however, who felt +this. The English were much flattered by the attention, so +I snubbed myself with the reflection that if the date had been +July 4, I doubtless should have considered the flags and music +most <i>à propos</i>.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>One is continually reminded of that inimitable chapter in +Daudet’s <i>Tartarin sur les Alpes</i>, when the hero +discovers that all Switzerland is one enormous humbug, run to +attract tourists; that the cataracts are “faked,” and +avalanches arranged beforehand to enliven a dull season. +Can anything be more delicious than the disillusion of Tartarin +and his friends, just back from a perilous chamois hunt, on +discovering that the animal they had exhausted themselves in +following all day across the mountains, was being refreshed with +hot wine in the kitchen of the hotel by its peasant owner?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER 24—The Better Part</h2> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>When in this country, a properly brought up young aristocrat +is presented by her mamma to an admiring circle of friends, she +is quite a <i>blasée</i> person. The dancing classes +she has attended for a couple of years before her début +(that she might know the right set of youths and maidens) have +taken the bloom off her entrance into the world. She and +her friends have already talked over the “men” of +their circle, and decided, with a sigh, that there were matches +going about. A juvenile Newporter was recently overheard +deploring (to a friend of fifteen summers), “By the time we +come out there will only be two matches in the market,” +meaning, of course, millionnaires who could provide their brides +with country and city homes, yachts, and the other appurtenances +of a brilliant position. Now, the unfortunate part of the +affair is, that such a worldly-minded maiden will in good time be +obliged to make her début, dine, and dance through a dozen +seasons without making a new acquaintance. Her migrations +from town to seashore, or from one country house to another, will +be but changes of scene: the actors will remain always the +same. When she dines out, she can, if she cares to take the +trouble, make a fair guess as to who the guests will be before +she starts, for each entertainment is but a new shuffle of the +too well-known pack. She is morally certain of being taken +in to dinner by one of fifty men whom she has known since her +childhood, and has met on an average twice a week since she was +eighteen.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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?”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>It is pathetic, considering the restricted number of eligible +men going about, to see the trouble and expense that parents take +to keep their daughters <i>en évidence</i>. When one +reflects on the number of people who are disturbed when such a +girl dines out, the horses and men and women who are kept up to +convey her home, the time it has taken her to dress, the cost of +the toilet itself, and then see the man to whom she will be +consigned for the evening,—some bored man about town who +has probably taken her mother in to dinner twenty years before, +and will not trouble himself to talk with his neighbor, or a +schoolboy, breaking in his first dress suit,—when one +realizes that for many maidens this goes on night after night and +season after season, it seems incredible that they should have +the courage, or think it worth their while to keep up the +game.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Never having penetrated to those sacred centres where birth +and wealth are considered all-important, and ignoring the supreme +importance of living in one set, the plan of life that such a +woman lays out for herself is exceedingly simple. She will +coquette and dance and dream her pleasant dream until Prince +Charming, who is to awaken her to a new life, comes and kisses +away the dew of girlhood and leads his bride out into the +work-a-day world. The simple surroundings and ambitions of +her youth will make it easy for this wife to follow the man of +her choice, if necessary, to the remote village where he is +directing a factory or to the mining camp where the foundations +of a fortune lie. Life is full of delicious possibilities +for her. Men who are forced to make their way in youth +often turn out to be those who make “history” later, +and a bride who has not become prematurely <i>blasée</i> +to all the luxuries or pleasures of existence will know the +greatest happiness that can come into a woman’s life, that +of rising at her husband’s side, step by step, enjoying his +triumphs as she shared his poverty.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER 25—La Comédie Française à +Orange</h2> +<p>Idling up through the south of France, in company with a +passionate lover of that fair land, we learned on arriving at +Lyons, that the actors of the Comédie Française +were to pass through there the next day, <i>en route</i> for +Orange, where a series of fêtes had been arranged by +“Les Félibres.” This society, composed +of the writers and poets of Provence, have the preservation of +the Roman theatre at Orange (perhaps the most perfect specimen of +classical theatrical architecture in existence) profoundly at +heart, their hope being to restore some of its pristine beauty to +the ruin, and give from time to time performances of the Greek +masterpieces on its disused stage.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>At Lyons, the <i>cortège</i> was to leave the Paris +train and take boats down the Rhône, to their +destination. Their programme was so tempting that the offer +of places in one of the craft was enough to lure us away from our +prearranged route.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Here the mayor and the municipal council were to have received +us and delivered an address, but were not on hand. We could +see the tardy <i>cortège</i> hastening towards the bridge +as we shot away down stream.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>The population of a whole region is astir under the ardent +Provençal sun, to witness a resurrection of the Drama in +the historic valley of the Rhône, through whose channel the +civilization and art and culture of the old world floated up into +Europe to the ceaseless cry of the <i>cigales</i>.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>The sun is setting as we toil, ticket in hand, up the Roman +stairway to the upper rows of seats; far below the local +<i>gendarmerie</i> who mostly understand their orders backwards +are struggling with the throng, whose entrance they are +apparently obstructing by every means in their power. Once +seated, and having a wait of an hour before us, we amused +ourselves watching the crowd filling in every corner of the vast +building, like a rising tide of multi-colored water.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>The real interest of the public is only aroused, however, when +<i>The Erynnies</i> begins. This powerful adaptation from +the tragedy of Æschylus is <i>the chef +d’œuvre</i> of Leconte de Lisle. The silence is +now complete. One feels in the air that the moment so long +and so anxiously awaited has come, that a great event is about to +take place. Every eye is fixed on the stage, waiting to see +what will appear from behind the dark arches of the +proscenium. A faint, plaintive strain of music floats out +on the silence. Demons crawl among the leafy shadows. +Not a light is visible, yet the centre of the stage is in strong +relief, shading off into a thousand fantastic shadows. The +audience sits in complete darkness. Then we see the people +of Argos, winding toward us from among the trees, lamenting, as +they have done each day for ten years, the long absence of their +sons and their king. The old men no longer dare to consult +the oracles, fearing to learn that all is lost. The beauty +of this lament roused the first murmur of applause, each word, +each syllable, chiming out across that vast semicircle with a +clearness and an effect impossible to describe.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>That night will remain immutably fixed in my memory, if I live +to be as old as the theatre itself. We were so moved, my +companion and I, and had seen the crowd so moved, that fearing to +efface the impression if we returned the second night to see +<i>Antigone</i>, we came quietly away, pondering over it all, and +realizing once again that a thing of beauty is a source of +eternal delight.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER 26—Pre-palatial Newport</h2> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!”</p> +<p>So it turned the matter over and debated within its shaky old +brain (Mrs. Skewton fashion) what would be the most becoming and +effective way of retiring from the social whirl. Balls have +been overdone; people are no longer tempted by receptions; a +banquet was out of the question. Suddenly the wily building +hit on an idea. “I’ll give them a <i>feu +d’artifice</i>. There hasn’t been a first-class +fire here since I burned myself down fifty-three years ago! +That kind of entertainment hasn’t been run into the ground +like everything else in these degenerate days! I’ll +do it in the best and most complete way, and give Newport +something to talk about, whenever my name shall be mentioned in +the future!”</p> +<p>Daudet, in his <i>L’Immortel</i>, shows us how some +people are born lucky. His “Loisel of the +Institute,” although an insignificant and commonplace man, +succeeded all through life in keeping himself before the public, +and getting talked about as a celebrity. He even arranged +(to the disgust and envy of his rivals) to die during a week when +no event of importance was occupying public attention. In +consequence, reporters, being short of “copy,” owing +to a dearth of murders and “first nights,” seized on +this demise and made his funeral an event.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>During forty years Newport had a unique existence, unknown to +the rest of America, and destined to have a lasting influence on +her ways, an existence now as completely forgotten as the earlier +boarding-house <i>matinée dansante</i> time. <a +name="citation1"></a><a href="#footnote1" +class="citation">[1]</a> The sixties, seventies, and +eighties in Newport were pleasant years that many of us regret in +spite of modern progress. Simple, inexpensive days, when +people dined at three (looking on the newly introduced six +o’clock dinners as an English innovation and modern +“frill”), and “high-teaed” together +dyspeptically off “sally lunns” and +“preserves,” washed down by coffee and chocolate, +which it was the toilsome duty of a hostess to dispense from a +silver-laden tray; days when “rockaways” drawn by +lean, long-tailed horses and driven by mustached darkies were, if +not the rule, far from being an exception.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>In France, under Louis Philippe, and in England, during +Victoria’s youth, taste reached an ebb tide; in neither of +those countries, however, did the general standard fall so low as +here. It was owing to the <i>savoir faire</i> of one man +that Newporters and New York first saw at home what they had +admired abroad,—liveried servants in sufficient numbers, +dinners served <i>à la Russe</i>, and breeched and booted +grooms on English-built traps, innovations quickly followed by +his neighbors, for the most marked characteristic of the American +is his ability to “catch on.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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:</p> +<p>“Say, Tom, did ye know there was the biggest room in the +world in that hotel?”</p> +<p>“No; what room?”</p> +<p>“Room for improvement, ya!”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER 27—<i>Sardou</i> at Marly-le-Roy</h2> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>There seems a certain poetical justice in the fact that +Alexandre Dumas <i>fils</i> and Victorien Sardou, the two giants +of modern drama, should have divided between them the inheritance +of Louis XIV., its greatest patron. One of the gates is +closed and moss-grown. Its owner lies in +Père-la-Chaise. At the other I ring, and am soon +walking up the famous avenue bordered by colossal sphinxes +presented to Sardou by the late Khedive. The big stone +brutes, connected in one’s mind with heat and sandy wastes, +look oddly out of place here in this green wilderness—a +bite, as it were, out of the forest which, under different names, +lies like a mantle over the country-side.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>The mention of Cannes sets Sardou off on another train of +thought. His family for three generations have lived +there. Before that they were Sardinian fishermen. His +great-grandfather, he imagines, was driven by some tempest to the +shore near Cannes and settled where he found himself. Hence +the name! For in the patois of Provençal France an +inhabitant of Sardinia is still called <i>un Sardou</i>.</p> +<p>The sun is off the front of the house by this time, so we +migrate to a shady corner of the lawn for our +<i>apéritif</i>, the inevitable vermouth or +“bitters” which Frenchmen take at five +o’clock. Here another surprise awaits the visitor, +who has not realized, perhaps, to what high ground the crawling +local train has brought him. At our feet, far below the +lawn and shade trees that encircle the château, lies the +Seine, twisting away toward Saint Germain, whose terrace and +dismantled palace stand outlined against the sky. To our +right is the plain of Saint Denis, the cathedral in its midst +looking like an opera-glass on a green table. Further still +to the right, as one turns the corner of the terrace, lies Paris, +a white line on the horizon, broken by the mass of the Arc de +Triomphe, the roof of the Opéra, and the Eiffel Tower, +resplendent in a fresh coat of yellow lacquer!</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>The little château itself, built during the reign of +Louis XIV. for the <i>grand-veneur</i> of the forest of Marly, is +intensely French in type,—a long, low building on a stone +terrace, with no trace of ornament about its white façade +or on its slanting roof. Inside, all the rooms are +“front,” communicating with each other <i>en +suite</i>, and open into a corridor running the length of the +building at the back, which, in turn, opens on a stone +court. Two lateral wings at right angles to the main +building form the sides of this courtyard, and contain <i>les +communs</i>, the kitchen, laundry, servants’ rooms, and the +other annexes of a large establishment. This arrangement +for a summer house is for some reason neglected by our American +architects. I can recall only one home in America built on +this plan. It is Giraud Foster’s beautiful villa at +Lenox. You may visit five hundred French châteaux and +not find one that differs materially from this plan. The +American idea seems on the contrary to be a square house with a +room in each corner, and all the servants’ quarters stowed +away in a basement. Cottage and palace go on reproducing +that foolish and inconvenient arrangement indefinitely.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>One shed shelters an entire semicircle of <i>treillage</i>, +pure Louis XV., an exquisite example of a lost art. +Columns, domes, panels, are packed away in straw awaiting +resurrection in some corner hereafter to be chosen. A dozen +seats in rose-colored marble from Fontainebleau are huddled +together near by in company with a row of gigantic marble masques +brought originally from Italy to decorate Fouquet’s +fountains at his château of Vaux in the short day of its +glory. Just how this latter find is to be utilized their +owner has not yet decided. The problem, however, to judge +from his manner, is as important to the great playwright as the +plot of his next drama.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Our conversation, as was fated, soon turned to the enormous +success of <i>Robespierre</i> in London—a triumph that even +Sardou’s many brilliant victories had not yet equalled.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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!</p> +<p>“What a teacher you would make!” instinctively +rose to my lips as he ended.</p> +<p>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!”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Another acquisition?” I asked. “What +epoch has tempted you this time?”</p> +<p>“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!”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER 28—Inconsistencies</h2> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>I hastened to reassure him and explain that he was in an +exclusive and reserved society.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“They have doubtless done some noble action, or the +reports about the husband have been proved false?”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>The sleepy Oriental eyes of my new acquaintance opened wide +with astonishment.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“What is that?” he asked. +“Flirtation?”</p> +<p>“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!”</p> +<p>“Women flirt with friends or acquaintances, never with +members of their family?”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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?”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>“Ah!” I answered, laughing, “the tendency of +civilization is to simplify; many things may yet +disappear.”</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“Yet, last winter,” he said, “when passing +through New York, I went to a great theatre, where there were an +orchestra and many singing people. Were not those +respectable women I saw in the boxes? There were no +<i>moucharabies</i> to screen them from the eyes of the +public. Were all the men in that building asked by special +invitation? That could hardly be possible, for I paid an +entrance fee at the door. From where I sat I could see +that, as each lady entered her box, opera-glasses were fixed on +her, and her ‘points,’ as you say, discussed by the +crowd of men in the corridors, who, apparently, belonged to quite +the middle class.”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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:</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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?</p> +<h2>CHAPTER 29—Modern “Cadets de Gascogne”</h2> +<p>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.</p> +<p>The theatrical “stars” in their courses proved +favorable to the accomplishment of this vow. Before the +year ended it was whispered to us that the “Cadets de +Gascogne” were planning a tram through the Cevennes +Mountains and their native Languedoc—a sort of lay +pilgrimage to famous historic and literary shrines, a voyage to +be enlivened by much crowning of busts and reciting of verses in +the open air, and incidentally, by the eating of Gascony dishes +and the degustation of delicate local wines; the whole to +culminate with a representation in the arena at Béziers of +<i>Déjanire</i>, Louis Gallet’s and +Saint-Saëns’s latest work, under the personal +supervision of those two masters.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Rostand, in <i>Cyrano de Bergerac</i>, has shown us the +“Cadets” of Molière’s time, a fighting, +rhyming, devil-may-care band, who wore their hearts on their +sleeves and chips on their stalwart shoulders; much such a +brotherhood, in short, as we love to imagine that Shakespeare, +Kit Marlowe, Greene, and their intimates formed when they met at +the “Ship” to celebrate a success or drink a health +to the drama.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>It is the pleasant custom of this coterie to meet on winter +evenings in unfrequented <i>cafés</i>, transformed by them +for the time into clubs, where they recite new-made verses, +discuss books and plays, enunciate paradoxes that make the very +waiters shudder, and, between their “bocks,” plan +vast revolutions in the world of literature.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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:—</p> +<blockquote><p><i>Le soir tombe</i>. . . . <i>L’heure +douce</i><br /> +<i>Qui s’èloigne sans secousse</i>,<br /> +<i>Pose à peine sur la mousse</i><br /> + <i>Ses pieds</i>.<br /> +<i>Un jour indècis persiste</i>,<br /> +<i>Et le crèpuscule triste</i><br /> +<i>Ouvre ses yeux d’améthyste</i><br /> + <i>Mouillès</i>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>One asks one’s self in wonder why these enchanting +regions are so unknown. <i>En route</i> our companions were +like children fresh from school, taking haphazard meals at the +local inns and clambering gayly into any conveyance that came to +hand. As our way led us through the Cevennes country, +another charm gradually stole over the senses.</p> +<p>“I imagine that Citheron must look like this,” +murmured Catulle Mendès, as we stood looking down from a +sun-baked eminence, “with the Gulf of Corinth there where +you see that gleam of water.” As he spoke he began +declaiming the passage from Sophocles’s <i>Œdipus the +King</i> descriptive if that classic scene.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>In the market-place, one of our number, inspired by the +antique solemnity of the surroundings, burst into the noble lines +of Hugo’s <i>Devant Dieu</i>, before which the awestruck +population uncovered and crossed themselves, imagining, +doubtless, that it was a religious ceremony.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>“Our aims are to vivify the traditions and language of +our native land, and the memory of a glorious ancestry, to foster +the love of our little province at the same time as patriotism +for the greater country. We are striving for a +decentralization of art, for the elevation of the stage; but +above all, we preach a gospel of gayety and healthy laughter, the +science of remaining young at heart, would teach pluck and good +humor in the weary struggle of existence, characteristics that +have marked our countrymen through history! We have +borrowed a motto from Lope de Vega (that Gascon of another race), +and inscribe ‘<i>Par la langua et par +l’èpée</i>’ upon our banner, that these +purposes may be read by the world as it runs.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER 30—The Dinner and the Drama</h2> +<p>Claude Frollo, holding the first printed book he had seen in +one hand, and pointing with the other to the gigantic mass of +Notre Dame, dark against the sunset, prophesied “<i>Ceci +tuera cela</i>.” One might to-day paraphrase the +sentence which Victor Hugo put into his archdeacon’s mouth, +and pointing to the elaborately appointed dinner-tables of our +generation, assert that the Dinner was killing the Drama.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>If, however, tempted by some success, he hurries his guests +away from their meal, they are in no condition to appreciate a +serious performance. The pressure has been too high all day +for the overworked man and his <i>énervée</i> wife +to desire any but the lightest tomfoolery in an +entertainment. People engaged in the lethargic process of +digestion are not good critics of either elevated poetry or +delicate interpretation, and in consequence crave amusement +rather than a mental stimulant.</p> +<p>Managers were quick to perceive that their productions were no +longer taken seriously, and that it was a waste of time and money +to offer high-class entertainments to audiences whom any nonsense +would attract. When a play like <i>The Swell Miss +Fitzwell</i> will pack a New York house for months, and then +float a company on the high tide of success across the continent, +it would be folly to produce anything better. New York +influences the taste of the country; it is in New York really +that the standard has been lowered.</p> +<p>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?”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>From one cause or another, not only the wealthy, but the +thoughtful and cultivated among us, go less each year to the +theatre. The abstinence of this class is the most +significant, for well-read, refined, fastidious citizens are the +pride of a community, and their influence for good is +far-reaching. Of this élite New York has more than +its share, but you will not meet them at the play, unless Duse or +Jefferson, Bernhardt or Coquelin is performing. The best +only tempts such minds. It was by the encouragement of this +class that Booth was enabled to give <i>Hamlet</i> one hundred +consecutive evenings, and Fechter was induced to linger here and +build a theatre.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>A young actress in a company that played an American +translation of <i>Mme. Sans Gêne</i> all over this +continent asked me recently what I thought of their +performance. I said I thought it “a burlesque of the +original!” “If you thought it a burlesque here +in town,” she answered, “it’s well you +didn’t see us on the road. There was no monkey trick +we would not play to raise a laugh.”</p> +<p>If one of my readers doubts the assertion that the better +classes have ceased to attend our theatres, except on rare +occasions, let him inquire about, among the men and women whose +opinions he values and respects, how many of last winter’s +plays they considered intellectual treats, or what piece tempted +them to leave their cosy dinner-tables a second time. It is +surprising to find the number who will answer in reply to a +question about the merits of a play <i>en vogue</i>, “I +have not seen it. In fact I rarely go to a theatre unless I +am in London or on the Continent!”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>When, finally, one of our poets gives us a lyric drama like +<i>Cyrano de Bergerac</i>, the attractions of the dinner-table +will no longer be strong enough to keep clever people away from +the theatre, and the following conversation, which sums up the +present situation, will become impossible.</p> +<p><i>Banker</i> (to Crushed Tragedian).—No, I +haven’t seen you act. I have not been inside a +theatre for two years!</p> +<p><i>C.T.</i>—It’s five years since I’ve been +inside a bank!</p> +<h2>CHAPTER 31—The Modern <i>Aspasia</i></h2> +<p>Most of the historic cities of Europe have a distinct local +color, a temperament, if one may be allowed the expression, of +their own. The austere calm of Bruges or Ghent, the +sensuous beauty of Naples, attract different natures. +Florence has passionate devotees, who are insensible to the +artistic grace of Venice or the stately quiet of +Versailles. In Cairo one experiences an exquisite <i>bien +être</i>, a mindless, ambitionless contentment which, +without being languor, soothes the nerves and tempts to indolent +lotus-eating. Like a great hive, Rome depends on the +memories that circle around her, storing, like bees, the +centuries with their honey. Each of these cities must +therefore leave many people unmoved, who after a passing visit, +wander away, wondering at the enthusiasm of the worshippers.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Those who live in the circle of her influence are caught up in +a whirlwind of artistic production, and consume their brains and +bodies in the vain hope of pleasing their idol and attracting her +attention. To be loved by Paris is an ordeal that few +natures can stand, for she wrings the lifeblood from her devotees +and then casts them aside into oblivion. Paris, said one of +her greatest writers, “<i>aime à briser ses +idoles</i>!” As Ulysses and his companions fell, in +other days, a prey to the allurements of Circe, so our powerful +young nation has fallen more than any other under the influence +of the French siren, and brings her a yearly tribute of gold +which she receives with avidity, although in her heart there is +little fondness for the giver.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>The stand taken by <i>la villa lumière</i> in that +crisis caused many naïve Americans, who believed that their +weakness for the French capital was returned, a painful +surprise. They imagined in the simplicity of their innocent +hearts that she loved them for themselves, and have awakened, +like other rich lovers, to the humiliating knowledge that a +penniless neighbor was receiving the caresses that Croesus paid +for. Not only did the entire Parisian press teem at that +moment with covert insults directed towards us, but in society, +at the clubs and tables of the aristocracy, it was impossible for +an American to appear with self-respect, so persistently were our +actions and our reasons for undertaking that war misunderstood +and misrepresented. In the conversation of the salons and +in the daily papers it was assumed that the Spanish were a race +of noble patriots, fighting in the defence of a loved and loyal +colony, while we were a horde of blatant cowards, who had long +fermented a revolution in Cuba in order to appropriate that +coveted island.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER 32—A Nation in a Hurry</h2> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Zola tells us in <i>Nouvelle Campagne</i> that his vivid +impressions are all received during the first twenty-four hours +in a new surrounding,—the mind, like a photographic film, +quickly losing its sensibility.</p> +<p>This fleeting receptiveness makes returning Americans +painfully conscious of nerves in the home atmosphere, and the +headlong pace at which our compatriots are living.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>The transit from dock to hotel was like a visit to a new +circle in the <i>Inferno</i>, where trains rumble eternally +overhead, and cable cars glide and block around a pale-faced +throng of the damned, who are forced, in expiation of their sins, +to hasten forever toward an unreachable goal.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>To any one fresh from the Continent, where the entire +machinery of trade comes to a standstill from eleven to one +o’clock, that <i>déjeuner</i> may be taken in +somnolent tranquillity, the nervous tension pervading a +restaurant here is prodigious, and what is +worse—catching! During recent visits to the business +centres of our city, I find that the idea of eating is +repugnant. It seems to be wrong to waste time on anything +so unproductive. Last week a friend offered me a +“luncheon tablet” from a box on his desk. +“It’s as good as a meal,” he said, “and +so much more expeditious!”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Bearing in mind that the guests come as late as they dare, +without being absolutely uncivil, that dinners are served as +rapidly as is physically possible, and that the circle breaks up +as soon as the meal ends, one asks one’s self in wonder +why, if a dinner party is such a bore that it has to be scrambled +through, <i>coûte que coûte</i>, we continue to dine +out?</p> +<p>It is within the bounds of possibility that people may have +reasons for hurrying through their days, and that dining out +<i>à la longue</i> becomes a weariness.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Past, indeed, are the unruffled days when a heroine was +expected (after the action of a play had ended) to deliver the +closing <i>envoi</i> dear to the writers of Queen Anne’s +day. Thackeray writes:—</p> +<blockquote><p><i>The play is done</i>! <i>The curtain +drops</i>,<br /> +<i>Slow falling to the prompter’s bell</i>!<br /> +<i>A moment yet the actor stops</i>,<br /> +<i>And looks around</i>, <i>to say farewell</i>!</p> +</blockquote> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>During the last act of an opera like <i>Tann-häuser</i> +or <i>Faust</i>, in which the inconsiderate composer has placed a +musical gem at the end, this lady is worth watching. After +getting into her wraps and overshoes she stands, hand on the +door, at the back of her box, listening to the singers; at a +certain moment she hurries to the window, makes her signal, +scurries back, hears Calvé pour her soul out in <i>Anges +purs</i>, <i>anges radieux</i>, yet manages to get down the +stairs and into her carriage before the curtain has fallen.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!</p> +<h2>CHAPTER 33—The Spirit of History</h2> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Madame Michelet’s life is in strange contrast with the +ways of the modern spouse who, under pretext of grief, discards +and displaces every reminder of the dead. In our day, when +the great art is to forget, an existence consecrated to a memory +is so rare that the world might be the better for knowing that a +woman lives who, young and beautiful, was happy in the society of +an old man, whose genius she appreciated and cherished, who loves +him dead as she loved him living. By her care the apartment +remains as it stood when he left it, to die at +Hyères,—the furniture, the paintings, the +writing-table. No stranger has sat in his chair, no +acquaintance has drunk from his cup. This woman, who was a +perfect wife and now fills one’s ideal of what a +widow’s life should be, has constituted herself the +vigilant guardian of her husband’s memory. She loves +to talk of the illustrious dead, and tell how he was fond of +saying that Virgil and Vico were his parents. Any one who +reads the <i>Georgics</i> or <i>The Bird</i> will see the truth +of this, for he loved all created things, his ardent spiritism +perceiving that the essence which moved the ocean’s tides +was the same that sang in the robin at the window during his last +illness, which he called his “little captive +soul.”</p> +<p>The author of <i>La Bible de l’Humanité</i> had +to a supreme degree the love of country, and possessed the power +of reincarnating with each succeeding cycle of its history. +So luminous was his mind, so profound and far-reaching his +sympathy, that he understood the obscure workings of the +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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Seeking in the remote past for the origin of his hero, +Michelet pauses first before <i>the Cathedral</i>. 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>In the solitary galleries of the “Archives” +Michelet communes with the great spirits of that day, Desaix, +Marceau, Kleber,—elder sons of the Republic, who whisper +many secrets to their pupil as he turns over faded pages tied +with tri-colored ribbons, where the cities of France have written +their affection for liberty, love-letters from Jacques to his +mistress. Michelet is happy. His long labor is +drawing to an end. The great epic which he has followed as +it developed through the centuries is complete. His hero +stands hand in hand before the altar with the spouse of his +choice, for whose smile he has toiled and struggled. The +poet-historian sees again in the <i>Fête de la +Fédération</i> the radiant face of his vision, the +true face of France, <i>La Dulce</i>.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>“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!’”</p> +<p>Alas, his aged eyes were destined to read sadder pages than he +had ever written, to see years as tragic as the +“Terror.” He lived to hear the recital of +(having refused to witness) his country’s humiliation, and +fell one April morning, in his retirement near Pisa, unconscious +under the double shock of invasion and civil war. Though he +recovered later, his horizon remained dark. The patriot +suffered to see party spirit and warring factions rending the +nation he had so often called the pilot of humanity’s bark, +which seemed now to be going straight on the rocks. +“<i>Finis Galliæ</i>,” murmured the historian, +who to the end lived and died with his native land.</p> +<p>Thousands yearly mount the broad steps of the Panthéon +to lay their wreaths upon his tomb, and thousands more in every +Gallic schoolroom are daily learning, in the pages of his +history, to love <i>France la Dulce</i>.</p> +<h2>Footnotes:</h2> +<p><a name="footnote1"></a><a href="#citation1" +class="footnote">[1]</a> “Newport of the Past,” +<i>Worldly Ways and By-ways</i>.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WAYS OF MEN***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 319-h.htm or 319-h.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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