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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fbb2aca --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #62270 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/62270) diff --git a/old/62270-0.txt b/old/62270-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index ea9add1..0000000 --- a/old/62270-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,8127 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Dramatis Personae, by Arthur Symons - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll -have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using -this ebook. - - - -Title: Dramatis Personae - -Author: Arthur Symons - -Release Date: May 29, 2020 [EBook #62270] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DRAMATIS PERSONAE *** - - - - -Produced by Laura Natal Rodrigues at Free Literature (Images -generously made available by Hathi Trust.) - - - - - -DRAMATIS PERSONÆ - -BY - -ARTHUR SYMONS - -INDIANAPOLIS - -THE BOOBS-MERRILL COMPANY - - - - -PUBLISHER'S NOTE - - -Although it would be presumptuous to introduce the work of Arthur -Symons, a word or two about this particular collection may not be out of -place. A number of these essays have appeared in representative American -and English periodicals, but their preservation here needs no apology as -they have already earned a meritorious place in the bibliography of -English criticism. The publisher believes, also, that the critical -reader must realize the futility of any attempt to correct discrepancies -due to the death of contemporaries, or augmentations to their work, lest -the essays as originally conceived by the author suffer in spirit. - - - - -CONTENTS - -Conrad -Maurice Maeterlinck -Emily Brontë -On English and French Fiction -On Criticism -The Decadent Movement in Literature -The Rossettis -Confessions and Comments -Francis Thompson -Coventry Patmore -Sir William Watson -Emil Verhaeren -A Neglected Genius: Sir Richard Burton -Edgar Saltus -Recollections of Réjane -The Russian Ballets -On Hamlet and Hamlets -Leonardo da Vinci -Impressionistic Writing -Paradoxes on Poets - - - - -DRAMATIS PERS0NÆ - - - - -CONRAD - - -"_The Earth is a Temple where there is going on a Mystery Play, childish -and poignant, ridiculous and awful enough in all conscience._" - - -I - - -Conrad's inexplicable mind has created for itself a secret world to live -in, some corner stealthily hidden away from view, among impenetrable -forests, on the banks of untraveled rivers. From that corner, like a -spider in his web, he throws out tentacles into the darkness; he gathers -in his spoils, he collects them like a miser, stripping from them their -dreams and visions to decorate his web magnificently. He chooses among -them, and sends out into the world shadowy messengers, for the troubling -of the peace of man, self-satisfied in his ignorance of the invisible. -At the center of his web sits an elemental sarcasm discussing human -affairs with a calm and cynical ferocity; "that particular field whose -mission is to jog the memories of men, lest they should forget the -meaning of life." Behind that sarcasm crouches some ghastly influence, -outside humanity, some powerful devil, invisible, poisonous, -irresistible, spawning evil for his delight. They guard this secret -corner of the world with mists and delusions, so that very few of those -to whom the shadowy messengers have revealed themselves can come nearer -than the outer edge of it. - -Beyond and below this obscure realm, beyond and below human nature -itself, Conrad is seen through the veil of the persons of his drama, -living a hidden, exasperated life. And it is by his sympathy with these -unpermitted things, the "aggravated witch-dance" in his brain, that -Conrad is severed from all material associations, as if stupendously -uncivilized, consumed by a continual protest, an insatiable thirst, -unsatisfied to be condemned to the mere exercise of a prodigious genius. - -Conrad's depth of wisdom must trouble and terrify those who read him for -entertainment. There are few secrets in the mind of men or in the -pitiless heart of nature that he has not captured and made his -plaything. He calls up all the dreams and illusions by which men have -been destroyed and saved, and lays them mockingly naked. He is the -master of dreams, the interpreter of illusions, the chronicler of -memory. He shows the bare side of every virtue, the hidden heroism of -every vice or crime. He calls up before him all the injustices that have -come to birth out of ignorance and self-love. He shows how failure is -success, and success failure, and that the sinner can be saved. His -meanest creatures have in them a touch of honor, of honesty, or of -heroism; his heroes have always some error, weakness, a mistake, some -sin or crime, to redeem. And in all this there is no judgment, only an -implacable comprehension, as of one outside nature, to whom joy and -sorrow, right and wrong, savagery and civilization, are equal and -indifferent. - -Reality, to Conrad, is non-existent; he sees through it into a realm of -illusion of the unknown: a world that is comforting and bewildering, -filled with ghosts and devils, a world of holy terror. Always is there -some suggestion of a dark region, within and around one; the -consciousness that "They made a whole that had features, shades of -expression, a complicated aspect that could be remembered by the eye, -and something else besides, something invisible, a directing spirit of -perdition that dwells within, like a malevolent soul in a detestable -body." - -"This awful activity of mind" is seen at work on every page, torturing -familiar words into strange meanings, clutching at cobwebs, in a -continual despair before the unknown. Something must be found, in the -most unlikely quarter; a word, a hint, something unsaid but guessed at -in a gesture, a change of face. "He turned upon me his eyes suddenly -amazed and full of pain, with a bewildered, startled face, as though he -had tumbled down from a star." There is a mental crisis in that look: -the unknown has suddenly opened. - -Memory, that inner voice, stealthy, an inveterate follower; memory, -Conrad has found out, is the great secret, the ecstasy and despair which -weave the texture of life. A motto from Amiel in one of his books -faintly suggests it: "_Qui de nous n'a eu sa terre promise, son jour -d'extase et sa fin en exil?_" And the book, _Almayer's Folly_, his -first, a rare and significant book, is just that. _An Outcast of the -Islands_ has the despairing motto from Calderon, that better is it for a -man had he never been born. _Lord Jim_ is the soul's tragedy, ending -after a long dim suffusion in clouds, in a great sunset, sudden and -final glory. No man lives wholly in his day; every hour of these -suspensive and foreboding days and nights is a part of the past or of -the future. Even in a splendid moment, a crisis, like the love scene of -Nina and Dain in the woods, there is no forgetfulness. "In the sublime -vanity of her kind she was thinking already of moulding a god out of the -clay at her feet. ... He spoke of his forefathers." Lord Jim, as he -dies, remembers why he is letting himself be killed, and in that -remembrance tastes heaven. How is it that no one except Conrad has got -to this hidden depth, where the soul really lives and dies, where, in an -almost perpetual concealment, it works out its plan, its own fate? -Tolstoy, Hawthorne, know something of it; but the one turns aside into -moral tracts, and the other to shadows and things spiritual. Conrad -gives us the soul's own dream of itself, as if a novelist of adventure -had turned Neo-Platonist. - -A woman once spoke to me in a phrase I have never forgotten, of Conrad's -sullen subjective vision. Sullen is a fine word for the aspect under -which he sees land and sea; sullen clouds, a sullen sea. And some of -that quality has come to form part of his mind, which is protesting, -supremely conscious. He is never indifferent to his people, rarely kind. -He sees them for the most part as they reveal themselves in suffering. -Now and then he gives them the full price, the glory, but rarely in this -life, or for more than a moment. How can those who live in suspense, -between memory and foreboding, ever be happy, except for some little -permitted while? The world for those who live in it, is a damp forest, -where savagery and civilization meet, and in vain try to mingle. Only -the sea, when they are out of sight of land, sometimes gives them -freedom. - -It is strange but true that Conrad's men are more subtly comprehended -and more magnificent than his women. There are few men who are seen full -length, and many of them are nameless shadows. Aissa and Nina in the -earliest books have the fierce charm of the unknown. In _Lord Jim_ there -is only one glimpse of the painful mystery of a woman's ignorant heart. -In _Nostromo_ the women are secondary, hardly alive; there is no woman -in _The Nigger of the Narcissus_, nor in _Typhoon_, nor in _Youth._ -There are some women, slightly seen, in Tales of Unrest, and only one of -them, the woman of _The Return_, is actually characterized. - -Is there not something of an achievement in this stern rejection of the -obvious love-story, the material of almost every novel? Not in a single -tale, even when a man dies of regret for a woman, is the woman prominent -in the action. Almayer, and not Nina, is the center of the book named -after him. And yet Nina is strange, mysterious, enchanting, as no other -woman is to be. Afterward they are thrust back out of the story; they -come and go like spinners of Destiny, unconscious, ignorant, turning -idle wheels, like the two women knitting black wool in the waiting room -of the Trading Company's office, "guarding the door of Darkness." - -Now, can we conjecture why a woman has never been the center of any of -these stories? Conrad chooses his tools and his materials; he realizes -that men are the best materials for his tools. It is only men who can be -represented heroically upon the stage of life; who can be seen -adventuring doggedly, irresistibly, by sheer will and purpose; it is -only given to men to attain a visible glory of achievement. He sees -woman as a parasite or an idol, one of the illusions of men. He asks -wonderingly how the world can look at them. He shows men fearing them, -hating them, captivated, helpless, cruel, conquering. He rarely -indicates a great passion between man and woman; his men are passionate -after fame, power, success; they embrace the sea in a love-wrestle; they -wander down unsounded rivers and succumb to "the spell of the -wilderness;" they are gigantic in failure and triumph; they are the -children of the mightiness of the earth; but their love is the love of -the impossible. What room is there, in this unlimited world, for women? -"Oh, she is out of it--completely. They--the women I mean--are out of -it--should be out of it. We must help them to stay in that beautiful -world of their own, lets ours gets worse. Oh, she had to be out of it." - -There is Karain, "clothed in the vision of unavoidable success," flying -before a shadow, comforting himself with the certainty of a charm. There -is Kurtz, who returns to barbarism, and Tuan Jim with his sacrifice of -life to honor, and even the dying nigger steersman who, shot through by -a spear, looks once on his master, "and the intimate profundity of that -look which he gave me when he received his hurt remains to this day in -my memory--like a claim of distant kinship affirmed in a supreme -moment." It is with this agonizing clearness, this pitiless mercy, that -Conrad shows us human beings. He loves them for their discontent, for -their revolt against reality, for their failure, their atonement, their -triumphs. And he loves them best because their love is the love of the -impossible; he loves them because they are part of the unknown. - -And so, it is _Lord Jim_ in which his genius has attained its zenith -with _Karain_ and _Heart of Darkness_ close after it. Consider the -marvelous art, the suspense, the evasion of definite statement, the -overpowering profundity of it. To begin with, there is the trick, one of -Conrad's inextricable tricks of art, by which suspense is scarcely -concerned with action, but with a gradually revealed knowledge of what -might have happened in the making of a man. Take an instance in -_Nostromo._ There is Doctor Monyngham who comes in at the beginning of -the book comes and goes briefly up to the three hundredth page; and then -suddenly, _à propos_ of nothing, the whole history of his troubles, the -whole explanation of what has seemed mysterious to him, is given in four -pages; whereupon the last sentence, four pages back, is caught up and -continued with the words: "That is why he hobbled in distress in the -Casa Gould on that morning." Now why is there this kind of hesitation? -Why is a disguise kept up so long and thrown off for no apparent reason? -It is merely one of his secrets, which is entirely his own; but another -of them he has learned from Balzac: the method of doubling or trebling -the interest by setting action within action, as a picture is set within -a frame. In _Youth_ the man who is telling the story to more or less -indifferent hearers, times his narrative with a kind of refrain. ... -"Pass the bottle," he says whenever a pause seems to be necessary; and, -as the tale is ending, the final harmony is struck by an unexpected and -satisfying chord: "He drank.... He drank again." - -To find a greater novel than _Lord Jim_, we might have to go back to -_Don Quixote._ Like that immortal masterpiece, it is more than a novel; -it is life itself, and it is a criticism of life. Like Don Quixote, Lord -Jim, in his followings of a dream, encounters many rough handlings. He -has the same egoism, isolation, and conviction; the same interrupting -world about him, the same contempt of reality, the same unconsciousness -of the nature of windmills. In Marlow, he has quite a modern Sancho -Panza, disillusioned, but following his master. Certainly this narrator -of Jim's failures and successes represents them under the obscure -guidance of "a strange and melancholy illusion, evolved -half-unconsciously like all our illusions, which I suspect only to be -visions of remote unattainable truth, seen dimly." He is a soul "drunk -with the divine philtre of an unbounded confidence in himself." That -illusion is suddenly put to the test; he fails, he goes into the cloud, -emerges out of it, is struck gloriously dead. - -In _Lord Jim_ Conrad has revealed, more finally than elsewhere, his -ideal: the ideal of an applauded heroism, the necessity of adding to -one's own conviction the world's acceptance and acclamation. In this -stupendous work, what secret of humanity is left untold? Only told, is -too definite a word. Here is Conrad's creed, his statement of things as -they are: - - -It is when we try to grapple with another man's need that we perceive -how incomprehensible, wavering, and misty are the beings that share with -us the sight of the stars and the warmth of the sun. It is as if -loneliness were a hard and absolute condition of existence; the envelope -of flesh and blood on which our eyes are fixed melts before the -outstretched hand, and there remains only the capricious, unconsolable, -and elusive spirit that no eye can follow, no hand can grasp. - - -"Man is amazing, but he is not a masterpiece," says some one in the -book, one of the many types and illustrations of men who have fallen -into a dream, all with some original sin to proclaim or conceal or -justify, men of honor, tottering phantoms clinging to a foul existence, -one crowding on another, disappearing, unrealized. All have their place, -literally or symbolically, in the slow working-out of the salvation of -Tuan Jim. Amazing they may be, but Jim "approaching greatness as genuine -as any man ever achieved," with the shame of his "jump" from a sinking -ship and his last fearless jump "into the unknown," his last -"extraordinary success," when, in one proud and unflinching glance, he -beholds "the face of that opportunity which, like an Eastern bride, had -come veiled to his side": amazing he may be, but a masterpiece, proved, -authentic, justifying Man. - -Next after this triumph, Karain is the greatest. It is mysterious, a -thing that haunts one by its extreme fascination; and in this, as in all -Conrad, there is the trial of life: first the trial, then the failure, -finally (but not quite always) the redemption. "As to Karain, nothing -could happen to him unless what happens to all--failure and death; but -his quality was to appear clothed in the illusion of unavoidable -success." And on what a gorgeous and barbaric and changing stage is this -obscure tragedy of the soul enacted! There is in it grave splendor. In -Conrad's imagination three villages on a narrow plain become a great -empire and their ruler a monarch. - -To read Conrad is to shudder on the edge of a gulf, in a silent -darkness. _Karain_ is full of mystery, _Heart of Darkness_ of an unholy -magic. "The fascination of the abomination--you know," the teller of the -story says for him, and "droll thing life is." The whole narrative is an -evocation of that "stillness of an implacable brooding over an -incalculable intention," and of the monstrous Kurtz who has been -bewitched by the "heavy mute spell of the wilderness that seems to draw -him to its pitiless breast by the awakening of forgotten and brutal -instincts, by the memory of gratified and monstrous passions; and this -alone had beguiled his unlawful soul beyond the bounds of permitted -aspiration." And it all ends with the cry: "The horror! The horror!" -called out in his last despair by a dying man. Gloomy, tremendous, this -has a deeper, because more inexplicable, agony than the tragedy of -_Karain._ Here, the darkness is unbroken; there is no remedy; body and -soul are drawn slowly and inevitably down under the yielding and -pestilent swamp. The failure seems irretrievable. We see nature casting -out one who had gone beyond nature. We see "the meanness, the torment, -the tempestuous anguish of a soul" that, in its last moment of earthly -existence, had peeped over the edge of the gulf, with a stare "that -could not see the flame of the candle, but was wide enough to embrace -the whole universe." - -With _Nostromo_ we get a new manner and new scenery. The scene is laid -in Colombia, the Nuevo Granada of the Spaniards, and the silver mine is -its center, and around that fatal treasure-house the whole action moves. -The Spanish streets, glittering with heat, with their cool patios, -peopled by the Indians, the "whites," a cross between Spanish and -native, the Italians, the English, the Indian girls with long dark hair, -the Mozenitas with golden combs, are seen under strong sunlight with a -vivid actuality more accentuated than in any other of Conrad's scenes. A -sinister masquerade is going on in the streets, very unreal and very -real. There is the lingering death of Decoud on a deserted island ("he -died from solitude, the enemy known to few on this earth, and whom only -the simplest of us are fit to withstand"); the horrible agonies of -Hirsch; the vile survival of Doctor Monyngham. It is by profound and -futile seriousness that these persons and events take on an air of -irony, and are so comic as they endure the pains of tragedy. - -This strange novel is oddly constructed. It is a narrative in which -episode follows episode with little apparent connection. The first half -is a lengthy explanation of what the second part is to put into action. -It drags and seems endless, and might be defined by a sentence out of -the book, where some one "recognized a wearisome impressiveness in the -pompous manner of his narrative." Suddenly, with Nostromo's first -actualized adventure the story begins, the interest awakens, and it is -only now that Nostromo himself becomes actual. He has been suggested by -hints, indicated in faint outline. We have been told of his power and -influence, we see the admiration which surrounds him, but the man walks -veiled. His vanity, evident at the first, becomes colossal: "The man -remained astonishingly simple in the jealous greatness of his conceit." -Then, as he awakens one morning under the sky, he rises "as natural and -free from evil in the moment of waking as a magnificent and unconscious -wild beast." The figure greatens in his allegiance to the shining -spectre of the treasure, which makes him afraid because "he belonged -body and soul to the unlawfulness of his audacity." His death is -accidental, but, in Conrad's merciful last words, he has, after his -death, the "greatest, the most enviable, the most sinister of his -successes. In that true cry of love and grief that seemed to ring aloud -from Punta Mala to Azuera and away to the bright line of the horizon, -overhung by a big white cloud shining like a mass of solid silver, the -genius of the magnificent Capataz de Caegadores dominated the dark gulf -containing his conquests of treasure and love." - - - - -II - - -Conrad's first fame was made by his sea-novels, and the sea is never -quite out of any of his books. Who, before or since, could have evoked -this picture of heat, stillness and solitude? - -In _Typhoon_ we are cast into the midst of a terrible outrage of the -destructive force of nature: - - -something formidable and swift, like the sudden smashing of a vial of -wrath. It seemed to explode all round the ship with an overpowering -concussion and a rush of great waters, as if an immense dam had been -blown up to windward. In an instant the men lost touch of each other. -This is the disintegrating power of a great wind; it isolates one from -one's kind. ... The motion of the ship was extravagant. Her lurches had -an appalling helplessness; she pitched as if taking a header into a -void, and seemed to find a wall to hit every time. ... The seas in the -dark seemed to rush from all sides to keep her back where she might -perish. There was hate in the way she was handled, and a ferocity in the -blows that fell. She was like a living creature thrown to the rage of a -mob! hustled terribly, struck at, borne up, flung down, leaped upon. ... -At last she rose slowly, staggering, as if she had to lift a mountain -with her bows. - - -There have been many writers about the sea, but only Conrad has loved it -with so profound and yet untrustful a love. His storms have sublimity, -made out of intense attention to detail, often trivial or ludicrous, but -heightened into tragedy by the shifting floor and changing background on -which is represented the vast struggle of man with the powers of nature. -And as he loves the earth only in its extravagances, so he loves the sea -most in storm, where love and fear mingle. The tropics, the Malay -Archipelago, and the sea in a continual tempest, the ship suffering -through a typhoon, or burning itself out on the waters: these are his -scenes, these he cherishes in his faithful and unquiet memory. How much -is memory, how much is imagination, no one need know or care. They are -one; he does not distinguish between them. - -Once, in one of the pages of _Lord Jim_, Conrad has confessed himself -with perfect frankness. He represents himself receiving a packet of -letters which are to tell him the last news of Lord Jim. He goes to the -window and draws the heavy curtains. - - -The light of his shaded reading-lamp slept like a sheltered pool, his -footfalls made no sound on the carpet, his wandering days were over. No -more horizons as boundless as hope, no more twilights within the forests -as solemn as temples, in the hot quest for the Ever-undiscovered Country -over the hill, across the stream, beyond the wave. The hour was -striking! No more! No more!--but the opened packet under the lamp -brought back the sounds, the visions, the very savor of the past—a -multitude of fading faces, a tumult of low voices, dying away upon the -shores of distant seas under a passionate and unconsoling sunshine. He -sighed and sat down to read. - - -That is the confession of one who, of foreign race, is an alien, -solitary among his memories. - - - - -III - - -Conrad's stories have no plots, and they do not need them. They are a -series of studies in temperaments, deduced from slight incidents; -studies in emotion, with hardly a rag to hold together the one or two -scraps of action, out of which they are woven. A spider hanging by one -leg to his web, or sitting motionless outside it: that is the image of -some of these tales, which are made to terrify, bewilder and grip you. -No plot ever made a thing so vital as _Lord Jim_, where there is no -plot; merely episodes, explanations, two or three events only -significant for the inner meaning by which they are darkened or -illuminated. I would call this invention, creation; the evasion of what -is needless in the plots of most novels. But Conrad has said, of course, -the right thing, in a parenthesis: "It had that mysterious, almost -miraculous, power of producing striking effects by means impossible of -detection, which is the last word of the highest art." - -Conrad conceals his astonishing invention under many disguises. What has -seemed to some to be untidy in construction will be found to be a mere -matter of subtlety, a skilful arresting of the attention, a diverting of -it by a new interest thrust in sideways. _Lord Jim_ is a model of -intelligent disarray. - -In the strict sense Conrad is not a novelist: he writes by instinct. And -his art is unlike the art of every other novelist. For instance, -Meredith or Stendhal make great things out of surface material; they -give us life through its accidents, one brilliantly, the other with -scrupulous care. Conrad uses detail as illustrations of his ideas, as -veils of life, not as any essential part of it. The allusion to him is -more real than the fact; and, when he deals with the low or trivial, -with Mr. Verloc's dubious shop in the backstreet, it is always a symbol. - -Conrad, writing in English, does not always think in English. For, in -this man, who is pure Polish, there is a brooding mind, an exalted soul, -a fearless intelligence, a merciful judgment. And he has voyaged through -many seas of the soul, in which he finds that fascination, the -fascination of fear, splendor, and uncertainty, which the water that -surrounds the earth had to give him. And he has made for himself a style -which is personal, unique, naked English, and which brings into English -literature an audacious and profound English speech. - -In his sarcasm Conrad is elemental. He is a fatalist, and might say with -Sidi Ali Ismayem, in the _Malay Annals_: "It is necessary that what has -been ordained should take place in all creatures." But in his fatalism -there is a furious revolt against all those evils that must be accepted, -those material and mental miseries that will never be removed. His -hatred of rule, measure, progress, civilization is unbounded. He sits -and laughs with an inhuman laughter, outside the crowd, in a chair of -wisdom; and his mockery, persuaded of the incurable horrors of -existence, can achieve monstrosity, both logical and ghastly. - -In the "simple tale" of _The Secret Agent_, which is a story of horror, -in our London of to-day, the central motive is the same as that of the -other romances: memory as Nemesis. The man comes to his death because he -can not get a visible fear out of his eyes; and the woman kills him -because she can not get a more terrible, more actual thing, which she -has not seen, but which has been thrust into her brain, out of her eyes. -"That particular fiend" drives him into a cruel blunder and her into a -madness, a murder, a suicide, which combine into one chain, link after -link, inevitably. - -The blood-thirstiness of Conrad's "simple story" of modern life, a -horror as profound as that of Poe, and manipulated with the same careful -and attentive skill, is no form of cruelty, but of cold observation. -What is common enough among the half-civilized population of that Malay -Peninsula, which forms so much of the material of the earlier novels, -has to be transported, by a choice of subject and the search for what is -horrible in it, when life comes to be studied in a modern city. The -interest is still in the almost less civilized savagery of the -Anarchists; and it is around the problem of blood-shedding that the -whole story revolves. The same lust of slaughter, brought from Asia to -Europe, seems cruder and less interesting as material. There the -atmosphere veiled what the gaslight of the disreputable shop and its -back-parlor do but make more visible. It is an experiment in realism -which comes dangerously near to being sensational, only just avoids it. - -The whole question depends upon whether the material horror surpasses -that horror of the soul which is never absent from it; whether the -dreadful picture of the woman's hand holding the carving-knife, seen -reflected on the ceiling by the husband in the last conscious moment -before death, is more evident to us than the man's sluggish acquiescence -in his crime and the woman's slow intoxication by memory into a crime -more direct and perhaps more excusable. It seems, while you are reading -it, impossible that the intellect should overcome the pang given to the -senses; and yet, on reflection, there is the same mind seen at work, -more ruthlessly, more despairingly than ever, turning the soul inside -out, in the outwardly "respectable" couple who commit murder, because -they "refrained from going to the bottom of facts and motives." Conrad -has made a horrible, forgivable, admirable work of art out of a bright -tin can, a befouled shovel, and a stained carving knife. He has made of -these three domestic objects the symbols of that destroying element, -"red in tooth and claw," which turns the wheel on which the world is -broken. - - - - -MAURICE MAETERLINCK - - -I - - -Often, mostly at night, a wheel of memory seems to turn in my head like -a kaleidoscope, flashing out the pictures and the visions of my own that -I keep there. The same wheel turned in my head when I was in Dieppe with -Charles Conder, and it turned into these verses: - - -There's a tune burns, bums in my head, -And I hear it beat to the sound of my feet, -For that was the tune we used to walk to -In the days that are over and dead. - -Another tune turns under and over. -And it turns in my brain as I think again -Of the days that are dead, and the ways she walks now, -To the self-same tune, with her lover. - - -I see, for instance, Mallarmé, with his exquisite manner of welcome, as -he opens the door to me on the fourth floor of the Rue de Rome; I hear -Jean Moréas thunder out some verses of his own to a waitress in a -Bouillon Duval, whose name was Celimène, who pretended to understand -them; Stuart Mérill at the Rue Ballier, Henri de Regnier silent under -his eye-glass in one of the rooms of the _Mercerie de France_; Maurice -Maeterlinck in all the hurry of a departure, between two portmanteaux. -That was, I suppose, one of the most surprising meetings I ever had; -for, as a matter of fact, one night in Fountain Court, it was in 1894--I -was equally surprised when I opened his _Alladine et Palamides_ which he -had sent me with a dedication. After that time I saw him, during several -years, fairly often in Paris and once in Rome, in 1903, when one -performance was given of his _Joyzelle_--the most unsatisfactory -performance I ever saw, and of certainly an unsatisfactory play. Nervous -as he always was--he used, for one thing, to keep a loaded revolver -always beside him in his bedroom--he shirked the occasion and went to -Naples. I have never forgotten the afternoon when he read to me in his -house in Paris whole pages of _Monna Vanna._ After I had left the house, -I said to a certain lady who was with me: "Rhetoric, nothing but -rhetoric! It may be obviously dramatic; but the worst of it is, all the -magic and mystery of his earlier plays had vanished: there is logic -rather than life." - -It is very unfortunate for a man to be compared to Shakespeare even by -his enemies, when he is only twenty-seven and has time before him. That -is what has happened to Maurice Maeterlinck. Two years ago the poet of -_Serres Chaudes_ was known to only a small circle of amateurs of the -new; he was known as a young Belgian of curious talent who had published -a small volume of vague poems in monotone. On the appearance of _La -Princesse maleine_, in the early part of 1890, Maeterlinck had an -unexpected "greatness thrust upon him" by a flaming article of Octave -Mirbeau, the author of that striking novel _Sébastian Roch_ in the -_Figaro_ of August 24th. "Maurice Maeterlinck," said this uncompromising -enthusiast, - - -"_nous a donné l'oeuvre la plus géniale de ce temps, et la plus -extraordinaire et la plus naive aussi, comparable--et oserai-je le -dire?--supérieure en beauté à ce qu'il y a de plus beau dans -Shakespeare.... plus tragique que 'Macbeth,' plus extraordinaire de -pensée que 'Hamlet._'" - - -In short, there was no Shakespearean merit in which _La Princesse -Maleine_ was lacking, and it followed that the author of _La Princesse -Maleine_ was the Shakespeare of our age--the Belgian Shakespeare. The -merits of Maeterlinck were widely discussed in France and Belgium, and -it was not long before the five-act drama was followed by two pieces, -each in one act, called _L'Intruse_ and _Les Aveugles._ In May, 1891, -_L'Intruse_ was given by the Théâtre d'Art at the Vaudeville on the -occasion of the benefit of Paul Verlaine and Paul Gauguin. - -He is not entirely the initiator of this impressionistic drama; first in -order of talent, he is second in order of time to another Belgian, -Charles van Lerberghe, to whom _Les Aveugles_ is dedicated. It was Van -Lerberghe (in _Les Flaireurs_, for example) who discovered the effect -which might be obtained on the stage by certain appeals to the sense of -hearing and of sight, newly directed and with new intentions. But what -is crude and even distracting in _Les Flaireurs_ becomes an exquisite -subtlety in _L'Intruse._ In _La Princesse Maleine_, in _L'Intruse_, in -_Les Aveugles_, in _Les Sept Princesses_, Maeterlinck has but one note, -that of fear--the "vague spiritual fear" of imaginative childhood, of -excited nerves, of morbid apprehension. In _La Princesse Maleine_ there -is a certain amount of action--action which is certainly meant to -reinvest the terrors of Macbeth and of Lear. In _L'Intruse_ and _Les -Aveugles_ the scene is stationary, the action but reflected upon the -stage, as if from some other plane. In _Les Sept Princesses_ the action, -such as it is, is "such stuff as dreams are made of," and is literally, -in great part, seen through a window. From first to last it is not the -play, but the atmosphere of the play, that is "the thing." In the -creation of this atmosphere Maeterlinck shows his particular skill; it -is here that he communicates to us the nouveau frisson, here that he -does what no one has done before. - -_La Princesse Maleine_, it is said, was written for a theater of -marionettes, and it is, certainly, with the effect of marionettes that -these sudden, exclamatory people come and go. Maleine, Hjalmar, -Uglyane--these are no characters, these are no realizable persons; they -are a mask of shadows, a dance of silhouettes behind the white sheet of -the "Chat Noir," and they have the fantastic charm of these enigmatical -semblances--"luminous, gem-like, ghost-like"--with, also, their somewhat -mechanical eeriness. Maeterlinck has recorded his intellectual debt to -Villiers de l'Isle Adam, but it was not from the author of _Axel_ that -he learned his method. The personages of Maeterlinck--are only too -eloquent, too volubly poetical. In their mystical aim Villiers and -Maeterlinck are at one; in their method there is all the difference in -the world. This is how Sara, in _Axel_, speaks:-- - - -_Songe! Des coeurs condamnés à ce supplice de pas m'aimer! ne sont-ils -pas assez infortunés d'être d'une telle nature?_ - - -But Maleine has nothing more impressive to say than this:-- - - -_Mon Dieu! mon Dieu! comme je suis malade! Et je ne sais pas ce que -j'ai;--et personne ne sait ce que le médecin ne sait pas ce que j'ai; -ma nourrice ne sait pas ce que j'ai; Hjalmar ne sait pas ce que j'ai._ - - -That these repetitions lend themselves to parody is obvious; that they -are sometimes ridiculous is certain; but the principle which underlies -them is at the root of much of the finest Eastern poetry--notably in the -Bible. The charm and the impressiveness of monotony is one of the -secrets of the East; we see it in their literature, in their dances, we -hear it in their music. The desire of the West is after variety, but as -variety is the most tiring of all excesses, we are in the mood for -welcoming an experiment in monotone. And therein lies the originality, -therein also the success of Maeterlinck. - -In comparing the author of _La Princesse Maleine_ with Shakespeare, -Mirbeau probably accepted for a moment the traditional Shakespeare of -grotesque horror and violent buffoonery. There is in _Maleine_ something -which might be called Elizabethan--though it is Elizabethan of the -school of Webster and Tourneur rather than of Shakespeare. But in -_L'Intruse_ and _Les Aveugles_ the spiritual terror and physical -apprehension which are common to all Maeterlinck's work have changed, -have become more interior. The art of both pieces consists in the subtle -gradations of terror, the slow, creeping progress of the nightmare of -apprehension. Nothing quite like it has been done before--not even by -Poe, not even by Villiers. A brooding poet, a mystic, a contemplative -spectator of the comedy of death--that is how Maeterlinck presents -himself to us in his work, and the introduction which he has prefixed to -his translation of _L'Ornement des Noces Spirituelles_ of Ruysbroeck -l'Admirable shows how deeply he has studied the mystical writers of all -ages, and how much akin to theirs is his own temper. Plato and Plotinus, -Saint Bernard and Jacob Boehme, Coleridge and Novalis--he knows them -all, and it is with a sort of reverence that he sets himself to the task -of translating the astonishing Flemish mystic of the thirteenth century, -known till now only by the fragments translated into French by Ernest -Hello from a sixteenth-century Latin version. This translation and this -introduction help to explain the real character of Maeterlinck's -dramatic work--dramatic as to form, by a sort of accident, but -essentially mystical. As a dramatist Maeterlinck has but one note--that -of fear; he has but one method--that of repetition. This is no equipment -for a Shakespeare, and it will probably be some time before Maeterlinck -can recover from the literary damage of so incredible a misnomer. - -In the preface to the first volume of the collected edition, which -should be read with attention by all who are interested in knowing -Maeterlinck's opinion of his own work, we are told:-- - - -_Quant aux deux petites pièces... je voudrais qu'il n'y eut aucun -malentendu à leur endroit. Ce n'est pas parce qu'elles sont -postérieures qu'il y faudrait chercher une évolution ou un nouveau -désir. Ce sont, à proprement parler, de petits jeux de scène, de -courts poèmes du genre assez malheureusement appelé "opéra-comique" -destinés à fournir, aux musiciens qui les avaient demandés, un thème -convenable à des développements lyriques. Ils ne prétendent à rien -d'avantage, et l'on se méprendrait sur mes intentions si l'on y voulait -trouver par surcroit de grandes arrière-pensées morales ou -philosophiques._ - - -Maeterlinck may be taken at his word, and, if we take him at his word, -we shall be the less disappointed. The two new plays are slight; they -have neither the subtlety of meaning nor the strangeness of atmosphere -which gives their quality of beauty and force to _Pelléas et -Mélisande_ and to _Les Aveugles. Soeur Béatrice_ is a dramatic version -of the legend which Davidson told effectively in the _Ballad of a Nun; -Ariane et Barbe-Bleue_ is a new reading of the legend of Blue-Beard. -Both are written in verse, although printed as prose. It may be -remembered that Maeterlinck once admitted that _La Princesse Maleine_ -was meant to be a kind of _verse libre_, and that he had originally -intended to print it as verse. As it stands now it is certainly not -verse in any real sense, where--as _Soeur Béatrice_ is written -throughout on the basis of the Alexandrine, although without rhyme. The -mute _e_ is, as in most modern French verse, sometimes sounded and -sometimes not sounded; short lines are frequently interspersed among the -lines of twelve syllables. Here are a few lines, taken at random, and -printed as verse;-- - - -_Tu ne me réponds pas? Je n'entends pas ton souffle... -Et tes genoux fléchissent.... Viens, viens, -n'attendons pas -Que l'aurore envieuse tende ses pièges d'or -Par les chemins d'azur qui mènent au bonheur._ - - -That is perfectly regular twelve-syllable verse with the exception of -the second line, where the final _ent of fléchissent_ is slurred. -Twelve-syllable unrhymed verse is almost as disconcerting and unknown in -English as in French, but it has been used, with splendid effect, by -Blake, and it is a metre of infinite possibilities. The metre of _Ariane -et Barbe-Bleue_ (as Maeterlinck has finally decided to call it) is -vaguer and more capricious; some of it is in twelve-syllable verse, some -in irregular verse, and some in what can not be called verse at all. -Take, for instance:-- - - -_Il parait qu'on pleurait dans les rues.--Pourquoi est-elle venue? On -m'a dit qu'elle avait son idée. Il n'aura pas celle-ci._ - - -The form in French is not, to our ears, successfully achieved; it seems -to take a hesitating step upon the road which Paul Fort, in his -_Ballades Françaises_ has tramped along so vigorously, but in so -doubtful a direction. Fort has published several volumes, which have -been much praised by many of the younger critics, in which verse is -printed as verse--verse which is sometimes rhymed and sometimes -unrhymed, sometimes regular and sometimes irregular; and along with this -verse there is a great deal of merely rhythmical prose, which is not -more like verse than any page of _Salammbo_, or _À Rebours_, or -_L'Étui de Nacre._ Now it seems to us that this indiscriminate mingling -of prose and verse is for the good neither of prose nor of verse. It is -a breaking down of limits without any conquest of new country. The mere -printing of verse as prose, which Maeterlinck has favored, seems to us a -travesty unworthy of a writer of beautiful prose or of beautiful verse. - -_Le Temple Enseveli_ is by no means equal, as literature or as -philosophy, to _Le Trésor des Humbles_, or even to _La Sagesse et la -Destinée_, but it is, like everything which Maeterlinck writes, full of -brooding honesty of thought and of a grave moral beauty of feeling. It -is the work of a thinker who "waits patiently," like a Christian upon -divine grace, upon the secret voices which come to us out of the deepest -places in our nature. He is absolutely open-minded, his trust and his -skepticism are alike an homage to truth. If what he has to say to us is -not always "_la sagesse même_," it is at least the speech of one who -has sought after wisdom more heedfully than any other writer of our -time. - -_Le Double Jardin_ is a collection of essays which form a kind of -postscript to _Le Temple Enseveli._ They are somewhat less abstract, -perhaps a little more casual, than the essays in that book, and are -concerned with subjects as varied as _The Wrath of the Bee, The -Motor-Car_, and _Old-fashioned Flowers._ Maeterlinck has never written -anything in prose more graceful, more homely, and more human than some -of these pages, particularly those on flowers. In _The Leaf of Olive_ -and in _Death and the Crown_ he carries speculation beyond the limits of -our knowledge, and "thinks nobly," not of the soul alone, but also of -the intelligence of man in its conflict with the deadly, unintelligent -oppositions of the natural forces of the world. Such pages are -fortifying, and we can not but be grateful for what is plausible in -their encouragement. But the larger part of the book is made up of notes -by the way, which have all the more charm because they are not too -systematically arranged. - -All, it is true, have some link of mutual relation, and proceed from a -common center. It is curious to see this harmonizing instinct at work in -the present arrangement of the essay now called _Éloge de l'Épée._ -The main part of this essay was published in the _Figaro_ in 1902 under -the title _La Défense de l'Épée._ In the _Figaro_ it began with a -merely topical reference:-- - - -_L'autre jour, dans un article charmant, Alfred Capus prévoyait la fin -de l'honneur, du moins de "l'honneur salle d'armes" et des instruments -qui le protègent._ - - -Then followed two paragraphs questioning, a little vaguely, - - -_si nous vivions dans une société qui nous protège suffisamment pour -nous enlever, en toutes circonstances, le droit le plus doux et le plus -cher à l'instinct de l'homme--celui de se faire justice à soi-même._ - - -In the essay as we now read it the topical reference has disappeared, -and more than three pages are occupied by a discussion of abstract -right, of essential justice, which seems to set, strangely and -unexpectedly, a solid foundation under a structure not visibly resting -on any foundation sufficient for its support. As the essay now stands it -has its place in a system of which it becomes one more illustration. - -Few of the essays in this book will be read with more interest than that -on _The Modern Drama._ It is a development of the ideas already -suggested by Maeterlinck in two prefaces. In asking where, under the -conditions of modern life, and in the expression of modern ideas, we can -find that background of beauty and of mystery which was like a natural -atmosphere to Sophocles and to Shakespeare, he is asking, not indeed -answering, a question which is being asked just now by all serious -thinkers who are concerned with the present and the future of the drama. -This suggestive essay should be contrasted and compared with a not less -suggestive, but more audaciously affirmative essay, _De l'Évolution du -Théâtre_, given as a lecture by André Gide, and reprinted at the -beginning of the volume containing his two latest plays _Saul_ and _Le -Roi Candaule._ Everything that Gide writes is full of honest, subtle and -unusual thought, and this consideration of the modern drama, though it -asks more questions, not answering them, seems also to answer a few of -the questions asked by Maeterlinck. - - - - -II - - -_Le Trésor des Humbles_ is in some respects the most important, as it -is certainly the most purely beautiful, of Maeterlinck's works. Limiting -himself as he did in his plays to the rendering of certain sensations, -and to the rendering of these in the most disembodied way possible, he -did not permit himself to indulge either in the weight of wisdom or the -adornment of beauty, each of which would have seemed to him (perhaps -wrongly) as an intrusion. Those web-like plays, a very spider's work of -filminess, allowed you to divine behind them one who was after all a -philosopher rather than a playwright. The philosopher could but be -divined, he was never seen. In these essays he has dropped the disguise -of his many masks. Speaking without intermediary, he speaks more -directly, with a more absolute abandonment of every convention of human -reserve, except the reserve of an extreme fastidiousness in the choice -of words simple enough and sincere enough to convey exactly his meaning, -more spontaneously, it would seem, than any writer since Emerson. From -Emerson he has certainly learned much; he has found, for instance, the -precise form in which to say what he has to say, in little essays, not, -indeed, so disconnected as Emerson's, but with a like care to say -something very definite in every sentence, so that that sentence might -stand by itself, without its context, as something more than a mere part -of a paragraph. But his philosophical system, though it has its -essential links with the great mystical system, which has developed -itself through many manifestations, from Plotinus and Porphyry downward, -is very much his own, and owes little to anything but his own -meditation; and whether his subject is _La Beauté Intérieure_ or _Les -Femmes, Les Avertis_ or _Le Tragique Quotidien_, it is with the same -wisdom, certainty and beauty that he speaks. The book might well become -the favorite reading of those persons to whom beauty must come with a -certain dogmatism, if it is to be accepted for what it is. It reveals -the inner life, with a simplicity which would seem the most obvious if -it were not the rarest of qualities. It denies nothing, but it asserts -many things, and it asserts nothing which has not been really seen. - -In the preface to the first volume of his _Théâtre_, Maeterlinck takes -us very simply into his confidence, and explains to us some of his -intentions and some of his methods. He sees in _La Princesse Maleine_ -one quality, and one only: "_une certaine harmonie épouvantée et -sombre._" The other plays, up to _Aglavaine et Sélysette_, -"_présentent une humanité et des sentiments plus précis, en proie à -des forces aussi inconnues, mais un peu mieux dessinées._" These -unknown forces, "_au fond desquelles on trouve l'idée du Dieu -chrétien, mêlée à celle de la fatalité antique_," are realized, for -the most part, under the form of death. A fragile, suffering, ignorant -humanity is represented struggling through a brief existence under the -terror and apprehension of death. It is this conception of life which -gives these plays their atmosphere, indeed their chief value. For, as we -are rightly told, the primary element of poetry is - - -_l'idée que la poète se fait de l'inconnu dans lequel flottent -les êtres et les choses qu'il évoque, du mystère qui -les domine et les juge et qui préside à leurs destinées._ - - -This idea it no longer seems to him possible to represent honestly by -the idea of death, and he asks: What is there to take its place? - - -_Pour mon humble part, après les petits drames que j'ai énumérés -plus haut, il m'a semblé loyal et sage d'écarter la mort de ce trône -auquel il n'est pas certain qu'elle ait droit. Déjà, dans le dernier, -que je n'ai pas nommé parmi les autres, dans "Aglavaine et Sélysette," -j'aurais voulu qu'elle cédât à l'amour, à la sagesse ou au bonheur -une part de sa puissance. Elle ne m'a pas obéi, et j'attends, avec la -plupart des poètes de mon temps, qu'une autre force se révèle._ - - -There is a fine and serious simplicity in these avowals, which show the -intellectual honesty of Maeterlinck's dramatic work, its basis in -philosophical thought. He is not merely a playwright who has found a -method, he is a thinker who has to express his own conception of the -universe, and therefore concerns literature. He finds that conception -changing, and, for the moment, he stands aside, waiting. "The man who -never alters his opinion," said Blake, "is like standing water, and -breeds reptiles of the mind." - -_Aglavaine et Sélysette_ is the most beautiful play that Maeterlinck -has yet written; it is as beautiful as _Le Trésor des Humbles._ -Hitherto, in his dramatic prose, he has deliberately refrained from that -explicit beauty of phrase which is to be found in almost every sentence -of the essays. Implicit beauty there has been from the first, a beauty -of reverie in which the close lips of his shadowy people seem afraid to -do more than whisper a few vague words, mere hints of whatever dreams -and thoughts had come to them out of the darkness. But of the elaborate -beauty of the essays, in which an extreme simplicity becomes more ornate -than any adornment, there has been, until now, almost nothing. In -_Aglavaine et Sélysette_ we have not merely beauty of conception and -atmosphere, but writing which is beautiful in itself, and in which -meditation achieves its own right to exist, not merely because it -carries out that conception, or forms that atmosphere. And at the same -time the very essence of the drama has been yet further spiritualized. -Maeterlinck has always realized, better than any one else, the -significance, in life and art, of mystery. He has realized how -unsearchable is the darkness out of which we have but just stepped, and -the darkness into which we are about to pass. And he has realized how -the thought and sense of that twofold darkness invade the little space -of light in which, for a moment, we move; the depth to which they shadow -our steps, even in that moment's partial escape. But in some of his -plays he would seem to have apprehended this mystery as a thing merely -or mainly terrifying--the actual physical darkness surrounding blind -men, the actual physical approach of death as a stealthy intruder into -our midst; he has shown us people huddled at a window, out of which they -almost feared to look, or beating at a door, the opening of which they -dreaded. Fear shivers through these plays, creeping across our nerves -like a damp mist coiling up out of a valley. And there is beauty -certainly in this "vague spiritual fear;" but certainly a lower kind of -beauty than that which gives its supreme pathos to _Aglavaine et -Sélysette._ Here is mystery which is also pure beauty, in these -delicate approaches of intellectual pathos, in which suffering and death -and error become transformed into something almost happy, so full is it -of strange light. - -And, with this spiritualizing of the very substance of what had always -been so fully a drama of things unseen, there comes, as we have said, a -freer abandonment to the instinctive desire of the artist to write -beautifully. Having realized that one need not be afraid of beauty, he -is not afraid to let soul speak to soul in language worthy of both. And, -curiously, at the same time he becomes more familiar, more human. -Sélysette is quite the most natural character that Maeterlinck has ever -drawn, as Aglavaine is the most noble. Méléandre is, perhaps, more -shadowy than ever, but that is because he is deliberately subordinated -in the composition, which is concerned only with the action upon one -another of the two women. He suffers the action of these forces, does -not himself act; standing between them as man stands between the calling -of the intellectual and the emotional life, between the simplicity of -daily existence, in which he is good, affectionate, happy, and the -perhaps "immoral" heightening of that existence which is somewhat -disastrously possible in the achievement of his dreams. In this play, -which touches so beautifully and so profoundly on so many questions, -this eternal question is restated; of course, not answered. To answer it -would be to find the missing word in the great enigma; and to -Maeterlinck, who can believe in nothing which is not mystery, it is of -the essence of his philosophy not to answer his own question. - - - - -EMILY BRONTË - - -It is one hundred years to a month--I write in August--that Emily -Brontë was born; she was born in August, 1818, and died December 19th, -1848, at the age of thirty. The stoic in woman has been seen once only, -and that in the only woman in whom there is seen the paradox of passion -without sensuousness. She required no passionate experience to endow her -with more than a memory of passion. Passion was alive in her as flame is -alive in the earth. Her poems are all outcries, as her great novel, -_Wuthering Heights_, is one long outcry. Rossetti in 1854 wrote: "I've -been greatly interested in _Wuthering Heights_, the first novel I've -read for an age, and the best (as regards power and style only) for two -ages, except _Sidonia._ But it is a fiend of a book. The action is laid -in hell--only it seems places and people have English names there." He -is not altogether right in what he says, and yet there is hell in the -heart of Heathcliff, that magnificent and malevolent gypsy, who, to my -mind, can only be compared with Borrow's creations in _Lavengro_ and -_The Romany Rye_--such as the immortal Jasper Petilengro and the immoral -Ursula--and with the lesser creations of Meredith's in _The Adventures -of Harry Richmond_ (in spite of the savage and piteous and fascinating -Kiomi--I have seen a young gypsy girl of this name the other day, -tragical). - -When Charlotte says of Emily that what "her mind had gathered of the -real concerning the people around her was too exclusively confined to -their tragic and terrible traits, out of which she created Earnshaw and -Catherine, and that having formed these beings, she did not know what -she had done," there is no doubt that on the whole she is right. For -these spirits are relentless and implacable, fallen and lost spirits, -and it is only in this amazing novel that I find maledictions and curses -and cries of anguish and writhings of agony and raptures of delight and -passionate supplications, such as only abnormal creatures could contrive -to express, and within the bounded space of the moors, made sad by -somber sunrises and glad by radiant sunsets. It is sad colored and -desolate, but when gleams of sunlight or of starlight pierce the clouds -that hang generally above it a rare and sunny beauty comes into the bare -outlines, quickening them with living splendor. - -In the passionately tragic genius of Emily I find a primitive -nature-worship; so strangely primitive that that wonderful scene of mad -recrimination between the dying Catherine and the repentant Heathcliff, -when she cries "I forgive you! Forgive me!" and he answers: "Kiss me -again; and don't let me see your eyes. I forgive what you have done to -me. I love _my_ murderer--but _yours?_ How can I?" is almost comparable -with a passage in _Macbeth_ where Banquo speaks of "the temple-haunting -Martlet" and its loved masonry which preludes Lady Macbeth's entrance -from under the buttresses as the delicate air bears witness to the -incarnate murder that swarms, snake-like, hidden under grass. Something -of Emily's saturnine humor comes into the mouth of the Calvinistic -farm-servant, whose jests are as grim and as deadly and as plague-like -as the snow-storms that make winter unendurable. - -Yes, this creator has, in herself and in her imagination, something -solitary and sorrowful--that of a woman who lived, literally, alone--and -whose genius had no scorn. She, who believed in the indestructible God -within herself, was silenced forever; herself and her genius which had -moved as a wind and moved as the sea in tumult and moved as the -thunderclouds in fury upon the tragical and perilous waters of passion -that surround "the topless towers" of _Wuthering Heights._ - -In one who, like Emily Brontë, was always dying of too much life, one -can imagine the sensitive reticences, the glowing eyes, and the strain -of the vehemences of that inner fire that fed on itself, which gave her -her taciturnity. "It is useless to ask her; you get no answers. The -awful point was that, while full of ruth for others, on herself she had -no pity; the spirit was inexorable to the flesh; from the trembling -hand, the unnerved limbs, the fading eyes, the same service was exacted -as they had rendered in health." - -"The spirit inexorable to the flesh:" there is the whole secret of what -in her life was her genius. Alone with herself--with her soul and her -body--she allows herself no respite: for she was always of an unresting -nature. So in the words of Pater--who told me of his enormous admiration -for her prose--"we are all _condamnés à mort avec des sursis -indéfinis_; we have our interval and then our place knows us no more." -How she spent these "intervals" must be forever unknown. Not in high -passions, I imagine, nor in wisdom, nor in care for material things; but -in moods of passion, in intellectual excitement, in an inexhaustible -curiosity, in an ironical contemplation "of the counted pulses of a -variegated, dramatic life." But never, I am certain, was she ever -capable--as she watches the weaving and unweaving of herself--of the -base corruption of what his existence was to Beardsley. "That he should -be so honest with his fear," I have written of him, "that he should sit -down before its face and study it feature by feature: that he should -never turn aside his eyes for more than one instant, make no attempt to -escape, but sit at home with it, travel with it, see it in his mirror, -taste it in the sacrament: that is the marvellous thing, and the sign of -his fundamental sincerity in life and art." - -Emily Brontë's passionate and daring genius attains this utmost limit -of tragedy, and with this a sense--an extreme sense--of the mystery of -terror which lurks in all the highest poetry as certainly in her lyrical -prose; a quality which distinguishes such prose and verse from all that -is but a little lower than the highest. Her genius is somber in the -sense that Webster's is, but much less dramatic. Neither his tragedies -nor her novel are well-constructed; and in her case something is -certainly lacking; for her narrative is dominated by sheer chance, and -guided by mere accident. And I think that she, with her sleepless -imagination, might have said as the child Giovanni in Webster's Tragedy -says: "I have not slept these six nights. When do the dead walk?" and is -answered: "When God shall please." When in disguise she sings of the -useless rebellions of the earth, rarely has a more poignant cry been -wrenched out of "a soul on the rack"--that is to say since Santa Teresa -sang:-- - - -A soul in God hidden from sin, -What more desires for thee remain, -Save but to love, and love again -And, all on flame, with love within, -Love on, and turn to love again? - - -than this stanza: - - -O! dreadful is the shock--intense the agony-- -When the ear begins to hear, and the eye begins to see; -When the pulse begins to throb, the brain to think -again, -The soul to feel the flesh and the flesh to feel the chain. - - -At times there is a tragic sublimity in her imagination, which gathers -together, as it were, the winds from the world's four quarters, that -howled in winter nights across the moor around the house she lived in. -Indeed the very storm of her genius hovers in the air between things -sublime and things hideous. "There never was such a thunderstorm of a -play," said Swinburne on Cyril Tourneur's _Revenger's Tragedy._ I am -inclined to add: "There never was such a thunderstorm of a novel as -_Wuthering Heights._" And it is blood-stained with the blood of the -roses of sunsets; the heavy atmosphere is sultry as the hush and heat -and awe of midnoon; sad visions appear with tragic countenances, -fugitives try in vain to escape from the insane brooding of their -consciences. And there are serviceable shadows; implacable -self-devotions and implacable cruelties; vengeances unassuaged; and a -kind of unscrupulous ferocity is seen not only in Heathcliff but in one -of his victims. And there are startling scenes and sentences that, once -impressed on the memory, are unforgettable: as scarlet flowers of evil -and as poisonous weeds they take root in one. - - - - -ON ENGLISH AND FRENCH FICTION - - -I - - -Certainly the modern English novel begins with that elaborate -masterpiece, _Tom Jones_, of Henry Fielding. And it seems to me that his -genius is contained, on the whole, in that one book; in which he creates -living people; the very soil is living. His hero is the typical sullen, -selfish, base-born, stupid, sensual, easily seduced and adventurous -youth, with whom his creator is mightily amused. The very Prefaces are -full of humorous wisdom; copied, I suppose, from Montaigne. The -typically wicked woman is painted almost as Hogarth might have painted -her. It is quite possible that she may have a few touches, here and -there, of Lady Wishfort, who, wrote Meredith, "is unmatched for the -vigour and pointedness of the tongue. It spins along with a final ring, -like the voice of Nature in a fury, and is, indeed, racy eloquence of -the elevated fishwife." - -Fielding has a strong sense of the vigilant comic, which is the genius -of thoughtful laughter, but never serving as a public advocate. Contempt -can not be entertained by comic intelligence. Blifil is essentially the -grossly and basely animal creature, who is also a villain, and who has -his part in the plot; indeed one scandalous scene in which he is -discovered is laughable in the purely comic sense. - -_Jonathan Wild_ presents a case of peculiar distinction, when that man -of eminent greatness remarks on the unfairness of a trial in which the -condemnation has been brought about by twelve men of the opposite party; -yet it is immensely comic to hear a guilty villain protesting that his -own "party" should have a voice in the Law. It opens an avenue into a -villain's ratiocination, as in Lady Booby's exclamation when Joseph -defends himself: "Your _virtue!_ I shall never survive it!" Fielding can -be equally satiric and comic: can raise laughter but never move pity. -And it is as he evokes great spirits that Meredith cries: "O for a -breath of Aristophanes, Rabelais, Voltaire, Cervantes, Fielding, -Molière! These are spirits that, if you know them well, will come when -you do call." - -After Fielding comes Thackeray, and his _Vanity Fair_ is the second -masterpiece in modern fiction. It is the work of a man of the world, -keenly observant of all the follies and virtues and vices and crimes and -splendors, of crimes and of failures, of his neither moral nor immoral -Fair. He takes his title from John Bunyan; but in originality he is -almost equal with Fielding. "As the Manager of the Performance sits -before the curtain on the boards, and looks into the Fair, a feeling of -profound melancholy comes over him in his survey of the bustling place." -Such is the moral, if you like; at any rate the whole Show "is -accompanied by appropriate scenery and brilliantly illuminated with the -author's own candles." At the end the Finis: "Ah! _Vanitas Vanitatum!_ -Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? or, -having it, is satisfied?--Come children, let us shut up the box and the -puppets, for our play is played out." - -There is no question that Becky Sharp is not derived from Balzac's -Lisbeth in _La Cousine Bette_, but at what a distance, when once you -think of the greatest of all novelists, who has the fortune to be -French, and of Thackeray, who has the fortune (at times the misfortune) -of being English. When we thing of Becky she startles us by her cynical -entrance: she inherits from her parents bad qualities. Her first epigram -sums her up. "Revenge may be wicked, but it's natural. I'm no angel." -She fascinates Lord Pitt, Rawdon Crawley and Lord Steyne in a way -Lisbeth never does. Lisbeth's fascination is that of the evil-doer; she -is envious, spiteful, malicious, a lying hypocrite; always deliberately -bent on having her own way, always for evil purposes: so that she, in -her sinister effrontery, causes the ruin of many of the lives she -thrives on, feigns to help, deludes; only, she never deludes as Valérie -Marnette does. We have only to say: "Valérie!" and the woman is before -us. As for Valérie: "_Elle était belle comme sont belles les femmes -assez belles, pour être belles en dormant_;" a sentence certainly -lyrical. Lisbeth's character has "_Une dose du mordant parisien._" -Unmarried, she is monstrous, her snares are inevitable, her -dissimulation impenetrable. But she is never given a scene so -consummately achieved in its sordid and voluptuous tragedy as the scene -in _Vanity Fair_ when Rawdon enters his house at midnight, and finds -Becky dressed in a brilliant toilet, her arms and her fingers sparkling -with bracelets and rings, and the brilliants in her breast which Steyne -had given her. "He had her hand in his, and was bowing to kiss it, when -Becky started up with a faint scream as she caught sight of Rawdon's -white face." And, as the writer adds, with an entire sense of the tragic -and comic drama that is over: "All her lies and her schemes, all her -selfishness and her wiles, all her wit and all her genius had come to -this bankruptcy." - -I have never had any actual admiration for the novels of George Eliot; -she had her passing fame, her popularity, her success; people compared -her prose--wrongly--with the poetry of Mrs. Browning; and, as for her -attempts at verse, the less said of them the better. In favor of my -opinion I quote this scathing sentence of Swinburne: "Having no taste -for the dissection of dolls, I shall leave Daniel Deronda in his natural -place above the ragshop door; and having no ear for the melodies of a -Jew's harp, I shall leave the Spanish Gypsy to perform on that -instrument to such audience as she may collect." Certainly Charlotte -Brontë excelled George Eliot in almost every quality; the latter -having, perhaps, more knowledge and culture, but not for a moment -comparable with Charlotte's purity of passion, depth and fervor of -feeling, inspiration, imagination and a most masterly style. - -As for her _Romola_, I find it almost an elaborate failure in the -endeavor to create the atmosphere of the period of Savonarola--that -amazing age when the greatest spirits of the world were alive and -producing works of unsurpassable genius--and in her too anatomical -demonstration of the varying vices and virtues of Tito: for she has none -of that strange subtlety that a writer of novels must possess to -delineate how this human soul may pass in the course of decomposition -into some irremediable ruin. She is too much of the moralist to be able -to present this character as a necessary and natural figure, such as far -greater writers have had no difficulty in doing. She presents -him--rather after the fashion of George Sand, as a fearful and warning -example. Think, for a moment,--the comparison is all but impossible,--of -this attempt at characterization with Browning's Guido Franceschini; for -in his two monologues every nerve of the mind is touched by the patient -scalpel, every joint and vein of the subtle and intricate spirit laid -bare and divided. Compare this also with Cenci: the comparison has been -made by Swinburne, with an equal praise of two masterpieces, _The Cenci_ -of Shelley and _The Ring and the Book_ of Browning. Both Cenci and -Franceschini are cunningly drawn and colored so as to be absolute models -of the highest form of realism: as cunningly colored and drawn as the -immortal creation of Madame Bovary. - -Take, for instance, the character of Rochester in _Jane Eyre._ It is -incomparable of its kind; an absolutely conceived living being, who has -enough nerves and enough passion to more or less extinguish the various -male characters in George Eliot's novels. That Maggie Tulliver, in _The -Mill on the Floss_, the finest of her novels, can be moved to any sense -but that of bitter disgust and sickening disdain by a thing--I will not -write, a man--of Stephen Guest's character, is a lamentable and an ugly -case of shameful failure; for as Swinburne says, "The last word of -realism has surely been spoken, the last abyss of cynicism has surely -been sounded and laid bare." And I am glad to note here that he -dismisses her with this reference to three great French writers; using, -of course, his invariable ironical paradoxes. "For a higher view and a -more cheery aspect of the sex, we must turn back to those gentler -teachers, those more flattering painters of our own--Laclos, Stendhal -and Merrimée; we must take up _La Double Méprise_--or _Le Rouge et le -Noir_--or _Les Liaisons Dangereuses._" - -The genius of George Meredith is unquestionable; he was as great a -creator, in fact a greater creator, than any other English novelist; yet -his fascination is not, I think, quite explicable. Not since the -Elizabethans have we had so flame-like a life possessing the wanton body -of a style. Our literature has not a more vividly entertaining book than -_The Shaving of Shagpat_--I have the rare first edition of 1856 in my -possession--nor has the soul of a style been lost more spectacularly. -And with this fantastic, learned, poetic, passionate, intelligent style, -a style which might have lent itself so well to the making of -Elizabethan drama, Meredith has set himself the task of writing novels -of contemporary life; nor can it be wondered that every novel of his -breaks every rule which could possibly be laid down for the writing of a -novel. Why has his prose so irresistible a fascination for so many of -us, as it certainly has? I find Meredith breaking every canon of what -are to me the laws of the novel; and yet I read him in preference to any -other novelist. - -Meredith first conceives that the novelist's prime study is human nature -and his first duty to be true to it. Moreover, being an artist, he is -not content with simple observations; there must be creation, the -imaginative fusion of the mass of observed fact. The philosophy of his -seeking is only another name for intuition, analysis, imaginative -thought. He has comprehension of a character from height to depth -through that "eye of steady flame," which he attributes to Shakespeare, -and which may be defined in every great artist. He sees it, he beholds a -complete nature, at once and in entirety. His task is to make others see -what he sees. But this can not be done at a stroke. It must be done -little by little, touch upon touch, light upon shade, shade upon light. -The completeness, as seen by the seer or creator--the term is the -same--must be microscopically investigated, divided into its component -parts, produced piece by piece, and connected visibly. It is this that -is meant when we talk of analysis; and the antithesis between analysis -and creation is hardly so sheer as it seems. Partly through a selection -of appropriate action, partly through the revealing casual speech, the -imagined character takes palpable form: finally it does, or it should, -live and breathe before the reader with some likeness of the hue and -breadth of actual life. But there is a step farther, and it is this step -that Meredith is strenuous to take. You have the flesh, animate it with -spirit, with soul. If this is an unworthy aim, condemn Shakespeare. This -is Meredith's, and it is this and no other consummation that he prays -for in demanding philosophy in fiction. - -The main peculiarity of Meredith's style is this: he thinks, to begin -with, before writing--a singular thing, one must observe, for the -present day. Then, having certain definite thoughts to express, and -thoughts frequently of a difficult remoteness, he is careful to employ -words of a rich and fruitful significance, made richer and more fruitful -by a studied and uncommon arrangement. His sentences are architectural; -and it is natural in reading him to cry out at the strangeness. Strange, -certainly; often obscure, often tantalizing; more often magnificent and -somber and strong and passionate, his wit is perhaps too fantastical, -too remote, too allusive; partly because it is subtly ironical; perhaps -most of all because it is shrewdly stinging to our prejudices. Still, -everywhere, the poet, struggling against the bondage of prose, flings -himself on every opportunity of evading his bondage. It is thus by the -very quality that is his distraction--perhaps because he always writes -English as if it were a learned language--that Meredith holds us, by the -intensity of his vision of a world which is not our world, by the energy -of genius which has done so much to achieve the impossible. - - - - -II - - -Prose is the language of what we call real life, and it is only in prose -that an illusion of external reality can be given. Compare the whole -process and existence of character in a play of Shakespeare and in a -novel of Balzac. I choose Balzac among novelists because his mind is -nearer to what is creative in the poet's mind than that of a novelist, -and his method nearer to the method of the poet. Take King Lear and take -Père Goriot. Goriot is a Lear at heart, and he suffers the same -tortures and humiliations. But precisely where Lear grows up before the -mind's eye into a vast cloud and shadowy mountain of trouble, Goriot -grows downward into the earth and takes root there, wrapping the dust -about all his fibers. Lear may exchange his crown for the fool's bauble, -knowing nothing of it; but Goriot knows well enough the value of every -bank-note that his daughters rob him of. In that definiteness, that new -power of "stationary" emotion in a firm and material way, lies one of -the great opportunities of prose. - -The genius of prose is essentially different from the "genius of -poetry;" and that is the reason why writers like De Quincy and Ruskin -trespassed, as thieves do, on forbidden ground. It is much better to -pick forbidden fruit and to eat thereof, and be as stealthy as the -traveler in Blake's deliciously wicked poem who steals from the unloved -lover the woman he loves: - - -Soon after she has gone from me -A traveller came by, -Silently, invisibly: -He took her with a sigh. - - -The moral of it is "Never seek to sell thy love;" but such writers as -those I have referred to tread fallen fruit ruthlessly under foot and -therefore ought to be thrust out of the garden they have robbed. Both -tried to write prose as if they were writing verse, and both failed; -Ruskin ruined by his fatal facility and De Quincy by his cultivating -eloquence in rhetoric. Certain prose writers have written lyrical prose, -because their genius at times drove them to do so, and with an absolute -success. One finds such passages in Shakespeare and Blake and Pater and -Lamb; in certain pages of Balzac and of Flaubert and of Meredith and of -Conrad. Yet, in what I must call lyrical prose, there is a certain -rhythm, but not that of rhymed verse; that is to say, if the inspiration -were the same, the mediums are different: the rhythm of prose that has -no meter and the rhythm of verse that has meter. - -Take, for instance, Peacock, who was neither a great prose writer nor a -great poet, but whose novels are unique in English, and are among the -most scholarly, original and entertaining prose writings of the century. - - -A strain too learned for a shallow age, -Too wide for selfish bigots, let his page -Which charms the chosen spirits of the time -Fold itself up for the serener clime -Of years to come, and find its recompense -In that just expectation. - - -So Shelley praises him, who was certainly aware of Peacock's clever -scraps of rhyming that are like no other verse; the masterpiece being -the comically heroic _War-Song of Dinar Valor_, which the author defines -as "the quintessence of all war songs that were ever written, and the -sum and substances of all the appetences, tendencies and consequences of -military." This learned wit, his satire upon the vulgarity of progress -(in which he is one with Baudelaire and one with Meredith) are more -continuously present in his prose than in his verse; yet his characters -are caricatures, they speak a language that is not ours; they are given -sensational adventures, often comical in the extreme; and in these pages -plenty of nonsense and of laughter and of satire and of serious prose -with an undercurrent of bitter cynicism. He treats all his creatures -cruelly, and I can not help seeing the reason why Richard Garnett -admired his prose so much: that there is something curiously alike and -unlike in their humor. - -Garnett himself told me, as I always thought, that _The Twilight of the -Gods_ was far and away the best book he had written. In France Marcel -Schwob and André Gide have done certain things comparable in their way -with these learned inventions, these ironic "criticisms of life," these -irreverent classical burlesques in which religion, morality, learning, -and all civilization's conventions, are turned topsy-turvy, and -presented in the ridiculousness of their unaccustomed attitude. But no -modern man in England has done anything remotely comparable with them, -and neither Schwob nor André Gide has heaped mockery so high as in -_Abdullah the Adite_, and remained as sure a master of all the -reticences of art and manners. This learned mockery has an undefinable -quality, macabre, diabolical, a witchcraft of its own, which I can find -in no other writer. - -To return to the question of rhythm, the rhythm of prose, for one thing, -is physiological, the rhythm of poetry is musical. There is in every -play of Ibsen a rhythm perfect of its kind, but it is the physiological -rhythm of prose. The rhythm of a play of Shakespeare speaks to the blood -like wine or music: it is with exultation, with intoxication, that we -see or read _Antony and Cleopatra_ or even _Richard II_; it gives us -exactly the same intoxication and the same exultation when we hear -Vladimir de Pachmann play the piano, when we hear Wagner's _Tristan._ -But the rhythm of a play of Ibsen is like that of a diagram in Euclid; -it is the rhythm of logic, and it produces in us the purely mental -exaltation of a problem solved. - - - - -III - - -Is not a criticism of primary ideas, the only kind of criticism, when -one considers it, that is really worth writing? A critic may tell us -that So-an-So has written a charming book, that it is the best of his -charming books, that it is better or worse than another book by another -writer with whom we see no necessity to compare him, that it is, in -short, an "addition to literature;" well and good, here is some one's -opinion, perhaps right, perhaps wrong; not very important if right, not -easy to disprove if wrong. But let him tell us, in noting the precise -quality of _À Rebours_, and its precise divergence from the tradition -of naturalism: "_Il ne s'agissait plus tant de faire entrer dans l'art, -par la représentation, l'extériorité brute, que de tirer de cette -extériorité même des motifs de rêve et de la révélation -intérieure_;" let him tell us in discussing the question of literary -sincerity that a certain writer "_est sincère, non parce qu'il avoue -toute sa pensée, mais parce qu'il pense tout son aveu_:" has he not -added to the very substance of our thought, or touched that substance -with new light? - -The curious thing in regard to Benjamin Constant is that there was not a -single interest, out of the many that occupied his life, which he did -not destroy by some inconsequence of action, for no reason in the world, -apparently, except some irrational necessity of doing exactly the -opposite of what he ought to have done, of what he wanted to do. So he -creates _Adolphe_ so much of himself in it, and makes him say, in a -memorable sentence, "_Je me reposais, pour ainsi dire, dans -l'indifference des autres, de la fatigue de son amour._" He was never -tired of listening to himself, and the acute interest of his Journal -consists in the absolute sincerity of its confessions, and at the same -time the scrutinizing self-consciousness of every word that is written -down. "_Il y a en moi deux personnes, dont l'en observe l'autre._" So -cold-hearted is he that when perhaps his best friend, Mademoiselle -Talma, is dying, he spends day and night by her bedside, overwhelmed -with grief; and he writes in his Journal: "_Y étudie la mort._" So out -of this distressing kind of reality which afflicts the artist, he -creates his art, _Adolphe_, a masterpiece of psychological narrative, -from which the modern novel of analysis may have been said to have -arisen, which is simply a human document in which he has told us the -story of his liaison with the writer of _Corinne._ She made him suffer -for he writes: "_Tous les volcans sont moins flamboyants qu'elle._" He -suffers, as his hero does, because he can neither be intensely absorbed, -nor, for one moment, indifferent; that very spirit of analysis which -would seem to throw some doubt on the sincerity of his passion, does but -intensify the acuteness with which he feels it. It is the turning of the -sword in a wound. He sums up and typifies the artistic temperament at -its acutest point of weakness; the temperament which can neither resist, -nor dominate, nor even wholly succumb to, emotion; which is forever -seeking its own hurt, with the persistence almost of mania; which, if it -ruins other lives in the pursuit, as is supposed, of artistic purposes, -gains at all events no personal satisfaction out of the bargain; except, -indeed, when one has written _Adolphe_, the satisfaction of having lived -unhappily for more than sixty years, and left behind one a hundred pages -that are still read with admiration, sixty years afterward. - -Flaubert, possessed of an absolute belief that there exists but one way -of expressing one thing, one word to call it by, one adjective to -qualify, one verb to animate it, gave himself to superhuman labors for -the discovery, in every phrase, of that word, that verb, that adjective. -And the desperate certitude in his spirit always was: "Among all the -expressions in the world, all forms and turns of expression, there is -but _one_--one form, one mode--to express all I want to say." He -desired, above all things, impersonality; and yet, in spite of the fact -that he is the most impersonal of novelists, the artist is always felt; -for as Pater said: "his subjectivity must and will color the incidents, -as his very bodily eye selects the aspects of things." Yet again, in -spite of the fact that Flaubert did keep _Madame Bovary_ at a great -distance from himself, we find in these pages the analyst and the lyric -poet in equilibrium. It is the history of a woman, as carefully observed -as any story that has ever been written, and observed in surroundings of -the most extraordinary kind. He creates Emma cruelly, morbidly, -marvelously; he creates in her, as Baudelaire says, the adulterous woman -with a depraved imagination. "_Elle se donne_" he writes, -"_magnifiquement, généreusement, d'une manière toute masculine, à -des drôles qui ne sont pas ses égaux, exactement comme les poètes se -livrent a des drôlesses._" - -As Flaubert invented the rhythm of every sentence I choose this one from -the novel I have referred to, this magnificently tragic sentence: "_Et -Emma se mit à rire, d'un rire atroce, frénétique, désespéré, -croient voir la face hideuse du misérable qui se dressait dans les -ténèbres éternelles comme un épouvantent._" Aeschylus might have put -such words as these on the lying and crying lips of Clytemnestra in her -atrocious speech after she has slain Agamemnon. With this compare a -sentence I translate from Petrus Bórel. "I have often heard that -certain insects were made for the amusement of children: perhaps man -also was created for the same pleasures of superior beings, who delight -in torturing him, and disport themselves in his groans." This is a -sentence which might almost have been written by Hardy, so clearly does -it state, in an image like one of his own, the very center of his -philosophy. Take, for example, these sentences in _The Return of the -Native_: "Yet, upon the whole, neither the man nor the woman lost -dignity by sudden death. Misfortune had struck them gracefully, cutting -off their erratic histories with a catastrophic dash." - -Swinburne, who invariably overpraises Victor Hugo, overpraises his -atrocious novel _L'Homme qui rit._ But I forgive him everything when he -writes such Baudelairean sentences as these: - - -Bakilphedro, who plays the part of devil, is a bastard begotten by Iago -upon his sister, Madame de Merteuil; having something of both, but -diminished and degraded; wanting, for instance, the deep daemonic calm -of their lifelong patience. He has too much heat of discontent, too much -fever and fire, to know their perfect peace of spirit, the equable -element of their souls, the quiet of mind in which they live and work -out their work at leisure. He does not sin at rest, there is somewhat of -fume and fret in his wickedness. There is the peace of the devil, which -passeth all understanding. - - -Certainly, for an absolutely diabolical dissection of three equally -infamous characters, this is unsurpassable. Iago is not entirely -malignant, nor is he abjectly vile, nor is he utterly dishonest: he is -supreme in evil, and almost as far above vice as he is beyond virtue. He -has not even a fleshly desire for Desdemona: yet he is the impassioned -villain who "spins the plot." Can one conceive, as Swinburne -conjectures, "something of Iago's attitude in hell--of his unalterable -and indomitable posture for all eternity?" As for Madame Merteuil she -is, in _Les Liaisons dangereuses_, not only a counterfoil for Valmont, -but a spirit of almost inconceivable malignity; yet she is not as -abnormal as Iago. She has a sublime lack of virtue, with an immense -sense of her seductiveness. There is no grandeur in her evil, as there -is in Valmont's. In the longest letter she writes, that Baudelaire -praises, she confesses herself with so curious a shamelessness as to -intrigue one. In composing this for her Laclos shows the most sinister -side of his genius. He shows her sterility, her depraved imagination, -her deceit and her dissimulations: rarely the humiliations she has -endured. As she is resolved on the ruin of Valmont she writes in this -fashion: "_Séduite par votre réputation, il me semblait que vous -manquiez à ma gloire; je brûlais de vous combattre corps à corps._" -She is not even a criminal, not even the symbol of one of the poisonous -women of the Renaissance, who smiled complacently after an -assassination. Her nature is perverted by the lack of the intoxication -of crime. The imagination which stands to her in the place of virtue has -brought its revenge, and for her, too, there is only the release of -death. - -"_Tout les livres sont immoraux_," wrote Baudelaire in his notes on this -book: certainly a sweeping paradox, for there is much less immorality in -Laclos' novel than in Rabelais or in Swift or in Aristophanes. Still as -he wrote this book in the time of the French Revolution, there was more -than enough of hell-creating material in the age of Robespierre and -Marat and Danton and Mirabeau, who wrote the infamous _Erotika Biblion._ -It is amusing to note that in Perlet-Malassis's reprint in 1866 the -writer of a preface dated 1832 says: "_Le style de Mirabeau, par cette -vive puissance de la pensée que resplendit de son propre éclat sans -rien emprunter aux ornements de l'art, s'élève dans cet ouvrage -jusqu'aux beautés les plus sublimes._" Exactly a year before Mirabeau's -book appeared Laclos printed his novel; and, for what I must call the -sublimity of casuistry, here is one consummate sentence of Valmont's. -"_Je ne sortais de ses bras que pour tomber à ses genoux, pour lui -jurer un amour éternel, et, il faut tout avouer, je pensais ce que je -disais._" - - - - -IV - - -George Borrow has always had a curious fascination for me: for this man, -half Cornish and half French, with his peculiar kind of genius--such as -one generally finds in mixed blood--is both creative and inventive, -normal and abnormal, perverse and unpassionate, obscure and grimly -humorous. I was very young when I read his masterpiece _Lavengro_ (1851) -in its original three volumes, from which I got my first taste for a -sort of gypsy element in literature. The reading of that book did many -things for me. It absorbed me from the first page with a curiously -personal appeal, as of some one akin to me: the appeal, I suppose, to -what was wild in my blood. - -What Borrow really creates is a by no means undiscovered world: I mean -the world of the Gypsies; yet he is the first to discover their peculiar -characteristics, their savagery and uncivilization; he gives them life, -in their tents, on the road, along the hedges; he makes them speak, in -their pure and corrupted dialects, much as they always speak, but nearly -always with something of Borrow in them. They are imaginative: he gives -them part of his imagination. They are not subtle, nor is he; they are -not complex, he at times is complex; he paints their morality and -immorality almost as Hogarth might have done. - -In regard to the sense of fear, you find it in Shakespeare, in Balzac, -everywhere; but never I think more intensely than in the chapters in -_Lavengro_ describing Borrow's paroxysm of fear in the dingle. There is -nothing of the kind, in any language, equal to those pages of Borrow; -they go deep down into some "obscure night of the soul;" they are -abnormal. It is "the screaming horror" that takes possession of him. - - -The evil one was upon me; the inscrutable horror which I had felt from -boyhood had once more taken possession of me. I uttered wild cries. I -sat down with my back against a thorn-bush; the thorns entered my flesh, -and when I felt them, I pressed harder against the bush: I thought the -pain of the flesh might in some degree counteract the mental agony; -presently I felt them no longer--the power of the mental horror was so -great that it was impossible, with that upon me, to feel my pain from -the thorns. - - -Borrow writes as if civilization did not exist, and he obtains, in his -indirect way, an extraordinary directness. Really the most artificial of -writers, he is always true to that "peculiar mind and system of nerves" -of which he was so well aware, and which drove him into all sorts of -cunning ways of telling the truth, and making it at once bewildering and -convincing. - -I have often wondered why Robert Louis Stevenson was almost invariably -looked on as a man of genius. He had touches of it, certainly; and -therein lies part of the secret of his captivating the heart; why, quite -by himself, he ranks with writers like Thoreau and with Dumas (one for a -certain seductiveness of manner, the other for his extravagant passion -for miraculous adventures); and why he appeals to us, not only from his -curious charm as a literary vagrant--to some of us an irresistible -charm--and from the exhilaration of the blood which he causes in us, and -from the actual fever of his prose, and for his inhuman sense of life's -whimsical distresses, of its cruelties and maladies and confusions, but -from a certain gypsy and wayward grace, so like a woman's, that can -thrill to the blood often more instantly than in the presence of the -august perfection of classic beauty. - -His style, as he admits, is never wholly original; a "sedulous ape," as -he once humorously named himself, that aped the styles of Baudelaire and -Hawthorne and Lamb and Hazlitt; and that never, except rarely and by -certain happy accidents in his rejection of words and using some of them -as if no one had ever used them before, attains the inevitable -perfection of Baudelaire's prose style, nor the quintessential and -exultant and tragic style of Lamb, which has, beyond any writer -preeminent for charm, salt and sting; nor Montaigne's malign trickery of -style, his roving imagination, his preoccupation with himself, who said -so splendidly: "I have no other end in writing but to discover myself, -who also shall peradventure be another thing to-morrow." - -As in a tragic drama so in a tragic novel we must not forbid an artist -in fiction to set before us strange instances of inconsistency and -eccentricity in conduct as well as in action; but we require of him that -he should make us feel such aberrations to be as clearly inevitable as -they are certainly exceptional. Balzac has done that and Flaubert and -Goncourt and Maupassant and Conrad. All these, at their greatest, are -inevitable; only no novelist is ever consistently great. Reade's -Griffith Gaunt is not, as he ought to have been, inevitable; for what is -tragic and pathetic and eccentric in his character is flawed by the -writer's failure in showing what ought to have been the intolerable and -irresistible force of the temptation; his art is an act of envy, -therefore a base act, and has none of the grandeur of Othello's -jealousy, which makes one love him the more for that, more even because -he is unconscious of Iago's poisoned tongue. Leontes excites our -repulsion: he is a coward, selfish and deluded and ignoble. - -At his finest I find in Charles Reade certain adventures almost worthy -of Dumas; only he never had that overflowing negro-like genius of the -French novelist; who can be tedious at times, and can write very badly -when he likes, for he never had much of a style. Yet, with all his -suspense and the suddenness of his vivid action and of the living -conversation of furiously living creatures, he does really carry us -along in an amazing way; equally in the tragic figure Edmund Dantès as -in those of d'Artagnan and Aramis and Porthos. Among Reade's many faults -is the inability to blot when he ought to have blotted, to abstain, as -he too often did not, from ostentation and self-praise, by the fact that -he can not always get far enough away from what to him was the -pernicious atmosphere of the stage. - -_The Picture of Dorian Gray_ (1891) is partly made out of Wilde himself, -partly out of two other men, both of whom are alive. Not being creative -he was cruel enough to mix his somewhat poisonous color after the -fashion of an impressionistic painter, and so to give a treble -reflection of three different temperaments instead of giving one. In any -case, as Pater wrote: "Dorian himself, though a quite unsuccessful -experiment in Epicureanism, in life as a fine art, is (till his inward -spoiling takes visible effect suddenly, and in a moment, at the end of -his story) a beautiful creature." - -His peculiar kind of beauty might be imaged by a strangely colored -Eastern vessel, and hidden within it, a few delicate young serpents. For -he has something of the coiled up life of the serpents, in his poisonous -sins; sins he communicates to others, ruining their youthful lives with -no deliberate malice, but simply because he can not help it. He has no -sense of shame, even in his most ignoble nights. Sin is a thing that -writes itself across a man's face; but secret vices can not be -concealed; one sees them in the mere ironical curl of sinister lips, or -in the enigmatical lifting of an eyelid. He has made the devil's -bargain, but not in the sense in which Faustus sells his soul to Satan; -yet he is always entangled in the painted sins, the more and more -hideous aspects, of his intolerably accusing portrait, taken, certainly, -in Wilde's usual manner, from _La Peau de Chagrin_ of Balzac; only, and -therein lies the immense difference, the man's life never shrinks, but -the very lines and colors of his painted image shrivel, until the thing -itself--the thing he has come to hate as one hates hell--has its -revenge. - -A passion for caprice, a whimsical Irish temperament, a love of art for -art's sake--it is in such qualities as these that I find the origin of -the beautiful force of estheticism, the exquisite echoes of the poems, -the subtle decadence of _Dorian Gray_, and the paradoxical truths, the -perverted common sense of the _Intentions._ Certainly, as Pater -realized, Wilde, with his hatred of the bourgeois seriousness of dull -people, has always taken refuge from commonplace in irony. Life, to him, -even when he is most frivolous, ought not to be realism, but a following -after art: a provoking enough phrase for those who are lost to the sense -of suggestiveness. He is conscious of the charm of grateful echoes, and -is always original in his quotations. - -In Wilde we see a great spectacular intellect, to which, at last, pity -and terror have come in their own person, and no longer as puppets in a -play. In its sight, human life has always been something created on the -stage; a comedy in which it is the wise man's part to sit aside and -laugh, but in which he may also disdainfully take part, as in a -carnival, under any mask. The unbiased, scornful intellect, to which -humanity has never been a burden, comes now to be unable to sit aside -and laugh, and it has worn and looked behind so many masks that there is -nothing left desirable in illusion. Having seen, as the artist sees, -further than morality, but with so partial an eyesight as to have -overlooked it on the way, it has come at length to discover morality, in -the only way left possible, for itself. And, like most of those who have -"thought themselves weary," have made the adventure of putting thought -into action, it has had to discover it sorrowfully, at its own -inevitable expense. And now, having so newly become acquainted with what -is pitiful, and what seems most unjust, in the arrangements of mortal -affairs, it has gone, not unnaturally, to an extreme, and taken on the -one hand, humanitarianism, on the other realism, at more than their just -valuation in matters of art. It is that old instinct of the intellect; -the necessity to carry things to their farthest point of development, to -be more logical than either art or life, two very wayward and illogical -things, in which conclusions do not always follow from premises. - -Swinburne's _Love's Cross Currents_ appeared originally under what is -now its sub-title _A Year's Letters_, in a weekly periodical, long since -extinct, called _The Tattler_, from August 25th to December 29th, 1877. -It was written under the pseudonym of Mrs. Horace Manners, and was -preceded by a letter "To the Author," supposed to come from some unnamed -publisher or literary adviser, who returns her manuscript to the lady -with much faultfinding on the ground of morality. The letter ends: - - -I recommend you, therefore, to suppress, or even to destroy, this book, -for two reasons: It is a false picture of domestic life in England, -because it suggests as possible the chance that a married lady may -prefer some chance stranger to her husband, which is palpably and -demonstrably absurd. It is also, as far as I can see, deficient in -purpose and significance. Morality, I need not add, is the soul of art; -a picture, poem, or story must be judged by the lesson it conveys. If it -strengthens our hold upon fact, if it heightens our love of truth, if it -rekindles our ardour for the right, it is admissible as good; if not, -what shall we say of it? - - -The two final sentences of the first chapter, now omitted, are amusing -enough to seem characteristic: "For the worldling's sneer may silence -religion, but philanthropy is a tough fox and dies hard. The pietist may -subside on attack into actual sermonising, and thence into a dumb agony -of appeal against what he hears--the impotence of sincere disgust; but -infinite coarse chaff will not shut up the natural lecturer; he snuffs -sharply at all implied objection, and comes up to time again, gasping, -verbose and resolute." But is there not a certain needless loss in the -omission of two or three of the piquant passages in French? One is on -the woman of sixty who "_seule sait mettre du fard moral sans jurer -avec._" There is another passage in French which comes out of page 220; -it is not clear why, for it is sprightly enough, as this is also, which -drops out of page 175: "_Ce sang répandu, voyez-vous, mon enfant, -c'était la monnaie de sa vertu._" I said I should have preferred it -without the small change. "'_Mais, avec de la grosse monnaie on -n'achète jamais rien qui vaille,' she said placidly._" Then follows, as -we now have it: "_C'était décidément une femme forte._" Such, so -slight, and at times so uncalled for, are the changes in this -"disinterment" of "so early an attempt in the great art of fiction or -creation." - -In defending the form of his story in letters, Swinburne invokes the -names of Richardson and Laclos and "the giant genius of Balzac." But the -_Mémoires des deux jeunes Mariées_ is full of firm reality, _Pamela_ -is full of patient analysis, and _Les Liaisons dangereuses_ is full of -reality, analysis, and a hard brilliant genius for psychology. Swinburne -may have found in Laclos a little of his cynicism, though for that he -need have gone no further than Stendhal, who is referred to in these -pages, significantly. Some one says of some one: "I'd as soon read the -_Chartreuse de Parme_ as listen to her talk long; it is Stendhal diluted -and transmuted." But neither in Laclos nor in Stendhal did he find that -great novelist's gift which both have: that passion for life, and for -the unraveling of the threads of life. His people and their doings are -spectral, lunar; all the more so because their names are "Redgie," -Frank, and only rarely Amicia; and because they talk schoolboy slang as -schoolboys and French drawing-room slang as elderly people. They are -presented by brilliant descriptive or satiric touches; they say the -cleverest things of one another; they have a ghostly likeness to real -people which one would be surprised that Swinburne should ever have -tried to get, had he not repeated the same hopeless experiment in his -modern play _The Sisters_, which sacrifices every possible charm of -poetry or deep feeling to such a semblance; to so mere a mimicry of -every-day speech and manners. There is more reality in any mere Félise -or Fragoletta than in the plausible polite letter-writers. It is -impossible to care what they are doing or have done; not easy indeed, -without close reading, to find out; and, while there is hardly a -sentence which we can not read with pleasure for its literary savor, its -prim ironic elegance, there is not a page which we turn with the -faintest thrill of curiosity. A novel which lacks interest may have -every formal merit of writing, but it can not have merit as a novel. The -novel professes to show us men and women, alive and in action: the one -thing vitally interesting to men and women. - - - - -ON CRITICISM - - -Criticism is a valuation of forces, and it is indifferent to their -direction. It is concerned with them only as force, and it is concerned -only with force in its kind and degree. - -The aim of criticism is to distinguish what is essential in the work of -a writer; and in order to do this, its first business must be to find -out where he is different from all other writers. It is the delight of -the critic to praise; but praise is scarcely a part of his duty. He may -often seem to find himself obliged to condemn; yet condemnation is -hardly a necessary part of his office. What we ask of him is, that he -should find out for us more than we can find out for ourselves: trace -what in us is a whim or leaning to its remote home or center of gravity, -and explain why we are affected in this way or that way by this or that -writer. He studies origins in effects, and must know himself, and be -able to allow for his own mental and emotional variations, if he is to -do more than give us the records of his likes and dislikes. He must have -the passion of the lover, and be enamored of every form of beauty; and, -like the lover, not of all equally, but with a general allowance of -those least to his liking. He will do well to be not without a touch of -intolerance: that intolerance which, in the lover of the best, is an act -of justice against the second-rate. The second-rate may perhaps have -some reason for existence: that is doubtful; but the danger of the -second-rate, if it is accepted "on its own merits," as people say, is -that it may come to be taken for the thing it resembles, as a wavering -image in water resembles the rock which it reflects. - -Dryden, a poet who was even greater as a critic than as a poet, said, -"True judgment in poetry, like that in painting, takes a view of the -whole together, whether it be good or not; and where the beauties are -more than the faults, concludes for the poet against the little judge." -Here, in this decision, as to the proportions of merit and demerit in a -work, is the critic's first task; it is one that is often overlooked by -careful analysts, careless of what substance they are analyzing. What -has been called the historical method is responsible for a great deal of -these post-mortem dissections. How often do we not see learned persons -engaged in this dismal occupation, not even conscious that they are -fumbling among the bones and sinews of the dead. Such critics will -examine the signs of life with equal gravity in living insignificances. -But to the true critic a living insignificance is already dead. - -And so, as in a dead man all the virtues go for nothing, no merit, no -number of merits, of a secondary kind, in a writer who has been adjudged -"not to exist," can avail anything. The critic concerns himself only -with such as do exist. One of these, it may be, exists for a single book -out of many books, a single poem out of many volumes of verse; an essay, -an epigram, the preface to a book, a song out of a play. No perfect -thing is too small for eternal recollection. But there are other writers -who, though they have never condensed all their quality into any quite -final achievement, live by a kind of bulk, live because there is in them -something living, which refuses to go out. It is in his judgment of -these two classes of writers, the measure of his skill in finding vital -energy concentrated or diffused, in a cell or throughout an organism, -that the critic is most likely to show his own quality. Charles Lamb is -one of the greatest critics of Shakespeare, but the infallibility of his -instinct as a critic is shown, not so much when he writes better about -_Lear_ than any one had ever written about _Lear_, but when he reveals -to us, for the first time, the secret of Ford, the mainspring of -Webster. - -Criticism, when it is not mere talk about literature, concerns itself -with the first principles of human nature and with fundamental ideas. -There is a quite valuable kind of critic to whom a book is merely a -book, who is interested in things only as they become words, in emotions -only as they add fine raptures to printed pages. To such critics we owe -rules and systems; when they tabulate or elucidate meter or any -principle of form they are doing a humble but useful service to artists. -Their comments on books are often pleasant reading, sometimes turning -into a kind of literature, essays which we are content to read for their -own charm. But there is hardly anything idler than literary criticism -which is a mere describing and comparing of books, a mere praise and -blame of this and that writer and his work. When Coleridge writes a -criticism of Shakespeare, he is giving us his deepest philosophy, in a -manner in which we can best apprehend it. Criticism with Goethe is part -of his view of the world, his judgment of human nature, and of society. -With Pater, criticism is quickened meditation; with Matthew Arnold, a -form of moral instruction or mental satire. Lamb said in his criticism -more of what he had to say of "what God and man is," with more gravity -and more intensity, than in any other part of his work. - -And thus it is that, while there is a great mass of valuable criticism -done by critics who were only critics, the most valuable criticism of -all, the only quite essential criticism, has been done by creative -writers, for the most part poets. The criticism of a philosopher, -Aristotle's, comes next to that of the poets, but is never that winged -thing which criticism, as well as poetry, can be in the hands of a poet. -Aristotle is the mathematician of criticism, while Coleridge is the high -priest. - -When Dryden said "poets themselves are the most proper, though, I -conclude, not the only critics," he was stating a fact which many prose -persons have tried, though vainly, to dispute. Baudelaire, in a famous -passage of his essay on Wagner, has said with his invariable exactitude, -"It would be a wholly new event in the history of the arts if a critic -were to turn himself into a poet, a reversal of every psychic law, a -monstrosity; on the other hand, all great poets become naturally, -inevitably, critics. I pity the poets who are guided solely by instinct; -they seem to me incomplete. In the spiritual life of the former there -must come a crisis when they would think out their art, discover the -obscure laws in consequence of which they have produced, and draw from -this study a series of precepts whose divine purpose is infallibility in -poetic production. It would be impossible for a critic to become a poet, -and it is impossible for a poet not to contain a critic." And in England -we have had few good poets who have not on occasion shown themselves -good critics. What is perhaps strange is, that they have put some of -their criticism into verse, and made it into poetry. From the days when -Lydgate affirmed of Chaucer that "he of English in making was the best," -to the days when Landor declared of Browning: - - -"Since Chaucer was alive and hale, -No man hath walk'd along our roads with step -So active, so inquiring eye, or tongue -So varied in discourse;" - - -down, indeed, to the present days, when Swinburne has repaid Landor all -his praise of poets, almost every English poet has been generously just -to his contemporaries, and almost every poet has found the exact word of -definition, of revelation, which the prose critics were laboriously -hunting for, or still more laboriously writing round. To take a single -example, could anything be more actually critical, in the severest sense -of the word, than these lines of Shelley on Coleridge, lines which are -not less admirable as verse than as criticism? - - -You will see Coleridge; he who sits obscure -In the exceeding lustre and the pure -Intense irradiation of a mind -Which, with its own internal lightning blind, -Flags wearily through darkness and despair -A cloud-encircled meteor of the air, -A hooded eagle among blinking owls. - - -Those seven lines are not merely good criticism: they are final; they -leave nothing more to be said. Criticism, at such a height, is no longer -mere reasoning; it has the absolute sanction of intuition. - -And, it will be found, the criticism of poets, not only such as is -expressed, deliberately or by the way, in verse, but such as is set down -by them in essays, or in letters, however carefully or casually, remains -the most valuable criticism of poetry which we can get; and, similarly, -the opinion of men of genius on their own work and on their own form of -art, whatever it may be, is of more value than all the theories made by -"little judges." The occasional notes and sayings of such men as Blake -and Rossetti are often of more essential quality than their more ordered -and elaborate comments. The essence they contain is undiluted. They are -what is remembered over from a state of inspiration; and they are to be -received as reports are received from eye-witnesses, whose honesty has -already proved itself in authentic deeds. - -The _Biographia Literaria_ is the greatest book of criticism in English, -and one of the most annoying books in any language. The thought of -Coleridge has to be pursued across stones, ditches, and morasses; with -haste, lingering, and disappointment; it turns back, loses itself, -fetches wide circuits, and comes to no visible end. But you must follow -it step by step; and if you are ceaselessly attentive, will be -ceaselessly rewarded. - -When Coleridge says, in this book, that "the ultimate end of criticism -is much more to establish the principle of writing than to furnish rules -how to pass judgment on what has been written by others," he is defining -that form of criticism in which he is supreme among critics. Lamb can be -more instant in the detection of beauty; Pater can make over again an -image or likeness of that beauty which he defines, with more sensitive -precision; but no one has ever gone deeper down into the substance of -creation itself, or more nearly reached that unknown point where -creation begins. As poet, he knows; as philosopher, he understands; and -thus, as critic, he can explain almost the origin of creation. - - - - -THE DECADENT MOVEMENT IN -LITERATURE - - -The latest movement in European literature has been called by many -names, none of them quite exact or comprehensive--Decadence, Symbolism, -Impressionism, for instance. It is easy to dispute over words, and we -shall find that Verlaine objects to being called a Decadent, Maeterlinck -to being called a Symbolist, Huysmans to being called an Impressionist. -These terms, as it happens, have been adopted as the badge of little -separate cliques, noisy, brainsick young people who haunt the brasseries -of the Boulevard Saint-Michel, and exhaust their ingenuities in -theorizing over the works they can not write. But, taken frankly as -epithets which express their own meaning, both Impressionism and -Symbolism convey some notion of that new kind of literature which is -perhaps more broadly characterized by the word Decadence. The most -representative literature of the day--the writing which appeals to, -which has done so much to form, the younger generation--is certainly not -classic, nor has it any relation with that old antithesis of the -Classic, the Romantic. After a fashion it is no doubt a decadence; it -has all the qualities that mark the end of great periods, the qualities -that we find in the Greek, the Latin, decadence: an intense -self-consciousness, a restless curiosity in research, an -over-subtilizing refinement upon refinement, a spiritual and moral -perversity. If what we call the classic is indeed the supreme art--those -qualities of perfect simplicity, perfect sanity, perfect proportion, the -supreme qualities--then this representative literature of to-day, -interesting, beautiful, novel as it is, is really a new and beautiful -and interesting disease. - -Healthy we can not call it, and healthy it does not wish to be -considered. The Goncourts, in their prefaces, in their _Journal_, are -always insisting on their own pet malady, _la névrose._ It is in their -work too, that Huysmans notes with delight _le style tacheté et -faisandé_--high-flavored and spotted with corruption--which he himself -possesses in the highest degree. "Having desire without light, -curiosity, without wisdom, seeking God by strange ways, by ways traced -by the hands of men; offering rash incense upon the high places to an -unknown God, who is the God of darkness"--that is how Ernest Hello, in -one of his apocalyptic moments, characterizes the nineteenth century. -And this unreason of the soul--of which Hello himself is so curious a -victim--this unstable equilibrium, which has overbalanced so many -brilliant intelligences into one form or another of spiritual confusion, -is but another form of the _maladie fin de siècle._ For its very -disease of form, this literature is certainly typical of a civilization -grown over-luxurious, over-inquiring, too languid for the relief of -action, too uncertain for any emphasis in opinion or in conduct. It -reflects all the moods, all the manners, of a sophisticated society; its -very artificiality is a way of I being true to nature: simplicity, -sanity, proportion--the classic qualities--how much do we possess them -in our life, our surroundings, that we should look to find them in our -literature--so evidently the literature of a decadence? - -Taking the word Decadence, then, as most precisely expressing the -general sense of the newest movement in literature, we find that the -terms Impressionism and Symbolism define correctly enough the two main -branches of that movement. Now Impressionist and Symbolist have more in -common than either supposes; both are really working on the same -hypothesis, applied in different directions. What both seek is not -general truth merely, but _vérité vraie_, the very essence of -truth--the truth of appearances to the senses, of the visible world to -the eyes that see it; and the truth of spiritual things to the spiritual -vision. The Impressionist, in literature as in painting, would flash -upon you in a new, sudden way so exact an image of what you have just -seen, just as you have seen it, that you may say, as a young American -sculptor, a pupil of Rodin, said to me on seeing for the first time a -picture of Whistler's, "Whistler seems to think his picture upon -canvas--and there it is!" Or you may find, with Sainte-Beuve, writing of -Goncourt, the "soul of the landscape"--the soul of whatever corner of -the visible world has to be realized. The Symbolist, in this new, sudden -way, would I flash upon you the "soul" of that which can be apprehended -only by the soul--the finer sense of things unseen, the deeper meaning -of things evident. And naturally, necessarily, this endeavor after a -perfect truth to one's impression, to one's intuition--perhaps an -impossible endeavor--has brought with it, in its revolt from ready-made -impressions and conclusions, a revolt from the ready-made of language, -from the bondage of traditional form, of a form become rigid. In France, -where this movement began and has mainly flourished, it is Goncourt who -was the first to invent a style in prose really new, impressionistic, a -style which was itself almost sensation. It is Verlaine who has invented -such another new style in verse. - -The work of the brothers De Goncourt--twelve novels, eleven or twelve -studies in the history of the eighteenth century, six or seven books -about art, the art mainly of the eighteenth century and of Japan, two -plays, some volumes of letters and of fragments, and a _Journal_ in six -volumes--is perhaps, in its intention and its consequences, the most -revolutionary of the century. No one has ever tried so deliberately to -do something new as the Goncourts; and the final word in the summing up -which the survivor has placed at the head of the _Préfaces et -Manifestes_ is a word which speaks of _tentatives, enfin, où les deux -frères ont à faire du neuf, ont fait leurs efforts pour doter les -diverses branches de la littérature de quelque chose que n'avaient -point songé à trouver leurs prédécesseurs._ And in the preface to -_Chérie_, in that pathetic passage which tells of the two brothers (one -mortally stricken, and within a few months of death) taking their daily -walk in the Bois de Boulogne, there is a definite demand on posterity. -"The search after _reality_ in literature, the resurrection of -eighteenth-century art, the triumph of _Japonisme_--are not these," said -Jules, "the three great literary and artistic movements of the second -half of the nineteenth century? And it is we who brought them about, -these three movements. Well, when one has done that, it is difficult -indeed not to be _somebody_ in the future." Nor, even, is this all. What -the Goncourts have done is to specialize vision, so to speak, and to -subtilize language to the point of rendering every detail in just the -form and color of the actual impression. Edmond de Goncourt once said to -me--varying, if I remember rightly, an expression he had put into the -_Journal_--"My brother and I invented an opera-glass: the young people -nowadays are taking it out of our hands." - -An opera-glass--a special, unique way of seeing things--that is what the -Goncourts have brought to bear upon the common things about us; and it -is here that they have done the "something new," here more than -anywhere. They have never sought "to see life steadily, and see it -whole:" their vision has always been somewhat feverish, with the -diseased sharpness of over-excited nerves. "We do not hide from -ourselves that we have been passionate, nervous creatures, unhealthily -impressionable," confesses the _Journal._ But it is this morbid -intensity in seeing and seizing things that has helped to form that -marvelous style--"a style perhaps too ambitious of impossibilities," as -they admit--a style which inherits some of its color from Gautier, some -of its fine outline from Flaubert, but which has brought light and -shadow into the color, which has softened outline in the magic of -atmosphere. With them words are not merely color and sound, they live. -That search after _l'image peinte, l'épithète rare_, is not (as with -Flaubert) a search after harmony of phrase for its own sake; it is a -desperate endeavor to give sensation, to flash the impression of the -moment, to preserve the very heat and motion of life. And so, in -analysis as in description, they have found a way of noting the fine -shades; they have broken the outline of the conventional novel in -chapters, with its continuous story, in order to indicate--sometimes in -a chapter of half a page--this and that revealing moment, this or that -significant attitude or accident or sensation. For the placid traditions -of French prose they have had but little respect; their aim has been but -one, that of having (as M. Edmond de Goncourt tells us in the preface to -_Chérie_) "une langue rendant nos idées, nos sensations, nos -figurations des hommes et des choses, d'une façon distincte de celui-ci -ou de celui-là, une langue personnelle, une langue portant notre -signature." - -What Goncourt has done in prose--inventing absolutely a new way of -saying things, to correspond with that new way of seeing things which he -has found--Verlaine has done in verse. In a famous poem, _Art -Poétique_, he has himself defined his own ideal of the poetic art: - - -_Car nous voulons la Nuance encor, -Pas la Couleur, rien que la Nuance! -Oh! la Nuance seule fiance -Le rêve au rêve et la flûte au cor!_ - - -Music first of all and before all, he insists; and then, not color, but -_la nuance_, the last fine shade. Poetry is to be something vague, -intangible, evanescent, a winged soul in flight "toward other skies and -other loves." To express the inexpressible he speaks of beautiful eyes -behind a veil, of the palpitating sunlight of noon, of the blue swarm of -clear stars in a cool autumn sky; and the verse in which he makes this -confession of faith has the exquisite troubled beauty--_sans rien en lui -qui pèse ou qui pose_--which he commends as the essential quality of -verse. In a later poem of poetical counsel he tells us that art should, -first of all, be absolutely clear, absolutely sincere: _L'art mes -enfants, c'est d'être absolument soi-même._ The two poems, with their -seven years' interval--an interval which means so much in the life of a -man like Verlaine--give us all that there is of theory in the work of -the least theoretical, the most really instinctive, of poetical -innovators. Verlaine's poetry has varied with his life; always in -excess--now furiously sensual, now feverishly devout--he has been -constant only to himself, to his own self-contradictions. For, with all -the violence, turmoil and disorder of a life which is almost the life of -a modern Villon, Paul Verlaine has always retained that childlike -simplicity, and, in his verse, which has been his confessional, that -fine sincerity, of which Villon may be thought to have set the example -in literature. - -Beginning his career as a Parnassian with the _Poèmes Saturniens_, -Verlaine becomes himself, in the _Fêtes Galantes_, caprices after -Watteau, followed, a year later, by _La Bonne Chanson_, a happy record -of too confident a lover's happiness. _Romances sans Paroles_, in which -the poetry of Impressionism reaches its very highest point, is more -_tourmenté_, goes deeper, becomes more poignantly personal. It is the -poetry of sensation, of evocation; poetry which paints as well as sings, -and which paints as Whistler paints, seeming to think the colors and -outlines upon the canvas, to think them only, and they are there. The -mere magic of words--words which evoke pictures, which recall -sensations--can go no further; and in his next book, _Sagesse_, -published after seven years' wanderings and sufferings, there is a -graver manner of more deeply personal confession--that "sincerity, and -the impression of the moment followed to the letter," which he has -defined in a prose criticism on himself as his main preference in regard -to style. "Sincerity, and the impression of the moment followed to the -letter," mark the rest of Verlaine's work, whether the sentiment be that -of passionate friendship, as in _Amour_; of love, human and divine, as -in _Bonheur_; of the mere lust of the flesh, as in _Parallèlement_ and -_Chansons pour Elle._ In his very latest verse the quality of simplicity -has become exaggerated, has become, at times, childish; the once -exquisite depravity of style has lost some of its distinction; there is -no longer the same delicately vivid "impression of the moment" to -render. Yet the very closeness with which it follows a lamentable career -gives a curious interest to even the worst of Verlaine's work. And how -unique, how unsurpassable in its kind, is the best! "_Et tout le reste -est littérature!_" was the cry, supreme and contemptuous, of that early -_Art Poétique_; and, compared with Verlaine at his best, all other -contemporary work in verse seems not yet disenfranchised from mere -"literature." To fix the last fine shade, the quintessence of things; to -fix it fleetingly; to be a disembodied voice, and yet the voice of a -human soul: that is the ideal of Decadence, and it is what Paul Verlaine -has achieved. - -And certainly, so far as achievement goes, no other poet of the actual -group in France can be named beside him or near him. But in Stéphane -Mallarmé, with his supreme pose as the supreme poet, and his two or -three pieces of exquisite verse and delicately artificial prose to show -by way of result, we have--the prophet and pontiff of the movement, the -mystical and theoretical leader of the great emancipation. No one has -ever dreamed such beautiful, impossible dreams as Mallarmé; no one has -ever so possessed his soul in the contemplation of masterpieces to come. -All his life he has been haunted by the desire to create, not so much -something new in literature, as a literature which should itself be a -new art. He has dreamed of a work into which all the arts should enter, -and achieve themselves by a mutual interdependence--a harmonizing of all -the arts into one supreme art--and he has theorized with infinite -subtlety over the possibilities of doing the impossible. Every Tuesday -for the last twenty years he has talked more fascinatingly, more -suggestively, than any one else has ever done, in that little room in -the Rue de Rome, to that little group of eager young poets. "A seeker -after something in the world, that is there in no satisfying measure, or -not at all," he has carried his contempt for the usual, the -conventional, beyond the point of literary expression, into the domain -of practical affairs. Until the publication, quite recently, of a -selection of _Vers et Prose_, it was only possible to get his poems in a -limited and expensive edition, lithographed in facsimile of his own -clear and elegant handwriting. An aristocrat of letters, Mallarmé has -always looked with intense disdain on the indiscriminate accident of -universal suffrage. He has wished neither to be read nor to be -understood by the bourgeois intelligence, and it is with some -deliberateness of intention that he has made both issues impossible. -Catulle Mendès defines him admirably as "a difficult author," and in -his latest period he has succeeded in becoming absolutely -unintelligible. His early poems, _L'Après-midi d'un Faune, Herodiade_, -for example, and some exquisite sonnets, and one or two fragments of -perfectly polished verse, are written in a language which has nothing in -common with every-day language--symbol within symbol, image within -image; but symbol and image achieve themselves in expression without -seeming to call for the necessity of a key. The latest poems (in which -punctuation is sometimes entirely suppressed, for our further -bewilderment) consist merely of a sequence of symbols, in which every -word must be taken in a sense with which its ordinary significance has -nothing to do. Mallarmé's contortion of the French language, so far as -mere style is concerned, is curiously similar to the kind of depravation -which was undergone by the Latin language in its decadence. It is, -indeed, in part a reversion to Latin phraseology, to the Latin -construction, and it has made, of the clear and flowing French language, -something irregular, unquiet, expressive, with sudden surprising -felicities, with nervous starts and lapses, with new capacities for the -exact noting of sensation. Alike to the ordinary and to the scholarly -reader, it is painful, intolerable; a jargon, a massacre. Supremely -self-confident, and backed, certainly, by an ardent following of the -younger generation, Mallarmé goes on his way, experimenting more and -more audaciously, having achieved by this time, at all events, a style -wholly his own. Yet the _chef-d'œvre inconnu_ seems no nearer -completion, the impossible seems no more likely to be done. The two or -three beautiful fragments remain, and we still hear the voice in the Rue -de Rome. - -Probably it is as a voice, an influence, that Mallarmé will be -remembered. His personal magnetism has had a great deal to do with the -making of the very newest French literature; few literary beginners in -Paris have been able to escape the rewards and punishments of his -contact, his suggestion. One of the young poets who form that delightful -Tuesday evening coterie said to me the other day, "We owe much to -Mallarmé, but he has kept us all back three years." That is where the -danger of so inspiring, so helping a personality comes in. The work even -of Henri de Regnier, who is the best of the disciples, has not entirely -got clear from the influence that has shown his fine talent the way to -develop. Perhaps it is in the verse of men who are not exactly following -in the counsel of the master--who might disown him, whom he might -disown--that one sees most clearly the outcome of his theories, the -actual consequences of his practise. In regard to the construction of -verse, Mallarmé has always remained faithful to the traditional -syllabic measurement; but the freak or the discovery of _le vers libre_ -is certainly the natural consequence of his experiments upon the -elasticity of rhythm, upon the power of resistance of the cæsura. _Le -vers libre_ in the hands of most of the experimenters becomes merely -rhymeless irregular prose. I never really understood the charm that may -be found in this apparent structureless rhythm until I heard, not long -since, Dujardin read aloud the as yet unpublished conclusion of a -dramatic poem in several parts. It was rhymed, but rhymed with some -irregularity, and the rhythm was purely and simply a vocal effect. The -rhythm came and went as the spirit moved. You might deny that it was -rhythm at all; and yet, read as I heard it read, in a sort of slow -chant, it produced on me the effect of really beautiful verse. But _vers -libres_ in the hands of a sciolist are the most intolerably easy and -annoying of poetical exercises. Even in the case of _Le Pèlerin -Passionné_ I can not see the justification of what is merely regular -syllabic verse lengthened or shortened arbitrarily, with the Alexandrine -always evident in the background as the foot-rule of the new metre. In -this hazardous experiment Jean Moréas, whose real talent lies in quite -another direction, has brought nothing into literature but an example of -deliberate singularity for singularity's sake. I seem to find the -measure of the man in a remark I once heard him make in a _café_, where -we were discussing the technique of meter: "You, Verlaine!" he cried, -leaning across the table, "have only written lines of sixteen syllables; -I have written lines of twenty syllables!" And turning to me, he asked -anxiously if Swinburne had ever done that--had written a line of twenty -syllables. - -That is indeed the measure of the man, and it points a criticism upon -not a few of the busy little _littérateurs_ who are founding new -_revues_ every other week in Paris. These people have nothing to say, -but they are resolved to say something, and to say it in the newest -mode. They are Impressionists because it is the fashion, Symbolists -because it is the vogue, Decadents because Decadence is in the very air -of the cafés. And so, in their manner, they are mile-posts on the way -of this new movement, telling how far it has gone. But to find a new -personality, a new way of seeing things, among the young writers who are -starting up on every hand, we must turn from Paris to Brussels--to the -so-called Belgian Shakespeare, Maurice Maeterlinck. - -In truth, Maeterlinck is not a Shakespeare, and the Elizabethan violence -of his first play is of the school of Webster and Tourneur rather than -of Shakespeare. As a dramatist he has but one note, that of fear; he has -but one method, that of repetition. - -The window, looking out upon the unseen--an open door, as in -_L'Intruse_, through which Death, the intruder, may come invisibly--how -typical of the new kind of symbolistic and impressionistic drama which -Maeterlinck has invented! I say invented, a little rashly. The real -discoverer of this new kind of drama was that strange, inspiring, -incomplete man of genius whom Maeterlinck, above all others, delights to -honor, Villiers de l'Isle-Adam. Imagine a combination of Swift, of Poe, -and of Coleridge, and you will have some idea of the extraordinary, -impossible poet and cynic who, after a life of brilliant failure, has -left a series of unfinished works in every kind of literature; among the -finished achievements one volume of short stories, _Contes Cruels_, -which is an absolute masterpiece. Yet, apart from this, it was the -misfortune of Villiers never to attain the height of his imaginings, and -even _Axël_, the work of a lifetime, is an achievement only half -achieved. Only half achieved, or achieved only in the work of others; -for, in its mystical intention, its remoteness from any kind of outward -reality, _Axël_ is undoubtedly the origin of the symbolistic drama. -This drama, in Villiers, is of pure symbol, of sheer poetry. It has an -exalted eloquence which we find in none of his followers. As Maeterlinck -has developed it, it is a drama which appeals directly to the -sensations--sometimes crudely, sometimes subtly--playing its variations -upon the very nerves themselves. The "vague spiritual fear" which it -creates out of our nervous apprehension is unlike anything that has ever -been done before, even by Hoffman, even by Poe. It is an effect of -atmosphere--an atmosphere in which outlines change and become -mysterious, in which a word quietly uttered makes one start, in which -all one's mental activity becomes concentrated on something, one knows -not what, something slow, creeping, terrifying, which comes nearer and -nearer, an impending nightmare. - -As an experiment in a new kind of drama, these curious plays do not seem -to exactly achieve themselves on the stage; it is difficult to imagine -how they could ever be made so impressive, when thus externalized, as -they are when all is left to the imagination. _L'Intruse_, for instance, -seemed, as one saw it acted, too faint in outline, with too little -carrying power for scenic effect. But Maeterlinck is by no means anxious -to be considered merely or mainly as a dramatist. A brooding poet, a -mystic, a contemplative spectator of the comedy of death--that is how he -presents himself to us in his work; and the introduction which he has -prefixed to his translation of _L'Ornement des Noces Spirituelles_, of -Ruysbroeck l'Admirable, shows how deeply he has studied the mystical -writers of all ages, and how much akin to theirs is his own temper. -Plato and Plotinus, Saint Bernard and Jacob Boehm, Coleridge and -Novalis--he knows them all, and it is with a sort of reverence that he -sets himself to the task of translating the astonishing Flemish mystic -of the thirteenth century, known till now only by the fragments -translated into French by Ernest Hollo from a sixteenth-century Latin -version. This translation and this introduction help to explain the real -character of Maeterlinck's dramatic work--dramatic as to form, by a sort -of accident, but essentially mystical. - -Partly akin to Maeterlinck by race, more completely alien from him in -temper than it is possible to express, Joris Karl Huysmans demands a -prominent place in any record of the Decadent movement. His work, like -that of the Goncourts, is largely determined by the _maladie fin de -siècle_--the diseased nerves that, in his case, have given a curious -personal quality of pessimism to his outlook on the world, his view of -life. Part of his work--_Marthe, Les Sœurs Vatard, En Ménage, À -Vau-l'Eau_--is a minute and searching study of the minor discomforts, -the commonplace miseries of life, as seen by a peevishly disordered -vision, delighting, for its own self-torture, in the insistent -contemplation of human stupidity, of the sordid in existence. Yet these -books do but lead up to the unique masterpiece, the astonishing caprice -of _À Rebours_, in which he has concentrated all that is delicately -depraved, all that is beautifully, curiously poisonous, in modern art. -_À Rebours_ is the history of a typical Decadent--a study, indeed, -after a real man, but a study which seizes the type rather than the -personality. In the sensations and ideas of Des Esseintes we see the -sensations and ideas of the effeminate, over-civilized, deliberately -abnormal creature who is the last product of our society: partly the -father, partly the offspring, of the perverse art that he adores. Des -Esseintes creates for his solace, in the wilderness of a barren and -profoundly uncomfortable world, an artificial paradise. His Thébaïde -raffinée is furnished elaborately for candle-light, equipped with the -pictures, the books, that satisfy his sense of the exquisitely abnormal. -He delights in the Latin of Apuleius and Petronius, in the French of -Baudelaire, Goncourt, Verlaine, Mallarmé, Villiers; in the pictures of -Gustave Moreau, of Odilon Redon. He delights in the beauty of strange, -unnatural flowers, in the melodic combination of scents, in the imagined -harmonies of the sense of taste. And at last, exhausted by these -spiritual and sensory debauches in the delights of the artificial, he is -left (as we close the book) with a brief, doubtful choice before -him--madness or death, or else a return to nature, to the normal life. - -Since _À Rebours_, Huysmans has written one other remarkable book, -_Là-Bas_, a study in the hysteria and mystical corruption of -contemporary Black Magic. But it is on that one exceptional achievement, -_À Rebours_, that his fame will rest; it is there that he has expressed -not merely himself, but an epoch. And he has done so in a style which -carries the modern experiments upon language to their furthest -development. Formed upon Goncourt and Flaubert, it has sought for -novelty, _l'image peinte_, the exactitude of color, the forcible -precision of epithet, wherever words, images, or epithets are -to be found. Barbaric in its profusion, violent in its emphasis, -wearying in its splendor, it is--especially in regard to things -seen--extraordinarily expressive, with all the shades of a painter's -palette. Elaborately and deliberately perverse, it is in its very -perversity that Huysmans' work--so fascinating, so repellent, so -instinctively artificial--comes to represent, as the work of no other -writer can be said to do, the main tendencies, the chief results, of the -Decadent movement in literature. - - - - -THE ROSSETTIS - - -William Michael Rossetti, who has just died, survived his brother, Dante -Gabriel Rossetti, by thirty-seven years, dying at the age of -eighty-nine. Not really a man of letters, in the essential sense, his -verse, as Gabriel said, "Always going back on the old track," he had a -certain talent of his own; for he edited an excellent edition of Blake's -Poems, and a creditable edition of Shelley, the first critical edition -of his poems. - -He was the first Englishman who ever dared to print a Selection from -Whitman's _Leaves of Grass_,--in 1868; and, in spite of having to -exclude such passages as he considered indecent, the whole book was a -valuable contribution to our literature. - -There is no question that Michael was not invaluable to Gabriel; indeed, -during the whole of the tragic and wonderful life of that man of supreme -genius; not only because he dedicated his _Poems_ of 1870 to one "who -had given them the first brotherly hearing;" not only because, had not -Michael been with him at the British Museum on the ever-memorable and -unforgettable date of April 30, 1847, he had never bought the -imperishable _MS. Book of Blake_, borrowing for this purchase ten -shillings from his brother; but also because when Rossetti, after his -wife's death, had his manuscript volume of poems exhumed in October, -1869, he did the right thing, both in his impetuous act in burying them -beside his dead wife and in his silence with his brother--who was really -aware of the event--so that his own tortured nerves might have some -respite. - -Still, I have never forgotten how passionately Eleanore Duse said to me, -in 1900: - - -Rossetti's eyes desire some feverish thing, but the mouth and chin -hesitate in pursuit. All Rossetti is in that story of his _MS._ buried -in his wife's coffin. He could do it, he could repent of it; but he -should have gone and taken it back himself: he sent his friends. - - -In one of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's invaluable notes on Poetry, he tells -us that to him "the leading point about Coleridge's work is its human -love." That Rossetti, whose face indicated voluptuousness brooding -thoughtfully over destiny, was intensely sensitive, is true; and this -made him a sort of medium to forces seen and unseen. Yet, I think, he -wanted in life more than most men of such genius as he had wanted. For, -as Watts-Dunton said: "He was the slave of his imagination--an -imagination of a power and dominance such as I have never seen equalled. -Of his vividness, no artistic expression of his can give any notion. He -had not the smallest command over it." That is one of the reasons why, -with all his affection for his brother Michael, the chasm between them -was immense--a chasm no dragon-created bridge could ever span; Gabriel -had in him, perhaps, too much of "chasm-fire": his genius was too -flame-fledged for earth's eternity, to have ever had one wing of it -broken by an enemy's shaft. - -No modern poet ever had anything like the same grasp upon whatever is -essential in poetry that Rossetti had; for all that he wrote or said -about Art has in it an absolute rightness of judgment; and, with these, -as absolutely, an intellectual sanity. Here is one principle of artistic -creation stated with instantaneous certainty: "Conception, _fundamental -brain work_, that is what makes the difference in all art. Work your -metal as much as you like, but first take care that the gold was worth -working." But it is, strangely enough, that at the beginning of a review -of Hake's _Parables and Tales_ he says the final, the inevitable words -on creation and on what lies in the artist's mind before the act of -creation: - - -The first and highest is that where the work has been all mentally -"cartooned," as it were, beforehand by a process intensely conscious, -but patient and silent--an occult evolution of life: then follows the -glory of wielding words, and we see the hand of Dante, as the hand of -Michelangelo--or almost as that quickening hand which Michelangelo has -dared to embody--sweep from left to right, fiery and final. - - -In 1862, Rossetti took possession of his famous house, 10 Cheyne Walk, -Chelsea, where he lived to the end of his life, and whose joint -occupants were, for a certain length of time, George Meredith, Swinburne -and William Michael Rossetti, who left the house in 1874, the year in -which he married Lucy Madox Brown. - -That four men of individualities so utterly different, and, in some -senses, aggressive, or at least assertive, should have been able to live -together in closeness of continuous intimacy, from which there was -hardly an escape, was barely conceivable. Yet it was in this house that -Swinburne wrote many of his _Poems Ballads_, part of his book on Blake -and his masterpiece, _Atalanta in Calydon._ There Meredith finished his -masterpiece in the matter of tragic and passionate verse, _Modern Love._ -There is nothing like it in the whole of English poetry, nor did he ever -achieve so magnificent a vivisection of the heart in verse as in these -pages--in which he created a wonderful style, acid, stinging, -bitter-sweet, poignant--where these self-torturing and cruel lovers -weave the amazing web of their disillusions as they struggle, open-eyed, -against the blindness of passion. - -The poem laughs while it cries. - -Swinburne, who was, I think, on the whole, less susceptible in regard to -abusive attacks on his books than Meredith or Rossetti, vindicates -himself, and superbly, in the pamphlet I have before me: _Notes on Poems -and Reviews_ (1866). He has been accused of indecency and immorality and -perversity; and is amazed to find that _Anactoria_ "has excited, among -the chaste and candid critics of the day, or hour, or minute, a more -vehement reputation, a more virtuous horror, a more passionate appeal, -than any other of my writing. I am evidently not virtuous enough to -understand them. I thank Heaven that I am not. _Ma corruption rougirait -de leur pudeur._" - -In regard to _Laus Veneris_, I turn for a moment to W. M. Rossetti's -_Swinburne's Poems and Ballads: A criticism_ (1866) which, on the whole, -is uncommonly well written, to one of those passages where he betrays a -kind of Puritanism in his Italian blood; saying that the opening lines -were, apart from any question of sentiment, much overdone. "That is a -situation (and there are many such in Swinburne's writings) which we -would much rather see touched off with the reticence of a Tennyson: he -would probably have given one epithet, or, at the utmost, one line, to -it, and it would at least equally have haunted the memory." I turn from -this to Swinburne on Tennyson, as for instance: "At times, of course, -his song was then as sweet as ever it has sounded since; but he could -never make sure of singing right for more than a few minutes or -stanzas." And--what is certainly true--that Vivien's impurity is -eclipsed by her incredible and incomparable vulgarity. "She is such a -sordid creature as plucks men passing by the sleeve." - -Now the actual origin of _Laus Veneris_ came about when Swinburne, with -Rossetti, bought the first edition of Fitzgerald's wonderful version of -_Omar Khayyam._ "We invested," Swinburne writes, "in hardly less than -six-penny-worth apiece, and on returning to the stall next day, for -more, found that we had sent up the market to the sinfully extravagant -price of two-pence, an imposition which evoked from Rossetti a fervent -and impressive remonstrance." Swinburne went down to stay with Meredith -in the country with the priceless book; and, before lunch, they read, -alternately, stanza after stanza. The result was that, after lunch, -Swinburne went to his room and came down to Meredith's study with his -invariable blue paper and wrote there and then thirteen stanzas of -_Veneris_, that end with the lines: - - -Till when the spool is finished, lo I see -His web, reeled off, curls and goes out like steam. - - -His only invention was the certainly cunning one of inserting a rhyme -after the second line of each stanza, which is not in the version. - -Swinburne's re-creation of the immortal legend of Venus and her Knight, -certainly--though certainly unknown to W. M. Rossetti--owes also much of -its origin from Swinburne's inordinate admiration of _Les Fleurs du -Mal_, by Baudelaire. Its origin, in a certain sense only; that is of the -influence of one poet on the other. For, as he says: - - -It was not till my poem was completed that I received from the hands of -its author the admirable pamphlet of Charles Baudelaire on Wagner's -_Tannhauser._ If anyone desires to see, expressed in better words than I -can command, the conception of the mediæval Venus which it was my aim -to put into verse, let him turn to the magnificent passage in which -Baudelaire describes the fallen goddess, grown diabolic among eyes that -would not accept her as divine. - - -I need not reiterate the extraordinary influence that Baudelaire always -had on Swinburne; seen most of all in _Poems and Ballads_ and recurring -at intervals in later volumes of his verse. Both had in their genius, a -certain abnormality, a certain perversity, a certain love of depravity -in the highest sense of the word. - -Swinburne, who had a fashion of overpraising many writers, such as Hugo, -so that his prose is often extravagant and the criticism as unbalanced -as the praise, dedicated his finest book, "_William Blake_," to W. M. -Rossetti, in words whose almost strained sense of humility--a way really -in which he often showed the intensity of his pride--makes one wonder -how he could have said: "I can but bring you brass for the gold you send -me; but between equals and friends there can be no question of barter. -Like Diomed, I take what I am given and offer what I have." What -Swinburne had--his genius--he never gave away lavishly; here he is much -too lavish. "There is a joy in praising" might have been written for -him, and he communicates to us, as few writers do, his own sense of joy -in beauty. It is quite possible to be annoyed by many of the things he -has said, not only about literature, but also about religion, and morals -and politics. But he has never said anything on any of these subjects -which is not generous, and high-minded, and, at least for the moment, -passionately and absolutely sincere. - -It is almost cruel to have to test one sentence of the man of talent -with one sentence of the man of genius. I chose these from the _Notes on -the Royal Academy Exhibition_ they wrote together in 1868, which I have -before me, in the form of a printed pamphlet. "If everybody tells me -that the picture of A, of which this pamphlet says nothing, merits -criticism, or that the picture of B, praised for color, claims praise on -the score of drawing also, I shall have no difficulty in admitting the -probable correctness of these remarks; but, if he adds that I am -blamable for the omissions, I shall feel entitled to reply that A's -picture and B's draughtsmanship were not and indeed never were in the -bond." - -How honestly that is written and how prosaically, "Pale as from poison, -with the blood drawn back from her very lips, agonized in face and limbs -with the labor and the fierce contention of old love with new, of a -daughter's love with a bride's, the fatal figure of Medea pauses a -little on the funereal verge of the wood of death, in act to pour a -blood-like liquid into the soft opal-coloured hollow of a shell." How -princely that praise of Sandys rings in one's ears, lyrical prose that -quickens the blood! But the greater marvel to me is that Swinburne in -his _Miscellanies_, of 1866, should have quoted two sentences of -Rossetti on Shakespeare's Sonnets and ended by saying: "These words -themselves deserve to put on immortality: there are none truer or -nobler, wiser or more memorable in the whole historic range of highest -criticism." I can only imagine it as that of an arrow in flight: only, -it loses the mark. - -It was when Christina Rossetti was living at 30 Torrington Square that I -spent several entrancing hours with her. She had still traces of her -Italian beauty; but all the loveliness had gone out of her, so subtly -and so delicately painted by Gabriel when she was young. The moment she -entered, dressed simply and severely, she bowed, almost curtsied, with -that old-fashioned charm that since her time has gone mostly out of the -world. Her face lit up when she spoke of Gabriel: for between them was -always love and admiration. His genius, to her, both as a poet and a -painter, invariably received her elaborate and unstinted praise. - -She told me that Gabriel had said to her: "_The Convent Threshold_ is a -very splendid piece of feminine ascetic passion; and, to me, one of your -greatest poems is that on France after the Siege--_To-Day for me._" And -that Swinburne specially loved _Passing away, saith the world, passing -away._ It always seems to me that as she had read Leopardi and -Baudelaire, the thought of death had for her the same fascination; only -it is not the fascination of attraction, as with the one, nor repulsion, -as with the other, but of interest, sad but scarcely unquiet interest in -what the dead are doing underground, in their memories, if memory they -have, of the world they have left. - -Yet this fact is of curious interest, knowing the purity of her -imagination, that when Swinburne sent her his _Atalanta in Calydon_ she -crossed out in ink one line: - - -"_The supreme evil, God._" - - -Swinburne himself told me of his amazement and amusement when he -happened to turn to this page while he was looking through the copy he -had sent her. - -It was one of Gabriel Rossetti's glories to paint luxurious women, -surrounded by every form of luxury. And some of them are set to pose in -Eastern garments, with caskets in their hands and flames about them, -looking out with unsearchable eyes. His colors, before they began to -have, like his forms, an exaggeration, a blurred vision which gave him -the need of repainting, of depriving his figures of life, were as if -charmed into their own places; they took on at times some strange and -stealthy and startling ardors of paint, with a subtle fury. - -By his fiery imagination, his restless energy, he created a world: -curious, astonishing, at first sight; strange, morbid, and subtly -beautiful. Everything he made was chiefly for his own pleasure; he had a -contempt for the outside world, and his life was so given up to beauty, -in search for it and in finding of it, that one can but say not only -that his life was passion consumed by passion, as his nerves became more -and more his tyrants (tyrants, indeed, these were, more formidable and -more alluring and more tempting than even the nerves confess), but also -that, to put it in the words of Walter Pater: "To him life is a crisis -at every moment." - -There was in him, as in many artists, the lust of the eyes. And as -others feasted their lust on elemental things, as in Turner's _Rain, -Steam and Speed_, as in Whistler's _Valparaiso_, as in the _Olympia_ of -Manet, as in a _Décors de Ballet_ of Degas, so did Rossetti upon other -regions than theirs. He had neither the evasive and instinctive genius -of Whistler, nor Turner's tremendous sweep of vision, nor the creative -and fiercely imaginative genius of Manet. But he had his own way of -feasting on forms and visions more sensuous, more nervously passionate, -more occult, perhaps, than theirs. - -Yet, as his intentions overpower him, as he becomes the slave and no -longer the master of his dreams, his pictures become no longer symbolic. -They become idols. Venus, growing more and more Asiatic as the moon's -crescent begins to glitter above her head, and her name changes from -Aphrodite into Astarte, loses all the freshness of the waves from which -she was born, and her own sorcery hardens into a wooden image painted to -be the object of savage worship. - -Dreams are no longer content to be turned into waking realities, taking -the color of the daylight, that they may be visible to our eyes, but -they remain lunar, spectral, a dark and unintelligible menace. - - - - -CONFESSIONS AND COMMENTS - - -I - - -I met George Moore, during a feverish winter I spent in Paris in 1890, -at the house of Doctor John Chapman, 46 Avenue Kleber; who at one time, -before he settled there, had been the Proprietor and then Editor of _The -Westminster Review._ In his review appeared in 1886 Pater's wonderful -and fascinating essay on Coleridge; in 1887 his penetrating and -revealing essay on Wincklemann. "He is the last fruit of the -Renaissance, and explains in a striking way its motives and tendencies." - -At that time I had heard a good deal of Moore; I had read very few of -his novels; these I had found to be entertaining, realistic, and -decadent; and certainly founded on modern French fiction. He made little -or no impression on me on that occasion; he was Irish and amusing. Our -conversation was probably on Paris and France and French prose. He gave -me his address, King's Bench Walk, Inner Temple, and asked me to call on -him after my return to London. - -I was born, "like a fiend hid in a cloud," cruel, nervous, excitable, -passionate, restless, never quite human, never quite normal and, from -the fact that I have never known what it was to have a home, as most -children know it, my life has been in many ways a wonderful, in certain -ways a tragic one: an existence, indeed, so inexplicable even to myself, -that I can not fathom it. If I have been a vagabond, and have never been -able to root myself in any one place in the world, it is because I have -no early memories of any one sky or soil. It has freed me from many -prejudices in giving me its own unresting kind of freedom; but it has -cut me off from whatever is stable, of long growth in the world. - -When I came up to London, in 1889, I was fortunate enough to take one -room in a narrow street, named Fountain Court. In 1821 Blake left South -Molton Street for Fountain Court, where he remained for the rest of his -life. The side window looked down through an opening between the houses, -showing the river and the hills beyond; Blake worked at a table facing -the window. At that time I had only seen the Temple; so that when I -entered it for the first time in my life, to call on Moore, I was seized -by a sudden fascination which never left me. I questioned him as to the -chances I might have of finding rooms there; he wisely advised me to -look at the outside of the window of the barber's shop, where notices of -vacant flats were put up. Finally I saw: "Fountain Court: rooms to let." -I immediately made all the necessary inquiries; and found myself in -March, 1871, entire possessor of the top flat, which had a stone balcony -from which I looked down on a wide open court, with a stone fountain in -the middle. I lived there for ten years. My most intimate friends were, -first and foremost, Yeats, then Moore: all three of us being of Celtic -origin. - -My intercourse with Moore was mostly at night; that is, when I was not -wandering in foreign countries or absorbed in much more animal and -passionate affairs. I dedicated to him _Studies in Two Literatures_ -1897; the dedication was written in Rome, which begins: "My dear Moore, -Do you remember, at the time when we were both living in the Temple, and -our talks used to begin with midnight, and go on until the first -glimmerings of dawn shivered among the trees, yours and mine; do you -remember how often we have discussed, well, I suppose, everything which -I speak of in these studies in the two literatures which we both chiefly -care about." It ends: "I think of our conversations now in Rome, where, -as in those old times in the Temple, I still look out of my window on a -fountain in a square; only, here, I have the Pantheon to look at, on the -other side of my fountain." - -George Moore, whose _Pagan Poems_ were a mixture of atrociously rhymed -sensations, abnormal and monstrous, decadent and depraved, not without a -sense of luxury and of color, and yet nothing more than feverish fancies -and delirious dreams, has in some way fashioned a French sonnet which is -an evident imitation of Mallarmé's. Only, between these writers is, as -it were, an abyss. It has been Mallarmé's distinction to have always -aspired after an impossible liberation of the soul of literature from -what is fretting and constraining in "the body of that death" which is -the mere literature of words. Finally come his "last period"--after the -jewels of Hérodiade, which scattered and recaptured sudden fire,--in -which his spirit wandered in an opaque darkness; as for instance, in the -sonnet, made miraculously out of the repetition of two rhymes--"onyx -lampadophore"--or, by preference, one that begins: - - -_Une dentelle s'abolit._ - - -Here, then, is Moore's sonnet to Edouard Dujardin. - - -_La chair est bonne de l'alose -Plus fine que celle du bar, -Mais la Loire est loin et je n'ose -Abandonner Pierre Abélard._ - -_Je suis un esclave de l'art; -La sage Héloise se pose -Sans robe, sans coiffe et sans fard, -Et j'oublie aisément l'alose._ - -_Mais je vois la claire maison-- -Arbres, pelouses et statue. -Du jardin, j'entend ta leçon:_ - -_Raison qui sauve, foi qui tue, -Autels éclabousses du son -Que verse une idole abattue._ - - -I find in Moore's _Confessions_ these sentences: "A year passed; a year -of art and dissipation--one part art, two parts dissipation. And we -thought there was something very thrilling in leaving the Rue de la -Gaieté, returning to my home to dress, and presenting our spotless -selves to the élite. And we succeeded very well, as indeed all young -men do who waltz perfectly and avoid making love to the wrong woman." I -should have preferred to read those sentences in French rather than in -English; they are essentially Parisian and of the _grands Boulevards_; -only, the end of the last sentence must have been suggested from some -cynical phrase written by Balzac. Add to this the egoism of the -Irishman: after that, what more do we need in the way of comparisons? - -That Balzac is the greatest, the most profound, thinker in French -literature after Blaise Pascal, is certain. Only, he had a more creative -genius than any novelist, a genius unsurpassable and unsurpassed; in -proof of which--if such a proof were actually required--I give these -sentences of Baudelaire translated by Swinburne. "To me it had always -seemed that it was his chief merit to be a visionary, and a passionate -visionary; all his characters are gifted with the ardours of life which -animated himself. In a word, every one in Balzac, down to the very -scullions, has genius. Every mind is a weapon loaded to the muzzle with -will. It is actually Balzac himself." Somewhere, he compares Shakespeare -with Balzac; and adds: "Balzac asserts, and Balzac cannot blunder or -lie. He has that wonderful wisdom, never at fault on its own ground, -which made him not simply the chief of dramatic story, but also the -great master of morals." - -No critic could for one instant apply to any of George Moore's novels -the phrase of "grand spiritual realism." A realist he always has been; a -realist, who, having founded himself on French novelists, has really, in -certain senses, brought something utterly new into English fiction. -Luckily, he is Irish; luckily, he lived the best years of his youth in -Paris. His prose shows the intense labor with which he produced every -chapter of every novel; in fact, there is too much of the laborious mind -in all his books. He was right in saying in _Avowals_: "Real literature -is concerned with description of life and thoughts of life rather than -with acts. He must write about the whole of life and not about parts of -life, and he must write truth and not lies." The first sentence -expresses the writer's sense of his own prose in his novels: and yet -there is always a lot of vivid action in them. Only the greatest -novelists have written about the whole of life: Balzac, Tolstoi, -Cervantes, for instance; but the fact is that Balzac is always good to -reread, but not Tolstoi: I couple two giants. Goriot, Valérie Marneffe, -Pons, Landsch are called up before us after the same manner as Othello -or Don Quixote; Balzac stakes all on one creation, exactly as -Shakespeare stakes all in one creation. - -Writing on Joseph Conrad, I referred to one of his tricks--which seem -inextricable tricks of art--which he learned from Balzac: the method, -which he uses in _Youth_, of doubling or trebling the interest by -setting action within action, as certain pictures are set within certain -frames. It is astonishing to find the influence Balzac had on Conrad, -partly when suspense is scarcely concerned with action, partly in his -involved manner of relating events. In Balzac I often find that some of -his tales, like Conrad's, grow downwards out of an episode at the end; -in some the end is told first, the beginning next--which was a method -Poe often used--and last of all in the middle; for instance, in -_Honorine._ - -Writing of Zola I said: - - -Zola has defined art, very aptly, as nature seen through a temperament. -The art of Zola is nature seen through a formula. He observes, indeed, -with astonishing closeness, but he observes in support of preconceived -ideas. And so powerful is his imagination that he has created a whole -world which has no existence anywhere but in his own brain, and he has -placed there imaginary beings, so much more logical than life, in the -midst of surroundings which are themselves so real as to lend almost a -semblance of reality to the embodied formulas who inhabit them. - - -As I have said that George Moore might be supposed to be a lineal -descendant of Zola, it seems to me that in many ways his method is -almost the same as Zola's; only, they have different theories; both -observe with immense persistence; but their manner of observation, after -all, is only that of the man in the street; while, on the contrary, the -Goncourts create with their nerves, with their sensations, with their -noting of the sensations, with the complex curiosities of a delicately -depraved instinct. The strange woman in _La Faustin_ is one of -Goncourt's most fascinating creations: Germinie Lacerteux, his most -sordidly depraved animal; and in the Preface to that novel, in 1864, -they were right in saying: "_Aujourd'hui que le Roman s'élargit et -grandit, qu'il commence à être la grande forme sérieuse, passionnée, -vivante, de l'Étude littéraire et de enquête sociale, qu'il devient, -par l'analyse et par la recherche psychologique, l'Histoire morale -contemporaine._" They were the first, I believe, to invent an entirely -new form, a breaking-up of the plain, straightforward narrative into -chapters, which are generally disconnected, and sometimes no more than -six sentences: as, for instance, in that perverse, decadent, delicately -depraved study of the stages in the education of the young Parisian -girl, _Chérie_ (for all its "immodesty") was an admirable thing, and a -model for all such studies. Only, when I have to choose, after Balzac, -the most wonderfully created woman in any novel, the vision of Emma -Bovary starts before me--a woman, as I have said somewhere (with none of -the passionate certainty of Charles Baudelaire) who is half vulgar and -half hysterical, incapable of a fine passion; her trivial desires, her -futile aspirations after second-hand pleasures and second-hand ideals, -give to Flaubert all that he wants: the opportunity to create beauty out -of reality. - -I have always had a great admiration of Camille Lemonnier, who brought -something rare, exotic and furiously animal into Flemish prose; as in -his masterpiece, _Un Mâle_, where he reveals in an astonishing fashion -those peasants who are so brutal, yet so subtly and rudely apprehended, -in their instincts: these peasants who are the most elemental of human -beings. He has none of Hardy's sinister and dejected vision of life; who -often seems closer to the earth than to men and women, and who sees -women and men out of the eyes of wild creatures; whose peasants have -been compared with Shakespeare's. Lemonnier's women and men have in them -something mysterious, dramatic, tragic: in their loves and hatreds, in -their crimes and joys, they have something of the mysterious force which -germinates in the furrows which they turn. - -Pater, who hated every form of noise and of extravagance, who disliked -whatever seemed to him either sordid or morbid, guarded himself from all -these and from many other things by the wary humor that protects the -sensitive. So, in his reviews of Wilde and of Moore, he is always very -much on his guard as to the manner of expounding his individual -opinions; saying of Wilde that his _Dorian Gray_ "may fairly claim to go -with that of Edgar Poe, and with some good French work of the same kind, -done--probably--in more or less conscious imitation of it." So in -praising Moore's clever book, he refers to his "French intuitiveness and -gaillardise;" saying that he is "a very animating guide to the things he -loves, and in particular to the modern painting of France," that (here -he uses his wary humor) "these chapters have, by their very conviction, -their perverse conviction, a way of arousing the general reader, lost -perhaps in the sleep of conventional ideas," that, to and with "the -reader may now judge fairly of Moore's manner of writing; may think -perhaps there is something in it of the manner of the artists he writes -of." - -One of the most original pictures of Degas is _L'Absinthe_, which -represents Desboutins in the _café_ of the _Nouvelle Athènes_ seated -beside a woman. Moore says "Desboutins always came to the _café_ alone, -as did Manet, Degas, Darentz. Desboutins is thinking of his dry points; -the woman is incapable of thought. If questioned about her life she -would probably answer, _Je suis à la coule._" To my mind Degas gives in -this picture, in a more modern way than Manet, an equal vision of -reality. Desboutins, the Bohemian painter, sits there in a mood of grim -dissatisfaction; he is just as living as the depraved woman who sits -beside him--before the glass of absinthe that shines like an enormous -and sea-green jewel--with eyes in which much of her shameful earthiness -is betrayed, without malice, without pity. - -I open at random, the pages of _Confessions of a Young Man_ where there -is a reference to the _café_ of the _Nouvelle Athènes_, Place Pigalle; -where the writer confesses more of himself than on any other page of his -book. - - -I am a student of ball rooms, bar rooms, streets and alcoves. I have -read very little; but all I read I can turn to account, and all I read I -remember. To read freely, extensively, has always been my ambition, and -my utter inability to study has always been to me a subject of grave -inquietude,--study, as contrasted with a general and haphazard gathering -of ideas taken in flight. But in me, the impulse is so original to -frequent the haunts of men that it is irresistible, conversation is the -breath of my nostrils, I watch the movement of life, and my ideas spring -from it uncalled for, as buds from branches. Contact with the world is -in me the generating force; without it what invention I have is thin and -sterile, and it grows thinner rapidly, until it dies away utterly, as it -did in the composition of my unfortunate _Roses of Midnight._ - - -I turn from those sentences to Casanova, whose _Memoirs_ are one of the -most wonderful autobiographies in the world; who, always passionate -after sensations, confesses, in his confessions, the most shameless -things that have ever been written: one to whom woman was, indeed, the -most important thing in the world, but to whom nothing in the world was -indifferent. He was, as he professes, always in love--at least, with -something. Being of origin Venetian and Spanish, he had none of the cold -blooded libertinism of Valmont in _Les Liaisons Dangereuses_ of Laclos. -Baudelaire, in two of his sweeping Paradoxes, said of this book: "_Ce -livre, s'il brûle, ne peut brûler qu'à la manière de la glace. Tous -les livres sont immoraux._" Casanova, himself, is the primitive type of -the Immoralist, in certain senses of the abnormal Immoralist. His latest -reincarnation is an André Gide's _L'Immoraliste_; a book perverse and -unpassionate. - -Now, let us return to the modern writer's Confessions. Whether Moore has -read the whole of Casanova or not, there are curiously similar touches -in both these writers; as, for instance, in the word "alcoves, streets, -ballrooms." Instead of the modern "barrooms" use the word _cafés._ One -essential difference is that Casanova had a passion for books: the more -essential one is, that Casanova was born to be a vagabond and a Wanderer -over almost the whole of Europe, that he had tasted all the forbidden -fruits of the earth, and that he had sinned with all his body--leaving, -naturally, the soul out of the question. - -Every great artist has tasted the sweet poison of the Forbidden Fruit. -The Serpent, the most "subtile" of all the Beasts, gave an apple he had -gathered from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil to Eve; she -having eaten it and having given one to Adam, both saw they were naked, -and, with nakedness, Sin entered into the World. Now, what was stolen -from the Garden of God has, ever since, been the one temptation which it -is almost impossible to resist. For instance Shakespeare stole from -Marlowe, Milton stole from Shakespeare, Keats stole from Virgil, -Swinburne stole from Baudelaire and Crashaw, Browning stole from Donne; -as for Wagner, having stolen a motet from Vittorio which he used, almost -note for note in _Parsifal_, also from Palestrina and his school, and -from Berlioz and from Liszt, it is impossible to say what he did not -steal. Oscar Wilde stripped, as far as he could, all the fruit he could -gather from the orchards of half a dozen French novelists; besides those -of Poe and of Pater. Gabrielle d'Annunzio has stolen as thoroughly as -Wilde; in fact, the whole contents of certain short stories. As for -George Moore, he has been guilty of as many thefts as these; only he has -concealed his thefts with more stealth. Henry James said to some one of -my acquaintance: "Moore has an absolute genius for picking other men's -brains." That saying is as final as it is fundamental. - -Rossetti said: "There ought to be always, double of oneself, the -self-critic, who should be one always with the poet." The legend of the -Doppelgänger haunted him; the result of which is _How They Met -Themselves_, where two lovers wandering in a wood come on their doubles, -apparitions who, casting their perilous eyes on them sidewise, vanish. -It is mysterious and menacing. Pater uses the same symbol: three knights -as they hear the night-hawk, are confronted by their own images, but -with blood, all three of them, fresh upon the brow, or in the mouth. "It -were well to draw the sword, be one's enemy carnal or spiritual; even -devils, as all men know, taking flight at its white glitter through the -air. Out flashed the brave youths' swords, still with mimic -counter-motion, upon nothing--upon the empty darkness before them." -These revenants are ghost-like and flame-like: they are the symbols of -good and evil; the symbols of the haunting of one uneasy conscience. -Balzac, Blake, Hawthorne, saw them in visions; the moderns, such as -Maupassant and Moore, must always ignore them. - -The novel and the prose play are the two great imaginative forms which -prose has invented for itself. Prose is the language of what we call -real life, and it is only in prose that an illusion of external reality -can be given. And, in any case, the prose play, the novel, come into -being as exceptions and are invented by men who can not write plays in -verse. Only in the novel and the prose play does prose become free to -create, free to develop to the utmost limits of its vitality. Perhaps -the highest merit of prose consists in this, that it allows us to think -in words. But art, in verse, being strictly and supremely on art, begins -by transforming. Indeed, there is no form of art which is not an attempt -to capture life, to create life over again. - -The rhythm of poetry is musical; the rhythm of prose is physiological. -For this reason Ibsen's prose is like that of a diagram in Euclid; it is -the rhythm of logic, and it produces in us the purely mental exaltation -of a problem solved. Swinburne, writing on Wilkie Collins's _Armadale_, -declares that the heroine who dies of her own will by her own crime, had -an American or a Frenchman introduced her, no acclamation would have -been too vehement to express their gratitude! "But neither Feuillet nor -Hawthorne could have composed and constructed such a story; the -ingenuity spent on it may possibly be perverse, but is certainly -superb." As I have never read one line of Feuillet I am no judge of his -merit as a novelist. Hawthorne had a magical imagination, a passion for -"handling sin" purely; he was haunted by what is obscure and abnormal in -that illusive region which exists on the confines of evil and good; his -opinion of woman was that she "was plucked out of a mystery, and had its -roots still clinging to her." Sin and the Soul, those are the problems -he has always before him; Sin, as our punishment; the Soul, in its -essence, mist-like and intangible. He uses his belief in witchcraft with -admirable effect, the dim mystery which clings about haunted houses, the -fantastic gambols of the soul itself, under what seems like the devil's -own promptings. - -In the whole of Moore's prose there is no such magic, no such mystery, -no such diabolism; he is not so lacking in imagination as in style. He -has always been, with impressive inaccuracy, described as the English -Zola; at the outset of his career he gained a certain notoriety not -unlike Zola's; his novels are not based on theories, as some of Zola's -are. Moore always knew how to make a cunning plot, to make some of his -compositions masterly, and how to construct his characters--which, to a -certain extent, are living people, really existent, as their -surroundings. As I say further on: "Compare with any of Zola's novels -the amazingly clever novel of Moore, _A Mummer's Wife_, which goes with -several other novels which are--well--_manqués_, in spite of their -ability, their independence, their unquestionable merits of various -kinds." The style always drags more than the action. Vivid, sensual, not -sensuous, often perverse, never passionate; written with a curious sense -of wickedness, of immorality, of vice; extraordinary at times in some of -the scenes he evokes in one or several chapters; always with the French -element; his prose exotic, morbid, cruel, as cruel as this catsuit of -the passions, has in it a certain scorn and contempt of mediocrities, -which can be delivered with the force of a sledge-hammer that strikes an -anvil and shoots forth sparks. - - - - -II - - -George Moore has been described, with impressive inaccuracy, as the -English Zola. At what was practically the outset of his career he gained -a certain notoriety; which did him good, by calling public attention to -an unknown name; it did him harm, by attaching to that name a certain -stigma. In a certainly remote year, but a year we all of us remember, -there were strange signs in the literary Zodiac. There had been a -distinctly new growth in the short story, and along with the short story -("poisonous honey stolen from France") came a new license in dealing -imaginatively with life, almost permitting the Englishman to contend -with the writers of other nations on their own ground; permitting him, -that is to say, to represent life as it really is. Foreign influences, -certainly, had begun to have more and more effect upon the making of -such literature as is produced in England nowadays; we had a certain -acceptance of Ibsen, a popular personal welcome of Zola, and literary -homage paid to Verlaine. What do these facts really mean? It is certain -that they mean something. - -The visit of Zola, for instance--how impossible that would have been a -little while ago! A little while ago we were opening the prison doors -for the publishers who had ventured to bring out translations of _Nana_ -and _La Terre_; now we open the doors of the Guildhall for the author of -_Nana_ and _La Terre_; and the same pens, with the same jubilance, -chronicle both incidents. To the spectator of the comedy of life all -this is merely amusing; but to the actor in the tragic comedy of letters -it means a whole new _repertoire._ Not so very many years ago George -Moore was the only novelist in England who insisted on the novelist's -right to be true to life, even when life is unpleasant and immoral; and -he was attacked on all sides. - -The visit of Paul Verlaine, too--unofficial, unadvertised, as it -was--seemed to be significant of much. In the first place, it showed, as -in the case of Zola, a readiness on the part of some not unimportant -section of the public to overlook either personal or literary scandal -connected with a man of letters who has done really remarkable work. But -the interest of Verlaine's visit was much more purely literary than that -of Zola; his reception was in no sense a concession to success, but -entirely a tribute to the genius of a poet. - -I find that William Watson published only one tiny volume of verse, the -barren burlesque of _The Eloping Angels_, which should never have been -printed, and a book of prose, _Excursions in Criticism_, the criticism -and the style being alike as immature and unbalanced as his verse is -generally mature and accomplished; while Mr. Le Gallienne has forsaken -the domesticity of the muse, to officiate, in _The Religion of a -Literary Man_, as the Canon Farrar of the younger generation. The most -really poetic of the younger poets, W. B. Yeats, who has yet to be -"discovered" by the average critic and the average reader, has this year -published a new volume of verse, _The Countess Kathleen_, as well as a -book of prose stories, _The Celtic Twilight_, and, in conjunction with -Edwin J. Ellis, a laborious study in the mysticism of William Blake. -Yeats' work, alone among recent work in verse, has the imaginative -quality of vision; it has the true Celtic charm and mystery; and while -such admirable verse as Watson's, such glowing verse as Thompson's, are -both superior, on purely technical grounds, to Yeats', neither has the -spontaneous outflow of the somewhat untrained singing-voice of the -younger poet. - -Another writer of verse who has not yet been estimated at his proper -value, John Davidson, has also published a new book of poems, _Fleet -Street Eclogues_, and a book of prose, _A Random Itinerary._ It is -difficult to do justice to Davidson, for he never does justice to -himself. His verse is always vivid and striking; at its best it has a -delightful quality of fantastic humor and quaint extravagance; but it is -singularly uneven, and never, in my opinion, at its best in purely -modern subjects. The _Random Itinerary_ is a whole series of happy -accidents; but there are gaps in the series. Davidson strikes one as a -man who might do almost anything; why, then, does he not do it? - -Now, these paradoxical digressions have brought me back to the question -of Zola and Moore, and of the realistic novel. Moore's were based on no -theories; Zola's on certain theories, really a view of humanity which he -adopted as a formula: "Nature seen through a temperament;" a definition -supposed to be his definition of all art; which it most certainly is -not. Yet nothing, certainly, could be more exact and expressive as a -definition of the art of Huysmans. - -Zola has made up his mind that he will say everything without omitting a -single item; so that his vision is the vision of the mediocre man; and -his way of finding out in a slang dictionary that a filthy idea can be -expressed by an ingeniously filthy phrase in _Argot_, is by no means -desirable. Every one knows two sentences in that supreme masterpiece, -_Madame Bovary_, how that detail, brought in without the slightest -emphasis of the husband turning his back at the very instant when his -wife dies, is a detail of immense psychological value; it indicates to -us, at the very beginning of the book, just the character of the man -about whom we are to read so much. Zola would have taken at least two -pages to say that, and, after all, he would not have said it. - -Compare with any of Zola's novels the amazingly clever novel of Moore, -_A Mummer's Wife_, which goes with several other novels which -are--well--_manqués_, in spite of their ability, their independence, -their unquestionable merits of various kinds. _A Mummers Wife_ is -admirably put together, admirably planned and shaped; the whole -composition of the book is masterly. The style may drag, but not the -action; the construction of a sentence may be uncertain, but not the -construction of a character. The actor and his wife are really living -people; we see them in their surroundings, and we see every detail of -those surroundings. Here, of course, he would never have made Zola's -stupid mistake; but can one imagine for a moment--I certainly can -not--the writer of this novel writing, creating, (if I may dare use the -word) two such sentences of Flaubert, which I quote in their original? -"_Huit jours après, comme elle étendait du linge dans sa cour, elle -fut prise d'un crachement de sang, et le lendemain, tandis que Charles -avait le dos tourné pour fermer le rideau de la fenêtre, elle dit: -'Ah! Mon Dieu!' poussa un soupir et s'évanouit. Ella était morte._" - -George Moore's _Modern Painting_ is full of injustices, brutality and -ignorances; but it is full also of the most generous justice, the most -discriminating sympathy, and the genuine knowledge of the painter. It is -hastily thought out, hastily written; but here, in these vivid, direct, -unscrupulously logical pages, you will find some of the secrets of the -art of painting, let out, so to speak, by an intelligence all sensation, -which has soaked them up without knowing it. Yet, having begun by trying -to paint, and having failed in painting, and so set himself to the -arduous task of being a prose-writer, he is often, in spite of his -painter's accuracy as to "values" and "technique" and so on, unreliable. - -For, being neither creative as a novelist nor as a critic, he has -nothing, as a matter of course, of two among many essential qualities: -vision and divination. Take, for instance, a few pages anywhere in -_L'Art Romanesque_ of Baudelaire, or from his prose on Delacroix, on -Constantine Guys, on Wagner, on Daumier, on Whistler, on Flaubert, and -on Balzac--where he is always supreme and consummate, "fiery and -final"--and place these beside any chosen pages of Moore's prose on -either Balzac or on Whistler, and you will see all the difference in the -world: as I have said above, between the creative and the uncreative -criticism. - -Had Walter Pater devoted himself exclusively to art criticism, there is -no doubt that, in a sense, he would have been a great art critic. There -are essays scattered throughout his work, as in the Botticelli where he -first introduces Botticelli to the modern world, as in the Leonardo da -Vinci--in which the simplest words take color from each other by the -cunning accident of their placing in the sentences, the subtle spiritual -fire kindling from word to word creates a masterpiece, a miracle in -which all is inspiration, all is certainty, all is evocation, and which, -in the famous page on _La Gioconda_, rises to the height of actually -lyrical prose--in which the essential principles of the art of painting -are divined and interpreted with extraordinary subtlety. In the same -sense all that Whistler has written about painting deserves to be taken -seriously, and read with understanding. Written in French, and signed by -Baudelaire, his truths, and paradoxes reflecting truths, would have been -realized for what they are. He fought for himself, and spared no form of -stupidity: for, in Whistler, apart from his malice, his poisonous -angers, taste was carried to the point of genius, and became creative. - -George Moore's literary career has been singularly interesting; his -character as a writer is very curious. A man who respects his art, who -is devoted to literature, who has a French eye for form, he seems -condemned to produce work which is always spotted with imperfection. All -his life he has been seeking a style, and he has not yet found one. At -times he drops into style as if by accident, and then he drops style as -if by design. He has a passionate delight in the beauty of good prose; -he has an ear for the magic of phrases; his words catch at times a -troubled expressive charm; yet he has never attained ease in writing, -and he is capable of astounding incorrectness--the incorrectness of a -man who knows better, who is not careless and yet who can not help -himself. Yet the author of _A Mummer's Wife_, of _The Confessions of a -Young Man_, of _Impressions and Opinions_, has more narrowly escaped -being a great writer than even he himself, perhaps, is aware. - - - - -FRANCIS THOMPSON - - -I - - -If Crashaw, Shelley, Donne, Marvell, Patmore and some other poets had -not existed, Francis Thompson would be a poet of remarkable novelty. Not -that originality, in the strictest sense, is always essential to the -making of a poet. There have been poets who have so absolutely lived in -another age, whose whole soul has been so completely absorbed by a -fashion of writing, perhaps a single writer, belonging to an earlier -century, that their work has been an actual reincarnation of this -particular time or writer. Chatterton, for instance, remains one of the -finest of English poets, entirely on account of poems which were so -deliberately imitative as to have been passed off as transcripts from -old manuscripts. Again, it is possible to be deftly and legitimately -eclectic, as was Milton, for example. Milton had, in an extraordinary -degree, the gift of assimilating all that he found, all that he -borrowed. Often, indeed, he improved his borrowed goods; but always he -worked them into the pattern of his own stuff, he made them part of -himself; and wisdom is justified of her children. Now Thompson, though -he affects certain periods, is not so absorbed in any one as to have -found his soul by losing it; nor is he a dainty borrower from all, -taking his good things wheresoever he finds them. Rather, he has been -impressed by certain styles, in themselves incompatible, indeed implying -the negation of one another--that of Crashaw, for instance, and that of -Patmore--and he has deliberately mixed them, against the very nature of -things. Thus his work, with all its splendors, has the impress of no -individuality; it is a splendor of rags and patches, a very masque of -anarchy. A new poet announces himself by his new way of seeing things, -his new way of feeling things; Thompson comes to us a cloudy visionary, -a rapturous sentimentalist, in whom emotion means colored words, and -sight the opportunity for a bedazzlement. - -The opening section of the book _Love in Dian's_ Lap is an experiment in -Platonic love. The experiment is in itself interesting, though here -perhaps a little too deliberate; in its bloodless ecstasy it recalls -_Epipsychidion_, which is certainly one of the several models on which -it has been formed; it has, too, a finely extravagant courtliness, which -belongs to an older school of verse as here:-- - - -Yet I have felt what terrors may consort -In women's cheeks, the Graces' soft resort; -My hand hath shook at gentle hands' access, -And trembled at the waving of a tress; -My blood known panic fear, and fled dismayed, -Where ladies' eyes have set their ambuscade. -The rustle of a robe hath been to me -The very rattle of love's musketry; -Although my heart hath beat the loud advance, -I have recoiled before a challenging glance, -Proved gay alarms where warlike ribbons dance. -And from it all, this knowledge have I got,-- -The whole, that others have, is less than they have not; -All which makes other women noted fair, -Unnoted would remain and overshone in her. - - -Finer, in yet a different style, is the poem _To a Poet Breaking -Silence_, of which we may quote the opening lines:-- - - -Too wearily had we and song -Been left to look and left to long, -Yea, song and we to long and look, -Since thine acquainted feet forsook -The mountain where the Muses hymn -For Sinai and the Seraphim. - -Now in both the mountains' shine -Dress thy countenance, twice divine! -From Moses and the Muses draw -The Tables of thy double Law! -His rod-born fount and Castaly -Let the one rock bring forth for thee, -Renewing so from either spring -The songs that both thy countries sing: -Or we shall fear lest, heavened thus long, -Thou should'st forget thy native song, -And mar thy mortal melodies -With broken stammer of the skies. - - -Next after these poems of spiritual love come certain odes and lyrical -pieces: one _To the Dead Cardinal of Westminster_, modeled, as to form, -on Marvell's great ode: _A Judgment in Heaven_, in which we are -permitted to see the angels "as they pelted each other with handfuls of -stars"--the most clotted and inchoate poem in the volume; together with -_A Corymbus for Autumn_ and _The Hound of Heaven_ which are the finest -things Thompson has done. Here, with all his extravagance, which passes -from the sublime to the ridiculous with all the composure of a madman, -Thompson has grappled with splendid subjects splendidly. He can, it is -true, say:-- - - -Against the red throb of the sunset-heart -I laid my own to beat; - - -but he can also say (with a solemn imagery which has its precise meaning -as well as its large utterance):-- - - -I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds; -Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds -From the hid battlements of Eternity, -Those shaken mists a space unsettle, then -Round the half-glimpsed turrets slowly wash again; -But not ere him who summoneth -I first have seen, enwound -With glooming robes purpureal, cypress-crowned; -His name I know, and what his trumpet saith. - - -Here, as ever, Thompson indulges in his passion for polysyllables--"the -splendent might of thy conflagrate fancies," for example; but forced -words are less out of place in poems which, in the best sense of the -word, are rhapsodies, than in poems such as those on children, which -fill the last section of the book, and in which one may read of "a -silvern segregation, globed complete," of "derelict trinkets of the -darling young," and so forth. The last piece of all, _To Monica Thought -Dying_, is written in downright imitation of Patmore; but how far is it, -in its straining after fine effects of sound, its straining after fine -effects of pathos, from the perfect justice of expression which Patmore -has found in such poems as _The Toys_ and _Poor Child!_ for an equally -perfect sentiment of the pathetic! That a writer who at his best is so -fiery and exuberant should ever take Patmore for a model, should really -try to catch even his tricks of expression, is very curious, and shows, -as much as any other single characteristic, the somewhat external -quality of Thompson's inspiration. A poet with an individuality to -express, seeking for an individual form of expression, could scarcely, -one fancies, have been drawn by any natural affinity so far away from -himself and his main habitudes. Grashaw and Patmore--we come back to the -old antagonism--can a man serve two such masters? Imagine Patmore -rewriting, according to his own standard of composition, _The Flaming -Heart_, or Crashaw treating in his own way the theme of _Deliciae -Sapientiae de Amore!_ Here and there, too, in Thompson's work, are -reminiscences of Rossetti; as here:-- - - -Yea, in that ultimate heart's occult abode -To lie as in an oubliette of God. - - -And the influence of Shelley is felt from the first line to the last. -Yet, in spite of all this, Thompson has something, unquestionably, of -"fine frenzy," not always quite under his own control; he amazes by his -audacity, and delights by the violence with which he would fain storm -Parnassus. His verse has generally fervor, a certain lyric glow, a -certain magnificence; it has abundant fancy, and its measure of swift -imagination. But the feast he spreads for us is a very Trimalchio's -feast--the heaped profusion, the vaunting prodigality, which brings a -surfeit; and, unlike Trimalchio, it could not be said of him _Omnia domi -nascuntur._ - -Verse, unless it is in some measure ecstasy, can not be poetry. But it -does not follow that in verse the most fervid ecstasy is the best -poetry. If, indeed, for "fervid" be substituted "fervidly expressed," it -is quite the contrary. Coventry Patmore has pointed out that the sign of -great art is peace, a peace which comes of the serene, angelic triumph -over mortal tumults, and those less essential raptures which are after -all flames of the earth's center. Francis Thompson has the ecstasy; but -unfortunately he has not realized that ecstasy, if it is to be -communicated from the soul to the soul, and not merely from the mouth to -the ear, must be whispered, not shouted. - -If a man's style is the man--his innermost self, as we may suppose, -revealing itself in the very words he uses--Thompson, in a more special -sense than almost any other writer, is seen in his language. He is that -strange phenomenon, a verbal intelligence. He thinks in words, he -receives his emotions and sensations from words, and the rapture which -he certainly attains is a rapture of the disembodied word. It is not -that his verse is without meaning, that in taking care of the sound he -allows the sense (poor orphan!) to take care of itself. He has a -meaning, but that meaning, if it has not a purely verbal origin, is at -all events allowed to develop under the direct suggestion of the words -which present themselves to interpret it. His consciousness is dominated -by its own means of expression. And what is most curious of all is that, -while Thompson has a quite recognizable manner, he has not achieved a -really personal style. He has learned much, not always with wisdom, and -in crowding together Cowley, Crashaw, Donne, Patmore, to name but a few -of many, he has not remembered that to begin a poem in the manner of -Crashaw, and to end it in the manner of Patmore, is not the same thing -as fusing two alien substances into a single new substance. Styles he -has, but not style. This very possession by the word has, perhaps, -hindered him from attaining it. Fine style, the style in which every -word is perfect, rises beautifully out of a depth into which words have -never stretched down their roots. Intellect and emotion are the molders -of style. A profound thought, a profound emotion, speaks as if it were -unconscious of words; only when it speaks as if unconscious of words do -the supreme words issue from its lips. Ornament may come afterward: you -can not begin with ornament. Thompson, however, begins with ornament. - -Unhappily, too, Thompson's verse is certainly fatiguing to read, and one -of the reasons why it is so fatiguing is that the thought that is in it -does not progress; it remains stationary. About the fragile life which -cries somewhere in its center he builds up walls of many colored bricks, -immuring his idea, hiding it, stifling it. How are we to read an ode of -many pages in which there is no development, not even movement? Stanza -is heaped upon stanza, page is piled upon page, and we end where we -began. The writer has said endless things about something but never the -thing itself. Poetry consists in saying the thing itself. - -But this is not the only reason why it is fatiguing to read Thompson's -verse. To read it is too much like jolting in a springless cart over a -plowed field, about noontide, on a hot summer day. His lines, of which -this is typical,-- - - -Pulp the globed weight of juiced Iberia's grape, - - -are so packed with words that each line detains the reader. Not merely -does Thompson prefer the line to the stanza or the paragraph, he prefers -the word to the line. He has failed to remember that while two and two -make four, four are not necessarily better than two--that because red is -brighter than gray, red is not necessarily the better color to use -whenever one wants to use a color. He hears the brass in the orchestra -sounding out loudly over the strings and he therefore suppresses the -strings. He has a bold and prolific fancy, and he pampers his fancy; yet -prodigality is not abundance, nor profusion taste. He is without -reticence, which he looks upon as stint or as penury. Having invited his -guests to his feast, he loads their plates with more than they can eat, -forcing it upon them under the impression that to do otherwise is to be -lacking in hospitality. - -Yet, after all, the feast is there--Trimalchio's if you will, but -certainly not a Barmecide's. Thompson has a remarkable talent, he has a -singular mastery of verse, as the success of his books is not alone in -proving. Never has the seventeenth-century phrasing been so exactly -repeated as in some of his poems. Never have Patmore's odes been more -scrupulously rewritten, cadence for cadence; Thompson's fancy is -untiring, if sometimes it tires the reader; he has, not exactly at -command, but not beyond reach, an eager imagination. No one can cause a -more vaguely ardent feeling in the sympathetic reader, a feeling made up -of admiration and of astonishment in perhaps equal portions. There are -times when the fire in him bums clear through its enveloping veils of -smoke, and he writes passages of real splendor. Why then does he for the -most part wrap himself so willingly in the smoke? - - - - -II - - -In Francis Thompson's first volume of poems, I pointed out some of the -sources of the so-called originality of all that highly colored -verse--Crashaw, Shelley, Donne, Marvell, Patmore, Rossetti--and I -expressed a doubt whether a writer who could allow himself to be so -singularly influenced by such singularly different writers could be -really, in the full sense of the term, a new poet. The book before me -confirms my doubt. Thompson is careful to inform his readers that "this -poem, though new in the sense of being now for the first time printed, -was written some four years ago, about the same date as the _Hound of -Heaven_ in my former volume." Still, as he takes the responsibility of -printing it, and of issuing it by itself, it may reasonably be assumed -that he has written nothing since which he considers to be of higher -quality. - -The book consists of one long and obscure rhapsody in two parts. Why it -should ever begin, or end, or be thus divided, is not obvious, nor, -indeed, is the separate significance of most of the separate pages. It -begins in a lilt of this kind:-- - - -The leaves dance, the leaves sing, -The leaves dance in the breath of Spring. -I bid them dance, -I bid them sing, -For the limpid glance -Of my ladyling; -For the gift to the Spring of a dewier spring, -For God's good grace of this ladyling! - - -But the rhythm soon becomes graver, the lines charged with a more -heavily consonnated burden of sound, as, for instance, in the opening of -the second part:-- - - -And now, thou elder nursling of the nest, -Ere all the intertangled west -Be one magnificence -Of multitudinous blossoms that o'er-run -The flaming brazen bowl o' the burnished sun -Which they do flower from -How shall I 'stablish _thy_ memorial? - - -"I who can scarcely speak my fellows' speech," the writer adds, with -more immediate and far-reaching truth than he intends. Thompson wilfully -refuses to speak his fellows' speech, in order to speak a polysyllabic -speech, made up out of all the periods of the English language--a speech -which no one, certainly, has employed in just such a manner before, but -which, all the same, does not become really individual. It remains, -rather, a patchwork garb, flaming in all the colors, tricked out with -barbaric jewels, and, for all its emphatic splendor, suggesting the -second-hand dealer's. - -In such a poem as _The Hound of Heaven_, in Thompson's former volume, -there was a certain substratum of fine meaning, not obscured, or at all -events not concealed, by a cloud of stormy words. But here I find no -sufficing undercurrent of thought, passion, or reverie, nothing but fine -fragments, splendid lines, glowing images. And of such fragments, -however brilliant in themselves, no fine poetry can consist. Thompson -declares of himself and his verse, with a really fervid sense of his own -ardor: - - -And are its plumes a burning bright array? -They burn for an unincarnated eye. -A bubble, charioteered by the inward breath -Which, ardorous for its own invisible lure, -Urges me glittering to aerial death, -I am rapt towards that bodiless paramour; -Blindly the uncomprehended tyranny -Obeying of my heart's impetuous might. - - -Scarcely could a single line express more concisely and more -significantly the truth about Thompson than one of these lines. "Urges -me glittering to aerial death:" how true that is in its confession of -that fatal vagueness of aim, showiness of equipment and the toppling -disaster of it all! Thompson has miscalculated his strength of flight. -He is for ever straining after the heights, and there are moments when -he seems to have reached them. But it is only that he has dazzled and -confused our sight by the trick of some unfamiliar magic. And his magic, -for the most part, is a magic of words. Those suggestions of a rare -poetic vision, which, from the first, seemed nebulous rather than -illuminated, have become little more than verbal sophistries. To have -transposed a phrase until it becomes - - -To Naiad it through the unfrothing air - - -satisfies him as though it had been a vision or an invention. The -frigid conceit of - - -The blushes on existence's pale face - - -satisfies him as though it were an imaginative conception. And -such combinations of words as - - -The very hues -Which their conflagrant elements effuse - - -satisfy him as being effects of appropriate poetic novelty. The _Poems_, -with all their faults, had suggestions of finer possibilities. In -_Sister-Songs_ none of these possibilities is realized. At the most it -is a sort of fantastic world of waters (shall we say, at Thompson's -suggestion?) where, - - -----like the phantasms of a poet pale, -The exquisite marvels sail: -Clarified silver; greens and azures frail -As if the colours sighed themselves away, -And blent in supersubtile interplay -As if they swooned into each other's arms; -Repured vermilion, -Like ear-tips 'gainst the sun; -And beings that, under night's swart pinion, -Make every wave upon the harbour bars -A beaten yolk of stars. -But where day's glance turns baffled from the deeps, -Die out those lovely swarms; -And in the immense profound no creature glides or -creeps. - - -Francis Thompson's earlier volume of _Poems_ attracted perhaps an undue -amount of attention on account of its gorgeous and unusual qualities of -diction, and a certain exuberant and extravagant fervor of mood. These -are not indeed the characteristics of the highest kind of poetry, but -they are characteristics which impress uncritical persons as being of -the essence of poetic inspiration. To express a small thought by a large -word is always impressive, and a certain excitement in the manner of it -adds greatly to the effect of the performance. Thus, much writing which -is merely feverish and blustering becomes admired for the quality of its -defects, these defects being taken to be extraordinary merits; while -writing which has all the quietness of true perfection passes unobserved -or unrecognized. In particular it is forgotten that the expression of a -thought should be like a well-fitting suit of clothes, following closely -and gracefully the outlines of the body that informs it. Francis -Thompson, alike in his former work and in the work which he has just -brought out, is never content unless his thought is swathed in fold -after fold of variegated drapery, cut after no recognized fashion and -arranged on no consistent or indeed comprehensible plan. Take this -passage, for instance, on page three of _Sister-Songs_: - - -Now therefore, thou who bring'st the year to birth, -Who guid'st the bare and dabbled feet of May; -Sweet stem to that rose Christ, who from the earth -Suck'st our poor prayers, conveying them to Him; -Be aidant, tender Lady, to my lay! -Of thy two maidens somewhat must I say, -Ere shadowy twilight lashes, drooping, dim -Day's dreamy eyes from us; -Ere eve has struck and furled -The beamy-textured tent transpicuous, -Of webbed coerule wrought and woven calms, -Whence has paced forth the lambent-footed sun. - - -This is a fair, indeed a favorable, specimen of Thompson's way of -"Making familiar things seem strange." His vocabulary is for the most -part made up of an ingenious, and really novel, selection from the words -that other people are ignorant of, or perhaps avoid if they know them: -"battailously," for instance, or "illuminate and volute redundance," -which will be found on a single page. He describes himself as a - - -Wantoner between the yet untreacherous claws -Of newly-whelped existence; - - -while on another page he tells us: - - -The hours I tread ooze memories of thee, sweet! - - -He sees "blossoms mince it on river swells," and notices when - - -All the fair -Frequence swayed in irised wavers. - - -All this is surely a very artificial and unnecessary and inelegant way -of expressing very ordinary matters. The same strain after a sort of -exterior heightening of expression appears on every page. Often the -language has a certain magnificence, and it is always employed in the -service of a luxurious fancy, which not infrequently rises to the point -of sheer imagination. But the whole book leaves no enduring impression -on the mind, only the visual memory of flooding words, splashing in -colored waves. As a piece of decoration, in this highly colored kind, it -has qualities of extraordinary brilliance and audacity. And at times, -becoming for a moment a little simpler than its wont, though still -fantastic and freakish, it will present us with an effect like that in -the following lines: - - -And thou, bright girl, not long shalt thou repeat -Idly the music from thy mother caught; -Not vainly has she wrought, -Not vainly from the cloudward-jetting turret -Of her aerial mind, for thy weak feet, -Let down the silken ladder of her thought. -She bare thee with a double pain, -Of the body and the spirit; -Thou thy fleshly weeds hast ta'en, -Thy diviner weeds inherit! - -The precious streams which through thy young lips roll -Shall leave their lovely delta in thy soul. -Where sprites of so essential kind -Set their paces, -Surely they shall leave behind -The green traces -Of their sportance in the mind; -And thou shalt, ere we well may know it, -Turn that daintiness, a poet,-- -Elfin-ring -Where sweet fancies foot and sing. - - -Such work as this comes strangely enough into the midst of contemporary -verse, concerned as that for the most part is with other ends, and -elaborated after quite another fashion. Always interesting, if never -quite satisfying; too crowded, too loaded, rather than, as with most -verse, meager and unfilled; curiously conceived, and still more -curiously wrought out; it holds a unique position in the poetic -literature of the day, if not, in Patmore's words concerning the earlier -volume of _Poems_, "in the prominent ranks of fame, with Cowley and -Crashaw." It is a book which no one else could have written, and in -which no one can fail to admire, with however many reservations, the -"illuminate and volute redundance" of an only too opulent talent. - -For it is difficult to avoid the conviction that Thompson deliberately -rejects simplicity, and even, at times, with an elaborate and conscious -search after long and heavily colored words. There is in this book a -translation of Victor Hugo's _Ce qu'on entend sur la Montagne_, a well -known poem in the _Feuilles d'Automne._ In going carefully over -Thompson's version and comparing it word for word with the original, we -have found that where Victor Hugo--not a simple writer--is simple, -Thompson embroiders upon him, and that where he is not simple, Thompson -is always less so. For instance, in the very first couplet we have "let -your tread aspirant rise" for _monté_; a few lines below, - - -One day at least, whereon my thought, enlicensed to -muse, -Had drooped its wing above the beached margent of -the ooze, - - -for - - -----_un jour q'en rêve -Ma pensée abattit son vol sur une grève._ - - -Further on, - - -The one was of the waters; a be-radiant hymnal -speech! - - -for - - -_L'une venait des mers; chant de gloire; hymne heureux!_ - - -And finally, - - -And I made question of me, to what issues are we here, -Whither should tend the thwarting threads of all this -ravelled gear, - - -in place of - - -_Et je me demandai pourquoi l'on est ici, -Quel peut être après tout le but de tout ceci._ - - -What could be more significant than this heaping up of long and -extravagant and sometimes feeble words, instead of the direct language -of Hugo, who in this poem, though not without a certain rhetoric, says -exactly what he wants to say, and when, as in the last two lines quoted, -he thinks that an almost bald simplicity will be in place, sets down his -thoughts in terms of an almost bald simplicity? In this translation, -Thompson has betrayed himself; he has allowed his critics to see him at -work, substituting what is roundabout for what is straight-forward; what -is lengthy for what is brief; what is elaborated for what is simple. Has -not a similar process gone on in his own mind--how far consciously one -can not tell--during the writing of his original poems? - - - - -III - - -The news comes to me on a little black-edged card that Francis Thompson -died at dawn on November 13, 1907. He was a Roman Catholic, and we are -asked to pray for his soul. It was a light that death could not put out, -a torch that no wind could blow out in the darkness. From us indeed it -is now turned away, and that little corner of the world to which the -poet gives light is darkened. - -For Francis Thompson was one of the few poets now or lately living in -whom there was some trace of that divine essence which we best symbolize -by fire. Emptiness he had and extravagances, but he was a poet, and he -had made of many influences a form of new beauty. Much of his speech, -which has a heaped imagery unique in our time, seems to have learned its -technique from an almost indiscriminate quarrying among old quarries, -and is sometimes so closely copied from that which was fantastically -precise in Crashaw, Donne, Vaughan, that we wonder why it was not a few -centuries ago that some one said: - - -Life is a coquetry -Of Death, which wearies me, -Too sure -Of the armour; - -A tiring-room where I -Death's divers garments try, -Till fit -Some fashion sit. - - -No one since that time, when "conceits" could convey poetical substance, -has touched so daintily on plain words, giving by the touch some -transfiguring novelty. If it was a style learned, it was a style -perfectly acquired, and at times equal to its original. - -Words and cadences must have had an intoxication for him, the -intoxication of the scholar; and "cloudy trophies" were continually -falling into his hands, and half through them, in his hurry to seize and -brandish them. He swung a rare incense in a censer of gold, under the -vault of a chapel where he had hung votive offerings. The incense half -obscures the offerings, and the dim figures of the saints painted on the -windows. As he bows there in the chapel he seems to himself to be in -"reverberant Eden-ways" or higher, at the throne of heaven, borne on -"plumes night-tinctured, englobed and cinctured of saints." Passing -beyond the world he finds strange shapes, full of pomp and wearing -strange crowns; but they are without outline, and his words disguise, -decorate, but do not reveal them. - -When he chanted in his chapel of dreams, the airs were often airs which -he had learned from Crashaw and Patmore. They came to life again when he -used them, and he made for himself a music which was part strangely -familiar and part his own, almost bewilderingly. Such reed-notes and -such orchestration of sound were heard no where else; and people -listened to the music, entranced as by a new magic. - -When he put these dreams and this music into verse, with a craft which -he had perfected for his own use, the poetry was for the most part a -splendid rhetoric, imaginative and passionless, as if the moods went by, -wrapped in purple, in a great procession. _The Hound of Heaven_ has the -harmonies of a symphony, and there are delicacies among its splendors, -and, among instants of falsely fanciful sentiment, such august moments -as this: - - -I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds; -Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds -From the hid battlements of Eternity, -Those shaken mists a space unsettle, then -Round the half-glimpsed turrets slowly wash again. - - -It is full of fine and significant symbolism, it is an elaborate pageant -of his own life, with all its miseries, heights, relapses, and flight -after some eternity; but, as he writes it, it turns intellectual, and -the voice is like that of one declaiming his confession. It was not thus -that Christina Rossetti let us overhear a few of the deepest secrets of -her soul. - -The genius of Francis Thompson was oriental, exuberant in color woven -into elaborate patterns, and went draped in old silken robes that had -survived many dynasties. The spectacle of him was an enchantment; he -passed like a wild vagabond of the mind, dazzling our sight. He had no -message, but he dropped sentences by the way, cries of joy or pity, love -of children, worship of the Virgin and saints and of those who were -patron saints to him on earth; his voice was heard like a wandering -music, which no one heeded for what it said, in a strange tongue, but -which came troublingly into the mind, bringing it the solace of its old -recaptured melodies. Other poets of his time have had deeper things to -say, and a more flawless beauty; others have put more of their hearts -into their song; but no one has been a torch waved with so fitful a -splendor over the gulfs of our darkness. - - - - -COVENTRY PATMORE - - -The most austere poet of our time, Coventry Patmore, conceived of art as -a sort of abstract ecstasy, whose source, limit and end are that supreme -wisdom which is the innermost essence of love. Thus the whole of his -work, those "bitter, sweet, few and veiled" songs, which are the fruit -of two out of his seventy years, is love-poetry; and it is love-poetry -of a quite unique kind. In the earlier of his two books, _The Angel in -the House_, we see him, in the midst of a scientific generation (in -which it was supposed that by adding prose to poetry you doubled the -value of poetry) unable to escape the influence of his time, desperately -set on doing the wrong thing by design, yet unable to keep himself from -often doing the right thing by accident. In his later book, _The Unknown -Eros_, he has achieved the proper recognition of himself, the full -consciousness of the means to his own end; and it is by _The Unknown -Eros_ that he will love, if it is enough claim to immortality to have -written the most devout, subtle and sublimated love-poetry of our -century. - -Patmore tells us in _The Angel in the House_ that it was his intention -to write - - -That hymn for which the whole world longs, -A worthy hymn in woman's praise. - - -But at that time his only conception of woman was the conception of -woman as the lady. Now poetry has nothing whatever to do with woman as -the lady; it is in the novel, the comedy of manners, that we expect the -society of ladies. Prose, in the novel and the drama, is at liberty to -concern itself with those secondary emotions which come into play in our -familiar intercourse with one another; with those conventions which are -the "evening dress" by which our varying temperaments seek the disguise -of an outward uniformity; with those details of life which are also, in -a sense, details of costume, and thus of value to the teller of a tale, -the actor on a stage. But the poet who endeavors to bring all this -machinery of prose into the narrow and self-sufficing limits of verse is -as fatally doomed to failure as the painter who works after photographs, -instead of from the living model. At the time when _The Angel_ was -written, the heresy of the novel in verse was in the air. Were there -not, before and after it, the magnificent failure of _Aurora Leigh_, the -ineffectual, always interesting, endeavors of Clough, and certain more -careful, more sensitive, never quite satisfactory, experiments of -Tennyson? Patmore went his own way, to a more ingenious failure than -any. _The Angel in the House_ is written with exquisite neatness, -occasional splendor; it is the very flower of the poetry of convention; -and is always lifting the trivialities and the ingenuities to which, for -the most part, it restricts itself, miraculously near to that height -which, now and again, in such lines as _The Revelation_, it fully -attains. But it is not here, it is in _The Unknown Eros_ alone, that -Patmore has given immortality to what is immortal in perishable things. - -How could it be otherwise, when the whole force of the experiment lies -in the endeavor to say essentially unpoetical things in a poetical -manner? - - -Give me the power of saying things -Too simple and too sweet for words, - - -was his wise, reasonable, and afterward answered prayer. Was it after -the offering of such a prayer that he wrote of - - -Briggs, -Factotum, Footman, Butler, Groom? - - -But it is not merely of such "vulgar errors" as this that we have to -complain, it is of the very success, the indisputable achievement, of -all but the most admirable parts of the poem. The subtlety, the fineness -of analysis, the simplified complexity, of such things as _The Changed -Allegiance_, can scarcely be overpraised as studies in "the dreadful -heart of woman," from the point of view of a shrewd, kindly, somewhat -condescending, absolutely clear-eyed observer, so dispassionate that he -has not even the privilege of an illusion, so impartial that you do not -even do his fervor the compliment of believing it possible that his -perfect Honoria had, after all, defects. But in all this, admirable as -it is, there is nothing which could not have been as well said in prose. -It is the point of view of the egoist, of the "marrying man," to whom - - -Each beauty blossomed in the sight -Of tender personal regard. - - -Woman is observed always in reference to the man who fancies she may -prove worthy to be his "predestined mate," and it seems to him his -highest boast that he is - - -proud -To take his passion into church. - - -At its best, this is the poetry of "being in love," not of love; of -affection, not passion. Passion is a thing of flame, rarely burning -pure, or without danger to him that holds that wind-blown torch in his -hand; while affection, such as this legalized affection of _The Angel in -the House_, is a gentle and comfortable warmth, as of a hearth-side. It -is that excellent, not quite essential, kind of love which need endure -neither pain nor revolt; for it has conquered the world on the world's -terms. - -Woman, as she is seen in _The Angel in the House_, is a delightful, -adorable, estimable, prettily capricious child; demonstrably finite, -capturable, a butterfly not yet Psyche. It is the severest judgment on -her poet that she is never a mystery to him. For all art is founded on -mystery, and to the poet, as to the child, the whole world is -mysterious. There are experts who tell me that this world, and life, and -the flowing of times past into times to come, are but a simple matter -after all: the jarring of this atom against that, a growth by explicable -degrees from a germ perhaps not altogether inexplicable. And there are -the experts in woman, who will explain to me the bright disarray of her -caprices, the strangeness of her moods, the unreason of her sway over -man; assuring me that she is mysterious only because she is not seen -through, and that she can never be seen through because into the depths -of emptiness one can see but a little distance. Not of such is the true -lover, the true poet. To him woman is as mysterious as the night of -stars, and all he learns of her is but to deepen the mystery which -surrounds her as with clouds. To him she is Fate, an unconscious part of -what is eternal in things; and, being the liveliest image of beauty, she -is to be reverenced for her beauty, as the saints are reverenced for -their virtue. What is it to me if you tell me that she is but the -creature of a day, prized for her briefness, as we prize flowers; loved -for her egoism, as we love infants; marveled at for the exquisite and -audacious completeness of her ignorance? Or what is it to me if you tell -me that she is all that a lady should be, infinitely perfect in -pettiness; and that her choice will reward the calculations of a -gentleman? If she is not a flame, devouring and illuminating, and if -your passion for her is not as another consuming and refining flame, -each rushing into either that both may be commingled in a brighter -ecstasy, you have not seen woman as it is the joy of the poet and the -lover to see her; and your fine distinctions, your disentangling of -sensations, your subtleties of interpretation, will be at the best but -of the subject of prose, revealing to me what is transitory in the -eternal rather than what is eternal in the transitory. The art of -Coventry Patmore, in _The Angel in the House_, is an art founded on this -scientific conception of woman. But the poet, who began by thinking of -woman as being at her best a perfect lady, ended by seeing her seated a -little higher than the angels, at the right hand of the Madonna, of whom -indeed she is a scarcely lower symbol. She who was a bright and -cherished toy in _The Angel in the House_ becomes in _The Unknown Eros_ -pure spirit, the passionate sister of the pure idea. She is the mystical -rose of beauty, the female half of that harmony of opposites which is -God. She has other names, and is the Soul, the Church, the Madonna. To -be her servant is to be the servant of all right, the enemy of all -wrong; and therefore poems of fierce patriotism, and disdainful -condemnation of the foolish and vulgar who are the adversaries of God's -ordinances and man's, find their appropriate place among poems of tender -human pathos, of ecstatic human and divine love. - -And she is now, at last, apprehended under her most essential aspect, as -the supreme mystery and her worship becomes an almost secret ritual, of -which none but the adepts can fathom the full significance. - -Vision, in _The Unknown Eros_, is too swift, immediate and far-seeing to -be clouded by the delicate veils of dreams. - - -Give me the steady heat -Of thought wise, splendid, sweet, -Urged by the great, rejoicing wind that rings -With draught of unseen wings, -Making each phrase, for love and for delight, -Twinkle like Sirius on a frosty night: - - -that is his prayer, and it was not needful for him to - - -remain -Content to ask unlikely gifts in vain. - - -Out of this love-poetry all but the very essence of passion has been -consumed; and love is seen to be the supreme wisdom, even more than the -supreme delight. Apprehended on every side, and with the same -controlling ardor, those "frightful nuptials" of the Dove and Snake, -which are one of his allegories, lead upward, on the wings of an almost -aerial symbolism, to those all but inaccessible heights where mortal -love dies into that intense, self-abnegating, intellectual passion, -which we name the love of God. - -At this height, at its very highest, his art becomes abstract ecstasy. -It was one of his contentions, in that beautiful book of prose, _Religio -Poetae_, in which thought is sustained throughout at almost the lyrical -pitch, that the highest art is not emotional, and that "the music of -Handel, the poetry of Aeschylus, and the architecture of the Parthenon -are appeals to a sublime good sense which takes scarcely any account of -'the emotions.'" Not the highest art only, but all art, if it is so much -as to come into existence, must be emotional; for it is only emotion -which puts life into the death-like slumber of words, of stones, of the -figures on a clef. But emotion may take any shape, may inform the least -likely of substances. Is not all music a kind of divine mathematics, and -is not mathematics itself a rapture to the true adept? To Patmore -abstract things were an emotion, became indeed the highest emotion of -which he was capable; and that joy, which he notes as the mark of fine -art, that peace, which to him was the sign of great art, themselves, the -most final of the emotions, interpenetrated for him the whole substance -of thought, aspiration, even argument. Never were arguments at once so -metaphysical and so mystical, so precise, analytic and passionate as -those "high arguments" which fill these pages with so thrilling a life. - -The particular subtlety of Patmore's mysticism finds perhaps its -counterpart in the writings of certain of the Catholic mystics: it has -at once the clear-eyed dialectic of the Schoolmen and the august heat of -Saint Theresa. Here is passion which analyzes itself, and yet with so -passionate a complexity that it remains passion. Read, for instance, -that eulogy of "Pain," which is at once a lyric rapture, and betrays an -almost unholy depth of acquaintance with the hidden, tortuous and -delightful way of sensation. Read that song of songs, _Deliciae -Sapientiae de Amore_, which seems to speak, with the tongue of angels, -all the secrets of all those "to whom generous Love, by any name, is -dear." Read that other, interrupted song, - - -Building new bulwarks 'gainst the infinite, - - -"_Legem tuam dilexi._" Read those perhaps less quintessential dialogues -in which a personified Psyche seeks wisdom of Eros and the Pythoness. -And then, if you would realize how subtle an argument in verse may be, -how elegantly and happily expressed, and yet not approach, at its -highest climb, the point from which these other arguments in verse take -flight, turn to _The Angel in the House_ and read "The Changed -Allegiance." The difference is the difference between wisdom and worldly -wisdom: wisdom being the purified and most ardent emotion of the -intellect, and thus of the very essence of poetry; while worldly wisdom -is but the dispassionate ingenuity of the intelligence, and thus of not -so much as the highest substance of prose. - -The word "glittering," which Patmore so frequently uses, and always with -words which soften its sharpness, may be applied, not unsuitably, to -much of his writing in this book: a "glittering peace" does indeed seem -to illuminate it. The writing throughout is classical, in a sense in -which perhaps no other writing of our time is classical. When he says of -the Virgin: - - -Therefore, holding a little thy soft breath, -Thou underwent'st the ceremony of death; - - -or, of the eternal paradox of love: - - -Tis but in such captivity -The unbounded Heavens know what they be; - - -when he cries: - - -O Love, that, like a rose, -Deckest my breast with beautiful repose; - - -or speaks of "this fond indignity, delight;" he is, though with an -entirely personal accent, writing in the purest classical tradition. He -was accustomed always, in his counsels to young writers, to reiterate -that saying of Aristotle, that in the language of poetry there should be -"a continual slight novelty;" and I remember that he would point to his -own work, with that legitimate pride in himself which was one of the -fierce satisfactions of his somewhat lonely and unacknowledged old age. -There is in every line of _The Unknown Eros_ that continual slight -novelty which makes classical poetry, certainly, classical. Learned in -every meter, Patmore never wrote but in one, the iambic: and there was a -similar restraint, a similar refusal of what was good, but not (as he -conceived) the highest good, all strangeness of beauty, all trouble, -curiosity, the splendor of excess, in the words and substance of his -writing. I find no exception even in that fiercely aristocratic -political verse, which is the very rapture of indignation and wrath -against such things as seemed to him worthy to be hated of God. - -Like Landor, with whom he had other points of resemblance, Coventry -Patmore was a good hater. May one not say, like all great lovers? He -hated the mob, because he saw in it the "amorous and vehement drift of -Man's herd to hell." He hated Protestantism, because he saw in it a -weakening of the bonds of spiritual order. He hated the Protestantism of -modern art, its revolt against the tradition of the "true Church," the -many heresies of its many wanderings after a strange, perhaps forbidden, -beauty. Art was to him religion, as religion was to him the supreme art. -He was a mystic who found in Catholicism the sufficing symbols of those -beliefs which were the deepest emotions of his spirit. It was a -necessity to him to be dogmatic, and he gave to even his petulances the -irresistible sanction of the Church. - -_Religio Poetae_ contains twenty-three short essays--many of them rather -sermons than essays--on such topics as "Peace in Life and Art, Ancient -and Modern Ideas of Purity, Emotional Art, Conscience, Distinction." -There is nothing which marks it as of the present but an occasional -personality, which we could wish absent, and a persistent habit of -self-quotation. There is absolutely no popular appeal, no extraneous -interest in the timeliness of subject, or the peculiarities of -treatment; nothing, in fact, to draw the notice of the average reader or -to engage his attention. To the average reader the book must be nothing -but the vainest speculation and the dullest theory. Yet, in many ways, -it is one of the most beautiful and notable works in prose that have -appeared in recent years. It is a book, argumentative as it is, which -one is not called on so much to agree with or dissent from as to ponder -over, and to accept, in a certain sense, for its own sake. Patmore is -one of the few surviving defenders of the faith, and that alone gives -him an interesting position among contemporary men of letters. He is a -Christian and a Catholic, that is to say the furthest logical -development of the dogmatic Christian; but he is also a mystic; and his -spiritual apprehensions are so vivid that he is never betrayed into -dogmatic narrowness without the absolution of an evident vision and -conviction. And, above all, he is a poet; one of the most essential -poets of our time, not on account of the dinner-table domesticities of -_The Angel in the House_, but by reason of the sublimated love-poetry of -_The Unknown Eros_, with its extraordinary subtlety of thought and -emotion, rendered with the faultless simplicity of an elaborate and -conscious art. His prose is everywhere the prose of a poet. Thought, in -him, is of the very substance of poetry, and is sustained throughout at -almost the lyrical pitch. There is, in these essays, a rarefied air as -of the mountain-tops of meditation; and the spirit of their pondering -over things, their sometimes remote contemplation, is always, in one -sense, as Pater has justly said of Wordsworth, impassioned. Each essay -in itself may at once be said to be curiously incomplete or fragmentary, -and yet singularly well related as a part to a whole, the effect of -continuity coming from the fact that these are the occasional -considerations of a mind which, beyond that of most men, is consistent -and individual. Not less individual than the subject-matter is the -style, which in its gravity and sweetness, its fine, unforbidding -austerity, its smooth harmony--a harmony produced by the use of simple -words subtly--is unlike that of any contemporary writer, though much -akin to Patmore's own poetic style. - -The subjects with which these essays deal may be grouped under three -heads: religion, art and woman. In all Patmore's attitude is intensely -conservative and aristocratic--fiercely contemptuous of popular idols -and ideals, whenever he condescends to notice them. The very daring and -very logical essay on "Christianity and Progress" is the clearest and -most cogent statement of Christianity as an aristocracy, in opposition -to the current modern view of it as a democracy, that has been made -since the democratic spirit made its way into the pulpit. "Let not such -as these," says Patmore, - - -exalt themselves against the great Masters of the experimental science -of Life, one of whom--St. Theresa, if I remember rightly--declares that -more good is done by one minute of reciprocal communion of love with God -than by the founding of fifty hospitals or of fifty churches. - - -It is from this point of view that Patmore writes: - - -Many people doubt whether Christianity has done much, or even anything, -for the "progress" of the human race as a race; and there is more to be -said in defence of such doubt than most good people suppose. Indeed, the -expression of this doubt is very widely considered as shocking and -irreligious; and as condemnatory of Christianity altogether. It is -considered to be equivalent to an assertion that Christianity has -hitherto proved a "failure." But some who do not consider that -Christianity has proved a failure, do, nevertheless, hold that it is -open to question whether the race, as a race, has been much affected by -it, and whether the external and visible evil and good which have come -of it do not pretty nearly balance one another. - - -It is with the same view of things, from the same standpoint, that Mr. -Patmore states his ideal of the poetic art, and condemns what he -considers the current misconception of the subject. "I may go further," -he declares, in his vivacious attack on "Emotional Art," - - -and say that no art can appeal "to the emotions only" with the faintest -hope of even the base success it aspires to. The pathos of such art (and -pathos is its greatest point) is wholly due to a more or less vivid -expression of a vague remorse at its divorce from truth and order. The -Dame aux Camelias sighs in all Chopin's music over her lost virtue, -which, however, she shows no anxiety to recover, and the characteristic -expression of the most recent and popular school of poetry and painting -is a ray of the same sickly and in the most part hypocritical homage to -virtue. Without some such homage even the dying and super-sensitive body -of "emotional art" loses its very faintest pretensions to the name of -art, and becomes the confessed carion of Offenbach's operas and the -music-hall. Atheism in art, as well as in life, has only to be pressed -to its last consequences in order to become ridiculous, no less than -disastrous; and the "ideal," in the absence of an idea or intellectual -reality, becomes the "realism" of the brothel and the shambles. - - -What, then, is the ideal, the proper substance and manner of poetry? It -is thus defined in another essay, which contends that "Bad Morality is -Bad Art:" - - -The poet, as a rule, should avoid religion altogether as a direct -subject. Law, the rectitude of humanity, should be his only subject, as, -from time immemorial, it has been the subject of true art, though many a -true artist has done the Muse's will and knew it not. As all the music -of verse arises, not from infraction, but inflection of the law of the -set metre, so the greatest poets have been those the modulus of whose -verse has been most variously and delicately inflected, in -correspondence with feelings and passions which are the inflections of -moral law in their theme. Masculine law is always, however obscurely, -the theme of the true poet; the feeling and its correspondent rhythm, -its feminine inflection, without which the law has no sensitive or -poetic life. Art is thus constituted because it is the constitution of -life, all the grace and sweetness of which arise from inflection of law, -not from infraction of it, as bad men and bad poets fancy. - - -Again from the same standpoint, again with the same absolute and -aristocratic outlook on the world, does Patmore "sing of the nature of -woman"--the subject of his constant preoccupation as an artist, the one -sufficing subject to which he has devoted all his art. The modern woman, -one may suppose, is not likely to appreciate the precise manner in which -Patmore exalts her sex. It is far too logical, too reasonable, too -scrupulously according to nature; thus, for example, in a passage of -characteristically delicate wit: - - -It is "of faith" that the woman's claim to the honour of man lies in the -fact of her being the "weaker vessel." It would be of no use to prove -what every Christian man and woman is bound to believe, and what is, -indeed, obvious to the senses of any sane man or woman whatever. But a -few words of random comment on the text may, by adding to faith -knowledge, make man and woman--woman especially--more thankful than -before for those conditions which constitute the chief felicity of her -life and his, and which it is one of the chief triumphs of progress to -render ever more and more manifest. The happiest result of the "higher -education" of woman cannot fail to consist in the rendering of her -weakness more and more daintily conspicuous. How much sweeter to dry the -tears that flow because one cannot accede to some demonstrable fallacy -in her theory of variable stars, than to kiss her into conformity to the -dinner-hour or the fitness or unfitness of such-or-such a person to be -asked to a picnic! How much more dulcet the _dulcis Amaryllidis ira_ -when Amaryllis knows Sophocles and Hegel by heart, than when her -accomplishments extend only to a moderate proficiency in French and the -pianoforte! It is a great consolation to reflect that, among all the -bewildering changes to which the world is subject, the character of -woman cannot be altered; and that, so long as she abstains from absolute -outrages against nature--such as divided skirts, freethinking, -tricycles, and Radicalism--neither Greek, nor conic sections, nor -political economy, nor cigarettes, nor athletics, can ever really do -other than enhance the charm of that sweet unreasonableness which -humbles the gods to the dust, and compels them to adore the lace below -the last hem of her brocade! - - -Such, then, and so consistent, is Patmore's attitude in matters of -religion, of art, and of the relation of man and woman. We are concerned -neither to defend nor to contend against it, admitting only that, -granted the premises (which, no doubt, can be taken on certain grave and -ancient warrants), the deductions from those premises are strictly -logical, and at the present day, as novel as they are logical. Patmore -is inclined to be petulant, and he occasionally rides a hobby-horse so -recklessly as to commit himself to incredible fallacies. But a book -which attains perfection has never yet been produced, and Patmore's is -close, very close indeed. - - - - -SIR WILLIAM WATSON - - -Why, I have sometimes asked myself, did not Pater say the right words on -a writer greater than Mérimée--George Meredith? I imagine that he -never admired his novels enough to try his hand on a subject not quite -his own. Certain books, I confess, ought to have been launched at the -British Philistine, like David's one convincing pebble, straight to the -forehead. I confess also (my own fault it was in regard to Meredith) -that to write about Carlyle, Swinburne or Meredith, without -unconsciously reproducing some tricks of manner, is a feat of which any -man might be proud. - -_The Egoist_ is a wonderful book, and in its elemental comedy it -challenges Congreve and even Molière; but in the elemental tragedy of -certain parts of _Rhoda Fleming_ and _Richard Feverel_, he challenges -Webster, or almost Shakespeare. Yet the uncouthness that disfigures -certain pages in _Richard Feverel_ is a mere after-taste of Arabian -extravagance. It is a new kind of uncouthness that comes into prominence -in _The Egotist_--that exaggeration of qualities which one sees in the -later works of men who have a pronounced style, even in the case of -Browning. No prose writer of our time has written finer or viler English -than Meredith. It is a mistake to treat him as if he were stylist first, -and novelist afterward, as Flaubert might almost be said to be. Meredith -is a conscious artist always--as conscious as Goncourt, with whom he may -be compared for his experimental treatment of language, his attempt to -express what has never been expressed before by forcing words to say -more than they are used to say. Sometimes they give his message, but -ungraciously, like beaten slaves; sometimes the message seems to go -astray. That is why Englishmen, forgetting triumph after splendid -triumph of style, will sometimes tell you that Meredith can not write -English, just as Frenchmen gravely assure one another that the novels of -the Goncourts are written in any language but French. - -That astonishing little volume, _Modern Love and Poems of the English -Roadside_, published in 1862, has never received anything like justice -except at the hands of such a fellow-craftsman as Swinburne. While I for -one can not but feel that Meredith works more naturally, with a freer -hand, in prose than in verse, that poem of _Modern Love_ seems to me -among the masterpieces of contemporary poetry. It is the most distinctly -modern poem ever written. There has been nothing like it in English -poetry: it brings into our literature something fundamentally new, -essentially modern. Side by side with this super-subtle study of passion -and sensation, we have the homely realism of "Juggling Jerry"--a poem -which can only be compared with Burns' "Jolly Beggars" for triumphant -success in perhaps the most difficult kind of literature. - -So far I quote from an old article of mine, which was answered by -William Watson. Here is part of his answer, printed in _The Academy_: - - -Now I should like to ask, what has the British Philistine done that he -should have a book shied at his head in the way Mr. Symons thinks -desirable? As regards Meredith, it seems to me that the British -Philistine has been most exemplary in what he would call the discharge -of his duty. He has tried his very best to read Meredith, and has -failed; or he has read Meredith, but has failed in the attempt to enjoy -him. I fancy, however, that when Meredith's devotees speak of the -British Philistine, they really mean the vast majority of the public, -and it seems to me a little absurd, that because there is an author -whose writings the public are comparatively indifferent to, it should be -constantly assured that the only person not in the least responsible for -such indifference is the author. Other writers have achieved popularity -before Meredith. Perhaps the best proof of the futility of trying to -convert people into an attitude of admiration by "aiming" a book at them -is afforded by Meredith's novels themselves. They are, in Mr. Symons' -sense of the word, "aimed" at the British Philistine, if ever novels -were. He has been pelted through, I do not know how many, volumes--but -have the missiles converted him? - - -I leave all these questions unanswered, as they deserve no answer, after -Time's verdict on Meredith. Now, what was, and is, the place of Sir -William Watson in literature? The difference between literature and what -is preeminently literary may be clearly illustrated on examination of -his poems. No poems written in our time are more literary. They come to -us asking to be received on account of their legitimate lineal descent -from earlier poets, from Wordsworth and from Matthew Arnold for -instance. "If," says the writer, frankly-- - - -If I be indeed -Their true descendant, as the veriest hind -May yet be sprung of kings, their lineaments -Will out, the signature of ancestry -Leap unobscured, and somewhat of themselves -In me, their lowly scion, live once more. - - -Many of the poems are about poets, or about books; some are purely -critical. And they are indeed, as they profess to be, in the tradition; -they strike no unfamiliar note to any ears acquainted with the music of -English poetry. Their range is limited, but within it they exhibit an -unquestionable mastery of a particular kind of technique. Few lines are -bad, all are careful, many are felicitous. Every poem has a certain -neatness and order about it. The spirit of the whole work is orderly, -reticent and dignified. Nothing has been left to chance, or to the -appeal of lawless splendors. An artist has been at work. At work on -what? At all events, not on the only really satisfactory material for -the poet--himself. Watson tells us that he has chosen the best of -himself for giving to the world: - - -I have not paid the world -The evil and the insolent courtesy -Of offering it my baseness for a gift. - - -Well and good; but has he, in choosing among his selves, chosen really -the essential one, base or not base, ignoble or not ignoble? He has -chosen the self that loves good literature, thinks estimable thoughts, -feels decorous emotions, and sets all this into polished and poetical -verse. That is enough for the making of literary poetry, but not for -poetry which shall be literature. - -Watson, in his study of the great writers, seems never to have realized -that what matters chiefly, what tells, is not the great phrase, but the -personality behind the phrase. He has learned from many writers to make -phrases almost as fine as those writers have made; his phrases are never -meaningless in themselves, and they can be exquisite in their form. But -the phrase, coming with nothing but its own significance behind it, a -rootless flower, deriving no life from the soil, fails to convey to us -more than an arid, unsatisfying kind of pleasure. There it is, a -detached thing; to be taken, you may say, for what it is worth; only, -live words will not be so taken. Compare Watson's "Ode to Autumn" with -the "Ode to Autumn" of Keats. The poem is one of Watson's best poems; it -is full of really poetical phraseology. But the ode of Keats means -something in every word, and it means Keats quite as much as autumn. -Watson's poem means neither autumn nor Watson; it represents Watson -setting himself to describe autumn. - -Take his "Hymn to the Sea." It is a long piece of exultant rhetoric, -very finely imagined, full of admirable images; the most beautiful -similes are gathered and brought together to represent the sea's -multitudinous moods; but when the poem is finished, and you have admired -it at leisure, you do not feel that this poet loves the sea. The poetry -of Byron is assailable on many sides, but when he wrote those too -rhetorical lines, now hackneyed almost out of recognition, beginning-- - - -Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll! - - -he wrote out of his heart, as nearly as he could, and the lines, faulty -as they are, have remained alive ever since. Mr. Watson's verse is very -much better verse, but will-- - - -Grant, O regal in bounty, a subtle and delicate largess, - - -come back to men's lips as often, or for as long -a time, as those faulty lines of Byron's? - -In his "Apologia," Watson replies to those who have complained that he -has brought nothing new into poetry-- - - -I bring nought new -Save as each noontide or each Spring is new. -Into an old and iterative world. - - -And he asks-- - - -Is the Muse -Fall'n to a thing of Mode, that must each year -Supplant her derelict self of yesteryear? - - -But he declines to see that the new thing which every generation rightly -asks of every new poet is by no means "mode," or empty fashion of -writing, but the one essential thing, personality, which can never be -twice the same. The reason why you will not find any two poets writing -in the same way is that every genuine poet has to express himself in his -own way, whether it be by offering his own "baseness for a gift," like -Villon, or by building a new heaven and a new hell, like Dante. The -maker of literature puts this new thing into his work, in the mere act -of making it, and it stands out, as plainly as his signature, in every -line he writes. Not to find it is to have fallen upon work which is but -literary, "books made out of books." Walt Whitman thought that such -"pass away." - -In that "Apologia" from which we have already quoted, Watson indignantly -denounces those who think "all Art is cold" if "an ardor not of Eros' -lips" is in it, and he attempts to indicate that state of vision in -which man may know-- - - -A deeper transport and a mightier thrill -Than comes of commerce with mortality. - - -Does he then, - - -In silence, in the visionary mood, - - -reach this ecstatic state? If so, it has left no impression on his -poetry. In his poetry there is no vision, only speculation about vision; -no ecstasy, only a reasonable meditation. He speaks of God, "the Whole," -the "cosmic descant," and the large words remain empty. In such poems as -_The Unknown God_ and _The Father of the Forest_ we seem to have been -taught a lesson, read out in a resonant, well controlled voice; nothing -has been flashed upon us, we have overheard nothing. - -And, indeed, of how little of this poetry can we say, in the words of -Mill's great definition, that it has been overheard! Its qualities, -almost, though not quite, at the best, are the qualities of good -oratory. Watson began by writing epigrams, admirable of their kind, with -a more lyric nineteenth century handling of the sharp eighteenth century -weapon. The epigram lies at the root of his work--that is to say, -something essentially of the quality of prose. He is a Pope who has read -Keats. Oratory or the epigram come into his most characteristic -passages, as in the well known and much admired lines on the greatness -and littleness of man: - - -Magnificent out of the dust we came -And abject from the Spheres. - - -Now that, striking and effective as it is, is an antithetical ingenuity -which a really fine poet would have gone out of his way to avoid. It is -oratory, not poetry, and it would make good oratory, for there point has -need of all its sharpness; oratory is action. - -It is through this oratorical quality of mind that Mr. Watson's style, -though so ordered and measurably, often leaves an impression of having -been deliberately heightened above the level of ordinary speech. The -great things in poetry are song at the core, but externally mere speech. -Think of some actual, anonymous Elizabethan song, and then read the -piece which Watson has called "Song in Imitation of the Elizabethans." -It is not merely that he has not captured the exact note of the period, -but rather copied the note of a later period; such lines as - - -Idly clanged the sullen portal, -Idly the sepulchral door, - - -are not direct speech, and can therefore never become pure song. They -are dressed in poetical phraseology, which is a very different thing. - -It is curious to find this quality in a writer who is in every sense so -critical. Behind a great deal of Watson's work there is the critical -intelligence, not the poetical temperament. _Wordsworth's Grave_ is -written in discipleship to Matthew Arnold, and it is not Arnold when he -is at his best--the Arnold of _Sohrab and Rustum_ and _The Sick King in -Bokhara_--that Watson has approached, but that half poet, half prose -writer who wrote the Obermann poems. The foundation of those poems is -prose, and a great deal of their substance is no more than rhymed prose. -But at times the poet flashes out, transfiguring material and form for -the moment, before he drops back into prose again. Watson's work is more -on a level; he neither falls so low nor rises so high. But, even more -than with Arnold, the substance of it is criticism, and the thinking and -the style suggest the best kind of prose. Set the poem, with its finely -chosen epithets and phrases--"Impassioned quietude, Thou wast home, Thou -hadst, for weary feet, the gift of rest, the frugal note of Gray," and -the like--beside Pater's essay on Wordsworth, and you will find many -points of resemblance, and not only in the echo of "impassioned -quietude" from Pater's "impassioned contemplation." Compare it with -Matthew Arnold's essay on Wordsworth and you will again find many points -of resemblance, not only in detail, which would not matter, but also in -the whole way of approaching and handling the subject. Does the rhyme -bring in any essential difference between specimens of fine prose and -this poem, so well thought out, so poetically expressed? There lies the -whole question, for if it does not bring such a difference, can it be -accepted as poetry, as an adequate kind of poetry? - -Criticism, though it may find place in a poem (as in Shelley's Letter to -Maria Gisborne) can never be the basis of poetry. Pope tried to turn the -current of English poetry into this narrow channel, but the sea-force -soon had its way with the banks and dykes. Watson has tried to revive -that heresy; he has disguised its principles under new terms, but it -remains the same heresy. Poetry is even less a criticism of thought than -it is a "criticism of life," it must be at all points creation, creation -of life, creation of thought, if it is to be poetry in the true sense. - -It is to Wordsworth, among many masters, that Watson tells us that he is -most indebted. Wordsworth is not always a safe master, and it is -apparently from him that Mr. Watson has accepted the main principles of -his blank verse. Wordsworth's blank verse was more often bad than good; -it was bad on principle, and good by the grace of a not infrequent -inspiration. At its best, it is not among the great specimens of blank -verse, or not for more than a very few lines at a time. It is without -vitality, it is without that freedom in beauty which can come from -vitality alone. Watson has learned from Wordsworth that it is possible -to write grave and impressive lines, sweeping up to fine perorations, in -which the pauses are measured, not by the vital pulses of the mood, but -by a conscious, cultivated method. Some of Wordsworth's blank verse "The -Prelude," though in itself tame and inefficient, takes hold of the -reader through a personal warmth which makes him almost forget that he -is reading verse at all. But we never feel personal warmth in Mr. -Watson; he succeeds or fails as an artificer, and as an artificer only. - -It is probably not too much to say that there is not a cadence in his -verse which has not been heard before. By what miracle it is that out of -the same number and order of syllables no two cadences of Shakespeare -and of Browning, of Keats and of Herrick, of Crashaw and of Blake, can -be precisely matched no man knows or will ever know--least of all the -poet himself. He writes what comes to him, and he may work on his -writing until hardly a word of the original stuff remains; and with all -his care, or in spite of it, the thing turns doggedly into his own -manner of speech, and comes to us with a cadence that we have never -heard before. He may have read much or little, and it will make barely -an appreciable difference. The music that is not learned in books comes -from some unknown source which is as variable as the sea or the wind. -Music learned from books, however much beauty may be breathed into it by -the singer, keeps the taint of its source about it. It is by such music -that the literary artist, not the artist in literature, is known. - -William Watson's _Odes and Other Poems_ is remarkable for precisely the -qualities which have distinguished his work since the time when, in -_Wordsworth's Grave_, he first elaborated a manner of his own. That -manner has some of the qualities of eighteenth century verse--its -sobriety, its strictness, its intellectual and critical interests; and -it also has certain of the richer and more emotional elements of the -nineteenth century revival of the Elizabethan passion, and splendor. The -reader is reminded of Gray, of Wordsworth, of Matthew Arnold, at moments -of Keats and of Rossetti. In spite of occasional and unaccountable -blemishes, Watson's work is, in the main, the most careful work of any -of the younger poets. Nor is it lacking in a poetic impulse. It does not -seem to us that this impulse is a very strong one, or one of special -originality, but it is there, undoubtedly; and Watson's verse, unlike -that of most of the people now writing, justifies its existence. Take, -for instance, these opening lines from the ode _To Arthur Christopher -Benson_: - - -In that grave shade august -That round your Eton clings, -To you the centuries must -Be visible corporate things -And the high Past appear -Affably real and near, -For all its grandiose airs, caught from the mien of -Kings. -The new age stands as yet -Half built against the sky -Open to every threat -Of storms that clamor by: -Scaffolding veils the walls, -And dim dust floats and falls, -As, moving to and fro, their tasks the masons ply. -But changeless and complete, -Rise unperturbed and vast, -Above our din and heat, -The turrets of the Past, -Mute as that city asleep, -Lulled with enchantments deep, -Far in Arabian dreamland built where all things -last. - - -The grave and equable sweep of this verse, so unlike most of the hot and -flurried rhyming of contemporaries, has the excellence of form which -gives adequate expression to a really poetic conception. Watson takes a -very serious view of things, except in a few attempts at satire or -playfulness, which are not quite fortunate either in idea or in -execution. He has the laudable desire to enter into competition with the -great masters on their own ground. And the result is by no means -ludicrous, as it would be with most people. Only it is a little as if -the accomplished copyist were to challenge comparison with the picture -which he has, after all, copied. Work done in the manner, and under the -influence, of previous writers may indeed, under certain circumstances, -attain the virtue of originality; but only under certain circumstances. -Chatterton, for instance, was original only when he copied, or when he -fancied he was copying; Keats was absolutely himself even at the period -when his form was entirely imitative. The personality of some men can -find no home in the present, can wear no dress of modern fashion; can -express itself only by a return to the ways of speech of an earlier age. -But this sort of spiritual nostalgia can only become effective when it -is a very deep and individual instinct, and not merely a general -literary sympathy. Watson has learned more from his masters than he has -brought to them. We have read his latest book with real appreciation of -its many admirable qualities, but, on closing it, we have no more -definite idea of Watson himself, of what he really is, apart from what -he chooses to express, than we had before opening it. And yet the -greater part of the book, in one sense, is quite personal. He tells us -what he thought of Stevenson's _Catriona_, how he felt in Richmond Park, -and of his friendly regard for one or two estimable men of letters. But -the real man, the real point of view, the outlook on life, the deeper -human sympathies: what do we learn of these? There is, indeed, one poem, -among the finest in the book, in which a touch of more acute personal -feeling gives a more intimate thrill to the verse--the poem called _Vita -Nuova_, of which we may quote the greater part: - - -O ancient streams, O far-descended woods -Full of the fluttering of melodious souls; -O hills and valleys that adorn yourselves -In solemn jubilation; winds and clouds, -Ocean and land in stormy nuptials clasped, -And all exuberant creatures that acclaim -The Earth's divine renewal: lo, I too -With yours would mingle somewhat of glad song. -I too have come through wintry terrors--yea, -Through tempest and through cataclysm of soul -Have come, and am delivered. Me the Spring -Me also, dimly with new life hath touched, -And with regenerate hope, the salt of life; -And I would dedicate these thankful tears -To whatsoever Power beneficent, -Veiled though his countenance, undivulged his thought, -Hath led me from the haunted darkness forth -Into the gracious air and vernal morn, -And suffers me to know my spirit a note -Of this great chorus, one with bird and stream -And voiceful mountain,--nay, a string, how jarred -And all but broken! of that lyre of life -Whereon himself, the master harp-player. -Resolving all its mortal dissonance -To one immortal and most perfect strain, -Harps without pause, building with song the world. - - -But this poem stands alone in the volume as an expression of very -interesting personal feeling, the rest being mainly concerned with -generalities. - -Like all Watson's volumes of verse, these _Odes and Other Poems_ contain -some excellent literary criticism, conveyed in the neatest and briefest -fashion possible. In fact, Watson's verse is only too full of sane and -measured criticism--an excellent quality no doubt, but hardly one quite -compatible with poetry of a high order. But how fine, how exact, how -discriminating, is this piece of criticism, for instance, in verse! - - -Forget not, brother singer! that though Prose -Can never be too truthful or too wise, -Song is not Truth, not Wisdom, but the rose -Upon Truth's lips, the light in Wisdom's eyes. - - -It was in the epigram that Watson first did finished work, and his most -typical work is certainly to be found in forms more or less akin to the -epigram; in the sonnet, for example. There are so many good sonnets in -this volume that choice is difficult; here is one called "Night on -Curbar Edge": - - -No echo of man's life pursues my ears; -Nothing disputes this Desolation's reign; -Change comes not, this dread temple to profane, -Where time by aeons reckons, not by years, -Its patient form one crag, sole stranded, rears, -Type of whate'er is destined to remain -While yon still host encamped on night's waste -plain -Keeps armed watch, a million quivering spears, -Hushed are the wild and wing'd lives of the moor; -The sleeping sheep nestle 'neath ruined wall, -Or unhewn stones in random concourse hurled; -Solitude, sleepless, listens at Fate's door; -And there is built and 'stablisht over all -Tremendous silence, older than the world. - - -The breadth of phrasing here is noticeable; and it is by such qualities -as this, as well as by the careful accuracy with which every note is -produced, that Watson is distinguished alike from older men of the type -of Alfred Austin, and from younger men of such varying capacities as -John Davidson and Yeats. If he has not the making of a great poet, he is -already an accomplished poet; and if he does not possess the highest -qualities, he possesses several of the secondary qualities in the -highest degree. - -Watson's _Ode on the Day of Coronation of King Edward the Seventh_ is a -fine piece of verse writing, and can hardly fail to remind the reader of -great poetry. It is constructed with care, it flows, it has gravity, an -air of amplitude, many striking single lines, and its sentiments are -unexceptionable. When we read such lines as these: - - -All these, O King, from their seclusion dread, -And guarded palace of eternity, -Mix in thy pageant with phantasmal tread, -Hear the long waves of acclamation roll, -And with yet mightier silence marshal thee -To the awful throne thou hast inherited---- - - -we feel that this is at least workman-like work, written by a man who -has studied great masters, and who takes himself and his art seriously. -There is not an undignified line in the whole poem, nor a break in the -slow, deliberate movement. Watson has style, he is never facile or -common. He has frequent felicities of phrase, but he subordinates -separate effects to the effect of the whole, and he is almost the only -living writer of verse of whom this could be said. His ode is -excellently made, from every external point of view. Yet, after reading -it over and over, with a full recognition of its technical qualities, we -are unable to accept it as genuine poetry, as the equal of the thing -which it resembles. - -Great poetry is not often written for official occasions, but that it -can be so written we need only turn to Marvell's _Horatian Ode upon -Cromwell's Return from Ireland_ to realize. Watson looks instinctively -to public events for his inspiration, and there is something in his -temper of mind and of style which seems to set him naturally apart as a -commentator upon the destinies of nations. He has never put any vital -part of himself into his work; he has told us nothing of what he is when -he is not a writer. All his utterances have been themselves official, -the guarded statement of just so much of his own thoughts and feelings -as he cares to betray to the public. His kind is rather critical than -creative, and it was by his epigrams that he first attracted attention. -His technique is so accomplished that he seems very often to be thinking -only of what he is saying, when it is evident, on a closer examination, -that he is thinking much more of how he is saying it. For the poet who -concerns himself with public events this might seem to be a useful part -of his poetic equipment. Court ceremonies demand court dress. -Undoubtedly, but the art of the courtier requires him to forget that he -is dressed for an occasion, to forget everything but the occasion. -Throughout the whole of his coronation ode Watson never forgets that he -is celebrating an important ceremony. His costume is perfectly adjusted, -he wears it with grace and dignity; his elocution, as he delivers his -lines, is a model of clearness and discreet emphasis. Everything that he -says is perfectly appropriate; good taste can go no further. But the -occasion itself, the meaning, the emotion, of the occasion? That does -not come into the poem; the poem tells us all about it. - -Now look at Marvell's ode, and forget for the moment that it is a -masterpiece of poetry. What a passion fires the hard, convincing -thought! How the mere logic holds the attention! Every word lives, and -the cadences (creating a new form for themselves) do but follow the -motions of the writer's bright, controlling energy. It is impossible to -read the lines aloud without a feeling of exultation. In Watson's ode -there is not a breath of life; what is said--admirable and sensible, and -at times poetically conceived as it is--comes with no impetus from the -mind that has conceived it coldly. And it is to be noted that, though -thought and expression are fitted together with great skill and -precision, the expression is always rather above the pitch of the -thought. Take these lines: - - -O doom of overlordships! to decay -First at the heart, the eye scarce dimmed at all; -Or perish of much cumber and array, -The burdening robe of empire, and its pall; -Or, of voluptuous hours the wanton prey; -Die of the poisons that most sweetly slay; -Or, from insensate height, -With prodigies, with light -Of trailing angers on the monstrous night, -Magnificently fall. - - -There we find expression strained to a point to which the thought has -not attained. In other words, we find rhetoric. Weight and resonance of -verse do but drag down and deafen that which they should uplift and -sound abroad, when, instead of being attendants upon greatness, they -attempt to replace it. - - - - -EMIL VERHAEREN - - -The poetry of Emile Verhaeren, more than that of any other modern poet, -is made directly out of the complaining voices of the nerves. Other -writers, certainly, have been indirectly indebted to the effect of -nerves on temperament, but Verhaeren seems to express only so much of a -temperament as finds its expression through their immediate medium. In -his early books _Les Flamandes, Les Moines_ (reprinted, with _Les Bords -de la Route_, containing earlier and later work, in the first of his two -volumes of collected poems), he began by a solid, heavily colored, -exterior manner of painting genre pictures in the Flemish style. Such -poems as "Les Paysans," with its fury of description, are like a Teniers -in verse; not Breughel has painted a kermesse with hotter colors, a more -complete abandonment to the sunlight, wine and gross passions of those -Flemish feasts. This first book, _Les Flamandes_, belongs to the -Naturalistic movement; but it has already as in the similar -commencements of Huysmans so ardent a love of color for its own sake, -color becoming lyrical, that one realizes how soon this absorption in -the daily life of farms, kitchens, stables, will give place to another -kind of interest. And in _Les Moines_, while there is still for the most -part the painting of exteriorities, a new sentiment, by no means the -religious sentiment, but an artistic interest in what is less material, -less assertive in things, finds for itself an entirely new scheme of -color. Here, for instance, was "Cuisson de Pain," in the first book: - - -_Dehors, les grands fournils chauffaient leurs braises -rouges, -Et deux par deux, du bout d'une planche, les gouges -Dans le ventre des fours engouffraient les pains mous. -Et les flammes, par les gueules s'ouvrant passage, -Comme une meute énorme et chaude de chiens roux, -Sautaient en rugissant leur mordre le visage._ - - -But it is not until _Les Soirs_ that we find what was to be the really -individual style developing itself. It develops itself at first with a -certain heaviness. Here is a poet who writes in images: good; but the -images are larger than the ideas. Wishing to say that the hour was -struck, he says: - - -"_Seul un beffroi, -Immensément vêtu de nuit, cassait les heures._" - - -And, indeed, everything must be done _immensément._ The word is -repeated on every page, sometimes twice in a stanza. The effect of -monotony in rhythm, the significant, chiming recurrence of words, the -recoil of a line upon itself, the dwindling away or the heaping up of -sound in line after line, the shock of an unexpected cæsura, the delay -and the hastened speed of syllables: all these arts of a very conscious -technique are elaborated with somewhat too obvious an intention. There -is splendor, opulence, and, for the first time, "such stuff as dreams -are made of." Description is no longer made for its own sake; it becomes -metaphor. And this metaphor is entirely new. It may be called -exaggerated, affected even; but it is new, and it is expressive. - - -"_Les chiens du désespoir, les chiens du vent d'automne, -Mordent de leurs abois les échos noirs des soirs, -Et l'ombre, immensément, dans le vide, tâtonne -Vers la lune, mirée au clair des abreuvoirs._" - - -In _Les Débâcles_, a year later, this art of writing in colored and -audible metaphor, and on increasingly abstract and psychological -subjects, the sensations externalized, has become more master of itself, -and at the same time more immediately the servant of a more and more -feverish nervous organization. - - -"_Tu seras le fiévreux ployé, sur les fenêtres. -D'où l'on peut voir bondir la vie et ses chars d'or._" - - -And the contemplation of this _fiévreux_ is turned more and more in -upon itself, finding in its vision of the outer world only a mirrored -image of its own disasters. The sick man, looking down on his thin -fingers, can think of them only in this morbid, monastic way: - - -"_Mes doigts, touchez mon front et cherchez, là, -Les vers qui rongeront, un jour, de leur morsure, -Mes chairs; touchez mon front, mes maigres doigts, -voilà -Que mes veines déjà, comme une meurtrissure -Bleuâtre, étrangement, en font la tour, mes las -Et pauvres doigts--et que vos longs ongles malades -Battent, sinistrement, sur mes tempes, un glas, -Un pauvre glas, mes lents et mornes doigts!_" - - -Two years later, with _Les Flambeaux Noirs_, what was nervous has become -almost a sort of very conscious madness: the hand on one's own pulse, -the eyes watching themselves in the glass with an unswerving fixity, but -a breaking and twisting of the links of things, a doubling and division -of the mind's sight, which might be met with, less picturesquely, in -actual madness. There are two poems, "Le Roc" and "Les Livres," which -give, in a really terrifying way, the very movement of idea falling -apart from idea, sensation dragging after it sensation down the -crumbling staircase of the brain, which are the symptoms of the brain's -loss of self-control: - - -_C'est là que j'ai bâti mon âme, ---Dites, serai-je seul avec mon âme?-- -Mon âme hélas! maison d'ébène, -Où s'est fendu, sans bruit, un soir, -Le grand miroir de mon espoir._ - -_Dites, serai-je seul avec mon âme, -En ce nocturne et angoissant domaine? -Serai-je seul avec mon orgueil noir, -Assis en un fauteuil de haine? -Serai-je seul, avec ma pâle hyperdulie, -Pour Notre-Dame, la Folie?_ - - -In these poems of self-analysis, which is self-torture, there is -something lacerating, and at the same time bewildering, which conveys to -one the sense of all that is most solitary, picturesque and poignant in -the transformation of an intensely active and keen-sighted reason into -a thing of conflicting visionary moods. At times, as in the remarkable -study of London called "Les Villes," this fever of the brain looks -around it, and becomes a flame of angry and tumultuous epithet, licking -up and devouring what is most solid in exterior space. Again, as in "Les -Lois" and "Les Nombres," it becomes metaphysical, abstract, and law -towers up into a visible palace, number flowers into a forest: - - -_Je suis l'halluciné de la forêt des Nombres._ - - -That art of presenting a thought like a picture, of which Verhaeren is -so accomplished a master, has become more subtle than ever; and - - -_ces tours de ronde de l'infini, le soir -Et ces courbes, et ces spirales,_ - - -of for the most part menacing speculations in the void, take visible -form before us, with a kind of hallucination, communicated to us from -that (how far deliberate?) hallucination which has created them. -Gradually, in "Les Apparus dans mes Chemins," in "Les Campagnes -Hallucinées," in "Les Villages Illusoires," in "Les Villes -Tentaculaires," the hallucinations become entirely external: it is now -the country, the village, the town, that is to say, the whole organized -world, that agonizes among cloudy phantoms, and no longer a mere -individual, abnormal brain. And so he has at once gained a certain -relief from what had been felt to be too intimately a part of himself, -and has also surrendered to a more profound, because a more extended, -consciousness of human misery. Effacing himself, as he does, behind the -great spectacle of the world, as he sees it, with his visionary eyes, in -his own violent and lethargic country, he becomes a more hopeless part -of that conspiracy of the earth against what man has built out of the -earth, of what man has built out of the earth against the earth, which -he sees developing silently among the grass and bricks. All these books -are a sort of philosophy in symbols, symbols becoming more and more -definite: "Le Donneur de Mauvais Conseils," who drives up to the farm -gate: - - -_La vieille carriole en bois vert-pomine -Qui l'emmena, on ne sait d'où, -Une folle la garda avec son homme -Aux carrefours des chemins mous. -Le cheval paît l'herbe d'automne, -Près d'une mare monotone, -Dont l'eau malade réverbère -Le soir de pluie et de misère -Qui tombe en loques sur la terre_; - - -"Les Cordiers," the old man spinning his rope against the sky, -weaving the past into the future: - - -_Sur la route muette et régulière, -Les yeux fixés vers la lumière -Qui frôle en se couchant les clos et les maisons, -Le blanc cordier visionnaire, -Du fond du soir auréolaire, -Attire à lui les horizons_; - - -and, finally, the many-tentacled towns, drawing to themselves all the -strength and sap of the earth: "Les Spectacles, La Bourse, Le Bazar," -the monstrous and material soul of towns. - -Contrast these poems with those early poems, so brutal, so Flemish, if -you would see at a glance all the difference between the naturalistic -and the symbolistic treatment. The subject-matter is the same; the same -eye sees; there are the same - - -_vers bâtis comme une estrade -Pour la danse des mots et leurs belles parades._ - - -But at first there is merely an eye that sees, and that takes the -visible world at its own valuation of itself. Later on, things are seen -but to be readjusted, to be set into relation with other, invisible -realities, of which they are no more than the wavering and tortured -reflection. And with this poet, in his later manner, everything becomes -symbol; the shop, the theater, the bank, no less than the old rope-maker -weaving the horizons together. - - -_Sur la Ville, d'où les affres flamboient, -Règnent, sans qu'on les voie, -Mais évidentes, les idées_: - - -as he can write, on the last page of _Les Villes Tentaculaires_, which -points directly to _Les Aubes_, in which a sort of deliverance through -ideas is worked out. - -Verhaeren's second play, _Le Cloitre_, is much finer in every way than -his first, _Les Aubes_, but it does not convince us that he is a -dramatist, in the strict sense of the word. The only French poet of the -present day who has really vivid energy, his energy is too feverish, too -spasmodic, too little under the control of a shaping intellect, to be of -precisely the quality required for the drama. The people of these brief -and fiery scenes are like little broken bits of the savage forces of the -world, working out their passionate issues under the quiet roofs of the -cloister. All their words are cries, coming out of a half-delirious -suffering; and these cries echo about the stage in an almost monotonous -conflict. It seems to us that the form which suits Verhaeren best is the -form which he has temporarily abandoned--a kind of fiery reverie, seen -finally in his last book, _Les Visages de la Vie_, - - -_Mon âme était anxieuse d'être elle-même -Elle s'illimitait en une âme suprême -Et violente, où l'univers se résumait;--_ - - -as he says in one of the poems of that book; and in all these poems, "La -Foule, L'Ivresse, La Joie," and the rest, we see the poet sending his -soul into the universe and becoming a vehement voice for all that he -finds most passionate in it. It is, in its way, dramatizing of emotion, -but, if one may say so, an abstract dramatizing. It is the crowd, not -Dom Balthazar; joy itself, not some joyous human being for which he -finds words; and his merits and his defects make him a better spokesman -for disembodied than for embodied souls. Since the early period of -Flemish realism he has been, while making his language more and more -pictorial, making his interests more and more internal. He no longer -paints landscapes, but the scenery of the soul, and in the same vast and -colored images. He magnifies sensation until it becomes a sort of -hallucination of which he seems always to be the victim. Now all this is -so very personal, so clearly the vision of a not quite healthy -temperament, that his neurotic monks in the cloister, with their heated -and vehement speech, seem more like repetitions of a single type than -individual characters. But he has certainly come nearer to dramatic -characterization than in the _Shadowy Dawn_, and he has founded his play -on a more emotionally human basis; on a basis, it would seem, partly -suggested by the story which Browning tells in _Halbert and Hob._ And, -taken as a poem, it is full of vigorous, imaginative writing, in which -the religious passion finds eloquent speech. And, after all, is not this -one of the most interesting, and not even one of the least successful, -attempts at what a more extravagant imitator has lately called _La -tragédie intérieure?_ The actual tendency of art is certainly toward -an abandonment of the heroic and amusing adventures which constituted so -much of the art of the past, and a concentration upon whatever can be -surmised of that soul which these adventures must doubtless have left so -singularly indifferent. Ibsen has shown us destiny quietly at work in -suburban drawing-rooms, among people who have rarely anything -interesting to say, but whose least word becomes interesting because it -is seen to knit one more mesh in the net of destiny. Maeterlinck has -gone further, and shown us soul talking with soul, at first under almost -pseudo-romantic disguises, among Leonardo landscapes, then more and more -simply, as people who have no longer lost their crowns in a pool, but -who, in Aglavaine and Selysette, might be any of our acquaintances, if -we can imagine our acquaintances under a startling and revealing flash -of light. Verhaeren falls into the movement, trying to give a more -lyrical form to this new kind of drama, trying to give it a narrower and -fiercer intensity. What he has so far achieved is a melodrama of the -spirit, in which there is poetry, but also rhetoric. Will he finally be -able to find for himself a form in which the "inner tragedy" can be -externally presented without rhetoric? Then, perhaps, the poetry will -make its own drama. - - - - -A NEGLECTED GENIUS: SIR RICHARD -BURTON - - -I - - -One hundred years ago, on March 19th, 1821, Sir Richard Burton was born; -he died at Trieste on October 19th, 1890, in his seventieth year. He was -superstitious; the fact that he was born and that he died on the -nineteenth has its significance. On the night when he expired, as his -wife was saying prayers to him, a dog began that dreadful howl which the -superstitious say denotes a death. It was an evil omen; I have heard -long after midnight dogs howl in the streets of Constantinople; their -howling is only broken by the tapping of the bekjé's iron staff; it -sounds like loud wind or water far off, waning and waxing, and at times, -as it comes across the water from Stamboul, it is like a sound of -strings, plucked and scraped savagely by an orchestra of stringed -instruments. - -In every age there have been I know not how many neglected men of -genius, undiscovered, misunderstood, mocked at in the fashion Jesus -Christ was mocked by the Jews, scorned as Dante was scorned when he was -exiled from Florence, called a madman as Blake used to be called, -censured as Swinburne was in 1866, for being "an unclean fiery imp of -the pit" and "the libidinous Laureate of a pack of satyrs;" so the -greatest as the least--the greatest whose names are always remembered -and the least whose names are invariably forgotten--have endured the -same prejudices; have been lapidated by the same stones; such stones as -Burton refers to when he writes in Mecca: - - -On the great festival day we stoned the Devil, each man with seven -stones washed in seven waters, and we said, while throwing the stones, -"In the name of Allah--and Allah is Almighty--I do this in hatred of the -Devil, and to his shame." - - -Burton was a great man, a great traveler and adventurer, who practically -led to the discovery of the sources of the Nile; a wonderful linguist, -he was acquainted with twenty-nine languages: he was a man of genius; -only, the fact is, he is not a great writer. Continually thwarted by the -English Government, he was debarred from some of the most famous -expeditions by the folly of his inferiors, who ignorantly supposed they -were his superiors; and, as Sir H. H. Johnston says in some of his -notes, not only was Burton treated unjustly, but his famous pilgrimage -to Mecca won him no explicit recognition from the Indian Government; his -great discoveries in Africa, Brazil, Syria and Trieste were never -appreciated; and, worst of all, he was refused the post of British -Minister in Morocco; it was persistently denied him. He adds: "Had he -gone there we might long since have known--what we do not know--the -realities of Morocco." - -Still, when Burton went to India, I do not imagine he was likely to -suffer from any hostility on the part of the natives nor of the rulers. -Lord Clive, who, in Browning's words, "gave England India," which was -the result of his incredible victory in 1751 over the Nabob's army of -60,000 men, was never literally "loved" by the races of India; no more -than Sir Warren Hastings. Still, Clive had genius, which he showed in -the face of a bully he caught cheating at cards and in his mere shout at -him: "You did cheat, go to Hell!" Impeached for the splendid service he -had done in India he was acquitted in 1773; next year, having taken to -opium, his own hand dealt himself his own doom. So he revenged himself -on his country's ingratitude. So did Burton revenge himself--not in -deeds, but in words, words, if I may say so, that are stupendous. "I -struggled for forty-seven years, I distinguished myself honourably in -every way I possibly could. I never had a compliment nor a 'Thank you,' -nor a single farthing. I translated a doubtful book in my old age, and I -immediately made sixteen thousand guineas. Now that I know the tastes of -England, we need never be without money." - -Burton first met Swinburne in 1861 at Lord Houghton's house, who, having -given him _The Queen Mother_, said: "I bring you this book because the -author is coming here this evening, so that you may not quote him as an -absurdity to himself." In the summer of 1865 Swinburne saw a great deal -of Burton. These two men, externally so dissimilar, had taken (as -Swinburne said to me) a curious fancy, an absolute fascination, for each -other. Virile and a mysterious adventurer, Burton was Swinburne's senior -by sixteen years; one of those things that linked them together was -certainly their passionate love of literature. Burton had also--which -Swinburne might perhaps have envied--an almost unsurpassable gift for -translation, which he shows in his wonderful version of _The Arabian -Nights._ He used to say: - - -I have not only preserved the spirit of the original, but the -_mécanique._ I don't care a button about being prosecuted, and if the -matter comes to a fight, I will walk into court with my Bible and my -Shakespeare and my Rabelais under my arm, and prove to them that before -they condemn me, they must cut half of _them_ out, and not allow them to -be circulated to the public. - - -In his Foreword to the first volume of his Translation, dated -Wanderers' Club, August 15th, 1885, he says: - - -This work, laborious as it may appear, has been to me a labor of love, -an unfailing source of solace and satisfaction. During my long years of -official banishment to the luxurious and deadly deserts of Western -Africa, it proved truly a charm, a talisman against ennui and -despondency. The Jinn bore me at once to the land of my predilection, -Arabia. In what is obscure in the original there are traces of Petronius -Arbiter and of Rabelais; only, subtle corruption and covert -licentiousness are wholly absent. - - -Therefore, in order to show the wonderful quality of his translation, I -have chosen certain of his sentences, which literally bring back to me -all that I have felt of the heat, the odor and the fascination of the -East. - - -So I donned my mantilla, and, taking with me the old woman and the -slave-girl, I went to the Khan of the merchants. There I knocked at the -door and out came two white slave-girls, both young, high-bosomed -virgins, as they were Moons. They were melting a perfume whose like I -had never before smelt; and so sharp and subtle was the odor that it -made my senses drunken as with strong wine. I saw there also two great -censers each big as a mazzar bowl, flaming with aloes, nard, perfumes, -ambergris and honied scents; and the place was full of their fragrance. - - -The next quotation is from the Tale of the Fisherman and the Jinn: - - -He loosened the lid from the jar, he shook the vase to pour out whatever -might be inside. He found nothing in it; whereat he marvelled with an -exceeding marvel. But presently there came forth from the jar a smoke -which spread heavenwards into ether (whereat again he marvelled with -mighty marvel) and which trailed along earth's surface till presently, -having reached its full height, the thick vapors condensed, and became -an Ifrit, huge of bulk, whose crest touched the clouds when his feet -were on the ground. - - -I have before me Smithers' privately printed edition (1894) of _The -Carmina of Valerius Catullus now first completely Englished into Verse -and Prose, the Metrical Part by Capt. Sir Richard Burton, and the Prose -Portion by Leonard C. Smithe._ Burton is right in saying that "the -translator of original mind who notes the innumerable shades of tone, -manner and complexion will not neglect the frequent opportunities of -enriching his mother-tongue with novel and alien ornaments which shall -justify the accounted barbarisms until formally naturalized and adopted. -He must produce an honest and faithful copy, adding nought to the sense -or abating aught of its _cachet._" He ends his Foreword: "As discovery -is mostly my mania, I have hit upon a bastard-urging to indulge it, by a -presenting to the public of certain classics in the nude Roman poetry, -like the Arab, and of the same date." - -Certainly Burton leaves out nothing of the nakedness that startles one -in the verse of Catullus: a nakedness that is as honest as daylight and -as shameless as night. When the text is obscene his translation retains -its obscenity; which, on the whole, is rare: for the genius of Catullus -is elemental, primitive, nervous, passionate, decadent in the modern -sense and in the modern sense perverse. In his rhymed version of the -Attis Burton has made a prodigious attempt to achieve the impossible. -Not being a poet, he was naturally unable to follow the rhythm--the -Galliambic metre, in which Catullus obtains variety of rhythm; for, as -Robinson Ellis says: - - -It remains unique as a wonderful expression of abnormal feeling in a -quasi-abnormal meter. Quasi-abnormal, however, only: for no poem of -Catullus follows stricter laws, or succeeds in conveying the idea of a -wild freedom under a more carefully masked regularity. - - -As one must inevitably compare two translations of the same original, I -have to point out that Burton's rendering is, both metrically and -technically, inaccurate; whereas, in another rendering, the translator -has at least preserved the exact metre, the exact scansion, and the -double endings at the end of every line; not, of course, in this case, -employing the double rhymes Swinburne used in his translation from -Aristophanes. These are Burton's first lines:-- - - -O'er high deep seas in speedy ship his voyage Atys sped -Until he trod the Phrygian grove with hurried, eager -tread, -And as the gloomy tree-shorn stead, the she-God's -home he sought, -There sorely stung with fiery ire and madman's raging -thought, -Share he with sharpened flint the freight wherewith -his frame was fraught. - - -These are the first lines of the other version:-- - - -Over ocean Attis sailing in a swift ship charioted -When he reached the Phrygian forests, and with rash -foot violently -Trod the dark and shadowy regions of the goddess, -wood-garlanded, -And with ravening madness ravished, and his reason -abandoning him, -Seized a pointed flint and sundered from his flesh his -virility. - - - - -II - - -Burton himself admitted that he was a devil; for, said he: "the Devil -entered into me at Oxford." Evidently, also, besides his mixture of -races, he was a mixture of the normal and the abnormal; he was perverse -and passionate; he was imaginative and cruel; he was easily stirred to -rage. Nearly six feet in height, he had, together with his broad -shoulders, the small hands and feet of the Orientals; he was Arab in his -prominent cheek-bones; he was gypsy in his terrible, magnetic eyes--the -sullen eyes of a stinging serpent. He had a deeply bronzed complexion, a -determined mouth, half-hidden by a black mustache, which hung down in a -peculiar fashion on both sides of his chin. This peculiarity I have -often seen in men of the wandering tribe in Spain and in Hungary. -Wherever he went he was welcomed by the gypsies; he shared with them -their horror of a corpse, of death-scene, and of graveyards. "He had the -same restlessness," wrote his wife, "which could stay nowhere long nor -own any spot on earth. Hagar Burton, a Gypsy woman, cast my horoscope, -in which she said: 'You will bear the name of our Tribe, and be right -proud of it. You will be as we are, but far greater than we.' I met -Richard two months later, in 1856, and was engaged to him." It is a -curious fact that John Varley, who cast Blake's horoscope in 1820, also -cast Burton's; who, as he says, had finished his _Zodiacal Physiognomy_ -so as to prove that every man resembled after a fashion the sign under -which he was born. His figures are either human or bestial; some remind -me of those where men are represented in the form of animals in Giovanni -della Porta's _Fisonomia dell' Huomo_ (Venice, 1668), which is before me -as I write; Swinburne himself once showed to me his copy of the same -book. Nor have I ever forgotten his saying to me--in regard to Burton's -nervous fears: "The look of unspeakable horror in those eyes of his gave -him, at times, an almost unearthly appearance." He added: "This reminds -me of what Kiomi says in Meredith's novel: 'I'll dance if you talk of -dead people,' and so begins to dance and to whoop at the pitch of her -voice. I suppose both had the same reason for this force of fear: to -make the dead people hear." Then he flashed at me this unforgettable -phrase: "Burton had the jaw of a Devil and the brow of a God." - -In one of his letters he says, I suppose by way of _persiflage_ in -regard to himself and Burton: "_En moi vous voyez Les Malheurs de la -Virtu, en lui Les Prospérités du Vice._" In any case, it is to -entertain Burton when he writes: "I have in hand a scheme of mixed verse -and prose--a sort of étude à la Balzac _plus_ the poetry--which I -flatter myself will be more offensive and objectionable to Britannia -than anything I have done: _Lesbia Brandon._ You see I have now a -character to keep up, and by the grace of Cotytto I will." - -Swinburne began _Lesbia Brandon_ in 1859; he never finished it; what -remains of it consists of seventy-three galleys, numbered 25 to 97, -besides four unprinted chapters. The first, "A Character," was written -in 1864; "An Episode" in 1866; "Turris Eburnea" in 1886; "La Bohême -Dédorée" must have been written a year or two later. Mr. Gosse gives a -vivid description of Swinburne, who was living in 13, Great James -Street, and who was never weary of his unfinished novel, reading to him -parts of two chapters in June, 1877. "He read two long passages, the one -a ride over a moorland by night, the other the death of his heroine, -Lesbia Brandon. After reading aloud all these things with amazing -violence, he seemed quite exhausted." It is possible to decipher a few -sentences from two pages of his manuscript; first in "Turris Eburnea. -'Above the sheet, below the boudoir,' said the sage. Her ideal was -marriage, to which she clung, which revealed to astonished and admiring -friends the vitality of a dubious intellect within her. She had not even -the harlot's talent of discernment." This is Leonora Harley. In _La -Bohême Dédorée_ we read: - - -Two nights later Herbert received a note from Mr. Linley inviting him to -a private supper. Feverish from the contact of Mariani and hungry for a -chance of service, he felt not unwilling to win a little respite from -the vexation of patience. The sage had never found him more amenable to -the counsel he called reason. Miss Brandon had not lately crossed his -ways. Over their evening Leonora Harley guided with the due graces of -her professional art. It was not her fault if she could not help asking -her younger friend when he had last met a darker beauty: she had seen -him once with Lesbia. - - - - -III - - -In 1848 Burton determined to pass in India for an Oriental; the disguise -he assumed was that of a half-Arab, half-Iranian, thousands of whom can -be met along the northern shore of the Persian Gulf. He set out on his -first pilgrimage as Mirza Abdulla the Bushiri, as a _buzzaz_, vendor of -fine linen, muslins and _bijouterie_; he was admitted to the harems, he -collected the information he required from the villagers; he won many -women's hearts, he spent his evenings in the mosques; and, after -innumerable adventures, he wended his way to Mecca. His account of this -adventure is thrilling. The first cry was: "Open the way for the Haji -who would enter the House!" Then: - - -Two stout Meccans, who stood below the door, raised me in their arms, -whilst a third drew me from above into the building. At the entrance I -was accosted by a youth of the Benu Shazban family, the true blood of -the El Hejaz. He held in his hand the huge silver-gilt padlock of the -Ka'abeh, and presently, taking his seat upon a kind of wooden press in -the left corner of the hall, he officially inquired my mother-nation and -other particulars. The replies were satisfactory, and the boy Mohammed -was authoritatively ordered to conduct me round the building and to -recite the prayers. I will not deny that, looking at the windowless -walls, the officials at the door, and a crowd of excited fanatics -below-- - - -"And the place death, considering who I was," - -my feelings were those of the trapped-rat description, acknowledged by -the immortal nephew of his uncle Perez. A blunder, a hasty action, a -misjudged word, a prayer or bow, not strictly the right shibboleth, and -my bones would have whitened the desert sand. This did not, however, -prevent my carefully observing the scene during our long prayer, and -making a rough plan with a pencil upon my white _ihram._ - - -After having seen the howling Dervishes in Scutari in Asia, I can -imagine Burton's excitement when in Cairo he suddenly left his stolid -English friends, joined in the shouting, gesticulating circle, and -behaved as if to the manner born: he held his diploma as a master -Dervish. In Scutari I felt the contagion of these dancers, where the -brain reels, and the body is almost swept into the orgy. I had all the -difficulty in the world from keeping back the woman who sat beside me -from leaping over the barrier and joining the Dervishes. In these I felt -the ultimate, because the most animal, the most irrational, the most -insane, form of Eastern ecstasy. It gave me an impression of witchcraft; -one might have been in Central Africa, or in some Saturnalia of -barbarians. - -There can be no doubt that Burton always gives a vivid and virile -impression of his adventures; yet, as I have said before, something is -lacking in his prose; not the vital heat, but the vision of what is -equivalent to vital heat. I have before me a letter sent from Hyderabad -by Sarojini Naidu, who says: "All is hot and fierce and passionate, -ardent and unashamed in its exulting and importunate desire for life and -love. And, do you know, the scarlet lilies are woven petal by petal from -my heart's blood, those quivering little birds are my soul made -incarnate music, these heavy perfumes are my emotions dissolved into -aerial essence, this flaming blue and gold sky is the 'Very You' that -part of me that incessantly and insolently, yes, and a little -deliberately, triumphs over that other part--a thing of nerves and -tissues that suffers and cries out, and that must die tomorrow perhaps, -or twenty years hence." In these sentences the whole passionate, exotic -and perfumed East flashes before me--a vision of delight and of -distresses--and, as it were, all that slumbers in their fiery blood. - -"Not the fruit of experience," wrote Walter Pater, "but experience -itself, is the end. A counted number of pulses only is given us of a -variegated dramatic life. To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, -to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life." Alas, how few lives out -of the cloud-covered multitude of existences have burned always with -this flame! I have said somewhere that we can always, in this world, get -what we want if we will it intensely enough. So few people succeed -greatly because so few people can conceive a great end, and work toward -that without tiring and without deviating. The adventurer of whom I am -writing failed, over and over again, in spite of the fact that he -conceived and could have executed great ends: never by his own fault, -always by the fault of others. - - - - -IV - - -Richard Burton dedicated his literal version of the epic of Camões "To -the Prince of the Lyric Poets of his Day, Algernon Charles Swinburne." -He begins: - - -My dear Swinburne, accept the unequal exchange--my brass for your gold. -Your _Poems and Ballads_ began to teach the Philistine what might there -is in the music of language, and what marvel of lyric inspiration, far -subtler and more ethereal than poetry, means to the mind of man. - - -In return for this Swinburne dedicated to him _Poems and Ballads_, -Second Series. - - -Inscribed to Richard F. Burton in redemption of an old pledge and in -recognition of a friendship which I must always count among the highest -honors of my life. - - -It was nine years before then, when they were together in the south of -France, that Swinburne was seized by a severe illness; and, as he -assured me, it was Burton who, with more than a woman's care and -devotion, restored him to health. The pledge--it was not the covenant -sealed between the two greatest, the two most passionate, lovers in the -world, Iseult and Tristan, on the deck of that ship which was the ship -of Life, the ship of Death, in the mere drinking of wine out of a -flagon, which, being of the nature of a most sweet poison, consumed -their limbs and gave intoxication to their souls and to their -bodies--but a pledge in the wine Swinburne and Burton drank in the hot -sunshine:-- - - -For life's helm rocks to windward and lee, -And time is as wind, and waves are we, -And song is as foam that the sea-waves fret, -Though the thought at its heart should be deep as the -sea. - - -It was in July, 1869, that Swinburne joined the Burtons and Mrs. -Sartoris at Vichy. As I have never forgotten Swinburne's wonderful -stories about Burton--besides those on Rossetti and Mazzini--I find in a -letter of his to his mother words he might really have altered. - - -If you had seen him, when the heat and the climb and the bothers of -travelling were too much for me--in the very hot weather--helping, -waiting on me--going out to get me books to read in bed--and always -kind, thoughtful, ready, and so bright and fresh that nothing but a -lizard (I suppose that is the most insensible thing going) could have -resisted his influence--I feel sure you would like him (you remember you -said you didn't) and then--love him, as I do. I never expect to see his -like again--but him I do hope to see again, and when the time comes to -see him at Damascus as H.B.M. Consul. - - -They traveled in carriages, went to Clermont-Ferrand, where Pascal was -born; then to Le Puy-en-Velay. In 1898 I stayed with the Countess De la -Tour in the Château de Chaméane, Puy de Dôme, and after leaving her I -went to Puy-en-Velay. I hated it, the Burtons did not. Stuck like a -limpet on a rock, the main part of the town seems to be clinging to the -side of the hill on which the monstrous statue desecrates the sky. At -night I saw its gilt crown merge into a star, but by day it is -intolerably conspicuous, and at last comes to have an irrational -fascination, leading one to the very corners where it can be seen best. -And always, do what you will, you can not get away from this statue. It -spoils the sky. The little cloister, with its ninth-century columns, is -the most delightful spot in Le Puy; only the intolerable statue from -which one can not escape showed me nature and humanity playing pranks -together, at their old game of parodying the ideal. This is Swinburne's -comment:-- - - -Set far between the ridged and foamless waves -Of earth more fierce and fluctuant than the sea, -The fearless town of towers that hails and braves, -The heights that gild, the sun that brands Le Puy. - - -This year there has been a great Pardon at Le Puy. I have seen several -pilgrimages, in Moscow, for instance, at Serjevo, which is an annual -pilgrimage to the Troitsa Monastery, and in these people there was no -fervor, no excitement, but a dogged desire of doing something which they -had set out to do. They were mostly women, and they flung themselves -down on the ground; they lay there with their hands on their bundles, -themselves like big bundles of rags. How different a crowd from this -must have assembled at Le Puy; made so famous so many centuries ago by -the visitations of Charlemagne and Saint Louis, who left, in 1254, in -the Cathedral a little image of Horns and Isis. Then there was Jeanne -d'Arc, who in 1429 sent her mother there instead of herself, being much -too busy: she was on the way to Orléans. - -As it is, Our Lady gets all the honors; only, there is a much older -Chapel of Saint Michael, which is perched on the sheer edge of a rock; -it is perhaps more original than any in France, with the exception of -the Chapel of Saint Bonizel in Avignon. When I stood there and looked -down from that great height I remembered--but with what a -difference!--Montserrat in Spain, where the monastery seemed a part of -the mountain; and from this narrow ledge between earth and heaven, a -mere foothold on a great rock, I looked up only at sheer peaks, and down -only into veiled chasms, or over mountainous walls to a great plain, -ridged as if the naked ribs of the earth were laid bare. - - - - -V - - -I have been assured, by many who knew him, that Richard Burton had a -vocabulary which was one of his inventions; a shameless one--as -shameless as the vocabularies invented by Paul Verlaine and by Henri de -Toulouse-Lautrec, which are as vivid to me as when I heard their -utterance. These shared with Villiers de Isle-Adam that sardonic humor -which is not so much satire as the revenge of beauty on ugliness, the -persecution of the ugly: the only laughter of our generation which is as -fundamental as that of Rabelais and of Swift. Burton, who had much the -same contempt for women that Baudelaire imagined he had, only with that -fixed stare of his that disconcerted them, did all that with deliberate -malice. There was almost nothing in this world that he had not done, -exulted in, gloried in. Like Villiers, he could not pardon stupidity; to -both it was incomprehensible; both saw that stupidity is more criminal -than even vice, if only because stupidity is incurable, if only because -vice is curable. Burton, who found the Arabs, in their delicate -depravity, ironical--irony being their breath of life--might have said -with Villiers: "_L'Esprit du Siècle, ne l'oublions pas, est aux -machines._" - -Every individual face has as many different expressions as the soul -behind it has moods; therefore, the artist's business is to create on -paper, or on his canvas, the image which was none of these, but which -those helped to make in his own soul. I see, as it were, surge before me -an image of Swinburne in his youth, when, with his passionate and pale -face, with its masses of fiery hair, he has almost the aspect of -Ucello's Galeazzo Malatesta. Burton's face has no actual beauty in it; -it reveals a tremendous animalism, an air of repressed ferocity, a -devilish fascination. There is almost a tortured magnificence in this -huge head, tragic and painful, with its mouth that aches with desire, -with those dilated nostrils that drink in I know not what strange -perfumes. - - - - -EDGAR SALTUS - - -Edgar Saltus owes much of his bizarre talent to his mixed origin, for he -is of Dutch and American extraction; indeed, for much of what I might -call his rather unholy genius. His pages exhale a kind of exotic and -often abnormal perfume of colors, color of sensations, of heats, of -crowded atmospheres. He gives his women baneful and baleful names, such -as Stella Sixmouth, Shorn Wyvell; these vampires and wicked creatures -who ruin men's lives as cruelly as they ruin their own. His men have -prodigious nerves, even more than his women; they commit all sorts of -crimes, assassinations, poisonings, out of sheer malice and out of -overexcited imaginations. - -Of that most terrible of tragedies, the tragedy of a soul, he is for the -most part utterly unconscious; and the very abracadabra of his art is in -a sense--a curious enough and ultramodern sense--lifted from the -Elizabethan dramatists. In them--as in many of his pages--a fine -situation must have a murder in it, and some odious character removed by -another more stealthy kind of obliteration. But, when he gives one a -passing shudder, he leaves nothing behind it; yet in his perverted -characters there can be found sensitiveness, hallucinations, obsessions; -and some have that lassitude which is more than mere contempt. Some go -solemnly on the path of blood, with no returning by a way so thronged -with worse than memories. "No need for more crime," such men have cried, -and for such reasons reaped the bitter harvest of tormenting dreams. -Some have imagination that stands in the place of virtue; some, as in -the case of Lady Macbeth, still keep the sensation of blood on their -guilty hands. - -_Mary of Magdala_ (1891) is a vain attempt to do what Flaubert had done -before Saltus in his _Hérodias_, and what Wilde has done after him in -_Salome_, a drama that has a strange not easily defined fascination, -which I can not dissociate from Beardsley's illustrations, in which what -is icily perverse in the dialogue (it can not be designated drama) -becomes in the ironical designs pictorial, a series of poses. To Wilde -passion was a thing to talk about with elaborate and colored words. -Salome is a doll, as many have imagined her, soulless, set in motion by -some pitiless destiny, personified momentarily by her mother; Herod is a -nodding mandarin in a Chinese grotesque. - -In one page of Saltus's _Oscar Wilde: An Idler's Impressions_ (1917) he -evokes, with his cynical sense of the immense disproportion of things in -this world and the next, the very innermost secret of Wilde. They dine -in a restaurant in London and Wilde reads his MS. "Suddenly his eyes -lifted, his mouth contracted, a spasm of pain--or was it dread?--had -gripped him, a moment only. I had looked away. I looked again. Before me -was a fat pauper, florid and over-dressed, who in the voice of an -immortal, was reading the fantasies of the damned. In his hand was a -manuscript, and we were supping on _Salome._" - -_Mr. Incoul's Misfortune_ seems to have its origin in some strange story -of Poe's; for it gives one the sense of a monster, diabolical, inhuman, -malevolent and merciless, who, after a mock marriage, abnormally sets -himself to the devil's business of ruining his wife's lover's life, and -of giving his wife a sudden death in three hideous forms: a drug to make -her sleep, the gas turned on; and the door locked with "a nameless -instrument." - -_The Truth about Tristan Varick_ (1888) is based on social problems of -the most unaccountable kind. It has something strangely convincing in -both conception and execution; it has suspense, ugly enough and uglier -crises; and that the unlucky Varick is supposed to be partially insane -is part of the finely woven plot, which is concerned with strange and -perilous incidents and accidents; and which is based on his passionate -pursuit of the ravishing Viola Raritan; the pursuit, really, of the -chimera of his imagination. - -And among the hazards comes one, of an evil kind--such as I have often -experienced in foreign cities--that, in turning down one street instead -of the next, a man's existence, and not his only, may be thereby -changed. To have stopped one's rival's lying mouth and his lying life at -the same instant is to have done something original--it is done by a -poisoned pin's point. Then, this Orestes having found no Electra to -return his love, but finding her vile, he lets himself disappear out of -life in an almost incredible fashion, leaving the woman who never loved -him to say, "I will come to see him sentenced:" a sentence which writes -her down a modern Clytemnestra. - -What Saltus says of Gonfallon can almost be said of Saltus: "With a set -of people that fancied themselves in possession of advanced views and -were still in the Middle Ages, he achieved the impossible: he not only -consoled, he flattered, he persuaded and fascinated as well." Saltus can -not console, he can sometimes persuade; but he can flatter and fascinate -his public, as with - - -A breeze of fame made manifest. - - -The novelist is the comedian of the pen: it is his duty to amuse, to -entertain--or else to hold his peace: to one in his trade nothing -imaginable comes amiss. It is not sin that appeals him, but the -consequences of sin; such as the fact that few sinners have ever turned -into saints. In a word, he writes with his nerves. - -Take, for instance, _A Transaction of Hearts_ (1887), one of the -queerest novels ever written and written with a kind of deliberate -malice. Gonfallon, who becomes a bishop, falls passionately in love with -an ardent and insolent girl who is his wife's sister; and before her -beauty everything vanishes: virtue, genius, everything. "For a second -that was an eternity he was conscious of her emollient mouth on his, her -fingers intertwined with his own. For that second he really -lived--perhaps he really lived." One wonders why Saltus uses so many -ugly phrases--a kind of decadent French fashion of transposing words; -such as the one I have quoted, together with "Ruedelapaixia" (meant to -describe a dress), "Rafflesia, Mashed grasshoppers baked in saffron;" -phrases chosen at random which are too frequently scattered in much too -obvious a profusion over much too luxurious pages. I read somewhere that -Oscar Wilde said to Amélie Rives: "In Edgar Saltus's work passion -struggles with grammar on every page," which is certainly one of Wilde's -finest paradoxes. I "cap this"--as Dowson often said to me in jest--with -Léon Bloy's admirable phrase on Huysmans: "That he drags his images by -the heels or the hair upside down the worm-eaten staircase of terrified -syntax." - -_Imperial Purple_ (1906) shows the zenith of Saltus's talent, not in -conceiving imaginary beings, but in giving modern conceptions of the -most amazing creatures in the Roman Decadence, and in lyrical prose, -which ought to have had for motto Victoria's stanza:-- - - -_Je suis l'Empire à la fin de la décadence, -Qui regarde passer les grands Barbares blancs, -En composant des acrostiches indolents, -D'un style d'or où la langueur du soleil danse._ - - -Only Saltus is not Tacitus, in spite of having delved into his -pages. - - - - -RECOLLECTIONS OF RÉJANE - - -NOTES ON THE ART OF THE GREAT FRENCH -ACTRESS - - -Meilhac's play, _Ma Cousine_, which owed most of its success, when it -was produced at the Variétés, October 27th, 1890, to the acting of -Réjane, is one of those essentially French plays which no ingenuity can -ever accommodate to an English soil. It is the finer spirit of farce, it -is meant to be taken as a kind of intellectual exercise; it is human -geometry for the masses. There are moments when the people of the play -are on the point of existing for themselves, and have to be brought -back, put severely in their places, made to fit their squares of the -pattern. The thing as a whole has no more resemblance to real life than -Latin verses have to a school-boy's conversation. Reality, that, after -all, probably holds us in it, comes into it accidentally, in the form of -detail, in little touches of character, little outbursts of temperament. -The rest is done after a plan, it is an entanglement by rule; it exists -because people have agreed to think that they like suspense; the -tantalization of curiosity on the stage. We see the knot tied by the -conjurer; we want to know what he will do with it. In France, and in -such a piece as _Ma Cousine_, the conjurer is master of his trade; he -gives us our illusions and our enlightenment in exactly the right doses. - -And Réjane in this wittily artificial play suits herself perfectly to -her subject, becomes everything there is in the character of Riquette; -an actress who plays a comedy in real life, quite in the spirit of the -stage. She has to save the situation from being taken too seriously, -from becoming tragic: she has to take the audience into her confidence, -to assure them that it is all a joke. And so we see her constantly -overdoing her part, fooling openly. She does two things at once: the -artificial comedy, which is uppermost in the play, and the character -part which is implicit in it. And she is perfect in both. - -The famous _Chahut_, which went electrically through Paris, when it was -first given, in all its audacity, shows us one side of her art. The -delicate by-plays with eyes and voice, or rather the voice and the -overhanging eyelid of the right eye, shows us another. She is always the -cleverest person on the stage. Her face in repose seems waiting for -every expression to quicken its own form of life. When the face is in -movement, one looks chiefly at the mouth, the thick, heavily painted -lips, which twist upward, and wrinkle into all kinds of earthly -subtleties. Her face is full of an experienced, sullen, chuckling -gaminerie, which seems, after all, to be holding back something: it has -a curious, vulgar undertone, a succulent and grossly joyous gurgle. - - - - -RÉJANE IN "MA COUSINE" - - -Here, in _Ma Cousine_, she abandons herself to all the frank and shady -humors of the thing with the absolute abandonment of the artist. It is -like a picture by Forain, made of the same material with the same -cynicism and with the same mastery of line. - -_Ma Cousine_, on seeing it a second time, is frankly and not too -obviously amusing, a piece in which everybody plays at something, in -which Réjane plays at being an actress who has a part to act in real -life. "_Elle est impayable, cette Riquette!_" And it is with an -intensely conscious abandonment of herself that she renders this -good-hearted Cabotine, so worldly wise, so full of all the physical -virtues, turned Bohemian. She has, in this part, certain guttural and -nasal laughs, certain queer cries and shouts, which are after all a part -of her _métier_; she runs through her whole gamut of shrugs and winks -and nods. There is, of course, over again, the famous _Chahut_, in which -she summarizes the whole art of the Moulin-Rouge; there is her long -scene of pantomime, in which every gesture is at once vulgar and -distinguished, vulgarly rendered with distinction. There are other -audacities, all done with equal discretion. - -I am not sure that Réjane is not at her best in this play: she has -certainly never been more herself in what one fancies to be herself. -There is all her ravishing gaminerie, her witty intelligence, her dash, -her piquancy, her impudence, her mastery. I find that her high spirits, -in this play, affect me like pathos: they run to a kind of emotion. I -compared her art with the art of Forain; I said that here was a picture, -made out of the same material, with the same cynicism, the same mastery -of line. She suggested, in her costume of the Second Act, a Beardsley -picture; there was the same kind of tragic grotesque, in which a kind of -ugliness became a kind of beauty. The whole performance was of the best -Parisian kind, with genius in one, admirably disciplined talent in all. - - - - -MELODRAMA WITH AN IDEA - - -Paul Hervieu's _La Course du Flambeau_, which was given by Réjane at -the Vaudeville, April 17th, 1901, is first of all a sentimental thesis. -It begins with an argument as to the duty of mother to child and of -child to mother. A character who apparently represents the author's -views declares life is a sort of _Lampadophoria_, or _La Course du -Flambeau_, in which it is the chief concern of each generation to hand -on the torch of life to the next generation. Sabine protests that the -duty is equal, and offers herself as an example. "I," she says, "stand -between mother and daughter; I love them myself; I could sacrifice -myself equally for either." Maravan replies: "You do not know yourself. -You do not know how good a mother you are, and I hope you will never -know how bad a daughter." The rest of the play is ingeniously -constructed to show, point by point, gradation by gradation, the -devotion of Sabine to her daughter and the readiness with which she will -sacrifice, not only herself, but her mother. - -The only answer to the author's solution is to reinstate the problem in -terms of precisely contrary facts; we have another solution, which may -be made in terms no less inevitable. The play itself proves nothing, and -it seems to me that the writer's persistence in arguing the point in -action has given a somewhat needless and unnatural air of melodrama to -his piece. It is a melodrama with an idea, a clue, but it is none the -less a melodrama, because the idea and the clue are alike so arbitrary. -One is never left quietly alone with nature; the showman's hand is -always visible, around the corner of the curtain, pulling the strings. -Whenever one sees a human argument struggling to find its way through -the formal rhetoric of the speaker, it is the French equivalent of -sentiment. - -The piece is really the comedy of a broken heart, and what Réjane has -to do is to represent all the stages of the slow process of heartbreak. -She does it as only a great artist could do; but she allows us to see -that she is acting. She does it consciously, deliberately, with method. - -She has forced herself to become bourgeois; she takes upon herself the -bourgeois face and appearance, and also the bourgeois soul. The wit and -bewildering vulgarity have gone out of her, and a middle-class dignity -has taken their place. She shows us the stage picture of a mother -marvelously: that is to say, she interprets the play according to the -author's intentions; when she is most effective as an actress she is not -content with the simplicity of nature, as in the tirade in the third -act. She brings out the melodramatic points with the finest skill; but -the melodrama itself is a wilful divergency from nature; and she has few -chances to be her finest self. She proves the soundness of her art as an -actress by the ability to play such a part finely, seriously, -effectively. Her own temperament counts for nothing; it is not even a -hindrance: it is all the skill of a _métier_, the mastery of her art. - - - - -"MADAME SANS-GÊNE" - - -In 1893 Réjane created, at the Vaudeville, the woman whose part she had -to act, in _Madame Sans-Gêne._ For some reason unknown to me, Réjane -is best known in England by her performances in this thoroughly poor -play, which shows us Sardou working mechanically, and for character -effects of a superficial kind. There are none of the ideas, none of the -touches of nature of _La Parisienne_; none of the comic vitality of _Ma -Cousine_; none of the emotional quality of _Sapho._ It is full of -piquancies for acting, and Réjane makes the most of them. Her acting is -admirable, from beginning to end; it has her distinguished vulgarity; -her gross charm; she is everything that Sardou meant, and something -more. - -But all that Sardou meant was not a very interesting thing, and Réjane -can not make it what it is not. She brightens her part, she does not -make a different thing of it. There were moments when it seemed to me as -if she played it with a certain fatigue. The thing is so artificial in -itself, and yet pretends to be nature; it is so palpably ingenious, so -frank an appeal to the stage! It has about it an absurd air of honest -simplicity, a pretense of being bourgeois in some worthy sense. - -Réjane plays her game with the thing, shows her impeccable cleverness, -makes point after point, carries the audience with her. But I find -nowhere in it what seems to me her finest qualities, at most no more -than a suggestion of them. It is a picture painted so sweepingly that -every subtlety would be out of place in it. She plays it sweepingly, -with heavy contrasts, an undisguised exaggeration; one eye is always on -the audience. That is, no doubt, the way the piece should be played; but -I must complain of Sardou while I justify Réjane. - - - - -THE IRONIC COMEDY OF BECQUE - - -_La Parisienne_ of Henri Becque, like most of his plays, has never lost -its interest, like the topical plays of that period. It is a hard, -ironical piece of realism, founded on a keen observation of life and on -certain definite ideas. It is called a comedy, but there is no -straightforward fun in it, as in _Ma Cousine_, for instance; it has all -that transposed sadness which we call irony. It shows us rather a mean -gray world, rather contemptuously; and it leaves us with a bitter taste -in the mouth. That is, if one takes it seriously. Part of the actor's -art in such a piece is to prevent one from taking it too seriously. - -Throughout Réjane is the faultless artist, and her acting is so much of -a piece that it is difficult to praise it in detail. A real woman lives -before one, seems to be overseen on the stage at certain moments of her -daily existence. We see her life going on, not, as with Duse, a profound -inner life, but the life of the character, a vivid, worldly life, hard, -selfish, calculating, deceiving naturally, naturally wary, the woman of -the world, the Parisian. Compare Clotilde with Sapho and you will see -two opposite types rendered with an equal skill; the woman in love, to -whom nothing else matters, and the woman with lovers, the (what shall I -say?) business woman of the emotions. - -There is a moment near the beginning where Lafont asks Clotilde if she -has been to see her milliner or her dressmaker, and she answers -sarcastically: "Both!" Her face, as she submits to the question, has an -absurd stare, a stare of profound dissimulation, with something of a cat -who waits. Her whole character, her whole plan of campaign are in that -moment; they but show themselves more pointedly, later on, when her -nerves get the better of her through all the manifestations of her -impatience, up to the return into herself at the end of the second act, -when she stands motionless and speechless, while her lover entreats her, -upbraids her, finally insults her. Her face, her whole body, endures, -wearied into a desperate languor, seething with suppressed rage and -exasperation; at last, her whole body droops on itself, as if it Can no -longer stand upright. Throughout she speaks with that somewhat -discontented grumbling tone which she can make so expressive; she -empties her speech with little side shrugs of one shoulder, her sinister -right eye speaks a whole subtle language of its own. The only moments -throughout the play when I found anything to criticize are the few -moments of pathos, when she becomes Sarah at second hand. - -After _La Parisienne_ came _Lolotte_, a one-act play of Meilhac and -Halévy. It is amusing, and it gives Réjane the opportunity of showing -us little samples of nearly all her talents. She is both canaille and -bonne fille; above all she is triumphantly, defiantly clever. Again I -was reminded of a Forain drawing: for here is an art which does -everything that it is possible to do with a given material, and what -more can one demand of an artist? - - - - -"LA ROBE ROUGE" - - -A greater contrast could hardly be imagined than that between these two -plays and Brieux's sombre argument in the drama _La Robe Rouge._ Unlike -_Les Avariés_, where the argument swamps the drama, _La Robe Rouge_ is -at once a good argument and a good play. There are perhaps too many -points at issue, and the story is perhaps too much broken into section, -but the whole thing takes hold of one, and, acted as it is acted by -Réjane, and her company, it seems to lift one out of the theater into -some actual place where people are talking and doing good or evil and -suffering and coming into conflict with great impersonal forces; where, -in fact, they are living. Without ever becoming literature, it comes, at -times, almost nearer to every-day reality than literature can permit -itself to come. There is not a good sentence in the play, or a sentence -that does not tell. It is the subject and the hard, unilluminated -handling of the subject that makes the play, and it is a model of that -form of drama which deals sternly with actual things. It gives a great -actress, who is concerned mainly with being true to nature, an -incomparable opportunity, and it gives opportunities to every member of -a good company. The second act tortures one precisely as such a scene in -court would torture one. Its art is the distressingly, overwhelmingly -real. - -_La Robe Rouge_ is a play so full of solid and serious qualities that it -is not a little difficult not to exaggerate its merits or to praise it -for merits it does not possess. The play deals with vital questions, and -it does not deal with them, as Brieux is apt to do, in a merely -argumentative way. It is not only that abstract question: What is -justice? May the law not be capable of injustice? but the question of -conscience in the lawyer, the judge, the administration of which goes by -the name of justice. It is tragedy within tragedy. How extremely -admirably the whole thing acts, and how admirably it was acted! After -seeing this play, I realize what I have often wondered, that Réjane is -a great tragic actress, and that she can be tragic without being -grotesque. She never had a part in which she was so simple and so great. -When I read the play I found many passages of mere rhetoric in the part -of Zanetta; by her way of saying them Réjane turned them into simple -natural feeling. I can imagine Sarah saying some of these passages, and -making them marvelously effective. When Réjane says them they go -through you like a knife. After seeing La _Robe Rouge_, I am not sure -that of three great living actresses, Duse, Sarah, and Réjane, Réjane -is not, as a sheer actress, the greatest of the three. - -Réjane has all the instincts, as I have said, of the human animal, of -the animal woman, whom man will never quite civilize. Réjane, in -_Sapho_ or in _Zaza_ for instance, is woman naked and shameless, loving -and suffering with all her nerves and muscles, a gross, pitiable, -horribly human thing, whose direct appeal seizes you by the throat. In -_Sapho_ or _Zaza_ she speaks the language of the senses, no more; and -her acting reminds you of all that you may possibly have forgotten of -how the senses speak when they speak through an ignorant woman in love. -It is like an accusing confirmation of some of one's guesses at truth, -before the realities of the flesh and of the affections of the flesh. -Skepticism is no longer possible: the thing is before you, abominably -real, a disquieting and irrefutable thing, which speaks with its own -voice, as it has never spoken on the stage through any other actress. - -In _Zaza_, a play made for Réjane by two playwrights who had set -themselves humbly to a task, the task of fitting her with a part, she is -seen doing _Sapho_ over again, with a difference. Zaza is a vulgar -woman, a woman without instruction or experience; she has not known -poets and been the model of a great sculptor; she comes straight from -the boards of a _café-concert_ to the kept woman's house in the -country. She has caught her lover vulgarly, to win a bet; and so, to the -end, you realize that she is, well, a woman who would do that. She has -no depth of passion, none of Sapho's roots in the earth; she has a -"beguin" for Dufresne, she will drop everything else for it, such as it -is, and she is capable of good hearty suffering. Réjane gives her to us -as she is, in all her commonness. The picture is full of humor; it is, -as I so often feel with Réjane, a Forain. Like Forain, she uses her -material without ever being absorbed by it, without relaxing her -impersonally artistic energy. In being Zaza, she is so far from being -herself (what is the self of a great actress?) that she has invented a -new way of walking, as well as new tones and grimaces. There is not an -effect in the play which she has not calculated; only, she has -calculated every effect so exactly that the calculation is not seen. -When you watch Jane Hading, you see her effects coming several seconds -before they are there; when they come, they come neatly, but with no -surprise in them, and therefore with no conviction. There lies all the -difference between the actress who is an actress equally by her -temperament and by her brain and the actress who has only the brain -(and, with Jane Hading, beauty) to rely on. Everything that Réjane can -think of she can do; thought translates itself instantly into feeling, -and the embodied impulse is before you. - -When Réjane is Zaza, she acts and is the woman she acts; and you have -to think, before you remember how elaborate a science goes to the making -of that thrill which you are almost cruelly enjoying. - - - - -THE RUSSIAN BALLETS - - -I - - -The dance is life, animal life, having its own way passionately. Part of -that natural madness which men were once wise enough to include in -religion, it began with the worship of the disturbing deities, the gods -of ecstasy, for whom wantonness and wine, and all things in which energy -passes into evident excess, were sacred. From the first it has mimed the -instincts; but we lose ourselves in the boundless bewilderments of its -contradictions. - -As the dancers dance, under the changing lights, so human, so remote, so -desirable, so evasive, coming and going to the sound of a thin heady -music which marks the rhythm of their movements like a kind of clinging -drapery, they seem to sum up in themselves the appeal of everything in -the world that is passing and colored and to be enjoyed. Realizing all -humanity to be but a mask of shadows, and this solid world an impromptu -stage as temporary as they, it is with a pathetic desire of some last -illusion, which shall deceive even ourselves, that we are consumed with -this hunger to create, to make something for ourselves, if at least the -same shadowy reality as that about us. The art of the ballet awaits us, -with its shadowy and real life, its power of letting humanity drift into -a rhythm so much of its own, and with ornament so much more generous -than its wont. And, as all this is symbolical, a series of living -symbols, it can but reach the brain through the eyes, in the visual and -imaginative way, so that the ballet concentrates in itself a great deal -of the modern ideal in matters of artistic impression. - -I am avid of impressions and sensations; and in the Russian Ballet at -the Coliseum, certainly, there is a new impression of something not -easily to be seen elsewhere. I need not repeat that, in art, rhythm -means everything. And there can be a kind of rhythm even in scenery, -such as one sees on the stage. Convention, even here, as in all plastic -art, is founded on natural truth very closely studied. The rose is first -learned, in every wrinkle of its petals, petal by petal, before that -reality is elaborately departed from, in order that a new, abstract -beauty may be formed out of these outlines, all but those outlines being -left out. - -So, in these Russian Ballets, so many of which are founded on ancient -legends, those who dance and mime and gesticulate have at once all that -is humanity and more than is in humanity. And their place there permits -them, without disturbing our critical sense of the probability of -things, to seem to assume a superhuman passion; for, in the Art of the -Ballet, reality must fade into illusion, and then illusion must return -into a kind of unreal reality. - -The primitive and myth-making imagination of the Russians shows a -tendency to regard metaphors as real and to share these tendencies with -the savage, that is to say with the savagery that is in them, dependent -as they are on rudimentary emotions. Other races, too long civilized, -have accustomed themselves to the soul, to mystery. Russia, with -centuries of savagery behind it, still feels the earth about its roots, -and the thirst in it of the primitive animal. It has lost none of its -instincts, and it has just discovered the soul. So, in these enigmatical -dancers, the men and the women, who emerge before us, across the flaming -gulf of the footlights, who emerge as they never did in any ballet -created by Wagner, one finds the irresponsibility, the gaiety, the -sombreness, of creatures who exist on the stage for their own pleasure -and for the pleasure of pleasing us, and in them something large and -lyrical, as if the obscure forces of the earth half-awakened had begun -to speak. And these live, perhaps, an exasperated life--the life of the -spirit and of the senses--as no others do; a life to most people -inconceivable; to me, who have traveled in Russia, conceivable. - -In what is abstract in Russian music there is human blood. It does not -plead and implore like Wagner's. It is more somber, less carnal, more -feverish, more unsatisfied in the desire of the flesh, more inhuman, -than the ballet music in _Parsifal._ Even in that music, though shafts -of light sometimes pierce the soul like a sword, there is none of the -peace of Bach; it has the unsatisfied desire of a kind of flesh of the -spirit. But in Tchaikovsky's music the violins run up and down the -scales like acrobats; and he can deform the rhythms of nature with the -caprices of half-civilized impulses. In your delight in finding any one -so alive, you are inclined to welcome him without reserve, and to forget -that a man of genius is not necessarily a great artist, and that, if he -is not a great artist, he is not a quite satisfactory man of genius. - -When I heard his music in _The Enchanted Princess_ I was struck by the -contrast of this ballet music with the overture to _Francesca da Rimini_ -I had heard years before. The red wind of hell, in which the lovers are -afloat, blows and subsides. There is a taste of sulphur in the mouth as -it ends, after the screams and spasms. Scrawls of hell-fire rush across -the violins into a sharpened agony; above all, not Dante's; always -hell-fire, not the souls of unhappy lovers who have loved too well. - -Lydia Lopokova is certainly a perfect artist, whose dancing is a delight -to the eyes, as her miming appeals to the senses. She has passion, and -of an excitable kind; in a word, Russian passion. She can be delicious, -malicious, abrupt in certain movements when she walks; she has -daintiness and gaiety; her poses and poises are exquisite; there is an -amazing certainty in everything she does. A creature of sensitive -nerves, in whom the desire of perfection is the same as her desire for -fame, she is on the stage and off the stage essentially the same; and in -her conversations with me I find imagination, an unerring instinct, an -intense thirst for life and for her own art; she has _la joie de vivre._ - -Her technique, of course, is perfect; and, as in the case of every -artist, it is the result of tireless patience. Technique and the artist: -that is a question of interest to the student of every art. Without -technique, perfect of its kind, no one is worth consideration in any -art. The rope-dancer or the acrobat must be perfect in technique before -he appears on the stage at all; in his case, a lapse from perfection -brings its own penalty, death perhaps; his art begins when his technique -is already perfect. Artists who deal in materials less fragile than -human life should have no less undeviating a sense of responsibility to -themselves and to art. So Ysaye seems to me the type of the artist, not -because he is faultless in technique, but because he begins to create -his art at the point where faultless technique leaves off. - -Lubov Tchernicheva is a snake-like creature, beautiful and hieratic, -solemn; and in her aspect, as in her gestures, a kind of Russian -Cleopatra. Swinburne might have sung of her as he sang of the queen who -ruled the world and Antony:-- - - -Her mouth is fragrant as a vine, -A vine with birds in all its boughs; -Serpent and scarab for a sign -Between the beauty of her brows -And the amorous deep lids divine. - - -And it is a revelation to our jaded imaginations of much less jaded -imaginations. These may be supposed to be characters in themselves of -little interest to the world in general; to have come by strange -accident from the ends of the world. Yet these are thrown into chosen -situations, apprehended in some delicate pauses of life; they have their -moments of passion thrown into relief in an exquisite way. To -discriminate them we need a cobweb of illusions, double and treble -reflections of the mind upon itself, with the artificial light of the -stage cast over them and, as it were, constructed and broken over this -or that chosen situation--on how fine a needle's point that little world -of passion is balanced! - - - - -II - - -Apart from the loveliness of _Manfred_--the almost aching loveliness of -Astarte--and the whole of the _Carnival, Kreisleriana_, and several -other pieces, I have never been able to admire Schumann's music. When I -wrote on Strauss I said that he has many moments in which he tries to -bring humor into music. Turn from the "Annie" motive in _Enoch Arden_ to -the "Eusebius" of the _Carnival_, and you will readily see all the -difference between two passages which it is quite possible to compare -with one another. The "Annie" motive is as pretty as can be; it is -adequate enough as a suggestion of the somewhat colorless heroine of -Tennyson's poem; but how lacking in distinction it is, if you but set it -beside the "Eusebius," in which music requires nothing but music to be -its own interpreter. But it is in his attempts at the grotesque that -Schumann seems at times actually to lead the way to Strauss. It is from -Schumann that Strauss has learned some of those hobbling rhythms, those -abrupt starts, as of a terrified peasant, by which he has sometimes -suggested his particular kind of humor in music. - -Schumann, like Strauss, reminds me at one time of De Quincey or Sydney -Dobell, at another of Gustave Moreau or of Arnold Bocklin, and I know -that all these names have had their hour of worship. All have some of -the qualities which go to the making of great art; all, in different -ways, fail through lack of the vital quality of sincerity, the hard and -wiry line of rectitude and certainty. All are rhetorical, all produce -their effect by an effort external to the thing itself which they are -saying or singing or painting. - -On seeing the _Carnival_ for the second time I am more than ever struck -by the fact that the ballet is a miracle of moving motion. In the dance -of Columbine and Harlequin--they danced and mimed like living -marionettes--I recalled vividly my impression on seeing a ballet, a -farce and the fragments of an opera performed by the marionettes at the -Costanzi Theatre in Rome. I was inclined to ask myself why we require -the intervention of any less perfect medium between the meaning of a -piece, as the audience conceived it, and that other meaning which it -derives from our reception of it. In those inspired pieces of living -painted wood I saw the illusion that I always desire to find, either in -the wings of the theater or from a stall. In our marionettes, then, we -get personified gesture, endless gesture, like all other forms of -emotion, generalized. The appeal in what seems to you those childish -maneuvers is to a finer, because to a more innately poetic sense of -things than the rationalistic appeal of very modern plays. If at times -we laugh--as one must in this ballet--it is with wonder at seeing -humanity so gay, heroic and untiring. There is the romantic suggestion -of magic in this beauty. So, in Harlequin, I find the personification of -grace, of _souplesse_, in his miming and dancing; and when he is -grotesque, I find a singular kind of beauty. A sinister gaiety pervades -the ballet; a malevolent undercurrent of subtle meanings gives one the -sense of an intricate intrigue; and I almost forgive the fact that the -music is German! - -I am, on the whole, disappointed with the _Cleopatra_ ballet; for the -scenery certainly does not suggest Egypt; but, to my mind, suggests -rather the scenery used in Paris when I saw Alfred Jarry's _Ubu Roi_, a -symbolist farce, given under strange conditions. The action took place -in the land of nowhere; and the scenery was painted to represent by -adroit conventions temperate and torrid zones at once. Then there were -closed windows and a fireplace, containing an alchemist's crucible. -These were crudely symbolical, but those in the Coliseum were not. In -our search for sensation we have exhausted sensation; and, in that -theater, before a people who have perfected the fine shades to their -vanishing point, who have subtilized delicacy of perception into the -annihilation of the very senses through which we take in ecstasy, I -heard a literary Sans-culotte shriek for hours that unspeakable word of -the gutter which was the refrain of this comedy of masks. Just as the -seeker after pleasure whom pleasure has exhausted, so the seeker after -the material illusions of a literary artifice turns finally to that -first, subjugated, never quite exterminated element of cruelty which is -one of the links which bind us to the earth. - -The Russians have cruelty enough, but not this kind of cruelty; they are -more complex than cruel, and why credit them with any real sense of -morality? They are gifted with a kind of sick curiosity which makes them -infinitely interesting to themselves. And--to concern myself again with -these Russian dancers--they live in a prodigious illusion; their life in -them is so tremendous that they are capable of imagining anything. And, -in the words of Gorki, "in every being who lives there is hidden a -vagabond more or less conscious of himself;" but--for all those who -revolt--he has one phrase: _l'Épouvante du mal de vivre._ - -Now, Lubov Tchernicheva, who looked Cleopatra and was dressed after -Cleopatra's fashion, had nothing whatever to do, except to be repellent -and attractive. She was given no chance to show that the queen she -represented was one of those diabolical creatures whose coquetry is all -the more dangerous because it is susceptible of passion; one in whom -passion was at times like a will-o'-the-wisp that is suddenly -extinguished after having given light to a conflagration. - -_Scheherazade_ is barbaric and gorgeous in _décor_, and in costume -exotic and tragic and Oriental as the Russian music is; only, to me, the -music is not quite satisfying; it has rather an irritating effect on the -nerves. The dances are bewildering, intricate and elaborate, and -intensely alive with animal desire. It is really a riot in color, amid -an ever-moving crowd of revellers; in which Massine shows himself as the -personification of lust, as he makes--with furious and too convulsive -leaps in the air and with too obvious gestures and grimaces--frantic -love to Zobeide, mimed by Tchernicheva, who has the stateliness of a -princess, who glides mysteriously and is wonderful in the plastic -quality of her movements, which I can only image as that of a tiger-cat. - -Carlo Goldoni has been compared as a great comic dramatist with Pietro -Longhi, who, in his amazingly amusing pictures, reflects also the -follies and revels and miseries of the period. Longhi used to tell -Goldoni that they--the painter and the playwright--were brethren in art; -and one of Goldoni's sonnets records this saying:-- - - -_Longhi, tu che la mia musa sorella -Chiami del tuo pennel che cerca il vero._ - - -It seems that their contemporaries were alive to the similar qualities -and the common aims of the two men; for Gasparo Gozzi drew a parallel -between them in a number of his Venetian _Gazzetta._ - -It struck me, as I saw the Goldoni ballet and heard the music of -Domenico Scarlatti, that all of the costumes and much of the effect of -the miming--which were the most delicious and capricious that I have -ever seen--had been designed after Longhi's paintings and drawings; for -in many of these he gives a wonderful sense of living motion; but -certainly nothing of what is abominably alive in the great and grim and -sardonic genius of Hogarth. - -In Venice I have often spent delightful hours before, for instance, such -innumerable drawings of his as: painters at the easel, ballet girls with -castanets, maid-servants holding trays, music and dancing masters -(indeed, is not Enrico Cecchetti in the ballet a most admirable and most -Italian dancing master?), tavern-keepers, street musicians, beggars, -waiters; the old patrician lolling in his easy-chair and toying with a -fan; the cavaliere in their fantastic dresses; the women with their -towering head-dresses. The whole sense of Venice returned to me as I saw -Lydia Lopokova--always so bird-like, so like a butterfly with painted -wings, so witty in gestures, so absolutely an artist in every dance she -dances, in every mime she mimics, in her wild abandonment to the -excitement of these shifting scenes, where all these masked and unmasked -living puppets have fine nerves and delicate passions--putting powder on -the face of the Marquise Silvestra and mocking her behind her back. I -saw then Casanova's favorite haunts: the _ridotti_, the gambling-houses, -the _cafés_ in San Marco's, the carnivals, the masked balls, the -intrigues; the _traghetti_ where I seemed to see mysterious figures -flitting to and fro in wide miraculous _route_ beneath the light of -flickering flambeaux. - -I see before me, as I write, the night when I went from the Giddecca to -the Teatro Rossini, where a company of excellent Italian comedians gave -one of Goldoni's comedies, and, as when the chatter in the gallery ends, -the chatter begins on the stage, I found for once the perfect illusion; -there is no difference between the one and the other. Voluble, living -Venice, with its unchanging attitude toward things, the prompt gaiety -and warmth of its temperament, finds equal expression in the gallery, -and in the interpretation of Goldoni, on that stage. Going to the -theater in Venice is like a fantastic overture to the play, and sets -one's mood properly in tune. You step into the gondola, which darts at -once across a space of half-lighted water, and turns down a narrow canal -between walls which seem to reach more than half-way to the stars. Here -and there a lamp shines from a bridge or at the water-gate of a house, -but with no more than enough light to make the darkness seen. You see in -flashes: an alley with people moving against the light, the shape of a -door or balcony, seen dimly and in a wholly new aspect, a dark -church-front, a bridge overhead, the water lapping against the green -stone of a wall which your elbow all but touches, a head thrust from a -window, the gondola that passes you, sliding gently and suddenly -alongside, and disappearing into an unseen quiet. - -_Sadko_ is simply a magical and magnificent pantomime, and -Rimski-Korsakov's ballet music gives me the sense of the swirl and -confusion, of the bewilderments and infinite changes in the realm of the -sea-king. And, apart from the riotous Russian dancing, most of the -ballet is made of nervous gestures of the hands and arms, that have an -exciting effect on the nerves, and that recall to my memory certain -aspects of the sea; as when I saw a deadly sluggish sea, a venomous -serpent coil and uncoil inextricable folds; symbols of something -suddenly seen on the sea-surface in contrast with a wizard transmutation -of colors. But, most of all, one aspect of curdling thick green masses -of colors under a curdling green sea. In that instant I saw all the -beauty of corruption. Then the underworld became visible, close under -the sea: with palaces (like Poe's); streets, people, ruins; forests -thick with poisonous weeds, void spaces, strange shifting shapes: -symbols I could not fathom. Then came a stealthy, slow, insidious -heaving of the reluctant waves. Then, again, the surging and swaying; -and, always motionless, yet steadily changing in shape, the somber and -unholy underworld. - -In Tchernicheva I saw an actual Princess of the Sea, gorgeously dressed, -and enchanting. Yet, all of the spectacle was not beautiful; it was -singularly inhuman and, at times, unnatural. Nothing but beauty should -exist on the stage. Visible beauty comes with the ballet, an abstract -thing; gesture adds pantomime, with which drama begins; and then words -bring in the speech by which life tries to tell its secret. Still, in -the two extremes, pantomime and the poetic drama, the appeal is to the -primary emotions, and with an economy and luxuriance of means, each of -which is in its own way inimitable. Pantomime addresses itself, by the -artful limitations of its craft, to universal human experiences, knowing -that the moment it departs from those broad lines it will become -unintelligible. - -Pantomime, in its limited way, is no mere imitation of nature: it is a -transposition. It can appeal to the intellect for its comprehension, -and, like ballet, to the intellect through the eyes. To watch it is like -dreaming. And as I watched this ballet I felt myself drawn deep into an -opium-dream, as when I wrote of: - - -This crust, of which the rats have eaten part, -This pipe of opium; rage, remorse, despair; -This soul at pawn and this delirious heart. - - -Then, as the spell tightened closer and closer around me, I seemed to -have taken hashish, of which I wrote:-- - - -Behold the image of my fear; -O rise not, move not, come not near! -That moment, when you turned your face, -A demon seemed to leap through space; -His gesture strangled me with fear. - -Who said the world is but a mood -In the eternal thought of God? -I know it, real though it seem, -The phantom of a hashish dream -In that insomnia which is God. - - -Does not every one know that terrifying impossibility of speaking which -fastens one to the ground for the eternity of a second? Exactly that -sensation came over me, the same kind of suspense, seeming to hang over -the silent actors in the pantomime, giving them a nervous exaltation -which has its subtle, immediate effect upon us, in comic or tragic -situations. - - - - -III - - -The English theater with its unreal realism and its unimaginative -pretenses toward poetry left me untouched and unconvinced. I found the -beauty, the poetry, that I wanted only in two theaters, the Alhambra and -the Empire. The ballet seemed to me the subtlest of the visible arts, -and dancing a more significant speech than words. I could have said as -Verlaine said to me, in jest, coming away from the Alhambra: "_J'aime -Shakespeare, mais--j'aimes mieux le ballet!_" A ballet is simply a -picture in movement. It is a picture where the imitation of nature is -given by nature itself; where the figures of the composition are real, -and yet, by a very paradox of travesty, have a delightful, deliberate -air of unreality. It is a picture where the colors change, re-combine, -before one's eyes; where the outlines melt into one another, emerge, and -are again lost in the mazes of the dancing. - -The most magical glimpse I ever caught of a ballet was from the road in -front, from the other side of the road, one night when two doors were -suddenly thrown open as I was passing. In the moment's interval before -the doors closed again I saw, in that odd, unexpected way, over the -heads of the audience, far off in a sort of blue mist, the whole stage, -its brilliant crowd drawn up in the last pose, just as the curtain was -beginning to go down. - -I liked to see a ballet from the wings, a spectator, but in the midst of -the magic. To see a ballet from the wings is to lose all sense of -proportion, all knowledge of the piece as a whole, but, in return, it is -fruitful in happy accidents, in momentary points of view, in chance -felicities of light and movement and shade. It is almost to be in the -performance one's self, and yet passive, with the leisure to look about -one. - -The front row of the stalls, on a first night, has a character of its -own. It is entirely filled by men, and the men who fill it have not come -simply from an abstract esthetic interest in the ballet. They have -friends on the other side of the footlights, and their friends on the -other side of the footlights will look down, the moment they come on, to -see who are in the front row, and who are standing by the bar on either -side. The standing room by the bar is the reserve of the first-nighters -with friends who could not get a seat in the front row. On such a night -the air is electrical. A running fire of glances crosses and re-crosses, -above the indifferent, accustomed heads of the gentlemen in the -orchestra; whom it amuses, none the less, to intercept an occasional -smile, to trace it home. On the faces of the men in the front row, what -difference in expression. Here is the eager, undisguised enthusiasm of -the novice, all eyes on one; here is the wary practised attention of the -man who has seen many first nights, and whose scarcely perceptible smile -reveals nothing, compromises nobody, rests on all. - -And there is a charm, not wholly imaginary, in that form of illusion -known as make-up. To a face really charming it gives a new kind of -exciting savor; and it has, to the remnant of Puritan conscience that is -the heritage of us all, a certain sense of dangerous wickedness, the -delight of forbidden fruit. The very phrase, painted women, has come to -have an association of sin, and to have put paint on her cheeks, though -for the innocent necessities of her profession, gives to a woman a kind -of symbolic corruption. At once she seems to typify the sorceries and -entanglements of what is most deliberately enticing in her sex, with all -that is most subtle, least like nature, in her power of charm. -_Maquillage_, to be attractive, must, of course, be unnecessary. - -The art of the ballet counts for much in the evolution of many favorite -effects of contemporary drawing, and not merely because Degas--who meant -to me everything when I was writing on the ballets, standing in the -wings, writing verses in which I was conscious of transgressing no law -or art in taking that scarcely touched material for new uses--has drawn -dancers, with his reserved, essentially classical mastery of form. By -its rapidity of flight within bounds, by its bird-like and flowerlike -caprices of color and motion, by that appeal to the imagination which -comes from its silence (to which music is but like an accompanying -shadow, so closely, so discreetly does it follow the feet of the -dancers), by its appeal to the eyes and to the senses, its adorable -artificiality, the ballet has tempted almost every draughtsman, as the -interiors of music-halls have also been singularly tempting, with their -extraordinary tricks of light, their suddenness of gesture, their -fantastic humanity. And pantomime, too, in the French and correct, -rather than in the English and incorrect sense of that word, has had its -significant influence. And the point of view is the point of view of -Pierrot-- - - -"_Le subtil génie -De sa malice infinie -De poète-grimacier_"-- - - -Verlaine's _Pierrot Gamin._ - -Watteau, the Prince of Court Painters, is the only painter of _la -galanterie_ who has given seriousness to the elegance of that passing -moment, who has fixed that moment in an attitude which becomes eternal. -In a similar gravity in the treatment of "light" subjects, and for a -similar skill in giving them beauty and distinction, we must come down -to Degas. In Degas the ballet and the _café_ replace the Italian comedy -of masks and the afternoon conversation in a park. But in Degas there is -the same instantaneous notation of movement and the same choice and -strange richness of color; with a quite comparable fondness for seizing -what is true in artificial life, and for what is sad and serious in -humanity at play. But Watteau, unlike Degas, is never cruel. - -Never, as Watteau, "a seeker after something in the world, that is there -in no satisfying measure or not at all," Degas, implacably _farouche_, -the inexorable observer of women's flesh, in the wings of music-halls, -in _café-concerts_, loves and hates and adores this strange mystery of -women's flesh which he evokes, often curiously poisonous, but always -with a caressing touch, a magic atmosphere that gives heat and life and -light to all his pictures. Where Renoir is pagan and sensual, Degas is -sensuous and a moralist. In the purity of his science, the perhaps -impurity of his passion, he is inimitable. Is not his style--for -painters have their own styles--the style of sensation--a style which is -almost entirely made of sensations? He flashes on our vision _vrai -vérité_ of things, the very essence of them--not so much the essence -of truth as of what appears in the visible world to the eyes that see -it. - -No one ever painted _maquillage_ as he does, nor the strokes of light -that shine in a dancer's eyes, nor the silk of her rose-colored tights -that outline her nervous legs; nor the effects--sudden and certain--of -what I have seen for years from the stage: silhouettes and faces and -bodies and patches of light, a cigarette in a man's mouth; and, in the -wings, miracles of change, of caprice, of fantasy, and of what seems and -is not an endless motion of the dancers. I have always felt that the -rhythm of dancing is a kind of arrested music, which Degas has certainly -given us, as in the feet that poise, the silent waves of wandering sound -of the dancer's moving melody, and her magic. A man of singular, but not -universal, genius, Degas, his work being done, leaves behind him a sense -of intense regret; for he created a new art in painting, that is to say, -in painting the sex he adored, without pity and without malice. - - - - -ON HAMLET AND HAMLETS - - -I have seen many Hamlets. I have seen romantic, tragic, passionate, -morbid, enigmatical, over-subtle and over-exceptional Hamlets, the very -bells on the cap of "Fortune's fool." And as almost every actor has -acted this part, every one of them gives a different interpretation: -that is to say, from the time of Shakespeare to our own age. One knows -that Shakespeare, besides other of the dramatists, acted at least one -part, which seems to have surprised his audience: the Ghost in _Hamlet._ -And as Shakespeare put more of his inner self into Hamlet's mouth than -into the mouth of any of his other characters, it is not to be forgotten -that perhaps the most wonderful prose in our language is spoken by -Hamlet in that famous scene with the Players. Take, for instance, this -speech: - - -I have of late--but wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, foregone -all custom of exercise; and indeed it goes so heavily with my -disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile -promontory, that most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave -over-hanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, -why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent -congregation of vapors. What a piece of work is a man! How noble in -reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and -admirable: in action how like an angel! in appearance how like a god! -The beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet to me, what is -this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me: no, nor woman neither, -though by your smiling you seem to say so. - - -If any prose is immortal, this is; and creative also, and imaginative, -and lyrical: it has vision, and it has the sense of the immense contrast -between "this majestical roof" and "this quintessence of dust" to which -we are all reduced at the end. - -I have always felt that a play of Shakespeare, seen on the stage, should -give one the impression of assisting at "a solemn music." The rhythm of -Shakespeare's art is not fundamentally different from that of Beethoven, -and _Romeo and Juliet_ is a suite, _Hamlet_ a symphony. To act either of -these plays with whatever qualities of another kind, and to fail in -producing this musical rhythm from beginning to end, is to fail in the -very foundation. It has been said that Shakespeare will sacrifice his -drama to his poetry, and even _Hamlet_ has been quoted against him. But -let _Hamlet_ be rightly acted, and whatever has seemed mere meditation -will be realized as a part of that thought which makes or waits on -action. The outlines of the tragedy are crude, irresistible melodrama, -still irresistible to the gallery; and the greatness of the play, though -it comes to us by means of its poetry, comes to us legitimately as a -growth out of melodrama. - -I have often asked myself this question, when I have sat in the stalls -watching a play, and having to write about it: is the success of this -piece due to the playwright's skill or to the skill of the actors? Nor -is any question more difficult to answer than this; which Lamb certainly -does his best to answer in one of his underlined sentences, in regard to -the actor. "_He must be thinking all the while of his appearance, -because he knows that all the while the spectators are judging of it._" -And again when he says: "In fact, the things aimed at in theatrical -representations are to arrest the spectator's eye upon the form and the -gesture, and to give a more favorable hearing to what is spoken: it is -not what the character is, but how he looks; not what he says, but how -he speaks it." Was anything more fundamentally true ever said on what -the actor _ought_ to do? Lamb answered it again, in his instinctive -fashion of aiming his arrow straight at the mark, when he said of a -performance of Shakespeare in which there were two great actors, that -"it seemed to embody and realize conceptions which had hitherto assumed -no distinct shape," but that "when the novelty is past, we find to our -cost that instead of realizing an idea, we have only materialized and -brought down a fine vision to the standard of flesh and blood." - -Every artist who has the sense of the sublime knows that the pure genius -is essentially silent, and that his revelation has in it more of vision -than of reality. For when he deigns to appear, he is constrained, under -penalty of extinction, to lessen himself so as to pass into the -Inaccessible. He creates; if he fails in creation, he is of necessity -condemned to the utter darkness. He is the ordinator of chaos: he calls -and disposes of the blind elements; and when we are uplifted in our -admiration before some sublime work, it is not that he creates an idea -in us: it is that, under the divine influence of the man of genius, this -idea, which was in us, obscure to itself, is reawakened. - -I am confronted now with Villiers de l'Isle Adam in his conjectures in -regard to certain questions--never yet settled--in _Hamlet._ A modern -man of taste might ask what Shakespeare would have answered if the actor -who played Hamlet's part were to interrogate the Specter "escaped from -hideous Night" as to whether he had seen God's face, whether he wanted -to be concerned with, not the eternal mysteries, but with what he had -seen in hell and what he hated seeing on earth; and, if he had come only -to utter absurdities, really, why need he have died at all? - -The Ghost, by the mere fact of being there, seems, at first sight, an -absurdity; but if he has really seen God and the Absolute and if he has -entered into them--which is impossible--the sublimity of his words might -seem to be superfluous; and yet the incoherencies that he utters are all -the more terrifying because of their incomprehensibility. "The secret of -the Absolute cannot be expressed with syntax, and therefore one cannot -ask the ghost to produce more than an _impression._" The Specter, for -Shakespeare, is not a human being: he is obsession. Had he wanted Hamlet -really to perceive the ghost and had he thought this dramatic effect -ought to seize on the imagination of the audience, it was because he was -certain that every one of them, in the ghost perceived by Hamlet, would -see the familiar ghost that actually haunts himself. - -Hamlet's soliloquy "To be or not to be" is a magnificent disavowal--on -the part of Shakespeare. And if one excuses the contradiction by -supposing that Hamlet tried to deliver himself from the obsession, to -doubt, one can only reply that he never doubts the Ghost itself, but the -nature of this ghost; for he says at the end of the second act: - - -The spirit I have seen -May be the devil: and the devil hath power -To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps, -Out of my weakness and my melancholy, -(As he is very potent with such spirits), -Abuses me to damn me. - - -Therefore if we compare the motive and the spirit of those sickly -phrases with those of the soliloquy, we shall realize that this has _no -relation whatsoever_ with the superstitious character of Hamlet; even -more so, because every single word of them is in flagrant contradiction -with the entire drama. - -I have no intention of discussing either Mr. Martin Hervey's -representation of Hamlet or the somber and sinister Hamlet acted by -Josef Keinz in Berlin; or the performance of Tree, or of -Forbes-Robertson; or of any one's, with the exception of that given by -Edward Sothern. He is by no means the only Hamlet, for there are -always--to quote Browning--"points in Hamlet's soul unseized by the -Germans yet." Sothern had depth in his acting; and there was nothing -fantastic in his grave, subdued, powerful, and piteous representation, -in which no symbol, no figment of a German brain, no metaphysical Faust, -loomed before us, but a man more to be pitied and not less to be honored -than any man in Elsinore. Yet when one considers what Hamlet actually -was--and there is no getting at the depths of his mystery--one finds, -for one thing, a man too intensely restless to make up his mind on any -question of thought, of conduct, and that he does for the most part the -opposite of what he says. The pretense of madness is an almost -transparent pretense, and used often for a mere effect of malicious wit, -in the confusion of fools, or at the prompting of mere nerves. To me -Hamlet seems to be cursed with the veritable genius of inaction. Always -he is alone, even when he is in a crowd; he is the most sensitive of all -Shakespeare's creations; his nerves are jarred, when knaves would play -on him as one plays on an instrument; his blood is feverish, infected -with the dark melancholy that haunts him. Does he love Ophelia? I see in -him no passion for loving: to him passion is an abstract thing. In any -case, irresolution is baneful to him; irresolution that loses so many -chances, for which no one forgives himself. This Swinburne denies, -supposing that the signal characteristic of Hamlet's inmost nature "is -by no means irresolution or hesitation or any form of weakness, but -rather the strong conflux of contending forces;" adding, what is -certainly true, that the compulsory expedition of Hamlet to England and -his hot-headed daring prove to us his almost unscrupulous resolution in -time of practical need. Only, when all Hamlet's plans of revenge have -been executed, with the one exception of his unnecessary death, before -he utters his last immortal words "The rest is silence," the thought of -death to him is as if a veil had been withdrawn for an instant, the veil -which renders life possible, and, for that instant, he has seen. - - - - -LEONARDO DA VINCI - - -I - - -What counts, certainly, for much of what is so extraordinary in the -genius of Leonardo da Vinci--who died exactly five hundred years ago--is -the fact that the noble blood he inherited (the so-called dishonor that -hangs over his birth being in his case a singular honor) is curiously -like the stain of some strange color in one of his paintings; he being -the least of all men to whom there could be anything poisonous in the -exotic flowers of evil that germinated in Milan; where, as in Venice and -in Rome, moved a changeful people who, in the very midst of their -exquisite and cruel amusements, committed the most impossibly delicious -sins, and without the slightest stings of conscience. Savonarola, from -whom, in the last years of his life, Botticelli caught the contagion of -the monk's fanaticism, was then endeavoring to strip off one lovely veil -after another from the beauty of mortal things, rending them angrily; -for which, finally, he received the baptism of fire. Rodrigo Borgia--a -Spaniard born in Xàtiva--then Pope Alexander VI, was fortunate enough -to possess in his son, Cesare, a man of sinister genius--cruel, -passionate, ardent--who had the wonderful luck of persuading Leonardo to -wander with him in their wild journey over Central Italy in 1502, as his -chief engineer, and as inspector of strongholds. Not even the living -pages of Machiavelli can give us more than a glimpse of what those -conversations between two such flame-like creatures must have been; yet, -we are aware of Cesare being condemned by an evil fate, as evil as -Nero's, to be slain at the age of thirty-one, and of Leonardo, guided by -his good genius, living to the age of sixty-seven. - -The science of the Renaissance was divided, as it were, by a thousand -refractions of things seen and unseen; so that when Leonardo, poring -over his crucibles, desires no alchemist's achievement, but the -achievement of the impossible, his vision is concentrated into infinite -experiences, known solely to himself; exactly as when, in his retirement -in the villa of the Melzi, his imagination is stirred feverishly as he -writes detached notes, as he dashes off rapid drawings; and always not -for other men's pleasure, but simply for his own; careless, as I think -few men of genius have ever been, of anything but the moment's work, the -instant's inspiration. And, what is also certain is that Da Vinci like -Shakespeare created, ambiguously for all the rest of the world, flesh -that is flesh and not flesh, bodies that are bodies and not bodies, by -something inexplicable in their genius; something nervous, magnetic, -overwhelming; and, to such an extent, that if one chooses to call to -mind the greatest men of genius who have existed, this painter and this -dramatist must take their places beside Aeschylus and beside Balzac. - -Of Leonardo da Vinci, Pater has said: "Curiosity and the desire of -beauty--these are the two elementary forces in his genius; curiosity -often in conflict with the desire of beauty, but generating in union -with it, a type of subtle and curious grace." Certainly the desire of -perfection is, in Da Vinci, organic; so much so that there remains in -him always the desire, as well as the aim, of attaining nothing less -than finality, which he achieves more finally than any of the other -Italian painters; and, mixed with all these, is that mystery which is -only one part of his magic. - -Is all this mystery and beauty, then, only style, and acquired style? -Fortunate time, when style had become of such subtlety that it affects -us, to-day, as if it were actually a part of the soul! But was there -not, in Leonardo, a special quality, which goes some way to account for -this? Does it not happen to us, as we look at one of his mysterious -faces, to seem to distinguish, in the eyes reluctant to let out their -secret, some glimpse, not of the soul of _Monna Lisa_, nor of the Virgin -of the Rocks, but of our own retreating, elusive, not yet recognized -soul? Just so, I fancy, Leonardo may have revealed their own souls to -Luini and to Solario, and in such a way that for those men it was no -longer possible to see themselves without something of a new atmosphere -about them, the atmosphere of those which Leonardo had drawn to him out -of the wisdom of secret and eternal things. With men like Leonardo style -is, really, the soul, and their influence on others the influence of -those who have discovered a little more of the unknown, adding, as it -were, new faculties to the human soul. - -Raphael, I have said elsewhere, could "correct" Michelangelo, could make -Michelangelo jealous; Raphael, who said of him that he "treats the Pope -as the King of France himself would not dare to treat him," that he goes -along the streets of Rome "like an executioner;" Raphael who for the -remaining years of his life paces the same streets with that grim -artist; of Raphael, may it not be asked: who in the Vatican has not -turned away from the stanza a little weary, as one turns aside out of -streets or rooms thronged with men and women, happy, vigorous, and -strangers: and has not gone back to the Sistine Chapel, and looked at -the ceiling on which Michelangelo has painted a world that is not this -world, men and women as magnificent as our dreams, and has not replunged -into that abyss with a great sense of relief, with a supreme -satisfaction? - -Is this feeling of a kind of revulsion, before so many of his pictures, -really justifiable? Is it, I ask myself, reasonable to complain, as I -was obliged to complain in Rome, that his women have no strangeness in -their beauty: that they do not brood over mysteries, like _Monna Lisa?_ -Might it not be equally reasonable to complain of the calm, unthinking -faces of Greek statues, in which the very disturbance of thought--not of -emotion--is blotted out, as it might be among beings too divine for any -meaner energy than that of mere existence, "ideal spectators" of all -that moves and is restless? - - - - -II - - -Two men of genius, in our own generation, have revealed for all time the -always inexplicable magic of Leonardo da Vinci: Walter Pater in his -prose and Dante Gabriel Rossetti in his sonnet. It is impossible not to -quote this lyrical prose. - - -The presence that thus so strangely rose beside the waters is expressive -of what in the ways of a thousand years men had come to desire. Here is -the head upon which all "the ends of the world are come," and the -eyelids are a little weary. It is a beauty wrought out from within upon -the flesh, the deposit, little cell by cell, of strange thoughts and -fantastic reveries and exquisite passions. All the thoughts and -experience of the world have been etched and moulded there in that which -they have of power to refine and make expressive the outward form, the -animalism of peace, the lust of Rome, the reverie of the Middle Ages -with its spiritual ambition and imaginative loves, the return of the -Pagan world, the sins of the Borgias. She is older than the rocks among -which she sits; like the vampire, she has been dead many times, and -learned the secrets of the grave; and has been a diver in deep seas, and -keeps their fallen day about her; and trafficked for strange webs with -Eastern merchants; and, as Leda, was the mother of Helen of Troy, and, -as Saint Anne, the mother of Mary; and all this has been to her but as -the sound of lyres and flutes, and lives only in the delicacy with which -it has moulded the changing lineaments and tinged the eyelids and the -hands. - - -Rossetti, whose criticisms on poets are as direct and inevitable as his -finest verse, was always his own best critic. He who said finally: "The -life-blood of rhymed translation is this--that a good poem shall not be -turned into a bad one," was as finally right on himself, as he was on -others, in his unsurpassable revision of one of the most imaginative -sonnets ever written: "A Venetian Pastoral by Giorgione." Certainly no -poem of his shows more plainly the strength and wealth of the workman's -lavish yet studious hand. And, in this sonnet as in the one on Leonardo, -there is the absolute transfusion of a spirit that seemed incommunicable -from one master's hand to another's. Only in the Leonardo, which I shall -quote, there is none of the sovereign oppression of absolute beauty and -the nakedness of burning life that I find in the _Fête Champêtre._ For -in this divine picture the romantic spirit is born, and with it modern -art. Here we see Whistler and the Japanese: a picture content to be no -more than a picture: "an instant made eternity," a moment of color, of -atmosphere, of the noon's intense heat, of faultless circumstance. It is -a pause in music, and life itself waits, while men and women are for a -moment happy and content and without desire; these, content to be -beautiful and to be no more than a strain of music; to those others, who -are content to know only that the hour is music. - -Here, then, is Rossetti's version of the beauty of mysterious peace -which broods over the _Virgin of the Rocks._ - - -Mother, is this the darkness of the end, -The Shadow of Death? and is that outer sea -Infinite imminent Eternity? -And does the death-pang by man's seed sustained -In Time's each instant cause thy face to bend -Its silent prayer upon the Son, while he -Blesses the dead with his hand silently -To his long day which hours no more offend? - -Mother of grace, the pass is difficult, -Keen as these rocks, and the bewildered souls -Throng it like echoes, blindly shuddering through. -Thy name, O Lord, each spirit's voice extols, -Whose peace abides in the dark avenue -Amid the bitterness of things occult. - - -So Leonardo, who said "that figure is not good which does not express -through its gestures the passions of its soul," becomes, more than any -painter, the painter of the soul. He has created, not only in the -_Gioconda_, a clairvoyant smile, which is the smile of mysterious wisdom -hidden in things; he has created the motion of great waters; he has -created types of beauty so exotic that they are fascinating only to -those who are drawn into the unmirrored depths of this dreamless mirror. -He invents a new form of landscape, subtle and sorcerous, and a whole -new movement for an equestrian statue; besides inventing--what did not -this miraculous man invent!--the first quite simple and natural -treatment of the Virgin and Child. So, as he was content to do nothing -as it had been done before, he creates in the _Gioconda_ a new art of -portrait painting; and, in her, so disquieting, that her eyes, as they -follow you persistently, seem to ask one knows not what impenetrable and -seductive question, on which all one's happiness might depend. -Mysterious and enigmatical as she is, there is in her face none of the -melancholy--which is part of the melancholy of Venice--that allures -one's senses in a famous picture in the Accademia; where, the feast -being over, and the wine drunk, something seems to possess the woman, -setting those pensive lines about her lips, which will smile again when -she has lifted her eyelids. - - - - -III - - -The sinister side of Leonardo da Vinci's genius leads him to the -execution of the most prodigious caricatures ever invented; that is to -say, before the malevolent and diabolical and macabre and malignant -creations in this genre of Goya. In his _Caprichos_ one sees the man's -immense arrogance, his destructive and constructive genius, his -rebellion--perhaps even more so than Leonardo's--against old tradition; -which he hated and violated. Dramatic, revolutionary, visionary in his -somber Spanish fashion, it seems to me that this--one of the supreme -forms of his art--is, in the same sense as Villon's _Grand Testament_, -his Last Testament: for in both poet and painter the nervous -magnificence seen equally in the verse and in the painting is created, -almost literally, out of their life-blood. - -Only, in Leonardo, visions shape themselves into strange -perversities--not the pensive perversities of Perugino--and assume -aspects of evasive horrors, of the utmost ugliness, and are transformed -into aspects of beauty and of cruelty, as the artist wanders in the hot -streets of Florence to catch glimpses of strange hair and strange faces, -as he and they follow the sun's shadow. He seizes on them, furiously, -curiously, then he refines upon them, molding them to the fashion of his -own moods; but always with that unerring sense of beauty which he -possesses supremely--beauty, often enough, in its remoteness from actual -reality. With passion he tortures them into passionate shapes; with -cruelty he makes them grimace; abnormally sensitive (as Rodin often -enough was) he is pitiless on the people he comes in contact with, -setting ironical flames that circle round them as in Dante's Inferno, -where the two most famous lovers of all time, Francesca and Paolo, -endure the painted images of the fires of hell, eternally unconsumed. -When he seeks absolute beauty there are times when it is beyond the -world that he finds it; when he seeks ignominy, it is a breath blowing -from an invisible darkness which brings it to his nerves. In evoking -singular landscapes, he invents the _bizarre._ When he is concerned with -the tragic passions of difficult souls, he drags them suddenly out of -some obscure covering, and seems, in some of his extravagances, to set -them naked before us. - -As it is Pater who says that inextricably mingled with those qualities -there is an element of mockery, "so that, whether in sorrow or scorn, he -caricatures Dante even," I am reminded of certain of Botticelli's -designs for Dante's _inferno_, in which I find the element of -caricature; as, for instance, when the second head grows on Dante's -shoulders, looking backward; as, in the face of Beatrice, which is -changed into a tragic mask, because in the poem she refrains from -smiling, lest the radiance of the seventh heaven, drawn into her eyes, -shall shrivel Dante into ashes. - -Nearest to Leonardo in the sinister quality of his genius is El Greco. I -have never forgotten his _Dream of Philip II_, in the Escurial, where -there is a painted hell that suggests the fierce material hells of -Hieronymus von Bosch: a huge fanged mouth wide open, the damned seen -writhing in that red cavern, a lake of flame awaiting those beyond, -where the king, dressed in black, kneels at the side. It is almost a -vision of madness, and as if this tormented brain of the fanatic, who -built these prison walls about himself, and shut himself living into a -tomb-like cell, and dead into a more tomb-like crypt, had wrought itself -into the painter's brain; who would have found something not uncongenial -to himself in this mountainous place of dust and gray granite, in which -every line is rigid, every color ashen, in a kind of stony immobility -more terrible than any other of the images of death. - -I am tempted to bring in here, by way of comparison with these two -artists, Jacques Callot, a painter of extraordinary genius, born at -Nancy, in Lorraine, in 1592; who, in many of his works, created over -again ancient dragons and devils: created them with the fury of an -invention that never rested. In his engraving of the hanged men there is -that strangeness in beauty which takes away much of the horror of the -actual thing; and in his monstrous and malignant _Fantasie_, where two -inhuman creatures--in all the splendor of caricature--grind I know not -what poison, in a wide-mouthed jar, plumed and demoniacal. - -_La Tentation de Saint Antoine_, done in 1635, is stupendous. High in -the sky is the enormous figure of a reptile-faced Satan, who vomits out -of his mouth legions of evil spirits; he is winged with ferocious wings -that extend on both sides hugely; one of his clawed hands is chained, -the right hurls out lightning. There is Chaos in this composition; it is -imaginative in the highest degree of that satanical quality that -produces monstrosities. There are clawed creatures that swim in the air, -unicorns with stealthy glances. And, with his wonderful sense of design, -the saint is seen outside his cave, assailed by legions of naked women, -winged and wanton, shameless and shameful. And what is the aim, what is -the desire of these evil creatures? To seduce Saint Antony of the -Temptations. - -Another picture painted on the same subject is that of Gruneweld in the -Cologne Museum, which represents a tortured creature who has floated -sheer off the earth in his agony, his face drawn inward, as it were, -with hideous pains; near him a crew of red and green devils, crab-like, -dragon-like, who squirm and gnaw and bark and claw at him, in an obscene -whirl and fierce orgy of onslaught. Below, a strange bar of sunset and -at the side a row of dripping trees; behind, a black sky almost -crackling with color. In some of the other monstrous pictures I saw -suggestions of Beardsley; as in the child who kisses the Virgin with -thrust-out lips; in those of Meister van S. Severin, in which I found a -conception of nature as unnatural and as rigid as that of the Japanese, -but turned hideous with hard German reality, as in the terrifying dolls -who are meant to be gracious in the Italian manner. And in this room I -was obliged to sit in the midst of a great heat, where blood drips from -all the walls, where tormented figures writhe among bright-colored -tormentors; where there is a riot of rich cloths, gold and jewels, of -unnatural beasts, of castles and meadows, in which there is nothing -exquisite; only an unending cruelty in things. The very colors cry out -at one; they grimace at you; a crucified thief bends back over the top -of the cross in his struggles; all around monsters spawn out of every -rock and cavern and there is hell fire. - -To turn from these to the Cranachs in Vienna is to be in another world -of art: an art more purposely perverse, more curiously unnatural; but, -where his genius is shown at its greatest, is in an exquisite Judith -holding the head of Holofernes, which lies, open-eyed, all its red -arteries visible, painted delicately. She wears orange and red clothes, -with collars and laces, and slashed sleeves through which many rings are -seen on her fingers; she has a large red hat placed jauntily on her -head. She is all peach-blossom and soft, half-cruel sweetness with all -the wicked indifference of her long narrow eyes, the pink mouth and -dimpled chin. She is a somnambulist, and the sword she holds is scarcely -stained. There are two drops of blood on the table on which she rests -the great curled head with its open eyes; her fingers rest on the -forehead almost caressingly. She is _Monna Lisa_, become German and -bourgeoise, having certainly forgotten the mysterious secret of which -she still keeps the sign on her face. - -Writing in Florence on Leonardo da Vinci I used by way of comparison two -Greek marbles I had seen in London; one, the head of an old man, which -is all energy and truth--comparable only in Greek work, with the drunken -woman in Munich, and, in modern art, with _La Vieille Heaulmière_ of -Rodin; the other, a woman's head, which ravishes the mind. The lips and -eyes have no expression by which one can remember them; but some -infinitely mysterious expression seems to flow through them as through -the eyes and lips of a woman's head by Leonardo. And all this reminds me -of certain unforgettable impressions; and, most of all, when in Bologna -I saw, in the Museo Civico, the spoils of Etruscan sepulchres, that -weighed on me heavily; and, at the same time, I felt an odor of death, -such as I had not even felt in Pompeii; where in so frightful a step -backward of twenty centuries, the mind reels, clutching at that somewhat -pacifying thought, for at least its momentary relief. Here were the -bodies of men and women, molded for ever in the gesture of their last -moment, and these rigid corpses are as vivid in their interrupted life -as the damp corpses in the morgue. In Bologna, as I was pursued by the -sight of the hairpins of dead women, there flashed on me this wonderful -sentence of Leonardo: "Helen, when she looked in her mirror, seeing the -withered wrinkles made in her face by old age, wept and wondered why she -had twice been carried away." - -But, as I walked back at night in those desolate streets--so essentially -desolate after the warmth of Naples--on my way back to the hotel where -Byron lived, before his evil genius hurried him to an early death, I -remembered these two sentences in his letters; one, when in Florence, he -returns from a picture-gallery "drunk with beauty"; one, where, as he -sees the painted face of a learned lady, he cries: "This is the kind of -face to go mad for, because it can not walk out of its frame." There, it -seems to me, that Byron, whose instinct was uncertain, has, by instinct, -in this sentence, anticipated a great saying of Whistler's. It was one -of his aims in portrait painting to establish a reasonable balance -between the man as he sits in the chair and the image of the man -reflected back to you from the canvas. "The one aim," he wrote, "of the -unsuspecting painter is to make his man 'stand out' from the -frame--never doubting that, on the contrary, he should, and in truth -absolutely does, stand within the frame--and at a distance behind it -equal to the distance at which the painter has seen it. The frame is, -indeed, the window through which the painter looks at his model, and -nothing could be more offensively inartistic than this brutal attempt to -thrust the model on the hither-side of this window!" He never proposed, -in a picture, to give you something which you could mistake for reality: -but frankly, a picture, a thing which was emphatically not nature, -because it was art; whereas, in Degas, the beauty is a part of truth, a -beauty which our eyes are too jaded to distinguish in the things about -us. - -In the Ambrosiane in Milan, beside two wonderful portraits, once -attributed to Leonardo, and coming near to being worthy of him, are his -grotesque drawings that are astonishing in their science, truth and -naked beauty. Each is a quite possible, but horrible and abnormal, -exaggeration of one or another part of the face, which becomes bestial -and indeed almost incredible, without ceasing to be human. It is this -terrible seriousness that renders them so dreadful: old age, vice and -disease made visible. - -In another room there are many of his miraculously beautiful -drawings--the loveliest drawings in the world. Note, for instance, the -delicious full face drawing of a child with an enchanting pout. The -women's faces are miracles. After these all drawings, and their method, -seem obvious. The perfect love and understanding with which he follows -the outline of a lovely cheek, or of a bestial snout; there is equal -beauty, because there is equal reverence, in each. After this the -Raphael cartoon (for the Vatican _School of Athens_) seems merely -skilful, a piece of consummate draughtsmanship; supremely adequate but -entirely without miracle. - -In one of Leonardo's drawings in Florence there is a small Madonna and -Child that peeps sidewise in half reassured terror, as a huge griffin -with bat-like wings--stupendous in invention--descends suddenly from the -air to snatch up a lion wandering near them. This might perhaps have -been one of his many designs for the famous _Medusa--Aspecta Medusa_--in -the Uffizi; for to quote Pater's interpretation of this corpse-like -creation, "the fascination of corruption penetrates in every line its -exquisitely finished beauty. About the dainty lines of the cheek the bat -flies unheeded. The delicate snakes seem literally to strangle each -other in terrified struggle to escape the Medusa brain. The hue which -violent death brings with it is in the features." It is enough to -compare any grotesque or evil head in the finest of Beardsley's drawings -with Leonardo's head of Judas in the Windsor Library, or with one of -those malevolent and malignant heads full of the energy of the beasts he -represents and of insane fury which he scatters over the pages of his -sketchbook, to realize that, in Beardsley, the thing drawn must remain -ugly through all the beauty of the drawing and must hurt. - -It hurts because he desires to hurt every one except himself, knowing, -all the time, that he was more hated than loved. Sin is to him a -diabolical beauty, not always divided against itself. Always in his work -is sin--Sin conscious of sin, of an inability to escape from itself; -transfigured often into ugliness and then transfigured from ugliness -back to beauty. Having no convictions, he can when he chooses make -patterns that assume the form of moral judgments. - - - - -IV - - -Leonardo da Vinci's unfinished _Saint Jerome_, in the Vatican at Rome, -is exactly like intarsia work; the ground almost black, the men and the -lion a light brown. This particular way of painting reminds me of the -intarsia work in the halls in Santo Spirito in Bergamo by Fra Damiano in -1520; done just one year after Leonardo died. Here, in this supple and -vigorous work in wood, I saw what could be done by a fine artist in the -handling of somewhat intractable material. The work was broad or minute -at will, with splendid masses and divisions of color in some designs -which seemed to represent the Deluge, sharp, clear, firmly outlined in -the patterns of streets and houses; full of rich color in the setting of -wood against wood, and at times almost as delicate as a Japanese design. -There was the head of John the Baptist laid on a stone slab, which was -like a drawing of Daumier. And, in the whole composition of the design, -with its two ovals set on each side like mirrors for the central horror, -there was perfect balance. San Acre, this superb intarsia work of Fra -Damiano, seemed a criticism on Lotto, the criticism of a thing, -comparatively humble in itself, but in itself wholly satisfying, upon -the failure of a more conspicuous endeavor, which has made its own place -in art, to satisfy certain primary demands which one may logically make -upon it. - -In the Jerome, as in his finished work, one sees Leonardo's undeviating -devotion to the perfect achievement of everything to which he set his -hand; and how, after a long lapse of time, in the heat of the day, he -crosses Florence to mount the scaffold, adds two or three touches to a -single figure, and returns forthwith. Never did Michelangelo paint in -such various ways as Leonardo; for, in his frescoes in the Sistine -Chapel, art ceases to approach one directly, through this sense or that, -through color, or some fancied outlook of the soul; only, one seems to -be of the same vivid and eternal world as these meditative and joyous -beings, joyous even in hell, where the rapture of their torment broods -in eyes and limbs with the same energy as the rapture of God in -creation, of the women in disobedience. - -Certainly, however, in the Jerome there is a glimpse of background in -which I find already the suggestion of the magical rocks of the _Virgin_ -and of _Monna Lisa_; only it is sketched in green, and in it there are -gaunt brown rocks, which seem to open on another glimpse in yellow. All -of the outline is gaunt, both the saint and his rocky cave; only not the -lion, who is the most ample and living beast I have ever seen attendant -on any Jerome. All the lines are outlined; the painful but not grotesque -anatomy of the saint and of the sharp angles of the rocks, are painted -in dim, almost uniform, tones. Is the picture rhetorical, like the other -Saint Jeromes, or does it in some subtle fashion escape? It seems to me -to escape, retaining only the inevitable violence of gesture and the -agony of emotion in body and face; together with an immense dignity, -loneliness and obscure suffering. - -Leonardo, who was in Venice in 1500, certainly must have seen Titian's -early _Annunciation_ in the Scuola di San Rocco; which is a rebuke to -Tintoretto's explosive _Crucifixion._ Before this picture it struck me -that Tintoretto is the Zola of painting. Here, in this immense drama of -paint, is a drama in which the central emotion is lacking; Christ is no -more than the robber who is being nailed to the cross or the robber -whose cross is being hoisted. Every part of the huge and bustling scene -has equal interest, equal intensity; and it is all an interest and -intensity of execution--which in its way is stupendous. But there is no -awe, no religious sense. The beauty of detail is enormous, the energy -overwhelming; but there is no nobility, no subtlety; it is a tumultuous -scene painted to cover a wall. - -In the Old Pinakothek in Munich the finest piece of paint in the Gallery -is the _Scourging of Christ_ by Titian. The modern point of view, indeed -most modern art, has come out of it--equally in Watts and in Monticelli -and in the Impressionists. We see Titian breaking the achieved rules, at -the age of ninety, inventing an art absolutely new, a new way, a more -immediate way of rendering what he sees, with all that moving beauty of -life in action: lights, colors, and not forms merely, all in movement. -The depth and splendor of a moment are caught, with all the beauty of -every accident in which color comes or changes, and in the space of a -moment. Color is no longer set against color, each for itself, with its -own calm beauty; but each tone rushes with exquisite violence into the -embrace of another tone; there are fierce adulteries of color unheard of -till now. And a new, adorable, complete thing is born, which is to give -life to all the painting that is to come after it It seems as if paint -at last had thoroughly mastered its own language. - -I have always believed that Giorgione, born in 1478, one year before the -birth of Titian, played in the development of Venetian Art a part -exactly the same as that played by Marlowe, born in the same year as -Shakespeare, in the history of tragic Drama. Shakespeare never forgot -Marlowe, Titian never forgot Giorgione; only the influence of his -predecessor on Shakespeare was a passing one; that of Giorgione on -Titian was, until he finally escaped from his influence, immense. It is -from Andrea del Verrocchio that Leonardo begins to learn the art of -painting; soon surpasses him; but, as Pater supposes, catches from him -his love of beautiful toys. Giorgione possesses perfection without -excess; Leonardo's absolute perfection often leads him into passionate -excesses. He adored hair; and certainly hair, mostly women's hair, is -the most mysterious of human things. No one ever experimented in more -amazing ways than he did; but his experiment in attempting to invent a -medium of using oils in the painting of frescoes failed him in what -might have been his masterpiece, _The Last Supper_, painted on the damp -wall of the refectory, oozing with mineral salts, of the Chaedo Vinciano -in Milan. One looks at it as through a veil, which Time seems to have -drawn over it, even when it is most cracked and chipped. Or it is as if -it had soaked inward, the plaster sullenly absorbing all the color and -all but the life. It is one of the few absolute things in the world, -still; here, for once, a painter who is the subtlest of painters has -done a great, objective thing, a thing in the grand style, supreme, and -yet with no loss of subtlety. It is in a sense the measure of his -greatness. It proves that the painter of _Monna Lisa_ means the power to -do anything. - - - - -IMPRESSIONISTIC WRITING - - -Impressionistic writing requires the union of several qualities; and to -possess all these qualities except one, no matter which, is to fail in -impressionistic writing. The first thing is to see, and with an eye -which sees all, and as if one's only business were to see; and then to -write, from a selecting memory, and as if one's only business were to -write. It is the interesting heresy of a particular kind of art to seek -truth before beauty; but in an impressionistic art concerned, as the art -of painting is, with the revelation, the re-creation, of a colored and -harmonious world, which (they tell us) owes its very existence to the -eyes which see it, truth is a quality which can be attained only by him -who seeks beauty before truth. The truth impressionist may be imagined -as saying: "Suppose I wish to give you an impression of the Luxembourg -Gardens, as I see them when I look out of my window, will it help to -call up in your mind the impression of those glimmering alleys and the -naked darkness of the trees, if I begin by telling you that I can count -seven cabs, half another at one end, and a horse's head at the other, in -the space between the corner of the Odéon and the houses on the -opposite side of the street; that there are four trees and three -lamp-posts on the pavement; and that I can read the words 'Chocolat -Menier,' in white letters, on a blue ground, upon the circular black -kiosk by the side of the second lamppost? I see those things, no doubt, -unconsciously, before my eye travels as far as the railings of the -garden; but are they any essential part of my memory of the scene -afterward?" - -I have turned over page after page of clever, ingenious summarizing of -separate detail in a certain book, but I have found nowhere a page of -pure beauty; all is broken, jagged, troubled, in this restless search -after the broken and jagged outlines of things. It is all little bits of -the world seen without atmosphere, and, in spite of many passages which -endeavor to draw a moral from clouds, gas, flowers and darkness, seen -without sentiment. When the writer describes to us "the old gold and -scarlet of hanging meat; the metallic green of mature cabbages; the -wavering russet of piled potatoes; the sharp white of fly-bills, pasted -all awry;" we can not doubt that he has seen exactly what he describes, -exactly as he describes it, and, to a certain extent, we too see what he -describes to us. But he does not, as Huysmans does in the _Croquis -Parisiens_, absolutely force the sight of it upon us, so that we see it, -perhaps with horror, but in spite of ourselves we see it. Nor does he, -when some vague encounter on the road has called up in him a "sense of -the ruthless nullity of life, of the futile deception of effort, of -bitter revolt against the extinction of death, a yearning after faith in -a vague survival beyond," convey to us the impression which he has felt -in such a way that we, too, feel it, and feel it to be the revelation of -the inner meaning of just that landscape, just that significant moment. -He has but painted a landscape, set an inexpressive figure in the -background, and ticketed the frame with a motto which has nothing to do -with the composition. - -In this book the writer has not, it seems to me, succeeded in his -intention; but I have a further fault to find with the intention itself. -It is one of the discreditable signs of the haste and heedlessness of -our time that artists are coming to content themselves, more and more, -with but sketching out their pictures, instead of devoting themselves to -the patient labor of painting them; and that they are anxious to invent -an excuse for their idleness by proclaiming the superiority of the -unfinished, instinctive first draught over the elaborated, scarcely -spontaneous work of finished art. A fine composition may, in the most -subtle and delicate sense, be slight: a picture of Whistler, for -example, a poem of Verlaine. To be slight, as Whistler, as Verlaine, is -slight, is to have refined away, by a process of ardent, often of -arduous, craftsmanship, all but what is most essential in outward form, -in intellectual substance. It is because a painter, a poet of this kind, -is able to fill every line, every word, with so intense a life, that he -can afford to dispense with that amplification, that reiterance, which -an artist of less passionate vitality must needs expend upon the -substance of his art. But it is so easy to be brief without being -concise; to leave one's work unfinished, simply because one has not the -energy to finish it! This book, like most experiments in writing prose -as if one were writing sonnets, is but a collection of notes, whose only -value is that they may some day be worked into the substance of a story -or an essay. It has not yet been proved--in spite of the many -interesting attempts which have been made, chiefly in France, in spite -of _Gaspard de la Nuit_, Baudelaire's _Petits Poèmes en Prose_, and -Mallarmé's jeweled fragments--that prose can, quite legitimately, be -written in this detached, poetic way, as if one were writing sonnets. It -seems to me that prose, just because it is prose, and not poetry--an art -of vaguer, more indeterminate form, of more wandering cadences--can -never restrict itself within those limits which give the precision of -its charm to verse, without losing charm, precision, and all the finer -qualities of its own freedom. - -In France, as in England, there are two kinds of poetical reputation, -and in France these two kinds may be defined as the reputation of the -Latin Quarter and the reputation of the boulevards. In England a writer -like Francis Thompson was, after all, known to only a very narrow -circle, even though many, in that circle, looked on him as the most -really poetical poet of his generation. In France, Vielé-Griffin is -greatly admired by the younger men, quite as much, perhaps, as De -Régnier, but he is not read by the larger outside public which has, at -all events, heard of De Régnier. These fine shades of reputation are -not easily recognized by the foreigner; they have, indeed, nothing to do -with the question of actual merit; but they have, all the same, their -interest, if only as an indication of the condition and tendency of -public opinion. - -If we go further, and try to compare the actual merit of the younger -French and English poets, we shall find some difficulty in coming to any -very definite conclusion. To certain enthusiasts for exotic things, it -has seemed as if the mere fact of a poem being written in French gives -it an interest which it could not have had if it had been written in -English. When the poem was written by Verlaine or by Mallarmé, yes; but -now that Verlaine and Mallarmé are gone? Well, there is still something -which gives, or seems to give, French verse an advantage over English. -The movement which began with Baudelaire, and culminated in Verlaine, -has provided, for every young man who is now writing French verse, a -very helpful kind of tradition, which leaves him singularly free within -certain definite artistic limits. It shows him, not a fixed model, but -the suggestion of innumerable ways in which to be himself. All modern -French verse is an attempt to speak straight, and at the same time to -speak beautifully. "_L'art, mes enfants, c'est d'être absolument -soi-même,_" said Verlaine, and all these poets who are writing vers -libre, and even those who are not writing _vers libre_, are content to -be absolutely themselves, and to leave externalities perhaps even too -much alone. What we see in England is exactly the contrary. We have had -our traditions, and we have worn them out, without discovering a new -form for ourselves. When we try to be personal in verse, the personal -emotion has to mold anew every means of expression, every time; and it -is rarely that we succeed in so difficult a task. For the most part we -write poems for the sake of writing poems, choosing something outside -ourselves to write about, and bringing it into permanent relation with -ourselves. Our English verse-writers offer us a ballad, a sonnet, an -eclogue; and it is a flower without a root, springing from no deep soil -in the soul. The verse is sometimes excellent verse, but it is not a -personal utterance; it is not a mood of a temperament, but something -outside a temperament. In France, it is true, we often get the -temperament and nothing else. And, in France, all these temperaments -seem stationary; they neither change nor develop; they remain -self-centered, and in time we become weary of seeing their pale -reflections of themselves. Here, we become weary of poets who see -everything in the world but themselves, and who have no personal hold -upon the universe without. Between the too narrowly personal and a too -generalized impersonality, there remains, in France and in England, a -little exquisite work, which is poetry. Is it important, or even -possible, to decide whether there is a little more of it to be found in -the books of English or of French poets? - - - - -PARADOXES ON POETS - - -The great period of English poetry begins half-way through the sixteenth -century, and lasts half-way into the seventeenth. In the poetry strictly -of the sixteenth century, before the drama had absorbed poetry into the -substance of its many energies, verse is used as speech, and becomes -song by way of speech. It was the age of youth, and rejoiced, as youth -does, in scarcely tried strength and in the choice of adventure. And it -was an adventure to write. Soldiers and voyagers, Sidney, Raleigh, led -the way as on horses and in ships. It is Raleigh, in the preface to a -deeply meditated "History of the World," who speaks gallantly of -"leisure to have made myself a fool in print." New worlds had been found -beyond the sea, and were to be had for the finding in all the regions of -the mind. There were buried worlds of the mind which had lately been dug -up, lands had been newly colonized, in Italy and in France; à kind of -second nature, it seemed to men in those days, which might be used not -less freely than nature itself. And, just as the Renaissance in Italy -was a new discovery of the mind, through a return to what had been found -out in antiquity and buried during the Middle Ages, so, in England, -poetry came to a consciousness of itself by way of what had already been -discovered by poets like Petrarch and Ronsard, and even their later apes -and mimics, Serafino or Desportes, among those spoils. Poetry had to be -reawakened, and these were the messengers of dawn. Once awakened, the -English tongue could but sing, for a while, to borrowed tunes; yet it -sang with its own voice, and the personal accent brought a new quality -into the song. Song-writers and sonnet-writers, when they happened to be -poets, found out themselves by the way, and not least when they thought -they were doing honor to a foreign ideal. - -And it was an age of music. Music, too, had come from Italy, and had -found for once a home there. Music, singing and dancing made then, and -then only, the "merry England" of the phrase. And the words, growing out -of the same soil as the tunes, took equal root. Campion sums up for us a -whole period, and the song-books have preserved for us names, but for -them unknown, of perfect craftsmen in the two arts. Every man, by the -mere feeling and fashion of the time, took care - - -to write -Worthy the reading and the world's delight. - - -It was an age of personal utterance; and men spoke frankly, without -restraint, too nice choosing, or any of the timidities or exaggerations -of self-consciousness. The personal utterance might take any form; -whether Fulke Greville wrote "treatises" on the mind of man, or Drayton -pried into the family affairs of the fairies, or Samuel Daniel thought -out sonnets to Delia, or Lodge wantoned in cadences and caprices of the -senses. It might seem but to pass on an alien message, in as literal a -translation as it could compass of a French or Italian poem. In the hand -of a poet two things came into the version: magic, and the personal -utterance, if in no other way, through the medium of style. - -Style, to the poets of the sixteenth century, was much of what went to -the making of that broad simplicity, that magnificently obvious -eloquence, which seems to us now to have the universal quality of the -greatest poetry. The poets of the nineteenth century are no nearer to -nature, though they seem more individual because they have made an art -of extracting rare emotions, and because they take themselves to pieces -more cunningly. Drayton's great sonnet is the epilogue, and Spenser's -great poem the epithalamium, for all lovers; but it needs another -Shelley to find out love in the labyrinth of "Epipsychidion." All that -is greatest in the poetry of the sixteenth century is open to all the -world, like a wood, or Arcadia, in which no road is fenced with -prohibitions, and the flowers are all for the picking. - -And when, in the nineteenth century, poetry began again, it was to the -poets of the sixteenth century that the new poets looked back, finding -the pattern there for what they were making over again for themselves. A -few snatches from Elizabethan song-books were enough to direct the first -awakenings of song in Blake; Wordsworth found his gnomic and rational -style, as of a lofty prose, in Samuel Daniel; Keats rifled the best -sweets of Lodge's orchard; and Shelley found in the elegies of Michael -Drayton the model of his incomparable style of familiar speech in verse, -the style of the _Letter to Maris Gisborne._ Every reader of modern -verse will find something contemporary in even the oldest of these -poems; partly because modern verse is directly founded on this verse of -the sixteenth century, and partly because the greatest poetry is -contemporary with all ages. - -Byron is to be judged by the whole mountainous mass of his world and not -by any fragment of colored or glittering spar which one's pick may have -extricated from the precipitous hillside. His world is a kind of natural -formation, high enough to climb, and wide enough to walk On. There is -hard climbing and heavy walking, but, once there, the air braces and the -view is wide. - -In making a selection from this large and uneven mass of poetry, it is -difficult to do justice to a writer who was almost never a really good -writer of verse, except in a form of what he rightly defined as -"nondescript and ever-varying rhyme." The seriocomic ottava rima of _Don -Juan_ and _The Vision of Judgment_ is the only meter which Byron ever -completely mastered; and it is only in those unique poems, in which -Goethe detected, for the first time in modern poetry, a "classically -elegant comic style," that Byron is wholly able to express the new -quality which he brought into English literature in a wholly personal, -or at all satisfying, way. From the first he was a new force, but a -force unconscious of direction, with all the uncouthness of nature in -convulsions. He had a strong, direct, and passionate personality, but we -find him, even in the better parts of _Childe Harold_, putting rhetoric -in the place of that simplicity which he was afterward to discover by -accident, as in jest; we find him, throughout almost the whole of the -poetical romances, a mere masquerader in Eastern frippery, which is -scarcely the better because it happened to have been bought on the spot; -we find him, in his serious reflections, either quite sensible and quite -obvious, or, as in addresses to the ocean, and the like, straining on -tiptoe toward heights that can only be reached by wings. His lyric verse -was always without magic, and only now and then, and chiefly in the -lines beginning "When we two parted," was he able to turn speech into a -kind of emphatic and intense chant, into which poetry comes as a kind of -momentary suspension of the emphasis. His rendering of actual sensation, -as in parts of _Mazeppa_, is the nearest approach to poetry which he -made in those poems which were supposed to be the very voice of passion. -Everything that he wrote in blank verse, and consequently the whole of -the plays, is vitiated by his incapacity to handle that meter, or indeed -to distinguish it, in any vital or audible way, from prose. Now and -again personal feeling flung off the ill-fitting and constraining -clothes of rhetoric, and stood up naked; sentiments of resentment, -against his wife, or against the world, or against himself, made poetry -sometimes. Then, as it was to be under other conditions in the later -work, his flame is the burning of much dross: excellent food for flames. - -And yet, out of all this writing which is hardly literature, this poetry -which is hardly verse, there comes, even to the reader of to-day, for -whom "the grand Napoleon of the realms of rhyme" is as dead and buried -as Napoleon, some inexplicable thrill, appeal, potency; Byron still -lives, and we shall never cease to read almost his worst work, because -some warmth of his life comes through it. Almost everything that he -wrote was written for relief, and its effect on us is due to something -never actually said in it; it is a kind of wild dramatic speech of some -person in a play, whose words become weighty, tragic and pathetic -because of the fierce light thrown upon them by a significant character -and by transfiguring circumstances. - -When Byron wrote to Murray, "You might as well want a midnight all stats -as rhyme all perfect," he was theorizing over his own failure to achieve -sustained excellence on any one level Luckily he carried the theory, in -his own downright way, into practise, and, in the "versified Aurora -Borealis" of the great comic poems, the defect turns into a quality, and -creates what is really a new poetical form. Byron is a heroical Buffoon, -the great jester of English poetry; and he is this because he is the -only English poet who is wholly buoyant, arrogant and irresponsible. "I -never know the word which will come next," he boasts, in _Don Juan_, and -for once, improvisation becomes a means to an end, almost an end in -itself. It is in the comic verse, strangely enough, that the first real -mastery over form shows itself: a genius for rhyme which becomes a new -music and decoration, as of cap and bells on the head of sober marching -verse, and a genius for plain statement which leaves prose behind in -mere fighting force, and glorifies fighting force with a divine natural -illumination. - - - - -THE END - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Dramatis Personae, by Arthur Symons - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DRAMATIS PERSONAE *** - -***** This file should be named 62270-0.txt or 62270-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/2/2/7/62270/ - -Produced by Laura Natal Rodrigues at Free Literature (Images -generously made available by Hathi Trust.) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll -have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using -this ebook. - - - -Title: Dramatis Personae - -Author: Arthur Symons - -Release Date: May 29, 2020 [EBook #62270] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DRAMATIS PERSONAE *** - - - - -Produced by Laura Natal Rodrigues at Free Literature (Images -generously made available by Hathi Trust.) - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> -<img src="images/dramatis_cover.jpg" width="500" alt="" /> -</div> - - - -<h2>DRAMATIS PERSONÆ</h2> - -<h4>BY</h4> - -<h3>ARTHUR SYMONS</h3> - -<h4>INDIANAPOLIS</h4> - -<h4>THE BOOBS-MERRILL COMPANY</h4> - - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - -<h4>PUBLISHER'S NOTE</h4> - - -<p>Although it would be presumptuous to introduce the work of Arthur -Symons, a word or two about this particular collection may not be out of -place. A number of these essays have appeared in representative American -and English periodicals, but their preservation here needs no apology as -they have already earned a meritorious place in the bibliography of -English criticism. The publisher believes, also, that the critical -reader must realize the futility of any attempt to correct discrepancies -due to the death of contemporaries, or augmentations to their work, lest -the essays as originally conceived by the author suffer in spirit.</p> - - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - -<h4>CONTENTS</h4> - -<p><a href="#Conrad">CONRAD</a><br /> -<a href="#Maurice_Maeterlinck">MAURICE MAETERLINCK</a><br /> -<a href="#Emily_Bronte">EMILY BRONTË</a><br /> -<a href="#On_English_and_French_Fiction">ON ENGLISH AND FRENCH FICTION</a><br /> -<a href="#On_Criticism">ON CRITICISM</a><br /> -<a href="#The_Decadent_Movement_in_Literature">THE DECADENT MOVEMENT IN LITERATURE</a><br /> -<a href="#The_Rossettis">THE ROSSETTIS</a><br /> -<a href="#Confessions_and_Comments">CONFESSIONS AND COMMENTS</a><br /> -<a href="#Francis_Thompson">FRANCIS THOMPSON</a><br /> -<a href="#Coventry_Patmore">COVENTRY PATMORE</a><br /> -<a href="#Sir_William_Watson">SIR WILLIAM WATSON</a><br /> -<a href="#Emil_Verhaeren">EMIL VERHAEREN</a><br /> -<a href="#A_Neglected_Genius_Sir_Richard_Burton">A NEGLECTED GENIUS: SIR RICHARD BURTON</a><br /> -<a href="#Edgar_Saltus">EDGAR SALTUS</a><br /> -<a href="#Recollections_of_Rejane">RECOLLECTIONS OF RÉJANE</a><br /> -<a href="#The_Russian_Ballets">THE RUSSIAN BALLETS</a><br /> -<a href="#On_Hamlet_and_Hamlets">ON HAMLET AND HAMLETS</a><br /> -<a href="#Leonardo_da_Vinci">LEONARDO DA VINCI</a><br /> -<a href="#Impressionistic_Writing">IMPRESSIONISTIC WRITING</a><br /> -<a href="#Paradoxes_on_Poets">PARADOXES ON POETS</a></p> - - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - -<h4>DRAMATIS PERS0NÆ</h4> - - - - -<h4><a id="Conrad">CONRAD</a></h4> - - -<p>"<i>The Earth is a Temple where there is going on a Mystery Play, childish -and poignant, ridiculous and awful enough in all conscience.</i>"</p> - - -<h4>I</h4> - - -<p>Conrad's inexplicable mind has created for itself a secret world to live -in, some corner stealthily hidden away from view, among impenetrable -forests, on the banks of untraveled rivers. From that corner, like a -spider in his web, he throws out tentacles into the darkness; he gathers -in his spoils, he collects them like a miser, stripping from them their -dreams and visions to decorate his web magnificently. He chooses among -them, and sends out into the world shadowy messengers, for the troubling -of the peace of man, self-satisfied in his ignorance of the invisible. -At the center of his web sits an elemental sarcasm discussing human -affairs with a calm and cynical ferocity; "that particular field whose -mission is to jog the memories of men, lest they should forget the -meaning of life." Behind that sarcasm crouches some ghastly influence, -outside humanity, some powerful devil, invisible, poisonous, -irresistible, spawning evil for his delight. They guard this secret -corner of the world with mists and delusions, so that very few of those -to whom the shadowy messengers have revealed themselves can come nearer -than the outer edge of it.</p> - -<p>Beyond and below this obscure realm, beyond and below human nature -itself, Conrad is seen through the veil of the persons of his drama, -living a hidden, exasperated life. And it is by his sympathy with these -unpermitted things, the "aggravated witch-dance" in his brain, that -Conrad is severed from all material associations, as if stupendously -uncivilized, consumed by a continual protest, an insatiable thirst, -unsatisfied to be condemned to the mere exercise of a prodigious -genius.</p> - -<p>Conrad's depth of wisdom must trouble and terrify those who read him for -entertainment. There are few secrets in the mind of men or in the -pitiless heart of nature that he has not captured and made his -plaything. He calls up all the dreams and illusions by which men have -been destroyed and saved, and lays them mockingly naked. He is the -master of dreams, the interpreter of illusions, the chronicler of -memory. He shows the bare side of every virtue, the hidden heroism of -every vice or crime. He calls up before him all the injustices that have -come to birth out of ignorance and self-love. He shows how failure is -success, and success failure, and that the sinner can be saved. His -meanest creatures have in them a touch of honor, of honesty, or of -heroism; his heroes have always some error, weakness, a mistake, some -sin or crime, to redeem. And in all this there is no judgment, only an -implacable comprehension, as of one outside nature, to whom joy and -sorrow, right and wrong, savagery and civilization, are equal and -indifferent.</p> - -<p>Reality, to Conrad, is non-existent; he sees through it into a realm of -illusion of the unknown: a world that is comforting and bewildering, -filled with ghosts and devils, a world of holy terror. Always is there -some suggestion of a dark region, within and around one; the -consciousness that "They made a whole that had features, shades of -expression, a complicated aspect that could be remembered by the eye, -and something else besides, something invisible, a directing spirit of -perdition that dwells within, like a malevolent soul in a detestable -body."</p> - -<p>"This awful activity of mind" is seen at work on every page, torturing -familiar words into strange meanings, clutching at cobwebs, in a -continual despair before the unknown. Something must be found, in the -most unlikely quarter; a word, a hint, something unsaid but guessed at -in a gesture, a change of face. "He turned upon me his eyes suddenly -amazed and full of pain, with a bewildered, startled face, as though he -had tumbled down from a star." There is a mental crisis in that look: -the unknown has suddenly opened.</p> - -<p>Memory, that inner voice, stealthy, an inveterate follower; memory, -Conrad has found out, is the great secret, the ecstasy and despair which -weave the texture of life. A motto from Amiel in one of his books -faintly suggests it: "<i>Qui de nous n'a eu sa terre promise, son jour -d'extase et sa fin en exil?</i>" And the book, <i>Almayer's Folly</i>, his -first, a rare and significant book, is just that. <i>An Outcast of the -Islands</i> has the despairing motto from Calderon, that better is it for a -man had he never been born. <i>Lord Jim</i> is the soul's tragedy, ending -after a long dim suffusion in clouds, in a great sunset, sudden and -final glory. No man lives wholly in his day; every hour of these -suspensive and foreboding days and nights is a part of the past or of -the future. Even in a splendid moment, a crisis, like the love scene of -Nina and Dain in the woods, there is no forgetfulness. "In the sublime -vanity of her kind she was thinking already of moulding a god out of the -clay at her feet. ... He spoke of his forefathers." Lord Jim, as he -dies, remembers why he is letting himself be killed, and in that -remembrance tastes heaven. How is it that no one except Conrad has got -to this hidden depth, where the soul really lives and dies, where, in an -almost perpetual concealment, it works out its plan, its own fate? -Tolstoy, Hawthorne, know something of it; but the one turns aside into -moral tracts, and the other to shadows and things spiritual. Conrad -gives us the soul's own dream of itself, as if a novelist of adventure -had turned Neo-Platonist.</p> - -<p>A woman once spoke to me in a phrase I have never forgotten, of Conrad's -sullen subjective vision. Sullen is a fine word for the aspect under -which he sees land and sea; sullen clouds, a sullen sea. And some of -that quality has come to form part of his mind, which is protesting, -supremely conscious. He is never indifferent to his people, rarely kind. -He sees them for the most part as they reveal themselves in suffering. -Now and then he gives them the full price, the glory, but rarely in this -life, or for more than a moment. How can those who live in suspense, -between memory and foreboding, ever be happy, except for some little -permitted while? The world for those who live in it, is a damp forest, -where savagery and civilization meet, and in vain try to mingle. Only -the sea, when they are out of sight of land, sometimes gives them -freedom.</p> - -<p>It is strange but true that Conrad's men are more subtly comprehended -and more magnificent than his women. There are few men who are seen full -length, and many of them are nameless shadows. Aissa and Nina in the -earliest books have the fierce charm of the unknown. In <i>Lord Jim</i> there -is only one glimpse of the painful mystery of a woman's ignorant heart. -In <i>Nostromo</i> the women are secondary, hardly alive; there is no -woman in <i>The Nigger of the Narcissus</i>, nor in <i>Typhoon</i>, nor in -<i>Youth.</i> There are some women, slightly seen, in Tales of Unrest, -and only one of them, the woman of <i>The Return</i>, is actually -characterized.</p> - -<p>Is there not something of an achievement in this stern rejection of the -obvious love-story, the material of almost every novel? Not in a single -tale, even when a man dies of regret for a woman, is the woman prominent -in the action. Almayer, and not Nina, is the center of the book named -after him. And yet Nina is strange, mysterious, enchanting, as no other -woman is to be. Afterward they are thrust back out of the story; they -come and go like spinners of Destiny, unconscious, ignorant, turning -idle wheels, like the two women knitting black wool in the waiting room -of the Trading Company's office, "guarding the door of Darkness."</p> - -<p>Now, can we conjecture why a woman has never been the center of any of -these stories? Conrad chooses his tools and his materials; he realizes -that men are the best materials for his tools. It is only men who can be -represented heroically upon the stage of life; who can be seen -adventuring doggedly, irresistibly, by sheer will and purpose; it is -only given to men to attain a visible glory of achievement. He sees -woman as a parasite or an idol, one of the illusions of men. He asks -wonderingly how the world can look at them. He shows men fearing them, -hating them, captivated, helpless, cruel, conquering. He rarely -indicates a great passion between man and woman; his men are passionate -after fame, power, success; they embrace the sea in a love-wrestle; they -wander down unsounded rivers and succumb to "the spell of the -wilderness;" they are gigantic in failure and triumph; they are the -children of the mightiness of the earth; but their love is the love of the -impossible. What room is there, in this unlimited world, for women? -"Oh, she is out of it—completely. They—the women I mean—are -out of it—should be out of it. We must help them to stay in that -beautiful world of their own, lets ours gets worse. Oh, she had to be -out of it."</p> - -<p>There is Karain, "clothed in the vision of unavoidable success," flying -before a shadow, comforting himself with the certainty of a charm. There -is Kurtz, who returns to barbarism, and Tuan Jim with his sacrifice of -life to honor, and even the dying nigger steersman who, shot through by -a spear, looks once on his master, "and the intimate profundity of that -look which he gave me when he received his hurt remains to this day in -my memory—like a claim of distant kinship affirmed in a supreme -moment." It is with this agonizing clearness, this pitiless mercy, that -Conrad shows us human beings. He loves them for their discontent, for -their revolt against reality, for their failure, their atonement, their -triumphs. And he loves them best because their love is the love of the -impossible; he loves them because they are part of the unknown.</p> - -<p>And so, it is <i>Lord Jim</i> in which his genius has attained its -zenith with <i>Karain</i> and <i>Heart of Darkness</i> close after it. -Consider the marvelous art, the suspense, the evasion of definite -statement, the overpowering profundity of it. To begin with, there is the -trick, one of Conrad's inextricable tricks of art, by which suspense is -scarcely concerned with action, but with a gradually revealed knowledge of -what might have happened in the making of a man. Take an instance in -<i>Nostromo.</i> There is Doctor Monyngham who comes in at the beginning of -the book comes and goes briefly up to the three hundredth page; and then -suddenly, <i>à propos</i> of nothing, the whole history of his troubles, the -whole explanation of what has seemed mysterious to him, is given in four -pages; whereupon the last sentence, four pages back, is caught up and -continued with the words: "That is why he hobbled in distress in the -Casa Gould on that morning." Now why is there this kind of hesitation? -Why is a disguise kept up so long and thrown off for no apparent reason? -It is merely one of his secrets, which is entirely his own; but another -of them he has learned from Balzac: the method of doubling or trebling -the interest by setting action within action, as a picture is set within -a frame. In <i>Youth</i> the man who is telling the story to more or less -indifferent hearers, times his narrative with a kind of refrain. ... "Pass -the bottle," he says whenever a pause seems to be necessary; and, -as the tale is ending, the final harmony is struck by an unexpected and -satisfying chord: "He drank.... He drank again."</p> - -<p>To find a greater novel than <i>Lord Jim</i>, we might have to go back -to <i>Don Quixote.</i> Like that immortal masterpiece, it is more than a -novel; it is life itself, and it is a criticism of life. Like Don Quixote, -Lord Jim, in his followings of a dream, encounters many rough handlings. -He has the same egoism, isolation, and conviction; the same interrupting -world about him, the same contempt of reality, the same unconsciousness -of the nature of windmills. In Marlow, he has quite a modern Sancho -Panza, disillusioned, but following his master. Certainly this -narrator of Jim's failures and successes represents them under the -obscure guidance of "a strange and melancholy illusion, evolved -half-unconsciously like all our illusions, which I suspect only to be -visions of remote unattainable truth, seen dimly." He is a soul "drunk -with the divine philtre of an unbounded confidence in himself." That -illusion is suddenly put to the test; he fails, he goes into the cloud, -emerges out of it, is struck gloriously dead.</p> - -<p>In <i>Lord Jim</i> Conrad has revealed, more finally than elsewhere, his -ideal: the ideal of an applauded heroism, the necessity of adding to -one's own conviction the world's acceptance and acclamation. In this -stupendous work, what secret of humanity is left untold? Only told, is -too definite a word. Here is Conrad's creed, his statement of things as -they are:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>It is when we try to grapple with another man's need that we perceive -how incomprehensible, wavering, and misty are the beings that share with -us the sight of the stars and the warmth of the sun. It is as if -loneliness were a hard and absolute condition of existence; the envelope -of flesh and blood on which our eyes are fixed melts before the -outstretched hand, and there remains only the capricious, unconsolable, -and elusive spirit that no eye can follow, no hand can grasp.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>"Man is amazing, but he is not a masterpiece," says some one in the -book, one of the many types and illustrations of men who have fallen -into a dream, all with some original sin to proclaim or conceal or -justify, men of honor, tottering phantoms clinging to a foul existence, -one crowding on another, disappearing, unrealized. All have their place, -literally or symbolically, in the slow working-out of the salvation of -Tuan Jim. Amazing they may be, but Jim "approaching greatness as genuine -as any man ever achieved," with the shame of his "jump" from a sinking -ship and his last fearless jump "into the unknown," his last -"extraordinary success," when, in one proud and unflinching glance, he -beholds "the face of that opportunity which, like an Eastern bride, had -come veiled to his side": amazing he may be, but a masterpiece, proved, -authentic, justifying Man.</p> - -<p>Next after this triumph, Karain is the greatest. It is mysterious, a -thing that haunts one by its extreme fascination; and in this, as in all -Conrad, there is the trial of life: first the trial, then the failure, -finally (but not quite always) the redemption. "As to Karain, nothing -could happen to him unless what happens to all—failure and death; but -his quality was to appear clothed in the illusion of unavoidable -success." And on what a gorgeous and barbaric and changing stage is this -obscure tragedy of the soul enacted! There is in it grave splendor. In -Conrad's imagination three villages on a narrow plain become a great -empire and their ruler a monarch.</p> - -<p>To read Conrad is to shudder on the edge of a gulf, in a silent -darkness. <i>Karain</i> is full of mystery, <i>Heart of Darkness</i> of an -unholy magic. "The fascination of the abomination—you know," the -teller of the story says for him, and "droll thing life is." The whole -narrative is an evocation of that "stillness of an implacable brooding over -an incalculable intention," and of the monstrous Kurtz who has been -bewitched by the "heavy mute spell of the wilderness that seems to draw -him to its pitiless breast by the awakening of forgotten and brutal -instincts, by the memory of gratified and monstrous passions; and this -alone had beguiled his unlawful soul beyond the bounds of permitted -aspiration." And it all ends with the cry: "The horror! The horror!" -called out in his last despair by a dying man. Gloomy, tremendous, this -has a deeper, because more inexplicable, agony than the tragedy of -<i>Karain.</i> Here, the darkness is unbroken; there is no remedy; body and -soul are drawn slowly and inevitably down under the yielding and -pestilent swamp. The failure seems irretrievable. We see nature casting -out one who had gone beyond nature. We see "the meanness, the torment, -the tempestuous anguish of a soul" that, in its last moment of earthly -existence, had peeped over the edge of the gulf, with a stare "that -could not see the flame of the candle, but was wide enough to embrace -the whole universe."</p> - -<p>With <i>Nostromo</i> we get a new manner and new scenery. The scene is -laid in Colombia, the Nuevo Granada of the Spaniards, and the silver mine -is its center, and around that fatal treasure-house the whole action moves. -The Spanish streets, glittering with heat, with their cool patios, -peopled by the Indians, the "whites," a cross between Spanish and -native, the Italians, the English, the Indian girls with long dark hair, -the Mozenitas with golden combs, are seen under strong sunlight with a -vivid actuality more accentuated than in any other of Conrad's scenes. A -sinister masquerade is going on in the streets, very unreal and very -real. There is the lingering death of Decoud on a deserted island ("he -died from solitude, the enemy known to few on this earth, and whom only -the simplest of us are fit to withstand"); the horrible agonies of -Hirsch; the vile survival of Doctor Monyngham. It is by profound and -futile seriousness that these persons and events take on an air of -irony, and are so comic as they endure the pains of tragedy.</p> - -<p>This strange novel is oddly constructed. It is a narrative in which -episode follows episode with little apparent connection. The first half -is a lengthy explanation of what the second part is to put into action. -It drags and seems endless, and might be defined by a sentence out of -the book, where some one "recognized a wearisome impressiveness in the -pompous manner of his narrative." Suddenly, with Nostromo's first -actualized adventure the story begins, the interest awakens, and it is -only now that Nostromo himself becomes actual. He has been suggested by -hints, indicated in faint outline. We have been told of his power and -influence, we see the admiration which surrounds him, but the man walks -veiled. His vanity, evident at the first, becomes colossal: "The man -remained astonishingly simple in the jealous greatness of his conceit." -Then, as he awakens one morning under the sky, he rises "as natural and -free from evil in the moment of waking as a magnificent and unconscious -wild beast." The figure greatens in his allegiance to the shining -spectre of the treasure, which makes him afraid because "he belonged -body and soul to the unlawfulness of his audacity." His death is -accidental, but, in Conrad's merciful last words, he has, after his -death, the "greatest, the most enviable, the most sinister of his -successes. In that true cry of love and grief that seemed to ring aloud -from Punta Mala to Azuera and away to the bright line of the horizon, -overhung by a big white cloud shining like a mass of solid silver, the -genius of the magnificent Capataz de Caegadores dominated the dark gulf -containing his conquests of treasure and love."</p> - - - - -<h4>II</h4> - - -<p>Conrad's first fame was made by his sea-novels, and the sea is never -quite out of any of his books. Who, before or since, could have evoked -this picture of heat, stillness and solitude?</p> - -<p>In <i>Typhoon</i> we are cast into the midst of a terrible outrage of -the destructive force of nature:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>something formidable and swift, like the sudden smashing of a vial of -wrath. It seemed to explode all round the ship with an overpowering -concussion and a rush of great waters, as if an immense dam had been -blown up to windward. In an instant the men lost touch of each other. -This is the disintegrating power of a great wind; it isolates one from -one's kind. ... The motion of the ship was extravagant. Her lurches had -an appalling helplessness; she pitched as if taking a header into a -void, and seemed to find a wall to hit every time. ... The seas in the -dark seemed to rush from all sides to keep her back where she might -perish. There was hate in the way she was handled, and a ferocity in the -blows that fell. She was like a living creature thrown to the rage of a -mob! hustled terribly, struck at, borne up, flung down, leaped upon. ... -At last she rose slowly, staggering, as if she had to lift a mountain -with her bows.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>There have been many writers about the sea, but only Conrad has loved it -with so profound and yet untrustful a love. His storms have sublimity, -made out of intense attention to detail, often trivial or ludicrous, but -heightened into tragedy by the shifting floor and changing background on -which is represented the vast struggle of man with the powers of nature. -And as he loves the earth only in its extravagances, so he loves the sea -most in storm, where love and fear mingle. The tropics, the Malay -Archipelago, and the sea in a continual tempest, the ship suffering -through a typhoon, or burning itself out on the waters: these are his -scenes, these he cherishes in his faithful and unquiet memory. How much -is memory, how much is imagination, no one need know or care. They are -one; he does not distinguish between them.</p> - -<p>Once, in one of the pages of <i>Lord Jim</i>, Conrad has confessed -himself with perfect frankness. He represents himself receiving a packet of -letters which are to tell him the last news of Lord Jim. He goes to the -window and draws the heavy curtains.</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>The light of his shaded reading-lamp slept like a sheltered pool, his -footfalls made no sound on the carpet, his wandering days were over. No -more horizons as boundless as hope, no more twilights within the forests -as solemn as temples, in the hot quest for the Ever-undiscovered Country -over the hill, across the stream, beyond the wave. The hour was -striking! No more! No more!—but the opened packet under the lamp -brought back the sounds, the visions, the very savor of the past—a -multitude of fading faces, a tumult of low voices, dying away upon the -shores of distant seas under a passionate and unconsoling sunshine. He -sighed and sat down to read.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>That is the confession of one who, of foreign race, is an alien, -solitary among his memories.</p> - - - - -<h4>III</h4> - - -<p>Conrad's stories have no plots, and they do not need them. They are a -series of studies in temperaments, deduced from slight incidents; -studies in emotion, with hardly a rag to hold together the one or two -scraps of action, out of which they are woven. A spider hanging by one -leg to his web, or sitting motionless outside it: that is the image of -some of these tales, which are made to terrify, bewilder and grip you. -No plot ever made a thing so vital as <i>Lord Jim</i>, where there is no -plot; merely episodes, explanations, two or three events only -significant for the inner meaning by which they are darkened or -illuminated. I would call this invention, creation; the evasion of what -is needless in the plots of most novels. But Conrad has said, of course, -the right thing, in a parenthesis: "It had that mysterious, almost -miraculous, power of producing striking effects by means impossible of -detection, which is the last word of the highest art."</p> - -<p>Conrad conceals his astonishing invention under many disguises. What has -seemed to some to be untidy in construction will be found to be a mere -matter of subtlety, a skilful arresting of the attention, a diverting of -it by a new interest thrust in sideways. <i>Lord Jim</i> is a model of -intelligent disarray.</p> - -<p>In the strict sense Conrad is not a novelist: he writes by instinct. And -his art is unlike the art of every other novelist. For instance, -Meredith or Stendhal make great things out of surface material; they -give us life through its accidents, one brilliantly, the other with -scrupulous care. Conrad uses detail as illustrations of his ideas, as -veils of life, not as any essential part of it. The allusion to him is -more real than the fact; and, when he deals with the low or trivial, -with Mr. Verloc's dubious shop in the backstreet, it is always a -symbol.</p> - -<p>Conrad, writing in English, does not always think in English. For, in -this man, who is pure Polish, there is a brooding mind, an exalted soul, -a fearless intelligence, a merciful judgment. And he has voyaged through -many seas of the soul, in which he finds that fascination, the -fascination of fear, splendor, and uncertainty, which the water that -surrounds the earth had to give him. And he has made for himself a style -which is personal, unique, naked English, and which brings into English -literature an audacious and profound English speech.</p> - -<p>In his sarcasm Conrad is elemental. He is a fatalist, and might say with -Sidi Ali Ismayem, in the <i>Malay Annals</i>: "It is necessary that what -has been ordained should take place in all creatures." But in his fatalism -there is a furious revolt against all those evils that must be accepted, -those material and mental miseries that will never be removed. His -hatred of rule, measure, progress, civilization is unbounded. He sits -and laughs with an inhuman laughter, outside the crowd, in a chair of -wisdom; and his mockery, persuaded of the incurable horrors of -existence, can achieve monstrosity, both logical and ghastly.</p> - -<p>In the "simple tale" of <i>The Secret Agent</i>, which is a story of -horror, in our London of to-day, the central motive is the same as that of -the other romances: memory as Nemesis. The man comes to his death because -he can not get a visible fear out of his eyes; and the woman kills him -because she can not get a more terrible, more actual thing, which she -has not seen, but which has been thrust into her brain, out of her eyes. -"That particular fiend" drives him into a cruel blunder and her into a -madness, a murder, a suicide, which combine into one chain, link after -link, inevitably.</p> - -<p>The blood-thirstiness of Conrad's "simple story" of modern life, a -horror as profound as that of Poe, and manipulated with the same careful -and attentive skill, is no form of cruelty, but of cold observation. -What is common enough among the half-civilized population of that Malay -Peninsula, which forms so much of the material of the earlier novels, -has to be transported, by a choice of subject and the search for what is -horrible in it, when life comes to be studied in a modern city. The -interest is still in the almost less civilized savagery of the -Anarchists; and it is around the problem of blood-shedding that the -whole story revolves. The same lust of slaughter, brought from Asia to -Europe, seems cruder and less interesting as material. There the -atmosphere veiled what the gaslight of the disreputable shop and its -back-parlor do but make more visible. It is an experiment in realism -which comes dangerously near to being sensational, only just avoids it.</p> - -<p>The whole question depends upon whether the material horror surpasses -that horror of the soul which is never absent from it; whether the -dreadful picture of the woman's hand holding the carving-knife, seen -reflected on the ceiling by the husband in the last conscious moment -before death, is more evident to us than the man's sluggish acquiescence -in his crime and the woman's slow intoxication by memory into a crime -more direct and perhaps more excusable. It seems, while you are reading -it, impossible that the intellect should overcome the pang given to the -senses; and yet, on reflection, there is the same mind seen at work, -more ruthlessly, more despairingly than ever, turning the soul inside -out, in the outwardly "respectable" couple who commit murder, because -they "refrained from going to the bottom of facts and motives." Conrad -has made a horrible, forgivable, admirable work of art out of a bright -tin can, a befouled shovel, and a stained carving knife. He has made of -these three domestic objects the symbols of that destroying element, -"red in tooth and claw," which turns the wheel on which the world is -broken.</p> - - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - -<h4><a id="Maurice_Maeterlinck">MAURICE MAETERLINCK</a></h4> - - -<h4>I</h4> - - -<p>Often, mostly at night, a wheel of memory seems to turn in my head like -a kaleidoscope, flashing out the pictures and the visions of my own that -I keep there. The same wheel turned in my head when I was in Dieppe with -Charles Conder, and it turned into these verses:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">There's a tune burns, bums in my head,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">And I hear it beat to the sound of my feet,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">For that was the tune we used to walk to</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">In the days that are over and dead.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Another tune turns under and over.</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">And it turns in my brain as I think again</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Of the days that are dead, and the ways she walks now,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">To the self-same tune, with her lover.</span></p> - - -<p>I see, for instance, Mallarmé, with his exquisite manner of welcome, as -he opens the door to me on the fourth floor of the Rue de Rome; I hear -Jean Moréas thunder out some verses of his own to a waitress in a -Bouillon Duval, whose name was Celimène, who pretended to understand -them; Stuart Mérill at the Rue Ballier, Henri de Regnier silent under -his eye-glass in one of the rooms of the <i>Mercerie de France</i>; Maurice -Maeterlinck in all the hurry of a departure, between two portmanteaux. -That was, I suppose, one of the most surprising meetings I ever had; -for, as a matter of fact, one night in Fountain Court, it was in 1894—I -was equally surprised when I opened his <i>Alladine et Palamides</i> which -he had sent me with a dedication. After that time I saw him, during several -years, fairly often in Paris and once in Rome, in 1903, when one -performance was given of his <i>Joyzelle</i>—the most unsatisfactory -performance I ever saw, and of certainly an unsatisfactory play. Nervous -as he always was—he used, for one thing, to keep a loaded revolver -always beside him in his bedroom—he shirked the occasion and went to -Naples. I have never forgotten the afternoon when he read to me in his -house in Paris whole pages of <i>Monna Vanna.</i> After I had left the -house, I said to a certain lady who was with me: "Rhetoric, nothing but -rhetoric! It may be obviously dramatic; but the worst of it is, all the -magic and mystery of his earlier plays had vanished: there is logic -rather than life."</p> - -<p>It is very unfortunate for a man to be compared to Shakespeare even by -his enemies, when he is only twenty-seven and has time before him. That -is what has happened to Maurice Maeterlinck. Two years ago the poet of -<i>Serres Chaudes</i> was known to only a small circle of amateurs of the -new; he was known as a young Belgian of curious talent who had published -a small volume of vague poems in monotone. On the appearance of <i>La -Princesse maleine</i>, in the early part of 1890, Maeterlinck had an -unexpected "greatness thrust upon him" by a flaming article of Octave -Mirbeau, the author of that striking novel <i>Sébastian Roch</i> in the -<i>Figaro</i> of August 24th. "Maurice Maeterlinck," said this -uncompromising enthusiast,</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>"<i>nous a donné l'oeuvre la plus géniale de ce temps, et la plus -extraordinaire et la plus naive aussi, comparable—et oserai-je le -dire?—supérieure en beauté à ce qu'il y a de plus beau dans -Shakespeare.... plus tragique que 'Macbeth,' plus extraordinaire de -pensée que 'Hamlet.</i>'"</p></blockquote> - - -<p>In short, there was no Shakespearean merit in which <i>La Princesse -Maleine</i> was lacking, and it followed that the author of <i>La Princesse -Maleine</i> was the Shakespeare of our age—the Belgian Shakespeare. -The merits of Maeterlinck were widely discussed in France and Belgium, and -it was not long before the five-act drama was followed by two pieces, -each in one act, called <i>L'Intruse</i> and <i>Les Aveugles.</i> In May, -1891, <i>L'Intruse</i> was given by the Théâtre d'Art at the Vaudeville -on the occasion of the benefit of Paul Verlaine and Paul Gauguin.</p> - -<p>He is not entirely the initiator of this impressionistic drama; first in -order of talent, he is second in order of time to another Belgian, -Charles van Lerberghe, to whom <i>Les Aveugles</i> is dedicated. It was Van -Lerberghe (in <i>Les Flaireurs</i>, for example) who discovered the effect -which might be obtained on the stage by certain appeals to the sense of -hearing and of sight, newly directed and with new intentions. But what -is crude and even distracting in <i>Les Flaireurs</i> becomes an -exquisite subtlety in <i>L'Intruse.</i> In <i>La Princesse Maleine</i>, in -<i>L'Intruse</i>, in <i>Les Aveugles</i>, in <i>Les Sept Princesses</i>, -Maeterlinck has but one note, that of fear—the "vague spiritual fear" -of imaginative childhood, of excited nerves, of morbid apprehension. In -<i>La Princesse Maleine</i> there is a certain amount of action—action -which is certainly meant to reinvest the terrors of Macbeth and of Lear. In -<i>L'Intruse</i> and <i>Les Aveugles</i> the scene is stationary, the -action but reflected upon the stage, as if from some other plane. In <i>Les -Sept Princesses</i> the action, such as it is, is "such stuff as dreams are -made of," and is literally, in great part, seen through a window. From -first to last it is not the play, but the atmosphere of the play, that is -"the thing." In the creation of this atmosphere Maeterlinck shows his -particular skill; it is here that he communicates to us the nouveau -frisson, here that he does what no one has done before.</p> - -<p><i>La Princesse Maleine</i>, it is said, was written for a theater of -marionettes, and it is, certainly, with the effect of marionettes that -these sudden, exclamatory people come and go. Maleine, Hjalmar, -Uglyane—these are no characters, these are no realizable persons; -they are a mask of shadows, a dance of silhouettes behind the white sheet -of the "Chat Noir," and they have the fantastic charm of these enigmatical -semblances—"luminous, gem-like, ghost-like"—with, also, -their somewhat mechanical eeriness. Maeterlinck has recorded his -intellectual debt to Villiers de l'Isle Adam, but it was not from the -author of <i>Axel</i> that he learned his method. The personages of -Maeterlinck—are only too eloquent, too volubly poetical. In their -mystical aim Villiers and Maeterlinck are at one; in their method there is -all the difference in the world. This is how Sara, in <i>Axel</i>, -speaks:—</p> - -<blockquote> -<p><i>Songe! Des coeurs condamnés à ce supplice de pas m'aimer! ne sont-ils -pas assez infortunés d'être d'une telle nature?</i></p></blockquote> - - -<p>But Maleine has nothing more impressive to say than this:—</p> - -<blockquote> -<p><i>Mon Dieu! mon Dieu! comme je suis malade! Et je ne sais pas ce que -j'ai;—et personne ne sait ce que le médecin ne sait pas ce que j'ai; -ma nourrice ne sait pas ce que j'ai; Hjalmar ne sait pas ce que j'ai.</i></p></blockquote> - - -<p>That these repetitions lend themselves to parody is obvious; that they -are sometimes ridiculous is certain; but the principle which underlies -them is at the root of much of the finest Eastern poetry—notably in -the Bible. The charm and the impressiveness of monotony is one of the -secrets of the East; we see it in their literature, in their dances, we -hear it in their music. The desire of the West is after variety, but as -variety is the most tiring of all excesses, we are in the mood for -welcoming an experiment in monotone. And therein lies the originality, -therein also the success of Maeterlinck.</p> - -<p>In comparing the author of <i>La Princesse Maleine</i> with Shakespeare, -Mirbeau probably accepted for a moment the traditional Shakespeare of -grotesque horror and violent buffoonery. There is in <i>Maleine</i> -something which might be called Elizabethan—though it is Elizabethan -of the school of Webster and Tourneur rather than of Shakespeare. But in -<i>L'Intruse</i> and <i>Les Aveugles</i> the spiritual terror and physical -apprehension which are common to all Maeterlinck's work have changed, -have become more interior. The art of both pieces consists in the subtle -gradations of terror, the slow, creeping progress of the nightmare of -apprehension. Nothing quite like it has been done before—not even by -Poe, not even by Villiers. A brooding poet, a mystic, a contemplative -spectator of the comedy of death—that is how Maeterlinck presents -himself to us in his work, and the introduction which he has prefixed to -his translation of <i>L'Ornement des Noces Spirituelles</i> of Ruysbroeck -l'Admirable shows how deeply he has studied the mystical writers of all -ages, and how much akin to theirs is his own temper. Plato and Plotinus, -Saint Bernard and Jacob Boehme, Coleridge and Novalis—he knows them -all, and it is with a sort of reverence that he sets himself to the task -of translating the astonishing Flemish mystic of the thirteenth century, -known till now only by the fragments translated into French by Ernest -Hello from a sixteenth-century Latin version. This translation and this -introduction help to explain the real character of Maeterlinck's -dramatic work—dramatic as to form, by a sort of accident, but -essentially mystical. As a dramatist Maeterlinck has but one note—that -of fear; he has but one method—that of repetition. This is no -equipment for a Shakespeare, and it will probably be some time before -Maeterlinck can recover from the literary damage of so incredible a -misnomer.</p> - -<p>In the preface to the first volume of the collected edition, which -should be read with attention by all who are interested in knowing -Maeterlinck's opinion of his own work, we are told:—</p> - -<blockquote> -<p><i>Quant aux deux petites pièces... je voudrais qu'il n'y eut aucun -malentendu à leur endroit. Ce n'est pas parce qu'elles sont -postérieures qu'il y faudrait chercher une évolution ou un nouveau -désir. Ce sont, à proprement parler, de petits jeux de scène, de -courts poèmes du genre assez malheureusement appelé "opéra-comique" -destinés à fournir, aux musiciens qui les avaient demandés, un thème -convenable à des développements lyriques. Ils ne prétendent à rien -d'avantage, et l'on se méprendrait sur mes intentions si l'on y voulait -trouver par surcroit de grandes arrière-pensées morales ou -philosophiques.</i></p></blockquote> - - -<p>Maeterlinck may be taken at his word, and, if we take him at his word, -we shall be the less disappointed. The two new plays are slight; they -have neither the subtlety of meaning nor the strangeness of atmosphere -which gives their quality of beauty and force to <i>Pelléas et Mélisande</i> -and to <i>Les Aveugles. Soeur Béatrice</i> is a dramatic version -of the legend which Davidson told effectively in the<i>Ballad of a Nun; -Ariane et Barbe-Bleue</i> is a new reading of the legend of Blue-Beard. -Both are written in verse, although printed as prose. It may be -remembered that Maeterlinck once admitted that <i>La Princesse Maleine</i> -was meant to be a kind of <i>verse libre</i>, and that he had originally -intended to print it as verse. As it stands now it is certainly not -verse in any real sense, where—as <i>Soeur Béatrice</i> is written -throughout on the basis of the Alexandrine, although without rhyme. The -mute <i>e</i> is, as in most modern French verse, sometimes sounded and -sometimes not sounded; short lines are frequently interspersed among the -lines of twelve syllables. Here are a few lines, taken at random, and -printed as verse;—</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Tu ne me réponds pas? Je n'entends pas ton souffle...</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Et tes genoux fléchissent.... Viens, viens,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 8em;"><i>n'attendons pas</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Que l'aurore envieuse tende ses pièges d'or</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Par les chemins d'azur qui mènent au bonheur.</i></span></p> - - -<p>That is perfectly regular twelve-syllable verse with the exception of -the second line, where the final <i>ent of fléchissent</i> is slurred. -Twelve-syllable unrhymed verse is almost as disconcerting and unknown in -English as in French, but it has been used, with splendid effect, by -Blake, and it is a metre of infinite possibilities. The metre of <i>Ariane -et Barbe-Bleue</i> (as Maeterlinck has finally decided to call it) is -vaguer and more capricious; some of it is in twelve-syllable verse, some -in irregular verse, and some in what can not be called verse at all. -Take, for instance:—</p> - -<blockquote> -<p><i>Il parait qu'on pleurait dans les rues.—Pourquoi est-elle venue? On -m'a dit qu'elle avait son idée. Il n'aura pas celle-ci.</i></p></blockquote> - - -<p>The form in French is not, to our ears, successfully achieved; it seems -to take a hesitating step upon the road which Paul Fort, in his -<i>Ballades Françaises</i> has tramped along so vigorously, but in so -doubtful a direction. Fort has published several volumes, which have -been much praised by many of the younger critics, in which verse is -printed as verse—verse which is sometimes rhymed and sometimes -unrhymed, sometimes regular and sometimes irregular; and along with this -verse there is a great deal of merely rhythmical prose, which is not -more like verse than any page of <i>Salammbo</i>, or <i>À Rebours</i>, or -<i>L'Étui de Nacre.</i> Now it seems to us that this indiscriminate -mingling of prose and verse is for the good neither of prose nor of verse. -It is a breaking down of limits without any conquest of new country. The mere -printing of verse as prose, which Maeterlinck has favored, seems to us a -travesty unworthy of a writer of beautiful prose or of beautiful verse.</p> - -<p><i>Le Temple Enseveli</i> is by no means equal, as literature or as -philosophy, to <i>Le Trésor des Humbles</i>, or even to <i>La Sagesse et la -Destinée</i>, but it is, like everything which Maeterlinck writes, full of -brooding honesty of thought and of a grave moral beauty of feeling. It -is the work of a thinker who "waits patiently," like a Christian upon -divine grace, upon the secret voices which come to us out of the deepest -places in our nature. He is absolutely open-minded, his trust and his -skepticism are alike an homage to truth. If what he has to say to us is -not always "<i>la sagesse même</i>," it is at least the speech of one who -has sought after wisdom more heedfully than any other writer of our -time.</p> - -<p><i>Le Double Jardin</i> is a collection of essays which form a kind of -postscript to <i>Le Temple Enseveli.</i> They are somewhat less abstract, -perhaps a little more casual, than the essays in that book, and are -concerned with subjects as varied as <i>The Wrath of the Bee, The -Motor-Car</i>, and <i>Old-fashioned Flowers.</i> Maeterlinck has never -written anything in prose more graceful, more homely, and more human than -some of these pages, particularly those on flowers. In <i>The Leaf of -Olive</i> and in <i>Death and the Crown</i> he carries speculation beyond -the limits of our knowledge, and "thinks nobly," not of the soul alone, but -also of the intelligence of man in its conflict with the deadly, -unintelligent oppositions of the natural forces of the world. Such pages -are fortifying, and we can not but be grateful for what is plausible in -their encouragement. But the larger part of the book is made up of notes -by the way, which have all the more charm because they are not too -systematically arranged.</p> - -<p>All, it is true, have some link of mutual relation, and proceed from a -common center. It is curious to see this harmonizing instinct at work in -the present arrangement of the essay now called <i>Éloge de l'Épée.</i> -The main part of this essay was published in the <i>Figaro</i> in 1902 -under the title <i>La Défense de l'Épée.</i> In the <i>Figaro</i> it began -with a merely topical reference:—</p> - -<blockquote> -<p><i>L'autre jour, dans un article charmant, Alfred Capus prévoyait la fin -de l'honneur, du moins de "l'honneur salle d'armes" et des instruments -qui le protègent.</i></p></blockquote> - - -<p>Then followed two paragraphs questioning, a little vaguely,</p> - -<blockquote> -<p><i>si nous vivions dans une société qui nous protège suffisamment pour -nous enlever, en toutes circonstances, le droit le plus doux et le plus -cher à l'instinct de l'homme—celui de se faire justice à soi-même.</i></p></blockquote> - - -<p>In the essay as we now read it the topical reference has disappeared, -and more than three pages are occupied by a discussion of abstract -right, of essential justice, which seems to set, strangely and -unexpectedly, a solid foundation under a structure not visibly resting -on any foundation sufficient for its support. As the essay now stands it -has its place in a system of which it becomes one more illustration.</p> - -<p>Few of the essays in this book will be read with more interest than that -on <i>The Modern Drama.</i> It is a development of the ideas already -suggested by Maeterlinck in two prefaces. In asking where, under the -conditions of modern life, and in the expression of modern ideas, we can -find that background of beauty and of mystery which was like a natural -atmosphere to Sophocles and to Shakespeare, he is asking, not indeed -answering, a question which is being asked just now by all serious -thinkers who are concerned with the present and the future of the drama. -This suggestive essay should be contrasted and compared with a not less -suggestive, but more audaciously affirmative essay, <i>De l'Évolution du -Théâtre</i>, given as a lecture by André Gide, and reprinted at the -beginning of the volume containing his two latest plays <i>Saul</i> and -<i>Le Roi Candaule.</i> Everything that Gide writes is full of honest, -subtle and unusual thought, and this consideration of the modern drama, -though it asks more questions, not answering them, seems also to answer -a few of the questions asked by Maeterlinck.</p> - - - - -<h4>II</h4> - - -<p><i>Le Trésor des Humbles</i> is in some respects the most important, as -it is certainly the most purely beautiful, of Maeterlinck's works. Limiting -himself as he did in his plays to the rendering of certain sensations, -and to the rendering of these in the most disembodied way possible, he -did not permit himself to indulge either in the weight of wisdom or the -adornment of beauty, each of which would have seemed to him (perhaps -wrongly) as an intrusion. Those web-like plays, a very spider's work of -filminess, allowed you to divine behind them one who was after all a -philosopher rather than a playwright. The philosopher could but be -divined, he was never seen. In these essays he has dropped the disguise -of his many masks. Speaking without intermediary, he speaks more -directly, with a more absolute abandonment of every convention of human -reserve, except the reserve of an extreme fastidiousness in the choice -of words simple enough and sincere enough to convey exactly his meaning, -more spontaneously, it would seem, than any writer since Emerson. From -Emerson he has certainly learned much; he has found, for instance, the -precise form in which to say what he has to say, in little essays, not, -indeed, so disconnected as Emerson's, but with a like care to say -something very definite in every sentence, so that that sentence might -stand by itself, without its context, as something more than a mere part -of a paragraph. But his philosophical system, though it has its -essential links with the great mystical system, which has developed -itself through many manifestations, from Plotinus and Porphyry downward, -is very much his own, and owes little to anything but his own meditation; -and whether his subject is <i>La Beauté Intérieure</i> or <i>Les Femmes, -Les Avertis</i> or <i>Le Tragique Quotidien</i>, it is with the same -wisdom, certainty and beauty that he speaks. The book might well become -the favorite reading of those persons to whom beauty must come with a -certain dogmatism, if it is to be accepted for what it is. It reveals -the inner life, with a simplicity which would seem the most obvious if -it were not the rarest of qualities. It denies nothing, but it asserts -many things, and it asserts nothing which has not been really seen.</p> - -<p>In the preface to the first volume of his <i>Théâtre</i>, Maeterlinck -takes us very simply into his confidence, and explains to us some of his -intentions and some of his methods. He sees in <i>La Princesse Maleine</i> -one quality, and one only: "<i>une certaine harmonie épouvantée et -sombre.</i>" The other plays, up to <i>Aglavaine et Sélysette</i>, -"<i>présentent une humanité et des sentiments plus précis, en proie à -des forces aussi inconnues, mais un peu mieux dessinées.</i>" These -unknown forces, "<i>au fond desquelles on trouve l'idée du Dieu -chrétien, mêlée à celle de la fatalité antique</i>," are realized, for -the most part, under the form of death. A fragile, suffering, ignorant -humanity is represented struggling through a brief existence under the -terror and apprehension of death. It is this conception of life which -gives these plays their atmosphere, indeed their chief value. For, as we -are rightly told, the primary element of poetry is</p> - -<blockquote> -<p><i>l'idée que la poète se fait de l'inconnu dans lequel flottent -les êtres et les choses qu'il évoque, du mystère qui les domine -et les juge et qui préside à leurs destinées.</i></p></blockquote> - - -<p>This idea it no longer seems to him possible to represent honestly by -the idea of death, and he asks: What is there to take its place?</p> - -<blockquote> -<p><i>Pour mon humble part, après les petits drames que j'ai énumérés -plus haut, il m'a semblé loyal et sage d'écarter la mort de ce trône -auquel il n'est pas certain qu'elle ait droit. Déjà, dans le dernier, -que je n'ai pas nommé parmi les autres, dans "Aglavaine et Sélysette," -j'aurais voulu qu'elle cédât à l'amour, à la sagesse ou au bonheur -une part de sa puissance. Elle ne m'a pas obéi, et j'attends, avec la -plupart des poètes de mon temps, qu'une autre force se révèle.</i></p></blockquote> - - -<p>There is a fine and serious simplicity in these avowals, which show the -intellectual honesty of Maeterlinck's dramatic work, its basis in -philosophical thought. He is not merely a playwright who has found a -method, he is a thinker who has to express his own conception of the -universe, and therefore concerns literature. He finds that conception -changing, and, for the moment, he stands aside, waiting. "The man who -never alters his opinion," said Blake, "is like standing water, and -breeds reptiles of the mind."</p> - -<p><i>Aglavaine et Sélysette</i> is the most beautiful play that Maeterlinck -has yet written; it is as beautiful as <i>Le Trésor des Humbles.</i> -Hitherto, in his dramatic prose, he has deliberately refrained from that -explicit beauty of phrase which is to be found in almost every sentence -of the essays. Implicit beauty there has been from the first, a beauty -of reverie in which the close lips of his shadowy people seem afraid to -do more than whisper a few vague words, mere hints of whatever dreams -and thoughts had come to them out of the darkness. But of the elaborate -beauty of the essays, in which an extreme simplicity becomes more ornate -than any adornment, there has been, until now, almost nothing. In -<i>Aglavaine et Sélysette</i> we have not merely beauty of conception and -atmosphere, but writing which is beautiful in itself, and in which -meditation achieves its own right to exist, not merely because it -carries out that conception, or forms that atmosphere. And at the same -time the very essence of the drama has been yet further spiritualized. -Maeterlinck has always realized, better than any one else, the -significance, in life and art, of mystery. He has realized how -unsearchable is the darkness out of which we have but just stepped, and -the darkness into which we are about to pass. And he has realized how -the thought and sense of that twofold darkness invade the little space -of light in which, for a moment, we move; the depth to which they shadow -our steps, even in that moment's partial escape. But in some of his -plays he would seem to have apprehended this mystery as a thing merely -or mainly terrifying—the actual physical darkness surrounding blind -men, the actual physical approach of death as a stealthy intruder into -our midst; he has shown us people huddled at a window, out of which they -almost feared to look, or beating at a door, the opening of which they -dreaded. Fear shivers through these plays, creeping across our nerves -like a damp mist coiling up out of a valley. And there is beauty -certainly in this "vague spiritual fear;" but certainly a lower kind of -beauty than that which gives its supreme pathos to <i>Aglavaine et -Sélysette.</i> Here is mystery which is also pure beauty, in these -delicate approaches of intellectual pathos, in which suffering and death -and error become transformed into something almost happy, so full is it -of strange light.</p> - -<p>And, with this spiritualizing of the very substance of what had always -been so fully a drama of things unseen, there comes, as we have said, a -freer abandonment to the instinctive desire of the artist to write -beautifully. Having realized that one need not be afraid of beauty, he -is not afraid to let soul speak to soul in language worthy of both. And, -curiously, at the same time he becomes more familiar, more human. -Sélysette is quite the most natural character that Maeterlinck has ever -drawn, as Aglavaine is the most noble. Méléandre is, perhaps, more -shadowy than ever, but that is because he is deliberately subordinated -in the composition, which is concerned only with the action upon one -another of the two women. He suffers the action of these forces, does -not himself act; standing between them as man stands between the calling -of the intellectual and the emotional life, between the simplicity of -daily existence, in which he is good, affectionate, happy, and the -perhaps "immoral" heightening of that existence which is somewhat -disastrously possible in the achievement of his dreams. In this play, -which touches so beautifully and so profoundly on so many questions, -this eternal question is restated; of course, not answered. To answer it -would be to find the missing word in the great enigma; and to -Maeterlinck, who can believe in nothing which is not mystery, it is of -the essence of his philosophy not to answer his own question.</p> - - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - -<h4><a id="Emily_Bronte">EMILY BRONTË</a></h4> - - -<p>It is one hundred years to a month—I write in August—that -Emily Brontë was born; she was born in August, 1818, and died December -19th, 1848, at the age of thirty. The stoic in woman has been seen once -only, and that in the only woman in whom there is seen the paradox of -passion without sensuousness. She required no passionate experience to -endow her with more than a memory of passion. Passion was alive in her as -flame is alive in the earth. Her poems are all outcries, as her great novel, -<i>Wuthering Heights</i>, is one long outcry. Rossetti in 1854 wrote: "I've -been greatly interested in <i>Wuthering Heights</i>, the first novel I've -read for an age, and the best (as regards power and style only) for two -ages, except <i>Sidonia.</i> But it is a fiend of a book. The action is laid -in hell—only it seems places and people have English names there." He -is not altogether right in what he says, and yet there is hell in the -heart of Heathcliff, that magnificent and malevolent gypsy, who, to my -mind, can only be compared with Borrow's creations in <i>Lavengro</i> and -<i>The Romany Rye</i>—such as the immortal Jasper Petilengro and the -immoral Ursula—and with the lesser creations of Meredith's in <i>The -Adventures of Harry Richmond</i> (in spite of the savage and piteous and -fascinating Kiomi—I have seen a young gypsy girl of this name the -other day, tragical).</p> - -<p>When Charlotte says of Emily that what "her mind had gathered of the -real concerning the people around her was too exclusively confined to -their tragic and terrible traits, out of which she created Earnshaw and -Catherine, and that having formed these beings, she did not know what -she had done," there is no doubt that on the whole she is right. For -these spirits are relentless and implacable, fallen and lost spirits, -and it is only in this amazing novel that I find maledictions and curses -and cries of anguish and writhings of agony and raptures of delight and -passionate supplications, such as only abnormal creatures could contrive -to express, and within the bounded space of the moors, made sad by -somber sunrises and glad by radiant sunsets. It is sad colored and -desolate, but when gleams of sunlight or of starlight pierce the clouds -that hang generally above it a rare and sunny beauty comes into the bare -outlines, quickening them with living splendor.</p> - -<p>In the passionately tragic genius of Emily I find a primitive -nature-worship; so strangely primitive that that wonderful scene of mad -recrimination between the dying Catherine and the repentant Heathcliff, -when she cries "I forgive you! Forgive me!" and he answers: "Kiss me again; -and don't let me see your eyes. I forgive what you have done to me. I -love <i>my</i> murderer—but <i>yours?</i> How can I?" is almost comparable -with a passage in <i>Macbeth</i> where Banquo speaks of "the temple-haunting -Martlet" and its loved masonry which preludes Lady Macbeth's entrance -from under the buttresses as the delicate air bears witness to the -incarnate murder that swarms, snake-like, hidden under grass. Something -of Emily's saturnine humor comes into the mouth of the Calvinistic -farm-servant, whose jests are as grim and as deadly and as plague-like -as the snow-storms that make winter unendurable.</p> - -<p>Yes, this creator has, in herself and in her imagination, something -solitary and sorrowful—that of a woman who lived, literally, -alone—and whose genius had no scorn. She, who believed in the -indestructible God within herself, was silenced forever; herself and her -genius which had moved as a wind and moved as the sea in tumult and -moved as the thunderclouds in fury upon the tragical and perilous waters -of passion that surround "the topless towers" of <i>Wuthering -Heights.</i></p> - -<p>In one who, like Emily Brontë, was always dying of too much life, one -can imagine the sensitive reticences, the glowing eyes, and the strain -of the vehemences of that inner fire that fed on itself, which gave her -her taciturnity. "It is useless to ask her; you get no answers. The -awful point was that, while full of ruth for others, on herself she had -no pity; the spirit was inexorable to the flesh; from the trembling -hand, the unnerved limbs, the fading eyes, the same service was exacted -as they had rendered in health."</p> - -<p>"The spirit inexorable to the flesh:" there is the whole secret of what -in her life was her genius. Alone with herself—with her soul and her -body—she allows herself no respite: for she was always of an unresting -nature. So in the words of Pater—who told me of his enormous -admiration for her prose—"we are all <i>condamnés à mort avec des -sursis indéfinis</i>; we have our interval and then our place knows us no -more." How she spent these "intervals" must be forever unknown. Not in high -passions, I imagine, nor in wisdom, nor in care for material things; but -in moods of passion, in intellectual excitement, in an inexhaustible -curiosity, in an ironical contemplation "of the counted pulses of a -variegated, dramatic life." But never, I am certain, was she ever -capable—as she watches the weaving and unweaving of herself—of -the base corruption of what his existence was to Beardsley. "That he should -be so honest with his fear," I have written of him, "that he should sit -down before its face and study it feature by feature: that he should -never turn aside his eyes for more than one instant, make no attempt to -escape, but sit at home with it, travel with it, see it in his mirror, -taste it in the sacrament: that is the marvellous thing, and the sign of -his fundamental sincerity in life and art."</p> - -<p>Emily Brontë's passionate and daring genius attains this utmost limit -of tragedy, and with this a sense—an extreme sense—of the -mystery of terror which lurks in all the highest poetry as certainly in her -lyrical prose; a quality which distinguishes such prose and verse from all -that is but a little lower than the highest. Her genius is somber in the -sense that Webster's is, but much less dramatic. Neither his tragedies -nor her novel are well-constructed; and in her case something is -certainly lacking; for her narrative is dominated by sheer chance, and -guided by mere accident. And I think that she, with her sleepless -imagination, might have said as the child Giovanni in Webster's Tragedy -says: "I have not slept these six nights. When do the dead walk?" and is -answered: "When God shall please." When in disguise she sings of the -useless rebellions of the earth, rarely has a more poignant cry been -wrenched out of "a soul on the rack"—that is to say since Santa -Teresa sang:—</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">A soul in God hidden from sin,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">What more desires for thee remain,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Save but to love, and love again</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">And, all on flame, with love within,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Love on, and turn to love again?</span></p> - - -<p>than this stanza:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">O! dreadful is the shock—intense the agony—</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">When the ear begins to hear, and the eye begins to see;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">When the pulse begins to throb, the brain to think</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 8em;">again,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">The soul to feel the flesh and the flesh to feel the chain.</span></p> - - -<p>At times there is a tragic sublimity in her imagination, which gathers -together, as it were, the winds from the world's four quarters, that -howled in winter nights across the moor around the house she lived in. -Indeed the very storm of her genius hovers in the air between things -sublime and things hideous. "There never was such a thunderstorm of a -play," said Swinburne on Cyril Tourneur's <i>Revenger's Tragedy.</i> I am -inclined to add: "There never was such a thunderstorm of a novel as -<i>Wuthering Heights.</i>" And it is blood-stained with the blood of the -roses of sunsets; the heavy atmosphere is sultry as the hush and heat -and awe of midnoon; sad visions appear with tragic countenances, -fugitives try in vain to escape from the insane brooding of their -consciences. And there are serviceable shadows; implacable -self-devotions and implacable cruelties; vengeances unassuaged; and a -kind of unscrupulous ferocity is seen not only in Heathcliff but in one -of his victims. And there are startling scenes and sentences that, once -impressed on the memory, are unforgettable: as scarlet flowers of evil -and as poisonous weeds they take root in one.</p> - - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - -<h4><a id="On_English_and_French_Fiction">ON ENGLISH AND FRENCH FICTION</a></h4> - - -<h4>I</h4> - - -<p>Certainly the modern English novel begins with that elaborate -masterpiece, <i>Tom Jones</i>, of Henry Fielding. And it seems to me that -his genius is contained, on the whole, in that one book; in which he -creates living people; the very soil is living. His hero is the typical -sullen, selfish, base-born, stupid, sensual, easily seduced and adventurous -youth, with whom his creator is mightily amused. The very Prefaces are -full of humorous wisdom; copied, I suppose, from Montaigne. The -typically wicked woman is painted almost as Hogarth might have painted -her. It is quite possible that she may have a few touches, here and -there, of Lady Wishfort, who, wrote Meredith, "is unmatched for the -vigour and pointedness of the tongue. It spins along with a final ring, -like the voice of Nature in a fury, and is, indeed, racy eloquence of -the elevated fishwife."</p> - -<p>Fielding has a strong sense of the vigilant comic, which is the genius -of thoughtful laughter, but never serving as a public advocate. Contempt -can not be entertained by comic intelligence. Blifil is essentially the -grossly and basely animal creature, who is also a villain, and who has -his part in the plot; indeed one scandalous scene in which he is -discovered is laughable in the purely comic sense.</p> - -<p><i>Jonathan Wild</i> presents a case of peculiar distinction, when that -man of eminent greatness remarks on the unfairness of a trial in which the -condemnation has been brought about by twelve men of the opposite party; -yet it is immensely comic to hear a guilty villain protesting that his -own "party" should have a voice in the Law. It opens an avenue into a -villain's ratiocination, as in Lady Booby's exclamation when Joseph -defends himself: "Your <i>virtue!</i> I shall never survive it!" Fielding -can be equally satiric and comic: can raise laughter but never move pity. -And it is as he evokes great spirits that Meredith cries: "O for a -breath of Aristophanes, Rabelais, Voltaire, Cervantes, Fielding, -Molière! These are spirits that, if you know them well, will come when -you do call."</p> - -<p>After Fielding comes Thackeray, and his <i>Vanity Fair</i> is the second -masterpiece in modern fiction. It is the work of a man of the world, -keenly observant of all the follies and virtues and vices and crimes and -splendors, of crimes and of failures, of his neither moral nor immoral -Fair. He takes his title from John Bunyan; but in originality he is -almost equal with Fielding. "As the Manager of the Performance sits -before the curtain on the boards, and looks into the Fair, a feeling of -profound melancholy comes over him in his survey of the bustling place." -Such is the moral, if you like; at any rate the whole Show "is -accompanied by appropriate scenery and brilliantly illuminated with the -author's own candles." At the end the Finis: "Ah! <i>Vanitas Vanitatum!</i> -Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? or, -having it, is satisfied?—Come children, let us shut up the box and -the puppets, for our play is played out."</p> - -<p>There is no question that Becky Sharp is not derived from Balzac's -Lisbeth in <i>La Cousine Bette</i>, but at what a distance, when once you -think of the greatest of all novelists, who has the fortune to be -French, and of Thackeray, who has the fortune (at times the misfortune) -of being English. When we thing of Becky she startles us by her cynical -entrance: she inherits from her parents bad qualities. Her first epigram -sums her up. "Revenge may be wicked, but it's natural. I'm no angel." -She fascinates Lord Pitt, Rawdon Crawley and Lord Steyne in a way -Lisbeth never does. Lisbeth's fascination is that of the evil-doer; she -is envious, spiteful, malicious, a lying hypocrite; always deliberately -bent on having her own way, always for evil purposes: so that she, in -her sinister effrontery, causes the ruin of many of the lives she -thrives on, feigns to help, deludes; only, she never deludes as Valérie -Marnette does. We have only to say: "Valérie!" and the woman is before -us. As for Valérie: "<i>Elle était belle comme sont belles les femmes -assez belles, pour être belles en dormant</i>;" a sentence certainly -lyrical. Lisbeth's character has "<i>Une dose du mordant parisien.</i>" -Unmarried, she is monstrous, her snares are inevitable, her -dissimulation impenetrable. But she is never given a scene so -consummately achieved in its sordid and voluptuous tragedy as the scene -in <i>Vanity Fair</i> when Rawdon enters his house at midnight, and finds -Becky dressed in a brilliant toilet, her arms and her fingers sparkling -with bracelets and rings, and the brilliants in her breast which Steyne -had given her. "He had her hand in his, and was bowing to kiss it, when -Becky started up with a faint scream as she caught sight of Rawdon's -white face." And, as the writer adds, with an entire sense of the tragic -and comic drama that is over: "All her lies and her schemes, all her -selfishness and her wiles, all her wit and all her genius had come to -this bankruptcy."</p> - -<p>I have never had any actual admiration for the novels of George Eliot; -she had her passing fame, her popularity, her success; people compared -her prose—wrongly—with the poetry of Mrs. Browning; and, as -for her attempts at verse, the less said of them the better. In favor of my -opinion I quote this scathing sentence of Swinburne: "Having no taste -for the dissection of dolls, I shall leave Daniel Deronda in his natural -place above the ragshop door; and having no ear for the melodies of a -Jew's harp, I shall leave the Spanish Gypsy to perform on that -instrument to such audience as she may collect." Certainly Charlotte -Brontë excelled George Eliot in almost every quality; the latter -having, perhaps, more knowledge and culture, but not for a moment -comparable with Charlotte's purity of passion, depth and fervor of -feeling, inspiration, imagination and a most masterly style.</p> - -<p>As for her <i>Romola</i>, I find it almost an elaborate failure in the -endeavor to create the atmosphere of the period of Savonarola—that -amazing age when the greatest spirits of the world were alive and -producing works of unsurpassable genius—and in her too anatomical -demonstration of the varying vices and virtues of Tito: for she has none -of that strange subtlety that a writer of novels must possess to -delineate how this human soul may pass in the course of decomposition -into some irremediable ruin. She is too much of the moralist to be able -to present this character as a necessary and natural figure, such as far -greater writers have had no difficulty in doing. She presents -him—rather after the fashion of George Sand, as a fearful and -warning example. Think, for a moment,—the comparison is all but -impossible,—of this attempt at characterization with Browning's Guido -Franceschini; for in his two monologues every nerve of the mind is touched -by the patient scalpel, every joint and vein of the subtle and intricate -spirit laid bare and divided. Compare this also with Cenci: the comparison -has been made by Swinburne, with an equal praise of two masterpieces, -<i>The Cenci</i> of Shelley and <i>The Ring and the Book</i> of Browning. -Both Cenci and Franceschini are cunningly drawn and colored so as to be -absolute models of the highest form of realism: as cunningly colored and -drawn as the immortal creation of Madame Bovary.</p> - -<p>Take, for instance, the character of Rochester in <i>Jane Eyre.</i> It -is incomparable of its kind; an absolutely conceived living being, who has -enough nerves and enough passion to more or less extinguish the various -male characters in George Eliot's novels. That Maggie Tulliver, in <i>The -Mill on the Floss</i>, the finest of her novels, can be moved to any sense -but that of bitter disgust and sickening disdain by a thing—I will not -write, a man—of Stephen Guest's character, is a lamentable and an -ugly case of shameful failure; for as Swinburne says, "The last word of -realism has surely been spoken, the last abyss of cynicism has surely -been sounded and laid bare." And I am glad to note here that he -dismisses her with this reference to three great French writers; using, -of course, his invariable ironical paradoxes. "For a higher view and a -more cheery aspect of the sex, we must turn back to those gentler -teachers, those more flattering painters of our own—Laclos, Stendhal -and Merrimée; we must take up <i>La Double Méprise</i>—or <i>Le Rouge -et le Noir</i>—or <i>Les Liaisons Dangereuses.</i>"</p> - -<p>The genius of George Meredith is unquestionable; he was as great a -creator, in fact a greater creator, than any other English novelist; yet -his fascination is not, I think, quite explicable. Not since the -Elizabethans have we had so flame-like a life possessing the wanton body -of a style. Our literature has not a more vividly entertaining book than -<i>The Shaving of Shagpat</i>—I have the rare first edition of 1856 -in my possession—nor has the soul of a style been lost more -spectacularly. And with this fantastic, learned, poetic, passionate, -intelligent style, a style which might have lent itself so well to the -making of Elizabethan drama, Meredith has set himself the task of writing -novels of contemporary life; nor can it be wondered that every novel of his -breaks every rule which could possibly be laid down for the writing of a -novel. Why has his prose so irresistible a fascination for so many of -us, as it certainly has? I find Meredith breaking every canon of what -are to me the laws of the novel; and yet I read him in preference to any -other novelist.</p> - -<p>Meredith first conceives that the novelist's prime study is human nature -and his first duty to be true to it. Moreover, being an artist, he is -not content with simple observations; there must be creation, the -imaginative fusion of the mass of observed fact. The philosophy of his -seeking is only another name for intuition, analysis, imaginative -thought. He has comprehension of a character from height to depth -through that "eye of steady flame," which he attributes to Shakespeare, -and which may be defined in every great artist. He sees it, he beholds a -complete nature, at once and in entirety. His task is to make others see -what he sees. But this can not be done at a stroke. It must be done -little by little, touch upon touch, light upon shade, shade upon light. -The completeness, as seen by the seer or creator—the term is the -same—must be microscopically investigated, divided into its component -parts, produced piece by piece, and connected visibly. It is this that -is meant when we talk of analysis; and the antithesis between analysis -and creation is hardly so sheer as it seems. Partly through a selection -of appropriate action, partly through the revealing casual speech, the -imagined character takes palpable form: finally it does, or it should, -live and breathe before the reader with some likeness of the hue and -breadth of actual life. But there is a step farther, and it is this step -that Meredith is strenuous to take. You have the flesh, animate it with -spirit, with soul. If this is an unworthy aim, condemn Shakespeare. This -is Meredith's, and it is this and no other consummation that he prays -for in demanding philosophy in fiction.</p> - -<p>The main peculiarity of Meredith's style is this: he thinks, to begin -with, before writing—a singular thing, one must observe, for the -present day. Then, having certain definite thoughts to express, and -thoughts frequently of a difficult remoteness, he is careful to employ -words of a rich and fruitful significance, made richer and more fruitful -by a studied and uncommon arrangement. His sentences are architectural; -and it is natural in reading him to cry out at the strangeness. Strange, -certainly; often obscure, often tantalizing; more often magnificent and -somber and strong and passionate, his wit is perhaps too fantastical, -too remote, too allusive; partly because it is subtly ironical; perhaps -most of all because it is shrewdly stinging to our prejudices. Still, -everywhere, the poet, struggling against the bondage of prose, flings -himself on every opportunity of evading his bondage. It is thus by the -very quality that is his distraction—perhaps because he always writes -English as if it were a learned language—that Meredith holds us, by -the intensity of his vision of a world which is not our world, by the -energy of genius which has done so much to achieve the impossible.</p> - - - - -<h4>II</h4> - - -<p>Prose is the language of what we call real life, and it is only in prose -that an illusion of external reality can be given. Compare the whole -process and existence of character in a play of Shakespeare and in a -novel of Balzac. I choose Balzac among novelists because his mind is -nearer to what is creative in the poet's mind than that of a novelist, -and his method nearer to the method of the poet. Take King Lear and take -Père Goriot. Goriot is a Lear at heart, and he suffers the same -tortures and humiliations. But precisely where Lear grows up before the -mind's eye into a vast cloud and shadowy mountain of trouble, Goriot -grows downward into the earth and takes root there, wrapping the dust -about all his fibers. Lear may exchange his crown for the fool's bauble, -knowing nothing of it; but Goriot knows well enough the value of every -bank-note that his daughters rob him of. In that definiteness, that new -power of "stationary" emotion in a firm and material way, lies one of -the great opportunities of prose.</p> - -<p>The genius of prose is essentially different from the "genius of -poetry;" and that is the reason why writers like De Quincy and Ruskin -trespassed, as thieves do, on forbidden ground. It is much better to -pick forbidden fruit and to eat thereof, and be as stealthy as the -traveler in Blake's deliciously wicked poem who steals from the unloved -lover the woman he loves:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">Soon after she has gone from me</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">A traveller came by,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Silently, invisibly:</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">He took her with a sigh.</span></p> - - -<p>The moral of it is "Never seek to sell thy love;" but such writers as -those I have referred to tread fallen fruit ruthlessly under foot and -therefore ought to be thrust out of the garden they have robbed. Both -tried to write prose as if they were writing verse, and both failed; -Ruskin ruined by his fatal facility and De Quincy by his cultivating -eloquence in rhetoric. Certain prose writers have written lyrical prose, -because their genius at times drove them to do so, and with an absolute -success. One finds such passages in Shakespeare and Blake and Pater and -Lamb; in certain pages of Balzac and of Flaubert and of Meredith and of -Conrad. Yet, in what I must call lyrical prose, there is a certain -rhythm, but not that of rhymed verse; that is to say, if the inspiration -were the same, the mediums are different: the rhythm of prose that has -no meter and the rhythm of verse that has meter.</p> - -<p>Take, for instance, Peacock, who was neither a great prose writer nor a -great poet, but whose novels are unique in English, and are among the -most scholarly, original and entertaining prose writings of the century.</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">A strain too learned for a shallow age,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Too wide for selfish bigots, let his page</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Which charms the chosen spirits of the time</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Fold itself up for the serener clime</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Of years to come, and find its recompense</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">In that just expectation.</span></p> - - -<p>So Shelley praises him, who was certainly aware of Peacock's clever -scraps of rhyming that are like no other verse; the masterpiece being -the comically heroic <i>War-Song of Dinar Valor</i>, which the author -defines as "the quintessence of all war songs that were ever written, and -the sum and substances of all the appetences, tendencies and consequences -of military." This learned wit, his satire upon the vulgarity of progress -(in which he is one with Baudelaire and one with Meredith) are more -continuously present in his prose than in his verse; yet his characters -are caricatures, they speak a language that is not ours; they are given -sensational adventures, often comical in the extreme; and in these pages -plenty of nonsense and of laughter and of satire and of serious prose -with an undercurrent of bitter cynicism. He treats all his creatures -cruelly, and I can not help seeing the reason why Richard Garnett -admired his prose so much: that there is something curiously alike and -unlike in their humor.</p> - -<p>Garnett himself told me, as I always thought, that <i>The Twilight of -the Gods</i> was far and away the best book he had written. In France -Marcel Schwob and André Gide have done certain things comparable in their -way with these learned inventions, these ironic "criticisms of life," these -irreverent classical burlesques in which religion, morality, learning, -and all civilization's conventions, are turned topsy-turvy, and -presented in the ridiculousness of their unaccustomed attitude. But no -modern man in England has done anything remotely comparable with them, -and neither Schwob nor André Gide has heaped mockery so high as in -<i>Abdullah the Adite</i>, and remained as sure a master of all the -reticences of art and manners. This learned mockery has an undefinable -quality, macabre, diabolical, a witchcraft of its own, which I can find -in no other writer.</p> - -<p>To return to the question of rhythm, the rhythm of prose, for one thing, -is physiological, the rhythm of poetry is musical. There is in every -play of Ibsen a rhythm perfect of its kind, but it is the physiological -rhythm of prose. The rhythm of a play of Shakespeare speaks to the blood -like wine or music: it is with exultation, with intoxication, that we -see or read <i>Antony and Cleopatra</i> or even <i>Richard II</i>; it gives -us exactly the same intoxication and the same exultation when we hear -Vladimir de Pachmann play the piano, when we hear Wagner's <i>Tristan.</i> -But the rhythm of a play of Ibsen is like that of a diagram in Euclid; -it is the rhythm of logic, and it produces in us the purely mental -exaltation of a problem solved.</p> - - - - -<h4>III</h4> - - -<p>Is not a criticism of primary ideas, the only kind of criticism, when -one considers it, that is really worth writing? A critic may tell us -that So-an-So has written a charming book, that it is the best of his -charming books, that it is better or worse than another book by another -writer with whom we see no necessity to compare him, that it is, in -short, an "addition to literature;" well and good, here is some one's -opinion, perhaps right, perhaps wrong; not very important if right, not -easy to disprove if wrong. But let him tell us, in noting the precise -quality of <i>À Rebours</i>, and its precise divergence from the tradition -of naturalism: "<i>Il ne s'agissait plus tant de faire entrer dans l'art, -par la représentation, l'extériorité brute, que de tirer de cette -extériorité même des motifs de rêve et de la révélation -intérieure</i>;" let him tell us in discussing the question of literary -sincerity that a certain writer "<i>est sincère, non parce qu'il avoue -toute sa pensée, mais parce qu'il pense tout son aveu</i>:" has he not -added to the very substance of our thought, or touched that substance -with new light?</p> - -<p>The curious thing in regard to Benjamin Constant is that there was not a -single interest, out of the many that occupied his life, which he did -not destroy by some inconsequence of action, for no reason in the world, -apparently, except some irrational necessity of doing exactly the -opposite of what he ought to have done, of what he wanted to do. So he -creates <i>Adolphe</i> so much of himself in it, and makes him say, in a -memorable sentence, "<i>Je me reposais, pour ainsi dire, dans -l'indifference des autres, de la fatigue de son amour.</i>" He was never -tired of listening to himself, and the acute interest of his Journal -consists in the absolute sincerity of its confessions, and at the same -time the scrutinizing self-consciousness of every word that is written -down. "<i>Il y a en moi deux personnes, dont l'en observe l'autre.</i>" So -cold-hearted is he that when perhaps his best friend, Mademoiselle -Talma, is dying, he spends day and night by her bedside, overwhelmed -with grief; and he writes in his Journal: "<i>Y étudie la mort.</i>" So out -of this distressing kind of reality which afflicts the artist, he -creates his art, <i>Adolphe</i>, a masterpiece of psychological narrative, -from which the modern novel of analysis may have been said to have -arisen, which is simply a human document in which he has told us the -story of his liaison with the writer of <i>Corinne.</i> She made him suffer -for he writes: "<i>Tous les volcans sont moins flamboyants qu'elle.</i>" He -suffers, as his hero does, because he can neither be intensely absorbed, -nor, for one moment, indifferent; that very spirit of analysis which -would seem to throw some doubt on the sincerity of his passion, does but -intensify the acuteness with which he feels it. It is the turning of the -sword in a wound. He sums up and typifies the artistic temperament at -its acutest point of weakness; the temperament which can neither resist, -nor dominate, nor even wholly succumb to, emotion; which is forever -seeking its own hurt, with the persistence almost of mania; which, if it -ruins other lives in the pursuit, as is supposed, of artistic purposes, -gains at all events no personal satisfaction out of the bargain; except, -indeed, when one has written <i>Adolphe</i>, the satisfaction of having -lived unhappily for more than sixty years, and left behind one a hundred -pages that are still read with admiration, sixty years afterward.</p> - -<p>Flaubert, possessed of an absolute belief that there exists but one way -of expressing one thing, one word to call it by, one adjective to -qualify, one verb to animate it, gave himself to superhuman labors for -the discovery, in every phrase, of that word, that verb, that adjective. -And the desperate certitude in his spirit always was: "Among all the -expressions in the world, all forms and turns of expression, there -is but <i>one</i>—one form, one mode—to express all I want to -say." He desired, above all things, impersonality; and yet, in spite of the -fact that he is the most impersonal of novelists, the artist is always -felt; for as Pater said: "his subjectivity must and will color the -incidents, as his very bodily eye selects the aspects of things." Yet -again, in spite of the fact that Flaubert did keep <i>Madame Bovary</i> -at a great distance from himself, we find in these pages the analyst and -the lyric poet in equilibrium. It is the history of a woman, as carefully -observed as any story that has ever been written, and observed in -surroundings of the most extraordinary kind. He creates Emma cruelly, -morbidly, marvelously; he creates in her, as Baudelaire says, the -adulterous woman with a depraved imagination. "<i>Elle se donne</i>" he -writes, "<i>magnifiquement, généreusement, d'une manière toute masculine, -à des drôles qui ne sont pas ses égaux, exactement comme les poètes se -livrent a des drôlesses.</i>"</p> - -<p>As Flaubert invented the rhythm of every sentence I choose this one from -the novel I have referred to, this magnificently tragic sentence: "<i>Et -Emma se mit à rire, d'un rire atroce, frénétique, désespéré, -croient voir la face hideuse du misérable qui se dressait dans les -ténèbres éternelles comme un épouvantent.</i>" Aeschylus might have put -such words as these on the lying and crying lips of Clytemnestra in her -atrocious speech after she has slain Agamemnon. With this compare a -sentence I translate from Petrus Bórel. "I have often heard that -certain insects were made for the amusement of children: perhaps man -also was created for the same pleasures of superior beings, who delight -in torturing him, and disport themselves in his groans." This is a -sentence which might almost have been written by Hardy, so clearly does -it state, in an image like one of his own, the very center of his -philosophy. Take, for example, these sentences in <i>The Return of the -Native</i>: "Yet, upon the whole, neither the man nor the woman lost -dignity by sudden death. Misfortune had struck them gracefully, cutting -off their erratic histories with a catastrophic dash."</p> - -<p>Swinburne, who invariably overpraises Victor Hugo, overpraises his -atrocious novel <i>L'Homme qui rit.</i> But I forgive him everything when -he writes such Baudelairean sentences as these:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>Bakilphedro, who plays the part of devil, is a bastard begotten by Iago -upon his sister, Madame de Merteuil; having something of both, but -diminished and degraded; wanting, for instance, the deep daemonic calm -of their lifelong patience. He has too much heat of discontent, too much -fever and fire, to know their perfect peace of spirit, the equable -element of their souls, the quiet of mind in which they live and work -out their work at leisure. He does not sin at rest, there is somewhat of -fume and fret in his wickedness. There is the peace of the devil, which -passeth all understanding.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>Certainly, for an absolutely diabolical dissection of three equally -infamous characters, this is unsurpassable. Iago is not entirely -malignant, nor is he abjectly vile, nor is he utterly dishonest: he is -supreme in evil, and almost as far above vice as he is beyond virtue. He -has not even a fleshly desire for Desdemona: yet he is the impassioned -villain who "spins the plot." Can one conceive, as Swinburne -conjectures, "something of Iago's attitude in hell—of his unalterable -and indomitable posture for all eternity?" As for Madame Merteuil she -is, in <i>Les Liaisons dangereuses</i>, not only a counterfoil for Valmont, -but a spirit of almost inconceivable malignity; yet she is not as -abnormal as Iago. She has a sublime lack of virtue, with an immense -sense of her seductiveness. There is no grandeur in her evil, as there -is in Valmont's. In the longest letter she writes, that Baudelaire -praises, she confesses herself with so curious a shamelessness as to -intrigue one. In composing this for her Laclos shows the most sinister -side of his genius. He shows her sterility, her depraved imagination, -her deceit and her dissimulations: rarely the humiliations she has -endured. As she is resolved on the ruin of Valmont she writes in this -fashion: "<i>Séduite par votre réputation, il me semblait que vous -manquiez à ma gloire; je brûlais de vous combattre corps à corps.</i>" -She is not even a criminal, not even the symbol of one of the poisonous -women of the Renaissance, who smiled complacently after an -assassination. Her nature is perverted by the lack of the intoxication -of crime. The imagination which stands to her in the place of virtue has -brought its revenge, and for her, too, there is only the release of -death.</p> - -<p>"<i>Tout les livres sont immoraux</i>," wrote Baudelaire in his notes on -this book: certainly a sweeping paradox, for there is much less immorality -in Laclos' novel than in Rabelais or in Swift or in Aristophanes. Still as -he wrote this book in the time of the French Revolution, there was more -than enough of hell-creating material in the age of Robespierre and -Marat and Danton and Mirabeau, who wrote the infamous <i>Erotika -Biblion.</i> It is amusing to note that in Perlet-Malassis's reprint in -1866 the writer of a preface dated 1832 says: "<i>Le style de Mirabeau, -par cette vive puissance de la pensée que resplendit de son propre éclat -sans rien emprunter aux ornements de l'art, s'élève dans cet ouvrage -jusqu'aux beautés les plus sublimes.</i>" Exactly a year before Mirabeau's -book appeared Laclos printed his novel; and, for what I must call the -sublimity of casuistry, here is one consummate sentence of Valmont's. -"<i>Je ne sortais de ses bras que pour tomber à ses genoux, pour lui -jurer un amour éternel, et, il faut tout avouer, je pensais ce que je -disais.</i>"</p> - - - - -<h4>IV</h4> - - -<p>George Borrow has always had a curious fascination for me: for this man, -half Cornish and half French, with his peculiar kind of genius—such as -one generally finds in mixed blood—is both creative and inventive, -normal and abnormal, perverse and unpassionate, obscure and grimly -humorous. I was very young when I read his masterpiece <i>Lavengro</i> -(1851) in its original three volumes, from which I got my first taste for a -sort of gypsy element in literature. The reading of that book did many -things for me. It absorbed me from the first page with a curiously -personal appeal, as of some one akin to me: the appeal, I suppose, to -what was wild in my blood.</p> - -<p>What Borrow really creates is a by no means undiscovered world: I mean -the world of the Gypsies; yet he is the first to discover their peculiar -characteristics, their savagery and uncivilization; he gives them life, -in their tents, on the road, along the hedges; he makes them speak, in -their pure and corrupted dialects, much as they always speak, but nearly -always with something of Borrow in them. They are imaginative: he gives -them part of his imagination. They are not subtle, nor is he; they are -not complex, he at times is complex; he paints their morality and -immorality almost as Hogarth might have done.</p> - -<p>In regard to the sense of fear, you find it in Shakespeare, in Balzac, -everywhere; but never I think more intensely than in the chapters in -<i>Lavengro</i> describing Borrow's paroxysm of fear in the dingle. There -is nothing of the kind, in any language, equal to those pages of Borrow; -they go deep down into some "obscure night of the soul;" they are -abnormal. It is "the screaming horror" that takes possession of him.</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>The evil one was upon me; the inscrutable horror which I had felt from -boyhood had once more taken possession of me. I uttered wild cries. I -sat down with my back against a thorn-bush; the thorns entered my flesh, -and when I felt them, I pressed harder against the bush: I thought the -pain of the flesh might in some degree counteract the mental agony; -presently I felt them no longer—the power of the mental horror was so -great that it was impossible, with that upon me, to feel my pain from -the thorns.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>Borrow writes as if civilization did not exist, and he obtains, in his -indirect way, an extraordinary directness. Really the most artificial of -writers, he is always true to that "peculiar mind and system of nerves" -of which he was so well aware, and which drove him into all sorts of -cunning ways of telling the truth, and making it at once bewildering and -convincing.</p> - -<p>I have often wondered why Robert Louis Stevenson was almost invariably -looked on as a man of genius. He had touches of it, certainly; and -therein lies part of the secret of his captivating the heart; why, quite -by himself, he ranks with writers like Thoreau and with Dumas (one for a -certain seductiveness of manner, the other for his extravagant passion -for miraculous adventures); and why he appeals to us, not only from his -curious charm as a literary vagrant—to some of us an irresistible -charm—and from the exhilaration of the blood which he causes in us, -and from the actual fever of his prose, and for his inhuman sense of life's -whimsical distresses, of its cruelties and maladies and confusions, but -from a certain gypsy and wayward grace, so like a woman's, that can -thrill to the blood often more instantly than in the presence of the -august perfection of classic beauty.</p> - -<p>His style, as he admits, is never wholly original; a "sedulous ape," as -he once humorously named himself, that aped the styles of Baudelaire and -Hawthorne and Lamb and Hazlitt; and that never, except rarely and by -certain happy accidents in his rejection of words and using some of them -as if no one had ever used them before, attains the inevitable -perfection of Baudelaire's prose style, nor the quintessential and -exultant and tragic style of Lamb, which has, beyond any writer -preeminent for charm, salt and sting; nor Montaigne's malign trickery of -style, his roving imagination, his preoccupation with himself, who said -so splendidly: "I have no other end in writing but to discover myself, -who also shall peradventure be another thing to-morrow."</p> - -<p>As in a tragic drama so in a tragic novel we must not forbid an artist -in fiction to set before us strange instances of inconsistency and -eccentricity in conduct as well as in action; but we require of him that -he should make us feel such aberrations to be as clearly inevitable as -they are certainly exceptional. Balzac has done that and Flaubert and -Goncourt and Maupassant and Conrad. All these, at their greatest, are -inevitable; only no novelist is ever consistently great. Reade's -Griffith Gaunt is not, as he ought to have been, inevitable; for what is -tragic and pathetic and eccentric in his character is flawed by the -writer's failure in showing what ought to have been the intolerable and -irresistible force of the temptation; his art is an act of envy, -therefore a base act, and has none of the grandeur of Othello's -jealousy, which makes one love him the more for that, more even because -he is unconscious of Iago's poisoned tongue. Leontes excites our -repulsion: he is a coward, selfish and deluded and ignoble.</p> - -<p>At his finest I find in Charles Reade certain adventures almost worthy -of Dumas; only he never had that overflowing negro-like genius of the -French novelist; who can be tedious at times, and can write very badly -when he likes, for he never had much of a style. Yet, with all his -suspense and the suddenness of his vivid action and of the living -conversation of furiously living creatures, he does really carry us -along in an amazing way; equally in the tragic figure Edmund Dantès as -in those of d'Artagnan and Aramis and Porthos. Among Reade's many faults -is the inability to blot when he ought to have blotted, to abstain, as -he too often did not, from ostentation and self-praise, by the fact that -he can not always get far enough away from what to him was the -pernicious atmosphere of the stage.</p> - -<p><i>The Picture of Dorian Gray</i> (1891) is partly made out of Wilde -himself, partly out of two other men, both of whom are alive. Not being -creative he was cruel enough to mix his somewhat poisonous color after the -fashion of an impressionistic painter, and so to give a treble -reflection of three different temperaments instead of giving one. In any -case, as Pater wrote: "Dorian himself, though a quite unsuccessful -experiment in Epicureanism, in life as a fine art, is (till his inward -spoiling takes visible effect suddenly, and in a moment, at the end of -his story) a beautiful creature."</p> - -<p>His peculiar kind of beauty might be imaged by a strangely colored -Eastern vessel, and hidden within it, a few delicate young serpents. For -he has something of the coiled up life of the serpents, in his poisonous -sins; sins he communicates to others, ruining their youthful lives with -no deliberate malice, but simply because he can not help it. He has no -sense of shame, even in his most ignoble nights. Sin is a thing that -writes itself across a man's face; but secret vices can not be -concealed; one sees them in the mere ironical curl of sinister lips, or -in the enigmatical lifting of an eyelid. He has made the devil's -bargain, but not in the sense in which Faustus sells his soul to Satan; -yet he is always entangled in the painted sins, the more and more -hideous aspects, of his intolerably accusing portrait, taken, certainly, -in Wilde's usual manner, from <i>La Peau de Chagrin</i> of Balzac; only, -and therein lies the immense difference, the man's life never shrinks, but -the very lines and colors of his painted image shrivel, until the thing -itself—the thing he has come to hate as one hates hell—has its -revenge.</p> - -<p>A passion for caprice, a whimsical Irish temperament, a love of art for -art's sake—it is in such qualities as these that I find the origin of -the beautiful force of estheticism, the exquisite echoes of the poems, -the subtle decadence of <i>Dorian Gray</i>, and the paradoxical truths, the -perverted common sense of the <i>Intentions.</i> Certainly, as Pater -realized, Wilde, with his hatred of the bourgeois seriousness of dull -people, has always taken refuge from commonplace in irony. Life, to him, -even when he is most frivolous, ought not to be realism, but a following -after art: a provoking enough phrase for those who are lost to the sense -of suggestiveness. He is conscious of the charm of grateful echoes, and -is always original in his quotations.</p> - -<p>In Wilde we see a great spectacular intellect, to which, at last, pity -and terror have come in their own person, and no longer as puppets in a -play. In its sight, human life has always been something created on the -stage; a comedy in which it is the wise man's part to sit aside and -laugh, but in which he may also disdainfully take part, as in a -carnival, under any mask. The unbiased, scornful intellect, to which -humanity has never been a burden, comes now to be unable to sit aside -and laugh, and it has worn and looked behind so many masks that there is -nothing left desirable in illusion. Having seen, as the artist sees, -further than morality, but with so partial an eyesight as to have -overlooked it on the way, it has come at length to discover morality, in -the only way left possible, for itself. And, like most of those who have -"thought themselves weary," have made the adventure of putting thought -into action, it has had to discover it sorrowfully, at its own -inevitable expense. And now, having so newly become acquainted with what -is pitiful, and what seems most unjust, in the arrangements of mortal -affairs, it has gone, not unnaturally, to an extreme, and taken on the -one hand, humanitarianism, on the other realism, at more than their just -valuation in matters of art. It is that old instinct of the intellect; -the necessity to carry things to their farthest point of development, to -be more logical than either art or life, two very wayward and illogical -things, in which conclusions do not always follow from premises.</p> - -<p>Swinburne's <i>Love's Cross Currents</i> appeared originally under what -is now its sub-title <i>A Year's Letters</i>, in a weekly periodical, long -since extinct, called <i>The Tattler</i>, from August 25th to December -29th, 1877. It was written under the pseudonym of Mrs. Horace Manners, -and was preceded by a letter "To the Author," supposed to come from some -unnamed publisher or literary adviser, who returns her manuscript to the -lady with much faultfinding on the ground of morality. The letter ends:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>I recommend you, therefore, to suppress, or even to destroy, this book, -for two reasons: It is a false picture of domestic life in England, -because it suggests as possible the chance that a married lady may -prefer some chance stranger to her husband, which is palpably and -demonstrably absurd. It is also, as far as I can see, deficient in -purpose and significance. Morality, I need not add, is the soul of art; -a picture, poem, or story must be judged by the lesson it conveys. If it -strengthens our hold upon fact, if it heightens our love of truth, if it -rekindles our ardour for the right, it is admissible as good; if not, -what shall we say of it?</p></blockquote> - - -<p>The two final sentences of the first chapter, now omitted, are amusing -enough to seem characteristic: "For the worldling's sneer may silence -religion, but philanthropy is a tough fox and dies hard. The pietist may -subside on attack into actual sermonising, and thence into a dumb agony -of appeal against what he hears—the impotence of sincere disgust; but -infinite coarse chaff will not shut up the natural lecturer; he snuffs -sharply at all implied objection, and comes up to time again, gasping, -verbose and resolute." But is there not a certain needless loss in the -omission of two or three of the piquant passages in French? One is on -the woman of sixty who "<i>seule sait mettre du fard moral sans jurer -avec.</i>" There is another passage in French which comes out of page 220; -it is not clear why, for it is sprightly enough, as this is also, which -drops out of page 175: "<i>Ce sang répandu, voyez-vous, mon enfant, -c'était la monnaie de sa vertu.</i>" I said I should have preferred it -without the small change. "'<i>Mais, avec de la grosse monnaie on -n'achète jamais rien qui vaille,' she said placidly.</i>" Then follows, as -we now have it: "<i>C'était décidément une femme forte.</i>" Such, so -slight, and at times so uncalled for, are the changes in this -"disinterment" of "so early an attempt in the great art of fiction or -creation."</p> - -<p>In defending the form of his story in letters, Swinburne invokes the -names of Richardson and Laclos and "the giant genius of Balzac." But the -<i>Mémoires des deux jeunes Mariées</i> is full of firm reality, <i>Pamela</i> -is full of patient analysis, and <i>Les Liaisons dangereuses</i> is full of -reality, analysis, and a hard brilliant genius for psychology. Swinburne -may have found in Laclos a little of his cynicism, though for that he -need have gone no further than Stendhal, who is referred to in these -pages, significantly. Some one says of some one: "I'd as soon read the -<i>Chartreuse de Parme</i> as listen to her talk long; it is Stendhal -diluted and transmuted." But neither in Laclos nor in Stendhal did he find -that great novelist's gift which both have: that passion for life, and for -the unraveling of the threads of life. His people and their doings are -spectral, lunar; all the more so because their names are "Redgie," -Frank, and only rarely Amicia; and because they talk schoolboy slang as -schoolboys and French drawing-room slang as elderly people. They are -presented by brilliant descriptive or satiric touches; they say the -cleverest things of one another; they have a ghostly likeness to real -people which one would be surprised that Swinburne should ever have -tried to get, had he not repeated the same hopeless experiment in his -modern play <i>The Sisters</i>, which sacrifices every possible charm of -poetry or deep feeling to such a semblance; to so mere a mimicry of -every-day speech and manners. There is more reality in any mere Félise -or Fragoletta than in the plausible polite letter-writers. It is -impossible to care what they are doing or have done; not easy indeed, -without close reading, to find out; and, while there is hardly a -sentence which we can not read with pleasure for its literary savor, its -prim ironic elegance, there is not a page which we turn with the -faintest thrill of curiosity. A novel which lacks interest may have -every formal merit of writing, but it can not have merit as a novel. The -novel professes to show us men and women, alive and in action: the one -thing vitally interesting to men and women.</p> - - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - -<h4><a id="On_Criticism">ON CRITICISM</a></h4> - - -<p>Criticism is a valuation of forces, and it is indifferent to their -direction. It is concerned with them only as force, and it is concerned -only with force in its kind and degree.</p> - -<p>The aim of criticism is to distinguish what is essential in the work of -a writer; and in order to do this, its first business must be to find -out where he is different from all other writers. It is the delight of -the critic to praise; but praise is scarcely a part of his duty. He may -often seem to find himself obliged to condemn; yet condemnation is -hardly a necessary part of his office. What we ask of him is, that he -should find out for us more than we can find out for ourselves: trace -what in us is a whim or leaning to its remote home or center of gravity, -and explain why we are affected in this way or that way by this or that -writer. He studies origins in effects, and must know himself, and be -able to allow for his own mental and emotional variations, if he is to -do more than give us the records of his likes and dislikes. He must have -the passion of the lover, and be enamored of every form of beauty; and, -like the lover, not of all equally, but with a general allowance of -those least to his liking. He will do well to be not without a touch of -intolerance: that intolerance which, in the lover of the best, is an act -of justice against the second-rate. The second-rate may perhaps have -some reason for existence: that is doubtful; but the danger of the -second-rate, if it is accepted "on its own merits," as people say, is -that it may come to be taken for the thing it resembles, as a wavering -image in water resembles the rock which it reflects.</p> - -<p>Dryden, a poet who was even greater as a critic than as a poet, said, -"True judgment in poetry, like that in painting, takes a view of the -whole together, whether it be good or not; and where the beauties are -more than the faults, concludes for the poet against the little judge." -Here, in this decision, as to the proportions of merit and demerit in a -work, is the critic's first task; it is one that is often overlooked by -careful analysts, careless of what substance they are analyzing. What -has been called the historical method is responsible for a great deal of -these post-mortem dissections. How often do we not see learned persons -engaged in this dismal occupation, not even conscious that they are -fumbling among the bones and sinews of the dead. Such critics will -examine the signs of life with equal gravity in living insignificances. -But to the true critic a living insignificance is already dead.</p> - -<p>And so, as in a dead man all the virtues go for nothing, no merit, no -number of merits, of a secondary kind, in a writer who has been adjudged -"not to exist," can avail anything. The critic concerns himself only -with such as do exist. One of these, it may be, exists for a single book -out of many books, a single poem out of many volumes of verse; an essay, -an epigram, the preface to a book, a song out of a play. No perfect -thing is too small for eternal recollection. But there are other writers -who, though they have never condensed all their quality into any quite -final achievement, live by a kind of bulk, live because there is in them -something living, which refuses to go out. It is in his judgment of -these two classes of writers, the measure of his skill in finding vital -energy concentrated or diffused, in a cell or throughout an organism, -that the critic is most likely to show his own quality. Charles Lamb is -one of the greatest critics of Shakespeare, but the infallibility of his -instinct as a critic is shown, not so much when he writes better about -<i>Lear</i> than any one had ever written about <i>Lear</i>, but when -he reveals to us, for the first time, the secret of Ford, the mainspring of -Webster.</p> - -<p>Criticism, when it is not mere talk about literature, concerns itself -with the first principles of human nature and with fundamental ideas. -There is a quite valuable kind of critic to whom a book is merely a -book, who is interested in things only as they become words, in emotions -only as they add fine raptures to printed pages. To such critics we owe -rules and systems; when they tabulate or elucidate meter or any -principle of form they are doing a humble but useful service to artists. -Their comments on books are often pleasant reading, sometimes turning -into a kind of literature, essays which we are content to read for their -own charm. But there is hardly anything idler than literary criticism -which is a mere describing and comparing of books, a mere praise and -blame of this and that writer and his work. When Coleridge writes a -criticism of Shakespeare, he is giving us his deepest philosophy, in a -manner in which we can best apprehend it. Criticism with Goethe is part -of his view of the world, his judgment of human nature, and of society. -With Pater, criticism is quickened meditation; with Matthew Arnold, a -form of moral instruction or mental satire. Lamb said in his criticism -more of what he had to say of "what God and man is," with more gravity -and more intensity, than in any other part of his work.</p> - -<p>And thus it is that, while there is a great mass of valuable criticism -done by critics who were only critics, the most valuable criticism of -all, the only quite essential criticism, has been done by creative -writers, for the most part poets. The criticism of a philosopher, -Aristotle's, comes next to that of the poets, but is never that winged -thing which criticism, as well as poetry, can be in the hands of a poet. -Aristotle is the mathematician of criticism, while Coleridge is the high -priest.</p> - -<p>When Dryden said "poets themselves are the most proper, though, I -conclude, not the only critics," he was stating a fact which many prose -persons have tried, though vainly, to dispute. Baudelaire, in a famous -passage of his essay on Wagner, has said with his invariable exactitude, -"It would be a wholly new event in the history of the arts if a critic -were to turn himself into a poet, a reversal of every psychic law, a -monstrosity; on the other hand, all great poets become naturally, -inevitably, critics. I pity the poets who are guided solely by instinct; -they seem to me incomplete. In the spiritual life of the former there -must come a crisis when they would think out their art, discover the -obscure laws in consequence of which they have produced, and draw from -this study a series of precepts whose divine purpose is infallibility in -poetic production. It would be impossible for a critic to become a poet, -and it is impossible for a poet not to contain a critic." And in England -we have had few good poets who have not on occasion shown themselves -good critics. What is perhaps strange is, that they have put some of -their criticism into verse, and made it into poetry. From the days when -Lydgate affirmed of Chaucer that "he of English in making was the best," -to the days when Landor declared of Browning:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">"Since Chaucer was alive and hale,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">No man hath walk'd along our roads with step</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">So active, so inquiring eye, or tongue</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">So varied in discourse;"</span></p> - - -<p>down, indeed, to the present days, when Swinburne has repaid Landor all -his praise of poets, almost every English poet has been generously just -to his contemporaries, and almost every poet has found the exact word of -definition, of revelation, which the prose critics were laboriously -hunting for, or still more laboriously writing round. To take a single -example, could anything be more actually critical, in the severest sense -of the word, than these lines of Shelley on Coleridge, lines which are -not less admirable as verse than as criticism?</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">You will see Coleridge; he who sits obscure</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">In the exceeding lustre and the pure</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Intense irradiation of a mind</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Which, with its own internal lightning blind,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Flags wearily through darkness and despair</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">A cloud-encircled meteor of the air,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">A hooded eagle among blinking owls.</span></p> - - -<p>Those seven lines are not merely good criticism: they are final; they -leave nothing more to be said. Criticism, at such a height, is no longer -mere reasoning; it has the absolute sanction of intuition.</p> - -<p>And, it will be found, the criticism of poets, not only such as is -expressed, deliberately or by the way, in verse, but such as is set down -by them in essays, or in letters, however carefully or casually, remains -the most valuable criticism of poetry which we can get; and, similarly, -the opinion of men of genius on their own work and on their own form of -art, whatever it may be, is of more value than all the theories made by -"little judges." The occasional notes and sayings of such men as Blake -and Rossetti are often of more essential quality than their more ordered -and elaborate comments. The essence they contain is undiluted. They are -what is remembered over from a state of inspiration; and they are to be -received as reports are received from eye-witnesses, whose honesty has -already proved itself in authentic deeds.</p> - -<p>The <i>Biographia Literaria</i> is the greatest book of criticism in -English, and one of the most annoying books in any language. The thought -of Coleridge has to be pursued across stones, ditches, and morasses; with -haste, lingering, and disappointment; it turns back, loses itself, -fetches wide circuits, and comes to no visible end. But you must follow -it step by step; and if you are ceaselessly attentive, will be -ceaselessly rewarded.</p> - -<p>When Coleridge says, in this book, that "the ultimate end of criticism -is much more to establish the principle of writing than to furnish rules -how to pass judgment on what has been written by others," he is defining -that form of criticism in which he is supreme among critics. Lamb can be -more instant in the detection of beauty; Pater can make over again an -image or likeness of that beauty which he defines, with more sensitive -precision; but no one has ever gone deeper down into the substance of -creation itself, or more nearly reached that unknown point where -creation begins. As poet, he knows; as philosopher, he understands; and -thus, as critic, he can explain almost the origin of creation.</p> - - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - -<h4><a id="The_Decadent_Movement_in_Literature">THE DECADENT MOVEMENT IN<br /> -LITERATURE</a></h4> - - -<p>The latest movement in European literature has been called by many -names, none of them quite exact or comprehensive—Decadence, -Symbolism, Impressionism, for instance. It is easy to dispute over words, -and we shall find that Verlaine objects to being called a Decadent, -Maeterlinck to being called a Symbolist, Huysmans to being called an -Impressionist. These terms, as it happens, have been adopted as the badge -of little separate cliques, noisy, brainsick young people who haunt the -brasseries of the Boulevard Saint-Michel, and exhaust their ingenuities in -theorizing over the works they can not write. But, taken frankly as -epithets which express their own meaning, both Impressionism and -Symbolism convey some notion of that new kind of literature which is -perhaps more broadly characterized by the word Decadence. The most -representative literature of the day—the writing which appeals to, -which has done so much to form, the younger generation—is certainly -not classic, nor has it any relation with that old antithesis of the -Classic, the Romantic. After a fashion it is no doubt a decadence; -it has all the qualities that mark the end of great periods, the -qualities that we find in the Greek, the Latin, decadence: an -intense self-consciousness, a restless curiosity in research, an -over-subtilizing refinement upon refinement, a spiritual and moral -perversity. If what we call the classic is indeed the supreme art—those -qualities of perfect simplicity, perfect sanity, perfect proportion, the -supreme qualities—then this representative literature of to-day, -interesting, beautiful, novel as it is, is really a new and beautiful -and interesting disease.</p> - -<p>Healthy we can not call it, and healthy it does not wish to be -considered. The Goncourts, in their prefaces, in their <i>Journal</i>, are -always insisting on their own pet malady, <i>la névrose.</i> It is in their -work too, that Huysmans notes with delight <i>le style tacheté et -faisandé</i>—high-flavored and spotted with corruption—which he -himself possesses in the highest degree. "Having desire without light, -curiosity, without wisdom, seeking God by strange ways, by ways traced -by the hands of men; offering rash incense upon the high places to an -unknown God, who is the God of darkness"—that is how Ernest Hello, in -one of his apocalyptic moments, characterizes the nineteenth century. -And this unreason of the soul—of which Hello himself is so curious a -victim—this unstable equilibrium, which has overbalanced so many -brilliant intelligences into one form or another of spiritual confusion, -is but another form of the <i>maladie fin de siècle.</i> For its very -disease of form, this literature is certainly typical of a civilization -grown over-luxurious, over-inquiring, too languid for the relief of -action, too uncertain for any emphasis in opinion or in conduct. -It reflects all the moods, all the manners, of a sophisticated -society; its very artificiality is a way of I being true to nature: -simplicity, sanity, proportion—the classic qualities—how much -do we possess them in our life, our surroundings, that we should look -to find them in our literature—so evidently the literature of a -decadence?</p> - -<p>Taking the word Decadence, then, as most precisely expressing the -general sense of the newest movement in literature, we find that the -terms Impressionism and Symbolism define correctly enough the two main -branches of that movement. Now Impressionist and Symbolist have more in -common than either supposes; both are really working on the same -hypothesis, applied in different directions. What both seek is not -general truth merely, but <i>vérité vraie</i>, the very essence of -truth—the truth of appearances to the senses, of the visible world to -the eyes that see it; and the truth of spiritual things to the spiritual -vision. The Impressionist, in literature as in painting, would flash -upon you in a new, sudden way so exact an image of what you have just -seen, just as you have seen it, that you may say, as a young American -sculptor, a pupil of Rodin, said to me on seeing for the first time a -picture of Whistler's, "Whistler seems to think his picture upon -canvas—and there it is!" Or you may find, with Sainte-Beuve, writing -of Goncourt, the "soul of the landscape"—the soul of whatever corner -of the visible world has to be realized. The Symbolist, in this new, sudden -way, would I flash upon you the "soul" of that which can be apprehended -only by the soul—the finer sense of things unseen, the deeper meaning -of things evident. And naturally, necessarily, this endeavor after a -perfect truth to one's impression, to one's intuition—perhaps an -impossible endeavor—has brought with it, in its revolt from -ready-made impressions and conclusions, a revolt from the ready-made of -language, from the bondage of traditional form, of a form become rigid. In -France, where this movement began and has mainly flourished, it is Goncourt -who was the first to invent a style in prose really new, impressionistic, a -style which was itself almost sensation. It is Verlaine who has invented -such another new style in verse.</p> - -<p>The work of the brothers De Goncourt—twelve novels, eleven or -twelve studies in the history of the eighteenth century, six or seven books -about art, the art mainly of the eighteenth century and of Japan, two -plays, some volumes of letters and of fragments, and a <i>Journal</i> in -six volumes—is perhaps, in its intention and its consequences, the -most revolutionary of the century. No one has ever tried so deliberately to -do something new as the Goncourts; and the final word in the summing up -which the survivor has placed at the head of the <i>Préfaces et -Manifestes</i> is a word which speaks of <i>tentatives, enfin, où les deux -frères ont à faire du neuf, ont fait leurs efforts pour doter les -diverses branches de la littérature de quelque chose que n'avaient -point songé à trouver leurs prédécesseurs.</i> And in the preface to -<i>Chérie</i>, in that pathetic passage which tells of the two brothers -(one mortally stricken, and within a few months of death) taking their -daily walk in the Bois de Boulogne, there is a definite demand on -posterity. "The search after <i>reality</i> in literature, the resurrection -of eighteenth-century art, the triumph of <i>Japonisme</i>—are not -these," said Jules, "the three great literary and artistic movements of the -second half of the nineteenth century? And it is we who brought them about, -these three movements. Well, when one has done that, it is difficult -indeed not to be <i>somebody</i> in the future." Nor, even, is this all. -What the Goncourts have done is to specialize vision, so to speak, and to -subtilize language to the point of rendering every detail in just the -form and color of the actual impression. Edmond de Goncourt once said to -me—varying, if I remember rightly, an expression he had put into the -<i>Journal</i>—"My brother and I invented an opera-glass: the young -people nowadays are taking it out of our hands."</p> - -<p>An opera-glass—a special, unique way of seeing things—that -is what the Goncourts have brought to bear upon the common things about us; -and it is here that they have done the "something new," here more than -anywhere. They have never sought "to see life steadily, and see it -whole:" their vision has always been somewhat feverish, with the -diseased sharpness of over-excited nerves. "We do not hide from -ourselves that we have been passionate, nervous creatures, unhealthily -impressionable," confesses the <i>Journal.</i> But it is this morbid -intensity in seeing and seizing things that has helped to form that -marvelous style—"a style perhaps too ambitious of impossibilities," -as they admit—a style which inherits some of its color from Gautier, -some of its fine outline from Flaubert, but which has brought light and -shadow into the color, which has softened outline in the magic of -atmosphere. With them words are not merely color and sound, they live. -That search after <i>l'image peinte, l'épithète rare</i>, is not (as with -Flaubert) a search after harmony of phrase for its own sake; it is a -desperate endeavor to give sensation, to flash the impression of the -moment, to preserve the very heat and motion of life. And so, in -analysis as in description, they have found a way of noting the fine -shades; they have broken the outline of the conventional novel in -chapters, with its continuous story, in order to indicate—sometimes -in a chapter of half a page—this and that revealing moment, this or -that significant attitude or accident or sensation. For the placid -traditions of French prose they have had but little respect; their aim has -been but one, that of having (as M. Edmond de Goncourt tells us in the -preface to <i>Chérie</i>) "une langue rendant nos idées, nos sensations, -nos figurations des hommes et des choses, d'une façon distincte de celui-ci -ou de celui-là, une langue personnelle, une langue portant notre -signature."</p> - -<p>What Goncourt has done in prose—inventing absolutely a new way of -saying things, to correspond with that new way of seeing things which he -has found—Verlaine has done in verse. In a famous poem, <i>Art -Poétique</i>, he has himself defined his own ideal of the poetic art:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Car nous voulons la Nuance encor,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Pas la Couleur, rien que la Nuance!</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Oh! la Nuance seule fiance</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Le rêve au rêve et la flûte au cor!</i></span></p> - - -<p>Music first of all and before all, he insists; and then, not color, but -<i>la nuance</i>, the last fine shade. Poetry is to be something vague, -intangible, evanescent, a winged soul in flight "toward other skies and -other loves." To express the inexpressible he speaks of beautiful eyes -behind a veil, of the palpitating sunlight of noon, of the blue swarm of -clear stars in a cool autumn sky; and the verse in which he makes this -confession of faith has the exquisite troubled beauty—<i>sans rien en -lui qui pèse ou qui pose</i>—which he commends as the essential -quality of verse. In a later poem of poetical counsel he tells us that art -should, first of all, be absolutely clear, absolutely sincere: <i>L'art mes -enfants, c'est d'être absolument soi-même.</i> The two poems, with their -seven years' interval—an interval which means so much in the life of a -man like Verlaine—give us all that there is of theory in the work of -the least theoretical, the most really instinctive, of poetical -innovators. Verlaine's poetry has varied with his life; always in -excess—now furiously sensual, now feverishly devout—he has -been constant only to himself, to his own self-contradictions. For, with -all the violence, turmoil and disorder of a life which is almost the life -of a modern Villon, Paul Verlaine has always retained that childlike -simplicity, and, in his verse, which has been his confessional, that -fine sincerity, of which Villon may be thought to have set the example -in literature.</p> - -<p>Beginning his career as a Parnassian with the <i>Poèmes Saturniens</i>, -Verlaine becomes himself, in the <i>Fêtes Galantes</i>, caprices after -Watteau, followed, a year later, by <i>La Bonne Chanson</i>, a happy record -of too confident a lover's happiness. <i>Romances sans Paroles</i>, in -which the poetry of Impressionism reaches its very highest point, is more -<i>tourmenté</i>, goes deeper, becomes more poignantly personal. It is the -poetry of sensation, of evocation; poetry which paints as well as sings, -and which paints as Whistler paints, seeming to think the colors and -outlines upon the canvas, to think them only, and they are there. The -mere magic of words—words which evoke pictures, which recall -sensations—can go no further; and in his next book, <i>Sagesse</i>, -published after seven years' wanderings and sufferings, there is a -graver manner of more deeply personal confession—that "sincerity, and -the impression of the moment followed to the letter," which he has -defined in a prose criticism on himself as his main preference in regard -to style. "Sincerity, and the impression of the moment followed to the -letter," mark the rest of Verlaine's work, whether the sentiment be that -of passionate friendship, as in <i>Amour</i>; of love, human and divine, as -in <i>Bonheur</i>; of the mere lust of the flesh, as in <i>Parallèlement</i> -and <i>Chansons pour Elle.</i> In his very latest verse the quality of -simplicity has become exaggerated, has become, at times, childish; the once -exquisite depravity of style has lost some of its distinction; there is -no longer the same delicately vivid "impression of the moment" to -render. Yet the very closeness with which it follows a lamentable career -gives a curious interest to even the worst of Verlaine's work. And how -unique, how unsurpassable in its kind, is the best! "<i>Et tout le reste -est littérature!</i>" was the cry, supreme and contemptuous, of that early -<i>Art Poétique</i>; and, compared with Verlaine at his best, all other -contemporary work in verse seems not yet disenfranchised from mere -"literature." To fix the last fine shade, the quintessence of things; to -fix it fleetingly; to be a disembodied voice, and yet the voice of a -human soul: that is the ideal of Decadence, and it is what Paul Verlaine -has achieved.</p> - -<p>And certainly, so far as achievement goes, no other poet of the actual -group in France can be named beside him or near him. But in Stéphane -Mallarmé, with his supreme pose as the supreme poet, and his two or -three pieces of exquisite verse and delicately artificial prose to show -by way of result, we have—the prophet and pontiff of the movement, -the mystical and theoretical leader of the great emancipation. No one has -ever dreamed such beautiful, impossible dreams as Mallarmé; no one has -ever so possessed his soul in the contemplation of masterpieces to come. -All his life he has been haunted by the desire to create, not so much -something new in literature, as a literature which should itself be a -new art. He has dreamed of a work into which all the arts should enter, -and achieve themselves by a mutual interdependence—a harmonizing of -all the arts into one supreme art—and he has theorized with infinite -subtlety over the possibilities of doing the impossible. Every Tuesday -for the last twenty years he has talked more fascinatingly, more -suggestively, than any one else has ever done, in that little room in -the Rue de Rome, to that little group of eager young poets. "A seeker -after something in the world, that is there in no satisfying measure, or -not at all," he has carried his contempt for the usual, the -conventional, beyond the point of literary expression, into the domain -of practical affairs. Until the publication, quite recently, of a -selection of <i>Vers et Prose</i>, it was only possible to get his poems in -a limited and expensive edition, lithographed in facsimile of his own -clear and elegant handwriting. An aristocrat of letters, Mallarmé has -always looked with intense disdain on the indiscriminate accident of -universal suffrage. He has wished neither to be read nor to be -understood by the bourgeois intelligence, and it is with some -deliberateness of intention that he has made both issues impossible. -Catulle Mendès defines him admirably as "a difficult author," and in -his latest period he has succeeded in becoming absolutely -unintelligible. His early poems, <i>L'Après-midi d'un Faune, Herodiade</i>, -for example, and some exquisite sonnets, and one or two fragments of -perfectly polished verse, are written in a language which has nothing in -common with every-day language—symbol within symbol, image within -image; but symbol and image achieve themselves in expression without -seeming to call for the necessity of a key. The latest poems (in which -punctuation is sometimes entirely suppressed, for our further -bewilderment) consist merely of a sequence of symbols, in which every -word must be taken in a sense with which its ordinary significance has -nothing to do. Mallarmé's contortion of the French language, so far as -mere style is concerned, is curiously similar to the kind of depravation -which was undergone by the Latin language in its decadence. It is, -indeed, in part a reversion to Latin phraseology, to the Latin -construction, and it has made, of the clear and flowing French language, -something irregular, unquiet, expressive, with sudden surprising -felicities, with nervous starts and lapses, with new capacities for the -exact noting of sensation. Alike to the ordinary and to the scholarly -reader, it is painful, intolerable; a jargon, a massacre. Supremely -self-confident, and backed, certainly, by an ardent following of the -younger generation, Mallarmé goes on his way, experimenting more and -more audaciously, having achieved by this time, at all events, a style -wholly his own. Yet the <i>chef-d'œvre inconnu</i> seems no nearer -completion, the impossible seems no more likely to be done. The two or -three beautiful fragments remain, and we still hear the voice in the Rue -de Rome.</p> - -<p>Probably it is as a voice, an influence, that Mallarmé will be -remembered. His personal magnetism has had a great deal to do with the -making of the very newest French literature; few literary beginners in -Paris have been able to escape the rewards and punishments of his -contact, his suggestion. One of the young poets who form that delightful -Tuesday evening coterie said to me the other day, "We owe much to -Mallarmé, but he has kept us all back three years." That is where the -danger of so inspiring, so helping a personality comes in. The work even -of Henri de Regnier, who is the best of the disciples, has not entirely -got clear from the influence that has shown his fine talent the way to -develop. Perhaps it is in the verse of men who are not exactly following -in the counsel of the master—who might disown him, whom he might -disown—that one sees most clearly the outcome of his theories, the -actual consequences of his practise. In regard to the construction of -verse, Mallarmé has always remained faithful to the traditional -syllabic measurement; but the freak or the discovery of <i>le vers libre</i> -is certainly the natural consequence of his experiments upon the -elasticity of rhythm, upon the power of resistance of the cæsura. <i>Le -vers libre</i> in the hands of most of the experimenters becomes merely -rhymeless irregular prose. I never really understood the charm that may -be found in this apparent structureless rhythm until I heard, not long -since, Dujardin read aloud the as yet unpublished conclusion of a -dramatic poem in several parts. It was rhymed, but rhymed with some -irregularity, and the rhythm was purely and simply a vocal effect. The -rhythm came and went as the spirit moved. You might deny that it was -rhythm at all; and yet, read as I heard it read, in a sort of slow -chant, it produced on me the effect of really beautiful verse. But <i>vers -libres</i> in the hands of a sciolist are the most intolerably easy and -annoying of poetical exercises. Even in the case of <i>Le Pèlerin -Passionné</i> I can not see the justification of what is merely regular -syllabic verse lengthened or shortened arbitrarily, with the Alexandrine -always evident in the background as the foot-rule of the new metre. In -this hazardous experiment Jean Moréas, whose real talent lies in quite -another direction, has brought nothing into literature but an example of -deliberate singularity for singularity's sake. I seem to find the -measure of the man in a remark I once heard him make in a <i>café</i>, -where we were discussing the technique of meter: "You, Verlaine!" he cried, -leaning across the table, "have only written lines of sixteen syllables; -I have written lines of twenty syllables!" And turning to me, he asked -anxiously if Swinburne had ever done that—had written a line of -twenty syllables.</p> - -<p>That is indeed the measure of the man, and it points a criticism upon -not a few of the busy little <i>littérateurs</i> who are founding new -<i>revues</i> every other week in Paris. These people have nothing to say, -but they are resolved to say something, and to say it in the newest -mode. They are Impressionists because it is the fashion, Symbolists -because it is the vogue, Decadents because Decadence is in the very air -of the cafés. And so, in their manner, they are mile-posts on the way -of this new movement, telling how far it has gone. But to find a new -personality, a new way of seeing things, among the young writers who are -starting up on every hand, we must turn from Paris to Brussels—to the -so-called Belgian Shakespeare, Maurice Maeterlinck.</p> - -<p>In truth, Maeterlinck is not a Shakespeare, and the Elizabethan violence -of his first play is of the school of Webster and Tourneur rather than -of Shakespeare. As a dramatist he has but one note, that of fear; he has -but one method, that of repetition.</p> - -<p>The window, looking out upon the unseen—an open door, as -in <i>L'Intruse</i>, through which Death, the intruder, may come -invisibly—how typical of the new kind of symbolistic and -impressionistic drama which Maeterlinck has invented! I say invented, a -little rashly. The real discoverer of this new kind of drama was that -strange, inspiring, incomplete man of genius whom Maeterlinck, above all -others, delights to honor, Villiers de l'Isle-Adam. Imagine a combination -of Swift, of Poe, and of Coleridge, and you will have some idea of the -extraordinary, impossible poet and cynic who, after a life of brilliant -failure, has left a series of unfinished works in every kind of literature; -among the finished achievements one volume of short stories, <i>Contes -Cruels</i>, which is an absolute masterpiece. Yet, apart from this, it was -the misfortune of Villiers never to attain the height of his imaginings, -and even <i>Axël</i>, the work of a lifetime, is an achievement only half -achieved. Only half achieved, or achieved only in the work of others; -for, in its mystical intention, its remoteness from any kind of outward -reality, <i>Axël</i> is undoubtedly the origin of the symbolistic drama. -This drama, in Villiers, is of pure symbol, of sheer poetry. It has an -exalted eloquence which we find in none of his followers. As Maeterlinck -has developed it, it is a drama which appeals directly to the -sensations—sometimes crudely, sometimes subtly—playing its -variations upon the very nerves themselves. The "vague spiritual fear" -which it creates out of our nervous apprehension is unlike anything that -has ever been done before, even by Hoffman, even by Poe. It is an effect of -atmosphere—an atmosphere in which outlines change and become -mysterious, in which a word quietly uttered makes one start, in which -all one's mental activity becomes concentrated on something, one knows -not what, something slow, creeping, terrifying, which comes nearer and -nearer, an impending nightmare.</p> - -<p>As an experiment in a new kind of drama, these curious plays do not seem -to exactly achieve themselves on the stage; it is difficult to imagine -how they could ever be made so impressive, when thus externalized, as -they are when all is left to the imagination. <i>L'Intruse</i>, for instance, -seemed, as one saw it acted, too faint in outline, with too little -carrying power for scenic effect. But Maeterlinck is by no means anxious -to be considered merely or mainly as a dramatist. A brooding poet, a -mystic, a contemplative spectator of the comedy of death—that is how -he presents himself to us in his work; and the introduction which he has -prefixed to his translation of <i>L'Ornement des Noces Spirituelles</i>, of -Ruysbroeck l'Admirable, shows how deeply he has studied the mystical -writers of all ages, and how much akin to theirs is his own temper. -Plato and Plotinus, Saint Bernard and Jacob Boehm, Coleridge and -Novalis—he knows them all, and it is with a sort of reverence that he -sets himself to the task of translating the astonishing Flemish mystic -of the thirteenth century, known till now only by the fragments -translated into French by Ernest Hollo from a sixteenth-century Latin -version. This translation and this introduction help to explain the real -character of Maeterlinck's dramatic work—dramatic as to form, by a -sort of accident, but essentially mystical.</p> - -<p>Partly akin to Maeterlinck by race, more completely alien from him in -temper than it is possible to express, Joris Karl Huysmans demands a -prominent place in any record of the Decadent movement. His work, like -that of the Goncourts, is largely determined by the <i>maladie fin de -siècle</i>—the diseased nerves that, in his case, have given a curious -personal quality of pessimism to his outlook on the world, his view -of life. Part of his work—<i>Marthe, Les Sœurs Vatard, En Ménage, -À Vau-l'Eau</i>—is a minute and searching study of the minor -discomforts, the commonplace miseries of life, as seen by a peevishly -disordered vision, delighting, for its own self-torture, in the insistent -contemplation of human stupidity, of the sordid in existence. Yet these -books do but lead up to the unique masterpiece, the astonishing caprice -of <i>À Rebours</i>, in which he has concentrated all that is delicately -depraved, all that is beautifully, curiously poisonous, in modern art. -<i>À Rebours</i> is the history of a typical Decadent—a study, indeed, -after a real man, but a study which seizes the type rather than the -personality. In the sensations and ideas of Des Esseintes we see the -sensations and ideas of the effeminate, over-civilized, deliberately -abnormal creature who is the last product of our society: partly the -father, partly the offspring, of the perverse art that he adores. Des -Esseintes creates for his solace, in the wilderness of a barren and -profoundly uncomfortable world, an artificial paradise. His Thébaïde -raffinée is furnished elaborately for candle-light, equipped with the -pictures, the books, that satisfy his sense of the exquisitely abnormal. -He delights in the Latin of Apuleius and Petronius, in the French of -Baudelaire, Goncourt, Verlaine, Mallarmé, Villiers; in the pictures of -Gustave Moreau, of Odilon Redon. He delights in the beauty of strange, -unnatural flowers, in the melodic combination of scents, in the imagined -harmonies of the sense of taste. And at last, exhausted by these -spiritual and sensory debauches in the delights of the artificial, he is -left (as we close the book) with a brief, doubtful choice before -him—madness or death, or else a return to nature, to the normal -life.</p> - -<p>Since <i>À Rebours</i>, Huysmans has written one other remarkable book, -<i>Là-Bas</i>, a study in the hysteria and mystical corruption of -contemporary Black Magic. But it is on that one exceptional achievement, -<i>À Rebours</i>, that his fame will rest; it is there that he has expressed -not merely himself, but an epoch. And he has done so in a style which -carries the modern experiments upon language to their furthest -development. Formed upon Goncourt and Flaubert, it has sought for -novelty, <i>l'image peinte</i>, the exactitude of color, the forcible -precision of epithet, wherever words, images, or epithets are -to be found. Barbaric in its profusion, violent in its emphasis, -wearying in its splendor, it is—especially in regard to things -seen—extraordinarily expressive, with all the shades of a painter's -palette. Elaborately and deliberately perverse, it is in its very -perversity that Huysmans' work—so fascinating, so repellent, so -instinctively artificial—comes to represent, as the work of no other -writer can be said to do, the main tendencies, the chief results, of the -Decadent movement in literature.</p> - - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - -<h4><a id="The_Rossettis">THE ROSSETTIS</a></h4> - - -<p>William Michael Rossetti, who has just died, survived his brother, Dante -Gabriel Rossetti, by thirty-seven years, dying at the age of -eighty-nine. Not really a man of letters, in the essential sense, his -verse, as Gabriel said, "Always going back on the old track," he had a -certain talent of his own; for he edited an excellent edition of Blake's -Poems, and a creditable edition of Shelley, the first critical edition -of his poems.</p> - -<p>He was the first Englishman who ever dared to print a Selection from -Whitman's <i>Leaves of Grass</i>,—in 1868; and, in spite of having to -exclude such passages as he considered indecent, the whole book was a -valuable contribution to our literature.</p> - -<p>There is no question that Michael was not invaluable to Gabriel; indeed, -during the whole of the tragic and wonderful life of that man of supreme -genius; not only because he dedicated his <i>Poems</i> of 1870 to one "who -had given them the first brotherly hearing;" not only because, had not -Michael been with him at the British Museum on the ever-memorable and -unforgettable date of April 30, 1847, he had never bought the -imperishable <i>MS. Book of Blake</i>, borrowing for this purchase ten -shillings from his brother; but also because when Rossetti, after his -wife's death, had his manuscript volume of poems exhumed in October, -1869, he did the right thing, both in his impetuous act in burying them -beside his dead wife and in his silence with his brother—who was -really aware of the event—so that his own tortured nerves might -have some respite.</p> - -<p>Still, I have never forgotten how passionately Eleanore Duse said to me, -in 1900:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>Rossetti's eyes desire some feverish thing, but the mouth and chin -hesitate in pursuit. All Rossetti is in that story of his <i>MS.</i> buried -in his wife's coffin. He could do it, he could repent of it; but he -should have gone and taken it back himself: he sent his friends.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>In one of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's invaluable notes on Poetry, he tells -us that to him "the leading point about Coleridge's work is its human -love." That Rossetti, whose face indicated voluptuousness brooding -thoughtfully over destiny, was intensely sensitive, is true; and this -made him a sort of medium to forces seen and unseen. Yet, I think, he -wanted in life more than most men of such genius as he had wanted. For, -as Watts-Dunton said: "He was the slave of his imagination—an -imagination of a power and dominance such as I have never seen equalled. -Of his vividness, no artistic expression of his can give any notion. He -had not the smallest command over it." That is one of the reasons why, -with all his affection for his brother Michael, the chasm between them -was immense—a chasm no dragon-created bridge could ever span; Gabriel -had in him, perhaps, too much of "chasm-fire": his genius was too -flame-fledged for earth's eternity, to have ever had one wing of it -broken by an enemy's shaft.</p> - -<p>No modern poet ever had anything like the same grasp upon whatever is -essential in poetry that Rossetti had; for all that he wrote or said -about Art has in it an absolute rightness of judgment; and, with these, -as absolutely, an intellectual sanity. Here is one principle of artistic -creation stated with instantaneous certainty: "Conception, <i>fundamental -brain work</i>, that is what makes the difference in all art. Work your -metal as much as you like, but first take care that the gold was worth -working." But it is, strangely enough, that at the beginning of a review -of Hake's <i>Parables and Tales</i> he says the final, the inevitable words -on creation and on what lies in the artist's mind before the act of -creation:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>The first and highest is that where the work has been all mentally -"cartooned," as it were, beforehand by a process intensely conscious, -but patient and silent—an occult evolution of life: then follows the -glory of wielding words, and we see the hand of Dante, as the hand of -Michelangelo—or almost as that quickening hand which Michelangelo has -dared to embody—sweep from left to right, fiery and final.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>In 1862, Rossetti took possession of his famous house, 10 Cheyne Walk, -Chelsea, where he lived to the end of his life, and whose joint -occupants were, for a certain length of time, George Meredith, Swinburne -and William Michael Rossetti, who left the house in 1874, the year in -which he married Lucy Madox Brown.</p> - -<p>That four men of individualities so utterly different, and, in some -senses, aggressive, or at least assertive, should have been able to live -together in closeness of continuous intimacy, from which there was -hardly an escape, was barely conceivable. Yet it was in this house that -Swinburne wrote many of his <i>Poems Ballads</i>, part of his book on Blake -and his masterpiece, <i>Atalanta in Calydon.</i> There Meredith finished his -masterpiece in the matter of tragic and passionate verse, <i>Modern -Love.</i> There is nothing like it in the whole of English poetry, nor did -he ever achieve so magnificent a vivisection of the heart in verse as in -these pages—in which he created a wonderful style, acid, stinging, -bitter-sweet, poignant—where these self-torturing and cruel lovers -weave the amazing web of their disillusions as they struggle, open-eyed, -against the blindness of passion.</p> - -<p>The poem laughs while it cries.</p> - -<p>Swinburne, who was, I think, on the whole, less susceptible in regard to -abusive attacks on his books than Meredith or Rossetti, vindicates -himself, and superbly, in the pamphlet I have before me: <i>Notes on Poems -and Reviews</i> (1866). He has been accused of indecency and immorality and -perversity; and is amazed to find that <i>Anactoria</i> "has excited, among -the chaste and candid critics of the day, or hour, or minute, a more -vehement reputation, a more virtuous horror, a more passionate appeal, -than any other of my writing. I am evidently not virtuous enough to -understand them. I thank Heaven that I am not. <i>Ma corruption rougirait -de leur pudeur.</i>"</p> - -<p>In regard to <i>Laus Veneris</i>, I turn for a moment to W. M. Rossetti's -<i>Swinburne's Poems and Ballads: A criticism</i> (1866) which, on the whole, -is uncommonly well written, to one of those passages where he betrays a -kind of Puritanism in his Italian blood; saying that the opening lines -were, apart from any question of sentiment, much overdone. "That is a -situation (and there are many such in Swinburne's writings) which we -would much rather see touched off with the reticence of a Tennyson: he -would probably have given one epithet, or, at the utmost, one line, to -it, and it would at least equally have haunted the memory." I turn from -this to Swinburne on Tennyson, as for instance: "At times, of course, -his song was then as sweet as ever it has sounded since; but he could -never make sure of singing right for more than a few minutes or -stanzas." And—what is certainly true—that Vivien's impurity is -eclipsed by her incredible and incomparable vulgarity. "She is such a -sordid creature as plucks men passing by the sleeve."</p> - -<p>Now the actual origin of <i>Laus Veneris</i> came about when Swinburne, -with Rossetti, bought the first edition of Fitzgerald's wonderful version -of <i>Omar Khayyam.</i> "We invested," Swinburne writes, "in hardly less -than six-penny-worth apiece, and on returning to the stall next day, for -more, found that we had sent up the market to the sinfully extravagant -price of two-pence, an imposition which evoked from Rossetti a fervent -and impressive remonstrance." Swinburne went down to stay with Meredith -in the country with the priceless book; and, before lunch, they read, -alternately, stanza after stanza. The result was that, after lunch, -Swinburne went to his room and came down to Meredith's study with his -invariable blue paper and wrote there and then thirteen stanzas of -<i>Veneris</i>, that end with the lines:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">Till when the spool is finished, lo I see</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">His web, reeled off, curls and goes out like steam.</span></p> - - -<p>His only invention was the certainly cunning one of inserting a rhyme -after the second line of each stanza, which is not in the version.</p> - -<p>Swinburne's re-creation of the immortal legend of Venus and her Knight, -certainly—though certainly unknown to W. M. Rossetti—owes also -much of its origin from Swinburne's inordinate admiration of <i>Les Fleurs -du Mal</i>, by Baudelaire. Its origin, in a certain sense only; that is of -the influence of one poet on the other. For, as he says:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>It was not till my poem was completed that I received from the hands of -its author the admirable pamphlet of Charles Baudelaire on Wagner's -<i>Tannhauser.</i> If anyone desires to see, expressed in better words than -I can command, the conception of the mediæval Venus which it was my aim -to put into verse, let him turn to the magnificent passage in which -Baudelaire describes the fallen goddess, grown diabolic among eyes that -would not accept her as divine.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>I need not reiterate the extraordinary influence that Baudelaire always -had on Swinburne; seen most of all in <i>Poems and Ballads</i> and -recurring at intervals in later volumes of his verse. Both had in their -genius, a certain abnormality, a certain perversity, a certain love of -depravity in the highest sense of the word.</p> - -<p>Swinburne, who had a fashion of overpraising many writers, such as Hugo, -so that his prose is often extravagant and the criticism as unbalanced -as the praise, dedicated his finest book, "<i>William Blake</i>," to W. M. -Rossetti, in words whose almost strained sense of humility—a way really -in which he often showed the intensity of his pride—makes one wonder -how he could have said: "I can but bring you brass for the gold you send -me; but between equals and friends there can be no question of barter. -Like Diomed, I take what I am given and offer what I have." What -Swinburne had—his genius—he never gave away lavishly; here he -is much too lavish. "There is a joy in praising" might have been written -for him, and he communicates to us, as few writers do, his own sense of joy -in beauty. It is quite possible to be annoyed by many of the things he -has said, not only about literature, but also about religion, and morals -and politics. But he has never said anything on any of these subjects -which is not generous, and high-minded, and, at least for the moment, -passionately and absolutely sincere.</p> - -<p>It is almost cruel to have to test one sentence of the man of talent -with one sentence of the man of genius. I chose these from the <i>Notes on -the Royal Academy Exhibition</i> they wrote together in 1868, which I have -before me, in the form of a printed pamphlet. "If everybody tells me -that the picture of A, of which this pamphlet says nothing, merits -criticism, or that the picture of B, praised for color, claims praise on -the score of drawing also, I shall have no difficulty in admitting the -probable correctness of these remarks; but, if he adds that I am -blamable for the omissions, I shall feel entitled to reply that A's -picture and B's draughtsmanship were not and indeed never were in the -bond."</p> - -<p>How honestly that is written and how prosaically, "Pale as from poison, -with the blood drawn back from her very lips, agonized in face and limbs -with the labor and the fierce contention of old love with new, of a -daughter's love with a bride's, the fatal figure of Medea pauses a -little on the funereal verge of the wood of death, in act to pour a -blood-like liquid into the soft opal-coloured hollow of a shell." How -princely that praise of Sandys rings in one's ears, lyrical prose that -quickens the blood! But the greater marvel to me is that Swinburne in -his <i>Miscellanies</i>, of 1866, should have quoted two sentences of -Rossetti on Shakespeare's Sonnets and ended by saying: "These words -themselves deserve to put on immortality: there are none truer or -nobler, wiser or more memorable in the whole historic range of highest -criticism." I can only imagine it as that of an arrow in flight: only, -it loses the mark.</p> - -<p>It was when Christina Rossetti was living at 30 Torrington Square that I -spent several entrancing hours with her. She had still traces of her -Italian beauty; but all the loveliness had gone out of her, so subtly -and so delicately painted by Gabriel when she was young. The moment she -entered, dressed simply and severely, she bowed, almost curtsied, with -that old-fashioned charm that since her time has gone mostly out of the -world. Her face lit up when she spoke of Gabriel: for between them was -always love and admiration. His genius, to her, both as a poet and a -painter, invariably received her elaborate and unstinted praise.</p> - -<p>She told me that Gabriel had said to her: "<i>The Convent Threshold</i> -is a very splendid piece of feminine ascetic passion; and, to me, one of -your greatest poems is that on France after the Siege—<i>To-Day for -me.</i>" And that Swinburne specially loved <i>Passing away, saith the -world, passing away.</i> It always seems to me that as she had read -Leopardi and Baudelaire, the thought of death had for her the same -fascination; only it is not the fascination of attraction, as with the one, -nor repulsion, as with the other, but of interest, sad but scarcely unquiet -interest in what the dead are doing underground, in their memories, if -memory they have, of the world they have left.</p> - -<p>Yet this fact is of curious interest, knowing the purity of her -imagination, that when Swinburne sent her his <i>Atalanta in Calydon</i> -she crossed out in ink one line:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">"<i>The supreme evil, God.</i>"</span></p> - - -<p>Swinburne himself told me of his amazement and amusement when he -happened to turn to this page while he was looking through the copy he -had sent her.</p> - -<p>It was one of Gabriel Rossetti's glories to paint luxurious women, -surrounded by every form of luxury. And some of them are set to pose in -Eastern garments, with caskets in their hands and flames about them, -looking out with unsearchable eyes. His colors, before they began to -have, like his forms, an exaggeration, a blurred vision which gave him -the need of repainting, of depriving his figures of life, were as if -charmed into their own places; they took on at times some strange and -stealthy and startling ardors of paint, with a subtle fury.</p> - -<p>By his fiery imagination, his restless energy, he created a world: -curious, astonishing, at first sight; strange, morbid, and subtly -beautiful. Everything he made was chiefly for his own pleasure; he had a -contempt for the outside world, and his life was so given up to beauty, -in search for it and in finding of it, that one can but say not only -that his life was passion consumed by passion, as his nerves became more -and more his tyrants (tyrants, indeed, these were, more formidable and -more alluring and more tempting than even the nerves confess), but also -that, to put it in the words of Walter Pater: "To him life is a crisis -at every moment."</p> - -<p>There was in him, as in many artists, the lust of the eyes. And as -others feasted their lust on elemental things, as in Turner's <i>Rain, -Steam and Speed</i>, as in Whistler's <i>Valparaiso</i>, as in the -<i>Olympia</i> of Manet, as in a <i>Décors de Ballet</i> of Degas, so did -Rossetti upon other regions than theirs. He had neither the evasive and -instinctive genius of Whistler, nor Turner's tremendous sweep of vision, -nor the creative and fiercely imaginative genius of Manet. But he had his -own way of feasting on forms and visions more sensuous, more nervously -passionate, more occult, perhaps, than theirs.</p> - -<p>Yet, as his intentions overpower him, as he becomes the slave and no -longer the master of his dreams, his pictures become no longer symbolic. -They become idols. Venus, growing more and more Asiatic as the moon's -crescent begins to glitter above her head, and her name changes from -Aphrodite into Astarte, loses all the freshness of the waves from which -she was born, and her own sorcery hardens into a wooden image painted to -be the object of savage worship.</p> - -<p>Dreams are no longer content to be turned into waking realities, taking -the color of the daylight, that they may be visible to our eyes, but -they remain lunar, spectral, a dark and unintelligible menace.</p> - - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - -<h4><a id="Confessions_and_Comments">CONFESSIONS AND COMMENTS</a></h4> - - -<h4>I</h4> - - -<p>I met George Moore, during a feverish winter I spent in Paris in 1890, -at the house of Doctor John Chapman, 46 Avenue Kleber; who at one time, -before he settled there, had been the Proprietor and then Editor of <i>The -Westminster Review.</i> In his review appeared in 1886 Pater's wonderful -and fascinating essay on Coleridge; in 1887 his penetrating and -revealing essay on Wincklemann. "He is the last fruit of the -Renaissance, and explains in a striking way its motives and tendencies."</p> - -<p>At that time I had heard a good deal of Moore; I had read very few of -his novels; these I had found to be entertaining, realistic, and -decadent; and certainly founded on modern French fiction. He made little -or no impression on me on that occasion; he was Irish and amusing. Our -conversation was probably on Paris and France and French prose. He gave -me his address, King's Bench Walk, Inner Temple, and asked me to call on -him after my return to London.</p> - -<p>I was born, "like a fiend hid in a cloud," cruel, nervous, excitable, -passionate, restless, never quite human, never quite normal and, from -the fact that I have never known what it was to have a home, as most -children know it, my life has been in many ways a wonderful, in certain -ways a tragic one: an existence, indeed, so inexplicable even to myself, -that I can not fathom it. If I have been a vagabond, and have never been -able to root myself in any one place in the world, it is because I have -no early memories of any one sky or soil. It has freed me from many -prejudices in giving me its own unresting kind of freedom; but it has -cut me off from whatever is stable, of long growth in the world.</p> - -<p>When I came up to London, in 1889, I was fortunate enough to take one -room in a narrow street, named Fountain Court. In 1821 Blake left South -Molton Street for Fountain Court, where he remained for the rest of his -life. The side window looked down through an opening between the houses, -showing the river and the hills beyond; Blake worked at a table facing -the window. At that time I had only seen the Temple; so that when I -entered it for the first time in my life, to call on Moore, I was seized -by a sudden fascination which never left me. I questioned him as to the -chances I might have of finding rooms there; he wisely advised me to -look at the outside of the window of the barber's shop, where notices of -vacant flats were put up. Finally I saw: "Fountain Court: rooms to let." -I immediately made all the necessary inquiries; and found myself in -March, 1871, entire possessor of the top flat, which had a stone balcony -from which I looked down on a wide open court, with a stone fountain in -the middle. I lived there for ten years. My most intimate friends were, -first and foremost, Yeats, then Moore: all three of us being of Celtic -origin.</p> - -<p>My intercourse with Moore was mostly at night; that is, when I was not -wandering in foreign countries or absorbed in much more animal and -passionate affairs. I dedicated to him <i>Studies in Two Literatures</i> -1897; the dedication was written in Rome, which begins: "My dear Moore, -Do you remember, at the time when we were both living in the Temple, and -our talks used to begin with midnight, and go on until the first -glimmerings of dawn shivered among the trees, yours and mine; do you -remember how often we have discussed, well, I suppose, everything which -I speak of in these studies in the two literatures which we both chiefly -care about." It ends: "I think of our conversations now in Rome, where, -as in those old times in the Temple, I still look out of my window on a -fountain in a square; only, here, I have the Pantheon to look at, on the -other side of my fountain."</p> - -<p>George Moore, whose <i>Pagan Poems</i> were a mixture of atrociously -rhymed sensations, abnormal and monstrous, decadent and depraved, not -without a sense of luxury and of color, and yet nothing more than feverish -fancies and delirious dreams, has in some way fashioned a French sonnet -which is an evident imitation of Mallarmé's. Only, between these writers -is, as it were, an abyss. It has been Mallarmé's distinction to have always -aspired after an impossible liberation of the soul of literature from -what is fretting and constraining in "the body of that death" which is -the mere literature of words. Finally come his "last period"—after the -jewels of Hérodiade, which scattered and recaptured sudden fire,—in -which his spirit wandered in an opaque darkness; as for instance, in the -sonnet, made miraculously out of the repetition of two rhymes—"onyx -lampadophore"—or, by preference, one that begins:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Une dentelle s'abolit.</i></span></p> - - -<p>Here, then, is Moore's sonnet to Edouard Dujardin.</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>La chair est bonne de l'alose</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Plus fine que celle du bar,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Mais la Loire est loin et je n'ose</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Abandonner Pierre Abélard.</i></span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Je suis un esclave de l'art;</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>La sage Héloise se pose</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Sans robe, sans coiffe et sans fard,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Et j'oublie aisément l'alose.</i></span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Mais je vois la claire maison—</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Arbres, pelouses et statue.</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Du jardin, j'entend ta leçon:</i></span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Raison qui sauve, foi qui tue,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Autels éclabousses du son</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Que verse une idole abattue.</i></span></p> - - -<p>I find in Moore's <i>Confessions</i> these sentences: "A year passed; a -year of art and dissipation—one part art, two parts dissipation. And -we thought there was something very thrilling in leaving the Rue de la -Gaieté, returning to my home to dress, and presenting our spotless -selves to the élite. And we succeeded very well, as indeed all young -men do who waltz perfectly and avoid making love to the wrong woman." I -should have preferred to read those sentences in French rather than in -English; they are essentially Parisian and of the <i>grands Boulevards</i>; -only, the end of the last sentence must have been suggested from some -cynical phrase written by Balzac. Add to this the egoism of the -Irishman: after that, what more do we need in the way of comparisons?</p> - -<p>That Balzac is the greatest, the most profound, thinker in French -literature after Blaise Pascal, is certain. Only, he had a more creative -genius than any novelist, a genius unsurpassable and unsurpassed; in -proof of which—if such a proof were actually required—I give -these sentences of Baudelaire translated by Swinburne. "To me it had always -seemed that it was his chief merit to be a visionary, and a passionate -visionary; all his characters are gifted with the ardours of life which -animated himself. In a word, every one in Balzac, down to the very -scullions, has genius. Every mind is a weapon loaded to the muzzle with -will. It is actually Balzac himself." Somewhere, he compares Shakespeare -with Balzac; and adds: "Balzac asserts, and Balzac cannot blunder or -lie. He has that wonderful wisdom, never at fault on its own ground, -which made him not simply the chief of dramatic story, but also the -great master of morals."</p> - -<p>No critic could for one instant apply to any of George Moore's novels -the phrase of "grand spiritual realism." A realist he always has been; a -realist, who, having founded himself on French novelists, has really, in -certain senses, brought something utterly new into English fiction. -Luckily, he is Irish; luckily, he lived the best years of his youth in -Paris. His prose shows the intense labor with which he produced every -chapter of every novel; in fact, there is too much of the laborious mind -in all his books. He was right in saying in <i>Avowals</i>: "Real -literature is concerned with description of life and thoughts of life -rather than with acts. He must write about the whole of life and not about -parts of life, and he must write truth and not lies." The first sentence -expresses the writer's sense of his own prose in his novels: and yet -there is always a lot of vivid action in them. Only the greatest -novelists have written about the whole of life: Balzac, Tolstoi, -Cervantes, for instance; but the fact is that Balzac is always good to -reread, but not Tolstoi: I couple two giants. Goriot, Valérie Marneffe, -Pons, Landsch are called up before us after the same manner as Othello -or Don Quixote; Balzac stakes all on one creation, exactly as -Shakespeare stakes all in one creation.</p> - -<p>Writing on Joseph Conrad, I referred to one of his tricks—which -seem inextricable tricks of art—which he learned from Balzac: the -method, which he uses in <i>Youth</i>, of doubling or trebling the interest -by setting action within action, as certain pictures are set within certain -frames. It is astonishing to find the influence Balzac had on Conrad, -partly when suspense is scarcely concerned with action, partly in his -involved manner of relating events. In Balzac I often find that some of -his tales, like Conrad's, grow downwards out of an episode at the end; -in some the end is told first, the beginning next—which was a method -Poe often used—and last of all in the middle; for instance, in -<i>Honorine.</i></p> - -<p>Writing of Zola I said:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>Zola has defined art, very aptly, as nature seen through a temperament. -The art of Zola is nature seen through a formula. He observes, indeed, -with astonishing closeness, but he observes in support of preconceived -ideas. And so powerful is his imagination that he has created a whole -world which has no existence anywhere but in his own brain, and he has -placed there imaginary beings, so much more logical than life, in the -midst of surroundings which are themselves so real as to lend almost a -semblance of reality to the embodied formulas who inhabit them.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>As I have said that George Moore might be supposed to be a lineal -descendant of Zola, it seems to me that in many ways his method is -almost the same as Zola's; only, they have different theories; both -observe with immense persistence; but their manner of observation, after -all, is only that of the man in the street; while, on the contrary, the -Goncourts create with their nerves, with their sensations, with their -noting of the sensations, with the complex curiosities of a delicately -depraved instinct. The strange woman in <i>La Faustin</i> is one of -Goncourt's most fascinating creations: Germinie Lacerteux, his most -sordidly depraved animal; and in the Preface to that novel, in 1864, -they were right in saying: "<i>Aujourd'hui que le Roman s'élargit et -grandit, qu'il commence à être la grande forme sérieuse, passionnée, -vivante, de l'Étude littéraire et de enquête sociale, qu'il devient, -par l'analyse et par la recherche psychologique, l'Histoire morale -contemporaine.</i>" They were the first, I believe, to invent an entirely -new form, a breaking-up of the plain, straightforward narrative into -chapters, which are generally disconnected, and sometimes no more than -six sentences: as, for instance, in that perverse, decadent, delicately -depraved study of the stages in the education of the young Parisian -girl, <i>Chérie</i> (for all its "immodesty") was an admirable thing, and a -model for all such studies. Only, when I have to choose, after Balzac, -the most wonderfully created woman in any novel, the vision of Emma -Bovary starts before me—a woman, as I have said somewhere (with -none of the passionate certainty of Charles Baudelaire) who is half vulgar -and half hysterical, incapable of a fine passion; her trivial desires, her -futile aspirations after second-hand pleasures and second-hand ideals, -give to Flaubert all that he wants: the opportunity to create beauty out -of reality.</p> - -<p>I have always had a great admiration of Camille Lemonnier, who brought -something rare, exotic and furiously animal into Flemish prose; as in -his masterpiece, <i>Un Mâle</i>, where he reveals in an astonishing fashion -those peasants who are so brutal, yet so subtly and rudely apprehended, -in their instincts: these peasants who are the most elemental of human -beings. He has none of Hardy's sinister and dejected vision of life; who -often seems closer to the earth than to men and women, and who sees -women and men out of the eyes of wild creatures; whose peasants have -been compared with Shakespeare's. Lemonnier's women and men have in them -something mysterious, dramatic, tragic: in their loves and hatreds, in -their crimes and joys, they have something of the mysterious force which -germinates in the furrows which they turn.</p> - -<p>Pater, who hated every form of noise and of extravagance, who disliked -whatever seemed to him either sordid or morbid, guarded himself from all -these and from many other things by the wary humor that protects the -sensitive. So, in his reviews of Wilde and of Moore, he is always very -much on his guard as to the manner of expounding his individual -opinions; saying of Wilde that his <i>Dorian Gray</i> "may fairly claim to go -with that of Edgar Poe, and with some good French work of the same kind, -done—probably—in more or less conscious imitation of it." So in -praising Moore's clever book, he refers to his "French intuitiveness and -gaillardise;" saying that he is "a very animating guide to the things he -loves, and in particular to the modern painting of France," that (here -he uses his wary humor) "these chapters have, by their very conviction, -their perverse conviction, a way of arousing the general reader, lost -perhaps in the sleep of conventional ideas," that, to and with "the -reader may now judge fairly of Moore's manner of writing; may think -perhaps there is something in it of the manner of the artists he writes -of."</p> - -<p>One of the most original pictures of Degas is <i>L'Absinthe</i>, which -represents Desboutins in the <i>café</i> of the <i>Nouvelle Athènes</i> -seated beside a woman. Moore says "Desboutins always came to the <i>café</i> -alone, as did Manet, Degas, Darentz. Desboutins is thinking of his dry -points; the woman is incapable of thought. If questioned about her life she -would probably answer, <i>Je suis à la coule.</i>" To my mind Degas gives -in this picture, in a more modern way than Manet, an equal vision of -reality. Desboutins, the Bohemian painter, sits there in a mood of grim -dissatisfaction; he is just as living as the depraved woman who sits -beside him—before the glass of absinthe that shines like an enormous -and sea-green jewel—with eyes in which much of her shameful -earthiness is betrayed, without malice, without pity.</p> - -<p>I open at random, the pages of <i>Confessions of a Young Man</i> where -there is a reference to the <i>café</i> of the <i>Nouvelle Athènes</i>, -Place Pigalle; where the writer confesses more of himself than on any other -page of his book.</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>I am a student of ball rooms, bar rooms, streets and alcoves. I have -read very little; but all I read I can turn to account, and all I read I -remember. To read freely, extensively, has always been my ambition, and -my utter inability to study has always been to me a subject of grave -inquietude,—study, as contrasted with a general and haphazard -gathering of ideas taken in flight. But in me, the impulse is so original -to frequent the haunts of men that it is irresistible, conversation is the -breath of my nostrils, I watch the movement of life, and my ideas spring -from it uncalled for, as buds from branches. Contact with the world is -in me the generating force; without it what invention I have is thin and -sterile, and it grows thinner rapidly, until it dies away utterly, as it -did in the composition of my unfortunate <i>Roses of Midnight.</i></p></blockquote> - - -<p>I turn from those sentences to Casanova, whose <i>Memoirs</i> are one -of the most wonderful autobiographies in the world; who, always passionate -after sensations, confesses, in his confessions, the most shameless -things that have ever been written: one to whom woman was, indeed, the -most important thing in the world, but to whom nothing in the world was -indifferent. He was, as he professes, always in love—at least, with -something. Being of origin Venetian and Spanish, he had none of the cold -blooded libertinism of Valmont in <i>Les Liaisons Dangereuses</i> of -Laclos. Baudelaire, in two of his sweeping Paradoxes, said of this book: -"<i>Ce livre, s'il brûle, ne peut brûler qu'à la manière de la glace. Tous -les livres sont immoraux.</i>" Casanova, himself, is the primitive type of -the Immoralist, in certain senses of the abnormal Immoralist. His latest -reincarnation is an André Gide's <i>L'Immoraliste</i>; a book perverse and -unpassionate.</p> - -<p>Now, let us return to the modern writer's Confessions. Whether Moore has -read the whole of Casanova or not, there are curiously similar touches -in both these writers; as, for instance, in the word "alcoves, streets, -ballrooms." Instead of the modern "barrooms" use the word <i>cafés.</i> One -essential difference is that Casanova had a passion for books: the more -essential one is, that Casanova was born to be a vagabond and a Wanderer -over almost the whole of Europe, that he had tasted all the forbidden -fruits of the earth, and that he had sinned with all his body—leaving, -naturally, the soul out of the question.</p> - -<p>Every great artist has tasted the sweet poison of the Forbidden Fruit. -The Serpent, the most "subtile" of all the Beasts, gave an apple he had -gathered from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil to Eve; she -having eaten it and having given one to Adam, both saw they were naked, -and, with nakedness, Sin entered into the World. Now, what was stolen -from the Garden of God has, ever since, been the one temptation which it -is almost impossible to resist. For instance Shakespeare stole from -Marlowe, Milton stole from Shakespeare, Keats stole from Virgil, -Swinburne stole from Baudelaire and Crashaw, Browning stole from Donne; -as for Wagner, having stolen a motet from Vittorio which he used, almost -note for note in <i>Parsifal</i>, also from Palestrina and his school, and -from Berlioz and from Liszt, it is impossible to say what he did not -steal. Oscar Wilde stripped, as far as he could, all the fruit he could -gather from the orchards of half a dozen French novelists; besides those -of Poe and of Pater. Gabrielle d'Annunzio has stolen as thoroughly as -Wilde; in fact, the whole contents of certain short stories. As for -George Moore, he has been guilty of as many thefts as these; only he has -concealed his thefts with more stealth. Henry James said to some one of -my acquaintance: "Moore has an absolute genius for picking other men's -brains." That saying is as final as it is fundamental.</p> - -<p>Rossetti said: "There ought to be always, double of oneself, the -self-critic, who should be one always with the poet." The legend of the -Doppelgänger haunted him; the result of which is <i>How They Met -Themselves</i>, where two lovers wandering in a wood come on their doubles, -apparitions who, casting their perilous eyes on them sidewise, vanish. -It is mysterious and menacing. Pater uses the same symbol: three knights -as they hear the night-hawk, are confronted by their own images, but -with blood, all three of them, fresh upon the brow, or in the mouth. "It -were well to draw the sword, be one's enemy carnal or spiritual; even -devils, as all men know, taking flight at its white glitter through the -air. Out flashed the brave youths' swords, still with mimic -counter-motion, upon nothing—upon the empty darkness before them." -These revenants are ghost-like and flame-like: they are the symbols of -good and evil; the symbols of the haunting of one uneasy conscience. -Balzac, Blake, Hawthorne, saw them in visions; the moderns, such as -Maupassant and Moore, must always ignore them.</p> - -<p>The novel and the prose play are the two great imaginative forms which -prose has invented for itself. Prose is the language of what we call -real life, and it is only in prose that an illusion of external reality -can be given. And, in any case, the prose play, the novel, come into -being as exceptions and are invented by men who can not write plays in -verse. Only in the novel and the prose play does prose become free to -create, free to develop to the utmost limits of its vitality. Perhaps -the highest merit of prose consists in this, that it allows us to think -in words. But art, in verse, being strictly and supremely on art, begins -by transforming. Indeed, there is no form of art which is not an attempt -to capture life, to create life over again.</p> - -<p>The rhythm of poetry is musical; the rhythm of prose is physiological. -For this reason Ibsen's prose is like that of a diagram in Euclid; it is -the rhythm of logic, and it produces in us the purely mental exaltation -of a problem solved. Swinburne, writing on Wilkie Collins's <i>Armadale</i>, -declares that the heroine who dies of her own will by her own crime, had -an American or a Frenchman introduced her, no acclamation would have -been too vehement to express their gratitude! "But neither Feuillet nor -Hawthorne could have composed and constructed such a story; the -ingenuity spent on it may possibly be perverse, but is certainly -superb." As I have never read one line of Feuillet I am no judge of his -merit as a novelist. Hawthorne had a magical imagination, a passion for -"handling sin" purely; he was haunted by what is obscure and abnormal in -that illusive region which exists on the confines of evil and good; his -opinion of woman was that she "was plucked out of a mystery, and had its -roots still clinging to her." Sin and the Soul, those are the problems -he has always before him; Sin, as our punishment; the Soul, in its -essence, mist-like and intangible. He uses his belief in witchcraft with -admirable effect, the dim mystery which clings about haunted houses, the -fantastic gambols of the soul itself, under what seems like the devil's -own promptings.</p> - -<p>In the whole of Moore's prose there is no such magic, no such mystery, -no such diabolism; he is not so lacking in imagination as in style. He -has always been, with impressive inaccuracy, described as the English -Zola; at the outset of his career he gained a certain notoriety not -unlike Zola's; his novels are not based on theories, as some of Zola's -are. Moore always knew how to make a cunning plot, to make some of his -compositions masterly, and how to construct his characters—which, -to a certain extent, are living people, really existent, as their -surroundings. As I say further on: "Compare with any of Zola's -novels the amazingly clever novel of Moore, <i>A Mummer's Wife</i>, which -goes with several other novels which are—well—<i>manqués</i>, in -spite of their ability, their independence, their unquestionable merits of -various kinds." The style always drags more than the action. Vivid, -sensual, not sensuous, often perverse, never passionate; written with a -curious sense of wickedness, of immorality, of vice; extraordinary at times -in some of the scenes he evokes in one or several chapters; always with the -French element; his prose exotic, morbid, cruel, as cruel as this catsuit -of the passions, has in it a certain scorn and contempt of mediocrities, -which can be delivered with the force of a sledge-hammer that strikes an -anvil and shoots forth sparks.</p> - - - - -<h4>II</h4> - - -<p>George Moore has been described, with impressive inaccuracy, as the -English Zola. At what was practically the outset of his career he gained -a certain notoriety; which did him good, by calling public attention to -an unknown name; it did him harm, by attaching to that name a certain -stigma. In a certainly remote year, but a year we all of us remember, -there were strange signs in the literary Zodiac. There had been a -distinctly new growth in the short story, and along with the short story -("poisonous honey stolen from France") came a new license in dealing -imaginatively with life, almost permitting the Englishman to contend -with the writers of other nations on their own ground; permitting him, -that is to say, to represent life as it really is. Foreign influences, -certainly, had begun to have more and more effect upon the making of -such literature as is produced in England nowadays; we had a certain -acceptance of Ibsen, a popular personal welcome of Zola, and literary -homage paid to Verlaine. What do these facts really mean? It is certain -that they mean something.</p> - -<p>The visit of Zola, for instance—how impossible that would have -been a little while ago! A little while ago we were opening the prison -doors for the publishers who had ventured to bring out translations of -<i>Nana</i> and <i>La Terre</i>; now we open the doors of the Guildhall -for the author of <i>Nana</i> and <i>La Terre</i>; and the same pens, -with the same jubilance, chronicle both incidents. To the spectator of the -comedy of life all this is merely amusing; but to the actor in the tragic -comedy of letters it means a whole new <i>repertoire.</i> Not so very many -years ago George Moore was the only novelist in England who insisted on the -novelist's right to be true to life, even when life is unpleasant and -immoral; and he was attacked on all sides.</p> - -<p>The visit of Paul Verlaine, too—unofficial, unadvertised, as it -was—seemed to be significant of much. In the first place, it showed, -as in the case of Zola, a readiness on the part of some not unimportant -section of the public to overlook either personal or literary scandal -connected with a man of letters who has done really remarkable work. But -the interest of Verlaine's visit was much more purely literary than that -of Zola; his reception was in no sense a concession to success, but -entirely a tribute to the genius of a poet.</p> - -<p>I find that William Watson published only one tiny volume of verse, the -barren burlesque of <i>The Eloping Angels</i>, which should never have been -printed, and a book of prose, <i>Excursions in Criticism</i>, the criticism -and the style being alike as immature and unbalanced as his verse is -generally mature and accomplished; while Mr. Le Gallienne has forsaken -the domesticity of the muse, to officiate, in <i>The Religion of a -Literary Man</i>, as the Canon Farrar of the younger generation. The most -really poetic of the younger poets, W. B. Yeats, who has yet to be -"discovered" by the average critic and the average reader, has this year -published a new volume of verse, <i>The Countess Kathleen</i>, as well as a -book of prose stories, <i>The Celtic Twilight</i>, and, in conjunction with -Edwin J. Ellis, a laborious study in the mysticism of William Blake. -Yeats' work, alone among recent work in verse, has the imaginative -quality of vision; it has the true Celtic charm and mystery; and while -such admirable verse as Watson's, such glowing verse as Thompson's, are -both superior, on purely technical grounds, to Yeats', neither has the -spontaneous outflow of the somewhat untrained singing-voice of the -younger poet.</p> - -<p>Another writer of verse who has not yet been estimated at his proper -value, John Davidson, has also published a new book of poems, <i>Fleet -Street Eclogues</i>, and a book of prose, <i>A Random Itinerary.</i> It is -difficult to do justice to Davidson, for he never does justice to -himself. His verse is always vivid and striking; at its best it has a -delightful quality of fantastic humor and quaint extravagance; but it is -singularly uneven, and never, in my opinion, at its best in purely -modern subjects. The <i>Random Itinerary</i> is a whole series of happy -accidents; but there are gaps in the series. Davidson strikes one as a -man who might do almost anything; why, then, does he not do it?</p> - -<p>Now, these paradoxical digressions have brought me back to the question -of Zola and Moore, and of the realistic novel. Moore's were based on no -theories; Zola's on certain theories, really a view of humanity which he -adopted as a formula: "Nature seen through a temperament;" a definition -supposed to be his definition of all art; which it most certainly is -not. Yet nothing, certainly, could be more exact and expressive as a -definition of the art of Huysmans.</p> - -<p>Zola has made up his mind that he will say everything without omitting a -single item; so that his vision is the vision of the mediocre man; and -his way of finding out in a slang dictionary that a filthy idea can be -expressed by an ingeniously filthy phrase in <i>Argot</i>, is by no means -desirable. Every one knows two sentences in that supreme masterpiece, -<i>Madame Bovary</i>, how that detail, brought in without the slightest -emphasis of the husband turning his back at the very instant when his -wife dies, is a detail of immense psychological value; it indicates to -us, at the very beginning of the book, just the character of the man -about whom we are to read so much. Zola would have taken at least two -pages to say that, and, after all, he would not have said it.</p> - -<p>Compare with any of Zola's novels the amazingly clever novel of Moore, -<i>A Mummer's Wife</i>, which goes with several other novels which -are—well—<i>manqués</i>, in spite of their ability, their -independence, their unquestionable merits of various kinds. <i>A Mummers -Wife</i> is admirably put together, admirably planned and shaped; the whole -composition of the book is masterly. The style may drag, but not the -action; the construction of a sentence may be uncertain, but not the -construction of a character. The actor and his wife are really living -people; we see them in their surroundings, and we see every detail of -those surroundings. Here, of course, he would never have made Zola's -stupid mistake; but can one imagine for a moment—I certainly can -not—the writer of this novel writing, creating, (if I may dare use the -word) two such sentences of Flaubert, which I quote in their original? -"<i>Huit jours après, comme elle étendait du linge dans sa cour, elle -fut prise d'un crachement de sang, et le lendemain, tandis que Charles -avait le dos tourné pour fermer le rideau de la fenêtre, elle dit: -'Ah! Mon Dieu!' poussa un soupir et s'évanouit. Ella était morte.</i>"</p> - -<p>George Moore's <i>Modern Painting</i> is full of injustices, brutality -and ignorances; but it is full also of the most generous justice, the most -discriminating sympathy, and the genuine knowledge of the painter. It is -hastily thought out, hastily written; but here, in these vivid, direct, -unscrupulously logical pages, you will find some of the secrets of the -art of painting, let out, so to speak, by an intelligence all sensation, -which has soaked them up without knowing it. Yet, having begun by trying -to paint, and having failed in painting, and so set himself to the -arduous task of being a prose-writer, he is often, in spite of his -painter's accuracy as to "values" and "technique" and so on, unreliable.</p> - -<p>For, being neither creative as a novelist nor as a critic, he has -nothing, as a matter of course, of two among many essential qualities: -vision and divination. Take, for instance, a few pages anywhere in -<i>L'Art Romanesque</i> of Baudelaire, or from his prose on Delacroix, on -Constantine Guys, on Wagner, on Daumier, on Whistler, on Flaubert, and -on Balzac—where he is always supreme and consummate, "fiery and -final"—and place these beside any chosen pages of Moore's prose on -either Balzac or on Whistler, and you will see all the difference in the -world: as I have said above, between the creative and the uncreative -criticism.</p> - -<p>Had Walter Pater devoted himself exclusively to art criticism, there is -no doubt that, in a sense, he would have been a great art critic. There -are essays scattered throughout his work, as in the Botticelli where he -first introduces Botticelli to the modern world, as in the Leonardo da -Vinci—in which the simplest words take color from each other by the -cunning accident of their placing in the sentences, the subtle spiritual -fire kindling from word to word creates a masterpiece, a miracle in -which all is inspiration, all is certainty, all is evocation, and which, -in the famous page on <i>La Gioconda</i>, rises to the height of actually -lyrical prose—in which the essential principles of the art of painting -are divined and interpreted with extraordinary subtlety. In the same -sense all that Whistler has written about painting deserves to be taken -seriously, and read with understanding. Written in French, and signed by -Baudelaire, his truths, and paradoxes reflecting truths, would have been -realized for what they are. He fought for himself, and spared no form of -stupidity: for, in Whistler, apart from his malice, his poisonous -angers, taste was carried to the point of genius, and became creative.</p> - -<p>George Moore's literary career has been singularly interesting; his -character as a writer is very curious. A man who respects his art, who -is devoted to literature, who has a French eye for form, he seems -condemned to produce work which is always spotted with imperfection. All -his life he has been seeking a style, and he has not yet found one. At -times he drops into style as if by accident, and then he drops style as -if by design. He has a passionate delight in the beauty of good prose; -he has an ear for the magic of phrases; his words catch at times a -troubled expressive charm; yet he has never attained ease in writing, -and he is capable of astounding incorrectness—the incorrectness -of a man who knows better, who is not careless and yet who can not -help himself. Yet the author of <i>A Mummer's Wife</i>, of <i>The -Confessions of a Young Man</i>, of <i>Impressions and Opinions</i>, has more -narrowly escaped being a great writer than even he himself, perhaps, -is aware.</p> - - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - -<h4><a id="Francis_Thompson">FRANCIS THOMPSON</a></h4> - - -<h4>I</h4> - - -<p>If Crashaw, Shelley, Donne, Marvell, Patmore and some other poets had -not existed, Francis Thompson would be a poet of remarkable novelty. Not -that originality, in the strictest sense, is always essential to the -making of a poet. There have been poets who have so absolutely lived in -another age, whose whole soul has been so completely absorbed by a -fashion of writing, perhaps a single writer, belonging to an earlier -century, that their work has been an actual reincarnation of this -particular time or writer. Chatterton, for instance, remains one of the -finest of English poets, entirely on account of poems which were so -deliberately imitative as to have been passed off as transcripts from -old manuscripts. Again, it is possible to be deftly and legitimately -eclectic, as was Milton, for example. Milton had, in an extraordinary -degree, the gift of assimilating all that he found, all that he -borrowed. Often, indeed, he improved his borrowed goods; but always he -worked them into the pattern of his own stuff, he made them part of -himself; and wisdom is justified of her children. Now Thompson, though -he affects certain periods, is not so absorbed in any one as to have -found his soul by losing it; nor is he a dainty borrower from all, -taking his good things wheresoever he finds them. Rather, he has been -impressed by certain styles, in themselves incompatible, indeed implying -the negation of one another—that of Crashaw, for instance, and that of -Patmore—and he has deliberately mixed them, against the very nature -of things. Thus his work, with all its splendors, has the impress of no -individuality; it is a splendor of rags and patches, a very masque of -anarchy. A new poet announces himself by his new way of seeing things, -his new way of feeling things; Thompson comes to us a cloudy visionary, -a rapturous sentimentalist, in whom emotion means colored words, and -sight the opportunity for a bedazzlement.</p> - -<p>The opening section of the book <i>Love in Dian's</i> Lap is an -experiment in Platonic love. The experiment is in itself interesting, -though here perhaps a little too deliberate; in its bloodless ecstasy it -recalls <i>Epipsychidion</i>, which is certainly one of the several models -on which it has been formed; it has, too, a finely extravagant courtliness, -which belongs to an older school of verse as here:—</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">Yet I have felt what terrors may consort</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">In women's cheeks, the Graces' soft resort;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">My hand hath shook at gentle hands' access,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">And trembled at the waving of a tress;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">My blood known panic fear, and fled dismayed,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Where ladies' eyes have set their ambuscade.</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">The rustle of a robe hath been to me</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">The very rattle of love's musketry;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Although my heart hath beat the loud advance,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">I have recoiled before a challenging glance,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Proved gay alarms where warlike ribbons dance.</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">And from it all, this knowledge have I got,—</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">The whole, that others have, is less than they have not;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">All which makes other women noted fair,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Unnoted would remain and overshone in her.</span></p> - - -<p>Finer, in yet a different style, is the poem <i>To a Poet Breaking -Silence</i>, of which we may quote the opening lines:—</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">Too wearily had we and song</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Been left to look and left to long,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Yea, song and we to long and look,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Since thine acquainted feet forsook</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">The mountain where the Muses hymn</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">For Sinai and the Seraphim.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Now in both the mountains' shine</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Dress thy countenance, twice divine!</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">From Moses and the Muses draw</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">The Tables of thy double Law!</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">His rod-born fount and Castaly</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Let the one rock bring forth for thee,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Renewing so from either spring</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">The songs that both thy countries sing:</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Or we shall fear lest, heavened thus long,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Thou should'st forget thy native song,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">And mar thy mortal melodies</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">With broken stammer of the skies.</span></p> - - -<p>Next after these poems of spiritual love come certain odes and lyrical -pieces: one <i>To the Dead Cardinal of Westminster</i>, modeled, as to -form, on Marvell's great ode: <i>A Judgment in Heaven</i>, in which we are -permitted to see the angels "as they pelted each other with handfuls of -stars"—the most clotted and inchoate poem in the volume; together with -<i>A Corymbus for Autumn</i> and <i>The Hound of Heaven</i> which are the -finest things Thompson has done. Here, with all his extravagance, which -passes from the sublime to the ridiculous with all the composure of a -madman, Thompson has grappled with splendid subjects splendidly. He can, -it is true, say:—</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">Against the red throb of the sunset-heart</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 8em;">I laid my own to beat;</span></p> - - -<p>but he can also say (with a solemn imagery which has its precise meaning -as well as its large utterance):—</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">From the hid battlements of Eternity,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Those shaken mists a space unsettle, then</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Round the half-glimpsed turrets slowly wash again;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 7em;">But not ere him who summoneth</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 7em;">I first have seen, enwound</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">With glooming robes purpureal, cypress-crowned;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">His name I know, and what his trumpet saith.</span></p> - - -<p>Here, as ever, Thompson indulges in his passion for polysyllables—"the -splendent might of thy conflagrate fancies," for example; but forced -words are less out of place in poems which, in the best sense of the -word, are rhapsodies, than in poems such as those on children, which -fill the last section of the book, and in which one may read of "a -silvern segregation, globed complete," of "derelict trinkets of the -darling young," and so forth. The last piece of all, <i>To Monica Thought -Dying</i>, is written in downright imitation of Patmore; but how far is it, -in its straining after fine effects of sound, its straining after fine -effects of pathos, from the perfect justice of expression which Patmore -has found in such poems as <i>The Toys</i> and <i>Poor Child!</i> for an -equally perfect sentiment of the pathetic! That a writer who at his best is -so fiery and exuberant should ever take Patmore for a model, should really -try to catch even his tricks of expression, is very curious, and shows, -as much as any other single characteristic, the somewhat external -quality of Thompson's inspiration. A poet with an individuality to -express, seeking for an individual form of expression, could scarcely, -one fancies, have been drawn by any natural affinity so far away from -himself and his main habitudes. Grashaw and Patmore—we come back to -the old antagonism—can a man serve two such masters? Imagine Patmore -rewriting, according to his own standard of composition, <i>The Flaming -Heart</i>, or Crashaw treating in his own way the theme of <i>Deliciae -Sapientiae de Amore!</i> Here and there, too, in Thompson's work, are -reminiscences of Rossetti; as here:—</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">Yea, in that ultimate heart's occult abode</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">To lie as in an oubliette of God.</span></p> - - -<p>And the influence of Shelley is felt from the first line to the last. -Yet, in spite of all this, Thompson has something, unquestionably, of -"fine frenzy," not always quite under his own control; he amazes by his -audacity, and delights by the violence with which he would fain storm -Parnassus. His verse has generally fervor, a certain lyric glow, a -certain magnificence; it has abundant fancy, and its measure of swift -imagination. But the feast he spreads for us is a very Trimalchio's -feast—the heaped profusion, the vaunting prodigality, which brings a -surfeit; and, unlike Trimalchio, it could not be said of him <i>Omnia domi -nascuntur.</i></p> - -<p>Verse, unless it is in some measure ecstasy, can not be poetry. But it -does not follow that in verse the most fervid ecstasy is the best -poetry. If, indeed, for "fervid" be substituted "fervidly expressed," it -is quite the contrary. Coventry Patmore has pointed out that the sign of -great art is peace, a peace which comes of the serene, angelic triumph -over mortal tumults, and those less essential raptures which are after -all flames of the earth's center. Francis Thompson has the ecstasy; but -unfortunately he has not realized that ecstasy, if it is to be -communicated from the soul to the soul, and not merely from the mouth to -the ear, must be whispered, not shouted.</p> - -<p>If a man's style is the man—his innermost self, as we may suppose, -revealing itself in the very words he uses—Thompson, in a more special -sense than almost any other writer, is seen in his language. He is that -strange phenomenon, a verbal intelligence. He thinks in words, he -receives his emotions and sensations from words, and the rapture which -he certainly attains is a rapture of the disembodied word. It is not -that his verse is without meaning, that in taking care of the sound he -allows the sense (poor orphan!) to take care of itself. He has a -meaning, but that meaning, if it has not a purely verbal origin, is at -all events allowed to develop under the direct suggestion of the words -which present themselves to interpret it. His consciousness is dominated -by its own means of expression. And what is most curious of all is that, -while Thompson has a quite recognizable manner, he has not achieved a -really personal style. He has learned much, not always with wisdom, and -in crowding together Cowley, Crashaw, Donne, Patmore, to name but a few -of many, he has not remembered that to begin a poem in the manner of -Crashaw, and to end it in the manner of Patmore, is not the same thing -as fusing two alien substances into a single new substance. Styles he -has, but not style. This very possession by the word has, perhaps, -hindered him from attaining it. Fine style, the style in which every -word is perfect, rises beautifully out of a depth into which words have -never stretched down their roots. Intellect and emotion are the molders -of style. A profound thought, a profound emotion, speaks as if it were -unconscious of words; only when it speaks as if unconscious of words do -the supreme words issue from its lips. Ornament may come afterward: you -can not begin with ornament. Thompson, however, begins with ornament.</p> - -<p>Unhappily, too, Thompson's verse is certainly fatiguing to read, and one -of the reasons why it is so fatiguing is that the thought that is in it -does not progress; it remains stationary. About the fragile life which -cries somewhere in its center he builds up walls of many colored bricks, -immuring his idea, hiding it, stifling it. How are we to read an ode of -many pages in which there is no development, not even movement? Stanza -is heaped upon stanza, page is piled upon page, and we end where we -began. The writer has said endless things about something but never the -thing itself. Poetry consists in saying the thing itself.</p> - -<p>But this is not the only reason why it is fatiguing to read Thompson's -verse. To read it is too much like jolting in a springless cart over a -plowed field, about noontide, on a hot summer day. His lines, of which -this is typical,—</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>Pulp the globed weight of juiced Iberia's grape,</p></blockquote> - - -<p>are so packed with words that each line detains the reader. Not merely -does Thompson prefer the line to the stanza or the paragraph, he prefers -the word to the line. He has failed to remember that while two and two -make four, four are not necessarily better than two—that because red -is brighter than gray, red is not necessarily the better color to use -whenever one wants to use a color. He hears the brass in the orchestra -sounding out loudly over the strings and he therefore suppresses the -strings. He has a bold and prolific fancy, and he pampers his fancy; yet -prodigality is not abundance, nor profusion taste. He is without -reticence, which he looks upon as stint or as penury. Having invited his -guests to his feast, he loads their plates with more than they can eat, -forcing it upon them under the impression that to do otherwise is to be -lacking in hospitality.</p> - -<p>Yet, after all, the feast is there—Trimalchio's if you will, but -certainly not a Barmecide's. Thompson has a remarkable talent, he has a -singular mastery of verse, as the success of his books is not alone in -proving. Never has the seventeenth-century phrasing been so exactly -repeated as in some of his poems. Never have Patmore's odes been more -scrupulously rewritten, cadence for cadence; Thompson's fancy is -untiring, if sometimes it tires the reader; he has, not exactly at -command, but not beyond reach, an eager imagination. No one can cause a -more vaguely ardent feeling in the sympathetic reader, a feeling made up -of admiration and of astonishment in perhaps equal portions. There are -times when the fire in him bums clear through its enveloping veils of -smoke, and he writes passages of real splendor. Why then does he for the -most part wrap himself so willingly in the smoke?</p> - - - - -<h4>II</h4> - - -<p>In Francis Thompson's first volume of poems, I pointed out some of the -sources of the so-called originality of all that highly colored -verse—Crashaw, Shelley, Donne, Marvell, Patmore, Rossetti—and I -expressed a doubt whether a writer who could allow himself to be so -singularly influenced by such singularly different writers could be -really, in the full sense of the term, a new poet. The book before me -confirms my doubt. Thompson is careful to inform his readers that "this -poem, though new in the sense of being now for the first time printed, -was written some four years ago, about the same date as the <i>Hound of -Heaven</i> in my former volume." Still, as he takes the responsibility of -printing it, and of issuing it by itself, it may reasonably be assumed -that he has written nothing since which he considers to be of higher -quality.</p> - -<p>The book consists of one long and obscure rhapsody in two parts. Why it -should ever begin, or end, or be thus divided, is not obvious, nor, -indeed, is the separate significance of most of the separate pages. It -begins in a lilt of this kind:—</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">The leaves dance, the leaves sing,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">The leaves dance in the breath of Spring.</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 9em;">I bid them dance,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 9.5em;">I bid them sing,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 9em;">For the limpid glance</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 9.5em;">Of my ladyling;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">For the gift to the Spring of a dewier spring,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">For God's good grace of this ladyling!</span></p> - - -<p>But the rhythm soon becomes graver, the lines charged with a more -heavily consonnated burden of sound, as, for instance, in the opening of -the second part:—</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">And now, thou elder nursling of the nest,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">Ere all the intertangled west</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 8em;">Be one magnificence</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Of multitudinous blossoms that o'er-run</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">The flaming brazen bowl o' the burnished sun</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 8em;">Which they do flower from</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">How shall I 'stablish <i>thy</i> memorial?</span></p> - - -<p>"I who can scarcely speak my fellows' speech," the writer adds, with -more immediate and far-reaching truth than he intends. Thompson wilfully -refuses to speak his fellows' speech, in order to speak a polysyllabic -speech, made up out of all the periods of the English language—a -speech which no one, certainly, has employed in just such a manner before, -but which, all the same, does not become really individual. It remains, -rather, a patchwork garb, flaming in all the colors, tricked out with -barbaric jewels, and, for all its emphatic splendor, suggesting the -second-hand dealer's.</p> - -<p>In such a poem as <i>The Hound of Heaven</i>, in Thompson's former -volume, there was a certain substratum of fine meaning, not obscured, or at -all events not concealed, by a cloud of stormy words. But here I find no -sufficing undercurrent of thought, passion, or reverie, nothing but fine -fragments, splendid lines, glowing images. And of such fragments, -however brilliant in themselves, no fine poetry can consist. Thompson -declares of himself and his verse, with a really fervid sense of his own -ardor:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">And are its plumes a burning bright array?</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">They burn for an unincarnated eye.</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">A bubble, charioteered by the inward breath</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 6em;">Which, ardorous for its own invisible lure,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Urges me glittering to aerial death,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 6em;">I am rapt towards that bodiless paramour;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Blindly the uncomprehended tyranny</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 6em;">Obeying of my heart's impetuous might.</span></p> - - -<p>Scarcely could a single line express more concisely and more -significantly the truth about Thompson than one of these lines. "Urges -me glittering to aerial death:" how true that is in its confession of -that fatal vagueness of aim, showiness of equipment and the toppling -disaster of it all! Thompson has miscalculated his strength of flight. -He is for ever straining after the heights, and there are moments when -he seems to have reached them. But it is only that he has dazzled and -confused our sight by the trick of some unfamiliar magic. And his magic, -for the most part, is a magic of words. Those suggestions of a rare -poetic vision, which, from the first, seemed nebulous rather than -illuminated, have become little more than verbal sophistries. To have -transposed a phrase until it becomes</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">To Naiad it through the unfrothing air</span></p> - - -<p>satisfies him as though it had been a vision or an invention. The -frigid conceit of</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">The blushes on existence's pale face</span></p> - - -<p>satisfies him as though it were an imaginative conception. And -such combinations of words as</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 15em;">The very hues</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Which their conflagrant elements effuse</span></p> - - -<p>satisfy him as being effects of appropriate poetic novelty. -The <i>Poems</i>, with all their faults, had suggestions of finer -possibilities. In <i>Sister-Songs</i> none of these possibilities is -realized. At the most it is a sort of fantastic world of waters (shall we -say, at Thompson's suggestion?) where,</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 12em;">——like the phantasms of a poet pale,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 9em;">The exquisite marvels sail:</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Clarified silver; greens and azures frail</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">As if the colours sighed themselves away,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">And blent in supersubtile interplay</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 6em;">As if they swooned into each other's arms;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 9em;">Repured vermilion,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 9em;">Like ear-tips 'gainst the sun;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">And beings that, under night's swart pinion,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Make every wave upon the harbour bars</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 9em;">A beaten yolk of stars.</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">But where day's glance turns baffled from the deeps,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 9em;">Die out those lovely swarms;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">And in the immense profound no creature glides or</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 8em;">creeps.</span></p> - - -<p>Francis Thompson's earlier volume of <i>Poems</i> attracted perhaps an -undue amount of attention on account of its gorgeous and unusual qualities -of diction, and a certain exuberant and extravagant fervor of mood. These -are not indeed the characteristics of the highest kind of poetry, but -they are characteristics which impress uncritical persons as being of -the essence of poetic inspiration. To express a small thought by a large -word is always impressive, and a certain excitement in the manner of it -adds greatly to the effect of the performance. Thus, much writing which -is merely feverish and blustering becomes admired for the quality of its -defects, these defects being taken to be extraordinary merits; while -writing which has all the quietness of true perfection passes unobserved -or unrecognized. In particular it is forgotten that the expression of a -thought should be like a well-fitting suit of clothes, following closely -and gracefully the outlines of the body that informs it. Francis -Thompson, alike in his former work and in the work which he has just -brought out, is never content unless his thought is swathed in fold -after fold of variegated drapery, cut after no recognized fashion and -arranged on no consistent or indeed comprehensible plan. Take this -passage, for instance, on page three of <i>Sister-Songs</i>:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">Now therefore, thou who bring'st the year to birth,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 6em;">Who guid'st the bare and dabbled feet of May;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Sweet stem to that rose Christ, who from the earth</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Suck'st our poor prayers, conveying them to Him;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 7em;">Be aidant, tender Lady, to my lay!</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 7em;">Of thy two maidens somewhat must I say,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Ere shadowy twilight lashes, drooping, dim</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 7em;">Day's dreamy eyes from us;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 7em;">Ere eve has struck and furled</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">The beamy-textured tent transpicuous,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 6em;">Of webbed coerule wrought and woven calms,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 7em;">Whence has paced forth the lambent-footed sun.</span></p> - - -<p>This is a fair, indeed a favorable, specimen of Thompson's way of -"Making familiar things seem strange." His vocabulary is for the most -part made up of an ingenious, and really novel, selection from the words -that other people are ignorant of, or perhaps avoid if they know them: -"battailously," for instance, or "illuminate and volute redundance," -which will be found on a single page. He describes himself as a</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">Wantoner between the yet untreacherous claws</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 7em;">Of newly-whelped existence;</span></p> - - -<p>while on another page he tells us:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">The hours I tread ooze memories of thee, sweet!</span></p> - - -<p>He sees "blossoms mince it on river swells," and notices when</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">All the fair</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Frequence swayed in irised wavers.</span></p> - - -<p>All this is surely a very artificial and unnecessary and inelegant way -of expressing very ordinary matters. The same strain after a sort of -exterior heightening of expression appears on every page. Often the -language has a certain magnificence, and it is always employed in the -service of a luxurious fancy, which not infrequently rises to the point -of sheer imagination. But the whole book leaves no enduring impression -on the mind, only the visual memory of flooding words, splashing in -colored waves. As a piece of decoration, in this highly colored kind, it -has qualities of extraordinary brilliance and audacity. And at times, -becoming for a moment a little simpler than its wont, though still -fantastic and freakish, it will present us with an effect like that in -the following lines:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">And thou, bright girl, not long shalt thou repeat</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Idly the music from thy mother caught;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 10em;">Not vainly has she wrought,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Not vainly from the cloudward-jetting turret</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Of her aerial mind, for thy weak feet,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Let down the silken ladder of her thought.</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 7em;">She bare thee with a double pain,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 8em;">Of the body and the spirit;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 7em;">Thou thy fleshly weeds hast ta'en,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 8em;">Thy diviner weeds inherit!</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">The precious streams which through thy young lips roll</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 7em;">Shall leave their lovely delta in thy soul.</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 8em;">Where sprites of so essential kind</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 10em;">Set their paces,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 8em;">Surely they shall leave behind</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 10em;">The green traces</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 8em;">Of their sportance in the mind;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 8em;">And thou shalt, ere we well may know it,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 10em;">Turn that daintiness, a poet,—</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 12em;">Elfin-ring</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 10em;">Where sweet fancies foot and sing.</span></p> - - -<p>Such work as this comes strangely enough into the midst of contemporary -verse, concerned as that for the most part is with other ends, and -elaborated after quite another fashion. Always interesting, if never -quite satisfying; too crowded, too loaded, rather than, as with most -verse, meager and unfilled; curiously conceived, and still more -curiously wrought out; it holds a unique position in the poetic -literature of the day, if not, in Patmore's words concerning the earlier -volume of <i>Poems</i>, "in the prominent ranks of fame, with Cowley and -Crashaw." It is a book which no one else could have written, and in -which no one can fail to admire, with however many reservations, the -"illuminate and volute redundance" of an only too opulent talent.</p> - -<p>For it is difficult to avoid the conviction that Thompson deliberately -rejects simplicity, and even, at times, with an elaborate and conscious -search after long and heavily colored words. There is in this book a -translation of Victor Hugo's <i>Ce qu'on entend sur la Montagne</i>, a well -known poem in the <i>Feuilles d'Automne.</i> In going carefully over -Thompson's version and comparing it word for word with the original, -we have found that where Victor Hugo—not a simple writer—is -simple, Thompson embroiders upon him, and that where he is not simple, -Thompson is always less so. For instance, in the very first couplet we have -"let your tread aspirant rise" for <i>monté</i>; a few lines below,</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">One day at least, whereon my thought, enlicensed to</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 8em;">muse,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Had drooped its wing above the beached margent of</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 8em;">the ooze,</span></p> - - -<p>for</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 9em;">——<i>un jour q'en rêve</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 8em;"><i>Ma pensée abattit son vol sur une grève.</i></span></p> - - -<p>Further on,</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">The one was of the waters; a be-radiant hymnal</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 8em;">speech!</span></p> - - -<p>for</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>L'une venait des mers; chant de gloire; hymne heureux!</i></span></p> - - -<p>And finally,</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">And I made question of me, to what issues are we here,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Whither should tend the thwarting threads of all this</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 7em;">ravelled gear,</span></p> - - -<p>in place of</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Et je me demandai pourquoi l'on est ici,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Quel peut être après tout le but de tout ceci.</i></span></p> - - -<p>What could be more significant than this heaping up of long and -extravagant and sometimes feeble words, instead of the direct language -of Hugo, who in this poem, though not without a certain rhetoric, says -exactly what he wants to say, and when, as in the last two lines quoted, -he thinks that an almost bald simplicity will be in place, sets down his -thoughts in terms of an almost bald simplicity? In this translation, -Thompson has betrayed himself; he has allowed his critics to see him at -work, substituting what is roundabout for what is straight-forward; what -is lengthy for what is brief; what is elaborated for what is simple. Has -not a similar process gone on in his own mind—how far consciously one -can not tell—during the writing of his original poems?</p> - - - - -<h4>III</h4> - - -<p>The news comes to me on a little black-edged card that Francis Thompson -died at dawn on November 13, 1907. He was a Roman Catholic, and we are -asked to pray for his soul. It was a light that death could not put out, -a torch that no wind could blow out in the darkness. From us indeed it -is now turned away, and that little corner of the world to which the -poet gives light is darkened.</p> - -<p>For Francis Thompson was one of the few poets now or lately living in -whom there was some trace of that divine essence which we best symbolize -by fire. Emptiness he had and extravagances, but he was a poet, and he -had made of many influences a form of new beauty. Much of his speech, -which has a heaped imagery unique in our time, seems to have learned its -technique from an almost indiscriminate quarrying among old quarries, -and is sometimes so closely copied from that which was fantastically -precise in Crashaw, Donne, Vaughan, that we wonder why it was not a few -centuries ago that some one said:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">Life is a coquetry</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Of Death, which wearies me,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 11em;">Too sure</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 8em;">Of the armour;</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">A tiring-room where I</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Death's divers garments try,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 11em;">Till fit</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 8em;">Some fashion sit.</span></p> - - -<p>No one since that time, when "conceits" could convey poetical substance, -has touched so daintily on plain words, giving by the touch some -transfiguring novelty. If it was a style learned, it was a style -perfectly acquired, and at times equal to its original.</p> - -<p>Words and cadences must have had an intoxication for him, the -intoxication of the scholar; and "cloudy trophies" were continually -falling into his hands, and half through them, in his hurry to seize and -brandish them. He swung a rare incense in a censer of gold, under the -vault of a chapel where he had hung votive offerings. The incense half -obscures the offerings, and the dim figures of the saints painted on the -windows. As he bows there in the chapel he seems to himself to be in -"reverberant Eden-ways" or higher, at the throne of heaven, borne on -"plumes night-tinctured, englobed and cinctured of saints." Passing -beyond the world he finds strange shapes, full of pomp and wearing -strange crowns; but they are without outline, and his words disguise, -decorate, but do not reveal them.</p> - -<p>When he chanted in his chapel of dreams, the airs were often airs which -he had learned from Crashaw and Patmore. They came to life again when he -used them, and he made for himself a music which was part strangely -familiar and part his own, almost bewilderingly. Such reed-notes and -such orchestration of sound were heard no where else; and people -listened to the music, entranced as by a new magic.</p> - -<p>When he put these dreams and this music into verse, with a craft which -he had perfected for his own use, the poetry was for the most part a -splendid rhetoric, imaginative and passionless, as if the moods went by, -wrapped in purple, in a great procession. <i>The Hound of Heaven</i> has -the harmonies of a symphony, and there are delicacies among its splendors, -and, among instants of falsely fanciful sentiment, such august moments -as this:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">From the hid battlements of Eternity,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Those shaken mists a space unsettle, then</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Round the half-glimpsed turrets slowly wash again.</span></p> - - -<p>It is full of fine and significant symbolism, it is an elaborate pageant -of his own life, with all its miseries, heights, relapses, and flight -after some eternity; but, as he writes it, it turns intellectual, and -the voice is like that of one declaiming his confession. It was not thus -that Christina Rossetti let us overhear a few of the deepest secrets of -her soul.</p> - -<p>The genius of Francis Thompson was oriental, exuberant in color woven -into elaborate patterns, and went draped in old silken robes that had -survived many dynasties. The spectacle of him was an enchantment; he -passed like a wild vagabond of the mind, dazzling our sight. He had no -message, but he dropped sentences by the way, cries of joy or pity, love -of children, worship of the Virgin and saints and of those who were -patron saints to him on earth; his voice was heard like a wandering -music, which no one heeded for what it said, in a strange tongue, but -which came troublingly into the mind, bringing it the solace of its old -recaptured melodies. Other poets of his time have had deeper things to -say, and a more flawless beauty; others have put more of their hearts -into their song; but no one has been a torch waved with so fitful a -splendor over the gulfs of our darkness.</p> - - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - -<h4><a id="Coventry_Patmore">COVENTRY PATMORE</a></h4> - - -<p>The most austere poet of our time, Coventry Patmore, conceived of art as -a sort of abstract ecstasy, whose source, limit and end are that supreme -wisdom which is the innermost essence of love. Thus the whole of his -work, those "bitter, sweet, few and veiled" songs, which are the fruit -of two out of his seventy years, is love-poetry; and it is love-poetry -of a quite unique kind. In the earlier of his two books, <i>The Angel in -the House</i>, we see him, in the midst of a scientific generation (in -which it was supposed that by adding prose to poetry you doubled the -value of poetry) unable to escape the influence of his time, desperately -set on doing the wrong thing by design, yet unable to keep himself from -often doing the right thing by accident. In his later book, <i>The Unknown -Eros</i>, he has achieved the proper recognition of himself, the full -consciousness of the means to his own end; and it is by <i>The Unknown -Eros</i> that he will love, if it is enough claim to immortality to have -written the most devout, subtle and sublimated love-poetry of our -century.</p> - -<p>Patmore tells us in <i>The Angel in the House</i> that it was his -intention to write</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">That hymn for which the whole world longs,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">A worthy hymn in woman's praise.</span></p> - - -<p>But at that time his only conception of woman was the conception of -woman as the lady. Now poetry has nothing whatever to do with woman as -the lady; it is in the novel, the comedy of manners, that we expect the -society of ladies. Prose, in the novel and the drama, is at liberty to -concern itself with those secondary emotions which come into play in our -familiar intercourse with one another; with those conventions which are -the "evening dress" by which our varying temperaments seek the disguise -of an outward uniformity; with those details of life which are also, in -a sense, details of costume, and thus of value to the teller of a tale, -the actor on a stage. But the poet who endeavors to bring all this -machinery of prose into the narrow and self-sufficing limits of verse is -as fatally doomed to failure as the painter who works after photographs, -instead of from the living model. At the time when <i>The Angel</i> was -written, the heresy of the novel in verse was in the air. Were there not, -before and after it, the magnificent failure of <i>Aurora Leigh</i>, the -ineffectual, always interesting, endeavors of Clough, and certain more -careful, more sensitive, never quite satisfactory, experiments of -Tennyson? Patmore went his own way, to a more ingenious failure than -any. <i>The Angel in the House</i> is written with exquisite neatness, -occasional splendor; it is the very flower of the poetry of convention; -and is always lifting the trivialities and the ingenuities to which, for -the most part, it restricts itself, miraculously near to that height -which, now and again, in such lines as <i>The Revelation</i>, it fully -attains. But it is not here, it is in <i>The Unknown Eros</i> alone, that -Patmore has given immortality to what is immortal in perishable things.</p> - -<p>How could it be otherwise, when the whole force of the experiment lies -in the endeavor to say essentially unpoetical things in a poetical -manner?</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">Give me the power of saying things</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Too simple and too sweet for words,</span></p> - - -<p>was his wise, reasonable, and afterward answered prayer. Was it after -the offering of such a prayer that he wrote of</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 16em;">Briggs,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Factotum, Footman, Butler, Groom?</span></p> - - -<p>But it is not merely of such "vulgar errors" as this that we have to -complain, it is of the very success, the indisputable achievement, of -all but the most admirable parts of the poem. The subtlety, the fineness -of analysis, the simplified complexity, of such things as <i>The Changed -Allegiance</i>, can scarcely be overpraised as studies in "the dreadful -heart of woman," from the point of view of a shrewd, kindly, somewhat -condescending, absolutely clear-eyed observer, so dispassionate that he -has not even the privilege of an illusion, so impartial that you do not -even do his fervor the compliment of believing it possible that his -perfect Honoria had, after all, defects. But in all this, admirable as -it is, there is nothing which could not have been as well said in prose. -It is the point of view of the egoist, of the "marrying man," to whom</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">Each beauty blossomed in the sight</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Of tender personal regard.</span></p> - - -<p>Woman is observed always in reference to the man who fancies she may -prove worthy to be his "predestined mate," and it seems to him his -highest boast that he is</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 15em;">proud</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">To take his passion into church.</span></p> - - -<p>At its best, this is the poetry of "being in love," not of love; of -affection, not passion. Passion is a thing of flame, rarely burning -pure, or without danger to him that holds that wind-blown torch in his -hand; while affection, such as this legalized affection of <i>The Angel in -the House</i>, is a gentle and comfortable warmth, as of a hearth-side. It -is that excellent, not quite essential, kind of love which need endure -neither pain nor revolt; for it has conquered the world on the world's -terms.</p> - -<p>Woman, as she is seen in <i>The Angel in the House</i>, is a delightful, -adorable, estimable, prettily capricious child; demonstrably finite, -capturable, a butterfly not yet Psyche. It is the severest judgment on -her poet that she is never a mystery to him. For all art is founded on -mystery, and to the poet, as to the child, the whole world is -mysterious. There are experts who tell me that this world, and life, and -the flowing of times past into times to come, are but a simple matter -after all: the jarring of this atom against that, a growth by explicable -degrees from a germ perhaps not altogether inexplicable. And there are -the experts in woman, who will explain to me the bright disarray of her -caprices, the strangeness of her moods, the unreason of her sway over -man; assuring me that she is mysterious only because she is not seen -through, and that she can never be seen through because into the depths -of emptiness one can see but a little distance. Not of such is the true -lover, the true poet. To him woman is as mysterious as the night of -stars, and all he learns of her is but to deepen the mystery which -surrounds her as with clouds. To him she is Fate, an unconscious part of -what is eternal in things; and, being the liveliest image of beauty, she -is to be reverenced for her beauty, as the saints are reverenced for -their virtue. What is it to me if you tell me that she is but the -creature of a day, prized for her briefness, as we prize flowers; loved -for her egoism, as we love infants; marveled at for the exquisite and -audacious completeness of her ignorance? Or what is it to me if you tell -me that she is all that a lady should be, infinitely perfect in -pettiness; and that her choice will reward the calculations of a -gentleman? If she is not a flame, devouring and illuminating, and if -your passion for her is not as another consuming and refining flame, -each rushing into either that both may be commingled in a brighter -ecstasy, you have not seen woman as it is the joy of the poet and the -lover to see her; and your fine distinctions, your disentangling of -sensations, your subtleties of interpretation, will be at the best but -of the subject of prose, revealing to me what is transitory in the -eternal rather than what is eternal in the transitory. The art of -Coventry Patmore, in <i>The Angel in the House</i>, is an art founded on this -scientific conception of woman. But the poet, who began by thinking of -woman as being at her best a perfect lady, ended by seeing her seated a -little higher than the angels, at the right hand of the Madonna, of whom -indeed she is a scarcely lower symbol. She who was a bright and cherished -toy in <i>The Angel in the House</i> becomes in <i>The Unknown Eros</i> -pure spirit, the passionate sister of the pure idea. She is the mystical -rose of beauty, the female half of that harmony of opposites which is -God. She has other names, and is the Soul, the Church, the Madonna. To -be her servant is to be the servant of all right, the enemy of all -wrong; and therefore poems of fierce patriotism, and disdainful -condemnation of the foolish and vulgar who are the adversaries of God's -ordinances and man's, find their appropriate place among poems of tender -human pathos, of ecstatic human and divine love.</p> - -<p>And she is now, at last, apprehended under her most essential aspect, as -the supreme mystery and her worship becomes an almost secret ritual, of -which none but the adepts can fathom the full significance.</p> - -<p>Vision, in <i>The Unknown Eros</i>, is too swift, immediate and -far-seeing to be clouded by the delicate veils of dreams.</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">Give me the steady heat</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Of thought wise, splendid, sweet,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Urged by the great, rejoicing wind that rings</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">With draught of unseen wings,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Making each phrase, for love and for delight,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Twinkle like Sirius on a frosty night:</span></p> - - -<p>that is his prayer, and it was not needful for him to</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 14em;">remain</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Content to ask unlikely gifts in vain.</span></p> - - -<p>Out of this love-poetry all but the very essence of passion has been -consumed; and love is seen to be the supreme wisdom, even more than the -supreme delight. Apprehended on every side, and with the same -controlling ardor, those "frightful nuptials" of the Dove and Snake, -which are one of his allegories, lead upward, on the wings of an almost -aerial symbolism, to those all but inaccessible heights where mortal -love dies into that intense, self-abnegating, intellectual passion, -which we name the love of God.</p> - -<p>At this height, at its very highest, his art becomes abstract ecstasy. -It was one of his contentions, in that beautiful book of prose, <i>Religio -Poetae</i>, in which thought is sustained throughout at almost the lyrical -pitch, that the highest art is not emotional, and that "the music of -Handel, the poetry of Aeschylus, and the architecture of the Parthenon -are appeals to a sublime good sense which takes scarcely any account of -'the emotions.'" Not the highest art only, but all art, if it is so much -as to come into existence, must be emotional; for it is only emotion -which puts life into the death-like slumber of words, of stones, of the -figures on a clef. But emotion may take any shape, may inform the least -likely of substances. Is not all music a kind of divine mathematics, and -is not mathematics itself a rapture to the true adept? To Patmore -abstract things were an emotion, became indeed the highest emotion of -which he was capable; and that joy, which he notes as the mark of fine -art, that peace, which to him was the sign of great art, themselves, the -most final of the emotions, interpenetrated for him the whole substance -of thought, aspiration, even argument. Never were arguments at once so -metaphysical and so mystical, so precise, analytic and passionate as -those "high arguments" which fill these pages with so thrilling a life.</p> - -<p>The particular subtlety of Patmore's mysticism finds perhaps its -counterpart in the writings of certain of the Catholic mystics: it has -at once the clear-eyed dialectic of the Schoolmen and the august heat of -Saint Theresa. Here is passion which analyzes itself, and yet with so -passionate a complexity that it remains passion. Read, for instance, -that eulogy of "Pain," which is at once a lyric rapture, and betrays an -almost unholy depth of acquaintance with the hidden, tortuous and -delightful way of sensation. Read that song of songs, <i>Deliciae -Sapientiae de Amore</i>, which seems to speak, with the tongue of angels, -all the secrets of all those "to whom generous Love, by any name, is -dear." Read that other, interrupted song,</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">Building new bulwarks 'gainst the infinite,</span></p> - - -<p>"<i>Legem tuam dilexi.</i>" Read those perhaps less quintessential -dialogues in which a personified Psyche seeks wisdom of Eros and the -Pythoness. And then, if you would realize how subtle an argument in verse -may be, how elegantly and happily expressed, and yet not approach, at its -highest climb, the point from which these other arguments in verse take -flight, turn to <i>The Angel in the House</i> and read "The Changed -Allegiance." The difference is the difference between wisdom and worldly -wisdom: wisdom being the purified and most ardent emotion of the -intellect, and thus of the very essence of poetry; while worldly wisdom -is but the dispassionate ingenuity of the intelligence, and thus of not -so much as the highest substance of prose.</p> - -<p>The word "glittering," which Patmore so frequently uses, and always with -words which soften its sharpness, may be applied, not unsuitably, to -much of his writing in this book: a "glittering peace" does indeed seem -to illuminate it. The writing throughout is classical, in a sense in -which perhaps no other writing of our time is classical. When he says of -the Virgin:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">Therefore, holding a little thy soft breath,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Thou underwent'st the ceremony of death;</span></p> - - -<p>or, of the eternal paradox of love:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">Tis but in such captivity</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">The unbounded Heavens know what they be;</span></p> - - -<p>when he cries:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 12em;">O Love, that, like a rose,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Deckest my breast with beautiful repose;</span></p> - - -<p>or speaks of "this fond indignity, delight;" he is, though with an -entirely personal accent, writing in the purest classical tradition. He -was accustomed always, in his counsels to young writers, to reiterate -that saying of Aristotle, that in the language of poetry there should be -"a continual slight novelty;" and I remember that he would point to his -own work, with that legitimate pride in himself which was one of the -fierce satisfactions of his somewhat lonely and unacknowledged old age. -There is in every line of <i>The Unknown Eros</i> that continual slight -novelty which makes classical poetry, certainly, classical. Learned in -every meter, Patmore never wrote but in one, the iambic: and there was a -similar restraint, a similar refusal of what was good, but not (as he -conceived) the highest good, all strangeness of beauty, all trouble, -curiosity, the splendor of excess, in the words and substance of his -writing. I find no exception even in that fiercely aristocratic -political verse, which is the very rapture of indignation and wrath -against such things as seemed to him worthy to be hated of God.</p> - -<p>Like Landor, with whom he had other points of resemblance, Coventry -Patmore was a good hater. May one not say, like all great lovers? He -hated the mob, because he saw in it the "amorous and vehement drift of -Man's herd to hell." He hated Protestantism, because he saw in it a -weakening of the bonds of spiritual order. He hated the Protestantism of -modern art, its revolt against the tradition of the "true Church," the -many heresies of its many wanderings after a strange, perhaps forbidden, -beauty. Art was to him religion, as religion was to him the supreme art. -He was a mystic who found in Catholicism the sufficing symbols of those -beliefs which were the deepest emotions of his spirit. It was a -necessity to him to be dogmatic, and he gave to even his petulances the -irresistible sanction of the Church.</p> - -<p><i>Religio Poetae</i> contains twenty-three short essays—many of -them rather sermons than essays—on such topics as "Peace in Life and -Art, Ancient and Modern Ideas of Purity, Emotional Art, Conscience, -Distinction." There is nothing which marks it as of the present but an -occasional personality, which we could wish absent, and a persistent habit -of self-quotation. There is absolutely no popular appeal, no extraneous -interest in the timeliness of subject, or the peculiarities of -treatment; nothing, in fact, to draw the notice of the average reader or -to engage his attention. To the average reader the book must be nothing -but the vainest speculation and the dullest theory. Yet, in many ways, -it is one of the most beautiful and notable works in prose that have -appeared in recent years. It is a book, argumentative as it is, which -one is not called on so much to agree with or dissent from as to ponder -over, and to accept, in a certain sense, for its own sake. Patmore is -one of the few surviving defenders of the faith, and that alone gives -him an interesting position among contemporary men of letters. He is a -Christian and a Catholic, that is to say the furthest logical -development of the dogmatic Christian; but he is also a mystic; and his -spiritual apprehensions are so vivid that he is never betrayed into -dogmatic narrowness without the absolution of an evident vision and -conviction. And, above all, he is a poet; one of the most essential poets -of our time, not on account of the dinner-table domesticities of <i>The -Angel in the House</i>, but by reason of the sublimated love-poetry of -<i>The Unknown Eros</i>, with its extraordinary subtlety of thought and -emotion, rendered with the faultless simplicity of an elaborate and -conscious art. His prose is everywhere the prose of a poet. Thought, in -him, is of the very substance of poetry, and is sustained throughout at -almost the lyrical pitch. There is, in these essays, a rarefied air as -of the mountain-tops of meditation; and the spirit of their pondering -over things, their sometimes remote contemplation, is always, in one -sense, as Pater has justly said of Wordsworth, impassioned. Each essay -in itself may at once be said to be curiously incomplete or fragmentary, -and yet singularly well related as a part to a whole, the effect of -continuity coming from the fact that these are the occasional -considerations of a mind which, beyond that of most men, is consistent -and individual. Not less individual than the subject-matter is the -style, which in its gravity and sweetness, its fine, unforbidding -austerity, its smooth harmony—a harmony produced by the use of simple -words subtly—is unlike that of any contemporary writer, though much -akin to Patmore's own poetic style.</p> - -<p>The subjects with which these essays deal may be grouped under three -heads: religion, art and woman. In all Patmore's attitude is intensely -conservative and aristocratic—fiercely contemptuous of popular idols -and ideals, whenever he condescends to notice them. The very daring and -very logical essay on "Christianity and Progress" is the clearest and -most cogent statement of Christianity as an aristocracy, in opposition -to the current modern view of it as a democracy, that has been made -since the democratic spirit made its way into the pulpit. "Let not such -as these," says Patmore,</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>exalt themselves against the great Masters of the experimental science -of Life, one of whom—St. Theresa, if I remember rightly—declares -that more good is done by one minute of reciprocal communion of love with -God than by the founding of fifty hospitals or of fifty churches.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>It is from this point of view that Patmore writes:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>Many people doubt whether Christianity has done much, or even anything, -for the "progress" of the human race as a race; and there is more to be -said in defence of such doubt than most good people suppose. Indeed, the -expression of this doubt is very widely considered as shocking and -irreligious; and as condemnatory of Christianity altogether. It is -considered to be equivalent to an assertion that Christianity has -hitherto proved a "failure." But some who do not consider that -Christianity has proved a failure, do, nevertheless, hold that it is -open to question whether the race, as a race, has been much affected by -it, and whether the external and visible evil and good which have come -of it do not pretty nearly balance one another.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>It is with the same view of things, from the same standpoint, that Mr. -Patmore states his ideal of the poetic art, and condemns what he -considers the current misconception of the subject. "I may go further," -he declares, in his vivacious attack on "Emotional Art,"</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>and say that no art can appeal "to the emotions only" with the faintest -hope of even the base success it aspires to. The pathos of such art (and -pathos is its greatest point) is wholly due to a more or less vivid -expression of a vague remorse at its divorce from truth and order. The -Dame aux Camelias sighs in all Chopin's music over her lost virtue, -which, however, she shows no anxiety to recover, and the characteristic -expression of the most recent and popular school of poetry and painting -is a ray of the same sickly and in the most part hypocritical homage to -virtue. Without some such homage even the dying and super-sensitive body -of "emotional art" loses its very faintest pretensions to the name of -art, and becomes the confessed carion of Offenbach's operas and the -music-hall. Atheism in art, as well as in life, has only to be pressed -to its last consequences in order to become ridiculous, no less than -disastrous; and the "ideal," in the absence of an idea or intellectual -reality, becomes the "realism" of the brothel and the shambles.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>What, then, is the ideal, the proper substance and manner of poetry? It -is thus defined in another essay, which contends that "Bad Morality is -Bad Art:"</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>The poet, as a rule, should avoid religion altogether as a direct -subject. Law, the rectitude of humanity, should be his only subject, as, -from time immemorial, it has been the subject of true art, though many a -true artist has done the Muse's will and knew it not. As all the music -of verse arises, not from infraction, but inflection of the law of the -set metre, so the greatest poets have been those the modulus of -whose verse has been most variously and delicately inflected, in -correspondence with feelings and passions which are the inflections of -moral law in their theme. Masculine law is always, however obscurely, -the theme of the true poet; the feeling and its correspondent rhythm, -its feminine inflection, without which the law has no sensitive or -poetic life. Art is thus constituted because it is the constitution of -life, all the grace and sweetness of which arise from inflection of law, -not from infraction of it, as bad men and bad poets fancy.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>Again from the same standpoint, again with the same absolute and -aristocratic outlook on the world, does Patmore "sing of the nature of -woman"—the subject of his constant preoccupation as an artist, the -one sufficing subject to which he has devoted all his art. The modern -woman, one may suppose, is not likely to appreciate the precise manner in -which Patmore exalts her sex. It is far too logical, too reasonable, too -scrupulously according to nature; thus, for example, in a passage of -characteristically delicate wit:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>It is "of faith" that the woman's claim to the honour of man lies in the -fact of her being the "weaker vessel." It would be of no use to prove -what every Christian man and woman is bound to believe, and what is, -indeed, obvious to the senses of any sane man or woman whatever. But a -few words of random comment on the text may, by adding to faith -knowledge, make man and woman—woman especially—more thankful -than before for those conditions which constitute the chief felicity of her -life and his, and which it is one of the chief triumphs of progress to -render ever more and more manifest. The happiest result of the "higher -education" of woman cannot fail to consist in the rendering of her -weakness more and more daintily conspicuous. How much sweeter to dry the -tears that flow because one cannot accede to some demonstrable fallacy -in her theory of variable stars, than to kiss her into conformity to the -dinner-hour or the fitness or unfitness of such-or-such a person to be -asked to a picnic! How much more dulcet the <i>dulcis Amaryllidis ira</i> -when Amaryllis knows Sophocles and Hegel by heart, than when her -accomplishments extend only to a moderate proficiency in French and the -pianoforte! It is a great consolation to reflect that, among all the -bewildering changes to which the world is subject, the character of -woman cannot be altered; and that, so long as she abstains from absolute -outrages against nature—such as divided skirts, freethinking, -tricycles, and Radicalism—neither Greek, nor conic sections, nor -political economy, nor cigarettes, nor athletics, can ever really do -other than enhance the charm of that sweet unreasonableness which -humbles the gods to the dust, and compels them to adore the lace below -the last hem of her brocade!</p></blockquote> - - -<p>Such, then, and so consistent, is Patmore's attitude in matters of -religion, of art, and of the relation of man and woman. We are concerned -neither to defend nor to contend against it, admitting only that, -granted the premises (which, no doubt, can be taken on certain grave and -ancient warrants), the deductions from those premises are strictly -logical, and at the present day, as novel as they are logical. Patmore -is inclined to be petulant, and he occasionally rides a hobby-horse so -recklessly as to commit himself to incredible fallacies. But a book -which attains perfection has never yet been produced, and Patmore's is -close, very close indeed.</p> - - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - -<h4><a id="Sir_William_Watson">SIR WILLIAM WATSON</a></h4> - - -<p>Why, I have sometimes asked myself, did not Pater say the right words on -a writer greater than Mérimée—George Meredith? I imagine that he -never admired his novels enough to try his hand on a subject not quite -his own. Certain books, I confess, ought to have been launched at the -British Philistine, like David's one convincing pebble, straight to the -forehead. I confess also (my own fault it was in regard to Meredith) -that to write about Carlyle, Swinburne or Meredith, without -unconsciously reproducing some tricks of manner, is a feat of which any -man might be proud.</p> - -<p><i>The Egoist</i> is a wonderful book, and in its elemental comedy -it challenges Congreve and even Molière; but in the elemental tragedy -of certain parts of <i>Rhoda Fleming</i> and <i>Richard Feverel</i>, he -challenges Webster, or almost Shakespeare. Yet the uncouthness that -disfigures certain pages in <i>Richard Feverel</i> is a mere after-taste of -Arabian extravagance. It is a new kind of uncouthness that comes into -prominence in <i>The Egotist</i>—that exaggeration of qualities which -one sees in the later works of men who have a pronounced style, even in the -case of Browning. No prose writer of our time has written finer or viler -English than Meredith. It is a mistake to treat him as if he were stylist -first, and novelist afterward, as Flaubert might almost be said to be. -Meredith is a conscious artist always—as conscious as Goncourt, with -whom he may be compared for his experimental treatment of language, his -attempt to express what has never been expressed before by forcing words -to say more than they are used to say. Sometimes they give his message, but -ungraciously, like beaten slaves; sometimes the message seems to go -astray. That is why Englishmen, forgetting triumph after splendid -triumph of style, will sometimes tell you that Meredith can not write -English, just as Frenchmen gravely assure one another that the novels of -the Goncourts are written in any language but French.</p> - -<p>That astonishing little volume, <i>Modern Love and Poems of the English -Roadside</i>, published in 1862, has never received anything like justice -except at the hands of such a fellow-craftsman as Swinburne. While I for -one can not but feel that Meredith works more naturally, with a freer -hand, in prose than in verse, that poem of <i>Modern Love</i> seems to me -among the masterpieces of contemporary poetry. It is the most distinctly -modern poem ever written. There has been nothing like it in English -poetry: it brings into our literature something fundamentally new, -essentially modern. Side by side with this super-subtle study of passion -and sensation, we have the homely realism of "Juggling Jerry"—a poem -which can only be compared with Burns' "Jolly Beggars" for triumphant -success in perhaps the most difficult kind of literature.</p> - -<p>So far I quote from an old article of mine, which was answered by -William Watson. Here is part of his answer, printed in <i>The -Academy</i>:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>Now I should like to ask, what has the British Philistine done that he -should have a book shied at his head in the way Mr. Symons thinks -desirable? As regards Meredith, it seems to me that the British -Philistine has been most exemplary in what he would call the discharge -of his duty. He has tried his very best to read Meredith, and has -failed; or he has read Meredith, but has failed in the attempt to enjoy -him. I fancy, however, that when Meredith's devotees speak of the -British Philistine, they really mean the vast majority of the public, -and it seems to me a little absurd, that because there is an author -whose writings the public are comparatively indifferent to, it should be -constantly assured that the only person not in the least responsible for -such indifference is the author. Other writers have achieved popularity -before Meredith. Perhaps the best proof of the futility of trying to -convert people into an attitude of admiration by "aiming" a book at them -is afforded by Meredith's novels themselves. They are, in Mr. Symons' -sense of the word, "aimed" at the British Philistine, if ever novels were. -He has been pelted through, I do not know how many, volumes—but -have the missiles converted him?</p></blockquote> - - -<p>I leave all these questions unanswered, as they deserve no answer, after -Time's verdict on Meredith. Now, what was, and is, the place of Sir -William Watson in literature? The difference between literature and what -is preeminently literary may be clearly illustrated on examination of -his poems. No poems written in our time are more literary. They come to -us asking to be received on account of their legitimate lineal descent -from earlier poets, from Wordsworth and from Matthew Arnold for -instance. "If," says the writer, frankly—</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 17em;">If I be indeed</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Their true descendant, as the veriest hind</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">May yet be sprung of kings, their lineaments</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Will out, the signature of ancestry</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Leap unobscured, and somewhat of themselves</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">In me, their lowly scion, live once more.</span></p> - - -<p>Many of the poems are about poets, or about books; some are purely -critical. And they are indeed, as they profess to be, in the tradition; -they strike no unfamiliar note to any ears acquainted with the music of -English poetry. Their range is limited, but within it they exhibit an -unquestionable mastery of a particular kind of technique. Few lines are -bad, all are careful, many are felicitous. Every poem has a certain -neatness and order about it. The spirit of the whole work is orderly, -reticent and dignified. Nothing has been left to chance, or to the -appeal of lawless splendors. An artist has been at work. At work on -what? At all events, not on the only really satisfactory material for -the poet—himself. Watson tells us that he has chosen the best of -himself for giving to the world:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 9em;">I have not paid the world</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">The evil and the insolent courtesy</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Of offering it my baseness for a gift.</span></p> - - -<p>Well and good; but has he, in choosing among his selves, chosen really -the essential one, base or not base, ignoble or not ignoble? He has -chosen the self that loves good literature, thinks estimable thoughts, -feels decorous emotions, and sets all this into polished and poetical -verse. That is enough for the making of literary poetry, but not for -poetry which shall be literature.</p> - -<p>Watson, in his study of the great writers, seems never to have realized -that what matters chiefly, what tells, is not the great phrase, but the -personality behind the phrase. He has learned from many writers to make -phrases almost as fine as those writers have made; his phrases are never -meaningless in themselves, and they can be exquisite in their form. But -the phrase, coming with nothing but its own significance behind it, a -rootless flower, deriving no life from the soil, fails to convey to us -more than an arid, unsatisfying kind of pleasure. There it is, a -detached thing; to be taken, you may say, for what it is worth; only, -live words will not be so taken. Compare Watson's "Ode to Autumn" with -the "Ode to Autumn" of Keats. The poem is one of Watson's best poems; it -is full of really poetical phraseology. But the ode of Keats means -something in every word, and it means Keats quite as much as autumn. -Watson's poem means neither autumn nor Watson; it represents Watson -setting himself to describe autumn.</p> - -<p>Take his "Hymn to the Sea." It is a long piece of exultant rhetoric, -very finely imagined, full of admirable images; the most beautiful -similes are gathered and brought together to represent the sea's -multitudinous moods; but when the poem is finished, and you have admired -it at leisure, you do not feel that this poet loves the sea. The poetry -of Byron is assailable on many sides, but when he wrote those too -rhetorical lines, now hackneyed almost out of recognition, -beginning—</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll!</span></p> - - -<p>he wrote out of his heart, as nearly as he could, and the lines, faulty -as they are, have remained alive ever since. Mr. Watson's verse is very -much better verse, but will—</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">Grant, O regal in bounty, a subtle and delicate largess,</span></p> - - -<p>come back to men's lips as often, or for as long -a time, as those faulty lines of Byron's?</p> - -<p>In his "Apologia," Watson replies to those who have complained that he -has brought nothing new into poetry—</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 15em;">I bring nought new</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Save as each noontide or each Spring is new.</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Into an old and iterative world.</span></p> - - -<p>And he asks—</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 18em;">Is the Muse</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Fall'n to a thing of Mode, that must each year</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Supplant her derelict self of yesteryear?</span></p> - - -<p>But he declines to see that the new thing which every generation rightly -asks of every new poet is by no means "mode," or empty fashion of -writing, but the one essential thing, personality, which can never be -twice the same. The reason why you will not find any two poets writing -in the same way is that every genuine poet has to express himself in his -own way, whether it be by offering his own "baseness for a gift," like -Villon, or by building a new heaven and a new hell, like Dante. The -maker of literature puts this new thing into his work, in the mere act -of making it, and it stands out, as plainly as his signature, in every -line he writes. Not to find it is to have fallen upon work which is but -literary, "books made out of books." Walt Whitman thought that such -"pass away."</p> - -<p>In that "Apologia" from which we have already quoted, Watson indignantly -denounces those who think "all Art is cold" if "an ardor not of Eros' -lips" is in it, and he attempts to indicate that state of vision in -which man may know—</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">A deeper transport and a mightier thrill</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Than comes of commerce with mortality.</span></p> - -<p>Does he then,</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">In silence, in the visionary mood,</span></p> - - -<p>reach this ecstatic state? If so, it has left no impression on his -poetry. In his poetry there is no vision, only speculation about vision; -no ecstasy, only a reasonable meditation. He speaks of God, "the Whole," -the "cosmic descant," and the large words remain empty. In such poems as -<i>The Unknown God</i> and <i>The Father of the Forest</i> we seem to -have been taught a lesson, read out in a resonant, well controlled voice; -nothing has been flashed upon us, we have overheard nothing.</p> - -<p>And, indeed, of how little of this poetry can we say, in the words of -Mill's great definition, that it has been overheard! Its qualities, -almost, though not quite, at the best, are the qualities of good -oratory. Watson began by writing epigrams, admirable of their kind, with -a more lyric nineteenth century handling of the sharp eighteenth century -weapon. The epigram lies at the root of his work—that is to say, -something essentially of the quality of prose. He is a Pope who has read -Keats. Oratory or the epigram come into his most characteristic -passages, as in the well known and much admired lines on the greatness -and littleness of man:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">Magnificent out of the dust we came</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">And abject from the Spheres.</span></p> - - -<p>Now that, striking and effective as it is, is an antithetical ingenuity -which a really fine poet would have gone out of his way to avoid. It is -oratory, not poetry, and it would make good oratory, for there point has -need of all its sharpness; oratory is action.</p> - -<p>It is through this oratorical quality of mind that Mr. Watson's style, -though so ordered and measurably, often leaves an impression of having -been deliberately heightened above the level of ordinary speech. The -great things in poetry are song at the core, but externally mere speech. -Think of some actual, anonymous Elizabethan song, and then read the -piece which Watson has called "Song in Imitation of the Elizabethans." -It is not merely that he has not captured the exact note of the period, -but rather copied the note of a later period; such lines as</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">Idly clanged the sullen portal,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 6.5em;">Idly the sepulchral door,</span></p> - - -<p>are not direct speech, and can therefore never become pure song. They -are dressed in poetical phraseology, which is a very different thing.</p> - -<p>It is curious to find this quality in a writer who is in every sense so -critical. Behind a great deal of Watson's work there is the critical -intelligence, not the poetical temperament. <i>Wordsworth's Grave</i> is -written in discipleship to Matthew Arnold, and it is not Arnold when he is -at his best—the Arnold of <i>Sohrab and Rustum</i> and <i>The Sick -King in Bokhara</i>—that Watson has approached, but that half poet, -half prose writer who wrote the Obermann poems. The foundation of those -poems is prose, and a great deal of their substance is no more than rhymed -prose. But at times the poet flashes out, transfiguring material and form -for the moment, before he drops back into prose again. Watson's work is -more on a level; he neither falls so low nor rises so high. But, even more -than with Arnold, the substance of it is criticism, and the thinking and -the style suggest the best kind of prose. Set the poem, with its finely -chosen epithets and phrases—"Impassioned quietude, Thou wast home, -Thou hadst, for weary feet, the gift of rest, the frugal note of Gray," and -the like—beside Pater's essay on Wordsworth, and you will find many -points of resemblance, and not only in the echo of "impassioned -quietude" from Pater's "impassioned contemplation." Compare it with -Matthew Arnold's essay on Wordsworth and you will again find many points -of resemblance, not only in detail, which would not matter, but also in -the whole way of approaching and handling the subject. Does the rhyme -bring in any essential difference between specimens of fine prose and -this poem, so well thought out, so poetically expressed? There lies the -whole question, for if it does not bring such a difference, can it be -accepted as poetry, as an adequate kind of poetry?</p> - -<p>Criticism, though it may find place in a poem (as in Shelley's Letter to -Maria Gisborne) can never be the basis of poetry. Pope tried to turn the -current of English poetry into this narrow channel, but the sea-force -soon had its way with the banks and dykes. Watson has tried to revive -that heresy; he has disguised its principles under new terms, but it -remains the same heresy. Poetry is even less a criticism of thought than -it is a "criticism of life," it must be at all points creation, creation -of life, creation of thought, if it is to be poetry in the true sense.</p> - -<p>It is to Wordsworth, among many masters, that Watson tells us that he is -most indebted. Wordsworth is not always a safe master, and it is -apparently from him that Mr. Watson has accepted the main principles of -his blank verse. Wordsworth's blank verse was more often bad than good; -it was bad on principle, and good by the grace of a not infrequent -inspiration. At its best, it is not among the great specimens of blank -verse, or not for more than a very few lines at a time. It is without -vitality, it is without that freedom in beauty which can come from -vitality alone. Watson has learned from Wordsworth that it is possible -to write grave and impressive lines, sweeping up to fine perorations, in -which the pauses are measured, not by the vital pulses of the mood, but -by a conscious, cultivated method. Some of Wordsworth's blank verse "The -Prelude," though in itself tame and inefficient, takes hold of the -reader through a personal warmth which makes him almost forget that he -is reading verse at all. But we never feel personal warmth in Mr. -Watson; he succeeds or fails as an artificer, and as an artificer only.</p> - -<p>It is probably not too much to say that there is not a cadence in his -verse which has not been heard before. By what miracle it is that out of -the same number and order of syllables no two cadences of Shakespeare -and of Browning, of Keats and of Herrick, of Crashaw and of Blake, can -be precisely matched no man knows or will ever know—least of all the -poet himself. He writes what comes to him, and he may work on his -writing until hardly a word of the original stuff remains; and with all -his care, or in spite of it, the thing turns doggedly into his own -manner of speech, and comes to us with a cadence that we have never -heard before. He may have read much or little, and it will make barely -an appreciable difference. The music that is not learned in books comes -from some unknown source which is as variable as the sea or the wind. -Music learned from books, however much beauty may be breathed into it by -the singer, keeps the taint of its source about it. It is by such music -that the literary artist, not the artist in literature, is known.</p> - -<p>William Watson's <i>Odes and Other Poems</i> is remarkable for precisely -the qualities which have distinguished his work since the time when, in -<i>Wordsworth's Grave</i>, he first elaborated a manner of his own. That -manner has some of the qualities of eighteenth century verse—its -sobriety, its strictness, its intellectual and critical interests; and -it also has certain of the richer and more emotional elements of the -nineteenth century revival of the Elizabethan passion, and splendor. The -reader is reminded of Gray, of Wordsworth, of Matthew Arnold, at moments -of Keats and of Rossetti. In spite of occasional and unaccountable -blemishes, Watson's work is, in the main, the most careful work of any -of the younger poets. Nor is it lacking in a poetic impulse. It does not -seem to us that this impulse is a very strong one, or one of special -originality, but it is there, undoubtedly; and Watson's verse, unlike -that of most of the people now writing, justifies its existence. Take, -for instance, these opening lines from the ode <i>To Arthur Christopher -Benson</i>:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">In that grave shade august</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 7em;">That round your Eton clings,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">To you the centuries must</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 7em;">Be visible corporate things</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">And the high Past appear</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Affably real and near,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 7em;">For all its grandiose airs, caught from the mien of</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 9em;">Kings.</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">The new age stands as yet</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 7em;">Half built against the sky</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Open to every threat</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 7em;">Of storms that clamor by:</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Scaffolding veils the walls,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">And dim dust floats and falls,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 7em;">As, moving to and fro, their tasks the masons ply.</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">But changeless and complete,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 7em;">Rise unperturbed and vast,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Above our din and heat,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 7em;">The turrets of the Past,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Mute as that city asleep,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Lulled with enchantments deep,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 7em;">Far in Arabian dreamland built where all things</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 9em;">last.</span></p> - - -<p>The grave and equable sweep of this verse, so unlike most of the hot and -flurried rhyming of contemporaries, has the excellence of form which -gives adequate expression to a really poetic conception. Watson takes a -very serious view of things, except in a few attempts at satire or -playfulness, which are not quite fortunate either in idea or in -execution. He has the laudable desire to enter into competition with the -great masters on their own ground. And the result is by no means -ludicrous, as it would be with most people. Only it is a little as if -the accomplished copyist were to challenge comparison with the picture -which he has, after all, copied. Work done in the manner, and under the -influence, of previous writers may indeed, under certain circumstances, -attain the virtue of originality; but only under certain circumstances. -Chatterton, for instance, was original only when he copied, or when he -fancied he was copying; Keats was absolutely himself even at the period -when his form was entirely imitative. The personality of some men can -find no home in the present, can wear no dress of modern fashion; can -express itself only by a return to the ways of speech of an earlier age. -But this sort of spiritual nostalgia can only become effective when it -is a very deep and individual instinct, and not merely a general -literary sympathy. Watson has learned more from his masters than he has -brought to them. We have read his latest book with real appreciation of -its many admirable qualities, but, on closing it, we have no more -definite idea of Watson himself, of what he really is, apart from what -he chooses to express, than we had before opening it. And yet the -greater part of the book, in one sense, is quite personal. He tells us -what he thought of Stevenson's <i>Catriona</i>, how he felt in Richmond -Park, and of his friendly regard for one or two estimable men of letters. -But the real man, the real point of view, the outlook on life, the deeper -human sympathies: what do we learn of these? There is, indeed, one poem, -among the finest in the book, in which a touch of more acute personal -feeling gives a more intimate thrill to the verse—the poem called <i>Vita -Nuova</i>, of which we may quote the greater part:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">O ancient streams, O far-descended woods</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Full of the fluttering of melodious souls;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">O hills and valleys that adorn yourselves</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">In solemn jubilation; winds and clouds,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Ocean and land in stormy nuptials clasped,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">And all exuberant creatures that acclaim</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">The Earth's divine renewal: lo, I too</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">With yours would mingle somewhat of glad song.</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">I too have come through wintry terrors—yea,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Through tempest and through cataclysm of soul</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Have come, and am delivered. Me the Spring</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Me also, dimly with new life hath touched,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">And with regenerate hope, the salt of life;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">And I would dedicate these thankful tears</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">To whatsoever Power beneficent,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Veiled though his countenance, undivulged his thought,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Hath led me from the haunted darkness forth</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Into the gracious air and vernal morn,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">And suffers me to know my spirit a note</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Of this great chorus, one with bird and stream</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">And voiceful mountain,—nay, a string, how jarred</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">And all but broken! of that lyre of life</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Whereon himself, the master harp-player.</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Resolving all its mortal dissonance</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">To one immortal and most perfect strain,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Harps without pause, building with song the world.</span></p> - - -<p>But this poem stands alone in the volume as an expression of very -interesting personal feeling, the rest being mainly concerned with -generalities.</p> - -<p>Like all Watson's volumes of verse, these <i>Odes and Other Poems</i> -contain some excellent literary criticism, conveyed in the neatest and -briefest fashion possible. In fact, Watson's verse is only too full of sane -and measured criticism—an excellent quality no doubt, but hardly -one quite compatible with poetry of a high order. But how fine, how exact, -how discriminating, is this piece of criticism, for instance, in verse!</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">Forget not, brother singer! that though Prose</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 7em;">Can never be too truthful or too wise,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Song is not Truth, not Wisdom, but the rose</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Upon Truth's lips, the light in Wisdom's eyes.</span></p> - - -<p>It was in the epigram that Watson first did finished work, and his most -typical work is certainly to be found in forms more or less akin to the -epigram; in the sonnet, for example. There are so many good sonnets in -this volume that choice is difficult; here is one called "Night on -Curbar Edge":</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">No echo of man's life pursues my ears;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 7em;">Nothing disputes this Desolation's reign;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 7em;">Change comes not, this dread temple to profane,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Where time by aeons reckons, not by years,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Its patient form one crag, sole stranded, rears,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 7em;">Type of whate'er is destined to remain</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 7em;">While yon still host encamped on night's waste</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 9em;">plain</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Keeps armed watch, a million quivering spears,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Hushed are the wild and wing'd lives of the moor;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 7em;">The sleeping sheep nestle 'neath ruined wall,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 9em;">Or unhewn stones in random concourse hurled;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Solitude, sleepless, listens at Fate's door;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 7em;">And there is built and 'stablisht over all</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 7em;">Tremendous silence, older than the world.</span></p> - - -<p>The breadth of phrasing here is noticeable; and it is by such qualities -as this, as well as by the careful accuracy with which every note is -produced, that Watson is distinguished alike from older men of the type -of Alfred Austin, and from younger men of such varying capacities as -John Davidson and Yeats. If he has not the making of a great poet, he is -already an accomplished poet; and if he does not possess the highest -qualities, he possesses several of the secondary qualities in the -highest degree.</p> - -<p>Watson's <i>Ode on the Day of Coronation of King Edward the Seventh</i> -is a fine piece of verse writing, and can hardly fail to remind the reader -of great poetry. It is constructed with care, it flows, it has gravity, an -air of amplitude, many striking single lines, and its sentiments are -unexceptionable. When we read such lines as these:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">All these, O King, from their seclusion dread,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">And guarded palace of eternity,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Mix in thy pageant with phantasmal tread,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Hear the long waves of acclamation roll,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">And with yet mightier silence marshal thee</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">To the awful throne thou hast inherited——</span></p> - - -<p>we feel that this is at least workman-like work, written by a man who -has studied great masters, and who takes himself and his art seriously. -There is not an undignified line in the whole poem, nor a break in the -slow, deliberate movement. Watson has style, he is never facile or -common. He has frequent felicities of phrase, but he subordinates -separate effects to the effect of the whole, and he is almost the only -living writer of verse of whom this could be said. His ode is -excellently made, from every external point of view. Yet, after reading -it over and over, with a full recognition of its technical qualities, we -are unable to accept it as genuine poetry, as the equal of the thing -which it resembles.</p> - -<p>Great poetry is not often written for official occasions, but that it -can be so written we need only turn to Marvell's <i>Horatian Ode upon -Cromwell's Return from Ireland</i> to realize. Watson looks instinctively -to public events for his inspiration, and there is something in his -temper of mind and of style which seems to set him naturally apart as a -commentator upon the destinies of nations. He has never put any vital -part of himself into his work; he has told us nothing of what he is when -he is not a writer. All his utterances have been themselves official, -the guarded statement of just so much of his own thoughts and feelings -as he cares to betray to the public. His kind is rather critical than -creative, and it was by his epigrams that he first attracted attention. -His technique is so accomplished that he seems very often to be thinking -only of what he is saying, when it is evident, on a closer examination, -that he is thinking much more of how he is saying it. For the poet who -concerns himself with public events this might seem to be a useful part -of his poetic equipment. Court ceremonies demand court dress. -Undoubtedly, but the art of the courtier requires him to forget that he -is dressed for an occasion, to forget everything but the occasion. -Throughout the whole of his coronation ode Watson never forgets that he -is celebrating an important ceremony. His costume is perfectly adjusted, -he wears it with grace and dignity; his elocution, as he delivers his -lines, is a model of clearness and discreet emphasis. Everything that he -says is perfectly appropriate; good taste can go no further. But the -occasion itself, the meaning, the emotion, of the occasion? That does -not come into the poem; the poem tells us all about it.</p> - -<p>Now look at Marvell's ode, and forget for the moment that it is a -masterpiece of poetry. What a passion fires the hard, convincing -thought! How the mere logic holds the attention! Every word lives, and -the cadences (creating a new form for themselves) do but follow the -motions of the writer's bright, controlling energy. It is impossible to -read the lines aloud without a feeling of exultation. In Watson's ode -there is not a breath of life; what is said—admirable and sensible, -and at times poetically conceived as it is—comes with no impetus from -the mind that has conceived it coldly. And it is to be noted that, though -thought and expression are fitted together with great skill and -precision, the expression is always rather above the pitch of the -thought. Take these lines:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">O doom of overlordships! to decay</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">First at the heart, the eye scarce dimmed at all;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Or perish of much cumber and array,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">The burdening robe of empire, and its pall;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Or, of voluptuous hours the wanton prey;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Die of the poisons that most sweetly slay;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Or, from insensate height,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">With prodigies, with light</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Of trailing angers on the monstrous night,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Magnificently fall.</span></p> - - -<p>There we find expression strained to a point to which the thought has -not attained. In other words, we find rhetoric. Weight and resonance of -verse do but drag down and deafen that which they should uplift and -sound abroad, when, instead of being attendants upon greatness, they -attempt to replace it.</p> - - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - -<h4><a id="Emil_Verhaeren">EMIL VERHAEREN</a></h4> - - -<p>The poetry of Emile Verhaeren, more than that of any other modern poet, -is made directly out of the complaining voices of the nerves. Other -writers, certainly, have been indirectly indebted to the effect of -nerves on temperament, but Verhaeren seems to express only so much of a -temperament as finds its expression through their immediate medium. In his -early books <i>Les Flamandes, Les Moines</i> (reprinted, with <i>Les Bords -de la Route</i>, containing earlier and later work, in the first of his two -volumes of collected poems), he began by a solid, heavily colored, -exterior manner of painting genre pictures in the Flemish style. Such -poems as "Les Paysans," with its fury of description, are like a Teniers -in verse; not Breughel has painted a kermesse with hotter colors, a more -complete abandonment to the sunlight, wine and gross passions of those -Flemish feasts. This first book, <i>Les Flamandes</i>, belongs to the -Naturalistic movement; but it has already as in the similar -commencements of Huysmans so ardent a love of color for its own sake, -color becoming lyrical, that one realizes how soon this absorption in -the daily life of farms, kitchens, stables, will give place to another kind -of interest. And in <i>Les Moines</i>, while there is still for the most -part the painting of exteriorities, a new sentiment, by no means the -religious sentiment, but an artistic interest in what is less material, -less assertive in things, finds for itself an entirely new scheme of -color. Here, for instance, was "Cuisson de Pain," in the first book:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Dehors, les grands fournils chauffaient leurs braises</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 8em;"><i>rouges,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Et deux par deux, du bout d'une planche, les gouges</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Dans le ventre des fours engouffraient les pains mous.</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Et les flammes, par les gueules s'ouvrant passage,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Comme une meute énorme et chaude de chiens roux,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>autaient en rugissant leur mordre le visage.</i></span></p> - - -<p>But it is not until <i>Les Soirs</i> that we find what was to be the -really individual style developing itself. It develops itself at first with -a certain heaviness. Here is a poet who writes in images: good; but the -images are larger than the ideas. Wishing to say that the hour was -struck, he says:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 15em;">"<i>Seul un beffroi,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Immensément vêtu de nuit, cassait les heures.</i>"</span></p> - - -<p>And, indeed, everything must be done <i>immensément.</i> The word is -repeated on every page, sometimes twice in a stanza. The effect of -monotony in rhythm, the significant, chiming recurrence of words, the -recoil of a line upon itself, the dwindling away or the heaping up of -sound in line after line, the shock of an unexpected cæsura, the delay -and the hastened speed of syllables: all these arts of a very conscious -technique are elaborated with somewhat too obvious an intention. There -is splendor, opulence, and, for the first time, "such stuff as dreams -are made of." Description is no longer made for its own sake; it becomes -metaphor. And this metaphor is entirely new. It may be called -exaggerated, affected even; but it is new, and it is expressive.</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">"<i>Les chiens du désespoir, les chiens du vent d'automne,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Mordent de leurs abois les échos noirs des soirs,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Et l'ombre, immensément, dans le vide, tâtonne</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Vers la lune, mirée au clair des abreuvoirs.</i>"</span></p> - - -<p>In <i>Les Débâcles</i>, a year later, this art of writing in colored and -audible metaphor, and on increasingly abstract and psychological -subjects, the sensations externalized, has become more master of itself, -and at the same time more immediately the servant of a more and more -feverish nervous organization.</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">"<i>Tu seras le fiévreux ployé, sur les fenêtres.</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>D'où l'on peut voir bondir la vie et ses chars d'or.</i>"</span></p> - - -<p>And the contemplation of this <i>fiévreux</i> is turned more and more in -upon itself, finding in its vision of the outer world only a mirrored -image of its own disasters. The sick man, looking down on his thin -fingers, can think of them only in this morbid, monastic way:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">"<i>Mes doigts, touchez mon front et cherchez, là,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Les vers qui rongeront, un jour, de leur morsure,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Mes chairs; touchez mon front, mes maigres doigts,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 8em;"><i>voilà</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Que mes veines déjà, comme une meurtrissure</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Bleuâtre, étrangement, en font la tour, mes las</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Et pauvres doigts—et que vos longs ongles malades</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Battent, sinistrement, sur mes tempes, un glas,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Un pauvre glas, mes lents et mornes doigts!</i>"</span></p> - - -<p>Two years later, with <i>Les Flambeaux Noirs</i>, what was nervous has -become almost a sort of very conscious madness: the hand on one's own -pulse, the eyes watching themselves in the glass with an unswerving fixity, -but a breaking and twisting of the links of things, a doubling and division -of the mind's sight, which might be met with, less picturesquely, in -actual madness. There are two poems, "Le Roc" and "Les Livres," which -give, in a really terrifying way, the very movement of idea falling -apart from idea, sensation dragging after it sensation down the -crumbling staircase of the brain, which are the symptoms of the brain's -loss of self-control:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>C'est là que j'ai bâti mon âme,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">—<i>Dites, serai-je seul avec mon âme?—</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Mon âme hélas! maison d'ébène,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Où s'est fendu, sans bruit, un soir,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Le grand miroir de mon espoir.</i></span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Dites, serai-je seul avec mon âme,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>En ce nocturne et angoissant domaine?</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Serai-je seul avec mon orgueil noir,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Assis en un fauteuil de haine?</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Serai-je seul, avec ma pâle hyperdulie,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Pour Notre-Dame, la Folie?</i></span></p> - - -<p>In these poems of self-analysis, which is self-torture, there is -something lacerating, and at the same time bewildering, which conveys to -one the sense of all that is most solitary, picturesque and poignant in -the transformation of an intensely active and keen-sighted reason into -a thing of conflicting visionary moods. At times, as in the remarkable -study of London called "Les Villes," this fever of the brain looks -around it, and becomes a flame of angry and tumultuous epithet, licking -up and devouring what is most solid in exterior space. Again, as in "Les -Lois" and "Les Nombres," it becomes metaphysical, abstract, and law -towers up into a visible palace, number flowers into a forest:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Je suis l'halluciné de la forêt des Nombres.</i></span></p> - - -<p>That art of presenting a thought like a picture, of which Verhaeren is -so accomplished a master, has become more subtle than ever; and</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>ces tours de ronde de l'infini, le soir</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Et ces courbes, et ces spirales,</i></span></p> - - -<p>of for the most part menacing speculations in the void, take -visible form before us, with a kind of hallucination, communicated to -us from that (how far deliberate?) hallucination which has created -them. Gradually, in "Les Apparus dans mes Chemins," in "Les -Campagnes Hallucinées," in "Les Villages Illusoires," in "Les Villes -Tentaculaires," the hallucinations become entirely external: it is now -the country, the village, the town, that is to say, the whole organized -world, that agonizes among cloudy phantoms, and no longer a mere -individual, abnormal brain. And so he has at once gained a certain -relief from what had been felt to be too intimately a part of himself, -and has also surrendered to a more profound, because a more extended, -consciousness of human misery. Effacing himself, as he does, behind the -great spectacle of the world, as he sees it, with his visionary eyes, in -his own violent and lethargic country, he becomes a more hopeless part -of that conspiracy of the earth against what man has built out of the -earth, of what man has built out of the earth against the earth, which -he sees developing silently among the grass and bricks. All these books -are a sort of philosophy in symbols, symbols becoming more and more -definite: "Le Donneur de Mauvais Conseils," who drives up to the farm -gate:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>La vieille carriole en bois vert-pomine</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Qui l'emmena, on ne sait d'où,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Une folle la garda avec son homme</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Aux carrefours des chemins mous.</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Le cheval paît l'herbe d'automne,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Près d'une mare monotone,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Dont l'eau malade réverbère</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Le soir de pluie et de misère</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Qui tombe en loques sur la terre</i>;</span></p> - - -<p>"Les Cordiers," the old man spinning his rope against the sky, -weaving the past into the future:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Sur la route muette et régulière,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Les yeux fixés vers la lumière</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Qui frôle en se couchant les clos et les maisons,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Le blanc cordier visionnaire,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Du fond du soir auréolaire,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Attire à lui les horizons</i>;</span></p> - - -<p>and, finally, the many-tentacled towns, drawing to themselves all the -strength and sap of the earth: "Les Spectacles, La Bourse, Le Bazar," -the monstrous and material soul of towns.</p> - -<p>Contrast these poems with those early poems, so brutal, so Flemish, if -you would see at a glance all the difference between the naturalistic -and the symbolistic treatment. The subject-matter is the same; the same -eye sees; there are the same</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 10em;"><i>vers bâtis comme une estrade</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Pour la danse des mots et leurs belles parades.</i></span></p> - - -<p>But at first there is merely an eye that sees, and that takes the -visible world at its own valuation of itself. Later on, things are seen -but to be readjusted, to be set into relation with other, invisible -realities, of which they are no more than the wavering and tortured -reflection. And with this poet, in his later manner, everything becomes -symbol; the shop, the theater, the bank, no less than the old rope-maker -weaving the horizons together.</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Sur la Ville, d'où les affres flamboient,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Règnent, sans qu'on les voie,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Mais évidentes, les idées</i>:</span></p> - - -<p>as he can write, on the last page of <i>Les Villes Tentaculaires</i>, -which points directly to <i>Les Aubes</i>, in which a sort of deliverance -through ideas is worked out.</p> - -<p>Verhaeren's second play, <i>Le Cloitre</i>, is much finer in every way -than his first, <i>Les Aubes</i>, but it does not convince us that he is a -dramatist, in the strict sense of the word. The only French poet of the -present day who has really vivid energy, his energy is too feverish, too -spasmodic, too little under the control of a shaping intellect, to be of -precisely the quality required for the drama. The people of these brief -and fiery scenes are like little broken bits of the savage forces of the -world, working out their passionate issues under the quiet roofs of the -cloister. All their words are cries, coming out of a half-delirious -suffering; and these cries echo about the stage in an almost monotonous -conflict. It seems to us that the form which suits Verhaeren best is the -form which he has temporarily abandoned—a kind of fiery reverie, seen -finally in his last book, <i>Les Visages de la Vie</i>,</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Mon âme était anxieuse d'être elle-même</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Elle s'illimitait en une âme suprême</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Et violente, où l'univers se résumait;—</i></span></p> - - -<p>as he says in one of the poems of that book; and in all these poems, "La -Foule, L'Ivresse, La Joie," and the rest, we see the poet sending his -soul into the universe and becoming a vehement voice for all that he -finds most passionate in it. It is, in its way, dramatizing of emotion, -but, if one may say so, an abstract dramatizing. It is the crowd, not -Dom Balthazar; joy itself, not some joyous human being for which he -finds words; and his merits and his defects make him a better spokesman -for disembodied than for embodied souls. Since the early period of -Flemish realism he has been, while making his language more and more -pictorial, making his interests more and more internal. He no longer -paints landscapes, but the scenery of the soul, and in the same vast and -colored images. He magnifies sensation until it becomes a sort of -hallucination of which he seems always to be the victim. Now all this is -so very personal, so clearly the vision of a not quite healthy -temperament, that his neurotic monks in the cloister, with their heated -and vehement speech, seem more like repetitions of a single type than -individual characters. But he has certainly come nearer to dramatic -characterization than in the <i>Shadowy Dawn</i>, and he has founded his -play on a more emotionally human basis; on a basis, it would seem, partly -suggested by the story which Browning tells in <i>Halbert and Hob.</i> And, -taken as a poem, it is full of vigorous, imaginative writing, in which -the religious passion finds eloquent speech. And, after all, is not this -one of the most interesting, and not even one of the least successful, -attempts at what a more extravagant imitator has lately called <i>La -tragédie intérieure?</i> The actual tendency of art is certainly toward -an abandonment of the heroic and amusing adventures which constituted so -much of the art of the past, and a concentration upon whatever can be -surmised of that soul which these adventures must doubtless have left so -singularly indifferent. Ibsen has shown us destiny quietly at work in -suburban drawing-rooms, among people who have rarely anything -interesting to say, but whose least word becomes interesting because it -is seen to knit one more mesh in the net of destiny. Maeterlinck has -gone further, and shown us soul talking with soul, at first under almost -pseudo-romantic disguises, among Leonardo landscapes, then more and more -simply, as people who have no longer lost their crowns in a pool, but -who, in Aglavaine and Selysette, might be any of our acquaintances, if -we can imagine our acquaintances under a startling and revealing flash -of light. Verhaeren falls into the movement, trying to give a more -lyrical form to this new kind of drama, trying to give it a narrower and -fiercer intensity. What he has so far achieved is a melodrama of the -spirit, in which there is poetry, but also rhetoric. Will he finally be -able to find for himself a form in which the "inner tragedy" can be -externally presented without rhetoric? Then, perhaps, the poetry will -make its own drama.</p> - - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - -<h4><a id="A_Neglected_Genius_Sir_Richard_Burton">A NEGLECTED GENIUS: SIR RICHARD<br /> -BURTON</a></h4> - - -<h4>I</h4> - - -<p>One hundred years ago, on March 19th, 1821, Sir Richard Burton was born; -he died at Trieste on October 19th, 1890, in his seventieth year. He was -superstitious; the fact that he was born and that he died on the -nineteenth has its significance. On the night when he expired, as his -wife was saying prayers to him, a dog began that dreadful howl which the -superstitious say denotes a death. It was an evil omen; I have heard -long after midnight dogs howl in the streets of Constantinople; their -howling is only broken by the tapping of the bekjé's iron staff; it -sounds like loud wind or water far off, waning and waxing, and at times, -as it comes across the water from Stamboul, it is like a sound of -strings, plucked and scraped savagely by an orchestra of stringed -instruments.</p> - -<p>In every age there have been I know not how many neglected men of -genius, undiscovered, misunderstood, mocked at in the fashion Jesus -Christ was mocked by the Jews, scorned as Dante was scorned when he was -exiled from Florence, called a madman as Blake used to be called, -censured as Swinburne was in 1866, for being "an unclean fiery imp of -the pit" and "the libidinous Laureate of a pack of satyrs;" so the -greatest as the least—the greatest whose names are always remembered -and the least whose names are invariably forgotten—have endured the -same prejudices; have been lapidated by the same stones; such stones as -Burton refers to when he writes in Mecca:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>On the great festival day we stoned the Devil, each man with seven -stones washed in seven waters, and we said, while throwing the stones, -"In the name of Allah—and Allah is Almighty—I do this in hatred -of the Devil, and to his shame."</p></blockquote> - - -<p>Burton was a great man, a great traveler and adventurer, who practically -led to the discovery of the sources of the Nile; a wonderful linguist, -he was acquainted with twenty-nine languages: he was a man of genius; -only, the fact is, he is not a great writer. Continually thwarted by the -English Government, he was debarred from some of the most famous -expeditions by the folly of his inferiors, who ignorantly supposed they -were his superiors; and, as Sir H. H. Johnston says in some of his -notes, not only was Burton treated unjustly, but his famous pilgrimage -to Mecca won him no explicit recognition from the Indian Government; his -great discoveries in Africa, Brazil, Syria and Trieste were never -appreciated; and, worst of all, he was refused the post of British -Minister in Morocco; it was persistently denied him. He adds: "Had he -gone there we might long since have known—what we do not -know—the realities of Morocco."</p> - -<p>Still, when Burton went to India, I do not imagine he was likely to -suffer from any hostility on the part of the natives nor of the rulers. -Lord Clive, who, in Browning's words, "gave England India," which was -the result of his incredible victory in 1751 over the Nabob's army of -60,000 men, was never literally "loved" by the races of India; no more -than Sir Warren Hastings. Still, Clive had genius, which he showed in -the face of a bully he caught cheating at cards and in his mere shout at -him: "You did cheat, go to Hell!" Impeached for the splendid service he -had done in India he was acquitted in 1773; next year, having taken to -opium, his own hand dealt himself his own doom. So he revenged himself -on his country's ingratitude. So did Burton revenge himself—not in -deeds, but in words, words, if I may say so, that are stupendous. "I -struggled for forty-seven years, I distinguished myself honourably in -every way I possibly could. I never had a compliment nor a 'Thank you,' -nor a single farthing. I translated a doubtful book in my old age, and I -immediately made sixteen thousand guineas. Now that I know the tastes of -England, we need never be without money."</p> - -<p>Burton first met Swinburne in 1861 at Lord Houghton's house, who, having -given him <i>The Queen Mother</i>, said: "I bring you this book because the -author is coming here this evening, so that you may not quote him as an -absurdity to himself." In the summer of 1865 Swinburne saw a great deal -of Burton. These two men, externally so dissimilar, had taken (as -Swinburne said to me) a curious fancy, an absolute fascination, for each -other. Virile and a mysterious adventurer, Burton was Swinburne's senior -by sixteen years; one of those things that linked them together was -certainly their passionate love of literature. Burton had also—which -Swinburne might perhaps have envied—an almost unsurpassable gift for -translation, which he shows in his wonderful version of <i>The Arabian -Nights.</i> He used to say:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>I have not only preserved the spirit of the original, but the -<i>mécanique.</i> I don't care a button about being prosecuted, and if the -matter comes to a fight, I will walk into court with my Bible and my -Shakespeare and my Rabelais under my arm, and prove to them that before -they condemn me, they must cut half of <i>them</i> out, and not allow them -to be circulated to the public.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>In his Foreword to the first volume of his Translation, dated -Wanderers' Club, August 15th, 1885, he says:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>This work, laborious as it may appear, has been to me a labor of love, -an unfailing source of solace and satisfaction. During my long years of -official banishment to the luxurious and deadly deserts of Western -Africa, it proved truly a charm, a talisman against ennui and -despondency. The Jinn bore me at once to the land of my predilection, -Arabia. In what is obscure in the original there are traces of Petronius -Arbiter and of Rabelais; only, subtle corruption and covert -licentiousness are wholly absent.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>Therefore, in order to show the wonderful quality of his translation, I -have chosen certain of his sentences, which literally bring back to me -all that I have felt of the heat, the odor and the fascination of the -East.</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>So I donned my mantilla, and, taking with me the old woman and the -slave-girl, I went to the Khan of the merchants. There I knocked at the -door and out came two white slave-girls, both young, high-bosomed -virgins, as they were Moons. They were melting a perfume whose like I -had never before smelt; and so sharp and subtle was the odor that it -made my senses drunken as with strong wine. I saw there also two great -censers each big as a mazzar bowl, flaming with aloes, nard, perfumes, -ambergris and honied scents; and the place was full of their -fragrance.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>The next quotation is from the Tale of the Fisherman and the Jinn:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>He loosened the lid from the jar, he shook the vase to pour out whatever -might be inside. He found nothing in it; whereat he marvelled with an -exceeding marvel. But presently there came forth from the jar a smoke -which spread heavenwards into ether (whereat again he marvelled with -mighty marvel) and which trailed along earth's surface till presently, -having reached its full height, the thick vapors condensed, and became -an Ifrit, huge of bulk, whose crest touched the clouds when his feet -were on the ground.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>I have before me Smithers' privately printed edition (1894) of <i>The -Carmina of Valerius Catullus now first completely Englished into Verse -and Prose, the Metrical Part by Capt. Sir Richard Burton, and the Prose -Portion by Leonard C. Smithe.</i> Burton is right in saying that "the -translator of original mind who notes the innumerable shades of tone, -manner and complexion will not neglect the frequent opportunities of -enriching his mother-tongue with novel and alien ornaments which shall -justify the accounted barbarisms until formally naturalized and adopted. -He must produce an honest and faithful copy, adding nought to the sense -or abating aught of its <i>cachet.</i>" He ends his Foreword: "As discovery -is mostly my mania, I have hit upon a bastard-urging to indulge it, by a -presenting to the public of certain classics in the nude Roman poetry, -like the Arab, and of the same date."</p> - -<p>Certainly Burton leaves out nothing of the nakedness that startles one -in the verse of Catullus: a nakedness that is as honest as daylight and -as shameless as night. When the text is obscene his translation retains -its obscenity; which, on the whole, is rare: for the genius of Catullus -is elemental, primitive, nervous, passionate, decadent in the modern -sense and in the modern sense perverse. In his rhymed version of the -Attis Burton has made a prodigious attempt to achieve the impossible. -Not being a poet, he was naturally unable to follow the rhythm—the -Galliambic metre, in which Catullus obtains variety of rhythm; for, as -Robinson Ellis says:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>It remains unique as a wonderful expression of abnormal feeling in a -quasi-abnormal meter. Quasi-abnormal, however, only: for no poem of -Catullus follows stricter laws, or succeeds in conveying the idea of a -wild freedom under a more carefully masked regularity.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>As one must inevitably compare two translations of the same original, I -have to point out that Burton's rendering is, both metrically and -technically, inaccurate; whereas, in another rendering, the translator -has at least preserved the exact metre, the exact scansion, and the -double endings at the end of every line; not, of course, in this case, -employing the double rhymes Swinburne used in his translation from -Aristophanes. These are Burton's first lines:—</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">O'er high deep seas in speedy ship his voyage Atys sped</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Until he trod the Phrygian grove with hurried, eager</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 8em;">tread,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">And as the gloomy tree-shorn stead, the she-God's</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 8em;">home he sought,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">There sorely stung with fiery ire and madman's raging</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 8em;">thought,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Share he with sharpened flint the freight wherewith</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 8em;">his frame was fraught.</span></p> - - -<p>These are the first lines of the other version:—</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">Over ocean Attis sailing in a swift ship charioted</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">When he reached the Phrygian forests, and with rash</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 8em;">foot violently</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Trod the dark and shadowy regions of the goddess,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 8em;">wood-garlanded,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">And with ravening madness ravished, and his reason</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 8em;">abandoning him,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Seized a pointed flint and sundered from his flesh his</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 8em;">virility.</span></p> - - - - -<h4>II</h4> - - -<p>Burton himself admitted that he was a devil; for, said he: "the Devil -entered into me at Oxford." Evidently, also, besides his mixture of -races, he was a mixture of the normal and the abnormal; he was perverse -and passionate; he was imaginative and cruel; he was easily stirred to -rage. Nearly six feet in height, he had, together with his broad -shoulders, the small hands and feet of the Orientals; he was Arab in his -prominent cheek-bones; he was gypsy in his terrible, magnetic eyes—the -sullen eyes of a stinging serpent. He had a deeply bronzed complexion, a -determined mouth, half-hidden by a black mustache, which hung down in a -peculiar fashion on both sides of his chin. This peculiarity I have -often seen in men of the wandering tribe in Spain and in Hungary. -Wherever he went he was welcomed by the gypsies; he shared with them -their horror of a corpse, of death-scene, and of graveyards. "He had the -same restlessness," wrote his wife, "which could stay nowhere long nor -own any spot on earth. Hagar Burton, a Gypsy woman, cast my horoscope, -in which she said: 'You will bear the name of our Tribe, and be right -proud of it. You will be as we are, but far greater than we.' I met -Richard two months later, in 1856, and was engaged to him." It is a -curious fact that John Varley, who cast Blake's horoscope in 1820, also -cast Burton's; who, as he says, had finished his <i>Zodiacal Physiognomy</i> -so as to prove that every man resembled after a fashion the sign under -which he was born. His figures are either human or bestial; some remind -me of those where men are represented in the form of animals in Giovanni -della Porta's <i>Fisonomia dell' Huomo</i> (Venice, 1668), which is before me -as I write; Swinburne himself once showed to me his copy of the same -book. Nor have I ever forgotten his saying to me—in regard to Burton's -nervous fears: "The look of unspeakable horror in those eyes of his gave -him, at times, an almost unearthly appearance." He added: "This reminds -me of what Kiomi says in Meredith's novel: 'I'll dance if you talk of -dead people,' and so begins to dance and to whoop at the pitch of her -voice. I suppose both had the same reason for this force of fear: to -make the dead people hear." Then he flashed at me this unforgettable -phrase: "Burton had the jaw of a Devil and the brow of a God."</p> - -<p>In one of his letters he says, I suppose by way of <i>persiflage</i> in -regard to himself and Burton: "<i>En moi vous voyez Les Malheurs de la -Virtu, en lui Les Prospérités du Vice.</i>" In any case, it is to -entertain Burton when he writes: "I have in hand a scheme of mixed verse -and prose—a sort of étude à la Balzac <i>plus</i> the poetry—which -I flatter myself will be more offensive and objectionable to Britannia -than anything I have done: <i>Lesbia Brandon.</i> You see I have now a -character to keep up, and by the grace of Cotytto I will."</p> - -<p>Swinburne began <i>Lesbia Brandon</i> in 1859; he never finished it; -what remains of it consists of seventy-three galleys, numbered 25 to 97, -besides four unprinted chapters. The first, "A Character," was written -in 1864; "An Episode" in 1866; "Turris Eburnea" in 1886; "La Bohême -Dédorée" must have been written a year or two later. Mr. Gosse gives a -vivid description of Swinburne, who was living in 13, Great James -Street, and who was never weary of his unfinished novel, reading to him -parts of two chapters in June, 1877. "He read two long passages, the one -a ride over a moorland by night, the other the death of his heroine, -Lesbia Brandon. After reading aloud all these things with amazing -violence, he seemed quite exhausted." It is possible to decipher a few -sentences from two pages of his manuscript; first in "Turris Eburnea. -'Above the sheet, below the boudoir,' said the sage. Her ideal was -marriage, to which she clung, which revealed to astonished and admiring -friends the vitality of a dubious intellect within her. She had not even -the harlot's talent of discernment." This is Leonora Harley. In <i>La -Bohême Dédorée</i> we read:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>Two nights later Herbert received a note from Mr. Linley inviting him to -a private supper. Feverish from the contact of Mariani and hungry for a -chance of service, he felt not unwilling to win a little respite from -the vexation of patience. The sage had never found him more amenable to -the counsel he called reason. Miss Brandon had not lately crossed his -ways. Over their evening Leonora Harley guided with the due graces of -her professional art. It was not her fault if she could not help asking -her younger friend when he had last met a darker beauty: she had seen -him once with Lesbia.</p></blockquote> - - - - -<h4>III</h4> - - -<p>In 1848 Burton determined to pass in India for an Oriental; the disguise -he assumed was that of a half-Arab, half-Iranian, thousands of whom can -be met along the northern shore of the Persian Gulf. He set out on his -first pilgrimage as Mirza Abdulla the Bushiri, as a <i>buzzaz</i>, vendor of -fine linen, muslins and <i>bijouterie</i>; he was admitted to the harems, he -collected the information he required from the villagers; he won many -women's hearts, he spent his evenings in the mosques; and, after -innumerable adventures, he wended his way to Mecca. His account of this -adventure is thrilling. The first cry was: "Open the way for the Haji -who would enter the House!" Then:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>Two stout Meccans, who stood below the door, raised me in their arms, -whilst a third drew me from above into the building. At the entrance I -was accosted by a youth of the Benu Shazban family, the true blood of -the El Hejaz. He held in his hand the huge silver-gilt padlock of the -Ka'abeh, and presently, taking his seat upon a kind of wooden press in -the left corner of the hall, he officially inquired my mother-nation and -other particulars. The replies were satisfactory, and the boy Mohammed -was authoritatively ordered to conduct me round the building and to -recite the prayers. I will not deny that, looking at the windowless -walls, the officials at the door, and a crowd of excited fanatics -below—</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">"And the place death, considering who I was,"</span></p> - -<p>my feelings were those of the trapped-rat description, acknowledged by -the immortal nephew of his uncle Perez. A blunder, a hasty action, a -misjudged word, a prayer or bow, not strictly the right shibboleth, and -my bones would have whitened the desert sand. This did not, however, -prevent my carefully observing the scene during our long prayer, and -making a rough plan with a pencil upon my white <i>ihram.</i></p></blockquote> - - -<p>After having seen the howling Dervishes in Scutari in Asia, I can -imagine Burton's excitement when in Cairo he suddenly left his stolid -English friends, joined in the shouting, gesticulating circle, and -behaved as if to the manner born: he held his diploma as a master -Dervish. In Scutari I felt the contagion of these dancers, where the -brain reels, and the body is almost swept into the orgy. I had all the -difficulty in the world from keeping back the woman who sat beside me -from leaping over the barrier and joining the Dervishes. In these I felt -the ultimate, because the most animal, the most irrational, the most -insane, form of Eastern ecstasy. It gave me an impression of witchcraft; -one might have been in Central Africa, or in some Saturnalia of -barbarians.</p> - -<p>There can be no doubt that Burton always gives a vivid and virile -impression of his adventures; yet, as I have said before, something is -lacking in his prose; not the vital heat, but the vision of what is -equivalent to vital heat. I have before me a letter sent from Hyderabad -by Sarojini Naidu, who says: "All is hot and fierce and passionate, -ardent and unashamed in its exulting and importunate desire for life and -love. And, do you know, the scarlet lilies are woven petal by petal from -my heart's blood, those quivering little birds are my soul made -incarnate music, these heavy perfumes are my emotions dissolved into -aerial essence, this flaming blue and gold sky is the 'Very You' that -part of me that incessantly and insolently, yes, and a little -deliberately, triumphs over that other part—a thing of nerves and -tissues that suffers and cries out, and that must die tomorrow perhaps, -or twenty years hence." In these sentences the whole passionate, exotic -and perfumed East flashes before me—a vision of delight and of -distresses—and, as it were, all that slumbers in their fiery -blood.</p> - -<p>"Not the fruit of experience," wrote Walter Pater, "but experience -itself, is the end. A counted number of pulses only is given us of a -variegated dramatic life. To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, -to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life." Alas, how few lives out -of the cloud-covered multitude of existences have burned always with -this flame! I have said somewhere that we can always, in this world, get -what we want if we will it intensely enough. So few people succeed -greatly because so few people can conceive a great end, and work toward -that without tiring and without deviating. The adventurer of whom I am -writing failed, over and over again, in spite of the fact that he -conceived and could have executed great ends: never by his own fault, -always by the fault of others.</p> - - - - -<h4>IV</h4> - - -<p>Richard Burton dedicated his literal version of the epic of Camões "To -the Prince of the Lyric Poets of his Day, Algernon Charles Swinburne." -He begins:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>My dear Swinburne, accept the unequal exchange—my brass for your -gold. Your <i>Poems and Ballads</i> began to teach the Philistine what -might there is in the music of language, and what marvel of lyric -inspiration, far subtler and more ethereal than poetry, means to the mind -of man.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>In return for this Swinburne dedicated to him <i>Poems and Ballads</i>, -Second Series.</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>Inscribed to Richard F. Burton in redemption of an old pledge and in -recognition of a friendship which I must always count among the highest -honors of my life.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>It was nine years before then, when they were together in the south of -France, that Swinburne was seized by a severe illness; and, as he -assured me, it was Burton who, with more than a woman's care and -devotion, restored him to health. The pledge—it was not the covenant -sealed between the two greatest, the two most passionate, lovers in the -world, Iseult and Tristan, on the deck of that ship which was the ship -of Life, the ship of Death, in the mere drinking of wine out of a -flagon, which, being of the nature of a most sweet poison, consumed -their limbs and gave intoxication to their souls and to their -bodies—but a pledge in the wine Swinburne and Burton drank in the -hot sunshine:—</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">For life's helm rocks to windward and lee,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">And time is as wind, and waves are we,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">And song is as foam that the sea-waves fret,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Though the thought at its heart should be deep as the</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 7em;">sea</span></p> - -<p>It was in July, 1869, that Swinburne joined the Burtons and Mrs. -Sartoris at Vichy. As I have never forgotten Swinburne's wonderful -stories about Burton—besides those on Rossetti and Mazzini—I -find in a letter of his to his mother words he might really have -altered.</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>If you had seen him, when the heat and the climb and the bothers of -travelling were too much for me—in the very hot weather—helping, -waiting on me—going out to get me books to read in bed—and -always kind, thoughtful, ready, and so bright and fresh that nothing but a -lizard (I suppose that is the most insensible thing going) could have -resisted his influence—I feel sure you would like him (you remember you -said you didn't) and then—love him, as I do. I never expect to see his -like again—but him I do hope to see again, and when the time comes to -see him at Damascus as H.B.M. Consul.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>They traveled in carriages, went to Clermont-Ferrand, where Pascal was -born; then to Le Puy-en-Velay. In 1898 I stayed with the Countess De la -Tour in the Château de Chaméane, Puy de Dôme, and after leaving her I -went to Puy-en-Velay. I hated it, the Burtons did not. Stuck like a -limpet on a rock, the main part of the town seems to be clinging to the -side of the hill on which the monstrous statue desecrates the sky. At -night I saw its gilt crown merge into a star, but by day it is -intolerably conspicuous, and at last comes to have an irrational -fascination, leading one to the very corners where it can be seen best. -And always, do what you will, you can not get away from this statue. It -spoils the sky. The little cloister, with its ninth-century columns, is -the most delightful spot in Le Puy; only the intolerable statue from -which one can not escape showed me nature and humanity playing pranks -together, at their old game of parodying the ideal. This is Swinburne's -comment:—</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">Set far between the ridged and foamless waves</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Of earth more fierce and fluctuant than the sea,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">The fearless town of towers that hails and braves,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">The heights that gild, the sun that brands Le Puy.</span></p> - - -<p>This year there has been a great Pardon at Le Puy. I have seen several -pilgrimages, in Moscow, for instance, at Serjevo, which is an annual -pilgrimage to the Troitsa Monastery, and in these people there was no -fervor, no excitement, but a dogged desire of doing something which they -had set out to do. They were mostly women, and they flung themselves -down on the ground; they lay there with their hands on their bundles, -themselves like big bundles of rags. How different a crowd from this -must have assembled at Le Puy; made so famous so many centuries ago by -the visitations of Charlemagne and Saint Louis, who left, in 1254, in -the Cathedral a little image of Horns and Isis. Then there was Jeanne -d'Arc, who in 1429 sent her mother there instead of herself, being much -too busy: she was on the way to Orléans.</p> - -<p>As it is, Our Lady gets all the honors; only, there is a much older -Chapel of Saint Michael, which is perched on the sheer edge of a rock; -it is perhaps more original than any in France, with the exception of -the Chapel of Saint Bonizel in Avignon. When I stood there and looked -down from that great height I remembered—but with what a -difference!—Montserrat in Spain, where the monastery seemed a part of -the mountain; and from this narrow ledge between earth and heaven, a -mere foothold on a great rock, I looked up only at sheer peaks, and down -only into veiled chasms, or over mountainous walls to a great plain, -ridged as if the naked ribs of the earth were laid bare.</p> - - - - -<h4>V</h4> - - -<p>I have been assured, by many who knew him, that Richard Burton had a -vocabulary which was one of his inventions; a shameless one—as -shameless as the vocabularies invented by Paul Verlaine and by Henri de -Toulouse-Lautrec, which are as vivid to me as when I heard their -utterance. These shared with Villiers de Isle-Adam that sardonic humor -which is not so much satire as the revenge of beauty on ugliness, the -persecution of the ugly: the only laughter of our generation which is as -fundamental as that of Rabelais and of Swift. Burton, who had much the -same contempt for women that Baudelaire imagined he had, only with that -fixed stare of his that disconcerted them, did all that with deliberate -malice. There was almost nothing in this world that he had not done, -exulted in, gloried in. Like Villiers, he could not pardon stupidity; to -both it was incomprehensible; both saw that stupidity is more criminal -than even vice, if only because stupidity is incurable, if only because -vice is curable. Burton, who found the Arabs, in their delicate -depravity, ironical—irony being their breath of life—might have -said with Villiers: "<i>L'Esprit du Siècle, ne l'oublions pas, est aux -machines.</i>"</p> - -<p>Every individual face has as many different expressions as the soul -behind it has moods; therefore, the artist's business is to create on -paper, or on his canvas, the image which was none of these, but which -those helped to make in his own soul. I see, as it were, surge before me -an image of Swinburne in his youth, when, with his passionate and pale -face, with its masses of fiery hair, he has almost the aspect of -Ucello's Galeazzo Malatesta. Burton's face has no actual beauty in it; -it reveals a tremendous animalism, an air of repressed ferocity, a -devilish fascination. There is almost a tortured magnificence in this -huge head, tragic and painful, with its mouth that aches with desire, -with those dilated nostrils that drink in I know not what strange -perfumes.</p> - - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - -<h4><a id="Edgar_Saltus">EDGAR SALTUS</a></h4> - - -<p>Edgar Saltus owes much of his bizarre talent to his mixed origin, for he -is of Dutch and American extraction; indeed, for much of what I might -call his rather unholy genius. His pages exhale a kind of exotic and -often abnormal perfume of colors, color of sensations, of heats, of -crowded atmospheres. He gives his women baneful and baleful names, such -as Stella Sixmouth, Shorn Wyvell; these vampires and wicked creatures -who ruin men's lives as cruelly as they ruin their own. His men have -prodigious nerves, even more than his women; they commit all sorts of -crimes, assassinations, poisonings, out of sheer malice and out of -overexcited imaginations.</p> - -<p>Of that most terrible of tragedies, the tragedy of a soul, he is for the -most part utterly unconscious; and the very abracadabra of his art is in -a sense—a curious enough and ultramodern sense—lifted from the -Elizabethan dramatists. In them—as in many of his pages—a fine -situation must have a murder in it, and some odious character removed by -another more stealthy kind of obliteration. But, when he gives one a -passing shudder, he leaves nothing behind it; yet in his perverted -characters there can be found sensitiveness, hallucinations, obsessions; -and some have that lassitude which is more than mere contempt. Some go -solemnly on the path of blood, with no returning by a way so thronged -with worse than memories. "No need for more crime," such men have cried, -and for such reasons reaped the bitter harvest of tormenting dreams. -Some have imagination that stands in the place of virtue; some, as in -the case of Lady Macbeth, still keep the sensation of blood on their -guilty hands.</p> - -<p><i>Mary of Magdala</i> (1891) is a vain attempt to do what Flaubert had -done before Saltus in his <i>Hérodias</i>, and what Wilde has done after -him in <i>Salome</i>, a drama that has a strange not easily defined -fascination, which I can not dissociate from Beardsley's illustrations, in -which what is icily perverse in the dialogue (it can not be designated -drama) becomes in the ironical designs pictorial, a series of poses. To -Wilde passion was a thing to talk about with elaborate and colored words. -Salome is a doll, as many have imagined her, soulless, set in motion by -some pitiless destiny, personified momentarily by her mother; Herod is a -nodding mandarin in a Chinese grotesque.</p> - -<p>In one page of Saltus's <i>Oscar Wilde: An Idler's Impressions</i> -(1917) he evokes, with his cynical sense of the immense disproportion of -things in this world and the next, the very innermost secret of Wilde. They -dine in a restaurant in London and Wilde reads his MS. "Suddenly -his eyes lifted, his mouth contracted, a spasm of pain—or was it -dread?—had gripped him, a moment only. I had looked away. I looked -again. Before me was a fat pauper, florid and over-dressed, who in the -voice of an immortal, was reading the fantasies of the damned. In his hand -was a manuscript, and we were supping on <i>Salome.</i>"</p> - -<p><i>Mr. Incoul's Misfortune</i> seems to have its origin in some strange -story of Poe's; for it gives one the sense of a monster, diabolical, -inhuman, malevolent and merciless, who, after a mock marriage, abnormally -sets himself to the devil's business of ruining his wife's lover's life, -and of giving his wife a sudden death in three hideous forms: a drug to -make her sleep, the gas turned on; and the door locked with "a nameless -instrument."</p> - -<p><i>The Truth about Tristan Varick</i> (1888) is based on social problems -of the most unaccountable kind. It has something strangely convincing in -both conception and execution; it has suspense, ugly enough and uglier -crises; and that the unlucky Varick is supposed to be partially insane -is part of the finely woven plot, which is concerned with strange and -perilous incidents and accidents; and which is based on his passionate -pursuit of the ravishing Viola Raritan; the pursuit, really, of the -chimera of his imagination.</p> - -<p>And among the hazards comes one, of an evil kind—such as I have -often experienced in foreign cities—that, in turning down one street -instead of the next, a man's existence, and not his only, may be thereby -changed. To have stopped one's rival's lying mouth and his lying life at -the same instant is to have done something original—it is done by a -poisoned pin's point. Then, this Orestes having found no Electra to -return his love, but finding her vile, he lets himself disappear out of -life in an almost incredible fashion, leaving the woman who never loved -him to say, "I will come to see him sentenced:" a sentence which writes -her down a modern Clytemnestra.</p> - -<p>What Saltus says of Gonfallon can almost be said of Saltus: "With a set -of people that fancied themselves in possession of advanced views and -were still in the Middle Ages, he achieved the impossible: he not only -consoled, he flattered, he persuaded and fascinated as well." Saltus can -not console, he can sometimes persuade; but he can flatter and fascinate -his public, as with</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">A breeze of fame made manifest.</span></p> - - -<p>The novelist is the comedian of the pen: it is his duty to amuse, to -entertain—or else to hold his peace: to one in his trade nothing -imaginable comes amiss. It is not sin that appeals him, but the -consequences of sin; such as the fact that few sinners have ever turned -into saints. In a word, he writes with his nerves.</p> - -<p>Take, for instance, <i>A Transaction of Hearts</i> (1887), one of the -queerest novels ever written and written with a kind of deliberate -malice. Gonfallon, who becomes a bishop, falls passionately in love with -an ardent and insolent girl who is his wife's sister; and before her -beauty everything vanishes: virtue, genius, everything. "For a second -that was an eternity he was conscious of her emollient mouth on his, her -fingers intertwined with his own. For that second he really -lived—perhaps he really lived." One wonders why Saltus uses so many -ugly phrases—a kind of decadent French fashion of transposing words; -such as the one I have quoted, together with "Ruedelapaixia" (meant to -describe a dress), "Rafflesia, Mashed grasshoppers baked in saffron;" -phrases chosen at random which are too frequently scattered in much too -obvious a profusion over much too luxurious pages. I read somewhere that -Oscar Wilde said to Amélie Rives: "In Edgar Saltus's work passion struggles -with grammar on every page," which is certainly one of Wilde's finest -paradoxes. I "cap this"—as Dowson often said to me in jest—with -Léon Bloy's admirable phrase on Huysmans: "That he drags his images by -the heels or the hair upside down the worm-eaten staircase of terrified -syntax."</p> - -<p><i>Imperial Purple</i> (1906) shows the zenith of Saltus's talent, not -in conceiving imaginary beings, but in giving modern conceptions of the -most amazing creatures in the Roman Decadence, and in lyrical prose, -which ought to have had for motto Victoria's stanza:—</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Je suis l'Empire à la fin de la décadence,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Qui regarde passer les grands Barbares blancs,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>En composant des acrostiches indolents,</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>D'un style d'or où la langueur du soleil danse.</i></span></p> - - -<p>Only Saltus is not Tacitus, in spite of having delved into his -pages.</p> - - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - -<h4><a id="Recollections_of_Rejane">RECOLLECTIONS OF RÉJANE</a></h4> - - -<h4>NOTES ON THE ART OF THE GREAT FRENCH<br /> -ACTRESS</h4> - - -<p>Meilhac's play, <i>Ma Cousine</i>, which owed most of its success, when -it was produced at the Variétés, October 27th, 1890, to the acting of -Réjane, is one of those essentially French plays which no ingenuity can -ever accommodate to an English soil. It is the finer spirit of farce, it -is meant to be taken as a kind of intellectual exercise; it is human -geometry for the masses. There are moments when the people of the play -are on the point of existing for themselves, and have to be brought -back, put severely in their places, made to fit their squares of the -pattern. The thing as a whole has no more resemblance to real life than -Latin verses have to a school-boy's conversation. Reality, that, after -all, probably holds us in it, comes into it accidentally, in the form of -detail, in little touches of character, little outbursts of temperament. -The rest is done after a plan, it is an entanglement by rule; it exists -because people have agreed to think that they like suspense; the -tantalization of curiosity on the stage. We see the knot tied by the -conjurer; we want to know what he will do with it. In France, and in -such a piece as <i>Ma Cousine</i>, the conjurer is master of his trade; he -gives us our illusions and our enlightenment in exactly the right doses.</p> - -<p>And Réjane in this wittily artificial play suits herself perfectly to -her subject, becomes everything there is in the character of Riquette; -an actress who plays a comedy in real life, quite in the spirit of the -stage. She has to save the situation from being taken too seriously, -from becoming tragic: she has to take the audience into her confidence, -to assure them that it is all a joke. And so we see her constantly -overdoing her part, fooling openly. She does two things at once: the -artificial comedy, which is uppermost in the play, and the character -part which is implicit in it. And she is perfect in both.</p> - -<p>The famous <i>Chahut</i>, which went electrically through Paris, when -it was first given, in all its audacity, shows us one side of her art. The -delicate by-plays with eyes and voice, or rather the voice and the -overhanging eyelid of the right eye, shows us another. She is always the -cleverest person on the stage. Her face in repose seems waiting for -every expression to quicken its own form of life. When the face is in -movement, one looks chiefly at the mouth, the thick, heavily painted -lips, which twist upward, and wrinkle into all kinds of earthly -subtleties. Her face is full of an experienced, sullen, chuckling -gaminerie, which seems, after all, to be holding back something: it has -a curious, vulgar undertone, a succulent and grossly joyous gurgle.</p> - - - - -<h4>RÉJANE IN "MA COUSINE"</h4> - - -<p>Here, in <i>Ma Cousine</i>, she abandons herself to all the frank and -shady humors of the thing with the absolute abandonment of the artist. It -is like a picture by Forain, made of the same material with the same -cynicism and with the same mastery of line.</p> - -<p><i>Ma Cousine</i>, on seeing it a second time, is frankly and not too -obviously amusing, a piece in which everybody plays at something, in -which Réjane plays at being an actress who has a part to act in real -life. "<i>Elle est impayable, cette Riquette!</i>" And it is with an -intensely conscious abandonment of herself that she renders this -good-hearted Cabotine, so worldly wise, so full of all the physical -virtues, turned Bohemian. She has, in this part, certain guttural and -nasal laughs, certain queer cries and shouts, which are after all a part -of her <i>métier</i>; she runs through her whole gamut of shrugs and winks -and nods. There is, of course, over again, the famous <i>Chahut</i>, in -which she summarizes the whole art of the Moulin-Rouge; there is her long -scene of pantomime, in which every gesture is at once vulgar and -distinguished, vulgarly rendered with distinction. There are other -audacities, all done with equal discretion.</p> - -<p>I am not sure that Réjane is not at her best in this play: she has -certainly never been more herself in what one fancies to be herself. -There is all her ravishing gaminerie, her witty intelligence, her dash, -her piquancy, her impudence, her mastery. I find that her high spirits, -in this play, affect me like pathos: they run to a kind of emotion. I -compared her art with the art of Forain; I said that here was a picture, -made out of the same material, with the same cynicism, the same mastery -of line. She suggested, in her costume of the Second Act, a Beardsley -picture; there was the same kind of tragic grotesque, in which a kind of -ugliness became a kind of beauty. The whole performance was of the best -Parisian kind, with genius in one, admirably disciplined talent in all.</p> - - - - -<h4>MELODRAMA WITH AN IDEA</h4> - - -<p>Paul Hervieu's <i>La Course du Flambeau</i>, which was given by Réjane -at the Vaudeville, April 17th, 1901, is first of all a sentimental thesis. -It begins with an argument as to the duty of mother to child and of -child to mother. A character who apparently represents the author's -views declares life is a sort of <i>Lampadophoria</i>, or <i>La Course du -Flambeau</i>, in which it is the chief concern of each generation to hand -on the torch of life to the next generation. Sabine protests that the -duty is equal, and offers herself as an example. "I," she says, "stand -between mother and daughter; I love them myself; I could sacrifice -myself equally for either." Maravan replies: "You do not know yourself. -You do not know how good a mother you are, and I hope you will never -know how bad a daughter." The rest of the play is ingeniously -constructed to show, point by point, gradation by gradation, the -devotion of Sabine to her daughter and the readiness with which she will -sacrifice, not only herself, but her mother.</p> - -<p>The only answer to the author's solution is to reinstate the problem in -terms of precisely contrary facts; we have another solution, which may -be made in terms no less inevitable. The play itself proves nothing, and -it seems to me that the writer's persistence in arguing the point in -action has given a somewhat needless and unnatural air of melodrama to -his piece. It is a melodrama with an idea, a clue, but it is none the -less a melodrama, because the idea and the clue are alike so arbitrary. -One is never left quietly alone with nature; the showman's hand is -always visible, around the corner of the curtain, pulling the strings. -Whenever one sees a human argument struggling to find its way through -the formal rhetoric of the speaker, it is the French equivalent of -sentiment.</p> - -<p>The piece is really the comedy of a broken heart, and what Réjane has -to do is to represent all the stages of the slow process of heartbreak. -She does it as only a great artist could do; but she allows us to see -that she is acting. She does it consciously, deliberately, with method.</p> - -<p>She has forced herself to become bourgeois; she takes upon herself the -bourgeois face and appearance, and also the bourgeois soul. The wit and -bewildering vulgarity have gone out of her, and a middle-class dignity -has taken their place. She shows us the stage picture of a mother -marvelously: that is to say, she interprets the play according to the -author's intentions; when she is most effective as an actress she is not -content with the simplicity of nature, as in the tirade in the third -act. She brings out the melodramatic points with the finest skill; but -the melodrama itself is a wilful divergency from nature; and she has few -chances to be her finest self. She proves the soundness of her art as an -actress by the ability to play such a part finely, seriously, -effectively. Her own temperament counts for nothing; it is not even a -hindrance: it is all the skill of a <i>métier</i>, the mastery of her -art.</p> - - - - -<h4>"MADAME SANS-GÊNE"</h4> - - -<p>In 1893 Réjane created, at the Vaudeville, the woman whose part she had -to act, in <i>Madame Sans-Gêne.</i> For some reason unknown to me, Réjane -is best known in England by her performances in this thoroughly poor -play, which shows us Sardou working mechanically, and for character -effects of a superficial kind. There are none of the ideas, none of the -touches of nature of <i>La Parisienne</i>; none of the comic vitality of -<i>Ma Cousine</i>; none of the emotional quality of <i>Sapho.</i> It is -full of piquancies for acting, and Réjane makes the most of them. Her -acting is admirable, from beginning to end; it has her distinguished -vulgarity; her gross charm; she is everything that Sardou meant, and -something more.</p> - -<p>But all that Sardou meant was not a very interesting thing, and Réjane -can not make it what it is not. She brightens her part, she does not -make a different thing of it. There were moments when it seemed to me as -if she played it with a certain fatigue. The thing is so artificial in -itself, and yet pretends to be nature; it is so palpably ingenious, so -frank an appeal to the stage! It has about it an absurd air of honest -simplicity, a pretense of being bourgeois in some worthy sense.</p> - -<p>Réjane plays her game with the thing, shows her impeccable cleverness, -makes point after point, carries the audience with her. But I find -nowhere in it what seems to me her finest qualities, at most no more -than a suggestion of them. It is a picture painted so sweepingly that -every subtlety would be out of place in it. She plays it sweepingly, -with heavy contrasts, an undisguised exaggeration; one eye is always on -the audience. That is, no doubt, the way the piece should be played; but -I must complain of Sardou while I justify Réjane.</p> - - - - -<h4>THE IRONIC COMEDY OF BECQUE</h4> - - -<p><i>La Parisienne</i> of Henri Becque, like most of his plays, has never -lost its interest, like the topical plays of that period. It is a hard, -ironical piece of realism, founded on a keen observation of life and on -certain definite ideas. It is called a comedy, but there is no -straightforward fun in it, as in <i>Ma Cousine</i>, for instance; it has -all that transposed sadness which we call irony. It shows us rather a mean -gray world, rather contemptuously; and it leaves us with a bitter taste -in the mouth. That is, if one takes it seriously. Part of the actor's -art in such a piece is to prevent one from taking it too seriously.</p> - -<p>Throughout Réjane is the faultless artist, and her acting is so much of -a piece that it is difficult to praise it in detail. A real woman lives -before one, seems to be overseen on the stage at certain moments of her -daily existence. We see her life going on, not, as with Duse, a profound -inner life, but the life of the character, a vivid, worldly life, hard, -selfish, calculating, deceiving naturally, naturally wary, the woman of -the world, the Parisian. Compare Clotilde with Sapho and you will see -two opposite types rendered with an equal skill; the woman in love, to -whom nothing else matters, and the woman with lovers, the (what shall I -say?) business woman of the emotions.</p> - -<p>There is a moment near the beginning where Lafont asks Clotilde if she -has been to see her milliner or her dressmaker, and she answers -sarcastically: "Both!" Her face, as she submits to the question, has an -absurd stare, a stare of profound dissimulation, with something of a cat -who waits. Her whole character, her whole plan of campaign are in that -moment; they but show themselves more pointedly, later on, when her -nerves get the better of her through all the manifestations of her -impatience, up to the return into herself at the end of the second act, -when she stands motionless and speechless, while her lover entreats her, -upbraids her, finally insults her. Her face, her whole body, endures, -wearied into a desperate languor, seething with suppressed rage and -exasperation; at last, her whole body droops on itself, as if it Can no -longer stand upright. Throughout she speaks with that somewhat -discontented grumbling tone which she can make so expressive; she -empties her speech with little side shrugs of one shoulder, her sinister -right eye speaks a whole subtle language of its own. The only moments -throughout the play when I found anything to criticize are the few -moments of pathos, when she becomes Sarah at second hand.</p> - -<p>After <i>La Parisienne</i> came <i>Lolotte</i>, a one-act play of -Meilhac and Halévy. It is amusing, and it gives Réjane the opportunity of -showing us little samples of nearly all her talents. She is both canaille -and bonne fille; above all she is triumphantly, defiantly clever. Again I -was reminded of a Forain drawing: for here is an art which does -everything that it is possible to do with a given material, and what -more can one demand of an artist?</p> - - - - -<h4>"LA ROBE ROUGE"</h4> - - -<p>A greater contrast could hardly be imagined than that between these two -plays and Brieux's sombre argument in the drama <i>La Robe Rouge.</i> -Unlike <i>Les Avariés</i>, where the argument swamps the drama, <i>La Robe -Rouge</i> is at once a good argument and a good play. There are perhaps too -many points at issue, and the story is perhaps too much broken into -section, but the whole thing takes hold of one, and, acted as it is acted -by Réjane, and her company, it seems to lift one out of the theater into -some actual place where people are talking and doing good or evil and -suffering and coming into conflict with great impersonal forces; where, -in fact, they are living. Without ever becoming literature, it comes, at -times, almost nearer to every-day reality than literature can permit -itself to come. There is not a good sentence in the play, or a sentence -that does not tell. It is the subject and the hard, unilluminated -handling of the subject that makes the play, and it is a model of that -form of drama which deals sternly with actual things. It gives a great -actress, who is concerned mainly with being true to nature, an -incomparable opportunity, and it gives opportunities to every member of -a good company. The second act tortures one precisely as such a scene in -court would torture one. Its art is the distressingly, overwhelmingly -real.</p> - -<p><i>La Robe Rouge</i> is a play so full of solid and serious qualities -that it is not a little difficult not to exaggerate its merits or to praise -it for merits it does not possess. The play deals with vital questions, and -it does not deal with them, as Brieux is apt to do, in a merely -argumentative way. It is not only that abstract question: What is -justice? May the law not be capable of injustice? but the question of -conscience in the lawyer, the judge, the administration of which goes by -the name of justice. It is tragedy within tragedy. How extremely -admirably the whole thing acts, and how admirably it was acted! After -seeing this play, I realize what I have often wondered, that Réjane is -a great tragic actress, and that she can be tragic without being -grotesque. She never had a part in which she was so simple and so great. -When I read the play I found many passages of mere rhetoric in the part -of Zanetta; by her way of saying them Réjane turned them into simple -natural feeling. I can imagine Sarah saying some of these passages, and -making them marvelously effective. When Réjane says them they go -through you like a knife. After seeing La <i>Robe Rouge</i>, I am not sure -that of three great living actresses, Duse, Sarah, and Réjane, Réjane -is not, as a sheer actress, the greatest of the three.</p> - -<p>Réjane has all the instincts, as I have said, of the human animal, of -the animal woman, whom man will never quite civilize. Réjane, in -<i>Sapho</i> or in <i>Zaza</i> for instance, is woman naked and shameless, -loving and suffering with all her nerves and muscles, a gross, pitiable, -horribly human thing, whose direct appeal seizes you by the throat. In -<i>Sapho</i> or <i>Zaza</i> she speaks the language of the senses, no more; -and her acting reminds you of all that you may possibly have forgotten of -how the senses speak when they speak through an ignorant woman in love. -It is like an accusing confirmation of some of one's guesses at truth, -before the realities of the flesh and of the affections of the flesh. -Skepticism is no longer possible: the thing is before you, abominably -real, a disquieting and irrefutable thing, which speaks with its own -voice, as it has never spoken on the stage through any other actress.</p> - -<p>In <i>Zaza</i>, a play made for Réjane by two playwrights who had set -themselves humbly to a task, the task of fitting her with a part, she is -seen doing <i>Sapho</i> over again, with a difference. Zaza is a vulgar -woman, a woman without instruction or experience; she has not known -poets and been the model of a great sculptor; she comes straight from -the boards of a <i>café-concert</i> to the kept woman's house in the -country. She has caught her lover vulgarly, to win a bet; and so, to the -end, you realize that she is, well, a woman who would do that. She has -no depth of passion, none of Sapho's roots in the earth; she has a -"beguin" for Dufresne, she will drop everything else for it, such as it -is, and she is capable of good hearty suffering. Réjane gives her to us -as she is, in all her commonness. The picture is full of humor; it is, -as I so often feel with Réjane, a Forain. Like Forain, she uses her -material without ever being absorbed by it, without relaxing her -impersonally artistic energy. In being Zaza, she is so far from being -herself (what is the self of a great actress?) that she has invented a -new way of walking, as well as new tones and grimaces. There is not an -effect in the play which she has not calculated; only, she has -calculated every effect so exactly that the calculation is not seen. -When you watch Jane Hading, you see her effects coming several seconds -before they are there; when they come, they come neatly, but with no -surprise in them, and therefore with no conviction. There lies all the -difference between the actress who is an actress equally by her -temperament and by her brain and the actress who has only the brain -(and, with Jane Hading, beauty) to rely on. Everything that Réjane can -think of she can do; thought translates itself instantly into feeling, -and the embodied impulse is before you.</p> - -<p>When Réjane is Zaza, she acts and is the woman she acts; and you have -to think, before you remember how elaborate a science goes to the making -of that thrill which you are almost cruelly enjoying.</p> - - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - -<h4><a id="The_Russian_Ballets">THE RUSSIAN BALLETS</a></h4> - - -<h4>I</h4> - - -<p>The dance is life, animal life, having its own way passionately. Part of -that natural madness which men were once wise enough to include in -religion, it began with the worship of the disturbing deities, the gods -of ecstasy, for whom wantonness and wine, and all things in which energy -passes into evident excess, were sacred. From the first it has mimed the -instincts; but we lose ourselves in the boundless bewilderments of its -contradictions.</p> - -<p>As the dancers dance, under the changing lights, so human, so remote, so -desirable, so evasive, coming and going to the sound of a thin heady -music which marks the rhythm of their movements like a kind of clinging -drapery, they seem to sum up in themselves the appeal of everything in -the world that is passing and colored and to be enjoyed. Realizing all -humanity to be but a mask of shadows, and this solid world an impromptu -stage as temporary as they, it is with a pathetic desire of some last -illusion, which shall deceive even ourselves, that we are consumed with -this hunger to create, to make something for ourselves, if at least the -same shadowy reality as that about us. The art of the ballet awaits us, -with its shadowy and real life, its power of letting humanity drift into -a rhythm so much of its own, and with ornament so much more generous -than its wont. And, as all this is symbolical, a series of living -symbols, it can but reach the brain through the eyes, in the visual and -imaginative way, so that the ballet concentrates in itself a great deal -of the modern ideal in matters of artistic impression.</p> - -<p>I am avid of impressions and sensations; and in the Russian Ballet at -the Coliseum, certainly, there is a new impression of something not -easily to be seen elsewhere. I need not repeat that, in art, rhythm -means everything. And there can be a kind of rhythm even in scenery, -such as one sees on the stage. Convention, even here, as in all plastic -art, is founded on natural truth very closely studied. The rose is first -learned, in every wrinkle of its petals, petal by petal, before that -reality is elaborately departed from, in order that a new, abstract -beauty may be formed out of these outlines, all but those outlines being -left out.</p> - -<p>So, in these Russian Ballets, so many of which are founded on ancient -legends, those who dance and mime and gesticulate have at once all that -is humanity and more than is in humanity. And their place there permits -them, without disturbing our critical sense of the probability of -things, to seem to assume a superhuman passion; for, in the Art of the -Ballet, reality must fade into illusion, and then illusion must return -into a kind of unreal reality.</p> - -<p>The primitive and myth-making imagination of the Russians shows a -tendency to regard metaphors as real and to share these tendencies with -the savage, that is to say with the savagery that is in them, dependent -as they are on rudimentary emotions. Other races, too long civilized, -have accustomed themselves to the soul, to mystery. Russia, with -centuries of savagery behind it, still feels the earth about its roots, -and the thirst in it of the primitive animal. It has lost none of its -instincts, and it has just discovered the soul. So, in these enigmatical -dancers, the men and the women, who emerge before us, across the flaming -gulf of the footlights, who emerge as they never did in any ballet -created by Wagner, one finds the irresponsibility, the gaiety, the -sombreness, of creatures who exist on the stage for their own pleasure -and for the pleasure of pleasing us, and in them something large and -lyrical, as if the obscure forces of the earth half-awakened had begun -to speak. And these live, perhaps, an exasperated life—the life of -the spirit and of the senses—as no others do; a life to most people -inconceivable; to me, who have traveled in Russia, conceivable.</p> - -<p>In what is abstract in Russian music there is human blood. It does not -plead and implore like Wagner's. It is more somber, less carnal, more -feverish, more unsatisfied in the desire of the flesh, more inhuman, -than the ballet music in <i>Parsifal.</i> Even in that music, though shafts -of light sometimes pierce the soul like a sword, there is none of the -peace of Bach; it has the unsatisfied desire of a kind of flesh of the -spirit. But in Tchaikovsky's music the violins run up and down the -scales like acrobats; and he can deform the rhythms of nature with the -caprices of half-civilized impulses. In your delight in finding any one -so alive, you are inclined to welcome him without reserve, and to forget -that a man of genius is not necessarily a great artist, and that, if he -is not a great artist, he is not a quite satisfactory man of genius.</p> - -<p>When I heard his music in <i>The Enchanted Princess</i> I was struck by -the contrast of this ballet music with the overture to <i>Francesca da -Rimini</i> I had heard years before. The red wind of hell, in which the -lovers are afloat, blows and subsides. There is a taste of sulphur in the -mouth as it ends, after the screams and spasms. Scrawls of hell-fire rush -across the violins into a sharpened agony; above all, not Dante's; always -hell-fire, not the souls of unhappy lovers who have loved too well.</p> - -<p>Lydia Lopokova is certainly a perfect artist, whose dancing is a delight -to the eyes, as her miming appeals to the senses. She has passion, and -of an excitable kind; in a word, Russian passion. She can be delicious, -malicious, abrupt in certain movements when she walks; she has -daintiness and gaiety; her poses and poises are exquisite; there is an -amazing certainty in everything she does. A creature of sensitive -nerves, in whom the desire of perfection is the same as her desire for -fame, she is on the stage and off the stage essentially the same; and in -her conversations with me I find imagination, an unerring instinct, an -intense thirst for life and for her own art; she has <i>la joie de -vivre.</i></p> - -<p>Her technique, of course, is perfect; and, as in the case of every -artist, it is the result of tireless patience. Technique and the artist: -that is a question of interest to the student of every art. Without -technique, perfect of its kind, no one is worth consideration in any -art. The rope-dancer or the acrobat must be perfect in technique before -he appears on the stage at all; in his case, a lapse from perfection -brings its own penalty, death perhaps; his art begins when his technique -is already perfect. Artists who deal in materials less fragile than -human life should have no less undeviating a sense of responsibility to -themselves and to art. So Ysaye seems to me the type of the artist, not -because he is faultless in technique, but because he begins to create -his art at the point where faultless technique leaves off.</p> - -<p>Lubov Tchernicheva is a snake-like creature, beautiful and hieratic, -solemn; and in her aspect, as in her gestures, a kind of Russian -Cleopatra. Swinburne might have sung of her as he sang of the queen who -ruled the world and Antony:—</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">Her mouth is fragrant as a vine,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 6em;">A vine with birds in all its boughs;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Serpent and scarab for a sign</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 6em;">Between the beauty of her brows</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">And the amorous deep lids divine.</span></p> - - -<p>And it is a revelation to our jaded imaginations of much less jaded -imaginations. These may be supposed to be characters in themselves of -little interest to the world in general; to have come by strange -accident from the ends of the world. Yet these are thrown into chosen -situations, apprehended in some delicate pauses of life; they have their -moments of passion thrown into relief in an exquisite way. To -discriminate them we need a cobweb of illusions, double and treble -reflections of the mind upon itself, with the artificial light of the -stage cast over them and, as it were, constructed and broken over this -or that chosen situation—on how fine a needle's point that little -world of passion is balanced!</p> - - - - -<h4>II</h4> - - -<p>Apart from the loveliness of <i>Manfred</i>—the almost aching -loveliness of Astarte—and the whole of the <i>Carnival, -Kreisleriana</i>, and several other pieces, I have never been able to -admire Schumann's music. When I wrote on Strauss I said that he has many -moments in which he tries to bring humor into music. Turn from the "Annie" -motive in <i>Enoch Arden</i> to the "Eusebius" of the <i>Carnival</i>, -and you will readily see all the difference between two passages which it -is quite possible to compare with one another. The "Annie" motive is as -pretty as can be; it is adequate enough as a suggestion of the somewhat -colorless heroine of Tennyson's poem; but how lacking in distinction it is, -if you but set it beside the "Eusebius," in which music requires nothing -but music to be its own interpreter. But it is in his attempts at the -grotesque that Schumann seems at times actually to lead the way to Strauss. -It is from Schumann that Strauss has learned some of those hobbling -rhythms, those abrupt starts, as of a terrified peasant, by which he has -sometimes suggested his particular kind of humor in music.</p> - -<p>Schumann, like Strauss, reminds me at one time of De Quincey or Sydney -Dobell, at another of Gustave Moreau or of Arnold Bocklin, and I know -that all these names have had their hour of worship. All have some of -the qualities which go to the making of great art; all, in different -ways, fail through lack of the vital quality of sincerity, the hard and -wiry line of rectitude and certainty. All are rhetorical, all produce -their effect by an effort external to the thing itself which they are -saying or singing or painting.</p> - -<p>On seeing the <i>Carnival</i> for the second time I am more than ever -struck by the fact that the ballet is a miracle of moving motion. In the -dance of Columbine and Harlequin—they danced and mimed like living -marionettes—I recalled vividly my impression on seeing a ballet, a -farce and the fragments of an opera performed by the marionettes at the -Costanzi Theatre in Rome. I was inclined to ask myself why we require -the intervention of any less perfect medium between the meaning of a -piece, as the audience conceived it, and that other meaning which it -derives from our reception of it. In those inspired pieces of living -painted wood I saw the illusion that I always desire to find, either in -the wings of the theater or from a stall. In our marionettes, then, we -get personified gesture, endless gesture, like all other forms of -emotion, generalized. The appeal in what seems to you those childish -maneuvers is to a finer, because to a more innately poetic sense of -things than the rationalistic appeal of very modern plays. If at times -we laugh—as one must in this ballet—it is with wonder at seeing -humanity so gay, heroic and untiring. There is the romantic suggestion -of magic in this beauty. So, in Harlequin, I find the personification of -grace, of <i>souplesse</i>, in his miming and dancing; and when he is -grotesque, I find a singular kind of beauty. A sinister gaiety pervades -the ballet; a malevolent undercurrent of subtle meanings gives one the -sense of an intricate intrigue; and I almost forgive the fact that the -music is German!</p> - -<p>I am, on the whole, disappointed with the <i>Cleopatra</i> ballet; for -the scenery certainly does not suggest Egypt; but, to my mind, suggests -rather the scenery used in Paris when I saw Alfred Jarry's <i>Ubu Roi</i>, -a symbolist farce, given under strange conditions. The action took place -in the land of nowhere; and the scenery was painted to represent by -adroit conventions temperate and torrid zones at once. Then there were -closed windows and a fireplace, containing an alchemist's crucible. -These were crudely symbolical, but those in the Coliseum were not. In -our search for sensation we have exhausted sensation; and, in that -theater, before a people who have perfected the fine shades to their -vanishing point, who have subtilized delicacy of perception into the -annihilation of the very senses through which we take in ecstasy, I -heard a literary Sans-culotte shriek for hours that unspeakable word of -the gutter which was the refrain of this comedy of masks. Just as the -seeker after pleasure whom pleasure has exhausted, so the seeker after -the material illusions of a literary artifice turns finally to that -first, subjugated, never quite exterminated element of cruelty which is -one of the links which bind us to the earth.</p> - -<p>The Russians have cruelty enough, but not this kind of cruelty; they are -more complex than cruel, and why credit them with any real sense of -morality? They are gifted with a kind of sick curiosity which makes them -infinitely interesting to themselves. And—to concern myself again -with these Russian dancers—they live in a prodigious illusion; their -life in them is so tremendous that they are capable of imagining anything. -And, in the words of Gorki, "in every being who lives there is hidden a -vagabond more or less conscious of himself;" but—for all those who -revolt—he has one phrase: <i>l'Épouvante du mal de vivre.</i></p> - -<p>Now, Lubov Tchernicheva, who looked Cleopatra and was dressed after -Cleopatra's fashion, had nothing whatever to do, except to be repellent -and attractive. She was given no chance to show that the queen she -represented was one of those diabolical creatures whose coquetry is all -the more dangerous because it is susceptible of passion; one in whom -passion was at times like a will-o'-the-wisp that is suddenly -extinguished after having given light to a conflagration.</p> - -<p><i>Scheherazade</i> is barbaric and gorgeous in <i>décor</i>, and in -costume exotic and tragic and Oriental as the Russian music is; only, to -me, the music is not quite satisfying; it has rather an irritating effect -on the nerves. The dances are bewildering, intricate and elaborate, and -intensely alive with animal desire. It is really a riot in color, amid -an ever-moving crowd of revellers; in which Massine shows himself as the -personification of lust, as he makes—with furious and too convulsive -leaps in the air and with too obvious gestures and grimaces—frantic -love to Zobeide, mimed by Tchernicheva, who has the stateliness of a -princess, who glides mysteriously and is wonderful in the plastic -quality of her movements, which I can only image as that of a -tiger-cat.</p> - -<p>Carlo Goldoni has been compared as a great comic dramatist with Pietro -Longhi, who, in his amazingly amusing pictures, reflects also the -follies and revels and miseries of the period. Longhi used to tell -Goldoni that they—the painter and the playwright—were brethren -in art; and one of Goldoni's sonnets records this saying:—</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Longhi, tu che la mia musa sorella</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Chiami del tuo pennel che cerca il vero.</i></span></p> - - -<p>It seems that their contemporaries were alive to the similar qualities -and the common aims of the two men; for Gasparo Gozzi drew a parallel -between them in a number of his Venetian <i>Gazzetta.</i></p> - -<p>It struck me, as I saw the Goldoni ballet and heard the music of -Domenico Scarlatti, that all of the costumes and much of the effect of -the miming—which were the most delicious and capricious that I have -ever seen—had been designed after Longhi's paintings and drawings; -for in many of these he gives a wonderful sense of living motion; but -certainly nothing of what is abominably alive in the great and grim and -sardonic genius of Hogarth.</p> - -<p>In Venice I have often spent delightful hours before, for instance, such -innumerable drawings of his as: painters at the easel, ballet girls with -castanets, maid-servants holding trays, music and dancing masters -(indeed, is not Enrico Cecchetti in the ballet a most admirable and most -Italian dancing master?), tavern-keepers, street musicians, beggars, -waiters; the old patrician lolling in his easy-chair and toying with a -fan; the cavaliere in their fantastic dresses; the women with their -towering head-dresses. The whole sense of Venice returned to me as I saw -Lydia Lopokova—always so bird-like, so like a butterfly with painted -wings, so witty in gestures, so absolutely an artist in every dance she -dances, in every mime she mimics, in her wild abandonment to the -excitement of these shifting scenes, where all these masked and unmasked -living puppets have fine nerves and delicate passions—putting powder -on the face of the Marquise Silvestra and mocking her behind her back. I -saw then Casanova's favorite haunts: the <i>ridotti</i>, the gambling-houses, -the <i>cafés</i> in San Marco's, the carnivals, the masked balls, the -intrigues; the <i>traghetti</i> where I seemed to see mysterious figures -flitting to and fro in wide miraculous <i>route</i> beneath the light of -flickering flambeaux.</p> - -<p>I see before me, as I write, the night when I went from the Giddecca to -the Teatro Rossini, where a company of excellent Italian comedians gave -one of Goldoni's comedies, and, as when the chatter in the gallery ends, -the chatter begins on the stage, I found for once the perfect illusion; -there is no difference between the one and the other. Voluble, living -Venice, with its unchanging attitude toward things, the prompt gaiety -and warmth of its temperament, finds equal expression in the gallery, -and in the interpretation of Goldoni, on that stage. Going to the -theater in Venice is like a fantastic overture to the play, and sets -one's mood properly in tune. You step into the gondola, which darts at -once across a space of half-lighted water, and turns down a narrow canal -between walls which seem to reach more than half-way to the stars. Here -and there a lamp shines from a bridge or at the water-gate of a house, -but with no more than enough light to make the darkness seen. You see in -flashes: an alley with people moving against the light, the shape of a -door or balcony, seen dimly and in a wholly new aspect, a dark -church-front, a bridge overhead, the water lapping against the green -stone of a wall which your elbow all but touches, a head thrust from a -window, the gondola that passes you, sliding gently and suddenly -alongside, and disappearing into an unseen quiet.</p> - -<p><i>Sadko</i> is simply a magical and magnificent pantomime, and -Rimski-Korsakov's ballet music gives me the sense of the swirl and -confusion, of the bewilderments and infinite changes in the realm of the -sea-king. And, apart from the riotous Russian dancing, most of the -ballet is made of nervous gestures of the hands and arms, that have an -exciting effect on the nerves, and that recall to my memory certain -aspects of the sea; as when I saw a deadly sluggish sea, a venomous -serpent coil and uncoil inextricable folds; symbols of something -suddenly seen on the sea-surface in contrast with a wizard transmutation -of colors. But, most of all, one aspect of curdling thick green masses -of colors under a curdling green sea. In that instant I saw all the -beauty of corruption. Then the underworld became visible, close under -the sea: with palaces (like Poe's); streets, people, ruins; forests -thick with poisonous weeds, void spaces, strange shifting shapes: -symbols I could not fathom. Then came a stealthy, slow, insidious -heaving of the reluctant waves. Then, again, the surging and swaying; -and, always motionless, yet steadily changing in shape, the somber and -unholy underworld.</p> - -<p>In Tchernicheva I saw an actual Princess of the Sea, gorgeously dressed, -and enchanting. Yet, all of the spectacle was not beautiful; it was -singularly inhuman and, at times, unnatural. Nothing but beauty should -exist on the stage. Visible beauty comes with the ballet, an abstract -thing; gesture adds pantomime, with which drama begins; and then words -bring in the speech by which life tries to tell its secret. Still, in -the two extremes, pantomime and the poetic drama, the appeal is to the -primary emotions, and with an economy and luxuriance of means, each of -which is in its own way inimitable. Pantomime addresses itself, by the -artful limitations of its craft, to universal human experiences, knowing -that the moment it departs from those broad lines it will become -unintelligible.</p> - -<p>Pantomime, in its limited way, is no mere imitation of nature: it is a -transposition. It can appeal to the intellect for its comprehension, -and, like ballet, to the intellect through the eyes. To watch it is like -dreaming. And as I watched this ballet I felt myself drawn deep into an -opium-dream, as when I wrote of:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">This crust, of which the rats have eaten part,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 6em;">This pipe of opium; rage, remorse, despair;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">This soul at pawn and this delirious heart.</span></p> - - -<p>Then, as the spell tightened closer and closer around me, I seemed to -have taken hashish, of which I wrote:—</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">Behold the image of my fear;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">O rise not, move not, come not near!</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 6em;">That moment, when you turned your face,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 6em;">A demon seemed to leap through space;</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">His gesture strangled me with fear.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Who said the world is but a mood</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">In the eternal thought of God?</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 6em;">I know it, real though it seem,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 6em;">The phantom of a hashish dream</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">In that insomnia which is God.</span></p> - - -<p>Does not every one know that terrifying impossibility of speaking which -fastens one to the ground for the eternity of a second? Exactly that -sensation came over me, the same kind of suspense, seeming to hang over -the silent actors in the pantomime, giving them a nervous exaltation -which has its subtle, immediate effect upon us, in comic or tragic -situations.</p> - - - - -<h4>III</h4> - - -<p>The English theater with its unreal realism and its unimaginative -pretenses toward poetry left me untouched and unconvinced. I found the -beauty, the poetry, that I wanted only in two theaters, the Alhambra and -the Empire. The ballet seemed to me the subtlest of the visible arts, -and dancing a more significant speech than words. I could have said as -Verlaine said to me, in jest, coming away from the Alhambra: "<i>J'aime -Shakespeare, mais—j'aimes mieux le ballet!</i>" A ballet is simply a -picture in movement. It is a picture where the imitation of nature is -given by nature itself; where the figures of the composition are real, -and yet, by a very paradox of travesty, have a delightful, deliberate -air of unreality. It is a picture where the colors change, re-combine, -before one's eyes; where the outlines melt into one another, emerge, and -are again lost in the mazes of the dancing.</p> - -<p>The most magical glimpse I ever caught of a ballet was from the road in -front, from the other side of the road, one night when two doors were -suddenly thrown open as I was passing. In the moment's interval before -the doors closed again I saw, in that odd, unexpected way, over the -heads of the audience, far off in a sort of blue mist, the whole stage, -its brilliant crowd drawn up in the last pose, just as the curtain was -beginning to go down.</p> - -<p>I liked to see a ballet from the wings, a spectator, but in the midst of -the magic. To see a ballet from the wings is to lose all sense of -proportion, all knowledge of the piece as a whole, but, in return, it is -fruitful in happy accidents, in momentary points of view, in chance -felicities of light and movement and shade. It is almost to be in the -performance one's self, and yet passive, with the leisure to look about -one.</p> - -<p>The front row of the stalls, on a first night, has a character of its -own. It is entirely filled by men, and the men who fill it have not come -simply from an abstract esthetic interest in the ballet. They have -friends on the other side of the footlights, and their friends on the -other side of the footlights will look down, the moment they come on, to -see who are in the front row, and who are standing by the bar on either -side. The standing room by the bar is the reserve of the first-nighters -with friends who could not get a seat in the front row. On such a night -the air is electrical. A running fire of glances crosses and re-crosses, -above the indifferent, accustomed heads of the gentlemen in the -orchestra; whom it amuses, none the less, to intercept an occasional -smile, to trace it home. On the faces of the men in the front row, what -difference in expression. Here is the eager, undisguised enthusiasm of -the novice, all eyes on one; here is the wary practised attention of the -man who has seen many first nights, and whose scarcely perceptible smile -reveals nothing, compromises nobody, rests on all.</p> - -<p>And there is a charm, not wholly imaginary, in that form of illusion -known as make-up. To a face really charming it gives a new kind of -exciting savor; and it has, to the remnant of Puritan conscience that is -the heritage of us all, a certain sense of dangerous wickedness, the -delight of forbidden fruit. The very phrase, painted women, has come to -have an association of sin, and to have put paint on her cheeks, though -for the innocent necessities of her profession, gives to a woman a kind -of symbolic corruption. At once she seems to typify the sorceries and -entanglements of what is most deliberately enticing in her sex, with all -that is most subtle, least like nature, in her power of charm. -<i>Maquillage</i>, to be attractive, must, of course, be unnecessary.</p> - -<p>The art of the ballet counts for much in the evolution of many favorite -effects of contemporary drawing, and not merely because Degas—who -meant to me everything when I was writing on the ballets, standing in the -wings, writing verses in which I was conscious of transgressing no law -or art in taking that scarcely touched material for new uses—has -drawn dancers, with his reserved, essentially classical mastery of form. By -its rapidity of flight within bounds, by its bird-like and flowerlike -caprices of color and motion, by that appeal to the imagination which -comes from its silence (to which music is but like an accompanying -shadow, so closely, so discreetly does it follow the feet of the -dancers), by its appeal to the eyes and to the senses, its adorable -artificiality, the ballet has tempted almost every draughtsman, as the -interiors of music-halls have also been singularly tempting, with their -extraordinary tricks of light, their suddenness of gesture, their -fantastic humanity. And pantomime, too, in the French and correct, -rather than in the English and incorrect sense of that word, has had its -significant influence. And the point of view is the point of view of -Pierrot—</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">"<i>Le subtil génie</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>De sa malice infinie</i></span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>De poète-grimacier</i>"—</span></p> - - -<p>Verlaine's <i>Pierrot Gamin.</i></p> - -<p>Watteau, the Prince of Court Painters, is the only painter of <i>la -galanterie</i> who has given seriousness to the elegance of that passing -moment, who has fixed that moment in an attitude which becomes eternal. -In a similar gravity in the treatment of "light" subjects, and for a -similar skill in giving them beauty and distinction, we must come down -to Degas. In Degas the ballet and the <i>café</i> replace the Italian -comedy of masks and the afternoon conversation in a park. But in Degas -there is the same instantaneous notation of movement and the same choice -and strange richness of color; with a quite comparable fondness for seizing -what is true in artificial life, and for what is sad and serious in -humanity at play. But Watteau, unlike Degas, is never cruel.</p> - -<p>Never, as Watteau, "a seeker after something in the world, that is there -in no satisfying measure or not at all," Degas, implacably <i>farouche</i>, -the inexorable observer of women's flesh, in the wings of music-halls, -in <i>café-concerts</i>, loves and hates and adores this strange mystery of -women's flesh which he evokes, often curiously poisonous, but always -with a caressing touch, a magic atmosphere that gives heat and life and -light to all his pictures. Where Renoir is pagan and sensual, Degas is -sensuous and a moralist. In the purity of his science, the perhaps -impurity of his passion, he is inimitable. Is not his style—for -painters have their own styles—the style of sensation—a style -which is almost entirely made of sensations? He flashes on our vision -<i>vrai vérité</i> of things, the very essence of them—not so much -the essence of truth as of what appears in the visible world to the eyes -that see it.</p> - -<p>No one ever painted <i>maquillage</i> as he does, nor the strokes of -light that shine in a dancer's eyes, nor the silk of her rose-colored -tights that outline her nervous legs; nor the effects—sudden and -certain—of what I have seen for years from the stage: silhouettes and -faces and bodies and patches of light, a cigarette in a man's mouth; and, -in the wings, miracles of change, of caprice, of fantasy, and of what seems -and is not an endless motion of the dancers. I have always felt that the -rhythm of dancing is a kind of arrested music, which Degas has certainly -given us, as in the feet that poise, the silent waves of wandering sound -of the dancer's moving melody, and her magic. A man of singular, but not -universal, genius, Degas, his work being done, leaves behind him a sense -of intense regret; for he created a new art in painting, that is to say, -in painting the sex he adored, without pity and without malice.</p> - - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - -<h4><a id="On_Hamlet_and_Hamlets">ON HAMLET AND HAMLETS</a></h4> - - -<p>I have seen many Hamlets. I have seen romantic, tragic, passionate, -morbid, enigmatical, over-subtle and over-exceptional Hamlets, the very -bells on the cap of "Fortune's fool." And as almost every actor has -acted this part, every one of them gives a different interpretation: -that is to say, from the time of Shakespeare to our own age. One knows -that Shakespeare, besides other of the dramatists, acted at least one -part, which seems to have surprised his audience: the Ghost in -<i>Hamlet.</i> And as Shakespeare put more of his inner self into Hamlet's -mouth than into the mouth of any of his other characters, it is not to be -forgotten that perhaps the most wonderful prose in our language is spoken -by Hamlet in that famous scene with the Players. Take, for instance, this -speech:</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>I have of late—but wherefore I know not—lost all my mirth, -foregone all custom of exercise; and indeed it goes so heavily with my -disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile -promontory, that most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave -over-hanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, -why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent -congregation of vapors. What a piece of work is a man! How noble in -reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and -admirable: in action how like an angel! in appearance how like a god! -The beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet to me, what is -this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me: no, nor woman neither, -though by your smiling you seem to say so.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>If any prose is immortal, this is; and creative also, and imaginative, -and lyrical: it has vision, and it has the sense of the immense contrast -between "this majestical roof" and "this quintessence of dust" to which -we are all reduced at the end.</p> - -<p>I have always felt that a play of Shakespeare, seen on the stage, should -give one the impression of assisting at "a solemn music." The rhythm of -Shakespeare's art is not fundamentally different from that of Beethoven, -and <i>Romeo and Juliet</i> is a suite, <i>Hamlet</i> a symphony. To act -either of these plays with whatever qualities of another kind, and to fail -in producing this musical rhythm from beginning to end, is to fail in the -very foundation. It has been said that Shakespeare will sacrifice his -drama to his poetry, and even <i>Hamlet</i> has been quoted against him. -But let <i>Hamlet</i> be rightly acted, and whatever has seemed mere -meditation will be realized as a part of that thought which makes or waits -on action. The outlines of the tragedy are crude, irresistible melodrama, -still irresistible to the gallery; and the greatness of the play, though -it comes to us by means of its poetry, comes to us legitimately as a -growth out of melodrama.</p> - -<p>I have often asked myself this question, when I have sat in the stalls -watching a play, and having to write about it: is the success of this -piece due to the playwright's skill or to the skill of the actors? Nor -is any question more difficult to answer than this; which Lamb certainly -does his best to answer in one of his underlined sentences, in regard to -the actor. "<i>He must be thinking all the while of his appearance, -because he knows that all the while the spectators are judging of it.</i>" -And again when he says: "In fact, the things aimed at in theatrical -representations are to arrest the spectator's eye upon the form and the -gesture, and to give a more favorable hearing to what is spoken: it is -not what the character is, but how he looks; not what he says, but how -he speaks it." Was anything more fundamentally true ever said on what -the actor <i>ought</i> to do? Lamb answered it again, in his instinctive -fashion of aiming his arrow straight at the mark, when he said of a -performance of Shakespeare in which there were two great actors, that -"it seemed to embody and realize conceptions which had hitherto assumed -no distinct shape," but that "when the novelty is past, we find to our -cost that instead of realizing an idea, we have only materialized and -brought down a fine vision to the standard of flesh and blood."</p> - -<p>Every artist who has the sense of the sublime knows that the pure genius -is essentially silent, and that his revelation has in it more of vision -than of reality. For when he deigns to appear, he is constrained, under -penalty of extinction, to lessen himself so as to pass into the -Inaccessible. He creates; if he fails in creation, he is of necessity -condemned to the utter darkness. He is the ordinator of chaos: he calls -and disposes of the blind elements; and when we are uplifted in our -admiration before some sublime work, it is not that he creates an idea -in us: it is that, under the divine influence of the man of genius, this -idea, which was in us, obscure to itself, is reawakened.</p> - -<p>I am confronted now with Villiers de l'Isle Adam in his conjectures -in regard to certain questions—never yet settled—in <i>Hamlet.</i> -A modern man of taste might ask what Shakespeare would have answered if the -actor who played Hamlet's part were to interrogate the Specter "escaped -from hideous Night" as to whether he had seen God's face, whether he wanted -to be concerned with, not the eternal mysteries, but with what he had -seen in hell and what he hated seeing on earth; and, if he had come only -to utter absurdities, really, why need he have died at all?</p> - -<p>The Ghost, by the mere fact of being there, seems, at first sight, an -absurdity; but if he has really seen God and the Absolute and if he has -entered into them—which is impossible—the sublimity of his -words might seem to be superfluous; and yet the incoherencies that he -utters are all the more terrifying because of their incomprehensibility. -"The secret of the Absolute cannot be expressed with syntax, and therefore -one cannot ask the ghost to produce more than an <i>impression.</i>" The -Specter, for Shakespeare, is not a human being: he is obsession. Had he -wanted Hamlet really to perceive the ghost and had he thought this dramatic -effect ought to seize on the imagination of the audience, it was because he -was certain that every one of them, in the ghost perceived by Hamlet, would -see the familiar ghost that actually haunts himself.</p> - -<p>Hamlet's soliloquy "To be or not to be" is a magnificent -disavowal—on the part of Shakespeare. And if one excuses the -contradiction by supposing that Hamlet tried to deliver himself from the -obsession, to doubt, one can only reply that he never doubts the Ghost -itself, but the nature of this ghost; for he says at the end of the -second act:</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 13em;">The spirit I have seen</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">May be the devil: and the devil hath power</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Out of my weakness and my melancholy,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">(As he is very potent with such spirits),</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Abuses me to damn me.</span></p> - - -<p>Therefore if we compare the motive and the spirit of those sickly -phrases with those of the soliloquy, we shall realize that this has <i>no -relation whatsoever</i> with the superstitious character of Hamlet; even -more so, because every single word of them is in flagrant contradiction -with the entire drama.</p> - -<p>I have no intention of discussing either Mr. Martin Hervey's -representation of Hamlet or the somber and sinister Hamlet acted -by Josef Keinz in Berlin; or the performance of Tree, or of -Forbes-Robertson; or of any one's, with the exception of that given by -Edward Sothern. He is by no means the only Hamlet, for there are -always—to quote Browning—"points in Hamlet's soul unseized by -the Germans yet." Sothern had depth in his acting; and there was nothing -fantastic in his grave, subdued, powerful, and piteous representation, -in which no symbol, no figment of a German brain, no metaphysical Faust, -loomed before us, but a man more to be pitied and not less to be honored -than any man in Elsinore. Yet when one considers what Hamlet actually -was—and there is no getting at the depths of his mystery—one -finds, for one thing, a man too intensely restless to make up his mind on -any question of thought, of conduct, and that he does for the most part -the opposite of what he says. The pretense of madness is an almost -transparent pretense, and used often for a mere effect of malicious wit, -in the confusion of fools, or at the prompting of mere nerves. To me -Hamlet seems to be cursed with the veritable genius of inaction. Always -he is alone, even when he is in a crowd; he is the most sensitive of all -Shakespeare's creations; his nerves are jarred, when knaves would play -on him as one plays on an instrument; his blood is feverish, infected -with the dark melancholy that haunts him. Does he love Ophelia? I see in -him no passion for loving: to him passion is an abstract thing. In any -case, irresolution is baneful to him; irresolution that loses so many -chances, for which no one forgives himself. This Swinburne denies, -supposing that the signal characteristic of Hamlet's inmost nature "is -by no means irresolution or hesitation or any form of weakness, but -rather the strong conflux of contending forces;" adding, what is -certainly true, that the compulsory expedition of Hamlet to England and -his hot-headed daring prove to us his almost unscrupulous resolution in -time of practical need. Only, when all Hamlet's plans of revenge have -been executed, with the one exception of his unnecessary death, before -he utters his last immortal words "The rest is silence," the thought of -death to him is as if a veil had been withdrawn for an instant, the veil -which renders life possible, and, for that instant, he has seen.</p> - - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - -<h4><a id="Leonardo_da_Vinci">LEONARDO DA VINCI</a></h4> - - -<h4>I</h4> - - -<p>What counts, certainly, for much of what is so extraordinary in the -genius of Leonardo da Vinci—who died exactly five hundred years -ago—is the fact that the noble blood he inherited (the so-called -dishonor that hangs over his birth being in his case a singular honor) is -curiously like the stain of some strange color in one of his paintings; he -being the least of all men to whom there could be anything poisonous in the -exotic flowers of evil that germinated in Milan; where, as in Venice and -in Rome, moved a changeful people who, in the very midst of their -exquisite and cruel amusements, committed the most impossibly delicious -sins, and without the slightest stings of conscience. Savonarola, from -whom, in the last years of his life, Botticelli caught the contagion of -the monk's fanaticism, was then endeavoring to strip off one lovely veil -after another from the beauty of mortal things, rending them angrily; -for which, finally, he received the baptism of fire. Rodrigo Borgia—a -Spaniard born in Xàtiva—then Pope Alexander VI, was fortunate enough -to possess in his son, Cesare, a man of sinister genius—cruel, -passionate, ardent—who had the wonderful luck of persuading Leonardo -to wander with him in their wild journey over Central Italy in 1502, as his -chief engineer, and as inspector of strongholds. Not even the living -pages of Machiavelli can give us more than a glimpse of what those -conversations between two such flame-like creatures must have been; yet, -we are aware of Cesare being condemned by an evil fate, as evil as -Nero's, to be slain at the age of thirty-one, and of Leonardo, guided by -his good genius, living to the age of sixty-seven.</p> - -<p>The science of the Renaissance was divided, as it were, by a thousand -refractions of things seen and unseen; so that when Leonardo, poring -over his crucibles, desires no alchemist's achievement, but the -achievement of the impossible, his vision is concentrated into infinite -experiences, known solely to himself; exactly as when, in his retirement -in the villa of the Melzi, his imagination is stirred feverishly as he -writes detached notes, as he dashes off rapid drawings; and always not -for other men's pleasure, but simply for his own; careless, as I think -few men of genius have ever been, of anything but the moment's work, the -instant's inspiration. And, what is also certain is that Da Vinci like -Shakespeare created, ambiguously for all the rest of the world, flesh -that is flesh and not flesh, bodies that are bodies and not bodies, by -something inexplicable in their genius; something nervous, magnetic, -overwhelming; and, to such an extent, that if one chooses to call to -mind the greatest men of genius who have existed, this painter and this -dramatist must take their places beside Aeschylus and beside Balzac.</p> - -<p>Of Leonardo da Vinci, Pater has said: "Curiosity and the desire of -beauty—these are the two elementary forces in his genius; curiosity -often in conflict with the desire of beauty, but generating in union -with it, a type of subtle and curious grace." Certainly the desire of -perfection is, in Da Vinci, organic; so much so that there remains in -him always the desire, as well as the aim, of attaining nothing less -than finality, which he achieves more finally than any of the other -Italian painters; and, mixed with all these, is that mystery which is -only one part of his magic.</p> - -<p>Is all this mystery and beauty, then, only style, and acquired style? -Fortunate time, when style had become of such subtlety that it affects -us, to-day, as if it were actually a part of the soul! But was there -not, in Leonardo, a special quality, which goes some way to account for -this? Does it not happen to us, as we look at one of his mysterious -faces, to seem to distinguish, in the eyes reluctant to let out their -secret, some glimpse, not of the soul of <i>Monna Lisa</i>, nor of the -Virgin of the Rocks, but of our own retreating, elusive, not yet recognized -soul? Just so, I fancy, Leonardo may have revealed their own souls to -Luini and to Solario, and in such a way that for those men it was no -longer possible to see themselves without something of a new atmosphere -about them, the atmosphere of those which Leonardo had drawn to him out -of the wisdom of secret and eternal things. With men like Leonardo style -is, really, the soul, and their influence on others the influence of -those who have discovered a little more of the unknown, adding, as it -were, new faculties to the human soul.</p> - -<p>Raphael, I have said elsewhere, could "correct" Michelangelo, could make -Michelangelo jealous; Raphael, who said of him that he "treats the Pope -as the King of France himself would not dare to treat him," that he goes -along the streets of Rome "like an executioner;" Raphael who for the -remaining years of his life paces the same streets with that grim -artist; of Raphael, may it not be asked: who in the Vatican has not -turned away from the stanza a little weary, as one turns aside out of -streets or rooms thronged with men and women, happy, vigorous, and -strangers: and has not gone back to the Sistine Chapel, and looked at -the ceiling on which Michelangelo has painted a world that is not this -world, men and women as magnificent as our dreams, and has not replunged -into that abyss with a great sense of relief, with a supreme -satisfaction?</p> - -<p>Is this feeling of a kind of revulsion, before so many of his pictures, -really justifiable? Is it, I ask myself, reasonable to complain, as I -was obliged to complain in Rome, that his women have no strangeness in -their beauty: that they do not brood over mysteries, like <i>Monna Lisa?</i> -Might it not be equally reasonable to complain of the calm, unthinking -faces of Greek statues, in which the very disturbance of thought—not -of emotion—is blotted out, as it might be among beings too divine -for any meaner energy than that of mere existence, "ideal spectators" of -all that moves and is restless?</p> - - - - -<h4>II</h4> - - -<p>Two men of genius, in our own generation, have revealed for all time the -always inexplicable magic of Leonardo da Vinci: Walter Pater in his -prose and Dante Gabriel Rossetti in his sonnet. It is impossible not to -quote this lyrical prose.</p> - -<blockquote> -<p>The presence that thus so strangely rose beside the waters is expressive -of what in the ways of a thousand years men had come to desire. Here is -the head upon which all "the ends of the world are come," and the -eyelids are a little weary. It is a beauty wrought out from within upon -the flesh, the deposit, little cell by cell, of strange thoughts and -fantastic reveries and exquisite passions. All the thoughts and -experience of the world have been etched and moulded there in that which -they have of power to refine and make expressive the outward form, the -animalism of peace, the lust of Rome, the reverie of the Middle Ages -with its spiritual ambition and imaginative loves, the return of the -Pagan world, the sins of the Borgias. She is older than the rocks among -which she sits; like the vampire, she has been dead many times, and -learned the secrets of the grave; and has been a diver in deep seas, and -keeps their fallen day about her; and trafficked for strange webs with -Eastern merchants; and, as Leda, was the mother of Helen of Troy, and, -as Saint Anne, the mother of Mary; and all this has been to her but as -the sound of lyres and flutes, and lives only in the delicacy with which -it has moulded the changing lineaments and tinged the eyelids and the -hands.</p></blockquote> - - -<p>Rossetti, whose criticisms on poets are as direct and inevitable as his -finest verse, was always his own best critic. He who said finally: "The -life-blood of rhymed translation is this—that a good poem shall not -be turned into a bad one," was as finally right on himself, as he was on -others, in his unsurpassable revision of one of the most imaginative -sonnets ever written: "A Venetian Pastoral by Giorgione." Certainly no -poem of his shows more plainly the strength and wealth of the workman's -lavish yet studious hand. And, in this sonnet as in the one on Leonardo, -there is the absolute transfusion of a spirit that seemed incommunicable -from one master's hand to another's. Only in the Leonardo, which I shall -quote, there is none of the sovereign oppression of absolute beauty and -the nakedness of burning life that I find in the <i>Fête Champêtre.</i> For -in this divine picture the romantic spirit is born, and with it modern -art. Here we see Whistler and the Japanese: a picture content to be no -more than a picture: "an instant made eternity," a moment of color, of -atmosphere, of the noon's intense heat, of faultless circumstance. It is -a pause in music, and life itself waits, while men and women are for a -moment happy and content and without desire; these, content to be -beautiful and to be no more than a strain of music; to those others, who -are content to know only that the hour is music.</p> - -<p>Here, then, is Rossetti's version of the beauty of mysterious peace -which broods over the <i>Virgin of the Rocks.</i></p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 5em;">Mother, is this the darkness of the end,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">The Shadow of Death? and is that outer sea</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Infinite imminent Eternity?</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">And does the death-pang by man's seed sustained</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">In Time's each instant cause thy face to bend</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Its silent prayer upon the Son, while he</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Blesses the dead with his hand silently</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">To his long day which hours no more offend?</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Mother of grace, the pass is difficult,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Keen as these rocks, and the bewildered souls</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Throng it like echoes, blindly shuddering through.</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Thy name, O Lord, each spirit's voice extols,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Whose peace abides in the dark avenue</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Amid the bitterness of things occult.</span></p> - - -<p>So Leonardo, who said "that figure is not good which does not express -through its gestures the passions of its soul," becomes, more than any -painter, the painter of the soul. He has created, not only in the -<i>Gioconda</i>, a clairvoyant smile, which is the smile of mysterious -wisdom hidden in things; he has created the motion of great waters; he has -created types of beauty so exotic that they are fascinating only to -those who are drawn into the unmirrored depths of this dreamless mirror. -He invents a new form of landscape, subtle and sorcerous, and a whole -new movement for an equestrian statue; besides inventing—what did not -this miraculous man invent!—the first quite simple and natural -treatment of the Virgin and Child. So, as he was content to do nothing -as it had been done before, he creates in the <i>Gioconda</i> a new art of -portrait painting; and, in her, so disquieting, that her eyes, as they -follow you persistently, seem to ask one knows not what impenetrable and -seductive question, on which all one's happiness might depend. -Mysterious and enigmatical as she is, there is in her face none of the -melancholy—which is part of the melancholy of Venice—that -allures one's senses in a famous picture in the Accademia; where, the feast -being over, and the wine drunk, something seems to possess the woman, -setting those pensive lines about her lips, which will smile again when -she has lifted her eyelids.</p> - - - - -<h4>III</h4> - - -<p>The sinister side of Leonardo da Vinci's genius leads him to the -execution of the most prodigious caricatures ever invented; that is to -say, before the malevolent and diabolical and macabre and malignant -creations in this genre of Goya. In his <i>Caprichos</i> one sees the man's -immense arrogance, his destructive and constructive genius, his -rebellion—perhaps even more so than Leonardo's—against old -tradition; which he hated and violated. Dramatic, revolutionary, visionary -in his somber Spanish fashion, it seems to me that this—one of the -supreme forms of his art—is, in the same sense as Villon's <i>Grand -Testament</i>, his Last Testament: for in both poet and painter the nervous -magnificence seen equally in the verse and in the painting is created, -almost literally, out of their life-blood.</p> - -<p>Only, in Leonardo, visions shape themselves into strange -perversities—not the pensive perversities of Perugino—and -assume aspects of evasive horrors, of the utmost ugliness, and are -transformed into aspects of beauty and of cruelty, as the artist wanders in -the hot streets of Florence to catch glimpses of strange hair and strange -faces, as he and they follow the sun's shadow. He seizes on them, -furiously, curiously, then he refines upon them, molding them to the -fashion of his own moods; but always with that unerring sense of beauty -which he possesses supremely—beauty, often enough, in its remoteness -from actual reality. With passion he tortures them into passionate shapes; -with cruelty he makes them grimace; abnormally sensitive (as Rodin often -enough was) he is pitiless on the people he comes in contact with, -setting ironical flames that circle round them as in Dante's Inferno, -where the two most famous lovers of all time, Francesca and Paolo, -endure the painted images of the fires of hell, eternally unconsumed. -When he seeks absolute beauty there are times when it is beyond the -world that he finds it; when he seeks ignominy, it is a breath blowing -from an invisible darkness which brings it to his nerves. In evoking -singular landscapes, he invents the <i>bizarre.</i> When he is concerned -with the tragic passions of difficult souls, he drags them suddenly out of -some obscure covering, and seems, in some of his extravagances, to set -them naked before us.</p> - -<p>As it is Pater who says that inextricably mingled with those qualities -there is an element of mockery, "so that, whether in sorrow or scorn, he -caricatures Dante even," I am reminded of certain of Botticelli's -designs for Dante's <i>inferno</i>, in which I find the element of -caricature; as, for instance, when the second head grows on Dante's -shoulders, looking backward; as, in the face of Beatrice, which is -changed into a tragic mask, because in the poem she refrains from -smiling, lest the radiance of the seventh heaven, drawn into her eyes, -shall shrivel Dante into ashes.</p> - -<p>Nearest to Leonardo in the sinister quality of his genius is El Greco. I -have never forgotten his <i>Dream of Philip II</i>, in the Escurial, where -there is a painted hell that suggests the fierce material hells of -Hieronymus von Bosch: a huge fanged mouth wide open, the damned seen -writhing in that red cavern, a lake of flame awaiting those beyond, -where the king, dressed in black, kneels at the side. It is almost a -vision of madness, and as if this tormented brain of the fanatic, who -built these prison walls about himself, and shut himself living into a -tomb-like cell, and dead into a more tomb-like crypt, had wrought itself -into the painter's brain; who would have found something not uncongenial -to himself in this mountainous place of dust and gray granite, in which -every line is rigid, every color ashen, in a kind of stony immobility -more terrible than any other of the images of death.</p> - -<p>I am tempted to bring in here, by way of comparison with these two -artists, Jacques Callot, a painter of extraordinary genius, born at -Nancy, in Lorraine, in 1592; who, in many of his works, created over -again ancient dragons and devils: created them with the fury of an -invention that never rested. In his engraving of the hanged men there is -that strangeness in beauty which takes away much of the horror of the -actual thing; and in his monstrous and malignant <i>Fantasie</i>, where two -inhuman creatures—in all the splendor of caricature—grind I -know not what poison, in a wide-mouthed jar, plumed and demoniacal.</p> - -<p><i>La Tentation de Saint Antoine</i>, done in 1635, is stupendous. High -in the sky is the enormous figure of a reptile-faced Satan, who vomits out -of his mouth legions of evil spirits; he is winged with ferocious wings -that extend on both sides hugely; one of his clawed hands is chained, -the right hurls out lightning. There is Chaos in this composition; it is -imaginative in the highest degree of that satanical quality that -produces monstrosities. There are clawed creatures that swim in the air, -unicorns with stealthy glances. And, with his wonderful sense of design, -the saint is seen outside his cave, assailed by legions of naked women, -winged and wanton, shameless and shameful. And what is the aim, what is -the desire of these evil creatures? To seduce Saint Antony of the -Temptations.</p> - -<p>Another picture painted on the same subject is that of Gruneweld in the -Cologne Museum, which represents a tortured creature who has floated -sheer off the earth in his agony, his face drawn inward, as it were, -with hideous pains; near him a crew of red and green devils, crab-like, -dragon-like, who squirm and gnaw and bark and claw at him, in an obscene -whirl and fierce orgy of onslaught. Below, a strange bar of sunset and -at the side a row of dripping trees; behind, a black sky almost -crackling with color. In some of the other monstrous pictures I saw -suggestions of Beardsley; as in the child who kisses the Virgin with -thrust-out lips; in those of Meister van S. Severin, in which I found a -conception of nature as unnatural and as rigid as that of the Japanese, -but turned hideous with hard German reality, as in the terrifying dolls -who are meant to be gracious in the Italian manner. And in this room I -was obliged to sit in the midst of a great heat, where blood drips from -all the walls, where tormented figures writhe among bright-colored -tormentors; where there is a riot of rich cloths, gold and jewels, of -unnatural beasts, of castles and meadows, in which there is nothing -exquisite; only an unending cruelty in things. The very colors cry out -at one; they grimace at you; a crucified thief bends back over the top -of the cross in his struggles; all around monsters spawn out of every -rock and cavern and there is hell fire.</p> - -<p>To turn from these to the Cranachs in Vienna is to be in another world -of art: an art more purposely perverse, more curiously unnatural; but, -where his genius is shown at its greatest, is in an exquisite Judith -holding the head of Holofernes, which lies, open-eyed, all its red -arteries visible, painted delicately. She wears orange and red clothes, -with collars and laces, and slashed sleeves through which many rings are -seen on her fingers; she has a large red hat placed jauntily on her -head. She is all peach-blossom and soft, half-cruel sweetness with all -the wicked indifference of her long narrow eyes, the pink mouth and -dimpled chin. She is a somnambulist, and the sword she holds is scarcely -stained. There are two drops of blood on the table on which she rests -the great curled head with its open eyes; her fingers rest on the -forehead almost caressingly. She is <i>Monna Lisa</i>, become German and -bourgeoise, having certainly forgotten the mysterious secret of which -she still keeps the sign on her face.</p> - -<p>Writing in Florence on Leonardo da Vinci I used by way of comparison two -Greek marbles I had seen in London; one, the head of an old man, which is -all energy and truth—comparable only in Greek work, with the drunken -woman in Munich, and, in modern art, with <i>La Vieille Heaulmière</i> of -Rodin; the other, a woman's head, which ravishes the mind. The lips and -eyes have no expression by which one can remember them; but some -infinitely mysterious expression seems to flow through them as through -the eyes and lips of a woman's head by Leonardo. And all this reminds me -of certain unforgettable impressions; and, most of all, when in Bologna -I saw, in the Museo Civico, the spoils of Etruscan sepulchres, that -weighed on me heavily; and, at the same time, I felt an odor of death, -such as I had not even felt in Pompeii; where in so frightful a step -backward of twenty centuries, the mind reels, clutching at that somewhat -pacifying thought, for at least its momentary relief. Here were the -bodies of men and women, molded for ever in the gesture of their last -moment, and these rigid corpses are as vivid in their interrupted life -as the damp corpses in the morgue. In Bologna, as I was pursued by the -sight of the hairpins of dead women, there flashed on me this wonderful -sentence of Leonardo: "Helen, when she looked in her mirror, seeing the -withered wrinkles made in her face by old age, wept and wondered why she -had twice been carried away."</p> - -<p>But, as I walked back at night in those desolate streets—so -essentially desolate after the warmth of Naples—on my way back to the -hotel where Byron lived, before his evil genius hurried him to an early -death, I remembered these two sentences in his letters; one, when in -Florence, he returns from a picture-gallery "drunk with beauty"; one, -where, as he sees the painted face of a learned lady, he cries: "This is -the kind of face to go mad for, because it can not walk out of its frame." -There, it seems to me, that Byron, whose instinct was uncertain, has, by -instinct, in this sentence, anticipated a great saying of Whistler's. It -was one of his aims in portrait painting to establish a reasonable balance -between the man as he sits in the chair and the image of the man -reflected back to you from the canvas. "The one aim," he wrote, "of the -unsuspecting painter is to make his man 'stand out' from the -frame—never doubting that, on the contrary, he should, and in truth -absolutely does, stand within the frame—and at a distance behind it -equal to the distance at which the painter has seen it. The frame is, -indeed, the window through which the painter looks at his model, and -nothing could be more offensively inartistic than this brutal attempt to -thrust the model on the hither-side of this window!" He never proposed, -in a picture, to give you something which you could mistake for reality: -but frankly, a picture, a thing which was emphatically not nature, -because it was art; whereas, in Degas, the beauty is a part of truth, a -beauty which our eyes are too jaded to distinguish in the things about -us.</p> - -<p>In the Ambrosiane in Milan, beside two wonderful portraits, once -attributed to Leonardo, and coming near to being worthy of him, are his -grotesque drawings that are astonishing in their science, truth and -naked beauty. Each is a quite possible, but horrible and abnormal, -exaggeration of one or another part of the face, which becomes bestial -and indeed almost incredible, without ceasing to be human. It is this -terrible seriousness that renders them so dreadful: old age, vice and -disease made visible.</p> - -<p>In another room there are many of his miraculously beautiful -drawings—the loveliest drawings in the world. Note, for instance, the -delicious full face drawing of a child with an enchanting pout. The -women's faces are miracles. After these all drawings, and their method, -seem obvious. The perfect love and understanding with which he follows -the outline of a lovely cheek, or of a bestial snout; there is equal -beauty, because there is equal reverence, in each. After this the -Raphael cartoon (for the Vatican <i>School of Athens</i>) seems merely -skilful, a piece of consummate draughtsmanship; supremely adequate but -entirely without miracle.</p> - -<p>In one of Leonardo's drawings in Florence there is a small Madonna and -Child that peeps sidewise in half reassured terror, as a huge griffin with -bat-like wings—stupendous in invention—descends suddenly from -the air to snatch up a lion wandering near them. This might perhaps have -been one of his many designs for the famous <i>Medusa—Aspecta -Medusa</i>—in the Uffizi; for to quote Pater's interpretation of this -corpse-like creation, "the fascination of corruption penetrates in every -line its exquisitely finished beauty. About the dainty lines of the cheek -the bat flies unheeded. The delicate snakes seem literally to strangle each -other in terrified struggle to escape the Medusa brain. The hue which -violent death brings with it is in the features." It is enough to -compare any grotesque or evil head in the finest of Beardsley's drawings -with Leonardo's head of Judas in the Windsor Library, or with one of -those malevolent and malignant heads full of the energy of the beasts he -represents and of insane fury which he scatters over the pages of his -sketchbook, to realize that, in Beardsley, the thing drawn must remain -ugly through all the beauty of the drawing and must hurt.</p> - -<p>It hurts because he desires to hurt every one except himself, knowing, -all the time, that he was more hated than loved. Sin is to him a -diabolical beauty, not always divided against itself. Always in his work -is sin—Sin conscious of sin, of an inability to escape from itself; -transfigured often into ugliness and then transfigured from ugliness -back to beauty. Having no convictions, he can when he chooses make -patterns that assume the form of moral judgments.</p> - - - - -<h4>IV</h4> - - -<p>Leonardo da Vinci's unfinished <i>Saint Jerome</i>, in the Vatican at -Rome, is exactly like intarsia work; the ground almost black, the men and -the lion a light brown. This particular way of painting reminds me of the -intarsia work in the halls in Santo Spirito in Bergamo by Fra Damiano in -1520; done just one year after Leonardo died. Here, in this supple and -vigorous work in wood, I saw what could be done by a fine artist in the -handling of somewhat intractable material. The work was broad or minute -at will, with splendid masses and divisions of color in some designs -which seemed to represent the Deluge, sharp, clear, firmly outlined in -the patterns of streets and houses; full of rich color in the setting of -wood against wood, and at times almost as delicate as a Japanese design. -There was the head of John the Baptist laid on a stone slab, which was -like a drawing of Daumier. And, in the whole composition of the design, -with its two ovals set on each side like mirrors for the central horror, -there was perfect balance. San Acre, this superb intarsia work of Fra -Damiano, seemed a criticism on Lotto, the criticism of a thing, -comparatively humble in itself, but in itself wholly satisfying, upon -the failure of a more conspicuous endeavor, which has made its own place -in art, to satisfy certain primary demands which one may logically make -upon it.</p> - -<p>In the Jerome, as in his finished work, one sees Leonardo's undeviating -devotion to the perfect achievement of everything to which he set his -hand; and how, after a long lapse of time, in the heat of the day, he -crosses Florence to mount the scaffold, adds two or three touches to a -single figure, and returns forthwith. Never did Michelangelo paint in -such various ways as Leonardo; for, in his frescoes in the Sistine -Chapel, art ceases to approach one directly, through this sense or that, -through color, or some fancied outlook of the soul; only, one seems to -be of the same vivid and eternal world as these meditative and joyous -beings, joyous even in hell, where the rapture of their torment broods -in eyes and limbs with the same energy as the rapture of God in -creation, of the women in disobedience.</p> - -<p>Certainly, however, in the Jerome there is a glimpse of background in -which I find already the suggestion of the magical rocks of the <i>Virgin</i> -and of <i>Monna Lisa</i>; only it is sketched in green, and in it there are -gaunt brown rocks, which seem to open on another glimpse in yellow. All -of the outline is gaunt, both the saint and his rocky cave; only not the -lion, who is the most ample and living beast I have ever seen attendant -on any Jerome. All the lines are outlined; the painful but not grotesque -anatomy of the saint and of the sharp angles of the rocks, are painted -in dim, almost uniform, tones. Is the picture rhetorical, like the other -Saint Jeromes, or does it in some subtle fashion escape? It seems to me -to escape, retaining only the inevitable violence of gesture and the -agony of emotion in body and face; together with an immense dignity, -loneliness and obscure suffering.</p> - -<p>Leonardo, who was in Venice in 1500, certainly must have seen Titian's -early <i>Annunciation</i> in the Scuola di San Rocco; which is a rebuke to -Tintoretto's explosive <i>Crucifixion.</i> Before this picture it struck me -that Tintoretto is the Zola of painting. Here, in this immense drama of -paint, is a drama in which the central emotion is lacking; Christ is no -more than the robber who is being nailed to the cross or the robber -whose cross is being hoisted. Every part of the huge and bustling scene -has equal interest, equal intensity; and it is all an interest and -intensity of execution—which in its way is stupendous. But there is -no awe, no religious sense. The beauty of detail is enormous, the energy -overwhelming; but there is no nobility, no subtlety; it is a tumultuous -scene painted to cover a wall.</p> - -<p>In the Old Pinakothek in Munich the finest piece of paint in the Gallery -is the <i>Scourging of Christ</i> by Titian. The modern point of view, -indeed most modern art, has come out of it—equally in Watts and in -Monticelli and in the Impressionists. We see Titian breaking the achieved -rules, at the age of ninety, inventing an art absolutely new, a new way, a more -immediate way of rendering what he sees, with all that moving beauty of -life in action: lights, colors, and not forms merely, all in movement. -The depth and splendor of a moment are caught, with all the beauty of -every accident in which color comes or changes, and in the space of a -moment. Color is no longer set against color, each for itself, with its -own calm beauty; but each tone rushes with exquisite violence into the -embrace of another tone; there are fierce adulteries of color unheard of -till now. And a new, adorable, complete thing is born, which is to give -life to all the painting that is to come after it It seems as if paint -at last had thoroughly mastered its own language.</p> - -<p>I have always believed that Giorgione, born in 1478, one year before the -birth of Titian, played in the development of Venetian Art a part -exactly the same as that played by Marlowe, born in the same year as -Shakespeare, in the history of tragic Drama. Shakespeare never forgot -Marlowe, Titian never forgot Giorgione; only the influence of his -predecessor on Shakespeare was a passing one; that of Giorgione on -Titian was, until he finally escaped from his influence, immense. It is -from Andrea del Verrocchio that Leonardo begins to learn the art of -painting; soon surpasses him; but, as Pater supposes, catches from him -his love of beautiful toys. Giorgione possesses perfection without -excess; Leonardo's absolute perfection often leads him into passionate -excesses. He adored hair; and certainly hair, mostly women's hair, is -the most mysterious of human things. No one ever experimented in more -amazing ways than he did; but his experiment in attempting to invent a -medium of using oils in the painting of frescoes failed him in what might -have been his masterpiece, <i>The Last Supper</i>, painted on the damp -wall of the refectory, oozing with mineral salts, of the Chaedo Vinciano -in Milan. One looks at it as through a veil, which Time seems to have -drawn over it, even when it is most cracked and chipped. Or it is as if -it had soaked inward, the plaster sullenly absorbing all the color and -all but the life. It is one of the few absolute things in the world, -still; here, for once, a painter who is the subtlest of painters has -done a great, objective thing, a thing in the grand style, supreme, and -yet with no loss of subtlety. It is in a sense the measure of his -greatness. It proves that the painter of <i>Monna Lisa</i> means the power -to do anything.</p> - - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - -<h4><a id="Impressionistic_Writing">IMPRESSIONISTIC WRITING</a></h4> - - -<p>Impressionistic writing requires the union of several qualities; and to -possess all these qualities except one, no matter which, is to fail in -impressionistic writing. The first thing is to see, and with an eye -which sees all, and as if one's only business were to see; and then to -write, from a selecting memory, and as if one's only business were to -write. It is the interesting heresy of a particular kind of art to seek -truth before beauty; but in an impressionistic art concerned, as the art -of painting is, with the revelation, the re-creation, of a colored and -harmonious world, which (they tell us) owes its very existence to the -eyes which see it, truth is a quality which can be attained only by him -who seeks beauty before truth. The truth impressionist may be imagined -as saying: "Suppose I wish to give you an impression of the Luxembourg -Gardens, as I see them when I look out of my window, will it help to -call up in your mind the impression of those glimmering alleys and the -naked darkness of the trees, if I begin by telling you that I can count -seven cabs, half another at one end, and a horse's head at the other, in -the space between the corner of the Odéon and the houses on the -opposite side of the street; that there are four trees and three -lamp-posts on the pavement; and that I can read the words 'Chocolat -Menier,' in white letters, on a blue ground, upon the circular black -kiosk by the side of the second lamppost? I see those things, no doubt, -unconsciously, before my eye travels as far as the railings of the -garden; but are they any essential part of my memory of the scene -afterward?"</p> - -<p>I have turned over page after page of clever, ingenious summarizing of -separate detail in a certain book, but I have found nowhere a page of -pure beauty; all is broken, jagged, troubled, in this restless search -after the broken and jagged outlines of things. It is all little bits of -the world seen without atmosphere, and, in spite of many passages which -endeavor to draw a moral from clouds, gas, flowers and darkness, seen -without sentiment. When the writer describes to us "the old gold and -scarlet of hanging meat; the metallic green of mature cabbages; the -wavering russet of piled potatoes; the sharp white of fly-bills, pasted -all awry;" we can not doubt that he has seen exactly what he describes, -exactly as he describes it, and, to a certain extent, we too see what he -describes to us. But he does not, as Huysmans does in the <i>Croquis -Parisiens</i>, absolutely force the sight of it upon us, so that we see it, -perhaps with horror, but in spite of ourselves we see it. Nor does he, -when some vague encounter on the road has called up in him a "sense of -the ruthless nullity of life, of the futile deception of effort, of -bitter revolt against the extinction of death, a yearning after faith in -a vague survival beyond," convey to us the impression which he has felt -in such a way that we, too, feel it, and feel it to be the revelation of -the inner meaning of just that landscape, just that significant moment. -He has but painted a landscape, set an inexpressive figure in the -background, and ticketed the frame with a motto which has nothing to do -with the composition.</p> - -<p>In this book the writer has not, it seems to me, succeeded in his -intention; but I have a further fault to find with the intention itself. -It is one of the discreditable signs of the haste and heedlessness of -our time that artists are coming to content themselves, more and more, -with but sketching out their pictures, instead of devoting themselves to -the patient labor of painting them; and that they are anxious to invent -an excuse for their idleness by proclaiming the superiority of the -unfinished, instinctive first draught over the elaborated, scarcely -spontaneous work of finished art. A fine composition may, in the most -subtle and delicate sense, be slight: a picture of Whistler, for -example, a poem of Verlaine. To be slight, as Whistler, as Verlaine, is -slight, is to have refined away, by a process of ardent, often of -arduous, craftsmanship, all but what is most essential in outward form, -in intellectual substance. It is because a painter, a poet of this kind, -is able to fill every line, every word, with so intense a life, that he -can afford to dispense with that amplification, that reiterance, which -an artist of less passionate vitality must needs expend upon the -substance of his art. But it is so easy to be brief without being -concise; to leave one's work unfinished, simply because one has not the -energy to finish it! This book, like most experiments in writing prose -as if one were writing sonnets, is but a collection of notes, whose only -value is that they may some day be worked into the substance of a story -or an essay. It has not yet been proved—in spite of the many -interesting attempts which have been made, chiefly in France, in spite of -<i>Gaspard de la Nuit</i>, Baudelaire's <i>Petits Poèmes en Prose</i>, and -Mallarmé's jeweled fragments—that prose can, quite legitimately, be -written in this detached, poetic way, as if one were writing sonnets. It -seems to me that prose, just because it is prose, and not poetry—an art -of vaguer, more indeterminate form, of more wandering cadences—can -never restrict itself within those limits which give the precision of -its charm to verse, without losing charm, precision, and all the finer -qualities of its own freedom.</p> - -<p>In France, as in England, there are two kinds of poetical reputation, -and in France these two kinds may be defined as the reputation of the -Latin Quarter and the reputation of the boulevards. In England a writer -like Francis Thompson was, after all, known to only a very narrow -circle, even though many, in that circle, looked on him as the most -really poetical poet of his generation. In France, Vielé-Griffin is -greatly admired by the younger men, quite as much, perhaps, as De -Régnier, but he is not read by the larger outside public which has, at -all events, heard of De Régnier. These fine shades of reputation are -not easily recognized by the foreigner; they have, indeed, nothing to do -with the question of actual merit; but they have, all the same, their -interest, if only as an indication of the condition and tendency of -public opinion.</p> - -<p>If we go further, and try to compare the actual merit of the younger -French and English poets, we shall find some difficulty in coming to any -very definite conclusion. To certain enthusiasts for exotic things, it -has seemed as if the mere fact of a poem being written in French gives -it an interest which it could not have had if it had been written in -English. When the poem was written by Verlaine or by Mallarmé, yes; but -now that Verlaine and Mallarmé are gone? Well, there is still something -which gives, or seems to give, French verse an advantage over English. -The movement which began with Baudelaire, and culminated in Verlaine, -has provided, for every young man who is now writing French verse, a -very helpful kind of tradition, which leaves him singularly free within -certain definite artistic limits. It shows him, not a fixed model, but -the suggestion of innumerable ways in which to be himself. All modern -French verse is an attempt to speak straight, and at the same time to -speak beautifully. "<i>L'art, mes enfants, c'est d'être absolument -soi-même,</i>" said Verlaine, and all these poets who are writing vers -libre, and even those who are not writing <i>vers libre</i>, are content to -be absolutely themselves, and to leave externalities perhaps even too -much alone. What we see in England is exactly the contrary. We have had -our traditions, and we have worn them out, without discovering a new -form for ourselves. When we try to be personal in verse, the personal -emotion has to mold anew every means of expression, every time; and it -is rarely that we succeed in so difficult a task. For the most part we -write poems for the sake of writing poems, choosing something outside -ourselves to write about, and bringing it into permanent relation with -ourselves. Our English verse-writers offer us a ballad, a sonnet, an -eclogue; and it is a flower without a root, springing from no deep soil -in the soul. The verse is sometimes excellent verse, but it is not a -personal utterance; it is not a mood of a temperament, but something -outside a temperament. In France, it is true, we often get the -temperament and nothing else. And, in France, all these temperaments -seem stationary; they neither change nor develop; they remain -self-centered, and in time we become weary of seeing their pale -reflections of themselves. Here, we become weary of poets who see -everything in the world but themselves, and who have no personal hold -upon the universe without. Between the too narrowly personal and a too -generalized impersonality, there remains, in France and in England, a -little exquisite work, which is poetry. Is it important, or even -possible, to decide whether there is a little more of it to be found in -the books of English or of French poets?</p> - - - - -<hr class="r5" /> - - -<h4><a id="Paradoxes_on_Poets">PARADOXES ON POETS</a></h4> - - -<p>The great period of English poetry begins half-way through the sixteenth -century, and lasts half-way into the seventeenth. In the poetry strictly -of the sixteenth century, before the drama had absorbed poetry into the -substance of its many energies, verse is used as speech, and becomes -song by way of speech. It was the age of youth, and rejoiced, as youth -does, in scarcely tried strength and in the choice of adventure. And it -was an adventure to write. Soldiers and voyagers, Sidney, Raleigh, led -the way as on horses and in ships. It is Raleigh, in the preface to a -deeply meditated "History of the World," who speaks gallantly of -"leisure to have made myself a fool in print." New worlds had been found -beyond the sea, and were to be had for the finding in all the regions of -the mind. There were buried worlds of the mind which had lately been dug -up, lands had been newly colonized, in Italy and in France; à kind of -second nature, it seemed to men in those days, which might be used not -less freely than nature itself. And, just as the Renaissance in Italy -was a new discovery of the mind, through a return to what had been found -out in antiquity and buried during the Middle Ages, so, in England, -poetry came to a consciousness of itself by way of what had already been -discovered by poets like Petrarch and Ronsard, and even their later apes -and mimics, Serafino or Desportes, among those spoils. Poetry had to be -reawakened, and these were the messengers of dawn. Once awakened, the -English tongue could but sing, for a while, to borrowed tunes; yet it -sang with its own voice, and the personal accent brought a new quality -into the song. Song-writers and sonnet-writers, when they happened to be -poets, found out themselves by the way, and not least when they thought -they were doing honor to a foreign ideal.</p> - -<p>And it was an age of music. Music, too, had come from Italy, and had -found for once a home there. Music, singing and dancing made then, and -then only, the "merry England" of the phrase. And the words, growing out -of the same soil as the tunes, took equal root. Campion sums up for us a -whole period, and the song-books have preserved for us names, but for -them unknown, of perfect craftsmen in the two arts. Every man, by the -mere feeling and fashion of the time, took care</p> - - -<p><span style="margin-left: 15em;">to write</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Worthy the reading and the world's delight.</span></p> - - -<p>It was an age of personal utterance; and men spoke frankly, without -restraint, too nice choosing, or any of the timidities or exaggerations -of self-consciousness. The personal utterance might take any form; -whether Fulke Greville wrote "treatises" on the mind of man, or Drayton -pried into the family affairs of the fairies, or Samuel Daniel thought -out sonnets to Delia, or Lodge wantoned in cadences and caprices of the -senses. It might seem but to pass on an alien message, in as literal a -translation as it could compass of a French or Italian poem. In the hand -of a poet two things came into the version: magic, and the personal -utterance, if in no other way, through the medium of style.</p> - -<p>Style, to the poets of the sixteenth century, was much of what went to -the making of that broad simplicity, that magnificently obvious -eloquence, which seems to us now to have the universal quality of the -greatest poetry. The poets of the nineteenth century are no nearer to -nature, though they seem more individual because they have made an art -of extracting rare emotions, and because they take themselves to pieces -more cunningly. Drayton's great sonnet is the epilogue, and Spenser's -great poem the epithalamium, for all lovers; but it needs another -Shelley to find out love in the labyrinth of "Epipsychidion." All that -is greatest in the poetry of the sixteenth century is open to all the -world, like a wood, or Arcadia, in which no road is fenced with -prohibitions, and the flowers are all for the picking.</p> - -<p>And when, in the nineteenth century, poetry began again, it was to the -poets of the sixteenth century that the new poets looked back, finding -the pattern there for what they were making over again for themselves. A -few snatches from Elizabethan song-books were enough to direct the first -awakenings of song in Blake; Wordsworth found his gnomic and rational -style, as of a lofty prose, in Samuel Daniel; Keats rifled the best -sweets of Lodge's orchard; and Shelley found in the elegies of Michael -Drayton the model of his incomparable style of familiar speech in verse, -the style of the <i>Letter to Maris Gisborne.</i> Every reader of modern -verse will find something contemporary in even the oldest of these -poems; partly because modern verse is directly founded on this verse of -the sixteenth century, and partly because the greatest poetry is -contemporary with all ages.</p> - -<p>Byron is to be judged by the whole mountainous mass of his world and not -by any fragment of colored or glittering spar which one's pick may have -extricated from the precipitous hillside. His world is a kind of natural -formation, high enough to climb, and wide enough to walk On. There is -hard climbing and heavy walking, but, once there, the air braces and the -view is wide.</p> - -<p>In making a selection from this large and uneven mass of poetry, it is -difficult to do justice to a writer who was almost never a really good -writer of verse, except in a form of what he rightly defined as -"nondescript and ever-varying rhyme." The seriocomic ottava rima of <i>Don -Juan</i> and <i>The Vision of Judgment</i> is the only meter which Byron -ever completely mastered; and it is only in those unique poems, in which -Goethe detected, for the first time in modern poetry, a "classically -elegant comic style," that Byron is wholly able to express the new -quality which he brought into English literature in a wholly personal, -or at all satisfying, way. From the first he was a new force, but a -force unconscious of direction, with all the uncouthness of nature in -convulsions. He had a strong, direct, and passionate personality, but we -find him, even in the better parts of <i>Childe Harold</i>, putting -rhetoric in the place of that simplicity which he was afterward to discover -by accident, as in jest; we find him, throughout almost the whole of the -poetical romances, a mere masquerader in Eastern frippery, which is -scarcely the better because it happened to have been bought on the spot; -we find him, in his serious reflections, either quite sensible and quite -obvious, or, as in addresses to the ocean, and the like, straining on -tiptoe toward heights that can only be reached by wings. His lyric verse -was always without magic, and only now and then, and chiefly in the -lines beginning "When we two parted," was he able to turn speech into a -kind of emphatic and intense chant, into which poetry comes as a kind of -momentary suspension of the emphasis. His rendering of actual sensation, -as in parts of <i>Mazeppa</i>, is the nearest approach to poetry which he -made in those poems which were supposed to be the very voice of passion. -Everything that he wrote in blank verse, and consequently the whole of -the plays, is vitiated by his incapacity to handle that meter, or indeed -to distinguish it, in any vital or audible way, from prose. Now and -again personal feeling flung off the ill-fitting and constraining -clothes of rhetoric, and stood up naked; sentiments of resentment, -against his wife, or against the world, or against himself, made poetry -sometimes. Then, as it was to be under other conditions in the later -work, his flame is the burning of much dross: excellent food for -flames.</p> - -<p>And yet, out of all this writing which is hardly literature, this poetry -which is hardly verse, there comes, even to the reader of to-day, for -whom "the grand Napoleon of the realms of rhyme" is as dead and buried -as Napoleon, some inexplicable thrill, appeal, potency; Byron still -lives, and we shall never cease to read almost his worst work, because -some warmth of his life comes through it. Almost everything that he -wrote was written for relief, and its effect on us is due to something -never actually said in it; it is a kind of wild dramatic speech of some -person in a play, whose words become weighty, tragic and pathetic -because of the fierce light thrown upon them by a significant character -and by transfiguring circumstances.</p> - -<p>When Byron wrote to Murray, "You might as well want a midnight all stats -as rhyme all perfect," he was theorizing over his own failure to achieve -sustained excellence on any one level Luckily he carried the theory, in -his own downright way, into practise, and, in the "versified Aurora -Borealis" of the great comic poems, the defect turns into a quality, and -creates what is really a new poetical form. Byron is a heroical Buffoon, -the great jester of English poetry; and he is this because he is the -only English poet who is wholly buoyant, arrogant and irresponsible. "I -never know the word which will come next," he boasts, in <i>Don Juan</i>, -and for once, improvisation becomes a means to an end, almost an end in -itself. It is in the comic verse, strangely enough, that the first real -mastery over form shows itself: a genius for rhyme which becomes a new -music and decoration, as of cap and bells on the head of sober marching -verse, and a genius for plain statement which leaves prose behind in -mere fighting force, and glorifies fighting force with a divine natural -illumination.</p> - - - - -<h4>THE END</h4> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Dramatis Personae, by Arthur Symons - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DRAMATIS PERSONAE *** - -***** This file should be named 62270-h.htm or 62270-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/2/2/7/62270/ - -Produced by Laura Natal Rodrigues at Free Literature (Images -generously made available by Hathi Trust.) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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