_From the Lady_ HELEN POLE _to the Countess of_ EDGE _and_ ROSS.
_Boulder Lake_,
July 17th
_Dear Polly_:
This afternoon I went over to Mrs. Laurence’s “camp” for tea. She wrote
me the most graceful little note with two witticisms in it, and as I
had no excuse to offer, I went. Agatha and Bertie were also invited but
A. had a headache and B. went fishing, saying the most uncomplimentary
things about teas. Mr. Rogers and Mr. Nugent, who went with him,
attempted no defence.
Mrs. Laurence has quite the most attractive camp. It is exactly like
a doll’s house, tiny but perfect, with two verandas, and it is full
of dainty crétonnes and frills and bric-à-brac that no one could have
selected but herself. She writes every morning in a doll’s study,
fitted up much like a boudoir, in blue the exact shade of her eyes;
but in the afternoon she is always rustling about, and you hear her
petulant voice and swishing skirts, with only short intervals of relief
till bed-time.
She received us in a little clearing between the leafy maples on the
right of her camp, and wore the most fetching gown of grass green lawn
with a flopping white leghorn trimmed with green feathers. The others
were all in the most charming white and flowered muslins and I was
glad I had put on a soft white mull myself--Henriette has made me some
charming hot weather frocks since we came--and by chance I too have a
white leghorn, which I wore. It was trimmed with blue flowers, and my
frock with blue ribbons. I did not look as original as Mrs. Laurence
but--now I am going to say something nasty--I can stand a strong light
and she cannot. To tell you the truth most of these women look rather
passée in the sun. Their skins are so very thin and delicate that they
line quickly, and so many of them have grey in their hair. However,
they made a very charming picture under the trees and I must say for
them that they appear to get on together delightfully.
They all greeted me with the utmost cordiality, but Mrs. Laurence rose
from behind the tea table and offered me her cold hand with rather a
forced smile.
“Please forgive me, dear Lady Helen, if I am thoroughly unamiable for a
few moments,” she pouted. “But I have been _so_ annoyed.” She swept her
hand dramatically in the direction of a newspaper which evidently had
been flung into the bushes. I recognised the New York ----.[A]
“_That_ has a picture of me, a large libellous photograph, procured,
heaven knows how, certainly not from a friend! _Why_ should they use my
picture? _Why_ should they mention my name? What possible interest can
their readers--their million vulgar sensational readers--take in _me_?
I don’t suppose they ever heard my name before. It _is_ hard when you
have striven to belong to the aristocracy of letters to be flung into a
cowshed.”
I could not resist the temptation, although I trembled at my temerity:
“I read the ----[A] every morning,” I said. “Now, had I not met you, I
should have been quite keen on seeing your picture.”
“How sweet of you--but--Lady Helen--you don’t read the ----.[A] You
surely don’t take it?”
I nodded, perfectly delighted at the twelve expressions of shocked
amazement. “How is a stranger to master all your subtle distinctions at
once? It seems to me very jolly and interesting. My brother is quite
devoted to it.”
“Well, I don’t suppose it will do you any actual harm,” said Mrs.
Hammond, with an anxious expression, “but I assure you that if you were
an American you never would admit that you read it--would not, indeed,
have the least desire to read it--and I should really rejoice if you
would reprove them by writing and withdrawing your subscription.”
“Oh, I couldn’t think of doing that,” I said lightly. “My brother and I
are studying your country, and you have nothing more representative.”
“Representative?” Those carefully modulated voices were quite shrill.
I was in misery and my knees were shaking, but I determined to stand my
ground.
“Do not you call a newspaper that a million people read every day,
representative?” I answered. “What is it if not representative?”
“Of a certain class--yes,” said Mrs. Chenoweth disgustedly. “But what a
class!”
“A million people are not to be despised anywhere.” I longed to ask
Mrs. Laurence if she would prohibit--if she could--the ----’s[A]
million readers from buying her books, but I didn’t dare. I changed the
subject instead by asking for a cup of tea.
But that conversation was nothing to one I took part in later.
I have not told you of Miss Shephard, for she did not come up with
the others. She is the editor of a literary monthly magazine, issued
by Mr. Rogers’ publishing house. It is charmingly got up and quite a
smart readable affair, but, Bertie and I had agreed, rather light and
vague in criticism--although very pretentious--as compared with our
literary weeklies; in fact, not to be taken seriously as criticism
at all. The half dozen numbers Mr. Rogers sent us left no impression
on my mind whatever beyond a great many pages of clever writing by
people who fancied their own opinions mightily. But when Mrs. Hammond
told me that Miss Shephard was expected, she added that she was the
brilliant editor of The ----,[A] and that probably no one living had a
more exact knowledge of what constituted literature, including matter,
form, style and perfect English than Miss Shephard. I cannot say that I
was very keen to meet her, I am so tired of perfection, but when I saw
her I was rather interested, for she does not appear to be more than
one--or two-and-thirty. When I expressed some surprise at the position
accorded her, I was assured that she had “genius” for criticism, and
had, moreover, enjoyed the rare advantage of being the daughter of a
Harvard professor and scholar who had been intimate with all the great
literary lights of his time. She is a tall thin girl with dark hair,
mal coiffée, thoughtful grey eyes, a _very_ refined nose and a thin
ascetic mouth. Her skin looks worn, and there is an affected--so it
strikes me--severity about her dress. But she has a thin sweet voice,
and a very nice, if too serene, manner.
She did not sit near me during the tea, which was quite lively.
Mrs. Laurence was brilliant as usual and moved about a good deal,
particularly after Mr. Rolfs “dropped in” unexpectedly and some of his
admirers showed a disposition to hang upon the words which a large
piece of cake made even more weighty. Finally he did talk--to make
her more jealous, I think--and gave them quite a lecture on celestial
botany, as it were. Mrs. Laurence could only get the better of him by
capping his melodious paragraphs with scintillating epigrams, which
annoyed him excessively. I sincerely wish they would murder each other.
Finally I became so bored that I wandered down to the edge of the lake,
and in a moment Miss Shephard joined me.
“Like all great writers,” she said apologetically, “he puts his best
in his books, and sometimes lacks magnetism and fresh thought in
talking.”
For some reason Miss S. antagonises me. Perhaps it is a certain air of
omniscience, the result of being a factor in the destinies of so many
great and brilliant authors. So I answered with some pleasure:
“I think Mr. Rolfs’ books as dull as his speech. He has his points,
but he is not a _born_ author, therefore you see the little glittering
implements and smell the oil all the time, and of course his stories do
not _go_.”
“There is some truth in what you say,” she answered sweetly, “but then
don’t you think that a man with so great and beautiful a mind should be
above being a good story-teller?”
“Shakespeare was not.”
“True, dear Lady Helen, but I need not remind you that we are in
neither the times nor the country of Shakespeare. Have you observed
how non-imitative, how independent we are? There was a time, of
course, when American writers slavishly imitated, and in consequence
burlesqued, English literature; the only exceptions were Hawthorne and
Poe, and, later, Mark Twain and Bret Harte; but the literature of the
last twenty years, which includes so many illustrious names--surely
there never has been anything like it in the world.”
“There never has! I suppose I am old-fashioned but it wearies and
irritates me--I do not wish to be rude--but--really--I like to read
about men and women with human passions.”
“Oh, a discussion without frankness is a poor affair. I am sure that
yours is merely a first impression and that our literature will
fascinate you in time. Will you permit me a brief explanation? It is
our object to produce a literature which shall demonstrate in what
ways we are different from all other nations--those differences,
peculiarities and so forth which our new and in all things unique
country has evolved. Why should we demonstrate--and encourage--the worn
out passions that are common to all countries? The refined of ours
prefer to forget that such things exist. All well-brought up American
girls are taught to ignore this lamentable side of human nature, and
never voluntarily to think of it. Without boasting I think I can say
that this is the most _refined_ country the world has ever known, and
that our literature proves it.”
“But occasionally you develop an author of irrepressible virility who
gives the world to understand that a certain percentage at least of the
United States are very much like the old accepted idea of human nature.”
“They do not count,” she said emphatically, “because we will not admit
them to the ranks of literature, and they _must_ go to the wall in
time. The literary pages of the high-class newspapers, and the weekly
and monthly bulletins never paragraph them, never refer to them, except
in the reviews which advertising exigencies compel. Then we kill them
by sneers, not abuse--which always excites a lamentable current in
human nature. They are quietly brushed aside, and the real jewels of
American literature forced into even greater prominence.”
“Suppose one of these outsiders equals the elect in literary quality?”
“He cannot, because matter and manner are really one. They are too
_strong_, too bold and unpleasant, therefore they shatter and deface
that fine exquisite thing called style.”
“Your style. Cannot you conceive the possibility of any other standard
being as correct?”
“Certainly not. It is a subject to which we have given years of earnest
and analytical thought.”
“What of the very different standards of England, France, Germany,
Russia? The novels of all countries seem to be issued by your American
firms--and, presumably, read.”
“Oh, we are quite willing that each country should have its own
standard. Those old states, indeed, could not imitate us, for they
have not the same material. Therefore when a successful European
novel treats of things that no well-bred American will discuss, we
are generous enough not to be hyper-critical of a race which differs
from us in every particular. The older nations are naturally coarse,
and allowance should be made for them. But there is not one of our
elected authors who would dare or care to treat a subject in the same
way. And why _should_ he deal with nasty passion? He has the brilliant
kaleidoscopic surface of American life to treat.”
“And you cannot conceive of a day when the standard will change?”
“Certainly not.”
“The minority of one generation is usually the majority of the next,”
I said, now warmed to the theme. “Your people of the world--and I know
that you have that class--have chosen as their favourites the very
authors you have tabooed, and whose works do not reach, I am told, the
great public you instruct. As these few authors set their faces against
emasculation they offend your aristocratic middle-class, and as they
are not erotic your unspeakable sub-stratum will have none of them; but
they deal truthfully with that world which those of your country who
have enjoyed superior advantages can stand reading about.”
I had hit her at last. She coloured and drew herself up. “I do not
understand your term ‘aristocratic middle-class,’” she said icily.
“And I can only assert definitely that we who give our brains and time
and culture to the subject are setting and maintaining a standard that
always will prevail.”
I turned to go and say good-bye to Mrs. Laurence, but I could not
forbear a parting shot. I waved my hand at the company.
“I wonder they marry,” I said. “And I think it positively indecent of
them to have children.”