A MUSICAL BAR.
When Turple the magnificent, looking uneasy, brought up Frank Maddox's
card, Lillie uttered a cry of surprise and pleasure. Frank Maddox was a
magic name to her as to all the elect of the world of sweetness and
light. After a moment of nervous anxiety lest it should not be _the_
Frank Maddox, her fears were dispelled by the entry of the great
authority on art and music, whose face was familiar to her from
frontispiece portraits. Few critics possessed such charms of style and
feature as Frank Maddox, who had a delicious _retroussé_ nose, a dainty
rosebud mouth, blue eyes, and a wealth of golden hair.
Lillie's best hopes were confirmed. The famous critic wished to become
an Old Maid. The President and the new and promising candidate had a
delightful chat over a cup of tea and the prospects of the Club. The two
girls speedily became friends.
"But if you join us, hadn't you better go back to your maiden name?"
inquired Lillie.
"Perhaps so," said Frank Maddox thoughtfully. "My pen-name does sound
odd under the peculiar circumstances. On the other hand to revert to
Laura Spragg now might be indiscreet. People would couple my name with
Frank Maddox's--you know the way of the world. The gossips get their
facts so distorted, and I couldn't even deny the connection."
"But of course you _have_ had your romance?" asked Lillie. "You know one
romance per head is our charge for admission?"
"Oh, yes! I have had my romance. In three vols. Shall I tell it you?"
"If you please."
"Listen, then. Volume the First: Frank Maddox is in her study. Outside
the sun is setting in furrows of gold-laced sagging storm-clouds, dun
and----"
"Oh, please, I always skip that," laughed Lillie. "I know that two
lovers cannot walk in a lane without the author seeing the sunset, which
is the last thing in the world the lovers see. But when the sky begins
to look black, I always begin to skip."
"Forgive me. I didn't mean to do it. Remember I'm an habitual
art-critic. I thought I was describing a harmony of Whistler's or a
movement from a sonata. It shall not occur again. To the heroine enter
the hero--shabby, close-cropped, pale. Their eyes meet. He is
thunderstruck to find the heroine a woman; blushes, stammers, and offers
to go away. Struck by something of innate refinement in his manner, she
presses him to avow the object of his visit. At last, in dignified
language, infinitely touching in its reticence, he confesses he called
on Mr. Frank Maddox, the writer he admires so much, to ask a little
pecuniary help. He is starving. Original, isn't it, to have your hero
hungry in the first chapter? He speaks vaguely of having ambitions
which, unless he goes under in the struggle for existence may some day
be realized. There are so many men in London like that. However, the
heroine is moved by his destitute condition and sitting down to her
desk, she writes out a note, folds it up and gives it to him. 'There!'
she says, 'there's a prescription against starvation.' 'But how am I to
take it?' he asked. 'It must be taken before breakfast, the first thing
in the morning,' she replied, 'to the editor of the _Moon_. Give him the
note; he will change it for you. Don't mention my name.'
[Illustration: "_There's a prescription against starvation._"]
"He thanked me and withdrew."
"And what was in the note?" asked Lillie curiously.
"I can't quite remember. But something of this sort. 'The numerous
admirers of Frank Maddox will be gratified to hear that she has in the
press a volume of essays on the part played by color-blindness in the
symphonic movements of the time. The great critic is still in town but
leaves for Torquay next Tuesday.' For that the editor of the _Moon_ gave
him half-a-crown."
"Do you call that charity?" said Lillie, astonished.
"Certainly. Charity begins at home. Do many people give charity except
to advertise themselves? Philanthropy by paragraph is a perquisite of
fame. Why, I have a pensioner who comes in for all my _Acadæum_
paragraphs. That _Moon_ part saved our hero from starvation. Years
afterwards I learnt he had frittered away two-pence in having his hair
cut."
"It seems strange for a starving man to get his hair cut," said Lillie.
"Not when you know the cause," replied Frank Maddox. "It was his way of
disguising himself. And this brings me to Volume Two. The years pass.
Once again I am in my study. There is a breath of wind among the elms in
the front garden, and the sky is strewn with vaporous sprays of
apple-blossom----I beg your pardon. Re-enter the hero, spruce,
frock-coated, dignified. He recalls himself to my memory--but I remember
him only too well. He tells me that my half-crown saved him at the
turning-point of his career, that he has now achieved fame and gold,
that he loves my writing more passionately than ever, and that he has
come to ask me to crown his life. The whole thing is so romantic that I
am about to whisper 'yes' when an instinct of common sense comes to my
aid and my half-opened lips murmur instead: 'But the name you sent
up--Horace Paul--it is not known to me. You say you have won fame. I, at
least, have never heard of you.'
"'Of course not,' he replies. 'How should you? If I were Horace Paul you
would not marry me; just as I should certainly not marry you if you were
Frank Maddox. But what of Paul Horace?'"
"Paul Horace," cried Lillie. "The great composer!"
"That is just what I exclaimed. And my hero answers: 'The composer,
great or little. None but a few intimates connect me with him. The
change of name is too simple. I always had a longing--call it morbid if
you will--for obscurity in the midst of renown. I have weekly harvests
of hair to escape any suspicion of musical attainments. But you and I,
dearest--think of what our life will be enriched by our common love of
the noblest of the arts. Outside, the marigolds nod to the violets, the
sapphire--excuse me, I mean to say----' thus he rambled on, growing in
enthusiasm with every ardent phrase, the while a deadly coldness was
fastening round my heart. For I felt that it could not be."
"And why?" inquired Lillie in astonishment. "It seems one of the
marriages made in heaven."
"I dared not tell him why; and I can only tell you on condition you
promise to keep my secret."
"I promise."
"Listen," whispered the great critic. "I know nothing about music or
art, and I was afraid he would find me out."
Lillie fell back in her chair, white and trembling. Another idol
shivered! "But how----?" she gasped.
"There, then, don't take on so," said the great critic kindly. "I did
not think you, too, were such an admirer of mine, else I might have
spared you the shock. You ask how it is done. Well, I didn't set out to
criticise. I can at least plead that in extenuation. My nature is not
wilfully perverse. There was a time when I was as pure and above
criticism as yourself." She paused and furtively wiped away a tear, then
resumed more calmly, "I drifted into it. For years I toiled on, without
ever a thought of musical and art criticism sullying my maiden
meditations. My downfall was gradual. In early maidenhood I earnt my
living as a type-writer. I had always had literary yearnings, but the
hard facts of life allowed me only this rough approximation to my ideal.
Accident brought excellent literature to my machine, and it required all
my native honesty not to steal the plots of the novelists and the good
things of the playwrights. The latter was the harder temptation to
resist, for when the play was good enough to be worth stealing from, I
knew it would never be produced and my crime never discovered. Still in
spite of my honesty, I benefited indirectly by my type-writing, for
contact with so much admirable work fostered the graceful literary style
which, between you and me, is my only merit. In time I plucked up
courage to ask one of my clients, a journalist, if he could put some
newspaper work in my way. 'What can you do?' he asked in surprise.
'Anything,' I replied with maiden modesty. 'I see, that's your special
line,' he said musingly. 'Unfortunately we are full up in that
department. You see, everyone turns his hand to that--it's like
schoolmastering, the first thing people think of. It's a pity you are a
girl, because the way to journalistic distinction lies through the
position of office-boy. Office-girl sounds strange. I doubt whether they
would have you except on a Freethought organ. Our office-boy has to
sweep out the office and review the novels, else you might commence
humbly as a critic of literature. It isn't a bad post either, for he
supplements his income by picking rejected matter out of the waste paper
basket and surreptitiously lodging it in the printer's copy pigeonhole.
His income in fees from journalistic aspirants must be considerable.
Yes, had you been a boy you might have made a pretty good thing out of
literature! Then there is no chance at all for me on your paper?' I
inquired desperately. 'None,' he said sadly. 'Our editor is an awful old
fogey. He is vehemently opposed to the work of outsiders, and if you
were to send him his own leaders in envelopes he would say they were
rot. For once he would be a just critic. You see, therefore, what your
own chance is. Even I, who have been on the staff for years, couldn't do
anything to help you. No, I am afraid there is no hope for you unless
you approach our office-boy.' I thanked him warmly for his advice and
encouragement, and within a fortnight an article of mine appeared in the
paper. It was called 'The Manuscripts of Authors,' and revealed in a
refined and ladylike way the secrets of the chirographic characteristics
of the manuscripts I had to type-write. My friend said I was exceedingly
practical----"
"Exceedingly practical," agreed Lillie with a suspicion of a sneer.
"Because most amateur journalists write about abstract principles,
whereas I had sliced out for the public a bit of concrete fact, and the
great heart of the people went out to hear the details of the way Brown
wrote his books, Jones his jokes, and Robinson his recitations. The
article made a hit, and annoyed the authors very much."
"So, I should think," said Lillie. "Didn't they withdraw their custom
from you instanter?"
[Illustration: _The office boy edits the paper._]
"Why? They didn't know it was I. Only my journalistic friend knew; and
he was too much of a gentleman to give away my secret. I wrote to the
editor under the name of Frank Maddox, thanking him for having inserted
my article, and the editor said to my friend, 'Egad, I fancy I've made a
discovery there. Why, if I were to pay any attention to your idea of
keeping strictly to the old grooves, the paper would stagnate, my boy,
simply stagnate.' The editor was right, for my friend assured me the
paper would have died long before, if the office-boy had not
condescended to edit it. Anyhow, it was to that office-boy I owed my
introduction to literature. The editor was very proud of having
discovered me, and, being installed in his good graces, I passed rapidly
into dramatic criticism, and was even allowed to understudy the
office-boy as literary reviewer. He could not stomach historical novels,
and handed over to me all works with pronouns in the second person.
Gradually I rose to higher things, but it was not until I had been
musical and art critic for over eighteen months that the editor learnt
that the writer whose virile style he had often dilated upon to my
friend was a woman."
"And what did he do when he learnt it?" asked Lillie.
"He swore----"
"Profane man!" cried Lillie.
"That he loved me--me whom he had never seen. Of course, I declined him
with thanks; happily there was a valid excuse, because he had written
his communication on both sides of the paper. But even this technical
touch did not mollify him, and he replied that my failure to appreciate
him showed I could no longer be trusted as a critic. Fortunately my work
had been signed, my fame was established. I collected my articles into a
book and joined another paper."
"But you haven't yet told me how it is done?"
"Oh, that is the least. You see, to be a critic it is not essential to
know anything--you must simply be able to write. To be a great critic
you must simply be able to write _well_. In my omniscience, or catholic
ignorance, I naturally looked about for the subject on which I could
most profitably employ my gift of style with the least chance of being
found out. A moment's consideration will convince you that the most
difficult branches of criticism are the easiest. Of musical and artistic
matters not one person in a thousand understands aught but the
rudiments: here, then, is the field in which the critical ignoramus may
expatiate at large with the minimum danger of discovery. Nay, with no
scintilla of danger; for the subject matter is so obscure and abstruse
that the grossest of errors may put on a bold face and parade as a
profundity, or, driven to bay, proclaim itself a paradox. Only say what
you have not got to say authoritatively and well, and the world shall
fall down and worship you. The place of art in religion has undergone a
peculiar historical development. First men worshipped the object of art;
then they worshipped the artist; and nowadays they worship the art
critic."
"It is true," said Lillie reflectively. "This age has witnessed the
apotheosis of the art critic."
"And of all critics. And yet what can be more evident than that the art
of criticism was never in such a critical condition? Nobody asks to see
the critic's credentials. He is taken at his own valuation. There ought
to be an examination to protect the public. Even schoolmasters are now
required to have certificates; while those who pretend to train the
larger mind in the way it should think are left to work their mischief
uncontrolled. No dramatic critic should be allowed to practise without
an elementary knowledge of human life, law, Shakespeare, and French. The
musical critic should be required to be able to perform on some one
instrument other than his own trumpet, to distinguish tune from
tonality, to construe the regular sonata, to comprehend the plot of _Il
Trovatore_, and to understand the motives of Wagner. The art critic
should be able to discriminate between a pastel and a water-color, an
impressionist drawing and a rough sketch, to know the Dutch school from
the Italian, and the female figure from the male, to translate
morbidezza and chiaroscuro, and failing this, to be aware of the
existence and uses of a vanishing point. A doctor's certificate should
also be produced to testify that the examinee is in possession of all
the normal faculties; deafness, blindness, and color-blindness being
regarded as disqualifications, and no one should be allowed to practise
unless he enjoyed a character for common honesty supplemented by a
testimonial from a clergyman, for although art is non-moral the critic
should be moral. This would be merely the passman stage; there could
always be examinations in honors for the graduates. Once the art critics
were educated, the progress of the public would be rapid. They would no
longer be ready to admire the canvases of Michael Angelo, who, as I
learnt the other day for the first time, painted frescoes, nor would
they prefer him, as unhesitatingly as they do now, to Buonarotti, which
is his surname, nor would they imagine Raffaelle's Cartoons appeared in
_Puncinello_. All these mistakes I have myself made, though no one
discovered them; while in the realm of music no one has more
misrepresented the masters, more discouraged the overtures of young
composers."
"But still I do not understand how it is done," urged Lillie.
"You shall have my formula in a nutshell. I had to be a musical critic
and an art critic. I was ignorant of music and knew nothing of art. But
I was a dab at language. When I was talking of music, I used the
nomenclature of art. I spoke of light and shade, color and form,
delicacy of outline, depth and atmosphere, perspective, foreground and
background, nocturnes and harmonies in blue. I analyzed symphonies
pictorially and explained what I saw defiling before me as the music
swept on. Sunsets and belvedere towers, swarthy Paynims on Shetland
ponies, cypress plumes and Fra Angelico's cherubs, lumps of green clay
and delicate pillared loggias, fennel tufts and rococo and scarlet
anemones, and over all the trail of the serpent. Thus I created an epoch
in musical criticism. On the other hand, when I had to deal with art, I
was careful to eschew every suggestion of the visual vocabulary and to
confine myself to musical phrases. In talking of pictures, I dwelt upon
their counter-point and their orchestration, their changes of key and
the evolution of their ideas, their piano and forte-passages, and their
bars of rest, their allegro and diminuendo aspects, their suspensions on
the dominant. I spoke of them as symphonies and sonatas and masses, said
one was too staccato and another too full of consecutive sevenths, and a
third in need of transposition to the minor. Thus I created an epoch in
art criticism. In both departments the vague and shifting terms I
introduced enabled me to evade mistakes and avoid detection, while the
creation of two epochs gave me the very first place in contemporary
criticism. There is nothing in which I would not undertake to create an
epoch. I do not say I have always been happy, and it has been a source
of constant regret to me that I had not even learnt to play the piano
when a girl and that unplayed music still remained to me little black
dots."
"And so you did not dare marry the composer?"
"No, nor tell him why. Volume Three: I said I admired him so much that I
wanted to go on devoting critical essays to him, and my praises would be
discounted by the public if I were his wife. Was it not imprudent for
him to alienate the leading critic by marrying her? Rather would I
sacrifice myself and continue to criticise him. But I love him, and it
is for his sake I would become an Old Maid."
"I would rather you didn't," said Lillie, her face still white. "I have
found so much inspiration in your books that I could not bear to be
daily reminded I ought not to have found it."
Poor president! The lessons of experience were hard! The Club taught her
much she were happier without.
That day Lord Silverdale appropriately intoned (with banjo obligato) a
patter-song which he pretended to have written at the Academy, whence he
had just come with the conventional splitting headache.
AFTER THE ACADEMY--A JINGLE.
(NOT BY ALFRED JINGLE.)
Brain a-whirling, pavement twirling,
Cranium aching, almost baking,
Mind a muddle, puddle, fuddle.
Million pictures, million mixtures,
Small and great 'uns, Brown's and Leighton's,
Sky and wall 'uns, short and tall 'uns,
Pseudo classic for, alas! _Sic
Transit gloria sub Victoriâ_),
Landscape, figure, white or nigger,
Steely etchings, inky sketchings,
Genre, portrait (not one caught trait),
Eke historic (kings plethoric),
Realistic, prize-fight-fistic,
Entozoic, nude, heroic,
Coarse, poetic, homiletic,
Still-life (flowers, tropic bowers),
Pure domestic, making breast tick
With emotion; endless ocean,
Glaze or scrumble, craze and jumble,
Varnish mastic, sculpture plastic,
Canvas, paper (oh, for taper!)
Oil and water, (oh, for slaughter!)
Children, cattle, 'busses, battle,
Seamen, satyrs, lions, waiters,
Nymphs and peasants, peers and pheasants,
Dogs and flunkeys, gods and monkeys
Half-dressed ladies, views of Hades,
Phillis tripping, seas and shipping,
Hearth and meadow, brooks and bread-dough,
Doves and dreamers, stars and steamers,
Saucepans, blossoms, rags, opossums,
Tramway, cloudland, wild and ploughed land,
Gents and mountains, clocks and fountains,
Pan and pansy--these of fancy
Have possession in procession
Never-ending, ever blending,
All a-flitter and a-glitter,
Ever prancing, ever dancing,
Ever whirling, ever curling,
Ever swirling, ever twirling,
Ever bobbing, ever throbbing.
Ho, some brandy--is it handy?
Air seems tainting, I am fainting.
Hang all--no, _don't_ hang all--painting!