Act II.

_Scene: Brocken House, Park Lane_.

_The top of the Grand Staircase_. LORD _and_ LADY WALPURGE _receiving

their guests. The greatest taste is shown in the decorations, which are

lent for the occasion of the play free of charge, owing to the deserved

popularity of Mr. George Alexander. Furniture supplied by Waring,

selected by Mr. Percy Macquoid; Old Masters by Agnew & Son, P. & D.

Colnaghi, Dowdeswell & Dowdeswell; Wigs by Clarkson. A large,

full-length Reynolds, seen above the well of staircase_; R. _a

Gainsborough_, L. _a Hoppner. The party is not very smart, rather

intellectual and plutocratic; well-known musicians and artists in group_

R., _and second-rate literary people_ L. _An Irish peer and a member of

the White Rose League are the only 'Society' present. There are no

actors or actresses_. FAUST, _who has aged considerably since the

Prologue, is an obvious failure, and is seen talking to a lady

journalist_. MEPHISTOPHELES, _disguised as a Protectionist Member of

Parliament, is in earnest conversation with_ LORD WALPURGE. FOOTMAN

_announcing the guests: The Bishop of Hereford, Mr. Maldonado, Mr. Andrew

Undershaft, Mr. Harold Hodge, Mrs. Gorringe, Mr. and Mrs. Aubrey

Tanqueray, &c_.

LADY WALPURGE (_archly_). Ah, Mr. Tanqueray, you never forwarded me my

photographs; it is nearly three weeks ago since I sent you a cheque for

them.

TANQUERAY. Labby has been poisoning your mind against me. You shall

have a proof to-morrow!

FOOTMAN. Mr. Gillow Waring.

LADY WALPURGE. I was so afraid you were not coming. My husband thought

you would give us the slip.

WARING. How charming your decorations are! You must give me some ideas

for my new yacht, you have such perfect taste.

MALDONADO. Walpurge! what will you take for that Reynolds? Or will you

swap it for my Velasquez?

WALPURGE. My dear Maldo, I always do my deals through--

FOOTMAN. Mr. Walter Dowdeswell.

WALPURGE. Through Dowdeswell and Dowdeswell; and you, my dear Maldo, if

you want to get rid of your Velasquez, ought to join the National Art

Collections Fund, or go and see--

FOOTMAN. Mr. Lockett Agnew. 'Er 'Ighness the Princess Swami.

_Enter the_ PRINCESS SALOME.

LADY JOURNALIST. Fancy having that woman here. She is not recognised in

any decent society, she is nothing but an adventuress; talks such bad

French, too. Have you ever seen her, Doctor Faustus?

FAUST. Yes, I have met her very often in Germany. Though the Emperor

would not receive her at first, she is much admired in Europe.

LADY JOURNALIST (_hedging_). I wonder where she gets her frocks? They

must be worth a good deal.

FAUST. From Ricketts and Shannon, if you want to know.

LADY JOURNALIST. Dear Doctor, you know everything! Let me see: Ricketts

and Shannon is that new place in Regent Street, rather like Lewis and

Allenby's, I suppose?

FAUST. Yes, only different.

IRISH PEER (_to_ FAUST). Do you think Lady Walpurge will ever get into

Society?

FAUST. Not if she gives her guests such wretched coffee.

LADY JOURNALIST. It's nothing to her tea. I've never had such bad tea.

Besides, she cannot get actors or actresses to come to her house.

LADY WALPURGE (_overhearing_). I expect _Sir Herbert and Lady Beerbohm

Tree_ here to-night, and perhaps VIOLA. (_Sensation_.)

[_Enter, hurriedly_, MR. C. T. H. HELMSLEY.] Mr. Alexander, a moment

with you! A most important telegram has just arrived.

FAUST (_reading_). 'Handed in at Greba Castle, 10.15. Reply paid. Do

not close with Stephen Phillips until you have seen my play of

_Gretchen_, same subject, five acts and twelve tableaux.--HALL CAINE.'

Where is Mr. Stephen Phillips? [STEPHEN PHILLIPS _advances_.] My dear

Phillips, I think we will put up _Harold Hodge_ instead. 'The Last of

the Anglo-Saxon Editors,' by the last Anglo-Saxon poet.

CURTAIN.

(1906.)

_To_ W. BARCLAY SQUIRE, ESQ.

SHAVIANS FROM SUPERMAN.

DONNA ANA _has vanished to sup her man at the Savoy; the_ DEVIL _and the_

STATUE _are descending through trap, when a voice is heard crying, 'Stop,

stop'; the mechanism is arrested and there appears in the empyrean_ MR.

CHARLES HAZELWOOD SHANNON, _the artist, with halo_.

THE DEVIL (_while Shannon regains his breath_). Really, Mr. Shannon,

this is a great pleasure and _quite_ unexpected. I am truly honoured. No

quarrel I hope with the International? Pennell quite well? How is the

Whistler memorial getting on?

SHANNON. So-so. To be quite frank I had no time to prepare for Heaven,

and earth has become intolerable for me. (_Seeing the Statue_.) Is that

a Rodin you have there?

THE DEVIL. Oh! I forgot, let me introduce you. Commander! Mr. C. H.

Shannon, a most distinguished painter, the English Velasquez, the Irish

Titian, the Scotch Giorgione, all in one. Mr. Shannon, his Excellency

the Commander.

SHANNON. Delighted, I am sure. The real reason for my coming here is

that I could stand Ricketts no longer. Ricketts the artist I adore.

Ricketts the causeur is delightful. Ricketts the enemy, entrancing.

Ricketts the friend, one of the best. But Ricketts, when designing

dresses for the Court, Trench, and other productions, is not very

amiable.

THE STATUE (_sighing_). Ah! yes, I know Ricketts.

THE DEVIL (_sighing_). We all know Ricketts. Never mind, he shall not

come here. I shall give special orders to Charon. Come on to the trap

and we can start for the palace.

SHANNON. Ah! yes. I heard you were moving to the Savoy. Think it will

be a success?

[_They descend and no reply is heard. Whisk! Mr. Frank Richardson on

this occasion does not appear; void and emptiness; the fireproof curtain

may be lowered here in accordance with the County Council regulations;

moving portraits of deceased, and living dramatic critics can be thrown

without risk of ignition on the curtain by magic lantern_. _The point of

this travesty will be entirely lost to those who have not read 'Man and

Superman.' It is the first masterpiece in the English literature of the

twentieth century. It is also necessary to have read the dramatic

criticisms in the daily press, and to have some acquaintance with the

Court management, the Stage Society, and certain unlicensed plays; and to

know that Mr. Ricketts designs scenery. This being thoroughly explained,

the Curtain may rise; discovering a large Gothic Hall, decorated in the

1880 taste. Allegories by Watts on the wall_--'_Time cutting the corns

of Eternity,' 'Love whistling down the ear of Life,' 'Youth catching

Crabs,' &c. Windows by Burne-Jones and Morris. A Peacock Blue Hungarian

Band playing music on Dolmetsch instruments by Purcell, Byrde, Bull,

Bear, Palestrina, and Wagner, &c. Various well-known people crowd the

Stage. Among the_ LIVING _may be mentioned Mr. George Street; Mr. Max

Beerbohm and his brother; Mr. Albert Rothenstein and his brother, &c. The

company is intellectual and artistic; not in any way smart. The Savile

and Athenaeum Clubs are well represented, but not the Garrick, the

Gardenia, nor any of the establishments in the vicinity of Leicester

Square. The Princess Salome is greeting some of the arrivals_--_The

Warden of Keble, The President of Magdalen Coll., Oxford, and others--who

stare at her in a bewildered fashion_.

THE DEVIL. Silence, please, ladies and gentlemen, for his Excellency the

Commander. (_A yellowish pallor moves over the audience; effect by

Gordon Craig_.)

THE STATUE. It was my intention this evening to make a few observations

on flogging in the Navy, Vaccination, the Censor, Vivisection, the Fabian

Society, the Royal Academy, Compound Chinese Labour, Style, Simple

Prohibition, Vulgar Fractions, and other kindred subjects. But as I

opened the paper this morning, my eye caught these headlines: 'Future of

the House of Lords,' 'Mr. Edmund Gosse at home,' 'The Nerves of Lord

Northcliffe,' 'Interview with Mr. Winston Churchill,' 'Reported

Indisposition of Miss Edna May.' A problem was thus presented to me.

Will I, shall I, ought I to speak to my friends _here_--ahem!--and

elsewhere, on the subject about which they came to hear me speak.

(_Applause_.) No. I said; the bounders must be disappointed; otherwise

they will know what to expect. You must always surprise your audience.

When it has been advertised (sufficiently) that I am going to speak about

the truth, for example, the audience comes here expecting me to speak

about fiction. The only way to surprise them is to speak the truth and

that I always do. Nothing surprises English people more than truth; they

don't like it; they don't pay any attention to those (such as my friend

Mr. H. G. Wells and myself) who _trade_ in truth; but they listen and go

away saying, 'How very whimsical and paradoxical it all is,' and 'What a

clever adventurer the fellow is, to be sure.' 'That was a good joke

about duty and beauty being the same thing'--that was a joke I did _not_

make. It is not my kind of joke--but when people begin ascribing to you

the jokes of other people, you become a living--I was going to say

statue--but I mean a living classic.

THE DEVIL. I thought you disliked anything classic?

THE STATUE. Ahem! only _dead_ classics--especially when they are

employed to protect romanticism. Dead classics are the protective

tariffs put on all realism and truth by bloated idealism. In a country

of plutocrats, idealism keeps out truth: idealism is more expensive, and

therefore more in demand. In America, there are more plutocrats, and

therefore more idealists . . . as Mr. Pember Reeves has pointed out in

New Zealand . . .

THE DEVIL. But I say, is this drama?

THE STATUE. Certainly not. It is a discussion taking place at a

theatre. It is no more drama than a music-hall entertainment, or a comic

opera, or a cinematograph, or a hospital operation, all of which things

take place in theatres. But surely it is more entertaining to come to a

discussion charmingly mounted by Ricketts--discussion too, in which every

one knows what he is going to say--than to flaccid plays in which the

audience always knows what the actors _are_ going to say better often

than the actors. The sort of balderdash which Mr. --- serves up to us

for plays.

THE DEVIL (_peevish and old-fashioned_). I wish you would define drama.

HANKIN (_advancing_). Won't you have tea, Commander? It's not bad tea.

THE STATUE. I was afraid you were going to talk idealism.

HANKIN (_aside_). Excuse my interrupting, but I want you to be

particularly nice to the Princess Salome. You know she was jilted by the

Censor. She has brought her music.

THE DEVIL. You might introduce her to Mrs. Warren. But I am afraid the

Princess has taken rather too much upon herself this evening.

THE STATUE. Yes, she has taken too much; I am sure she has taken too

much.

A JOURNALIST. Is that the Princess Salome who has Mexican opals in her

teeth, and red eyebrows and green hair, and curious rock-crystal breasts?

THE DEVIL. Yes, that is the Princess Salome.

SHANNON. I know the Princess quite well. Ricketts makes her frocks.

Shall I ask her to dance?

THE DEVIL. Yes, anything to distract her attention from the guests.

These artistic English people are so easily shocked. They don't

understand Strauss, nor indeed anything until it is quite out of date. I

want to make Hell at least as attractive as it is painted; a _place_ as

well as a _condition_ within the meaning of the Act. Full of wit,

beauty, pleasure, freedom--

THE STATUE. Ugh--ugh.

SHANNON. Will you dance for us, Princess?

SALOME. Anything for you, dear Mr. Shannon, only my ankles are a little

sore to-night. How is dear Ricketts? I want new dresses so badly.

SHANNON. I suppose by this time he is in Heaven. But won't you dance

just to make things go? And then the Commander will lecture on super-

maniacs later on!

SALOME. Senor Diavolo, what will you give me if I dance to-night?

THE DEVIL. Anything you like, Salome. I swear by the dramatic critics.

HANKIN (_correcting_). You mean the Styx.

THE DEVIL. Same thing. Dance without any further nonsense, Salome.

Forget that you are in England. This is an unlicensed house.

[SALOME _dances the dance of the Seven Censors_.

THE DEVIL (_applauding_). She is charming. She is quite charming.

Salome, what shall I do for you? You who are like a purple patch in some

one else's prose. You who are like a black patch on some one else's

face. You are like an Imperialist in a Radical Cabinet. You are like a

Tariff Reformer in a Liberal-Unionist Administration. You are like the

Rokeby Velasquez in St. Paul's Cathedral. What can I do for you who are

fairer than--

SALOME. This sort of thing has been tried on me before. Let us come to

business. I want Mr. Redford's head on a four-wheel cab.

THE DEVIL. No, not that. You must not ask that. I will give you

Walkley's head. He has one of the best heads. He is not ignorant. He

really knows what he is talking about.

SALOME. I want Mr. Redford's head on a four-wheel cab.

THE DEVIL. Salome, listen to me. Be reasonable. Do not interrupt me. I

will give you William Archer's head. He is charming--a cultivated,

liberal-minded critic. He is too liberal. He admires Stephen Phillips.

I will give you his dear head if you release me from my oath.

SALOME. I want Mr. Redford's head on the top of a four-wheel cab.

Remember your oath!

THE DEVIL. I remember I swore _at_--I mean _by_--the dramatic critics.

Well, I am offering them to you. Exquisite and darling Salome, I will

give you the head of Max Beerbohm. It is unusually large, but it is full

of good things. What a charming ornament for your mantelpiece! You will

be in the movement. How every one will envy you! People will call upon

you who never used to call. Others will send you invitations. You will

at last get into English society.

SALOME. I want Mr. Redford's head on the top of a four-wheel cab.

THE DEVIL. Salome, come hither. Have you ever looked at the _Daily

Mirror_? Only in the _Daily Mirror_ should one look. For it tells the

truth sometimes. Well, I will give you the head of Hamilton Fyfe. He is

my best friend. No critic is so fond of the drama as Hamilton Fyfe.

(_Huskily_.) Salome, I will give you W. L. Courtney's head. I will give

you all their heads.

SALOME. I have the scalps of most critics. I want Mr. Redford's head on

a four-wheel cab.

THE DEVIL. Salome! You do not know what you ask. Mr. Redford is a kind

of religion. He represents the Lord Chamberlain. You know the dear Lord

Chamberlain. You would not harm one of his servants, especially when

they are not insured. It would be cruel. It would be irreligious. It

would be in bad taste. It would not be respectable. Listen to me; I

will give you all Herod's Stores . . . Salome. Shannon was right. You

HAVE taken too much, or you would not ask this thing. See, I will give

you Mr. Redford's body, but not his head. Not that, not that, my child.

SALOME. I want Mr. Redford's head on a four-wheel cab.

THE DEVIL. Salome, I must tell you a secret. It is terrible for me to

have to tell the truth. The Commander said that I would have to tell the

truth. MR. REDFORD HAS NO HEAD!

[_The audience long before this have begun to put on their cloaks, and

the dramatic critics have gone away to describe the cold reception with

which the play has been greeted. All the people on the stage cover their

heads except the_ STATUE, _who has become during the action of the piece

more and more like Mr. Bernard Shaw. Curtain descends slowly_.

(1907.)

_To_ ARTHUR CLIFTON, ESQ.

SOME DOCTORED DILEMMA.

A NEW EPILOGUE FOR THE LAST PERFORMANCE OF MR. SHAW'S PLAY.

Though Mr. Bernard Shaw has set the fashion in prologues for modern

plays, his admirers were not altogether satisfied with the epilogue to

_The Doctor's Dilemma_. It is far too short; and leaves us in the dark

as to whom 'Jennifer Dubedat' married. Epilogues, as students of English

drama remember, were often composed by other authors. The following

experiment ought to have come from the hand of Mr. St. John Hankin, that

master of Dramatic Sequels, but his work on the 'Cassilis Engagement'

deprived Mr. Shaw of the only possible collaborator.

[SCENE: _A Bury Street Picture Gallery_--MESSRS. GERSAINT & CO. _The

clock strikes ten, and_ SIR COLENSO RIDGEON _is seen going out rather

crestfallen by centre door_. MR. GERSAINT, _the manager, is nailing up a

notice_ ('_All works of art, for art's sake or sale; prices on

application. Catalogue_ 1_s_.). MR. JACK STEPNEY, _the secretary, is

receiving the private view cards from the visitors who are trooping in;

some sneak catalogues as they enter, and on being asked for payment

protest and produce visiting cards and press vouchers instead of

shillings. Artists, Royal Academicians_, MR. EDMUND GOSSE, _and other

members of the House of Lords discovered; men of letters, art critics,

connoisseurs, journalists, collectors, dealers, private viewers,

impostors, dramatic critics, poets, pickpockets, politicians crowd the

stage. From time to time_ JACK STEPNEY _places a red star on the picture

frames in the course of the action_.]

J. STEPNEY. I thought all the pictures had been bought by Dr.

Schutzmacher.

GERSAINT. So they were, my boy, but he has wired saying they are all to

be put up for sale at double the price; capital business, you see we

shall get two commissions.

J. STEPNEY. Yes, sir. It is fortunate Mrs. Dubedat did not have the

prices marked in the Catalogue.

GERSAINT. You mean Mrs. Schutzmacher. (_Drives in last nail_).

J. STEPNEY. Yes, sir.

_Enter a striking-looking-man, not unlike a Holbein drawing, at a

distance: but on nearer inspection, as he comes within range of the

footlights, he is more like an Isaac Oliver or Nicholas Lucidel. He

examines the notice and sniffs_.

S.L.M.N.U.H.D. Which are the works of Art?

EDMUND GOSSE. Can you tell me who that is? He is one of the few people

I don't know by sight. A celebrity of course; and do point out any

obscurities. Every one is so distinguished. It is rather confusing.

GERSAINT. That is the Holland Park Wonder, so-called because he lives at

the top of a tower in Holland Park--the greatest Art Connoisseur in

England. Mr. Charles Ricketts, the greatest--

EDMUND GOSSE. Thank you; thank you.

MR. FREDERICK WEDMORE (_interrupting_). Can you tell me whether the

frames are included in the prices of the pictures?

J. STEPNEY. No, sir. They are stock frames, the property of the

Gallery, and are only lent for the occasion.

MR. FREDERICK WEDMORE. Then I fear I cannot buy; a naked picture without

a frame is useless to me.

CHARLES RICKETTS. Do you think I could buy a frame without a picture?

JOSEPH PENNELL. I say Ricketts, it seems a beastly shame we didn't get

this show for the International. It would have been good 'ad.' What's

the use of Backers? I see they're selling well.

CHARLES RICKETTS. But, my dear Pennell, you're doing the _Life_, aren't

you?--the real Dubedat?

JOSEPH PENNELL. Oh, yes, but the family have injuncted Heinemann from

publishing the letters: Mr. Justice Kekewich will probably change his

opinion when the weather gets warmer. It is only an interim injunction.

CHARLES RICKETTS. A sort of Clapham Injunction.

SIR WILLIAM RICHMOND, K.C.B., R.A. If I had known what a stupendous

genius Dubedat was, I should have given him part of the 'New Bailey' to

decorate.

D. S. MACCOLL. Let us be thankful he's as dead as Bill Bailey.

SIR CHARLES HOLROYD (_smoothing things over_). I think we ought to have

an example for the Tate. (MACCOLL _winces_.) The Chantrey

Bequest--(MACCOLL _winces again_)--might do something; and I must write

to Lord Balcarres. The National Arts Collections Fund may have something

over from the subscriptions to the Rokeby Velasquez; but I want to see

what Colvin is going to choose for the British Museum.

SIDNEY COLVIN. I think we might have this drawing; it stands on its

legs. A most interesting fellow Dubedat. He reminds me of Con--

GEORGE MOORE. Not Stevenson, though _he_ had no talent whatever. My

dear Mr. Colvin, have you ever read 'Vailima Letters'? I have read parts

of them.

SIDNEY COLVIN (_coldly_). Ah, really! Did you suffer very much?

SIR HUGH P. LANE. Do you think, Mr. Gersaint, the artist's widow would

give me one of the pictures for the Dublin Gallery? We have no money at

all. _I have no money_, but all the artists are giving pictures:

Sargent, Shannon, Lavery, Frank Dicksee; and Rodin is giving a plaster

cast.

GERSAINT. How charming and insinuating you are, Sir Hugh. We can make

special reductions for the Dublin Gallery, but you can hardly expect

charitable bequests from picture dealers.

SIR HUGH P. LANE. Oh! but Dowdeswell, Agnew, Sulley, Wertheimer, P. and

D. Colnaghi, and Humphry Ward are all giving me pictures. Now, look

here, I'll buy these five drawings, and you can give me these two. I'll

give you a Gainsborough drawing in exchange for them. It has a very good

history. First it belonged to Ricketts, then to Rothenstein, then Wilson

Steer, and then to the Carfax Gallery, and . . . then it came into my

possession, and all that in three months. (_Bargain concluded_.)

MR. PFFUNGST (_aside_). But is there any evidence that it belonged to

Gainsborough?

SIR HUGH P. LANE (_turning to a titled lady_). Oh, do come to tea next

Saturday. I want to show you my new Titian which I _have just bought

for_ 2100_l_.

TITLED LADY. Sir Hugh, _can_ you tell me who Mrs. Dubedat is now?

SIR HUGH P. LANE. Oh, yes. She married Dr. Schutzmacher, the specialist

on bigamy only this morning.

TITLED LADY. How interesting. I should like to meet her. Dresses

divinely, I'm told.

SIR HUGH P. LANE. She's coming to tea next Saturday; such good tea, too!

TITLED LADY. That will be delightful.

ST. JOHN HANKIN (_loftily_). Can you tell me whether this charmian

artist is pronounced Dubedat or Dubedat?

W. P. KER (_in deep Scotch_). Non Dubitat. (_He does not speak again_.)

P. G. KONODY. Oh, Mr. Phillips, do tell me _exactly_ what _you_ think of

this artist!

CLAUDE PHILLIPS. I think he wanted a good smacking.

P. G. KONODY. Ah, yes, his art _has_ a smack about it. (_Aside_.) Good

heading for the _Daily Mail_, 'Art with a smack.' (_Writes in

catalogue_.)

WILL ROTHENSTEIN. When I see pictures of this kind, my dear Gersaint,

they seem to me to explain your existence. An artist without a

conscience . . . (_Sees_ ROGER FRY.) My dear Fry, what are _you_ doing

here? Buying for New York? (_Laughs meaningly_.)

ROGER FRY. Oh, no; but I hear Gersaint has a very fine picture by the

Maitresse of the Moulin Rouge. Weale says it is School of Gheel

(_pronounced Kail_).

WILL ROTHENSTEIN. Kail Yard I should think; do look at these things.

ROGER FRY (_vaguely_). Who are they by? Oh, yes, Dubedat, of course.

[FRY _and_ ROTHENSTEIN _regard picture with disdain_; _it withers under

their glance_. _Stage illusion by_ MASKELYNE _and_ THEODORE COOK.

STEPNEY _places a red star on it_.

GERSAINT. Well, Mr. Bowyer Nichols, I hope we shall have a good long

notice in the _Westminster Gazette_. Now if there is any drawing . . .

BOWYER NICHOLS (_very stiffly_). No, there isn't. I don't think the

Exhibition sufficiently important; everything seems to me cribbed: most

of the pictures look like reproductions of John, Orpen or Neville Lytton.

GERSAINT. Ah, no doubt, influenced by Neville Lytton. That portrait of

Mr. Cutler Walpole has a Neville Lytton feeling. Neville Lytton in his

earlier manner.

_Enter_ SIR PATRICK CULLEN, SIR RALPH BLOOMFIELD BONNINGTON _and_ SIR

COLENSO RIDGEON.

SIR C. RIDGEON. Ah, Sir Patrick, I have just heard that the pictures are

for sale; now I am going to plunge a little. I think they will rise in

value; and by the way I want to ask your opinion as a scientific man. If

I treat four artists with _virus obscaenum_ for three weeks, what will be

the condition of the remaining artists in the fourth week?

SIR P. CULLEN. Colenso, Colenso, you ought to have been a senior

wrangler and then abolished.

SIR C. RIDGEON. What a cynic you are. All the same I've had great

successes, though Dubedat _was_ one of our failures. A rather anaemic

member of the New English Art Club come to me for treatment, and in less

than a year he was an Associate of the Royal Academy; what do you say to

that?

SIR P. CULLEN. Out of Phagocyte, out of mind.

SIR R. B. B. My dear Sir Patrick, how prejudiced you are. Take

MacColl's case: a typical instance of _morbus ferox ars nova anglicana_:

under dear Colenso he became an official at the Tate.

SIR C. RIDGEON. Then there's Sir Charles Holroyd, you remember his high

tempera?

SIR P. CULLEN. There has been a relapse I hear from the catalogue.

SIR R. B. B. How grossly unfair; that is a false bulletin issued by the

former nurse: 'the evil that men do lives after them.'

SIR P. CULLEN. My dear B. B., this is not Dubedat's funeral. Do you

think Bernard Shaw will like the new epilogue?

BERNARD SHAW. He will; I'm shaw.

L. C. C. INSPECTOR. Excuse me, is Mr. Vedrenne here? Ah, yes! There is

Mr. Vedrenne. Will you kindly answer some of my questions? Is that door

on the left a real door? In case of fire I cannot allow property doors;

the actors might be seized with stage fright, and they must have, as Sir

B. B. would say, 'their exits and their entrances.'

VEDRENNE. Everything at the Court Theatre, my dear sir, is real. Ask

Mr. Franks, he will tell you the door is not even a jar. The art, the

acting, the plays, even the audience is real, except a few dramatic

critics I cannot exclude. I admit the audience looks improbable at

matinees; _out of Court_ is a truth in art of which we are only dimly

beginning to understand the significance. [_Noise outside_.

_Enter_ JENNIFER, _dressed in deep mourning_.

JENNIFER (_with a bright smile_). Mr. Vedrenne, I have just had a

telegram saying that my husband, Leo, was killed in his motor after

leaving me at the Synagogue. His last words were: 'Jennifer, promise me

that you will wear mourning if I die, merely to mark the difference

between Dubedat and myself.' This afternoon I am going to marry

Blenkinsop. How are the sales going?

VEDRENNE. Well, I think we might have the catechism or the churching of

heroines. What is your name?

JENNIFER. Jennifer.

VEDRENNE. Where did you get that name?

JENNIFER. From Bernard Shaw in my baptism.

MR. REDFORD (_Licenser of Plays_). Mr. Shaw, I really must point out

that this passage comes from the Anglican Prayer-book. Are you aware of

that? I have a suggestion of my own for ending the play.

BERNARD SHAW. Oh, shut up! Let us have my ten commandments.

GRANVILLE BARKER. My dear Shaw, you sent them to Wells for revision and

he lost them in the Tube. I can remember the first one, 'Maude spake

these words and said: "Thou shalt have none other Shaws but me."'

BERNARD SHAW. How careless of Wells. I remember the second: 'Do not

indulge in craven imitation.'

W. L. COURTNEY. The third commandment runs: 'Thou shalt not covet George

Alexander.'

GRANVILLE BARKER. One of them runs: 'Do not commit yourself to Beerbohm

Tree, though his is His Majesty's . . . ' But we shall never get them

right. We must offer a reward for their recovery. I vote that Walkley

now says the _credo_. That, I think, expresses every one's sentiment.

A. B. WALKLEY (_reluctantly_). I believe in Bernard Shaw, in Granville

Barker, and (_heartily_) in _The Times_.

WILLIAM ARCHER. Plaudite, missa est.

(1907.)

CURTAIN.

THE JADED INTELLECTUALS. A DIALOGUE.

_Scene: The Smoking-room of the Elivas Club_.

_Characters_: LAUDATOR TEMPOREYS, _aetat. 54, a distinguished literary

critic, and_ LUKE CULLUS, _a rich connoisseur of art and life. They are

not smoking nor drinking spirits. One is sipping barley water, the other

Vichy_.

LUKE CULLUS. You are a dreadful pessimist!

LAUDATOR TEMPOREYS. Alas! there is no such thing in these days. We are

merely disappointed optimists. When Walter Pater died I did not realise

that English literature expired. Yet the event excited hardly any

interest in the Press. Our leading weekly, the _Spectator_, merely

mentioned that Brasenose College, Oxford, had lost an excellent Dean.

L. C. I can hardly understand you. Painting, I admit, is entirely a

lost art, so far as England is concerned. The death of Burne-Jones

brought our tradition to an end. I see no future for any of the arts

except needlework, of which, I am told, there is a hopeful revival. But

in your fields of literature, what a number of great names! How I envy

you!

L. T. Who is there?

L. C. Well, to take the novelists first: you have the great Thomas

Hardy, H. G. Wells, Henry James, Rudyard Kipling, Maurice Hewlett . . . I

can't remember the names of any others just at present. Then take the

poets: Austin Dobson, my own special favourite; and among the younger

men, A. E. Housman, Laurence Housman, Yeats, Arthur Symons, Laurence

Binyon, William Watson--

L. T. (_interrupting_). Who always keeps one foot in Wordsworth's grave.

But all the men you mention, my dear Cullus, belong to the last century.

They have done their best work. Hardy has become mummy, and Henry James

is sold in Balham. Except Hardy, they have become unintelligible. The

theory that 'to be intelligible is to be found out' seems to have

frightened them. The books they issue are a series of 'not-at-home'

cards--sort of P.P.C.'s on posterity. And the younger poets, too, belong

to the last century, or they stand in the same relation to their

immediate predecessors, to borrow one of your metaphors, as _l'art

nouveau_ does to Chippendale. Oh, for the days of Byron, Keats, and

Shelley!

L. C. All of whom died before they were matured. You seem to resent

development. In literature I am a mere _dilettante_. A fastidious

reader, but not an expert. I know what I don't like; but I never know

what I shall like. At least twice a year I come across a book which

gives me much pleasure. As it comes from the lending library it is never

quite new. That is an added charm. If it happens to have made a

sensation, the sensation is all over by the time it reaches me. The book

has matured. A quite new book is always a little crude. It suggests an

evening paper. There at least you will agree. But to come across a work

which Henry James published, say, last year, is, I assure you, like

finding a Hubert Van Eyck in the Brompton Road.

L. T. I wish I could share your enthusiasm, or that I could change

places with you. Every year the personality of a new artist is revealed

to you. I know you only pretend not to admire the modern school of

painting. You find it a convenient pose. Your flora and your fauna are

always receiving additions; while my garden is withered; my zoo is out of

repair. The bars are broken; the tanks have run dry. There is hardly a

trace of life except in the snake-house, and, as I mentioned, the last

giraffe is dead.

L. C. Our friend, Dr. Chalmers Mitchell, is fortunately able to give us

a different account of the institution in Regent's Park. You are quite

wrong about modern painting. None of the younger men can paint at all. A

few of them can draw, I admit. It is all they can do. The death of

Charles Furse blasted all my hopes of English art. Whistler is dead;

Sargent is an American.

L. T. Well, so is Henry James, if it comes to that. And so _was_

Whistler. But I have seen the works of several young artists who I

understand are carrying out the great traditions of painting. Ricketts,

Shannon, Wilson Steer, Rothenstein, Orpen, Nicholson, Augustus John are

surely worthy successors to Turner, Alfred Stevens, and the

Pre-Raphaelites.

L. C. They are merely connoisseurs gifted with expressing their

appreciation of the past in paint. They appeal to you as a literary man.

You like to detect in every stroke of their brushes an echo of the past.

Their pictures have been _heard_, not _seen_. All the younger artists

are committing burglary on the old masters.

L. T. It is you who are a disappointed optimist.

L. C. Not about literature or the drama. I seem to hear, with Ibsen's

'Master Builder,' the younger generation knocking at the door.

L. T. It comes in without knocking in my experience; and generally has

_fig_-leaves in its hair--a decided advance on the coiffure of Hedda

Gabler's lover.

L. C. But look at Bernard Shaw.

L. T. Why should I look at Bernard Shaw? I read his plays and am more

than ever convinced that he has gone on the wrong lines. His was the

opportunity. He made _il gran refuto_. Some one said that George

Saintsbury never got over the first night of _Hernani_. Shaw never

recovered the _premiere_ of _Ghosts_. He roofed our Thespian temple with

Irish slate. His disciples found English drama solid brick and leave it

plaster of Paris. Yet Shaw might have been another Congreve.

L. C. _Troja fuit_. We do not want another. I am sure you never went

to the Court at all.

L. T. Oh, yes, I attended the last _levee_. But the drama is too large

a subject, or, in England, too small a subject to discuss. We live, as

Professor Mahaffy has reminded us, in an Alexandrian age. We are wounded

with archaeology and exquisite scholarship, and must drag our slow length

along . . . We were talking about literature. Where are the essayists,

the Lambs, and the Hazlitts? I know you are going to say Andrew Lang; I

say it every day; it is like an Amen in the Prayer-book; it occurs quite

as frequently in periodical literature. He _was_ my favourite essayist,

during the _last_ fifteen years of the _last_ century. What is he now?

An historian, a folk-lorist, an archaeologist, a controversialist. I

believe he is an expert on portraits of Mary Stuart. You were going on

to say G. K. Chesterton--

L. C. No. I was going to say Max Beerbohm. Some of his essays I put

beside Lamb's, and above Hazlitt's. He has style; but then I am

prejudiced because he is the only modern artist I really admire. He is a

superb draughtsman and our only caricaturist. Then there is George

Moore. I don't care for his novels, but his essays are delightful.

George Moore really counts. Few people know so little about art; yet how

delightfully he writes about it. Everything comes to him as a surprise.

He gives you the same sort of enjoyment as you would derive from hearing

a nun preach on the sins of smart society.

L. T. Moore is one of many literary Acteons who have mistaken Diana for

Aphrodite.

L. C. You mean he is great dear; but he gets hold of the right end of

the stick.

L. T. And he generally soils it. But you know nothing about literature.

The age requires blood and Kipling gave it Condy's Fluid (_drinks barley

water_). The age requires life, and Moore gave us a gallantee show from

Montmartre (_drinks barley water_). Even I require life. To-morrow I am

off to Aix.

L. C.--les Bains?

L. T. No, la-Chapelle!

L. C. Oh, then we shall probably meet. Thanks. I can get on my own

overcoat. I shall probably be there myself in a few weeks.

ABBEY THOUGHTS.

Shall some memorial of Herbert Spencer be erected in the Abbey, or rather

in what journalists love to call the 'National Valhalla,' the 'English

Pantheon,' or the 'venerable edifice,' where, as Macaulay says, the dust

of the illustrious accusers, _et cetera_----? The question was once

agitated in a daily paper. It seems that the Dean, when approached on

the subject, acted like one of his predecessors in the case of Byron. The

Dean is in a very difficult position, because any decision of his must be

severely criticised from one quarter or another. The Abbey retains, I

understand, some of its pre-Reformation privileges, and is not under the

jurisdiction of Bishop or Archbishop. Yet no one who has ever visited

the Chapel of St. Edward the Confessor on October 13th, the festival of

his translation, can accuse the Abbey authorities of bigotry or narrow-

mindedness. Only a few years ago I fought my way, with other Popish

pilgrims, to the shrine of our patron Saint (as he _was_, until

superseded by Saint George in the thirteenth century), and there I

indulged in overt acts of superstition violating Article XXII. of 'the

Church of England by law established.' A verger, with some colonial

tourists, arrived during our devotions, but his voice was lowered out of

regard for our feelings. Indeed, both he and the tourists adopted

towards us an attitude of respectful curiosity (not altogether

unpleasant), which was in striking contrast to the methods of the

continental _Suisse_ routing out worshippers from a side chapel of a

Catholic church in order to show Baedeker-ridden sightseers an

altar-piece by Rotto Rotinelli.

Thoughts of Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley irresistibly mingled with my

devotions. What had the poor fellows burnt for, after all? Here we were

ostentatiously ignoring English history and the adjacent Houses of

Parliament; outraging the rubrics by ritual observations for which poor

curates in the East End are often suspended, and before now have been

imprisoned. I could not help thinking that the Archbishop of Westminster

would hardly care to return these hospitalities, by permitting, on August

24th, a memorial service for Admiral Coligny in Westminster Cathedral. . . .

I rose from my knees a new Luther, with something like a Protestant

feeling, and scrutinised severely the tombs in Poets' Corner. Even there

I found myself confronted with an almost irritating liberalism. Here was

Alexander Pope, who rejected all the overtures of Swift and Atterbury to

embrace the Protestant faith. And there was Dryden, not, perhaps, a

great ornament to my persuasion, but still a Catholic at the last. Dean

Panther had not grudged poet Hind his niche in the National Valhalla (I

knew I should be reduced to that periphrasis). And here was the mighty

Charles Darwin, about whose reception into the English Pantheon (I have

fallen again) I remember there was some trouble. Well, if precedent

embalms a principle, I venture to raise a thin small voice, and plead for

Herbert Spencer. 'The English people,' said a friendly French critic,

'do not admire their great men because they were great, but because they

reflect credit on themselves.' So on the score of national vanity I

claim space for Herbert Spencer. Very few Englishmen have exercised such

extraordinary influence on continental opinion, which Beaconsfield said

was the verdict of posterity. On the news of his death, the Italian

Chamber passed a vote of condolence with the English people. I suppose

that does not seem a great honour to Englishmen, but to me, an enemy of

United Italy, it seemed a great honour, not only to the dead but to the

English people. Can you imagine the Swiss Federal Council sending us a

vote of condolence on the death of Mr. Hall Caine or Mr. Robert Hichens?

Again, though it is ungrateful of me to mention the fact after my

experiences of October 13th, the Abbey was not built nor endowed by

people who anticipated the Anglican form of worship being celebrated

within its walls, though I admit it has been _restored_ by the adherents

of that communion. The image of Milton, to take only one instance, would

have been quite as objectionable to Henry III. or Abbot Islip as those of

Darwin or Spencer. The emoluments bequeathed by Henry VII. and others

for requiem masses are now devoted to the education of Deans' daughters

and Canons' sons. Where incensed altars used to stand, hideous monuments

of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries wound the Gothic

air with their monstrous ornaments and inapposite epitaphs. St. Paul's

may fairly be held sacred to Anglicanism, and I do not think any one

would claim sepulture within its precincts for one who was avowedly

hostile to Christian or Anglican sentiment. But I think the Abbey has

now passed into the category of museums, and might well be declared a

national monument under control of the State. The choir, and possibly

the nave, should, of course, be severely preserved for whatever the State

religion might be at the time. Catholics need not mourn the

secularisation of the transepts and chapels, because Leo XIII. renounced

officially all claims on the ancient shrines of the Catholic faith, and

High Churchmen might console themselves by recalling the fact that Abbots

were originally laymen.

My whole scheme would be a return to the practice of the Primitive

Church, when priests were only allowed on sufferance inside abbeys at

all. The Low Church party need not be considered, because they can have

no sentiment about what they regard as relics of superstition and Broad

Churchmen could hardly complain at the logical development of their own

principle. The Nonconformists, the backbone of the nation, could not be

otherwise than grateful. The decision about admitting busts, statues, or

bodies into the national and sacred 'musee des morts' (as the

anti-clerical French might call it under the new constitution) would rest

with the Home Secretary. This would be an added interest to the duties

of a painstaking official, forming pleasant interludes between

considering the remission of sentences on popular criminals: it would

relieve the Dean and Chapter at all events from grave responsibility. The

Home Secretary would always be called the Abbot of Westminster. How

picturesque at the formation of a new Cabinet--'_Home Secretary and Abbot

of Westminster_, the Right Hon. Mr. So-and-So.' The first duty of the

Abbot will be to appoint a Royal Commission to consider the removal of

hideous monuments which disfigure the edifice: nothing prior to 1700

coming under its consideration. A small tablet would recall what has

been taken away. Herbert Spencer's claim to a statue would be duly

considered, and, I hope, by a unanimous vote some of the other glaring

gaps would be filled up. If the Abbey is full of obscurities, very dim

religious lights, many of the illustrious names in our literature have

been omitted: Byron, Shelley, Keats--to mention only these. There is no

monument to Chatterton, one of the more powerful influences in the

romantic movement, nor to William Blake, whose boyish inspiration was

actually nourished amid that 'Gothic supineness,' as Mr. MacColl has

finely said of him. Of all our poets and painters Blake surely deserves

a monument in the grey church which became to him what St. Mary Redcliffe

was to Chatterton. A window adapted from the book of Job (with the

marvellous design of the Morning Stars) was, I am told, actually offered

to, and rejected by, the late Dean. To Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the

wonderful movement of which he was the dynamic force there should also be

a worthy memorial; to Water Pater, the superb aside of English prose; to

Cardinal Manning, _the_ Ecclesiastic of the nineteenth century; and

Professor Huxley, that master of dialectics.

A young actor of my acquaintance, who bore the honoured name of Siddons,

was invited to take part in the funeral service of the late Sir Henry

Irving. His step-father was connected by marriage with the great

actress, and he was very proud of his physical resemblance to her

portrait by Reynolds. He had played with great success the part of

Fortinbras in the provinces, and Mr. Alexander has assured me that he was

the ideal impersonator of Rosencrantz. It was an open secret that he had

refused Mr. Arthur Bourchier's offer of that _role_ in a proposed revival

of _Hamlet_ at the Garrick. Since the burial of Sir Henry Irving in the

Abbey, _he has never been seen_: though I saw him myself in the funeral

_cortege_. All his friends remember the curious exaltation in his manner

a few days before the ceremony, and I cannot help thinking that in a

moment of enthusiasm, realising that this was his only chance of burial

in the Abbey, he took advantage of the bowed unobservant heads during the

prayer of Committal and crept beneath the pall into the great actor's

tomb. What his feelings were at the time, or afterwards when the vault

was bricked up, would require the introspective pen of Mr. Henry James

and the curious imagination of Mr. H. G. Wells to describe. I have been

assured by the vergers that mysterious sounds were heard for some days

after this historical occasion. Distressed by the loss of my friend, I

applied to the Dean of Westminster and finally to Scotland Yard. I need

not say that I was met with sacerdotal indifference on the one hand and

with callous officialism on the other. I hope that under the Royal

Commission which I have appointed the mystery will be cleared up. Not

that I begrudge poor Siddons a niche with Garrick and Irving.

(1906.)

_To_ PROFESSOR JAMES MAYOR, _Toronto University_.

THE ELETHIAN MUSE.

After chaperoning into Fleet Street the eleventh Muse, the rather

Batavian lady who is not to be found in that Greek peerage, Lempriere's

Dictionary, an obliging correspondent from Edinburgh (an eminent writer

to the Signet in our northern Thebes) inquired if there were any more

muses who had escaped the students of comparative mythology. It is in

response to his letter that I now present, as Mr. Charles Frohman would

say, the thirteenth, the Elethian Muse.

Yet I can fancy people asking, Where is the twelfth, and over what art or

science does she preside? According to Apollodorus (in a recently

recovered fragment from Oxyrynchus), Jupiter, suffering from the chronic

headaches consequent on his acrimonious conversations with Athena,

decided to consult Vulcan, AEsculapius having come to be regarded as a

quack. Mulciber (as we must now call him, having used the name Vulcan

once), suggested an extraordinary remedy, one of the earliest records of

a homoeopathic expedient. He prescribed that the king of gods and men

should keep his ambrosial tongue in the side of his cheek for half an

hour three times a day. The operation produced violent retching in the

Capitoline stomach. And on the ninth day, from his mouth, quite unarmed,

sprang the twelfth muse. The other goddesses were very disgusted; and

even the gods declined to have any communication with the new arrival.

Apollo, however, was more tolerant, and offered her an asylum on the top

shelf of the celestial library. Ever afterwards Musagetes used to be

heard laughing immoderately, even for a librarian to the then House of

Lords. Jupiter, incensed at this irregularity, paid him a surprise visit

one day in order to discover the cause. He stayed, however, quite a long

time; and the other deities soon contracted the habit of taking their

nectar into the library. With the decline of manners, the twelfth muse

began to be invited to dessert, after Juno and the more reputable

goddesses had retired. To cut a long story short, when Pan died, in the

Olympian sense very shortly afterwards, all the gods, as we know, took

refuge on earth. Jupiter retired to Iceland, Aphrodite to Germany,

Apollo to Picardy, but the twelfth muse wandered all over Europe, and

found that she was really more appreciated than her sisters. The castle,

the abbey, the inn, the lone ale-house on the Berkshire moors, all made

her welcome. Finally she settled in Ireland, where, according to a

protestant libel, she took the black veil in a nunnery.

She is older than the chestnuts of Vallombrosa. Perhaps of all the

ancient goddesses time has chilled her least. Her unfathomable smile

wears a touch of something sinister in it, but she has a new meaning for

every generation. And yet for Aretino there was some further magic of

crimson on her lips and cheeks, lost for us. She is a solecism for the

convalescent, and has given consolation to the brave. She has been a

diver in rather deep seas and a climber in somewhat steep places. Her

censers are the smoking-rooms of clubs; and her presence-lamps are

schoolboys' lanterns. Though held the friend of liars and brutes, she

has lived on the indelicacies of kings, and has made even pontiffs laugh.

Her mysteries are told in the night-time, and in low whispers to the

garish day. She lingers over the stable-yard (no doubt called _mews_ for

that reason). Her costly breviaries, embellished with strange

illuminations, are prohibited under Lord Campbell's Act. Stars mark the

places where she has been. Sometimes a scholar's fallacy, a sworn foe to

Dr. Bowdler, she is Notre Dame de Milet, our Lady of Limerick.

* * * * *

But it is of her sister I would speak, the thirteenth sister, who was

created to keep the eleventh in countenance. She presides over the

absurdities of prose. She is responsible for the stylistic flights of

Pegasus when, owing to the persuasive eloquence of the Hon. Stephen

Coleridge, his bearing-rein has been abolished, and he kicks over the

traces.

It was the Elethian Muse who inspired that Oxford undergraduate's

peroration to his essay on the Characteristics of St. John's Gospel--

'Furthermore, we may add that St. John's Gospel is characterised by a

tone of fervent piety which is totally wanting in those of the other

Evangelists'--

and she hovered over the journalist who, writing for a paper which we

need not name, referred to Bacchus as

'that deity whose identity in Greek and Roman mythology is inseparably

connected with the over-indulgence of intoxicating liquors.'

There are prose beauties, Elethian jewels, hidden away in Baedeker's

mines of pregnant information and barren fact. I know it is fashionable

to sneer at Baedeker, especially when you are writing little rhapsodies

about remoter parts of Italy, where you have found his knowledge

indispensable, if exiguous. You must always kick away the ladder when

you arrive at literary distinction. I, who am still climbing and still

clinging, can afford to be more generous. Let me, therefore, crown

Baedeker with an essayist's parsley, or an academic laurel, ere I too

become selfish, forgetful, egoistical, and famous.

In _Southern France_, 1891 edition, p. 137, you find--

To the Pic de Nere, 3.75 hrs. from Luz, there and back 6.5 hrs.; a

delightful excursion, which can be made on horseback part of the way:

guide 12, horse 10 fr.; _adders abound_.

For synthetic prose you will have to go to Tacitus to find the equal of

that passage. No more is heard of the excursion. 'We leave Luz by the

Barege road,' the text goes on to say. Reflections and picturesque word-

painting are left for Mr. Maurice Hewlett, Mr. Arthur Symons, and Murray.

In _Southern Italy_, Baedeker yields to softer and more Virgilian

influences. The purple patches are longer and more frequent. On page 99

we learn not only how to get to Baiae, but that

Luxury and profligacy, however, soon took up their abode at Baiae, and

the desolate ruins, which now alone encounter the eye, point the usual

moral!

And from the preface to the same guide we obtain this remarkable advice:--

The traveller should adopt the Neapolitan custom of rejecting fish

that are not quite fresh.

But it is certain educational works, popular in my childhood, that have

yielded the more exotic Elethian blossoms for my Anthology. There are

passages I would not willingly let die. In one of these books general

knowledge was imparted after the manner of Magnall: 'What is the world?

The earth on which we live.' 'Who was Raphael?' 'How is rice made?'

After such desultory interrogatives, without any warning, came Question

15: 'Give the character of Prince Potemki':--

Sordidly mean, ostentatiously prodigal, filthily intemperate and

affectedly refined. Disgustingly licentious and extravagantly

superstitious, a brute in appetite, vigorous though vacillating in

action.

Until I went to the University, a great many years afterwards, I never

learnt who Potemki was. At the age of seven he stood to me for what

'Timberio' still is for Capriote children. My teacher obviously did not

know. She always evaded my inquiries by saying, 'You will know when you

are older, darling.' Suspecting her ignorance, I became pertinacious.

'When I am as old as you?' was my ungallant rejoinder. I had to write

the character out a hundred times. Then one Christmas Day I ventured to

ask my father, who said I would find out about him in Gibbon. But I knew

he was not speaking the truth, because he laughed in a nervous, peculiar

way, and added that since I was so fond of history I must go to Oxford

when I was older. I loathed history, and inwardly resolved that

Cambridge should be my University. My mother admitted entire ignorance

of Potemki's identity; and on my sketching his character (for I was proud

of the knowledge), said he was obviously a 'horrid' man. His personality

shadowed my childhood with a deadly fascination, which has not entirely

worn away; producing the same sort of effect on me as an imaginary

portrait by Pater.

In a semi-geographical work called _Near Home; or, Europe Described_,

published by Hatchards in the fifties (though my friend, Mr. Arthur

Humphreys, denies all knowledge of it), I can recall many stereos of

dialectic cast in a Socratic mould:--

_Q_. What is the religion of the Italians? _A_. They are Roman

Catholics.

_Q_. What do the Roman Catholics worship? _A_. Idols and a piece of

bread.

_Q_. Would not God be very angry if He knew the Italians worshipped

idols and a piece of bread? _A_. God IS very angry.

Mr. Augustine Birrell, if still interested in educational phenomena, will

not be surprised to learn that when I reached to man's estate I 'embraced

the errors of Rome,' as my historical manual would have phrased it.

I pity the child who did not learn universal history from Collier. How

tame are the periods of Lord Acton, the Rev. William Hunt, Froude,

Freeman, Oman, Round, even Macaulay, and little Arthur, beside the rich

Elethian periods of William Francis Collier. Not Berenson, not Byron,

not Beerbohm, have given us such a picture of Venice as Collier in

describing the Council of Ten:--

The ten were terrible; but still more terrible were the three

inquisitors--two black, one red--appointed in 1454. Deep mystery hung

over the three. They were elected by the ten; none else knew their

names. Their great work was to kill; and no man--doge, councillor, or

inquisitor--was beyond their reach. Secretly they pronounced a doom;

and ere long the stiletto or the poison cup had done its work, or the

dark waters of the lagoon had closed over a life. The spy was

everywhere. No man dared to speak out, for his most intimate

companions might be on the watch to betray him. Bronze vases, shaped

like a lion's mouth, gaped at the corner of every square to receive

the names of suspected persons. Gloom and suspicion haunted gondola

and hearth!!

It is owing to Collier that I know at least one fact about the Goths who

took Rome, 'having reduced the citizens to feed on mice and nettles, A.D.

546,' a diet to which many of the hotel proprietors in the imperial city

still treat their clients.

But let _Bellows' Dictionary_, a friend and instructor of riper years,

close my list of great examples and my theme. The criticism is apposite

to myself, and its only oddity--its Elethian quality, if I may say so--is

its presence in that marvellous miniature whose ingenious author you

would never suspect could have found room for such portentous

observations in the small duodecimo to which he confined himself:--

Unaffected language is the inseparable accompaniment of natural

refinement; but that affectation which would make up for paucity of

thought by overstrained expression is a mark of vulgarity from which

no accident of social position can redeem those who are guilty of it.

_To_ MORE ADEY, ESQ.

THERE IS NO DECAY.

_A Lecture delivered in the Old Bluecoat School, Liverpool, on February

12th, 1908_.

'In every age there is some question raised as to its wants and

powers, its strength and weakness, its great or small worth and work;

and in every age that question is waste of time and speech. To a

small soul the age which has borne it can appear only as an age of

small souls; the pigmy brain and emasculate spirit can perceive in its

own time nothing but dwarfishness and emasculation. Each century has

seemed to some of its children an epoch of decadence and decline in

national life and spiritual, in moral or material glory; each alike

has heard the cry of degeneracy raised against it, the wave of emulous

impotence set up against the weakness of the age.'--SWINBURNE.

Before the invention of printing, or let me say before the cheapening of

printing, the lecturer was in a more fortunate position than he is to-

day; because, if a learned man, he was able to give his audience certain

pieces of information which he could be fairly sure _some_ of his

listeners had never heard before. The arrival in town or city of

Abelard, Paracelsus, or Erasmus, to take the first instances occurring to

me, must have been a great event, the importance of which we can scarcely

appreciate at the present day. It must have excited our forefathers, at

least as much as the arrival of Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree in any large

city, excites I imagine, all of us to-day. But multiplication of books

has really rendered lecturers, as instructors, mere intellectual

Othellos; their occupation is gone; the erudition of the ages is now

within reach of all; though educational books were fairly expensive

within living memory. You owe, therefore, a debt of gratitude to the

_Times_ and the _Daily Mail_ for bringing Encyclopaedias of all kinds

into the range of the shallowest purse and in contact with the shallowest

heads in the community.

But in case your learned professors have not contributed all their hidden

lore and scholarship to the cheap Encyclopaedias, and still allow their

learning to leak out at lectures, you may have come expecting instruction

from me on some neglected subject. If that is so, I must confess myself

at once an impostor. I have no information to give you. I assume your

erudition to compensate for my own lack of it. There are no facts which

I might bring before you that you cannot find stated more clearly in

valuable manuals or works of reference, if you have not mastered them

already. There is no scientific or philosophic theory which I might

propound that you could not hear with greater benefit from others.

Briefly, I have no orange up my sleeve.

Let there be no deception or disappointment. I want you to play with an

idea as children play at ball--not football--but the old game of catch.

And out of this discussion, for I trust that you will all differ, if not

with me, at least with each other, trains of thought may be quickened;

mental grassland ploughed up; hidden perspectives unveiled. Above all, I

would stimulate you to an appreciation of your contemporaries and of

contemporary literature, contemporary drama, and contemporary art.

Every few years distinguished men lift their voices, and tell us that all

is over, _decay has begun_. The obscure and the anonymous echo the

sentiment in the London Press. With the fall of any Government its

supporters prophesy the rapid decomposition of the Empire; in the pulpit

eloquent preachers of every sect and communion, thundering against the

vices of Society, declare that Society is breaking up. Of course, not

being in Society, I am hardly in a position to judge; and the vices I

know only at second-hand--from the preachers. Yet I see no outward signs

of decay in Society; it dresses quite as well, in some ways better than,

it did. Society eats as much, judging from the size and number of new

restaurants; its patronises as usual the silliest plays in London, and

buys in larger quantities than ever the idiotic novels provided for it.

Have you ever been to a bazaar in aid of Our Dumb Friends' League? Well,

you see Society _there_, I can tell you; it is not dumb. And the

conversation sounds no less vapid and no less brilliant than we are told

it was in the eighteenth century; the dresses and faces are quite as

pretty. But much as I should like to discuss the decay of English

Society and the English nation, I feel that such lofty themes are beyond

my reach. I am concerned only with the so-called decay of humbler

things, the abstract manifestations of the human intellect, the Arts and

Sciences. And lest, weary at the end of my discourse, you forget the

argument or miss it, let me state at once what I wish to suggest, nay,

what I wish to assert, _there is no such thing as decay_. Decay is an

intellectual Mrs. Harris, a highly useful entity wherewith the

journalistic Gamps try to frighten Betsy Prig. Of course an obvious

objection to my assertion is the truism that everything has a life; and

that towards the end of that natural life we are correct in speaking of

approaching decay. With physical phenomena, however, I am not dealing,

though I may say, by the way, that there are many examples of human

intellect maturing in middle life or extreme old age. William Blake's

masterpiece, the illustrations to the Book of Job, were executed when he

was sixty-eight, a few years before his death. The late Lord Kelvin is

an example of an unimpaired intellect. Still, it must be admitted that

while nations may be destroyed by conquest, or by conquering too much and

becoming absorbed by the conquered, and that ancient buildings may be

pulled down or restored, so, too, conventions in literature and schools

of art have been brought to an end by war, plague, or death--ostensibly

brought to an end. But it is an error to suppose that art or literature,

because their development was artificially arrested, were in a state of

decay.

The favourite object-lesson of our childhood was the Roman Empire.

'Here's richness,' as Mr. Squeers said, here was decline, and Gibbon

wrote his prose epic from that point of view. I hardly dare to differ

with the greatest of English historians, but if we approach his work in

the scientific spirit with which we should always regard history, we

shall find that Gibbon draws false deductions from the undisputed facts,

the unchallenged assertions of his history. Commencing with the Roman

Empire almost in its cradle, he sees in every twist of the infant limbs

prognostications of premature decline in a dispensation which by his own

computation lasted over fourteen hundred years. It is safe enough to

prophesy about the past. Everything I admit has a life, but I do not

consider old age decay any more than I think exuberant youth immature

childhood; death may be only arrested development and life itself an

exhausted convention. Have you ever tried to count the number of reasons

Gibbon gives (each one is a principal reason) for the cause of Roman

decline? His philosophy reminds me of Flaubert's hero, who observed that

if Napoleon had been content to remain a simple soldier in the barracks

at Marseilles, he might still be on the throne of France. If we really

accept Gibbon's view of history, I am not surprised that any one should

be nervous about the British Empire. The great intellectual idea of the

Roman dominion, arrested indeed by barbarian invasion, philosophically

never decayed. Some of it was embalmed in Byzantium--particularly its

artistic and literary sides; its religious forces were absorbed by the

Roman Church, as Hobbes pointed out in a very wonderful passage; its

humanism and polity became the common property of the European nations of

to-day. Gibbon's work should have been called 'The Rise and Progress of

Greco-Roman Civilisation.' That is not such a good title, but it would

have been more accurate. And if you compare critically the history of

any manifestation of the human intellect, religion, literature, painting,

architecture, or science, you will find that the development of one

expressive force has been momentarily arrested while some other

manifestation is asserting itself synchronously with the supposed decay

in a manifestation whose particular history you are studying. Always

regard the deductions of the historian with the same scepticism that you

regard the deductions of fiscal politicians.

Every one knows the charming books by writers more learned than I can

pretend to be, where the history of Italian art is traced from Giotto

downwards; the story of Giotto and the little lamb, now, alas! entirely

exploded; of Cimabue's Madonna being carried about in processions, and

now discovered to have been painted by some one else! Then on to

Massaccio through the delightful fifteenth century until you see in the

text-book in large print, like the flashes of harbour lights after a bad

Channel crossing, RAPHAEL, MICHAEL ANGELO, DA VINCI. But when you come

to the seventeenth century, Guido Reni, the Carracci, and other painters

(for the present moment out of fashion), painters whose work fetches

little at Christie's, the art critic and historian begin to snivel about

decay; not only of Italian art, but of the Italian peninsula; and their

sobs will hardly ever allow them to get as far as Longhi, Piazetta, and

Tiepolo, those great masters of the eighteenth century.

But we know, painters certainly must know if they look at old masters at

all, that Tiepolo, if he was the last of the old masters, was also the

first of the moderns; it was his painting in Spain which influenced Goya,

and Goya is not only a deceased Spanish master, he is a European master

of to-day. You can trace his influence through all the great French

figure-painters of the nineteenth century down to those of the New

English Art Club, though they may not have actually known they were under

his influence. Painting commences with a childish naturalism, such as

you see on the walls of pre-historic caves; that is why savages always

prefer photographs to any work of art, and why photographers are always

so savage about works of art. Gradually this childish naturalism

develops into decoration; it becomes stylistic. The decoration becomes

perfected and sterile; then there arises a more sophisticated generation,

longing for naturalism, for pictorial _vraisemblance_, without the

childishness of the cave pictures. And their new art develops at the

expense of decoration; it becomes perfect and sterile. What is commonly

called decay is merely stylistic development. The exquisite art of

Byzantium was wrongly considered as the debasement of Greco-Roman art. It

was really the decorative expansion of it; the conventionalising of

exaggerated realism. The same might have happened in Europe after the

Baroque and Rococo fashions had their day; politics and commerce

interfered. The intensely artificial painting of France, to which

Diderot objected so much, had become perfect and sterile. Then (happily

or unhappily, in whichever direction your tastes lie) the French

Revolution, by a pathetic misunderstanding of classical ideals, paved the

way for the naturalism of the misnamed Romantic school. We were told, a

short time ago, that Sienese painting anticipated by a few years the

Florentine manifestations of Cimabue and Giotto, but Mr. Berenson has

pointed out that Sienese art is not the beginning but the end of an

exquisite convention, the quintessence of Byzantium. In the Roscoe

collection at Liverpool you have one of the most superb and precious

examples of this delicate, impeccable and decadent art: 'Christ found in

the Temple,' by Simone di Martini.

In Egyptian art, again, compare the pure naturalism of the wonderful

Egyptian scribe of the Louvre, belonging, I am told, to the fifth or

sixth dynasty, with the hieratic and conventional art of the twelfth

dynasty; while in the eighteenth dynasty you get a reversion to realism,

which critics have the audacity to call a 'revival of art.' But you

might just as well call it decayed, as indeed they do call some of the

most magnificent Ptolemaean remains, simply because they happen to belong

to a certain date which, by Egyptian reckoning, may be regarded as very

recent. Just now we very foolishly talk in accents of scorn about the

early Victorian art, of which I venture to remind you Turner was not the

least ornament. Of course commercial and political events often

interrupt the gestation of the arts, or break our idols in pieces.

Another generation picks up the fragments and puts them together in the

wrong way, and that is why it is so confusing and interesting; but there

is no reason to be depressed about it. Only iconoclasm need annoy us. In

histories of English literature too often you find the same attitude when

the writer comes to a period which he dislikes. Restoration Comedy is

often said to be a period of debasement, and with Tennyson the young

student is given to understand that English literature ceased altogether.

But perhaps there are more modern text-books where the outlook is less

gloomy. If, instead of reading the history of literature, you read the

literature itself, you will find plenty of instances of writers at the

most brilliant periods complaining of decay.

George Putman, in the _Art of English Poesy_, published in 1589, when

English poetry was starting on a particularly glorious period, says, 'In

these days all poets and poesy are despised, they are subject to scorn

and derision,' and 'this proceeds through the barbarous ignorance of the

time--in _other ages it was not so_.' Then Jonson, in his 'Discoveries,'

lamenting the decline of literature, says, 'It is the disease of the age,

and no wonder if the world, growing old, begins to be infirm.' There are

hundreds of others which will immediately occur to you, from Chaucer to

Tennyson, though Pope made noble protests on behalf of his

contemporaries. You have only got to compare these lachrymose

observations with the summary of the year's literature in any

newspaper--'literary output' is the detestable expression always used--and

you will find the same note of depression. 'The year has not produced a

single masterpiece. Glad as we have been to welcome Mr. Blank's verse,

"Larkspurs" cannot be compared with his first delicious volume,

"Tealeaves," published thirty years ago.' Then turn to the review in the

same paper of 'Tealeaves' thirty years ago. 'Coarse animalism draped in

the most seductive hues of art and romance, we will not analyse these

poems, we will not even pretend to give the reasons on which our opinion

is based.' Or read the incisive 'Musings without Method,' in

_Blackwood's Magazine_, on contemporary literature and contemporary

things generally.

Again, every painter is told that his work is not as good as last year,

and that we have no one like Titian or Velasquez. The Royal Academy is

always said to be worse than usual. I have known the summer exhibitions

at Burlington House for twenty years. Let me assure you throughout that

period they have always been quite as bad as they are now. But we do not

want painters like Titian or Velasquez; we want something else. If

painters were like Titian or Velasquez they would not be artists at all.

When Velasquez went to Rome he was told he ought to imitate Raphael; had

he done so should we regard him as the greatest painter in the world? If

Rossetti had merely been another Fra Angelico or one of the early artists

from whom he derived such noble inspiration, should we regard him as we

do, as even the fierce young modern art student does, as one of the

greatest figures in English art of the nineteenth century? In the latter

part of that century I think he is the greatest force in English

painting. I would reserve for him the largest print in my manual of

English art. But have we declined since the death of Rossetti? On the

contrary, I think we have advanced and are advancing. You must not think

I am depreciating the past. The past is one of my witnesses. The past

was very like our present; it nearly always depreciated itself

intellectually and materially.

We all of us think of Athens in the fifth century as a golden period of

great men, when every genius was appreciated, but you know that they put

Pheidias in prison. And take the instance of Euripides. The majority of

his countrymen said he was nothing to the late Aeschylus. He was chiefly

appreciated by foreigners, as you will remember if you are able to read

'Balaustion's Adventure' (so much more difficult than Euripides in the

original Greek). Listen to what Professor Murray says:--

His contemporary public denounced him as dull, because he tortured

them with personal problems; as malignant, because he made them see

truths they wished not to see; as blasphemous and foul-minded, because

he made demands on their religious and spiritual natures which they

could neither satisfy nor overlook. They did not know whether he was

too wildly imaginative or too realistic, too romantic or too prosaic,

too childishly simple or too philosophical--Aristophanes says he was

all these things at once. They only knew that he made them angry and

that they could not help listening to him.

Does not that remind you a little of what was said all over England of

Mr. Bernard Shaw? Of what is still said about him in many London houses

to-day? If some one praises him, the majority of people will tell you

that he is overrated. Does it not remind you of the reception which

Ibsen's plays met when they were first produced here: when they gave an

impetus to that new English drama which I understand is decaying, though

it seems to me to be only beginning--the new English Drama of Mr.

Granville Barker, Mr. Housman, Mr. Arnold Bennett, Mr. Galsworthy, and

Mr. Masefield?

Every year the patient research of scholars by the consultation of

original documents has caused us to readjust our historical perspective.

Those villains of our childhood, Tiberius, Richard III., Mary Tudor, and

others, have become respectable monarchs, almost model monarchs, if you

compare them with the popular English view of the present King of the

Belgians, the ex-Sultan of Turkey, and the present Czar of Russia. It is

realised that contemporary journalism gave a somewhat twopence coloured

impression of Kings and Queens, who were only creatures of their age,

less admirable expressions of the individualism of their time. And just

as historical facts require readjustment by posterity, so our critical

estimate of intellectual and aesthetic evolution requires strict

revision. We must not accept the glib statement of the historian,

especially of the contemporary historian, that at certain periods

intellectual activity and artistic expression were decaying or did not

exist. If a convention in one field of intellectual activity is said by

the historian or chronicler to be approaching termination or to be

decaying, as he calls it, we should test carefully his data and his

credentials. But, assuming he is right, there will always be found some

compensating reaction in another sphere of intellectual activity which is

in process of development; and through which, by some divine alchemy,

providence, or nature, call it what you will, a new manifestation will be

made to the world. The arts which we suppose to have perished, of which,

indeed, we write affecting epitaphs, are merely hibernating; the

intellect which is necessary for their production and nutrition is simply

otherwise employed; while, of course, you must make allowances for the

appreciations of posterity, change of fashion and taste. From the middle

of the sixteenth century down to nearly the middle of the nineteenth, the

Middle Ages were always thought of as the Dark Ages. Scarcely any one

could appreciate either the pictorial art or architecture of mediaevalism;

those who did so always had to apologise for their predilection. The

wonders of Gothic art were furtively relished by a few antiquaries; and,

at certain periods, by men like Beckford and Walpole, as agreeable

drawing-room curiosities. The Romantic movement commenced by Chatterton

enabled us to revise a limited and narrow view, based on insufficient

information. It was John Ruskin, in England, who made us see what a

splendid heritage the Middle Ages had bequeathed to us. Ruskin and his

disciples then fell into the error of turning the tables on the

Renaissance, and regarded everything that deviated from Gothic convention

as _debased_; the whole art of the eighteenth century was anathema to

them. The decadence began, according to Ruskin, with Raphael. Out of

that ingenious error, or synchronous with it, began the brilliant

movement of the Pre-Raphaelites in the middle of the last century. And

when the Pre-Raphaelites appeared, every one said the end of Art had

arrived. Dickens openly attacked them; Thackeray ridiculed the new

tendencies; every one, great and small, spoke of decay and decline. The

French word _Decadence_ had not crept into use. However, the weary Titan

staggered on, as Matthew Arnold said, and when Mr. Whistler's art dawned

on the horizon, Ruskin was among the first to see in it signs of decay.

Except the poetry of Swinburne, never has any art met with such abuse. An

example of the immortal painter now adorns the National Gallery of

_British_ painting, which is cared for--oh, irony of circumstances--by

one of the first prophets of impressionism in this country, or, rather,

let me say, one of the first English critics--Mr. D. S. MacColl.

But you will now ask how do I account for those periods when apparently

the liberal arts are supposed not to have existed? I maintain they did

exist, or that human intellect was otherwise employed. The excavations

of prehistoric cities are evidences of my contention. Because things are

destroyed we must not say they have decayed; if evidences are scarce, do

not say they never existed. Our architecture, for example, took five

hundred years to develop out of the splendid Norman through the various

transitions of Gothic down to the perfection of the English country house

in Elizabethan and Jacobean times. If church architecture was decaying,

domestic architecture was improving. _Architecture is, of course, the

first and most important of all the arts_, and when the human intellect

is being used up for some other purpose there is a temporary cessation;

there is never any decay of architecture. The putting up of ugly

buildings is merely a sign of growing stupidity, not of declining

intellect or decaying taste. Jerry-building is the successful

competition of dishonesty against competency. Do not imagine that

because the good architects do not get commissions to put up useful or

beautiful buildings they do not exist. The history of stupidity and the

history of bad taste must one day engage our serious attention. There is

no decay, alas, even in stupidity and bad taste.

The suddenness with which the literature of the sixteenth century

developed in England has been explained, I know, by the Reformation. But

you should remember the other critics of art, who ascribe the barrenness

of our painting and the necessity of importing continental artists, also

to the Reformation. I suggest that the intellectual capacity of the

nation was directed towards literature, politics and _religious_

controversy, rather than to art and religion. I cannot think there was

any scarcity of the artistic germ in the English nation which had already

expressed itself in the great Abbeys and Churches, such as Glastonbury,

Tintern, Fountains, and York. And you must remember that the minor art

of embroidery, the '_opus anglicanum_' (which flourished for three

centuries previous to the Reformation), was famous throughout Europe.

In the middle of the eighteenth century, the big men, Swift, Pope, and

Addison, having passed away, the Augustan age of English literature

seemed exhausted. It was a time of intellectual dyspepsia; every one was

much too fond of ruins; people built sham ruins on their estates. Rich

men, who could afford the luxury, kept a dilapidated hermit in a cavern.

Their chief pleasure on the continent was measuring ruins in the way

described so amusingly by Goldsmith in _The Citizen of the World_. Though

no century was more thoroughly pleased with itself, I might almost say

smugly self-satisfied, the men of that century were always lamenting the

decline of the age. The observations of Johnson and Goldsmith I need

scarcely repeat. But here is one which may have escaped your notice. It

is not a suggestion of decline, but an assertion of non-existence. Gray,

the poet, the cultivated connoisseur, the Professor of History, writing

in 1763 to Count Algarrotti, says: 'Why this nation has made no advances

hitherto in painting and sculpture it is hard to say; the fact is

undeniable, and we have the vanity to apologise for ourselves as Virgil

did for the Romans:

Excudent alii spirantia mollius aera,

Credo equidem, vivos ducent de marmore vultus,

Orabunt causas melius, coelique meatus

Describent radio, et surgentia sidera dicent:

Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento;

Hae tibi erunt artes; pacisque imponere morem,

Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos.

'You are generous enough to wish, and sanguine enough to see that art

shall one day flourish in England. _I too much wish, but can hardly

extend my hopes so far_.' Yet in 1754 Chippendale had published his

Cabinet Makers' Guide; and the next fifty years was to see the production

of all that beautiful English furniture of which we are so justly proud,

and which we forge with such surprising skill. It was the next fifty

years that saw the production of the beautiful English pottery which we

prize so highly, and it was the next hundred years that was to be the

period of Reynolds, Gainsborough, Lawrence, Crome, Cotman, Alfred

Stevens, and Turner, who died in 1851, just when the Pre-Raphaelites were

supposed to be inaugurating the decay of that which Gray denied the

existence, nearly one hundred years before.

Though the scope of my discussion is limited to literature and art, it

would be paltry to confine our inquiries within limited horizons.

Painting and architecture, alas, are not the whole of life; the fine arts

are only the flowers of existence; they are useful as humanising

elements; but they are not indispensable. That vague community among

whom we arbitrarily place those with whom we disagree--the

Philistines--get on very well without them. But even Philistines have to

reckon with Religion and Science, and in a lesser degree with Philosophy.

That powerful trinity affects our every-day life. Philosophy is so

cloistered, so difficult to understand, that we seldom hear of its decay;

though we are constantly told that some branch of science is being

neglected, or owing to a religious revival that its prestige is becoming

undermined; its truths are becoming falsehoods. I am not a man of

science, not even a student, only a desultory reader. Yet I suggest

that, as was pointed out in the case of the fine arts, certain branches

of the divine scholarship, if I may call it so, may be arrested

temporarily in any development they may have reached. Let us take

medicine. Medicine is primarily based upon the study of anatomy or

structure--physiology--or the scheme of structure carried out in life;

and upon botany and chemistry as representing the vegetable and mineral

worlds where the remedies are sought. Anatomy soon reaches a finite

position, when a sufficient number of careful dissections has been made;

the other divisions used to look like promising endless development; but

there is reason to suppose that they too, as far as medicine is

concerned, have reached a sterile perfection.

The microscope is perfected up to a point which mechanicians think cannot

be improved upon; so that those ultimate elements of physiology which

depend upon the observation of minute structure are known to us. To put

it crudely, we cannot discover any more germs, whose presence is hidden

from us by mere minuteness, unless we can improve our machinery, and

that, we are told, is an improbable event. I will not labour the point

by applying it to botany, which is very obvious, or to chemistry, where

it is not so clear. But it _is_ clear that owing to a feeling that not

much more is to be got from minute observation with the tools at our

disposal, the brightest intellects and most inventive clairvoyant work

are shunted into more imaginative channels. There are no men who guess

so brilliantly as men of science, so that science, in that respect, has

attained the dignity of Theology. I suppose that the startling theories

propounded by Sir Oliver Lodge and others will be taken as evidence of

the decay of science. But the human intellect, especially if it is

scientific, cannot, I imagine, like actors, go on repeating or feigning

the same emotion. It must leave for the moment as apparently completed

one branch of knowledge to which it may return again after developing

some less mature branch on which the attention of the most learned

investigators is for a time wholly concentrated. The tree of knowledge

is an evergreen, and in science, no more than in arts, is there any

decay. When Darwin published his great _Origin of Species_ which was

hailed as a revelation, not only by scientific men, but by intelligent

laymen, religious people became very much alarmed. They talked about the

decay of faith, and ascribed any falling off in the offertories to the

shillings spent on visiting the monkey-house at the Zoological Gardens.

Younger sons and less gifted members of clever families were no longer

destined for Holy Orders; as we were descended from apes it would have

seemed impious. They were sent to Cambridge to pursue a so-called

scientific career, which was crowned by the usual aegrotat in botany

instead of a pass in history. The falling off in candidates for Holy

Orders seriously alarmed some of our Bishops; and Darwin--the gentle,

delightful Darwin--became what the Pope had been to our ancestors. I

need not point out how groundless these fears happily proved to be. The

younger intellects of the country simply became more interested for the

moment in the cross-breeding of squirrels, than in the internecine

difficulties of the Protestant church on Apostolic succession, the number

of candles on the altar, and the legality of incense. Now, I rejoice to

say, there is a healthy revival of interest and a healthy difference of

opinion on all these important religious questions. We must never pay

serious attention to the alarmists who tell us that the churches and

sects are seeing their last days. Macaulay has warned us never to be too

sanguine about the Church of Rome. The moments of her greatest trials

produced some of her greatest men--Ignatius Loyola, Philip Neri, and

Francis Xavier. Do you think the Church is decaying because the

congregations are banished from France, and the Concordat has come to an

end? I tell you it will only stimulate her to further conquests; it is

the beginning of a new life for the Catholic Church in France. If the

Anglican Church were to be disestablished to-morrow, I would regard it as

a Sandow exercise for the hardworking, splendid intellects of the

Establishment. The Nonconformists--well, they never talk about their own

decline; of all the divisions of Christianity they always seem to me

heartily to enjoy persecution; and like myself, I never knew them to

admit the word _decadence_ into their vocabulary, at least about

themselves. I hold them up to you as examples. Let us all be

Nonconformists in that respect.

I do not ask you to adopt the habit against which Matthew Arnold directed

one of his witty essays, the habit of expressing a too unctuous

satisfaction with the age and time in which we are living. That was the

intellectual error of the Eighteenth Century. There are problems of

poverty, injustice, disease, and unhappiness, which should make the most

prosperous and most selfish of us chafe; but I do urge that we should not

suspect the art and literature of our time, the intellectual

manifestations of our age, whether scientific or literary. I urge that

we do not sit on the counter in order to cry 'stinking fish,' and observe

that this is merely an age of commerce. An overweening modesty in us

seems to persuade us that it is quite impossible we should be fortunate

enough to be the contemporaries of great men. The fact that we know them

personally sometimes undermines our faith; contemporary contempt for a

great man is too often turned on the contemporaries. Do not let us look

upon genius, as Schopenhauer accused some people of doing, 'as upon a

hare which is good to eat when it has been killed and dressed up, but so

long as it is alive only good to be shot at.' And if our intellectuals

are not all Brobdingnagians, they are not all Liliputians. It seems to

me ungenerous to make sweeping and deprecating assertions about our own

time; it is also dangerous. The contemporary praise of unworthy work,

ephemeral work--there is always plenty of that, we know--is forgotten;

and (though it does not decay) perishes with the work it extolled. But

unsound criticism and foolish abuse of great work is remembered to the

confusion of the critics. Think of the reception accorded to Wordsworth,

Coleridge, Byron, Keats, Shelley, Rossetti, and Swinburne.

I remember that excellent third-rate writer, W. E. H. Lecky, making a

speech at a dinner of the Authors' Society, in which he said that he was

sorry to say there were no great writers alive, and no stylists to

compare with those who had passed away. A few paces off him sat Walter

Pater, George Meredith, and Mr. Austin Dobson. Tennyson, though not

present at the banquet, was president of the Society, and Ruskin was

still alive. When Swinburne's 'Atalanta in Calydon' appeared, another

third-rate writer, James Russell Lowell, assured the world that its

author was no poet, because there was no thought in the verse. Four

years ago, at a provincial town in Italy, when one of the Italian

ministers, at the opening of some public building, said that united Italy

owed to the great English poet Swinburne a debt which it could never

forget, the inhabitants cheered vociferously. This was no idle

compliment; every one in Italy knows who Swinburne was. I will not

hazard to guess the extent of the ovation which the names of Lowell and

Lecky would receive, but I think the incident is a fair sign that English

poetry has not decayed.

In the _Daily Mail_ I saw once an interview with an inferior American

black-and-white draughtsman at Berlin. He was asked his opinion about a

splendid exhibition of old English pictures being held there, and took

occasion to say 'what the pictures demonstrate is not that the English

women of the eighteenth century were conspicuously lovely, but the

artists who painted them possessed secrets of reproduction which

posterity has failed to inherit.' I would like to reply 'Rot, rot, rot;'

but that would imply a belief in decay. I suggest to the same critic

that he should visit one of the 'International Exhibitions,' where he

will see the pictures of Mr. Charles Hazelwood Shannon. Such a stupid

view from an American is particularly amazing, because in Mr. John Singer

Sargent, we (by _we_ I mean America and ourselves) possess an artist who

is certainly the peer of Gainsborough and Reynolds, and personally I

should say a much greater painter than Reynolds. A hundred years hence,

perhaps people at Berlin (the most critical and cultivated capital in the

world) will be bending before the 'Three Daughters of Percy Wyndham,' the

'Duchess of Sutherland,' the 'Marlborough Family,' and many another

masterpiece of Mr. Sargent and Mr. Charles Shannon. The same American

critic says that our era of mediocrity will continue; so I am full of

hope. Even the existence of America does not depress me: nor do I see in

it a symptom of decay; if it produces much that is distasteful in the way

of tinned meat, it gave us Mr. John Sargent and Mr. Henry James, and it

took away from England Mr. Richard Le Gallienne.

I should be the last to invite you not to discriminate about the present.

We must be cautious in estimating the very popular writers or painters of

our time; but we must not dismiss them because they are popular. We

should be tall enough to worship in a crowd. Let our criticism be

aristocratic, our taste fastidious, and let our sympathies be democratic

and catholic. Dickens, I suppose, is one of the most popular writers who

ever lived, and yet he is part of the structure of our literature; but as

Dickens is dead, I prefer to mention the names of three living writers,

who are also popular, and have become corner-stones of the same

building--Mr. Thomas Hardy, Mr. Rudyard Kipling, Mr. H. G. Wells. 'There

are at all times,' says Schopenhauer, 'two literatures in progress

running side by side, but little known to each other; the one real, the

other only apparent. The former grows into permanent literature: it is

pursued by those who live _for_ science or poetry. The other is pursued

by those who live _on_ science or poetry; but after a few years one asks

where are they? where is the glory that came so soon and made so much

clamour?' We are happy if we can discriminate between those two

literatures.

While we should remember that there are at all times intellects whose

work is more for posterity than for the present; work which appeals,

perhaps, only to the few, that of artists whose work has no purchasers,

writers whose books may have publishers but few readers, we must be

cautious about accepting the verdict of the dove-cot. There are many

obscure artists and writers whose work, though admired by a select few,

remains very properly obscure, and will always remain obscure; it is of

no value intellectually; the world should know nothing of its inferior

men. Sometimes, however, it is these inferior men who are able to get

temporary places as critics, and inform us in leading articles that ours

is an age _of Decadence_. Every new drama, every work of art which

possesses individuality or gives a fresh point of view or evinces

development of any kind, is held up as an instance of Decay. '_L'ecole

decadent_' was a phrase invented as a jest in 1886, I believe by Monsieur

Bourde, a journalist in Paris. It was eagerly adopted by the Parisians,

and soon floated across the Channel. Used as a term of reproach, it was

accepted by the group of poets it was intended to ridicule. I need not

remind you that the master of that school was Paul Verlaine, the immortal

poet who enlarged the scope of French verse--the poet who achieved for

French poetry what I am told the so-called decadent philosopher Nietzsche

has done for German prose. Unfortunately I do not know German, and it

seems almost impossible to add to the German language. But Nietzsche, I

am assured by competent authorities, has performed a similar feat to that

of Luther on the issue of his Bible.

When, therefore, we hear of decadence in literature or art, even if we

accept Mr. Balfour's definition of its symptom--'_the employment of an

over-wrought technique_'--we must remember that Decadence and Decay have

now different meanings, though originally they meant the same sort of

thing. An over-wrought technique is characteristic of the decadent

school of France, particularly of Mallarme, and some of our own

decadents. Walter Pater and Sir Thomas Browne. The existence of writers

adopting an over-wrought technique, however, is not (and Mr. Balfour

would repudiate the idea) a sign of decay as commonplace moralists would

have us believe, but of realised perfection. Pater is the most perfect

prose writer we ever produced. The Euphuists of the sixteenth century

were of course decadents, and I think you will admit that they did not

herald any decay in our literature.

The truth is that men after a certain age, if not on the crest of the

waves themselves, become bored with counting the breakers, and decide

that the tide is going out. You must often have had arguments with

friends on this subject when walking by the sea. The water seems to be

receding; you can see that there is an ebb; and then an unusually long

wave comes up and wets your feet. Great writers are guilty of a similar

error without any intention of contriving a literary conceit (as I

suspect many a past outcry to have been). Even Pater declared that he

would not disturb himself by reading any contemporary literature

published by an author who did not exist before 1870. He never read

Stevenson or Kipling. Now that is a terrible state to be in; it is a

symptom of premature old age; not physical but mental old age.

The art of the present day is not architecture, painting, or literature.

It is the art of remaining young. It is the art of life. It is a

science. The fairer, the stronger, the better sex--shall I call its

members our equals or our superiors?--have always realised this. Indeed,

they have employed ingenious mechanical contrivances for arresting the

march of time or that physical decay of which we are all victims.

Sometimes they may be said to have indulged in an over-wrought technique,

which may be the reason why we are told that every woman is at heart a

decadent. Otto Weininger certainly thought so. I have always regretted

that the male sex was precluded by prejudice from following their

example. I regret somewhat acutely the desuetude of the periwig.

So we can take an example from women--they are so often our theme, let

them be our examples in a symbolical sense. If we choose, we too can

remain young intellectually, sensitive to new impressions, new impulses

and new revelations, whether of science or art. The Greeks of the fifth

century, and even of the age of St. Paul, preserved their youth by

cultivating the superb gift of curiosity, delightful anxiety about the

present and future. William Morris once described the Whigs as careless

of the past, ignorant of the present, and fearful of the future. Whatever

your politics are, do not be like the Whigs as described by William

Morris. Cultivate a feminine curiosity. I used to be told the old story

of Blue Beard as a warning against that particular failing. I see in it

a much profounder moral. It is the emancipation of woman; and asserts

her right, if not to vote, at least to be curious. Her curiosity rid the

world of a monster, and in her curiosity we see the nucleus of the new

drama. That little blood-stained key unlocked for us the cupboard where

the family skeleton had been left too long in the cold; it was time that

he joined the festive board, or, at least, appeared on the boards: and

now, I am glad to say, he has done so; and he is called new-fangled. Do

not let us call things 'new-fangled.' New-fangled medicine probably

saves fifty per cent. of the population from premature death. Do not

speak of the 'crudity of youth.' Youth is sometimes crude. It is better

than being rude. It is an error to mock at the single virtue a possible

offender may possess. I observe that men of science remain younger

intellectually, and even physically, than artists or men of letters. I

believe it is because to them science is always full of surprises and

fresh impressions. They know there is practically no end to their

knowledge; and that in the study of science there is no decay, whatever

they may detect in the crust of the earth or on the face of heaven. They

are never satisfied with the past. They look to youth and its

enthusiasms for realising their own dreams and developing their own

hypotheses. And as there are great men of science to-day, so, too, there

are great men of letters, great poets, and great painters, some of whose

names you may not have heard. But when you do hear of them I beg of you

not to regard any of them as symptoms of decay, even if their technique

is elaborate and over-wrought. The _early_ work of every modern painter

is over-elaborate and over-wrought, just as all the work of early

painters is over-elaborate and over-wrought. Do not greet the dawn as

though it were a lowering sunset. Listen, and, with William Blake, you

may hear the sons of God shouting for joy. If your mind is bent on

decay, read that neglected poet, Byron. He thought the romantic

movement, of which he became the accidental centre, a symptom of decay.

Read any period of history and its literature, and you will find the same

cry reiterated. When you have read an old book go out and buy a new one.

When you have sold your old masters, go out and buy new masters.

Aladdin's maid is one of the wronged characters of legend. . . . Of the

Pierian spring there are many fountains. Yet it is a spring which never

runs dry; though it flows with greater freedom at one season than at

another, with greater volume from one fountain than some other. In the

glens of Parnassus there are hidden flowers always blooming; though, to

the binoculars of the tourist, the mountain seems unusually barren. You

will find that youth does not vanish with the rose, that you need never

close the sweet-scented manuscript of love, science, art or literature.

In them youth returns like daffodils that come before the swallow dares,

and take the winds of March with beauty: or like the snapdragons which

Cardinal Newman saw blossoming on the wall at Oxford, and which became

for him the symbol of hope. For us they may stand as the symbol of

realisation and the immortality of the human intellect, in which there

has been no decay since the days of Tubal Cain.

_To_ J. G. LEGGE, ESQ.