you, O Sophist, and you here present for the pleasant reception that
you have given us. My lot has on the whole not been altogether bad.
Your studious men, it is true, affect to condemn me, my policy,
and my private life. Perhaps they will allow me to remark that the
irregularity of my past morals is a matter of temptations. Diogenes
used to tell us that one of my sternest historian-critics in Syracuse
left his wife, children and house on being for once tempted by the
chamber-maid of one of my passing caprices; and the historians of your
race who so gravely decry a Madame de Montespan would, did Madame only
smile at them, incontinently fall into a fit of hopeless moral collapse.
"'But if your men write against me, irrespective of what they really
feel about me, I am sure your women take a much more lenient view of
the case.'
"(Discreet applause.)
"'They feel that ambition did not eat up all the forces of my soul, and
that in worshipping Ares (Mars), I never forgot the cult of Aphrodite
(Venus) either. We Hellenes ventured to be humans, and that is why now
we have become demi-gods. You, my friends, do not even venture to be
humans, and that is why you remain the little ones.
"'I notice in the northern countries of Europe men do not, or to a
very small degree care for women. Perhaps that is the reason why the
Roman Catholic idea of the Holy Virgin has had no lasting hold on these
nations.
"'I have seen,' continued Alcibiades, 'too many faces, masks, and
pretences to be much impressed by the apparent indifference of the
northerner to the charms of women. It never meant more than either an
unavowed inclination towards his own sex, or sheer boorishness. Even we
Hellenes had very much to suffer from our political and social neglect
of women outside emancipated ones. The Romans acted much more wisely in
that respect; while the nation of our hostess has practically become
what we called a _gynæcocracy_ or women's rule, where man is socially
what our Greek women used to be: relegated to the background. I hear,
this is the privilege of Englishmen. I understand. When I was young I
learnt but too much about that privilege.
"'But if I should be asked for advice I would tell your men to take
your women much more seriously. I know that Englishmen are much more
grave than serious; yet with regard to women they ought to be much more
intent on considering them in everything their mates, and in several
things their superiors. Of course, this is an unmilitary nation; and
such nations will always remain boors in Sunday dress.
"'One of your great writers who, being outside the academic clique,
has always been maligned by the officials, has written a beautiful
essay on the influence of women. Poor Buckle--he treated the problem
as a schoolroom paper. He came to the result that women encourage the
deductive mode of thinking. However, women are more seductive than
deductive, and their real influence is to charm the young, to warm the
mature, and not to alarm the old.
"'I, being now above the changes of time, I only, contemplate their
charm. And what greater potentialities of charm could one wish for
than those that your women possess? If those magnificently cut and
superbly coloured eyes learned to be expressive; if the muscles of
those fine cheeks knew how to move with speedier grace; if that purely
outlined mouth were more animated--what possibilities of fascination,
like so many fairies, might rise over the dispassionate surface of
those silent lakes! As they are, their several organs are positively
hostile, or coldly indifferent to one another. The forehead, instead
of being the ever-changing capital of the human column, setting off
their beautiful hair, as ivory sets off gold; the shoulders, the seat
of human grace, instead of giving to the head the pedestal of the
Charites; and the arms and hands, instead of giving by their movements
the proper lilt and cadence to everything said or done;--all these
hate one another respectively. The arms do not converse with the face;
theirs is like other conversations: after a few remarks on the weather
all communication stops. So sullen is the antipathy of the arms, that
as a rule they hide on the back, as if begrudging the face or the bust
their company. It is in that way that English women who might be as
beautiful and charming as the maidens of Thebes or of Tanagra, have
made themselves into walking Caryatides, whom we invariably represented
as doing a slavish labour, with their arms on their backs, and with a
heavy load on their heads.
"'Remove the arms, O women of England, from your badly swung back
and bring them into play in front of your well-shaped bust and your
beautiful faces! Let the consciousness of your power electrify your
looks, your dimples, and your gait; and when from musing Graces you
will have changed into graceful Muses, your men too will be much
superior to what they used to be.
"'See how little your influence is, as your language clearly indicates.
Is not your language the only idiom in Europe that has completely
dropped that fine shade of sweet intimacy which the use of _thou_ and
_thy_ is giving to the other languages? Is not a new world of tenderest
internal joy permeating the French, German or Italian woman who for
the first time dares to _tutoyer_ her lover? You women of England, the
natural priestesses of all warmth and intimacy, you have suffered all
that to decay.
"'To your men we Hellenes say: "Imitate us!" To you women, we do not
say so. We ask you to exceed us, to go beyond us, and then alone
when women will be what we Hellenic men were, that is, specimens of
all-round humanity, then indeed you too will rise to the higher status,
and the golden age will again fill the world with light and happiness!'
"After that speech of mine," continued Alcibiades, "there was much
applause. I mingled with the public, and was at once interpellated by
one of the American ladies present:
"'Most interesting speech,' she said. 'What I especially liked were
your remarks about thou-ing. And what I want to know most is whether
Caryatides were thou-ing one another?'
"I was a little perplexed, and all that I could answer was: 'Their
dimples did,' and this seemed to satisfy my American lady marvellously
well.
"Another lady asked me how many Muses we had, and on hearing that their
number was nine, she was highly astonished. 'Only nine? Why in London
there are mews in every second street. How strange!'
"A third lady asked me what I meant by shoulders being a pedestal. Her
shoulders, she was sure, were no pedestals, and she would not allow
anyone to stand on them. She added, that she was aware of my having
said that the shoulders were the pedestal of the Charites, but with her
best intention she could not allow even charity to be extended to her
shoulders. I smiled consent.
"A fourth lady, whose name was Valley, but who was a mountain of
otherwise rosy flesh, asked me what I had meant by maidens of Podagra?
She was sure that young maids never suffered from that ugly disease. I
told her that I really meant Chiragra. This satisfied her marvellously
well.
"During that time Phryne and Lais were the heroines of the evening,
lionised by women, and courted by men. The women asked them all sorts
of questions and seemed extraordinarily eager to be instructed. One of
them, a brilliant duchess--(who had three secretaries providing her
with the latest information about everything, the first preparing all
the catch-words from A to G, the second from H to N, and the third from
O to Z)--asked Phryne whether she would not permit her to convince
herself of the accuracy of the estimate in which Hyperides held the
exquisite form of Phryne's bosom. (A middle-class woman thereupon asked
Mr Gox, M.P., what Hyperides meant. Mr Gox told her it was the Greek
for Rufus, son of Abraham.) Phryne volunteered to do so at once, and
the women disappeared in a special room, from where very soon cries
of amazement could be heard. The pure beauty of Phryne enchanted the
women. The sensation was immense, ay immensest.
"The representative of the _Daily Nail_ offered first £2000, then
£3000, finally £5000 for permission to kodak Phryne.
"The _Bad Times_ at once prepared a folio edition of _The Engravers'
Engravings_, payable in 263 instalments, or preferably at once.
"The _Daily Marconigraph_ started a public discussion in its columns:
'Shall the lower part of the upper anatomy of the female trunk be
unveiled?'
"The excitement became so universal that Mr Gigerl See at once convened
a national meeting for the erection of ten new statues to Shakespeare;
and General Booth ordered an absolute fast of 105 hours' duration.
"All the directors of music halls, the next day, stormed Hotel Ritz
where Phryne had a suite of six lovely rooms, and offered impossible
prices for a performance of five minutes. Phryne, after consulting me,
consented to appear at the Palace Theatre, in the immortal scene when,
in presence of the entire population of Athens, she descended into the
sea. Half of the proceeds were to be given to a fund for poor women in
childbed. Endless advertisements soon filled every available space on
London's walls, parks, newspapers, 'buses, railways, and shops. Tickets
sold at tenfold their original prices.
"At last the evening came. In the first two rows there were practically
nothing but clergymen. The following rows were filled with lawyers,
M.P.'s and University professors. In the boxes one could see all the
aristocracy of the country. When Phryne's turn came, the orchestra
played Wagner's 'Pilgrim's Chorus,' toward the end of which the curtain
rolled up, and the scene represented the Piræus with apparently
countless people, all in Greek dress. When the expectation was at its
height, Phryne appeared clad only with the veil of her perfect beauty,
and descended into the sea. Before she entered the water she said her
prayers to Aphrodite, and then slowly went into the waves.
"Everyone in the audience had come to the theatre expecting to be
badly shocked. To their utmost astonishment they found that there
was not only nothing shocking in the scene, but even much to fill
the people with awe. Like all the barbarians, the little ones deem
nudity a shocking sight. What shocked them that night was the fact
that they were not shocked. They felt for a moment that many of their
notions and views must be radically wrong, and that was the only shock
they received. Phryne triumphed over Londoners, as she did over the
Athenians.
"My American lady friend was in raptures. The incredible sensation her
Elki and his Athenian women had caused in _blasé_ London society made
her the centre of all social centres for a fortnight. She received
innumerable letters from innumerable people. The greatest writers
that the world has ever seen, such as Miss Cora Morelli, wrote to her
saying, that:
"'She had from her infancy onward taken a deep interest in Alcibiades
and his time, and that now, having actually seen him, she would
forthwith publish a novel under the attractive title of "The Mighty
Elki," let alone another novel, full of the most delightful shivers,
called "Phry, the Pagan."'
"Mr Hall Caine, in a thundering article, fulminated against the row
made over Phryne, and solemnly declared that the charms of his Manxman
were incomparably greater. One day Mr Caine called on me. He implored
me to become a Christian, and assured me that the shortest way to that
effect would be to attend a performance of his piece of that name. I
thanked him for his kind offer, but politely declined it. Whereupon Mr
Caine remained musing, until at last he surprised me with the question:
'Mr Alcib, you are the man to solve the problem of my life. Do you not
think I bear a remarkable resemblance to Lord Bacon?'
"I answered that I could discern no resemblance between him and the
witty Chancellor, but that I was bound to confess that there was a
striking resemblance between him and Shakespeare.
"Mr Caine smiled a superior smile. 'I wonder,' he said, 'you are not
aware of the fact that Shakespeare was written by Lord Bacon.'
"'Very strange--very strange,' I replied. 'We in Olympus think that
Shakespeare was written by the victory over the Armada, and published
by Elizabeth and Co.'
"'Do you really think such stuff in Olympus?' exclaimed Mr Caine;
'then I do not wonder that I have never been invited to that place.
What has the Armada to do with _Hamlet_ or _King Lear_? You might just
as well say that my novels were written by our victory at Colenso and
Spion Kop. It is revoltingly absurd. A book is a book and not shrapnel
or bombs. Sir, I am ashamed of you; the purple of red indignation
rises swellingly into my distended physiognomy, and my thought-fraught
forehead sinks under the ignominy of such life-bereft incoherences!'
"I advised Mr Caine to drink Perrier; he thanked me profusely, and
assured me that he had always done so. He evidently mixed it up
with the Pierian sources of literature which, I learn, provide the
innumerable papers of the Associated Press with the necessary water
under the name of Perrier.
* * * * *
"In my honour my American lady friend gave, a few days later, a
concert. The little ones call a concert a series of instrumental and
vocal pieces played for sheer amusement, and without any relation to
poetry, dance, or religion. I have these three to four hundred years
accustomed myself to their music, which is thoroughly different from
ours, being polyphonous, whereas ours was never so. Dionysus, who
presides at their music, has often told us that he introduced it into
the modern world in order to show his exceeding power even in times
when the men and women have lamentably fallen from the height of our
Grecian culture. Our music was essentially Apollinic; that of the
moderns is Dionysiac. You remember, O Zeus, that even Apollo was moved
when three of the moderns had the honour to perform before him. Even he
praised Mozart, Chopin, and some pieces of Weber. You need not blush,
Frédéric, and you might help me to entertain and charm our holy circle
by playing us one of your compositions in which beauty of form is
married in tender love to truth of feeling."
Thereupon, at a sign of Zeus, Milo of Crotona, the Olympian victor
of all victors, carried a piano on his mighty back, and put it down
gently in one of the mystic barks. Chopin, bowing to the gods, and more
particularly to Juno and Diana, sat down to the instrument and played
the second and the third movement of his E minor _Concerto_. Round
him waved the three Graces, while Dionysus laid an ivy wreath on his
blessed head. Even the gods were moved, and when Frédéric had ended,
they applauded him with passionate admiration.
"I wish, O Chopin," continued Alcibiades, "I had known you in my
mortal time. What Terpander and Thaletas, the great musicians, did for
Sparta, you might have helped me to do for Athens. It was not to be.
The thought saddens me still. More than Sophocles and Aristophanes
or Socrates, your incomparable music would have helped to keep the
_Kosmos_ of Athens in due proportions."
A short pause ensued, and all looked with timidity on Zeus' immovable
face.
"But let us drop these sorrowful reminiscences and return to the London
concert given by my American hostess.
"She had engaged the best-known artists. For the solo songs she engaged
a woman who had to be carried into the room in a motor chair, and was
not allowed to stand up, before three architects had examined the
solidity of the floor. Her range was from the deep _p_ to the high
_l_. She sang baritone, and soprano at the same time, and what her
tone wanted in width her _taille_ amply replaced. She sang nothing but
Wagner, whose music, it would appear, is written for two-ton women
only. No smaller tonnage need apply. While she sang, three dozen
violins executed the tremolos of five hundred whimpering children,
while forty counter-basses gave, every three minutes, a terrible grunt
in _x_ minor. There were also fifteen fifes, and twenty-one different
kinds of brass instruments, some of which had necks much longer than
that of the oldest giraffe. The music was decidedly sensual and
nerve-irritating. It was full of chords, both accords and discords,
and what little melody there was in it was kneaded out into a tapeworm
of prodigious length and such hydralike vitality, that no matter how
frequently the strings throttled off its head, it yet constantly
recurred bulging out a new head.
"The men present liked the singer; the women adored the music. It gave
them all sorts of shivers, and although they did not understand it at
all, they yet felt that here was a new shiver. Or as one of them, the
bright Mrs Blazing, remarked: '_Quel artiste que ce M. Wagner!_ He has
translated into music the grating noise of a comb on silk, the creaking
of a rusty key in an old lock, and the strident rasp of a skidding
sleigh or motor on hard-frozen snow.'
"The next artist was a Belgian violinist. For reasons that you alone,
O Zeus, could tell us, the Belgians are credited with a special gift
for pulling strings in general, and those of the violin in particular.
Being a nation midway between the Germans and the French, they are
believed to possess much of German musical talent and something of
French elegance. This would easily make them good 'cello players.
But not satisfied with the 'cello, in which they have excelled more
than one nation, they must needs be great violinists too. However,
the violin, while not at all the king of instruments, is yet the most
vindictive and jealous amongst them. It is like the Lorelei: it allures
hundreds, only to dash their bones against the rock of Failure. It
wants the delicacy of a woman and the strength of a man. It requires
the soul of spring and the heart of summer to play it well.
"A Belgian is _eo ipso_ debarred from reaching the height of
violin-playing; just as a Chinaman, with his over-specialised mind,
can never well play the orchestral piano. A Belgian heart is moving
in a colourless and slouching _andante_; the violin moves in a
profoundly agitated _adagio_ or _allegro_. The violin is the instrument
of luckless nations, such as were formerly the Italians, the Poles,
and the Hungarians who gave us Paganini, Wienavski and Joachim. The
Belgians have nearly always enjoyed the _embonpoint_ of fat prosperity.
'_Leur jeu bedonne_,' as Mrs Blazing would say.
"The Belgian played your _Chaconne_ in D minor, O Bach."
At these words of Alcibiades all the thinkers and poets present rose
from their seats and bowed to John Sebastian, who stood near Strabo
and Aristotle, being exceedingly fond of geographical lore. Even the
gods applauded and Polyhymnia allowed him to kiss her hands.
"You remember, O John Sebastian, when I met you near Lützen at one of
your solitary walks and you spoke to me of your _Chaconne_. I listened
with rapt attention and told you that your composition, which you
then played to me on a violin which the old inn-keeper lent you and
which had just arrived from Steiner in Tyrol, rendered as perfectly
as possible the sentiments I had felt when for the first time in my
life I went to the Oracle at Dodona, where the winds rush through the
high oak-trees with a fierce power such as can be heard in no other
spot in Europe. I re-imagined my awe-struck meditations in the holy
grove; I heard the stormy music of Zeus' winds in Zeus' trees; I again
felt all through me the soul-moving chorus of the priests which ends
in a jubilating mood, and finally I left with deep regret at having
to re-enter my life of stress after having spent a day in sacred and
mystic seclusion.
"When the Belgian artist played it, I listened in vain for Dodona. What
I heard was the rustling of silken tones through the wood of the chairs
and tables at the Carlton. Where was the Oracle? Where the chorus of
the priests? Where their jubilation? The only thing that I found were
my regrets. But the public was charmed. It is imperative to admire the
_Chaconne_, chiefly because it is played Violin _solo_. Mrs Blazing
explained the matter to me with her wonted rapidity of mind: 'Why
wonder at our admiration of the _Chaconne_? Do we not say: "_Chacun à
son goût_?"'
"The next artist was a pianist, whose name sounded like Pianowolsky
or Forterewsky. He was of course a Pole. The English have long found
out that -welsky or -ewsky goes with the name of a great pianist, as
the pedal goes with the piano. It was for this reason that Liszt, the
Orpheus of the last century, never had any success in England. He ought
to have called himself Franzescowitch Lisztobulszky, and then, no
doubt, he would have scored heavily. Rubinstein had indeed much success
in England, but it is patent that most English took his official name
as a mere abbreviation of Ruben Ishnajewich Stonehammercrushowsky.
The English taste in music is remarkable; it is somewhat like their
taste in fruit. They prefer hothouse grapes to natural ones. In the
same way they prefer the piano music of Mendelmeier, called Bartholdy,
to that of Stephen Heller or Volkmann. What they more particularly
like are the 'Songs without Words' of that composer, which in reality
are _Words without Songs_. His piano music is nothing but congealed
respectability, or frozen _shockingitis_."
Aristoxenus, interrupting Alcibiades, exclaimed: "Do not, O son of
Clinias, forget the man's marvellous compositions for the violin as
well as for the orchestra. Diana frequently commands his _Midsummer
Night's Dream_ when she dwells with her nymphs in the mystic forest
near Farnham Common, where Bartholdy composed it under the trees of
Canute."
"You are quite right, O master of all Harmony, and I want to speak
only of his piano music. The pianist at the concert had a very fine
profile and beautiful hair. This helped him very much in a country
where the sense of stylishness is exceedingly acute. A coachman must
have a broad back; a pianist, a fine profile; a violinist, long legs;
a 'cellist, beautiful hands; and a lady singer, a vast promontory.
Once these indispensable qualities are given, his or her music is
practically a matter of indifference.
"The pianist then performing played well, as long as he played _forte_
and _staccato_; but he had neither a _legato_ nor, what was fatal, a
_piano_, let alone a _pianissimo_. Fortunately his sense of rhythm was
very well developed; otherwise he did not rise above a first prizeman
of a conservatory.
"He played a transcription or two by Liszt. This the English condemn;
it appears unlegitimate to them. To please them, one must play one
of the last sonatas of Beethoven, preferably those composed after
his death, that is, those that the man wrote when he had long lost
the power of moulding his ideas in the cast of a sonata, and when
his vitality had been ebbing away for years. A transcription stands
to the original as does an engraving of an oil-colour picture or a
statue to its original. Most people will enjoy a fine engraving of
the _Transfiguration_ or of Our Lady of Milo much more readily than
they would the original; just as I now know that you gave us, O Zeus,
great artists like Scopas, Praxiteles, Lionardo, or Domenichino,
because we could not bear, nor comprehend the sight of the originals
of their divine art, as long as we still move in our mortal coil. The
transcription of some of the ideas of Mozart's _Don Juan_ by Liszt is
the best and most illuminating commentary on that incomparable opera.
"More interesting than the play were the remarks which I overheard
from among the public. The men dwelt exclusively on the big sums of
money the pianist made by his 1526 recitals in 2000 towns of the
United States. The profits they credited him with ranged from £15,000
to £100,000. A Viennese banker present drily remarked that he wished
he could play the difference between the real and the imagined profits
of the virtuoso on a fine Erard piano. The women made quite different
remarks. Said one:
"'Herr Pianoforterewsky has been painted by royalty.'
"'Is that so?' said her neighbour. 'What an interesting face! I wish I
could procure a photo of the picture.'
"'Do you know,' said a third, 'that Herr Pinaforewsky practises
twenty-three hours a day? I know it on the best authority; his tuner
told me so.'
"'Which tuner? Herr Pinacothekowsky, my dear, has three tuners: one for
the high notes, the second for the middle ones, and the third for the
low notes.'
"'How interesting! But suppose one of the tuners falls ill. What does
he do then?'