One of the most powerful and pathetic novels that has recently appeared
is _A Village Tragedy_ by Margaret L. Woods. To find any parallel to
this lurid little story, one must go to Dostoieffski or to Guy de
Maupassant. Not that Mrs. Woods can be said to have taken either of
these two great masters of fiction as her model, but there is something
in her work that recalls their method; she has not a little of their
fierce intensity, their terrible concentration, their passionless yet
poignant objectivity; like them, she seems to allow life to suggest its
own mode of presentation; and, like them, she recognizes that a frank
acceptance of the facts of life is the true basis of all modern imitative
art. The scene of Mrs. Woods's story lies in one of the villages near
Oxford; the characters are very few in number, and the plot is extremely
simple. It is a romance of modern Arcadia--a tale of the love of a
farm-labourer for a girl who, though slightly above him in social station
and education, is yet herself also a servant on a farm. True Arcadians
they are, both of them, and their ignorance and isolation serve only to
intensify the tragedy that gives the story its title. It is the fashion
nowadays to label literature, so, no doubt, Mrs. Woods's novel will be
spoken of as 'realistic.' Its realism, however, is the realism of the
artist, not of the reporter; its tact of treatment, subtlety of
perception, and fine distinction of style, make it rather a poem than a
_proces-verbal_; and though it lays bare to us the mere misery of life,
it suggests something of life's mystery also. Very delicate, too, is the
handling of external Nature. There are no formal guide-book descriptions
of scenery, nor anything of what Byron petulantly called 'twaddling about
trees,' but we seem to breathe the atmosphere of the country, to catch
the exquisite scent of the beanfields, so familiar to all who have ever
wandered through the Oxfordshire lanes in June; to hear the birds singing
in the thicket, and the sheep-bells tinkling from the hill.
Characterization, that enemy of literary form, is such an essential part
of the method of the modern writer of fiction, that Nature has almost
become to the novelist what light and shade are to the painter--the one
permanent element of style; and if the power of _A Village Tragedy_ be
due to its portrayal of human life, no small portion of its charm comes
from its Theocritean setting.
_A Village Tragedy_. By Margaret L. Woods. (Bentley and Son.)
MR. MORRIS'S COMPLETION OF THE _ODYSSEY_
(_Pall Mall Gazette_, November 24, 1887.)
Mr. Morris's second volume brings the great romantic epic of Greek
literature to its perfect conclusion, and although there can never be an
ultimate translation of either _Iliad_ or _Odyssey_, as each successive
age is sure to find pleasure in rendering the two poems in its own manner
and according to its own canons of taste, still it is not too much to say
that Mr. Morris's version will always be a true classic amongst our
classical translations. It is not, of course, flawless. In our notice
of the first volume we ventured to say that Mr. Morris was sometimes far
more Norse than Greek, nor does the volume that now lies before us make
us alter that opinion. The particular metre, also, selected by Mr.
Morris, although admirably adapted to express 'the strong-winged music of
Homer,' as far as its flow and freedom are concerned, misses something of
its dignity and calm. Here, it must be admitted, we feel a distinct
loss, for there is in Homer not a little of Milton's lofty manner, and if
swiftness be an essential of the Greek hexameter, stateliness is one of
its distinguishing qualities in Homer's hands. This defect, however, if
we must call it a defect, seems almost unavoidable, as for certain
metrical reasons a majestic movement in English verse is necessarily a
slow movement; and, after all that can be said is said, how really
admirable is this whole translation! If we set aside its noble qualities
as a poem and look on it purely from the scholar's point of view, how
straightforward it is, how honest and direct! Its fidelity to the
original is far beyond that of any other verse-translation in our
literature, and yet it is not the fidelity of a pedant to his text but
rather the fine loyalty of poet to poet.
When Mr. Morris's first volume appeared many of the critics complained
that his occasional use of archaic words and unusual expressions robbed
his version of the true Homeric simplicity. This, however, is not a very
felicitous criticism, for while Homer is undoubtedly simple in his
clearness and largeness of vision, his wonderful power of direct
narration, his wholesome sanity, and the purity and precision of his
method, simple in language he undoubtedly is not. What he was to his
contemporaries we have, of course, no means of judging, but we know that
the Athenian of the fifth century B.C. found him in many places difficult
to understand, and when the creative age was succeeded by the age of
criticism and Alexandria began to take the place of Athens as the centre
of culture for the Hellenistic world, Homeric dictionaries and glossaries
seem to have been constantly published. Indeed, Athenaeus tells us of a
wonderful Byzantine blue-stocking, a _precieuse_ from the Propontis, who
wrote a long hexameter poem, called _Mnemosyne_, full of ingenious
commentaries on difficulties in Homer, and in fact, it is evident that,
as far as the language is concerned, such a phrase as 'Homeric
simplicity' would have rather amazed an ancient Greek. As for Mr.
Morris's tendency to emphasize the etymological meaning of words, a point
commented on with somewhat flippant severity in a recent number of
_Macmillan_'_s Magazine_, here Mr. Morris seems to us to be in complete
accord, not merely with the spirit of Homer, but with the spirit of all
early poetry. It is quite true that language is apt to degenerate into a
system of almost algebraic symbols, and the modern city-man who takes a
ticket for Blackfriars Bridge, naturally never thinks of the Dominican
monks who once had their monastery by Thames-side, and after whom the
spot is named. But in earlier times it was not so. Men were then keenly
conscious of the real meaning of words, and early poetry, especially, is
full of this feeling, and, indeed, may be said to owe to it no small
portion of its poetic power and charm. These old words, then, and this
old use of words which we find in Mr. Morris's _Odyssey_ can be amply
justified upon historical grounds, and as for their artistic effect, it
is quite excellent. Pope tried to put Homer into the ordinary language
of his day, with what result we know only too well; but Mr. Morris, who
uses his archaisms with the tact of a true artist, and to whom indeed
they seem to come absolutely naturally, has succeeded in giving to his
version by their aid that touch, not of 'quaintness,' for Homer is never
quaint, but of old-world romance and old-world beauty, which we moderns
find so pleasurable, and to which the Greeks themselves were so keenly
sensitive.
As for individual passages of special merit, Mr. Morris's translation is
no robe of rags sewn with purple patches for critics to sample. Its real
value lies in the absolute rightness and coherence of the whole, in the
grand architecture of the swift, strong verse, and in the fact that the
standard is not merely high but everywhere sustained. It is impossible,
however, to resist the temptation of quoting Mr. Morris's rendering of
that famous passage in the twenty-third book of the epic, in which
Odysseus eludes the trap laid for him by Penelope, whose very faith in
the certainty of her husband's return makes her sceptical of his identity
when he stands before her; an instance, by the way, of Homer's wonderful
psychological knowledge of human nature, as it is always the dreamer
himself who is most surprised when his dream comes true.
Thus she spake to prove her husband; but Odysseus, grieved at heart,
Spake thus unto his bed-mate well-skilled in gainful art:
'O woman, thou sayest a word exceeding grievous to me!
Who hath otherwhere shifted my bedstead? full hard for him should it
be,
For as deft as he were, unless soothly a very God come here,
Who easily, if he willed it, might shift it otherwhere.
But no mortal man is living, how strong soe'er in his youth,
Who shall lightly hale it elsewhere, since a mighty wonder forsooth
Is wrought in that fashioned bedstead, and I wrought it, and I alone.
In the close grew a thicket of olive, a long-leaved tree full-grown,
That flourished and grew goodly as big as a pillar about,
So round it I built my bride-room, till I did the work right out
With ashlar stone close-fitting; and I roofed it overhead,
And thereto joined doors I made me, well-fitting in their stead.
Then I lopped away the boughs of the long-leafed olive-tree,
And, shearing the bole from the root up full well and cunningly,
I planed it about with the brass, and set the rule thereto,
And shaping thereof a bed-post, with the wimble I bored it through.
So beginning, I wrought out the bedstead, and finished it utterly,
And with gold enwrought it about, and with silver and ivory,
And stretched on it a thong of oxhide with the purple dye made
bright.
Thus then the sign I have shown thee; nor, woman, know I aright
If my bed yet bideth steadfast, or if to another place
Some man hath moved it, and smitten the olive-bole from its base.'
These last twelve books of the _Odyssey_ have not the same marvel of
romance, adventure and colour that we find in the earlier part of the
epic. There is nothing in them that we can compare to the exquisite
idyll of Nausicaa or to the Titanic humour of the episode in the Cyclops'
cave. Penelope has not the glamour of Circe, and the song of the Sirens
may sound sweeter than the whizz of the arrows of Odysseus as he stands
on the threshold of his hall. Yet, for sheer intensity of passionate
power, for concentration of intellectual interest and for masterly
dramatic construction, these latter books are quite unequalled. Indeed,
they show very clearly how it was that, as Greek art developed, the epos
passed into the drama. The whole scheme of the argument, the return of
the hero in disguise, his disclosure of himself to his son, his terrible
vengeance on his enemies and his final recognition by his wife, reminds
us of the plot of more than one Greek play, and shows us what the great
Athenian poet meant when he said that his own dramas were merely scraps
from Homer's table. In rendering this splendid poem into English verse,
Mr. Morris has done our literature a service that can hardly be
over-estimated, and it is pleasant to think that, even should the
classics be entirely excluded from our educational systems, the English
boy will still be able to know something of Homer's delightful tales, to
catch an echo of his grand music and to wander with the wise Odysseus
round 'the shores of old romance.'
_The Odyssey of Homer_. Done into English Verse by William Morris,
Author of _The Earthly Paradise_. Volume II. (Reeves and Turner.)
MRS. SOMERVILLE
(_Pall Mall Gazette_, November 30, 1887.)
Phyllis Browne's Life of Mrs. Somerville forms part of a very interesting
little series, called 'The World's Workers'--a collection of short
biographies catholic enough to include personalities so widely different
as Turner and Richard Cobden, Handel and Sir Titus Salt, Robert
Stephenson and Florence Nightingale, and yet possessing a certain
definite aim. As a mathematician and a scientist, the translator and
popularizer of _La Mecanique Celeste_, and the author of an important
book on physical geography, Mrs. Somerville is, of course, well known.
The scientific bodies of Europe covered her with honours; her bust stands
in the hall of the Royal Society, and one of the Women's Colleges at
Oxford bears her name. Yet, considered simply in the light of a wife and
a mother, she is no less admirable; and those who consider that stupidity
is the proper basis for the domestic virtues, and that intellectual women
must of necessity be helpless with their hands, cannot do better than
read Phyllis Browne's pleasant little book, in which they will find that
the greatest woman-mathematician of any age was a clever needlewoman, a
good housekeeper, and a most skilful cook. Indeed, Mrs. Somerville seems
to have been quite renowned for her cookery. The discoverers of the
North-West Passage christened an island 'Somerville,' not as a tribute to
the distinguished mathematician, but as a recognition of the excellence
of some orange marmalade which the distinguished mathematician had
prepared with her own hands and presented to the ships before they left
England; and to the fact that she was able to make currant jelly at a
very critical moment she owed the affection of some of her husband's
relatives, who up to that time had been rather prejudiced against her on
the ground that she was merely an unpractical Blue-stocking.
Nor did her scientific knowledge ever warp or dull the tenderness and
humanity of her nature. For birds and animals she had always a great
love. We hear of her as a little girl watching with eager eyes the
swallows as they built their nests in summer or prepared for their flight
in the autumn; and when snow was on the ground she used to open the
windows to let the robins hop in and pick crumbs on the breakfast-table.
On one occasion she went with her father on a tour in the Highlands, and
found on her return that a pet goldfinch, which had been left in the
charge of the servants, had been neglected by them and had died of
starvation. She was almost heart-broken at the event, and in writing her
_Recollections_, seventy years after, she mentioned it and said that, as
she wrote, she felt deep pain. Her chief pet in her old age was a
mountain sparrow, which used to perch on her arm and go to sleep there
while she was writing. One day the sparrow fell into the water-jug and
was drowned, to the great grief of its mistress who could hardly be
consoled for its loss, though later on we hear of a beautiful paroquet
taking the place of _le moineau d'Uranie_, and becoming Mrs. Somerville's
constant companion. She was also very energetic, Phyllis Browne tells
us, in trying to get a law passed in the Italian Parliament for the
protection of animals, and said once, with reference to this subject, 'We
English cannot boast of humanity so long as our sportsmen find pleasure
in shooting down tame pigeons as they fly terrified out of a cage'--a
remark with which I entirely agree. Mr. Herbert's Bill for the
protection of land birds gave her immense pleasure, though, to quote her
own words, she was 'grieved to find that "the lark, which at heaven's
gate sings," is thought unworthy of man's protection'; and she took a
great fancy to a gentleman who, on being told of the number of singing
birds that is eaten in Italy--nightingales, goldfinches, and
robins--exclaimed in horror, 'What! robins! our household birds! I would
as soon eat a child!' Indeed, she believed to some extent in the
immortality of animals on the ground that, if animals have no future, it
would seem as if some were created for uncompensated misery--an idea
which does not seem to me to be either extravagant or fantastic, though
it must be admitted that the optimism on which it is based receives
absolutely no support from science.
On the whole, Phyllis Browne's book is very pleasant reading. Its only
fault is that it is far too short, and this is a fault so rare in modern
literature that it almost amounts to a distinction. However, Phyllis
Browne has managed to crowd into the narrow limits at her disposal a
great many interesting anecdotes. The picture she gives of Mrs.
Somerville working away at her translation of Laplace in the same room
with her children is very charming, and reminds one of what is told of
George Sand; there is an amusing account of Mrs. Somerville's visit to
the widow of the young Pretender, the Countess of Albany, who, after
talking with her for some time, exclaimed, 'So you don't speak Italian.
You must have had a very bad education'! And this story about the
Waverley Novels may possibly be new to some of my readers:
A very amusing circumstance in connection with Mrs. Somerville's
acquaintance with Sir Walter arose out of the childish
inquisitiveness of Woronzow Greig, Mrs. Somerville's little boy.
During the time Mrs. Somerville was visiting Abbotsford the Waverley
Novels were appearing, and were creating a great sensation; yet even
Scott's intimate friends did not know that he was the author; he
enjoyed keeping the affair a mystery. But little Woronzow discovered
what he was about. One day when Mrs. Somerville was talking about a
novel that had just been published, Woronzow said, 'I knew all these
stories long ago, for Mr. Scott writes on the dinner-table; when he
has finished he puts the green cloth with the papers in a corner of
the dining-room, and when he goes out Charlie Scott and I read the
stories.'
Phyllis Browne remarks that this incident shows 'that persons who want to
keep a secret ought to be very careful when children are about'; but the
story seems to me to be far too charming to require any moral of the
kind.
Bound up in the same volume is a Life of Miss Mary Carpenter, also
written by Phyllis Browne. Miss Carpenter does not seem to me to have
the charm and fascination of Mrs. Somerville. There is always something
about her that is formal, limited, and precise. When she was about two
years old she insisted on being called 'Doctor Carpenter' in the nursery;
at the age of twelve she is described by a friend as a sedate little
girl, who always spoke like a book; and before she entered on her
educational schemes she wrote down a solemn dedication of herself to the
service of humanity. However, she was one of the practical, hardworking
saints of the nineteenth century, and it is no doubt quite right that the
saints should take themselves very seriously. It is only fair also to
remember that her work of rescue and reformation was carried on under
great difficulties. Here, for instance, is the picture Miss Cobbe gives
us of one of the Bristol night-schools:
It was a wonderful spectacle to see Mary Carpenter sitting patiently
before the large school gallery in St. James's Back, teaching,
singing, and praying with the wild street-boys, in spite of endless
interruptions caused by such proceedings as shooting marbles at any
object behind her, whistling, stamping, fighting, shrieking out
'Amen' in the middle of a prayer, and sometimes rising _en masse_ and
tearing like a troop of bisons in hob-nailed shoes down from the
gallery, round the great schoolroom, and down the stairs, and into
the street. These irrepressible outbreaks she bore with infinite
good humour.
Her own account is somewhat pleasanter, and shows that 'the troop of
bisons in hob-nailed shoes' was not always so barbarous.
I had taken to my class on the preceding week some specimens of ferns
neatly gummed on white paper. . . . This time I took a piece of
coal-shale, with impressions of ferns, to show them. . . . I told
each to examine the specimen, and tell me what he thought it was. W.
gave so bright a smile that I saw he knew; none of the others could
tell; he said they were ferns, like what I showed them last week, but
he thought they were chiselled on the stone. Their surprise and
pleasure were great when I explained the matter to them.
The history of Joseph: they all found a difficulty in realizing that
this had actually occurred. One asked if Egypt existed now, and if
people lived in it. When I told them that buildings now stood which
had been erected about the time of Joseph, one said that it was
impossible, as they must have fallen down ere this. I showed them
the form of a pyramid, and they were satisfied. One asked if _all_
books were true.
The story of Macbeth impressed them very much. They knew the name of
Shakespeare, having seen his name over a public-house.
A boy defined conscience as 'a thing a gentleman hasn't got, who, when a
boy finds his purse and gives it back to him, doesn't give the boy
sixpence.'
Another boy was asked, after a Sunday evening lecture on 'Thankfulness,'
what pleasure he enjoyed most in the course of a year. He replied
candidly, 'Cock-fightin', ma'am; there's a pit up by the "Black Boy" as
is worth anythink in Brissel.'
There is something a little pathetic in the attempt to civilize the rough
street-boy by means of the refining influence of ferns and fossils, and
it is difficult to help feeling that Miss Carpenter rather over-estimated
the value of elementary education. The poor are not to be fed upon
facts. Even Shakespeare and the Pyramids are not sufficient; nor is
there much use in giving them the results of culture, unless we also give
them those conditions under which culture can be realized. In these
cold, crowded cities of the North, the proper basis for morals, using the
word in its wide Hellenic signification, is to be found in architecture,
not in books.
Still, it would be ungenerous not to recognize that Mary Carpenter gave
to the children of the poor not merely her learning, but her love. In
early life, her biographer tells us, she had longed for the happiness of
being a wife and a mother; but later she became content that her
affection could be freely given to all who needed it, and the verse in
the prophecies, 'I have given thee children whom thou hast not borne,'
seemed to her to indicate what was to be her true mission. Indeed, she
rather inclined to Bacon's opinion, that unmarried people do the best
public work. 'It is quite striking,' she says in one of her letters, 'to
observe how much the useful power and influence of woman has developed of
late years. Unattached ladies, such as widows and unmarried women, have
quite ample work to do in the world for the good of others to absorb all
their powers. Wives and mothers have a very noble work given them by
God, and want no more.' The whole passage is extremely interesting, and
the phrase 'unattached ladies' is quite delightful, and reminds one of
Charles Lamb.
_Mrs. Somerville_ and _Mary Carpenter_. By Phyllis Browne, Author of
_What Girls Can Do_, _etc._ (Cassell and Co.)
ARISTOTLE AT AFTERNOON TEA
(_Pall Mall Gazette_, December 16, 1887.)
In society, says Mr. Mahaffy, every civilized man and woman ought to feel
it their duty to say something, even when there is hardly anything to be
said, and, in order to encourage this delightful art of brilliant
chatter, he has published a social guide without which no _debutante_ or
dandy should ever dream of going out to dine. Not that Mr. Mahaffy's
book can be said to be, in any sense of the word, popular. In discussing
this important subject of conversation, he has not merely followed the
scientific method of Aristotle which is, perhaps, excusable, but he has
adopted the literary style of Aristotle for which no excuse is possible.
There is, also, hardly a single anecdote, hardly a single illustration,
and the reader is left to put the Professor's abstract rules into
practice, without either the examples or the warnings of history to
encourage or to dissuade him in his reckless career. Still, the book can
be warmly recommended to all who propose to substitute the vice of
verbosity for the stupidity of silence. It fascinates in spite of its
form and pleases in spite of its pedantry, and is the nearest approach,
that we know of, in modern literature to meeting Aristotle at an
afternoon tea.
As regards physical conditions, the only one that is considered by Mr.
Mahaffy as being absolutely essential to a good conversationalist, is the
possession of a musical voice. Some learned writers have been of opinion
that a slight stammer often gives peculiar zest to conversation, but Mr.
Mahaffy rejects this view and is extremely severe on every eccentricity
from a native brogue to an artificial catchword. With his remarks on the
latter point, the meaningless repetition of phrases, we entirely agree.
Nothing can be more irritating than the scientific person who is always
saying '_Exactly so_,' or the commonplace person who ends every sentence
with '_Don't you know_?' or the pseudo-artistic person who murmurs
'_Charming_, _charming_,' on the smallest-provocation. It is, however,
with the mental and moral qualifications for conversation that Mr.
Mahaffy specially deals. Knowledge he, naturally, regards as an absolute
essential, for, as he most justly observes, 'an ignorant man is seldom
agreeable, except as a butt.' Upon the other hand, strict accuracy
should be avoided. 'Even a consummate liar,' says Mr. Mahaffy, is a
better ingredient in a company than 'the scrupulously truthful man, who
weighs every statement, questions every fact, and corrects every
inaccuracy.' The liar at any rate recognizes that recreation, not
instruction, is the aim of conversation, and is a far more civilized
being than the blockhead who loudly expresses his disbelief in a story
which is told simply for the amusement of the company. Mr. Mahaffy,
however, makes an exception in favour of the eminent specialist and tells
us that intelligent questions addressed to an astronomer, or a pure
mathematician, will elicit many curious facts which will pleasantly
beguile the time. Here, in the interest of Society, we feel bound to
enter a formal protest. Nobody, even in the provinces, should ever be
allowed to ask an intelligent question about pure mathematics across a
dinner-table. A question of this kind is quite as bad as inquiring
suddenly about the state of a man's soul, a sort of _coup_ which, as Mr.
Mahaffy remarks elsewhere, 'many pious people have actually thought a
decent introduction to a conversation.'
As for the moral qualifications of a good talker, Mr. Mahaffy, following
the example of his great master, warns us against any disproportionate
excess of virtue. Modesty, for instance, may easily become a social
vice, and to be continually apologizing for one's ignorance or stupidity
is a grave injury to conversation, for, 'what we want to learn from each
member is his free opinion on the subject in hand, not his own estimate
of the value of that opinion.' Simplicity, too, is not without its
dangers. The _enfant terrible_, with his shameless love of truth, the
raw country-bred girl who always says what she means, and the plain,
blunt man who makes a point of speaking his mind on every possible
occasion, without ever considering whether he has a mind at all, are the
fatal examples of what simplicity leads to. Shyness may be a form of
vanity, and reserve a development of pride, and as for sympathy, what can
be more detestable than the man, or woman, who insists on agreeing with
everybody, and so makes 'a discussion, which implies differences in
opinion,' absolutely impossible? Even the unselfish listener is apt to
become a bore. 'These silent people,' says Mr. Mahaffy, 'not only take
all they can get in Society for nothing, but they take it without the
smallest gratitude, and have the audacity afterwards to censure those who
have laboured for their amusement.' Tact, which is an exquisite sense of
the symmetry of things, is, according to Mr. Mahaffy, the highest and
best of all the moral conditions for conversation. The man of tact, he
most wisely remarks, 'will instinctively avoid jokes about Blue Beard' in
the company of a woman who is a man's third wife; he will never be guilty
of talking like a book, but will rather avoid too careful an attention to
grammar and the rounding of periods; he will cultivate the art of
graceful interruption, so as to prevent a subject being worn threadbare
by the aged or the inexperienced; and should he be desirous of telling a
story, he will look round and consider each member of the party, and if
there be a single stranger present will forgo the pleasure of anecdotage
rather than make the social mistake of hurting even one of the guests.
As for prepared or premeditated art, Mr. Mahaffy has a great contempt for
it and tells us of a certain college don (let us hope not at Oxford or
Cambridge) who always carried a jest-book in his pocket and had to refer
to it when he wished to make a repartee. Great wits, too, are often very
cruel, and great humorists often very vulgar, so it will be better to try
and 'make good conversation without any large help from these brilliant
but dangerous gifts.'
In a _tete-a-tete_ one should talk about persons, and in general Society
about things. The state of the weather is always an excusable exordium,
but it is convenient to have a paradox or heresy on the subject always
ready so as to direct the conversation into other channels. Really
domestic people are almost invariably bad talkers as their very virtues
in home life have dulled their interest in outer things. The very best
mothers will insist on chattering of their babies and prattling about
infant education. In fact, most women do not take sufficient interest in
politics, just as most men are deficient in general reading. Still,
anybody can be made to talk, except the very obstinate, and even a
commercial traveller may be drawn out and become quite interesting. As
for Society small talk, it is impossible, Mr. Mahaffy tells us, for any
sound theory of conversation to depreciate gossip, 'which is perhaps the
main factor in agreeable talk throughout Society.' The retailing of
small personal points about great people always gives pleasure, and if
one is not fortunate enough to be an Arctic traveller or an escaped
Nihilist, the best thing one can do is to relate some anecdote of 'Prince
Bismarck, or King Victor Emmanuel, or Mr. Gladstone.' In the case of
meeting a genius and a Duke at dinner, the good talker will try to raise
himself to the level of the former and to bring the latter down to his
own level. To succeed among one's social superiors one must have no
hesitation in contradicting them. Indeed, one should make bold
criticisms and introduce a bright and free tone into a Society whose
grandeur and extreme respectability make it, Mr. Mahaffy remarks, as
pathetically as inaccurately, 'perhaps somewhat dull.' The best
conversationalists are those whose ancestors have been bilingual, like
the French and Irish, but the art of conversation is really within the
reach of almost every one, except those who are morbidly truthful, or
whose high moral worth requires to be sustained by a permanent gravity of
demeanour and a general dullness of mind.
These are the broad principles contained in Mr. Mahaffy's clever little
book, and many of them will, no doubt, commend themselves to our readers.
The maxim, 'If you find the company dull, blame yourself,' seems to us
somewhat optimistic, and we have no sympathy at all with the professional
storyteller who is really a great bore at a dinner-table; but Mr. Mahaffy
is quite right in insisting that no bright social intercourse is possible
without equality, and it is no objection to his book to say that it will
not teach people how to talk cleverly. It is not logic that makes men
reasonable, nor the science of ethics that makes men good, but it is
always useful to analyse, to formularize and to investigate. The only
thing to be regretted in the volume is the arid and jejune character of
the style. If Mr. Mahaffy would only write as he talks, his book would
be much pleasanter reading.
_The Principles of the Art of Conversation_: _A Social Essay_. By J. P.
Mahaffy. (Macmillan and Co.)
EARLY CHRISTIAN ART IN IRELAND
(_Pall Mall Gazette_, December 17, 1887.)
The want of a good series of popular handbooks on Irish art has long been
felt, the works of Sir William Wilde, Petrie and others being somewhat
too elaborate for the ordinary student; so we are glad to notice the
appearance, under the auspicesof the Committee of Council on Education,
of Miss Margaret Stokes's useful little volume on the early Christian art
of her country. There is, of course, nothing particularly original in
Miss Stokes's book, nor can she be said to be a very attractive or
pleasing writer, but it is unfair to look for originality in primers, and
the charm of the illustrations fully atones for the somewhat heavy and
pedantic character of the style.
This early Christian art of Ireland is full of interest to the artist,
the archaeologist and the historian. In its rudest forms, such as the
little iron hand-bell, the plain stone chalice and the rough wooden
staff, it brings us back to the simplicity of the primitive Christian
Church, while to the period of its highest development we owe the great
masterpieces of Celtic metal-work. The stone chalice is now replaced by
the chalice of silver and gold; the iron bell has its jewel-studded
shrine, and the rough staff its gorgeous casing; rich caskets and
splendid bindings preserve the holy books of the Saints and, instead of
the rudely carved symbol of the early missionaries, we have such
beautiful works of art as the processional cross of Cong Abbey.
Beautiful this cross certainly is with its delicate intricacy of
ornamentation, its grace of proportion and its marvel of mere
workmanship, nor is there any doubt about its history. From the
inscriptions on it, which are corroborated by the annals of Innisfallen
and the book of Clonmacnoise, we learn that it was made for King Turlough
O'Connor by a native artist under the superintendence of Bishop O'Duffy,
its primary object being to enshrine a portion of the true cross that was
sent to the king in 1123. Brought to Cong some years afterwards,
probably by the archbishop, who died there in 1150, it was concealed at
the time of the Reformation, but at the beginning of the present century
was still in the possession of the last abbot, and at his death it was
purchased by Professor MacCullagh and presented by him to the museum of
the Royal Irish Academy. This wonderful work is alone well worth a visit
to Dublin, but not less lovely is the chalice of Ardagh, a two-handled
silver cup, absolutely classical in its perfect purity of form, and
decorated with gold and amber and crystal and with varieties of
_cloisonne_ and _champleve_ enamel. There is no mention of this cup, or
of the so-called Tara brooch, in ancient Irish history. All that we know
of them is that they were found accidentally, the former by a boy who was
digging potatoes near the old Rath of Ardagh, the latter by a poor child
who picked it up near the seashore. They both, however, belong probably
to the tenth century.
Of all these works, as well as of the bell shrines, book-covers,
sculptured crosses and illuminated designs in manuscripts, excellent
pictures are given in Miss Stokes's handbook. The extremely interesting
_Fiachal Phadrig_, or shrine of St. Patrick's tooth, might have been
figured and noted as an interesting example of the survival of ornament,
and one of the old miniatures of the scribe or Evangelist writing would
have given an additional interest to the chapter on Irish MSS. On the
whole, however, the book is wonderfully well illustrated, and the
ordinary art student will be able to get some useful suggestions from it.
Indeed, Miss Stokes, echoing the aspirations of many of the great Irish
archaeologists, looks forward to the revival of a native Irish school in
architecture, sculpture, metal-work and painting. Such an aspiration is,
of course, very laudable, but there is always a danger of these revivals
being merely artificial reproductions, and it may be questioned whether
the peculiar forms of Irish ornamentation could be made at all expressive
of the modern spirit. A recent writer on house decoration has gravely
suggested that the British householder should take his meals in a Celtic
dining-room adorned with a dado of Ogham inscriptions, and such wicked
proposals may serve as a warning to all who fancy that the reproduction
of a form necessarily implies a revival of the spirit that gave the form
life and meaning, and who fail to recognize the difference between art
and anachronisms. Miss Stokes's proposal for an ark-shaped church in
which the mural painter is to repeat the arcades and 'follow the
architectural compositions of the grand pages of the Eusebian canons in
the Book of Kells,' has, of course, nothing grotesque about it, but it is
not probable that the artistic genius of the Irish people will, even when
'the land has rest,' find in such interesting imitations its healthiest
or best expression. Still, there are certain elements of beauty in
ancient Irish art that the modern artist would do well to study. The
value of the intricate illuminations in the Book of Kells, as far as
their adaptability to modern designs and modern material goes, has been
very much overrated, but in the ancient Irish torques, brooches, pins,
clasps and the like, the modern goldsmith will find a rich and,
comparatively speaking, an untouched field; and now that the Celtic
spirit has become the leaven of our politics, there is no reason why it
should not contribute something to our decorative art. This result,
however, will not be obtained by a patriotic misuse of old designs, and
even the most enthusiastic Home Ruler must not be allowed to decorate his
dining-room with a dado of Oghams.
_Early Christian Art in Ireland_. By Margaret Stokes. (Published for
the Committee of Council on Education by Chapman and Hall.)
MADAME RISTORI
(_Woman's World_, January 1888.)
Madame Ristori's _Etudes et Souvenirs_ is one of the most delightful
books on the stage that has appeared since Lady Martin's charming volume
on the Shakespearian heroines. It is often said that actors leave
nothing behind them but a barren name and a withered wreath; that they
subsist simply upon the applause of the moment; that they are ultimately
doomed to the oblivion of old play-bills; and that their art, in a word,
dies with them, and shares their own mortality. 'Chippendale, the
cabinet-maker,' says the clever author of _Obiter Dicta_, 'is more potent
than Garrick the actor. The vivacity of the latter no longer charms
(save in Boswell); the chairs of the former still render rest impossible
in a hundred homes.' This view, however, seems to me to be exaggerated.
It rests on the assumption that acting is simply a mimetic art, and takes
no account of its imaginative and intellectual basis. It is quite true,
of course, that the personality of the player passes away, and with it
that pleasure-giving power by virtue of which the arts exist. Yet the
artistic method of a great actor survives. It lives on in tradition, and
becomes part of the science of a school. It has all the intellectual
life of a principle. In England, at the present moment, the influence of
Garrick on our actors is far stronger than that of Reynolds on our
painters of portraits, and if we turn to France it is easy to discern the
tradition of Talma, but where is the tradition of David?
Madame Ristori's memoirs, then, have not merely the charm that always
attaches to the autobiography of a brilliant and beautiful woman, but
have also a definite and distinct artistic value. Her analysis of the
character of Lady Macbeth, for instance, is full of psychological
interest, and shows us that the subtleties of Shakespearian criticism are
not necessarily confined to those who have views on weak endings and
rhyming tags, but may also be suggested by the art of acting itself. The
author of _Obiter Dicta_ seeks to deny to actors all critical insight and
all literary appreciation. The actor, he tells us, is art's slave, not
her child, and lives entirely outside literature, 'with its words for
ever on his lips, and none of its truths engraven on his heart.' But
this seems to me to be a harsh and reckless generalization. Indeed, so
far from agreeing with it, I would be inclined to say that the mere
artistic process of acting, the translation of literature back again into
life, and the presentation of thought under the conditions of action, is
in itself a critical method of a very high order; nor do I think that a
study of the careers of our great English actors will really sustain the
charge of want of literary appreciation. It may be true that actors pass
too quickly away from the form, in order to get at the feeling that gives
the form beauty and colour, and that, where the literary critic studies
the language, the actor looks simply for the life; and yet, how well the
great actors have appreciated that marvellous music of words, which in
Shakespeare, at any rate, is so vital an element of poetic power, if,
indeed, it be not equally so in the case of all who have any claim to be
regarded as true poets. 'The sensual life of verse,' says Keats, in a
dramatic criticism published in the _Champion_, 'springs warm from the
lips of Kean, and to one learned in Shakespearian hieroglyphics, learned
in the spiritual portion of those lines to which Kean adds a sensual
grandeur, his tongue must seem to have robbed the Hybla bees and left
them honeyless.' This particular feeling, of which Keats speaks, is
familiar to all who have heard Salvini, Sarah Bernhardt, Ristori, or any
of the great artists of our day, and it is a feeling that one cannot, I
think, gain merely by reading the passage to oneself. For my own part, I
must confess that it was not until I heard Sarah Bernhardt in _Phedre_
that I absolutely realized the sweetness of the music of Racine. As for
Mr. Birrell's statement that actors have the words of literature for ever
on their lips, but none of its truths engraved on their hearts, all that
one can say is that, if it be true, it is a defect which actors share
with the majority of literary critics.
The account Madame Ristori gives of her own struggles, voyages and
adventures, is very pleasant reading indeed. The child of poor actors,
she made her first appearance when she was three months old, being
brought on in a hamper as a New Year's gift to a selfish old gentleman
who would not forgive his daughter for having married for love. As,
however, she began to cry long before the hamper was opened, the comedy
became a farce, to the immense amusement of the public. She next
appeared in a mediaeval melodrama, being then three years of age, and was
so terrified at the machinations of the villain that she ran away at the
most critical moment. However, her stage-fright seems to have
disappeared, and we find her playing Silvio Pellico's _Francesca da
Rimini_ at fifteen, and at eighteen making her _debut_ as Marie Stuart.
At this time the naturalism of the French method was gradually displacing
the artificial elocution and academic poses of the Italian school of
acting. Madame Ristori seems to have tried to combine simplicity with
style, and the passion of nature with the self-restraint of the artist.
'J'ai voulu fondre les deux manieres,' she tells us, 'car je sentais que
toutes choses etant susceptibles de progres, l'art dramatique aussi etait
appele a subir des transformations.' The natural development, however,
of the Italian drama was almost arrested by the ridiculous censorship of
plays then existing in each town under Austrian or Papal rule. The
slightest allusion to the sentiment of nationality or the spirit of
freedom was prohibited. Even the word _patria_ was regarded as
treasonable, and Madame Ristori tells us an amusing story of the
indignation of a censor who was asked to license a play, in which a dumb
man returns home after an absence of many years, and on his entrance upon
the stage makes gestures expressive of his joy in seeing his native land
once more. 'Gestures of this kind,' said the censor, 'are obviously of a
very revolutionary tendency, and cannot possibly be allowed. The only
gestures that I could think of permitting would be gestures expressive of
a dumb man's delight in scenery generally.' The stage directions were
accordingly altered, and the word 'landscape' substituted for 'native
land'! Another censor was extremely severe on an unfortunate poet who
had used the expression 'the beautiful Italian sky,' and explained to him
that 'the beautiful Lombardo-Venetian sky' was the proper official
expression to use. Poor Gregory in _Romeo and Juliet_ had to be
rechristened, because Gregory is a name dear to the Popes; and the
Here I have a pilot's thumb,
Wrecked as homeward he did come,
of the first witch in _Macbeth_ was ruthlessly struck out as containing
an obvious allusion to the steersman of St. Peter's bark. Finally, bored
and bothered by the political and theological Dogberrys of the day, with
their inane prejudices, their solemn stupidity, and their entire
ignorance of the conditions necessary for the growth of sane and healthy
art, Madame Ristori made up her mind to leave the stage. She, however,
was extremely anxious to appear once before a Parisian audience, Paris
being at that time the centre of dramatic activity, and after some
consideration left Italy for France in the year 1855. There she seems to
have been a great success, particularly in the part of Myrrha; classical
without being cold, artistic without being academic, she brought to the
interpretation of the character of Alfieri's great heroine the
colour-element of passion, the form-element of style. Jules Janin was
loud in his praises, the Emperor begged Ristori to join the troupe of the
Comedie Francaise, and Rachel, with the strange narrow jealousy of her
nature, trembled for her laurels. Myrrha was followed by Marie Stuart,
and Marie Stuart by Medea. In the latter part Madame Ristori excited the
greatest enthusiasm. Ary Scheffer designed her costumes for her; and the
Niobe that stands in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence, suggested to Madame
Ristori her famous pose in the scene with the children. She would not
consent, however, to remain in France, and we find her subsequently
playing in almost every country in the world from Egypt to Mexico, from
Denmark to Honolulu. Her representations of classical plays seem to have
been always immensely admired. When she played at Athens, the King
offered to arrange for a performance in the beautiful old theatre of
Dionysos, and during her tour in Portugal she produced _Medea_ before the
University of Coimbra. Her description of the latter engagement is
extremely interesting. On her arrival at the University, she was
received by the entire body of the undergraduates, who still wear a
costume almost mediaeval in character. Some of them came on the stage in
the course of the play as the handmaidens of Creusa, hiding their black
beards beneath heavy veils, and as soon as they had finished their parts
they took their places gravely among the audience, to Madame Ristori's
horror, still in their Greek dress, but with their veils thrown back and
smoking long cigars. 'Ce n'est pas la premiere fois,' she says, 'que
j'ai du empecher, par un effort de volonte, la tragedie de se terminer en
farce.' Very interesting, also, is her account of the production of
Montanelli's _Camma_, and she tells an amusing story of the arrest of the
author by the French police on the charge of murder, in consequence of a
telegram she sent to him in which the words 'body of the victim'
occurred. Indeed, the whole book is full of cleverly written stories,
and admirable criticisms on dramatic art. I have quoted from the French
version, which happens to be the one that lies before me, but whether in
French or Italian the book is one of the most fascinating autobiographies
that has appeared for some time, even in an age like ours when literary
egotism has been brought to such an exquisite pitch of perfection.
_Etudes et Souvenirs_. By Madame Ristori. (Paul Ollendorff.)
ENGLISH POETESSES
(_Queen_, December 8, 1888.)
England has given to the world one great poetess, Elizabeth Barrett
Browning. By her side Mr. Swinburne would place Miss Christina Rossetti,
whose New Year hymn he describes as so much the noblest of sacred poems
in our language, that there is none which comes near it enough to stand
second. 'It is a hymn,' he tells us, 'touched as with the fire, and
bathed as in the light of sunbeams, tuned as to chords and cadences of
refluent sea-music beyond reach of harp and organ, large echoes of the
serene and sonorous tides of heaven.' Much as I admire Miss Rossetti's
work, her subtle choice of words, her rich imagery, her artistic naivete,
wherein curious notes of strangeness and simplicity are fantastically
blended together, I cannot but think that Mr. Swinburne has, with noble
and natural loyalty, placed her on too lofty a pedestal. To me, she is
simply a very delightful artist in poetry. This is indeed something so
rare that when we meet it we cannot fail to love it, but it is not
everything. Beyond it and above it are higher and more sunlit heights of
song, a larger vision, and an ampler air, a music at once more passionate
and more profound, a creative energy that is born of the spirit, a winged
rapture that is born of the soul, a force and fervour of mere utterance
that has all the wonder of the prophet, and not a little of the
consecration of the priest.
Mrs. Browning is unapproachable by any woman who has ever touched lyre or
blown through reed since the days of the great AEolian poetess. But
Sappho, who to the antique world was a pillar of flame, is to us but a
pillar of shadow. Of her poems, burnt with other most precious work by
Byzantine Emperor and by Roman Pope, only a few fragments remain.
Possibly they lie mouldering in the scented darkness of an Egyptian tomb,
clasped in the withered hand of some long-dead lover. Some Greek monk at
Athos may even now be poring over an ancient manuscript, whose crabbed
characters conceal lyric or ode by her whom the Greeks spoke of as 'the
Poetess' just as they termed Homer 'the Poet,' who was to them the tenth
Muse, the flower of the Graces, the child of Eros, and the pride of
Hellas--Sappho, with the sweet voice, the bright, beautiful eyes, the
dark hyacinth coloured hair. But, practically, the work of the
marvellous singer of Lesbos is entirely lost to us.
We have a few rose-leaves out of her garden, that is all. Literature
nowadays survives marble and bronze, but in the old days, in spite of the
Roman poet's noble boast, it was not so. The fragile clay vases of the
Greeks still keep for us pictures of Sappho, delicately painted in black
and red and white; but of her song we have only the echo of an echo.
Of all the women of history, Mrs. Browning is the only one that we could
name in any possible or remote conjunction with Sappho.
Sappho was undoubtedly a far more flawless and perfect artist. She
stirred the whole antique world more than Mrs. Browning ever stirred our
modern age. Never had Love such a singer. Even in the few lines that
remain to us the passion seems to scorch and burn. But, as unjust Time,
who has crowned her with the barren laurels of fame, has twined with them
the dull poppies of oblivion, let us turn from the mere memory of a
poetess to one whose song still remains to us as an imperishable glory to
our literature; to her who heard the cry of the children from dark mine
and crowded factory, and made England weep over its little ones; who, in
the feigned sonnets from the Portuguese, sang of the spiritual mystery of
Love, and of the intellectual gifts that Love brings to the soul; who had
faith in all that is worthy, and enthusiasm for all that is great, and
pity for all that suffers; who wrote the _Vision of Poets_ and _Casa
Guidi Windows_ and _Aurora Leigh_.
As one, to whom I owe my love of poetry no less than my love of country,
said of her:
Still on our ears
The clear 'Excelsior' from a woman's lip
Rings out across the Apennines, although
The woman's brow lies pale and cold in death
With all the mighty marble dead in Florence.
For while great songs can stir the hearts of men,
Spreading their full vibrations through the world
In ever-widening circles till they reach
The Throne of God, and song becomes a prayer,
And prayer brings down the liberating strength
That kindles nations to heroic deeds,
She lives--the great-souled poetess who saw
From Casa Guidi windows Freedom dawn
On Italy, and gave the glory back
In sunrise hymns to all Humanity!
She lives indeed, and not alone in the heart of Shakespeare's England,
but in the heart of Dante's Italy also. To Greek literature she owed her
scholarly culture, but modern Italy created her human passion for
Liberty. When she crossed the Alps she became filled with a new ardour,
and from that fine, eloquent mouth, that we can still see in her
portraits, broke forth such a noble and majestic outburst of lyrical song
as had not been heard from woman's lips for more than two thousand years.
It is pleasant to think that an English poetess was to a certain extent a
real factor in bringing about that unity of Italy that was Dante's dream,
and if Florence drove her great singer into exile, she at least welcomed
within her walls the later singer that England had sent to her.
If one were asked the chief qualities of Mrs. Browning's work, one would
say, as Mr. Swinburne said of Byron's, its sincerity and its strength.
Faults it, of course, possesses. 'She would rhyme moon to table,' used
to be said of her in jest; and certainly no more monstrous rhymes are to
be found in all literature than some of those we come across in Mrs.
Browning's poems. But her ruggedness was never the result of
carelessness. It was deliberate, as her letters to Mr. Horne show very
clearly. She refused to sandpaper her muse. She disliked facile
smoothness and artificial polish. In her very rejection of art she was
an artist. She intended to produce a certain effect by certain means,
and she succeeded; and her indifference to complete assonance in rhyme
often gives a splendid richness to her verse, and brings into it a
pleasurable element of surprise.
In philosophy she was a Platonist, in politics an Opportunist. She
attached herself to no particular party. She loved the people when they
were king-like, and kings when they showed themselves to be men. Of the
real value and motive of poetry she had a most exalted idea. 'Poetry,'
she says, in the preface of one of her volumes, 'has been as serious a
thing to me as life itself; and life has been a very serious thing.
There has been no playing at skittles for me in either. I never mistook
pleasure for the final cause of poetry, nor leisure for the hour of the
poet. I have done my work so far, not as mere hand and head work apart
from the personal being, but as the completest expression of that being
to which I could attain.'
It certainly is her completest expression, and through it she realizes
her fullest perfection. 'The poet,' she says elsewhere, 'is at once
richer and poorer than he used to be; he wears better broadcloth, but
speaks no more oracles.' These words give us the keynote to her view of
the poet's mission. He was to utter Divine oracles, to be at once
inspired prophet and holy priest; and as such we may, I think, without
exaggeration, conceive her. She was a Sibyl delivering a message to the
world, sometimes through stammering lips, and once at least with blinded
eyes, yet always with the true fire and fervour of lofty and unshaken
faith, always with the great raptures of a spiritual nature, the high
ardours of an impassioned soul. As we read her best poems we feel that,
though Apollo's shrine be empty and the bronze tripod overthrown, and the
vale of Delphi desolate, still the Pythia is not dead. In our own age
she has sung for us, and this land gave her new birth. Indeed, Mrs.
Browning is the wisest of the Sibyls, wiser even than that mighty figure
whom Michael Angelo has painted on the roof of the Sistine Chapel at
Rome, poring over the scroll of mystery, and trying to decipher the
secrets of Fate; for she realized that, while knowledge is power,
suffering is part of knowledge.
To her influence, almost as much as to the higher education of women, I
would be inclined to attribute the really remarkable awakening of woman's
song that characterizes the latter half of our century in England. No
country has ever had so many poetesses at once. Indeed, when one
remembers that the Greeks had only nine muses, one is sometimes apt to
fancy that we have too many. And yet the work done by women in the
sphere of poetry is really of a very high standard of excellence. In
England we have always been prone to underrate the value of tradition in
literature. In our eagerness to find a new voice and a fresh mode of
music, we have forgotten how beautiful Echo may be. We look first for
individuality and personality, and these are, indeed, the chief
characteristics of the masterpieces of our literature, either in prose or
verse; but deliberate culture and a study of the best models, if united
to an artistic temperament and a nature susceptible of exquisite
impressions, may produce much that is admirable, much that is worthy of
praise. It would be quite impossible to give a complete catalogue of all
the women who since Mrs. Browning's day have tried lute and lyre. Mrs.
Pfeiffer, Mrs. Hamilton King, Mrs. Augusta Webster, Graham Tomson, Miss
Mary Robinson, Jean Ingelow, Miss May Kendall, Miss Nesbit, Miss May
Probyn, Mrs. Craik, Mrs. Meynell, Miss Chapman, and many others have done
really good work in poetry, either in the grave Dorian mode of thoughtful
and intellectual verse, or in the light and graceful forms of old French
song, or in the romantic manner of antique ballad, or in that 'moment's
monument,' as Rossetti called it, the intense and concentrated sonnet.
Occasionally one is tempted to wish that the quick, artistic faculty that
women undoubtedly possess developed itself somewhat more in prose and
somewhat less in verse. Poetry is for our highest moods, when we wish to
be with the gods, and in our poetry nothing but the very best should
satisfy us; but prose is for our daily bread, and the lack of good prose
is one of the chief blots on our culture. French prose, even in the
hands of the most ordinary writers, is always readable, but English prose
is detestable. We have a few, a very few, masters, such as they are. We
have Carlyle, who should not be imitated; and Mr. Pater, who, through the
subtle perfection of his form, is inimitable absolutely; and Mr. Froude,
who is useful; and Matthew Arnold, who is a model; and Mr. George
Meredith, who is a warning; and Mr. Lang, who is the divine amateur; and
Mr. Stevenson, who is the humane artist; and Mr. Ruskin, whose rhythm and
colour and fine rhetoric and marvellous music of words are entirely
unattainable. But the general prose that one reads in magazines and in
newspapers is terribly dull and cumbrous, heavy in movement and uncouth
or exaggerated in expression. Possibly some day our women of letters
will apply themselves more definitely to prose.
Their light touch, and exquisite ear, and delicate sense of balance and
proportion would be of no small service to us. I can fancy women
bringing a new manner into our literature.
However, we have to deal here with women as poetesses, and it is
interesting to note that, though Mrs. Browning's influence undoubtedly
contributed very largely to the development of this new song-movement, if
I may so term it, still there seems to have been never a time during the
last three hundred years when the women of this kingdom did not
cultivate, if not the art, at least the habit, of writing poetry.
Who the first English poetess was I cannot say. I believe it was the
Abbess Juliana Berners, who lived in the fifteenth century; but I have no
doubt that Mr. Freeman would be able at a moment's notice to produce some
wonderful Saxon or Norman poetess, whose works cannot be read without a
glossary, and even with its aid are completely unintelligible. For my
own part, I am content with the Abbess Juliana, who wrote
enthusiastically about hawking; and after her I would mention Anne Askew,
who in prison and on the eve of her fiery martyrdom wrote a ballad that
has, at any rate, a pathetic and historical interest. Queen Elizabeth's
'most sweet and sententious ditty' on Mary Stuart is highly praised by
Puttenham, a contemporary critic, as an example of 'Exargasia, or the
Gorgeous in Literature,' which somehow seems a very suitable epithet for
such a great Queen's poems. The term she applies to the unfortunate
Queen of Scots, 'the daughter of debate,' has, of course, long since
passed into literature. The Countess of Pembroke, Sir Philip Sidney's
sister, was much admired as a poetess in her day.
In 1613 the 'learned, virtuous, and truly noble ladie,' Elizabeth Carew,
published a _Tragedie of Marian_, _the Faire Queene of Jewry_, and a few
years later the 'noble ladie Diana Primrose' wrote _A Chain of Pearl_,
which is a panegyric on the 'peerless graces' of Gloriana. Mary Morpeth,
the friend and admirer of Drummond of Hawthornden; Lady Mary Wroth, to
whom Ben Jonson dedicated _The Alchemist_; and the Princess Elizabeth,
the sister of Charles I., should also be mentioned.
After the Restoration women applied themselves with still greater ardour
to the study of literature and the practice of poetry. Margaret, Duchess
of Newcastle, was a true woman of letters, and some of her verses are
extremely pretty and graceful. Mrs. Aphra Behn was the first
Englishwoman who adopted literature as a regular profession. Mrs.
Katharine Philips, according to Mr. Gosse, invented sentimentality. As
she was praised by Dryden, and mourned by Cowley, let us hope she may be
forgiven. Keats came across her poems at Oxford when he was writing
_Endymion_, and found in one of them 'a most delicate fancy of the
Fletcher kind'; but I fear nobody reads the Matchless Orinda now. Of
Lady Winchelsea's _Nocturnal Reverie_ Wordsworth said that, with the
exception of Pope's _Windsor Forest_, it was the only poem of the period
intervening between _Paradise Lost_ and Thomson's _Seasons_ that
contained a single new image of external nature. Lady Rachel Russell,
who may be said to have inaugurated the letter-writing literature of
England; Eliza Haywood, who is immortalized by the badness of her work,
and has a niche in _The Dunciad_; and the Marchioness of Wharton, whose
poems Waller said he admired, are very remarkable types, the finest of
them being, of course, the first named, who was a woman of heroic mould
and of a most noble dignity of nature.
Indeed, though the English poetesses up to the time of Mrs. Browning
cannot be said to have produced any work of absolute genius, they are
certainly interesting figures, fascinating subjects for study. Amongst
them we find Lady Mary Wortley Montague, who had all the caprice of
Cleopatra, and whose letters are delightful reading; Mrs. Centlivre, who
wrote one brilliant comedy; Lady Anne Barnard, whose _Auld Robin Gray_
was described by Sir Walter Scott as 'worth all the dialogues Corydon and
Phillis have together spoken from the days of Theocritus downwards,' and
is certainly a very beautiful and touching poem; Esther Vanhomrigh and
Hester Johnson, the Vanessa and the Stella of Dean Swift's life; Mrs.
Thrale, the friend of the great lexicographer; the worthy Mrs. Barbauld;
the excellent Miss Hannah More; the industrious Joanna Baillie; the
admirable Mrs. Chapone, whose _Ode to Solitude_ always fills me with the
wildest passion for society, and who will at least be remembered as the
patroness of the establishment at which Becky Sharp was educated; Miss
Anna Seward, who was called 'The Swan of Lichfield'; poor L. E. L. whom
Disraeli described in one of his clever letters to his sister as 'the
personification of Brompton--pink satin dress, white satin shoes, red
cheeks, snub nose, and her hair _a la_ Sappho'; Mrs. Ratcliffe, who
introduced the romantic novel, and has consequently much to answer for;
the beautiful Duchess of Devonshire, of whom Gibbon said that she was
'made for something better than a Duchess'; the two wonderful sisters,
Lady Dufferin and Mrs. Norton; Mrs. Tighe, whose _Psyche_ Keats read with
pleasure; Constantia Grierson, a marvellous blue-stocking in her time;
Mrs. Hemans; pretty, charming 'Perdita,' who flirted alternately with
poetry and the Prince Regent, played divinely in the _Winter's Tale_, was
brutally attacked by Gifford, and has left us a pathetic little poem on a
Snowdrop; and Emily Bronte, whose poems are instinct with tragic power,
and seem often on the verge of being great.
Old fashions in literature are not so pleasant as old fashions in dress.
I like the costume of the age of powder better than the poetry of the age
of Pope. But if one adopts the historical standpoint--and this is,
indeed, the only standpoint from which we can ever form a fair estimate
of work that is not absolutely of the highest order--we cannot fail to
see that many of the English poetesses who preceded Mrs. Browning were
women of no ordinary talent, and that if the majority of them looked upon
poetry simply as a department of _belles lettres_, so in most cases did
their contemporaries. Since Mrs. Browning's day our woods have become
full of singing birds, and if I venture to ask them to apply themselves
more to prose and less to song, it is not that I like poetical prose, but
that I love the prose of poets.
VENUS OR VICTORY
(_Pall Mall Gazette_, February 24, 1888.)
There are certain problems in archaeology that seem to possess a real
romantic interest, and foremost among these is the question of the
so-called Venus of Melos. Who is she, this marble mutilated goddess whom
Gautier loved, to whom Heine bent his knee? What sculptor wrought her,
and for what shrine? Whose hands walled her up in that rude niche where
the Melian peasant found her? What symbol of her divinity did she carry?
Was it apple of gold or shield of bronze? Where is her city and what was
her name among gods and men? The last writer on this fascinating subject
is Mr. Stillman, who in a most interesting book recently published in
America, claims that the work of art in question is no sea-born and
foam-born Aphrodite, but the very Victory Without Wings that once stood
in the little chapel outside the gates of the Acropolis at Athens. So
long ago as 1826, that is to say six years after the discovery of the
statue, the Venus hypothesis was violently attacked by Millingen, and
from that time to this the battle of the archaeologists has never ceased.
Mr. Stillman, who fights, of course, under Millingen's banner, points out
that the statue is not of the Venus type at all, being far too heroic in
character to correspond to the Greek conception of Aphrodite at any
period of their artistic development, but that it agrees distinctly with
certain well-known statues of Victory, such as the celebrated 'Victory of
Brescia.' The latter is in bronze, is later, and has the wings, but the
type is unmistakable, and though not a reproduction it is certainly a
recollection of the Melian statue. The representation of Victory on the
coin of Agathocles is also obviously of the Melian type, and in the
museum of Naples is a terra-cotta Victory in almost the identical action
and drapery. As for Dumont d'Urville's statement that, when the statue
was discovered, one hand held an apple and the other a fold of the
drapery, the latter is obviously a mistake, and the whole evidence on the
subject is so contradictory that no reliance can be placed on the
statement made by the French Consul and the French naval officers, none
of whom seems to have taken the trouble to ascertain whether the arm and
hand now in the Louvre were really found in the same niche as the statue
at all. At any rate, these fragments seem to be of extremely inferior
workmanship, and they are so imperfect that they are quite worthless as
data for measure or opinion. So far, Mr. Stillman is on old ground. His
real artistic discovery is this. In working about the Acropolis of
Athens, some years ago, he photographed among other sculptures the
mutilated Victories in the Temple of Nike Apteros, the 'Wingless
Victory,' the little Ionic temple in which stood that statue of Victory
of which it was said that '_the Athenians made her without wings that she
might never leave Athens_.' Looking over the photographs afterwards,
when the impression of the comparatively diminutive size had passed, he
was struck with the close resemblance of the type to that of the Melian
statue. Now, this resemblance is so striking that it cannot be
questioned by any one who has an eye for form. There are the same large
heroic proportions, the same ampleness of physical development, and the
same treatment of drapery, and there is also that perfect spiritual
kinship which, to any true antiquarian, is one of the most valuable modes
of evidence. Now it is generally admitted on both sides that the Melian
statue is probably Attic in its origin, and belongs certainly to the
period between Phidias and Praxiteles, that is to say, to the age of
Scopas, if it be not actually the work of Scopas himself; and as it is to
Scopas that these bas-reliefs have been always attributed, the similarity
of style can, on Mr. Stillman's hypothesis, be easily accounted for.
As regards the appearance of the statue in Melos, Mr. Stillman points out
that Melos belonged to Athens as late as she had any Greek allegiance,
and that it is probable that the statue was sent there for concealment on
the occasion of some siege or invasion. When this took place, Mr.
Stillman does not pretend to decide with any degree of certainty, but it
is evident that it must have been subsequent to the establishment of the
Roman hegemony, as the brickwork of the niche in which the statue was
found is clearly Roman in character, and before the time of Pausanias and
Pliny, as neither of these antiquaries mentions the statue. Accepting,
then, the statue as that of the Victory Without Wings, Mr. Stillman
agrees with Millingen in supposing that in her left hand she held a
bronze shield, the lower rim of which rested on the left knee where some
marks of the kind are easily recognizable, while with her right hand she
traced, or had just finished tracing, the names of the great heroes of
Athens. Valentin's objection, that if this were so the left thigh would
incline outwards so as to secure a balance, Mr. Stillman meets partly by
the analogy of the Victory of Brescia and partly by the evidence of
Nature herself; for he has had a model photographed in the same position
as the statue and holding a shield in the manner he proposes in his
restoration. The result is precisely the contrary to that which Valentin
assumes. Of course, Mr. Stillman's solution of the whole matter must not
be regarded as an absolutely scientific demonstration. It is simply an
induction in which a kind of artistic instinct, not communicable or
equally valuable to all people, has had the greatest part, but to this
mode of interpretation archaeologists as a class have been far too
indifferent; and it is certain that in the present case it has given us a
theory which is most fruitful and suggestive.
The little temple of Nike Apteros has had, as Mr. Stillman reminds us, a
destiny unique of its kind. Like the Parthenon, it was standing little
more than two hundred years ago, but during the Turkish occupation it was
razed, and its stones all built into the great bastion which covered the
front of the Acropolis and blocked up the staircase to the Propylaea. It
was dug out and restored, nearly every stone in its place, by two German
architects during the reign of Otho, and it stands again just as
Pausanias described it on the spot where old AEgeus watched for the
return of Theseus from Crete. In the distance are Salamis and AEgina,
and beyond the purple hills lies Marathon. If the Melian statue be
indeed the Victory Without Wings, she had no unworthy shrine.
There are some other interesting essays in Mr. Stillman's book on the
wonderful topographical knowledge of Ithaca displayed in the _Odyssey_,
and discussions of this kind are always interesting as long as there is
no attempt to represent Homer as the ordinary literary man; but the
article on the Melian statue is by far the most important and the most
delightful. Some people will, no doubt, regret the possibility of the
disappearance of the old name, and as Venus not as Victory will still
worship the stately goddess, but there are others who will be glad to see
in her the image and ideal of that spiritual enthusiasm to which Athens
owed her liberty, and by which alone can liberty be won.
_On the Track of Ulysses_; _together with an Excursion in Quest of the
So-called Venus of Melos_. By W. J. Stillman. (Houghton, Mifflin and
Co., Boston.)
M. CARO ON GEORGE SAND
(_Pall Mall Gazette_, April 14, 1888.)
The biography of a very great man from the pen of a very ladylike
writer--this is the best description we can give of M. Caro's Life of
George Sand. The late Professor of the Sorbonne could chatter charmingly
about culture, and had all the fascinating insincerity of an accomplished
phrase-maker; being an extremely superior person he had a great contempt
for Democracy and its doings, but he was always popular with the
Duchesses of the Faubourg, as there was nothing in history or in
literature that he could not explain away for their edification; having
never done anything remarkable he was naturally elected a member of the
Academy, and he always remained loyal to the traditions of that
thoroughly respectable and thoroughly pretentious institution. In fact,
he was just the sort of man who should never have attempted to write a
Life of George Sand or to interpret George Sand's genius. He was too
feminine to appreciate the grandeur of that large womanly nature, too
much of a _dilettante_ to realize the masculine force of that strong and
ardent mind. He never gets at the secret of George Sand, and never
brings us near to her wonderful personality. He looks on her simply as a
litterateur, as a writer of pretty stories of country life and of
charming, if somewhat exaggerated, romances. But George Sand was much
more than this. Beautiful as are such books as _Consuelo_ and _Mauprat_,
_Francois le Champi_ and _La Mare au Diable_, yet in none of them is she
adequately expressed, by none of them is she adequately revealed. As Mr.
Matthew Arnold said, many years ago, 'We do not know George Sand unless
we feel the spirit which goes through her work as a whole.' With this
spirit, however, M. Caro has no sympathy. Madame Sand's doctrines are
antediluvian, he tells us, her philosophy is quite dead and her ideas of
social regeneration are Utopian, incoherent and absurd. The best thing
for us to do is to forget these silly dreams and to read _Teverino_ and
_Le Secretaire Intime_. Poor M. Caro! This spirit, which he treats with
such airy flippancy, is the very leaven of modern life. It is remoulding
the world for us and fashioning our age anew. If it is antediluvian, it
is so because the deluge is yet to come; if it is Utopian, then Utopia
must be added to our geographies. To what curious straits M. Caro is
driven by his violent prejudices may be estimated by the fact that he
tries to class George Sand's novels with the old _Chansons de geste_, the
stories of adventure characteristic of primitive literatures; whereas in
using fiction as a vehicle of thought, and romance as a means of
influencing the social ideals of her age, George Sand was merely carrying
out the traditions of Voltaire and Rousseau, of Diderot and of
Chateaubriand. The novel, says M. Caro, must be allied either to poetry
or to science. That it has found in philosophy one of its strongest
allies seems not to have occurred to him. In an English critic such a
view might possibly be excusable. Our greatest novelists, such as
Fielding, Scott and Thackeray, cared little for the philosophy of their
age. But coming, as it does, from a French critic, the statement seems
to show a strange want of recognition of one of the most important
elements of French fiction. Nor, even in the narrow limits that he has
imposed upon himself, can M. Caro be said to be a very fortunate or
felicitous critic. To take merely one instance out of many, he says
nothing of George Sand's delightful treatment of art and the artist's
life. And yet how exquisitely does she analyse each separate art and
present it to us in its relation to life! In _Consuelo_ she tells us of
music; in _Horace_ of authorship; in _Le Chateau des Desertes_ of acting;
in _Les Maitres Mosaistes_ of mosaic work; in _Le Chateau de Pictordu_ of
portrait painting; and in _La Daniella_ of the painting of landscape.
What Mr. Ruskin and Mr. Browning have done for England she did for
France. She invented an art literature. It is unnecessary, however, to
discuss any of M. Caro's minor failings, for the whole effect of the
book, so far as it attempts to portray for us the scope and character of
George Sand's genius, is entirely spoiled by the false attitude assumed
from the beginning, and though the dictum may seem to many harsh and
exclusive, we cannot help feeling that an absolute incapacity for
appreciating the spirit of a great writer is no qualification for writing
a treatise on the subject.
As for Madame Sand's private life, which is so intimately connected with
her art (for, like Goethe, she had to live her romances before she could
write them), M. Caro says hardly anything about it. He passes it over
with a modesty that almost makes one blush, and for fear of wounding the
susceptibilities of those _grandes dames_ whose passions M. Paul Bourget
analyses with such subtlety, he transforms her mother, who was a typical
French _grisette_, into 'a very amiable and _spirituelle_ milliner'! It
must be admitted that Joseph Surface himself could hardly show greater
tact and delicacy, though we ourselves must plead guilty to preferring
Madame Sand's own description of her as an 'enfant du vieux pave de
Paris.'
_George Sand_. By the late Elme Marie Caro. Translated by Gustave
Masson, B.A., Assistant Master, Harrow School. 'Great French Writers'
Series. (Routledge and Sons.)
A FASCINATING BOOK
(_Woman's World_, November 1888.)
Mr. Alan Cole's carefully-edited translation of M. Lefebure's history of
_Embroidery and Lace_ is one of the most fascinating books that has
appeared on this delightful subject. M. Lefebure is one of the
administrators of the Musee des Arts Decoratifs at Paris, besides being a
lace manufacturer; and his work has not merely an important historical
value, but as a handbook of technical instruction it will be found of the
greatest service by all needle-women. Indeed, as the translator himself
points out, M. Lefebure's book suggests the question whether it is not
rather by the needle and the bobbin, than by the brush, the graver or the
chisel, that the influence of woman should assert itself in the arts. In
Europe, at any rate, woman is sovereign in the domain of art-needlework,
and few men would care to dispute with her the right of using those
delicate implements so intimately associated with the dexterity of her
nimble and slender fingers; nor is there any reason why the productions
of embroidery should not, as Mr. Alan Cole suggests, be placed on the
same level with those of painting, engraving and sculpture, though there
must always be a great difference between those purely decorative arts
that glorify their own material and the more imaginative arts in which
the material is, as it were, annihilated, and absorbed into the creation
of a new form. In the beautifying of modern houses it certainly must be
admitted--indeed, it should be more generally recognized than it is--that
rich embroidery on hangings and curtains, _portieres_, couches and the
like, produces a far more decorative and far more artistic effect than
can be gained from our somewhat wearisome English practice of covering
the walls with pictures and engravings; and the almost complete
disappearance of embroidery from dress has robbed modern costume of one
of the chief elements of grace and fancy.
That, however, a great improvement has taken place in English embroidery
during the last ten or fifteen years cannot, I think, be denied. It is
shown, not merely in the work of individual artists, such as Mrs.
Holiday, Miss May Morris and others, but also in the admirable
productions of the South Kensington School of Embroidery (the
best--indeed, the only real good--school that South Kensington has
produced). It is pleasant to note on turning over the leaves of M.
Lefebure's book, that in this we are merely carrying out certain old
traditions of Early English art. In the seventh century, St. Ethelreda,
first abbess of the monastery of Ely, made an offering to St. Cuthbert of
a sacred ornament she had worked with gold and precious stones, and the
cope and maniple of St. Cuthbert, which are preserved at Durham, are
considered to be specimens of _opus Anglicanum_. In the year 800, the
Bishop of Durham allotted the income of a farm of two hundred acres for
life to an embroideress named Eanswitha, in consideration of her keeping
in repair the vestments of the clergy in his diocese. The battle
standard of King Alfred was embroidered by Danish Princesses; and the
Anglo-Saxon Gudric gave Alcuid a piece of land, on condition that she
instructed his daughter in needle-work. Queen Mathilda bequeathed to the
Abbey of the Holy Trinity at Caen a tunic embroidered at Winchester by
the wife of one Alderet; and when William presented himself to the
English nobles, after the Battle of Hastings, he wore a mantle covered
with Anglo-Saxon embroideries, which is probably, M. Lefebure suggests,
the same as that mentioned in the inventory of the Bayeux Cathedral,
where, after the entry relating to the _broderie a telle_ (representing
the conquest of England), two mantles are described--one of King William,
'all of gold, powdered with crosses and blossoms of gold, and edged along
the lower border with an orphrey of figures.' The most splendid example
of the _opus Anglicanum_ now in existence is, of course, the Syon cope at
the South Kensington Museum; but English work seems to have been
celebrated all over the Continent. Pope Innocent IV. so admired the
splendid vestments worn by the English clergy in 1246, that he ordered
similar articles from Cistercian monasteries in England. St. Dunstan,
the artistic English monk, was known as a designer for embroideries; and
the stole of St. Thomas a Becket is still preserved in the cathedral at
Sens, and shows us the interlaced scroll-forms used by Anglo-Saxon MS.
illuminators.
How far this modern artistic revival of rich and delicate embroidery will
bear fruit depends, of course, almost entirely on the energy and study
that women are ready to devote to it; but I think that it must be
admitted that all our decorative arts in Europe at present have, at
least, this element of strength--that they are in immediate relationship
with the decorative arts of Asia. Wherever we find in European history a
revival of decorative art, it has, I fancy, nearly always been due to
Oriental influence and contact with Oriental nations. Our own keenly
intellectual art has more than once been ready to sacrifice real
decorative beauty either to imitative presentation or to ideal motive.
It has taken upon itself the burden of expression, and has sought to
interpret the secrets of thought and passion. In its marvellous truth of
presentation it has found its strength, and yet its weakness is there
also. It is never with impunity that an art seeks to mirror life. If
Truth has her revenge upon those who do not follow her, she is often
pitiless to her worshippers. In Byzantium the two arts met--Greek art,
with its intellectual sense of form, and its quick sympathy with
humanity; Oriental art, with its gorgeous materialism, its frank
rejection of imitation, its wonderful secrets of craft and colour, its
splendid textures, its rare metals and jewels, its marvellous and
priceless traditions. They had, indeed, met before, but in Byzantium
they were married; and the sacred tree of the Persians, the palm of
Zoroaster, was embroidered on the hem of the garments of the Western
world. Even the Iconoclasts, the Philistines of theological history,
who, in one of those strange outbursts of rage against Beauty that seem
to occur only amongst European nations, rose up against the wonder and
magnificence of the new art, served merely to distribute its secrets more
widely; and in the _Liber Pontificalis_, written in 687 by Athanasius,
the librarian, we read of an influx into Rome of gorgeous embroideries,
the work of men who had arrived from Constantinople and from Greece. The
triumph of the Mussulman gave the decorative art of Europe a new
departure--that very principle of their religion that forbade the actual
representation of any object in nature being of the greatest artistic
service to them, though it was not, of course, strictly carried out. The
Saracens introduced into Sicily the art of weaving silken and golden
fabrics; and from Sicily the manufacture of fine stuffs spread to the
North of Italy, and became localized in Genoa, Florence, Venice, and
other towns. A still greater art-movement took place in Spain under the
Moors and Saracens, who brought over workmen from Persia to make
beautiful things for them. M. Lefebure tells us of Persian embroidery
penetrating as far as Andalusia; and Almeria, like Palermo, had its Hotel
des Tiraz, which rivalled the Hotel des Tiraz at Bagdad, _tiraz_ being
the generic name for ornamental tissues and costumes made with them.
Spangles (those pretty little discs of gold, silver, or polished steel,
used in certain embroidery for dainty glinting effects) were a Saracenic
invention; and Arabic letters often took the place of letters in the
Roman characters for use in inscriptions upon embroidered robes and
Middle Age tapestries, their decorative value being so much greater. The
book of crafts by Etienne Boileau, provost of the merchants in 1258-1268,
contains a curious enumeration of the different craft-guilds of Paris,
among which we find 'the tapiciers, or makers of the _tapis sarrasinois_
(or Saracen cloths), who say that their craft is for the service only of
churches, or great men like kings and counts'; and, indeed, even in our
own day, nearly all our words descriptive of decorative textures and
decorative methods point to an Oriental origin. What the inroads of the
Mohammedans did for Sicily and Spain, the return of the Crusaders did for
the other countries of Europe. The nobles who left for Palestine clad in
armour, came back in the rich stuffs of the East; and their costumes,
pouches (_aumonieres sarrasinoises_), and caparisons excited the
admiration of the needle-workers of the West. Matthew Paris says that at
the sacking of Antioch, in 1098, gold, silver and priceless costumes were
so equally distributed among the Crusaders, that many who the night
before were famishing and imploring relief, suddenly found themselves
overwhelmed with wealth; and Robert de Clair tells us of the wonderful
fetes that followed the capture of Constantinople. The thirteenth
century, as M. Lefebure points out, was conspicuous for an increased
demand in the West for embroidery. Many Crusaders made offerings to
churches of plunder from Palestine; and St. Louis, on his return from the
first Crusade, offered thanks at St. Denis to God for mercies bestowed on
him during his six years' absence and travel, and presented some richly
embroidered stuffs to be used on great occasions as coverings to the
reliquaries containing the relics of holy martyrs. European embroidery,
having thus become possessed of new materials and wonderful methods,
developed on its own intellectual and imitative lines, inclining, as it
went on, to the purely pictorial, and seeking to rival painting, and to
produce landscapes and figure-subjects with elaborate perspective and
subtle aerial effects. A fresh Oriental influence, however, came through
the Dutch and the Portuguese, and the famous _Compagnie des Grandes
Indes_; and M. Lefebure gives an illustration of a door-hanging now in
the Cluny Museum, where we find the French _fleurs-de-lys_ intermixed
with Indian ornament. The hangings of Madame de Maintenon's room at
Fontainebleau, which were embroidered at St. Cyr, represent Chinese
scenery upon a jonquil-yellow ground.
Clothes were sent out ready cut to the East to be embroidered, and many
of the delightful coats of the period of Louis XV. and Louis XVI. owe
their dainty decoration to the needles of Chinese artists. In our own
day the influence of the East is strongly marked. Persia has sent us her
carpets for patterns, and Cashmere her lovely shawls, and India her
dainty muslins finely worked with gold thread palmates, and stitched over
with iridescent beetles' wings. We are beginning now to dye by Oriental
methods, and the silk robes of China and Japan have taught us new wonders
of colour-combination, and new subtleties of delicate design. Whether we
have yet learned to make a wise use of what we have acquired is less
certain. If books produce an effect, this book of M. Lefebure should
certainly make us study with still deeper interest the whole question of
embroidery, and by those who already work with their needles it will be
found full of most fertile suggestion and most admirable advice.
Even to read of the marvellous works of embroidery that were fashioned in
bygone ages is pleasant. Time has kept a few fragments of Greek
embroidery of the fourth century B.C. for us. One is figured in M.
Lefebure's book--a chain-stitch embroidery of yellow flax upon a
mulberry-coloured worsted material, with graceful spirals and
palmetto-patterns: and another, a tapestried cloth powdered with ducks,
was reproduced in the _Woman's World_ some months ago for an article by
Mr. Alan Cole. {115} Now and then we find in the tomb of some dead
Egyptian a piece of delicate work. In the treasury at Ratisbon is
preserved a specimen of Byzantine embroidery on which the Emperor
Constantine is depicted riding on a white palfrey, and receiving homage
from the East and West. Metz has a red silk cope wrought with great
eagles, the gift of Charlemagne, and Bayeux the needle-wrought epic of
Queen Matilda. But where is the great crocus-coloured robe, wrought for
Athena, on which the gods fought against the giants? Where is the huge
velarium that Nero stretched across the Colosseum at Rome, on which was
represented the starry sky, and Apollo driving a chariot drawn by steeds?
How one would like to see the curious table-napkins wrought for
Heliogabalus, on which were displayed all the dainties and viands that
could be wanted for a feast; or the mortuary-cloth of King Chilperic,
with its three hundred golden bees; or the fantastic robes that excited
the indignation of the Bishop of Pontus, and were embroidered with
'lions, panthers, bears, dogs, forests, rocks, hunters--all, in fact,
that painters can copy from nature.' Charles of Orleans had a coat, on
the sleeves of which were embroidered the verses of a song beginning
'_Madame_, _je suis tout joyeux_,' the musical accompaniment of the words
being wrought in gold thread, and each note, of square shape in those
days, formed with four pearls. {116} The room prepared in the palace at
Rheims for the use of Queen Joan of Burgundy was decorated with 'thirteen
hundred and twenty-one _papegauts_ (parrots) made in broidery and
blazoned with the King's arms, and five hundred and sixty-one
butterflies, whose wings were similarly ornamented with the Queen's
arms--the whole worked in fine gold.' Catherine de Medicis had a
mourning-bed made for her 'of black velvet embroidered with pearls and
powdered with crescents and suns.' Its curtains were of damask, 'with
leafy wreaths and garlands figured upon a gold and silver ground, and
fringed along the edges with broideries of pearls,' and it stood in a
room hung with rows of the Queen's devices in cut black velvet on cloth
of silver. Louis XIV. had gold-embroidered caryatides fifteen feet high
in his apartment. The state bed of Sobieski, King of Poland, was made of
Smyrna gold brocade embroidered in turquoises and pearls, with verses
from the Koran; its supports were of silver-gilt, beautifully chased and
profusely set with enamelled and jewelled medallions. He had taken it
from the Turkish camp before Vienna, and the standard of Mahomet had
stood under it. The Duchess de la Ferte wore a dress of reddish-brown
velvet, the skirt of which, adjusted in graceful folds, was held up by
big butterflies made of Dresden china; the front was a _tablier_ of cloth
of silver, upon which was embroidered an orchestra of musicians arranged
in a pyramidal group, consisting of a series of six ranks of performers,
with beautiful instruments wrought in raised needle-work. 'Into the
night go one and all,' as Mr. Henley sings in his charming _Ballade of
Dead Actors_.
Many of the facts related by M. Lefebure about the embroiderers' guilds
are also extremely interesting. Etienne Boileau, in his book of crafts,
to which I have already alluded, tells us that a member of the guild was
prohibited from using gold of less value than 'eight sous (about 6s.) the
skein; he was bound to use the best silk, and never to mix thread with
silk, because that made the work false and bad.' The test or trial piece
prescribed for a worker who was the son of a master-embroiderer was 'a
single figure, a sixth of the natural size, to be shaded in gold'; whilst
one not the son of a master was required to produce 'a complete incident
with many figures.' The book of crafts also mentions 'cutters-out and
stencillers and illuminators' amongst those employed in the industry of
embroidery. In 1551 the Parisian Corporation of Embroiderers issued a
notice that 'for the future, the colouring in representations of nude
figures and faces should be done in three or four gradations of
carnation-dyed silk, and not, as formerly, in white silks.' During the
fifteenth century every household of any position retained the services
of an embroiderer by the year. The preparation of colours also, whether
for painting or for dyeing threads and textile fabrics, was a matter
which, M. Lefebure points out, received close attention from the artists
of the Middle Ages. Many undertook long journeys to obtain the more
famous recipes, which they filed, subsequently adding to and correcting
them as experience dictated. Nor were great artists above making and
supplying designs for embroidery. Raphael made designs for Francis I.,
and Boucher for Louis XV.; and in the Ambras collection at Vienna is a
superb set of sacerdotal robes from designs by the brothers Van Eyck and
their pupils. Early in the sixteenth century books of embroidery designs
were produced, and their success was so great that in a few years French,
German, Italian, Flemish, and English publishers spread broadcast books
of design made by their best engravers. In the same century, in order to
give the designers opportunity of studying directly from nature, Jean
Robin opened a garden with conservatories, in which he cultivated strange
varieties of plants then but little known in our latitudes. The rich
brocades and brocadelles of the time are characterized by the
introduction of large flowery patterns, with pomegranates and other
fruits with fine foliage.
The second part of M. Lefebure's book is devoted to the history of lace,
and though some may not find it quite as interesting as the earlier
portion it will more than repay perusal; and those who still work in this
delicate and fanciful art will find many valuable suggestions in it, as
well as a large number of exceedingly beautiful designs. Compared to
embroidery, lace seems comparatively modern. M. Lefebure and Mr. Alan
Cole tell us that there is no reliable or documentary evidence to prove
the existence of lace before the fifteenth century. Of course in the
East, light tissues, such as gauzes, muslins, and nets, were made at very
early times, and were used as veils and scarfs after the manner of
subsequent laces, and women enriched them with some sort of embroidery,
or varied the openness of them by here and there drawing out threads.
The threads of fringes seem also to have been plaited and knotted
together, and the borders of one of the many fashions of Roman toga were
of open reticulated weaving. The Egyptian Museum at the Louvre has a
curious network embellished with glass beads; and the monk Reginald, who
took part in opening the tomb of St. Cuthbert at Durham in the twelfth
century, writes that the Saint's shroud had a fringe of linen threads an
inch long, surmounted by a border, 'worked upon the threads,' with
representations of birds and pairs of beasts, there being between each
such pair a branching tree, a survival of the palm of Zoroaster, to which
I have before alluded. Our authors, however, do not in these examples
recognize lace, the production of which involves more refined and
artistic methods, and postulates a combination of skill and varied
execution carried to a higher degree of perfection. Lace, as we know it,
seems to have had its origin in the habit of embroidering linen. White
embroidery on linen has, M. Lefebure remarks, a cold and monotonous
aspect; that with coloured threads is brighter and gayer in effect, but
is apt to fade in frequent washing; but white embroidery relieved by open
spaces in, or shapes cut from, the linen ground, is possessed of an
entirely new charm; and from a sense of this the birth may be traced of
an art in the result of which happy contrasts are effected between
ornamental details of close texture and others of open-work.
Soon, also, was suggested the idea that, instead of laboriously
withdrawing threads from stout linen, it would be more convenient to
introduce a needle-made pattern into an open network ground, which was
called a _lacis_. Of this kind of embroidery many specimens are extant.
The Cluny Museum possesses a linen cap said to have belonged to Charles
V.; and an alb of linen drawn-thread work, supposed to have been made by
Anne of Bohemia (1527), is preserved in the cathedral at Prague.
Catherine de Medicis had a bed draped with squares of _reseuil_, or
_lacis_, and it is recorded that 'the girls and servants of her household
consumed much time in making squares of _reseuil_.' The interesting
pattern-books for open-ground embroidery, of which the first was
published in 1527 by Pierre Quinty, of Cologne, supply us with the means
of tracing the stages in the transition from white thread embroidery to
needle-point lace. We meet in them with a style of needle-work which
differs from embroidery in not being wrought upon a stuff foundation. It
is, in fact, true lace, done, as it were, 'in the air,' both ground and
pattern being entirely produced by the lace-maker.
The elaborate use of lace in costume was, of course, largely stimulated
by the fashion of wearing ruffs, and their companion cuffs or sleeves.
Catherine de Medicis induced one Frederic Vinciolo to come from Italy and
make ruffs and gadrooned collars, the fashion of which she started in
France; and Henry III. was so punctilious over his ruffs that he would
iron and goffer his cuffs and collars himself rather than see their
pleats limp and out of shape. The pattern-books also gave a great
impulse to the art. M. Lefebure mentions German books with patterns of
eagles, heraldic emblems, hunting scenes, and plants and leaves belonging
to Northern vegetation; and Italian books, in which the _motifs_ consist
of oleander blossoms, and elegant wreaths and scrolls, landscapes with
mythological scenes, and hunting episodes, less realistic than the
Northern ones, in which appear fauns, and nymphs or _amorini_ shooting
arrows. With regard to these patterns, M. Lefebure notices a curious
fact. The oldest painting in which lace is depicted is that of a lady,
by Carpaccio, who died about 1523. The cuffs of the lady are edged with
a narrow lace, the pattern of which reappears in Vecellio's _Corona_, a
book not published until 1591. This particular pattern was, therefore,
in use at least eighty years before it got into circulation with other
published patterns.
It was not, however, till the seventeenth century that lace acquired a
really independent character and individuality, and M. Duplessis states
that the production of the more noteworthy of early laces owes more to
the influence of men than to that of women. The reign of Louis XIV.
witnessed the production of the most stately needle-point laces, the
transformation of Venetian point, and the growth of _Points d'Alencon_,
_d'Argentan_, _de Bruxelles_ and _d'Angleterre_.
The king, aided by Colbert, determined to make France the centre, if
possible, for lace manufacture, sending for this purpose both to Venice
and to Flanders for workers. The studio of the Gobelins supplied
designs. The dandies had their huge rabatos or bands falling from
beneath the chin over the breast, and great prelates, like Bossuet and
Fenelon, wore their wonderful albs and rochets. It is related of a
collar made at Venice for Louis XIV. that the lace-workers, being unable
to find sufficiently fine horse-hair, employed some of their own hairs
instead, in order to secure that marvellous delicacy of work which they
aimed at producing.
In the eighteenth century, Venice, finding that laces of lighter texture
were sought after, set herself to make rose-point; and at the Court of
Louis XV. the choice of lace was regulated by still more elaborate
etiquette. The Revolution, however, ruined many of the manufactures.
Alencon survived, and Napoleon encouraged it, and endeavoured to renew
the old rules about the necessity of wearing point-lace at Court
receptions. A wonderful piece of lace, powdered over with devices of
bees, and costing 40,000 francs, was ordered. It was begun for the
Empress Josephine, but in the course of its making her escutcheons were
replaced by those of Marie Louise.
M. Lefebure concludes his interesting history by stating very clearly his
attitude towards machine-made lace. 'It would be an obvious loss to
art,' he says, 'should the making of lace by hand become extinct, for
machinery, as skilfully devised as possible, cannot do what the hand
does.' It can give us 'the results of processes, not the creations of
artistic handicraft.' Art is absent 'where formal calculation pretends
to supersede emotion'; it is absent 'where no trace can be detected of
intelligence guiding handicraft, whose hesitancies even possess peculiar
charm . . . cheapness is never commendable in respect of things which are
not absolute necessities; it lowers artistic standard.' These are
admirable remarks, and with them we take leave of this fascinating book,
with its delightful illustrations, its charming anecdotes, its excellent
advice. Mr. Alan Cole deserves the thanks of all who are interested in
art for bringing this book before the public in so attractive and so
inexpensive a form.
_Embroidery and Lace_: _Their Manufacture and History from the Remotest
Antiquity to the Present Day_. Translated and enlarged by Alan S. Cole
from the French of Ernest Lefebure. (Grevel and Co.)
HENLEY'S POEMS
(_Woman's World_, December 1888.)
'If I were king,' says Mr. Henley, in one of his most modest rondeaus,
'Art should aspire, yet ugliness be dear;
Beauty, the shaft, should speed with wit for feather;
And love, sweet love, should never fall to sere,
If I were king.'
And these lines contain, if not the best criticism of his own work,
certainly a very complete statement of his aim and motive as a poet. His
little _Book of Verses_ reveals to us an artist who is seeking to find
new methods of expression and has not merely a delicate sense of beauty
and a brilliant, fantastic wit, but a real passion also for what is
horrible, ugly, or grotesque. No doubt, everything that is worthy of
existence is worthy also of art--at least, one would like to think
so--but while echo or mirror can repeat for us a beautiful thing, to
render artistically a thing that is ugly requires the most exquisite
alchemy of form, the most subtle magic of transformation. To me there is
more of the cry of Marsyas than of the singing of Apollo in the earlier
poems of Mr. Henley's volume, _In Hospital_: _Rhymes and Rhythms_, as he
calls them. But it is impossible to deny their power. Some of them are
like bright, vivid pastels; others like charcoal drawings, with dull
blacks and murky whites; others like etchings with deeply-bitten lines,
and abrupt contrasts, and clever colour-suggestions. In fact, they are
like anything and everything, except perfected poems--that they certainly
are not. They are still in the twilight. They are preludes,
experiments, inspired jottings in a note-book, and should be heralded by
a design of 'Genius Making Sketches.' Rhyme gives architecture as well
as melody to verse; it gives that delightful sense of limitation which in
all the arts is so pleasurable, and is, indeed, one of the secrets of
perfection; it will whisper, as a French critic has said, 'things
unexpected and charming, things with strange and remote relations to each
other,' and bind them together in indissoluble bonds of beauty; and in
his constant rejection of rhyme, Mr. Henley seems to me to have abdicated
half his power. He is a _roi en exil_ who has thrown away some of the
strings of his lute; a poet who has forgotten the fairest part of his
kingdom.
However, all work criticizes itself. Here is one of Mr. Henley's
inspired jottings. According to the temperament of the reader, it will
serve either as a model or as the reverse:
As with varnish red and glistening
Dripped his hair; his feet were rigid;
Raised, he settled stiffly sideways:
You could see the hurts were spinal.
He had fallen from an engine,
And been dragged along the metals.
It was hopeless, and they knew it;
So they covered him, and left him.
As he lay, by fits half sentient,
Inarticulately moaning,
With his stockinged feet protruded
Sharp and awkward from the blankets,
To his bed there came a woman,
Stood and looked and sighed a little,
And departed without speaking,
As himself a few hours after.
I was told she was his sweetheart.
They were on the eve of marriage.
She was quiet as a statue,
But her lip was gray and writhen.
In this poem, the rhythm and the music, such as it is, are
obvious--perhaps a little too obvious. In the following I see nothing
but ingeniously printed prose. It is a description--and a very accurate
one--of a scene in a hospital ward. The medical students are supposed to
be crowding round the doctor. What I quote is only a fragment, but the
poem itself is a fragment:
So shows the ring
Seen, from behind, round a conjuror
Doing his pitch in the street.
High shoulders, low shoulders, broad shoulders, narrow ones,
Round, square, and angular, serry and shove;
While from within a voice,
Gravely and weightily fluent,
Sounds; and then ceases; and suddenly
(Look at the stress of the shoulders!)
Out of a quiver of silence,
Over the hiss of the spray,
Comes a low cry, and the sound
Of breath quick intaken through teeth
Clenched in resolve. And the master
Breaks from the crowd, and goes,
Wiping his hands,
To the next bed, with his pupils
Flocking and whispering behind him.
Now one can see.
Case Number One
Sits (rather pale) with his bedclothes
Stripped up, and showing his foot
(Alas, for God's image!)
Swaddled in wet white lint
Brilliantly hideous with red.
Theophile Gautier once said that Flaubert's style was meant to be read,
and his own style to be looked at. Mr. Henley's unrhymed rhythms form
very dainty designs, from a typographical point of view. From the point
of view of literature, they are a series of vivid, concentrated
impressions, with a keen grip of fact, a terrible actuality, and an
almost masterly power of picturesque presentation. But the poetic
form--what of that?
Well, let us pass to the later poems, to the rondels and rondeaus, the
sonnets and quatorzains, the echoes and the ballades. How brilliant and
fanciful this is! The Toyokuni colour-print that suggested it could not
be more delightful. It seems to have kept all the wilful fantastic charm
of the original:
Was I a Samurai renowned,
Two-sworded, fierce, immense of bow?
A histrion angular and profound?
A priest? a porter?--Child, although
I have forgotten clean, I know
That in the shade of Fujisan,
What time the cherry-orchards blow,
I loved you once in old Japan.
As here you loiter, flowing-gowned
And hugely sashed, with pins a-row
Your quaint head as with flamelets crowned,
Demure, inviting--even so,
When merry maids in Miyako
To feel the sweet o' the year began,
And green gardens to overflow,
I loved you once in old Japan.
Clear shine the hills; the rice-fields round
Two cranes are circling; sleepy and slow,
A blue canal the lake's blue bound
Breaks at the bamboo bridge; and lo!
Touched with the sundown's spirit and glow,
I see you turn, with flirted fan,
Against the plum-tree's bloomy snow . . .
I loved you once in old Japan!