"The old Saxony clock, which is slow, and which strikes thirteen amid
its flowers and gods, to whom did it belong? Thinkest that it came
from Saxony by the mail coaches of old time?
"(Singular shadows hang about the worn-out panes.)
"And thy Venetian mirror, deep as a cold fountain in its banks of
gilt work; what is reflected there? Ah! I am sure that more than one
woman bathed there in her beauty's sin; and, perhaps, if I looked
long enough, I should see a naked phantom.
"Wicked one, thou often sayest wicked things.
"(I see the spiders' webs above the lofty windows.)
"Our wardrobe is very old; see how the fire reddens its sad panels!
the weary curtains are as old, and the tapestry on the arm-chairs
stripped of paint, and the old engravings, and all these old things.
Does it not seem to thee that even these blue birds are discoloured
by time?
"(Dream not of the spiders' webs that tremble above the lofty
windows.)
"Thou lovest all that, and that is why I live by thee. When one of my
poems appeared, didst thou not desire, my sister, whose looks are
full of yesterdays, the words, the grace of faded things? New objects
displease thee; thee also do they frighten with their loud boldness,
and thou feelest as if thou shouldst use them--a difficult thing
indeed to do, for thou hast no taste for action.
"Come, close thy old German almanack that thou readest with
attention, though it appeared more than a hundred years ago, and the
Kings it announces are all dead, and, lying on this antique carpet,
my head leaned upon thy charitable knees, on the pale robe, oh! calm
child, I will speak with thee for hours; there are no fields, and the
streets are empty, I will speak to thee of our furniture.
"Thou art abstracted?
"(The spiders' webs are shivering above the lofty windows.)"
We, the "ten superior persons scattered through the universe" think
these prose poems the concrete essence, the osmazome of literature, the
essential oil of art, others, those in the stalls, will judge them to be
the aberrations of a refined mind, distorted with hatred of the
commonplace; the pit will immediately declare them to be nonsense, and
will return with satisfaction to the last leading article in the daily
paper.
_J'ai fait mes adieux à ma mère et je viens pour vous faire les miens_
and other absurdities by Ponson du Terrail amused us many a year in
France, and in later days similar bad grammar by Georges Ohnet has not
been lost upon us, but neither Ponson du Terrail nor Georges Ohnet
sought literary suffrage, such a thing could not be in France, but in
England, Rider Haggard, whose literary atrocities are more atrocious
than his accounts of slaughter, receives the attention of leading
journals and writes about the revival of Romance. As it is as difficult
to write the worst as the best conceivable sentence, I take this one and
place it for its greater glory in my less remarkable prose:--
"_As we gazed on the beauties thus revealed by Good, a spirit of
emulation filled our breasts, and we set to work to get ourselves up
as well as we could_."
A return to romance! a return to the animal, say I.
One thing that cannot be denied to the realists: a constant and intense
desire to write well, to write artistically. When I think of what they
have done in the matter of the use of words, of the myriad verbal
effects they have discovered, of the thousand forms of composition they
have created, how they have remodelled and refashioned the language in
their untiring striving for intensity of expression for the very
osmazome of art, I am lost in ultimate wonder and admiration. What Hugo
did for French verse, Flaubert, Goncourt, Zola, and Huysmans have done
for French prose. No more literary school than the realists has ever
existed, and I do not except even the Elizabethans. And for this reason
our failures are more interesting than the vulgar successes of our
opponents; for when we fall into the sterile and distorted, it is
through our noble and incurable hatred of the commonplace of all that is
popular.
The healthy school is played out in England; all that could be said has
been said; the successors of Dickens, Thackeray, and George Eliot have
no ideal, and consequently no language; what can be more pudding than
the language of Mr Hardy, and he is typical of a dozen other writers, Mr
Besant, Mr Murray, Mr Crawford? The reason of this heaviness of thought
and expression is that the avenues are closed, no new subject matter is
introduced, the language of English fiction has therefore run stagnant.
But if the realists should catch favour in England the English tongue
may be saved from dissolution, for with the new subjects they would
introduce new forms of language would arise.
"Carmen Sylva!" How easy it is to divine the æstheticism of any one
signing, "Carmen Sylva."
In youth the genius of Shelly astonished me; but now I find the
stupidity of the ordinary person infinitely more surprising.
That I may die childless--that when my hour comes I may turn my face to
the wall saying, I have not increased the great evil of human
life--then, though I were murderer, fornicator, thief, and liar, my sins
shall melt even as a cloud. But he who dies with children about him,
though his life were in all else an excellent deed, shall be held
accursed by the truly wise, and the stain upon him shall endure for
ever.
I realize that this is truth, the one truth, and the whole truth; and
yet the vainest woman that ever looked in a glass never regretted her
youth more than I, or felt the disgrace of middle-age more keenly. She
has her portrait painted, I write these confessions; each hopes to save
something of the past, and escape somehow the ravening waves of time and
float into some haven of remembrance. St Augustine's Confessions are the
story of a God-tortured, mine of an art-tortured, soul. Which subject is
the most living? The first! for man is stupid and still loves his
conscience as a child loves a toy. Now the world plays with "Robert
Elsmere." This book seems to me like a suite of spacious, well
distributed, and well proportioned rooms. Looking round, I say, 'tis a
pity these rooms are only in plaster of Paris.
"Les Palais Nomades" is a really beautiful book, and it is free from all
the faults that make an absolute and supreme enjoyment of great poetry
an impossibility. For it is in the first place free from those pests and
parasites of artistic work--ideas. Of all literary qualities the
creation of ideas is the most fugitive. Think of the fate of an author
who puts forward a new idea to-morrow in a book, in a play, in a poem.
The new idea is seized upon, it becomes common property, it is dragged
through newspaper articles, magazine articles, through books, it is
repeated in clubs, drawing-rooms; it is bandied about the corners of
streets; in a week it is wearisome, in a month it is an abomination. Who
has not felt a sickening feeling come over him when he hears such
phrases as "To be or not to be, that is the question?" Shakespeare was
really great when he wrote "Music to hear, why hearest thou music
sadly?" not when he wrote, "The apparel oft proclaims the man." Could he
be freed from his ideas what a poet we should have! Therefore, let those
who have taken firsts at Oxford devote their intolerable leisure to
preparing an edition from which everything resembling an idea shall be
excluded. We might then shut up our Marlowes and our Beaumonts and
resume our reading of the bard, and the witless foists would confer
happiness on many, and crown themselves with truly immortal bays. See
the fellows! their fingers catch at scanty wisps of hair, the lamps are
burning, the long pens are poised, and idea after idea is hurled out of
existence.
Gustave Kahn took counsel of the past, and he has successfully avoided
everything that even a hostile critic might be tempted to term an idea;
and for this I am grateful. Nor is his volume a collection of
miscellaneous verses bound together. He has chosen a certain sequence of
emotions; the circumstances out of which these emotions have sprung are
given in a short prose note. "Les Palais Nomades" is therefore a novel
in essence; description and analysis are eliminated, and only the
moments when life grows lyrical with suffering are recorded; recorded in
many varying metres conforming only to the play of the emotion, for,
unlike many who, having once discovered a tune, apply it promiscuously
to every subject they treat, Kahn adapts his melody to the emotion he is
expressing, with the same propriety and grace as Nature distributes
perfume to her flowers. For an example of magical transition of tone I
turn to _Intermède_.
"Chère apparence, viens aux couchants illuminés.
Veux-tu mieux des matins albes et calmes?
Les soirs et les matins ont des calmes rosâtres
Les eaux ont des manteaux de cristal irisé
Et des rhythmes de calmes palmes
Et l'air évoque de calmes musiques de pâtres.
* * * * *
Viens sous des tendelets aux fleuves souriants
Aux lilas pâlis des nuits d'Orient
Aux glauques étendues à falbalas d'argent
A l'oasis des baisers urgents
Seulement vit le voile aux seuls Orients.
* * * * *
Quel que soit le spectacle et quelle que soit la rame
Et quelle que soit la voix qui s'affame et brame,
L'oubli du lointain des jours chatouille et serre,
Le lotos de l'oubli s'est fané dans mes serres,
Cependant tu m'aimais à jamais?
Adieu pour jamais."
The repetitions of Edgar Poe seem hard and mechanical after this, so
exquisite and evanescent is the rhythm, and the intonations come as
sweetly and suddenly as a gust of perfume; it is as the vibration of a
fairy orchestra, flute and violin disappearing in a silver mist; but the
clouds break, and all the enchantment of a spring garden appears in a
shaft of sudden sunlight.
"L'éphemère idole, au frisson du printemps,
Sentant des renouveaux éclorent,
Se guèpa de satins si lointains et d'antan:
Rose exilé des flores!
Le jardin rima ses branches de lilas;
Aux murs, les roses tremières;
La terre étala, pour fêter les las,
Des divans vert lumière;
Des rires ailés peuplèrent le jardin;
Souriants des caresses brèves,
Des oiseaux joyeaux, jaunes, incarnadins
Vibrèrent aux ciels de rêve."
But to the devil with literature! Who cares if Gustave Kahn writes well
or badly? I met a chappie yesterday whose views of life coincide with
mine. "A ripping good dinner," he says; "get a skinful of champagne
inside you, go to bed when it is light, and get up when you are rested."
Each century has its special ideal, the ideal of the nineteenth is the
young man. The eighteenth century is only woman--see the tapestries, the
delightful goddesses who have discarded their hoops and heels to appear
in still more delightful nakedness, the noble woods, the tall castles,
with the hunters looking round; no servile archæology chills the fancy;
and this treatment of antiquity is the highest proof of the genius of
the eighteenth century. See the Fragonards--the ladies in high-peaked
bodices, their little ankles showing amid the snow of the petticoats. Up
they go; you can hear their light false voices amid the summer of the
leaves, where Loves are garlanded even as roses. Masks and arrows are
everywhere, all the machinery of light and gracious days. In the
Watteaus the note is more pensive; there is satin and sunset, plausive
gestures and reluctance--false reluctance; the guitar is tinkling, and
exquisite are the notes in the languid evening; and there is the
Pierrot, that marvellous white animal, sensual and witty and glad, the
soul of the century--ankles and epigrams everywhere, for love was not
then sentimental, it was false and a little cruel; see the furniture and
the polished floor, and the tapestries with whose delicate tints and
decorations the high hair blends, the foot-stool and the heel and the
calf of the leg that is withdrawn, showing in the shadows of the lace;
see the satin of the bodices, the fan outspread, the wigs so adorably
false, the knee-breeches, the buckles on the shoes, how false; adorable
little comedy, adorably mendacious; and how winsome it is to feast on
these sweet lies, it is indeed delight to us, wearied with the bland
sincerity of newspapers. In the eighteenth century it was the man who
knelt at the woman's feet, it was the man who pleaded and the woman who
acceded; but in our century the place of the man is changed, it is he
who holds the fan, it is he who is besought; and if one were to dream
of continuing the tradition of Watteau and Fragonard in the nineteenth
century, he would have to take note of and meditate deeply and
profoundly on this, as he sought to formulate and synthesize the erotic
spirit of our age.
The position of a young man in the nineteenth century is the most
enviable that has ever fallen to the lot of any human creature. He is
the rare bird, and is fêted, flattered, adored. The sweetest words are
addressed to him, the most loving looks are poured upon him. The young
man can do no wrong. Every house is open to him, and the best of
everything is laid before him; girls dispute the right to serve him;
they come to him with cake and wine, they sit circlewise and listen to
him, and when one is fortunate to get him alone she will hang upon his
neck, she will propose to him, and will take his refusal kindly and
without resentment. They will not let him stoop to tie up his shoe lace,
but will rush and simultaneously claim the right to attend on him. To
represent in a novel a girl proposing marriage to a man would be deemed
unnatural, but nothing is more common; there are few young men who have
not received at least a dozen offers, nay, more; it is characteristic,
it has become instinctive for girls to choose, and they prefer men not
to make love to them; and every young man who knows his business avoids
making advances, knowing well that it will only put the girl off.
In a society so constituted, what a delightful opening there is for a
young man. He would have to waltz perfectly, play tennis fairly, the
latest novel would suffice for literary attainments; billiards,
shooting, and hunting, would not come in amiss, for he must not be
considered a useless being by men; not that women are much influenced by
the opinion of men in their choice of favourites, but the reflex action
of the heart, although not so marked as that of the stomach, exists and
must be kept in view, besides a man who would succeed with women, must
succeed with men; the real Lovelace is loved by all. Like gravitation,
love draws all things. Our young man would have to be five feet eleven,
or six feet, broad shoulders, light brown hair, deep eyes, soft and
suggestive, broad shoulders, a thin neck, long delicate hands, a high
instep. His nose should be straight, his face oval and small, he must be
clean about the hips, and his movements must be naturally caressing. He
comes into the ball-room, his shoulders well back, he stretches his hand
to the hostess, he looks at her earnestly (it is characteristic of him
to think of the hostess first, he is in her house, the house is
well-furnished, and is suggestive of excellent meats and wines). He can
read through the slim woman whose black hair, a-glitter with diamonds,
contrasts with her white satin; an old man is talking to her, she dances
with him, and she refused a young man a moment before. This is a bad
sign; our Lovelace knows it; there is a stout woman of thirty-five, who
is looking at him, red satin bodice, doubtful taste. He looks away; a
little blonde woman fixes her eyes on him, she looks as innocent as a
child; instinctively our Lovelace turns to his host. "Who is that little
blonde woman over there, the right hand corner?" he asks. "Ah, that is
Lady ----." "Will you introduce me?" "Certainly," Lovelace has made up
his mind. Then there is a young oldish girl, richly dressed; "I hear her
people have a nice house in a hunting country, I will dance with her,
and take the mother into supper, and, if I can get a moment, will have a
pleasant talk with the father in the evening."
In manner Lovelace is facile and easy; he never says no, it is always
yes, ask him what you will; but he only does what he has made up his
mind it is his advantage to do. Apparently he is an embodiment of all
that is unselfish, for he knows that after he has helped himself, it is
advisable to help some one else, and thereby make a friend who, on a
future occasion, will be useful to him. Put a violinist into a room
filled with violins, and he will try every one. Lovelace will put each
woman aside so quietly that she is often only half aware that she has
been put aside. Her life is broken; she is content that it should be
broken. The real genius for love lies not in getting into, but getting
out of love.
I have noticed that there are times when every second woman likes you.
Is love, then, a magnetism which we sometimes possess and exercise
unconsciously, and sometimes do not possess?