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The
Merry-Go-Round
[Illustration]
_BOOKS BY_
_CARL VAN VECHTEN_
MUSIC AFTER THE GREAT WAR 1915
MUSIC AND BAD MANNERS 1916
INTERPRETERS AND INTERPRETATIONS 1917
THE MERRY-GO-ROUND 1918
THE MUSIC OF SPAIN 1918
The
Merry-Go-Round
_Carl Van Vechten_
_"Tournez, tournez, bons chevaux de bois,
Tournez cent tours, tournez mille tours,
Tournez souvent et tournez toujours,
Tournez, tournez au sons de hautbois."_
PAUL VERLAINE
[Illustration]
New York Alfred A. Knopf
MCMXVIII
COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY
ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Contents
PAGE
IN DEFENCE OF BAD TASTE 11
MUSIC AND SUPERMUSIC 23
EDGAR SALTUS 37
THE NEW ART OF THE SINGER 93
_Au Bal Musette_ 125
MUSIC AND COOKING 149
AN INTERRUPTED CONVERSATION 179
THE AUTHORITATIVE WORK ON AMERICAN MUSIC 197
OLD DAYS AND NEW 215
TWO YOUNG AMERICAN PLAYWRIGHTS 227
_De Senectute Cantorum_ 245
IMPRESSIONS IN THE THEATRE
I _The Land of Joy_ 281
II A Note on Mimi Aguglia 298
III The New Isadora 307
IV Margaret Anglin Produces _As You Like It_ 318
THE MODERN COMPOSERS AT A GLANCE 329
FOOTNOTES 330
INDEX 331
Some of these essays have appeared in "The Smart Set,"
"Reedy's Mirror," "Vanity Fair," "The Chronicle," "The
Theatre," "The Bellman," "The Musical Quarterly," "Rogue,"
"The New York Press," and "The New York Globe." In their
present form, however, they have undergone considerable
redressing.
In Defence of Bad Taste
"_It is a painful thing, at best, to live up to one's
bricabric, if one has any; but to live up to the bricabric
of many lands and of many centuries is a strain which no
wise man would dream of inflicting upon his constitution._"
Agnes Repplier.
In Defence of Bad Taste
In America, where men are supposed to know nothing about matters of
taste and where women have their dresses planned for them, the
household decorator has become an important factor in domestic life.
Out of an even hundred rich men how many can say that they have had
anything to do with the selection or arrangement of the furnishings
for their homes? In theatre programs these matters are regulated and
due credit is given to the various firms who have supplied the myriad
appeals to the eye; one knows who thought out the combinations of
shoes, hats, and parasols, and one knows where each separate article
was purchased. Why could not some similar plan of appreciation be
followed in the houses of our very rich? Why not, for instance, a card
in the hall something like the following:
_This house was furnished and decorated according
to the taste of Marcel of the Dilly-Billy Shop_
or
_We are living in the kind of house Miss Simone
O'Kelly thought we should live in. The
decorations are pure Louis XV and
the furniture is authentic._
It is not difficult, of course, to differentiate the personal from the
impersonal. Nothing clings so ill to the back as borrowed finery and I
have yet to find the family which has settled itself fondly and
comfortably in chairs which were a part of some one else's aesthetic
plan. As a matter of fact many of our millionaires would be more at
home in an atmosphere concocted from the ingredients of plain pine
tables and blanket-covered mattresses than they are surrounded by the
frippery of China and the frivolity of France. If these gentlemen were
fortunate enough to enjoy sufficient confidence in their own taste to
give it a thorough test it is not safe to think of the extreme burden
that would be put on the working capacity of the factories of the
Grand Rapids furniture companies. We might find a few emancipated
souls scouring the town for heavy refectory tables and divans into
which one could sink, reclining or upright, with a perfect sense of
ease, but these would be as rare as Steinway pianos in Coney Island.
For Americans are meek in such matters. They credit themselves with no
taste. They fear comparison. If the very much sought-after Simone
O'Kelly has decorated Mr. B.'s house Mr. M. does not dare to struggle
along with merely his own ideas in furnishing his. He calls in an
expert who begins, rather inauspiciously, by painting the dining-room
salmon pink. The tables and chairs will be made by somebody on Tenth
Street, exact copies of a set to be found in the Musee Carnavalet. The
legs under the table are awkwardly arranged for diners but they look
very well when the table is unclothed. The decorator plans to hang Mr.
M.'s personal bedroom in pale plum colour. Mr. M. rebels at this. "I
detest," he remarks mildly, "all variants of purple." "Very well,"
acquiesces the decorator, "we will make it green." In the end Mr. M.'s
worst premonitions are realized: the walls are resplendent in a
striking shade of magenta. Along the edge of each panel of Chinese
brocade a narrow band of absinthe velvet ribbon gives the necessary
contrast. The furniture is painted in dull ivory with touches of gold
and beryl and the bed cover is peacock blue. Four round cushions of a
similar shade repose on the floor at the foot of the bed. The fat
manufacturer's wife as she enters this triumph of decoration which
might satisfy Louise de la Valliere or please Doris Keane, is an
anachronistic figure and she is aware of it. She prefers, on the
whole, the brass bedsteads of the summer hotels. Mr. M. himself feels
ridiculous. He never enters the room without a groan and a remark on
the order of "Good God, what a colour!" His personal taste finds its
supreme enjoyment in the Circassian walnut panelling, desk, and tables
of the directors' room in the Millionaire's Trust and Savings Bank.
"Rich and tasteful": how many times he has used this phrase to express
his approval! In the mid-Victorian red plush of his club, too, he is
comfortable. "Waiter, another whiskey and soda!"
Mildred is expected home after her first year in boarding school. Her
mother wishes to environ her, so to speak. Mildred is delicate in her
tastes, so delicate that she scarcely ever expresses herself. Her mind
and body are pure; her heart beats faster when she learns of distress.
Voluptuousness, Venus, and Vice are all merely words to her. Mother
does not explain this to the decorator. "My daughter is returning from
school," she says, "I want her room done." "What style of room?"
"After all you are supposed to know that. I am engaging you to arrange
it for me." "Your daughter, I take it, is a modern girl?" "You may
assume as much." In despair for a hint the decorator steals a look at
a photograph of the miss, full-lipped, melting dark eyes, and
blue-black hair. Sensing an houri he hangs the walls with a deep shade
of Persian orange, over which flit tropical birds of emerald and
azure; strange pomegranates bleed their seeds at regular intervals.
The couch is an adaptation, in colour, of the celebrated _Sumurun_
bed. The dressing table and the _chaise-longue_ are of Chinese
lacquer. A heavy bronze incense burner pours forth fumes of Bichara's
_Scheherazade_. From the window frames, stifling the light, depend
flame-coloured brocaded curtains embroidered in Egyptian enamelled
beads. It is a triumph, this chamber, of _style Ballet Russe_. Diana
is banished ... and shrinking Mildred, returning from school, finds
her demure soul at variance with her surroundings.
A man's house should be the expression of the man himself. All the
books on the subject and even the household decorators themselves will
tell you that. But, if the decoration of a house is to express its
owner, it is necessary that he himself inspire it, which implies, of
course, the possession of ideas, even though they be bad. And men in
these United States are not expected to display mental anguish or
pleasure when confronted by colour combinations. In America one is
constantly hearing young ladies say, "He's a man and so, of course,
knows nothing about colour," or "Of course a man never looks at
clothes." It does not seem to be necessary to argue this point. One
has only to remember that Veronese was a man; so was Velasquez. Even
Paul Poiret and Leon Bakst belong to the sex of Adam. Nevertheless
most Americans still consider it a little _effemine_, a trifle
_declasse_, for a business man (allowances are sometimes made for
poets, musicians, actors, and people who live in Greenwich Village),
to make any references to colour or form. He may admire, with obvious
emphasis on the women they lightly enclose, the costumes of the
_Follies_ but he is not permitted to exhibit knowledge of materials
and any suddenly expressed desire on his part to rush into a shop and
hug some bit of colour from the show window to his heart would be
regarded as a symptom of madness.
The audience which gives the final verdict on a farce makes allowances
for the author; permits him the use of certain conventions. For
example, he is given leave to introduce a hotel corridor into his last
act with seven doors opening on a common hallway so that his
characters may conveniently and persistently enter the wrong rooms.
It may be supposed that I ask for some such license from my audience.
"How ridiculous," you may be saying, "I know of interior decorators
who spend weeks in reading out the secrets of their clients' souls in
order to provide their proper settings." There doubtless are interior
decorators who succeed in giving a home the appearance of a well-kept
hotel where guests may mingle comfortably and freely. I should not
wish to deny this. But I do deny that soul-study is a requirement for
the profession. If a man (or a woman) has a soul it will not be a
decorator who will discover its fitting housing. Others may object,
"But bad taste is rampant. Surely it is better to be guided by some
one who knows than to surround oneself with rocking chairs, plaster
casts of the Winged Victory, and photographs of various madonnas." I
say that it is _not_ better. It is better for each man to express
himself, through his taste, as well as through his tongue or his pen,
as he may. And it is only through such expression that he will finally
arrive (if he ever can) at a condition of household furnishing which
will say something to his neighbour as well as to himself. It is a
pleasure when one leaves a dinner party to be able to observe "That is
_his_ house," just as it is a pleasure when one leaves a concert to
remember that a composer has expressed himself and not the result of
seven years study in Berlin or Paris.
But Americans have little aptitude for self-expression. They prefer to
huddle, like cattle, under unspeakable whips when matters of art are
under discussion. They fear ridicule. As a consequence many of the
richest men in this country never really live in their own homes,
never are comfortable for a moment, although the walls are hung double
with Fragonards and hawthorne vases stand so deep upon the tables that
no space remains for the "Saturday Review" or "le Temps." And they
never, never, never, will know the pleasure which comes while
stumbling down a side street in London, or in the mouldy corners of
the Venetian ghetto, or in the Marche du Temple in Paris, or, heaven
knows, in New York, on lower Fourth Avenue, or in Chinatown, or in a
Russian brass shop on Allen Street, or in a big department store (as
often there as anywhere) in finding just the lamp for just the table
in just the corner, or in discovering a bit of brocade, perhaps the
ragged remnant of a waistcoat belonging to an aristocrat of the
Directorate, which will lighten the depths of a certain room, or a
chair which goes miraculously with a desk already possessed, or a
Chinese mirror which one had almost decided did not exist. Nor will
they ever experience the joy of sudden decision in front of a picture
by Matisse, which ends in the sale of a Delacroix. Nor can they feel
the thrill which is part of the replacing of a make-shift rug by _the_
rug of rugs (let us hope it was Solomon's!).
I know a lady in Paris whose salon presents a different aspect each
summer. Do her Picassos go, a new Spanish painter has replaced them.
Have you missed the Gibbons carving? Spanish church carving has taken
its place. "And where are your Venetian embroideries?" "I sold them to
the Marquise de V.... The money served to buy these Persian
miniatures." This lady has travelled far. She is not experimenting in
doubtful taste or bad art; she is not even experimenting in her own
taste: she is simply enjoying different epochs, different artists,
different forms of art, each in its turn, for so long as it says
anything to her. Her house is not a museum. Space and comfort demand
exclusion but she excludes nothing forever that she desires.... She
exchanges.
Taste at best is relative. It is an axiom that anybody else's taste
can never say anything to you although you may feel perfectly certain
that it is better than your own. If more of the money of the rich
were spent in encouraging children to develop their own ideas in
furnishing their own rooms it would serve a better purpose than it
does now when it is dropped into the ample pockets of the professional
decorators. Oscar Wilde wrote, "A colour sense is more important in
the development of the individual than a sense of right and wrong."
Any young boy or girl can learn something about such matters; most of
them, if not shamed out of it, take a natural interest in their
surroundings. You will see how true this is if you attempt to
rearrange a child's room. Those who have bad taste, relatively, should
literally be allowed to make their own beds. On the whole it is
preferable to be comfortable in red and green velvet upholstery than
to be beautiful and unhappy in a household decorator's gilded cage.
_September 3, 1915._
Music and Supermusic
"_To know whether you are enjoying a piece of music or not
you must see whether you find yourself looking at the
advertisements of Pears' soap at the end of the program._"
Samuel Butler.
Music and Supermusic
What is the distinction in the mind of Everycritic between good music
and bad music, in the mind of Everyman between popular music and
"classical" music? What is the essential difference between an air by
Mozart and an air by Jerome Kern? Why is Chopin's _G minor nocturne_
better music than Thecla Badarzewska's _La Priere d'une Vierge_? Why
is a music drama by Richard Wagner preferable to a music drama by
Horatio W. Parker? What makes a melody distinguished? What makes a
melody commonplace or cheap? Why do some melodies ring in our ears
generation after generation while others enjoy but a brief popularity?
Why do certain composers, such as Raff and Mendelssohn, hailed as
geniuses while they were yet alive, soon sink into semi-obscurity,
while others, such as Robert Franz and Moussorgsky, almost
unrecognized by their contemporaries, grow in popularity? Are there no
answers to these conundrums and the thousand others that might be
asked by a person with a slight attack of curiosity?... No one _does_
ask and assuredly no one answers. These riddles, it would seem, are
included among the forbidden mysteries of the sphynx. The critics
assert with authority and some show of erudition that the Spohrs, the
Mendelssohns, the Humperdincks, and the Montemezzis are great
composers. They usually admire the grandchildren of Old Lady Tradition
but they neglect to justify this partiality. Nor can we trust the
public with its favourite Piccinnis and Puccinis.... What then is the
test of supermusic?
For we know, as well as we can know anything, that there is music and
supermusic. Rubinstein wrote music; Beethoven wrote supermusic (Mr.
Finck may contradict this statement). Bellini wrote operas; Mozart
wrote superoperas. Jensen wrote songs; Schubert wrote supersongs. The
superiority of _Voi che sapete_ as a vocal melody over _Ah! non
giunge_ is not generally contested; neither can we hesitate very long
over the question whether or not _Der Leiermann_ is a better song than
_Lehn' deine Wang'_. Probably even Mr. Finck will admit that the
_Sonata Appassionata_ is finer music than the most familiar portrait
(I think it is No. 22) in the _Kamennoi-Ostrow_ set. But, if we agree
to put Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, and a few others on
marmorean pedestals in a special Hall of Fame (and this is a
compromise on my part, at any rate, as I consider much of the music
written by even these men to be below any moderately high standard),
what about the rest? Mr. Finck prefers Johann Strauss to Brahms, nay
more to Richard himself! He has written a whole book for no other
reason, it would seem, than to prove that the author of _Tod und
Verklarung_ is a very much over-rated individual. At times sitting
despondently in Carnegie Hall, I am secretly inclined to agree with
him. Personally I can say that I prefer Irving Berlin's music to that
of Edward MacDowell and I would like to have some one prove to me that
this position is untenable.
What is the test of supermusic? I have read that fashionable music,
music composed in a style welcomed and appreciated by its contemporary
hearers is seldom supermusic. Yet Handel wrote fashionable music, and
so much other of the music of that epoch is Handelian that it is often
difficult to be sure where George Frederick left off and somebody else
began. Bellini wrote fashionable music and _Norma_ and _La Sonnambula_
sound a trifle faded although they are still occasionally performed,
but Rossini, whose only desire was to please his public, (Liszt once
observed "Rossini and Co. always close with 'I remain your very
humble servant'"), wrote melodies in _Il Barbiere di Siviglia_ which
sound as fresh to us today as they did when they were first composed.
And when this prodigiously gifted musician-cook turned his back to the
public to write _Guillaume Tell_ he penned a work which critics have
consistently told us is a masterpiece, but which is as seldom
performed today as any opera of the early Nineteenth Century which
occasionally gains a hearing at all. Therefor we must be wary of the
old men who tell us that we shall soon tire of the music of Puccini
because it is fashionable.
Popularity is scarcely a test. I have mentioned Mendelssohn. Never was
there a more popular composer, and yet aside from the violin concerto
what work of his has maintained its place in the concert repertory?
Yet Chopin, whose name is seldom absent from the program of a pianist,
was a god in his own time and the most brilliant woman of his epoch
fell in love with him, as Philip Moeller has recently reminded us in
his very amusing play. On the other hand there is the case of Robert
Franz whose songs never achieved real popularity during his lifetime,
but which are frequently, almost invariably indeed, to be found on
song recital programs today and which are more and more appreciated.
The critics are praising him, the public likes him: they buy his
songs. And there is also the case of Max Reger who was not popular, is
not popular, and never will be popular.
Can we judge music by academic standards? Certainly not. Even the
hoary old academicians themselves can answer this question correctly
if you put it in relation to any composer born before 1820. The
greatest composers have seldom respected the rules. Beethoven in his
last sonatas and string quartets slapped all the pedants in the ears;
yet I believe you will find astonishingly few rules broken by Mozart,
one of the gods in the mythology of art music, and Berlioz, who broke
all the rules, is more interesting to us today as a writer of prose
than as a writer of music.
Is simple music supermusic? Certainly not invariably. _Vedrai Carino_
is a simple tune, almost as simple as a folk-song and we set great
store by it; yet Michael William Balfe wrote twenty-seven operas
filled with similarly simple tunes and in a selective draft of
composers his number would probably be 9,768. The _Ave Maria_ of
Schubert is a simple tune; so is the _Meditation_ from _Thais_. Why do
we say that one is better than the other.
Or is supermusic always grand, sad, noble, or emotional? There must be
another violent head shaking here. The air from _Oberon, Ocean, thou
mighty monster_, is so grand that scarcely a singer can be found today
capable of interpreting it, although many sopranos puff and steam
through it, for all the world like pinguid gentlemen climbing the
stairs to the towers of Notre Dame. The _Fifth Symphony_ of Beethoven
is both grand and noble; probably no one will be found who will deny
that it is supermusic, but Mahler's _Symphony of the Thousand_ is
likewise grand and noble, and futile and bombastic to boot. _Or sai
chi l'onore_ is a grand air, but _Robert je t'aime_ is equally grand
in intention, at least. _Der Tod und das Madchen_ is sad; so is _Les
Larmes_ in _Werther_.... But a very great deal of supermusic is
neither grand nor sad. Haydn's symphonies are usually as light-hearted
and as light-waisted as possible. Mozart's _Figaro_ scarcely seems to
have a care. Listen to Beethoven's _Fourth_ and _Eighth Symphonies_,
_Il Barbiere_ again, _Die Meistersinger_.... But do not be misled:
Massenet's _Don Quichotte_ is light music; so is Mascagni's
_Lodoletta_....
Is music to be prized and taken to our hearts because it is
contrapuntal and complex? We frequently hear it urged that Bach (who
was more or less forgotten for a hundred years, by the way) was the
greatest of composers and his music is especially intricate. He is the
one composer, indeed, who can _never_ be played with one finger! But
poor unimportant forgotten Max Reger also wrote in the most
complicated forms; the great Gluck in the simplest. Gluck, indeed, has
even been considered weak in counterpoint and fugue. Meyerbeer, it is
said, was also weak in counterpoint and fugue. Is he therefor to be
regarded as the peer of Gluck? Is Mozart's _G minor Symphony_ more
important (because it is more complicated) than the same composer's,
_Batti, Batti_?
We learn from some sources that music stands or falls by its melody
but what is good melody? According to his contemporaries Wagner's
music dramas were lacking in melody. _Sweet Marie_ is certainly a
melody; why is it not as good a melody as _The Old Folks at Home_? Why
is Musetta's waltz more popular than Gretel's? It is no better as
melody. As a matter of fact there is, has been, and for ever will be
war over this question of melody, because the point of view on the
subject is continually changing. As Cyril Scott puts it in his book,
"The Philosophy of Modernism": "at one time it (melody) extended over
a few bars and then came to a close, being, as it were, a kind of
sentence, which, after running for the moment, arrived at a full stop,
or semicolon. Take this and compare it with the modern tendency: for
that modern tendency is to argue that a melody might go on
indefinitely almost; there is no reason why it should come to a full
stop, for it is not a sentence, but more a line, which, like the
rambling incurvations of a frieze, requires no rule to stop it, but
alone the will and taste of its engenderer."
Or is harmonization the important factor? Folk-songs are not
harmonized at all, and yet certain musicians, Cecil Sharp for example,
devote their lives to collecting them, while others, like Percy
Grainger, base their compositions on them. On the other hand such
music as Debussy's _Iberia_ depends for its very existence on its
beautiful harmonies. The harmonies of Gluck are extremely simple,
those of Richard Strauss extremely complex.
H. T. Finck says somewhere that one of the greatest charms of music is
modulation but the old church composers who wrote in the "modes" never
modulated at all. Erik Satie seldom avails himself of this modern
device. It is a question whether Leo Ornstein modulates. If we may
take him at his word Arnold Schoenberg has a system of modulation. At
least it is his very own.
Are long compositions better than short ones? This may seem a silly
question but I have read criticisms based on a theory that they were.
Listen, for example, to de Quincy: "A song, an air, a tune,--that is,
a short succession of notes revolving rapidly upon itself,--how could
that by possibility offer a field of compass sufficient for the
development of great musical effects? The preparation pregnant with
the future, the remote correspondence, the questions, as it were,
which to a deep musical sense are asked in one passage, and answered
in another; the iteration and ingemination of a given effect, moving
through subtile variations that sometimes disguise the theme,
sometimes fitfully reveal it, sometimes throw it out tumultuously to
the daylight,--these and ten thousand forms of self-conflicting
musical passion--what room could they find, what opening, for
utterance, in so limited a field as an air or song?" After this
broadside permit me to quote a verse of Gerard de Nerval:
_"Il est un air pour qui je donnerais
Tout Rossini, tout Mozart, et tout Weber,
Un air tres-vieux, languissant et funebre,
Qui pour moi seul a des charmes secrets."_
And now let us dispassionately, if possible, regard the evidence.
Richard Strauss's _Alpine Symphony_, admittedly one of his weakest
works and considered very tiresome even by ardent Straussians, plays
for nearly an hour while any one can sing _Der Erlkonig_ in three
minutes. Are short compositions better than long ones? Answer: _Love
me and the World is Mine_ is a short song (although it seldom sounds
so) while Schubert's _C major Symphony_ is called the "symphony of
heavenly length."
Is what is new better than what is old? Is what is old better than
what is new? Schoenberg is new; is he therefor to be considered better
than Beethoven? Stravinsky is new; is he therefor to be considered
worse than Liszt?
Is an opera better than a song? Compare _Pagliacci_ and Strauss's
_Standchen_. Is a string quartet better than a piece for the piano?
But I grow weary.... Under the circumstances it would seem that if you
have any strong opinions about music you are perfectly entitled to
them, for the critics do not agree and you will find many of them
basing their criticism on some of the various hypotheses I have
advanced. H. T. Finck tells us that the sonata form is illogical,
forgetting perhaps that once it served its purpose; Jean Marnold
dubbed _Armide_ an _oeuvre batarde_; John F. Runciman called
_Parsifal_ "decrepit stuff," while Ernest Newman assures us that it
is "marvellous"; Pierre Lalo and Philip Hale disagree on the subject
of Debussy's _La Mer_ while W. J. Henderson and James Huneker wrangle
over Richard Strauss's _Don Quixote_.
The clue to the whole matter lies in a short phrase: Imitative work is
always bad. Music that tries to be something that something else has
been may be thrown aside as worthless. It will not endure although it
may sometimes please the zanies and jackoclocks of a generation. The
critic, therefor, who comes nearest to the heart of the matter, is he
who, either through instinct or familiarity with the various phenomena
of music, is able to judge of a work's originality. There must be
individuality in new music to make it worthy of our attention, and
that, after all is all that matters. For the tiniest folk-song often
persists in the hearts and minds of the people, often stirs the pulse
of a musician, pursuing its tuneful way through two centuries, while a
mighty thundering symphony of the same period may lie dead and
rotting, food for the Niptus Hololencus and the Blatta Germanica. We
still sing _The Old Folks At Home_ and _Le Cycle du Vin_ but we have
laid aside _Di Tanti Palpiti_. Any piece of music possessing the
certain magic power of individuality is of value, it matters not
whether it be symphony or song, opera or dance. What most critics
have forgotten is that in Music matter, form, and idea are one. In
painting, in poetry the idea, the words, the form, may be separated;
each may play its part, but in music there is no idea without form, no
form without idea. That is what makes musical criticism difficult.
_January 24, 1918._
Edgar Saltus
_"O no, we never mention him,
His name is never heard!"_
Old Ballad.
Edgar Saltus
To write about Edgar Saltus should be _vieux jeu_. The man is an
American; he was born in 1858; he accomplished some of his best work
in the Eighties and the Nineties, in the days when mutton-legged
sleeves, whatnots, Rogers groups, cat-tails, peacock feathers,
Japanese fans, musk-mellon seed collars, and big-wheeled bicycles were
in vogue. He has written history, fiction, poetry, literary criticism,
and philosophy, and to all these forms he has brought sympathy,
erudition, a fresh point of view, and a radiant style. He has
imagination and he understands the gentle art of arranging facts in
kaleidoscopic patterns so that they may attract and not repel the
reader. America, indeed, has not produced a round dozen authors who
equal him as a brilliant stylist with a great deal to say. And yet
this man, who wrote some of his best books in the Eighties and who is
still alive, has been allowed to drift into comparative oblivion. Even
his early reviewers shoved him impatiently aside or ignored him
altogether; a writer in "Belford's Magazine" for July, 1888, says:
"Edgar Saltus should have his name changed to Edgar Assaulted." Soon
he became a literary leper. The doctors and professors would have none
of him. To most of them, nowadays, I suppose, he is only a name. Many
of them have never read any of his books. I do not even remember to
have seen him mentioned in the works of James Huneker and you will not
find his name in Barrett Wendell's "A History of American Literature"
(1901), "A Reader's History of American Literature" by Thomas
Wentworth Higginson and Henry Walcott Boynton (1903), Katherine Lee
Bates's "American Literature" (1898), "A Manual of American
Literature," edited by Theodore Stanton (1909), William B. Cairns's "A
History of American Literature" (1912), William Edward Simonds's "A
Student's History of American Literature" (1909), Fred Lewis Pattee's
"A History of American Literature Since 1870" (1915), John Macy's "The
Spirit of American Literature" (1913), or William Lyon Phelps's "The
Advance of the English Novel" (1916). The third volume of "The
Cambridge History of American Literature," bringing the subject up to
1900, has not yet appeared but I should be amazed to discover that the
editors had decided to include Saltus therein. Curiously enough he is
mentioned in Oscar Fay Adams's "A Dictionary of American Authors"
(1901 edition) and, of all places, I have found a reference to him in
one of Agnes Repplier's books.
You will find few essays about the man or his work in current or
anterior periodicals. There is, to be sure, the article by Ramsay
Colles, entitled "A Publicist: Edgar Saltus," published in the
"Westminster Magazine" for October, 1904, but this essay could have
won our author no adherents. If any one had the courage to wade
through its muddy paragraphs he doubtless emerged vowing never to read
Saltus. Besides only the novels are touched on. In 1903 G. F.
Monkshood and George Gamble arranged a compilation from Saltus's work
which they entitled "Wit and Wisdom from Edgar Saltus" (Greening and
Co., London). The work is done without sense or sensitiveness and the
prefatory essay is without salt or flavour of any sort. An anonymous
writer in "Current Literature" for July, 1907, asks plaintively why
this author has been permitted to remain in obscurity and quotes from
some of the reviews. In "The Philistine" for October, 1907, Elbert
Hubbard takes a hand in the game. He says, "Edgar Saltus is the best
writer in America--with a few insignificant exceptions," but he
deplores the fact that Saltus knows nothing about the cows and
chickens; only cities and gods seem to interest him. Still there is
some atmosphere in this study, which is devoted to one book, "The
Lords of the Ghostland." In the New York Public Library four of
Saltus's books and one of his translations (about one-sixth of his
published work) are listed. You may also find there in a series of
volumes entitled "Nations of the World" his supplementary chapters
bringing the books up to date. That is all.
All these years, of course, Saltus has had his admiring circle,[1]
people of intelligence, of whom, unfortunately, I cannot say that I
was one. These, who have been content to read and admire without
spreading the news, may well be inclined to regard my performance as
repetitive and impertinent. Of these I must crave indulgence and of
Saltus himself too. For he, knowing how well he has done his work,
must sit like Buddha, ironic and indulgent, smiling on the poor
benighted who have yet to approach his altars. Once, at least, he
spoke: "A book that pleases no one may be poor. The book that pleases
every one is detestable."
I seem to remember to have heard his name all my life, but until
recently I have not read one line concerning or by him. I find that my
friends, many of whom are extensive readers, are in the same sad state
of ignorance. There is an exception and that exception is responsible
for my conversion. For six years, no less, Edna Kenton has been urging
me to read Edgar Saltus. She has been gently insinuating but firm.
None of us can struggle forever against fate or a determined woman. In
the end I capitulated, purchased a book by Edgar Saltus at random, and
read it ... at one sitting. I sought for more. As most of his books
are out of print and as the list in the Public Library conspicuously
omits all but one of his best _opera_ the matter presented
difficulties. However, a little diligent search in the old book shops
accomplished wonders. In less than two weeks I had dug up twenty-two
titles and in less than two weeks I had read twenty-four; since then I
have consumed the other four. There are few writers in American or any
other literature who can survive such a test; there are few writers
who have given me such keen pleasure.
The events of his life, mostly remain shrouded in mystery. His comings
and goings are not reported in the newspapers; he does not make
public speeches; and his name is seldom, if ever, mentioned "among
those present." That he has been married and has one daughter "Who's
Who" proclaims, together with the few biographical details mentioned
below. That is all. May we not herein find some small explanation for
his apparent neglect? Many thousands of lesser men have lifted
themselves to "literary" prominence by blowing their own tubas and
striking their own crotals. Even in the case of a man of such manifest
genius as George Bernard Shaw we may be permitted to doubt if he would
be so well known, had he not taken the trouble to erect monuments to
himself on every possible occasion in every possible location. Fame is
a quaint old-fashioned body, who loves to be pursued. She seldom, if
ever, runs after anybody except in her well-known role of necrophile.
Edgar Evertson Saltus was born in New York City June 8, 1858. He is a
lineal descendant of Admiral Kornelis Evertson, the commander of the
Dutch fleet, who captured New York from the English, August 9, 1673.
Francis Saltus, the poet, was his brother. He enjoyed a cosmopolitan
education which may be regarded as an important factor in the
development of his tastes and ideas. From St. Paul's School in Concord
he migrated to the Sorbonne in Paris, and thence to Heidelberg and
Munich, where he bathed in the newer Germanic philosophies. Finally he
took a course of law at Columbia University. The influence of this
somewhat heterogeneous seminary life is manifest in all his future
writing. Beginning, no doubt, as a disciple of Emerson in New England,
he fell under the spell of Balzac in Paris, of Schopenhauer and von
Hartmann in Germany. Pages might be brought forward as evidence that
he had a thorough classical education. His knowledge of languages made
it easy for him to drink deeply at many fountain heads. If Oscar Wilde
found his chief inspiration in Huysmans's "A Rebours," it is certain
that Saltus also quaffed intoxicating draughts at this source. Indeed
in one of his books he refers to Huysmans as his friend. It is further
apparent that he is acquainted with the works of Barbey d'Aurevilly,
Josephin Peladan,[2] Baudelaire, Mallarme, Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud,
Catulle Mendes, and Jules Laforgue, especially the Laforgue of the
"Moralites Legendaires." His kinship with these writers is near, but
through this mixed blood run strains inherited from the early pagans,
the mediaeval monks, the Germanic philosophers, and London of the
Eighteen Nineties (although there is not one word about Saltus in
Holbrook Jackson's book of the period), and perhaps, after all, his
nearest literary relative was an American, Edgar Allan Poe, who
bequeathed to him a garret full of strange odds and ends. But Saltus
surpasses Poe in almost every respect save as a poet.
Joseph Hergesheimer has expressed a theory to the effect that great
art is always provincial, never cosmopolitan; that only provincial art
is universal in its appeal. Like every other theory this one is to a
large extent true, but Hergesheimer in his arbitrary summing up, has
forgotten the fantastic. The fantastic in literature, in art of any
kind, can never be provincial. The work of Poe is not provincial; nor
is that of Gustave Moreau, an artist with whom Edgar Saltus can very
readily be compared. If you have visited the Musee Moreau in Paris
where, in the studio of the dead painter, is gathered together the
most complete collection of his works, which lend themselves to
endless inspection, you can, in a sense, reconstruct for yourself an
idea of the works of Edgar Saltus. One finds therein the same
unicorns, the same fabulous monsters, the same virgins on the rocks,
the same exotic and undreamed of flora and fauna, the same mystic
paganism, the same exquisitely jewelled workmanship. One can find
further analogies in the Aubrey Beardsley of "Under the Hill," in the
elaborate stylized irony of Max Beerbohm. Surely not provincials
these, but just as surely artists.
Moreover Saltus's style may be said to possess American
characteristics. It is dashing and rapid, and as clear as the water in
Southern seas. The man has a penchant for short and nervous sentences,
but they are never jerky. They explode like so many firecrackers and
remind one of the great national holiday!... Nevertheless Edgar Saltus
should have been born in France.
His essays, whether they deal with literary criticism, history,
religion (which is almost an obsession with this writer),
devil-worship, or cooking, are pervaded by that rare quality, charm.
Somewhere he quotes a French aphorism:
_"Etre riche n'est pas l'affaire,
Toute l'affaire est de charmer,"_
which might be applied to his own work. There is a deep and beneficent
guile in the simplicity of his style, as limpid as a brook, and yet,
as over a brook, in its overtones hover a myriad of sparkling
dragon-flies and butterflies; in its depths lie a plethora of trout.
He deals with the most obstruse and abstract subjects with such ease
and grace, without for one moment laying aside the badge of authority,
that they assume a mysterious fascination to catch the eye of the
passerby. In his fictions he has sometimes cultivated a more hectic
style, but that in itself constitutes one of the bases of its
richness. Scarcely a word but evokes an image, a strange, bizarre
image, often a complication of images. He is never afraid of the
colloquial, never afraid of slang even, and he often weaves lovely
patterns with obsolete or technical words. These lines, in which
Saltus paid tribute to Gautier, he might, with equal justice, have
applied to himself: "No one could torment a fancy more delicately than
he; he had the gift of adjective; he scented a new one afar like a
truffle; and from the Morgue of the dictionary he dragged forgotten
beauties. He dowered the language of his day with every tint of dawn
and every convulsion of sunset; he invented metaphors that were worth
a king's ransom, and figures of speech that deserve the Prix Montyon.
Then reviewing his work, he formulated an axiom which will go down
with a nimbus through time: Whomsoever a thought however complex, a
vision however apocalyptic, surprises without words to convey it, is
not a writer. The inexpressible does not exist." It is impossible to
taste at this man's table. One must eat the whole dinner to appreciate
its opulent inevitability. Still I may offer a few olives, a branch or
two of succulent celery to those who have not as yet been invited to
sit down. One of his ladies walks the Avenue in a gown the "color of
fried smelts." Such figurative phrases as "Her eyes were of that
green-grey which is caught in an icicle held over grass," "The sand is
as fine as face powder, _nuance_ Rachel, packed hard," "Death, it may
be, is not merely a law but a place, perhaps a garage which the
traveller reaches on a demolished motor, but whence none can proceed
until all old scores are paid," "The ocean resembled nothing so much
as an immense blue syrup," "She was a pale freckled girl, with hair
the shade of Bavarian beer," "The sun rose from the ocean like an
indolent girl from her bath," "Night, that queen who reigns only when
she falls, shook out the shroud she wears for gown," are to be found
on every page. Certain phrases sound good to him and are re-used:
"Disappearances are deceptive," "ruedelapaixian" (to describe a
dress), "toilet of the ring" (lifted from the bull-fight in "Mr.
Incoul's Misadventure" to do service in an account of the arena games
under Nero in "Imperial Purple"), but repetition of this kind is
infrequent in his works and seemingly unnecessary. Ideas and phrases,
endless chains of them, spurt from the point of his ardent pen.
Standing on his magic carpet he shakes new sins out of his sleeve as a
conjurer shakes out white rabbits and juggles words with an exquisite
dexterity. He is, indeed, the _jongleur de notre ame_!
From the beginning, his style has attracted the attention of the few
and no one, I am sure, has ever written a three line review of a book
by Saltus without referring to it. Mme. Amelie Rives has quoted Oscar
Wilde as saying to her one night at dinner, "In Edgar Saltus's work
passion struggles with grammar on every page!" Percival Pollard has
dubbed him a "prose paranoiac," and Elbert Hubbard says, "He writes so
well that he grows enamoured of his own style and is subdued like the
dyer's hand; he becomes intoxicated on the lure of lines and the roll
of phrases. He is woozy on words--locoed by syntax and prosody. The
libation he pours is flavoured with euphues. It is all like a cherry
in a morning Martini." A phrase which Remy de Gourmont uses to
describe Villiers de l'Isle Adam might be applied with equal success
to the author of "The Lords of the Ghostland": "_L'idealisme de
Villiers etait un veritable idealisme verbal, c'est-a-dire qu'il
croyait vraiment a la puissance evocatrice des mots, a leur vertu
magique._" And we may listen to Saltus's own testimony in the matter:
"It may be noted that in literature only three things count, style,
style polished, style repolished; these imagination and the art of
transition aid, but do not enhance. As for style, it may be defined as
the sorcery of syllables, the fall of sentences, the use of the exact
term, the pursuit of a repetition even unto the thirtieth and fortieth
line. Grammar is an adjunct but not an obligation. No grammarian ever
wrote a thing that was fit to read."
At his worst--and his worst can be monstrous!--garbed fantastically in
purple patches and gaudy rags, he wallows in muddy puddles of Burgundy
and gold dust; even then he is unflagging and holds the attention in a
vise. His women have eyes which are purple pools, their hair is bitten
by combs, their lips are scarlet threads. Even the names of his
characters, Roanoke Raritan, Ruis Ixar, Tancred Ennever, Erastus
Varick, Gulian Verplank, Melancthon Orr, Justine Dunnellen, Roland
Mistrial, Giselle Oppensheim, Yoda Jones, Stella Sixmuth, Violet
Silverstairs, Sallie Malakoff, Shane Wyvell, Dugald Maule, Eden
Menemon (it will be observed that he has a persistent, balefully
procacious, perhaps, indeed, Freudian predilection for the letters U,
V, and X),[3] are fantastic and fabulous ... sometimes almost
frivolous. And here we may find our paradox. His sense of humour is
abnormal, sometimes expressed directly by way of epigram or sly
wording but may it not also occasionally express itself indirectly in
these purple towers of painted velvet words, extravagant fables, and
unbelievable characters he is so fond of erecting? Some of his work
almost approaches the burlesque in form. He carries his manner to a
point where he seems to laugh at it himself, and then, with a touch of
poignant realism or a poetic phrase, he confounds the reader's
judgment. The virtuosity of the performance is breath-taking!
He is always the snob (somewhere he defends the snob in an essay):
rich food ("half-mourning" [artichoke hearts and truffles], "filet of
reindeer," a cygnet in its plumage bearing an orchid in its beak,
"heron's eggs whipped with wine into an amber foam," "mashed
grasshoppers baked in saffron"), rich clothes, rich people interest
him. There is no poverty in his books. His creatures do not toil. They
cut coupons off bonds. Sometimes they write or paint, but for the most
part they are free to devote themselves exclusively to the pursuit of
emotional experience, eating, reading, and travelling the while. And
when they have finished dining they wipe their hands, wetted in a
golden bowl, in the curly hair of a tiny serving boy. A character in
"Madam Sapphira" explains this tendency: "A writer, if he happens to
be worth his syndicate, never chooses a subject. The subject chooses
him. He writes what he must, not what he might. That's the thing the
public can't understand."
There is always a preoccupation with ancient life, sometimes freely
expressed as in "Imperial Purple," but more often suggested by plot,
phrase, or scene. He kills more people than Caligula killed during the
whole course of his bloody reign. Murders, suicides, and other forms
of sudden death flash their sensations across his pages. Webster and
the other Elizabethans never steeped themselves so completely in gore.
In almost every book there is an orgy of death and he has been
ingenious in varying its forms. The poisons of rafflesia, muscarine,
and orsere are introduced in his fictions; somewhere he devotes an
essay to toxicology. Daggers with blades like needles, pistols,
drownings, asphyxiations, play their roles ... and in one book there
is a crucifixion!
Again I find that Mr. Saltus has said his word on the subject: "In
fiction as in history it is the shudder that tells. Hugo could find no
higher compliment for Baudelaire than to announce that the latter had
discovered a new one. For new shudders are as rare as new vices;
antiquity has made them all seem trite. The apt commingling of the
horrible and the trivial, pathos and ferocity, is yet the one secret
of enduring work--a secret, parenthetically, which Hugo knew as no one
else."