MY FATHER HAS HIS IDEAS ON WHAT’S CALLED REALISM.
The last rumble of applause had died away at the Parthenon Theater, but
the audience were leaving very slowly; they wished to linger as long
as possible within the atmosphere of the building; though, like the
atmosphere of many sacred places, that of the Parthenon was, just at
that time, a trifle unsavory. The first performance of the drama of
“Cagliostro” had just taken place, and, as the first nights at the
Parthenon are invariably regarded as the most exclusive functions of the
year, the stalls and boxes had been crowded. And the distinction which
in Mayfair and Belgravia attaches to those who have been in the boxes
and stalls on Parthenon first night is not greater than that which,
in Bloomsbury and Camden Town, accrues to those who have occupied
places--not necessarily seats--in the other parts of the house. It is
understood, too, that the good will of Bloomsbury and Camden Town
is much more valuable to a play than the best wishes of Mayfair and
Belgravia.
The gracious manager had made his customary speech of thanks,--for
everything produced at the Parthenon was a success,--and while the
general audience were moving away very reluctantly, some distinguished
men and women followed the guidance of a strong Irish brogue as a flock
follows a bell-wether, through a door that led to the stage. Here
the great actor and the ever-charming lady who divided with him
the affections of West as well as East, received their guests’
congratulations in such a way as made the guests feel that the success
was wholly due to their good will.
Mrs. Linton, who was a personage in society,--her husband had found a
gold mine (with the assistance of Herbert Courtland) and she had herself
written a book of travels which did not sell,--had brought Phyllis with
her party to the theater, and they had gone on the stage with the other
notabilities, at the conclusion of the performance. George Holland,
having become as great a celebrity as the best of them during that
previous fortnight, had naturally received a stall and an invitation to
the stage at the conclusion of the performance. He had not been of Mrs.
Linton’s party, but he lay in wait for that party as they emerged from
their box.
Another man also lay in wait for them, and people--outsiders--nudged
one another in the theater as the passers down Piccadilly had nudged one
another, whispering his name, Herbert Courtland. Others--they were not
quite such outsiders--nudged one another when Mrs. Linton laid down her
new feather fan on the ledge of the box. It was possibly the loveliest
thing that existed in the world at that moment. No artist had
ever dreamed of so wonderful a scheme of color--such miracles
of color--combinations in every feather from the quill to the
spider-web-like fluffs at the tips, each of which shone not like gold
but like glass. It was well worth all the nudging that it called forth.
But when Mrs. Linton had picked it up from the ledge, beginning to
oscillate it in front of her fair face, the nudging ceased. People
looked at the thing with eyes wide with astonishment, but with lips
mute.
A more satisfactory evening she had never spent, Mrs. Linton felt; and
now the fan was hanging down among the brocaded flowers of her dress,
making them look tawdry as she left the box, and noticed how at
least two men were lying in wait for her party. There was, however, a
frankness in Herbert Courtland’s strategy which George Holland’s did
not possess. Mr. Courtland was looking directly at her; Mr. Holland was
pretending to be engrossed in conversation with a man in one of the end
stalls.
She lifted a finger and Courtland went to her side. The difficulties of
the jungle along the banks of the Fly River were trifling compared with
the obstacles he had to overcome in obeying her.
“I had no idea that you would be here,” she said.
“Where else should I be?” he said, in so low a tone as to be heard only
by her.
“We are so glad,” said Mrs. Linton. “I want to present you to my dearest
friend, Phyllis Ayrton.”
“A woman!” said he.
“Not yet. She has never met a man. She will to-night,” said Ella. Then
she turned to Phyllis, who was walking beside Lord Earlscourt. “Come
here, Phyllis,” she said; “you are the only person in London who doesn’t
yet know Mr. Herbert Courtland. This is Mr. Courtland.”
Thus it was that Phyllis went upon the stage of the Parthenon by the
side of Herbert Courtland instead of by the side of George Holland;
and the little laugh that Mrs. Linton gave was due to her careful
observation of the latter’s face when he perceived, as he did in spite
of the engrossing nature of his conversation with his friend in the end
stall, how his designs had been defeated by her tactics. She would not
have minded having Herbert Courtland with her for the hour they might
remain at the theater, but she had made up her mind that it was not
to Phyllis’ advantage that Mr. Holland should continue by her side in
public after she had given him his dismissal.
She also perceived, with even greater gratification, that Herbert
Courtland was looking nearly as dissatisfied with the result of her
tactics as George Holland. If he had looked pleased at being by the side
of Phyllis when he expected to be with her--Ella--what would life be
worth to her?
But if he was dissatisfied at being with Phyllis instead of Mrs. Linton,
he did not consider that any reason for neglecting the former. He
wondered if she had any choice in sandwiches--of course she had in
champagne. His curiosity was satisfied, and Phyllis was amply provided
for.
“You are Mrs. Linton’s dearest friend,” he remarked casually, as they
leaned up against the profile of the Church scene in “Cagliostro,” for
they were standing in the “wings”--to be exact--on the O. P. side.
“She is my dearest friend, at any rate,” said Phyllis.
“You were not at school together. She is four or five years older than
you.”
“Only three. When she got married she seemed to me to be almost
venerable. Three years seemed a long time then.”
“But now you fancy that you have formed a right idea of what is meant by
three years?”
“Well, a better idea, at any rate.”
“You are still a good way off it. But if you have formed a right
estimate of a woman’s friendship----”
“That’s still something, you mean to say? But why did you stop short,
Mr. Courtland?”
Phyllis was looking up to his face with a smile of inquiry.
“I was afraid that you might think I was on the way to preach a sermon
on the text of woman’s friendship. I pulled myself up just in time. I’m
glad that I didn’t frighten you.”
“Oh, no; you didn’t frighten me, Mr. Courtland. I was only wondering
how you would go on--whether you would treat the topic sentimentally or
cynically.”
“And what conclusion did you come to on the subject?”
“I know that you are a brave man--perhaps the bravest man alive. You
would, I think, have treated the question seriously--feelingly.”
He laughed.
“The adoption of that course implies courage certainly. All the men of
sentimentality--which is something quite different from sentiment, mind
you--have taken to writing melodrama and penny novelettes. You didn’t
hear much sentimentality on this stage to-night, or any other night, for
that matter.”
“No; it would have sounded unreal. A Parthenon audience would resent
what they believed to be a false note in art; and a Parthenon audience
is supposed to be the concentration of the spirit of the period in
thought and art; isn’t it?”
“I don’t know. I’m half a savage. But I like to think the best of
a Parthenon audience; you and I formed part of that concentration
to-night--yes, I like to think the best of it. I suppose we know--we,
the Parthenon audience, I mean--what our feelings are on the art of
acting--the art of play-writing.”
“I shouldn’t like to have to define my feelings at a moment’s notice.”
“One must make a beginning, and then work up gradually to the
definition.”
“For instance----”
“Well, for instance, there’s something that people call realism
nowadays.”
“My father has his ideas on what’s called realism,” Phyllis laughed.
“‘Realism in painting is the ideal with a smudge.’”
“I should like to hear what you think of it?”
He also laughed sympathetically.
“Oh, I only venture to think that realism is the opposite to reality.”
“And, so far as I can gather, your definition is not wanting in
breadth--no, nor in accuracy. Sentimentality is the opposite to
sentiment.”
“That is a point on which we agreed a moment ago. My father says
that sentiment is a strong man’s concealment of what he feels, while
sentimentality is a weak man’s expression of what he doesn’t feel.”
“And the Parthenon audience--you and I--laugh at the latter--that is,
because we have practiced some form of athletics. The bicycle has given
its _coup de grace_ to sentimentality. That man over there with the head
and face like a lion’s, and that woman whose face is nature illuminated,
have long ago recognized the shallowness of sentimentality--the depths
of sentiment. We could not imagine either of them striking a false note.
They have been the teachers of this generation--the generation to which
you belong. Great Heavens! to think that for so many years human passion
should be banished from art, though every line of Shakspere is tremulous
with passion! Why, the word was absolutely banished; it was regarded as
impure.”
“I know that--I was at a boarding school. The preceptresses regarded as
impure everything that is human.”
“Whereas, just the opposite is the case?”
“I didn’t say that, Mr. Courtland.”
“You could scarcely say it. I am only beginning to think it, and I have
lived among savages for years. That man with the lion’s face has not
feared to deal with passion. All actors who have lived since Garrick
have never gone further than to illustrate passion in the hands of a
man; but that lion-man, whose stage we are now standing on, shows us
not the passion in the hands of a man, but the man in the hands of the
passion. The man who tears the passion to tatters is the robustious
periwig-pated fellow; the actor, who shows us the man torn in tatters
by the passion, is the supreme artist. I am no authority on modern
literature; but I must confess that I was astonished at the change that
a few years have brought about. I was in a proper position for noticing
it, having been practically without books for two years.”
“Is it a change for the better, do you think, Mr. Courtland?”
“I feel certain that it is for the better. I refer, of course, only
to the books of those real investigators--real artists. I refer to the
fountain-heads, not to the hydrants laid down by the water companies at
the end of about ten miles of foul piping. I don’t like the product of
the hydrants. I like the springs, and, however natural they may be, I
don’t find anything impure in them. Why I love the Bible is because it
is so very modern.”
“You don’t think, then, that it is yet obsolete, Mr. Courtland?”
“No book that deals so truly with men and women can ever be obsolete,
the fact being that men and women are the same to-day as they were ten
thousand years ago, perhaps ten million years ago, though I’m not quite
so sure of that. The Bible, and Shakspere, and Rofudingding, a New
Guinea poet, who ate men for his dinner when he had a chance, and,
when he had finished, sang lyrics that stir the hearts of all his
fellow-islanders to this day,--he lived a hundred years ago,--dealt with
men and women; that is why all are as impressive to-day as they were
when originally composed. Men and women like reading about men and
women, and it is becoming understood, nowadays, that the truth about men
and women can never be contemptible.”
“Ah, but how do we know that it is the truth?”
“Therein the metaphysician must minister to himself. I cannot suggest to
you any test of the truth, if you have none with you. Everyone capable
of pronouncing a judgment on any matter must feel how truthfully the
personages in the Bible have been drawn.”
“Yes; the Bible is the Word of God.”
“I believe that it is, most certainly. That profound wisdom; that
toleration of the weaknesses of men; that sympathy with men, who cannot
fathom the mysteries of life, and the struggle for life of all things
that love life; that spirit I call God, and I don’t think that a better
name has been found for it.”
“It--for _it_? You think of God as merely a force of nature?”
“Just the contrary. God is the spirit that lives in warfare with nature.
Great Heavens! isn’t that the truth of which the whole Bible is the
allegory? Nature and nature’s laws constitute the Devil. God is the
opposing Force. It is a law of nature to kill off the weak, to crush
that which has fallen in the struggle. It is God who helps the weak--who
helps the feeble.”
“But merely a force?”
“Oh, I have no private opinion on that part of the question. I am not
like that modern philosopher who fancied he had solved the whole problem
by spelling God with a small g. But don’t you think that we have gone
quite far enough in our exchange of confidence for a first meeting?
You are what the Italians call _simpatica_--that is, more than merely
sympathetic. You look at one, and lead one on to confide in you as one
does not confide in most girls. You are a thoroughly dangerous young
woman, Miss Ayrton, though you are Mrs. Linton’s dearest friend. By the
way, can you make her confide in you?”
There seemed to be a measure of curiosity, not to say anxiety, in the
tone of this inquiry.
“Well, she makes me confide in her. I wonder if that is just the same
thing,” said Phyllis.
“It’s not exactly the same thing,” said he. “But it’s the proper course
for dearest friends to adopt toward each other. For the maintenance of
a firm friendship between any two persons, only one should confide; the
other should be strictly the confidante. By the way, I wonder what is
the average duration of the dearest friendship between two women.”
“Why should it have any limits?” said Phyllis gravely. “What is the
duration of the friendship between two men?”
“It mostly depends on when the woman makes her appearance,” said he,
with a laugh.
“Ah! So that----Ah, never mind. Ella was my dearest friend before Mr.
Linton put in an appearance.”
“And he was mine before she put in an appearance,” said he.
“I didn’t know that,” said Phyllis.
“There, you see, is my contention borne out,” said he. “You are the one
who confides; she is the one who receives the confidences, and respects
them, I’m sure. I hope that you will do the same, Miss Ayrton. Don’t let
anyone know that I confided in you all that I think on the subject of
the old Adam and the new Eve.”
“No one except Ella Linton, and you know that I can keep nothing from
her if we are to remain dearest friends. Perhaps she knows already the
limits of your belief, Mr. Courtland.”
“She does--she does.”
At that moment Ella Linton came up with Lord Earlscourt.
“Has Mr. Courtland been telling you all about the bird of paradise?” she
asked of Phyllis, while she waved the tail feathers of the loveliest of
the birds of paradise before her face.
“The bird?--not the _bird_,” laughed Phyllis.
“But the topic was paradise?” Ella joined in the laugh--yes, to some
extent.
“I talked of Adam--the old one of that name,” said Mr. Courtland.
“And Eve--the new one of that name,” said Phyllis.
“Theology is in the air!” cried Ella. “Even the stage of a theater is
not free from the taint. It must be the case of Mr. Holland. Where is
Mr. Holland, by the way, Lord Earlscourt?”
“I haven’t seen him for some time. He must have gone away. I’m not Mr.
Holland’s keeper, thank Heaven!” said Lord Earlscourt, with heartfelt
devoutness.
“Now you know that everyone holds you accountable for what he has done!”
said Ella.
“Then that’s just where everyone makes a mistake,” said he. “Great
Lord! is it your idea of British justice to persecute the wrong man? Why
doesn’t the bishop do his duty? What do we pay him for?”
“We won’t abandon our charity at the call of theology,” said Ella.
“Theology--represented by Lord Earlscourt,” said Mr. Courtland.
“You don’t know how I’ve been abused during the past fortnight, indeed
you don’t,” moaned Lord Earlscourt. “Why, there’s my own wife, she
abused me like a cab-driver because George Holland had been with us on
the platform when the Chinese teetotalers came here to protest against
the public houses in England; she says that his backsliding will
put back the cause a quarter of a century. Then there are the other
churchwardens; they look on me as if I had been making a suggestion to
raffle the sacred plate. George Holland has a run for his money, but
I’ve had no fun out of it.”
“It does seem hard,” said Courtland. “But it’s plain that the case calls
for persecution, and why not persecute you? Someone must be persecuted,
you’ll admit.”
“Then why the--”
“I thought that your good old Bunyip would look in on us before long,”
said Courtland. “There’s no possibility of discussing delicate points in
theology without him.”
“I think we had better go home,” said Ella.
“We must have some consideration for our host,” said Courtland. “We
didn’t all play the part of _Cagliostro_ to-night.”
During the movement of her circle and the adjustment of wraps,
preparatory to the delivery of a valedictory word of congratulation to
the great actor, Ella said in a low tone to Herbert Courtland:
“Cagliostro? No; we didn’t all play the part; but--well, Cagliostro was
a weaver of spells.”
There was a pause before he said:
“Yes, but the art did not die with him. He had a daughter to whom he
taught his art.”
“Not that I ever heard of,” said she. “What do you think of Phyllis
Ayrton?”
“I think that she is the dearest friend of my dearest friend,” he
replied.
“And I should like her to become the dearest friend of my dearest
friend.”
“That would be impossible,” he said.
Then the felicitous valedictory word was said to the great actor and
actress, and Mrs. Linton’s carriage received Phyllis. Lord Earlscourt
took a seat in Mr. Courtland’s hansom.
“What do you think about Mr. Courtland?” inquired Ella of her dearest
friend, as they lay back with their heads very close together.
There was a long pause before Phyllis replied:
“I really don’t know what I think about him. He is, I suppose, the
bravest man alive at present.”
“What? Is that the result of your half hour’s chat with him?”
“Oh, dear, no! but all the same, it’s pleasant for a girl to feel that
she has been talking to a brave man. It gives one a sense of--of--is it
of being quite safe?”
“Good gracious, no! just the opposite--that is----Oh, you don’t
understand.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Never mind. Tell me what he talked about?”
“Oh, everything! God.”
“I know that it was in the air. He has ideas, I believe. He never
talked on that topic to me. I hope you found him to be quite sound,
theologically.”
“But it seems rather funny, doesn’t it?” said Phyllis; “but I really
don’t think that when I was listening to him I considered for a moment
whether he was sound or the opposite in his views.”
“Funny? It would have been rather funny if you had done that,” laughed
Ella. “The question that a healthy girl--and you are a healthy girl,
Phyllis--asks herself after talking to such a man as Herbert Courtland
is not, Is his theology sound? What healthy girl cares the fraction of
a farthing about the theology of a man with a face like Herbert
Courtland’s and arms like Herbert Courtland’s? You talked with him for
half an hour, and then come to me and say that you suppose he is the
bravest man alive in the world. That was right--quite right. That is
just what every healthy girl should say. We understand a man’s thews and
sinews; we likewise understand what bravery in a man is, but what do we
know, or, for that matter, care about his theology, whether it is sound
or the opposite? Nothing. We don’t even care whether he has any theology
or not.”
“Good gracious, Ella! one would fancy that you thought----”
“Thought what?”
“I don’t quite know. You see I met Mr. Courtland quite casually, just
as I met a dozen men at various places during the week. Why should you
question me more closely about him than about the dozen other men? He
only talked a little more widely, and perhaps wildly. His bravery is no
more to me than his theology.”
“Of course it isn’t, Phyllis. But there was the case of George
Holland--”
“That is very different, Ella. I had engaged myself to marry George
Holland. It would be impossible for me to marry any man who had shown
his contempt for--for everything that I regard as sacred.”
“I believe it would, if you didn’t love that man. But if you loved
the man----Oh, when you come to know what it means to love you will
understand all. A woman before she loves is--what is she, an egg before
it is hatched? That sounds ridiculous. Better say a green chrysalis
before it breaks into a butterfly; for the transition comes at
once. Theology! Oh, my Phyllis, haven’t you read in history, true
history--novels written by men who know us and how we were created, and
why--haven’t you read what women do when they truly love a man? How they
fling every consideration to the winds: heaven--home--husband--God--Mrs.
Grundy? Theology! Ah, you are a healthy girl. You never cared a scrap
for George Holland. You were glad when the excuse presented itself in
order to throw him over.”
“Yes; I believe that is quite true.”
Ella’s cry of surprise, and her laugh that followed, shocked her
companion, and feeling that this was the case, the one who laughed
hastened to make her apologies.
“Don’t be annoyed with me, dear,” she cried. “But I really couldn’t
help that laugh when I thought of your earnestness the week before
last. Then, you will remember, you were in great pain because of the
heterodoxy of George Holland. Didn’t I tell you at that time that you
had never loved him? You were ready to assure me that you had, and that
you were making a great sacrifice to your principles?”
“I remember very well,” said Phyllis, with a sound that was not far
removed from a sob.
“Ah, you are a puzzle to yourself, you poor little chrysalis,” said
Ella, putting the meteoric feathers playfully down upon the serious
face of Phyllis--its seriousness was apparent beneath the light of the
carriage lamp. “No, don’t make the attempt to explain anything to me.
Don’t try to reconcile your frankness now with your pretense then,
because you’ll certainly make a muddle of it, and because no such
attempt is necessary to be made to me. I know something of the girl and
her moods--not a great deal, perhaps, but enough to prevent my doing you
an injustice. You are perfectly consistent, my Phyllis.”
“Oh, consistent?”
“Perfectly consistent with your nature as a girl. It is the nature of
a girl to change with every wind that blows. It is only the female prig
who acts consistently under all circumstances. In a world the leading
of which is its men, inconsistency is the best nature of a healthy girl
made to be loved by men. One doesn’t sneer at the weathercock because
one hour it points to the north and the next to the east. ‘Tis its
nature to. ‘Tis our nature to change with every breeze of man that bears
down on us. That’s why they love us and detest the prigs. Here we are at
your house. I hope you don’t keep your maid up for you. I would scorn to
keep a girl out of her bed for the sake of brushing my hair. Good-night,
dear, and dream of the paradise that awaits you--a paradise in which
there are birds to be shot, birds of paradise to make feather fans for
women who hold them to their bosoms one minute, and the next dispose of
them to Mr. and Mme. Abednego with last season’s opera wrap. There’s a
parable for you to sleep upon.”
“And you--you?” cried Phyllis.
“Oh, as for me, I’ll, I’ll--well, I think I’ll put my meteor fan on
the pillow beside my own to-night. I’m still newfangled with my toy
and--well, I’m a woman.”
At this instant the carriage pulled up to Mr. Ayrton’s hall door and the
footman jumped down from the box to run up the steps and ring the bell.
“Good-night,” said Phyllis. “I enjoyed my evening greatly, and the drive
home best of all.”
Ella Linton’s laugh was smothered among the delicate floss of the
feathers which she held up to her face.