* * * * *
_A clergyman who had several livings was under discussion. "Why, such
fellows look at a cure of souls like a cure of herrings--so much per
hundred."
"Ah, but the herring cures fulfil their contract," said Jerrold.
He called clerical pluralists_ polypi, _parsons with many stomachs and
no hearts_.
* * * * *
_A young prince had just been born and they were firing royal salutes to
celebrate the occasion. A bystander exclaimed, "How they do powder these
babies!_"
* * * * *
_In a pompous speech of self-defence the orator wound up by declaring
himself the guardian of his own honour. "What a sinecure!" murmured his
opponent._
"_How do you like babies, Mr. Lamb?" cried the gushing mother._
"_Boi-boi-boiled," answered the stammering old bachelor._
* * * * *
_Foote used to say that the Irish take us in and the Scots turn us out._
* * * * *
_A stout duellist once said to his diminutive antagonist, "It is a
perfectly unequal contest. It is almost impossible to hit any one of
your size, or to miss any one of mine."_
"_I agree," said his opponent. "And I will chalk my size on your body.
We will not count the shots that go out of the ring_."
* * * * *
"_Ah," said Curran, noticing an Irish friend walking along
absent-mindedly with his tongue out, "he is evidently trying to catch
the English accent_."
* * * * *
_Sydney Smith was asked his opinion of Newton's portrait of Tom Moore.
"Couldn't you," he asked the painter, "put more hostility to the
Established Church into the face?_"
* * * * *
_An intemperate duke asked Foote how he should go to a masquerade. "Go
sober," said Foote._
* * * * *
"_I'm afraid the salad is gritty," apologised the host.
"Gritty!" mumbled the guest, "it's a gravel path with a few weeds in
it_."
* * * * *
"_I never read a book before reviewing it" said Sydney Smith to a
friend. "It is so apt to prejudice one_."
* * * * *
_Bentley, the publisher, said to Jerrold, "I thought of calling my
magazine_ The Wits' Miscellany, _but I have decided on_ Bentley's
Miscellany."
"_My dear fellow," said Jerrold, "why go to the other extreme?_"
* * * * *
"_What a magnificent-looking man!" said Goldsmith of a stranger; "he
ought to be a Lord Chancellor."
He was, in fact, a rich baker.
"Not Chancellor," whispered a friend; "only Master of the Rolls_."
* * * * *
_Coleridge was dreaming of the time when he was a minister. "Ah,
Charles, you never heard me preach." "My dear fellow," cried Lamb, "I
never heard you do anything else_."
* * * * *
_Sydney Smith said that the whole of his life had been spent like a
razor--in hot water or a scrape._
* * * * *
_As a means of bragging of his acquaintance, a man was remarking to the
company that, although he had often dined at the Duke of Devonshire's,
there had never been any fish. "Is it not_ extraordinary?" _he asked.
Jerrold said, "Hardly. They ate it all upstairs_."
* * * * *
_A jealous general was abusing Wolfe to the King.
"The man is mad," he declared bitterly.
George sighed. "I wish," he said, "that I could persuade him to bite all
my generals."_
* * * * *
_A rich man, formerly a cheesemonger, was discussing the Poor Law with
Lamb, and boasted that he had got rid of all the sentimental stuff
called the milk of human kindness.
"Yes," said Lamb sadly, "you turned it into cheese long ago_."
* * * * *
_Jerrold said of some one who sent his wife effusive letters but not a
farthing of money, that he was full of "unremitting kindness_."
* * * * *
_A Turkish proverb says, "The devil tempts the busy man, but the idle
man tempts the devil_."
* * * * *
_Gladstone once asked, "In what country except ours would (as I know to
have happened) a Parish Ball have been got up in order to supply funds
for a Parish Hearse?_"
* * * * *
"_They're rising in Connaught," shouted a scaremonger, dashing into
Chesterfield's room. Quietly he drew out his watch. "Nine o'clock," he
said gently. "They ought to be_."
* * * * *
"_He is one of those people," said Jerrold of a mistaken philanthropist,
"who would vote for a supply of tooth-picks in a time of famine"; and of
another--"He would hold an umbrella over a duck while it was raining_."
* * * * *
"_Hark at Boswell," muttered Wilkes, "telling every one how he has had
his handkerchief picked from his pocket--it's merely brag, to show us he
had one_."
* * * * *
"_Do you approve of clergymen riding?" Sydney Smith was asked. "Well, it
depends," he replied thoughtfully; "yes, if they turn their toes out_."
* * * * *
"_The testator meant to keep a life interest in the estate himself,"
remarked the judge, who was trying a will case._
"_Surely, my lord," said the barrister, "you are taking the will for the
deed_."
* * * * *
_Sydney Smith said of an obstinate man, "You might as well try to
poultice the humps off a camel's back_."
A MASTER WITH BRAINS
[Sidenote: _Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones_]
At Bideford, died the only master I ever had who had any brains. When I
was fourteen or fifteen he taught me to place my knowledge as it came,
to have its proportion. He so kept me to the drawing of maps that the
earth has ever since lain beneath me as if I could see it all from a
great height, and he so taught me history that I see it now as a
panorama, from the first days. In his time I could draw the coasts of
all the world in very fair proportion, without looking at a map, and I
think I could do it now, though not so well as then, perhaps; and always
afterwards, if ever I heard or saw or read up a thing, I knew in what
little pocket of the mind to put it. Right up to the end of Oxford days
no one could compare with him. His name was Abraham Thompson, a doctor
of divinity he was; black hair grew on the back of his hands which I
used to marvel at, he was very handsome and dark. Funny little boys
are--how they watch. He could be very angry and caned furiously; at
times I caught it. I think he grew poor in his last years and had the
school at Bideford. I never heard about him at the end. I worshipped him
when I was little, and we used to look at each other in class. I wonder
what he thought when he looked; I used to think Abraham of Ur of the
Chaldees was like him, and I am sure if he had bought a piece of land to
bury his Sarah in, he would have been just as courteous as the first
Abraham. I was always sorry that he was called Thompson, for I like
lovely names--should have liked one myself and a handsome form--yes, I
should. So that was Thompson. I have thought how far more needful with a
lad is one year with a man of intellect than ten years of useless
teaching. He taught us few facts, but spent all the time drilling us
that we might know what to do with them when they came. Abraham Kerr
Thompson, that was his name. I wonder if any one remembers him. A
strange thing he would do, unlike any other I ever heard of; he would
call up the class, and open any book and make the head boy read out a
chance sentence, and then he would set to work with every word--how it
grew and came to mean this or that. With the flattest sentence in the
world he would take us to ocean waters and the marshes of Babylon and
the hills of Caucasus and wilds of Tartary and the constellations and
abysses of space. Yes, no one ever taught me anything but he only--I
hope he made a good end. But how long ago it all was! It is forty-five
years since I saw him.
A SPLENDID ADVENTURER
[Sidenote: _Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones_]
When I was fifteen or sixteen he (Newman) taught me so much I do
mind--things that will never be out of me. In an age of sofas and
cushions he taught me to be indifferent to comfort, and in an age of
materialism he taught me to venture all on the unseen, and this so early
that it was well in me when life began, and I was equipped before I went
to Oxford with a real good panoply, and it has never failed me. So if
this world cannot tempt me with money or luxury--and it can't--or
anything it has in its trumpery treasure-house, it is most of all
because he said it in a way that touched me, not scolding nor
forbidding, nor much leading--walking with me a step in front. So he
stands to me as a great image or symbol of a man who never stooped, and
who put all this world's life in one splendid venture, which he knew as
well as you or I might fail, but with a glorious scorn of everything
that was not his dream.
RED LION MARY
[Sidenote: _Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones_]
The life in Red Lion Square was a very happy one in its freedom. Red
Lion Mary's originality all but equalled that of the young men, and she
understood them and their ways thoroughly. Their rough and ready
hospitality was seconded by her with unfailing good temper; she
cheerfully spread mattresses on the floor for friends who stayed there,
and when the mattresses came to an end it was said that she built up
beds with boots and portmanteaus. Cleanliness, beyond the limits of the
tub, was impossible in Red Lion Square, and hers was not a nature to
dash itself against impossibilities, so the subject was pretty much
ignored, but she was ready to fulfil any mission or do anything for them
at a moment's notice, which was much more important. Never did she
dishonour their bills.
"Mary!" cried Edward one evening when ordering breakfast over-night for
Rossetti, who was staying with them, "let us have quarts of hot coffee,
pyramids of toast, and multitudinous quantities of milk"; which to her
meant all he intended. "Dear Mary," wrote Rossetti, "please go and smash
a brute in Red Lion passage to-morrow. He had to send a big book, a
scrapbook, to Master Crabb, 34, Westbourne Place, Eaton Square, and he
hasn't done it. I don't know his name, but his shop is dirty and full of
account books. This book was ordered ten days ago, and was to have been
sent home the next day _and was paid for_--so sit on him hard to-morrow
and dig a fork into his eye, as I can't come that way to murder him
myself." From these hints she knew exactly what to say.
Her memory was excellent and sense of humour keen, so that some of the
commissions on which she was sent gave her great enjoyment--as one day
when Edward told her to take a cab and go to Mr. Watts at Little Holland
House, and ask him for the loan of "whatever draperies and any other old
things he could spare," and Mr. Watts, amused at the form of the
request, sent her back with a parcel of draperies and an old pair of
brown trousers, bidding her tell Mr. Jones those were the only "old
things" he could spare. This delighted Edward, and he detained Mary
while he took down his "Vasari" and read to her of the old Italian
painter who had his breeches made of leather because they wore out so
quickly; and then he professed to be grateful for Mr. Watts' gift, and
said he would have the brown trousers made to fit him.
Mary wrote a good hand and spelled well, and would sit down and write
with gravity such a note as the following, dictated to her by Edward.
"Mr. Bogie Jones' compts. to Mr. Price and begs to inform him he expects
to be down for Commemoration and that he hopes to meet him, clean, well
shaved, and with a contrite heart." Morris' quick temper annoyed her,
but she once prettily said, "Though he was so short-tempered, I seemed
so necessary to him at all times, and felt myself his man Friday."
ELEPHANT
[Sidenote: _Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones_]
My reading aloud to him began soon after our marriage, with Plutarch's
"Lives"--an old folio edition. Holland's translation of Pliny's "Natural
History" was also a treasure for the purpose, and the "Arabian Nights"
were ever fresh. The description of "Mrs. Gamp's apartment in Kingsgate
Street, High Holborn," was read over and over again until I, but not he,
was wearied for a time. These were all classics admitting of no
criticism, but some books were illuminated by commentary. For instance,
the frequent comparison of Goethe with Shakespeare which G.H. Lewes
makes in his "Life of Goethe" grew tiresome to the hearer, who quietly
asked me to read the word Elephant instead of Shakespeare next time it
occurred, and the change proved refreshing. But there was a kind of book
that he reserved for himself and never liked any one to read to
him--"The Broad Stone of Honour" and "Mores Catholici" are instances:
they were kept in his own room, close to his hand, and often dipped into
in wakeful nights or early mornings.
"Sillyish books both," he once said, "but I can't help it, I like them."
And no wonder, for his youth lay enclosed in them.
MY FACES
[Sidenote: _Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones_]
"Of course my faces have no expression in the sense in which people use
the word. How should they have any? They are not portraits of people in
paroxysms--paroxysms of terror, hatred, benevolence, desire, avarice,
veneration, and all the 'passions' and emotions that Le Brun and that
kind of person find so _magnifique_ in Raphael's later work--mostly
painted by his pupils and assistants, by the way. It is Winckelmann,
isn't it, who says that when you come to the age of expression in Greek
art you have come to the age of decadence? I don't remember how or where
it is said, but of course it is true--can't be otherwise in the nature
of things."
"Portraiture," he also said, "may be great art. There is a sense,
indeed, in which it is perhaps the greatest art of any. Any portraiture
involves expression. Quite true, but expression of what? Of a passion,
an emotion, a mood? Certainly not. Paint a man or woman with the damned
'pleasing expression,' or even the 'charmingly spontaneous' so dear to
the 'photographic artist,' and you see at once that the thing is a mask,
as silly as the old tragic and comic mask. The only expression allowable
in great portraiture is the expression of character and moral quality,
not of anything temporary, fleeting, accidental. Apart from portraiture
you don't want even so much, or very seldom: in fact you only want
types, symbols, suggestions. The moment you give what people call
expression, you destroy the typical character of heads and degrade them
into portraits which stand for nothing."
FATHERS AND DAUGHTERS
[Sidenote: _Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones_]
The different stages of his children's lives were of profound interest
to him, and as they grew up they found in him an elder brother as well
as a father. As soon as Margaret was old enough she began to share and
then almost entirely to take my post as reader-aloud in the studio.
Beside many other books she went through the whole of Thackeray twice in
this way; Dickens was my special province. She and Edward had their own
world of fun, and for her he invented a "little language," besides the
most unheard-of names. I remember hearing him and Millais once talk to
each other about their daughters, each boasting that he was the most
devoted father. "Ah, but _you_ don't take your daughter's breakfast up
to her in bed," said Edward, certain that the prize belonged to him.
Millais' triumphant "Yes, I do!" left them only equal.
"ANNA KARENINA"
[Sidenote: _Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones_]
"Don't lend me any sad stories--no, not if they are masterpieces. I
cannot afford to be made unhappy, and I suspect that book 'Anna
Karenina'--I suspect it is Russian, and if it is I know what to expect,
and I couldn't bear it. There would be a beautiful woman in it--all that
is best in a woman, and she would be miserable and love some trumpery
frip (as they do) and die of finding out she had been a fool--and it
would be beautifully written and full of nature and just like life, and
I couldn't bear it. These books are written for the hard-hearted, to
melt them into a softer mood for once before they congeal again--as much
music is written--not for poets but for stockjobbers, to wring iron
tears from them for once; that is the use of sorrowful art, to penetrate
the thick hide of the obtuse, and I have grown to be a coward about
pain. I should like that Anna so much and be so sorry for her and wish I
had been the man instead of that thing she would have--and it wouldn't
be happy. Look! tells me it ends well and that the two lovers marry and
are happy ever afterwards, and I'll read it gratefully--and I shall wait
your answer."
TWO TRIALS
[Sidenote: _Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones_]
Whilst the Commission was sitting he went once or twice with Sir George
Lewis to the Law Courts and closely listened and watched, sitting where
he could see the face of Mr. Parnell clearly. "Charles Stewart Parnell,"
he once said, "God only knows what he really was, but I saw him in court
and watched him the day long: he was like Christ."
Of the miserable Pigott, the perjured witness against Parnell, he
wrote: "And I have grown philosophical--it came of seeing Pigott in the
witness-box, who looked like half the dreary men one meets, and I don't
see why the rest of the Pigotts shouldn't be found out too. So it made
me reflect on crime and its connection with being found out and made me
philosophical and depressed."
But on another day his mind turned to a more cheerful exercise: "Legal
testimony doesn't affect me at all, and I want people tried for their
faces--so I spent the time in court settling things all my own way, and
I tried the Judges first and acquitted one, so that he sits in court
without a blemish on his character; and one I admitted to mercy, and of
the other have postponed the trial for further evidence: and then I
tried the counsel on both sides, and one of them I am sorry to say will
have to be hanged for his face."
THE FOUR HISTORIANS
[Sidenote: _Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones_]
On hearing some one quote Carlyle's contempt for invented stories and
his saying that facts were better worth writing of, Edward exclaimed:
"'Frederick the Great's' a romance; 'Monte Cristo' is real history, and
so is 'The Three Musketeers.'" And another time he said: "Ah, the
historians are so few. There's Dumas, there's Scott, there's Thackeray,
and there's Dickens, and no more--after you have said them, there's an
end."
SWINBURNE AND PADEREWSKI
[Sidenote: _Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones_]
"There's a beautiful fellow in London named Paderewski--and I want to
have a face like him and look like him, and I can't--there's trouble. He
looks so like Swinburne looked at twenty that I could cry over past
things, and has his ways too--the pretty ways of him--courteous little
tricks and low bows and a hand that clings in shaking hands, and a face
very like Swinburne's, only in better drawing, but the expression the
same, and little turns and looks and jerks so like the thing I remember
that it makes me fairly jump. I asked to draw from him, and Henschel
brought him and played on the organ and sang while I drew--which was
good for the emotions but bad for the drawing. And knowing people say he
is a great master in his art, which might well be, for he looks
glorious. I praised Allah for making him and felt myself a poor thing
for several hours. Have got over it now."
THE VIVACIOUS VIVIER
[Sidenote: _H. Sutherland-Edwards_]
I "breakfasted" again and again with Adolphe Sax, and had always the
same fare--"un bifteck et des oeufs sur le plat." ...
On one occasion Vivier turned up. He was the natural enemy of Sax, for
Sax, by his system of keys, brought effective horn-playing within the
reach of ordinary performers, which lessened the immense superiority of
Vivier over horn-players in general. Vivier, however, was troubled by no
considerations of that kind. The Saxhorn, moreover, did not possess the
timbre of the horn.
I had already met this remarkable engineer, musician, diplomatist and
professor of mystification, in London, when he was complaining with
facetious bitterness that Mr. Frederic Gye had not sent him a box for
one of Angiolina Bosio's touching performances of "La Traviata."
He had written to the manager explaining that he was ready to shed
tears, and that he possessed a pocket handkerchief, but wanted something
more. "J'ai un mouchoir, mais pas de loge," he said. Yet his letter was
left without a reply. After waiting a day or two, and still receiving no
answer, Vivier engaged the dirtiest crossing-sweeper he could find, made
him put on a little extra mud, and sent him with a letter to Mr. Gye
demanding "the return of his correspondence." The courteous manager of
the Royal Italian Opera could scarcely have known that, besides being
one of the finest musicians and quite the finest horn player of his day,
Eugene Vivier was the most charming of men, and the spoiled child of
nearly every Court in Europe. Speaking to me once of the Emperor
Napoleon, he said, in answer to a question I had put to him as to
Napoleon III's characteristics: "He is the most gentlemanly Emperor I
know."
"What can I do for you?" said this gentlemanly Emperor one day, when
Vivier had gone to see him at the Tuileries.
"Come out on the balcony with me, sire," replied the genial cynic. "Some
of my creditors are sure to be passing, and it will do me good to be
seen in conversation with your Majesty."
Besides speaking to him familiarly within view of his creditors, the
Emperor Napoleon III conferred on Vivier several well-paid sinecures. He
appointed him "Inspector of Mines," which, from conscientious motives,
knowing very little of mining, Vivier never inspected; and he was once
accused by a facetious journal of having received the post of "Librarian
to the Forest of Fontainebleau," with its multitudinous leaves.
There were only two other Emperors at that time in Europe, and to one of
them, the Emperor of Austria, Vivier was sent on a certain occasion with
despatches--not, I fancy, in the character of Vely Pacha's secretary,
the only quasi-diplomatic post he held, but partly to facilitate his
travelling, and partly, it may be, for some private political reason.
Instead of being delayed, questioned, and searched at the frontier, as
generally happened in those days--the days before 1859--Vivier was
treated by the Custom House officials, and by the police, with all
possible respect; and journeying as an honoured personage--an emissary
from the Emperor of the French--he in due time reached Vienna, where,
hastening to the palace, he made known the object of his visit. It seems
quite possible that the despatches carried by Vivier may have possessed
particular importance, and that Napoleon III had motives of his own for
not forwarding them through the ordinary diplomatic channels. Vivier
had, in any case, been instructed to deliver them to the Emperor in
person--one of those Emperors whom he numbered among his private
acquaintances.
A Court Chamberlain had hurried out to receive the distinguished
messenger, ready after a due interchange of compliments to usher him
into the Imperial presence.
"Your Excellency!" began the Chamberlain, in the most obsequious manner.
"I am not an Excellency!" replied Vivier.
"General, then--Monsieur le Général?"
"I am not a General!"
"Colonel, perhaps, and aide-de-camp to his Imperial Majesty?"
"I am not in the army. I have no official rank--no rank of any kind
whatever."
"Good heavens! then what are you?" exclaimed the Chamberlain, indignant
with himself for having treated as high-born and high-placed one who was
apparently a mere nobody.
"I am a musician," said Vivier.
Bounding with rage, the Court functionary made an unbecoming gesture,
such as Mephistopheles, according to the stage directions, should make
in one of the passages of Goethe's _Faust_.
"Very well, my friend," said Vivier to himself, "I will tell the Emperor
of your rude behaviour; I will get you rapped on the knuckles" ("Je t'en
ferai donner sur les doigts"); and the uncourtly courtier was, in fact,
severely reprimanded.
At St. Petersburg Vivier took such liberties with the Emperor Nicholas
that, if half the stories of that monarch were true, the imprudent
Frenchman would have been arrested, knouted, and sent to Siberia.
He had just brought to perfection the art of blowing soap bubbles. The
whole secret of his process consisted, as he once informed me, in mixing
with the soap-suds a little gum. Using a solution of soap and gum, he
was able to produce bubbles of such size and solidity that they floated
in the air for an almost indefinite time, like so many small balloons.
In order to entertain the St. Petersburg public, Vivier would, in the
most benevolent manner, take his seat at an open window, and blow his
gigantic and many-coloured bubbles, until these prodigies of aerostation
had attracted a multitude of lookers-on. The delighted crowd applauded
with enthusiasm. Vivier rose from his seat and bowed. Then the applause
was renewed, and Vivier blew larger and brighter bubbles than before.
One evening, or rather afternoon, the rays of the setting sun were
illuminating a number of iridescent balloons floating high above the
point where the Nevsky Prospect runs into the Admiralty Square, when the
Emperor Nicholas drove past, or tried to do so--for his progress was
interrupted at every step by the density of the crowd.
"What is the meaning of all this?" asked the Emperor Nicholas.
"It is M. Vivier blowing his soap bubbles," replied the aide-de-camp in
attendance.
"What! Vivier, the French musician, who played the horn so wonderfully
the other night at the Winter Palace, and afterwards entertained us so
much with his conversation?"
"The same, sire."
"Go to him, then, and tell him that I should be glad if he would choose
some other time for his soap-bubble performances. How wonderful they
are!"
The aide-de-camp forced his way through the crowd, went upstairs to
Vivier's apartments, and told him that the Emperor desired him not to
give his exhibition of soap bubbles at half-past three in the afternoon,
that being the time when his Majesty usually went for a drive.
Vivier took out a pocket-book, consulted it carefully, and, turning to
the aide-de-camp, said with the utmost gravity, "That is the only hour I
have disengaged."
Vivier, meanwhile, had had his joke; and his exhibition of soap bubbles,
or rather of gum-and-soap balloons, was now discontinued.
The horn-playing performance to which the Emperor Nicholas had made
reference was marked by one strange, marvellous, almost inexplicable
peculiarity. The player sounded on his instrument, simultaneously, a
chord of four notes. To produce at the same time four different notes
from one and the same tube seems, and must be, an impossibility. But
Vivier did it, and the fact was certified to by Meyerbeer, Auber,
Halévy, Adolphe Adam, and other musicians of eminence.
The only possible explanation of the matter is that Vivier executed a
very rapid arpeggio, so that the four notes which apparently were heard
together were, in fact, heard one after the other. The effect, however,
was not that of an arpeggio, but of a chord of four different notes
played simultaneously on four different instruments.
Both for home and for out-of-doors use the mystifications practised by
Vivier were as numerous as they were varied. In an omnibus, when some
grave old lady had just risen from her seat, Vivier would assume an
expression of the utmost astonishment, and suddenly take from the place
where she had been sitting an egg, which meanwhile he had been
concealing up his sleeve.
Or, asked to pass a coin to the conductor, he would gravely put it into
his pocket. A well-dressed, well-bred gentleman, of charming manners,
could scarcely be suspected of any intention to misappropriate a
two-sous piece. But it interested Vivier to see what, in the
circumstances, the lawful owner of the coin would do. On one occasion
Vivier, in an omnibus, alarmed his fellow passengers by pretending to be
mad. He indulged in the wildest gesticulations, and then, as if in
despair, drew a pistol from his pocket. The conductor was called upon by
acclamation to interfere, and Vivier was on the point of being disarmed
when suddenly he broke the pistol in two, handed half to the conductor
and began to eat the other half himself. It was made of chocolate!
Vivier could not bear to see people in a hurry. According to him, there
was nothing in life worth hurrying for; and living on the Boulevard just
opposite the Rue Vivienne, he was much annoyed at seeing so many persons
hastening, towards six o'clock, to the post office on the Place de la
Bourse. He determined to pay them out, and for that purpose bought a
calf, which he took up to his apartments at night and exhibited the
next afternoon at a few minutes before six o'clock, in the balcony of
his second floor. In spite of their eagerness to catch the post, many
persons could not help stopping to look at the calf. Soon a crowd
collected, and messengers stayed their steps in order to gaze at the
unwonted apparition. Six o'clock struck, and soon after a number of men
who had missed the post returned in an irritated condition, and,
stopping before Vivier's house, shook their fists at him. Vivier went
down to them, and asked the meaning of this insolence.
"We were not shaking our fists at you," replied the angered ones, "but
at that calf."
"Ah! you know him then?" returned Vivier. "I was not aware of it."
In time Vivier's calf became the subject of a legend, according to which
the animal (still in Vivier's apartments) grew to be an ox, and so
annoyed the neighbours by his lowing that; the proprietor of the house
insisted on its being sent away. Vivier told him to come; and take it,
when it was found that the calf of other days had grown to such a size
that it was impossible to get it downstairs.
MONSIEUR SYLVESTRE BONNARD: A CONFESSION
[Sidenote: _Anatole France, translated by Lafcadio Hearn_]
I can see once more, with astonishing vividness, a certain doll which,
when I was eight years old, used to be displayed in the window of an
ugly little shop of the Rue de la Seine. I was very proud of being a
boy; I despised little girls; and I longed impatiently for the day
(which, alas! has come) when a strong white beard should bristle on my
chin. I played at being a soldier; and, under the pretext of obtaining
forage for my rocking-horse, I used to make sad havoc among the plants
my poor mother used to keep on her window-sill. Manly amusements those,
I should say! and nevertheless, I was consumed with longing for a doll.
Characters like Hercules have such weaknesses occasionally. Was the one
I had fallen in love with at all beautiful? No. I can see her now. She
had a splotch of vermilion on either cheek, short soft arms, horrible
wooden hands, and long sprawling legs. Her flowered petticoat was
fastened at the waist with two pins. It was a decidedly vulgar
doll--smelt of the faubourg. I remember perfectly well that, even child
as I was then, before I had put on my first pair of trousers, I was
quite conscious in my own way that this doll lacked grace and
style--that she was gross, that she was coarse. But I loved her in
spite of that; I loved her just for that; I loved her only; I wanted
her. My soldiers and my drums had become as nothing in my eyes. I ceased
to stick sprigs of heliotrope and veronica into the mouth of my
rocking-horse. That doll was all the world to me. I invented ruses
worthy of a savage to oblige Virginie, my nurse, to take me by the
little shop in the Rue de la Seine. I would press my nose against the
window until my nurse had to take my arm and drag me away. "Monsieur
Sylvestre, it is late, and your mamma will scold you." Monsieur
Sylvestre in those days made very little of either scoldings or
whippings. But his nurse lifted him up like a feather, and Monsieur
Sylvestre yielded to force. In after years, with age, he degenerated,
and sometimes yielded to fear. But at that time he used to fear nothing.
I was unhappy. An unreasoning but irresistible shame prevented me from
telling my mother about the object of my love. Thence all my sufferings.
For many days that doll, incessantly present in fancy, danced before my
eyes, stared at me fixedly, opened her arms to me, assuming in my
imagination a sort of life which made her appear at once mysterious and
weird, and thereby all the more charming and desirable.
Finally, one day--a day I shall never forget--my nurse took me to see my
uncle, Captain Victor, who had invited me to breakfast. I admired my
uncle a great deal, as much because he had fired the last French
cartridge at Waterloo as because he used to make with his own hands, at
my mother's table, certain chapons-à-l'ail, which he afterwards put into
the chicory-salad. I thought that was very fine! My Uncle Victor also
inspired me with much respect by his frogged coat, and still more by his
way of turning the whole house upside down from the moment he came into
it. Even now I cannot tell just how he managed it, but I can affirm that
whenever my Uncle Victor found himself in any assembly of twenty
persons, it was impossible to see or to hear anybody but him. My
excellent father, I have reason to believe, never shared my admiration
for Uncle Victor, who used to sicken him with his pipe, gave him great
thumps on the back by way of friendliness, and accused him of lacking
energy. My mother, though always showing a sister's indulgence to the
captain, sometimes advised him to fondle the brandy bottle a little less
frequently. But I had no part either in these repugnances or these
reproaches, and Uncle Victor inspired me with the purest enthusiasm. It
was therefore with a feeling of pride that I entered into the little
lodging-house where he lived, in the Rue Guénégaud. The entire
breakfast, served on a small table close to the fireplace, consisted of
pork-meats and confectionery.
The Captain stuffed me with cakes and pure wine. He told me of
numberless injustices to which he had been a victim. He complained
particularly of the Bourbons; and as he neglected to tell me who the
Bourbons were, I got the idea--I can't tell how--that the Bourbons were
horse-dealers established at Waterloo. The Captain, who never
interrupted his talk except for the purpose of pouring out wine,
furthermore made charges against a number of _morveux_, of _jeanfesses_,
and "good-for-nothings" whom I did not know anything about, but whom I
hated from the bottom of my heart. At dessert, I thought I heard the
Captain say my father was a man who could be led anywhere by the nose;
but I am not quite sure that I understood him. I had a buzzing in my
ears; and it seemed to me that the table was dancing.
My uncle put on his frogged coat, took his _chapeau tromblon_, and we
descended to the street, which seemed to me singularly changed. It
looked to me as if I had not been in it before for ever so long a time.
Nevertheless, when we came to the Rue de la Seine, the idea of my doll
suddenly returned to my mind, and excited me in an extraordinary way. My
head was on fire. I resolved upon a desperate expedient. We were passing
before the window. She was there, behind the glass--with her red cheeks,
and her flowered petticoat, and her long legs.
"Uncle," I said, with a great effort, "will you buy that doll for me?"
And I waited.
"Buy a doll for a boy--_sacré bleu_!" cried my uncle, in a voice of
thunder. "Do you wish to dishonour yourself? And it is that old Mag
there that you want! Well, I must compliment you, my young fellow! If
you grow up with such tastes as that, you will never have any pleasure
in life; and your comrades will call you a precious ninny. If you asked
me for a sword or a gun, my boy, I would buy them for you with the last
silver crown of my pension. But to buy a doll for you--a thousand
thunders!--to disgrace you! Never in the world! Why, if I were even to
see you playing with a puppet rigged out like that, monsieur, my
sister's son, I would disown you for my nephew!"
On hearing these words, I felt my heart so wrung that nothing but
pride--a diabolic pride--kept me from crying.
My uncle, suddenly calming down, returned to his ideas about the
Bourbons; but I, still smarting from the blow of his indignation, felt
an unspeakable shame. My resolve was quickly made. I promised myself
never to disgrace myself--I firmly and for ever renounced that
red-cheeked doll.