Memoirs by Charles Godfrey Leland Part 30

"_C'etait donc un fou_," remarked the Frenchman.

"_Non_, Monsieur," I replied, "he was not a madman. He was almost a genius. Indeed, _c'etait un Dore manque_" (he was all but a Dore).

There was a roar of laughter from all around, and I, innocently supposing that I had said something clever unawares, laughed too.

After all had departed, and I was smoking alone with Sir Charles, he said--

"Well, what did you think of Dore?"

"Dore!" I replied astonished, "why, I never saw Dore in all my life."

"That was Dore to whom you were talking," he answered.

"Ah! well," was my answer, "then it is all right."

I suppose that Dore believed that I knew at the time who he was. Had he been aware that I did not know who he was, the compliment would have seemed much stronger.

I have either been introduced to, conversed with, or been well acquainted at one time or another with Sir John Millais, Holman Hunt, the Rossettis, Frith, Whistler, Poynter, Du Maurier, Charles Keene, Boughton, Hodges, Tenniel (who set my motive of "Ping-Wing," as I may say, to music in a cartoon in _Punch_), the Hon. John Collier, Riviere, Walter Crane, and of course many more--or less--here and there in the club, or at receptions.

Could I have then foreseen or imagined that I should ever become--albeit in a very humble grade--an artist myself, and that my works on design and the minor arts would form the princ.i.p.al portion of my writings and of my life's work, I should a.s.suredly have made a greater specialty of such society. But at this time I could hardly draw, save in very humble fas.h.i.+on indeed, and little dreamed that I should execute for expensive works ill.u.s.trations which would be praised by my critics, as strangely happened to my "Gypsy Sorcery." But we never know what may befall us.

"Oh, little did my mother think, The day she cradled me, The lands that I should travel in, Or the sights that I should see; Or gae rovin' about wi' gypsy carles, And sic like companie."

As the _Noctes_ varies it. For it actually came to pa.s.s that a very well- known man of letters, while he, with the refined politeness characteristic of his style, spoke of mine as "rigmarole," still praised my pictures.

In April we went to Leamington to pay a visit to a Mr. Field, where we also met his brother, my old friend Leonard Field, whom I had known in Paris in 1848. During this, journey we visited Kenilworth, the town and castle of Warwick, Stratford-on-Avon, and all therewith connected. At the Easter spring-tide, when primroses first flush by running waters, and there are many long bright sunny days in the land, while birdes' songs do ripple in the aire, it is good roaming or resting in such a country, among old castles, towers, and hamlets quaint and grey. To him who can think and feel, it is like the reading of marvellously pleasant old books, some in Elizabethan type, some in earlier black letter, and hearing as we read sweet music and far-distant chimes. And apropos of this, I would remark that while I was at Princeton an idea fixed itself so firmly in my mind that to this day I live on it and act on it. It is this:--There is a certain stage to be reached in reading and reflection, especially if it be aided by broad aesthetic culture and science, when every landscape, event, or human being is or may be to us exactly the same as a _book_. For everything in this world which can be understood and felt can be described, and whatever can be described may be written and printed. For ordinary people, no ideas are distinct or concentrated or "literary" till they are in black and white; but the scholar or artist in words puts thoughts into as clear a form in his own mind. Having deeply meditated on this idea for forty years, and been constantly occupied in realising it, I can say truly that I _often_ compose or think books or monographs which, though not translated into type, are as absolutely _literature_ to me as if they were. There is so _much_ more in this than will at first strike most readers, that I can not help dwelling on it. It once happened to me in Philadelphia, in 1850, to pa.s.s _all_ the year--in fact, nearly two years--"in dusky city pent," and during all that time I never got a glimpse of the country. As a director of the Art Union, I was continually studying pictures, landscapes by great artists, and the like. The second year, when I went up into Pennsylvania, I found that I had strangely developed what practically amounted to a kind of pseudophia. Every fragment of rural scenery, every rustic "bit," every group of shrubs or weeds, everything, in fact, which recalled pictures, or which could itself be pictured, appeared to me to be a picture perfectly executed. This lasted as a vivid or real perception for about a week, but the memory of it has been in my mind ever since. It was not so much the beautiful in all Nature which I saw, as that in Nature which was within the power of the skilled artist to execute. In like manner the practised reflector and writer reads books in everything to a degree which no other person can understand.

Wordsworth attained this stage, and the object of the "Excursion" is to teach it.

In the "Letters of James Smetham" there is a pa.s.sage to the effect that he felt extremely happy among English hedgerows, and found inexhaustible delight in English birds, trees, flowers, hills, and brooks, but could not appreciate his little back-garden with a copper-beech, a weeping-ash, nailed-up rose trees, and twisting creepers. After I had made a habit, till it became a pa.s.sion, of seeking decorative motives, strange and novel curves--in short, began to detect the transcendent alphabet or written language of beauty and mystery in every plant whatever (of which the alphabet may be found in the works of Hulme), I found in every growth of every kind, yes, in every weed, enough to fill my soul with both art and poetry; I may say specially in weeds, since in them the wildest and most graceful motives are more abundant than in garden flowers. Unto me _now_ anything that grows is, in simple truth, more than what any landscape once was. This began in youth in much reading of, and long reflection on, the signatures, correspondences, and mystical fancies of the Paracelsian writers--especially of Gaffarel, of whom I have a Latin version by me as I write--and of late years I have carried its inspiration into decorative art. I have said so much of this because, as this is an autobiography, I cannot omit from it something which, unseen in actions, still forms a predominant motive in my life. It is something which, while it perfectly embraces _all_ landscaping or picture-making or dainty delicate cataloguing in poetry, _a la_ Morris at times, or like the Squyre of Lowe Degre, in detail, also involves a far more earnest feeling, and one which combines thought or _religion_ with emotion, just as a melody which we a.s.sociate with a beautiful poem is worth more to us than one which we do not. Burne Jones is a higher example of this.

During this season we met at Mrs. Inwood Jones'--who was a niece of Lady Morgan and had many interesting souvenirs of her aunt--several people of note, among whom was Mme. Taglioni, now a very agreeable and graceful though naturally elderly lady. I was charmed with her many reminiscences of well-known characters, and as I had seen her as well as Ellsler and all the great _ballerine_ many times, we had many conferences. Somebody said to her one day, "So you know Mr. Leland?" "Yes," replied Taglioni in jest, "he was one of my old lovers." This was reported to me, when I said, "I wish she had told me that thirty years sooner." In 1846 Taglioni owned three palaces in Venice, one of them the Ca' d'oro, and in 1872 she was giving lessons in London. At Mrs. Frank Hill's I made the acquaintance of the marvellously clever Eugene Schuyler, and at Mr.

Smalley's of the equally amazingly cheeky and gifted "Joaquin" Miller.

Somewhere else I met several times another curious celebrity whom I had known in America, the Chevalier Wykoff. Though he was almost the type and proverb of an adventurer, I confess that I always liked him. He was gentlemanly and kind in his manner, and agreeable and intelligent in conversation. Though he had been f.a.n.n.y Ellsler's agent or secretary, and written those two curiously cool works, "Souvenirs of a Roving Diplomatist" (he had been employed by Palmerston) and "My Courts.h.i.+p and its Consequences" (in reference to his having been imprisoned in Italy for attempting to carry off an elderly heiress), he was also the author of a really admirable work on the political system of the United States, which any man may read to advantage. A century ago or more he would have been a great man in his way. He knew everybody. I believe that as General Tevis formed his bold ideal of life from much reading of _condottieri_ or military adventurers, and Robert Hunt from Cooper's novels, so Wykoff got his inspiration for a career from studying and admiring the diplomatic _parvenus_ of Queen Anne's time. These _Bohemiens de la haute volee_, who drew their first motives from study, are by far more interesting and tolerable than those of an illiterate type.

One summer when I was at Bateman's, near Newport, with G. H. Boker, Robert Leroy, and our wives, Leroy reported one day that he had seen Wykoff, Hiram Fuller, a certain very das.h.i.+ng _prima donna_, and two other notorieties sitting side by side in a row on the steps of the Ocean House. I remarked that if there had only been with them the devil and Lola Montez, the party would have been complete. Leroy was famous for his quaint _mots_, in which he had a counterpart in "Tom Appleton," of Boston, whom I also knew very well. The Appletoniana and Leroyalties which were current in the Sixties would make a lively book.

I remember that one evening at a dinner at Trubner's in this year there were present M. Van der Weyer, G. H. Lewes, and M. Delepierre. I have rarely heard so much good talk in the same time. Thoughts so gay and flashes so refined, such a mingling of choice literature, brilliant anecdote, and happy jests, are seldom heard as I heard them. _Tempi pa.s.sati_!

Apropos of George H. Boker and Leroy, I may here remark that they were both strikingly tall and _distingue_ men, but that when they dressed themselves for ba.s.s-fis.h.i.+ng, and "put on mean attire," they seemed to be common fisher-folk. One day, while fis.h.i.+ng on the rocks, there came up the elegant _prima donna_ referred to, who, seeing that they had very fine lobsters, ordered them to be taken to the hotel for her. "Can't do it, ma'am," answered Leroy brusquely; "we want them for bait." The lady swept away indignantly. To her succeeded Ralph Waldo Emerson, who did not know them personally, and who began to put to Mr. Boker questions as to his earnings and his manner of life, to all of which Mr. Boker replied with great _naivete_. Mr. B., however, had on his pole a silver reel, which had cost 30 pounds ($150), and at last Mr. Emerson's eye rested on that, and word no more spoke he, but, with a smile and bowing very politely, went his road. _Ultimam dixit salutem_.

One evening I was sitting in the smoking-room of the Langham Hotel, when an American said to me, "I hear that Charles Leland, who wrote 'Breitmann,' is staying here." "Yes, that is true," I replied. "Could you point him out to me?" asked the stranger. "I will do so with pleasure--in fact, if you will tell me your name, I think I can manage to introduce you." The American was very grateful for this, and asked when it would be. "_Now_ is the time," I said, "for I am he." On another occasion another stranger told me, that having heard that Mr. Leland was in the smoking-room, he had come in to see him, and asked me to point him out. I pointed to myself, at which he was much astonished, and then, apologetically and half ashamed, said, "Who do you really suppose, of all the men here present, I had settled on as being you?" I could not conjecture, when he pointed to a great broom-bearded, broad-shouldered, jovial, intemperate, German-looking man, and said, "There! I thought that must be the author of 'Hans Brietmann.'" Which suggested to me the idea, "Does the public, then, generally believe that poets look like their heroes?" One can indeed imagine Longfellow as Poor Henry of the "Golden Legend," but few would expect to find the counterpart of Biglow in a Lowell. And yet this belief or instinct is in every case a _great_ compliment, for it testifies that there is that in the poem which is inspired by Nature and originality, and that it is not all mere art-work or artificial. And it is true that by some strange law, name, body, and soul generally do preserve some kind of unity in the realm of literature.

There has never been, as yet, a really great Gubbins or Podgers in poetry, or Boggs in romance; and if literature has its Hogg, let it be remembered that the wild boar in all Northern sagas and chronicles, like the Eber in Germany, or the Wolf, was a name of pride and honour, as seen in Eberstein. The Whistler of St. Leonard's is one of the most eccentric and original of Scott's characters, and the Whistler of St. Luke's, or the patron saint of painting, is in no respect deficient in these n.o.ble qualifications. The Seven Whistlers who fly unseen by night, ever piping a wild nocturne, are the most uncanny of birds, while there is, to my mind, something absolutely grotesquely awful (as in many of "Dreadful Jemmy's" pictures) in the narration that in ancient days the immense army of the Mexican Indians marched forth to battle all whistling in unison--probably a symphony in blood-colour. Fancy half a million of Whistlers on the war-path, about to do battle to the death with as many Ruskins--I mean red-skins! _Nomen est omen_.

One of the most charming persons whom I ever met in my life was the Hon.

Mrs. Caroline Norton, and one of the most delightful dinners at which my wife and I were ever present was at her house. As I had been familiar with her poems from my boyhood, I was astonished to find her still so beautiful and young--if my memory does not deceive me, I thought her far younger looking than myself. I owe her this compliment, for I can recall her speaking with great admiration of Mrs. Leland to Lord Houghton and "Bulwer."

Mrs. Norton had not only a graceful, fascinating expression of figure and motion, but narrated everything so well as to cast a peculiar life and interest into the most trifling anecdote. I remember one of the latter.

"Lord Houghton," she said, "calls you, Mr. Leland, the poet of jargons."

(He indeed introduced me to all his guests once by this term.) "Jargon is a confusion of language, and I have a maid who lives in a jargon of ideas--as to values. The other day she broke to utter ruin an antique vase"--(I do not accurately recall what the object was)--"which cost four hundred pounds, and when I said that it was such a grief to me to lose it, she replied, while weeping, 'Oh, do not mind it, my lady; _I'll_ buy you just such another,' as if it were worth tenpence."

Mrs. Norton had marvellously beautiful and expressive eyes, such as one seldom meets thrice in a life. As a harp well played inspires tears or the impulse to dance, so her glances conveyed, almost in the same instant, deep emotion and exquisite merriment. I remember that she was much amused with some of my American jests and reminiscences, and was always prompt to respond, _eodem genere_. So nightingale the wodewale answereth.

During this season in London I met Thomas Carlyle. Our mutual friend, Moncure Conway, had arranged that I should call on the great writer at the house of the latter in Chelsea. I went there at about eleven in the morning, and when Mr. Carlyle entered the room I was amazed--I may say almost awed--by something which was altogether unexpected, and this was his _extraordinary_ likeness to my late father. A slight resemblance to Carlyle may be seen in my own profile, but had he been with my father, the pair might have pa.s.sed for twins; and in iron-grey grimness and the never-to-be-convinced expression of the eyes they were ident.i.ty itself.

I can only remember that for the first twenty or thirty minutes Mr.

Carlyle talked such a lot of skimble-skamble stuff and rubbish, which sounded like the very _debris_ and lees of his "Latter-Day Pamphlets,"

that I began to suspect that he was quizzing me, or that this was the manner in which he ladled out Carlyleism to visitors who came to be Carlyled and acted unto. It struck me as if Mr. Tennyson, bored with lion-hunting guests, had begun to repeat his poetry to them out of sheer sarcasm, or as if he felt, "Well, you've come to _see_ and _hear_ me--a poet--so take your poetry, and be d---d to you!" However, it may be I felt a coming wrath, and the Socratic demon or gypsy _dook_, which often rises in me on such occasions, and never deceives me, gave me a strong premonition that there was to be, if not an exemplary row, at least a lively incident which was to put a snapped end to this humbugging.

It came thus. All at once Mr. Carlyle abruptly asked me, in a manner or with an intonation which sounded to me almost semi-contemptuous, "And what kind of an American may you be?" (I _think_ he said "will you be?") "German, or Irish, or what?"

To which I replied, not over amiably:--

"Since it interests you, Mr. Carlyle, to know the origin of my family, I may say that I am descended from Henry Leland, whom the tradition declares to have been a noted Puritan, and active in the politics of his time,' and who went to America in 1636."

To this Mr. Carlyle replied:--

"I doubt whether any of your family have since been equal to your old Puritan great-grandfather" (or "done anything to equal your old Puritan grandfather"). With this something to the effect that we had done nothing in America since Cromwell's Revolution, equal to it in importance or of any importance.

Then a great rage came over me, and I remember _very_ distinctly that there flashed through my mind in a second the reflection, "Now, if I have to call you a d---d old fool for saying that, I _will_; but I'll be even with you." When as quickly the following inspiration came, which I uttered, and I suspect somewhat energetically:--

"Mr. Carlyle, I think that my brother, Henry Leland, who got the wound from which he died standing by my side in the war of the rebellion, fighting against slavery, was worth ten of my old Puritan ancestors; at least, he died in a ten times better cause. And" (here my old "Indian"

was up and I let it out) "allow me to say, Mr. Carlyle, that I think that in all matters of historical criticism you are princ.i.p.ally influenced by the merely melodramatic and theatrical."

Here Mr. Carlyle, looking utterly amazed and startled, though not at all angry, said, for the first time, in broad Scotch--

"Whot's _thot_ ye say?"

"I say, Mr. Carlyle," I exclaimed with rising wrath, "that I consider that in all historical judgments you are influenced only by the melodramatic and theatrical."

A grim smile as of admiration came over the stern old face. Whether he really felt the justice of the hit I know not, but he was evidently pleased at the manner in which it was delivered, and it was with a deeply reflective and not displeased air that he replied, still in Scotch--

"Na, na, I'm nae _thot_."

It was the terrier who had ferociously attacked the lion, and the lion was charmed. From that instant he was courteous, companionable, and affable, and talked as if we had been long acquainted, and as if he liked me. It occurred to me that the resemblance of Carlyle to my father during the row was appalling, the difference being that my father _never_ gave in. It would have been an awful sight to see and a sound to hear if the two could have "discussed" some subject on which they were equally informed--say the American tariff or slavery.

After a while Mr. Froude the historian came in, and we all went out together for a walk in the Park. Pausing on the bridge, Mr. Carlyle called my attention to the very rural English character of a part of the scenery in the distance, where a church-spire rises over ranges of tree- tops. I observed that the smoke of a gypsy fire and a tent by a hedge was all that was needed. Then we began to talk about gypsies, and I told Mr. Carlyle that I could talk Romany, and ran on with some reminiscences, whereat, as I now recall, though I did not note it then, his amus.e.m.e.nt at or interest in me seemed to be much increased, as if I had unexpectedly turned out to be something a little out of the ordinary line of tourist interviewers; and truly in those days Romany ryes were not so common as they now are. Then Mr. Carlyle himself told a story, how his father--if I remember rightly--had once lent a large sum to or trusted a gypsy in some extraordinary manner. It befell in after days that the lender was himself in sore straits, when the gypsy took him by night to a hut, and digging up or lifting the _hard-stane_ or hearth-stone, took out a bag of guineas, which he transferred to his benefactor.

We parted, and this was the only time I ever conversed with Mr. Carlyle, though I saw him subsequently on more than one occasion. He sent word specially by Mr. Conway to me that he would be pleased to have me call again; but "once bitten twice shy," and I had not so much enjoyed my call as to wish to repeat it. But I believe that what Mr. Carlyle absolutely needed above all things on earth was somebody to put on the gloves with him metaphorically about once a day, and give and take a few thumping blows; nor do I believe that he would have shrunk from a tussle _a la Choctaw_, with biting, gouging, tomahawk and scalper, for he had an uncommonly _dour_ look about the eyes, and must have been a magnificent fighter when once roused. But though I had not his vast genius nor wit, I had the great advantage of having often had very severe differences with my father, who was, I believe, as much Carlyled by Nature as Carlyle himself, if not more so, whereas it is morally impossible that the Sage of Chelsea could ever have found any one like himself to train under. But to Carlyle people in conversation requires constant practice with a master--_consuetudine quotidiana c.u.m aliquo congredi_--and he had for so long a time knocked everybody down without meeting the least resistance, that victory had palled upon him, and he had, so to speak, "vinegared" on himself. With somebody to "sa.s.s him back," Carlyle would have been cured of the dyspepsia, and have lived twenty years longer.

Carlyle's was and ever will be one of the greatest names in English literature, and it is very amusing to observe how the gossip-makers, who judge of genius by t.i.ttle-tattle and petty personal defects, have condemned him _in toto_ because he was not an angel to a dame who was certainly a bit of a _diablesse_. Thus I find in a late very popular collection the remark that--

"It is curious to note in the 'Life and Correspondence of Lord Houghton'

the high estimation in which Carlyle was held by him. His regard and admiration cannot but seem exaggerated, now that we know so much of the Chelsea philosopher's real character."

This is _quite_ the moral old lady, who used to think that Raphael was a good painter "till she read all about that nasty Fornarina."

There was another hard old character with whom I became acquainted in those days, and one who, though not a Carlyle, still, like him, exercised in a peculiar way a great influence on English literature. This was George Borrow. I was in the habit of reading a great deal in the British Museum, where he also came, and there I was introduced to him.

He was busy with a venerable-looking volume in old Irish and made the remark to me that he did not believe there was a man living who could read old Irish with ease (which I now observe to myself was "fished" out of Sir W. Betham). We discussed several gypsy words and phrases. I met him in the same place several times. He was a tall, large, fine-looking man, who must have been handsome in his youth. I knew at the time in London a Mr. Kerrison, who had been as a very young man, probably in the Twenties, very intimate with Borrow. He told me that one night Borrow acted very wildly, whooping and vociferating so as to cause the police to follow him, and after a long run led them to the edge of the Thames, "and there they thought they had him." But he plunged boldly into the water and swam in his clothes to the opposite sh.o.r.e, and so escaped.