The Yellow Book Volume II Part 14

The two poems by Mr. Edmund Gosse, "Alere Flammam" and "A Dream of November," have each the great quality of perfect unity. The first is simpler and less fanciful than the second. Both in thought and execution it reminds me strongly of Matthew Arnold. Whether there has been any conscious imitation or not, "Alere Flammam" is pervaded by what is best in the cla.s.sical spirit. Mr. John Davidson's two songs are sketches in town and country, impressionist sketches well done in a laconic and suggestive fas.h.i.+on. Mr. Davidson has a good right to maledict "Elkin Mathews & John Lane" for having revived the detestable old custom of printing catchwords at the lower corner of the page. The reader has just received the full impression of the London scene, when he is disturbed by the isolated word Foxes, which destroys the impression and puzzles him. London streets are not, surely, very favourable to foxes! He then turns the page and finds that the word is the first in the rural poem which follows. How Tennyson would have growled if the printer had put the name of some intrusive beast at the foot of one of his poems! Even in prose the custom is still intolerable; it makes one read the word twice over as thus (pp. 159, 60), "Why doesn't the wretched publisher publisher bring it out!"

We find some further poetry in Mr. Richard Garnett's translations from Luigi Tansillo. Not having access just now to the original Italian, I cannot answer for their fidelity, but they are worth reading, even in English, and soundly versified.

It is high time to speak of the prose. The essays are "A Defence of Cosmetics," by Mr. Max Beerbohm, and "Reticence in Literature," by Mr.

Arthur Waugh. I notice that a critic in the New York _Nation_ says that the Whistlerian affectations of Mr. Beerbohm are particularly intolerable. I understood his essay to be merely a _jeu d'esprit_, and found that it amused me, though the tastes and opinions ingeniously expressed in it are precisely the opposite of my own. Mr. Beerbohm is (or pretends to be) entirely on the side of artifice against nature.

The difficulty is to determine what _is_ nature. The easiest and most "natural" manners of a perfect English lady are the result of art, and of a more advanced art than that indicated by more ceremonious manners. Mr. Beerbohm says that women in the time of d.i.c.kens appear to have been utterly natural in their conduct, "flighty, gus.h.i.+ng, blus.h.i.+ng, fainting, giggling, and shaking their curls." Much of that conduct may have been as artificial as the curls themselves, and a.s.sumed only to attract attention. Ladies used to faint on the slightest pretext, not because it was natural but because it was the fas.h.i.+on; when it ceased to be the fas.h.i.+on they abandoned the practice.

Mr. Waugh's essay on "Reticence in Literature" is written more seriously, and is not intended to amuse. He defends the principle of reticence, but the only sanction that he finds for it is a temporary authority imposed by the changing taste of the age. We are consequently never sure of any permanent law that will enforce any reticence whatever. A good proof of the extreme laxity of the present taste is that Mr. Waugh himself has been able to print at length three of the most grossly sensual stanzas in Mr. Swinburne's "Dolores."

Reticence, however, is not concerned only with s.e.xual matters. There is, for instance, a flagrant want of reticence in the lower political press of France and America, and the same violent kind of writing, often going as far beyond truth as beyond decency, is beginning to be imitated in England. One rule holds good universally; all high art is reticent, _e.g._, in Dante's admirable way of telling the story of Francesca through her own lips.

Mr. Henry James, in "The Death of the Lion," shows his usual elegance of style, and a kind of humour which, though light enough on the surface, has its profound pathos. It is absolutely essential, in a short story, to be able to characterise people and things in a very few words. Mr. James has this talent, as for example in his description of the ducal seat at Bigwood: "very grand and frigid, all marble and precedence." We know Bigwood, after that, as if we had been there and have no desire to go. So of the Princess: "She has been told everything in the world and has never perceived anything, and the _echoes of her education_," etc., p. 42. The moral of the story is the vanity and shallowness of the world's professed admiration for men of letters, and the evil, to them, or going out of their way to suck the sugar-plums of praise. The next story, "Irremediable," shows the consequences of marrying a vulgar and ignorant girl in the hope of improving her, the difficulty being that she declines to be improved.

The situation is powerfully described, especially the last scene in the repulsive, disorderly little home. The most effective touch reveals Willoughby's constant vexation because his vulgar wife "never did any one mortal thing efficiently or well," just the opposite of the constant pleasure that clever active women give us by their neat and rapid skill. "The Dedication," by Mr. Fred Simpson, is a dramatic representation of the conflict between ambition and love--not that the love on the man's side is very earnest, or the conflict in his mind very painful, as ambition wins the day only too easily when Lucy is thrown over. "The Fool's Hour," by Mr. Hobbes and Mr. George Moore, is a slight little drama founded on the idea that youth must amuse itself in its own way, and cannot be always tied to its mamma's ap.r.o.n-strings. It is rather French than English in the a.s.sumption that youth must of necessity resort to theatres and actresses. Of the two sketches by Mr. Harland, that on white mice is clever as a supposed reminiscence of early boyhood, but rather long for its subject, the other, "A Broken Looking-Gla.s.s," is a powerful little picture of the dismal end of an old bachelor who confesses to himself that his life has been a failure, equally on the sides of ambition and enjoyment.

One of my friends tells me that it is impossible for a bachelor to be happy, yet he may invest money in the Funds! In Mr. Crackanthorpe's "Modern Melodrama," he describes for us the first sensations of a girl when she sees death in the near future. It is pathetic, tragical, life-like in language, with the defects of character and style that belong to a close representation of nature. "A Lost Masterpiece," by George Egerton, is not so interesting as the author's "Keynotes,"

though it shows the same qualities of style. The subject is too unfruitful, merely a literary disappointment, because a bright idea has been chased away. "A Sentimental Cellar," by Mr. George Saintsbury, written in imitation of the essayists of the eighteenth century, a.s.sociates the wines in a cellar with the loves and friends.h.i.+ps of their owner. To others the vinous treasures would be "good wine and nothing more"; to their present owner they are "a casket of magic liquors," a museum in which he lives over again "the vanished life of the past." The true French bookless _bourgeois_ often calls his cellar his _bibliotheque_, meaning that he values its lore as preferable to that of scholars.h.i.+p; but Mr. Saintsbury's Falernia.n.u.s a.s.sociates his wines with sentiment rather than with knowledge.

On the whole, the literature in the first number of THE YELLOW BOOK is adequately representative of the modern English literary mind, both in the observation of reality and in style. It is, as I say, really literature and not letterpress. I rather regret, for my own part, the general brevity of the pieces which restricts them to the limits of the sketch, especially as the stories cannot be continued after the too long interval of three months. As to this, the publishers know their own business best, and are probably aware that the attention of the general public, though easily attracted, is even more easily fatigued.

II--The Ill.u.s.trations

On being asked to undertake the second part of this critical article, I accepted because one has so rarely an opportunity of saying anything about works of art to which the reader can quite easily refer. To review an exhibition of pictures in London or Paris is satisfactory only when the writer imagines himself to be addressing readers who have visited it, and are likely to visit it again. When an ill.u.s.tration appears in one of the art periodicals, it may be accompanied by a note that adds something to its interest, but no one expects such a note to be really critical. In the present instance, on the contrary, we are asked to say what we think, without reserve, and as we have had nothing to do with the choice of the contributors, and have not any interest in the sale of the periodical, there is no reason why we should not.

To begin with the cover. The publishers decided not to have any ornament beyond the decorative element in the figure design which is to be changed for every new number. What is permanent in the design remains, therefore, of an extreme simplicity and does not attract attention. The yellow colour adopted is glaring, and from the aesthetic point of view not so good as a quiet mixed tint might have been; however, it gives a t.i.tle to the publication and a.s.sociates itself so perfectly with the t.i.tle that it has a sufficient _raison d'etre_, whilst it contrasts most effectively with black. Though white is lighter than any yellow, it has not the same active and stimulating quality. The drawing of the masquers is merely one of Mr. Aubrey Beardsley's fancies and has no particular signification. We see a plump and merry lady laughing boisterously whilst she seems to be followed by a man who gazes intently upon the beauties of her shoulder. It is not to be cla.s.sed amongst the finest of Mr.

Beardsley's designs, but it shows some of his qualities, especially his extreme economy of means. So does the smaller drawing on the back or the volume, which is a fair example of his ready and various invention. See how the candle-flame is blown a little to one side, how the candle gutters on that side, and how the smoke is affected by the gust of air. Observe, too, the contrasts between the faces, not that they are attractive faces. There seems to be a peculiar tendency in Mr. Beardsley's mind to the representation of types without intellect and without morals. Some of the most dreadful faces in all art are to be found in the ill.u.s.trations (full of exquisite ornamental invention) to Mr. Oscar Wilde's "Salome." We have two unpleasant ones here in "l'education Sentimentale." There is distinctly a sort of corruption in Mr. Beardsley's art so far as its human element is concerned, but not at all in its artistic qualities, which show the perfection of discipline, of self-control, and of thoughtful deliberation at the very moment of invention. Certainly he is a man of genius, and perhaps, as he is still very young, we may hope that when he has expressed his present mood completely, he may turn his thoughts into another channel and see a better side of human life. There is, of course, nothing to be said against the lady who is touching the piano on the t.i.tle-page of THE YELLOW BOOK, nor against the portrait of Mrs.

Patrick Campbell opposite page 126, except that she reminds one of a giraffe. It is curious how the idea of extraordinary height is conveyed in this drawing without a single object for comparison. I notice in Mr. Beardsley's work a persistent tendency to elongation; for instance, in the keys of the piano on the t.i.tle-page which in their perspective look fifteen inches long. He has a habit, too, of making faces small and head-dresses enormous. The rarity of beauty in his faces seems in contradiction with his exquisite sense of beauty in curving lines, and the singular grace as well as rich invention of his ornaments. He can, however, refuse himself the pleasure of such invention when he wants to produce a discouraging effect upon the mind. See, for instance, the oppressive plainness of the architecture in the background to the dismal "Night Piece."

It is well known that the President of the Royal Academy, unlike most English painters, is in the habit of making studies. In his case these studies are uniformly in black and white chalk on brown paper. Two of them are reproduced in THE YELLOW BOOK, one being for drapery, and the other for the nude form moving in a joyous dance with a light indication of drapery that conceals nothing. The latter is a rapid sketch of an intention and is full of life both in att.i.tude and execution, the other is still and statuesque. Sir Frederic is a model to all artists in one very rare virtue, that of submitting himself patiently, in his age, to the same discipline which strengthened him in youth.

I find a curious and remarkable drawing by Mr. Pennell of that strangely romantic place Le Puy en Velay, whose rocks are crowned with towers or colossal statues, whilst houses cl.u.s.ter at their feet. The subject is dealt with rather in the spirit of Durer, but with a more supple and more modern kind of skill. It is topography, though probably with considerable artistic liberty. I notice one of Durer's licences in tonic relations. The sky, though the sun is setting (or rising) is made darker than the hills against it, and darker even than the two remoter ma.s.ses of rock which come between us and the distance.

The trees, too, are shaded capriciously, some poplars in the middle distance being quite dark whilst nearer trees are left without shade or local colour. In a word, the tonality is simply arbitrary, and in this kind of drawing it matters very little. Mr. Pennell has given us a delightful bit of artistic topography showing the strange beauty of a place that he always loves and remembers.

Mr. Sickert contributed two drawings. "The Old Oxford Music Hall" has some very good qualities, especially the most important quality of all, that of making us feel as if we were there. The singer on the stage (whose att.i.tude has been very closely observed) is strongly lighted by convergent rays. According to my recollection the rays themselves are much more visible in reality than they are here, but it is possible that the artist may have intentionally subdued their brightness in order to enhance that of the figure itself. The musicians and others are good, except that they are too small, if the singing girl (considering her distance) is to be taken as the standard of comparison. The pen-sketch of "A Lady Reading" is not so satisfactory. I know, of course, that it is offered only as a very slight and rapid sketch, and that it is impossible, even for a Rembrandt, to draw accurately in a hurry, but there is a formlessness in some important parts of this sketch (the hands, for instance) which makes it almost without interest for me. It is essentially painter's pen work, and does not show any special mastery of pen and ink.

The very definite pen-drawing by Mr. Housman called "The Reflected Faun" is open to the objection that the reflections in the water are drawn with the same hardness as the birds and faun in the air. The plain truth is that the style adopted, which in its own way is as legitimate as any other, does not permit the artist to represent the natural appearance of water. This kind of pen-drawing is founded on early wood-engraving which filled the whole s.p.a.ce with decorative work, even to the four corners.

Mr. Rothenstein is a modern of the moderns. His two slight portrait-sketches are natural and easy, and there is much life in the "Portrait of a Gentleman." The "Portrait of a Lady," by Mr. Furse, is of a much higher order. It has a n.o.ble gravity, and it shows a severity of taste not common in the portraiture of our time; it is essentially a distinguished work. Mr. Nettles.h.i.+p gives us an ideal portrait of Minos, not in his earthly life, as king of Crete, but in his infernal capacity as supreme judge of the dead. The face is certainly awful enough and implacable:

Stavvi Mins orribilmente, e ringhia: Esamina le colpe nell'entrata; Giudica e manda, secondo ch'avvinghia.

The book-plate designed by Mr. Beardsley for Dr. Propert has the usual qualities of the inventor. It seems to tell a tale of hopeless love.

The other book-plate, by Mr. Anning Bell, is remarkable for its pretty and ingenious employment of heraldry which so easily becomes mechanical when the draughtsman is not an artist.

On the whole, these ill.u.s.trations decidedly pre-suppose real artistic culture in the public. They do not condescend in any way to what might be guessed at as the popular taste. I notice that the Editor and Publishers have a tendency to look to young men of ability for a.s.sistance in their enterprise, though they accept the criticism of those who now belong to a preceding generation.

Portrait of Henry James

By John S. Sargent, A.R.A.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Portrait of Henry James]

Dreams

By Ronald Campbell Macfie

"In the first dream that comes with the first sleep I run, I run, I am gathered to thy heart"

Unworthy! yea, So high thou art above me I hardly dare to love thee, But kneel and lay All homage and all wors.h.i.+p at thy feet, O lady sweet!

Yet dreams are strong: Their wordless wish suffices To win them Paradises Of sun and song.

Delight our waking life can never know The dreams bestow.

And in a dream, Dupe of its bold beguiling, I watch thy blue eyes smiling; I see them gleam With love the waking moments have forbidden, And veiled and hidden.

O brave deceit!

In dreams thy glad eyes glisten, In dreams I lie and listen Thy bosom beat, Hiving hot lips among thy temple-hair, O lady fair!

And tho' I live, Dreaming in such fair fas.h.i.+on, I think, in thy compa.s.sion, Thou wilt forgive, Since I but _dream_, and since my heart will ache When I awake.

Madame Rejane

By Dauphin Meunier

A fabulous being, in an everyday human form; a face, not beautiful, scarcely even pretty, which looks upon the world with an air at once ironical and sympathetic; a brow that grows broader or narrower according to the capricious invasions of her aureole of hair; an odd little nose, perked heavenward; two roguish eyes, now blue, now black; the rude accents of a street-girl, suddenly changing to the well-bred murmuring of a great lady; abrupt, abundant gestures, eloquently finis.h.i.+ng half-spoken sentences; a supple neck--a slender, opulent figure--a dainty foot, that scarcely touches the earth and yet can fly amazingly near the ceiling; lips, nervous, sensuous, trembling, curling; a frock, simple or sumptuous, bought at a bargain or created by a Court-dressmaker, which expresses, moulds, completes, and sometimes almost unveils the marvellous creature it envelops; a gay, a grave demeanour; grace, wit, sweetness, tartness; frivolity and earnestness, tenderness and indifference; beauty without beauty, immorality without evil: a nothing capable of everything: such is Woman at Paris: such is the Parisienne: and Madame Rejane is the Parisienne, is all Parisiennes, incarnated.

What though our Parisienne be the daughter of a hall-porter, what though she be a maid-servant, a courtesan, or an arch-d.u.c.h.ess, she goes everywhere, she is the equal of every one, she knows or divines everything. No need for her to learn good manners, nor bad ones: she's born with both. According to the time or place, she will talk to you of politics, of art, of literature--of dress, trade, cookery--of finance, of socialism, of luxury, of starvation--with the patness, the sure touch, the absolute sincerity, of one who has seen all, experienced all, understood all. She's as sentimental as a song, wily as a diplomate, gay as folly, or serious as a novel by Zola. What has she read? Where was she educated? Who cares? Her book of life is Paris; she knows her Paris by heart; and whoso knows Paris can dispense with further knowledge. She adores originality and novelty, but she can herself trans.m.u.te the commonplace into the original, the old into the new. Whatever she touches forthwith reflects her own animation, her mobility, her elusive charm. Flowers have no loveliness until she has grouped them; colours are colourless unless they suit her complexion. Delicately fingering this or that silken fabric, she decrees which shall remain in the darkness of the shops, which shall become the fas.h.i.+on of the hour. She crowns the poet, sits to the painter, inspires the sculptor, lends her voice to the musician; and not one of these artists can pretend to talent, if it be her whim to deny it him. She awards fame and wealth, success and failure, according to her pleasure.

Madame Rejane--the Parisienne: they are interchangeable terms.

Whatever role she plays absorbs the attention of all Paris. Hearken, then, good French Provincials, who would learn the language of the Boulevards in a single lesson; hearken, also, ye children of other lands who are eager for our pleasures, and curious about our tastes and manners; hearken all people, men and women, who care, for once in a way, to behold what of all Parisian things is most essentially Parisian:--Go and see Rejane. Don't go to the Opera, where the music is German; nor to the Opera-Comique, where it is Italian; nor yet to the Comedie-Francaise, where the sublime is made ridiculous, and the heroes and heroines of Racine take on the att.i.tudes of bull-fighters and cigarette-makers; nor to the Odeon, nor to the Palais-Royal, nor here, nor there, nor elsewhere: go and see Rejane. Be she at London, Chicago, Brussels, St. Petersburg--Rejane is Paris. She carries the soul of Paris with her, wheresoever she listeth.

A Parisienne, she was born in Paris; an actress, she is the daughter of an actor, and the niece of Madame Aptal-Arnault, sometime _pensionnaire_ of the Comedie-Francaise. Is it a sufficient pedigree?

Her very name is suggestive; it seems to share in the odd turn of her wit, the sauciness of her face, the tang of her voice; for Rejane's real name is Reju. Doesn't it sound like a nick-name, especially invented for this child of the greenroom? "Rejane" calls up to us the fanciful actress--fanciful, but studious, conscientious, impa.s.sioned for her art; "Madame Rejane" has rather a grand air; but Reju makes such a funny face at her.

I picture to myself the little Reju, scarcely out of her cradle, but already cunningly mischievous, fired with an immense curiosity about the world behind the scenes, and dreaming of herself as leading lady.

She hears of nothing, she talks of nothing, but the Theatre. And presently her inevitable calling, her manifest destiny, takes its first step towards realisation. She is admitted into the cla.s.s of Regnier, the famous _societaire_ of the Theatre-Francais. Thenceforth the pupil makes steady progress. In 1873, at the age of fifteen, she obtains an honourable mention for comedy at the Conservatoire; the following year she divides a second prize with Mademoiselle Samary.

But what am I saying? Only a second prize? Let us see.

To-day, as then, though twenty years have pa.s.sed, there is no possibility of success, no chance of getting an engagement, for a pupil on leaving the Conservatoire, unless a certain all-powerful critic, supreme judge, arbiter beyond appeal, sees fit to p.r.o.nounce a decision confirming the verdict of the Examining Jury. This extraordinary man holds the future of each candidate in the palm of his fat and heavy hand. Fame and fortune are contained in his inkstand, and determined by his articles. He is both Pope and King.

The Jury proposes, he disposes. The Jury reigns, he governs. He smiles or frowns, the Jury bows its head. The pupils tremble before their Masters; the Masters tremble before this monstrous Fetich,--for the Public thinks with him and by him, and sees only through his spectacles; and no star can s.h.i.+ne till his short sight has discovered it.