THE SYNTHESIS OF THE NOUVELLE ATHENES
Two dominant notes in my character—an original hatred of my native country, and a brutal loathing of the religion I was brought up in. All the aspects of my native country are violently disagreeable to me, and I cannot think of the place I was born in without a sensation akin to nausea. These feelings are inherent and inveterate in me. I am instinctively averse from my own countrymen; they are at once remote and repulsive; but with Frenchmen I am conscious of a sense of nearness; I am one with them in their ideas and aspirations, and when I am with them, I am alive with a keen and penetrating sense of intimacy. Shall I explain this by atavism? Was there a French man or woman in my family some half-dozen generations ago? I have not inquired. The English I love, and with a love that is foolish—mad, limitless; I love them better than the French, but I am not so near to them. Dear, sweet Protestant England, the red tiles of the farmhouse, the elms, the great hedgerows, and all the rich fields adorned with spreading trees, and the weald and the wold, the very words are passionately beautiful southern England, not the north,—there is something Celtic in the north—southern England, with its quiet, steadfast faces—a smock frock is to me one of the most delightful things in the world; it is so absolutely English. The villages clustered round the greens, the spires of the churches pointing between the elm trees.... This is congenial to me; and this is Protestantism. England is Protestantism, Protestantism is England. Protestantism is strong, clean, and westernly, Catholicism is eunuch-like, dirty, and Oriental.... There is something even Chinese about it. What made England great was Protestantism, and when she ceases to be Protestant she will fall.... Look at the nations that have clung to Catholicism, starving moonlighters and starving brigands. The Protestant flag floats on every ocean breeze, the Catholic banner hangs limp in the incense silence of the Vatican. Let us be Protestant, and revere Cromwell.
Garçon, un bock! I write to please myself, just as I order my dinner; if my books sell I cannot help it—it is an accident.
But you live by writing.
Yes, but life is only an accident—art is eternal.
What I reproach Zola with is that he has no style; there is nothing you won't find in Zola from Chateaubriand to the reporting in theFigaro.
He seeks immortality in an exact description of a linendraper's shop; if the shop conferred immortality it should be upon the linendraper who created the shop, and not on the novelist who described it.
And his last novel "l'Œuvre," how spun out, and for a franc a line in the "Gil Blas." Not a single new or even exact observation. And that terrible phrase repeated over and over again—"La Conquête de Paris." What does it mean? I never knew anyone who thought of conquering Paris; no one ever spoke of conquering Paris except, perhaps, two or three provincials.
You must have rules in poetry, if it is only for the pleasure of breaking them, just as you must have women dressed, if it is only for the pleasure of undressing them.
Fancy, a banquet was given to Julien by his pupils! He made a speech in favour of Lefebvre, and hoped that every one there would vote for Lefebvre. Julien was very eloquent. He spoke ofLe grand art, le nu, and Lefebvre's unswerving fidelity tole nu...elegance, refinement, an echo of ancient Greece: and then,—what do you think? when he had exhausted all the reasons why the medal of honour should be accorded to Lefebvre, he said, "I ask you to remember, gentlemen, that he has a wife and eight children." Is it not monstrous?
But it is you who are monstrous, you who expect to fashion the whole world in conformity with your æstheticisms...a vain dream, and if realised it would result in an impossible world. A wife and children are the basis of existence, and it is folly to cry out because an appeal to such interests as these meet with response...it will be so till the end of time.
And these great interests that are to continue to the end of time began two years ago, when your pictures were not praised in theFigaroas much as you thought they should be.
Love—but not marriage. Marriage means a four-post bed and papa and mamma between eleven and twelve. Love is aspiration: transparencies, colour, light, a sense of the unreal. But a wife—you know all about her—who her father was, who her mother was, what she thinks of you and her opinion of the neighbours over the way. Where, then, is the dream, theau delà? But the women one has never seen before, that one will never see again! The choice! the enervation of burning odours, the baptismal whiteness of women, light, ideal tissues, eyes strangely dark with kohl, names that evoke palm trees and ruins, Spanish moonlight or maybe Persepolis! The nightingale-harmony of an eternal yes—the whisper of a sweet unending yes. The unknown, the unreal. This is love. There is delusion, anau delà.
Good heavens! and the world still believes in education, in teaching people the "grammar of art." Education should be confined to clerks, and it drives even them to drink. Will the world learn that we never learn anything that we did not know before? The artist, the poet, painter, musician, and novelist go straight to the food they want, guided by an unerring and ineffable instinct; to teach them is to destroy the nerve of the artistic instinct. Art flees before the art school... "correct drawing," "solid painting." Is it impossible to teach people, to force it into their heads that there is no such thing as correct drawing, and that if drawing were correct it would be wrong? Solid painting; good heavens! Do they suppose that there is one sort of painting that is better than all others, and that there is a receipt for making it as for making chocolate! Art is not mathematics, it is individuality. It does not matter how badly you paint, so long as you don't paint badly like other people. Education destroys individuality. That great studio of Julien's is a sphinx, and all the poor folk that go there for artistic education are devoured. After two years they all paint and draw alike, every one; that vile execution,—they call it execution,—la pâte, la peinture au premier coup. I was over in England last year, and I saw some portraits by a man called Richmond. They were horrible, but I liked them because they weren't like painting. Stott and Sargent are clever fellows enough; I like Stott the best. If they had remained at home and hadn't been taught, they might have developed a personal art, but the trail of the serpent is over all they do—that vile French painting,le morceau, etc. Stott is getting over it by degrees. He exhibited a nymph this year. I know what he meant; it was an interesting intention. I liked his little landscapes better...simplified into nothing, into a couple of primitive tints, wonderful clearness, light. But I doubt if he will find a public to understand all that.
Democratic art! Art is the direct antithesis to democracy.... Athens! a few thousand citizens who owned many thousand slaves, call that democracy! No! what I am speaking of is modern democracy—the mass. The mass can only appreciate simple andnaïveemotions, puerile prettiness, above all conventionalities. See the Americans that come over here; what do they admire? Is it Degas or Manet they admire? No, Bouguereau and Lefebvre. What was most admired at the International Exhibition?—The Dirty Boy. And if the medal of honour had been decided by aplébiscite, the dirty boy would have had an overwhelming majority. What is the literature of the people? The idiotic stories of thePetit Journal. Don't talk of Shakespeare, Molière and the masters; they are accepted on the authority of the centuries. If the people could understandHamlet, the people would not read thePetit Journal; if the people could understand Michel Angelo, they would not look at our Bouguereau or your Bouguereau, Sir F. Leighton. For the last hundred years we have been going rapidly towards democracy, and what is the result? The destruction of the handicrafts. That there are still good pictures painted and good poems written proves nothing, there will always be found men to sacrifice their lives for a picture or a poem. But the decorative arts which are executed in collaboration, and depend for support on the general taste of a large number, have ceased to exist. Explain that if you can. I'll give you five thousand, ten thousand francs to buy a beautiful clock that is not a copy and is not ancient, and you can't do it. Such a thing does not exist. Look here, I was going up the staircase of the Louvre the other day. They were putting up a mosaic; it was horrible; every one knows it is horrible. Well, I asked who had given the order for this mosaic, and I could not find out; no one knew. An order is passed from bureau to bureau, and no one is responsible; and it will be always so in a republic, and the more republican you are the worse it will be.
The world is dying of machinery; that is the great disease, that is the plague that will sweep away and destroy civilisation; man will have to rise against it sooner or later.... Capital, unpaid labour, wage-slaves, and all the rest—stuff.... Look at these plates; they were painted by machinery; they are abominable. Look at them. In old times plates were painted by the hand, and the supply was necessarily limited to the demand, and a china in which there was always something more or less pretty, was turned out; but now thousands, millions of plates are made more than we want, and there is a commercial crisis; the thing is inevitable. I say the great and the reasonable revolution will be when mankind rises in revolt, and smashes the machinery and restores the handicrafts.
Goncourt is not an artist, notwithstanding all his affectation and outcries; he is not an artist.Il me fait l'effetof an old woman shrieking after immortality and striving to beat down some fragment of it with a broom. Once it was a duet, now it is a solo. They wrote novels, history, plays, they collectedbric-à-brac—they wrote about theirbric-à-brac; they painted in water-colours, they etched—they wrote about their water-colours and etchings; they have made a will settling that thebric-à-bracis to be sold at their death, and the proceeds applied to founding a prize for the best essay or novel, I forget which it is. They wrote about the prize they are going to found; they kept a diary, they wrote down everything they heard, felt, or saw,radotage de vieille femme; nothing must escape, not the slightest word; it might be that very word that might confer on them immortality; everything they heard, or said, must be of value, of inestimable value. A real artist does not trouble himself about immortality, about everything he hears, feels and says; he treats ideas and sensations as so much clay wherewith to create.
And then the famous collaboration; how it was talked about, written about, prayed about; and when Jules died, what a subject for talk for articles; it all went into pot. Hugo's vanity was Titanic, Goncourt's is puerile.
And Daudet?
Oh, Daudet,c'est de la bouillabaisse.
Whistler, of all artists, is the least impressionist; the idea people have of his being an impressionist only proves once again the absolute inability of the public to understand the merits or the demerits of artistic work. Whistler's art is classical; he thinks of nature, but he does not see nature; he is guided by his mind, and not by his eyes; and the best of it is he says so. He knows it well enough! Any one who knows him must have heard him say, "Painting is absolutely scientific; it is an exact science." And his work is in accord with his theory; he risks nothing, all is brought down, arranged, balanced, and made one; his pictures are thought out beforehand, they are mental conceptions. I admire his work; I am showing how he is misunderstood, even by those who think they understand. Does he ever seek a pose that is characteristic of the model, a pose that the model repeats oftener than any other?—Never. He advances the foot, puts the hand on the hip, etc., with a view to rendering hisidea. Take his portrait of Duret. Did he ever see Duret in dress clothes? Probably not. Did he ever see Duret with a lady's opera cloak?—I am sure he never did. Is Duret in the habit of going to the theatre with ladies? No, he is alittérateurwho is always in men's society, rarely in ladies'. But these facts mattered nothing to Whistler as they matter to Degas, or to Manet. Whistler took Duret out of his environment, dressed him up, thought out a scheme—in a word, painted his idea without concerning himself in the least with the model. Mark you, I deny that I am urging any fault or flaw; I am merely contending that Whistler's art is not modern art, but classic art—yes, and severely classical, far more classical than Titian's or Velasquez;—from an opposite pole as classical as Ingres. No Greek dramatist ever sought the synthesis of things more uncompromisingly than Whistler. And he is right. Art is not nature. Art is nature digested. Zola and Goncourt cannot, or will not understand that the artistic stomach must be allowed to do its work in its own mysterious fashion. If a man is really an artist he will remember what is necessary, forget what is useless; but if he takes notes he will interrupt his artistic digestion, and the result will be a lot of little touches, inchoate and wanting in the elegant rhythm of the synthesis.
I am sick of synthetical art; we want observation direct and unreasoned. What I reproach Millet with is that it is always the same thing, the same peasant, the samesabot, the same sentiment. You must admit that it is somewhat stereotyped.
What does that matter; what is more stereotyped than Japanese art? But that does not prevent it from being always beautiful.
People talk of Manet's originality; that is just what I can't see. What he has got, and what you can't take away from him, is a magnificent execution. A piece of still life by Manet is the most wonderful thing in the world; vividness of colour, breadth, simplicity, and directness of touch—marvellous!
French translation is the only translation; in England you still continue to translate poetry into poetry, instead of into prose. We used to do the same, but we have long ago renounced such follies. Either of two things—if the translator is a good poet, he substitutes his verse for that of the original;—I don't want his verse, I want the original;—if he is a bad poet; he gives us bad verse, which is intolerable. Where the original poet put an effect of cæsura, the translator puts an effect of rhyme; where the original poet puts an effect of rhyme, the translator puts an effect of cæsura. Take Longfellow's "Dante." Does it give as good an idea of the original as our prose translation? Is it as interesting reading? Take Bayard Taylor's translation of "Goethe." Is it readable? Not to any one with an ear for verse. Will any one say that Taylor's would be read if the original did not exist? The fragment translated by Shelley is beautiful, but then it is Shelley. Look at Swinburne's translations of Villon. They are beautiful poems by Swinburne, that is all; he makes Villon speak of a "splendid kissing mouth." Villon could not have done this unless he had read Swinburne. "Heine," translated by James Thomson, is not different from Thomson's original poems; "Heine," translated by Sir Theodore Martin, is doggerel.
But in English blank verse you can translate quite as literally as you could into prose?
I doubt it, but even so, the rhythm of the blank line would carry your mind away from that of the original.
But if you don't know the original? The rhythm of the original can be suggested in prose judiciously used; even if it isn't, your mind is at least free, whereas the English rhythm must destroy the sensation of something foreign. There is no translation except a word-for-word translation. Baudelaire's translation of Poe, and Hugo's translation of Shakespeare, are marvellous in this respect; a pun or joke that is untranslatable is explained in a note.
But that is the way young ladies translate—word for word!
No; 'tis just what they don't do; they think they are translating word for word, but they aren't. All the proper names, no matter how unpronounceable, must be rigidly adhered to; you must never transpose versts into kilometres, or roubles into francs;—I don't know what a verst is or what a rouble is, but when I see the words I am in Russia. Every proverb must be rendered literally, even if it doesn't make very good sense: if it doesn't make sense at all, it must be explained in a note. For example, there is a proverb in German: "Quand le cheval est sellé il faut le monter;" in French there is a proverb: "Quand le vin est tiré il faut le boire." Well, a translator who would translatequand le cheval, etc., byquand le vin, etc., is an ass, and does not know his business. In translation only a strictly classical language should be used; no word of slang, or even word of modern origin should be employed; the translator's aim should be never to dissipate the illusion of an exotic. If I were translating the "Assommoir" into English, I should strive after a strong, flexible, but colourless language, something—what shall I say?—the style of a modern Addison.
What, don't you know the story about Mendès?—whenChosewanted to marry his sister?Chose'smother, it appears, went to live with a priest. The poor fellow was dreadfully cut up; he was broken-hearted; and he went to Mendès, his heart swollen with grief, determined to make a clean breast of it, let the worst come to the worst. After a great deal of beating about the bush, and apologising, he got it out. You know Mendès, you can see him smiling a little; and looking atChosewith that white cameo face of his he said,
"Avec quel meillur homme voulez-vous que votre mère se mit? vous n'avez donc, jeune homme, aucun sentiment religieux."
Victor Hugo, he is a painter on porcelain; his verse is mere decoration, long tendrils and flowers; and the same thing over and over again.
How to be happy!—not to read Baudelaire and Verlaine, not to enter theNouvelle Athènes, unless perhaps to play dominoes like thebourgeoisover there, not to do anything that would awake a too intense consciousness of life,—to live in a sleepy country side, to have a garden to work in, to have a wife and children, to chatter quietly every evening over the details of existence. We must have the azaleas out to-morrow and thoroughly cleansed, they are devoured by insects; the tame rook has flown away; mother lost her prayer-book coming from church, she thinks it was stolen. A good, honest, well-to-do peasant, who knows nothing of politics, must be very nearly happy;—and to think there are people who would educate, who would draw these people out of the calm satisfaction of their instincts, and give them passions! The philanthropist is the Nero of modern times.
EXTRACT FROM A LETTER
"Why did you not send a letter? We have all been writing to you for the last six months, but no answer—none. Had you written one word I would have saved all. The poorconciergewas in despair; she said thepropriétairewould wait if you had only said when you were coming back, or if you only had let us know what you wished to be done. Three quarters rent was due, and no news could be obtained of you, so an auction had to be called. It nearly broke my heart to see those horrid men tramping over the delicate carpets, their coarse faces set against the sweet colour of that beautiful English cretonne.... And all the while the pastel by Manet, the great hat set like an aureole about the face—'the eyes deep set in crimson shadow,' 'the fan widespread across the bosom' (you see I am quoting your own words), looking down, the mistress of that little paradise of tapestry. She seemed to resent the intrusion. I looked once or twice half expecting those eyes 'deep set in crimson shadow' to fill with tears. But nothing altered her great dignity; she seemed to see all, but as a Buddha she remained impenetrable....
"I was there the night before the sale. I looked through the books, taking notes of those I intended to buy—those which we used to read together when the snow lay high about the legs of the poor faun interre cuite, that laughed amid the frostyboulingrins. I found a large packet of letters which I instantly destroyed. You should not be so careless; I wonder how it is that men are always careless about their letters.
"The sale was announced for one o'clock. I wore a thick veil, for I did not wish to be recognised; theconciergeof course knew me, but she can be depended upon. The poor old woman was in tears, so sorry was she to see all your pretty things sold up. You left owing her a hundred francs, but I have paid her; and talking of you we waited till the auctioneer arrived. Everything had been pulled down; the tapestry from the walls, the picture, the two vases I gave you were on the table waiting the stroke of the hammer. And then the men, all themarchands de meublesin thequartier, came upstairs, spitting and talking coarsely—their foul voices went through me. They stamped, spat, pulled the things about, nothing escaped them. One of them held up the Japanese dressing-gown and made some horrible jokes; and the auctioneer, who was a humorist, answered, 'If there are any ladies' men present, we shall have some spirited bidding.' The pastel I bought, and I shall keep it and try to find some excuse to satisfy my husband, but I send you the miniature, and I hope you will not let it be sold again. There were many other things I should have liked to buy, but I did not dare—the organ that you used to play hymns on and I waltzes on, the Turkish lamp which we could never agree about...but when I saw the satin shoes which I gave you to carry the night of that adorable ball, and which you would not give back, but nailed up on the wall on either side of your bed and put matches in, I was seized with an almost invincible desire to steal them. I don't know why,un caprice de femme. No one but you would have ever thought of converting satin shoes into match boxes. I wore them at that delicious ball; we danced all night together, and you had an explanation with my husband (I was a little afraid for a moment, but it came out all right), and we went and sat on the balcony in the soft warm moonlight; we watched the glitter of epaulets and gas, the satin of the bodices, the whiteness of passing shoulders: we dreamed the massy darknesses of the park, the fairy light along the lawny spaces, the heavy perfume of the flowers, the pink of the camellias; and you quoted something: 'les camélias du balcon ressemblent à des désirs mourants.' It was horrid of you: but you always had a knack of rubbing one up the wrong way. Then do you not remember how we danced in one room, while the servants set the other out with little tables? That supper was fascinating! I suppose it was these pleasant remembrances which made me wish for the shoes, but I could not summon up courage enough to buy them, and the horrid people were comparing me with the pastel; I suppose I did look a little mysterious with a double veil bound across my face. The shoes went with a lot of other things—and oh, to whom?
"So now that pretty little retreat in theRue de la Tour des Damesis ended for ever for you and me. We shall not see the faun interre cuiteagain; I was thinking of going to see him the other day, but the street is so steep; my coachman advised me to spare the horse's hind legs. I believe it is the steepest street in Paris. And your luncheon parties, how I did enjoy them, and how Fay did enjoy them too; and what I risked, short-sighted as I am, picking my way from the tramcar down to that out-of-the-way little street! Men never appreciate the risks women run for them. But to leave my letters lying about—I cannot forgive that. When I told Fay she said, 'What can you expect? I warned you against flirting with boys.' I never did before—never.
"Paris is now just as it was when you used to sit on the balcony and I read you Browning. You never liked his poetry, and I cannot understand why. I have found a new poem which I am sure would convert you; you should be here. There are lilacs in the room and theMont Valérienis beautiful upon a great lemon sky, and the long avenue is merging into violet vapour.
"We have already begun to think of where we shall go to this year. Last year we went to P——, an enchanting place, quite rustic, but within easy distance of a casino. I had vowed not to dance, for I had been out every night during the season, but the temptation proved irresistible, and I gave way. There were two young men here, one the Count of B——, the other the Marquis of G——, one of the best families in France, a distant cousin of my husband. He has written a book which every one says is one of the most amusing things that has appeared for years,c'est surtout très Parisien. He paid me great attentions, and made my husband wildly jealous. I used to go out and sit with him amid the rocks, and it was perhaps very lucky for me that he went away. We may return there this year; if so, I wish you would come and spend a month; there is an excellent hotel where you would be very comfortable. We have decided nothing as yet. The Duchesse de —— is giving a costume ball; they say it is going to be a most wonderful affair. I don't know what money is not going to be spent upon the cotillion. I have just got home a fascinating toilette. I am going as aPierette; you know, a short skirt and a little cap. The Marquise gave a ball some few days ago. I danced the cotillion with L——, who, as you know, dances divinely;il m'a fait la cour, but it is of course no use, you know that.
"The other night we went to see theMaître-de-Forges, a fascinating play, and I am reading the book; I don't know which I like the best. I think the play, but the book is very good too. Now that is what I call a novel; and I am a judge, for I have read all novels. But I must not talk literature, or you will say something stupid. I wish you would not make foolish remarks about men thattout-Parisconsiders the cleverest. It does not matter so much with me, I know you, but then people laugh at you behind your back, and that is not nice for me. Themarquisewas here the other day, and she said she almost wished you would not come on her 'days,' so extraordinary were the remarks you made. And by the way, themarquisehas written a book. I have not seen it, but I hear that it is really toodécolleté. She isune femme d'esprit, but the way she affiché's herself is too much for any one. She never goes anywhere now withoutle petitD——. It is a great pity.
"And now, my dear friend, write me a nice letter, and tell me when you are coming back to Paris. I am sure you cannot amuse yourself in that hateful London; the nicest thing about you was that you were reallytrés Parisien. Come back and take a nice apartment on the Champs Elysées. You might come back for the Duchesse's ball. I will get an invitation for you, and will keep the cotillion for you. The idea of running away as you did, and never telling any one where you were going to. I always said you were a little cracked. And letting all your things be sold! If you had only told me! I should like so much to have had that Turkish lamp. Yours ——"
How like her that letter is,—egotistical, vain, foolish; no, not foolish—narrow, limited, but not foolish; worldly, oh, how worldly! and yet not repulsively so, for there always was in her a certain intensity of feeling that saved her from the commonplace, and gave her an inexpressible charm. Yes, she is a woman who can feel, and she has lived her life and felt it very acutely, very sincerely—sincerely?...like a moth caught in a gauze curtain! Well, would that preclude sincerity? Sincerity seems to convey an idea of depth, and she was not very deep, that is quite certain. I never could understand her;—a little brain that span rapidly and hummed a pretty humming tune. But no, there was something more in her than that. She often said things that I thought clever, things that I did not forget, things that I should like to put into books. But it was not brain power; it was only intensity of feeling—nervous feeling. I don't know...perhaps.... She has lived her life...yes, within certain limits she has lived her life. None of us do more than that. True. I remember the first time I saw her. Sharp, little, and merry—a changeable little sprite. I thought she had ugly hands; so she has, and yet I forgot all about her hands before I had known her a month. It is now seven years ago. How time passes! I was very young then. What battles we have had, what quarrels! Still we had good times together. She never lost sight of me, but no intrusion; far too clever for that. I never got the better of her but once...once I did,enfin! She soon made up for lost ground. I wonder what the charm was. I did not think her pretty, I did not think her clever; that I know.... I never knew if she cared for me, never. There were moments when.... Curious, febrile, subtle little creature, oh, infinitely subtle, subtle in everything, in her sensations subtle; I suppose that was her charm, subtleness. I never knew if she cared for me, I never knew if she hated her husband,—one never knew her,—I never knew how she would receive me. The last time I saw her...that stupid American would take her downstairs, no getting rid of him, and I was hiding behind one of the pillars in the Rue de Rivoli, my hand on the cab door. However, she could not blame me that time—and all the stories she used to invent of my indiscretions; I believe she used to get them up for the sake of the excitement. She was awfully silly in some ways, once you got her into a certain line; that marriage, that title, and she used to think of it night and day. I shall never forget when she went into mourning for the Count de Chambord. And her tastes, oh, how bourgeois they were! That salon; the flagrantly modern clock, brass work, eight hundred francs on the Boulevard St Germain, the cabinets, brass work, the rich brown carpet, and the furniture set all round the room geometrically, the great gilt mirror, the ancestral portrait, the arms and crest everywhere, and the stuffy bourgeois sense of comfort; a little grotesque no doubt;—the mechanical admiration for all that is about her, for the general atmosphere; theFigaro, that is to say Albert Wolf,l'homme le plus spirituel de Paris, c'est-à-dire, dans le monde, the success of Georges Ohnet and the talent of Gustave Doré. But with all this vulgarity of taste certain appreciations, certain ebullitions of sentiment, within the radius of sentiment certain elevations and depravities,—depravities in the legitimate sense of the word, that is to say, a revolt against the commonplace....
Ha, ha, ha! how I have been dreaming! I wish I had not been awoke from my reverie, it was pleasant.
The letter just read indicates, if it does not clearly tell, the changes that have taken place in my life; and it is only necessary to say that one morning, a few months ago, when my servant brought me some summer honey and a glass of milk to my bedside, she handed me an unpleasant letter. My agent's handwriting, even when I knew the envelope contained a cheque, has never quite failed to produce a sensation of repugnance in me;—so hateful is any sort of account, that I avoid as much as possible even knowing how I stand at my banker's. Therefore the odour of honey and milk, so evocative of fresh flowers and fields, was spoilt that morning for me; and it was some time before I slipped on that beautiful Japanese dressing-gown, which I shall never see again, and read the odious epistle.
That some wretched farmers and miners should refuse to starve, that I may not be deprived of mydemi-tasseatTortoni's, that I may not be forced to leave this beautiful retreat, my cat and my python—monstrous. And these wretched creatures will find moral support in England; they will find pity!
Pity, that most vile of all vile virtues, has never been known to me. The great pagan world I love knew it not. Now the world proposes to interrupt the terrible austere laws of nature which ordain that the weak shall be trampled upon, shall be ground into death and dust, that the strong shall be really strong,—that the strong shall be glorious, sublime. A little bourgeois comfort, a little bourgeois sense of right, cry the moderns.
Hither the world has been drifting since the coming of the pale socialist of Galilee; and this is why I hate Him, and deny His divinity. His divinity is falling, it is evanescent in sight of the goal He dreamed; again He is denied by His disciples. Poor fallen God! I, who hold nought else pitiful, pity Thee, Thy bleeding face and hands and feet, Thy hanging body; Thou at least art picturesque, and in a way beautiful in the midst of the sombre mediocrity, towards which Thou has drifted for two thousand years, a flag; and in which Thou shalt find Thy doom as I mine, I, who will not adore Thee and cannot curse Thee now. For verily Thy life and Thy fate has been greater, stranger and more Divine than any man's has been. The chosen people, the garden, the betrayal, the crucifixion, and the beautiful story, not of Mary, but of Magdalen. The God descending to the harlot! Even the great pagan world of marble and pomp and lust and cruelty, that my soul goes out to and hails as the grandest, has not so sublime a contrast to show us as this.
Come to me, ye who are weak. The Word went forth, the terrible disastrous Word, and before it fell the ancient gods, and the vices that they represent, and which I revere, are outcast now in the world of men; the Word went forth, and the world interpreted the Word, blindly, ignorantly, savagely, for two thousand years, but nevertheless nearing every day the end—the end that Thou in Thy divine intelligence foresaw, that finds its voice to-day (enormous though the antithesis may be, I will say it) in thePall Mall Gazette. What fate has been like Thine? Betrayed by Judas in the garden, denied by Peter before the cock crew, crucified between thieves, and mourned for by a harlot, and then sent bound and bare, nothing changed, nothing altered, in Thy ignominious plight, forthward in the world's van the glory and symbol of a man's new idea—Pity. Thy day is closing in, but the heavens are now wider aflame with Thy light than ever before—Thy light, which I, a pagan, standing on the last verge of the old world, declare to be darkness, the coming night of pity and justice which is imminent, which is the twentieth century. The bearers have relinquished Thy cross, they leave Thee in the hour of Thy universal triumph, Thy crown of thorns is falling, Thy face is buffeted with blows, and not even a reed is placed in Thy hand for sceptre; only I and mine are by Thee, we who shall perish with Thee, in the ruin Thou hast created.
Injustice we worship; all that lifts us out of the miseries of life is the sublime fruit of injustice. Every immortal deed was an act of fearful injustice; the world of grandeur, of triumph, of courage, of lofty aspiration, was built up on injustice. Man would not be man but for injustice. Hail, therefore, to the thrice glorious virtue injustice! What care I that some millions of wretched Israelites died under Pharaoh's lash or Egypt's sun? It was well that they died that I might have the pyramids to look on, or to fill a musing hour with wonderment. Is there one amongst us who would exchange them for the lives of the ignominious slaves that died? What care I that the virtue of some sixteen-year-old maiden was the price paid for Ingres'La Source? That the model died of drink and disease in the hospital, is nothing when compared with the essential that I should haveLa Source, that exquisite dream of innocence, to think of till my soul is sick with delight of the painter's holy vision. Nay more, the knowledge that a wrong was done—that millions of Israelites died in torments, that a girl, or a thousand girls, died in the hospital for that one virginal thing, is an added pleasure which I could not afford to spare. Oh, for the silence of marble courts, for the shadow of great pillars, for gold, for reticulated canopies of lilies; to see the great gladiators pass, to hear them cry the famous "Ave Caesar," to hold the thumb down, to see the blood flow, to fill the languid hours with the agonies of poisoned slaves! Oh, for excess, for crime! I would give many lives to save one sonnet by Baudelaire; for the hymn, "A la très-chère, à la très-belle, qui remplit man cœur de clarté"let the first-born in every house in Europe be slain; and in all sincerity I profess my readiness to decapitate all the Japanese in Japan and elsewhere, to save from destruction one drawing by Hokusai. Again I say that all we deem sublime in the world's history are acts of injustice; and it is certain that if mankind does not relinquish at once, and for ever, its vain, mad, and fatal dream of justice, the world will lapse into barbarism. England was great and glorious, because England was unjust, and England's greatest son was the personification of injustice—Cromwell.
But the old world of heroes is over now. The skies above us are dark with sentimentalism, the sand beneath us is shoaling fast, we are running with streaming canvas upon ruin; all ideals have gone; nothing remains to us for worship but the Mass, the blind, inchoate, insatiate Mass; fog and fen land before us, we shall founder in putrefying mud, creatures of the ooze and rushes about us—we, the great ship that has floated up from the antique world. Oh, for the antique world, its plain passion, its plain joys in the sea, where the Triton blew a plaintive blast, and the forest where the whiteness of the nymph was seen escaping! We are weary of pity, we are weary of being good; we are weary of tears and effusion, and our refuge—the British Museum—is the wide sea shore and the wind of the ocean. There, there is real joy in the flesh; our statues are naked, but we are ashamed, and our nakedness is indecency: a fair, frank soul is mirrored in those fauns and nymphs; and how strangely enigmatic is the soul of the antique world, the bare, barbarous soul of beauty and of might!
But neither Apollo nor Buddha could help or save me. One in his exquisite balance of body, a skylark-like song of eternal beauty, stood lightly advancing; the other sat in sombre contemplation, calm as a beautiful evening. I looked for sorrow in the eyes of the pastel—the beautiful pastel that seemed to fill with a real presence the rich autumnal leaves where the jays darted and screamed. The twisted columns of the bed rose, burdened with great weight of fringes and curtains, the python devoured a guinea-pig, the last I gave him; the great white cat came to me. I said all this must go, must henceforth be to me an abandoned dream, a something, not more real than a summer meditation. So be it, and, as was characteristic of me, I broke with Paris suddenly, without warning anyone. I knew in my heart of hearts that I should never return, but no word was spoken, and I continued a pleasant delusion with myself; I told myconciergethat I would return in a month, and I left all to be sold, brutally sold by auction, as the letter I read in the last chapter charmingly and touchingly describes.
Not even to Marshall did I confide my foreboding that Paris would pass out of my life, that it would henceforth be with me a beautiful memory, but never more a practical delight. He and I were no longer living together; we had parted a second time, but this time without bitterness of any kind; he had learnt to feel that I wanted to live alone, and had moved away into the Latin quarter, whither I made occasional expeditions. I accompanied him once to the old haunts, but various terms of penal servitude had scattered our friends, and I could not interest myself in the new. Nor did Marshall himself interest me as he had once done. To my eager taste, he had grown just a little trite. My affection for him was as deep and sincere as ever; were I to meet him now I would grasp his hand and hail him with firm, loyal friendship; but I had made friends in the Nouvelle Athènes who interested me passionately, and my thoughts were absorbed by and set on new ideals, which Marshall had failed to find sympathy for, or even to understand. I had introduced him to Degas and Manet, but he had spoken of Jules Lefèbvre and Bouguereau, and generally shown himself incapable of any higher education; he could not enter where I had entered, and this was alienation. We could no longer even talk of the same people; when I spoke of a certainmarquise, he answered with an indifferent "Do you really think so"? and proceeded to drag me away from my glitter of satin to the dinginess of print dresses. It was more than alienation, it was almost separation; but he was still my friend, he was the man, and he always will be, to whom my youth, with all its aspirations, was most closely united. So I turned to say good-bye to him and to my past life. Rap—rap—rap!
"Who's there?"
"I—George Moore."
"I've got a model."
"Never mind your model. Open the door. How are you? what are you painting?"
"This; what do you think of it?"
"It is prettily composed. I think it will come out all right. I am going to England; come to say good-bye."
"Going to England! What will you do in England?"
"I have to go about money matters, very tiresome. I had really begun to forget there was such a place."
"But you are not going to stay there?"
"Oh, no!"
"You will be just in time to see the Academy."
The conversation turned on art, and we æstheticised for an hour. At last Marshall said, "I am really sorry, old chap, but I must send you away; there's that model."
The girl sat waiting, her pale hair hanging down her back, a very picture of discontent.
"Send her away."
"I asked her to come out to dinner."
"D—n her.... Well, never mind, I must spend this last evening with you; you shall both dine with me.Je quitte Paris demain matin, peut-etre pour longtemps; je voudrais passer ma dernière soirèe avec mon ami; alors si vous voulez bien me permettre, mademoiselle, je vous invite tous les deux à diner; nous passerons la soirèe ensemble si cela vous est agrèable?"
"Je veux bien, monsieur."
Poor Marie! Marshall and I were absorbed in each other and art. It was always so. We dined in agargote, and afterwards we went to a students' ball; and it seems like yesterday. I can see the moon sailing through a clear sky, and on the pavement's edge Marshall's beautiful, slim, manly figure, and Marie's exquisite gracefulness. She was Lefèbvre's Chloe; so every one sees her now. Her end was a tragic one. She invited her friends to dinner, and with the few pence that remained she bought some boxes of matches, boiled them, and drank the water. No one knew why; some said it was love.
I went to London in an exuberant necktie, a tiny hat; I wore large trousers and a Capoul beard; looking, I believe, as unlike an Englishman as a drawing by Grévin. In the smoking-room of Morley's Hotel I met my agent, an immense nose, and a wisp of hair drawn over a bald skull. He explained, after some hesitation, that I owed him a few thousands, and that the accounts were in his portmanteau. I suggested taking them to a solicitor to have them examined. The solicitor advised me strongly to contest them. I did not take the advice, but raised some money instead, and so the matter ended so far as the immediate future was concerned. The years that are most impressionable, from twenty to thirty, when the senses and the mind are the widest awake, I, the most impressionable of human beings, had spent in France, not among English residents, but among that which is the quintessence of the nation, not an indifferent spectator, but an enthusiast, striving heart and soul to identify himself with his environment, to shake himself free from race and language and to recreate himself as it were in the womb of a new nationality, assuming its ideals, its morals, and its modes of thought, and I had succeeded strangely well, and when I returned home England was a new country to me; I had, as it were, forgotten everything. Every aspect of street and suburban garden was new to me; of the manner of life of Londoners I knew nothing. This sounds incredible, but it is so; I saw, but I could realise nothing. I went into a drawing-room, but everything seemed far away—a dream, a presentment, nothing more; I was in touch with nothing; of the thoughts and feelings of those I met I could understand nothing, nor could I sympathise with them: an Englishman was at that time as much out of my mental reach as an Esquimaux would be now. Women were nearer to me than men, and I will take this opportunity to note my observation, for I am not aware that any one else has observed that the difference between the two races is found in the men, not in the women. French and English women are psychologically very similar; the standpoint from which they see life is the same, the same thoughts interest and amuse them; but the attitude of a Frenchman's mind is absolutely opposed to that of an Englishman; they stand on either side of a vast abyss, two animals different in colour, form, and temperament;—two ideas destined to remain irrevocably separate and distinct.
I have heard of writing and speaking two languages equally well: this was impossible to me, and I am convinced that if I had remained two more years in France I should never have been able to identify my thoughts with the language I am now writing in, and I should have written it as an alien. As it was I only just escaped this detestable fate. And it was in the last two years, when I began to write French verse and occasionalchroniquesin the papers, that the great damage was done. I remember very well indeed one day, while arranging an act of a play I was writing with a friend, finding suddenly to my surprise that I could think more easily and rapidly in French that in English; but with all this I did not learn French. I chattered, and I felt intensely at home in it; yes, I could write a sonnet or a ballade almost without a slip, but my prose required a good deal of alteration, for a greater command of language is required to write in prose than in verse. I found this in French and also in English. When I returned from Paris, my English terribly corrupt with French ideas and forms of thought, I could write acceptable English verse, but even ordinary newspaper prose was beyond my reach, and an attempt I made to write a novel drifted into a miserable failure.
Here is a poem that Cabaner admired; he liked it in the French prose translation which I made for him one night in the Nouvelle Athènes:—