Chapter I: Introduction: The Triolet

Elsewhere in the pages of THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER a writer has explained the laws of form governing and underlying what we call “classical” music. To those who love art, in whatever guise it comes to us—as symphony, picture, or poem—a very slight amount of careful study of its accepted laws will repay a thousandfold the trouble taken. Having grasped even the faintest idea of the reason for the special shape of a sonata or a sonnet, the interest in the work itself becomes more keen. Then, too, it will be seen why literary men and artists choose the higher forms of their art to clothe their ideas. There is too often a feeling that the chief difference between popular and classical art is that the one is “dry,” while the other is pleasing. This is in part true, but only when scholastic rules are obtruded too prominently. For while it may be at once conceded that too great an attention to form produces dry bones, yet genius can make these live, for subject as they are to laws, and having clear sequence of form, they have inherent vitality and strength, relying on more than mere fashion to keep their hold on the people, in spite of the varying taste of each passing year.

Nature, to whom we all come alike for our simplest as our highest thoughts, works in many ways, but all subject to inviolable laws. These may often be not evident at a cursory glance, and still more often beyond our keenest search; we can only infer the law from the result. In mere human work, what one man produces is more or less easily understood by his fellow-man, and a knowledge of the rules to which he conformed, adds interest to our pleasure in his work, and makes us able to be real critics, to some extent, while mere taste or feeling can lay claim to no more than a personal and often valueless opinion.

The laws which govern music are probably better known than those which rule verse, as our English poets choose generally a freer and more flexible mode of expression than the old writers allowed. Again, in music the form is more easily seen, for two reasons: one, that constant habit of hearing pieces in strict form has given us knowledge, without our being able to formulate it; the other, that the subjects of music, being at most vague and abstract, are left out of the title of works by the great masters, save in a very few instances. Even the “Eroica Symphony” or the “Wedding March” merely suggests abstract feelings. To describe a rose or an umbrella, for example, is impossible in music. We can only suggest praise, or grief, and similar emotional feelings. Therefore the shape only is usually given in the title, such as a march, minuet, or sonata. But in poetry the shape is rarely described. Even in the most widely used of these fixed forms, the sonnet, the shape is not by any means invariably expressed in the title. In the verses written in imitation of the Old French Troubadours it is more often used. In the _rondeau_, the most widely chosen, it is not always given, but the _triolet_, _villanelle_, or _ballade_ is almost always so described in the title, the shape, as in music, ranking worthy of interest in itself. These old shapes are more akin to the fugue and canon in music, as the whole work has inner laws governing each detail, and making the choice of words or notes decided beforehand to a great extent by the form.

It is intended in this paper to describe a few of the forms which have of late found favour with the younger school of living poets, for a twofold reason: first, that their readers may better appreciate their works; secondly, that the amateur verse-writer may gain a knowledge of these verse shapes, and thereby be able to produce trifles which are worthy of attention. Although it is not given to many to produce great thoughts, yet to acquire a polished mode of displaying lesser ones to advantage, is in itself worth the trying. The tendency to diffusiveness which weakens so much verse, until the pretty trifling becomes wearisome, would be lessened if a strict form were first chosen, and the subject necessarily compressed within its limits.

The greater number of these forms originated with the Troubadours, and here, for mere brevity’s sake, only a very few words must be said. The subject of their loves and their lives has been so fully discussed that a mere _résumé_ of all that is known would fill many parts of this magazine. Hallam says “the earliest records cannot trace them beyond A.D. 1100, and they became extinct at the end of the next century. While they flourished they numbered many hundreds of versifiers in the language of Provence, though not always natives of France.” It would be interesting, if space allowed, to quote from some of the many histories. I had intended to do so, but the growing material forbade the idea of using it here, and so I must refer would-be inquirers to some of the more easily accessible works. Foremost is Dr. Francis Hueffer’s “The Troubadours,” published in 1878; it gives a scholarly and full account of the most salient members of the school and their works. “The Troubadours: their Loves and Lives,” by Mr. John Rutherford, is also interesting; while a work by M. Theodore de Banville, the “Petit Traité de Poésie Française,” affords an exhaustive analysis of the rules of their verse and its modern imitations.

Their verse was distinguished by its being subject to very strict and subtle laws, often involved and carried to an artificial complexity, perilously near the triumph of sound over sense; yet it has a charm peculiarly its own. The forms of this school being still exotic, and not (except the sonnet) incorporated into English literature, gives them a special fitness when employed for fanciful trifles on subjects of an older time.

The qualities termed “conceits” by the old English writers, are admirably expressed through the medium of these old shapes; a certain amount of extravagance of compliment and affectation is not out of place here. The flavour of the verse smacks of the “Moyen Age,” or “Powder and Fan” period beloved by artists. In these forms the shape of the verse itself takes the place somewhat of the costume and accessories of a painting, and gives local colour to the subject. When used in this way, as Mr. Austin Dobson has so often shown, they can be made (like a picture by Abbey) to reproduce the past in a living way, with its own domestic sentiment, far removed from a mere archæological or academic study of olden days, which often appeals to the intellect rather than the feeling, and moves us to criticise the method employed, instead of falling under the charm of the subject described.

But they are by no means limited to this class of subject, as Mr. Swinburne’s Roundels show. Nature and her moods may be sung as fitly in these, as in the most free forms of poetry.

Many estimable but badly-informed people think that poetry or verse (unluckily these terms are synonymous to them) is either a divine outburst of feeling, expressing itself almost spontaneously in rhyme, or, sad to say, a mere vehicle to hide the poverty of ideas, and eke out a repetition of fancies intolerable in prose. The multitude are slow to realise law in any shape, and in art no less than nature look upon most results as the effect of what a critic has termed “the glorious gospel of haphazard.” To these poetry suggests no art in itself, only a more or less musical jingle of pretty sounds, gay or plaintive feelings, while the whole is unreal and fantastic.

But to avoid further preface, let us take a specimen of the aforementioned forms, choosing a dainty little epigrammatic verse known as the _Triolet_, to start with. This form, complete always in eight short lines, is peculiarly a product of the old French school of verse, and is in itself, to some extent, an epitome of all the rest. Almost new in English poetry, the first examples dating from a volume of poems published in 1873 by Mr. Bridges, it has yet won many friends, although, so far as diligent search by the present writer has been able to trace them, a selection of the best would fill but a few pages of this paper.

Flexible only in the rhythm and length of its lines, which are generally about six feet (syllabic feet, of course) in length, it is stern, and forbids tampering in all other respects, allowing but two rhyme-sounds for the whole of the lines. The lines themselves are repeated in a certain unalterable order; the first two serve again for the seventh and eighth, while the fourth is also a repetition of the first; no syllable even, in the best examples, is changed in these lines. But on each fresh appearance the words should, if possible, convey a fresh phase of the idea, the emphasis alone serving to mark the distinction. On studying the examples given, it will be found that the crux lies in the treatment of the fifth and sixth lines, while the way the third is connected with the fourth, and the neatness with which the final couplet is repeated to form a necessary part of the whole, and not a mere repeat to fill up the prescribed form, is almost as difficult. The following example is a very perfect one; it comes in a sequence of triolets by Mr. Austin Dobson, entitled “Rose Leaves.” The first version ran:—

“I intended an ode,
And it turned into triolets.
It began _à la mode_:
I intended an ode;
But Rose crossed the road
With a bunch of fresh violets;
I intended an ode,
And it turned into triolets.”

This has a literary interest apart from its own merits, as the critics, on its first introduction, blamed Mr. Dobson severely for attempting to english the word triolet. “Suppose an audacious person were to extend the license, and introduce cabriolet as a thirdsman?” said _The Academy_, on June 23, 1877. In spite of Mr. W. S. Gilbert, in _Princess Ida_, trying also to rhyme it to violet—

“Oh, dainty triolet! oh, fragrant violet! oh,
gentle heigho-let! (or little sigh)”—

the word remains French; and in a later version Mr. Dobson has re-cast the poem.

“I intended an ode,
And it turned to a sonnet.
I began _à la mode_.
I intended an ode;
But Rose crossed the road
In her latest new bonnet.
I intended an ode,
And it turned to a sonnet.”

This may be better rhyme, but the _raison d’être_ is gone; it has not turned to a sonnet, but is still a triolet.

To understand the form more clearly, it is best to take one and dissect it, thereby showing its structure. To avoid mutilating a master’s work, and possibly misinterpreting it, I will take one in my possession, not yet published, printing it, not as it would be, but displayed (to use a technical term), thereby exaggerating the emphasis with which the writer intended it should be read.

“A WAVERER.

She has a _primrose_ at her breast:
I almost wish I were a Tory.
_I_ like the Radicals the best,
_SHE_ has a primrose at _HER_ breast,
Now is it chance she so is drest?
Or must I tell a story?
She _HAS_ a primrose at her breast:
I almost _wish_ I _WERE_ a Tory.”

Here we see the whole is a soliloquy in the historic present tense. The first two lines explain the incident, the third the speaker’s own comment on it, noting in the fourth how it differs from his own opinion. In the fifth he meditates on the reason which has affected him. In the sixth he wavers between insincerity and politeness or truth and the chance of conveying a sense of unfriendliness; while in the last he concludes that it is a fact they differ, and, still undecided in action, wishes the reason had not existed so that he might sincerely agree with the supposed Primrose lady, and avoid feigning a political acquiescence of opinion. So trifling an incident will not bear analysis on its own merits, and is merely dwelt on to explain the structure of the verse.

A triolet should be complete in itself. In a very able article in the _Cornhill Magazine_ (July, 1877) Mr. E. W. Gosse points out the danger of a fascinating tendency to connect a sequence of triolets. The constant recurrence of the lines would soon become fatally monotonous. One or two at the most are bearable.

A typical pair appeared in a number of _The Century_ (January, 1883). Thoroughly American, they show well, first the half-bantering, half-real feeling of the poet, artificial in expression, yet not altogether untrue, while her answer shows the American girl pure and simple, the conventional courtesy of the first being happily balanced by the naïve frankness of the second.

“WHAT HE SAID.

This kiss upon your fan I press—
Ah! Sainte Nitouche, you don’t refuse it?
And may it from its soft recess—
This kiss upon your fan I press—
Be blown to you a shy caress,
By this white down, whene’er you use it,
This kiss upon your fan I press—
Ah! Sainte Nitouche, you don’t refuse it.”

“WHAT SHE THOUGHT.

To kiss a fan!
What a poky poet!
The stupid man,
To kiss a fan,
When he knows that—he—can,
Or ought to know it—
To kiss a _fan_!
What a poky poet!”

_Harrison Robertson._

Yet another American one, by H. C. Bumer, may be quoted to show a subject not at first sight so suitable to the triolet form.

“A pitcher of mignonette,
In a tenement’s highest casement;
Queer sort of a flowerpot, yet
That pitcher of mignonette
Is a garden in heaven set,
To the little sick child in the basement,
A pitcher of mignonette,
In the tenement’s highest casement.”

If space allowed there are other dainty flowerets to be culled from this bunch of French exotics, which seem to be cultivated more in America than at home at present. None of our greater poets has, I think, published a triolet. The influence of this form is seen in Mr. Swinburne’s oft-quoted poem, “A Match” (If love were what the rose is); and Longfellow has an evident translation of one, although he has not followed strictly the peculiar repetition of the lines.

But many of our younger poets have published triolets. Mr. Austin Dobson is _facile princeps_ in this form (as indeed in nearly all these Provençal rhythms), while Mr. John Payne and Mr. Andrew Lang rarely if ever use it, although rondeaux and ballades are very frequent in their volumes. Miss Pfeiffer has used it once. Miss A. Mary F. Robinson has a very charming triolet sequence “Fiametta,” which almost reconciles one to the connected triolet. But two or three variations from the strict form, while relieving the monotony of the poem, prove yet more strongly the truth of the warning given by Mr. Gosse. Miss May Probyn in her volume a “Ballad of the Road,” has several good specimens, and here and there among periodical literature sufficient are to be found to warrant a hope that the dainty little epigrammatic verse may yet pass into accepted currency, and supply for epigram or pretty trifling fancies the place the sonnet has acquired for the presentation of stately images and profound thought. While the very care with which the accepted form may be filled up appears at first sight to augur great popularity, probably that very reason has made writers more cautious in using it, since it can be so quickly abused and made unbearable doggerel, unless the recurring lines have a reasonable pretext for their repetition. Finally, a word of advice to those who attempt a triolet. Choose a slight, fanciful incident; let the rhymes be exact and easy; and be content with the “suggestion” (which, like a clever sketch) it gives of some trivial event or idea, avoiding complex subjects or too deep thoughts, for which the form is not well suited.

(_To be concluded._)

VARIETIES.

WHAT IS DEATH?

There is no death! What seems so is transition;
This life of mortal breath
Is but the suburb of the life elysian,
Whose portal we call death.

—_Longfellow._

AN APPROVING CONSCIENCE.—The most exquisite of human satisfactions flows from an approving conscience.

AIMING AT PERFECTION.—Aim at perfection in everything, though in most things it is unattainable. However, they who aim at it and persevere will come much nearer to it than those whose laziness and despondency make them give it up as unattainable.

CULTIVATING THE MIND.—The mind is but a barren soil—a soil which is soon exhausted and will produce no crop, or only one, unless it be continually fertilised and enriched with foreign matter.

PLAIN PROOFS.—Ungraceful attitudes and actions and a certain left-handedness (if I may use that word) loudly proclaim low education and low company.—_Chesterfield._

TOO AMIABLE.—There are many women who would be very amiable if they could only lose sight for a little of the fact that they are so.

THE IMPORTANCE OF FOOD.—The question of food lies at the foundation of all other questions. There is no mind, no work, no health, without food; and just as we are fed defectively and improperly, so are our frames developed in a way unfitted to secure that greatest of earthly blessings—a sound mind in a sound body.—_Dr. Lankester._

KEEPING SECRETS.—A man is more faithful in keeping the secrets of others than his own; a woman, on the contrary, keeps her own secrets better than those of others.—_La Bruyere._

NOT A BAD MATCH.

An attorney brought in an immense bill to a lady for some business he had done for her. The lady, to whom he had once paid his addresses, murmured at the charges.

“Madam,” replied the limb of the law, “I wanted to convince you that my profession is lucrative, and that I should not have been a bad match.”

WAYS OF THE WISE.—Philosophic-minded people hanker not after what is unattainable, are not inclined to grieve after what is lost, nor are they perplexed even in calamities.

BY MEDICUS.]

Of the thousand and one ills—the word “one” signifying “all the rest”—that afflict humanity, young and old, by far the larger proportion are what may be called chronic troubles. And I do not refer to any particular or decided form of illness, but when I say “chronic,” I mean the term to relate to people who are seldom overwell, who are easily tired, subject to fits of low spirits, have but small inclination for the exercise which they know they need, who have at times no pleasure in other folks’ society, and none in their own, whose stomachs are easily put out of order, who do not always sleep as well as they would wish to, whose systems are dry and irregular generally, who suffer at times from headache, at times from backache, and at times from aches all over.

What a tremendously long sentence I have just written! It almost frightens me to look back at it. Well, this class of complainers—for if they do not complain to others they do so to themselves quietly, and have fancies that all the world is heartless and cold, and a dozen other things that “it didn’t houghter to be,” as the old charwoman said—this class, I say, are nearly always work-a-day girls; I do not refer altogether to manual labour, but to businesses that necessitate a good deal of mental thought and calculation. But many belong also to this class, who have nothing at all to do, and whose minds might be said to be preying on their constitutions.

Well, at all events, there they are, these chronically poorly people. They will not admit that there is anything very much the matter with them, but at the same time no class of sufferers have a sharper eye for the advertisement of some infallible nostrum, that is going to banish sickness from this world entirely, or a sharper ear to listen to any suggested remedy, no matter who it is that recommends it. It may be an old wife’s cure. That does not signify; they simply console themselves with the belief that old wives often know a deal more than doctors, and swallow the compound.

Now let me tell this class of invalids: I. That medicines are probably not wanted at all in such complaints as theirs. II. That medicine of any kind often does more harm than good. III. That it is folly to think or believe that a complaint which has lasted perhaps months, can be charmed away in a day or two by the best doctor in life. For the time a cure takes must bear some proportion to the time the complaint has lasted. I wish you to pin your faith on those facts, and bear them in mind.

If it be true that in nearly all cases of the chronic debility I refer to—and I sincerely believe it is true—the blood-making process is primarily at fault, then, before we can remove the symptoms, it is evident we must attend to the cause. And to do so we must go to the fountain-head from which all the evil flows, and this will be found to be the stomach. In other words, these chronic complaints—with all their aches and rheums and pains, bad sleep, lowness of spirits, fluttering at the heart, palpitations, and what are termed “indescribable feelings”—may be due to a kind of dyspepsia. The system is wholly too sluggish; the liver is inactive, and consequently the heart itself is weak, and being unable to supply the brain and nervous system generally with good, honest, life-giving blood, all kinds of symptoms may occur. These are often called imaginary, but they are real enough, for all that.

I have said that the taking of medicine may do actual harm. Have we any substitute? Yes; and we find it in the use of vegetables and fruit, both of which are very much neglected.

These supply the blood with certain salts of a cooling nature, and without which the principal internal vital organs are unable to secrete material to keep the system regular.

Very often these organs act with great irregularity, or by fits and starts, so that we may have a patient complaining of two different states of system in the same week.

Now, it is possible that the reader of these lines is not to be ranked among the rich, who keep one, two, three, or more gardeners, but that still she lives in the country, and is in possession of a patch of kitchen-garden. If so, I seriously advise that it should be turned to the very best account. I do not wish this to be thought a gardening article, but, nevertheless, I ought, for health’s sake, to throw out a hint or two about the vegetables that ought to be grown for health’s sake, and I will leave it for others to say how this green food is to be cooked.

Ladies are fond of doing a bit of flower-gardening, but, as a rule, they abjure the cultivation of vegetables, or they know nothing really about it. It is a pity this should be so, for the kitchen-garden, if not a large one, certainly does not entail a deal of hard work, and the work is of a sort most conducive to health.

I shall suppose that you have secured the services of some “male creature,” in, say, the month of February or March, to do the first or rough work—the turning over of the ground with the spade—and that he has secured sufficient richness of the soil, and done his work well, and left it level, and that you yourself are to sow the seeds.

Under your own superintendence, then, the beds are mapped out, the width of each being exactly the same (say six feet), and their length equal to the breadth of the plot of ground to be under cultivation. Between each bed there is formed a hollow division or path about a foot wide, and the beds are not to encroach upon the borders round, which are sacred to gooseberry bushes, rose-trees, flowers, and currants, black and red.

Choose a fine, sunny day to sow your seeds. First rake your beds most levelly and carefully, not leaving a ball of earth even an inch in diameter. When well raked they should be as level as a dining-room table, not all in little heaps, as if the Cochins had been scraping them.

Make the drills—by aid of a garden line and foot rule—with the back of the rake, and not more than an inch and a half deep, each drill to be nine inches apart; put peas in two rows, only six inches apart, and a foot and a half between each double row. This foot and a half may seem a waste of ground, but it need not be so, as in the centres you can put a drill of summer spinach.

Having sown your seeds, rake the ground gingerly and tenderly, filling up the little drills, and making each bed a thing of beauty. About two weeks or less after this, it really will be a thing of beauty, for I know of few prettier sights in a garden on a lovely spring day than rows of green seedlings that have just burst through the earth. You can watch them grow day by day, and listen to the birds singing at the same time. If the weather is propitious they will soon want thinning, and for a week or two your work will be cut out for you. Do not say you can ill spare the time. It will be time saved and health gained. Rise in the morning and work an hour before breakfast, and do a little more in the evening. In thinning the plants, leave in the best and biggest, and let there be six to nine inches between each. Pluck all the weeds out at the same time, and put weedings and thinnings all in a small basket; I say small basket, because there is no room for a big one between the beds, and no mark must be left of foot or anything else on the bed itself.

I can assure readers that work like this may be done by the most dainty fingers, and that it will restore the bloom to lips and cheeks, however pale these were before. You may wear what you like and look as charming as you please when gardening; thus, so long as you do the work honestly, you may wear the most dainty hats and gloves, and have a mahogany handle to your hoe if so minded, though, between you and me, six-button kid gloves are not the best suited for weeding onions in.

The great advantage in growing one’s own vegetables is that one can always have them fresh. Lettuces cool, green, and tender; potatoes laughing from the mould, and peas with the drops of morning dew still lingering inside their pods.

That is all I mean to say about gardening; if you wish to learn more, buy a book, and study it, only I can promise you health if you adopt gardening as an exercise and a hobby.

But you must partake of the fruits of your labour; and this leads me to say a few words about the benefits to the health of a partly vegetable diet. Remember, I am not a vegetarian, but I can tell you as a fact that you could live far longer on vegetables alone than you could upon meat alone.

Potatoes come first. No dinner—or to my thinking, no luncheon either—is complete without them.

Some interesting papers in the early part of this volume gave hints as to the cooking of potatoes. Let me add another. To the delicate no vegetable is more difficult of complete digestion if not boiled to a nicety, but they ought to be mashed as well, and I do not think I ever saw them properly mashed at an English table. They ought to be as smooth and white as custard, though not so thin, otherwise little lumps remain, which, even if no bigger than a pea, are most indigestible, and never fail to create unpleasantness afterwards.

Done as the French do them, namely, fried in oil, they are also indigestible.

Potatoes are not only most nutritious, but are calmative to the nerves, and to some extent, narcotic, especially new potatoes.

A potato salad—lettuces included—is a most valuable adjunct to a supper dish.

We have to learn from the Scotch how to serve potatoes, and we must also cross the Border to find out the most delicious and digestible form in which to serve ordinary green vegetables. These include cabbages, curly greens, sprouting broccoli, savoys, turnip-tops, spinach, and kale of all kinds; and all these should be mashed for the delicate, the strongest portions of midribs being taken out, and a little butter and salt well mixed with them in the mashing. They should be served hot, and eaten off a hot plate with a little bread, as a dish, before any meat has been partaken of.

In this way we not only get their full flavour, but the greatest benefit to the blood from their use.

Next in point of value to the delicate come cauliflowers and Brussels sprouts. These need not be mashed, but ought to be used as a dish, with a little bread and butter. The same may be said of seakale.

No one should omit having half-a-dozen times at least during the early spring months a dish of nicely-cooked nettle-tops.

Nettle-tops should be very young and tender. Only those of a light spring-green colour are to be culled. They possess the same properties—of a blood-purifying order—that asparagus does.

Watercresses may usually be had all the year round, and are far more valuable than most people would imagine; but I desire to warn my readers against eating them unless very well washed indeed, as the eggs of certain parasites sometimes cling to their leaves.

Parsley is not over-digestible, but if it agrees it will do the blood good, and help to cool and sweeten the system.

Beetroot is invaluable to all who suffer from indigestion, with a dry condition of the body.

As to roots, besides the potato, which ought to go with everything, we have turnips, parsnips, and carrots. On these we can ring the changes. But the same rule as to serving applies to them as to ordinary green vegetables. Let them be carefully boiled, then well mashed, butter and salt being mixed.

There are many other vegetables that I have not space here to say a word about; but as, with the Editor’s kind permission, I may have an autumn or late summer paper on garden herbs and their dietary and medicinal values, I can then mention those I have here omitted.

I have not said what I wanted to about fruit either; but the delicate should not let a day pass without using it in some form. Especially is it of great value before breakfast.

As to onions and all vegetables of that sort, while I admit their great value and efficacy in chronic complaints, I must bid you beware. Use them only if they can be easily digested and leave no dryness in the throat or taste in the mouth next day.

Now from this paper I hope many will adopt valuable hints. If they do, they will be rewarded with obtaining purer blood in their veins, stronger nerves, and a happier frame of body and mind altogether.

MERLE’S CRUSADE.

BY ROSA NOUCHETTE CAREY, Author of “Aunt Diana,” “For Lilias,” etc.