Chapter III: A Gentleman (1)

In a Gallery

Portrait of a Lady (Unknown)

By Katharine de Mattos

Veiled eyes, yet quick to meet one glance
Not his, not yours, but _mine_,
Lips that are fain to stir and breathe
Dead joys (not love nor wine):
'Tis not in _you_ the secret lurks
That makes men pause and pass!

Did unseen magic flow from you
Long since to madden hearts,
And those who loathed remain to pray
And work their dolorous parts--
To seek your riddle, dread or sweet,
And find it in the grave?

Till some one painted you one day,
Perchance to ease his soul,
And set you here to weave your spells
While time and silence roll;
And you were hungry for the hour
When one should understand?

Your jewelled fingers writhe and gleam
From out your sombre vest;
Am I the first of those who gaze,
Who may their meaning guess,
Yet dare not whisper lest the words
Pale even painted cheeks?

The Yellow Book

A Criticism of Volume I

By Philip Gilbert Hamerton, LL.D.

I--The Literature

The Editor and Publishers of THE YELLOW BOOK, who seem to know the value of originality in all things, have conceived the entirely novel idea of publishing in the current number of their quarterly, a review in two parts of the number immediately preceding it, one part to deal with the literature, and another to criticise the illustrations.

I notice that on the cover of THE YELLOW BOOK the literary contributions are described simply as "Letterpress." This seems rather unfortunate, because "letterpress" is usually understood to mean an inferior kind of writing, which is merely an accompaniment to something else, such as engravings, or even maps. Now, in THE YELLOW BOOK the principle seems to be that one kind of contribution should _not_ be made subordinate to another; the drawings and the writings are, in fact, independent. Certainly the writings are composed without the slightest pre-occupation concerning the work of the graphic artists, and the draughtsmen do not illustrate the inventions of the scribes. This independence of the two arts is favourable to excellence in both, besides making the business of the Editor much easier, and giving him more liberty of choice.

The literary contributions include poetry, fiction, short dramatic scenes, and one or two essays. The Editor evidently attaches much greater importance to creative than to critical literature, in which he is unquestionably right, provided only that the work which claims to be creative is inspired by a true genius for invention. The admission of poetry in more than usual quantity does not surprise us, when we reflect that THE YELLOW BOOK is issued by a publishing house which has done more than any other for the encouragement of modern verse. It is the custom to profess contempt for minor poets, and all versifiers of our time except Tennyson and Swinburne are classed as minor poets by critics who shrink from the effort of reading metrical compositions. The truth is that poetry and painting are much more nearly on a level in this respect than people are willing to admit. Many a painter and many a poet has delicate perceptions and a cultivated taste without the gigantic creative force that is necessary to greatness in his art.

Mr. Le Gallienne's "Tree-Worship" is full of the sylvan sense, the delight in that forest life which we can scarcely help believing to be conscious. It contains some perfect stanzas and some magnificent verses. As a stanza nothing can be more perfect than the fourth on page 58, and the fourth on the preceding page begins with a rarely powerful line. The only weak points in the poem are a few places in which even poetic truth has not been perfectly observed. For example, in the first line on page 58, the heart of the tree is spoken of as being remarkable for its softness, a new and unexpected characteristic in heart of oak. On the following page the tree is described as a green and welcome "coast" to the sea of air. No single tree has extent enough to be a coast of the air-ocean; at most it is but a tiny green islet therein. In the last stanza but one Mr. Le Gallienne speaks of "the roar of sap." This conveys the idea of a noisy torrent, whereas the marvel of sap is that it is steadily forced upwards through a mass of wood by a quietly powerful pressure. I dislike the fallacious theology of the last stanza as being neither scientific nor poetical. Mr. Benson's little poem, [Greek: Daimonizomenos], is lightly and cleverly versified, and tells the story of a change of temper, almost of nature, in very few words. The note of Mr. Watson's two sonnets is profoundly serious, even solemn, and the workmanship firm and strong; the reader may observe, in the second sonnet, the careful preparation for the last line and the force with which it strikes upon the ear. Surely there is nothing frivolous or fugitive in such poetry as this! I regret the publication of "Stella Maris" by Mr. Arthur Symons; the choice of the title is in itself offensive. It is taken from one of the most beautiful hymns to the Holy Virgin (Ave, maris stella!), and applied to a London street-walker, as a star in the dark sea of urban life. We know that the younger poets make art independent of morals, and certainly the two have no necessary connection; but why should poetic art be employed to celebrate common fornication? Rossetti's "Jenny" set the example, diffusely enough.

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 classical spirit. Mr. John Davidson's two songs are sketches in town and country, impressionist sketches well done in a laconic and suggestive fashion. 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 Dickens appear to have been utterly natural in their conduct, "flighty, gushing, blushing, fainting, giggling, and shaking their curls." Much of that conduct may have been as artificial as the curls themselves, and assumed only to attract attention. Ladies used to faint on the slightest pretext, not because it was natural but because it was the fashion; when it ceased to be the fashion 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 sexual 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 apron-strings. It is rather French than English in the assumption 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-Glass," 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, associates the wines in a cellar with the loves and friendships 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 _bibliothèque_, meaning that he values its lore as preferable to that of scholarship; but Mr. Saintsbury's Falernianus associates 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 Illustrations

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 illustration 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 æsthetic point of view not so good as a quiet mixed tint might have been; however, it gives a title to the publication and associates itself so perfectly with the title that it has a sufficient _raison d'être_, 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 classed 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 illustrations (full of exquisite ornamental invention) to Mr. Oscar Wilde's "Salome." We have two unpleasant ones here in "l'Éducation 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 title-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 title-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 attitude 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 cluster at their feet. The subject is dealt with rather in the spirit of Dürer, but with a more supple and more modern kind of skill. It is topography, though probably with considerable artistic liberty. I notice one of Dürer'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 masses 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 attitude 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 space 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 noble gravity, and it shows a severity of taste not common in the portraiture of our time; it is essentially a distinguished work. Mr. Nettleship 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 Minòs 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 illustrations 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 assistance 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.

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 worship 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 fashion,
I think, in thy compassion,
Thou wilt forgive,
Since I but _dream_, and since my heart will ache
When I awake.

Madame Réjane

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 finishing 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 Réjane 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-duchess, 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 transmute 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 fashion 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 Réjane--the Parisienne: they are interchangeable terms. Whatever rôle 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 Réjane. Don't go to the Opéra, where the music is German; nor to the Opéra-Comique, where it is Italian; nor yet to the Comédie-Française, where the sublime is made ridiculous, and the heroes and heroines of Racine take on the attitudes of bull-fighters and cigarette-makers; nor to the Odéon, nor to the Palais-Royal, nor here, nor there, nor elsewhere: go and see Réjane. Be she at London, Chicago, Brussels, St. Petersburg--Réjane 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 Comédie-Française. 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 Réjane's real name is Réju. Doesn't it sound like a nick-name, especially invented for this child of the greenroom? "Réjane" calls up to us the fanciful actress--fanciful, but studious, conscientious, impassioned for her art; "Madame Réjane" has rather a grand air; but Réju makes such a funny face at her.

I picture to myself the little Réju, 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 class of Regnier, the famous _sociétaire_ of the Théâtre-Français. 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 passed, 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 pronounce 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 shine till his short sight has discovered it.

This puissant astronomer is Monsieur Francisque Sarcey.

Against his opinion the newspapers can raise no voice, for he alone edits them all. He writes thirty articles a day, each of which is thirty times reprinted, thrice thirty times quoted from. He is, as it were, the Press in person. And presently the momentous hour arrived when the delicate and sprightly pupil of Regnier was to appear before this enormous and somnolent mass, and to thrill it with pleasure. For Monsieur Sarcey smiled upon and applauded Réjane's début at the Conservatoire. He consecrated to her as many as fifty lines of intelligent criticism; and I pray Heaven they may be remembered to his credit on the Day of Judgment. Here they are, in that twopenny-halfpenny style of his, so dear to the readers of _Le Temps_.

"I own that, for my part, I should have willingly awarded to the
latter (Mademoiselle Réjane) a first prize. It seems to me that
she deserved it. But the Jury is frequently influenced by
extrinsic and private motives, into which it is not permitted to
pry. A first prize carries with it the right of entrance into the
Comédie Française; and the Jury did not think Mademoiselle
Réjane, with her little wide-awake face, suited to the vast frame
of the House of Molière. That is well enough; but the second
prize, which it awarded her, authorises the Director of the Odéon
to receive her into his Company; and that perspective alone ought
to have sufficed to dissuade the Jury from the course it took....
Every one knows that at present the Odéon is, for a beginner, a
most indifferent school.... Instead of shoving its promising
pupils into it by the shoulders, the Conservatoire should forbid
them to approach it, lest they should be lost there. What will
Mademoiselle Réjane do at the Odéon? Show her legs in _La
Jeunesse de Louis XIV._, which is to be revived at the opening of
the season! A pretty state of things. She must either go to the
Vaudeville or to the Gymnase. It is there that she will form
herself; it is there that she will learn her trade, show what she
is capable of, and prepare herself for the Comédie Française, if
she is ever to enter it.... She recited a fragment from _Les
Trois Sultanes_.... I was delighted by her choice. The _Trois
Sultanes_ is so little known nowadays.... What wit there is in
her look, her smile! With her small eyes, shrewd and piercing,
with her little face thrust forward, she has so knowing an air,
one is inclined to smile at the mere sight of her. Does she
perhaps show a little too much assurance? What of it? 'Tis the
result of excessive timidity. But she laughs with such good
grace, she has so fresh and true a voice, she articulates so
clearly, she seems so happy to be alive and to have talent, that
involuntarily one thinks of Chénier's line:

_Sa bienvenue au jour lui rit dans tous les yeux._

... I shall be surprised if she does not make her way."

Praised be Sarcey! That was better than a second prize for Réjane. The Oracle gave her the first, without dividing it. She got an immediate engagement; and in March, 1875, appeared on that stage where to-day she reigns supreme, the Vaudeville, to which she brought back the vaudeville that was no longer played there. She began by alienating the heart of Alphonse Daudet, who, while recognising her clever delivery, found fault with her unemotional gaiety; but, in compensation, another authoritative critic, Auguste Vitu, wrote, after the performance of _Pierre_: "Mademoiselle Réjane showed herself full of grace and feeling. She rendered Gabrielle's despair with a naturalness, a brilliancy, a spontaneity, which won a most striking success."

Shall I follow her through each of her creations, from her début in _La Revue des Deux-Mondes_, up to her supreme triumph in _Madame Sans-Gêne_? Shall I show her as the sly soubrette in _Fanny Lear_? as the woman in love, "whose ignorance divines all things," in _Madame Lili_? as the comical Marquise de Menu-Castel in _Le Verglas_? Shall I tell of her first crowning success, when she played Gabrielle in _Pierre_? Shall I recall her stormy interpretation of Madame de Librac, in _Le Club_? and her dramatic conception of the part of Ida?--which quite reversed the previous judgments of her critics, wringing praise from her enemy Daudet, and censure from her faithful admirer Vitu. The natural order of things, however, was re-established by her performance of _Les Tapageurs_; again Daudet found her cold and lacking in tenderness; and Vitu again applauded.

Her successes at the Vaudeville extend from 1875 to 1882; and towards the end of that period, Réjane, always rising higher in her art, created Anita in _L'Auréole_ and the Baronne d'Oria in _Odette_. Next, forgetting her own traditions, she appeared at the Théâtre des Panoramas, and at the Ambigu, where she gave a splendid interpretation of Madame Cézambre in Richepin's _La Giu_; and at Les Variétés as Adrienne in _Ma Camarade_. Now fickle, now constant to her first love, she alternated between the Variétés and the Vaudeville; took an engagement at the Odéon; assisted at the birth and death of the Grand-Théâtre; and just lately the Vaudeville has won her back once more.

Amidst these perambulations, Réjane played the diva in _Clara Soleil_. The following year she had to take two different parts in the same play, those of Gabrielle and Clicquette in _Les Demoiselles Clochart_. Gabrielle is a cold and positive character; Clicquette a gay and mischievous one. Réjane kept them perfectly distinct, and without the smallest apparent effort. In 1887, she telephoned in _Allô-Allô_, and represented so clearly, by means of clever mimicry, the absurd answers of the apparatus, that from the gallery to the stalls the theatre was one roar of laughter and applause; I fancy the salvoes and broadsides must still sometimes echo in her delicate ears.

Réjane's part in _M. de Morat_ should not be forgotten; nor above all, the inimitable perfection of her play in _Décoré_ (1888). Sarcey's exultation knew no bounds when, in 1890, she again appeared in this rôle. Time, that had metamorphosed the lissom critic of 1875 into a round and inert mass of solid flesh, cruel Father Time, gave back to Sarcey, for this occasion only, a flash of youthful fire, which stirred his wits to warmth and animation. He shouted out hardly articulate praise; he literally rolled in his stall with pleasure; his bald head blushed like an aurora borealis. "Look at her!" he cried, "see her malicious smiles, her feline graces, listen to her reserved and biting diction; she is the very essence of the Parisienne! What an ovation she received! How they applauded her! and how she played!" From M. Sarcey the laugh spreads; it thaws the scepticism of M. Jules Lemaître, engulfs the timidity of the public, becomes unanimous and universal, and is no longer to be silenced.

In 1888, M. Edmond de Goncourt entrusted Réjane with the part of _Germinie Lacerteux_. On the first night, a furious battle against the author was waged in the house. Réjane secured the victory _sans peur et sans reproches_.

Everything in her inspires the certitude of success; her voice aims at the heart, her gestures knock at it. Réjane confides all to the hazard of the dice; her sudden attacks are of the most dare-devil nature; and no matter how risky, how dangerous, how extravagant the jump, she never loses her footing; her play is always correct, her handling sure, her coolness imperturbable. It was impossible to watch her precipitate herself down the staircase in _La Glu_ without a tremble. And fifteen years before Yvette Guilbert, it was Réjane who first had the audacity to sing with a voice that was no voice, making wit and gesture more than cover the deficiency. In _Ma Cousine_, Réjane introduced on the boards of Les Variétés a bit of dancing such as one sees at the Elysée-Montmartre; she seized on and imitated the grotesque effrontery of Mademoiselle Grille-d'Egout, and her little arched foot flying upwards, brushed a kiss upon the forehead of her model; for Réjane the "grand écart" may be fatal, perhaps, but it is neither difficult nor terrifying.

Once more delighting us with _Marquise_ in 1889; playing with such child-like grace the Candidate in _Brevet Supérieur_ in 1891; immediately afterwards she took a part in _Amoureuse_ at the Odéon. The subject is equivocal, the dialogue smutty. Réjane extenuated nothing; on the contrary, accentuated things, and yet knew always how to win her pardon.

Now, it so happened that in 1882, after having personified the Moulin-Rouge in _Les Variétés de Paris_, Réjane was married on the stage, in _La Nuit de Noces de P. L. M._, to P. L. Moriseau. On the anniversary day, ten years later, her marriage took place in good earnest, before a real M. le Maire, and according to all legal formalities, with M. Porel, a sometime actor, an ex-director of the Odéon, then director of the Grand-Théâtre, and co-director to-day of the Vaudeville.... But to return to her art.

Just as the first dressmakers of Paris measure Réjane's fine figure for the costumes of her various rôles, so the best writers of the French Academy now make plays to her measure. They take the size of her temperament, the height of her talent, the breadth of her play; they consider her taste, they flatter her mood; they clothe her with the richest draperies she can covet. Their imagination, their fancy, their cleverness, are all put at her service. The leaders in this industry have hitherto been Messrs. Meilhac and Halévy, but now M. Victorien Sardou is ruining them. _Madame Sans-Gêne_ is certainly, of all the rôles Réjane has played, that best suited to bring out her manifold resources. It is not merely that Réjane plays the washerwoman, become a great lady, without blemish or omission; she is Madame Sans-Gêne herself, with no overloading, nothing forced, nothing caricatured. It is portraiture; history.

Many a time has Réjane appeared in cap, cotton frock, and white apron; many a time in robes of state, glittering with diamonds; she has worn the buskin or the sock, demeaned herself like a gutter heroine, or dropped the stately curtsey of the high-born lady. But never, except in Madame Sans-Gêne, has she been able to bring all her rôles into one focus, exhibit her whole wardrobe, and yet remain one and the same person, compress into one evening the whole of her life.

The seekers after strange novelties, the fanatics for the mists of the far north, the vague, the irresolute, the restless, will not easily forget the Ibsenish mask worn by Réjane in Nora of _The Doll's House_; although most of us, loving Réjane for herself, probably prefer to this vacillating creation, the firm drawing, the clear design, the strong, yet supple lines of Madame Sans-Gêne.

Why has Réjane no engagement at the Comédie-Française? Whom does one go to applaud on this stage, called the first in France, and from which Réjane, Sarah Bernhardt, and Coquelin the elder, all are absent? I will explain the matter in two words.

The house of Molière, for many years now, has belonged to Molière no more. Were Molière to come to life again, neither he nor Réjane would go to eat their hearts out, with inaction and dulness, beneath the wings of M. Jules Claretie--although he is, of course, a very estimable gentleman. Were Réjane unmarried, Molière to-day would enter into partnership with her, because she is in herself the entire Comédie-Française. I have already said she is married to M. Porel, director of the Vaudeville, where she reigns as Queen. I am quite unable to see any reason why she should soon desert such a fortunate conjugal domicile.

Notwithstanding the dryness and the rapidity of this enumeration of Réjane's rôles, I hope to have given some general idea of the marvellous diversity and flexibility of her dramatic spirit and temperament; it seems to me that the most searching criticism of her various creations, would not greatly enhance the accuracy of the picture. This is why I make no attempt to describe her in some three or four parts of an entirely different character. Besides, I should have to draw on hearsay; and I desire to trust only to my own eyes, my own heart. Needless to say, I have not had the good luck to see Madame Réjane in each of her characterisations since her first appearance. Her youthful air has never changed; but I have only had the opportunity of admiring it during the last few years. I confidently maintain, however, that she could not have been more charming in 1875 than she is to-day, with the devil in her body, heaven in her eyes.

A Girl Resting

By Sydney Adamson

The Roman Road

By Kenneth Grahame

All the roads of our neighbourhood were cheerful and friendly, having each of them pleasant qualities of its own; but this one seemed different from the others in its masterful suggestion of a serious purpose, speeding you along with a strange uplifting of the heart. The others tempted chiefly with their treasures of hedge and ditch; the rapt surprise of the first lords-and-ladies, the rustle of a field-mouse, splash of a frog; while cool noses of brother-beasts were pushed at you through gate or gap. A loiterer you had need to be, did you choose one of them; so many were the tiny hands thrust out to detain you, from this side and that. But this other was of a sterner sort, and even in its shedding off of bank and hedgerow as it marched straight and full for the open downs, it seemed to declare its contempt for adventitious trappings to catch the shallow-pated. When the sense of injustice or disappointment was heavy on me, and things were very black within, as on this particular day, the road of character was my choice for that solitary ramble when I turned my back for an afternoon on a world that had unaccountably declared itself against me.

"The Knight's Road" we children had named it, from a sort of feeling that, if from any quarter at all, it would be down this track we might some day see Lancelot and his peers come pacing on their great war-horses; supposing that any of the stout band still survived, in nooks and unexplored places. Grown-up people sometimes spoke of it as the "Pilgrim's Way"; but I didn't know much about pilgrims--except Walter in the Horselburg story. Him I sometimes saw, breaking with haggard eyes out of yonder copse, and calling to the pilgrims as they hurried along on their desperate march to the Holy City, where peace and pardon were awaiting them. "All roads lead to Rome," I had once heard somebody say; and I had taken the remark very seriously, of course, and puzzled over it many days. There must have been some mistake, I concluded at last; but of one road at least I intuitively felt it to be true. And my belief was clinched by something that fell from Miss Smedley during a history-lesson, about a strange road that ran right down the middle of England till it reached the coast, and then began again in France, just opposite, and so on undeviating, through city and vineyard, right from the misty Highlands to the Eternal City. Uncorroborated, any statement of Miss Smedley's usually fell on incredulous ears; but here, with the road itself in evidence, she seemed, once in a way, to have strayed into truth.

Rome! It was fascinating to think that it lay at the other end of this white ribbon that rolled itself off from my feet over the distant downs. I was not quite so uninstructed as to imagine I could reach it that afternoon; but some day, I thought, if things went on being as unpleasant as they were now--some day, when Aunt Eliza had gone on a visit--we would see.

I tried to imagine what it would be like when I got there. The Coliseum I knew, of course, from a woodcut in the history-book: so to begin with I plumped that down in the middle. The rest had to be patched up from the little grey market-town where twice a year we went to have our hair cut; hence, in the result, Vespasian's amphitheatre was approached by muddy little streets, wherein the Red Lion and the Blue Boar, with Somebody's Entire along their front, and "Commercial Room" on their windows; the doctor's house, of substantial red-brick; and the façade of the new Wesleyan chapel, which we thought very fine, were the chief architectural ornaments: while the Roman populace pottered about in smocks and corduroys, twisting the tails of Roman calves and inviting each other to beer in musical Wessex. From Rome I drifted on to other cities, dimly heard of--Damascus, Brighton, (Aunt Eliza's ideal), Athens, and Glasgow, whose glories the gardener sang; but there was a certain sameness in my conception of all of them: that Wesleyan chapel would keep cropping up everywhere. It was easier to go a-building among those dream-cities where no limitations were imposed, and one was sole architect, with a free hand. Down a delectable street of cloud-built palaces I was mentally pacing, when I happened upon the Artist.

He was seated at work by the roadside, at a point whence the cool large spaces of the downs, juniper-studded, swept grandly westwards. His attributes proclaimed him of the artist tribe: besides, he wore knickerbockers like myself. I knew I was not to bother him with questions, nor look over his shoulder and breathe in his ear--they didn't like it, this _genus irritabile_; but there was nothing about staring in my code of instructions, the point having somehow been overlooked: so, squatting down on the grass, I devoted myself to a passionate absorbing of every detail. At the end of five minutes there was not a button on him that I could not have passed an examination in; and the wearer himself of that home-spun suit was probably less familiar with its pattern and texture than I was. Once he looked up, nodded, half held out his tobacco pouch, mechanically as it were, then, returning it to his pocket, resumed his work, and I my mental photography.

After another five minutes or so had passed he remarked, without looking my way: "Fine afternoon we're having: going far to-day?"

"No, I'm not going any farther than this," I replied: "I _was_ thinking of going on to Rome: but I've put it off."

"Pleasant place, Rome," he murmured: "you'll like it." It was some minutes later that he added: "But I wouldn't go just now, if I were you: too jolly hot."

"_You_ haven't been to Rome, have you?" I inquired.

"Rather," he replied briefly: "I live there."

This was too much, and my jaw dropped as I struggled to grasp the fact that I was sitting there talking to a fellow who lived in Rome. Speech was out of the question: besides I had other things to do. Ten solid minutes had I already spent in an examination of him as a mere stranger and artist; and now the whole thing had to be done over again, from the changed point of view. So I began afresh, at the crown of his soft hat, and worked down to his solid British shoes, this time investing everything with the new Roman halo; and at last I managed to get out: "But you don't really live there, do you?" never doubting the fact, but wanting to hear it repeated.

"Well," he said, good-naturedly overlooking the slight rudeness of my query, "I live there as much as I live anywhere. About half the year sometimes. I've got a sort of a shanty there. You must come and see it some day."

"But do you live anywhere else as well?" I went on, feeling the forbidden tide of questions surging up within me.

"O yes, all over the place," was his vague reply. "And I've got a diggings somewhere off Piccadilly."

"Where's that?" I inquired.

"Where's what?" said he. "Oh, Piccadilly! It's in London."

"Have you a large garden?" I asked; "and how many pigs have you got?"

"I've no garden at all," he replied sadly, "and they don't allow me to keep pigs, though I'd like to, awfully. It's very hard."

"But what do you do all day, then," I cried, "and where do you go and play, without any garden, or pigs, or things?"

"When I want to play," he said gravely, "I have to go and play in the street; but it's poor fun, I grant you. There's a goat, though, not far off, and sometimes I talk to him when I'm feeling lonely; but he's very proud."

"Goats _are_ proud," I admitted. "There's one lives near here, and if you say anything to him at all, he hits you in the wind with his head. You know what it feels like when a fellow hits you in the wind?"

"I do, well," he replied, in a tone of proper melancholy, and painted on.

"And have you been to any other places," I began again presently, "besides Rome and Piccy-what's-his-name?"

"Heaps," he said. "I'm a sort of Ulysses--seen men and cities, you know. In fact, about the only place I never got to was the Fortunate Island."

I began to like this man. He answered your questions briefly and to the point, and never tried to be funny. I felt I could be confidential with him.

"Wouldn't you like," I inquired, "to find a city without any people in it at all?"

He looked puzzled. "I'm afraid I don't quite understand," said he.

"I mean," I went on eagerly, "a city where you walk in at the gates, and the shops are all full of beautiful things, and the houses furnished as grand as can be, and there isn't anybody there whatever! And you go into the shops, and take anything you want--chocolates and magic-lanterns and injirubber balls--and there's nothing to pay; and you choose your own house and live there and do just as you like, and never go to bed unless you want to!"

The artist laid down his brush. "That _would_ be a nice city," he said. "Better than Rome. You can't do that sort of thing in Rome--or in Piccadilly either. But I fear it's one of the places I've never been to."

"And you'd ask your friends," I went on, warming to my subject; "only those whoyou really like, of course; and they'd each have a house to themselves--there'd be lots of houses, and no relations at all, unless they promised they'd be pleasant, and if they weren't they'd have to go."

"So you wouldn't have any relations?" said the artist. "Well, perhaps you're right. We have tastes in common, I see."

"I'd have Harold," I said reflectively, "and Charlotte. They'd like it awfully. The others are getting too old. Oh! and Martha--I'd have Martha to cook and wash up and do things. You'd like Martha. She's ever so much nicer than Aunt Eliza. She's my idea of a real lady."

"Then I'm sure I should like her," he replied heartily, "and when I come to--what do you call this city of yours? Nephelo--something, did you say!"

"I--I don't know," I replied timidly. "I'm afraid it hasn't got a name--yet."