Usable according to the Creative Commons License Attribution Non-commercial Share-alike.
Our editorial method is informed by social-text editing principles. By “text” we mean verbal and visual printed material, including non-referential physical elements such as bindings, page layouts, and ornaments. We view any text as the outcome of collaborative processes that have specific manifestations at precise historical moments. The Yellow Nineties Online publishes facsimile editions of a select collection of fin-de- siècle aesthetic periodicals, together with paratexts of production and reception such as cover designs, advertising materials, and reviews. This historical material is enhanced by two kinds of peer-reviewed scholarly commentary: biographies of the periodicals’ contributors and associates; and critical introductions to each title and volume by experts in the field. All scholarly material on the site is vetted by the editor(s) and peer- reviewed by them and/or an international board of advisors. The site as a whole is peer- reviewed by NINES (Networked Infrastructure for Nineteenth-Century Electronic Scholarship). Contributors to the site retain personal copyright in their material. The site is licensed with a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 license. Both primary and secondary materials, including all visual images, are marked up in TEI- (Textual-Encoding Initiative) compliant XML (Extensible Markup Language). To ensure maximum flexibility for users, magazines are available on the site as virtual objects (facsimiles) in FlipBook form; in HTML for online reading; in PDF for downloading and collecting; and in XML for those who wish to review and/or adapt our tag sets. In order to make ornamental devices, such as initial letters, head- and tail- pieces, searchable, we have developed a Database of Ornament in OMEKA, and linked it to the relevant pages of each magazine edition. As a dynamic structure, a scholarly website is always in process; Phase One of The Yellow Nineties Online (2010-2015) is completed and Phase Two (2016-2021) is underway.
PAGAN REVIEW
SIC TRANSIT
GLORIA GRUNDI.
* As the circulation of
the number of subscribers, and as no special effort is to be made
to
attract "the general reader," the only sure way of obtaining
copies, as well as
of assisting the venture, is by subscription in
advance.
SUBSCRIPTION: Each number, 9d. ; Despatch, 3d.
⁂ All who remit one shilling for this first number can be
registered as
Subscribers for One Year on payment of 10 Shillings,
or for the Half-Year on
payment of 5 Shillings.
⁂ In the event of the Magazine not living to its allotted
term, such
portion of each Subscriber's remittance as shall not
have been taken over on
account of copies sent will be duly
returned.
pamphlet form of 64 pages.
practically have identified, or are identifying themselves with "the
younger men."
*
Name in Full: ________________________________________
Permanent Address: ___________________________________
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
For One Year _________________________________
For Six Months _______________________________
*
[If no wish to the contrary be expressed, any subscription remitted—
unless
remittance for current number be sent separately—will be understood
to include
this number: thus, a subscription for one year will be from and
inclusive of No.
I. (
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________
⁂ALL COMMUNICATIONS TO BE ADDRESSED TO THE ASSISTANT EDITOR:—
great stress on the effort of the directorate, and
all
concerned, to make the forthcoming periodical
popular.
added, any such intention. We aim at thorough-going
unpopularity: and
ther is every reason to believe
that, with the blessed who expect
little, we shall not be
disappointed.
pagan: pagan in sentiment, pagan in
convictions,
pagan in outlook. This being so, it is a magazine
only for those who, with Mr. George Meredith, can ex-
claim in all
sincerity—
not
unready to admit that truth to life, external and
internal, very
often
don't
say. "They", "the general public", care very
little about the "Muse" at
all; and the one thing they
never advocate of wish is that the "Muse"
should be so
indiscreet as to really withdraw from life the approved
veils of Convention.
numerically insignificant public to whom
REVIEW
will be to
reach those who, owing to various circum-
the most recent developments in the world of letters.
a good deal by its
title. The new paganism is a potent
leaven in the yeast of the "younger
generation", without
as yet having gained due recognition, or even any
suffi-
ciently apt and modern name, any scientific designation.
The
"new paganism," the "modern epicureanism," and
kindred appellations, are
more or less misleading. Yet,
with most of us, there is a fairly definite
idea of what
we signify thereby. The religion of our forefathers has
not only ceased for us personally, but is no longer in
any vital and
general sense a sovereign power in the
realm. It is still fruitful of vast
good, but it is none
the less a poer that was rather than a power that
is.
The ideals of our forefathers are not our ideals, except
where
the accidents of time and change can work no
havoc. A new epoch is about
to be inaugurated, is,
indeed, in many respects, already begun; a new
epoch
in civil law, in international comity, in what, vast
and
complete though the issues be, may be called
Human Economy. The long
half-acknowledged, half-
denied duel between Man and Woman is to
cease,
neither through the victory of hereditary overlordship
nor the
triumph of the far more deft and subtle if
less potent weapons of the
weaker, but through a frank
recognition of copartnery. This new
comradeship will
be not less romantic, less inspiring, less worthy of
the
chivalrous extremes of life and death, than the old
system of
overlord and bondager, while it will open
perspectives of a new-rejoicing
humanity, the most
fleeting glimpses of which now make the hearts of
true men and women beat with gladness. Far from
wishing to disintegrate,
degrade, abolish marriage, the
"new paganism" with fain see that sexual
union
become the flower of human life But, first, the rubbish
must be
cleared away; the anomalies must be replaced
by just inter-relations; the
sacredness of the individual
must be recognized; and women no longer have
to look
upon men as usurpers, men lo longer to regard
women as
spiritual foreigners.
ally as indicative of the literary aspects of
REVIEW.
them
another, and the transformation or reincarna-
tion of them through
indirect presentment another still.
philosophical, partisan, or propagandist periodical.
We are concerned
here with the new presentment of
things rather than with the phenomena
of change and
growth themselves. Our vocation, in a word, is to
give artistic expression to the artistic "inwardness"
of the new
paganism; and we voluntarily turn aside
here from such avocations as
chronicling every ebb
and flow of thought, speculating upon every fresh
sur-
prising derelict upon the ocean of man's mind, or
expounding
well or ill on the new ethic. If those who
sneer at the rallying cry,
"Art for Art's sake," laugh
at our efforts, we are well content; for
even the lungs
of donkeys are strengthened by much braying. If, on
the other hand, those who, by vain pretensions and
paradoxical clamour,
degrade Art by making her
merely the more or less seductive panoply of
mental
poverty and spiritual barrenness, care to do a grievous
wrong by openly and blatantly siding with us, we are
still content; for
we recognise that spiritual byways
and mental sewers relieve the
Commonwealth of much
that is unseemly and might breed contagion.
PAGAN REVIEW,
are genuinely modest enough to disavow the definite
article--of the younger generation. In its
pages there will be found a
free exposition of the myriad
aspects of life, in each instance as
adequately as possible
reflective of the mind and literary temperament
of the
writer. The pass-phrase of the new paganism is ours:
Sic
transit gloria Grundi. The supreme interest of Man
is—Woman: and the
most profound and fascinating
problem to Woman is Man. This being so,
and quite
unquestionably so with all the male and female pagans
of
our acquaintance, it is natural that literature domi-
nated by the
various forces of the sexual emotion should
prevail. Yet, though
paramount in attraction, it is,
life;
so we will hope not to fall into the error of some
of our French confreres
and be persistently and even
supernaturally awake to the functional
activity and
blind to the general life and interest of the common-
wealth of sould and body. It is
perforce we must be taken as preachers at all; Life to
the full,
in all its manifestations, in its heights and
depths, precious to the
uttermost moment, not to be bar-
tered even when maimed and weary. For
here, at any
rate we are alive; and then, alas, after all—
may
be so. Whenever did a first number of a new
magazine fulfil all its
editor's dreams or even inten-
tions? "Well, we must make the best of
it, I suppose.
'Tis nater after all, and what pleases God", as
Mrs.
Durbeyfield says in "Tess of the Durbervilles."
"Croix de Berny?"
lowing words of Edgar de Meilhan
Gautier), which I ("I" standing for editor, and asso-
ciates, and pagans in general) now quote for the delec-
tation of all
readers adversely minded or generously
inclined, or dubious as to our
real intent—with blithe
hopes that they may be the happier therefor:
"Frankly,
I am in earnest this time. Order me a dove-coloured
vest, apple-green trousers, a pouch, a crook; in short
the entire
outfit of a Lignon Shepherd. I shall have a
lamb washed to complete the
pastoral."
⁂ Readers are requested to note the administra-
tional remarks on
the inside of the cover (p. ii.), and the
Forecast and Editorial intimations
printed at the end
of the text.
forest into a wave of flame. A hot river of light streams
through the
aisles of the ancient trees, and, falling over the
shoulder of a vast,
smooth slab of stone that rises solitary
in this wilderness of dark growth
and sombre green, pours
in a flood across an open glade and upon the
broken columns
and inchoate ruins of what in immemorial time had been
a mighty temple, the fane of a perished god, or of many
gods. As the sun
rapidly descends, the stream of red
light narrows, till, quivering and
palpitating, it rests like
a bloody sword upon a colossal statue of black
marble,
facing due westward. The statue is that of a woman,
and is as
of the Titans of old-time.
moveless yet seeing eyes, its faint inscrutable smile.
Upon the
triple-ledged pedestal, worn at the edges like
swords ground again and
again, lie masses of large white
flowers, whose heavy fragrances rise in a
faint blue
vapour drawn forth with the sudden suspiration of the
earth by the first twilight-chill.
hurled thither, or raised, none knoweth when or how-is
gathered
a dark multitude, silent, expectant. Many are
Arab tribesmen, the remnant
of a strange sect driven
southward; but most are Nubians, or that
unnamed
swarthy race to whom both Arab and Negro are as chil-
dren.
All, save the priests, of whom the elder are clad in
white robes and the
younger girt about by scarlet sashes,
are naked. Behind the men, at a
short distance apart, are
the women; each virgin with an ivory circlet
round the
neck, each mother or pregnant woman with a thin gold
band
round the left arm. Between the long double-line
of the priests and the
silent multitude stands a small
group of five youths and five maidens;
each crowned with
heavy drooping white flowers; each motionless, morose;
all with eyes fixt
on the trodden earth at their feet.
brazen cymbals, deeply chased with signs and letters
of a perished tongue.
A shrill screaming cry goes
up from the people, followed by a prolonged
silence.
Not a man moves, not a woman sighs. Only a shiver
contracts
the skin of the foremost girl in the small
central group. Then the elder
priests advance slowly,
chanting monotonously,
We are the slain
of thy spoil, O Slayer!
We are thy thoughts that are fulfilled, O
Thinker!
Have pity upon us!
Thou wast, before ever woman knew man!
Thou wast, before the
shadow of man moved athwart
Thou wast, and thou art!
Hail,
thou of many names, and immortal!
Hail, Mother of God, Sister of the
Christ, Bride of the
Thou, who lovest shadow, and fear, and sudden death!
Who art the smile
that looketh upon women and children!
Who hath the heart of man in thy
grip as in a vice;
Who hath his pride and strength in thy sigh of
yestereve;
Who hath his being in thy breath that goeth forth, and
But we
bring thee what thou loved'st of old, and for ever!
The white flowers
of our forests and the red flowers of
For we are thy
slaves, O Mother of Life,
We are the dust of thy tired feet, O Mother
of God!
the
Black Madonna, the younger tear off their scarlet
sashes, and seizing the
five maidens, bind them together,
left arm to right, and hand to hand.
Therewith the
victims move slowly forward till they pass through the
ranks of the priests, and stand upon the lowest edge of the
pedestal
of the great statue. Towards each steppeth, and
behind each standeth, a
naked priest, each holding a
narrow irregular sword of antique
fashion.
donna, and flashes this way and that for a moment from
the ten sword-knives that cut the air and plunge between
the shoulders and
to the heart of each victim. A wide
spirt of blood rains upon the white
flowers at the base of
the colossal figure; where also speedily lie, dark
amidst
welling crimson, the swarthy bodies of the slain.
The white flowers of our
forests and the red flowers of
Have pity, O
Compassionate,
Be merciful, O Queen!
hastily cover the dead with the masses of the white
flowers; and one by
one, and group by group, the mul-
titude melteth away. When all are gone
save the young
chief, Bihr, and a few of his following, the priests
pros-
trate themselves before the Black Madonna, and pray to
her to
vouchsafe a sign.
voice, sombre as the reverberation of thunder among
barren hills.
I hearken.
Wilt thou slay, O Slayer?
Yea, verily.
Wilt thou save, O Mother of God?
I save.
Can one see thee, and live?
At the Gate of Death.
dim in the darkness that seems to have crept from the
forest. The priests rise, and disappear in silent groups
under the trees.
glow from orchids and parasitic growths shimmers inter-
mittently in the
forest. A wavering beam of light falls
upon the right breast of the Black
Madonna; then
slowly downward to her feet; then upon the motionless
figure of Bihr, the warrior-chief. None saw him steal
thither: none
knoweth that he has braved the wrath of
the Slayer; for it is the sacred
time, when it is death to
enter the glade.
Speak, Spirit that dwelleth here from of old . . .
Speak, for I would
have speech with thee. I fear thee
not, O Mother of God, for the priests
of the Christ who
is thy son say that thou wert but a woman. . .
And
it may be—it may be—what say the children of
the Prophet: that there is
but one God, and he is Allah.
To the north and to the east I have seen many figures
like unto thine,
gods and goddesses: some mightier than
thee—vast sphinxes by the flood of
Nilus, gigantic faces
rising out of the sands of the desert. And none
spake,
for silence is come upon them; and none slays, for the
strength of the gods passes even as the strength of men.
For I will not be thrall to a woman, and the priests shall
not bend me to
their will as a slave unto the yoke. If
thou thyself art God, speak, and I
shall be thy slave to
do thy will . . . . Thrice have I come hither
at
the new moon, and thrice do I go hence uncomforted
. . . .What
voice was that that spoke ere the
victims died? I know not; but it hath
reached mine
ears never save when the priests are by. Nay
What would'st thou?
Have mercy upon me, O Queen!
What would'st thou?
I worship thee, Mother of God! Slayer and Saver!
What would'st thou?
Show me thyself, thyself, even for this one time, O
Strength and
Wisdom!
with a faint wailing sound. The dull roaring of lions
rises and falls in
the distance. A soft yellow light
illumes the statue, as though another
moon were rising
behind the temple.
falls prostrate at the base of the Black Madonna.
spikes of trodden grass, sere and stiff save where damp
with newly-shed
blood; and deaf are his ears, though
he waits for he knoweth not what
sound from above.
his forehead when he feels a touch on his right shoulder.
Looking slowly
round he sees beside him a woman, tall,
and of a lithe and noble body. He
seeth that her skin
is dark, yet not of the blackness of the south.
Two
spheres of wrought gold cover her breasts, and from the
serpentine zone round her waist is looped a dusky veil
spangled with
shining points. In her eyes, large as
those of the desert-antelope, is the
loveliness and the
pathos and the pain of twilight.
Art thou—Art thou—
I am she whom thou worshippest.
Thou art the Black Madonna, the Mother of God?
Thou sayest it.
Thou hast heard my prayer, O Queen!
Even so.
O Slayer and Saver, is the lightning thine and the fire
that is in the
earth? Canst thou whirl the stars as
from a sling, and light the
mountainous lands to the
south with falling meteors? O Queen, destroy me
not,
for I am thy slave, and weaker than thy breath: but
canst thou
stretch forth thine hand and say yea to the
lightning, and bid silence
unto the thunder ere it breeds
the bolts that smite? For if—
I make and I unmake. This cometh and that goeth,
and I am—
And thou art—
I was Ashtaroth of old. Men have called me many
names. All things change,
but I change not. Know
me, O Slave! I am the Mother of God. I am the
Sister
of the Christ. I am the Bride of the Prophet.
And thou art the very Prophet, and the very Christ, and
the very God! Each
speaketh in thee, who art older
than they—
I
Hail, O Lord of Deliverance!
I
Hail, O most Patient, most Merciful!
I
Hail, Giver of Life and Death!
Yet here none is; for each goeth or each cometh as I
will. I only am
eternal.
Behold, I am thy slave to do thy will: thy sword to slay:
thy spear to
follow: thy hound to track thine enemies.
I am dust beneath thy feet. Do
with me as thou wilt.
Thou shalt be my High Priest. . . . .Come back
to-morrow an hour after the
setting of the sun.
shadow she stareth steadily after him; and a deep fear
dwells in the
twilight of her eyes. Then, turning, she
standeth awhile by the slain
bodies of the victims of the
sacrifice; and having lightly brushed away
with her foot
the flowers above each face, looketh long on the
mystery
of death. And when at last she glides by the great
statue and
passes into the ruins beyond, there is no
longer any glow of light, and a
deep darkness covereth
the glade. From the deeper darkness beyond comes
the
howling of hyenas, the shrill screaming of a furious beast
of
prey, and the sudden bursting roar of lion answering
lion.
glimmers athwart the great white slab of stone that,
on the farther verge
of the forest, faces the Black
Madonna, there is nought upon the pedestal
save a ruin
of bloodied trampled flowers, though the sere yellow
grass is stained in long trails across the open. The dawn
withdraws again,
but ere long suddenly wells forth, and
it is as though the light wind were bearing over the
forest a multitude of
soft grey feathers from the breasts
of doves. Then the dim concourse of
feathers is as
though innumerable leaves of wild-roses were falling,
falling, petal by petal uncurling into a rosy flame that
wafts upward and
onward. The stars have grown sud-
denly pale, and the fires of Phosphor
burn wanly green in
the midst of a palpitating haze of pink. With a
great
rush, the sun swings through the gates of the East, tossing
aside his golden, fiery mane as he fronts the new day.
unto
noon silence, and from the silence of the afternoon
unto the silence of
the eve. Once more, towards the
setting of the sun, the multitude cometh
out of the
forest, from the east and from the west, and from the
north and from the south: once more the Priests sing the
sacred hymns:
once more the people supplicate as with
one shrill screaming voice,
pity upon us! Have pity upon
us!
victims are slain of little children who might
one day
shake the spear and slay, five; and of little children who
would one day bear and bring forth, five.
sun. There is no moon to lighten the darkness and the
silence; but a soft
glow falleth from the temple, and
upon the mall who kneels before the
Black Madonna.
But when Bihr, having no sign vouchsafed, and hearing
no sound, and seeing nought upon the carven face,
neither tremour of the
lips nor life in the lifeless eyes,
suddenly seeth the goddess, glorious
in her beauty that
is as of the night, coming towards him from out of
the
ruins, his heart leapeth within him in strange joy and
dread.
Scarce knowing what he doth, he springeth to
his feet, trembling as a reed
that leaneth
against the flank of a lioness by the water-pool.
Hail, God! . . . .Goddess, Most Beautiful!
of the deep twilight of her eyes.
What would'st thou?
Thou art no Mother of God, O Goddess, Queen, Most
Beautiful!
What would'st thou, O blind fool that is so in love with
death?
Make me like unto thyself, for I love you!
dull roaring of lions by the water-courses; from the
forest a murmurous
sound as of baffled winds snared
among the thick-branched ancient
trees.
For I love thee: I—love-thee! I—
by a snake comes from the forest. Beyond, from the
desert, a long,
desolate moaning and howling, where the
hyenas prowl.
When . .did . . thy folly . .this madness
. . come upon thee . . O Fool?
O Most Beautiful! Most Beautiful! Thou—
will I worship!
Go hence, lest I slay thee!
Slay, O Slayer, for thou art Life and Death!
. . . But I go not hence. I
love thee! I love thee! I love
thee!
I am the Mother of God.
I love thee!
God dwelleth in me. I am thy God.
I love thee!
Go hence, lest I slay thee!
Thou tremblest, O Mother of God! Thy lips twitch,
thy breasts heave, O
thou who callest thyself God!
Go hence, thou dog, lest thou look upon my face no more.
Bihr the Chief turneth and passes into the forest. And
as he fades into
the darkness, the Black Madonna stareth
a long while after him, and a deep
fear broodeth in the
twilight of her eyes. But by the bodies of the
slain
children she passes at last, and with a shudder looks
not upon
their faces, but strews the heavy white flowers
more thickly upon
them.
welling forth from spent billow on the tides of night.
On the obscure
waste of the glade nought moves, save
the gaunt shadow of a hyena that
crawls from column
to column. From the blackness beyond swells the
long
thunderous howl of a lioness, echoing the hollow blasting
roar
of a lion standing, with eyes of yellow flame, on the
summit of the great
slab of smooth rock that faces the
carven Madonna.
grey wavelets ripple in a flood athwart the black-green
sweep
of the forest, there is nought upon the pedestal
but red flowers that once
were white, rent and scattered
this way and that. The cool wind moving
against the
east ruffles the opaline flood into a flying foam of
pink,
wherefrom mists and vapours rise on wings like rosy
flames, and
as they rise their crests shine as with
blazing gold, and they fare forth
after the Morn that
leads towards the Sun.
unto
noon silence, and from the silence of the afternoon
unto the silence of
eve. Once more towards the setting
of the sun, the multitude cometh out of
the forest, from
the east and from the west, and from the north and
from
the south. Once more the priests sing the sacred
hymns: once more the people supplicate as with one
shrill screaming voice,
upon us! Have pity
upon us!
tims are slain: five chiefs of
captives taken in war, and
unto each chief two warriors in the glory of
youth.
the silence and the dark, save for the soft yellow light
that falleth from
the temple, and upon the man who,
crested with an ostrich-plume bound by a
heavy circlet
of gold, with a tiger-skin about his shoulders, and
with
a great spear in his hand, standeth beyond the statue
and nigh
unto the ruins, where no man hath ventured
and lived.
Come forth, my Bride!
the upper branches of the trees, and the panting of the
flying deer beyond
the glade.
Come forth, Glory of my eyes! Come forth, Body of
my Body.
Black Madonna stands beside Bihr the Chief. And the
man is wrought to
madness by her beauty, and lusteth
after her, and possesseth her with the
passion of his eyes.
What would'st thou?
Thou!
Young art thou, Bihr, in thy comeliness and strength
to be so in love
with death.
Who giveth life, and who death? It is not thou, nor I.
It cometh. None can stay it.
Not thou? Thou can'st not stay it, even?
Nay, Bihr; and this thing thou knowest in thy heart.
O Mother of God! O Sister of Christ! O Bride of the Prophet!
What would'st thou?
Thou!
I am the Slayer, the Terrible, the Black Madonna.
And lo, thy God laugheth at thee, even as at me, and
mine. And lo, I have
come for thee; for I am become
His Prophet, and thou art to be my
Bride!
Black Madonna and, laughing, hurls his spear against its
breast,
whence the weapon rebounds with a loud clang.
Then, ere the woman knows
what he has done, he leaps
to her and seizes her in his grasp, and kisses
her upon
the lips, and grips her with his hands till the veins sting
in her arms. And all the sovereignty of her lonely
godhood passeth from
her like the dew before the hot
breath of the sun, and her heart throbs
against his side
so that his ears ring as with the clang of the gongs
of battle. He sobs low, as a man amidst baffling waves;
and in the hunger
of his desire she sinks as one who
drowns.
together they pass into the darkness of the ruins.
From the deeper
darkness beyond cometh no sound, for
the forest is strangely still. Not a
beast of prey comes
nigh unto the slain victims of the sacrifice, not a
vulture
falleth like a cloud through the night. Only, from afar,
the
dull roaring of the lions cometh up from the water-
courses on the
desert.
rain and storm, so that when the dawn breaks it is as a
sea of sullen
waves grey with sleet. But calm cometh
out of the blood red splendour of
the east.
the Festival of the Black Madonna, the multitude of her
worshippers come forth from the forest, singing a glad
song. In front go
the warriors, the young men brandish-
ing spears, and with their knives in
their left hands slicing
the flesh upon their sides and upon their thighs:
the men
of the north clad in white garb and heavy burnous, the
tribesmen of the south naked save for their loin-girths,
but plumed as for
war.
a strange new song goeth up from their lips; and the
people tremble, for
they know that some dire thing hath
happened.
from her people awhile. For the Mother of God loveth
the
world, and would go in sacrifice. So loveth us the
Mother of God that
she passeth in sacrifice. Behold,
she perisheth, who dieth not! Behold,
she dieth, who
is immortal !
they behold smoke, whirling and fulgurant, issuing from
the mouth and
nostrils of the Black Madonna. But this
awe passeth into horror, and
horror into wild fear, when
great tongues of flame shoot forth amidst the
wreaths
of smoke, and when from forth of the Black Madonna
come
strange and horrible cries, as though a mortal
woman were perishing by the
torture of fire.
spears from them, the men dash wildly to the forest,
heedless whither they
flee.
white rock standeth solitary, facing the Black Madonna,
see for a moment,
in the glare of sunrise, a swarthy,
naked figure, with a tiger-skin about
the shoulders,
crucified against the smooth white slope. Down from
the
outspread hands of Bihr the Chief trickle two long
wavering
streamlets of blood: two long streamlets of
blood drip, drip, down the
white glaring face of the
rock, from the pierced feet.
A MEMORY.
"Ma contrée de dilution n'existe pour aucun
touriste et jamais guide ou médecin ne la
recommandera."
"Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the
fields; let us lodge in the villages."
". . . . . lo! with a little rod
I did but touch the honey of romance—
And must I lose a soul's inheritance?"
when I
whisper to myself her name—the name I loved
best to can her by. To others she
was Claire Auriol;
to a privileged few she was Sans-Souci. To myself, and
myself only, she was—ah, Sweet-Heart, no, the word is
ours, and ours only, for
ever.
both loved
the sunshine, and the blithe freedom
of nature, with a passion. It was under
the trees, under
the deep blue wind-swept sky, that we first realised
each
had won from the other a lifetime of joy. True, it
was still winter. The snow
lay deep by the hedges, and
we had to slip through many a drift before we
reached
the lonely woodland height whither we were bound.
But was there
ever snow so livingly white, so lit with
golden glow? Was ever summer sky more
gloriously
blue? Was ever spring music sweeter than that exqui-
site
midwinter hush, than that deep suspension of breath
before the flood of our
joy?
soon
thereafter! You had to rejoin your brother in
Paris, and resume your painting in
his studio; and I
had to go to the London I hated so much, there to
write
concerning things about which I cared not a straw,
while my heart was full of
you, and my eyes saw you
everywhere, and my ears were haunted day and night
by echoes of your voice.
money in
hand to be independent of London, if not for
good, at least for a year or so;
and when once more I
found myself in Paris. What joy to meet you again:
to
find that we had not changed: that it was not all a
dream: that we loved each
other more than ever.
I wonder
if ever two people were happier? Yes; we
were, when we left Paris behind us, and
went away
together, as light-hearted as the April birds, as free as
the
wind itself. But even in Paris, what glad hours we
had! Ah, those Sunday
breakfasts at Suresnes, by the
riverside: those idle mornings on the sunlit
grass at
Longchamp, or amid the elms and chestnuts of St. Cloud:
those
happy days at Fontainebleau or Rambouillet:
those hours on the river when even
forlorn Ivry seemed
a lovely and desirable place: those hours, at twilight,
in the Luxembourg Gardens, when the thrush would
sing as, we were sure, never
nightingale sang in forest-
glade, or Wood of Broceliande: those hours in
the
galleries, above all before our beloved Venus in the
Louvre: ah,
beautiful hours, gone for ever, and yet im-
mortal, because of the joy that they
knew and whereby
they live and are even now fresh and young and sweet
with
their exquisite romance.
would
waste no more of the happy time of youth, but
go away together, and live our
life as seemed to us best!
the
little Hôtel Soleil du Midi, shining white in the
sunshine as a chalk cliff, but dappled and splashed all
over with bluish shadows
from the great chestnuts of
the Luxembourg Gardens: and how I found you
alone,
and in tears, before that too flattering portrait of me
which you
had painted so lovingly, through such joyous
hours, with beneath it, in
fantastic letters which you
would persist were Old German, but bore no
resemblance
to any known caligraphy, the blithe couplet—
How angry you were with your brother Raoul because he
had told you he did not
approve of your free Bohemian
life—because he had mocked your "douces nuits"
and
"joyeux jours"—and had told you at last that you
must choose between
him and your "chevalier de bel
amour:" the real, not the painted, one.
ful she
looked, as she stood before the easel which held
my portrait, her palette and
brushes lying on a low
paint-daubed table beside her, her hands clasped as
they hung despondingly before her. Let me essay
portrait, though there is no fear that I can flatter
dear heart, as she flattered me. Tall she was, and grace-
ful as a mountain-ash, or as a wild deer, or as a wave
upon the sea, or any
other beautiful thing that one
loves to look upon for its exquisiteness of poise
and
movement. It was this characteristic, I think, that first
made me liken
her in my mind to a flower; and that
was the origin of a name I often called her
by, and that
she loved to hear, White Flower. Not that, in a sense,
the
word "white" was literally apt. She was not blonde,
and her skin, though fair
and soft, was in keeping with
the rich dark of her hair and sweeping eyebrows
and
long lashes. Paler than ivory, it was touched with a
delicious brown,
the kiss of sunshine and fresh air; and
yet was so sensitive that it would
redden at a moment—
a flush so lovely and blossom-like that her beauty be-
came at once bewilderingly enhanced by it. White,
certainly, were the teeth that
gleamed like hawthorn-
buds behind the wild roses of her curved lips, and pink
and white the small
sensitive ears that clung like
swallows under the eaves of her shadowy hair:
but
lovely as dusk was she otherwise. Her lustrous dark
hair, that looked
quite black at night, had a crisp and
a wave in it that caught all manner of
wandering lights ;
so that, in full sunlight, and sometimes by firelight or
even lampiight, it seemed as though shot with bronze.
It rose in an upward wave
from her broad white brow,
and was gathered together in a bewitching mass
behind
in a way that I am sure was hers only. Her features
were more
southern than northern in their classic sweep
and cut, and yet, northerner that
I am, I loved them
the more for certain delicious inconsistencies and
irregu-
larities. Her face, indeed, might almost have been
thought too
square-set about the lower part but for
the loveliness of the general contour
and the redeeming
sweetness and beauty of the mouth. Her eyes—those
eyes
which have so often thrilled me beyond words,
those deep lustrous springs into
which I have gazed so
often, fascinated by the strange joy, the strange
longing,
a longing that was often pathos, and by the still stranger
melancholy that I could never quite divine, and of which
Claire herself was
mostly unconscious—her eyes are in-
describable. They varied from a rich velvety
darkness,
like the colour of midsummer twilight on cloudless eves,
when the
hour is still what in the north they call "the
edge o' dark," to a clear
brown-grey or grey-brown, of
that indeterminate light and sparkle one sees in
moun-
tain streams that wimple over sunny shallows of moss
and pebbles. In
certain lights they had that lustrous
green ray which has ever been beloved by
poets and
painters. Lovely, mysterious eyes they were at all times;
though
possibly none felt their mystery save myself, for
they were clear and fresh as
the sunlit sea, as daring
as a flashing sword, as dauntless as a martyr's
before
the affront of death. Even in the drawing, even in
the photograph of
her that I have before me now, I
find this quality of mysterious
unfathomableness. It is,
indeed, more obvious there—in the photograph pre-
eminently—than it was in life. Even a stranger look-
ing upon this phantom-face
might wonder what manner
of girl, or woman, the original actually was; whether a
bright or a sombre
spirit dwelt in those darkly reticent
eyes.
of
her body, every motion, every gesture, made a fresh
delight for all who looked
at her. I have travelled much,
and seen the peasant-women of Italy and Greece,
but
have never elsewhere so realised the poetry of human
motion. Claire
might have served a sculptor as an ideal
model of Youth. She was slight in
figure, and yet so
lithe and strong that she could outwalk and even out-
climb many a robust man. Whether we tramped many
miles together, or rambled
through woods or by river-
sides, we never seemed to tire, till all at once we
felt
the wish or need of rest. Certainly we never tired each
other. I think
this was due to our absolute fitness for
each other. All lovers say that each
was made for the
other, but in the nature of things there must be few
who
are such counterparts as Claire and I were. In
everything. from temperament to
height, she was to me
all that the eyes of the soul and the eyes of the
body
desired in deep comradeship and love.
often have
I called her Sunshine; how often Dawn, and
Morning? For she was ever to me the
living symbol,
nay, the perfect incarnation of the joy and beauty of
life.
I have never met any woman so fearless; few so
self-reliant, so sunnily joyous
while so easily wrought to
intense feeling.
we could
be, as we latterly were, all in all to each
other; that each was for the other
the supreme lure,
the summoning joy, in the maze of life.
saken but sunny and charming old hotel where Claire
and Victor Auriol lived, I
knew at once that something
was far wrong; for Sans-Souci, as she was called
by
intimate acquaintances among her artist friends, was
the last person to
give way to tears on a slight excuse.
For tears there were in those beautiful
eyes, though
but one or two had fallen from the long lashes. In a
few words she told me
all.
many
excuses recently to justify his ill-mannered hints.
Though both were artists, no
two persons could be more
unlike. He was rigid, formal, conventional;
without
intellectual breadth or even sympathy; with coarse, if
not actually
depraved, tastes, which he possessed and
tantalised rather than gratified. When,
a year or two
before I first met them, during what I called my literary
apprenticeship in Paris (though I am afraid I haunted
the book-shelves on the
left bank of the Seine, and,
above all, the
sponsor of so many of
academic resorts), their father had
followed to the grave
their Irish mother—and Marcel Auriol was himself, I
should add, half English, or rather Scottish, despite his
French name—and left
his two children a moderate
competency. But the conditions of the heritage
were
unfair; for while the annual income of six thousand
francs was to be
looked upon as equally between Victor
and Claire so long as they lived together,
Claire was to
have but two thousand if she married, and only one
thousand
if this marriage were not one approved of by
her brother, or if she voluntarily
lived apart trom him.
Now, as it happened, Victor had a lust of gold that
blunted his sense of honour, and he was eager to part
from his sister, in whose
company be was ever uneasy,
and to appropriate the lion's share of the
inheritance.
To do him justice, he might have acted otherwise if
Claire had
been different from what he knew her. He
comforted his conscience with the
sophistries that
Claire's drawings were more saleable than his own, and
that therefore she did not need the money so much
as he did; that she was
beautiful, and would certainly
make a good match; that he was really meeting
her
half-way, since her great craving was for independence.
certain clinging regret, that Sans-Souci (a name, by the
way, her brother hated)
had listened to him that morn-
ing, when he had given his
demanded, to go with him to the little house
at Sceaux
he thought of taking, and there to act as housekeeper;
to be content with this
life, and to give up once and for
all her Bohemian ways; and, above all, to see
no more,
and to have no further communication with, "that
arrogant and
offensive Scot, Wilfrid Traquair, kinsman
though he be"—in other words, the
present writer!
All this was but a mean way of forcing Claire's hand.
Victor Auriol knew well that she would refuse to accede
to his demands; and
though she was not blind to his
intent she disdainfully refused to plead or
argue for
her rights.
Victor
had, with convenient suddenness, decided to give
up the Sceaux house and to
remain in the Hôtel Soleil
du Midi. With a promptness that betrayed how
calcu-
lated everything had been, he explained to his sister
that by her
own folly she would hencetorth be entitled
to but one thousand francs annually;
and that, in view
of all the circumstances, the separation must be a com-
plete one. In other words, Claire was to go; with the
consciousness that the
manner of her going, her imme-
diate destination, and her future movements were
alike
matters of indifferent moment to her brother.
white
doves fluttering their wings on the wide green
sill beside the open window, that
Sans-Souci and I
decided to fulfil one of our happy dreams and go away
together.
that
Sans-Souci said good-bye (and, as it happened, a
lifelong farewell) to her
brother. She had packed up
all her few belongings that she cared to keep, and
sent
them to the care of a friend in the Rue Grégoire de
Tours, that
narrow, inconspicuous byway from the great
Boulevard St. Germain, so well known
to the poorer stu-
dents and artists of the neighbourhood. When I reached
the court of the Hôtel Soleil du Midi I saw her standing
there, talking quietly
to the concierge as if she were
about to go forth only to return again, as of
yore.
of
the overmastering happiness that I felt in seeing her
there, alone, and ready to
go forth with me—in the
recognition that the past night, so interminable in its
sleepless anxiety, was
not a fantastic dream.
in a
low and somewhat constrained voice: "I mean
your bag, or whatever you have."
steadfast
eyes, as she replied, quite simply and naturally,
and as though the concierge
were not beside us:
to
Pierre Vicaire's, near the Pont des Arts. You said
you would do the same, and
that we would call there on
our way to the
half
turned as if eager to go—as indeed I was, particu-
larly as I had just caught
sight of Victor Auriol's dark,
forbidding face behind a thin lace curtain at one
of the
windows.
drought, Sans-Souci slipped her hand into mine.
while her dear eyes shone with a strange light. Then,
turning, and waving her hand to the concierge, she bade
him a blithe
good-bye.
too long before thou takest that little inn in Barbizon
that
you dream of! Adieu!
sieur et madame contemplent une mariage au treizième
arrondissement!
in
Claire's face, M. Bonnard's wife handed me a note on
my passing her open
doorway. I guessed rather than
knew that it was from Victor Auriol. It was
addressed
in the following fantastic fashion:—
self
must have reached his ears. Just before we emerged
upon the street, I glanced
back and saw him abruptly
withdraw his face from behind the lace curtain at the
open window. The contents
of the note ran thus:
herself with
a beggarly Scot is her pitiable misfortune:
that she has done so without even
the decent veil of
marriage is her enormity and my disgrace. Henceforth
I
know as little of the one as of the other, and I beg
you to understand that
neither you nor the young
woman need ever expect the slightest tolerance,
much
less practical countenance, from me. You are both at
liberty to hold,
and carry out, the atrocious opinions (for
I will not flatter you by calling
them convictions) upon
marriage which you entertain or profess to entertain:
I,
equally, am at liberty to abstain from the contagion of
such unpleasant
company, and to insist henceforth upon
an insurmountable barrier between it and
myself.
little open
voiture, and in another minute had lost sight
of the Hôtel Soleil du Midi.
Outcasts we were, but two
more joyous pagans never laughed in the sunlight,
two
happier waifs never more fearlessly and blithely went
forth into the
green world.
from Monte Catillo, over the olive heights of Tivoli, to
Frascati and the
flanks of the Albans. Westward, the
Campagna was shrouded in violet gloom.
The tallest
of the pines and cypresses in Hadrian's Villa, catching
the
last of the sunset-glow, burned slowly to their
summits, like torches
extinguished by currents of air
from below. Between Castel Arcione and the
base of
the Sabines, where the intermingling summits sweep
upward frolll
the Montecelli to Palombara, and thence
by giant Subiaco to the innumerable
peaks and ranges
of the mountain-land beyond, lay a white mist, wan as
the sheen of a new moon on burnt grass—save in the
direction of the ancient
Lago de' Tartari, where it hung
heavy and darkly grey, dense as it was with
the sulphur-
fumes of the Acquae Albulae.
the hill-road curves to the left. the
off waveringly betwixt the Palombara road and the
highway from
Rome to Tivoli: at first like a bridle-way,
then but a sheep-path or dried-up
course of a hill-torrent.
Following this, one enters the wild and lonely Glen
of
the Shepherds, though seldom does any shepherd wander
there, and even
the solitary goatherd rarely descends
from the steep heights of Sterpara that
overhang it from
the west.
had called through the dusk with clear, thrilling notes:
one after another
had swung a sudden lilt of music
across the myrtles, through the thickets of
wild rose and
honeysuckles, over the clustered arbutus, and down by
the
birch-hollows, where the narrow stream crawled
suffocatingly through
fern-clumps and tufted grasses.
Close to where some stunted, decrepit olives
clung
despairingly to a bank of fissured soil rose a wild mag-
nolia, whose white
blooms gleamed in the twilight like
ivory discs. Suddenly, from where its
topmost sprays still
retained a dusky green hue, a thrush sprang
violently
into the air and darted westward against the crimson
light,
clattering loudly and shrilly like a heavily-feathered
arrow whistling
towards the already blood-strewn flanks
of a beast of prey. A nightingale
among the myrtles
near flew earthward, dipping his breast against the
dewy
anemones that clustered in the shadow; but ere the
spray whence he
had slipt like a rain-drop had ceased
its last tremulous vibration he was
swinging, with out-
spread wings, upon a branch of the deserted magnolia.
Then came a loud summoning cry, a few low calls, and
all at once a burst of
ecstatic song. In a few moments
all was still around, save for the shrilling
of the locusts
and the distant croaking of frogs. But suddenly, and
in
the midst of his love-song, the nightingale ceased,
gave a broken, dissonant
cry, and with a rapid tilt and
poise of his wings was lost in the under-dark
like a
blown leaf.
nolia. A small, dark figure crept on out, and then a boy
of some ten
or twelve years rose to his feet, stretched
himself warily, ran his hands
through his shaggy black
hair, and began to mutter to himself. All at once
he
inclined his head and listened intently. Before he could
sink back to
his shelter, two young men stepped noise-
lessly from behind the higher
olives, the taller of the
two coming rapidly forward.
the
boy alert for flight; "it is I—Andrea Falcone."
is
time enough. What is the message? "
Both
young men were singularly handsome, with clear-
cut features, dark, eloquent
eyes, and faces pale as
blanched ivory. Lithe and vigorous mountaineers, they
had
all the grace and dignity of the Roman peasant;
and though they had the Campagna melancholy in
their faces, each had that
alert look common to all the
Sabine muleteers. Everyone in the Montecelli
knew
the cousins Andrea Falcone and Marco Vaccaro; and in
the hill-town
of S. Angelo in Capoccia itself, there was no
question as to their
pre-eminence in all things that,
locally, constituted good fortune. Not only
was the story
of their deep friendship well known—a friendship so
close
that one would never go far without the other, to
the extent that if a rich
as a guide up
Subiaco, he would perforce have to engage
both—but, the gossips of the
hill-villages were each and
all aware of the love Andrea and Marco bore for
Vittoria
and Anita, the daughters of Giovan' Antonio Della Porta,
the
vintner and ex-brigand of that remote and highest
hill-town of the Sabines,
San Polo de'Cavalieri. Naturally,
it was delightful food for these gossips
when a feud broke
out between the muleteers of San Polo and of Palombara
and San Angelo, in consequence of which neither Andrea
nor Marco dare set
foot in the vicinage of the town—not
only because old Della Porta swore that,
whether they
willed or no, his daughters should marry none but men
of
pure Sabine blood, and certainly no accurst Roman
contadini (for all their
hill-folk talk!), but also because
a league of San Polo youths and men,
headed by Simone
Gaetano and Gregorio da Forma, had sworn to poniard
any" Angelinis" they found within the village boundaries.
It was quite
natural that Gregorio da Forma and Gae-
tano should be the active ministers in
this league of hate,
for the former was desirous of Anita Della Porta
and
Simone lusted after the beautiful Vittoria. But both
girls were
closely watched, and though they had several
times managed to meet their
lovers in the woods, or amid
the copses of the Glen of the Shepherds, such
encounters
were no longer possible. The girls had, indeed, but one
ally,
but one emissary—their young half-brother, Guido.
Guido loved his sisters;
but he had another bond of
fellowship—hatred of their morose and tyrannical
father.
Twice had Vittoria and Anita tried to evade those who
kept an
eye on them: once by attempted flight to
Vicovara and once across Ponte Rotto
to Castel Ma-
dama—for they had imagined success impossible by
way of Palombara. It was after the last occasion that
old Della Porta had
publicly proclaimed the approaching
marriage of his daughters with Simone
Gaetano and
Gregorio da Forma.
thin
hair-daggers as the Sabine men with their poniards.
A girl of the Sabines,
moreover, does not hesitate to use
her dagger in offence as well as in
self-defence; and,
when the blood-vow is once sworn, the steel, as the
saying is, sweats with thirst.
Falcone and his friend and kinsman, Marco, were met
in the Glen of the
Shepherds, within an easy eagle's-
flight of San Polo. If any muleteer on
Sterpara or
goatherd on the slopes should see them, the cry would
go
from coign to coign, and find a score of fierce echoes
in the dark narrow
streets of the mountain vilbge. As
for Guido, he ran the chance of a flaying
from his father,
or eyen a knifing from cruel, treacherous Simone or
from
sullen Gregorio.
while Marco eyed the neighbourhood like a hawk, and
Guido stood as taut and
eager as a goat about to leap.
Vittoria or Anita. But this is their last night."
startled but suppressed voice.
"To-morrow Vittoria will be wed to Simone and Anita
to Gregorio."
that seemed to paralyse even gesture or glance.
in a
thick, husky voice.
great
black eyes flashing half-inquiringly, half-sus-
piciously.
witness. It was in the moonlight, by the old fountain
I beyond the
church."
smile.
But—
When 'tis wet, who can say there shall be no flood?"
Anita free of their blood-ban if once they be wedded."
himself
for it! "
cross
from his neck, stepped close to the young men.
Vaccaro. that henceforth I am your younger brother:
and that your home in San
Angelo in Capoccia shall be
my home: and your kin my kin: and we be one
ever-
more in the curse and in the blessing? Already you
are my
elder-brothers, but you have not sworn. Will
you swear now ?
no
more of my father's household or even of San Polo."
Porta,"
said Andrea, solemnly, kissing the cross and
making the sacred sign upon his
forehead and upon his
breast.
fully
around, and then with downcast eyes and trembling
hands whispered that he was
breaking a solemn vow
which he had perforce taken that very day.
pietro
will absolve thee to-morrow, or as soon as you can
come to San Angelo."
Gaetano.
When I looked through the chink in the
great barn, I saw that Gregorio da
Forma was also there,
with his hand at his mouth half-covering his black
beard. Simone's smooth, fat face was agleam with
sweat, and he rubbed
his bald forehead again and again.
though his eyes narrowed and widened like
a cat's in
the twilight. All the time I watched, Simone never
ceased to wipe his brows,
and never once did Gregorio
take away his hand from his mouth."
tered
Marco, savagely. "Aha! Signore Gregorio da
Forma. I know that which would
bring you to the
hangman in Rome, or the knife anywhere where men
say
Garibaldi and Italia in one breath!"
is
already arranged by God. The ink which was black
is turning red, and the hour
is at hand. Guido, say
what you have to say."
father at first would have nought to say to comfort
Simone and Gregorio when they told him of the rumour
that Vittoria and Anita
had sworn the virgin-vow against
them. But at last Simone, miserly though he
be, won
him over. He promised him"—
mind
Gregorio might laugh at the girls' vows,
clasped his knife.
said
that no one should be in the house to-night, after
the feast which he is to
give is over; and that Simone
and Gregorio might take that which would be
theirs by
law on the morrow. The virgin-vow would thus
be made useless
as old straw, as void as yesterday's wind.
There would be none to interfere.
If the girls
screamed "—
while Marco made a low, hissing noise like a wind-eddy
upon
ice. "Is this thing to be done to-night? Ay, so:
I believe you. No, no: I
want to hear no more. What
does anything else matter. We must be there,
too,
Marco—if we have to go to our death at the same time.
replied; though, after a moment's hesitation, he stooped
and whispered in his cousin's ear. Andrea smiled grimly.
to their
homes by nine at latest. There is to be a
sunrise-Sacrament to-morrow, and
everyone will be
abed early. Vittoria and Anita will not sit long with
the men; but go to their room, where my father will
doubtless lock them
in."
looking
the Vicolo da Pozza."
secretly
as you can. Tell Vittoria and Anita all you
know. Tell them we are here"—
and
join you in the wood," broke in Guido, with eager
anticipation.
laugh. "Tell them to wait in their room till we
come. Now, go. And see:
make us a sign when we
can slip in unperceived by the hole in the wall at
the
old Piazza del Giove. We can get into your house by
the empty
palazzo next it. Then you will take us to
your sisters' room."
you."
leapt
from thicket to thicket till he was out of sight
in the undergrowth.
shadow
as much as possible. They interchanged few
words, and then only in whispers.
An hour passed
thus; during which they reached the upper end of the
Glen
of the Shepherds and ascended the steep, wooded
heights of Monte di San Polo.
From where they crouched
they could see clearly the black mass of the western
side
of the village rising sheer, like a smooth cliff of basalt,
and
without apparent inlet. But they knew where the
hole in the ruinous wall was,
close by the deserted
Piazza del Giove; and they kept their gaze upon the
spot, passionately intent
for the signal from Guido.
after eight. The cousins looked at each other, but said
nothing for some
minutes.
me,
he won't do that" —muttered Marco, at last—"but
if he should have been
caught, or even unable to get
away alone"——
round the disc of the hole in the wall.
us go.
Remember—everything—our lives—depend
upon our discretion. I know the way
best. Follow me."
skirt
of undergrowth, and up the short stony ascent
that led apparently against a
blank precipice of stone
wall. For a moment, when close, Andrea hesitated,
but
a low whistle guided him aright; and in a few minutes
he and Marco
were in San Polo. A few seconds more,
and they were in the old deserted house
that adjoined
the Casa Della Porta.
opened,
and soon nearly all the guests were gone. At
last all had bidden good-night
except Simone Gaetano
and his friend Gregorio. With a sullen curse, as
though
half-ashamed of himself, Giovan' Antonio threw a key
on the
table.
'Tis but a night here or a night there! But, look you
—no undue violence, you know! For myself, I am dead
beat with sleep, and
don't expect to hear a sound till
cock-crow."
night,
the beetle-browed vintner flung himself into a
huge rush-chair by the
hearth-place. He had begun to
snore lustily, when, just as his companions
were moving
from the room, he called angrily:
Do
you want all San Polo to keep you company?"
Gregorio filled two tankards with wine, one with white,
one with red.
joined
him; "here's
Vittoria's health, lovely blonde that she is; and here's
my bumper of
dark marino to the black hair and black
eyes of my beautiful Anita!"
marauders they were, they stole upstairs. Each started
violently when the
silence was suddenly broken by the
tower-clock striking the first quarter
after nine.
father," whispered Simone, as Gregorio gently inserted
the key in the lock,
and noiselessly turned it.
white
amidst the gloom as innocent childhood. A new
fear came upon them. If one of
the girls had laughed,
or even screamed, it would have been a relief.
Each
vaguely realised that he was doubly a coward, for now
each was
appalled by his own cowardice. When a
wavering shaft of moonlight, that had
been gilding the
stone-carving above the window, stole into the room, a
dread came upon them that the girls slept, and had
prayed, and that God
watched them.
heart leap within him.
ner of the room, passed across the face of Vittoria, making
her mass
of blonde hair like a drift of melted amber. But
her eyes were open, and
looking straight at him.
husband. Do not be afraid, my little one! I want to
kiss you
only—for the sake of good luck to-morrow."
through the room.
the
left, Gregorio to the right.
Both
men stopped abruptly, glanced towards each other,
took courage, and moved on
again.
the
room, as Simone and Gregorio simultaneously felt
themselves seized in a
savage, relentless grip and
dragged on to the bed.
Gaetano?"
cried Andrea, as with one arm he pinioned
his shivering rival, and with the
other pressed a knife
against his breast.
da
Forma?" snarled Marco savagely, as with his left
hand he pulled back his
foe's head till he could look
into the staring eyes, and with his right hand
pressed
his poniard against his heaving side.
at the
same time, a hoarse choking sob sounded horribly
through the room.
prop the
dead men, one in one bed, one in the other,
with their dusky-white faces
visible in the gloom, pil-
lowed behind, and as though ready to greet
expected
incomers.
bridle-path of La Scarpellata, from his tavern at high-
set San Filippo,
with intent to breakfast with his kins-
man Simone on the morrow of his
marriage, thought
he had never seen a lovelier night, a more glorious
dawn. Far away, above the Campagna, hung the moon
like a vast yellow flower
slowly sinking into blue depths.
Eastward, beyond Soracte and above the
Ciminian Forest,
the stars grew paler, with more languid pulsations,
or
icy steadfastness. In the woodlands straight below
the nightingales sang
bewilderingly, and in the nearer
thickets a maze of fireflies made the dusk
starred like
a great city by night.
shoulder of Subiaco, and fell upon the landscape before
him in flowing amber and marvellous flushes, he was so
rapt by the great
beauty that he did not note, in an
ilex grove to his left, four sleeping
figures, two here,
and two there; Vittoria, white as a windflower, in
the
arms of Andrea; Anita, dark as a violet, pillowed against
the breast
of Marco.
path
from San Polo de' Cavalieri, he came upon a boy,
so steadfastly intent in his
gaze southward that he heard
nothing.
good
Egidio genially. But to his surprise the boy gave
him nought save a flash
from his dark eyes, and the
next moment was up and away, leaping and
running
like a young goat.
to San
Angelo! Ha! Ha! What an idea. Some marriage
prank he's up to, I'll be bound.
Ah,
was twenty years younger, and
in Simone's place! I
wouldn't even mind being in worthy Signor
Gregorio's
for that matter!
of ours! No wonder tho men came out of Rome and
stole them
long ago before the good Popes heard about
it! Aha, Signori Andrea and Marco,
good cousins,
brave cavaliers, dauntless knights-errant, where are you
now? You may whistle, my lads! No carrying off
the Sabine women nowadays, ha,
ha!"
the
long grass, blew a foam of white blossoms upon the
rider and his mule. High
up in the golden sunlight
the sweet penetrating flute-notes of the
boy-shepherds
called blithely from steep to steep.
sight
of San Polo, still coldly white, like an unopened
flower; "God be thanked,
though I be old and fat, love
is a good thing. Ah, Simone, you rogue! Eh?
what,
Gregorio?"
of
the noon was over. The sweet fresh mountain-air,
fragrant with thyme and gale
and blossoming heather,
balsamic with odours of pine and fir, blew softly
across
the leagues of ling. The sky was of a deep, lustrous,
wind-washed
azure, with a vast heart of sapphire, tur-
quoise-tinct where it caught the
sun-flood southerly and
westerly. A few wisps of thin white vapour
appeared
here and there, curled like fantastic sleighs or sweeping
aloft
like tails of wild horses; then quickly became atten-
uated, or even all at
once and mysteriously disappeared.
Far and near the grouse called, or rose
from hollows in
the heather in abrupt flurries of flight, beating the
hot
air with their wings with the echoing whirr of a steamer's
paddles.
The curlews wheeled above the water-courses,
crying plaintively; whence also
came ever and again
the harsh resonance of the heron's scream. Echoing
along the heights that rose sheer above the tarn rang
the vanishing whistling
voice of the whaup, and, faint
but haunting-sweet as remote chimes, rose and
fell in
the mountain-hollows the belling of the deer. A myriad
life
thrilled the vast purple upland. Not a yard of
heather that was not as much
alive, as wonderful and
mysterious, as a continent. The air palpitated
with
the innumerable suspirations of plant and flower, insect
and bird
and beast. Deep in the tarn the speckled
trout caught the glint of the
wandering sunray; far
⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼
forthcoming volume by Mr. Charles Verlayne, entitled "LA MORT
S'AMUSE," which, with a
fantastic connecting thread of narrative, con-
sists of a series of
"Barbaric Studies," in each of which a recreation of
an antique type is
attempted, but in striking contrast with and direct
relation to the life
of today. Mr. Verlayne's motive is at least original,
if, possibly in its
treatment, as Paul Verlaine said of a certain
de
fantasie
upon the heights the fleeces of the small hill-sheep
seemed like patches of
snow in the sunlight: remote,
on the barren scaur beyond the highest pines,
the eagle,
as he stared unwaveringly upon the wilderness beneath
him,
shone resplendent as though compact of molten
gold inlaid with gems.
the Oread. All was beautiful: all was real. The high,
thin, almost inaudible
scream of the eagle: the cluck
of the low-flying grouse: the floating note of
the yellow-
hammer: the wind whistling through the gorse or whis-
pering
among the canna and gale. and through the
honey-laden spires of heather: the
myriad murmur from
the leagues of suns wept ling and from the dim grassy
savannahs that underlay that purple roof: each and all
were to her as innate
voices.
thought or activity. Her gaze was fascinated by the
reflection of herself in
the tarn. Lovely was the image.
The soft, delicately-rounded, white limbs,
the flower-like
body, seemed doubly white against the wine-dark purple
of the bell-heather and the pale amethyst of the ling.
The large dark eyes
dreamed upward from the white
face in the water like purple-blue pansies.
Beautiful
as was the sunshine in the wind-lifted golden hair, that
was
about her head as a glory of morning, eyen more
beautiful was the shimmer of
gold and fleeting amber
shot through the rippled surface and clear-brown
under-
calm of the tarn; where also was mirrored, with a subtler
beauty
than above, the large sulphur-butterfly that
poised upon its yellow wings as
it clung to her left
breast, ivory-white, small, and firm, immaculately
curved
as the pale globed shells of Orient seas.
of the
Oread as she lay visionarily intent by the moun-
tain-pool. Down what remote
avenues of life she seemed
to look: from what immemorial past seemed to
arise,
like flying shadows at dawn, recollections of the fires
of
sunrise kindling along the mountain-summits, of the
flames of sunset burning
from the beech-forests to the
last straggling pines aud thence to the
rose-coloured
snows of the remotest peaks, of the long splendid
pageant of day and night, of the voicing of the undying
wind, and the
surpassing wonder of the interchange and
outgrowth of the seasons, from
equinoctial clamour of
the spring to autumnal Euroclydon. Yet ever and
again
drifted through her mind vague suggestions of life still
nearer to
herself: white figures, seen in vanishing
glimpses of unpondered
all-unconscious reverie, that
slipt from tree to tree in the high
hill-groves, or leapt
before the wind upon the heights, with flying
banners
of sunlit hair, or stooped to drink from the mountain-
pools
which the deer forsook not at their approach.
Who, what, was this white
shape, upon whose milky
skin the ruddy light shone as he stood on a high
boulder
at sundown and looked meditatively upon the twilit
valleys and
darksome underworld far below? Who were
these unremembered yet familiar
sisters, so flowerlike
in their naked beauty, gathering moon flowers for
gar-
lands, while their straying feet amid the dewy grass
made a silver
shimmer as of gossamer-webs by the
waterfalls? Who was the lovely vision, so
like that
mirrored in the tarn before her, who, stooping in the
evergreen-glade to drink the moonshine-dew, suddenly
lifted her head,
listened intently, and smiled with such
wild shy joy?
ing
illusive reminiscences of a past that was yet un-
rememberable?
plexed, vaguely yearning with that nostalgia for her
ancestral kind
which bad been born afresh and deeply
by the contemplation of her second self
in the mountain-
pool, the Oread slowly rose, stretched her white arms,
with her hands spraying out her golden hair, and gazed
longingly into the
blue haze at the hills.
sound that was as it were caught up by the wind and
flung from corrie to
corrie. It was not like the fall of
a stone, and it sounded strangely near.
Stooping, she
plucked a sprig of gale: then, idly twisting it to and
fro, walked slowly till where a mountain-ash, ablaze with
scarlet berries,
leant forward trom a high heathery bank
overlooking a wide hollow in the
moors. A great dragon-
fly spun past her like an elf's javelin. The small yellow-
brown bees circled
round her and brushed against her
hair, excited by this new and strange
flower that moved
about like the hill-sheep or the red deer. As she
stood
under the shadow of the rowan and leant against its
gnarled trunk,
two small blue butterflies wavered up
from the heather and danced
fantastically above the
wind-sprent gold of her hair. She laughed, but
frowned
as a swift swept past and snapt up one of the azure
dancers.
With a quick gesture she broke off a branch
of the rowan, but by this time
the other little blue
butterfly had wavered off into the sunlight.
saw the
whiteness of her limbs beneath the tremulous
arrowy leaves and the thick
clusters of scarlet and
vermilion berries. When the gnats, whirling in
aerial
maze, came too near she raised the rowan-branch and
slowly waved
them back: but suddenly her arm stiffened,
and she stood motionless, rigid,
intent.
away,
browsed a majestically antlered stag and three or
four hinds: on the ridge
beyond, quite visible from
where she stood, half crouched half lay an animal
she
had never seen before. Her heart leapt within her:
for lo, here was
another such as herself. No longer was
there but one Oread among the high
hills. And yet—
and yet—there was some difference. It—he—
shoulder: the next moment there was a flash, a little
cloud of smoke. and a
terrifying explosive sound. With
mingled curiosity and dread she sprang aside
from the
tree, and stood upon the verge of the slope. But now
a new
terror came upon her, for almost simultaneously
she saw the stag stumble,
throw back its head, recover,
and then, with a piercing bleating cry, roll
over on the
heather, dead.
creature
like herself was: why he too was not white-
skinned, but furred like a fox or
the wild cattle: or
why and how he dealt death with noise and flame by
means of a stick. But suddenly all the passion of love
for the wild things of
which she was one overcame her
—a fury of resentment against this wanton slayer of
the beautiful deer who
did no harm, this stealthy
murderer who seemed unable to leap or run. With
a
shrill protesting cry she leapt down the slope, and
darted towards the
spot where a young man, dazed
with bewilderment, stood staring at the
extraordinary
apparition which the slaying of the stag seemed to have
called up.
mind.
Was this lovely vision of womanhood a creation
of his perverted brain: was
she some lost wanderer
upon the hills, bereft of her wits: was she, indeed,
as
she looked, some supernatural creature, to consort with
whom, or even
parley with, would be certain death?
him,
suddenly abashed by a new fear, a profound amaze-
ment. He seemed, truly, an
Oread like herself. Dark
though he was, with dark hair and dark eyes, and
fair
and glad and welcome to look upon as was his face—
such a face as
she vaguely realised she had been re-
calling, or dreaming of, when she lay by
the tarn—
yet was he so extraordinary otherwise. A fur or shaggy
hide
appeared to cover him from the neck downwards:
nevertheless it was as though
it hung loosely upon his
body. Certainly he was better worth looking at,
she
thought, than her own image in the mountain-pool:
and if only—
realisation that the beautiful naked girl before him was
a real creature of
flesh and blood. With this recog-
nition came a surge of passionate admiration
for her
loveliness.
vanced.
The Oread looked at him mistrustfully, but at
the same time instinctively
noted that he moved with
infinitely less ease and freedom than she did.
Slowly
raising the rowan-branch, she waved to him to come
nearer; but
when suddenly he broke into a run she
turned and fled.
man
stopped, stared, rubbed his eyes, and then with a
muttered exclamation,
sprang forward in pursuit.
tree, he caught a glimpse of the Oread again. as she
stood
motionless amidst a little sea of tall bracken. He
approached more cautiously
this time, so as not to alarm
her; and as he drew nearer tried to allure her
by
awkward signs of good-will. She greeted his entice-
ments with low,
sweet, mocking laughter, and he could
see by the mischievous light in her
beautiful eyes that
she fully realised her ability to evade him, and that
she
enjoyed his discomfiture.
and
excitement, and determined to capture at all hazards
this beautiful
apparition, whether mortal woman or fay,
he rapidly unfastened and threw off
his thick tweed
shooting coat.
backward, her lovely body quivering with fear at this
awful sight of a
creature depriving itself of its hide. The
next moment she was off like the
wind, her long hair
streaming behind her, all ashine in the sunglow.
fled
after her in vain chase. From slope to slope and
corrie to corrie he raced as
though for his life; but at
last nature could no longer stand the strain, and
he fell
forward exhausted. When, stumbling and breathing
hard like a
driven deer narrowly escaped from the
hounds, he looked eagerly beyond and
about him, not a
sign was there of the lovely vision he had so madly
followed. Yet for leagues in front of him and to either
side was nothing but
the purple moor! He could scarce
believe that she could absolutely disappear
therein!
Still, nowhere was she visible.
had
gone mad. Shaking and trembling, he once more
scanned the whole reach of his
vision, but, seeing nought,
turned and made his way downward again. Once,
twice
indeed, he thought he heard a rumour as of someone
following him,
and even a sound as of low, mocking
laughter. But he would not look behind.
Already he
feared this
some measure of reasonableness reassured him. He
sued a real woman; and yet—
the
Oread had rested during the noon heats. With a
cry of relief he went towards
it, and then, having given
one backward glance, threw off all his clothes and
sprang
into the cool, deep water. What a delight it was, after
his
fever-heat and weariness: how absurd the idea of
madness, as with strong
strokes he swam to and fro!
and stood, with outstretched arms, among the heather,
so that he might the
more readily dry in the sunlight
and soft wind. So heedless was he that he
failed to
perceive the slow advance, close behind him, of his
flying
vision.
equal
ease she had followed him unobserved during his
ignominious retreat, and had
watched him from a fern-
clump not more than a few score yards away.
When
he suddenly threw off his clothes, a fresh access of fear
had
almost made her fly again; but she had controlled
herself, as much from
contempt of the inferior creature
as from passionate curiosity. But when he
plunged
into the water, and swam like an otter, and came out
once more
gleaming white as herself, she realised that
disguised, that was all; had tried, mayhap, to ape some
other animal. All
fear left her.
a
rapture of companionship. With outstretched arms,
and a sweet, loving look in
her eyes, she went forward
to greet her longed-for mate.
of sheer
content, the young man turned to where his
clothes lay.
Aerial voices—
Leaping against the sunrise, on the heights.
No, no, yon mountain-springs—
Are budding into foam-flowers: see, they fall
Laughing before the dawn—
Dear brother, say oh say what fills the air!
The leaves whisper, yet is
not any wind:
I am afraid.
There is no gloom.
The birds have suddenly ceased: and see, alow
The gossamer quivers
where my startled hare—
Slipt from my leash—cow'rs 'mid the foxglove-
His eyes like pansies in a lonely wood! [bells,
O I am
afraid—afraid—though glad:—
I know not.
Forsook the dusk. Lo, all our vales are filled
With light: the
darkest shimmers in pale blue:
Nought is forlorn: no evil thing goeth
by.
They say—
That a lost God—
There is no god in the blue empty air?
Where else?
The morning moves in ecstasy. Never!
O never fairer morning dawned
than this.
Somewhat is nigh!
Nought, save day's familiar sounds, nought see
But the sweet
concourse of familiar things.
Speak on, though never a single leaf but hears,
And, like the hollow
shells o’ the twisted nuts
That fall in autumn, aye murmuringly
holds
The breath of bygone sound. We know not when—
To whom—these
little wavering tongues betray
Our heedless words, wild wanderers though
we be.
What say the mountain-lords?
Fares hither through the dark, ever
the dark.
What dark?
Blind is he, though a God: forgotten graves
The cavernous depths of
his oblivious eyes.
His face is as the desert, blanched with ruins.
His voice none ever heard, though whispers say
That in the dead of icy
winters far
Beyond the utmost peaks we ever clomb
It hath gone
forth—a deep, an awful woe.
What seeks he?
And blind!
That he is not as
other Gods; but from vast age—
So vast, that in his youth those hills were
wet
With the tossed spume of each returning tide—
He hath lost
knowledge of the things that are,
All memory of what was, in that dim
Past
Which was old time for him: and knoweth nought,
Nought feels,
but inextinguishable pain,
Titanic woe and burden of long aeons
Of unrequited quest.
Of the Immortal Brotherhood, though
blind,
How lost to them ?
Lython the Centaur told me, in those days
When he had pity on me in
his cave
Far up among the hills-that the Lost God
Is curs'd of all
his kin, and that his curse
Lies like a cloud about their golden home:
So evermore he goeth to and fro—
The shadow of their
glory. . . . . . .
The lost beginnings of the things that are:
We are but
morning-dreams to him, and Man
But a fantastic shadow of the dawn:
The very Gods seem children to his age,
Who reigned before their
birth-throes filled the sky
With the myriad shattered lights that are the
stars.
Where reigned this ancient God?
His kingdom was the Void, where evermore
Silence sits throned upon
Oblivion.
What wants he here?
And dogs his steps. None knoweth more.
My
ears betrayed me not: O hearken now!
Brother, O brother, all the birds are wild
With song, and through the
sun-splashed wood
A sound as of a multitude of wings.
The sun, the sun! the flowers in the grass!
Oh, the white glory!
Hark, hear the hymns that thrill the winds of morn,
Wild paeans to
the light! The white processionals!
They come! They
come! . . . . . . .
has
stated in the charming and too brief note which
stands as preface to this
volume of prose poems, modern
invention has found a way of fixing the chalks so
that
the graceful and beautiful crayon-drawings known as
pastels need no
longer be perilollsly iragile possessions,
the" pastel" will no doubt always
remain the type of
the most delicate form of art. It has a charm all its
own. The oil-painting may have a depth and solidity far
beyond it, the drawing
in water-colours a lucid brilliancy
which it cannot match, the etching a
subtlety of tone un-
surpassable; but the pastel can combine something of
the
special qualities of the etching, the water-colour drawing,
and the
painting, and has at the same time a wayward
fascination,a kind of virginal
beauty, all its own. No better
name than "Pastels," therefore, could be given to
those
short studies of poetic impression expressed in prose, which
are
already a new "form" in contemporary literature.
One must not examine a pastel
too closely, nor must one
look to it for more than a swift and fortunate
impression-
istic portrayal; for the artist who knows his medium
will not
attempt to do with it what Lucas Cranach or
Van Eyck, for instance, did with
their medium, what in
in our own day the "Preraphaelites" professed to do
as
a matter of principle. Suggestion, not imitation, is the
aim of the
pastel-artist, who must, in any hazard, be what
is somewhat too vaguely called
an impressionist. He is
not to be a novelist or an essayist in paint, but to be
content to reproduce as truly as he can by suggestion a
poignant artistic
emotion, leaving to others to educe
from it any story, lesson, or meaning they
choose to find
in it. The thrush flinging his music joyously upon the
eddies of the spring-wind, without thought of who may
⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼
hear or how it may be judged, is a true artist-type. It
is when the painter or
writer, like the needy street-
musician who increases or moderates the tone of
his
barrel-organ according to the supposed taste of his
audience, produces
for the sake of others, and in accord-
ance with their and not his own
standards, that he
disproves himself an artist and becomes the mere manu-
facturer. The cant of altruism in art is at once ludicrous
and mischievous. The
artist must produce for himself;
not for others. The others benefit—as those do
who
listen to the thrush's song, though the singer may be
unconscions of
or indifferent to their presence, his song
being not the less sweet though there
be none to applaud.
In France, the prose-poem, which, it is perhaps neces-
sary to say, is quite distinct from what is ordinarily
known as poetical prose,
is now a literary species as
definable and recognisable as the sonnet, or the
rondeau,
or the villanelle. It existed in a haphazard, vagrant
sort till
Baudelaire, whose example inspired many of the
writers who came after him,
though it is probable that
to the incomparable "Prose-Poems" of Turgenieff is
due
the fulness and variety of the tide of this new poetry
which has
advanced so rapidly of late. No doubt we may
find herein the fundamental reason
of the present vogue
of Walt Whitman among the Parisian writers and cul-
tured public. He is translated in part only, and what
with wise selection and
thoroughly artistic rendering,
much of his work takes on a refined and delicate
beauty
which is apt to surprise even the most thorough admirers
of "the
good grey poet." No one has surpassed the
greatest of the Russian novelists in
the production of
the prose-poem. The very essence of this species is, so
to say, its irresponsibility. Its significance may be pro-
found, but must not
be obtruded. To "adorn" a poem-
in-prose with a "moral" would be as barbaric as
the act
of the individual who painted gaudy hues and immense
spots on the
superb flawless tail of a white peacock. It
must be brief: otherwise the
impression is apt to be
confused. It must be complete in itself: for the
quoted
specimen of poetic-prose is seldom a prose-poem, though
examples
could be culled from Ruskin, De Quincey, and
other writers, of course. But the
true prose-poem is not
merely a happy passage in an environment of unemo-
tional prose: it is a
consciously-conceived and definitely-
executed poetic form. There may even be in
it, there
are often, in fact, variations and repetitions of effect,
multiplications of identical lines, corresponding to the
repetitive effects in
the villanelle and all poems of the
rondeau-kind: as, for instance, in the
following "Noc-
turne":—
into a starless gloom: and as gazed the moonshine stole
across the sea.
From under a dark cloud it wavered, and then passed
stealthily away
into the deeper darkness beyond the headland. The moonlight
that
stole out of the dark into the dark was as a smile apon the face of a
beautiful daughter of Egypt asleep by the lotus-covered shallows of
Nilus. And as I watched the moonshine steal across the sea, I heard
the
voice of the unseen tide crying faintly afar off, wave to wave, though
the
crests lapsed into the moving hollows with as little sound as the
breathing
of a dusky maid adream by the lotus-covered shallows of Nilus.
asleep by the lotus-covered shallows of Nilus; and the
sound of her
breathing is faint as when the wave-crests lapse into the moving
hollows
beneath them, far out on the solitary seas covered with the
darkness.
Sometimes a faint cry passes like a wounded bird from the shadow of
her
lips: is it a faint cry from her shadowy lips, or the voice of the unseen
tide, thin and shrill, afar off? And sometimes she smiles. Then once
more I stand on a lonely promontory when the dusk has dreamed itself
into a starless gloom, and the moonshine steals dimly athwart remote
gulfs of darkness. From under vast glooms it wavers slow, and then
passes stealthily away, as I—as she—shall pass: Whither?"
"Pastels
in Prose;" one of Mlle. Judith Gauthier's
Chinese renderings:—
mortals did not understand.
Sages. The Sages rejoiced together, they danced on the
glistening
clouds. And now mortals understand me, when I sing to the
accom-
paniment of my flute tipped with jade."
faculty of rarified expression. The motive may or may
not be romantic
or picturesque ill itself: the expression
of it will be a poem if the author's
impression be keen
to poignancy, and if hiR faculty of utterauce correspond
to his sensitiveness. Thus, the life of the streets, of
crowds, the
common-places of our ordinary existence,
afford motives as well as do Vales of
Tempe or Ronces-
valles. To the artist, it is not what he sees, but how he
sees, how he feels,
how he expresses his sudden wayward
fancy or new thought borne upward on strange
spiritual
or mental tides. There may even be no "picture" of
any kind: all
may depend upon the charm of words,
surrounding, like the Doves of Venus, a
beautiful thing
in their midst. I may give two instances of this rare
and
most difficult prose-poem, though the space at my
command prevents either from
being quoted in full.
Both are by the late Emile Hennequin:—
desires rather than reminiscences. How distant
these ideals, how painful
these desires!
the word Woman; there is no wine that realises the
intoxication imagined
in the word Wine; there is no gold, pale gold or dusky
gold, that gives
out the tawny fulguration of the word Gold; there is no
perfume that
our deceived nostrils find equal to the word Perfume; no blue,
no red
that figures the tints with which our imaginations are coloured; all
is
too little for the word All; and no nothingness is an empty enough
vacuity as to be that arch-terrorist word, Nothing.
reduced and dim images of our thonghts, sticks of which
we have made
thyrses, banjos of which we have made citherns, aquarelles that
we have
anilinized, dreams opiated by us?"
the first
portion may be quoted, though the remainder
is in some respects even finer:—
in her deep hollows of the tumultuous water of the
seas, turgid and flat,
the earth curves, sinuates and rises, dry under the
fresh air, firm and
mobile, jutting forth in mountains, falling away in
plains, brown and
all woven with the silver woof of rivers and lakes, green
and all bristling
with trees, with plants, with grass."
prove
the rule: the rule that a complete vision, a com-
plete emotion, however
momentary and even uncertain,
be definitely conveyed in suggestion. As Mr.
Howells
says in the charming little preface already alluded to,
"the poet
fashions his pretty fancy on his lonely inspira-
tion; sets it well on the
ground, poises it, goes and
leaves it. The thing cannot have been easy to learn,
and it must always be most difficult to do; for it implies
the most
courageous faith in art, the finest respect for
others, the wisest
self-denial."
of
Louis Bertrand, Paul Leclercq, Theodore de Banville,
Alphonse Daudet, Villiers
de L'Isle-Adam, George Auriol,
Judith Gauthier, J. K. Huysmans, Ephraim Mikhael,
Pierre Quillard, Rodolphe Darzens, Beaudelaire, Achille
Delaroche, Stephane
Mallarmé, Emile Hennequin, Adrien
Rémacle, Maurice de Guérin, Paul Masy, Catulle
Mendès,
Henri de Regnner, and one or two others. Several of
the poems were
written specially for this book: those
of MM. Catulle Mendès and Stephane
Malarmé are
versions from the final proof sheets of new volumes by
the two
poets: and the six by Emile Hennequin were
specially selected for the
translators by Madame Henne-
quin from among hitherto unpublished MSS. by
that
most brilliant and remarkable poet and critic. A word
of emphatic
praise must be given to the translator, Mr.
Stuart Merrill—himself (he is a
Franco-American) a
French poet of standing, having won high regard by his
first volume of poetry, "Les Gammes." Needless to say,
none but a thorough
artist could have rendered these
prose-poems adequately. His translations are
works of
rare and delicate art; the work of a poet inspired by
poets.
as written
in France. has, he says, come to stay. "It is
a form which other languages must
naturalise: and we
can only hope that criticisms will carefully guard the
process, and see that it is not vulgarised or coarsened
in it. The very life of
the form is its aerial delicacy: its
soul is that perfume of thought, of
emotion, which these
masters here have never suffered to become an
argu-
ment. They must be approached with sympathy by
whoever would get all
their lovely grace, their charm
that comes and goes like the light in beautiful
eyes."
commercial success of a biographical and philosophical
book,
allowed literary and library success of a great work
of fiction,
failure of the latest production of a great poet,
Sisters
indeed, as has
been claimed, monumental. In this
country monuments are erected to the memory
of the
departed only. The powerful and beautiful and emi-
nently
significant romance by Mr. Thomas Hardy has one
drawback—for the mentally and
spiritually anaemic:
it is sane, vigorous, full-blooded, robust, with the
pulse
of indomitable youth. It is a book to read, to re-read,
to ponder,
to be proud of. Its author has at last won
the bâton of a Field-Marshal in
the army of contem-
porary novelists. Mr. Swinburne,
on the other hand,
has given a further and now serious impetus to the
retrograde movement of his great reputation. He is
a poet of, at his
best, so rare and high a genius that
many readers, during perusal of
tempted to believe in the
Doppelganger legend. Who
is Mr. Swinburne's double? It is an undesirable
co-
partnery. The lesser man, who had already satisfied
us of his
inability to sustain the honour done him,
should now retire. Mr. Swinburne
has played double-
dummy with him long enough.
It has fine things that might almost be written by
Webster, or at least by Cyril Tourneur, if one or other
of these dramatists
be thought of as a contemporary,
and maugre that special quality of spiritual
audacity
and intellectual bravura so characteristic of each, and
that
Mr. Swinburne himself at one time possessed. On
the other hand, it has pages
of drawing-room realism,
of "Friendship's-Offering" sentiment, of a dulness
un-
equalled by anything in "the new humour." It has
passages that would
make love impossible of continu-
ance: lovers can understand "speaking silence" but
not diction where
cherished commonplaces are choked
in struggling rhetoric. There are other
passages that
I recommend to the tender mercies of the University
Extension-Lecturer. He can then lay horrid pitfalls
for the unwary, for
who among them will be able to
say if the given excerpts be execrable verse
or villainous
prose? There are lines, alas, which excruciate the ear:
lines worthy of Byron at his worst, of a fibrelessness so
perverse, of
so maladroit a turn, that the ear of the
metricist revolts. And yet Mr.
Swinburne is a prince
of his craft in knowledge and skill! No: it is the
mysterious double who hath done this thing. It is a
bitter thing to tell a
poet that we prefer his prose, but
even a recantatory essay on Byron or
Whitman—the two
magnificent derelict comets of modern poetry whose tails
have been so carefully pulled by Mr. Swinburne while
under the
impression. that he was grappling with the
luminaries in front—would be
preferable to
For no one need read
Mr. Swinburne the critic of modern
men, but everyone must read Mr. Swinburne
the poet.
many beautiful passages, lyrical interludes of surpassing
grace. To read the lyric "Love and Sorrow met in
May" is to rejoice that
we have a great poet still
among us. When this drama itself is known only
of
rust and the moth, the flawless lyric it enshrines shall
have put on
immortality as a garment.
worthy
for two new books by Mr. George Meredith: if,
indeed, the reprint of his
superb
later additions, can
be called a new book. His novel,
faithful. Enthusiasts call it manna: the cavillers will
have it that it
is a St. John's feast with a multiplicity
of hard locusts to a small benefice
of wild honey. One
can certainly discern in it George Meredith at his
best:
it is easier, however, to find him in his least winsome
aspect. He
is the electric light among contemporary
illuminators of our darkness.
has
been: the most consummate poetic artist of his
time. He is Sovereign of the
Victorians. But he is not
a dramatist, though he can sometimes write
dramatically.
His
songs; but the England of Robin Hood is just what we
do
not find reflected in its exqusitely polished mirror.
This drama is even more
a Court-of-Victoria-fin-de-
siecle rendering of the wild life it nominally
represents
than the "Idyls of the King" are of the Arthurian past.
As a
stage play
please British and American audiences, having neither
intensity of vision,
overmastery of passion, vigour of dia-
logue, nor convincing
verisimilitude.
writer of verse. He was a worthy private citizen; as a
public man, an
ornamental Imperialist; as a diplomatist,
a sign-post to warn new-comers to
take the other way.
He was saved from being a bad Oriental by being an
unconventional Occidental.
the person of
Walt Whitman. This great pioneer of a
new literature has so many faults in
the view of
most of his contemporaries that they cannot discern the
volcano
beneath the scoriæ. Let us defy mixt metaphors, and
add that we
believe those who come after us will
look upon him as the Janitor of the New
House Beautiful.
Meanwhile all Whitmaniacs (the courteous appellation
is
not ours) must rejoice in the convincing, if unconscious,
tribute paid with
so much delicacy and graciousness
by the writer of a certain famous
re-written it. The experiment reflects
credit on him as a
conscientious workman, but is in other respects an
awful
example to set to the young. Horrible possibilities are
suggested.
Burke and Hare will be outdone in the resur-
recting business. Mudie will have
to start duplicate shelves,
the upper marked
The dead will arise and walk in a new
ghastliness.
procure an abortion.
once. It can then be put away.
Plains
The sunshine of genius is in both, though
the former is
but a series of collected papers and the latter a romance
of adventure. The delight of these books cancels the
deep disappointment of
the "South-Sea Letters." There
are pages of "The Lantern-Bearers" and
"Fontaine-
bleau" which ought to be committed to memory by
every aspirant
in the literary life.
to
strange aberrations from the well-defined "stream of
tendency" of the French
mind, from a lurid colour-study
by the Flemish-Parisian Huysmans to the
serene cold-
bloodedness of Maurice Barrès, or the scientific romancing
of J. H. Rosny—is Zola's recently published
It should be read not only as perhaps the most mature
and splendid effort of a great writer—a great writer who
has reached the
Temple of Fame through seas of mud,
and, unfortunately, has brought a good
deal with him,
even to the white steps of the portico; but also as a
work
likely to have a remarkable effect on the political temper
and
ideals of the French people.
to be a factor of supreme international significance, in
the relations of
France and Germany. In this country,
even, it will attract almost as much
attention as the
marriage of a duke or the misdemeanour of an actress.
kin
in
opened a vein. There is just a chance it is
not an artery.
article entitled, "The New Paganism," by H.
P. Siwäarmill,
which will have not only a general purport but will, in all
essen-
tial respects, reflect the principles of which this magazine is
the
indirect literary exponent.
by several of the younger men, known and unknown; including,
it is
hoped, a continuation of Mr. Wm. Windover's " Dionysos
in India."
episodes of contemporary Italian and Greek life, are promised
by
Mr. James Marazion, whose "Rape of the Sabines"
appears
in this number. The first will probably be a strange Greek
story, entitled, "The Last of the Mysti." Another contributor
to the current
issue, Mr. Charles Verlayne, will be represented
by
a further instalment of his Barbaric Studies, from his forth-
coming romance,
"LA MORT S'AMUSE." If VISTAS be still
unpublished on the appearance of our
second number, Mr.
W. S. Fanshawe may contribute another "dramatic
interlude"
from that volume, akin in method, if not in subject or
manner,
to his "Black Madonna." From the pen of Mr. John Lafarge
readers
will have, in due course, some novel sketches and strange
experiences of
"Foreign London."
the quotations given by Mr. Willand Dreeme, the words
of
Pistol: "
of Africa, and golden joys!"
for it is intended that it will be,
above all else, national, and not
a French bastard, or mixt-breed of any
kind—there will be occa-
sional foreign contributors. In particular there will
appear,
either next number or in the third, the first part of a
singularly
unconventional psychological romance—a romance, that is, in
externals, for it is understood to be essentially an autobiography.
Although
written by one who is of the younger generation only
in heart and mind, readers will find in this revelation of a
woman's life by
Mme. Rose Désirée Myrthil both true paganism
of spirit and modernity of
temperament. There will also appear
at intervals in
among the younger
writers of other countries; and the collabo-
ration of some of the most
typical poets and romancists of the
new movement in France and Belgium has
been secured. In
the monthly "Contemporary Record" it is intended to
give
suggestive if succinct summaries of what is being done here
and
abroad by
does not necessarily imply mere youthfulness in years.
of which, in part or complete, he has already considered—by
several known and unknown writers, besides the above named
authors; but he is
prepared to consider proposals as to MSS.
other than those from writers who
have already mustered
under the banner of
have been invited to contribute.
necessary and addressed cover
following stipulations should also be borne in
mind: (1.) No
fiction can be considered, except short stories characterised
by
distinct actuality, whether" romantic" or "realistic"; and in no
instance must these exceed 3.000 words, while 2,000, or even
1,000 constitute
a preferable length. (2.) Contributions must
not have appeared elsewhere; or,
if this rule be broken, it must
be with the cognizance and approval of the
Editor. (3.) No
translations are wished, as the limited space for
translations is
already pledged in advance for an indefinite period. (4.)
Con-
troversial and political matter will not be considered; nor
such
articles as "A Study of
of Mr. Lewis Morris ", "Art at the Royal Academy",
genus omne
concerned, for would-be contributors to understand that this
magazine
and that by far the greater part of what is currently
submitted
to the consideration of magazine-editors is at once unsuitable
for and undesired by
(Assistant-Editor,
with literary suggestions, or are concerned with literary
contri-
butions, invited or voluntarily submitted, should be marked
"
any case, they will be send to subscribers in advance
of all other
copies.
through M. Léon Vanier, Libraire-Editeur, 19, Quai St. Michel,
PARIS.
Avenue, New York.
‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗
incident and with a strange psychical problem, may be issued
only
privately, there may be some readers of
who may care to have their names put on record in advance as
subscribers
on publication.
in any
case.
‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗
‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗
of the life of the soul (NOS. II, VI, VII, and VIII). With the
latter should
be included "The Lute Player" and "The Passing of Lilith,"
though
less dramatic in form. "The Black Madonna," a study in contemporary
barbarism, appears in this number of
is limited to 200 copies. Numbered copies, price 5-/ post-paid, are to
be
had ONLY FROM THE AUTHOR, Mr. W.S. FANSHAWE, c/o Mr. W.H. Brooks,
Buck's
Green, Rudgwick, Sussex. Lest any miscarriage or delay occur,
owing to Mr.
Fanshawe's absence abroad, Mr. Brooks has kindly under-
taken to attend to any
correspondence. W.S.F.
‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗
Lang, Mr. R.L.
Stevenson, Mr. William Sharp,
Dr. Walter C. Smith
&, &.)