Talented Memories: Genius in the Nineties

I

ONE day a young American came up to me at some party. He had a letter; he was told I knew everyone in Paris; would I introduce him to Whistler, and to some of the French writers? He was handsome, richly dressed, and spoke as though he were a famous writer. I knew nothing of his writing, but he was clearly a robust flower of American muscular Christianity — healthy, wealthy, and, in America, wise. His particular friend was Charles Dana Gibson, the popular creator of the type of which Davis himself (it was he) was a radiant example.

Richard Harding Davis had never met any artists like Conder and me; he was respectful of our dazzling intellects, but be regretted that we were not, like himself, noble and virtuous. We puzzled him sadly; he even at times had doubts in regard to himself; but these doubts, when in the morning before his glass he brushed his rich, shining hair and shaved his fresh, firm chin and called to mind the sums his short stories brought him, proved fleeting as last night’s dream. I liked Davis; I was touched at his wanting to make me a better and seemlier person, a sort of artistic Boy Scout, springing smartly to attention before embarking on the good, wholesome work of art I was to achieve each day. He knew Basil Blackwood, and encouraged my going to Oxford; to mix with healthy young aristocrats would do me all the good in the world; but when later he heard I was seeing Walter Pater, he lost hope.

I also had a visit from a young journalist, Grant Richards, secretary to W. T. Stead, who had managed for the first time to come to Paris. Unlike Davis, he was frankly envious of the life we led, of the company we kept, of our familiarity with a world from which he was shut off. Some day he would get away from the obnoxious Stead, a man with no feeling for beauty, a kill-joy, a fusty-musty Puritan. To make up for the dreary letters he must copy during the day, he read with avidity the most venturesome books he could get. He was full of Dorian Gray, which he admired more than I did — he had never read A Rebours, and did not know how much Wilde had taken from Huysmans. He was enthusiastic in his appreciation of my drawings and paintings and Conder’s fans, and begged me, when I came to London, to stay in his flat. How hospitable English people seemed, I thought, compared with the French!

About the same time came D. S. MacColl, the protagonist of Whistler and Degas in England. He was visiting Paris. Meeting Condor, he at once fell in love with his painting, with which he never fell out of love. He knew W histler, had dined with him at the rue du Bac, and afterward called on him at his studio. Whistler came to the door, palette and brushes in hand, and declared he was hard at work. MacColl ran his fingers across his brushes, which were dry and devoid of paint, and Whistler, laughing, let him in.

I spent a pleasant week at Balliol, and met many people, among them York Powell, at Christ Church; on one occasion I scribbled some caricatures of Verlaine and Rodin and other people whom Powell knew, which seemed to amuse him. A day or two later he met John Lane and showed him these scraps, suggesting that Lane, who was on the lookout for fresh talent, might get me to do a set of Oxford portraits. Lane wrote to me, and I saw him on my way through town. The upshot was, he agreed to publish twenty-four drawings of prominent Oxonians, for which he would pay me 120 pounds.

This was an exciting commission; I was to begin work at the commencement of the autumn term. Returning to Paris, I told Whistler of my good fortune. I thought of making pastel drawings. Whistler said, ‘Why not do lithographs? Go to Way; he will put you up to all the tricks.’

Before 1 left Paris I heard that Verlaine was in hospital, and more than usually miserable. Though Verlaine was universally admired as a poet, his habits proved too much even for his friends. Latin Quarter poets, who were not over-particular, had helped him again and again, but he had become impossible. Still, it seemed hard that a man of his genius should be deserted by all, unaided and wretched. I loved his poetry, and, knowing him to be ill, I wrote and told him how much I cared for his verses. A message came—would I go to see him at the Hopital Broussais?

Verlaine was pleased, I could see, at my visit. We spoke about England, where he had been, and of his memories of London and Brighton. His talk was amusing, with a childlike kind of humor. He liked being in hospital; he was clean, and, in addition, perfectly sober. He had a Silenus-like head; his baldness made his forehead look higher than in fact it was, and his small brown eyes with yellow lights, and with their corners turned up, looked queer. He was very pale. His eyes had a halfcandid, half-dissipated look, the effects of drink and of white nights; but they also had at times an engaging candor. Beneath were broad cheek bones, a short Socratic nose, heavy moustaches, and an untidy, straggling beard, turning gray. One almost expected to find tall pointed ears under his thin locks.

He begged me to come and see him again, and I went back to the hospital several times. He talked much of his illness, and of his poverty, complaining bitterly of the miserable sums Vanier paid for his poems — and of the trouble he had to get paid. Lately lie had been able to make a little money by giving some conferences in Holland and Belgium; but the money had all disappeared. Why not give some readings of his poems in England? I suggested. I was sure he would meet with a cordial reception. The idea of going to England pleased him; he talked again of the days spent at Brighton, where he had been a schoolmaster, and of visits to London with Rimbaud. The doctors and nurses, he said, were all kind to him; he had nothing to pay, and lived like a fighting cock. It was his leg that troubled him; but he would soon be out, and then I must come and see him, and meet his friend Eugénie. She was a good creature, he said, but sometimes a bit of a jade.

I heard from him when he came out of hospital; would I come and see him at the rue Descartes? I found him living in a single room, poorly furnished and not very clean. A short, shapeless, coarse-featured woman with dark hair dressed close over a low forehead, with the hoarse, throaty voice of the banlieue — could this be she to whom Verlaine had written so many passionately amorous verses, and to whom, despite infidelities, he returned again and again? Eugénie treated me with humiliating respect; she was on what she thought was her best behavior. Verlaine must have told her of English editions, or possible conferences, which to her meant, quite frankly, her bread and butter. On subsequent visits the Krantz resumed easier ways and a more homely manner. She threw out hints that anything coming to Verlaine should pass through her hands; she whispered terrible things into my ears as to what would happen otherwise. Verlaine, with his shrewd and unashamed frankness, taunted her with her greed. She continually robbed him, he cried; he never had a sou — had n’t even enough to buy himself a shirt and collars. As for drinking — why, he did n’t want to drink, but still, nom d’un nom, sometimes one wanted to offer a glass to a friend. There would be fearful abuse, and then, like two cats in a yard, they would walk away from each other, and Verlaine would quietly resume his talk about literature, other poets, and plans for new poems, d here was a queer mixture of ribaldry and delicacy in his talk, and something childlike and ingratiating in his manner.

II

In the autumn I prepared to migrate to Oxford. Basil Blackwood had asked me to stay with him at Balliol for a week or two, while I looked for rooms. York Powell offered to put me up later at Christ Church, and Mrs. Woods had asked me to Trinity College. So there was plenty of time to look around before I settled in lodgings.

Grant Richards was still acting as secretary to Stead, a task he much disliked. He had literary and sartorial ambitions; neither one nor the other received encouragement from Stead, nor indeed from Richards’s own family. He, too, looked with envy on my frock coat, on my freedom and my reckless ways. Meeting Stead in London, I sympathized with Richards. Stead, journalist, mystic, reformer, rescuer of fallen women, imperialist, and goodness knows what else, did n’t impress me. He had the typical nonconformist presence: the way his hair grew suggested nonconformity; so did the rather obvious piercing eyes. A strong, plain man, whose mission was naturally wasted on me.

Others of Richards’s friends were more to my taste, especially Le Gallienne, whose appearance was fascinating. He looked like Botticelli’s head of Lorenzo. I at once itched to draw him, and spent a week-end with him and his young wife at his house at Hanwell. A charming person he was, every inch a poet, with long hair, wide collar, and high ideals. He had recently published his English Poems, which helped to revive the fashion for reading poetry — a feather, truly, in his cap. He had attracted the notice of Oscar Wilde, by his poetic appearance as well as by his verses; at the same time he had caught some of Oscar’s mannerisms, too. I remember his showing me a photograph of Yeats, of whom I then knew nothing, nervously asking what I thought of it. He evidently thought much of Yeats, but he was not displeased at my ignorance of who he was. We parted swearing eternal friendship. I was to make a drawing to appear in his next book, and would soon return for the purpose. Each had flattered the other, as young men on the threshold of life are eager to do.

I went with Richards to see A Woman of No Importance, Oscar Wilde’s new play which had taken the town by storm. Oscar was delighted, as he had been on the success of his first play, Lady Windermere’s Fan. At last he had achieved a popular success. In addition, he was making a great deal of money. In Paris he had been rather apologetic about his first play, as though to write a comedy were rather beneath a poet. When I saw it I thought, on the contrary, here is the genuine Wilde, making legitimate use of the artifice which was, in fact, natural to him; like his wit, indeed, in which his true genius lay. I know now that the money his plays brought Wilde did neither him nor anyone else much good.

He was offended with me when I met him in London; he had heard I took sides with Whistler against him, though there was no need to listen to Whistler to hear disagreeable things about Wilde; there were plenty of people who disliked and mistrusted him, I was finding out. I reassured him, and went to see him and his wife at Tite Street, where I also met his two charming boys, Vyvyan and Cyril. I liked Mrs. Wilde. She was n’t clever, but she had distinction and candor. With brown hair framing her face, and a Liberty hat, she looked like a drawing by Frank Miles, or, to name a better artist, by Walter Crane. I knew little of the difficulties which were beginning between Wilde and his wife; they seemed on affectionate terms, and he delighted in his children; only I felt something wistful and a little sad about Mrs. Wilde.

One of Mrs. Wilde’s intimate friends was Mrs. Walter Palmer, who was a close friend of George Meredith and of his daughter Mariette, afterward Mrs. Julian Sturgis. One eventful evening, George Meredith came to a party at Mrs. Palmer’s, at which I was present. What a noble head, I thought, as he sat on a sofa, and how like one of his own characters he talked! This was the only occasion on which I met Mrs. Wilde at a party with Oscar. I went clown with her to supper, and later, when she discovered me to be, like herself, a whole-hearted Meredithian, she took me up to the great man. He was still on his sofa, surrounded by a bevy of fair ladies, and we joined the group and listened to his scintillating talk.

III

When I had sufficiently practised drawing on stone at Way’s, I proceeded to Oxford, to begin work on the portraits for Lane.

MacColl had given me a letter to Walter Pater. Pater’s appearance wars most unexpected. He looked like a retired artillery officer: a thick moustache, hiding rather heavy lips, gray eyes a shade too close together, a little restless, even evasive, under dark eyebrows. He had a habit, disquieting to young people, of assuming ignorance on subjects about which he was perfectly informed. He questioned me closely about Mallarmé, Verlaine, Huysmans, and De Goncourt, and the younger French writers. Guarded in his talk, careful of expressing his own opinions, he was adept at inviting indiscretions from his guests. I naturally wanted to hear his own views on things and people., but young men obviously cannot ask older men w hat they think of their contemporaries. He asked much about Whistler, for whom he had no great admiration. I did try one day to get his opinion of Oscar Wilde, who regarded Pater as his master. ’Oh, Wilde — yes, he always has a phrase.’ I told this afterward to Oscar, who affected to be delighted. ‘A perfect thing to have said of one,’ he murmured, ‘“he always has a phrase.”’ Just as certain intellectuals affect a passion for detective stories, so Pater made a practice of entertaining the footballand cricket-playing undergraduates, while he rather ignored the young precieux. He gave regular luncheon parties on Wednesdays; each time I was invited I met very tonguetied, simple, good-looking youths of the sporting fraternity. But Pater’s close companion, Bussel, was always of the party, to share Pater’s slightly malicious enjoyment.

I wanted to include a portrait of Pater in the Oxford set, but he was morbidly self-conscious about his appearance. He had been drawn as a youth by Simeon Solomon, and was reluctant, later in life, to be shown as he was. Still, he seemed interested in the drawings I was doing and hesitatingly suggested I should try Bussel first. Bussel sat, and Pater approved of the result. Perhaps Bussel added his persuasion to mine; at any rate he said that Pater was no longer averse to sitting. A drawing was duly made, and sent away to be put down on the stone. When the proofs came I showed one to Pater. He said little, but was obviously displeased; according to Bussel he was more than displeased — he was upset. He had taken the print into Bussel’s room, laying it on the table without comment. They then went together for their usual walk; but not a word was spoken. On their return, as Pater left Bussel at his door, he broke silence. ‘Bussel, do I look like a Barbary ape?’ Then came a tactful letter from Pater: —

OXFORD March 11 th
MY DEAR ROTHENSTEIN,
I thought your drawing of me a clever likeness, but I doubt very much whether my sister, whom I have told about it, will like it; in which case I should rather not have it published. I therefore write at once to save you needless trouble about it. Put off the reproduction of the drawing till you come to Oxford again, and then let her see it. I thought your likeness of Bussel most excellent, and shall value it. It presents just the look I have so often seen in him, and have not seen in his photographs. I should have liked to be coupled with him, and am very sorry not to be. I think, however, you ought to publish him at once, with some other companion; and I will send you four or five lines for him soon.
With sincere thanks for the trouble you have taken about me, I remain,
Very truly yours,
WALTER PATER

Pater duly sent me the note on Busscl — the last words, I believe, he was destined to write for publication. Some time afterward I heard from Tom Way, the printer: ‘We have just had a visit from Mr. Lane before your note came. He came expressly to say that no more proofs were to be pulled from the Pater. I understand Pater has used great stress as to what he will do if it is published. It is very small for these people to go on so, I think.’

I usually found that each of my sitters thought twenty-three of the twenty-four drawings excellent likenesses; the twenty-fourth was his own. Had I paid too much attention to my sitters’ feelings, few of my portraits would ever have seen the light. Any record sincerely made from life has a certain value; this fact, I felt, was my justification.

But, imperfect as my portraits were, I know my case was a common one. Was n’t it Sargent who said that a portrait is a painting in which there is something wrong with the mouth? Even the great Sir Joshua Reynolds had a large number of rejected portraits on his hands—three hundred, I read somewhere. I remember Neville Lytton telling me, when I was speaking with particular admiration of Watts’s beautiful portrait of his mother, that, though they had a chance of acquiring it at the time it was painted, it was rejected by his mother’s family; and many years later, when Lady Lytton was an old lady, she paid a visit to Little Holland House and, seeing the portrait again, was moved to tears at the thought that she had once been as beautiful as she appeared in the painting. But Watts would not now let the portrait leave his studio.

But alas, before the Oxford book was finished, Pater died; and when my portrait was finally included in the volume his friends were glad, as so few records of Pater existed. Besides the early drawing by Simeon Solomon, there was only a not very satisfactory photograph.

IV

I insisted, much against John Lane’s wishes, on including a few portraits of undergraduates among those of the dons, arguing that, in a record of contemporary Oxford, undergraduates should have a place. So I drew C. B. Fry, the greatest all-round athlete of the time; W. A. L. Fletcher, the leading oarsman; Hilaire Belloc, and Max Beerbohm. I owed my introduction to Max Beerbohm to Viscount St. Cyres, a Merton man who had taken his degree and was now a reader at Christ Church. A baby face, with heavily lidded, very light gray eyes shaded by remarkably thick and long lashes, a broad forehead, and sleek black hair parted in the middle and coming to a queer curling point at the neck; a quiet and finished manner; rather tall, carefully dressed; slenderfingered, with an assurance and experience unusual in one of his years — I was at once drawn to Max Beerbohm and lost no time in responding to an invitation to breakfast. He was living in a tiny house at the far end of Merton Street — a house scarcely bigger than a Punch and Judy show. His room, blue-papered, was hung with Pellegrini prints from Vanity Fair. Beside these, there were some amusing caricatures which, he said modestly, were his own. ‘But they are brilliant,’ I said, and he seemed pleased at my liking them.

We met frequently. Though we were the same age, and in some ways I had more experience of life than he, his seemed to have crystallized into a more finished form than my own. So had his manners, which were perfect. He was delightfully appreciative of anything he was told, seizing the inner meaning of any rough observation of men and of things, which at once acquired point and polish in contact, with his understanding mind. Outside Merton only few undergraduates knew him; all who did know him admired him. His caricatures were sometimes to be seen in Shrimpton’s window in the Broad; and in time, through these, he acquired some reputation outside his own small circle; for he was fastidious in the choice of his friends. My Balliol friends scoffed when I spoke of him as the most brilliant man in Oxford.

Max played no games, belonged to no college society, never went to the Union, scarcely even to lectures. While aware of everything that went on in Oxford, he himself kept aloof; going nowhere, he seemed to know about everyone; unusual wisdom and sound judgment he disguised under the harlequin cloak of his wit. He always declared he had read nothing — only The Four Georges and Lear’s Book of Nonsense, and, later, Oscar Wilde’s Intentions, which he thought was beautifully written.

Wilde came regularly to Oxford during the year I spent there. He and Beerbohm Tree were friends, so Max knew him already. Max the man appreciated to the full Oscar’s prose and his talk; he thought him, in his way, a perfect writer; but nothing escaped the clear pitiless gray eye of Max the caricaturist, and Oscar Wilde winced under the stinging discharge of Max’s pencil. Pater, Max knew only by sight; he attempted more than once to caricature him, but could n’t hit on a formula. I tried to show him where he had gone wrong, offering to fetch the lithograph I had recently made of Pater. ‘No thanks, dear Will; I never work from photographs,’ was Max’s reply.

I implied that Max took no exercise. I did him an injustice: he shared a canoe with a Merton friend, L. M. Messell, and did sometimes strike the water of the Cher with his paddle. Perhaps it was merely a gesture; at least it was made in the Cher. Farther afield I never knew him to go. He boasted once that he had never worn cap or gown; I swore I would see him in both before he left Oxford, for he spoke of going down without taking his degree. I managed to get hold of a Proctor’s notice, had it copied by a London printer, and sent out the copies to Max and a dozen others; they were to present themselves before the Proctor at Balliol College at nine o’clock on a certain morning. I took care to be at Balliol betimes, and saw them all arrive in trouble and uncertainty, and, Max among them, in cap and gown. Then I watched them disappear up the Proctor’s staircase. At Christ Church in the evening I found the other Proctor furious over the hoax. I told York Powell about it privately; he was in fearful terror lest I be found out, staying, as I was, with him at the House. He tried to be solemn about it, but I think he was secretly amused. But not a word must I breathe to anyone about the unpardonably wicked thing I had done.

V

I had to go up to London from time to time to take my drawings to Way, and there, meeting Arthur Symons, I told him of Verlaine’s readiness to give some readings in England. He too had heard from Verlaine, and was warmly in favor of the project. He promised to make all the arrangements and to look after Verlaine while he was in London; and York Powell offered to arrange for a lecture at Oxford.

Verlaine wrote from more than one address. He had been giving conferences in Holland, at Lunéville, and in other places, and was still obliged to return to the hospital from time to time for treatment. ‘Forgive me, my friend, for not having answered your kind letter sooner. But my illness — grippe, influenza, bickering, devil knows what — has got hold of me again and laid me literally on my back.’ He complained that he had n’t yet been paid for his Dutch lectures. ‘My intention is to talk about French Poetry in this part of the century (1880-93), with many quotations, including some of my own.’ he writes of his coming conference in London. And again: ‘Have you any ideas on the subject of a lecture in London and elsewhere, if it comes off? Please let me know. I hope to be out soon, but you will have a line from me before then. Waiting for a new order — fifteen days, about twenty francs. M. Lane gave me four pounds for two poems — very fair of him. I am still waiting for news of our friends. Yours ever, P. V.’

A few days later he is back in hospital: ‘Will you let me know the times of departure and of arrival? Must I go through London? And when will the lecture take place? Also, the prices of trains and boats, and about what they will pay me at Oxford and London.’

He was n’t long detained by the doctors, and reached London safely. Here he stayed with Symons at Fountain Court. He gave two readings in the Hall of Barnard’s Inn, which were well attended. I heard from both Arthur Symons and John Lane about the lecture. Lane wrote: —

Verlaine was a great success last night. He, so I learn, leaves Paddington to-morrow morn: for you. He called at the Bodley Head this afternoon — but I was out. Meredith sent a message to me that he would like to have Verlaine down to his place for a day and this morn he wired in reply to me that he would be delighted to have him on Sunday night if I would take him down, but Verlaine is not feeling very well and he is not sure how long he will remain. Perhaps you will consult York Powell about it, and anyhow I am free to take him down on Sunday. Will you write to me and let me know the joint wishes of Verlaine, Powell and yourself on the subject, Let me know on Friday per letter or wire so that I may let Meredith know finally.

What prevented the visit to Meredith I don’t remember. From Symons I had an equally reassuring letter: —

MY DEAR ROTHENSTEIN,
I hope you duly received my telegram, and Verlaine after it. Please write and tell me how things have gone, and if the lecture was a success; also if Verlaine goes on to Manchester or not. And I want you to remember to get from him, before he goes, my copies of Sagesse and Amour that he borrowed from me, and please remind him to write his name in them, as he said he would. As you see, I am already far away, within sight and sound of the loveliest sea in the world, and in my native country, which I have not visited for years and years.
I bought the P. M. B. on my way down. Your portrait is excellent, one of the very best I have seen.
Verlaine’s visit, to me, has been most delightful, and I think we ought all to congratulate ourselves on ourselves for having brought him over, and on our luck in getting him. I hope he will get a decent amount of money in Oxford: the London sum will be, I think, about £30.
Yours very sincerely,
ARTHUR SYMONS

Symons put Verlaine into the train at Paddington. I met him at Oxford station. A strange figure he looked on the platform, as he limped along in a long greatcoat, a scarf round his neck, his foot in a cloth shoe. I took him at once to Christ Church, where Powell had a room for him.

Verlaine gave his lecture in a room at the back of Blackwell’s shop, and read a number of his own poems. As a conference it was a poor affair: he spoke indistinctly in a low, toneless voice; he had brought nothing with him, and he knew but few of his poems by heart. Fortunately, York Powell and I between us provided the books, from which he read. There was only a sprinkling of persons present, — probably few people in Oxford knew much about the poet or his poetry, — but Verlaine was tickled with the idea of having lectured before what he believed was an audience of doctors and scholars of the ancient University of Oxford.

He was delighted with Oxford — with the beauty of the colleges, with the peace of the quads and gardens. He showed no sign of wanting to leave, — he was gay and talkative, and wished to be taken everywhere, — but. York Powell, admirer of Verlaine though he was, was in terror lest the poet should get drunk while staying at Christ Church. What would the Dean, what would Dodgson,² say? So far, nothing untoward had happened; but after two or three days Powell suggested that I should give poor Verlaine a hint that guest rooms were only to be occupied for a short period at a time. This was not easy, for Verlaine, in spite of a certain childishness, was yet shrewd enough, and surmised that York Powell was nervous; but he by no means wished to leave Oxford. He needed a good deal of gentle persuasion before he was put into the train again for London.

VI

When the summer term ended I went over to spend some weeks in Paris. William Heinemann, who was preparing an English edition of the Do Goncourts’ Journal, was also going to Paris, and he proposed I should make a portrait of Edmond de Goncourt to be reproduced in the book. I jumped at the chance, not only of drawing Dc Goncourt, but, as 1 hoped, of seeing his treasures.

Do Goncourt made no difficulties about sitting, and I lost no time in paying my respects to the great man, who through his and his brother’s influence on the modern novel had become almost an historical figure, and who with his brother had done so much to draw attention to the importance of the eighteenth-century painters in France. I had read more than one volume of the famous Journal, and I knew something of the house at Ncuilly. Ushered in and shown up a staircase hung with fascinating-looking prints and drawings, I at once received a. suggestion of good things to come. I was shown into Edmond’s study, lined with books. There sat the whitehaired veteran I had long admired from afar — a big, powerful head, wax-like in its pallor, with two great velvety eyes looking out. Ilis clothes were of an old-fashioned French cut; he wore a handkerchief carefully knotted about his neck, as in the Bracquemond portrait. Reticent at first, studiedly, before I left he had become much more genial. He appeared surprised at my youth.

When I returned to the house for a first sitting, he was much interested at my drawing directly on to the stone. I was the first person he had seen work in this way since Gavarni died. He talked much of Gavarni, with whom he and his brother Jules had been long and intimately associated. When later I mentioned Daumier, he became bitter at once. ‘Ah, fashion,’ he said. ‘How stupid she is! Gavarni had a hundred times Daumier’s talent.’ And then, in the same breath, he assailed Y illiers de l’Isle Adam and Barbey d’Aurevilly. ‘Yes, it’s the fashion to-day to admire all the dead, who were n’t worth a cent when they were alive.’ When he came to look at my drawing, he did not approve of the hair; to show me how he would like it, he went to the glass and, with his old trembling lingers, carefully untidied it.

That Whistler was a great artist he was unwilling to hear. ‘He bores me — he’s a clown.’ With Degas he was annoyed, because Degas had told him that modern writers got their inspiration from painters. He had replied that in Manette Salomon, before Degas had begun to paint in his present manner, he and his brother had written that ballet girls and laundresses were subjects made to an artist’s hand. ‘Degas is too clever,’ he said, ‘and is sometimes scored off. For instance, the other day, at Alphonse Daudet’s, he remarked that our writing was twaddle, that the only man of real talent among us was le père Dumas. To which Daudet: “Yes, my dear Degas, and the only modern artist of genius was Horace Ycrnet.’”

I made two lithographs of Edmond de Goncourt during the short time I stayed in Paris. He liked talking about painting and drawing, and showing his treasures. He had marvelous eighteenth-century drawings and Japanese prints; many of these last were pretentiously framed. I wondered at bis valuing his drawings by Boucher as highly as Ins Watteaus, of which he had some admirable examples. But what books and manuscripts he possessed! He showed me the original account books of the Pompadour, giving the prices she paid, among other things, for furniture and bibelots. I was astonished how costly these were, when new. What admirable faith these people had in their own contemporaries!

De Goncourt, too, had not altogether lost this faith. He knew little of any but French culture; like Degas, he was intensely conservative and nationalist. But his taste was very uncertain; round a room at the top of his house he had glass-topped tables where he kept presentation copies of books from his friends, bound in vellum, with their authors’ portraits painted on the covers: Zola by Raffaëlli, Montesquieu by Gandara, Rodenbach by Alfred Stevens, Daudet and another by Carrière; a charming one, and the only drawing which appeared to me suited to a book cover, by Forain; and many others in more dubious taste and badly painted. How strange that the sensitive biographer of Utamaro, of the Pompadour and Lcs Femmes au 18me siècle, should indulge in such doubtful fancies! He said, when I last saw him, that he was undecided about his next Japanese monograph — whether it should be on Harunobu or on the better-known Hokusai. He was anxious I should draw Madame Daudet, as well as Saint-Victor, Zola, and Daudet; also the Princesse Mathilde. I wrote to the Princesse, who did n’t reply, perhaps because I began my letter ‘Chère Madame.’ I had little experience in writing to royal princesses. De Goncourt seemed very devoted to Alphonse Daudet, and to his wife. He said I must draw them both; he would write and tell them so. He also gave me a letter to Zola.

Daudet received me cordially. Of course he would sit, since his dear friend Edmond de Goncourt wished it. He was exciting to draw; very pale, almost glistening white, with long black hair and beard just beginning to turn gray. He looked terribly ill. His hands were white and bloodless. Very sensitive hands they were, closed on a black ebony stick, his support when walking. I had read Daudet’s Tarfarin at school; it was almost a classic, as well knowm to boys as Mark Twain’s Tramp Abroad. Other books I read later; but Daudet was now less in favor among the elite. I think he knew this, for he complained loudly of the newer writers, much as the older men do today. ‘Ah, you young men of to-day, you came into the world with all your teeth fully grown — you are so bitter, so unkind! Men of my generation sympathize with old and young. I try to find good in all.’ He was anxious to get Whistler to paint his daughter.

When my drawing was done, Daudet was so flattering about it that he made me uneasy. How old was I? Wonderful; what a future before me! I must show it to Madame Daudet. ‘Hasn’t he caught me to the life?’ Madame Daudet was flattering too, but with a shade of ennui. She must have tired at times of Daudet’s meridional superlatives. True, he had great charm; but there was something in him that did n’t ring true, that was slightly embarrassing; perhaps one felt he was too well aware of his fascination.

For Edmond de Goncourt he expressed unbounded admiration. He asked much about Meredith’s position in England. Lord Dufferin, he said, often came to him in the evenings to read to him. He had just translated, viva voce, Modern Love. I asked him if he found it difficult to follow; he said, no, he understood everything perfectly. As Lord Dufferin was not reputed a perfect French scholar, and as Modern Love is difficult to read, even for English people, this was surprising. I had just been reading Un Caractcre, by Leon Hennique. Daudet was delighted to hear his friend Hennique praised; he agreed that he was an exquisite writer. Speaking of Verlaine, he told me that Verlaine had once tried to stab him at dinner just after the publication of one of his books.

I met their son Léon³ several times at the Daudets’. I thought him very clever, but too cocksure. He told his father that he had made up his mind, that his opinions were finally settled, on every aspect of life. He had inherited the meridional temperament of his father, with the latter’s tendency to exaggerated praise and blame. His mentality was clearer cut, but he lacked his father’s charm and grace. His wife, Jeanne, a granddaughter of Victor Hugo, was a handsome blonde, rather like Saskia. I went to lunch with them at their luxurious flat, where they lived in more state than the older Daudets. He gave me two of his books, which I have not reread; but lately I came across a book of his reminiscences, dealing with this particular time, which was brilliant, I thought; his prose portraits are sharp and convincing. The book recalled very clearly this period of my fife in Paris.

VII

I was rather embarrassed one day when De Goncourt told me he had lately made a great discovery: the fife of a courtesan written by an obscure English author in the seventeenth century — a wonderful book, the precursor of the modern realist novel. He then began to describe Moll Flanders. I did not like to tell him that this was a kind of classic in England, well known to everyone who knew Defoe’s work.

The ignorance of French winters and painters of all but their own art and literature used to surprise me. De Goncourt had heard vaguely of Swinburne and Rossetti, and I told him about the beauty of Rossetti’s early work and also of Swinburne’s poetry.

That Edmond de Goncourt would write down any scraps of my chatter I had never imagined. He asked me many questions about England — about the Pre-Raphaelites especially. I suppose I told him the little I knew, and mostly through Whistler’s stories; what young man would n’t do his best to be informing with an old man of De Goncourt’s eminence? Whistler had given me very funny accounts of the Rossetti household at Cheyne Walk, and I must have been indiscreet enough to repeat them. Two years later, when the last volume of the De Goncourts’ Journal appeared, I received a rude shock.

De Goncourt gave me a letter to Zola, whose portrait was to appear in the English edition of the Journal. I was rather taken aback by Zola’s house in the rue de Rome. I had scarcely expected to find the author of L’Ŕuvre and L’Asommoir in such luxurious surroundings. His study was filled with expensive-looking antiques, rich carpets and hangings, bronzes and caskets — no armor I think, but it was the kind of room in which one expected to find suits of armor. On the wall hung his portrait by Manet, in Manet’s early dark manner.

Zola’s personality did not impress me; he was not at all amiable — in fact, rather sulky. I suspected that there was little love lost between him and Daudet and De Goncourt. Perhaps it was because I had come from Edmond de Goncourt that Zola was not very cordial. Lately I read that in the De Goncourt Journal, which was to have been published thirty years after Edmond’s death, the references to Zola are so libelous that even now it cannot be published. I felt at the time that there was something ungenerous about De Goncourt and Daudet — that they were both rather jealous, perhaps of the phenomenal success of Zola’s work, not only in France, but throughout Europe.

Zola wore a kind of monk’s dress; he was writing his book on Lourdes, and getting himself into the right frame of mind; though, not knowing this at the time, such a costume on him was rather startling. He was not in a mood for talking. I had my drawing to make, and as this was the only occasion on which I met him, my impression of his character was of course superficial.

I had not forgotten Verlaine. Verlaine’s room looked more forlorn still after Zola’s palatial hotel; and he was, as usual, in the depths. ‘My dear friend,’ he wrote, ‘I’m counting on you for Wednesday. . . . Are you willing and able to contribute a little to the expenses of our frugal orgies for that luncheon, and to bring me the Figaro and its supplement? In any case, be sure to come, won’t you? . . .*

Verlaine was not well enough to come out to meals, so of course, since he often asked me to join him and Eugénie at lunch or dinner, I usually procured some addition to their larder from the restaurant below. But Verlaine must indeed have been poor to have asked for the Figaro; and lately he had been in hospital again, this time at the Hôpital St. Louis, where he had had to pay for his keep. ‘My dear friend,’ he had written me, ‘what has become of you? I am still here. Better, but slow to mend; there is no end to this foot! And six francs a day! etc. etc. Also, I should be very grateful to you if you could hasten the advance or the balance from the Fortnightly, which would help me so much. Won’t you see about it quickly? Symons is in Paris. He has been to see me twice already in my hermitage, where I am really very comfortable; a room to myself; free to smoke, and to receive visitors every day. Good food. But it is n’t freedom. When will that really come for me — definitely? Saw Mallarmé yesterday (who is waiting for word from York Powell). So am I, and of the book—and from Lane.’⁴

Then again complaints about the Fortnightly: ‘I need that cash so badly! There are also verses in the Athenaeum, for which I expect something. About that you could see Gosse, to whom I have written without getting a reply.’

‘I need that cash so badly!’ — not he alone, for his needs were few; but Eugénie was greedy, and there was someone else, too. For, soon after, I heard from him again: ‘I have a recurrence of my illness, which I am looking after carefully, and which prevents my writing much. On account of this relapse, I have n’t yet been able to go to Belgium, and still less to Switzerland. I’m living elsewhere, and even divorced. Write to me at 187 rue St. Jacques; and be so good as to send me two or three copies of the Pall Mall Budget, which contains your portrait of me. Be sure not to send anything to the rue Broca.’

The last sentence is significant. When I saw him again he said he had got rid of cette harlot. But soon afterward the Krantz was sharing his new room in the rue St. Jacques; and Verlaine wrote: ‘Our ménage is flourishing. We are expecting baby — canaries! And we are the richer by an aquarium, with two little fish.’

Before I left Paris I heard from Beerbohm.

2 CHANDOS SQUARE
BROADSTAIRS
MY DEAR WILL:
I made my entry into Broadstairs quite quietly last Sunday. I find it a most extraordinary place — a few yards in circumference and with a population of several hundred thousands. In front of our house there is a huge stretch of greenish, stagnant water which makes everything damp and must, I am sure, be very bad for those who live near to it. Everyone refers to it with mysterious brevity as the C. I am rather afraid of the C. And oh the population! You, dear Will, with your love of Beauty that is second only to your love of vulgarity, would revel in the female part of it. Such lots of pretty, common girls walking up and down — all brown with the sun and dressed like sailors — casting vulgar glances from heavenly eyes and bubbling out Cockney jargon from perfect lips. You would revel in them, but I confess they do not attract me; apart from the fact that I have an ideal, I don’t think the lower orders ought to be attractive — it brings Beauty into disrepute. Never have I seen such a shadvI coking set of men in any place at any season: most of them look like thieves and the rest like receivers of stolen goods and altogether I do not think Broadstairs is a nice place. Are you in Paris? How charming — I am sending this to your publishers, who know, probably, your address. By the way, did you remember when you saw that poor fly in the amber of modernity, John Lane, to speak of my caricatures? Do write to me and tell me of anything that you are doing or of anyone you have seen. . . .
Photography — what a safeguard it is against infidelity. If Ulysses had had a photograph of Penelope by Elliot and Fry in his portmanteau, the cave of Calypso might have lost an habitue. . . .
Yours ever,
MAX

Have you entered any Studio yet? I would recommend you to draw from the life: nothing like it.

(The concluding installment takes Mr. Rothenstein to London)