by George Moore
Rapidly Lewis told Frazer the story of his success, and forgetting that his friend took no more interest in women than in cab horses, gave him a minute account of Mrs. Bentham’s personal appearance.
“Isn’t it an extraordinary story, and what a delightful time I shall have in Sussex with her, if what Carver says is true, that—” but noticing that Frazer was absorbed in contemplating the lights and shadows in the streets, he stopped.
The day was sloppy, but the sun shone between the showers; the violet roof of Waterloo Place glittered intensely, and scattered around reflections of their vivid colour. A strip of sky, of a lighter blue than the slates, passed behind the dome of the National Gallery, the top of which came out black against a black cloud that held the approaching downpour.
“You say that my sunset effects are too violet in tone; look there!” exclaimed the enthusiast; “isn’t everything violet? walls, pools, and carriages, I can see nothing that isn’t violet.”
Lewis admitted that there were some violet tones in the effect; but denied that it was composed exclusively of that colour, as Frazer wanted to make out.
As they walked along, the question was argued passionately. Frazer’s whole soul was in the discussion; Lewis thought how he should spend the afternoon. It was only two o’clock; he could not sit at home with three pounds in his pocket, so he invited his friend to come with him to a bar-room, and have something to eat.
Frazer, who had eaten nothing all day, and only had had a dried herring at a fish-stand for dinner the night before, assented. He wished to continue the conversation, for he hoped to bring back Lewis to the fold. Lewis had once been a “Modern.”
Pushing through the doors, bright with varnish and polished brass, they stood in the twilight, warm with tobacco smoke, of the bar-room. The place was full of people, they lolled in groups and couples along the counter: behind it stood a line of girls, whose clear voices, as they gave an order, rang above the long murmur of the conversation. An odour of liquor drifted upwards, escaping slowly by the high windows. Edging their way through the crowd of betting-men, artists, journalists, and actors, they at last got to a table in one of the crescent-shaped nooks which ran along one side of the room under the cathedral windows.
Lewis ordered a copious lunch, and much whiskey and water, the sight of which attracted some academy students who were talking to the barmaids.
At this time “The moderns” were terribly laughed at; Thompson, the head of the school, was admitted to have some talent, but the rest were considered fools and madmen. So, with whiskey to drink, and Frazer to chaff, the academy students got on capitally, and when they got the enthusiast to say that the only painting of any interest was what “The moderns” did, they fairly shook with laughter. Frazer never lost his temper; and he continued to pour forth his aphorisms, unconscious of the mirth they occasioned. At last the hilarity was cut short by the arrival of Thompson; he was with Harding, the novelist, whose books were vigorously denounced by the press, as being both immoral and cynical. Places were made for the two leaders of the modern movement. Lewis knew them both, so he at once set to work to tell them about his luck.
Thompson looked bored; Harding listened sneeringly, his face was that of the intellectual sensualist.
“So you are going to decorate the walls,” said Thompson, drily, “with the extract of Boucher, and you are going to do it together? Well, I hope the collaboration will succeed.”
“I suppose you would like me to paint ballet girls and housemaids over Greek walls. If the room is Greek, the decorations must be Greek, at least it seems to me so.”
“Naturally,” replied Thompson, languidly (he had not much belief in Lewis’s artistic future), “but don’t you think there is a way of giving a modernized version of Greek subjects, that would be quite as archæologically correct as the Greek seen through Boucher and Poussin? Do what they did, take an old form and colour it with the spirit of the age you live in.”
The remark awakened a hundred thoughts in Lewis’s mind, and he remained thinking.
“But what is the use of arguing,” said Harding. “Leave him alone, he will succeed much better by joining the women artists with their school of namby-pamby idealism, than by working with us. The age is dying of false morality and sentimentality, and neither you nor I can do anything to help it, nor a host like us. These confounded women, with their poetry, their art, their aspirations, have devoured everything, like a plague of locusts; they have conquered the nineteenth century as the Vandals did Europe in the sixth. Later on, I dare say they will arrive at something; at present they are a new race, and have not yet had time to thoroughly digest what they have learned, much less to create anything new.”
“Not created anything new!” exclaimed an academy student; “what do you say to George Sand, George Eliot, and Rosa Bonheur?”
“That you have chosen the three that I would have chosen myself to exemplify what I say. If they have created anything new how is it that their art is exactly like our own! I defy anyone to say that George Eliot’s novels are a woman’s writing, or that “The Horse Fair” was not painted by a man. I defy you to show me a trace of feminality in anything they over did, that is the point I raise. I say that women as yet have not been able to transfuse into art a trace of their sex; in other words, unable to assume a point of view of their own they have adopted ours. For instance, no one will deny that woman’s love must be different from a man’s. Well, docs George Sand, in one single instance, paint woman’s love as seen differently from how we see it ourselves? And what splendid chances they miss! Female emotion in art is an unknown quantity, but to analyse it would require an original talent and that is what they have not, and I am afraid never will have. They arrange, explain, but they do not create; they do not even develop a formula; they merely vulgarise it, fit it for common use. No, not only are they not fathers, but in art are not even mothers.”
“Quite so,” exclaimed Frazer; “and if all modern art is based on love, it is owing to their influence. The fault I find with Shelley is that he can’t write ten lines without talking of love; — it is quite sickening.”
Frazer could get no further, but with a grimace as if he were really feeling ill, he buried his long nose in a tumbler of whiskey and water.
“But don’t you think love beautiful?” asked Lewis, perfectly horrified; “how could anyone write poetry without it? It is the soul of poetry: even Swinburne, whom you so much admire, writes constantly about love.”
“Never!” said Frazer, energetically; “he respects himself too much. I defy you to show me anywhere a trace of sentiment in his poetry. Ah, yes, I forgot, he does in the case of the leper; but then it was a leper who was sentimental, which renders it far less repulsive.”
This startling paradox obtained a laugh, and all wondered how far Frazer was serious in what he said. The conversation then turned on women, and everyone, including the academy students, who spoke to each other, explained to his neighbour what his individual opinions were upon the subject. Lewis believed in passion, eternal devotion, and, above all, fidelity; ho could not understand the sin of unfaithfulness, in any shape or form; without truth there could not be love, and how any man could make love to his friend’s wife, passed his comprehension. Frazer declared that in that respect only he had never feared his friends. Thompson said that an artist’s best love affair is to marry his cook, for in that way he not only makes sure of his servant’s honesty, but secures himself against all invitations to dinner parties.
Frazer endorsed that opinion cordially. Lewis combated it resolutely, and cited a number of successful painters and authors who had devoted their lives to love as well as to art.
This drew forth a long discussion, to which everybody contributed something, on the rival merits of Michael Angelo and Raphael, Wordsworth and Shelley: at last the conversation returned to its starting point, and the possibility of creating a new aestheticism was again passionately discussed.
“I’m sick of the ar
gument,” said Thompson; “people won’t understand, or can’t understand, and yet the whole question is as simple as A B C.”
“Well, what is your ABC?” asked an academy student.
“This,” replied Thompson, “ancient art was not, and modern art is, based upon logic. Our age is a logical one, and our art will not be able to hold aloof any longer from the general movement. Already the revolution is visible everywhere. It accomplishes nothing in music that it does not do in literature; nothing in literature that it does not in painting. The novelist is gaining the day for the study of the surroundings; the painter for atmospheric effects; and the musician will carry the day for melodious uninterrupted deductions, for free harmony which is the atmosphere of music.”
This profession of faith touched the heart of a musician who had joined them, and he exclaimed: “Just so, and yet it is impossible to explain to people that that is Wagner’s whole principle. Take a symphony or a sonata, and ask a dozen writers to describe what it means, and you will get ten different theories. But if music, by itself, does not go further than to express generalities, once you join it to literature it becomes an instrument of the most extraordinary precision, for the sensibility of the listener is awakened to that particular emotion, to that particular shade of sentiment. The idea is completed by the suggestion, and in this way you obtain what is, perhaps, the most perfect of all the arts, an art that speaks at once to the ear, the soul, to the heart, and to the eyes. The dramatist gives the visible, the musician the invisible. The musician is the Pygmalion, the dramatist is Galatea.”
There being no other musician present, the conversation went back to the novel, and someone asked Harding why he always chose such unpleasant subjects.
“We do not always choose what you call unpleasant subjects, but we try to go to the roots of things; and the basis of life, being material and not spiritual, the analyst inevitably finds himself, sooner or later, handling what this sentimental age calls coarse. But, like Thompson, I am sick of the discussion. If your stomach will not stand the crudities of the moral dissecting room read verse; but don’t try to distort an art into something it is not, and cannot be. The novel, if it be anything, is contemporary history, an exact and complete reproduction of social surroundings of the age we live in. The poem, on the other hand, is an idealisation, and bears the same relation to the novel as the roast beef does to the rich, ripe fruit which you savour when your hunger is satisfied.”
“Believe before it is too late,” exclaimed Mr. Frazer, warmly, to the academy students; “the die has been cast; what has to come will come. It will not be Mr. Hilton’s Venus, nor Mr. Baring’s pretty mothers, that will retard the coming of the modern art. A bombshell is about to break, and you open your umbrellas; but have a care, oh, you who are academicians, the bombshell will destroy without mercy all things, both the small and heavy, that oppose it. I say this as much for Mr. Hilton as for Mr. Baring, as much for Mr. Channel, as much for Mr. John Wright and Mr. Arthur Hollwood, I say it for all who aspire to live in the future.”
This speech, which was given with all the vigour of a prophecy, threw a chill on the conversation. Some tittered at the enthusiast’s vehemence; Thompson and Harding testified in a few words their approval of the opinions expressed. Lewis, who had only half understood, and who had a strong prejudice against all sudden events, felt uneasy at the prospect of bombshells against whose fury umbrellas would prove of no avail. Gradually, however, everybody began to speak quietly to his neighbour of the quality of the whiskey and the disagreeableness of the weather, until the conversation turned on Mr. Bendish. He was both criticised and defended, and it was declared that be was uncommonly useful when a sovereign or half a one was indispensable. But Lewis, who only remembered his last futile visit to Fitzroy Square, was of a different opinion; he wished Frazer would leave off propounding theories, and allow him to ask Thompson what his opinion really was about Mrs. Bentham and the decorations. He waited impatiently for some time, but seeing that the chances of finding a sympathetic listener were becoming smaller and smaller, he began to think of going. It was just seven o’clock, Gwynnie would be due at half-past; he would just manage to get home in time to meet her. So, bidding his friends good-bye, he started off at a sharp pace.
As he passed along the Waterloo Road he looked up at the grimy windows. Three days ago there was not one of the many inhabitants in that long line of dismal chambers with whom he would not have exchanged places; now he almost pited them as he exultingly remembered that he alone knew her. Never had the shop, with the old iron and china piled about the walls, appeared so hateful; and when he entered he forgot to speak to Dinah, who ran forward to meet him. Mrs. Cross told him that Miss Lloyd had not yet come in. This was strange and annoying, but there was nothing to do but to wait.
The evening being fine, he opened his windows, and, resting his arms on the wall, sat down to enjoy his dreams. He wondered if it were really possible that he was going to stay with a fashionable lady in her country house, meet grand people, and be introduced to them as an equal.
He thought of what he should say, what they would say to him, and his life became as sweet with dreams as a cup with wine until he remembers his poverty. He had but three shirts, a couple of pairs of old trousers, and the cracked shoes he wore. It was obviously impossible for him to go without a complete fit out — and he had only two pounds ten. His dreams fell down like card houses, but they rose again in rose-coloured wreaths when he thought of Mr. Carver — he, of course, would advance him the necessary money. Yes, on the whole, his life’s sky appeared to be quite clear, and his thoughts hovered about surveying the horizon for a cloud, until they alighted on Gwynnie. He regretted he had not been able to paint his picture without having asked her to sit for it. People who make sacrifices for you always live with the idea that you are going to make sacrifices for them.
She was, he assured himself, a dear, good girl who had done a great deal for him, and he hoped that she would not in any way try to mar his future prospects. Then his face darkened a little, and he felt annoyed with himself when he recalled the fact that he had promised to marry her. Fervidly he hoped she would not make a scene: he hated scenes; nor cry when he told her he was going away. It would be perfectly ridiculous if she did; for, surely, she did not expect him to live in a filthy room all his life? And so his thoughts wandered until the excitement of waiting became too intense, and he found himself at last obliged to go out to get rid of his troubles.
CHAPTER V.
MR. VICOME.
ON LEAVING PALL Mall, Mrs. Bentham drove to see her father. Mr. Vicome had been for many years completely bed-ridden: he lay helpless in a large bleak house in the neighbourhood of Cavendish Square. Mrs. Bentham was the only person he ever saw. She managed the Claremont House property for him, gave him what money he required, and did what she liked with the rest. He never interfered; she did as she pleased, regarding the Sussex estates as her own, for being his only child, she would inherit them at his death. But although he could never leave Cavendish Square, he was interested in everything concerning Claremont House, even to the dismissal of a gardener. It was he who had given her the first idea of the ball-room, and he questioned her on every detail, as the work proceeded, as impatiently as if he were going to preside over the balls given there for the next fifty years.
After having questioned the servant as to Mr. Vicome’s health, Mrs. Bentham passed along the dreary stone passage to the dining-room, where he generally sat in the afternoon. On a small table next to his wheeled chair lay his wig, sunk into a packet of black clothes; the white face and head lolled feebly; a napkin covered his lap, and he was trying to eat something out of a cup.
On seeing his daughter, he put on his wig, and called to the servant to take away what he was eating.
Mrs. Bentham sat down by him, and they talked in short phrases of Claremont House. She told him all she could think of, how the old people whom he had himself known were getting on; how so-and-so’s g
rand-daughter had gone away to service and hadn’t written home; how so-and-so’s son intended to get married next spring.
He listened delighted to all she had to say, and asked innumerable questions. Suddenly he recollected that the ballroom was not yet finished.
“I wonder, my dear Lucy,” he said, pettishly, “you don’t find some artist to do those decorations; you know I want to have that room finished.”
It seemed to Mrs. Bentham like a coincidence that he should speak to her on the subject, and forgetting that he rarely failed to do so, in a constrained way that surprised her, she explained that it was difficult to find an artist to whom the work might be entrusted. The room was quite beautiful since the walls had been painted in light blue and straw colour.
“I told you,” said the old man, joyfully, “that that was the right colour, and you would not believe me. I hope it is a light blue turning to mauve.”
Having been assured on that point, he continued:
“I tell you I want the room finished. If you have carried out my idea, it will be the prettiest room in Sussex. I shall make an effort and try and get down there when the decorations are done; but you must see about an artist to do the pictures; why, there are dozens of clever young men starving about London who would do it splendidly. Can’t that man Mr. Carver, whom you are always talking about, find you one?”
“’Tis curious,” answered Mrs. Bentham, reflectively, “you should speak of it, for not half-an-hour ago Mr. Carver introduced me to a young man who he said would do the work splendidly.”
“Then why don’t you have him down to do it?” asked the old man. “I may go off any day, and I want to see that room finished before I die; it is really very selfish of you.”
