by George Moore
You’re a very good critic, he repeated again and again, and that irritated me, for, of course, one thinks one is something more than a critic.
Is it possible that he thinks his play perfect? Or is it that he would not like to bring any outside influence into it, because to do so might impair its originality. It must be one of these things. Which?
Edward opened his valise, and took a book out of it, and began to read, and I was left to continue my meditations. Was it that Edward was what I had often believed him to be: merely an amateur? An amateur of talent, but an amateur. That was Symons’s opinion. He said: Martyn will always remain an amateur, whereas you, notwithstanding your deficiences, can be considered a writer.
His words were remembered, for Edward’s aversion from my suggestions discovered the amateur in him. It was not that he disapproved of the alterations, but he did not like to accept them because they were not his. The amateur always puts himself before his work, and it is only natural that he should do so, for the amateur writes or paints when he has time. When weary of the glory that a title or a motor-car brings him, he writes a book about Shakespeare’s Sonnets, or David Cox’s slushy water-colours, or maybe an appreciation of Napoleon; whereas the artist is interested in the thing itself, and will accept readily a suggestion from any one, if he thinks that it will be to the advantage of the work to do so. Je prends mon bien où je le trouve is his device, the motto upon his shield. Anybody who can improve a sentence of mine by the omission of a comma or by the placing of a comma is looked upon as my dearest friend. But Edward....
The interruption in my thoughts concerning him was caused by a sudden motion to ask him which was our first halting-place. I expected him to answer Cologne, where we had stopped before to hear a contrapuntal Mass; two choirs, as well as I remember, answering each other from different sides of the cathedral, the voices dividing and uniting, seeking each other along and across the aisles. It was my first experience of this kind of music, and I had preserved a vague, perhaps, but intense memory of it, and feeling somewhat disappointed that we were not going to hear another Mass by Palestrina, I asked Edward for his reasons for this change of route, and my astonishment was great when he began to speak disparagingly of the Cologne music, and my astonishment passed into amazement when he told me that the music we had heard was not by Palestrina at all, but only a modern imitation of his manner. It had seemed to me so beautiful that I did not like to hear its authenticity called into question, but Edward was very firm, and it soon became plain that he knew he had been deceived, and that all mention of Cologne was disagreeable to him. We shall never stop there again, I said to myself, and to fall in with his humour, spoke of the cathedral, which we looked upon as an ugly building. How could it be otherwise? It was begun in the Middle Ages and finished somewhere in the middle of the nineteenth century. But the cathedral at Aix, where we stopped, he declared to be pure thirteenth century, with a good deal of old glass still in the windows; and he looked forward to hearing Mass, his eyes raised to some wonderful purples which a friend of his in London, in whom he placed great faith, had told him to be sure not to miss seeing.
Ugly glass, ugly vestments, ugly architecture, distract one’s attention from one’s prayers. The music is simple at Aix, but I hear it is excellent; and he pressed me to go with him in the morning, saying that I would be able to appreciate the glass better during the service than afterwards. The purples you speak of must be wonderful when there is a prayer in the heart, but I cannot pray in a church, Edward, and the rather in a Roman Catholic church. There are times when Edward is afraid to understand, others when he cannot; and asking myself which is the real Edward I directed my steps towards the church.
The folk were coming out, but Edward was not among them, and I feared that my opportunity was lost of learning something definite about architecture. He might, however, be in the church, and was discovered after a long search at the end of a pew, in a distant corner, still praying heavily. Reluctant to interrupt him, I stood watching, touched by his piety. He crossed himself, came out of the pew, genuflected before the altar, and hastened towards me, now ready to explain the difference between the Romanesque and the Gothic, and that day I learned that the Romanesque windows are round and the Gothic pointed.
It is always interesting to add to one’s store of information; all the simple facts of the world are not known to everybody; and when Edward had told me that the cathedral at Aix bore traces of both styles, we went to study the stained glass, stopping before a large window, the beauty of which, he said, filled him with enthusiasm for the genius of the thirteenth century.
But, my dear Edward, I’m sure that is a modern window.
Whereupon he blazed out. He respected my judgment, but not about stained glass, nor about architecture, and he reminded me that five minutes before I did not know the difference between the Gothic and the Romanesque.
That is quite true; all the same, I know the window to be modern; and after a heated argument we went in search of a beadle, who produced a guide-book and a little English; Edward produced a little German, and between the three — guide-book, German-English, and English-German — it was established beyond doubt that the window was exactly six years old. But let no one conclude that this story is told in order to show that dear Edward is one of the nine hundred and ninety and nine who cannot distinguish between the thirteenth century and a modern imitation of it. Were the story told for this purpose I should be a false friend, and, what is worse, a superficial writer. The story is told in order to show Edward when the fog descends upon him. His comprehension is never the same. There is always a little mist about; sometimes it is no more than a white, evanescent mist sufficient to dim the outlines of things, making them seem more beautiful; sometimes the mist thickens into yellow fog through which nothing is seen. It trails along the streets of his mind, filling every alley, and then the fog lifts and pinnacles are seen again. He is like Ireland, the country he came from; sometimes a muddling fog, sometimes a delicious mist with a ray of light striking through; and that is why he is the most delightful of travelling companions. One comes very soon to the end of a mind that thinks clearly, but one never comes to the end of Edward.
After the cathedral we went to the picture-gallery, and I remember a number of small rooms — hung with pictures, of course, since it was a picture-gallery — and going down these with Edward, and being stopped suddenly by the sight of one picture so beautiful that all the others are forgotten. Who can have painted it? Let us stand here — don’t go near it; let us try to work it out. Some Dutch or Flemish master. A Flemish master rather than a Dutch master — I cannot get nearer to it than that; but one of the most beautiful pieces of paintings in the world, — a picture, let us say, twenty-four by thirty-six (remember, it is ten or a dozen years since I have seen it!) painted on canvas or on a panel; for aught I know it may be painted on copper; but if I have forgotten the details that interest the bric-à-brac hunter, I have not forgotten the painting. But no more than this will I say about it — that it is not by Hondecoeter nor by Cuyp, who painted barn-door fowls occasionally, nor by Snyders. Its brilliant beauty is beyond the scope of their palettes. Shall I satisfy the curiosity of the reader, or shall I excite it by concealing the name? Excite it by telling him to be sure to stop at Aix-la-Chapelle on his way to Bayreuth to see the most beautiful cock that ever trod a hen on a dunghill — a glowing, golden bird.
VI
A LONG TRAIN journey awaited us (and Edward insists on travelling second-class, however hot the weather may be), and all the way to Mainz the day grew hotter and hotter, the carriage narrower and narrower, and Edward’s knees longer and longer. Our carriage was filled with large-bellied Germans, and whenever the train stopped, and any of our travelling-companions got out, other Germans, as large-bellied as those who left us, climbed in, followed by their Frauen — swaying, perspiring German females, hugely breasted, sweating in their muslin dresses, and tediously good-humoured. It was necessary to find p
laces for the new arrivals and their luggage, and all the way to Mainz it seemed to me that Edward was being asked to remove his luggage, and that I was helping him to lift his valise into the rack or out of it.
The cathedral is in red brick — rose-coloured domes upon a blue sky — and it is said to be of very ancient date; whether Gothic or Romanesque I cannot remember. Edward seemed loath to express an opinion, and he questioned me regarding the probable age of certain walls, but not with a view to tempting me into a trap, and so repair his own mistakes with mine; he is far too good-natured for that. I should like to have shown off; faire la roue is natural to every human being; but fearing to lose my newly acquired prestige by a mistake, I assured Edward that Mainz cathedral was all right, and hurried him off to catch the boat, anxious to get away, for Mainz is a pompous town — imitation French, white streets with tall blue roofs, and some formal gardens along the river. We felt as if we were being roasted. The Rhine itself did not look cooler than molten lead, and we waited, limping over the burning cobble-stones and asphalt, till our boat turned in, our intention being to ascend the Rhine as far as the boats go.
A couple of hours of Rhenish scenery, however, tamed our enthusiasm, and I sought Edward out among the passengers, feeling that I must tell him at once that I had discovered Rhenish scenery to be entirely opposed to my temperament. As he wished me to see Lorelei, there was nothing for it but to remain on deck until the boat had passed the Rhine Maiden’s Rock. The harpist and the fiddler whom we had on board might have attempted to play some of the Rhine music; they might at least have played the motives, but they continued to scrape out their waltzes as we steamed over the very spot where Alberich had robbed the Maidens of the Fairy Gold.
We are in the country of Günther and Hagen. It must have looked better in those days than it does now; otherwise Siegfried would not have left Brünnhilde.
Do you really think the Rhine so ugly?
Edward! mile after mile of ugly shapeless hills, disfigured by ruins of castles in which one would fain believe that robber-barons once lived, but one knows in one’s heart that they were only built to attract tourists. And to make the hills seem still more ugly, vines have been planted everywhere, and I know of nothing more unpicturesque than a vineyard. The beauty of a swelling wheat-field is obvious to everybody, and the lesser beauty of fields of oats, barley, and rye. I can admire a field of mustard, though I doubt if it would find its way more easily into a picture than a zebra or a Swiss chalet. I love sainfoin and clover, and do not turn up my nose at cabbages; a potato-field in flower is a beautiful sight; much can be said in favour of mangolds, mangold-wurzels; parsnips and turnip-tops are leathery, but under certain skies they present a pleasant variation in the landscape. A hop-country is one of the most beautiful things in the world, but vines are abhorrent — not for any moral reasons; I appreciate good wine with difficulty, but I’m not a teetotaller.
Look; the other bank isn’t so ugly.
It is higher and steeper, and there are trees. But trees in Germany seem to lose their beauty; they clothe the hillside like gigantic asparagus.
At that moment a castle rose up through the trees, seemingly built upon the top of a crag, and we learned from one of the officers on board that it belonged to a certain German baron who spent some months of every year in it; and we wondered how he reached it, without experiencing, however, the slightest desire to visit him and his German family.
There’s Boppart, Edward said. We’ll stop there.
My heart answered yes, for my heart is full of memories of Boppart, a charming, little village on the banks of the river, where we dine on a balcony, and where, with a bottle of Rhine wine on the table and the thought of the bottle that will follow in our minds, the hours dream themselves away. We awake at midnight as from fairyland. We have been in fairyland, for on Boppart’s balcony we leave the casual and inferior interests of our daily lives to mingle with Gods and Goddesses. The story of The Ring is told there best, by him that knows it, amid pensive attitudes and minds uplifted to Valhalla; and in the telling the August dusk dies on the river, and the song of the river is heard at last coming up through the darkness.
All trains stop at Boppart, and Edward discovered a good one soon after midday; so we should have plenty of time to climb the hillside and visit the church, which we did, and found it to be a straight, stiff building with flying buttresses, fine in a way, built in the fourteenth or fifteenth century, when every building was beautiful ... even in Germany. And when Edward had completed his inspection of the church we wandered about the hillside, finding ourselves at last in some shady gardens, where we had no right to stray. We shall never see those gardens again, but the dim green shade of the trees and the long grass are pleasant to remember. And it was pleasant to lie there for an hour, out of the way of the light. We who live under grey skies in the North always cry out for the light, but in the South we follow the shade; and I should have been glad to have lingered all the afternoon in that garden, but Edward was anxious to get on to Nuremberg.
The journey is a long and tedious one, and we did not arrive there before something had arisen as much like a quarrel as anything that could happen between me and Edward. A quarrel with Edward is so unthinkable that the reader will pardon me for telling what happened. We were both tired of talking, tired of holding our tongues, tired of thinking, and for some forgotten reason the conversation had turned on newspapers, on their circulation, and how they may profit the owner through the advertisements if the circulation does not pass beyond a certain figure.
But as the circulation increases the loss disappears.
Not, Edward, if a single number costs more to produce than the price it is sold at. The illustrated paper we are speaking of is sold at sixpence. The editor makes a large profit if he sells twenty thousand, because if he can guarantee that circulation he can, let us say, get two thousand pounds of advertisements — the maximum that he can get; and as the paper costs sixpence-halfpenny to produce, you see, it will not do for him to sell twenty-five thousand or thirty thousand.
But that is just what I don’t see. I’ve always heard that if you sell enough —
That is when the cost of producing a single copy does not exceed the price at which it is sold.
Edward remained recalcitrant, and after many efforts on my part to explain, he begged me not to lose my temper.
I can’t see it.
The fog, the fog, I said to myself, is descending upon him. And never was it so thick as it is at this moment between Boppart and Nuremberg.
And it lasted all the evening, thickening during dinner, no sign of a pinnacle anywhere. It was not until next morning after breakfast that one began to appear.
That illustrated paper, Edward began.
You aren’t going to open that discussion again, I replied, interrupting him.
It was to tell you that I have been thinking over your argument, and that I see it all quite plainly now. There are times when my mind is denser than at others.
It is charming to hear a man admit that he is wrong — nothing is more winning; and we went away together, talking of Achilles and the tortoise, an admirable fallacy, resting, it appears, upon a false analogy which no one is able to detect. Edward, however, had been able to unravel the other problem, and we were going to see the old town. But on our way there we were stopped by the most beautiful fountain in the world, to which all the folk come to draw water. The drawing of the water is accomplished by some strange medieval device which I cannot remember, and which if I did would be difficult to describe: a grooved iron (one cannot call it a pipe) is tipped over, it fills with water and then it is tipped back again, and the water runs out very prettily.
It surprises me that I am not able to produce a better description of an object that delighted and interested me for quite a long while, compelling me not only to drink when I was not thirsty, but forcing me to beg Edward to do likewise. He besought me to leave that fountain, but its beauty fascinated me. I return
ed to it again and again, and I remember yielding at last, not to exhortations that we should be late for dinner, nor to the strength of his arm, but to the eighteen stone to which that arm is attached. It dragged me away, I vowing all the while that I should never go to Nuremberg without finding time to run down to see that fountain. But the last time I was in Nuremberg, two years ago, the fountain was not to be discovered, at least by me, and after walking till we were both foot-sore, the friend who set out with me to seek it declared it to be a dream-fountain. We took a carriage and questioned the driver. He pretended to understand and drove us to see a number of sights, and among them were some fountains, but not my fountain — mere parish pumps. My friend jeered the more. A dream-fountain! A dream-fountain! So I insisted on returning to the hotel to ask the way to the fountain from the hotel-porter. A Continental porter or concierge can understand trains and luggage in all languages, and when he has learned to do this his intellect is exhausted, like one who has won a fellowship at Trinity. And our man, to save himself from the suspicion that was beginning to fall upon him that he did not understand us, said the fountain had been abolished two years ago, an open fountain being considered injurious to the health of the town. It may be so. But I have much difficulty in believing that the Nuremberg folk would permit such a vandalism, and shall be glad if some reader who knows German will inquire the matter out when he is next in Nuremberg, and publish, if he discovers it, the shameful order for the destruction of the fountain.
The old citadel crowns the hill, and around many devious streets a panting horse dragged us, through the burning afternoon, up to the castle gateway. We were shown the famous virgin of Nuremberg, and all the strange instruments that the ecclesiastics of the Middle Ages devised for the torment of their religions enemies, together with the stuffed representation of a robber-baron, said to have harried the town-folk for years, he and twenty-five companions. The tale runs that one day he failed to make good his retreat to the cave amid the woods, and was taken prisoner. The custom of the town was that a man condemned to death should be allowed whatever enjoyment he might choose on the eve of his execution; a last bite of the cake of earthly satisfactions should be his. The baron loved his horse, and declared that he chose to ride him through the town. No one divined a ruse in this choice. The baron was free for the time being, and putting spurs to his horse he jumped over the parapet into the moat, and swam the animal across it, and so escaped. But at the end of three years he was again taken prisoner; this time the usual gratification allowed to prisoners was refused him; he was put forthwith on the wheel, and his limbs broken one by one with an iron bar. And looking at the wheel, I said to Edward:
