The Old Maids' Club

by Israel Zangwill

  CHAPTER XVII.

  A MUSICAL BAR.

  When Turple the magnificent, looking uneasy, brought up Frank Maddox'scard, Lillie uttered a cry of surprise and pleasure. Frank Maddox was amagic name to her as to all the elect of the world of sweetness andlight. After a moment of nervous anxiety lest it should not be _the_Frank Maddox, her fears were dispelled by the entry of the greatauthority on art and music, whose face was familiar to her fromfrontispiece portraits. Few critics possessed such charms of style andfeature as Frank Maddox, who had a delicious _retrousse_ nose, a daintyrosebud mouth, blue eyes, and a wealth of golden hair.

  Lillie's best hopes were confirmed. The famous critic wished to becomean Old Maid. The President and the new and promising candidate had adelightful chat over a cup of tea and the prospects of the Club. The twogirls speedily became friends.

  "But if you join us, hadn't you better go back to your maiden name?"inquired Lillie.

  "Perhaps so," said Frank Maddox thoughtfully. "My pen-name does soundodd under the peculiar circumstances. On the other hand to revert toLaura Spragg now might be indiscreet. People would couple my name withFrank Maddox's--you know the way of the world. The gossips get theirfacts so distorted, and I couldn't even deny the connection."

  "But of course you _have_ had your romance?" asked Lillie. "You know oneromance per head is our charge for admission?"

  "Oh, yes! I have had my romance. In three vols. Shall I tell it you?"

  "If you please."

  "Listen, then. Volume the First: Frank Maddox is in her study. Outsidethe sun is setting in furrows of gold-laced sagging storm-clouds, dunand----"

  "Oh, please, I always skip that," laughed Lillie. "I know that twolovers cannot walk in a lane without the author seeing the sunset, whichis the last thing in the world the lovers see. But when the sky beginsto look black, I always begin to skip."

  "Forgive me. I didn't mean to do it. Remember I'm an habitualart-critic. I thought I was describing a harmony of Whistler's or amovement from a sonata. It shall not occur again. To the heroine enterthe hero--shabby, close-cropped, pale. Their eyes meet. He isthunderstruck to find the heroine a woman; blushes, stammers, and offersto go away. Struck by something of innate refinement in his manner, shepresses him to avow the object of his visit. At last, in dignifiedlanguage, infinitely touching in its reticence, he confesses he calledon Mr. Frank Maddox, the writer he admires so much, to ask a littlepecuniary help. He is starving. Original, isn't it, to have your herohungry in the first chapter? He speaks vaguely of having ambitionswhich, unless he goes under in the struggle for existence may some daybe realized. There are so many men in London like that. However, theheroine is moved by his destitute condition and sitting down to herdesk, she writes out a note, folds it up and gives it to him. 'There!'she says, 'there's a prescription against starvation.' 'But how am I totake it?' he asked. 'It must be taken before breakfast, the first thingin the morning,' she replied, 'to the editor of the _Moon_. Give him thenote; he will change it for you. Don't mention my name.'

  "_There's a prescription against starvation._"]

  "He thanked me and withdrew."

  "And what was in the note?" asked Lillie curiously.

  "I can't quite remember. But something of this sort. 'The numerousadmirers of Frank Maddox will be gratified to hear that she has in thepress a volume of essays on the part played by color-blindness in thesymphonic movements of the time. The great critic is still in town butleaves for Torquay next Tuesday.' For that the editor of the _Moon_ gavehim half-a-crown."

  "Do you call that charity?" said Lillie, astonished.

  "Certainly. Charity begins at home. Do many people give charity exceptto advertise themselves? Philanthropy by paragraph is a perquisite offame. Why, I have a pensioner who comes in for all my _Acadaeum_paragraphs. That _Moon_ part saved our hero from starvation. Yearsafterwards I learnt he had frittered away two-pence in having his haircut."

  "It seems strange for a starving man to get his hair cut," said Lillie.

  "Not when you know the cause," replied Frank Maddox. "It was his way ofdisguising himself. And this brings me to Volume Two. The years pass.Once again I am in my study. There is a breath of wind among the elms inthe front garden, and the sky is strewn with vaporous sprays ofapple-blossom----I beg your pardon. Re-enter the hero, spruce,frock-coated, dignified. He recalls himself to my memory--but I rememberhim only too well. He tells me that my half-crown saved him at theturning-point of his career, that he has now achieved fame and gold,that he loves my writing more passionately than ever, and that he hascome to ask me to crown his life. The whole thing is so romantic that Iam about to whisper 'yes' when an instinct of common sense comes to myaid and my half-opened lips murmur instead: 'But the name you sentup--Horace Paul--it is not known to me. You say you have won fame. I, atleast, have never heard of you.'

  "'Of course not,' he replies. 'How should you? If I were Horace Paul youwould not marry me; just as I should certainly not marry you if you wereFrank Maddox. But what of Paul Horace?'"

  "Paul Horace," cried Lillie. "The great composer!"

  "That is just what I exclaimed. And my hero answers: 'The composer,great or little. None but a few intimates connect me with him. Thechange of name is too simple. I always had a longing--call it morbid ifyou will--for obscurity in the midst of renown. I have weekly harvestsof hair to escape any suspicion of musical attainments. But you and I,dearest--think of what our life will be enriched by our common love ofthe noblest of the arts. Outside, the marigolds nod to the violets, thesapphire--excuse me, I mean to say----' thus he rambled on, growing inenthusiasm with every ardent phrase, the while a deadly coldness wasfastening round my heart. For I felt that it could not be."

  "And why?" inquired Lillie in astonishment. "It seems one of themarriages made in heaven."

  "I dared not tell him why; and I can only tell you on condition youpromise to keep my secret."

  "I promise."

  "Listen," whispered the great critic. "I know nothing about music orart, and I was afraid he would find me out."

  Lillie fell back in her chair, white and trembling. Another idolshivered! "But how----?" she gasped.

  "There, then, don't take on so," said the great critic kindly. "I didnot think you, too, were such an admirer of mine, else I might havespared you the shock. You ask how it is done. Well, I didn't set out tocriticise. I can at least plead that in extenuation. My nature is notwilfully perverse. There was a time when I was as pure and abovecriticism as yourself." She paused and furtively wiped away a tear, thenresumed more calmly, "I drifted into it. For years I toiled on, withoutever a thought of musical and art criticism sullying my maidenmeditations. My downfall was gradual. In early maidenhood I earnt myliving as a type-writer. I had always had literary yearnings, but thehard facts of life allowed me only this rough approximation to my ideal.Accident brought excellent literature to my machine, and it required allmy native honesty not to steal the plots of the novelists and the goodthings of the playwrights. The latter was the harder temptation toresist, for when the play was good enough to be worth stealing from, Iknew it would never be produced and my crime never discovered. Still inspite of my honesty, I benefited indirectly by my type-writing, forcontact with so much admirable work fostered the graceful literary stylewhich, between you and me, is my only merit. In time I plucked upcourage to ask one of my clients, a journalist, if he could put somenewspaper work in my way. 'What can you do?' he asked in surprise.'Anything,' I replied with maiden modesty. 'I see, that's your specialline,' he said musingly. 'Unfortunately we are full up in thatdepartment. You see, everyone turns his hand to that--it's likeschoolmastering, the first thing people think of. It's a pity you are agirl, because the way to journalistic distinction lies through theposition of office-boy. Office-girl sounds strange. I doubt whether theywould have you except on a Freethought organ. Our office-boy has tosweep out the office and review the novels, else you might commencehumb
ly as a critic of literature. It isn't a bad post either, for hesupplements his income by picking rejected matter out of the waste paperbasket and surreptitiously lodging it in the printer's copy pigeonhole.His income in fees from journalistic aspirants must be considerable.Yes, had you been a boy you might have made a pretty good thing out ofliterature! Then there is no chance at all for me on your paper?' Iinquired desperately. 'None,' he said sadly. 'Our editor is an awful oldfogey. He is vehemently opposed to the work of outsiders, and if youwere to send him his own leaders in envelopes he would say they wererot. For once he would be a just critic. You see, therefore, what yourown chance is. Even I, who have been on the staff for years, couldn't doanything to help you. No, I am afraid there is no hope for you unlessyou approach our office-boy.' I thanked him warmly for his advice andencouragement, and within a fortnight an article of mine appeared in thepaper. It was called 'The Manuscripts of Authors,' and revealed in arefined and ladylike way the secrets of the chirographic characteristicsof the manuscripts I had to type-write. My friend said I was exceedinglypractical----"

  "Exceedingly practical," agreed Lillie with a suspicion of a sneer.

  "Because most amateur journalists write about abstract principles,whereas I had sliced out for the public a bit of concrete fact, and thegreat heart of the people went out to hear the details of the way Brownwrote his books, Jones his jokes, and Robinson his recitations. Thearticle made a hit, and annoyed the authors very much."

  "So, I should think," said Lillie. "Didn't they withdraw their customfrom you instanter?"

  _The office boy edits the paper._]

  "Why? They didn't know it was I. Only my journalistic friend knew; andhe was too much of a gentleman to give away my secret. I wrote to theeditor under the name of Frank Maddox, thanking him for having insertedmy article, and the editor said to my friend, 'Egad, I fancy I've made adiscovery there. Why, if I were to pay any attention to your idea ofkeeping strictly to the old grooves, the paper would stagnate, my boy,simply stagnate.' The editor was right, for my friend assured me thepaper would have died long before, if the office-boy had notcondescended to edit it. Anyhow, it was to that office-boy I owed myintroduction to literature. The editor was very proud of havingdiscovered me, and, being installed in his good graces, I passed rapidlyinto dramatic criticism, and was even allowed to understudy theoffice-boy as literary reviewer. He could not stomach historical novels,and handed over to me all works with pronouns in the second person.Gradually I rose to higher things, but it was not until I had beenmusical and art critic for over eighteen months that the editor learntthat the writer whose virile style he had often dilated upon to myfriend was a woman."

  "And what did he do when he learnt it?" asked Lillie.

  "He swore----"

  "Profane man!" cried Lillie.

  "That he loved me--me whom he had never seen. Of course, I declined himwith thanks; happily there was a valid excuse, because he had writtenhis communication on both sides of the paper. But even this technicaltouch did not mollify him, and he replied that my failure to appreciatehim showed I could no longer be trusted as a critic. Fortunately my workhad been signed, my fame was established. I collected my articles into abook and joined another paper."

  "But you haven't yet told me how it is done?"

  "Oh, that is the least. You see, to be a critic it is not essential toknow anything--you must simply be able to write. To be a great criticyou must simply be able to write _well_. In my omniscience, or catholicignorance, I naturally looked about for the subject on which I couldmost profitably employ my gift of style with the least chance of beingfound out. A moment's consideration will convince you that the mostdifficult branches of criticism are the easiest. Of musical and artisticmatters not one person in a thousand understands aught but therudiments: here, then, is the field in which the critical ignoramus mayexpatiate at large with the minimum danger of discovery. Nay, with noscintilla of danger; for the subject matter is so obscure and abstrusethat the grossest of errors may put on a bold face and parade as aprofundity, or, driven to bay, proclaim itself a paradox. Only say whatyou have not got to say authoritatively and well, and the world shallfall down and worship you. The place of art in religion has undergone apeculiar historical development. First men worshipped the object of art;then they worshipped the artist; and nowadays they worship the artcritic."

  "It is true," said Lillie reflectively. "This age has witnessed theapotheosis of the art critic."

  "And of all critics. And yet what can be more evident than that the artof criticism was never in such a critical condition? Nobody asks to seethe critic's credentials. He is taken at his own valuation. There oughtto be an examination to protect the public. Even schoolmasters are nowrequired to have certificates; while those who pretend to train thelarger mind in the way it should think are left to work their mischiefuncontrolled. No dramatic critic should be allowed to practise withoutan elementary knowledge of human life, law, Shakespeare, and French. Themusical critic should be required to be able to perform on some oneinstrument other than his own trumpet, to distinguish tune fromtonality, to construe the regular sonata, to comprehend the plot of _IlTrovatore_, and to understand the motives of Wagner. The art criticshould be able to discriminate between a pastel and a water-color, animpressionist drawing and a rough sketch, to know the Dutch school fromthe Italian, and the female figure from the male, to translatemorbidezza and chiaroscuro, and failing this, to be aware of theexistence and uses of a vanishing point. A doctor's certificate shouldalso be produced to testify that the examinee is in possession of allthe normal faculties; deafness, blindness, and color-blindness beingregarded as disqualifications, and no one should be allowed to practiseunless he enjoyed a character for common honesty supplemented by atestimonial from a clergyman, for although art is non-moral the criticshould be moral. This would be merely the passman stage; there couldalways be examinations in honors for the graduates. Once the art criticswere educated, the progress of the public would be rapid. They would nolonger be ready to admire the canvases of Michael Angelo, who, as Ilearnt the other day for the first time, painted frescoes, nor wouldthey prefer him, as unhesitatingly as they do now, to Buonarotti, whichis his surname, nor would they imagine Raffaelle's Cartoons appeared in_Puncinello_. All these mistakes I have myself made, though no onediscovered them; while in the realm of music no one has moremisrepresented the masters, more discouraged the overtures of youngcomposers."

  "But still I do not understand how it is done," urged Lillie.

  "You shall have my formula in a nutshell. I had to be a musical criticand an art critic. I was ignorant of music and knew nothing of art. ButI was a dab at language. When I was talking of music, I used thenomenclature of art. I spoke of light and shade, color and form,delicacy of outline, depth and atmosphere, perspective, foreground andbackground, nocturnes and harmonies in blue. I analyzed symphoniespictorially and explained what I saw defiling before me as the musicswept on. Sunsets and belvedere towers, swarthy Paynims on Shetlandponies, cypress plumes and Fra Angelico's cherubs, lumps of green clayand delicate pillared loggias, fennel tufts and rococo and scarletanemones, and over all the trail of the serpent. Thus I created an epochin musical criticism. On the other hand, when I had to deal with art, Iwas careful to eschew every suggestion of the visual vocabulary and toconfine myself to musical phrases. In talking of pictures, I dwelt upontheir counter-point and their orchestration, their changes of key andthe evolution of their ideas, their piano and forte-passages, and theirbars of rest, their allegro and diminuendo aspects, their suspensions onthe dominant. I spoke of them as symphonies and sonatas and masses, saidone was too staccato and another too full of consecutive sevenths, and athird in need of transposition to the minor. Thus I created an epoch inart criticism. In both departments the vague and shifting terms Iintroduced enabled me to evade mistakes and avoid detection, while thecreation of two epochs gave me the very first place in contemporarycriticism. There is nothing in which I would not undertake to create
anepoch. I do not say I have always been happy, and it has been a sourceof constant regret to me that I had not even learnt to play the pianowhen a girl and that unplayed music still remained to me little blackdots."

  "And so you did not dare marry the composer?"

  "No, nor tell him why. Volume Three: I said I admired him so much that Iwanted to go on devoting critical essays to him, and my praises would bediscounted by the public if I were his wife. Was it not imprudent forhim to alienate the leading critic by marrying her? Rather would Isacrifice myself and continue to criticise him. But I love him, and itis for his sake I would become an Old Maid."

  "I would rather you didn't," said Lillie, her face still white. "I havefound so much inspiration in your books that I could not bear to bedaily reminded I ought not to have found it."

  Poor president! The lessons of experience were hard! The Club taught hermuch she were happier without.

  That day Lord Silverdale appropriately intoned (with banjo obligato) apatter-song which he pretended to have written at the Academy, whence hehad just come with the conventional splitting headache.

  AFTER THE ACADEMY--A JINGLE.

  (NOT BY ALFRED JINGLE.)

  Brain a-whirling, pavement twirling, Cranium aching, almost baking, Mind a muddle, puddle, fuddle. Million pictures, million mixtures, Small and great 'uns, Brown's and Leighton's, Sky and wall 'uns, short and tall 'uns, Pseudo classic for, alas! _Sic Transit gloria sub Victoria_), Landscape, figure, white or nigger, Steely etchings, inky sketchings, Genre, portrait (not one caught trait), Eke historic (kings plethoric), Realistic, prize-fight-fistic, Entozoic, nude, heroic, Coarse, poetic, homiletic, Still-life (flowers, tropic bowers), Pure domestic, making breast tick With emotion; endless ocean, Glaze or scrumble, craze and jumble, Varnish mastic, sculpture plastic, Canvas, paper (oh, for taper!) Oil and water, (oh, for slaughter!) Children, cattle, 'busses, battle, Seamen, satyrs, lions, waiters, Nymphs and peasants, peers and pheasants, Dogs and flunkeys, gods and monkeys Half-dressed ladies, views of Hades, Phillis tripping, seas and shipping, Hearth and meadow, brooks and bread-dough, Doves and dreamers, stars and steamers, Saucepans, blossoms, rags, opossums, Tramway, cloudland, wild and ploughed land, Gents and mountains, clocks and fountains, Pan and pansy--these of fancy Have possession in procession Never-ending, ever blending, All a-flitter and a-glitter, Ever prancing, ever dancing, Ever whirling, ever curling, Ever swirling, ever twirling, Ever bobbing, ever throbbing. Ho, some brandy--is it handy? Air seems tainting, I am fainting. Hang all--no, _don't_ hang all--painting!