file which includes the original illustrations4 ,see #bddeb-;h4htm or #bddeb-;h4zip3 7https3_/_/www4gutenberg4org_/dirs_/#b_/ d_/d_/e_/bddeb_/bddeb-;h_/#bddeb-;h4htm7 or 7https3_/_/www4gutenberg4org_/dirs_/#b_/ d_/d_/e_/bddeb_/bddeb-;h4zip7 ,,nights ,rome ,venice ,london ,paris 99 99 99 99 99 ,,life ,,of ,,james ,mc,n,e,i,l,l ,,whistler ,,by ,,elizabeth ,,robins ,,pennell ,,and ,,joseph ,,pennell ,,thoroughly ,,revised1 ,,fifth ,,edition ,the ,authorized ,life1 with much new matter added which was not available at the time of issue of the elaborate two-volume edition1 now out of print4 ,fully illustrated with #ig plates reproduced from ,whistler's works4 ,crown octavo4 ,,xx-#dej pages1 ,whistler binding1 deckle edge4 #h4ej net4 ,three-quarter grain levant1 #g4ej net4 ,,our ,,philadelphia ,,by ,,elizabeth ,,robins ,,pennell ,,illustrated ,,by ,,joseph ,,pennell ,an intimate personal record in text and in picture of the lives of the famous author and artist in the city whose recent story will be to many an absolute surprise--a city with a brilliant history1 great beauty1 immense wealth4 ,mr4 ,pennell's one hundred and five illustrations1 made especially for this volume1 will be a revelation in their interest and as art inspired by the love of his native town4 ,quarto1 #g-a_/b by #aj inches1 ,,xiv-#eeb pages4 ,handsomely bound in red buckram1 boxed4 #g4ej net4 ,,joseph ,,pennell',s ,,pictures ,,of ,,the ,,panama ,,canal ,,fifth ,,printing ,twenty-eight reproductions of lithographs made on the ,isthmus of ,panama1 ,january-,march1 #aiab1 with ,mr4 ,pennell's introduction1 giving his experiences and impressions1 and a full description of each picture4 ,volume #g-a_/d by #aj inches4 ,beautifully printed on dull-finished paper4 ,lithograph by ,mr4 ,pennell on cover4 #a4be net4 ,,joseph ,,pennell',s ,,pictures ,,in ,,the ,,land ,,of ,,temples ,forty reproductions of lithographs made in the ,land of ,temples1 ,march-,june1 #aiac1 together with impressions and notes by the artist4 ,introduction by ,w4,h4,d4 ,rouse1 ,litt4 ,d4 ,crown quarto1 printed on dull-finished paper1 lithograph by ,mr4 ,pennell on cover4 #a4be net4 ,illustration3 ,painting by ,j4 ,mc,lure ,hamilton ,j--4 99 99 99 99 99 ,,nights ,rome ,venice in the sthetic ,eighties ,london ,paris in the ,fighting ,nineties by ,,elizabeth ,,robins ,,pennell ,with ,sixteen ,illustrations ,illustration ,philadelphia and ,london ,j4 ,b4 ,lippincott ,company ,,mcmxvi ,copyright1 #aiaf1 by ,j4 ,b4 ,lippincott ,company ,published ,march1 #aiaf ,printed by ,j4 ,b4 ,lippincott ,company at the ,washington ,square ,press ,philadelphia1 ,u4,s4,a4 ,,preface ,there are times when we recall old memories much as we take down old favourites from our bookshelves1 just to see how they have worn1 how they have stood the test of years4 ,sometimes the books have worn so well that we cannot put them away until we have read every word to the very last again1 we have not done with the memories until we have lived again through every moment of the past to which they belong4 ,it is in this spirit that ,i brought my ,nights of long ago to the test1 and1 finding that for me they stand it triumphantly and are still as vivid and vociferous and full of life as they were of old1 ,i have not had the courage to loose my hold upon them and let them drift back once more into unfriendly silence4 ,it contributes to my pleasure in this revival of my ,nights1 that ,i have been helped in many ways to give more substantial form to the familiar ghosts who wander through them4 ,my debt of gratitude is great4 ,mr4 ,william ,nicholson has been willing for me to use his portrait of ,henley and from ,mrs4 ,henley ,i have the bust by ,rodin4 ,mr4 ,frederick ,h4 ,evans has lent me the very interesting photograph he made of ,beardsley1 to whom he was so good a friend1 and to ,mr4 ,john ,lane1 the publisher of the ,yellow ,book1 ,i owe ,beardsley's sketch of ,harland4 ,to ,mr4 ,john ,ross ,i am indebted for the drawing of ,phil ,may by himself never before published1 to the ,houghton ,mifflin ,company for the portrait of ,vedder1 to ,mr4 ,duveneck for the painting of himself by ,mr4 ,joseph de ,camp4 ,the photograph of ,iwan-,mller and ,george ,w4 ,steevens reminds me of the day so long since when ,i went with them and ,mrs4 ,steevens to ,mr4 ,frederick ,hollyer's and we were all photographed in turn1 so that this record of the visit seems surely mine by right4 ,it was ,mr4 ,hollyer1 too1 who photographed the fine portrait ,bob ,stevenson painted of himself1 and it was ,mrs4 ,stevenson who gave me my copy of it4 ,i have ,mr4 ,j4 ,mc,lure ,hamilton's permission to publish his portrait of ,j--1 while ,j--has been so generous with his prints1 portraits of old backgrounds of the ,nights1 that ,i can add this book to the many in which ,i have profited by his collaboration4 ,i have also to thank the ,editor of the ,atlantic ,monthly1 in which my ,nights in ,rome and in ,venice first appeared1 for his consent to their re-publication now in book form4 ,,elizabeth ,,robins ,,pennell #c4 ,adelphi ,terrace ,house1 ,london ,december #be1 #aiae ,,contents ,i4 ,,days3 ,a ,,word ,,to ,,explain #aa ,,ii4 ,,nights3 ,,in ,,rome #bg ,,iii4 ,,nights3 ,,in ,,venice #ga ,,iv4 ,,nights3 ,,in ,,london #aae ,v4 ,,nights3 ,,in ,,paris #bbe ,,illustrations ,,page ,j-- ,frontispiece ,from the ,painting by ,j4 ,mc,lure ,hamilton ,,old ,,and ,,new ,,rome #ce ,from the ,etching by ,joseph ,pennell ,,elihu ,,vedder #ef ,,frank ,,duveneck #gf ,from the ,painting by ,joseph ,r4 ,de,camp ,,the ,,caf ,,orientale1 ,,venice #hb ,from the ,etching by ,joseph ,pennell ,,out ,,of ,,our ,,london ,,windows #abb ,from the ,mezzotint by ,joseph ,pennell ,w4,e4 ,,henley #abe ,from the ,bust by ,auguste ,rodin ,w4,e4 ,,henley #abg ,from the ,painting by ,william ,nicholson ,,iwan-,m,,ller ,,and ,,george ,w4 ,,steevens #aed ,from a ,photograph by ,frederick ,hollyer ,,bob ,,stevenson #afj ,from the ,painting by ,himself ,,henry ,,harland #agb ,from the ,drawing by ,aubrey ,beardsley ,,aubrey ,,beardsley #agh ,from the ,photograph by ,frederick ,h4 ,evans ,,phil ,,may ,,in ,,cap ,,and ,,bells #aic ,from a previously unpublished ,drawing by ,himself ,,in ,,the ,,champs-,,elys,,es1 ,,paris #bce ,from the ,etching by ,joseph ,pennell ,,the ,,half ,,hour ,,before ,,dinner1 ,,paris #bdd ,from the ,etching by ,joseph ,pennell ,,aristide ,,bruant ,,of ,,the ,,cabaret ,,du ,,mirliton1 ,,paris #bij ,from the ,poster by ,toulouse-,lautrec ,i ,,days ,a ,,word ,,to ,,explain ,,nights ,,days ,a ,,word ,,to ,,explain ,i ,if ,i wrote the story of my days during these last thirty years1 it would be the story of hard work4 ,no doubt the work often looked to others uncommonly like play1 but it was work all the same4 ,from the start it must have struck those who did not understand and who were interested1 or curious enough to spare a thought1 that my principal occupation was to amuse myself4 ,when ,i was young1 in ,america the trip to ,europe was considered the crowning pleasure1 or symbol of pleasure1 within the possibility of hope for even those who were most given to pleasure4 ,in ,philadelphia it also stood for money--not necessarily wealth1 but the comfortably assured income that made existence behind ,philadelphia's spacious red brick fronts the average ,philadelphian's right4 ,and it was with this trip that ,j4 and ,i began our life together4 ,but misleading as was the impression made to all whom it did not concern1 great satisfaction as it was to my family1 who saw in it the ease and comfort it represented to the ,philadelphian1 we ourselves1 with the best will in the world1 could imagine it no holiday for us1 nor accept it as the symbol of the correct ,philadelphia income4 ,our pleasure was in the fact of the many and definite commissions which obliged us to go to ,europe to earn any sort of an income1 correct or otherwise--commissions without which we could have faced neither the trip nor marriage4 ,i can remember that during the two or three weeks between our wedding and our sailing we were both kept busy1 ,j4 with drawings he had to finish for the ,century1 and ,i with the last touches to an article for the ,atlantic4 ,and if the days on the boat gave us breathing space1 if not much work1 except in preparation1 was done1 the reason was that the new commissions commenced only with our landing at ,liverpool4 ,from the moment of our arrival in ,england ,i see in memory my life by day as one long vista of work4 ,it is mostly a beautiful vista1 the more beautiful1 ,i am ready to admit1 because the work ,i owed the beauty to forced me to keep my eyes open and my wits about me4 ,under the circumstances1 ,i simply could not afford to let what small powers of observation ,i possess grow rusty1 for1 no matter what else might happen1 ,i had to turn my journey into some sort of readable copy afterwards4 ,if ,i know parts of ,europe fairly well1 ,i am indebted not to the fashionable need of taking waters1 not to following the approved routes of travel1 not to meeting my fellow countrymen in hotels as alike as two peas no matter how different the capitals to which they belong1 not to any fatuous preference of another country to my own1 but to the work that brought us to ,england and the ,continent and has kept us there1 with fresh commissions1 ever since4 ,it was work that sent us from end to end of ,great ,britain and gave me my knowledge of the land4 ,as ,i look back to those remote days after our arrival in ,liverpool1 ,i see ,j4 and myself on an absurd1 old-fashioned1 long-superannuated ,rotary tandem tricycle riding along winding roads and lanes1 between the hedgerows and under the elms ,english prose and verse had long since made familiar1 in and out of little grey or red villages clustered round the old church tower1 passing through great towns of many factories and high smoke-belching chimneys1 halting for months under the shadow of some old castle or cathedral that had been appointed one of our stations by the way4 ,or ,i see us both trudging on foot1 knapsacks on our backs1 climbing up and down the brown and purple hills of the ,highlands1 circling the peaceful lochs1 skirting the swift mountain streams1 tramping along the lonely roads of the far ,hebrides3 summer after summer journeying to the beautiful places the usual tourist in ,britain journeys to for pleasure1 but where we went because papers and magazines at home1 with a wisdom we applauded1 had asked us to go and make the drawings and write the articles by which we paid our way in the world4 ,and it was work that sent us from end to end of ,france1 and now in looking back ,i see ,j4 and myself on the neat1 compact ,humber tandem1--then so new-fashioned1 to-day as out-moded as the ,rotary1--riding along straight poplared roads1 through well-ordered forests and over wild hills1 between vineyards1 one year under the grey skies of ,flanders or among the lagoons of ,picardy and another under the brilliant sunshine of ,provence or through the rich pastures of the sweet ,bourbonnais1 in and out of ancient villages and towns as full of romance as their names1 with halts as long under the shadow of still nobler churches and fairer castles1 getting to know the people and their ways and how pleasant life is in the land where beauty and thrift1 gaiety and toil1 courtesy and wit1 go ever hand in hand4 ,and again it was work that sent us still further south1 to ,italy which in my younger years ,i had longed for the more because ,i fancied it as inaccessible to me as ,lhassa or the ,grande ,chartreuse4 ,and again down the beautiful vista of work ,i see ,j4 and myself still on the neat compact ,humber1 but now pushing up long white zigzags to grim hill-towns1 rushing down the same zigzags into radiant valleys of fruit and flowers1 winding between vineyards where the vines were festooned from tree to tree1 and fields where huge1 white1 wide-horned oxen pulled the plough1 bumping over the stones of old ,roman roads1 parting with the wonderful tandem only for the long stay in wonderful ,rome and wonderful ,venice4 ,and again it was work that sent us1 now each on a safety bicycle--a change that explains how time was flying--by the canals and on the flat roads of ,belgium and ,holland2 into ,germany1 through the ,harz with ,heine for guide1 by the castled ,rhine and ,moselle that may have lost their reputation for a while but that can never lose their loveliness2 into ,austria1 on to ,hungary1 up in the ,carpathians and to those heights from which the ,russian ,army but the other day looked down upon the ,hungarian plain2 into ,spain1 to sun-burnt ,andalusia1 for weeks in the ,alhambra1 to windy ,madrid1 for days in the ,prado2 into ,switzerland1 the ,playground of ,europe1 where our work must have seemed more than ever like play as we climbed1 on our cycles and on foot1 over the highest of the high ,alpine passes1 one after the other2 again into ,italy2 again into ,france2 again through ,england2 again--but they were too numerous to count1 all those journeys that claimed so many of my days and taught me1 while ,i worked1 all ,i have learned of ,europe4 ,of such well-travelled roads anyway1 it may be said people have heard as much as people can stand1 and therefore ,i am wise to hold my peace about days spent upon them4 ,but on the best-travelled road adventure lies in wait for the traveller who seeks it1 chance awaits the discoverer who knows his business4 ,why1 to this day ,j4 and ,i are appealed to for facts about ,le ,puy because a quarter of a century ago we made our discovery of the town as the ,most ,picturesque ,place in the ,world and sought our adventure by proclaiming the fact in print4 ,but our discoveries might have been greater1 our adventures more daring1 and ,i should be silent about them now for quite another and far more sensible reason1 and this is that ,i was not silent at the time4 ,the tale of those old days is told4 ,,ii ,other journeys ,i made had no less an air of holiday-taking and meant no less hard labour4 ,for most men work is bounded by the four walls of the office or the factory1 or the shop1 or the school1 and rigidly regulated by hours1 and they consequently suspect the amateur or the dawdler in the artist or writer who works where and when and as he pleases4 ,journalism has led me into pleasant places but never by the path of idleness4 ,rare has been the month of ,may that has not found me in ,paris1 not for the sunshine and gaiety that draw the tourist to it in that gay sunlit season1 but for industrious days1 with my eyes and catalogue and note-book1 in the ,salons4 ,few have been the ,international ,exhibitions1 from ,glasgow to ,ghent1 from ,antwerp to ,venice1 that ,i have missed1 and if in my devoted attendance ,i might easily have been mistaken for the tireless pleasure-seeker1 if ,i got what fun ,i could at odd moments out of my opportunities1 never was ,i without my inseparable note-book and pencil in my hand or in my pocket1 never without good1 long1 serious articles to be written in my hotel bedroom4 ,even in ,london when ,i might have passed for the idlest stroller along ,bond ,street or ,piccadilly on an idle afternoon1 oftener than not ,i have been bound for a gallery somewhere with the prospect of long hours' writing as the result of it4 ,but though the task varied1 the tale of these days as well has been told1 and has duly appeared in the long columns of many a paper1 in the long articles of many a magazine4 ,,iii ,as time went on1 my journeys were fewer and ,j4 took his oftener by himself4 ,a new variety of task was set me that left so little leisure for the galleries that ,i gave up doing them for my ,london papers4 ,my days went to the making of books which1 whether ,i wrote them alone or in collaboration with ,j41 required my undivided attention4 ,when these were such books as the ,life of ,my ,uncle1 ,charles ,godfrey ,leland1 or the ,life of ,whistler1 they called for research1 days of reading in the ,art ,library at ,south ,kensington1 the ,british ,museum1 the ,london ,library1 days of seeing people and places1 days of travelling1 days of correspondence1 days upon days at my desk writing--these days crowded with interesting incident1 curious surprises1 amusing talk1 hours of hope1 hours of black despair--in their own way days of discovery and adventure4 ,but in this case again the tale has been told and ,i am not so foolish as to sit down and tell it anew1 sorely as ,i may be tempted4 ,anybody who reads further will find that the principal truth my nights have revealed to me is that the man who is interested--really interested--in something1 does not want to talk1 and often cannot think1 about anything else4 ,but it does not follow that he can make sure of listeners as keen to hear about it4 ,the writer may1 in his enthusiasm1 write the same book twice1 but even if it prove a best-seller the first time1 he runs a risk the second of seeing it disposed of as a remainder4 ,,iv ,so it has been throughout my working life3 my day's task has had no other object than to get itself chronicled in print4 ,if what the work was that filled my day is not known1 it could not interest anybody were ,i to write about it now4 ,if how ,i worked during all those long hours is to me an all-absorbing subject and edifying spectacle1 ,i am not so vain as not to realize that ,i must be the only person to find it so4 ,most men--and women too--were brought into the world to work1 but most of them would be so willing to shirk the obligation that the best they ask is to be allowed to forget their own labours while they can1 and not to be bothered with a report of other people's4 ,by nature ,i am inclined to ,charles ,lamb's belief that a man--or a woman--cannot have too little to do and too much time to do it in4 ,but necessity having forced me to give over my days to work1 it happens that ,i1 personally1 would from sheer force of habit find days without it a bore4 ,however1 ,i would not1 for that reason1 argue that work is its own reward to any save the genius1 or that methods of work are of importance to any save the workman who employs them4 ,whatever man's endurance may be1 ,i know one weak woman whose powers of work are limited4 ,there was never anybody to regulate my day of work save myself1 since ,i am glad to say it has not been my lot to waste the golden years of my life in an office1 and ,i am not the stern task-master or tiresome trade-unionist who insists upon so many hours and so much work in them1 and will make not an inch of allowance either more or less4 ,sometimes my hours were more1 sometimes they were less1 but always my energy was apt to slacken with the slackening of the day4 ,i never found inspiration in the midnight oil and oceans of coffee4 ,i have always wanted my solid eight hours of sleep1 and would not shrink from nine or ten if they fitted in with a worker's life4 ,youth often gave me the courage ,i have not now to take up work again--a promised article1 necessary reading1 making notes1 copying--at night4 ,but youth never induced me to rely upon this night work if ,i could help it4 ,my nearest approach to a rule was that at the end of the day ,i was at liberty to play1 that my nights at least could be free of work4 ,the play to many might pass for a mild form of mild amusement1 for it usually consisted in nothing more riotous than meeting my friends and talking with them4 ,but ,i confess that the talk and the quality of it1 the meeting and its informality did strike me as so singularly stimulating as to verge upon the riotous4 ,the manner of playing was entirely new to me in the beginning4 ,all conventions bind with a heavy chain1 but none with a heavier than the ,philadelphia variety4 ,spruce ,street nights had never been so free and so vociferous and so late1 and1 being a good ,philadelphian1 ,i am not sure if the nights that succeeded have yet lost for me their novelty4 ,as a consequence1 if1 in looking back1 my days appear to be wholly monopolized by work1 my nights seem consecrated as wholly to amusement4 ,the poet's hideous is the last adjective ,i could apply to the night my busy day sank into4 ,how ,i worked may concern nobody save myself1 but how ,i played ,i cannot help hoping has a wider interest4 ,those old nights were typical of a period1 and they threw me with many people1 contemporaries of ,j4's and mine1 who did much to make that period what it was4 ,the nights as gay1 as stimulating1 that ,i have spent in other people's houses ,i have not the courage to recall except in the utmost privacy4 ,pepys and ,n4,p4 ,willis in their time1 no less than a whole army of ,pamelas and ,priscillas in ours1 have shown the lengths and indiscretions to which so intimate a breach of hospitality may lead4 ,i have had my experience4 ,for some years a house with closely curtained windows has reproached me daily for not understanding that the man who invites the world to stare at him and is not happy if it won't1 objects when his neighbours say lightly what they see4 ,i am every bit as afraid to speak openly of those people who shared our nights and who1 with us1 have outlived them4 ,cowardice long since convinced me that it is not of the dead1 but of the living1 only good should be spoken--and if good cannot be spoken1 what then8 ,however1 it is not in pursuit of problems that ,i have busied myself in reviving those old nights1 but rather for the pleasure we all of us have1 as the years go on1 in feeling our way back along the ,corridors of ,time and living our past over again in memory4 ,if ,i go further and live mine over again in print1 it is because ,i like to think the fault will not lie with me if it altogether dies--,i have given it1 anyway1 the chance of a longer lease of life4 ,,ii ,,nights ,,in ,,rome ,,in ,,rome ,i ,it will give an idea of what ages ago those nights were1 and of the youth ,i brought to them1 if ,i say that ,i arrived in ,rome on the first tandem tricycle ever seen in ,italy4 ,i can look back to it now with pride1 for ,i was1 in my way1 a pioneer1 but there was not much to be proud about at the time4 ,rome was so little impressed that ,j41 my fellow pioneer1 and ,i1--,j4 and ,i who in every town on the way from ,florence had been the delight of the gaping crowd1 ,j4 and ,i who in all those beautiful ,october days on the white roads of ,italy had suffered from nothing save the excess of the people's amiable attentions1--scarcely showed ourselves beyond the ,porta del ,popolo and the ,piazza of the same name1 before we were arrested for driving the tandem furiously through the ,corso--as if anybody could drive anything furiously through the ,corso at the hour before sunset1 when all the world comes home from the ,borghese4 ,but two policemen1 drawing their swords as if they meant business1 commanded us to dismount and1 between them1 we walked ignominiously to the hotel1 pushing the tricycle2 and an astonished and not in the least admiring crowd followed2 and the policeman asked us for a lira1 which we refused1 taking it for a proof of the corruption of modern ,rome--and they were so within their legal rights that ,i do not care to say for how many more than one we were asked a few weeks later by the ,syndic1 whom we could not refuse2 and altogether ,i do not think we were to blame if1 after the policemen and the swords and the crowd had gone and the tricycle was locked up1 and we wandered from the hotel in the gathering dusk1 we were the two most ill-tempered young people who ever set out to enjoy their first night in ,rome4 ,nor was our temper improved when ,j4's instinct1 which in a strange place takes him straight where he wants to go1 having got us into the ,ghetto1 failed to get us out again4 ,the ,ghetto itself was all right1 so what a ,ghetto ought to be that had ,i been the ,romans1 ,i would not have pulled it down1 ,i would have preserved it as a historical monument1--dirty1 dark and mysterious1 a labyrinth of narrow crooked streets1 lined with tall grim houses1 filled with melodramatic shadows and dim figures skulking in them1 but a nightmare of a labyrinth which kept bringing us forever back to the same spot4 ,and we could not dine on picturesqueness1 and we would not have dined in any of the murderous-looking houses at any price1 and at last ,j4 admitted that there were times when a native might be a better guide than instinct1 and in his best ,italian he asked the way of two men who were passing4 ,one1 who wore the tweeds and flannel shirt by which in calmer moments we must have recognized him1 pulled the other by the sleeve and growled in ,english3 ,come on1 don't bother about the beastly foreigners6 ,i can afford to forgive him to-day when ,i remember what his incivility cost him not only that night1 when we would not let him off until he had shown us out of the ,ghetto1 but on a succession of our nights in ,rome1 ,fate having neatly arranged that at the one house whose doors were opened to us he should be a constant visitor4 ,other doors might have opened had we had the clothes in which to knock at them4 ,but we had come to ,rome for four days with no more baggage than the tandem could carry1 and we stayed four months without adding to it4 ,we could have sent for our trunks1 of course1 or we could have bought new things in the ,roman shops1 but we did neither1 ,i can hardly say why except that the story of our journey had to be finished1 and other delightful articles we had crossed the ,atlantic to do were waiting1 and these were commissions that could not be neglected1 since they were the capital upon which we had started out on our married life five months before4 ,and our ,letter of ,credit was small1 and ,youth is stern with itself2--or1 more likely1 we did not trouble simply because it saved so much more trouble not to4 ,no woman would have to be taught by ,ibsen or anybody else how to live her own life1 were she willing to live it in shabby clothes4 ,it is not an easy thing to do1 ,i know4 ,i share the weakness of most women in feeling it a disgrace1 or a misfortune1 to be caught in the wrong clothes in the right place4 ,but that year in ,rome ,i had not outgrown the first ardours of work and1 besides1 in the old days1 a cycle seemed an excuse for any and all degrees of shabbiness4 ,in my short skirts1 at a time when short skirts were not the mode1 covered with mud1 and carrying a tiny bag1 ,i have walked into the biggest hotels of ,europe without a tremor1 conscious that the cycle at the door was my triumphant apology4 ,the cyclist's dress1 like the nun's uniform1 was a universal passport1 and ,i have never had the cleverness to invent another to replace it since ,i gave up cycling4 ,,ii ,if we could not spend our nights in other people's houses1 neither could we spend them in the rooms we had taken for ourselves at the top of one of the highest houses on the top of one of the highest hills in ,rome4 ,there was no objection to the rooms3 they were charming1 but we had found them on a warm ,november day when the sun was streaming in through the windows that looked far and wide over the town1 and beyond to the ,campagna1 and still beyond to a shining line on the horizon we knew was the ,mediterranean1 and we did not ask about anything save the price1 which to our surprise we could pay1 and so we moved in at once4 ,nor for days1 as we sat at our work in the sunlight1 the windows open and ,rome at our feet1 did we imagine there could be anything to ask about1 except if1 by asking1 we could prevail upon the ,padrona's son-in-law to go and blow his melancholy cornet anywhere rather than on the roof directly over our heads4 ,living in rooms was the nearest approach ,i had made in all my life to housekeeping1 ,i was still in a state of wonderment at everything in ,rome1 from ,romulus and ,remus on the morning pat of butter to the ,november roses in full bloom on the ,pincian1 ,i was quite content to let practical affairs and domestic details look out for themselves--or1 perhaps it would be more true to say that ,i never gave them a thought4 ,but even in ,rome the sun must set and ,november nights grow chill1 and a night came when1 after a day of rain1 a fire would have been pleasant1 and suddenly we discovered there was no place to make it in4 ,it had never occurred to us that there could not be1 fresh as we were from the land where heat in the house is as much a matter of course as a sun in the sky4 ,at first we wrapped ourselves in shawls and blankets1 hired the padrona's biggest scaldino1 and called it an experience4 ,after a few evenings we decided it was an experience we could do without and1 like all miserable ,romans who have no fireplace1 we settled down to spending our nights in the restaurants and cafs of ,rome4 ,i doubt if ,i should care to spend my nights that way now2 a quarter of a century has added unexpected charm to a dinner-table and fireside of my own2 but no ,arabian ,nights could then have been fuller of entertainment than the ,roman ,nights that drove us from home in search of warmth and food4 ,in ,philadelphia there never had been a suspicion of chance1 a shadow of adventure about my dinner4 ,it was as inevitable as six o'clock and as inevitably eaten in the seclusion of the ,philadelphia second-story back-building dining-room1 if not of my family1 then of one or another of my friends4 ,in ,rome it became a delightful uncertainty that transformed the six flights of stairs leading to it from our rooms into the ,road to ,anywhere4 ,that road was by no means an easy one to climb up again and if we could help it1 we never climbed down more than once a day1 usually a little before dusk1 a few hours earlier when we were in a rare holiday mood1 and always in time for a long or short tramp before dinner4 ,if we came to a church we dropped into it1 or a gallery1 or a palace1 or a garden1 when we were in time4 ,we followed the streets wherever they might lead1--along the brand-new ,via ,nazionale to the ,forum or the narrow alleys to ,st4 ,peter's1 beyond the gates to the ,campagna--seeing a good deal of ,rome without setting out deliberately to see anything4 ,when we were hungry1 we stopped at the first ,trattoria we passed1 provided it looked as if we could afford it1 and the chance dinner in a chance place at a chance hour was the biggest adventure of all that had crowded the way to it4 ,illustration3 ,etching by ,joseph ,pennell ,,old ,,and ,,new ,,rome ,one night the ,trattoria happened to be the ,posta in a narrow street back of the ,piazza ,colonna4 ,it was small3 not more than twenty could have dined there together in any comfort4 ,it was beautifully clean4 ,and the padrone1 his son1 and the one waiter--all the establishment--greeted us with that enchanting smile to which1 during my first year in ,italy1 ,i fell only too ready a victim4 ,once we had dined at the ,posta1 we found it so pleasant that we fell into the habit of getting hungry in its neighbourhood4 ,i have since got to know many more famous or pretentious restaurants1 but never have dinners tasted so good as at this little ,roman trattoria where we had to consider the centesimi in the price of every dish1 and the quarter of a flask of cheap ,chianti shared between us was an extravagance1 and we ate with the appetite that came of having eaten nothing all day save rolls and coffee for breakfast1 and fruit and rolls for lunch1 that we might afford a dinner at night4 ,and ,i have dined in many restaurants of gilded and mirrored magnificence1 but in none ,i thought so well decorated as the ,posta with its bare walls and coarse clean linen and no ornament at all1 except the stand in the centre where we could pick out our fruit or our vegetable4 ,nor has any restaurant1 crowded with the creations of ,paquin and ,worth1 seemed more brilliant than the ,posta filled with officers4 ,in ,philadelphia ,i had never seen an army officer in uniform in my life2 at the ,posta ,i saw hardly anything else4 ,we were surrounded by lieutenants and captains and colonels1 and as ,i watched them come and go with clank and clatter of spurs and swords1 and military salutes at the door1 and military cloaks thrown dramatically off and on1 and gold braid shining1 ,i began to think a big standing army worth the money to any country1 on condition that it always went in uniform--on condition1 ,i might now add1 that this uniform is not khaki1 then not yet heard of4 ,when the old spare1 grizzled ,general1 always the last1 appeared and all the other officers rose upon his entrance1 our dinner was dignified into a ceremony4 ,sometimes1 ,i fancied he felt his importance more than anybody1 for he is the only man ,i have ever known courageous enough in public to begin his dinner with cake and finish it with soup4 ,now and then1 on very special occasions1 when we had sent off an article or received a cheque1 we went to the ,falcone and celebrated the event by feasting on ,maccheroni alla ,napolitana1 ,cinghale all',agra ,dolce and wine of ,orvieto4 ,the ,falcone was another accident of our tramps1 though we afterwards found it starred in ,baedeker4 ,it looked the centuries old it was said to be1 such a shabby1 sombre crypt of a restaurant that ,i accepted without question the tradition it cherished of itself as a haunt of the ,csars1 and was prepared to believe the waiters when they pointed out the mark of the ,imperial head on the greasy walls1 just as the waiters of the ,cheshire ,cheese in ,london point to the mark of ,dr4 ,johnson's1 while the flamboyancy of the cooking revealed to me the real reason of the decline and fall of ,rome4 ,i am afraid ,i should be telling the story of our own decline and fall had we sent off articles and received cheques every day4 ,fortunately1 the intervals were long between the feasts1 but unfortunately our digestion can never again be imperilled at the ,falcone1 for they tell me it has gone with the ,ghetto and so many other things in the ,rome ,i knew and loved4 ,by the middle of the winter we gave up the ,posta and went to the ,cavour instead4 ,i don't know how we had the heart to1 for the ,cavour never had the same charm for us1 we never got to like it so well4 ,it was too large and popular for friendliness1 the officers carried their ceremony and gorgeousness to a room apart1 and the padrone and his waiters were too busy for more than one fixed smile of general welcome4 ,but then there1 if we paid for our dinner by the month1 it cost us next to nothing by the day1 and our ,letter of ,credit allowed as narrow a margin for sentiment as for clothes4 ,moreover1 the dinner was good as well as cheap4 ,and when the streets of ,rome were rivers of rain1 as they often were that winter1 it was brought to our rooms in a dinner pail by a waiter1 after he had first come half a mile to submit the menu to us1 and in that cold1 bleak interior1 wrapped in blankets1 a scaldino at our feet1 a newspaper for tablecloth1 we made a picnic of it1 freezing1 but thankful not to be drowned4 ,and on great holidays1 the padrone spared us a smile all to ourselves as he offered us1 with the compliments of the season1 a plate of torrone and a bottle of old wine from his vineyard4 ,,iii ,with dinner the night was but beginning and smiles must have faded had we lingered over it indefinitely4 ,i learned to my astonishment1 however1 that hours could be1 or rather were expected to be1 devoted to the drinking of one small cup of coffee1 and that always near the trattoria was a caf,a which provided the coffee and1 at the cost of a few cents1 could become our home for as long and as late as might suit us4 ,in ,philadelphia after dinner coffee had been swallowed promptly1 in the back parlour if we were dining alone1 in the front if people were dining with us1 and ,i was startled to find it in ,rome an excuse to loaf at a convenient distance from the domestic hearth for ,romans with apparently nothing to do and all their time to do it in4 ,footnote ,a3 ,note4--,let me anticipate the amiable critic--and say that ,i know this is not the ,italian spelling of caf4 ,i use the ,french spelling here1 as in later chapters where it belongs1 for the sake of uniformity throughout4 ,it is an arrangement ,i take now as a matter of course4 ,but then1 it must be borne in mind1 for me only five months separated ,rome from ,philadelphia1 and ,philadelphia bonds are not easily broken4 ,i suspected something wrong in so agreeable a custom1 as youth usually does in the pleasant things of life1 and as a ,philadelphian always does in the unaccustomed1 and at first1 when we went to the ancient ,greco1 ,i tried to believe it was entirely the result of ,j4's interest in a place where artists had drunk coffee for generations4 ,when we deserted it because1 despite its traditions1 nobody went there any longer save a few grey-bearded old men and a few gold-laced hall porters1 and the dulness fell like a pall upon us1 and the atmosphere was rank1 and when we patronized instead a brand-new caf in the ,corso that called itself in ,french the ,caf de ,venise and in ,english the ,meet of ,best ,society1 ,i put down the attraction to the ,daily ,news1 to which the caf subscribed1 and for which in those days ,andrew ,lang was writing the leaders everybody was reading4 ,but ,lang could not reconcile us to the nightly ,gran ,concerto of a piano1 a flute and a violin of indifferent merit concealed in a thicket of artificial trees1 and the ,best ,society meant tourists1 and after we had shocked a family of ,new ,england friends by inviting them to share its tawdry pleasures with us1 and after a few evenings had given us1 unaccompanied1 all and more than we could stand of it1 we exchanged it for a caf without a past and with no aspirations as the ,meet of any save the usual caf society of a big ,italian town4 ,by this time ,i had ceased to worry about excuses and had settled down to idleness and coffee with as little scruple as the natives4 ,the caf we chose was the ,nazionale ,aragno in the ,corso1 the largest and most gorgeous in ,rome4 ,the three or four rooms that opened one out of the other had a magnificence that we could never have achieved in furnished rooms and would not have wanted to if we could1 and a succession of mirrors multiplied them indefinitely4 ,we leaned luxuriously against blue plush1 gilding glittered wherever gilding could on white walls1 waiters rushed about with little shining nickel-plated trays held high above their heads1 spurs and swords clanked and clattered1 by the middle of the evening not a table was vacant4 ,it was simply the usual big ,continental caf1 but to me as new and strange as everything else in the wonderful life in the wonderful world into which ,i had strayed from the old familiar ways of ,philadelphia1 with a long halt between only in ,england where the caf does not exist4 ,to the marble-topped tables1 the gilding1 mirrors and plush1 novelty lent a charm they have never had since and probably would soon have lost had we been left to contemplate them in solitary state1 as it seemed probable we should4 ,for we knew nobody in ,rome except ,sandro1 the youthful enthusiastic ,roman cyclist we had picked up in ,montepulciano1 cycled with through the ,val di ,chiana on a sunny ,october ,sunday1 and run across again in ,rome where he amiably showed us the hospitality of the capital by occasionally drinking coffee with us at our expense1 and by once introducing a friend1 a tall1 slim1 good-looking young man of such elegance of manner and such a princely air of condescension1 that ,sandro himself was impressed and joined us again1 later on the same evening1 to explain our privilege in having entertained the ,queen's hair-dresser unawares4 ,foreigners did not often find their way into the ,nazionale4 ,they were almost as few in number as women1 who were very few1 for as women in ,rome never dined1--or so ,i gathered from my observations at the ,posta1 the ,falcone and the ,cavour1--they never drank coffee4 ,only on ,sundays would they descend upon the caf with their husbands and children1 and then it was to devour ices and cakes at a rate that convinced me they devoured little else from one ,sunday to the next4 ,when ,i asked for the ,times--they took the ,times at the ,nazionale--the waiter almost invariably answered3 ,it reads itself1 the ,signore ,tedesco has it1 and the ,signore ,tedesco1 a mild ,german student who for his daily lesson in ,english read the advertisement columns from beginning to end1 was the only foreigner who appeared regularly at any table save our own4 ,and yet at ours1 before ,i could say how it came about1 a little group collected1 and every evening in the furthest room ,j4 and ,i began to hold an informal reception which gave us all the advantages of social life and none of its responsibilities4 ,we could preside in the travel-worn tweeds of cycling and not bother because we were not dressed2 we could welcome our friends the more cordially because1 as we did not provide the entertainment1 it was no offence to us if they did not like it1 nor to them if we failed to sit it out4 ,in the caf we found the oblivion of care1 the same freedom from solitude1 though not the big words to express it1 which ,dr4 ,johnson experienced in a tavern4 ,were all social functions run on the same broad principles1 society would not be half the strain it is upon everybody's patience and good-nature and purse4 ,almost all the group were artists4 ,in those days artists and students were no longer rushing to ,rome as the one place to study art in1 nor had the effort begun to revive its old reputation among them4 ,still a good many were always about4 ,some lived there1 others1 like ourselves1 were spending the winter1 or else were just passing through1 and1 once we had collected the group round our table1 ,i do not believe we were ever left to pass an evening alone4 ,artists were as great a novelty to me as the caf--,i had been married so short a time that ,j4 had not ceased to be a problem1 if he ever has--and nothing was more amazing to me than the talk4 ,its volubility took my breath away4 ,i thought of the back parlour at home after dinner1 my ,father playing interminable games of ,patience1 the rest of us deep in our books until bed-time4 ,and these men talked as if talk was the only business1 the only occupation of life4 ,still more surprising was the subject of their talk4 ,if they had so much to say that it made me grateful ,i was born a listener1 they had only one thing to say it about4 ,it was art from the moment we met until we parted1 though we might sit over our coffee for hours4 ,often it was next morning when ,j4 and ,i reached the house at the top of the hill1 and he dragged the huge key from his pocket1 undid the ponderous lock and struck the overgrown match1 or undersized candle1 by which the ,roman lit himself to his rooms1 and we panted up our six flights afraid ours would not last1 for we had but the one supplied by the restaurant4 ,the quality of the talk was as amazing3 bewildering1 revolutionary1 to anybody who had never heard art talked about by artists1 as ,i never had before ,i met ,j4 ,all ,i had thought right turned out to be wrong1 all ,i had never thought of was right1 all that was essential to the critic of art1 to the ,ruskin-bred1 had nothing to do with it whatever4 ,history1 dates1 periods1 schools1 sentiment1 meaning1 attributions1 ,morelli only as yet threatening to succeed ,ruskin as prophet of art1 were not worth discussion or thought4 ,the concern was for art as a trade--the trade which creates beauty2 the vital questions were treatment1 colour1 values1 tone1 mediums4 ,the price of pictures and the gains of artists1 those absorbing topics of the great little men in ,england to-day1 were never mentioned3 the man who sold was looked down on1 rather4 ,there were nights when ,i went away believing that nothing mattered in the world except the ground on a copper plate1 or the grain of a canvas1 or the paint in a tube1 so long and heated and bitter had been the controversy over it4 ,they might all be artists1 but they were of a hundred opinions as to the exact meaning of right and wrong1 and they could wrangle over mediums until the ,german student looked up in reproof from his columns of advertisements and the ,romans shrugged their shoulders at the curious manners and short tempers of the forestiere4 ,but there was one point upon which ,i never knew them not to be of one mind1 and this was the supreme importance of art4 ,if ,i ventured to disagree--which ,i was far too timid to do often--they were down upon me like a flash1 abusing me for being so blind as not to see the truth in ,rome1 of all places1 where of a tremendous past nothing was left but the work of the masters who built and adorned the city1 or who sang and chronicled its splendours4 ,,iv ,the noise of their talk is still loud in my ears1 but many of the talkers have grown dim in my memory4 ,of some of the older men ,i cannot recall the faces1 not even the names2 some of the younger ,i remember better1 partly ,i suppose because they were young and starting out in life with us1 partly because one or two later on made their names heard of by many people outside of the ,nazionale and far beyond ,rome4 ,i could not easily forget the young ,architect who was then getting ready to conquer ,philadelphia--to borrow a phrase from ,zola1 as seems but appropriate in writing of the ,eighties--for which great end all the knowledge of the ,beaux-,arts could not have served him as well as his conviction that the architecture of ,europe had waited for him to discover it4 ,he had never been abroad before and he could not believe that anybody else had4 ,he would come to our little corner from his prowls in ,rome and tell men1 who had lived there for more years than he had hours1 all about the churches and palaces and galleries1 like a new ,columbus revealing to his astonished audience the wonders of a ,new ,world4 ,and it amused me to see how patiently the older men listened1 sparing his illusions1 no doubt because they heard in his ardent1 confident1 decidedly dictatorial voice the voice of their own youth calling4 ,he carried his convictions home with him unspoiled1 and his first building--a hospital or something of the kind--was a monument to his discoveries1 a record of his adventures among the masterpieces of ,europe1 beginning on the ground floor as the ,strozzi ,palace1 developing into various ,french castles1 and finishing on the top as a ,swiss chlet1 atrocious as architecture1 but amusing as autobiography4 ,all his buildings were more or less reminiscent1 and told again in stone the story so often told in words at the ,nazionale1 for ,death was kind and claimed him before he had ceased to be the discoverer to become himself4 ,donoghue too has gone1 ,donoghue the sculptor who as ,i knew him in ,rome was so overflowing with life1 so young that ,i felt inclined to credit him with the gift of immortal youth1 so big and handsome and gay that wherever he went laughter went with him4 ,he too was a discoverer1 but his discovery was of ,paris and the ,latin ,quarter4 ,it had filled a year between ,chicago1 where he had been ,oscar ,wilde's discovery1 and ,rome1 and he had had time to work off his first fantastic exuberance as discoverer before ,i met him4 ,donoghue is all right1 they would say of him at the ,nazionale2 he has got past the brass buttons and pink swallow tail stage1 even if he does cling to low collars and tight pants and spats4 ,certainly1 he had got so far as to think he ought to be beginning to work1 and he was in despair because he could not find in ,rome a youth as beautiful as himself to pose for his ,young ,sophocles4 ,to listen to him was to believe that ,narcissus had come to life again4 ,we would meet him during our afternoon rambles in all sorts of out-of-the-way places1 when he would stop and take half an hour to assure us he hadn't time to stop1 he was hunting for a model he had just heard of1 and then he would drop into the ,nazionale at night to report his want of progress1 for no model ever came up to his standard4 ,he referred to his own beauty with the frank simplicity and vanity of a child--a real ,post-,impressionist2 not one by pose1 for there was not a trace of pose in him4 ,i wish ,i could say how astonishing he was to me4 ,life has since thrown many young artists and writers my way and ,i am used to their conceits and affectations and splendid belief in themselves4 ,but my experience then was of the most limited and bound by ,philadelphia convention1 and ,i cannot imagine a greater contrast than between the ,philadelphia youth to whom ,i was accustomed1 talking of the last reception and the next party over his chicken salad at the ,dancing ,class1 and ,donoghue talking dispassionately of his own surpassing beauty over a small cup of coffee at the ,nazionale4 ,donoghue was a child1 not merely in his vanity1 but in everything1 with the schoolboy's sense of fun4 ,i never knew him happier than the evening he hurried to the caf from his visit to the ,coliseum by moonlight to tell us of his joke on the ,americans he found waiting there in silence for the guide's announcement that the moon was in the proper place for their proper emotion4 ,a friend was with him4 ,and ,i said3 ',sprichst du ,deutsch8' very loud as we passed1 was ,donoghue's story4 ,and he answered as loud as he could3 ',nichts6 ,nichts6' ,and ,i said3 ',zwei ,bier1' and of course the ,americans took us for ,germans4 ,then we hid in the shadows a little further on and we both yelled together at the top of our voices1 ',three cheers for ,cleveland6' and the ,americans jumped1 and they forgot the moon1 and they wouldn't listen to the guide1 and ,i tell you it was just great4 ,i was not overcome myself with the wit or humour of the jest1 but ,donoghue was1 and he roared with laughter until none of us could help roaring with him in sheer sympathy4 ,he was as enchanted with his method of learning ,italian4 ,he was reading ,wilkie ,collins and ,bret ,harte in an ,italian translation1 and when he yawned in our faces and left the caf early1 it was because the night before the ,dago's ,woman in ,white or ,luck of ,roaring ,camp had kept him up until long after dawn1 though really he knew it was a waste of time since anybody had only to get himself half seas over and he'd talk any darned lingo in the world4 ,he joined us less often after he gave up the hopeless hunt for the model who never was found and whom it would have been useless anyway to find1 for ,donoghue always spent his quarter's allowance the day he got it1 and most models could not wait three months to be paid4 ,to this conclusion he came soon after the first of the year and settled down seriously to posing for himself and1 as the world knows1 the ,young ,sophocles was finished in the course of time and a very fine statue it is said to be4 ,but even if he did desert our table he would still seem to me in memory the centre of the little group gathered about it1 had it not been for ,forepaugh4 ,of course his name was not ,forepaugh--though something very like it--but ,forepaugh answers my every purpose4 ,for though ,i did know his name ,i did not know then1 and ,i do not know now1 who he was and why he was4 ,i do not think anybody ever knew anything about him except that he was ,forepaugh1 which meant1 according to his own reckoning1 the most wonderful person on earth4 ,he was one of the sort of men whose habit is to turn up wherever you may happen to be1 in whatever part of the world1 with no apparent reason for being there except to talk to you1--the last time we met was in a remote corner of ,kensington ,gardens in ,london1 where he took up the talk just where we had left off at the ,nazionale in ,rome--and as it is years since he has turned up anywhere to talk to us1 ,i fear he has joined the ,philadelphia ,architect and ,donoghue where he will talk no more4 ,in sheer physical power of speech he was without a rival and none surpassed him in appreciation of his eloquence4 ,his interest never flagged so long as he held the floor1 though when we wanted him to listen to us1 he did not attempt to conceal his indifference4 ,we could not tell him anything1 for there was nothing about which he did not know more than we could hope to4 ,he1 at any rate1 had no doubt of his own omniscience4 ,judging from the intimate details with which he regaled us1 he was equally in the confidence of the ,vatican and the ,quirinal1 equally at home with the ,blacks and the ,whites4 ,the secrets of the ,roman aristocracy were his1 he was the first to hear the scandals of the foreign colony4 ,the opera depended upon his patronage and balls languished without him1 though ,i could never understand how or why1 so rarely did he leave us to enjoy them4 ,every archologist1 every scholar1 every historian in ,rome appealed to him for help1 and as for art1 it was folly for others to pretend to speak of it in his presence4 ,he called himself an artist and for a time he used to go with ,j4 to ,gigi's1 the life school where artists then in ,rome often went of an afternoon to draw from the model4 ,but ,j4 never saw him there with as much as a scrap of paper or a pencil in his hands1 and nobody ever saw him at work anywhere4 ,for what he did not do he made up by telling us of what he might do4 ,his were the pictures unpainted which1 like the songs unsung1 are always the best4 ,he condescended to approve of the ,old ,masters1 assured that the masterpieces he might choose to produce must rank with theirs1 but he never forgot the great gulf fixed between himself and the ,modern ,masters1 whose pictures were worthy of his approval only when he had been their inspiration4 ,it was fortunate for ,american ,art that scarcely an ,american artist could be named whom ,forepaugh had not inspired4 ,and if he praised ,abbey and ,millet more than most1 it was because he had posed for both and could answer for it that ,millet's porch1 or studio1 or dining-room1 which had had the honour of serving as his background1 was as true as the figure of himself set against it4 ,like all talkers who know too much1 ,forepaugh had1 what ,carlyle called1 a terrible faculty for developing into a bore4 ,some of our little group would run when they saw him at the door1 others took malicious pleasure in interrupting him and suddenly changing the conversation in the hope to catch him tripping4 ,but out of all such tests he came triumphantly4 ,i never thought him more wonderful than the evening when somebody abruptly began to talk about ,theosophy in the middle of one of his confidences about the ,italian ,court4 ,it was no use4 ,without stopping to take breath1 at once ,forepaugh began to tell us the most marvellous theosophical adventures1 which he knew not by hearsay1 but because he had passed through them himself4 ,we might express an opinion3 he stated facts4 ,and it seemed that he had no more intimate friend than ,sinnett1 and that to ,sinnett he had confessed his scepticism1 asking for a sign1 a manifestation1 and that one afternoon when they were smoking over their coffee and cognac after lunch in ,sinnett's chambers1 then on the third floor of a house near the ,oxford ,street end of ,bond ,street--,forepaugh was carefully exact in his details--,sinnett smiled mysteriously but said nothing except to warn him to hold on tight to the table4 ,and up rose the table1 with the litter of coffee cups1 cigars1 and cognac1 up rose the two chairs1 one at either end with ,sinnett and ,forepaugh sitting on them1 and away they floated out of the open window--it was a ,june afternoon--and along ,bond ,street1 above the carriages and the hansoms and omnibuses and the people as far as ,piccadilly1 and round the lamp post by ,egyptian ,hall1 up ,bond ,street again1 and in at the window4 ,hold on1 said ,sinnett1 and ,i never held on to anything as tight in my life as ,i did to that table1 said ,forepaugh in conclusion4 ,he always reminded me of the man who so annoyed my ,uncle1 ,charles ,godfrey ,leland1 by always knowing1 doing1 or having everything better or bigger than anybody else4 ,why1 if ,i were to tell him ,i had an elephant in my back yard1 my ,uncle used to say1 he would at once invite me to see the mastodon in his4 ,forepaugh had a mastodon up his sleeve for everybody else's elephant4 ,v ,illustration3 ,by ,courtesy of ,houghton ,mifflin ,company ,,elihu ,,vedder ,if ,forepaugh gave us a great deal of information we had no possible use for and talked us to despair1 he was really a good fellow whom we should have missed from our table4 ,and it was through him ,j4 and ,i were first made welcome in that one house open to us1 to which ,i have been all this time in coming4 ,for it was ,forepaugh who told ,vedder we were in ,rome1 and ,vedder1 once he knew it1 would not hear of our shutting his door in our own faces1 nor would ,mrs4 ,vedder1 whatever the condition of our wardrobe4 ,vedder may have revealed many things in his recent ,digressions1 but not the extent of the hospitality he and his wife showed to the ,american who was a stranger in ,rome1 where1 even then1 they had been long at home4 ,mrs4 ,vedder carried her amiability to the point of climbing our six flights of stairs and calling on me in the rooms that suited us admirably for our work but were less adapted to afternoon receptions1 and she would have gone further and shown me how to adapt them by moving every bit of furniture from where it was and arranging it all over again4 ,not the least part of her friendliness was not to mind when ,i did not fall in with her plans1 as ,i couldn't1 since so long as the sun shone in at the windows all was right with the rooms as far as ,i could see4 ,i was in the absurd stage of industry when ,i did not care where my ,roman furniture stood so long as my ,roman tasks got done4 ,even our padrona told me her surprise that1 foreigner as ,i was1 ,i seemed to do as much work as she did1 which ,i accepted as a compliment4 ,after that first attempt ,mrs4 ,vedder did not return to climb our six flights1 but she would not let us off from climbing her four or five4 ,often as we took advantage of their hospitality1 we never found the ,vedders alone and1 chiefly ,american as was the group at their fireside1 it was never without a foreigner or two4 ,the first person we were introduced to on the first visit was the ,englishman who would have deserted us in the ,ghetto had we let him have his way1 and who1 when he saw us1 looked as if he wished the ,vedders had learned to be less indiscriminate in their hospitality4 ,we had the satisfaction of knowing that we made him supremely uncomfortable4 ,he frowned upon us then as he continued to all through the winter4 ,he could not forgive us for having found him out and was evidently afraid we were going to tell everybody about it4 ,he was something very learned and was occupied in writing a book on ,ancient ,rome2 later he became something more important at ,south ,kensington4 ,but no degree of learning and importance helped him to forget1 or anyway to forgive4 ,at chance meetings years afterwards in ,london he frowned1 as no doubt he would still had he not long since gone to the land where ,i hope all frowns are smoothed from his frowning brow4 ,if he frowned1 there was another ,englishman who smiled3 an elderly man with the imperturbable serenity of a ,buddha4 ,he also had written books1 ,i believe4 ,i remember articles by him1 with art for subject1 in the ,portfolio at a time when everybody had taken to writing about art1 and ,i think his name was ,davies4 ,but it would be more in character to forget that he ever worked or had a name4 ,when ,i was in ,rome he had risen above activity and toil to the contemplative life and1 ,i suppose1 to the income that made it possible4 ,one night he explained his philosophy to me4 ,men could not be happy without sunshine1 he thought4 ,the sun was house1 food1 clothes1 furniture1 identity1 everything1 and as most of the year in ,england sunshine was not to be had at any price1 he had come to live in ,rome where almost all the year it was his for nothing4 ,he sat on the ,pincian or in other gardens during the day1 doing nothing in the sunshine--that was living4 ,and he urged me to follow his example and not to wait until half my life had been wasted in the pursuit of happiness where it was not to be found4 ,he may have been right1 but ,i never needed to become a philosopher to value the virtue of indolence1--my trouble is that ,i have never had the money to pay for it4 ,any man has the ability to do nothing1 a great authority has said1 and ,i can answer for one woman who has more than her fair share of it4 ,i have always envied the ,north ,american ,indians for their enjoyment of what it seems ,burke attributed to them3 the highest boon of ,heaven1 supreme and perpetual indolence4 ,as regular a visitor was a huge long-bearded ,norwegian who looked a prophet and was an artist1 and who spent most of the winter in the study of ,marion ,crawford's novels1 ,i cannot imagine why1 as they roused him to fury4 ,marion ,crawford1 he would thunder at us as if somehow we were responsible1 ,bah6 ,he is a weak imitator of ,bulwer1 that is all1 and he has not ,bulwer's power of construction4 ,he is not ,bulwer4 ,no4 ,he is a weakling4 ,bah6 ,my only quarrel with ,marion ,crawford's books was that they never excited strong emotion in me1 one way or the other1 and ,i was so puzzled by his excitement that ,i remember ,i went to the trouble of getting out ,mr4 ,isaacs and ,a ,roman ,singer from ,piali's ,library in the ,piazza di ,spagna1 that centre of learning and literature for the ,english in ,rome where1 one day when ,i asked for ,pepys's ,diary1 they offered me ,marcus ,ward's4 ,a new course of ,marion ,crawford left me as puzzled as ever for the reason of the ,norwegian's rage1 and ,i was the more impressed with the possibilities of a temperament that could heat itself to such a degree at so lukewarm a fire4 ,we were as certain to find this fiery ,norseman and the two ,englishmen any night we called as ,vedder himself4 ,other men came and went1 amongst them a few ,italians and ,frenchmen and more ,americans1 ,coleman for one among them1 but none could have appeared as regularly1 so much fainter is the impression they have left with me4 ,naturally1 they were mostly artists and at ,vedder's1 as at the caf1 the talk was chiefly of art4 ,there was little of his work to see1 for his studio was some distance from his apartment4 ,but it was enough to see ,vedder himself or1 for that matter1 enough to hear him4 ,in his own house he led the talk1 even ,forepaugh having small chance against him4 ,he was as prolific1 a splendidly determined and animated talker4 ,it was stimulating just to watch him talk4 ,he was never still1 he rarely sat down1 he was always moving about1 walking up and down1 at times breaking into song and even dance4 ,he was then in his prime1 large1 with a fine expressive face1 and as ,american in his voice1 in his manner1 in his humour as if he had never crossed the ,atlantic4 ,the true ,american never gets ,europeanized1 nor does he want to1 however long he may stay on the wrong side of the ,atlantic4 ,when ,i was with ,vedder1 ,broadway always seemed nearer than the ,corso4 ,he had recently finished the illustrations for the ,rubaiyat and the book was published while we were in ,rome4 ,it was never long out of his talk4 ,he would tell us the history of every design and of every model or pot in it4 ,he exulted in the stroke of genius by which he had invented a composition or a pose4 ,i have heard him describe again and again how he drew the flight of a spirit from a model1 outstretched and flopping up and down on a feather bed laid upon the studio floor1 until she almost fainted from fatigue1 while he worked from a hammock slung just above4 ,i recall his delight when a friend of ,fitzgerald's sent him ,fitzgerald's photograph with many compliments1 asking for his in return4 ,and he rejoiced in the story of ,dr4 ,chamberlain filling a difficult tooth for the ,queen and all the while singing the praises of the ,rubaiyat until she ordered a copy of the dition de luxe4 ,in looking back1 ,i always seem to see ,mrs4 ,vedder pasting notices into a scrap book1 and to hear ,vedder declaiming ,omar's quatrains and describing his own drawings4 ,there was one evening when he came to a dead stop in his walk and his talk1 and shaking a dramatic finger at us all1 said3 ,i tell you what it is4 ,i am not ,vedder4 ,i am ,omar ,khayyam6 ,no1 drawled the voice of a disgusted artist who had not got a word in for more than an hour1 ,no1 you're not4 ,you're the ,great ,i ,am6 ,vedder laughed with the rest of us1 but ,i am not sure he liked it4 ,he could and did enjoy a joke1 even if at his expense4 ,i remember his delight one night in telling the story of an old lady who had visited his studio during the day and who sat so long in front of one of his pictures he thought it was having its effect1 but whose only comment at the end of several minutes was3 ,that's a pretty frame you have there6 ,he was sensitive to criticism1 however1 though he carried it off with a laugh4 ,clarence ,cook was one of the critics of his ,omar who offended him4 ,it's funny1 ,vedder said1 all my life ,i've hurt ,clarence's feelings4 ,he always has been sure ,i have done my work for no other reason than to irritate him1 and now that's the way he feels about the ,omar4 ,the laugh was not so ready when ,andrew ,lang--,i think it was ,lang--wrote that ,vedder's ,omar ,khayyam was not of ,persia1 but of ,skaneateles4 ,and after ,i suggested that it was really of ,rome1 and some mistaken friend at home sent my article to ,vedder1 ,i never thought him quite so cordial4 ,,vi ,and so the winter passed4 ,for us there was always a refuge from our cold rooms at the caf or at ,vedder's1 and it was seldom we did not profit by it4 ,occasionally during our rambles we stumbled unexpectedly upon old friends doing ,italy and genuinely glad to see us1 as we were to see them1 inviting us to their hotels at every risk of the disapproval of manager and porters and waiters2 and so powerful was the influence of ,rome and the caf that now the marvel was to sit and listen to talk about ,philadelphia1 and where everybody was going for the summer1 and who was getting married1 and who had died1 and what ,philadelphia was thinking and doing1 as if1 after all1 there were still benighted people in the world who believed not in art1 but in ,philadelphia as of supreme importance4 ,occasionally we made new friends outside of our pleasant caf life4 ,i have forgotten how1 though ,i have not forgotten it was in ,rome1 thanks to a letter of introduction from ,dr4 ,garnett of the ,british ,museum1 that we first met ,miss ,harriet ,waters ,preston1 who1 for her part1 had already introduced me to ,mistral--how many ,americans had heard of ,mistral before she translated ,mirio8--and who now accepted us1 cycling tweeds and all1 notwithstanding the shock they must have been to the admirably appointed pension where she stayed4 ,she also climbed our six flights1 her niece and collaborator1 ,miss ,louise ,dodge1 with her1 probably both busy that winter collecting facts for their ,private ,life of the ,romans1 and where could they have found a more perfect background for the past they were studying than when they looked down from our windows over ,rome1 to the ,campagna beyond1 and upon the horizon the shining line that we knew was the ,mediterranean1--over all the beauty that has not changed in the meanwhile1 though old streets and old villas and old slums have vanished4 ,and at these times1 in the talk1 not ,philadelphia1 but literature was for a while art's rival4 ,and there were days when we played truant and climbed down in the morning's first freshness from the high room overlooking ,rome and the work that had to be done in it1 and loafed all day in ,roman galleries and at ,roman ceremonies1 or strayed to places further afield--,tivoli1 ,albano1 ,ostia1 ,marino1 ,rocca di ,papa1--getting back to ,rome with feet too tired to take us anywhere except up our six flights again4 ,and there were nights when the affairs of ,rome drew us from the caf4 ,i remember once our little group interrupted their interminable arguments long enough to see the ,tiber in flood1 down by the ,ripetta1 where people were going about in boats1 and ,rome looked like the ,venice to which ,i had then never been1 and we met ,king ,humbert and ,queen ,margherita in his ,american trotting wagon driving down alone so as to show their sympathy1 for1 whatever they may not have done1 they always appeared in person when their people were in trouble3 not so many weeks before we had watched the enthusiasm with which the ,romans greeted ,king ,humbert on his return from visiting the cholera-stricken town of ,naples4 ,and ,i remember on ,befana ,night we adjourned to the ,piazza ,navona to blow horns and reed whistles into other people's ears and to have them blown into ours4 ,for the humours of the ,carnival there was no need to leave the caf1 where one ,pulcinello after another broke into our talk with witticisms that kept the caf in an uproar1 and for me destroyed whatever sentiment there might have been in the thought that this was my last night in ,rome--the last of the friendly nights of talk in the ,nazionale to which we always returned no matter how far we might occasionally stray from it--the friendly nights of talk when ,i learned my folly in ever having believed that anything in the world mattered1 that anything in the world existed1 save art4 ,pulcinello1 the newest of our ,roman friends1 went with us from ,rome1 following us to ,naples1 a familiar face to lighten our homesickness for the rooms full of sunshine at the top of the high house on the top of the high hill1 and for the blue plush and the gilding and the mirrors and the talk of the ,nazionale4 ,and ,pulcinello went with us to ,pompeii1 reappearing during our nights at the ,albergo del ,sole1 that most delightful and impossible of all the inns that ever were4 ,it may have vanished in the quarter of a century that has passed since the ,february day ,i came to it1 when the sky was as blue as the sea1 and a soft cloud hung over ,vesuvius1 and flowers were sweet in the land--can anyone who ever smelt it forget the sweetness of the flowering bean in the wide fields near the ,bay of ,naples8 ,but ,pompeii could never be the same without the ,sole4 ,and it was made for our shabbiness1 its three tumbled-down little houses ranged round the three sides of an unkempt1 mud-floored court2 our bedroom without lock or latch and with a mirror cracked from side to side like the ,lady of ,shalott's1 though for other reasons2 the dining-room with earthen floor1 walls decorated by a modern-primitive fresco of the padrone holding a plate of maccheroni in one hand and a flask of ,lachrima ,christi in the other1 a central column spreading out branches like a tree and bearing for fruit row upon row of still unopened bottles1 a door free to all the stray monks and beggars of ,pompeii--to all the fowls too1 including the gorgeous peacock that strolled in after its evening walk with the young ,swiss artist on the flat roof of the inn where1 together1 they went before dinner to watch the sunset4 ,throughout dinner1 at the head of the long table where we sat with the ,swiss artist and an old ,german professor of art and an older ,italian archologist1 the talk1 as at the ,nazionale1 was of art1 so that it also1 like ,pulcinello1 crying his jests through the window or at our elbow1 made me feel at home4 ,while we helped ourselves from that amazing dish into which you stuck a fork and pulled out a bit of chicken or duck or beef or mutton or sausage2 while the old professor and archologist absent-mindedly stretched a hand to the column behind them1 and plucked from it bottle after bottle of wine2 while the beggars whined at the open door1 and the monks begged at our side1 and ,pulcinello capered and jested and sang2 while the ,american tourists at the other end of the table deplored the disorder and noise until we sent them the longest and most expensive way up ,vesuvius to get rid of them2 while the fowls fought for the crumbs2--the talk was still of art and again of art1 in the end as in the beginning4 ,i might not understand half of it1 coming as it did in a confused torrent of ,german1 ,italian1 ,french1 and ,english1 but the nights at the ,sole1 like the nights at the ,nazionale1 made this one truth clear3 that nothing matters in the world1 that nothing exists in the world1 save art4 ,,iii ,,nights ,,in ,,venice ,,in ,,venice ,i ,we reached ,venice at an unearthly hour of a ,march morning and the first thing ,i knew of it somebody was shouting1 ,venezia6 and ,i was startled from a sound sleep1 and porters were scrambling for our bags1 and we were stumbling after them1 up a long platform1 between a crowd of men in hotel caps yelling3 ,danieli6 ,britannia6 and ,i hardly heard what1 out into a fog as impenetrable as night or ,london4 ,the muffled1 ghostly cries of gundola6 gundola6 from invisible gondoliers on invisible waters would have sent me back into the station even had there been a chance to find so modest a hotel as the ,casa ,kirsch open so preposterously early1 and my first impressions of ,venice were gathered in the freezing1 foggy station restaurant where ,j4 and ,i drank our coffee and yawned1 and ,i would have thought ,ruskin a fraud with his purple passage describing the traveller's arrival in ,venice upon which ,i had based my expectations1 had ,i been wide enough awake to think of anything at all1 and the hours stretched themselves into centuries before a touch of yellow in the fog suggested a sun shining in some remote world1 and we crawled under the cover of one of the dim black boats that emerged vaguely1 a shadow from the shadows4 ,i had looked forward to my first gondola ride for that little first ,venetian thrill that ,venice owes to the stranger4 ,but ,i did not thrill1 ,i shivered with cold and damp and fog as the gondola pushed through the yellow gloom in the sort of silence you can feel1 and tall houses towered suddenly and horribly above us1 and strange yells broke the stillness before and behind1 when another black boat with a black figure at the stern1 came out of the gloom1 scraped and bumped our side1 and was swallowed up again4 ,and after we were on the landing of the ,casa ,kirsch1 and up in our rooms1 and the fog lifted1 and the sun shone1 and we looked out of our windows with all ,venice in our faces1 and ,j4 took me to see the town1 my impressions were still foggy with sleep4 ,for1 from ,pompeii1 where there had been work1 to ,venice where there was to be more1 we had hurried by one of those day-and-night flights to which ,j4 has never accustomed me1 the hurried1 crowded pauses at ,naples and ,orvieto and ,florence and ,pisa and ,lucca and ,pistoia turning the journey into a beautiful nightmare of which all ,i was now seeing became but a part3 the ,riva1 canals1 sails1 ,bersaglieri1 the ,ducal ,palace1 the ,bridge of ,sighs1 ,st4 ,mark's1 the ,piazza1 gondolas1 women in black1 white sunlight1 pigeons1 tourists1 the ,campanile1 following one upon another with the inconsequence of troubled dreams4 ,and then we were on the ,rialto and ,j4 was saying ,of course you know that8 and ,i was answering ,of course1 the ,bridge of ,sighs6 and the many years between have not blunted the edge of his disgust or my remorse4 ,but my disgrace drove me back to the ,casa ,kirsch1 to sleep for fifteen blessed hours before looking at one other beautiful thing or troubling my head about what we were to do with our days and our nights in ,venice4 ,,ii ,what we were to do with our days settled itself the next morning as soon as ,i woke4 ,for ,venice1 out of my window1 was rising from the sea with the dawn1 everything it ought to have been the morning before1 and ,i had no desire to move from a room that looked down upon the ,riva1 and across to ,san ,giorgio1 and beyond the island--and sail-strewn lagoon to the low line of the ,lido1 and above to the vastness of the ,venetian sky4 ,nor was there trouble in providing for our nights4 ,before ,i left home a romantic friend had pictured me in ,venice1 wrapped in black lace1 forever floating in a gondola under the moon4 ,but my ,roman winter had taught me how much more likely the gas-light of some little trattoria and caf was to shine upon me in my well-worn tweeds1 my education having got so far advanced that any other end to my day of work could not seem possible4 ,the only question was upon which of the many little trattorie and cafs in ,venice our choice should fall1 and this was decided for us by ,duveneck1 whom we ran across that same morning in the ,piazza1 and who told us that he slept in the ,casa ,kirsch1 dined at the ,antica ,panada1 and drank coffee at the ,orientale1 which was as much as to say that we might too if we liked4 ,and of course we liked1 for it is a great compliment when a man in ,venice1 or any ,italian town1--especially if he is of the importance and distinction to which ,duveneck had already attained1--makes you free to join him at dinner and over after-dinner coffee4 ,it is more than a compliment4 ,it launches you in ,venice as to be presented at court launches you in ,london4 ,illustration3 ,painting by ,joseph ,r4 ,de ,camp ,,frank ,,duveneck ,we began that night to dine at the ,panada and drink coffee at the ,orientale1 and we kept on dining at the ,panada and drinking coffee at the ,orientale every night we were in ,venice2 except when it was a festa and we followed ,duveneck to the ,calcino1 where various ,royal ,academicians sustained the respectability ,ruskin gave it by his patronage and ,symonds tried to live up to2 or when there was music in the ,piazza and1 happy to do whatever ,duveneck did1 we went with him to the ,quadri or ,florian's2 or when it stormed1 as it can in ,march1 and all day from my window ,i had looked down upon the dripping ,riva and the wind-waved ,lagoon and lines of fishing boats moored to the banks1 and no living creatures except the gulls1 and the little white woolly dogs on the fishing boats covered with sails1 and the sailors miserably huddled together1 and gondoliers in yellow oilskins1 and the ,bersaglieri in hoods--what the ,bersaglieri were doing there even in sunshine was one of the mysteries of ,venice2--then we went with ,duveneck no further than the kitchen of the ,casa ,kirsch1 for he hated1 as we hated1 the table d'hte from which1 there as everywhere1 ,german tourists were talking away every other nationality4 ,the kitchen was a huge room1 with high ceiling1 and brass and copper pots and pans on the whitewashed walls1 and a dim light about the cooking stove1 and dark shadowy corners4 ,the padrona laid the cloth for us in an alcove opposite the great fireplace1 while she and her family sat at a table against the wall to the right1 and the old cook ate at a bare table in the middle1 and the maid-servant sat on a stool by the fire with her plate in her lap1 and the man-servant stood in the corner with his plate on the dresser4 ,having thus expressed their respect for class distinctions1 they felt no further obligation1 but they all helped equally in cooking and serving1 talked together the whole time1 quarrelled1 called each other names1 and laughed at the old man's stories told in the ,venetian which ,i only wish ,i had understood then as well as ,i did a few weeks later1 when it was too late1 for1 with the coming of spring1 there were no storms to keep us from the ,panada4 ,just where the ,panada was ,i would not attempt to say2 not from any desire to keep it secret1 which would be foolish1 for ,baedeker long since found it out2 but simply because ,i could not very well show the way to a place ,i never could find for myself4 ,i knew it was somewhere round the corner from the ,piazza1 but ,i never rounded that corner alone without becoming involved in a labyrinth of little calli4 ,nor would ,i attempt to say why the artists chose it and why1 because they did1 we should1 for it was then the dirtiest1 noisiest1 and most crowded trattoria in ,venice1 though the last time ,i was there1 years afterwards1 it was so spick and span1 with another room and more waiters to relieve the congestion1 that ,i could not believe it really was the ,panada and1 with the inconsistency natural under the circumstances1 did not like it half so well4 ,no matter whether we got there early or late1 the ,panada was always full4 ,as soon as we sat down we began our dinner by wiping our glasses1 plates1 forks1 spoons1 and knives on our napkins1 making such a habit of it that ,i remember afterwards at a dinner-party in ,london catching myself with my glass in my hand and stopping only just in time1 while ,duveneck1 on another occasion1 got as far as the silver before he was held up by the severe eye of his hostess4 ,probably it was because nobody could hear what anybody said that everybody talked together4 ,i cannot recall a moment when stray musicians were not strumming on guitars and mandolins1 and the oyster man was not shrieking3 ,ostreche6 ,fresche6 ,ostreche6 though nobody paid the least attention to him or ever bought one of his oysters4 ,and above the uproar was the continuous cry3 ,ecco me6 ,vengo subito6 ,mezzo ,verona6 ,due ,calomai6 ,vengo subito6 ,ecco me6 of the waiters1 who1 though they never ceased to announce their coming1 were so slow to come that many diners brought a course or two in their pockets to occupy them during the intervals4 ,the little ,venetian at the next table was sure to produce a bunch of radishes while he waited for his soup2 on market days1 when there was more of a crowd than ever1 few of the many baked potatoes eaten at almost every table had seen the inside of the ,panada's oven2 often the shops that fill the ,venetian calli with the perpetual smell of frying and where the brasses and the blue-and-white used to shine1 were patronized on the way--if dinner has to be collected in the streets1 no town1 even in ,italy1 offers such facilities as ,venice4 ,from ,minestra to fruit and cheese1 the ,venetian in a few minutes' walk may pick up a substantial dinner and carry it to the rooms or the street corner where it is his habit to dine4 ,vance1 the painter1 who sometimes favoured us at our table with his company1 went further and1 after he had taken off his coat and put on his hat and emptied his pockets1 seldom troubled the establishment to provide him with more than a glass1 a plate1 a knife1 and a fork1 for the price of a quinto of ,verona4 ,his first1 and as it turned out his last1 more extravagant order1 was the event of the season4 ,the padrone discussed it with him and a message was sent to the cook that the dish was di bistecca4 ,when it came it was not cooked enough to suit ,vance4 ,a second was cooked too much4 ,the third was done to a turn4 ,in the bill1 however1 were the three1 and voices were lowered1 mandolins and guitars were stilled1 the oyster man forgot his shriek1 during the five awful minutes when ,vance and the padrone had it out4 ,after that ,vance made another trattoria the richer by his daily quinto4 ,j4 and ,i had our five minutes with the padrone later on once when ,rossi1 our waiter1 was so slow that our patience gave out and we shook the dust of the ,panada from our feet4 ,but we could not shake off ,rossi4 ,he had arrived with our dinner just as we were vanishing from the door and was made to pay for it4 ,after that his leisure was spent in trying to make us pay him back and he would appear at our bedroom door1 or waylay us on the ,riva1 or follow us into the ,orientale1 or run us down in the ,piazza1 demanding the money as a right1 begging for it as a charity1 reducing it by a centesimo every time until we had only to wait long enough for the debt to be wiped out4 ,but this was at the end of our stay in ,venice1 and months of dining at the ,panada had passed before then4 ,,iii ,illustration3 ,etching by ,joseph ,pennell ,,the ,,caf ,,orientale1 ,,venice ,i would be as puzzled to explain the attraction of the ,orientale on the ,riva1 unless it was the opportunity it offered for economy4 ,in the ,piazza1 at the ,quadri and ,florian's1 which are to the other cafs of ,venice what ,st4 ,mark's is to the other churches1 coffee was twenty centesimi and the waiter expected five more1 but at the ,orientale it was eighteen and the waiter was satisfied with the change from twenty1 which meant for us the saving every night of almost half a cent4 ,the ,orientale was by comparison as quiet and deserted as the ,panada was crowded and noisy4 ,outside1 tables looked upon the ,lagoon and the faade of ,san ,giorgio1 white in the night4 ,in a big1 new1 gilded room sailors and sergeants played checkers and more serious ,venetians worked out dismal problems in chess4 ,but ,duveneck's corner was in the older1 shabby1 stuffy1 low-ceilinged room1 and having once settled there we never wanted to move4 ,as a rule we shared it with only an elderly ,englishman and his son who read the ,standard in the opposite corner--after our race with them to the caf1 the winners getting the one ,english paper first--and we were seldom intruded upon or interrupted except by the occasional visit of the caramei man with his brass tray of candied fruit1 impaled on thin sticks1 like little birds on a skewer1 which led us into our one extravagance4 ,had the old room been seedier and duller--dull our company never was--,i still would have seen it through the glamour of youth and thought it the one place in which to study ,venice and ,venetian life4 ,but nobody who ever sat there with us could have complained of dulness so long as ,duveneck presided at our table4 ,in ,duveneck's case ,i cannot help breaking my golden rule never to speak in print of the living--rules were made to be broken4 ,and why shouldn't ,i8 ,i might as well not write at all about our nights in ,venice as to leave him out of them1 he who held them together and fashioned them into what they were4 ,in the ,atlantic1 as a makeshift1 ,i called him ,inglehart1 the disguise under which he figures in one of ,howells's novels4 ,but why not call him boldly by his name when ,inglehart is the thinnest and flimsiest of masks1 as friends of his were quick to tell me1 and ,duveneck means so much more to all who know--and all who do not know are not worth bothering about4 ,it was only yesterday at ,san ,francisco that the artists of ,america gave an unmistakable proof of what their opinion of ,duveneck is now4 ,in the ,eighties the boys already thought as much of him and a hundred times more4 ,duveneck1 as ,i remember him then--,i have seen him but once since--was large1 fair1 golden-haired1 with long drooping golden moustache1 of a type apt to suggest indolence and indifference4 ,as he lolled against the red velvet cushions smoking his ,cavour1 enjoying the talk of others as much as his own or more--for he had the talent of eloquent silence when he chose to cultivate it--his eyes half shut1 smiling with casual benevolence1 he may have looked to a stranger incapable of action1 and as if he did not know whether he was alone or not1 and cared less4 ,and yet he had a big record of activity behind him1 young as he was2 he always inspired activity in others1 he was rarely without a large and devoted following4 ,he it was who drew the boys to ,munich1 then from ,munich to ,florence1 and then from ,florence to ,venice1 and the boys have passed into the history of ,american ,art and the history of ,venice--wouldn't that give me away and explain who he was if ,i called him ,inglehart dozens of times over8 ,and he also it was who packed them off again before they learnt how easy it is to be content in ,venice without doing anything at all1 though ,i used to fancy that he would have been rather glad to indulge in that content himself4 ,how far he was from the pleasant ,venetian habit of idling all day1 his ,venetian etchings1 at which he was working that spring--the etchings that on their appearance in ,london were the innocent cause of a stirring chapter in ,the ,gentle ,art--are an enduring proof4 ,and ,i knew a good deal of what was going on in his studio at the time1 for ,j4 spent many busy hours with him there1 while ,i1 left to my own devices1 stared industriously from the windows of the ,casa ,kirsch1 making believe ,i was gathering material1 or strolled along the ,riva pretending it was to market for my midday meal1 though the baker was almost next door1 and the man from whom ,i bought the little dried figs that nowhere are so dried and shrivelled up as in ,venice1 was seldom more than a minute away4 ,i can see now1 when ,i consider how my ,venetian days were spent1 that ,i came perilously near to sinking to the deepest depths of ,venetian idleness myself4 ,we were never alone with ,duveneck at the ,orientale4 ,the ,american ,consul was sure to drop in1 as he had for so many years that half his occupation would have gone if he hadn't dropped in any longer4 ,martin joined us because he loved to argue anybody into a temper and1 as he was an awful bore1 succeeded with most people4 ,he could drive me to proving that white was black1 to overturning all my most cherished idols1 or to forgetting my timidity and laying down the law upon any point of art he might bring up4 ,duveneck alone refused to be roused and ,martin1 who could not understand or accept his failure1 was forever coming back1 making himself a bigger bore than ever1 by trying again4 ,but ,shinn was the only man ,i ever knew to put ,duveneck into something like a temper1 and that was by asking him deferentially one night if he did not think ,st4 ,mark's a very fine church--the next minute1 however1 calming him down by inviting him out in my gandler4 ,arnold was as regular in attendance4 ,he found the caf as comfortable a place to sleep in as any other4 ,like ,sancho ,panza he had a talent for sleeping4 ,he had made his name and fame as one of the ,harvard baseball team in ,i will not say what year1 and sleep had been his chief occupation ever since4 ,no end of stories were going the round of the studios and cafs--he invited them without wanting it or meaning to4 ,he was supposed to be in ,venice to study with ,duveneck1 at whose studio he was said to arrive regularly at the same hour every morning4 ,and as regularly he was snoring before he had been sitting in front of his easel for ten minutes4 ,during his nap1 ,duveneck would come round and shake him and before he slept again put a touch to the study and1 as ,arnold promptly dozed off1 would work on it until it was finished1 and unless it slid down the canvas with the quantity of bitumen ,arnold used--there was one story of the beautiful eyes in a beautiful portrait1 before they could be stopped1 sliding into the chin of the pretty girl who was posing--,arnold1 waking up eventually1 would carry off the painting unconscious that he had not finished it himself4 ,nobody can say how many ,duvenecks are masquerading at home as ,arnolds while their owners wonder why ,arnold has never since done any work a tenth as good4 ,the one thing that roused him was baseball1 and he was in fine form on the afternoons when he and a few other enthusiasts spent an hour or so on the ,lido for practice4 ,the ,englishmen did not believe in the prodigies they heard of him as a baseball player4 ,it wasn't easy for anybody to believe that a man who was always tumbling off to sleep on the slightest provocation could play anything decently4 ,but ,i was told that one day he was wide enough awake to be irritated1 and he bet them a dinner he could pitch the swell ,british cricketer among them three balls not any one of which the ,briton could catch4 ,and on ,easter ,monday they all went over to the ,lido4 ,the ,briton asked for a high ball3 it skimmed along near the ground and then rose over his head as he stooped for it4 ,he asked for a low one3 it came straight for his nose and1 when he dodged it1 dropped and went between his legs4 ,he asked for a medium one3 it curved away out to the right1 he rushed for it1 it curved back again and took him in his manly bosom4 ,the rest of the ,britons and the boys1 they say1 enjoyed the dinner more than he did4 ,such was the affair as it was described to me and confirmed by gossip4 ,i pretend to no authority on a subject ,i understand so little as balls and the pitching of them4 ,a better contrast to ,arnold could not have been found than the artist with the part ,spanish1 part ,german name who called himself a ,frenchman1 and who aimed to give his pose the mystery that crept1 or bounded when encouraged1 into his incessant talk4 ,i am afraid his chief encouragement came from me4 ,the others were as irritated by his dabbling in magic as most of us had been in ,rome by ,forepaugh's theosophic adventures4 ,but he amused me2 he did not deal in the prose of his brand of magic1 the ,black1 of which so much was beginning to be heard1 and still more was to be heard1 in ,paris4 ,he was all innuendo and strange hints and whispered secrets1 and ,i-could-if-,i-woulds4 ,one of my recent winters had been devoted1 not to dabbling in magic1 for which ,i have not the temperament1 but to reading the literature of magic or of all things psychical1 and ,i could then1 though ,i could not now1 have passed a fairly good examination in the modern authorities1 from ,madame ,blavatsky to ,louis ,jacolliot4 ,therefore ,i proved a sympathetic listener and heard1 for my pains1 of the revival of old religions1 and above all of old rites1 and of his dignity as high-priest1 a figure of mystery and command moving here and there among shadowy disciples in shadowy sanctuaries4 ,for one sunk such fathoms deep in mystery he was surprisingly concerned for the outward sign4 ,like ,huysmans's hero1 he believed in the significance of the material background1 entertaining me with a detailed description of his apartment in ,paris1 and ,i have not yet lost the vision he permitted me of a bedroom hung and painted with scarlet1 and of himself enshrined in it1 magnificent in scarlet silk pajamas4 ,probably it was to deceive the world that he carried a tiny paint-box4 ,i never saw him open it4 ,but most constant of our little party was ,jobbins1 our one ,englishman1 who came in late to the ,orientale--where1 or if1 he dined none of us could say--with the stool and canvas and paint-box he had been carrying about all day from one campo1 or calle1 or canale1 to another1 in search of a subject4 ,jobbins's trouble was that he had passed too brilliantly through ,south ,kensington to do the teaching for which he was trained1 or to be willing to do anything but paint great pictures the subjects for which he could never find2 his mistake was to want to paint them in ,venice where there is nothing to paint that has not been painted hundreds1 or thousands1 or millions of times before2 and his misfortune was not to seek in adversity the comfort and hope which the philosopher believes to be its reward4 ,he had become1 as a consequence1 the weariest man who breathed4 ,it made me tired to look at him4 ,later1 he was forced to abandon his high ambition and he accepted a good post as teacher somewhere in ,india4 ,but he lived a short time to enjoy it and ,i am sure he was homesick for ,venice1 and the search after the impossible1 and the old days when he was so abominably hard up that even ,j4 and ,i were richer4 ,of the complete crash by which we all gained--including the man who got the ,whistler painted on the back of a ,jobbins panel--,i still have reminders in a brass plaque and bits of embroideries hung up on our walls and brocades made into screens1 which ,j4 bought from him to save the situation1 at the risk of creating a new one from which somebody would have to save us4 ,for all his weariness1 ,jobbins looked ridiculously young4 ,he insisted that this was what lost him his one chance of selling a picture4 ,he was painting in the ,frari a subject which he vainly hoped was his own1 when an ,american family of three came and stared over his shoulder4 ,why1 it's going to be a picture6 the small child discovered4 ,and he such a boy too6 the mother marvelled4 ,then it can't be of any value1 the father said in the loud cheerful voice in which ,american and ,english tourists in ,venice make their most personal comments1 convinced that nobody can understand1 though every other person they meet is a fellow countryman4 ,a story used to be told of ,bunney at work in the ,piazza1 on his endless study of ,st4 ,mark's for ,ruskin1 one bitter winter morning1 when three ,english girls1 wrapped in furs1 passed4 ,one stopped behind him3 ,oh ,maud6 ,ethel6 she called1 do come back and see what this poor shivering old wretch is doing4 ,the talk in our corner of the ,orientale kept us in the past until ,i began to fear that1 just as some people grow prematurely grey1 so ,j4 and ,i1 not a year married1 had prematurely reached the time for creeping in close about the fire--or a caf table--and telling grey tales of what we had been4 ,it was a very different past from that which tourists were then bullied by ,ruskin into believing should alone concern them in ,venice--indeed1 my greatest astonishment in this astonishing year was that1 while the people who were not artists but posed as knowing all about art did nothing but quote ,ruskin1 artists never quoted him1 and never mentioned him except to show how little use they had for him4 ,but then1 as ,i was beginning to find out1 it is the privilege of the artist to think what he knows and to say what he thinks4 ,we were none of us tourists at our little table1 we were none of us seeing sights1 being far too busy doing the work we were in ,venice to do2 and no matter what ,ruskin and ,baedeker taught1 the boys gave the date which overshadowed for us every other in ,venetian history4 ,nothing that had happened in ,venice before or after counted1 though the boys themselves were in their turn a good deal overshadowed by ,whistler1 who had been there with them for a while4 ,it was extraordinary how the ,whistler tradition had developed and strengthened in the little more than four years since he had left ,venice4 ,i had never met him then1 though ,j4 had a few months before in ,london4 ,i hardly hoped ever to meet him2 ,i certainly could not expect that the day would come when he would be our friend1 with us constantly1 letting us learn far more about him and far more intimately than from all the talk at a caf table of those who already knew him1 accepted him as a master1 and loved him as a man4 ,but had my knowledge of him come solely from those months in ,venice ,i should still have realized the power of his personality and the force of his influence4 ,he seemed to pervade the place1 to colour the atmosphere4 ,he had stayed in ,venice only about a year4 ,in the early ,eighties little had been written of him except in contempt or ridicule4 ,but to the artist he had become as essentially a part of ,venice1 his work as inseparable from its associations1 as the ,venetian painters like ,carpaccio and ,tintoretto who had lived and worked there all their lives and about whom a voluminous literature had grown up1 culminating in the big and little volumes by ,ruskin upon which the public crowding to ,venice based their artistic creed4 ,during those old nights ,i heard far more of the few little inches of ,whistler's etchings and of ,whistler's pastels than of the great expanse of ,tintoretto's ,paradise or of ,carpaccio's decorations in the little church of ,san ,giorgio degli ,schiavoni4 ,the fact made and has left the greater impression because the winter in ,rome had not worn off1 for me1 the novelty of artists' talk or quite accustomed me to their point of view1 to their surprising independence in not accepting the current and easy doctrine that everything old is sacred1 everything modern insignificant4 ,because a painter happened to paint a couple of hundred years or more ago did not place him above their criticism2 because he happened to paint to-day was apt to make him more interesting to them4 ,at the ,orientale the talk could never keep very long from ,whistler4 ,it might be of art--question of technique1 of treatment1 of arrangement1 of any or all the artist's problems--and sooner or later it would be referred to what ,whistler did or did not4 ,or the talk might grow reminiscent and again it was sure to return to ,whistler4 ,not only at the ,orientale1 but at any caf or restaurant or house or gallery where two or three artists were gathered together1 ,whistler stories were always told before the meeting broke up4 ,it was then we first heard the gold-fish story1 and the devil-in-the-glass story1 and the ,wolkoff-pastel story1 and the farewell-feast story1 and the innumerable stories labelled and pigeon-holed by the boys for future use1 and so recently told by ,j4 and myself in the greatest story of all--the story of his ,life--that it is too soon for me to tell them again4 ,up till then ,i had shared the popular idea of him as a man who might be ridiculed1 abused1 feared1 hated1 anything rather than loved4 ,but none of the men in ,venice could speak of him without affection4 ,not a bad chap1 ,jobbins would forget his weariness to say1 not half a bad chap6 and one night he told one of the few ,whistler stories never yet told in print1 except in the ,atlantic ,monthly where this chapter was first published4 ,he rather liked me1 said ,jobbins1 liked to have me about1 and to help on ,sundays when he showed his pastels4 ,but that wasn't my game1 you know1 and ,i got tired of it1 and one ,sunday when lots of people were there and he asked me to bring out that drawing of a calle with tall houses1 and away up above clothes hung out to dry1 and a pair of trousers in the middle1 ,i said3 ',have you got a title for it1 ,whistler8' ',no1' he said4 ',well1' ,i said1 'call it an ,arrangement in ,trousers1' and everybody laughed4 ,i'd have sneaked away1 for he was furious4 ,but he wouldn't let me1 kept his eye on me1 though he didn't say a word until they'd all gone4 ,then he looked at me rather with that ,shakespeare fellow's ,et tu ,brute look3 ',why1 ,jobbins1 you1 who are so amiable8' ,that was all4 ,no1 not half a bad chap4 ,now and then talk of ,whistler and the boys reminded ,duveneck of his own student days1 and would lead him into personal reminiscences1 when the stories were of his adventures2 sometimes on ,bavarian roads1 singing and fiddling his way from village to village1 or in ,bavarian convents1 teaching drawing to pretty novices1 receiving commissions from stern ,reverend ,mothers2 and sometimes in ,american towns painting the earliest ,american mural decoration that prepared the way1 through various stages1 for the latest ,american series of all--at the ,san ,francisco ,exposition where ,duveneck was acclaimed as the ,american master of to-day4 ,but in his story1 as he told it to us1 he had not got as far as ,florence when a new turn was given to his reminiscences and to our evening talk by the descent upon ,venice of the men from ,munich4 ,,iv ,they were only three--,mc,farlane1 ,anthony and ,thompson1 shall ,i call them8--but they had not journeyed all the way from ,munich to talk about the boys and to drop sentimental tears over old love tales4 ,they were off on an ,easter holiday and meant to make the most of it4 ,because ,duveneck was ,duveneck they gave up the gayer cafs in the ,piazza to be with him in the sleepy old ,orientale4 ,but they were not going to let it stay a sleepy old ,orientale if they could help themselves4 ,their very first evening ,duveneck called for two glasses of milk--to steady his nerves1 he said1 though he politely attributed the unsteadiness not to this new excitement but to the tea he had been drinking4 ,people drifted to our room from outside and from the new room to see what the noise was about1 until there was not a table to be had4 ,the old ,englishman and his son put down the ,standard and laughed with us4 ,the caramei man went away with an empty tray1 ,i do believe the only time he was ever bought out in his life1 and ,mc,farlane treated us all to tamarindo to drink with the fruit1 and he wound up his horrible extravagance by buying a copy of the ,venetian paper the boys used to call the ,barabowow4 ,it was nothing short of a ,venetian orgy4 ,nor did the transformation end here4 ,the men from ,munich were so smart1 especially ,mc,farlane1 in white waistcoat1 with a flower in his button-hole and a gold-headed cane in his hand1 that we were shocked into the consciousness of our shabbiness4 ,duveneck1 who1 until then1 had been happy in an old ulster with holes in the pockets and rips in the seams1 dazzled the caf by appearing in a jaunty spring overcoat4 ,j4 exchanged his old trousers with a green stain of acid down the leg for the new pair he had hitherto worn only when he went to call on the ,bronsons or to dine with ,mr4 ,horatio ,brown1 where ,i could not go because ,i was so much more hopelessly unprepared to dine anywhere outside the ,panada or the ,kitchen of the ,casa ,kirsch4 ,but in the ,merceria ,i could at least supply myself with gloves and veils1 while ,jobbins unearthed a fresh cravat from somewhere4 ,and we began to feel apologetic for the dinginess and general down-at-heeledness of ,venice which bored the men from ,munich to extinction--really they were so bored1 they said1 that all day they found themselves looking forward to the caramei man as the town's one excitement4 ,i thought the illuminations on ,easter ,sunday evening1 when the ,piazza was a fairyland in the night1 and the music deafened us1 and the ,bengal lights blinded us1 would help to give them a livelier impression2 but1 though they came with us to ,florian's1 it was plain they pitied us for being so pleased4 ,they couldn't1 for the life of them1 see why the place had been so cracked up by ,ruskin4 ,nothing was right4 ,the ,piazza was just simply the town's meeting place and centre of gossip1 like the country village store1 only on a more architectural and uncomfortable scale4 ,the canals were breeding holes for malaria4 ,the streets wouldn't be put up with as alleys at home4 ,the language was not worth learning4 ,at the ,panada1 after we had given our order for dinner1 ,mc,farlane would murmur languidly ',lo stesso' and declare it to be the one useful word in the ,italian dictionary2 to this ,johnson added a mysterious ',sensa crab' when ,rossi suggested 'piccoli fees' under the delusion that he was talking ,english2 while ,anthony was quite content with the vocabulary the other two supplied him4 ,the climate was as deplorable3 either wet and cold1 when the ,italian scaldino wasn't a patch on the ,german stove and a gondola became a freezing machine2 or warm and enervating when they couldn't keep awake4 ,they dozed in their gondola1 they yawned in ,st4 ,mark's and the ,ducal ,palace and in all the other churches and palaces1 and in front of all the old doorways and bridges and boat-building yards and traghettos and fishing boats and wells and bits that ,camillo1 their gondolier1 was inhuman enough to wake them up to look at4 ,the beauty of ,venice was exaggerated1 or if they did come to a subject that made them pull their sketch books out of their pockets1 ,camillo was at once bothering them to do it from just where ,guardi1 or ,canaletto1 or ,rico1 or ,whistler1 or ,ruskin1 or some other old boy had painted1 etched1 or drawn it--,whistler alone had finished ,venice for every artist who came after him and they were tired of his very name1 and never wanted to have his etchings and pastels thrown in their faces again4 ,what they would like to do was to discover the ,italian town or village where no artist had ever been seen and the word art had never been uttered4 ,but it was ,venetian painting that got most on their nerves4 ,they had given it a fair chance1 they protested4 ,trot out your ,tintorettos1 they said to ,camillo every morning1 and he carried them off to the ,palace1 and the ,academy1 and more churches than they thought there were in the world1 and at last to the ,scuola di ,san ,rocco4 ,and there a solemn man in spectacles took them in hand4 ,they said to him too3 ,trot our your ,tintorettos1 and he led them up to a big1 dingy canvas1 and they said3 ,trot out your next1 and they went the rounds of them all1 and they asked1 ,where's your ,duveneck8 and he said he had never heard of ,duveneck1 and they said1 ,why1 he's here6 and they left him hunting1 and were back in their gondola in ten minutes1 and they guessed they could do with ,rubens6 ,i trembled to think of the shock to tourists and my highly intellectual friends at home1 religiously studying ,baedeker and reading ,ruskin1 could they have heard the men from ,munich talking of art and of ,venice4 ,and ,i must have been painfully scandalized had ,i not got so much further on with my education as to have a glimmering of the truth ,whistler was trying to beat into the unwilling head of the ,british public--that an artist knows more about art than the man who isn't an artist1 and has the best right to an opinion on the subject4 ,perhaps their disappointment in ,venice was the reason of their pre-occupation with ,munich4 ,certainly ,now1 at ,munich was the beginning and end of the talk as when 'the boys' were here had been before they came4 ,they would not admit that anything good could exist outside of ,munich4 ,i remember ,duveneck once suggesting that ,paris was the best place for the student1 to whom it was a help just to see what was going on around him4 ,but what does go on round the student there8 ,mc,farlane interrupted4 ,it's all fads in ,paris4 ,what do they talk about in ,paris to-day but values8 ,this1 remember1 was more than a quarter of a century ago4 ,that's all they teach the student1 all they think of4 ,look at ,bisbing's picture last year4 ,they all raved over it1 said it was the clou of the ,salon1 medalled it1 bought it for the ,luxembourg1 and ,i don't know what all4 ,and what was it8--,pale green sheep in the foreground1 pale green mountains in the background1 so pale you could shoot peas through them4 ,that's what you have to do now to make a success in ,paris--get your values so that you can shoot peas through 'em4 ,and what will it be to-morrow8 ,and what help is it to the student1 anyway8 ,but one thing certain is1 that whatever the fads and movements in the ,paris studios happened to be1 the ,american student in those days did see what was going on in ,paris1 and just to see1 just to feel it1 was1 as ,duveneck held1 a help1 an inspiration4 ,to-day1 living in his own pensions1 studying in his own schools1 loafing in his own clubs1 he does not take any interest in what is going on outside of them and will talk about what the ,frenchmen are doing as if he were still in ,kalamazoo or ,oshkosh4 ,what the student1 in ,duveneck's and ,mc,farlane's time saw going on round him in ,munich was1 as well as ,i could make out1 chiefly balls and pageants4 ,to this day ,i cannot help thinking of life in ,munich as one long spectacle and dance4 ,duveneck1 who could talk with calmness of his painting1 was stirred to animation when he recalled the costumes he had invented for himself and his friends4 ,he could not conceal his pride in the success of a ,south ,sea ,islander he had designed1 the effect achieved by the simple means of burnt ,sienna rubbed into the poor man1 but so vigorously that it took months to get it out again1 and a blanket which he mislaid towards morning so that his walk home at dawn1 like a savage skulking in the shadows1 was a triumph of realism4 ,pride1 too1 coloured ,duveneck's account of the appearance of the ,socialist ,carpenter of his creation who made a huge sensation by inciting to riot in the streets of an elaborate ,old ,munich--the origin of ,old ,london and ,old ,paris and all the sham ,old ,towns that ,exhibitions have long since staled for us4 ,but his masterpiece was the ,dissipated ,gentleman1 like all masterpieces a marvel of simplicity--hired evening clothes1 a good long roll in the muddiest gutter on the way to the ball1 and it was done2 but the art1 ,duveneck said1 was in the rolling1 which in this case1 under his direction1 was so masterly that at the door the ,dissipated ,gentleman was mistaken for the real thing and1 if friends had not come up in the nick of time1 the door would have been shut in his face4 ,duveneck was as enthusiastic over the ,charles ,v4 ball1 though all the artists of ,munich contributed to its splendour1 working out their costumes with such respect for truth and so regardless of cost that for months and years afterwards not a bit of old brocade or lace was to be had in the antiquity shops of ,bavaria4 ,and the students were responsible for the siege of an old castle outside the town1 and in their archological ardour persuaded the ,museum to lend the armour and arms of the correct date1 and1 in their appreciation of the favour1 fought with so much restraint that the casualties were a couple of spears snapped4 ,and1 in my recollection1 their recollections stood for such truth and gorgeousness that when ,england1 years afterwards1 took to celebrating its past with pageants1 more than once ,i found myself thinking how much better they order these things in ,munich6 ,and from the studios came the inspiration for that ball ,munich talks of to this day in which all the nations were represented4 ,there was a ,hindu temple1 a ,chinese pagoda1 and an ,indian wigwam4 ,but the crowning touch was the ,esquimaux hut4 ,placed in a hall apart1 at the foot of a great stairway1 it was built of some composition in which pitch was freely used1 lit by tallow candles1 and hung with herrings offered for sale by nine ,esquimaux dressed in woollen imitation of skins with the furry side turned out4 ,all evening the hut was surrounded1 only towards midnight could the crowd be induced to move on to some fresh attraction4 ,in the moment's lull1 one of the ,esquimaux was tying up a new line of herrings when he brushed a candle with his arm4 ,in a second he was blazing4 ,another ran to his rescue4 ,in another second the hut was a furnace and nine men were in flames1 with pitch and wool for fuel4 ,one of the few people still lounging about the hut1 fearing a panic1 gave the signal to the band1 who struck up ,carmen4 ,never since1 ,mc,farlane said1 had he listened to the music of ,carmen1 never again could he listen to it1 without seeing the burning hut1 the men rushing out of it with the flames leaping high above them1 tearing at the blazing wool1 in their agony turning and twisting as in some wild fantastic dance1 while above the music he could hear the laughter of the crowd1 who thought it a joke--a new scene in the spectacle4 ,he snatched a rug from somewhere and tried to throw it over one of the men1 but the man flew past to the top of the great stairway4 ,there he was seized and rolled over and over on the carpet until the flames were out4 ,he got up1 walked downstairs1 asked for beer1 drank it to the dregs1 and fell dead with the glass in his hand--the first to die1 the first freed from his agony4 ,of the nine1 but two survived4 ,seven lay with their hut1 a charred heap upon the ground1 before the laughing crowd realized what a pageant of horror ,fate had planned for them4 ,munich stories1 before the night was over1 had to be washed down with ,munich beer1 which1 at that time as still1 ,i fancy1 was best at ,bauer's4 ,by some unwritten law1 inscrutable as the written1 it was decreed that1 though ,i might sit all evening the only woman at our table in the ,orientale--oftener than not the only woman in the caf--it was not the thing for me to go on to ,bauer's4 ,therefore1 first1 the whole company would see me home4 ,it was a short stroll along the ,riva1 but the ,lagoon1 dim and shadowy1 stretched away beyond us1 dimmer islands resting on its waters1 the lights of the boats sprinkling it with gold under the high ,venetian sky sprinkled with stars2 and so beautiful was it1 and so sweet the ,april night1 that the men from ,munich could not hold out against the enchantment of ,venice in spring4 ,i felt it a concession when ,mc,farlane admitted the loveliness of ,venice by starlight1 and his languor dropped from him under the spell1 and ,i knew the game of boredom was up when1 in this starlight1 he decided that1 after all1 there might be more in the ,tintorettos than he thought if only he had time to study them4 ,but ,easter holidays do not last for ever1 and the day soon came when the men from ,munich had to go back to where all was for the best in the best of all towns1 but where no doubt1 on the principle that we always prefer what we have not got at the moment1 they told the fellows in the ,bier ,kellars that only in ,venice was life worth while1 that ,rubens was dingy1 and that they guessed they could do with ,tintoretto4 ,v ,somehow1 we were never the same after they left us2 not1 ,i fancy1 because we missed them1 but because we could hold out still less than they against the spring4 ,when the sun was so warm and the air so soft1 when in the little canals wistaria bloomed over high brick walls1 when boatloads of flowers came into ,venice with the morning1 when at noon the ,riva was strewn with sleepers--then indoors and work became an impertinence4 ,on the slightest excuse ,j4 and ,duveneck no longer shut themselves in the studio1 ,i gave up collecting material from my window and lunch from the ,riva1 ,jobbins interrupted his search and ,martin his argument1 the ,consul fought shy of the old corner in the caf4 ,and in the languid laziness that stole upon ,venice1 as well as upon us1 ,i penetrated for the first time to the inner meaning of the chapter in his ,venetian ,life that ,howells labels ,comincia far ,caldo1 the season when repose takes you to her inner heart and you learn her secrets1 when at last you know why it was an ,abyssinian maid who played upon her dulcimer1 at last you recognize in ,xanadu the land where you were born4 ,there was never a festa in the ,piazza that we were not there1 watching or walking with the bewildering procession of elegant young ,venetians1 and peasants from the mainland1 and officers1 and soldiers1 and gondoliers with big caps set jauntily on their curls1 and beautiful girls in the gay fringed shawls that have disappeared from ,venice and the wooden shoes that once made an endless clatter along the ,riva but are heard no more1 and ,greeks1 and ,armenians1 and priests1 and beggars1 passing up and down between the arcades and the caf tables that overflowed far into the square1 ,st4 ,mark's more unreal in its splendour than ever with its domes and galleries and traceries against the blue of the ,venetian night4 ,there was never a side-show on the ,riva that we did not interrupt our work to go and see it2 whether it was the circus in the little tent1 with the live pony1 the most marvellous of all sights in ,venice2 or the acrobats tumbling on their square of carpet2 or the blindfolded1 toothless old fortune-teller1 whose shrill voice ,i can still hear mumbling ,una volta soltanta per ,napoli6 when she was asked if ,naples1 this coming summer1 as the last1 would be ravaged by cholera4 ,she was right1 for in the town1 cleaned out of picturesqueness1 cholera could not again do its work in the old wholesale fashion4 ,there was never an excursion to the ,islands that we did not join it4 ,to visit some of the further ,islands was not so easy in those days1 except for tourists with a fortune to spend on gondolas1 and we were grateful to the occasional little steamboat that undertook to get us there1 though with a crowd and noise and a brass band1 for all the world like an excursion to ,coney ,island1 and though most people1 except the grateful natives1 were obediently believing with ,ruskin that it was the symbol of the degeneracy of ,venice and would have thought themselves disgraced forever if they were seen on it4 ,but the ,lagoon was as beautiful from the noisy1 fussy little steamboat as from a gondola1 the sails of the fishing boats touching it with as brilliant colour1 the ,islands lying as peacefully upon its shining waters1 the bells of the many campanili coming as sweetly to our ears1 the sky above as pure and radiant2 and it mattered not how we reached the ,islands1 they were as enchanting when we landed4 ,one wonderful day was at ,torcello1 where nothing could mar the loveliness of its solitude and desolation1 its old cathedral full of strange mosaics and stranger memories1 the green space in front that was once a ,piazza tangled with blossoms and sweet-scented in the ,may sunshine1 the purple hills on the mainland melting into the pale sky4 ,and a second day as wonderful was at ,burano1 with its rose-flushed houses and gardens and traditions of noise and quarrels1 and the girls who followed the boat along the bank and pelted us with roses until ,jobbins vowed he would go and live there--and he did1 but a market boat brought him back in a week4 ,and other excursions took us to ,chioggia1 the canals there alive with fishing boats and the banks with fishermen mending their nets2 and to ,murano1 busy and beautiful both1 with the throb of its glass furnaces and the peace of the fields where the dead sleep2 and again and again to the ,lido where green meadows were sprinkled with daisies and birds were singing4 ,more wonderful were the nights1 coming home1 when the gold had faded from sea and sky1 the palaces and towers of ,venice rising low on the horizon as in a ,city of ,dreams1 the ,lagoon turned by the moon into a sheet of silver1 lights like great fireflies stealing over the water1 ghostly gondolas gliding past1--then we were the real ,lotus ,eaters drifting to the only ,lotus ,land where all things have rest4 ,the fussy little steamboat1 ,i found1 could rock ambition to sleep as well as a gondola1 and life seemed to offer nothing better than an endless succession of days and nights spent on its deck bound for wherever it might bear us4 ,i understood and sympathized with the men who lay asleep all day in the sunshine on the ,riva and who sang all night on the bridge below our windows4 ,what is more1 ,i envied them and wished they would take me into partnership4 ,were they not putting into practice the philosophy our ancient friend ,davies had preached to me in ,rome8 ,but only the ,venetian can master the secret of doing nothing with nothing to do it on1 and if ,j4 and ,i were to hope for figs with our bread1 or even for bread by itself1 we had to move on to the next place where work awaited us4 ,and so the last of our nights in ,venice came before spring had ripened into summer1 and the last of our mornings when porters again scrambled for our bags1 and we again stumbled after them up the long platform2 and then there were again yells1 but this time of ,partenza and ,pronti1 and the train hurried us away from the ,panada1 and the ,orientale1 and the ,lagoon1 to a world where no lotus grows and life is all labour4 ,,iv ,,nights ,,in ,,london ,,in ,,london ,i ,i cannot remember how or why we began our ,thursday nights4 ,i rather think they began themselves and we kept them up to protect our days against our friends4 ,it was an unusually busy time with us--or perhaps ,i ought to say with me1 for1 to my knowledge1 ,j4 has never known the time that was anything else4 ,after our years of wandering1 years of hotels and rooms and lodgings1 we had just settled in ,london in the first place we had ever called our own--the old chambers in the old ,buckingham ,street house overlooking the river2 ,i was doing more regular newspaper work than ,i had ever done before or ever hope to do again2 we were in the ,eighteen-,nineties1 and ,i need neither the magnifying glasses through which age has the reputation of looking backward1 nor the clever young men of to-day who write about that delectable decade and no doubt deplore my indiscretion in being alive to write about it myself1 to show me how very much more amusing and interesting life was then than now4 ,there is no question that people1 especially people doing our sort of work1 were much more awake in the ,nineties1 much more alive1 much more keen about everything1 even a fight1 or above all a fight1 if they thought a fight would clear the air4 ,those clever young men1 self-appointed historians of a period they know only by hearsay1 may deplore or envy its decadence4 ,but because a small clique wrote anmic verse and bragged of the vices for which they had not the strength1 because a few youthful artists invented new methods of expression the outsider did not understand1 that does not mean decadence4 ,a period of revolt against decadence1 of insurrection1 of vigorous warfare it seemed to me who lived and worked through it4 ,the ,yellow ,nineties1 the ,glorious ,nineties1 the ,naughty ,nineties1 the ,rococo ,nineties1 are descriptions ,i have seen1 but the ,fighting ,nineties would be mine4 ,as ,i recall those stimulating days1 the prevailing attitude of the artist in his studio1 the author at his desk1 the critic at his task1 was that of ,henley's ,man in the ,street3 ,hands in your pockets1 eyes on the pavement1 ,where in the world is the fun of it all8 ,but a row--but a rush--but a face for your fist4 ,then a crash through the dark--and a fall4 ,scarcely an important picture was painted1 an important illustration published1 an important book written1 an important criticism made1 that it did not lead to battle4 ,few of the ,young ,men of the ,nineties accomplished all the triumphant things they thought they could1 but the one thing they never failed to do and to let the world know they were doing was to fight1 and they loved nothing better--coats off1 sleeves rolled up1 arms squared4 ,whatever happened was to them a challenge4 ,whistler began the ,nineties with his ,exhibition at the ,groupil ,gallery and it was a rout for the enemy4 ,the harmless portrait of ,desboutin by ,degas was hung at the ,new ,english ,art ,club and straightaway artists and critics were bludgeoning each other in the press4 ,men were elected to the ,royal ,academy1 pictures were bought by the ,chantrey ,bequest2 new papers and magazines were started by young enthusiasts with something to say and no place to say it in2 new poets1 yearning for degeneracy1 read their poems to each other in a public house they preferred to re-christen a tavern2 new printing presses were founded to prove the superiority of the esoteric few2 new criticism--new because honest and intelligent--was launched2 everything suddenly became fin-de-sicle in the passing catchword of the day borrowed from ,paris2 every fad of the ,continent was adopted2 but no matter what it might be1 the incident1 or work1 or publication that roused any interest at all was the signal for the clash of arms1 for the row and the rush4 ,everybody had to be in revolt1 though it might not always have been easy to say against just what4 ,i remember once1 at the show of a group of young painters who fancied themselves fiery ,independents1 running across ,felix ,buhot1 the most inflammable man in the world1 and his telling me1 with his wild eyes more aflame than usual1 that he could smell the powder4 ,he was not far wrong1 if his metaphor was a trifle out of proportion to those very self-conscious young rebels4 ,a good deal of powder was flying about in the ,nineties1 and when powder flies1 whatever else may come of it1 one thing sure is that nobody can sleep and most people want to talk4 ,i had not been in ,london a year before ,i knew that there the caf was not the place to talk in4 ,i have dreary memories of the first efforts ,j4 and ,i1 fresh from ,italy1 made to go on leading the easy1 free-from-care life in restaurants and cafs we had led in ,rome and ,venice4 ,but it was not to be done4 ,the distances were too great1 the weather too atrocious1 the little restaurants too impossible1 the big restaurants too beyond our purse1 and the only real caf was the ,caf ,royal4 ,at an earlier date ,whistler had drawn his followers to it4 ,in the ,nineties ,frederick ,sandys was one of its most familiar figures4 ,even now1 especially on ,saturday nights1 young men1 in long hair and strange hats and laboriously unconventional clothes1 are to be met there1 looking a trifle solemnized by their share in so un-,english an entertainment4 ,for this is the trouble3 ,the caf is not an ,english institution and something in the atmosphere tells you right away that it isn't4 ,it might1 it may still1 serve us for an occasion1 its mirrors and gilding and red velvet pleasantly reminiscent1 but for night after night it would not answer at all as the ,nazionale had answered in ,rome1 the ,orientale in ,venice4 ,however1 ,buckingham ,street made a good substitute as an extremely convenient centre for talk1 and its convenience was so well taken advantage of that1 at this distance of time1 ,i am puzzled to see how we ever got any work done4 ,j4 and ,i have never been given to inhospitality1 and we both liked the talk4 ,but the day of reckoning came when1 sitting down to lunch one morning1 we realized that it was the first time we had eaten that simple meal alone for we could not remember how long4 ,the lunch for which no preparation is made and at which the company is uninvited but amusing may be one of the most agreeable of feasts1 but we knew too well that if we went on cutting short our days of work to enjoy it1 we ran the risk of no lunch ever again for ourselves1 let alone for anybody else4 ,to be interrupted in the evening did not matter so much1 though our evenings were not altogether free of work--nor are ,j4's even yet1 the years proving less kind in moulding him to the indolence to which1 with age1 ,i often find myself pleasantly yielding4 ,our friends1 when we stopped them dropping in by day1 began dropping in by night instead1 and one group of friends to whom ,thursday night was particularly well adapted for the purpose gradually turned their dropping in from a chance into a habit until1 before we knew it1 we were regularly at home every ,thursday after dinner4 ,illustration3 ,mezzotint by ,joseph ,pennell ,,out ,,of ,,our ,,london ,,windows ,the entertainment1 if it can be called by so fine a name1 always retained something of the character of chance with which it began4 ,we sent out no invitations1 we attempted no formality4 ,nobody was asked to play at anything or to listen to anything4 ,nobody was expected to dress1 though anybody who wanted to could--everybody was welcome in the clothes they wore1 whether they came straight from the studio or a dinner4 ,if eventually ,i provided sandwiches--in addition to the tobacco always at hand in the home of the man who smokes and the whiskey-and-soda without which an ,englishman cannot exist through an evening--it was because ,i got too hungry not to need something to eat before the last of the company had said good-night4 ,we did not offer even the comfort of space4 ,once the small dining-room that had been ,etty's studio1 and the not over-large room that was ,j4's1 and the nondescript room that was drawing-room and my workroom combined1 were packed solid1 there was no place to overflow into except the short1 narrow entrance hall1 and ,i still grow hot at the thought of what became of hats and coats if it also was filled4 ,i can never forget the distressing evening when in the bathroom--which1 with the ingenuity of the designer of flats1 had been fitted in at the end of the narrow hall and was the reason of its shortness--,i caught ,william ,penn devouring the gloves of an artist's wife who ,i do not believe has forgiven him to this day2 nor the still more distressing occasion when ,i discovered ,bobbie1 ,william's poor timid successor1 curled up on a brand-new bonnet of feathers and lace4 ,but it was the very informality1 so long as it led to no crimes on the part of our badly brought-up cats1 that attracted the friends who were as busy and hard-working as ourselves1--this1 and the freedom to talk without being silenced for the music that no talker wants to hear when he can listen to his own voice1 or for the dances that nobody wants to watch if he can follow his own argument1 or for the introductions that invariably interrupt at the wrong moment1 or for the games and innumerable devices without which intelligent human beings are not supposed to be able to survive an evening in each other's company4 ,the idle who play golf all day and bridge all night1 who cannot eat in the short intervals between without music1 believe that talk has gone out of fashion4 ,my experience had been in ,rome and ,venice1 was then in ,london1 and is now1 that men and women who have something to talk about are always anxious to talk about it1 if only the opportunity is given to them1 and the one attraction we offered was just this opportunity for people who had been doing more or less the same sort of work all day to meet and talk about it all night--the reason why1 despite heat and discomfort1 despite meagre fare and the risk to hats and coats1 ,thursday after ,thursday crowded our rooms to suffocation as soon as evening came4 ,illustration3 ,bust by ,rodin ,w4,e4 ,,henley ,,ii ,as1 in memory1 ,i listen to the endless talk of our ,thursday nights1 the leading voice1 when not ,j4's1 is ,henley's1 which is natural since it was ,henley1 followed by his ,young ,men1--our name for his devoted staff always in attendance at his office and out of it1--who got so into the habit of dropping in to see us on ,thursday night that we got into the habit of staying at home to see him4 ,for ,thursday was the night when the ,national ,observer1 which he was editing at the time1 went to press and ,ballantynes1 the printers1 were not more than five minutes away in ,covent ,garden4 ,at about ten his work was over and he and his ,young ,men were free to do nothing save talk for the rest of the week if they chose--and they usually did choose--and ,buckingham ,street was a handy place to begin it in4 ,our rooms were already fairly well packed1 pleasantly smoky1 and echoing with the agreeable roar of battle when they arrived4 ,i like to remember ,henley as ,i saw him then1 especially if my quite superfluous feeling of responsibility as hostess had brought me on some equally superfluous mission into the little hall at the moment of his arrival4 ,as the door opened he would stand there at the threshold1 his tall soft black hat still crowning his massive head1 leaning on his crutch and stick as he waited to take breath after his climb up our three flights of stone stairs--,did ,i really ever climb those stairs at ,buckingham ,street8--he asked me the last time ,i saw him1 some years later1 at ,worthing when he was ill and broken1 and ,i have often marvelled myself how he managed it4 ,but breathless as he might be1 he always laughed his greeting4 ,i cannot think of ,henley as he was in his prime1 to borrow a word that was a favourite with him1 without hearing his laugh and seeing his face illuminated by it4 ,rarely has a man so hampered by his body kept his spirit so gay4 ,he was meant to be a splendid creature physically and fate made of him a helpless cripple--who was it once described him as the wounded ,titan8 ,everybody knows the story3 he made sure that everybody should by telling it in his ,hospital ,verses4 ,but everybody cannot know who did not know him how bravely he accepted his disaster4 ,it seemed to me characteristic once when a young cousin of mine1 a girl at the most susceptible age of hero-worship1 meeting him for the first time in our chambers and volunteering1 in the absence of anybody else available1 to fetch the cab he needed1 thought his allowing her to go on such an errand for him the eccentricity of genius and never suspected his lameness until he stood up and took his crutch from the corner4 ,there was nothing about him to suggest the cripple4 ,illustration3 ,painting by ,william ,nicholson ,w4,e4 ,,henley ,he was a remarkably handsome man1 despite his disability1 tall and large and fair1 a noble head and profile1 a shock of red hair1 short red beard1 keen pale blue eyes1 his indomitable gaiety filling his face with life and animation1 smoothing out the lines of pain and care4 ,he was so striking in every way1 his individuality so strangely marked that the wonder is the good portrait of him should be the exception4 ,nicholson1 when painting him1 was a good deal preoccupied with the big soft hat and blue shirt and flowing tie1 feeling their picturesque value1 and turned him into a brigand1 a land pirate1 to the joy of ,henley1 whom ,i always suspected of feeling this value himself and dressing as he did for the sake of picturesqueness4 ,simon ,bussy seemed to see1 not ,henley1 but ,stevenson's caricature--the ,john ,silver of ,treasure ,island1 the cripple with the face as big as a ham4 ,even ,whistler failed and never printed more than one or two proofs of the lithograph for which ,henley sat4 ,rodin came nearest success1 his bust giving the dignity and ruggedness and character of head and profile both4 ,he and ,nicholson together go far to explain the man4 ,unfortunately there is no biography at all4 ,charles ,whibley was to have written the authorized life1 but the world still waits4 ,cope ,cornford attempted a sketch1 but scarcely the shadow of ,henley emerges from its pages4 ,because he thundered and denounced and condemned and slashed to pieces in the ,national ,observer1 his contemporaries imagined that ,henley did nothing anywhere at any time save thunder and denounce and condemn and slash to pieces and that he was altogether a fierce1 choleric1 intolerant1 impossible sort of a person4 ,the chances are few now realize that ,henley was enough of an influence in his generation for it to have mattered to anybody what manner of man he was4 ,a glimpse of him remains here and there4 ,stevenson has left the description of his personality1 so strong that he was felt in a room before he was seen4 ,his vigour and his manliness1 survive in his work1 but cannot quite explain the commanding power he was in his generation1 while neither he nor his friends have shewn1 as it should be shewn1 the other side to his character1 the gay1 the kindly side1 so that ,i feel almost as if ,i owed it to his memory to put on record my impressions of my first meeting with him1 since it was only this side he then gave me the chance to see4 ,i wonder sometimes why ,i had never met ,henley before4 ,when ,j4 and ,i came to ,london he was editing the ,magazine of ,art1 a little later he managed the ,art ,journal1 and in both he published a number of ,j4's drawings1 and we had letters from him4 ,we went to houses where he often visited4 ,i remember hearing him announced once at the ,robinsons' in ,earl's ,terrace1 but ,miss ,mary ,robinson1 as she was then--,madame ,duclaux as she is now--left everybody in the drawing-room while she went to see him downstairs1 because of his lameness she said1 but partly1 ,i fancied1 because she wanted to keep him to herself to discuss a new series of articles4 ,she had just come out in literature and was as fluttered by her every new appearance in print as most girls are by theirs in a ball-room4 ,in other houses1 more than once ,i just missed him1 ,i had never got nearer than business correspondence when he left ,london to edit the ,scots ,observer in ,edinburgh1 and he stayed there until the ,scots became the ,national ,observer with its offices in ,london4 ,i had heard more than enough about him in the meanwhile4 ,the man who says what he believes to be the truth--the man who sits in1 and talks from1 the chair of the scorners--is bound to get himself hated1 and ,henley came in for his fair share of abuse4 ,as somebody says1 truth never goes without a scratched face4 ,but1 like all men hated by the many1 ,henley inspired devotion in the few who1 in his case1 were not only devoted themselves but eager to make their friends devoted too4 ,when he got back to ,london one of his ,young ,men1 whom ,i do not see why ,i should not call ,charles ,whibley1 insisted that ,j4 and ,i must meet ,henley first in the right way1 that all our future relations with him depended upon it1 and that this right way would be for him to ask ,henley and ourselves1 and nobody else1 to dinner in his rooms4 ,when the evening came ,j4 was off on a journey for work and ,i went alone to ,fig-,tree ,house--the little old house1 with a poor shabby ,london apology of a fig-tree in front1 on ,milbank ,street by the riverside1 which1 with ,henley's near ,great ,college ,street office round the corner1 has disappeared in the fury of municipal town-disfigurement4 ,a popular young man1 in making his plans1 cannot afford to reckon without his friends4 ,four uninvited guests1 all men1 had arrived before me1 a fifth appeared as ,i did1 and he was about the last man any of the party could have wanted at that particular moment--a good and old and intimate friend of ,stevenson's1 whose own name ,i am too discreet to mention but to whom1 for reasons ,i am also too discreet to explain1 ,i may give that of ,michael ,finsbury instead4 ,whoever has read ,the ,wrong ,box knows that ,michael ,finsbury enjoyed intervals of relaxation from work1 knows also the nature of the relaxation4 ,i had struck him at the high tide of one of these intervals4 ,it was terribly awkward for everybody1 especially for me4 ,i have got now to an age when ,i could face that sort of awkwardness with equanimity1 even with amusement4 ,but ,i was young then1 ,i had not lived down my foolish shyness1 and ,i would have run if1 in my embarrassment1 ,i had had the courage1--would have run anyhow1 ,i do believe1 if it had not been for ,henley4 ,he seized the situation and mastered it4 ,he had the reputation of being the most brutal of men1 but he showed a delicacy that few could have surpassed or equalled under the circumstances4 ,he simply forced me to forget the presence of the objectionable ,michael ,finsbury1 who at the other end of the table1 ,i learned afterwards1 was overwhelming his neighbours with a worse embarrassment than mine by finding me every bit as objectionable as ,i found him1 and saying so with a frankness it was not in me to emulate4 ,the force ,henley used with such success was simply his talk4 ,he did not let my attention wander for one minute1 so full of interest was all he had to say1 while the enthusiasm with which he said it became contagious4 ,i can remember to this day how he made me see a miracle in the mere number of the ,velasquezes in the ,prado1 an adventure in every hansom drive through the ,london streets1 an event in the dressing of the salad for dinner--how he transformed life into one long ,arabian ,nights' ,entertainment1 which is why ,i suppose it has always been my pride that his poem called by that name he dedicated to me4 ,and so the evening that began as one of the most embarrassing in my experience ended as one of the most delightful1 and the man whom ,i had trembled to meet because of his reputation with those who did not know him or understand intolerance in a just cause1 won me over completely by his kindness1 his consideration1 his charm4 ,henley delighted in talk1 that was why he talked so well4 ,on ,thursday night his crutch would be left with his big hat at the front door2 then1 one hand leaning on his cane1 the other against the wall for support1 he would hobble over to the chair waiting for him1 usually by the window for he loved to look out on the river1 and there1 seldom moving except to stand bending over with both arms on the back of the chair1 which was his way of resting1 and always with his ,young ,men round him1 the talk would begin and the talk would last until only my foolish ideas of civility kept me up to listen4 ,as a woman1 ,i had not then1 nor have ,i yet1 ceased to be astonished by man's passion for talking shop and his power of going on with it forever4 ,my explanation of this special power used to be that the occupation supplied him by the necessity of keeping his pipe or his cigarette or his cigar going1 with the inevitable interruptions and pauses and movement1 and the excitement of the eternal hunt for the matches1 made the difference and helped to keep him awake--there is nothing more difficult for me personally than to sit still long when my hands are idle1 unless ,i am reading4 ,but the women ,i know who smoke are not men's equals in the capacity for endless talk and the reason must be to seek elsewhere4 ,he who divines it will have gone far to solving the tedious problem of sex4 ,of ,henley the talker1 at least1 one portrait remains4 ,he was the original of ,stevenson's ,burly--the talker who would roar you down1 bury his face in his hands1 undergo passions of revolt and agony1 letting loose a spring torrent of words4 ,there was always a wild flood and storm of talk wherever ,henley might be4 ,he and his ,young ,men were the most clamorous group of the clamorous ,nineties1 though curiously their clamour seems faint in the ears of the present authorities on that noisy period4 ,i have read one of these authorities' description of the ,london of the ,nineties dressed in a powder puff1 dancing beneath ,chinese lanterns1 being as wicked as could be in artificial rose-gardens4 ,but had ,henley and his ,young ,men suspected the existence of a ,london like that1 they would have overthrown it with their voices1 as ,joshua overthrew the walls of ,jericho with his trumpets4 ,to other authorities the ,nineties represent an endless orgy of societies--,independent ,theatre ,societies1 ,fabian ,societies1 ,browning ,societies1 every possible kind of societies--but the ,national ,observer1 with its keen scent for shams1 was as ready to pounce upon any and all of them for the good of their health1 and to upbraid their members as cranks4 ,it was a paper that existed to protest against just this sort of thing1 as against most other things in a sentimental and artificial and reforming and ignorant world4 ,it made as much noise in print as its editorial staff made in talk4 ,the main function of criticism1 according to ,henley1 was to increase the powers of depreciation rather than of appreciation1 and what a healthy doctrine it is6 ,as editor1 he roared down his opponents no less lustily than he roared them down as talkers1 and he had the strong wit and the strong heart that a man must have1 or so it is said1 to know when to tell the truth1 which1 with him1 was always4 ,he could not stand anything like affectation1 or what people were calling stheticism and decadence4 ,to him1 literature was literature and art was art1 and not puling sentiment1 affected posturing1 lilies and sunflowers4 ,the ,national ,observer was the housetop from which he shouted for all who passed to hear that it did not matter twopence what the dabbler wanted to express if he could not express it1 if he had not the technique of his medium at his fingers' ends and under his perfect control4 ,a man might indulge in noble and beautiful ideas1 and if he did not know how to put them in beautiful words or in beautiful paint or in beautiful sound1 he was anathema1 to be cast into outer darkness where there is gnashing of teeth--the doctrine of art for art's sake which the advanced young leaders of the new generation assure me is hopelessly out of date4 ,pretence of any kind was as the red rag2 bleat was the unpardonable sin2 the man who was human was the man to be praised4 ,i would not pretend to say who invented this meaning for the word human4 ,perhaps ,louis ,stevenson4 ,as far back as #ahhj1 in a letter from ,davos describing the people in a kind of damned hotel where he had put up1 ,i find him using it as ,henley and his ,young ,men used it later3 ,eleven ,english ,parsons1 all ,entirely inoffensive2 four ,true human beings--what ,i call ,human--the deuce a cipher more4 ,stevenson may even then have learned it from ,henley4 ,but however that may have been1 bleat and human were the two words ever recurring like a refrain in the columns of the ,national ,observer1 ever the beginning and end of argument in the heated atmosphere of ,buckingham ,street4 ,in my memory1 every ,thursday night stands for a battle4 ,henley was then always at his best4 ,his week's task was done1 he was not due at his house in ,addiscombe until the next day1 for he always stayed in his ,great ,college ,street rooms from ,monday to ,friday--and the night was before him4 ,at first ,i trembled a little at the smell of powder under my own roof1 at turning our chambers into the firing line when friends came to them to pass a peaceful friendly evening--the ,roman and ,venetian cafs and restaurants of my earlier experience had been common ground on which combatants shared equal rights or1 better1 no rights at all4 ,it was probably my old ,philadelphia bringing up that made me question the propriety of the same freedom at home1 that made me doubt its being quite the thing when ,j41 who is an excellent fighter though a ,philadelphian1 met ,henley in a clash of words4 ,but ,i quickly got accustomed to the fight and enjoyed it and would not have had it otherwise4 ,some friends who came1 ,i must confess1 enjoyed it less1 especially if they were still smarting from a recent attack in the ,national ,observer4 ,there were evenings when it took a good deal of skilful manoeuvring on everybody's part to keep ,henley and his victims at a safe distance from each other4 ,more than once in later days ,walter ,crane laughed with us at the memory of a ,thursday night1 just after he had been torn to pieces in the best ,national ,observer style1 when he gradually realized that he was being kept a prisoner in the corner into which he had been driven on his arrival1 and he could not understand why until1 breaking loose1 he discovered ,henley in the next room4 ,our alarm was not surprising1 knowing as we did what a valiant fighter ,crane was himself3 as a socialist waving the red flag in the face of the world1 as an artist forever rushing into the papers to defend his theories of art1 as a man refusing to see his glory in passing by an offence4 ,not very long before1 ,j4 had exasperated him in print1 by the honest expression of an opinion he did not happen to like1 into threats of a big stick ready for attack the next time ,j4 ventured upon his walks abroad4 ,i need not add that ,j4 did not bother to stay at home1 that the big stick never materialized1 that1 though this was only the first of many fights between the two1 ,walter ,crane was our friend to the end4 ,but the little episode gives the true spirit of the ,nineties4 ,i can still see ,beardsley dodging from group to group to escape ,henley1 for he never recovered from the fright of the first encounter4 ,he told me the story at the time4 ,he had gone1 by special appointment1 to call on ,henley1 under his arm the little portfolio he was rarely without in those early days1 ready and enchanted as he always was to show his drawings to anybody willing to look at them4 ,as he went up the two flights of stairs to ,henley's ,great ,college ,street rooms1 he heard a voice1 loud1 angry1 terrifying2 at the top1 through an open door1 he saw a youth standing in the middle of the room listening in abject terror to a large red man at a desk whom he knew instinctively to be ,henley2--one glance1 and he turned and fled1 down the stairs1 into the street1 the little portfolio under his arm1 his pace never slackening until he got well beyond the ,houses of ,parliament1 through the ,horse ,guards into the ,park4 ,other friends would not come at all on ,thursday because of ,henley1 just as later more than one stayed away altogether because of ,whistler4 ,i was wretchedly nervous when they did come and brave a face-to-face meeting4 ,henley was not the sort of man to shirk a fight in the open4 ,the principal reason for his unpopularity was just that habit of his of saying what he thought no matter where or when or to whom4 ,he did not spare his friends1 for he would not have kept them as friends had they not held some opinions worth his attacking1 and they understood and respected him for it4 ,moreover1 he said what he had to say in the plainest language4 ,he roared his adversary down in good1 strong1 picturesque ,english1 if that was any consolation1 and with a splendidly rugged eloquence4 ,i wish ,i could remember the words as well as the roar4 ,henley's eloquence cannot be forgotten by those who ever once listened to him1 but his wit was not1 like ,whistler's1 so keen nor his thrust so direct that the phrase1 the one word of the retort or the attack1 was unforgettable4 ,he had his little affectations of speech as of style1 and they added to its picturesqueness4 ,but it was what he said that counted1 the talk itself that probably inspired more sound thought and sound writing than most talk heard in the ,england of the ,nineties4 ,but it fell unrecorded on paper and memory could not be trusted after all these years4 ,it is the greater pity because his books are few4 ,he was poor when he started in life2 almost at once he married2 he was generous to a fault1 and the generous man never yet lived who was not pursued by parasites2 and as he was obliged to earn money and as his books were not of the stuff that makes the best sellers1 his criticism of life and art was expressed mainly in journalism4 ,unfortunately1 no just idea of the amount or the quality of his journalistic work is now to be had even from the files of the ,national ,observer4 ,he had a way of editing every article sent in to him until it became more than a fair imitation of his own4 ,i can sympathize with his object--the artist's desire for harmony1 for the unity of the paper as a whole4 ,but if he succeeded1 as he did1 it was at the sacrifice of the force1 the effect1 the character of individual contributions1 and nobody can now say for sure which were ,henley's save those he re-published in book form4 ,when articles ,i wrote for him appeared in print1 it was an open question with me whether ,i had the right to call them mine and to take any money for them4 ,his ,views and ,reviews gathered from the ,national ,observer and other papers and periodicals1 his three or four small volumes of verse1 the plays he wrote with ,stevenson1 an anthology or two1 a few books of his editing1 are scarcely sufficient to explain to the present generation his importance in his day and why his influence made itself felt in literature as keenly as ,whistler's in art1 through all the movements and excitements and enthusiasms of the ,nineties4 ,the joyous wars that marked the beginning of my life in ,london1 when not led by ,whistler's ,ha6 ,ha6 were commanded by ,henley's roar4 ,no man was ever more in need of a ,boswell than ,henley4 ,dr4 ,weir ,mitchell once complained to me that in ,america nobody waited upon great men to report their sayings1 while in ,england a young man was always somewhere near with a clean cuff to scribble them on4 ,the enthusiast1 with his cuff an impatient blank1 never hung about ,henley4 ,anyway1 that was not what our ,thursday evenings were for4 ,of all his ,young ,men who climbed up the ,buckingham ,street stairs with him on ,thursday night and sat round him1 his devoted disciples1 until they climbed down the ,buckingham ,street stairs with him again1 not one seems to have hit upon this useful way of proving his devotion4 ,i do not need to be told that this was no excuse for my not having my cuff ready4 ,but1 foolishly perhaps1 ,i too often spent my ,thursday nights oppressed by other cares4 ,for one thing1 ,i could seldom keep my weekly article on ,cookery out of my mind4 ,without it ,saturday's ,pall-,mall1 ,i felt1 would lose its brilliancy and my bank account1 ,i knew1 would grow appreciably less1 and ,friday was my day for writing it4 ,a serious question therefore was1 how1 if ,i did not get to bed until two or three or four o'clock on ,friday morning1 was ,i to sit down at my desk at nine and be the brilliant authority on ,eating that ,i thought ,i was8 ,another distraction grew out of my mistaken sense of duty as hostess1 my feeling of responsibility in providing for all a share in the cheerful smell of powder and the stimulating sound of strife4 ,also1 men being at best selfish animals1 their wives1 whose love of battle was less1 were often an anxiety4 ,these seemed big things at the time1 though in retrospect they have dwindled into trifles that ,i had no business to let come between me and my opportunities to store up for future generations talk as brilliant as any on record4 ,of course ,i heard a great deal of it1 and what ,i missed at home on our ,thursday nights1 ,i made up for at ,henley's1 and at friends' houses on many other occasions1 and few can answer better than ,i for the quality of ,henley's talk if ,i have forgotten the actual words4 ,its strength was its simple directness1--no posing1 no phrasing1 no attitudinizing for effect4 ,this1 ,i know1 was always what most struck people when they first met him on our ,thursday nights1 especially ,americans1 for with us in ,america the man who has won the reputation of greatness too often seems afraid he will lose it if he does not forever advertise it by fireworks of cleverness and wit4 ,henley's talk had too a strange mixture of the brutal and the tender1 the rough and the fine1 a blending of the highest things with what might seem to the ordinary man the most trivial4 ,i asked two old friends of his the other day what they remembered best of him and of his talk4 ,the answer of one was3 ,he was certainly the most stupendous ,jove-like creature who ever lived1 and ,i did not in the least mind his calling me ,billy1 which ,i have always hated from others4 ,the second answer was3 ,he talked as he wrote1 and ,i know of nothing more characteristic of his talking and his writing than that tragic poem in which1 with his heart crying for the child he had adored and lost1 he could compare himself to 'an old black rotter of a boat' past service1 and could see1 when criticised for it1 nothing discordant in that slang rotter dropped into such verse6 ,a good deal of ,henley is in both answers4 ,this curious blend must have especially struck everybody who saw him and listened to him in his own home4 ,i can recall summer ,sunday afternoons at ,addiscombe1 with ,henley sitting on a rug spread on the lawn behind his house1 ,mrs4 ,henley at his side1 his eyes following with twinkling tenderness his little daughter as she ran backwards and forwards busy with the manifold cares of childhood1 while all the time1 to his ,young ,men gathered round him1 he was thundering against the last book1 or the last picture show1 or the last new music1 in language not unworthy of ,defoe or ,smollett1 for ,henley could call a spade not only a spade but a steam shovel when so minded4 ,he could soar to the heights and dive to the depths in the same breath4 ,but ,henley's talk was animated above all by the intense and virile love of life that ,i was so conscious of in him personally1 that reveals itself in every line he wrote1 and that is what ,i liked best about him4 ,he was so alive1 so exhilarated with the sense of being alive4 ,the tremendous vitality of the man1 that should have found its legitimate outlet in physical activity1 seemed to have gone instead into his thought and his expression of it--as if the very fact that fate forced him to remain a looker-on had made him the more sensitive to the beauty1 the joy1 the challenge in everything life gave him to look at4 ,he could wrest romance even out of the drear1 drab hospital--there is another characteristic glimpse in one of ,stevenson's letters1 a picture of ,henley sitting up in his hospital bed1 his hair and beard all tangled1 talking as cheerfully as if he had been in a ,king's palace1 or the great ,king's palace of the blue air4 ,his interest in life was far too large and all-embracing for him to be indifferent to the smallest or most insignificant part of it4 ,he had none of the disdain for everyday details1 none of the fear of the commonplace that oppresses many men who think themselves great4 ,nothing that lived came amiss to his philosophy or his pleasure4 ,he could talk as brilliantly upon the affairs of the kitchen as upon those of state1 he could appreciate gossip as well as verse1 he could laugh over an absurdity as easily as he could extol the masterpiece4 ,romance for him was everywhere--in the slang of the cockney of the ,strand as in a symphony by ,berlioz1 in ',arriet's feathers as in the ,don ,diegos of the ,prado--the mere sound of the title in his mouth became a tribute to the master he honoured above most--in the patter of the latest ,lion-comique of the ,halls as in the prose of ,meredith or ,borrow1 in the disreputable cat stealing home through the dull ,london dawn as in the ,romanticists emerging from the chill of ,classicism--in everything1 big and little1 in which he felt the life so dear to him throbbing4 ,and he loved always the visible sign through which the appeal came4 ,i have seen him lean1 spell-bound1 from our windows on a blue summer night1 thrilled by the presence out there of ,cleopatra's ,needle1 the pagan symbol flaunting its slenderness against river and sky1 while in the distance the dome of ,st4 ,paul's1 the ,christian symbol1 hung a phantom upon the heavens4 ,his pleasure in the friendship of men of rank and family might have savoured of snobbishness had not one understood how much they stood for to him as symbols4 ,i am sure he could fancy himself with these friends that same ,king of ,babylon who thrills in the lover of his poem4 ,i used to think that for him all the drama of ,admiral ,guinea1 one of the plays he wrote with ,stevenson1 was concentrated in the tap-tap of the blind man's stick4 ,in his ,hospital ,verses1 his ,london ,voluntaries1 his every ,rhyme and ,rhythm1 the outward sign is the expression of the emotion1 the thought that is in him4 ,and coming down to more ordinary matters--ordinary1 that is1 to most people--,i shall never forget1 once when ,i was in ,spain and he wrote to me there1 his decoration of my name on the envelope with the finest ceremonial prefix of the ceremonious ,spanish code which to him represented the splendour of the land of ,don ,diego and ,don ,quixote4 ,it was this faculty of entering into the heart1 the spirit of life and all things in it that made him the inspiring companion and friend he was1 that widened his sympathies until he1 whose intolerance was a byword with his contemporaries1 showed himself tolerant of everything save sham and incompetence4 ,the men who would tell you in their day1 who will tell you now1 of the great debt they owe to ,henley1 are men of the most varied interests1 whose style and subject both might have been expected to prove a great gulf to separate them4 ,ask ,arthur ,morrison straight from the ,east ,end1 or ,fitz,maurice ,kelly fresh from ,spain2 ask ,w4,b4 ,blakie preoccupied with the modern development of the printed book1 or ,wells adrift in a world of his own invention2 ask ,kipling steeped in the real1 or ,barrie lost in the ,kail-,yard2 ask ,kenneth ,grahame on his ,olympian heights or ,george ,s4 ,street deep in his study of the prig--ask any one of these men and a score besides what ,henley's sympathy1 ,henley's outstretched hand1 meant to him1 and some idea of the breadth of his judgment and taste and helpfulness may be had4 ,why he could condescend even to me when1 in my brave ignorance1 ,i undertook to write that weekly column on ,cookery for the ,pall-,mall4 ,he it was who gave me ,dumas's ,dictionnaire de la ,cuisine1 the corner-stone of my collection of cookery books--a fact in which ,i see so much of ,henley that ,i feel as if the stranger to him who to-day takes the volume down from my shelves and reads on the fly-leaf the simple inscription1 ,to ,e4,r4,p4 d4d4 ,w4,e4,h41 in his little crooked and crabbed writing1 must see in it the eloquent clue to his personality that it is to me4 ,,iii ,i have said that ,henley seldom came to us--as indeed he seldom went anywhere or1 for that matter1 seldom stayed at home--without a contingent of his ,young ,men in attendance4 ,i do not believe ,i could ever have gone to his rooms in ,great ,college ,street1 or to his house at ,addiscombe1 or in later1 sadder days to the other1 rather gloomy1 house on the riverside at ,barnes1--turned into some sort of college the last time ,i passed1 with a long bare students' table in the downstairs dining-room where ,i had been warmed and thrilled by so much exhilarating talk1--that some of his ,young ,men were not there before me or did not come in before ,i left4 ,in ,london1 on his journeys to and fro1 they surrounded him as a bodyguard4 ,if on those old ,thursday nights1 his was the loudest voice1 theirs played up to it untiringly4 ,there were no half measures about them4 ,as warriors in the cause of art and literature1 they reserved nothing from their devotion to their leader1 they exhausted every possibility of that form of flattery usually considered the greatest4 ,they fought ,henley's battles with hardly less valour1 hardly milder roaring4 ,on ,thursday1 they had been working with him all day and all evening1 they probably had lunched together1 and dined together1 and yet so far from showing any desire to separate on their arrival in our rooms1 they immediately grouped themselves again round ,henley4 ,it was curious1 anyway1 how strong the tendency was with all the company to break up into groups4 ,work was the common bond1 but there was also a special bond in each different kind of work4 ,on my round as hostess ,i was sure to find the writers in one corner1 the artists in another1 the architects in a third--though to this day it is a question with me why we should have had enough architects to make a group and1 more puzzling1 why1 having them1 they should have been so unpopular1 unless it was because of their air of prosperity and respectability1 always as correct in appearance as if there was a possible client at the door4 ,i can still recall the triumphant glee1 out of all proportion to the cause1 of one of ,henley's ,young ,men the ,thursday night he came to tell me that all the architects were safe out of the way in the studio1 and ,i have shut both doors1 he added1 and now that we are rid of them we can talk4 ,as if any of ,henley's ,young ,men under any circumstances ever did anything else4 ,some of ,henley's staff1 if ,i remember1 never came to us1 others came only occasionally1 but a few failed us as rarely as ,henley himself4 ,the ,thursday night was the exception that did not see ,charles ,whibley at ,henley's right hand even as he was in the pages of the ,national ,observer1 not merely ready for the fight but provoking it1 insisting upon it1 forcing it1 boisterous in battle1 looking like an undergraduate1 talking like a pastmaster of the art of invective1 with a little stammer that gave point to his lightest commonplace4 ,rarely lagging very far behind came ,marriott ,watson1 young1 tall1 blonde1 good-looking--a something exotic1 foreign in the good looks that ,i put down to ,new ,zealand1 for ,i suppose ,new ,zealand as well as ,america has produced a type--not quite so truculent in talk as in print1 more inclined to fight with a smile4 ,a third was ,wilfred ,pollock1 forgotten save by his friends ,i am afraid2 and a fourth1 ,vernon ,blackburn1 who began life as a monk at ,fort ,augustus and finished it as a musical critic1 he too ,i fear scarcely more than a name2 and a fifth1 ,jack ,stuart1 and a sixth1 ,harold ,parsons1 and a seventh1 and an eighth1 and ,i can hardly now say how many more long since dead1 now for me vague ghosts from out that old past so overflowing with life4 ,when ,william ,waldorf ,astor bought the ,pall ,mall ,gazette and started the weekly ,pall ,mall ,budget and the monthly ,pall ,mall ,magazine1 he presented ,henley with two or three new ,young ,men and added to our company on ,thursday nights1 little as he had either of these achievements in view4 ,his plunge into newspaper proprietorship was one of the newspaper ventures that counted for most in the ,nineties4 ,it was a venture inclining to amateurism in detail1 but run on business1 not romantic1 lines and therefore it was less talked about than those purely amateur plunges into journalism which gave the ,nineties so much of their picturesqueness4 ,but all the same1 we saw revolution in it1 the possibility of wholesale regeneration1 the inauguration of a new era1 when sham would be exposed1 and ,bleat silenced1 and art grow ,human once more4 ,in the ,budget and the ,magazine it was likewise to be proved that ,america and ,france were not alone in understanding and valuing the art of illustration3--vain hopes6 ,henley and his ,young ,men rejoiced in a new sphere for fighting1 certain of a brilliant victory1 since they were to have a share in the command4 ,astor1 with a fine fling for independence--his only one in public--or else with that old gentlemanly dream of a newspaper written by gentlemen for gentlemen1 had captured his editors in regions where editors are not usually hunted--,henry ,cust1 heir to a title1 for the ,gazette1 ,lord ,frederick ,hamilton1 his title already inherited1 for the ,magazine4 ,fleet ,street shrugged its shoulders1 laughed a little1 not believing title and rank to have the same value in journalism as in society4 ,cust1 to do him justice1 agreed with ,fleet ,street1 and1 knowing that he was without experience1 had the sense to appeal for help to those with it4 ,by good luck he went to ,henley1 who was not free to do much for the paper save give it his advice1 offer it those of his ,young ,men whom he could spare1 and take under his wing the new ,young ,men it invented for itself4 ,when new enthusiasts fell into ,henley's train1 it was never long before they followed him to ,buckingham ,street on ,thursday nights4 ,i could scarcely label as anybody's ,young ,man ,iwan-,mller1 huge1 half ,russian1 half ,english1 all good comrade1 who had come up from ,manchester and the editorship of a leading paper there to be ,cust's ,assistant ,editor4 ,he was nearly ,henley's contemporary1 but he did not1 for such a trifle as age1 let any one of ,henley's ,young ,men exceed him in devotion1 and his laugh became the unfailing accompaniment of ,henley's talk1 so much so that ,i am convinced if ,henley still leads the talk in the land beyond the grave1 ,iwan-,mller still punctuates it with the big bracing laugh that was as big as himself4 ,illustration3 ,photograph by ,frederick ,hollyer ,,iwan-,m,,ller ,,and ,,george ,w4 ,,steevens ,at the other extreme1 younger than the youngest of the ,young ,men he joined1 came ,george ,w4 ,steevens1 fresh from ,oxford1 ,balliol ,prize ,scholar1 shy and carrying it off1 in the ,briton's way1 with appalling rudeness and more appalling silence4 ,i remember ,j41 upon whose nerves as well as mine this silence got1 taking me apart one ,thursday evening to tell me that if that young ,oxford prig was too superior to talk to anybody1 why then he was too superior to come to us at all1 and he must be made to understand it4 ,eventually he learned to talk1 with us anyway--he was always a silent man with most people4 ,and ,i got to know him well1 to like him1 to admire him1--to respect him too through the long summer when his friends were doing their best to dissuade him from his proposed marriage with a woman many years older than he4 ,the men of the ,national ,observer and the ,pall ,mall were such keen fighters that they could not be kind or sentimental--and they grew maudlinly sentimental over ,steevens's engagement--without a fight for it4 ,they thought he was making a mistake1 forgetting that it was his business1 not theirs1 if he was4 ,he fought alone against them1 but he held his place like a man and won4 ,our ,thursday nights had come to an end before he went to ,america1 to ,germany1 to ,khartoum with ,kitchener1 to ,south ,africa1 where he passed into the great silence that no protest of ours1 or any man's can break4 ,if his work was overrated1 he himself as ,i knew him was as kind and brave as in ,henley's verse to his memory4 ,others of the same group1 the writers' group1 who flit across the scene in my memory are less intimately associated with ,henley4 ,harold ,frederic wrote for him occasionally--wrote few things1 indeed1 more amusing than his ,observations in ,philistia1 a satire first published in the ,national ,observer--but his chief business was the novel and the ,new ,york ,times correspondence4 ,he was an able man1 something more than the typical clever ,american journalist1 a writer of books that deserve to be remembered but that have hardly outlived him4 ,he was an amusing companion1 the sort of man it was delightful to run across by chance in unexpected places1 for which reason my most agreeable recollections of him are not in ,buckingham ,street but in the streets and cafs of ,berlin and ,vienna that summer he was studying ,jews in ,southeastern ,europe1 and first knew there were ,jews in ,vienna when ,j41 who afterwards began to study them for himself1 introduced him to the ,juden ,gasse4 ,he liked a good dinner1 and gave us more than one1 and he was an amusing talker over it and also on our ,thursday nights until he got to the stage he always did get to of telling tales of his boyhood when he carried milk to the big people in his part of the ,mohawk ,valley1 was dazzled by his first vision of ,brussels carpet on their floors1 and determined to have ,brussels carpet on his own before he was many years older1 and ,i can answer for it that1 by the time ,i knew him1 his house was all ,brussels carpet from top to bottom4 ,they were most creditable tales and entertaining too at a first hearing1 but they staled1 as all tales must1 with repetition4 ,s4,r4 ,crockett never wrote anything for ,henley4 ,henley would have been outraged by the bare suggestion1 and ,crockett the writer was never handled with the gloves by ,henley's ,young ,men in the ,national ,observer4 ,but with ,crockett himself they had no quarrel4 ,we all liked him--a large red and white ,scotchman1 the ,scots strong in every word he spoke1 hustling us all off for a fish dinner at ,greenwich on the strength of his first big cheque for royalties2 or as happy to spend the evening sitting on our floor and diverting ,william ,penn with the ball of paper on the end of a string that ,william never wearied of pursuing1 partly for his amusement1 partly because1 with his innate politeness1 he knew it contributed to ours4 ,i cannot imagine a ,thursday night without ,rosamund ,marriott-,watson1--,graham ,r4 ,tomson as she was then1--beautiful1 reminiscent of ,rossetti in her tall1 willowy slimness1 with her long neck like a column and her great halo of black hair and her big brown eyes1 appealing1 confinding1 beseeching4 ,fashion as she1 the poetess1 extolled it week by week in the ,national ,observer1 became a poem with a stately measure in frocks and hats1 a flowing rhythm in every frill and furbelow4 ,i lost sight of her later1 for reasons neither here nor there1 but it pleases me to know that not many months before her death she looked back to those years as her happiest when weekly1 almost daily1 she was going up and down the ,buckingham ,street stairs which her ghost1 she said1 must haunt until they go the way of too many old stairs leading up to old ,london chambers4 ,violet ,hunt was almost as faithful4 ,and both contributed1 as ,i did1 a weekly column--mine that amazing article on cookery--to the ,pall ,mall's daily ,wares of ,autolycus1 daily written by women and ,i daresay believed by us to be the most entertaining array of unconsidered trifles that any ,autolycus had ever offered to any eager world4 ,graham ,tomson was even moved to commemorate our collaboration in verse the inspiration of which is not far to seek1 but of which all ,i remember now is the beginning3 ,o1 there's ,mrs4 ,meynell and ,mrs4 ,pennell1 ,there's ,violet ,hunt and me6 for ,mrs4 ,meynell contributed a fourth column1 though she never contributed her presence to ,buckingham ,street4 ,once or twice1 ,george ,moore hovered from group to group1 his childlike eyes of wonder protruding1 wide open1 and his ears open too1 no doubt1 for1 if ,i can judge from his several books of reminiscences1 his ears have rarely been closed to talk going on about him4 ,after reading the ,irish series ,i should suspect him not only of well-opened ears but of an inexhaustible supply of cuffs safely stored up his sleeves4 ,bernard ,shaw honoured us occasionally1 but ,i have learned that1 bent as he is upon talking about himself1 whatever he has to say1 he grows more fastidious when others talk about him and say what they have to4 ,now and then1 ,henry ,norman1 journalist1 his title and seat in ,parliament yet to come1 dropped in4 ,now and then ,miss ,preston and ,miss ,dodge came1 both in ,london to finish in the ,british ,museum the studies begun in ,rome4 ,rarely a week passed that ,james ,g4 ,legge was not with us1 then deep in his work at the ,home ,office but full of joy in everything that was most joyful in the ,nineties--its fights1 its books1 its prints1 its posters4 ,and ,i might name many besides1 some forgotten1 some dead1 some seen no more by me1 life being often more cruel than death in the separations and divisions it makes4 ,but two voices above the others are almost as persistent in my ears as ,henley's--the voices of ,bob ,stevenson and ,henry ,harland4 ,,iv ,i have no fancy for nicknames in any place or at any time4 ,i have suffered too much from my own4 ,but ,i dislike the familiarity of them above all in print4 ,and yet1 ,i could no more call ,bob ,stevenson anything save ,bob than ,i could venture to abbreviate the ,robert or the ,louis of his cousin4 ,he had been given in baptism a more formal name--in fact1 he had been given three of unquestioned dignity3 ,robert ,alan ,mowbray4 ,but ,i doubt if anybody had ever known him by them or if he had ever used them himself4 ,when he wrote he signed his fine array of initials1 and when he was not ,r4,a4,m4,s41 he was ,bob4 ,illustration3 ,painting by ,himself ,,bob ,,stevenson ,it seems to me now a curious chance1 as well as a piece of good luck1 that the two most eloquent of the company in ,louis ,stevenson's ,talk and ,talkers should have come to us on our ,thursday nights1 for ,bob was the ,spring-,heeled ,jack1 the loud1 copious1 and intolerant talker of that essay just as ,henley was the ,burly4 ,he was not more spring-heeled in his talk than in evading capture for it4 ,in his later years he made few visits4 ,if we wanted him we had to gather him up by the wayside and bring him home with us4 ,the newspaper work ,i was doing then took me the rounds of the ,london galleries on press days and1 as he was the art critic of the ,pall ,mall1 ,i was continually coming across him busy about the same work in ,bond ,street or ,piccadilly4 ,nothing pleased me better than to meet him on these occasions1 for he could make the dull show that ,i1 in my dull way1 was finding dull the most entrancing entertainment in ,london4 ,his every visit to a gallery was to him an adventure and every picture a romance1 and the best of it for his friends was that he would willingly share the inspiration which he1 but nobody else1 could find in the most uninspiring canvas1 an inspiration to criticism that is1 not to admiration--he never wavered in his allegiance to the ,almighty ,swells of ,art4 ,once he began to talk ,i did not care to have him stop1 and ,i would say1 ,why not come to ,buckingham ,street with me8 ,you have not seen ,j4 for a long while4 ,he would vow he couldn't1 he must get back to ,kew to do his article4 ,i would insist a little1 he would waver a little1 and at last he would agree to a minute's talk with ,j41 excusing himself to himself by protesting that ,buckingham ,street was on his way to the ,underground1 as it was if he chose to go out of his way to make it so4 ,before he knew it1 the minute had stretched out to our dinner hour when he was persuaded that he would save time by dining with us1 as he must dine somewhere2 if he went right afterwards1 he could still be back at ,kew in plenty of time to finish his article for the last post4 ,of course he never did go right afterwards--what talker ever did go right anywhere immediately after dinner when the real talk is only beginning8 ,presently people would filter in and now1 well adrift on the flood of his own eloquence1 nothing could interrupt him and he was the last to leave us1 the later it grew the more easily induced to stay because he knew that the last train and the last post and all the last things of the day had gone and that he must now wait for the first things of the morning4 ,if ,i could talk like ,bob ,stevenson ,i would not be interrupted either4 ,greater excitement could not be had out of the most exciting story of adventure1 and ,i do not believe he knew until he got to the end any more where his talk was going to lead him than the reader knows how the story is going to turn out until the last chapter is reached4 ,louis ,stevenson described certain qualities of his talk1 but made no effort to give the talk itself1 and in ,bob's case1 as in ,henley's1 it was the talk itself that counted4 ,there was no acting in it as in ,henley's or in ,whistler's--no burying of his head in his hands and violent gestures--no well-placed laugh and familiar phrase4 ,the talk came in a steady stream1 laughter occasionally in the voice1 but no break1 no movement1 no dramatic action--the sanest doctrine set forth with almost insane ingenuity1 for he was always the wild dog outside the kennel who wouldn't imitate and hence kept free1 as ,louis ,stevenson told him2 extraordinary things treated quite as a matter of course2 brilliant flashes of imbecility passed for cool well-balanced argument2 until often ,i would suddenly gasp1 wondering into what impossible world ,i had strayed after him4 ,and he would tell the most extravagant tales1 he would confide the most paradoxical philosophy1 the most topsy-turvy ethics1 with a fantastic seriousness1 never approached except in the ,arabian ,nights of ,prince ,florizel for the puppets of whose adventures1 as for ,spring-,heeled ,jack1 he was the sitter4 ,it was a delightful accomplishment1 but dangerous when applied to actual life4 ,i cannot forget his advice once to a friend on the verge of a serious step that might sink him into nobody could foretell what social quagmire4 ,bob could see in it only the adventure and the joy of adventure1 not the price fate was bound to demand for it4 ,to him the mistake was the unlit lamp1 the ungirt loin--the adventure lost--and1 life being what it is1 ,i am not sure that he was not right4 ,i think his talk struck me as the more extraordinary because he looked so little like it4 ,in the ,nineties he had taken to the ,jaegers that usually stand for vegetarianism1 teetotalism1 hygiene--all the drab things of life4 ,he wore even a ,jaeger hat and ,jaeger boots--as complete an advertisement for ,jaeger as old ,joseph ,finsbury was for his ,doctor4 ,no costume could have seemed so altogether out of character with the fantastic1 delightful1 extravagant creature inside of it1 though1 really1 none could have been more in character4 ,it had always been ,bob's way to play the game of life by dressing the part of the moment4 ,before ,i met him ,i had been told of his influence over ,louis ,stevenson1 whose debt to him for ideas and conceits was said to be immeasurable1 and nobody who knew ,bob has doubted it4 ,i feel convinced that ,louis owed to him also his touch of the fantastic1 the unusual1 in dress1 since it belonged so entirely to ,bob and was no less entirely in keeping with his attitude towards the universe and his place in it--his tendency of always probing the real for the romantic4 ,knowing one cousin and the books of the other1 ,i should say it was ,bob who1 in their childhood1 originated the drama of the ,lantern-,bearers and the evil-smelling lantern under the great coat1 symbol of adventure and daring--that it was ,bob who1 in their gay youth1 evolved the black flannel shirts to which they owed the honour of being1 with ,lord ,salisbury1 the only ,britons ever refused admission to the ,casino at ,monte ,carlo1 and which were worn by the ,stennis ,brothers in ,the ,wrecker1--that it was ,bob who impressed upon ,louis the importance of being dressed for the scene until he surpassed himself in his amazing get-up for the ,epilogue to an ,inland ,voyage4 ,bob's own disguises rarely got into print1 but in ,will ,low's ,chronicle of ,friendships there is a photograph of him in his student days1 figuring as a sort of brigand of old-fashioned comic opera1 that shows he did not from the beginning shirk the obligations he imposed upon others4 ,i remember a huge ring1 inherited from his father to whom the ,czar had given it for engineering services in ,russia1 which he kept for formal occasions so that when ,i saw it covering his finger1 almost his hand1 at the dinner to which we had both been invited1 ,i understood that to him the occasion was one of ceremony and he never failed to regulate his conduct accordingly4 ,i was glad the ring did not appear on our ,thursday nights1 so much freer of formality1 and therefore more amusing1 was he without it4 ,the large perfection of his ,jaegers in his last years was no less symbolic2 in them he was dressed for the rle of middle age which he1 who had the gift of eternal youth1 had already reached when ,i first knew him4 ,it was a rle to which1 at the time1 ,i attributed his concern about his health--his anxiety to know if we1 any of us1 had influenza before he would come home with me1 his rush from the room or the house at a sniff or a sneeze4 ,the truth is ,bob shared ,henley's love of the visible sign1 or it may be nearer the truth to say that he shared his own love of it with ,henley and his cousin who rarely1 either of them1 wrote anything in which it is not felt4 ,but ,henley loved the visible sign for itself--the romance was actually in the tap-tap of the blind man's staff1 in the pagan obelisk towering above the ,christian river4 ,bob loved the visible sign for the hint it gave to his imagination1 the adventure upon which it sent him galloping4 ,he could build up a romance out of anything and nothing--he was the modern ,scheherezade1 but1 as time went on1 with nobody to repeat his stories4 ,he could have made the fortune of any number of young men with their cuffs ready1 but the only young man who ever did use his cuff was ,louis ,stevenson when they were young together4 ,bob had not the energy to put down his stories himself--he would not have written a word for publication had he not been forced to4 ,for him the romance would have been lost in the labour of recording it1 and1 anyway1 he was always consistent in not doing more work than he was obliged to in order to live4 ,he had not the talent for combining1 or identifying1 his pleasure with his work4 ,painting was the profession for which he had been trained1 but with it he amused himself and1 as far as ,i know1 never made a penny out of it4 ,when he talked he would have lost his joy in the invention1 the fabrication1 had he thought he must turn it to profit4 ,of the curious twist of his imagination there remains but the faint reflection here and there in ,prince ,florizel and the romantic adventurers swaggering and talking splendid nonsense through the earlier tales by ,louis ,stevenson1 whose books grew less and less fantastic as his path and ,bob's spread wider apart4 ,even in the earlier tales ,bob will not be discovered by future generations who have lost the key4 ,for the sake of posterity1 if not for my own1 ,i would have been wiser on ,thursday nights to think less of my next morning's article than of his inventions4 ,as it is1 ,i retain merely a general impression and an occasional detail of his talk4 ,i am glad ,i remember1 for one thing1 his unfailing prejudice in favour of his friends1 so amiable was the side of his character it revealed--though it revealed also his weakness as critic4 ,he had a positive genius for veiling prosaic facts with romance where the people he liked were concerned4 ,how often have we laughed at his amiability to a painter of the commonplace who had happened to be his fellow-student in ,paris1 whose work1 as a consequence1 his friendly imagination filled with the fine things that to us were conspicuously missing1 and whose name he dragged into every criticism he wrote1 even into his ,monograph on ,velasquez1 nor could he be laughed1 or argued out of it4 ,and ,i am glad ,i remember another trick of his imagination1 though it was like to end in disaster for us all1 so equally characteristic was it of his genius in weaving romance from prose4 ,he was talking one evening of wine1 upon which he had large--,continental--ideas1 declaring he would not have it in his house unless all his family1 including the servants1 could drink it without stint and also without thought of expense--though1 if ,i am not mistaken1 his household staff consisted chiefly of a decent old ,scotchwoman who would have scorned wine as a device of the foreigner4 ,the triumphant ring of his voice is still in my ears as he announced that he had found a merchant who could provide him with just the wine he wanted1 good1 pure1 light1 white or red1 an ordinary brand for sevenpence a bottle1 a superior brand for eightpence4 ,the marvel of it all was that we believed in that wine and when the company left for home1 the merchant's address was in almost everybody's pocket4 ,it was not a bad wine in the sample bottles ,j4 and ,i received a day or two later1 nothing much to boast of1 but harmless4 ,for the further cheapness promised we next ordered it by the case1 one of red and one of white--a rare bargain we thought4 ,but in the end it was the most expensive wine it has ever been our misfortune to invest in4 ,for when it came in cases it was so potent that nobody could drink as much as a glass without going to sleep4 ,i never had it analyzed1 but1 after a couple of bottles1 ,i did not dare to put it on the table again1 or to use it even for cooking or as vinegar4 ,to balance our accounts1 we did without wine of any kind1 or at any price1 for many a week to come4 ,but we had our revenge4 ,in the course of a few months ,bob's wine merchant was summoned before the magistrate for manufacturing ,bordeaux and ,burgundies out of ,greek currants and more reprehensible materials in the backyard of his unpretending riverside house1 and it was one of our ,thursday night fellow victims who had the pleasure of exposing him in the ,daily ,chronicle4 ,bob did not share our resentment4 ,he had his pleasure in the charm his imagination gave to every drop of the few bottles he drank and managed not to die of4 ,i began to notice in the galleries and on ,thursday nights that ,bob became more and more engrossed in the question of his health and quicker to fly at a sniff or a sneeze4 ,the time came when no persuasion could bring him home with me4 ,he described symptoms rather than pictures1 his interest in anything in the shape of paint weakened4 ,i fancied that he was romancing1 that he was playing the hypochondriac as part of his rle of middle-age1 and ,i thought it a pity4 ,it might provide a new entertainment for him1 but it deprived us of the entertainment of his company4 ,then ,i hardly met him at all1 or if ,i did he was too nervous to linger before each painting or drawing1 to gossip about it and everything under the sun4 ,he would walk through the galleries with one leg dragging a little--the visible sign1 ,i would say to myself1 amused to see that he could turn romance into reality as easily as reality into romance4 ,he would start for ,kew right off1 without any loitering1 without any delicious pretending that he was going in the very next train and then not going until the very next train meant the very next day4 ,but before long ,i learned that there was no romance about it1 that it was grim reality1 the grimmer to me because ,i had taken it so lightly4 ,his illness was mere rumour at first1 for few people went to his house in far ,kew to see him4 ,it was more than rumour when he ceased altogether to appear in the galleries1 for we knew he was dependent upon art criticism for his butter1 if not for most of his bread4 ,i had not got as far as belief in his illness before the news came that he had set out upon the greatest adventure of all and that no more would ,buckingham ,street be transfigured in the light of his romancing1 glorified by his inexhaustible fancy4 ,i owed him much3 the charm of the personality of this delightful and wonderful creature in ,henley's words of him1 pleasure from his talk1 stimulus from his criticism1 and ,i wish ,i had had the common sense to do what ,i could to make him live as a pleasure and a stimulus to others4 ,my mistake on our ,thursday nights was to keep my cuff clean1 my note-book empty4 ,illustration3 ,sketch by ,aubrey ,beardsley ,,henry ,,harland ,v ,in the case of ,henry ,harland my conscience makes me no such reproach4 ,if ever a man became his own ,boswell it was he1 though ,i do not suppose anything was further from his mind when he sat down to write4 ,but as he talked1 so he wrote--he could not help himself--and all who have read the witty1 gay1 whimsical1 fantastic talk of his heroes and heroines1 especially in his last three books1 have listened to him4 ,he1 no less than his ,adrian ,willes--even if quite another man was the model--never understood how it was possible for people to be bored4 ,flaubert once said in a letter1 ,life is so hideous that the only way of enduring it is to avoid it4 ,but ,harland believed in plunging into it headlong and getting everything that is to be got out of it4 ,he had eyes to see that life is just one sequence of many-coloured astonishments1 and the colours were the gayer when he came to our ,thursday nights because he was still so young4 ,he and ,mrs4 ,harland had been in ,london only a few years1 his career as ,sydney ,luska was behind him1 his career as ,henry ,harland was before him1 he was full of life1 energy1 enthusiasm1 deep in long novels1 busy for the ,daily ,chronicle1 writing as hard as he talked1 and he talked every bit as hard as ,bob ,stevenson4 ,like ,bob1 he seemed to love talk more than anything1 but he must have loved work as ,bob never loved it1 for he put the quality of his talk into what he wrote4 ,bob ,stevenson's writing never suggested his talk4 ,i might find his point of view and his amiable prejudices in his criticism and his books--only he could have written his ,velasquez quite as he wrote it--but nowhere do ,i find a touch1 a trace of the ,lantern-,bearer or ,prince ,florizel or the ,young ,man with the ,cream ,tarts4 ,but ,i never get far away from ,harland in his novels4 ,i re-read them a short time ago1 and they were a magic carpet to bear me straight back to ,buckingham ,street1 and the crowded1 smoky rooms overlooking the river1 and the old years when we were all young together4 ,a delightful thing about ,harland was that he did not care to monopolize the talk1 to talk everybody else down4 ,on the contrary1 ,i doubt if he was ever happier than when he roused1 provoked1 stimulated everybody to talk with him4 ,i remember in particular an evening when ,j4 and ,i were dining with him and ,mrs4 ,harland at their ,kensington flat1 and ,mr4 and ,mrs4 ,edmund ,gosse were there1 and ,mr4 and ,mrs4 ,w4,j4 ,fisher--,fisher was then editor of the ,daily ,chronicle and ,mrs4 ,fisher was still ,adrienne ,dayrolles on the stage--and ,louis ,austen1 a handy man of journalism1 and when1 happening to turn for a minute from ,harland by whom ,i was sitting1 and to look round the table1 ,i found ,i was the only one of the party not talking--and we had got no farther than the fish6 ,but ,i flatter myself ,i have few rivals as an accomplished listener4 ,often ,harland had the floor to himself simply because everybody else wanted to listen too4 ,when what he calls in one of his books the restorative spirit of nonsense descended upon him1 his talk could whisk off the whole ,thursday night crowd1 before they knew it1 to that delectable ,land of ,nonsense to which he was an inspired guide4 ,nobody understood better how to set up the absurd and the impossible in the garb of truth4 ,an old admirer of his reminded me not long since of a tale he used to tell1 almost with tears in his voice1 of the petit patissier who was hurrying through the streets of ,paris to deliver brioches and tarts to customers and who1 crossing the ,boulevards1 was knocked down by a big three-horse omnibus4 ,and as the crowd collected and the sergent-de-ville arrived1 he was seen painfully and deliberately freeing his one uninjured arm1 feeling carefully in pocket after pocket1 and1 as he drew his last breath1 holding up triumphantly the exact number of francs the ,parisian on foot then had to pay for venturing rashly to get in the way of the ,paris driver4 ,and ,harland told it all with such eloquence that it was some minutes before those who listened realised he was laughing and began to laugh with him4 ,and the tale was typical of many others he loved to tell4 ,as his talk led the way to the ,land of ,nonsense1 so he himself could of a sudden whirl us all off to a restaurant1 or a park1 or an excursion we had not thought of an hour1 a minute before4 ,many a time1 instead of sitting solemnly at home reading or working as we had meant to1 we would be going down the river in a penny steamboat1 or drinking coffee at the ,caf ,royal or tea in ,kensington ,gardens--but ,harland as an inspired guide was at his best in ,paris ,i always thought1 perhaps because in ,paris he had so much larger scope than in ,london4 ,he impressed one as a man who never tired1 or who never gave in to being tired1 either at work or at play--a man who1 knowing his days would be few on this earth1 found each fair as it passed and1 if he could not bid it stay1 was at least determined to fill it as full as it would hold4 ,there was no resisting his restless energy when with him1 and it was because he could so little resist it himself1 that he was continually seeking new outlets--new forms for its expression4 ,he had just the temperament to take up with the mode of the ,nineties that drove the ,young ,men to asserting themselves and upholding their doctrines in papers and magazines of their own4 ,the pedant may trace the fashion back to the ,hobby-horse of the ,eighties1 or1 in a further access of pedantry to the ,germ of the early ,fifties4 ,he may follow its growth as late as the ,blast of yesterday and ,the ,gypsy of to-day4 ,but ,i do not have to go further than my book shelves1 ,i have only to look and see there the ,dial and the ,yellow ,book and the ,savoy and the ,butterfly and the ,pageant and the ,dome and the ,evergreen1 each with its special train of memories and associations1 and ,i know better than the greatest pedant of them all that the fashion1 no matter when it began1 no matter when it may end1 belongs as essentially to the ,nineties as the fashion for the crinoline belongs to the ,sixties4 ,harland was not original in wanting to set up a pulpit for himself--the originality was in the design for it4 ,the ,yellow ,book was not like any other quarterly from which any other young man or group did his preaching4 ,,vi ,harland shared his pulpit4 ,he would not have found the same design for it without ,beardsley1 nor would our ,thursday nights1 where a good deal of that design was thought out and talked out1 have been the same without ,beardsley4 ,i would find it hard1 even had there been no ,yellow ,book1 not to remember ,harland and ,beardsley together4 ,for it was from ,mrs4 ,harland that we first heard of the wonderful youth1 unknown still1 an insignificant clerk in some ,insurance ,company1 who made the most amazing drawings--it was she who first sent him to us that ,j4 might look at his work and help him to escape from the office he hated and from the toils of ,burne-,jones and the ,kelmscott ,press in which he was entangled4 ,illustration3 ,photograph by ,frederick ,h4 ,evans ,,aubrey ,,beardsley ,he came1 the first time1 one afternoon in the winter dusk--a boy1 tall and slight1 long narrow pale clean-shaven face1 hair parted in the middle and hanging over his forehead1 nose prominent1 eyes alight1 certain himself of the worth of his drawings1 too modest not to fear that other artists might not agree with him4 ,the drawings in his little portfolio were mostly for the ,morte d' ,arthur1 with one or two of those1 now cherished by the collector1 that have a hint of the ,japanese under whose influence he momentarily passed4 ,j4 enjoys the reputation1 which he deserves1 of telling the truth always1 no matter how unpleasant to those to whom he tells it4 ,truth to ,beardsley was pleasant and his face was radiant when he left us4 ,j4 has also the courage of his convictions1 and all he said to ,beardsley he repeated promptly to the public in the first number of ,the ,studio1 a magazine started not as a pulpit but as a commercial enterprise--started1 however1 at the right moment to be kindled into life and steered toward success by the enthusiasm and the energy of the ,young ,men of the ,nineties4 ,beardsley was bound to become known whether articles were written about him or not4 ,but ,j4's was the first and made recognition come the sooner4 ,the heads of many young men grow giddy with the first success2 at the exultant top of the winding stair that leads to it1 they no longer see those who gave them a hand when they balanced on the lowest rung4 ,but ,beardsley was not made that way4 ,he kept his head cool1 his eyesight clear4 ,he never forgot4 ,gratitude coloured the friendship with us that followed1 even in the days when he was one of the most talked about men in ,london4 ,he knew that always by his work alone he would be judged at ,buckingham ,street1 and to ,j4 he brought his drawings and his books for criticism4 ,he brought his schemes as well1 just as he brought the youth not only of years but of temperament to our ,thursday nights4 ,he came almost as regularly as ,henley and ,henley's ,young ,men1 adding his young voice to the uproar of discussion1 as full of life as if he too1 like ,harland1 grudged a minute of the years he knew for him were counted4 ,in no other house where it was my pleasure to meet him did he seem to me to show to such advantage4 ,in his own home ,i thought him overburdened by the scheme of decoration he had planned for it4 ,in many houses to which he was asked he was amiable enough to assume the pose expected of him4 ,the lion-hunters hoped that ,beardsley would be like his drawings4 ,strange1 decadent1 morbid1 bizarre1 weird1 were adjectives bestowed upon them1 and he played up to the adjectives for the edification or mystification of the people who invented them and for his own infinite amusement4 ,but with us he did not have to play up to anything and could be just the simple1 natural youth he was--as simple and natural as ,i have always found the really great1 more interested in his work than most young men1 and keener for success4 ,i like to insist upon his simplicity because people now1 who judge him by his drawings1 would so much rather insist upon his perversity and his affectation4 ,how can you reconcile that sort of thing with simplicity8 ,they will ask1 pointing to drawings of little mocking satyrs and twisted dwarfs and grotesques and extravagant forms and leering faces and a suggestion of one can hardly say what4 ,but it might as well be asked why the medival artist delighted to carve homely1 familiar scenes and incidents1 and worse1 in the holiest places1 to lavish his ingenuity upon the demons and devils above the doors leading into his great churches2 why a philosopher like ,rabelais chose to express the wisest thought in the most indecent fooling2 why every genius does not look out upon life and the world with the same eyes and find the same method to record what he sees4 ,some men can only marvel with ,louis ,stevenson at the wide contrast between the prim obliterated polite face of life and its orgiastic foundations2 others are only reconciled to it by the humour in the contrast or by the pity invoked by its victims4 ,what makes the genius is just the fact that he looks out upon life1 that he feels1 that he uses his eyes1 in his own way2 also1 that he invents his own methods of expression4 ,beardsley saw the satire of life1 he loved the grotesque which has so gone out of date in our matter-of-fact day that we almost forget what it means1 and no doubt disease gave a morbid twist to his vision and imagination4 ,but1 above all1 he was young1 splendidly young3 young when he began work1 young when he finished work4 ,he had the curiosity as to the world and everything in it that is the divine right of youth1 and he had the gaiety1 the exuberance1 the flamboyancy1 the fun of the youth destined to do and to triumph4 ,already1 in his later work1 are signs of the passing of the first youthful stage of his art4 ,it is suggestive to contrast the conventional landscapes with the grinning little monstrosities in some of the illustrations for the ,rape of the ,lock2 the few drawings for his ,volpone have a dignity he had not hitherto achieved4 ,nobody can be surprised if some of the gaiety and exuberance and fun got no less into his manner towards the people whose habit is to shield their eyes with the spectacles of convention4 ,beardsley had a keen sense of humour that helped him to snatch all the joy there is in the old1 time-honoured1 youthful game of getting on the nerves of established respectability4 ,naturally1 so ,robert ,ross1 his friend1 has said of him1 he possessed what is called an artificial manner2 that is1 his manner was called affected1 as was his art1 because it wasn't exactly like everybody else's4 ,i have never yet come across the genius whose manner was exactly like everybody else's1 and shyness1 self-consciousness1 counted for something in his1 at least at the start4 ,he had only to exaggerate this manner1 or mannerism1 to set ,london talking4 ,it was the easier because rumours quickly began to go about of the darkened room in which he worked1 of his turning night into day and day into night like ,huysmans's hero1 and of this or of that strange habit or taste1 until people began to see all sorts of things in him that weren't there1 just as they read all sorts of things into his drawings that he never put into them1 always seeking what they were determined to find4 ,to many there was uncanniness in the very extent of his knowledge1 in his wide reading1 in his mastery of more than one art1 for1 if he had not been an artist1 he most assuredly would have been a musician or a writer4 ,added to all this1 was the abnormal notice he attracted almost at once1 the diligence with which he was imitated and parodied and the rapidity with which a ,beardsley type leaped into fashion4 ,of course ,beardsley enjoyed it4 ,what youth of his age would not have enjoyed the excitement of such a success8 ,it would have been morbid at his age not to enjoy it4 ,he never seemed to me more simply himself than when he was relating his adventures and laughing at them with all the fresh1 gay laughter of the boy--the wonderful boy--he was4 ,arthur ,symons wrote of him1 ,i have forgotten where1 that he admired himself enormously4 ,i should say that he was amused by himself enormously and was quite ready to pose and to bewilder for the sake of the amusement it brought him4 ,he was never spoiled nor misled by either his fame or his notoriety4 ,it was so ,beardsley's habit to consult ,j4 that he would have asked advice1 if ,harland had not1 for ,the ,yellow ,book which went through several stages of its preliminary planning in the old ,buckingham ,street chambers4 ,among the vivid memories of our ,thursday nights one is of ,harland taking ,j4 apart for long1 intimate discussions in a corner of the studio1 and another of ,beardsley taking him off for confidences as intimate and long1 and my impression in looking back1 though ,i may be mistaken1 is that each had his personal little scheme for a journal of his own before he decided to share it with the other4 ,it was characteristic of the friendliness of both that they should have insisted upon ,j4 figuring in the first number4 ,as vivid in my memory is the warm spring morning when ,beardsley1 his face beaming with joy1 called to give me an early copy of this first number1 with a little inscription from him on the fly-leaf--,i have just taken down the volume from the near book shelf--,to ,mrs4 ,pennell from ,aubrey ,beardsley ,i read1 as commonplace an inscription as ever artist or author wrote1 but1 reading it1 ,i see as if it were yesterday the sunlit ,buckingham ,street room where ,i used to work1 ,william ,penn curled up on my desk1 and1 coming in the door1 the radiant youth with the gay-covered book in his hands4 ,and there followed the dinner--the amazing dinner as unlike the usual formal dinner of inauguration as could be4 ,it was given in an upper room of the ,hotel d',italie in ,old ,compton ,street and was as free of ceremony as our ,thursday nights4 ,the men were in dress suits or tweeds as they chose1 the women in evening or tailor gowns according to their convenience4 ,i have an impression that more people came than were expected and that it was all the waiters could do to serve them4 ,i know ,i was much more concerned with my discomfort to find that ,harland and ,beardsley1 for the first time in my experience1 had forgotten how to talk4 ,everybody else was talking4 ,i can still see the animated faces and hear the animated voices of ,mrs4 ,harland and ,john ,oliver ,hobbes and ,mnie ,muriel ,dowie and ,kenneth ,grahame and ,george ,moore and ,john ,lane and ,max ,beerbohm1 and all the brand-new writers prepared to shock1 or to uplift1 or to pull down old altars and set up new ones1 or any other of the fine things that were to make the ,yellow ,book a force and famous4 ,but also ,i can still feel the heavy1 unnatural silence of the two editors from which ,i was the chief sufferer1 to me having fallen the honour of sitting in the centre of the high table between them4 ,j4 was away and1 in his absence1 ,i was distinguished by this mark of ,beardsley's appreciation and ,harland's friendliness4 ,i was greatly flattered1 but less entertained4 ,they were both as nervous as dbutantes at a first party4 ,shrinking from the shadow cast before by their coming speeches1 neither of them had as much as a word to throw me4 ,nor could they concentrate their distracted thoughts upon the menu--plate after plate was taken away untouched1 while ,i kept on emptying mine in self-defence1 to pass the time1 wondering if1 in my rle of the ,pall ,mall's greedy ,autolycus1 my friends would now convict me of the sin of public eating as well as what they had been pleased to pretend was my habit of private eating1 for not otherwise1 they would assure me1 could they account for the unfailing flamboyancy of my weekly article on cookery4 ,seated between the two men1 in their hours of ease when they were not editors1 my trouble would have been to listen to both at the same moment and to get a word in edgewise4 ,however1 when the speeches were over the strain was relaxed4 ,the evening ended in the accustomed floods of talk2--on the way from the ,hotel d',italie2 at the ,bodley ,head1 ,john ,lane's new premises in the ,albany to which he took us all that we might see the place from which the ,yellow ,book was to be published2 round a little table with a red-and-white checked cover in the basement of the ,monico1 the company now reduced to ,harland and ,mrs4 ,harland1 ,beardsley1 ,max ,beerbohm and two or three others whose faces have grown dim in my memory1 everybody as unwilling to break up the meeting as on ,thursday nights in our ,buckingham ,street rooms4 ,and with these ceremonies the ,yellow ,book was launched into life4 ,i am not sure what the ,yellow ,book means to others--to those others who buy it now in the thirteen volumes of the new edition and prize it as a strange record of a strange period1 from which they feel as far removed as we felt from the ,sixties4 ,but to me1 the bright yellow-bound volumes mean youth1 gay1 irresponsible1 credulous1 hopeful youth1 and ,thursday night at ,buckingham ,street in full swing4 ,to be sure the ,yellow ,book was never so young as it was planned to be4 ,it did not represent only les ,jeunes1 who would have kept it all to themselves in their first mad1 exuberant1 reckless springtime4 ,but they were not strong enough to stand alone1 as les ,jeunes seldom are1 or have been through the ages4 ,it was more original in its art than in its literature4 ,some of the youngest writers were discoveries of ,henley's1 while some who actually were discovered by the ,yellow ,book have faded out of sight4 ,many were men of name and fame well established4 ,hamerton1 almost at the end of his career1 ,henry ,james in the full splendour of his maturity1 ,edmund ,gosse with his reputation already assured1 were as welcome as the youngest of the young men and women who had never printed a line before4 ,so identified with this passage of literary history--in his words--was ,henry ,james that he has recorded the preliminary visit of a young friend ,harland of course1 a ,kensington neighbour and an ardent man of letters1 with a young friend of his own1 in whom there is no mistaking ,beardsley1 to bespeak my interest for a periodical about to take birth in his hands1 on the most original 'lines' and with the happiest omen4 ,but there was youth in this readiness for hero-worship--youth in this tribute to the older men whose years could not dim the brilliance nor lessen the power of their work in the eyes of the new generation--the fragrance of youth exudes from the pages of the ,yellow ,book as ,i turn them over again1 in places the fragrance of infancy1 the young contributors so young as to seem scarcely out of their swaddling clothes4 ,at the time the energy and zest put into it had an equal savour of youth4 ,and altogether it gave us all a great deal to talk about1 so that ,i see in it now a sort of link to join on ,thursday nights the different groups from their opposing corners1 supplying to writers and artists one subject of the same interest to both4 ,it even opened the door to the architects1 one of whom went so far as to neglect architecture and to emulate ,ibsen in a play4 ,the last thing ,i foresaw for the ,yellow ,book was a speedy end or1 for the matter of that1 any end at all1 so overflowing was it with the spirit of youth and energy1 war and enthusiasm4 ,but the end came surprisingly soon4 ,to remind me1 were ,i in danger of forgetting1 another book stands on our shelves close to the ,first ,volume of the ,yellow ,book3--the ,first ,volume of the ,savoy1 on its fly-leaf again ,beardsley's inscription simple as himself1 ,mrs4 ,pennell1 with kindest regards from ,aubrey ,beardsley1 and only a little less than two years between the dates of the two4 ,and the beginning of the ,savoy meant the end of the ,yellow ,book1 whose life was short after ,beardsley left it4 ,why he left it has nothing to do with the story of our ,thursday nights1 when no obstacle1 great or small1 would have been put in its way by us who held youth and energy1 war and enthusiasm above most things in demand and honour4 ,but ,i question if the time has come for the full telling of the story1 wherever or with whom the blame may lie4 ,that an objection was raised to ,beardsley's presence in the ,yellow ,book1 though without ,beardsley there would have been no ,yellow ,book1 is known and has been told in print1 the reason being that ,victorian sham prudery and respectability had not been totally wiped out for all the hard fighting of the ,fighting ,nineties4 ,beardsley was not slain1 he was not defeated1 at once he reappeared on the battle-field with the ,savoy1 ,arthur ,symons his fellow editor4 ,but by now the enemy never yet conquered on this earth held him in deadly grip1 and the fight he had to fight sent him from ,london to ,bournemouth1 to ,saint-,germain1 to ,dieppe1 to ,mentone in search of health4 ,he was the youngest of that old ,thursday night crowd and he was the first to go1 and the ,savoy went with him1 and before he had gone our ,thursday nights were already but a landmark in memory1 so quickly does the flame of youth burn out4 ,,vii ,by another of our happy chances ,phil ,may came as assiduously on our ,thursday nights as ,beardsley1 and they were two of the artists1 though their art was as the poles apart1 who had most influence on the black-and-white of the ,nineties--it will be seen from this that ,i refrain from saying what ,i think of ,j4 and his influence1 but it is considered almost as indiscreet1 almost as bad form1 to admit the excellence or importance of one's husband's work as to pretend to any in one's own4 ,if no drawings could have been less like ,beardsley's than ,phil ,may's neither could two men have been more utterly unlike4 ,some friends of ,beardsley's believe that he was happiest where there was most noise1 most people1 most show1 which1 however1 was not my impression4 ,but when there was the noise of people about him1 he might be relied upon to contribute his share and to take part in whatever show was going4 ,i question if ,phil ,may was happy at all unless in the midst of many people and much noise1 whether at home or abroad1 but to their noise1 anyway1 he had not the least desire to add4 ,beardsley was fond of talk1 always had something to say1 was always eager to say it4 ,all ,phil ,may asked was not to be expected to say anything1 to be allowed to smile amiably his dissent or approval4 ,had the rest of our company been of his mind in the matter1 it would not have been so much easier for us to start the talk at once than to stop it at a reasonable hour1 our ,thursday nights would not have been so deafening with talk that ,i do not yet understand why the other tenants in the house did not unite in an indignant protest to the landlord4 ,it was not laziness that kept him silent4 ,he had not a touch of laziness in his composition4 ,his drawings look so simple that people thought they were dashed off at odd moments4 ,but over them he took the infinite pains and time considered by the wise to be the true secret of genius4 ,it may be he expressed himself so well in lines he had no use for words4 ,the one indisputable fact is that he would do anything to escape talking4 ,i recall a night--not a ,thursday night though he finished it in our rooms--when he had been invited to lecture to a ,woman's ,club at the ,society of ,arts4 ,he appeared on the platform with a formidable-looking ,,ms4 in his hand1 but he put it down at once and spent his appointed hour in making drawings on big sheets of paper arranged for an occasional illustration4 ,he had more to say than ,i ever heard him say anywhere1 when we got back to ,buckingham ,street4 ,the ,,ms4 was all right1 he assured us1 a capital lecture written for him by a friend1 but it began ,far be it from me something or other1 he didn't wait to see what1 for1 as far as he got1 it did not sound like him1 did it8 and we could honestly agree that it did not4 ,illustration3 ,drawing by ,himself ,,phil ,,may ,,in ,,cap ,,and ,,bells ,he could talk4 ,i must not give the idea that he could not4 ,i know some of his friends who do not share or accept unqualified my memory of him as a silent man4 ,but he talked most and best when he had but a single companion1 and nothing could persuade me that he was not always relieved1 when the chance came1 to let others do the talking for him4 ,i do not know what the attraction was that made everybody like him1 not merely the riffraff and the loafers who hung about his studio and waylaid him in the street for what they could get out of him1 but all sorts of people who asked for nothing save his company--,i could never define the attraction to myself4 ,it was not his looks4 ,even before his last years1 when he was the image of ,j4,j4 ,shannon's portrait of him1 his appearance was not prepossessing4 ,he dressed well according to his ideals4 ,beardsley was not more of a dandy2 but ,beardsley was the dandy of ,piccadilly or the ,boulevards1 ,phil ,may was the dandy of the race-course4 ,he brought with him that inevitable1 indescribable look that the companionship of horses gives and that in those days broke out largely in short1 wide-spreading covert coats and big pearl buttons4 ,i have always been grateful to the man who enlivens the monotony of dress by a special fashion of his own1 provided it belongs to him4 ,the horsy costume did belong to ,may1 for he rode and hunted and was a good deal with horses1 but it was borrowed by some of his admirers until it degenerated into almost as great an affectation as the artist's velvet jacket and long hair1 or the high stock and baggy corduroys of the ,latin ,quarter imported into ,chelsea4 ,when the ,beggarstaff ,brothers1 as ,pryde and ,nicholson called themselves in those old days1 would wander casually into our rooms at the end of six or eight feet of poster that they had brought to show ,j4 and that needed a great deal of manipulation to bring in at all1 they looked as if the stable1 not the studio1 was their workshop4 ,and one young genius of an illustrator1 who could not afford to ride1 and who ,i do not believe had ever been on a horse in his life1 could not mount the bus in his near suburb without putting on riding breeches4 ,but ,phil ,may's dress was as essentially his as his silence4 ,neither his looks nor his silence1 however original and personal1 could have been the cause of the charm he undeniably possessed4 ,i think he was one of the people whom one feels are nice instinctively1 without any reason4 ,he was sympathetic and responsive1 serious when the occasion called for it1 foolish when folly was in order4 ,it wasn't only in his drawings that he was ready to wear the cap and bells4 ,i know an artist1 one of whose cherished memories of ,phil ,may is of the ,christmas ,eve when they both rang ,lord ,leighton's door-bell and ran away and back to ,phil ,may's studio on the other side of the road1 and ,phil ,may was as pleased as if it had been a masterpiece for ,punch4 ,he was naturally kind1--amiable perhaps because it was the simplest thing to be4 ,in his own house his amiability forced him to break his silence1 but his remarks then1 as far as ,i heard them1 were usually confined to the monotonous offer ,have a cigar6 ,have a whiskey-and-soda6 or ,have a drawing6 if anyone happened to express admiration for his work4 ,had we accepted this last offer every time it was made to us1 we would have a fine collection of ,phil ,may's1 while1 as it is1 we do not own as much as a single sketch given to us by him4 ,visitors who did not share our scruples have found their steady attendance at his ,sunday nights one of the best investments they ever made4 ,away from his own house1 on our ,thursday nights1 relieved of the necessity to offer anything1 this being now our business1 his conversation was more limited than in his own place4 ,my memory of him is of an ugly1 delightful1 smiling1 silent man1 sitting astride a chair1 his arms resting on the back1 a big cigar in his mouth1 and around him a band of devoted admirers as fully prepared and equipped to do the talking for him as he was to let them do it4 ,he held his court as royally among illustrators as ,henley among his ,young ,men1 and if nobody contributed so little to the talk as ,phil ,may1 around nobody else1 except ,henley1 did so much of the talk centre4 ,in my recollections of ,phil ,may astride his chair on ,thursday nights1 ,hartrick and ,sullivan are never very long absent4 ,nobody knew better than they the beauty of his work--to hear them talk about his line was to be convinced that the supreme interest in life was the expressive quality of a line made with pen in black ink on a piece of white paper4 ,the appearance of ,the ,parson and the ,painter was one of the events of the ,nineties--though it was not boomed into notoriety as were the performances of some other illustrators of the period as ingenious as ,barnum in the art of advertisement--and there was not an artist who did not hail ,may as a master4 ,but ,hartrick and ,sullivan went further4 ,they were not only such good artists themselves that they could appreciate genius in others1 they were young enough not to be afraid of their enthusiasms4 ,they gave the effect of being with ,may1 with whom they often arrived and stayed until the deplorably early hour of the morning at which he started for home1 in order that they might watch over him1 and1 indeed1 he needed watching4 ,he was not readier in offering than in giving anything he was asked for1 which was one reason why there was always a procession of waiters and actors and jockeys out of work at his front door--why his pockets were always empty4 ,they even discovered the same genius in ,may's talk as in his drawing1 though the mystery was when they heard the talk4 ,to this day they will quote ,phil ,may while ,i wonder how it is that while for me ,henley's talk has not lost its thunder1 nor ,bob ,stevenson's its brilliant flashes of imbecility1 nor ,harland's its whimsical twist1 nor ,beardsley's its fresh gaiety1 nothing of ,phil ,may's remains save the familiar refrain ,have a cigar6 ,have a whiskey-and-soda6 ,have a drawing6 ,obsessed by my old-fashioned notion as hostess that people could not enjoy themselves unless they were kept moving1 persisting in my vain efforts to break up the groups into which the company invariably fell1 again and again ,i would lure ,hartrick and ,sullivan away from ,phil ,may4 ,but it was no use4 ,what they all wanted was to talk not only about their shop but their own particular counter in it1 and no sooner was my back turned than there they were in the same groups again1 ,hartrick and ,sullivan watching over ,phil ,may1 supported by ,raven ,hill and ,edgar ,wilson1 both then deeply involved in youth's game of shocking the bourgeois by showing on the pages of ,pick-,me-,up how the matter of illustration was ordered in ,france1 and presently starting a magazine of their own to show it the better1 and to do their share as ardent rebels in the big fight of the ,nineties4 ,on my shelves1 close by the first number of ,the ,yellow ,book and of the ,savoy is the first volume of ,the ,butterfly and on its fly-leaf is the inscription3 ,to ,elizabeth ,robins ,pennell with ,l4 ,raven ,hill's kind regards1 no more startlingly original than ,beardsley's inscriptions1 but to me full of meaning and memories4 ,i cannot look at it without seeing myself fluttering from one to another of the old ,buckingham ,street rooms1 heavy with the smell of smoke and powder1 thunderous not only with the knocking--naturally ,i quote the ,ibsen phrase everybody was quoting in the ,nineties--but the banging1 the battering1 the bombarding of the younger generation at the ,victorian door against which it was desperate work to make any impression at all4 ,,viii ,in my less responsible intervals it amused me to find the painters running their own shop1 or their own little counter1 quite apart from the illustrators1 and carrying on all by themselves their own special campaign against that obdurate ,victorian door4 ,their campaign1 as they ran it1 required less talk than most1 for they were chiefly men of the ,new ,english ,art ,club--the men who gave the shows where ,felix ,buhot smelt the powder--the men who were considered apostles of defiance when the inner group held their once-famous exhibition as ,london ,impressionists--the men about whom the critics for a while did nothing save talk--but men who had the reputation of talking so little themselves that1 when a man came up for election in their ,club1 his talent for silence was said to be as important a consideration with them as his talent for art4 ,not that the silence of any one of them could rival ,phil ,may's in eloquence--they never learned to say nothing with his charm4 ,often the poverty of their conversation had the effect of being involuntary1 as if they might have had plenty to say had they known how to say it4 ,more than one struggled to rid himself of his talent with at least an air of success4 ,the big booming voice of ,charles ,w4 ,furse was frequently heard1 but in it a suspicion of an ,academic note unfamiliar in our midst1 so that1 young as he was1 combative1 enthusiastic1 a good fellow as they say in ,england1 still in his ,whistler and rebel period1 his friends predicted for him the ,presidency of the ,royal ,academy4 ,the first time ,i ever saw him was the year he was showing at the ,new ,english two large upright1 full-length portraits of women1 highly reminiscent of ,whistler1 and1 on press day1 was being turned out of the gallery by the critics who1 in revolutionizing criticism1 were fighting against the old-fashioned ,victorian idea of press views with the artists busy log-rolling and an elaborate lunch1 or at least whiskey and cigars behind a screen4 ,the ,new ,english men compromised by staying away1 but they clung to the lunch1 a feast chiefly for their commissionaire and their salesman and the grey-haired critic1 a survival1 who could not reconcile himself to change and whom ,i heard once1 in another gallery1 pronounce the show admirable1 perfect really1 your show1 but for one thing missing--a decanter and cigars on the table4 ,furse1 who had not heard the critic's cry for reform and could not understand his banishment1 lingered in the passage1 button-holing everybody who came out1 trying to pick up a hint as to what we were all going to say about him4 ,he considered himself a red-hot rebel and the prophetic picture of him scaling ,academic heights annoyed him extremely1 though he so soon became an ,associate of the ,academy that ,i think1 had he lived1 time would have proved the prophets right4 ,walter ,sickert's voice1 too1 was frequently heard at the beginning of a ,thursday night1 but his promise of brilliancy never struck me as leading anywhere in particular1 my personal impression being that with his talk1 as with his art1 the fulfilment scarcely justified the promise4 ,d4,s4 ,mac,coll1 young arch-rebel at the time little as the formal official of to-day suggests it1 his bombarding of the ,victorian door directed chiefly from the sober columns of the ,spectator1 and later of the ,saturday ,review1 was always well armed with words for the ,thursday night battle1 conscientious in distributing his blows and shaping them in strict deference to his sense of style1 just a touch of the preacher perhaps in his voice and in his fight for art and freedom1 as he was the first to acknowledge2 more than once ,i have heard him explain apologetically that his right place was the pulpit for which he had been designed4 ,arthur ,tomson1 one of the best friends in the world1 was a spirited revolutionary who went to the length of founding and editing a paper of his own to promote revolution--the ,art ,weekly1 which1 not being able to afford illustrations1 conducted its warfare solely by its articles1 and strong1 fearless1 knock-you-down articles they were since we all wrote for the paper while it lasted4 ,it did not last long1 however1 but shared the fate of most revolutionary sheets with more brains than capital4 ,arthur ,tomson himself1 out of print1 was a quiet1 if staunch fighter1 another of the old ,thursday night group who knew that his years on this earth were to be short4 ,he was not the gayer for it as ,harland and ,beardsley were1 but the sadder1 it may be because he foresaw the end long before it came1 and he was given to the melancholy that found expression in so many of his paintings4 ,wilson ,steer1 ,tonks1 ,professor ,brown passed1 and no more1 across the stage of our ,thursday nights1 all three1 as ,i remember them1 scrupulous in upholding the reputation for silence of their ,club4 ,conder flitted in and out of our rooms1 always agreeable but not the man to lift up his voice in a crowd4 ,occasionally1 a visitor from abroad appeared--,felix ,buhot every ,thursday that one winter1 or1 more rarely ,paul ,renouard1 in ,london for the ,graphic1 his appearance an event for the illustrators who already reverenced him as a veteran4 ,or else it was a representative1 a publisher1 of les ,jeunes over there1 bringing fresh stimulus1 fresh incentive1 especially if his coming meant fresh orders and fresh opportunity to say what had to be said freely and without restraint4 ,once it was ,jules ,roque from ,paris1 of the ,courrier ,franais in which he published the drawings of ,louis ,legrand and ,forain and other artists accepted as models by the young men of our ,thursday nights who believed in themselves the more defiantly when asked to figure in such good company4 ,once it was ,meier ,graefe from ,berlin1 big1 handsome1 enterprising1 not yet encumbered with ,post-,impressionism and its outshoots1 seeking ,american and ,british contributors to the ,german ,pan1 a magazine as big and enterprising as himself if not always as handsome1 and the younger generation of ,london had the comfort of knowing that if the ,victorian door in ,england held firm1 the door of ,europe had opened to them4 ,occasionally one of the older1 the very much older generation came in to make us feel the younger for his presence--none more imposing than ,sandys1 most distinguished in his old age1 wearing the white waistcoat that was the life-long symbol of his dandyism1 full of ,pre-,raphaelite reminiscences1 and reminiscences of the ,italian ,primitives could not have seemed more remote4 ,j4 sometimes met ,holman ,hunt in other haunts--at dinners of the ,society of ,illustrators and elsewhere--and reported him to me as a talker who could1 in the quantity and aggressiveness of his talk1 have given points to ,henley and ,henley's ,young ,men1 so ,i regret that he never was with us to talk over ,pre-,raphaelite days with ,sandys4 ,the only other possible representative of ,pre-,raphaelitism who came was ,walter ,crane1 if so he can be called1 for the tradition fell lightly on his shoulders1 was a mere re-echo in his work2 the only one of ,sandys's contemporaries was ,whistler1 and their meeting of which ,j4 and ,i have written in another place1 does not belong to the story of our ,thursday nights1 for they were a thing of the past when ,whistler returned from ,paris1 where he had gone to live almost as they began4 ,nor did ,sandys often appear on ,thursdays4 ,he seemed to prefer the evenings when we were alone1 to my surprise1 for the homage he received when he did come on ,thursday must have been pleasant4 ,drawings of his hung prominently in our rooms1 ,j4 then haunting the salesrooms for the originals of the ,sixties as industriously as the barrows and shops for their reproductions4 ,and to the man who prefers fame to reach him during his lifetime1 surely it should have been an agreeable experience to sit1 or to be enthroned as it were1 in so friendly an atmosphere1 with some of his own finest work on the wall behind him for background1 and surrounded by a worshipping group asking nothing better than to be allowed to sit at his feet and listen to his every word--which was a sacrifice for his worshippers in ,buckingham ,street who rejoiced in the sound of their own voices as did most of the company4 ,but the ,nineties are not more wonderful and stimulating to the young men of to-day who look back to them so admiringly1 than the ,sixties were to us whom they kept up into the small hours of many a ,friday morning1 inexhaustible as a subject of our talk1 and ,sandys1 standing for the ,sixties and all we found in them so admirable1 could command any sacrifice4 ,the respect for the ,sixties was an article of faith1 a dogma of dogmas in the ,nineties4 ,if the now younger generation write articles and books about the ,nineties--those amazing documents in which ,i scarcely recognise an age ,i thought ,i knew by heart--we were still more zealous in writing books about the ,sixties4 ,and we collected the drawings and publications of the ,sixties4 ,when ,j4 and ,i now allowed ourselves an afternoon out1 it was to wander from ,holywell ,street to ,mile ,end ,road1 from ,piccadilly to ,holborn1 searching the booksellers' barrows and shops for the unsightly1 gaudy1 badly-bound volumes that contained the illustrations of the ,sixties--illustrations ranked amongst the finest ever made4 ,our bookshelves that are still filled with them represent one of the most animated phases of the ,nineties4 ,and we looked upon the men of the ,sixties as masters1 among them giving to ,sandys a leading place4 ,if he was not any longer doing the work for which we took off our hat to him1 he certainly looked the leader--tall1 handsome1 dignified1 just enough of a stoop in his shoulders to become his age1 his dress irreproachable1 the white waistcoat immaculate1 pale yellow hair parted in the middle and beautifully brushed1 beard not patriarchal exactly but eminently correct and well cared for1 manners princely4 ,it was clear that he liked the rle of master and his voice was in keeping with the part4 ,but he was a master who presided at his best over a small audience1 and1 no doubt knowing it1 he avoided our ,thursdays4 ,he was also a master given to small gossip4 ,we heard from him less of art1 its aims and ideals1 its mediums and methods1 than of the sayings and doings of the ,pre-,raphaelites who were his friends and contemporaries4 ,the name of ,gabriel was ever in his mouth4 ,it was ,rossetti whom he most loved--or love is not the word1 less of affection revealed in his memories than a sense of injury1 as if it had somehow been the fault of ,gabriel and the others that he had not come off as well as they1 though of all ,gabriel had been most active in seeing him through the tight places he so successfully got himself into4 ,this1 no doubt1 was the reason ,rossetti felt entitled to a little laugh now and then over ,sandys's difficulties4 ,sandys was a man who needed to be seen through tight places until the end1 as we had occasion to know by the urgent note he sent us on a ,saturday night1 more than once1 from the ,caf ,royal1 his favourite haunt in his later years1 where a variety of unavoidable accidents1 with a curious faculty for repeating themselves1 would keep him prisoner until his friends came to his relief4 ,he was full of anecdote1 which was quite in the order of things1 the ,sixties having supplied anecdote for a whole library of books and magazines4 ,could ,i tell ,sandys's stories with ,sandys's voice ,i should be tempted to repeat them yet once again1 though many were told us also by ,whistler1 and these ,j4 and ,i have recorded in the ,life4 ,whistler told them better1 with more truth because with more gaiety and joy in their absurdity4 ,and yet1 the solemnity of ,sandys added a personal flavour1 gave them a character nobody else could give4 ,i have not forgotten how he turned into a parable the tale of the cross-eyed maid in the ,morris ,shop in ,red ,lion ,square1 whose eyes were knocked straight by a shock the company of ,morris1 ,marshall1 and ,faulkner administered deliberately1 and then were knocked crooked again by a shock they had not provided for or against4 ,and1 as ,sandys recalled them1 the strange beasts in ,gabriel's house and garden might have been let loose from out of the ,apocalypse4 ,but ,sandys's voice has been stilled forever and the anecdotes have been published oftener1 ,i do believe1 than any others in the world's rich store of clichs4 ,the great of his day had all the ,boswells they wanted--a retinue of admirers and cuffs ready--at their head ,william ,michael ,rossetti to pour out book after book about his brother1 to leave little untold about the group that revolved round ,gabriel4 ,even the third generation1 with ,ford ,madox ,hueffer to lead1 has taken up the task4 ,the anecdotes have grown familiar1 but it is something to have heard them from the men who were their heroes4 ,,ix ,well--our ,thursdays were pleasant1 an inspiration while they lasted1 and for a time ,i thought they must last as long as we did4 ,but nothing pleasant endures forever1 the bravest inspiration flickers and dies almost before we realize its flaring4 ,the stern duty of ,friday morning always haunted me in anticipation1 for ,i have never been able to take lightly the work ,i do with so much difficulty1 and ,friday morning itself often brought even ,j4 up with a sharp turn to face the fact that man was born into the world to labour in the sweat of his brow1 and not simply to talk all night until no work was left in him4 ,that may have been one reason for our giving up so agreeable a custom4 ,another perhaps came from the discovery that the freedom of our ,thursday nights was sometimes abused4 ,a certain type of ,englishman would travel a mile and more for anything he did not have to pay for1 even if it was for nothing more substantial than a cigarette1 a sandwich1 a whiskey-and-soda4 ,there were evenings when1 looking round the packed dining-room1 it would occur to me that ,i did not recognise half the people in it4 ,friends introduced friends and they introduced other friends until1 in bewilderment1 ,i asked myself if our ,thursday night was ours or somebody else's4 ,and ,i fancied a tendency to treat it as if it were somebody else's1--to take an ell when we meant to give no more than an inch1 and ,j4 was as little inclined as ,i to furnish a new proof of the wise old proverb4 ,one day a would-be wit who was regular in his attendance and his talk1 and who should have known better1 asked ,j41 ,are you still running your ,thursday ,club8 and so helped to precipitate the end4 ,we were not running a ,club for anybody1 and if the fame of our ,thursday night filled our rooms with people who behaved as if we were1 the sooner we got rid of them the better4 ,besides1 as the weeks and the months and the years went on1 many who had come and talked and fought our ,thursday night through ceased to come altogether4 ,where ,i failed in breaking up the groups ,time1 with its cruel thoroughness1 succeeded and began to scatter them far and wide4 ,death stilled voices that had been loudest4 ,the ,national ,observer passed out of ,henley's hands and ,henley himself into the ,valley of the ,shadow4 ,bob ,stevenson said his last good-night to us4 ,beardsley1 ,harland1 ,arthur ,tomson1 ,george ,steevens1 ,phil ,may1 ,furse1 ,iwan-,mller--one after another of our old friends1 one after another of those old masters of talk set out on the journey into the ,great ,silence4 ,it is hard to believe they have gone4 ,i remember how1 when they were with us and the talk was at its maddest and somebody would suddenly take breath long enough to look out of our windows1 whose curtains were never drawn upon the one spectacle we could offer--the river with the boats trailing their lights down its shadowy reaches1 and the ,embankment with the lights of the hansoms flying to and fro1 and the bridges with the procession of lights from the omnibuses and cabs and the trails of burning cloud from the trains--,henley would say1 ,how it lives1 how it throbs with life out there6 and ,i would think to myself1 ,and how it lives1 how it throbs with life in here6--with a life too intense1 it seemed1 ever to wear itself out4 ,and yet now only two or three of the old friends of the old ,thursday nights are left to look down with us upon the river where it flows below our windows--upon the moving lights of ,london's great traffic1 upon ,london's great life and great beauty1 and great movement without end4 ,it is not only the dead we have lost4 ,time has made other changes as sad as any wrought by ,death4 ,the young have grown old1--have thrown off youth's proud livery for the sombre garment of age4 ,the years have turned the rebel of yesterday into the ,royal ,academician of to-day4 ,the inspired young prophet who protested week by week against mediocrity in paint1 settled down to keeping the mediocre paintings against which his protests were loudest4 ,he who thundered against the degeneracy of journalism accepted the patronage of the titled promoter of the half-penny press4 ,architects carried their respectability to the professional chair it adorns1 and illustrators rested in the comfortable berths provided by ,punch4 ,friendships cooled1 and friends who never missed a ,thursday look the other way when they meet us in the street4 ,close to me1 as ,i write1 is a bookcase on whose shelves ,henley and ,henley's ,young ,men--,marriott ,watson1 ,george ,steevens1 ,charles ,whibley1 ,leonard ,whibley1 ,rudyard ,kipling1 ,kenneth ,grahame1 ,arthur ,morrison1 ,g4,s4 ,street--jostle each other in the big and little volumes that were to create the world anew4 ,the small green-bound ,henleys stand in a row4 ,salome1 ,the ,rape of the ,lock1 ,volpone1 with ,beardsley's illustrations1 are flanked by the more pretentious performances of the ,kelmscott ,press and the ,vale ,press and the other ,presses aspiring with much advertisement to do what the ,constables of ,edinburgh did so much better as a matter of course1 and1 as a reminder of this truth1 the ,montaigne of the ,tudor ,series is there and the ,apuleius and the ,heliodorus1 each with its inscription4 ,and the little slim volume1 neatly bound by ,zaehnsdorf1 called ,allahakbarries--now a prize for the collector ,i am told--immortalizes one recreation at least of ,henley's ,young ,men4 ,for it is ,barrie's report of the ,cricket ,team largely made up of these ,young ,men1 of whom he was ,captain and who used to play at ,shere on the never-to-be-forgotten summer days when beautiful ,graham ,tomson and ,i were graciously invited as ,patronesses1 and little ,madge ,henley--her death shortly afterwards proving ,henley's own death blow--figured as ,captain's ,girl and the ,national ,observer office as ,practice ,ground4 ,and if ,henley did not drag himself down with us to the pretty ,surrey village1 he seemed to preside over us all1 so much so that when ,j4 and ,i had the little book bound and added the photographs ,harold ,frederic--,photographer in the report--made of the ,team1 we included one of ,henley1 and altogether the tiny volume is as eloquent a document of the ,nineties and of ,henley and ,henley's ,young ,men as we have1 and ,i wonder what the collector of those snares for the ,american now catalogued by the bookseller as ,association ,books would not give to own it4 ,and close by our ,allahakbarries1 ,henry ,harland's ,mademoiselle ,miss meets in the old friendly companionship ,steevens's ,land of the ,dollar and ,graham ,tomson's ,poems and ,bob ,stevenson's ,velasquez and ,harold ,frdric's ,return of the ,o',mahoney and ,bernard ,shaw's ,cashel ,byron's ,profession in its rare paper cover1 and ,george ,moore's ,strike at ,arlingford1 and ,marriott ,watson's ,diogenes of ,london1 and--but of what use to go through the list1 the long catalogue1 to the end8 ,ghosts greet me from those shelves1 ghosts from the old ,thursdays1 from the radiant days when youth was merging into middle age--surely the best period in one's existence--days into which the breath of life never can be breathed again4 ,we could not revive the old nights if we would4 ,i suppose nobody now reads ,zola1 but we read him in the ,nineties and ,i have always been haunted by his description in ,l',oeuvre of the last reunion of the friends who1 in their eager youth1 had meant to conquer ,paris and who used to meet to plan their campaign over a dinner as meagre as their income and gay as their hopes4 ,but when1 after years during which money and fame had been heaped up by more than one and disappointment and despair lavished in equal measure upon others1 they ventured to dine together again1 and the dinner was good and well served as it never had been of old1 it turned to dust and ashes in their mouths--a funeral feast4 ,dust and ashes would be our fare were we so foolish as again to open our doors on the ,thursday night consecrated to youth and its battles long ago4 ,x ,if we have had no more ,thursday nights1 it does not follow that we have had no other nights4 ,the habit of years is not so easily broken1 and our habit was1 and is1 at night to gather people about us and to talk4 ,only1 after the ,nineties1 or rather before the end of the ,nineties1 we never settled again with weekly regularity upon one special night out of the seven for the purpose--on the contrary1 we took1 and we now take1 our nights as they came and come4 ,they have not been1 for that1 the less interesting and amusing1 not less loud with the sound of battle1 not less fragrant with the smell of smoke4 ,it was just after our ,thursday nights1 for instance1 that we began what ,i might call our ,whistler nights1 and a more stimulating talker than ,whistler never talked1 a more stimulating fighter never fought4 ,i do not mean in the impossible way meant by those whose judgment of him rests solely on ,the ,gentle ,art4 ,they think he fought for no other end than to make enemies when1 really1 he enjoyed far more the good give-and-take argument that preserved to him his friends1 provided those friends fought fair and did not play the coward1 or the toady1 to escape the combat4 ,j4 and ,i have written his ,life in vain if everybody who cares to know anything about him does not know that from #ahie and #ahif1 the greater part of his time was spent in ,london and that many of his nights were then given to us1 more particularly towards the end of the amazing decade4 ,we paid for the privilege by the loss of some of our friends who1 for one reason or another1 cultivated a wholesome fear of ,whistler4 ,men who had been most constant in dropping in1 dropped in no longer--nor1 in many cases1 have they ever begun to drop in again4 ,more than one would have run miles to escape the chance encounter1 trembling with apprehension when in a desperate visit they seemed to court it1 and often the several doors opening into our little hall served as important a part in preventing a meeting between ,whistler and the enemy as the doors in the old-fashioned farce played in the husband and wife game of hide-and-seek4 ,it was not too big a price to pay4 ,whistler's talk was worth a great deal1 and the twelve years that have passed since we lost it forever have not lessened its value for us4 ,ours is a sadder world since we have ceased to hear the memorable and unmistakable knock and ring at our front door1 the prelude to the talk1 rousing the whole house until every tenant in the other chambers and the housekeeper in her rooms below knew when ,whistler came to see us4 ,our nights1 since those he animated and made as joyous as he liked to be in his hours of play and battle1 have lost their savour4 ,we are perpetually referring to them1 quoting1 regretting them4 ,even ,augustine looks back to them as making a pleasant epoch in her life4 ,often she will remind me of this night or that1 declaring we have grown dull without him--but do ,i remember the night when ,m4 ,whistlaire argued so hard and with such violence that the print of the rabbit fell from the wall in its frame1 the glass shivering in a thousand pieces1 just when ,m4 ,kennedy was so angry we thought he was going to walk away forever1 and how after that there could be no more arguing1 and ,m4 ,whistlaire laughed as she swept up the pieces1 and ,m4 ,kennedy did not walk away alone1 but later they both walked away together1 arm-in-arm1 to the hotel where they always stayed8--and do ,i remember how1 during the ,boer ,war1 he would come and dine with me alone1 his pockets stuffed with newspaper clippings1 and how he would put them by his plate1 and how long we would sit at table because he would read every one of them to me1 with that gay laugh nobody laughs nowadays8--and do ,i remember that other evening when he and ,monsieur disputed and disputed she didn't know about what1 and how excited they got1 and how he kept banging the table with his knife1 the sharp edge down1 until he cut a long slit in the cloth1 and it was our best tablecloth too8--and do ,i remember the long stories he would tell us some evenings and his little mocking laugh when she1 who could not understand a word1 knew he was saying something malicious about somebody8--and do ,i remember how he liked a good dinner and her cooking because it was ,french1 and how he would never refuse when she promised him her pot-au-feu or one of her salads--and do ,i remember one after another of those old nights the like of which we shall never see again8 ,do ,i remember indeed8 ,they fill too big a space in memory1 they overshadow too well the lesser nights with lesser men1 they were too joyous an episode in our thirty long years of talk for me ever to forget them4 ,the three classical knocks of the ,thtre ,franais could not announce more certainly a night of beauty or wit or fun or romance than the violent ring and the resounding knock at the old battered door of the ,buckingham ,street chambers where1 for ,whistler1 the oak was never sported4 ,but of our ,whistler nights we have already made the record--this is another tale that is already told4 ,i think ,whistler knew their value as well as we did1 knew what they cost us in the loss of friends1 knew what he had given us in return1 knew what he had revealed to us of himself in all friendliness1 and that this was the reason he looked to us for the record not only of his nights with us1 but of his life4 ,once he had confided that charge to us1 the old ,buckingham ,street nights grew more marvellous still1 full of reminiscences1 of comment1 of criticism1 of friendliness1 his talk none the less stimulating and splendid because1 at his request1 the cuff or note-book was always ready4 ,and they continued until the long tragic weeks and months when he was first afraid to go out at night and then unable to1 and when the talks were by day instead--not quite the same in the last1 the saddest months of all1 for weakness and thoughts of the work yet to be done and the feebleness that kept him from doing it fell like a black cloud over all our meetings1 even those where the old gaiety asserted itself for a moment and the old light of battle gleamed again in his eyes4 ,to the end he liked the talk no less than we1 for to the end he sent for us1 to the end he would see us when few besides were admitted4 ,there1 for those who would like to question his friendship with us1 for those who believe that ,whistler never could keep a friend because he never wanted to1 is the proof dear to us of the good friend he could be when his friendship was not abused or taken advantage of behind his back4 ,many other nights besides there have been--long series of ,american nights--,john ,van ,dyke nights ,i might say1 ,timothy ,cole nights1--but no1 ,i am not going to name names and make a catalogue1 ,i am not going to write their story1 ,i am not going to run the risks of the folly ,i have protested against4 ,i have confessed my safe belief that of the living only good should be spoken1 and good only when it is within the bounds of discretion4 ,it is not my ambition to rival at home the unpopularity of ,n4,p4 ,willis in ,england after the first of his indiscretions1 which seem discretion itself now in the light of to-day's yellow and society journalism4 ,and there have been ,english nights--many--nights with old friends who are faithful and new friends who are devoted--nights of late so like the old ,thursday nights that both ,hartrick and ,sullivan1 now twenty years older and with no ,phil ,may to revolve round1 asked why those old memorable gay nights could not be revived8 ,but would they be gay8 ,would they not turn out the dust and ashes1 the worse than ,lenten fare1 from which ,i shrink8 ,would they not1 as ,i have said1 prove as mournful as that banquet of ,zola's ,conquerors of ,paris8 ,recently there have been ,belgian nights--nights with those ,belgian artists whose habit was never to travel at all until they started on their journey as exiles to ,london--a journey to which the end in a return journey seems to them so tediously long in coming4 ,and there have been ,war nights when the clash of our battle1 in the grim consciousness of that other battle not so far away1 is less cheerful4 ,and there have been nights with the great search-lights over the ,thames that tell us as much as those young insistent voices in ,buckingham ,street could tell1 but only of things so tragic and so sombre that ,i am the more eager to finish the story of our ,london nights with our ,thursdays1 in the years when we were burdened by no more serious fighting than the endless fight of friend with friend1 of fellow worker with fellow worker1 fought in the good cause of work and play1 faith and doubt1 fear and hope--a stirring fight1 but one in which words are the weapons1 one which can never be won or lost1 since no two can ever be found to agree when they talk for pleasure1 nor any one man forced to agree with himself for all time4 ,v ,,nights ,,in ,,paris ,,in ,,paris ,i ,i still go to ,paris every year in ,may when the ,salons open1 but now ,i go alone4 ,the lilacs and horse-chestnuts1 that ,j4 used to reproach me for never keeping out of the articles it was my business to write there1 still bloom in the ,champs-,elyses and the ,bois1 but now ,i am no longer tempted to drag them into my ,,ms4 ,the spring nights still are beautiful on the ,boulevards and ,quais but only ghosts walk with me along the old familiar ways1 only ghosts sit with me at table in restaurants where once ,i always ate in company4 ,paris has lost half its charm since the days when1 as regularly as spring came round1 ,i was one of the little group of critics and artists and friends from ,london who met in it for a week among the pictures4 ,it was much the same group1 if smaller1 that met on our ,thursday nights in ,london4 ,some of us went for work1 to do the ,salons after we had done the ,royal ,academy and the ,new ,gallery1 then the ,academy's only ,london rival3 ,bob ,stevenson for the ,pall ,mall1 ,d4,s4 ,mac,coll for the ,spectator1 ,charles ,whibley for the ,national ,observer4 ,j41 during several years1 spared the time from more important things to fight as critic the empty criticism of the moment1 the old-fashioned criticism that recognised no masterpiece outside of ,burlington ,house and saw nothing in a picture or a drawing save a story3 a thankless task1 for already the old-fashioned criticism threatens to become the new-fashioned again4 ,i1 for my part1 was kept as busy as ,i knew how to be1 and busier1 for the ,nation and my ,london papers4 ,others went because they were artists and wanted to see what ,paris was doing and ,may was the season when ,paris was doing most and was most liberal in letting everybody see it4 ,beardsley and ,furse seldom failed1 and ,i do not suppose a year passed that we did not chance upon one or more unexpected friends in a gallery or a caf and add them to our party4 ,sometimes a ,publisher was with us1 his affairs an excuse for a holiday1 or sometimes an ,architect to show the poor foreigner how respectable ,british respectability can be and1 incidentally1 to make his a guarantee of ours that we could have dispensed with4 ,harland and ,mrs4 ,harland were always there1 ,i do believe for sheer love of ,paris in the ,may-time1 and ,i rather think theirs was the wisest reason of all4 ,during no week throughout my hard-working year did ,i have to work harder than during that ,may week spent in ,paris4 ,i am inclined now1 in the more leisurely period of life at which ,i have arrived1 to admire myself when ,i recall how many articles ,i had to write1 how many prints and drawings1 statues and pictures1 ,i had to look at in order to write them1 and my success in never leaving my editors in the lurch4 ,my admiration is the greater because nobody could know as well as ,i how slow ,i have always been with my work and also1 to do myself justice1 how conscientious1 as ,i do not mind saying1 though to be called conscientious by anybody else would seem to me only less offensive than to be called good-natured or amiable4 ,as a critic ,i never could get to the point of writing round the pictures and saying nothing about them like many ,i knew for whom five minutes in a gallery sufficed1 nor1 to be frank1 did ,i try to4 ,neither could ,i hang an article on one picture4 ,i might envy ,george ,moore1 for an interval the critic of the ,speaker1 now the ,london ,nation1 because he could and did4 ,i can remember him at an ,academy ,press ,view making the interminable round with a business-like briskness until1 perhaps in the first hour and the last room1 he would come upon the painting that gave him the peg for his eloquence1 make an elaborate study of it1 tell us his task was finished1 and hurry off exultant4 ,but envy him as ,i might1 ,i couldn't borrow his briskness4 ,i had to plod on all morning and again all afternoon until the ,academy closed1 to look at every picture before ,i could be sure which was the right peg or whether there might not be a dozen pegs and more4 ,and ,i had to collect elaborate notes1 not daring to trust to my memory alone1 and after that to re-write pages that did not satisfy me4 ,just to see the ,academy meant an honest day's labour and in ,paris there were two ,salons1 each immeasurably bigger1 and innumerable smaller shows into the bargain4 ,and yet1 that laborious ,may week never seemed to me so much toil as pleasure4 ,there was a great deal about ,paris the toil left me no chance to find out4 ,i should not like to say how many of its sights ,i have failed regularly to see during the visit ,i have paid to it every year now for over a quarter of a century4 ,but at least ,i have learned the best thing worth knowing about it1 which is that in no other town can toil look so uncommonly like pleasure1 in no other town is it so easy to play hard and to work hard at the same time3 precisely the truth the ,baedeker student has a knack of missing1 the truth the special kind of foreigner1 for whom ,paris would not be ,paris if he could not believe it the abomination of desolation1 goes out of his way to miss4 ,i have met some of my own countrymen who have seen everything in ,paris but never ,paris itself--the old story of not seeing the wood for the trees--and who are absolutely convinced that it is a town in which all the people think of is amusement and that a more frivolous creature than the ,parisian never existed4 ,from their comfortable seat of judgment in the correct hotels and the correct show places1 they cannot look as far as the schools and factories that make ,paris the centre of learning for the world and of industry for ,france1 and they are in their way every bit as dense as the ,english who take their pleasure so seriously they cannot understand the ,french who take their work gaily4 ,des blagueurs mme au feu1 a ,belgian officer the other day described to me the ,french soldiers who had been fighting at his side1 and ,i think it rather finer to face ,death--or ,work--laughing than in tears4 ,if ,paris were not so gay on the surface ,i am sure ,i should not find it so stimulating1 though how it would be if ,i lived there ,i have never dared put to the test1 unwilling to run whatever risk there might be if ,i did4 ,i prefer to keep ,paris in reserve for a working holiday or1 indeed1 any sort of holiday1 a preference which1 if ,heine is to be trusted1 ,i share with le bon ,dieu of the old ,french proverb who1 when he is bored in ,heaven1 opens a window and looks down upon the ,boulevards of ,paris4 ,at the first sight1 the first sound1 the first smell of ,paris1 the holiday feeling stirred within us4 ,the minute we arrived we began to play at our work as we never did in ,london1 as it never would have occurred to us there that we could4 ,the ,academy1 only the week before1 had given us the same chance to meet1 the same chance to talk1 the same chance to lunch together1 and of the lunch it had got to be our habit to make a ,press ,day function4 ,nowadays at the ,academy ,press ,view1 when ,i am hungry1 ,i run up to ,stewart's at the corner of ,bond ,street for a couple of sandwiches1 and excellent they are1 but1 as ,i eat them in my solitary corner1 no flight of my sluggish imagination can make them seem to me more than a stern necessity4 ,there was1 however1 a festive air about the old ,press ,day lunch when1 towards one o'clock1 some six or eight of us adjourned to ,solferino's1 another vanished landmark of my younger days in ,london4 ,it was in ,rupert ,street1 the street of ,prince ,florizel's ,divan1 which was appropriate1 for ,bob ,stevenson was always with us and but for ,bob ,prince ,florizel might never have existed to run a ,divan in ,rupert or any other street4 ,solferino's had a ,barsac that ,bob liked to order1 chiefly ,i fancy for all it represented to him of ,paris and ,lavenue's and ,barbizon and student days1 and the old memories warming him over it as lunch went on1 he would unfold one theory of art after another until suddenly a critic1 more nervous than the rest1 would take out his watch1 and the hour he saw there would send us post-haste back to ,piccadilly and the ,academy1 which at that time thought one ,press ,day sufficient4 ,but the lunch that seemed a festivity at ,solferino's never gave us the holiday sense ,paris filled us with from the early hour in the morning when1 after our little breakfast1 we met downstairs in the unpretentious hotel in the ,rue ,st4 ,roch where most of us stayed--if we did not stay instead at the ,hotel de l',univers et ,portugal for the sake of the name4 ,the ,rue ,st4 ,roch was convenient and if we were willing to climb to the top of the narrow house1 where the smell of dinner hung heavy on the stairs all through the afternoon and evening1 we could have our room for the next to nothing at all that suited our purse1 and the dining-room--the ,coffee ,room in gilt letters on its door would have frightened us from it in any case--was so tiny it was a kindness to the patron not to come back for the midday breakfast or the dinner that we could not have been induced to eat in the hotel1 under any circumstances1 for half the big price he charged4 ,the day's talk was already in full swing as we steamed down the ,seine1 or walked under the arcade of the ,rue de ,rivoli and along the ,quais1 in the cool of the ,may morning1 to the new ,salon which was then in the ,champ-de-,mars4 ,and one morning at the ,salon made it clear to me1 as years at the ,academy could not1 why ,french criticism permits itself to speak of art as a game and of the artist's work as amusing and gay4 ,there were words that got into my article as persistently as the lilacs and the horse-chestnuts4 ,,ii ,if we brought to ,paris a talent for talk and youth for enjoyment1 ,paris at the moment was providing liberally more than we could talk about or had time to enjoy4 ,london may have been wide awake--for ,london--in the ,nineties1 but it was half asleep compared to ,paris and would not have been awake at all if it had not gone to ,paris for the new it bragged of so loud in art and every excitement it cultivated1 and for the fin-de-sicle1 that chance phrase passed lightly from mouth to mouth in ,paris of which it made a serious classification4 ,illustration3 ,etching by ,joseph ,pennell ,,in ,,the ,,champs-,,elys,,es ,i have watched with sympathetic amusement these late years one new movement1 one new revolt after another1 started and led by little men who have not the strength to move anything or the independence to revolt against anything1 except in their boast of it1 and who would be frightened by the bigness of a movement and revolt like the ,secession from the old ,salon that followed the ,international ,exposition of #ahhi4 ,i feel how long ago the ,nineties were when ,i hear the young people in ,paris to-day talk of the two ,salons as the ,artistes-,franais and the ,beaux-,arts4 ,in the ,nineties we1 who watched the parting of the ways1 knew them only as the ,old ,salon and the ,new ,salon because that is what we saw in them and what they really were--unless we distinguished them as the ,champ-de-,mars ,salon and the ,champs-,elyses ,salon1 for another ten years were to pass before there was a ,grand ,palais for both to move into4 ,we could not write about either without a reminder of the age of the one and the youth of the other1 the ,old ,salon remaining the home of the tradition that has become hide-bound convention1 and the new ,salon offering headquarters to the tradition that is being carried on1 as we were forever pointing out1 borrowing the phrase from ,whistler4 ,we were given in the ,nineties to borrowing the things ,whistler said and wrote1 for we knew1 if it is not every critic who does to-day1 that he was as great a master of art criticism as of art4 ,what the men who undertook to carry on tradition did for us was to arrange a good show4 ,they had to1 if it meant taking off their coats and rolling up their sleeves and putting themselves down to it in grim earnest1 for it was the only way they could justify their action and the existence of their ,society1 and their choice of a ,president1 the very name of ,meissonier seeming to stand for anything rather than secession and experiment and revolt4 ,for the first few exhibitions many of the older men got together small collections of their earlier work that had not been shown publicly for years1 and the new ,salon's way of arranging each man's work in a separate group or panel made it tell with all the more effect4 ,and then there was the excitement of coming upon paintings or statues long familiar1 but only by reputation or reproduction4 ,i cannot forget how we thrilled in front of ,whistler's ,rosa ,corder1 which we were none of us1 except ,bob ,stevenson1 old enough to have seen when ,whistler first exhibited it in ,london and ,paris to a public unwilling to leave him in any doubt as to its indifference1 how we talked and talked and talked until we had not time that morning to look at one other painting in the gallery1 how it was not the fault of our articles if everybody did not squander upon it the attention refused not much more than a decade before4 ,and the younger men of the moment had to summon up every scrap of individuality they possessed to be admitted1 and not to be admitted meant too much conservatism or too much independence4 ,and credentials of fine work had to be presented by the artists from all over the world--,americans1 ,scandinavians1 ,dutchmen1 ,belgians1 ,russians1 ,italians1 ,germans1 ,austrians1 ,spaniards1--who couldn't believe they had come off if the ,new ,salon did not let them in1 and half the time they hadn't4 ,and with all it was just for the pride of being there1 they were not out for medals1 since the ,new ,salon gave no awards4 ,and altogether there was about as wide a gulf of principle and performance as could be between the two ,salons that are now separated by not much more than the turnstiles in the one building that shelters them both4 ,and sparks of originality gleamed here and there2 the passion for adventure had not flickered out--at every step through the galleries some subject for the discussion we exulted in stopped us short4 ,it might be ,impressionism1 ,sisley still showing if ,monet did not1 and ,vibrism and ,pointillism and all the other isms springing up and out of it4 ,it might be ,rosicrucianism and ,symbolism which had just come in1 and ,sar ,pladan--does anybody to-day read the ,sar's long tedious books1 bought by us with such zeal and promptly left to grow dusty on our shelves8--and ,huysmans and their fellow teachers of ,magic and members of the ,rose-,croix were being interpreted in paint and in black-and-white1 and if the interpretations did not interpret to so prosaic a mind as mine1 it mattered the less because they were often excuse for a fine design4 ,and the square brush mark lingered1 and much was heard of the broken brush mark1 and values had not ceased to be absorbing1 nor la peinture au premier coup and la peinture en plein air to be wrangled over4 ,and a religious wave from nobody knew where swept artists to the ,scriptures for motives and sent them for a background1 not with ,holman ,hunt to ,palestine1 but to their own surroundings1 their own country1 to the light and atmosphere each knew best--,lhermitte's ,christ suffered little children to come unto ,him in a ,french peasant's cottage2 ,edelfelt's ,christ walked in the sunlight of the ,north2 ,jean ,braud's ,christ found ,simon the ,pharisee at home in a ,parisian club2 and no landscape1 realistic1 impressionistic1 decorative1 was complete unless a familiar figure or group came straying into it from out the ,bible4 ,much that was done perished with the group or the fad that gave it birth1 much when suddenly come upon now on the walls of the provincial gallery looks disconcertingly old-fashioned4 ,but nevertheless1 the movement1 the energy1 the life of the ,nineties was a healthy enemy to that stagnation which is a death trap for art4 ,and ,black-and-,white was a section to be visited in the freshness of the morning1 not to be put off1 like the dull1 shockingly over-crowded little room at the ,academy1 to the last hurried moments of fatigue--a section to devote the day to and then to leave only for the bookstall or bookshop where we could invest the money we had not to spare in the books and magazines and papers illustrated by ,carlos ,schwabe and ,khnopf and ,steinlen and ,willette and ,caran ,d',ache and ,louis ,legrand and ,forain and the men whose work in the original we had been studying and laying down the law about for hours4 ,and the artist's new invention1 his new experiment1 came as surely as the spring--now the original wood block and now the colour print1 one year the draughtsman's ,holbein-inspired portrait and another the poster that excited us into collecting ,chret and ,toulouse-,lautrec at a feverish rate and facing afterwards1 as best we could1 the problem of what in the world to do with a collection that nothing smaller than a railroad station or the hoardings could accommodate4 ,and the ,sculpture court was not the accustomed chill waste1 dreary as the yard crowded with marble tombstones4 ,if nobody else had been in it--and many were--,rodin was there to heat the atmosphere1 his name kindling a flame of criticism long before his work was reached4 ,beyond his name he was barely known in ,london1 where ,i remember then seeing no work of his except his bust of ,henley1 who1 during a visit to ,paris1 ,i believe his only one1 had sat to ,rodin and then1 ever after1 with the splendid enthusiasm he lavished on his friends1 had preached ,rodin4 ,but in ,paris at the ,new ,salon there was always plenty of the work to explain why the name was such a firebrand--disturbing1 exciting1 faction-making--as ,i look back1 culminating in the melodramatic ,balzac that would have kept us in hot debate for all eternity had there not been innumerable things to interest us as much and more4 ,the critic has simply to take his task as we took ours and not another occupation in life can prove so brimming over with excitement4 ,in the early ,nineties ,i had not a doubt that it could always be taken like that4 ,i would not have believed the most accredited prophet who prophesied that we would outlive our interest in the ,new ,salon4 ,and yet1 a year came when1 of the old group1 only ,d4,s4 ,mac,coll and ,i met in the ,champ-de-,mars and he1 with boredom in his face and voice1 assured me he had found nothing in it from end to end except a silk panel decorated by ,conder1 and so helped to kill any belief ,i still cherished in the emotion that does not wear itself out with time4 ,however1 this melancholy meeting was not until the ,nineties were nearing their end1 and up till then our days were an orgy of art criticism and excitement in it4 ,in ,paris1 as in ,rome1 as in ,venice1 as in ,london1 only night set me free for the pleasure that was apart from work4 ,as a rule1 none of us dared at the ,salons to interrupt our work there even to make a function of the midday breakfast1 as we did of lunch at the ,academy1 the days in ,paris being so remarkably short for all we had to do in them4 ,we were forced to treat it as a mere halt1 regrettable but unavoidable1 in the day's appointed task1 whether we ate it at the ,salon to save time or in some near little restaurant to save money4 ,often we were tempted1 and few temptations are more difficult to resist than the unfolding of the big1 soft ,french napkin at noon and the arrival of the radishes and butter and the long crisp ,french bread4 ,when ,i was alone ,i escaped by going to one of the little tables in that gloomy corner of the ,salon restaurant where there was no napkin to be unfolded1 no radishes and butter to lead to indiscretion1 and nothing more elaborate was served than a sandwich or a brioche1 a cup of coffee or the glass of ,madeira which sentiment makes it a duty for the good ,philadelphian to drink whenever and wherever it comes his way4 ,the temptation being so strong1 it is useless to pretend that we never fell4 ,if we had not1 ,i should not have memories of breakfasts in the ,salon1 under the trees at ,ledoyen's1 on the ,tour ,eiffel1 in the classic shade of the ,palais ,royal from which all the old houses had not been swept away1 and as far from the scene of work as the close neighborhood of the ,bourse where we could scarcely have got by accident4 ,but the thought of the work waiting was for me the disquieting mummy served with every course of the feast4 ,not until the ,salon door closed upon my drooping back and weary feet1 turning me out whether ,i would or no1 in the late hours of the afternoon1 was ,i at liberty to remember how many other things there are in life besides work4 ,,iii ,the hour when all ,paris had settled down to the business of pleasure--to proving itself the abomination of desolation to those who were already too sure to be in need of a proof--was an enchanting hour to find one's self at liberty4 ,the heat of the day was over1 the air was cool1 the light golden1 the important question of dining could be considered in comfort on enticing little chairs in the shady alleys of the ,champs-,elyses or1 better still1 on little chairs no less enticing with little tables in front of them at the nearest caf1 where an apritif was to be sipped even if it were no more deadly than a groseille or a grenadine4 ,what the apritif was did not matter2 what did1 was the reason it gave for half an hour's loafing before dinner with all the loafing town4 ,illustration3 ,etching by ,joseph ,pennell ,,the ,,half ,,hour ,,before ,,dinner ,had we lived in ,paris1 no doubt we would have done as we did in ,rome and ,venice and have gone every night to the same restaurant where the same greeting from the same smiling patron and the same table in the same corner awaited us4 ,but change and experiment and a good deal of preliminary discussion over an apritif were more in the order of a week's visit4 ,as a rule1 we preferred the small restaurant that was cheap1 as we were most of us impecunious1 also the restaurant that was out-of-doors1 out-of-doors turning the simplest dinner into a feast4 ,however1 nobody yet was really ever young who was never reckless4 ,occasionally we dined joyously beyond our means1 and one memorable year we devoted our nights to giving each other dinners where the best dinners were to be had4 ,those alone who are blest with little money and the obligation of making that little can appreciate the splendour of our recklessness1 just as those alone who work all day and eat sparingly can have the proper regard for a good dinner4 ,i do not regret the recklessness1 ,i am not much the poorer for it to-day whatever ,i was at the time1 and ,i should have missed something out of life had ,i not once dined recklessly in ,paris4 ,moreover1 our special business was the study of art and in ,paris dining and art are one1 though the foolish man in less civilized countries preaches that to eat for any other purpose than to live is gluttony4 ,the clear intellect of the ,french saves them from that mistake1 and ,i have entertained hopes for the future of my own country ever since one wise ,american1--,henry ,t4 ,finck1--discovering the truth that the ,french have always had the common sense to know1 proclaimed it in a book which ,i have honoured by placing it in my ,collection of ,cookery ,books with ,grimod de la ,reynire1 ,brillat-,savarin and ,dumas4 ,at the time we were more concerned with the dinner than the philosophy of dining4 ,our one aim was to dine well1 whether it was the right thing or the wrong1 even whether or no it sent us back to ,london bankrupt4 ,we did not flinch before the price we paid1 and if we were too wise to measure the value of the dinner by its cost1 we were proud of the bigness of the bill as the visible sign1 the guarantee of success4 ,it was a tremendous triumph for ,j4 when he paid the biggest of all1 which he did1 not so much because he set out to deliberately as because1 by the choice of chance1 he had invited us to ,voisin's in the ,rue ,st4 ,honor1 where the red-cushioned seats1 the mirrors1 the white paint1 the discreet gilding1 the air of retirement1 the few elderly1 rotund1 meditative diners1 each dining with himself1 were all typical of the old classical ,paris restaurant1 and assured us beforehand of a good dinner and a price in keeping4 ,that we ate asparagus from ,argenteuil and petites fraises des bois ,i know because the season was spring2 that the wine was good ,i also know because the reputation of ,voisin's cellar permitted of no other4 ,and ,i am as sure that the menu was so short that ours would have seemed the dinner of an anchorite in the ,city of ,london1 for if we could not dine often we were masters of the art of dining when we did1 and we understood1 as the ,lord ,mayor and the ,city ,companies of ,london1 celebrated for their dinners1 do not1 that dining is not an art when the last course cannot be enjoyed as much as the first4 ,as ,i keep the family accounts1 ,i was obliged to pay in another way for ,j4's triumph at ,voisin's when ,i got back to ,london and faced a deficit that had to be balanced somehow in my weekly bills for the rest of the month4 ,but1 at least1 if abstaining has to be done1 ,london is the easiest place to abstain in as ,paris is the best to dine in4 ,the ,publisher who was with us that year gave his dinner at the ,la,prouse on the ,quai des ,grands-,augustins1 and it was not his fault if he fell short of ,j4's triumph by a few francs4 ,the giver of a dinner at the ,la,prouse in the happy past enjoyed the fearful pleasure of not knowing how much he was spending until he called for his bill1 price being too trivial a detail for a place in the menu1 and usually when the bill came it exceeded his most ambitious hopes4 ,the ,publisher must have hit upon ,friday1 for the perfume of ,bouillabaisse mingles with my memories of the dinner in the little low entresol where1 by stooping down and craning our necks1 we could see the towers of ,notre-,dame from the window1 and where the big1 tall1 handsome1 black-bearded patron1 alarmingly out of scale with the room1 came to make sure of our pleasure in his dishes--he would rather the bill had gone unpaid than have seen the dinner neglected4 ,i think there was a bottle of some special ,burgundy in its cradle1 for rarely in his life1 ,i fancy1 has the ,publisher felt so in need of being fortified4 ,early in the day he had been guilty of the astonishing indiscretion1 as it then seemed1 of buying three ,van ,goghs4 ,for this happened years before anybody had begun to buy ,van ,gogh--years before anybody had begun to hear of ,van ,gogh--years before ,post-,impressionism had been invented and had launched its crop of ,cubists and ,futurists and ,vorticists as direct descendants of ,van ,gogh and ,czanne who would assuredly have been the first to repudiate them4 ,the ,publisher had gone unsuspectingly1 confidingly1 with ,j4 to ,montmartre and there1 among other haunts1 into the now celebrated little shop where the paintings ,van ,gogh used to give in exchange for paints littered the whole place1 and where the dealer thought it a bargain if1 for a few francs1 he could get rid of canvases that now fetch their hundreds and thousands of pounds4 ,j4 would have invested had he had the few francs4 ,not having them1 he persuaded the ,publisher to1 and to buy three of the best into the bargain1 and never did his own empty pockets stand in the way of a more profitable investment1 for had he bought not all but only a few in this wilderness of ,van ,goghs1 and had he sold them again as he would never have done1 we might now1 if we chose1 dine every night at the ,la,prouse or ,voisin's and prepare for the reckoning without a tremor4 ,if ,i write of the buying of these pictures as if they were stocks and shares1 it is because that is the way the creators of the ,van ,gogh-,czanne-,gauguin boom have appraised them1 appealing to the modern collector who collects for the money in art1 not the beauty4 ,that night at the ,la,prouse the ,publisher was dazed by his unexpected rashness as art patron2 to-day1 when he points to the one of the three paintings still hanging on his walls1 he flatters himself that he discovered ,van ,gogh before the multitude4 ,bob ,stevenson took us to dine at ,lavenue's in ,montparnasse1 and if he had not of his own free will we should have compelled him to4 ,he belonged there4 ,at ,lavenue's he and ,louis ,stevenson dined when they were young in ,paris1 it was always cropping up in ,bob's talk of the old days1 it plays its part--the restaurant where no one need be ashamed to entertain the master--in the opening chapters of ,the ,wrecker1 which ,i think as entertaining as any chapters ,louis ,stevenson ever wrote in that or any other book4 ,the dinner1 of which ,i recall nothing in particular1 did not interest me as much as the place itself4 ,to see ,bob ,stevenson at ,lavenue's was like seeing ,manet at the ,nouvelle ,athnes or ,dr4 ,johnson at the ,cheshire ,cheese1 and to make the background complete ,alexander ,harrison1 with two or three ,american painters of his generation1 was dining at a near table4 ,he shall be nameless who gave the dinner at ,marguery's4 ,the dinner was all it should have been1 for we ate the sole called after the house4 ,it was the provider of it who proved wanting4 ,i was brought up to believe that the host1 when there is a host1 should pay his bill4 ,a large part of my life has been spent in getting rid of the things ,i was brought up to believe1 but this particular belief ,i have never been able to shed and ,i confess ,i was taken aback--let me put it at that--when the white paper neatly folded in a plate1 served at the end of dinner1 was passed on to one of the guests4 ,if the debt then run into was not paid does not much matter after all these years1 or perhaps if it was not it has the more interest for the curious observer of modes and moods4 ,in this case1 the whole incident could be reduced to a kindness on the part of the debtor1 sacrificing himself to show how right ,bob ,stevenson was when he said1 as ,robert ,louis ,stevenson repeated after him in print1 that while the ,anglo-,saxon can and does boast that he is not as ,frenchmen in certain matters of morals1 it is his misfortune to be as little like them in their vigorous definition of honesty and the obligation of paying their debts4 ,that the fifth dinner was at the ,tour d',argent is not an achievement to be particularly proud of4 ,on the contrary1 it appears to me a trifle banal as ,i look back to it1 for fashion was at the time sending ,americans and ,english to the ,tour d',argent just as it was driving them on beautiful spring days into that horribly crowded afternoon tea place in the ,rue ,daunou--wasn't it8--or to order their new gowns at the new dressmakers in the ,rue de la ,paix1 or to do any of the hundred and one other things that proved them up to the times1 at home in ,paris1 initiated into le dernier cri or whatever new phrase they thought set the seal upon ,parisian smartness4 ,frdric's face was as well known as ,ibsen's which it so resembled1 his sanded floor was the talk of the tourists1 the distinguished foreigner struggled to have his name on ,frdric's menu1 and as for ,frdric's pressed duck it had degenerated into as everyday a commonplace as an oyster stew in ,new ,york or a chop from the grill in ,london4 ,the bill at the end of the evening might be all that the occasion demanded of the man who was giving the dinner1 but his choice of restaurant could not convict him of originality1 or of sentiment either4 ,but ,i do not know why ,i grumble when the dinner was so good4 ,the ,tour d',argent had not fallen as most restaurants fall when they attract patrons from across the ,channel4 ,frdric's cooking was beyond reproach4 ,even the theatrical ceremony over his pressed duck could not spoil its flavour4 ,the sixth evening saw us at ,prunier's1 eating the oysters that it would have been useless to go to ,prunier's and not to eat 7we must have been in ,paris unusually early in ,may that year71 and if it was not the season to eat the snails for which ,prunier's is equally renowned1 my heart was not broken4 ,it may give me away to confess that ,i do not like them1 since snails are one of the unconsidered trifles that no ,autolycus posing as gourmet should turn a disdainful back upon4 ,but what can ,i do8 ,it is a case of ,dr4 ,fell1 and that is the beginning and end of it4 ,and if it wasn't the season for snails1 and if ,i wouldn't have eaten them if it had been1 in ,prunier's gilded halls other delicacies are served1 and when ,i summon up remembrance of those dinners past1 ,prunier's does not exactly take a back seat4 ,but naturally1 the most important dinner in my opinion was mine at the ,cabaret ,lyonnais in the ,rue de ,port-,mahon1 where never again can ,i invite my friends1 for the ,cabaret has gone into the land of shadows with so many of the group who sat round my table4 ,at the time1 there was no looking back1 no sad straying into a dead past to spoil a good dinner--at the worst1 a fleeting moment of discomfort when we selected the tench swimming in the tank close to our table and saw them carried off to the kitchen to be cooked for us4 ,it was the custom of the house1 intended to be a pleasing assurance that our fish was fresh1 but a custom with just a savour in it of cannibalism4 ,i have never cared to be on speaking terms with the creatures ,i am about to eat4 ,i squirm when ,i see the lobster for my salad squirming1 though ,i know the risk if it should not squirm at all4 ,had ,i lived in the country among my own chickens and pigs and lambs1 ,i should have been long since a confirmed vegetarian4 ,but to go to the ,cabaret ,lyonnais unwilling to swallow my scruples with my fish would have been as useless as to go to ,simpson's in ,london and object to a cut from the joint1 as ,i do object1 which is why ,i seldom go4 ,anyway1 we did not have to see the beef killed for the filet which at the ,cabaret we were expected to eat after the tench and with the potatoes to which the city of ,lyons also gives its name1 so associating itself forever with the perfume of the onion4 ,and1 as in the ,provinces1 the wine was the petit vin gris which ,i never can drink without a vision of the straight1 white1 poplar-lined roads of ,france1 sunshine1 a tandem tricycle or two bicycles1 ,j4 and myself perched upon them1 and by the way friendly little inns with a good breakfast or dinner waiting1 and a big carafe of the pale light wine served with it4 ,that my dinner was comparatively cheap would at normal times have been for me delightfully in its favour4 ,but that it was the cheapest of all in that week of dinners meant that ,i came out last in the race when1 by every law of justice1 ,i should have been first4 ,in ,paris as in ,london my greedy column1 as my friends called it with the straightforwardness peculiar to friends1 had to be written every week for the ,pall ,mall and mine was the enviable position of finding my copy in eating good dinners no less than in going to the ,salons4 ,if any one had an irreproachable excuse for extravagant living1 it was ,i4 ,but even ,i1 with the excuse1 could not afford the extravagance--one weekly article did not pay for one cheap dinner for eight--at the ,cabaret ,lyonnais4 ,and as the rest of the party were without the excuse and no better equipped for the extravagance1 we never again gave each other dinners on the same lavish scale and rarely on any scale1 henceforward ordering them on the principle of what ,philadelphia in my youth called a ,jersey treat4 ,i do not say that economy was invariably our rule4 ,we could be1 on occasions1 so rash that before our week was up we had to begin to count our francs1 put by for the boat sandwich and the reluctant tips of the return journey1 and eat the last meals of all in the ,duval1 which1 if admirable as a place to economize in1 is no more conducive to gaiety than a ,london ,a4,b4,c4 shop or ,childs's in ,new ,york4 ,once we were so reduced that at noon ,i was left to a lonely brioche at the ,salon1 and the men went to breakfast at the nearest cabman's eating-house1 where they made the sensation of their lives1 without meaning to and without finding in it any special compensation4 ,the most respectable of the respectable architectural group of our ,thursday nights was of the party and where he went the top hat and frock coat1 in which ,i used to think he must have been born1 went too4 ,if his fashion-plate correctness--men wore frock coats then--made him conspicuous at our ,thursday nights it can be imagined what he was sitting with his coat tails in the gutter at the cabman's table where the glazed hat and the three-caped coat of the ,paris cocher set the fashion4 ,he had the grace to be ashamed of himself1 often apologizing for his clothes and assuring us that he could not help himself1 which was his reason1 ,i fancy1 for accepting at an early age the professorial chair where the decorum of his hat and coat was in need of no apology4 ,,iv ,i have said we were young4 ,it seems superfluous to add that now and then1 in the sunshine of the perfect ,may day1 with the call of the lilacs and the horse-chestnuts getting into our heads as well as into my copy1 the ,salon grew stuffy beyond endurance1 work became a crime1 and we put up our catalogues and note-books before the closing hour and hurried anywhere just to be out-of-doors1 as if our sole profession in life was to idle it away4 ,after all1 only the prig can be in ,paris when ,may is there and not play truant sometimes4 ,the year ,paris chose our week to show how hot it can be in ,may when it has a mind to1 was the year ,i got to learn something of the ,paris suburbs4 ,the joyous expedition which ended our every day that year was so in the spirit of ,harland that ,i should be inclined to look upon him as the tempter1 had we not1 with the usual amiability of the tempted1 met him more than half way4 ,still1 he excelled us all in the knack of collecting us from our work1 no matter how it had scattered us or in what quarter of the town we might be1 and carrying us off suddenly out of it in directions we none of us had dreamed of the minute before1 just as he would collect and carry us off suddenly in ,london4 ,only1 he was more resourceful in ,paris because in ,paris more resources were made to his hand4 ,there are as beautiful places round ,london--that is1 beautiful in the ,english way--as round ,paris1 but they do not invite to a holiday with the charm no sensible man can resist4 ,the loveliness of ,hampton ,court and ,richmond and ,hampstead ,heath and the ,river is not to be denied and yet1 gay as the ,english playing there manage to look1 the only genuine gaiety is the ,bank ,holiday maker's4 ,tradition consecrates the loveliness bordering upon ,paris to the gaiety to which ,gavarni and ,mrger are the most sympathetic guides1 and none could have been more to ,harland's fancy4 ,he was very like his own favourite heroes1 or ,i ought to say his own favourite heroes were very like him4 ,for it is ,harland who talks through his own pages with his own charming fantastic blend of philosophy and nonsense1 ,harland who refuses to believe in an age of prose and prudence1 ,harland who is determined to see the romance1 the squalor1 the pageantry1 the humour of this jumble-show of a world1 not merely at ease from the stalls1 but struggling with the principal rle on the stage1 or prompting from behind the scenes4 ,when he was bent upon leading us to the same near1 inside1 part in the spectacle1 it was extraordinary how1 as if by inspiration1 he always hit upon the right expedition for the time of the year and the mood of the moment4 ,i remember the afternoon he said ,st4 ,cloud it seemed as inevitable that we must go there as if ,st4 ,cloud had been our one thought all day long1 the evening reward promised for our day's labour2 just as on the boat steaming down the ,seine and in the park wandering under the trees and among the ruins1 ,i felt that the afternoon was the one of all others predestined for our delight there4 ,the beauty provided by ,st4 ,cloud and the mood we brought for its enjoyment met at the hour appointed from all eternity4 ,artists1 it is supposed1 and not without reason1 are trained to see beauty more clearly and therefore to feel it more acutely than other people4 ,but my long experience has taught me that it is the lover of beauty who can dare to be flippant in the face of it1 just as it is the devout who can afford to talk familiarly of holy things4 ,besides1 artists work so hard that they have the sense to know how important it is to be foolish at the right time4 ,that is the secret of all the delicious absurdities of what the ,french called the ,vie de ,bohme until the outsider who did not understand made a tiresome clich of it4 ,the right time for our folly we felt was the golden ,may evening and the right place a beautiful ,paris suburb1 time and place consecrated to folly by generations of artists and students4 ,below us1 at ,st4 ,cloud1 stretched the wide beautiful ,french landscape1 with its classical symmetry and its note of sadness1 in the pure clear light of ,france1 the ,seine winding through it towards ,paris2 round us was the park as classical in its lines and masses1 and with its note of sadness the stronger because of the tragic memories that haunt it2 in the foreground were my companions agreeably playing the fool and posing as living statues on the broken columns3 he whose solemnity of demeanour accorded with his belief that his real sphere was the pulpit1 throwing out an unaccustomed leg as ,mercury on one column1 and on another the ,architect1 an apologetic ,apollo in frock coat with silk hat for lyre4 ,in my lightheartedness1 and accustomed to the ways of the ,english1 ,i thought them absurd but funny4 ,a ,french family1 however1 who passed by chance looked as if they wondered1 as the ,french have wondered for centuries1 at the sadness with which the ,englishman takes his pleasures4 ,beardsley was one of the party4 ,it was the first time he was with us in ,paris1 the first time1 for that matter1 he had ever been there4 ,he had clutched beforehand1 like the youth he was1 at the pleasure the visit promised1 and ,i remember his joy in coming to tell me of it one morning in ,buckingham ,street4 ,i remember too how amazing ,i thought it that1 when he got there1 he seemed at once to know ,paris in the mysterious way he knew everything4 ,we had not heard of his arrival until we ran across him at the ,vernissage in the ,new ,salon4 ,i think he had planned the dramatic effect of the chance meeting1 counting upon the impression he would make as we met4 ,i have said he was always a good deal of a dandy and ,i could see at what pains he had been to invent the costume he thought ,paris and art demanded of him4 ,he was in grey1 a harmony carefully and quite exquisitely carried out1 grey coat1 grey waistcoat1 grey trousers1 grey ,sude gloves1 grey soft felt hat1 grey tie which1 in compliment to the ,french1 was large and loose4 ,an impression of this grey elegance is in the portrait of him by ,blanche1 painted1 ,i think1 the same year4 ,as he came through the galleries towards us with the tripping step that was characteristic of him1 a little light cane swinging in his hand1 he was the most striking figure in them1 dividing the stares of the staring ,vernissage crowd with the clou of the year's ,new ,salon3 that portrait by ,aman-,jean of his wife1 with her hair parted in the middle and brought simply down over her ears1 which set a mode copied before the season was over by women it disfigured1 heroines who could dare the unbecoming if fashion decreed it4 ,beardsley knew he was being stared at and of course liked it1 and probably would not have exchanged places with anybody there1 not even with ,carolus-,duran when1 splendidly barbered1 in gorgeous waistcoat1 and with an air of casualness1 the cher matre et prsident strolled into the restaurant at the supreme moment1 carefully chosen1 all the crowd there before him1 their breakfast ordered1 their first pangs of hunger stilled1 and their attention and enthusiasm at liberty for the greeting he counted upon1 and got4 ,it may be that this scene of the older generation's triumph and the power of officialism in art told on ,beardsley's nerves1 or it may be it was simply because he was still young enough to believe nobody had ever been young before1 but certainly by evening he had worked himself up into a fine frenzy of revolt4 ,when we had got through our foolish game of living statues1 and had settled down to dinner in a little restaurant1 where a parrot's greeting of ,aprs vous1 madame6 ,aprs vous1 monsieur6 had vouched for the excellence of its manners1 and where we could look across the river and see for ourselves how true were the effects that ,cazin used to paint and that seemed so false to those who knew nothing of ,french twilight1 and when ,beardsley had finished his first glass of very ordinary wine well watered1 he let us know what he thought about les vieux and their stultifying observance of worn-out laws and principles4 ,that started ,bob ,stevenson1 who saw an argument and1 for the sake of it1 became ponderously patriarchal1 hoary with convention4 ,in point of years1 it is true1 he was older than any of us1 but no matter what his age according to the ,family ,bible he was to the end1 and would have been had he lived to be a hundred1 the youngest in spirit of any company into which he ever strayed or could stray4 ,his way1 however1 was1 as ,louis ,stevenson described it1 to trans-migrate himself into the character or pose he assumed for the moment and no ,heavy ,father was ever heavier than he that night at ,st4 ,cloud4 ,he spoke with the air of superior knowledge calculated to aggravate youth4 ,with years1 he assured ,beardsley1 men learned to value law and order in art1 as in the state1 at their worth2 and1 more and more inspired by his theme1 as was his way1 he grew preposterously wise and irritating1 and he talked himself so successfully into every exasperating virtue of age that ,i could not wonder at the fierceness with which ,beardsley turned upon him and denounced him roundly as conventional and academic and prejudiced and old-fashioned and all that to youth is most odious and that to ,bob1 when not playing a part1 was most impossible4 ,in harmony with his new rle1 he showed himself a miracle of forbearance under ,beardsley's reproaches and sententious beyond endurance1 actually called ,beardsley young1 his cardinal offence1 for the young hate nothing so much as to be reminded of the youth for which the old envy them4 ,bob's almost every sentence began with the unendurable at my age1 which irritated ,beardsley the more1 while we roared at the farce of it in the mouth of one to whom years never made or could make a particle of difference4 ,he wound up by the warning in soothing tones that ,beardsley1 in his turn burdened with years1 would understand1 would be able to make allowances1 as all must as they grow older1 or life would be an endless battle for the individual as for the race4 ,beardsley1 luckily for himself1 did not live to lose his illusions1 and ,i fancy that to not one of us who listened to their talk did it occur that we were in danger of losing ours with age1 so immortal does youth seem while it lasts4 ,the adventure of other afternoons worked out so surprisingly in ,harland's vein that he might have invented it for his books or we might have borrowed it from them4 ,the encounter with a peacock at a caf in the ,bois1 to which he swept us off at the end of the hottest of those hot ,may days1 was one of many that he afterwards made use of4 ,had he not1 ,i might hesitate to recall it1 knowing as ,i do that its wit must be lost upon the younger generation of to-day who face life and work with a severity1 a solemnity1 that alarms me4 ,their inability to take themselves with gaiety is what makes the young men of the ,twentieth ,century so hopelessly different from the young men of the ,eighteen-,nineties4 ,their high moral ideal and concern with social problems would not permit them to see anything to laugh at in the experiment of feeding a peacock on cake steeped in absinthe1 but it struck us1 in our deplorable frivolity1 as humorous at the time1 our consciences the less disturbed because the bird was led into temptation in the manner of one to whom it was no new thing to yield4 ,harland1 when he wrote the story with the mock seriousness he was master of1 suggested that the crime was in its having been committed by an irreproachable ,british author1 the sober father of a family4 ,more momentous to us1 accessories to the crime1 was the fact that the cake stuck1 a conspicuous lump1 in the peacock's conspicuous throat4 ,for what seemed hours we waited in tense agitation1 torn between our desire to make sure the lump would disappear and our fears of discovery before it did4 ,but the peacock was a gentleman in his cups and reeled away to swallow the lump and1 ,i hope1 to sleep off his debauch1 in some more secluded spot where1 if he were discovered1 we should not be suspected4 ,there was another afternoon ,i wonder ,harland did not make use of which1 had ,i been in a pedantic mood1 ,i might have taken as an object-lesson in the art and occupation of shocking the bourgeois4 ,we had been tempted and had yielded as unreservedly as the peacock1 with the difference that our temptation took the form of the sunshine and the convenience of the train service at ,st4 ,lazare4 ,no sane person with such sunshine out-of-doors could stay shut up in the ,salon and a train was ready at ,st4 ,lazare1 whenever we chose to catch it1 to carry us off to ,versailles4 ,we were on our way at once after our midday breakfast4 ,versailles was too beautiful on that beautiful day to ask anything of us except to live in the beauty1 to make it ours for the moment2 too beautiful to spare us time for bothering about those who had been there before us2 too beautiful to allow the guide-book's fine print and maps and diagrams to blind our eyes to the one essential fact that the sun was shining1 that the trees were in the greenest growth of their ,may-time1 that the flowers were radiant with the fulfilment of spring and the promise of summer4 ,as a place full of history we must have known it1 had we never heard its name4 ,history stared at us from the grey palace walls1 history waylaid us in the formal alleys1 lurked in the formal waters1 haunted the formal gardens1 overshadowed all the leafy pleasant places4 ,there is no getting very far from history at ,versailles no matter how hard one may try to4 ,but we had no intention to let the dead past blot out the new life rekindling--to give its chill to the young spring day and its sadness to the foolish young people out for a holiday--to wither the fresh beauty that makes it good just to be alive1 just to have eyes to see and freedom to use them4 ,i can write this now1 but ,i would not have dared to say it then4 ,not only ,i1 but every one of us1 would have been as ashamed to be caught indulging in sentiment1 or bleating1 as the ,national ,observer4 ,the chances are we were talking as much nonsense as could be talked to the minute1 for there was nothing we liked to talk better1 nothing that served us so well to disguise the emotion we thought out of place in the world in which so obviously the self-respecting man's business was to fight4 ,but if ,i had not felt the beauty it would not now1 so many years after1 remain as my most vivid impression of the day4 ,we had ,versailles to ourselves at first4 ,we were alone in the park1 alone in the alleys and avenues1 alone in the gardens1--and the palace and its paintings could not tempt us in out of the sunshine4 ,but such good luck naturally did not last and while we were loitering near the great fountain we saw a party of women with the eager1 harassed1 conscientious look that marks the personally-conducted school-ma'am on tour1 bearing briskly down upon us1 each with a red book in one hand1 a pencil in the other1 all engrossed in the personally-conducted school-ma'am's holiday task of checking off the sight disposed of1 pigeon-holing the last guide-book fact verified4 ,their methodical progress was an offence to us in the mood we were in1 would be an offence on a ,may day to the right-minded in any mood4 ,i admit they could have turned upon us and asked what we were1 anyway1 but tourists as1 after a fashion1 no doubt we were4 ,but they could not have accused us of the horrible conscientiousness1 the deadly determination to see the correct things and to think the correct thoughts about them that dulls the personally-conducted to the world's real beauty and its meaning--the same tendency of the multitude to follow like sheep the accepted leader and never venture to explore fresh fields for themselves1 that drove ,hugo to writing his ,hernani1 and ,gautier to wearing his red waistcoat1 and all the other ,romanticists to their favourite pastime of shocking the bourgeois4 ,versailles was so wonderful on the face of it that we resented the presence of people who needed a book to tell them so and to explain why2 and we made our protest against the bourgeois in our own fashion or1 to be exact1 in ,furse's fashion4 ,he was then blessedly young1 fresh from the schools and not yet sobered by ,academic honours1 though already a youthful member of the ,new ,english ,art ,club1 from whom an attitude of general defiance was required4 ,he raged and raved in his big booming voice1 declared that tourists ought to be wiped off the face of the earth1 that the women were a hideous blot on the landscape1 that the guide-books were disgracefully out of tone1 that it was unbearable and he wasn't going to bear it1 and by his sudden satisfied smile ,i saw he had found out how not to4 ,as the school-ma'ams came within earshot3 ,it's beastly hot1 he boomed to us1 what do you say to a swim8 ,and he took off his coat1 he took off his waistcoat1 he took off his necktie1 he unbuttoned his collar1--but already the school-ma'ams had scuttled away1 the more daring glancing back once or twice as they went1 their dismay tempered by curiosity4 ,furse was pleased as a child over his success1 vowed he was ready for all the tourists impudent enough to think they had a right to share ,versailles with us1 and1 when a group of ,germans talked their guttural way towards us1 he had us all down on our knees1 before we knew it1 nibbling at the grass like so many ,nebuchadnezzars escaped from ,charenton--an amazing sight that brought the chorus of ,colossals to an abrupt stop1 and sent the ,germans flying4 ,it may be objected that we were behaving in a fashion that children would be sent to bed without any supper for1 that it was worse than childish to take pleasure in shocking innocent tourists much better behaved than ourselves4 ,but there wasn't any pleasure in it4 ,if we set out to shock them1 it was to get rid of them1 that was all we wanted1 and it made me see that the succession of young rebels who have loved to pater le bourgeois never wanted anything more either--except the self-conscious young rebels who play at rebellion because they fancy it the surest and quickest way to arrive4 ,it is less easy to say why a beautiful day at ,versailles should have sent us back to ,paris singing ,american songs--or to give credit1 if credit is due1 it was the rest of the party who returned to the music of their own voices2 ,i1 who to my sorrow cannot as much as turn a tune1 never am so imprudent as to raise my voice in song and so add my discord to any singing in public or in private4 ,had they been heard above the noise of the train1 the explanation of those who saw us when we got to ,st4 ,lazare probably would have been that we were a company of nigger minstrels4 ,by accident1 or sheer inattention1 when we climbed upstairs on the double-decked suburban train1 we chose the car just behind the locomotive and memory has not cleaned away the black that covered our faces when we climbed down again4 ,it was all very foolish--and no less foolish were the afternoons in the depths of ,fontainebleau or the sunlit green thickets of ,saint-,germain--no less foolish any of those afternoons in the forest or the park to which a long drive by train1 or tram1 had carried us4 ,and ,i am prepared to admit the folly to-day as ,i sit at my elderly desk and look out to the ,london sky1 grey and drear as if the spring had gone with my youth4 ,but if ,i never again can be so foolish1 at least ,i am thankful that once ,i could1 that once long ago ,i was young in ,paris1 the enchanted city with its charming smile for youth1--that once ,i believed in folly and1 in so believing1 had learned more of the true philosophy of life than the most industrious student can ever dig out of his books4 ,v ,the afternoon at ,versailles was the rare exception4 ,we were too keen about our work1 or too dependent on it1 to play truant often1 however gay the sunshine and convenient the trains4 ,nor was it any great hardship not to1 especially after we had broken loose once or twice so successfully as to make sure we had not forgotten how4 ,if we did stay in the ,salon until we were turned out1 the last to leave1 ,paris was neither so dull nor so ugly at night that we need sigh for the suburbs4 ,it was an amusement simply to drink our coffee in front of a caf1 to go on with the talk that must have had a beginning sometime somewhere1 but that never got anywhere near an end1 and to watch the life of the ,paris streets4 ,i had got my initiation into caf life that first year in ,italy and had finished my education by cycle on ,french roads1 where every evening taught me the difference between the country where there is a caf to pass an hour in over a glass of coffee after dinner1 and ,england where choice in the small town then lay between immediate bed or the intolerable gloom of the ,coffee ,room4 ,it is the real democrat like the ,frenchman or the ,italian who knows how to take his ease in a caf2 the ,englishman1 who hasn't an inkling of what the democracy he boasts of means1 fights shy of it4 ,he does not mind making use of it when he is away from home1 but he is likely to be thanking his stars all the time that in his part of the world nothing so promiscuous is possible4 ,i tried to point out its advantages once to an ,english ,university man4 ,aoh6 he said1 you know at ,oxford we had our wines and we weren't bothered by people4 ,but it is just the people part of it that is amusing1 the more so if the background is the ,street of a ,french or an ,italian town4 ,some nights we went to the ,caf de la ,paix on the ,rive ,droite2 other nights1 to the ,caf d',harcourt on the ,rive ,gauche2 and occasionally to the ,caf de la ,rgence where many artists went1 especially foreign artists1 and more especially ,scandinavians4 ,i seem to retain a vision of ,thaulow1 a blond giant more than fitting in the corner of the little raised enclosure in the front of the caf4 ,my one other recollection is of a story ,i heard there1 though of the painter who told it ,i can recall only that he was a ,belgian4 ,if ,i recall the story so well1 it must be because it struck me at the time as characteristic and in memory became forever after associated with the little open space ,i was looking over to as ,i listened1 amused and interested1 while the flower women pushed past their barrows piled high with the big round bunches of budding lilies-of-the-valley you see nowhere save in ,paris4 ,it is impossible for me to think of the caf without thinking of the little ,place1 nor of the little ,place without at once hearing again the artist's voice lingering joyfully over the adventures of his youth4 ,the story was one of a kind ,i had often listened to at the ,nazionale in ,rome and the ,orientale in ,venice--a story of student days--a story of two young painters coming to ,paris in their first ripe enthusiasm1 with devotion to squander upon the masters1 upon none more lavishly than upon ,jules ,breton1 which explains what ages ago it was and how young they must have been4 ,they were at the ,salon1 standing in silent worship before ,breton's peasant woman with a scythe against a garish sunset1 when they heard behind them an adoring voice saying the things they were thinking to one they knew must be the cher matre himself1 and they felt if they could once shake his hand life could hold no higher happiness4 ,the worship of the young is pleasant to the old4 ,breton let them shake his hand and1 more1 he kept them at his side until his visit to the ,salon was finished1 and then sent them away walking on air4 ,they were leaving the next day4 ,in the morning they went to the ,rue de ,rivoli to buy toys to take home to their little brothers and sisters1 and one selected a dog and the other a mill1 and when wound up the dog played the drum and cymbals and the mill turned its wheel and1 children themselves1 they were ravished and would not have the toys wrapped up but carried them back in their arms to the hotel1 stopping in the ,avenue de l',opra to wind up the mill and see the wheel go round again4 ,and as they stood enchanted1 the mill wheel turning and turning1 who should come towards them but the cher ,matre4 ,it was too late to run1 too late to hide the mill with its turning wheel and the dog with its foolish drum4 ,they longed to sink through the ground in their mortification--they1 the serious students of yesterday1 to be caught to-day playing like silly children in the open street4 ,but how ineffable is the condescension of the great6 ,the master joined them4 ,tiens1 he said1 and the wheel1 it goes round8 ,but it works beautifully4 ,let us wind it up again6 ,cannot you see the little comedy1--the fine old prophet with the red ribbon in his button-hole1 the two trembling1 adoring students1 the toy with its revolving wheel1 all in the gay sunlight of the ,avenue de l',opra1 and not a passer-by troubling to look because it was ,paris where men are not ashamed to be themselves4 ,the two painters preserved this impression of the kindness of the master long after they ceased to worship at the shrine of the peasant with her scythe posed against the sunset4 ,one duty the ,boulevards of the ,left ,bank imposed upon us in the ,nineties was the search for ,verlaine and ,bibi-la-,pure1 and many another poet for all time and celebrity for the day1 in the cafs where they waited to be found and ,i do not doubt were deeply disappointed if nobody came to find them4 ,the fame of these great men1 who were easily accessible when the caf they went to happened to be known1 had crossed to ,london with so much else ,london was labelling fin-de-sicle4 ,to have met them1 to be able to speak of them in intimate terms1 to be authorities on the special vice of each1 was the ambition of the yearning young decadents on the ,british side of the ,channel1 who imagined in the intimacy a proof of their own emancipation from it would have been hard to say what1 their own genius for revolution if it was not clear what reason they had to revolt4 ,we1 who cultivated a withering scorn for decadence and the affectation of it1 were moved by nothing more serious or ambitious than youth's natural desire to see and to know everything that is going on1 and we could not have been very ardent in our search1 for ,i never remember once1 on the nights we devoted to the hunt1 tracking these lions to their lair4 ,however1 at least one of our party had better luck when he started on the hunt without us4 ,according to a rumour at the time1 the respectable ,british author1 sober father of a family1 who fed the peacock on cake steeped in absinthe1 was once seen in broad daylight with the ,reine de ,golconde on his arm1 walking down the ,boul' ,mich' at the head of a band of poets4 ,verlaine ,i did meet1 but it was in ,london1 where admiring1 or philanthropic1 young ,englishmen brought him one winter to lecture and the subject as announced was ,contemporary ,french ,poetry1 and through all these years ,i have managed to preserve the small sheet of announcement with ,arthur ,symons's name and kind regards written below1 a personal little document1 for it was ,symons who got up the show1 and he and ,herbert ,p4 ,horne who sold the tickets4 ,instead of lecturing1 ,verlaine read his verses to the scanty audience1 all of whom knew each other1 in the dim light of ,barnard's ,inn ,hall1 and the music of their rhythm was in his voice so that ,i was not conscious of the satyr-like repulsiveness of his face and head so long as he was reading4 ,when he was not reading1 the repulsiveness was to me overpowering and ,i shrank from his very presence4 ,nor was the shrinking less when ,i talked with him the night after his lecture1 at a dinner where my place was next to his4 ,he was like a loathsome animal with his decadent face1 his yellow skin1 and his little bestial eyes lighting up obscenely as he told me of the two women who would fight for the money in his pockets when he got back to ,paris4 ,beyond this ,i have no recollection of his talk4 ,the prospect before him apparently absorbed his interest1 was the only good he had got out of his visit to ,london4 ,the beauty of his own beautiful poems1 ,i felt in disgust1 should have made such vicious sordidness impossible4 ,it revolted me that a man so degraded and hideous physically could write the verse ,i had loved ever since his ,romances sans ,paroles first fell into my hands1 or1 writing it1 could be content to remain what he was4 ,to be sure1 the genius is rare whom it is not a disappointment to meet1 and the hero-worshipper may be thankful when his great man is guilty of nothing worse than the famous writer in ,tchekhof's play--so famous as to have his name daily in the papers and his photograph in shop windows--whose crime was to condescend to fish and to be pleased when he caught something4 ,,vi ,the ,nineties would not let us off from another entertainment as characteristic--as fin-de-sicle1 the ,englishman under the impression that he knew his ,paris would have classified it--nor did we want to be let off1 though it lured us indoors4 ,the big theatres had no attraction3 to sit out a long play in a hot playhouse was not our idea of what spring nights were made for4 ,neither had the ,hells and ,heavens1 the fatuous1 vulgar1 indecent performances with catchpenny names1 run for the foreigner who went to ,paris so that he might for the rest of his life throw up hands of horror and say what an immoral place it was4 ,once or twice we tried the out-door ,caf-,chantant1 and we heard ,paulus in the days when all ,paris went to hear him1 and ,yvette ,guilbert when she was still slim and wore the ,v-shaped bodice and the long black gloves1 as you may see her in ,toulouse-,lautrec's lithographs4 ,once or twice we tried the big stuffy music-halls1 also adapted to supply the travelling student of morals with the specimens he was in search of1 but not dropping all local character in the effort4 ,we seemed to owe it to the memory of ,manet to go to the ,folies-,bergre which cannot be forgotten so long as his extraordinary painting of the barmaid in the ugly fashions of the late ,seventies is saved to the world4 ,that natural desire of youth just to see and to know1 that had carried us up and down the ,boulevards of the ,rive ,gauche in pursuit of its poets1 sent us to the ,casino de ,paris and the ,moulin ,rouge4 ,but a first visit did not inspire us with a desire for a second1 though ,i would not have missed the ,casino if only for the imperishable memory of the most solemn of our critics dancing there with a patroness of the house and looking about as cheerful as a martyr at the stake1 nor the ,moulin ,rouge for another memory as imperishable of the most socially pretentious leaving his partner1 after his dance1 with the thanks awfully of the provincial ball-room4 ,i thought both dull places which nothing save their reputation could have recommended1 even to those determined young decadents in ,london who were no prouder of their friendship with ,bibi and ,verlaine than of their freedom of the ,french music-halls1 and who wrote of them with a pretence of profound knowledge calculated to pater le bourgeois at home1 referring by name with easy familiarity to the dancers in the ,quadrille ,naturaliste1 as celebrated in its way as ,bibi in his1 and explaining solemnly the chahut and the grand cart and le port d'armes and every evolution in that unpleasant dance4 ,how it brought it all back to me the other day when ,i found in ,the ,gypsy--the direct but belated offspring of ,the ,savoy--a poem to ,nini-patte-en-l'air4 ,and does anybody now know or care who ,nini-patte-en-l'air was8 ,or who ,la ,goulue and the rest8 ,would anybody now go a step to see the ,quadrille were any graceless acrobats left to dance it8 ,these things belonged to the lightest of light fashions that passed with the ,nineties1 and the ,moulin ,rouge itself could burn down to the ground a few months ago and hardly a voice be heard in lament or reminiscence4 ,upon such rapidly shifting sands did the young would-be revolutionaries of ,london build their ,house of ,decadence4 ,the entertainment worth the exchange of the pure ,may night for a smoke-laden1 stuffy interior was in none of these places4 ,where we looked for it--and found it--was in the little caf or cabaret--the cabaret artistique as it was then known in ,paris--with a flair for the genius the world is so long in discovering1 where the young poet read his verses1 the young musician interpreted his music1 the young artist showed his work in any manner the chance was given him to1 to say nothing of the posters he sometimes designed for it and decorated ,paris with3 theatre and performance and advertisement impossible in any other town or any other atmosphere4 ,london is too clumsy4 ,berlin is too ponderous1 ,new ,york has not the right material home-grown1 and the spirit of the original dies in the self-conscious imitation4 ,even in ,paris a ,baedeker star is its death-blow1 the private guide's attention spells immediate ruin1 nor can it survive more legitimate honours at home when they come4 ,like most good things it has its times and its seasons1 and it was in the ,nineties it gave forth its finest blossoms4 ,we knew it was a pleasure to be snatched this year1 for next who could say where it might be1 and we set out to snatch it with the same diligence we had devoted one spring to eating dinners and another to playing in the suburbs1 though we could make no pretence in a week to exhaust it4 ,night after night we dined1 we drank our coffee at the nearest caf1 we scrambled to the top of the big omnibus with the three white horses1 now as dead as the performance it was taking us to1 we journeyed across ,paris to see or to hear the work of the young genius on the threshold of fame or oblivion4 ,and if in an access of conscientiousness we had felt the need--as we never did--of a reason for our eagerness1 we might have had it in the way our evening's entertainment invariably turned out to be the legitimate sequel of our day's work4 ,for there wasn't a cabaret of them all that did not reflect somehow the things we had been busy studying and wrangling over ever since our arrival in ,paris1 the merit they shared in common being their pre-occupation with the art and literature of the day to which they belonged4 ,the tiresome performance known as a ,revue1 which is all the vogue just now in the ,london music-halls1 undertakes to do something of the same kind3 to be1 that is1 a reflection of the events and interests and popular excitements of the day4 ,but the wide gulf between the music-hall ,revue and the old ,cabaret performance is that art and literature could not1 by hook or by crook1 be dragged into the average ,englishman's scheme of life4 ,if one night the end of the journey was the ,trteau de ,tabarin--the hot and uncomfortable little room rigged up as a theatre1 with hard rough wooden benches for the audience1 and vague lights1 and bare and dingy stage where men and women whose names ,i have forgotten read and recited and sang the chansons rosses that all ,paris flocked there to hear--it was to have the argument from which we had freshly come continued and settled by one of the inspired young poets4 ,for my chief remembrance is of the irreverent youth who summed up our daily dispute over ,rodin's great melodramatic ,balzac1 with frowning brows and goitrous throat1 wrapped in shapeless dressing-gown1 that stood that spring in the centre of the sculpture court at the ,new ,salon1 and the summing up was in verse only a ,frenchman could write1 the satire the more bitter because the wit was so fine4 ,a second night when we climbed the lumbering omnibus1 we were bound for the ,chat ,noir4 ,it had already moved from its first primitive quarters but had not yet degenerated into a regular show place1 advertised in ,paris and taken by ,salis on tour through the provinces4 ,here1 our justification was to find that everything1 from the sign of the ,black ,cat1 then hanging at the door and now hanging1 a national possession1 in the ,carnavalet ,museum1 and the cat-decorations in the caf and the drawings and paintings on the wall1 to the performance in the big room upstairs1 was by the men over whose work we had been arguing all day at the ,salon and buying in the reproductions at the bookstalls and bookshops on the way back4 ,to see that performance upstairs we had each to pay five francs at the door1 and we paid them as willingly as if they did not represent breakfast and dinner for the next day1 and so many other people paid them with equal willingness that the room was crowded1 though the show was of a kind that the same public in any town except ,paris would have paid twice that sum to stay away from4 ,imagine ,poe attracting customers for a ,new ,york saloon-keeper by reciting his poems6 ,imagine ,keene or ,beardsley making the fortunes of a ,london public-house by decorating its walls and showing his pictures on a screen6 ,or imagine the public of to-day1 debauched by the movies and the music-hall sketch1 knowing that there is such a thing as poetry or art to listen to and look at6 ,but ,salis1--the great ,salis1 inventor1 proprietor1 director of the ,chat ,noir1 dealt only in poetry and art and music1 and this is sufficient to give him a place in the history of the period1 even if he were the mere exploiter filling his pockets by pilfering other people's brains that he was accused of being by his enemies4 ,he crowded his caf by letting poets whom nobody had heard of and whose destiny--some of them1 ,maurice ,donnay for one--as staid ,academicians nobody could have foreseen1 try their verses for the first time in public2 by giving the same splendid opportunity to musicians as obscure then1 whatever heights at least two--,charpentier and ,debussy--were afterwards to reach2 and by allowing the artist1 while the poet was the interpreter in beautiful words and the musician in beautiful sound1 to show his wonderful little dramas in black-and-white1 the ,ombres ,chinoises that were the crowning glory of the night's performance4 ,from days in the ,salons1 from the illustrated papers and magazines and books we filled our bags with to take back to ,london1 we could not measure the full powers of men like ,willette and ,caran d',ache and ,rivire and ,louis ,morin until we had seen also ,the ,prodigal ,son1 ,the ,march of the ,stars1 and all the stories they told in those dramatic silhouettes--those marvellous little black figures1 cut in tin1 only a few inches high1 moving across a white space small in due proportion1 but so designed and posed and grouped by the artist as to give the swing and the movement and the passing of great armies until one could almost fancy one heard the drums beat and the trumpets call1 or to suggest the grandeur and solemnity of the desert1 the vastness of the sky1 the mystery of the night4 ,they have been imitated4 ,only a few months ago ,i saw an imitation in a ,london music-hall1 with all that late inventions in photography and electric light could do for it4 ,but no touch of genius was in the little figures and the elaboration was no more than clever stagecraft4 ,the simplicity of the ,chat ,noir was gone1 and gone the gaiety of the performers1 and the pretence of gaiety is sadder than tragedy4 ,salis knew how to catch his poet1 his musician1 his artist1 young1--that is where he scored4 ,it is possible that ,i was the more impressed by the beauty of the show because it was not of that side of the ,chat ,noir ,i had heard most4 ,its ,british admirers or critics1 when they got back to ,london1 had far more to say of it as a haunt of vice1 if not as decadents to parade their wide and experienced knowledge of ,paris1 then as students who had gone there very likely to gather further confirmation of the popular ,british belief in ,paris as the headquarters of vice and frivolity4 ,to this day the hero or heroine of the ,british novel who is led astray is apt to cross the ,channel for the purpose4 ,it was a delicate matter to accomplish this in the ,nineties when the novelist happened to be a woman1 for even the ,new ,woman cry1 if it armed her with her own front-door key1 could not draw all the bolts and bars of convention for her4 ,i can remember the plight of the highly correct ,englishwoman1 upon whom ,british fiction depended for its respectability1 who wanted to send her young hero from the ,english provinces to the ,chat ,noir in the course of a rake's progress1 and who avoided facing the contamination herself by shifting to her husband the task of collecting the necessary local colour on the spot4 ,she did well1 for had she gone she could not have been so scandalized as the young ,briton in her book was obliged to be for the sake of the story4 ,those who had eyes and ears for it could see and hear all the license they wanted1 those who had eyes and ears for the beauty could rest content with that1 and as far as my impression of the place goes1 ,salis1 if he allowed license at the ,chat ,noir1 refused to put up with either the affectation or the advertisement of it4 ,i cannot forget the night when a young ,american woman took her cigarette case from her pocket and lit a cigarette4 ,it would not have seemed a desperate deed in proper ,england where every other woman had begun to smoke in public1 probably more in public than in private1 for with many smoking was part of the ,new ,woman crusade--,i never liked smoking1 an ardent leader in the cause told me once1 but ,i smoked until we won the right to4 ,france1 or ,salis1 however1 still drew a rigid line that refused women the same right in ,france1 and with the ,american's first whiff he was bidding her good-night and politely1 but firmly1 showing her the door4 ,a third night1 and ,i do not know that it was not the most amusing1 the end of our journey was ,bruant's ,cabaret du ,mirliton1 in the remote ,boulevard ,rochechouart4 ,i daresay there was not one of us who did not own a copy of ,bruant's ,dans la ,rue1 but we had bought it less because of his verses--some of us had not read a line of them--than because of ,steinlen's illustrations1 and ,i can still hear ,harland upbraiding us for our literary indifference and urging it as a duty that we should not only read ,bruant's songs1 but go at once to hear him sing them4 ,harland had the provoking talent of looking as if his stories were the last thing he was bothering about1 as if he was too busy enjoying the spectacle of life to think of work1 when he was really working as hard as the hardest-working of us all4 ,and as it was not very long after that his ,mademoiselle ,miss appeared1 ,i have an idea that he hurried us off to ,bruant's not solely to improve our literary taste1 but quite as much to collect incidents for that gay little tale4 ,illustration3 ,poster by ,toulouse-,lautrec ,,aristide ,,bruant ,,of ,,the ,,cabaret ,,du ,,mirliton ,bruant ran the ,mirliton on the principle that the less easily pleasure is come by1 the more it will be prized4 ,there was no walking in as at the ordinary caf1 no paying for admission as upstairs at the ,chat ,noir4 ,instead1 it amused him to keep people who wanted to get in standing outside his door while he examined them through a little grille1 an amusement which1 in our case1 he prolonged until ,i was sure he did not like our looks and would send us away1 and that the reason was the responsibility he laid upon us all for the frock coat and top hat which the ,architect could never manage to keep out of sight1 skulk as he might in the background4 ,but1 of course1 ,bruant had no intention of sending us away and he kept up his little farce only to the point where our disappointment was on the verge of turning into impatience4 ,it simply meant that he did not hold to the hail-fellow-well-met free-and-easiness which was the pose of ,salis at the ,chat ,noir1 but1 at the ,mirliton1 was all for ceremony and dramatic effect4 ,at the psychological moment he opened the door himself1 a splendid creature1 half brigand1 half ,breton peasant1 in brown corduroy jacket and knee-breeches1 high boots1 red silk handkerchief tied loosely round his neck1 big wide-brimmed hat on the back of his head1 the passing pose of a poet who1 ,i am told1 rejoiced to give it up for a costume fitted to the more congenial pastime of raising potatoes4 ,to have seen ,toulouse-,lautrec's poster of him and his ,cabaret was to recognize him at a glance4 ,to the noise of a strident chorus in choice argot1 which ,i was told ,i should be thankful ,i did not understand1 ,bruant showed us into his caf4 ,it was more like an amateur museum1 with its big ,fifteenth ,century fireplace1 and its brasses and tapestries on the walls1 and if the huge ,mirliton hanging from the ceiling was not remarkable as a work of art1 it should now1 as historic symbol of the ,nineties1 have a place at the ,carnavalet by the side of the sign of the ,chat ,noir4 ,when we had time to look round1 we saw that the severe ordeal through which we had passed had admitted us into the company of a few youths in the high stocks and long hair of the ,quartier ,latin1 a petit piou-piou or so1 two or three stray workmen1 women whom perhaps it would be more discreet not to attempt to classify1 all seated at little tables and harmlessly occupied in drinking beer and smoking cigarettes4 ,the place was free from tourists1 we were the only foreigners1 the handsome ,aristide evidently sang his songs for the pleasure of himself and the people4 ,it was after we had sat down at our little table and given the order required of us that the incidents of the evening began to play so neatly and effectively into ,harland's plot4 ,a scowl was on ,bruant's handsome face as he strode up and down his caf-museum1 for the striding1 it seemed1 was only part of the regular performance4 ,he should at the same time have been singing the songs we had come to hear1 and he could not without the pianist who accompanied him1 and the pianist had chosen this night of all others to be late4 ,the scowl deepened1 ,i felt something like a stir of uneasiness through the room1 and ,i did not wonder1 for ,bruant looked as if he had a temper it might be dangerous to trifle with4 ,and then the strange thing happened and1 to our surprise and his1 our party whom he had met with such disdain saved the situation4 ,how we did it may be read1 with the variations necessary to fit his tale1 in ,harland's book4 ,we had our own musician--her name was not ,mademoiselle ,miss--and when she discovered what was the matter1 and why ,bruant was scowling so abominably1 she was moved by the sympathy of one artist for another and offered her services4 ,bruant led her to the piano1 she accompanied him as best she could1 the music being new to her1 he sang us his ,st4 ,lazare and ,la ,soularde1 all the while striding up and down with magnificent swagger1 and was about to begin a third of his most famous songs when the pianist arrived1 his unmistakable fright quickly lost in his bewilderment at being received with an amiability he had not any right to expect1 and allowed to slip into his place at the piano unrebuked4 ,bruant1 with the manners1 the courteous dignity1 of a prince1 led our ,mademoiselle ,miss back to us1 ordered bocks for her1 for me--the only other woman at our table--and for himself1 touched his with his lips1 bowed1 was gone and singing again before we could show that we had not yet learned to drain our glasses in the fashion approved of at the ,mirliton4 ,so far ,harland used this little episode much as it happened and made the most of it--,i hope the curious who consult his story will be able to distinguish between his realism and his romance4 ,but being mere man he missed the sequel which to the original of his ,mademoiselle ,miss and to me was the most dramatic and disturbing event of the evening4 ,gradually1 as we sat at our table1 watching ,bruant and the company1 it dawned upon us that ,bruant did not exhaust the formalities of his entertainment upon the coming guest but reserved one for the parting guest which in our judgment was scarcely so amusing4 ,for to every woman who left his caf1 ,bruant's goodbye was a hearty kiss on both cheeks4 ,we had the sense to know that1 as we had come to the ,mirliton of our own free will1 we had no more right to quarrel with its rules than to refuse to show our press ticket at the ,salon turnstile1 or to give up our umbrellas at the door of the ,louvre1 or to question the regulations of any other place in ,paris we chose to go to4 ,if we insisted upon being made the exceptions to the farewell ceremony1 and if ,bruant would not let us off1 could we resent it8 ,and if the men of our party resented it for us1 and if ,bruant resented their resentment1 how would that improve matters8 ,it was about as unpleasant a predicament as ,i have ever found myself in4 ,we talked it over1 but could see no way out of it1 and in our discomfort kept urging the men to stay for just one more song and then just one more1 greatly to their amazement1 for they were accustomed to not wanting to go and having to beg us to stay4 ,the evil moment1 however1 could not be put off indefinitely1 and1 with our hearts in our boots1 we at last got up from the table4 ,we might have spared ourselves our agony4 ,bruant1 with the instinct and intelligence of the ,frenchman1 realized our embarrassment and ,i hope ,i am right in thinking he had his laugh over us all to himself1 so much more than a laugh did we owe him4 ,for what he did when we got to the door was to shake hands with us ceremoniously1 each in turn1 to repeat his thanks for our visit and his gratitude to the musician for her services1 to take off his wide-brimmed hat--the only time that night--and to bow us out into the darkness of the ,boulevard ,rochechouart4 ,following the example of ,mademoiselle ,miss in the story1 unless it was she who was following ours1 we finished the evening which had begun at the ,mirliton by eating supper at the ,rat ,mort4 ,it was an experience ,i cared less to repeat even than the visits to the ,casino de ,paris and the ,moulin ,rouge4 ,as light and satisfying a supper could have been eaten in many other places1 late as was the hour4 ,neither wit nor art entered into the entertainment as at the ,chat ,noir and ,bruant's4 ,vice was at no trouble to disguise itself4 ,on the contrary1 it made rather a cynical display1 ,i thought1 and cynicism in vice is never agreeable4 ,i give my impressions4 ,i may be wrong4 ,i have not forgotten that the harmless portrait by ,degas of ,desboutin at the ,nouvelle ,athnes scandalized all ,london in the ,nineties4 ,everything depends on the point of view4 ,anyway1 another adventure ,i liked better was still to come before that long ,paris night was at an end4 ,it was so characteristic of ,harland and his joy in the humorous and the absurd that ,i do not quite see why he did not let his ,mademoiselle ,miss share it4 ,outside the ,rat ,mort1 in the early hours of the next morning1 we picked up an old-fashioned one-horse1 closed cab1 built to hold two people1 and of a type almost as extinct in ,paris as the three-horse omnibus4 ,it was the only cab in sight and we packed into and outside of it1 not two but eight4 ,as it crawled down one of the steep streets from ,montmartre there was a creak1 the horse stopped and1 as quickly as ,i tell it1 the bottom was out of the cab and we were in the street4 ,harland1 as if prepared all along for just such a disaster1 whisked the top hat so conspicuous in everything we did from the astonished ,architect's head1 handed it round1 made a pitiful tale of le pauvr' cocher and his hungry wife and children1 and implored us to show1 now or never1 the charitable stuff we were made of4 ,considering it was the end of a long evening1 he collected a fairly decent number of francs and presented them to the cocher with an eloquent speech1 which it was a pity someone could not have taken down in shorthand for him to use in his next story4 ,the cocher1 the least concerned of the group1 thanked us with a broad grin1 drew up his broken cab close to the sidewalk1 took the horse from the shaft1 clambered on its back1 rode as fast as he could go down the street1 and disappeared into the night4 ,a sergent-de-ville1 who had been looking on1 shrugged his shoulders2 in his opinion1 cet animal l was in luck and probably would like nothing better than the same accident every night1 provided at the time he was driving ladies and gentlemen of such generosity4 ,allez6 ,didn't we know the cab was heavily insured1 all ,paris cabs were1 we had made him a handsome present--,voil tout6 ,and so wonderful is it to be young and in ,paris that we laughed our way back as we trudged on foot through the now dark and empty and silent streets between ,montmartre and our rooms4 ,i doubt if ,i could laugh now at the fatigue of it4 ,of all the many ghosts that walk with me along the old familiar ways1 the one keeping most obstinately at my side is that of my own youth1 reminding me of the prosaic1 elderly woman ,i am1 who1 even if the zest for adventure remained1 would be ashamed to be caught plunging into follies like those of the old foolish nights in ,paris that never can be again1 or who1 if not ashamed1 would be without the energy to see them through to the end4 ,,vii ,in ,paris1 as in ,london1 a further ramble down those crowded1 haunted1 resounding ,corridors of ,time would lead me to many other nights of gaiety and friendliness and loud persistent talk4 ,again1 ,i would have my ,whistler nights1 the background now not our chambers1 but the memorable apartment in the ,rue du ,bac rez-de-chausse opening upon the spacious garden where1 in the twilight1 often we lingered to listen to the ,missionary ,monks in their spacious garden on the other side of the wall1 singing the canticles for the ,month of ,mary so dear to me from my convent days--nights in the dining-room with its beautiful blue-and-white china1 the long table and the ,japanese something like a birdcage hanging over it in the centre1 many once-friendly faces all about me1 ,whistler presiding in his place or filling the glasses of his guests as he passed from one to the other1 always talking1 saying things as nobody else could have said them1 witty1 serious1 exasperating1 delightful things1 laughing the gay laugh or the laugh of malice that said as much as his words2--nights in the blue and white drawing-room1 with the painting of ,venus over the mantel1 and the stately ,empire chairs1 and the table a litter of papers among which was always the last correspondence to be read1 interrupted by his own comments that to those who heard were the best part of it--nights that will never perish as long as even one man1 or woman1 who shared in them lives to remember2--,whistler nights even after ,whistler had left us for the land where there is neither night nor day3 nights these with the old friends who had loved him1 with the painter ,oulevey and the sculptor ,drouet who had been his fellow students1 with ,thodore ,duret who had been faithful during his years of greatest trial1 friends who rejoiced in talking of ,whistler and of all that had gone to make him the great personality and the greater artist2 but of the ,whistler nights in ,paris1 as in ,london1 ,i have already made the record with ,j4 ,the story of them is told4 ,and along the same rich ,corridors1 ,i would come to nights only less worth preserving in the studios of artists1 ,american and ,english1 who studied and worked and lived in ,paris--nights that have bequeathed to me the impression of great space1 and lofty ceilings1 and many canvases1 and big easels1 and bits of tapestry1 and the gleam of old brass and pottery1 and excellent dinners1 and1 of course1 vehement talk1 and a friendly war of words--nights with men irrevocably in the movement1 whose work was conspicuous on the walls of the ,new ,salon and had probably1 a few hours earlier1 kept us busy arguing in front of it and writing voluminous notes in our note-books--nights not the least stirring and tempestuous of the many ,i have spent in ,paris1 but nights of which my safe rule of silence where the living are concerned forbids me to tell the tale4 ,and one special year stands out when the little hotel in the ,rue ,st4 ,roch was deserted for the ,grand ,hotel1 and when all the nights seemed swallowed up in the ,international ,society's business--not the ,international ,society of ,anarchists1 but the ,international ,society of ,sculptors1 ,painters1 and ,gravers in ,london1 which1 in those terribly enterprising ,nineties1 sent its deputation--,j4 included in it--to collect all that was most individual and distinguished in the ,salons for its next ,exhibition4 ,it was a year of many wanderings in many directions to many studios of ,french artists1 or foreign artists working in ,paris--a year of many meetings of many artists night after night4 ,but this clearly is not a story for me to tell1 since the ,international was ,j4's concern1 not mine4 ,in the hours away from my work ,i looked on1 an outsider1 but an amused outsider1 marvelling as ,i have never ceased to marvel since the faraway nights in ,rome1 at the inexhaustible wealth of art as a subject of talk wherever artists are gathered together4 ,and rambling still further into that past1 ,i would stumble into ,american nights--nights with old friends1 established there or passing through and run across by chance--nights of joy in being with my own people again1 of hearing not ,english1 but my native tongue and having life readjusted to the ,american point of view4 ,nobody knows how good it is to be with one's fellow-countrymen who has not been years away from them4 ,but these also are nights that come within the forbidden zone--the zone where ,silence is ,golden4 ,,viii ,i have put down these memories of ,paris nights and my yearly visit to ,paris in the year when1 for the first time since ,i began my work in its galleries1 no ,salon has opened to take me there in the springtime4 ,with the coming of ,may the lilacs and horse-chestnuts bloomed with the old beauty and fragrance along the ,champs-,elyses outside the ,grand ,palais1 but inside no prints and paintings were on the walls1 no statues in the great courts4 ,to those admitted1 the only exhibition was of the wounded1 the maimed1 the dying4 ,does it mean1 ,i wonder1 the end of all old days and nights for me in ,paris1 as the war that has shut fast the ,salon door means the end of the old order of things in the ,europe ,i have known8 ,shall ,i never go to ,paris again in the season of lilacs and horse-chestnuts8 ,already ,i have ceased to meet my old friends by day in front of the picture of the year and to quarrel with them over it by night at a caf table1 or in the peaceful twilight of the suburban town and park and garden4 ,am ,i to lose as well the link with the past ,i had in the ,salon1 am ,i to lose perhaps ,paris8 ,who can say at the moment of my writing1 when the echo of shells and bullets is thundering in my ears8 ,the pleasure of what has been becomes the dearer possession in the mad upheaval that threatens to sweep all trace of it away1 and so ,i cling to the remembrance of my ,paris nights the more tenderly and even with the hope1 if far-fetched1 that others may understand the tenderness4 ,youth sees little beyond youth1 but as the years go on ,i begin to believe youth exists for no other end than to supply the incidents that age transforms into memories to warm itself by4 ,if ,i have reached the time for looking back1 ,i have my compensation in the invigorating glow1 for all its sadness1 that ,i get from my new occupation4 ,,index ,abbey1 ,edwin ,a41 #ed ,addiscombe1 ,henley's house at1 #acg1 #ade1 #adi ,admiral ,guinea1 by ,henley1 #adg ,albano1 #ff ,albergo del ,sole1 ,pompeii1 #fg ,allahakbarries1 #bad1 #bae ,aman-,jean1 ,e41 #bfa ,american ,consul at ,venice1 #hf ,american tourists1 #ia ,american visitors1 #bba ,anthony1 ,venice1 #ig ,antica ,panada1 #gf ,arabian ,nights' ,entertainment1 by ,henley1 #acb ,arnold1 at ,venice1 #hf1 #hg ,arrangement in 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#ahe-aij1 #aih ,zaehnsdorf1 #bad ,zola1 ,emile1 #dg1 #bae1 #bbb 99 99 99 99 99 ,transcribers ,note ,the following changes were made to the text3 ,hobby-,horse to ,hobby-horse4 ,london--,v--paragraph #f ,murger to ,mrger4 ,paris--,,iv--paragraph #b ,index--7,church of ,san ,giorgio degli7 ,schiaroni to ,schiavoni4 ,index--7,courrier7 ,francais to ,franais