,transcriber's ,note      ,table of     
,contents added by ,transcriber and     
placed into the ,public  ,domain4       
,,contents          ,prologue           
#a        ,i              #ac       ,,ii
              #cf      ,,iii            
#ee       ,,iv              #gi         
,v             #aja       ,,vi          
#aah      ,epilogue        #aca         
,index           #aci          ,,the    
,,men ,,of ,,the ,,nineties             
,,the ,,men ,,of ,,the ,,nineties       
,,by      ,,bernard ,,muddiman          
,illustration        ,g4 ,p4 ,,putnam',s
 ,,sons      ,,new ,,york      #aiba    
,all rights reserved          ,,the     
,,men ,,of ,,the    ,,nineties          
,,prologue      ,the day ,beardsley left
 his stool and ledger in a ,london      
insurance  office and betook himself    
seriously to the illustration of that   
strange  comic world of ,congreve1 a new
 manifestation of ,english art          
blossomed4  ,it had1 no doubt1 been a   
long time germinating in the minds of   

many  men1 and there had been numerous  
signs pointing the way on which the     
artistic tendencies of the nineties     
would travel4 ,for example1 just  about 
the same time as ,beardsley's eighteenth
 year1 a coterie of young  men1 fresh   
from the ,varsity in many cases1 made   
their appearance in  ,london openly     
proclaiming the doctrine of art for     
art's sake under  the gis of ,oscar     
,wilde4 ,so in the last age of hansom   
cabs and dying  ,victorian etiquette1   
these young men determined that the     
rather dull  art and literary world of  
,london should flower like another      
,paris4    ,if1 for the sake of making a
 beginning1 one must fix on that        
memorable  day when ,beardsley burnt his
 boats as the date of the opening of the
  period of the nineties1 it must be    
remembered that this arbitrary          
limitation of the movement is rather a  
convenience than a necessity4 ,to       
divide up anything so continuous as     
literature and art into sections  like a

 bookcase is uncommonly like damming up 
a portion of a stream  to look at the   
fish in it4 ,it breaks the contact      
between what was  before and what came  
after4 ,however1 as one must go a long  
way back to  investigate accurately how 
a new movement in art arises1 and as it 
is  tedious to follow up all the clues  
that lead to the source1 it will be     
perhaps as well not to worry too much   
over the causes of the movement  or over
 the influences from which it arose4    
,let us accept the fact  so well pointed
 out by ,mr4 ,w4 ,g4 ,blaikie ,murdoch  
in ,the ,renaissance  of the ,nineties1 
that the output of the nineties was #8a 
distinct  secession from the art of the 
previous age 4441 in fact the eighties1 
if they have a distinct character1 were 
a time of transition1 a period  of      
simmering for revolt rather than of     
actual outbreak2 and it was in  the     
succeeding ten years that1 thanks to    
certain young men1 an upheaval  was     
really made4'    ,it is to ,france if   

anywhere we can trace the causes of this
 new  attitude4 ,first of all1 in       
painting1 the great ,french             
impressionists1  with ,manet and ,monet 
leading them2 the doctrine of plein air 
painting1  and all the wonder of this   
new school of painting gave a new thrill
  to art4 ,then about #ahhe the literary
 symbolists killed the ,parnassian      
school of poetry1 while at the same time
 there was a new esplozione             
naturlistica4 ,paris1 always the city of
 light1 was again fluting new  melodies 
for the world4 ,in the ,rue de ,rome1   
,stphane ,mallarm received  all the     
world of art and letters4 ,to the ,rue  
de ,rome came ,whistler1  ,john ,payne1 
,george ,moore1 ,oscar ,wilde1 and      
others4 ,the ,french influence  that    
swept over to ,england was as powerful  
as that which stirred  artistic         
,germany1 creating a ,german period of  
the nineties in the group  of symbolists
 who1 under ,stefan ,george1 issued the 
now famous ,bltter  fr die ,kunst4 ,the 

,englishmen1 indeed1 who attended these 
soires of  the ,rue de ,rome did not    
come away empty-handed4 ,not only did   
their  own work suffer an artistic      
change through this influence1 but they 
handed it on to their successors4 ,so   
directly and indirectly the great       
,french painters and writers of the day 
influenced the art of ,england1         
creating the opportunity for a distinct 
secession from the art of the  previous 
age4 ,at the same time ,french art and  
literature were never  stationary but   
always developing4 ,it was only in #ahij
 that we find  the real ,rgnier         
appearing4 ,in the same year ,paul      
,fort1 just eighteen  summers like      
,beardsley1 founded the ,thtre d',art4  
,all this ,french art  at high pressure 
had a stimulating effect on ,english    
art2 and1 in fact1  remained its main   
stimulus until the ,boer ,war1 when the 
imperialism of  writers like ,kipling   
became the chief interest4 ,so it was in
 no small  degree the literary          

symbolists1 the plein air painters and  
all the  motives that lay behind them1  
that awoke the ,englishmen of the       
nineties  to new possibilities in art   
and life4 ,in ,paris1 in #ahij1         
,rothenstein  met ,conder1 and at once  
the two became lifelong friends4 ,there 
they  encountered artists like ,toulouse
 ,lautrec and ,anquetin4    ,the first  
men1 of course1 to realise this feverish
 activity in ,france  were the elder    
men1 who handed on the tidings to the   
younger majority4  ,thus the men of the 
eighties turned the attention of the    
unknown of the  nineties towards        
,france1 so that ,englishmen again began
 to remember  that something else       
counted in ,paris besides lingerie4 ,in 
dealing then  with the influences that  
helped to beget the period1 it is as    
well to  remember that if ,walter ,pater
 and ,whistler were its forerunners1 so 
to  speak1 ,oscar ,wilde and ,george    
,moore were responsible in no small     
degree  for many of the tendencies that 

afterwards became prevalent4    ,wilde  
himself1 in fact1 was artistically an   
influence for evil on his  weaker       
juniors4 ,his social success1 his keen  
persiflage1 his indolent  pose of       
greatness1 blinded them as much as it   
did the   to his  real artistic industry
 and merit4 ,his worst works were1 in   
fact1 with  one exception1 his          
disciples4 ,richard ,le ,gallienne in   
his ,quest of the  ,golden ,girl and    
,prose ,fancies was watered-down ,wilde1
 and very thin  at that4 ,even ,john    
,davidson1 in ,baptist ,lake and ,earl  
,lavender1  strove in vain to overtake  
the masterly ease with which ,wilde's   
ordered  prose periods advance like     
cohorts of centurions to the sound of a 
full orchestra4 ,wilde's best work--his 
,prose ,poems1 his poem ,the  ,harlot's 
,house1 his one-acter ,salom1 and one or
 two of the stories  in the ,house of   
,pomegranates--will1 however1 remain as 
some of the  finest flowers of the age's
 art4 ,yet ,wilde1 in reality1 was      

senior to  the nineties proper1 and was 
much too good an artist to approve of   
much  of the work that was done in      
imitation of himself during the period  
by the mere hangers-on of the nineties4 
,he was with the men of the  nineties1  
but not of them4 ,beardsley1 indeed1 the
 age's real king1 took  the liberty of  
mocking at ,wilde in the very           
illustrations1 or rather  decorations1  
intended for ,wilde's most elaborate    
production4 ,wilde1  in his turn1 never 
wrote for ,the ,yellow ,book1 which he  
disliked  intensely4 ,again1 we know    
what ,symons's opinion of ,wilde was    
from his  essay on him as a poseur4 ,in 
fact1 ,wilde was a writer apart from the
  others1 though undoubtedly his        
presence among them up to the time of   
his dbcle was a profound direct         
influence4    ,on the other hand1       
,george ,moore1 as a reactionary        
influence against  ,victorianism1#a as a
 senior who had lived and written in    
,paris1 was  more of an indirect factor 

for the younger men4 ,for a time he     
lived  in the ,temple1 where many of    
them had come to live4 ,by his works he 
helped to disseminate the influences of 
the great ,french writers and  painters 
that had come into his own life4 ,his   
own writings came to  others surcharged 
with #8,the poisonous honey of ,france4'
 ,in his ,modern  ,painting1 in his     
novel1 ,evelyn ,innes1 in his era of    
servitude to  ,flaubert's majesty1 he is
 of the nineties4 ,but the nineties with
 ,george  ,moore were merely a phase out
 of which he grew1 as out of many       
others4  ,but when the nineties began   
,moore contrived to assist at their     
birth in  the same way as he did later  
at that of the ,celtic renaissance4     
,indeed1  it is said1 in ,moore's novel1
 ,mike ,fletcher 7#ahhi71 one can obtain
 a  glimpse of the manner in which the  
period was to burgeon4        #a ,see   
his ,literature at ,nurse1 #ahhe4       
,there was1 indeed1 amongst the younger 
men in those early days a  wonderful    

spirit of camaraderie4 ,it was an       
attractive period full  of the glamour  
of youth before it went down fighting   
for ,art with a  capital ,a1 before age 
had chilled its blood or dulled its     
vision4 ,and  there came1 no doubt1 an  
immense vitality for them all1 a        
stimulating  energy to each one1 from   
this meeting together in ,london4       
,indeed1  coming together by chance1 as 
it were1 in ,london1 they not only      
discovered one another and the ineffable
 boon of comradeship1 but they  also    
rediscovered1 through ,whistler1 ,london
 for art4 ,so once again the  streets of
 ,london began to be written about1 not 
it is true in the  ,dickens manner1 but 
still with even as great a love as his4 
,they went  so far as to attempt to     
institute real ,french caf life1 by     
having  meetings at the ,cheshire       
,cheese and evenings in the ,domino     
,room of the  ,caf ,royal4 ,symons wrote
 of the ballets of ,leicester ,square2  
,dowson  of the purlieus round the      

docks2 ,davidson made poems of ,fleet   
,street2  ,binyon sang of white ,st4    
,martin's and the golden gallery of ,st4
 ,paul's2  ,crackanthorpe sketched his  
,london vignettes2 ,street talks of the 
indefinable romance of ,mayfair4 ,in    
fact the nineties brought the ,muses    
back to town4 ,in a cabman's shelter1 in
 ,soho restaurants of doubtful          
cheapness1 in each other's rooms1 they  
rejoiced in each other's  company4 ,at  
the same time ,beardsley1 by a stroke of
 luck through the  good services of     
friends1 was commissioned by ,mr4 ,dent 
to illustrate  ,le ,morte d',arthur4    
,the ,bodley ,press had begun in ,vigo  
,street in #ahhg4  ,symons1 ,yeats1 and 
others had already published their first
 books4 ,the  curtain had gone up on the
 drama of the nineties1 of which this is
  intended as a brief appreciation4     
,at the date of the appearance of these 
young men amid a mass of  lucubrators1  
there was actually a band of genuine    
young writers  7besides the big         

,victorians like ,meredith and ,hardy71 
who were turning  out good work1 and who
 were under the sway of that old ,pan of
 poetry1  ,henley of ,the ,national     
,observer4 ,these young men of ,henley  
must not  be therefore confused with the
 ,yellow ,book group4 ,they were often  
deliberately coarse1 not because they   
liked it1 but because it was  part of   
their artistic gospel4 ,and when one    
considers the methods of  the feeblest  
of them1 one sees more ruffianly sturdy 
,british horseplay  than art1 more      
braying and snarling than sounding on   
the lute4 ,but  among the best of them1 
,stevenson1 ,kipling1 and ,steevens1 was
 a fine  loyalty to the traditions of   
the leading spirit of the ,observer     
,henley--,pan playing on his reed with  
his crippled hoofs hiding amid  the     
water-lilies of the purling stream4 ,all
 these last writers and  artists were   
men of the ,anglo-,saxon tradition2     
while1 on the other  hand1 the young men
 who had1 so to speak1 just come to     

town1 were full  of the ,latin          
tradition4 ,the main thing in the lives 
of these last was  ,french literature   
and art1 and out of this influence came 
not only the  art1 but the              
eccentricities1 of the coterie1 which is
 so often called  the nineties4 ,theirs 
was a new spirit4 ,they were of the     
order of the  delectable #8,les         
,jeunes4' ,epigram opened a new career  
with ,oscar ,wilde2  ,beardsley dreamed 
of a strange world2 ,ernest ,dowson used
 to drink  hashish and make love in     
,soho in the ,french manner of ,henri   
,murger's  ,latin ,quarter--for a time1 
indeed1 hair was worn long1 and the ties
 of  the petty homunculi of the ,wilde  
crowd were of lace2 but1 fortunately1   
artists like ,beardsley and the other   
men worth while did not cultivate       
foolishness except as a protection      
against the bourgeois4    ,but enough of
 these affectations2 the point ,i wish  
to bring out here is  that the men who  
drew and wrote for ,the ,savoy wrote    

their art with  a difference to that of 
those others who were their             
contemporaries  but appeared in the     
first instance as a virile imperialistic
 movement  in ,the ,scots ,observer and 
,the ,national ,observer4 ,the artists  
of  the nineties were more1 as we say   
rather badly in ,english1 of the        
#8kid-glove school4' ,a note of         
refinement1 a distinction of utterance1 
an obsession in ,art marked all their   
best as well as their worst work4  ,but 
this by no means prevented the two      
schools having a very salutary          
influence on each other4 ,indeed1 we    
find a man like ,mr4 ,w4 ,b4 ,yeats1    
who really belonged to a third movement1
 his own ,celtic renaissance1           
publishing first of all lyrics like     
#8,the ,lake ,isle of ,innisfree' under 
the banner of ,henley1 and attending a  
year or two later the ,rhymers'  ,club  
meetings before he found his own        
demesne4 ,but to his former  comrades of
 the ,cheshire ,cheese1 the men who     

concern us here1 ,yeats  has found      
occasion to render befitting praise in  
the well-known lines3        ,you had to
 face your ends when young--            
',twas wine or women1 or some curse--   
,but never made a poorer song           
,that you might have a heavier purse2   
,nor gave loud service to a cause       
,that you might have a troop of friends3
      ,you kept the ,muses' sterner laws
        ,and unrepenting faced your     
ends4    ,in fact1 since influences and 
counter-influences in all ages of       
literature are such subtle vermin to    
ferret out1 ,i propose to avoid  as far 
as possible any generalities in that    
connection1 and to  interpret broadly   
and briefly a somewhat vague period that
 reviewers  have acquired the habit of  
calling #8the nineties4' ,what then was 
this  period8 ,it was a portion of the  
last decade of the last century which   
began about #ahij1 and passing through  
the ,rhymers' ,club1 blossomed out  into
 ,the ,yellow ,book and ,the ,savoy     

periodicals1 and produced works  like   
,beardsley's drawings1 ,conder's fans1  
,dowson's poetry1 and ,hubert           
,crackanthorpe's short stories4 ,the men
 who composed the group are too         
numerous to recall in their entirety1   
even if a satisfactory list of  such a  
nature could be produced4 ,so all ,i    
intend to attempt here is a  summary of 
the activities of certain typical       
examples of the group as  will serve to 
furnish an appreciation of their general
 work4 ,and the  way ,i propose to      
obtain this view is to begin by         
considering ,beardsley  as the central  
figure of the period2 to deal next with 
the two most  vital manifestoes of the  
movement and their respective literary  
editors1 ,the ,yellow ,book and ,henry  
,harland1 ,the ,savoy and ,mr4  ,arthur 
,symons1 passing on in turn to the      
writers of fiction1 the poets1  the     
essayists and dramatists not of the     
whole decade1 but only to those  with   
whom this particular movement is        

concerned2 it will then be time  to make
 a few deductions on the spirit of the  
whole of this tendency4  ,by rigidly    
adhering to only those men who were     
actually of the nineties  group ,i am   
only too conscious these pages will be  
considered often  to be lacking in the  
great literary events and figures of the
 age1  such as ,hardy's ,jude the       
,obscure1 the rise of the ,kipling star1
 the  tragedy of ,wilde1 the coming of  
,conrad1 etc4 etc4 ,yet the sole object 
of this scant summary would be defeated 
if ,i began to prattle of these  and    
others like ,bernard ,shaw4 ,in fact its
 raison d'tre constrains a  method of   
treatment which must not be broken4     
,i      ,to begin with ,aubrey          
,beardsley has many advantages1 for it  
brings  us at once not only to the type 
of mentality most representative of  the
 period1 but also to the man whose      
creative power was probably  the        
greatest factor of the period1 to the   
boy who changed1 as has  been said1 the 

black and white art of the world1 and to
 the artist1  from whose work we can    
most easily deduce the leading          
contemporary  characteristics4 ,the art 
of these men was in a way abnormal1     
while the  men themselves who produced  
it were exotics2 and ,beardsley's is not
  only the most abnormal art of them    
all1 but also he himself is the         
greatest exotic4 ,as ,robert ,ross well 
said as a mere comment on the  decade1  
he is invaluable3 #8,he sums up all the 
delightful manias1 all  that is best in 
modern appreciation--,greek vases1      
,italian primitives1  the               
8,hypnerotomachia10 ,chinese porcelain1 
,japanese kakemonos1  ,renaissance      
friezes1 old ,french and ,english       
furniture1 rare enamels1  medival       
illumination1 the dbonnaire masters of  
the eighteenth  century1 the ,english   
pre-,raphaelites4' ,in ,beardsley1 so to
 speak1 was  inset all the influences   
that went to make the period what it    
was4 ,and  another reason why it is so  

convenient to begin with him is that he 
and not ,oscar ,wilde was in reality the
 great creative genius of the  age4     
,besides his black-and-white work all   
the world knows1 in which1 as  ,father  
,gray says1 #8,his imaginative gifts    
never showed a sign of fatigue  or      
exhaustion1'#b ,beardsley practised in  
other arts4 ,while a youngster  at      
,brighton he promised to become a       
musical prodigy1 and in later days      
,symons describes him at a ,wagner      
concert gripping the seat with nervous  
intensity4 ,he wrote some charming      
poetry1 and as picturesque a fairy  tale
 for grown-ups as has ever been written 
in ,under the ,hill4 ,in an  interview  
he states1 probably slyly1 he was at    
work in #ahie on a modern  novel#c2     
while in #ahig he said1 #8,cazotte has  
inspired me to make some  small contes4 
,i have one in hand now called ,the     
,celestial ,lover4' ,he  began once to  
write a play with the actor1 ,brandon   
,thomas4 ,in his late  illustrations for

 ,gautier's ,mademoiselle de ,maupin he 
was clearly  working towards            
water-colour work1 while at one time he 
began under  ,walter ,sickert his only  
oil painting 7unfinished71 #8,women     
regarding a  dead mouse4' ,by no means  
least1 he became a leader in ,english   
poster  work4 ,all of this was          
essentially creative work4 ,and when    
death came  he was very far from his    
artistic or intellectual maturity4 ,so  
is it  not just to say that this young  
man who practised nearly all the forms  
of art1 and who was also an avid reader 
and student1 remains the chief  creative
 figure of the nineties8        #b ,last
 ,letters of ,aubrey ,beardsley1 with an
 ,introduction by          the ,rev4    
,john ,gray1 #aijd4        #c ,the      
,sketch1 ,april #aj1 #ahie4    ,indeed1 
there is no more pleasing personality in
 the whole period  than this #8apostle  
of the grotesque1' as his own decade    
loved to hail  him4 ,born at ,brighton  
in #ahgb he was educated at the local   

,grammar  ,school1 whose magazine1 ,past
 and ,present1 contains his earliest    
work4 ,the ,kate ,greenaway picture     
books1 it is said1 started him  drawing4
 ,at school he was neither keen on his  
work or games1 but used  to be          
continually doing #8little rough1       
humorous sketches4' ,reading  was his   
great refuge1 and when he fell in with  
some volumes of the  ,restoration       
dramatists he had already begun to find 
his feet in that  world of the mad lusts
 of ,wycherley and the perfumed         
artificiality  of ,congreve4 ,of school 
life itself he speaks bitterly and with 
no  regret4 ,at sixteen he must have    
been particularly glad to escape from   
it and enter1 first of all1 an          
architect's office in ,london1 and then1
  the next year1 the ,guardian ,life and
 ,fire ,assurance ,office1 where  his   
fatal illness unfortunately first began 
to reveal its presence4  ,then came his 
seed-time up till #ahia1 when he did    
little but amateur  theatricals4 ,but at

 length ,beardsley discovered himself4  
,many gentlemen  have subsequently      
stated that they discovered him4 ,it may
 be that they  discovered him for       
themselves1 but it was ,beardsley and   
,beardsley alone  who found himself4 ,he
 certainly received1 however1 a large   
amount of  appreciative sympathy when he
 started to draw a series of            
illustrations  in his spare time for    
,congreve's ,way of the ,world1 and     
,marlowe's  ,tamburlaine4 ,he was       
without art training in the usual sense1
 though  he went of nights in #ahib to  
,professor ,brown's night school at     
,westminster1 but still kept to the     
,insurance ,office stool till ,august1  
when1 after being recognised by         
,burne-,jones and ,watts with kindness1 
he left his post to live by his art4    
,what had probably actually  permitted  
him to take this step was the commission
 given by ,j4 ,m4 ,dent  to illustrate  
,le ,morte d',arthur4 ,any way he was   
launched out by the  first number of    

,the ,studio with ,joseph ,pennell's    
article on #8,a ,new  ,illustrator1'    
and1 what was more important1 with      
eleven of ,beardsley's  own works4 ,at  
that time all his art was intuitive     
without much  knowledge of modern black 
and white4 ,indeed he was artistically  
swamped  at the moment with the glory of
 the pre-,raphaelites and ,burne-,jones4
  ,the ,le ,morte d',arthur1 really1 was
 intended as a kind of rival to the     
,kelmscott ,press publications1 and     
,beardsley in his border designs had    
small difficulty in excelling ,morris's 
work4    ,next year1 #ahic1 finds these 
influences modified to a certain extent1
  although the ,salom drawings still    
belong to that cadaverous1  lean and    
hungry world of ,burne-,jones1 from     
which ,beardsley has not  completely as 
yet rescued himself by means of         
,frenchmen like ,constantin  ,guys2 but 
his release has well arrived in #ahid   
with his design #8,the  ,fat ,woman1' a 
caricature of ,mrs4 ,whistler4 ,watteau1

 ,rops1 and the  ,japanese1 and the     
thousand books he is now reading throw  
open at last  all the splendour of the  
art world to him4 ,he lacks nothing1 and
 he  goes forward borrowing lavishly1   
like ,shakespeare1 from any source  that
 suits him4 ,beardsley's illustrations  
are generally critical  decorations1    
although it must never be forgotten he  
did attempt on  more than one occasion a
 series of illustration pure and simple 
in1  for example1 his early scenes for  
,manon ,lescaut1 ,la ,dame aux          
,camlias1 and ,madame ,bovary1 which are
 not altogether successful4  ,he is     
perhaps at his best as the illustrating 
critic1 which he is  somewhat scornfully
 in ,salom1 very happily in ,pope's ,the
 ,rape of  the ,lock1 and triumphantly  
in ,aristophanes' ,lysistrata4 ,it can  
be  said of his work1 rather sweepingly 
no doubt1 but still truthfully1  he     
began by decorating books with his ,le  
,morte d',arthur2 he then  tried        
illustrating them2 but wound up in      

criticising them by his  decorations4   
#8,have you noticed1' he once wrote to  
,father ,gray1 #8have  you noticed that 
no book ever gets well illustrated once 
it becomes a  classic8 ,contemporary    
illustrations are the only ones of any  
value or  interest4' ,but ,beardsley was
 always more than a mere illustrator1   
for  where a learned ,editor writes     
notes and annotations on ,aristophanes1 
he decorates him2 where ,arthur ,symons 
would write an essay on  ,mademoiselle  
de ,maupin1 ,beardsley does a number of 
critical designs4  ,it was1 in fact1 an 
age of the critical function2 but       
,beardsley's  criticism is of that      
supreme kind ,oscar ,wilde called       
#8creative  criticism4'    ,at one time 
it was customary for critics to plead   
that he was only a  supreme imitator of 
the ,japanese or somebody2 but1 in      
reality1 as has  been pointed out by    
,robert ,ross in his admirable essays on
 his work1 he  was as intensely original
 as an illustrator as ,sandro           

,botticelli was in  his designs for     
,dante's ,divine ,comedy1 or ,william   
,blake for the drama  of ,job4 ,none of 
them interpreted authors for dull people
 who could not  understand what they    
read4 ,perhaps the very best way to     
appreciate  his work of this kind is    
often to take it away from the text1 and
 say  this is the way ,beardsley saw    
,the ,rape of the ,lock4 ,as for all the
  supposed influences he is pretended to
 have laboured under1 it can be  at once
 said1 he was too restless a personality
 to accept merely one  influence at a   
time4 ,if he took from anywhere1 he took
 from everywhere1  and the result is a  
great and original draughtsman1 the     
music of whose  line has been the theme 
of many artists4 ,with little stippled  
lines in  the background1 and masses of 
black in the foreground1 the ,wagnerites
  burgeon forth4 ,black and white in    
some of his drawings even tell us  the  
colour of some of the silks his women   
wear1 and his white is the  plain white 

of the paper1 not the ,chinese          
subterfuge4 ,a few rhythmic  pen-strokes
 on the virgin sheet and strangely vital
 people live4 ,the  hand of ,salom may  
be out of drawing1 the anatomy of       
,lysistrata wrong2  but1 all the same1  
they live with a rich malevolent life4  
,one has to  go back to the ,greek      
vase-painters to find such a vivid life 
realised  with such simple effects4     
,this simplicity and austerity of lines1
 these  few dots for the telling        
eyelashes1 these blank spaces of        
untouched  paper almost insult one with 
the perfect ease with which everything  
is  accomplished4 ,but1 as a matter of  
fact1 how different1 how difficult  was 
the actual creation of these designs6   
,what infinite pains1 what  knowledge   
went to their composition6 #8,he        
sketched everything in pencil1  at first
 covering the paper with apparent       
scrawls1 constantly rubbed  out and     
blocked in again1 until the whole       
surface became raddled from  pencil1    

indiarubber1 and knife2 over this       
incoherent surface he worked  in        
,chinese ink with a gold pen1 often     
ignoring the pencil lines1  afterwards  
carefully removed4 ,so every drawing was
 invented1 built  up1 and completed on  
the same sheet of paper4'#d #8,but      
,beardsley's  subtlety does not lie only
 in his technique1 but also in what he  
expresses thereby4 ,looking at his      
drawings1 one always feels in the       
presence of something alive1 something  
containing deep human interest2  and the
 reason is that1 while ,beardsley seldom
 aimed at realistic  rendering of the   
human form1 he was a superb realist in  
another  respect1 this being that his   
workmanship always proved itself        
adequate  for the expression of the most
 subtle emotions1 and for the embodiment
  of the artist's unique personality4'#e
        #d ,aubrey ,beardsley1 by       
,robert ,ross1 pp4 #ch-ci4 #aiji4       
#e ,the ,renaissance of the ,nineties1  
by ,w4 ,g4 ,blaikie          ,murdoch1  

p4 #bi4 #aiaa4    ,this charming        
personality stood him in good stead when
 the ,beardsley  craze burst upon       
,london4 ,he had literally set the      
,thames on fire4 ,it  was in #ahid1 when
 he became art editor of ,the ,yellow   
,book 7which ,i  discuss on another     
page71 that the craze began in earnest4 
,his poster  for ,dr4 ,john ,todhunter's
 ,the ,comedy of ,sighs1 at the ,avenue 
,theatre1  a three-quarter-length figure
 of a woman in deep blue1 standing      
behind  a gauze curtain powdered with   
light green spots1 electrified the dull 
hoardings of ,london4 ,another poster1  
the female figure in a salmon-pink      
dress standing opposite a second-hand   
bookshop1 with its scheme of  black1    
green1 orange1 and salmon pink1         
advertising ,fisher ,unwin's  ,pseudonym
 ,library1 flashed its colours gaily    
amid a mass of stupid  commercial       
advertising4 ,punch parodied #8,the     
,blessed ,damozel' with  a new version  
of lauds for #8,the ,beardsley ,girl4'  

,a famous tea-shop  exploited the type  
of female beauty4    ,oscar ,wilde's    
play ,salom was illustrated by the newly
 arrived young  artist4 ,the columns of 
the papers and magazines spread his     
fame1 or  more often belittled it4 ,the 
new art magazine1 ,the ,studio1 not only
  raised him to the skies1 but had its  
first cover done by him4 ,and all  this 
happened to a boy who had only been gone
 from school six years1  and whose total
 age when he became the art craze of    
,london was only  twenty-two4 ,but he   
was not to stop there4 ,after four more 
years of  crowded1 feverish work he was 
to die1 after having affected all the   
black and white art of the world4 ,he   
was to be at once accepted in  ,paris4  
,he was to raise a shoal of imitators1  
and to influence more or  less          
detrimentally dozens of good artists4   
,yet all this phenomenal success was not
 to change his charming  personality in 
the least4 ,he still remained ,aubrey   
,beardsley1 the boy  doomed to death1   

but still with the lovable heart of a   
boy who wanted  to enjoy life4    ,max  
,beerbohm has given us a wonderful      
personal record of his friend1  in which
 he says3 #8,for him1 as for the        
schoolboy whose holidays are  near their
 close1 every hour--every minute1       
even--had its value4 ,his  drawings1 his
 compositions in prose and in verse1 his
 reading--these  things were not enough 
to satisfy his strenuous demands on     
life4 ,he was  an accomplished musician1
 he was a great frequenter of concerts1 
and  seldom when he was in ,london did  
he miss a 8,wagner night0 at ,covent    
,garden4 ,he loved dining-out1 and1 in  
fact1 gaiety of any kind4444  ,he was   
always most content where there was the 
greatest noise and  bustle1 the largest 
number of people1 and the most brilliant
 light4'  ,in the ,domino ,room of the  
,caf ,royal in ,london2 outside the     
,brighton  ,pavilion1 whose architecture
 haunted him all his life1 ,beardsley   
was  at home and happy4 #8,i am really  

happy1' he writes1 #8in ,paris4' ,and it
  was ,beardsley's chief preoccupation  
to communicate in his drawings the      
surprise and delight which this visible 
world afforded him--a world  of strange 
demi-mondaines and eupeptic             
stockbrokers1 of odd social  parasites  
and gullible idiots4 ,he always had an  
engaging smile that was  delightful for 
friends and strangers2 while he was big 
enough1 ,robert  ,ross chronicles1 to   
make friends and remain friends with    
many for whom  his art was totally      
unintelligible4    ,after he vacated    
,the ,yellow ,book art editorship1 and  
,the ,savoy had  been issued1 ,leonard  
,smithers became the real ,beardsley    
publisher4  ,there were no dead-locks   
with him as to nude ,amors1 for         
,smithers had  a courage of his own--a  
courage great enough to issue ,the      
,ballad of  ,reading ,gaol when ,wilde  
was under his cloud1 and no other       
publisher  would look at it4 ,it was    
,smithers who issued ,the ,savoy1 the   

two  books of ,fifty ,drawings1 ,the    
,rape of the ,lock1 ,the ,pierrot of the
  ,minute1 the designs for ,mademoiselle
 de ,maupin1 and among others  the eight
 #8,lysistrata' and the four #8,juvenal'
 drawings4 ,for any one to  study all   
this variety and rapid growth to an     
astounding maturity of  conception and  
execution no better volumes can be      
recommended than ,a  ,book of ,fifty    
,drawings 7#ahig71 and ,a ,second ,book 
of ,fifty ,drawings  7#ahii74 ,the      
former book is much the better of the   
two1 for the latter  is a book of scraps
 to a large extent4 ,indeed1 in the     
first book all  the drawings were       
fortunately selected by both ,beardsley 
himself and  ,smithers4 ,the artist     
allowed no drawing to appear in it with 
which he  was at all dissatisfied4 ,it  
includes his favourite1 #8,the          
,ascension of  ,st4 ,rose of ,lima'2 but
 one cannot help thinking that there    
have crept  into it far too many of his 
immature ,le ,morte d',arthur series4   

,for  when this volume was issued he had
 completely discarded that painful      
method of design4 ,indeed1 the ,salom   
decorations 7#ahid7 had bridged  this   
brief spell of his puerility to the rich
 fulfilment of ,the ,rape  of the ,lock 
7#ahif74 ,whistler at once saw this     
difference1 for1 it is  on record1 when 
,beardsley first showed these last      
designs to him he  #8looked at them     
first indifferently1 then with interest1
 then with  delight4 ,and then he said  
slowly1 8,aubrey1 ,i have made a very   
great  mistake1 you are a very great    
artist40 ,and the boy burst out crying4 
,all ,whistler could say1 when he could 
say anything1 was1 8,i mean it--,i  mean
 it40'    ,in reality one can of course 
now see signs of the real artist even in
  the ,le ,morte d',arthur series4 ,for 
example1 the true ,beardsley type  of   
woman appears in the design entitled    
#8,how ,queen ,guenever made her a      
,nun4' ,these ,beardsley women1 ,wilde  
hinted1 were first invented by the      

artist and then copied by nature4 ,they 
have1 indeed1 been the cause  of much   
fine writing1 one androgynist describing
 them as the fruit of  a ,french bagnio 
and a ,chinese visitor4 ,as ,pierre     
,caume demanded of  ,flicien ,rops we   
are moved to ask of ,beardsley3         
,quels clairs ont nimb tes fillettes    
plies8      ,quel stupre assez pervers1 
quel amour devast      ,met des reflets 
d'absinthe en leurs melancolies8        
,they belong to the same world as the   
women of ,toulouse ,lautrec1 ,rops1     
,odlon ,redon1 ,bayros1 and             
,rassenfosse--the type known as la      
loupeuse  insatiable et cupide4 ,they   
move and have their being in ,french    
erotica  and novels like ,la ,faustine4 
,beardsley had now 7#ahif7 reached his  
best period with ,the ,rape of the      
,lock and ,the ,lysistrata of           
,aristophanes1 and of the two the palm  
should be awarded to the eight designs  
of the latter work4 ,no one has  yet    
dared to say that these are probably his

 masterpieces2 but some  day1 when the  
kinship between ,beardsley and those old
 ,greek ,masters  who designed their    
exquisite vases and wine cups is        
established1 this  truism may also come 
to light4 ,it is unlikely1 however1 to  
become  revealed until ,aristophanes    
himself is fully translated in the      
vulgar  tongue1 for not even the most   
generous ,editor in his monumental      
edition  has essayed that impertinence  
to ,mrs4 ,grundy4 ,the illustrations or 
rather critical decorations of          
,beardsley are also not likely to become
  generally circulated to all because of
 their frankness4 ,for phallism  is     
purely pornographic if it has nothing to
 do with your subject4 ,but             
unfortunately it is a considerable      
factor in the ,lysistrata1 as every     
scholar knows4 ,beardsley himself in his
 letters lays considerable  emphasis on 
the fact that he was illustrating       
,aristophanes and not  ,donnay's ,french
 version of the same4 ,and never was he 

more cynical  or more incisive2 never   
did he use fewer lines with more effect2
  never was love and its depravities    
more scathingly or so disdainfully      
ridiculed4 ,in all there were eight     
drawings issued with a variant of  the  
third1 though ,i have reason to believe 
there was also a ninth1 and  even this1 
his worst erotic drawing1 has nothing to
 do with obscenity4  ,he had learned too
 much from the men who designed the old 
,hellenic  pottery to be obscene4 ,he   
was frank as ,chaucer is frank1 not     
vicious  as ,aretino delighted to be1 or
 indecent like the ,english artists     
,rowlandson and ,james ,gillray were in 
some of their fantasies4 ,virgil  dying 
wanted to destroy his neids1 and        
,beardsley in articulo mortis  wrote    
#8to destroy all copies of ,lysistrata  
and bawdy drawings4' ,yet  he has       
nothing to fear from the genuine issue  
of those drawings that  remain1 or from 
the numberless pirated copies that have 
since exuded  mysteriously into places  

like ,charing ,cross ,road4 ,even ,fuchs
 in his  ,erotische ,kunst has to say3  
#8,beardsley is specially to be noticed 
for the refinement of his conceptions1  
his ultra-modern culture1 his  taste1   
his sense of proportion1 his maturity of
 execution4 ,no harsh  or discordant    
notes1 no violent tones4 ,on the        
contrary1 a wheedling  finesse4 ,in some
 respects he is the 8maladive0 beauty of
 our time  incarnate4' ,beardsley1      
indeed1 never descended to the horrors  
of an  ,alfred ,kubin or to the tone of 
certain of ,bayros's designs4 ,he was   
neither immoral nor moral1 but unmoral  
like ,rassenfosse or any one else  who  
has not a fixed ethical theory to teach4
 ,in his ,juvenal drawings  7#ahig71 his
 five ,lucian sketches 7#ahid71 and the 
,lysistrata 7#ahif7  he went straight to
 the great gifts of classical           
literature1 and in  touching classical  
things he took on the ancient outlook   
via1 ,i  believe1 those wonderful ,greek
 vase designers#f which he1 so assiduous

  a haunter of the ,british ,museum1    
must have not only seen1 but revelled   
in4 ,but of these the best and freest   
are the ,lysistrata conceptions2  and to
 enjoy these one needs an initiation    
that is not every man's to  receive4    
#f ,ross says in his ,aubrey ,beardsley1
 p4 #de1 one of the          events     
which contributed #8to give ,beardsley a
 fresh impetus          and stimulate   
his method of expression' about the     
,salom          time was #8a series of  
visits to the collection of ,greek      
vases in the ,british ,museum 7prompted 
by an essay of ,mr4          ,d4 ,s4    
,mac,coll74'    ,we are1 however1 more  
interested here with the literary side  
of his  work1 which divides itself into 
poetry and prose4 ,as a poet ,beardsley 
has been accused of over-cleverness4    
,whatever that criticism means ,i do    
not know4 ,probably it implies some     
similar reflection to the statement     
that a dandy is over-dressed4 ,i cannot1
 however1 discover any such  affectation

 in1 for example1 that charming poem1   
,the ,three ,musicians1  which recounts 
how the soprano #8lightly frocked1' the 
slim boy who dies  #8for rclame and     
recall at ,paris1' and the ,polish      
pianist1 pleased with  their thoughts1  
their breakfast1 and the summer day1    
wend their way  #8along the path that   
skirts the wood'3            ,the       
,polish genius lags behind1             
,and1 with some poppies in his hand1    
,picks out the strings and wood and wind
            ,of an imaginary band4      
,enchanted that for once his men obey   
his beat and understand4            ,the
 charming cantatrice reclines           
,and rests a moment where she sees      
,her chteau's roof that hotly shines    
,amid the dusky summer trees1      ,and 
fans herself1 half shuts her eyes1 and  
smooths the frock about                 
her knees4            ,the gracious boy 
is at her feet1            ,and weighs  
his courage with his chance2            
,his fears soon melt in noonday heat4   

,the tourist gives a furious glance1    
,red as his guide-book1 moves on1 and   
offers up a prayer for ,france4    ,in  
,the ,ballad of a ,barber1 again1 there 
is nothing but a trill of  song in      
limpid verse4 ,how ,carrousel1 the      
barber of ,meridian ,street1  who could 
#8curl wit into the dullest face1'      
became fou of the  thirteen-year-old    
,king's daughter1 so that        ,his   
fingers lost their cunning quite1       
,his ivory combs obeyed no more2    is a
 typical ninety jeu d'esprit1 only much 
better done than the  average one4 ,with
 the fewest words ,beardsley can sketch 
a scene or  character1 as he used the   
fewest of lines in his drawings4 ,this  
is  even better exemplified in his      
prose4 ,time and again a single sentence
  of ,under the ,hill gives us a        
complete picture3      ,sporion was a   
tall1 depraved young man1 with a slight 
stoop1 a    troubled walk1 an oval1     
impassible face1 with its olive skin    
drawn    lightly over the bone1 strong1 

scarlet lips1 long ,japanese eyes1      
and a great gilt toupet4    ,we seem to 
gaze with the ,abb ,fanfreluche at the  
prints on his bedroom  wall3            
,within the delicate curved frames lived
 the corrupt and gracious    creatures  
of ,dorat and his school1 slender       
children in masque    and domino1       
smiling horribly1 exquisite lechers     
leaning over    the shoulders of smooth1
 doll-like girls1 and doing nothing in  
particular1 terrible little ,pierrots   
posing as lady lovers and    pointing at
 something outside the picture1 and     
unearthly fops and    huge1 bird-like   
women mingling in some rococo room4     
,one rubs one's eyes4 ,are these not the
 drawings ,franz von ,bayros of  ,vienna
 realised later8 ,but ,beardsley's      
output of both prose and verse  is      
actually so limited that one cannot     
compare his double art work to  that of 
an artist like ,rossetti4 ,when all is  
said and done1 his great  literary work 
is the unfinished #8fairy' tale of      

,under the ,hill4 ,in  its complete form
 it belongs to the class of works like  
,casanova's  ,mmoires1 the ,reigen of   
,schnitzler1 the novels of ,restif de   
la ,bretonne1 and some of the ,thousand 
and ,one ,nights4 ,it is an  enchanting 
book in the same way as ,mademoiselle de
 ,maupin or ,le ,roi  ,pausole are      
enchanting books4 ,in its rococo style  
it surpasses the  best rhythms of       
,wilde1 who only succeeds in cataloguing
 long lists of  beautiful things1 while 
,aubrey ,beardsley suggests more than he
 says  in the true impressionist way of 
all the writers of the nineties4        
,indeed1 the purple patches of          
,beardsley are as rich in fine phrases  
as any paragraphs of the period--as     
faisande as any ,french writer  has     
written4 ,elizabethan euphuists1        
,restoration conceit-makers1 later      
,latins with all the rich byzantium flor
 of brains like ,apuleius1  can make as 
finely-sounding phrases1 but ,i doubt   
whether they can pack  away in them as  

rich a pictorial glamour as many of the 
writers of the  nineties1 and ,beardsley
 amongst them1 achieved4 ,we have ,helen
 in #8a  flutter of frilled things' at  
#8taper-time' before her mirror         
displaying  her neck and shoulders #8so 
wonderfully drawn1' and her #8little    
malicious breasts 444 full of the       
irritation of loveliness that can  never
 be entirely comprehended1 or ever      
enjoyed to the utmost4' ,whole  scenes  
of the book are unrolled before us like 
priceless tapestries4  ,the #8ombre     
gateway of the mysterious hill' stands  
before us3      ,the place where he     
stood waved drowsily with strange       
flowers1 heavy    with perfume1 dripping
 with odours4 ,gloomy and nameless weeds
 not    to be found in ,mentzelius4     
,huge moths1 so richly winged they must 
have banqueted upon tapestries and royal
 stuffs1 slept on the    pillars that   
flanked either side of the gateway1 and 
the eyes of    all the moths remained   
open and were burning and bursting with 

a    mesh of veins4 ,the pillars were   
fashioned in some pale stone1 and       
rose up like hymns in the praise of     
pleasure1 for from cap to base    each  
one was carved with loving              
sculptures4444    ,to read ,the ,toilet 
of ,helen1 with its faint echoes perhaps
 of ,max  ,beerbohm's #8,toilet of      
,sabina' in ,the ,perversion of ,rouge1 
is to be  lured on by the sound of the  
sentences3      ,before a toilet-table  
that shone like the altar of ,ntre ,dame
 des    ,victoires1 ,helen was seated in
 a little dressing-gown of black    and 
heliotrope4 ,the ,coiffeur ,cosm was    
caring for her scented    chevelure1 and
 with tiny silver tongs1 warm from the  
caresses    of the flame1 made delicious
 intelligent curls that fell as         
lightly as a breath about her forehead  
and over her eyebrows1 and    clustered 
like tendrils round her neck4 ,her three
 favourite girls1    ,pappelarde1       
,blanchemains1 and ,loureyne1 waited    
immediately upon her    with perfume and

 powder in delicate flaons and frail    
cassolettes1    and held in porcelain   
jars the ravishing paints prepared by   
,chteline for those cheeks and lips     
which had grown a little pale    with   
anguish of exile4 ,her three favourite  
boys1 ,claud1 ,clair1 and    ,sarrasins1
 stood amorously about with salver1 fan1
 and napkin4    ,millamant held a slight
 tray of slippers1 ,minette some tender 
gloves1 ,la ,popelinire--mistress of the
 robes--was ready with a    frock of    
yellow and yellow4 ,la ,zambinella bore 
the jewels1 ,florizel    some flowers1  
,amadour a box of various pins1 and     
,vadius a box of    sweets4 ,her doves1 
ever in attendance1 walked about the    
room that    was panelled with the      
gallant paintings of ,jean ,baptiste    
,dorat1 and    some dwarfs and doubtful 
creatures sat here and there lolling out
    their tongues1 pinching each other1 
and behaving oddly enough4    ,there you
 have a ,beardsley drawing transfused   
into words4 ,the same is  true of his   

description of the woods of ,auffray4   
,the same is true of  the wonderful     
supper served on the terrace to ,helen  
and her guests amid  the gardens4 ,to   
find such another supper in literature  
one has to turn  to some ,french author1
 or1 better still1 to the #8,cena       
,trimalchionis'  of ,petronius himself4 
,from this it will be seen that         
,beardsley's  literary work1#g like his 
black-and-white1 though the embodiment  
of  the spirit of his age1 is also of   
the noble order of the highest things   
in art4 ,it is for this reason1 indeed1 
that ,i have selected ,beardsley  as the
 centre-piece of this brief sketch of a 
movement that is dead  and gone4 ,he was
 the incarnation of the spirit of the   
age2 but1 when  the fall of ,wilde      
killed the age and the ,boer ,war buried
 it1 neither  of these things disturbed 
or changed the magic spell of his art4  
,his  age may die1 but he remains4 ,even
 now he has outlived the fad period1    
while many of the books that were       

written at that date by others and      
decorated by him are only valuable      
to-day because of his frontispiece  or  
wrapper4 ,one has not forgotten those   
wrappers1 for as one will not  forget   
the work of ,william ,blake1 one will   
not forget that of ,aubrey  ,beardsley4 
,his enthusiasts treasure the smallest  
fragment4        #g ,in ,the ,influence 
of ,baudelaire in ,france and ,england1 
by ,g4 ,turquet-,milnes1 pp4 #bgg-bhj   
7#aiac71 there is an                    
interesting study of his ,baudelairism4 
,,ii      ,like all artistic and        
literary movements this one had1 in the 
shape  of various periodicals1 its      
manifestoes4 ,in fact1 it was a period  
particularly rich in this kind of fruit4
 ,in ,the ,hobby ,horse the  voices of  
the new spirit were mingled for the     
first time with those  of the past4     
,there were1 among other magazines1 ,the
 ,rose ,leaf1 ,the  ,chameleon1 ,the    
,spirit ,lamp1 ,the ,pageant1 ,the      
,evergreen1 ,the  ,parade1 ,the ,quarto1

 ,the ,dome1 ,the ,chord1 while among   
the popular  papers ,the ,idler1        
,to-,day1 and ,pick-me-,up produced the 
work of men  like ,edgar ,wilson and ,s4
 ,h4 ,sime2 and1 further1 ,the          
,butterfly1 ,the  ,poster1 and ,the     
,studio must be carefully studied for   
the tendencies  of the time4 ,but the   
two principal organs of the movement    
were1 beyond  all doubt1 ,the ,yellow   
,book and ,the ,savoy4 ,round them1 as  
around the  shrines of old beside the   
gean1 gather the faithful and the       
chosen4 ,in  the other publications     
there was too much jostling with the    
profane1  but here #8,procul profani4'  
,it will be well1 therefore1 although it
  has been done more or less before1 to 
study these two magazines in some       
detail1 and also their literary editors 
who gathered the clan together4  ,in    
both cases ,beardsley was the art       
editor1 though he was #8fired1' to  put 
it plainly1 from ,the ,yellow ,book     
after its fourth number4 ,his           

influence1 therefore1 permeated both4   
,in fact1 he made them both works  of   
value for the coming generations1 and   
particularly in the case of  ,the ,savoy
 he bore the burden of the day and saved
 the monthly from  fatuity4 ,when he    
leaves ,the ,yellow ,book it will be    
found to be never  the same4 ,when he is
 too ill to be active in ,the ,savoy it 
becomes  very small beer4 ,so interwoven
 with the lives and values of these     
publications is the genius of ,beardsley
 that one cannot speak of the  one      
without referring to the other4 ,of     
,beardsley himself ,i have already      
spoken1 so ,i propose to confine myself 
strictly to the art editor1  while      
dealing first with ,the ,yellow ,book   
and its literary editor1  ,henry        
,harland1 and then with ,the ,savoy and 
,mr4 ,arthur ,symons4    ,the publisher1
 ,mr4 ,john ,lane1 says#h this          
much-discussed ,yellow ,book  was       
founded one morning during              
half-an-hour's chat over cigarettes1  at

 the ,hogarth ,club1 by himself1        
,beardsley1 and ,henry ,harland4 ,while 
he states that #8,mr4 ,harland had the  
faculty of getting the best from  his   
contributors1' the publisher goes on to 
add3 #8,beardsley's defect as  art      
editor was youth4 ,he would not take    
himself seriously2 as an editor  and    
draughtsman he was almost a practical   
joker1 for one had1 so to  speak1 to    
place his drawings under a microscope   
and look at them upside  down4 ,this    
tendency1 on the eve of the production  
of ,volume ,v41 during  my first visit  
to the ,united ,states1 rendered it     
necessary to omit his  work from that   
volume4' ,looking back on this1 all that
 one can say now  is that although      
,beardsley may have been trying1 after  
all1 he and not  the publisher was ,the 
,yellow ,book1 and with his departure   
the spirit  of the age slowly           
volatilised from the work until it      
deteriorated into  a kind of dull       
keepsake of the ,bodley ,head4 ,there   

were thirteen numbers  in all1 and      
,beardsley actually art-edited the first
 four4 ,in the  charming prospectus for 
the fifth volume he is still described  
as art  editor1 and four ,beardsleys    
were to have appeared in it3            
#8,frontispiece  to the ,chopin         
,nocturnes1' #8,atalanta1' #8,black     
,coffee1' and the portrait  of ,miss    
,letty ,lind in #8,an ,artist's ,model4'
 ,however1 the break came1  and         
,beardsley had no further connection1   
unfortunately1 with the fifth  volume4  
#h ,in his pamphlet1 ,aubrey ,beardsley 
and ,the ,yellow ,book1 p4          #a4 
#aijc4    ,the first number1 as in the  
case of so many similar periodicals1 was
  brilliant4 ,the standard set was too  
high1 indeed1 to last1 and to the  staid
 ,english literary press of the time it 
was something of a seven  days' wonder4 
,the ,times described its note as a     
#8combination of  ,english rowdyism and 
,french lubricity4' ,the ,westminster   
,gazette asked  for a #8short ,act of   

,parliament to make this kind of thing  
illegal4'  ,above all1 the whole rabble 
descends howling on the art editor4 ,it 
is  ,beardsley that annoys them1 proving
 how he stands out at once beyond  his  
comrades4 ,against the literary editor1 
,henry ,harland1 nothing is  said2 but  
the press are full of the offences of   
one ,beardsley4    ,as ,mr4 ,j4 ,m4     
,kennedy1 in his ,english ,literature1  
#ahhj-aije1 has  devoted an admirable1  
if somewhat scornful1 chapter to the    
contents of  ,the ,yellow ,book1 it is  
to ,henry ,harland1 who seems to have   
merited  all the charming things said   
about him1 that ,i would now direct     
attention4    ,a delicate valetudinarian
 always in search of health1 he was born
 at  ,petrograd in ,march1 #ahfa4 ,he   
commenced life in the surrogate of ,new 
,york ,state1 whither his parents       
removed1 writing in his spare time in   
the eighties1 under the nom-de-plume of 
,sidney ,luska1 sketches of  ,american  
,jewish life4 ,like ,theodore ,peters1  

,whistler1 and ,henry ,james1  he could 
not1 however1 resist the call of the    
,old ,world1 and he was  at journalistic
 work in ,london when he was made editor
 of ,the ,yellow  ,book4 ,besides his   
editorial duties he was a regular       
contributor1 not  only writing the      
series of notes signed #8,the ,yellow   
,dwarf1' but also  turning out a number 
of short stories4 ,but ,london was only 
to be a  haven of brief sojourn for this
 writer1 whose health sent him south  to
 ,italy4 ,perhaps his best work in the  
nineties was his short story            
,mademoiselle ,miss1 while later in     
,italy he opened up a new vein of       
dainty comedy fiction in almost         
rose-leaf prose with ,the ,cardinal's   
,snuff-,box 7#aijj71 whose happy        
delicacy of thought and style he never  
equalled again1 but was always essaying 
to repeat until death carried  him off  
in ,italy4 ,although1 therefore1 sitting
 in the editorial chair  at the ,bodley 
,head1 ,harland can only be said to have

 been a bird of  passage in the         
nineties1 and not one of its pillars    
like ,arthur ,symons  of ,the ,savoy4   
,this later publication was started as a
 rival to ,the ,yellow ,book  soon after
 ,beardsley gave up the art-editing of  
the earlier periodical4  ,in #ahie1 when
 #8,symons and ,dowson1 ,beardsley and  
,conder1 were all  together on a holiday
 at ,dieppe 444 it was there1 in a      
cabaret ,mr4  ,sickert has repeatedly   
painted1 that ,the ,savoy was           
originated4'#i ,it  was issued by       
,leonard ,smithers1 the most            
extraordinary publisher1 in  some       
respects1 of the nineties1 a kind of    
modern ,cellini1 who produced  some     
wonderfully finely printed books1 and   
was himself just as much a  part of the 
movement as any of its numerous writers4
 ,indeed1 no survey  of the period can  
be complete without a brief             
consideration of this man4        #i ,w4
 ,g4 ,blaikie ,murdoch's ,renaissance of
 the ,nineties1 p4          #ba4 #aiaa4 

,but to return to ,the ,savoy1 it can be
 aptly described as the  fine flower of 
the publications of the age4 ,it is true
 ,the ,yellow  ,book outlived it1 but   
never did the gospel of the times       
flourish  so exceedingly as in its      
pages4 ,here we see that violent love   
for a  strangeness of proportion in art 
that was the keynote of the age4  ,here 
the abnormal1 the bizarre1 found their  
true home1 and poetry is  the pursuit of
 the unattainable by the exotic4 ,it    
will1 therefore1  not perhaps be out of 
place before dealing with its literary  
editor1  ,mr4 ,arthur ,symons1 to       
discuss the eight numbers that appeared4
 ,number  one 7printed by ,h4 ,s4       
,nichols7 appeared as a quarterly in    
boards in  ,january1 #ahif4 ,an         
editorial note by ,arthur ,symons1 which
 originally  appeared as a prospectus1  
hoped that ,the ,savoy would prove #8a  
periodical of an exclusively literary   
and artistic kind4444 ,all we  ask from 
our contributors is good work1 and good 

work is all we offer  our readers4444   
,we have not invented a new point of    
view4 ,we are not  ,realists1 or        
,romanticists1 or ,decadents4 ,for us1  
all art is good  which is good art4'    
,the contents of the number included a  
typical  ,shaw article1 full1 like all  
of his work1 of the obvious in the terms
  of the scandalous2 some short stories 
by ,wedmore1 ,dowson1 ,rudolf  ,dircks1 
,humphrey ,james1 and ,yeats4 ,the other
 articles were hardly very  original2   
but the contributions of ,beardsley     
dwarf everything else4 ,he  towers out  
above all else with his illustrations1  
his poem ,the ,three  ,musicians1 and   
the beginning of his romantic story     
,under the ,hill4    ,number two        
7,april1 #ahif1 printed by the ,chiswick
 ,press7 had another  editorial note    
courageously thanking the critics of the
 ,press for  their reception of the     
first number1 which #8has been none the 
less  flattering because it has been for
 the most part unfavourable4' ,the      

contents included poems and stories by  
,symons1 ,dowson1 and ,yeats1 while     
,john ,gray and ,selwyn ,image have     
poems and ,wedmore a story4 ,beardsley  
continues his romance1 and lifts the    
number out of the rut with his          
,wagneresque designs4 ,max ,beerbohm    
caricatures him1 and ,shannon and       
,rothenstein are represented4 ,among    
articles there is a series on           
,verlaine2 and ,vincent ,o',sullivan1 in
 a paper #8,on the ,kind of ,fiction    
called ,morbid1' sounds a note of the   
group with his conclusion3 #8,let  us   
cling by all means to our ,george       
,meredith1 our ,henry ,james 444  but   
then let us try1 if we cannot be towards
 others1 unlike these1  if not          
encouraging1 at the least not actively  
hostile and harassing1  when they go out
 in the black night to follow their own 
sullen  will-o'-the-wisps4' ,he is also 
to be thanked for registering the too   
little known name of the ,american1     
,francis ,saltus4    ,number three      

7,july1 #ahif7 appeared in paper covers1
 and ,the ,savoy  becomes a monthly     
instead of a quarterly from now on4     
,there is a  promise1 unfulfilled1 of   
the serial publication of ,george       
,moore's new  novel1 ,evelyn ,innes4    
,yeats commences three articles on      
,william  ,blake and his ,illustrations 
to the #8,divine ,comedy1' and ,hubert  
,crackanthorpe contributes one of his   
best short stories4 ,owing to  illness  
,beardsley's novel stops publication1   
but his ,ballad of a  ,barber relieves  
the monotony of some dull stuff by the  
smaller men4  ,the reproductions of     
,blake's illustrations are made to fill 
the art gap  of ,beardsley1 who has only
 two black-and-whites in4 ,the          
publication of  his novel in book form  
is promised when the artist is well     
enough4    ,number four 7,august1 #ahif7
 at once reveals the effect of          
,beardsley's  inactivity through        
illness1 and shows that ,beardsley is   
,the ,savoy1  and all else but leather  

and prunella4 ,the number1 however1 is  
saved by  a story of ,dowson1 ,the      
,dying of ,francis ,donne1 and on the   
art side a  frontispiece for ,balzac's  
,la ,fille aux ,yeux d',or1 by ,charles 
,conder1  is interesting4    ,number    
five 7,september1 #ahif7 is for some    
unaccountable reason the  hardest number
 to procure4 ,besides the cover and     
title-page it  contains only one        
,beardsley1 ,the ,woman in ,white1 but  
the cover is an  exceptionally beautiful
 ,beardsley1 the two figures in the park
 holding  a colloque sentimental seem to
 have stepped out of the pages of       
,verlaine's poem4 ,theodore ,wratislaw  
and ,ernest ,rhys contribute the        
stories4 ,dowson1 ,yeats1 and the       
,canadian1 ,bliss ,carman1 contribute   
the  best of the poetry4    ,number six 
7,october1 #ahif71 has a very poor art  
side1 with the  exception of            
,beardsley's familiar ,the ,death of    
,pierrot4 ,the literary  contents       
consists chiefly of the editor4 ,one    

notices the periodical is  dying4 ,the  
only unique feature is a story1 ,the    
,idiots1 by ,conrad1 and  ,dowson is    
still faithful with a poem4    ,number  
seven 7,november1 #ahif7 announces in a 
leaflet 7dated ,october7  the death of  
,the ,savoy in the next number4 ,the    
editorial note states  that the         
periodical #8has1 in the main1 conquered
 the prejudices of the  press 444 it has
 not conquered the general public1 and1 
without the  florins of the general     
public1 no magazine 444 can expect to   
pay its  way4' ,in this number          
,beardsley returns to attempt to salve  
it with  his remarkable translation of  
,catullus3 ,carmen ,,ci41 and           
illustration  thereto4 ,yeats and       
,dowson contribute poems and ,beardsley 
his ,tristan  and ,isolde drawing4      
,number eight 7,december1 #ahif7        
completes the issue4 ,the whole of the  
literary contents is by the ,editor and 
the art contents by ,beardsley  himself3
 in all fourteen drawings4 ,by way of   

epilogue1 ,symons says in  their next   
venture1 which is to appear twice a     
year1 #8that they are  going to make no 
attempt to be popular4' ,unfortunately  
for ,english  periodicals it was a      
venture never essayed4    ,that ,the    
,savoy is far truer to the period than  
,the ,yellow ,book was  perhaps in no   
small way due to the fact that ,mr4     
,arthur ,symons was its  literary       
editor4 ,for he at any rate in his      
strenuous search for an  sthetical      
solution for art and life1 in his       
assiduous exploring in  the ,latin      
literatures for richer colours and      
stranger sensations--he1  at any rate1  
has not only been the child of his time1
 but in some ways  the father of it4    
,his sincere love of art is beyond all  
question1  and it has sent him into many
 strange byways4 ,he has praised in     
purple prose the bird-like motions and  
flower-like colours of the  ballet2 he  
has taken us with him to ,spanish       
music-halls and ,sevillian  ,churches2  

he has garnered up carefully in ,english
 the myths of the  symbolists and       
translated for us the enigmas of        
,mallarm--,herodias1  the blood and     
roses of ,d',annunzio's plays and the   
throbbing violins  of ,verlaine's muse2 
he has taken us to continental cities1  
and with  him we have heard ,pachmann   
playing and seen the enchantments of the
  divine ,duse4 ,all the cults of the   
,seven ,arts has this ,admirable        
,crichton of stheticism discussed4 ,he  
has worked towards a theory of          
sthetics4 ,he has written charmingly 7if
 somewhat temperamentally7  of his      
comrades like ,beardsley1 ,crackanthorpe
 and ,dowson4 ,he was  a leader in the  
campaign of the early nineties1 and his 
work will  always be the guiding hand   
for those who come after him and who    
wish  to speak of this movement4 ,as    
early as #ahic he was writing of it as  
#8,the ,decadent ,movement in           
,literature' in ,harper's1 when he      
speaks of  the most representative work 

of the period3 #8,after a fashion it is 
no  doubt a decadence2 it has all the   
qualities that mark the end of great    
periods1 the qualities that we find in  
the ,greek1 the ,latin1 decadence2  an  
intense self-consciousness1 a restless  
curiosity in research1 an               
over-subtilising refinement upon        
refinement1 a spiritual and moral       
perversity4' ,perhaps1 in a way1 it is  
an immense pity that ,symons will       
become the universal guide to the       
period1 for it must be conceded  that he
 has always been prone to find          
perversity in anything1 as ,sir  ,thomas
 ,browne was haunted with quincunxes4   
,but of the subtilty of his  judgments  
and of the charming prose in which he   
labours to express  them there can be no
 question4 ,listen1 for example1 when he
 speaks of  the aim of decadence3 #8,to 
fix the last fine shade1 the            
quintessence of  things2 to fix it      
fleetingly2 to be a disembodied voice1  
and yet the  voice of a human soul2 that

 is the ideal of decadence4' ,how       
beautifully  it is said1 so that one    
almost forgets how dangerous it is4     
,very aptly  did ,blaikie ,murdoch say  
the ,mantle of ,pater fell on him4 ,it  
is the same  murmured litany of         
beautiful prose4 ,indeed ,arthur ,symons
 is the supreme  type of belles         
lettrist4 ,just as in the early nineties
 he prided  himself on the smell of     
patchouli about his verse1 so he alone  
remains  to-day with the old familiar   
scent about his writings of a period    
dead  and gone which exacts rightfully  
our highest respect4 ,as one owes him  a
 debt of homage for his fine            
faithfulness to art1 so one thinks of   
him1 as he himself has written of       
,pater1 as a #8personality withdrawn    
from action1 which it despises or       
dreads1 solitary with its ideals1 in    
the circle of its 8exquisite moments0 in
 the ,palace of ,art1 where it  is never
 quite at rest4' ,how true that last    
phrase is1 #8never quite at  rest1' of  

the author4 ,for to him ,art is an      
escape--the supreme escape  from life4  
,arthur ,symons began with a study on   
,browning and the volume ,days  and     
,nights when the eighties were still    
feeling their way towards  the nineties4
 ,it was in ,silhouettes 7#ahib7 and    
,london ,nights  7#ahie7 that he        
appeared as perhaps the most outr member
 of the new  movement4 ,his perfection  
of technique in endeavouring to catch   
the  fleeting impression by limiting it1
 never cataloguing it1 marks the        
difference of his verse and that of the 
secession from much of the  school of   
the eighties' definite listing of facts4
 ,symons1 indeed1  is not only a poet   
impressionist1 but also a critic        
impressionist in  his critical works    
like ,studies in ,two ,literatures1 ,the
 ,symbolist  ,movement in ,literature1  
and so on4 ,this impressionism1 whilst  
it makes  his verse so intangible and   
delicate1 also endows his appreciations 
with a certain all-pervading subtlety4  

,it is as though a poet had begun  to   
see with the ,monet vision his own      
poems4 ,it is as though a man  comes    
away with an impression and is content  
with that impression on  which to base  
his judgment4 ,it is ,new ,year's ,eve3 
the poet records his  impression of the 
night3        ,we heard the bells of    
midnight burying the year4        ,then 
the night poured its silent waters over 
us4        ,and then in the vague       
darkness faint and tremulous1      ,time
 paused2 then the night filled with     
sound2 morning was here4    ,the poet is
 at the ,alhambra or ,empire ,ballet3   
like an impressionist  picture a poem   
disengages the last fine shade of the   
scene4 ,he wanders  at twilight in      
autumn through the mist-enfolded lanes3 
,night creeps across the darkening vale2
        ,on the horizon tree by tree    
,fades into shadowy skies as pale1      
,as moonlight on a shadowy sea4    ,the 
vision remains like an etching4 ,the    
poet is on the seashore at  sunset3     

,the sea lies quietest beneath          
,the after-sunset flush1      ,that     
leaves upon the heaped gray clouds      
,the grape's faint purple blush4    ,it 
lingers like a water-colour in one's    
memory4 ,he sees a girl at  a restaurant
 and his poem is at once an impression  
as vivid as a  painter's work4 ,in a    
phrase he can cage a mood1 in a quatrain
 a scene4  ,where does this ability come
 from8 ,the answer is1 perhaps1 given by
 the  one name ,verlaine1 whose genius  
,mr4 ,symons has done so much to hail4  
,in the gay days of the early nineties  
before black tragedy had clouded  the   
heavens there was no more daring        
secessionist from the tedious old  ways 
than the editor of ,the ,savoy4 ,to     
those days1 like ,dowson's lover  of    
,cynara1 he has #8been faithful in his  
fashion4' ,if the interest  is now not  
so vivid in his work it is because the  
centre of art has  shifted4 ,if ,mr4    
,symons has not shifted his centre too1 
but remained  faithful to the old dead  

,gods1 it is no crime4 ,it only means   
that we1  when we wish to see him as one
 of the figures of his group1 must shut 
up his volumes of criticism1 forget his 
views on ,toulouse ,lautrec and  ,gerard
 ,nerval1 and ,william ,blake1 put aside
 his later verses and his  widow's cruse
 of writer's recollections1 and turn    
with assurance to the  dbonnaire poet of
 ,silhouettes and ,london ,nights4      
,it has been said that ,mr4 ,symons     
stands for #8a ,pagan revolt against    
,puritanism4' ,it is argued1 because he 
was nurtured in nonconformity1  art came
 to him with something of the hysteria a
 revelation comes to a  revivalist      
meeting4 ,this may be true1 but ,i      
cannot help thinking that  no writer    
amid all these ,french influences which 
he had so eagerly  sought out yet       
remains so typical of the ,english      
spirit4 ,it may be  heresy1 but ,i      
always see in mind the gaiety of a ,nice
 carnival in a  certain drawing with one
 solid1 solemn face surveying the scene 

over a  starched front4 ,beneath it is  
written3 #8,find the ,englishman4'      
,like the ,american critic1 ,james      
,huneker1 ,mr4 ,arthur ,symons has also 
occasionally written short imaginative  
prose studies4 ,one thinks1 too1  in    
this respect of ,walter ,pater's        
wonderful ,imaginary ,portraits and     
particularly his glorious study of      
,watteau1 and ,i rather think that  this
 success must have moved the spirit of  
the two later critics to a  noble       
rivalry4 ,the best1 indeed1 of ,mr4     
,symons's ,spiritual ,adventures  are   
probably those studies which are mostly 
attached to some theme  of art which has
 been after all the all-engrossing      
motive of this  delightful critic's     
life4 ,an ,autumn ,city and ,the ,death 
of ,peter  ,waydelin3 the first1 a      
sensitive's great love for ,arles1      
whither he  brings his unresponsive     
bride2 the other1 a study quaintly      
suggestive  of a certain painter's life3
 both of these sketches are             

unquestionably  more moving than ,mr4   
,symons's studies of nonconformists     
quivering at  the thought of hell-fire4 
,to them one might add1 perhaps1 ,esther
  ,kahn1 the history of the             
psychological development of an actress 
after  the style of ,la ,faustine4      
,mr4 ,symons's favourite word is        
#8escape'2 his favourite phrase #8escape
  from life4' ,now the one and now the  
other reappear continually in all  kinds
 of connections4 ,of ,john ,addington   
,symonds1 for example1 he  writes3      
#8,all his work was in part an escape1  
an escape from himself4'  ,of ,ernest   
,dowson's indulgence in the squalid     
debaucheries of the  ,brussels kermesse 
he writes3 #8,it was his own way of     
escape from life4'  ,passages of like   
tenor abound in his writings2 and1 in   
one of his  papers on ,the ,symbolist   
,movement in ,literature1 he explains   
his  meaning more precisely3      ,our  
only chance1 in this world1 of a        
complete happiness1 lies in    the      

measure of our success in shutting the  
eyes of the mind1 and    deadening its  
sense of hearing1 and dulling the       
keenness of its    apprehension of the  
unknown4444 ,as the present passes from 
us1    hardly to be enjoyed except as   
memory or as hope1 and only with    an  
at best partial recognition of the      
uncertainty or inutility    of both1 it 
is with a kind of terror that we wake   
up1 every now    and then1 to the whole 
knowledge of our ignorance1 and to some 
perception of where it is leading us4   
,to live through a single day    with   
that overpowering consciousness of our  
real position1 which1    in the moments 
in which alone it mercifully comes1 is  
like blinding    light or the thrust of 
a flaming sword1 would drive any man out
 of    his senses4444 ,and so there is a
 great silent conspiracy between    us  
to forget death2 all our lives are spent
 in busily forgetting    death4 ,that is
 why we are so active about so many     
things which    we know to be           

unimportant1 why we are so afraid of    
solitude1 and    so thankful for the    
company of our fellow creatures4        
,allowing    ourselves for the most part
 to be vaguely conscious of that great  
suspense in which we live1 we find our  
escape from its sterile1    annihilating
 reality1 in many dreams1 in religion1  
passion1 art2    each a forgetfulness1  
each a symbol of creation4444 ,each is a
 kind    of sublime selfishness1 the    
saint1 the lover1 and the artist having 
each an incommunicable ecstasy which he 
esteems as his ultimate    attainment2  
however1 in his lower moments1 he may   
serve ,god in    action1 or do the will 
of his mistress1 or minister to men by  
showing them a little beauty4 ,but it is
 before all things an escape4    ,mr4   
,symons finds in his system of sthetics 
an escape from ,methodism  and the      
,calvinistic threatenings of his        
childhood4 ,he wishes to escape         
#8hell4' ,in the story of ,seaward      
,lackland there is a preacher whom      

,methodism drove to madness4 ,mr4       
,symons has turned to ,art so that he   
may  not feel the eternal flames taking 
hold of him4          ,,iii      ,one   
endeavours to remember some one or two  
outstanding novels  written by any one  
of the writers of this group4 ,it must  
be at once  admitted1 one fails to      
recall a great novel4 ,it is true that  
the great  ,victorians1 ,meredith and   
,hardy1 were hard at work at this time2 
but1  then1 neither of these writers    
belongs to this movement4 ,then there   
was  ,kipling1 ,stevenson1 ,barrie1 and 
,george ,moore4 ,with the exception of  
the  last1 we have little to do with    
these here4 ,they do not come within the
  scope of the present study4    ,none  
of the men of the nineties 7as ,i have  
defined them7 produced  a great novel4  
,it would be well1 however1 to give at  
once some  connotation for so loose a   
term as #8a great novel4' ,let us then  
say  that a good ,english novel is not  
necessarily a great novel2 nor1 for     

that matter1 is a good ,russian novel   
necessarily a great novel4 ,a great     
novel is a work of fiction that has     
entered into the realm of universal     
literature in the same way as the dramas
 of ,sophocles and ,shakespeare  and    
,molire have entered that glorious      
demesne4 ,as a matter of fact1  one can 
remember1 ,i think in most cases1 very  
few ,english novels that  are great in  
this sense2 while there are many more   
,french and ,russian  works that have an
 undeniable right to this title4        
,therefore it is not1  perhaps1 so      
damaging a criticism of the period as it
 might at first  sight appear to say it 
has produced no great novel4    ,but in 
so far as ,english fiction alone is     
concerned1 it cannot be said  that the  
men of the nineties produced work of a  
very high order in this  form4 ,they do 
not seem to have had the staying power  
demanded in such  artistic production4  
,the short poem1 the short story1 the   
small black  and white drawing1 the one 

act play--in fact1 any form of art that 
just  displays the climacteric moment   
and discards the rest pleased them4  ,it
 was1 as ,john ,davidson said1 an age of
 ,bovril4 ,while the novel1 it  must be 
admitted1 needs either a profusion of   
ideas1 as in the case  of the ,russians1
 or of genitals1 as in the case of the  
,french4 ,but  the art of the nineties  
was essentially an expression of        
moods--and  moods1 after all1 are such  
evanescent brief conditions4 ,so it is  
not  unnatural that the fruition of the 
novel was not rich among these  writers4
 ,george ,gissing and ,george ,moore1 in
 a way their forebears 7,i  have in mind
 more particularly the latter71 spread a
 taste for such  works4 ,indeed1 in his 
,confessions of a ,young ,man1 ,george  
,moore may  be said to have predicted   
the masculine type of the nineties4     
,gissing  in #ahia was to daunt some    
with his ,new ,grub ,street1 while      
,henry  ,james was to inspire enthusiasm
 in a few like ,hubert ,crackanthorpe4  

,but naturally in the way of stimulus   
the main goad was ,france1 which  was at
 that date phenomenally rich in         
practitioners of the art of the  novel4 
,the ,vizetelly ,zolas1 ,mr4 ,george    
,moore personally conducting the  novels
 of certain of the ,french novelists    
over the ,channel1 the desire  to smash 
the fetters of ,victorian fiction which 
,thomas ,hardy was to  accomplish1 were 
all inspiring sources which were1       
however1 singularly  unfruitful4 ,walter
 ,pater long before in his academic     
romance ,marius1  which they had all    
read eagerly1 wrote charmingly of a     
field that  would appeal to them when he
 said3 #8,life in modern ,london 444 is 
stuff  sufficient for the fresh         
imagination of a youth to build his     
8palace  of art0 of4' ,but instead of   
taking the recommendation of this high  
priest they read ,dorian ,gray1 which   
,wilde would never have written if      
,huysmans had not first written ,a      
,rebours4 ,the young men of ,henley1  it

 must be confessed1 did far finer work  
than ,richard ,le ,gallienne's  watery  
,wildism in ,the ,quest of the ,golden  
,girl4 ,george ,moore wrote a           
masterpiece in ,evelyn ,innes1 but      
,ernest ,dowson and ,arthur ,moore in ,a
  ,comedy of ,masks and ,adrian ,rome   
did not retaliate4 ,leonard ,merrick1   
who started publishing in the eighties1 
did not publish his best work  till the 
nineties were dead and gone2 while his  
best ,bohemian ,paris  stories may owe  
as much to ,du ,maurier's ,trilby       
7#ahid7 as they do to  ,henri ,murger4  
,henry ,harland1 as ,i have already     
said1 only struck his  vein of comedy   
fiction when the ,boer ,war had finished
 the movement4  ,george ,gissing and    
,arthur ,morrison belong1 with ,frank   
,harris1 to the  pugilistic school of   
,henley's young men1 while ,richard     
,whiteing1 who  turned from journalism  
to write ,no4 #e ,john ,street 7#ahii71 
was too  old a man and too late with his
 book to belong to the nineties' group4 

,arthur ,machen1 in those days1 belonged
 to the short story writers with        
,hubert ,crackanthorpe1 who was the     
great imaginative prose writer of  the  
group4 ,the sailor1 ,joseph ,conrad1 the
 ,australian ,louis ,becke1 the         
,canadian1 ,c4 ,g4 ,d4 ,roberts1 were   
working out their own salvation1 and    
had nothing to do with the ,rhymers'    
,club4 ,the strong creative brain of    
,aubrey ,beardsley1 indeed1 in his      
unfinished picaresque romance1 ,under   
the ,hill1 which ,i have already        
mentioned1 produced something new1 but  
it was not a novel2 while it is ,john   
,davidson's poetry that counts1 not  his
 novels1 which remain unread nowadays on
 the shelf4    ,indeed1 if the name of a
 good ,english novel by any one of them 
is  demanded1 it will be singularly     
difficult to suggest a satisfactory     
title4 ,one can even go further1 and    
state that they did not even have  one  
amongst them who has handed on to us a  
vivid picture of their own  lives in the

 form of fiction4 ,dowson1 indeed1 in   
the dock life of his  books may have    
autobiographical touches1 but they are  
purely personal4  ,what ,i mean is1 that
 there was no one standing by to give us
 a picture  of them as ,willy1 the      
,french writer1 has given us of the     
sceptical yet  juvenile enthusiasm of   
,les ,jeunes of ,paris of the same      
period in1 for  example1 his ,matresse  
d',esthtes4 ,what is cruder than        
,ranger-,gull's  ,the ,hypocrite1 which 
has pretensions to be a picture of the  
young  men of the period8 ,and when one 
comes to think of it this is a great    
pity1 as an excellent novel might have  
been penned around the feverish         
activities of these young exotics of the
 nineties4 ,robert ,hichens'  ,green    
,carnation is1 after all1 perhaps the   
most brilliant attempt to  picture the  
weaknesses of the period1 and it is     
merely a skit taking  off in the        
characters of ,esm ,amarinth and ,lord  
,reggie two well-known  personalities4  

,the ,adventures of ,john ,johns1 it is 
true1 is supposed  to be the history of 
the rise of one of the smaller epigoni  
of the  movement1 but it is not a very  
brilliant achievement1 though it has    
considerable merit and interest4 ,one   
cannot indeed say that it is up to  the 
standard of ,ernest ,la ,jeunesse's     
,odin ,howes1 wherein the ,french  ,jew 
has given a veritable flashing insight  
on the last days of ,wilde  in ,paris   
and those holes into which he crept to  
drink4 ,what a pity1  indeed1 an        
,english contemporary has not done the  
same for the ,tite  ,street days1 or    
given us in his book a serious study of 
the strange  world of ,whistler or      
,dowson4    ,in the face of this strange
 dearth of novels in this school one    
cannot  help asking the reasons that    
engendered it4 ,without laying down any 
hard and fast rules1 it will1 ,i think1 
be seen that this vacuity came  from the
 ,zeitgeist of the group itself4 ,as has
 been said1 the large  canvas1 the      

five-act play1 the long novel were dmod 
for the period4  ,the age demanded1     
after the long realistic studies of the 
eighties in  ,france1 the climacteric   
moments only when the passions of the   
person  of the drama were at white heat1
 so to speak1 and life was lived        
intensely4 ,could not the great scene up
 to which the five long acts  lead be   
squeezed into one8 ,was not the         
rediscovery of the ,mimes of  ,herod as 
a sign of the times8 ,could not the     
great beauty of an immense  landscape's 
spirit be caught and seized on a small  
canvas8 ,could not  the long-winded     
novel of three tomes be whittled down to
 the actual  short-story motive8 ,this  
reduction of everything to its climax   
can be  seen in all the art of the      
period4 ,look at ,beardsley's decoration
 for  ,wilde's ,salom1 entitled itself  
#8,the ,climax4' ,conder paints small   
objects like fans and diminutive        
water-colours and ,crackanthorpe writes 
short stories4 ,the poems of ,dowson are

 short swallow flights of song1  and the
 epic is reduced to ,stephen ,phillips's
 ,marpessa4 ,the one-act  play begins on
 the ,continent to make a big appeal for
 more recognition  than that of a       
curtain-raiser4 ,small theatres1        
particularly in ,germany  and ,austria1 
give evening performances consisting of 
one-acters alone4  ,it becomes the same 
in music4 ,the age was short-winded and 
its art1  to borrow a phrase from the   
palstra1 could only stay over short     
distances4 ,so1 whereas there is a      
strange dearth of novels1 the men of    
the nineties were very fruitful in short
 stories4 ,in fact1 it would  not be    
perhaps too much to say that it was     
then1 for the first time in  ,english   
literature1 the short story came into   
its own4 ,at any rate1 it  would be more
 judicious to put the period as one in  
which the short  story flourished       
vigorously 7if not for the first time71 
in ,england1 as  a #8theme of art4' ,to 
understand exactly what ,i mean by this 

artistic  treatment of the short        
story#aj as a medium of literary        
expression1  all that is necessary is1  
perhaps1 to compare one of ,dickens's   
short  tales1 for example1 with one of  
,stevenson's short stories4 ,the result 
is apparent at once in the difference of
 treatment--a difference as  essential  
as the difference between the effect of 
a figure in stone  and another in       
bronze4 ,the earlier tale has none of   
the facets and  subtleties that art has 
contrived to express by the latter      
narration4  ,this artistic treatment of 
the short story by ,englishmen1 then1   
was  a new thing and a good thing for   
,english literature4 ,if the long       
staying powers required for the great   
novel in the world of comparative       
literature did not belong to the writers
 of the nineties group1 at any  rate    
they developed1 more or less            
artistically1 the climacteric effects   
of the conte4 ,for the short story      
crossed the ,channel by means of  ,guy  

de ,maupassant1 and out of it arose on  
this side for a brief decade  or so a   
wonderful wealth of art4 ,the short     
stories of ,kipling are by  no means the
 only pebbles on the beach4 ,in fact1   
never even in ,france  itself was there 
such variety of theme and treatment4    
,the successful  short stories of the   
period are of all sorts and conditions4 
,to  exemplify as briefly as possible   
this variety is perhaps closer to my    
purpose than to waste time in proving   
such obvious facts as the anxious       
endeavours of all these writers to raise
 their work to the artistic  elevation  
demanded of the short story1 or their   
strenuous struggle to  attain a suitable
 style and treatment for their themes4  
#aj ,frederick ,wedmore in ,on ,books   
and ,arts 7#ahii7 discusses          the
 short story as a distinct artistic     
medium4 ,it can never          be a     
#8novel in a nutshell4'    ,numerous    
examples of their art at once crowd the 
mind1 such as ,ernest  ,dowson's ,dying 

of ,francis ,donne1 ,max ,beerbohm's    
,happy ,hypocrite1  ,frederick          
,wedmore's tender ,orgeas and ,miradou1 
,arthur ,symons's  ,death of ,peter     
,waydelin1 the works of ,hubert         
,crackanthorpe1 or  the fantastic tales 
of ,arthur ,machen1 or ,eric ,count     
,stenbock's#aa  ,studies of ,death4 ,h4 
,d4 ,lowry1 though of ,henley's young   
men1 works  at the same art of studies  
in sentiment in his ,women's ,tragedies4
  ,so does ,mr4 ,g4 ,s4 ,street in his  
,episodes and ,george ,egerton in her   
,discords and ,keynotes4 ,among the     
others who deliberately tried to  write 
the short story as an artistic theme at 
that period and who  were at the same   
time in the movement can be mentioned   
,henry ,harland1  ,rudolf ,dircks in his
 ,verisimilitudes1 ,richard ,le         
,gallienne1 ,kenneth  ,grahame1 ,percy  
,hemingway in his ,out of ,egypt1 etc4  
,then we have men  like ,r4 ,b4         
,cunninghame ,graham and ,h4 ,w4        
,nevinson1 clearly influenced by  the   

movement and writing alongside of it of 
the ends of the earth they  have        
visited4 ,the former1 for example1 in a 
short story like ,aurora ,la  ,cujii    
7,smithers1 #ahih7 clearly reflects the 
influences of this period  which gloried
 in the abnormal in ,art4 ,known as a   
socialist of courage1  ,mr4 ,graham1    
whose name betrays his origin1 has also 
visited many of  the exotic places of   
the world4 ,in his able book            
,mogreb-el-,acksa  he has given us      
vignettes of ,morocco that are          
unsurpassed2 in his  volume ,success he 
has told us of those ,spanish-speaking  
races of  ,south ,america1 of the tango1
 and the horses of the pampas1 and the  
estancias he knows so well4 ,in ,aurora 
,la ,cujii we have a vignette of        
,seville so realistic that we almost    
believe that one is justified in        
considering that there is just enough   
motive in it to vivify it with  the     
quickening touch of the short           
storyteller's wand4 ,it is slow in      

starting1 but when this motive comes    
suddenly at the end we are almost  left 
breathless1 realising that everything   
that went before was but a  slow1       
ruthless piling up of local colour4 ,it 
is all done with such  deliberate       
deftness4 ,how we see the scenes        
unrolling slowly before us4  ,like the  
thrilled people on the benches we watch 
the ,toreador about to  make his kill as
 we read3       #aa ,eric ,stenbock was 
at ,balliol1 ,oxford4 ,he collaborated  
in          a volume of translations of 
,balzac's #8,short ,stories4' ,he       
contributed to ,lord ,alfred ,douglas's 
,the ,spirit ,lamp4          ,as a      
specimen of his style the following     
extract from          his short story1  
,the ,other ,side1 may be offered4 ,it  
is          supposed to be an old       
,breton woman's description of the      
,black ,mass3              #8,then when 
they get to the top of the hill1 there  
is            an altar with six candles 
quite black and a sort of               

something in between1 that nobody sees  
quite clearly1            and the old   
black ram with the man's face and long  
horns begins to say ,mass in a sort of  
gibberish nobody            understands1
 and two black strange things like      
monkeys            glide about with the 
book and the cruets--and there's        
music too1 such music4 ,there are things
 the top half like            black     
cats1 and the bottom part like men only 
their legs            are all covered   
with close black hair1 and they play    
on the bag-pipes1 and when they come to 
the elevation            then--4 ,amid  
the old crones there was lying on the   
hearth-rug1 before the fire1 a boy whose
 large lovely            eyes dilated   
and whose limbs quivered in the very    
ecstacy            of terror4'    ,the  
8espada0 had come forward1 mumbled his  
boniment in ,andaluz1 swung  his montera
 over his shoulder upon the ground1 and 
after sticking his  sword in every      
quarter of the bull had butchered him at

 last amid the  applause of the         
assembled populace4 ,blood on the sand2 
sun on the white  plaza2 upon the       
women's faces 8cascarilla02 scarlet and 
yellow fans1  and white mantillas with  
8fleco y alamares0 in the antique       
style4442  women selling water1 calling 
out 8agu60 in so guttural a voice it    
seemed like ,arabic2 ,cardobese hats1   
short jackets1 and from the plaza a     
scent of blood and sweat acting like a  
rank aphrodisiac upon the crowd1  and   
making the women squeeze each other's   
sweating hands1 and look  ambiguously at
 one another1 as they were men2 and     
causing the youths1  with swaying hips  
and with their hair cut low upon their  
foreheads1  to smile with open lips and 
eyes that met your glance1 as they had  
been half women4 ,blood1 harlotry1 sun1 
gay colours1 flowers and waving         
palm-trees1 women with roses stuck      
behind their ears1 mules covered up  in 
harness of red worsted1 cigar girls1    
gipsies1 tourists1 soldiers1  and the   

little villainous-looking urchins1 who1 
though born old1 do  duty as children in
 the ,south4'    ,as we read this       
magical evocation of the spirit of place
 we rub our  eyes and ask ourselves have
 we not been there4 ,this prose of vivid
  impressionism is the goal of one and  
all4 ,as the plein air school  painted  
in the open air before ,nature1 so these
 men must write as  closely round their 
subject as actual experience can allow  
them4 ,the  vivid realisation of a mood1
 as we shall see in ,hubert             
,crackanthorpe1  is the desired prize4  
,turn through the pages of ,ernest      
,dowson's  ,dilemmas1 and read1 above   
all1 ,a ,case of ,conscience2 leaf      
,frederick ,wedmore's#ab ,renunciations1
 and pause over ,the ,chemist  in the   
,suburbs1 wherein1 as ,h4 ,d4 ,traill   
said1 the story of ,richard  ,pelse's   
life is a pure joy2 in both cases vivid 
impressionism and  mood realisation are 
the keynotes of the work4 ,to understand
 these  tendencies better and the       

excellence of the work achieved1 it will
 be  more advantageous1 perhaps1 to     
consider in more detail one writer only 
who carried the charm of the prose pen  
to a higher degree of emphasis  and     
finish in the short story than any of   
the others1 to wit1 ,hubert             
,crackanthorpe4       #ab ,about the    
worst of ,frederick ,wedmore's short    
stories1          such as ,the ,north   
,coast and ,eleanor1 there is a hint of 
the melodrama of ,hugh ,conway's ,called
 ,back1 but it is          a feeble     
replica of the original4 ,the most      
successful of          his short        
imaginative pieces1 as the author       
rightly terms          them1 on the     
other hand1 have a refined grace of slow
          movement that is at once      
captivating and refreshing4 ,it         
seems impossible that the same man could
 have essayed both          the worst   
and the best4 ,as a specimen of the     
latter type of          work1 let me    
fasten on to the description of the     

entourage          of ,pelse the        
chemist1 the man with the tastes above  
his          position3                  
#8,there came a little snow4 ,but in the
 parlour over the            shop--with 
the three windows closely curtained--one
            could have forgetfulness of 
weather4 ,there was the neat            
fireplace2 the little low tea-table2 a  
bookcase in which                       
,pelse--before that critical event at   
,aix-les-,bains--had            been    
putting1 gradually1 first editions of   
the ,english            poets2 a cabinet
 of china1 in which--but always before  
,aix-les-,bains--he had taken to        
accumulate some pretty                  
,english things of whitest paste or     
finest painting2 a            ,worcester
 cup1 with its exotic birds1 its lasting
 gold1            its scale-blue ground1
 like lapis lazuli or sapphire2 a       
,chelsea figure2 something from         
,swansea2 white plates of               
,nantgarw1 bestrewn with ,billingsley's 

greyish pink roses1            of which 
he knew the beauty1 the free artistic   
touch4            ,how the things had   
lost interest for him6 8,from the       
moment10 says some ,french critic1 8that
 a woman occupies            me1 my     
collection does not exist40 ,and many a 
woman may            lay claim to occupy
 a ,french art critic2 only one had     
occupied ,richard ,pelse4'    ,a curious
 anomaly can be remarked here1 that in  
this period the great  work of prose    
fiction was not to be resharpened by the
 young men to  nearly the same extent as
 they resharpened the poetry and the    
essay4  ,none approach ,meredith and    
,hardy1 who move like ,titans of the    
age1  while ,kipling and ,crackanthorpe 
are the only two young men that give    
any quantity of imaginative prose work  
of a high new order 7and in  saying this
 one must not overlook ,arthur          
,morrison's ,mean ,streets1 or          
,zangwill's ,ghetto ,tales1 or the work 
of ,henry ,james7 until ,conrad came    

from the sea and ,louis ,becke from     
,australia to give new vistas to our    
fiction4 ,but it is not with them we are
 concerned here1 but with ,hubert       
,crackanthorpe1#ac of whose life the    
poet has sung3       #ac ,it is         
interesting to note the verses also of  
the ,french          poet ,francis      
,jammes dedicated to ,crackanthorpe4    
,jammes          lived at ,orthez when  
,crackanthorpe visited that remote      
countryside4        ,too rough his sea1 
too dark its angry tides6        ,things
 of a day are we1 shadows that move     
,the lands of shadow4    ,crackanthorpe 
commenced his literary career as the    
editor1 with ,w4 ,h4  ,wilkins1 of ,the 
,albemarle1 a monthly review started in 
,january1 #ahib1  with a splendid       
supplement lithograph4    ,wreckage1 the
 younger writer's first volume1 appeared
 in #ahic1 and  contains seven studies  
of very unequal merit4 ,its ,french     
inspiration  as well as its ,french     
emulation is at once apparent1 for in   

place of  a foreword is the simple1     
all-sufficing ,french quotation as a    
keynote  of the type of work displayed3 
#8,que le roman ait cette religion que  
le sicle pass appelait de ce large et   
vaste nom3 8,humanit02--il  lui suffit  
de cette conscience2 son droit est l4'  
,the youth of the  writer 7he was only  
twenty-eight7 must be remembered when   
discussing  the inequality of these     
studies in passion1 for all hinge on the
 old  eternal theme4 ,the last three are
 perhaps more finished work than  the   
first four1 and this is a pity from the 
point of view of the  reader4 ,profiles1
 indeed1 the longest1 is also in some   
respects the  worst-conceived attempt4  
,it is crude and immature in conception 
and  projection4 ,a young officer1 in   
love with ,lily ,maguire1 is deceived   
by her for a very ,emily ,bront-like    
figure of a bold1 bad1 handsome  man4   
,the girl becomes a disreputable member 
of the prostitute class1  and ,maurice1 
like the young fool he is1 wishes to    

redeem her4 ,but  ,lily1 whom the       
sensuous1 romantic life has taught      
nothing1 could  never1 she thinks1 marry
 a man she did not care for1 although   
she  would sell herself to the first    
,tom1 ,dick1 or ,harry4 ,a ,conflict of 
,egoisms concerns two people who have   
wasted their lives and then  utterly    
destroy themselves by marrying one      
another1 for they were  too selfish to  
live even by themselves4 ,the ,struggle 
for ,life is  a                         
,maupassant#ad-;conceived1 but          
ineffectively told story of a wife      
betrayed by her husband1 who sells      
herself for half-a-crown if she can  go 
home in an hour4 ,embers is much more   
effectively told1 and here at  last we  
begin to realise ,crackanthorpe is      
getting at the back of his  characters4 
,the same applies to that able gambling 
story1 ,when ,greek  meets ,greek1 while
 in ,a ,dead ,woman we have             
,crackanthorpe at last in  his full     
stride4 ,rushout the innkeeper1         

inconsolable for his dead wife1  is as  
real as #8bony and gaunt' ,jonathan     
,hays1 who was the dead woman's  lover4 
,how the husband discovers the dead     
woman's infidelity2 how he  and ,hays   
were to have fought2 and how at last    
#8each remembered that she  had belonged
 to the other1 and1 at that moment1 they
 felt instinctively  drawn together1' is
 told by a master's hand with a slow    
deliberation  that is as relentless as  
life itself4 ,here the narrative is     
direct and  the delineation of character
 sharp4 ,these two men with the         
card-sharper  ,simon live1 while as for 
the women of the book we wish to forget 
them1  for they have nothing to redeem  
them except possibly the little ,french 
girl from ,nice4       #ad ,maupassant's
 ,inconsolables4    ,two years later    
appeared a far more ambitious and       
maturer volume  containing half-a-dozen 
sentimental studies and half-a-dozen    
tales of  the ,french villages          
,crackanthorpe so loved and understood4 

,his method  of work becomes more       
pronounced here1 that is to treat an    
,english  theme in the ,french manner1 a
 task which demands more culture than   
the ruck of the conteurs for the        
,english magazines attain with their    
facile tears and jackass laughters1     
their machine-like nonentities and      
pudibond ineptitudes4 ,crackanthorpe1   
indeed1 has left no following  behind   
him1 and only once later can ,i recall a
 volume of short stories  that suggests 
his manner3 ,j4 ,y4 ,f4 ,cooke's tales  
of the nineties in his  ,stories of     
,strange ,women4    ,in this new volume 
as before1 ,crackanthorpe devotes       
himself to  the expansion of the        
sentimental study1 the problems of      
sexual  relationships1 which are not    
altogether pleasing to every one1 and   
this  may account for his limited       
appeal4 ,in ,wreckage all the women were
  vile1 but here he evidently intends to
 picture the other side of women  in    
,ella1 the wife of the poet ,hillier1   

with its slow ,flaubert unrolling  of   
her infinite delusion4 ,in ,battledore  
and ,shuttlecock1 in ,nita1  of the old 
,empire promenade days1 he again        
develops the good side4  ,while in the  
study of the ,love-sick ,curate we feel 
that ,ethel is not  hard-hearted1 but   
only that the ,rev4 ,burkett is an      
unutterable idiot4  ,modern ,melodrama  
is the short1 sharp climacteric stab of 
,maupassant  perhaps not over well done4
 ,the sentimental studies close with    
,yew-,trees and ,peacocks1 which seems  
rather to have lost its point in  the   
telling4 ,the tales of the ,pyrennese   
villages where ,crackanthorpe  used to  
stay are typical productions of the     
delight of the men of the  nineties in  
their sojourning on the sacred soil of  
,france4 ,the ,white  ,maize1 ,etienne  
,matton1 and ,gaston ,lalanne's ,child  
are perhaps not  unworthy of the master 
himself in their simple directness1     
devoid of  all unnecessary padding4     
,with a few phrases1 indeed1            

,crackanthorpe can  lay his scene1 strip
 his characters nude before us4 ,how we 
realise1  for instance1 ,ella lying in  
bed the night before her mistaken       
marriage  with ,hillier4 ,she is there  
in all the virgin simplicity of the     
average  ,english country girl3         
,the window was wide open1 and the      
muslin curtains swaying in the    breeze
 bulged towards her weirdly4 ,she could 
see the orchard    trees bathed in      
blackness1 and above a square of sky1   
blue-grey1    quivering with stifled    
light1 flecked with a disorder of stars 
that seemed ready to rain upon the      
earth4 ,after a while1 little    by     
little1 she distinguished the forms of  
the trees4 ,slowly1    monstrous1 and   
sleek1 the yellow moon was rising4      
,she was no longer thinking of herself6 
,she had forgotten that    to-morrow was
 her wedding-day3 for a moment1 quite   
impersonally1    she watched the        
moonlight stealing through the trees4   
,again1 ,ronald1 the youth from the     

,army ,crammer's1 finds his way into    
the music-hall1 where he encounters     
,nita3      ,immediately he entered the 
theatre1 the sudden sight of the scene  
stopped him1 revealed1 as it were1      
through a great gap4 ,the stage         
blazed white2 masses of recumbent girls1
 bathed in soft tints1    swayed to     
dreamy cadence of muffled violins before
 the quivering    gold-flecked minarets 
of an ,eastern palace4 ,he leaned       
against the    side of the lounge to    
gaze down across the black belt of      
heads4 ,the    sight bewildered him4    
,by-and-bye1 he became conscious of a   
hum of    voices1 and a continual       
movement behind him4 ,men1 for the most 
part    in evening dress1 were passing  
in procession to and fro1 some women    
amongst them1 smiling as they twittered 
mirthlessly2 now and then    he caught  
glimpses of others seated before little 
round tables1    vacant1 impassive1 like
 waxwork figures1 he thought4444 ,he was
    throbbing with trepidating          

curiosity1 buffeted by irresolution4    
,with the same exactitude the lonely    
fells around ,scarsdale1 where  ,burkett
 is parson of the small ,cumberland     
village1 arise before us4    ,his       
posthumous volume1 ,last ,studies1      
contains only three rather  long short  
stories1 an #8in memoriam' poem by      
,stopford ,a4 ,brooke1 and  an          
appreciation very gracefully done by    
,henry ,james4 ,referring in the  field 
of fiction to the crudity of the old    
hands and the antiquity of  new1 his    
appreciator finds it difficult to render
 the aspect which  constitutes          
,crackanthorpe's #8troubled individual  
note4' ,he comes to the  conclusion1    
#8,what appealed to him was the         
situation that asked for a  certain     
fineness of art1 and that could best be 
presented in a kind of  foreshortened   
picture4'    ,the short story is mainly 
of two sorts3 #8,the chain of items1    
figures in  a kind of sum--one of the   
simple rules--of movement1 added up as  

on a  school-boy's slate1 and with the  
correct total and its little flourish1  
constituting the finish and accounting  
for the effect2 or else it may  be an   
effort preferably pictorial1 a portrait 
of conditions1 an attempt  to summarise1
 and compress for purposes of           
presentation to 8render0  even1 if      
possible1 for purposes of expression4'  
,from the ,french  ,crackanthorpe learnt
 the latter method1 and practised it4   
,when we come  to look at these last    
three stories 7which with the tiny      
collection  of ,vignettes completes his 
work7 we see how admirably exact is this
  criticism of his senior4    ,in       
,antony ,garstin's ,courtship he is back
 in his own countryside of  ,cumberland 
among the shrewd1 hard ,dale folk4 ,it  
is a little masterpiece  conceived      
almost in the hopeless bitterness of    
,hardy at his darkest1  most pessimistic
 moment4 ,the crudeness in workmanship  
has gone1 only  the relentless          
inevitability of it all remains like the

 tragedies of  life itself4 ,rosa       
,blencarn1 the parson's niece1 a mere   
cheap flirt  of unfinished comeliness1  
is but the bone of contention between   
the  personalities of ,antony and his   
mother4 ,the widow ,garstin is as fine  
a character as ,crackanthorpe1 in his   
twenty-two stories1 has created4  ,she  
lives1 and in her veins flows the       
passion of disappointed age4 #8,she  was
 a heavy-built woman1 upright1 stalwart 
almost1 despite her years4  ,her face   
was gaunt and sallow2 deep wrinkles     
accentuated the hardness  of her        
features4 ,she wore a widow's black cap 
above her iron-grey hair1  gold-rimmed  
spectacles1 and a soiled chequered      
apron4' ,how easily we  can see her     
saying to her great hulking son3 #8,t'  
hoose be mine1 t'  ,lord be praised1'   
she continued in a loud1 hard voice1    
#8an' as long as  he spare me1 ,tony1   
,i'll na' see ,rosa ,blencarn set foot  
inside it4'    ,it has all the unsavoury
 cruelty of humanity1 and to find other 

such  scenes in ,english literature we  
have to come down to ,caradoc ,evans's  
,my ,people1 or ,james ,joyce4    ,in   
,trevor ,perkins1 in a brief masterly   
way1 we have the soul of the  average   
young man of the nineties1 who has      
ceased to believe in ,god or  tolerate  
his parents1 sketched for us4 ,he walks 
out with the waitress  of his bunshop1  
and we realise at once he is of those   
who are doomed  to make fools of        
themselves on the reef of her sex4 ,the 
last story1  ,the ,turn of the ,wheel1  
is the history of the daughter who      
believes  in her self-made father1 and  
despises her sidetracked mother as an   
inferior being1 only to find she has    
made a great mistake4 ,it is one  of the
 longest stories he wrote1 and moves    
easily in the higher strata  of ,london 
society4 ,from this fashionable world to
 the rude and rugged  scars and fells of
 ,cumberland is a far cry2 but here1 as 
elsewhere1  ,crackanthorpe finds the    
friction of humanity is its own worst   

enemy4  ,yet behind all this            
impenetrably impersonal bitter play of  
human  passions in these short stories1 
one feels somehow or other the distant  
beats of the author's compassionate     
heart1 which his sickness of life  made 
him forcibly stop in the pride of his   
youth before he had time to  realise    
himself or fulfil his rich promise4     
,,iv      ,the poetry of the period is  
essentially an expression of moods and  
sentiments4 ,it is as much a form of    
impressionism as the art of ,monet  and 
,renoir4 ,further1 it seeks after1 like 
all the art of the nineties1  that      
abnormality of proportion of which      
,bacon wrote in his #8,essay on         
,beauty4' ,it is1 too1 a period         
wonderfully fertile in song4 ,besides   
the nineties' group1 which is           
represented chiefly by the ,rhymers'    
,club1 there were many other schools of 
song4 ,lord ,alfred ,douglas in  his    
,city of the ,soul1 ,oscar ,wilde in his
 ,sphinx and ,the ,harlot's  ,house1    

,stephen ,phillips and ,henley1 ,francis
 ,thompson in his ,hound  of ,heaven1   
are but some of the richness ,i am      
compelled to pass over  in order to     
adhere strictly to the programme of this
 rough summary4  ,let us1 therefore1    
turn at once to the ,rhymers' ,club1    
whose origin and  desires have been so  
well explained by ,arthur ,symons1 the  
cicerone  to the age1 in his essay on   
,ernest ,dowson4 ,at the ,cheshire      
,cheese in  ,fleet ,street it was       
arranged that a band of young poets     
should meet1  striving to recapture in  
,london something of the ,gallic spirit 
of  art and the charm of open discussion
 in the ,latin ,quartier4 ,the ,club    
consisted of the following members3     
,john ,davidson1 ,ernest ,dowson1 ,edwin
  ,j4 ,ellis1 ,george ,arthur ,greene1  
,lionel ,johnson1 ,arthur ,cecil        
,hillier1  ,richard ,le ,gallienne1     
,victor ,plarr1 ,ernest ,radford1       
,ernest ,rhys1 ,thomas  ,william        
,rolleston1 ,arthur ,symons1 ,john      

,todhunter1 and ,william ,butler        
,yeats4 ,besides these members1 the     
,club1 which was without rules or       
officers1 had at one time affiliated to 
itself the following permanent  guests3 
,john ,gray1 ,edward ,rose1 ,j4 ,t4     
,nettleship1 ,morley ,roberts1 ,a4 ,b4  
,chamberlain1 ,edward ,garnett1 and     
,william ,theodore ,peters4    ,oscar   
,wilde1 though never a member1 had a    
great influence on many of  those who   
were1 and ,victor ,plarr describes a    
memorable meeting of the  ,rhymers in   
,mr4 ,herbert ,horne's rooms in the     
,fitzroy settlement at which  ,wilde    
appeared4 ,the poet goes on3 #8,it was  
an evening of notabilities4  ,mr4       
,walter ,crane stood with his back to   
the mantelpiece1 deciding1 very  kindly1
 on the merits of our effusions4 ,and   
round ,oscar ,wilde1 not then  under a  
cloud1 hovered reverently ,lionel       
,johnson and ,ernest ,dowson1  with     
others4 ,this must have been in #ahia1  
and ,i marvelled at the time  to notice 

the fascination which poor ,wilde       
exercised over the otherwise  rational4 
,he sat as it were enthroned and        
surrounded by a differential  circle4'  
,the influence of ,verlaine and the     
symbolist poets of ,paris in this       
circle was profound4 ,every one had a   
passion for things ,french4 ,symons     
translated the prose poems of           
,baudelaire and the verses of ,mallarm1 
,dowson is inspired by the #8,ftes      
,gallantes1' and so on4 ,as ,mr4 ,plarr 
writes3 #8,stray ,gauls used to be      
imported to grace literary circles      
here4 ,i remember one such--a rare      
instance of a rough ,frenchman--to  whom
 ,dowson was devoted4 ,when a ,gaul     
appeared in a coterie we were  either   
silent1 like the schoolgirls in their   
,french conversation hour1  or we talked
 a weird un-,french ,french like the    
ladies in some of ,du  ,maurier's       
drawings4'#ae       #ae ,victor ,plarr1 
,ernest ,dowson1 p4 #bc4 #aiad4    ,of  
course it must not be supposed1 however1

 that the nineties ever  remained at all
 stationary in this condition or        
entirely under these  influences4 ,mr4  
,plarr is speaking of the early         
nineties1 the age when  ,john ,gray's   
,silverpoints was perhaps a fair sample 
of the poetry  of the moment for this   
group2 but1 when at the same time it    
must  be remembered1 poets like ,francis
 ,thompson and ,william ,watson were    
carrying on the staider traditions of   
,english poetry altogether unmoved  by  
these exotic influences from ,montmartre
 and the studios of the  south4 ,the    
nineties group itself only remained for 
a restive moment  like this before each 
man was to go his own way4 ,they were   
indeed all  souls seeking the way to    
perfection in art4 ,yeats went off to   
assist  to found the ,irish ,school2    
,richard ,le ,gallienne went to         
,america2 ,gray  became a priest4 ,many 
disappeared shortly afterwards from the 
lower  slopes of ,parnassus1 not being  
of those dowered with the true call2    

and so1 one after the other1 all are to 
be accounted for4 ,the genuine  men of  
the nineties after the fall of ,wilde   
seem to have migrated to  ,smithers'    
wonderful bookshop in ,bond ,street1    
where their later works  were issued in 
ornate editions4    ,the names of others
 besides the actual members of the      
,rhymers' ,club  must not be altogether 
forgotten1 such as ,percy ,hemingway    
with his  ,happy ,wanderer1 ,theodore   
,wratislaw1 ,olive ,custance1 ,dollie   
,radford1  ,rosamund ,marriott-,watson1 
,norman ,gale1 and many others who were 
also of  the movement4 ,however1 of them
 ,i cannot speak here1 but can only     
refer  the reader to the book-lists of  
,elkin ,mathews and ,john ,lane for the 
first period1 and of ,leonard ,smithers 
for the second4 ,in the numerous  slim  
plaquettes of verse issued from these   
presses he will find golden  verse      
worthy of the labour of his research4   
,indeed1 amid so many  writers one is   
compelled to resort to the odious       

necessity of a choice1  so ,i shall here
 all too briefly deal with ,silverpoints
 as a typical  volume of the early      
period1 and then trace succinctly the   
career of two  poets1 who had certainly 
the right to that appellation1 ,ernest  
,dowson  and ,john ,davidson1 and who   
were both not only of1 but actually were
 the  movement itself4 ,lastly1 in this 
section1 as an indication of the wide   
influence these writers had overseas1 as
 in the case of the ,birch ,bark        
,school of ,canada and certain poets in 
,australia1 ,i wish to mention the      
young ,american poet who was an intimate
 of so many of the men of the           
nineties--,william ,theodore ,peters4   
,the narrow green octavo of             
,silverpoints1 with its lambent golden  
flames1 strikes the eye at once as some 
bizarre and exotic work4 ,it  was one of
 the first of the limited ditions de    
luxe that mark the new  printing of the 
decade1 and is one of the most dainty   
little books  ever issued by ,elkin     

,mathews and ,john ,lane4 ,most of the  
titles are  in ,french1 and there are   
imitations from ,charles ,baudelaire1   
,arthur  ,rimbaud1 ,stphane ,mallarm1   
,paul ,verlaine--the gods of the        
symbolist  school at that moment4 ,poems
 are dedicated 7it was the habit of the 
decade7 to friends1 including ,pierre   
,lous1 ,paul ,verlaine1 ,oscar ,wilde1  
,r4 ,h4 ,sherard1 ,henri ,teixeira de   
,mattos1 ,ernest ,dowson1 etc4 ,the     
predominant note is that of tigress's   
blood and tiger-lilies4 ,honey1  roses1 
white breasts1 and golden hair1 with    
fierce passion and indolent  languor1   
are the chords of the book's frisson4   
,all the panoply of the  new ,english   
art begotten from the ,french here      
burgeons forth with the  ,satanic note  
that was then in the fashion4 ,we find  
this in the ,femmes  ,damnes3           
,like moody beasts they lie along the   
sands2      ,look where the sky against 
the sea-rim clings3      ,foot stretches
 out to foot1 and groping hands         

,have languors soft and bitter          
shudderings4        ,some by the light  
of crumbling1 resinous gums1      ,in   
the still hollows of old pagan dens1    
,call thee in aid to their deliriums    
,o ,bacchus6 cajoler of ancient pains4  
,and those whose breasts for scapulars  
are fain      ,nurse under their long   
robes the cruel thong1      ,these1 in  
dim woods1 where huddling shadows       
throng1      ,mix with the foam of      
pleasure tears of pain4    ,there is    
more than an echo of ,rimbaud's verses  
in this volume1 and  the poet is        
evidently straining always after the    
violent effect1 the  climacteric moment 
of a mood or passion4 ,probably two of  
the most  successfully carried through  
crises are ,the ,barber and ,mishka4    
,the  first of these as a typical       
example of the whole school ,i venture  
to  spheterize in full3        ,i       
dreamed ,i was a barber2 and there went 
,beneath my hand1 oh6 manes extravagant4
      ,beneath my trembling fingers1    

many a mask      ,of many a pleasant    
girl4 ,it was my task      ,to gild     
their hair1 carefully1 strand by strand2
      ,to paint their eyebrows with a   
timid hand2      ,to draw a bodkin1 from
 a vase of ,kohl1      ,through the     
closed lashes2 pencils from a bowl      
,of sepia1 to paint them underneath2    
,to blow upon their eyes with a soft    
breath4      ,they lay them back and    
watched the leaping bands4        ,the  
dream grew vague1 ,i moulded with my    
hands      ,the mobile breasts1 the     
valley2 and the waist      ,i touched2  
and pigments reverently placed          
,upon their thighs in sapient spots and 
stains1      ,beryls and chrysolites and
 diaphanes1      ,and gems whose hot    
harsh names are never said      ,i was a
 masseur2 and my fingers bled      ,with
 wonder as ,i touched their awful limbs4
        ,suddenly1 in the marble trough 
there seems      ,o1 last of my pale    
mistresses1 sweetness6      ,a twylipped
 scarlet pansie4 ,my caress      ,tinges

 thy steel-grey eyes to violet1         
,adown thy body skips the pit-a-pat     
,of treatment once heard in a hospital  
,for plagues that fascinate1 but half   
appal4        ,so1 at the sound1 the    
blood of me stood cold2      ,thy chaste
 hair ripened into sullen gold2         
,thy throat1 the shoulders1 swelled and 
were uncouth2      ,the breasts rose up 
and offered each a mouth2      ,and on  
the belly1 pallid blushes crept1        
,that maddened me1 until ,i laughed and 
wept4    ,here we have a long amorous   
catalogue4 ,it is the catalogue age     
which  comes via ,oscar ,wilde's ,sphinx
 and ,salom from certain ,french        
writers4 ,but this does not make up for 
the singing power of the poet1  and in  
long poems it becomes singularly        
laborious4 ,however1 this phase  of     
poetry is so typical of the age that it 
is as well to have dealt  with it before
 turning to the essentially #8singing'  
poets of the  period1 ,dowson and       
,davidson4    ,indeed1 there is no one  

in the nineties worthier of the         
honourable  title of poet than ,ernest  
,dowson4 ,with his unsatisfied passion  
for  ,adelaide in ,soho2 his cry for    
#8madder music and for stronger wine'2  
his  sthetic theories1 such as that the 
letter #8v' was the most beautiful  of  
the letters2 his reverence for things   
,french1 he has caused ,mr4  ,symons1 in
 one of his most notable essays1 to draw
 a delightful  portrait of a true enfant
 de ,bohme4 ,robert ,harborough ,sherard
 has  also kept the ,dowson tradition up
 in his description of the death of  the
 vexed and torn spirit of the poet in   
his ,twenty ,years in ,paris1  a work   
which contains much interesting material
 for a study of the  nineties4 ,but     
,victor ,plarr1 another poet of the     
nineties1 enraged at  the incompleteness
 of these pictures1 has tried to give us
 in his  reminiscences1 unpublished     
letters1 and marginalia1 the other facet
 of  ,dowson--the pote intime known to  
few4    ,it is no question of ours1 in a

 brief summary like this1 which is the  
truer portrait of ,dowson2 whether he   
was or was not like ,keats in his       
personal appearance2 whether ,arthur    
,moore and ,dowson wrote alternate      
chapters of ,a ,comedy of ,masks2       
whether in his last days or not         
,leonard ,smithers used to pay him      
thirty shillings a week for all he      
could do2 whether he used to pray or not
 in front of the bearded ,virgin  at    
,arques2 whether he used to drink       
hashish or not4 ,all these problems  are
 outside the beauty of the lyric poetry 
of ,dowson2 and it is by his  poetry and
 not because of all these rumours around
 his brief life that  he will live4     
,he was the poet impressionist of       
momentary emotions1 and poetry with  him
 was1 as ,stphane ,mallarm said1 #8the  
language of a crisis4' ,each  ,dowson   
poem is more or less the feverish       
impression of a hectical  crisis4 ,for  
in a way he takes off where ,keats      
ended1 for ,keats was  becoming a       

hectic1 while ,dowson started out as    
one4        ,exceeding sorrow           
,consumeth my sad heart6      ,because  
to-morrow        ,we must part4         
,now is exceeding sorrow        ,all my 
part6444        ,be no word spoken2     
,weep nothing3 let a pale      ,silence1
 unbroken        ,silence prevail6      
,prithee1 be no word spoken1            
,lest ,i fail6    ,his earliest poem to 
attract attention was ,amor ,umbratilis1
 which  appeared in ,horne's ,century   
,guild ,hobby ,horse4 ,it has the real  
,dowson note1 and marks him down at once
 as one of those poets who are  by      
nature buveurs de lune4 ,that was in    
#ahia4 ,in #ahib came out the  first    
book of the ,rhymers' ,club1 and with   
six poems of ,dowson in it he           
definitely took his place in the        
movement4 ,it is said that the ,oscar   
,wilde set sent him a telegram shortly  
after this #8peremptorily ordering  him 
to appear at the ,caf ,royal to lunch   
with the then great man4'  ,dowson was  

flattered1 and might well be1 for ,wilde
 was a splendid judge  of good work4    
,two years later the ,club's second book
 appeared1 and ,dowson has again  half a
 dozen poems in it1 including the lovely
 ,extreme ,unction1 and  that rather    
doubtfully praised lyric #8non sum      
qualis eram bonae sub  regno ,cynarae4' 
,then in the same year as ,the ,savoy   
7#ahif7 appeared  his ,verses1 printed  
on ,japanese vellum and bound in        
parchment1 with a  cover design in gold 
by ,aubrey ,beardsley--a typical        
,smithers book4 ,this  volume contains  
the best of ,dowson1 the handsel 7if it 
is not too big  a phrase to use of such 
a delicate and delightful artist71 the  
handsel  of his immortality4 ,for there 
is something about ,dowson's best work1 
though so fragile in its texture1 that  
has the classic permanence of a         
latter-day ,propertius4 ,he has a ,latin
 brevity and clarity1 and he is at  his 
best in this volume4 ,something has     
vanished from the enchantment  of the   

singer in ,decorations 7#ahii74 ,it is  
like the flowers of the  night before4  
,one feels that so many of these later  
verses had been  done perforce1 as      
,victor ,plarr says1 rather to keep on  
in the movement  lest one was forgotten4
 ,but in #ahii the movement was         
moribund1 and the  winter of discontent 
for the ,pierrots of the nineties was   
fast closing  down4 ,remembering these  
things1 one murmurs the sad beauty of   
those  perfect lines of this true poet  
in his first volume3        ,when this1 
our rose1 is faded1        ,and these1  
our days1 are done1      ,in lands      
profoundly shaded        ,from tempest  
and from sun3      ,ah1 once more come  
together1        ,shall we forgive the  
past1      ,and safe from worldly       
weather        ,possess our souls at    
last4    ,not without reason one feels  
he has been called the #8rosa rosarum of
  ,all the ,nineties1' in so far as     
poetry is concerned2 but1 personally1 ,i
  would prefer to call him1 if one has  

to call such a true poet anything1  the 
poets' poet of the nineties4 ,the best  
of his short stories rank  high in the  
great mass of the literature of those   
days1 and are dealt  with 7together with
 his partnership in two novels7 in      
another section4  ,as for his little    
one-act play1 ,the ,pierrot of the      
,minute1 one is  apt to feel perhaps    
that ,beardsley was not over unjust to  
it1 when he  described it as a tiresome 
playlet he had to illustrate4 ,at any   
rate1  it was the cause of ,beardsley's 
doing one or two admirable decorations1 
even if the actual play1 in which the   
young ,american poet of the  nineties1  
,theodore ,peters 7of whom more anon71  
and ,beardsley's own  sister acted1 was 
not effective as a stage production4    
,there is no doubt but that ,davidson1  
though he was outside the coteries  of  
the nineties1 was still of them4 ,first 
of all he was a ,scotchman of           
evangelical extraction1 and secondly he 
was not an ,oxford man4 ,all this  made 

him outside the group4 ,on the other    
count1 he was of the ,rhymers'  ,club1  
though he did not contribute to the     
books4 ,he was strongly  influenced by  
,nietzsche1 though the ,french influence
 in him was rather  negative4 ,his books
 came from the ,bodley ,head and were   
well recognised  by its other members4  
,beardsley even decorated some of them1 
and  ,rothenstein did his portrait for  
,the ,yellow ,book4 ,in fact1 ,davidson 
himself wrote for that periodical4 ,all 
this made him of the group4 ,it  would  
be thus impossible to pass over such a  
poet in connection with  this movement1 
for ,davidson has written some          
magnificent lyrics1 if  he has made his 
testaments too often and too turgidly4  
,the ,davidson1  indeed1 of the nineties
 will be discovered to be1 by any one   
examining  his works1 the ,davidson that
 will most probably survive4    ,he was 
born in #aheg1 but as ,mr4 ,holbrook    
,jackson admirably puts  it1 #8,john    
,davidson did not show any distinctive  

fin de sicle  characteristics until he  
produced his novel ,perfervid#af in     
#ahij4'  ,his next work1 a volume of    
poetry1 which was the first to attract  
attention1 ,in a ,music ,hall and other 
,poems 7#ahia71 accentuates these       
distinctive characteristics1 and fairly 
launches him on the tide of the         
movement4 ,before that time he had been 
school-mastering and clerking  in       
,scotland1 while his leisure had        
begotten three rather ill-conceived     
works4 ,davidson discovered himself when
 he came to ,london to write4 ,the      
movement of the nineties stimulated him 
towards artistic production1  and when  
that movement was killed by the fall of 
,wilde1 and buried by  the ,boer ,war1  
,davidson again lost himself in the     
philosophic propaganda  of his last     
years before he was driven to suicide4  
,philosophy1 indeed1  with ,john        
,davidson1 was to eat one's heart with  
resultant mental  indigestion that      
completely unbalanced the artist in him4

 ,therefore1  so far as this            
appreciation is concerned1 we only have 
to deal with  the happy ,davidson of the
 ,ballads and ,fleet ,street ,eclogues  
fame2  the gay writer of ,a ,random     
,itinerary 7#ahid72 the rather hopeless 
novelist of ,baptist ,lake 7#ahid71 and 
,the ,wonderful ,mission of ,earl       
,lavender 7#ahie74 ,the last tedious    
phase before he gave himself to the     
,cornish sea is no affair of ours4 ,in  
his ,testament he says #8none  should   
outlive his power1' and realising       
probably that he had made this  mistake1
 he wished to end it all4       #af ,the
 ,eighteen ,nineties1 by ,holbrook      
,jackson1 p4 #bae #aiac4    ,but in the 
nineties he was like his own birds1 full
 of #8oboe' song and  #8broken music4'  
,seldom has the ,english river1 the     
,thames1 been more  sweetly chaunted    
than by him4 ,while if we are looking   
for his kinship  with his time there is 
no doubt about it in ,the ,ballad of a  
,nun1 who  remarks3        ,i care not  

for my broken vow1        ,though ,god  
should come in thunder soon1      ,i am 
sister to the mountains now1        ,and
 sister to the sun and moon4    ,a      
statement which we feel many of the     
,beardsley ladies cadaverous with  sin  
or fat with luxury would have been quite
 capable of repeating4  ,again1 his     
,thirty ,bob a ,week in ,the ,yellow    
,book is as much  a ninety effort as his
 ,ballad of ,hell1 while his novel1     
,earl  ,lavender1 is a burlesque of     
certain of the eccentricities of the    
period4 ,in a poetical note to this     
volume he sings3        ,oh6 our age end
 style perplexes      ,all our ,elders' 
time has famed2      ,on our sleeves we 
wear our sexes1      ,our diseases1     
unashamed4    ,the prevalent realistic  
disease in poetry is well represented by
 ,a  ,woman and her ,son3        ,he set
 his teeth1 and saw his mother die1     
,outside a city reveller's tipsy tread  
,severed the silence with a jagged rent4
    ,above all1 ,davidson handles with  

marked facility the modern ballad       
medium of narrative verse4 ,the ,ballad 
of a ,nun1 ,the ,ballad of  an ,artist's
 ,wife1 and others1 relate their story  
in easy1 jogging  quatrains4 ,as a      
sample one can quote from ,a ,new       
,ballad of ,tannhuser3        ,as he lay
 worshipping his bride1        ,while   
rose leaves in her bosom fell1      ,on 
dreams came sailing on a tide        ,of
 sleep1 he heard a matin bell4          
#8,hark6 let us leave the magic hill1'  
,he said1 #8and live on earth with men4'
      #8,no1 here1' she said1 #8we stay 
until        ,the ,golden ,age shall    
come again4'    ,but if ,davidson could 
tell a tale in verse it cannot be said  
he  understood the novel form4 ,although
 here it is rather noticeable that  he  
has a strange1 unique feature among his 
contemporaries4 ,for he at  least has a 
sense of humour4 ,max ,beerbohm1 it is  
true1 had the gift  of irony2 but       
,davidson1 almost alone1 has a certain  
vein of grim  ,scotch humour1 as1 for   

example1 in the character of little     
red-headed  ,mortimer in ,perfervid4 ,in
 ,dowson1 ,johnson1 ,symons1 and the    
others1  one is sometimes appalled by   
the seriousness of it all4 ,lastly1 but 
by no means least1 ,davidson            
occasionally attains the lyric rapture  
of  unadulterated poetry in his shorter 
pieces1 while his vignettes of  nature  
linger in the memory on account of their
 truth and beauty4 ,both  these         
qualities--the lyric rapture and the    
keen eye for country sights  and        
sounds--are to be found1 for instance1  
in ,a ,runnable ,stag3        ,when the 
pods went pop on the broom1 green broom1
        ,and apples began to be         
golden-skinned1      ,we harboured a    
stag in the ,priory coomb1        ,and  
we feathered his trail up wind1 up wind6
    ,among many other ambitions1        
,davidson wanted to fire the scientific 
world with imaginative poetry4 ,as he   
phrased it3 #8,science is still  a      
valley of dead bones till imagination   

breathes upon it4' ,there are  indeed   
evidences of an almost ,shelleyan       
pantheism in his credo4 ,unhappy  was   
his life1 but1 probably1 he did not     
labour in vain1 for a handsel  of his   
song will endure4 ,writing1 indeed1 was 
the consolation of his  life3        ,i 
cannot write1 ,i cannot think2          
',tis half delight and half distress2   
,my memory stumbles on the brink        
,of some unfathomed happiness--         
,of some old happiness divine1          
,what haunting scent1 what haunting     
note1      ,what word1 or what melodious
 line1      ,sends my heart throbbing to
 my throat8    ,indeed1 why repeat it1  
both ,dowson and he will live by their  
poetry4  ,but in the case of ,davidson1 
in addition1 there is his rather        
elephantine humour4 ,while again it must
 always be remembered that he  had the  
courage to state that the fear of       
speaking freely had #8cramped  the      
literature of ,england for a century4'  
,it was the liberty of the  ,french     

literature indeed that in no small      
degree captivated the minds  of all     
these young men4 ,very few of them1     
however1 had the courage to  speak      
freely4 ,but it must always remain to   
,davidson's credit that he  tried to    
write a freer1 emancipated novel1 which1
 however1 he failed to  do1 because he  
had a very remote idea of novel         
construction4    ,it was in #ahif that  
the quaint little salmon-pink volume of 
,william  ,theodore ,peters1 the young  
,american poet1 appeared1 entitled      
,posies  out of ,rings4 ,this young     
,american was an intimate of some of the
 men  of the nineties1 and though it is 
doubtful whether he himself would  have 
ever achieved high fame as a poet1 he   
had a sincere love for the  beautiful   
things of ,art4 ,among all these        
tragedies of ill-health1  insanity and  
suicide that seemed to track down each  
of these young men1  his fate was       
perhaps the saddest of all1 for he died 
of starvation  in ,paris1#ag where many 

of his verses had appeared in a         
distinctly  ,american venture1 ,the     
,quartier ,latin4 ,his volume of        
conceits are a  harking back1 not always
 satisfactorily1 to the ancient form of 
the  versified epigram4 ,what was wrong 
with his ,muse is that it was only  half
 alive4 ,he puts indeed his own case in 
a nutshell in that charming  little poem
 ,pierrot and the ,statue1 which ,i     
venture to quote in full3       #ag ,r4 
,h4 ,sherard1 ,twenty ,years in ,paris4 
,one summer evening in a charmd wood1   
,before a marble ,venus1 ,pierrot stood2
      ,a ,venus beautiful beyond        
compare1      ,gracious her lip1 her    
snowy bosom bare1      ,pierrot amorous1
 his cheeks aflame1      ,called the    
white statue many a lover's name4       
,an oriole flew down from off a tree1   
#8,woo not a goddess made of stone6'    
sang he4      #8,all of my warmth to    
warm it1' ,pierrot said1      ,when by  
the pedestal he sank down dead2         
,the statue faintly flushed1 it seemed  

to strive      ,to move--but it was only
 half alive4    ,such was the ,muse's   
response to ,peters' wooing2 while he1  
in that  strange bohemian world of so   
many of the young writers of that day1  
wrote in another short poem the epitaph 
of the majority of those who  gave so   
recklessly of their youth1 only to fail4
 ,it is called ,to the  ,caf aux ,phares
 de l',ouest1 ,quartier ,montparnasse3  
,the painted ship in the paste-board sea
          ,sails night and day4         
,to-morrow it will be as far as it was  
yesterday4          ,but underneath1 in 
the ,caf1          ,the lusty crafts go 
down1      ,and one by one1 poor mad    
souls drown--      ,while the painted   
ship in the paste-board sea             
,sails night and day4    ,such1 indeed1 
was too often the fate of the epigoni of
 the movement4  ,their nightingales were
 never heard2 they were buried with all 
their  songs still unsung4    ,the only 
other volume which ,theodore ,peters    
essayed1 to my knowledge1  was a little 

poetic one-acter like his friend ,ernest
 ,dowson's ,pierrot  of the ,minute 7for
 which work he wrote an epilogue74      
,peters' play1  entitled ,the           
,tournament of ,love1 is a very scarce  
item of the  nineties' bibliography4 ,he
 calls it a pastoral masque in one act1 
and  it was published by ,brentano's at 
,paris in #ahid and illustrated with    
drawings by ,alfred ,jones4 ,as ,bantock
 wrote the music for ,the ,pierrot  of  
the ,minute1 ,noel ,johnson composed the
 melodies for ,the ,tournament  of      
,love4 ,the masque was put on at the    
,thtre d',application 7,la  ,bodinire71 
#ah rue ,st4 ,lazare1 ,may #h1 #ahid4   
,peters himself took the  part of       
,bertrand de ,roaix1 a troubadour1 while
 among the cast were  ,wynford          
,dewhurst1 the painter1 and ,loe        
,fuller1 the dancer4 ,the scene  is an  
almond orchard on the outskirts of      
,toulouse1 on the afternoon of  the #crd
 ,may1 #adih4 #8,a group of troubadours 
discovered at the right of  the stage1  

seated upon a white semicircular        
,renaissance bench1 some  tuning their  
instruments4 ,other poets towards the   
back4 ,a laurel tree  at the right      
centre4 ,on the left centre two heralds 
guard the entrance  to the lists4' ,pons
 d',orange1 the arrived poet1 will win  
at this  tournament of love1 the        
,eglantine nouvelle1 #8that golden prize
 of wit4'  ,but it is won by ,bertrand  
de ,roaix1 who wants it not1 but the    
love of  the institutress of this court 
of love1 #8,clmence ,isaure1 the        
,primrose  ,queen of ,beauty4' ,at his  
love protestations she laughs2 the      
troubadour  goes outside the lists and  
stabs himself4 ,as he lies dying        
,clmence1  clothed in her white samite1 
powdered with silver fleur-de-lys and   
edged with ermine1 her dust-blonde hair 
bound with a fillet of  oak-leaves1     
comes forth from the lists and finds her
 boy lover's body3              ,love   
came and went2 we      ,knew him not4 ,i
 have found my soul too late4           

,v      ,the ,victorian literary era was
 fecund in essayists1 and the last      
decade  lived up to this reputation4    
,the forerunners of the essayists of the
  nineties were obviously ,walter       
,pater1 ,john ,addington ,symonds1      
,oscar  ,wilde with his ,intentions and 
,whistler in his ,gentle ,art4 ,behind  
these there was a great mass of ,french 
influence which1 together with  literary
 impressionism as exemplified in such   
books as ,crackanthorpe's  ,vignettes1  
was to give the essay and the so-called 
study a new  lease of life4 ,indeed1    
what came out of the period was not     
merely  criticism as a useful broom     
sweeping away the chaff from the wheat1 
but criticism itself as a creative art1 
as ,wilde chose to call it2 not  merely 
dry-as-dust records of plays and cities1
 and other affairs as  in guide manuals1
 but artistic impressions1 in some ways 
as vital as  the objects themselves4    
,mr4 ,arthur ,symons1 in particular1 has
 given us  an abundance of this kind of 

work of which ,i have already spoken4   
,so  did ,lionel ,johnson and ,mr4 ,max 
,beerbohm1 to whom ,i propose to allude 
here1 and many others like ,mr4 ,bernard
 ,shaw1 who1 though not of the          
movement1 moved alongside it on his own 
way1 and ,mr4 ,g4 ,s4 ,street1 in  his  
,episodes1 ,richard ,le ,gallienne1     
,arthur ,galton1 ,francis ,adams  in his
 ,essays in ,modernity1 etc4 etc4 ,one  
has only to turn over  the magazines of 
the period to find a band of writers1   
too numerous  to mention1 who aided on  
the movement with their pens4 ,to cite  
one  prominent example alone1 there was 
,grant ,allen with his essay on  ,the   
,new ,hedonism4 ,here1 however1 ,i must 
be content with a brief  appreciative   
glance at the works of the two writers  
,i have mentioned1  who were both       
actually of and in the movement itself4 
,i have not here  of set purpose        
referred to the ,henley essayists like  
,charles ,whibley4  ,but the two men of 
the nineties ,i have chosen to speak of 

here have  been selected in the way an  
essayist should be selected nine times  
out  of ten1 that is to say1 because of 
his pleasing personality4 ,these two    
writers--particularly ,max--are such    
individual writers1 yet they never      
offend4 ,they are just pleasant         
garrulous companions4    ,for those who 
care at all passionately for the        
precious things of  literature1 the work
 of ,lionel ,johnson will always remain 
a cherished  and secluded nook4 ,the man
 was a scholar1 a poet1 and a critic1   
whose  dominant note was gracile        
lucidity4 ,a friend writing of his      
personal  appearance at the time of his 
death said1 #8,thin1 pale1 very delicate
  he looked1 with a twitching of the    
facial muscles1 which showed even  at   
the age of twenty-four how unfit was his
 physique to support the  strain of an  
abnormally nervous organization4 ,quick 
and mouselike in  his movements1        
reticent of speech and low-voiced1 he   
looked like some  old-fashioned child   

who had strayed by chance into an       
assembly of men4  ,but a child could not
 have shown that inward smile of        
appreciative  humour1 a little aloof1 a 
little contemptuous perhaps1 that worked
  constantly around his mouth4 ,he never
 changed except in the direction  of a  
greater pallor and a greater fragility4'
    ,cloistral mysticism was the        
key-chord of his two volumes of poetry  
7#ahie and #ahig74 ,in some respects he 
seems to have strayed out of  the       
seventeenth century of ,crashaw and     
,herbert4 ,his early training1  no      
doubt1 engendered this aspect4 ,after   
six years in the grey ,gothic  school of
 ,winchester he passed on to ,new       
,college1 ,oxford4 ,here he came  under 
the influence of ,pater1 and was charmed
 by the latter's then  somewhat hieratic
 austerity4 ,a devout ,irish ,catholic1 
he was moved by  three themes3 his old  
school1 ,oxford1 and ,ireland1 and to   
these he  unfortunately too often       
devoted his muse4 ,after the quiet      

seclusion of  his ,oxford years1 on     
entering the vortex of ,london literary 
life he  found that the world of        
wayfaring was a somewhat rough passage  
in the  mire for one so delicate4 ,out  
of the struggle between his scholarly   
aspirations and the cry of his time for 
life1 more life1 was woven  perhaps the 
finest of all his poems1 ,the ,dark     
,angel3        ,dark angel1 with thine  
aching lust      ,to rid the world of   
penitence3      ,malicious angel1 who   
still dost      ,my soul such subtile   
violence6--        ,because of thee1 the
 land of dreams      ,becomes a         
gathering place of fears3      ,until   
tormented slumber seems      ,one       
vehemence of useless tears4444          
,thou art the whisper in the gloom1     
,the hinting tone1 the haunting laugh3  
,thou art the adorner of my tomb1       
,the minstrel of mine epitaph4    ,most 
of his poems are subjective1 and the    
majority have a certain  stiffness of   
movement of a priest laden with         

chasuble2 but sometimes1  however1 as in
 ,mystic and ,cavalier1 or in the lines 
on the statue of  ,charles ,i at        
,charing ,cross1 he writes with a       
winsome charm and freedom  of spirit3   
,armoured he rides1 his head      ,bare 
to the stars of doom3      ,he triumphs 
now1 the dead      ,beholding ,london's 
gloom4444    ,surely this poem has the  
proud note of ,henley6 ,there is another
 trait  in his verse1 which1 in view of 
his essays1 it is as well not to pass   
over4 ,like ,william ,watson1 his       
literary poems are pregnant with phrases
  of rich criticism4 ,he calls back the 
immortals in a true bookman's           
invocation hailing #8opulent ,pindar1'  
#8the pure and perfect voice of  ,gray1'
 #8pleasant and elegant and garrulous   
,pliny'3        ,herodotus1 all simple  
and all wise2      ,demosthenes1 a      
lightning flame of scorn3      ,the     
surge of ,cicero1 that never dies2      
,and ,homer1 grand against the ancient  
morn4    ,but we are here chiefly       

concerned with his prose writings4 ,if  
it is the  duty of the essayist to      
mirror the intellectuality of his age1  
,lionel  ,johnson was a mirror for the  
,oxford standpoint of the nineties4     
,there  still remain many of his papers 
uncollected in various old newspaper    
files4 ,but certainly the best of his   
work has been lovingly collected  by    
friendly hands1 and worthily housed in  
,post ,liminium4 ,take1 for  instance1  
this passage from an essay on books     
published originally in  ,the ,academy  
7,december #hth1 #aijj73      ,the      
glowing of my companionable fire upon   
the backs of my    companionable books1 
and then the familiar difficulty of     
choice4    ,compassed about by old      
friends1 whose virtues and vices ,i know
    better than my own1 ,i will be loyal
 to loves that are not of    yesterday4 
,new poems1 new essays1 new stories1 new
 lives1 are not    my company at        
,christmastide1 but the never-ageing    
old4 #8,my days    among the dead are   

passed4' ,veracious ,southey1 how cruel 
a lie6 ,my    sole days among the dead  
are the days passed among the still-born
    or moribund moderns1 not the white  
days and shining nights free    for the 
strong voices of the ancients in fame4  
,a classic has a    permanence of       
pleasurability2 that is the meaning of  
his estate and    title4    ,or again1  
,johnson in his paper on ,the ,work of  
,mr4 ,pater1 sets forth  perhaps the    
best appreciation of his master that has
 yet appeared3      #8,magica sympathi6'
 words borne upon the shield of ,lord   
,herbert    of ,cherbury1 are inscribed 
upon the writings of ,mr4 ,pater1 who   
found his way straight from the first to
 those matters proper    to his genius1 
nor did he1 as ,fuseli says of          
,leonardo1 #8waste    life1 insatiate in
 experiment4'444 #8,nemo perfectus est1'
 says ,st4    ,bernard1 #8qui perfectior
 esse appetit'3 it is as true in art as 
in    religion4 ,in art also #8the way  
to perfection is through a series of    

disgusts' 444 and truly1 as ,joubert    
said1 we should hesitate before    we   
differ in religion from the saints1 in  
poetry from the poets4444    ,there is  
no languorous toying with things of     
beauty1 in a kind of    opiate dream1 to
 be found here4    ,while ,symons has   
written on all the arts1 the sphere of  
,johnson has  been more limited to      
traditional ,english lines4 ,johnson    
attempts  no broad sthetical system like
 the former4 ,all that he does is to    
illuminate the writer of whom he is     
speaking4 ,and his little essays1       
eminent in their un-,english lucidity1  
their scrupulous nicety1 their          
conscious and deliberate beauty1 adding 
to our belles lettres a  classical      
execution and finish 7which perfection  
accounts perhaps for  the classical     
smallness of his bookmaking7 have all   
the bewildering  charm of a born        
stylist4 ,certain of his phrases linger 
in the mind  like music4 #8,many a sad  
half-murmured thought of ,pascal1 many a

 deep  and plangent utterance of        
,lucretius4' ,or the line3 #8,the face  
whose  changes dominate my heart4' ,like
 the styles of ,newman and ,pater1 on   
which his own is founded1 he is         
singularly allusive4 ,he cites critics  
by chapter and verse like an advocate   
defending a case4 ,in fact1 as in  his  
critical magnum opus1 ,the ,art of      
,thomas ,hardy1 he is amazingly         
judicial4 ,it is1 too1 since he is      
essentially academic1 to the older      
critics he prefers to turn for guidance4
 ,as he writes3 #8,flaubert and         
,baudelaire and ,gautier1 ,hennequin and
 ,m4 ,zola and ,m4 ,mallarm1 with  all  
their colleagues or exponents1 may      
sometimes be set aside1 and  suffer us  
to hear ,quintilian or ,ben ,jonson1    
,cicero or ,dryden4' ,this  habit       
sometimes makes him strenuous reading1  
particularly in longer  criticisms like 
,the ,art of ,thomas ,hardy4    ,we grow
 weary of all this quotative authority4 
,burton's ,anatomy of  ,melancholy      

cannot be brought into every-day        
literary criticism4 ,we  want to hear   
more of ,lionel ,johnson's own direct   
opinions and less of  these selected    
passages from his library4 ,so it is to 
those passages  where ,johnson is most  
himself we turn in ,the ,art of ,thomas 
,hardy1  which1 in spite of its         
academicism and the youthfulness of its 
author1  remains a genuine piece of     
sound critical work4 ,the delightful    
imagery  of the prose in such passages  
is often very illuminating1 as in this  
paragraph3      ,from long and frequent 
converse with works of any favourite    
author1    we often grow to thinking of 
them under some symbol or image2 to     
see them summed up and expressed in some
 one composite scene of our    own      
making2 this is my #8vision' of ,mr4    
,hardy's works4 ,a rolling    down      
country1 crossed by a ,roman road2 here 
a gray standing stone1    of what       
sacrificial ritual origin ,i can but    
guess2 there a grassy    barrow1 with   

its great bones1 its red-brown jars1 its
 rude gold    ornament1 still safe in   
earth2 a broad sky burning with stars2 a
    solitary man4 ,it is of no use to   
turn away1 and to think of the          
village farms and cottages1 with their  
antique ways and looks2 of    the deep  
woods1 of the fall of the woodman's axe1
 the stir of the    wind in the         
branches2 of the rustic feasts and      
festivals1 when the    home-brewed drink
 goes round1 to the loosening of tongues
 and wits2    of the hot meadows1       
fragrant hayfields1 cool dairies1 and   
blazing    gardens2 of shining          
cart-horses under the chestnut-trees and
 cows    called in at milking time3 they
 are characteristic scenes1 but not     
the one characteristic scene4 ,that is  
the great down by night1 with    its    
dead in their ancient graves1 and its   
lonely living figure2 444    ,there is1 
perhaps1 a reek about it all of a       
too-conscious imitation of  ,pater's    
murmured obituaries which makes one in  

the end rather tired of  this hieratic  
treatment of art1 so that one turns     
rather gladly to the  one or two tales  
he wrote4 ,for example in ,the ,lilies  
of ,france1 an  episode of ,french      
anti-clericalism1 which appeared in ,the
 ,pageant1  #ahig1 he slowly builds up a
 thing of verbal beauty that one feels  
was actually worthy of him1 while in the
 previous number of the same  quarterly 
he perpetrated a delightful ironism on  
the literary men of  his period entitled
 ,incurable1 in which1 perhaps1 we may  
trace faint  autobiographical clues4    
,such1 briefly1 was the work of this    
young man  who was found dead in ,fleet 
,street early one morning1 aged         
thirty-five4    ,but the writer who was 
to bring irony in ,english literature to
 a  consummate pitch1 and add to the age
 a strange brief brilliance of  his own 
wilful spirit1 was ,max ,beerbohm4 ,max1
 the #8,incomparable' as  ,bernard ,shaw
 once described him1 is the charm of the
 gilded lily1 the  fairy prince of an   

urbane artificiality3 he is in          
literature what the  cocktail is among  
drinks2 he is the enemy of dullness and 
the friend of  that ,greek quality      
called #8charis4' ,he is the public     
school and ,varsity  man who is fond of1
 but afraid of1 being tedious in        
literature2 so with  delightful         
affectation his vehicle is persiflage   
with a load of wit he  pretends to      
disdain4 ,of all the prose writers of   
the ,beardsley period  he is the easiest
 and most charming to read4 ,in fact1 he
 is the ideal  essayist4 ,he titillates 
the literary sense4 ,fortunately his    
glass is  small1 for if one had to drink
 it in quart pots the result would be   
as disastrous as in his one and only    
mistake--the long novel ,zuleika        
,dobson1 which is a late work written   
long after the nineties had been        
swallowed up by that maw which swallowed
 up ,lesbia's sparrow and all  other    
beautiful dead things4    ,max said in  
jest1 #8,i belong to the ,beardsley     

period1' and it is one of  those jests  
which is only too painfully true4 ,when 
he was at ,oxford he  was caught up in  
the movement1 and wrote1 under ,wilde's 
influence1 ,a  ,defence of ,cosmetics   
for the first number of ,the ,yellow    
,book1 and  he also appeared in ,lord   
,alfred ,douglas's magazine4            
,thenceforward he  contributed to       
various quarterlies1 while in #ahif the 
little red volume  with its white paper 
label appeared as ,the ,works1          
containing all the  best of this        
precocious enfant terrible of           
literature1 who assures  us that he read
 in bed1 while at school1 ,marius the   
,epicurean1 and  found it not nearly so 
difficult as ,midshipman ,easy4 ,at the 
age of  twenty-five he cries3 #8,i shall
 write no more4 ,already ,i feel myself 
to  be a trifle outmoded1' and he       
religiously does not keep his word4 ,he 
keeps pouring out caricatures1 writes   
,more1 the companion volume to  ,the    
,works1 and perpetrates his short story 

,the ,happy ,hypocrite4  ,beyond #ahii  
we cannot follow him1 but he has been   
busy ever since with  his parodies1 his 
,yet ,again1 his lamentable novel1 his  
one-act play1  and so on4    ,it is to  
that ,beardsley period to which he said 
he belonged we are  here restricted4    
,and it must be admitted that though the
 ,boer ,war and  the ,great ,war do not 
seem to have gagged him1 there is       
something so  impishly impudent in his  
earlier work which renders it more      
remarkable  than the complacent efforts 
of his later years4    ,amid the        
searching seriousness of the nineties1  
,max is like balm in  ,gilead4 ,he has  
the infinite blessing of irony4 ,the    
others1 except  ,beardsley 7who too has 
this gift71 are so appallingly serious4 
,the  ,french influences that went to   
their making seem to have killed the    
valiant ,english humour of ,falstaff1   
,pickwick1 and ,verdant ,green4  ,they  
are all like young priests who will take
 no liberty with their  ritual2 but ,max

 saves the period with his whimsical    
irony4 ,his is not  the fearful1 mordant
 irony of ,octave ,mirbeau1 but a dainty
 butterfly  fancy playing lightly over  
the pleasures of a pleasant life4 ,to be
  essentially civilised is to be like a 
god4 ,this is the pose of such  a       
mentality4 ,it is a winsome pose with no
 sharp edges to it1 just as  the poseur 
himself must be wilfully blind to all   
the seaminess of  life4 ,in front of his
 window 7if a temperament be a window   
looking out  on life7 there is a        
pleasant garden4 ,beyond is the noise   
and dust of  the highway4 ,he is the    
dandy in his choice of life as in his   
choice  of literature1 and in more than 
one sense he has written the happiest   
essays of the period4    ,it has been   
said his caricatures are essays4 ,may we
 not equally say  his essays are        
caricatures8 ,the essay1 indeed1 is the 
work of the  feline male1 the man who   
sits beside the fire like ,charles      
,lamb4 ,the  out-of-doors man writes the

 episode4 ,but ,max is essentially an   
indoors  man1 who has a perfect little  
dressing-room like a lady's boudoir1 but
  much neater1 where he concocts his    
essays we read so easily by infinite    
labour1 with a jewelled pen4 ,it is as  
though he had said3 #8,literature  must 
either be amusing or dull2 mine shall be
 the former4' ,he is very  much the     
young man about town who has consented  
gracefully to come  and charm us4 ,what 
he wrote of ,whistler in ,the ,gentle   
,art of ,making  ,enemies1 we may say of
 him3 #8,his style never falters4 ,the  
silhouette  of no sentence is ever      
blurred4 ,every sentence is ringing with
 a clear1  vocal cadence4' ,and the     
refrain is ,max himself all the time1   
and his  personality is so likeable we  
stomach it all the time4 ,it is the note
  that vibrates through all his amiable 
satiric irony1 whether it be on  the    
,house of ,commons ,manner or in defence
 of the use of ,cosmetics1 or  in       
describing the period of #ahhj4         

,everything1 from first to last1 is     
done with such good taste4 ,even in his 
wildest flights of raillery he  is      
utterly purposed not to offend4 ,in his 
charming paper1 #ahhj1 he  has given us 
a vigorous vignette of the previous     
decade to ,the ,yellow  ,book age4 ,one 
can hardly help quoting a small passage 
here from this  admirably worked up     
prose3 #8,in fact ,beauty had existed   
long before  #ahhj4 ,it was ,mr4 ,oscar 
,wilde who managed her dbut4 ,to study  
the period  is to admit that to him was 
due no small part of the social vogue   
that  ,beauty began to enjoy4 ,fired by 
his fervid words1 men and women hurled  
their mahogany into the streets and     
ransacked the curio-shops for the       
furniture of ,annish days4 ,dadoes arose
 upon every wall1 sunflowers and  the   
feathers of peacocks curved in every    
corner1 tea grew quite cold  while the  
guests were praising the ,willow        
,pattern of its cup4 ,a few  fashionable
 women even dressed themselves in       

sinuous draperies and  unheard-of       
greens4 ,into whatsoever ball-room you  
went1 you would surely  find1 among the 
women in tiaras1 and the fops and the   
distinguished  foreigners1 half a score 
of comely ragamuffins in velveteen1     
murmuring  sonnets1 posturing1 waving   
their hands4 ,beauty was sought in the  
most  unlikely places4 ,young painters  
found her mobbled in the fogs1 and      
bank-clerks versed in the writings of   
,mr4 ,hamerton1 were heard to  declare1 
as they sped home from the city1 that   
the ,underground ,railway  was beautiful
 from ,london ,bridge to ,westminster1  
but not from ,sloane  ,square to        
,notting ,hill ,gate4'    ,it is thus   
that ,max can play with a chord of      
almost tender irony on  his subject1 and
 such a style1 so full of the writer's  
personality1  has the cachet of the     
veritable essayist4 ,how charmingly1 for
 example1  he records his reminiscences 
of ,beardsley4 ,it is a delightful      
little  picture of the artist1          

interesting enough to place beside      
,arthur  ,symons's portrait3 #8,he loved
 dining out1 and1 in fact1 gaiety of any
  kind4 ,his restlessness was1 ,i       
suppose1 one of the symptoms of his     
malady4 ,he was always most content     
where there was the greatest noise  and 
bustle1 the largest number of people1   
and the most brilliant light4  ,the     
8domino-room0 at the ,caf ,royal had    
always a great fascination for  him3 he 
liked the mirrors and the florid        
gilding1 the little parties  of         
foreigners1 and the smoke and the       
clatter of the dominoes being  shuffled 
on the marble tables4444 ,i remember1   
also1 very clearly1  a supper at which  
,beardsley was present4 ,after the      
supper we sat  up rather late4 ,he was  
the life and soul of the party1 till1   
quite  suddenly almost in the middle of 
a sentence1 he fell fast asleep in his  
chair4 ,he had overstrained his         
vitality1 and it had all left him4 ,i   
can  see him now as he sat there with   

his head sunk on his breast2 the thin   
face1 white as the gardenia in his coat1
 and the prominent1 harshly-cut         
features2 the hair1 that always covered 
his whole forehead in a fringe  and was 
of so curious a colour--a kind of       
tortoise-shell2 the narrow1  angular    
figure1 and the long hands that were so 
full of power4'#ah       #ah ,the       
,idler1 ,may1 #ahih4    ,outside this   
medium of the essay1 with the exception 
of the  caricatures1 ,max is no longer  
the incomparable1 for his short story1  
,the ,happy ,hypocrite1 is not a short  
story at all1 but a spoilt  essay2#ai   
while his novel is not merely a failure1
 but a veritable  disaster4 ,with his   
first paper in ,the ,yellow ,book he    
fell in with  the step of the men of the
 nineties1 and he too became a part of  
their  efflorescence4 ,sufficient unto  
that time is his work1 and with a final 
quotation from this early paper so      
redolent of the movement that there  is 
no mistaking it1 we must leave him and  

his future on the knees of  the gods3   
#8,was it not at ,capua that they had a 
whole street where  nothing was sold but
 dyes and unguents8 ,we must have such a
 street1  and1 to fill our new          
,seplosia1 our ,arcade of ,unguents1 all
 herbs  and minerals and live creatures 
shall give of their substance4 ,the     
white cliffs of ,albion shall be ground 
to powder for ,loveliness1 and  perfumed
 by the ghost of many a little violet4  
,the fluffy eider-ducks1  that are      
swimming round the pond1 shall lose     
their feathers1 that the  powder-puff   
may be moonlike as it passes over       
,loveliness' lovely face4'       #ai    
,his ,children's ,tale1 ,the ,small ,boy
 and the ,barley ,sugar          7,the  
,parade1 #ahig71 should also be         
mentioned as another          case of   
shipwrecked ingenuity4          ,,vi    
,here ,i propose to go through a litany 
of some of my omissions4 ,in  essaying  
to depict the aspects of an age there is
 always this pitfall1  omission1 which  

ambuscades the adventurous spirit4 ,for 
we who know so  little even about       
ourselves--how can we1 without grave    
impertinence1  boldly say ,i wish to    
bring back to the mind of others an age 
dead and  gone8 ,everything is so       
interwoven in life that it is1 for      
example1 an  unwarranted arbitrariness  
to discuss the literature of this period
  without brooding on the black and     
white art of the time1 or the  canvases 
of its painters4    ,i have worried for 
some space over ,aubrey ,beardsley1 but 
,i have not  spoken of men like ,mr4 ,s4
 ,h4 ,sime1 whose work ,beardsley so    
delighted  in4 ,probably ,sidney ,h4    
,sime's work in ,the ,butterfly1 ,the   
,idler1  ,pick-me-,up1 ,eureka1 etc41   
besides his book illustrations1 is in   
some ways the most powerfully           
imaginative of the period4 ,there has   
been  a ,beardsley craze1 and most      
assuredly there will be one day a ,sime 
craze1 when collectors have focussed    
properly the marvellous suggestive      

power of this artist's work4            
,unfortunately1 scattered up and down   
old  magazines1 much of this work is1 as
 it were1 lost for the moment like      
,toulouse ,lautrec's drawings in papers 
like ,le ,rire4 ,but when it is         
garnered up in a worthy book of drawings
 like the ,beardsley books1  the power  
of ,sime's work will be undoubted4      
,fortunately ,sime is still  amongst us1
 and occasionally a ,dunsany book brings
 us fresh evidence of  his genius4      
,again1 ,i have not alluded to ,edgar   
,wilson's bizarre and fascinating       
decorations of submarine life and       
,japonesque figures4 ,like ,shannon1    
,ricketts1 ,raven ,hill1 and others1 he 
received his early art education  at the
 ,lambeth ,school of ,art4 ,at the end  
of the eighties he began  collecting    
,japanese prints long before ,beardsley 
had left school4 ,in  fact1 ,edgar      
,wilson was one of the pioneers of the  
,japanese print in  this country--a love
 for the strange which came over to     

,england from  ,france4 ,a typical      
decorative design of ,wilson's#bj is    
#8,in the ,depths  of the ,sea1'        
representing an octopus rampant over a  
human skull1  beneath which are two     
strange flat fish1 and in the background
 a  sunken old three-decker with        
quaintly carved stern and glorious prow4
  ,pick-me-,up first used his work as it
 did that of many another young  artist1
 and in its back files much of his best 
work can be found4  ,for ,the ,rambler  
he did different designs for each issue1
 which  is probably the only redeeming  
feature about that early ,harmsworth    
periodical4 ,the ,sketch1 ,cassell's1   
,scribner's1 and above all ,the  ,idler 
and ,the ,butterfly1 are beautified     
among other papers by his  exotic       
decorations4       #bj ,edgar ,wilson   
and his ,work1 by ,arthur ,lawrence1    
,the          ,idler1 ,july1 #ahii4     
,once more ,i have not spoken at all of 
,miss ,althea ,gyles's hectic  visions  
which1 in her illustrations for ,wilde's

 ,the ,harlot's ,house1  probably       
reached the acme of the period's        
realisation of the weird4  ,she is of   
course really of the ,irish symbolists1 
and not one of the  nineties' group at  
all2 but1 in her ,wilde illustrations1  
she almost  enters the same field as the
 men of the nineties4 ,her connection1  
too1  with the firm of ,smithers is     
another strong excuse for mentioning her
  work here4 ,in ,the ,dome both her    
drawings and poems appeared1 while  in  
the ,december number for #ahih there is 
a note on her symbolism by  ,w4 ,b4     
,yeats4 ,in all her drawings the fancy  
that seems to have such free  flight is 
in reality severely ordered by the      
designer's symbolism4  ,sometimes it is 
merely intriguing1 as in drawings like  
#8,the ,rose of  ,god1' where a naked   
woman is spread-eagled against the      
clouds above a  fleet of ships and      
walled city1 while in other designs the 
symbolism is  full of suggestive        
loveliness1 as in #8,noah's ,raven4'    

#8,the ,ark floats  upon a grey sea     
under a grey sky1 and the raven flutters
 above the sea4  ,a sea nymph1 whose    
slender swaying body drifting among the 
grey waters  is a perfect symbol of the 
soul untouched by ,god or by passion1   
coils  the fingers of one hand about his
 feet and offers him a ring1 while  her 
other hand holds a shining rose under   
the sea4 ,grotesque shapes  of little   
fishes flit about the rose1 and         
grotesque shapes of larger  fishes swim 
hither and thither4 ,sea nymphs swim    
through the windows of  a sunken town1  
and reach towards the rose hands covered
 with rings2 and  a vague twilight hangs
 over all4' ,this is explained to       
represent the  search of man for the    
fleshly beauty which is so full of      
illusions for  us all1 while the        
spiritual beauty is ever far away4 ,to  
this kind of  interpretative design     
,oscar ,wilde's swan song1 ,the         
,harlot's ,house1  lends itself         
admirably1 and ,miss ,gyles's black and 

white work here  becomes inspired to the
 standard of ,beardsley's and ,sime's   
best work4  ,the shadow effects         
illustrating the stanzas1               
,sometimes a clockwork puppet pressed   
,a phantom lover to her breast1         
,sometimes they seemed to try and sing4 
,sometimes a horrible marionette        
,came out and smoked its cigarette      
,upon the steps like a live thing       
must be seen before one can place       
,althea ,gyles's drawings in their      
proper place4 ,it is not a replica of   
,beardsley1 it is not a faint  far-off  
imitation of a ,flicien ,rops or ,armand
 ,rassenfosse1 but  something genuinely 
original in its shadow-graphic use of   
masses of  black on a white ground4     
,once more1 mea culpa1 ,i have paid     
scant attention to ,max ,beerbohm's     
caricatures1 and ,i have failed to call 
attention here to his earlier  and later
 method of work4 ,i have not even spoken
 of his little paper  entitled ,the     
,spirit of ,caricature1 wherein he      

discusses the spirit of  the art he     
practises4 ,god forgive me6 ,or yet     
again what meed of homage  have ,i yet  
rendered to ,mr4 ,will ,rothenstein's   
lithographic portraits1  which are      
absolutely a necessity to anyone who    
would live a while with  the shades of  
these men4 ,take1 for example1 his      
,liber ,juniorum1  which alone contains 
lithographed drawings of ,aubrey        
,beardsley1 ,max  ,beerbohm1 and ,arthur
 ,symons4 ,then there are so many others
 over whose  achievements ,i must keep a
 holy silence1 such as ,mr4 ,charles    
,ricketts  and his ,dial1 which was     
published by the ,vale ,press1 and to   
which  ,john ,gray contributed many     
poems4    ,again1 there are the         
colourists of this group1 particularly  
,walter  ,sickert and ,charles ,conder4 
,the latter1 above all1 is the colour   
comrade to ,beardsley's black and white4
 ,his figures are the lovers of         
,dowson's verse1 his landscapes and     
world have all those memories of the    

golden time that haunt the brain of     
,john ,gray and ,theodore ,wratislaw4   
,no note1 however short1 on the nineties
 would be complete without a  halt for  
praise of this painter of a strangely   
coloured dolce far  niente4 ,for        
everything in his work1 be it on canvas1
 silk panel1 or  dainty fan1 is drowsy  
with the glory of colour 7as ,mr4       
,holbrook ,jackson  admirably says71    
#8colour suggesting form1 suggesting all
 corporeal  things1 suggesting even     
itself1 for ,conder never more than     
hints at the  vivid possibilities of    
life1 more than a hint might waken his  
puppets  from their ,laodicean dream4'  
,whether an idyllic landscape or a      
fantastic bal masqu of ,montmartre  or  
an ,elysian fte galante was his theme1  
the work itself is always  permeated    
with the spirit of ,conder4 ,his nude   
figure #8,pearl1' his  #8,l',oiseau     
,bleu1' his #8,femme dans une loge au   
thtre1' are typical of  his successful  
achievements4 ,the #8,fickle ,love' fan 

is but one of the  numerous exquisite   
works he produced in this branch of art2
 while #8,the  ,masquerade' is the work 
of a ,beardsley-like fancy which could  
colour  like ,conder4    ,like his      
personality1 his work suffered from     
certain unhappy moods1 and  that is what
 makes so much of it uneven4 ,born in   
#ahfh1 a descendant  of ,louis ,francis 
,roubiliac1 the famous sculptor1 whose  
work for the  figures of our eighteenth 
century porcelain factories is so well  
known1  of ,conder it may be said1 as of
 all artists with ,french blood in them1
  when he is successful he is           
irresistible4 ,he might not be able to  
draw modern men1 but how beautifully he 
drew the women of his day can  be seen  
in #8,la ,toilette4' ,he delighted1     
indeed1 in designing women  wandering in
 dream gardens1 in painting roses and   
,princes ,charming4    ,it would be     
pleasant to travel through this world of
 delightful  dreams1 were we not        
restricted of set purpose to the        

literary side of  the movement4 ,and has
 it not already been done in ,mr4 ,frank
 ,gibson's  ,charles ,conder8    ,again1
 some of the publishers who produced the
 books of these men have  their right to
 something more than scant mention4 ,to 
,mr4 ,elkin ,mathews1  particularly as  
the first publisher of the ,rhymers'    
,club books and  as the issuer of ,john 
,gray's first volume of poetry1         
bibliophiles  owe a debt of gratitude4  
,in the early days of the nineties ,mr4 
,john  ,lane became associated with him1
 until the autumn of #ahid witnessed    
#8,parnassus divided into two peaks4'   
,later1 after the ,wilde dbcle1  an     
extraordinary figure1 worthy of a       
romance1 in the person of the  late     
,leonard ,smithers1 who was at one time 
in the legal profession  at ,sheffield1 
took the field as a publisher by way of 
,h4 ,s4 ,nichols4  ,he was no mere      
publisher but a man of considerable     
scholarship1 who  not only issued but   
finished the ,sir ,richard ,burton      

translation of  ,catullus4 ,round him1  
to a considerable extent1 the vanishing 
group  rallied for a little while before
 ,death smote them one by one4 ,here is 
no place to pay due justice to this     
amiable ,benvenuto ,cellini of book     
printing himself1 but it must be        
remembered his figure bulks largely in  
the closing scenes4 ,he kept ,dowson    
from starvation4 ,beardsley wrote of    
him as #8our publisher4'#ba ,he1 when   
others failed1 had the courage to       
launch on the ,english publishing market
 the released ,wilde's now famous       
,ballad of ,reading ,gaol4 ,if he did   
exceed certain rules for himself1  he at
 least took risks to help others4 ,he   
was no supine battener on the  profits  
of books for young ladies' seminaries4  
,he was a printer1 and  his bankruptcy  
may be said to have closed the period4  
#ba ,it is interesting that in an       
unpublished letter of                   
,beardsley's to ,smithers when the      
latter was intending to          produce

 ,the ,peacock1 an unpublished          
quarterly1 ,beardsley          promises 
him his best work4    ,lastly in this   
chaunt of omissions comes the drama of  
the nineties4  ,unfortunately the drama1
 in so far as it affects the group of   
the  nineties with which we are         
concerned1 is almost a nullity4 ,aubrey 
,beardsley once commenced a play1 which 
was never heard of1 in  collaboration   
with ,brandon ,thomas4 ,ernest ,dowson  
wrote what ,beardsley  called a         
#8tiresome' playlet4 ,john ,davidson    
perpetrated a number  of plays such as  
,bruce 7#ahhf71 ,smith1 a tragic farce  
7#ahhh71  ,scaramouch in ,naxos1 and two
 other plays in #ahhi when he was       
feeling  his way1 and translated much   
later as hackwork a play of ,franois    
,coppe's and ,victor ,hugo's ,ruy ,blas4
 ,theodore ,peters' pastoral and  other 
similar trifles only go to show how     
barren the group itself was  in the     
dramatist's talent4 ,nor can much be    
said for such poetic plays  as ,theodore

 ,wratislaw's ,the ,pity of ,love4      
,but it must be remembered1 as a matter 
of fact1 such a sweeping  conclusion may
 not only be unjust but even            
impertinent4 ,for where in  all the     
theatres of the ,london of the nineties 
would the plays 7if they  had been      
written7 of these young men have found a
 home8 ,probably the  dramatic output of
 the nineties was nil because there were
 no small  theatres in ,london at that  
date of the type to give these young men
  a hope that any works they might write
 could be produced4 ,so only at  the end
 of the decade do we see the dramatic   
outburst when the ,irish  movement      
founded a theatre of its own and        
produced ,j4 ,m4 ,synge1 and  also when 
,miss ,horniman gave ,manchester a      
repertory theatre1 and then  ,stanley   
,houghton came4    ,true1 at the same   
period as the nineties ,oscar ,wilde was
 producing  plays burlesquing the world 
of ,society1 and ,bernard ,shaw was     
getting  ready to launch his own works  

by bombasting every one else's2 but the 
little movement of the younger men      
remained dramatically dumb4 ,nothing    
came even when ,george ,moore produced  
,the ,strike at ,arlingford and  ,john  
,todhunter ,the ,black ,cat4 ,it is a   
hard thing to believe that all  these   
young men were devoid of the dramatic   
instinct4 ,i prefer for my  part to     
blame the ,london theatrical world for  
the lack of those minute  theatres which
 have become so much a part of the night
 life of big  continental cities and are
 so admirably adapted for the production
 of  the works of new dramatists4       
,indeed1 the theatrical atmosphere of   
,london at that time was in its  usual  
perpetual state of stuffiness4 ,there   
was not even a beneficent  society then 
such as we now have in the ,pioneer     
,players1 whose theatre  7if one may so 
symbolise it7 is the charity house for  
emancipated  dramatists4 ,ibsen's       
,doll's ,house had been produced in     
,london just  before the nineties' epoch

 began1 and1 like anything new in       
popular art  over here1 raised the      
hue-and-cry4 ,then1 too1 the big #8star'
 curse1  which ,wilde himself so justly 
spurned1 was permanently settled on our 
own insular drama like a stranglehold on
 the author4    ,outside ,england1 in   
the big art world of the continent1     
,schnitzler was  beginning in           
,vienna4#bb ,maurice ,maeterlinck1 in   
,belgium1 had begun#bc  too the drama of
 expressive silences which came to light
 in ,paris4  ,there were ,sudermann and 
,hauptmann in ,germany2 ,echegaray in   
,spain2  ,d',annunzio in ,italy2 ,ibsen 
and ,bjrnstjerne ,bjrnson finishing     
their  work for the ,scandinavian drama2
 while the playwrights of ,paris were1  
as always1 feverishly fabricating all   
sorts of movements1 as when ,paul       
,fort1 a boy of eighteen1 founds in     
#ahij the ,thtre d',art4 ,but what  was 
going on in ,england8 ,pinero's ,the    
,second ,mrs4 ,tanqueray1 ,wilde's      
,salom1 and his light comedies1 together

 with stuff by ,henry ,arthur  ,jones1  
,sydney ,grundy1 etc41 represented the  
serious drama4 ,the critics  were       
perturbed1 as they generally are4 ,the  
musical comedy and its  singing1        
pirouetting soubrettes deluded the      
populace into the belief  that it had a 
great drama1 when all these spectacles  
should really  have been housed in      
,london in spacious tearooms for the    
benefit of  that multitude which is fond
 of tinkling melody and teapots4 ,there 
was  not even in ,london a single       
berbrettlbuhnen1 as the ,germans mouth  
it1  where those who love beer could go 
to hear poets recite their verse   la   
,otto ,bierbaum1 let alone little       
theatres where what we so dolefully     
term the serious drama could be played4 
#bb ,anatol1 #ahhi-ij4       #bc ,la    
,princesse ,maleine1 #ahhi4    ,even1   
too1 in those days1 the newspaper       
critics1 muzzled by the  business       
department1 which has never any wish to 
lose its theatrical  advertisements1    

said little1 with a few honest          
exceptions like ,bernard  ,shaw4 ,max   
,beerbohm1 when he took over the        
critical work of ,shaw on  ,the         
,saturday ,review was obviously unhappy4
 ,english theatres rapidly  became as   
elaborate and as pompous as the ,church 
,militant in its palmy  days4 ,they kept
 growing in size4 ,in ,london1 indeed1  
the small theatre  never had its boom4  
,indeed1 the nineties was the age when  
the big  theatres were being built to   
fill their owners' pockets and the men  
of  the nineties themselves 7be it for  
whatever reason you like7 did not       
produce a single play4                  
,,epilogue      ,it all seems a long    
time ago now since those days when      
,verlaine was as  a lantern for these   
young men's feet1 to guide them through 
the mazes  of ,art4 ,thirty years ago   
and more ,wilde was disclosing #8dcollet
  spirits of astonishing conversation'2 
,zola influenced that ,byron of         
pessimism1 ,thomas ,hardy1 to beget     

,jude the ,obscure 7#ahie71 and when    
the critics assailed him the ,wessex    
giant guarded a #8holy silence'  which  
has denied us up till now an emancipated
 novel such as the  ,french and         
,italians have1 though ,james ,joyce may
 yet achieve it for  us4 ,it was also   
the age of youth in hansom cabs looking 
out on the  lights of ,london's ,west   
,end which spread out before them as in 
a  #8huge black velvet flower4' ,ibsen1 
,tolstoy1 ,maeterlinck1 ,nietzsche1     
,d',annunzio1 and ,dostoievsky were     
beginning to percolate through by  means
 of translations that opened out a new  
world into which everybody  hastily     
swarmed4 ,it was an age in which young  
men frankly lauded the  value of egoism4
 ,indeed1 it was essentially the age of 
young men4 ,in  those days a genital    
restiveness which came over from ,france
 started  the sex equation4 ,a hothouse 
fragrance swept across the pudibond     
wastes of our literature4 ,hectics came 
glorying in their experiences4  ,richard

 of the ,golden ,girl with his banjo    
lifts up his voice to chaunt  #8a bruisd
 daffodil of last night's sin4' ,women  
like ,george ,egerton  in her ,keynotes 
take questions further than ,mrs4 ,lynn 
,linton had  ever done in the previous  
decade4 ,exoticism1 often vulgar when   
not  in master hands1 blabbed out its   
secrets in works like ,the ,woman  who  
,did4 ,confounding the good with the    
bad1 a wail went up against  the        
so-called gospel of intensity4          
,sometimes it was in the serious        
reviews and weeklies2 at another time it
 was ,harry ,quilter4 ,some young       
undergraduates at ,oxford1 even in      
,aristophanes at ,oxford 7,may1 #ahid71 
were filled with #8an honest dislike for
 ,dorian ,gray1 ,salom1 ,the  ,yellow   
,book1 and the whole of the             
lackadaisical1 opium-cigarette          
literature of the day4' ,punch produced 
a ,beardsley ,britannia and sang  of3   
,the ,yellow ,poster girl looked out    
,from her pinkly purple heaven1         

,one eye was blue and one was green1    
,her bang was cut uneven4      ,she had 
three fingers on one hand1      ,and the
 hairs on her head were seven4    ,and  
all these criticisms now1 all these     
quarrels1 are like old spent            
battlefields the sands of gracious time 
have covered over and hidden  from view4
 ,alone the best work of the period     
remains2 for good art has  no period or 
special vogue4    ,indeed1 the elements 
that destroy the worthless1 that winnow 
the chaff  from the grain1 have been at 
work4 ,for us1 indeed1 this landscape   
has  changed from what it once was1 and 
looking at it now we acquire a new      
impression which was denied to the      
critics of the age itself4 ,some of  us1
 without a doubt1 have gone to the      
opposite extreme and prattle  about it  
as an age of platitudes1 and accuse a   
work of art of being as  old as ,the    
,yellow ,book4 ,one might as well accuse
 a violet of being as  old as the ,greek
 ,anthology4 ,for always1 to those      

wandering back in the  right spirit to  
those days1 there will come something of
 the infinite  zest which stirred the   
being of the men of the nineties to     
create art4  ,it was such an honest     
effort that one has to think of those   
times when  ,marlowe and his colleagues 
were athrob with sthetic aspiration to  
find  a similitude4 ,the nineties1      
indeed1 are a pleasant flower-garden in 
our literature over which many strange  
perfumes float4 ,there are times  when  
one wishes to retreat into such places1 
as there are moments when  the          
backwaters enchant us from the main     
stream4    ,it has been said it was an  
age of nerves4 ,if by this is implied a 
keener sensitiveness to certain feelings
 pulsating in the art of this  movement1
 one will not have very far to go to    
find its cause in the  ,french          
impressionistic school of ,manet1 which1
 after saturating all  types of ,french 
artists1 undoubtedly invaded writers    
over here even  before the movement of  

the nineties began4 ,on the age without 
a doubt  it had a lasting influence1 so 
that to a certain degree1 without being 
over-busy with what went before1 we may 
say its writers brought it  to no small 
degree into common use in our           
literature4 ,but just as  impressionism 
in painting had existed centuries before
 in the ever-busy  mind of men like     
,leonardo da ,vinci1 one cannot go so   
far as to say it  had never existed     
before in our literature4 ,such a       
statement would be  perhaps frivolous4  
,but it was with these men it first came
 to exist  as a kind of cry of a new    
clan4 ,it was these men who were        
essentially  hectics who essayed to etch
 the exotic impression4 ,the majority of
  the work of the movement1 in fact1 can
 be described as impressionisms  of the 
abnormal by a group of individualists4  
,for in all their work  the predominant 
keynote will be found to be a keen sense
 of that  strangeness of proportion     
which ,bacon noted as a characteristic  

of what  he called beauty4 ,it is       
observable as much in the poems of      
,dowson as in  the drawings of          
,beardsley1 two of the leading types of 
the movement4 ,it  vibrates intensely in
 the minor work of men like ,wratislaw1 
and also  in ,john ,gray's early volume1
 as ,i have endeavoured to show4 ,all   
,mr4  ,arthur ,symons's criticism is a  
narration of his soul's adventures in   
quest of it4 ,it stirred the genius of  
,charles ,conder1 and vitalizes the     
rather cruel analysis of ,hubert        
,crackanthorpe4 ,we see it almost as the
  animating spirit of the age itself in 
,oscar ,wilde's poems1 ,the ,sphinx  and
 ,the ,harlot's ,house4 ,it has become  
disseminated like a perfume  from the   
writings of ,pater in the men who came  
after him4 ,it was1 so to  speak1 a     
quickening stimulus to them as the      
rediscovery of a manuscript  of         
,catullus1 or a ,greek figure was in the
 years of the ,renaissance  itself4     
,with it came a sense of freedom4 ,an   

attempt was made1 because  of it1 for   
instance1 to emancipate our literature  
to the same extent  as the literatures  
of ,latin countries move untrammelled by
 a hesitancy  in the choice of certain  
themes4 ,and people at the time1        
watching the  fate of the prime movers1 
cried with a great deal of assurance1   
#8,that  way lies madness6'    ,be this 
as it may1 the men of the nineties      
bequeathed a certain  subtleness of     
emotion to our art that is not without  
its value4  ,they took ,byron's satanism
 and inflamed it with the lurid light of
  ,baudelaire4 ,buveurs de lune after   
the manner of ,paul ,verlaine1 they     
evoked something of the ethereal glamour
 of moonlight itself4 ,a realist  like  
,crackanthorpe tried to tread the whole 
via dolorosa without  faltering by the  
wayside4 ,poetry caught the mood of     
bizarre crises  and ,edgar ,wilson      
wrought a strange delicate world of     
visions4 ,in ,max  ,beerbohm irony took 
on a weird twinge of grace almost       

,pierrot-like4  ,perhaps1 indeed1 they  
all had something of the ,pierrot       
quality in  them4 ,beardsley himself was
 enchanted by that little opera without 
words1 #8,l',enfant ,prodigue4' ,dowson 
made a play about him4 ,the ,happy      
,hypocrite might be a story of the      
,pierrot himself grown old4    ,as ,i   
have hinted1 much of the work conceived 
by these men was doomed  to die1 as in  
the case of every movement4 ,what then  
remains1 what is  their balance to the  
good8 ,who knows8 ,about everything man 
has loved  and fashioned there abides   
vestiges of the interest of humanity4   
,only  some things are easier to recall 
than others4 ,they stand out more1 so   
that one is bound to remark them4 ,they 
have1 so to speak1 a cachet of  their   
own4 ,among these in this movement there
 comes the work of the men  ,i have so  
hastily attempted to realise4 ,each has 
about him something of  that quality    
which is indefinable1 but easily        
recognisable4 ,each has  his charm for  

those who care to come with a loving    
interest4          ,,index              
,academy1 ,the1 #ajf4      ,adams1      
,francis1 #ajb4      ,adrian ,rome1 #eh4
      ,adventures of ,john ,johns1 ,the1
 #fj4      neids1 ,the1 #bh4            
,albemarle1 ,the1 #fi4      ,allen1     
,grant1 #ajb4      ,amor ,umbratilis1   
#hh4      ,anatol1 #abh4      ,anatomy  
of ,melancholy1 ,the1 #ajh4             
,anquetin1 #d4      ,antony ,garstin's  
,courtship1 #gf4      ,apuleius1 #cb4   
,a ,rebours1 #eh4      ,aretino1        
,pietro1 #bg4      ,aristophanes1 #ah1  
#bf1 #bg4      ,aristophanes at ,oxford1
 #acb4      ,art of ,thomas ,hardy1     
,the1 #ajh4      ,artist's ,model1 ,an1 
#ci4      ,ascension of ,st4 ,rose of   
,lima1 ,the1 #be4      ,atalanta1 #ch4  
,aubrey ,beardsley1 #bj1 #bi4           
,aubrey ,beardsley and ,the ,yellow     
,book1 #cg4      ,aurora ,la ,cujii1    
#fe4      ,autumn ,city1 ,an1 #eb4      
,avenue ,theatre1 #ba4        ,bacon1   
,francis1 #gi1 #ace4      ,ballad of a  

,barber1 ,the1 #cj1 #dd1 #he4           
,ballad of a ,nun1 ,the1 #ic1 #id4      
,ballad of an ,artist's ,wife1 ,the1    
#id4      ,ballad of ,hell1 #id4        
,ballad of ,reading ,gaol1 ,the1 #bd1   
#abf4      ,ballads1 #ic4      ,balzac1 
#dd1 #fd4      ,bantock1 ,granville1    
#ii4      ,baptist ,lake1 #e1 #ic4      
,barber1 ,the1 #he4      ,barrie1 ,j4   
,m41 #ee4      ,battledore and          
,shuttlecock1 #gb4      ,baudelaire1    
,charles1 #ha1 #hd1 #acf4      ,bayros1 
,franz von1 #bf1 #bh1 #ca4              
,beardsley1 ,aubrey1 #a1 #b1 #d1 #f1    
#h-ad1 #af-ai1 #bc-cb1 #cd1 #ce1 #cg-ci1
        #da-de1 #dg1 #ei1 #fa1 #hi1 #ia1
 #ic1 #aab1 #aae1 #aaf1 #aah1 #aai1     
#aba-abc1        #abe1 #abf1 #ace1 #acf4
      ,beardsley1 ,aubrey1 #bj1 #bi4    
,beardsley1 ,aubrey1 and the ,yellow    
,book1 #cg4      ,beardsley1 ,aubrey1   
,the ,last ,letters of1 #ad4            
,beardsley ,girl1 ,the1 #bb4            
,becke1 ,louis1 #eh1 #fi4               
,beerbohm1 ,max1 #bc1 #cc1 #dc1 #fc1    

#ie1 #ajb1 #aaj1 #aaa-aag1 #abb1 #acj1  
#acf4      ,bierbaum1 ,otto1 #abi4      
,binyon1 ,laurence1 #h4      ,birch     
,bark ,school1 #hc4      ,bjrnson1      
,bjrnstjerne1 #abi4      ,black ,cat1   
,the1 #abg4      ,black ,coffee1 #ch4   
,blake1 ,william1 #ai1 #ce1 #dd1 #ea4   
,blake1 ,william1 and his ,illustrations
 to the #8,divine ,comedy1' #dc1 #dd4   
,bltter fr die ,kunst1 #c4      ,blessed
 ,damozel1 ,the1 #bb4      ,bodley      
,head1 ,the1 #ch1 #dj1 #ia4      ,bodley
 ,press1 ,the1 #h4      ,book of ,fifty 
,drawings1 ,a1 #bd4      ,botticelli1   
,sandro1 #ai4      ,bovril1 #ef4        
,brentano's1 #ii4      ,brighton1       
,beardsley at1 #ad1 #ae1 #bc4           
,british ,museum1 #bi4      ,brooke1    
,stopford ,a41 #ge4      ,brown1        
,professor1 #af4      ,browne1 ,sir     
,thomas1 #dg4      ,browning1 ,robert1  
#dh4      ,bruce1 #abf4                 
,burne-,jones1 ,sir ,edward1 #af1 #ag4  
,burton1 ,robert1 #ajh4      ,burton1   
,sir ,richard ,f41 #abe4                

,butterfly1 ,the1 #cf1 #aah1 #abj4      
,byron1 ,lord1 #acf4        ,caf ,royal1
 #h1 #bc1 #hi1 #aaf4      ,called ,back1
 #fg4      ,cardinal's ,snuff-,box1     
,the1 #dj4      ,carman1 ,bliss1 #de4   
,carmen ,cl41 #de4      ,casanova1 #ca4 
,case of ,conscience1 ,a1 #fg4          
,cassell's ,magazine1 #abj4             
,catullus1 #de1 #abe1 #ace4      ,caume1
 ,pierre1 #bf4      ,cazotte1 #ad4      
,celestial ,lovers1 ,the1 #ad4          
,cena ,trimalchionis1 #cd4      ,century
 ,guild ,hobby ,horse1 ,the1 #hh4       
,chamberlain1 ,a4 ,b41 #hj4             
,chameleon1 ,the1 #cf4      ,charing    
,cross ,road1 #bh4      ,charles        
,conder1 #abd4      ,chaucer1 ,geoffrey1
 #bg4      ,chemist in the ,suburbs1    
,the1 #fh4      ,cheshire ,cheese1 #h1  
#aj1 #gi4      ,chiswick ,press1 #db4   
,chord1 ,the1 #cf4      ,city of the    
,soul1 ,the1 #gi4      ,climax1 ,the1   
#fa4      ,comedy of ,masks1 ,a1 #eh1   
#hg4      ,comedy of ,sighs1 ,the1 #ba4 
,conder1 ,charles1 #d1 #aa1 #da1 #dd1   

#fa1 #abc1 #abd1 #ace4      ,confessions
 of a ,young ,man1 ,the1 #eg4           
,conflict of ,egoisms1 ,a1 #gj4         
,congreve1 ,william1 #a1 #af4           
,conrad1 ,joseph1 #ab1 #de1 #eh1 #fi4   
,conway1 ,hugh1 #fg4      ,cooke1 ,j4   
,y4 ,f41 #gb4      ,coppe1 ,franois1    
#abf4      ,covent ,garden1 #bc4        
,crackanthorpe1 ,hubert1 #h1 #aa1 #dd1  
#dg1 #eg1 #eh1 #fa1 #fd1 #fg-gg1 #aja1  
#ace1 #acf4      ,crane1 ,walter1 #hj4  
,crashaw1 ,richard1 #ajc4               
,custance1 ,olive1 #hb4        ,dame aux
 ,camlias1 ,la1 #ah4      ,d',annunzio1 
,gabrielle1 #df1 #abh1 #aca4            
,dante1 #ai4      ,dark ,angel1 ,the1   
#ajd4      ,davidson1 ,john1 #e1 #h1    
#ef1 #ei1 #hj1 #hc1 #hf1 #ia-ig1 #abf4  
,days and ,nights1 #dh4      ,dead      
,woman1 ,a1 #ga4      ,death of ,peter  
,waydelin1 ,the1 #eb1 #fc4      ,death  
of ,pierrot1 ,the1 #de4      ,decadent  
,movement in ,literature1 ,the1 #dg4    
,decorations1 #hi4      ,defence of     
,cosmetics1 ,a1 #aaa4      ,dent1 ,j4   

,m41 #h1 #ag4      ,dewhurst1 ,wynford1 
#ii4      ,dial1 ,the1 #abc4            
,dickens1 ,charles1 #g1 #fb4            
,dilemmas1 #fg4      ,dircks1 ,rudolf1  
#db1 #fd4      ,discords1 #fd4          
,divine ,comedy1 ,the1 #ai4      ,doll's
 ,house1 ,a1 #abh4      ,dome1 ,the1    
#cf1 #abj4      ,donnay1 ,maurice1 #bg4 
,dostoievsky1 ,feodor1 #aca4            
,douglas1 ,lord ,alfred1 #fd1 #gi1 #aaa4
      ,dowson1 ,ernest1 #h1 #i1 #aa1    
#da-de1 #dg1 #ej1 #ec1 #eh-fa1 #fc1 #fg1
 #gi-ha1              #hc1 #hd1 #hf-hi1 
#ie1 #if1 #ii1 #abc1 #abe1 #abf1 #ace1  
#acf4      ,du ,maurier1 ,george1 #eh1  
#ha4      ,dunsany1 ,lord1 #aai4        
,duse1 ,eleonora1 #df4      ,dying of   
,francis ,donne1 ,the1 #dd1 #fc4        
,earl ,lavender1 #e4      ,echegaray1   
,jos1 #abh4      ,egerton1 ,george1 #fd1
 #acb4      #ahhj1 #aad4      ,eighteen 
,nineties1 ,the1 #ib4      ,ellis1      
,edwin ,j41 #hj4      ,embers1 #ga4     
,english ,literature1 #ahhj-aije1 #ci4  
,episodes1 #fd1 #ajb4      ,ernest      

,dowson1 #ha4      ,erotische ,kunst1   
#bh4      ,essay on ,beauty1 #gi4       
,essays in ,modernity1 #ajb4            
,esther ,khan1 #eb4      ,etienne       
,matton1 #gc4      ,eureka1 #aah4       
,evans1 ,caradoc1 #gg4      ,evelyn     
,innes1 #f1 #dc1 #eh4      ,evergreen1  
,the1 #cf4      ,extreme ,unction1 #hi4 
,fat ,woman1 ,the1 #ag4      ,femmes    
,damnes1 #hd4      ,ftes ,gallantes1    
#ha4      ,fille aux ,yeux d',or1 ,la1  
#dd4      ,fitzroy ,settlement1 #hj4    
,flaubert1 ,gustave1 #f4      ,fleet    
,street ,eclogues1 #ic4      ,fort1     
,paul1 #d1 #abi4      ,frontispiece to  
the ,chopin ,nocturnes1 #ch4            
,fuchs1 ,eduard1 #bh4      ,fuller1     
,loe1 #ii4        ,gale1 ,norman1 #hb4  
,galton1 ,arthur1 #ajb4      ,garnett1  
,edward1 #hj4      ,gaston ,lalanne's   
,child1 #gc4      ,gautier1 ,thophile1  
#ae4      ,gentle ,art of ,making       
,enemies1 ,the1 #aja1 #aac4             
,george1 ,stephan1 #c4      ,gibson1    
,frank1 #abd4      ,gillray1 ,james1    

#bh4      ,gissing1 ,george1 #eg1 #eh4  
,graham1 ,r4 ,b4 ,cunninghame1 #fe4     
,grahame1 ,kenneth1 #fe4      ,gray1    
,john1 #ad1 #ah1 #dc1 #hj-hb1 #abc1     
#abe1 #ace4      ,green ,carnation1     
,the1 #fj4      ,greenaway1 ,kate1 #ae4 
,greene1 ,george ,arthur1 #hj4          
,grundy1 ,mrs41 #bg4      ,grundy1      
,sydney1 #abi4      ,guardian ,life and 
,fire ,assurance ,co41 #af4      ,guys1 
,constantine1 #ag4      ,gyles1 ,althea1
 #abj-abb4        ,hamerton1 ,p4 ,g41   
#aae4      ,happy ,hypocrite1 ,the1 #fc1
 #aaf1 #acg4      ,happy ,wanderer1     
,the1 #hb1 #aab4      ,hardy1 ,thomas1  
#h1 #ab1 #ee1 #eg1 #fi1 #gf1 #aca4      
,harland1 ,henry1 #ab1 #cg-dj1 #eh1 #fd4
      ,harlot's ,house1 ,the1 #e1 #gi1  
#abj1 #aba1 #ace4      ,harper's        
,magazine1 #dg4      ,harris1 ,frank1   
#eh4      ,hauptmann1 ,gerhardt1 #abh4  
,hemingway1 ,percy1 #fh1 #hb4           
,henley1 ,w4 ,e41 #h-aj1 #eh1 #fd1 #gi1 
#ajb1 #aje4      ,herbert1 ,george1     
#ajc4      ,herodas1 #fa4               

,herodias1 #df4      ,hichens1 ,robert1 
#fj4      ,hill1 ,raven1 #aai4          
,hillier1 ,arthur ,cecil1 #hj4          
,hobby ,horse1 ,the1 #cf4      ,hogarth 
,club1 #ch4      ,horne1 ,herbert ,p41  
#hj4      ,horniman1 ,miss1 #abg4       
,houghton1 ,stanley1 #abg4      ,hound  
of ,heaven1 ,the1 #gi4      ,house of   
,pomegranates1 ,the1 #e4      ,how      
,queen ,guenever made her a ,nun1 #be4  
,hugo1 ,victor1 #abf4      ,huneker1    
,james1 #eb4      ,huysmans1 ,j4 ,k41   
#eg4      ,hypnerotomachia1 ,the1 #ac4  
,hypocrite1 ,the1 #ei4        ,ibsen1   
,henrik1 #abh1 #aca4      ,idiots1 ,the1
 #de4      ,idler1 ,the1 #cf1 #aaf1     
#aah-abj4      ,image1 ,selwyn1 #dc4    
,imaginary ,portraits1 #eb4      ,in a  
,music ,hall1 #ib4      ,inconsolables1 
#ga4      ,incurable1 #aaj4             
,influence of ,baudelaire in ,france and
 ,england1 ,the1 #cd4      ,intentions1 
#aja4      ,in the ,depths of the ,sea1 
#aai4        ,jackson1 ,holbrook1 #ib1  
#abc4      ,james1 ,henry1 #dj1 #dc1    

#eg1 #fi1ge4      ,james1 ,humphrey1    
#db4      ,jammes1 ,francis1 #fi4       
,job1 #ai4      ,johnson1 ,lionel1 #hj1 
#ie1 #ajb-aaj4      ,johnson1 ,noel1    
#ii4      ,jones1 ,alfred1 #ii4         
,jones1 ,henry ,arthur1 #abi4           
,joyce1 ,james1 #gg1 #aca4      ,jude   
the ,obscure1 #ab1 #aca4      ,juvenal1 
#bd1 #bh4        ,keats1 ,john1 #hg1    
#hh4      ,kelmscott ,press1 #ag4       
,kennedy1 ,j4 ,m41 #ci4      ,keynotes1 
#fd1 #acb4      #8,kid-glove ,school1'  
#aj4      ,kipling1 ,rudyard1 #d1 #ab1  
#ee1 #fc1 #fi4      ,kubin1 ,alfred1    
#bh4        ,la ,faustine1 #bf1 #eb4    
,la ,jeunesse1 ,ernest1 #fj4      ,lake 
,isle of ,innisfree1 ,the1 #aj4         
,lamb1 ,charles1 #aac4      ,lambeth    
,school of ,art1 #aai4      ,lane1      
,john1 #cg1 #hc1 #abe4      ,last       
,studies1 #ge4      ,lautrec1 ,toulouse1
 #d1 #bf1 #ea1 #aai4      ,lawrence1    
,arthur1 #aai4      ,le ,gallienne1     
,richard1 #e1 #eh1 #fe1 #hj1 #hb1 #ajb1 
#acb4      ,l',enfant ,prodigue1 #acf4  

,le ,rire1 #aai4      ,liber ,juniorum1 
#abb4      ,lilies of ,france1 ,the1    
#aaj4      ,lind1 ,letty1 #ch4          
,linton1 ,mrs4 ,lynn1 #acb4             
,literature at ,nurse1 #f4      ,london 
,nights1 #di1 #ea4      ,lous1 ,pierre1 
#hd4      ,love-sick ,curate1 ,the1 #gc4
      ,lowry1 ,h4 ,d41 #fd4             
,lucian1 #bh4      ,luska1 ,sidney 7i4e4
 ,henry ,harland71 #dj4                 
,lysistrata1 ,the1 #ah1 #bd1 #bf-bi4    
,mac,coll1 ,d4 ,s41 #bi4      ,machen1  
,arthur1 #eh1 #fd4      ,madame ,bovary1
 #ah4      ,mademoiselle de ,maupin1    
#ae1 #ah1 #bd1 #cb4      ,mademoiselle  
,miss1 #dj4      ,maeterlinck1 ,maurice1
 #abh1 #aca4      ,matresse d',esthtes1 
#ei4      ,mallarm1 ,stphane1 #c1 #df1  
#ha1 #hd1 #hh4      ,manet1 ,eduard1 #c1
 #acd4      ,manon ,lescaut1 #ah4       
,marius the ,epicurean1 #eg1 #aaa4      
,marlowe1 ,christopher1 #af1 #acd4      
,marpessa1 #fa4      ,marriott-,watson1 
,rosamund1 #hb4      ,mathews1 ,elkin1  
#hc1 #abd4      ,mattos1 ,henri         

,teixeira de1 #hd4      ,maupassant1    
,guy de1 #fc1 #ga4      ,mmoires        
7,casanova71 #cb4      ,meredith1       
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,merrick1 ,leonard1 #eh4      ,mike     
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#he4      ,mr4 ,midshipman ,easy1 #aaa4 
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#fe4      ,molire1 #ef4      ,monet1    
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#ag4      ,morrison1 ,arthur1 #eh1 #fi4 
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#be4      ,murdoch1 ,w4 ,g4 ,blaikie1   
#b1 #ba1 #da1 #dh4      ,murger1 ,henri1
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,nerval1 ,gerard de1 #ea4               
,nettleship1 ,j4 ,t41 #hj4              
,nevinson1 ,h4 ,w41 #fe4      ,new      

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,hedonism1 ,the1 #ajb4      ,new        
,illustrator1 ,a1 #ag4      ,newman1    
,john ,henry1 #ajh4      ,nichols1 ,h4  
,s41 #db1 #abe4      ,nietzsche1        
,friedrich ,wilhelm1 #ia1 #aca4         
,no4 #e ,john ,street1 #eh4      ,non   
sum qualis eram bonae sub regno         
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,eleanor1 ,the1 #fg4        ,odin       
,howes1 #fj4      ,on ,books and ,art1  
#fb4      ,on the ,kind of ,fiction     
called ,morbid1 #dc4      ,orgeas and   
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,vincent1 #dc4      ,other ,side1 ,the1 
#fd4      ,out of ,egypt1 #fe4          
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 #dh1 #eb1 #eg1 #aja1 #ajd1 #ajh1 #ace4 
,payne1 ,john1 #c4      ,peacock1 ,the1 
#abe4      ,pennell1 ,joseph1 #ag4      

,perfervid1 #ib1 #ie4      ,perversion  
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#ig-ii1 #abf4      ,petronius1 #cd4     
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#ig4      ,pierrot of the ,minute1 ,the1
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#ajf4      ,poster1 ,the1 #cf4          
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,profiles1 #gj4      ,propertius1 #hi4  
,prose ,fancies1 #e4      ,prose ,poems1
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#bb4      ,punch1 #bb1 #acb4            
,quartier ,latin1 ,the1 #ig4            
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,golden ,girl1 ,the1 #e1 #eh4           

,quilter1 ,harry1 #acb4        ,radford1
 ,dollie1 #hb4      ,radford1 ,ernest1  
#hj4      ,rambler1 ,the1 #abj4         
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of the ,lock1 ,the1 #ah1 #ai1 #bd-bf4   
,rassenfosse ,armand1 #bf1 #bh1 #abb4   
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,f4 ,j41 #d4      ,reigen1 #cb4         
,renaissance of the ,nineties1 ,the1 #b1
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,renunciations1 #fg4      ,restif de la 
,breton1 #cb4      ,restoration         
dramatists1 #ae4      ,rhymers' ,club1  
#aj1 #aa1 #ei1 #gi1 #hj1 #hb1 #hh1 #ia1 
#abe4      ,rhys1 ,ernest1 #dd1 #hj4    
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,rimbaud1 ,arthur1 #hd1 #he4            
,roberts1 ,c4 ,g4 ,d41 #eh4             
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,pausole1 ,le1 #cb4      ,rolleston1    
,thomas ,william1 #hc4      ,rops1      
,flicien1 #ag1 #bf1 #abb4      ,rose1   
,edward1 #hj4      ,rose ,leaf1 ,the1   
#cf4      ,ross1 ,robert1 #ac1 #ai1 #bj1

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      ,rothenstein1 ,william1 #d1 #dc1  
#ia1 #abb4      ,rowlandson1 ,thomas1   
#bg4      ,runnable ,stag1 ,a1 #ie4     
,ruy ,blas1 #abf4        ,salom1 #e1    
#ag1 #ah1 #bb1 #be1 #bi1 #fa1 #hf1 #abi1
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,saturday ,review1 ,the1 #acj4          
,savoy1 ,the1 #aj-ab1 #bd1 #cf1 #cg1    
#dj-df1 #ej1 #hi4      ,scaramouch in   
,naxos1 #abf4      ,schnitzler1 ,arthur1
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 #aj4      ,scribner's ,magazine1 #abj4 
,seaward ,lackland1 #ed4      ,second   
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,shakespeare1 ,william1 #ah1 #ef4       
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,robert ,h41 #hd1 #hg1 #ig4             
,sickert1 ,walter1 #ae1 #da1 #abc4      
,silhouettes1 #di1 #ea4                 
,silverpoints1 #ha1 #hc4      ,sime1 ,s4
 ,h41 #cf1 #aah1 #aai1 #aba4            

,sketch1 ,the1 #ad1 #abj4      ,small   
,boy and the ,barley ,sugar1 ,the1 #aag4
      ,smith3 ,a ,tragic ,farce1 #abf4  
,smithers1 ,leonard1 #bd1 #be1 #da1 #hb1
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#gi1 #hf1 #ace4      ,spirit of         
,caricature1 ,the1 #abb4      ,spirit   
,lamp1 ,the1 #cf1 #fd4      ,spiritual  
,adventures1 #eb4      ,stenbock1 ,eric 
,count1 #fd4      ,stevenson1 ,robert   
,louis1 #ee1 #fb4      ,stories of      
,strange ,women1 #gb4      ,street1 ,g4 
,s41 #h1 #fd1 #ajb4      ,strike at     
,arlingford1 ,the1 #abg4      ,struggle 
for ,life1 ,the1 #ga4      ,studies in  
,two ,literatures1 #di4      ,studies of
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#bb1 #cf4      ,success1 #fe4           
,sudermann1 ,hermann1 #abh4             
,symbolist ,movement in ,literature1    
,the1 #di1 #ec4      ,symonds1 ,john    
,addington1 #eb1 #ec1 #aja4             
,symons1 ,arthur1 #f1 #h1 #ab1 #ad1 #ah1
 #cg1 #dj-dc1 #df-ed1 #fc1 #gi-ha1 #hg1 

#ie1 #aja1 #ajg1 #aae1 #abb1 #ace4      
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#af4      ,testament1 #ic4      ,thtre  
d',art1 #d4      ,thirty ,bob a ,week1  
#ic4      ,thomas1 ,brandon1 #ad1 #abf4 
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,times1 ,the1 #ci4      ,to-,day1 #cf4  
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,toilet of ,helen1 ,the1 #cc4           
,toilet of ,sabina1 ,the1 #cc4          
,tolstoy1 ,leo1 #aca4      ,to the ,caf 
aux ,phares de l',ouest1 ,quartier      
,montparnasse1 #ih4      ,tournament of 
,love1 ,the1 #ii4      ,traill1 ,h4 ,d41
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,trilby1 #eh4      ,tristan and ,isolde1
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#gg4      ,turquet-,milnes1 ,g41 #cd4   
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,under the ,hill1 #ad1 #ca1 #db1 #ei4   
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,press1 #abc4      ,verisimilitudes1    

#fd4      ,verlaine1 ,paul1 #dc1 #dd1   
#df1 #ej1 #ha1 #hd1 #aca1 #acf4         
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#ai4      ,watson1 ,william1 #hb1 #aje4 
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,watts1 ,george ,frederick1 #af4        
,way of the ,world1 ,the1 #af4          
,wedmore1 ,frederick1 #db1 #dc1 #fb1    
#fc1 #fg4      ,westminster ,gazette1   
,the1 #ci4      ,when ,greek meets      
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#ajb4      ,whistler1 ,james ,mc,neill1 
#c1 #e1 #g1 #be1 #dj1 #fj1 #aja1 #aac4  
,whistler1 ,mrs4 ,james ,mc,neill1 #ag4 
,white ,maize1 ,the1 #gc4               
,whiteing1 ,richard1 #eh4      ,wilde1  
,oscar1 #a1 #c1 #e1 #f1 #i1 #aj1 #ab1   
#ad1 #ai1 #bb1 #bd1 #be1 #cb1 #cd1 #eg1 
#fj1 #fa1 #gi-hb1 #hd1 #hf1 #hi1 #aja1  
#aaa1 #aad1 #abj1 #aba1                 
#abe-abi1 #aca1 #ace4      ,wilkins4 ,w4
 ,h41 #fi4      ,willy1 #ei4            

,wilson1 ,edgar1 #cf1 #aai1 #acf4       
,wilson1 ,edgar1 and his ,work1 #aai4   
,woman and her ,son1 ,a1 #id4           
,woman in ,white1 ,the1 #dd4      ,woman
 ,who ,did1 ,the1 #acb4      ,women's   
,tragedies1 #fd4      ,wonderful        
,mission of ,earl ,lavender1 ,the1 #ic1 
#id4      ,work of ,mr4 ,pater1 ,the1   
#ajf4      ,works1 ,the1 #aaa1 #aab4    
,wratislaw1 ,theodore1 #dd1 #hb1 #abc1  
#abf1 #ace4      ,wreckage1 #fi1 #gb4   
,wycherley1 ,william1 #af4              
,yeats1 ,w4 ,b41 #h1 #aj1 #aa1 #db1 #dc1
 #de1 #hj1 #hb1 #abj4      ,yellow      
,book1 ,the1 #f1 #aa1 #ab1 #ba1 #bd1    
#cf-da1 #df1 #ia1 #id1 #aaa1 #aad1      
#aag1 #acb1 #acc4      ,yellow ,book    
,group1 ,the1 #i4      #8,yellow ,dwarf1
 ,the1' #dj4      ,yet ,again1 #aab4    
,yew-,trees and ,peacocks1 #gc4         
,zangwill1 ,israel1 #fi4      ,zola1    
mile1 #eg1 #aca4      ,zuleika ,dobson1 
#aaa4      ,london1 ,strangeways1       
,printers4          ,transcriber's      
,notes      ,punctuation1 hyphenation1  

and spelling were made consistent when a
  predominant preference was found in   
this book2 otherwise they were not      
changed4    ,simple typographical errors
 were corrected2 occasional unbalanced  
quotation marks retained4    ,ambiguous 
hyphens at the ends of lines were       
retained4    ,whatever foreign language 
errors may exist in the text are the    
author's  own1 and have been left       
undisturbed4    ,index not checked for  
proper alphabetization or correct page  
references4