Under the Hill

Of the "Bacchanals of Sporion."3

Of Morales' Madonnas with their high egg-shaped creamy foreheads and well-crimped silken hair.

Of Rossini's "Stabat Mater" (that delightful démodé piece of decadence, with a quality in its music like the bloom upon wax fruit).

Of love, and of a hundred other things.

Then his half-closed eyes wandered among the prints that hung upon the rose-striped walls. Within the delicate curved frames lived the corrupt and gracious creatures of Dorat and his school, slender children in masque and domino smiling horribly, exquisite letchers leaning over the shoulders of smooth doll-like girls and doing nothing in particular, terrible little Pierrots posing as lady lovers and pointing at something outside the picture, and unearthly fops and huge bird-like women mingling in some rococo room, lighted mysteriously by the flicker of a dying fire that throws great shadows upon wall and ceiling.

Fanfreluche had taken some books to bed with him. One was the witty, extravagant, "Tuesday and Josephine," another was the score of "The Rheingold." Making a pulpit of his knees he propped up the opera before him and turned over the pages with a loving hand, and found it delicious to attack Wagner's brilliant comedy with the cool head of the morning.4 Once more he was ravished with the beauty and wit of the opening scene; the mystery of its prelude that seems to come up from the very mud of the Rhine, and to be as ancient, the abominable primitive wantonness of the music that follows the talk and movements of the Rhine-maidens, the black, hateful sounds of Alberic's love-making, and the flowing melody of the river of legends.

But it was the third tableau that he applauded most that morning, the scene where Loge, like some flamboyant primeval Scapin, practises his cunning upon Alberic. The feverish insistent ringing of the hammers at the forge, the dry staccato restlessness of Mime, the ceaseless coming and going of the troup of Niblungs, drawn hither and thither like a flock of terror-stricken and infernal sheep, Alberic's savage activity and metamorphoses, and Loge's rapid, flaming tongue-like movements, make the tableau the least reposeful, most troubled and confusing thing in the whole range of opera. How the Abbé rejoiced in the extravagant monstrous poetry, the heated melodrama, and splendid agitation of it all!

At eleven o'clock Fanfreluche got up and slipped off his dainty night-dress.

His bathroom was the largest and perhaps the most beautiful apartment in his splendid suite. The well-known engraving by Lorette that forms the frontispiece to Millevoye's "Architecture du XVIIIme siècle" will give you a better idea than any words of mine of the construction and decoration of the room. Only in Lorette's engraving the bath sunk into the middle of the floor is a little too small.

Fanfreluche stood for a moment like Narcissus gazing at his reflection in the still scented water, and then just ruffling its smooth surface with one foot, stepped elegantly into the cool basin and swam round it twice very gracefully. However, it is not so much at the very bath itself as in the drying and delicious frictions that a bather finds his chiefest joys, and Helen had appointed her most tried attendants to wait upon Fanfreluche. He was more than satisfied with their attention, that aroused feelings within him almost amounting to gratitude, and when the rites were ended any touch of home-sickness he might have felt was utterly dispelled. After he had rested a little, and sipped his chocolate, he wandered into the dressing-room, where, under the direction of the superb Dancourt, his toilet was completed.

As pleased as Lord Foppington with his appearance, the Abbé tripped off to bid good-morning to Helen. He found her in a sweet white muslin frock, wandering upon the lawn, and plucking flowers to deck her breakfast table. He kissed her lightly upon the neck.

"I'm just going to feed Adolphe," she said, pointing to a little reticule of buns that hung from her arm. Adolphe was her pet unicorn. "He is such a dear," she continued; "milk white all over, excepting his nose, mouth, and nostrils. This way." The unicorn had a very pretty palace of its own made of green foliage and golden bars, a fitting home for such a delicate and dainty beast. Ah, it was a splendid thing to watch the white creature roaming in its artful cage, proud and beautiful, knowing no mate, and coming to no hand except the queen's itself. As Fanfreluche and Helen approached, Adolphe began prancing and curvetting, pawing the soft turf with his ivory hoofs and flaunting his tail like a gonfalon. Helen raised the latch and entered.

"You mustn't come in with me, Adolphe is so jealous," she said, turning to the Abbé, who was following her, "but you can stand outside and look on; Adolphe likes an audience." Then in her delicious fingers she broke the spicy buns and with affectionate niceness breakfasted her snowy pet. When the last crumbs had been scattered, Helen brushed her hands together and pretended to leave the cage without taking any further notice of Adolphe. Adolphe snorted.

AUBREY BEARDSLEY.

THE THREE MUSICIANS

Along the path that skirts the wood,The three musicians wend their way,Pleased with their thoughts, each other's mood,Franz Himmel's latest roundelay,The morning's work, a new-found theme, their breakfast andthe summer day.One's a soprano, lightly frockedIn cool, white muslin that just showsHer brown silk stockings gaily clocked,Plump arms and elbows tipped with rose,And frills of petticoats and things, and outlines as the warmwind blows.Beside her a slim, gracious boyHastens to mend her tresses' fall,And dies her favour to enjoy,And dies for réclame and recallAt Paris and St. Petersburg, Vienna and St. James's Hall.The third's a Polish PianistWith big engagements everywhere,A light heart and an iron wrist,And shocks and shoals of yellow hair,And fingers that can trill on sixths and fill beginners with despair.The three musicians stroll alongAnd pluck the ears of ripened corn,Break into odds and ends of song,And mock the woods with Siegfried's horn,And fill the air with Gluck, and fill the tweeded tourist's soulwith scorn.The Polish genius lags behind,And, with some poppies in his hand,Picks out the strings and wood and windOf an imaginary band,Enchanted that for once his men obey his beat and understand.The charming cantatrice reclinesAnd rests a moment where she seesHer château's roof that hotly shinesAmid the dusky summer trees,And fans herself, half shuts her eyes, and smoothes the frockabout her knees.The gracious boy is at her feet,And weighs his courage with his chance;His fears soon melt in noonday heat.The tourist gives a furious glance,Red as his guide-book grows, moves on, and offers up a prayerfor France.AUBREY BEARDSLEY

THE BALLAD OF A BARBER

Here is the tale of Carrousel,The barber of Meridian Street.He cut, and coiffed, and shaved so well,That all the world was at his feet.The King, the Queen, and all the Court,To no one else would trust their hair,And reigning belles of every sortOwed their successes to his care.With carriage and with cabrioletDaily Meridian Street was blocked,Like bees about a bright bouquetThe beaux about his doorway flocked.Such was his art he could with easeCurl wit into the dullest face;Or to a goddess of old GreeceAdd a new wonder and a grace.All powders, paints, and subtle dyes,And costliest scents that men distil,And rare pomades, forgot their priceAnd marvelled at his splendid skill.The curling irons in his handAlmost grew quick enough to speak,The razor was a magic wandThat understood the softest cheek.Yet with no pride his heart was moved;He was so modest in his ways!His daily task was all he loved,And now and then a little praise.An equal care he would bestowOn problems simple or complex;And nobody had seen him showA preference for either sex.How came it then one summer day,Coiffing the daughter of the King,He lengthened out the least delayAnd loitered in his hairdressing?The Princess was a pretty child,Thirteen years old, or thereabout.She was as joyous and as wildAs spring flowers when the sun is out.Her gold hair fell down to her feetAnd hung about her pretty eyes;She was as lyrical and sweetAs one of Schubert's melodies.Three times the barber curled a lock,And thrice he straightened it again;And twice the irons scorched her frock,And twice he stumbled in her train.His fingers lost their cunning quite,His ivory combs obeyed no more;Something or other dimmed his sight,And moved mysteriously the floor.He leant upon the toilet table,His fingers fumbled in his breast;He felt as foolish as a fable,And feeble as a pointless jest.He snatched a bottle of Cologne,And broke the neck between his hands;He felt as if he was alone,And mighty as a king's commands.The Princess gave a little scream,Carrousel's cut was sharp and deep;He left her softly as a dreamThat leaves a sleeper to his sleep.He left the room on pointed feet;Smiling that things had gone so well.They hanged him in Meridian Street.You pray in vain for Carrousel.AUBREY BEARDSLEY.

CATULLUS

CARMEN CIBy ways remote and distant waters sped,Brother, to thy sad grave-side am I come,That I may give the last gifts to the dead,And vainly parley with thine ashes dumb:Since she who now bestows and now deniesHath ta'en thee, hapless brother, from mine eyes.But lo! these gifts, the heirlooms of past years,Are made sad things to grace thy coffin shell,Take them, all drenched with a brother's tears,And, brother, for all time, hail and farewell!AUBREY BEARDSLEY.

TABLE TALK OF AUBREY BEARDSLEY

GEORGE SAND, ETC

After all the Muses are women, and you must be a man to possess them – properly.

MENDELSSOHN

Mendelssohn has no gift for construction. He has only a feeling for continuity.

THE BROMPTON ORATORY

The only place in London where one can forget that it is Sunday.

WEBER

Weber's pianoforte pieces remind me of the beautiful glass chandeliers at the Brighton Pavilion.

SHAKESPEARE

When an Englishman has professed his belief in the supremacy of Shakespeare amongst all poets, he feels himself excused from the general study of literature. He also feels himself excused from the particular study of Shakespeare.

ROSSINI'S "STABAT MATER"

The dolorous Mother should be sung by a virgin of Morales, one of the Spanish painter's unhealthy and hardly deiparous creatures, with high, egg-shaped, creamy forehead and well-crimped silken hair.

ALEXANDER POPE

Pope has more virulence and less vehemence than any of the great satirists. His character of Sporus is the perfection of satirical writing. The very sound of words scarify before the sense strikes.

IMPRESSIONISTS

How few of our young English impressionists knew the difference between a palette and a picture! However, I believe that Walter Sickert did– sly dog!

TURNER

Turner is only a rhetorician in paint.

ENGLISH LITERATURE

What a stay-at-home literature is the English! It would be easy to name fifty lesser French writers whose names and works are familiar all over the world. It would be difficult to name four of our greatest whose writings are read to any extent outside England.

THE WOODS OF AUFFRAY

In the distance, through the trees, gleamed a still argent lake, a reticent water that must have held the subtlest fish that ever were. Around its marge the trees and flags and fleurs-de-luce were unbreakably asleep.

I fell into a strange mood as I looked at the lake, for it seemed to me that the thing would speak, reveal some curious secret, say some beautiful word, if I should dare to wrinkle its pale face with a pebble.

Then the lake took fantastic shapes, grew to twenty times its size, or shrank into a miniature of itself, without ever losing its unruffled calm and deathly reserve. When the waters increased I was very frightened, for I thought how huge the frogs must have become, I thought of their big eyes and monstrous wet feet; but when the water lessened I laughed to myself, for I thought how tiny the frogs must have grown, I thought of their legs that must look thinner than spiders', and of their dwindled croaking that never could be heard.

Perhaps the lake was only painted after all; I had seen things like it at the theatre. Anyhow it was a wonderful lake, a beautiful lake.

TWO LETTERS OF AUBREY BEARDSLEY

Beardsley unfortunately wrote but few letters. The following is characteristic of the humorous courtesy with which he received criticism:

To the Editor of the Pall Mall Budget.

"SIR, – So much exception has been taken, both by the Press and by private persons, to my title-page of 'The Yellow Book,'5 that I must plead for space in your valuable paper to enlighten those who profess to find my picture unintelligible. It represents a lady playing the piano in the middle of a field. Unpardonable affectation! cry the critics. But let us listen to Bomvet.

"Christopher Willibald Ritter von Glück, in order to warm his imagination and to transport himself to Aulis or Sparta, was accustomed to place himself in the middle of a field. In this situation, with his piano before him, and a bottle of champagne on each side, he wrote in the open air his two "Iphigenias," his "Orpheus," and some other works.' I tremble to think what critics would say had I introduced those bottles of champagne. And yet we do not call Gluck a decadent.

"Yours obediently"AUBREY BEARDSLEY.

"THE BODLEY HEAD,

"VIGO STREET, W.

"April 27."

The Daily Chronicle on the occasion of the publication of "Plays" by John Davidson, in criticising Beardsley's frontispiece,[2] deplored the introduction of "two well-known faces of the day." In the following day's issue Beardsley wittily excused himself in the following letter to the editor:

"AN ERROR OF TASTE"

"SIR, – In your review of Mr. Davidson's plays, I find myself convicted of an error of taste, for having introduced portraits into my frontispiece to that book. I cannot help feeling that your reviewer is unduly severe. One of the gentlemen who forms part of my decoration is surely beautiful enough to stand the test even of portraiture, the other owes me half a crown.

"I am, yours truly,"AUBREY BEARDSLEY.

"114 CAMBRIDGE STREET, S.W.

"March 1, 1894."

1

The chef d'oeuvre, it seems to me, of an adorable and impeccable master, who more than any other landscape-painter puts us out of conceit with our cities, and makes us forget the country can be graceless and dull and tiresome. That he should ever have been compared unfavourably with Turner – the Wiertz of landscape-painting – seems almost incredible. Corot is Claude's only worthy rival, but he does not eclipse or supplant the earlier master. A painting of Corot's is like an exquisite lyric poem, full of love and truth; whilst one of Claude's recalls some noble eclogue glowing with rich concentrated thought.

2

"At an age," writes Dubonnet, "when girls are for the most part well confirmed in all the hateful practices of coquetry, and attend with gusto, rather than with distaste, the hideous desires and terrible satisfactions of men."

All who would respire the perfumes of Saint Rose's sanctity, and enjoy the story of the adorable intimacy that subsisted between her and Our Lady, should read Mother Ursula's "Ineffable and Miraculous Life of the Flower of Lima," published shortly after the canonization of Rose by Pope Clement X. in 1671. "Truly," exclaims the famous nun, "to chronicle the girlhood of this holy virgin makes as delicate a task as to trace the forms of some slim, sensitive plant, whose lightness, sweetness, and simplicity defy and trouble the most cunning pencil." Mother Ursula certainly acquits herself of the task with wonderful delicacy and taste. A cheap reprint of the biography has lately been brought out by Chaillot and Son.

3

A comedy ballet in one act by Philippe Savarat and Titures de Schentefleur. The Marquis de Vandésir, who was present at the first performance, has left us a short impression of it in his Mémoires:

"The curtain rose upon a scene of rare beauty, a remote Arcadian valley, a delicious scrap of Tempe, gracious with cool woods and watered with a little river as fresh and pastoral as a perfect fifth. It was early morning and the re-arisen sun, like the prince in the Sleeping Beauty, woke all the earth with his lips.

"In that golden embrace the night dews were caught up and made splendid, the trees were awakened from their obscure dreams, the slumber of the birds was broken, and all the flowers of the valley rejoiced, forgetting their fear of the darkness.

"Suddenly to the music of pipe and horn a troop of satyrs stepped out from the recesses of the woods bearing in their hands nuts and green boughs and flowers and roots, and whatsoever the forest yielded, to heap upon the altar of the mysterious Pan that stood in the middle of the stage; and from the hills came down the shepherds and shepherdesses leading their flocks and carrying garlands upon their crooks. Then a rustic priest, white robed and venerable, came slowly across the valley followed by a choir of radiant children. The scene was admirably stage-managed and nothing could have been more varied yet harmonious than this Arcadian group. The service was quaint and simple, but with sufficient ritual to give the corps de ballet an opportunity of showing its dainty skill. The dancing of the satyrs was received with huge favour, and when the priest raised his hand in final blessing, the whole troop of worshippers made such an intricate and elegant exit, that it was generally agreed that Titurel had never before shown so fine an invention.

"Scarcely had the stage been empty for a moment, when Sporion entered, followed by a brilliant rout of dandies and smart women. Sporion was a tall, slim, depraved young man with a slight stoop, a troubled walk, an oval impassable face with its olive skin drawn lightly over the bone, strong, scarlet lips, long Japanese eyes, and a great gilt toupet. Round his shoulders hung a high-collared satin cape of salmon pink with long black ribbands untied and floating about his body. His coat of sea green spotted muslin was caught in at the waist by a scarlet sash with scalloped edges and frilled out over the hips for about six inches. His trousers, loose and wrinkled, reached to the end of the calf, and were brocaded down the sides and ruched magnificently at the ankles. The stockings were of white kid with stalls for the toes, and had delicate red sandals strapped over them. But his little hands, peeping out from their frills, seemed quite the most insinuating things, such supple fingers tapering to the point with tiny nails stained pink, such unquenchable palms lined and mounted like Lord Fanny's in 'Love at all Hazards,' and such blue-veined hairless backs! In his left hand he carried a small lace handkerchief broidered with a coronet.

"As for his friends and followers, they made the most superb and insolent crowd imaginable, but to catalogue the clothes they had on would require a chapter as long as the famous tenth in Pénillière's 'History of Underlinen.' On the whole they looked a very distinguished chorus.

"Sporion stepped forward and explained with swift and various gesture that he and his friends were tired of the amusements, wearied with the poor pleasures offered by the civil world, and had invaded the Arcadian valley hoping to experience a new frisson in the destruction of some shepherd's or some satyr's naïveté, and the infusion of their venom among the dwellers of the woods.

"The chorus assented with languid but expressive movements.

"Curious and not a little frightened at the arrival of the worldly company, the sylvans began to peep nervously at those subtle souls through the branches of the trees, and one or two fauns and a shepherd or so crept out warily. Sporion and all the ladies and gentlemen made enticing sounds and invited the rustic creatures with all the grace in the world to come and join them. By little batches they came, lured by the strange looks, by the scents and the drugs, and by the brilliant clothes, and some ventured quite near, timorously fingering the delicious textures of the stuffs. Then Sporion and each of his friends took a satyr or a shepherdess or something by the hand and made the preliminary steps of a courtly measure, for which the most admirable combinations had been invented and the most charming music written. The pastoral folk were entirely bewildered when they saw such restrained and graceful movements, and made the most grotesque and futile efforts to imitate them. Dio mio, a pretty sight! A charming effect too, was obtained by the intermixture of stockinged calf and hairy leg, of rich brocaded bodice and plain blouse, of tortured head-dress and loose untutored locks.

"When the dance was ended the servants of Sporion brought on champagne, and with many pirouettes poured it magnificently into slender glasses, and tripped about plying those Arcadian mouths that had never before tasted such a royal drink.

"Then the curtain fell with a pudic rapidity."

4

It is a thousand pities that concerts should only be given either in the afternoon, when you are torpid, or in the evening, when you are nervous. Surely you should assist at fine music as you assist at the Mass – before noon – when your brain and heart are not too troubled and tired with the secular influences of the growing day.

5

A reproduction of this appears on page 71.