Kitabı oku: «English Society»

GEORGE DU MAURIER

I was thinking, with a pang, just before I put my pen to the paper, that the death of George du Maurier must be a fact of stale interest to the reader already, and that it would be staler yet by the time my words reached him. So swiftly does the revolving world carry our sorrow into the sun, our mirth into the shade, that it is as if the speed of the planet had caught something of the impatience of age, and it were hurried round upon its axis with the quickened pulses of senility. But perhaps this is a delusion of ours who dwell in the vicissitude of events, and there are still spots on the earth's whirling surface, lurking-places of quiet, where it seems not to move, and there is time to remember and to regret; where it is no astonishing thing that a king should be a whole month dead, and yet not forgotten. At any rate, it is in the hope, if not quite the faith, of this that I venture some belated lines concerning a man whom we have lost just when he seemed beginning to reveal himself.

I

It was my good fortune to have the courage to write to Du Maurier when Trilby was only half printed, and to tell him how much I liked the gay, sad story. In every way it was well that I did not wait for the end, for the last third of it seemed to me so altogether forced in its conclusions that I could not have offered my praises with a whole heart, nor he accepted them with any, if the disgust with its preposterous popularity, which he so frankly, so humorously expressed, had then begun in him. But the liking which its readers felt had not yet become loathsome to the author, and he wrote me back a charming note, promising me the mystery, and enough of it, which I had hoped for, because of my pleasure in the true-dreaming in Peter Ibbetson; and speaking briefly, most modestly and fitly, of his commencing novelist at sixty, and his relative misgivings and surprises.

It was indeed one of the most extraordinary things in the history of literature, and without a parallel, at least to my ignorance. He might have commenced and failed; that would have been infinitely less amazing than his most amazing success; but it was very amazing that he should have commenced at all. It is useless to say that he had commenced long before, and in the literary property of his work he had always been an author. This theory will not justify itself to any critical judgment; one might as well say, if some great novelist distinguished for his sense of color took to painting, that he had always been an artist. The wonder of Du Maurier's essay, the astounding spectacle of his success, cannot be diminished by any such explanation of it. He commenced novelist in Peter Ibbetson, and so far as literature was concerned he succeeded in even greater fulness than he has succeeded since. He had perfect reason to be surprised; he had attempted an experiment, and he had performed a miracle.

As for the nature, or the quality, of his miracle, that is another question. I myself think that in all essentials it was fine. The result was not less gold because there was some dross of the transmuted metals hanging about the precious ingot, and the evidences of the process were present, though the secret was as occult as ever. He won the heart, he kindled the fancy, he bewitched the reason; and no one can say just how he did it. His literary attitude was not altogether new; he perfected an attitude recognizable first in Fielding, next in Sterne, then in Heine, afterwards in Thackeray: the attitude which I once called confidential, and shook three realms beyond seas, and their colonial dependencies here, with the word. It is an attitude which I find swaggering in Fielding, insincere in Sterne, mocking in Heine, and inartistic in Thackeray; but Du Maurier made it lovable. His whole story was a confidence; whatever illusion there was resided in that fact; you had to grant it in the beginning, and he made you grant it gladly. A trick? Yes; but none of your vulgar ones; a species of legerdemain, exquisite as that of the Eastern juggler who plants his ladder on the ground, climbs it, and pulls it up after him into the empty air. It wants seriousness, it wants the last respect for the reader's intelligence, it wants critical justification; it wants whatever is the very greatest thing in the very greatest novelists; the thing that convinces in Hawthorne, George Eliot, Tourguénief, Tolstoy. But short of this supreme truth, it has every grace, every beauty, every charm. It touches, it appeals, it consoles; and it flatters, too; if it turns the head, if it intoxicates, well, it is better to own the fact that it leaves one in not quite the condition for judging it. I made my tacit protest against it after following Trilby, poor soul, to her apotheosis at the hands of the world and the church; but I fell a prey to it again in the first chapters of The Martian, and I expect to continue in that sweet bondage to the end.

II

If I venture to say that sentimentality is the dominant of the Du Maurier music, it is because his art has made sentimentality beautiful; I had almost said real, and I am ready to say different from what it was before. It is a very manly sentimentality; we need not be ashamed of sharing it; one should rather be ashamed of disowning its emotions. It is in its sweetness, as well as its manliness, that I find the chief analogy between Du Maurier's literature and his art. In all the long course of his dealing with the life of English society, I can think of but two or three instances of ungentleness. The humor which shone upon every rank, and every variety of character, never abashed the lowly, never insulted women, never betrayed the trust which reposed in its traditions of decency and generosity. If we think of any other caricaturist's art, how bitter it is apt to be, how brutal, how base! The cruelties that often pass for wit, even in the best of our own society satires, never tempted him to their ignoble exploitation; and as for the filthy drolleries of French wit, forever amusing itself with one commandment, how far they all are from him! His pictures are full of the dearest children, lovely young girls, honest young fellows; snobs who are as compassionable as they are despicable, bores who have their reason for being, hypocrites who are not beyond redemption. It is in his tolerance, his final pity of all life, that Du Maurier takes his place with the great talents; and it is in his sympathy for weakness, for the abased and outcast, that he classes himself with the foremost novelists of the age, not one of whom is recreant to the high office of teaching by parable that we may not profitably despise one another. Not even Svengali was beyond the pale of his mercy, and how well within it some other sorts of sinners were, the grief of very respectable people testified.

ENGLISH SOCIETY

Fair Hostess (passing the wine). – "I hope you admire this decanter, Admiral?"

Gallant Admiral. – "Ah! it's not the vessel I am admiring…"

Fair Hostess. – "I suppose it's the port?"

Gallant Admiral. – "Oh, no; it's the pilot."

Tommy (home from an afternoon party). – "Mamma, darling, I've got a great favor to ask of you… Please don't ask me how I behaved!"

Old Lady (to fashionable beauty, who has recently married the General). – "And so that white-haired old darling is your husband! What a good-looking couple you must once have been!"

The General. – "I've brought you a new book, Aunt Emily, by the new French Academician. I'm told it's very good; but I've not read it myself, so I'm not sure it's quite – a – quite correct, you know."

Aunt Emily. – "My dear boy, I'm ninety-six, and I'll risk it!"

Sir Binks (who always piques himself on saying just the right thing). – "A – what I like so much about the milkmaid, dontcherknow, is that your husband hasn't fallen into the usual mistake of painting a lady dressed up in milkmaid's clothes! She's so unmistakably a milkmaid and nothing else, dontcherknow!"

The Painter's Wife. – "I'm so glad you think so… He painted her from me!"

(Scene: The Waiting-Room of a Fashionable Physician.)

Fair Patient (just ushered in). – "What —you here, Lizzie? Why, ain't you well?"

Second Ditto. – "Perfectly, thanks! But what's the matter with you, dear?"

First Ditto. – "Oh, nothing whatever! I'm as right as possible, dearest …!"

Elder Sister. – "Oh! he proposed after supper, did he – after dancing with you all night – and you refused him? Quite right! My dear child, never believe in any proposal until the young man calls at eleven in the morning and asks you to be his wife!"

"Good-night, Miss Maud!"

"I'm not Miss Maud."

"Miss Ethel, I mean. Won't you shake hands with me? How ungrateful of you! and just after I've been taking you for your lovely sister, too."

"I see a tent. I wonder what's going on inside? Let's go and see…"

"What's the good of our going in there?"

"What's the good of our stopping out here?"

Tired Daughters. – "Don't you think we might go now, mamma? It's three o'clock."

Festive Mamma. – "Oh, that's not so very late, darlings… Mayn't I have one more dance?"

First Tutor (waking up, and languidly helping himself to his modest glass of claret). – "Ah! I like a little sleep after dinner… It makes one ready for one's wine!"

Second Tutor. – "Well, I like a little sleep before dinner best!"

The Master. – "Pooh! Talk to me of the after-breakfast sleep in term-time! That's what I enjoy!!"

Hostess. – "Won't you play us something, Mr. Spinks?"

Musical Amateur (who thinks a good deal of himself, in spite of his modesty). – "Oh, don't ask me – you are all such first-rate performers here – and you play such good music, too."

Hostess. – "Well, but we like a little variety, you know."

Lionel. – "Oh, I say, Benjamin! how splendid your wife is looking! She pays for dressing, if you like!"

Benjamin. – "Does she, my boy? I only wish she did!"

Teddy. – "How old are you, Aunt Milly?"

Aunt Milly (who owns to 35). – "Oh, Teddy, almost a hundred!"

Teddy. – "Auntie, I can't believe you! I'd believe you if you'd said fifty!"

"A southerly wind and a cloudy sky proclaim a hunting morning."

Sir Bedivere de Vere. – "Oh, I say. How you do chaff! You never take me seriously!"

American Belle. – "You never asked me!" (No cards.)

Mater. – "Papa, dear, do you know a halfpenny weekly paper called Flipbutts?"

Pater. – "Never heard of it in my life!"

Mater. – "Well, it offers ninepence a column for answering questions, and they are so difficult, and we do so want to make a little money! Do leave off your novel and help us a little." (Pater can only write two novels a year, but gets £10,000 for each of them.)

He. – "Look! Here comes young Brummell Washington, with his bride. I wonder what on earth induced him to marry her?"

She. – "Oh, probably somebody bet him he wouldn't!"

Hostess. – "You must give your arm to Miss Malecho, William, and put her on your right, and make yourself as agreeable as you possibly can!"

Host. – "Why, she's a person of no consequence whatever!"

Hostess. – "Oh, yes, she is! She's very ill-natured, and tells the most horrid lies about people if they don't pay her the very greatest attention!"

"Auntie, darling, this is my new friend, Georgie Jones. He is nice. And isn't it funny, my birthday is the ninth of January, and his is the tenth, so you see we only just escaped being twins!"

He. – "I beg your pardon – but – er would you be so kind as to give me the 'G'?"

She. – "Oh, certainly." (Gives it.)

He. – "Thanks, awfully!" (Bows and proceeds on his way.)

Hostess. – "Oh, pray don't leave off, Herr Rosencranz. That was a lovely song you just began!"

Eminent Barytone. – "Yes, matame, bot it tit not harmonise viz de cheneral gonferzation. It is in B vlat, and you and all your vrents are talking in G. I haf a zong in F and a zong in A sharp, bot I haf no zong in G!"

Accompanist. – "Ach! Berhaps, to opliche matame, I could dransbose de aggombaniments – ja?"

"Look, Geoffrey! That's Lady Emily Tomlinson. Isn't she pretty?"

"Yes. And I s'pose that's Lord Emily walking with her!"

Professor Boreham. – "What! alone, Mrs. Highflyer? Your husband is not ill, I trust!"