Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (660 page)

I could not help asking him why he had been present at all, and he said with an air of fine reason:

“Well, we move in modern times. I still think it was wrong to produce Wagner at the Opera so soon after the war. It was unpatriotic, it was to take revenge in the wrong direction. But I have had time enough, my friend, to become reconciled to the music of Wagner as music. And I thought to myself, ‘ Now here is a new German composer; I will not again make the mistake of violently abusing his music, before I have heard a note of it.’ For the music of Wagner I abused violently before I had heard a note of it.”

The general went on to say that this new music was worse than nonsense, it was an outrage. The high discordant notes gripped the entrails and gave one colic.

“Nevertheless,” he said, “you will see that no critic says a word against this music. They are all afraid. They all fear to make themselves appear as foolish as did the critics who opposed the school of Wagner.”

And upon the whole, I am inclined to think that the general was right. The other day I attended a concert consisting mainly of the Song Cycles of Debussy, setting the words of Verlaine. They were sung by an Armenian lady who had escaped from a Turkish harem and had had no musical training. She was a barbaric creature who uttered loud howls, and the effect was to me disagreeable in the extreme; all the same, the audience was large and enthusiastic and the most enlightened organ of musical opinion of to-day spoke of the performance with a chastened enthusiasm. I happened to meet the writer of the notice in the course of the following afternoon, and I asked him what he really got for himself out of that singular collocation of sounds. He said airily: “Well, you see, one gets emotions!” I said: “Good God! what sort of emotions?” He answered: “Well, you see, if one shuts one’s eyes one can imagine that one is eating strawberry jam and oysters in a house of ill-fame, and a cat is rushing violently up and down the keyboard of the piano with a cracker tied to its tail.”

I said: “Then why in the world didn’t you say so in your notice?”

He smiled blandly:

“Well, you see, an ignorant public might take such a description for abuse, and we cannot afford to abuse anything now.”

I said: “You mean that you’re still frightened of Wagner?”

“Oh, we’re all most frightened of Wagner,” he answered, “and it’s not only that. The business managers of our newspapers won’t let us abuse anything, or the papers would never get any more concert advertisements.”

I fancy that this last statement was in the way of pulling my leg, for as a matter of fact there is only one newspaper in London that has any concert advertisements worth speaking of, and this was not the paper that my friend represented. The remark would, however, have been true enough of the reviewers of books, for owing to the dread of losing publishers’ advertisements there is practically no paper — or there is practically only one paper in London that will insert an unfriendly review. Personally, being a writer of exclusive tastes or of a jealous temperament, I am never permitted to review a book at all. Going, however, the other day into the house of a friend who reviews books for one of our leading organs, I perceived upon a table the book of a much-boomed author who appeared to me to be exceedingly nauseous. I said:

“Do, for goodness’ sake, let me save you the trouble of noticing that work.”

And it was placed in my hand. I wrote a column of fairly moderate criticism; I extinguished the book, I murdered the author with little stilettoes. The notice was never printed, though my friend the reviewer duly received her cheque for one column — £1 17s.
6d.,
which I presume was the price of silence.

And there in a nutshell the whole matter is. The ferocity of the critics for one reason or another has come to an end. The eccentricities of the artists are curbed, the enthusiasms of the public are dead. I do not know where we should have to go nowadays to find the cosy musical enthusiasms that subsisted into the ‘eighties and ‘nineties. Where now shall we find the performers of the old Monday “Pops”? Where now shall we find the old, little family party that the audience was? We used to pay a shilling and we used to go in through passages that resembled rats’ holes, in the back of the old St. James’s Hall. We used to sit in the semicircle of hard wooden seats that held the orchestra on symphony days. But these were quartette concerts. There was Joachim, with the leonine, earnest head; there was Piatti with a grey, grizzled, shaggy hair and beard, so that his features seemed exactly to reproduce the lines of the head of his violoncello; there was Ries with broad, honest, blonde Teutonic features; there was Strauss with the head of a little bald, old mole with golden spectacles and a myopic air. Joachim would take a glance round the hall, having his violin resting already upon a handkerchief upon his chest beneath his chin. He would make a little flourish with his bow like the conductor at an orchestra, the other three sitting silent, intent, caught up away from the world. Joachim would lay his bow upon the strings; the sounds of the opening notes of the quartette would steal into the air and, engrossed all round the orchestra, we would follow the music in the little miniature scores with the tiny notes — first subject, second subject, working out, free phantasia, recapitulation. We should be almost as intent as the performers, and we should know each other — all of the audience — almost as well. You could not doubt the excellence of the music or the fellowship; there would never be a wrong note, just as there would never be a moment’s lapse in our attention.

When these concerts were over it was sometimes my privilege to walk home along with Joachim and to carry his almost too precious violin. Almost too precious, since it made the privilege so very nervous an honour. And I remember that on one occasion somewhere in a by-street we came upon an old blind fiddler playing a violin whose body was formed of a corned-meat tin. Joachim stood for some minutes regarding the old man, then suddenly he took the violin into his own hands and, having dusted it, asked me to produce his own bow from his own case. He stood for some little time playing a passage from the Trillo del Diabolo of Tartini, looking as intent, as earnest and as abstracted there in the empty street as he was accustomed to do upon the public platform. After a time he restored the instrument to the old fiddler along with a shilling and we pursued our way. Any executant of a personality more florid would have conducted the old blind fiddler into a main road, would have passed round the hat himself, would have crumpled into it several bank notes, and would without doubt have had the affair reported in the newspapers. I saw indeed only yesterday such a feat reported of a celebrated advertising ‘cellist. Joachim, however, merely wanted to know how an instrument with a metal belly would sound if it were properly played, and having the information, since it seemed to him to be worth one shilling, he paid a shilling for it. I do not know where we could go nowadays to recapture that spirit of earnestness. On the other hand, I do not know where I should go to find a
prima donna
who would boast of having administered parsley to another’s parrot. And of one thing I am fairly confident — if practically none of us any more get very excited about rival schools of music, very few of us at social functions talk quite so loudly as used to be the case in the days of Cimabue Brown, and the
Punch
of Mr du Maurier. We talk, of course, and we talk all the time, but we talk in much lower voices. We find that music agreeably accompanies conversation as long as we do not try to outshout the instruments. We find indeed that music is so stimulating to our ideas that, whereas small talk may come exceedingly difficult to us at any other time, there is nothing that so makes irresistibly interesting topics bubble up in the mind as a pianissimo movement in the strings. Waiting impatiently, therefore, for a passage in louder tones we commence avidly our furtive and whispered conversation which continues till the last note of the selection. And this last note leaves us conveniently high and dry with a feeling of nakedness and of abashment. Thus indeed music has come into its own. If it be less of an art it has a greater utility. It has helped the Englishman to talk. A few years ago one might drearily have imagined that that was impossible.

The other day I was at a wedding reception — there was a very large crowd. In one corner an excellent quintette discussed selections from the
Contes d’Hofmann.
We were all talking twenty to the dozen. My
vis-à-vis
was telling me something that did not interest me, when the voice of a man behind me said: “So they left him there in prison with a broken bottle of poison in his pocket.’ And then the music stopped suddenly and I never heard who the man was, or what he had done to get into prison, or why he had broken the bottle of poison.

CHAPTER V
I

PRE-RAPHAELITES AND PRISONS

WHEN I was a little boy, there still attached something of the priestly to all the functionaries of the Fine Arts or the humaner Letters. To be a poet like Mr. Swinburne, or like Mr. Rossetti, or even like Mr. Arthur O’Shaughnessy, had about it something tremendous, something rather awful. If Mr. Swinburne was in the house we children knew of it up in the nursery. A hush communicated itself to the entire establishment. The scullery-maid, whose name, I remember, was Nelly; the cook, whose name was Sophy; the housemaid, who was probably Louie or it may have been Lizzie; and the nurse, who was certainly Mrs. Atterbury — she had seen more murders and more gory occurrences than any person I have ever since met; even the tremendous governess who was known as Miss Hall, though that was not her name — and who had attached to her some strange romance such as that she was wooed too persistently by a foreign count with a name like Pozzo di Borgo, though that was not the name, — we all of us, all the inhabitants of the back nooks and crannies of a large stucco house fell to talking in whispers. I used to be perfectly convinced that the ceiling would fall in if I raised my voice in the very slightest. This excitement, this agitation, these tremulous undertones would become exaggerated if the visitor was the editor of the
Times
, Richard Wagner or Robert Franz, a composer whom we were all taught especially to honour, even Richard Wagner considering him the greatest song-writer in the world. And indeed he was the mildest and sweetest of creatures, with a face like that of an etherealized German pastor, and smelling more than any other man I ever knew of cigars. Certain other poets — though it was more marked in the case of poetesses — made their arrival known to the kitchen, the back, and the upper parts of the house by the most tremendous thunders. The thunders would reverberate, die away, roll out once more and once more die away for periods that seemed very long to the childish mind. And these reverberations would be caused, not by Apollo, the god of song, nor by any of the Nine Muses, nor yet by the clouds that surrounded, as I was then convinced, the poetic brow. They were caused by dissatisfied cabmen.

And this was very symptomatic of the day. The poet — and still more the poetess — of the ‘seventies and ‘eighties, though an awful, was a frail creature who had to be carried about from place to place, and generally in a four-wheeled cab. Indeed, if my recollection of these poetesses in my very earliest days was accompanied always by thunders and expostulations, my images of them in slightly later years, when I was not so strictly confined to the nursery — my images of them were always those of somewhat elderly ladies, forbidding in aspect, with grey hair, hooked noses, flashing eyes and continued trances of indignation against reviewers. They emerged ungracefully — for no one ever yet managed to emerge gracefully from the door of a four-wheeler — sometimes backwards from one of those creaking and dismal tabernacles and pulling behind them odd-shaped parcels. Holding the door open, with his whip in one hand would stand the cabman. He wore an infinite number of little capes on his overcoat; a grey worsted muffler would be coiled many times round his throat and the lower part of his face, and his top hat would be of some unglossy material that I have never been able to identify. After a short interval his hand would become extended, the flat palm displaying such coins as the poetess had laid in it. And, when the poetess with her odd bundles was three-quarters of the way up the doorsteps, the cabman, a man of the slowest and most deliberate, would be pulling the muffler down from about his mouth and exclaiming:

“Wot’s this?”

The poetess without answering, but with looks of enormous disdain, would scuffle into the house and the front door would close. Then upon the knocker the cabman would commence his thunderous symphony.

Somewhat later more four-wheelers would arrive with more poetesses. Then still more four-wheelers with elderly poets; untidy-looking young gentlemen with long hair and wide-awake hats, in attitudes of dejection and fatigue would ascend the steps; a hansom or two would drive up containing rather smarter, stout elderly gentlemen wearing, as a rule, black coats with velvet collars and most usually black gloves. These were reviewers, editors of the
Athenæum
and of other journals. Then there would come quite smart gentlemen with an air of prosperity in their clothes, and with deference somewhat resembling that of undertakers in their manners. These would be publishers.

You are to understand that what was about to proceed was the reading to this select gathering of the latest volume of poems by Mrs. Clara Fletcher — that is not the name — the authoress of what was said to be a finer sequence of sonnets than those of Shakespeare. And before a large semicircle of chairs occupied by the audience that I have described, and, with Mr. Clara Fletcher standing obsequiously behind her to hand her, from the odd-shaped bundles of manuscripts, the pages that she required, Mrs. Clara Fletcher, with her regal head regally poised, having quelled the assembly with a single glance, would commence to read.

Mournfully then, up and down the stone staircases there would flow two hollow sounds. For in those days it was the habit of all poets and poetesses to read aloud upon every possible occasion, and whenever they read aloud to employ an imitation of the voice invented by the late Lord Tennyson, and known in those days as the
ore rotundo
—” with the round mouth mouthing out their hollow o’s and a’s.”

The effect of this voice heard from outside a door was to a young child particularly awful. It went on and on, suggesting the muffled baying of a large hound that is permanently dissatisfied with the world. And this awful rhythm would be broken in upon from time to time by the thunders of the cabman. How the housemaid — the housemaid was certainly Charlotte Kirby — dealt with this man of wrath I never could rightly discover. Apparently the cabman would thunder upon the door; Charlotte, keeping it on the chain, would open it for about a foot. The cabman would exclaim, “Wot’s this?” and Charlotte would shut the door in his face. The cabman would remain inactive for four minutes in order to recover his breath. Then once more his stiff arm would approach the knocker and again the thunders would resound. The cabman would exclaim: “A bob and a tanner from the Elephant and Castle to Tottenham Court Road!” and Charlotte would again close the door in his face. This would continue for perhaps half-an-hour. Then the cabman would drive away to meditate. Later he would return and the same scenes would be gone through. He would retire once more for more meditation and return in the company of a policeman. Then Charlotte would open the front door wide and by doing no more than ejaculate “My good man!” she would appear to sweep out of existence policeman, cab, cabhorse, cabman and whip. A settled peace would descend upon the house, lulled into silence by the reverberation of the hollow o’s and a’s. In about five minutes’ time the policeman would return and converse amiably with Charlotte for three-quarters of an hour, through the area railings. I suppose that was really why cabmen were always worsted and poetesses protected from these importunities in the dwelling over whose destinies Charlotte presided for forty years.

The function that was proceeding behind the closed doors would now seem incredible. For the poetess would read on from two to three and a half hours. At the end of this time — such was the fortitude of the artistic when Victoria was still the Widow at Windsor — an enormous high babble of applause would go up. The forty or fifty poetesses, young poets, old poets, painter poets, reviewers, editors of
Athenaeums
and the like would divide themselves into solid bodies, each body of ten or twelve surrounding one of the three or four publishers, and forcing this unfortunate man to bid against his unfortunate rivals for the privilege of publishing this immortal masterpiece. My grandfather would run from body to body, ejaculating “Marvellous genius!”

“First woman poet of the age!”

“Lord Tennyson himself said he was damned if he wasn’t envious of the sonnet to Mehemet Ali!”

Mr. Clara Fletcher would be trotting about on tiptoe fetching for the lady from whom he took his name — now exhausted and recumbent in a deep arm-chair — smelling bottles, sponges full of aromatic vinegar to press upon her brow, glasses of sherry, thin biscuits, and raw eggs in tumblers. As a boy, I used to think vaguely that these comestibles were really nectar and ambrosia.

In the early days I was only once permitted to be present at these august ceremonies. I say I was permitted to be present, but actually I was caught and forced very much against my will to attend the rendition by my aunt, Lucy Rossetti, who, with persistence that to me at the time appeared fiendish, insisted upon attempting to turn me into a genius too. Alas, hearing Mr. Arthur O’Shaughnessy read
Music and Moonlight
did not turn poor little me into a genius. It sent me to sleep, and I was carried from the room by Charlotte, disgraced, and destined from that time forward only to hear those hollow sounds from the other side of the door. Afterwards I should see the publishers, one proudly descending the stairs, putting his cheque-book back into his overcoat pocket, and the others trying vainly to keep their heads erect under the glances of scorn that the rest of the departing company poured upon them. And Mr. Clara Fletcher would be carefully folding the cheque into his waistcoat pocket whilst his wife from a large reticule produced one more eighteenpence wrapped up in tissue paper.

This would to-day seem funny — the figure of Mrs. Clara Fletcher would be grotesque, if it were not for the fact that, to a writer, the change that has taken place is so exceedingly tragic. For who nowadays would think of reading poetry aloud, or what publisher would come to listen? As for a cheque...! Yet this glorious scene that I have described, these eyes of mine once beheld.

And then there was that terrible word “genius.” I think my grandfather with his romantic mind first obtruded it on my infant notice. But I am quite certain that it was my aunt, Mrs. William Rossetti, who filled me with a horror of its sound that persists to this day. In school-time the children of my family were separated from their cousins, but in the holidays, which we spent as a rule during our young years in lodging-houses side by side, in places like Bournemouth or Hythe, we were delivered over to the full educational fury of our aunt. For this, no doubt, my benevolent but misguided father was responsible. He had no respect for schoolmasters, but he had the greatest possible respect for his sister-in-law. In consequence our mornings would be taken up in listening to readings from the poets or in improving our knowledge of foreign tongues. My cousins, the Rossettis, were horrible monsters of precocity. Let me set down here with what malignity I viewed their proficiency in Latin and Greek at ages incredibly small. Thus, I believe, my cousin Olive wrote a Greek play at the age of something like five. And, they were perpetually being held up to us — or perhaps to myself alone, for my brother was always very much the sharper of the two — as marvels of genius whom I ought to thank God for merely having the opportunity to emulate. For my cousin Olive’s infernal Greek play which had to do with Theseus and the Minotaur, draped in robes of the most flimsy butter muslin, I was drilled, a lanky boy of twelve or so, to wander round and round the back drawing-room of Endsleigh Gardens, imbecilely flapping my naked arms before an audience singularly distinguished who were seated in the front room. The scenery which had been designed and painted by my aunt was, I believe, extremely beautiful; and the chinoiseries, the fine furniture and the fine pictures were such that had I had been allowed to sit peaceably amongst the audience, I might really have enjoyed the piece. But it was my unhappy fate to wander round in the garb of a captive before an audience that consisted of Pre-Raphaelite poets, ambassadors of foreign powers, editors, poets laureate, and Heaven knows what. Such formidable beings at least did they appear to my childish imagination. From time to time the rather high voice of my father would exclaim from the gloomy depths of the auditorium, “Speak up, Fordie!” Alas, my aptitude for that sort of sport being limited, the only words that were allotted to me were the Greek lamentation, “Theu! Theu! Theu!” and in the meanwhile my cousin Arthur Rossetti, who appeared only to come up to my knee, was the hero Theseus, strode about with a large sword, slew dragons and addressed perorations in the Tennysonian “o” and “a” style, to the candle-lit heavens, with their distant view of Athens. Thank God, having been an adventurous youth whose sole idea of true joy was to emulate the doings of the hero of a work called
Peck’s Bad Boy and His Pa
, or at least to attain to the lesser glories of Dick Harkaway, who had a repeating rifle and a tame black jaguar and who bathed in gore almost nightly — thank God, I say, that we succeeded in leading our unsuspecting cousins into dangerous situations from which they only emerged by breaking limbs. I seem to remember the young Rossettis as perpetually going about with fractured bones. I distinctly remember the fact that I bagged my cousin Arthur with one collarbone, broken on a boat slide in my company, whilst my younger sister brought down her cousin Mary with a broken elbow fractured in a stone hall. Olive Rossetti, I also remember with gratification, cut her head open at a party given by Miss Mary Robinson because she wanted to follow me down some dangerous steps and fell on to a flower-pot.