Masques & Phases Part 4

"My darling, of course I do; I have always believed in ghosts. Most of the pictures in the world, as I am always saying, were painted by _ghosts_."

"Oh, no, Aleister, you're laughing at me; but when you see Sir Rupert, as you will, in the spare bedroom, you will believe too."

At the end of January, I became Flora's accepted fiance.

In February, I moved with the Brodies to Florence, where I was able to introduce them to all my kind and hospitable friends,--the Berensons, Mr.

Charles Loeser, Mr. Herbert Horne, and Mr. Hobart Cust. Flora was in every way a great success, and commenced a little book on Nera di Bicci for Bell's Great Painters Series. She was invited to contribute to the _Burlington Magazine_. It was quite a primavera. Our marriage was arranged for the following February. The Brodies were to return to Hootawa after it was vacated by the American summer tenants. I was to join them for Christmas on my return from America, where I was compelled to go in order to settle my affairs. My father, Lorenzo Q. Sweat, of Chicago, evinced great pleasure at my approaching union with an old Scotch family; he promised me a handsome allowance considering his recent losses in the meat packing swindle--I mean trade. I was able to dissuade him from coming to Europe for the ceremony. After delivering two successful lectures on Pietro Cavallini in the early fall at mothers'

soirees, I sailed for Liverpool.

There was deep snow on the ground when I arrived at Hootawa in the early afternoon of a cold December day. The Colonel met me at the station in the uniform of the 69th, attended by two gillies holding torches.

"There will just be enough light to glance at the pictures before tea,"

he said gaily, and in three-quarters of an hour I was embracing Flora and saluting her mother, who were in the hall to greet me. For the most part Hootawa was a typical old Scotch castle, with extinguisher turrets; an incongruous Jacobean addition rather enhancing its picturesque ensemble.

"You'll see better pictures here than anything in Rome," remarked the Colonel; but Flora giggled rather nervously.

In the smoking-room and library, I inspected, with a.s.sumed interest, works by the little masters of Holland, and some more admirable examples of the English Eighteenth Century School. Faithful to my promise, I p.r.o.nounced every one of them to be little gems, unsurpa.s.sed by anything in the private collections of America or Europe. We pa.s.sed into the drawing-room and parlour with the same success. In the latter apartment the Colonel, grasping my arm, said impressively: "Now you will see our great treasure, the Brodie Vandyck, of which Flora has so often told you.

I have never lent it for exhibition, for, as you know, we are rather superst.i.tious about it. Sir Joshua Reynolds, in 1780, offered to paint the portraits of the whole family in exchange for the picture. Dr.

Waagen describes it in his well-known work. Dr. Bode came from Berlin on purpose to see it some years ago, when he left a certificate (which was scarcely necessary) of its undoubted authenticity. I was so touched by his genuine admiration, that I presented him with a small Dutch picture which he admired in the smoking-room, and thought not unworthy of placing in the Berlin Gallery. I expect you know Dr. Bode."

"Not personally," I said, as we stepped into the Long Gallery.

It was a delightful panelled room, with oak-beamed ceiling. Between the mullioned windows were old Venetian mirrors and seventeenth-century chairs. At the end, concealed by a rich crimson brocade, hung the Vandyck, the only picture on the walls.

It was the Colonel himself who drew aside the curtain which veiled discreetly the famous picture of Sir Rupert Brodie at the age of thirty- two, in the beautiful costume of the period. The face was unusually pallid; it was just the sort of portrait you would expect to walk out of its frame.

"You have never seen a finer Vandyck, I am sure," said Mrs. Brodie, anxiously. I examined the work with great care, employing a powerful pocket-gla.s.s. There was an awkward pause for about five minutes.

"Well, sir," said the Colonel, sternly, "have you nothing to say?"

"It is a very interesting and excellent work, though _not_ by Vandyck; it is by Jamieson, his Scotch pupil; the morphic forms . . ."--but I got no further. There was a loud clap of thunder, and Flora fainted away. I was hastening to her side when her father's powerful arm seized my collar. He ran me down the gallery and out by an egress which led into the entrance hall, where some menial opened the ma.s.sive door. I felt one stinging blow on my face; then, bleeding and helpless, I was kicked down the steps into the snow from which I was picked up, half stunned, by one of the gillies.

"Eh, mon, hae ye seen the bogles at Hootawa?" he observed.

"It will be very civil of you if you will conduct me to the depot, or the nearest caravanserai," I replied.

I never saw Flora again.'

'But what has happened about the ghost, Mr. Sweat? You never told us anything about it. Did you ever see it?' asked one of the listeners in a disappointed tone.

'Oh, I forgot; no, that was rather tragic. _Sir Rupert Brodie never appeared again_, not even in the spare bedroom; he seemed offended.

Eventually his portrait was sent up to London, where Mr. Lionel Cust pointed out that it could not have been painted until after Vandyck's death, at which time Sir Rupert was only ten years old. Indeed, there was some uncertainty whether the picture represented Sir Rupert at all.

Mr. Bowyer Nichols found fault with the costume, which belonged to an earlier date prior to Sir Rupert's birth. Colonel Brodie never recovered from the shock. He resides chiefly at Harrogate. Gradually the servants all gave notice, and Hootawa ceased to attract Americans. Poor Flora! I ought to have remembered my promise; but the habit was too strong in me.

Sir Oliver Lodge, I believe, has an explanation for the non-appearance of the phantom after the events I have described. He regards it as a good instance of _bypsychic duality_--the fortuitous phenomenon by which spirits are often uncertain as to whom they really represent. But I am only an art critic, not a physicist.'

_To_ HERBERT HORNE, ESQ.

THE ELEVENTH MUSE.

In the closing years of the last century I held the position of a publisher's hack. Having failed in everything except sculpture, I became publisher's reader and adviser. It was the age of the 'd.i.c.ky dongs,'

and, of course, I advised chiefly the publication of deciduous literature, or books which dealt with the history of decay. The business, unfortunately, closed before my plans were materialised; but there was a really brilliant series of works prepared for an ungrateful public. A cheap and abridged edition of Gibbon was to have heralded the 'Ruined Home' Library, as we only dealt with the decline and fall of things, and eschewed Motley in both senses of the word. 'Bad Taste in All Ages' (twelve volumes edited by myself) would have rivalled some of Mr. Sidney Lee's monumental undertakings. It was a memory of these unfulfilled designs which has turned my thoughts to an old notebook--the skeleton of what was destined never to be a book in being.

I have often wondered why no one has ever tried to form an anthology of bad poetry. It would, of course, be easy enough to get together a dreary little volume of unreadable and unsaleable song. There are, however, certain stanzas so exquisite in their unconscious absurdity that an inverted immortality may be claimed for them. It is essential that their authors should have been serious, because parody and light verse have been carried to such a state of perfection that a tenth muse has been created--the muse of Mr. Owen Seaman and the late St. John Hankin for example. When the Anakim, men of old, which were men of renown--Sh.e.l.ley, Keats, or Tennyson--become playful, I confess to a feeling of nervousness: the unpleasant, hot sensation you experience when a distinguished man makes a fool of himself. Rossetti--I suppose from his Italian origin--was able to a.s.sume motley without loss of dignity, and that wounded t.i.tan, the late W. E. Henley, was another exception. Both he and Rossetti had the faculty of being foolish, or obscene, without impairing the high seriousness of their superb poetic gifts.

But I refer to more serious folly--that of the disciples of Silas Wegg.

Some friends of mine in the country employed a ladies'-maid with literary proclivities. She was never known to smile; the other servants thought her stuck up; she was a great reader of novels, poetry, and popular books on astronomy. One day she gave notice, departed at the end of a month, left no address, and never applied for a character. Beneath the mattress of her bed was found a ma.n.u.script of poems. One of these, addressed to our satellite, is based on the scientific fact (of which I was not aware until I read her poem) that we see only one side of the moon. The ode contains this ingenious stanza:--

O beautiful moon!

When I gaze on thy face Careering among the boundaries of s.p.a.ce, The thought has often come to my mind If I ever shall see thy glorious behind.

It was my pleasure to communicate this verse to our greatest living conversationalist, a point I mention because it may, in consequence, be already known to those who, like myself, enjoy the privileges of his inimitable talk. I possess the original ma.n.u.script of the poem, and can supply copies of the remainder to the curious.

In a magazine managed by the physician of a well-known lunatic asylum I found many inspiring examples. The patients are permitted to contribute: they discuss art and literature, subject of course to a stringent editorial discretion. As you might suppose, poetry occupies a good deal of s.p.a.ce. It was from that source of clouded English I culled the following:--

His hair is red and blue and white, His face is almost tan, His brow is wet with blood and sweat, He steals from where he can: And looks the whole world in the face, A drunkard and a man.

I think we have here a Henley manque. In robustious a.s.sertion you will not find anything to equal it in the Hospital Rhymes of that author. I was so much struck by the poem that I obtained permission to correspond with the poet. I discovered that another Sappho might have adorned our literature; that a mute inglorious Elizabeth Barrett was kept silent in Darien--for the asylum was in the immediate vicinity of the Peak in Derbys.h.i.+re. Of the correspondence which ensued I venture to quote only one sentence:

'I was brought up to love beauty; my home was more than cultured; it was refined; we took in the _Art Journal_ regularly.'

Of all modern artists, I suppose that Sir Edward Burne-Jones has inspired more poetry than any other. A whole school of Oxford poets emerged from his fascinating palette, and he is the subject of perhaps the most exquisite of all the _Poems and Ballads_--the '_Dedication_'--which forms the colophon to that revel of rhymes. I sometimes think that is why his art is out of fas.h.i.+on with modern painters, who may inspire dealers, but would never inspire poets. For who could write a sonnet on some uncompromising pieces of realism by Mr. Rothenstein, Mr. John, or Mr.

Orpen? Theirs is an art which speaks for itself. But Sir Edward Burne- Jones seems to have dazzled the undergrowth of Parna.s.sus no less than the higher slopes. In a long and serious epic called 'The Pageant of Life,'

dealing with every conceivable subject, I found:--

With some the mention of Burne-Jones Elicits merely howls and groans; But those who know each inch of art Believe that he can bear his part.

I don't remember what he could bear. Perhaps it referred to his election at the Royal Academy. Then, again, in a 'Vision' of the next world, a poet described how--

Byron, Burne-Jones, and Beethoven, Charlotte Bronte and Chopin are there.

I wonder if this has escaped the eagle eye of Mr. Clement Shorter. Though perhaps the most delightful nonsense, for which, I fear, this great painter is partly responsible, may be found in a recent poem addressed to the memory of my old friend, Simeon Solomon:--

More of Rossetti? Yes: You follow'd than Burne-Jones, Your depth of colour his than that of monochromes!

Yes; amber lilies poured, I say, A joy for thee, than poet's bay.

But while true art refines and often stimulates, ART does, at times, I say, sit grief within our gates!

Art causes men to weep at times-- If you may heed these falt'ring rhymes.

A small volume of lyrics once sent to me for review afforded another flower for my garland:--

Where in the spring-time leaves are wet, Oh, lay my love beneath the shades, Where men remember to forget, And are forgot in Hades.