LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 294, 21 May 1875, Page 3

LITERATURE.

ROMANCE IN A PARIS PENSION. Part 11. ( Continued. ) They are the productions of a man that has evidently suffered acutely. He has, I suspect, loved deeply and has been disappointed. These are my thoughts as I see on all sides heads full of sadness, wistfulncss, and even despair. ‘ I suppose you do not care to make money by your art ! ’ ‘ No. In my opinion art is a religion, a creed, a faith. The creation of the beautiful ought to be the highest ambition of an artist. Our notions of the beautiful vary according to our temperature and education. Perfection of form, harmony of colour, depth of expression, is which I strive to render. When I shall be satisfied, then perhaps I shall send to the different exhibitions. One of the Yankees downstairs, who has made his fortune by selling calico, asked me the other day what line of business I pursued ; and when I answered ‘Art,’ he turned up his nose, and exclaimed, * Bad trade that, sir. I want some large painting for my drawing-' room in Fifth Avenue, New York; some big, shiny piece ; none of your dead colors ; don’t care for your old masters, they are precious humbugs—we are getting too much alive in our young country for that sort of work—landscapes and pretty gals. But let me see what you have in the market. ’ And looked so astonished,’ continued Mr Morris, * when I told him that I had nothing that would suit him, and that I preferred not showing him any of my works. ’ * You are not practical, my good sir ; .you will die in a garret, like some geniuses; paint to please the rich, as so many of the British artists do. Make money; that means, power. Do not mind if it is not your notion of Art. Fill your pockets, and then paint your grand ideas. ’ ‘ Yankee is worldly wise, but I call that prostituting art. Alas ! it has become a trade, just glike upholstery. So many pictures painted to order, each with a name attached. I have just enough to live on, and hope to make the public follow me, and not paint merely to please a nation which has no higher notions of art.’ ‘ Vivent your sentiments ! ’ we both exclaim. “ And now, before we leave this delightful studio, play something on the piano for my friend,’ says Olga, opening the instrument. ‘ You know that I must obey my queen,’ he answers, bowing ; ‘ but as a rule I do not play for anyone. The music I enjoy is not popular, for it is generally found incomprehensible by the masses, but I firmly believe that it will be the music of the future. Wagner is my favorite master.’ He sits down, and after a few strange, wild preludes, plays portions of that ideal mystical masterpiece, Wagner’s * Lohengrin.’ I feel transported into a world of strange fancies, inhabited by mystical visionary beings. It is all vague, striking, original. Then Mr Morris breaks out and sings softly Elsa’s song : “Euch Liiften, die mein Klagen, &c.” I am roused by Olga, who taps me on the shoulder, and tells me it is time to leave. Mr Morris makes us promise to return soon again, and we bid him au revoir. ‘ It is curious how much genius, power, and passion are contained in this small room, and how much ennui, stupidity, nonsense, shallowness, and gossip, inhabit the remainder of this large house,’ remarks Olga, as we descend the staircase and enter our room. ‘ Lunch with me in my sitting room; I find it such a tremendous bore to assist at the general luncheon ; one gets so tired of seeing always the same people, hearing the same jokes, and eating the same food.’ ‘ Well, Yankee is right,’ I remark, ‘ when he said that money is power, and gives liberty ; if you had not plenty of filthy lucre you could not afford to have your own way, and eat pate de foie gras in your own room instead of joining at the common table and partaking of more homely fare. I like money, though I admire Mr Morris’s views —he is so full of imagination, that he must be quite happy. ’ ‘No,’ answers Olga, ‘Mr Morris is not really a happy man. Of course he must have moments of intense gratification, but his ideal of beauty is so elevated that he is miserable when he cannot attain it.’ ‘ There is no doubt, Olga, that Mr Morris is in love with you: His manner, his look show that you occupy his thoughts, and that beautiful picture is an expression of his feelings. ’ ‘ Y es, I think Mr Morris admires me very much. Why should he not do so ? I am pretty, artistic, and with all my faults, I am attractive; but his nature is rather like mine, so I simply feel sympathy and admire his lofty views; but I have not a bit of love

for him ; my heart floes not beat any quicker, my pulse is just the same when he approaches me. I think quite calmly of him, and would not be at all jealous if he fell in love with any other girl. He is very odd ; his mother was a German, and I fancy that she was rather queer—in fact, I imagine that she was slightly insane ; he has inherited from her unhealthy, odd notions. He has often told me that he would rather not marry a woman he was in love with ; love, is such a nundersehon feeling that he would like to feel et irnally the pleasure and pain it occasions, and to enjoy the torture of not possessing what he longs for. It is a curious idea, but I daresay he is right; marriage must, in a way, destroy the poetry of love. A sincere attachment and quiet happiness follows, but many illusions vanish. He told me, that as a young fellow, lie fell in love with a beautiful Polish girl, who sang and danced like an angel, and whose face was a vision of beauty—well, she loved him ; they met often at a country house in the wilds of Silesia, she promised to marry him. Strange, the idea frightened and disenchanted him so much that, for fear his love should vanish, he went away engaged to her. In his absence she caught a fearful cold, and three weeks after his departure she was lying in her grave. He was travelling about, and did not know of her death till he returned. His grief was intense, and still he confesses that to him there is a melancholy pleasure in the idea that she died loving him entirely, without having belonged to him. He is an eccentric creature, and as he has frankly spoken to me about his odd notions, he cannot expect me to wish to marry him. He is a poet, an artist, and a musician, utterly unfitted for the prose of married life. ’ Dinner at the Boarding House. What a clamour, clatter, and babel of tongues ! The nasal twang of America, the rich brogue of Ireland, some musical English voices—all talking and laughing at once, so loudly. Miss Magee is laughing musically, and making fun of Mr Smiles, who had been flirting vigorously in the vaults underneath the Pantheon, and had proposed to a wrong lady in the dark. Mr Blake sits this evening at my right hand, and Mrs Merriman, the widow, at Mr Blake’s left. A deaf elderly gentleman sits opposite to me, and is talking out loud to himself. I hear him muttering, ‘ Why will that silly old woman, Mrs Kingsley, w r ear a brown wig instead of her own white hair, and why will she bob her foolish head up and down, while that idiot Smiles makes an ass of himself ? If that fellow could only see himself as others see him he would stop. I hate to see a man grimacing, gesticulating, and behaving altogether like his ancestors, the monkeys.’ I laugh ; but the uproar at dinner is so great that nobody listens to anybody else. ‘ I like that old boy,’ remarks Mr Blake. ‘ I often go and smoke in his room. Old Douglas is a chip of the old block; he is a great reader, a traveller; but he is as cynical as Diogenes, and generally rude to his equals; but he is fond of animals, children ; but, curiously enough, despises women ’ * I suppose Mr Douglas has had a disappointment in his youth, poor man ! I am sorry for him, ’ lispos Mrs Merriman with a gentle sigh. ‘ The devil take her,’ mutters out loud Mr Douglas, ‘ There ! she has just carried off my favorite bit of chicken, just the slice I have had my eye upon. What a greedy woman she is, to be sure ! ’ This ebullition of deaf Mr Douglas, is intended for Mrs Melligrew, a fat, ruddyfaced Englishwoman, in military mourning, scarlet and black, who is just depositing upon her plate the wing of a chicken, some stuffing, &c, unconscious of Mr Douglas’s remarks. The dinner is over, and we all go up to the balcony, and from that observatory watch the different boarders. Mr Morris disappears to his den. All the old ladies sit together at one end of the room. The girls cluster round Mr Smiles, and a Mr Chambers, a mild disciple of Mr Smiles, who laughs at all his jokes, and is his shadow. Mr Smiles is now in his element, he stalks off to the piano, and with great entrain sings the famous couplet in “La fille de Madame Angot: ” Tres-jolie, Pen polie,. Possedant un gros magot.’ All the young ladies join in this chorus, even Olga and Mr Blake chime in from the balcony. Mr Smiles sings this very comically, and with all the appropriate gestures of les dames de la halle. ‘Do you see that nice-looking old lady sitting there ?’ says Olga, pointing out an old lady with soft brown eyes and white hair,’ ‘ that is Miss Peleg. If anybody feels at all poorly—it does not matter about the symptoms, those are of no consequence—we go to Miss Peleg, and she gives everybody the same medicine : two teaspoonfuls of Birch’s Salts. A cold in the head, indigestion, neuralgia, rheumatism, etc, etc, treated in the same way ; for Miss Peleg believes implicitly in this unfailing remedy ; and when any of the boarders feel queer they go up to Miss Peleg to be Birched ; and if anybody dies, it is because they have not taken those wonderful salts in time. Since lam at Madame Dupont's, I have had Birch’s Salts, at least forty times, and I live !’ Mr Blake is now called upon to play. He is very obliging—does not make a fuss. He plays the ‘ Coulin, ’ that grand, pathetic, old Irish air, and he plays it so exquisitely that he is made to play it a second, and even a third time. He then accompanies Miss Magee, who sings “ Kate Kearney,” “My love is like a red, red rose,” and ‘The wearing of the green. ” Olga and I remark that Mrs Merriman’s smile is no longer childlike and bland, as she watches the pretty Irish girl sing those wild pathetic airs as only an Irish gin can sing them. Perhaps the widow feels a little jealous as she perceives the admiration that Mr Blake evidently has for this charming Hibernian, with her sunny smile, her ringing laugh, and musical brogue. ‘ I am sure that Mr Blake is a little bit in love with Miss Magee,’ whispers Olga to me on the balcony; ‘ and I fancy that the widow does not like it. I should like Mr Blake to marry Mary Magee ; they would be so well suited. They are both musical, very Irish, and she is a bright, unaffected girl. How, Mrs Merriman is a kind of female Blue Beard—a wolf in sheep’s clothing. I should not like her to kill Mr Blake, for he is a nice little fellow. ’ ‘You and Miss Magee are hard upon this unfortunate widow. 1 think her rather attractive ? she has a low, sweet voice; her manners are good. I confess that this eternal sweet smile provokes me.” To be continued.