AN ÆESTHETICAL REUNION.

Observer, Volume 2, Issue 48, 13 August 1881, Page 550

AN ÆESTHETICAL REUNION.

The Quite- Too- Utterly- Utters at Home.

People are constantly writing to us to know what these "aesthetics," to whom reference is now so frequently made in the public prints, are like. We have thought over the matter, ■ and at length decided that the best thing we can do is to give our reader's* Mr Henry Labouchere's description of a visit to an " resthetical reunion" or "at home," which he published in Truth a few weeks ago. He says : — "I am an unbeliever in ultra-svstheticism, and the disciples of the creed know it, but yet they insisted the other night that I should be present at their drawing-room indignation meeting. It was convened for the 'purpose of protesting against the indignity involved in the production and favourable reception at the Prince of Wales Theatre of that burlesque of restheticism, Mr Burnand'j? 'The Colonel.' I explained frankly that I firmly believed, and always shall firmly believe, in the line of beauty being a curve ; in rounded outlines, graceful gestures, smooth, silky hair, and sloping shoulders, and a few other heresies, such as the creed that life should be as joyous and cheerful a thing as we can manage to make it; that nature has a few merits, even when compared with art, and so on. I even went so far as to hint that I had read better poetry than Postletkwaite's (the great aesthetic bard), and that there were pictures that I preferred to Maudle's (the renowned aesthetic artist). It was all unavailing. ' You must come, said pretty, but woe - begone, Mrs It. 'You have only to see us together, reflecting and refracting from each other the darkened rays of the deep mystery of existence. You will then understand us. There is something in the formation of your deep set eyes, and in the suggestiveness of your hair, that convince me that you will yet be one of us. Nature has formed you for it ; it remains for Art to develop you. You must come. On this occasion we shall be at our best. The indignation that we all feel about this despicable attack upon those quite too precious things for which we live, will act on exotics, and will bring out all the poetic perfume of such souls as ours.' So I went. I am glad I did. I would not have foregone the experience for any consideration. Iliad, before this, only seen the ./Esthetes in detached groups, as it were, at such places as the Grosvenor Gallery and the Academy soiree. To see them together is a sight indeed. The room was very large, with a high dado in brick-red, picked out with pale pink. The rest was all peacock blue. Both colours — blue and red — threw out all the angular contours of the women and the sallow wanness of their faces into vivid and most displeasing relief. I never beheld before, and hope never again to behold, such tortured befrowzlement of povertystricken heads of hair, such skilled exaggeration of unpleasant angles, such uplifting of chins and drooping of hands and eyes. The women appeared to have assiduously cultivated a pitiful leanness of outline and cadaverous of tint. With one exception they might have been taken for galvanised corpses. The exception was a" pretty, round-faced, blue-eyed, golden-haired girl, the daughter, I was told, of ' an artist in plates,' whatever that may mean. She had evidently done her best to conceal the natural roundness of her arms by squeezing them into the very tightest of sleeves, but had fortunately failed so perceptibly in that and other kindred j efforts, that she was a delightful relief to the t eye. All unconsciously, the other women present made capital foils for her, and the i contrast afforded a very excellent argument against one of the principal doctrines of the cult, viz., the superiority of art to nature. i The men were in better case than the majority !of the women. Most were in good condition. Some were absolutely fat. Only a few were lean. All, however, were round-shouldered and hollow-chested. They wore their chins well forward and their hair very long. Many of them had a fringe of drooping locks on the forehead. One man's fringe almost hung into his eyes. He was singing a solo as 1 entered the room. He had no voice to speak of, and, if possible, less method. His style consisted in pumping forth a syllable fortissimo, with au immense effort, and then wailing out half-a-dozen more in the faintest possible sigh of a pianissimo, his voice dying away at last on a minor note. Murmurs of delighted applause filled the room as he ended. 'So much soul,' 'Such subtle expression,' were amon" the phrases that reached my ear. He accepted such tributes with a gracious air of heroic humility, and Avalked about with the sidelong creep affected by his set, handing copies of the words of his song to his friends. I received one. It ran thus : — Below our fair, supernal height, The world may scoft, nnd sneer, and acorn ; It little recks of our delight In all things sadly, sweetly hright In darksome eve nnd mournful morn. He had thought it a good introduction, he said, to the discussion of the evening. ' I admit,' he continued, 'that it is extemporaneous, words and music both, but it is against my principles to add to, or take from, the glowing thoughts that come fresh from the mint of my mind.- I should hold it heresy against the distinctly divine gift of inspiration to do so.' A lady with a great branch of rather soiled laburnum in her scanty hair, called the song 'starlike,' What she meant I can't imagine, and I question if she knew herself. The pretty little daughter of the artist in plates read the Avords with a puzzled expression which quite delighted me, as being a bit of nature amid so much acting. The business of the evening now began. A tolerably plump, long-haired man carefully arranged himself in a high art attitude beside the piano. I happened to be close beside him, and my opportunities for a deliberate and steady scrutiny of his face led me to a conclusion which, improbable as it may appear, nothing can avail to shake. I have had some experience in amateur theatricals, and knew haresioot and rouge's book by heart. 'To give the face a pale and wan appearance for characters such as Werner, the Stranger, &c, powder it well with prepared whiting, with just a little Dutch pink

mixed with it, and put the faintest possible tinge of rouge on the cheeks and eyelids. Then paint underneath the eyebroAvs and well into the hollows of the eyes with burnt umber.' These, it will be seen, are the directions for producing a 'pale and wan appearance.' and if the orator had not carefully followed them — well — I never saw rouge or burnt umber on a human face ! Asa preliminary to his discourse, he had taken from a bracket a blue vase with a sunilower in it, and placed it on the piano beside him. Every now and then he regarded it with an affectionately haggard look which moved •some of the women present to tears. The effect upon me was in quite an opposite direction, but I knew that Mrs R.s assthetical eyes were ■on me, and I did not dare even to smile. He began by telling his "sisters and brothers" not to feel discouraged by the fresh evidence that had been shown of the non-comprehension of the world. ' How can we expect,' he said, ' that a gross and material world can sympathise with us? The worshippers of culture (he called it •cult-chah) will always be few and select. We expect the many to perceive, as we do, the divine beauty of sadness, as of flowers that Moom by night alone ; the utterly precious loveliness of decay and death, and the fair divinity of disease and suffering. These are the subtle delectable things for which we live. We find a deep delight in sepulchral gloom, and a joy in sadness that the grosser beings around us could never measure, much less participate, in. And why ? Because they are the Peter Bells of the hour. A primrose to their world-blinded eyes is a yellow flower with five petals and some green leaves. It is nothing more. And what is it to vs — oh ! what is it to us ? Is it not a pale and shadowy symbol of what Art, our great goddess, wight make it ? of what Cultchah, with her divinely precious powers, could do with it, were but the realms of nature placed under their control ! It is all this to us, and more — oh ! how much more ; It is food for the mind, and through the mind, for the body. What man or woman of the outer world would give up dining for a single day, as we do with a too utter gladness, in

order to feast the eyes of the soul upon the pale purity of lilies and the •divine colour and beauty of a peacock's feather. Which of the girls who nightly fill those miserable stalls at this most despicably "wretched theatre would care to lunch upon a rose ? Or, having tried to lunch upon a rose, which of them would feel soul - satisfied with the fare ? Not one, I venture (yen-chaw) to say — not -one. How different it is with us ! How glorious and intense is our appreciation of the great Might-have-beens of Nature, and how thankful we may be that we can read upon the leaf of the lily or the petal of the rose the great and consumnate Might-He of Art. — read it so plainly and interpret it with such ease that for us it IS — it exists !' He took up the sunflower as lie neared his peroration, and, as he concluded, looked sadly and earnestly at it, the burnt umber lending invaluable aid to the cavernous depth of his ' ilowerlike' eyes. Many wept. Aesthetes weep freely. They cultivate tears, which seems inconsistent, for these signs of emotion are purely natural. Even the men weep at times. Mrs It. rose, and approached the orator where he lay crumpled in his

chair, his hand shading | his eyes, exhausted by his effort. 'Oh !' she said, 'what fair and precious thoughts you have given us ! How you have helpedus to live on beautifully ! What sweet soul-susten-ance you have poured forth !' and she gently raised his limp hand, and placed within it a lovely spray of Lenten lilies that she had held throughout ithe evening. More orators followed in the same strain of : sentimental and ridiculous gush. The audience murmured words of approval, arranged themselves in distorted attitudes of rapt attention, with a due regard to the sweep of their draperies. vOne girl of mature years dragged herself inch "by inch along a couch, so as to leave the serpentine train of her flowered gown spread well over tsome yards of it. This feat was cleverly performed. As for me, I had had enough of •.the ungainly antics of the clique. I had been well amused, certainly, but it is uncomfortable to be amused alone. I had no one to share the fun with, and the men were too insufferable. Their airs of self -consciousness became irritating .after a time, and there was little relief in the .attenuated forms of the women, their arms at various angles, their heads on one side, their i.shoulders narrow, and their waists broad. I ; glanced at the pretty daughter of the artist in : plates. She was fast asleep, her blonde head nestled in a corner of a peacock-blue couch. She made an adorable picture, but somebody and hid it from me. Somebody . always does intervene, by the way. The decided me. I figuratively folded jmy tent, like the Arabs, and silently slipped ;'away, in the midst of another "soul message," iin course of delivery by the man who had sung the song. I had had enough, and to use one of ■ the clique's own words, the whole thing appeared to me to be 'distinctly drivel.' lam not only .an unbeliever still, but am further from coii- ■ version than ever.

— Where are we all going to ? An individual iin America has actually married his mother-iu-ilaw.