19 MAY 1894, Page 27

THE YELLOW BOOK.*

HISTORY repeats itself, and we have once more an oppor- tunity of refreshing our memories over the fable of the mountain and the mouse. Flourishes of trumpets heralded a forthcoming publication, modest preliminary puffs such as the following, "The most interesting, unusual, and important publication of its kind that has ever been undertaken," epithets such as "nearly perfect," " modern and distinguished," "charming," and "daring," were freely disseminated, and once more our hopes were raised,—those hopes so often raised like modern Towers of Babel, so often dashed amid the con- fusion of tongues. We frankly confess that we have found among the contents of the Yellow Book much to weary and disgust, and very little to admire. All that this literary cackling has produced is a jaundiced-looking, indigestible monster, half-book, half-magazine, its contents indicated on its cover by a comic muse who surely represents the buffoonery of farce rather than the delicate humour of genuine comedy, and a tragic muse with slant eyes and blubber lips, while the sacred fire that was to illuminate and dazzle the world is cur- tailed to the modest proportion of a guttering candle.

Mr. Henry James contributes one of the few good things in the book ; but his satire in "The Death of the Lion" is all

• The Yellow Book : an Illustrated Quarterly. Vol. L London : Elkin Mathews and John Lane.

the keener that it holds the mirror to his own immediate surroundings. The confusion of pronouns and genders, Dora Forbes and Guy Walsingham and the "larger latitude" recur to us irresistibly as we turn to the other contribu- tions and recognise certain " pen-names " that have been assumed by certain ephemeral notabilities. Dora Forbes, the indubitable male with the big red moustache, who "assumes a feminine personality because the ladies are such popular favourites," is only the next step,—the next figure that will present itself on the contemporary stage. If to-day women hide themselves under a thin cloak of mas- culinity, we see no reason why men should not return the compliment to-morrow, and assume the feminine garments de- spised by their owners. Mr. James depicts various " modern " types with his usual neat dexterity, such as the journalist who represents a syndicate of thirty-seven influential jour-

nals; the interviewer, male and female ; and the hostess who was annoyed with her distinguished guest for dying inopportunely, until she was consoled by the notoriety and eclat she gained for having lent him her best house to die in. He writes humorously of the enervating effects of the social atmosphere, and dissecting social popularity shows us its hollowness and vanity, illustrated by the circle that accepts Guy Walsingham and the "larger latitudes," and treats Neil Faraday's masterpiece as swine are said to treat pearls. Speaking of his author-hero, he says :—" All the disinterested people here are his particular admirers, and have been care- fully selected as such. There is supposed to be a copy of his last book in the house, and in the hall I come upon ladies, in attitudes, bending gracefully over the first volume. I dis- creetly avert my eyes, and when next I look round, the pre-

carious joy has been superseded by the book of life. There is a sociable circle or a confidential couple, and the relinquished vohune lies open on its face, as if it had been dropped under ex- treme coercion." The "First Act of a Comedy," by Mr. George Moore and "John Oliver Hobbes," is fairly amusing to read; in a miniature way it suggests the influence of Mr. Oscar Wilde's paradoxical style. The signature of Ella D'Arcy may or may not veil a masculine personality; we are inclined to think that in " Irremediable " it is a perverse feminine taste that has chosen a heroine from the slums of Whitechapel. The ordinary East-ender, honest and hardworking as she often is, has a distressing love of imitation jewellery, unkempt fringes, and long, draggled ostrich-feathers. Such tendencies may be harmless, but, added to a pronounced Cockney accent, would, we should be inclined to think, repel even a bank clerk on the modest salary of 2130 a year,—especially a bank clerk who owned a crest and a family motto, " Vertue vaunceth," and an ancestor who, "many hundreds of years ago, went to fight in the Holy Land." There was one peculiarity about the Whitechapel tailoress that may have lightly turned the young man's fancy. When Esther threw herself on the hedge-bank at his feet, and burst into tears, "she did not cover up her face, but simply pressed one cheek down upon the grass, while the water poured from her eyes with astonishing abundance. Willoughby saw the dry earth turn dark and moist as it drank the tears in." It is not often that such a phenomenon is to be seen ; Esther exceeded the powers of eighteenth-century heroes and heroines; not even the "Man of feeling" did more than damp innumerable pocket-handker- chiefs. Neither of the actors in this sordid little drama shows one touch of the divine love that alone can beautify and illuminate our poor human nature. Esther marries Willoughby because he is a "gentleman," and can give her ease from toil and the feather boas that her soul covets ; it is not at all evident why Willoughby marries Esther, but he does it with his eyes open, and then finds himself absorbed with a passion of hatred for her. Irremediable, very often, is the punishment that men bring on themselves and others by their misdeeds ; but here there is no hint of wrong-doing- not even the excuse of blind passion—only a repulsive and unnecessary picture of two lives untouched by self-renuncia- tion or any moral influence that moulds and enriches the character. It will strike most people that the central idea of "A Lost Masterpiece" has already been exhaustively ex- pressed by a well-known song-writer. Calverley appeals to Memory,—

" 0 Memory ! that which I gave thee To guard in thy garner yestreen-

Little dreaming thou e'er could behave thee Thus basely—hath gone from me clean! Gone, fled, as ere autumn is ended, The yellow leaves flee from the oak,— I have lost it for ever, my splendid Original joke;' while "George Egerton" apostrophises an unlovely female who thrusts an irrelevant and baneful personality into his or her (confusion of pronouns and genders again !) thoughts, and extinguishes a "precious little pearl of a thought," a "literary gem" that was to have provided a delicate feast for the passers-by, the ignorant crowd that shoved rudely by, on the inside of the pavement, and "just didn't realise, poor money- grubbers !" what a "solid chunk of genius" they were elbowing. The only conspicuous quality in "A Modern Melo- drama," by Mr. Hubert Crackanthorpe, is its bold presentment of dissipated squalor, in which the profanity and bad language of the death.stricken woman are only equalled by the coarse brutality of the man who has no comfort to offer her except caresses or champagne. Is this the best, we are inclined to ask, that the promoters of such periodicals have to offer ? is it "charming," is it " distinguished " ? Are these low ideals, these coarse, dreary records of lives untouched by any spark of the divine ideal of beauty that has survived centuries of moral and social darkness, all that the end of the nineteenth century has to offer ? Are these cheap poor effects to be forced on the public as specimens of our highest civilisation,— a public that is at the same time warned that if it revolts it will incur the reproach of cowardice and prudish fear of "Mrs. Grundy "? In the same way we can hardly believe that some

of the drawings reproduced in the Yellow Book are meant to be taken seriously, several of them irresistibly recall childish attempts with a squeaky slate-pencil on a slate, that look equally well whether held in the usual position or upside down. We wonder, in passing, how a certain well-known actress approves of the " portrait " to which her name is attached ; it scarcely rises to the dignity of a caricature, no salient feature is reproduced, no characteristic preserved. We would not insult Utamaro, or Hokusai, by suggesting that Mr.

Aubrey Beardsley borrows from the sources of Japanese art. We cannot believe that even the most " modern " lover of art really admires flat outlines, and heavy patches of white and black occasionally diversified with spots; we prefer to cling to the old, deathless ideals of lines of beauty and the effects of luminous lights and shadows, and turn with relief from Mr. Beardsley's grotesques to the portraits of ladies con- tributed by Mr. Charles Furse and Mr. Will Rothenstein, the grace and " reticence " of Sir F. Leighton's veiled-figure study, and the solemn suggestiveness of Mr. J. T. Nettleship's "Head of Minos." In much the same degree we turn with relief to Mr. William Watson's sonnets, a green oasis amid an arid wilderness of prose and verse. Both are good, but the first one, "The Frontier," is so full of poetic thought and charm of expression that we quote it at length.

"At the hushed brink of twilight,—when, as though Some solemn journeying phantom paused to lay An ominous finger on the awe-struck day, Earth holds her breath till that great presence go,— A moment comes of visionary glow,

Pendulous 'twixt the gold hour and the grey, Lovelier than these, more eloquent than they Of memory, foresight, and life's ebb and flow.

So have I known, in some fair woman's face, While viewless yet was Time's more gross imprint, The first, faint, hesitant, elusive hint Of that invasion of the vandal years Seem deeper beauty than youth's cloudless grace, Wake subtler dreams, and touch me nigh to tears."

Some trenchant remarks on "Reticence in Literature," especially referring to the so-called " modern " style, are to be found in Mr. Arthur Waugh's ably written article. In his opinion, "the writers and critics of contemporary literature have alike lost their heads ; they have gone out into the by- ways and hedges in search of the new thing, and have brought into the study and subjected to the microscope mean objects of the roadside, whose analysis may be of value to science, but is absolutely foreign to art." It is that very point that needs insisting on at the present day. The subjects treated of and chosen for discussion are not in themselves necessarily harmful or unnatural, but there are certain veils of self-respect and reticence that the world has tacitly drawn ; and the laying aside of such veils, the upsetting of moral barriers, can only minister to a morbid curiosity, and an appetite for that which is unwholesome. Much that is written nowadays is not merely

indecent and indecorous, it is also inartistic and untrue to Nature, and offends the moral sense, just as the eyes and ears are jarred and offended by false colours and false harmonies. There is a greater art in choosing subjects to portray that are- in themselves noble and soul-stirring, than in groping down- wards voluntarily for ideals of the gutter. To quote again. from Mr. Waugh :—" Without dignity, without self-restraint, without the morality of art, literature has never survived.; they are the few who rose superior to the baser levels of their time, who stand unimpugned among the immortals now. And that mortal who would put on immortality must first assume that habit of reticence, that garb of humility by which true greatness is best known. To endure restraint,—that is to be strong."