Memories of Sir William Rothenstein

Men and Memories, Recollections of William Rothenstein, 1872-1900. (Faber and Faber. 21s.) Tins first instalment of the memoirs of Sir William Rothenstein is all that might be expected ; that is to say, it is packed with good stories and with intimate glimpses of the great

figures of the 'nineties, and its appraisal of men and movements is both penetrating and charitable. But the book is something more than that ; it is extremely well written, simply and without any pretentiousness of phrase, yet with a singular happiness in finding le mot juste. Take, for example, the description of old Mrs. Studd's house in Hyde Park Gardens :— " A perfect example of a Victorian house it was, the grandeEt I had over been in. It had a splendour, a unity of a kind peculiar to the period ; the cheerful chintzes, bordered wall-papers, the large flower-patterned carpets, the SOvres and Rockingham china, the heavy Victorian silver, achieved the harmony of a brilliant nosegay."

The The last word is so exactly the right one.

It is impossible to read the book without a certain base envy. What right had Will Rothenstein, fresh from Bradford and a short unprofitable apprenticeship at the Slade, to blunder, aged seventeen, into all that was interesting, all that was brilliant in the Parisian world of art and letters ? Of course " blundered " is the wrong word. Rothenstein did not blunder ; he possessed an infallible instinct, and, what was more important, a power of entering into sympathetic relationship with the most diverse characters which is all too rare in this prim and self-conscious world.

He was fortunate in his epoch. The artistic life of Paris

in 1890 was not the shoddy fake which so much of it has since become. A Montmartre cabaret was not a tourists'

raree show—champagne obligatoire—and artists' cafes were actually full of people who could paint. Aristide Bruant was still singing his sinister songs ; Yvette Guilbert was making her debut, La Goulue. and Nini Pattes-en-f air were

dancing at the Moulin Rouge under the watchful eyes of Toulouse-Lautrec.

One of Rothenstein's first friends was Conder, the big blonde Australian who painted such delicate sophisticated visions on fans and scraps of silk. Soon followed Wilde, of whom Rothenstein has some excellent (and, to me, new) stories to tell. Whistler, too, the young painter found friendly, and the redoubtable Degas invited him to his studio. Wilde, Whistler and Degas ! These were ticklish friends to have all at once, for Whistler never lost an opportunity of gibing at Wilde,. and Degas, while he admired some of Whistler's work, had a great contempt for his affectations. Whistler introduced Rothenstein to Mallarrne, who was charming, and to Pennell, who was less charming ; also to Sickert, for whom Rothenstein appeared in the witness box later against both Pennell and Whistler in the famous lithograph case.

The days in Paris drew to an end too soon, but before Rothenstein departed he made the acquaintance of Verlaine, then in hospital and desperately poor. The young man suggested that Verlaine should lecture in England, which he did, and made a little money. But as soon as he returned it was all grabbed from him by the Krantz, the slattern he lived with.

It was Basil Blackwell who asked Rothenstein to Oxford, where he stayed with York Powell, lithographed University celebrities and met Max Beerbohm. Perhaps no one

comes out of this book with a brighter lustre than Max. His letters are delicious, and he was already beginning to make caricatures. It has always struck me as curious that his caricatures are so much less kindly, less urbane, than his impudently charming prose. But Max was not the only interesting young man at Oxford. Rothenstein, with his usual luck, stumbled on Oxford in one of its vintage years, John Simon, C. B. Fry, and F. E. Smith were all at Wadham. Lord Alfred Douglas was at Magdalen, a picturesque figure,

at least, and a genuine poet.

Conder kept urging Rothenstein to return to Par's, but

he only went back for a few weeks—just time enough to add to his collection Edmond de Goncourt, Alphonse Daudet, and Zola. The last named was wearing a monk's habit, because he was writing his book on Lourdes and wished to get himself

into the right frame of mind !

England, however, and Chelsea, where Rothenstein settled, had also its attractions—memories of Whistler and new acquaintances, including Tonks, D. S. MacColl, Frederick Brown, and George Moore, as well as the inseparable Ricketts and Shannon, the one as eloquent as the other was inarticulate. His connexion with the Bodley Head brought him into touch with Lionel Johnson, John Davidson, and William Watson. He met Crackenthorpe (does anyone remember Crackenthorpe now ?) and Bernard Shaw in the days before he had become a national institution :- " No decadence in him ; he was a figure apart, brilliant, genial, wholesome, a great wit, a gallant foe and a staunch friend, a Swift without bitterness, sharer and castigator of the follies of mankind, whose cap though of Jaeger was worn as gaily as a motley. . . . Yet many men deemed him a cad, a vulgarian, a dangerous charlatan, while he went his way, head high, body alert, ready to spring at the sight of wrong, injustice or stupidity."

It is an engaging picture.

Then came friendships with Gordon Craig and Frank Harris, and an amusing story of Wilde's reply when Harris boasted to him of the great houses he frequented : " Yes, dear Frank, we believe you ; you have dined in every house

in London, once."

The Wilde crash is tactfully dealt with, and the 'nineties had still half a decade to run when it happened. Yet,

inevitably, a certain shadow falls across the narrative. It is no longer peopled by figures quite so legendary as before. But the interest is well maintained, and the author has kept his own reactions sufficiently fresh to make us hope for a further volume of his memoirs, bringing the story up to our own time. It may be as fascinating as this first instalment.