like all artistic and literary movements this one had, in the shape of various periodicals, its manifestoes. in fact, it was a period particularly rich in this kind of fruit. in the hobby horse the voices of the new spirit were mingled for the first time with those of the past. there were, among other magazines, the rose leaf, the chameleon, the spirit lamp, the pageant, the evergreen, the parade, the quarto, the dome, the chord, while among the popular papers the idler, to-day, and pick-me-up produced the work of men like edgar wilson and s. h. sime; and, further, the butterfly, the poster, and the studio must be carefully studied for the tendencies of the time. but the two principal organs of the movement were, beyond all doubt, the yellow book and the savoy. round them, as around the shrines of old beside the ?gean, gather the faithful and the chosen. in the other publications there was too much jostling with the profane, but here ‘procul profani.’ it will be37 well, therefore, although it has been done more or less before, to study these two magazines in some detail, and also their literary editors who gathered the clan together. in both cases beardsley was the art editor, though he was ‘fired,’ to put it plainly, from the yellow book after its fourth number. his influence, therefore, permeated both. in fact, he made them both works of value for the coming generations, and particularly in the case of the savoy he bore the burden of the day and saved the monthly from fatuity. when he leaves the yellow book it will be found to be never the same. when he is too ill to be active in the savoy it becomes very small beer. so interwoven with the lives and values of these publications is the genius of beardsley that one cannot speak of the one without referring to the other. of beardsley himself i have already spoken, so i propose to confine myself strictly to the art editor, while dealing first with the yellow book and its literary editor, henry harland, and then with the savoy and mr. arthur symons.
the publisher, mr. john lane, says8 this much-discussed yellow book was founded one38 morning during half-an-hour’s chat over cigarettes, at the hogarth club, by himself, beardsley, and henry harland. while he states that ‘mr. harland had the faculty of getting the best from his contributors,’ the publisher goes on to add: ‘beardsley’s defect as art editor was youth. he would not take himself seriously; as an editor and draughtsman he was almost a practical joker, for one had, so to speak, to place his drawings under a microscope and look at them upside down. this tendency, on the eve of the production of volume v., during my first visit to the united states, rendered it necessary to omit his work from that volume.’ looking back on this, all that one can say now is that although beardsley may have been trying, after all, he and not the publisher was the yellow book, and with his departure the spirit of the age slowly volatilised from the work until it deteriorated into a kind of dull keepsake of the bodley head. there were thirteen numbers in all, and beardsley actually art-edited the first four. in the charming prospectus for the fifth volume he is still described as art editor, and four beardsleys were to have appeared in it: ‘frontispiece to the chopin nocturnes,’ ‘atalanta,’ ‘black coffee,’ and the portrait of miss letty lind in39 ‘an artist’s model.’ however, the break came, and beardsley had no further connection, unfortunately, with the fifth volume.
8 in his pamphlet, aubrey beardsley and the yellow book, p. 1. 1903.
the first number, as in the case of so many similar periodicals, was brilliant. the standard set was too high, indeed, to last, and to the staid english literary press of the time it was something of a seven days’ wonder. the times described its note as a ‘combination of english rowdyism and french lubricity.’ the westminster gazette asked for a ‘short act of parliament to make this kind of thing illegal.’ above all, the whole rabble descends howling on the art editor. it is beardsley that annoys them, proving how he stands out at once beyond his comrades. against the literary editor, henry harland, nothing is said; but the press are full of the offences of one beardsley.
as mr. j. m. kennedy, in his english literature, 1880–1905, has devoted an admirable, if somewhat scornful, chapter to the contents of the yellow book, it is to henry harland, who seems to have merited all the charming things said about him, that i would now direct attention.
a delicate valetudinarian always in search of health, he was born at petrograd in march,40 1861. he commenced life in the surrogate of new york state, whither his parents removed, writing in his spare time in the eighties, under the nom-de-plume of sidney luska, sketches of american jewish life. like theodore peters, whistler, and henry james, he could not, however, resist the call of the old world, and he was at journalistic work in london when he was made editor of the yellow book. besides his editorial duties he was a regular contributor, not only writing the series of notes signed ‘the yellow dwarf,’ but also turning out a number of short stories. but london was only to be a haven of brief sojourn for this writer, whose health sent him south to italy. perhaps his best work in the nineties was his short story mademoiselle miss, while later in italy he opened up a new vein of dainty comedy fiction in almost rose-leaf prose with the cardinal’s snuff-box (1900), whose happy delicacy of thought and style he never equalled again, but was always essaying to repeat until death carried him off in italy. although, therefore, sitting in the editorial chair at the bodley head, harland can only be said to have been a bird of passage in the nineties, and not one of its pillars like arthur symons of the savoy.
this later publication was started as a rival41 to the yellow book soon after beardsley gave up the art-editing of the earlier periodical. in 1895, when ‘symons and dowson, beardsley and conder, were all together on a holiday at dieppe ... it was there, in a cabaret mr. sickert has repeatedly painted, that the savoy was originated.’9 it was issued by leonard smithers, the most extraordinary publisher, in some respects, of the nineties, a kind of modern cellini, who produced some wonderfully finely printed books, and was himself just as much a part of the movement as any of its numerous writers. indeed, no survey of the period can be complete without a brief consideration of this man.
9 w. g. blaikie murdoch’s renaissance of the nineties, p. 21. 1911.
but to return to the savoy, it can be aptly described as the fine flower of the publications of the age. it is true the yellow book outlived it, but never did the gospel of the times flourish so exceedingly as in its pages. here we see that violent love for a strangeness of proportion in art that was the keynote of the age. here the abnormal, the bizarre, found their true home, and poetry is the pursuit of the unattainable by the exotic. it will, therefore, not perhaps be out of place before dealing42 with its literary editor, mr. arthur symons, to discuss the eight numbers that appeared. number one (printed by h. s. nichols) appeared as a quarterly in boards in january, 1896. an editorial note by arthur symons, which originally appeared as a prospectus, hoped that the savoy would prove ‘a periodical of an exclusively literary and artistic kind.... all we ask from our contributors is good work, and good work is all we offer our readers.... we have not invented a new point of view. we are not realists, or romanticists, or decadents. for us, all art is good which is good art.’ the contents of the number included a typical shaw article, full, like all of his work, of the obvious in the terms of the scandalous; some short stories by wedmore, dowson, rudolf dircks, humphrey james, and yeats. the other articles were hardly very original; but the contributions of beardsley dwarf everything else. he towers out above all else with his illustrations, his poem the three musicians, and the beginning of his romantic story under the hill.
number two (april, 1896, printed by the chiswick press) had another editorial note courageously thanking the critics of the press for their reception of the first number, which43 ‘has been none the less flattering because it has been for the most part unfavourable.’ the contents included poems and stories by symons, dowson, and yeats, while john gray and selwyn image have poems and wedmore a story. beardsley continues his romance, and lifts the number out of the rut with his wagneresque designs. max beerbohm caricatures him, and shannon and rothenstein are represented. among articles there is a series on verlaine; and vincent o’sullivan, in a paper ‘on the kind of fiction called morbid,’ sounds a note of the group with his conclusion: ‘let us cling by all means to our george meredith, our henry james ... but then let us try, if we cannot be towards others, unlike these, if not encouraging, at the least not actively hostile and harassing, when they go out in the black night to follow their own sullen will-o’-the-wisps.’ he is also to be thanked for registering the too little known name of the american, francis saltus.
number three (july, 1896) appeared in paper covers, and the savoy becomes a monthly instead of a quarterly from now on. there is a promise, unfulfilled, of the serial publication of george moore’s new novel, evelyn innes. yeats commences three articles on44 william blake and his illustrations to the ‘divine comedy,’ and hubert crackanthorpe contributes one of his best short stories. owing to illness beardsley’s novel stops publication, but his ballad of a barber relieves the monotony of some dull stuff by the smaller men. the reproductions of blake’s illustrations are made to fill the art gap of beardsley, who has only two black-and-whites in. the publication of his novel in book form is promised when the artist is well enough.
number four (august, 1896) at once reveals the effect of beardsley’s inactivity through illness, and shows that beardsley is the savoy, and all else but leather and prunella. the number, however, is saved by a story of dowson, the dying of francis donne, and on the art side a frontispiece for balzac’s la fille aux yeux d’or, by charles conder, is interesting.
number five (september, 1896) is for some unaccountable reason the hardest number to procure. besides the cover and title-page it contains only one beardsley, the woman in white, but the cover is an exceptionally beautiful beardsley, the two figures in the park holding a colloque sentimental seem to have stepped out of the pages of verlaine’s poem. theodore wratislaw and ernest rhys contribute45 the stories. dowson, yeats, and the canadian, bliss carman, contribute the best of the poetry.
number six (october, 1896), has a very poor art side, with the exception of beardsley’s familiar the death of pierrot. the literary contents consists chiefly of the editor. one notices the periodical is dying. the only unique feature is a story, the idiots, by conrad, and dowson is still faithful with a poem.
number seven (november, 1896) announces in a leaflet (dated october) the death of the savoy in the next number. the editorial note states that the periodical ‘has, in the main, conquered the prejudices of the press ... it has not conquered the general public, and, without the florins of the general public, no magazine ... can expect to pay its way.’ in this number beardsley returns to attempt to salve it with his remarkable translation of catullus: carmen ci., and illustration thereto. yeats and dowson contribute poems and beardsley his tristan and isolde drawing.
number eight (december, 1896) completes the issue. the whole of the literary contents is by the editor and the art contents by beardsley himself: in all fourteen drawings.46 by way of epilogue, symons says in their next venture, which is to appear twice a year, ‘that they are going to make no attempt to be popular.’ unfortunately for english periodicals it was a venture never essayed.
that the savoy is far truer to the period than the yellow book was perhaps in no small way due to the fact that mr. arthur symons was its literary editor. for he at any rate in his strenuous search for an ?sthetical solution for art and life, in his assiduous exploring in the latin literatures for richer colours and stranger sensations—he, at any rate, has not only been the child of his time, but in some ways the father of it. his sincere love of art is beyond all question, and it has sent him into many strange byways. he has praised in purple prose the bird-like motions and flower-like colours of the ballet; he has taken us with him to spanish music-halls and sevillian churches; he has garnered up carefully in english the myths of the symbolists and translated for us the enigmas of mallarmé—herodias, the blood and roses of d’annunzio’s plays and the throbbing violins of verlaine’s muse; he has taken us to continental cities, and with him we have heard pachmann playing and seen the enchantments of the divine duse. all the cults of the47 seven arts has this admirable crichton of ?stheticism discussed. he has worked towards a theory of ?sthetics. he has written charmingly (if somewhat temperamentally) of his comrades like beardsley, crackanthorpe and dowson. he was a leader in the campaign of the early nineties, and his work will always be the guiding hand for those who come after him and who wish to speak of this movement. as early as 1893 he was writing of it as ‘the decadent movement in literature’ in harper’s, when he speaks of the most representative work of the period: ‘after a fashion it is no doubt a decadence; it has all the qualities that mark the end of great periods, the qualities that we find in the greek, the latin, decadence; an intense self-consciousness, a restless curiosity in research, an over-subtilising refinement upon refinement, a spiritual and moral perversity.’ perhaps, in a way, it is an immense pity that symons will become the universal guide to the period, for it must be conceded that he has always been prone to find perversity in anything, as sir thomas browne was haunted with quincunxes. but of the subtilty of his judgments and of the charming prose in which he labours to express them there can be no question. listen, for example, when he speaks48 of the aim of decadence: ‘to fix the last fine shade, the quintessence of things; to fix it fleetingly; to be a disembodied voice, and yet the voice of a human soul; that is the ideal of decadence.’ how beautifully it is said, so that one almost forgets how dangerous it is. very aptly did blaikie murdoch say the mantle of pater fell on him. it is the same murmured litany of beautiful prose. indeed arthur symons is the supreme type of belles lettrist. just as in the early nineties he prided himself on the smell of patchouli about his verse, so he alone remains to-day with the old familiar scent about his writings of a period dead and gone which exacts rightfully our highest respect. as one owes him a debt of homage for his fine faithfulness to art, so one thinks of him, as he himself has written of pater, as a ‘personality withdrawn from action, which it despises or dreads, solitary with its ideals, in the circle of its “exquisite moments” in the palace of art, where it is never quite at rest.’ how true that last phrase is, ‘never quite at rest,’ of the author. for to him art is an escape—the supreme escape from life.
arthur symons began with a study on browning and the volume days and nights when the eighties were still feeling their way49 towards the nineties. it was in silhouettes (1892) and london nights (1895) that he appeared as perhaps the most outré member of the new movement. his perfection of technique in endeavouring to catch the fleeting impression by limiting it, never cataloguing it, marks the difference of his verse and that of the secession from much of the school of the eighties’ definite listing of facts. symons, indeed, is not only a poet impressionist, but also a critic impressionist in his critical works like studies in two literatures, the symbolist movement in literature, and so on. this impressionism, whilst it makes his verse so intangible and delicate, also endows his appreciations with a certain all-pervading subtlety. it is as though a poet had begun to see with the monet vision his own poems. it is as though a man comes away with an impression and is content with that impression on which to base his judgment. it is new year’s eve: the poet records his impression of the night:
we heard the bells of midnight burying the year. then the night poured its silent waters over us. and then in the vague darkness faint and tremulous, time paused; then the night filled with sound; morning was here.
50 the poet is at the alhambra or empire ballet: like an impressionist picture a poem disengages the last fine shade of the scene. he wanders at twilight in autumn through the mist-enfolded lanes:
night creeps across the darkening vale; on the horizon tree by tree fades into shadowy skies as pale, as moonlight on a shadowy sea.
the vision remains like an etching. the poet is on the seashore at sunset:
the sea lies quietest beneath the after-sunset flush, that leaves upon the heaped gray clouds the grape’s faint purple blush.
it lingers like a water-colour in one’s memory. he sees a girl at a restaurant and his poem is at once an impression as vivid as a painter’s work. in a phrase he can cage a mood, in a quatrain a scene. where does this ability come from? the answer is, perhaps, given by the one name verlaine, whose genius mr. symons has done so much to hail.
in the gay days of the early nineties before black tragedy had clouded the heavens there was no more daring secessionist from the tedious old ways than the editor of the savoy. to those days, like dowson’s lover of cynara, he51 has ‘been faithful in his fashion.’ if the interest is now not so vivid in his work it is because the centre of art has shifted. if mr. symons has not shifted his centre too, but remained faithful to the old dead gods, it is no crime. it only means that we, when we wish to see him as one of the figures of his group, must shut up his volumes of criticism, forget his views on toulouse lautrec and gerard nerval, and william blake, put aside his later verses and his widow’s cruse of writer’s recollections, and turn with assurance to the débonnaire poet of silhouettes and london nights.
it has been said that mr. symons stands for ‘a pagan revolt against puritanism.’ it is argued, because he was nurtured in nonconformity, art came to him with something of the hysteria a revelation comes to a revivalist meeting. this may be true, but i cannot help thinking that no writer amid all these french influences which he had so eagerly sought out yet remains so typical of the english spirit. it may be heresy, but i always see in mind the gaiety of a nice carnival in a certain drawing with one solid, solemn face surveying the scene over a starched front. beneath it is written: ‘find the englishman.’
52 like the american critic, james huneker, mr. arthur symons has also occasionally written short imaginative prose studies. one thinks, too, in this respect of walter pater’s wonderful imaginary portraits and particularly his glorious study of watteau, and i rather think that this success must have moved the spirit of the two later critics to a noble rivalry. the best, indeed, of mr. symons’s spiritual adventures are probably those studies which are mostly attached to some theme of art which has been after all the all-engrossing motive of this delightful critic’s life. an autumn city and the death of peter waydelin: the first, a sensitive’s great love for arles, whither he brings his unresponsive bride; the other, a study quaintly suggestive of a certain painter’s life: both of these sketches are unquestionably more moving than mr. symons’s studies of nonconformists quivering at the thought of hell-fire. to them one might add, perhaps, esther kahn, the history of the psychological development of an actress after the style of la faustine.
mr. symons’s favourite word is ‘escape’; his favourite phrase ‘escape from life.’ now the one and now the other reappear continually in all kinds of connections. of john addington53 symonds, for example, he writes: ‘all his work was in part an escape, an escape from himself.’ of ernest dowson’s indulgence in the squalid debaucheries of the brussels kermesse he writes: ‘it was his own way of escape from life.’ passages of like tenor abound in his writings; and, in one of his papers on the symbolist movement in literature, he explains his meaning more precisely:
our only chance, in this world, of a complete happiness, lies in the measure of our success in shutting the eyes of the mind, and deadening its sense of hearing, and dulling the keenness of its apprehension of the unknown.... as the present passes from us, hardly to be enjoyed except as memory or as hope, and only with an at best partial recognition of the uncertainty or inutility of both, it is with a kind of terror that we wake up, every now and then, to the whole knowledge of our ignorance, and to some perception of where it is leading us. to live through a single day with that overpowering consciousness of our real position, which, in the moments in which alone it mercifully comes, is like blinding light or the thrust of a flaming sword, would drive any man out of his senses.... and so there is a great silent conspiracy between us to forget death; all our lives are spent in busily forgetting death. that is why we are so active about so many things which we know to be unimportant, why we are so afraid of solitude, and so thankful for the54 company of our fellow creatures. allowing ourselves for the most part to be vaguely conscious of that great suspense in which we live, we find our escape from its sterile, annihilating reality, in many dreams, in religion, passion, art; each a forgetfulness, each a symbol of creation.... each is a kind of sublime selfishness, the saint, the lover, and the artist having each an incommunicable ecstasy which he esteems as his ultimate attainment; however, in his lower moments, he may serve god in action, or do the will of his mistress, or minister to men by showing them a little beauty. but it is before all things an escape.
mr. symons finds in his system of ?sthetics an escape from methodism and the calvinistic threatenings of his childhood. he wishes to escape ‘hell.’ in the story of seaward lackland there is a preacher whom methodism drove to madness. mr. symons has turned to art so that he may not feel the eternal flames taking hold of him.
