BOOKS and AUTHORS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XV, Issue X, 7 September 1895, Page 286

BOOKS and AUTHORS.

A LITERARY CAUSERIE for COLONIAL BOOKBUYERS and BORROWERS. BOOKS marked thus (*) have arrived in the colony, and could at the time of writing be purchased in the prinipal colonial bookshops, and borrowed at the libraries. For the convenience of country cousins who find difficulty in procuring the latest books and new editions, the ‘BOOKMAN’ will send to any New Zealand address any book which can be obtained. No notice will, of course, be taken of requests unaccompanied by remittance to couer postage as well as published price of book. It is requested that only those who find it impossible to procure books through the ordinary channels, should take advantage of this offer. The labour involved will be heavy and entirely unremunerative, no *ees or commission being taken. Queries and Correspondence on Literary Matters Invited. AU Communications and Commissions must be addressed THE BOOKMAN,’ Graphic Office, Auckland. * » ‘Trilby’ the long expected, the almost de spaired of, has arrived at last. So far as I am concerned I may say at once that I am not disappointed. This is the more agreeable, as I fully expected to be so. But Mr Du Maurier’s sensationally successful novel has a strange and potent fascination, to which one falls captive in the very first chapter, and whose sway endures long after the last page has been turned —turned with a sigh of regret. Yet if questioned, it would be difficult tomention any specialexcellence in Trilby which might justify the extraordinary reception ithasmet within England and the United States, in which latter place, indeed, a Trilby fever of some acuteness is raging quite furiously. The book, if you pull it to pieces, is not a great book judged from any standpoint, but it is a book which will be read and remembered when many greater novels—modern novels—are long forgotten. The characters are, with a couple of exceptions, an extremely lovable set, and the reader is genuinely sorry to part with them. So natural, so simple is Mr Du Maurier’s style that the vraisemblance of what is related is enormously increased. Greater novelists than the great Punch artist abound, but of the men who have come to the front during the past two years or so I cannot remember one whose characters are more naturally life-like, where the story has so little resembled a story, so to say, and where the hands of the man working the puppets and shifting the scenes have been less in evidence. Either Mr Du Maurier is a most consummate master of a very rare art —the art of making fiction appear history, or the great part of what he tells in Trilb if is a description of scenes actually witnessed, and feelings actually suffered or enjoyed by him personally. The following description of the hero’s debut at one of the ateliers or teaching studios for students is, of course, from life, and will be read with mingled pleasure and pain by those who can look back :— ‘CHEZ CARREL.’ Carrel’s atelier (or painting-school) was in the Rue Notre Dame des Potirons St. Michel, at the end of a large courtyard, where there were many large dirty windows facing north, and each window let the light of heaven into a large dirty studio. The largest of these studios, and the dirtiest, was Carrel’s, where some thirty or forty art students drew and painted from the nude model every day but Sunday from eight till twelve, and for two hours in the afternoon except on Saturday, when the afternoon was devoted to much-needed Augean sweepings and cleanings. One week the model was male, the next female, and so on, alternating throughout the year. A stove, a model-throne, stools, boxes, some fifty strongly-built low chairs with backs, a couple of score ease s and many drawingboards, completed the mobilier. The bare walls were adorned with endless caricatures -des charges in charcoal and white chalk; and also the scrapings of many palettes—a decoration not unoleasing. Eor the freedom of the studio and the use of the model each student paid ten francs a month to the mossier, or senior student, the responsible bell-wether of the Hock; besides this, it was expected of you. on your entrance or initiation, that you should pay for your footing—your bien venue - some thirty, forty, or fifty francs, to be spent on cakes and rum punch all round. Every Friday. Monsieur Carrel, a great artist, and also a stately, well dressed, and most courteous gentleman (duly decorated with the red rosette of the Legion of Honour), came for two three hours, and went the round, spending a few’ minutes at each drawing board or easel ten or even twelve when the pupil w’as an industrious and promising one He did this for love, not money, and deserved all the reverence with which he inspired this somewhat irreverent and most unruly company, which was made up of all sorts. (J ray beards who had been drawing and painting there for thirty years and more, and remembered other masters than Carrel, and who could draw and paint a Torso almost as well as Titian or Velasques—almost, but not quite and who could never do anything else, and were fixtures at Carrel's for life. Younger men who in a year or two, or three or five, or ten or twenty, were bound to make their mark, and perhaps follow in the footsteps of the master; others as conspicuously singled out for failure and future mischance—for the hospital, the garret, the river, the Morgue, or. worse, the traveller's bag, the road, or even the paternal counter. Irresponsible boys, mere rapins. all laugh and chaff and mischief —blague rt bagout l*arisit n ; little lords of misrule —wits, butts, bullies; the idle and industrious apprentice, the good and tKe bad. the clean and the dirty (especially the latter)—all more or less animated by a certain esprit de corps, and working very happily and genially together, on the whole, and always willing

to help each other with sincere artistic counsel if it was asked for seriously, though it w’as not always couched in terms very flattering to one's self-love. Before Little Billee became one of this band of brothers be had been workirg for three or four years in a London art school, drawing and painting from the life; he had also worked from the antique in the British Museum—so that he was no novice. As he made his dbbut at Carrel’s one Monday morning he felt somewhat shy and ill at ease. He had studied French most earnestly at home in England, and could read it pretty well, and even write it and speak it after a fashion ; but he spoke it with much difficulty, and found studio French a different language altogether from the formal and polite language he had been at such pains to acquire. Ollendorff does not cater for the Quartier Latin. Acting on Taffy s advice — for Taffy had worked under Carrel — L’ttle Billee handed sixty francs to the mossier for his bienrenue—n lordly sum—and this liberality made a most favourable impression, and went far to destroy any little prejudice that might have been caused by the daintiness of his dress, the cleanliness of his person, and the politeness of bis manners. A place was assigned to him. and an easel and a board; for he elected to stand at his work and begin with a chalk drawing. The model (a male) was posed and work began in silence. Monday morning is always rather sulky everywhere (except perhaps in Judee.) During the ten minutes' rest three or four students came and looked at Little Billee's beginnings, and saw at a glance that he thoroughly well knew what he was about, and respected him for it. Nature had given him a singularly light hand—or rather two, for he was ambidextrous, and could use both with equal skill; and a few months’ practice at a London life school had quite cured him of that purposeless indecision of touch which often characterises the prentice hand for years of apprenticeship, and remains with the amateur for life. The lightest and most careless of his pencil strokes had a precision tha*, was inimitable, and a charm that specially belonged to him, and was easy to recognise at a glance. His touch on either canvas or paper was like Svengali’s on the keyboard—unique. As the morning ripened little attempts at conversation wrere made—little breakings of the ice of silence. It was Lambert, a youth with a singularly facetious face, who first broke the stillness with the following uncalled-for remarks in English very badly pronounced: ‘ Av you seen my fahzere’s o’e shoes ?’ * I av not seen your fahzere’s ole shoes. Then, after a pause. * Av you seen my fahzere’s ole ’at ?’ ‘ I av not seen your fahzere’s ole ’at.’ Presently another said, ‘ Je trouve qu’il a une jolie tfite. I'Anglais.’ But I will put it all into English. T find that he has a pretty head—the Englishman! What say you. Barizel T • Yes; but why has he go 1 , eyes like brandy-balls, two a penny ?’ * Because he's an Englishman !’ ‘Yes: but why has he got a mouth like a guinea-pig, with two big teeth in front like the double blank at dominoes?’ ‘ Because he’s an Englishman ?’ ‘ Yes; but why has he got a back without any bend in it, as if he'd swallowed the Colonne Vendome as far up as the Battle of Austerlitz ?’ ‘ Because he's an Englishman And so on till all the supposed characteristics of Little Billee’s outer man were exhausted. Then : • Papelard!’ ‘ What ?’ ‘ I should like to know if the Englishman says his prayers before going to bed.’ •Ask him.’ ‘Ask him yourself.’ • / should like to know if the Englishman has sisters ; and if so, how old and how many and what sex.’ ‘ Ask him.’ ‘ Ask him yourself.’ I should like to know the detailed and circumstantial history of the Englishman’s first love, and how he lost his innocence!’ ‘ Ask him.’ etc., etc., etc. Little Billee. conscious that he was the subject of conversation, grew somewhat nervous. Soon he was addressed directly. ‘ Dites done, 1* Anglais ?’ ‘ Kwaw ?’ said Little Billbee. ‘ Avez-vous une sieur ?’ ‘ Wee.’ ‘ Est-ce qu’elle vous resemble?’ ‘ Nong.’ ‘C’estbien dommage ! Est-ce-qu’elle dit ses pricres. le soir, en se couchant ?’ A fierce look came into Little Billee’s eyes and a redness to his cheek’s, an l this particu’ar form of overture to friendship was abandoned. Preientiy Lambert said, ‘ Si nous mettions I'Anglais a lechelle ?’ Little Billee, who had been w’arned, knew what this ordeal meant. Th y tied you to a ladder, and carried you in procession up and down the coartyard, and if you were nasty about it they put you under the pump. During the next rest it was explained to him that he must subunit to this indignity, and the ladder (which was used for reaching the high shelves round the studio, was got ready. Little Billee smiled a singu’arly winning smile, and suffered himself to be bound with such good-humour that they voted it wasn't amusing, and unbound him, and he escaped the ordeal by ladder. Talty had also escaped, but in another way. When they tried to seize him he took up the first rapin that came to hand, and using him as a kind of club, he swung him about so freely and knocked down so m iny students and easels and drawing-boards with him and made such a terrific rumpus, that the whole studio had to cry for ‘pax!’ Then he performed feats of strength of such a surprising kind that the memory of him remained in Carrell’s studio for years, and he became a legend, a tradition, a myth ! It is now said (in what still remains of the Quartier Latin) that he was seven feet high, and used to juggle with the niassier and model as with a pair of billiard balls, using only his left hand. To return to Little Billee. When it struck twelve, the cakes and rum punch arrived—a very goodly sight that put everyone in a good temper. The cakes were of three kinds-Babas, Madeleines, and Kaverins -three sous apiece, fourpence halfpenny the set of three. No nicer cakes are made in France, and they are as good in the Quartier Latin as anywhere else; no nicer cakes are made in tho

whole world, that I know of. You must begin with the Madeleine which is rich and rather heavy ; then the Baba; and finish up with the Savarin, which is shaped like a ring, very light, and flavoured with rum. And then you must really leave off. The rum punch was tepid, very sweet, and not a bit too strong. They dragged the model throne into the middle, and a chair was put on for Little Billee. who dispensed his hospitality in a very polite and attractive manner helping the mossier first, and then the other grey oeards in the order of their grayness, and so on down to the model. Presently, just as he was about to help himself, he was asked to sing them an English song. After a little pressing he sung them a song about a gay cavalier who went to serenade his mistress (and a ladder of ropes, and a pair of masculine gloves that didn’t belong to the gay cavalier, but which he found in his lady's bower) —a poor sort of song, but it was the nearest approach to a comic song he knew. There are four verses to it, and each verse is rather long. It does not sound at all funny to a French audience, and even with an English one Little Billee was not good at comic songs. He was. however, much applauded at the end of each verse. When he had finished, he was asked if he were quite sure there wasn’t any more of it. and they expressed a deep regret: and then each student, straddling on his little thick-set chair as on a horse, and clasping the back of it in both hands, galloped round little Billee’s throne quite seriously—the strangest procession he had ever seen. It made him laugh till he cried, so that he could not eat or drink. Then he served more punch and cake all round ; and just as he was going to begin himself, Papeland said. ‘ Say, you others, I find that the Englishman has something of truly distinguished in the voice, something of sympathetic, of touching—something of Je ne sais quoi !' Bouchardy: ‘Yes, yes—something of je ne sais quoi! That’s the very phrase—n’est-ce pas, vous autres ?—that is a good phrase that Papelard has just invented to describe the voice of the Englishman. He is very intelligent—Papelard.’ Chorus: ‘Perfect, perfect; he has the genius of characterisation—Papelard. Dites done, I'Anglais! once more that beautiful song—Aeui ? Nous vous en prions tous.* Little Billee willingly sang it again, with even greater applause, and again they galloped, but the other way round and faster, so that Little Billee became quite hysterical, and laughed till his sides ached. Then Dubose : ‘I find there is something of very captious and exciting in English music—of very stimulating. And you Bouchardy ?’ Bouchardy: ‘Oh, me! It is above all the words that I admire; they have something of passionate, of romantic—‘ zs-ese gla-Aves. zese g’a-aves zey do not belong to me.’ I don’t know what that means, but I love that sort of—of of—of Je nt sais quoi. in short! Just once more, I’Anglais : only once, the four couplets.’ So he sang it a third time, all four verses, while they leisurely ate and drank and smoked and looked at each other, nodding solemn commendation of certain phrases in the song: ‘ Tres bien !’ ‘Tres bien!' ‘Ah! voila qui est bien reussi !’ ‘ Epatant, ca! ‘ Tres fin!’ etc , etc. For, stimulated by success, and rising to the occasion, he did his very utmost to surpass himself in emphasis of gesture and accent and historic drollery—heedless of the fact that not one of his listeners had the slightest notion what his song was about. It was a sorry performance. And it was not till he had sung it four times that he discovered the whole thing was an elaborate impromptu farce, of which he was the butt, and that of all his royal spread not a crumb or a drop was left for himself. It was the old fable of the fox and the crow, and to do him justice he laughed as heartily as anyone, as if he thoroughly enjoyed the joke—and when you take jokes in that way people soon leave off poking fun at you. It is almost as good as being very big, like Taffy, and having a choleric blue eye ! Sueh was Little Billee’s first experience of Carrel’s studio, where he spent many happy mornings and made miny good friends. No more popular student had ever worked there within the memory of the grayest gray beards; none more amiable, more genial, more cheerful, self-respecting, considerate, and polite, and certainly none with greater gifts for art. Carel would devote at least fifteen minutes to him. and invited him often to hiS own private studio. And ofcen, on the fourth or fifth day of the week, a group of admiring students would be gathered by his easel watching him as he worked. Trilby, Little Billee, his two friends Taffy, and the Laird have all that happy peculiarity, which Mr Du Maurier speaks of as ‘ charm.’ And this is also true of the lesser characters in the book, Geeko Zouzou Dodor, even the Mephestolian Svengoli, marvellous musician, mesmerist, and villain of the book, has a fascination which exercises our mind strangely while he is before us. But Trilby is, of course, the figure round whom the interest settles most strongly. Her charm is the strongest, and it is she who will remain in our minds long after the others and the rest of the book are forgotten. Much of the history of this freshest and most charming of heroines cannot be touched on without discounting the interest of the book for those whose delightful duty it will be to read the novel during the next week or so. Trilby is, it may be explained, a model—a b f a»ir,hisseuse de Jin, (a very superior sort of washerwoman, who has no counterpart in the English or colonial social scheme), and has at one time been ‘ heaven knows what besides,’ as one of the characters put it. So far as the story is concerned she is, however, reformed, and respectable in the extreme. Used to posing for ‘the altogether’ (an artist’s term for the nude), she gives this up, feeling the shame of it for the first time when she sees how it shocks and pains poor Little Billee, who is desperately in love with her, and whom she has begun to most passionately adore in return. The description of this is perhaps the most admirably artistic and truthful thing in this clever book. This is how Trilby came to sit at Carrel’s studio. Carrel had suddenly taken it into his head that he would spend

a week there, and paint a figure among his pupils, that they might see and paint with—and if possible like—him. And he had asked Trilby as a great favour to be the model, and Trilby was so devoted to the great Carrel that she readily consented. So that Monday morning found her there, and Carrel posed her as Ingres's famous figure in his picture called ‘La Source,’ holding an earthenware pitcher on her shoulder. And the work began in religious silence. Then in five minutes or so Little Bilee came bursting in. and as v soon as he caught sight of her he stopped and stood as one petrified, his shoulders up, his eyes staring. Then lifting his arms, he turned and fled. ‘Quest ce qu’il a done, ce Litrebili ?’ exclaimed one or two students (for they had turned his English nickname into French). • Perhaps he’s forgotten something,’ said another. • Perhaps he’s forgotten to brush his teeth and part his hair!' ‘ Perhaps he’s forgotten to say his prayers !’ said Barizel. • He’ll come back. I hope,' exclaimed the master. And the incident gave rise to no further comment. But Trilby was much disquieted, and fell to wondering what on earth was the matter.

At first she wondered in French; French of the Quartier Latin. She had not seen Little Billee for a week, and wondered if he were ill. She had looked forward so much to his painting her—painting her beautifully—and hoped he would soon come back, and lose no time.

Then she began to wonder in English—nice clean English of the studio of the Place St. Anatole des Arts—her father's English--and suddenly a quick thought pierced her through and through, and made the flesh tingle on her insteps and the backs of her hands, and bathed her brow and temples with sweat. She had good eyes, and little Billee had a singularly expressive face.

Could it possibly be that he was shocked at seeing her sitting there.

She knew that he was peculiar in many ways. She remembered that neither he nor Taffy nor the Laird had ever asked her to sit for the figure, though she would have been only too delighted to do so for them. She also remembered how Little Billee had always been silent whenever she alluded to her posing for the ‘altogether as she cal’.ed it. and had sometimes looked pained, and always very grave.

She turned alternately pale and red, pale and red all over, again and again, as the thought grew up in her—and soon the growing thought became a torment. This new-born feeling of shame was unendurable—its birth a travail that racked and rent every fibre of her moral being, and she suffered agonies beyond anything she had ever felt in her life. • What is the matter with you. my child ? Are you ill ?’ asked Carrel, who. like everyone else, was very fond of her, and to whom she had sat as a child (‘ L'Enfance de Psyche.’ now in the Luxembourg Gallery, was painted from her).

She shook her head and the work went on. Presently she dropped her picture, that broke into bits ; and putting her two hands to her face she burst into tears and sobs—and, there, to the amazement of everbody, she stood, crying like a big baby—fa source aux larnies i • What ?-s- the matter, my poor dear child ?' said Carrel, jumping up and helping her off the throne. • Oh, I don’t know—l don’t know—l’m ill—very ill—let me go home!’

And with kind solicitude and despatch they helped her on with her clothes, and Carrel sent for a cab and took her home. And on the way she dropped her head on his shoulder, and wept, and told him all about it as well as she could, and Monsieur Carrel had tears in his eyes too, and wished to heaven he had never induced her to sit for the figure, either then or at any other time. And pondering deeply and sorrowfully on such terrible responsibility (he had grown up daughters of his own), he went back to the studio; and in an hour’s time they got another model and another pitcher, and went to work again.

And here, while on the subject, let me quote what Mr Maurier has to say concerning painting from the nude. It is not new, at least not to the majority, but it cannot be too often repeated. The prejudice against the undraped figure in art is gradually dying out. It is recognised that pictures like Leighton’s Psyche, which was exhibited at Dunedin, are perfectly pure and wholesome in tendency, but there is still a wrong impression that drawing from the nude must be demoralizing. Mr Du Maurier puts the matter clearly and well. There are now in New Zealand several artists, young, old, and middle-aged, who have studied in the Paris studios from the ‘ altogether,’ and I would wager there is not one of them who will not corroborate Mr Du Maurier in the following. He begins by describing how Trilby sat for the figure.

She did not sit promiscuously to anybody who asked, it is true. But she still sat to Durien ; to the great Gerdme ; to M. Carrel, who scarcely used any other model. It was poor Trilby’s sad distinction that she surpassed all other models as Calypso, surpassed her nymphs ; and whether by long habit, or through some obtuseness in her nature, of lack of imagination, she was equally unconscious of self with her clothes cn or without! Tiuly, she could be naked and unashamed—in this respect an absolute savage.

She would have ridden through Coventry, like Lady Godiva—but without giving it a thought beyond wondering why the streets were empty and the shops closed and the blinds pulled down would even have looked up to Peeping Tom’s shutter with a friendly nod, had she known he was behind it. In fact, she was absolutely without that kind of shaine, as she was without any kind of fear. But she was destined soon to know both fear and shame. And here it would not be amiss for me to state a fact wellknown to all painters and sculptors who have used the nude model (except a few shady pretenders, whose purity, not being of the right sort, has gone rank from too much watch • ng), namely, that nothing is so chaste as nudity. Venus herself, as she drops her garments a-d steps on to the model-throne leaves behind her on the floor every weapon of her armoury by which she can pierce to the grosser passions of man. The more perfect her unveiled beauty, the more keenly it appeals to his higher instincts.

1 he long extracts I have already made preclude further quotations, and necessitate the squeezing of the rest of tny comment into very small compass. The book

is full of illustrations, drawn, of course, by the artist author, and therefore in rare sympathy with the text. It is not lil-ely that the book will create the furore in this colony that it has done and continues to do in America. There Trilbyism remains the supreme fad. Trilby watch chains charm ; Trilby cigars, cigarettes, models ; Trilby everything proclaims that the nation has taken Trilby as a mania. The latest reports (by cable) tell us that Paris is raving over the French translation. Such unbridled enthusiasm is, of course, somewhat too much of a, or rather for a good thing. But Trilby is good—very remarkably good, and its production in Bell’s Colonial Library is certainly one of the events of the year so far as colonial libraries are concerned. • ’Trilby': George Du Maurier. Bell's Colonial Library. Cloth. 3s 6d; payer, 2s 6d. Postage. 4d.