Philip Gilbert Hamerton Part 46

"I have shown your letter to the Admiral and all the officers here, who are much pleased with all that has been done.

"Again thanking you, believe me,

"Yours truly,

"H. RAWSON."

Mr. Hamerton considered himself well rewarded for his exertions by the tokens of warm approval he received both from England and from France.

"French and English" did not meet with the success it deserved, though it was published in England, America, and France, and in the Tauchnitz edition. The author had entertained few illusions about the fate of the work, for some reasons which he has himself explained in private letters, and in his prefaces to the book. He once wrote in answer to a letter from M. Raillard:--

"Vous lisez mes livres, un peu sans doute pour faire plaisir au vieux Papa, mais je crois reellement qu'ils vous seront utiles a cause de la simplicite du style et de la clarte que j'ai toujours cherchees. Ces qualites m'ont gagne de nombreux lecteurs, mais en meme temps m'ont prive de toute reputation de profondeur. En Angleterre on cla.s.se tous les ecrivains clairs, comme ecrivains superficiels."

But he said in the preface to the Tauchnitz edition:--

"The kind of success most gratifying to me after writing a book of this kind would be to convert some readers to my own method, or rule, in the formation of opinion, whether it concerns one side or the other.

"My method is a good one, but not so good for eloquence as the hastier methods of journalism."

And in the preface of the English edition:--

"I should like to write with complete impartiality if it were possible.

I have at least written with the most sincere desire to be impartial, and that perhaps at the cost of some popularity in England, for certain English critics have told me that impartiality is not patriotic; and others have informed me of what I did not know before, namely, that I prefer the French to my own countrymen."

Though "French and English" never became what may be called a popular book, it nevertheless attracted a good deal of attention, and the author received a great number of letters expressive of admiration and grat.i.tude for the clear discernment and impartiality with which the differences existing between the two nations had been studied and expounded.

Here is a pretty sample from a French lady:--

"MONSIEUR,--Je viens de lire avec le plus grand plaisir votre livre 'French and English.' Il est si rare qu'un ecrivain anglais ose--ou veuille, aller contre les prejuges de ses lecteurs anglais, et nous fa.s.se justice, que j'en ai eprouve un vrai sentiment de reconnaissance.

Bien des jugements portes sont ceux dont j'ai l'habitude de gratifier mes amis, et, comme il y a toujours, 'a great deal of human nature in mankind;' je n'apprecie que mieux votre livre a cause de cela. a quelques exceptions pres, par exemple, la fin du chapitre 'on Truth,' je vois les choses comme vous, mais certains prejuges sont bien inveteres dans l'esprit de vos compatriotes.

"Lorsque je protestais contre les idees fausses qu'on se faisait de nous, on m'a dit si souvent: 'Oh! mais, vous n'etes pas francais, vous!'

Le mot est bien caracteristique. Un Francais qui ne repond pas a l'idee qu'on se fait de sa nation, c'est une exception.

"Je ne l'aurais peut-etre pris que comme une maniere de taquiner, une plaisanterie, si cela ne m'avait ete repete encore tout dernierement par un homme d'une vraie valeur intellectuelle, qui a toute une theorie sur les races. La conclusion a deduire etait: tout ce qui pense serieus.e.m.e.nt ne peut etre francais. Qui sait si votre livre ne vous a pas fait accuser de vous etre perverti a notre contact puisque vous nous etes a.s.sez favorable!

"Je trotte tous ces temps-ci dans la neige, avec votre livre dans mon manchon, lisant a chacun de mes amis le morceau qui lui revient, mais je voudrais qu'ils lisent tout.

"Sans me donner le temps de trop reflechir j'ai ecrit ma lettre; apres je n'aurais plus ose. J'aurai eu ainsi l'occasion de dire a un homme de talent qu'il m'a fait gouter un vrai plaisir ... peut-etre est-ce une satisfaction pour un auteur.

"Veuillez agreer, Monsieur, mes compliments bien sinceres pour votre 'fairness' a notre egard.

"Yours truly."

I also give a pa.s.sage from one of Mr. Calderon's letters:--

"Last night--to my regret--I finished the last chapter of your 'French and English.' I am delighted with its truth. Remember (as an excuse for giving an opinion so freely) that I too am very fairly acquainted with both countries--their capitals and provinces."

The book, as I have said, was translated into French, and, as usual, the author took the trouble of revising the translation. Far from taking any pride in the fact that the translation of his works was desired and sought after, he dreaded it, and would even have opposed it, had the thing been in his power. The inevitable loss of his style--upon which he always bestowed such conscientious care--was to him almost unbearable.

Roberts Brothers did not appear dissatisfied with the American sale, for they said: "We have sold fifteen hundred copies, and are quite ready for another popular book."

CHAPTER XIX.

1890-1891

Decision to live near Paris.--Practice in painting and etching.--Search for a house.--Clematis.

We left home on December 21, 1890, and spent a day and two nights very agreeably at Dijon with the parents of our son-in-law. Then we went on to Paris by an early morning train, which necessitated our lunching in the carriage.

We were to stay with our daughter and her husband, but Gilbert took a separate study for his work, in a quiet house in the same street.

My husband had himself made a careful drawing for Richard's monument, and now, being in Paris, we went to see it, and wished to have it completed by an inscription. Hitherto we had not agreed about any, but as we were sadly recalling his last intimate talk, it seemed that the desire for "Peace" which he had expressed should be recorded as an acquittal of the deed which brought the fulfilment of his wish. And his father caused the word _eiraenae_, to be engraved at the head of the tombstone.

M. Pelletier, having been promoted to the economat of the old and famous Lycee Henri IV.,--where so many celebrated Frenchmen have been educated,--took pleasure in showing us the most ancient or curious parts of the building, such as La Tour Clovis, the vaulted kitchen, the painted cupola over the staircase, and the delicately carved panels of the old monks' library--now the Professors' billiard-room.

My husband was much interested by this visit, and repeated it shortly after in the company of M. and Mme. Manesse, M. and Mme. L. Flameng, M.

Pelletier acting as cicerone.

It being the season of the Epiphany, our niece had the traditional cake served on the tea-table, and the royal honors fell to the lot of her uncle. He chose Madame Flameng for his queen, and they made us pa.s.s a merry hour under their joint rule.

The serious part of the talk had concerned the possibility of engaging L. Flameng to engrave one of his son's pictures. He had consented, and my husband called upon Francois Flameng to make a choice.

On his return he gave me a description of the studios and library, which are very curious, and offered to take me with him on his next visit, to renew my old acquaintance with the now celebrated artist. But my infirmity would have rendered awkward the introduction to his young wife, to whom the memories of previous friends.h.i.+p did not extend.

Writing once to Mr. Seeley about my deafness, my husband had said: "She sits surrounded by a silent world, and sees people's lips move and their gestures. How difficult it is to imagine such a state of existence! As for me, I suffer from the opposite inconvenience of hearing too well.

When I am unwell my hearing is preternaturally acute, so that my watch in my waistcoat ticks as if it were held almost close to my ear."

Being desirous of forming a sound opinion about the present state of the fine arts in France, Mr. Hamerton went to visit the New Sorbonne, the Hotel de Ville, the Lycee Janson, the new pictures in the Museum of the Luxembourg, those in the private exhibition of M. Durand-Ruel, as well as the exhibitions at Messrs. Goupil's and Pet.i.t's. He saw J. P.

Laurens' "Voute d'Acier," M. Rodin's studio, and the Musee du Mobilier National, with its beautiful tapestries.

We left Paris at the end of January and returned home, my husband having got through a vast amount of work with ease and pleasure, and with a new hopeful confidence in his powers of acquisition and endurance, and also with a gratifying sense of his acknowledged standing--even in France-- among celebrated artists and men of letters.

At the Easter family gathering our possible change of residence was exhaustively discussed. The state of the buildings at La Tuilerie was growing worse and worse every day, and my brother's opinion, as an architect, having been asked for, was that the time for very important repairs could no longer be postponed: new roofs would have to be built, one of the walls strengthened, the floor tiles taken up; and the woodwork of every window was so rotten that it could no longer hold the iron with which it had already been mended.

Mary and her husband represented what a heavy outlay would be required if we undertook these repairs, and also said, with great truth, that after it we should feel bound to the house on account of the money spent on it. It was an opportunity for changing a mode of life no longer adapted to our wants nor to our years. Why such a big house for two solitary beings?... And now that their father was subject to attacks of gout and not so sure of immunity from colds, was he to continue to have the care of horses and to drive in an open carriage in all weathers?

Could we be so easily reconciled to the idea of never seeing them longer than the short s.p.a.ce of five weeks every year, when there was no plausible reason for being so far apart?... Their father disliked great cities, but he would not be obliged to live inside Paris; there were plenty of comfortable and quiet villas in the neighborhood or in the suburbs, from which Paris would be accessible by the Seine, thus rendering a great part of his work so much easier.

He, on his part, objected that living would be more expensive; that he would not be so well situated for working from nature; and last of all that, if he decided for a change, he would expect to be so near to Mary and her husband as to be able to reach them on foot and in a short time, for he could not be reconciled to the loss of a whole day every time he went to see them. "The two requisites," he said--"life in the country and frequent meetings--cannot be reconciled together."

M. Raillard and his wife praised Montmorency, Meudon, Marly, and St.

Germain, which they had visited on purpose, but he answered that any of these places would be too far off.

However, when Stephen, Mary, and her husband had left us, their father was not proof against melancholy thoughts, from which he did not always find refuge in work. The following note in the diary is a proof of it: "April 5. Did not feel disposed to work, on account of the children's departure."